Creative Minds Podcast - Episode 3 - 'Build a legacy and an environment that fosters creativity'

I think maybe in a sense like being self-aware enough that like I'm never gonna be the world's greatest graphic designer but I can be the world's best boss or like Shepherd of graphic designers um is really motivating because I'm just like I want you to be better than me I want you to go farther than I ever could like someday I'll be the old dinosaur that someone's like she should get out of here she doesn't know anything about the new platforms and I just want you know you you try to build a legacy and try to build an environment that like Fosters the creativity hello and welcome back to creative minds this is episode three and I am delighted to welcome Sarah haraki welcome Sarah Sarah is creative director at smartly um you I don't know what I'm saying it like you are um she is a digital marketing expert with specialist subjects kind of um content creation influencer marketing gen Z comes is that right sure I'll take that yeah okay thanks for having me um welcome well I'd love to start with Sarah is could you just give me the kind of quick overview of your career today because I know you've got to the dizzying heights of creative director I know you've got a bit of a design background and I'd love not too quickly but I'm not going to say very quickly I'd love to kind of just hear that Journey sure because it's it's I guess it's not typical It's Not Unusual but I think it's obviously hopefully going to be an interesting story yeah so often when I'm talking to people who work in Creative especially in like digital marketing there's like a little quip around the office like no one grew up wanting to do digital marketing no one grew up and was like I'm gonna make ads but I did um I've Loved advertising since I was a little kid my dad used to like quiz me on um like radio and cartoon like jingles and like the grocery store jingles and stuff they'd play and hit yeah he would like hum them and then I would have to identify them and he would have me sing them to like the grocery store checkout lady and like I really am a weird freak for advertising okay so I loved art as a kid and got really into computers I grew up you know in Seattle in the 90s just so so back to those Jingles yeah any standout favorites from that time of year growing up so gosh I'm a big fan of Jingles um there's some Regional like grocery stores in in Washington state um uh what's on your list today you'll find it at Fred Meyer and they're just like the whole the whole thing I love it Fred Meyer yeah you can buy anything there they do a lot of coupons my family was a fan yeah they had a just really smooth Tunes they were they were putting out in the 90s yeah yeah so then uh yeah group loving art and graphic design got into like the world of early Photoshop through my sister had pirated a copy of Photoshop seven maybe when we were kids when we first got the internet and she and I used it to make various like anime fan sites and you know things like that which is of course like the best graphic design training anyone can get um and then I got really into student journalism when I was in school and then that led me down the path of like professional graphic design like this could be a real career um I got my first internship uh at a place called blast radius um which was in Seattle and our main customer was Starbucks so I did production design for Starbucks as my first job out of University was that mainly prints or digital always All Digital I've I've done maybe four or five print ads in my entire career yeah um so yeah it's all digital from there a lot of production design a lot of like grinding you know kind of repetitive tasks but you really cut your teeth doing it um and then I moved on to do some freelance work I did some like YouTube stuff with some friends some very like we're gonna make some stuff go viral you know with friends um in my 20s um how many hits we did a gosh it's a weird it's a weird one so when the Mars Curiosity Rover landed successfully we did a parody video of there's an Australian safety campaign called Dumb Ways to Die which recently also got picked up and and got really popular on Tick Tock again so back when it originally came out we did a parody video called cool things to find about all the things that Curiosity might find on Mars um made a song I did all the illustrations that went viral and then we got invited to like JPL like to to go see oh wow the the lab and stuff I met the NASA Mohawk guy he was like the the viral celebrity at the time so that's you know that's really when I peaked I would say but yeah okay yeah so that was kind of you were working at blast radius and that was a bit of a kind of just a bit of fun just for friends side hustle just totally yeah I remember like doing the illustrations for it over like Thanksgiving break because that was right around the time when when that was all happening and yeah so just like doing projects with friends work time is what you're saying yeah just chilling just in my pajamas okay um yeah and then I kind of continued working I worked at um Essence which is an agency um in Seattle and then was there for ages working with a bunch of different customers eBay and Ross and a bunch of other like American companies um and then I moved over to London about seven eight years ago with Essence um to join the creative team over here uh and then yeah it's it's kind of all been from there so uh more recently I joined ad-lib which was a startup founded by some friends who were also X Essence we were a creative management platform that worked heavily with with Google YouTube and and those kind of AD formats I joined them as creative director two years ago um since then we've been acquired by smartly which is now where I work and now I'm running aipac and emea creatively for for smartly yes first of all congratulations you know a rocket ship ride of her career um and I guess only down to talent and passion for what you do which is is it's really nice to hear and it's kind of inspiring as well you know doing what you love loving what you do balancing it work and Outsider work as well I mean I know that you're prolific on Tick Tock as well at the moment and I guess that ties into that kind of you know work and out of work can I call it a balance is it a balance do you find that is it like it's either a work-life balance is it just yeah types of work it's either super well balanced or so far unbalanced that I wouldn't even be able to find the life anymore or the work because they're so intertwined my spouse also works at smartly we were kind of Partners um in our previous agency then he did this startup with our other friend and partners is in Creative Partners uh kind of just like like work buddies and kind of like he and I would work on pitches together um he was on the media side and I was on the creative side and so we kind of had this like creative Synergy a little bit in that way um and then yeah when I joined um ad-lib now smartly um we're kind of running our own separate departments and working together so it's us and the dog every day in the office and this is what I wish I'm taking notes because of already what you said there's so many things I want to ask you like the move from the US to the UK like kind of want to talk about the difference in Creative styles um but also like your whole kind of move into Tick Tock yeah it's also finding really fascinating and I've kind of watching some of your content or a lot of your content um so also when I talk about that I'm not sure what to do first but let's let's try not to get too far ahead and just go back a little bit to that that shift coming from the US to the UK sure with work had you been to the UK before I actually lied in my job interview and said I had um because I was 25 I had never been out of North America before right another passport I did but only to go to Canada beer when you're 18. so that's a plus okay yeah and hanging out yeah um so I had my job interview with you know the other office within my Agency Group and they were like oh you're incident this is a big move have you ever been there before and I was like oh yeah I got loads of friends I've got such a strong support network in London yeah like spent that I got the job spent my first Christmas alone like I got a little house plant and decorated it for myself and saved like a Bill Murray Christmas special for for that day so I had something to like open and it was like it would have been depressing so it's like Christmas time then I