Transcript
Speaker: Hello, before we get stuck into this episode of Bite Big, let me tell you a little bit about who the hell I am and why this content is important to me. My name's Amber Bonney and for the past 25 years, I've been reshaping iconic Australian and international brands, helping them stay relevant, get noticed and be remembered in the good kind of way.
Speaker: I'm a passionate feminist and committed to advocating for better representation of women in senior creative and marketing roles, which is why this podcast is proudly brought to you by my business, The Edison Agency.
Speaker: If your brand or organisation needs help aligning your vision to your reputation, then you can find us at www.edison.agency you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Let's get into it.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Season 4, Episode 6 of a special Bite Big series coming to you from the centre of London. I'm Amber Bonney, brand strategist and agency CEO. And right now we are on the road in the UK to meet the women building culture and challenging norms.
Speaker: This is a spotlight on the pulse of global creative leadership. And today I'm joined by someone who came highly recommended by another Bite Big yeah UK guest, Amy Keene, who said she has a lot to say but is selective with who she says it. So we're grateful to say hello and that you're welcome to join you, Vicky Ross.
Speaker: Oh, thank you for having me. It's great to be with you. Vicky has invested the last 30 years doing something most people in our industry take for granted, giving brands the world they need to actually sound like themselves. Vicky is a renowned brand voice and copy consultant based here in London, and her client list reads like a masterclass in career leadership.
Speaker: Sky, BAFTA, ITV, IMAX, and most recently, four of the most iconic names in British luxury motoring, Range Rover, Defender, Discovery, and Jaguar. Here's what I love about your story, Vicky. It's not just the brands that you've built voices for, it's the community that you've built for the people behind the words. When copywriters feel invisible, you created hashtag copywriters unite. When they needed to get off their screens and back into the world, you invented copy safari.
Speaker: When they needed to be in a room together, you filled pubs and stages across London and then around the world. You've been named top 30 female creative leader by Creative Equals, a top 100 trail baser by The Dots and received a special award for women in marketing for outstanding contribution to the industry. Congratulations. So Vicky, let's get stuck in and under the skin of what your personal mantra is and why we think you're a boss woman leading big.
Speaker: So your personal mantra is trust the process and be patient. What is it about that that resonates with you? So I'm going to ruin the theme of your podcast straight away. i said to you, i don't i don't have a personal mantra that I'm conscious of, but when you made me think about it, I thought, well, maybe it is that I just trust the process. But more recently, thinking about it in preparation for today, I was thinking, I don't know if it's trusting the process because that feels too strategic. And I think and it's a blurry line, but maybe it's more about just trusting the journey. So I've never had a plan. it feels more romantic. Yeah. Yeah. But I've never had a plan for my career. It's all been one incredibly happy accident. I didn't know that there was such a career as the one that I now have. And I've just been open to opportunities. And I guess that's brought me possibilities I didn't realize existed. And because it's always more mostly been successful, I felt that, well, if I keep trusting the journey, I'll keep going in the right direction.
Speaker: Yeah. Do you think in in the journey, there is a sense of patience that comes from letting it follow its own path yeah rather than, as you mentioned, trusting the process has a strategic framework to it? Yeah, i think with the process, you think maybe you can put markers in to manipulate somehow. Whereas with the journey, it feels a bit more passive, like just wait and see what happens. Yeah, and and let what's going to be, be. And I say things like that quite often. And, you know, what's meant for you will come for you. And I'm really not that romantic or woo-woo, but I do think that there's a truth in it for me anyway.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting because meandering horrifies me personally in the sense that I do love a system, but only a system from the sense of having some sort of scaffolding around total freedom, yeah which feels kind of horrifying, the thought of having too much freedom. but I get that, but I think because it's always worked out, I can trust that it's okay to not have that scaffolding. And I'm quite curious to see where things will go rather than having some sort of control over them. Because maybe if I had control over something, it wouldn't turn out in the way the way that it did. yeah yeah yeah And do you think that's something that you approach all of your projects with?