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SBP 236: SBP Interview - Data is not the problem. With Ian Whittaker. · Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Barber Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Marketing is not just a cost market.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to see it as you're ultimately a risk reductionist.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: That by actually sort of spending on marketing, what you're doing is you're building the fighting power, you're building the resilience, you're building the strength against new professors.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Barber Podcast, a place for business leaders to get the best and most critical information on marketing, strategy, and innovation.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your host are basically in facilities together experiences.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, welcome back to the Steam of Arbor.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: Super interesting conversation today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: Most marketers think we lose budget arguments because we don't have enough proof.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: I've been guilty of this.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_04: So we build better dashboards, better attribution, better reports, more data, and we walk in the room with more evidence than we had the year before, and we still lose.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I think here's what's actually going on.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: When a marketer looks at the budget, they see a limitation on what they can achieve.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: And when an executive team looks at this exactly the same number, they see expenditure and exposure to the business.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: So the same number, but two completely different perspectives.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't think this is really a proof problem.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think it might actually be a risk problem, which is why we built this episode to be hopefully forwarded.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: If you're a marketer, you can send it to your CFO before the next budget meeting.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_04: And if you're one of the many CFOs that we have listening, uh and somebody sent this to you, stay with us because I think our guest that we have today, Ian Whitaker, has spent a lot of time on your side of the table.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Ian, welcome to the show.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_04: Really great to be here.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks very much, Mark, and for seeing this for having me.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we're really excited.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: So to just to give a little bit of background, I think we'll give you a chance to talk a little bit more about this, but you're the founder and managing partner at Liberty Sky uh Advisors.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: You've got 20 years plus as an equities analyst um in the city covering media, tech, and telecoms.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you're twice City AM analyst of the year, author of an analysis behind the IPA and brand finance investment analyst survey, uh, and here with us today to talk about all things related to how we better evaluate marketing.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I mean you like just to tee us up, you spent a lot of time um sitting between really three worlds financial markets, media and tech.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: Just to give us some background, how did you get there?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_04: Where did that how did how did your path get to that point?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, uh it's a really good question.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So as you say, I started uh um off, actually started off my career as a management consultant, but then sort of I moved into investment banking and then became an equities research analyst.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now I covered the media and tech sectors for 20 years as that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that sort of very much became the industry knowledge, and when you're an equities analyst, you understand a lot of the conversations you are you're having with CEOs, CFOs, but you're also understanding the mindset of investors as well.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is, you know, and we will touch upon this and we'll go into more detail later, but it becomes absolutely, I think, fundamental to understanding many of the issues.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: What you start to realize is that everyone has a boss.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, in the case of CEOs and CFOs, that's often investors.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: You you could also argue it it was people like me, sort of who would be critiquing what companies were doing.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so sort of uh there's a famous sort of investor called Charlie Mung Munger.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: I always have to sort of a um yeah, I you know, I always have to sort of think about that hard because there's obviously Charlie Mingus, who's a jazz player, but that's obviously not relevant for the conversation.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, not today.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Great bass player.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, well, yeah, absolutely.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: His music is great.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, but that's for another time.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Point being with that, he said if you understand the incentives, you understand the behavior.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think what one of the things that's absolutely crucial here when it comes to marketing, and hopefully that many people take away from this, is understanding the behaviors of sort of the board and the decision makers when it comes to marketing and why they act the way they they do.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, sort of uh as I said, I was 20 years sort of a uh as an analyst, and then five years ago I decided to leave the city, leave the financial market, and then became uh started up my own firm, which was Limited Sky Advisors, and now I act as an advisor uh to board CEOs, CFOs, um, in the media and tech space, whether it's around strategy and when particularly it comes to advertising, talking about the need to bridge what's happening with advertising with the needs of companies and to make marketing more relevant to companies and their strategies.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_05: Love that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's it's funny, and Mark talked about this in your uh in kind of like the warm-up here.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: Twice C D AM analyst of the year.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_05: First of all, that's probably not easy to do.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_05: What are you seeing that other analysts weren't seeing?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, um another great question.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would where I made my name as an analyst and why I was awarded um awarded twice was that I the the sort of feedback that that came was it was because I saw the trends ahead of every of anyone else.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: So where I got sort of the sort of oh it's easy to be consensual, but it's easy to take the view that everyone else does.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: But often what you'll find is when you connect the dots, there's a pattern that that is that is to me it seems obvious that the markets are not necessarily picking up on.