The Future of Experiential Marketing: Trends and Innovations

James Lawrence: Welcome back to the Smarter Marketer podcast. I'm here today with Laura Roberts. Laura, welcome to the pod.

Laura Roberts: Thanks for having me, James. It's great to be here.

James Lawrence: Excellent. I'm looking forward to today's conversation. So Laura is MD APAC of Invent. Invent is a global brand experience agency. Uh, Invent APAC has worked with, I was kind of looking at the website, uh, Laura, and it's essentially a who's who of household brands.

We've got Emirates, Amex, TEDx, Rolls Royce, SAP, the Australian government. I won't go through the full list, but essentially, Um, Um, Invent APAC and then Invent Globally has worked with essentially everyone you can imagine and has won, you know, a list of awards too, too big to name. Laura herself has 20 years of experiential marketing experience across Australia, the US, the Middle East and Singapore.

So, today we're going to be going deep into experiential marketing. So, I thought Laura just Um, to, to start the conversation off, like, how did the journey begin for you in the space?

Laura Roberts: Um, fun story, actually. So going back to the very early two thousands and, um, I'd be in my bedroom watching sex in the city and shamefully, you know, the apprentice, but they were my go to TV shows back then, it was different back then, um, everyone, and, um, And I just became obsessed with New York, basically.

Um, and I worked really hard, uh, in the pub and saved up as much money as possible, drained my bank account and shoved it all in a sock and went and took myself to New York City and I was so lucky to land on my feet really quickly over there. Um, and I landed a job with a company that's Um, production company that just did events for, um, musicians basically.

So all their private events. So, um, one moment I was doing, you know, the launch of the Rolling Stones to, uh, to working with Lenny Kravitz. So who counting crows, um, network upfront. And it was just my, I was just absolutely blown away, um, by the experience and thought, yeah, I'm going to be staying in New York for some time.

And then I ended up. Getting the next job in agency land. And that's really where it started for me in New York. And, um, that was also incredible working for huge brands and they have insane budgets in the U S as well. So that's super fun. And, um, my bosses over there were, um, at this agency, Scott Coulthard and Christina McCrory.

And in 2008, we actually left that, um, agency and started invent. So I have the official title of first employee of invent.

James Lawrence: Number one.

Laura Roberts: Number one. I'm standing like a statue or something. Nothing's come yet, but I'm sure it's going to happen. But, um, yes, I carry that title. So we started inventing 2008 in New York City, and we're in a very small office opposite Balthazar.

Well, our meetings were at Balthazar, breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we grew really quickly. they are still leadership today. Um, a lot of other people that joined us still with the business today. I actually ended up leaving New York, uh, in 2009. I think it was, it was just sort of time to come home. Yeah.

Recession happened too. So it was just a good time to come back to Australia. And, um, I was working with a whole bunch of other great agencies across Asia Pacific, but always really wanted to work with InBev. That was, that was home for me. Um, and then I finally got the call. In 2017 that, uh, invent. We're ready to, um, come out to Australia or Asia Pacific region and had the privilege of opening up the office here in Sydney in 2017 and Singapore shortly after that.

And here we are. Now we've got 40 employees, uh, working with all the major brands, won all the major awards, as you mentioned earlier. And, um, having a good time. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, well, started by shoving

James Lawrence: a whole bunch of money into a sock. Who would have,

Laura Roberts: who would have, who would

James Lawrence: have thunk it?

Laura Roberts: Yeah. So how

James Lawrence: big now globally is Invent?

Laura Roberts: Um, we have 10 offices across seven different countries and about 180 employees. So we're still privately owned. Um, yeah. Agency, which is quite rare for someone at this scale, um, but, and we very much, uh, operate, um, as a global company as well, uh, which we can do just having that more flexibility and privately owned.

So, uh, for our, uh, when we're building out a strategy or creative, we can tap into our design studio in Sweden, we can tap on the shoulder of creatives in New York city. Um, and we, we can, um, Execute our shows all over the world and tap into our teams on the ground to help support. So it's, it's, it really is a truly, um, global, um, company that we have.

It's kind of a

James Lawrence: nice, nice size, isn't it? Can you kind of, like, often independent agencies or independent businesses struggle because you don't have that global footprint and hence the globals kind of get a lot of work, don't they? But if you kind of, Can still cover the globe and have that skill set in house.

