 Hello everybody as you join us everyone joining us from all around the world today for our 42 courses speaker event today we are so pleased to be joined by Patrick Collister. Somewhat a legend in advertising, even though he may well deny it himself. He's worked for many years in the advertising world, many of the top companies that you will be familiar with. Most recently, Google and is now creative director of ad lib digital. And I'm sure in that period of time has seen huge changes in the way that advertising operates. Patrick Collister you're very welcome to join us here in the 42 courses speaker event. Thank you very much Louise. I think a couple of things in one of your flyers. I was billed as being the head of design at Google. I wish. I'm going to start with a design for a team called the zoo which is Google's creative think tank. But it wasn't really actually I'm going to start a little story here. When I did join Google. I discovered that before me, there had been a head of design. And she had left the company which is why the trade press thought that I was her replacement, which I wasn't. The amazing thing about her and why she left the company was that Google engineers were looking at the color blues. You'll notice the Google search engine you'll notice that all of the titles are in a blue type of face. And being Google they started experimenting with them to see if there were any differences and I'm blind me. One of these blues led to a $30 million a day difference in transactions. So they said to the head of design. Well look at this this Panto cut isn't this amazing she's yeah that's amazing but we're using that one and they said no no you don't understand this one has a $30 million a day difference. She said, Well I'm using that one. And shortly afterwards she left the company. It's a great story to start us off with and, as I said past Patrick, Patrick, I'm sure you've seen many many changes over the years and I want to read something back to you which you may not remember saying the quoting Patrick. Patrick says, Patrick says, there's no point putting a piece of shit in front of somebody, because they'll recognize it as shit. And if they recognize they're being remarketed shit. It becomes double shit and then they really really get angry. And I mean, we're often talking about the value of advertising from how it used to be for TV and now this move into digital and just sort of patching it in to make it fit in. And I think you've got quite strong feelings about that Patrick. I'm afraid. I mean, I do find it fascinating whenever I go to a marketing or advertising conference and I start frothing at the giblets. I ask people how many of them have got ad blockers installed and at least 50% of people do. In other words, in our own industry we recognize that we are the problem. In our own industry we recognize that advertising, you know, to a greater extent is complete crap and so we're opting out of it ourselves. And I find this absolutely amazing. And of course the reason for this is the way technology is grabbed hold of advertising and made vast fortunes out of it. So I'm loosely speaking it's called programmatic. And so, you know the delivery of advertising to an identified target audience in a nanosecond, you know the bidding, and then the placement of that is just staggering how it happens. What it has led to is, is people thinking that targeting is what advertising is all about, except they're not even bloody targeting and this is the bit that really gets me when I worked at Google, only 3% of digital ads, and we're talking about advertising now say maybe things have changed but I would argue only marginally only 3% of digital ads are actually targeted are personalized in any degree at all. 97% of it is just spray and pray. And under those circumstances if you're a brand manager you can buy a billion media impressions for Diddley squat. So why bother with the creative. It's still going to work to some extent or another I mean, my analogy is with direct mail. I asked your mind back 2030 years ago and all of the stuff that landed on your welcome map. You know, when direct marketers punched air because they had managed to 2% response rate. I mean I was asking them, what about the other 98% who actually found your mailing offensive, you know to one degree or another. And it doesn't matter the 2% justifies everything. Well now you look at digital and actually the average click through rate on Google, the Google display network is 0.02%. So we're now talking about 99.98% of people being in receipt of stuff they don't want. And yeah, you know I'm saying just 20 years ago, Seth Godin wrote that book. Permission marketing, you know and he anticipated a time in which advertising would be anticipated would be relevant, you know would be a personalized and so people would relish it instead of which advertising is now become crass. It's become invasive and it's become just annoying. We spoke when we met earlier in the week, Patrick, about can and how we thought maybe how things had maybe changed recently. And when we're talking about digital obviously we're covering so many things online ads, search marketing, but let's talk about the importance of mobile. Let's talk about advertising and then this whole thing that just doesn't seem to be talked about