What Disappears Faster Than Jacob Elordi's Bathwater? | What They Said: The Influencer Marketing Podcast | Ep.2

Do you know how to leverage influencers as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy? Want insights on the intersection of authenticity, platform trends, and brand integration? Then this is the episode for you.
 
Join us this week as we chat with Grind's CMO, Ted Robinson, about their unique approach to blending brand moments with cultural icons and the evolving landscape of influencer collaborations.
 
Learn how Grind is redefining coffee experiences and leveraging influencer marketing to establish itself as the brand for consumers' every coffee moment, which may include Saltburn's infamous Jacob Elordi bath water scene in some truly reactive OOH marketing.

What They Said is the influencer marketing podcast powered by PrettyGreen where we delve deep into the creator economy. 

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Transcript

What They Said: The Influencer Marketing Podcast - Episode 2: Ted Robinson, CMO of Grind Coffee

Sammy Albon: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the WhatTheySaid podcast powered by PrettyGreen where we deep dive into everything to do with the creator economy. I'm going to be joined by some industry titans that are far more to say far more eloquently than I, um, each week. But my name is Sammy. I'm the influence of strategy lead at PrettyGreen.

Sammy Albon: Uh, and I cannot wait to introduce you to our guests. So today I am joined by the one and only Ted Robinson from Grind. Welcome Ted. 

Ted Robinson: Well, thanks so much for having me. 

Sammy Albon: I've got that camera on you, and that one's on me. Um, so, if you put a face, if you look unhappy, it'll be picked up. 

Sammy Albon: So just, just try and enjoy the experience.

Sammy Albon: What I've done is I've got a bio for you. I'm gonna read it out. There's definitely something I've forgotten Um, so you can heckle me and tell me that I've got it.

Ted Robinson: Let's go for it 

Sammy Albon: You've got quite a lot to reel off. You've done quite a lot in your time at Grind.

Ted Robinson: It's a long time at Grind Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: is it eight years?

Sammy Albon: Nine years? 

Ted Robinson: Eleven years now. 

Sammy Albon: Wow, 

Ted Robinson: which is quite a long time. 

Sammy Albon: That's a small child's lifetime. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah [00:01:00]

Sammy Albon: So I've got I've got Ted here today. You are CMO at Grind, uh, a brand that has gone through some huge transformations over the particularly the past five to six years, I would say. Um, and it was actually founded right next door to our office in Shoreditch.

Sammy Albon: Uh, in your role as CMO, Grind has played a pivotal role in deciding how the brand shows up. Uh, and I'm sure a lot of listeners will have seen the fun that you've been having some at home recently, uh, which we'll talk about later on, particularly on the underground. Although you said you got some complaints around that.

Ted Robinson: Yeah, a few. 

Sammy Albon: Post lockdown you also released a cooking a cocktail recipe book. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: I went to the um, book launch for that. It was really good fun. You were like a little celebrity. Yeah, for the day. An influencer you could even say. You were, I was going to sign you up for a campaign there and then. Um, there were a lot of espresso martinis, far too many.

Sammy Albon: And I like to recall, um, and in your role, you have worked with influencers quite a lot, um, in different sort of capacities over the year from conversion and traffic focus to broader awareness. And I really want to get into that. Um, have I forgotten anything out there? Any other accolades you would like to [00:02:00] add to the list?

Ted Robinson: Oh, not at all. I've been, I've been a Grind for 11 years. I started, uh, In one of the cafes, in the original cafe in Shoreditch, washing dishes.

Sammy Albon: Is that the one on Old Street Roundabout? 

Ted Robinson: Yeah, right by your office, yeah. Um, and then, I mean, I've been there for basically my whole adult life. So I think that for a long time I kind of worked, worked kind of setting up our Instagram account in, back when that was a, the idea of having a cafe that didn't have an Instagram account was still a thing.

Ted Robinson: And so, yeah, so, and I, and I, kind of went a whole, I've been on the whole journey of the business up until, up until now. So I kind of grew the brand alongside as growth of the cafes. We grew through a lot of crowdfunding. Um, then through lockdown, we then pivoted into at home, at home business is now larger than a restaurant business today.

