Episode 72: Increase impact with immersion

Ben Walker  00:03

Welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast. The contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM Marketing Podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the companies they work for. We hope you enjoy the episode. Hello everybody and welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast and today is a very special day because once a quarter we are joined by the last queen of Scotland, Morag Cuddeford-Jones, who is looking forward to her beloved rugby teams impending defeat at Twickenham on Saturday to England, and between being the last queen of Scotland and following her rugby team, she is of course editor of the wonderful super soaraway Catalyst magazine Morag how are you today?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  00:49

Hi, I'm very well thank you very much, Ben, and it was lovely talking to you on this podcast bye bye! Losing to England, honestly.

 

Ben Walker  00:58

I tease, I tease I have absolutely no idea what the result will be. And you've got the better record I think recently in that match. So we'll see.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  01:06

Losing is allowed.

 

Ben Walker  01:07

Losing is allowed. Good, good. And we're also joined today by a special guest Amy Kean, who is founder and creative director of GoodShout and he has been featured in the magazine. We're gonna be talking to her a little bit later. But first I'll say hi to you, Amy. How are you?

 

Amy Kean  01:21

I'm good, and I couldn't care less about rugby.

 

Ben Walker  01:24

Well, there we go. We go. We've got a neutral. We've got a neutral here Morag between the barricades.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  01:31

All right, perhaps perhaps Amy we can discuss about the wrong shaped ball in that case. But definitely rugby rugby has to be close to my heart a true Scot married to a Welshman, I wouldn't get away with it otherwise.

 

Ben Walker  01:46

Bit of a back story for our Morag fans there. Ladies we are starting of course, as we always do Morag as a review of the magazine, which should have landed on your doormats if your're CIM members about a fortnight ago, worldwide, and members should be getting it and as will soon too be available in digital form. You have gone you have dipped your toe in the water and tried to deal with the horrible R word have you not Morag this time.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  02:16

Resolutions, I have stayed away from that word at the start of the year, every year since I started on this magazine. And I'm afraid I capitulated, I gave in I had to resolve to do something so yes, then it just it felt like a natural time to talk about it. It felt like beyond the usual sorts of resolutions, I must be thin and beautiful. And I must shop and buy beautiful clothes, my children will be all be polished and I will have fantastic animals and I will do good things for the community and all this stuff. I felt like this really does feel like a time when people, businesses - I will avoid saying governments - are resolving to do better. And so it felt like a time to talk a little bit about what a resolution might actually mean.

 

Ben Walker  03:02

Have you made any big marketing resolutions for this year? Amy?

 

Amy Kean  03:07

I actually have. And it's a weird one. So I've worked in marketing for nearly 20 years. And now - I in innovation creativity for global agencies. And now I run my own business and obviously I do marketing for my own brand. I'm pretty good at marketing I have to be honest. So my resolutions are limited. But mine for 2023 is embrace the cringe.

 

Ben Walker  03:32

Oh yeah?

 

Amy Kean  03:32

Yes because everyone always gets so embarrassed about putting themselves out there trying new stuff, being a bit different, being a bit odd, eccentric, whatever. Sometimes, taking risks with your marketing and your creativity and your message will die on it's ass. Other times it will really work and it will really resonate. I'm making a pledge to myself to experiment this year. And sometimes it's going to make me cringe and it's going to make other people cringe and other times it might just work.

 

Ben Walker  04:03

You're gonna be passing on that advice to your clients as well at GoodShout?

 

Amy Kean  04:06

Oh, yes, yes. Well, that's the thing is that what I've realised is the and I think it's because the marketing industry is so close these days, so familial, we know everything that each other is doing. We know everybody's thoughts. We know every new trends that every brand is embracing, it's made us really self aware. And so I train people in communications and public speaking and writing and all that stuff. And it surprises me on a regular basis, how self aware people are and the negative impact that that has on the way that they communicate.

