This is Giles.
He’s the founder of UK marketing agency Gasp, known for its “Creatively Memorable & Boringly Effective” ethos, and the creator of ISOLATED Talks, a platform launched during the pandemic to share expert insights while supporting mental health initiatives. He does smile, but you wouldn’t know it based on the Google Image repository I had to choose from(!). He hosts the acclaimed ‘Call to Action’ podcast, interviewing top minds in marketing and business, and co-authored the satirical bestseller Delusions of Brandeur, which critiques industry nonsense with sharp wit. A disciple of Mark Ritson, Edwards champions rigorous, strategic marketing over trend-chasing tactics, earning him a reputation as a vocal advocate for what he calls “proper marketing.” Here’s what he’s up to, what make him tick, and some bloody good advice in these nutty times.
PS: Here’s my Isolated Talks offering from my snazzy pub-renovation Airbnb during covid as I thought I was going to LA!
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THE INTERVIEW
Isolated Talks® started as a creative response to crisis — what surprised you most about how people engaged with vulnerability when isolated from each other?
People shared, opened up, helped, talked, listened, stood up, and in doing so lifted one another. Harjot Singh, Global Chief Strategy Officer at McCann Worldgroup, said in his tribute to Isolated Talks, ‘the generosity of the human spirit is alive and well’. This sums up what surprised me most, in the most reassuring way possible.
If you relaunched Isolated Talks today, in a world saturated with creator content and mental health discourse, what would you do differently?
Probably nothing. Not because I think it was perfect. Or because I think I could do better. But because all we did was connect people, and facilitate where we were able to. We effectively created a platform, a stage, and people populated it. As further resource was subsequently donated (from the radio station, to the OOH media, the postcards, etc.) we simply added that to the whole. And people created to connect and support each other.
You’ve said Gasp is about putting marketing back in the boardroom — what’s the single most common mistake marketers make that keeps them stuck in the basement?
Marketers find it alarmingly easy to look and sound like people you’d want to keep in the basement. In the boardroom, they speak business. They speak finance. Put your marketing hat on and treat them as target segment - talk in their language. Try switching relatively ambiguous terms such as “awareness” for “future sales”, given it’s a decent enough proxy, and you’ll likely be taken more seriously. There is a huge misallocation of capital happening in many businesses right now, as they overly invest in ‘in market’ buyers. Which represents an opportunity for the marketing department. But too many are busy designing their rhomboid of brand purpose.
The Chutes champions “thinking upstream” — what’s the most dangerous downstream habit you see in modern marketing culture?
There’s probably better answers but following trends rarely feels right. Barbara Noakes, when at BBH and for the famous Levi’s campaign, wrote “When the world zigs, zag”. Not zig. Zag. After all, distinctiveness is the route to being remembered.
What idea, trend or buzzword in marketing do you secretly think is absolute bullshit — but too few people are willing to say it out loud?
SEO. Metaphorically, it’s the equivalent of painting the fence when the house is on fire. I get it, and its benefits. And in some instances it benefits discovery of new brands. But I firmly believe it’s far more important to come to mind before people search, that it is largely an efficiency practice pretending to be an effectiveness one.
How do you measure the long-term impact of something like Isolated Talks beyond views and shares?
I’m not sure you can. It’s complex, like most things in life. How many lives did we have to save for it to be worthwhile? More than zero? Well, we know it did that - we’ve heard it direct. Did it also help normalise talking about mental health? To a few, absolutely. To thousands, I’m not sure. Maybe. Again, if it’s more than zero that’s a great thing.
Where are brands over-valuing data and under-valuing instinct right now?
Media performance. The analytics of media and the metrics reported are often a false dichotomy. And we overstate the value of things that can be measured or at least expressed in a spreadsheet, and undervalue the things that can’t. Context matters, we know this. Yet marketers purchase media and report on media as if we do not.
If marketing were restructured from scratch today, what roles or functions wouldn’t exist at all?
I’d hope that anything with a digital prefix would go, or at least we’d all be media neutral by default. By hierarchy. In most instances, much like when we’re unwell, it’s beneficial going from a generalists (i.e. a GP) to a specialist. Not straight to a specialist, who might offer the wrong fix. Rather like going straight to a dentist for a twisted ankle. Diagnose first and then treat. That’s obvious, right?
Contact Giles here, and watch the Isolated Talks here.