Episode 182 / Conor Byrne / Indeed.com / Senior Director Marketing Global NextGen Markets
Podcast: Why Brands and Agencies Should Embrace Iterative Ideation
Conor Byrne is Senior Director, Marketing Global NextGen Markets at Indeed.com, working to expand the brand in emerging markets around the world. Having a background in various roles both on the client and agency side, Conor sees the value of close working relationships between the two, founded on trust and based on his Shiny New Object: iterative ideation
Instead of just dropping a brief and expecting the agency to work it to a point where perhaps the client could be disappointed with the outcome, Conor thinks brands and agencies should start sharing ideas from day 1. This is the meaning of “iterative ideation” – his Shiny New Object.
It all revolves around sharing, as Conor puts it: “Share early, share often and allow people who are involved in the creative process to be involved.” Otherwise, especially when brands and agencies haven’t worked together for a long time, it can be really hard to get a campaign right without constant communication.
One of Conor’s examples of how things can work well with constant communication of this sort is the creative process behind making the Pixar animated film “Ratatouille,” as described in Ed Catmull’s book, “Creativity, Inc.” It’s not an easy jump from a brief of making a film about a chef in Paris, to the outcome of a lovable funny rat that’s a chef. And if the creative team had simply presented a rat as a chef for their concept, the connection wouldn’t be made immediately, either. However, having all teams work closely together, brainstorming and developing ideas, comparing what works and what doesn’t, and eventually landing on the product that would become a hit film, was a perfect example of iterative ideation delivering results.
From Conor’s perspective, the key ingredient to make iterative ideation work is trust: “trust and belief that it’s going to work and trust that everybody involved in the process just wants to get the best work.” As long as everyone understand that it’s the work, not the people, being criticised, being open and critical will always bring out the best creative outcome.
Listen to more marketing tips, as well as to how Conor deals with overwhelm through a “meeting Doomsday” and his views on testing and failing repeatedly, on the latest podcast episode here.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Conor Byrne 0:00
Trust and belief that it's going to work and trust that everybody involved in the process is wants to get to the best work. Be hard on the work, not the people.
Tom Ollerton 0:08
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Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative and this is a weekly podcast where I interview very interesting people from the marketing and advertising industry about their vision for the future of that industry. The exciting thing is I'm on a call with Conor Byrne, who is senior director marketing global next gen markets at Indeed.com. Conor, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give the audience a bit of an overview?
Conor Byrne 1:26
Yeah, I might do. Really catchy title that one, as well.
Tom Ollerton 1:31
Really cut into the length of the episode with that title. But there you go.
Conor Byrne 1:34
Yeah, I'm as you said, working in Indeed. Currently, I've had a pretty linear path to getting me into marketing. I actually started my career, thinking I wanted to be a chef. After nearly burning down one of Dublin's top restaurants. I decided that was not for me.
Tom Ollerton 1:50
Specifically what happened?
Conor Byrne 1:44
I left pecan nuts in an oven. I interned at Roly's bistro in their very first summer and toasting overnight. And back then I had no way to get into Roly's until the first bus, which was like 5am. And I walked in and the sous chef was there holding them in his hand going. Is this what you're looking for? Now I was obviously delighted no to see plumes of flame and smoke and fire engines outside.
Tom Ollerton 1:52
So how long are you supposed to roast them for? It seems excessive overnight.
Conor Byrne 2:18
Overnight was excessive. Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe an hour probably would have been slow roasted pecan nuts.
Tom Ollerton 2:24
I actually also used to work in a kitchen slash chef. And on the occasion that I did the same thing. But whatever, nuts roasting in the oven. Head chef would be like, what's this? And I'd say for one moment in time, they were perfectly cooked.