and which I know you've touched on that of course we see so much on a smaller screen now, whatever percentage of amount of information is seen on a phone screen. Let's talk about that a little bit, Patrick. Well, I do find the whole mobile thing. Challenging because actually I but the trend I still look at things on a laptop and on a desktop. But I mean my own business, I'm in the cables awards for example I mean 70% of all our website views are on mobile devices of one sort or another. So, so that's how people consume and of course you know tech talk is absolutely descriptive of that because now that's the shape and size of videos that's the way people like to create them and like to consume them. And of course, you know the mobile phone is this astonishing thing, you know because it's not just a receiver, you're not just receiving entertainment you're creating it as well. I mean, can about six or seven years ago will I am was one of the speakers he'd been invited there by Samsung. And I found him just really entrancing actually as a creative person. But he was talking about the fact that the black eyed peas and just recorded an album, and the record company was wondering how to advertise it. And so they briefed an agency and admin scripts and it was all rubbish and everyone was arguing and all the rest of it. Anyway, they were in the studio recording this album, and the executives have been talking about it so will I am pulled out his mobile phone. He's been half an hour shooting some stuff. He edited it on his mobile phone, and then he just posted it onto YouTube, and it had had three million views 48 hours later. So just, and that's the thing about it is a lot of people forget that it's also not just a reception devices a transmitter as well. And of course that's what's changing advertising so totally influences, you know, people you can believe because it's like the girl next door or it's, it's somebody whose life is is one similar to you know. So, so much advertising money is flooding into influences because we're accessing them and feel we have a relationship with every day through this amazing little device, you've got your best friend in your pocket. And of course, being answerable to your consumers is the massive change, instantly responsive. Your work goes out work that used to take months to create is creating more quickly put out and responded to immediately. There are some catastrophes there I mean brands call it joining the conversation and I wrote a piece for a new digital age. I don't know I think it was last week really about brands joining the conversation about the Queen's death. I mean, ecotricity. I mean, what role, what voice do they have in a conversation about this I mean what they did was to dress the Queen in. They support a football team and they dressed the Queen in their football shirts and I mean, you know, it's just tacky and. And so it didn't take very long for people in social media to say shut the fuck up and excuse my rude word but people in social media or a downside ruder than I am. I mean I do find it amazing I mean, you know we were talking about can as well I mean how there's so much purpose driven advertising now winning awards but but one of the really dangerous areas for brands to go is BLM is to do with, you know, black lives black lives matter and it's really important for them because it's really tricky really tricky that there is an oppressed minority and brands think that they can join a conversation about they can't they really really can't. And when L'Oreal after the murder of George Floyd tweeted solidarity with our black, you know friends and black community. Now you tell a story that I really enjoy Patrick and I'll just remind you about it. And it's along the lines of when you're talking about search, which I think often search is maybe belittled a little bit these days because we think oh you don't have to think all you have to tap it into search. But you tell a very nice story, which is how when people started putting in the search box, you know, how I feel sad or how should I feel or how should a man feel that then this was recognized and reacted to by certain brands in creating solutions which you tell us a little bit about that Patrick. Yeah, honestly when I was at Google, some of the guys in my team and girls in my team were looking at search data and people began searching for answers to emotional questions and, and they're really insightful so for example, one search question that was asked 61 million times in one particular year was, what's it like to be rich, and, and so the zoo team in Paris actually took hold of that. And they thought they would answer it. And so for the El Jumeir group of hotels, there's the El Burge Hotel the one that looks like a sale. It's the experience of that. So, again, using Google technology you could go into the hotel and explore it in minute detail, all the way through to the little hair meth knickknacks you have beside the beds I have to say, you know, it is breath taking breath for a seven star hotel. But, but answering that question what's it like to be rich and I've got to come out the other side thinking well, I mean, I don't know if I'd live it like that but, but also I mean, the team work with Unilever on where axe links. We're looking for new positioning