Episode 72 / Pandora / Lizzie Widhelm, Senior Vice-President of Ad Innovation

Interviewed in the latest installment of the Shiny New Object Podcast by Automated Creative’s Tom Ollerton is Lizzie Widhelm, senior vice-president of ad innovation and sales enablement at Pandora. Here are five things Ollerton found out as a result of the conversation.

Identity monetisation will change our lives

Widhelm is pretty progressive in her views around data use and her Shiny New Object is ‘identity monetisation’. She believes that while current momentum takes us towards regulation and privacy, the future will be all about brands using our data to get to know us better, while allowing us to monetise it. She gives the example of grocery shopping made easy - if a brand knew how many mouths a household needed to feed, preferences, allergies, comings and goings, they’d be able to create a week of tailored menus and deliveries with no effort from the consumer. And in exchange, the buyer would then be compensated for their information. We talk for a long time on this subject so it’s worth checking out the full podcast for more context - could this be the future of a data-led world?

Brands aren’t ready for a data-led future

On the flip side of the concept of identity monetisation, Widhelm points out that in reality, not many brands are ready to act on this, even if consumers were happy to give over their information. They need the plumbing - a couple of years of hard work to get compliant and ready to handle information before they can even begin to think about getting creative with it. Her hope is that the current privacy pressures force brands to sort out their systems so that when the world is ready, the identity monetization can sit on top of it.

Let your voice be heard

Widhelm’s best investment of her own time and money is an interesting one for me, given my dalliance with stand up comedy. She said that over a decade ago, she had a colleague at Pandora who pushed her into public speaking. Not particularly comfortable with the idea, Widhelm spent a lot of time and money in becoming a confident and natural public speaker. She now loves it and says it’s proven great for her career - but also that it’s benefited her outside of work to have the confidence to make sure her voice is heard.

Check your attitude

Widhelm says she’s learned a lot from her fuck ups. There are so many lessons in life where you screw up and pay for it, but you should make sure you never repeat it. “Never buy a lesson twice” is one of her favourite sayings. I challenged her on what fuck ups she’s made - she admitted she used to trample all over people when she believed she was right and everyone else was wrong: “I scorched the earth with my attitude”. She’s since learned that being a good leader means you have to bring people along with you as collaborators, not forced participants.

You can’t always do everything

She may come across as a force of nature, but Widhelm very sensibly says she puts limits on how much she can do. She’s a mum of three, married to a successful entrepreneur, and she knows that she can’t be all things to all people, all the time. She claims that she can do three things well - any more than that and she loses the balance in her life that she needs.

For example, she used to run a podcast, but had to park it a few years back when both she and her husband went through busy periods at work and her son started high school. She says she’d love to start it back again when she has more time - having chatted with her I have little doubt that if she wants it, she’ll make it happen.

Listen to the podcast in full here.

Here is a Transcription of the podcast made by an AI that we are experimenting with. It’s not completely accurate but you will get the idea.

Tom Ollerton 0:15

Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. And this is a podcast about the future of marketing. Every week I have the pleasure and the privilege to interview one of the leaders of this industry. And this week is no different. I'm on a zoom call with Lizzie will with hell. Oh my God, we even practice that and even got it wrong, Lizzie Wilhelm, you say it is written who is the SVP of ad innovation at Pandora. Lizzy came to my attention when there's an article in the drum that said the top 50 most powerful people in the industry and I thought well, I should probably write to them. And Lizzy came back because she said yes to the podcast. So Lizzie, thank you so much. much for joining us. Can you give the audience a little bit of an overview of who you are and what you do?

Lizzie Widhelm 1:07

Absolutely. And thanks for having me. Um, yes, my name is Lizzie Widhelm. And I'm actually glad you messed it up because the more you say it, right, the more people will remember me frequency thing. Um, so I have been at Pandora for 14 years. So I was on the original founding team, way back when when we were struggling to pay our bills and build what you know, is Pandora today. And in my role here, I've done a lot of different things. But my job now is to figure out, you know, what is the future of how we deliver ads so that we can keep the service free, and it's definitely it's definitely, I think, harder than ever, but more exciting than ever to be up for that challenge.

Tom Ollerton 1:57

And you've also got a podcast..