Ted Robinson: So we're probably now selling, yeah, we sell kind of, we sell a coffee pot about every second in the UK now, which is super exciting. And they're compostable. Yeah, compostable, compostable going up against, uh, the, the big dogs who will remain nameless. Um, but yeah, and then so we'll, yeah, so, so we've been on an incredible journey there.

Ted Robinson: Um, more recently we're kind of expanding into [00:03:00] grocery so you can now get the, get our pods in, um, co op and Sainsbury's and Waitrose and probably some more supermarkets coming this coming later this year. But yeah, it's been, it's been an incredible journey kind of taking. I guess the brand from the cafes into people's homes.

Ted Robinson: And then I suppose the world. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. And over that time, I can imagine the way you've worked with influencers. When did it, when did that first happen? When did you first partner with influencers? Um, and how important has it been until now? 

Ted Robinson: And we've been on We've had a growth over the last 10 years and it's also been the same point where influencers have kind of been on their own journey as a thing, right?

Ted Robinson: I think like when 

Sammy Albon: we said this earlier, it's come from bloggers and vloggers, full on content creators. 

Ted Robinson: I mean, I don't even think, I don't even think I knew the word influencer when we started it, when we starting in 2011. I think that over time we've probably, yeah, I think that we look, fortunately we're a brand that we feel that we really exist in real life, right?

Ted Robinson: We were a brand that lives in London, exists in real life. So for a really long time, we've We never, we always kind of saw quite a lot of influences because [00:04:00] they were just in our stores. I'd go on our kind of Instagram tags for the day and we'd be, we'd appeared in kind of a handful of stories of people who were like had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Ted Robinson: It's probably really only been as we've become a, as we've become more of a kind of at home brand or more of a consumer brand that we've then had to maybe do a bit more of that outreach than we do today. Yeah. And also just kind of figure out what role they play in the business and how we grow. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah, definitely.

Sammy Albon: And then I guess currently. The way you were of influences is probably more of that driving awareness around product that you can get for your home. How much of that is on performance? Do you look at driving sales of influences or is it just strictly top of funnel? 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. I mean, I think like, I think that I, we've been on a journey as a kind of consumer brand has been going for a few years now.

Ted Robinson: And in fact, I think that you and I met probably three or four years ago while that was really that in its infancy, I think we've grown up a lot now in terms of our, of our, um, and I think we've grown up a lot. I think the industry as a whole has kind of changed quite a bit in that time. It's been really [00:05:00] interesting to see this kind of see the thing kind of take shape as a market and in some ways become really mature in other ways, still become quite like infant still.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. I mean, it's still pretty much the wild west in some corners of it, but yeah, I think it's been really, it's really exciting to have to kind of work within that and work on that. Involvement industry is still changing i think there's a lot of like especially in the world of digital marketing that like there's a lot there that people are the people who are working with it are expected to continue reinvent themselves right that is just that.

Ted Robinson: Yeah the joke that i always got the joke i was making it like if you were social media manager who went to prison five years ago you would just be unemployable today right like you like the idea that you're gonna know if you're it's it's. a really, it's really challenging to have to kind of build a career in a industry in which you have to continue to like prove yourself.

Ted Robinson: Right. And I think that's probably the same, which is driven by the platforms. Yeah. To some extent, I think it's interesting to see that the platforms are definitely a big part of it, but like just, it's just a very. Yeah. It's [00:06:00] never really stopped. Right. I think that, look, I think you and I could probably make predictions for the next year of how these kind of industries are gonna move.

Mm-Hmm. . 

Ted Robinson: But, and perhaps maybe we will. 

Sammy Albon: Um, but we'll do that at the end. We'll save that , but like, keep listening. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. But I don't know. It's like the, that it's the, the most likely thing is it's gonna keep changing. Mm-Hmm. . I can remember there was a whole point I talking to people who worked in like SEO and this idea that like, maybe like that every now and again, Google changes the the algorithm that runs it. And just like 50 percent of SEO agencies just, just disappear. Right. And you're like that, that, that really like that power balance. That really, really sucks for us. Right. Like that really sucks people have to do it. But like, I mean, it's, it's also interesting because I think, I think it allows for people to build careers really quick.

