Confounded
A high energy podcast with its own video channel featuring interviews with amazing people who have overcome adversity and life’s challenges to be successful in unique and wonderful ways.
Confounded
Meet Shannon Peerless, MD of 10Yetis.co.uk
Shannon, now 31, joined 10 Yetis when she was just 18-years-young and worked her way up through the PR ranks to the helm of the agency. She has previously been awarded accolades such as PR Week’s 30 under 30, The Drum’s UK’s Top 50 Digital Women Under 30 and a place on B2B Marketing’s Top 10 30 under 30 list.
She has led campaigns for the likes of Confused.com, Gocompare, Just Eat, carwow, Totaljobs, WaterAid, Optical Express and Hillarys Blind and is passionate about delivering creative campaigns for brands that drive phenomenal results.
From helping start-ups sky-rocket to success through clever PR tactics, to making a splash with stunts and “hero” content, Shannon shares how things have changed over the years in the world of PR and the impact of digital media and SEO on client and journalist expectations.
10 Yetis works with start-ups right through to global brands on PR, social media, web, design, video and SEO campaigns.
Find out more at www.10yetis.co.uk
Find Shannon on Linked In
So hi, Shannon, Welcome to Confounded TV. How are you?
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:That's a pleasure. I've followed your company for a very long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. Yeah, I mean gosh. When did we first meet? It was good a few years ago, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Many years ago. Yeah, I couldn't even guess.
Speaker 2:The last two years have felt like a lifetime.
Speaker 1:So we met just before COVID lockdown, didn't? We? Class of white somewhere in London? It was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was lovely.
Speaker 1:But the reason I followed your company, of course and this is the interesting bit, I think, for everybody listening is it has been a disruptor and a really interesting player in your space for such a long time and really one of the first disruptive PR companies, if that's not going overboard.
Speaker 2:No, I like to think so anyway, but I'm probably a little bit biased because I've been involved for so long.
Speaker 1:I think it'd be interesting just to give us a sort of a history of, like the sort of early days and when you started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sure. So gosh Ten Yetis goes back, launched in the summer of 2005. So I haven't been there quite since the beginning because I joined in December 2008. So at the time, andy, who's our founder and CEO? He founded the company from a back bedroom with his wife at the time, jill, and you know the company that put them on the map, really, and one of the clients that you know we quite often talk about comes up. It was a brand called Tribe Wanted.
Speaker 2:So an amazing entrepreneur called Ben Keane basically rented some space on an island in Fiji and he built a. He built an online community that could then visit the island and spend time on the island and it was just a really, really cool project. It eventually got turned into a documentary on the BBC called Paradise or Burst. So, obviously, all that exposure all of a sudden, andy and Jill were getting phone calls from brands like Pirelli and you know huge brands, you know asking for PR because you know it done so well. They you know they lost all of those pictures because they just weren't ready for it at the time, but you know that was one of the ones that we were really well known for and you know, when I joined the company, you know, in an official office. It was it evolved from the back bedroom agency and some of the earliest clients that we worked with were people like my Vouchcodes, mark Pearson.
Speaker 2:He's obviously gone on to amazing things. So when I joined in 2008, that was one of the biggest clients of the agency. We were doing so much activity for them. You know press releases most days to different sectors and I think PR was one of the only marketing tactics they were using at the time. So that was a really interesting one to be involved in and one of definitely our kind of legacy clients.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean it's been a really interesting growth story in terms of how the agency has changed, because when I started, it was very much PR was what we were known for and that's what we mostly did for clients, but then over the years we were having clients come into us asking for cross platform campaign, so stuff where we could incorporate social media, perhaps some like hero content, like video assets and design. So we basically have all to kind of try and bring all of that in and and yeah, the rest of the sort of history now. So yeah, loads of, loads of amazing clients we've had along the way and yeah, it was. It was kind of those really early days of kind of like online travel agencies, discount code websites and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Back in the day you could just knock up a PHP site, put some affiliate links on, except.
Speaker 2:Mark did it slightly better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. We've worked with loads of loads of affiliate sites over the years and, randomly, a lot of affiliate networks as well. We seem to have had a lot of those under our belt and then campaign to them. So, yeah, we know a lot about the affiliate world.
Speaker 1:I think I was in the space then, sort of building my own stuff and I think your name kept coming up again and again and again. I mean I know I was in it so I was like sort of reading this sort of I would read the right content. But it was quite amazing that you get these disruptive brands coming in and it's so obvious that the good PR was driving that awareness and effectively creating that sort of what I'd called sort of the size of them was. You know, it was bigger than they probably were. To be fair, you were doing a good job of saying here is a company and they all of a sudden would get great coverage and including, you know, really big news sites and things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to be honest, it was a lot easier back then. When I think about when I think about when I started and I was like day to day because my background I'm MD at the agency now but my background is PR. So when I started I was a PR account exec and just sort of work from there. But when I was day to day on PR, comparing it to what the team has to do now, it was much easier to get coverage. I don't know why exactly, but it was just there were more media outlets. You know the teams were bigger. I think a lot of the, a lot of the teams within, like news desks and things like that, are getting smaller. So you know, they were just more open to stories and to pitches and it seemed to be a bit more of a breeze, to be honest.