You kind of get the best of both worlds.

Laura Roberts: It's exactly right. Yeah, yeah,

James Lawrence: should be in there selling for you. Positioning the position in the agency.

Laura Roberts: You've done a great job so far.

James Lawrence: Um, I'd be, I think for the audience, um, like experiential marketing, like what is it? I think just to unpack it at its kind of, uh, at its core form.

Laura Roberts: We do get asked that all the time. Yeah, speak to me. Yeah, I think of it like in the most simplistic form. It's anything that's like non traditional advertising. So it's brand centric. We're working for brands. It could be immersive. It could be interactive. It could be a live event. It could be a campaign, a non traditional campaign.

Um, it could be metaverse, tech based. Anything that's non traditional right down to your very basic high end 50 packs dinner.

. So, I mean, on any given day, we could be doing a B2B conference of 4, 000 packs. So, um, we produce. It's all the, um, it's called zero con at zero, which is online counting platform. They're T1 then we just did one in Nashville a few months earlier.

We delivered in London a few months before that was in Sydney. Uh, so we tour that show around the world. Um, so two day event, 4, 000 people plus it's conference. Breakouts, it's tech, it's expo, it's exhibitors, uh, it's parties. So the wildest parties, um, that you can imagine. So that's, that's finance

James Lawrence: finance people,

Laura Roberts: but underestimated.

It's been done by the media. It's the Coachella for accountants. So really party. Um, and then we can go through to, um, doing like. Activations. So we, um, we've recently just done this incredible activation for COP 28 United Nations in Dubai, which is all technology led. Uh, we could be activating for Amazon house, building out, um, experiential in a shopping mall for them.

Um, and then we, then we'll move into more like campaigns, um, which I mean, there's so vast, but just recently you might've seen, um, the big campaign, a tour announcement for the weekend. And it was projected live projections on, um, uh, some iconic buildings in Melbourne saying the end is near and it went, we went totally viral all over the news and that was us behind that.

Um, so that was just more of a content led campaign. Um, and then we, you know, influencer events are really popular as well. So we could be doing, you know, launching a new show for Netflix or, um, doing an event for a clothing brand that's influencer led. Um, right down then to the sort of B2B, more intimate, um, events that, for example, we do all the series, um, C suite, C suite events for American Express, which might be 50 or 100 packs in really unique locations at a high end.

So it's a pretty, It's a pretty vast, um, scale of work that we do, um, but all super interesting and all with brands at the heart of it kind of. So really

James Lawrence: the event component, because I think there's that kind of what's event marketing versus a bit, so it's essentially events being a part of experiential and probably quite a big part of, but then it being much more than that.

Laura Roberts: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I'm really trying to push. Don't just do an event for the sake of an event. Think what happens beforehand and think what happens afterwards as well. So it becomes much more of a 360, um, campaign.

James Lawrence: And then would you be working, like, with these, like the weekend example, for instance, would that be your team coming up with all those creative ideas?

Or are you working with creative agencies or in house teams? Like, how's it generally kind of? So

Laura Roberts: we do it all in house. We have an awesome team here that we have strategists, we have creatives, we have design directors, we have a whole art department, we have 3D environmental, um, we have partnerships, we have Unreal Engine specialists, uh, and of course we have the production team that actually Um, so we do all in house and we partner with, um, the brands, um, to, to deliver their message.

So in the case of the weekend, that was for our client live nation. Um, so they come to us when they, when they have the bands that want to launch and they of course all have, have their own. All have, you know, their guidelines and they, the individual band members have to approve, uh, what you're doing, which is super cool because then they promote it too on their socials.

And that's really rewarding when we see that. So everything's done in house, uh, with our team. And I think with, you know, having the luxury of building, um, the business here under the umbrella of New York, I've really been able to sort of handpick the team here and they all just come from such a diverse, uh, background.

Background. So we, we have, um, gators and we have tattoo artists and we have surfers and we have people come from the music industry, clothing, the fact, you know, that one of the key designers is juicy is here. So it's, so it's a real, um, mixed background, which is really cool because it just brings so much creativity.

I think the work that we do.

