How to create value
Episode 34 · 26 December 2023 · 34:47

34. Unicorny Christmas party

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Summary

Merry Christmas and welcome to the Unicorny team party!

We're delighted to be joined by our amazing blog writer, Ornella Weston, who chats with host Dom about what she's been seeing and hearing this year. Later in the episode, you'll get to hear from all of us — the Unicorny crew — sharing our favourite episodes and takeouts. And, of course, in true Dom style, we also have a little rant about our Christmas pet peeves!

So, if you've already had enough of the family or need to recover from all that Christmas 'spirit,' we would love for you to join us for this bonus episode.

Questions this episode answers

What is 'brand wank' and how does Peter Wendt suggest avoiding it?

In the Christmas special the team revisits Peter Wendt's term for vague, bland values statements written by brand gurus, such as WeWork's aim to 'elevate the world's consciousness'. His advice is that rules should sound like rules, like the signs at a swimming pool. His one-line guide to great content is to tell stories about your customers' pain, and he suggests every business should identify its enemy and write to that.

How much of a message do audiences actually remember?

The team replays neuroscientist Carmen Simon's finding that after 48 hours people retain only about 10% of a piece of communication. Her advice is to start by deciding what your 10% message is, because many people want to be memorable without knowing what they want to be remembered for.

Why does Dom Hawes object to the phrase 'do more with less'?

Dom argues you can do more with more, or more with the same, but not more with less, because if you could you would already be doing it. He calls it one of two phrases that annoyed him most that year, the other being ROI as a marketing measure. The team also notes that generic AI-written copy tends to sit at the average of everyone's writing, which is not good copy.

About Ornella Weston

Ornella Weston.

Transcript

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Dom Hawes

Well, hello, unicorners, it's Christmas Eve. I hope you've got a good Christmas planned. We at Unicorny certainly do and today it is our Christmas party. Yay. So we've got in the studio today we have Nicola.

Nichola Fairley

Hello.

Dom Hawes

And we have Pete.

Pete Allen

Hello there.

Dom Hawes

And we have Laura.

Laura Taylor

Hello.

Dom Hawes

Unfortunately, we don't have Rachel with us. She's far too busy doing other things. Her book is coming out in the new year. But there will be more of Rachel coming up very soon. It's midday, I still need to do my Christmas shopping. I actually haven't started yet.

Pete Allen

You see, I used to be like that but as I've got older and the Internet's the place that I shop so I no longer go out of the house nowadays, which is lovely. I tend to do it much earlier because I get better deals on the Internet and I'm a bit of a tight wad.

Dom Hawes

That's a good call because we are actually recording this the day before Good Friday. Black Friday.

Nichola Fairley

What about you, Laura? Have you done your shopping yet?

Laura Taylor

No, yeah, no, I'm a Christmas Eve person.

Nichola Fairley

Okay.

Dom Hawes

BP has a lot on offer these days. The petrol stations, they do. You got chocolate?

Laura Taylor

My one's got a Marks and Spencer's Light in it.

Dom Hawes

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cornish pasties that wrapped up. They make quite nice presents. They do.

Pete Allen

And a good selection of birthday cards and such like as well. So always there, Birthday cards, Christmas. Christmas cards, birthday cards. It's all you need to do is you just need to be creative and have a Sharpie and you can easily convert one type of card into another, so it's all good.

Nichola Fairley

Recycling piece.

Dom Hawes

So we've had a good year this year. We've certainly put a lot of shows out. We did that experiment in mid year where were going twice a week, which was horrendous.

Pete Allen

Yes, yes, it was.

Dom Hawes

We're back to once a week now, which feels a little bit more manageable.

Pete Allen

Just for clarity, the shows weren't horrendous, it was just the schedule that was horrendous.

Dom Hawes

The host was obviously the guests were great. Guests were amazing. And the other host, that, the Scottish one, she was amazing.

Pete Allen

Oh, yeah, she was amazing. Yeah, Rachel was amazing and well, to be fair, you were okay yourself.

Dom Hawes

It went all right. It went all right. But there's lots of. I think there are lots of bloopers in the year though.

Pete Allen

Well, funnily enough, because of this time of year, it's a nice time to bring that kind of stuff up. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Being a complete audio geek, I've got audio of stuff, of outtakes.

Dom Hawes

You guys been colluding on this?

Pete Allen

Yeah, we have a little bit. Yeah.

Dom Hawes

I thought were gonna talk about Christmas and Christmas presents.