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, look, I think maybe I'm coming across as someone who's really chilled. I'm pretty chilled, but there is a lot of freaking out in the in the background as well. So, you know, sometimes thinking of one project in particular where a client will come to me with this big idea and I'll get really excited to do it. And then I won't hear from them for months while they're working out all the logistics. And then I get to a point where I'm like, okay, well, I was being patient, but now I think it's not going to happen. So now I'm annoyed. Now, yeah, now I need some scaffolding in place. Yeah. But then the one project I'm thinking about did happen. So again, it was a lesson back to me to go, well, yeah, you just should have been patient. Sit back and yeah wait. And what does that look like in a in a process from ah a brand project that I suppose could you need to give client a certain confidence of what those stage gates are going to be? Yeah. What does that look like for you? I've learned in the last couple of years in particular that specifically creating a voice for a brand, that can take between three to six months. So that's the first sort of timeframe that I will give. And then how I deliver on that depends on the client's needs. Typically with brand projects, there isn't a deadline because... There's things going on that have to happen. The brand stuff can happily happen in the background. But if there is a big brand launch date that we're working to, then obviously we have to fix the timings. And then work backwards and I've learned through experience that I need two weeks to really sit with what the brief What brief is, yeah. and then maybe another two weeks to work out what I'm going to do with the brief, start thinking of some initial ideas. And so I do it, I guess, in incremental stages. And like any job, sometimes you'll have the idea instantly and sometimes you won't. But this is part of being a creative is you can't always put the time on it. You can, but you might always get the best
Speaker: result so you can get an instant result as a you know any creative can come up with an idea but a really good idea often takes longer than a half a day deadline that we sometimes get yeah do you have examples or situations where you've had an intuition about a voice for a brand and it's been diluted by the client as it's gone along No, not diluted, more the complete opposite. It's gotten better. Yeah, one of the things I love about my job is how excited the client gets because when you come in from the outside and you remind them of who they are and what they could sound like and they haven't had enough time to think of that themselves...
Speaker: They see themselves differently and then they believe in you and they want you to go ahead with that execution. And a lot of that getting a client to believe in themselves bit is reminding them of who they are. So you mentioned some of the brands I've worked with, they're all category leaders.
Speaker: Often they'll say, we really like what our competitor is doing. And I'll say, why are you even focusing on the competitor? Yeah. I mean, you have to know what they're up to, obviously, but not to copy them. You then leap over them. So I like reminding people that they can be bigger and better than what they've sort of accepted. but in terms of um having an intuition, i think the intuition often comes from themes within the category. And that's like a shortcut. So finding language that feels familiar to a brand. But doing it in a distinctive way, but not trying to reinvent something. Yeah. Yeah. When you say distinctive, so finding words that they can own or that they already own but they've forgotten about maybe and bringing them back. But then the other way of doing it is to speak with the brand because they know far more than I do. So I don't do all of this by myself. The more I can bring a brand along
Speaker: through the process with me, the better. So one example I can give you is you mentioned the car brands that i worked with. After creating a voice for each of the vehicle brands, I then went back in and created a voice for JLR, ah the corporate brand, when they rebranded from Jaguar Land Rover. And I probably spoke to about 100 people around the business throughout the process.
Speaker: and I asked them like to describe the voice that they thought they could or should be in one word. And this is so unusual, they all said the same word. What was the word? on I need to can't tell you.
Speaker: ah But they all said the same word. And was that word intrinsically linked to sort of ah a value or behaviour that they spoke a lot about? Not that they spoke about. It's just something that came really naturally. A lot of people have worked there for a really long time. They have a really good idea of who they are as a brand and and how they want to operate as a business. And then the sort of people that work there as well, I think, embody what that word was. yeah So it probably has come up loads, but they didn't realise that it could be a principle. And I made it one of their voice principles. So I didn't have the intuition. I had the information and the inspiration. and then when we got to the end of the project and I presented it all back to them, it felt really comfortable because it came from them. They felt like they'd been part of the journey. It was well received.
Speaker: It's a really similar process when we're working on a visual identity for a brand, for example. In um one of our methods is always going back to go forward, especially when we're working with legacy brands. How much of that is in your process too? So you mentioned looking back over words, maybe they used to own in old comms campaigns or work. how How much your process or that journey is dedicated to that?
Speaker: and looking Probably that first part of the of the process, like I mentioned. And by the way, i always ask what the visual principles are, because if there's already words in use that they're used to and feel right for the brand, if they can also be adopted for the verbal side of things, it gives them all less to learn and it feels like everything comes together synergy yeah um but yes there's a lot of looking back um especially when again maybe they need reminding that something already exists that they could work with so with Range Rover they all loved the sophisticated wit of their classic adverts
Speaker: And I said, what era was that? And we're like 60s to 80s. Wow. Okay. And I said, there's just no reason why you can't still talk like that. There's and other brands aren't doing that in the way that you were. You could run some of the adverts you could run again now with no change. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. and good about homes Yeah. They're really gorgeous. Some of their ads.