 

Ben Walker  04:40

Interesting. We'll probably be talking a little bit more about that later. But before we do, I'm going to ask Morag what resolutions she herself is making for this year. You have cracked a decade's long affliction for the human race or retail addiction have you?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  04:48

So my resolution is to be more intentional to be more intentional about the stuff I do during the day. So we're all very aware we doom scroll don't we? I don't really have an hour to kill but I seemed to have killed an hour by just scrolling endlessly through social media, the same newspaper, it's like, I keep refreshing the newspaper expecting that to be some major news story for me to read, it's not it's all the same. But specifically for the marketing context, and from a personal point of view, it'll be interesting to see is intentional consumption, to be intentional about buying. I'm sure it's the Amazonazation of how we buy stuff. See it, so easy to get it, we click it, buy it? Did we really need it? Well, we did in that instance. But I think about the amount of things that I bought on a whim and I, I couldn't tell you what they are aware they are. So my decision is to purchase more intentionally. I'm not going to stop consuming, that's you know, that's unrealistic. It's my, it's my youngest son's 15th birthday today, trust me, consumption happened on an almost epic scale this morning, food, presents, the whole lot. But if I do consume, I need to make sure I really want it, I really need it, I'm buying the best version of it that I can afford and justify. And I'm trying to project you know, so related to that is, will it last the length of time I need it for? If I don't need it for a very long amount of time, unless it's actually you know, food, which is very limited in the time you have it. Do I need it at all? So I've actually started writing down - everyone loves the new journal this time of year don't they -  I've started writing down in the back of my journal for this month. Anytime a whim comes upon me, you know, we really could do with a new sofa. It comes to something if you buy a sofa on a whim, doesn't it? I really need a new sofa, or a really fancy new gym leggings or something. Instead of buying it, I write it down. I write it in the list. And do you know what? It scratches the itch most of the time, it scratches the itch, and I don't need to buy it I go back and go. Didn't really want it after all. There you go, that's my solution to the world. I don't think I've cracked it. I've probably cracked already I tried to make it a no spend January and then went a bit hog wild in in the Oracle in Reading at the weekend. But you know, I did my best. I think also, this is the thing with resolutions, isn't it? It's all or nothing, it's always so extreme. I will never eat meat or dairy again. And then you fall at the nearest Dairylea hurdle you know, I will never do this or that or I will always go to the gym 15 times a week. And of course the pressure gets too much and you crack and you binge on chocolate, you spend your credit card and you never go near the gym ever again, trying to say I will do something with my best intention. So intentional buying, and then my best intention, hopefully means I will be very far from perfect, but I might be a smidge better than I was last year.

 

Amy Kean  08:02

There's a psychological reason why resolutions don't work. And I've always shied away from resolutions, but everyone in my life always likes to walk past a list of 20 things that they intend to do in their coming year. There's a psychological process called self symbolic completion, where the process of saying that you're going to do something gives you almost as much satisfaction as doing it. Right. It's why people love to list I'm going to stop smoking, I'm going to stop drinking, I'm going to eat healthily in your mind, the kudos that you're giving yourself for even declaring it is almost enough. And that's why exactly to your point, Morag resolutions never work. Because we trick ourselves.

 

Ben Walker  08:46

We trick ourselves, we get the dopamine hit from saying we're going to do it without actually doing it. And we make it binary all or nothing. So apart from that, apart from those amazing revelations, you realise that we can have retail therapy without buying anything. We've realised that resolutions don't have to be all or nothing, and there's, as Amy says, that actually just saying I'm to do something is good psychologically as actually doing it. Is there anything else? Is there any room for anything else and Catalyst that's going to shock your readers?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  09:19

