What the fandom formula means for creators, brands and agencies, with Zoe Scaman

Zoe's Substack "Musings of a wandering mind" where you can read all her latest posts on fandoms and her piece on misogyny in the ad industry "Mad Men Furious Women".

Coverage of Zoe's misogyny article:
The Guardian
The Independent

YouTuber (mentioned during the podcast): Xanadu
LinkedIn profile for YouTuber Cory Strassburger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corystrassburger/

Jenny  00:03

So today's guest, I'm a huge fan of, her name is Zoe Scaman. She's the founder of Bodacious, a strategy studio that creates dynamic and culturally compelling brands. She's one of the most brightest strategic minds in the creative industry, and has a huge following on Twitter, where she generously shares her thoughts, observations and predictions about the ever evolving world of fandoms. She started her career as an account manager in an ad agency, which I find fascinating, moved quickly into strategy and then management consultancy. She's worked for many agencies, including Naked, Droga5 and with brands such as Adidas, Nike and Coca Cola. Before setting up Bodacious she was Global Head of strategy for Ridley Scott Creative Group. And my level of adoration for Zoe has just gone up a few notches because she's written a magnificent piece and a very moving piece on her Substack recently called Mad Men, Furious Women, all about misogyny in the ad industry. It's literally exploded. She's appeared in The Guardian, Campaign, Adweek and the Times Radio. And we will talk a little bit about that later. But Zoe welcome!

 

Zoe  01:13

Thank you very much for having me.

 

Jenny  01:15

Would you mind spending a few minutes talking about your career journey, particularly why you moved out of account management? And how different is working with your clients now at Bodacious versus during your time in agencies?

 

Zoe  01:30

Sure, I mean, it's a long rambling journey. So I'll try and make it as succinct as possible. I started out accidentally in advertising when I was 18. So I basically went and did six months in Greece, didn't sit my A level exams, because I was going through a rebellious patch, came back, realised I couldn't go to university without the A levels and so I was like right, I need to find a job somehow. And back then you still found jobs in papers. So I went into a local paper, and I found a job. And it just said "bright enthusiastic person wanted for a startup". And it was right place right time, to be honest. So it was in Guildford in Surrey. It was a small agency that specialised in pay per click, so sort of search marketing. My first client was a pornography website, which was very interesting, because my job was to source keywords and write ads. So I learned a lot about all the different factions of pornography that were very popular! But they also had created a software which at the time was groundbreaking. So you could actually track what people did on your website after they clicked on a Google link. So that might seem really provincial now but at the time, it was a really big deal. And what that allowed me to do was to travel up to London, and basically sell this software to the bigger agencies and wear different hats while I was with them. And suddenly my eyes were just opened to this huge world, that to be totally honest, I had absolutely no idea even existed. And I was walking into agencies like Walker Media and seeing Christine Walker, who was just terrifying and formidable and incredible, and her table of women and they're all smoking in the office at that stage, and I was like, wow, I want to be like them when I grow up! So I then moved to London, got a job in an agency there, moved into kind of account management within digital advertising, which was still relatively new at the time. Then I left there and moved to Australia, where I went to Media Comm, still account management. So I was an account director at that stage, super young, probably way too young to be an account director, and leading a team. But that was kind of soon bought crashing down to earth when I realised that I was completely incapable of doing it. So then I moved into strategy. Then I moved into Australia's first social media agency, which was a little bit before its time and we went bankrupt after nine months, but it's an amazing journey. And then I ended up at Naked, which is where I really cut my teeth in understanding strategy and really getting under the table (?) of that. And I worked on Coca Cola for two years across Australia and New Zealand, we did Share a Coke which was the names on cans that originated from there, and then went up to 72 countries worldwide, which was incredible. And then I moved on to a number of different agencies. I went to Universal McCann, I moved back to London, I went to Glue and ran Kellogg's digital globally as well. Then I moved into kind of management consultancy, so I wanted to go more into the nuts and bolts in terms of how a business operated, where we were getting into barriers when it comes to socialising and sharing ideas internally. So I went to an agency or not really an agency, a consultancy called London Strategy Unit. And my first job was with Adidas. So I basically moved to Nuremberg in Bavaria, which was interesting, middle of nowhere for a few months, and rewrote, Adidas's global marketing planning process, which was just fascinating. Because for the first time, I was firmly on the other side of the table. And I was really understanding how different functions within the business communicated, how they operated, how they interacted, how the agency relationship came to be. And I realised actually how little the agencies really mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was like 5% of the brain power that the clients were thinking about the vast majority of the time, the rest of what they had to concentrate on and what they had to juggle was just vast and I think really understanding that helped me. I then moved to New York for a bit. And I went into a management consultancy there called Undercurrent because I really wanted to be at the forefront of where that space was going. So I worked with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project to work with PepsiCo and American Express, which was fascinating. Then I moved back, I did more client side work with Adidas. And then I fell into Droga5. And I'd been freelancing with Droga5 before but this was kind of more falling into it in a more full time capacity. But due to my nature, I then kind of got itchy feet. And I was like, right, I'm going to Ethiopia. And so I basically got a job doing an international development project in Ethiopia with Nike Foundation, I'd never done any of that kind of stuff before. I was a complete fool. So I was like, I've googled Ethiopia, I get it, it's fine. And I landed in Addis Ababa in the middle of a tribal warfare, national emergency with UN peacekeepers, and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, Oh, my God! What have I done? And the internet was turned off, and I couldn't get hold of my parents. And you know, we had to have safety protocols and bodyguards and all this kind of stuff. And it was just fascinating, because I think it was probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Because at that stage, I'd done very, very well, in my career, I was flying, I was quite cocky, to be honest. And I thought I knew everything and landing in a country like that, in that context, where all of the rules that you have learned so far in the Western world do not apply. That is not how they do business. That's not how you're going to get traction, you have to basically swallow the fact that you have no idea what you're doing. You have to get comfortable with learning and relearning all over again. And you've got to figure out a new path forward, where all of your old tricks of the trade and all of your old knowledge about how to communicate and get work done is just gone. So that was amazing. And I'm so glad that I did it at that point in my career, because I needed to be kind of knocked off my perch a little bit I think. Then I came back to Droga, stayed there for a while, totally burnt out. And then I left and kind of went back to freelancing a little bit until I started actually, kind of I think I can level this up. So I wanted to start my own thing, my own consultancy with Bodacious. So I launched it and started looking for bigger projects. Then I got headhunted by Ridley Scott, which was surprising because I was like, why do you want to hire me? I've never worked in entertainment before. And I was his Global Head of Strategy. And I agreed that I would do that about 50/50. So I'd keep Bodacious and do that 50% of the time. In reality, it was more 70/30, 80/20, obviously more towards Ridley. But it was a fascinating experience. And I got exposed to, again, a totally different world, but I had no idea about any of it. Most of the time, I'd be sitting in a meeting and it would be like listening to another language in terms of what they were talking about. But that learning curve was fascinating. I got exposed to some incredible people who I'm still connected to now. And it really started to broaden my horizons when it came to the landscape of entertainment, the future of entertainment, which then led me into kind of fandoms and the metaverse. Then I obviously pulled in the brand strategy element that I'd had previously. And that really started to shape the direction that I am in now and really started to kind of push me down a particular path, which I think I'm now kind of consolidating.