Conor Byrne 2:40
Yeah, it was. It was yeah, it was a moment in time. And I then said, Well, maybe I'll be better off in hotel management. So I went off and did that for a bit. Then I then I moved into nonprofits, have worked in nonprofits for a good few years working in a couple of children's charities here. And then a US nonprofit, we were doing radio fundraising events, which was a lot of fun for a couple of years. And then I kind of fell into ad agencies I was, I was doing a lot around kind of social media kind of early adoption, how that could apply to the nonprofit world. And then I got a chance to work for actually through an ACO, too, and help them with their customer service and Twitter, and training. So that was just fascinating. And that can landed me in ad agencies. So worked in a couple of ad agencies here in Dublin and worked on some really great interesting projects for the likes of O2, Full Tilt Poker, some great Irish brands, like Bank of Ireland, Club Orange. And then seven years ago, nearly seven years ago now, I got the opportunity to move to Indeed, who I genuinely knew nothing about. And there was a job to help run these campaign labs, which is all about testing loads of different things, we kind of had a guaranteed budget and permission to fail. And it was really exciting. And I did that for about two years, bit a brand work and then kind of helping grow indeed, in our newer markets, which we call our next gen markets.
Tom Ollerton 4:06
So tell me about permission to fail. I used to be an innovation director back in the day. And if you read it and think about it, innovation kind of says that you'll fail nine times out of 10, but it's the one that matters. Whereas if you go to an agency boss and go, I need some budget and 90% of it's gonna be wasted, but we might get something away. They'll just like laugh you out of town. So how did you end up getting permission to fail? Where did that license, where did that budget come from?
Conor Byrne 4:30
CMO - we had a great leader, Paul Darcy, at the time and he had belief in this idea that we needed to test, test and learn and fail and do it quickly. And but that was the permission like the permission was he you know, said I don't believe that most of the things you do will work but we have to learn why they haven't worked and not make bad decisions about the things that didn't work because the risk is if it doesn't work and you go well, it didn't work, we should never do that, you can really lose out. And but we had the permission then to try it again. So we were doing things that weren't working. And then we were going back and going, Oh, well, like was the time of day right? Was the media right, was the creative messaging, right? And we'd retest it all again. And I remember the first meeting we had in Austin, which is were Indeed is based, and to present like, how were we getting on, and we had nothing, there was like winds, and we had none like the slide was blank. And we were panicking, flying over. And I remember we were sitting in the airport going, Okay, well, maybe this was a win. And then were like, no, like, we're just trying to sell something here. And we went over, and we said, we have no wins. But here's a few things we've learned. And here's what we're gonna do next. And it was amazing, amazing to kind of really work fast and really creative. And again, we had that, like, we were never at a point where Paul saying, guys, like, come on, like, you know, get it together. He believed in this approach. And it's interesting that stood with me, as I got through kind of my various different roles in Indeed, you know, I've held that belief quite strongly. And I think it's important people have that support.
Tom Ollerton 6:16
So that's cool, license to fail, but you've also got the day job to do and you're testing all these things, and you're doing it really quickly. I think someone who says yes to a lot of things like you seem to be, which is a great thing, that the downside of saying yes, is overwhelm. So how do you deal with the overwhelm when you've greenlighted so many different things that have to work really quickly?
Conor Byrne 6:35
Yeah, you can get overwhelmed and there's a couple of things, you know, one, you know, back during that period, we were really good at prioritization. Right. So what were the things we, you know, we felt at the highest impact. And so we kind of had some rating we were, we were good at hypotheses and building a kind of testing structure. And we'd have a question, which was, you know, if this does or doesn't work, what decision would we make, and often, we labored over that quite a lot. The other thing that I found kind of really, really helpful, and I've actually only did it again, yesterday is this idea of a meeting Doomsday, where you find over time that your calendar gets filled up with lots of recurring meetings, and I did a count, I think in a month, I had like 67 recurring meetings, and I'll provide, you know, value, I'm not questioning that. But some of them, you know, are habitual, or maybe too frequent or just structurally or wrong, because you'd like a 30 minute meeting, and then you've only a 30 minute break. So you have no time for deep focus work. So I did this meeting Doomsday yesterday, where I went through my calendar, and deleted every single meeting that I had, every single one. And even people who had meetings with me, I sent the message going, I need to cancel this, and I'll find a new time. And then I had the list of meetings that I needed to reset up. And I was able to restructure my days and times in a better way. And obviously, look, I'm looking at other people's calendars. I'm not just throwing stuff on their calendar, that's disrespectful. But I'm looking at my you know, my days and saying, How can I be more productive with my time that I can, you know, maybe my weekly meetings are all on a Monday, you know, my bi-weeklies are in a certain period on a Tuesday. And it was, you know, I've done it before, but like this was liberating yesterday, because I was feeling really over the last couple of weeks, reasonably overwhelmed by my inability to get to some bigger projects that I need to work on. And I ended my day yesterday, with like, a palpable relief, looking at my future calendar, and going, I'm gonna have the ability to start working on some of these things that I haven't had the ability to work on before, and it moves me away from, you know, small things often, to being able to, you know, support people in the areas that need my help, and clarify things were any terrifying, but then work on bigger projects that will help you know, the team and the organization in a better way. So it was, yeah, it was a relief, a feeling of relief was brilliant.