Speaker 1:But also it was new, right? You're building like voucher codes and saying you know, now all of a sudden you can get discount all these places if you just join this website. You know that was new. If I launched, you know Al's discounts now I don't think you could even move the needle, no matter how much money I gave you, because who's interested, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and one of the other one of the other first clients we worked with as well. Well, I it was a client when I joined, but not not for too long it's sunshinecouk, which was an online travel agency kind of targeted at families, and that was at a time where people were still typically going onto the high street into a family that's even put their holidays. So, you know, trying to do PR that would convince people, it's fine, just look online, it's completely trustworthy. That was a whole experience in itself. So, yeah, it was super interesting for us to really to work with these kind of brands that were, you know, really disrupting the industries that they were in and really, you know, going along with that move to digital and that moves to online. So, yeah, just really, I love looking back on these stories and kind of seeing where they are now.
Speaker 2:Obviously, sunshine we worked with this for probably close to about eight years or so, maybe even a bit longer, and then they eventually sold to on the beach group. So, you know, it's I just my favorite thing to do is work with startup brands and be able to kind of be part of that journey with them. So one of the ones that always comes up and still brings a lot of new business our way, because so it's Huell, julian Hearn. So he mentioned us I think it was in a podcast actually and from that we still get people say I saw you work with Huell on the UK launch, and where Huell is now, you know we just we were just launching them to the press, getting journalists to give up food for a week and try this, you know, powdered food replacement and then seeing their journey.
Speaker 2:And you know, I still kind of follow what what these guys are doing and Julian's post on LinkedIn and I just love it because you can, in a way, we can be part of the history and and you know, not saying obviously we're totally responsible for that, but you know it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's just lovely really. And yeah, I suppose the reason I've been at Ten Yates for so long because it's been gosh it was like 13 years in December is because I was like, oh, you know if you're not ever wanted to get out and get a change, but every single new client that we get in is like a new job, because it's a new brief, it's a new, you know, a new project to work on. So there's never, never a dull day and no two days at ever the same.
Speaker 1:And I guess also like when you're doing startups are fun, right, I mean, they're actually more fun if you're not actually starting them or you're just on the on the sides there. They can be great and they can be really hard. But I think the thing is what I saw with you guys back in the day was you would take a client on and if I to normalize something that they were trying to say is the new paradigm or whatever it was, like you know, powdered lunch. You know, because if you take a cynical view is like yeah, okay, I'm going to put this in a shaker and shake it and have that instead of lunch. So it's a hard thing to do, but you did put people on the map. I mean, that was obvious back in those days and even now you're still doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, when you think about brands like Carwow. So the first time I met James Hines, who's the founder of Carwow, I went up to Liverpool and met him at his parents' house where he had a little office.
Speaker 2:It was before Carwow, it was called Carbus and it was just a review aggregator and so you know we worked with him on the launch of that and then all the investment rounds that he went through right through to, you know, the change over to Carwow where people could actually buy the cars and that was coming in and completely disrupting a really kind of like archaic model really, which is car dealerships and stuff. So trying to kind of convince people to move online for something like that. And you know it was great and it was perfect for PR, because journalists love a disruptive narrative, don't they? So being able to kind of look back on you know where James was at when I first met him with you know Carbus and everything and then, having been lucky enough to have worked with them over the years, through the kind of growth through to the huge office in London, like 200 staff, it's just great because, yeah, just following those journeys and, you know, being able to try and help those brands, you just get a real buzz out of it really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's one of the things about your company that I think is quite special. You know, free plug, free plug. But I do think the interesting thing is when you do a startup and you raise some money, you have a few quids not very much and you need somebody to sort of go yeah, we'll help you here. And I would imagine the fact that you keep these companies through the seed round, through the A series and they keep you as an agency says more about you really, I think, because the temptation when they start bringing in experienced C-suite people for them to go oh yes, but I know, bob at ABC agency, right, they're big and special ones, they're used by all these big names. I can see the attraction, but you keep the clients for a long, long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, over the years we have we've had really good client retention and you know don't get me wrong we have had times where, exactly like you just said, they've had senior people coming in who have a preferred agency. They've maybe moved things over to them, maybe it's not worked out, and then they've even come back. So that's quite nice. You know we've had, you know we're not precious, we'll take, we'll take clients back. And you know, I think one thing is with PR, it's because it's one of those, it's one of those marketing services where there are no guarantees what you're, what you're going to be able to get for people because, it's all and it's not, you know, just like paying for an advertorial piece.
Speaker 2:So, you know, sometimes the clients want to test the waters for different agencies and that happens for sure. But yeah, it's. It's been really nice to see clients reusing us a lot over the years and, you know, you know we still have brands that come back to us that we've worked with some years and years ago. So, yeah, I like to think that means we're doing something right for sure.