Ted Robinson: I think people like, like someone the other day said to me, said to me, and they mentioned about really were running ads on TikTok. And they were like, they said they were like, Oh, never in all my years of running ads on TikTok. And I'm like, like, no one's going Like, no, like your two years of running ads on TikTok, 

Sammy Albon: like 18 months of this, uh, running them on [00:07:00] TikTok.

Ted Robinson: It's quite funny though, when you're kind of the biggest, you're kind of the experts in the field that the people who've been doing it for 18 months rather than 12, which is exciting, but it's really exciting. 

Sammy Albon: Well, TikTok soon to be banned in the US as things currently stand. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. We'll see on that one.

Ted Robinson: It'd be certainly very exciting. 

Sammy Albon: Watch this space. I would like to talk a little bit about what you enjoy from content creators because obviously a lot of what you do or what a lot of us do I guess is unconsciously Shaped around what our view and habits are so if you if I was to ask you the kind of content that you digest Is it hugely different to kind of the influence of content you work with?

Sammy Albon: or you You're a complete nerd like me where I watch Lord of the Rings deep dives on YouTube. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah, so it's kind of weird actually like I mean I think like the way that I interact with the content at work and personally is now really really different. Right. I think it's been, it's been really interesting to see the way that we work with influencers change.

Ted Robinson: I think that Even coming from your previous question, like, I think that I've now, we've realized that we can't as a, as Grind as a brand, we started using influences probably from a point where [00:08:00] we came at it from almost a performance marketing, right? That we like, I think for a lot of brands, they do their first bit of marketing and they might spend their first hundred thousand million pounds of marketing spend ever on just like performance ads.

Ted Robinson: And I think that's interesting because it kind of trains you as a brand to behave in this way where you're like everything has to be measurable. And I think the value is just on the. And I think that the real value that we've got from influencers and from content as a whole is by kind of just maybe just like loosening our grip on it.

Ted Robinson: And I think that that's, that's, um, in terms of the content that I would want, I watch now, well, my girlfriend just watches, I would say, I think that she has at any point, she has two to three screens. In in, when? Like in her, in her house, she will have two to three screens at any time. Playing stream video content.

Ted Robinson: Like it will be, it will be, but like live, oh, I mean like it will be like something on TV and then something on YouTube. And then additionally like on a phone, additionally, phone usually, almost always TikTok. Right. And like I think she probably will watch, like, she'll probably watch. Between three and five hours of TikTok a day.

Ted Robinson: I would that's a skill. [00:09:00] Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: That is amazing. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. I mean, it's an incredible achievement in content consumption. I think she is a powerhouse. She's the content, the Olympics of content consumption, which is really interesting. But like, and so, so I find that a lot of the time that now that when I'm like, if I am watching a piece of content on my own, I'm just like, It's really weird to not have that, like the white noise of it, the white noise of three screens of like buzzing static.

Ted Robinson: So yeah. So I watched like, I don't know, I watched like quite a lot. I watched like long form YouTube. I quite like, 

Sammy Albon: what are you into then? Are we talking like automotive? We talking? 

Ted Robinson: Oh no, God, not at all. Like, like, like weird, like just like really weird stuff. I'll watch those. Like, you know, there's like deep dive videos where there's, you know, the video about the, the deep dive into the Disney fast path.

Sammy Albon: No! Are you one of the Disney Monorail watchers as well? Obviously, like, 

Ted Robinson: I've never been to Disney World, I have no interest in ever going there. 

Sammy Albon: You've never been? 

Ted Robinson: No, there's like a, but there's a two hour video on YouTube that is like, that is like the history of the economics of way the fast pass work, and also there's a creator called Jenny Nicholson.

Ted Robinson: on, uh, on [00:10:00] YouTube, who just makes this kind of like, Oh, no, not at all. She's just kind of like, I don't, I don't know how much about it. She's kind of, she's in the, this, she, like you watch a video and she's surrounded by these kind of fluffy toys. And she'll just make these kind of really obscure deep dives on like avatar law.

