Marketing for the now the marketing for the now marketing for the now marketing for the now 10 minutes, 12 remarkable guests for two hours, answering a singular important question: are you ready gary? What do you think hi everyone, i'm tim lindley managing director of vaynermedia asia, pacific and welcome to our first ever apac edition of vayner x, present marketing for the now one hour, six guests, one question for ceos founders and cmos who are leading the way in their Respective industries, today's focus: how do you accelerate transformation, hashtag marketing for the now gary you ready? I am always ready tim there we go. Let's go okay to kick off the show. We welcome rupendasai global cmo at the dole sunshine company, a company that believes everyone should have equal access to health and nutrition. Rupen's team recently jumped into the nft space, creating a collection with acclaimed artist, david detuna, to increase awareness of food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide.

Raising funds towards alleviating hunger today, rupen welcome to the show. Thank you thank you, tim and thank you gary for having me again, it's great to see you uh this time an addition that is more specific to the region, so repent uh, let's just get right into it, because it's only 10 minutes. As you know, you know how you know: how do you, through your lustrous career, think about accelerating transformation like for a lot of people that are on this watching on youtube? You know linkedin facebook, i'm seeing the comments come in. They are in smaller businesses, entrepreneurial stuff.

So it's always interesting to for them to listen in on people driving bigger organizations because they don't deal with the politics or the lack of speed. Your the companies you're involved in have the resources are bigger. Those are advantages, but it's hard to drive transformation because it's a big ship, you know, and so i'd love to get a sense for the fellow c-suite fortune, 5000 individuals that are watching um. Where do you kind of uh? Where do you kind of see that play so gary transformation starts with accepting? I don't know what i don't know and what that what that gives rise is a lot of fear.

A lot of uncertainty, a lot of a lot of blank blankness, okay and most large organizations are tremendously focused on a constant improvement of the current systems. The current management, the current status quo and there is therefore a big imagination gap which, when combined with fear which, when combined with having the humility to accept that i don't know what i don't know, can be. Terrific terrifying can be terrifying. And, and - and you know it reminds it reminds me of that famous uh bernard shaw, george bonnet shaw's quote, which was uh.

Some people see things as they are and ask why and others dream that never were and ask. Why not, and and very few and very few organizations are able to ask why not and then jump into it, knowing that failure is almost certain, do you believe that that's because most organizations are driven by people who have less entrepreneurial spirit are more comfortable drawing within The lines are more risk adverse because they're rewarded to be risk adverse because that's just the truth of it yeah i mean most see as an organization grows larger. Your first need is to create systems to control, to create order to issue handbooks to give people. I don't know, do it frameworks who decides who owns and what? What we don't realize is what we are killing.

Uh is creativity. What we are creating is an imagination gap and, and therefore companies as they grow larger, are destined to be less creative. Unless there is a conscious effort to to create a space for people to stumble, i mean, if you look at most of the large companies, they never started off gary uh, where, where they are today i mean 3m, it was a mining company. You know, what's that 30 billion, plus plus most companies when they get to that level of scale, would make the founders of those companies throw up all over uh, i'm starting to throw up all over myself on vaynermedia i'm currently running it.

It's my company, and even at 1500 people, i'm like how many meetings do people have to have where there's 12 people in the meeting for an hour when it's really a four-person meeting for 30 minutes. But everyone's got to be part of the meeting because they feel left. I mean i don't even like my own company, let alone what the company will look like in 35 years, when it has 25 000 people. No there's a huge there's, a huge difference like i call it.

The rocking horse phenomena at dole right. A lot of people within a system outside tend to sit in a rocking horse, go whoa, whoa whoa, look mama, look to realize that they're still in the same place, you differentiate between motion and progress, and a lot of organizations sometimes tend to confuse the two and And and continue to stay in the rocking horse i mean: can you can you imagine being going back to that 3m phenomena being in mining, discovering sandpaper discovering it doesn't work to suddenly selling adhesives and paper and uh and a sticker that didn't stick i mean and The list is endless, so sometimes i think we don't give enough merit to stumbling from. I mean, that's that's why little companies beat big companies like there's a reason why david beats goliath, because goliath has lost its way. I mean you want to hear something incredible repent like when i started vaynermedia, i knew so little about adland.

I thought that vaynermedia was going to get the this. Is i made this up, which is you know? My first mistake. I thought big companies had 20 of their money allocated for innovation yeah. I thought, if you run pepsi dole starbucks, that you have a budget and 80 is to run the business day to day quarter to quarter all the that i anticipated and 20 was to build.

It for the future - and i was going to come in and crush that literally it was a cold shower with the first couple months. I'm like wait a minute. A hundred percent of the money is played over here and oh by the way it's spent on. That was relevant 10 years ago, so i thought i was going to be over here with 20 and meanwhile, all the money's over here and it literally in 2009 believed print was more valuable than social, there's still organizations that kind of believe that, but but gary most Leaders grew up perfecting a formula and the fear of trying the unknown and failing and failing miserably, particularly at day and time when most organizations don't no matter what they say about.