because axe the spray was for teenage boys and it was basically the proposition was spray and get laid. As if, you know, my son when he was a teenager used to come tottering out of his bedroom just reeking axe. I was trying to say listen, this could not have the result you desire my friend but. But anyway, it was Google analysts who noticed that guys were going online and they were searching for things like well is it okay for a guy to wear pink. You know, is it okay for a guy to eat, you know, yogurt for God's sake is it okay. And then, from that insight, Unilever were able to start talking to young men about self identity of course it's okay to wear pink of course it's okay to let like other men, of course, do you know and from that, a positioning axe links, then change their advertising that was all about be the person you want to be and say. There's an absolutely amazing book. I'm just looking at my bookshelf here I'm coming back. Don't go yet Patrick with so much more to ask you. Oh yeah here we go. There's fantastic book by Seth, Seth Stevens David of it's called everybody lies. And he was a Google analyst and an engineer. And he took a look at what people really think and do because their search behavior reveals all of that. And so it was really really fascinating. So all of his researchers are suppose about five years old now but after the Boston marathon bombing. There was a massive surge in anti Muslim feeling across America, and to such an extent that President Obama gave a state of the nation address to say look, you know what we have to do is to calm down and calm the talk. What Seth noticed is that hate terms racist anti Muslim spiked. In other words, as Obama was talking, people got madder and madder and madder and more and more, until there was this one moment when very and you have to remember that some of our best loved sportsman and many of our military are Muslims as well. Suddenly people are going online and they're saying to Google, okay, Muslim sportsman, and they discover Mike Tyson is a Muslim they discover that Shaq and Neil was a Muslim, and they find that really interesting And so Seth and Neil then wrote to the White House saying look, you know this is really good stuff but what you need to do is to be more specific mention names, you know, talk about how these people are absolutely part of the Weft and Warp of American life, and it has an effect so. I mentioned earlier the fantastic stories there. Thank you Patrick. You mentioned earlier the phrase programmatic advertising. And of course as you said, people genuinely hate advertising but I think you give the caveat that people genuinely hate advertising, unless it's relevant. So let's, let's just talk about that unless it's salient to them personally. I mean the thing is that people, all people will tell you they hate advertising. And in the advertising industry we've taken that to heart. The truth is that people don't hate advertising they just hate bad advertising, and most advertising that confronted with is bad advertising and I mean by that it's, it's charmless it's thoughtless. You know, if we go all the way back to the 80s when I was a young copywriter my boss and time was a guy called john Webster who was a advertising genius, actually six of his ideas are still running today, even though, John God bless him is dead but john said look if you're going to make your way into people sitting rooms, unanswered uninvited, it behaves you to be charming to be polite to be nice. And I think that still holds good today in the digital space as well. So for me I'll talk about the word creative. What does it mean well actually means being interesting. There's no more than that. The other thing is interesting I'll go, ooh, and that is often because it's personal to me. And that's the thing about digital media. I can target people by their interests. If I know you're into. If you're into say modern art, for example, and I'm a Pepsi brand launching a new water. It's going to be premium priced. And I've decided that my target audience is a metropolitan that my this is really fascinating. You know because now I can talk to people about art. You know, and they'll go, oh that's interesting. And so. Yeah. And of course, this is the ideal isn't it this programmatic advertising, but at the same time it's problematic isn't it you know we're sending out signals, but at the same time if too many responses to my signals become too personal. Then it's just creepy. Yeah, where is this balance for advertisers today whereby they want to personalize the message but at the same time, they don't want their target market saying, Oh God that person's tracking me. Yeah, well, we're going to have to wait and see what happens but Google is what they call deprecating third the cookie. In other words, third party data, but I'm in the fascinating thing about that is, I don't think it's going to make any difference. You know what people like Google say is that first party data means that I have to give you data about myself willingly and I understand what the compact now is between the two of us. And as a result of that, they believe that creativity will make a comeback and I'm getting. Well I don't think so because most of us are now getting accustomed to every time you click on to a website. You know