Episode 132 / Tom Goodwin / ALL WE HAVE IS NOW / Co-Founder
Podcast: Challenge Your Assumptions to Push Towards the Future of Marketing
After 20 years working in different agencies – media, creative, and digital – Tom Goodwin has co-founded ALL WE HAVE IS NOW, with the aim to look at how the world is changing and what brands should do about it to enact meaningful change themselves. His Shiny New Object is the art of challenging assumptions: in everyday life and in advertising in particular.
One of the strongest new beliefs that Tom has developed through his rich and varied career is that we need to challenge assumptions more and improve our empathy levels. “The world is not in any way simple and we can all learn an awful lot.” This applies mainly to ensuring that we speak meaningfully to people from all backgrounds to actually learn their point of view. Advertising as well is no a “sanitised industry” and needs to ensure that all viewpoints are considered and included more.
Expanding on this idea of working the “empathy muscle,” Tom’s Shiny New Object is the art of challenging assumptions and looking for disruption as a means to foster new creative
output. We tend to associate technological developments with disruption, but in reality, that is an assumption as well. Tom gives the examples of Apple, Innocent Smoothies or Nescafé Nespresso as successful new marketing tactics that came about, in the end, not through technology as much as through people not being afraid to challenge some of the assumptions we’ve made in certain areas.
Taking this idea more broadly, even the career path and working life trajectory that many office-based people take today are built on assumptions about what should be the logical next steps. In Tom’s view, we need to take a step back and assess these: many of them are probably true, but some may not be. That’s where a competitive edge can come out from.
To find out more about Tom’s advice to new starters in marketing, his views on marketing and life assumptions and his top marketing tip, listen to the podcast here.
Subscribe to the ‘Shiny New Object’ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.
Transcription
The following automated transcript will give you a good idea of what was said, but please bear in mind that it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hi. I wonder if you could help me out. I am looking to hire a Global Head of growth for automated creative. So a little bit about us. We're on a mission to help brands turn their impressions into intelligence. We have a technology that researchers, consumers by analyzing how they respond to optimize paid advertising is very fancy. Very cool and very successful for brands like Samsung, Diageo, Reckitt, KFC, Pernod Ricard, Bose, Unilever, GSK and people like NCS. So we've been doing brilliant work for the past few years. And we want to hire someone that can help us grow our portfolio of exciting and innovative clients. So if you or someone you know, have been working in sales or new business for the last 10 or 15 years, and would like to talk to us about the position, Please, could you give me an email on Tom at automated creative dotnet right on with the show.
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 podcast about the future of marketing every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm on a call with Tom Goodwin. Tom, welcome to the podcast.
Tom Goodwin 1:29
Thank you very much for having me on.
Tom Ollerton 1:31
Your third time, I may add. Now. I think you're up there with Jerry Daykin and Simon Kemp, but certainly certainly in the top tier. So, Tom. For those of the listeners who haven't listened to the previous two episodes, could you just give the audience an overview of who you are and what you do.
Tom Goodwin 1:50
So I'm Tom Goodwin, I've spent about 20 years working around different agencies within advertising, everything from media agencies, digital agencies, creative agencies, and more. And 10 very different jobs. I was most recently on Publicis where things didn't work out towards the end. So I've now set up my own consultancy, called All We Have Is Now which is kind of designed to go broader than advertising. It's to look at how the world is changing and what companies should do about it, and to give them a sort of actionable roadmap for real change.
Tom Ollerton 2:23
So in this last year, since you've been doing your own thing, what new belief or behavior has made the biggest impact on your work life?