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, from that standpoint, there were a number of calls that made both in terms of industry calls and then also as well on on stock-specific calls that were anti-consensual, very much at the time, but actually controversial, but turned out to be turned out to be correct.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And look, I'm not saying you know, nobody gets everything.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I know there are there are some industry commentators without mentioning names who talk about the fact that they get everything right, but you know, it it's impossible to get everything sort of uh right all the time, but but usually sort of where people came to me seeking advice was as it were to sort of on the trends and the likely trends moving forwards.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And what somebody said to me once, which I think is probably a very good summary of that, is to say, you know, you tell us what's round the corner that we can't see.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's if there was a single sort of reason that that's probably it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you're flying a helicopter, pretty much, yeah.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and look, I think it all became well, you know.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if I was flying a helicopter, I wouldn't be getting that helicopter as a passenger, I could tell you that now.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um but but you know, I think it it's a good way of putting it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, often what happens is people get very sort of concentrated on the things that that in front of them.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: No, this is rocket science, you know, with things it's just working out again, incentives, way to look at things, putting the dots together, and then realizing, okay, given all these things, this is what's likely to happen.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: So, like with all the work you've done on looking at, I mean, you've probably read hundreds of financial reports, I would imagine, at this point.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_04: What was the thing that made you want to start helping marketers speak more financial language and be able to communicate better to CFOs?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, uh where do we start with with that?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think the first thing to say is just to if you look at marketing, it's absolutely fundamental to m to the business success of the vast majority of companies.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say brand is the most underappreciated asset that a company has, and yet it's actually sort of the most valuable.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure we'll discuss this in more detail later.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: But look, you know, what would say is it is brand that gives you pricing power, it is brand that gives you resilience, it is brand that essentially persuades companies or competitors rather, that your company isn't a weak, uh weak player sort of ready to be devoured on things.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's so fundamental to company success.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what's interesting, if you look at stock market valuations, you know, sort of 50 years ago you you had nearly 90% of stock market valuations, particularly in you know in the US, was driven by companies that made you know made physical things, hard things, you know, tangibles, your general motors, your general electrics, yeah, and so on.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at it now, over 90% of market capitalization is driven by intangibles, data, IP, but also as well-brand.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so one thing was essentially to saying, yeah, look, almost did you wanna I mean the way I like to look at things anyway is just to be, you know, to think, okay, where are the underappreciated assets, where are the things that people are not looking at, but are which are absolutely crucial.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Brand was very much top of that list, yeah, and advertisement was top of that list and the way that it was looked at by companies, but actually the value sort of it it it gained.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think also as well, there were two other things which in a way sort of fascinated is probably too strong a word, but I actually found sort of uh quite sort of uh amazing, which is you know, one is is the behavior of the advertising industry itself.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you think about marketeers, what they're really supposed to do is if you're trying to sell a product to a service, you have to understand the customer, you have to think about what they're thinking, you have to then tie in your product to that thinking, and then that's how you make the sale.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: But what they weren't thinking was actually, you know, CFOs and the boards were also a customer.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of the the way that sort of marketers talk to their boards, yeah, it's completely sort of uh odds with the way that they would actually go about approaching the customer.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: But actually it's the same sort of mindset, is thinking, you know what, actually this is yeah, this is what they need, this is what's really their top priorities.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, if we'll understand that, where does our product very much fit into that?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Second thing is, and it's the ultimate irony, yeah, a you can say whether they you should lack or cry at this.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is an industry where if you you look at its foundations, they're essentially about confidence.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's a basically about instilling trust in your buyer that essentially this product, your service that you're selling actually can deliver the job that you want.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, when it comes to the marketing industry, it's absolutely awful at doing that job when it comes to marketing itself.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there is, I would argue, a lack of confidence in the industry about how it's sort of uh the the value of its product, and that then translates to almost as it were a retreat to the comfort zone to talk about things that I think people in the industry feel comfortable about, but quite frankly, from a management perspective, aren't particularly relevant.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_05: Mark and I like this line that you that you have where you're saying marketing has a vocabulary but lacks the the grammar or something to that effect.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I think like you know, your your your previous answer kind of articulated this, but do you mind just taking that one step further and really unpacking like what is it about the grammar that we're missing, even though we may have some of that vocabulary?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's interesting.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's there's a lot of talk, and and look, I'm guilty of this because uh sort of a number of years ago I I sort of was talking about speaking the language of the CFO, which is absolutely crucial.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's been adopted by a lot of the industry that needs to, you know, talk, as it were, the language of what finance directors do.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's true, you know, the the industry has learnt the words.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, learnt eBITR, it's learnt return on investment, it's learnt incrementality.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think what it hasn't sort of learnt is actually how things get constructed.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it understands the individual words, but it doesn't really understand how they fit together and the understanding that goes behind that.