Let's fail forward, let's embrace transformation, those are off sites. Those are off sites filled with for optics, so unless, unless unless we create - and it comes right from the top - it comes from the board unless there is a genuine embrace of the fail. Not no. Let's be five blind people trying to define an elephant, call what you may call it uh it is.

It is basically a bit of speak and a nice ceo conference, a bit of offside, but it's never genuine transformation and and and there's another piece of transformation. I want to talk about because a lot of us talk to people like a lot of us about the issues we're having of. Why is my wi-fi, not good enough, but you know, 70 of the world still probably needs to deal with hunger, sanitation. Of course, it's all contextual something you're complaining about is a privilege somewhere else, and you know i think we have to be empathetic to that um and the and and deploy that perspective.

But it's just not the way and it's definitely not the way of big companies. No, and if we're talking transformation in the real world uh, not not - i mean i - i saw the work winning it can and i admired some of it and i thought wouldn't that amazing we've sold the refugee problem. Everybody can now register on a offline phone great. Well done and then you go yes, but that bubble lasted a week, maybe two weeks, maybe five weeks.

I don't know that. I'm not commenting on that piece of work, but i'm commenting on work like that in general, we've got to find those solutions that transform the world and make it a bit more equitable. We can't have the haves talking to the haves about the issue of the haves and quality transformation audacity i mean, but but it starts with the fact of even thinking judging work for awards that are used for proxies to get business like it goes. It's your statement.

There was meta like sure, but, like the context of even judging award, shows for work that nobody really even sees so that we can speak in an eco. These normal people on the stream right now have no idea what the we're talking about when it comes to tv commercials everyone's wondering about how am i going to pay rent? What am i going to do, or, let's not even go altruistic, let's go marketing. Let's just do marketing, let's not even go big: let's go small marketing. We sit in rooms, judging work shaking each other's hands for big commercials tv commercials that none of these people right here even know what the we're talking about anyway go.

Please last words we're fooling ourselves: we're fooling ourselves uh and we're doing the worst damage we could to our business. By doing that, i couldn't agree more. That is my. That is my passion every day, knowing that we're in the industry, but not of it.

Yes, cheers yeah, take care, bye, oh rupen! Thank you. So much we'll just start the show um yeah tim. That was some. We just got right into the right.

This is what we get into here tim. This is like you're part of a different org. Now this is not political, correct hour brought to you by vader x, like let's get into real talks. We have a lot of people in the chat who don't know the marketing advertising world and and really associate with these conversations.

So let's keep it moving, absolutely yeah. So look next up um another heavy hitter welcome uh yuan tan, ceo of pepsico aipac, uh un leaves the company's food and beverage business across asia, pacific one of the most dynamic regions in the world, especially for this business uh. Previously he was president and ceo of walmart china and led the business through a massive transformation to become an industry pioneer not only in omnichannel innovation, um, but also in retail digitization um, and he started his career as a police officer here in singapore. So uh here we go.

Welcome you in over to you. Thank you thanks for having me you and what's uh, what's uh, what's more gangster being a police officer or navigating the corporate marketing world, i can tell you both are equally gangsters. You know the the interesting thing about being a police officer when you're really young is it teaches you a lot about empathy and those skills can go a long way and that's what's uh, you know really also quite important in the corporate world. I agree and for everybody who's watching a little context of what's going on with pep.

You know again global audience watching, but you know my intuition is predominantly north america, with the sprinkling of europe and apac and south america. What's what's the state of the union of the of the brand in in that region? Is there any uniqueness for blue can or any of the regional brands just one minute on that and then we'll get into how you think about accelerating transformation? Sure absolutely gary! So you know, as many of your audience would know, we are a global company with many well-loved brands: 23 billion dollar brands. I think counting more than 40 250 million dollar brands globally. So all those brands that you know from you know north america or europe, whether it's pepsi mountain dew, bubbly, gatorade, lace, doritos they're, all here in apec, but we also have some really unique propositions here.

For instance, our australia business has a red rock daily premium line of snacks crackers we've expanded into nuts and seeds as well. Uh. Recently, we've also taken the quaker brand uh that you might know in our cereal into things like uh granola, we launched a new product, uh coffee, granola and yogurt bite granola. So it's really exciting innovation happening in this space and last year we also acquired an online direct to consumer company - that's the largest in china, of its kind uh selling, all kinds of snacks from nuts and seeds to dried fruits to meat snacks.

So we are diversifying the portfolio a lot, we're innovating to meet the needs of the local consumers and it's a really exciting time to be part of pepsico and also to be part of apac. I'm really glad that you decided to do a show here, because you know it's a really dynamic region of the world uh and earlier we talked about um. Rupen was talking about the burning platform right, yes, there's three things that are common about: apec consumers and markets. I think would be one the pace of change.

You think about. Fmcg has been fast, but here at apec it's about 10 times the speed consumers here, embrace new ideas really quickly, and they often think digital and mobile first and there's just so much optimism about growth potential. Those three things really force you to accelerate transformation, because, whether you're a big company like pepsico or a small company trying to make a mark in the world, you have to move quickly and you have to transform. If you are stuck in an industry.

