November 14, 2025 • 47 mins
Join Gordon and Ger as they step into a tornado of conversation with Dave Morrissey, growth and culture consultant, ex-Meta, ex-TikTok, current author and pre-Scéal.
Tie yourself down, because the insights come thick and fast about mindset, generative AI, leadership and why Ger should never be allowed to write another hard-rock song prompt again.
Dave tells you why most companies fail to scale, and talks about the massive head start Irish companies and brands have over their international competitors, but rarely use to their advantage.
He also discusses how companies and executives talk a lot about using generative AI, but don't actually do so or even encourage its use. Is fear of AI holding everyone back? He advocates immediate top-down AIction.
And all that is just the delicate breeze before the hurricane...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is Functional & Fabulous, the omnichannel podcast where we unbox tales of online retail and digital transformation.
In this episode, things go wrong almost immediately...
Oh my God, my intro, I've just lost it, oh no!
Elaine, cut that out.
Don't you dare cut that out, Elaine.
We are probably going to go to more sloppy places.
(00:22):
We will if these two don't tighten up their act.
Meanwhile in this episode, Ger does a terrible sales pitch for Ireland...
Ireland, we're only a small island, we're the size of Manchester.
Our guest does a better pitch...
Irishness and the Irish brand currently in the world, it's never been as high.
People are positive about AI...
(00:43):
Thank AI for getting rid of that.
Absolutely, thank you, AI.
But people are less positive about CFOs...
The people who control the purse strings are usually the most risk-averse, i.e. CFOs and financial controllers, and they don't have a f***ing clue about marketing.
This episode of Functional & Fabulous is brought to you with pride by StudioForty9, retail ecommerce experts, omnichannel growth consultants, and cut-through performance marketing specialists.
(01:11):
StudioForty9, where your digital retail success is built.
Hello.
Today's guest has had a front-row seat to how the internet actually sells things.
From helping Lego and Huel grow at Meta to steering the wild rise of TikTok shopping, Dave Morrissey has lived through the chaos, the creativity and the commerce of modern marketing.
(01:31):
The very intersection when entertainment, discovery and shopping all start to blur together.
He's the author of Grow Like Tech, a book about what the rest of us can learn from big tech's ability to scale, experiment and actually ship things.
And Dave is currently launching Sceal, a growth and culture consultancy working with various brands and partners to unlock growth from marketing to mindsets.
(01:54):
He's the kind of guy who'll tell you Irish businesses need to stop thinking small, that AI should be used and not just talked about, and what the next wave of growth will come from, that it will come from those who move faster than...
Oh my God, my intro,
I just lost it!
Oh, no.
I'll start again, that last part.
That was so good as well.
(02:15):
I was doing well, I was doing well.
We're good, we're good.
Hold on...
I was, like, getting so excited then.
Elaine, cut that out.
Okay, here we go.
He's the kind of guy who'll tell you Irish businesses need to stop thinking small, that AI should be used and not just talked about, and that the next wave of growth will come from those who move faster than the buzzwords.
So if you've ever wondered what really went on behind the TikTok curtain, or how to get your business thinking global, this is the conversation for you.
(02:43):
Dave, it's great to have you here.
Thank you.
That was probably the most beautiful and eloquent and exciting intro I've ever had in my life.
So it's all downhill from now.
I think everybody should get a Ger intro at some point in their life.
We'll put that on a t-shirt.
So Dave...
You could set up a new business, a kind of a Figma thing or a Canva thing for just intros.
(03:05):
If it all goes wrong.
And it could well be going wrong, yeah.
Dave, tell us, the view from the front-row seat.
When you look back on the journey, what moment did you stop and think, you know, the future of retail is changing as you're sitting there watching it?
Oh, that's a question.
(03:26):
I'd say it's that every person is a shopkeeper now.
Like, this whole career, obviously at TikTok, I saw a big wave of this, but it's kind of spread around everywhere to every kind of platform, be it Reels, even seeing Pinterest now that, it's just every Tom or Mary are on a camera, talking to a camera about some product or service they liked.
(03:51):
And then they're either getting their friends involved in buying that, or they're getting a kickback from the brand themselves.
And this phenomenon is in the, not even the thousands, in the millions of people.
So there's millions of people who are essentially shopkeepers for brands.
I think that's the biggest thing by far.
(04:12):
Yeah, I was talking to a marketplace this morning out in Eastern Europe.
And they're seeing that people are starting to move towards the social commerce piece.
And they're kind of getting flatfooted because they're a marketplace.
And essentially, a marketplace historically has been products on a white background and a blind organisation.
Whereas now people expect to see or hear from someone that looks like them, talks like them, about a product or service that might be of use to them.
(04:40):
They don't want to hear from a big beastly marketplace anymore.
They don't want to hear from TV ads per se anymore.
They just want to hear someone down the road going, yeah, that's cool for me.
That's good for me.
I'll get that.
So that, I suppose, democratisation of commerce, thanks to the mobile phone and cameras, and a proliferation of platforms, that's probably the biggest thing, I'd say.
(05:02):
Yeah.
Do you think that's content type or medium-related?
So you mentioned TV there.
People don't really want to suck up a TV ad, mainly because they skip them.
So do you think it's the medium or the content?
Just as a kind of top-level question.
We're going to get into, like, the medium-as-a-message kind of stuff already.
(05:26):
Wow.
That was quick.
That's two questions in.
F**king hell,
it's great.
Obviously the path, when I say media, I say platforms.
They've created, obviously, a platform as a mechanism to do so.
I think Instagram is probably the start of this, where they did create the platform, but essentially they wanted to make people better photographers, but then actually people just got better at doing selfies.
(05:55):
So I think it was the humans then actually adapted to it and then it became the content from the people that was more powerful than the medium, I'm going to say.
Yeah, I'd kind of be on the same page, I think.
It's humans, kind of like, we all relate to, or it's the primal thing of, oh, that person looks attractive, or they have something I don't have, is more powerful than a certain amount of pixels on the screen, I suppose.
(06:20):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
I was reading something about brands this week and Gen Z, and how Gen Z just don't want to consume traditional advertising in the way that those of us who are in Gen X and class ourselves as an older millennial would have grown up.
(06:47):
I'm trying to stretch down.
But I remember we used to talk about TV ads.
We don't talk about TV ads anymore.
I can't remember the last time a TV ad was discussed, even in business terms.
I think it was the Jaguar one.
That was because it was bad.
That was the one LinkedIn talked about.
That's where you find out about these things, because everyone's trying to get a little engagement on LinkedIn.
(07:11):
But I think, going to your point, and I've read a bit in this as well, it's not just, it's media is fragmented completely, in a way.
So people won't sit down and talk about a certain TV show that came out, or a film,
those days are gone.
So the critical mass around a piece of media is gone, because there's so many different ways that people can come at it and consume it.
(07:39):
I'm still, maybe this is being nostalgic, but I'd still love to see a great TV ad.
I'd still like to see a well-crafted ad, but I don't know where they're going to come from anymore.
I'm trying to... and to your point, who's going to talk about them?
Yeah, those big cinematic productions are very, very rare now.
And certainly, I don't know if brands have budgets available to make that kind of content.
(08:05):
Although I will say, I did see one over the weekend, and I thought it was excellent, but it would have translated, it was actually for Lloyds Bank in the UK, and the copy was just really beautiful.
But I think that would have translated to any media, it wouldn't have been, or any platform, it wouldn't have just been TV.
I have heard of, let's say, larger productions, for what is effectively, well, it's marketing, for certain.
(08:31):
It's not exactly a TV ad, it's all video-based.
You know, there was the perfume ad with the ice cream van with Bill Nighy.
Oh, for Ffern.
Yeah, which was like a very long and, you know, nostalgic, et cetera,
ad.
It was something that you consumed, but it was still an ad.
I've heard of one over the weekend, which was...
(08:51):
I actually saw that on TikTok, though.
You saw it on, yeah.
It's the first place I saw it.
Oh, I didn't see it on TV.
Sorry, okay, yeah.
I forgot about the fact we have to see it on TV.
There was a really interesting post, literally just before I got on the podcast with you.
Paul Adams from Intercom posted about it, that there's been an inflection point now.
It just happened that AI-generated content has overtaken human-generated content online, so in the last month or so.
(09:19):
And he made a great argument that now AI is going to feed off of AI itself.
So the slop is going to feed off itself, but that's going to make everything more horrible, banal, fake-looking, essentially.
So the skillset of marketers and product people is going to be taste.
(09:40):
So how much more taste can you have to inject into a piece of creative, a video, what have you?
And I thought it was a very interesting thing that we are probably going to go to more sloppy places, but the ones who have the more craft, i.e. the big TV ad productions, or even the thought process of that, is going to win out.
So hopefully there'll be a reckoning back to high-end craft because slop will just take over and everyone goes, well, we know that's slop now, so we'll have to go the high-craft route, the high-TV production.
(10:09):
Even if it isn't a high-end TV production, at least they will have in the thought process the briefing even, as opposed to just doing a prompt and throwing out an ad.
Yeah.
Like, we were just talking about it earlier on, where it's kind of like, the burrito effect.
AI will be responsible for generating 80 per cent of the stuff, but the humans will have to quality control 20 per cent of it for a good outcome.
(10:34):
So right now, when we're looking at AI at StudioForty9, we're definitely doing it with a human in the middle, where we need to get through a certain amount of effort or a work product that we need to produce.
AI produces it to a degree, but we're quality controlling it, leveraging our experience, our expertise to ensure that what is actually being produced is good.
(11:01):
Now, I don't know how long that will last.
I think right now that makes sense and it works really well and there's a great use of AI, et cetera, et cetera.
