Caroline Taylor  0:00  
Finding that sweet spot between what it is your company does, your organisation does, and how can you leverage that to have positive impact in the world. And then look for that sweet spot, those opportunities where those things coincide, where you can play that life, light, and self-interest card that allows you to do something really positive and great for your business at the same time as having a positive impact in society, and don't try and make it something random and left field that has nothing to do with what you do, because it won't wash. Make it something that's really pertinent to to the impact that your product service offerings have out there in the world,

Ben Walker  0:53  
hello everybody, and welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast. And you know today we're going to be looking at applying marketing in new way into a new sphere, bit of departure for the show, but an exciting one. We're going to be looking at how we can use marketing activity to help us solve systemic social problems, problems with society, sociological problems that we face as a country and as a society. And we have got some great guests with us today to discuss this very important and interesting issue. None other than Caroline Taylor OBE, and Caroline has, you know, she's really lived the journey going from corporate to the charitable sector. She was actually CMO for IBM's International business operations, but she has now moved squarely into the sphere of social change. She is chair of the board of Oasis Community Learning, which is a multi-academy trust responsible for actually 56 primary and secondary schools across the UK, and she's a director and trustee of the Oasis Charitable Trust. She is also a long standing advocate for human rights and social justice. Previously working as chair of the board of trustees on an organisation called Stop the Traffic, which is a pioneering charity working to prevent human trafficking. Caroline, welcome. How are you?

Caroline Taylor  2:19  
I'm great, thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

Ben Walker  2:22  
It's great to have you on the show. Fantastic to have you on the show. We're also joined today by mr. Jack Lowman. Now, Jack is Chief Social Change Officer of the Disability Charity Sense. Many of you will know the charity, very big charity in the world of disability. He's also founder of Future Skills Trainer called Hack Yourself, which some of you will know began life as a book of the same name, and I'm delighted to say he is a course director at CIM. Great to have you on the show, Caroline. Before we go too much further, let's do a little bit of a pop profile of each of you, tell us a little bit about yourself. I've given you a bit of a bill in, but it's quite an incredible CV you've got. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and history?

Caroline Taylor  3:13  
Sure. Okay. Well, so studied life sciences at uni, fell into working in fine wine retail as a result of a student job, did that for a while, had a couple of kids, and was looking at going back to work, and sort of through a set of coincidences ended up working still in marketing, but in the tech industry, and I worked for several smallish software companies, and then I got acquired a couple of times, as you do if you work in the software industry, and then, and then the last one I got acquired was by IBM. Didn't think I'd stay, because they were this huge behemoth, and I'd worked in these sort of smallish, much more startup II environments, and didn't see how I could possibly fit in there, and then gave it a couple of years, and discovered, well, I'm not ever sure I ever totally fit in, but, but it was an extraordinary organisation with the potential and the ability to do so much, and it was from the first moment, How they're very clearly a purpose-driven organisation, and I found that super attractive, so for all the downside of a very large organisation with everything that brings in terms of bureaucracy, etc. it was making a real positive impact in the world and had the potential to do even more, so I thought I'd stick around and see what happened, so I stuck around and saw what happened, and I think more they didn't fire me than I chose to stay, but it just sort of, yeah, just all sort of worked and played out, and got to work with incredible people on amazingly interesting stuff, and yeah, and then this sort of sort of sideline to that, got involved with Stop the Traffic way back, possibly nearly 20 years ago, I suppose, now, and then IBM got involved with Stop the Traffic, which was very exciting. To have them on board as well, so they did some amazing work together, and, and then, as a result of yes, Dr. Affick then got involved with Oasis, and then after I retired in 2020 was asked if I'd be willing to join the board, and then become chair of Oasis Community Learning, which is the education portion of what Oasis does, which is a bit daunting, because you know I've been a user of education, but never been involved in it beyond that. But it is amazing how you find that your many years in the corporate world, and with all the complexities working in a very big organisation, serve you very well when you come into that sphere, particularly, because a multi-academy trust is, I mean, it's a charity, but it's highly regulated by the government, and so you have all of the challenges of the Department for Education, both the civil servants and the politicians, you have Ofsted, blah blah, so turns out that a lot of my IBM training stood me in very good stead in that in that moment, and then when I'm not doing all of that, I'm when I retired in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, and with quite a limit on what one might do with one's time, I took up wildlife photography, so that's the other thing that sort of fills my days. If anybody sees me on Teams or Zoom, or whatever, you'll find that, you know I've walls of my wildlife photos around me,

Ben Walker  6:24  
and you're being very modest, because you sometimes I should say, for the benefit of the audience, you picked up some at some point in that long and illustrious career, you picked up an OBE.

