S2E6: Alex Paquin - How to maximise customer experience with branding

0:00Carla, I'm really uncertain at the minute. Can you help me? Yes, I can. I have a solution for you. You know what it's called? No, what is it? Designing for a new level of uncertainty. An amazing title that describes exactly what the content will be. I know. So, yeah, we're part of Repotify to interview lots of designers around the world, talk about how we can navigate this completely new level of craziness in the world.

0:32Cool, I guess I'll probably subscribe and listen to that as well. Yeah, definitely enjoy Season 2 of Design Untangled.

0:45I'm Chris Mears. And I'm Carla Lindarte. We're two UX designers. And we hate jargon. So, we're here to help you untangle the world of design. Cut through the crap and talk about what really matters. Yes, solving people's problems. Welcome to Design Untangled.

1:08Hello, everyone, and welcome to Design Untangled with me, Chris Mears and Carla Lindarte. And today we're joined by Alex Paquin, who's the CEO of Zero Trillion, who's a, or I should say, a company which is a global creative agency based in both Amsterdam and Toronto. So, welcome to the podcast, Alex. Thank you very much. Cool. So, we usually like to start by getting a bit of background about yourself and how you ended up where you are today. Yeah. I mean, I started criminology, I started studying criminology because I wanted to be a lawyer initially.

1:44And I went to school for that in the sociology department at Western University in Canada. And while I was there, I found that sort of the most compelling aspects of it to me were kind of the, you know, the psychology and sort of the underlying motivations for why people who are behaving in a deviant way, you know, behave the way that they did. And I started to sort of find myself more interested and intrigued by human psychology rather than sort of the legal aspect, you know,

2:16which I guess is the sort of secondary component of criminology is sort of like, what do we do with these people who are deviant? You know, I tended to be more interested in why were they deviant and, you know, what created that behavior and how could you maybe change that behavior? So that kind of led me more into the, you know, the general social psychology discipline. And I got sort of deep into that, into school. And that ultimately led me to advertising because it's sort of the largest mass practice of, you know, influencing behavior, let's say.

2:48Yeah. And so that kind of became the focus of my interest and then ultimately a career. You know, after that, I joined an advertising agency for a summer internship and this was the time when the sort of big economic recession just happened. And so, you know, really any job that you could get was a good one. There was a lot of people who were sort of graduating that year, you know, with advanced degrees and they were sort of walking around handing out resumes to work for free. And, you know, you couldn't get a company at that time to pay your best bus fare, let alone a good salary.

3:22So I was very lucky to find, you know, a job in an industry that was sort of circling my interests. And that was in advertising, working for a company that had the PokerStars account, you know, which is sort of the largest online poker site. And that was another interest of mine that had sort of stemmed from this area of, you know, interest in psychology and human behavior as well, which was poker. So I felt really lucky to be able to sort of mix the things that interested me, which was, you know, poker and the psychology behind that.

3:52And then at the same time, actually have a job that I could apply that, you know, thinking in that and those interests to, you know, see what we could do to influence behavior on a larger scale. Yeah. So maybe if you can just tell us a bit more about Zero Trillion and the kind of work that you do there. Yeah, absolutely. So Zero Trillion, we're a global creative agency. But the further we sort of go down the line, the more we become sort of a global conglomeration of various creative entrepreneurial ventures.

4:22At our core, we launched as a advertising and branding agency. And since we've incorporated lines of business that include public relations, media, you know, media buying and strategy, as well as a few ventures of our own. We've recently launched a plant based restaurant and we have a sustainable clothing brand that's coming out early 2021. So, you know, Zero Trillion is at its core an advertising and branding agency, but, you know, it's becoming so many more things beyond that.

