74. Breaking boundaries by bootstrapping broadcast

PLEASE NOTE: This transcript has been created using fireflies.ai – a transcription service. It has not been edited by a human and therefore may contain mistakes. 

 
00:00 
Dom Hawes 
Business marketers do. You know we take a lot of crap. I'm recording this in the week that Evidenza launches. Evidenza is a new market research business that uses AI generated synthetic panels, which it promises will cut the speed and cost of quantitative market research. Mark Ritson wrote in Marketing Week that synthetic research will ultimately feed a fully automated process of marketing strategy and execution. Holy crap. That's a scary thought. But he does say he thinks we've got until the 2030s before this technology properly eats our lunch. And that is when you and I will be condemned to daytime tv and bingo in the community hall while machines do our work for us. Don't go away. You're listening to Unicorny, and I'm your host, Dom Hawes. Straight after reading the professor's column in marketing week, I put my earbuds in.  

 
01:03 
Dom Hawes 
That's a good article, by the way. You should read it. I'll put my earbuds in because John Lombardo and Peter Weinberg, founders of Evidenza, appeared on uncensored CMO to trumpet their launch in the introduction to the show, not one that in my opinion is known for its B2B expertise, but which apparently is building an audience of business marketers, says this. It turns out there are a lot of people out there working in B2B who want to know how to do it. And the standard of marketing, let's be honest, it's not that good. Excuse me. How can anyone slam a whole sector? Except, of course, B2B is not a sector. B2B is not a market. There is no coherent thing that is B2B.  

 
01:47 
Dom Hawes 
And I think it's probably time that we all stopped lumping all business marketers together and calling them one thing. You see, we talk about B2B as though it's one thing as a shorthand, but that's all it is. If you're an expert, Med Ed pharmacy marketer with a specific expertise in animal health, how does that expertise help you market pensions to mass affluent? It doesn't. I guess you could draw parallels between businesses that sell through, rather than businesses that sell directly to other businesses. Today we're talking to Jamie Gatoff, CMO of a global wealth solutions provider, Lombard International. Now, as you will hear, Jamie and his team market to intermediaries. They sell through too, and they do it in a way that I think makes them really interesting and worthy of addition to the Unicorny project.  

 
02:37 
Dom Hawes 
Jamie's market is complex and it's highly regulated. His day to day challenges are very different from the challenges of a B, two B SaaS CMO. But we can all learn from each other. And that's what many of you value about this podcast. Hearing how others think, conceptualize, plan, lead and act is extremely valuable. And by the way, as we've illustrated throughout our production lifetime, the standard of marketing in businesses that sell to and through other businesses is not poor. It's not in question. How do I know? Because the way to judge a business's marketing is by how successful the business is. Because ultimately, marketing is about creating value. And if you're doing that, your business is succeeding and you're doing it right. If not, well, maybe you do need some time to reflect. Or maybe some assistance.  

 
03:30 
Dom Hawes 
Anyhow, today we are bringing you the thoughts and observations of a highly commercial marketer. He's an insurance specialist, but just wait till you hear how he and his team handle the complexities of marketing and communication in highly regulated markets, in multiple jurisdictions and across multiple cultures. Now, Jamie Gatoff didn't take a classic route into marketing communications. He started his career in finance because after graduating, he went to work for GE in their finance team, in their plastics division, and in the Netherlands. He lived there for a year, but he realized that he really didn't want to become an accountant. So he came back to the UK and he joined Friends Provident, a large insurance company, and he joined on their graduate trainee program. Jamie, why don't you pick up the story from there.  

 
04:15 
James Gatoff 
I eventually worked up to becoming the business development lead for new business and new big deals. So, and then I used to run the pitch teams and the tender teams for these types of deals. Got to know the CEO very well. And then one day was asked to say, hey, come and become the CEO's chief of staff. And on the first day he said to me, Jamie, communications is broken. We'd like to look at communications, please look at the team and think about that. Day two was and we're actually going to go through a bit of an m and a program and we'd like you to look at the brand. And I think really the connection there was because of my business development background, they wanted a very commercial marketing communications focus, especially through a whole series of m and A activity.  

 
04:56 
James Gatoff 
And also because I used to pitch in tender for large corporate deal. It's all about the messaging, it's all around telling the story, it's all around the narrative. So, worked there and had a fantastic time. Rebranding of FTSE 100 from friends provident to friends life. We re energized communications, making it much more commercial. And I joined Lombard back in 2016 and actually lived in Luxembourg Monday to Thursdays or gallivanted around the globe. And I am still there at the moment.  