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: And when you look at sort of uh a board, a board's not really deciding whether marketing works or not.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we'll discuss this in more detail sort of later in the later in the episode, but what they're actually thinking about is okay, you know, we operate in an uncertain world, we operate in an uncertain environment.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Where do we put that next dollar to spend?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: What's the decision-making process that we come to?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because at the end of the day, what they're sort of calculating in their minds is they're thinking about capital allocation, they're thinking about risk, they're thinking about essentially, okay, given the priorities of investors, what do we need to do next?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you go on top of that, you've got, as mentioned before, you've got the whole question of of incentives.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what what sort of the the point that I was trying to make with that sentence was to say you can sort of, in a way, you can you can end up fluent.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bit like what I would say, sort of, if you speak up on language, you may end up sort of fluent speaking it, but you still won't persuade because you less you haven't really picked up the nuances, you haven't really picked up the understanding of what's going on behind the scenes.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I think marketers are at the moment.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: They talk the words and they think the words are enough.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's not correct.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, what you need to do is you need to understand what's actually going on in the minds of those boards who make the decision, and that's a different sort of argument than just speaking the language.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_04: Can so just to build on that and specifically thinking about the risk part.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so we when we did that opening, we talked about marketers will often say things like, Well, we don't have enough budget to do blah, blah, blah, whatever the outcome is.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: But then you've got like we had somebody on uh a few a guy named David Lewis that we used to work with who was a CMO and now he's running, he's the CEO of an organization.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: He had this comment, he's like, Yeah, you know, if you don't spend your budget, I used to think that was a really bad thing.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: I always needed it, but now as a CEO, it's not such a bad thing at all.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: Like I actually can do other things with that money.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: And so I kind of wonder like what I talked about, we see budget as as a limitation of what we can achieve in some ways, but then the board sees it as risk.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe can you just talk about board or the executive team?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like non-marketers, why do they where does that a perception of risk come from?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, you I mean, it would depend company by company, because you know, companies, individual companies will face different different risks.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: But the way almost to look at it is think about it in terms of of let's say you could almost think about it in terms of an individual.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say you're investing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, you could invest in Bitcoin, you know, you manage the sort of return that you want against the risk profile that you're you're willing to accept.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think it's a you know, the key thing here to say is that marketers go in there and that the number one priority is to say, okay, how can we increase the marketing budget?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Or how can we defend the marketing budget?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the problem with that is that essentially going in with a mindset that says, okay, we need more money.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, from a board standpoint, what they're thinking about is actually, you know what?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Every decision that we take, we know there is some uncertainty allocated to it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: The question is how comfortable or uncomfortable we deal with that, and then also as well the balance between the return that we can get and the risks that we're actually taken.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And what often happens is that when they hear sort of what marketeers are saying, you know, actively they want the highest return for the lowest risk and sort of uh that they can take.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: But the problem that often sort of marketing has here is marketing doesn't necessarily get repeated because it's uncertain.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Boards can cope with that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: What actually boards are really concerned about is that uncertainty, they can't get really a grasp on it's unquantified.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's not sort of a uh when they listen to marketeers, they're not thinking, okay, we could take a we could take a leap of faith with this marketing sphere, but what exactly are we going to get out of it?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of that comes down to the communication and the language that marketeers actually use.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: And again, you know, it's communication balanced with understanding.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you go into a boardroom and talk about reach and you talk about measurement, you've lost the board.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because for them, that's not their top priorities.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: What they want to sort of work out is okay, we've got our business priorities.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Where does marketing fit in with the sort of with that?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, this risk point is really, really crucial because, you know, again, humans generally tend to be quite risk-reverse.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the famous psychological experiments that you'd much rather sort of not lose a dollar rather than gain one.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to when it comes to actually the marketing spend, marketers tend to go in and say, uh, you know, if you spend more on this, we can guarantee you this return.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting you compare that with people in in IT, what they tend to go in and say, if you don't make this investment, these are the risks involved.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: The board is a lot more receptive to the second one than it is to the first.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're thinking about the risks.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's why I say that in terms of marketing, they need to sort of look at it from the board's perspective.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, how do we manage the risk?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they need to sort of uh change their messaging to realize that fact.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: One of the one of the things I want to say, maybe it's been the last five years, maybe, maybe six, I don't know, where we've started really thinking more about the long term versus the short term in terms of like the value of the investment that you have today you put it into market.