Creativity & Strategy in Agency Growth with Marcus Foley

Marcus (00:00.142)‍

one sec.

‍

Justin Levinson (00:06.122)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. My name is Justin Levinson and I am your host. Today I'm with Marcus Foley, who is the co-founder of Tommy. They're an outstanding digital first creative and production studio. And I'm so excited to have the conversation with you today, Marcus, and learn more about you. Thank you so much for being here and speaking with me.

‍

Marcus (00:26.638)‍

Thank you, looking forward to the conversation, Justin.

‍

Justin Levinson (00:30.332)‍

Yeah, so the first thing I'd like to know is, and I know it's kind of a broad question, but maybe you could tell the viewers how you got into this particular space.

‍

Marcus (00:44.3)‍

I always tell this story and at least I'm not doing this one on stage because people look at me oddly but I suppose I fell in love with a dancing chicken and it's not any old chicken this chicken would do anything that you asked it to it dance, would sing, would jump up and down

And it turns out it was a, this is about 20, 20 odd years ago. It was a subservient chicken and it was a Burger King stunt that I saw. And it was heralding the new era of video marketing. I was like, wow, this is incredible. So could just put any instruction. I thought this thing was live, but it wasn't. was 400 or 600.

your actions are pre-recorded. And it's like, wow, I want to get, kind of want to get into that. So was the very early days of looking at ages like Crispin Porter, Bergusky and some of the emerging digital agencies here in London. And that kind of where I really got into digital marketing. I've been in digital for over 20 years, which I think in dog years means I'm dead, right? So it's a long time in the age of digital, but yeah, that's kind of how I got it. And I, know, one of the things I've always loved is I always loved like Burger King, for example.

the way they hack popular culture over the years. I remember them doing the whopper sacrifice when, when we're getting too many friends that we didn't have on Facebook, you know, you get rid of, get rid of 10, they'll give you a free whopper the way they use out of home. So always drawn to these brands that are quite disruptive, quite distinctive. We work with brands like Netflix and it's kind of how I fell in love with the industry. And I think 20 years later, I still love everything, stuff I see every day.

by the brilliance in our industry across the globe, is brilliant. It's a great place to be,

‍

Justin Levinson (02:19.424)‍

Yeah, no, that's really interesting. I guess maybe for the viewers who might not know, know, obviously I've given a brief description of what you guys do at Tommy, but maybe you could also tell the viewers, you know, what exactly you guys do in this digital space.

‍

Marcus (02:36.494)‍

So we're a digital creative and production agency. Traditionally, we work with brands like, so Netflix, we're big in the entertainment space, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus. We also were a global creative partner of TikTok. So we do a lot of augmented reality, a lot of the lenses you see, I think we've worked on over 120 client projects with them in the last couple of years. So we're a brilliant client. We've also worked with Google, YouTube, working the beauty industry. It's been quite...

It's quite interesting when people see our work, they love our work, but don't always love the way they've bought us, right? So when you work with brands like Netflix, they're quite, we do some quite brave, quite bold work, the way they turn up in categories, the way they wanna turn up in audiences, and I'll give you a couple of examples later.

So it's really hard when you're sort of transcending over into sort of traditional marketing and brand world, and they try and justify what you're doing in the entertainment space. It's kind of a, you know, it's hard, right? So I'll give you an example. We, you know, if you think about the, the, launching of a TV show or a streaming show or a film, you know, you've got your press day, you've got your access to talent, you've got the premiere. So what, what can, you know, you've got the trailer release. What, can you do that's different? What can you do for someone like Netflix that really helps them?

you know, land in popular culture and become part of a moment. So we always think of it that way. So for example, we hijacked a plane full of influencers for a premiere for Netflix. We invited 40 influencers onto an airplane and we hijacked it with vampires. But what they didn't know, there's a whole live Twitch audience of a hundred thousand people controlling their experience where they thought they were coming in and they were going to have blood cocktails and get boarded onto an airplane.

We've got this live activation going on for 90 minutes with an audience. Now, if you said to most, if you said to other people, your live premiere or the equivalent of a big product launch, why do we let 300,000 people on Twitch hijack and do whatever they want? Not many people would do that, but the interaction levels and the distinctiveness of what you do there is incredible, right? And same thing for like, instead of launching a trailer, why don't you let someone play it? You know, so when we did army of thieves, instead of, you know, just actually putting the trailer out,

‍

Marcus (04:49.41)‍

We actually created the game experience. could pull your tribe together, go and try and crack the codes. So whatever we do in Netflix, we're always trying to do something quite interesting in terms of taking the things that you standardly do and then do something interesting. know, branding like Netflix wants to turn up in popular culture. They have titles that they work on so that they haven't got big IPs necessarily that they have to build these IPs. They might want to land in a sci-fi audience or into a gaming audience. So they really know how to go in and disrupt and do stuff like that.

And then I think mentality wise, you know, obviously right down to things we do in content marketing, we're very big in social and content marketing. We're always thinking about hacking the format, playing around with the rules. We've always just done that very, very intuitively in terms of like how you turn up in the world. And we've always asked this question, you know, do we deserve your attention? And it's a answer. asked a branch and asked that if the answer is no, you should stop and, know, when you see something turn up for two seconds in someone's feed.

Is it truly, truly worth the attention? So kind of a bit of a bit of everything we do. We're not an experiential agency, but we do experience. We're not a classic out of home agency, but we do loads of out of home. So I don't know. It's a kind of, it's kind of a weird space for agencies, isn't it? Who you are and how, how clients are buying you, suppose, Justin.