 
05:25 
Dom Hawes 
Fab. So one of the big trends we're seeing in B2B at the moment is the call for marketers to become a lot more commercial. And it seems to me with your background, you're grounded in, absolutely grounded in commercial things because m and A and, you know, a more commercial focus to communications, whether that be internal or external, in your current role, how have you found the business relating to the marketing function when it comes down to that kind of hard commercial edge?  

 
05:52 
James Gatoff 
In all the roles I've taken on board, where I've led marketing communications teams across the globe and in different types of companies, is around making sure it's super commercially focused. Whether you're sat in finance, in back office functions, whether you're in operations, everybody's there to help to sell the business to our clients and our partners. That's really important.  

 
06:12 
Dom Hawes 
So we're going to dive into the kind of data driven and some of the more performance related stuff a little bit later on. I wanted to dive in first to culture, because a lot of your roles, as you said, have been very international, and you're now based out of Luxembourg, although you live in this country. I'm keen to explore some of the cultural differences that you've encountered along the way and how they've influenced your approach to marketing and or communications.  

 
06:36 
James Gatoff 
Sure. Absolutely. And I'm smirking because I love Bill Murray. He's a great comedic actor. And there was this fantastic film called lost in translation. And I think we said when we spoke a few weeks ago, that when I used to commute weekly to Luxembourg, I used to get on the plane home from Luxembourg to Heathrow on a Thursday evening, late Thursday evening. And I'd always chuckle to myself because there'd always be some sort of lost in translation moments. And I think what's really important is the power of communication and also the power of repetition as well. So certainly one thing I've learned over the last, certainly the last ten years or so is just to make sure that everybody really, truly understands what the ask is.  

 
07:17 
James Gatoff 
I think Brits, at times we can be castic, we can be a bit jokey, but I think we need to be really clear at times, making sure that everybody truly understands what we're trying to achieve. That's the first thing at the end of every meeting or every conversation is just to summarize again, these are the key points. Have we agreed on this? Is this possible or what we're going to try and deliver? I think that there is a bit of lost in translation at times as to the speed and the energy required at times to deliver something quite quickly. So certainly, in private equity driven organizations or owned organizations, they want to see results very quickly.  

 
07:54 
James Gatoff 
So you have to try and do something quite demonstrable and then prove your worth quite early on to say, right, we ought to get a bit more energy and pace into this organization as we start to go on this growth agenda and start to really deliver quickly.  

 
08:09 
Dom Hawes 
How does that go down with members of the team? I'm ex military, and we used to call it a sense of urgency. Something I think that a lot of entrepreneurial businesses really understand is the need for speed, but I think corporates sometimes don't. And I think certainly different cultures maybe prefer a more measured approach. So when you arrive and you're injecting loads of energy and pace, how does an international team relate to the need for that?  

 
08:33 
James Gatoff 
In my Marcoms team, until very recently, I was the only native english speaker. Okay, so that was also quite an interesting experience to encounter when I first got there. And I think you quite early on see people, how they're going to respond to that. They're going to see how they respond to the energy. And it's quite interesting what you say about entrepreneurial spirits. And actually the company I work for is very entrepreneurial. It was, it's about 33 years old. It was driven by some of the founders of the organization, so that they instinctively, there was an entrepreneurial spirit there. However, certain stereotypical cultures don't necessarily respond well to that. Certainly in continental Europe. Part of my role was then to start to identify the talent within the organization, because we simply didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  

 
09:20 
James Gatoff 
And there's fantastic talent, and we are a people knowledge brand, and we wanted to really embrace the talent and start to help them think a little bit more broadly and a bit more widely about an international culture, rather than necessarily a european in a diverted commas or a Franco belch type of culture. So you'd find some of the catalysts there. You'd find some of the guys and girls who would say, right, yeah, I'm up for this. And you start to get them to be your advocates, your brand advocates, to start to help you really start to move the dial and get people super engaged.  

 
09:54 
Dom Hawes 
When you talk about, you know, a conscious decision to create an international brand, that isn't influenced or biased by any one particular culture in practice. How do you achieve that?  

 
10:04 
James Gatoff 
So when I was at university many, many years ago, and I studied business in Manchester, we use Ford Motor Company as a case study, and it always remains in my mind today. Ford had this great strategy about thinking global, but acting local. And I think that's something which I really believe in as well, because we need to ensure that, yes, we may have a global strategy, we may have a global narrative, but as we know, it has to work and it has to be felt and appreciated in all the different markets you work in. And that's really important to actually understand the local cultures, the local ways of doing things, so that we can actually translate that international strategy, that global outlook, to make sure it does resonate in each of the markets in which we conduct business.  

