Tom Roach - Brand Strategist and VP of Jellyfish

 You know, TikTok will say, don't make ads, make TikTok.
 So they're trying to say advertising,
 traditional advertising is dead.
 How about using it?
 But they're just selling ads.
 Because we're lazy creatures,
 and our brains are really lazy.
 And if it's a famous name,
 then we assume it must be pretty good.
 And what the marketing literature says
 is you want to get it about 60-40.
 I really like the 70-2010 rule,
 which is like 7% on stuff that you know to work.
 20% on stuff that is optimizing things
 that you think are pretty good.
 And then 10% on stuff that is more of a fact.
 Best practice guarantees average.
 I love it.
 I'm telling you, that's a nugget right there.
 You're listening to the Radcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.
 I'm Ryan Alford's host.
 We're talking advertising today.
 We're talking marketing, we're talking strategy.
 We're talking to the VP of brand strategy
 at Jellyfish Tom Roach.
 What's up Tom?
 Good, thank you.
 Great to be here.
 Hey man, excited to have you.
 You know, as we taught pre-episode
 and transparency, you know,
 I own an agency.
 I've been in the agency a long time
 world like you.
 And I don't get a ton.
 I'm starting to venture out
 of the guys that I listen to.
 I follow Tom's a brilliant strategist
 on LinkedIn.
 I'm going to brag on you a bit, Tom,
 because I like, I don't honestly have that many people
 that sneak into my ear like I go that I nod my head.
 But everything you post, everything you write
 makes sense to me.
 It follows my train of thought.
 And I think you're brilliant.
 I really appreciate you coming on the show.
 That's really, really kind of you.
 Thank you.
 I'm also available on Twitter and I have a column
 in marketing week.
 So LinkedIn is just one of the places you can read
 the stuff I do.
 But thank you.
 TomRoach.com, right?
 Is it the TomRoach or TomRoach?
 It's the TomRoach.com.
 People keep telling me you've got to buy TomRoach.com
 because the VR is getting in the way.
 It's only $400 to buy the other URL.
 So I get loads of SEO advice from people at work
 and random.
 Well, I'll tell you, I kind of like the because like in
 the States, you know where everything's chess speedy.
 It's much more than I think then across the world.
 Like the Ohio State, the Miami, the university.
 Like, so you're the, not, not a, you're the TomRoach.
 There is a TomRoach who is mayor of white planes
 sitting in New York.
 I think that I get confused with on Twitter.
 That's not, there's a TomRoach who's an Australian
 rules football player.
 I'm not him.
 I'm eating lunch.
 Yes, I love it.
 Well, I'm looking forward to a spin in the next bit.
 I don't know, I call it geeking out.
 I don't know if it's geeking out.
 It's fun to me.
 And I think people are going to get a lot of knowledge on it
 because, you know, being the general marketing show
 that we are and talking a lot of business journey,
 it's pretty high level.
 And, you know, Tom, I really wanted to have you on the show
 and definitely want to give your background here shortly.
 But I want to get kind to the nitty gritty
 of marketing and advertising and some of the fundamentals
 and some of the things, what's changed, what hasn't.
 And so I think this is going to provide a lot of value to people
 in giving perspective for how marketing and advertising
 professionals think about the business.
 And so I'm super pumped for that.
 But Tom, let's just start down the path.
 I know you've been your strategist.
 Let's break it down for people for exactly what that means.
 And just, you know, kind of your professional journey.
 Sure.
 And so you're starting with what a strategist is in an ad agency.
 I guess agencies basically have three or four kinds of people.
 You've got creative people who are coming up with the ideas.
 You've got client management people
 who are making the trains run on time
 and making sure that we do things on budget.
 And you've got strategy people who are coming up with the,
 I guess, doing the research, working out what the issue is
 that the brand has and briefing creative people
 to solve that problem.
 So that's what I do.
 And I've been doing that for 20 odd years.
 I've spent since about 99.
 I've been in mostly creative agencies.
 So I spent a lot of time at AMV BBDO,
 which is a London, biggest London UK agency.
 And then some time at BBH, which is another big agency.
 And then more recently, a place called Adam and Eve, DDB.
 So big, creative, and also live in it.
 So big, creative agencies for 20 odd years.
 And then I made a switch a year and a half ago
 to a new kind of place called Jellyfish.
 We're a, I guess, a sort of digital first media,
 creative and performance agency.
 So we do everything full funnel.
 And if you think about the way that media and creative
 kind of split about 10, 15, 20 years ago,
 we're kind of bringing that back together.
 And we're particularly good at working with the platforms.
 So if you think about the way the ad industry has developed
 over probably the last 100 years,
 when it started out, it was in, you know,
 off the back of the newspapers.
 And then there was the World of TV
 and the agency world kind of followed that.
 Well, if you think about the major media players
 now are the platforms, we are a new breed of agency
 that has really been born out of the growth of the platforms.