‍

Justin Levinson (06:07.196)‍

Yeah, no, that's really fascinating. It's interesting that you're doing the brand and doing entertainment and such a wide variety of different offerings because some agencies are just doing, they're just focusing on one piece of it. Yeah, I guess maybe you could tell me, I know you're a co-founder, do you have a partner that you sort of work with? How is your team sort of structured?

‍

Marcus (06:34.19)‍

So we're based in London, LA and Singapore, and I've got two other founding partners, Chris and Will. They're definitely the brains and the brilliance behind the agency. So Chris is our CEO now, but we founded the agency 14 years ago. We got talking and we approached Paramount Pictures, funnily enough, they were one of our founding clients and they said to us, look, I'll give you one of these titles and you had one of two options and they offered us a...

a Marvel title or a smaller title. we took the smaller title and did some digital advertising and built the, built, basically built the agency from there. You know, obviously they told us that if we messed up, we'd never work with them again. So it's just in pressure, but it was a great time. founding client. I've met Chris and will, will is my design. He's like the design director, chief design officer. think I personally,

‍

Justin Levinson (07:15.933)‍

You

‍

Marcus (07:25.634)‍

think he's one the best designers in the industry. So I admire him massively. He's carried the weight of the agency in of the output for years and probably reason why we attract some incredible clients for quite a small agency. then Chris, think, Chris is very much, he's a big driver behind the agency over the years. I think the thing I admire the most about him is probably his ability to see things coming in with technology and how you can apply that.

So he was the, you know, he was the first into Tumblr when Yahoo, we were the first probably to hack Tumblr and create Tumblr, hacked Tumblr movie sites. We were the first to break formats on Yahoo and MSN on the homepage takeovers. He got us into TikTok. We were one of five agencies globally chosen to be a creative partner at TikTok. you know, I said to, I actually asked him this question recently. said, why, why were we chosen? We're quite small. said, because we could use the platform better than they could because of our development teams.

‍

Justin Levinson (07:53.236)‍

Mmm.

‍

Marcus (08:20.526)‍

So he's always, know, Chris has always had that real sort of foresight as well as actually being, he doesn't do as much now as well as being a great creative and ideas person. But, know, as you build your agency, you bring people in and you sort of remove yourself more and more from some of the stuff you probably love and you like doing. but yeah, they're, they're my two partners. They've been working with me now for 14 years. Chris has been sitting opposite me for many years. So one client described him as my work wife. probably, he's probably seen me more than he had his wife over the last 14 years.

‍

Justin Levinson (08:48.384)‍

It's was was fascinating that you had said that when you guys started that you said it was Paramount that gave you that small Small job to kind of start Yeah, I mean I talked to agency owners all the time and that's it seems to be a lot of these Agencies have got their success, but that same thing I was just talking to a fellow from Zambezi last week I believe it was like a coca-cola project that was given to them. It was a small thing

was one job, a couple of co-founders, they nailed it and that just opened up the door for so many other opportunities. I wonder when you guys first came together to start the company, were you nervous about it? Were you worried about when that first job would come in or were you feeling pretty confident that if you build it, they will come kind of thing?

‍

Marcus (09:37.326)‍

I just got, just bought, just personally, I just bought the first house and had a baby eight weeks earlier. Chris was pretty, Chris was pretty, probably nearly in a similar situation. Were we nervous? We're not naive, but probably didn't try not to think about it too much. I think at the time we weren't happy in terms of, I met these guys and I went to work at another agency.

Chris is, mean, Chris and Will, Chris had won Webbies and things and done amazing projects. He's really, he's a talent, right? And I've always been like, I've enjoyed business development and sort of pitching people's ideas and thinking. Chris and Will, I mean, he's just fantastic and he's worked on everything. Top Gun, you know, Terminator movie, like every, you think of every title in big universes. I mean, that's how good he is. So there's kind of interpretation, but also just personally a belief that these two are fantastic. And like, I think I can represent.

the ideas, the thinking and what they can produce, right? And then also my own drive is I think to be more creative in terms of what I wanted to do. So yeah, we started off, we played office, Chris and I were going to sit in hotel lobby in central London in Piccadilly Circus right next to Leicester Square actually where they do the film premieres. probably felt at home for us and we'd go and sit there and have coffee and meetings. We approached a very good PR agency, a woman called Lily Ahoy who is the MD there.

and said, look, this is 14 years ago. Said, look, we're three digital experts. We'd like to think we are. How about we come in, you give us some desk space and we'll be on hand to give you some digital advice for your PR. And they had Samsung and British Telecom. And one of the partner agencies was working with Xbox and Microsoft, a of, you know, a couple of drink brands. And that's where we actually, we ended up this. went in and we got, this space. The three of us had a little office.

inside a big PR studio. looked fantastic on the center of Oxford street in London. And it kind of was the lucky, was the lucky break, but also the sensible like, right, we'll give you access and time, which also means we get access to your clients and thinking, feel any, anything that comes out, we potentially get to produce. but also it just meant if clients came in, we looked more established. We persuaded our first employee to join us, without it. We didn't even have a website at that time. So, well, our employee number two, no employee number one knew us.

‍

Justin Levinson (11:37.909)‍

Wow.

‍

Marcus (11:52.078)‍

called Jimmy Hopton, employee number two, Craig came in, but he thought we were big, but we didn't even have a website at the time. Right. So we just sort of getting on with getting on with the work. So I think, you know, starting agencies is, is, is about that. As you said, it's about, have you got a founding client, someone who can, you know, turn the lights on and help you keep the lights on. Right. And, and then just like that obsessive nature, obsessive, uh, and, and worry of like never messing up. Right. You've got to just keep delivering great work time after time after time again.