Caroline Taylor  6:33  
Yes, wasn't that peculiar? Yes, I mean it's sort of embarrassing, really, isn't it? Because you, we all, you know, whenever you, if ever you're recognised for a thing, most of us know that there are far more deserving people than you are, but nevertheless it would be rude to say no, thank you, and no. So that was pretty wonderful, and I, yeah, and it was the citation was peculiar because it was for marketing diversity and the prevention of human trafficking, which is quite the collection of things, I think they couldn't quite then make their mind up which one they wanted to stick on it, so they stopped all three. Yes, that was very wonderful, and and gave, and gave me my day at the palace, gave my husband and my daughters their day at the palace, and and I got to meet a queen, which was pretty awesome,

Ben Walker  7:22  
fantastic, fantastic. That's great. An amazing, an amazing career. Well, lived, Jack, you, I mentioned earlier, you're, you're slightly unusual in that you're the founder of a company that started with a book, which is the reverse of what normally happens. You know, people normally start a company, and then they write a book about their insights from that company, but for you it worked in reverse.

Jack Lowman  7:42  
It did, and it actually probably started with more of an idea, which was that you know the world of work has changed considerably, and with that comes a shift in how you lead teams, how you run high performing teams, and I guess the inquisitive part of me was asking, well, what practically do we do now to run high-performing teams in a post-COVID world, and whilst that makes an interesting read, what's the more interesting part is actually in live scenarios with companies learning how they're doing it, and actually I learn more running those sessions than I than the wisdom I impart, to be honest, and I think it's as a general thing for leaders, more generally. I think one of the best things you can do to get good at your job is to teach, because I think it helps you define your opinions, it helps you consolidate your, your views, and it helps you understand what you really think is effective, because you have to give it as a, as advice, and that is that process of refining your thinking I found really helpful, but yeah, that's kind of part work that I do. The other, the other part is I think I've been having an identity crisis recently, because I've taken on a job, which is the first job in my career where it doesn't have the word marketing in the job title, and I think us marketers, we like to, you know, associate our job titles with our identity, although it's - I've gone through that, and I'm at the other side. I think there's something quite refreshing, actually, having a job title like Chief Social Change Officer, because it talks about the outcome, as opposed to having a word in the title that's more the process or the thing that you're doing. Yeah, it's a whole different energy and feeling to it. So, I've gone through the identity crisis and embracing this world of social change, which is now the name of the director that I lead as well, and I'm working on the OBE, so if you have any contacts, Caroline, let me know. Although I did spend - I've probably spent the best part of a decade working at royal charities, so you think that I would have a better chance than many.

Caroline Taylor  9:55  
You must be on the list, my friend.

Jack Lowman  9:57  
One day, yes, at the Princess Trust for a. Number of years, so yeah, we're very lucky to work for some really, really great nonprofits and private sector work as well,

Ben Walker  10:08  
indeed. And we'll dig into a little bit about that idea about our outcomes later. Very interesting point that you make, that your job title is named after its desired outcome, rather than the activity that gets us to that outcome, which we'll dig into a little bit later on, um, Carolina, come back to you to start. You've people were listening to your potted history, and they were thinking, goodness me, this is a, this is really is quite an interesting segue this lady's made. You've gone from, you know, one of the world's biggest blue chip companies, in the shape of IBM International Tech major, to running a charitable trust. Some people would think these two are such chalk and cheese that there's no natural progression from one to the other, but presumably they must be. And if so, what is it?

Caroline Taylor  10:57  
Well, it's really.. it's an interesting question. I mean, the first thing is obviously, once we, so my role is a governance and oversight role. I mean, this chair rather than the CEO, for which I'm grateful every single day. I have to say, because being the CEO is way, way harder. I, as I sort of said earlier, I do think that that crazy corporate life has been an amazing preparation. There are so many, there are so many moments in what I do now that reflect, I reflect on what I did in the past. So, you know, in my latter years in IBM, I was responsible for all of marketing and communications across our global business, so China, and you know, Australia, and Romania, and well, everywhere, and, and so, and that, and have, and having a deep respect for the individuals who are doing the work in those places, and for their regional expertise, and not thinking you know best because you've got the fancy job title, and that's really important now, so we have schools all over the country. The principals and the staff in those schools know their students, and they know their, the families of their students, and they know the context that those children and young people come from, and they know the challenges, and so I have a, you know, deep, deep respect for that knowledge, and to not to never think that I'm going to know better. So, it, I think, what it, what my training at IBM trained me to really ask lots of questions and not think I knew the answer, and probably never think I know the answer, always assume I don't know the answer, and therefore ask a question, listen, learn, and so it's really interesting. So, yes, it's nothing to do with tech, and it's also all about understanding your audience, you know, understanding your stakeholders. Let me put it like that, you know, and you can. I mean, I've never bought millions of pounds worth of software or hardware or technology services, and yet I needed to be in the midst of decision making around marketing investment and campaigns that we're going to target people who did that every day, and so again, you know, I'm never going to walk them on in their shoes, but, but you can learn, and you can really learn about your audience and what they care about, and why they care about it, and what makes them tick, and, and that's vital for marketing, but it's vital for running an organisation that is a service to, in our case, 34,000 young people.