4:58We're based in Amsterdam and Toronto, which gives us really interesting coverage globally. You know, with core teams in both places, we can sort of cross as many time zones as we need to to serve the clients that we have who tend to be in sort of, you know, far, you know, far corners of the earth. We have clients in Seoul, South Korea, in Sandefjord, Norway, in Saudi Arabia, in Dubai, in Texas, in Kelowna, British Columbia, in Canada, in Toronto, and in London, and a few other places, I'm sure I forgot.

5:34And so the way we sort of operate is as a sort of collective of global creatives that move between these offices and these spaces. So it's not that being in one time zone or one office ties you to one specific client. We kind of bring people and the skill sets that they have to whatever client needs them at that time and whatever, you know, time zone or location that may be. You know, we even had a couple of employees start earlier this year and, you know, they asked, okay, so I report to the office for the first day of work.

6:05And we said, actually, do you mind getting on a plane and reporting to Canada for your first day of work? And I think that, you know, that was exciting and thrilling and set the tone of what kind of, you know, job you were going to have at Zero Trillion. And we want everything to be exciting and thrilling and creative and new because that's what we're delivering to our clients. And if we're not really living that every day, you know, then I don't know how we're going to stay impassioned, you know, and competently deliver that.

6:39So, yeah, so we're many things, but at the core, we're creative and we do that for our clients and for the ventures and entrepreneurial projects that we have launched ourselves. So just stepping back a little bit, what does a creative do in an advertising agency? Because there's many roles, right? Creative doesn't necessarily mean design and obviously you have designers as well, et cetera.

7:09So can you explain a little bit all the different roles and what does a creative do in an advertising agency? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's a really good question. And to be honest with you, I think if you asked various different sort of people within agencies, whether owners or the creatives themselves, you might get some pretty varied answers. One of the things that sort of my close collaborators in the sort of creative industry and I talk about a lot of the time is, you know, how do you stay a creative person or a creator while also sort of being what is the job title of creative designated as that?

7:47You know, and so on one hand, you know, you can be a creative person or a creator that creates in different mediums, whether that's, you know, writing or film or, you know, whatever that may be. And then on the other hand, you have this sort of idea of the creative as a job, you know, in which you're kind of this resource that gets deployed to do different, you know, creative, let's say I'm doing air quotes here, tasks within an agency, you know, on behalf of clients. What we try to do at Zero Trillion is we try to make it so that you can be a creative resource and work on behalf of our clients.

8:20But at the same time, we want you to sort of continue to develop the things that, you know, made you self-identify as a creative person in the first place. I mean, that's why we're so, you know, interested in launching our own ventures that allow people to do things that are sort of outside of the typical client scope. Cool. And so focusing that a bit on yourself, I know you describe yourself as a creative maximalist. Can you explain what that is and how you see yourself? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to be honest, I think that, you know, creative maximalism is really just a way to remind ourselves, you know, that we want to put creativity at the forefront of all of the work that we do.

9:01I mean, I think the simplest way to sort of explain that is, you know, if somebody were to ask you to sort of create a piece of communications, you know, whether it's something as simple as a notice about, you know, the weather or a change in company policy or information about a product that you want to create. You know, you can do that in a very straightforward way. You know, you could theoretically have a white piece of paper that says, you know, notice our products are now available in these places at this price, but that's not very compelling. And so I think that what's made our industry and when I say industry sort of advertising, branding, design sort of a necessary and emerging practice in a big way is this idea that creativity adds incremental value to anything that you're communicating or any experience that you're creating or designing.

9:50I think that that's clear when you have a company like Apple with one of the largest market capitalizations of any company on earth and, you know, they're a company that makes products, but they're essentially a design company and you have sort of the characters who are designing those products like, you know, Johnny Ive, who's a household name around the world. And this is a person who's a designer and that's sort of a, I would say a kind of a new emerging phenomenon, you know, that we start to get familiar and excited by these people who are creating and designing experiences at companies.