Lizzie Widhelm 2:00

I have I have I love a podcast, I love telling stories and connecting with people through audio. And it was called lady space. It was short lived, sadly, a girlfriend and I did it for about a year. And I think we'd go back to do it, we were just talking about it but But as you know, sometimes you have these, you know, seasons in life where you're just a little more overwhelmed than others. So I might maybe 2020 will be the year I find some sense of balance to be creative and do it again.

Tom Ollerton 2:29

So that's a lovely manufactured segue to put the first question so thanks for so we always do these getting to know the questions at the start of the podcast. And one of the questions is what do you do when you're suffering from overwhelm? So can you tell us a bit about how the podcast got a bit too overwhelming with a day job and, and having a family or, or how, what did you learn from that and how do you deal with life work when it gets too much.

Lizzie Widhelm 3:02

Yeah, I know. I'm just finished that book by Bob Iger. I don't know if you've read it the ride of a lifetime. No. So tell me why it's good. But you know, I think he's obviously this, you know, world class CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. I'm not so much but there's something that I've always felt really strongly about, which is, you know, never have more than really three things that you're doing well, that really matter to you. Because anything past three things in any given moment, it's just really sort of impossible to do well, and at the time I was doing the podcast. Pandora was really in not an autopilot place, but it was pre Sirius XM buying us, and I had all my kids I should mention, I'm a mother of three. I'm happily married also to a man who is an entrepreneur and His job and career was sort of an autopilot place, the kids were all at the same school. And the business was, was going well. So I had the free time really to kind of jump into something else. And it was a really fun year. And then Pandora got acquired a son of mine started high school, my husband started building a new company. So I think I just had to sort of go back to that rule, like, I just I know myself and I can do 20 things well, I just can't. So it's kind of sad, but at the same time, I think that's, that's like you go through these seasons and experiences and every year if you're a parent or you know, find new interests, like you got to kind of load balance everything and that's just what brought that to an end but I could totally see myself starting it up again, especially once I get you know, some of these things More evened out again in terms of what they need for me,

Tom Ollerton 5:03 and what to do to podcast teach you by yourself.

Lizzie Widhelm 5:07

I, you know, I think that I really like meeting new people. And I like different points of view, I think that sometimes you think you have all the right information in order to you know, solve problems or drive your business or be a good parent. And then you start getting new ideas or really understanding how people approach things differently. And then it opens your mind up to like, why am I I might actually want to take a bit of that and bring that into, you know, this project I'm working on or this problem I'm trying to solve. And for whatever reason, podcasting because it's audio and because nobody's there trying to, you know, look great, and I don't know people tend to just be more authentic. I'm not I'm sorry people lie on video, but there's something about audio that just comes through more authentic because maybe there's less distraction

Tom Ollerton 6:00

Ultimately more natural isn't it? Like it's quite natural to have a conversation like whilst videoing yourself but I think with a good podcast you can forget that the microphones there and as you say, he becomes more authentic Can you open up? So I wish

Lizzie Widhelm 6:14

I had a better way to you know, make money just by talking.I love it. I could justmake enough money doing that. I really love. I love howard stern so that I'm like, this guy's incredible you know, you like what he says or doesn't say, he has made an incredible career out of essentially being the most popular podcaster in the world.

Tom Ollerton 6:38

Yeah, and it's, it's a harder and harder place to to make a living. I mean, I mercifully with the shiny object podcast, it's a passion project and runs like alongside or in the background in my business. So some mercifully, it doesn't have to make money which makes it a lot more enjoyable, I think in some ways, but outside of the podcast was The best investment of your time, energy and money outside of work.

Lizzie Widhelm 7:06

Yeah, you know, I'm about 12 years ago, maybe maybe 11 years ago, I had a girl that worked at Pandora and she was just incredible at pushing me to be more comfortable speaking, mostly public speaking. And so for about three years, I spent a lot of time and money trying to become a really talented, confident, natural, public speaker. And it's funny at the time, I was like, What am I going to use this like, I'm not the CEO of the company. But since then, I have more opportunity than ever to obviously speak on behalf of the company but also I speak it women's groups where I speak on parenting issues and things that are just passionate to me and because I put in you know, effort like you would to train for a marathon. to just be really good at it, I'm so comfortable with it. And I actually find that I love it more than ever. It's been really good for my career. And, and at the time, I don't know if I gave it enough credit to what, you know, I think I was just focused on Okay, I'm gonna have to do more keynote speeches and I need to just be natural, but it's coming to every part of my life in terms of giving me you know, the confidence of the PTA meeting or the confidence to volunteer to, you know, do something for a charity and get up on stage and raise money for an organisation and I think everybody should, if they can find a way to be comfortable in those public speaking settings.