Well, I think I don't know if it'll shock them but a couple of things occurred to me this issue so it's really linked to this talking about resolutions, Amy, you talking about you know, writing something down makes you feel like you've actually done it. Obviously I've just said I don't want to buy as much which is going to strike fear into the heart of every retailer that reads our magazine, but I think I feel we've come up with a bit of a solution for them, or rather our very lovely contributors have because we talk in the cover story about experiential retail specifically, and we are trying to make sure we don't consume and buy as much tat and as much and try and push as much you know, pointless nonsense. But people are also realising they want more connection with things without coming over all, Marie Kondo about things, you want to pick something up and have it spark joy. Well, do you know what I have a mug of tea sitting next to me. And that mug is a mug. It's a mug, and it comes from a fairly standard High Street store. But it sparks joy. Because it's a mug that was given to me by a friend. It's not a very special mug, it's not even bone china. But it was given to me, because it matches the colours of the kitchen that she designed for me. And she gave it to me on the first day, I was able to actually use my new kitchen. So it's an experience, that mug is the same as every other mug in my house, but it has an experience attached to it. And it doesn't have to be a 3000 pound designer handbag to have an amazing experience to it. I think it's about £4.99. So retailers, whatever sector they're in, I know we have a couple of really interesting sectors in the cover story. We talk about a cannabis store in America, for example and that experience is as you'd expect, as freakazoigal, as you can possibly go. I mean, some of the images in that cover story are fantastic. But you can build all sorts of experiences around what a retailer may consider to be their fairly mundane products. So I think that's a real, it's not necessarily a shocking thing for our readers. But I think that's a really good takeaway for me.

 

Ben Walker  11:26

It's a fascinating stuff, isn't it? I mean, just we should say actually, before we move on, I'm going to pick up on the immersion theme, and Morag is celebrating her fifth year now as editor of Catalyst magazine, is that right Morag?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  11:39

Oh, my Lord, I can't believe we're in the fifth year. It's brilliant, isn't it? It's, it's brilliant. But I keep sitting here going, I am gonna have something new to say aren't I? You know, I come, I come up to that leader, every issue and go, I better say something new, I can't just keep repeating the same old stuff. And I feel really proud to say that from the contributors, the readers who send in ideas and contribute everything from reviews to features, interviews. I don't think there is ever one issue where I've put down the phone or received a submission and gone. Yeah, well, we've heard that before, but we'll put it in anyway.

 

Ben Walker  12:19

It is it is mega fresh. And it's testament to you and your editing it's been an absolutely brilliant five years. We're looking forward to the next five with you Morag. Freshness, yeah, fresh ideas, immersion, you've already touched upon it and cannabis stores and more. Can you tell us a little bit about this cover story, actually. And the issue that's landing on doormats and last fortnight.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  12:20

So yeah, so to talk about the cover story, what it means to have an immersive experience, retailers we know are having to work harder. I think they've benefited from a little bit of post COVID bounce in that we were all desperate to get out just like the travel industry got absolutely chocka really quickly and we saw her badly wrong that went because then all the booking lines fell over and all the lines that the the airlines got too difficult and everything else, but there was a certain amount of yay, we're back to a different experience. But I think that wore off pretty quickly because they went, yeah and department stores, what are left of them, are still boring and horrible and a bit smelly and yuck. And actually, this isn't convenient and I can't find the size of shoes that I want, I'm going back to online.

 

Ben Walker  13:24

There are exceptions to that. But they tend to be at the top end of the department stores. Is that fair?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  13:29