 So our growth as Jellyfish has, we're now 2,000 people
 40,000 offices worldwide eight in the US.
 Our growth has really mirrored the growth of the platforms.
 Yeah, that's incredible.
 And I do want to, I'm going to ask you questions
 that are probably simple for you,
 but just to provide perspective for the audience.
 When you say platforms, which you said several times there,
 and being Jellyfish's specialization within them,
 the fine platforms for the audience.
 Okay, well, I mean, I guess the most obvious answer
 these days would be your Googles,
 letters, amazons, increasing Apple, TikTok, LinkedIn.
 So the places where people do most of their,
 spend most of the time in digital,
 where brands have their biggest opportunity
 to engage people with advertising is now the platforms.
 It used to be more TV.
 TV is still a big part of people's media, consumption,
 behavior, and, but it's less of what we do, I have to say,
 as we're primarily the digital platforms.
 That's what I mean, is the big,
 the matters and Googles of this world.
 So thinking about the, you know, historical,
 you know, and you and I came up through similar time periods,
 like the four P's, the platforms,
 now we're probably the place, would that be like a safe place
 or, you know, people place.
 No, platforms are still the promotional P.
 Yeah, I guess, well, it's interesting, actually,
 because when I talk about platforms,
 I normally mean the promotional P.
 But the, the place P is also where you will discover brands
 in terms of when you want to buy them.
 So, so increasingly, those platforms are also not only media platforms,
 but they're also retail platforms as well.
 So yeah, it's both the promotional P and the place P, you know?
 Yeah.
 What are, you know, you've been in a long time,
 you've obviously developed your own perspective
 and, which I'm excited to get into,
 talking about the full funnel and all those things.
 But what have, what have been the influences?
 I mean, you've worked with some of the largest brands in the world
 at some of, people, whether you know those or not,
 everyone listening, the names that Tom just dropped
 of the agencies are worldwide, like some of the most recognized
 respected agencies in the world.
 So, you know, Tom's not going to brag on himself,
 but I'm going to brag on him for him.
 And, you know, so it's, but what has kind of formulated
 your perspective on marketing over the years in advertising?
 Yeah.
 Okay, well, I guess firstly,
 starting off with the, in the agencies that I've worked,
 some of the, I mean, you've touched on how kind of famous
 some of those names are in the UK.
 And some of the characters working in those places,
 maybe before me, but like, people like,
 some of the creative gods of the UK,
 like John Hegedy, who is the age of BBH,
 which was one of the places I worked.
 He is a real legend.
 And like, you talk about the kind of madman era,
 he was a real legendary character in the 70s and 80s
 and 90s and 90s in the UK.
 And it's still going.
 He, he and others, there's got called David Abbott,
 who is the A of AMV BBDO.
 Another, you know, amazing agency.
 He is somebody that wrote some of the,
 some of the most famous British advertising of all time.
 And if you work in places like that,
 you're just kind of, you pick up Byos Moses,
 the quality, the creative quality
 that people like that absolutely insisted on.
 The excellence that companies like that,
 always deliver and the consistency of it.
 And it just is in the, is in the kind of fabric
 of the building if you, so I grew up
 in those kinds of companies that had been founded
 and run by those kinds of legendary characters.
 So big influence, I think,
 is those kinds of creative gods, really.
 And then the other, the other set of influences,
 I think it probably the big academic kind of writers
 and thinkers in the marketing world,
 particularly people like Professor Barron Sharp,
 who I could talk a bit about if you wanted.
 And there's a couple of lesbian net
 who I was really, really lucky to work with,
 who is, he's known as the Godfather of marketing effectiveness.
 And I was lucky to work with him at Adam and Eve DDB.
 He has kind of written, literally written some of the,
 some of the books on how advertising works,
 particularly around the effectiveness of advertising
 and the commercial impact of advertising.
 And that's a big part of what I've kind of specialised in
 through my career so far.
 Les works still with a guy called Peter Field,
 both of them together are these legendary characters,
 he writes these amazing books as a book
 that anybody's interested in this world has to read,
 which is called The Long and the Short of it,
 which is like literally the Bible about how
 advertising communication works in two ways
 in the short term and the long term in what's best together.
 And then the other name I mentioned
 is I call Professor Barron Sharp,
 who's a marketing professor working at Australia,
 he's actually a Kiwi, who has written
 probably the most important marketing,
 kind of textbook really.
 It was called How Brands Grow written in 2010,
 still relatively unknown, I think in the US,
 more known in the UK and in Europe,
 well known in Australia.
 And again, his thinking is probably the most influential on me
 in terms of how I think about how ads work and how can you do this as well.
 Les Benette is one of my favourites.
 It's one, as I've come up like you and watch,
 now we have performance marketing,
 which is another term for I'd call short term,
 you know, in a way, you know,
 but I think, and I do want to stop and talk about that for a second time
 because I love your perspective on it.
 And Les is spot, I mean, you know,
 he's like the Godfather of it all.