Tom Ollerton 8:47

I completely agree. I think that's one of the best things that's happened to me in my career have been because I've just been crazy enough to stand on stage and do it and years and years ago, I did stand up comedy. Really badly, like awful awful, but love the process really enjoyed it. And I had a coach, I did a course. And I said to the caseta, like, how do you feel when when you're on stage when people laugh, you know, do you still love it? He said, I feel nothing. I feel zero. Like it got to the point where public speaking or performing in public way, there was no, he didn't react at all. It was just all process. It was all delivery, it was all following the rules and the skill, you know, he didn't get swept up in it. And I thought I can I'm always confused whether that's really sad or really great. But I think that more and more as you do public speaking, the closer you can get to not being affected by anything that happens on stage, the better.

Lizzie Widhelm 9:42

Yeah, I think you're right. And if you can take some of the emotion out of it, which sounds sad. But if you if you can, then you're pretty effectively getting your message across and there's so many tricks to public speaking to be in When you think about marketing, like you're up there to tell a story, and then a lot of people get up in front of audiences and forget that we just want to hear stories. That's kind of how we're hardwired. So there's it's not even just like get up and don't run around the stage looking like you're a caged tiger and you know and then see it like that probably sticks. But, you know, connecting and being, you know, getting the audience to want to root for you and telling stories that they're going to remember and all of the kind of the science behind that one too many in physical real life, especially if your public speaking, you know, in a big room. There's a lot of art and science to it. It's actually pretty fascinating.

Tom Ollerton 10:40

So, what are the new beliefs and behaviours? Have you picked up in the last few years that have had a huge impact on your work?

Lizzie Widhelm 10:50

You know, you asked earlier, like, how do I deal with stress or when there's sort of too much to get done and i don't know i I'm not old, I'm over 40. But I'm not old, but it kind of feels old on the backside of maybe what my first career is. I'm trying to think what my second career is going to be that whole second life concept. But I really feel like one of the key things I do now is this thing where I tell myself if I can't get through a problem, or I just can't quite feel like I'm getting the flow I want from a, you know, a challenge or a piece of work that I'm leaning into. I just walk away and let things marinate. Like, so much of me solving things or coming up with the right answer tends to happen when I'm not over processing everything. You don't I mean,

Tom Ollerton 11:45

yeah, yeah, I was I had this conversation with Nathan McDonald. Some of the founders of we are social business they used to work for and I said, Look, how do you run a business and be a dad like how how you do it and you said, you gotta let your subconscious do most of work for you. So you put the problem in your head, you expose yourself to all the variables and all the different options and then you just leave it as you say, You let you let it marinate and then what what comes back in 45 minutes or a day or a week is is as valuable as you know, working on it straight for a day or something. And I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Lizzie Widhelm 12:19

Yeah, I couldn't agree with with him more and, and when you give yourself permission to let your mind your body. I mean, you have this entity that you've built over years and years 40 you know, for me for decades of lessons both learned and bought. And what I mean by a bot lesson is like, you make a huge mistake, and you pay for it dearly, right? But you have to trust it. It's all in the file system. And you might not be able to access it at the time. But if you just let it kind of sit and marinate and come back to it, instead of just scratching at it, and I watch people scratch it things and it's um yeah, you rarely find this Success in that way. And we do have a B straw, a lot of shrapnel, if you know what I mean, while you're trying to do that, and it can injure those around you pretty pretty badly.

Tom Ollerton 13:10

So before we move on to your shiny new object, we mentioned when we were chatting before that you you're a big fan of a fuckup. You like you, you sound excited about answering that question. So I'm really keen if you could share with the audience, a couple of mistakes that you've made, or one big one that you've made that you're ultimately so glad you did make because it's made you a better person.