James Lawrence: That's awesome. That's really, really cool. So I think like the, um, I guess the big direction of the conversation today in the pod was to kind of get to get under the hood and look at like trends in the space, right? The kind of what, what are you seeing at the moment? Um, and then I guess later on, we can have a chat about what the future looks like, but yeah, I'd be really keen to, to hear like, you know, we're kind of out of COVID now, we're kind of, people are mingling again, there's a lot of people that life has changed to some extent, some stuff has gone back to normal, but like, what are the big trends, um, in, in the space at the moment?

Laura Roberts: Yeah. So I think like what's really important is to first of all, identify who the audience is and then build around what they're wants and needs and what's trending with that audience. Um, and, and what's happened now is that our generations are so different and multiple generations. So the on mass marketing, traditional marketing, I don't think.

You can't really produce one 5 million ad and expect that it's going to land across all the generations. So I guess if we um, what I like to do is sort of break down each generation. So we sort of start with the boomers who are the 60 to 78 year olds. And so a lot of them might be, um, Exiting or exited the workforce that there's a lot of them leading major organizations as well, right?

Um, and they of course without going into too much detail have their own characteristics. Um, and traits, which are quite likely going to collide with, you know, the younger generation. So, so change can be hard at that level, but, um, but not typically an audience that we. What our brands are communicating to just work with.

But, um, so then we get to Generation X, which is our 45 to 59. They make up a large portion of the B to B events that we do. Um, so they're often, you know, if we receive this brief, then we're going to think come from perspective of making them like really highly curated events. We want like thoughtful handcrafted gifts or invites.

Um, we always get the brief money can't buy experience for this, for this, um, for this cohort. Um, so I mentioned before the American Express C suite series that we do, which really kind of fits into this demographic and it just blends really well and I love it. Um, but that's not to say you can't be, um, You know, you can't experiment with technology too.

So, um, another really cool campaign that we did during COVID actually, um, was when Ferrari had all their cars stuck and couldn't get them into the show rooms and no one could go into the showrooms and test drive them. Um, so we built a campaign for them called Ferrari virtually yours, and we actually, um, created in VR that you're actually driving the Ferrari, um, through all the different streets around the different, um, showrooms.

that they would have typically gone to and did the whole audio scape and everything. I think they ended up selling more from when they campaigned than what they typically did. It was really everyone had

James Lawrence: cash to splash too. And that was locked up. Yeah, exactly. But

Laura Roberts: it was still, it was still crafted, I think, um, quite personalized, um, for their high end vendors.

And that was, Really well received. Yeah. So that's how we would sort of approach campaigns for the generation X.

James Lawrence: And that is, so that's actually a thing that you'll have, it will commonly be in a brief is this cohort wants, this group that we're trying to market towards. Values kind of experiences that money can't buy.

That's kind of the exactly. Yep.

Laura Roberts: And trying to get our clients to identify what that audience is and kind of say, yes, here's who we're here's who we're targeting because that helps.

James Lawrence: Yeah, without going into anything, you can't, you know, Curating a very small group of people at an establishment that's, you know, wonderful and excellent, bringing guests in or people in or something like access that you otherwise simply couldn't, couldn't kind of get if you're coming off the street.

Yeah.

Laura Roberts: Yeah. And creating environments for networking, I think is really important at this sort of C suite level as well, where they can have those like, um, conversations, you know, with their peers. Um, and then we get to generation Why, which is our thirties to 44. Um, so the key trends that we're seeing for this demographic, uh, sustainability, uh, diversity, inclusion, wellness, work, life balance, they're very purpose driven, like collaboration and then an element of surprise and delight.

So, um, you know, keeping these experiences, these characteristics in mind, you know, what sort of experience. You know, do we create for them? Um, so, so an example that I can give was just last week at South by Southwest, um, we produced the Aussie Broadband, um, Expo stand. So it was right center stage in the middle of the tech and innovation, um, expos.

Everyone around had the VR experience and the LED screens. We went completely analog and offline. We built the whole stand using recyclable sort of reboard materials. It was super Instagrammable. So it was really fun to hang out at. We had, um, we had a Hills Hoist goon bag style for merch giveaways. We had a sausage sizzle every lunchtime and it honestly, it just went.