moved to October uh 2015. right um yeah I'm in London in October London at Christmas is great how did like kind of outside of like professional career how did you find that that move um it was stressful and I think I kind of went into like a Fugue State during all of the admin of moving um there's so much paperwork there's so much moving of my possessions and of course my family was like a bit traumatized because their their baby daughter was leaving the country forever and um so it was intense but I was like so determined like so kind of single-mindedly focused to move um and part of it was kind of out of like spite I was like I'm gonna just I'm gonna do it I'm gonna be the kid from my high school that like to hear it made it yeah yeah it could be I can't I can't Big Move age 25. Brave so then you'd been in essence um in the US came to Essence London what what was the difference like was it like same agency same Vibe or did it feel totally different it was really different was that yeah uh because Essence London was the mothership so the founders were still working there and it was people that had been at the company for ages and um Us in Seattle was um originally a company called Point reach specialized in Mobile advertising they were acquired so we were always kind of the satellite office so coming to the Mothership was very exciting and um you know the company culture was super strong there was this kind of renewed sense of excitement about creative and they kind of just threw me into a bunch of stuff you know I mean you went so you were a copywriter at this stage yeah I was doing a bit of everything okay I realized like with graphic design I was like I don't know if I'll ever become like a 10 out of 10 Master graphic designer I'm like I'm a good designer I know what I'm talking about but I was like I think what I want to do is broader than just being you know the ultimate graphic designer because I think your brain has to be a little bit wired differently to be like shapes are my thing you know yeah so which I love but I don't think I'll ever hit the you know the Mountaintop so I kind of broadened out and started doing a lot more creative strategy a lot of like social media writing for customers if they wanted that and it kind of branched out into into writing as more of a thing as well so I was doing a little bit of a little bit so what what year is this 2015 2016. Okay so like it's an exciting time for social social content social media Brands trying to catch up yeah pouring money into yeah and I'd come from a um like an open web display background you know all the conversations at the time were about you know is the cookie gonna die which we're still we're still having that conversation um and uh you know we're shifting from a world where you can buy ad space to when you have to start earning ad space or you have to you know the things around like native advertising and this quite like Trixie world of how do we make things not look like ads and there's a lot of that kind of era of creative yeah I mean that's uh you know add that to the list which had a plan so I guess um I mean that's the whole other thing and it flip-flops doesn't it totally totally and that's that's really something I want to unpick your your brain on like kind of tick tock ads look and feel what works what doesn't work but let's let's come back to that so just culturally creative culturally in in the um moving to Essence from from the US like how did it work in terms of just the creative process like was it different a little bit we were a pretty lean team still when I joined so I was doing a lot of things by myself or just with my creative director um and like kind of you know he would literally have us like sit on the floor and like you know draw on paper and do like the real creative stuff which was fun because I'd been in um digital at that point for so long that I don't know if I'd touched a piece of paper in a while um so yeah he was great um Andy veezy because he would really um kind of force me to do things the traditional way um which I was I was so used to just launching into digital tools you know round one was near the finished product um that that he really like promoted the Journey of like a real real creative or like traditional creative process which is great um I got really into like design thinking and we we took courses in that and kind of unpicking the the why and how of of doing creative um because we were a small creative team that sat within a media agency and so everyone else was figuring out budgets and measurement and tracking and and audiences and how can we scrape your you know name rank and serial number from your desktop so we can serve you the right pair of shoes you know and we were trying to tell a story which is a tough thing to do in that context other than saying like hey James how do you like your shoes yeah and buy these shoes now please um so we were trying to fight this battle and really advocate for a more not traditional but a more considered way of of doing things creatively which is really something I've kind of taken with me on the way yeah and and in terms of that process that's that's still with you I mean are you getting the pen and paper out on a regular basis or totally yeah I really believe in in doing things that way still I keep a paper note pad I don't even use like task management stuff personally like um just like a good way of like kind of grounding out your process because I think like you know you talk about with digital tools and the first ones close to the the final piece and I think I mean definitely from where I'm coming from it's very easy to when you've got the brief jump to it's going to look like this and it's going to do that yeah without necessarily thinking well hang on what's the message you know we we hopefully we don't know anymore we used to often make the mistake of we get a brief and we're like we're gonna do this technique it's going to be awesome it'll look great and it's now we're a bit more like actually it's not necessarily all about the technique that might get us excited from a production perspective but actually it might not be right for this brief and I think by going back those steps getting the pen and paper out looking at the the what the why it's totally the right way of doing it totally but it's so tempting and I work for a software company so my goal is to get my clients to use and love the tools to the best you know possible capability but we have to take them on that journey through something that they'll really understand and that will work well for real people who you know see ads at the end of the day marketers now we're looking at dashboards of hundreds or thousands of different combinations of creative and we're looking at all these things your audience is really only going to see one and so if that one at the very end of the production line you know doesn't come off the right way then the whole thing can be spoiled like I've had entire campaigns um you know at previous agencies we've we've had CMOS spouses take a screenshot of their brand and they're like I don't like this entire campaign gets cut um just because of that one yeah yeah I used to tell this story um it was like a really depressing like motivational talk I used to go to my creative teams there's this uh YouTube channel that talks about like famous disasters and my favorite one is oh I'm gonna forget the details now it's called fascinating horror okay and it's my favorite thing so I can't I think it was in like the Twin Cities it was somewhere in America maybe it was Chicago I don't know is somewhere in America on the Great Lakes yeah and we'll link it somewhere they did the largest ever I'm gonna totally butcher the details did they went for a world record of the largest ever um launch of balloons uh I think it's Chicago I've yeah yeah I've played this story yeah and uh they did this balloon release but they weren't aware that the wind was going to blow a certain way and so the balloon started Landing in the river but then at this exact point two people who were out fishing capsized and their life jackets were the same bright colors as the balloons and so it took ages to find them and I think they haven't passed away yeah so like I tell that story to like people working in my team when we're doing you know thousands millions of Impressions and I'm just like one impression could make the difference a positive way or it could be enormously detrimental if you're not careful with what you're putting out there yeah nice yeah slightly morbid analogy