Lizzie Widhelm 13:34

Yeah, I love the fact that it goes back to what I was saying around buying lessons. I talked to my kids about this all the time, like you will buy so many lessons in your life where you screw something up and you have to pay for it. But never buy a lesson twice. That's like, you know, the definition of just being stupid in my mind. But yeah, so I would say my first part It's me, I'm getting over being sick. Sorry. But the first part of my career, I was so focused on being right, like being the one with the right answer in the room and everybody else was wrong. And look at me, I'm so special. And I get the award and the, you know, the gold star. And I had a manager who pulled me aside this is maybe 10 years ago and said, You know what, like, it might work for a spelling bee. But at the end of the day, you want to grow businesses and you want people to want to work with you and for you. It's about consensus. It's not about being right it's about helping others to understand why you believe you have the right answer and being open to listening to them. When maybe in some circumstances you don't although he did tell me that yes, I'm usually right. But that it's important to bring people along with you. And I think I you know, burned so many scorched the earth so many times with my I have to be right attitude, which is a young, you know, when you're smart and you're young, and you come out of school and you're at the top of your class or no, everything's going well for you, and you're an individual contributor, it can work really well. But then you move up into middle manager, or you need to work in a team, and you need to get people to collaborate with you. And it just, it's not a good look. It's just not a good look anymore. It's really more important for the project to win and for the group to feel like they succeeded. And I think there's very few CEOs, really successful CEOs, that you look at them and say, Oh, my God, it's all about them. And they're the smartest person. It just doesn't work. And politics, sadly, is a little bit of a different story these days, but I'm glad I learned that lesson. I think it's contributed to me being a much better leader for sure.

Tom Ollerton 15:50

So your shiny new object is identity monetization. So can you explain to the audience what that is? Meanwhile, you're excited about it.

Lizzie Widhelm 16:02

Yeah, I think you know, and taking a step back identity is a very straightforward word, but a pretty big word in today's environment. So many, I'm just coming off of CES. So it's timely in that a lot of people are talking about privacy, right? You've got all of the United States, individual states here working on privacy regulation, you guys in Europe have had GDPR for over a year, you a year into it. And I think, you know, there's all this conversation around panic that, you know, listeners, or users or consumers, you know, don't want you to sell their data, and don't want you to be in control of you know, who they are and what data you have on them. And I believe that there's a future where it's maybe exactly the opposite. It's going to take some work, but my theory is and this is again, I think about everything from a personal standpoint, and then from a global or, you know, large group standpoint, but it, I believe that my identity is actually something I'm pretty proud of. I find that those people that know me, well, I tend to get better feedback from right so if you take a business for example, like Starbucks knows me really well, I love the relationship I have with Starbucks. When I go in there. They know who I am. They know what I want. Yes, part of it's because of ordered but they can anticipate and the app anticipates when I want, you can see a future where I probably just walk into Starbucks and what I want is ready, but, um, you know, so monetizing that identity is something that I think I'm more interested in than like holding it back. Um, so I have a bunch of examples of how I think that plays out but um, just think there's something there there.

Tom Ollerton 18:03

So give me give me those examples. So obviously talking about a single custom view experience you have with Starbucks, but how far do you want to take it to? Do you want?

Lizzie Widhelm 18:14

I think, you know, think about the grocery store, for example, do you do the food shopping in your house? So, there are a lot of products in a grocery store, and many of them are paying to have many of them are paying a lot to have optimal shelf space to have, you know, logo and branding where you're checking out. There's a lot of money transacting in those stores before you even walk in. Right truth. And, you know, I also know that I find food shopping to be incredibly annoying, and I have to think really hard. What am I going to cook? How many kids do I have? What kind of meal You know, nutritional value balance do I want for my family? What time of year? Is it? What is my calendar? Right? I, I would love a world where I just give up the goose. Here's how many kids we have. This is the schedule for the week, here's how many meals we're going to have to cook. I mean, I'll give the grocery store everything. Here's who's allergic to what, right, here's who was sick last week. I mean, I would love nothing more than to give them everything they have. But I want to monetize it. So I actually want the cart prepackaged. For me, I want those companies that were paying for shelf space to Now give me that money, not in terms of cash, but like I want free samples. I want premade food that maybe you're going to test on me I want to be sort of in your like VIP, you know, grouping in terms of how you think about customers. And so that's like a really basic example of like, I want something back for my data. And I actually think there's a A real opportunity for these brands to instead of spending money the way they do traditionally to get on the shelf and find their way into my cart, they just cut through that and we sort of like cut that deal to get them to instead put that money in my cart with real product.

