Michael Beveridge: Yo, Michael, you don't know shit. Get rid of your ego and let data drive all of your decisions. TikTok is Coca Cola, Instagram Reels is La Ice. They went, fuck it, we've got to be weird. And they did weird really well. Man, I get so horny about this shit.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of E commerce. Every month, Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers. Adding to Cart
Nathan Bush: hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at ecommerce talent agency E Suite. The mission of today's guest is to make brands that people don't hate. But I don't think that's doing himself much justice. Michael Beveridge is the content director at Bailey Nelson, the eyewear company, and he's led creative at brands like Koala and Good Pear Days. From that alone, you can see that we're not talking about the typical creative here. Michael makes retail creative that truly stands out. In this episode, we talk about the benefits of an internal creative team versus an agency approach, especially for those brands that are in the startup phase. We talk about how to use data to free up creativity in performance marketing and also how to stay on top of culture and trends to avoid middle aged bitterness. I feel like that was firmly directed at me. There's lots of swearing and at times inappropriateness in here. For anyone who's been around creative teams,
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Nathan Bush: if you've got kids around, you just might want to be careful. But it is hugely entertaining. I just love this chat. It was recorded at 7am during lockdown, so please forgive the garbage trucks, the breakfast noises and a special guest appearance from my daughter, Grace. What a world we live in right
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Nathan Bush: Here's our conversation with creative extraordinaire Michael Beveridge. Michael Beveridge, welcome to Add to Cart.
Michael Beveridge: I shan't abandon this Cart buddy.
Nathan Bush: Oh yeah, you are too kind. After going down to your local servo and not being able to get coffee, you're still here. Thank you.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah, well, Caltex rebranded to an Ampole and the first day of Ampole. No coffee. So big, big, big brand. Hit there for the Ampole crowd.
Nathan Bush: Not a good start. You're a creative. Why are we doing this at 7am in the morning. What kind of creative are you?
Michael Beveridge: Oh mate, creative director, sort of startup focused writer. Comedy writer. Like basically just help. I like communicating in a non cringe manner. That's generally. Which is bold and rich coming from someone who worked on commercial radio and you know what I mean, like that's pretty bold. But I think I've got a decent knack for communicating at like a capitalism level to people in a way that doesn't make them want to just switch off and hate your brand.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: I think that's where we're at in marketing in 2021. That's the best. We just don't want them to hate our brand. Yeah. So yeah, vague, broad creatives with a writing background.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Nice. And. And you've recently feels like you've made a really pinch player D2C brands with koala. Good pair days. And now Bailey Nelson. Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: I mean realistically, Bailey Nelson, this is a funny thing. I went in there. Bailey Nelson has the brand feel of ddc, you know what I mean? But it's not. You have to go into a retailer and get an optometrist to do an eye test and we'll discuss this later. But like there's no real conversion event. So like if you're building out a funnel with like an add to cart or you know like metric, that doesn't work because we've got to get you in store. And from Yale book my test to in store, you could get pregnant, bloody could fall in love with Nath. You know, there's a million things that could happen. Footy team could lose. You could be like, nah, stuff. I don't want to see anything anymore. And so I'm not like as a marketer, you know, in a creative second, like it's an interesting one for me. So Bailey Nelson isn't a ddc but it's got a DDC feel, I think.
Nathan Bush: Has it always been that way?
Michael Beveridge: Made him two weeks in slowdown. No, it started. Yeah. It started at the Bondi markets with the boys, sort of 2011, 12ish. And then it sort of scaled up. They had a decent brain to sort of understand there was a gap in the market with painful. I'm not going to say any other brands. I don't think I can now. But like the traditional offering was pretty disjointed, pretty stuffy and they thought let's liven it up a little bit in exactly the same way Koala did with mattresses, the same way that good Pear days sort of took to subscription Wine, you know, it's a pretty basic model I think, to make a billion dollars, which is pretty cool. And it's weird that none of us are doing it except, you know what
Nathan Bush: I mean, like we just love working in them.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, I was like, I'm gonna start a company and make a bajillion dollars. And then I went to Koala and I started off at Koala, which is my first sort of foray into startup land. And I was like, I'm a pretty smart guy. And then I met Danny and Mitch and I was like, oh no, I'm broken. I'm a man with pudding for brains. Like these guys, like they were just, the amp was turned to 11 every second of the day. They were freaks of production of. Yeah. So it was inspiring to see them in the way that it just made me realize I don't have to try and make a brand anymore because I'm about a billionth as talented as they are. So I'm not going to bother. I'm just going to help brands make funny ads and help people not to hate them.