‍

Justin Levinson (11:59.348)‍

Hehehe

‍

Marcus (12:21.102)‍

I think that's really, I think that's the most important part, right?

‍

Justin Levinson (12:23.984)‍

Yeah, it sounds like quite the symbiotic relationship there where you're able to get that office space. How important was it for the three of you guys to be all together in an office space? it, I know now is a world where we're all sort of working remotely, talking remotely, and I guess if it was just the three of you guys, was that pretty, you know, do you think that that was a big part of the success, that collaboration together?

‍

Marcus (12:50.828)‍

I think so. We we didn't really use, you know, didn't really use zoom marketing. We didn't have access to those sort of tools, collaborative tools, like the way we use the studio. We use Google, Google slides, Google deck, you know, everything that we use. So you didn't have that collaborative collaboration ability. and I think when you're setting, you know, I think about this on multiple levels and this is a big opens a big set of questions and answers around about working from home and working not, you know, I like in the creative industries to be close to people. My credit, you know, will as a creative design director.

He likes to look at someone and be able to point to the screen and talk to them, right? I love the ability now to stay at home and not have to be on a train at half seven on a Monday morning and those things. can be really effective days where you can get up and you can start performing.

But I do like people together. just I always I always have I think it's such a Such an important part of production teams creative teams the design process strategic process More important I think for mentorship for young people I think about how my journey and people who took me under their wing and guided me with all my naivety and stupidity and those things and you know It is those water cooler moments. We can grab someone for five minutes that hey, you know You need to bump into them and you can catch them. It's not quite. It's not quite the same

‍

Justin Levinson (13:55.392)‍

You

‍

Marcus (14:05.333)‍

So I think it's not something we even thought about, should we all be together? I think it was important we felt like we were a company, so we didn't panic. Because you'd probably panic more when you've got a mortgage and a house to pay for and food and kids and bills to pay for. If you're probably not together and one of you sitting in a living room somewhere and one somewhere else and you can't see each other, I think there'd be a higher level of anxiety that's been set in during that period, 14 years ago.

‍

Justin Levinson (14:12.244)‍

Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (14:29.704)‍

Yeah, that totally makes... that resonates with me because I started my agency with two kids in my house, remotely. I definitely... with the mortgage and all that stuff. that definitely speaks to me. But that's really interesting. And maybe, you know, I definitely want to get into... I saw that you were a judge actually too for the Webby Awards. Is that true? Yeah, so you...

‍

Marcus (14:31.566)‍

You

‍

Marcus (14:41.922)‍

Yeah.

‍

Marcus (14:55.618)‍

Yeah. Yep.

‍

Justin Levinson (14:58.565)‍

How did that come to be? they reach out to you and just say, Marcus, we'd love to, how does that kind of happen?

‍

Marcus (15:05.902)‍

When did I join the Institute of the Arts? I can't remember. I think it's back over 10, 12 years now, right? And I think because we'd actually, know, we'd, right, well, here's really interesting. Our first proper Tommy website, we got put up against Pinterest in the category for design for functional, for design function. So we had a really interesting website up against Pinterest. We knew we were never going to win. Pinterest had just come out that year. This is about 12, 13 years ago.

so we've done that. And then, I remember shooting a really beautiful film for a UFC fighter, a guy called one punch picket. And we got nominated for the work and we were up against the BBC and CNN and, and I think like Olympic coverage and these for the short film that we created with a fighter. And it was me and a DOP had gone out to shoot this thing, right. And creating a beautiful bit of work. so we'd started kind of, we're getting work coming in and the team.

you know, we're getting nominated for the Webbies quite a bit. And I think that's how we joined, right? And the thing I love about doing the Webbies every year, more than anything, I suppose, is the thing I love most about it is just awe-inspiring work. Sometimes you get blown away again and again and again, and you go, yes, I love that. And then sometimes you see work and you're like,

God, it's just what the sad part of that is, you know, you're just kind of like you're entering this thing and not really realizing where you are in terms of a level and in terms of like how you're delivering work into the market that truly is very distinctive, that truly is great, you know. So I've really enjoyed that and doing my second in my new judging panel right now. Actually, about a sit off probably next week and sit and judge a judge, load of work. And I think the thing I enjoy the most about it is just seeing brilliant work that I might have missed, not seen. It's hard to keep up with everything, right?

And that's it, and just marvel every day at the creative industry's brilliance. That's the main point, isn't it?

‍

Justin Levinson (17:00.838)‍

Yeah, that's really cool. Do you have any specific campaigns or work that you are personally most proud of in your career?

‍

Marcus (17:12.558)‍

Yeah, I mean, there's so many, think, you know, in terms of large scale, small scale, think, you know, filming this UFC fighter was the first time he was going to go and fight in Las Vegas. And I remember, I remember, you know, we actually did a brand design for him, it's called One Punch Picket. And, you know, he wears a Trilby hat and braces. you know, I remember, I remember filming him inside his training. He's an American top team and I was filming him here in London and

I remember being in a training session with him for about two hours and the last half hour he goes live as they call it, it's like full impact. And we're in this really tight and closed room and I'm with my DOP and we're trying to film this thing up. He's doing wrestling against a wall, like cage wrestling. And if he'd fell back, he would have cut his head open on the camera and he would have probably been out the following week in Vegas. But the work we produced, it was beautiful, it was creative, it was low cost, it was just the two of us. It showed we could be up against the BBC.

That's the entrepreneurial spirit in an agency. Nothing stops you creating good work if you believe in yourself. So I think when it comes to small scale stuff, I love that. I think, you know, w w I look at things like Netflix, you know, you know, admire the team and what we've done. You know, we did the stranger things, country takeover in Thailand. did a

‍

Justin Levinson (18:08.191)‍

Yeah.