How long that will last is a different thing and I think there will, as you say, that inflection point of when AI is generating all of the content off the back of AI.
The thing that I worry about is when AI is involved in figuring out the advertising budget associated with the content that the AI is producing to sell the stuff that the AI has decided that we need.
(11:30):
So the AI makes the ad, places the ad, puts the budget behind the ad, writes the theme tune, sings the theme tune.
But I suppose theoretically, right, all really interesting. But like, Dave, in your conversations with people, and your conversations with brands and marketplaces, like, they must be having these kind of conversations with you going, well, AI, this is huge and social media, this is huge, and content, and this is a problem.
(11:55):
But like, from your perspective, how do you think brands should be thinking and tackling this new horizon of problems, challenges and opportunities?
Well, first of all, they should be doing something about it.
I mean, honestly, I've seen, I saw it even within TikTok where I came from. When I, like - I can say this now, like, I kind of made a statement to the leadership before I left - I was like, we're doing a disservice to the staff there because they're not actually getting them to use AI.
(12:30):
I think there's talk of AI, okay, great, but there's no one actually using AI.
And I think it was a disservice to people's, essentially, careers.
I think everyone needs to be mandated to be using AI at the moment.
I think Shopify are probably the massive leaders in big tech, and I know from other platforms as well that there's AI courses and, you know, upskill in AI, but that's theoretical shit, really. Because AI is moving at such a clip that any theory from last week is kind of gone this week.
(12:57):
So it has to be a doing mechanism and Shopify are the only ones, I still have to say the only ones who mandate it, they put them in their performance reviews, like performance reviews at Spotify, I think they say this, AI fluency is a baseline and they rank them on terms of their prompt engineering, how good they are at context, how well they are sharing their AI learnings.
(13:20):
Like, this is all mandated within their performance review system.
They're probably the only ones out there doing, and that's doing.
The rest of them aren't doing anything.
That's, I'm talking about the tech platforms, which you'd expect to be kind of leading on the doing, but they're not.
So going, to go back to any brand or business, I'd be looking at who's, just getting them to use it.
(13:41):
Like it's, I think it's talking about it and kind of go, did you AI that, did you prompt that, et cetera.
They're little nudges, but I think the doing is a key piece.
And I think it actually comes down to leadership, really to be the ones who practice what they preach.
They should be the ones going, look what I figured out.
Look what's quicker.
Because I think the thing with AI in, let's say, organisation with a culture that has a bit of fear baked into it, originally, there's a lot of businesses, we know like, a lot of fear, anxiety people have working in places.
(14:16):
And with AI, no one wants to go, okay, that thing that used to take me a day to do, I can do in half an hour.
They're not going to share that.
They're going to shit themselves sharing that, which actually is a hugely valuable thing for the business.
But if leadership go, hey, that thing that took me a day, now it takes me half an hour.
You should all be doing this as well.
(14:37):
Suddenly everyone is in a safer place to go, well, I'm going to go into AI.
So I think it's the doing, but I think the leaders at the top have to be doing it and showing that they're doing it.
And that would make everyone feel safe and wanting to actually make AI do their jobs better.
So there's a lot of psychology in the culture piece of AI, I think.
(14:59):
That's a big cultural shift.
I very much agree with it.
Like we're doing a huge, we're making huge amounts of effort at the moment
in what we do to include AI.
And we have, all of those fears are incredibly valid in a situation where we can do things in half an hour that used to take us two days, which is the case in some situations.
(15:19):
Now, like, as a business, how do we charge for that?
Like, we now need to make a conscious decision that we're charging for our expertise as opposed to the time it used to take us to do something previously, which for agencies means that the model we used to use is probably completely broken.
And we just need to reflect on that and figure out what makes sense and where the value is that we're adding in.
(15:43):
But I feel sometimes when you speak about that and people are talking about AI, there's two things that come to the fore that I hear a lot.
One of them is the whole concept of cheating.
Oh, that's cheating if you're using AI.
And then the second one I feel a bit that isn't talked about as much is the idea of a Pandora's box.
I really feel that some businesses don't look at AI because they're worried that when they open up the Pandora's box, what they'll find will be so challenging for them when they truly find out that actually their job could be done in four or five minutes.
(16:14):
What do we do then?
Well, there you have it.
A little McKinsey gone.
We should have a McKinsey count now.
We could also include BCG there.
But time changes, time moves on.
I mean, you know, this is the very, like, never is the ostrich attitude as visible sometimes in large-scale tech, you know, as it is at the moment in terms of AI.
(16:46):
Everybody's talking about it, but, like, what are they actually bringing out?
On your travels, Dave, have you met, like, brands that are really enthusiastic about AI?
As soon as we get onto AI, the conversation always leans into, oh, it's going to take my job, or it's going to...
But have you come across anyone who's operating at, like, that really, like, super-embracing it, super-excited about it, using it to transform either their marketing, their engagement with the platforms?
(17:19):
Are you seeing any of this in the conversations that you're having?
No. Honestly...
I love that.
I don't...
Jesus, I don't think so at all.
No.
No, and I think probably the D2C brands are, behind the scenes.
(17:42):
Like, they're doing...
I know a few of them are using it for content, for briefing creators, getting all their hooks out, because the content game has changed for marketing on the platforms, from TikTok to Meta.
You need shitloads of assets, and they all need to be very different all the time.
So AI is coming into that regard in terms of helping with briefing creators for hooks, but also then doing iterations on asset A or B.
(18:11):
I know that's happening, but that's kind of an obvious one.
Any decent operator should be doing that at this stage.
But to a broader thing of, like, okay, are we, let's say, a fashion retailer that's AI-centric or AI-first?
Not at all.
Haven't heard anything close to it.
And it's a huge miss.
(18:32):
If I was just going to think out loud, if I was a fashion retailer, I'd be using AI to help with content production, but I'd be pulling in the very latest Trustpilot review or a comment on Instagram.
I'd be pulling in all these data sources, because that's essentially the customer feedback, or as close to real-time as you get.
(18:55):
So even looking at that, how can I put AI against the customer feedback?
To A, get sentiment analysis?
Do they like what we have?
Or B, they like this, we can put this into our content and our marketing.
Like, that should be what they'd be doing, but I haven't heard anyone doing that yet.
One of the things that you do in retention and in CRM is you adopt the customer's tone of voice.
(19:21):
So you personalise things by meeting the customer where they are, basically.
So if you're pulling in lots of sources, say you're pulling in all your CX tickets, then you know how your customers are talking to you.
And the AI could then generate copy off the back of how customers actually talk and how customers actually...
The vocabulary that they're using to talk about it.
Yeah, because I imagine that different brands would have different vocabulary.
(19:45):
I think what I would love to see is as a thought experiment, I don't know if it's something that could ever be realised in the near future, would be like if a brand went all-in.
So they're like, okay, AI is our new creative director.
And...
Well, yeah.
I mean, I think the very first Bing Microsoft images I ever saw generated by AI came from you, Gordon.
(20:11):
And they were those puffer dresses.
They were like, they were these gowns for, you know...
For me at the weekend.
Shiny.
They looked very much like something that you could expect to see in fashion week.
Yeah, I just don't think that...
I think people are embracing things around, like, the periphery.
(20:32):
And Dave, as you say, the obvious stuff.
But I think we've yet to see someone go all-in.
I think a couple of fashion brands have maybe done an AI collection.
But I would just love to see someone go all-in.
And again, that's not business changing.
An AI collection is like, oh, someone got the pat on the back for innovation in the company.
(20:53):
That's what that essentially is.
I think if a brand is to be as customer-centric as possible going forward, they should be AI-first.
Because again, it just gets closer to the customer, gets the better real-time data and feedback that then can be absorbed into your CRM, customer service, marketing, et cetera, et cetera.
(21:13):
But again, I haven't heard anyone really talk that way yet.
Changing gears a very small amount.
So you wrote a book, Grow Like Tech, diving into how big tech scales.
And I suppose from that book, what would you say is, you know, what could smaller businesses steal from the playbook, do you think?
(21:35):
You know, what are the things that you think are complete misses for a smaller business when you're looking at the big tech scaling approaches?
Well, there's an entire chapter on meetings.
There's 40 different types of meetings and companies.
They can take that.
Or not.
Honestly, it's just a mindset.
(21:56):
Like, it really is.
And I know this is a... so everyone fucking says, oh, mindset, whatever, blah, blah, blah, growth mindset.
But it really is.
It's just, look, okay, what can we do today to kind of scale up?
Actually, scale is something that's missing from most businesses.
Not in our world in tech, retail, ecommerce, even agencies, but, if you go into other, say entertainment, where I came from, other businesses, they don't think about scale.
(22:21):
Okay, how can we have something here to build up?
They'll just reinvent the wheel every time.
I think, actually, the ultimate thing I think they can take away from it is experimentation, testing, learning.
That's, I think, missing from a lot of practices in business and brands.
It's that real kind of engineering approach.
(22:42):
Like, okay, how can we see what works and whatever works we'll scale up and whatever works we'll scale down.
I never hear test-and-learn as a mantra or a mindset or a practice in most industries, or a lot of brands, even.
What do you think is the fundamental blocker there?
I think people don't know what they don't know.
(23:04):
Honestly, I came from, I started off in the music industry.
I used to work with, like, The Rubberbandits and did gigs with Shane McGowan, all mad shit.
And then I came into tech where I started to hear this kind of, I suppose, vocabulary.
And I was in a completely different context and environment to hear it and absorb it.
And again, I wouldn't have known if I'd stayed in the music industry or entertainment.
(23:27):
I wouldn't be here talking about this stuff.