yeah I I mean I'm a fun boss um in terms of like you're talking about running the team I mean a huge role of creative director is kind of being off the the tools and running the team um for someone like yourself I get the thing that that you love creating I know you obviously you're running your Tick Tock Channel which is hugely successful in growing we're going to get onto that but also do your illustrations you're kind of a feels like a prolific Creator you just want to make stuff how do you find being off the tools and having to kind of run the team actually love it um I use more of my creative muscles like as you said either you know off tools or in my personal time um but I like I really love letting other people bring their own flavor to things I've been working by myself or in a super small team for so long that actually having people to work with is really really great it's one of those weird things that like you get promoted to creative director by being a good graphic designer and then Senior designer and then art director and the the roles like the tools you need to be a good people manager or coach are completely different from the ones you need to be a good artist and yeah I think maybe in a sense like being self-aware enough that like I'm never gonna be the world's greatest graphic designer but I can be the world's best boss or like Shepherd of graphic designers um is really motivating because I'm just like I want you to be better than me I want you to go farther than I ever could like someday I'll be the old dinosaur that someone's like she should get out of here she doesn't know anything about the new platforms and I just want you know you you try to build a legacy and try to build an environment that like Fosters the creativity and like well that's the sound bite that's the thing yeah there it is yeah that's pretty put your ego aside yeah I've worked with so many wonderful creative leaders who have been really generous with their time and their information and you know letting you pitch the big sexy client so that you get you know shouted out in the company meeting and I've also worked with people who are really selfish and I call the credit yeah and it's like it's not about you it's about the brand you're working for and it's about doing work together as a team so I try to bring like Ted lasso energy rather than you know yeah the hot guy yeah I think um yeah everyone should be a bit more toddler got it gotta get into it yeah which also works because I'm an American goofing around in a London office so yeah yeah nothing like that got the uh peanut butter open on the counter there yeah just crying alone in my apartment and then coming and being really fun in the office [Laughter] that first Christmas yeah just very Charlie Charlie Browning by myself but um yeah but yeah it's part of the ride so um how do you find kind of motivating you're the younger creative team is that I know so it feels like the the difference in the working environment probably from when you started or when you moved to the UK which you know crew was isn't that long ago but you know we've been through a lot in terms of the pandemic new ways of working hybrid new platforms different you know tools like it's a very different landscape like how how can how would you say you've kind of navigated that and what wisdom do in part to your younger teams and kind of the youngest you know your younger self almost yeah I mean a lot of my direct reports are older than me or the same age as me so I always feel like okay crazy kids um but yeah I mean generally like the kids are very all right like they're they're crushing it they're gonna bury us all soon um but they're also like very impatient I think kind of going back to the tools and the final project thing um and really driven in terms of their careers I think there's a stereotype about you know people in their you know late teens and 20s now being like oh they don't care about anything they just want to be influencers and you know eat bon bons all day and post Dance videos but um you know young people that that put their mind to something are much more powerful than I think a lot of people maybe in their 30s and 40s will give them credit for and um as a people manager of younger people especially younger creative people get out of the way you know like they have all these tools they're so much more sophisticated and in things like content creation like using AI tools and things like that like it raises the floor on what that first draft or you know that first expression looks like I had to spend five years resizing banner ads uh now I work for a company that automates that um and this next generation won't even have to I don't know go photograph their own content to to make a pitch deck or to prove a point they can automate that type into a prompt so yeah and so your your person who's been in the industry for five years has the potential to have expressed so many more important creative ideas and played more roles at once you know been a strategist been a an artist been a Creator been a filmmaker and they just can do it in a much more accelerated format than I ever could even though I was using you know Photoshop and yeah which at the time was probably oh there was someone else looking at you using photoshopping like oh that's a bit of a dark toolbox there 100 amazing to understand that I'm scared of it I made friends with all the like pre-face tune I made friends with all the cheerleaders at my high school because I would Photoshop their pimples out of their photos from Myspace yeah so yeah I was a wizard back then and like I never forget about how I felt and I was like I'm good at this I'm 14. I'm awesome and I'm like I don't want people to lose that when they're 24 and they work for me and I'm like you have to do it with a pencil yeah like it's important to learn those things but yeah do you think they're uh you know obviously all this new tools new technology is being able to kind of do stuff better quicker but do you think we're losing anything like are there skills that are being overlooked or lost or not not kind of even learned in the first place I think there definitely are like I did things like calligraphy dark room photography print making you know all of these things that are really useful to understand where these techniques came from like vignetting is not something you just do in Photoshop vignetting comes from using the larger and you know like it's really important to learn that and I'm a big like art history quite understanding person why the filters are called that yeah because of a actual process or technique dodging and burning a piece of Hardware doing an overlay um why we add dust and Speckles you know it's wild like all those Aesthetics coming back and you know it's it's just the way art moves it kind of like wrinkles and and stretches and patterns in in what's trending will always kind of get mushed up um so it's I don't know it's uh we're we are definitely losing a lot of the handcraft but I also wasn't that good like I did typography courses in my University with a ruler and a pencil and and like a tube of gouache and I hated it gouache like paint I hated it and I was like I know how to use Photoshop this seemed like it wasn't a waste of time because it was very humbling yeah but I was like these These are limiting there's a reason they're not the industry standard if there was one process that you could ask or recommend or make your kind of team go through that perhaps you've gone through what what would it be as a learning experience yeah you can I think um like Lo-Fi product design things like that like designing a process and getting someone to do a behavior um is one of the hardest but most important Behavior So like um in you know in design thinking you're looking at um people's behavior you're looking at workarounds people are using and then diagnosing those building a tool that will leverage that so I think that like psychological and kind of strategic thing is probably the thing I would be the most sad if we lost um artistic techniques you know certain kind of give or take them depending but I would like highly encourage all of my designers or all my Advertiser colleagues to take a step back into like the world of psychology you know of uh Process Management like all of those things that we learned from yeah so where where that sounds great I'm in yeah where do I start I mean uh it's like design thinking courses reading up on like Ideo uh case studies about um you know the way people have solved problems in interesting