‍

Marcus (18:26.846)‍

We take over in Malaysia where we did everything. It was amazing. And as I said, we're not experiential agency, but we're doing out of home. We're turning bus stops in Kuala Lumpur upside down into upside down houses. were doing a, you know, they took over, we took over a whole district, not just an experienced house with roller skating ring. I mean, when you see that in that sort of scale of work, we do them like blimey, you so you sort of think you've come a long way. And then personally, I think one of my favorite ever projects will be

If you ever come into Heathrow Airport Terminal 2, which is the Queen's Terminal, you'll see the largest sculpture, living sculpture and permanent sculpture in London in Europe. It's called Slipstream and it's this undulating form of a plane rolling forward. And it was made by a Royal Academy artist, Richard Wilson. And I got to document that again, myself and a DOP in our early days, in the early days of Tumblr, working with a brilliant culture agency and...

The thing that I loved about that was having access to an incredible Royal Academy artist, if you look him up, Richard Wilson, and just seeing the process of his ideas. And this thing was 80 meters in length and 80 tons in weight suspended in the air in Heathrow. It's an incredible, incredible thing. So to watch the whole, see the whole process.

see all the engineering to be really up and close like that you know that's a personal highlight i'll never forget i'll never forget spending a time when i'm i'm not big into my art in terms of understanding the world and you know you i've made this meeting him to interview him on a plane on a train we're doing a three-hour trip to go and see the first piece of sculpture

And I remember him saying to me, he used to go to his dad was a, he said, my dad was an alcoholic and so he's not around anymore. He's never got to see my success. And he said, as a child, he used to take me to the natural history museum in London. And there's this beautiful, the whale there in the whale room, the suspended thing, its size and mass. And when you're at art college, you're told as a sculptor, the thing you shouldn't do is don't do anything too big and don't suspend it.

‍

Marcus (20:27.256)‍

And he said, well, slipstream is the opposite of all of that. But he said, you every time I go in there, I see this thing. And he said to me, I think slipstream is my Blue Whale moment. And I was like, wow. And it's almost like in homage and memory to his father. And it made me really emotional. And you're like, Christ, this is work. But you're getting access to this kind of people and creativity and things. It's quite special, isn't it, in many, many ways.

My career highlights come from sometimes the smallest things. So sometimes something that's scalable, you think, wow, how the hell have we done that?

‍

Justin Levinson (21:04.73)‍

Yeah, and you've been in this game for quite some time now. I wonder, have things really changed too much in the business since you began? Obviously, technology has changed. been so many, there's been a lot of different things that have happened, but do you feel like the core of what you do is still the same? And how has that changed in your career?

‍

Marcus (21:07.214)‍

you

‍

Marcus (21:32.312)‍

Well, I suppose it would get me onto the subject of distinctiveness, right? I still think one thing is true. Things either stand out or they don't. You either remember something or you don't. And that is marketing full stop. In cash, these people copy and cash, these people stand out. So I think in terms of creativity and marketing, nothing's changed through each generation. Obviously we've gone through. I remember, I remember persuading people to have a website to create a blog and why blogging was going to be important.

video marketing, mobile marketing, mobile video. So I remember the heralding of each of those generations in essence. And what we're seeing now with AI, which is going to be incredible. I think it's incredible. It's like, I think it's all about enhancing creativity and the speed you can get to ideas and those things. But I think the opposite of that is obviously watching out for distinctiveness because you can then still start creating things that...

you know, start morphing into other people. So, you know, the challenges I think are the same. I think the one challenge that is probably the biggest challenge is people's time, right? And that's, that's the thing that's developed over time and people don't have time. So, you know, that's changed the way I think about marketing a lot. You know, I think a lot about value exchange. I think, you know,

as a marketeers, it's a dereliction of duty not to think about how we exercise the brain and the consumer in some way. So when you give them something, know, if you want someone value exchange being, if you want someone to spend some time with you, give them something back, entertain them, give them a piece of content that's rewarding, right? Exercise the brain for Christ's sake, make the cognitive things start moving. If you're not, then what are you doing? Right? So I think that the, that's the biggest change is time.

‍

Justin Levinson (23:05.738)‍

Heh

‍

Marcus (23:14.87)‍

and how people need to start thinking more and more and more deeply about engaging the mind of the consumer and being remembered. I think that's really important. I went into YouTube brands holding companies that we work with and they've got some incredible brands.

And I put up two, there's two separate things I wanted to show them. The first one was like, you I put 12 influencers up, the videos all up next to each other. And you know, the, product reveal inside store, right? So, you know, I said, well, any influencer walks into store, what happens next? Nothing you haven't seen a thousand times. And I press play and all 12 videos are 12 different brands. They just walked into stores at the same time. They found the product at the same time, pulled the product out, smiled, pulled the product up.

almost the timing, the pacing, the editing, cuts, everything was the same. And, you know, so I said, I marvel at what I marvel at the beauty industry and your content marketing is brilliant. But when you hold yourself up internally, it might not be working right. Cause how's people remembering you? And that's, think the biggest challenge that brands have, they don't necessarily see their marketing issues. They don't necessarily see the problems they have now. And I think,

It doesn't matter what the technology, what the idea, whatever platform you're playing in. think the biggest part of that is thinking about memory activation and distinctiveness. And that's truly something I believe in.

‍

Justin Levinson (24:37.95)‍

Are you often finding yourself working with other marketing teams within your clients? you paired with them often or are they giving you full creative reign?