they ask you to click on a little button saying that you accept cookies. So from that moment on, if you know what I mean you sold yourself to the devil. And so, you know the point is that there is just so much media now with so much space that there's just so much bloody advertising you can't escape it. I mean, this is the problem I'm such a problem that actually even the big platforms themselves know it so I mean, you know you can subscribe to YouTube bread. And the thing about that it's YouTube without the bloody adverts. And I mean, honestly, it does drive me nuts. Have you noticed now that YouTube is putting on two ads at the beginning of a video, you want to watch a video today, you know, training Labradors and I've got to put up with two bloody videos submitted me that I, because I'm in advertising marketing things I get all of this stuff about grammar, you know, Grammarly. I actually can spell and punctuate unlike a lot of copywriters. He said waspish least. As you say the the premium option these days is, as you say to have YouTube and opt for no adverts means the Spotify premium is without adverts and yet they've managed to avoid that in the way that you'll listen to when it's embedded in a program we still are exposed to adverts even if we're paying premium and always trying to escape the adverts. So we touched on that word again, creativity, you know, when we're in these circles of people, it always rises simmers. And I think as you said to me when we were chatting earlier that nobody had asked, what does creativity actually mean so let's let's get down to the bones of this subject that seems to be the buzzword of everybody. And yet we never sort of take that step back to say, what are we actually talking about what does it mean to us and you know how relevant is it still to us today. Yeah. Well, I think creativity is a word like snow. In other words, what I really mean by that is the Eskimos have 26 different words for snow. We have one and it's the same with creativity. We talk about creativity meaning a multitude of things but we only have this one word for it. So I mean I can say to you hey Louise I've got a really great idea you know next time I'm in Dublin let's go out, you know, to a burns bar and get completely trollied. And I said, that's an idea, you know I've had a but then on the other, on the other hand I've been working today on advertising ideas for a particular brand. I've been working for a platform idea from which multi channel community. How are those the same thing well then not. Of course they're not. But for me, it all comes back. I suppose to simple definitions. We're the only creature on this planet that is creative because baby baby we've got these, we can make stuff. We create means to make stuff and in advertising we do we make ads. You know I sometimes think that people forget this in agents is they think the job is to make a document or to make a meeting and lay the pencils it's not. It's actually to create materials that will elicit some kind of response, you know from customers consumers out there. Essentially we are making stuff. And that's what creative creativity is it's about making things that ultimately make the world a little better. I'm not talking about brand purpose here I'm saying about literally make things better. You know, I make a wheel because it makes transportation of, you know, lumps of wood or whatever easier. I make a piece of communication about a better mouse track because I want to share that with people and I want to be able to give more people employment in order to be able to grow an economy and you know so forth so. So as I say for me creativity is about making stuff that makes the world slightly better each time. So in the context of advertising and digital it's about being interesting. That's no more than that. Oh, that's interesting. I'll take a look at that. And you mentioned there sorry Patrick, you mentioned there. I think it's a little bit by Seth, seems to be a bit see everybody lies and we love it when people start talking about the books that either they've enjoyed or that they think are still influential or maybe somebody knew they've discovered so I mean what, what are the types of books that you play a role in your thinking or you've just discovered. Probably the most important business book I ever read, and which influenced me deeply was the empty raincoat by Charles handy. Charles handy was a shell marketing executive who is very very bad at it but became a business analyst, I suppose. The other thing about him is that he, he understood how people worked and so I've always, I've always been a great admirer of his, I mean, what am I. Well, I've just been reading Schutzpar and Schutzpar, the story of Saatchi and Saatchi and the hubris of all of that. I mean I do remember it vividly, you know, I can remember. When they bid for the middle and bank Saatchi shares went into freefall, and they had a new CEO man called Louis, Robert Louis Dreyfus to come in as CEO, his guy had been running Adidas so I mean he had form and the share price had plummeted from over 1100 to I think it was about 340. And I invested all the money I'd got at the time in Saatchi shares at 340 and then watch as they continued to plummet. And by the time I sold my 10 grand's worth I got 200 quid back for