 
10:51 
James Gatoff 
From a target audience perspective, we are predominantly a b, two b brand. So that means that we work very closely with the intermediate who help to advise on our solutions to the end high net worth client. But those intermediaries will be large banks, there'll be large financial services players, asset managers, wealth planners, the professional big four consulting firms, there'll be individual IFA. So we have quite a range of key business to business partners, and then they in turn will effectively advise and recommend various solutions for us. Now, over the last period of growth, which we've had, we used to target high net worth and ultra high net worth, we're actually moving into the mass affluent marketplace, or the upper mass affluent as well, in certain core markets.  

 
11:39 
James Gatoff 
So that means actually the relationships we have with certain types of b, two b partners, will be different to others. And that will be done from a geographical perspective, from a market perspective, and from a target audience perspective.  

 
11:55 
Dom Hawes 
Will you be pleased to know I've calmed down a little bit since opening today's show. And I know I did go on a little bit, but Jamie's a very calming influence, and a paragraph, by the way, of what I was talking about. Listen to the complexity of his task, the complexity of his route to market, the subtleties of creating and managing relationships across multiple cultures and multiple markets. You know, as business marketers, our lives are not easy because no two roles are the same. Our business models, our scale and our trading environment often rule out the kind of mass awareness and market power that above the line can bring a. So we have to do things differently. And in a minute you're going to hear how Jamie and his team identified a way they could be markedly different and influential in their marketing communications.  

 
12:40 
Dom Hawes 
It's a perfect example of how we can all learn from each other. Your sector, your market, your business model and your role may have nothing in common with Jamie's, but he's managed to achieve the impossible with the help of his team. He's delivering on the more for less directive that the rest of us are struggling with. Now, I'm not a big fan of that whole more for less thing, and I'm going to devote a whole podcast to that dreadful saying in August to explore how we might all combat it. But in the meantime, I think we should go listen to Jamie.  

 
13:13 
Dom Hawes 
If you take a look at the Lombard international website or any of their channels, you will see that there is extraordinarily high quality video footage. And so when I met James, I wanted to understand how so much content could be created by a business like that. And guessdez what the answer was. They built their own studio. Jamie, what was the motivation for building your own production facilities?  

 
13:35 
James Gatoff 
I'm very proud of what we've delivered and I'm very proud of the team as well. So it's not my idea, and I can't claim it's my idea. I had to shout out to Seb, Julian, Christoph, Olga and Thibaut because it was their idea. And those are the experts who make me look good. So I joined the business in 2016 as part of the Marcoms team. We had an events team. Part of the team were solely focused on running high quality events, but really high quality events in very luxurious and incredible places across continental Europe, into the US and into Asia. And that's what they did day in, day out, always across the globe. And they are a dynamic team who like to push the boundaries. They are naturally interested in technology and equipment, which was fantastic.  

 
14:24 
James Gatoff 
And when I got there in 2016, they already started playing with doing some videos because they realized actually to go and outsource that and to go and bring in experts, it costs a lot of money. It's pretty expensive. Yeah. And these guys said, well, we need to start to look at technology and how we embrace technology, because as we all know, everybody loves a video. Everybody loves looking at a photograph and not necessarily reading lots of blurb. We then started to say, right, okay, well, let's go and start to dip our, turn the water and sort of see where we could get opportunities to learn and grow. So they basically went and sort of upgraded some of their iPhones and we got a green screen. We got some very basic kit from Amazon. I think it cost about €300 to do that.  

 
15:08 
James Gatoff 
And off went to try and do this, and we got some fantastic results from that. And we got great engagement both internally and externally from our target audiences and within our organization. We have lots of experts as well, because as we are a people knowledge brand, part of our solution is around developing a customized solution for high net worth or ultra high net worth individuals. So our wealth planners are pretty good experts and they're all lawyers and they always like to talk. So to put some of these people in front of the camera to explain what's happening, working with our business development teams just was magic to us. So as we started to grow and develop that, we started to look at sort of doing interviews and promotional videos and then recording some of the events.  