‍

Marcus (24:49.518)‍

Um, we pay, we pay with them often. We have multiple ways of working. You know, we work with in-house teams. work, um, cause we bring elevated content. Um, we work very closely. You know, work with Netflix. They're brilliant, they're brilliant marketeers themselves. They know what works. So really, really truly collaborative. We've always been a very collaborative agency, never, never a land grab agency. So that's, so that's great. think then there's also, you know, the way I like to work with the clients is setting, um, creative and strategic challenges. might not be seeing when you.

You start showing them the world of forgetting all the strategy and all the data in the world, but getting down into it and showing how content turns up. And that's my obsession point, right? Showing people what does something actually look like? What does it really show when you turn up and play? So we do a lot, you know, I work with them quite closely on that. And then obviously I've got strategic teams when the briefs come in, hand over to them. So I do less and less of that part, which I used to.

love doing. But now obviously, you're definitely out beating the drum for, you know, we've launched a distinctiveness framework, which was showing clients how to measure and show them problems and the nuances of what that looks like within their within their categories. And that's really important the way I work with the marketing teams, probably in all the brands that we work with and, you know, inspiration sessions with Adobe and, you know, beauty brands and the entertainment brands kind of something, you know, something we try and do as a

a real lead into doing the work.

‍

Justin Levinson (26:15.018)‍

Yeah, I really like that distinctiveness idea and it's definitely a differentiator really. It does resonate so I totally get that. Some other interesting things of interest that I had were I guess with all these big projects that you guys are working on, what is the team kind of

look like in terms of, I know you're in multiple locations, maybe you can describe a little bit of what the team is like and how they all kind of come together in this new remote world.

‍

Marcus (26:56.814)‍

Yeah. Most of the stuff we do, we do, we do in-house, we make a lot of things, all the augmented reality. We do a lot of, um, you know, I love the big screens. do a lot of the big 3d, anamorphic screens. Um, we have a team. we have a team of producers, designers, developers, pretty, pretty traditional. Really. We're quite a low, we're quite a low weight. Account management type agency. We're not a traditional creative agency like that. We're not heavy, heavy planning strategy teams, creatives. We've got people who make people who really get it.

I think that's the most important part that we do. And we've got a team in both London and LA and Singapore who really, you know, from a client service point of view, who really sort of get that sort of nuance of what we're trying to do. So we're not kind of traditional, we're not a massive strategy planning agency as such, but we are very strategic in our thought. We're very, very clear on what we're trying to do and our objectives in terms of that. The Singapore team was about 30 people, 35 people, Asian markets.

Incredible, what an incredible place. And then the same in London and head office. And then LA is more of a, we have our executive creative director out there, Joe who's out there and we have a small team now. So post COVID and with all the shifts in the entertainment space, we've not really sort of really fully back expanded into LA. we used to manage LA.

Chris and I manage LA and our client relationships from London for two, three years. And it worked really, really well because, because they're nine hours behind us, we could do a lot of work during the day. We're ready to present them at nine o'clock in the morning. They can have all day to feedback. And the next morning we're starting work while they're asleep. So when you're doing big global tool kits, you know, advertising, digital advertising, social media content, it worked really, really well. and, and really, you know, we, have developers, we have.

We don't really build heavy websites, things like that. We don't really do that. We're a lot more augmented reality, still a lot of social content, animators, motion graphics, usual kind of makeup really. And then we'll bring specialists in when we work on Netflix. know, we're not, we're, you know, live people who can do live broadcast. You know, we'll bring an experiential team in, production team in, if we want to move an aeroplane from the set for Netflix across Germany to do a stunt with influencers, you know, or things like that. So that's kind of how we work.

‍

Justin Levinson (29:18.258)‍

Yeah, when you are looking, you know, when you hire people, what do you look for quality wise in terms of people that you feel, you know, that are a good fit for your your company?

‍

Marcus (29:32.974)‍

I mean, I suppose you always, depends on how, if someone's, if someone's experience is great, you can sort of see the experience of what they are and you can talk to them. If someone's new coming in three, you probably look at different things, right? So I sort of split those into two, what I look for and what we look for with people coming into the industry. And then what we look for is people growing into, into roles. think, you know, entrepreneurial spirits is always like, you know, can they really...

you know, if you come from a big agency, you might not like our environment because it's, know, sometimes it's quite, you know, it's hand, it's all hands on deck. It's, know, it's not, you haven't got a strategy teams and planning teams doing your work for you. you have to really get stuck in. you know, you want people to self motivate self driven. I always love, I don't like this word. Actually, I hate the word passion, but I'd love people are just so.

passionate about parts of the work and the industry and the categories and design or whatever those things are, doesn't matter what they love, but you want people who love something, right? And if they love something, that's always a really good sign. And also, you know, just sometimes, I mean, there's not multiple interviews we've done over the year. remember interviewing a creative. She was brilliant. She was brilliant. And she came into the agency and she said, I, she was that really, I won't mention her name or mention this agency, but she's that brilliant, brilliant sort of great creative agency in London.

And she you know what the trouble you fucking men said is like, you know, I'd never get the good briefs. said, I'm a young creative and it's really hard for young female creators. It's like, yeah. And she said, so what would happen is we get these brilliant briefs come in and you know, there'd be six creative teams. They'll get given to the boy, the male creative teams. I'd never get it. And so then something came in for one and she just took the brief, her and a friend in the agency and they did the response anyway in their own time and their one won the pitch.

And I was like, I fucking love that, right? I absolutely love that. So you always look for something like that in something young and coming up and up and coming, which is, you know, it shows about biases. It shows about the way agencies can work. It shows multiple things. Also, you know, you've got to keep reminding yourself sometimes if you give someone room to go and grow and let them get on with it.

‍

Justin Levinson (31:14.623)‍

Mmm.