Tom Ollerton 9:08
How often do you put this in if you've got like a recurring meeting? Haha, for the during the doomsday or is it just a sort of spider sense thing?
Conor Byrne 9:15
It's a spider sense. And, you know, I've done sometimes I've done it before, kind of obviously, if I've moved into a different role, that's a great opportunity or kind of end of year have done it. But this is kind of my spidey senses going, I need to reset and I think a lot of it has to do with kind of coming out of COVID and maybe my inability because I'm working from home and you know, people saying Oh, could you come to the office and meet and I was finding it really difficult just the way my calendar was set up. So this should give me that kind of freedom because again, I think there is real benefit in you know, being back in an office and meeting people and problem solving in person, you know, where it's the right thing to do.
Tom Ollerton 9:55
So in amongst all of these roles. What is that killer bit of marketing advice that you find yourself sharing most often?
Conor Byrne 10:02
So I this was given to me by John millstone who is, he works with the brand gym, who you may know and he's phenomenal marketer advertiser, he would have been responsible for work like the Hovis "go on, lad" campaign and Victoria Beckham's posh crisps Walker posh crisps ad and so John's advice to me was be remarkable. It's just two words and it's phenomenally powerful because when you're working on things, you know, every single day and you're trying to get things out the door or improve process whatever like you taking that moment to go. Is this remarkable? Like, is this? Is this good enough? Is this something that I want out in the world and to be really, really proud of? And so that to me was just Yeah, it kind of stops you in your tracks and kind of it resonates with me every single day, I have it in the back of my mind be remarkable. I don't think I am. To be really clear!
Tom Ollerton 11:05
Well, you know, I think we'll judge at the end of this podcast. But who was it that said it on this podcast? Can't remember, oh, it's coming back to me, Luis Freitas, who is the CRM lord at Moet Hennessy. And his bit of advice is don't let Drake get in the way of goods or something like that, or don't worry, don't struggle for perfection. So the idea is just get it out the door, ship it, you can sort of you make it better the next time. And that I think that runs counter to your advice. So what's your view on that? So if everything's got to be remarkable, then what if you just want to send someone an email about the Christmas party? Have you then got to go? No, no, this needs to be remarkable. Where do you draw the line between being? Oh, trying to make things too good? How do you stop that?
Conor Byrne 11:43
No, no, absolutely. And if I go back to kind of some of the stuff we did when they started during the campaign labs, like, you know, that was trying to get stuff out quickly. But, but even in that I think you can have a definite speed was was part of our criteria, where you need to have things that you are proud of. So it doesn't mean it's, you know, the most award winning email that you will ever send. But it can still be remarkable if you can still have things in it that you're proud of. And so I think, I think the bigger the stakes, the more you need to be able to say it's remarkable, right? So if you're, you know, spending x millions on, you know, whatever, you know, you definitely want that to be remarkable. I think it's a really good filter for me anyway to be remarkable. And look, you know, I do think that's, you know, there is the moments to you know, not slow down and make sure you've got pace. And so it is the balance, but I think it's really powerful to kind of go, am I am I proud of this, like, you know, is the email I'm going to send to the CEO about the campaign that we're launching, like, is it good enough? Like is it getting across the message I need to get across, that's being remarkable. And that's okay to take like, don't send it immediately. Maybe come back an hour later and reread it, that allows you to be remarkable.