Ben Walker  13:27  
Well, yeah, I was going to say we're talking this show's about using marketing to drive societal change, you know, to improve society through marketing activity. You know, we could get a lot of big brands, small brands as well, but certainly big brands, sort of trying to portray, trying to sell this idea that they have this quote unquote purpose, you know, every organisation nowadays apparently has to have a purpose, or has to at least try to sell a purpose beyond profit. I'm sure IBM is no different, but how does that compare? We're sort of trying to sell your IBM's customers a purpose with something that you're doing now, which has a very obvious purpose, or at least it seems to be obviously fairly more obvious to me.

Caroline Taylor  14:10  
Yeah, okay. Well, I think there's two big things. The first one is, if you're a commercial organisation like IBM, or any other people are going to be very sceptical at best and cynical at worst, that you're only interested in profit, okay, and but the other thing is that you're not really selling in that instance your purpose to the your purpose is what drives your strategy. So I would, I would say that. So just to put this in context, IBM's a really, really old company, so 15 years ago in 2011 I was the CMO for IBM UK in Ireland, and we, with all colleagues around the world, were marking the 100th anniversary of the foundation of IBM, so 100 years of company, and the thing that was interesting is that the core purpose of the organisation had not. Changed in those 100 years, I would say, suggested it probably still hasn't, but what it did and how it did it changed all the time, you know, and had to change all the time, because the world moves on, you know, IBM essentially invented the personal computer, ran a very successful, profitable personal computer business, but eventually moved away from it, because it was no longer well, it was no, it was, it was, it had become such a commodity to all of us that it no longer met IBM's purpose, and their purpose, they would have articulated it 100 plus years ago, is making the world work better, but in those days they made bacon slices and and weighing machines and stuff like that, so your experience in, in the, in the town deli, not that you would have called it that in those days, but when you were buying your, your, your bits of ham was better as a result of having a really efficient slicing machine, so the purpose didn't really change, but the how they, how what they didn't, how they did it did change, and so purpose is less about it's more about keeping, keeping you focused on what it is you're trying to achieve out there, and if you, if your purpose is just a very flimsy wrapper for making shed loads of money and not much interested in anything else, then everybody eventually will find you out, I mean, you might get away with it for some of the time, but down down the road you will trip up and you will fall over, because people, human beings, we're pretty good at sniffing out in authentic stuff, so, so I think that that's the thing, but you know, if you're, if you're a charity, multicam, you trust, or you know, the broader oasis, which, which you know, works significantly in much wider community transformation. People are much less sceptical about your purpose, because why else would you do it, except that you really care about it. And then it's more about how effective are you, are you really able to do this, and how are you doing it? You know, if you're a donor or a corporate organisation who might be considering partnering, you want to know that your money is going to be really, really well spent. You don't think about that when you're a customer of an organisation buying a thing from them. You want to think, am I getting the best value, am I getting the thing I need that's going to deliver the outcome I need, and am I getting it at the best price I can get for me? So, it's so it is. It is both different and quite similar, but having come from many, many years in IBM, where purpose was really powerful motivator, and a thing we talked about a lot internally, it really shaped how we developed the organisation, it made maybe that shift into something that's overtly purposeful. My case, multi-cabinet trust made that shift a little easier.

Ben Walker  17:52  
It's interesting, isn't it, Jack, that you, Caroline, saying that you need to have a sort of authentic, almost concrete purpose, but does it always necessarily translate into commercial value if you have that strong sense of purpose?