10:23And, you know, I think that that's sort of proof of what the creative and design element can incrementally add to sort of any product or communications. And so for us, when we talk about, you know, being creative maximalist or myself personally, it's really to just always remember that, you know, the most compelling experience you're going to create is one that's driven by creativity. And so that's always going to be where we lean. It's going to be that we'll always try and create the most compelling creative experience that we can for somebody.

10:54And that means thinking about experiences that are novel, you know, that tap into sort of an underlying, you know, motivating need or an emotion that we want to sort of draw out. And you can really only do that, you know, with creativity. So I've been looking at your website and perhaps, and also the type of projects that you currently do. You have something called Studio Trillion that looks really interesting. Can you talk to us a little bit about what happens there?

11:26Yeah, absolutely. Studio Trillion, I would say, is, you know, an idea as much as it is a department and, you know, and it's a philosophy as much as it is a business practice. And really the idea behind Studio Trillion is, you know, is challenging ourselves to create and make in ways that are unconventional or sort of uncommissioned by our clients. So, you know, we see a problem in the world or we see a story that we want to tell.

12:00And we try and think about what technology, what art can we create and who can we collaborate with, you know, to basically bring that to life. A recent example, we had the sort of realization in the studio that you could control sort of a touchscreen that typically can only be controlled with sort of your finger because it kind of creates this, you know, electrical signal that allows touchscreens to pick up sort of the touch input.

12:33And a lot of the time you can't do that with sort of inanimate objects because they don't have sort of any electrical charge. And we realized that you could actually perform that task with a battery, just sort of a normal household double A or single A battery if, you know, a part of your finger was connected to or touching the sort of outer casing of it. So, you know, we found this to be a really interesting thing because we're living in a time where most of the checkout counters, at least in the Netherlands, where our headquarters is, tend to be touchscreens when you're checking out.

13:08And as you know, with a pandemic, this is something that people are becoming weary of. They don't want to be sort of touching public, you know, kiosks where other people are touching them so often. So we sort of took this idea and we created, you know, a 3D printed instrument that incorporated a double A battery and the way that it was shaped sort of made it a useful sort of stylus tool that could be used to operate the checkout machines at Caches. We called it the battery tap for obvious, I guess, self-explanatory reasons.

13:41We printed the blueprints, posted them on batterytap.nl, which was a website that we purchased and explained the product and essentially gave it away for free so that people could, you know, make use of this kind of design that we had created to solve a problem that sort of came out of the idea that this is an emerging problem for people and we found a solution. So how do we share that? So, you know, that's just sort of the most recent thing that we did. And the idea for Studio Trillion is to sort of take the form of, you know, any media.

14:15It could be a live installation of art to tell a story. It can be, you know, an object that we design or sort of industrial design specifications that we publish. And really, it's just for us to be able to express creativity in ways outside of the briefs that we receive from our clients. So, I mean, how does that process kind of start then? Are you just sort of brainstorming ideas amongst yourself or as a client come to you with a specific kind of problem? Like, how does that sort of initial idea then become sort of like the thing you've just described?

14:49Yeah, the thing for us is, and this kind of goes back to your other question as well about what's a creative in the advertising industry. And I really hope that the people that work at Zero Trillion, especially in the creative department, don't only define themselves as creative as a job title. We really hope that those people are self-identifying as creative out in the larger world because they have sort of other interests. Maybe it's photography. Maybe it's writing long-form content. Maybe it's, you know, 3D printing. Maybe it's making things with their hands, woodworking.

15:21Maybe it's programming. And so, all of these sort of different skills and creative endeavors are things that we want to encourage in the people that work here. But we also want it to be a reason that people want to work here in the first place. So, we want to openly encourage sort of, you know, playing and experimenting and exploring people's interests, but also areas that maybe they're not familiar with previously. So, you know, we have a couple of copywriters, for instance, right now that are taking courses externally from the agency in 3D modeling and also now working in internally as a group to do 3D rendering and 3D modeling and 3D design in software and programs that they were never trained in in art school or as they did literary degrees.