So I think it's putting yourself into a context to understand that or an environment to understand that.
And so for anyone young here listening, look where you are and what you're hearing and if you put yourself in an environment where people are talking differently like this and you can see their success coming from it, that's the key thing.
(23:48):
Just surround yourself with people talking the right way.
Or it doesn't have to be the right way, just this different way.
And that's it.
Just put myself into a different context.
And to expand on that a little bit, because you also talk a bit about global mindset versus Irish modesty.
We all hear about Ireland.
We're only a small island,
(24:08):
we're the size of Manchester,
et cetera, et cetera.
We nearly pre-limit ourselves in some ways.
Do you think that's the case?
Do you think?
How do you see this?
I think most, I think 90 - I'm going to get in trouble for this -
I think about 98 per cent of businesses in Ireland have a small-island syndrome.
I think it's a massive problem.
(24:30):
Well, actually, it's a problem, but actually the opportunity is vast.
This is the thing.
So Irish businesses tend to look, oh, we're doing great.
We've done this and X and Y.
And then if you transplant what that is into, let's say, UK market, US markets, it's nothing.
I'm talking about everything from brand campaigns to media spend to different product lines and everything, just thinking bigger and beyond.
(24:57):
So when you look at Irish, when you look at Irishness and the Irish brand currently in the world, it's never been as high and thriving as it's ever been.
Like, if you look at the UK, Guinness is the biggest-selling drink.
If you look at Fontaines, Kneecap, the music side, you look at the Paul Mescals, the Ruth Neggas...
We've never had Irishness...
(25:18):
f**king chicken fillet rolls are one of the biggest-selling things in f**king London.
And in business, you've Stripe brothers, you have...
And you look at any, by the way, any big tech platform, there is great leadership, Irish people in leadership positions across everywhere.
So we are at the peak of our powers, culturally, at the moment.
(25:40):
We have incredible social fluidity.
Like, we're the most social fluid people in the world.
So we can get everywhere.
And we are natural storytellers, which everyone loves.
And in marketing, that's what people love.
And then there's great brands in the country, but yet they're not going, okay, we've product market fit in Ireland.
(26:00):
They should start there.
Okay, we've got product market fit in Ireland.
Great, let's go big.
Let's go outside.
Because transporting that Irishness and their brand and these people, these operator skills, they can outperform most people in most markets.
Trust me.
I know Irish people are brilliant at what they do.
But again, they're just going, oh, we've cracked Ireland.
(26:22):
And that's kind of, we're happy with that.
We'll dip our toes in the UK and we'll say we're in the UK.
That's the thing.
They'll say, oh, we've entered the UK market, but the market share is probably 0.0001 per cent. So I think it's a bit of a pragmatic reality check that Irish business can be much, much bigger abroad, but they have to just, I don't know...
(26:42):
I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's the whole Irish Catholic thing over decades?
That could be kind of driving things down.
But I just see the potential of Irish businesses and brands is barely scratching the surface.
Because they're going, oh, we're great in Ireland.
I feel like, well, sometimes I feel like we're just, again, it's like, actually, like you said, you don't know what you don't know.
(27:04):
We're just not exposed in some cases.
You know, I remember going to a global ecommerce summit where there was an entrepreneur, European Entrepreneur Award.
And I was sitting next to the head of ecommerce for Harvey Norman at the time in Ireland, which is a very, very big Irish retailer,
(27:25):
were doing a lot of revenue at the time.
This may be in 2016 or 2017.
And we were listening to the awards and there was two, I think they were 22-year-olds from Denmark who had a site that sold wheels for skateboards.
And they were doing something in the region of €19 million.
And it was like, it was Richard Moyles I was sitting next to, and I nearly had to pick up his jaw off the floor, you know.
(27:51):
It was almost impossible to get over just the scale of businesses or the scale that is achievable for businesses outside of Ireland.
But then, like, one other area that I think is sometimes a bit challenging is, you know, like, there is funding and we wouldn't know what to do with the money sometimes.
(28:11):
It's like, if we got funding, how do you even crack other markets?
How much money is required to crack that market?
How do you get into them fast?
We're very bootstrappy.
We love to bootstrap, but bootstrap is slow, you know.
I've noticed that and I tie that back to, let's say, ad spend.
A lot of brands, 98 per cent of brands I talk to now, they'll go, they want to spend as little as they can.
(28:40):
Whereas the two per cent will go, no, the more we spend effectively, the more we'll grow, the quicker we'll grow.
So the 98 per cent are so timid and go no, it again comes to that bootstrapping mentality.
But to go into new markets, you need to spend to go into markets.
You obviously need to hit CPAs and CACs and all that stuff.
(29:02):
But the more you can spend, the more you can grow.
That mentality is missing from so many.
I think that's a big thing because when you look at a market, say we look at, let's look next door, the UK, like 10 times the population.
So if you're doing well and you've got your budget locked in for Ireland, then realistically, like, basic maths, your budget's going to be 10x
(29:29):
what you're spending in Ireland today.
And you should be prepared for that.
Even if you're spending really efficiently and minimising spend, if you want to push into the UK.
And people may panic at the idea of spending 10 times their current marketing budget.
But, and this is the key thing, the market opportunity is 10x bigger.
(29:50):
So you've got a 10x revenue opportunity off the back of that.
But I think people kind of find that a little bit scary.
In particular, when you look in retail, some of our retail here is like, it's, like, the best in the world.
Like, we have some amazing, amazing retail.
And sometimes I just think, like, you know, London deserves this.
(30:12):
Because London deserves better retail and it needs some Irish retail in it.
Like, to go from retail to the pub, like, go ask for a pint in a London pub versus a Dublin pub.
The service, Jesus Christ.
So imagine exporting that beautiful service we have.
(30:32):
Do you know what I mean?
Like, this is the thing, there's so much we can export.
And actually, Gordon, interesting you said the 10x thing.
The funny thing is about, because I work with so many UK-based brands who want to crack the US, which again is 10x the opportunity.
But they actually have the same timid mindset.
They don't go, we should 10x our budget.
So it kind of plays out across markets and countries as well.
(30:54):
But I just do think the Irish business and brand is way, way more powerful.
And I think they need to just, the founders need to just let rip a bit more and just go, let's properly grow here and just get out of the country and just get, our weird Irish brand mindset is your core, but it shouldn't be your future.
(31:14):
It's interesting you say that about the UK.
I think there might be some sort of psychological safety in your home territory.
I do think it comes back to, like again, that there is that element of what you don't know and so on.
I remember we, last season, I don't know how many seasons ago now, we spoke with Ntola and she was talking about, she comes from Germany originally and she talked about how in Germany, they set up the, let's say the company owners would set a budget to go into a particular market and they keep using the budget until they're done and then they check the results, kind of a thing.
(31:53):
I'm sure they're checking the results
as they go along,
but I feel it's up to,
and she was kind of making the point
in contrast with some English businesses
where they would set a budget,
they'd spend like a tenth of the budget,
they weren't getting the immediate results
that they thought that they would get
and they stopped spending the budget,
and they closed down the attempt.
And it was just like
(32:14):
there was a fear of commitment
or there wasn't enough commitment,
we'll say.
The decision had been made around budgets and so on.
Oh, we're shockers for doing this with media.
Yeah.
Of like...
Not steering the course.
It's like, okay, this is what we're committing to, we're going to try it.
Okay, the first month hasn't worked.
Yeah, throw everything out.
Pull it back, pull it back.
Would you have seen much of that in your days in Meta and TikTok?
(32:39):
Often, and it's, and you can tell the mindset, I'll tell you, so I must have been in, I'd say almost 300 first meetings with a client, with a brand over the last couple of years, more probably.
And the brands, when you ask the brands, okay, you're not being too explicit, but you kind of say, what's your kind of budget, what are you spending?
(33:04):
The ones will go, if we hit our CPA, we keep going.
If we hit our CAC, we just keep going.
They're, and they're rare, they're five, maybe 10 per cent of brands.
They're the ones, they're the ones who'll grow, they're the ones who'll pump, they're the ones who'll have success.
I've seen it with the Huels, Gymsharks, all these brands over the years, Adanolas, Represents, they all have that mindset.
(33:30):
Essence Vault, Connor Martin in northern Ireland, is a good example of that.
They'll go, yeah, we, in order to grow, we need to hit our target CPAs, CACs and everything, but we can keep going after that.
And we want to keep going after that.
That's, of all the meetings, you just know, okay, this is going to be a great brand to work with.
And the other ones that go, we have 20K to spend in this month, or we have 2K to spend on Black Friday.
(33:56):
Like, all this fixed budgets, fixed mindset, it's essentially a fixed mindset.
It just debilitates them.
And you just know it's going to be harder to help them grow because they have that mindset and that restriction within them.
And I think the ultimate thing, it does come back to, I've talked about this before with other people, the people who control the purse strings are usually the most risk-averse, i.e. CFOs and financial controllers.
(34:21):
And they don't have a fucking clue about marketing.
And that's the problem.
They don't know, they'll see marketing as a cost.
Whereas the best CFOs or finance people will see marketing as an investment.
But again, they're like unicorns if they're thinking of marketing as an investment.
So then it comes actually down to the marketers, how are they talking to the finance people?
(34:44):
And usually that's not even happening a lot.
So I can see where it kind of happens.
That purse strings are kind of kept back.
But ultimately going to your point, it comes down to just their mindset at the very beginning.
How are they thinking about spending?
Do they spend to grow?
Go ahead to hit target.
And then they'd hold us accountable for hitting the target as well.
That's where it gets really interesting because they're like, you help us hit our CPAs and then we'll spend more.
(35:10):
And then we'll work together on everything from credit, measurements, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It makes a pile of sense.