Jack Lowman  18:08  
It would be a very sad state if we live in a world where businesses give up on purpose being part of the mix. I think this debate has gone, has rolled around, isn't it, for a number of years, I think, in the early 1015 years ago, it was fashionable, and it was the thing that organisations were quite quick to put at the front of their comms. I think people then started to see through the purpose washing, and people, I think, in the FMCG world, we saw that roll back a little bit, didn't we, of trying to force fit purpose into products and reorientate back to what the customer wants, or what the product needs, needs to deliver, and I think sometimes you do just want a washing powder that's a good washing powder, or a razor that's a good razor. That said, there are so many other ways for businesses to deliver benefits beyond profit to shareholders in the world. I spent a couple of years working for Business in the Community, which is a nonprofit led by the Ben Prince, the now King, as founder, and they work. They do amazing work with the with the corporate sector, looking at all the different ways that you can have an impact on society in the local community, so it doesn't have to be the thing that's at the front of comms, it can be the thing that's helping equal pay or the direct impact in a kind of the proximity to where you are in community, so purpose can have different routes and it can have different benefits. It doesn't have to be the consumer facing thing. That said, I think if it has no, if there is no financial gain, but there's no financial loss. What an amazing thing businesses can do to help different communities and audiences feel seen, feel understood, raise issues. Build awareness of things that actually can gain traction because of that, so I think the strategic conversation around purpose is really interesting in the boardroom, and what lens people look at it through. Obviously, in the nonprofit sector, it's non-negotiable. You need a purpose at, we've just revisited our vision and our purpose, so we've just hit a 70 year anniversary, and we're looking at the next 70 years, and actually I think in the charitable sector it's how focused your purpose is, and then how well aligned your like tactical plans are to deliver that, which makes it success or not, not whether you've got one or not. It's is it really like razor sharp for today, and for the needs of a few audiences, particularly for nonprofits that have been around for a long while, like, have you reorder and take it back to the people you're here to represent? Are they telling you what they need, and are you delivering that? Is your purpose still fit for purpose? So, there's there's different ways to look at purpose from a commercial point of view, and from a nonprofit. Either way, you've got to get it right, that works for you, that's authentic for you, and isn't false fitted because of a trend or a particular reason

Ben Walker  21:14  
that's superficial. Yeah, clearly there are there are some similarities between the corporate world and the not for profit charitable secretary. There are some commonalities, but there are also some differences of new ones. Presumably, when you shifted from one to the other, you had to do some unlearning. There were things that you had to unlearn in order to be able to move to a mainline charity. What were they

Jack Lowman  21:41  
working in the private sector to nonprofit is obviously a big shift, but also the shift working just running a marketing comms team versus running a social change team. The big shift for me is trying to unlearn to use your word there, Ben, trying to unlearn that delivering your plan is success. So I spent a lot of many years leading marketing and comms teams, where you promise a plan and a budget, and you spend all year working to deliver that, because internal stakeholders and reporting structures, etc. And that's good, and if that's delivering organisational objectives, that all feels quite sensible. This move into social change is that you're trying to impact something way bigger than what sometimes your organisation can even define, and so delivering a plan that's been defined 12 months prior isn't always success. Actually, the external environment is telling you that you need to do something different. There'll be factors that are beyond your control. I mean, you need to pivot in different directions, and the leadership of a social change function is actually about saying we will do whatever it takes to create the change that we need to create, and if that means having to resell another plan back to the board, we'll have to do that. If it means negotiating for extra funds from elsewhere to invest in certain areas, we'll do that, but it's being so on top of I'll be focused on the right things. Do we have a plan that's going to get us to the end result? So, not a deliverable marketing plan, but social change, you know, and holding that responsibility of those that we're here to represent and support and work alongside, that's been really interesting for me, that actually it's always both eyes on the on the outcome. Is what was fascinating is the social change in our planning process. We use theory of change as a planning tool, so we look at what is the change we want to see, what the outputs that come towards that, and then what are the inputs, what's the links in the chain almost that would make that happen, and then you devise your marketing and comms like tactics and plans, as opposed to maybe taking a kind of organisational objective and creating a marketing comms plan, and with that, it's the question you're always asking yourself, is are we on the right road to get to the end of this theory of change, because if we're just busy at the busy fools thing, if we're just busy, my job is to then stand up in front of the board and tell them what change we've, we've made in 12 months, and if I can't do that by default, I'm held responsible, you know. My, you're not called Chief Social Change Officer if issues on making change happen. No, exactly, you can go, go and kind of do another job elsewhere, so it adds such responsibility. But that's that's right. Accountability is great, and I think the planning in social change adds that accountability.

Ben Walker  24:47  
It's fascinating, isn't it, Caroline? That you know, Jack's describing a difference between perhaps what you would have in the corporate world, genuine, an internal target, improving the bottom line, typically improving profitability or turnover, or whatnot. A, with an external target, you know, he's, he is targeted on changing society, you know, no pressure, you're not just changing your organisation, you've got to change society for you to succeed, that's a massive unlearning, presumably when you make that shift,

