Agency Collective Tales

This month, Ellie spoke to Charles Sladdin, founder and MD of Purple Banana.

We talked about finding the balance between carving a niche that makes you unique but making sure that it's one that you love, why B Corps are the future of business and why stepping back from the day to day can be so difficult.

Stewart talks about how he went from creating online forums for fun as a teenager to taking this specialism into a successful agency working with medium / large scale media clients, via a degree in Human and Mammalian physiology! 

He also shares how his adulthood diagnosis has shaped the way Powered by Coffee is run so that it compliments neurodiversity, rather than using a cookie cutter business model, as well as the agency's exciting future projects.

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:10:10

Intro

Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale, our podcast,  

where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency  

life.

00:00:11:02 - 00:00:16:00

Ellie

I am joined today by Harry Fielder from Umi Digital, thank you so  

much for being on the podcast, Harry.

00:00:16:19 - 00:00:17:17

Harry

Lovely to be here.

00:00:17:23 - 00:00:21:11

Ellie

You were about to tell me, Umi Digital, where that came from.

00:00:21:21 - 00:00:53:22

Harry

Yeah. So it's an untypical origin. So Umi actually started its life  

as a hotel company, so Umi Hotels predated Umi Digital. So my  

business partner Steve Lowy founded Umi Hotels back in 2007. There  

was one in Brighton, one in Moscow and one in London. The one in  

Moscow was a franchise set up. Interesting experience. And Umi  

Digital was actually formed out of the internal marketing department  

breaking away and becoming its own thing back in 2007 through 2010.

00:00:53:23 - 00:01:09:10

Harry

The hotel itself built up a really good flow of direct bookings,  

trying to pull bookings away from the online travel agents because  

obviously they charge so much commission: It's 20% commission  

through online travel agents. So the goal for hotels is really to  

just drive their own business and there was a business in itself.

00:01:09:17 - 00:01:13:01

Ellie

They'd already laid the groundwork and then went off and started to  

find clients.

00:01:13:02 - 00:01:35:13

Harry

Exactly. My first piece of work with the business was actually with  

the central merged hotel and marketing setup. I then went back to  

university, by which time when I came back, it had split off and  

that's when I joined Steve as a co-founder and we ended up growing  

the business as it is today. He then dipped out as a Day-To-Day  

operational member of the team, sort of maybe in 2017 or so to run  

an educational travel business, and we've grown it from there.

00:01:35:14 - 00:01:41:13

Harry

It's nice because when you're in a niche, it's very compelling to be  

able to say you were once a client. You were once -

00:01:41:14 - 00:01:42:13

Ellie

Right in the heart of it!

00:01:42:13 - 00:01:59:21

Harry

Yeah, absolutely. And in all the methodologies and the processes and  

everything that we have today actually stems from being a hotel  

company and we can really track back what the needs were. There's a  

few members of the team that overlapped, when Umi Hotels were still  

involved, so we still have some company memory of that. Always  

remained at the heart of what we do.

00:02:00:04 - 00:02:03:20

Ellie

So talk to me about the last two years. How has that affected the  

agency?

00:02:04:05 - 00:02:31:22

Harry

March 2020, our revenue dropped 60% within a week. The split of our  

services, I'd say it's probably 60% recurring marketing support,  

advertising support, creative on those monthly retainers with 40%  

being design and build and project based stuff. The project based  

stuff a lot of it was put on ice. Just because we deal with  

exclusively in hospitality and travel sector they literally shut up  

shop overnight almost or if they didn't shut up shop overnight they  

didn't have the confidence in which to base new investments in new  

projects.

00:02:31:22 - 00:02:48:19

Harry

So we naturally had to keep things online. So there was an element  

of basic income throughout that, but certainly not enough to feed  

all the mouths and we had to use furlough a lot. The most painful  

thing was that we have a relatively young team and everyone had been  

used to a lot of growth. Over the last five years, we've been  

doubling year on year since 2016 really.

00:02:48:19 - 00:03:01:11

Harry

So I think for people to get their heads around not making progress  

was a really tough mental thing. You know, particularly for me, I'd  

only really known growth but actually success in itself was just  

staying alive and staying afloat.

00:03:01:23 - 00:03:04:06

Ellie

How did that affect you as an agency owner?

00:03:04:07 - 00:03:22:11

Harry

I've really torn because there's this feeling of wanting to protect  

everyone. At the time we had a head count of about eight or nine.  

That feeling of not wanting to panic anyone and being say, "Oh,  

it'll be fine!" just because that's what you want to say. They've  

got their mortgages they've got their lives, right? And then you're  

split between being incredibly transparent and saying, "Right, this  

is the reality of the situation.

00:03:22:11 - 00:03:43:01

Harry

I don't know if we're going to make it out of it." There were times  

when I gave it a far higher probability of it not working out than  

working out. So it was really tough to try and strike that balance  

of not creating alarm or panic unduly, but also respecting people's  

intelligence that clearly there's something at play here and clearly  

there is something not right and it is bad.

00:03:43:01 - 00:03:46:21

Harry

That was probably the toughest thing of understanding how to  

communicate in a crisis.

00:03:47:03 - 00:03:55:22

Ellie

Yeah, I guess you never had to learn that lesson before, right? Did  

you just follow instinct or did you seek advice on it? Did you speak  

to other agency owners about how they were managing it?

00:03:56:03 - 00:04:13:22

Harry

I did have some advice. It was probably more given to me than me  

actively seeking it out, which I think has changed my approach to  

seeking advice. Actually, in the last few years, as well, because it  

made me realise just how valuable an external opinion is. Maybe that  

slight arrogance moving away when you realise you can't control  

anything.

00:04:13:22 - 00:04:27:06

Harry

Yes, it was more about that pushed me towards the 'Just be very  

transparent." You don't have to go into all the details of the  

numbers, but show them the basic overview of where we're at, how  

much it costs to keep the lights on. This is where we're at from a  

cash point of view. This is the money coming in.

00:04:27:19 - 00:04:46:04

Harry

Here's a best case scenario, here's a median case scenario, here's a  

worst case scenario, and this is how we can all pull together to  

make this thing work. That in itself, transitioned my thinking away  

from "I'm the only one that can solve this problem" to "Actually we  

can collectively solve this problem", which, irrespective of the  

pandemic, was another really important lesson as well.

00:04:46:04 - 00:05:10:17

Harry

Because at the size of eight people, very director-led sales, pretty  

much all revenue goes through me. I have a hand on a lot of the  

projects not delivering them necessarily, not account managing them  

per se, but I have a relationship with most people and I think it  

told me to let go a little bit and realise that you can't control  

everything all the time and the sooner you can trust people and  

share the responsibility of success, then it is a weight off your  

heart and your head.

00:05:11:04 - 00:05:12:19

Ellie

Yeah, definitely easier said than done though, hey?

00:05:13:04 - 00:05:15:14

Harry

Oh, massively, but it was quite a liberating experience.

00:05:15:16 - 00:05:20:01

Ellie

Absolutely. So did you just have to do it bit by bit? This task,  

this project.

00:05:20:17 - 00:05:38:17

Harry

Initially it was: "Right. I need you to all find areas that we can  

save some money. What tools are we paying for that we're not using?  

How much are we chucking down the drain on random marketing bits and  

bobs? All these tools that we've subscribed to, that weren't really  

that important." We managed to find so many savings around servers  

just because traffic was so much lower.

00:05:38:17 - 00:05:55:21

Harry

We could. The requirement of us having all these advanced tools was  

just so much lower because business operationally had become a lot  

slower. So that was the first thing. The second thing was getting  

people buying into the whole furlough thing. Those furlough  

conversations to me, because I've never had to let anyone go before  

Almost felt like I was letting someone go

00:05:55:21 - 00:05:56:08

Ellie

I bet.

00:05:56:17 - 00:06:06:22

Harry

And you look back on it and you think from an HR perspective, that's  

probably the easiest thing you're ever going to do. Tell someone  

that you can go and earn a good chunk of money by not doing  

anything. At the time, it was just so hard.

00:06:06:22 - 00:06:22:05

Ellie

But nobody knew what it meant though, did they? And I guess nobody  

knew two years later, we'd still be in all sorts of mayhem because  

of it. And I guess to be told you were going on furlough two years  

ago, it was the unknown, wasn't it? Is this the first step to me  

losing my job? What's going to happen?

00:06:22:05 - 00:06:38:24

Harry

Exactly! And why some people were furloughed and not others? And  

then that comparison of going, why am I less important? So when you  

look back on it, yes, it was a wonderful scheme and the scheme  

itself made sure that we could continue operating and these people  

could continue their jobs. So for us, it did exactly what it was  

designed to do, given the industry we're in and everything.

00:06:39:02 - 00:06:39:18

Harry

Yeah, it was tough.

00:06:40:07 - 00:06:46:16

Ellie

Especially then. I guess another HR perspective is dealing with the  

staff that are left behind to do all of the work.

00:06:47:00 - 00:07:05:10

Harry

There was left to do. But it was more panic messaging. Every client  

that we were speaking to, it was never a nice conversation to have.  

Even if the relationship between us and them was fine, all their  

communication was out of panic and they weren't having a fun time of  

it at all. So trying to support them through that panic and that  

distress was also quite draining.