Off. It was the most popular stand. Everyone was coming from outside of the expo to come and check it out. It just really resonated, I think, um, with this group. They appreciate it. They wanted to take their photo, but they also wanted a place that they could talk and they knew it was a sustainable stand and they could network.

So, um, And I think in this kind of space too, we're really seeing a lot of brand, um, partnerships as well. Like we're seeing Lego teaming up with every brand everywhere. Um, Chanel with the surfboards. It's sort of, a lot of this brand collaboration seems to be kind of targeted at this space. Um, then we move into generation Z or Z, which is now 15 to 29 year olds.

Um, and this is all, no surprise to you, content, content, content and more content. Um, so it's, You know, we're on platforms like Tiktok. Um, we work, Tiktok are a big partner of ours, actually a client of ours. Um, they're on YouTube. Uh, it's all experiences designed for social media platforms. And this is where we're really seeing, um, our brands wanting to do, um, influencer.

Events. They use KOLs to drive their brand marketing, um, and, and now we're having, for example, other platforms like Spotify say that they're going to be really moving into, um, being a big player in video content as well. So this is, this is really what, um, if we had a brief for this sort of generation, this is what we'd be looking for.

What can we get onto the social media platforms and who can we use from an influencer and KOL point of view to help amplify that message?

James Lawrence: Does that mean like less in person focus for that cohort? No,

Laura Roberts: no, it doesn't. So, so what it means is still gathering together. They still want to get together. They still want to do these events.

Um, we're doing a really cool upcoming event. I probably can't share too much about that. Um, this will be with Levi's. It will be with Influences and KOLs and it's coming together in a very cool location. again. Somewhere around the world. Um, it's going to be hands on workshops, but also everything's designed to be, um, to, to come back, um, onto content later.

So, um, it's creating those experiences that as everyone says, Instagrammable moments, but really just where they can create content and have it stream out on those.

James Lawrence: It's so interesting. I was, um, went to South by Southwest last week and went to the invent discovery stage. Laura, I was, uh, of course, I wouldn't miss it.

Yeah. What was it? We went to, um, one of the, one of the musical performances on one of the nights and it was so interesting, the room. Very, very, because at South by Southwest, you have a whole bunch of venues afterwards, pubs and venues around, and some will have room for a couple hundred people, and some have rooms that literally, you know, you fit 15 people in kind of thing.

And I was watching this young rapper from, I think, from Atlanta. He'd flown over for it. There would have been probably 15 people in the room. It was a really, really small room by design. And he had His video person with him right and it was just so interesting kind of thinking that the in person experience which was awesome It was really cool But 15 people kind of watching it and that content will be seen by dozens hundreds thousands tens of thousands more you know as as time kind of goes by and the in person experience In so many different contexts, it's only just a small fraction now of kind of the reach of that experience, right?

That's exactly right. Yeah,

Laura Roberts: that's exactly right. So it's, so it's no, we're still going to have, um, people always want to connect. That's never going to change. Doesn't matter how much technology that we get thrown at us. We still want to connect. Um, but it definitely, technology and, and social gives just more opportunity.

Um, sending out the message to a much broader audience.

James Lawrence: What, um, what, like, what, what has been the, the, because I guess we're, we're long enough out of COVID now, I think, for stuff to, because right sizing is not the right word, but to kind of, I guess, some of the, the, um, things to kind of come back to where they might be long term.

We're starting to see more pressure on people to come back into the office and those types of things. And obviously during COVID. Um, everything went online and webinars and in our industry exploded and, you know, conferences that a lot of conferences didn't haven't really come back yet in kind of the digital marketing space, which is it's always been a bit wedgling in terms of conferences in Australia.

But even in America, I think there's less digital marketing conferences than there were prior to covid. They've kind of struggled to bring them back. What are you saying in terms of trends for not just conferences, but. Just as it relates to kind of in person events, has COVID, did it make a lasting impact, or has it kind of everything come back to normal, or is it even different to

Laura Roberts: that?

Yeah, look, like a lot of the large events have come back. Um, I think, though, that's in the corporate space, we've seen in the music industry, it's, it hasn't recovered, festivals are now, you know, just the cost to run them, which is so sad. Yeah. That that hasn't really bounced back and and who knows when it will, or will it be a different format?

