Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 1: Welcome to The Business of Marketing. My name's John Horsley. I'm the host of today's episode. We're recording live at Cannes Lions in the incredible serene setting of the DEPTH Secret Garden. Today, I have the absolute pleasure of being joined by, uh, Olaf van Gerwen, who is founder and global creative director at Chuck Studios. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Mm. Thank you so much. I just had to take a little sip there because it's blistering hot.
Speaker 2: But it's a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1: Well, this is-
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: ... the hottest Cannes on record.
Speaker 2: I, I feel so, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So as a, a kind of a starter for 10th, what grabbed your attention in terms of wanting to enter the world of media, marketing, advertising, perhaps at an earlier age or stage within a, a career?
Speaker 2: Well, early on I was, as a kid, very, you know, obsessed with, uh, with arts, uh, with sketching, with drawing, uh, with music. So that combination quickly led me to study audio visual, um, studies. Uh, filmmaking became very interesting, and that's how I got in. So, uh, I quickly recognized that, you know, in the, in the mid-'90s, ads were phenomenal, were beautiful. Beautiful little fairy tales of, um, uh... told by brands, and that basically lured me in because it was so pretty.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: Beautiful little stories.
Speaker 1: Are there any, any particular ads from back then that you can recall that, that really stood out?
Speaker 2: Well, there were, there were, uh, famous Dutch ads by, uh, the then-famous wave of, of film directors. They made amazing work for shampoos. I remember a great ad for Shell, uh, with Naomi Campbell. It was classic material that was so aesthetically just phenomenal. Um, and then like, "That's what I wanna do." Pretty stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you were making me think just then as you were talking about it, the... I know it's Jonathan somebody. Um, the Guinness ad-
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah
Speaker 1: ... with the-
Speaker 2: That's-
Speaker 1: ... with the horses
Speaker 2: ... it's that wave-
Speaker 1: Yeah, the wave
Speaker 2: ... that, uh... And by that time I was already a little bit, uh... I was working, but as a little boy of, like, 16, 17 years old, I was just captured by the s- the, the... Yeah, not consciously, but more like it's, it's such an amazing little world they designed there in, like, 30 or 40 seconds, and that's an amazing, uh, little escape from reality, and that felt very pleasant. And when, uh, yes, uh, Guinness horses came out, that was like, of course, that's phenomenal stuff. That changed the way I looked at advertising.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic, isn't it? Those, just those moments are absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there was, there was m- much of the work at the time was legendary. Um, and that lured me into wanting to be a, a film director for ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're sat in Cannes. Obviously, you know, it's the, the Festival of Creativity, although we have now Ad Tech and Creative Tech and other forms of technology and services and so on, but, you know, it's the marketing, advertising, and tech industry, you know, come here once per year and they kind of come together, worlds collide.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ideas come out of that. Um, there's a, a mix and diversity of, of conversation here. Um, and there's incredible award-winning work as well. Is there anything at the moment, any particular sort of advertising, uh, creative that, again, is, is standing out and is looking a bit different and is capturing your attention?
Speaker 2: Well, obviously a lot of amazing creative work. Uh, that's what the festival is about. But I... What I appreciate a lot is the shift also towards, uh, long-term brand-building rather than just creative sparks, right? So there is now, um, some sort of a long-term campaign, uh, uh, award in the festival, which I think is completely right because there's, there's a lot of work that is not actually changing much for the brands they work for, but they're great creative work. Um, and that's amazing, but the thing I'm most interesting... interested in is the things that fundamentally change the business of brands, um, the brand effects on the long term. How does one actually build brand? And there's more love for that than ever before in my, uh, in my opinion, and, uh, I... And that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I f- I think you're entirely right. Uh, if we look back over the last 10 years, it's been very much about performance marketing. Um-
Speaker 2: That's also true
Speaker 1: ... and direct-
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 1: ... you know, direct response and so on.
