Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Tom Roach - Brand Strategist and VP of Jellyfish

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of The Radcast with Ryan Alford! This week, Ryan interviews brand strategist Tom Roach! Tom has over 20 years of industry experience and is the VP of Jellyfish. In this episode, Tom shares his opinion on TikTok and short form videos vs. traditional advertising. If you want to keep up with Tom, you can follow him on  LinkedIn and Twitter @TomRoach, or check out his website www.tomroach.comIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Check out www.theradicalformula.com. Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube channel, or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

You know, TikTok will say, don't make ads, make TikToks. They're trying to say advertising, traditional advertising is dead, have our new thing. 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 70-20-10 rule, which is like 70% 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 bet. 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, your 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. As we talked pre-episode and transparency, I own an agency. I've been in the agency a long time, world like you, I don't get a ton I'm starting to venture out to the guys that I listen to I follow Tom's a brilliant strategist on LinkedIn I'm gonna brag on you a bit Tom because I like I don't honestly have that many people that that sneak into my ear like like I go that I nod my head but 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. That's really nice of you. And TomRoach.com, right? Is it TheTomRoach or TomRoach?

Yeah, it's TheTomRoach.com. People keep telling me you've got to buy TomRoach.com because the there is getting in the way. It's only $400 to buy the other URL. But, you know, 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 chest beady, much more than I think than across the world,

like the Ohio State, the Miami, the university. So you're the, not a, you're the Tom Roach. I am the Tom Roach. There is a Tom Roach who is mayor of White Plains City, New York, I think, who I get confused with on Twitter. There's a Tom Roach who's an Australian rules football player. I'm not him. I'm the Tom Roach. Yes, I love it.

Well, I'm looking forward to spinning 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 of 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're a strategist. Let's break it down for people for exactly what that means and just kind of your professional journey. Sure.

So 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 um i've been in mostly in creative agencies so i spent a lot of time at amv bbdo which is the 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, and also Lear Burnett, 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, where 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 are particularly good at um working with the platforms so if you think about the way the ad industry has developed over probably the last like 100 years when it started out it was in it 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 is we're now 2,500 people, 40 offices worldwide, eight in the U.S. Our growth has really mirrored the growth of the platforms. Yeah, that's incredible. world wide 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, define platforms for the audience.

Okay. Well, I mean, I guess the most obvious answer these days would be your Googles, Metas, Amazons, increasingly Apple, TikTok, LinkedIn. So the places where people do most of their, spend most of their 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 behaviour, 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 that is the is the big that the the the matters and google's of this world so thinking about the you know historical which you know i think 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 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 um but the the place p is also where the 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 pay and the PlacePay. You're right. Yeah. You've been in it a long time. You've obviously developed your own perspective, which I'm excited to get into 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 people, whether you know this or not, everyone listening, the names that Tom just dropped at the agencies are worldwide, like some of the most recognized,

respected agencies in the world. So, uh,, 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 and advertising? Yeah. Okay, well, I guess firstly, starting off with the, in the agencies that I've worked, some of the like, I mean, you've, 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 Hegarty, who is the H of BBH, which was one of the places I worked.

He is a real legend. And you talk about the kind of Madman era. He was a real legendary character in the 70s and 80s and 90s and noughties in the UK, and is still going. He and others, this guy called David Abbott, who was the A of AMV BBDO, another amazing agency. He is somebody that wrote 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 by osmosis 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 um that had been founded and and run by those kinds of legendary characters. So big influence, I think, is those kinds of creative gods, really. And then the other set of influences, I think, are probably the big academic kind of writers and thinkers in the marketing world, particularly people like Professor Byron Sharp, who I could talk a bit about if you wanted. And there's a guy called Les Burnett, 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 books on how advertising works, particularly around the effectiveness of advertising the commercial impact of advertising and that's a big part of what I what I've kind of specialized in through my career so far um Les works still with a guy called Peter Field both of them together are these like legendary characters who write these amazing books there's a book that anybody that's interested in this world has to read which is called the long and the short of it which is like the literally the bible about how advertising

communication works in two ways in the short term and the long term and what's best together and then the other name i mentioned is a professor byron sharp who's a marketing professor working out of 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 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 communications work lesbonette is uh one of my favorites um 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, Tom, because I love your perspective on it. And Les is spot, I mean, you know, he's like the godfather of it all. And it's because we've come up in this world where everyone wants success now and they think you can build a brand overnight. And, you know, it's just not true. We live in a short-termism, you would 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 if you're listening, there's this notion that, well, with e-commerce and different things, 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 where that was, you've already spoke to how it was influenced, but just kind of how those, what's the interplay of those things? Yeah, yeah.