 It's because we've come up in this world
 where everything everyone wants success now
 and they think you can build a brand every night.
 And you know, it's just not true.
 We live in a short term, short termism.
 I mean, you can call it where, you know,
 people think that you can sustain a company, build a brand,
 you know, on short term promotional sales driving stuff.
 And you know, if you're listening,
 there's this notion that, you know,
 well, with e-commerce and different things, you know,
 everyone can kind of start a company now.
 But to have longevity with a brand,
 you have to have that mix of short term tactics
 and long term tactics, Tom.
 So I'd love for you to kind of maybe go down that path
 a little deeper for both your perspective
 and, you know, where that was, you know,
 you've already spoke to how it was influenced,
 but just kind of how those, what's the inner play of those things?
 Yeah, yeah.
 So where to start on that?
 So, I mean, the fact that there's, you know,
 there's literally books on it.
 I mean, the first thing to say is if you think about the brands
 that really have stood the test of time,
 people like Apple, Nike, McDonald's,
 these are brands that spend an awful lot of money
 on brand building, and they obviously do a lot of selling
 as well over the short term and a lot of promotional stuff
 in the case of McDonald's, but, you know,
 if you really want to be successful, you have to do both.
 You can't just do the hard sell,
 because what happens is you might get an uplift in sales,
 but as soon as you stop doing that activity, the sales drop.
 And what's happening there is that you're only doing things
 which kind of incentivize people that might catch the ride
 fleetingly, there might be an offer or discount
 that gets them into it, but it's not really lasting long
 in their memory that you're not giving something
 of great value that is going to be carried with them
 in their synapses and their memories for much longer
 than the time it takes to act on a short term piece
 of advertising or sales promotion.
 So what you really want to do is combine your performance
 activity or sales activity with something
 that is going to have a longer lasting impact,
 that when somebody is out of the market can appeal to them
 and can attract their attention, even though they're not
 looking in that category or for that product
 or brand at that time.
 So you want to be able to grab the attention
 of a much wider number of people who are not yet in market,
 and land something in their heads that you repeat consistently
 that presents an image of your brand, that gives them
 some things to remember you by something famous
 that they can kind of hook into their brains
 and can develop what bar and shop
 we call mental availability.
 Mental availability is a fancy term really for memories
 so that when somebody then comes into the marketplace,
 maybe a few months later, maybe a year later,
 maybe a decade later, you're the brand that stands out for them
 and is the one that comes to mind and they choose first.
 And what happens is the brain does this funny thing
 of if a brand comes to mind when somebody is in a decision
 making a buying moment, there may be online,
 there may be in a store, if your brand is the one that pops
 into their head when they're thinking I need to buy an X,
 then your brand is more likely to get chosen
 than another brand because what the brain does,
 it assumes that that brand name has a popularity
 and a familiarity and a quality to it
 because we're lazy creatures and our brains are really lazy
 and if it's a famous name, then we assume it must be pretty good,
 it must be good enough.
 And so you're more likely to choose that brand over another one
 and that is this long term effect of advertising
 that we prize above all else.
 And so what you really want to do is combine both those two things,
 the longer lasting effects, the memory effects of brand building
 and the short term effects of sales activation performance
 and get the two right, get the two in balance
 and what the marketing literature says is you want to get it
 about 6040, it's a rough rule of thumb,
 60% of your time and effort and budget spent
 on brand building activity and about 40% normally
 on more kind of performance activity.
 Of course, it changes from category to category brand to brand
 newer, more immature brands might want to start out
 with more sales promotion activity to get themselves going
 and but more mature brands may be in a different combination.
 So, and I think the 6040 rule, it's not a hard and fast rule,
 it's a good place to start and then you can test and learn from that.
 Do you think that is perfect?
 I think I could not have, you Professor Tom just took us to school
 and I think that was right down the path of what,
 of understanding exactly those things.
 And I think, you know, we've gotten conditioned with promotions
 and things like that and I want, do you think,
 I don't know if it's starting to swing back,
 but I definitely think two or three years ago,
 the pendulum swaying way too much to the short term.
 I mean, would you agree with that?
 Have you seen that with brands?
 And I know you guys work with some massive brands
 and we work with kind of medium brands.
 And so the small to medium brands,
 I feel like that pendulum swaying, you know, a little too far,
 but I don't know your perspective.
 It's really hard to know for definite which way
 the pendulum is ever swinging and what genuinely,
 what the split is.
 I mean, there's, you know, $690 billion worth of advertising
 spent globally.
 What proportion of that has been spent on the more promotional stuff
 for the more short term stuff is really hard to tell.
 I think there's definitely a sense when you've come from the wall
 that I was originally in, which is this kind of brand building world,
 it felt like we were under threat from the development
 and the growth and maturity curve
 that the platforms were doing.
 And if you think about the way that Google and Facebook and Chrome,
 they're very, very cleverly attuned to those platforms initially
 to doing that performance job.