00:07:05:10 - 00:07:34:15

Harry

You're never celebrating big wins, and certainly in the agency  

world, you latch onto your client's successes. If they win an award.  

It's fantastic because you've had a part in that. If they have an  

amazing year and you helped support them to that, you feel really  

good about it. So deriving a sense of value in what you're doing,  

both as an owner and manager and everything of it my sense of self  

satisfaction in work is completely linked to the success of the  

business, but for the staff as well, their sense of value is  

delivering cool stuff for clients and clients being really happy and  

grateful and seeing the results of it.

00:07:34:15 - 00:07:55:03

Harry

And when you can't see any of that. both from a progress point of  

view, it's going backwards and from an individual client project  

based thing. It's not backwards, but it's just not happening. The  

motivation was really tough. We had one person move. For only one  

person to leave in all of that time was great in hindsight, and that  

was purely just because they were at a point in their career when  

they really wanted to push on and do some cool stuff from a  

development point of view.

00:07:55:03 - 00:08:13:09

Harry

They wanted to learn new technologies, deliver cool web apps and  

everything, and that just wasn't the opportunity at the time. And  

therein lies another dilemma. If someone's clearly not happy, to  

what extent do you keep saying, Just hang on, we can do it because  

you don't know that, and it's not very respectful to them as well.  

If you keep trying to fit them into a job that, you know, they're  

not quite00:08:13:15 - 00:08:14:22

Ellie

Yeah, dangling some carrots.

00:08:14:22 - 00:08:32:10

Harry

And that was another really tricky thing to learn. How do you try  

and keep people without being able to promise anything, without  

being to actually set milestones? Because everyone loves to know, if  

I do this by then this will happen. You couldn't do any of that. So  

incentive schemes or career progress or anything was not really  

possible

00:08:32:10 - 00:08:34:01

Ellie

So how did you navigate through that?

00:08:34:12 - 00:08:57:14

Harry

I think that transparency came in very useful and the ability to say  

"This is where we're at and if we can sign, we will unfurlough all  

these people." And I said, "Right, every single project we get, it's  

going to result in an unfurloughed person" or "This year is not  

about making money that's long gone. But the mission of this is to  

try and get everyone back in a role, get the team back", because  

that's when everyone feels motivated as well, when they've got lots  

of people to bounce off.

00:08:57:21 - 00:09:17:07

Harry

If you're the only person holding up your department it's pretty  

depressing. In that furlough time. We spent so much time building  

cool stuff. We had so much time to use so we built check in  

applications for hotels, we did digital menus, we did track and  

trace apps. We did all sorts of things. So we created a thing called  

Umi Labs, which was just a playground really, that we had all these  

hotels to test things on.

00:09:17:08 - 00:09:32:12

Harry

We don't really charge any money for it. It was just a playground,  

really. For a year or two. That's actually resulted in some great PR  

and some have gone forward. We created just a WordPress plugin, but  

it was like a one click install and you could sell vouchers on your  

site, so you didn't have to sign up for one of these big gift  

voucher platforms that take a big commission.

00:09:32:12 - 00:09:46:04

Harry

It was just worked with Stripe, worked with Wordpress, off you go.  

What vouchers you want to sell? And we have one hotel who covered  

all non furloughed overheads through that - Afternoon teas and stays  

and all that sort of stuff. So and that just came out of: "Oh, let's  

just mess around with WordPress plug ins for a week or so."

00:09:46:10 - 00:09:47:03

Ellie

That's incredible.

00:09:47:03 - 00:09:47:19

Harry

That was cool.

00:09:47:19 - 00:09:54:12

Ellie

So when did you guys feel that you were coming out of the Dark? When  

did things start picking up for you, travel wise?

00:09:54:12 - 00:10:12:12

Harry

I think there's been a few little upticks, definitely one big uptick  

was we worked with a company called Northcote Hotel slash Michelin  

Star Restaurant up north. They sold Michelin star food boxes and  

that was just crazy. Everyone was at home, each one was very  

expensive. They had about 4000 people wanting 400 boxes in the space  

of 20 minutes.

00:10:12:12 - 00:10:30:02

Harry

There was lots of little spikes of activity and excitement which  

kept our minds sharp. I guess but properly I would say SeptemberOctober. 21 was went across the board, started having people really  

interested in kickstarting their marketing campaigns again, feeling  

confident enough to build new platforms, new systems, launch new  

products.

00:10:30:09 - 00:10:31:17

Ellie

Long time to hold your breath.

00:10:31:17 - 00:10:49:20

Harry

Yeah, it was. And again, we're not on the frontline of hospitality,  

so we're not the hotel itself, but our fortunes are almost entirely  

linked to it, much like other people in the industry. You've got  

booking engine providers, you've got their model is they just take  

three to 5% commission on any bookings at a hotel makes. Again,  

they're not on the frontline, but they are directly linked to the  

success of the industry.

00:10:50:05 - 00:10:56:19

Ellie

Yeah, lots of other people affected. So coming into this year, we've  

finished the first quarter, now. What is next for Umi?

00:10:57:02 - 00:11:17:22

Harry

COVID probably taught us or taught me that pre-pandemic we'd landed  

some really big projects, cool projects that should have probably  

kickstarted a snowball for us and instead we were quite cautious  

about it. We were very defensive and banked, that as a great  

experience but didn't necessarily use it as a platform on which to  

go and win loads of other big projects.

00:11:17:22 - 00:11:38:08

Harry

Now, in one way it meant that we didn't overstretch ourselves prepandemic and in hindsight probably was a contributing factor to  

getting through it because we were so defensive and had a little war  

chest to keep us going. However, it did show to me that we had  

opportunities and didn't take them in the past. Since October, we've  

had our most successful series of four months or whatever it is in  

history.

00:11:38:08 - 00:11:56:15

Harry

We've hired four people in the last four months, and so this year is  

about really kicking on. It's using the platform of both all the  

learning that we've done so not necessarily project based stuff, but  

we've learnt a huge amount in the last two years and have also  

landed some great projects in the last few months and it's now using  

that platform to set up quite an aggressive growth strategy for the  

next year, really.

00:11:56:15 - 00:12:14:10

Harry

So. while we've been incrementally ticking up, I've set a budget to  

really kick on this year. The other big change I think as well has  

been in 2020, we still had a pretty junior team. I would say. We'd  

done some good stuff, but we didn't have many really experienced  

people. We still have never hired ex-senior people, ex-big agency.

00:12:14:15 - 00:12:37:10

Harry

We haven't done that. We still have grown quite organically and  

people have grown within their roles. But another HR thing, going  

back to HR, was there comes a point where someone's done something  

very well even having started Junior is now no longer junior, and if  

you just keep incrementing them, this is the next level up, this is  

the next level up, and there's like a small tick, small tick, small  

tick, their next logical step would be to jump sideways.

00:12:37:10 - 00:12:54:03

Harry

And so March this year, we almost like a rebalancing of just taking  

a fresh perspective on everyone and start treating ourselves as more  

of a small to medium sized business as opposed to a small business.  

Just taking stock again, if this person was on the open market, what  

does it look like and recalibrating.

00:12:54:03 - 00:13:05:03

Harry

Now, you could get away with: "We're in a pandemic. We can't do  

anything. I understand you need more or want more or... Yes, you've  

learnt a lot, but there's not a huge amount I can do now." But this  

was a chance to try and rebalance it and recalibrate ourselves.

00:13:05:06 - 00:13:06:20

Ellie

Retention is so important.

00:13:06:20 - 00:13:26:04

Harry

Absolutely. It's such a dream to have someone start junior and go  

all the way through because they've got so much history in the  

company. They know all the quirks and the little details, such an  

invaluable addition to the culture, unless there's a definite step  

that they can take, particularly having grown from a small team,  

they're probably at the top of their department all the way through  

so there's not like, "Oh, I can take your job!"

00:13:26:04 - 00:13:42:15

Harry

"I'm the developer. Now I have a couple of developers underneath me,  

now I know a lot more, what now? What do I do with that? There's not  

a designed career ladder in this particular instance. In bigger  

agencies, yes, you can have the normal steps. Wheras, for us, there  

were no normal steps. I've got a wonderful operations director,  

Dana, she's been my number two all the way through.

00:13:42:15 - 00:13:58:18

Harry

But what's next step? I don't want to do what I do. But also, we're  

both complete yin and yang in the sense that she's got operations  

and process and everything on complete lockdown. I'm not that at  

all. For her, what's that next step when you're growing within a  

company, but you've already at the top of something small, but  

underneath you, things are getting bigger.

00:13:59:00 - 00:13:59:24

Harry

So that's been quite an interesting one.

00:14:00:09 - 00:14:02:18

Ellie

Yeah. So you still in the midst of working that out?

00:14:03:02 - 00:14:14:02

Harry

No, I think we had a good recalibration at the beginning of March,  

and we also did a rebrand at the same time. Fresh brand, new HR  

system, revised contracts. I think it's created a bit of a clean  

slate in a way for setting quite an aggressive growth plan.

00:14:14:08 - 00:14:19:15

Ellie

And you've unified the team, right? You've got everyone on board.  

You know, everyone's committed, now you can push.

00:14:19:22 - 00:14:36:05

Harry

Particularly post-COVID. If all the team start seeing the company do  

very well, because we are transparent with revenue and profit and  

all that kind of stuff, we're very transparent about that, if they  

suddenly start seeing all of that and nothing's really changing for  

them. You have the old school businesses where it might be 100%  

owned by someone.

