Sam Clough - SUPER AWESOME. Global Strategic Insight Director. Teens, Trust, And Talkability. How Young Audiences Really Engage: Fandoms, Creators, And The New Rules Of Youth Marketing.

We sit down with Sam Clough, Global Strategic Insight Director at SuperAwesome, to unpack how brands can reach under-18s safely and effectively across YouTube, TikTok, CTV, gaming, and audio.

We explore how teens decide what to trust, why talkability beats old word of mouth. Among other areas we cover: 

• Teens’ scepticism, AI fatigue, and platform-native creative
• SuperAwesome’s role enabling safe, compliant youth marketing
• YouTube and TikTok as top discovery and ad recall channels
• Creator freedom over rigid briefs for authenticity
• Six fandom stages: discovery, trial, deepen, engage, exit, re-entry
• Crossovers to grow incremental audiences and spark returns
• Global patterns across UK, US, France, Germany
• What makes a strong agency partner and collaborative insight

All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/

Suggestions, thoughts etc to futureviewpod@gmail.com

Transcript

Teens, Distrust And Advertising

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I think we're in an like a an era of distrust. So they there are lots of things that when they when they're first presented to them, their immediate reaction is I don't believe it. And it might be they don't believe it because the imagery looks like AI. And so there is a there's like an additional layer of cynicism on top of just general teenage cynicism. I don't think you can say advertising doesn't work because it it really does, but I think it when you think about advertising, you need to think about what is it, where is it being placed, how are you talking to them? I mean that the buzzword of authenticity is I hate the word authenticity, but it is true. It has to be authentic to the platform, authentic to the creator, authentic to the brand, and to the way that they communicate, and the way they communicate, I think, is completely different to how you or I communicate, or even how millennials communicate.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

This week I'm delighted to talk to Sam Clough. Now, Sam is the global strategic insight director for SuperAwesome. So for those of you who don't know, SuperAwesome is a fascinating and very successful company that focuses on helping clients advertise to young people. Now, Sam explains more about the business in the interview, so I won't steal her thunder. Aside from to say that SuperAwesome takes responsible advertising in the sector very seriously, and hence invests significantly in consumer insight and understanding what makes young people tick today. Clearly that's a subject of relevance to many companies, but I also suspect to many of the listeners of this podcast who have children. So if you want to know more about areas like how the young people in your life are communicating, including the cues you may not immediately pick up on, the importance of talkability and why it's different from word of mouth, the essential stages of fandom and what teams are looking for from, say, TV and movie shows and how they engage with brands in general, then this is the episode for you. So, um, Sam, thanks so much for joining today. Really lovely to see you again.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Um thanks, Henry. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Brilliant. Now I'm gonna get going with the traditional icebreaker, which is something that people might not know about you or they might find surprising. So they wouldn't necessarily be able to find on LinkedIn or a simple search.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Thanks, Henry. I was I was thinking about this one quite deeply because I think people that know me know know a lot about me, but perhaps one thing that you wouldn't necessarily find on LinkedIn is the fact that I was on Escape to the Country many years ago. Um, and that was kind of how we ended up moving out of London into the area in which we live in currently. I was we uh my oldest daughter was 11 weeks old, and my top tip would be don't go on TV when you're 11 weeks after a baby because I look enormous. But it was it was a really interesting and quite fun experience. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Wow. And so, yeah, well, I think that's very good advice around you with a three-month-old or so going on TV. We might just have to explain for American listeners what escape to the country is.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Ah, yes. So it is a like a property search, a company TV show where um you go on and you look at three different properties and you and you kind of talk about how whether it would fit your criteria and um it's really about people leaving city dwelling and moving out to the countryside, which was something that we had wanted to do, especially when our oldest was like once we had children. And so, yes, my uh somehow I'd find actually because of my husband, because he he kind of went, I I'm gonna get us onto this, which I'd watched and uh yeah, ended up on it.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Well, and I and I hope it's worked well too. It's not like grand designs where people say, you know, there's the curse of grand designs like the house that was over at the end of it, or something.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, do you know what it's funny because we moved from the house that we moved into uh that through Escape to the Country to our current house and then did an enormous grand design style project? I'm so glad that wasn't televised. That would have been horrific.