 And I think it's only more recently that the platforms
 are beginning to work out how they need to attract the brand,
 the brand marketing budgets of those big brands.
 So it's really hard to say which way things are.
 I suspect there is a slight pendulum swing back.
 I think that there is increasing understanding
 of the importance of balance.
 And I certainly feel that, you know, the kind of clients
 I'm speaking to, I think they're increasingly getting it.
 But it's by no means ingrained yet.
 And there's a whole generation of marketing people
 who've born in the kind of, you know,
 what I call a performance era.
 And they're now needing to mature themselves in their careers
 and in the companies they're working for,
 a beginning to need to learn some more of the longer term tactics
 that have been more meet and drink to people
 like me in the ones that I've been in.
 Yeah.
 And I think the reason I think I've seen it
 or felt like it was, it's hit swung too far.
 And because let's face it, like,
 who's the first person to get fired at every large company
 to CMO?
 Like, and so, you know, I mean, I'm categorizing here
 but are stereotyping.
 But, you know, marketing's been under such pressure
 to drive sales.
 It, that to me pushed it that direction.
 Yeah.
 And so it should, in a way, you know,
 what I'm not arguing for is that CMOs should not be in charge
 of creating growth for their companies.
 That's absolutely their central role.
 Yeah.
 But it's about understanding that it's not only about sales,
 it's also about creating salability for your brand,
 creating the context and the environment
 in which people will want to make a sale, make a purchase.
 So it's about, it's absolutely about both.
 There's a phrase that was coined both of them,
 which I really like, which is this idea
 that you need to be doing both at the same time.
 And that's, I think, a really powerful philosophy.
 But yeah, definitely, what I think
 that there is a new breed of marketer and a CMO
 that is going to need to be a kind of equally adept
 at the longer, longer than the short.
 And getting that balance right, I think, is just critical.
 How do you feel like, you know,
 we've talked about it a little bit,
 but with the platforms changing,
 do you feel like we're talking about some old school,
 like things here, the long and the short,
 like that still holds true.
 But have we, is it just the platforms changed
 or has marketing advertising truly evolved
 as much as people try to say it has?
 It's so hard.
 I mean, I'm a big believer in the fundamentals
 and of people understanding the fundamentals,
 the things that never change.
 And so I'm slightly biased, I think, towards making sure
 that people have those foundation stones in place.
 I'm probably because of the kind of the role
 I played in the career I've had.
 I've been less into the technology
 and the specifics of how the tech works.
 And so I think you can get, you know,
 we're all used, I think, in this industry
 and marketing industry to this idea
 that marketing people are obsessed with the shiny
 and the new, and we get kind of into whatever
 the latest tech is, whatever less platform is.
 And I think that could be dangerous
 because you get taken down a road into what the latest fads are.
 And some marketing people will make brilliant careers
 out of placing great bets on being the first to use a platform
 or being the first to really work out
 certain new piece of technology.
 And other markets as well will make a great career
 on doing the fundamentals really well.
 And who's to say that one is wrong when the other is right?
 I'm not gonna say that, but, you know,
 in different, different companies, different brands
 will have their culture of risk taking.
 Personally, I wouldn't be making loads of big bets
 on all incredibly new and shiny things.
 Much as I think it's important for brands to stand out
 and to be distinctive, I don't think you necessarily get
 that from kind of media firsts always.
 I think, I think, you know, fine for small,
 small new brands to try those things out
 and see how they go.
 But if you're a McDonald's, you're probably not gonna be wanting
 to place 90% of your budget on what are essentially bets.
 You want it to be 90% of these on stuff that you know to work.
 I really like the 70, 2010 rule, which is like 70%
 on stuff that you know to work.
 20% on stuff that is, you know, optimizing things
 that you think are pretty good.
 And then 10% on stuff that is more of a bet.
 So I think some kind of balance like that,
 it's probably not a bad rule of thumb.
 I like that 70, 2010, writing that down.
 I might tick talk on that later
 and I'll hashtag Tom Roach, told me so.
 But Tom, I agree with that approach
 and I know with the size brand,
 especially McDonald's and the brands you guys have worked with.
 But I am curious like from a strategist point of view
 because the nuances of some of the platforms
 that are getting out of what I'd call
 maybe's and into the realm of can ignores.
 Like Instagram, obviously he's been there for a while
 and Reels and then TikTok.
 So that short form, I call it the ADD, you know, like,
 get it to me quick, get it to me fast.
 I know even being a clinical strategist like you are.
 Like, but does it not change a little bit of,
 you know that TV's not dead.
 We're gonna go, we'll talk about that a little bit more.
 It's still the medium of choice for masks.
 Like, but our attention is fleeting.
 And so is that insight, the fleeting attention
 of 30 year olds that have,
 there are gonna be the leaders of the world,
 the digital natives.
 Does that change your approach strategically
 when you're building out plans for clients?
 Okay, well it firstly, let's kill the assumption
 that people's attention spans are shortening
 because Netflix is a very good example these days of,
 you know, I will happily sit and binge watch hours
 and hours and hours with a quality content.