00:14:36:06 - 00:14:54:07

Harry

The profit that comes out of it at the end of the day is what they  

live on and that's their thing and that can be huge, that can be  

vast, they can be small it doesn't matter what it is, but all profit  

is essentially pocketed. That attitude. I get it. I fully understand  

it, but I think to a younger workforce it's really tough to get your  

head around.

00:14:54:14 - 00:14:54:22

Ellie

Yeah.

00:14:55:05 - 00:15:08:21

Harry

It just doesn't really fly anymore. If you were to say if you made  

all of this profit, what are we putting back in this next year? And  

I think a younger staff member is going to want to know that people  

really want to be working for something bigger. I don't really know  

how it was before because I've been ever really been involved in a  

young team, I guess.

00:15:08:21 - 00:15:09:15

Harry

But interesting one.

00:15:09:24 - 00:15:15:24

Ellie

So exciting things ahead for you guys. Thank you so much for sharing  

that with us. Harry, it's been great talking to you.

00:15:16:07 - 00:15:18:09

Harry

Thank you very much for all your lovely questions.

00:15:19:01 - 00:15:29:15

Intro

Thanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe, stay  

in touch and if you like what you hear. Find out more at  

theagencycollective.co.uk

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:10:01

Intro

Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale. Our podcast,  

where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency  

life.

00:00:11:00 - 00:00:17:11

Ellie

So today on the podcast, I am joined by Kelly Molson from Rubber  

Cheese. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Kelly.

00:00:17:15 - 00:00:20:18

Kelly

Thank you for having me on the podcast, it's a pleasure!

00:00:21:01 - 00:00:34:02

Ellie

You are very, very welcome. So like we always do with Agency  

Collective Tales, take us way back in time when Rubber Cheese first  

started.  

First off, where did the name come from?

00:00:34:05 - 00:00:52:08

Kelly

It's such a rubbish story to this and everybody always asks about  

the name and honestly, we just plucked it out of thin air because we  

were young and foolish and stupid. This was like nearly 20 years  

ago. So there was like a theme of agencies being called like Blue  

Chile or Green Banana. So rubber cheese didn't seem that odd back  

then.

00:00:53:11 - 00:01:15:22

Kelly

And we were like 24, 25, didn't really think through the whole brand  

image or brand story stuff back then. But we did actually run a  

story competition later on in our agency career. So actually if you  

go to the website, you will see there is a little story on there as  

to why Rubber Cheese is called Rubber Cheesebut I'm going to let you  

go and find it rather than tell you

00:01:15:22 - 00:01:16:10

Ellie & Kelly

[LAUGHTER]

00:01:17:07 - 00:01:27:21

Ellie

I'll do that. So you were 24 when the agency started. What had been  

your work experience up till then? That's ever so young to make the  

leap to starting your own business. How did that come about?

00:01:27:23 - 00:01:47:15

Kelly

I think it felt young then, it doesn't feel young now. There are  

agency founders that are way younger than we were that are members  

of the AC. So back then it felt quite young. But I'd worked in an  

agency I mean, I was a graphic designer. I'd trained to be a graphic  

designer and I'd worked in various roles. I guess you'd probably  

call me a bit of an allrounder, so i never really found one thing  

that I wanted to stick at.

00:01:47:15 - 00:02:13:10

Kelly

I did a little bit of branding design and I did some packaging  

design, and then I went and worked for a marketing agency and did  

marketing design. And I just stayed in places a couple of years and  

then moved on. Got itchy feet, I guess. And then I ended up working  

at a web design company who had developed a really early Shopify  

platform, and it allowed people to build their own ecommerce shops  

and think about this is like 21 years ago.

00:02:13:10 - 00:02:30:22

Kelly

So this is really a new thing back then. I think e-commerce and  

shopping online was still quite a frightening thing for people. It  

wasn't the norm.  

I was brought in as a print designer, but then I ended up designing  

ecommerce shops and I guess that was where I got my first taste of  

digital think it's probably the first time that I've had an email  

address as well.

00:02:31:13 - 00:02:48:01

Kelly

So long ago! And I met my co-founder Paul there. He was a designer  

as well, and I think the two of us, we were almost doing the same  

thing day in, day out, and we just got a little bit frustrated  

really. So the two of us decided that we were going to almost go off  

and freelance but do it under the Rubber Cheese name.

00:02:48:01 - 00:02:51:00

Kelly

So we hadn't really thought that much about setting up a company. It  

was just:

00:02:51:00 - 00:02:55:04

Kelly

"Let's go and freelance, let's go and do something a bit different  

for a while and see where this goes."

00:02:55:04 - 00:03:05:10

Kelly

And we were just really lucky. So when I left the company, I sent an  

email out to everybody on my email database which was probably about  

20 people back then, 'cause I'd only just got an email address.

00:03:05:14 - 00:03:38:10

Kelly

But I had just recently connected with an old school friend on  

Friends Reunited - Retro, I know! And he worked at an architect's  

firm, and the architects firm needed to partner with a designer or a  

team of designers on a pitch they were doing for Tescos. And so they  

asked if we would partner with them on it. We said, yep, and long  

story short, they won the pitch and so we ended up working for  

Tesco's for about two years and that was one of our first clients  

and that was just a phenomenal stroke of luck because that was our  

bread and butter that paid our rent and that gave us I guess a  

little bit of freedom to try

00:03:38:10 - 00:03:52:19

Kelly

out lots of different things that we wanted to do. So we did some  

illustration work, we were doing some graphic design work and then  

slowly over the years we just built up our client base quite  

organically. It felt like a really nice easy start to agency life,  

and then it got chaos.

00:03:54:23 - 00:04:02:12

Ellie

You guys have quite a specific niche, so can you tell me about that  

in terms of the clients that you work with and how you discovered  

that niche?

00:04:02:12 - 00:04:25:04

Kelly

Yeah, so we work a lot with visitor tourist attractions, and tourism  

in general. It came about in a bit of a weird way. So one of our  

longstanding clients is Pernod Ricard, global drinks company. And  

they have brands under their umbrella like The Glenlivet, Abelour,  

Plymouth Gin, Beefeater Gin, and we've been very lucky to work with  

them for probably over ten years now on various different digital  

projects.

00:04:25:07 - 00:04:44:18

Kelly

And a few years ago they asked us to create a ticket booking system  

for the Plymouth Gin Visitor Centre, which is a great project. We  

worked on that for about a year launched it, and it was such a  

success for that visitor centre that they then rolled the platform  

out for Beefeater Gin and then for four of the whisky distilleries  

up in Scotland.

00:04:45:08 - 00:05:22:08

Kelly

And that project gave us an incredible insight into the visitor  

economy, visitor experience attractions world. We all soon realised  

how much we'd loved working on that project and how much we wanted  

to do more of that kind of work. So I guess that's really where the  

niche started to come from. We actively then looked for more  

projects that we could use our expertise that we'd gained on that  

for. Very lucky to win a pitch for Eureka, the National Children's  

Museum, and those projects set us on the road to niching in that  

area, which was quite scary to start with because we'd never put all  

of our eggs in one basket before and we do still get enquiries  

outside

00:05:22:08 - 00:05:38:16

Kelly

of that sector. And we pick and choose whether we think that we're a  

good fit for them or we pass them on to other agencies as well. I  

think that's probably just a historical thing because we've been  

around for so long, but we started to then focus all of our outward  

marketing on that niche as well, which was quite frightening to do  

that.

00:05:38:16 - 00:06:00:10

Kelly

Suddenly you're making a really big statement about who you want to  

work with - 'are you cutting your nose of to spite your face',  

moment., But it's been fantastic, actually. And for me and the team  

are all very much people that we would spend our own money on  

experiences rather than stuff. And so it's a really good fit  

personally for us., as well and runs through the core of our values  

and what we value from a personal perspective as well.

00:06:00:20 - 00:06:02:20

Kelly

So it was the right thing to do.

00:06:02:20 - 00:06:05:07

Ellie

Hundred percent. But then how did 2020 affect you?

00:06:05:16 - 00:06:22:08

Kelly

Yeah, I'm not going to lie. That was quite scary! [LAUGHS] If I'm  

being completey honest, 2019 had been a bit of a challenging year.  

So I've spoken to quite a few agencies who had a bit of a rocky 2019  

to be honest, and it was very up and down for us. So we came into  

2020 with a slightly leaner team.

00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:20

Kelly

We came into 2020, probably a bit war wounded, bruised and feeling a  

little bit damaged, but we worked our bloody arses off. We won some  

brilliant projects that all kicked off at the start of 2020, so we  

were in a really, really strong position. March happened and that  

was pretty terrifying and I guess it did make us sit back and  

question, have we done the right thing here?

00:06:46:03 - 00:07:03:24

Kelly

I think that anyone will tell you, if you're going to niche into to  

a sector, it's going to take good 18 months to make any kind of  

impact I would say and we had launched into that in around July  

August time of 2019. So we were coming up for just six months of  

that and we did sit and question and say 'What do we do?"

00:07:04:02 - 00:07:24:02

Kelly

"We've gone all in and we've made this massive statement. It's what  

we all feel and believe is the right thing for us." And so what we  

did was just carry on doing everything that we could to support that  

sector with the understanding that nobody had any money to spend.  