16:08And so, in this process of sort of exploring your own creative outlets, as well as learning new creative skills and thinking about the things that are impactful and meaningful to you in the world, we try and look at that intersection and say, you know, okay, what could we, you know, what could we realistically do here? And one of the things that came to mind was this idea of the battery tap. Another thing that's come up recently that does an example of this is we have sort of one of our newer creatives, a copywriter that's joined us only a few months ago.

16:41She brought this idea that she's very passionate about. And that was that there's so much plastic waste being created at the supermarket. In the Netherlands, there's not so many supermarkets. There's only two or three major ones that the majority of the population shop at. And so, in this case, the Studio Trillion project was led by her and the idea was to start a bit of a movement. And this movement was called Plastic Post or reverse in Dutch, the name. And the idea was that, you know, we were basically going to take, and we did this sort of on Earth Day, launched it then, but it's continuing now.

17:17We were basically going to take all of the plastic waste that the members of the agency had accumulated over the week from sort of single-use plastic that we got at the grocery store. And we basically packaged it all up, and we sent it back to the headquarters of the supermarket chains. And we posted a standalone page on our site where you could automatically print the location of the headquarters nearest you that we sort of programmed into the site of your local grocery store chain.

17:51And we encouraged other people to go on our site, make use of this sort of postcode finder for the addresses of these places, and then download stickers that they could print at home to literally take the supermarket bag, which is made of plastic, filled with all of their single-use plastic, put the sticker on it, and send it back to the headquarters of these chains. So, you know, it's a mix of a bit of environmental activism, it's artistic in a way, it's starting a movement, and it's using creativity to compel people to do something that is good for society, good for them, and good for their local businesses.

18:25And that's sort of not being paid for by any client, that's led by the interest and passion of the creatives that work at the agency. And, you know, we see that as a way to design a better world, let's say. And so those are the types of things that we hope Studio Trillion can contribute to us and to our community. That sounds really, really interesting. I always wondered, because obviously in digital product design, we're very, very focused on like human centricity, and we base a lot of the, you know, new products, services that we create on like lots of research and testing, etc.

19:03You've been mentioning, obviously, creativity and different skill sets and technology. But how do you guys, obviously, apart from common sense, make sure that your creative ideas actually are solving a human need and how you kind of test that that's, you know, that's actually the result that you have at the end of it? Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a great question. And I think the answer to that is actually one that's evolving with technology and with sort of common behaviors that we have today.

19:37I think that we look in a similar way to sort of you as human centered designers do at sort of what are the tools that we have to gain an empathetic understanding of our audiences? You know, and that goes back to things as simple as a depth interview, where we might sort of identify people that are part of the cohort, you know, who are trying to create or design an experience for. But that also goes to sort of more, you know, modern tools that are only made possible by the behaviors that people are naturally doing themselves.

20:10And what I mean by that is things like social ethnography, social media ethnography. So as where it used to be that you'd have to sort of follow somebody around in a supermarket and see how they actually behave, you know, or maybe witness them trying to use a product or use a product in a sort of normal environment or at home. We can now, you know, search hashtags on Instagram and see, you know, what are the sort of natural behaviors and sort of images that people are posting and what are they doing in the image and what's in the image with them and who's in the image with them and what is the relationship between those people, you know, and what values are they signaling in the captions that they use.

20:52So there's a lot of ways that I think, you know, we can, we can do things that are sort of traditional views on how to gain an empathetic understanding when we're trying to sort of design around experiences for people. But I think that there's new ways to uncover those things. And I think that that's, you know, important part of our process as well. You know, there's a lot you can glean from looking up how people behave, you know, in social media without sort of ever having to leave your house.

21:23You don't have to commission an expensive study to do that. You can learn a lot from sort of identifying what groups are interesting to you and seeing what behaviors they're exhibiting online. And it just takes a little bit of sort of sleuthing in social media to find some of those things out and then to test them as well. So I think, you know, deploying with a small media buy, you know, a preliminary splash page of a concept that you have, you know, sharing around a small hashtag and seeing if people actually use it and adjusting if they don't.