 Right.
 So the first rule of it for me is if you create something
 really, really worth, really valuable to people,
 really entertaining, really rewarding,
 they will spend time with you.
 So I don't really believe that attention is getting shorter.
 That said, the platforms that we have increasingly
 to deal with and reach our audiences through,
 people will spend less time watching a particular format
 of advertising.
 There's no question.
 So the average number of seconds that people will watch
 are 30 seconds, attend to a 30 second TV commercial for,
 is about 13.
 The average number of seconds that people will watch
 are YouTube ad is about six seconds.
 The average number of seconds that people watch
 on Facebook video is about, I think it's about two.
 Now that's a problem because in order to make people
 remember something, you need the science says
 at least three seconds.
 So what we've got now is a number of platforms
 where we are challenged with the amount of attention
 that we can assume that we're going to achieve on average.
 And this is all averages, of course you can get more
 than three seconds, more than two seconds attention
 in the Facebook video, but on average.
 And so there is no question in my mind
 that the number of the size of the screen
 is getting smaller, the length of the ad is getting shorter.
 And I think there is some doubt about the level of creativity
 that is happening on a number of these platforms.
 We haven't even in, what is it, 15 years since Facebook
 and YouTube have become really big,
 we're still not really at the level of creativity
 that I think the 30 second TV spot in is absolutely
 heyday, had achieved.
 That's not surprising because it's less mature as a medium,
 as an industry, we're still going to use to have to work it.
 But I'm not gloomy.
 I think it's really exciting to see,
 when you look at a platform particularly
 like TikTok, which is inherently a creative platform.
 You've got people, and YouTube I think you can say similar.
 TikTok is a platform which is born out of people's creativity
 and their humanity's creativity, if you like.
 And so if we follow some of the principles
 that are TikTok video, like a TikTok native is following
 and apply those to how we communicate to brands and brand
 builders, I think that's a really interesting space to go.
 So I think we're really only in my mind
 the foothills of working out how to do really cool
 creative things with some of these platforms.
 And so yeah, I'm an optimist.
 I'm not a pessimist about the what digital has done
 to creativity, I think that's a pretty gloomy view
 to take, a lot of people do take it though.
 I love it, and I'm going to footnote.
 So if you're listening and you're taking notes,
 get your brand in early and often on that two seconds
 you get on Facebook.
 And that six seconds you get on YouTube,
 you need to buy those bumper ads that are five seconds
 and get that logo and you're a stinger in quickly.
 Is that what I'm hearing Tom?
 Oh God, there's a real, there's a conflict isn't there
 between what you've just said, which is best practice
 from the platforms.
 And what I would want, you know, if I'm a creative person,
 a creative in an agency or an influencer or somebody
 who's trying to develop great content for the brands
 that are paying them, you don't always
 want to just follow best practices.
 There's always going to be some better ways out there.
 Do you want to be average?
 Because that's, you know, average best practice
 will get you average.
 I think if you want to really outperform
 or maybe risk underperforming,
 you've got to explore the boundaries.
 And I think best practice isn't necessarily
 always great practice.
 Damn, you don't know how profound that is.
 I'm going to put that, there's another quote.
 I'm going to put best practice guarantees average.
 I love it.
 I'm telling you, that's a nugget right there.
 That's going to be a quote on Nick Tech note.
 That's going on the, that's going on the highlight clips.
 Best practices guarantee average.
 It's so true though.
 It's so true.
 All right, Tom.
 Sometimes average is what you need.
 If I had a brand and I have factories rolling,
 I might appreciate average rather than peaks and trusts.
 Say, man, I run an agency called Radical.
 We don't have, there's no average around here.
 All right, man.
 I love, I'm a funnel guy.
 I don't know why I'm a new school guy.
 I'm half digital, half traditional.
 I love a good TV spot.
 I love a good TikTok.
 Like I'm as blended as they come.
 But man, the funnel has always made sense to me.
 And it's been under scrutiny forever.
 Mackenzie with the cycle or the circle and all this stuff.
 What's, what say you?
 What say Tom about the marketing and advertising funnel?
 Well, I wrote this thing called the funnel
 is the cockroach of marketing.
 And what I meant by that is it's a really simple concept.
 It's people try and kill it off.
 There's always somebody trying to invent a new thing,
 trying to write a kind of article about the funnel is dead
 and here's my new shape.
 And I thought, well, this is, it's clearly got something.
 It clearly is an idea, a concept that is very simple
 and easy to get.
 It's something that's now I think about 100 years old.
 So it's been the way that kind of salespeople
 have been teaching each other how to sell
 since around the 1890s, actually,
 as well every century.
 And so I kind of had a look at the history of it
 and then the very recent sort of over the last 20 years
 at least that it's become incredibly ubiquitous.
 And that ubiquitousness is really, I think,
 again, down to the platform.