Speaker 2: Which is great-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... but not my field of interest.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, it is, it's, uh... That's not, uh, the field of brand-building that is persuasion, that's making people choose one over the other, and that's also... So, or making an actual choice-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... an informed choice. It's not my interest. Uh, my interest is long-term brand-building and then, uh, you know, just a sprinkle of FE thinking into creativity to me makes it much more interesting than creativity per se.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think the point that I was gonna make is over the last 10 years, there's been, uh, a lot of investment in, you know, short-term tactics-
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 1: ... yeah, which is performance marketing. Of course, we, you know, as marketers need to bring in money on a, you know... And, and being tasked to be revenue margins is slightly different on a quarter-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... by quarter basis, of course. Um, and there's been under-investment in brand over that period of time.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 1: Um, and interestingly enough, some of that being driven by AI. So, you know, the, the AI's way of, of, uh, being able to optimize within the LLMs involves storytelling-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... uh, and creating premium good quality content that maybe has sort of data points that, that would be sung tough. Uh, the fact that the entire customer journey is being transformed, you know, people are using LLMs to search for products, uh, suppliers, et cetera. But, you know, the, the only way that someone's gonna shortlist you or, or have preference for what you're offering if you- maybe it's consumer product, is that you've already- you're already in their head, and the only way you can do that is through investment in brand.
Speaker 2: Exactly. No, and I feel that the most important thing to keep in mind is that even, even, uh, despite the rise of AI, the way humans work doesn't f- don't fundamentally change. Um, we still need to be, uh, aware of the brand. We need to have a positive opinion of the brand. We need to have positive associations and many, uh, mental shortcuts to brand in order for it to come to mind. And whether one, uh, the channel is an LLM or the channel is an outdoor ad, I don't really mind much. It's the story, uh, the central positioning and how that is expressed through distinctive assets, um, uh, and, and double down on to help it build, uh, a size, uh, and a mental availability. That's the trick. Uh, and in that space, the performance marketing has its, has its place and has its function, obviously. Um, but there's been, uh, uh, an over-investment in performance, and I feel it shifting now. You know, and there... Uh, we have to credit companies like System1 and Ipsos and Kantar. They're all disclosing much information about how brands really work and how they grow. Um, and that was traditionally, uh, um, expensive knowledge. It would be their, their knowledge. They kept it hidden and sold it as their, as their inventory, and now a lot of it is available, is disclosed. Just listen to 10 podcasts, and you'll know the fundamentals of brand building, which is amazing. So it's easier to do a better job or more inf- uh, better informed decision-making.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's great. Great for us all.
Speaker 1: And so you've come from a, a background of making hundreds, yeah, hundreds of commercials.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, and you've now kind of shifted in terms of your specialism. So culinary is probably a good way of describing it as broad.
Speaker 1: Um, why did you decide to make that change?
Speaker 2: I was, um, I was a film director. Uh, I still am, but I did live action. I did, um, storytelling ads. I found those interesting, but I also felt it wasn't my core, my, my best field to stay in. Um, I was moderately successful at it. I had a, I had a good life, but it wasn't, uh, the right place for me. Well, I struggled, uh, in that sense. I was, um, uh, I felt more comfortable in the visual space more than the actual storytelling or comedy actors kind of space. And when my wife, Ellen, started working at a company that did food photography, that sparked an interest. She, um, she's a producer. She worked at that company. I walked in, it's like, it's interesting. Food is crazy beautiful. It's always pretty. Everyone likes food. So that inspired me, um, uh, to, to start thinking, and, and, and the secondary thinking was, clearly people are gonna stay hungry, so that's not a vol- a volatile business. You know, I'd stop buying a Mercedes, but I would not stop buying food if things change. So it's an interesting, uh, field of work. It's always pretty, and it's fu- everyone likes food. So I shifted towards food filmmaking. Um, Ellen and I started our company, uh, that's around 15 years ago now. We, at the beginning, did not exactly know what we were on about because that's how a company starts, right? So the first five years, we did many other things outside food as well. There was a certain point where we choose to specialize in food and drinks only, which was the point when life started making sense to me. Being a specialist unlocked, um, so much clarity for me in my mind 'cause when we chose to do only food and drinks, that's also the point when on LinkedIn I wouldn't have to read anything about telco or about sports or about cars. If it's not food and drink, I don't need to read it. It's not for me. So then, then the flywheel starts, you know, coming up to speed. You get it... You, you turn, you turn into a specialist automatically.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then life started to make sense for me. Ah, this is how this is supposed to work. Specialists rule the world. I think specialists are the new specialists.