That is seeing a lot of impact from various forces. What do you think um? What do you think from your perspective, walmart included with retail? Being that close transformation? Do you believe big companies spend enough time actually understanding the consumer, or do you think they spend too much time within the confines of what their financial objective is? That's a great question, i would say you know uh the common and dodgers. If you don't pay for today, you can't have it tomorrow right, so every company that's listed has to answer to. Investors has to make sure that we deal with the returns, but i think that's the job of leadership, which is to make sure that you secure tomorrow, but you also build a new future for uh.

You know 25 30 years out and that's what we're doing at pepsico. It's not easy. There are short-term pressures, you know this year. You see a lot of impact on commodity costs, for instance, i'm excited about the project we're taking at pepsico, you know and if you think about how to run this sort of business, i really think about the organization as comprising different types of businesses.

So you've got you know startups within the company that are trying to manage and set up from zero to one the kind of talent that you want in these roles. Um may not be the kinds that are great moving your business from 95 to a hundred. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but i think you're making a huge point. I want to make sure everybody gets in willie have a couple minutes.

How much is casting a huge variable in the game that you play to actually create short-term success and viability and create transformation? Like i think, you're touching on the most important, like it's actually scary, in my opinion, how big of a deal casting is, you were just speaking to it. You agree yeah, it's critically important, because the way big corporations have thought about talent in the past is you're. Going to join this company and you're going to stay for you know 20 years and make a career out of it. I think in future.

If we want to run new businesses, we want to get entrepreneurs to come in and become entrepreneurs. Then, when you think about careers as people who come in and do missions for three to five years, they have a starting line and a finish line and what? What defines success and after that, we should be happy for them to move on to other things, because they're excited by the new and not necessarily about you, know taking something from one to ten or ten to a hundred. When you say new, do you think at the scale that you play at new within your world like let's send them to europe to run gatorade or you mean new, like screw it, people are going to be in and out of our global four walls, every three To five years i mean new, as in let's reserve, a chunk of money where we can go and try really crazy stuff that i think uh it's not under. Maybe even one of our brands.

Let's go, innovate against an area or you know, invest in some startups that can collaborate with us to innovate in a space that we've never innovated before, but that's still called a pepsico's uh consumer agenda, which is to drive more smiles and through sips and bites for Consumers around the world what's been the most interesting transformation. You've actually well. You've got two more minutes. You've been a part of like it.

What's in your entire career, whether you're a young buck or yesterday um, what's like, you saw it in your real own eyes, and you couldn't even really believe it when you and the team were done with it yeah. You know the the most fascinating transformation taking place right now is actually uh e-commerce in china right, okay, and if you think about how the industry has evolved, it's really into its third phase. Now, in the first phase it was, you know, the amazons of the world alibaba is delivering from warehouses uh. That business is struggling right now.

You now have store-based fulfillment, you know the e-convenience folks like instacart, etc, and that's really booming, but in china you now have a third phase of e-commerce, which is really consumer-centric content-based e-commerce. So when tik-tok decides they want to sell to consumers too. It's a very different way of marketing. You need companies to think about the the consumer in a very centric way, rather than the channels and the platforms and that's a big change.

I can't say that any companies have mastered it. But if you look at what you know, mormont's doing in the us they're also taking a lot of learnings from what's happening in china to an apec uh to the rest of the world and i think that's paying dividends as well yeah. I think that's right. I think that's where global companies have a huge advantage, because there's so many things, uniquely aipac and china, driven that haven't hit other places.

Yet it's human driven and it's going to work everywhere else. Yeah. Absolutely i mean i'll. Give you another example from my old uh employees at mcdonald's.

Right delivery is responsible for a huge part of the stock price over the last 10 years and but 10 years ago. The delivery business in this part of the world and in markets like singapore korea. Taiwan was really 30 of total sales, so it's uh. You know there are lots of trends that you can see happening here because of how um, how the consumers really embrace new ideas and it will start to hit the rest of the world.

My friend, thank you. So much for being on the show, it's a real pleasure and honor thanks gary you're in thank you. I was on asia for e-common, d2c, innovation. It's truth, um, amazing! Okay, let's keep going our next guest is lynette pang, i'm assistant chief executive of the marketing group of singapore tourism board tourism, tough uh, tough, 18 months in tourism.

Then that's responsible for building singapore as a destination brand globally. She leads both consumer and business marketing across all comms channels. More than 20 key markets, she's a very, very impressive career uh lynn has worked in entertainment, sports health education, including stints with formula 1 yahoo and warner brothers, and now the brand singapore uh welcome. Lynette, hey hi, tim hi gary a very good evening, and thanks for casting the spotlight on apec my pleasure and it's great to see you again.

I really enjoyed some of our prior combos. Why don't um like before we get into transformation? I'm just genuinely curious. As someone who's responsible for tourism, you know one of you and i'm you know. I'm gon na make assumptions over the last 18 months, you've had some conversations with other people that are in charge of it for other parts of the world.