Speaker: That's amazing. Yeah. Thinking about the process and journey, how do you respond to situations where maybe the journey is veering off somewhere that potentially you feel like is not going to end in a positive way or it's it's going off track?
Speaker: don't think ive i experienced something going off track. I've maybe experienced a new direction from the client from what we'd agreed that we'd go in. so like a re-brief type of situation? Yeah, I'm thinking of one example with a client last year.
Speaker: We'd got quite far along with one idea that i had I felt really strongly about. And then at the last minute they'd hired someone new who'd come in and seen it with fresh eyes yes and said, i don't think it's about this. I think it's more about that. And it really annoyed me because i really loved what I'd done. But he was right. And it worked. It worked. And how much of that work is tested, like consumer validated? Is much of what you do ever test in the same way comms or a a visual expression would be?
Speaker: Yes, I'm not involved in that though. My biggest involvement in that part of the process was when I worked at SkyX. I was head of copy there. right And so I was always going to the research groups. And it's really great to hear from the audience because the client is not the audience. No, exactly. Yeah. yeah And I think the client forgets that. So I really love it when a brand is keen on testing. Also, I worked at Expedia. They they do a lot of testing too. We spoke earlier before we started about AI and we could probably go on forever about that. But one of the big discussions in Australia at the moment is just the value of of process or that sort of creative journey. Do you have a point of view around selling of the process versus selling the outcome or the execution?
Speaker: like do you When you're putting a proposal in, are you putting a proposal in that's focused on sort of the end outcomes or are you sort of selling the journey? ah The end outcome. Yeah.
Speaker: Because the brief is to come up with a new voice for the brand. Yeah. The AI thing is, i can't believe i'm going to say it's interesting when I've been so against it for so long, but with all the capabilities that we've been promised, I've I'm really surprised that it isn't able to execute a brand voice. So for example, Jaguar Land Rover has 44,000 people working there and they are most of them are expected to now write in their new voice and they're not all all writers, obviously. And I can't believe that AI isn't capable of distributing this voice with it or disseminating the voice across all of the comms. You can't just press a button and deploy it. Yeah. And have you have you tried and and seen the outcomes of what's happened? I haven't tried it myself. I've tried prompting it to come up with copy, but not executing a voice on behalf of a brand. But I have read about other brands that claim that they have successfully. They haven't. yeah You've read what the yeah outcomes are. Yeah. One brand in particular, Virgin, so the Virgin Group, really, really, flirty flamboyant fabulous voice yeah personality and and ah you know it's in everything that they do and virgin voyages had a big press release out last year saying and we've used ai to create comms in our voice and we're really happy with the result and i read the comms and it could be any brand it it it doesn't have the virgin flair and
Speaker: That's not just on AI, though. That's on the people behind the AI. Endorsing and approving. Yeah, it's the people prompting it and signing it off and thinking it's good enough. So often the issue is with the people who are responsible for a brand. not We can't just blame everything on AI. Yeah. I mean, do you think it's unfair to expect marketers or brand owners to be able to do that well, yeah even with a guide? Yeah. I think it's such there's such artistry in copy in the same way that every other creative discipline is, right? Like whether it's printmaking or yeah visual identity or, you know, poetry.
Speaker: It's very hard. I think theyre my view is this misconception that with AI that suddenly everyone's going to be the jack of all trades and be able to execute voice, you know, with perfection or visual identity. You know, it's the same same sort of aspect for us. Do you see that or experience that too? Absolutely. And um with the way the the economy is and businesses are at the moment, there's a lot of businesses that don't have copywriters. And I always tell a client, I think it's really unfair that you're expecting non-copywriters to just execute a voice and be good at it straight away. So the way I write guidelines now is with the non-copywriter in mind, not the copywriter, because I think most good copywriters, you could say, a voice is X, Y, and zd and they go, yeah, I know what to do with that. I get it, yeah. Yeah, whereas a marketer maybe needs more guidance. So my guidelines have become less sexy and exciting and more really practical. Yeah, like practical? Yeah, so that to give them a chance at getting it right.
Speaker: I mean, it's a helpful skill, but it is... Like some people have thousands of hours of practice and then yeah to, and also the headspace, you know, the space to be able to write yes um with a level of creativity and discipline. Whereas, you know, if you're in the middle of 50 things, yeah even just trying to post something on LinkedIn feels like hard work. Totally. Yeah. And then the other thing I think is unfair is that, say, a marketing manager has been asked by their boss to quickly send a customer email in the brand's voice and then the their but the boss might say, ah oh, this isn't good enough. Well, that wasn't their skill. So you're now criticising them on something that they didn't train to do. And so it's just a bad day at work for everyone. When we talk about voice, how long did it take you to find your own voice? Yeah.