Um, but the, uh, hype of online virtual events, I think virtual events is the trigger word for many people that work in my industry, um, had somewhat dwindled and it was all about in person. Um, but I think again, looking, that's why it's important to look at these. Thanks. Generations, because it really does make sense for quite a few of these generations that yes, you do, um, stream, um, for example, we do all the in the U.

S. The launches of the major Samsung phones and they come out and that's screened to 60 million people. Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, do these generations that I've mentioned now, do they want to go online and participate in a virtual event? Not, not really, no, no, but to get them to leave their home and knowing how valuable their time is, you have to ensure that that experience is worthwhile their time.

But I think this actually leads up to, well, I think it's like probably the most fascinating, which is all future trends and what will drive future trends, which Um, our Generation Alpha, Gen A, which is our 2010 to 2024. This is my kids. They might be, might be your kids.

James Lawrence: Well, that's, this is, this is terrifying because I didn't know there was a generation.

I didn't know, I didn't know the generation existed and that is my children. This

Laura Roberts: is gonna blow your mind. So I recently, um, we had Mark McRindle from McRindle and he's a futurist. He was on the, on the discovery stage, um, for Invent and they've just released, um, their study on Gen A. And so I'm making notes

James Lawrence: here.

This

Laura Roberts: is, this is going to blow your mind. So by 2025, which is next year, they will number almost 2 billion. So that's the largest generation in the history of the world, which is crazy. So whilst they're the youngest generation, they have brand influence and purchasing power. Beyond their years, don't our bank accounts know it, um, and soon their economic footprint will reach more than U.

S. 5 trillion. So this is a generation that we, all brands and workplaces, everyone needs to start thinking about them right now. They're of course the most technologically advanced generation. Which is why we're, um, we're, we're really doubling down on this and we have a whole innovation arm called Invent Atom, which is led out of our Singapore team.

Um, and this is, this is all the work that we're doing now is really in preparation for how we're going to, um, communicate and create experiences for this generation. Um, so the key sort of. Friends, I guess, around this generation, which I think then will drive, um, future trends and what we need to think about now.

Obvious, AI, robotics, chat, GPT, VR and AR, um, automation, EV, um, driverless, the gig economy, that's obviously huge. Yeah. They, they will have multiple careers. Like, I think I heard something like up to 14 careers or something cultural diversity, um, lifelong learning, thanks to accessibility of online education.

Um, they're not, yeah, they're not going to come into the office much. Um, they're going to be at home forever. Apparently. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, so this is, I'm just so fascinated by this. I, because. Like you, there are kids that we're sort of, you know, watching grow up, um, but also they're going to really influence like all of our jobs and how we are, you know, in 10 years time and how we're leading our, our own agencies and creating their workplaces and the, how brands are communicating with them.

So it's, um, I think right now when they're, they're a bit younger, if a brand wants to communicate with this very large, um, cohort, which they should be thinking about. You know, they're activating in, um, roadblocks, they've got this

James Lawrence: big

Laura Roberts: hype plan that's like on all the social media platforms and live streams.

And they've got influencers that are connected to it also, you know, doing, um, streaming for them. And then you want to have your in person you know, real life experience that they go to, that their parents are going to take them to, where they're going to get their merch and make the stars or whatever. So it's a really different way of approaching a sort of experiential strategy for this, for this cohort.

It's really interesting. Yeah.

James Lawrence: Yeah. I think the, um, I'm going to mangle the stats. I won't even go there, but it was a stat at South by Southwest, just around the size of the The gaming industry as it relates to kind of film TV and it's kind of dwarfed dwarf them, you know what I mean? And it is, you look at the money being poured in and the pressure for parents to, to buy these digital kind of assets that kind of I'm going to get off my old man, off my old man's side box and won't go too deep into it.

But it is, um, it's incredible. And the, the impact of influences is just phenomenal. In terms of what

Laura Roberts: will happen to, which is like, it's so relevant for you and for your agency is that the sort of 2D, you know, websites are going to be completely overhauled. So if they're online and they're shopping, they're going to be in a minute of us doing that.

Um, and, and we, we've spent a lot of time. Uh, in this space, we've got Unreal Engine developers and figuring out, you know, what the right technology is underneath that to make it accessible. Um, but it will become very normal that you're shopping in your, you know, Lamborghini, um, immersive environment, metaverse space.