Speaker 1:So can you explain to me, like, obviously the industry has changed or, as you were saying, there's fewer, fewer journalists, probably fewer media desks, whatever. But also, like you know, you hear digital PR as if it's a different thing from PR, and sometimes I see this and what it seems to mean is we'll get you into, we'll get you an article on some website you've never heard of for some backlink you probably don't really need or want, and it seems to be there are. I have seen people out there who basically tout what seems to be very simplistic digital PR. So how do you see PR now, sort of without you know that digital space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's definitely changed. Like I was saying earlier before, compared to when I started, a client would be over the moon with a, you know, a full page and the Metro, for example.
Speaker 1:Wouldn't they? Can I have one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now it's most clients that we have don't even want print coverage. They don't care about it and we kind of have to explain them. Well, it's still worthwhile because then it can also, you know, get lead to online coverage, because it's the same journalist that we've prospered. But ultimately now I'd say about 80 to 90% of brands that we work with just want PR for SEO, so they just want links. So digital PR is no different from normal PR.
Speaker 2:You know, obviously people call it digital PR because it's just online but yeah, so it's just basically changing stories slightly so that we have some kind of good hero content that don't want to link back to. So, yeah, like now, nobody wants those big spreads and print papers, even if it's like nationals. They just want links from as many decent sites as possible. So a lot of what we do now is really link focus and try to build these links for brands, because that's a priority.
Speaker 1:I have to. I have to. Yeah, I don't understand this. So I launched Alice's new sexy holiday websitecom and I want visitors to the site. I get the SEO value over the longer term and we're back links. They're more authoritative. I get all that stuff. Yeah, really, what I want is the front page of the Metro to go. Look at this amazing new way to book your holidays. So every second the tube goes. Oh well, look at that amazing. So people don't actually think there's a value in that.
Speaker 2:It's so surprising, really really surprising.
Speaker 1:There's no value in it Of course there is.
Speaker 2:I'm still very much and yet you know something might call that a little bit old school, but there's still so much value, I think, in especially publications like the Metro because, like you said, the circulation of that because of the tube network and the buses and everything is huge. So I still think that's that's huge value. And getting those print pieces. I think they are just as important as your SEO and your link building, because you know print isn't dead just yet. So whilst it's still there as a platform, I think you know brands should definitely not just disregard it completely because it can deliver so much. You know we've had I know you know this is maybe going back for a while, but thinking about the Metro specifically, we were working with a brand at the time called Wishcouk. They did experience days at zombie boot camps and experience days, so we did really cool campaigns around that and like auditioning for new zombies at Pineapple.
Speaker 1:Dance.
Speaker 2:Studios and stuff. And we sent a journalist from the Metro onto one of the experiences and it was Page 3 of Metro, a really like full page, really good piece, and it drove so many, so many sales that actually sold out the actual experience itself for like months and months. I think it drove something in the region of like £200,000 worth of sales. So you can't say that it doesn't work because that was just print, that wasn't, you know, online with the link.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean, there's an interesting dichotomy, isn't there? Because, like somebody's willing to pay TFL however much to have the other side of the opposite, when you're standing at the station, A massive big print post is saying get your shopping in three seconds, because we're just like wheezy. But we're not wheezy, but we're just like that. You know we're not that wheezy, but they don't see the value in actually somebody opening the paper and going. You can get your shopping in five seconds or whatever the difference is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. I mean, thankfully there are personal clients that do kind of appreciate the value of it and think, yeah, do you know what Everything helps it's not just online but I think marketing teams under so much pressure from an SEO perspective to make sure they're delivering on that aspect of the brief, but they're kind of like, well, that's the priority, so we're not too fussed about print but just put all your efforts into trying to get back links. So it's really kind of a mix in terms of what people's thoughts on it are. But my perspective is that print is still important as much as digital campaigns are exciting. And when you get those really good links from you know like Mail Online or Telegraph, it's like, yes, you know clients are going to be happy. I still get that buzz from, if I can hold the coverage of my hands, you know, and I would.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably a general, it's a generational thing as much as anything, isn't it? Because if you grew up packing websites together, you'd be over them. And if you were featured in a newspaper, because, even because one of the things that gives you validation, right? So I've started to start a raise a few quid, built this thing and now look, it's covered in the mail on Sunday or whatever, you'd be happy. And also, I suppose now I would have thought, if you feature, if it's an article, it's also a digital article, right, they wouldn't. There's two things. They're not separate anymore, are they?
Speaker 2:Not really. So you get the odd occasions where stuff is just in print and we're going online as well, but that's quite rare. It's quite rare. Usually, if it's going to be in print in a magazine or a newspaper, it has an online version as well. So you know it kind of ticks both boxes.
Speaker 1:Okay, and for a younger company starting up. So you know somebody who's coming into this, as you know, as a young founder, and she's building a new business and is a bit weary of PR because you don't have much money to spend. When is the time to consider, you know, using a company like Ten Yetis?