Speaker: I'm asked this a lot and i' my answer is I i didn't. i'm just You're still going. i'm just Well, no, I'm just me. at that The whole find curating a personal brand and finding your voice, my voice is me being genuinely passionate about my job and have it working for myself for the last 15 years home alone, having no one to talk to and just putting stuff on social media as I think it the only strategy I have to what share is my personal life is who cares no one needs to know what I had for lunch yeah but my opinions on my job that I share on LinkedIn because my peers are on there I want to have those conversations so it is it's just me yeah I I'm so strong I feel strongly about curating a personal brand Yeah, maybe reframe it as maybe voice personal confidence. Oh, do you mean confidence to speak? Yeah, because I think it's, you know, a lot of the discussions that we have um from this podcast are around were people born with a natural conviction or at what stages of their life did they feel like they had agency or had sometimes used as voice so contextually different. But, I mean, going out on your own takes a yeah level of confidence in itself Well, it's a really good reframe of the question because I'm a very nervous public speaker. I got nervous on the way here today, but I guess I'm confident in what I think. say Yeah, I don't think I would speak so much publicly if I didn't think I had the backup of my job and my success to... Yeah, like I would never make throwaway comments about something or criticize somebody or their work unless I've had the experience too.
Speaker: Unless you could substantiate it. Yeah. yeah yeah so it's expertise-based, is it? Yeah. That's where the confidence comes from. yeah I want to ask you, because I'm personally very interested, and I'm sure lots of listeners are too, but this sense of words and power that came from the case study of working in luxury brands, and we're talking about you know big big brands with JLR.
Speaker: what What did it take to work on language for four different brands and were they sequential? Was it you finished one and then you worked on the other or was it trying to look at the portfolio architecture of how all of those voices work together? Yeah, we did them, when I say we, I mean me and the client team, we did them all together. and it was a big change for me because and it wasn't just luxury, it was also automotive, which I have no experience in. um I've mostly worked in entertainment, so very much in my comfort zone talking about TV and films. yeah And then they approached me and asked me to do this job and i was just like,
Speaker: Why on earth? Yeah, where did that connection come from? Well, I've always had a bit of a beef ah with car advertising. Right, yeah. Is that because it's mostly the same? It's just awful. The lines are just so, such nonsense. I can't even think of one, but it's that sort of like driving to the future, tomorrow, today. You know, it's that of... Yeah. It sort of sounds like a superannuation company. yeah there there's yeah it could be anything that is, yeah yeah, it's a good point. And I just remembered one, i think it's Ford a few years ago, was Unlimit the Future or something. And said, what does that mean? Even me. Yeah. So, and I posted about that quite a lot. I've done talks where I've had a go at car brands. Ripped into strips. Yeah. And they approached me and said, we've seen what you say about car advertising on social media and we don't want you to say the same about us. And I thought, this is a great strategy. I thought, well, I thought, well, so not well done them. That sounds patronizing, but I guess well done them putting the challenge back on me. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Money where your mouth is. Yeah. Yeah. Because then I was like, right, well, now I have to them something. They have to deliver. Yeah. and And I really like that. And actually, i think my work with them is some of my best work because i was totally out of my comfort zone. it was something completely new. i was really, you know, they'd come to me for those reasons. I thought I've really got to deliver. To deliver. So, yeah, that's how they came to me. And we've had a really good working relationship since. And what was the duration of that process? Well, the first project I did for them was actually um they were they wanted to make their Defender brand talk better to women.