Speaker 1: So before, what were you, an expert generalist?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was a, I was a generalist. I was a, a generic filmmaker. I made nice ads, you know, uh, proper ads, a bit of comedy, a bit of storytelling, a bit of lifestyle. But I couldn't express... When I was walking here on the course, I couldn't express what made me great at what I do because there were many others that were better than me.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 2: Now, there's not so many people that are better than me because I'm a specialist.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's like, ah, that, that makes sense for me.
Speaker 1: And now they're- You know, I'm thinking food is kind of, well, not necessarily all the time, 'cause there's process, is a, is a static item.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, whereas-
Speaker 2: Innate
Speaker 1: ... most ads you, you know, you mentioned car or other types of vehicles. Okay, they're objects, but they're normally, you know, animated and, and whatnot else. Um, okay, food could also involve individuals eating food, various other acts with food, et- et cetera. Um, is there a particular style that you've developed in terms of the food filmmaking?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say I am, uh, there are, in my profession, super specialists, uh, like, uh, um, my colleague Eric, who was our first employee at Chuck Studios. He's still around. He is a liquid specialist. He only does things that are liquid. He's a coffee and beers and fizzy drinks kind of specialist. So there are subspecialists. I'm, in the space of food, a bit of a generalist 'cause I've been doing it so long. I've shot for pretty much every category. But what I'll say, I do have an aesthetic style that I chase, so there's a lot of three-dimensionality and dynamism. Um, I tend to tell little stories, but you know, most importantly, I'm most passionate about making sure it is not generic, delicious food, because the world is full of that. But we work for brands, and brands needs to be distinctive, unique, recognizable always. So imagine if you're a, if you're, um, if you're a pizza brand and you're making an ad where of 20 seconds, and 15 seconds is ingredients and the s- the cheese melting and cutting the onions and the tomato puree and, and, and everything is delicious, you're creating an appetite for pizza, for the category, not for the brand, and that's a big flaw in the way I get briefed a lot. I get briefed with the words, "Just make it delicious, dude. That is the task. That's the metric."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it shouldn't be. It should be a hygiene factor, clearly delicious, but also recognizable, um, and meaningful to the brand.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. And what types of food do you film?
Speaker 2: Everything. I do burgers. I've done tons of beer, um, coffees, chocolates. Uh, but I'd say the, the majority is in QSR, in, in, in beer, um, a lot of sodas. Um, um, we do pizza now. Uh, so pretty much anything you can eat or drink. The market is changing a little bit. You know, uh, GLP-1 is, is, uh, taking a toll on the types of food that we're filming and going to film, the portioning. Uh, the quality of the food is slowly changing. But, um, in general, it's the, it's the salty, fatty, sweet, delicious stuff that we get to film because that's advertised the most.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you speak about friend, colleague that was a liquid specialist. I've had experience of that myself, interestingly enough. Um, you're making me think back to maybe around about 1998, thereabouts. Um, I was a photographer at the time, sort of doing a bit of advertising work and working out for categories. Um, I was doing a shoot, shoot for Coca-Cola, I think it was... Goodness, where was it? I think it was, yeah, it was in Hungary that, uh-
Speaker 2: Right
Speaker 1: ... that was happening. There was also a film crew as well at the same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And uh, the, the bottles of Coca-Cola, you know how they always have, you sometimes see it on apples as well, these beautiful kind of droplets of perspiration-
Speaker 2: Sure
Speaker 1: ... and so on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, and that was, uh, I want to say gelatin that was being injected. Someone sat there with a syringe, you know-
Speaker 2: Sure
Speaker 1: ... just doing hundreds-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... of injections painstakingly-
Speaker 2: That's the work
Speaker 1: ... and beautifully, um, on this bottle.