21:55So I think that there's, you know, again, being in the digital world, not only do you have new inputs, you know, into your sort of empathy mapping or however it is that you sort of create your inputs for your design, but you also have faster and more responsive ways to test your design outputs so that your process can be not only iterative as you design it and create it internally with your stakeholders, but also iterative beyond launching it. I think one of my favorite examples of that is, you know, in the online gaming world.

22:29And, you know, Fortnite is this hugely successful game that's been out for almost three years, maybe even longer than three years now. And it's still technically in beta and it's one of the biggest games in the world. And I think that that's something that companies and products are getting more comfortable with is to be able to sort of go out with a product and say, this is a work in progress and the way that your customers, you know, or the users interact and behave with it after the product's already gone to market is going to, you know, openly influence where they take the product next.

23:00And so I think just, you know, being aware, comfortable with that concept in the first place and being aware of the tools at your disposal to then be able to sort of gain, you know, garner value from that process is sort of a modern way, I guess, of looking at how do you bring empathy and designing for people into today's sort of workflow. A lot of those tools are actually used as well for designers to test concepts and, you know, test propositions, etc. But it's interesting how you guys focus on a lot of data and social media behavior, which is obviously all the tools that are available out there to understand people's behavior.

23:34So, yeah, thank you for that. Moving into more like your experience. So you spend a bit of time in Dubai. Yes. Didn't you? Yeah. So it'd be interesting to know what the difference in culture played a part in your approach to branding over there. Yeah, that's actually, that's an interesting question, because I didn't expect that it would be so different. You know, I've lived in a few different cities in my life. And I think that Dubai has this sort of unique approach that needs to be sort of applied there.

24:12And, you know, I'll explain what that is a little bit. But Dubai is a place that you have sort of many different cultures sort of coexisting at the same time. And it's really a very small population of local people that are actually there. And I think that that's, you know, maybe the difference of being someone who is, you know, either an expat or an immigrant in America, for instance. You know, you're joining a very, you know, strong, overstated culture that's exported all around the world.

24:47You know, and so if you've never been to America, you can probably guess what it's like based on what's going on on TV. You know, when you arrive there, you know, you get sort of immersed into it, right? That's why they call it a melting pot. I think Dubai is a really unique place because, you know, they've really created a framework where everybody can sort of continue to exist as they were in the places that they came from, you know, and sort of coexist with their cultures. And what that creates, you know, the scenario that that creates from a branding and advertising perspective is very interesting because you have a lot of people who are communicating in usually English.

25:26Um, and it'll be their sort of third or fourth language, um, oftentimes, um, and from a branding perspective, what that means is typically you're communicating in English. Um, you know, typically you're creating, uh, creative ideas or, uh, advertising, uh, in English. Um, but you're doing it for, uh, uh, a mix of an audience who come from many different cultures, some Western, some Eastern, um, who, who very often English is not their first language. So what you really need to do is sort of go a layer, you know, below the sort of quippy, uh, you know, headlines that advertising is known for, right?

26:04In advertising and branding, you'll find a lot of play on words. Um, you know, you'll find a lot of sort of metaphors for things or, you know, aspects that are left implied. Um, and that's almost one of the tools in advertising that, um, that makes advertising engaging. I'm sure you've seen a good ad where, um, you know, where it was sort of like they gave you one plus one. And then when you figured out to yourself, you kind of have a moment of, oh, that's interesting. Um, and that's what makes that ad engaging. Um, you know, there's less ability to do that in Dubai because, um, you know, again, a lot of people will be operating in, uh, from a baseline of less English or, you know, less common language or even less sort of common, um, you know, turns of phrase and things like that.