Caroline Taylor  25:14  
it absolutely is, I think the thing I would, you know, the word that sprang to my mind when you, when you ask question, is add to unlearn impatience, and it's not because it isn't because you can just sit back, and it's, and the stakes aren't as high, because they're actually higher, because these are real human beings on the other end of your success or failure, but because the goals tend to be a much longer term thing, whereas in the corporate world you can have your three 510 year strategy, but my goodness, you are you are held feet to the fire to the quarterly outcomes, and which was always very frustrating. I can't tell you the number of times that one heard the expression you can't turn a supertanker around that fast, you know, if you were trying to change the direction of a super tanker, it doesn't happen instantly, because we'll know it's be true. So, it was always very frustrating when there were market shifts, or whatever, unless you were ahead of them, that you know to, if you're playing catch up. So, I think that you know, trying to unlearn in patience, and know you, you have to keep your eye on the milestones. I think, Jack, it's exactly what you're talking about, isn't it? Know that always checking, are you on the right trajectory to deliver the change you're committed to delivering? The other thing for me that was a big shift, mostly because the nature of my role has changed, because I am in a non-exec role, a governance and an oversight role. I have had to learn to stay in my lane. I would be a terrible coach. I do lots of mentoring, but I'd be a terrible coach because my instinct is to solve problems. So, in any discussion, I sometimes have to almost physically restrain myself from leaping in with the solution, because that isn't what I'm there to do. And, of course, it's there to support and help, and as well as well as the governance and other site responsibility, but so that's that's been that's been really interesting, and again, people who've worked with in past will fight, no, will know how you know, I always have to sit on my hands and force myself not to step into that role of the executive,

Ben Walker  27:19  
you know, that's fascinating, fascinating bit of unlearning to be done to succeed when you make the shift. Most of our audience, it has to be said, will not have made that shift. Some of them may be interested in making the shift. Many of them are very happy working in the corporate world, or indeed working for agent on agency side for corporate brands. But nevertheless, to pick up on your point earlier, Jack, lots of these brands genuinely, and I do believe genuinely do want to do something which will help society, you know, and not just for sort of entirely self-serving reasons. There are good brands out there who do want to do purpose-led activity to make a societal shift. There's been a thing now which we hear called purpose washing, which is that sometimes brands are sort of almost shying away from doing this stuff or saying anything about their good work that they're doing in the society or community, because they get accused of this stuff, and many people listening will be interested in how they deliver this sort of activity while avoiding this pitfall about purpose washing, you know, how we used the word earlier, authenticity, how that they can be seen to be authentic in their societal change gambit, if you like, and doing it for altruistic reasons, not for self-serving ones. A big question, perhaps, but Caroline, how do they do it?

Caroline Taylor  28:43  
Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a little bit radical, and said, think self-serving is okay, but I've been a really big fan, from, for a couple of decades, at least, of the concept of enlightened self-interest in the corporate world, because here's the problem, if you have what they call chequebook philanthropy, where the CEO, or somebody very senior, is a big fan of this, that, or the other, has a personal, you know, interest and wants to help in some societal issue challenge charity, and when things are going well, they're starting big checks, and that isn't that great. And, of course, it's great. We all, all charities need more funds, we can do more of the great work we do if we have more money. Wonderful, but the reality is it doesn't last. In line, self-interest to me is all about finding that sweet spot between the core business and the and the objective you have as a business to grow to generate profit, you know all of that good stuff, and the impact you can have in societies. Let me give you a couple of examples. I mentioned that having got involved with Stop the Traffic, and then join their board, and eventually chair their board, while I was still at IBM. IBM then got involved with Stop the Traffic and provided an enormous amount. Of software and expertise free of charge to the charity as they built this amazing thing called the Traffic Analysis Hub, nothing to do with traffic, as in roads, it's all to do with human trafficking, modern slavery, and actually built a platform, a data sharing platform for big corporates, big banks, and NGOs to put their data in that allowed the use of very smart analytics and AI to start figuring out some of these patterns, so that you could actually identify where the, that, where the trafficking itself of the individual humans was happening, and so that law enforcement could get in there and do something about it. Absolutely extraordinary thing, did IBM do that at the goodness of the help? Nope, they did it because it gave them an opportunity to showcase the amazing power of this technology that they were selling to their many, many corporate clients, and so to me that is enlightened self-interest. It was enlightened because it had such a, such a great positive, positive impact out there in the world, out there in society, in literally helping to break down the criminal networks that are selling human beings, but it was also good for them, and I actually think that, to me, feels really sustainable. So, I think that, that you know, that that kind of thing works really well. Similarly, and I don't know if it was, it might probably, before your time, Jack, working for business in the community, but way back when, in what am I going back to, 2008 2009 the then Prince of Wales created this initiative called Start, which is all about getting people to take on board personal action, or companies to take on corporate level action to make us more sustainable nation, and IBM was one of the founding partners. Again, it was really beneficial to us. We built new business relationships with senior people in big companies in the UK, which was very beneficial to our organisation, but at the same time, we took that message out there and engaged 1000s and 1000s of people on how they might think about making themselves more sustainable. By the way, IBM had an entire business consulting practice about carbon management, and so you know, so anyway, just a couple of examples, but, but there are many, many ways. So, if you are a marketer and you, you want to have societal impact, you've got to find those sweet spots where what you do anyway can coincide with something in society that will make a difference, and if it's a win-win, then it will survive, it will thrive, and it will do the job.