Nathan Bush: What was it about Danny and Mitch? Was it the intensity or was it like clarity of thought that kind of set them apart from others? You've worked with
Michael Beveridge: process and intensity. Like we'd be out at Frankie's chugging, you know, double Jameson apples at 3:00am and I would, you know, I'd be physically dead the next morning and they like, I'll get in at 10 or 11 and I'll have been told that Danny's been there since 6am like working on an investor deck. Like he's just built like, he's built different. They're both built different and I'm not, I'm built like a soft man. So like it was inspiring for them because they just didn't waste any time either. Like I'd just be talking shit in a meeting and they'd be like, all right, here's the actionable Bevo, here's what you have to do. Onus is on you. Like they'd implement almost like Sprint to just like catch ups and stuff. So it was, it was cool. I knew nothing about startups when I went to Koala and by the time I finished, not to toot my own horn but like my fundamental understanding of like digital marketing would be at a level that, you know, a lot of actual digital marketers would be at, I reckon. Yeah, Tim, Tim Doyle is listening to this going, no, it's not. You're still an Idiot.
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Nathan Bush: to tell me, tell me. Let's, let's take a step back. We've talked about other people. We haven't even talked about what you do. What is a creative director in a brand?
Michael Beveridge: It's an interesting one, right? So going into Koala they had this notion led by Charlie Gearside, who is just a legend to have in house creative. The thought being agencies generally in the way that Koala understood that there was a slowdown in the market with mattresses. Charlie and many other agencies in house places realized agencies. When you're in startup, in the startup world, you need to be hyper agile. You need to be super, super proficient at taking an idea, shooting, iterating, learning, optimizing, cutting, putting it up again, ab testing. And what we could do in Koala with the team of Charlie as the sort of head of creative, Matt Rossi, who's now over at Canva, he was our creative producer. We had a copywriter who was me originally, videographer, graphic designer and Annika the brand manager. We would have got more done in a week that an agency would have been able to, purely by bureaucracy, get done in a month. And that's not even hyperbole. Like I would happily say three days. So that was really appealing to me. I'd come from radio and I didn't know whether I was willing to go take a dive into the startup side of things. But when Charlie sort of, when they sort of explained what was going to happen and how much work we were going to get done and how closely I'd be working with Tim Doyle, the CMO in like getting things done, like fun billboards or you know, trying to do a pornhub ad or, you know, ripping on Clive Palmer or you know, just anything fun that happens at Koala. It was ideated, written and Then sort of designed the next day as opposed to, hey, can we get the client on the line to talk about what's the process for getting it copy? He's done his six billable hours this week. You know what I mean? It's just, it doesn't work when you're in hyper growth phase.
Nathan Bush: So do you think that's any different? Does that matter if you're a startup or an established company? Like the principle's the same if you want to move fast and do out their work.
Michael Beveridge: I mean if, like, if, if say Woolworths wanted to eschew their agency, I don't even know if they have one, but whatever a big fine is if they were to get rid of their agency and go completely in house. Yeah, no, I think if you're a massive one with like a million moving parts, it's pretty tough because you need someone to like, if you're putting, you know, 1.5 million to TikTok, that's a pretty big, big pie to have one person looking after. So at Koala sort of by the end as we really hit growth, we had project managers coming in and creative managers and then VPs of creative and couple of creative directors. And like I'm going to say that any company, sort of 50 to 100 employees is like ideal for having a creative director for an in house team. You can be anything, you just need to have a unicorn. So Koala started with Charlie Gearside who could code. He went to Kofa, he was a copywriter and he could shoot like disgusting, putrid level of skill. So it started with him and then he basically just got the bits that he wanted help in and then there we had our own little agency. And so to answer your initial question, creative director at an in house brand basically does the work that an agency does led much better by clearer access to data, more insight by touch points with employees and customers and a better finger on the pulse than an agency could ever dream of having just by the nature of being in the office. And you basically do the work of an agency. Yeah, that's basically what it is. So in my head, creative directors at agencies way more nimble in terms of like just thinking lots of different things. But creative director at a, at a brand like you have to know what your six different fonts are like. Like you, you need to know everything because you're the last eye over it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: So yeah, it's, it's a really cool position that I think a lot of people would do really well at and I think A lot of companies in Australia are starting, starting to see how good in house creative can be. Sports Bet so good. Who knows Sports Bet better than Sports Bet? Nobody who gets the data on what their punters are like putting multis in Sports Bet. The agency can't get that. Sports Bet aren't going to give that data to an agency. So you've got Rocky or whoever the boys are there popping their head in. They're like oh, you know the quality here is blowing up. Maybe we should just do a. And they both have an X for a first name, let's say, let's call it the double x up for W20 back or some shit. Like they can do that and they can do that in 30 minutes. An agency just can't do that. They can think three months ahead. And I guarantee at agencies there'll be copywriters and little creative teams being like we've got a great idea and a CD who's just weather worn with bureaucracy would just be like mate, it's not worth it, let's not bother.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Do you think there's also a trust barrier from an agency? So even if you have a great relationship and an agency comes up with an idea, it still takes them a while to pitch the idea to a brand and get a brand on board. Whereas if it comes internally there's that level of yeah, you're one of us.