Tom Ollerton 13:04
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So we are at the stage where we're going to talk about your shiny new object, which is iterative ideation. So catchy title, what does that mean?
Conor Byrne 13:50
I guess to sum it up, it is share early, share often and allow people who are involved in a process kind of works really well creative process, be involved. So I would have and I've worked in agencies, and I've seen, you know, the traditional model of brief comes in from client. And there's a briefing meeting where everyone sits around a boardroom table, talks about the brief, client walks out of the room, and then everybody in the agency tries to figure out what the fuck they actually want, right? And then the client spends two to three weeks working on it and, or the agency, apologies, and then the he probably invest money in you know, maybe bringing in some freelance creative to bring it alive or whatever. And then there's a moment of presentation like this ta-da moment. And normally somebody's disappointment does or somebody's disappointed I heard once a client referred to as an agency and say their work had been a just degrees of disappointment like it's, it's hard to get it right when you're not in constant communication and constantly working together to figure out what what it is, you know, the client actually wants and things change. And I think it's when you go client side from an agency, you understand the dynamics a bit better, and you understand how things change. And so being able to, you know, think about that iterative ideation and sharing with people. And, you know, I love Ed Catmull's book "Creativity, Inc." And he's got a great, that's the way they would work like in Pixar, iterative ideation. And he's a great point about the movie Ratatouille. Right. So Ratatouille, as you know, probably is a movie about a rat in a kitchen. Right? So if you put this into our world, right, somebody briefs you about wanting to make a new kid's movie that's based in Paris, and you know, it's about a chef, right? And then the agency comes back and says, We're, it's a rat in a kitchen. Everyone would be like, No, this is an absolute disaster, we can never happen, it won't work. What if everyone's involved in like, what got you to the idea of being a rat in a kitchen? Like, why is that interesting. And it's not this gap between, you know, the brief, and the actual idea, everyone's involved in Oh, I see how that could work. Because like, you know, he's a lovable, rogue type rat, and you know, all those kinds of things that he is in the movie, it just is a much better way of working. And it saves time, it saves money. I remember working in agency where we were re pitching for an account. And, you know, I remember we were sitting there trying to, literally, I recall to this day, we were trying to figure out what the client wanted, it was a new CMO, and nobody could figure it, figure out what they wanted. We ended up reverting back to older style work. It never works. They didn't like it, they didn't love it. But we did it in, in in isolation. And so it's a very difficult thing to read people's minds, right. So you can't do like, if any agency like was able to read a client's mind or vice versa. And, you know, they'd be like writing books, and you know, probably not working actually, themselves. Right. So it's a, it's a challenging way of working, though, it's a difficult way of working,
Tom Ollerton 17:10
And what are the difficulties with it?
Conor Byrne 17:14
Trust is the main one. So trust and belief that it's going to work and trust that everybody involved in the process just wants to get to the best work. And so being able to be really open and critical. Our executive creative director, in Indeed, Russell says, you know, be hard on the work, not the people. And that's a great way for this to work. Because then you're, you're criticizing, you know, not criticizing, but you're talking about the work, you're toying with the idea you're talking, you know, is it going to work on a beta won't work? What do you like about it, you know, kind of the whole Yes, and, you know, building on the work. And so then that's the hard bit to get to, particularly in, in your relationships with clients and agencies. And that trust piece is really important. So you have to work hard at that.
Tom Ollerton 18:06
So I love that, be hard on the work not the people, that would look really nice on a motivational poster. But is it possible? Like, I come up with a great idea. And I say, Conor, here's an idea. And you go, Tom, thanks so much for trying, but the idea is terrible. And here's like 10 things why I'm gonna feel that because I came up with it or developed it, is it? How do you do that? How do you not be hard on the people whilst being hard on the work?