Sammy Albon: That's, that's, that's like, and you are, and you are fully entrenched. 

Ted Robinson: This is Oh yeah. I mean, no, I don't, I don't know anything about Avatar law. I think it's kind of just that I just kind of chew. 

Sammy Albon: Now are we talking avatar, last Airbender? Are we talking avatar, 

Ted Robinson: like Oh no, avatar. The, the blue. The blue, the blue avatars.

Ted Robinson: I should know more about this, 

Sammy Albon: Avi. Yeah, the Navi, right. I've got the game on PlayStation right now. Very Practice's pretty good. I've paid half an hour and I just. overwhelmed, mentally overstimulated, if you will. Yeah. It's a lot to, 

Ted Robinson: I think the overstimulation thing is probably my, like my anti, like, I'm not quite on ASMR content, but like, I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I'm kind of on my way there.

Ted Robinson: I feel like, you know 

Sammy Albon: what I've been going to tell you this Grind coffee. with ASMR vibes would just be just the sound like, yeah, you see the appeal. 

Ted Robinson: ASMR is really big on Tik, it's really blowing up on TikTok now. I quite like also the, also the, ASMR creators are [00:11:00] now like, they're all. 

Sammy Albon: So what a statement, the OG ASMR creators.

Ted Robinson: I'm just like, that's one of those things like that was like give a Victorian child of brain aneurysm just being like, yeah, but why, what do you, what's your, who's your favorite OG YouTube ASMR creator? I've got a list. Ask Ted, he knows. Yeah, go on. We know that it's, yeah, um, it's really, I mean, so whereas look for Grind, um, we're now probably working with influence that we really enjoy being a brand that kind of exists in London.

Ted Robinson: So we're working quite a lot with like influencers who just kind of exist in that same world. And it's quite nice to have them to kind of like help you out with content creation. Um, we also find that probably the area where we've probably most demonstrated the value of influencers has often just been through paid social creative, right?

Ted Robinson: Like we'll run, we'll run paid ads with their creator, and that will be either kind of whitelisting them. So we'll run it through their, their account, or we'll run it from our own to some, we'll license it off them. But yeah, I think like the, in my, in my head, the best way that we've got to get people to buy Grind, Grind, or to be honest, any other product is kind of a world in which you go onto your [00:12:00] app of choice.

Ted Robinson: And you then through in the 10 you might see One or two of our ads, you would see hopefully some content from a creator that you do know, like someone who you have, I don't know, maybe perhaps you followed them, but certainly someone you recognize, but also you might see content from creators that you don't necessarily know.

Sammy Albon: So, so you think it's really important. I'm going to, this, this, these questions out the window. This is just a good chat. So generally it feels like you just said having that mix of organic, native content that is just general brand love. It's just actually just in that sphere of, you know, where Grind wants to show up and then paid ads that are more targeted.

Sammy Albon: So like paid complimenting an organic strategy. 

Ted Robinson: To be honest, like paid ads, like, like, I think the way that paid ads have changed so much now is that like really, they're not like, we don't really target them anymore. Like, like now it's just like, it's really, you really run it really broadly. Like I think that, so I see kind of influence as part of a kind of a, as part of a, way that we can just get people at a kind of grassroots level to just see the product outside in the world.

Ted Robinson: I think particularly for our coffee, we have, it's something that [00:13:00] almost anyone can make at home. We sell it in a number of different ways, whether you've got an espresso machine or what, like there are plenty of ways to make at home. We kind of want to be the coffee brand for everywhere, for every kind of coffee moment in your life.

Ted Robinson: So we're increasingly kind of finding new ways to have like whether the cans we've now got, you can keep in your fridge at home. It's like, we've got lots of ways for you to enjoy the product. We would like to see, we would like you to see other people enjoying it in the world. Um, and influence is a really big part of that.

Ted Robinson: I also think that like the visual language of influencers, as in that kind of, that kind of, it's not quite someone doing this with the swatches, but like, it's also not that, it's that kind of particular style of lo fi is maybe not too pushy, quite real, accessible and relatable. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Ted Robinson: I think that we find that that like, almost regardless of who's making it, as long as it's made well, we, it, it, We can run that as a paid ad and we'll see that like we'll have people that will have to even the team in the office that make ad that look kind of like an influence content.