So where to start on that? So there's literally books on it. I mean, the first thing to say is if you think about the 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 um 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 um but you know if you really want to be successful you have to do both um you you can't you can't just um do the hard sell because what happens is you you might get a 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 you're only doing things which kind of incentivize people that might catch their eye fleetingly. There might be an offer or discount that gets them into it. But it's not really lasting long in their memory. You're not giving something of great value that is going to be carried with them in their synapses, in 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.

that you repeat consistently, that presents an image of your brand, that gives them some things to remember you by, something famous that can kind of hook into their brains and can develop what Byron Sharp would call mental availability. And 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 when somebody is in a decision-making or buying moment, they may be online, they 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 and performance, and get the two right, get the two in balance. And what the marketing literature says is you want to get it about 60-40. 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 um 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. But more mature brands may be in a different combination. And I think the 60-40 rule, it's not a hard and fast rule. It's a good place to start, and then you can test and learn from there. Do you think that is perfect? I could not have. Professor Tom just took us to school, and I think that was right down the path of understanding exactly those things. And I think we've gotten conditioned with promotions and things like that.

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 swang way too much to the short term. 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 swang, 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 genuinely

what the split is. I mean, there's $690 billion worth of advertising spent globally. What proportion of that is being spent on 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're when you when you've come from the world 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 Co, 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 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 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 is a whole generation of marketing people who've been 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, are beginning to need to learn some more of the longer-term tactics that have been more meat and drink to people like me in the worlds that I've been in. Yeah. And I think the reason I think I've seen it or felt like it swung too far, I mean, because let's face it, who's the first person to get fired at every large company the cmo like and so uh you know i mean i'm i'm categorizing here but or stereotyping but you know marketing's been under such pressure to drive sales it that to me pushed it that direction yeah and and so it should in a way you know what 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. But it's about understanding that it's not only about sales, it's also about creating saleability for your brand, creating the context and the environment in which people will want to make a sale,

make a purchase. So it's absolutely about both. There's a phrase that was coined, bothism, 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. I think that there is a new breed of marketer and a CMO that is going to need to be equally adept at the long and 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 things here,

the long and the short, 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 the the role I played in the career I've had I've been less into like the technology and the and the specifics of how the tech works and so I think you can get you know we're we're all used to, I think, in this industry,

in the 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 this platform is. And I think that can 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 being the first to really work out certain new piece of technology um and other other marketers will will um make a great career on on doing the fundamentals really well and who's to say that one is wrong when the other is is right i'm not going to say that but um you know different different companies different brands will have their culture of risk taking um personally i wouldn't be making loads of big bets

on on all on incredibly new and shiny things um 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 for small small new brands to try those things out and see see how they go but if you're a McDonald's you're probably not going to be wanting to place 90% of your budget on what are essentially bets. You want it to be 90% to be on stuff that you know to work. I really like the 70-20-10 rule, which is like 70% 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 bet.

So I think some kind of balance like that is probably not a bad rule of thumb. I like that 70-20-10, writing that down. I might TikTok 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 brands, especially McDonald's and the brands you guys have worked with,

but I am curious from a strategist's point of view because the nuances of some of the platforms that are getting out of what I'd call maybes and into the realm of can't ignores, like Instagram obviously has been there for a while, and Reels, and then TikTok so that short form I call it the ADD uh 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 does it not change a little bit of, you know that TV's not dead.