People were being furloughed, made redundant, left right and centre.  

It was horrendous attractions were closing, some never to be opened  

ever again.

00:07:24:18 - 00:07:57:05

Kelly

So what could we do to help them? What could we do to support them?  

And try and get through this dreadful time? And that was what we  

did. We focussed on our podcast called Skip the Queue. We spoke to  

as many people as we can. We asked them what help they needed. We  

created a free e-book download with hundreds of strategies that they  

could try, but when they were reopening just to try and get their  

websites in the best possible position before they could reopen, I  

spoke on webinars, I spoke at conferences and we just shared as much  

of our expertise as we possibly could because that's all we could  

do.

00:07:57:17 - 00:08:20:24

Kelly

So it was scary but that was the best thing that we could do. And  

actually I made some amazing... I don't even want to say contacts.  

I've just made some amazing friends within that sector, they're not  

contacts anymore. They're friends who we've gone on to work with or  

we've gone on to help in some way, or they actively support us in  

terms of referrals and introductions and introductions just for the  

podcast,

00:08:20:24 - 00:08:29:11

Kelly

I feel like it gave us the opportunity to really build a community  

over that time community of people that we could really help.

00:08:29:11 - 00:08:34:02

Ellie

That's brilliant. Must have been such a comfort going through  

2020/2021.

00:08:35:02 - 00:08:52:01

Kelly

The podcast was if I 'm honest. I've said this is blog posts, it was  

the one thing that just kept me going because every week I knew that  

I could speak to people, someone different, and I was going to talk  

about something new, something exciting, or I was giving them a  

platform to be able to share how they were feeling about what they  

were going through or how they could support the industry as well.

00:08:52:11 - 00:09:01:16

Kelly

And it got me through that. It was brilliant. I'm so grateful to the  

people that gave up their time to come and share on it because it  

was helping me just as much as it was helping the audience that was  

listening.

00:09:02:17 - 00:09:13:13

Ellie

I bet you were! Going from the two of you, 24, starting your agency,  

just accidentally, almost. How do you then learn to be an agency  

leader and lead a team?

00:09:14:24 - 00:09:31:12

Kelly

Probably still learning! [LAUGHS] It's just ongoing. Isn't it? Every  

day is a learning day when it comes to stuff like that. It's a  

really interesting question. It was just the two of us for a really  

long time. So Paul and I for about five years and we were very much  

trying to run a business, trying to get work in, trying to then do  

the business.

00:09:31:12 - 00:09:55:13

Kelly

You know, I was in a production role still then, both of us were.  

And I think we would have coming up to that 30 bracket and having  

that conversation about what are we doing? Is it just the two of us  

forever or are we going to grow this? What does this become? And we  

decided that we were going to try to grow an agency and we had to  

make the decision about somebody stepping back from a production  

role, really, because it was getting too difficult to manage those  

two different roles.

00:09:55:20 - 00:10:14:00

Kelly

And then we would end up with that feast or famine where we won a  

lot of business. But then we were too busy doing the business to  

actually look at what the pipeline looked like, and more. And so I  

took a step back from production and we hired a designer that would  

take on my design role. And then it became a two year journey of  

pain.

00:10:14:00 - 00:10:34:12

Kelly

I'm not going to lie. I really struggled coming from a creative  

background, suddenly being thrown into a world of spreadsheets and  

pipeline and profit and loss [COMICAL GROWLING NOISE] and all those  

scary things that you have to learn when you're a business owner and  

learning how to manage people. In any of my roles prior to that, I'd  

never actually managed anybody.

00:10:34:12 - 00:10:52:22

Kelly

I'd never had a junior under me or anything like that. And so there  

was a lot that I needed to learn, and it felt like a very, very  

steep journey. And I actually did feel quite resentful to start with  

because I felt like Paul had stayed in his designer stroke creative  

director role when he got to do the things that he knew really well.

00:10:53:04 - 00:11:10:13

Kelly

And suddenly I've got to learn all of this stuff that I'm finding  

really difficult and challenging. And I just wanted to pull my hair  

out every single day. And I'd say it honestly took a good couple of  

years to feel confident in that role and confident that I knew what  

I was doing and I could lead that agency. Every day is a learning  

day from now.

00:11:10:13 - 00:11:24:09

Kelly

I'm really lucky that I have a really good agency network around me.  

Obviously, we've got Agency Collective, who's been an incredible  

support and there's always someone that's been through an experience  

that you're about to go through that you can ask: "Has anyone gone  

through this?" And instantly you'll have like00:11:24:09 - 00:11:25:14

Ellie

Been there, done that advice.

00:11:25:14 - 00:11:30:19

Kelly

Yeah, five or six people will be like, "Yes, oh my God, this has  

happened to us as well, and you're not alone in it all"

00:11:30:19 - 00:11:39:05

Kelly

And that's probably the best thing that I did, is just try and build  

up as many agency contacts as I possibly could, who would support me  

through that journey of pain.

00:11:41:06 - 00:11:45:20

Ellie

What's next for Rubber Cheese, then? What's coming up and where do  

you see the agency going

00:11:45:20 - 00:12:05:13

Kelly

There's been lots of change already. Obviously, the pandemic made  

big changes for everybody. It's interesting because in 2019 we had  

one team member who moved back home up north, so we were already  

running a semi remote working model. So we had experience of how  

that might work for us. And at the moment that's what we've gone to.  

Everyone was really happy our office lease came up.

00:12:05:17 - 00:12:23:06

Kelly

Nobody really wanted to go back there five days a week. So at the  

moment we're just running a remote office. So that's been a new way  

of working and a new way of patterns to understand how to lead an  

agency like that. The niche is doing brillianty. So we've got some  

fabulous client partners that we're working with within that, so I  

can only see that going from strength to strength.

00:12:23:10 - 00:12:39:11

Kelly

And there's some exciting things happening with the podcast and an  

event that will be happening hopefully at the beginning of next  

year. And that's something that we see developing more and more of -  

us doing live events again, which would be amazing to get people  

back in the room.

00:12:39:11 - 00:12:49:18

Kelly

Lots of change, lots of exciting things happening moving forward,  

and I think maybe a slightly different role for myself as well  

because we've just had our lovely little girl, she's eight months  

now.

00:12:50:01 - 00:13:03:02

Kelly

Life is very different for me personally now, and I think that has  

to be reflected in what I do with the agency as well. So I think  

there might be a few changes coming up there that will help me  

manage my work/life balance a little bit better than it currently  

is.

00:13:04:00 - 00:13:12:10

Ellie

Well, I wish you all of the luck for the future, and hope you get  

that work/life balance. It's so important. And you as an agency  

founder, you've got to lead the way for the team as well, right?

00:13:12:18 - 00:13:16:08

Kelly

Absolutely. Yeah. If it doesn't come from the top down, then it's  

not going to happen, is it?

00:13:17:03 - 00:13:19:02

Ellie

Brilliant. Thanks so much, Kelly. It's been great.

00:13:19:11 - 00:13:22:01

Kelly

Thank you. So lovely to be on. Really appreciate it.

00:13:22:19 - 00:13:33:08

Intro

Thanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe. Stay  

in touch. And if you like what you hear. Find out more at  

theagencycollective. co.uk.

00:00:01:17 - 00:00:08:20

Ellie

Today on the Agency Collective Tales. I am joined by Tomasz Dyl from

Gottabe! Marketing. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.

00:00:09:07 - 00:00:10:22

Tomasz

Hello! And thanks for having me.

00:00:11:09 - 00:00:20:24

Ellie

You're very, very welcome. So, Tomasz, like we always do at the

Agency Collective Tales, let's start at the beginning. Tell me a bit

about how your agency started.

00:00:21:07 - 00:00:43:05

Tomasz

A few days ago we've turned 14, so it's been a quite a long journey

over the 14 years. I started the business when I was just finishing

at college. I was 17 at the time, so hence I give away how old I am.

The idea was to create an agency that would help bridge the gap and

allow companies to better connect with some of the ethnic minorities

that were coming into the country at the time.

00:00:43:06 - 00:01:10:19

Tomasz

Obviously, 8 countries joined the European Union in 2004, including

Poland, where I'm originally from, and the idea was to build the

gap, build a bridge and allow companies to better communicate. And

there's this massive group of people, massive opportunity. Yet

again, no one is taking advantage of it. So for me, it was about

being able to say to brands saying:

"Hello, I can help you, I can get you in front of these guys and I

can do it in a very different way to how you probably go about it."

00:01:10:19 - 00:01:29:00

Tomasz

Because at the time I did it in Polish, we did it in Hungarian, we

did it in Czech and now we serve our clients in 45 different

languages, doing exactly what we did 14 years ago, but now even in

much more through different channels, through different options. And

that's the little journey. And we've grown quite a bit, obviously

back in the day

00:01:29:00 - 00:01:38:21

Tomasz

it was just myself. Now we've a strong team of 12 and we've also got

two offices in the UK and one in Ireland. So we're working across

the pond as well, as well as having two offers in the UK

00:01:38:21 - 00:01:39:23

Ellie

That's amazing.

00:01:40:03 - 00:01:49:08

Ellie

So did your 17 year old self have any idea about the scale that you

were going to grow to or did you just see a gap and think:

"I'm going to do some good things here?"