There are yes. I mean, I think I'm probably just going with my experience my local department stores which are very much the mid range ones that we see in the press all the time going, why aren't they doing anything about this, they're under invested in, they are often shells that have been taken over by someone else that's had to happen quickly because the rents got to be paid and all this stuff. There's very little here we go again, intentionality behind what happens in a department store I think. But in general, just shopping being able to go out on the high street has to now be a bit more than: find the trainers, pay for the trainers, take the trainer's home. It has to have some kind of reason for us to leave our cosy homes for us to realise that we may not find what we want right off the bat. We've got to really get over this, haven't we this instant gratification thing. I think this underpins a lot of how we behave. And it's amazing how fast that that behaviour and that psychology has changed in us as people isn't it. We're all about the immediacy, we're all about that I want it right now, I have to have it right now. Even if we either regret it or forget it, you know, five minutes later. So I think immersive experiences where we go in where the brands the retail brands begin to mean something more to us, either there can be a new revenue stream you know you can have beauty brands selling spa experiences that you pay for, you know, the the makeovers in department stores used to be gratis because you wanted them to buy the products. But I'd pay for a spa experience in a spa, if you make it beautiful for me in the same place. There's no reason I wouldn't pay for it there. Bricks and mortar experiences have to be something else now. And it may actually make us better consumers in the end, because we won't suddenly want something delivered to our door snap, will be willing to wait, we'll be willing to think about it. We might find ourselves with a bit more cash in our pockets. Because we've only bought one good thing, not three bits of tat.

 

Ben Walker  15:40

It's interesting, I'll bring you in here a bit because the shopping examples are great well, but this immersion idea strikes me it can be applied to lots of things. You're an advocate, aren't you for actually doing that and having what we could now call immersive, in person experience.

 

Amy Kean  15:57

I do think that the word immersive is being slightly overused in culture not by Morag cheese using it is absolutely right. I think that the way that the marketing world and the communications world in general, is using the word immersion is making a slight mockery of the word immersion is what we do with every word that is quite nice. Storytelling got completely bastardised and ruined by the advertising industry. Gamification, such an interesting concept like a psychologically grounded concept got ruined by the advertising industry about 10 years ago. Everyone's promising immersive experiences now, normally, that just means that there's some kind of sampling activity in Waterloo Station concourse, but I do think something that I've noticed is picking up on the retail thing is that during COVID, for example, there were lots of DTC brands that absolutely smashed it online, brands like Beauty Pie, you know, loads of kind of indie brands that managed to get a consumer because we had nothing else to do. I used to do my shopping drunk a lot during COVID, because it made me a lot more spontaneous. And I always say that when you're drunk, you buy what your heart really desires.

 

Ben Walker  17:22

Another retail tip audience another retail tip and what we're full of them today.

 

Amy Kean  17:27

 Actually, the the drunk shopping industry is worth billions, billions. Because you're bored, you're sitting at home, people buy tickets for stuff when they're drunk, they buy clothes that they wouldn't normally buy. Anyway, I digress slightly. One thing that I noticed post COVID Is that all of these DTC brands that were blowing up, decided to try and create a feeling and some kind of loyalty by launching immersive experiences. So Beauty Pie is a good example. But I think it's an example of an immersive experience done really badly. They created a pop up, so they're an online retailer, right? They only do direct to consumer and there's some kind of subscription thing in place so you get cheaper products, if you're a member. They had a pop up shop in Covent Garden, and it was, it looked nice, it was pretty slick in terms of how it was decorated. The queue, I went to it, the queue was like 100 people long. The pop up shop itself was rammed you couldn't you couldn't get any kind of assistance. There were way too many people in there. And essentially, it was just the products that you could buy online in a space. And that was their retail, but I've seen lots of brands do the same thing. They think that just having a bricks and mortar area and selling their products is an immersive experience. It's not it's actually kind of traditionalysing what they're doing.

 

Ben Walker  18:58

Well, that's the opposite of immersive, presumably just waiting to find some lipstick, you can tell I'm not an expert on beauty. But you know, I'm sure that's one of their products. And, you know, it's not just Beauty Pie it the lot as you say that's just one example. We're not here to sort of hammer hammer Beauty Pie, a brand that many people love. But that's an example of getting it wrong. It's the opposite of immersiveness, isn't it? It's almost you know, you're stuck outside waiting to buy something. So what is a good example? What should we be aiming for then when we're trying to deliver it immersive experiences in retail and other areas?