Nichola Fairley

This is Christmas and Christmas present. Is this your Christmas present, Christma Revenge.

Dom Hawes

Okay. Christmas arranged.

Pete Allen

No, it's a present to you, Dom.

Dom Hawes

Oh, I see.

Pete Allen

So, yeah.

Dom Hawes

Okay, cool.

Pete Allen

Absolutely. So we'll get into some of that.

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

Today, if you want.

Dom Hawes

Good. Okay, we can do that. I don't mind. There were some pretty horrendous bloopers on there, actually. What I will say is, certainly, the bits I do to camera.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

I try and delete the bits that don't work so that you only get the clean bits because they often go, like. Sometimes it's seven or eight takes to get a single piece to camera for.

Pete Allen

The beginning or end, it's reasonably easy to sound okay, but to sound okay and look okay at the same time, that's really tricky. I don't know how TV presenters do it. I really don't.

Dom Hawes

Funny you should say that, because since went video first, two things. One, I've gone on a diet.

Pete Allen

Right.

Dom Hawes

Two, I'm a lot more careful shaving because I nearly lacerated myself to death once. And I saw this thing on the video. Yeah. It's not good. It's a completely different kettle of fish, isn't it?

Pete Allen

It really is, yeah. Yeah. Massively. Massively.

Dom Hawes

How do the influencers do it? Because they always look makeup.

Nichola Fairley

Yeah, it was built. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Taylor

We get a makeup artist for you.

Nichola Fairley

We did. We used it already one of the shows.

Dom Hawes

We did.

Nichola Fairley

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

We had an odd spot.

Pete Allen

But the big thing with influencers as well is they've been doing it from a really young age, so they've just been brought up with that, haven't they?

Dom Hawes

And when you're young, you do look good, naturally.

Pete Allen

Exactly. Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Pete Allen

You've got that natural young youth thing going on.

Dom Hawes

We should all hang out with more young people.

Nichola Fairley

Absolutely.

Pete Allen

As far as bloopers are concerned, what I've done is I've categorised some of them, if that's okay.

Dom Hawes

Cool. Yeah.

Pete Allen

And first of all, I think it's fair to say, like, the overly honest host category.

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

Do you want to hear one?

Dom Hawes

Yeah, go on.

Pete Allen

Okay. Okay. Okay. Sandra Walrath, fabulous interview, fabulous chat. And Dom being an overly honest presenter ship product. Microstation.

Dom Hawes

Oh, I remember Microstation. Blimey. Okay, we'll take a quick break there. What was Microstation? Do you know what's really upsetting about.

Pete Allen

Tell me.

Dom Hawes

I actually used to do PR for the company.

Pete Allen

Really? Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Like it was. To be fair to me, it was 1998.

Pete Allen

It was a lifetime ago, Dom.

Dom Hawes

It was a lifetime ago. But I actually. I actually used to do PR for that product and I still had to ask what it was. Really. Might tell you why I got fired off the account.

Pete Allen

Really?

Nichola Fairley

That was really in 1998.

Dom Hawes

But this is the wandering of editing, isn't it? It's like what off there? What is? Oh, yeah, I remember that. Fabulous.

Pete Allen

This is when you spoke to James Gatoff.

Dom Hawes

Okay. We heard how you started and actually it sounds like Covid really was catalytical. Is that even a word? I have no idea. It was silly. The catalyst, wasn't it? It was the catalyst. Yeah. Too many cats already. We prefer dogs anyway, don't we? Anyway, it sounded like Covid was a good catalyst for you, but yeah. Laura, what do you think about that?

Laura Taylor

I'm very opposed.

Dom Hawes

You got two new cats. I do.

Laura Taylor

I've got two lovely kittens called Bucket and Nuggets. And. Well, if you meet them, maybe that will change your opinion.

Dom Hawes

Maybe dogs and cats will go on equal footing next time. But the shame about that is, you know, because I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to language and I get really upset when I hear like bad grammar and stuff. So to hear that, me saying that catalytical.

Pete Allen

I think it's words.

Dom Hawes

Is it catalytic?

Nichola Fairley

Isn't that the catalytic is. Yeah, catalytic words.

Dom Hawes

It's too long since I learned this stuff. If you know the answer to this, why don't you email me unicornby anderson.com Catalytical or catalytic? So that's great. I'm looking really good at the moment.

Pete Allen

Yeah, I think so. Anymore.