 

Jenny  08:20

Wow, I mean, that that is a hell of a journey, isn't it? As well, I'm just like, my jaw is just dropping as you were just explaining that. I mean, as you said, it must be hugely mind expanding to have experienced so much. And I'm just curious now, how do you end up working with clients who you can offer all of these facets to? Because like you said, when you started working in management consultancy, you realised that what an agency actually does is a small part of that, but having the bigger picture as well. So how do you attract your type of client that you want to work with at Bodacious now?

 

Zoe  08:57

The type of client that normally comes to me are the ones that have got really complex questions and no clear solutions. And so because they don't really know what the solution might be, they don't know who to hire. So they can't necessarily say this is an advertising brief, or they can't necessarily say this is a CRM brief, or this is a television production brief, or something around that or this is a management consultancy brief because they just don't know. And that's where I come in. Which is, I almost kind of fit at the top with those sort of complex problems. And mostly, the problems, they come to me with just one sentence. And I can then look at it and stick with it and figure it out and kind of dive into all of the different areas around it. And then I can figure out where that needs to go next. So it might be an advertising brief, it might be that they need to start thinking about building entertainment properties. It might be that they've got their audience wrong, it might be that they need to go into new product development, it might be that the distribution strategy is wrong that they need to move into a new category. But I think that having the ability to be a bit of a Swiss Army Knife and be able to consult on all of those different levels is starting to become a skill that's more and more in demand. I call it just being a generalist. But I think a lot of people assume that a generalist is a kind of negative connotations, so it's like a jack of all trades. But obviously, the jack of all trades quote is actually a lot misunderstood. So people think it's a jack of all trades, master of none. And we forget the last piece, which is 'oftentimes better than a master of one'. And I think that really resonates with me. And so the vast majority of them, as I said, they come to me because I can look at it holistically and be like, right, I think it might be a little bit of an advertising brief. But I also think you need to look at category expansion, but I also think you need to sort packaging out. But I also think you need to start thinking about gaming development or something around that. And that tends to be where they come from.

 

Jenny  10:52

Amazing. You can you've got the ability to see the bigger picture, and then presumably, pull in the elements that they need later down the track once you've kind of sorted out the problem. So yeah, is that true?