Any time we ever have opened up a P&L, soon as P&Ls are brought into the mix, you know, it's usually where the costs will start rather than what is working.
That is an investment that we could invest in more, or what is leaking?
(35:33):
Let's say, the one that I hate most, I suppose nearly, is a lack of focus on the difference between the entry margin and the exit margin.
How did that happen?
And usually over-discounting or incorrectly promoting or price drops at the wrong time.
That sort of thing.
But, you know, if you open up a P&L and get an accountant sit in front of it and say, I need to make more profit, they're just going to start ripping costs.
(35:55):
And, you know, that's pretty much it.
I think one of the big tells on someone's P&L is are they putting marketing in as a fixed cost line or as a percentage of sales on the COGS or contribution?
Well, not on the COGS line, but a percentage of sales on the contribution line.
Because if it's in there as a percentage of sales on the contribution line, that means that they're on for scaling.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's exactly what Dave was talking about.
(36:16):
And you see that.
Cool.
So tell us about the agency venture a little bit, Dave, and some of the things that you're working on right now.
Oh, Sceal?
Yeah.
I don't know, would you call it an agency? I can't really call myself an agency?
Just before you get into this, Sceal, we're saying, as opposed to S-C-A-L-E, it's S-C-E-A-L.
(36:44):
Yes.
Sceal in Irish...
What genius.
Genius, Dave.
Oh, yes.
It took three months over summer to come up with.
Three months well spent.
Three months very well spent.
Sceal means, and obviously, as Gaeilge, in Irish,
means story.
But actually, you say it in English, sounds like scale because I like stories while writing a book.
(37:07):
I'm actually writing, started writing another book around, literally about Irish culture and thriving.
So you can see where that was coming from earlier.
Yeah, I'm basically out in the world, out of the big techs, helping brands, agencies and partners grow from go-to-market strategies, marketing, a lot actually, TikTok.
(37:29):
Everyone's still trying to figure out TikTok.
It's a beast and it's not going anywhere.
That's a big way I can help advising and strategising on TikTok, connecting brands with partners.
What else do I do?
And yeah, I'm kind of doing my own media stuff, i.e. books.
I have an audiobook of Grow Like Tech coming out in three or four weeks, which is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
(37:50):
Me trying to slow down talking is hard.
But you saw what happened to me at the end to this, tripping over my quickly spoken buzzwords.
There you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a hard thing to do.
Yeah, but yeah, so that's kind of it.
But yeah, basically working with brands, especially retail ecommerce brands, because that's where my, I suppose my past experience is mainly around, just helping them grow.
(38:13):
And also I'm starting to do a bit of, which I prefer to be doing more so of, is kind of the internal culture stuff.
How leaders, people think and act, because that's the biggest unlock.
The mindset part, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fantastic.
Dave, that was absolutely brilliant.
Scaling like tech, to thinking global and actually doing AI and mindset,
(38:37):
we covered a lot of bases.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Pleasure.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
Thanks, Dave.
Oh, well, that was a whirlwind, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I always feel like I stepped into the middle of, like, a tornado when I speak to Dave.
It's like, that was a lot of stuff.
Where are we going to start unpacking?
I quite like the mindset because there is a lot in it.
(38:58):
And like, coming from Ireland, you know, even just, because people talk about mindset an awful lot.
And then you're kind of wondering, well, what's the practical application of that?
You know, oh yeah, great.
I've got to change the mindset.
But how, what does that actually look like?
Well, what does it look like if you're going to say, well, you know, it's not even, let's say, a global mindset.
(39:20):
Global mindset doesn't necessarily mean, okay, I'm going to change geography.
Let's say, you know, in the literal sense, a global mindset might be just thinking very large.
Okay, instead of setting a budget with a limit on it, I'm going to set my budget as a percentage of my income.
And I'm going to keep going.
(39:41):
And then we're going to keep going.
Yeah, exactly.
We're priming it to keep going.
Rather than, you know, like, and facilitating people to make those decisions to keep going because, you know, it's not that they've only got 20 grand to spend.
They've got like one per cent or two per cent, or whatever is going to be the budget that you're going to assign something.
The other side of it was the AI part, I suppose.
(40:02):
Same story with mindset.
It's something that I've been practicing an awful lot in the business is trying to bring in AI as a kind of a top-down.
This is allowed.
Here is how we can use it.
These are the tools that we're going to be using.
Here's stuff that I've done with it.
You know, even taking the team out, you know, through, you know, some writing in AI and some documentation work or whatever the case may be.
(40:30):
Are you training team members on prompt engineering?
Yep, we have.
Everybody in the company has been trained.
So we have, we've had company-wide training in prompt engineering, in the various tools that are available in, let's say, image generation to text generation to video generation, to even music.
I wrote a glorious song about going camping with my brothers and brothers-in-law.
(40:55):
It's in the style of Jack Black.
It's about how we go barbecuing and, you know, have a beer or two.
So that was written in the space of about, I don't know,
like, a two-minute prompt.
So yeah, so we've done the training throughout and I'm very, very bullish on, you know, okay, here's what I've been doing the last week in AI.
(41:20):
And honestly, it actually, it does require an awful lot of a push.
Like, if you didn't have that mindset, I can see how companies could stagnate very easily.
Because it does take a lot of, like, people are doing their jobs.
There's definitely an element of, okay, am I going to prove that my job could be done an awful lot faster by something else?
(41:40):
Am I cheating if I do this?
But you can do twice as much.
Much more than twice as much.
But then the job changes slightly.
It becomes a quality control piece in a way.
It becomes about your own expertise and your own experience and you're directing the thing.
Could we just come up with like a better term for like...
AI?
Prompting engineer and then prompt engineer.
(42:02):
Yeah, or even just...
Like mystical asker of questions.
Like, prompt engineering sounds so...
Technical.
It sounds so technically layered.
That's a question outside our pay grade, Gordon.
It's outside our influence sphere.
I don't know.
I might engineer myself a prompt to work out if we can replace the prompt engineers.
(42:24):
But it was just a thought.
It just sounds very, it sounds like developers are trying to own it.
But if it's to permeate across through organisations, I can't imagine, you know, Karen from Finance saying, oh yeah, I'm going to do some prompt engineering now.
Yeah.
Well, actually, I suppose it's probably not a bad thing because AI hallucinates best when it's got a spreadsheet in front of itself.
(42:48):
It's great at maths.
But anyway, so let's just move on because there was a load of other good stuff that Dave talked about in there that we should just, like, touch on.
I think the conversation there just about how people were consuming media right at the beginning was also a really important take away.
And that's how we kind of fell into AI.
(43:09):
But people are using platforms differently.
They're consuming media differently and their expectations of what they are going to see is different.
Yeah.
And even, you know, let's say the high street of the future is on the mobile phone.
We've talked about that even from the very, very first episode that we had, the fingertips of desire.
(43:31):
You know, so like the shop fronts and everything else is, like the social channels, Instagram and TikTok and so on.
How they start to manifest in retail, I'd be really interested to see.
I don't think anybody's really pulled that off yet.
Like, where you've actually got the store, how is the store fully integrated with, like, with what they're doing across their social channels?
(43:57):
Like, you've seen that, oh, this is the collection we would have pushed out on Instagram.
Yeah, I've seen it on Instagram.
That's basic enough.
Yeah.
But like how social platforms, how AI then gets integrated into the store environment, I've yet to see and I'm incapable of imagining.
Yeah, not to delve continuously into our backlog, our back catalogue, but we did have a very good chat in the days of Meta's...
(44:24):
what was it called?
The Metaverse?
The Metaverse.
Do we remember the Metaverse?
Oh, do you know what?
I'm so happy that like two things that have not been talked about anymore are NFTs and the Metaverse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if nothing else, like thank AI for getting rid of that.
Absolutely.
Thank you, AI.
Thank you, AI, for getting rid of the Metaverse.
Yeah, but when we were talking about the Metaverse and there was Matthew Brown and he was kind of, he couldn't get over, it was really funny actually as you're thinking about it, how stores in the Metaverse were setting up the clothing on racks hung up side-on and he was like, it's the Metaverse, you know, there's no such thing as, like, limited space.
(45:08):
We can totally put these front facing on, we don't have to have, we don't have to build our retail store literally like a physical retail store.
So like, in the Metaverse you could build your retail store, like, with front-on facing products What, like in a grid?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like on an ecommerce store, maybe?
We'll call it an MVLP, Metaverse listing page.
(45:31):
I'm like, less talk of the Metaverse, maybe it'll rear its head again.
I suppose my point was the, how we have these ways of thinking, this vocabulary that we use and you know, we're limited by that as humans.
In the same way, I think the AI side of things and how AI could be used for retail is also limiting and there's going to be some, like, phenomenally creative people out there, probably from South Korea, who are going to come up with some absolutely mental ideas and we'll dilute that down and then that will be our way of thinking.
(46:02):
They'll Kpopificate it, and it will be wonderful.
And I for one, welcome our Korean overlords...
Open arms.
And I suppose the other things that we should say are, if you haven't already read the book, get the book, read the book.
It's very entertaining and very insightful, and even if you just read the chapter on meetings and then just sit there chortling to yourself. And if you can't be bothered to read the book, make sure you get the audiobook for no other reason than to hear Dave slow down a little bit.
(46:33):
Yeah, yeah, hear a Limerick man talk slow.
But I can't wait until he publishes his book about Irish culture because I think that will be fascinating.
It sounds like he's right in the middle of it.
In the thick of it.
Yeah, yeah, that looks like it'll be good.
Okay, well, that's it for another episode.
Thanks, Gordon.
It's been functional and it's been fabulous, Ger.