How Brands Reach Under-18s Safely

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, I have some friends that you have been on grand designs. Um yeah, it's pros and cons, let's just say that. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so moving on to the subject master that we were going to talk about, rather than house designs and moving to the countryside and all that type of thing. Could we start with Super Awesome and just giving a sense as to what Super Awesome does?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, absolutely. So uh Super Awesome. Um, we talk about pairing the youth digital ecosystem with data technology and the services that enable people to engage effectively across the like really fragmented kid and teen audiences. So we work with brands that want to reach under 18 audiences, and we do it in a compliance, safe, and effective way across that entire ecosystem that runs from YouTube to CTV to mobile gaming to audio, which is our most recent acquisition.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

And so as an example, that means I don't know, I'm gonna make it up, Colgate or something like that, would come to you, would they? Or I think go, we've got a new brand of toothpaste, we want to market it to younger audiences. Is that's probably terrible exactly?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So they so that they, I mean, we do work in the personal care sector, definitely, especially in America. But it tends to our our main clients tend to be excuse me, toy companies, entertainment companies. We work a lot with some of the kind of big apparel brands that would reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha. So, yes, personal care, but but you know, when you think about like all the big people, but all the big toy companies, all the big entertainment companies, that would be the our biggest client kind of portfolio, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Good. And so does it work sort of in effect like sort of a specialist being a specialist media agency in effect? Like so you've got the brand comes to you and they go, This is called the brief, this is what we're looking to achieve, and then you guide in terms of your inventory.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, absolutely. So we we can enable a brand who reach people across across YouTube, they're over 13s and depending on the the um market that we're working on, 16s across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all of those kinds of digital spaces, but also in the gaming space. So we work extensively with um some of the Roblox developers, Fortnite on occasion. We have a big part of our company deals with acquiring talent to execute creator campaigns. CTV, we've got a big CTV inventory set of partnerships there as well. And like I said, we've just just acquired um Star Grove Star Star Glow Media so that we can start to reach families across that audio podcasting space as well. So it's kind of like enabling people to advertise and market to under 18 audiences in the spaces where they are.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah. So as you can imagine, lots of questions on that, which I'm sure we're gonna get into. But I guess the first one leading into that is what your role is and how your team supports in doing that.