 

Zoe  11:04

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of the time as well, I will find myself in a sphere or an area where I also don't know enough about the area. And so it's brilliant for me, because I just keep learning. And I'm very open with clients that I'm not a specialist in every single one of these areas. And so I will bring specialists in to help consult on that stuff. But I also think the clients are quite open minded to the fact that there's a certain subset of things that I have no clue about, and we can learn together. And they're not scared of hiring someone that is a generalist that doesn't necessarily have deep, deep, skills or knowledge in any particular area.

 

Jenny  11:43

So obviously, you've talked a lot about the evolving creative economy and fandoms. I know you recently wrote a huge piece on this. And you've actually come up with a formula for fandoms. Is that because you were asked so many times, what is the fandom?

 

Zoe  11:57

It is, and it's also because I think I was confusing people. So I started talking about fandoms, probably about two years ago. Then I started talking about gaming. And then I started talking about the metaverse and then I started with my cryptocurrency and especially with the cryptocurrency people were just like, 'What are you talking about? Why are you talking about blockchain? And why are you talking about currencies in this sense? It doesn't make any, there's no link?' And I was like, actually there is. It's all linked together. The creation economy is linked with fandoms, is linked with new entertainment models, is linked with blockchain. And everyone's like, no, don't see it, don't see it. You're completely off your rocker, you don't really understand what you're talking about. I was like, right, okay. I need to pull all of this together into some sort of thesis that shows people how I'm thinking and why I think it's woven together in this area. And so that's where it came from. Because I think I'd been banging on about so many bits and pieces that looked like disparate fragments. But to me, they were all perfectly glued into one central thesis and one central mega trend. And people were just not following along, probably because I was kind of static running all the time. And they didn't really see the links, and they didn't have the time to sit with it in the way that I did. So I just wanted to put something out into the world that showed them the picture that I was seeing.

 

Jenny  13:14

Can you give us an example where it fits together that would highlight how simple it is? Or conversely, can you talk to us about that actual formula? Would that, to simplify it so that people can get, I know that you've written a huge piece on this? But is there a way to summarise it so that people can understand it in a really simplistic form?

 

Zoe  13:40

Sure. So I mean,

So the community piece, the deep dive in there is, we are coming up with new platforms. So beyond social, so beyond kind of Facebook and Instagram and that kind of stuff. There are new platforms emerging that are all built for vertical niches. So the more kind of niche and weird your interest is, the more these platforms are catering to you so you can really find your tribe. And the interesting thing about that is the shift towards interest networks. So social networks like Facebook and Instagram, normally, when you first set up your Facebook profile, you would be friending people that you actually knew in real life. So you might friend Like the person that you went to school with 10 years ago, or you might friend your aunt, or you might friend your hairdresser or something like that. But it was people that you knew. The problem with that is that you might know them in real life, but you actually might not share any interest with them. So your aunt might be going off on a kind of a right wing nutcase job on Facebook talking about conspiracy theories, your hairdresser could be talking about a boat that she's doing up or something, but it's not necessarily your interest area. But now what we're seeing is interest networks. So TikTok is an interest network. So you can go on to TikTok and you can set up a profile, and you don't have to follow or friend anybody. What will happen is the 'for you page', your homepage, will just start to serve you content. And the algorithm that sits behind it will just learn very, very quickly the type of content that you react to depending on how long you spend with the video, how fast you swipe past it, if you follow that person after you've seen the video, that kind of stuff. And the algorithm starts to then serve you more and more content based on what you like. And then before you know it, you found yourself in some sort of deep TikTok cults or tribe, which is all around the niches that you love. And that nicheness is becoming more and more popular not just on TikTok but also on platforms like Discord and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you can go on Discord, which was set up for gamers to be able to communicate while they were gaming with World of Warcraft or Call of Duty and now you can find a channel all about reptile lovers, or knitting patterns or something like that. It's insane. So I think the fact that we're bringing together these niches and these tribes, and they're becoming more and more vibrant little communities, because they're so passionate about whatever it is that they're putting up on a pedestal. it's really, really interesting. And those platforms, as I said, we didn't have them before. And now we do so about unlocking and connecting these niches like never before, then the second part of the equation is autonomy. And the autonomy side of things is about allowing fans and allowing people who are passionate about a certain intellectual property like Marvel, for example, or music or something like that to actually create alongside the artist or alongside the IP, so they can kind of spin out their own ideas. And previously, we've had this to a certain extent, we've always had fan fiction, we've always had kind of fan stories or kind of fan spin offs, but we've never taken it seriously. It's always lived in the depths of like Reddit or something, or a deep fan forum. You know, there's there's been stories for Star Trek for ages, for example, about Spock and Captain Kirk falling in love, and getting married, and all those kinds of things. But the problem was that what the studios did is if they gained any traction with those fanfictions, the studios would send them a cease and desist letter. And fanfiction for them was fun until it got out of hand, and they didn't want it to kind of become mainstream. But now what we're seeing is it is becoming mainstream. And again,