00:01:49:16 - 00:02:15:19

Tomasz

Yes, certainly it was spotting the gap and the whole plan was to do

it for three years , whilst I was at uni, get that experience and

then to be able to go to a nine to five job, hopefully being bit

more experienced and saying:

"Hey guys, I've actually got some experience now."

Well, that plan didn't really materialise, asyou can tell because

I'm still here, still running the business.

But I'm glad I didn't, because I think I would have been so lost

working in a different agency and not being able to build my own

little baby.

00:02:16:01 - 00:02:35:00

Tomasz

So yes, certainly it's about finding a gap and taking that gap and

really evolving it. And the last two years have really been crazy

because whilst the pandemic was actually out there and I know a lot

of agencies struggled, we've actually pivoted very well and we've

had more signings in the last two years than we have probably in the

last five years.

00:02:35:08 - 00:02:54:24

Tomasz

But that's because we saw things like what impact of BAME on COVID

and COVID impacting the lower class. And that's opened eyes to a lot

of brands who've never considered multicultural marketing before to

all of a sudden think:

" We need to actually go out and speak to our customers. We need to

target them in a different way. to how we are targeted."

00:02:55:09 - 00:03:00:05

Tomasz

And people keep on telling us we under-represented so we need to act

on our representation somehow.

00:03:00:18 - 00:03:12:17

Ellie

Brilliant. So how do you tackle that with brands that perhaps don't

think diversity, equity and inclusion is important?

Do you gently do it, or are you just upfront and say:

"Come on guys, what are you doing here?"

00:03:13:10 - 00:03:37:02

Tomasz

Oh, we're very upfront. We spent the last two years educating

brands, so from our research and from what we understand is only one

in five brands at the moment are doing anything in this space. It's

changing. It's slightly moving to probably one in three but it's

still a huge gap. I mean, we've got brands out that have never

considered it and don't see a reason why they should do.

They bluntly told us to our faces:

"We don't need to do it, we're quite happy."

00:03:37:02 - 00:03:59:09

Tomasz

"Customers are coming in and we don't need to do anything else."

And on the other hand, you've got companies who are thinking:

"We really need to be able to change this. We really need to be

able to make a difference and ensure that we're talking to

everybody."

We're continuously educating brands and agencies as well, because I

think the problem is between the two: Agencies are not doing enough

to be able to say to them:

"We're needing you to push you. We need you to do something more."

00:03:59:09 - 00:04:22:23

Tomasz

And equally brands need to do more and they need to start realising

that the world has changed - the society has really gone beyond what

the traditional family of two plus one is and so on. And we need to

start thinking how do we represent ourselves? And is the marketing

that we're putting out there really representative of today's

society and today's audience?

00:04:22:23 - 00:04:26:00

Tomasz

And for most companies, unfortunately it isn't

00:04:26:00 - 00:04:51:01

Ellie

Absolutely not. I think as well, it's just the:

"It's going all right, so why should I change anything?", rather

than the bigger picture.

I think if agencies and brands don't step up and start taking

action and making changes to make themselves more diverse in their

way of thinking, more diverse in their creative projects, that

they're putting out there, they're going to be so far behind the

times that brands will just be turned off by them completely.

00:04:51:08 - 00:05:18:02

Tomasz

Absolutely. And as I said, that's why I think the responsibility we

put into two parts. It's not just the brands, it's the agencies that

have to do more as well. And we're seeing a shift in one way where

the agencies are bringing in more diverse teams, they're looking at

other options, but I don't think they're still utilising the options

that we have when it comes to targeting, because putting an ad with

a South Asian family on ITV is not necessarily where that audience

is going to be.

00:05:18:02 - 00:05:42:19

Tomasz

They're watching Zee TV, they're reading Eastern Eye, they're

listening to Sunrise Radio and not Kiss! So we've got to be mindful

that there is over 250 different publications that are printed in

other languages than English and are consumed collectively by a

group of 6 million people. So we need to be able to utilise that. So

there is a whole brand new world out there that for a lot hasn't

been discovered and that's what we're trying to do.

00:05:42:20 - 00:05:51:14

Tomasz

We're saying: "Let us take you on this little journey that you

haven't been on and let's see how we can get you in front of people

that you think you are in the front, but actually, you're not.

00:05:52:14 - 00:06:03:06

Ellie

That's really admirable. As an agency founder, what do you think

agency founders can be doing to make their teams more diverse? Is

there anything you've particularly done with your team?

00:06:04:01 - 00:06:30:11

Tomasz

So we do things like learning to learn, where we take on the

culture, we take on a country, and we do a deep dive into them to be

able to educate our staff. But equally educate ourselves on what

else could we be knowing about this audience and what could we do

with them?

In terms of diversifying the staff, I think one of the things we've

done and that works quite well for us is anonymous interviews and

from the perspective that when we get applications, we don't get to

see people's names.

00:06:30:11 - 00:06:53:08

Tomasz

So straight away, if someone's name is Muhammad it doesn't go into

the bin because we don't think that person is going to do. Where I

know in some agencies, unfortunately people have experienced it.

We've a colleague internally who, because of her background being

Romanian, applied for jobs and because of her name, she just

straightaway got declined. Then she change her name but didn't

change her CV to Kelly and all of a sudden, started to get

interviews.

00:06:53:08 - 00:07:08:01

Tomasz

So we're judging people by the name. We haven't even got to what

their experience and everything else is. We've just seen the name

and we think: "Oh, they're foreign, we don't want them." We should

be giving everybody equal opportunity no matter what background they

are from what that name they are.

00:07:08:08 - 00:07:12:05

Ellie

Yeah. Have you faced any prejudice then with your name as an agency

founder?

00:07:12:17 - 00:07:36:14

Tomasz

Yes. We have been told we're very foreign and ten years ago I took

quite big offence to it. But right now I think if you not

diversifying, you're not inclusive, I think you're not in the right

space. I think my name is relatively similar to a English spelling

of Tomasz. I say relatively, it's still got a few letter difference

and my surname being Dyl could be anywhere in the world.

00:07:36:22 - 00:07:51:05

Tomasz

I don't necessarily get as much probably as people who might have

other names but we have experienced this where we pitched for a big

brand and the feedback to us is that they would prefer to work with

a brand or an agency that is more British than foreign.

00:07:51:05 - 00:07:52:21

Ellie

God. That's so mad!

00:07:52:21 - 00:08:12:19

Ellie

That's society. We've got to get used to it. It's not always going

to be all lovely and useful. Sometimes you will experience that, but

it's not just based on someone's nationality. You can experience the

same thing based on your sexuality, based on your colour hair and

all that. So there's always going to be someone who's not happy with

how you look, how you come across, and they will pick on you.

00:08:13:01 - 00:08:32:02

Tomasz

That could happen to a Polish person, that can happen to a Romanian

person or that can happen to a Chinese person. Look what we've seen

two years ago, Chinese people being beat up in the streets because

they brought Covid into the UK. I don't necessarily think it was

them personally that brought it, but we have seen people being

abused, thrown at, beaten up in the streets because they brought

Covid.

00:08:32:03 - 00:08:40:06

Tomasz

It is a global pandemic. Wake up. Come on, let's look at the news.

Let's see what's going on now. And if you're not shortsighted, I

think you need to have a real good self-check.

00:08:40:12 - 00:08:50:07

Ellie

Absolutely. Yeah. Can you talk me through any real success stories

that you've had with clients where you have really transformed their

reach?

00:08:51:06 - 00:08:58:17

Tomasz

Yeah, I would use example of a recent campaign, which earlier this

week we have actually won an award for campaign of the Year of the

GG2 Diversity & Inclusivity Awards.

00:08:58:24 - 00:08:59:16

Ellie

That's amazing.

00:09:00:05 - 00:09:26:18

Tomasz

Thank you. It's our work with the NHS, working with the Southampton

and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, CCG, the clinical commissioning

group, as well as the Hampshire County Council. And the campaign was

very challenging. It was to try and get more uptake from the Eastern

European Community on the vaccination.

The campaign we faced nationwide, not just in Hampshire. Eastern

Europeans, for very odd reasons, have been very reluctant to it.

00:09:26:23 - 00:09:57:00

Tomasz

They didn't necessarily believe in Covid, and they didn't

necessarily think that they had to get vaccinated. So we ran a

campaign where we tried to get rid of the myths. Equally, we tried

to deliver educational content to people so it wasn't necessarily

hand holding them and walking them to the nearest vaccination

centre. We said to them:

"We want to give you a choice, but we want to give you the right

information."

And when we did the initial research, when we did the focus groups,

we found that people were reluctant because there wasn't enough

information and they couldn't find any information.

00:09:57:00 - 00:10:16:20

Tomasz

They found the gov website being extremely boring, not easy to

understand. The language over there was very difficult for them, and

they were simply looking for information such as what is a side

effects, what are the ingredients? Because some people have got

allergies, etc. And what are the options in terms of what are the

different vaccines and how do they differ?

00:10:16:22 - 00:10:39:09

Tomasz

So we put all this together into a bilingual leaflet and we work

with local employers, we work with the local ethnic media, but also

done a lot of work on the ground in terms of speaking to people at

various places, whether that's that ethnic Polish shop or that's a

Polish church or Romanian Saturday school and utilise the

opportunity to talk to people, answer any questions and educate

them.