Speaker 2: That is exactly the work. It's very detail-oriented, very crafty. Um, but the thing is in such processes, as a brand, you're gonna rely on the specialists-
Speaker 1: Right
Speaker 2: ... to consult you on what the conversation should look like, right? And that quickly holds the danger that you're gonna do what everyone does, because you're employing the same people, and these people are very opinionated. They have their own style. They have their own preferences, their own habits, their own mini trends. You know, imagine if you're, if you're a food stylist and how you design the meal, um, is, is, as a food stylist, you'll infuse it with what you find attractive as a food stylist. But as a brand, you should make sure you dictate to the people you work with how you want it, 'cause otherwise you'll start looking like your category. But it is deeply crafty work, um, with very talented and unique brains that have very strong opinions on how things should look. But in, in such processes, the only thi- uh, the only one that should have a really strong opinion is the brand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Why does it often go wrong, though? So, you know, as you say, brands will say, "Our product's really distinctive," um, but you end up with a level of sort of sameness. And so why, why and how has that gone wrong? Is it just because it's the same crew and the same people being used-
Speaker 2: Well-
Speaker 1: ... and the same techniques, or-
Speaker 2: That is a-
Speaker 1: ... is it briefing? Is it something else?
Speaker 2: That is an... It is, it's a small group of people shooting all this work, yes. That's, uh... And they also have their trends. But the thing is that you're saying that, uh, our product is really distinctive. It usually isn't. The beer is always yellow, uh, with white foam, and the pizza is round, and it's-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... got cheese on it. So generally, when, when you sh- show up as a product, you usually look suspiciously much like the products of your competitor. When the product is outside the packaging, it usually looks very, very similar. And that's where the problem occurs. On top of that, these brands look at the same consumption moment, at the same consumer needs, at the same consumer research, arguably
Speaker 1: At the same time
Speaker 2: So th- there are be- if you, you know ... Honestly, um, I do a lot of beer brands, and if you read the positioning statements of the beer brands, it's remarkable how similar they all sound. Um, there's just a few brands that have a unique positioning, uh, uh, in the, in their brand books. So then if e- everything follows from the positioning statement, you're gonna end up in a very similar space of human connection, interaction, socializing, uh, appreciation of quality, appreciation of time together. That's usually a bit the DNA of the beer brands. Um, talk about the burgers or the fried chicken. It's togetherness. It's the experience. It's, it's abundance. It's, uh, contrast in flavors. So there's a lot of similarity in one category, and that brings us to the space where images start to look the same. Imagine in the, in the space of ... I've done dozens of beer brands, and you know the, the frame of the, uh, of the, the beer plunging into the glass and then flipping over in the bottom and, and then you get the fizzy little wave and the yellow liquid. That frame, I must have shot that a dozen times for different beer brands, which is weird. For me, that's weird. I've, I would start to feel guilty. I'm like, "Are you sure you want this frame? 'Cause I just shot that two weeks ago for your competitor." Well, and if I say that in the process of shooting an ad, well, I'm g- I'm not gonna say that unless I have a solution, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I would feel weird, and I would go into conversations with the brands and say, "Should we find a way out of this? Should we codify how the beer should look in order for it to become distinctive to your brand rather than the category?" And that story, we've been telling that for, like, seven years now, talking to lots of brands, and each and every time I talk to a brand and they take that 20 minutes to listen, they say, "Oh, shit. That's a really clever thought. Why haven't we thought of that earlier?" Because obviously it makes so much sense. Do not look like your category. Um, so that's an exciting bit we're in now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And now, at this moment in time, big brands start to listen. They start to be super interested, engage us, um, as consultants, as strategic consultants, on how the food should look. That word we use for that is a culinary identity, as a sibling to a visual identity or a sonic identity, a suite of assets that represent the brand in ads but based on your food-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... or drink.
Speaker 1: I mean, something, something you've also said that is quite interesting, so you talked about positioning statements, uh, and most of them looking the same. Here's the liquid that you can drink that probably cools you down, or you have it on a hot summer day or, or, or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It refreshes you. Actually, actually I did love the, "It refreshes all of the parts that other beers can't reach," if that was Carlsberg or something along those lines. Um, but you said there's two that were slightly different and a little bit more unique.
Speaker 2: You mean the beers?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in terms of the, um, the positioning statement.