And so they're starting to realise that fans are not just there to passively consume the centralised control stories that we put out there, but they are also a font of new creativity and new ideas, and we should be finding ways to tap that and unleash it in some capacity. So that's the kind of secondary piece of the formula. And then the final piece of the formula is equity. So equity basically means we really should be paying fans if they're coming up with this stuff. We can't just do it for free and then we make loads of money off the back of their ideas and their IP. And fans are starting to wake up to this as well, because what's happening with the creator of the economy, so you know, the Youtubers, the TikTokers, is that kind of stuff, during the pandemic, they started pioneering ways to pay fans back to their attention. So if you're on Patreon, for example, and you're a YouTuber, and I'm a fan, I might pay a certain access tier, which means that I get, I'm in a whatsapp group with my creative that I love. And they WhatsApp me once a week, and I pay $100 for it or something like that. But then that patronage needs to be repaid in other ways. And maybe as a result of that, I get exclusive access to much that nobody else gets, or maybe I get a share of the royalties of the song that they're creating, because I've given feedback in a closed group as to where I think the chorus should go, or something like that. And so what's happening is we're seeing the blurring of the lines between the artist and the creator and the fan, in terms of their input, but also their terms of being able to share in the financial upside as well. Because when you're a fan, say you're a teenage girl, and you're a One Direction fan, you get a warm, fuzzy feeling from advocating for that band and their music. And when you see them do well, you feel good, because you're a fan. But what if you could also turn that advocacy for the band into money? So if I had bought a token or a share, for example, in One Direction when they first came out, because I love them so much but I also believe in their power to be able to explode all over the planet, then when their success increases, and when their popularity increases and their financial value increases, so does the value of the share that I've bought. And that's what we're starting to see more and more. And that's where the crypto side of things comes in. Because we've never really had the ability to provide tokens or currencies to fans that are fully transparent in terms of their value and their upside, but also their ability to automatically do kickbacks and pay back like dividends and all that kind of stuff. We've just never had it. And now what we're seeing is we're seeing new platforms built on top of the blockchain, for this purpose so they're creating creator currencies, fan tokens. You know, there's one company called Socios, which is a fan token company, and they are reinventing sports. So now, Juventus, Man City, Real Madrid, all of those football clubs around the world are working with Socios to create fan tokens. So fans can actually buy into the club. And at the moment, it's quite basic in terms of what those tokens buy you. So they buy you like an equity share of some kind. But they also buy you, depending on how many tokens you hold, voting rights. So you know, if you're holding a certain amount of tokens, amongst other fans, you can vote for the song that the team is going to walk onto the pitch to. You can vote how they decorate their tour bus, you can vote on the next jerseys they bring out, for example for the match. And so that's kind of quite basic, but it's only because they're so new, and they're still testing the waters. So it transforms you from fan to owner or fan to investor. And you can also start to govern and make choices. And be that as I said, it could be music could be football related, could be choices in terms of a movie that someone's making, and what the ending is, or if they're multiple endings, could be game development, there's so much potential to it. And again, we have never had these tools before. And that's why it's kind of unlocking it. So when you start to kind of dive into community, as I mentioned, it's all about niches coming together really passionate groups of people that have never been able to find each other before, then you've got autonomy. So they're also able to create, they're able to come up with their own ideas, but also to push those are their own ideas into kind of mainstream acceptance. And then you've got equities, so the ability to actually reward them and help them share in the upside of whatever it is that they create, whether they actually be developing something or they're just advocating for you as well. So when you tie those three pieces together, you start to see that the way that fandom is shifting and unleashing is going to mean an entirely new landscape for brands, for creators, for IP, for games, for movies, for music, for everything. And that's why he's got me so excited about this space.

 

Jenny  24:16

Wow, I can see why you're so excited. It feels like the future Zoe doesn't it?

 

Zoe  24:20

Yes.

 

Jenny  24:21

And I suppose as you said, we're at the very beginning of this. Are there, what do you see as the barriers to some companies currently kind of adopting this way of thinking?

 