00:10:39:16 - 00:10:55:00

Tomasz

And again, of course the direction was that once you're ready, come

and get vaccinated, but it wasn't necessarily saying to people:

"We've now got you, I'm gonna take your hands, I'm going to put on

a handcuff and I'm going to take you to the nearest vaccination

centre."

That wasn't the case. The idea was to increase the awareness and

drive.

00:10:55:01 - 00:11:00:11

Tomasz

In Hampshire, the "White, other" as it's being referred to, became

in the top three of the most vaccinated.

00:11:00:17 - 00:11:01:21

Ellie

Amazing.

00:11:02:11 - 00:11:24:14

Tomasz

For us, this particular project was even more important from the

perspective that it had a real purpose. We change people's life by

explaining to them and giving them the information they weren't

getting in first place. And being able to deliver it in a language

that they understood meant that their information was getting

through to them much quicker, than trying to tell them:

"Go on the gov website and find out information there, cause Is it

all there."

00:11:24:21 - 00:11:32:21

Tomasz

So very often we presume things, but unfortunately we can't do that.

We've got to listen to the people that are around us and find out

what can we do to help them.

00:11:33:19 - 00:11:45:06

Ellie

That's wonderful Tomasz What is it that's been your key lesson over

the past 14 years. Is there anything that you wish you had known in

the first couple of years of running your agency?

00:11:45:20 - 00:11:59:16

Tomasz

Starting a business when you're 17, you're very lost. I didn't know

much about pricing structure. I didn't do much about how to pitch. I

didn't know how to sell. I had to learn it all by myself. And it was

a very lonely place back then. There was not as much support as

there is around now.

00:11:59:16 - 00:12:26:10

Tomasz

With growth, for me, I had to get my feet on the ground and try to

work it out test the waters, etc. If anything, would have been nice

to have a mentor who runs an agency and is able to see and take me

as somebody that I can mould and get better. So I think I would have

really appreciated that. But 14 years on and now I'm on the Goldman

Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme, looking to improve the

profitability and grow our business.

00:12:26:10 - 00:12:30:16

Tomasz

So I think I haven't missed out on anything. I'm just 14 years a

little bit late!

00:12:31:17 - 00:12:52:07

Ellie

Not at all. The thing that I learned, running The Agency Collective

is that everybody's on their own journey. You can't mark your

success by looking at another agency because the number of staff

that you have, you might be comfortable with. The lifestyle that

you've got, the work life balance that you've got, the aspirations

that you've got. What it is that feeds your soul is so completely

different agency to agency.

00:12:52:11 - 00:13:04:20

Ellie

I definitely think I'm seeing more of a move for profit with

purpose. It's not enough to just be doing good work. What's behind

it? What change are you looking to make? Are you really seeing that

with clients that you're working with?

00:13:05:09 - 00:13:26:07

Tomasz

Absolutely. I think the reason the clients come to us is that they

really want to make a purpose and they want to make a change and not

necessarily getting the expertise from the mainstream agencies that

they work with, and they have to look for specialised ones and this

is why they come to us. But at the same time, we work with a lot of

other agencies who simply put their hand up to the client and say:

00:13:26:07 - 00:13:49:09

Tomasz

"Look, this is outside of our comfort zone. We could probably do

it, but we're probably not going to deliver it in the best form. And

the best possible option. However, we have a partner agency that can

do that. And let me introduce you to Tomasz and we will work

alongside Tomasz and delivering this campaign. So we will look after

this aspect of the campaign and they will look after the ethnic and

multicultural aspects. We will create one campaign, but it will be

seen by everybody."

00:13:49:09 - 00:14:11:07

Tomasz

So it's great that some agencies have already identified us and are

very keen to work with agencies like us who are just simply an

extension to their team because we're not looking to steal any work

from anybody. We have our own niche and that's where we want to

focus and that's what we want to continue doing as much as we can go

after brands ourselves and do it, I think agencies also need to be

able to say to the clients:

00:14:11:07 - 00:14:18:08

Tomasz

"Let's change how we position ourselves, how we market to your

customers, and let's look at how we can collaborate with others."

00:14:18:08 - 00:14:27:10

Tomasz

It can open new doors and it's not just for the ethnic minorities.

There is a fantastic agency called the Purple Goat that is focussing

on disabled influencers.

00:14:27:10 - 00:14:53:11

Tomasz

I can't think of a single campaign that's actually showed a disabled

influencer, but these guys have got their own niche and they work

with some of the world's biggest brands right now because they found

a niche and they're going for it. So I think that there is room for

everybody. And I think this is what for us, the big focus for 2022

is to make more friends with other agency owners and say to them:

"Let's work together.

00:14:54:08 - 00:15:12:22

Ellie

That's brilliant. Just to finish up Tomasz, what would be the

biggest piece of advice you could offer agencies that are perhaps

overwhelmed by the diversity, equity and inclusion piece? They don't

know where to start. They don't know what to do. What would be some

top tips if maybe you could offer them?

00:15:13:07 - 00:15:32:24

Tomasz

I would say you can do two things. You can it to try and find the

solution yourself and try and learn this. But I've been in this

industry for 14 years and I'm still learning every day something

different about the different groups of people that surround me. And

there isn't a day where don't I go:

"Wow, I didn't notice this. I could have really benefited from this

five years ago",

00:15:32:24 - 00:15:44:24

Tomasz

But by simply having this conversation with different people,

whether that's a Muslim person, whether that is somebody who is

Sikh, or whether that's somebody who is Bulgarian or even a Polish

person, you get to know these things.

00:15:45:06 - 00:15:58:14

Tomasz

Start with doing your own research and try to get as much

information as possible. There are various books. There is so much

content online, whether that's webinars, whether that's interviews,

podcasts, you can really listen to and get to know this.

00:15:58:14 - 00:16:09:02

Tomasz

And secondly, don't be afraid to reach out to people who are in the

agency space, who specialise in that area, and you find that they're

actually very welcoming and they'll happily give a lot of advice.

00:16:09:05 - 00:16:18:02

Tomasz

I think the biggest advice I can say is go out there and speak to

people. There are amazing community groups. You can really get real

insight.

00:16:18:02 - 00:16:33:18

Tomasz

There's so many different reports out there that you can get your

hands on on data and everything else. And even the latest

information - that new settlement scheme. Again, we're shocked as to

how little awareness there is and how agencies are not utilising the

information.

00:16:33:18 - 00:16:47:20

Tomasz

But it gives you a breakdown into everything into every European

nationality and tells you where they're located, how many of them

are in the country. And that's a mind blowing exercise because if

we're running a campaign to Ealing for a client we can think:

00:16:47:20 - 00:16:54:23

Tomasz

"Oh, right, okay, we can really get into these groups because that's

what the new settlement scheme information has given us and is the

most up to date information."

00:16:54:23 - 00:17:07:19

Tomasz

We don't have censuses yet. That's not going to come out for another

three or four months. We've already got other information they can

be utilising. So I would definitely say go out there and find their

information and you'd be amazed as to how much is out there.

00:17:08:22 - 00:17:28:12

Ellie

That's brilliant advice. Thank you. And what about internally, what

advice have you got for agencies whose team are all the same race

are all the same nationality? Are all around the same age? Because

lots of agencies say they just hire the best people for the job. And

what that means is it tends to be lots of carbon copies of the same

employee that they're hiring.

00:17:29:09 - 00:17:59:01

Tomasz

Yeah, I would definitely say try and minimise and strip down your

recruitment process, where you do blind interviews and everything

else. So you don't necessarily get to see the name, don't get to see

their age and just look at that. I think broaden your horizons in

terms of where you might be recruiting. You can advertise on Indeed,

LinkedIn, whatever it might be, or maybe you want to actually look

at some of the publications at the portals that are out there, even

The Voice, for example, which is one of the leading Afro-Caribbean

publications, they've got their own portal where you can advertise.

00:17:59:01 - 00:18:25:12

Tomasz

So if you're looking for somebody of Afro-Caribbean origins, equally

advertise on there, broaden your horizons where you can go out and

recruit. I think the other thing is look at the universities, where

there is a lot of talent and you can actually pick very nice

students who are of international background as well. They're able

to come in because you tend to find that people who are from a

different background tend to bring a lot of different expertise,

point of view, and they're very, very desired

00:18:25:12 - 00:18:33:08

Ellie

That's brilliant. Thank you so much. That's been really, really

great advice. Really looking forward to seeing what GottaBe! does

next!

00:18:33:14 - 00:18:34:03

Tomasz

Thank you.

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:07:10

Ellie

I am talking today on the podcast to Serdar Paktin in from Pakt. Thank you so  

much for being on our podcast.

00:00:07:17 - 00:00:08:19

Serdar Paktin

Thank you for inviting me.

00:00:09:00 - 00:00:16:07

Ellie

So I'm really excited to learn where your agency came from. So a bit about your  

background and a bit about how you started your agency.

00:00:16:21 - 00:00:44:16

Serdar Paktin

I was working as a strategist and I was getting on the side projects from UK and  

overseas agencies when I lived in Istanbul. I was working as a cultural inside  

semiotics consultant for global agencies that are focussing on Turkey, and then I  

extended doing that to Middle East and North Africa. And when I started doing my  

own business, I had one thing - the international on the sides, and I had one local  

brands on the other side.

00:00:44:21 - 00:00:55:03

Serdar Paktin

And the international side of the business grew by itself. Me, without investing any  

time in it. I was investing all the time to my Turkish clients, and it didn't really pick  

up.