(46:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks everybody for joining today and take care. You've been listening to Functional & Fabulous, with Ger Keohane and Gordon Newman. If you'd like to know more about the podcast, or about StudioForty9 and Omnichannel Stories, please go to functionalandfabulous.ie. Our sound engineer was Elaine Smith, and the show was produced by Roger Overall.
This is Functional & Fabulous, the omnichannel podcast where we unbox tales of online retail and digital transformation.
In this episode, things go wrong almost immediately...
Oh my God, my intro, I've just lost it, oh no!
Elaine, cut that out.
Don't you dare cut that out, Elaine.
We are probably going to go to more sloppy places.
(00:22):
We will if these two don't tighten up their act.
Meanwhile in this episode, Ger does a terrible sales pitch for Ireland...
Ireland, we're only a small island, we're the size of Manchester.
Our guest does a better pitch...
Irishness and the Irish brand currently in the world, it's never been as high.
People are positive about AI...
(00:43):
Thank AI for getting rid of that.
Absolutely, thank you, AI.
But people are less positive about CFOs...
The people who control the purse strings are usually the most risk-averse, i.e. CFOs and financial controllers, and they don't have a f***ing clue about marketing.
This episode of Functional & Fabulous is brought to you with pride by StudioForty9, retail ecommerce experts, omnichannel growth consultants, and cut-through performance marketing specialists.
(01:11):
StudioForty9, where your digital retail success is built.
Hello.
Today's guest has had a front-row seat to how the internet actually sells things.
From helping Lego and Huel grow at Meta to steering the wild rise of TikTok shopping, Dave Morrissey has lived through the chaos, the creativity and the commerce of modern marketing.
(01:31):
The very intersection when entertainment, discovery and shopping all start to blur together.
He's the author of Grow Like Tech, a book about what the rest of us can learn from big tech's ability to scale, experiment and actually ship things.
And Dave is currently launching Sceal, a growth and culture consultancy working with various brands and partners to unlock growth from marketing to mindsets.
(01:54):
He's the kind of guy who'll tell you Irish businesses need to stop thinking small, that AI should be used and not just talked about, and what the next wave of growth will come from, that it will come from those who move faster than...
Oh my God, my intro,
I just lost it!
Oh, no.
I'll start again, that last part.
That was so good as well.
(02:15):
I was doing well, I was doing well.
We're good, we're good.
Hold on...
I was, like, getting so excited then.
Elaine, cut that out.
Okay, here we go.
He's the kind of guy who'll tell you Irish businesses need to stop thinking small, that AI should be used and not just talked about, and that the next wave of growth will come from those who move faster than the buzzwords.
So if you've ever wondered what really went on behind the TikTok curtain, or how to get your business thinking global, this is the conversation for you.
(02:43):
Dave, it's great to have you here.
Thank you.
That was probably the most beautiful and eloquent and exciting intro I've ever had in my life.
So it's all downhill from now.
I think everybody should get a Ger intro at some point in their life.
We'll put that on a t-shirt.
So Dave...
You could set up a new business, a kind of a Figma thing or a Canva thing for just intros.
(03:05):
If it all goes wrong.
And it could well be going wrong, yeah.
Dave, tell us, the view from the front-row seat.
When you look back on the journey, what moment did you stop and think, you know, the future of retail is changing as you're sitting there watching it?
Oh, that's a question.
(03:26):
I'd say it's that every person is a shopkeeper now.
Like, this whole career, obviously at TikTok, I saw a big wave of this, but it's kind of spread around everywhere to every kind of platform, be it Reels, even seeing Pinterest now that, it's just every Tom or Mary are on a camera, talking to a camera about some product or service they liked.
(03:51):
And then they're either getting their friends involved in buying that, or they're getting a kickback from the brand themselves.
And this phenomenon is in the, not even the thousands, in the millions of people.
So there's millions of people who are essentially shopkeepers for brands.
I think that's the biggest thing by far.
(04:12):
Yeah, I was talking to a marketplace this morning out in Eastern Europe.
And they're seeing that people are starting to move towards the social commerce piece.
And they're kind of getting flatfooted because they're a marketplace.
And essentially, a marketplace historically has been products on a white background and a blind organisation.
Whereas now people expect to see or hear from someone that looks like them, talks like them, about a product or service that might be of use to them.
(04:40):
They don't want to hear from a big beastly marketplace anymore.
They don't want to hear from TV ads per se anymore.
They just want to hear someone down the road going, yeah, that's cool for me.
That's good for me.
I'll get that.
So that, I suppose, democratisation of commerce, thanks to the mobile phone and cameras, and a proliferation of platforms, that's probably the biggest thing, I'd say.
(05:02):
Yeah.
Do you think that's content type or medium-related?
So you mentioned TV there.
People don't really want to suck up a TV ad, mainly because they skip them.
So do you think it's the medium or the content?
Just as a kind of top-level question.
We're going to get into, like, the medium-as-a-message kind of stuff already.
(05:26):
Wow.
That was quick.
That's two questions in.
F**king hell,
it's great.
Obviously the path, when I say media, I say platforms.
They've created, obviously, a platform as a mechanism to do so.
I think Instagram is probably the start of this, where they did create the platform, but essentially they wanted to make people better photographers, but then actually people just got better at doing selfies.
(05:55):
So I think it was the humans then actually adapted to it and then it became the content from the people that was more powerful than the medium, I'm going to say.
Yeah, I'd kind of be on the same page, I think.
It's humans, kind of like, we all relate to, or it's the primal thing of, oh, that person looks attractive, or they have something I don't have, is more powerful than a certain amount of pixels on the screen, I suppose.
(06:20):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
I was reading something about brands this week and Gen Z, and how Gen Z just don't want to consume traditional advertising in the way that those of us who are in Gen X and class ourselves as an older millennial would have grown up.
(06:47):
I'm trying to stretch down.
But I remember we used to talk about TV ads.
We don't talk about TV ads anymore.
I can't remember the last time a TV ad was discussed, even in business terms.
I think it was the Jaguar one.
That was because it was bad.
That was the one LinkedIn talked about.
That's where you find out about these things, because everyone's trying to get a little engagement on LinkedIn.
(07:11):
But I think, going to your point, and I've read a bit in this as well, it's not just, it's media is fragmented completely, in a way.
So people won't sit down and talk about a certain TV show that came out, or a film,
those days are gone.
So the critical mass around a piece of media is gone, because there's so many different ways that people can come at it and consume it.
(07:39):
I'm still, maybe this is being nostalgic, but I'd still love to see a great TV ad.
I'd still like to see a well-crafted ad, but I don't know where they're going to come from anymore.
I'm trying to... and to your point, who's going to talk about them?
Yeah, those big cinematic productions are very, very rare now.
And certainly, I don't know if brands have budgets available to make that kind of content.
(08:05):
Although I will say, I did see one over the weekend, and I thought it was excellent, but it would have translated, it was actually for Lloyds Bank in the UK, and the copy was just really beautiful.
But I think that would have translated to any media, it wouldn't have been, or any platform, it wouldn't have just been TV.
I have heard of, let's say, larger productions, for what is effectively, well, it's marketing, for certain.
(08:31):
It's not exactly a TV ad, it's all video-based.
You know, there was the perfume ad with the ice cream van with Bill Nighy.
Oh, for Ffern.
Yeah, which was like a very long and, you know, nostalgic, et cetera,
ad.
It was something that you consumed, but it was still an ad.
I've heard of one over the weekend, which was...
(08:51):
I actually saw that on TikTok, though.
You saw it on, yeah.
It's the first place I saw it.
Oh, I didn't see it on TV.
Sorry, okay, yeah.
I forgot about the fact we have to see it on TV.
There was a really interesting post, literally just before I got on the podcast with you.
Paul Adams from Intercom posted about it, that there's been an inflection point now.
It just happened that AI-generated content has overtaken human-generated content online, so in the last month or so.
(09:19):
And he made a great argument that now AI is going to feed off of AI itself.
So the slop is going to feed off itself, but that's going to make everything more horrible, banal, fake-looking, essentially.
So the skillset of marketers and product people is going to be taste.
(09:40):
So how much more taste can you have to inject into a piece of creative, a video, what have you?
And I thought it was a very interesting thing that we are probably going to go to more sloppy places, but the ones who have the more craft, i.e. the big TV ad productions, or even the thought process of that, is going to win out.
So hopefully there'll be a reckoning back to high-end craft because slop will just take over and everyone goes, well, we know that's slop now, so we'll have to go the high-craft route, the high-TV production.
(10:09):
Even if it isn't a high-end TV production, at least they will have in the thought process the briefing even, as opposed to just doing a prompt and throwing out an ad.
Yeah.
Like, we were just talking about it earlier on, where it's kind of like, the burrito effect.
AI will be responsible for generating 80 per cent of the stuff, but the humans will have to quality control 20 per cent of it for a good outcome.
(10:34):
So right now, when we're looking at AI at StudioForty9, we're definitely doing it with a human in the middle, where we need to get through a certain amount of effort or a work product that we need to produce.
AI produces it to a degree, but we're quality controlling it, leveraging our experience, our expertise to ensure that what is actually being produced is good.
(11:01):
Now, I don't know how long that will last.
I think right now that makes sense and it works really well and there's a great use of AI, et cetera, et cetera.
How long that will last is a different thing and I think there will, as you say, that inflection point of when AI is generating all of the content off the back of AI.
The thing that I worry about is when AI is involved in figuring out the advertising budget associated with the content that the AI is producing to sell the stuff that the AI has decided that we need.
(11:30):
So the AI makes the ad, places the ad, puts the budget behind the ad, writes the theme tune, sings the theme tune.