them. And it was really interesting at that time because the Saatchi brothers got involved a guy called in Chicago called David Harrow ran a pension fund. And he started cutting up ugly about Saatchi's performance and as a major shareholder started demanding changes. And he was told more or less to sod off. And this became a big thing actually and I remember being rung up by. One of the BBC business programs and they asked me, you know, what do you think about this Chicago guy, 26 year old as if that was important by the way David Harrow getting involved and, you know, stirring things up with Saatchi's I can remember that at the time saying and thinking any guy like Maurice Saatchi who can devalue his company, you know from a shareholder value of 1100, you know, 11 pounds a share to under 20p really, really deserves what's coming his way. And anyway, that's the story I don't think was an answer to your question. The story about the Saatchi brothers. Well, no, that's right. And here we've got what have I got I've got Rory's book Alchemy which is, you know, fans of we're great fans of that book in 42 courses Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. I don't know. You see, I mean, you know, this is fascinating. I'm reading this at the moment. And so it's this is the hit makers by Derek Thompson. Okay, tell us about that then Patrick. Well, what was so marvelous about this book he talks about the fact that we like familiar surprise. So I mean there was a great book about our written 25 years ago called the shock of the new. So something is very, very new. It is disturbing. And by and large we hate it, you know so Shostakovich gets booed at his own, the rights of spring and Picasso also gets mauled critically before we all go well she is quite good after all. He talks about the fact that actually the big hits and things that are a new twist on stuff we're comfortable with. I found that really interesting some and he talks about ABBA a bit that you know that one of the reasons ABBA are so successful is that we're familiar with their melodies from Mozart, you know the way they classically create. But I was looking at advertising some and I was looking at this year's can award winners and I think that's so right the Grand Prix the titanium awarded can this year was won by the UK agency engine with a brilliant idea. He was a young footballer who was a knife to death in South London aged 15 and he was an apprentice with Crystal Palace so he had a career in front of him as a Premier League footballer and everything that in entails except of course it never happened. Father who is this whirlwind of energy and drive and passion in a finely managed to get a FIFA through engine to get FIFA to create him as a player in the game FIFA 21. So kind of Prince, you know, I came back to life as a player from that became a platform for donations or nothing about that. It's a great idea but last year, we saw Burger King inserting their way into FIFA 21 also by sponsoring Stevenage. And the year before that we saw Wendy bow of the hamburger chain inserting themselves into fortnight into a fortnight battle. And we're familiar with brands doing interesting things in the gaming space. They come along and they do it with with with Brio. And so, and so I look at, I was looking at can this year because I think the signpost to the future and never among the golds. They're always among the bronzes, even if they get that far or they're shortlisted. I think that's true this year too by the way I mean I think I really do think the metaverse is turning into a thing but all of the, all of the ads that won awards around the metaverse in can this year were spoof taking the piss so we can have a pint in the metaverse a meta pint, you know, Budweiser trying to get us to buy by horses or to race in some kind of metaverse equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. So that is complete bollocks but then hidden away in the weeds I found this amazing idea from a company in Australia, who were forced to create an alternative reality for the Melbourne open tennis, because Melbourne went into lockdown, there were no spectators. And they had this genius idea of selling tiny little digital patches of the tennis court. And if the ball landed on that in any match then you as the owner of it, you know, had content unlocked but it also created the whole arena as a virtual little arena. And for me, I can see more and more brands doing stuff like that in the future. We touched on that a little bit when we were talking earlier in the week and I'm interested in you saying, you know, looking down into maybe the bronze winners, because I think we were quite in agreement that we weren't so sure that those gold winners this year were really all that. Well, I mean in some ways, can, can lion should be flattered because the advertising marketing community around the world sees it as being this annual intellectual explosion if you like that we're going to go to the south of France and we're going to see things that happen. But of course, it ain't like that, you know, mold breaking work only happens every now and then. I mean, you can talk about epoch making campaign but that they are few and far between. So I'm completely with you Louise I mean, you know, there was there's been work in the past that