Nichola Fairley

Anymore.

Pete Allen

This is what our takes are about.

Dom Hawes

It is what outtakes about. Yeah.

Pete Allen

Okay, now please, the moment where your inner philtre fails.

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

A little bit. I must say, at this point, when were compiling these list of bloopers, Nicola said to me, have you got anything of Rachel screwing up?

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

And I went, no, because she's like word perfect.

Dom Hawes

I know. She's a pro there. She's a prize. Why do you think we brought her in the first place?

Pete Allen

Well, there we go.

Dom Hawes

It's like we need someone that knows what the fuck they're doing.

Pete Allen

Frankly, this is all highly intelligent.

Dom Hawes

Don't let your kids listen to this because it's going to be lots of bad language on this show.

Pete Allen

This is where your thinking.

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

Comes out loud again. Actually, this is Sandra Volrath when you were speaking to her. And here we go. You will almost certainly come across those seven areas of waste.

Dom Hawes

And those are the things I think people aren't going to miss while they're.

Pete Allen

No, hopefully not that.

Dom Hawes

And the boss is a twat. Obvious. We all have those.

Laura Taylor

Agreed.

Nichola Fairley

Well said, Laura.

Pete Allen

Yeah. That was the holiday season one, wasn't it?

Dom Hawes

It was the holiday season one.

Pete Allen

Things that happen over the holiday season.

Dom Hawes

That didn't make the show, did it?

Laura Taylor

I think it did.

Dom Hawes

Did it? The boss binger twat did it.

Pete Allen

Really?

Laura Taylor

I think, yeah.

Pete Allen

Did it? Oh, no, that was a bad edit by me then.

Nichola Fairley

Did it? Maybe, possibly.

Dom Hawes

We've all had twats of bosses, I think.

Pete Allen

Fair enough. And also Catherine Reid got to experience this.

Dom Hawes

Will, like the rate of change of score be measured. Do you notice a massive uptick in someone's account score when they come in market? So I'm not sure I understand what you mean. That's the joy of being me. I used to have a three letter acronym for that. Miu. Yeah, make it up as you go along.

Pete Allen

Absolutely.

Dom Hawes

It's clear. That's why I was doing that.

Nichola Fairley

Well, that's a little tease for January because we haven't had Catherine on yet.

Pete Allen

Oh, really? Of course we haven't. No, of course we haven't.

Dom Hawes

Well, that's not going to be in the show, though. Catherine's is a really good episode, by the way. And thankfully Pete made me sound almost normal.

Pete Allen

It worked. It was a really good episode. Excellent, in fact. Every episode is a great episode.

Dom Hawes

Oh, that's very kind of you to say so. Every guest is excellent is what you mean.

Pete Allen

Yeah, yeah, completely. But actually, to be fair, like you have. I think you have those moments where you go like. I'd like to call it the Jim Carrey type of outtake, okay. Where it rolls at the end of the credits and at some point everybody realises that it's going to roll at the end of the credits and they kind of just go with it as an outtake.

Dom Hawes

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Pete Allen

And they recognise that it's gonna be a blooper. This is what happened when you spoke to Steve Mortge, Actually, I think this was not when you were speaking to him. This was like an intro or an outro or one of the bits, one of the other bits that were recorded.

Dom Hawes

Because isn't that what brand building is all about? Before you go, please do me this very small flavour. Flavour. Flavour. Would you like some crisps? I'd love some crisps. Cheese and Onion for me.

Nichola Fairley

Sugar levels are pretty.

Dom Hawes

Lack of sleep.

Nichola Fairley

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Or I had hangover. One of the two.

Pete Allen

Yeah, yeah. All three in the same category. This is when you spoke to Michelle Booth.

Dom Hawes

Brilliant advice. I hope you wrote that down. And we're going to come on to a little bit more navel gazing. Navel gazing. We're going to come on to some future gazing in a minute. That's a totally different thing. But before we head into the final part of today's show, I'm going to sack myself after this. I'm going to give myself a massive package in settlement. I've already signed the agreement, it's fine. Yeah. You think I'm joking anyway. Oh, dear.

Pete Allen

Brilliant.

Dom Hawes

Oh, dear.

Nichola Fairley

That was one of my favourites of the year.

Pete Allen

I love that.

Dom Hawes

Michelle was epic. Do you know Michelle's gone back to drama school?

Pete Allen

Really?