You've all been in the same basket how difficult? How difficult were these 18 months and, more importantly, you know: how are you thinking about you know really accelerating you know, transforming to be prepared for the appetite or the different behaviors. You know when i think about singapore. There's so much business travel that people then take into leisure how many of those become zoom meetings like how are you prepping, because i think you're? What's really interesting, is we're talking in theory or history with some of the guests here today. I think you're in the eye of the storm of thinking about how to accelerate transformation, because you're gon na have to deal with some sort of new reality and it's gon na move on you quickly.

So when i drop all of that, how do you synthesize that and what are some of the things that come to mind? That's a really difficult and long question gary. Perhaps i can begin with two data points in talking about the state of play in terms of tourism in singapore. It's been very hard if you look at if you cast it and you look at it in terms of before and after before covet we had four years of blockbuster growth, um and and and it was record-breaking growth and post-covet. Our visitor arrivals dropped by 85 percent.

So it has been an existential um problem, right and and if you're thinking about another piece of statistic which which i was researching on uh to prep for this discussion. Uh mckinsey global, did a survey in july 2020 on transformation among c-suites, c-suites and senior managers. And this was the statistic that really jumped out at me: the share of digitally or digital enabled products in company portfolios has accelerated by a shocking seven years in apec was 10 years, and this was in july last year. So the rate of change in asia and in singapore in the heart of asia has been fast and brutal and harsh.

So one of the key things about what we do at sinful tourism part is it's really about um? How can we lead the industry and how can we help the industry right, so the questions we've asked ourselves has been. We framed it in in three time frames in the short term. How can we rapidly quickly just give aid to help businesses survive, zero business, zero tolerance right and then in the midterm? We need to think about very quickly. What are the tools in place that we can help the industry grow at scale? We're talking about uh back end transformation, we're talking about platforms and that's the midterm question.

That's tough right because that's about learning and changing ways of doing and, of course, that's the prep for the mid to long term, which you talked about briefly, which is about you know when, when markets open, how can singapore be distinctive? How can singapore create an amazing experience so that we, we are a pool destination, so it's about helping them thrive, um and how we've been thinking about it would be. There are three things i can talk. I can talk about today. One would be really about the entire digital transformation, but transformation is not just digital.

Two really we're in the business of experience creation we're in the business of whether you come to singapore for business for leisure. I need to bring a little bit of pleasure right and fun to your experience, so it's about experience, re-engineering and, and the third bucket really is about. We are talking about transformation. We need to ask ourselves: yes, we need scrappy, we need to test fast after that.

We need to think very quickly about how to scale and one of the ways at the organization that we've been thinking about scaling is through working with others. Partnerships excuse me yeah i'll jump in everybody. Look over here, a bird. No, i'm just kidding um keep going so if you're thinking about digital transformation, really there are a couple of things that we're.

Looking at the question we asked ourselves was: how can we look at building systems, improving processes at scale to help the industry transform? Very luckily, for us, these were things that we were thinking about and some of them we've built, but the adoption rate perhaps was slow sure with the business problem. That was real adoption accelerated, which was which was good in the way, but unfortunate that we needed that problem to you believe for big organizations that the almost the only time first of all hold on. Is that, like that, might be the coolest water we've got lemon in there? What else is in? What's going on in there vitamin c, and this this was actually made by a social enterprise in singapore? I love that it's to help people with autism and they make beautiful crafted products gorgeous. So don't you believe large large organizations really, unfortunately, only act during crisis um, i i don't.

I think i don't think we can say across the board, of course yeah of course, but, like you know, when you, when you look at kind of the last, you know your career you've been in some big organizations. We big organizations like to talk about moving faster, but really only crisis gets them to really move at the speed of accelerating transformation of the ambition of, let's say the individuals on this call right. You know it seems that only when that happens like it was, it blew my mind how many cmos only because of covid finally looked at what was going on on tick tock. Finally, paid attention to the organic reach on linkedin finally started to debate.

If production costs were way too crazy, you know because it's just the reality of of how it is you know gary. I think one of the things that's been um, a great change in the past. Perhaps five to seven years has been that the talk and and and about building in you know, okay, it sounds like a truism and sounds a bit trite, but i just want to touch on this a little bit about building a disruption in your company right in Building, perhaps a ban of of crazy people who think about you, know testing and learning and doing things that perhaps might not fit into the business objective for the time being, and i think that has been built into a lot of major big companies in the west. I've seen and definitely in apec, and i think, as the singapore tourism, what we have to do given that we're the government with a slightly different rule.

So we've had to think about how do we then um build this mentality in big companies and, at the same time, help small companies change? So a couple of things that we've done is we've built systems easy systems. One system that we built is small companies. You might not have content about singapore, you might not have the latest information of singapore. How can i help all these small companies in singapore and around the world talk about singapore consistently imaginatively? So we built a back and called the tourism information hub through apis.

You can have the latest contents latest visuals latest information about the attractions we have and the rate of adoption was. It was difficult to get people to understand what it was. It was challenging to get people to adopt it with covered adoption rates have saw likewise. The other backend that we've built is really about data.