Sammy Albon: I was going to ask you a question later on, but we kind of segued onto it around, um, UGC. [00:14:00] So have you seen yourself, not yourself, but the brand using UGC far more in the past? Well, recent years. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. I mean, I think like we find that obviously the parts of the business that are really measurable. So things like the performance of Facebook ads, we know that that kind of that style of UGC content is really .

Ted Robinson: Like it's just simply nine times out of 10. It's your best performing paid social ads. Right? 

Sammy Albon: Why do you think that is? 

Ted Robinson: I don't know. I think, I think a lot of it is that there's kind of a, I think there's kind of a way that people's brains have kind of just decided, like, there are parts of you that have really decided, I was going to try and get through this whole hour without saying the A word, but like, it does feel more authentic, right?

Ted Robinson: But like, it, it also, in your brain, your brain thinks it, you know. your lizard brain thinks it's more authentic, right? Like, you know, it's a grift, right? Like, particularly things like kind of beauty influencers, like this stuff is like, it's really interesting on one, whereas one hand there are some like, we find now working with influencers that they're way more like, they want way more control over the brief.

Ted Robinson: They were [00:15:00] way more. Can they, they're way more picky about the brands they do and don't work with. They like the idea that you're going to send them telling them what to say is kind of, I think is now faded. 

Ted Robinson: It's not completely. So you've got to work with them in a much more of a partnership, which makes it much harder to deploy large scale brand campaigns in the way that we may be used to.

Ted Robinson: Like you used to be able to send 50 influencers a brief and get 50 pieces of content here and content that look the same. But now you actually need to forge. 50 partnerships that align with their content and also their values and influencer. And I think the content is better for it, right? I think the content works better rather than you just kind of handing people over a script.

Sammy Albon: Um, you feel like it's fewer, bigger, better, and we're all in pursuit of that authentic. 

Ted Robinson: I don't think it needs to be few. I think it needs to be more and bigger and better, right? Like the problem is, is that I think there's never been a greater opportunity to be more strategic with it. Like you simply need to do the work now in a way that like before you could kind of find some people who had, like, if you, if you were selling some [00:16:00] sort of cleaning product, you'd find it.

Ted Robinson: X clean fluences and you send them a

Sammy Albon: hashtag clean. 

Ted Robinson: And yeah, and you just, and like, whereas now you really need to be going, need to be looking, not really for clean fluences, but people who are going to be discovering the content made by these people. 

Sammy Albon: I think he's kind of, I certainly saw this as a creator.

Sammy Albon: And then it's even more, I guess, prevalent now where so many influencer experts are trying to platform as high as what we do, where you have people that are signing up, like here's the brief to, Everyone on the internet, they apply, and then we try and get some sort of content. I think that removes the, you just said, like, the human element of this.

Ted Robinson: I think that there was probably a moment, there was a version of the influencer industry, I don't know, maybe three or four years ago, that maybe that kind of, there was more room for that. Yeah, I agree. Like, there was like, there was a point where you really could just send people like almost a kind of a brief, but then over like, you know, that kind of jump of the kind of go get your bag girl era of era of influence as well.

Ted Robinson: Like there was a, the early era of it where people were actually really worried about the fact the first [00:17:00] time that you're, you're kind of the big YouTube bloggers were seen to be taking money from people. Some people felt really betrayed by that. And then over the years,

Sammy Albon: it felt exploitative of their audience in that way.

Ted Robinson: And then over the years, it kind of got into this, especially with like the emergence of like a micro influence or people who would have like people making. Good money. I'm from having 000 followers on tip on Instagram or something like then you kind of got this quite nice. People were supportive of it.

Ted Robinson: They were like, wow, like it was great to see people. They felt they had a kind of a social issue too. Yeah. Like it was the real get you get the bag girl. And then there was the, and then now I think we may be on the. The other side of that, like it's now feeling a little bit more like, I think particularly with TikTok has allowed and things like the TikTok shop, things like TikTok shop have meant that there is an opportunity as an influencer to just to grift a lot harder than they used to be like.