Speaker: It's a very masculine brand. It had quite aggressive language in the comms. And so I did a big audit. It's an aggressive shape. Yeah, but what they found was a lot of women do drive the Defender and so they felt like they weren't talking to that driver in the way that they should be. So I did a big audit and and went back with lots of recommendations and then they came back to me and said, right, now ah we want to rebrand all the cars. And that was in the lead up to the Jaguar rebrand a year and a half ago. So they wanted to make sure that each vehicle really stood out from each other. And so to go back to answering your question about the process, and they had done four years of strategy work before they came to me. Yeah. So they knew. that was the like positioning across the port Yeah, so building the brand world, creating the the positioning, looking at their visual expression. Yeah. All in, you know, gearing up to the Jaguar rebrand, which is why it made me, I mean, I i say laugh, but I was also devastated for the people behind the scenes when Jaguar, the rebrand came out and everyone annihilated them on social media. Honestly, the example of that, I did a very lengthy ranty LinkedIn post about just the fact that everyone jumps on a bandwagon. Like the
Speaker: From all seeds of all industries, from brand designers to marketers to advertising, the thing that furiates me about that, firstly, is if you don't have any insight into why a brand is doing anything, then just zip it. yes yeah You don't have anything to say. So unless you are either involved in the project yeah or you have some sort of insider information,
Speaker: How do you know where Jaguar's yeah heading, what strategically they were trying to do? Yes, maybe it will fail, but come back five years later and say, hey, yeah yeah look, what ah what a terrible job. But you can't say when it's just dropped that, yeah, it's a terrible job when there is absolutely no insight to validate that. Well, there was two things that really stuck out for me, building on what you've said. One is we all work in this industry and we know what it's like to work on something that maybe doesn't...
Speaker: we don't like it or whatever, but we know what goes on behind the scenes. And the other thing was all the comments of people saying they don't know what they're doing. And I just kept reading them thinking, well, you think they just woke up today and said, we're going to change the car. and We're putting pink in. Yeah. And that they didn't know what they were doing and they hadn't done all this work. It's just, we and putting those comments out on social media, I always think, you know, we can all see you. It's actually, it's embarrassing because I think it says more about that individual. Yes. And their lack of, strategic insight. Yeah. Because firstly, they're probably not the consumer. So like anything, well making judgment on something that's not meant to be talking to you and then all of the people who were Jag, you know, old Jag owners, for example,
Speaker: ah Probably not the audience either because they're not buying Jags anymore. Which is why they've had to do something different. Exactly. yeah And that's always the... Yeah, we had commentary recently on something that launched and, you know, there was a bit of keyboard worries going on on LinkedIn as they usually are around, oh, you know, I liked the original. And it's like, well...
Speaker: You weren't buying the original and neither was anyone else. So this nostalgia is completely futile conversation. Yeah, there's no point coming out now and seeing No, no. its it was a wild time and I really felt for everyone behind the brand because not only were they attacked on social media as a brand, but people were attacked personally. And i just think, what are you doing? Like, that's not on.
Speaker: But back to continuing to answer your question about how it happened. So, um yes, we worked on the four brands at the same time because we needed to keep making sure that we were pulling them all apart from the other one. yeah So if this one said this, then that one says that about the same thing.
Speaker: And what about... I suppose, was working on a luxury brand, do you think, more pressure than the traditional projects that you'd worked on? No, it wasn't more pressure. i found it really interesting because luxury brands talk less than mass brands. It's like a quiet... Understated luxury. Exactly. So then there's the challenge of... saying a lot in not much hardly any words. Yeah, which is harder. it is harder, but I love editing. yeah And I, like long copy is not my thing. I'm really not very good at it. and So the shorter the copy, the better for me. So I really enjoyed that. Like, can we get it down even more? even Can you get it to two words? Three words. What's the sweet spot? Yeah, Jaguar was a lot one words for Jaguar. So yeah, Range Rover was longer romantic sentences. Defender was sort of quicker, more active, energetic language. Discovery was a bit warmer and Jaguar was the creative one. So we could play with words a bit more.
Speaker: What a great case study. Do you think you're going to be approached by other other automotive people? I've been working with a car brand recently. There you I really like the sentiment though. um it feels like a really great new business initiative to take aim at a category, yeah have a strong point of view as an outsider. A few people have said that to me and I thought, oh God, I should i should make this strategy. It wasn't intentional, it the outcome. A similar thing happened.
Speaker: didn't result in work. It resulted in product. A while ago... turned into an influencer. I can't imagine. I commented on the copy on Tyrell's crisps. I don't if you have Tyrell's in Australia. We do, but not for long. Okay, they have a lovely voice and I commented on social media and they got in touch with me and asked for my address and sent me 13 bags of crisps. And was like, wow, this is a great day because I love crisps. And then was like, right, British Airways. What else? Yeah. I want to go to the Caribbean. Who else can I talk to?
Speaker: We spoke a little bit about ai and not fearing AI, but this sense of human versus machine. Do you think there is a sentiment of potentially brands getting a little bit lazier with their language as they're expecting that automation to go through? Absolutely.