Speaker 2:I think the time to start really seriously considering it is when you know that everything is all good with your website. You know you can handle, you know the logistics of it all. If you suddenly were to get like an influx in orders and things like that, because quite often if a brand isn't ready and you know a load of coverage is secured and all of a sudden huge amounts of traffic are going the way, the site falls over. They haven't got the you know supply to meet the demand. So I think when you're very confident that everything's all set up and you've got all of those processes really tied up and sorted and that you're ready for that custom, I think that's the time when you should be thinking yes, I'm going to go for this.
Speaker 2:We have our clients that we've done pre-launch stuff for as well, which works, particularly if it's going through investment rounds and things. You can do a bit of PR around what's to come, almost like a bit of teaser PR. So you're trying to build that audience before you're ready. But as long as you manage the message right and you've got that kind of plan in your head of the timeline of things, of when they're going to be ready and when you're going to be ready for those customers, then you can do a bit of activity before, and that can work quite well as well.
Speaker 1:So it's a bit of the Reddit front page effect. You end up on the front page of Reddit and you're everyone's website's fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think thankfully, over the years we've not had too many instances of I mean, it's a nice problem to have, isn't it? Too many customers. But if the site does fall over and then you're losing a lot of money. And once, when we were working with my voucher codes, if you could get something in the Money Saving Expert newsletter, which has millions of subscribers, and you could get a link in there for a deal, you know that was going to kind of deliver a lot and my voucher codes managed to get an exclusive deal.
Speaker 2:I think it was with Vauntons at the time where they were giving away a free chocolate egg. I think there was no cat. There was a tiny little like Cabry's Cream Eggside Egg. There was no cat. You just had to fill out a form and you could go in and get one, and Money Saving Expert put it in the newsletter and it drove so much traffic over that it toppled Vauntons over and it was just. It was crazy. But so, yeah, I think you need to be ready for the unexpected, Like, even if you think I'm not obviously saying that every piece of PR coverage is all of us studying in a drive. You know millions of people your way, but you need to make sure that everything is in place, that you can, that you're ready for the attention, I guess, because you don't know how many people are going to come knocking and wanting your services or your product as a result of that.
Speaker 1:So you get a worst case scenario as you get a backlink right. Your best case scenario is it just goes nuts because you hit a moment, you hit a theme, a meme or whatever, and then it's all held. Whole hell breaks loose and I guess if you're starting up and you haven't quite got the DevOps and the scaling servers and all the rest of it self and it's of us, you're in shock.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, so. So yeah, there's definitely different levels to the success of a piece of coverage. And you know, even what I was going back to saying earlier with, people prefer in online coverage with the link to print coverage. Even there's even different levels of it on the digital side of it. So when you get a piece of online coverage, if it's a great article, it could be, you know, super professional, maybe it's like a product review or something. But if the journalist doesn't, then include a link, some clients like, well, you know it's not the best, is it? And you're like it's good. So we have to spend a lot of time trying to chase journalists at add links in if they haven't included one initially, which you know is a whole nother site that will that link rack.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it comes with its challenges, but yeah, thankfully emotionless. Give out links quite openly.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, because there comes a point here where I'm a journalist and I don't include the link and you just fill me up, right, and then this happens every time. I don't include a link. So eventually I'm going to go. I can't be bothered with this, I'll just include a link, right? It saves me all the grief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have heard of cases as well where journalists have got quite funny about it and said, well, you know, well is the piece of coverage not enough? And you know you've got to be careful because if you get on the wrong side they could just take the piece down because they're so you know, annoyed that you're asking. So you do have to know, you know you have to tread carefully and have that kind of relationship with them where you can say is there any time she can add one in? Like sorry, it's just part of my job. But yeah, it must be tough for journalists because I imagine they're getting hounded by PR people. It used to be, you know, can you run my story Like have you seen it? And now it's just I need a link.
Speaker 1:Was there a like in the sort of in the early days of tennis? Was there like a relationship on a relational basis of your sorry start again in the early days of Ternetti was talking to journalists? Much more relational as in you would you actually knew them, you'd have met them, and is it more now just a case of everything's online? You'd never. You don't do the whole schmoozing thing anymore, yeah 100%.
Speaker 2:So, you know, going to take a client on a media tour around London to sit down, you know, with a journalist for a coffee or lunch, that was much easier to organise because they had time to do that and it was useful for them as well as the, you know, PRs. Now it's very rare that you can, you know, get some time with a journalist and convince them to take like an hour out of their day to have a sit down and view in a client. It does still happen, but definitely not on the same scale, you know. Yeah, it's just, it's so different now and also the same for press events. So we still have some clients getting in touch and they're like I'm not sure. I'm not sure I'm watching a product, I want to do a PR launch event and invite those journalists along. And the first thing we say is it's not like it used to be, because you'll get, you might. You might get a full-time journalist saying that we're coming in and then on the night you might get two turn ups.