Speaker 2: Well, th- there, there is clearly difference. Um, there's not that one comes to mind that is uniquely different, but listen, there's-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... there's brand that talk about heritage.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, there's brand that talk about origin. There's brands that, that play in youth culture, in music culture. So they take little corners of the world and position themselves in that, but it's all about togetherness, connection, celebration.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Uh, um, so it, it tends to get similar quickly-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... especially when you're not shooting the humans but shooting just the liquids, 'cause the liquids will look more or less the same. There's a bit of, you know, the translucency or the opacity of the, of the liquid that is slightly different. The thickness or the density of the foam can be slightly different. But then again, um, the beer stylist stands on an Amstel set one day and on a Heineken set the next day. Same guy makes the same foam. So as a brand, you better know which foam is yours, right? That's the magic right there. So you gotta pay love and attention to the details. Otherwise, the craftspeople take over and do what they just do by reflex.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I, I hear you. Um, yeah. Something you've written about is making food imagery work hard across different stages of a, a journey, you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I hate the word funnel, 'cause I don't think it's the way that people think now, but, you know, different stages of, of that customer journey and th- that customer experience. Why are brands still massively underusing their, their food imagery in such a way?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't, I don't think they're underusing it. A, a lot of them are doing amazing work. Look at what McDonald's is doing in the US. They do very loving, uh, amazing, beautiful, insightful, witty stories around food. They make a little story about a onion or about a little sauce drip on your, on your shirt, and then they say, "That's not a mess. That's flavor." That's great. That's love for actual good, proper copywriting and, and ideation in food and drinks, only through product storytelling, and that is because they have a very clear vision on how that shoot takes place, take place for this brand. But the majority of the images that we shoot in our studios end up in relatively transactional ads that basically say, "Now we have, uh, a chimichurri sauce. Uh, come buy it for, uh, 6.99," which is a very functional message. Does not stick in consumer brains, does not ring much, uh, of the left brain. Um, so it's not engaging. It's very factual. Um, and that is something that, in my field of work- Could be drastically improved if we pay more love to, to product. But I think it's an interesting thought that in the world of food and drink, there isn't a space other than food and drinks where brand and product have such an overlap. 'Cause if I ask my mom what Heinz is, she's gonna say, "That's, that's, uh, that's ketchup." She doesn't think of it as a brand, because a brand is a construct-
Speaker 1: I would think-
Speaker 2: ... that lives in our minds.
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I've, I think that, but I also think it, very various taglines over time, "Beans means Heinz."
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, if you can claim that, you can do that as a category leader.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right? And then not, not every- likely that the listener who is now listening is not working for a category leader brand. Most of them aren't. But, um, uh, in that space, it could be good to think about the story you wanna tell, the way you wanna tell it. There's a lot of knowledge now about which stories stick in minds and which do not. Functional messages do not lend well. We know that, so why we keep on doing this? So storytelling within food and drinks, there's a massive opportunity there to do much better. And, um, on the back of that, make it distinctive so you never, ever end up promoting a category again but your brand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they... I think that "Beans means Heinz," "Mash means Smash," um, and the aliens. Kind of remember that. That was very funny.
Speaker 2: Aliens?
Speaker 1: So there was an advert in the UK, uh, for Smash, which was, uh, kind of a... I'm not even sure it had any potato in it. I think it might be called starch or something else.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, these instant where you add fr- from the kettle-
Speaker 2: Right
Speaker 1: ... and you end up with this kind of, uh, instant mash kind of product. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, the... Yeah, it's not sounding very attractive.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: An instant mash.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, um, there was this thing, and it was, "Smash means smash."
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they had these weird kind of aliens, these spaceship, and their head would sort of wobble around, sort of tin man and, and whatever else.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was that serious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Not familiar to me.