We built a data center which we've opened up just prior to coffin so that the industry are able to have data at scale and they're able to make very data-led decisions about um their customers. So your neighbors, we see yes, we need to enable it's huge, it's exactly right, i'm i'm was so interested. I'm sorry! We've run out of time. It's such a pleasure to see you uh, and i hope you have a tremendous rest of the summer.

Thank you. Thank you thanks. So much lynette challenging time for tourism for sure um so fascinating. To hear.

Thank you, but you know now they're, on the back end right tim like now we're now it's time to go on the offense as somebody who loves to watch human behavior, i'm dying to see what all happens. It's amazing, like the inflection point, that's about to come, but let me give you an example. I am literally going to los angeles tomorrow and taking the red eye home. I literally all of kovitz, said i would never take a red eye again and i'm doing it tomorrow, because it's what humans do yeah you just go back to what you used to do.

Yeah and it's gon na be a mix i mean i took. I had a meeting today tomorrow. I have a meeting friday that i probably would have flown for so it's gon na be a mix but like what i have to do in la tomorrow is just real human life yeah. Sometimes you just need it, but it's a lot of talk about how this maybe has killed the business day trip and now you're just talking about that.

Yeah people go into some definitive like this or that it's always and yeah will i take every trip that i used to no am i going literally tomorrow and red eyeing back, i'm literally awake. I have a 4 30 wake up. 4. 30.

No at 4am. Wake up and i land at 6am like it's crazy, but it's just real life anyway keep moving. It really is awesome. Okay, let's move on uh joining us.

Next. We have simon khan simon's, the head of marketing for google in asia pacific. So he currently oversees strategy. Research brand management, advertising everything all google consumer products, all business solutions, 16 countries in the region, um he's helped transform apac into one of google's fastest growing regions worldwide.

So this should be a great discussion, let's jump in welcome simon. Thank you tim. Thank you gary good, to see you. How are you pleasure? It's i'm really well.

Thank you, my friend, thanks for being on um simon, when you, when you think about this and and you've, been executing because i'm a fan from afar. What what are the ingredients? What what can we tell the young executives, the entrepreneurs and definitely the senior executives at the scale that you're playing at what has been the secret to getting something to actually accelerate at the speed that i'm noticing and you've got so many products? So many objectives? You know what uh what's been at the forefront. Well, i think it you know, goes down to culture and casting, and i know you were talking earlier with one of the guests that we're on casting and it is, i think, it's incredibly valuable. If, if you start with culture uh you you need to set an environment where you're rewarding risk, um, you're, you're, making sure you're listening to everybody in the organization um and in many ways, you're reducing friction right, so you're pushing accountability and responsibility down as far as Possible, yes, uh you're, helping people understand that we're driving for opportunity, and it's not just about sort of keeping the engine moving, but finding the next thing, the next thing, the next thing um and then on the casting side.

Real quick on that. I apologize you inspired me to follow up one of the things i think about. All the time is eliminating fear which leads to speed, but i'm a crazy character have a young, smaller company, and i watch my people who've, been with me for 18 months, who've been given 37 data points of why they shouldn't still have trepidation because of the culture Of societal business, you know when i hear you talk thinking about my realities and kind of the small, the investments i've made and watched companies like facebook and twitter and uber like i've. I'm unfortunate of what i've been able to see at this young age uh.

It's fascinating how challenging that is. Even when you and your heart have all those intents purely people, still parents, they grew up with societal norms. A prior experience that they i mean, the bat and business yeah, please. I think this is even uh more accentuated in a place like aipac, where you go to societal norms.

There's a lot of respect for hierarchy, there's a lot of respect for your elders, uh and, and so you have to push hard against it right. So it's it's! A fear, i think that every every senior exec from any big company has is that you're going to get too slow and and you're going to lose out on on that opportunity. So i think a lot of this is about backing up your people right. So you you give them accountability and and when they make mistakes, you sort of you know you celebrate, they took that chance and, and - and you know you make sure that they understand that you're going to be with them through the good times and the bad.

When did that happen, for you in reverse, in your career early on anecdotally, an actual story, maybe give a shout out to somebody who did right by you yeah. So i one of my job before this was with american express, and you know american express is old, established company really well run, but taking risks is, is a difficult thing and at one point i was running the centurion card business in the united states. Uh said black card business yep and we were debating uh sort of major changes in pricing and in terms of the way the product was going to be organized and and put out to customers and uh al kelly. Who's is now the the ceo of um a visa, but used to be a senior executive at amex, really backed me up in a crucial situation where i was taking a big risk and was to it, was going to have something that was going to have a Material effect on on the company on the product, certainly, and - and you know just just to see him - do that and to back up somebody who was relatively junior at that time was so empowering right, and so it's one of those things that i've looked to replicate.

Why do you think that happened? Well, i think you know i came to the table with the the right data, the right information, but fundamentally i think he had trust in the person right. He had trust and as a leader he he trusted that i was. I was prepared and i was doing the right thing. I love that um.