Ted Robinson: And a lot of it is like, look, you can see this stuff a mile off, right? Stuff that when they're trying to, they're kind of selling you stuff from, like it's kind of, it's, it's. Like the people who are really just clearly there to go to make, [00:18:00] you're there on, you're there on TikTok. I think I'm going to sell you 24 cans of monster and you're like, this is just, this is, yeah, 

Sammy Albon: we've all been there. I feel like, I think, um, TikTok has definitely democratized things. And I kind of agree with you. There was this moment, particularly I think kickstarted during lockdown where it was, there were more partnerships available. It was very much like, let's churn and earn through our way, our way for influencer marketing strategies.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. But now it's like a, there's been a pause, there's been a reset and we're like, there's Then there is a fuller thought piece around this like we need to consider the strategy far more clearly and what the output is, and I don't, it's definitely not a bad thing in my mind because like you said, and let's just use a word is all on the authenticity.

Sammy Albon: Everything hinges by whether or not the audience. believes in the partnership because they're far more savvy than they ever have been. 

Ted Robinson: It's interesting to look at looking at versus kind of outside of the outside of influence to look at the way it looks for us on other channels. So we found that like, we've always done these kind of partnerships will support like people will ask us because we've got an audience to come and almost be able to work.

Ted Robinson: So last year we did some work [00:19:00] with Um, Universal on the release of Wes Anderson's film Asteroid City, which was really fun, right? And we did some kind of like collaboration products in it with that. And that was a really kind of, that was obviously like a brand and a title we're very happy to like associate ourselves with.

Ted Robinson: And it's been really interesting how the, like, I think following Barbie, the release of Barbie has just kind of meant that like our inbox now just explodes with these like partnership opportunities, like, like kind of brand collaborations and things like that, that 

Sammy Albon: Do you do much around Barbie? 

Ted Robinson: No, we didn't.

Ted Robinson: We should have done that because we are, we are very pink. 

Sammy Albon: I was gonna say your whole brand is like millennial pink. 

Ted Robinson: I think like, I think that there was, I think they did a really, really good job of the release of that. But it feels like there's, people do want to see more meaningful partnerships. They do.

Ted Robinson: And they want to see it with influencers as well. You kind of want to see that thing of like, Oh, look. And you want to know that the influence you're following and perhaps you're maybe even being influenced by like they've had some extent in like they've had a hand in choosing the brands that they're representing.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. And I think, do you know, we touch on this a lot and obviously TikTok does do a rev share with influencers, but you've seen with TikTok, um, YouTube partnerships over the years, YouTube creators are far more picky because [00:20:00] they can be, because they've getting that ad split ad sense pays well versus other platforms.

Sammy Albon: Also, they're not doing the number of uploads that someone might be doing on TikTok or Instagram. Yeah. TikTok. I guess the sense back. Certainly when I was a creator, it was like you could bury the ad. Yeah. It hadn't performed quick. Let's go live on Instagram with another piece of content. So I think there's far more scrutiny against TikTok and, um, Instagram creators who are less picky.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. Um. We're kind of on that point when it comes to working with influencers and having poor experiences. Have you sort of developed like a filter for influencers so you know the kind that you'll go for? How much emphasis do you place on that shortlisting phase to make sure we're finding the right people?

Ted Robinson: Yeah, look, I think that like we found that scale really helps, right, with influence as a whole. It's great to work with a lot of people. At the same time, working with a lot of people has become much harder than it was previously, because you just need to do the work with them. You need to work with them a lot more than you maybe used to.

Ted Robinson: I think that we've, I wouldn't say we've never ever really had. I think that often we've kind [00:21:00] of, managing our expectations has often been a key in terms of not having a bad experience. Like, I think that probably some of our really early, I'd say some of our, some of my really early kind of campaigns, I really went into it with way too much of a, of an idea about how we were going to attribute it, or even kind of forcing some of that like sales.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. And just, but also the thing of the kind of like the use my code thing, it's like, like even like as a consumer, you just kind of, I just kind of turned off by that, right? Like, I think that there's a real risk of you compromise the whole campaign of what you're doing by maybe trying to kind of get your claws too deeply into how measurable this is going to be.