Speaker: I think there has been, this might be optimism talking, but i'm I'm here for the optimism. Please. I don't think we're about to enter a period of time where brands start to want to express themselves more again. i think they've been playing it safe for a long time because of various world affairs that make people scared to stand up for anything or stand out for anything. And ai is proving that it can communicate on behalf of your brand but it will make you sound like every other brand and brands are noticing and there are lots of articles and reports and stats coming out to prove what I'm saying this isn't me just yeah being hopeful and so I think brands are going to have a look at themselves and say right well we need to be something look like something sound like something that people are going to be interested again because if we all look and sound the same you're not distinguishable from anyone ah anyone or anything. It's a sea of sameness. Sea of sameness. And we're always talking about how you're not just competing with your competitors anymore. You're competing with everything else in the world. People are on TikTok. They're watching TV. they've They've got all the experiences to enjoy that brands offer them.
Speaker: No one's going to buy into anything that a brand has to say if they can't get to know who that brand is. Yeah, it's almost the infallibility and the emotion that that comes through in a genuine way feels like it's going to resonate. yeah Have you ever or people in your field had to fix work that has been generated by AI as in someone has tried to use AI to set a tone which hasn't worked and then they've asked you to try and fix it?
Speaker: I haven't had that and none of my clients have even spoken to me about AI or their... I like to think they're just not interested in using it. I respect you. But I do know, not from a voice perspective, but just copy generally, I do know that last year a lot of copywriters lost their jobs or their clients or projects and the excuse they were given was AI. And I say excuse because I don't believe that it's always AI is the real reason. And now my social feed and the messages that get from people is the complete opposite to that. And people are being hired back because their clients or their bosses have realized that AI can't deliver. And what love about that is isn't just copywriters saying Marketers are posting publicly or saying publicly on stages that they've tried AI and it didn't work. So they've gone back to human creativity and human craft. And it's really important that that message comes out from them as well as the creatives. Yeah, I think definitely comes out from them because think the creative industry, creative services can say anything we want, but until the people who are procuring the services of creatives come out with confidence and reassurance, it's sort of just words. Yeah, because creatives are guilty of being, or they're accused of talking to themselves and about themselves. And also some people think that creatives have this romantic idea of their job and that no one should get involved. And that's not true. We are in service to a brand. It's not just being creative because we want to be. It's not fine art. No, exactly. It's completely different. But my experience in the last year is, well, I went to Advertising Week Europe last year and the theme of all the talks was we have to embrace AI, it's here and it can do what we want it to do. And then exactly a year later, Advertising Week just gone in March, the theme was AI can do some things, but it can't do all things. And it just won't cut it. And you still need that human level of creativity and judgment. I hate to say taste because everyone's saying it, but it's true.
Speaker: Yeah, well, thank goodness for that. yeah i want to talk a little bit about Copywriters Unite because in your industry it is dominated by women, is that correct, in the copywriting sector?
Speaker: No, i think there's probably more men. More men. Yeah. But yeah I created Copywriters Unite. It is a hashtag on social media. and I created it on Twitter when Twitter was a safe space and everybody had a nice time on there and we all made lots of friends. Yeah. And I created it because copywriters often work on their own.
Speaker: Even when they're in a big creative studio, they could be the sole copywriter. They might not have a head of copy to look up to or protect them. And so it was an opportunity to connect copywriters wherever they were. and you know tweet each other and talk about like from the nerdy things like where would you put this comma to I've seen this job if anyone's interested to I've written this article would someone read it and it got really people were using it all day every day and then it turned into people saying can we all meet up in real life and so well I started doing quarterly meetups in London just in a bar or a pub um I didn't want there to be any kind of agenda I didn't want to make money from anything there weren't events specifically for copywriters so just wanted to give people a place to go and meet each other and it was just really nice people have made friends they've found work partners they found work um they've got speaking gigs um or or whatever it is and now those meetups happen all over the world wow and how are they facilitated elsewhere somebody network so yeah somebody will host so that the the only responsibility is just for one person to find a place to say this is where we're going to meet at this time and then everyone goes they don't need to do anything once they're there they don't need to a talk they don't need to