 

Amy Kean  19:32

So what I think is, you know, I don't know the technical definition of the word immersive, but I would imagine, I mean, my definition would be an experience that makes the most of every single one of your senses so that it encourages true escapism. Immersive experiences for me are an escape from the day to day. I wanted to share an example because I did I went to I'm a sucker for immersive theatre, and any opportunity if there's ever a new one I will always is try it out. There's an amazing show called The Gunpowder Plot, which is an immersive, multi sensory, multi technology immersive theatre experience that takes you through the story behind the Guy Fawkes, gunpowder plot. And what was amazing about that, and I have seen other brands kind of play with this, a lot of booze brands tend to do this. It used VR, and a real life venue, the vaults in Tower Hill, and real life storytelling, and all of that stuff combined, just made you feel like you were somewhere else completely. And because of all those things combined, I will never forget it. It's really impressive actually.

 

Ben Walker  20:41

That is an amazing definition isn't Morag, an all sensory experience, all five senses must be ticked off for it to be immersive, otherwise, you're not truly immersed. And in the mag presumably you've got examples of that have you?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  20:52

I wonder if Amy's read the mag, one of the headlines in the immersive story is an all senses experience. So right on it, right. We have I mean, yes, she's absolutely right. I mean things when Amy was saying about the Gunpowder Plot, what's coming to my mind was the Stranger Things experience, you know that the secret cinema type things where you have actors dressed up as them and you become a participant? I think that's, that's a really important part as well, isn't it Amy the participation feeling? I'm not just watching someone having fun in this thing. I'm not what you know, I could watch Stranger Things on the on Netflix and enjoy it, but I'm actually there, I feel like I might be like an extra, you don't feel like you're outside it, you feel like you're an extra. So I could be an extra in Stranger Things I may not be Steve, you know, but I may be Steve's pal who's being brought along in the experience. And I think retailers need to do that as well. You're not just going in to look at everyone else having a glamorous time, you want to be feeling the glamour and we do have loads of examples in this about you know, the all senses are referred to the cannabis store, which is perfectly legal where it is. And you know, it's all about the art. And it's all about feeling. I mean, how do you replicate what it feels like to be stoned? Well, you make everything vivid. I mean, I think we've got a brilliant picture I'm not suggesting that read catalyst and you'll feel stoned but we've got a brilliant image in there that I can imagine you walk into this store and it's intense. It's a vivid lurid purple with neon everywhere. And you just suddenly feel you don't have to be on drugs to know that this is how I'm going to feel if I purchase something from you. And even if I don't purchase something, boy have I felt it when I went in. There's also real life monopoly I can, no disrespect to monopoly. I've spent many years playing it with many teenagers, I think I've reached my limits of monopoly now. But they have a monopoly real life version. And I can see more people enjoying the monopoly real life thing that actually playing Monopoly. Sounds so much more fun, you know, the people dressed up as the Scottie dog and we say they have to have the personality of the Scottie dog. I'm not quite sure at what point the human adopts the personality of a Scottie dog.

 

Ben Walker  23:06

I wouldn't like to be allocated the wheelbarrow for that.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  23:08

I think someone else. If I remember correctly, someone was allocated submarine.

 

Ben Walker  23:14

Right

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  23:16

Battleship. That's what it was.

 

Ben Walker  23:18

I was gonna say I can't remember the submarine being in it.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  23:21

Yes. So but yeah, I mean, Amy's absolutely right. A immersive has been overused to the point of blandness. So when, you know when we as consumers as we get an invite, come and join us immersive experience. Oh, you're gonna give me a sample of 15 millilitres of something to slather on my face that will make me break out, when actually real immersion is what may well be the saviour of the High Street, she says in no uncertain big claim.