ways I think it's like is that true creative thinking that outside the box thinking that's really important um there are tons of resources and you know Play books and little tools about it and the you know the different colored hats and allergies and all that stuff um but yeah you kind of you kind of need an old person in the room that remembers those or has you know experienced them to to clue you in yeah so do you feel that having that old person in the room so to speak is lost a bit with hybrid working like what's your current setup and how does that impact training teaching the kind of younger up and coming creatives do you feel they're out on their own so can perhaps do more on their own and that's a good thing or are they kind of missing you know just hearing conversations around the office yeah I think for especially younger people or people who are looking to upscale being in person with people really like I love wearing sweatpants at home and you know second screening but you have to put in the work and and be in person so at smartly we're hybrid working we're doing two days in the office and and the rest of our time in the office or at home depending on what works out which I think is a good balance um yeah I think the you're running a Global team so even if we're in the office you're talking to someone through a screen anyway almost all of my direct reports are in different time zones for me as well so yeah I'm constantly just on on calls with them and corresponding at different times that work for work for them um but yeah I like it's it's hard because it just becomes about the motivations I guess like going back to that earlier point of um you have to motivate people to do things independently and they have to want to do it and they have to feel like there's a good reason to do it so if someone doesn't know how to do something they can call you or they can spend time with you in the office and overhear it or they can just look it up themselves like there's so many resources and I think it's it's just about finding the motivational factors for different folks which are you know we all have different things that motivate us for some people it's very simple and it's like you know Financial based rewards it's work after all and that's why we do it you know for some people it's very different it's about growth and learning and experiences and you want to try and cultivate like a good balance of those things and for me especially managing people across regions and um even across disciplines is just like unlocking what motivates them and trying to tailor have you got any advice to people that manage you know 1 10 20 however many people to help them unlock those motivations just ask the questions yeah yeah just like I've really uh especially recently we've restructured our teams and I've taken on a lot of people who are quite senior who I respect very much and I'm like it almost seems silly that you report to me but here we go and I'm going to do my best by you um and so like having the humility to ask people how they're feeling what they need like I I said recently to someone I was like can you write me like a ransom List of Demands and I'll do my best to work with you to try and Achieve them like you know whatever it is we can try and figure that out and um yeah just like we're secretly hoping they would have cut it out from yeah oh my gosh or like it's in code and I have to like Zodiac killer that would be I mean that would be cool what yeah like like I'm Dougie yeah um so yeah figuring that part out and um and like following through just like if you say you're gonna do something if you say you're gonna send an email to HR if you say you're gonna ask a question the next you have to do it yeah the second you don't do it it's like you know trust is right yeah yeah yeah and you know the more people you've got that time isn't it hard to do write everything down yeah yeah I'm paid back um I want to talk about Tick Tock yeah so can I call you would you say your influencer status like where what's what's the kind of I don't know how influential I am I think I usually say content creator because I make stuff yeah um so just going back a step people that you know are watching this and aren't familiar with you what would you what's the kind of elevator pitch of your the kind of tick tocks that you make yeah um I I make educational content on Tick Tock that usually has a lens of diversity art and advertising or uh I guess like ethics and and Linguistics so a lot of just things that I find interesting that I also think are helpful especially for young women navigating the world of media art culture in the workplace and it's this is your opportunity for a plug yeah I'm at Sarah haraki all my socials are just my name and the channel is learn something with Sarah and you can yeah hang out with me there so specifically on tiktok rather than some of your other channels what point did you think okay I'm gonna do something it's gonna be learn something with Sarah and I'm going to do this this and this or was it more kind of organic it kind of was so um during the pandemic I um switch jobs and that also meant sending my Visa application to live in the UK and work in the UK back to the Visa office which of course was slammed and also we were in a pandemic so things are really slow so I had an amazing like career break for about four or five months which was great because I've been been hustling for so long um and so we don't get to where you are without hustling yeah so I took a nice break I you know I definitely during the pandemic yeah I just played Animal Crossing on the couch for a good several weeks um in my pajamas and then I was like wouldn't it be funny if I tried to become a tick tocker because my friends know me as like habitually uncool and um some somewhat kind of grandma-like out of touch Millennial um you know I don't wear the right shape of jeans okay right um oh I've changed my whole life I'm very cool now but um although is this a good time to say that the dress story from oh yeah no I was well I was wearing my dress inside out until we sat down Sarah arrived today with um dress on inside out yes first time on the podcast well I'm already episode three so maybe it's the first signature thing maybe this is this is your opportunity just this becomes a whole other kind of thing yeah um that's a great metaphor for my whole approach to all of this um yeah so my friends know that kind of I fall down uh yeah I just I'm very weird whatever um and so I was like wouldn't it be funny if I became like a Tick-Tock batty and you know was extremely cool and so I issued myself a challenge I was like I know enough about marketing I'm a competent creative person and I was like I'm gonna try and be brave and do this so I issued myself a challenge and I was like I'm gonna post the recommended amount and I'm in the recommended kind of cadence and and style I'm gonna do all the things they tell you to do I'm gonna find my Niche I'm going to use my own face and my own identity I'm gonna you know carve out this thing and I'm gonna see if if I can do it because if if I can do it anyone can do it and then I can it just sort of concludes the Jack there so you said Brave I thought it's really interesting so I was terrified yeah okay so why was that um oh I mean I'm saying why I can understand why but yeah I think it's really important that you kind of that we pick up on it because there might be a lot of people out there that want to do more and raise their profile on you know whatever Channel even you know LinkedIn or but I think so often people are scared to do it yeah and they're scared to put their self out there and scared to fail or try something new why did you use the word brave there I mean all of those things it's uh I was using my own identity in my own interest so it was going to be very personal I knew I couldn't you know put on an act or develop a character you know do something I needed to do something that I could realistically achieve in my apartment posting three to five times a day every day for that that's the recommendation that was the Cadence if you want to grow if you want to grow yeah yeah and so it was what can I do you know I have to speak from the heart I have to use things like no I have to do my own research I have to do this yeah and um yeah if if you ever want to be humbled extremely very much put your whole heart into a project on Tick Tock and then let teenagers make fun of you um because I got the most creative feedback I would say in like a condensed period of