What uh? What do you think needs to be transformed most in big companies as you have this great purview yeah? I think there are a couple things one is: you need to make sure you're thinking beyond what is happening within your company and not looking at the market or looking at consumers or your potential customers within just the lens of your existing product set because you're going To miss the new trends, if you do that, and and you need to continue to think and be expansive and understand, like the trends that for years have been coming out of asia that are now hitting the west. But you know for a long time. A lot of companies in the west just didn't understand it, because it was a whole different business model uh. So you know, one thing is to be focused there.

I think the second thing is to just again get to this point of of having people in the organization that bring a variety of mindsets right, and this is where i get to casting right. You need some oddballs, you need some people who will actually create friction and add some really interesting perspectives. To that conversation it actually and also helps quite a bit with diversity and inclusion right. You get some a whole diversity of opinions and backgrounds into the conversation.

How have you noticed the oddballs? You know it's really funny for me, because i think it's you know it's a very important combo, because for me and my framework, the oddballs are the reverse. From my perspective, right right, the people that play within the lines, those a students yeah those corp right, because i know where you're going - and i think it's a very important good point - what's been so interesting for me, is i only lived in entrepreneurship and then i Came over the last 13 years at corporate and for me still to this day the oddball. The thing that feels off to me is the 98 of people. I interact with yeah like to me: it's charlie brown.

It's like, i, i literally know every meeting how it's going to go because everyone's playing the same book yeah how how you have to create a culture that allows entrepreneurs to be comfortable at least a bit comfortable within that environment right so 100! Right you! If you, if you cycle through sort of folks who um, are the the grain in the system uh, but they just constantly leave because they're dissatisfied, how do you get the non-oddballs in that scenario, to appreciate what the oddball's doing, because i laugh at the non-oddballs eye-rolling At the odd ball in a world where the non-oddballs don't realize they're playing the mundane and they're the commodity yeah, but they well yeah. You said a culture and you know - and we've talked about this for a while at google - this whole concept of 10x thinking right. So, and coming from my previous background, a 10x thinking would get you fired right, but if you have, if you have that sort of sense of like look, we need to be audacious. We need to take on these big challenges and this person has some crazy ideas, but there's something here.

So, let's, let's figure this out and let's, let's constructively um, sort of attack those ideas and and build up to something, that's uh that could be viable. I think that's one of the key things you have to do, but it starts from that setting that culture i'm a fan of that conversation simon. Thank you so much and continued success. Thank you good to see you thanks simon, amazing, absolutely loving this um when you're willing to talk real with really strong people.

You can have like the the comment section. I don't know if you're reading it tim like and again a lot of people watching are entrepreneurial. Early in their careers, you know: we've looked at data most the c-suite watches kind of in-feed later like these are really interesting. Perspectives that may not on surface seem to impact the person.

Who's got a who's, an entrepreneur or junior member, an organization, but it really the thematics matters so much. It really does and the focus. I guess i mean it's amazing to get time with with these people like the schedules are insane and just people would kill for these moments. So, let's keep going.

I think just this experience coming through is incredible: um, okay, right, amazing. So next up next we have jean jean madden she's, the cmo of next-gen foods and the company behind tyndall chicken made from plants jean's a bit of a marketing maestro i've known her for a while. Actually i've seen her through this journey. It's really.

It's really been amazing. She brings consumer insight brand storytelling together in her own way. She has a wealth of fmcg experience, um and numerous awards, but she's now bringing her flair to tyndall, um and, and it really is taking the world by storm. So gene welcome to the show, love the t-shirt.

Awesome yeah i got ta got ta support the swag right. So how are you gary great to be here chatting about accelerated transformation? I think it's pretty apt when you think about that. We started the company. You know 10 months actually, eight months ago launched the global brand expanded it internationally and then today chatting with the legendary you on marketing for the now.

So it seems to be a pretty good time. You're very sweet. Thank you for that, and by the way the the font on the brand is incredible um. I love it.

It's kind of that old school cartoon font. I love it when you think about this. Obviously, having this great career, you're still extremely young in your journey and then now being in this spot, where you are where it is moving fast yeah. This is different than some of the kind of other organizations.

What have you siphoned in your first sniff in this role in this organization that you're, like oh okay? This is this is what i've heard it like, what kind of maybe whether it caught you off guard or not, let's frame it a different way. What was an observation early on of like oh, i see why this is different. Anything stand out. Absolutely, i think a a lot.

You know it was a very big. I mean i came from a very kind of traditional background, very large companies, very large organizations, and then you know dipped my feet into making chicken made from plants which you know it's kind of it's kind of insane and decided to just kind of take this. This they're really not really not insane right. Gene like i'm sure this is what like your decision like like if i had to bet the farm on fungus based like like on all these alternate like it's so obvious to me.

It is so obvious, and i mean it's a it's a huge huge market. It's super exciting. It's super fast-paced, but i think at the at the core of what you know. What we're doing is ultimately this point on accelerated transformation right, and i think that was very much the very big kind of epiphany that i had um joining this right.

So we talk about from a marketing perspective. We talk a lot about. You know. How do we adopt a model that is very iterative that you change you pivot, you learn, you fail fast and then you, you know, read the cultural signals and then you adapt and succeed.