Tom Ollerton 20:16

So the, the only the person who talks about this is a guy called Jim stern. I'll have a podcast after this. And he was talking about a technology called in rupt, which is Tim berners. Lee's latest project, I don't know how well it's funded or how well it's doing. But the idea there is that you have a it's like a box essentially, that has all of your data in it. And it has everything from passport, financial health, location, all the way through to the things that you mentioned, like preference, vegan, whatever. And then you you allow certain people or certain businesses, sorry, access different Different levels. So if you're, you want to book a flight, and it's on ba like, yeah, you can get my passport details, but you don't get to know that I'm vegan, or that I'm diabetic or whatever it is. So the idea is that you would, you would then, like consumers would, would do deals with brands, basically, instead of instead of, as you say, shops, so collectively, all the people that want a certain thing can can do a deal with a brand and then everyone gets in that thing. And I think that's, that could be really interesting for things like packaging, because as you say, you pay for expensive shelf space, you paid for really fancy packaging, so your packaging leaps out off the shelf. And ultimately, that thing just goes in the bin and in a circular economy world or whatever you want to call it, that's not sustainable. And I got sent a bag of oranges the other day. And so you had they were in a net. But then also, there was a label on the net with pictures of oranges in colour, saying that it was oranges and I was just thought You kidding me? Really, we haven't sold this yet that we still can't sell six oranges without having a picture of oranges on a clear bag of oranges. Sorry, I've gotten a little bit of a rant about

Lizzie Widhelm 22:12

that the model is not going to sustain you know, the there there. There are so many businesses that need customers, right whether it's a travel, the the orange, I mean you name it right everybody's spending billions and billions of dollars to convince me and you to buy things and I would venture to guess that 80% of what hits me, identity Lizzy with Helm female, you know, California, Mama three, you know fill in the blank. I would venture to tell you I think 80% of it is a waste of dollar on me. It doesn't match my identity at all. I'm not interested I'm never going to buy and then the things that I really want the 20% that really are in my consideration set are then watered down when I get them. So we're not having the type of relationship that we should have with, you know, myself in that brand, right. And so I just think that the only way to solve that is we, as the consumer have to be really upfront about to your point, I like the idea of the company, we're talking about getting all of our preferences, future plans, like I want to go to Scotland in the summer, why isn't everyone start bidding back to me on what I should be doing there, and especially do it based on my preferences, knowing that, you know, I prefer XYZ in a hotel. So the guys that don't have Wi Fi don't market to me, that's like a silly example, but you'll get what I'm saying. Because they're just gonna waste their time. And so it's kind of like purifying the connections. So that more money can actually be spent on the connection that matters and then I actually get a better relationship than the water down what I'm getting Right now, and then the 80% that I just don't, frankly give a shit about, like, go away, find another, find your customer or somewhere else, because it's not me.

Tom Ollerton 24:07

So how do you think this is gonna play out? So we've had GDPR. And as you mentioned, all the different states come up with their own version of that. And then we potentially moving towards an internet where you won't be able to track and retarget and know, obviously, Google's announcement about cookies last week was a huge step towards that. And, and do you think we'll get to a point where we're like, hold on a minute, we need to as a society, we were happy now to give up some of our data now that we've seen a comparison. And we're going to we're going to think before and after GDPR and think, Oh, well, wasn't the internet so grey? How is it going to play out what what are the steps that you think need to happen in order for for you and I and whoever else wants to be kind of data or open if you like, to, to, to make that happen? Because I know that obviously Obviously the brands and the suppliers and the retailers, they would kill for more data like we work in that space, right. But what needs to happen culturally, to get to that point?