And then you're going to cross over to Coca Cola land and collect things as you go. And it'll, it'll be pretty wild. Spreads. The way that, you know, I'm online now and everyone shopping online will need a big overhaul, I think.

James Lawrence: And how do you, yeah, how do you back the right horse on that? Just because, like, obviously, Meta has invested so much in the Metaverse and, like, how do you, how do you ensure as an agency that you kind of, um, have a capability to put your clients into a space, um, where there are eyeballs and there's growth and first mover advantage and all those types of things, but also not moving so quickly that, You're kind of moving into a space where the eyeballs aren't yet in.

Laura Roberts: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's true. Um, I mean, so for us, we spent a good three or four years. I think we, we first kind of entered into the space in around 2020 and really just doing a lot of internal work for ourselves, like building out metaverses and testing and using different technologies. So that was obviously a pretty significant investment to do that.

Um, but that's sort of where we. Really put our, um, investment into. We also, NFTs huge hype, um, we did a very cool campaign with Lamborghini. Um, but instead of just being a. We actually took a physical car. So their last ever event at all, um, uh, petrol powered, then to doll before came offline and they all went electrics.

They're the very last one that they produce. Um, and we, we did a brand collab. So we got in Steve Aoki, who's the world's number one DJ, Krista Kim, who is an amazing. Um, artist in 3D metaverse space. Um, so Steve Oakey created this unique play track, which went into the car. Krista Kim did a whole metaverse.

Um, we created an NFT attached to the actual car. And then the event, I guess, was the auction of it. Um, so we, we mixed in so many different, you know, different campaigns into it, but it was the most successful organic. Um, campaign. I think that Lamborghini had had the metrics were absolutely huge. Um, where the castle for, uh, the highest that they had had.

So, um, I don't know the exact number now, but it was It's kind of creating something out of nothing, isn't it? Like a really young kid. Oh, yeah. A lot of money. So, you know, Yeah, so I, so I think, um, I think, like some, you've seen some brands just go all in, um, and they're, they're experimenting and take, you know, just see what works and doesn't work and they have to be prepared to do that.

Um, others are just going to sit right back and just wait for everybody else to do it and then they'll figure it out, so.

James Lawrence: Yeah.

Laura Roberts: Um, but those who, who really start to own the space, um, will, you know, be the most successful at the end, I think.

James Lawrence: Yeah, nice one. It kind of segues nicely, like how does experiential marketing fit into the overall marketing mix?

Like how do you find it, um, works together with broader strategies?

Laura Roberts: Um, I, well, like I'm biased, I guess, so. It should be the strategy. It should be 100 percent of your marketing budget. I just, I don't know that. Well, I don't think people watching ads anymore. Um, and

television ads, that is everyone's fine. Yes, yes, of course.

James Lawrence: Which we buy for our clients and put on to catch up TV.

Laura Roberts: Absolutely. So you're really splitting your budget between experiential and then, um, digital advertising, which is what you guys do. And I'm actually not lying. I actually do think that's the right approach going forward.

Um, yeah. And you know what? Like I think audiences. Um, particularly the younger generations, like they just want more from, from brands now, like if they're going to buy for them and they want, they want more, not just like on mass marketing, um, going to be more personalized and targeted. And yeah,

James Lawrence: yeah, there is such a power to, um, real world interactions with the brand, right?

Laura Roberts: Like

James Lawrence: all interactions of the brand, whether digital or real world have an impact, but I think some have a bigger impact than others. Right. And, um, how people feel after leaving the Aussie Royal band. section of South by Southwest, the big MailChimp installation, which was kind of pretty prominent

Laura Roberts: because

James Lawrence: it leaves all touchpoints, leave a lasting impression, right?

Laura Roberts: Yeah, that's exactly right.

James Lawrence: This might be a hard one to answer, but what, um, it's a lot of, I think the, the listenership is pretty good. Pretty split. We've got some in house marketers of big brands. We've also got marketers working for smaller brands. What like advice, tips, tricks would you have to marketers who, yeah, we're not Lamborghini, we're not Netflix.

Like, you know, we have pretty modest budgets, um, when we're, when we're coming into this type of area, like any, any advice for them.