Speaker: take a register of any kind um it is just turning up and having a drink with people that you've got loads in in common with and how does that feel to have started something that's now gone beyond um so i help promote them i don't go to them of course i don't go to the ones all around the world when i know that one's happening i will sit at home and i will look at social media sort of around the time that i know it will have ended happening and i'll see all the posts of people on their way home saying they've had such a nice time and just it's really heartwarming yeah yeah yeah incredible and a lot of people in copywriting do you know what the percentage of independent sort freelancers versus employed are I don't I would imagine there are more freelancers especially now and which makes them I suppose more vulnerable yeah um yeah But because of the way the industry is right now, lots of redundancies, I don't think there's such a thing as job security anymore. So batting for yourself. I know you spoke to Cindy Gallop. Yes. Part of this new series. And she always says, you know, start your own agency. It doesn't have to be a whole big agency. It can just be backing yourself. Individual practice. Yeah. You've always got your you in mind. You'll always look after yourself. One of the things about freelancing for people who haven't necessarily worked for themselves are those, you know, business skills or, you know, pit pitching and writing proposals. Has that been a challenge, do you think, for people in other copywriters who maybe have been employed for a long time where they haven't had to have exposure and then all of a sudden they're, you know, having to submit proposals and...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it was for me. i never intended to go freelance. But yeah, um being a creative and rising up and up in a business, your creative job becomes less creative. And when I found that at Sky, i reluctantly handed in my notice, not knowing what to do next, thinking, well, I'll try freelancing. sky asked if they could be my first client that was great because i really didn't want to stop working for them i ended up working for them for a further 12 years and with them as a client but i had no idea what i was doing and even though i had a solid client and had endless work from other brands as well i still freaked out like when's the next job coming when's the next paycheck the flow yeah yeah it's It's stressful. where We've been conditioned to work every, you know, you went to school every day and then you go to work every day. So to then wake up and go, I don't have work on Thursday, it feels odd. And I think, yeah, when you're used to that cycle, um you know, the instability, which is I think why, you know, as we were talking before around,
Speaker: the instability that AI has has created in, you know, coming off, you know, geopolitical tensions, which I don't think help and COVID, you know, like it's been quite a five, six years of sort of instability. I don't think that's helped no an industry. No. in Yeah, in the same way. No.
Speaker: What advice would you give for copywriters who are maybe struggling to prove their value in ah in a creative process?
Speaker: I think as creatives we can forget that there's a lot of non-creative work that we have to do around the process. It's not good enough to just say, I've written this and I like how it sounds. There you Yeah, especially if you're selling to non-creatives. So I often talk about, this is dramatic, I liked watching Suits, Imagine you're presenting your case in a court of law and show why you've gone with the angle you've gone with or the particular words that you've chosen. What is the brand's competitors doing? You want them to see the difference in how you've made them stand out. And you want to also maybe show them they might have asked you for something in particular and you've done something different. But do what they've asked you then show them what you did that was different and why and hope that they see the difference. And I mean, I've been in these situations, not all clients can tell the difference between good and really good. At the end of the day, that's their brand and you're not going to win every argument, but at least you know you tried. Yeah, so that's contextualising it for them, which I suppose part of that process you mentioned at the beginning was the beginning of that journey, the research and the understanding, you know, what have they done in the past that maybe has or hasn't worked? What's their visual identity? What can you extract from that? So taking them on that journey as your...
Speaker: as you're moving forward Yeah, which should be part of the job naturally anyway. it shouldn't feel like an extra exercise that you have to do like, oh, now I need to present it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I wish I could just go, here's your copy. Yeah, it is a lot of extra work to contextualize it. But then. But I feel like if you don't contextualize it.
Speaker: In some ways, the value is reduced yeah because the evidence that you have done your due diligence actually isn't in that kind of the journey and the process. Especially as a freelancer, because it can be really easy for a brand to say, they just don't get us because they don't work here. So you need to show that you do. i like to feel like I'm part of a team, not a consultant coming in from the outside, because quite often people don't want to hear from you when you've come in from the outside. Yeah, that's where I suppose when you spoke at the beginning about giving the sense of pride that people feel when you present something that's then given them a voice yeah for their brand, yeah but also personally a voice, you know, that sense of pride that they had this all along. Yeah.
Speaker: And in some ways, a bit like a you know sculptor talks about uncovering the artwork out of stone versus actually creating it from scratch. Yeah, it's making it sound very highbrow now, but yes. You're a word sculptor, I'm sure. love it, I've changed my description. Some interesting, other interesting ways that you can talk about that. I want to ask about the younger version of Vicky. What would you...
Speaker: have wanted to hear as say a 16 year old that you didn't hear? Just wait it'll be it'll all happen it'll all happen so guess that's like my trusting the process when I was younger once I knew what a copywriter was i was really hungry to be one and when was that? I knew that I wanted to be a writer ah about 16, I didn't know copywriters existed. I think nearly every copywriter says that. Was it more like an an author, like you enjoyed stories? Never author because I don't like writing long copy. Yeah, but I thought it meant journalism because I liked the adverts in the press. got you So I thought, oh, well you have to be a journalist to write those. To do that. Yeah.