Ted Robinson: Okay. I think a lot of that is a kind of platform meta ads mindset that you need to Not maybe you maybe need to kind of move past to do the successful. 

Sammy Albon: You said so many people start through that performance media. So you've touched on it then. What does the success look like for a influencer? Is it different per campaign?

Sammy Albon: Do you have benchmarks? How you imagine a lot of it is done internally. But when you work with [00:22:00] agency partners as well, how do you measure success to some extent? 

Ted Robinson: we don't necessarily, right? Like, I think that we've, we find that there's because of the nature of the algorithms that the, um, because the nature of the algorithms, discovery is much bigger than ever.

Ted Robinson: So we don't need to worry so much about who your followers are, right? Because especially on things like TikTok, the vast majority of people are going to see it. Even, I mean, like even the people you've hired involved, the people you follow on TikTok is like, is kind of the level to which you are requesting that the platform serve you their content again is actually pretty minimal, right?

Ted Robinson: Like, like you've looked like you've, you've followed the people you follow on TikTok. You see, unless you're on the following tab, like you see marginally more than the, than the content you see on the, for you on the, on the few page. And most people spend their life on the few page. Yeah. We haven't even navigated to another.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Completely. And so, uh, I spend far too much time. 

Ted Robinson: Do you really buying kind of buying chicken nugget key rings? 

Sammy Albon: I bought one of these. Um, I don't know. I'm telling you this, you know, those [00:23:00] hooked by those nasal sinus cleaners. Have you seen them? Yeah. Like you fill it out of water. Anyway, it arrived broke, so I haven't used it yet.

Sammy Albon: Are my sinuses clear? Probably. I don't even need it, but I just, I want it because I was sold by an influencer. 

Ted Robinson: I'm really, it's interesting to those, the products on TikTok shop that just seem to be like the thing for cleaning your AirPods. It's like, it's like one pound. I'm like, this is like, there's, there's something going on here.

Ted Robinson: I don't know. He's 

Sammy Albon: screwed for the delivery. 

Ted Robinson: It's like, that is like, like if you, if a water bottle is a single use plastic, that is a zero use plastic, right? That is like, that is just, it is just pre landfill. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Did you get a Stanley cup 

Ted Robinson: I didn't get a Stanley Cup, no. 

Sammy Albon: I had you down as a Stanley Cup user.

Sammy Albon: Yeah, well, yeah. I imagine you're going to the office. 

Ted Robinson: Are you on Watertalk? 

Sammy Albon: No. 

Ted Robinson: Oh my god, are you on Watertalk? Yeah, I'm big on Watertalk. I love Watertalk. So, Watertalk is like, 

Sammy Albon: What is Watertalk? 

Ted Robinson: In the US, there's like, and I think it's quite a specifically American trend, is that they'll get this enormous thing of water, and then they'll then get these like, I think they're like, I think it's like a kind of powder or like [00:24:00] sometimes it's like a like a maybe like a squash and then they kind of they'll put like they'll mix the flames and then it's like and it's like oh you get you get water and they have like old glasses they drink from oh no but they put they put like like they're like oh it's so healthy then they're putting like syrup in it and they're just like making this kind of disgusting like multiple flavor yeah Sometimes it's layered, the flavors in it, water, yeah, it's um, it's not great.

Sammy Albon: Americans have a way of making even the most vital life ingredient of coffee. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't jump on the whole, do you remember the whole trend of making iced coffees at home? 

Ted Robinson: Oh yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Because they'd have like their, it's normally these girls in America, very long nails, they're like squeezing syrups around their cup.

Ted Robinson: It's really weird actually, because there's the whole like cold brew, there's like, you can buy cold brew coffee that's like, it's effectively like chilled espresso, right? But you keep it in your fridge, like, so like, Ice coffee on TikTok is just insane in the fact that like, so like Starbucks went into Covid Mm-Hmm.

Ted Robinson: Starbucks in the US went into Covid selling 60% cold drinks. They came out of Covid and now they're like 75% cold drinks. Really? Like if you are under the, the age of my theory, this is not, this is, I have no data support [00:25:00] this . Um, I think if you gut, if you are under the age of 25, you don't see coffee as a hot drink.