 So it became the way that Google and the other platforms
 used to sell their own inventory
 and simplify the digital advertising ecosystem,
 which let's face it, could be very, very complicated
 and can get very complicated.
 So really, it's a simple shape format
 that can help you understand the way
 different kinds of digital ads work.
 And some of them are better at the brand building bit
 and some of them are slightly better at the conversion bit.
 Is the basic kind of theory, I guess, of the funnel
 and you've got funnel people through,
 you've got a wider pool of people
 who are not necessarily in your market yet.
 And then you've got some people who may be in the market
 who are beginning to consider you as a brand.
 And then you've got some people who are really ready to buy
 and you want to hit them with something sort of more salesy.
 So conceptually, it all seems to kind of add up.
 It's very appealing, it's very simple.
 But if you then begin to apply some of the kind of marketing
 theory and marketing science
 about how we actually know that advertising works,
 some of it doesn't quite reflect.
 So the classic funnel, which is awareness,
 consideration, conversion, doesn't quite reflect
 how a lot of advertising works for a lot of brands.
 So I wanted to begin to explore it.
 And I had a look at what I thought the,
 how we could apply some of that marketing science
 to the funnel to improve it slightly.
 So I evolved, it's slightly not very much,
 but just enough to kind of nudge it into the 21st century
 a bit.
 And again, using some of the thinking of bar and shop,
 so this idea of mental availability
 was the thing I would put at the top of the funnel.
 So the fundamental role of all marketing communication
 is to build brand memories.
 So I said rather than talking about awareness,
 which is quite a blunt thing, of course, we want awareness.
 That's dumb.
 What you actually want is mental availability
 or you want to build memories.
 So I said, let's call the top layer building,
 build brand building essentially.
 And then in the middle, you can begin to be a bit doubtful
 actually about whether this thing called consideration
 is always the case.
 We don't always want to drive consideration,
 because some brands, you just don't need to consider.
 It's the idea of consideration is quite a rational thing.
 It's not actually purchasing is often
 a much more emotional thing than that.
 So I was like, oh, I'm not sure we need that.
 But let's say we need to actually nudge people to a sale.
 So when they're in the market, let's give them
 a little bit of a nudge, a little reminder
 of the thing that we've built in their minds.
 And that might nudge them towards a conversion.
 So let's call the middle nudge nudging.
 And then at the bottom layer, I was like, well,
 actually there's a lot of what we call advertising these days,
 which is kind of directing people,
 helping them navigate towards the brand
 that they've already chosen.
 So if you think about the way a lot of search ads work,
 people are searching for something they really want.
 And search for SEO is helping them get to that site,
 get to the brand that they're after.
 So let's call that connecting.
 So we're connecting people to the brand
 rather than converting them.
 So building nudging and connecting
 was the sort of three layers that I kind of evolved
 the original funnel from.
 It seemed to be some theory that people kind of liked.
 And we're now using that at Jellyfish's
 as our kind of core version of the funnel
 that we often use with clients.
 Of course, it's only a start point.
 With any brand, you want to be thinking in them
 or bespoke way about the actual journey
 that people are taking towards your brand.
 And you need to be thinking in a tailor in that
 to your specific objectives,
 rather than always having that kind of cookie cutter.
 But it felt like a useful evolution
 that accepted that this thing in the funnel
 is going to be with us forever, not something that's going to,
 that you can just kill with a piece of B2B content marketing
 like McKinsey Mike.
 Hey, that's why I had you on the show, man.
 I think it's brilliant.
 I may or may not borrow from it occasionally
 when describing it to clients.
 I give all due credit though.
 And we're talking with Tom Roach, detomroach.com.
 You can follow along with Tom in all his perspective
 and brilliance on marketing and advertising.
 But the new funnel, it's not ever going away.
 Don't ever let it die, Tom.
 I'll keep waving the banner if you do.
 Hello, I didn't really think I would ever write
 an article about funnels, but I did
 and people seem to like it so great.
 Talk about, I do want to have saved some time
 to ask you out personal branding.
 But, you know, your latest, Tom has published a lot
 with marketing week.
 Some of the biggest names and journals come to Tom
 for articles and insights and all that.
 Your latest article, why advertising will never die?
 People are trying to kill it, Tom.
 We can't let it happen.
 Can't believe it was, we need jobs.
 I'm kidding, but I'm somewhat kidding.
 Self-serving.
 Of course, I'm going to defend it, it's being my career.
 But talk about your latest article, that perspective.
 Yeah, so again, it came from a similar place of just,
 it's a very, very common thing.
 Again, over the last 20 years or so,
 you will read repeatedly advertising is dead.
 In fact, somebody dug up an article from Wired in 1994
 saying advertising is dead.
 And if you Google that term, you get so many different articles.
 Normally, what people are actually saying is
 TV advertising is declining a bit.
 And this new channel is kind of coming up a bit.
 So what I think has happened is it's a kind of
 journalistic trope to say this is dead, here's the new thing.
 And a bit like the final thing, I guess.