has just blown my mind and I haven't had, I haven't had anything blow my mind for, you know, three or four years. Honestly, I mean I know there's a whole load of PR about this but I think it's horseshit I think doing covered creativity took a real tumble and in fact there's research evidence in the UK to show that advertising creatives were more depressed than general. And it's really difficult to, you know, create advertising that's bright and sparkly when a you think you're going to lose your job. Secondly, the people around you are ill. You know, and thirdly, you're locked into an airless room for six weeks. I'd like to bring in some of the people who've joined us to hear your wise words Patrick and my colleague Alisa has a question I'd love to bring her in so if any of you who do have questions for Patrick please do put them in the chat at the side, and I'll bring you on. So just before we move off that particular subject of of can and of advertising and I mean obviously you know this is your world Patrick. Just not to leave by the fact that we were talking about the fact that so many of the winners were charities or causes and this feeling that brands need to we've already mentioned it early but brands need to put themselves over as having this sense of purpose. So I'd like to just, well, a few words of wisdom on that please. Oh, they aren't words of wisdom they really aren't Louise they're just, oh, and opinions and, but one of the things I did it can is, you can enter a campaign multiple times, which means that you can win multiple awards with it. I looked at the winningest work as our American friends would say at can this year, and find it really fascinating of the 10 most lauded campaigns. Only one had clear commercial purpose. And actually only one was what you might call an ad, but you know TV video based. It happened to be nine minutes long actually. It was from Apple. And what I loved about it was that it's definitely the continuation of a series of ads the first one they had was kind of called back to the office and this one was called back to the office. And then in three months it had got 34 million views because it was beautifully written it was charming. But it's everything that the guys at system one Orlando would who wrote that those two books lemon and watch out. They're talking about his classic brand advertising. There are personalities there are characters we recognize them we follow them. We feel for them. And in all of the Apple advertising. You see the product being used you see, you know demonstrations and, and the whole, that's what the ad is it's written around product stories, and not just that one ad by the way I noticed that there were four commercials called shot on an iPhone one of them made in China, which is just delightful it's called the return. And it's the story of a kid who's a stunt double who gets injured and so he goes home for Chinese New Year to his remote village where his dad gets him to shoot a film on iPhone about the village. All of this is shot on an iPhone of a boy shot on I do you know I mean this is a classic advertising but it's just wonderful. And for me the really fascinating thing about this is that this is the only brand advertising may I can see it can, you know that was that is consistent. And yet it's being applied by the number one tech brand in the world, Apple. And so we're doing all of this clever stuff with technology and they're doing NFTs and bridges will talk to you if you're thinking about committing suicide and then Australia they've got headbands that measure the the impact to rugby league play all of this is really clever stuff Apple aren't doing any of that bollocks. Here's some advertising. And by the way, it's brilliantly written and it's brilliantly produced. It's fantastically effective and I, I, you know, I find that so interesting, because, you know, again, going back to can and the IPA, you know, Peter Field and lesbian at the authors of the long and the short of it, have been talking about this crisis in creativity, what they're saying is that increasingly brand managers have been walking away from long term brand building, and have been spending all of their money on lower funnel brand activation what we used to call direct marketing. And they said, this is a real problem. And it is a real problem. On the other hand, what they haven't noticed is that all of that brand building work may not be in brand building advertising any longer but it is going back through into other engagements and specifically to influences. I mean, I was shattered to see in North America alone. Last year influences were paid $5 billion for their contributions to marketing. I'm going to bring you in in a minute because he's got a great question but just before we move over to you and just as you were talking about that theme of the adverts I wonder did you remember the penny advert is it a German supermarket. Yeah. I mean that one really struck me almost with its simplicity and you felt like it had the potential to run on almost forever with this, this family that you've got it sort of reminded me of was it the old Nescafé advert so you had the running sort of I understand Louise. It was just bloody miserable wasn't it? It was miserable. It was miserable but you felt like oh I can get to know