Speaker 2:So it's tough because you know they're so busy and you know it depends what it is. I think if it was like you know a big brand and you know, for example, we did we worked was SuperGuy when they launched Idris Alba Range for the social media side of it, something like that obviously you're not really going to struggle. But when it's like a startup, new product, trying to get those journalists is definitely tougher now 100%, and I think we still have good relationships with journalists. We still have those people that we can check in with and just casually run stories past them and maybe if we're down in London we'll grab a coffee with them. But they move around so much as well, so it's like they might move to a publication that is in a different niche to any clients that you have. So it still does. It's still a place for it, but it has changed a lot.
Speaker 1:You have the relationships right Because you work with these people for 15 years, whatever some of them, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have the relationships with a lot of journalists to be able to kind of lean on them a little bit, and even to the point where, if you're suggesting a story for a client, having a bit of a chat with them about whether it's something that they would actually be interested in before you go to invest all the time and the research into it to put it together. So, yeah, we still have relationships, but I would say relationships with journalists are far less important now. So it's handy if we have clients get in touch and we can say look, we've worked in this sector, we know all of these journalists, we know that we should go to them with your stories. But it's just as easy with journalists that you don't really have a relationship with, because there are new ones joining all the time. Like I said, they're changing teams, changing publications. So, yeah, the relationship side of it is less important.
Speaker 1:And, as I find, everybody's getting younger. Yeah, yeah I was talking to me yesterday who's been in the internet for as long as me and it's quite frightening. He said, oh, I used to knock up the sites. Do you remember X site and Y site? And I was like I do, because, of course, in 1999, 2000, there were so few sites that, if you actually remember individual websites of course now most of the brands that are new that you come across, you tend to get an Instagram ad thrown at you.
Speaker 1:You don't tend to visit a website and it's a conversation like which websites do you go to? Like, who goes to websites? Because Instagram is an app, right, who goes to the website? So which you know? There's news, google, you know, or you know something you know? Non, google for those people who want to de Google, and then, and then that's it. Like, if you ask me, what sites do you go to? There's none of this discovery anymore. Like, you know, like, like, almost like the word or thing. Right, he built this thing and it's going to go on a bit nuts. That's how the old days used to be. People just knocked something up, but it goes a bit nuts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there wasn't all those professionalism around.
Speaker 1:It's a startup. Here's my plan. This is my pre seed funding. Here's my SCIS. I'm going to bring in 50 grand of built in. It was all. It's all very serious and back then it was like I'm going to build this quiz thing All right, do you see? This morning he sold for $10 million.
Speaker 2:I did it's.
Speaker 1:Tuesday, the first of February, just in case you know, this is out next week, it's just, but it reminds me of the old days, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Does it not? And?
Speaker 2:so they can just take off like that and it's yeah, it's just insane. It's a bit like I only heard about ladle, like Last week, I think it was 90 users in November, 300 users in December.
Speaker 1:A minimum of $10 million in his pocket on the 1st of February.
Speaker 2:He's dead or alive, isn't he? He's dead or alive.
Speaker 1:I was listening to the head of games at the New York Times and he was like oh yes, it's very special game, dead or alive. Just in case you just and I think this reminds me of that drawing game that everybody played for a while and then didn't ever play again- I know what you mean, because I know that with my phone as well.
Speaker 2:It's basically like lingo, the program which, with the afternoon telly on some times yeah. I'm familiar with that. Yeah, it's just crazy, isn't it? I think it just goes to show the potential for quite a simple idea and how it can just take off because of things like social media. You know, when I heard about it, it was only because people kept sharing their results on.
Speaker 1:Facebook.
Speaker 2:And I was like, what is this? It looks like that lingo TV program. And then I started having a go at it last week and it's quite addictive. But then you have to wait for the next one to come out on the next sale and I'm like, oh, that's a bit insane.
Speaker 1:It's impressive. I do wonder if he's actually. I heard him being interviewed before all this, before he sold it and everything. He's like oh yeah, it'll never have ads and I'll hopefully keep it free and all those great stuff. But I do wonder actually if he's very smart and he studied game theory right. So it's a little bit of dopamine once a day and it's a little bit of competition with your friends, because can you actually fix it before they do? It has all the little hooks and you know a little adrenaline burst that you need to want more of it the next day. It's basically like a crack junkie thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I don't know, do you think they'll keep it ad-free and not try and monetize it in any way?
Speaker 1:To be fair, quite likely. New York Times. It's $1.99. It's really good journalism, you know. It's better than some of the stuff in the UK. It's not difficult. Well, it's just a bit more. It feels a bit more grown up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I bet your link in the New York Times gets you a fair amount of traffic.
Speaker 2:We have had some in our time, because Do tell, yeah, I know we've had, I think, that zombie stuff I was speaking about earlier. I'm pretty sure that kind of for some reason we didn't even push it in America, but just from the UK stuff we got all of a sudden all these American titles were picking it up. So yeah, you know, places like New York Post, new York Times, washington, Post those titles.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, it's a whole another realm of link building in America, I think. Typically. We've just done a campaign for a site called InsureRanks and they want some US pickup and links and I do notice a difference through the ease of getting links with American press compared to UK. For some reason. I don't know if it's just that there are way more publications there or not, but it's difficult to tell. But usually they'll just put a link in and you won't even have to ask or go and chase up for one. So yeah, I'm a big fan of the American press. So try and push more stories over there, because even if the client doesn't operate in the US or sell over there, if the story is of interest to them, then it doesn't really matter, because those links are still really good.