What Works In Teen Advertising

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah. So I've actually been at Super Awesome for 11 years. So I joined two years after we found we were founded. And I guess my role, which covers which now is like youth, friends, and insights, but has always been kind of research, data, insight, measurement, it's been in that kind of bucket, has always been around and has grown with the company. So as the company's got bigger, we've like more things have got got onto the onto the roster, I guess. It's always been around client education in terms of helping them understand why kids, why the platform or why reach them there, you know, why it's important, the role they have within the family, purchasing dynamic, looking at really specific things around, for example, lifetime value and and all of those kinds of things. So it's it's that client education piece for sure, which feeds into our pre- and post-sales cycles. So I work a lot with the planners and our brand strategy team to help craft proposals, but also I'll I do a lot of kind of just trend presentations and talking to people, and so and so does the team and post-sales with our partnership clients as well. We also feed in extensively to our marketing function, so we do lots and lots of thought leadership pieces, sometimes well, there's like one or two big annual pieces, but then there's also the marketing beats. So we'll talk about holiday season, or we're just doing a series of blogs on, say, for internet day. So it's it's those kind of key marketing beats. And we also feed into product development as well. So we have a platform called Awesome Intelligence. A lot of the the data that we collect feeds into the tooling that goes alongside that. And it's been a really evolutionary role, actually, over the last 11 years that that has been hand in hand with the company's the company's development, which has been really quite satisfying to see. So we run a lot of proprietary research, we've lots of trackers, and we get a lot of data from other places as well. So it's basically 60.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, I see, and I warned we might digress like a little bit, but there's been a lot of conversation recently in terms of what type of advertising works, or advertising in a verse of comments. I'm putting up my little fingers on this, in that I see dots of commentary. Oh, advertising can't look like advertising for teens now, that they're very skeptical of it. Is that true, or is or maybe it's a bit more nuanced than that?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I think it's really nuanced actually. I think for for teens in particular, and actually it probably leads in a little bit to what we'll the the fandom conversation that we'll talk about. For teens in particular, I think what's interesting is I think we're in an like a an era of distrust. So they there are lots of things that when they when they're first presented to them, their immediate reaction is I don't believe it. And it might be they don't believe it because the imagery looks like AI. And so there is a there's like an additional layer of cynicism on top of the just general teenage cynicism. I don't think you can say advertising doesn't work because it it really does, but I think it when you think about advertising, you need to think about what is it, where is it being placed, how are you talking to them? I mean, that the buzzword of authenticity is I hate the word authenticity, but it is true. It has to be authentic to the platform, authentic to the creator, authentic to the brand, and to the way that they communicate, and the way they communicate, I think is completely different to how you or I communicate, or even how millennials communicate. And I think that's really interesting, and it's so much more visual and based on an in-joke or an in kind of piece of information. You've got kids the same age as me, and and I do, roughly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and my kids, my oldest now is at university, and her every morning I have to open up Instagram because she sent me 15 or 20 reels, and that's her communication. I don't get a good morning, I get a barrage of all the things that she's found funny that relate to previous conversations that might actually have been a mean conversation that we've had three days ago. So it's it's a different way of approaching it.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Interesting, yeah. So it's kind of almost slightly incidental, it's getting to the point, but in a slightly incidental, less direct way, which maybe teens and young people have always done, but they're just expressing it differently now.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, and they've got so many more tools to do it in, you know, they they're just different things. I mean, one of the things that's that's interesting is when we look at we we have a tracker that looks at family purchasing and influence, and we ask a question about where they have noticed advertising. And by far and away, like that they remember, by far and away, consistently, the top platform across all ages is YouTube. So that pre-roll works, that creator campaign works for sure. When we look at teenagers specifically, we see an uptick in TikTok for memorability. It goes without saying, you know. So the places that they are, the visual communication is really, really critical.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah, that is interesting. I've also been um reading like a little bit recently, you know, I tend to do quite a lot of work with film studios and those types of kind of companies, and they talk about the importance of authorship as in relation to authenticity, of saying that that's something they see teens really, really wanting is like, you know, they know that there is a creator behind it, in this case, a director or an actor who's very, very committed to it, and that that's a critical part of the authenticity, which I imagine applies to other brands as well, just in a slightly different way.

Authorship, Directors And Identity

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think the thing around films and and that kind of visual storytelling is really is really interesting. And I think it comes back to fandoms actually, because I think if you're part of a fandom, what the one of the kind of drivers behind that is the deep knowledge that you have of that particular fandom, and it might be around the the the lore, the content of the of the story, but it is also about the the like the the creation art and the creativity and everything else. So if you, you know, I have countless conversations with my younger daughter about Wes Anderson, and she it it's like she likes the films, but she's also almost a fan of the of the director as well, and so she she knows all of this really random stuff that is seems to be part of their the Yeah, and I suppose it's a question of identity as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

I mean, because young people have always done it. Even we did this. We go, oh, I like these films, these bands, these well, whatever, football teams, like you know, it is, it it's a badge of identity, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Absolutely. It's all about belonging and community. And so that that becomes really important, I think. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Okay, I'll drag us back onto the schedule. And I did want to talk about some of the blog posts you've been putting up, which I highly recommend to everybody. They're really, really good. You obviously you can find them on LinkedIn or super awesome. And this question of talkability, so runs the risk, I suppose, in some ways, of just being could sound like another generic buzzword, but I don't think it is. Having read some of your stuff. So could you explain what talkability is and how it's different from say ideas like word of mouth or virality?

Defining Talkability Beyond Word Of Mouth

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, absolutely. Um so you're right, it it it is not just about talking about things. And I think what I mean, we we've looked at it specifically with them within the context of fandoms, but it I think it goes much further than that. And so when we think about what you want what you want an ad to do, you want that ad to drive a conversation because what we saw around, if I think about if I wrote it in fandoms, the conversation that happens is the overarching theme across all the stages of the life cycle that that are there, from discoverability to becoming a really big fan to leaving the fandom to coming back into a fandom. And the the thing that makes it different, I think, from word of mouth, is it isn't actually just saying something or recommending something, it's the way in which they do that. So we've talked about that a little bit already. So it is recognizing that talkability is actually shareability, it's about experience as well. It becomes a virtuous cycle from a marketer's perspective because it's about sharing memes across platforms, about the other UGC that goes into it, because a UGC, you know, creating a random croc that is a on Roblox to, I mean, that exists by the way, to, you know, a creator talking about their favourite fandom, to a child writing on Wattpad around there, you know, the adding to the Harry Potter law, all of those things are are are ways of creating more and more talkability. And so when you think about your campaign, you need to think about in what way does this add to the the conversation that is going on. It's not just about Johnny telling Fred that he likes the thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