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I I don't want to overgeneralize here, but I I feel like I have this feeling that a lot of these boards will always look in the short term because they're looking to survive in the short term.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: Is there value in really trying to reposition marketing spend instead of it just being a number into a split between a long-term strategy and a short-term strategy?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_05: Or do you think that's a fool's errand?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, yeah, one of the lines that I've been saying for quite a while now is that marketing is intangible capex.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that effectively, just like you know, a company recognises it needs to build a physical plant, it needs that investment, but essentially that drives long-term growth.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same, particularly when it comes to to brand marketing.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in particular.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's not to say that performance marketing isn't important at all.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about getting a balance between the between the two.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I think one thing that's interesting when you look at the when you look at marketing, I think marketing is sort of uh unique in this perspective.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it sort of fuels the idea that marketing is a cost, not an investment.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you look look at sort of of most of the most of the functions within a company, what they'll do is they'll split out, let's call their their sort of uh their investment or their line between what's the maintenance side and what's the growth side.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if we go back to that sort of physical analogy, you know, you've got to spend your capex on building a new plant, but you've also as well got to spend it on maintenance as well.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't spend it on maintenance, the plant falls apart.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and essentially the cost of repairing that is actually far greater than it is of just actually having the maintenance at the start.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: It also means as well, by the way, another sort of sort of point where that analogy is quite useful, is you'd never go for the lowest cost if you were building a factory.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: You realise that would be fool's errand, but often in marketing that's the way that it's done.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: But to come back to this point of the split between maintenance and growth capex, Martin doesn't do that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of presented as one line.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and so consequently, sort of what boards have, and again, it's sort of tied back in with the Swiss point.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Boards are trying to think, okay, how do we allocate our spend given the parties that we that they have?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're under pressure from from analyst investors who want them to meet their quarterly numbers.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if they don't have an idea when it comes to marketing, there's how much is they need to do just to keep going, and how much they actually need to, let's say, expand and grow the product, sure, then quite frankly from a decision-making process are gonna go, yeah, the best thing is actually to allocate it to other areas where we do have more visibility.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's often why marketing get loses out.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: I have a good thing we have some more time because I have like so many questions running through my mind all at once.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um okay, so let me start with this.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, on one hand, advertising as a uh as a line item in the PL is an expense.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: On the other hand, brand only shows up in a PL if a company's been sold and then it goes into goodwill, if I am understanding it properly.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: And so there's two different places where it can show up, but you're never going to get an evaluation on goodwill until you actually have something to value it against.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_04: So otherwise, all advertising sits under an expense category.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: And and I'm just wondering, like, are I keep coming back to this idea of that you mentioned Charlie Munger before and the the him and Buffett had that, you know, voting machine versus a weighing machine.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like, on one hand, we're we're saying this that we're driving this weighing machine that's gonna drive goodwill in the future.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: But everything we're doing right now is about a voting machine in the short term, and really it's just an expenditure that you know, if you know there's any pressure on the business, then you know they're just looking for ways to cut it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_04: So, like, are we like what are we not getting between those two things?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, like either the voting machine, weighing machine, or is that a useful analogy for us to think differently about marketing and and or the kind of PL, like the place on the PL where the expense sits versus where the investment lives.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, look, I I I I think I mean that's absolutely right to say that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean the the issue here this is this comes to the fundamental heart of the problem particularly when it comes to the finance teams you you have an accounting standard that quite frankly was um was an accounting standard that was suited to the world of 50 years ago.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah the accounting standard IAS 38 specifically excludes brand from the balance sheet so it can't be capitalized it has to be expensed as you said unless specifically you've got a takeover.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Now if you think about again coming to the motivating factors you've got company managements who need need to meet their numbers okay so they've got quarter numbers got to go back to investors if they miss it it's a big deal.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know the easiest line to cut is marketing you know because effectively it's immediate it 100% drops through to profit line and also as well quite frankly in terms of the damage you see it later on this is where it comes back to this point.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like not spending on maintenance in a factory.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: You don't see sort of things you know start creaking until much later.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And for the person who often makes the decision quite frankly they're sort of by the time that damage gets sort of uh sort of is obvious they've already been promoted or they left the company so there's no personal risk to them because from the the the market spend and again this ties into the whole idea of risk not just company risk but also as well personal risk from taking the decision.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know some marketing spend is almost as a word a default category to go to.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now I think for from a marketing perspective what you have to realise is you're never gonna you're not gonna change that accounting standard at least anytime soon.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: There was actually a review of IAS 38 that was going on that would have been the opportunity for the for the industry to turn around and say things have to change but that ship has said so you have to live with the accounting standards.