Speaker 1: This was an '80s ad, you know?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And we had all kinds of nuts TV programs then and, you know-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... from the, I guess the, you know, the, the, the children of the, the, uh, the flower people, I guess, created some of these adverts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Um-
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and back in those days, there were just a few channels, so it was simple to become famous. You could buy the fame easily.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And, um, brands would be... It would be, uh, more difficult to actually measure, because the measurement is, is what makes the, the performance thinking so-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... so attractive.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We can measure now what clicks do and what... Yeah. That's, um, that's one thing to go about it. Um-
Speaker 1: That's, that's a really fascinating point. Um, so, you know, you're making ads. It's not just for TV. It's variants of that, I, I guess, as well for, for different channels, um, and different ways of measuring the effectiveness of-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... those ad- adverts. How do you think about that when you're producing your work for a, a client?
Speaker 2: Well, and there's, there's, there's two buckets. In my company, we do film and photography production as a craft, which is then usually, uh, uh, thought up and written and created by agencies. Uh, then we don't play a role in any strategic choices. We just, you know, we say, uh, what we would think works best.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, and the craft, uh, is, is the job. When we design culinary identities, then they need to engage me and brief me properly on what they want the food images to express. What do we want the consumers to feel when they look at an image of brand X, Y, or Z? That's the starting point, and, uh, that's also where it gets really exciting for us. It's a lot of fun to dive in, find a point of differentiation, and hopefully make sure they embrace this for the long run, because brand building doesn't happen over half a year. Changes do not happen over half a year. Now, the research that's coming out now basically says after four to five years, the compounding effect of creativity really starts to work. So, um, if you compare that to ''Tis the Season," you know, and the, and the trucks roll in, and the song starts of Coca-Cola, and we see the, the trucks with the lights on, that's 60 years of brand building, and the minute the tune starts, everyone goes like, "Oh, fuck, it's Christmas."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right? You're not you when you're hungry.
Speaker 1: It's Christmas, yeah.
Speaker 2: Or, um-
Speaker 1: Oh, Christmas coming
Speaker 2: ... Have a Break, have a Kit Kat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like decades in of brand building.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That, uh, consistency, um, w- that's one campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, and now brands think, "Oh, it's a new season. We need a new campaign."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, you don't. You need the same campaign, but make it feel fresh.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, Sarah Carter had a beautiful expression for that. I just had the honor of shaking her hand-
Speaker 1: Oh, fantastic
Speaker 2: ... at an event. She's amazing. Um, she says it's disguised repetition, which is a wonderful sentence. I, I'm rep- I'm stealing her words to my clients constantly. Disguised repetition. It's the same, but it feels fresh. Make it feel fresh. That is so true, and the longer you do that, the more the compounding effect will start to grow. You just need to have a vision that, uh, uh, looks over your career possibly to do the best for the brand. Um, 'cause marketers tend to switch brands quickly, and then, you know, after a tenure of two to three years, you switch to a different brand, and you start over. Change things up. That's a wrong practice, uh, and the data is there to support that.
Speaker 1: What ads have you worked on that you, you, you feel proud of, frankly, that, uh, stand out-
Speaker 2: Well-
Speaker 1: ... and you feel that you've done your best work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was, I was, I was very proud with my very first McDonald's shoot. I'm a, I'm a bit of a fan of the brand because I just, uh, I love them. L- everyone has childhood memories, at least I do, of McDonald's. So that was a moment about, I think, 10 years ago when I first shot for McDonald's, I was like, "Oh, that's nice." Um, recently We're doing work that we're very proud of, uh, with KFC, which is coming out soon, and you may have seen our work on Lipton Ice Tea, where we've designed a consumption ritual for the brand. Um, meaning that, uh, you know, tea has an uplifting effect, and Lipton Ice Tea is, basically it's a soda. Um, it's perceived as a soda, but it's actually a tea. Um, so what we did is we created, um, an idea in which if you take a sip of ice tea, you lift the pinky up-
Speaker 1: Ah
Speaker 2: ... as a tea drinker.