Zoe  24:34

So many barriers, so many. The first and probably most common barrier is fear of loss of control. We have got to such a way of thinking within brands, within entertainment, that it's all about quality control and quality control can only happen if you centralise it and if you hold on really, really tight and you perfect all of the edges and nobody messes about with your IP. And to a certain extent, that is true. So you know, when you're looking at movies like Marvel, the quality of those movies is just increasing and increasing and increasing because the core team behind them are getting into a rhythm. And that's why, every Marvel series that's been released on Disney Plus has been better than the one that came before. So that's true. But you also need to open up this idea of decentralising your IP and kind of letting go of your IP to a certain extent as well. And you don't need to do it in terms of you're never going to have well, you might I'm not going to say never, never, but you're never going to have fans creating a gigantic Hollywood blockbuster together. They're probably not going to get to that stage because they don't have the expertise. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't come up with interesting stories or tangents or creations that could then in some capacity feed into what it is that you do next. Or small side projects that you might explore, because it gives fans the ability to feel like they're more sticky within that particular universe or that realm because they feel like they've got the ability to create and to share. But also, creativity, I think, as we're learning, can come from everywhere. And when we first had social media talking about, crowdsourcing and that kind of stuff, we got into a way of thinking that we were just like, right, you know, people can create stuff, that's fine, but most of its going to be shit. And it was, because they didn't have the tools. But now look at what happens when you put just a really simplistic tool like TikTok into the hands of the public, and the creativity and the new trends and the ideas and the means and the cultural currency that has been birthed from allowing the general public to have their own tools for creativity and development. And the cream always rises to the top. So we're not saying that everybody has the capacity to do this. But we're saying it's so much more democratised and decentralised than you had previously imagined. So that idea of giving over a percentage of control, or letting fans play around with your IP and reimagine it in their own lens is terrifying for the vast majority of businesses, because they just don't know how to handle those conversations. And IP, you know, is surrounded by legal parameters and copyrights and all that kind of stuff as well. And they've got to be careful on that front. But there are possibilities. As I mentioned, with Lego world builder, you can do it if you open it up. But I think a lot of clients are just assuming that the quality is going to be really bad that it's not worth the hassle. And they don't really understand what they would do if they did open up their IP as well. So that kind of scares the crap out of them. I think the equity piece also terrifies them. So this idea of moving into kind of blockchain and cryptocurrency and fan tokens, and they don't really know where to start. So the vast majority of clients that come to me say I want to get into gaming, or I want to get into crypto. But gaming is huge and multifaceted. And so is crypto and so it's not just about getting into the space or getting into the technology, it's thinking about what role do we play within that space? And what role do we create for our consumers in that space as well. So I think a lot of it is uncertainty, it's uncomfortable. They feel like it's almost too futuristic. But then they're also worried about being left behind. And the pace of change is terrifying. And they also don't have the skill sets necessarily in house to be able to do this. There's very, very few people, clients that understand cryptocurrency and blockchain. There's very, very few people that understand gaming unless they're actually in a gaming studio themselves. And so that is probably the biggest barriers is lack of knowledge. And that lack of knowledge leads to a kind of head in the sand mentality. And also just clinging on to the way we've always done things because that feels like it's manageable and it feels like it's less overwhelming than trying to face this kind of barrage of new. And it's constantly coming out and trying to wrap their heads around it.

 

Jenny  28:37

Yeah, lots of reasons there. And I saw that recently, you shared a guy who's kind of emerging as a really interesting YouTuber who's created his own metaverse. You shared the example, I watched the video and I just thought I could not believe the quality of the production that he put together. And everyone, I read all the comments saying, this is just going to be huge. So it's almost like individuals now with the tools that are at their disposal are becoming a little bit threatening for bigger organisations that have spent, I don't know, months or years putting productions together. Do you think?

 

Zoe  29:19

100%. Yes, so the guy that you're mentioning is Cory Strassburger. And Cory is an animation artist but also your works with Unreal Engine and that kind of stuff as well, which is from Epic who make Fortnight and he's created a character called Blue and Blue lives in Xanadu, which you would have seen from the YouTube, but he created all of that, every single aspect of that episode was created by one person, which is just insane because it's almost like Hollywood level production, and storytelling. And what's so fascinating is that world that he's created, that could turn into a movie franchise, it could turn into gaming, it could turn into a merch line. It could turn, he could actually birth fictional brands within that universe that then become real brands in the real world, it is just gigantic. And you know, I think

 

And then I'm also saying, let's talk about teenagers. Teenagers have only got a certain amount of disposable income. And if they're going to buy three hoodies in the course of three months for example, and one of those hoodies is Xanadu and Blu and Corey, and another one is Addison Rae on TikTok, that only leaves one hoodie left for them to buy a brand. And so the actual power and the influence of the brands is shrinking, while the power and the influence of the creators is rapidly increasing. And also, these people are closer to us because we feel like we've got some sort of parasocial relationship with them. We get to know them. They're not faceless, like an Adidas or something like that. They're actually a real person. And so we feel like we've got a vested interest in supporting them. They feel like we know them in some way. And that parasocial relationship is incredibly powerful in terms of what it can actually then burst with fandoms and products spin offs. You've got YouTubers and TikTokers making coffee brands. There's too young TikTokers, I forget their names now, but between them, they've got like 20 million, 30 million followers. Red Bull approached them and said, 'We would love for you to sponsor Red Bull'. And the kids, like they're 19 and 20, turn around and they were like, 'Oh, that's a great idea, we'll just create our own energy drink'. And so they did. And so now, you know, they've got an energy drink with a distribution network of 30,000 teenagers, and they can rival you know, Red Bull. So Red Bull can no longer just basically rent them as a distribution network. Instead, they have the capability of building their own brands from scratch. There's a company called Piatra, who just got $15 million worth of funding last week. And Pietra is designed specifically to allow creators to easily make their own products, and then send them on to their fans as well. So all of these tools and infrastructures and supply chains and manufacturing, we have never had this capability before. But now, if I'm a creator, and I've never made a product in my entire life, I can press a couple of buttons on Piatra, I put a link in my TikTok profile, and voila, I'm a brand.