this family that's why I've touched on it in the way that you feel it had the potential for the story to be developed. No, it was again it was only it was one of only two traditional TV. Very traditional. Yeah, which is actually why it caught my eye. Yeah, absolutely. And Apple was the other one. But again I mean what Penny Marks were doing there was supporting a charity. So it was all about the end of COVID. For me I much prefer the orbit approach, the chewing gum approach, which was I don't know if you've seen it but they did this two minute commercial where people emerge from lockdown and they start kissing each other. It was a massive kiss-a-thon. Again there's a brand promise in it but it was funny and it was charming and it was, you know, was, you know, God, German gloom. I mean you did say to us your concern about the lack of humour. Yeah, yeah I do. Let's bring Ewan in because he's got a great question for us. So Ewan we'll just put you on the spotlight there. I don't know if Elisa's managed. Oh super well done. It's great to have help here. Ewan do join us with your question for Patrick. Thank you. I'd have worn a shirt and shaved if I knew that I'd be spotlight. Thank you. I come to 42 courses thinking I'll dip in and have something quick and then there's a big thunderbolt comes in at some point and the one that came from what you've just been talking about Patrick is the idea of big ideas and how you say you have not really seen one in the last 64 years. And one of the challenges I've got is you when you see a big idea you can think you know it's a big idea but then quite often what you think you've created is a big idea. You have this fear that comes in that makes you think it might not be a big idea. And sometimes that fears enough to not put it out there, or you do put it out there and you realise it's not a big idea it doesn't land. I'm really interested in the campaigns that you've been behind and part of where you've had a big idea land, or if you work with colleagues who regularly land big ideas, what's the secret sauce. Are they coming up with hundreds of crap ideas that they just keep hidden, just to show us the good ones. And is it a quantity game, or if they got a process that's helping them land more bigger ideas. Thanks, Ewan. Well, back in the day. When I worked as an agent school BMP, most must see me bullet and they morphed into ddb and so there, the entire ethos was about finding great ideas and campaignable ideas so big main campaignable so I was talking about my boss john Webster. You know, and he was just bloody brilliant at it, especially bears. So Hofmeister bear he created, you know, that ran for years they brought it back last year but honey monster he created john Smith's no nonsense. So these are big ideas because, as I said they were platform ideas but he also had the skill to execute them brilliantly each time and so they acquired momentum and. But I think, you know, I mean I think. I think there's been a sea change in marketing. You know, if you were the CMO of a big company. Five years ago, you spent a lot of your time with your lead agency talking about the big idea. And then it was kind of. This is the word trickle down because it's kind of rather purging thanks to Liz trust at the moment but it was kind of trickle down communications you had your big brand campaign and then that trickle down through. But then I think what happened is that coming out of the financial crisis CMOs have been increasingly beaten up by CFOs. And so they've been spending more and more and more money down at the bottom of the funnel, in order to be able to report sales figures. You know, that's trouble with brand building big idea brand building. You don't have immediate figures they're over a period of time and it's very difficult to allocate a number to an ad that ran 18 months ago for example so. So that's what's happening increasingly short term expectations, and then marketers have discovered that actually, if you have a whole flock of little ideas. That tends to be more successful for two reasons one, because they're little ideas, if they crash and burn, no one notices, especially your bosses by the way, you know because they're still old enough not to be able to understand how technology works. But the other thing about it is a game back to the whole programmatic thing through digital, you're still getting sales results measurable results measurable, you know within days by the way, and so you're able to do a string of numeral reporting, and that's what it's about it's numbers numbers numbers. And so that's why I think we see the big idea under attack. Thanks so much. It confirms what I feared, but I think all of us are in a position to escape it. If we can keep a long picture idea of a big platform that can support 1000 flowers is lovely and something that I can work with from today. Absolutely. And the other thing is I mean, choose your clients. I mean one of the interesting things is Apple is the, the most powerful brand in the world today but it also had one of the most evil brand managers in Steve Jobs. And as my ex boss David Ogilvy once said that you know, in no town or city today ever see a statue erected to a committee. And that's the trouble with most, most clients, you're selling work to a committee Steve Jobs was the