Michael Beveridge: Well you've got the best interest of us in like I promised myself I wasn't going to go too hard on agencies here but like everyone listening that has been at a client side knows full well and has seen it firsthand. Agencies doing work that is clearly just to get an award. So at Koala we had a very, very firm rule, no awards. You know what an award is Roas? You know what a reward is? Revenue. That's what good creative is. If your ad isn't bringing in revenue, it's a shitty like revenue driving ad. If your engagement top of funnel ad isn't bringing in engagement but it won a silver Mad Club award or something, it's a shitty ad. I'm sorry, like it's just the way it is and I think everyone knows that agencies take their sweet time to get stuff done because they're justifying their existence for certain roles. People in the trenches, copywriters, art directors, finished artists, creative directors even and account managers, they're, you know, they, yeah, they matter. But then you've just got, you know, your assistant head of strategic planning coming in and being like let's um, an hour on this, it's like, bro, you don't even. What's her name?
Nathan Bush: What's.
Michael Beveridge: You know what I mean? Like, what name? Four of our products. Like. Like, who's it. You know what I mean? Like, you can't just get it from one of those Julian Cole strategy docs that are incredible, but, like, when we're talking about a business's future, like, it's not just one of your clients, it's like, this is their future and they employ 60 people. You can't just pop in. So I think. I think agency can sometimes shoot itself in the foot and they need to shape up pretty quick. I reckon, like, that award culture and that. I reckon all of that's just a little bit silly to me. And I'll probably get shredded to that. And they'll be like, you haven't won any. And I'll be like, false. I won a bronze bad Club in 2009. Thank you very much.
Nathan Bush: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Michael Beveridge: What's up? That's not an award.
Nathan Bush: It's weird that you're still wearing it around your neck, but it keeps me grounded.
Michael Beveridge: Bronze. Always looking for gold.
Nathan Bush: Brisbane for life.
Michael Beveridge: Oh, yeah, baby.
Nathan Bush: It's funny that you talked about. Actually, I was going to say that on the agency side, then we'll leave agencies alone. But it feels like retail is a different base too, because, like, retail, no matter how shiny it is on the outside or how pretty or branded it is, it's still retail. And at the end of the day, sales still matter. So you need to know your product and you need to know what your sales are and you're like, fucking in the trenches. Whereas agencies rarely get in those trenches.
Michael Beveridge: Right, yeah. Like, I believe whatever agency is doing Aldi's work is doing incredible work.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: They've got a single unified brand proposition and they do it well, iterated across multi platforms and it's pushing awareness and Aldi awareness. So Rev is great, but I don't even know how to say it. Is it Aldi or Aldi?
Nathan Bush: Aldi.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. So I've been saying Aldi for ages. Yeah, neither do I. But, like, I know that they do cheaper stuff and they check out stuff quickly and you have to bring a box, like, so I need to learn more about the quality of their stuff. So when they had all those weird ads they did, they knew that they probably couldn't compete with Woolies and Coles Spend, so they went, fuck it, we're going to be weird. And they did weird really well. And they're pushing, I think, like, really great. Top of funnel awareness is probably pushing through to lift in Rev. Weirdly, Aldi aren't giving me that data. Weird.
Nathan Bush: Apparently they're going to go online soon too. They're going to put their special buys and their alcohol online very, very shortly, which will create a special buys.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah, it'll just be like click frenzy the first time click frenzy happened. But Aldi will get it right. The journey Germans, you know, they can't deal with any more bad press in the world so they make sure shit runs smoothly. So, yeah, no, so retail is a little bit, you know, we all remember Rivers ads. We all know, like big W ads from back in the day before Kmart switched into gear. Like retail is a little bit yucky, but like you still.
Nathan Bush: I don't think it's yucky. I just think it's not as pretty as other brands. It's just when that's my. It's down and dirty. It's like it's, it's get in the trenches and know your shit, know your data, know you get into the details.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. And I think also one more, and one more minor point that I think is a fundamental flaw with the way agencies operate is there is. And I've dealt with it with so many people that I've had working under me, performance ads are shit and I don't care about them. What is your problem that drives 80% of rev. Are you insane? You can iterate, you can learn, you can ab test, you can de risk your campaign by running like performance ads are the best thing in the world. And as much as anyone listening to this that worked at Koala with me and knew how much I hated writing performance ads will be like, you're being a hypocrite. But I do understand the value of them. You know what I mean? If. And what's great is, man, I get so horny about this shit. Like when we run YouTube at Koala, we would always shoot three intros, right? Just to get past that 5 second or 6 second bumper or trivial whatever it is. Like we would shoot three intros and we would play them all. We'd let it run for a week and the first 5, 10 seconds of a YouTube long form is the most important. And then we would just put all the money into that one. And shooting maybe 15 campaigns at koala. How many times do you reckon I got it right as to which one was the better intro?