 

Jenny  33:12

It really is an exciting time. Funnily enough, a few years ago, I was teaching the private label model for a few years where you can reverse engineer what's selling on Amazon. Work out how to change the product to make it more appealing to the customer and then go and source the product from a manufacturer as a private label brand. And then you put your own brand on it create your own brand. And you can sell it back on the on the Amazon platform. So funnily enough, I was teaching that for a while. So this is like everything's coming together, isn't it? And it feels like a long time coming for the creator. Because it wasn't that many years ago that suddenly all of their music was being downloaded for free. And then they had to start gigging, didn't they, to actually earn money? So it feels like it's the rise of the creator, as you say, the rise of the creator economy. So how does the traditional agency fit currently Zoe? I mean, it sounds like this is a massive movement, it's obviously going to evolve and change and grow. Do you have any examples of agencies that are helping their clients navigate this? Or how do you think the agency model is faring in this quickly changing world?

 

Zoe  34:28

I think it's terrifying. For them, I would be terrified. Because the way that the vast majority of business models are set up, doesn't work in this space. It's too expensive. It's too slow. It's too heavy in terms of overheads. And it's like tunimg around an oil tanker. And that's incredibly challenging. I'm not saying that's all agency, some agencies are a bit more nimble, and they can figure out this space. But the vast majority of agencies are incentivized to continue to feed the conveyor belt and the sausage factory that they've set up, which means, big long kind of pitch processes, there's very few retainers these days so you actually can't really track your cash flow, in terms of knowing that a client's going to be with you for a year or two years or something like that, because most of the projects are project based. And so you pitch and you put all of this effort and energy, which is normally free, into getting a client who's only going to be a project, then you throw a big team against it, and you over inflate the prices of the team because you have to, because there's no other way to try and make that money back. And then they all work quite slowly, that's what happens when you've got lots and lots of people trying to work together in an agency field. So you're less nimble. Then you create a kind of more traditional ad product, so be that film or something like that, which you then put out into the world. And given the speed of culture, it's forgotten in 24, or 48 hours. And I'm not saying that doesn't necessarily work in some cases. People do, obviously, still watch television. If you make a 32 second ad, and you can chuck it on television, over the course of six months, that's still going to work to a certain extent on brand building, but it's not going to get you the kind of cultural aspects that you need, it's not going to help you really build relationships with creators, it's not going to help you explore fandoms, it's not going to help you explore new business models and they just don't have these capabilities in house right now. And so I think they need to build those pretty quickly if they can. I'm not convinced that the vast majority of them actually can, I think it's too late. And you just have to look at the market caps of the big agency groups, which are shrinking, and it just shows you potentially where it's going to go to next. I think what could be quite exciting is the renaissance around Indie shops. So a lot of people are leaving agencies, there was a piece in Ad Age, I think that was published two weeks ago, it was more US centric, but I think it's applicable globally, basically saying that people are leaving that advertising agency jobs in droves after the pandemic, because they're first of all, like, fuck this, I'm exhausted, I've been getting paid absolutely nothing, what do I actually do this for? It's just an ad, I'm not saving lives here. And the the culture of overwork, is just relentless. So I think a lot of them are going right, after the pandemic, I need to look at my life again, and really think about what it is that I want here and how I want to be, and then leaving. And with that loss of talent, what we're going to see is we're going to see the freelance market explode, we're going to see little pods of people start to gravitate towards each other and little collectives, we're going to see the birth of lots of new smaller shops and smaller agencies. And I think that's really exciting, because I actually think that there's going to be new forms of creativity born off the back of that. And for me, personally, I love this idea of a kind of Avengers Assemble model, where you bring together the right partners and the right collectors for the right projects, you work together for a period of time, you get that project done, and then you disband. And it gives you so much more flexibility in terms of  squaring up talent, in terms of working with lots of interesting people, the ability to learn as you go, actually being connected to partners that maybe you've not done anything in that sphere that area before. And I think that, for me feels much more exciting. But I think the bigger agencies, the ones that are quote, unquote, more established, and it's going to be a really, really rocky period for them.