 
15:54 
James Gatoff 
So rather than just putting like a LinkedIn post, hey, today were at the Hilton here or the Mandarin Oriental there. We actually used to sort of film some of these clips as well to try and get a little bit more engagement. Then we decided to put them onto a training course with a professional videographer, and that helped them. But I think what's really key for us, and I'm going to steal this terminology from SeB, who gave this to me, it was the pandemic pivot was the key moment for us. So as that crazy time was coming together in sort of 2020 and lockdowns were starting to happen, and actually, I was the pandemic lead at the organization. So it was a crazy time because even across continental Europe, different countries were locking down slightly at different times.  

 
16:37 
James Gatoff 
And were basically telling people to grab your laptops and your desktops off your desk and go, because were worried that the borders were going to be closed down, so people get stranded. So once that sort of settled down, we thought, crikey. Okay, I've got a team who normally do events day in, day out. They're grounded. What the hell are we going to do? And they said, well, hang on a minute. Well, we can try and work in an environment where we have the social distancing. Let's think about building a. A film studio, and hence, wow, that's how it's born.  

 
17:06 
Dom Hawes 
And now you've got your own film studio and you can produce really top quality content very quickly and cost effectively. Has that changed how you communicate? Has it changed your approach?  

 
17:18 
James Gatoff 
Yeah, I think it's changed it massively. So I'm a firm believer, if I take a step back, I'm a firm believer of a truly integrated mark Homes approach. I was the group communications director at FTSE 100. I then grew into sort of taking the brand responsibility and marketing. And I think it's all about telling a story. And I think having a brand narrative and telling the story and understanding what that core purpose is, what you do, why you do it is so important. And actually, interestingly as well, our group CEO started in lockdown. He was based in the UK and effectively the poor guy was grounded from day one. We had 5600 people across the globe. So how is he going to engage with them? How are people going to see him?  

 
17:58 
James Gatoff 
I talked to him over the phone and said, right, you need to get your iPhone, you need to keep it long ways, okay? So you can have it sort of from a horizontal landscape perspective. You need to chalk it up somewhere or we can buy you something on Amazon to put a tripod together and just talk to the camera and then we'll edit it. And then my guys would. Then we'll get the video via WhatsApp. I would send it back to my guys and say, right, help. We need to try and start to edit this in a good way that the organization could see him and hear from him a little bit. So that was again, part of the catalyst of getting this done more often.  

 
18:28 
James Gatoff 
And then through lockdown, we used to do that either through the film studio social distancing or through people doing clips from their home.  

 
18:35 
Dom Hawes 
And the video is embedded then right at the heart of the C suite because that was the only means of communicating.  

 
18:42 
James Gatoff 
Absolutely.  

 
18:42 
Dom Hawes 
Everyone gets it.  

 
18:43 
James Gatoff 
Absolutely. Yes. And maybe that was the catalyst because everybody saw that, say, right, okay, so you're right, it's going from the top downwards and people. Yeah, some people are shy to be in front of the camera, but actually when they start to see the results of it and to see the impact and the engagement levels, it's great. But success breeds success and, yes, I want to get involved in that.  

 
19:03 
Dom Hawes 
We interviewed Joerg Klueckmann from Finastra and they also built a tv studio and they built a Finastra tv. But it's not something I've seen many organizations doing. It may be something that unicorn is listening today want to do. So let's just look at a little bit of advice for those that might want to build better broadcast capability. It sounded like Covid was a good catalyst for you, but so other people hopefully won't have that if they want to start. Where do they start?  

 
19:29 
James Gatoff 
Well, I think it starts with people, as always. I think it's, have you got the right team there? Have you got a team who are genuinely interested in learning about the technology and also the software behind it because it looks great. But actually it takes time. It takes time to learn how to utilize the software and the technology in partnership together. And also, as we both know, editing is the critical element as well. So it's all fine to be able to do a video and getting the lighting in place and maybe an auto queue or things like that, but what's really important is then the editing, getting the music right, getting the lighting right, and then getting the that narrative and making sure you've captured the story correctly. So for me it's about the talent, it's about the people.  

 
20:12 
James Gatoff 
So first of all, get the right people who really genuinely are interested in doing it. Then you have to invest a little bit, get them some equipment. You don't need to go and spend tens of thousands of euros to begin with or pounds or dollars wherever you are in the globe. But I think it's walk before you can run. I remember originally we used to have a little tripod and we used to have one iPhone and a little light on top connected to it and a tripod, and that was it.  

 
20:38 
Dom Hawes 
Wow.  