But what i'm really seeing here at tyndall is that we're taking that kind of marketing model of this kind of iterative approach and really pulling it across the entire business model right so obviously we're doing it in tech. By bringing you know chicken, that's from basically the technologies from like the stone age and bringing it into modern day, but also iterating. On top of that, like how do we make this thing tastier? How do we make it healthier? How do we make it? You know eat an even greater chicken experience, but in fundamentally in the business model itself you know we've we're actually probably the best way to think about this is we are a tech company? That's scaling food right, so our business. Why do you and why do you think that, or why is it? Why is it a tech company yeah so so we, our business model, is actually very simple.

We only do three things so number one. Is we build global brands? Um number two is that we do research and development really the ip, the the design of the product itself, and the last thing is that we um have really strong business networks. But that means that, unlike a traditional food company, we don't own manufacturing lines. We don't own factories, we don't own trucks, you know delivery, trucks etc.

But that means that we have the ability to a scale exponentially very quickly, like a tech company does um, but also, secondly, that we're not. We have the opportunity to pivot to change, to change our strategy, to learn from you know, to fall fast into failures and then therefore adapt and and and succeed very quickly, because we're not encumbered with things like well, what's the moq at the factory and do we Need to rebuild a whole new whole uni unit people. Do people question the fact that you call it chicken when it's not chicken, which is a little bit different than burger when it cuz it's not meat. First, like like, how do how does that play out like how how does like, i see a lot of people in the comments kind of referencing that, like how does that play out? No, i mean, i think so it's an interesting topic, um.

First of all, it is chicken right because what what is chicken, if you think about it, a chicken, is right now it's a super archaic, analog technology where you put soy and water into it, give it a few weeks and then you know you end up killing The processing unit just to eat it essentially, but isn't it an actual chicken like the actual animal? It is absolutely so. Tindall itself is, first of all, it's plant-based chicken is really seen as a final frontier because it's actually a very difficult meat to to essentially recreate right, because the taste profile, the the texture that consumers really demand is one thing and - and i think tindal's really hit That mark it is incredibly delicious, but the other piece is really the versatility of this protein right. It's the one protein that almost every country has its national dish. You know be it like grandma's chicken pot pie or like a fried chicken sandwich, so it needs to cook in many different cooking applications, many different uh kind of spices, marinades etc.

Unlike a beef burger that might just be. You know a bit of salt and pepper and if you're lucky a slice of cheese, but so so being able to nail all three points on taste and texture and versatility is, what's really, you know been what's very successful with tyndall and that's really the the thing That you know we're really bringing to the market right so we're meeting, and what about innovation? On marketing, like, instead of just focusing on a project from a marketing standpoint, are what are the exciting things that you're most excited about from a com standpoint, either channels or types of creative? How are you thinking about that yeah? I think. Firstly, we've really adopted this kind of this approach that i mean you talk about a lot too, which is this kind of iterative approach really kind of questioning. You know why are we planning a campaign? That's gon na land, three years from like three months from now when the world could be in a completely different state.

The old school brand building brand positioning is just not fast enough for truth, true, and - and i mean i i'm testament to that - you know i went through that school of marketing and i went through that. I was kind of you know trained in that. In that sense, and so i think going back to your point about accelerated transformation, what is the biggest thing i've learned is like you know, we didn't need a global pandemic to shake things up to make us realize, like oh, okay, like we shouldn't be planning campaigns For six months down the road, putting all our eggs in one basket and hoping that you know the creative is right, actually we're thinking literally marketing for the now like marketing. Now this hour this afternoon, what are we putting out? How much is the challenge of driving down the cost of creative that is still contextual to the platform like you find that to be such a big part of the equation for that yeah, i think well, actually, so that's one of the reasons that we've really approached Actually, having an integrated agency right so like rather than you know, working with like agencies that have a very traditional model that are charging by the hour, etc.

We really have an in-house suite. We have you know videographers, we have editors, we have designers et cetera and that allows us to generate way more content. You know some of it's fantastic, someone's some of that's really bad, but at least we're able to. I mean like, like life, people like gary, but some of it's bad - i'm, like you mean like 98 of commercials like 99 of commercials, are bad and they were slow and expensive.

So, what's the point exactly so, i think it's really embracing this fact that, like you know it's okay to fail, you know it's not okay, not to try and therefore having as much as possible out there to really see what what is the consumer feedback. You know, but also really thinking like a human being and not as like a marketer and like okay. These are my subjects that i'm going to try and you know convince like what do i find funny? You know what do the people on my team find funny or interesting, and let's put that kind of content out there. I love that.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Gene.

Thank you. It's okay! To fail! It's not okay! To try! I like that. That works amazing, okay, right, let's bring us home, so our final guest is paulo hanlon, co-founder and exec producer of beyond radar paul's, a tv and a media legend he's made shows in australia all across asia, even as far as afghanistan, like in scripted content, entertainment news Production everything you name: it he's held leadership roles at broadcasters and production companies. He was the managing director for fremantle in asia.

He was also the producer of record-breaking entertainment shows, including asia's got talent, world scott talent um. This will be a fascinating chat, so yeah welcome. Paul thanks tim hi gary i'm just a bit concerned about the uh. The lightning show it's real, it's real! I might not make it paulie, i'm trying.