Dom Hawes

Yeah. Wow. I've caught up with her after the show and she will come back to corporate, but she realised, I think after coming on the show and Michelle, if I've got this wrong, then beat me up. But she realised after coming on the show that she missed certain bits of drama school that she had. She'd, you know, studied and so it's gone back and I think she's. She's gonna go back, do some part time study then come back into corporate life. She's one hell of a cool person, Michelle.

Nichola Fairley

And have you caught up on her since she's been drama school?

Dom Hawes

Not. Not as of recording. We have a unicorny quarterly tonight and I believe she's coming to that. So we'll catch up then.

Pete Allen

Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, because it is. When you've been doing stuff for so long, I think it's so easy just to like keep doing it and to actually go. Actually, I want to do X, Y or Z then I completely respect anyone who does that.

Dom Hawes

It is really interesting that people often come on the show at moments of change.

Nichola Fairley

Yes, definitely.

Dom Hawes

Changing jobs or changing career. I'm. Hopefully they're not changing jobs because they've been on the show.

Pete Allen

You've been on which podcast?

Dom Hawes

I listened to it. You were shit. You're set.

Nichola Fairley

Why?

Dom Hawes

Because you said all of your colleagues are chumps. There's a thing about. I guess maybe it's because, you know, when people are thinking about a change in their life, maybe they're more open to try new things or maybe they're looking for a platform, I don't know. But it is quite often when we meet people, they are looking for moments of change.

Pete Allen

It's interesting that is a really interesting time to meet people as well. Yeah, definitely. There's another outtake. There's a threat made.

Dom Hawes

Really?

Pete Allen

There's a threat. There's a threat. And this isn't so much an outtake. This is evidence.

Dom Hawes

This is evidence.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Yeah. Oh, shit.

Pete Allen

So this is so evidence. In three, two, one.

Dom Hawes

While we're. Oh, Jesus Christ. God, Pete, if you keep that in, I'm gonna kill you. Well, you're still here if I die. But it is a threat. You heard it here first. If Pete mysteriously dies, we know why.

Pete Allen

Exactly.

Dom Hawes

Yes. I was hoping to go for a bit of a knees up at the Grouch after this because that's been closed by the police. Might because they've got hold of this tape.

Pete Allen

It might be, but.

Dom Hawes

You still here? Hang on a sec.

Pete Allen

I'm still here. Yeah, yeah, I'm still here for now.

Laura Taylor

You killed the wrong Pete.

Dom Hawes

Did I kill the wrong.

Peter Whent

Oh, no.

Dom Hawes

Oh, God.

Pete Allen

Don't kill a Pete, anyone. All Pete's and ice.

Nichola Fairley

All Pete stay at home.

Dom Hawes

Yes, for Pete stay. Exactly. Yeah.

Pete Allen

There's. I think it's fair to say an honourable mention.

Dom Hawes

Okay.

Pete Allen

Because the. The person who you were interviewing took part as well, and that was Maya Price. Oh, yeah, this is a nice one.

Dom Hawes

And I'm not going to use the. I'm just going to use it. How can I not. How can I say it without using it? It's another one for you, Pete. I want to say I'm not going to use them all with less, but I've just said more with less.

Maya Price

What are.

Maya Price

What are you wanting to say?

Dom Hawes

I don't know. I'm completely lost. Thanks for that. It's now a two way. It's a two way blooper being called out by my guest. There we go. Yeah, that's one of those phrases. There were two phrases that got my goat this year and they've got me into all sorts of trouble off air talking to people about them. One is that ROI thing, which I talk about all the time.

Pete Allen

Oh, yeah.

Dom Hawes

And the other one is this. This concept that you can create more with less. Like with frigging alchemists, you can do more with more, you could do more with the same, but you can't do more with less because if you could do, you'd be doing anyway.

Pete Allen

It's become one of those things, though, because when you. When you've highlighted it and you have spoken extensively about it. I hear it in all walks of life now.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Pete Allen

Just because it's my mind's turned onto.

Dom Hawes

It and I hear it everywhere and it is garbage. It is rubbish wherever it's being said, generally, it's garbage. The whole of this is meant to be a learning thing too. Well, Branwen, we only discovered in show whatever it was 96 or something.

Pete Allen

Peter Wen, wasn't it?

Dom Hawes

Yes. And on LinkedIn now, when people make those posts and I just comment, hashtag brand wank.

Pete Allen

Did you do that?