Speaker 1: I love this. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the pinky, the, the, the lifted pinky is paired with a sound, with a little ting of a, of a spoon against a cup, ting. Together, that's called the Lipting, and the Lipting is now in each and every ad that the brand puts out there in the world. So it's a, a brand ritual. It's a signal brand. There isn't a campaign about the pinky, but it's hiding in each and every expression of the brand, so it will become famous in a few years. Um, and I hope they persist. It looks like it. So it will become a signal for brand, um, that's rather modest. It's not a campaign. It's, it's part of an identity, much like a color or a font, uh, or, or a, or a character would be part of a brand without being the subject of the ads, and that's work we're super proud of. We actually hope that the Lipting is gonna be one that we can measure in a few years and say, "Okay, now, uh, 75% of consumers know that the lifted pinky is a signal for Lipton Ice Tea." So we're super proud of that. There's a great collaboration between us and Design Bridge and PepsiCo Unilever.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that thinking. It's great. I've been trying to incorporate some of that actually myself in terms of how to describe it. I, I'm not sure I'd publish them yet, um, and I'm not actually confident whether I should publish them, but I've been creating quite a lot of satirical cartoons-
Speaker 2: Hmm
Speaker 1: ... around, you know, the, the week's digest of what's happened in the world of advertising, marketing, media, creative, et cetera, uh, and kind of lampooning to an extent.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Which is w- And I'm not sure that you and I would see the fun. I'm not sure the brand might see the fun or, you know, someone else, but-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... or the agency or something else, you know, 'cause, yeah, satire doesn't always necessarily land in the right place. But again-
Speaker 2: True. That's also the core of satire.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Otherwise-
Speaker 2: Needs to sting a little bit
Speaker 1: ... it has no, no purpose
Speaker 2: ... otherwise it's dull.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And, uh, I'd be taking a, a brand color and dropping it in. It may be... There was one that I did where people were outside the, um, the Palais when they're talking about AI, um, and, uh, the, the glass, the, the liquid in the glass has this green accent. Um, there was a, another one to do with Google and, uh, the recent ruling of the CMA in the UK to allow publishers to, in essence, not have their content indexed, um, and made available for AI answers.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And so these people are sat around, bit unhappy, publishers, their traffic rates going down, you know, and down and down. Um, and a robot sat in the corner, which is the only happy one, and he's drinking from a, what looks like a champagne flute, again, with the, the green accent.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's about consistency, isn't it? And, uh-
Speaker 2: Totally
Speaker 1: ... building identity. It can be very subtle and discreet, but over time it becomes part of a body of work-
Speaker 2: Exactly
Speaker 1: ... um, and builds that-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... very strong brand characteristic and identity-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... that people then relate to.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's funny to think about an identity. What, what an identity really is, is how you are identifiable as a brand. Um, so that's interesting. What cues do you use to signal brands other than the brand name? Those are DBAs. It's the, um, you know, the, the Santa, uh, uh, for, uh, for Coca-Cola. Um, it's the, it's the color set for, uh, for Burger King. It's the arches for McDonald's. It's, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a, it's an interesting field, and it's... That's how brands become famous. Uh, research just came out, out of System1 where they said, uh, a 20-second or longer ad needs about seven, a minimum of seven brand cues in it to more or less guarantee recognition by consumers. And, you know, if you tell that to an agency, they're gonna think, "Oh, fuck. We've gotta put seven logos in." Uh, that's not the trick. But for Budweiser, you can use the Clydesdale horses. You can use the, the crown. You can use the font. You can use many, many ways to cue a brand other than the brand name, and then it becomes playful and fun again to play around with these codes once they're famous, and that's an amazing... It's an interesting piece of thinking that's applicable to everything, right? To, to how people become... Now, celebrities do the same. Uh, Michael Jackson's jacket and his glove are DBAs. Uh, so it's nothing new. It's, it's, it's, it's been around for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yes. Um, just coming to, you know, sort of winding up as, uh-
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm
Speaker 1: ... kind of we're out of time to a certain extent, and I'd love to be speaking for a lot longer. Um, are there any go-to resources for yourself? So what I mean by that could be, I don't know, could be anything like galleries, books, uh, podcasts, something else that helps inspiration find you.