‍

Marcus (31:36.504)‍

They might really, really, really surprise you and you have to always keep doing that. And so you try and find those people you think you can just can go. Cause we want Tommy to be a platform for people to grow and come in and do really well. It's about them. We, you know, we now spend more time looking after them and nurturing their relate their talent, their careers. And then someone young coming in, trying to get into the agency space or trying to get into the work, whether it's a designer, someone who wants to come into client services. like,

‍

Justin Levinson (31:49.001)‍

Yeah.

‍

Marcus (32:03.074)‍

you what do you love? And if someone writes a blog pieces or they, they've got a, you know, I'm fascinated by, you know, tabletops or whatever, whatever those things are, you look for something in people, if they haven't got experience that, you know, as well as having good, you know, maybe good academic sort of academic studies behind them, you look for things that go, what's your spark? What's the, you know, people are curious, people who look for things, people are, you know, have something really interesting.

And those things are really, important to me. Your curiosity is a big, part of what we look for.

‍

Justin Levinson (32:38.272)‍

That's great, there's a lot of golden nuggets there. Part of the reason I do this podcast is for a couple reasons. But mostly, the main objective is to give value to people in all walks of creative agency life by sharing information and just us all being as collaborative and working together.

But I really understand that there's a lot of people that are coming into the industry that are new to it and they want to understand somebody like yourself who is a co-founder of a successful company, what they need to do to get somebody's attention like yourself and what they need to do to get from being a lower level person coming up to becoming...

someday a co-founder. So I'm always trying to look for little golden nuggets in that. I guess the other kind of twist is I'm always interested in understanding different pain points in different creative agencies. So we are all able to collaboratively solve problems together. it's just an overall, that's sort of my main objective. So think what you said really speaks to

you know, definitely what you're looking for. As far as maybe pain points, know we tip, sorry, go ahead.

‍

Marcus (33:57.482)‍

Yeah, two things on that then. So if Will was answering my question, the design director, you one of the things he's all, I know he's always looked for in designers and creatives and so, is if they want to go and learn that those who go and self learn, they'll like see a piece of software, they'll see something they're experimenting, trying. And quite often, because we work with entertainment clients, someone goes, Oh, I've been playing around with, and I'm not a technologist. I've been playing around with the software. Look what you can do.

And then we'll end up pitching that quickly, pitch an idea into something like Warner Brothers or Paramount Pictures. And they'll buy an idea quite quickly. It's like, so that is amazing. Like young designers and young motion graphics guys, like go in and build. don't, don't wait for someone to teach. You don't wait for someone to show you what to do. Bring people in or always keep encouraging them to like go and make stuff and do stuff and bring stuff. And at Tommy, we try and create that here. Second part of just another really important part is.

If you read about Netflix, maybe if you haven't, for anyone who's agency side or in the career, look up the dream team. If you haven't heard of the dream team orientation at Netflix. So if you go onto the human resource section on Netflix, it's fascinating the way they talk about that. you know, we see it play out the dream team orientation. And as you said, smaller agencies, independent agencies, you know, a lot of it's about good collaboration. How well do you truly collaborate with other agencies?

You get those who are looking for you to trip up. You get those types of people. You never kind of work with them again. You get those other agencies that they want to get together, have a joint mission to do something great and make something brilliant and get more work coming in. Right. And if you find those people, that's really important. We've always found those collaborations, those things that we do, the most important thing that they lead to so much work. We were a creative partner at Yahoo years back and MSN and the, you know, the creative, you know, we used to.

do those big homepage takeovers on Yahoo. They went to us and brought us clients in. It was wonderful, right? But they trusted us because we worked so hard with them and collaborated with them. And we listened to each other and we understood each other. then, you know, some people from Yahoo left. One of brought me into brought us into Adobe. One of them brought us into another client. you know, how you foster your relationships as smaller agencies and independent agencies, I think is crucial, absolutely crucial. So, you know, for all agencies to listen to that, like

‍

Marcus (36:17.614)‍

When you partner with someone, don't think about how you can get rid of them or move them on, because that happens. And fair enough, that's your way of operating. We've never kind of been like that. We've never sort of thought about it. It's like, let's just make some great work, right? And I think great work leads to more great work. And I think that's the way we've always operated.

‍

Justin Levinson (36:35.848)‍

Yeah, I love that. And I would argue that when you had said that some people from some bigger agencies might not necessarily like the flow that you guys have. I would say I speak to a lot of industry leaders from really big traditional brand agencies. And a lot of them really are looking for something more like how you're describing the culture at Tommy, where maybe you are doing more

more of a variety of things and you don't have somebody to delegate all these different strategic parts but some people like that more collaborative home, know, that kind of community. So I think there people that are probably resonating.

‍

Marcus (37:20.59)‍

Yeah. I know, Hey, I like if any of any big agencies are listening, we love to part with you. do. So, but listen, though, I will do, I think it's no, I'm talking about mindset. doesn't matter whether it's big or small mindset mindset. Right. And you know, we, we get brought in by big agencies. We've working on. McDonald's and Coca-Cola and Levi's and things. That's great. And you, and you get really good teams and something you just don't. mean, that's just nature of the beast. Right. That is nature of the beast.

‍

Justin Levinson (37:46.132)‍

Yeah, totally. What do you see as, guess, obviously there's been a ton of change in the industry. I'm sure the writers strikes and all that stuff, been through a pandemic, there's fires in Los Angeles. I we personally have a lot of clients in LA that were affected. Lots of different things have gone on, I guess in,

Looking at the future of the industry, what do you see are some of the pain points? What are some of the struggles in the industry that, and maybe how do we overcome some of those?