26:47Um, so you kind of have to boil things down to expressing, uh, you know, a feeling, um, an emotion, um, or simple language that evokes what you want it to evoke. Uh, and you have to be able to, uh, you know, create that, you know, through a very sort of distilled, um, um, you know, communication strategy. Um, and so, yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a unique place. It teaches you how to speak precisely, um, you know, how to not lean too much on, uh, you know, on things that you might.

27:17You might expect other people to know, um, you know, and it teaches you to sort of focus on drawing out a particular, uh, um, you know, outcome that you want. Um, but you know, a bit more of a direct line there. So, um, yeah, it was, it was a really good experience, I think, because it sort of, um, forced you to, to hone some of those skills. Do you think it affected or changed your, if you even have a typical process, like the typical process you would go from getting some kind of brief to some kind of outcome? Do you feel that you had to do that differently in Dubai versus how you would do it kind of now or in any other of the different places you've worked?

27:56Yeah, absolutely. And I think, again, going back to that sort of, you know, human centered design process, I think that a lot of those, you know, inputs of, from people, um, you know, go into how you think about creating advertising or creating branding, uh, in a place like Dubai. Um, you know, if you're from London, uh, born and raised, let's say, or you live there for a long time, you may have this intuition that you have a good idea of what this audience wants or what they expect. I think that, you know, being in a place that's not your own country.

28:30And, you know, of course we work in, in countries all around the world. Um, you know, I think that it forces you to sort of second guess everything that you think that you may know. Um, and it forces you to really, uh, dig deep, find those audiences, talk to them in depth, um, you know, uncover themes that you think are important to them and then double and triple check those with, you know, other multiple other sources. Um, and then sort of put it through this, this lens of, does this achieve what we want it to achieve from the brand's perspective?

29:00And does it make sense to the people that it's for, uh, you know, and it seems obvious, but you, you know, but you don't realize how much of that you can intuit when you're working in, um, you know, in a place that you're quite familiar with the culture. Um, you know, when you have to second guess all of those things, it forces you to be, um, a lot more rigorous, um, in, in devising those inputs and uncovering those insights. And, you know, I think it trains a certain, you know, aspect of, of, um, yeah, rigor there, you know, it forces you to be more thorough in that.

29:32And, and I think that that, even when you go back to other markets where you maybe are familiar, I think those are good habits to carry with you. Yeah. Awesome. That's really interesting. I guess I had a similar sort of question, really. I know you've done quite a variety of different things. So recently you've done some stuff with, uh, plant-based restaurant and sustainable fashion. Um, and I've seen, you've also been working with a cannabis company as well. So yeah, I'd be interested to learn a bit more about how the branding approach needs to be kind of tailored to those, I guess, those sort of newer markets almost.

30:07So you're not just selling, you know, TVs or shoes or whatever it's, uh, you're almost selling like an idea or a lifestyle. Um, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about how you have approached those kinds of clients differently, if you have. Yeah. So the plant-based restaurant is actually a venture of ours. Um, we launched, um, you know, with a, with a partner, a, a plant-based restaurant in Toronto. And this is a concept that we devised, uh, and, and, and launched, uh, ourselves, um, as well with the sustainable fashion brand.

30:39This is one of the sort of ventures that Zero Trillion has launched from the passions and interests that we have here at the team. The cannabis brand is a client, um, of ours in, in, uh, in Canada. Um, you know, we pitched for the business in the sort of the normal sense and, and, um, you know, we're really excited about working with them. Um, uh, because as you said, it's an emerging industry, um, as well with a client of ours in Seoul, um, South Korea, Protopi. They're in this very sort of interesting space where they're, where they're helping, uh, people get their ideas out through high fidelity prototyping.

31:15Um, another client of ours is, uh, a company called Endchain, um, which is basically leading the sort of, um, blockchain adoption at the enterprise level. Um, and so helping businesses integrate blockchain into, uh, you know, into their operations. And so, you know, the thing that all of these very different industries have in common is they're all, you know, very future facing. They're all new and exciting ideas that we hope will change the world. And I think that this is really the idea behind Zero Trillion.