Nathan Bush: I'm going to go 33%.
Michael Beveridge: Just once. Just once. And it was so great as like a middle aged White male creative who have the reputation of not a good thing at the moment to just go, yo, Michael, you don't know shit. Get rid of your ego and let data drive all of your decisions. You know how to make things funny, but don't make the decision about what, what the inside is. Let the data drive you. And they don't have that at agencies by nature, they don't have access to the data.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: At Koala, I'd walk over to Tom Hunt and I'd say, mate, what's are we getting? Like, he'd be like, we've got cross sell popping up between bed bases and mattresses and, you know, white sheets. So maybe we could do something. And I'm like, okay, we'll make sure we use that in the next campaign we shoot. Everything was data led. Like, we made decisions on stuff that were all either led by performance ads going well. Like, we'd be like, oh, start post copy with just oi, decent sala vs koala's birthday sale is here. And then we'd be like, oh, conversions, like 8% more on that one. Yeah, we'd be like, cool, let's lean in on that. And then I'd know for the big picture campaigns, let's keep this tone because it clearly like there was just so much learning and learning. Whereas I know in agency land, and I reckon they hate it too, they do a campaign, it gets pushed off and they probably sit there and some of them, like, I remember asking when I was an agency, it was like, how'd it go? Did it go right? Like, do you want to bagel? Like, I see a close sign on your business window. So obviously wasn't killing it. Like the campaign finishes and businesses try to do cut downs and scale and figure out which bits of it work. And then agencies try to hit the deadline for, you know, the whatever award show is coming up. And it feels. And I'm sure not every agency person does it, but that's the reputation you got and that's what it is, you
Nathan Bush: know, And I think. Are we talking specifically creative agencies here? Are we talking broader than that?
Michael Beveridge: I. No, because I think media agencies are generally focused on, look, it's a very broad strike, right? It is, yeah. No, super broad. And I don't need to offend anyone. But if you're offended, have a look in the mirror. Like people who aren't offended by that would be like, yes, because I don't do that. If you are offended by it, you probably do it. You understand there's some truth to it. But one thing at Koala, again, that was really groundbreaking was that we bought media. I would buy the media, Matt Rossi would buy the media. Because we would have an idea. Like, we would be like, oh, there's a billboard outside Ikea. Let's do a funny Koala billboard. Let's just call jcdeco or ooh, and ask if we can do it. And they'll be like, okay, let's do it. You know, like, we would just do that. Like. And so when media is being bought by the creative team, you own the full spectrum of ways to communicate effectively. I remember there was nothing worse than, like, being like, oh, we're gonna do some billboards. And the media agency would just be like, all right, here's your billboards. And I'd be like, oh, is there any way we can get billboards within 400 square meters of another mattress shop? And they'd be like, you can absolutely fuck off, we're not doing that. Whereas. Whereas, because it's my idea and I want it to. I want it to bloody sing. I'll sit down and I'll go through their, you know, their box and I'll be like, yes, I want that one. I want this one. Like, what are the shittest look, like, you know what I mean? What are the shittest looking billboards that are in the middle of nowhere that we can just do the most insane message, have it up for a day, take a photo, put it on Facebook, boost it, work off the legitimacy of doing an actual billboard and not take a brand hit by people driving by. There's a million different benefits for it. And I don't know why media and creative don't exist together. And I think it's to justify a degree at QUT that probably exists in media.
Nathan Bush: I'm not even going to go down that track. I'm not going to leave that one. Well, we've offended enough people already. Agency people, hang in there. We're going to just move off.
Michael Beveridge: Here's the difference. Agency people go to the Creative Shops salary guide and look where you sit. Because I can guarantee my wages do not aren't commensurate to agency wages. And that's because you guys have a system. You have things like, you must be well awarded to get a job. Like, I can never imagine that. Like, like, it's very gatekeeping to be at that level. And you get paid really well. So if you're upset that I don't like the way you work, look at two houses you probably have or, you know, the three pairs of RMS you own. Oh, I'm bitter this morning.
Nathan Bush: The.
Michael Beveridge: No coffee's kicked in you.
Nathan Bush: Like, I feel like I need to run to Sydney to get you a coffee.