Dom Hawes

I get defended. There's a post I saw. I'm not going to tell you who made it because I can't remember her name, but there was a creator I know who was talking about how one of the payment service providers had recognised the category of creator now, so they recognised them as being effectively an independent business. Her comment was something like, that's great news. How are you going to elevate or showcase your value? That was her comment and I thought, what the hell does that mean?

Pete Allen

What does that mean?

Dom Hawes

Doesn't mean anything. I mean, it could have been. It's not even ChatGPT. At least ChatGPT would have said something like, in this ever changing world, it's good to know that not only is your business being recognised, but also it's valid.

Pete Allen

I don't like phrases where I've got to work out what they mean. I know, I. Yeah.

Laura Taylor

Do you think it's got worse?

Dom Hawes

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Laura Taylor

I feel like ChatGPT might have had a part to play in that.

Nichola Fairley

You can't blame ChatGPT for that.

Pete Allen

You can't. It's a BPG.

Laura Taylor

There's certain words, though, that have been, like, used over and over again with ChatGPT.

Dom Hawes

When you think about standard distribution, the typical bell curve, and if you draw a line 3/4 of the way across it, anyone above that line is a good copywriter, anyone below that line can't be called a good copywriter and anyone below half is a shit copywriter. Do we assume that?

Pete Allen

Yeah, I think that's fair.

Dom Hawes

Okay. Right, so ChatGPT is trained on everyone's copy, so where do we think it's going to sit? It's going to be shit.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Yeah, it has to because most people are shit. They think they're not, but they are. Lawyers particularly, by the way, think they can write brilliant copy because they can write good legalese. Not all lawyers, obviously, just some of the lawyers I know or have known. I'm doing it again. Look, if you're a lawyer, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the other guy that you really don't like, but he thinks he's really good at writing and he is really good writing, I should probably say, notwithstanding all the stuff I have here on 24 mentioned, et cetera, lawyers. Don't let lawyers write your promotional copy.

Pete Allen

It is one of those things, isn't it, where lawyers and generally, I mean, I've got some lawyers as a client and I do a podcast for some lawyers. But we have to be careful who host the podcast because sometimes they do come in with a prepared script and it is written like a legal document rather than how you'd communicate to a human being who isn't a lawyer.

Dom Hawes

This is another G sweeping generalisation. But they have superior intellect.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

They can communicate in a way that we mortals don't understand.

Pete Allen

Totally, yeah.

Dom Hawes

Like once the word gets past 56 words, I start worrying about what was at the beginning of it, whereas they're still with it.

Pete Allen

Yeah, totally, yeah.

Dom Hawes

One worse than that is accountants who think that Excel is the ideal platform upon which to write copy.

Nichola Fairley

They're not. They're not the only one. They're not the only one.

Pete Allen

Is that a joke?

Dom Hawes

Have you read a document before? Yes, I have prepared a document. This is an Excel. That's not a document. Tool of the trade.

Pete Allen

My favourite outtake I think is the one you where you have ultimate self awareness to the point that I didn't realise it until you said it. It's, you know, like if I saw you tomorrow and you weren't wearing your glasses.

Dom Hawes

Right.

Pete Allen

You would look a bit old to me because I've only seen you wearing your glasses. There's nothing unique to you.

Dom Hawes

I just.

Pete Allen

It's just I think generally when you see someone and that was the moment where Dom said that he looked like a potato.

Dom Hawes

I do. Look, there you go. Without my glasses on, I look like a potato.

Pete Allen

You don't look like a potato, Dom.

Laura Taylor

We do a side by side comparison.

Nichola Fairley

Couple of eyes, potato with glasses, big.

Dom Hawes

Round thing, bit blotchy. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's why I have these.

Pete Allen

Yeah, no, beautiful, but they are.

Dom Hawes

I mean, you can buy those, you know, no special skill needed, just turn up to the opticians. So it's been fun this year, I think and I think we've done well. Laura, you've done a sterling job of on, you know, all the digital side and promotion and we're video now, we're on TikTok and we're on all these other channels.

Laura Taylor

Yeah, it's been really exciting.

Dom Hawes

It has been I think. Yeah.

Laura Taylor

I think going to video first was.

Dom Hawes

Very big change and lots to learn again. So the fun is always learning.

Nichola Fairley

And Laura has turned into ChatGPT Pro.

Dom Hawes

And the other thing I'd say actually is we did some really interesting analysis on the experiment of going from one show a week to two shows a week. And if anybody listening would like to see that, we'll send them the original document. We will redact it slightly because there's some confidential stuff in there, but it won't get in the way of the analysis. And the outcome of that analysis, I think, was really interesting.