time that I've ever received in my life um your audio is too loud your audio is too soft um you're weird um why are you trying so hard um I already knew that you got that fact wrong just the most feedback and a lot of it well-meaning but it's it's still very humbling to have a committee of people on the line that it was yeah audio okay I couldn't get the mic right okay it's too high coming to pick so that was you're weird okay because you don't fix yeah a 14 year old just commenting something like cringe I'm just like I'm an adult woman yeah with a retirement account and who are you you know and you and your your knee-jerk reaction is just like who is the time to just cringe yeah and I'm just like who the hell are you you can't even drive you know and I'm just like your immediate reaction is just to be defensive yeah and then I'm like no I'm in their space I'm trying to play by their rules all I can do is learn reduce it is that spice yeah young people invented this yeah yeah 100 and uh it's it's growing and it's expanding you know we've seen we know the stats like ancient people in their 30s and 40s are doing very well on Tick Tock hope for me yeah okay um but yeah you know the space I was trying to unlock was a space owned by these other people and so I had to participate in a certain way yes you have something that they one or needle could benefit from your kind of career experience and your perspective on digital marketing so that was so you you realize that and then kind of were like right this is going to be the niche I'm going to talk about yeah I I started with um like a series of um things things I wish I knew at a pub quiz so breaking down like um if someone mentions Opera what are the good guesses that you can you can do based on different things um facts about the president's art history you know if you go to a museum and you see this type of restaurant so it's kind of like a crash course then just a topic in case you're in a pub yeah at that pub quiz table and it comes up totally and then it expanded to um was that just based on what you knew or you did some research yeah well I was also auditioning for Mastermind at the time so I was doing a lot of general knowledge brush up yeah specialist subject was Ariana Grande RuPaul's Drag Race and the musicals of Steven Sondheim sorry I haven't got a single question on any of those extremely extremely cool okay yeah right back to tick tock so yeah um I you know the the series kind of naturally expanded which was really interesting to like creatively be a part of so I started with a very like rigid like five Max you should you know very like okay because I was like kind of series based yeah and then um expanded into um how to win any argument that did really well um and that was I kind of focused it particularly on arming young people you know people of color especially like in the workplace you know you're around a boardroom table and someone is like no where we don't do that you know like how do you use logic um uh unpacking logical fallacies how do you use language to like cut through the BS that that one offer often encounters um and yeah and then a lot of commentary on you know race gender and and politics through lens of Art and media and um yeah just kind of kind of went for it and people seem to like it and what so first I find the the kind of Benchmark of five tick tocks a day I mean I can't even do five fruit and veg a day yeah like you're five so coming up with the concept researching it I guess scripting it but maybe your ad-libbing I'd you can let me know and then actually shooting it delivering it uploading it writing the post uploader thinking of a cool Emoji to go in it yep it's it's a lot I mean we we are better we obviously creating content all day and it's it's hard work it's fantastic I'm exhausted just it's a lot of times throw away it's not well the type of stuff that you're doing is not it's a it's a hungry machine too like you just have to feed that thing whether you're a individual person or a brand it's like so hungry for Content um what was the process to manage that because it's there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done daily yeah is that weekends as well yeah okay every single day okay we have a spreadsheet where we were I did I have this massive Google doc that at this point is like 67 pages long or something like that and I would I would script I would type out scripts from my videos um because I because I was getting so much feedback I was also very afraid to put a toe out of line content-wise I made sure everything I said was was on lock um you know factually correct I was citing sources you know I was doing it was just desk research but I was you know and I had to include personality and I had to have a hook and I had a reason um this was before Auto captioning was available on Tick Tock as well right so I had to type all of my um scripts and then copy and paste them into I was using the native Tick Tock app to edit um all I did was think about tick tocks scroll Tick Tock save um I very rarely actually like saved a sound and then just made a video against a sound um yeah it was just all original content for the most time in science and do you know how many you've made since starting oh I don't actually know how many videos I put it's a lot it it must be I mean I was I was doing that very intense three to five a day for at least 50 days or something like that 16. how many what's the kind of cadence of it now I was I was I took a break and then I was hitting like once a week and now it's just when I when I feel inspired or when I have something relevant to say yeah in terms of the the growth the channel growth was there a like a real Tipping Point or has it just been a yeah uh the day Prince Philip died okay um because on my channel we talk a lot about uh you know race power Etc um and so everyone knows Prince Philip had many things to say about people um with different skin tones and backgrounds from himself and also he's royalty uh and he was recent he died uh minutes before I put or minutes yeah before I posted so the news broke that he died and I was like cool let's dunk on this guy see you later yeah um not a universally popular thing to do but I knew it was right for my audience and I also knew I was going to stand by the content so what I did was say he's just passed away let's remember him with some memorable quotes and then I just quoted him and I I teed up all of his most offensive quotes about various people that he met in real life so many fun quotes and so I just read them decided where I got them from and presented it and then I said rest in peace and then I cut myself off before I called him a bad name and then that I put that up 20 minutes half half an hour after he was reported to have passed away um and then that thing went nuts that was my first like viral wow so how what sort of um views we're getting what were the comments like gosh I want to say it was like two three million views or something like that and it was shared across other platforms and um my audience is overwhelmingly young people who kind of want to speak to truth to power so they were like yeah right on yeah see you later and then the really funny comments like I think it was a hot Cheeto that killed him and you know they think someone someone put too much black pepper on his food that's what did it um or you know he's a lizard person that's always fun too like conspiracy theories and then a lot of people saying how dare you how dare you do this how did you know think of the queen you know which I didn't dunk on my girl Liz when she passed away because I have a sentence of respect but um yeah uh I also found out through that that doing something controversial um though I didn't intend it to be like yeah I'm gonna start fights in the comments I certainly didn't engage with any of those people but um doing something that not Everyone likes is a really effective way you might have you know folks have different opinions of if that's the best way to go bad but it's an effective way to get people to engage with your content so that really brings you on to something else itching to ask is about recipe for success so imagine I mean you've found Success Through hard work you know dedication and kind of resilience when when you're talking to brands in your with your professional hat on um and they're like okay we wanna we wanna be on Tick Tock we want to reach a different audience what do we do I guess they can't be dunking on Prince Philip oh they should and more often that would be super cool yeah