But I suppose theoretically, right, all really interesting. But like, Dave, in your conversations with people, and your conversations with brands and marketplaces, like, they must be having these kind of conversations with you going, well, AI, this is huge and social media, this is huge, and content, and this is a problem.
(11:55):
But like, from your perspective, how do you think brands should be thinking and tackling this new horizon of problems, challenges and opportunities?
Well, first of all, they should be doing something about it.
I mean, honestly, I've seen, I saw it even within TikTok where I came from. When I, like - I can say this now, like, I kind of made a statement to the leadership before I left - I was like, we're doing a disservice to the staff there because they're not actually getting them to use AI.
(12:30):
I think there's talk of AI, okay, great, but there's no one actually using AI.
And I think it was a disservice to people's, essentially, careers.
I think everyone needs to be mandated to be using AI at the moment.
I think Shopify are probably the massive leaders in big tech, and I know from other platforms as well that there's AI courses and, you know, upskill in AI, but that's theoretical shit, really. Because AI is moving at such a clip that any theory from last week is kind of gone this week.
(12:57):
So it has to be a doing mechanism and Shopify are the only ones, I still have to say the only ones who mandate it, they put them in their performance reviews, like performance reviews at Spotify, I think they say this, AI fluency is a baseline and they rank them on terms of their prompt engineering, how good they are at context, how well they are sharing their AI learnings.
(13:20):
Like, this is all mandated within their performance review system.
They're probably the only ones out there doing, and that's doing.
The rest of them aren't doing anything.
That's, I'm talking about the tech platforms, which you'd expect to be kind of leading on the doing, but they're not.
So going, to go back to any brand or business, I'd be looking at who's, just getting them to use it.
(13:41):
Like it's, I think it's talking about it and kind of go, did you AI that, did you prompt that, et cetera.
They're little nudges, but I think the doing is a key piece.
And I think it actually comes down to leadership, really to be the ones who practice what they preach.
They should be the ones going, look what I figured out.
Look what's quicker.
Because I think the thing with AI in, let's say, organisation with a culture that has a bit of fear baked into it, originally, there's a lot of businesses, we know like, a lot of fear, anxiety people have working in places.
(14:16):
And with AI, no one wants to go, okay, that thing that used to take me a day to do, I can do in half an hour.
They're not going to share that.
They're going to shit themselves sharing that, which actually is a hugely valuable thing for the business.
But if leadership go, hey, that thing that took me a day, now it takes me half an hour.
You should all be doing this as well.
(14:37):
Suddenly everyone is in a safer place to go, well, I'm going to go into AI.
So I think it's the doing, but I think the leaders at the top have to be doing it and showing that they're doing it.
And that would make everyone feel safe and wanting to actually make AI do their jobs better.
So there's a lot of psychology in the culture piece of AI, I think.
(14:59):
That's a big cultural shift.
I very much agree with it.
Like we're doing a huge, we're making huge amounts of effort at the moment
in what we do to include AI.
And we have, all of those fears are incredibly valid in a situation where we can do things in half an hour that used to take us two days, which is the case in some situations.
(15:19):
Now, like, as a business, how do we charge for that?
Like, we now need to make a conscious decision that we're charging for our expertise as opposed to the time it used to take us to do something previously, which for agencies means that the model we used to use is probably completely broken.
And we just need to reflect on that and figure out what makes sense and where the value is that we're adding in.
(15:43):
But I feel sometimes when you speak about that and people are talking about AI, there's two things that come to the fore that I hear a lot.
One of them is the whole concept of cheating.
Oh, that's cheating if you're using AI.
And then the second one I feel a bit that isn't talked about as much is the idea of a Pandora's box.
I really feel that some businesses don't look at AI because they're worried that when they open up the Pandora's box, what they'll find will be so challenging for them when they truly find out that actually their job could be done in four or five minutes.
(16:14):
What do we do then?
Well, there you have it.
A little McKinsey gone.
We should have a McKinsey count now.
We could also include BCG there.
But time changes, time moves on.
I mean, you know, this is the very, like, never is the ostrich attitude as visible sometimes in large-scale tech, you know, as it is at the moment in terms of AI.
(16:46):
Everybody's talking about it, but, like, what are they actually bringing out?
On your travels, Dave, have you met, like, brands that are really enthusiastic about AI?
As soon as we get onto AI, the conversation always leans into, oh, it's going to take my job, or it's going to...
But have you come across anyone who's operating at, like, that really, like, super-embracing it, super-excited about it, using it to transform either their marketing, their engagement with the platforms?
(17:19):
Are you seeing any of this in the conversations that you're having?
No. Honestly...
I love that.
I don't...
Jesus, I don't think so at all.
No.
No, and I think probably the D2C brands are, behind the scenes.
(17:42):
Like, they're doing...
I know a few of them are using it for content, for briefing creators, getting all their hooks out, because the content game has changed for marketing on the platforms, from TikTok to Meta.
You need shitloads of assets, and they all need to be very different all the time.
So AI is coming into that regard in terms of helping with briefing creators for hooks, but also then doing iterations on asset A or B.
(18:11):
I know that's happening, but that's kind of an obvious one.
Any decent operator should be doing that at this stage.
But to a broader thing of, like, okay, are we, let's say, a fashion retailer that's AI-centric or AI-first?
Not at all.
Haven't heard anything close to it.
And it's a huge miss.
(18:32):
If I was just going to think out loud, if I was a fashion retailer, I'd be using AI to help with content production, but I'd be pulling in the very latest Trustpilot review or a comment on Instagram.
I'd be pulling in all these data sources, because that's essentially the customer feedback, or as close to real-time as you get.
(18:55):
So even looking at that, how can I put AI against the customer feedback?
To A, get sentiment analysis?
Do they like what we have?
Or B, they like this, we can put this into our content and our marketing.
Like, that should be what they'd be doing, but I haven't heard anyone doing that yet.
One of the things that you do in retention and in CRM is you adopt the customer's tone of voice.
(19:21):
So you personalise things by meeting the customer where they are, basically.
So if you're pulling in lots of sources, say you're pulling in all your CX tickets, then you know how your customers are talking to you.
And the AI could then generate copy off the back of how customers actually talk and how customers actually...
The vocabulary that they're using to talk about it.
Yeah, because I imagine that different brands would have different vocabulary.
(19:45):
I think what I would love to see is as a thought experiment, I don't know if it's something that could ever be realised in the near future, would be like if a brand went all-in.
So they're like, okay, AI is our new creative director.
And...
Well, yeah.
I mean, I think the very first Bing Microsoft images I ever saw generated by AI came from you, Gordon.
(20:11):
And they were those puffer dresses.
They were like, they were these gowns for, you know...
For me at the weekend.
Shiny.
They looked very much like something that you could expect to see in fashion week.
Yeah, I just don't think that...
I think people are embracing things around, like, the periphery.
(20:32):
And Dave, as you say, the obvious stuff.
But I think we've yet to see someone go all-in.
I think a couple of fashion brands have maybe done an AI collection.
But I would just love to see someone go all-in.
And again, that's not business changing.
An AI collection is like, oh, someone got the pat on the back for innovation in the company.
(20:53):
That's what that essentially is.
I think if a brand is to be as customer-centric as possible going forward, they should be AI-first.
Because again, it just gets closer to the customer, gets the better real-time data and feedback that then can be absorbed into your CRM, customer service, marketing, et cetera, et cetera.
(21:13):
But again, I haven't heard anyone really talk that way yet.
Changing gears a very small amount.
So you wrote a book, Grow Like Tech, diving into how big tech scales.
And I suppose from that book, what would you say is, you know, what could smaller businesses steal from the playbook, do you think?
(21:35):
You know, what are the things that you think are complete misses for a smaller business when you're looking at the big tech scaling approaches?
Well, there's an entire chapter on meetings.
There's 40 different types of meetings and companies.
They can take that.
Or not.
Honestly, it's just a mindset.
(21:56):
Like, it really is.
And I know this is a... so everyone fucking says, oh, mindset, whatever, blah, blah, blah, growth mindset.
But it really is.
It's just, look, okay, what can we do today to kind of scale up?
Actually, scale is something that's missing from most businesses.
Not in our world in tech, retail, ecommerce, even agencies, but, if you go into other, say entertainment, where I came from, other businesses, they don't think about scale.
(22:21):
Okay, how can we have something here to build up?
They'll just reinvent the wheel every time.
I think, actually, the ultimate thing I think they can take away from it is experimentation, testing, learning.
That's, I think, missing from a lot of practices in business and brands.
It's that real kind of engineering approach.
(22:42):
Like, okay, how can we see what works and whatever works we'll scale up and whatever works we'll scale down.
I never hear test-and-learn as a mantra or a mindset or a practice in most industries, or a lot of brands, even.
What do you think is the fundamental blocker there?
I think people don't know what they don't know.
(23:04):
Honestly, I came from, I started off in the music industry.
I used to work with, like, The Rubberbandits and did gigs with Shane McGowan, all mad shit.
And then I came into tech where I started to hear this kind of, I suppose, vocabulary.
And I was in a completely different context and environment to hear it and absorb it.
And again, I wouldn't have known if I'd stayed in the music industry or entertainment.
(23:27):
I wouldn't be here talking about this stuff.
So I think it's putting yourself into a context to understand that or an environment to understand that.
And so for anyone young here listening, look where you are and what you're hearing and if you put yourself in an environment where people are talking differently like this and you can see their success coming from it, that's the key thing.
(23:48):
Just surround yourself with people talking the right way.
Or it doesn't have to be the right way, just this different way.
And that's it.
Just put myself into a different context.