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: But what that also means as well there were two things from that one is if you understand that just the very fact that you understand what's the motivating factor sort of that will help but crucially also as well I think you almost have to split it you have to say you know what this is the accounting standard but actually the point that you have to make to boards is to say well you're thinking about it actually cutting marketing spend and saying that's fine you know it helps our numbers what we're gonna tell you is cutting marketing spend and particularly I think when it comes to brand is that's actually introducing a major risk for the company.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so you if you start to cut your brand what you're really doing is you're reducing the factors that talk about before reducing price and power reducing resilience sort of reducing that moat if you want to use that sort of word in vogue at the moment sort of in terms of protection against other players.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so recognize the accounting standard recognise it for what it is that's what you're you're working with.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Understand the dynamics and but also as well then frame it in a way to say okay we recognize the accounting standards we recognize the pressure that you're under but actually let me show you the risks of cutting the cutting your marketing budget and what it does to your business long term.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say you know I when we're speaking about the IPA sort of report I gave a presentation sort of on that when it came out the one slide that people came up to afterwards and like wow that was amazing was to say you know we're saying look most boards think of marketing as almost like a navative effect that it it's two plus two plus two plus two.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so let's say you cut 25% in one year so you take that two to one point five the overall effects that it takes your number down from eight to seven point five boards can live with that risk.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_05: But actually when it comes to marketing it's more cumulative it's more like two times two times two times two to multiply and so it yeah exactly and so when you look at it like that if you take the two down to one point five in one year 16 suddenly then suddenly then goes to twelve yeah on there it's a much sharper drop and I think it's sort of pointing out the boards that say you think cutting marketing spend from an accounting standpoint is something that and again feeds back to incentives it's a low risk way of meeting your numbers what marketers have got says well actually it's a very high risk way of meeting your numbers on one that we can show you the evidence here and we've got the data that if you do cut back your spending this is how you're going to pay for that in the long term you know what's interesting with that because you you referenced the we wanted to get into your um into your survey here a little bit as well but you know the survey found that analysts rank brand higher than almost anything else right so like there is a fundamental belief in the power of a brand and I know a lot of companies get valued on that as well.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_05: But then when it comes down in you know you talked about like looking at it from an accounting perspective and appreciating what it is and of course maybe we have to change our stance there is this I don't want to call it an applause or anything like that but when you're dealing with the shorttermish of sometimes these organizate they organizations do quarter to quarter um the you know looking at their financial results it does get cut.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_05: And it it's not like it it isn't happening.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's constantly happening.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_05: So if on the one hand analysts are saying yes brand on the other hand when the organizations are doing what they need to do to be I don't know deliver on Ebada to deliver their revenue targets like whatever it may be, it just feels like something's something's missing here or at least the it there's not um maybe a through line that everyone can align on that hey no we need to make sure that those investments are still being being had.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_05: And maybe again it maybe it's our problem in the terms of the positioning and not and articulate more from a compounding perspective like you said.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_05: But it just feels it's the opposite that's happening time and time again.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah no that's a really fascinating sort of point.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: And look I think you know the sort of aligning blame I'd say to you know nobody is necessarily act acting irrationally here.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: They are reacting to the incentives and pressures that they actually have.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean you're absolutely right it would seem like a contradiction so when did the IPA survey found that 79% of analysis investors and these were analyst investors across the US and and the UK they put brand at the top of what they appraised when they look at a company and say yeah whether a company's in a very good position or not.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: And actually you know just to point out I mean this was 200 so you've obviously got a margin of error issue here.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: But that was actually the top sort of top rank category.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: It came ahead of reported topic it came ahead of the uh quality of management and yet you know 52% said sure if people cut another marketing spend then it's a positive measure and only 36% said if marketing spend is cut then it's essentially it's long term damage.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: But actually I think what you've got there it's not necessarily a contradiction but what they're really pricing are two different things.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know if you look at analysts what they value brand as is a state if you want to look at it a state of things.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: So a strong brand to them shows up in numbers that they can actually see it shows up in pricing power it shows up in retention it shows up in margin stability or growth it shows up in low volatility that's one thing that they will definitely value and they will pay for the problem is with marketing spend is they don't value it because what they don't have is a way to verify that this company's spend actually converts into the very thing that they value which is this state of the brand and so yeah they look at brand and they can say we know that LB Mate has got a strong brand we can see that and we can see that in the numbers but what they can't see and where there is as it were the the the sort of for them is very much the improvement conversion is how that marketing spend actually leads to that strong brand.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about it from that standpoint actually approving a cut is actually rational rather than you know in a way actually sort of irrational.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because you can bank the you bank the saving you bank it some of and it's a media immediate and say that's great we know that we're going to get this amount of of saving going through.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: But actually you know the cost is uncertain and it's deferred and that's that's why saying they're not saying brand doesn't matter what they're saying is actually that the they're actually saying that the company hasn't shown how their marketing spend actually builds it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that that is a different thing.