Pete Allen

Yeah, so do I. Yeah.

Laura Taylor

It wasn't what I think we expected.

Dom Hawes

Wasn't what we expected, was it at all? No, no. A hint. And I'm not going to give you any of the results on here. You have to email us and we'll send you the document. But were trying to game the Apple algorithm to go higher in the charts and to try and encourage a few other positive metrics and it didn't.

Pete Allen

Work, but we gave it a go. And it's all about testing and measuring.

Dom Hawes

Yeah, no, it is.

Pete Allen

And that's what I love about working with you guys. I have a whole bunch of clients.

Dom Hawes

Well, the fact we haven't got a.

Pete Allen

Clue what we're doing. No, no, it's not about that. It's about learning, isn't it? And it's about. It's about testing and it's about improving and.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Pete Allen

And changing how you do stuff. And that's never a dull day at unicorning. Never.

Dom Hawes

The other thing I really like about this year is obviously our audience has grown a little bit. What I've learned is that basically audiences compound over time and we're still in the linear growth stage. So I hope that next year we'll start to see a pickup. But in terms of influence, I think the podcast has done really well this year. It's starting to get mentioned by some very influential people. We've had a direct impact on four or five businesses who've. Who have physically changed things about their business based on what they heard on this podcast.

Pete Allen

That's awesome.

Dom Hawes

And I absolutely love that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's brilliant.

Pete Allen

Yeah, yeah.

Nichola Fairley

Which are your favourites then?

Pete Allen

I think it's good that we revisit Peter Wendt because we have referred to brand wank a few times. So if you don't understand what we're talking about or you don't know who Peter went is, then go and listen back to that episode. I really liked that because, well, first of all, he's really good at getting to the point, isn't he? He's just straight there and I think like the name of his business makes sense.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Pete Allen

Bold af.

Dom Hawes

Bold af.

Pete Allen

So here he is.

Peter Whent

If people say, you know, want to quit? One word. How do we write great content? Tell stories about your customers pain and.

Pete Allen

That'S it, isn't it?

Dom Hawes

Bloody hell, I wish I could do that. Yeah, tell stories about your customers pain. The other thing I really liked on his show was he gave some really good advice about how to get there, which, and I've seen a post of his on LinkedIn about this where he says every hero has a villain. Every business needs an enemy. And so imagine who your, you know what your superpower is. Work out who your enemy is and write to that. Brilliant.

Pete Allen

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And whenever I go to a swimming pool, I think of him.

Nichola Fairley

Do you go to swimming pool alive?

Pete Allen

Well, occasionally, yeah. Not necessarily in the changing rooms for clarity, but when I get into the pool.

Dom Hawes

When you get into the pool.

Pete Allen

And this is the reason, if you.

Peter Whent

Look at most websites, there's a section which says what we believe in or what we stand for, what are our values? You can nearly always see the influence of some brand guru who's turned up with a gillet on and a cold cup in his hand and ask them questions about their spirit animals and their chakras and it's. And what they produce is often quite bland, quite vague. WeWork's a great example. They would tell the world they were trying to elevate the world's consciousness. I don't know what means.

Pete Allen

And that was a reference to brandwang.

Dom Hawes

Yeah. Okay.

Pete Allen

And that's what we're talking about when we refer to brand one. But then he continues, I believe that.

Peter Whent

If you're going to set some rules for yourself, they should sound like rules. And there's no better place to see rules done properly than if you go to your local swimming pool and screw to the wall is a set of rules. No running, no jumping, no pissing in the pool. They're rules, it's quite clear. And they haven't been written by some brand guru, they've been written by a bloke who doesn't want you to run or swim or piss in the pool.

Dom Hawes

But he didn't mention heavy petting.

Pete Allen

So that's completely acceptable.

Dom Hawes

That was always the one as a kid. You go to the pool and there was a thing you said, no heavy petting. It's like, really?

Laura Taylor

I Never saw that.

Dom Hawes

I think it's my dog. I didn't realise what heavy petting was.

Pete Allen

I didn't realise what it meant.

Nichola Fairley

I never saw that.

Dom Hawes

Now, that means no snogging, wandering hands, that kind of stuff.

Nichola Fairley

They didn't have that in Ireland.

Dom Hawes

Apparently you can't do heavy petty at work either, anymore.