And to expand on that a little bit, because you also talk a bit about global mindset versus Irish modesty.
We all hear about Ireland.
We're only a small island,
(24:08):
we're the size of Manchester,
et cetera, et cetera.
We nearly pre-limit ourselves in some ways.
Do you think that's the case?
Do you think?
How do you see this?
I think most, I think 90 - I'm going to get in trouble for this -
I think about 98 per cent of businesses in Ireland have a small-island syndrome.
I think it's a massive problem.
(24:30):
Well, actually, it's a problem, but actually the opportunity is vast.
This is the thing.
So Irish businesses tend to look, oh, we're doing great.
We've done this and X and Y.
And then if you transplant what that is into, let's say, UK market, US markets, it's nothing.
I'm talking about everything from brand campaigns to media spend to different product lines and everything, just thinking bigger and beyond.
(24:57):
So when you look at Irish, when you look at Irishness and the Irish brand currently in the world, it's never been as high and thriving as it's ever been.
Like, if you look at the UK, Guinness is the biggest-selling drink.
If you look at Fontaines, Kneecap, the music side, you look at the Paul Mescals, the Ruth Neggas...
We've never had Irishness...
(25:18):
f**king chicken fillet rolls are one of the biggest-selling things in f**king London.
And in business, you've Stripe brothers, you have...
And you look at any, by the way, any big tech platform, there is great leadership, Irish people in leadership positions across everywhere.
So we are at the peak of our powers, culturally, at the moment.
(25:40):
We have incredible social fluidity.
Like, we're the most social fluid people in the world.
So we can get everywhere.
And we are natural storytellers, which everyone loves.
And in marketing, that's what people love.
And then there's great brands in the country, but yet they're not going, okay, we've product market fit in Ireland.
(26:00):
They should start there.
Okay, we've got product market fit in Ireland.
Great, let's go big.
Let's go outside.
Because transporting that Irishness and their brand and these people, these operator skills, they can outperform most people in most markets.
Trust me.
I know Irish people are brilliant at what they do.
But again, they're just going, oh, we've cracked Ireland.
(26:22):
And that's kind of, we're happy with that.
We'll dip our toes in the UK and we'll say we're in the UK.
That's the thing.
They'll say, oh, we've entered the UK market, but the market share is probably 0.0001 per cent. So I think it's a bit of a pragmatic reality check that Irish business can be much, much bigger abroad, but they have to just, I don't know...
(26:42):
I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's the whole Irish Catholic thing over decades?
That could be kind of driving things down.
But I just see the potential of Irish businesses and brands is barely scratching the surface.
Because they're going, oh, we're great in Ireland.
I feel like, well, sometimes I feel like we're just, again, it's like, actually, like you said, you don't know what you don't know.
(27:04):
We're just not exposed in some cases.
You know, I remember going to a global ecommerce summit where there was an entrepreneur, European Entrepreneur Award.
And I was sitting next to the head of ecommerce for Harvey Norman at the time in Ireland, which is a very, very big Irish retailer,
(27:25):
were doing a lot of revenue at the time.
This may be in 2016 or 2017.
And we were listening to the awards and there was two, I think they were 22-year-olds from Denmark who had a site that sold wheels for skateboards.
And they were doing something in the region of €19 million.
And it was like, it was Richard Moyles I was sitting next to, and I nearly had to pick up his jaw off the floor, you know.
(27:51):
It was almost impossible to get over just the scale of businesses or the scale that is achievable for businesses outside of Ireland.
But then, like, one other area that I think is sometimes a bit challenging is, you know, like, there is funding and we wouldn't know what to do with the money sometimes.
(28:11):
It's like, if we got funding, how do you even crack other markets?
How much money is required to crack that market?
How do you get into them fast?
We're very bootstrappy.
We love to bootstrap, but bootstrap is slow, you know.
I've noticed that and I tie that back to, let's say, ad spend.
A lot of brands, 98 per cent of brands I talk to now, they'll go, they want to spend as little as they can.
(28:40):
Whereas the two per cent will go, no, the more we spend effectively, the more we'll grow, the quicker we'll grow.
So the 98 per cent are so timid and go no, it again comes to that bootstrapping mentality.
But to go into new markets, you need to spend to go into markets.
You obviously need to hit CPAs and CACs and all that stuff.
(29:02):
But the more you can spend, the more you can grow.
That mentality is missing from so many.
I think that's a big thing because when you look at a market, say we look at, let's look next door, the UK, like 10 times the population.
So if you're doing well and you've got your budget locked in for Ireland, then realistically, like, basic maths, your budget's going to be 10x
(29:29):
what you're spending in Ireland today.
And you should be prepared for that.
Even if you're spending really efficiently and minimising spend, if you want to push into the UK.
And people may panic at the idea of spending 10 times their current marketing budget.
But, and this is the key thing, the market opportunity is 10x bigger.
(29:50):
So you've got a 10x revenue opportunity off the back of that.
But I think people kind of find that a little bit scary.
In particular, when you look in retail, some of our retail here is like, it's, like, the best in the world.
Like, we have some amazing, amazing retail.
And sometimes I just think, like, you know, London deserves this.
(30:12):
Because London deserves better retail and it needs some Irish retail in it.
Like, to go from retail to the pub, like, go ask for a pint in a London pub versus a Dublin pub.
The service, Jesus Christ.
So imagine exporting that beautiful service we have.
(30:32):
Do you know what I mean?
Like, this is the thing, there's so much we can export.
And actually, Gordon, interesting you said the 10x thing.
The funny thing is about, because I work with so many UK-based brands who want to crack the US, which again is 10x the opportunity.
But they actually have the same timid mindset.
They don't go, we should 10x our budget.
So it kind of plays out across markets and countries as well.
(30:54):
But I just do think the Irish business and brand is way, way more powerful.
And I think they need to just, the founders need to just let rip a bit more and just go, let's properly grow here and just get out of the country and just get, our weird Irish brand mindset is your core, but it shouldn't be your future.
(31:14):
It's interesting you say that about the UK.
I think there might be some sort of psychological safety in your home territory.
I do think it comes back to, like again, that there is that element of what you don't know and so on.
I remember we, last season, I don't know how many seasons ago now, we spoke with Ntola and she was talking about, she comes from Germany originally and she talked about how in Germany, they set up the, let's say the company owners would set a budget to go into a particular market and they keep using the budget until they're done and then they check the results, kind of a thing.
(31:53):
I'm sure they're checking the results
as they go along,
but I feel it's up to,
and she was kind of making the point
in contrast with some English businesses
where they would set a budget,
they'd spend like a tenth of the budget,
they weren't getting the immediate results
that they thought that they would get
and they stopped spending the budget,
and they closed down the attempt.
And it was just like
(32:14):
there was a fear of commitment
or there wasn't enough commitment,
we'll say.
The decision had been made around budgets and so on.
Oh, we're shockers for doing this with media.
Yeah.
Of like...
Not steering the course.
It's like, okay, this is what we're committing to, we're going to try it.
Okay, the first month hasn't worked.
Yeah, throw everything out.
Pull it back, pull it back.
Would you have seen much of that in your days in Meta and TikTok?
(32:39):
Often, and it's, and you can tell the mindset, I'll tell you, so I must have been in, I'd say almost 300 first meetings with a client, with a brand over the last couple of years, more probably.
And the brands, when you ask the brands, okay, you're not being too explicit, but you kind of say, what's your kind of budget, what are you spending?
(33:04):
The ones will go, if we hit our CPA, we keep going.
If we hit our CAC, we just keep going.
They're, and they're rare, they're five, maybe 10 per cent of brands.
They're the ones, they're the ones who'll grow, they're the ones who'll pump, they're the ones who'll have success.
I've seen it with the Huels, Gymsharks, all these brands over the years, Adanolas, Represents, they all have that mindset.
(33:30):
Essence Vault, Connor Martin in northern Ireland, is a good example of that.
They'll go, yeah, we, in order to grow, we need to hit our target CPAs, CACs and everything, but we can keep going after that.
And we want to keep going after that.
That's, of all the meetings, you just know, okay, this is going to be a great brand to work with.
And the other ones that go, we have 20K to spend in this month, or we have 2K to spend on Black Friday.
(33:56):
Like, all this fixed budgets, fixed mindset, it's essentially a fixed mindset.
It just debilitates them.
And you just know it's going to be harder to help them grow because they have that mindset and that restriction within them.
And I think the ultimate thing, it does come back to, I've talked about this before with other people, the people who control the purse strings are usually the most risk-averse, i.e. CFOs and financial controllers.
(34:21):
And they don't have a fucking clue about marketing.
And that's the problem.
They don't know, they'll see marketing as a cost.
Whereas the best CFOs or finance people will see marketing as an investment.
But again, they're like unicorns if they're thinking of marketing as an investment.
So then it comes actually down to the marketers, how are they talking to the finance people?
(34:44):
And usually that's not even happening a lot.
So I can see where it kind of happens.
That purse strings are kind of kept back.
But ultimately going to your point, it comes down to just their mindset at the very beginning.
How are they thinking about spending?
Do they spend to grow?
Go ahead to hit target.
And then they'd hold us accountable for hitting the target as well.
That's where it gets really interesting because they're like, you help us hit our CPAs and then we'll spend more.
(35:10):
And then we'll work together on everything from credit, measurements, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It makes a pile of sense.
Any time we ever have opened up a P&L, soon as P&Ls are brought into the mix, you know, it's usually where the costs will start rather than what is working.
That is an investment that we could invest in more, or what is leaking?
(35:33):
Let's say, the one that I hate most, I suppose nearly, is a lack of focus on the difference between the entry margin and the exit margin.