I mean what where do you start like what do you say because you know I don't think the brands a lot of the things you said you wanted to do put your face in front you know have personal experience have your point of view um create five times a day it's difficult for Brands to kind of take those be like okay yeah they'll be watching I'm going to do everything that Sarah did and this is gonna be great or like what what's what's your advice yeah to Brands and creatives representing brands or people at agencies that are trying to help Brands kind of animate themselves I think in a certain way you can just take the Playbook that works for organic or independent folks and do it like your face has to be on there you need to have a recognizable identity as a brand um one of the things you know yeah Google Levi's what's the face it can be the product um right it can be a behavior so with Google it's either searching or discovering or learning and you know with Levi's it's a great fit it's a texture it's where you're taking your jeans you know whatever figuring out an identity that works Duolingo great example right like they have a mascot they just put their mascot in in strange and exciting situations and that's that's a good vehicle so using your product or using something identifiable or someone like you know you might have I don't know the the Dos Equis interesting man or something like do that um yeah offer offer people something of value so I was teaching people something they wanted to learn something I did the work for them so that they could have something interesting to either clap back to a professor or a you know a partner or whoever so offer them something valuable whether it's I don't know a styling tutorial or something helpful or an interesting fact people love learning like Tick Tock is a very learn focused place so not being afraid to give people something of value um and identify I guess like what what they actually resonate with like my audience would ask me for more more of the things that they liked and to pay attention to those people and what do you do to them what do your audience request most they want me to dunk on more people I have a really nice things yeah um is that is there have you got a little yeah series for that yeah yeah all your favorite artists or authors that are actually like real garbage people yeah um yeah a lot of those I honestly like I have steered my channel away from that just because it's very depressing to research people who are criminals or horrific racists or whatever you know I just didn't want to do that so um while it was a great way to spark conversation you know whatever um now I've kind of tailored things the hard way is being uplifting and and helpful and more how I would be in real life I guess though I do dunk on people in real life too yeah that's good I mean I think it's good to bring people down every now and then um when you're what I want to ask you is about kind of creative block yeah so I can imagine when you were having to constantly create a pressure which I guess would affect a kind of creative process but work as well like when you've got a difficult brief what's your go-to process to kind of Unblock that creativity uh I just like to to talk about it I'll have the most like I'll just you know buy the coffee machine talking to someone and and that'll unlock something um let's just hang out there and wait for someone yeah I drink a lot of coffee so that that's pretty good um sketching it out like talking to the customer like often we're we're so used to now corresponding through email and slack and and quite short interactions that um again like talking about the face-to-face stuff like just getting on a call and be like being brave enough to ask a question especially when you're in a you know I'm in a role to service a customer to deliver something and being humble enough to be like I'm struggling with how we get you there how to you know can you tell me more about putting it yeah yeah like all those things I think you know design like wrinkles can be ironed out you know you can always find a different way to lay something out you can always find a different way to Vanessa process there's a lot of processed stuff we're software you know plus talent and so it's a lot of how do we make handovers more smooth how do we you know communicate more effectively and so a lot of my like creative struggles are like easy breezy compared to these big ones that are like how do we prevent people from getting like smushed between the cogs of of our process right but when you're so when you were you know creating your tick tocks you couldn't have those coffee machine moments I guess was there a a process or you know do some star jumps or read something go go elsewhere look elsewhere I did watch a lot of tick tocks and a lot of content to see what other people were doing but that also that didn't ever directly inform what I was doing or what I wanted to do um I would just I guess put myself in the more of like the audiences seat and be like what what am I getting frustrated by what am I confused by about the world now and what would I want to I guess yeah it's one of those things like you know shower thoughts walking the dog going to the grocery store every time I was like out with my husband being like why they do that and then I was like a tick tock it's a very Like Larry David way to go about content creation right and then I guess once you've got in that Rhythm and it becomes a habit yeah so then you're just constantly thinking or it just like yeah it's a it's a creative muscle you have to exercise and so the beginning I was doing a very like formulaic approach to it and then by the time I kind of got in a Groove I was just finding things I wanted to talk about more organically um but yeah it's it's very much like being able to see or hear stuff in a little bit of a different context it's so interesting just hearing hearing that story from kind of deciding to try it to where you are now what would you say has been the kind of the biggest learning that you've been able to take from that and apply kind of Elsewhere in your kind of creative life or career yeah um if you want to be good at anything you have to humble yourself and really commit to learning it even things like my my now agent you know 32 year old brain I had to learn how to use the tick tock UI that was very native feeling to a lot of other folks um and so like if you commit the amount of time to do things you really can learn it and so I try to remind myself of that when I'm learning a new set of tools or getting to know a new customer a new way of working I'm just like you can learn a new thing and it gets harder the older we get and the more stuff is crammed in our brains like I can name all the Pokemon I can't do long division anymore you know and you have to like make space in your brain yeah exactly um only only the most critical topics um but yeah just like now as a manager I'm doing things like um figuring out our rate card and and breaking down what our margin should be I didn't have to do that for a really long time and so I'm just like taking a little bit of a deep breath and being like you have to learn a new thing now and you're going to do it and it's going to be okay we've got to put the work in put the hours in a controller yeah yes yes I use every shortcut that there is but um yeah not all of it right favorite shortcut oh um I mean YouTube tutorials of just how to yeah yeah if you can ask the question there is a YouTube tutorial of of some person I love that I mean when when I was starting well I still use YouTube tutorials all the time whatever it is I'm trying to learn but um I mean starting pair Jam 10 11 years ago having to like do edits on my own yeah just go back to that point about you know find work with people that are better than you like editing was not my strong point and yeah getting people that knew what they were doing and didn't need to just check YouTube all the time okay a huge step forward what brands would you say are killing it oh on Texas I mean duolingos everyone's favorite um they just have such an ownable presence you know they've created an influencer and this influencer is a a large fuzzy Green Owl love that and they're also not afraid to be kind of menacing about it like the the joke of like the Duolingo out like texting you being like you up you know you better study Spanish and like you know they're not afraid to lean into what some might say is a criticism of the app experience um and being like you know the album puts his