Pete Allen

Really. Oh, God, what a weird place is that?

Dom Hawes

The government's trying to outlaw it. But anyway, no, he got. He does get straight to the point, doesn't he? He was amazing. Yeah. Who else really caught your eye?

Pete Allen

Carmen Simon was great as well.

Nichola Fairley

Yeah, No, I love Carmen Simon.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Pete Allen

She knows stuff about brains, doesn't she?

Dom Hawes

Yeah, she was really good.

Pete Allen

She's a neuroscientist.

Dom Hawes

She is, yeah.

Pete Allen

Yeah. A neuroscientist. They like put.

Nichola Fairley

She give us some tips about focusing.

Pete Allen

On people's brains and bodies everywhere.

Dom Hawes

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Allen

What she was saying is like, we. We only retain 10% of what we hear as humans.

Carmen Simon

I'm drawn to this field because I'm constantly humbled by how quickly and how much audiences forget content. From my research, I'm noticing that after 48 hours, very little stays in people's minds. And when I say very little, I equate that with about 10% of the entire segment of communication that you would have created for someone.

Pete Allen

And then she goes on to suggest.

Carmen Simon

So first of all, start by asking, what is my 10% message? A lot of people aspire at being memorable, but not that many people know what they want to be memorable for.

Dom Hawes

Eureka. I've just realised we could save our audience time if we work out what the 10% is and then tell you, Pete, you can cut out the 90% of credit. Our shows will be like five minutes.

Pete Allen

That would be great.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Nichola Fairley

That's how we can be distinctive.

Dom Hawes

That would make us like a loo podcast rather than a train podcast.

Pete Allen

But I guess the issue is everybody retains a different 10, so we've got to do all of it, haven't we?

Dom Hawes

That's true. But if we know which 10 we want them to retain.

Nichola Fairley

Yes.

Pete Allen

Yeah, yeah.

Dom Hawes

Mind you, as a guest, you might feel a bit cheated if you came and spend like a whole hour and a half in the studio for a five minute podcast.

Pete Allen

Although, to be fair, like the podcast we put out anyway, they're pretty damn good, I think.

Dom Hawes

Yeah, I think they are.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

I'll tell you one thing, and I'm not going to mention the name of the podcast because it's a really well known and really well respected podcast. But I was at home this week and I found that one of our. I'm not even going to tell you who the guest was, but I found that one of our recent guests, who is an academic from the west of England, had been on a. Another marketing podcast talking about the same piece of work. And I listened to the other podcast and I listened to the interview, and then I listened to ours. Different. Different league, different class. Not, I would say, because of the interviewer, but the amount of time and effort that we put into sound quality, editing, the pace, the rhythm, it's something.

Dom Hawes

It's that magic that an experienced editor, I think, brings to a podcast that keeps things moving. And it was really noticeable. So much so I opened another bottle of wine that night.

Pete Allen

Good job.

Dom Hawes

And drank it all. Honestly, I had a really proud moment because the other podcast, by the way, is a really good podcast. I absolutely love it. And if I hadn't had two shows to listen to side by side, I might not have noticed the difference. But because we'd literally just got back the first edit from you, it's like, oh, let's see how this compares night and day.

Pete Allen

That's the way it should be, isn't it?

Dom Hawes

I think a lot of guests say, actually, it's like, oh, my God, like, you made us sound so good. Because that, I think that thing in the. In post when you. I don't know, however you do it, you get the rhythm of everything working. Well, I think it's a much underrated part of the process.

Pete Allen

My target and what I want to do, when I send some audio back to a client, whoever the client is, I want them to listen to it and go, bloody hell. Didn't know it was that good. You're like, well, you. You weren't.

Dom Hawes

You're giving me a heart attack here. That's hilarious. So the audio quality, I think, is so important. So for me, the reason I always wanted to do a pod, an audio podcast, like the video thing we've had to do, because it's where people are. And it's like, if you want to catch fish, you've got to go to where the fish are. But if you want to catch really good fish, you've got to know what you're doing. And I think with audio podcasting, it's a bit like that for me, because most people seem to be listening on earbuds. And it's a very intimate thing when someone's voice with this clarity edited to this quality is in your head.

Dom Hawes

And I think you know that's why we spend a lot of time, I think, trying to get the audio quality to be as good as it can be.

Pete Allen

92% of people are listening on their own and most of them have earphones in. So it is actually a really intimate medium where it's a one one thing. And why wouldn't you want it to be in really good quality? And nowadays it's actually really easy to get it in good quality.