How did that happen?
And usually over-discounting or incorrectly promoting or price drops at the wrong time.
That sort of thing.
But, you know, if you open up a P&L and get an accountant sit in front of it and say, I need to make more profit, they're just going to start ripping costs.
(35:55):
And, you know, that's pretty much it.
I think one of the big tells on someone's P&L is are they putting marketing in as a fixed cost line or as a percentage of sales on the COGS or contribution?
Well, not on the COGS line, but a percentage of sales on the contribution line.
Because if it's in there as a percentage of sales on the contribution line, that means that they're on for scaling.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's exactly what Dave was talking about.
(36:16):
And you see that.
Cool.
So tell us about the agency venture a little bit, Dave, and some of the things that you're working on right now.
Oh, Sceal?
Yeah.
I don't know, would you call it an agency? I can't really call myself an agency?
Just before you get into this, Sceal, we're saying, as opposed to S-C-A-L-E, it's S-C-E-A-L.
(36:44):
Yes.
Sceal in Irish...
What genius.
Genius, Dave.
Oh, yes.
It took three months over summer to come up with.
Three months well spent.
Three months very well spent.
Sceal means, and obviously, as Gaeilge, in Irish,
means story.
But actually, you say it in English, sounds like scale because I like stories while writing a book.
(37:07):
I'm actually writing, started writing another book around, literally about Irish culture and thriving.
So you can see where that was coming from earlier.
Yeah, I'm basically out in the world, out of the big techs, helping brands, agencies and partners grow from go-to-market strategies, marketing, a lot actually, TikTok.
(37:29):
Everyone's still trying to figure out TikTok.
It's a beast and it's not going anywhere.
That's a big way I can help advising and strategising on TikTok, connecting brands with partners.
What else do I do?
And yeah, I'm kind of doing my own media stuff, i.e. books.
I have an audiobook of Grow Like Tech coming out in three or four weeks, which is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
(37:50):
Me trying to slow down talking is hard.
But you saw what happened to me at the end to this, tripping over my quickly spoken buzzwords.
There you go.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a hard thing to do.
Yeah, but yeah, so that's kind of it.
But yeah, basically working with brands, especially retail ecommerce brands, because that's where my, I suppose my past experience is mainly around, just helping them grow.
(38:13):
And also I'm starting to do a bit of, which I prefer to be doing more so of, is kind of the internal culture stuff.
How leaders, people think and act, because that's the biggest unlock.
The mindset part, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fantastic.
Dave, that was absolutely brilliant.
Scaling like tech, to thinking global and actually doing AI and mindset,
(38:37):
we covered a lot of bases.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Pleasure.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
Thanks, Dave.
Oh, well, that was a whirlwind, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I always feel like I stepped into the middle of, like, a tornado when I speak to Dave.
It's like, that was a lot of stuff.
Where are we going to start unpacking?
I quite like the mindset because there is a lot in it.
(38:58):
And like, coming from Ireland, you know, even just, because people talk about mindset an awful lot.
And then you're kind of wondering, well, what's the practical application of that?
You know, oh yeah, great.
I've got to change the mindset.
But how, what does that actually look like?
Well, what does it look like if you're going to say, well, you know, it's not even, let's say, a global mindset.
(39:20):
Global mindset doesn't necessarily mean, okay, I'm going to change geography.
Let's say, you know, in the literal sense, a global mindset might be just thinking very large.
Okay, instead of setting a budget with a limit on it, I'm going to set my budget as a percentage of my income.
And I'm going to keep going.
(39:41):
And then we're going to keep going.
Yeah, exactly.
We're priming it to keep going.
Rather than, you know, like, and facilitating people to make those decisions to keep going because, you know, it's not that they've only got 20 grand to spend.
They've got like one per cent or two per cent, or whatever is going to be the budget that you're going to assign something.
The other side of it was the AI part, I suppose.
(40:02):
Same story with mindset.
It's something that I've been practicing an awful lot in the business is trying to bring in AI as a kind of a top-down.
This is allowed.
Here is how we can use it.
These are the tools that we're going to be using.
Here's stuff that I've done with it.
You know, even taking the team out, you know, through, you know, some writing in AI and some documentation work or whatever the case may be.
(40:30):
Are you training team members on prompt engineering?
Yep, we have.
Everybody in the company has been trained.
So we have, we've had company-wide training in prompt engineering, in the various tools that are available in, let's say, image generation to text generation to video generation, to even music.
I wrote a glorious song about going camping with my brothers and brothers-in-law.
(40:55):
It's in the style of Jack Black.
It's about how we go barbecuing and, you know, have a beer or two.
So that was written in the space of about, I don't know,
like, a two-minute prompt.
So yeah, so we've done the training throughout and I'm very, very bullish on, you know, okay, here's what I've been doing the last week in AI.
(41:20):
And honestly, it actually, it does require an awful lot of a push.
Like, if you didn't have that mindset, I can see how companies could stagnate very easily.
Because it does take a lot of, like, people are doing their jobs.
There's definitely an element of, okay, am I going to prove that my job could be done an awful lot faster by something else?
(41:40):
Am I cheating if I do this?
But you can do twice as much.
Much more than twice as much.
But then the job changes slightly.
It becomes a quality control piece in a way.
It becomes about your own expertise and your own experience and you're directing the thing.
Could we just come up with like a better term for like...
AI?
Prompting engineer and then prompt engineer.
(42:02):
Yeah, or even just...
Like mystical asker of questions.
Like, prompt engineering sounds so...
Technical.
It sounds so technically layered.
That's a question outside our pay grade, Gordon.
It's outside our influence sphere.
I don't know.
I might engineer myself a prompt to work out if we can replace the prompt engineers.
(42:24):
But it was just a thought.
It just sounds very, it sounds like developers are trying to own it.
But if it's to permeate across through organisations, I can't imagine, you know, Karen from Finance saying, oh yeah, I'm going to do some prompt engineering now.
Yeah.
Well, actually, I suppose it's probably not a bad thing because AI hallucinates best when it's got a spreadsheet in front of itself.
(42:48):
It's great at maths.
But anyway, so let's just move on because there was a load of other good stuff that Dave talked about in there that we should just, like, touch on.
I think the conversation there just about how people were consuming media right at the beginning was also a really important take away.
And that's how we kind of fell into AI.
(43:09):
But people are using platforms differently.
They're consuming media differently and their expectations of what they are going to see is different.
Yeah.
And even, you know, let's say the high street of the future is on the mobile phone.
We've talked about that even from the very, very first episode that we had, the fingertips of desire.
(43:31):
You know, so like the shop fronts and everything else is, like the social channels, Instagram and TikTok and so on.
How they start to manifest in retail, I'd be really interested to see.
I don't think anybody's really pulled that off yet.
Like, where you've actually got the store, how is the store fully integrated with, like, with what they're doing across their social channels?
(43:57):
Like, you've seen that, oh, this is the collection we would have pushed out on Instagram.
Yeah, I've seen it on Instagram.
That's basic enough.
Yeah.
But like how social platforms, how AI then gets integrated into the store environment, I've yet to see and I'm incapable of imagining.
Yeah, not to delve continuously into our backlog, our back catalogue, but we did have a very good chat in the days of Meta's...
(44:24):
what was it called?
The Metaverse?
The Metaverse.
Do we remember the Metaverse?
Oh, do you know what?
I'm so happy that like two things that have not been talked about anymore are NFTs and the Metaverse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if nothing else, like thank AI for getting rid of that.
Absolutely.
Thank you, AI.
Thank you, AI, for getting rid of the Metaverse.
Yeah, but when we were talking about the Metaverse and there was Matthew Brown and he was kind of, he couldn't get over, it was really funny actually as you're thinking about it, how stores in the Metaverse were setting up the clothing on racks hung up side-on and he was like, it's the Metaverse, you know, there's no such thing as, like, limited space.
(45:08):
We can totally put these front facing on, we don't have to have, we don't have to build our retail store literally like a physical retail store.
So like, in the Metaverse you could build your retail store, like, with front-on facing products What, like in a grid?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like on an ecommerce store, maybe?
We'll call it an MVLP, Metaverse listing page.
(45:31):
I'm like, less talk of the Metaverse, maybe it'll rear its head again.
I suppose my point was the, how we have these ways of thinking, this vocabulary that we use and you know, we're limited by that as humans.
In the same way, I think the AI side of things and how AI could be used for retail is also limiting and there's going to be some, like, phenomenally creative people out there, probably from South Korea, who are going to come up with some absolutely mental ideas and we'll dilute that down and then that will be our way of thinking.
(46:02):
They'll Kpopificate it, and it will be wonderful.
And I for one, welcome our Korean overlords...
Open arms.
And I suppose the other things that we should say are, if you haven't already read the book, get the book, read the book.
It's very entertaining and very insightful, and even if you just read the chapter on meetings and then just sit there chortling to yourself. And if you can't be bothered to read the book, make sure you get the audiobook for no other reason than to hear Dave slow down a little bit.
(46:33):
Yeah, yeah, hear a Limerick man talk slow.
But I can't wait until he publishes his book about Irish culture because I think that will be fascinating.
It sounds like he's right in the middle of it.
In the thick of it.
Yeah, yeah, that looks like it'll be good.
Okay, well, that's it for another episode.
Thanks, Gordon.
It's been functional and it's been fabulous, Ger.
(46:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks everybody for joining today and take care. You've been listening to Functional & Fabulous, with Ger Keohane and Gordon Newman. If you'd like to know more about the podcast, or about StudioForty9 and Omnichannel Stories, please go to functionalandfabulous.ie. Our sound engineer was Elaine Smith, and the show was produced by Roger Overall.
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