 

Ben Walker  23:52

But surely if anything is this, this seems to be we have got examples of it working. There's a big brand I'm not going to name them. You can guess the brand in London, it has other branches, big department store, which if you are into shopping is a very good retail experience. You know, it stands out it has beaten the trend and there are good examples of that happening. There are fore runners and front runners are there not Amy Kean who are getting this right?

 

Amy Kean  24:20

I think, so out of necessity, there's certain types of brands so in my advertising career, I worked for a lot of fragrances so I worked for Jean Paul Gaultier, worked for Paco Rabanne and numerous others, Nina Ricci, and they've had it's interesting when you have a brand that has no choice and they have to deliver and with fragrance brands will not only do they need to provide real life experiences because they need you to smell them. But they're also they're not just selling a product, they're selling a lifestyle. And this is why every single Christmas you will see big fragrance brands taking over malls. They'll have ice skating rinks, they'll have massive castles, they'll have vodka losers and nightclubs though they're selling. They're not just selling a product, they're selling a feeling anyway. That's why fragrance ads are so ridiculous and surreal. And I think because they have no choice. They're fantastic at it. I remember was it. It was the Brighton pride before COVID hit, Jean Paul Gaultier was my client, but the fragrances, we created during Brighton pride, we created a marching band performance. So we got loads of men and women dressed in sailor outfits. And we got them to march down the streets of Brighton playing instrumentals of Kylie songs. Smelling of Jean Paul Gautier. And then we released an instrument of brass instrumental version of can't get you out of my head on Spotify. Because you have to stand out and you have to make an impact. And you can also tell I can, I think you can also tell Netflix have a field day with this, you can tell when a brand is having fun and the consumers feel that too.

 

Ben Walker  26:11

They do and this is a big part of what you do, isn't it being noticed, you know, not just seen but noticed, not just listened to but heard. That's a big part of what you do with your clients. And these these are these are experts at this. But you've got tips for outside the retail experience and being in 2023 to be noticed and be heard.

 

Amy Kean  26:32

Yes, so Good Shout is where we kind of learning and development really. But actually, we do provide immersive training experiences as well. I have jumped wholeheartedly onto the bandwagon. We like our we like our training to make people feel like they're not at work. So we help people experiment with their voice and their talent and their thinking, because my hypothesis is that the world of advertising, but just industries in general have too much noise, too much mindless talking and not enough value is added by people, brands businesses. So we do encourage people to really I call it mindful communication, to really think about the words that they're using, and how much they're talking and how much they're the things they say aligns with what they do. And it's I've been doing this this in particular Good Shout for a couple of years now and it stuns me the size of the vast chasm between what people say and what they do will never not surprise me, or no will never surprise me. Whatever it is, it surprises me.

 

Ben Walker  27:43

Being noticed and being heard is what we're about as marketers, isn't it really up to that's the point of as it sounds like an enduring theme and immersiveness is of course a way of being noticed and being heard in the retail space, which is another vowel a big topics and Catalyst. Is it a thing do you think that we're going to see more of this year? It seems to me to be a bit of a Zeitgeist point?

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  28:03

I think Amy's absolutely right. There's so much noise and so little substance. And we see it in everything you see is in brands trying to communicate purpose. We do have tiny spoiler alert for the next issue talking about jumping on bandwagons, you know, something comes along some thing zeitgeisty and some brand, some marketing director or are actually worse. Usually someone who's not in marketing will go we got to get on this, this is totally us, we've got to get on it. They leap upon the bandwagon they trip fall flat on their face, everyone piles on. And this is different to perhaps having a cringy moment of trying something and getting it wrong. This is not thinking and getting it wrong. Everyone can think something through and it'll still go wrong. You tried, well done, we move on not thinking is you're guaranteed to get it wrong. So all this noise of we must join in this statement, we must join in this purpose. We must join in this campaign we must join, jump onto this tournament, we must jump onto this popular TV show. Without thinking without taking a moment and going am I going to say the right thing? Am I going to do the right thing? Is this the right thing for me to do? Do people care that I'm going to say anything about this? I think we're always and I think Amy this might be something that you often say, you know, we're all too busy about saying something, but not actually thinking about what we're gonna say before we say it or possibly not even saying it at all.