Michael Beveridge: No, no, I'm good. It's the fact that I just don't use Twitter anymore, so I've just got to take my vitriol out somewhere else.
Nathan Bush: Great. It's great.
Michael Beveridge: And keep in mind some of the most amazing people are in the space. But just going to what could be considered the benchmark startup marketing team in Australia, if not the world Koala. And if anyone questions it, we were, we were sick. I could see where you could optimize at an agency level. And I think there's a, there's an agency starting. I think it's called like Accentuate or it's got an A and a C and a Q and it's like we are an agency for startups because they understand you can't put a diesel engine in. Like, it's like, like, yeah, it's like an agency is a diesel engine and startup world is petrol. It's like, no, that doesn't work. Like, yes, agency will probably get you like more grit. I don't have a car, so I don't know how this analogy is going to turn out. But like, you know, a big tank, that's an agency and a quick mig zipping about, that's. That's a startup team.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, I want to. I might regret this question, but I want to get inside your head.
Michael Beveridge: Sadness. Philadelphia 76ers and sadness.
Nathan Bush: Can we talk about. And add like, because you, you mentioned a couple of those koala campaigns. Doesn't have to be koala, but you mentioned around the Clive Palmer, the Outside, the ikea, the pornhub and some of those campaigns. Can you talk to us about a campaign that's always stuck with you and the process of coming up with the idea all the way through to execution?
Michael Beveridge: So the benchmark for a lot of startups in starting to get into that hyper growth phase of being like, oh shit, we're on here, boys, is the koala. They hate us story because if a creative watches it, they'll just be like, shit. But if a brand owner and a customer watches it, it covers. We call it edutainment in that we don't have. I think we were at like unaided brand awareness of like 4 or 6% or something when that kicked off. So we couldn't be silly because people would just remember silly. They wouldn't remember who we are. We Couldn't tell them who we are in a boring way because we wouldn't get any view through rates. And it was a long form leading on YouTube. So we had to figure out a way through editing, through iterating, through testing, telling the entire premise of Koala. All of the really engaging bits, the free four hour delivery, the fact that we needed a common enemy to unite the viewers. Being Big Mattress, you know, we've all had a shared experience. Like there was a lot of great thinking in that. For a script that was written pretty quickly. Charlie and Danny and Tim and Mitch sort of briefed me and the camera. I'm pretty sure I wrote a bunch of it. Charlie definitely did a bit. But like, they really explained what we were trying to do here. And we had this mantra of if we were good comedy writers, I'd be writing for Auntie Donna, you know what I mean? But it's not. I work at a mattress factory, so just shut up and sell the product. So I didn't try to be like, have artistic license. It was like, just write some funny flowing content. Cast well, Chuck in what I call Easter eggs, which have gone through every bit of creative I do now it's an Easter egg is if you have a shot. So let's say we were doing. There'll be a bit where it goes. Traditional mattress shops make you come in and lie down for five minutes wearing your clothes and that's not really how you sleep. We would have that bit, right, which tells a point. And we all go, yeah, it is weird that we test the bed we're going to have for 10 years in our clothes with shoes on, while I' man called Hank looks at you. And so that. That's a shared experience. And then we explain it really well. But the Easter egg was like, well, fuck it. Let's get Aaron Gox the comedian to be the salesman. Because if you don't know who he is, you're just like, oh, yes, salesman. If you know who he is, you go, fuck, that's Goxy. Oh, that's so sick. They got goxy in and out, like, things like that. Or if there's a picture on the wall that's in the background and you can put like, like a Napalm Death album in there. And the 1% of the world that knows napalm death, they'd be like, is that a fucking Napalm Death album? And like, bang. Like, they just had an emotional connection with like. And there'll be a discussion point there. And if you're doing a two minute video. You can fit in 20 of these.
Nathan Bush: I feel like you've become an Easter egg as well, just watching. I can always say Michael Beveridge ad because I go, this looks like your work. And then boom, there you are.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah, well, gotta get paid, baby. You know what? And it was the partnership that we developed with Vitico, who are a production company in Melbourne who are, in my opinion. So we, we like how to look at bigger production companies and they're great, but like, you know, your infinity squares, your. And the budgets were just skits compared to what we did. Like we shot a shot a lot of stuff in house. Like they'd have like four ads. And I'm like, what? What? You don't need someone to get coffee, just get coffee.