Speaker 1:Well, I've seen plenty of UK startups. You know that everyone's got that little thing about two thirds within the website, as seen on.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and people who have got no relevance to the US, as seen on the New York Times or the Sydney Morning Herald or whatever You're like, why? So? It's all validation there, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and because of things like social media and stuff, the stories just spread a lot further than they used to and I think a lot of news outlets now turn to other newslets for like inspiration for stories. So even if you, just if we get something on the mail online, for example, a lot of places look to the mail online for stories and then someone might pick it up from there that we haven't pitched you directly, but you can tell that they've kind of pulled the story from there. So, yeah, it's like the media outlets are kind of working for us, which is nice.
Speaker 1:It is, and it's like a really, really lucky break as well, isn't it? It's interesting. I suppose you need to catch a slowed news day, not the day that Sue Gray's report comes out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or the next time Sue Gray's report comes out, or when the Met Police report comes out or the ongoing saga of everything that's going on in the world. Because does it make a difference the level of noise in the news Like to the rest of the if you take away the front pages? Does it make a difference if there's Ukraine party gate Met Police investigation to Boris? Does that impact your ability to get stories? It can do definitely.
Speaker 2:I think it depends on what. It depends on the story you've got going out. And so, for example, if you have I don't know, a fashion related story that you were going after, like lifestyle reporters and fashion reporters, then you're probably safe with us like a big political shit storm going on. But otherwise it can get quite congested in terms of trying to get cut through and trying to get journalists to get back to you. Because if it's just typical news journalist that you're going to, or sometimes journalists get pulled from one newsbeat onto the different one, so certain things like if there's a budget announcement or if there's a general election happening, we'll think probably best not to send a story out on that day because it's going to get a bit drowned out. It'll probably just disappear into their inbox among a load of other reactive stuff about that particular story. So you do need to be careful with that and the timing of things. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And how does it fit together with? So I've got my budget for my business and I'm going okay, I haven't done this before, I'm going to do some p, but they've already done some online marketing stuff. Do the two things marry up Like? Do you sit down and do sort of a campaign and this is what we're going to do, so your marketing needs to work with us? Or do you look at what their marketing strategy for the next three months is and say we could do some things around that? How do you blend in with, like, an internal marketing team?
Speaker 2:That's definitely our preference is to be able to kind of get our hands on that marketing plan and what other activity they've got scheduled in and what kind of newsletters they're sending out and what kind of social media content they're putting up. If they've got any like themes or certain things happening, then we will always try to make sure that the PR campaign and the proactive stories that we're sending out are really complimenting that. It's not always the case. Sometimes with certain brands it's quite disjointed and social will do one thing and then they'll have other stuff going on in marketing and we'll just do, especially with link building, because if they just want links, it can be just a standalone project. It doesn't have to necessarily have anything to do with what else is going on. But our preference is definitely to try and make sure it's all quite cross-platform. Everyone's singing from the same song sheet and I think really you're going to get a lot more effective results that way, because when consumers or whoever your target audience is starts to see the same kind of things through all of your different channels, that's when the message really starts to sink in and resonate with them. So I would say that's always the best way to work and quite often we will.
Speaker 2:It's not uncommon for clients to have different agencies and they might have someone looking after their PR, someone looking after their social. So we're either trying to set up calls with them, have a chat about what they're doing and work alongside them, really because I think it can sometimes feel like it's quite competitive if people are like, well, we delivered these results and PR did those results. But that's really counterproductive. So it's festive. Everyone is just like we've all got the same goals. I don't care who takes the credit for it, but let's just go for it together and see what comes out at the end of it.
Speaker 1:Avoid the power struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So where do you see sort of 10 yetis and PR moving? What's coming? Do you do any kind of future stargazing? Go, okay, this is how we think PR is going to look. You've seen the changes in the last 14 years. You've been doing it. What do you think is going to happen over the next few years?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, we do that Some questions.
Speaker 1:You're allowed to pause for thought here, yeah.
Speaker 2:We definitely kind of sit down and think about those things regularly, because quite often we'll have to adapt our activity to make sure that we're certain trends of journalists are not liking certain ways of PR anymore. If we have to switch that up. Personally, I think things are just going to continue to get a hell of a lot more digital and digital is going to be a bigger and bigger focus. I think if we're looking a bit more longer term, I don't think it's then reasonable to think that some print publications will go completely, because a lot of the newspapers are struggling and that's no secret. That's why things like paywalls have been cropping up all the time and prices are going up and things like that. I think digital is going to be even bigger focus. If we go through the next coming years Only the way that PR agencies have to work with journalists, especially with things like trying to get links, we're already seeing that some publications won't give out links. Obviously there's different kinds of links, which is a whole other story.