‍

Marcus (38:26.894)‍

So I think one of things that we're really focused on, think within the content marketing space, I think is distinctiveness. I think it's the biggest challenge that everyone's got. we've personally, as I said, to jump in, we've been developing a distinctiveness framework that gives people a whole new set of insights about how you measure it. Because when we look at different types of clients, but...

direct to consumer brands, the growth of e-commerce and brands, know, the whole sort of ripping up of the rule books in terms of how you bring products to market has all changed. Anyone can turn up in your feed, right? So we do so much work on TikTok and understanding how it works culturally and Instagram, you know, we were a meta partner as well, creative partner. It's really, really important to understand that as the biggest challenge. think brands have got.

There's so many legacy, not legacy brands, because probably not true. There's so many brilliant brands out there who do brilliant marketing, but they all, and there's so many brands out there though, who are following the playbook, right? Because of the way the data works, algorithms and what they're taught. And they're not seeing it. They're not seeing the issues they've got. So as I said, you go up against categories and you put them all together and you know, a lot of them can, they can look brilliant, but actually in the category, you've got to ask if you're selling your category or you're selling your product.

So I think that is the biggest shift now. Like the thing for us is re-imagining, reinventing what that playbook looks like. I think that's the biggest thing that we're doing right now. And what are the drivers for distinctiveness? What are the strategies you have to put in place? You know, and, and, um, if you look at brands, you know, some of my favorite brands, they have very distinct brand world, they have very distinct brand assets, story world, the what I the rule of law, you know, how they

what they, you know, their story world and how they turn up and they're really focused on that. And they go in there really hard and, and they keep, they keep working on that brand to deliver those stories. You look at a lot of brands coming into the market, you look at innovation brands. They have some great products. They have some great packaging, great design, but you look at all the content kind of all looks the same. So I think there's a big, I think there's a big problem right across the industry at the moment, across multiple, multiple categories for all the brilliant brands you've got.

‍

Justin Levinson (40:33.461)‍

Yeah.

‍

Marcus (40:41.1)‍

You've got another whole series of brands who are just like, you're just not getting it. You're not getting what your problems are. And there must be so much wastage going on. So I think that's a big part for us. You know, the next year or two is rethinking about what social media really means. You know, that that's up against the backdrop of people are sick and tired of their phones. You know, they're tired. They're, know, they're, because they're getting, you know, as I said, this value exchange, you know, if you're going to, you should be entertaining someone, you should give something.

you know, value to someone if you want them to listen to you remember you right and then you know you look into luxury marketing for example the whole idea of quiet luxury the whole idea of switching phones off there's a whole movement there so i think we have to really start to consider our content marketing strategies how we stand out how we entertain people you know that value exchange what we truly truly offering if we want people to buy us and we have to think about in in reality what people's lives are like now and that's

I think that's the biggest thing we're up against in the next 24 months. I don't know what you think, Justin.

‍

Justin Levinson (41:37.792)‍

Mmm.

‍

Justin Levinson (41:42.356)‍

Yeah, no, mean, I find that really fascinating. And I was wondering what you believe. Why is it that so many of these things, they're just delivering the same thing over and over again? Do you think it's a lack of just caring? Do you think it's just a lack of...

Do you think it's just one company might just be like, well, these guys are doing successful this way, so I'm just going to do the same thing and try to just go by the mimicry? Why aren't other agencies maybe thinking about it like you are?

‍

Marcus (42:18.382)‍

I'm sure agencies are, we've launched a distinctiveness framework based on neuroscience and academic studies to do what makes something distinctive and there's four things that make them distinctive. So we've done that. I can explain that a bit more in a minute, but I don't think, if I look in brand teams, I look at products.

I see people are so passionate about their products and their categories. If they're selling ice cream or if they're selling sausages or whatever it is, they love, some these people love their categories, right? And they're very proud. So I think there's just this knowledge gap sometimes of what actually works and understanding that. So I think some of it comes from knowledge gaps. Some of it's like,

there's problems you're just not seeing yet because you're not viewing it the right way. You're looking at the data the wrong way and you're looking at things. We see the social playbook and go, that must be great. This other ice cream brand are doing that. Let's go and do that. Well, yes, it's okay to copy the playbook for small brands who don't have big marketing teams or access to budgets. It can lift you up 70 % of the way there, right? But for some brands...

It's not good enough and you're falling over and your content's just not good enough. It's not interesting. There's no value exchange. It doesn't exercise the brain. And I don't know you know a book, it's sitting over there on the shelves. My creative partner, always bangs it over the head sometimes, the creative team. It's called Smile in the Mind. It's about a 75-25 rule. You give something 75 % and they've got to look at it they bring something to it. And if they bring something to it,

‍

Justin Levinson (43:43.562)‍

Okay.

‍

Marcus (43:52.91)‍

It becomes really memorable. And I think it's a really interesting way of thinking about marketing now, like how much are we doing of memory activation? I'll give you, I'll give you a great example. I wrote one down. Actually, this is a really good, there's a razor blade company and it was an out of home billboard. It was on a, it was on the tube as well. And it says a razor with quite a good blade is like an acrobat with quite a good grip Wilkinson swords. It's like, yeah, I love that. You know, just the idea of like, so you've, you've engaged my brain. You've engaged my memory.

So, many brands in categories just aren't sort of engaging people's brains. They're just not. And they don't understand, I just don't think they understand that. So, where on one half in their brand world, they're experiential, the out of home, the creative sometimes, their strategies, they're doing so much brilliant work. But then you get into the channels and some of these brands, look up and they go, is that really good enough now? Am I gonna remember that final piece? That last mile is just like, bump.

falling over a bit, I think, on some categories, right? And that's why I go around the world, I go around the world, I go around showing people brands that I fucking love in gin and marketing and whether it's travel, multiple brands across multiple categories, go, this is what you need to be thinking about and how you think about it. I think that's really important.