Nathan Bush: Be it you need someone to get
Michael Beveridge: coffee or just whatever. Like. Or like the person who hands out scripts. I'm like, no, just everyone remember to bring your script. Like, it's just wasteful. And so we went to Vidico, who were sort of on the cusp of getting really great. They worked with me incredibly. They now do all the stuff. Like they've done stuff for Uber Square. Think of the Oodie. The Oodie or whatever. Like they. They're incredible and you can tell their ads pretty quick. And I work well with their style. Hyper dynamic made for view through rates double what's expected. So yeah, that bit of creative from Koala really helped me understand what went well. And then after we put it to market, testing it and chopping it and being like, oh, Bevo, people are dropping out when you're on screen, so we're just going to cut your screen time. And me being like, that's great. Like, it's not an opinion, it's data. I can see the dip. Like, get it out of there. Just testing male and female VO's, like something so simple that we would just run two run a male. Female conversion was 7% higher on the female. It's like, cool, guys. From this point on, we use females and no one tests that. They'll just be like, oh, this voice sounds better for who put it out to the market. Like, yeah, there's a lot of things that data and performance ads can tell you, which a lot of creatives don't have access to. And once you do, it's like opening up whatever metaphor fits Pandora's box. But I don't know if that's evil. It's just sick. It's like learning how to see the Matrix because you understand everything. Like, is There for a reason, performs for a reason and it all works together. Like post copy needs to blah blah blah blah.
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Nathan Bush: Do you have a structure for how much or what type of data you look at? Because I can imagine for creative data could sometimes get in the way of ideas. Is that right or is that a wrong assumption?
Michael Beveridge: No, if you've got, if you're a creative director, if you go to that level, you should have 50 ideas a minute, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to run out of ideas and something can. And it'll come in phases. Like let's say I'm doing, you know, the new prescription sunglass range from Bailey Nelson and I'm like, oh, I want to do a bit about something and I do it. The data shows me it's makes me question my ability and I'm like, I guess that insight wasn't right. But I move on and then I just move on to the, to the next job when we do optical multifocals and I just try again. Because you've got to have confidence if you're going to be a creative. So no, I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. I'm trying to think of a negative. No, it's just ego, bro. It's ego.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah.
Michael Beveridge: It's like, I reckon this will work. And they're like, no, it didn't work. And I'm like, did we sample size how many? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'll try to fit and you can't fight the data. And once you get that creative wanker ego out of you, you just become like a really pure ideas person that's fed all of these wonderfully true numbers that come from the only person that matters, your customer. You know what I mean? Not bloody whoever's on the judging panel at Khan or who is the ACD at the next publicist that you want to get a job at next because you know, Johnny Wynkens is going over to join, you know, bloody Gitzby. Porterstein in Wonderman. You know what I mean? Like, like when you're in, at a, in it, like a, in house, like agency, you're all in, you know what I mean? Like, and you might have equity too.
Nathan Bush: And I think from a data perspective too, it's different types of data because when you're in a brand, data builds on data, builds on data, builds on data. Right? So it's not like every time you're going back to the well and go, hey client, give me all your data for the last six months so we can analyze it. It's like, no, I've been living and breathing this and I've run campaign upon campaign and like I'm building out this rather than just one big dump.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. And you know what's sick? Like where at Bailey Nelson? Like we're about to like maybe do our first sort of TikTok stuff potentially. And the idea that we get a baseline audience, like who's gonna be at a company to get a baseline reading on their Facebook audience, you know what I mean? Like that's 2005. So like getting a baseline rating on what our audience is at TikTok I think is really cool because we're trying to come up with ideas. We were like, look, let's just run some basic performance and see who's watching. Like see who this shit matters to and think about that. People are writing ads without knowing that. Like also with data. It's really funny that everyone's year on years have just been fucked as of about two weeks ago. So it's just like year on year,
Nathan Bush: we're killing it and we're coming into. Yeah, March, April, it's just not a shit show. But it's just hard to measure. Right?
Michael Beveridge: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: What's your take on TikTok? How do you see it rolling out? How do you think it's. It'll change over the next couple of years?
Michael Beveridge: I think it's a really engaging look. It's the future platform. It's. It's really funny. It like skipped trendies and went straight to tradies and teenagers, you know what I mean? Like 38 year old Tradie TikTok is just so weird and then teenage TikTok is, you know, they do their thing. But then you've got to think about like what songs does like a, you know, a 30 year old woman sing in the car and it's a song that Billie Eilish wrote or it's a song, you know, a 22 year old. So like the Billboard 100. They're mostly under 30. Like they're mostly under 25. So young people do shit and we all follow. So yes, we can say TikTok lame. And I know so many people did a year ago, Bro, TikTok is hilarious. Kids are so much funnier than us from the ad platform. I don't know enough about it, to be totally honest. I think from an affiliate influencer strategy, I think it's incredibly valuable right now because you can get like, the way it works is, let's say I have maybe a thousand followers, but I get a 2 million video. If I'm a company, I'm like, bro, you've only got a thousand followers, so we're just going to give this to you on a contra deal. But that million video he did two weeks ago, it's like, people will keep and you see a million video and you go check out their page. So like, yes, you know, the geographicals of where those people are coming from might be a bit shitty. But I think you can like take advantage of influencer marketing on TikTok at the moment. And with. I think. I can't remember his name. I think it's Mike angel. But he's got Vop.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's cool. He's been on here before. Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. I take an interest in what he does just because I think anything, any click reduction you can do to conversion is always incredible.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: And you know, shopping and for Bailey Nelson, it's something we're definitely considering, you know, the idea of. I mean, we can't with optical because you've got to have prescription, yada, yada. But for aesthetic driven sunglass or non prescription, you know, your hipster glass type look stuff. It could be something that we do.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: And then that combined with after pay and zip pay and stuff like where. Oh man, that's the coolest hair.