Ben Walker  32:30  
Interesting, interesting, Janet Caroline Taylor, saying enlightened self-interest is enlightened, because actually what it means is that these good societal shifts that corporates can do will be sustainable, because frankly, there's something in it for them.

Jack Lowman  32:46  
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head talking about the sweet spot. I think what's interesting is where that's where it originates from. Where does the purpose originate from? So, if it's originated from your marketing agency or your comms team, I think that's where the problem probably it can be found, I think, if it's originated from your origin story or your founders or from a strategic process. It's very, very different. I don't think this is overly complicated. I think Caroline articulated it really well, that the sort of model that you need to get to. The other part of it, then, is just is building the credibility, you know, if it's surface level comms about purpose, people will see through it. If you've got a process of how you build credibility in that space, that I don't think you need to worry, which was your original question, Ben, about the backlash, if you like. If there's credibility, and if you're asking in the boardroom the right questions: do we really believe in this? Are we investing in it? Is it influencing our decisions? Like, what's happening when it's inconvenient? No, there has to be a cost to purpose broadly. Initially, might lead to future profits because of the benefits of that sweet spot, but there's a cost, there's time, there's investment, there's resource redirected in different, different places. That's good. That's a sign that an organisation is giving its weight to solve a problem. That's fine, but I don't think it's overly complicated that you'd find the sweet spot, you'd build some credibility, and you'd have a structure in place in your governance to hold yourselves accountable. Your colleagues will believe in that, then your investors will, your partners will, the local community will. I think we're in an era now where perhaps we're over complicating it, and we need to get that to just being brave and doing it, and doing it really well.

Ben Walker  34:38  
Interesting, and there must be differences in the activity one uses, however, to market, let's say, a gadget, a product versus marketing a shift in societal versus marketing and societal shift. You know, I realise in the business, you do, Jack, you're you're working to change how people perceive. A disability, and how it interact, and how people interact with disabled people. You know, that's a massive change that is required. How do you market that change that you're being made versus traditional marketing, where you're marketing a product or a service?

Jack Lowman  35:18  
Yeah, it is chalk and cheese, if I'm honest, you know the product is trying to change people's choice, isn't it? Whereas we're in the business of changing systems, like this system level change, and with that comes a whole different timescale. So you mentioned it earlier, Ben, that we're working in a long timescale here, often often years, I mean, if you think of campaigns around smoking, seat belts, drink driving, the recent social media ban, these things are not happening by quick paid ad campaign, they're happening through long-term influencing movement building changes to societal beliefs, that pressure that builds on the government, the government then to take some kind of review or action, which then moves through into law, that's that's that's huge, and that that unfortunately is a long game, which is why it is purpose driven, because you're investing all of your kind of resource and energies into something that's might possibly never happen. That's the really hard bit in nonprofits is that most of our visions, every charity I've worked in, the vision is very difficult, if not impossible, to come true. However, you have some tactical plans where you say, okay, what are the open doors? So, at the moment, the government are reforming in pretty much every single government department, they're reforming the health system, education, welfare, and so for us as a charity, that's great news, because there's lots of open doors where we can go in and we can help raise the voices of people who may be affected by these reforms to try and influence the decisions that government make. On the flip side, there's reforms happening in every single government all at once, and we have a limited amount of resource, and so you have to pick your battles, you have to be really smart about how you deploy your resource, you have to be really focused on what are the most important things that people here to serve are telling us they need and want, and that's where you go back to what's similar to the corporate sector, in that you, it's market orientation, as you would say in marketing jargon, it's, it's, but marketing orientation that is so hyper focused on what your audience needs, what's the property you're trying to solve, what's the, we call them, what the barriers, what the barriers in society that are so tall, so high, and so on fired that are stopping people living the lives that they want. What are those barriers? And then what can we do together to break and break them down, because what you'd only be doing is focusing on the wrong barriers, or a barrier that's too small, or one that's never going to be removed, because the government is just not interested in it, it's not even on their agenda, so you have to find the opportunities, so it is really different, there's learnings, and there's best practice, you know, I've been on, you know, the training and the marketing principles that have been around the donkey's years, they all still apply that strategic thinking, the market orientation, segmentation, targeting position, all of that stuff still applies. It's just with social change, you're looking at that system change, as opposed to product specific, and it's different, different time scales, different audiences, different degrees of difficulty, which makes it interesting.