Tom Goodwin 2:33
Yeah, happen quite a long time ago, actually. I was in New York probably about five years ago. And I went on a date with quite a well known sort of news anchor. And we're having incredibly sort of thorough conversations about the world and about people in society. And she kept on expressing very strong opinions towards Donald Trump, and how much she kind of enjoyed having him as president and how beneficial he would be for the world. And for 30 minutes, I presumed this was some sort of joke, you know, I sort of presumed that she was trolling me, because I've had a deeply uncomfortable, this idea that someone would actually think these things. So I went to the sort of toiler. And I kind of thought, you know, what's going on here. And I came back, and I realized that actually, not only was she not joking, but she was actually raising some really, really good points. And she really, really knew stuff. And that the world was not in any way simple, and that we can all learn an awful lot. And it sounds slightly cliche, doesn't it, this idea that you talk to a Trump supporter, and you listen, and this idea that you might be sort of empathetic towards it or challenge your own opinions, but it's really made me realize how scared we are of having our opinions challenged how terrified we are, that maybe the world is more complicated than we first assume it to be. And I've not in a dramatic way, but I've slowly learned to absolutely love talking to people who are incredibly different to me. Again, this isn't some sort of patronizing liberal thing where you sort of hang out with, you know, quote, unquote, common people as Java's cocky would say, it's just an appreciation of the nuance. So I love talking to rappers, like I love talking to furniture makers, they spent a lot of the summer in rural Georgia and South Carolina, just overhearing conversations in bars and talking to people that work on the border. And I realized that I think as an industry, we've become so sanitized, that the idea that people may have incredibly different beliefs to us has become almost distasteful his idea that you might seek to understand something Someone who you assume is racist or you assume he's overly work, we assume that the act of trying to understand them is somehow being complicit or being on their side. So I've worked extremely hard to ensure that I surround myself with very different people. That obviously leads to things like their diversity debates, which is a huge conversation i'd love us to have, but we have to not do these things. Because, you know, we're trying to become a bit better our job. So we should be doing these things, because it looks good, or it sounds good on a podcast, you know, we should do these things. Because we absolutely love challenging our thoughts. We absolutely love listening to people who have entirely different experiences, we love the idea that we might be wrong, you know, we should relish the idea that we'll talk to somebody who has a completely different background in all ways. Because it's only really from working out these muscles, you know, working the empathy, muscle working the good questions, muscle working the listening muscle, it's only really by doing that, that you can start to have opinions that are particularly worthwhile, I think. So it does frustrate me slightly. I think we're in an environment where the act of asking a question is seen to be somehow giving credibility to people with wild views, or it's being rambunctious or it's being contrarian? And actually, the world needs much, much, much better questions and much more deep understanding of some of the core issues going on.
Tom Ollerton 6:32
So how do you actually do that? I mean, that makes sense. I buy that, that we shouldn't just talk about this stuff. And we shouldn't wash our behavior by being seen to do the right thing, which I think is the the agency or industry default, if I'm honest. But how? Yes, you're traveling around certain states of America, you mentioned and overhearing people in bars. But yeah, I'm sat here in new room, which I guess is lots of different people in there. But I don't have time to go and sit in bars and over here, people. So how do you suggest that we become a better industry or better suppliers or better clients? By adopting that methodology? Practically, how do we do it?
Tom Goodwin 7:15
I mean, I think if you talk about it in, in sort of clear guidance terms, it sounds incredibly patronising. It sounds like I'm sort of David Attenborough, you know, saying go to Peckham market and hang out in Iceland or something. The supermarket, not the country. So it's quite hard to describe it in a way that doesn't sound like I'm from a position of enormous
Tom Ollerton 7:36
Yeah, but I'm not, I'm not looking for complete and perfect. I'm teaching like, what are those baby steps towards, towards that.
Tom Goodwin 7:44
I think we're so used to having quite superficial conversations, we're so scared, eventually. Asking people things that probe further, we're so scared of going to events that might be a bit different, you know, if you think about the coffee shops, we go to if you think about the music festivals, you might go and see if you think about the restaurants, you remember pubs, you know, we're, we're less likely to go to the really shifty Council, the state pub, we're less likely when they're on a sort of an airline, that's incredibly cheap, we're less likely to, you know, accept that we might be on the bank row and to talk to the person, there's a bit next to us. We're less likely to find the people at the parties that we go to that look different, we're less likely to talk to people at the bus stop. I think I mean, I say
Tom Ollerton 8:32
I think I'm looking for a hack, right? Because you're you're I think you're talking as far as I'm aware, like, not having kids, and having a bit of time on your hands, as we sort of discussed earlier before we started recording, but how does the time poor person who's you know, cranking out slides all week or getting campaigns live or got the rise in dashboards? Yeah, trying to get ahead trying to make things work. And at the end of the day, the last thing they want to do is go to some weird conference. And what they really want to do is get like, some meal from hellofresh and whack on Netflix and chill out like that. That is that's the enemy of the thing that you talk about, I think so what are the things? What are the small steps that you can take in that direction? Because we can't all just down tools and go traveling, it's just not gonna happen. So is there like an online version of this that you can do that you would suggest?