 

Jenny  38:04

I think you're absolutely right. Because also, during this period, a lot of people have worked from home. And I suppose they've thought, well, I can do this all from home, I've got my client, and I'm doing everything. It's not like, hey, what do I need? And I think that's probably some agency owners and the management, senior management are kind of threatened by that, probably. But I think I think you're right. Let's talk a bit about the agency culture as well, because I don't want to leave this interview without kind of touching on the the article that you wrote a while ago. And personally, I felt very triggered by it. Because with a few of your own examples, I resonated with it. So do you mind sort of talking about why you wrote that piece about misogony in the in the ad industry?

 

Zoe  38:50

So I was having a coffee with a female strategist over from New York, and we've not met before, and we were just having a bit of a chat. And we were very, very quickly into this space of warning each other about who to work with, who not to work with, where was slightly safer, where was not. We were sharing some horror stories. And then we kind of woke up to that fact. And we were just oh my god, this is not normal. Like, why are we having this conversation? Why are we now, as women in our mid 30s, warning each other about how to stay safe in a workplace and who to avoid. This is insane. And then we started talking about just how deep rooted sexism and misogyny is in the culture and the business. And that post Me too, we didn't think that that much had changed. We felt like there was less overt sexual kind of harassment and that kind of stuff, because you knew that you couldn't get away with it. But that didn't mean that it had gone anywhere. It just meant that it was kind of buried and coming out in other facets. And we basically said something needs to be written about this. And so I went home and I started writing and I went on to Twitter. And I said, Look, I'm going to write this piece. If anybody wants to share their stories with me, please do so, you can be anonymous if you like. But I do think that using the stories brings it to life, so much more so than just stats and a kind of more generic piece. And I was absolutely inundated. And the stories that you see in the piece are about 10% of what I actually got. And then obviously, once I published it, it just exploded. So I think now I'm sitting on like, 700 stories roughly, and they're all around the world. They're Australia, Germany, they're France, they're the Philippines. They're Hong Kong, they're North America, absolutely everywhere. And it's just happening all the time. And again, a lot of people think that, that's advertising in the 80s and 90s, or it's the Mad Men era and that can't possibly happen anymore. But the vast majority of the stories that I got happened in the last few years. And you know, some of them actually happened last year, for example, like some horrific stories, but in the middle of the pandemic as well, which is crazy. And I think we just need to open up that conversation again, and realise that we are not done and dusted. And after the last #Metoo movement, some symbolic heads rolled, which was fine, but the management teams that enabled them and protected them did not, and they are still in place. And so we did what we had to do to get rid of that spotlight. And we did some lovely pledges. And we talked about #feminism, and time's up, and all this kind of stuff, we didn't do anything, there was no policy change. And so that behaviour is still very much happening. And I wanted to shine a gigantic floodlight on the fact that we may think that we're progressive and liberal and innovative and #diversity and Black Lives Matter and all of that kind of stuff. But it is just lipstick on a pig. And we need to do so much better when it comes to real policy change with teeth. But we're very, very good at over communication. We're very, very good at lovely words. We're very good at pledges, we're very good at codes of conduct, but we don't enforce any of that in a way that matters.

 

Jenny  41:57

And you've become an accidental hero, haven't you? Because I mean, I think like myself, so many women just feel so, finally, someone's actually making this public. And, I know that the likes of Cindy Gallup have talked about it in the past, but it just feels like it's fresh again. And personally, when I read that article, things like that were happening in the early 90s. And I was absolutely shocked to see that it was still happening. So I know a number of people feel furious. But what actually can people do now? I know that you've said that several things need to change. But obviously, you're not, you don't particularly want to be the one leading this charge, do you?

 