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah and there's so many things that stack up to favor that and like I think the incentives as you talked about before is really kind of the thing leading it often we have all kinds of measurements a lot of them especially with digital are now coming from the different channels.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_04: The one thing that I would say is not a channel metric that we try and use to prove the value of marketing is through a measurement like ROI.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_04: But that ultimately becomes a short-term measure and then some of the things you mentioned like pricing power or memory uh kind of measurements like none of those things are coming from the channels they're not easy to get and so then I think in a lot of ways there's this mismatch between well also the the the idea of and we'll get into ROI in a minute uh in a minute I'm sure but like why isn't why haven't we using this weighing machine going back to the analogy idea that marketing is in advertising specifically is kind of like just sales done over media.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so then we look at things that way and then we optimize to the short term rather than the long term and so the value that brand has as you're talking about building the brand is is long term but yet our measurements don't seem to align to all the different ways that we improve the brand components.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and I think I I think again look this it is it's one of the points that that have made quite often and it again comes back to this sort of understanding you know speaking a language and understanding it.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah return on investment everyone talks about return on investment when it comes to marketing spend and you know that we need to return it to demonstrate return on investment.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now as an analyst quite frankly return on investment you wouldn't use it really in your analysis it's actually seen as quite a low quality sort of measurement tool.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well because because you know think you know if you look at the actual calculation yeah you can increase your there are two ways you can increase your return on investment you know you can actually sort of increase the outcome sort of or what you could do is actually reduce the spend.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know it's a mathematical calculation you can cut your marketing spend if your return on investment goes up.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know and so there is a confusion here I think between what the marketing industry is concentrated on is almost like the efficiency signal which is return on investment.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: But actually what it really needs to concentrate on is the effectiveness what that marketing spend is actually delivering.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you know the other thing I would also say about ROI as well is the signal that it sends ROI if you say RI to a finance team it sort of immediately puts you in that sort of or or you know very much weights you and this is particularly with brand weights you towards being seen as a commodity rather than necessarily being seen as a uh a you know as a sort of investment on things.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: And this is why why I say with the investment yeah you need not just not only just speak the language of the the finance team but actually understand where they come from and where these dynamics actually play out.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_05: Let's get into a little bit the the RI conversation because I think both Mark and I agree with you on on that it is the wrong metric and we we need to be rethinking this.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_05: But and if if I'm not mistaken I think discounted cash flow comes in as a great replacement there.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I'd really want to get into like why is discounted cash flow effectively reserved for capital expenditure and the tool exists but the conve convention doesn't it it just feels like it's it's something's still missing and I don't I I can't put I personally can't put my finger on it but love to get your take on that.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well I think you again you've got a couple of things there that that are actually so that uh that's actually happening.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think look ROI is a very ROI is a very simple metric to use.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's very easy it's very you know so I mean it's ease of use sort of facilitates its i i it's sort of spread.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing also as well is you know who does ROI benefit?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know what would say is that actually return on investment yeah it very much favors the tech platform in terms of their spending and arguably you would say that one of the greatest successes if not the greatest success of the tech platforms has almost as it were to drag the advertising industry onto the battlefield that tech wants to fight which is again talking about these sort of short-term metrics and so forth.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's not to say that short-term spend performer spend is not vital or one sort of you know one part one type of spend is better than the other I mean that's not true.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean each has their own use and there needs to be a balance between the two but the problem that I think has happened with the you know with the industry is to say is that it's sort of it's allowed its methodology and it's allowed the language in which it speaks and its understanding to be driven by metrics that very much favor a short-term outlook.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: And look you know discounted cash flow net present value in terms of those long the sort of those are ways as you say that you would think about how you would make a a physical investment building a factory and so forth of course they will have their you know the they have their issues with it as well.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: But again particularly for brand I I think they actually capture sort of of the long-term value that is built.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also as well the other thing that we'll say about that is the whole exercise of building that discounted cash flow actually introduces a an intellectual rigo into the process that by itself actually then sort of builds credibility builds credibility and also as well you make sure that the end totality is much better.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and and that yeah I I think that's the way that the marketing industry needs to start thinking about you know the its sort of deliverables I think one thing that would sort of you know would also say here as well and again I'm sure many people may come back and say this is unfair etc but it's certainly the the the view that have that that I've seen time and time again I think there tends to be a lot of focus on the industry on the outputs that produce.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody will produce a report and says oh you know we've got this report and and this is the final proof that this you know this actually works.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: When you look at finance teams you know when they look at boards you'll but finance in particular yeah any finance director will tell you that any model can be manipulated to give you the outcome that you want what they're really looking for is the intellectual rigour and and the care that's commands the inputs and they may disagree with you on the outcome but if they can see how you've actually reached that and they feel comfortable that the process you've gone through is actually being rigorous, stress tested and it is credible then to come back to that risk point that we talked about sort of previously they will take that leap of faith to say okay yeah we can see this works.