 

Amy Kean  29:36

I find that, you know, I train people to be better spokes people and I train people to communicate with more discipline and more impact. And what I've noticed, and it's affected how I communicate, you know, what I've noticed is that most people in the world of business, open their mouths and hope for the best. In conversation, in meetings, on panels, people rarely think about what they say and, and the world has been a business has become so dominated by jargon, these things that we say that we know aren't wrong, that make us sound okay, and confident. But increasingly, it's meaningless. There's loads of research studies that have been conducted into jargon and how we use it as a comfort blanket. And actually, jargon is a massive sign of insecurity. Even when we talk in advertising, about engagement and real time agile solutions, it's just a smoke and mirrors way of talking that shows you don't massively know what you're talking about, but you want to save face in a situation. There was a study conducted this massive research projects 64,000 University dissertations were audited and what it found was, the lower the status of the university, the more jargon the author used. But there's an amazing resource, I thoroughly recommend it called the Bland Book. And you can look it up online. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a lot, it's a bunch of examples of how we have become really bland and the way that we talk about brands and business and even award submissions and strategies we are all just using the same language.

 

Ben Walker  31:27

It is a massive turnoff, isn't it jargon as you said, you touched on earlier when your sessions you make them feel like people aren't at work and there's a surefire way to for people to feel like they are at work is to hear a lot of buzzwords and cliches and empty statements and then perhaps you've haven't you Morag, maybe both of you a little bit and sort of things we can expect in the magazine this year bandwagon jumping. A war on blandness are these sorts of things that we think we can expect? Stick ubove the parapet, do something with if you want to be noticed if you want to avoid blindness and be interesting. If you want to be immersed or if you just want to find a cold drink you have one point of call and that is Catalyst magazine. And what a great great show this has been I want to say thank you to my fantastic guests Amy Kean from Good Shout and of course Morag Cuddeford-Jones. editor of Catalyst.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  31:54

Certainly the blandness we will be looking into creativity, why we're so frightened to stick our necks out. I think there's a great example. This is kind of linked kind of not. That's actually in the current magazine. And it's about companies reacting to events properly, we'll just do something this beer company, they're using technology on their live out of home advertising boards, to say, there is now peak electricity in this region, you can find a cold beer and helping businesses who can't operate because their fridges have gone down. They can link up perhaps with another one down the street, who has electricity, because they're all suffering South Africa is notorious for really poor electricity provision. And we in the West, North northern hemisphere, whichever bit of geography you would like to call it. We've been sitting pretty for so long going well, we have constant electricity, we have actually that threats very real right now, we've had discussions in the national press about who the national grid is going to ask to turn their kettles off between 3pm and 6pm. But that's an example not of a company issuing platitudes or saying, oh, we'll give 1% of our profits which is it's generous, it's lovely, but my God make sure it goes somewhere. This is a company going will do something useful. And so the jargon, the bland, the doing something because everyone else is doing it. I really think this is the year, step up and step above it. You have the resources, you have an immense amount of talented people, networks and infrastructure. Do something with it.

 

Amy Kean  34:02

Has it been immersive Ben?

 

Ben Walker  34:04

It has been an immersive has been immersive. I think I probably use only three of my senses. But that seemed almost enough in this experience.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  34:15

We have dunked Ben in the denizens of marketing and he has emerged intact.

 

Ben Walker  34:22

It's been great fun. It's been great fun. Ladies, thank you very much indeed. see you both again very soon.

 

Morag Cuddeford-Jones  34:28

Thanks Ben.

 

Amy Kean  34:28

Thank you.

 

Ben Walker  34:35

If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the CIM Marketing Podcast on your platform of choice. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, please leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear your feedback and CIM Marketing Podcast.