We'll talk about that a little bit more. It's still the medium of choice for mass. But our attention is fleeting. And so is that insight, the fleeting attention of 30-year-olds that are going to be the leaders of the world, the digital natives, does that change your approach strategically when you're building out plans for clients? let's kill the this this assumption that um 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 worth of quality content right um 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 um so i 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. No question. So the average number of seconds that people will attend spend less time watching a particular format of advertising no no question so yeah um the the the average number of seconds that people will watch a 30 seconds attend to a 30 second tv commercial for is about 13 the average number of seconds that people watch a youtube ad is about six seconds the average number of seconds that people watch a 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 a 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 ads 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 um and youtube have become really big um we're still not really um at the level of creativity that i think the 30 second tv spot in his absolute heyday had achieved that's not surprising because it's it's less mature as a medium as an industry we're still getting used to how to work it um but i'm not gloomy i think it's really exciting to see when you when you look look at a platform particularly like something like tiktok

which is inherently a creative platform you've got people and, I think you can say similar. You know, TikTok is a platform which was is born out of people's creativity and they're in a humanity's creativity, if you like. And so if we follow some of the principles that a TikTok video, like a TikTok native is following and apply those to how we communicate as brands and brand builders. I think that's a really interesting space to go. So I think we're really only, in my mind, at the foothills of working out how to do really cool creative things with some of these platforms. And so I'm an optimist. I'm not a pessimist about 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, 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 to get your, get that logo and your, um, your stinger in quickly. ads that are five seconds to get that logo and you're a stinger in quickly. Is that what I'm hearing, Tom? Oh, God.

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, if I'm a a creative person a creative in an agency or uh you know an influencer or somebody who's trying to to to develop great content for their for the brands that are paying them um you you don't always want to just follow best practice 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 that 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. Take note. 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 had factories rolling, I might appreciate average rather than peaks and troughs. Hey, man, I run an agency called Radical. There's no average around here. All right, man.

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. I'm half digital, half traditional. I love a good TV spot. I love a good TikTok. I'm as blended as they come. But man, the funnel has always made sense to me,

and it's been under scrutiny forever. There's McKenzie with the cycle or the circle and all this stuff. 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. 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, you know, 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 it's been the way that that kind of sales people have been teaching each other how to sell since around the 1890s actually so it's well over a century um and so i i kind of had a look at you know the history of it and then the very recent sort of over the last 20 years, at least, 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, you know, theory, I guess, of the funnel. And you've got to 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, how we could apply some of that marketing science to the funnel to improve it slightly. So I evolved it slightly, not very much slightly not very much but just a nudge enough to kind of nudge it into the to the 21st century a bit um and um again using some of the the thinking of byron sharp so this idea of mental availability um was was the thing i would put at the top of the the funnel so your 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 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,

let's call the top layer building, 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 a fact 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 so but let's let's let's let's say we need to actually nudge people to a sale

so when they're in the market let's let's give them say we need to actually nudge people to a sale. So when they're in the market, let's 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 it's called 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 or 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 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 a more bespoke way about the actual journey that people are taking towards your brand, and you need to be thinking in a tailoring 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, the funnel, is going to be with us forever, not something that you can just kill with a piece of B2B content marketing like McKinsey might. 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 the tomroach.com you can follow along with tom and 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 i'll i'll keep waving the banner if you do hilarious i mean like you know i didn't didn't really think I would ever write an article about funnels, but I did and people seem to like it. I do want to save some time to ask you about personal branding. Tom has published a lot with Marketing Week. Some of the biggest names in 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 we? Because we need jobs. I'm kidding. I'm somewhat kidding. Self-serving. Of course, I'm going to defend it. It's been my career. Yeah.

But talk about your latest article, that perspective. Yeah. So, 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 i think has happened is it it's a kind of journalistic

trope to say this is dead here's the new thing um and um a bit like the funnel thing i guess um and really it's a it's a way that um that that people often in the advertising world bizarrely have been trying to flog their new or sell their new thing that they've got to sell. Often it's a platform with a new kind of format. You know, TikTok will say, don't make ads, make TikToks. They're trying to say advertising, traditional advertising is dead, have our new thing. But they're just selling ads. You know, so don't fool people.

And I don't think we should allow ourselves to do down our industry. We in this amazing industry that yes it's changing and evolving of course it is um but has it's a as i said before 690 billion dollar industry globally for every dollar spent on advertising there is a six dollar 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, you know, to salve our own consciences about selling or something, as if there's something dirty or bad about selling.