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'll give you one example look at what happened with Unilever during the 2022 inflation crisis where you you had a massive increase sort of in input cost coming through.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now Unilever during that year it got 11% price increase coming through you had 2% impact in in terms of its volume.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: In that year even though it was seeing inflation coming through in its input costs it still put through an additional 500 million euros of extra marketing spend into there because yeah what it saw was this spend is necessary to deliver the returns so you can actually as a marketer you can go against the times here but what you have to demonstrate is that actually what marketing does is it very much sort of of the what a business needs.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: I keep thinking about the comment around um if you show me incentives I'll tell you the behavior kind of thing and and then ROI like and then also your comment about vocabulary versus grammar.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: So we're using what we think is the right words and and saying things like ROI because it sounds very financially oriented.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_04: And yet it's it's an incentive then that we're saying that a marketing is solely attributable to the return that a business gets and specifically over the short term that we're going to be measuring this.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_04: And so in a way it's sloppy thinking because there's a whole bunch of things that go into building equity in a brand that we're not measuring by using the ROI terminology and the in the calculation and it like what you said about the DCF like it may not be the right metric but the credibility you can build by using a metric measurement that's more robust more more carefully selected and calculated is is I think part of the win around that conversation around confidence and risk because everyone can know that if from a financial point of view like we're using the right we're we think we're using the right terms but they go yeah watch this I can just cut their budget and boost their ROI pull my beer they'll figure it out eventually yeah no I mean look I mean it it's it's again it it's sort of as you say with the incentives the incentives often at the heart of things the the the risk points are often at the heart of things and also as well in a way you know the the there's some elements which which just because of the very nature of things inadvertently play against marketing.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: So for example you know let's say you get a company that cuts its marketing spend and it doesn't lose volume.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well you know and essentially a business may think well that's you know that's great.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know actually we can cut our marketing spend what we're showing here was we're we're sort of of showing cost discipline and listen investors then say you know yes this is you know that they're showing cost discipline we should rate the shares more highly the simple fact is though if you're actually cutting your marketing spend and you're not losing volume then actually what you're demonstrating is that your brand's is strong enough to actually coast off.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's fine over the short term but there comes a point it's a bit like drawing water from a well there comes a point at which the well becomes actually dry if you actually just continue drawing upon it and you don't actually build it up and this is why I come you know it links in again with this point about maintenance of growth capex you need to cur to continue suspend.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: So there is an element there that marketers are sort of pushing back that almost away with brand it can be the victim of its own success.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_02: That it's strong enough you know this point strong enough you know and fine we can cut it and we don't see any any impact.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think one thing that was interesting when it comes to and it this for me would would sort of almost as it were both prove to debate and to a large degree I think it would would definitely help in terms of the you know if this was the case then it would would certainly help in terms of the you know taking away that incentive issue.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: When we did that survey in terms of the IPA 89% of Anders investors actually thought that marketing spend should be capitalised.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: 56% said always you know there's another 33% that said sometimes.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now the point being if it was capitalized what would happen is it would mean that for many boards cutting it would stop being you know it would stop being a free sort of free move they could actually make because it would show investment in the asset base and therefore sort of the market would would penalize it accordingly.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately as I say you know the the accounting standards are not going to are not going to change.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's the market which sort of you know the way that things operate in.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: But just because the accounting standards doesn't mean that marketeers can show right that actually reducing marketing and spend and brand spend actually again is building up problems and trouble for the business sort of over the medium to long term.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: And sure if boards decide to actually ignore that fact then that's their responsibility but marketeers have done their job and demonstrated and look market Martin's got enough data to show that data's not the problem data is not the problem you know but the the idea that all you go in was it if data that if you show people data they will act rationally that's not correct.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen it might be the title of this episode Data's not the problem data's not the problem.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah you it's gotta be you know data's only one part of it you know it's the evidence that sort of backs up your case but it's not the case itself.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah so here at at the sleeping bar podcast we're all about like bringing everybody together and maybe not necessarily holding hands.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's okay like we're not always holding hands with every other the discipline in the in in our organizations but we want to be building bridges.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_05: So when we think about the bridge between marketing and and finance what does that really look like and how do we get people to actually walk across it?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well yeah yeah I mean look I think what I mean from what I've seen with the companies I've worked with is that often the issue is not there is again come back to this point there's not a lack of data.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah there's not a lack of information out there.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know often what it comes down to is let's call it translation it is exactly building that bridge between the two parts but if you take that sort of a uh analogy A bit further, not all bridges are the same.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and indeed, not all sort of gaps that they're crossing are the same as well.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: You might take a road bridge if the drop is only two feet, but you wouldn't take it over deeper V.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: You'd want a big, strong bridge to actually cross with.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly, that you would feel comfortable with.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think, you know, again, it sort of sort of comes back to this point.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think, as I say, this is a two-way street.