Lizzie Widhelm 25:11

Well, and maybe it's a cultural thing, but the plumbing isn't there. And I was listening to a handful of panels that Google says, super obviously super sized holding company in the world in terms of working with advertisers and brands, and they're pivoting hard towards, you know, not even being focused on media per se right away, but trying to get their clients to get the plumbing in order to once they have the data. Let's just say there is a world where all the customers want to give up the goose if you will, and give give data over in order to get a more personalised, rewarding humanised relationship with that brand. They're just starting even in a place to process the data, real time with is what has to happen. Some clients obviously are further along than others, but I can't remember who said it, I think it was the C e o of the agency said that, you know, maybe close to 70 or 80% of their clients and I'm paraphrasing here, I don't know the exact quote, aren't ready to even act on the data if they had it. So I don't I think the first step like there is a lot of data out there, some of it, you know, more accurate than than others. You know, at Pandora, we sit on a tonne of this data because we see listeners for three or four hours a day on the service and we can infer a lot about people based on the content they consume. But if you can't act on it and deliver that experience back in a pretty frictionless way. I just don't think the whole thing works. So I feel like it's going to be a hard two years of these companies getting compliant, which will be the maybe just the forcing function to get the plumbing Oregon. But hopefully that plumbing is again, like I said, use for better use used for, you know, delivering a more human experience back to the customer and not just being compliant with, hey, if you want your data back, you can take it back. And it just bums me out. But I think everyone today is really just focused on the compliance issue. And not the well what if, you know, what if we had a different relationship? What if there was a way where we were never at risk of them wanting to take their data back because we were so fucking good at delivering them an awesome customer experience and giving them real value back like value like they've never seen before? free content free samples, you know, oh, like you've been such a great customer. We have the sample of this new jacket we're trying on and we picked you and 5000 other people to try it. Tell us what you think, like, just doesn't happen anymore. Everything's become so sort of commoditized and i don't know i think it's my big dream that the world becomes better like that, but I don't know, maybe the silver lining is, like I said, the privacy stuff, at least forces the plumbing that then can enable a new sort of this new identity builds business to build on top of it.

Tom Ollerton 28:11

Yeah, I share your dream. And I think that it would be great if it happened. But I'm so sceptical because if I use a service like Google Maps, for example, and I start typing in, like the first three, four letters of a business, and it gives me the initial search results, shows it earn it like India, or Canada or somewhere and you're like, come on, man, you know, exactly where I am at Well, yeah, this is it. Like if, if the, if the business with all the information can't string that together, then, you know, like, really, we're going to get to this point where we can, we'll get some free samples and jackets like big day is one thing and but as you say, even if the infrastructure is in place, and even if you've got the the machine learning capabilities to wander Stand all that data like even if the most one of the most creative big, well funded companies in the world can't get together a simple Google Map search term, I doubt that this utopia that you think you write the dream of is going to happen or am I being too pessimistic?

Lizzie Widhelm 29:17

I think it has to get to a place where you know, the fracture becomes so strong that these brands just can't do anything else but change, meaning they don't have enough information to continue to do business the way they do it today, and they have to try a different way. Just the marketing isn't working anymore. To your point, like they can't track it. Because they've lost cookies and they can't understand if their dollars are working or not working. It's going to take a moment like that. Maybe to change it or someone just being really brave and saying we want to have a more human relationship. With our customers, we think that that is the future. We think that this next generation of I mean, I watch my kids like they are more relation based buyers than I ever was.

Tom Ollerton 30:13 Give you an example of that.

Lizzie Widhelm 30:15

Um, it's funny, we were in Santa Monica shopping. I have two boys, and they're like sneaker heads and watch two teenage boys who is in a sneaker head, right. But we went into six different stores looking for the same pair of does that are these like Star Wars, right? And I'm the last store we ended up with a salesperson that could read based on how my kids were dressed. And sort of the swagger that these kids have and connected with them right away not only like from a language standpoint, sort of talking like a teen kid does. And by the way, this salesperson was in their early 40s male knew a way to approach them to be like, Hey man, like, what are you looking? You know, what are you looking for, you know, and the conversation just was flowing. He was at the back of the store found the shoes, like connected with my kids, I kind of stayed out of the way. They had a very personal connected experience. And we walked out there and got in the car and they're sort of chatting and I said, you know, that was a fun day like, glad we finally got the shoes and they're like, Mom, we only want to stop shop at the store. You know, this this particular Adidas store which by the way, they're like four if you can believe that on the same street. I was like, Why? You know, thinking oh, great customer service, like we checked out really well. Like, I just want to work with that guy, Luke, like he's just cool. He just gets me. Otherwise, I would just buy online like all those other sorts of ridiculous It was so annoying. We answered the same questions over and over again. The sales people could obviously see who you were like didn't connect. So even they are like buying based on an emotional Feel of connecting with someone more so than, you know, maybe what I bought on which was just as the is the product for sale here, can I get a good price? No price actually didn't even come into the conversation when I was talking to the boys about this so I don't know I reflect on their behaviours a lot.