Nathan Bush: My daughter's just walked in. Gracie. All right.
Michael Beveridge: That's all right, Gracie. We've got a little cameo. So, yeah, no, TikTok is incredibly powerful. I'm not. We weren't looking at that at good pair days and I have only had a first chat with them here and then I was at Koala. We sort of got so big we were taken away from the media. Yeah. So I'm a little bit in the dark about that stuff, which I'm really excited about. Jumping back on board with Bailey.
Nathan Bush: I think it's cool. Like, it's really interesting with TikTok in that it's almost like you're starting to see people create videos on TikTok and then just use them in other platforms. So it's like this video creation tool. But then, like you said, around the influences. I love what they're doing around actually connecting brands to influencers, being the middleman rather than just going, do your best.
Michael Beveridge: Did you see that new zip campaign?
Nathan Bush: Yes.
Michael Beveridge: Really great. Yeah, really great. Like, so we went and, you know, you do, like a quick deep dive on your competitors. They would have in their TikTok, like, vertical assets with Swipe up. And I'm like, swipe up to the video below, you idiot. Like, who? And, you know, it's becoming more and more pertinent to not chop landscape to vertical just because it's easy. Shoot vertical. The idea that you go to a shoot and not have a vertical rig is insane to me. But trying to use reels content over on TikTok and TikTok on a Reels, it's weird. It feels odd. TikTok is Coca Cola. Instagram reels is La Ice.
Nathan Bush: Nice comparison. All right, we could. I know you've got a busy day coming up. You've got a. You've got a shoot to go to, so we've got to. We've got to wrap up. We could talk for ages, but hit
Michael Beveridge: me with your hard ones, buddy. Go hit me with your hard ones. Oh, I don't really have.
Nathan Bush: Oh, this is the hardest one I've got for you, actually. Yeah, you got to work with Ian Huey Hewitson. He was my childhood icon. I learned everything that I know around cooking and salt from him, bro. Surely that's a career highlight. Is he a good bloke, bro?
Michael Beveridge: So firstly. So I got a lot of like, why are we getting like. So initially, I shot an ad for Sexpo featuring Huey and I wrote it and it was that he fucked up and thought it was for Mexpo, the Australian Mexican Cooking Festival. It was a really funny ad. Kev, who runs Sex Bone, Australian tattoo group, he was like, I got Huey. And I was like, all right, I'll do an ad. And then I worked with him and I was like, huey is the perfect Easter egg. Because when it comes to creative, if you can. So frequency is what we're after with creative. We want to get frequency so people have recall. But you can cut through that frequency with comedy. Really great comedy. That's. You can't guarantee that. It's just hard to do. Auntie Donna have done bad sketches, you know, like, Seinfeld had dud jokes. SNL haven't had a good episode since 1993. But you can. Another way you can do it is nostalgia. Right? So nostalgia. Chuck in toady from neighbors and people go, ah, it takes me back to a better day. Chuck in Huey. People go, ah, Huey. Haven't seen him since. Like it's like, that's a really great way to get. My rule is always if someone's watching something you do and they look up and like go, ah, you've just notched something in their brain and they're going to remember your thing. So that's part of the Easter egg mentality. Like get someone. You know, we tried to get like, let's say in five years time we're going to do an ad and there will be a bit that goes, it's super strong but delicate when it needs to be. And I'm going to get egg boy to crack an egg on someone's head and. And everyone will go, I remember that cultural touch point. And you know what I mean? So just doing that, especially if you're a startup that doesn't have those big budgets, that's a way to get like cut through without frequency.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome.
Michael Beveridge: There's some other ones too. I can't remember what they are. Comedy nostalgia and sonic trigger. Sonic triggers aren't used enough, I don't think. And you can combine nostalgia and sonic trigger.
Nathan Bush: What do you mean by sonic trigger?
Michael Beveridge: My dad, like just that, that like, you know what I mean? Like just something like that. Right. So they've done the work. Some people say this is like brand hijacking, but fuck them if they're big brains. I don't care. Like do like a not happy John.