I organized that and i organized you putting up a painting of a chicken after that last conversation just to quantify that this is a chicken or not a chicken like so everything's working for me right now, the lightning the chicken painting i'm on fire here somewhere make About that rooster, but we won't go there, um, actually, it's not even the year of the rooster in asia. Um. Interestingly, though you're born in i was just checking you, you know what what year you were born in, i was born in 1975.. You know no, i mean the chinese use, oh, oh, but i i was like damn it a question.

I finally knew no. I would love to know what year it was. I'm going to tell you right now. We might be shocked to actually we're in the year of the ox, and next year is the year of the tiger you're born in 1975., oh you're, the year of the rabbit.

That makes a ton of sense. Let me tell you: rabbits are highly intelligent, social and affectionate they're. They're also can be very bratty, and but but um it takes a very tight, a special type of person to work with a rabbit. Well, i i i have many many many many very special people, and that is the absolute truth when you think about accelerating transformation from such a creative lens like you've had what has been the biggest catalyst look, you know, i think the most important thing is when, When we sort of look at brands and talk about brands and what we need to do, uh, because a lot of the big productions that tim just mentioned, that i've that i've done, we've had to align ourselves very closely with brands to obviously make it uh make It financial sense - and i think the most important thing is that brands need to sort of identify and uh.

We need to um work with them to identify and entertain audiences, and i think that's the way we should be looking through uh, that's the lens. We should always be looking through because at the end of the day, um putting aside some of the platforms, you know we need to talk to people. We need to talk to different demographics and in different ways, and i think we also need to think about how it can be much more creative in doing so, because without that, without that lens um, you know most content that we make especially across asia, won't resonate When did you first realize you wanted to storytell, just i'm now just kind of going off script because i'm enjoying the energy like when did it? When did you realize there was a creative bug inside of you? You know, i can't tell you exactly when, but it was at school and so it started with music. It started with art, then it started with coming up with innovative ideas and then making short films and it sort of progressed and then straight out of school.

Getting into into media at a time when you couldn't really go to university, that's how old i am to learn to be a journalist effectively. You had to sort of like be creative in the ways that you worked so um, but i think what really catapulted it for me was when i left australia 20 odd years ago and moved to asia when you could actually see from small markets right up to The biggest in india and in indonesia and china that you can go local, you can go deep, but at the at the end of the day you it's all about entertainment right and i think that's the thing you know there are the world's biggest shows the brand's Got talent x, factor idol. All of those guys, you know and make a lot of money and simon cowell is, is a very, very, very clever and creative businessman. However, i think the next big opportunity, and when, when we talk about sort of creativity, is looking at how we can take something from east to the west.

So, instead of looking at ideas and ip, which is res, which has come out of western countries and sold around asia specifically, what can we do in in this part of the world to actually then turn it around and say? Okay, there's some incredible ideas in asia. There's also some markets which may be small but are full of fantastic creatives. Who can then come up with ideas that work for brands that talk to the right people, audiences in a way which makes sense and then look at how we can transfer that around the region and beyond? I couldn't agree with you, i mean to me the biggest reason i have a global organization. Is the arbitrage of the context of them being able to take that and deploy a contextual to the other platforms.

Yeah yeah 100, and i think now the transmedia storytelling model is, is the most incredible way that we can actually continually engage 24 7 with with audiences, whether they want a linear part of you know, because because i think the thing you learn when you get some Of the gray hairs that you and i have is some things are just incredibly universally human and other things are incredibly not, but you know a lot of times. People fight me on this, and i say: did you ever think k-pop like have you watched? K-Pop bands perform in alabama and like watch the girls go crazy. You could have never sold me on that 20 years ago. It's very clear where we are in the world and it's a beautiful thing.

I think it becomes more team human globally and has nuances of optimism over the next 500 years. Absolutely does, and i think that's the thing that it transcends nationality. It transcends language, it's about entertainment and engagement, and i also think you know go on are the days where you need to sit for an hour or an hour and a half to watch content. You know, let's look, look at tik tok.

Let's look at five. Second episodes or whatever well you know what's funny about that, i'm sorry interject! I couldn't agree with you more comma. I also believe in the reverse, like maybe the most wonderful experience for me from content. Last two years was all eight straight hours of queen's gambit.

Incredible to me, i've i've believe in this. I think, there's too much fascination on length. I think that i will stop watching a shitty six second vine, two seconds in and i will sit through eight hours, binging on ott and everything in between they both work. I think what people people have definitely recognized that we now consume more short form.

What i don't think people have completely wrapped their head around yet is we are consuming long-form at levels? We've never thought before as a kid intuitively creatively as a storyteller. I always wondered why four-hour movies didn't exist, because there was many after two and a half that i was like. They should have made that three and a half, because i could see they truncated the story and they it up because they decided. We won't sit here.

I'll sit for 10 hours in the theater, watching a new star wars, and i think ott binging has proven that, and i think that actually creates an incredible level of innovation and storytelling, because there's a lot of humans that are willing to go much longer than we've.