Tom Ollerton 32:20

That's interesting, isn't it the movie I've got this wrong but they're you're kind of open data dream is so different to get into personal connection in a shop like any so interested in the things that you pointed out, like his language is ability to size up what your kids look like and make some correct assumptions about them. That's, that's loaded data signals all evidencing itself in a conversation whereas you're talking about loads of data signals, online mobile location, device preferences, to all come together to do the same thing. So Wonder how did those worlds join up together? I've seen a lot of stuff in the, the creative creativity in a whatsapp group that I'm part of about virtual and synthetic avatars representing brands, you know, so you could have a conversation with with a with a, you know, avatar that could do the same thing as this guy did. So, how do you think that's gonna be a thing in marketing in the near future? Are we gonna see more examples of synthetic conversations created online? Or do you think you kids would see straight through that as beer?

Lizzie Widhelm 33:33

No, I don't think I think that that'll happen. You know, going back to your I think at the front end of the conversation we were talking a little bit about direct mail or maybe we were talking about it offline or the or the oranges example, like, you know, receiving material that has that personality language, like even just direct mail to the house, right. So I don't I don't know about you guys in the UK but I receive a DTC brand, right? A direct to consumer brand offering, whether it's like, you know, a Casper mattress or a fissile food delivery to my house every single day in the post box, right. And none of its customised. None of it's personalised to the fact that we have three kids, none of it understands our likes or dislikes around food, but if it did, I actually think, again, we're having a human connection even though it's, you know, via direct mail. So, like, data and machine learning, Ai, like all of that can come together to again, just like make a more personal connection. I think that's, you know what I'm getting that and I think humans inherently, like, warm. We're kind of coming full circle back to the podcast, right? Warm, authentic conversations. Like it's how We've evolved like it's from the beginning of humankind. We like to connect with other humans and the more that a brand can feel human and yes, it has to have the data. And yes, what feels human is when there's a give and take and not just me feeling like I'm a consumer of said brand, but let this consumer knows me and is coming forth with you know, a better a better offering a better relationship because of it. I think we can't not get there. Maybe we don't get to utopia where everybody you know, is ready for the Lizzie Wilhelm profile when it hits them or identity but it has to get better.

Tom Ollerton 35:42

I think we need to leave it there. It has to get that. That's a nice way to finish off was a really interesting conversation for me, Lizzie, thank you so much. If anyone listening to this podcast wanted to get in touch with you about their cool new identity monetization startup or other How would you like them to do that?

Lizzie Widhelm 36:02

I'm Lizzy with them on LinkedIn, that's probably the easiest.

Tom Ollerton 36:06

And what makes a great LinkedIn message to you?

Lizzie Widhelm 36:14

Not one on a Monday and pester them on Mondays like I know yours was really good you reached out to me on LinkedIn and yours was very good it was very human. I think I should pull it up but it was something like you ended with like good idea bad idea. Are you interested? You know it's really human. It didn't go on forever. And you sent a sample of what your product is so it was very I we should just actually just replay what you wrote me back because it was pretty fantastic. I think I replied to you within a couple days.

Tom Ollerton 36:48 Yeah, I think it is. yeah, I this makes me feel uncomfortable broadcasting My LinkedIn messages, but uh, you know, I have edit rights, I guess, ultimately, but let's see what

Lizzie Widhelm 37:06

we'll just leave it with. I could tell you we're cool. You know, you were a good guy. You had a great personality and a sense of humour in probably the 75 words you wrote.

Tom Ollerton 37:19

Ah, well, I'm blushing. Now. That is incredibly time. But this podcast isn't about wait. It's probably Lizzie. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed that. And hopefully you will get lots of succinct funny human reach out. Not on a Monday. And but yeah. Let's reconnect in the future about how this identity monetization thing plays out. Because I think you're right. I think things need to get better. Think

Lizzie Widhelm 37:47

for how I'm going to do it at Pandora. So I'll tell you now but we've got we've got some plans.

Tom Ollerton 37:53

Wow. Okay. I will watch this space. busy. Thank you so much.

Lizzie Widhelm 37:58 Take care, Tom.