 And really, it's a way that people,
 often in the advertising world, bizarrely,
 have been trying to plug their new or sell their new thing
 that they've got to sell.
 Often it's a platform with a new kind of format.
 TikTok will say, don't make ads, make TikToks.
 They're trying to say advertising,
 traditional advertising is dead, have on new thing.
 But they're just selling ads.
 So don't fool people.
 And I don't think we should allow ourselves to do down
 our industry.
 We work in this amazing industry that, yes,
 it's changing and evolving.
 Of course it is.
 But as I said before, $690 billion industry globally,
 for every dollar spent on advertising,
 there is a $6 contribution to the wider economy
 from what we do.
 We should be proud of what we do.
 We don't need to be looking to other things.
 Too often we'll look to the societal purpose of the work
 that we do for some kind of, I guess,
 solve our own consciousness about selling or something.
 As if there's something dirty about selling.
 Selling is okay.
 It's good.
 Can be good.
 In fact, it can be very good.
 And we need to embrace that in order to really be proud
 of our industry and help it evolve and be future-facing
 and evolve for the future.
 Not going to do it down and say it's changed for the worse.
 And there are these guys in the past
 and the stuff that they were doing is no longer done.
 And there was this kind of golden era,
 a creativity called the Mab and Error.
 I don't really believe in golden errors.
 I think that there is always a percentage
 of what anybody does that it's a bit rubbish.
 And there's always a percentage of what we do
 that is pretty good.
 And yes, digital advertising can be better.
 But I'd much rather be a part of the industry that says,
 yes, it can be better.
 Let's improve it than part of an industry that says
 what we're doing is terrible and must die.
 I think it's we need to be optimistic
 about the future of what we do.
 Brilliant, love it.
 And, you know, here's how I,
 when people say that, I'll never say that.
 But what I would do to tape is,
 and it's a little different nuance is,
 people are more aware of being advertised
 to than they ever have been.
 And they don't necessarily love it
 if it's not done well.
 Is that a fair statement?
 Yeah.
 I think it's probably a fair statement.
 Well, I would say, though, is that I'm not sure
 that people have ever loved advertising.
 I think we have this notion that there was some time,
 maybe some distant time in the 17s.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, that's something.
 It's right, big dishes.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, so Bill Burm back in DDB made some amazing VW ads
 in the 60s, right?
 Yeah.
 Which we in our industry were shit.
 Yeah.
 But that was probably 1% of the automotive ads
 in the US at the time.
 So let's not believe that somehow there was this golden era.
 Yeah.
 And you know, there's always, I mean, there's kind of 5%
 of anything is good and 95% is shit.
 So I'm not sure I'll be part of the 5% than the 95.
 So right, so right, my friend.
 Before I ask you a couple quick takes, obviously,
 you have a personal brand.
 I like to talk to people about this
 because it seems to be a bit of a polarizing topic
 that people can be brands.
 And so people that I actually really admire
 really look down at it.
 But yet it's funny they write books and they do things
 and I'm like, you have a personal brand.
 You just don't want to call it that.
 But like, you know, what's your perspective?
 Let's say you on a personal branding.
 Is it bothering you the term?
 I'm just trying to get over my kind of awkward Britishness
 around the idea of having a brand or a brand name.
 I understand that the kind of parallels
 between a product brand and the fact that, you know,
 you might have a name that has a certain set of associations
 and things that you're known for.
 I mean, in the music industry, they're
 perfectly happy to know that they're brands.
 I mean, Madonna is an example of somebody
 who does absolutely killed it, decade after decade
 and follows a lot of the rules of branding.
 So there's no question in my mind
 that people can have brands of a kind.
 But when it comes to a kind of professional name,
 I think people have always in any industry
 had a name that they've sought to protect
 or to grow or to build.
 I think we live in an era where, you know,
 it's perfectly possible now to write things
 and have a reputation that isn't just kind of,
 I used to work for a company.
 I now work for Jellyfish.
 My personal brand now has grown a bit
 in terms of that balance between my personal brand
 and the corporate brand I work for.
 But everybody benefits.
 It's not a, you know, what's great is I'm allowed
 and in fact, it's expected to write stuff
 and to put articles out there
 that are my own personal thoughts and feelings
 and opinions about stuff
 that then Jellyfish can benefit from.
 So it's a symbiotic thing.
 I mean, it's slightly awkward to talk about, as I've said,
 but it's definitely, I enjoy writing stuff.
 I'm not a natural extrovert.
 So what it does, writing things for me,
 I think while I'm writing,
 so it means I can put my thoughts on a paper.
 I can publish them.
 I then get asked to do fun stuff like this
 and get on stage.
 And I've got something to talk about.
 If I hadn't written the stuff, I'd written,
 I would find this conversation extremely difficult to have.
 But, you know, luckily you're asking
 about things I've written, so it's all,
 I'm really like, I enjoy doing the stuff I do
 and writing the things I do
 and the kind of benefits that come off the back of that.