31:47Um, you know, the name Zero Trillion, it's, it's a strange one. We always sort of get funny looks when we tell people the name of the agency. Um, but the meaning of it is something that's, that's meant to remind us of why we created it in the first place. Um, you know, and, and so the meaning of it is, you know, we should either be aiming for a trillion, aiming for the stars, or we shouldn't be doing anything at all. Um, and so that's why we're really excited by, um, and we feel really at home with clients who are essentially, um, you know, blazing trails and pioneering new industries like blockchain or prototyping or cannabis or sustainable fashion or plant-based eating.

32:29Um, you know, and, and many other spaces as well, um, because this is really where we feel the most at home. We feel that if we're, you know, if we're going to create a company that's going to make any difference at all, um, you know, it's going to be focused on those kinds of ideas that are going to be changing the world, uh, in the future. And the name of the agency was, was to continually remind us that that's why we, we set out to do it. So in, in, in and of itself, it's actually designed. The name is, you know, is actually a mechanism that's designed to influence the behavior of the people that work here every single day.

33:04If that, if that makes sense. Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously you're talking about companies that are trying to change the world and the world is changed so much in such a short timeframe. Um, so I'm, I'm interested to know how you've been working with these brands, how different you've been working with these brands throughout, you know, the pandemic and what kind of challenges you've, you've been facing and how you helping them navigate, um, this, you know, very, very high uncertainty that is happening at the moment.

33:35Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it's something we've been thinking about a lot. Um, I think that the way that people are used to planning for business is they look at the year ahead and they say, this is what we hope to accomplish this year. These are the resources that we're going to deploy. We have an expectation of, you know, what, uh, revenues are going to come back to us as a result of deploying these resources. And we have a plan for how we're going to then, you know, deploy that revenue as further, uh, resources towards further ends. Um, you know, that formula, it doesn't really exist for any business at the moment.

34:09People have a really hard time understanding how people, you know, how their customers are going to, uh, how the relationship with their customers are going to change. Uh, now that the sort of world is, is a little bit different, uh, businesses are having a hard time, you know, knowing where their new customers are going to come from. Um, and they have a hard time planning on how they deploy resources when, you know, the way that you interact with businesses is changing. One day you can go to a restaurant, the next day you can't. Um, and so I think that, you know, these are all things that I think every business is grappling with.

34:40Um, and I think the way that we've really been talking about it with our clients is, is, is, has been a good one so far. I think that there's a balance that needs to be, uh, struck. So on one hand, I think that you need to think, um, a lot more deeply about anything that you're going to do. So normally if you said, okay, we're going to launch this product or we're going to create this campaign or we're going to communicate, you know, whatever it may be. Um, you need to look at it from so many different angles now. So you need to think about all the possible scenarios and outcomes that can happen given the range of emotions that, you know, are being experienced.

35:16It's on a mass scale by people out there. So if you put a product out right now, um, are people going to think that that's in some way insensitive? Um, are people going to garner some specific benefit to it from it? Um, are, are you going to have a situation where you may have to pull that product off the market? If something changes in the legislation or, you know, in the rules of how, uh, how COVID is being managed, um, you know, is your product dependent on an industry that's, you know, affected by COVID? Are you somewhere in the sort of, uh, um, you know, chain of hospitality?

35:48Are you somewhere in the chain of travel and tourism? Are you a product that people may not see as a necessity as there, you know, tend to be less and less jobs? Um, so there's so many aspects to think about. And I think that it's important to do that exercise. Um, but then ultimately, um, have a contingency plan for whatever you decide to do, knowing that the wind can blow one way or another politically, um, from a COVID regulations perspective, um, or even from a consumer psychology perspective. How people feel is, you know, on, on mass scale is changing so differently, even day to day these days.