Speaker 2:If you can get a follow link, that's a good link for SEO. Some journalists either won't link at all, they won't give follow links, they'll just give what's called a no follow link, which doesn't have the same amount of value as that in Google's eyes. I think a lot of publications will start clamping down a bit on their link practices and what links they can give out, which will make things tougher for the PR.
Speaker 1:Because it impacts them right? If they just link out all the time on every article, I think it does actually affect their SEO.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they have to be making sure that the links that they are giving out are worthwhile, valuable for the readers and things like that, and that they're not impacting their content in a negative way. So there are reasons for it. Yeah, I think PR teams are going to have to get even more creative in what kind of stories they're going to put out for clients and how are they going to achieve these crazy link KPIs if journalists just won't give them out? So I think there's going to be a bit of turbulence around that sort of thing. I think PR itself needs a bit of a rebrand, right, because it's like PR social.
Speaker 2:Everything now is like I was saying earlier that cross-platform approach is best and your social media activity that's PR. You're trying to communicate with the public. Yeah, it might not be through media outlets necessarily, but it's all kind of much of the same. So I think there will be a move to things being a lot more integrated and not kind of dealt with by all these separate teams that might be doing slightly different things. Yeah, there's definitely going to be some changes, for sure, and PR agencies and brands will have to adapt to kind of keep up.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure you will, because you guys are veterans, right yeah? So, unless you're forgotten to be nimble, then I think you'll be just fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say we're definitely used to it, because over the years things have changed so much already and we've had to make a lot of changes and switch up how we do things. And yeah, that's just part of business, isn't it? Every business has the same problem with just keeping up with trends and making sure that one step ahead of what's going on in the industry. So it's no different really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. I always thought PR is a bit of a dark art until actually met you guys for real.
Speaker 1:For the first time a few years ago and I think it always felt one of these things I would kind of bluster and go, you know. But when I saw you in action on the client of mine's offices, I thought this is really smart actually. I knew it was good but I didn't realize how good and I think it's a really really good tool in our startups. You know war chest and things they can do because they can spend a lot. In my view, they can spend a lot less on good PR than they're willing to spend on incredibly expensive AdWords.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 1:You know some of that has gone insane.
Speaker 2:Some of the ad budgets that we hear of, just you know, to our clients is wow you know, you can't actually believe how much money they're pumping into it. But a lot of the times it's working amazingly, and that's why the more inflation.
Speaker 1:Right, because if an ad split used to be 20p, then everyone raises VC money and makes it 50p, then 80p, then a pound and then five pounds, and if you're, in some sectors, 25 pounds, right. It's getting to the point where that price has passed on to the consumer, no matter how fancy and brilliant your product is. You are making it more and more expensive, and they have. We seem to have lost our way with the gorilla tactics a little bit. For startups, it seems to be the only default is go back into London, raise more money, spend more money and then those who spend the most will win. That's somebody's got to.
Speaker 1:There are people who are not doing that, who are doing quite well, because the days of the voucher cloud and just hacking your way through the beginning seems to have gone. I think because people have just there's a generation. I've grown up and said this is how you build a startup. You raise half a million. That's your seed body. Crack on, spend it all and, as long as you hit the right metrics, you raise two and a half million. It's like okay, there must be better ways to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think it's that, like you said, the gorilla marketing and the disruptive stuff is a shame that doesn't happen as much anymore, because when we worked, with brands like my voucher cage. Thankfully, mark Pearson, he was always up for doing that. You got to hustle. Stuff. Yeah, you do you got to hustle.
Speaker 2:When we did just that we had most fun with was. Do you remember when Stephen Hester, royal Bank of Scotland, got like million pound bonus and everybody was up in arms about it and absolutely disgusted? This is I can't even remember what year. It was now a long time ago. But Mark rang us up in the morning and said I want to do something to do with this, all of this uproar about this RBS bonus, what can we do? So we toyed with the idea. He said we want to do it today. So we were like, right, okay, how are we going to do this? So we toyed with the idea of trying to get helicopters to fly over to drop things out for people. And that was a no go because there's a lot of no fly zones and everything.
Speaker 2:But, in the end we settled on. We hired a tank from a company called Tanks a Lot and they hire our tanks at the time it was like two grand for the day for the tank. We put Mark in it. We paraded it around London with banners on the side that said didn't get an RBS bonus, use my voucher codes because, you know, not everyone's that lucky to be rolling in an overnight and people still need to save money and it was just so much fun.
Speaker 2:And I just think, you know, trying to convince clients to do stuff like that now is difficult. And you know the the floating down the Thames thing, which is a bit of an ongoing jake in PR world because it's going to. It's kind of like what's going to be the next floating down the Thames trend, because brands would just float things down the Thames to get a bit of a PR story, like I think one of the betting companies did a sort of the giant rubber deck down there and you see all sorts of things. But yeah, I think, I think it's I miss. I miss that being like a really frequent thing that we would do for clients.