 
20:39 
James Gatoff 
Then we upgraded to a radio mic and then the guy said, actually, hang on, we can do better than this. And the guys would come and tell me, right, we can get various different cameras. And then we said, okay, let's upgrade that. So we moved from the green screen to bringing in furniture into the room. And actually, those of you who are watching this room, our studio in Luxembourg is actually smaller than the room we're in today. It's slightly taller, which is great because you need the height from a video perspective. And then went and got some backdrops made. So we had a London backdrop and we had a Luxembourg backdrop. Then we brought in desks and then we used to dress the room. We actually take the equipment out on the road with us.  

 
21:15 
James Gatoff 
So then we'll find in the location where we are. So we do some fantastic events and we try and find these quirky events as well, because I think it's really important from an engagement perspective. People want to come to the latest event possible, or the latest venue, I should say possible, or a venue where you can't necessarily get into. So recently we're in the Martini bar in Milan and it's just fantastic. You overlook the dormo and it's just a fantastic venue. We've been at the Ritz in Paris, so those are the types of high calibre venues you want to get to. And when we bring in speakers who may be economists or have a point of view about something. We'll try and grab a small little corner, we'll bring in some lights, we'll bring in some iPhones and we'll record them.  

 
21:53 
James Gatoff 
But it's all then back into the edit and making sure it all is seamless and how we can deliver something.  

 
21:58 
Dom Hawes 
You're preaching to the converted here, because we are in a studio. Rudimentary, I think, probably compared to your setup. But we are on that journey we've started. I totally agree about the edit. What I think is interesting is that the traditional view at the moment out there is that your in house team are generalists. They handle a large volume of business and it's very commercial. And then you bring in agencies to deliver specialist skills. Now, on the broadcast side, as we said, that can get very expensive. So you've sort of flipped that round. You've got very specialist skills in house.  

 
22:27 
James Gatoff 
From a broadcast perspective, from a video perspective, that's all in house, from a copywriting perspective as well. We do a lot of that in house. I'm also very lucky that I have a couple of graphic designers as well, in house who help us create all the marketing collateral. And again, they've been on the journey as well, because it was very heavily paper based originally. So when I got there, were spending an awful lot of money on creating these incredible glossy brochures, which no one really read, to be honest. So how did we then pivot from a paper based approach to a more digital first approach?  

 
23:01 
James Gatoff 
Also, when we upgraded our web team as well, our digital team, that I've got people now, because it's truly integrated, that the digital guys will work with the collateral guys who will work with the rich media team as well. And then we work as a cohesive team to deliver, whether it's a video, which we'll broadcast on our website, or whether it's a podcast, whether it's a LinkedIn post, whether it's in the email campaign, whether it's going to out to talk to the media, it's all integrated as one.  

 
23:32 
Dom Hawes 
And there you have it. Now, you will already know that video has very high engagement and storytelling power. It's a very potent way of seeking to build relationships. A little bit like podcasting, but with the additional ability to tell visual stories. And you may remember Joerg Klueckmannn from Finastra telling us about Finastra tv. Now, as I spoke to him, I remember thinking that in house broadcast capability is probably the preserve of enterprise. But today, I think Jamie's changed my mind. He's explained how they bootstrapped their studio and how, as the utility of that studio and the effectiveness of its output grew, well, so did the sophistication. And that is why I wanted to bring Jamie and his experience to you. Times are tough, and we all need to make our budgets go further.  

 
24:20 
Dom Hawes 
And here's a way we can do just that, because we've all got stories to tell and relationships to build. Of course, building the technical capability is one thing. Knowing what your audience wants to consume, that's something else. It's not the kind of thing you're likely to commission market research for, especially if you're bootstrapping. So maybe a synthetic research panel in this instance might give some answers, especially if it was cost effective enough. I'm not sure, though. I suspect synthetic panels are going to be priced to compete with real panels, and that'll put it out of the reach of the everyday. Anyhow, you don't need to do either of those things. Go speak to your field, marketing or sales colleagues. Ask them what they'd like their customers to know about the market opportunities in the future.  

 
25:02 
Dom Hawes 
Ask them what they want their customers to know before they engage with them and your company. That is where you start. And that's also why today is such a strong message for me. Jamie's not just explained why, he's explained how he and his team did it. Next time, Jamie's going to tell us all about his Martech stack and we talk wargaming and crisis management before then. Well, I'm a business marketer too. I sell marketing services to businesses operating in complex markets. So maybe I should be re investigating video, too. Watch this space. You have been listening to Unicorny. I'm your host, Dom Hawes. Nicola Fairley is the series producer, Laura Taylor McAllister is the production assistant, Pete Allen is the editor and Peter Powell is our scriptwriter