00:00:55:03 - 00:00:55:14

Ellie

Right.

00:00:55:14 - 00:01:08:14

Serdar Paktin

It was like a clear decision which direction to go. And I moved the agency to  

London in 2018. And since then I'm working with international clients and other  

agencies that we helped to discover.

00:01:08:14 - 00:01:32:07

Serdar Paktin

Turkey, Middle East and North Africa region. And we were extending beyond that  

to more often non-Western markets. Pakt is a holistic sense making agency. We  

focus on cross-cultural understanding and cultural insights to help our clients make  

better decisions across cultures and understanding their audiences, discovering  

opportunity areas in different cultural spaces, so to speak.

00:01:32:18 - 00:01:37:01

Ellie

Have you managed to stop your clients from making any major faux pas?

00:01:37:08 - 00:02:12:10

Serdar Paktin

I believe that we made a few things with Netflix, for instance, in 2019 made their  

first Turkish Netflix original, which was a super hero saving Istanbul from immortal  

evil people. And that didn't really pick up. In its first season, I think they were  

wondering what they did wrong, and we worked on a bigger semiotics project. We  

watched more than 50 titles: Netflix and non-Netflix; International and local; TV  

series and movies, and we came up with a map of storyline and characters and  

production, and we came up saying:  

"These are the insights.

00:02:12:10 - 00:02:37:05

Serdar Paktin

These are what you should focus on and is what you're doing wrong." One of the  

major things is that Turkey and most Middle East and Eastern markets are  

collectivist cultures. So it's based on the community rather than the individual. And  

most of the Western countries are based on individuals. Therefore, in a Western  

market, a superhero story might be interesting because it's based on an individual  

accomplishing something.

00:02:37:05 - 00:02:46:03

Serdar Paktin

But in the Eastern market, it is more focussing on the community about  

neighbourhoods, about families. So there is more of a community in there and00:02:46:09 - 00:02:47:19

Ellie

It just wasn't resonating at all.

00:02:47:19 - 00:03:05:22

Serdar Paktin

Exactly. So, a super superhero saving Istanbul is not resonating and they also  

prefer realistic characters, somebody they could really sit down at a dinner table  

and have a conversation with. By the time when we were doing the research, I  

visited Istanbul and I was talking to this cab driver and I said: "Look, what do you  

think about the superhero on Netflix?"

00:03:06:05 - 00:03:31:01

Serdar Paktin

He said: "We are all superheroes making home at night. You don't need somebody  

saving the whole city, making home safe, feeding your family is good enough to be  

a superhero. For your community." Since then, Netflix is creating really successful  

series in Turkey, Netflix originals, and they also recently published a report how  

much they contribute to the Turkish economy in the last three years.

00:03:31:02 - 00:03:36:04

Serdar Paktin

And I think we have part in that, but I can't really claim that part of it.

00:03:36:04 - 00:03:42:01

Ellie

Damn it! You can't claim it was solely you, but you were part of it. That's amazing -  

how exciting!

00:03:42:01 - 00:04:02:24

Serdar Paktin

It is, as you said, we help them understand the culture, the cultural codes in that  

market, and we helped them make better decisions or design new products or  

develop new services for that cultural opportunity in that region, in that subculture.  

It doesn't have to be different cultures. It could be a subculture within a country as  

well, because cyclists, it is a culture.

00:04:03:01 - 00:04:11:03

Serdar Paktin

You have to understand cyclists to be able to provide them value. Vegans,  

vegetarians, they all have their own culture underneath that.

00:04:11:03 - 00:04:23:00

Ellie

That's brilliant. What's it like starting an agency in a new country? Had you lived in  

London before, or did you just come over completely fresh, thinking: "New country,  

new agency? Here I go!"

00:04:23:06 - 00:04:48:02

Serdar Paktin

Well, I'd never been to the UK before. I came here first time in 2016 or 17. By the  

time I was contemplating about moving abroad and I had two options be it's either  

New York or London, and I lived in New York before and that's why that was my  

first choice. But I had a project in New York and I spent a month there and I  

decided: "No, New York is no longer where I want to live."

00:04:48:12 - 00:05:10:24

Serdar Paktin

And then I came to London and the first step out of this tube, looking around,  

seeing the people, I said: "I could live here!" But also UK had a visa deal with  

Turkey. So it was easier to get a visa. I already have clients here, so it was also  

another advantage to choose here. And there's also little time difference between  

Turkey and London and also it's quicker to fly in between.

00:05:11:03 - 00:05:29:22

Serdar Paktin

These are the four main points why I chose London, and that was my first time  

moving here. So it was difficult because my background is in cultural studies that  

have focus on American studies. So I already knew American culture, American  

type of business, and American way of doing things. But the British way of doing  

things and British business culture was a novelty to me.

00:05:30:00 - 00:05:39:11

Ellie

That's really interesting. So as a cultural insight specialist, what are the business  

cultural differences then between the US and the UK?

00:05:39:22 - 00:06:02:12

Serdar Paktin

The polite indirectness in the culture is the major thing. I'm good at understanding  

it, but implementing it, I'm still having difficulties. Americans are very direct and  

Turks are quite direct as well. The UK is not as easy as the US to penetrate as an  

outsider. Once you come in, it would need some time for the community to accept  

you.

00:06:02:13 - 00:06:21:16

Serdar Paktin

My first years were trying to prove myself again to ex-clients, long standing  

relationship. Well, when you're in the country, I think that relationship changes a bit  

to them, until once again, we are able to get to that point. US is more open to  

people who want to do things, and once you start creating it, they just let you in.

00:06:21:16 - 00:06:27:06

Serdar Paktin

As long as you're producing value. This is more of community that's letting you in  

slowly in the UK.

00:06:27:09 - 00:06:28:16

Ellie

A bit more sceptical.

00:06:28:19 - 00:06:46:07

Serdar Paktin

I would say so, yeah, but that's also probably related to that long standing culture  

of business. US in comparison to UK is just the last few hundred years and there's  

this almost a thousand years of business tradition here and it's quite  

understandable to have that checkpoint, so to speak.

00:06:46:19 - 00:07:02:23

Ellie

So how do you find your clients for Pakt? Is it a case of you going in, and trying to  

source and trying to suss out who might have a need for your services or when  

you have the need for cultural insights? Is it really clear and is it really apparent?

00:07:03:03 - 00:07:27:18

Serdar Paktin

My background is in strategy. So I have always been a strategist and then I moved  

into a niche part of strategy, into cultural insights, into semiotics. And most of my  

clients have come to me through existing clients and through referrals. And as I  

said, I'm a strategist, so I'm not really good at new business. So I am not  

really creating new business myself by reaching out to people and creating  

connections -

00:07:27:18 - 00:07:30:20

Serdar Paktin

Most of my business still comes from referrals and networks.

00:07:30:24 - 00:07:32:12

Ellie

A brilliant way to get your new business.

00:07:32:18 - 00:07:57:13

Serdar Paktin

Yeah, it means that you're doing a good job, so that they're referring to other  

people, which is great. I think you need to be able to get good at creating new  

business through new relationships. Out of blue or reaching out to your potential  

clients. And one of my methods is to build hypothesis on opportunity areas  

because our skill set is to find opportunities within a cultural space and presenting  

it to potential clients.

00:07:57:13 - 00:08:05:13

Serdar Paktin

But as long as they're not aware of that opportunity, that's not really resonating  

with them. So it was a good experiment, but it's not the way forward, apparently!

00:08:05:13 - 00:08:13:21

Ellie

You were talking to yourself, I imagine. You were like: "There's this space where  

you could do this!" And they're like: "What is that? I don't want to do that. We're not  

doing that." So you're like, "Oh, I see."

00:08:13:21 - 00:08:19:04

Ellie

What have been your key challenges and learnings the past four years?

00:08:19:08 - 00:08:41:06

Serdar Paktin

It's a difficult question. There's so many things that's rushing to my mind  

immediately. First thing, we have a saying: "A tailor cannot mend his own clothes  

or a doctor cannot cure themselves." Even though we consult with our clients. You  

need to listen to your target audience. You need to know who they are and shape  

your value proposition and your benefits towards their understanding.

00:08:41:06 - 00:08:59:13

Serdar Paktin

When I first came in, I wasn't doing that really. I was doing what I believed would  

be the meaningful thing and then just implementing it, not even testing it, not even  

thinking through it. Just going straight ahead. Like any other entrepreneur - When  

we talk to them,

we say: "That's not the way forward." And then doing it yourself is quite ironic.

00:08:59:17 - 00:09:13:14

Ellie

Agency founders do that all the time, though. You can do the do for your clients,  

but actually when it comes to yourself or your self-promotion or web development  

agencies that never work on their own website, because you don't fix yourself. It's  

interesting, isn't it?

00:09:13:19 - 00:09:19:05

Serdar Paktin

That's interesting. We know how to do it and we don't really do it for ourselves, and  

it's very ironic.

00:09:19:05 - 00:09:31:16

Serdar Paktin

Second thing I would say, most of the agencies in our space, like working with  

cultural insights and semiotics, when I first moved in, I was doing this research and  

I realised that we were all trying to sell the methodology.