Nathan Bush: Yep.
Michael Beveridge: You know what I mean? Like do Geo gg go away from me. Something like that. And you know, they've done the work, they had the medium spend to get that frequency and then you can just piggyback that. But as long as it makes sense. You can't just like mash it in quickly. Like it's got to make sense with the tone and everything.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: And so for any startup like brands listening, like that's a really easy way to do that. Like that's why meme formats work. I always say this is a little hot tip for any creative out there that wants to like de risk their idea. Go see if Batuta have written an article about it and it got lots of comments. Because what that does is, I mean brown cardigan is another one too. But if, if it's a meme or a post from Battuta that is popped off, there's a shared collective insight with that and so you've de risked the idea of it being relevant. Now you find a way to make that work for your brand.
Nathan Bush: That's a great tip. I love that.
Michael Beveridge: Yeah. Like the Patooter Boys will hear this and they'll send me an invoice and they'll be like, cool man, we're doing your market research for you. But it's, it's straight up it like Brown Cardigan will do, you know Brown Cardigan Bin Chicken, Yeah. They de risk that companies now could happily just be like, oh, you don't want a sandwich, it tastes like a bin chicken. So at Subway we have like they will say bin chicken in an ad because Toby at Brown Cardigan pushed the Bin Chicken and Swoopy Boys Magpies, like, like these things become part of the zeitgeist and they've been de risk. Like there's so many opportunities for startups to win that. Like I don't know if you go into an agency and be like, oh, I saw it on Brown Cardigan. So I reckon it's pretty good. Like there'd need to be like a Strat doc for it maybe.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah. But I think too it's just about not giving up on culture. Like I think especially as we get older we kind of fall into our own ways and we go, that's for their young kids or whatever. But it's actually not hard to keep up with it if you just expose yourself to TikTok or Brown Cardigan or whatever it is, it's easy.
Michael Beveridge: We all know it too because we remember being 14, just thinking like 35 year old dad's just like not with it. And you remember getting a little bit older and you're like, TikTok's dumb. Or like Billie Eilish is dumb is bad music. And you just like, you know what, you've got middle aged bitterness kicking in because you know where you want it to be. But just be chill.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Michael Beveridge: You know what I mean? Like just, you got to like, like I do a bunch of like mindfulness and all that embarrassing lame shit. No, it's not good. Everyone should do it. But like just being mindful of, of any like tension in your jaw and your shoulders and then you're like, where's that coming from? It's like you're angry about something and, and it's why I got rid of Twitter. It just made me angry. And then being spiteful about like kids killing it on TikTok. And like I remember thinking back in the day, like, oh, I got sort of a little bit of notoriety when social wasn't that big. Geez, if I got big on, you know, I would have killed it. So it wasn't your time, man. Wasn't meant to be. It's chill. Like just you got to make. Make do with what you got. Let the kids figure it out and then in, you know, or try and be a clubhouse influencer like the loser you are. Yeah. So, yeah, that's. Those are, those are some musings for me.
Nathan Bush: Oh, mate, so much gold in there and I love what you're doing, so thank you, thank you so much for sharing. So generous and just fucking breath of fresh air for us. It's just nice to get that creative view and someone who just.
Michael Beveridge: Well, I think, you know, like, yeah, look, I might, I don't know. My boss is my listen this and be like you said fuck 38 times, bro. Like, you're representing us. How do you know? Like, I don't know. They won't. They're wonderful people. But I think when it comes to ecom, if you're a creative listening to this, like learn performance, get behind the Facebook ads, like get, get into analytics, Google Analytics, because it'll give you like so many tools that creatives that just go to award school and all they're interested in is ads. Like you're going to be such a. And diversify your view, you know what I mean? If you go into an agency and you see more in the creative team, more than three pairs of rms, you know what I mean? Like, it's insane anyway, with the sound of that trash, that trash truck coming will get rid of me and throw me.
Nathan Bush: You can hear that? You can hear that. Hear that? What? That's not even a sound effect. That's not like a, an an Oscar kind of get off stage kind of thing. That's a garbage truck living the suburban life. It's. It's fantastic.
[Ad]: Anyone who's ever written and scheduled performance
Nathan Bush: ads knows how brain numbing and uninspiring they can be.
[Ad]: But I love Michael's approach. He actually embraces performance ads if because
Nathan Bush: they act like an invisible test audience makes sense, right?
[Ad]: It gives him the freedom to try
Nathan Bush: different insights, ideas and executions with little repercussions.
[Ad]: He sees them as a way to
Nathan Bush: broaden his ideas rather than limit them. And I thought that was a really refreshing take from this conversation.
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