Speaker 2: There's tons. Obviously, there's, on the creative size, side, there is the obvious, the, the musea, the galleries, the, uh, the magazines- Everyone knows where to find those, but I find that in my industry of craft, uh, filmmaking for brands, what people underestimate is, uh, uh, knowing how brands really work can make your work so much easier and better, and the communication with your clients so much better. So if one research of, or one resource has to be named here, I would say I did the, the Mark Ritson Mini MBA-
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Okay
Speaker 2: ... the one for marketing and the one for brand management, and it changed my game because suddenly I had the language, I had the, um, the standing. I'm, I'm a certified brand manager, which is awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, so, and I can say to my clients, "I kind of... I haven't done the work, but I know what you're facing."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that is a resource that's proven invaluable to me, um, because it's changed the fundamental relationship I have with the brands I work for. They understand better now that I understand them. Otherwise, I will be just an abstract artist kind of filmmaker who doesn't understand our world. So that training, to me, is a, is a massive resource. And just follow the likes of System1 and Andrew Tindall and his, his buddies, who all put out phenomenal research that's underpinned with data out of the effie database and their own research. It teaches you, just you so much about how you should do your job other than just the artsy stuff, and bringing those two together, um, the fundamentals of brand-building and, uh, the creativity of, of, in my case, craft. But if that, that strategy is your craft, or copy is your craft, or lighting or food styling is your craft, I still think it's fundamentally important to know how brands grow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, that's where the work benefits from greatly. That would m- be my advice to anyone who wants to break into, you know, any field of this, uh, uh, of, of this, of this territory of brand-building-
Speaker 1: Mm
Speaker 2: ... and advertising.
Speaker 1: And that, that certainly makes you more unique. Uh, but I, I love the fact that, uh, wow, okay, great, he understands us. He's-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... almost one of us.
Speaker 2: That's-
Speaker 1: Uh-
Speaker 2: That's the feeling
Speaker 1: ... makes them feel like safer hands.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Uh, and actually, the point is, is you're helping them achieve the project-
Speaker 2: Yes
Speaker 1: ... and it becomes a-
Speaker 2: That we share
Speaker 1: ... shared project. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and the thing is that, um, I, I often have to f- flash back to my old self, who would be stubborn, but convinced about the opposite of what I feel now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm confronted with, oh, shit, I used to be that stubborn, uh, piece of shit that they, they had to convince to do it otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um, but now it's like, oh, shit, yeah, I, I did that wrong, and now I know why. 'Cause if you do training such as that, it... What, what for me was intriguing that the things that are taught makes so much sense, that intuitively you would feel it already, but now you'd have the words and the, um, the language and the, and the, the organization, the hierarchy of things to, to talk about it rationally. Um, so that's changed the game for me.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, so closing question now. Um, advice that you would provide a younger individual who's perhaps at the start of their career, or maybe hasn't started yet and is looking to enter your world, the w- or the world of marketing, advertising, brand-building. Um, yeah, so what, what word of advice would you leave them with?
Speaker 2: The one word, uh, of advice I would leave them is be a specialist in whatever you want to be, whatever you feel most. Um, if you're a specialist, it works on every side. Uh, you'll be a specialist inside out, to the people you talk to will know what your specialism is if you tell them. Um, you will invest more time in becoming a specialist, so then you will become a specialist. It, it sounds silly, but it works in all the directions. Because also, you have to become a little bit famous for what you do, otherwise people will not book you or find you. So your own marketing and PR follows the same fundamental rules that you'll learn in marketing school, um, becoming salient, becoming top of mind, becoming available as an option. Um, and being a specialist makes all of that so much easier. I pity the people who start a creative agency that are a one-stop shop for all sorts of skills. They do strategy, they do advertising, they do positioning, they do brand design, they do social media, they do YouTube, TikTok, the whole shebang. How are you gonna sell that?
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: 'Cause there's always gonna be specialists that do one field much better, because they're specialists.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 2: That would be my, my nugget of advice, to find the thing that makes you tick and become a deep hyper specialist in one field, so you have the language to talk about the thing you're, you're good at.
Speaker 1: Mm. Beautiful. Th- thanks, Olaf. Been a really-
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, man
Speaker 1: ... great conversation
Speaker 2: ... it was a very-
Speaker 1: That, that was great advice, and a-
Speaker 2: ... nice conversation
Speaker 1: ... really enjoyable conversation with you today.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You're welcome.