‍

Justin Levinson (45:12.166)‍

Yeah, without going into too much depth of it or politics or anything like that, it's pretty obvious that there's a lot of turbulence in our world, in different worldviews and how everything is, how everything has been. I definitely, you know, in America, it feels pretty, it's rocky. I would say my question for you is, do you think that that turbulence

gives, and I know you had mentioned like it's understanding the world of what's going on is part of what makes the marketing so powerful. Do you think this gives us a unique opportunity in marketing to maybe influence something more positive and something maybe more compassionate and maybe can marketing, could there be like a real renaissance here that brings people together?

‍

Marcus (46:09.282)‍

love to think so wouldn't you? Right? Hey, it's time for a content revolution. Why not? Let's, you know, let's think let's think about that. I think, you know, I think there's so much going on, the economic forces, you know, the reality of people's lives and what's going on with with budgets at how much money people have at home with people staying in work, those all those economic factors around the globe, right?

And people are tired. It's tiresome and divisive politics, all those things we're not going to get into. And I just think creativity has always been a breakthrough, hasn't it? Always has been a moment. It's always been something that can make you laugh and cry and make you feel something. And I think we just need to feel more things more regularly at the moment. I put up on LinkedIn a couple of days ago, my favorite ever Super Bowl, I think probably my favorite ever Super Bowl ad. And it was Dodge, Ram's trucks. It was God made a farmer. Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (46:58.72)‍

I watched that. I watched that on your page. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

‍

Marcus (47:02.156)‍

And for anyone who hasn't seen it, look it up, God made a farmer. And it's like, that's just, it just got me in the field. Probably because I just had my second child, you know, you're a father and you're emotional. It was all about like what the, you know, the farmer does and, you know, the backbone of society and those things and celebrating that. But as you said, it's about creativity is always, can, it can help sort of make, the world up. We can make the world a better place. Right. So I think there's, there's a lot of that. And, know, that takes you back to that idea that.

‍

Justin Levinson (47:12.576)‍

Mm-hmm.

‍

Marcus (47:32.268)‍

as marketeers, it's a dereliction of duty not to think about how we exercise the mind and the consumers now and like give them stuff that's really going to give them some value. I think that's really, really important moving forward. So at least if you're doing something, you're offering some something of value, right? Cause people want to escape. want to, you know, they want to experience things. They want something different from the realities of what's going on. So if you're to be that moment, be that moment and turn up, don't, don't be intrusive and use creativity in your platform and your budgets to do something really positive. Why not?

‍

Justin Levinson (48:00.798)‍

I love it. Well, Marcus, we got about five more minutes. So I just wanted to, know we've gotten big into all the agency stuff, but I'd be curious just from human to human, what do you like to do? What are some other things outside of work that you enjoy doing in your life?

‍

Marcus (48:18.176)‍

Well, I think my last couple of years have been spent either driving one of my sons to football. So you sort of lose, you lose a little bit of that. Right. So, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a Chelsea fan. I'm a season ticket holder for those who watch the Premier League. so I've had these same seats, two seats there for 20 years. So I try and get, get to watch a bit of football.

London's London, right? We've got arts, culture, we've got everything, music, you know, I've people who work across all these industries. So, you know, I'm always out and about sampling culture in its multiple ways. Probably can tell by the size, I'm a big foodie, you know, so, you know, that's obviously the classical archetype really is of what that is, right? And I love fashion, food, music, life. So they're the things I'm sort of trying to occupy myself with when I'm not working or...

driving my child around, you know, to a football match of some description. But, you know, London's...

I think London's a great hotbed for still, you I these, these cities. love when you see what goes on in Singapore and Tokyo and you see all these cities and these different influences and creative influences coming back. it's sort of all roads lead to Martin. I stopped sort of thinking about the world of creativity and what's around me and what I love and the touch of something, the feel of something. It's just sort of innately in me, suppose. I suppose it always, it always has been, is now about, I suppose how I use that positively and how I use that to think a bit more.

I'll probably do a bit more of that now. I'm in the age I'm at now.

‍

Justin Levinson (49:48.256)‍

Cool man, well yeah, that's all exciting stuff. I I knew it was gonna be a fun conversation with you, because I knew you had those same black frame glasses as I do, and I knew we would be a kindred spirit here. But yeah, I really appreciate the time and the insights and learning more about Tommy and everything you guys do. And yeah, I look forward to staying in touch and hopefully we can get you back on the pod again and continue to add value to

listening here.

‍

Marcus (50:18.488)‍

Brilliant. Justin, really appreciate the conversation. Appreciate the questions. You're obviously the smart one here. So that's good. I've enjoyed the session today. Your glasses look fantastic by the way. So brilliant. know, this is the creative look, right? This is the thing that I say that I am in the creative industry. Well, you know, really in truth, maybe I'm not.

‍

Justin Levinson (50:29.6)‍

Well thank you.

‍

Justin Levinson (50:36.832)‍

Actually, before our conversation, I was going through some of your previous podcasts and listening to you speak, and I was like, man, this guy's pretty smart. Honestly, I had some imposter syndrome before having our conversation today, so I'm glad I'm viewed as a smart one because you know, I obviously I work in the creative agency space. I do a lot of recruitment. I use the podcast,

I guess the final bit of it is to learn myself. So I can offer intelligent conversation to other people, guide people well, also add value. So I'm always here with an open mind trying to learn from people like you. And I really do thank you for being here today and speaking with us and have a great weekend and we'll chat pretty soon.

‍