Selling's okay. It's good. It can be good. in fact it can be very good and and we need to be to embrace that in order to really be proud of our industry and and make and help it evolve and be future-facing and evolve for the future not not kind of do it down and say it's changed for the worse and and there you know there were these guys in the past and that the stuff that they were doing is no longer done and there was this kind of golden era of creativity called the map and era i don't really believe in golden eras i think that you know 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 of an industry that says yes it can be better let's improve'd much rather be a part of an 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 we need to be optimistic about the future of what we do. Brilliant. Love it. Here's how I – when people say that, I'll never say that. When people say that, I'll never say that.

But what I do say 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? I think it's probably a fair statement. What 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 70s. Yeah, it's very fictitious. Yeah, so Bill Birnbach and DDB made some amazing VW ads in the 60s, right? Which we in our industry worship.

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. And, you know, there's always, I mean, there's kind of 5% of anything is good and 95% is shit. But I'd much rather 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 some 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're on personal branding. Does it bother you, the term? branding uh does it bother you the term um i'm just trying to get over my um kind of awkward britishness around the idea of having a brand or a brand name yeah i understand the

kind of parallels between a product brand and the fact that um 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 that has 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 um but when it comes to a kind of professional name i think people have always

in any industry had a had a name that they've that they've sought to to to to protect or to grow or to build um i think we live in an era where um you where 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 is possibly has grown a bit in terms of that balance between my personal brand and the corporate brand i work for um but everybody benefits it's not a you know what's great is i'm allowed in fact expected to to write stuff and to put put um 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 it's definitely um i enjoy it i enjoy writing stuff i'm not a

natural extrovert so what it does writing things for me i think what i'm writing so it means i can put my thoughts on paper i can publish them i then get asked to do fun stuff like this and and get on get on stages i've got something to talk about if i hadn't written the stuff i'd publish them i then get asked to do fun stuff like this and and get on get on stages i've got something to talk about if i hadn't written the stuff i'd written i i would find this conversation extremely difficult to have um but you know luckily you're asking about things i've written so it it's it all i'm i'm really like i enjoy doing the stuff i do and writing the things i do and the and the kind of benefits that come off the back of that. And 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 want you

to do it. The high tide raises all ships. So that's how I'd summarize that. You know, Tom Roach is known jellyfish comes with it you know because you're working for and together and so uh there you have it what's your favorite ad of all time Tom this is such a hard question um I probably have to say something like Guinness Surfer which is a bit of a cliche it's a classic UK ad from from 1999, which I worked at AMV just after that. And 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 Walt Campbell, 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 going to give you a topic, rad or fad. Some people, I don't know why you get hung up on it,

and maybe you aren't, but some people are, what's that mean? Rad is obviously awesome. Fad may not be here tomorrow. This is purely your opinion. We will not play it back in five years to say Tom Roach was right or wrong. I get it. Rad or

fad? The metaverse. Well, I think it's probably not a fad, but in its current made-up state, it slightly is 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 yet i've had a really interesting opinion which is that we should just call it gaming as brilliant

guy called james whatley who says gaming is the metaverse we don't need this word called the metaverse it's gaming people where's my ding where's my ding nick i'm gonna want that fat or did ding i said that exact thing uh on the podcast uh a few weeks ago similar thought i was just like aren't we just playing a game like you know like isn't this just playing you know a different version of mine or whatever. Anyway, brilliant. 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, I love 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 look 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 i mean i'm you know 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 i you know there's some schadenfreude in there um but i'm sure somebody will will work out the 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 there was a story that people used to tell about how text messaging was 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 and they never predicted that so some of the best pieces of technology, 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 rads long term and fads short term. There you have it. Always smart.

Tom Roach, man, I really appreciate you responding to my Hail Mary on LinkedIn and going, you know, I've been following you for a few years and listening and, 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 Tom and I hope we can continue discussion and, you know, at least shoot me the first, you know, insight, like whatever you, if you sit, if you got a book or something, you're getting to send me the first link or, uh, 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, real, it's been a real pleasure being on and I'll send you,

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, but I'm not sure if I've got one in need right now. Yeah. Well, we'll see. But Hey, Hey guys, go follow the Tom Roach. Go get them. The Tom Roach.com Twitter, Tom Roach, LinkedIn, Tom Roach. You'll thank me later. You'll get more of what you heard today. You know where we're at. We're at the radcast.com search for Tom Roach. You'll find all the highlights from today's episode. And you know where I'm at at Ryan Alford on all the platforms and I'm blowing up on Tik TOK and it's rad. And I'll see you next time.