So, what are some examples then to sort of help bring that to life in terms of uh you must there must be lots of campaigns and brands that have done it well. I won't ask for the ones who've done it badly, even though that's tempting.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

So there is a Dr. Pepper thing going on at the moment, which I don't know whether you've seen it, but there is a there is a fan who created a Dr. Pepper jingle on TikTok or wherever, who which then went viral and is now the Dr. Pepper jingle. So it's that that conversation of, and and I don't know whether that definitely gives you that example, but it's that I she was so passionate about her her love for Dr. Pepper, she went out and did that, which created a huge online conversation, which got picked up by a brand. And what will be interesting is to see whether that then drives sales. And I mean, this has literally happened like this year, so but we we won't know whether it does. But I think another way to think about it would be Harry Potter, for example. So Harry Potter is enormous. I mean, it's one of our biggest fandoms that we see, but it is not without controversy. And what has been really interesting is the way that the tidal wave of talkability has enabled the brand to weather that storm because there's enough people out there creating, still creating content, still being really positive about it, still really identifying with it as a fandom, that it negates the fact that there is a sizable minority of teenagers who are not happy with the fandom.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I see. And and so I assume that is related to the JK Rowling and the transgender components of it. That's the yeah. Because I was struggling to think of anything else within Harry Potter that would be no, no, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

And so there's a there's when we looked at our data and we we had we we we asked the respondents to uh talk about the things that they were still a fan of, but also the ones that they weren't, and to give reasons for why they weren't a fan of that, and that that came up. I I also what was also interesting was the UGC aspect of that, almost giving some of the, not all, but some of those ones that have rejected Harry Potter as a fandom a way back in. And so they talked about actually there's this whole arc of narrative around Sirius Black, like that's UGC on Wattpad and AO3 and whatever. And we're just gonna go and engage with that over there because JK Ralland didn't write it, but we love Harry Potter and we want to continue with our fandom. So that that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah, it is slightly off topic, but it but I think it's all very relevant, so I think it helps kind of bring it together a little bit. And I mean, I I was also wondering about how brands can encourage this within their campaigns, because again, giving just movies as an example, I'll pick on Minecraft or something like that. I'm not entirely sure that Warner's, guys, please correct me if I'm wrong, really knew quite how viral that was going to become. And uh, you know, all these teen boys were gonna pick up on this type of I mean you've got so many examples of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

You've got the whole wicked thing, you've got but what was it, Barbie Oppenheimer, but Barbie Heimer or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah, Barbenheimer, yeah.

Embracing UGC And Creator Freedom

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Barbie Heimer, all of those things, and I think it I think that started with the minions actually, with all the kids dressing up and going in and doing stuff. What brands have to do is embrace that massively. I think you need to give fans and creators permission to do to play with your brand and create and creators especially to give them creative freedom when you know if you're doing a creator campaign, the the quickest made way to sabotage it is to go in with a strict set of rules and say you mustn't do this, we must mustn't do that. Because a creator understands their audience and understands their own content. And if you gatekeep your content too strongly around it, it won't come up as up come off as authentic. And so you have that exactly that problem that you asked me about at the beginning, that kids and teens will just see through that as a as an ad campaign rather than an authentic piece of content that they want to engage with. Don't take yourself too seriously, lead lean into that conversation, you know, I I think is is definitely the way to do it. And actually, I was talking to someone earlier on about the the fandom work, and they were like, getting actors involved in that conversation when you're creating a piece is a really good way of doing it because if you've got people posting about the content that they're making or the role that they're in, that's a really, really true and authentic starting point. And all the people that love that actor will go and become interested in whatever they're talking about.