00:09:31:16 - 00:09:50:07

Serdar Paktin

It is like a car company trying to sell VDU machine engineering. But a car company  

sells mobility. We get you from point A to point B and people who buy the car does  

not really care if it's machine engineering or AI technology: "Whatever you do, you  

do it. Just give me the product and I'm here for the benefit that the product  

provides me."

00:09:50:07 - 00:10:13:16

Serdar Paktin

And the agencies, we're more focussing on the methodology rather than the  

outcome or the benefits that they are providing for their clients. So I try to focus on  

that and I think I didn't really do it a good way because I was also focussing on  

something missing the point rather than the benefits. After doing it for two years,  

the pandemic gave you quite an extensive time to think about these kind of things  

that are00:10:13:17 - 00:10:16:04

Ellie

Two years of some solid thinking time.

[LAUGHS]

00:10:16:16 - 00:10:40:01

Serdar Paktin

I realised: "I'm doing everything wrong!" And I'm still not doing everything right, but  

I'm working on it to realise how to simplify things, turn it into a storytelling approach  

and then make it very clear and simple for clients to understand what benefit  

you're providing them. And as you can see, I'm still not really good at it.

00:10:40:12 - 00:10:50:21

Ellie

I think you're doing fine. Agency founders are going to be listening to this podcast.  

In terms of cultural analysis, what would you say the key benefits are for them  

doing a real deep dive?

00:10:51:11 - 00:11:16:13

Serdar Paktin

I can say two major things. One, to avoid any major mistakes that they wouldn't  

realise in their branding strategy, product development, that's going to take them a  

long time. Investing in a cultural analysis beforehand saves a lot of time and  

money. For instance, this is from a very early project. We were working on a soup  

product and the soup product was going to be liquid form and we were focussing  

on the Turkish market again.

00:11:16:13 - 00:11:43:20

Serdar Paktin

And then at the end of the project we came up with soup means nutrition in Turkey  

- could be a full meal by itself, but in a Western culture, soup is more liquid  

because it's regarded as an appetiser mostly and then if they have the assumption  

of a soup in a Western sense and they implemented a liquid form soup into a bottle  

or a box and put it on the shelf and then it didn't work, it was going to be first: "Did  

we do something wrong with the shelf choice that we made in there?"

00:11:43:20 - 00:11:57:05

Serdar Paktin

And then it was going to be the branding and the packaging. And then when you  

come to the content itself as it's meaningful or not, what's going to be the last thing  

that they want to think? When it becomes the first thing that you think it avoids all  

that big layering of mistakes.

00:11:57:11 - 00:12:01:01

Ellie

Yeah! All of that old hoo-ha! You want your products to be the most impactful,  

right?

00:12:01:10 - 00:12:26:10

Serdar Paktin

Focussing on the content and the semiotics and the cultural codes of your market  

gives you all the clues. What your product should be, how it should speak, what it  

should present as a benefit. As cultural codes define our preferences and beliefs  

collectively. They speak about consumer psychology. But before psychology,  

comes culture and our decisions and behaviours are automatically defined in our  

culture.

00:12:26:10 - 00:12:41:06

Serdar Paktin

And if you understand the cultural codes, you know what moves people or what  

people think is meaningful or not. And by that you avoid  

doing a lot of mistakes in designing and implementing and executing and market  

entry. But it saves a lot of time and money.

00:12:41:06 - 00:12:53:17

Serdar Paktin

Second thing - it could help them discover new opportunity areas: Developing new  

products, new services for that cultural space, or pivoting their products to the  

needs of those spaces.

00:12:53:17 - 00:13:24:06

Serdar Paktin

For instance, we had this talk with a major music streaming platform before they  

were going to penetrate into Middle East, but the music listening habits and what  

people expect from music and when they listen to music, why they listen to music  

is different than the Western audience. So if you are going to enter the Middle  

Eastern market, you need to pivot your product a bit to reflect the needs and the  

culture of that thing, because music is a cultural product and you can't just  

implement a global product into the whole world the way it is.

00:13:24:11 - 00:13:46:12

Serdar Paktin

And Facebook and Netflix understand this a lot, and they do a lot of research in  

understanding different cultural spaces, and they implement that. So you can see  

the success of Netflix originals in regional spaces because they do these  

overarching cultures. They do one for the Turkish Netflix audience and sell it to the  

whole region. Taking an Israeli or Lebanese Netflix original, selling to the whole  

region.

00:13:46:12 - 00:13:59:08

Serdar Paktin

And then they go to global scale. It's like Casa de Papel or Squid Game. They are  

supposed to be regional products, but they got something right in a global sense  

and they exceeded beyond expectation.

00:13:59:08 - 00:14:19:07

Serdar Paktin

To summarise: By doing this cultural analysis, agencies and brands could avoid  

doing major mistakes in different markets, in different cultural spaces, or discover  

new opportunity areas in those cultural spaces to build new products and services  

or pivoting their brands and positioning into those cultural spaces.

00:14:19:20 - 00:14:31:04

Ellie

That's brilliant. Is the majority of your work in other countries or like you said, is it  

becoming more about the sub communities, like the way you speak to cyclists and  

their interests or vegans like you said?

00:14:31:06 - 00:14:58:15

Serdar Paktin

I mean, I can see that there is work being done towards subcultures but they're not  

still doing with a cultural emphasis on it. Still, the creative agencies do it in their  

own way. I don't think they do it with a cultural emphasis on it, but also I don't know  

the whole space. So it's my assumption, but it's still - more of a regional, local and  

national cultures are the main essence of this kind of work, but I think it's already  

moving to that space.

00:14:58:15 - 00:15:23:04

Serdar Paktin

But it is still done by not cultural experts - like mostly creators and other kinds of  

researchers, I guess. So we should move the subcultures into the cultural domain  

in terms of understanding their semiotics, understanding their cultural codes, with  

cyclists, with vegan, with weekend campers - they all have a certain code of  

conduct and cultural codes, and there's certain things that they aspire to.

00:15:23:04 - 00:15:29:16

Serdar Paktin

And I'm giving cyclists and vegans as an example because those are the most  

obvious ones that we can relate to.

00:15:29:23 - 00:15:35:11

Ellie

Absolutely. So what is next for Pakt - what's coming up? What do you see  

happening in the next couple of years?

00:15:36:02 - 00:15:57:12

Serdar Paktin

Great question. We had two years hold, so we want to continue where we left off in  

2020 because it was like first two years in the UK. We just established and got into  

a steady cash flow and growth and that stopped where it was. And there was  

literally no work in 2020, because what we do is new opportunities, new spaces  

and everybody retreated back to00:15:57:12 - 00:15:59:19

Ellie

No one was going anywhere!

00:16:00:01 - 00:16:10:17

Serdar Paktin

Exactly. Everybody was in their safe space and that's why we didn't have any  

work. But now with the pandemic reasonably under control, apparently, and the  

economy is going somewhere.

[LAUGHS]

00:16:11:23 - 00:16:14:16

Ellie

The economy is doing something, who knows?

00:16:16:13 - 00:16:17:10

Serdar Paktin

Definitely!

00:16:17:10 - 00:16:17:18

Ellie

[LAUGHS]

00:16:17:18 - 00:16:45:14

Serdar Paktin

Our next two years will be getting back on track and growing in the UK and  

hopefully growing our team here and doing more cultural work on a broader  

regional and cultural framework. We are still mostly doing the Islamic markets but  

we want to extend beyond that and that's one of our main goals to get projects  

going beyond regional cultures and also going into different subcultures.

00:16:45:14 - 00:17:04:16

Serdar Paktin

And not only discovering the culture but also imagining a future in those cultures.  

How are things going to be meaningful towards the future? And discovering those  

cultural spaces, that's going to be more meaningful in the following five to ten  

years. More into connecting futures with cultural analysis and mashing up a  

methodology out of that?

00:17:05:01 - 00:17:07:08

Ellie

What? Almost predicting trends that there may be?

00:17:07:24 - 00:17:22:07

Serdar Paktin

It's not really predicting trends, but it's more like a personalised meaningful area  

discoveries towards the future. It's more than what's going to be meaningful, what's  

going to be meaningful for you as a client or as an actor in that space.

00:17:22:19 - 00:17:33:02

Ellie

Exciting times coming up. Serdar, thank-you so much for being on the podcast. It's  

been really eye opening in a part of agency life that I really haven't given much  

thought to. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.

00:17:33:14 - 00:17:39:14

Serdar Paktin

Thank you for inviting me and all these great questions, because I wouldn't be able  

to explain them otherwise without your questions.

00:17:39:17 - 00:17:40:09

Ellie

My pleasure.

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About Ape Group

Ape Technology Solutions are a digital solutions agency based in Lasham, Alton, providing digital marketing, IT architecture, and web design and development services to organisations.

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About 303

303 is a creative-focussed digital marketing agency that helps premium direct to consumer businesses to create and amplify their brand.

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Sookio, is an award-winning Cambridge digital marketing agency founded in 2008 by Sue Keogh, who spent the early part of her career creating web content for the BBC, ITV.com, Magic FM, Yahoo, and AOL.

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About Pitch 121

Pitch121 is a social selling service. They nurture your future clients, like you, at scale, growing your network and starting conversations that convert. Through thorough targeting, they make sure every single conversation is with your potential ideal client.

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The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.

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About Trendy Grandad

Trendy Grandad are a creative agency that creates content for corporate business that want to be trendy,