Ben Walker  38:45  
You're not nodding furiously, Caroline. I was going to ask you, obviously, the longer-term change you're trying to make a societal shift. Is there still some classic marketing techniques which you deploy, such as deploying a simple message that everyone can understand, that people who perhaps don't know anything about the issues with the disabled community, or whatever. Can understand

Caroline Taylor  39:07  
well, I think there is. I mean, I think the sort of the preparation phase, if you like, you know that understanding your audience, really understanding what it is they want, what is they need, understanding where they are on on a journey of understanding, I mean, you do that, whatever you're trying to sell or market, you, that, that's a fundamental part of what we do as marketers, in terms of, you know, the tactics, so yes, absolutely, if you can, if you can net it down to a simple message, but sometimes these are very, very complex things that you're trying to address, and there possibly is there, probably it possibly isn't one single simple sentence, you know, there isn't a phrase that you can, you can capture. However, I do think there's one area of tactical activity that is that works incredibly. Well, in both spaces, and that is storytelling, so you know, as a fundamental part of your communication. So, if you can't let it down to one single thing, the storytelling, the storytelling about the impacts, the storytelling about the outcomes. I imagine Jack in the space you're working in, the storytelling around the lived experience of people who are, you know, on the wrong side of those barriers. Storytelling, really, I mean, it's such a powerful thing, isn't it? We know that it works in selling, we know that it works in getting people on board, getting people to believe in a thing, because that's actually often, you know, at the fundamental start point, is you can get people to believe that a thing is wrong, not fair, you can get people to believe that it is possible to fix it, and that they might have a role, they might be able to play their part in fixing it, that's a big fundamental piece of what we, what we have to

Speaker 1  41:00  
do, is it

Ben Walker  41:00  
more important? Is it more important than data? Do you think those human stories, that storytelling piece, is it more important than leaning into the data to what the data says?

Caroline Taylor  41:10  
I'm going to say I would say it's both. It's definitely both. Sometimes the data, if you talk to some of the team from Stop the Traffic, what they would tell you is the data, the data helps them find the stories that they need to tell, which is, which is, you know, which is important and helpful and interesting, but ultimately, I mean, I'm like, I'm a very simple soul. Ultimately, all marketing is about person A engaging and communicating with person B. Now, sure, in marketing we do that at scale sometimes, so you know you're one person trying to communicate to, you know, 10 million individual human beings, but still it is that ultimately it comes down to that engagement and interaction and communication, and so, and stories of what is, how it's how humanity has existed forever. We tell each other stories in order to help each other understand what it is we're trying to say, and so, so, yeah, it is data and stories, but it absolutely comes down to humanity and relationship and relational engagement. I think.

Ben Walker  42:28  
Do you think storytelling or data? Where do you lie, Jack?

Jack Lowman  42:32  
It's certainly both. In terms of our media work, we'd need both the data, the statistics to look at the how compelling that that argument is, and then we did the story to bring it to life, the human interest in terms of the messaging, you know that what we, what we would aim to find is what's the common thing that we all believe in, so if we're trying to influence the general public to back us on a campaign or a particular government department to consider something differently in terms of that messaging. What you don't want to be doing, which is probably the case for all businesses, is talk too much about yourself, and what you want to be thinking is what is the intended target theme and feel, and where do we, where's the common ground in this, so you know, for example, the government reviewing all the welfare support at the moment, it's a very heated debate, and there's lots of different perspectives on it, but one question you can come at that with is, do we all believe that everybody has should have the opportunity to to live a life in on equal terms, and those that are that serve people with complex needs that would never work, do we do we believe that we should support them to live a life that's independent, where they feel in control, where they feel involved, and can make decisions in their life, and if we believe that, then we're on a mission to make sure that can happen, and you can join us, and you can help us with that. That's really different to just talking about, like the specifics of something that's that can be interpreted in different ways. So it's finding the common beliefs, which I guess, from a, you know, from a, in a commercial sense, that's where your brand messaging might come into play more than your product, but it's really important, so it's the for me, it's that mix of data, storytelling, and the highest level of messaging that you can get that would resonate with your audience.

Ben Walker  44:35  
Fantastic. Remarkably, we are amazingly close to the end of our time, which is been a fascinating discussion, but let's boil this down to some practical steps. There'll be lots of people listening to this show, as I say, only a small, probably a relatively small proportion that

Speaker 1  44:48  
will

Ben Walker  44:48  
be working in the charitable and nonprofit sector. Most of them will be working either client side or agency side for companies, but nevertheless, we'll be interested in embedding this concept of purpose in. Into their daily working lives, so I'm going to ask for practical steps that listeners can take to embed purpose into their daily marketing activity. We'll start with you, Caroline. I

Caroline Taylor  45:11  
mean, I think it is what we've spoken about already, which is finding that sweet spot between what it is your company does, your organisation does, and how can you leverage that to have positive impact in the world, and then look for that sweet spot, those opportunities where those things coincide, where you can play that life, light, and self-interest card that allows you to do something really positive and great for your business at the same time as having a positive impact in society, and don't try and make it something random and left field that has nothing to do with what you do, because it, it won't wash. Make it something that's really pertinent to to the impact that your product service offerings have out there in the world.