Conor Byrne 18:29
Again, it goes back to, to being to being early, right. So give you an example of, you know, we worked with an agency in Dublin, and we gave them brief and we said, look, bring us back in when you have the 100 ideas on a wall, right? Maybe there were 50, actually, they had like 150, it was a bit nuts. But bring us in at that point. And then we'll talk about all those little things because then it's not like someone's idea that they own because then we all do creatives in the room. But they had like 10 or 12 ideas. So they weren't, they weren't wedded to one big idea that they felt, you know, they slaved over and they you know, were so passionate about it. And this is the only way this is going to work because we were looking at everything. And we were saying, Oh, we love what we love about that is this, but like, you know, legal will never sign it off. Right? You know, or what we love about this, or, you know, that bit may not work because of the following things. And so it was more about like, the breadth of ideas and what and so then a creative team are able to go oh, okay, I can understand a bit more where you guys are coming from and then we can filter down and here's like, let's come back to you in like, a couple of days, like 20 of these that we think. And we were grouping them and we were kind of putting them together. And so that's a way of working we used to do with Full Tilt when they were our client we'd create a shared doc, like as soon as we were putting in like, you know, references and mood boards the day in Full Tilt had access to everything. And so they had comments. They're like, I don't think that feels right for the following reasons. So you're not going on and kind of feeling are like the only way to do this as if we have kind of this look and feel. That's where you, that's where people get invested versus really early ideation.
Tom Ollerton 20:16
So how would you recommend that someone starts doing this? So you've had the luxury of working both sides of the line agencies and brands, but if you're like a, someone who's been at Unilever for 15 years, you know, schools and one of the best marketing outfits in the world, and that's the way it works. If you send a brief, they come back with an idea like, how do you how do you break that habit? If you don't have the agency experience that you have?
Conor Byrne 20:43
I would start with, you know, take another example, I would start with is there somebody in the group of agencies, because you probably have a ton of them, that work that you work with really, really well? Like, that's the starting point, because it goes back to the trust, it's about people, right? And, and so find that one agency that you have a great working relationship and say, Look, I'd love to, I want to try this way of working. I want to try this way, where I'm going to see everything as you're thinking it through and explain, you know, explain the reasons I've just gone through because it's going to get to better work, you're not going to waste time and money. That's where an agent is going to be like, Oh, I'm not going to waste money. Oh, I like this. Because it's all you know, I say, I've been there who we've brought in, you know, freelancers and external people to work and stuff that was all wrong. And if I had somebody already going, No, no, no, don't do that. I would have saved a ton of money for the agency and like, there's tight margins in agencies. So they should love this. And so building it that way and trying it on something, you know, I guess smaller, low risk and demonstrate them to your business cuz this is different way of working. It takes time, like I'm at Indeed seven years. And, you know, we're, we're working this way now in more and more ways. But it's still hard. Right. And it's, you know, I think finding that trust, I think, you know, reading. I know that sounds silly, but like, you know, Paul Durbin has a great book, "Run with foxes." And I think some of Paul fell to its books and are wonderful examples of this. He, he went through it with the Barclaycard ads in the 80s. And read creativity Inc is a great one to kind of get your mind thinking about how this might work. So I think doing some reading, and then finding somebody you can try this out with go back to my campaign labs days, test it, like test it with somebody that you trust and trust you
Tom Ollerton 22:32
Well, unfortunately, kind of we've got to leave it there. So if someone wants to get in touch with you about anything you've talked about specifically, iterative ideation, how would you like them to get in touch with you and where?
Conor Byrne 22:44
LinkedIn is great, Conor Byrne on LinkedIn. And then I will also mention, That's what I call Marketing podcast. People who find me there,
Tom Ollerton 22:53
You left it very late Conor. I'm really enjoying following your journey on your own podcast. So what was the best place to find that podcast?
Conor Byrne 23:02
We're on Twitter. So that's underscore marketing. And then that's what I call marketing on Spotify, Apple. All good podcasting places.
Tom Ollerton 23:12
Brilliant, Conor, thank you so much your time.
Conor Byrne 23:14
No worries, Tom. Thanks a million.
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