The Six Stages Of Fandom

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah. Yeah, I think going to that idea of authorship and commitment and that type of thing, there's yeah, it very clearly relates. And so um the fandom study, could you talk through that a little bit in terms of I think there are six, if I remember it correctly, there are six key stages. Um so what what are what are they and how how should everybody think about them?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So the six stages are discovery, trial, deepen, engage, exit, and re-entry. And this this kind of overarching narrative of of talkability runs through all of them, right? Because discovery is where you find out about it for the first time. Time. And you know, it's that for for you know the number one reason is definitely I've heard somebody talking about it, I've seen it, I've you know, my uncle showed it to me, you know, it's friends and family, and YouTube. And that YouTube discovery is quite often creator-led discovery. Yes, there are other ways of looking at it, yes, it varies by age, but those are the kind of two primary drivers. And then you go to the point where actually you don't you're you've heard of the thing, you need to go and like find out about it, experience it, and that's your trial phase. And again, for the most part, it's on YouTube, or a streaming platform. So if you have, and going back to the movies and that and and TV show conversation, if you've been told about a TV show, you're gonna go to the platform where that TV show is and and ext and and watch it, or you might go to a creator that is talking about that thing. So there might be a kind of second level of like somebody else needs to tell me about this thing and I'll go into it. We we see the deepened phase as where you are a fan for the first time, where you you start to really be more than just I've just seen this once or twice, and and actually I I'm coming back to this consistently, and I'm skirting around the edges of finding out more stuff about it. So I might be looking at the if we carry down the movies theme, you know, I might be looking to see if there's a backstory, I might be going and see if seeing if there's commentary on it, I might be listening to the She-Ra podcast to find out more about the characters in it, or you know, what the opinion is, or I might be looking, looking at, you know, where you know what other actors have been in, or whatever. The engaged phase is what I call the obsessed phase. And again, this is where you know everything about it, and you're consuming all of this peripheral content. And so the best way to characterize this is that is the child that loves Pokemon, that knows every single Pokemon and their rating and their rarity or scarcity, and wants to tell you about it all in minutiae. You know, it's it's it's that level of kind of thing. And they're very, very committed, not just in terms of the time and the knowledge, but also the spending. And so we see quite high spending here. It's like, you know, a third of them have spent more than 100 pounds or a hundred dollars in the last, you know, three months on that thing. So badging is really important, kind of that demonstration that you like it.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

And Sam, sorry, sorry to bust it off. Because I was just thinking one of the notes I was jotting to myself. So, how do advertisers use this? And how do you help them track it? So, are you helping track the journey across the different types of media and going, okay, now we think we've got a fan that's in the deep engagement and hence the spending.

Exits, Returns And Lifecycles

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah, so uh so we haven't quite overlaid that the the life cycle uh onto our data yet. That's like an ex evolution of that. What we are using it is think it is thinking about the planning, because where you go and where you show up, that is impacted by the stage that you're at. And so it, you know, if you are a new IP, you know, you need to invest really heavily in in discovery and trial. If you are an established IP, yes, discovery and trial are important, awareness is important, but actually what you're looking at is engagement and how you drive those deepen and engage phases. So it's a it's a different job depending on where you're at and depending on what your objectives are. We see the cross-collaboration is really, really important. So, one of the when you get to these phases where actually you're looking at that re-entry phase or that kind of like deepen, like the phase, it's about how do you either bring people back into the fold or create incremental audiences, and a collaboration can work really well because you're tapping into somebody else's fandom and and then bringing them along into it, or it could just serve to produce new content and that that constant content cycle wheel is really, really important for all of those phases. What's been quite interesting is we've talked to clients for for some of them, not all of them, is this idea of exiting and coming back, you know, and having a kind of managed, a managed exit, I guess, because there are some fandoms which will naturally be less important as kids get older. You know, if we're talking four to eighteen, when you're a four to six-year-old or even a four to eight-year-old, you're gonna when you get to a transition point in in terms of development or growth or whatever, they're not gonna want to do it anymore. You know, if you're a diehard bluey fan at seven, you're not gonna be a diehard bluey fan at twelve. Yeah. But there are there are fandoms that start around that kind of seven, eight, nine age group that are carrying on and going through. And so Lego would be a really good example because we what we're seeing a lot with Lego is that you know there are kids that are massive Lego fans when they're younger and they exit, but they come back and you know, they're coming back for an an IP crossover, perhaps, or they're coming back because it's okay to play with Lego again, or or whatever. I think that's a really interesting mechanic, is that is this kind of like, why why have your fans left you and how do you get them back in?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