man, he had a one on one relationship with Lee cloud. And he drove it single handed. And you know you look at virgin one man one brand that stands for things you know the moment you start dealing with a room full of people you're in trouble. Thank you so much for the contribution. Thanks you and feel great question. Thank you very much. And so we're getting close to wrapping up time. And I am going to bring in my colleague, Elisa, Elisa's got a rather philosophical question that she'd like to put to you. So if you'd like to join us, Elisa. Thanks to Patrick, it's been such a pleasure hearing all your stories and hearing your valuable insights. What I was thinking of, and what I seem to come across from this talk is do you think the problem is that a lot of brands try to be all things to all people jump on every social movement, and it backfires in a way because, as you said nobody ever erected a statue to a committee. Well I don't think it's all brands I mean we're just talking about, like all of these things you know you have a whole spread there are a number of brands out there who seem to have intelligent marketers and then there are a whole load of brands where I mean I listened to a marketing director the other day, who was proud of the fact they had never had any marketing training, and you're going, God almighty. And I'm also one of the UK's biggest marketing driven companies. I'm not going to mention it, I know, but I heard the CEO refer to their marketers as the colouring in department. I mean, you know there is enormous disrespect in business for marketing and for advertising, because there's been just rank laziness and stupidity for the last 1520 years. So there's 8 million people in the UK, clad to have done marketing training of some sort or another. So that's 8 million adults who all think they know what marketing is. And I have to say that of the 8 million, I think probably 7.9 million haven't a bloody clue. It's terrible when something is in danger of becoming a vagant amorphous term without any real meaning attached to it. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean I have to say that I mean, if there are any marketers in the school I think marketing is a absolutely fascinating discipline because it is left brain right brain you need to be both marketing has become a science. It's a drags to data, but on the other hand, really successful marketing is still an art, you know you still need to have an insight about what it is that your customers are looking for in order to be able to meet that need. And then on top of that you need to be able to then present it to them in a way that they find enticing and that's, you know the advertising is probably the last part of that creative process. And there are a handful of marketers out there who are really fantastic. They sometimes kind of feel it's a bit like advertising some of the best people in advertising no longer in advertising. They got, you know, expensive because they were good and so they got chucked out. And it's the same in marketing there are some absolutely brilliant marketers out there who are two opinionated. And my friend Sean Gogety, for example, giving him a plug. He's an absolutely brilliant creative marketer, as well as having the most forensically analytical brain I've ever come across and of course, he's currently a consultant a because he can probably earn more money from it and secondly because actually people like him large companies find too hot to handle. Do you know what I mean I mean, you know, because you're locking horns with the CEO the whole time. It's about company direction and ambition. Which again I'm just going off on one here is often why marketers do make very good CEOs. I think the last time I checked 11 footsie 100 companies had marketers as the CEO as the CEO. So Alan joke, who is the CEO of Unilever he was a marketer. And I think that shows actually in, in, in where he's taken the company and his determination that Unilever will be a purpose driven company with purpose driven brands. And he doesn't mean that in a greenwashing kind of context he means that those businesses will become more successful because they mean something valid to people. Thank you so much. Thank you, Elisa. So, so thank you, thank you so much, Patrick for joining us for sharing your wisdom on this Thursday afternoon. Thank you to all of the 42 course members who took the time to join us on this call. So for the lively chat that's been going on in the sidebar I think we'll collect together the wisdom of Patrick and we could probably publish a book there now of all his wise sayings. It's been a pleasure really to spend the afternoon with you, Patrick, thank you for joining us you can find Patrick in our 42 courses digital marketing course if you haven't already completed it there it's highly recommended. So it just reminds me to say thank you, Patrick Collister for joining us. I hope that you've enjoyed chatting with me today. I've signed in a bit like a tap that's been used. Thank you. Well I'm glad that I'm glad that you vented it in our company so that we can all learn from you and hope that you'll join us again hope all of you will join us again for another week of wisdom from our 42 course guest speakers thank you very much everyone for joining us today. Thank you.