head into frame and is like threatening you at a window so I think they're really Brave in that way but they've also cracked something that is like I see it instantly that that first couple of seconds of kind of recognizability is critical on Tick Tock so I'm sure some people start swiping when they see my face some people will stop to listen and so having that like instantaneously recognizable thing is great um I mean like the beauty industry obviously does really well in Tick Tock fashion does really well that's just because they have a visual product and you know and they've got a huge community that they can tap into um I really love dating apps on Tick Tock I think they they're so native to the community and the experience that they do a great job um Tinder hinge um yeah they've all done a really good job of of cross-creating or trans creating multi-platform campaigns so the two bads into something that also works on Tick Tock and you know their their long-form um 16x9 videos into 9x16 and they do a great job that's good because that that's never easy is that it's very hard when you're trying to yeah and it's you know it's often something we advise people just against like you've created it here for hair don't try and like yeah cram it in over here it's a different aspect ratio for a different audience yeah on a different platform even movie trailers like movie trailers are having to use tick tock techniques which I'm sure kills Souls of some people working on those films they've had to use tick tock techniques to do trailers that will work on Tick Tock because it even a vertically cut one won't necessarily work in the original shape of story so I saw one um where instead of the cool like professional voiceover or just using audio from the film they use the tick tock native text-to-speech to set up a bit within the film that was in the trailer and like craft it as content which was really interesting yeah that's interesting I haven't actually seen any I mean I'm not you gotta scroll so long that Tick Tock actually gives you a little screen that's like hey go outside oh really yeah okay yeah yeah I've not hit that yet once you hit that I think yeah you've you've reached it yeah yeah you need some fresh air James and then Sarah dunks who's getting it wrong anyone ever seen on Tick Tock and you're like guys come on if you don't respect the UI and the frame of tick tock so they have that unique L-shaped UI and if your critical elements if you have like a CTA button that's if you've if you've repurposed like an Instagram story ad for example into the kind of opposite UI which is tick tocks and it's all cut off get out of here yeah yeah banned from the app it's one of it's one of the most important things I do with my customers is just make sure that they're designing for the right formats um because it's really easy just be like yeah vertical video it's everyone's doing vertical video it's the most populous format but within that there's so much nuance and you know like if you're trying to make something native especially something that looks like content on Snapchat or Tick Tock or whatever and use the wrong default font they will clock it like you know Keen users of the app will clock in they'll be like fake you know it's like uh it's like the equivalent of when you Google like a transparent PNG and it's got the little checkerboard behind it so I'm just like yeah no it's a special place for those yeah I've uploaded that again I know so um I'm gonna pretend like I know what you're talking about because it's my job to know but just talk me through that L shape yeah so Tick Tock has the side panel for what is it um light comment share and then on the bottom module they've got the expanding caption and then they've got the the section for the music um or the audio for the video um whereas Instagram stories has uh kind of head and tail they have a whatever is like 50 or 150 pixel at the top and bottom for their UI um which makes sense because um Instagram stories is very Visual and so they don't want to put any clutter whereas Tick Tock has design and experience is very much focused on interaction which I think is really smart and now uh reels so Instagram reels are meta reels has adopted that l-shape UI for that product as well um so now on the internet there are basically two sets of safe zones so if a brand is looking to make vertical video content they should produce it aware of both sets um we have a lot of chat about yeah types of safe zones because you know just you've got the content then you've got the subtitles then you've got your save zones okay where's the vid where's the actual video and also like tick tock's native captions are in white so I've seen brands do a beautiful like all-white scene you can't read the brand name or the caption which you can if you tap into it who's going to do it oh they've put their own captions on and then the platform puts captions on the captions it's rough and you you have to caption your stuff yeah very few reasons not to and so you're saying you have to capture it in the right font as well if you want to look native okay um oh so if you're just leaning into your own branding fine yeah like I don't mind Tick Tock ads that look like ads I'd rather see an ad that looks like a you know in the graphic design world or the the visual design world of the brand then one that's trying to look like a tick tock but does it poorly yeah um research is mixed on that um I think we're very receptive seeing ads on Tick Tock because it's part of this entertainment experience as long as the ad is entertaining some people will tell you like oh no you have to design this native looking thing it's my opinion um that we are going to move toward a more polished world of vertical video and we're going to see more brand stuff that looks like brand stuff okay and that is a great kind of plug for Belgium who make polished hell yeah yeah no it's it's an interesting debate around well not even debate but you know should it be polished should it be kind of ugc feeling what's right what's right for the brand what's right for the channel what's right for the audience I don't know if there's a definitive answer because it kind of depends on so many variables what's your well I guess your point of view is this we're going to see more I think we're going to see more and stuff yeah the the most important thing is to show up in these channels in any way that you can so like even if it's a cut down of your TV commercial and you know that maybe that's not recommended for this Niche or whatever just do it anyway better than nothing because if you're not on Tick Tock or if you're not on these channels you don't exist to a certain you know there's incrementality at play but like you don't exist to those people you could be the world's most famous brand for a category if you don't show up there you're not a friend of mine for those audiences and so you have to show up and then I think if I had a bazillion dollars of marketing budget I would allocate some to paid ads that look and feel like my brand that show off my product in the best possible most beautiful way I think good product shots and good storytelling still really matters and that people are receptive to that but then I would also allocate some funds to content creators who could really take my brief and run with it bring their own spin speak authentically and in a way that's off the cuff and you know feels whatever even a little bit I don't know off-brand book or or you know that feels raw enough in their perspective that that's really believable bronze brand managers have to be quite Brave to hand that over have um have the brands been knocking at your door yeah yeah I work on your your oh for me personally yeah I mean I shouldn't I assume they come to you smartly yeah yeah hey so can you help us out yeah they love me there um for my channel I've gotten a few brand offers and things but I've I've chosen to just not not do it because um I didn't I think maybe if my very favorite I don't know cereal or vodka or something approached me and I'd be like yeah I'll just want to do a collaboration with velcro and cereal yeah it's called like a breakfast yeah yeah I don't know why those are the two things cool she's she's Friday however you start your day put your dress on inside so wow this I'm really painting a picture of something here um yeah I think if it really really resonated with me but um I'm not I'm not looking for it I'm really saying this kind of like morning routine yeah the Vodka yeah but yeah yeah okay that's a