Tom Goodwin 9:24
I mean, it's not a time thing. You know, this is life, you know, the act of going to a weird market in a part of the countryside in a town that you wouldn't normally go to because it's not as attractive, like you do that instead of going to the nice part. It's not my place to tell people how to spend their time and how to spend their energy. But I do think having a consistent attitude towards openness having a consistent attitude towards having better conversations, having a desire to find conversations. More interesting and not being afraid to probe, I think it's less of a kind of aspect of how you divide your time and energy. And it's much more about a consistent filter that you have on your life, which is, you know, if you're exhausted and you go to the pub on a Thursday, and it's a pub quiz, and you're having the same conversations with the same people about the same sort of flavors of life, then rather than doing that, why don't you do something else.
Tom Ollerton 10:26
So let's put this in the context of someone who's new to the industry. So if you were your student, and you're about to embark on a career, in marketing and advertising, what would be your advice to those guys?
Tom Goodwin 10:44
So it's really hard giving advice when you're in a situation which most people would deem to be a good situation, because the world has rampant survivorship bias in all directions. And it's incredibly easy to assume that because I've been lucky, and because things have worked out pretty well for me that if people follow similar steps, then it will happen for them. So as a caveat to all of this, survivorship bias is an incredibly dangerous thing. And all sorts of people like me get sound incredibly smug about things. Having said that, and this is the philosophical sort of thought experiment, a friend of mine that works in film, who struggled for a long time to get into film, and loves this quote, I think from some director, who says that all of the screenplays that deserve to be made, end up getting made. And that's a very, very provocative idea. Like it kind of suggests that if you're good enough things will work out. I don't know if that is true. But I don't think it's a terrible mindset to have. I think it may well be the case that live is not remotely fair. But it is more fair than it's ever been before. And I like to think that if you are right for advertising, that somehow you will end up in it, it doesn't mean it happens easily. It doesn't mean it happens dramatic, it doesn't mean it happens quickly. But I would like people to have the sense that it by they are their most cells and if they are extremely true to who they are. And they follow the characteristics and the values that they have within them. The either the sort of universal decide that they're really not right for advertising, and they should do something completely different, or that things will work out to them. And within that there's a degree of relaxation, I hope that follows because I think anxiety is extremely detrimental. I think the process of trying to fit in is extremely detrimental. So there will be a degree of sort of relaxation and calmness that will hopefully come across people, but also a sense of empowerment, where you feel that if you work hard, and if you focus, and if you embrace the characteristics that you have, then things will work out. By far the most important thing for me, for anyone in advertising is curiosity. Like literally the only thing I care about is curiosity. I really, really, really don't care when you enter university. I have no interest whatsoever in what you studied. I have interest in why you've chosen to do the things you do. But it's only really curiosity that I bother about.
Tom Ollerton 13:32
So what is the best bit of marketing advice you've ever heard? What is that thing that you keep coming back to your top tip that you are more than happy to pass on to anyone who wants to get ahead in the game?
Tom Goodwin 13:47
Yeah, so some people who I think are incredibly wise, and I find inspiring, Jeremy Bullmore or [...], if you read any of his stuff, it's incredible. Cindy Gallup, I think has brilliant attitudes, and a complete lack of fear, which I find completely empowering. But when it actually comes to this specific piece of advice, I have no idea where this came from. So that's why I mentioned the TV before. It's the read annual reports of companies. For some reason, advertising brings in so many remarkable people, like marketers across the world are fascinating, multifaceted, sort of imaginative, optimistic, brilliant and old school people. And then we sort of focus maniacally on advertising and communications are really think for many reasons, not least their own careers. If we can focus much more on the bigger picture, if we can really figure out what's going on in the broader geopolitical domain, if we can figure out what's happening in the world of finance, and it's only really one We understand the big picture that we can understand the small picture. And everything else. When you read annual reports, you realize that most of what we do is not particularly interesting to companies. You know, there are no companies that use their annual reports to talk about how many followers they've got on Twitter. There are no companies that use annual reports to talk about a new tagline they developed, you know, you quickly realize that companies care about exchange rate fluctuations, all they care about risk the assets that they own around the world. And when you see that broader picture, you can start to sort of understand the culture of companies, you can understand the reasons for decisions being made. And when you have that much deeper understanding every conversation that you have becomes easier, because you understand more about your client's situation. And to you become more credible. I mean, we've talked for years in industry, in this industry, about the threat of management consultants, going to steal our business, and they're not really doing that, and they probably don't want it that much. But we also dream about the day that we might be invited to play golf, you know, with the chairman of the board, or we might go to dinner party, the CEO is there. And realistically, if most brilliant, well intentioned people in advertising were asked to sit next to CEO of their clients, I think they would quite quickly discredit themselves by assuming that the things that we do really matter to these people. And it's that depth, it's that credibility that I think will really help us.