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think finance needs to see marketing as not just a cost line, it needs to see it as you're ultimately a risk reduction tool.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: That by actually sort of spending on marketing, what you're doing is you're building the pricing power, you're building the resilience, you're building the strength against new competitors.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And pricing power, you know, most finance teams will recognize that actually pricing is yeah, sort of far far more important than metrics, certainly Anderson investors do, sure, than volume are on there.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: So finance has to recognise that, but marketeers have, you know, I would be blunt have to get out of their comfort zone.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: And again, going back to the point that said earlier, you wouldn't go to a consumer trying to sell a product and say, I tell you what, I'm gonna speak in my own language.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: You may not understand it, but actually, I don't really care.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't really care about your priorities as well.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just tell you what I feel comfortable with, and I expect you to actually buy that product.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: But in many cases, that's effectively what's happening when marketing teams are going to boards, and their main sort of focus is to talk about the reach and the measurement and to talk about sort of marketing terms that quite frankly boards are not interested in.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but it has to be that common language.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_04: The comfortable, the part about marketers getting uncomfortable, I think is really important uh point.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_04: And and I know V's V said this a couple times in the past, um, where he became I don't I'll paraphrase you, V, but you can correct me.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like I think you said that you became a better marketer when you stopped doing marketing, meaning well, you maybe explain what you mean by that.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think it's like essentially stop thinking about all the everything that's in front of us the way a marketer would, and started using like more of that business context.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think, again, at the end of the day, we're all operating in these business cycles which matter more than a marketing cycle that we're sometimes we get a little bit myopic in.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it it's it it's a really good point because what always say is you know what people you know have a tendency to do.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you asked the question, you know, at the beginning, why you know, why that's sort of a um I I won won the awards that I did.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think the whole reason of that was that I never sort of looked at it from the point of view of saying this is you know this is where we are now and as it were look forwards.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: What looked at was to say, okay, where's the end result and work backwards?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say this is very much again what sort of what would say to to marketing people.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say, look, you know, do that, work out what exactly the parties for the company, then work backwards, and then see where your product actually fits into the fits into the scheme of things.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's also as well, quite frankly, a bit of a reframing thing here.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you people when they go into marketing, they talk about uh, you know, and apologies that this seems like sort of of uh sort of of reiterating the point.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, often they'll talk about you need to increase the spend because you know you need to you know we're benchmarking our spend against other categories of of of uh spending.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I actually probably argue a better way for marketing to compare itself is to actually think about sort of compare itself with the things that a company does to reduce risk, right?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: A company buys insurance, it doesn't think about the RI and insurance, it's thinking about actually that insurance is reducing my risk.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: It thinks about essentially, you know what, we've got a source from one from more than one place because actually if we don't, then what happens if something goes wrong?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's the way that marketing should be sort of saying to itself.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: The analogy that I always use, and and look, one of my sort of one of my backgrounds is you know, sort of um military historian in terms of war, you know, brand spending in particular is like defense spending.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: You think you can cut it with no sort of issues, but the problem is that the moment you need it, it becomes absolutely vital.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the bigger problem is it's not something that could be turned on like a light switch.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you reduce it for 20 years, you can't suddenly then say we're ready to go.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and again, going back to the inflation price in 2022, we saw a perfect example of that, and particularly in today's world, given the volatility, we're gonna see more of that as well.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the way that we're very much frame things.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I think again, it's you know, it's reframing the way in which marketing is presented to the board and what its purpose is for.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great analogy.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: This has been such an interesting conversation.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I really appreciate this uh candor and and sort of just openness from your end.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_04: How do people find out more about you and the kinds of work you're doing and and and learn more about what we've been talking about?
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: Look, you know, I I I'm always happy to chat.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you can find me easily enough.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in it's probably the easiest thing.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, send me a you know, drop me a line on LinkedIn.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's fine.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know if you'll share my details, my email details, yeah.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, very happy for that.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, very happy for for those to be shared as well if people want to get in touch and so forth, and just come and talk.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And what we'd say is, you know, this is a bit like a matrix that there are certain principles that very much hold across virtually all companies, but they're always as well going to be things which are very much company specific because every company has their own unique set of circumstances.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, but yeah, anyone who's interested, wants to have a chat, they feel as though many of the things we talked about actually resonate with them.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: Great, yeah, just get in touch.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks so much, so good.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_05: Ian, thank you.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks very much for having me on.