tick tock that's a tick tock that's called Sing it tomorrow that's a new food Trend you'll see that on CNN when yeah you know yeah you heard it here fast yeah vodka cereal yeah fast if I wanted to become a tick tocker content creator um other than having to create five tick tocks a day what would you recommend you personally yeah what is opposed to Bear Jam yeah okay let's go I mean you as someone who makes video content and is the next field good question what's going to be best for the audience watching this probably like personal like personal brand kind of thing I would uh like make a list of the the three things you in your life in whatever that you uh really are passionate about that you know you won't get sick of okay um that you have a lot to say about um and that probably that you have access to in kind of real life in some way so if it's like cooking or cycling or your dog or you know something ideally it's Visual and then just go down that that route okay um yeah speak authentically and knowledgeably about things because inevitably someone will call you out and say yeah actually you're boiling your posture wrong or you know whatever um and and go down that route and yeah do it in a way that feels that your enthusiasm will come through for it um because yeah no one wants to watch someone and be bored um so yeah so you have to find something that yeah find something that you yeah are genuinely excited about that you know a lot about that you you know if someone put you on the spot you could speak for like an hour on it yeah okay what would that be all right leave it with me I believe it now in terms of creative minds so hopefully when I invite to John thanks again for coming you kind of checked out some of the previous episodes what advice have you got to make it better you know improve creative minds as a as a as a concept maybe the cut downs we do some tips for me as a host I'm kind of learning as I go here this is great I like the free-flowing conversation I think it's I think it's really good yeah I mean the yeah I get yeah I get these guys on on the tick tock tick and or talk um as much as possible um you could do some Jazzy audio you could repurpose audio from the podcast to use as Tick Tock sounds right okay um that would be fun so if if someone was like that's just me I got my dress inside out and that's a good audio you could take that put on Tick Tock and then other people you know it fascinates me when people are reusing the audio so they've learned these sometimes reasonably long scripts that they're then able to just part back perfectly amazing what's the technique there they're just getting it wrong obviously only post it when they get it right yeah you can do that you can also put the audio on like a slight time delay so that you're kind of like mouthing a beat behind um there are new tools now that give you like um uh like a reader like a teleprompter um so that that's handy too but just to get the emotion and the timing you just have to know it as if it were your favorite song yeah and I guess it's the good ones that you see because they're the ones that people are watching yeah yeah yeah I feel like I would be pretty terrible at that it's I I that's not a category I do very often because I'm just like no one wants to see me yeah acting you know doing my my famous mime work yeah yeah um okay right let me just double check these notes because as you say it's been free-flowing and I never I I think my learning is going to be I need to take notes as I go because you say things and I want to let you finish and then it's hard though then I forget and then we've moved on and I've missed the the best stuff um I know we've done a lot on tick tock hopefully that will be interesting okay so I've got a question about staying up to date with emerging Trends but I guess like Trends in general oh yeah like outside of just Tick Tock it's it's fast these days it's super fast I'm I'm Brands don't always aren't aren't always able to move fast and it can be cringe if like Brian tries to jump on a train yeah to get it wrong ballet or it's kind of not quite right for Their audience like what what would you what's your point of view on branches and trends I would say like look for macro Trends rather than micro ones because again like not all brands can get you know can get a script approved shoot it put it or you know even just mock something up and put it out quickly and get it approved um you know in the space of you know 48 hours or however long when a royal dies yeah sprinting up the stairs to get my ring light um little scenes in my apartment that day um but yeah look for look for macro Trends so we're seeing a lot of things like uh you know remixing and and editing um video in video um things like uh the kind of VHS or like vintage textures kind of retro Trends those kinds of things that you're seeing more than a few examples of just be brave and do those um because yeah you'll see them and then also looking for things that you know are going to be a bit more Evergreen like um R.I.P the dog with no bones the you know you see the um there's a there was a great a pug an elderly pug and this guy would get him up in them every morning um and it was like is it gonna be a bones day or a no bones stain if the Pug flopped over it was a no bones he's sadly passed away now with this pug but or they I don't know um but yeah so like things that you know like this guy's a whole Channel one series one line and so you know that's gonna be alive for a while so yeah or the um everybody's so creative lady she critiques people's recipes where they just add too much cheese to things and they make these like big sloppy American casseroles and she's like oh no everybody's so creative just put more cheese in there I guess and the like looking for those kinds of things are more sticky ways to to get on a trend without kind of putting yourself out there okay and too risky maybe that's my maybe that's my root in macro Trends or too much cheese well yeah too much selling it is I mean hopefully I'm a bit of an expert in video production so maybe I could critique people's that's very being an expert that's not much of a gamma kind of glass half full well maybe I'll do that then a bit more positive yeah you could do you could do a really funny one of like affirming comments about obviously terrible video production work yeah because there's yeah there's a lot of you know questionable video production on social channels which is no bad thing with people just getting their stuff out there and the main thing is to be out there and it takes some bravery so I wouldn't want to be like your audio is terrible yeah the lights wrong but you know maybe something maybe I've seen some really good like gentle expertise ones there's a woman that um she will redraw um like her subscribers art so they'll submit like a what definitely looks like you know teenage you know emo drawings or whatever and she'll redraw it so that the characters have more form or they have more movement and she'll talk through like the techniques she's using so you could definitely be like you know you did a smash cut to this whatever uh let me let me yeah let me show you yeah right I'll try and have a think and then five a day five a day luckily there's enough fodder for that you're never gonna run out that's true yeah terrible yeah I've Just Gotta Have you had a great way of phrasing it earlier and at the time I was like there's a sound bite in there it's about like flexing the muscle oh yeah yeah I guess I've just gotta so yeah those guns flexing yeah yeah sun's out guns oh well sounds so well known for um you just had a little glance at the garden shop I did yeah well done like that um I guess on that bombshell maybe it's time to wrap it up oh man um anything you wanted to say that I haven't asked you or did you think oh maybe Jenny's gonna ask me this and I've got a really good answer ready to go gosh not too much we've we've covered so many things I would say if if someone has a brand and they wanna reach more people engage with them in a more effective way learn from what's working and what's not and learn from experts they should definitely call you call me get your video production game together run some really beautiful helpful entertaining ads make the world of advertising better and less annoying then I think we would be good people to call yeah you've got a call on those creative minds gotta get those Creative Minds uh I feel like that's the perfect ending isn't it beautiful stuff thank you very much thanks for having me foreign