Dom Hawes

Yeah.

Nichola Fairley

I have noticed in recording, a lot of the guests, very senior, hugely professional, when they come into the studio, in a lot of cases, they can become exceptionally nervous at the beginning, but you'd never expect it. But they've really enjoyed the experience. Afterwards, a number of them said, God, how much they'd enjoyed it.

Pete Allen

Yeah, it's the experience, isn't it? And it's coming into a room like this. And yes, it is a small room, but it is a studio. It sounds like a studio, it looks like a studio. You know, it has that weird effect.

Dom Hawes

On your ears when you walk in the first time.

Pete Allen

Yeah, it does, absolutely. The first thing I did when I walked in, as I went, oh, it's.

Nichola Fairley

A studio, you start doing some tap dancing.

Pete Allen

I could not do that.

Dom Hawes

We're a bit grinchy in the office. There are no decorations at all in our office. Yeah.

Pete Allen

Well, to be fair, we've got Christmas decorations here and Nicola goes out to buy some Christmas decorations because she had a panic and she went, oh, no, it looks a bit grinchy in here. We need to get some Christmas decorations. So we've got a classic Christmas tree. It's nice that there was talk of putting it on the wall, but we decided against it. There's a reindeer here which, if we had the time, we would transplant this hat that he's got here from his. From his head and put it on the nose.

Nichola Fairley

It's a unicorn in disguise as a reindeer.

Dom Hawes

This one. There it is, yes. If you're not watching this one, if you're listening to this in your ears, it's cutting up a cute reindeer with a large silver hat. Do you think we should give this away?

Pete Allen

I think you should, yeah.

Dom Hawes

Do you want. If you want this, if you want this, then all you have to do is email us unicornylbyanderson.com and tell us why you think you deserve this and we will send it to you. There we go. Laura, you can be the judge on those emails. You can choose your favourite one. So Laura's going to be the judge. All you have to do is write to her and tell her why you think you should be the proud owner of that unicorny. And it could be yours in disguise.

Nichola Fairley

Unicorny. In disguise as a reindeer.

Dom Hawes

Unicorny. Reindeer. Sorry. Yeah.

Pete Allen

And then there's this one, the tinsel dinosaur, which was the Christmas dinosaur. When you took it to pay, how much was it, Nicola?

Nichola Fairley

It was about two, three quid. But they tried to charge me about £12.

Pete Allen

They tried to charge £12. It was priced up as £12 and Nicola said, I'm not paid £12 for it. I'll give you two quid. Yeah.

Dom Hawes

And.

Nichola Fairley

And they did.

Dom Hawes

How do they zap the barcode? They can't have done. It was the fourth P in market. Well, one of the P's in marketing was pricing. You're showing yourself to be an expert. The traditional Christmas dinosaur. You got like 80% off and that's.

Pete Allen

Inspired me to go into my supermarket and say, I'm not paying that for that. I'll give you 50 pence.

Nichola Fairley

You frog marched out the door.

Dom Hawes

But, sir, this is an eight pound turkey. What?

Pete Allen

I'll give you £50.

Dom Hawes

Well, thank you, everybody. I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and thank you for listening throughout the year.

Nichola Fairley

Thanks to all our guests and to.

Dom Hawes

Our guests, they make a big effort. You know, we don't often talk about the effort they go to before they come here, but they commit quite a lot of time to make each show. So, yeah, we're really grateful. Yeah.

Pete Allen

And we've got some really good shows coming up. I think as well we do. We have the one that I've just edited, which won't be going out for a few weeks, is Lisa Quest.

Dom Hawes

Oh, my God.

Nichola Fairley

She was brilliant.

Dom Hawes

It's quite a hard one to record that.

Pete Allen

Yeah.

Dom Hawes

Because she'd say something and it goes. And I was like, oh, my God. I think I did. I stopped a couple of times to camera and went, I just learned something. She framed that whole ROI thing in a way that I hadn't thought about. Yeah. And I slightly had to eat Humble Pie in that interview. And I'm. It's changing how I'm thinking about the framing of that. I haven't got my head around it yet, but yeah. Yeah.

Pete Allen

So you see, early in the year, this Dom could be making a U turn. Who knows?

Dom Hawes

It's not going to be a U turn. It might be a J turn. Enough said. Right, that's it, enough. Thank you very much, everybody. We will see you next year.