Laura Roberts: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, um, I, I don't think it's like the more money you have, the more you win at all. Um, I think it's just about being really smart with what you do. And we personally love challenger brands, which are the brands that, you know, um, aren't as commonly heard of, or they're just sort of coming up.

Um, and, and I think it's just been, um, Really clever, um, with how you activate, um, and how you communicate. So, um, a lot of the campaigns that I've mentioned to you, they're not multi million dollar budgets at all. So, for example, the weekend that we had to do it. I mean, it's the music and it was not, it was a very modest budget that we could push so far because of the really smart, um, hype planning that we put around it in terms of how it was picked up by media.

Um, so from what was something that we executed in a matter of a couple of weeks, um, on limited, budget. It was quite a guerrilla campaign. Mind you, old school projections on a building. There's no CGI and there's no this and that. Um, and it just went absolutely viral. So I think if you've got the right partner, um, to help you work out your creative strategy, um, that resonates with the audience.

Um, then you'll be successful with, with whatever you do.

James Lawrence: Yeah, nice one. It's kind of the power of, power of an idea, right?

Laura Roberts: Yes, exactly. That's exactly right.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's a good one. Um, Laura, it's been awesome chatting all things experiential, experiential. I'm kind of getting there with my, struggling, struggling away.

We always end the pod with what's the one best piece of advice you'd give to an in house marketer. So it can be, it can be kind of applied, but also really happy for it to just be career, like kind of, you know, based on your, your experience professionally. Like, what is that one bit of advice you'd give to a marketer out there that's kind of making their way through and, um, That's such a great question.

Laura Roberts: You know, I think like, I would say having gone through COVID and now just this kind of crazy, are you in the office, are you not in the office, whatever situation they're going to and whatever happens moving forward. The one, the one thing I'm all about, you know, being flexible and empowering people and, and remote learning as well.

Um, Work as well, but I just worry that for the generations coming up, like, how do they learn and how do they interact and who's taking care of them when they're sitting in their bedroom working and maybe their job won't need that. But I would say for anyone that's particularly that's coming up in our space or any space is like fundamental.

And, um, and most people will be so happy, if not privileged to be asked, you know, to mentor and then work out a plan with them. And I was very lucky to have a mentor, which is actually my boss, but she stayed by mentor, um, for many years, even when I wasn't with Invent. And that just helped guide me through many, many, many years of work and decisions.

So that would be probably my. Piece of advice. Fundamental.

James Lawrence: I think it's great. I think you touched on it. It's, I did a, um, presentation at the university recently. It was kind of like kind of getting out career advice, how to get into marketing. Um, there's kind of 4 of us on the panel and that topic was raised and one of the audience members was kind of, yeah, but surely no one wants to do it.

And I said, like, honestly. People like you, you'll be surprised how high up you can go because most people just want to help and most people want to give. And as long as you're serious about it, and as long as you, if the commitment is catching up coffee once a month, and in between, you're going to go off and do certain things and report back and be accountable.

If you take it seriously, like people. Most people I've come across very generous with their time.

Laura Roberts: Yeah, I agree.

James Lawrence: I think the bit about In office is true and we've got a pretty flexible approach at Rocket. Um, in terms of kind of a hybrid approach but it is it's one of the big things you can't get right is that the water cooler type experiences or just the incidental learning from people senior to you and It doesn't mean, you know, if you if you work off as hybrid, then you have the right to obviously work hard from home

Laura Roberts: Like yeah The younger ones, um, you know, they teach us new things every day.

Yeah,

James Lawrence: yeah, both ways.

Laura Roberts: I don't know what it means otherwise.

James Lawrence: Generation A. Um, but yeah, that's totally it. And you, like, I think if you, um, you know, if you, if you want to become the partner of a law firm, then you kind of probably want to be around. The partners that have already done it. And if you want to be running an agency, then you probably want to be, you know, learning as much as you can and, um, which is I think so different from just doing, doing your job well and getting a fair paycheck for a fair day, fair day's work.

I think you do stand to gain so much by immersing yourself as much as you can.

Laura Roberts: Yeah, I agree.

James Lawrence: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on to the pod. It's been an awesome conversation.

Laura Roberts: Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

James Lawrence: Thanks, Laura.