Tom Ollerton 16:36
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with MAD//Fest. Whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect a distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content, startup innovation pitches, and unconventional entertainment from MAD//Fest events, you'll find me causing trouble on stage recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing. Check it out at www dot madfest london.com.
So we're gonna move on to your shiny new object, which is the art of challenging assumptions. fairly self evident. But could you give us a bit of an overview on what you mean by that? And why is that the thing that you think should or will represent the future of the industry?
Tom Goodwin 17:32
Yeah, so um, I started my career in advertising in TBWA. And it was an agency that was rooted in this idea of disruption. There's some reason ever since we got quite a lot of technology in our lives, we've kind of correlated disruption with technology. You know, we've assumed that every company that uses, you know, great new technology that is new is sort of, quote unquote, disruptive. And we presume that every company that doesn't do that is not disrupting. When you actually look at the companies that have been incredible in the success they've made. Yeah, might be innocent smoothies, and might be Dyson vacuum cleaners, they might be Apple with the iPhone, it might be Uber, it might be Nescafe with Nespresso. You sort of realize it's not quite as simple as technology, like what's really happened is that people who don't know that much about an area have kind of come in, and not really been afraid to challenge some of the conventions in that industry. Now, at TBWA disruption was all about kind of doing the opposite to what other people did, as if people were making a car in theory, you should make a bike or something. I think what disruption really is, is about going through the process of coming up with solutions. And going through the brief and just challenging all the things that we assumed to be true, which actually may not be true. And this is where technology is a key part of that, because realistically in technology has led to very profound shifts in consumer behaviors. And it's led to a profound shift in the kind of laws of physics and business. So technology is a key part of this process. But what we're really really doing is looking at the elements which we can assume to be constant, and then the elements that we can issue with the change. And I think that's a really, really powerful tool. And I don't think we realize quite how often we're making assumptions and quite how limiting that can be to the solutions that we come up with. And these assumptions are everywhere. If you actually look at the first picture ever taken of the globe, by NASA, they had to flip it because the way it was naturally took the South Pole Was it the North, and therefore the world look wrong? Now, there's actually no reason why the North Pole is at the top of maps, there's literally no reason at all, you just sort of happened that way. I think, you know, there are different theories, but some people think there's because most of the power at the time is in the Northern Hemisphere. And, you know, that sort of feels like it should be on the top. But there's no sort of fundamental reason for that.
There's no sort of fundamental reason why we have seven days in the week, we just sort of decided together, that seems about a good way to sort of divide up a month roughly or divide the year. So there are some things in the world that are fixed and 24 hours a day makes sense, because the world spins, but actually, seven days a week doesn't. You know, this idea that we use BC, as this moment in time when the world changed, because potentially a real or imaginary character came along, you know, there's, there's a lot of these sort of aspects of life, which makes sense. And I'm not saying they're wrong. But they become quite sort of interesting, because they become this sort of frameworks in which means a channel, our energy. And I think, part of the reason this is a little bit interesting now is that the pandemic that we've all been through, has actually given us a chance to reevaluate many of the assumptions that we've always made in life, you know, subconsciously, you know, if you're someone a little bit like us, we probably assume that we should go to university, you know, we probably assumed that that involves a certain degree of borrowing, we probably assume, therefore, that we need to get a job is pretty well paid. Therefore, we probably assumed, you know, that will allow us to buy quite a big house, and then we probably assumed we're gonna have kids, and we probably assume that if you've got kids, you need garden. And then we've assumed if you have kids in a garden, then you probably need to move out of the big city. And then we've assumed that you should then probably be commute for quite a long time, you should probably, you know, if you can send your kids to like a posh school or something. And then before, you know, you are like, almost every single element of your life is actually being fixed. Because you've got massive outgoing payments, you've got a house that you owe, and you've got kids, which have sort of forced that routine onto your life. And I think it's very interesting to challenge those things.
Tom Ollerton 22:16
So once again, like, I'm into this, but how do you do it? And you listed a long list of assumptions there that made me feel rather foolish after thinking all those things, but maybe, maybe not. But challenging assumptions, is for most people exhausting to challenge the very assumptions that, like they assume that like, we should work five days a week, or you should try and progress your career, or Yes, getting on the housing ladder is a very good thing. These are assumptions or beliefs, I guess, how do you decide which assumptions to challenge? And what is the right way to do it? And I'm not asking you to tell people how to live their lives. I'm just curious to know, to move from the philosophical to the practical.