36:23Um, you know, and, and, and so I think that thinking about all those things, but then once you have a decision and you have your contingencies to actually go forward, because I think the trap that you see, um, is a lot of companies don't know what to do. And so they don't do anything at all. So they're afraid to make a decision or don't know how their customers are going to react. So they choose to do nothing. Um, you know, I think the balance that I was talking about earlier that you need to strike is, you know, what are we going to do? What are all the possible ways that this can, you know, uh, uh, this outcomes can vary based on the, you know, the very dynamic situation that we're in.

36:59Uh, and now that we've made a decision of what we want to do, how do we, uh, actually go ahead and see it through understanding that it's not going to go to plan, that things are going to change. We're going to need to adjust, but being comfortable with that, um, you know, because I think that the paralysis that a lot of companies may be facing now, um, it, it, you know, is something that can really hurt your business. If you don't recognize that you can't just wait, uh, you know, indefinitely for this to be over. I think that we can all agree if, if, if, if on nothing else, there's no obvious definitive end to the, to the state of the world at the moment.

37:32Um, and, and striking the balance between, um, you know, good rational thinking about the possible scenarios, but then actually, uh, mobilizing and doing something, um, is, is where I think companies are going to find success. And I think that that's where our clients, um, have really valued this partnership because we were able to talk through these things together from the scenario planning to the action plan to the, um, you know, to altering the plan if need be. Um, and so that's sort of how we've been working, uh, with our clients.

38:03And so far we've been very fortunate that, um, our clients' businesses continue to grow. Um, and they've had, they have very smart people at the helm, um, who have helped them act quickly and adjust where needed. That's really good. And I think that's also a blessing of working with, you know, new brands, or at least, you know, brands are easier to flex and adapt to change. Then, you know, the big, you know, all brands that obviously are bigger and harder to move around. So thank you for that. That was a really great answer. Um, unfortunately we're running out of time, but before we go, um, I want to ask you, um, a question that we always ask guests.

38:38Sorry if I put you on the spot over there, but, um, if there is any books, podcasts, blogs, or anything or someone to follow that you can recommend to people to, um, help them know more about creativity and branding. And, you know, obviously what advertising means, um, in the context of design and human centricity, as you just talked about, um, if there's anything that, you know, you would recommend our listeners to, to, to have a look at, it'd be great.

39:09Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's so many, um, I'd like to maybe just mention a couple of authors that I think are very compelling. Um, the late Wally Ohlins, um, you know, he's written a few books over the decades on, on branding. And I think a lot of people would sort of consider him one of the godfathers of branding. Um, and I think that it, you know, even his most recent books, um, um, they, they, they've taken a very modern approach to, um, to the view of branding and sort of a globalized world.

39:40Uh, I think those are very interesting for anybody who's interested in, in, in, um, the global branding effort. So branding places, airlines, travel, tourism, all that kind of stuff, very compelling. And the other, I would say is, is Ben Horowitz. Um, especially now I, you know, he's more of a business author. I would say he's sort of, um, you know, a venture capital guy and, and former leader of companies. Um, um, you know, some are in the creative and software space and others are in different spaces. But I think that given the sort of, uh, nature of the business climate and the creative atmosphere and the way that just people feel right now, um, I think his books are, are really compelling because you really, you know, especially there's one called, uh, the hard thing about hard things.

40:21Um, and I think there's just so many lessons, uh, in that, that sort of help you navigate as a business, the way that the world is now. Um, you know, because, you know, more than ever, there's no smooth sailing. Um, and I think that any sort of, um, literature that can sort of get you comfortable being uncomfortable, um, will be extremely valued to anybody sort of in the creative entrepreneurial space right now. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing all that. We'll link those up in the show notes and yeah, just thanks for your time.

40:51It's been really interesting and hopefully we'll have you on again soon. Thank you, Alex. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Carla. Great speaking with you.

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