 People at Jellyfish seem to really support
 and endorse it, which is great.
 It's really great to work in a company
 where that's kind of accepted
 and people will need to do it.
 The high tide raises all ships.
 So that's how I summarize that.
 You know, Tom Roach is known.
 Jellyfish comes with it, you know,
 because you're working for and together.
 And so there you have it.
 What's your favorite ad of all Tom, Tom?
 This is such a hard question.
 I probably have to say something like Guinness Surfer,
 which is a bit of a cliché,
 a classic UK ad from 1999,
 which I worked at MV just after that.
 And, you know, it's often voted
 the very best ad of all time.
 It's just a pure, amazing piece of creativity.
 And I was lucky enough to meet the creative walk humble
 who wrote it just a couple of weeks ago
 and he's a real legendary figure.
 Very good.
 Real quickly, we do a little rad or fad.
 I'm gonna give you a topic, rad or fad being,
 and you know, some people, I don't know why
 you get hung up on it and maybe you aren't,
 but some people, what's that mean?
 Rad is obviously awesome.
 Fad is may not be here tomorrow.
 This is purely your opinion.
 And we will not play it back in five years to say,
 Tom Roach was right or wrong.
 It's, all right, rad or fad, the metaverse.
 Well, I think it's probably not a fad,
 but in its current sort of made up state, it's like,
 you know, so I'd say rad, but at the moment,
 there's a sort of weird thing going on,
 which is it's sort of not a thing, yeah.
 I've had a really interesting opinion,
 which is that we should just call it gaming.
 As Broly and Michael James Watley, who says,
 gaming is the matter of us.
 We don't need this word for the metaverse.
 It's gaming people.
 Where's my ding?
 Where's my ding, Nick?
 I said, I want that fad, or did ding.
 I said that exact thing on the podcast a few weeks ago,
 similar thought.
 I was just like, we're just playing a game.
 Like, you know, like, isn't this just playing,
 you know, a different version of Minecraft or whatever?
 Anyway, Broly, Tiktok, rad or fad?
 Definitely not fad, it's definitely rad.
 I think it's got some growing up to do,
 but as an advertising proposition,
 it's got to reach some maturity,
 but as a creative platform for real people
 to express their creativity out of it.
 100% agree.
 Non-fungible tokens, NFTs, rad or fad?
 No, I don't know much about them really,
 but what I hear is it was a bit of a fad,
 but I'm sure that again, I'm sure the technology
 will develop and we will see once again
 that there was something in that.
 But the early adopters of it
 looked to have lost a bit of money right now.
 I will say smart contracts,
 smart contracts, digital contracts
 are the future in some way, shape or form.
 You know, art that is bad art that's
 drummed up scarcity, no fad.
 I don't know if you'd agree with that, that take.
 Well, yeah, you can't help laughing at
 some of the people that have spent millions on,
 I don't know, the first tweet,
 and then they can't sell it for a few thousand.
 So, you know, there's some shodden fighter in there,
 but I'm sure somebody will work out the best uses for it.
 I think, you know, I never try and predict,
 and it's why this game's awkward for me,
 because I never really try and predict technology,
 but there was a story that people used to tell
 about how text messaging was invented just,
 I think, as a way of engineers to speak to each other.
 And it became a thing that consumers would use,
 real people would use, they never predicted that.
 So, some of the best pieces of technology find,
 they will find their use.
 It just isn't necessarily the usage that we assume
 or we predict it's going to be.
 And we always overestimate the impact of a technology
 in the short term and massively underestimate
 its impact in the long term.
 So, I'm pretty sure most of these things
 will be rad, long-term, fat short term.
 There you have it.
 Always smart. Tom Roach, man.
 I really appreciate you responding to my Hill Mary
 on LinkedIn and going, you know,
 I've been following you for a few years and listening
 and like, you know, like, all right.
 And then finally, just like, dude,
 I'm going to get this guy on the show.
 So, I really appreciate you coming on time
 and I hope we can continue discussion
 and, you know, at least shoot me the first, you know,
 insight, like whatever you,
 if you've got a book or something,
 you get to send me the first link
 or when you got an article coming out,
 I want to be the first to read it.
 So, I really appreciate you coming on.
 That's a real, it's been a real pleasure being on a yell.
 I'll send you the next article to read
 or maybe the first chapter of the book
 whenever I get writing.
 I don't know when it's going to be.
 People do keep sort of asking for a book
 that I'm not sure if I've got one in me right now.
 Yeah, we'll see.
 But hey, hey guys, go follow the Tom Roach.
 Go go to the TomRoach.com, Twitter, Tom Roach,
 LinkedIn Tom Roach, you'll thank me later
 to get more of what you heard today.
 You know where we're at with theradcast.com search for Tom Roach
 to find all the highlights from today's episode.
 And you know where I'm at at Ryanofford on all the platforms
 and I'm blowing up on TikTok and it's rad.
 And I'll see you next time on the radcast.