And I can imagine, particularly when you have a situation whereby have they really left you? Are they just getting a bit older and they're distract they're drawn to other things naturally, but they still like you, and there's this underlying degree of affection, affinity, and all that type of thing. Yeah. Yeah, it must be really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

It it's super interesting. And actually, I I had a question, you know, last week around that. And and I think, you know, we were talking, you know, it was like, you know, do you at age 15, do you still have a a Minecraft or a Pokemon or whatever water bottle on your desk or a Lego tool water bottle, whatever? And I think you have to ride that tide of when kids are really worried about what other people think about them and how cool it is. Because at probably 12 to 14, maybe even 15, you are still thinking about the fact that you can't do that because people will pick on you. But by the time you get to 16, 17, 18 plus, you don't care anymore. And it becomes ironic or whatever, or nostalgic, or you know, the cliche or whatever it is, and and it's suddenly okay to have a branded something because it's part of your identity. So it's it's it there are so many different things that affect that as you go through.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Sam, did we finish the stages? Sorry, because I I get I butter in and maybe moved us in a different direction.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

The other two stages are exit and re-entry, and I think we kind of covered them a bit. I mean, that that there are these natural reasons for exiting, which are around, you know, aging out of them. The others are getting bored, not having enough content, my friends not liking it anymore. And that that that friends thing is is about talkability again. If you don't have anyone to talk to about the thing, then it loses its sheen. And then we kind of talked about some of the reasons to come back. So yes, those are the basics.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

And and then do these stages broadly, are they consistent across international markets? Or does do you see much variation?

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Do you know what? This whole piece of research was incredibly pleasing in its consistency. So we talked to a lot of kids and teenagers. We also talked to creators themselves, and we looked at loads of desk research, etc., etc. And the so that was wonderful. The other bit was interesting from an global perspective. We we did four markets. So our four core markets tend to be UK, US, France, and Germany. And what we saw in terms of regional difference was what I would largely say we see in terms of regional difference across every study that we do. The Americans are very enthusiastic. There is a sliding scale of intensity, but not massive variation, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yes, it does. Where are the Germans and the Brits on the scale?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Germans and the Brits are quite similar in off often, but the Brits, yeah, so they're kind of.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Sort of in between, they're sort of in but in between, but the U the US the most fervid in their expression, and the uh French are a little more insurant.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

And and we and there is less digital, less, but not none. I have to be careful in the way that I say this because kid because French kids are definitely online, but there tends to be a little bit more gatekeeping around it. So we see that I think some of the enthusiasm is just that the French are less enthusiastic in surveys, and some of it is just about exposure.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Is that related, do you think, to French parenting styles? I am jumping all over the place, but but I have heard some things around, you know, French parents are relatively hotter on, you know, table manners and we're going to eat together and you're going to chew properly.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

I mean, they're a much more they they are more tr they are still more traditional and more family focused than than some of our other markets. I'm gonna massively sidestep and go, we're just doing some work on for Safe for Internet at Day, which I I think I mentioned. And what has been really fascinating in that is that that our French and German respondents, parents even, were much, much more likely to ask for big tech regulation than our English and American ones. And the French were very viral, very very strident about the fact that actually it shouldn't just be up to the parents to police things. It, you know, big tech needs to get involved. So I think there is a slightly different attitude, but it it's but when you look at the results of the fandom study overall, it's a variance, it's not that different from Germany and France. It's not, you know, it's it's a stepped step interest.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Interesting. And then how about um relative differences across sort of generations? So if we looked at Gen Alpha and Gen Z or Z for my American friends.

Gen Alpha Versus Gen Z Content Flows

SPEAKER_00 32:03

I I say Gen Z all the time. I forget that I I talk to English people. I think that what's interesting is just the increased digital adoption for Gen Alpha in the way that they respond to things. So mimetic culture is really important for them. And I think we're going to see content and IP springing up for from more quite unquote unusual places. So gaming, absolutely. But I think what's been really interesting is if you look at brain rot content as a kind of symbol for Gen Alpha, that started as a meme, started as a meme that most adults and even Gen Z went, what is that? You know, what is that? And has just, you know, spawned a whole tidal wave of new UGC that has ended up in the gaming spaces really dominating the charts. So brain brain rot-inspired games are top of the Roblox charts. It's the current one is tsunami brain rot, and also in Fortnite as well. And so I think we that is the biggest difference is like where does where is content coming? And we had Skippy D toilet before that, but I think this is different and and more widespread and everything else. So I think it's where is the content going to come from? Where where does the creativity come from and where do they express themselves? And that I think is the biggest difference, I think, between them.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Interesting. I might just do a few wrap-up questions if that's all right. Because I know I know that you're very busy at the moment presenting that the latest insights. So yeah, if that's okay, I might just jump onto a quick follow-up. So it's a slightly cheeky question, which I've warned you about, but what would your partner say your best and worst characteristics?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