Speaker: And so when I became a copywriter, the next thing was, right, well, now I need to be head copy like next week. How quickly can I be the boss? Yeah. um That's very ambitious of you. Yeah. Well, I just I loved what I did and I wanted to do it at a high level. Quickly. Yeah. And as I said, when you rise in your creative job, you your job is less creative. And actually, you need to enjoy the years that you have as a creative for as long as you have them. yeah So younger i would say to younger me, just enjoy what you've got and don't wish for the future too quickly. Yeah, don't don't wish for the back-to-back yeah meetings that now have nothing to do with creativity. Business forecasts and managing a team and and people being off sick and or wanting holiday days. I was always like, yeah, if you don't feel well, don't come in and, yeah, sure, go on holiday. like I don't really like rules. um I respect rules. Yeah. rules around whether someone could go on holiday or not like I just you know when I'm trying to be creative and not be the the bossy manager I just thought those things were not important. We're a real pain. Yeah just let people work how they want to work you'll get the best out of them that way. Yeah although running a business with logistics personally that can be challenging sometimes. I know you mentioned before around you have just let your career unfold but it sounds like with
Speaker: a level of ambition there or a hunger or a thirst. Is there anything that you would do differently, do you think? I think my haste has meant that I've made a couple of bad decisions.
Speaker: Is that in haste for the a new job, for example, or a role? More um not the job, but the things that I've done on the side, like you mentioned earlier, I've created conferences or Just done other things that are, you know, ah do people still call them side hustles. Yeah, think Okay, so a few side hustles. I've maybe collaborated with the wrong people in my haste to get something off the ground and being flattered by... The request. Yeah. yeah
Speaker: And not maybe taking the time to work out if it was the best fit. So that's that's the only thing I would do differently. But then I wonder, maybe i need to do those things. I'm thinking about one instance in particular where I took a whole weekend to sort of sit with myself and think, how did I get into this mess? And could I have seen it coming? And how do I feel about this? So it's quite interesting to question it, I suppose. And if everything's perfect, are you learning anything?
Speaker: Well, Vicky, it's been so great to meet you face-to-face and such a wonderful experience to be here in London and I'm really grateful for, A, your reframe on Trust the Process and to do some quick thinking there. Sorry, every creative challenge is the dream. That's right, I like the creative challenge. It is about being patient on that journey. I think there's something really interesting there and especially the era that we are now where there has been lot of fury around people feeling like they're out of control and that the way that they used to work was not being valued. So I think there's going to be some really beautiful insights that people will take from that. thank you for sharing that. This podcast is made and produced by women. It's something that we invest in, self-funded. We are looking for a sponsor. So if you know anyone... But to show our gratitude, we're donating £250 on your behalf to a chosen charity. You have chosen the charity Refuge.
Speaker: Can you tell us a little bit about what Refuge is and why that's important to you? Yeah, so thank you very much. It's very kind. Refuge is a charity that supports women and children who have left home because they've experienced some form of domestic abuse.
Speaker: And the reason I chose it is it's become a bit of a tradition for me to donate to them every Christmas. My first proper job as a copywriter i was at the body shop. And every Christmas we and had a tree, a Christmas tree and reception that we all bought presents for to put and it's called the giving tree. And all the presents we were buying were for refuge. And I was at the body shop for eight years. It holds a special place in my heart. Anita Roddick is an incredible woman to have worked for. What an enduring brand. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it went away for a little bit. It did, yeah. It can't go away. They've brought it back. and I know, but it's come back with a vengeance. It really has, yeah. And even when I first went back into the store, because as a teenager, a body shop was everything. Yes. But the the smell was still like, you talk about the beauty.
Speaker: the brand asset or a distinctive brand asset the the sense of smell that you got yeah what is white mask usually yeah the white yeah yeah so yes I have continued that every Christmas I will always buy gifts for people being helped and so when you asked for because I do support lots of homeless charities in London but when you mentioned the you know women with the women focused I thought it has to be refuge What a great selection. And we do work with a similar organisation in Australia called Next Steps Australia, and they help provide packages, really simple packages of linen and towels and Manchester that when people are leaving a refuge yeah and going into their sort of first next house, that they have something brand new to take with them. Yeah, it's such a beautiful gesture. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we're aligned. Well, I'm glad we're aligned too. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I've been your host, Amber Bonney. And until the next episode, may we all bite big and chew like hell.
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you so much.