Ben Walker  45:58  
Very interesting, great tip. Find your sweet spot, Jack. Yeah, I mean, your question is around how do you

Jack Lowman  46:04  
embed it into people's daily activity, and I think, I mean, even in the nonprofit sector, it's not like we wake up every single day and we jump for joy that we are working for a charity and that's got a purpose, you know, it becomes, it becomes the everyday. You still have to help your teams find meaning in their work. Believe it or not, as a leader of a large team, you still have to help people find that connection between what they're doing on a daily basis to the overall goal. So take that and move that into sort of commercial sector where the purpose isn't centred to all activity, that's even harder to help people daily feel like that they're having a purpose in their work, and sometimes it's not not needed on a daily basis. I think sometimes you can be there's an inauthentic approach where you're you're trying to make people feel or do things that actually materially are not needed, but also the job of a good leader is to bring meaning into people's work, isn't it? And so I think for me it's more great leadership from from CEO downwards in terms of what what they really care about, what change are we hoping to see in the next 12 months, nonprofit or not, and then helping people in their roles understand what the thread is between what they do on a daily basis to to get that outcome, but I don't think I don't think we need to overdo it. I think we need to be true to ourselves, be proportionate in the amount of purpose comms that we do, but at the same time, be ambitious. I think the corporate sector has an amazing opportunity to deliver purpose, or actually to just to financially support charities, their communities to deliver it themselves. You know, there's there's something that actually they don't always need to be the ones that do the doing. You can use your infrastructure, your resource, your volunteers, your funds to make happen elsewhere.

Ben Walker  48:03  
Any wild card tip from either of you?

Caroline Taylor  48:06  
I would just say, if you're working for an organisation that truly their only purpose is to make a lot of money for their shareholders, may be a good time to start looking for a different job.

Ben Walker  48:16  
Great tip. And finally, let's look into our crystal balls. This, this tends to be people's least favourite question, because, of course, how can you possibly know? But if you look ahead for five years or to the future, to the near-ish future in marketing and marketing leadership, what do you think? And I'll start with you, Jack, will distinguish those people who have successfully brought about a societal change from those that have failed to do so.

Jack Lowman  48:42  
I think at the moment it's having the ability to understand the context that we work in and the influence that will have on how we can deliver our plans, so the political context, the economic context, the way I guess, if you look at the way, like, equality is being challenged at the moment, human rights, the role that charities play when we're meant to be politically neutral, but we're politically active, is difficult, particularly in a world where the political environment is increasingly diverse and challenging. challenging, and so I think to lead your charity through those examples you need to be really have a really good understanding of what's going on, and interestingly, this morning I brought together people who do my job at exec level in charities across the UK, we brought them together in a forum called the Leaders of Change Forum, and the idea was to discuss things just like that. How are we going to evolve our thinking to navigate this? Because they're big challenges that we haven't really faced before. So, I think that's one, is understanding that external environment, and the second. And is the internal in that there are like five generations working in the workforce now, we work in different ways, we work remotely, there's a cost of living crisis, different generations expect different things of us as employers. As a leader, How do you understand the modern workforce, the modern way of working to lead a modern organisation? And I think that takes some self-reflection, self-awareness, it takes upskilling, it takes accepting that you don't know everything, and it takes an appreciation that we're on a bit of a journey together. I think you need to do work as a leader on yourself and the way you lead as well. I think even get those two things right, that's got to help, and there's the long to-do list back at work of all the things we also have to do and deliver, need budget, all those things, but you're important as well.

Ben Walker  50:50  
Caroline, the context of where generationally aware marketeer will be the most successful in making change.

Caroline Taylor  50:58  
Well, I'm going to cheat slightly, if I may, and share with you one of my favourite quotes, but I think it's super pertinent to your question, and it's Maya Angelou, when she said people will forget what you said, and they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. The reason I think that's pertinent to your question is successful leadership are going to make people feel, and when people feel about a thing, whatever the thing might be, then they act, and if they act, if our audiences take action on the back of feeling whatever the thing is, in whatever sphere we're talking about, then we will be successful as leaders. There is way too much focus on what did you do, irrelevant, kind of irrelevant, not totally relevant, but quite irrelevant. What did you say? Even more relevant. What did you, what did you do? No, no. How did people feel as a result of those things, and what did they then do because of how you made them feel? That would be the winning ticket.

Ben Walker  52:02  
Caroline Taylor, OBE, and Jack Loman. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Ben.

Karen Barnett  52:17  
Searching for a way to build your organisation's marketing capability, CIN's campaign. company affiliate programme provides a simple strategic route to a more confident, high-performing department. Get in touch with our experts today to discuss how we can help you develop talent and deliver better commercial results. Head to cim.co.uk and search company affiliate. The contents and views expressed by individuals in this podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Chartered Institute of Marketing or the companies they work for.