Zoe  42:39

Not really. It's not that I don't want to. It's that I can't. I don't work in HR, I don't work in law. I'm not a professional DNI person. I don't work in lobbying or anything like that. What I saw my role as is the ability to write in such a way that I let them match. And just as you said, this work has been going on for years and years and years, way before I came along. The likes of Cindy, as you mentioned, she's been fighting this fight for decades arguably. Kat Gordon, from the 3% conference, there's so many other women who have been pushing in the right direction for change. And the difficulty is that, again, because of the speed of culture, because of the cyclical nature of the way that advertising culture works, is we get really excited, really outraged for like two days, and then we just forget, and we drop the ball and nothing happens. And that happened with the first Meteor movement, happened with Black Lives Matter, it's probably going to happen with my piece as well. And so, I think what we need to keep doing is we need to keep lighting those matches. And so that was all I did, is just light another one. And we need to keep doing that to make sure that the energy and the focus is remaining on this space. But we also need to support the programmes and the incentives that are already happening. And you know, when we first had the 3% conference, there was a big hoo ha about how amazing it was. And then people just kind of dropped off. And they didn't support Kat and her mission and the way that they should have. And that was very hard for her because it's such uphill work. And it's exhausting as well, because this change is incremental, it's generational, we are not going to see a gigantic change in our lifetimes, it's not going to happen. That doesn't mean we give up. That means we keep pushing, and we keep trying to change things for the next generation that comes after us. But that is tiring. And so you need to be able to rest. You need to be able to recuperate your energy. And then you need to light the match again, and kind of off you go. And I think, I'm trying to not lose the momentum of the piece that I wrote. And there's a couple of things that I'm pushing with. So I know I've pulled together some industry bodies, most specifically in the UK, who work, in women's initiatives and LGBTQIA initiatives. And we're trying to come together to see if we can all push in the right direction on NDAs, for example. The government committed in the middle of 2019. They were going to pass some legislation on the inappropriate use of MBAs in the cases of sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination. And they said they would pass that legislation but there's not been a date as to when that's going to happen. But the fact that it's coming, that's precedent for the fact that it is, and it will be a thing. So we could actually write an overview of what agencies should do and what they shouldn't do in preparation for that. And actually, ahead of that legislation being passed, the BBC, the NHS and the House of Commons, have already signed up to its ideals, and so that they will never use NDAs in those cases. So again, there's no reason why the agencies can't sign up to that. So we're pushing in that direction at the moment. I'm also talking to some female political leaders to talk about how they might be able to push the legislation a bit faster, but also other things that we can put in place. And then some people are starting to rally, which is amazing around this idea of unionising, or having an ombudsman of some kind in the advertising industry that allows for a third party to be able to be created. So where women and/or men can go, if they need to escalate claims, which are not necessarily going to work. They escalate them within their own agencies, because a lot of HR departments have their to shut that stuff down. And they don't necessarily trust the system. And that's why, the research that came out was that 83% of women don't report this stuff, because they're scared of the consequences. But if they had an external escalation point, they may well actually do that. And then we can really start to track and see this problem and fix it faster. So there's a couple of different things that I'm trying to push. But again, as I said, I'm not a legal expert, I'm not an HR expert. So I need to pull in real experts to help me with this, but also, I can't do this as a one woman band, and I need support. And we've also got incredible professionals, as I said, who work in this space, they just needed the additional energy and outrage that the pieces created to then get the ball rolling again.

 

Jenny  46:37

And so fantastic, well done just for carrying on and doing actually, trying to make bigger changes. In the meantime, if there is someone listening to this, and they are struggling, I'm going to put a link to all of the things that we've talked about. But this piece as well, if anyone reads your piece and feels like they need somewhere to go, what bodies would you say? Or who who should they talk to in the meantime while we're waiting for these big changes to happen?

 

Zoe  47:05

I think if you are in a media or creative industries, the best thing to do is to call NABS. It is a helpline that is set up specifically for this industry that has people that you can talk to who are very experienced in their space, so there are therapists, there are HR professionals, there are lawyers. And if you go to them and explain what it is that's happened to you, they're very understanding. It's kind of like a Samaritans type of hotline, and they will point you in the right direction in terms of getting some help, which I think is the right thing for you to do in the short term.

 

Jenny  47:35

Brilliant, brilliant, great advice. Thank you so much Zoe. I really appreciate you coming on. I know that you've had 1,000,001 invitations to join different podcasts. So I'm really grateful that you chose mine. But also, I noticed that you've got an event coming up on the 15th of September. I don't know if you wanted to mention that.

 

Zoe  47:54

Yes. So I'm going to do a two hour deep dive into the new founding formula document that I produced a couple of weeks ago. A lot of it is locked in unless you actually buy it. But I'm going to do an unlocked presentation and a Q&A at the end. There's only 100 tickets. So it's kind of first come first serve. I think I put it out late last night and there's 30 tickets gone already. So yes, if anyone's interested, then go to my twitter and you'll be able to see the link.

 

Jenny  48:18

Great. Okay, fantastic. And just finally, Zoe, who would you like to be contacted by? And do you have any final kind of pieces of advice for anyone working in an agency and walking up their career journey now, in terms of how to get involved with what you've been talking about?

 

Zoe  48:39

I think the best thing to do is to keep your mind as open as possible. I think sometimes we get trapped in terms of what we should and shouldn't be looking at and interested in based on our career or based on the position that we're in right now. But I would encourage you to be curious, I'd encourage you to fall down rabbit holes. I'd encourage you to Google and read and all this kind of stuff if there's anything that's interesting to you, even if you don't work in that space. One of the big things that I found is, when I first started writing about fandoms, and cryptocurrency, I wasn't really working on those projects. But the more I started looking into them, the more I started connecting with the right people, the more I started writing about that space, and suddenly those projects found me. So I think that if you are interested in something, you can kind of read or write or connect your way into that space, you've just got to go for it.

 

Jenny  49:24

Brilliant. So once again, thank you so much. I'm going to put the links. If anyone's not following Zoe I would highly recommend you do so because she really keeps you up to date. And she's shared so many stories and examples of what's changing. And I think what's most important for agencies, like you said is to keep an open mind and to keep learning. So thank you so much Zoe.

 

Zoe  49:47

No problem. Thank you.