Tom Goodwin 23:03
Um, I mean, I've never sort of come into the world as someone that ever attempts to make these things, a handbook for life. So I'm personally very happy for these to be philosophical thoughts that people decide what to do with themselves. I personally don't think is that exhausting to challenge assumptions? Yeah, it's exhausting to work in a coal mine. It's exhausting to stack shells for 80 hours a week, it's not exhausting to write down, you know, what assumptions that I made about my life. I mean, this is a filter that you can apply through different things in your life. Again, I'm not someone that has any interest in writing a self help book. But obviously, one way to do this is to write down the assumptions you're making for your own personal life. You know, the notion of retirement comes from this idea that as people, we are mechanical devices that add value to a production line by moving things, you know, and for most of human civilization, we were either growing crops or sort of, you know, hunting antelope or working in a loop on a loom or something. And actually, I mean, I mentioned his name earlier, Jerry Boomer, I think is 90 years old, and he's absolutely brilliant. He's probably never been more useful to the world than at the age of 90. So why would we want him to retire now? So why would we want to retire? Is it is it that much fun to you know, see our home in the grand clock sort of ticking away in the background? Like my grandfather? Did? You know, is that a brilliant life? Is his golf that wonderful that you want to do it every day? Or would you like to join the sort of monthly earnings call and have an opinion and have a discussion about something? Okay, fine.
Tom Ollerton 24:42
So what are the what are the advertising assumptions that the industry should be challenging?
Tom Goodwin 24:50
Very good question, I mean, I, I naturally come to this thing as if you made an enormous number of assumptions and we base everything on a remarkably stupid way. So a couple of I mean, we assume that the metrics that we measure matter, I mean, click through rates are a complete waste of time. You know, we assume the number of followers on social media matters, we assume that digital advertising is somewhat about targeting, we've assumed the digital advertising should mainly be the performance element, we've assumed that the offline elements should mainly be the brand. And we've assumed there is a difference between brand advertising and performance advertising. And you can't do this two things together, we've assumed that everything that we do is so ridiculously complicated and expert, that we should probably divide into different agencies, so around people who have the same level of knowledge and think the same way. we've assumed somehow that meetings should be incredibly polite, and that to discuss differences in ideas is quite rude. W
e've assumed that pitch meetings should be happening in our industry, and we should give away our ideas free, we've assumed that more people working on a project is probably better than a smaller number of people on a project, we've assumed that the world is changing faster than ever, we've assumed that the world is more complicated than ever, we presumed that the world is more uncertain and volatile than ever. And many of these things are probably true. And if you have a good conversation about them, you realize that they're real constraints to work around. But in that process, you may realize that these things are actually more subtle than this. And some, some elements of the world are changing fast and some are not. And then you work around the things that are changing fast. So I kind of you know, I'm not, hopefully I don't come across as being sort of belligerent or defensive. But I really do think it's remarkable. The number of assumptions that we make on an almost hourly basis.
Tom Ollerton 26:51
Tom, we're gonna have to leave it there. Because I feel if I ask another question, we're going to rock it over a half hour deadline, quite significantly. So which is frustrating about set an assumption that I think my podcast should be 30 minutes long, but uh, but in fact, the data would suggest that it should be 30 minutes long anyway. So it's not an assumption, but that's fine. Tom, do you want anyone to get in touch with you? And if so, how would you want them to do that?
Tom Goodwin 27:17
Yeah, I particularly like it when people get in touch with me to tell me that I'm wrong and why I particularly like it when people get in touch with me to share ideas they've had. I'm not that excited when people tried to ask for free help. So I can be found on LinkedIn. I think I'm Tom F. Goodwin on there. I think I'm on Twitter, I think is Tom F. Goodwin as well. But I think normally if you type in Tom Goodwin Publicis or Tom Goodwin, all we have is now which is my new company, you'll probably be able to find me.
Tom Ollerton 27:52
Fantastic, Tom, I really appreciate your time. My pleasure. Thank you.
I just before you go, I'd really appreciate it. If you could take the time to write a review of the shiny new object podcast on Apple podcasts or iTunes, whatever it's called these days, or whichever podcast provider you use, wherever any podcasts. So it would go a long way for us if you could just share the Word and give us a bit of support on those channels, such as be fantastic. If you haven't got time, that's also cool. And yeah, if you could tell your colleagues about the podcast and also, if possible, don't forget to subscribe. And I'd love to hear your feedback. If you'd like to speak on the podcast or be a guest or you think I'm asking the wrong questions, anything I'd be super interested to hear what you think so please email me at Tom at automated creative dotnet that's to me at I'm not gonna bother spelling it. Anyway. You'll work it out. Thanks so much.