Speaker 2:That now, because it's all digital, it just needs to be like a little widget that you put on the website. That's quite interesting, or an interactive infographic. But yeah, I think I think startups should still do stuff that that makes people stop in the street and go oh, I'm not that strange. What are we doing? That I think you know, like pull the octopus is that bet fair? They, they, they had that. There was pull the octopus that was predicting all the results of one of the world.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that, and and bet, and the time.
Speaker 2:I think he did, and a God rest his soul. But bet fair did a stunt where they they created a giant like model version of him and they had it on the back of the lorry and deliberately broke it down in Oxford Street in London and it caused chaos and that was all a PR stem and you know it worked.
Speaker 1:That's a bit of bravery. And, yeah, although I guess, if you're young and you've invested, given you a few million quid, the fear of cocking it up and you know can I spend on a guy knocked a person? Because I would say that, yeah, I mean it's good.
Speaker 2:It's good sometimes on clients, rainless things. We do have some crazy ideas, but yeah, it's not completely dead in the water. You still obviously get PR stands going on and more gorilla marketing and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But how does that, how does the, how do they, does the founder out there reach you if they, if they're sitting there going, yeah, I can do gorilla stuff. I want to, you know, get, I can get maximum bang for my buck. I want to work with these guys. What's the best way to reach you?
Speaker 2:Give us a ring email, a lot, of, a lot of messages flying into our hello app 10 yeti's dot go dot UK email address, or just pick up the phone. We're starting to get back to the office a little bit, thankfully. It's like, yes, so yeah, you know office lines always open and if we're not there we redirect it. But yeah, I love, I love just chatting through ideas and people and you know, get, I don't mind giving away ideas for free. It's the ultimate, it's ultimately. It's part of PR because they will do it anyway.
Speaker 1:If you give all the ideas away in the world, people don't do it, so I wouldn't worry too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now we, you know we've we've pitched some crazy stuff. In our time we were doing a big campaign with water aid obviously really noble charity, really important cause and it was part of their no choice campaign to talk about how a lot of people around the world don't have a choice of a drink dirty or clean water. So some of the ideas we came up with for that were quite drastic and you know, we just have to get rained in a little bit and we ended up doing something with, like, a dirty water cooler and a clean one outside tube stations in London.
Speaker 1:So that's really smart yeah it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It wasn't quite as close to the edge as we, as we suggested. So yeah, I mean it's. It's one of those things you've got to navigate a little bit, but yeah, when we can convince clients to do it, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And I bet you oh well, it's not a bet. Science, what's your data? I'm guessing that actually those have more impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think, in terms from the research that we do, when clients share results with us, definitely they do make an impact and they do create some ways. So I think that's a particular campaign for WaterAid, for example. That was to. We did it in certain areas of London because they wanted to increase the donors in those areas and it worked. People saw it on their commutes, they interacted with it. There was information on the website that was linked to it that we were kind of driving people to.
Speaker 2:So it does. You know you've got if you can. People aren't as used to seeing stuff like that as they once were. You know, used to be there'd be like flash mobs every other day in London for a brand. Remember that.
Speaker 1:It's time for the flash mob to cut. Well, there's no one there. You can have your own flash mob at Kings Cross. Just there you put me the only people in the. It's amazing. I was at Grantham this morning and it's like still car park is empty, no matter the fact that we're supposed to go back to the office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know. Yeah, I for one can't wait. But I think, with creative industries like PR and things, sparky, spark, spark. Yeah, when you take that office environment away.
Speaker 1:Sparky and zoom. Yeah, it works, does it? What you need is to go out, have a glass of wine and you write down all the well I say glass, I mean bottle or two and you write down all the crazy ideas and they're not, they're just where you wake up and you go.
Speaker 2:Well, those are insane, apart from this one, which is quite good, yeah definitely been times where we've stayed on a bit after work and had a few drinks in the office. Some of the best ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's because you relax.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think I'm all for tipsy brainstorming sessions. You know, I think maybe I'll, maybe I'll bring that in as a regular when in state thing.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's the client attraction tool? Yeah, Well, so you have to. If you're going to sign up, well, obviously have to have our tipsy brainstorming session. Yeah, of course that's part of it. And the first client you ever meet will be a T-total athlete. Of course you go oh no, I'd rather have a protein bar. Yeah, I'm afraid, our time is up.
Speaker 2:Say way or hey. That's not so fast.
Speaker 1:It has gone fast and it's way over time. So that's great, because it means that we're having a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I hope that everyone listens have a good time, because I think Ten Yeti is one of those companies I just absolutely love and I can't, I can't like hopefully with my new thing coming soon that we can work and work together, because I think that I love all the, I love all, I love your approach and I love the fact you haven't gone down that really big agency route and taking away the humanity of it, and I think that I'll stand you in great stead for the next 15 years.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for saying that. That's very, very kind of you. Give me a big hand. Don't be able to put that out the door, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. Well, I'm just grateful you come on the show so that the 107 people who will listen to this will get the benefit of your knowledge and who knows, I can't see 108 once.
Speaker 2:I share this with my mum because I'm a No.1 fan, so I'll get I'll get you some more fans, don't worry.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. That was brilliant, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, al Bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you Kis 좋form.