So, as I said, I had to have a think about that because my partners are not actually here at the moment. He's he's off doing a six-week adventure. I think he might say, My best feature is my ability to talk to anyone at any time. He might also say that's my worst one, but I also think that um he'd probably say, I'm terrible at home, admin, which I'll fully put my hand up to. I I actually asked my daughter this as well, and she said, I'm very selfless, which I was surprised by. But she was and then I said, Well, what's bad? And then she said, You just ask why too much.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

So I'm but it's that is that a qualitative research training.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

It's absolutely that, completely. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Yeah, yeah, that's that that's that's funny. I mean, maybe my kids suffer from that, suffer from that slightly as well. I have to ask them.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

She used to say when she was about 16, she used to say, My friends are coming around, you can't ask them why.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah, interesting. So, from a client perspective, what makes a good agency? And I guess the flip side of that is you know, what makes a bad agency?

SPEAKER_00 35:00

So I think for for me, for I mean we we commission workout, I think what makes a good agency are ones that we establish a relationship which means that they're true partners. So we feel that they really understand the brief right from the beginning, and then they execute on it really, really well. And so that that's not just about the project design, it's it's about the end side of things. So I look for people that we can brainstorm the results with. I don't want to get a deck at the end of that to be it. I want to almost co-create the deck with them, and that think so that the thinking isn't just about, well, the work said this, and and you know, this is this is what what the research says. It's about the so what does it mean and and how are we going to apply that across our organization and for our clients? That that's what for me makes a standout agency. What makes a bad agency? I mean, data inaccuracy is is not, you know, lack of communication and yeah, lack of thought.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah, so that that risk of just sort of repeating things back and yeah, just sort of rat rather than really partnering and yeah, trying to understand fully what what you mean, what you're trying to get at, and yeah. I suppose if you get that at the beginning, if everybody's clear on the beginning, then it makes the end part that you're talking about so much easier as well. Because then you're you're fully aligned.

What Makes A Great Agency Partner

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah, and it it's also we're quite a small team, and if we have to do a huge lift of results of interpretation at the end, it just delays everything. Whereas if we've got somebody that's fully on board that really understands us, that has allowed us to brainstorm with them several times before the end deck, we have an end product that needs much less work, which is really important.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Yeah, absolutely. So, final question: what's your favorite book or recent book and and am I?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Oh my god, I I found this so hard because I read a lot. I think can I have two?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Oh, you can, definitely.

Book Picks And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I've just finished, so I read a lot of young adult teen fantasy stuff. I've just finished Shades, the Shades of Magic trilogy. I loved it. It was very like Labour Durgo kind of esque, Shadow and Bone. It was just really good storytelling. But on a slightly more serious note, I read last year, quite near the start of last year, a book by Ellis Shafak called Rivers in the Sky. And that has stayed with me. And I like it, like I said, I churned through a lot of books. So for something to really stay, it's is really impactful. And I think I I love the I love her work anyway. She writes hit like historical, usually kind of like recent history novels that are blended with like present-day. She writes really good female characters, but she doesn't back away from really difficult issues. And Rivers in the Sky talked about the Yazidi massacres and and then other stuff. And it was it was just brilliant, really, really thought-provoking, really beautiful storytelling, um, really lovely writing.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Sam, thank you so much. It's been really, really fascinating. Really appreciate the time. Yeah, and a pleasure doing it.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Well, uh an absolute pleasure talking to you as well. And uh yeah, really, really uh privileged to be able to talk about the work that we do.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Lovely talking to Sam. It's such an interesting area, obviously of relevance commercially, but also in our lives and general relationships. So thanks to Sam for taking the time. Thanks to Insight Platforms for their ongoing support, and thank you to you for listening. See you next week.