Ted Robinson: Mm. You see co like I see as a, you see it as a frappe. I see. I in my head or in, I think. in our heads. We see, I see hot coffee is a hot drink that can be made cold, right? Whereas I think for them, the default coffee is neither hot nor, it's a kind of

Sammy Albon: You should do a study on this. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: I think you should do a, uh, some sort of brand measure.

Ted Robinson: Why would I do that when I could just ponder about it on podcasts? 

Sammy Albon: Join us for season two. 

Ted Robinson: Like why be like, why be right when you could be confidently wrong? I do think you're onto something. I think that can inform a lot of it is like ticked. A lot of it is ticked off. They're like. Tiktok, the girlies on Tiktok making these things where it's like big glass, like two inches of syrup at the bottom, a load of ice.

Ted Robinson: So it's interesting, like, it's going to be That blood sugar spikes. I think, um, well, Grind offers ice drinks, doesn't it? I know. We've got to go and buy an ice cube tray now at Grind, but it's really, cause a bit 

Sammy Albon: I bet it's real [00:26:00] aesthetic. 

Ted Robinson: It's, it's pretty, uh, did you design it? Yeah. It, it was really for a while we had them, we only, it only made one ice cube.

Ted Robinson: We were like, yeah, this is a bit 

Sammy Albon: as in like one big ice cube. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. One big ice cube. But it has Grind in the Ice cube. It's quite good. Really? Like Nespresso sell them on their, on their website for like, it's like 30 pounds. For like an ice cube train. And you're like, come on guys, this is a bit much. Some people gotta get, gotta pay sinker.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. Gotta pay George Cloy Somehow 

Sammy Albon: his sponsorship, his partnership money. Um, we ended up in an interesting space there. Yeah. Where did we, how did we get that? Uh. I guess this takes me on to the content question. It's what we all love. Um, what kinds of influences do you particularly enjoy working with or which verticals do you think have been the most successful?

Sammy Albon: Are we talking ASMR? Every episode I end up talking about ASMR and I don't know why. 

Ted Robinson: Why? Why do you end up speaking about ASMR? Coffee sounds. Buy coffee at Grind. co. uk

Ted Robinson: You're welcome. 

Sammy Albon: Um, Which verticals are the most successful? Have you seen some runaway successes that you didn't [00:27:00] expect, like ? 

Ted Robinson: It's interesting with, it's interesting with influencers, and I think there are some, some kind of, um, there are some brands, or like, categories that are just like, like, the influencer industry is to some extent being built around beauty, right?

Ted Robinson: Like, there are people who are just primarily beauty influencers. Lifestyle, beauty, fashion. And like, and yeah, and there's, and there's, and there's, There are some, and I think even the platforms themselves, where we lean into the fact like, this is just like, they're all, they're a dream for this kind of content.

Ted Robinson: A lot of those things like get ready with me content is really, really great for things for categories like beauty. We found that a lot of the other ones are often very, the coffee category is quite niche, right? The people on like your, your average coffee consumer is not on coffee talk because coffee talk is a, it's a strange, isn't it?

Ted Robinson: It's a very, so we find that like a lot of the time Like a lot of the time is about assessing who the people, who the people really are and what's really interesting them. Um, and I think some of our really, really big successes, we were, we worked with a guy called Jack Designs, Jack Callahan. Um, and he, I mean, I think we [00:28:00] were working with him from when he had, I don't know, like, I mean like tens of thousands of followers, rather than, rather than the literal millions he has now.

Ted Robinson: And he's just making really, really satisfying cleaning his home content. How often does he need to clean his home? Honestly, he does it every week. He does it like every Sunday. He's just there cleaning. Who would do that? Not me. I mean, he's also just like Sunday reset and it's like They are very satisfying videos though.

Ted Robinson: He's scrubbing, he's like, he's there with his scrub daddy, scrubbing his like kitchen with an inch of its life. It's insane. I mean like 

Sammy Albon: No, I'm really here for the content where they refill like their pantry. Yeah, the plastic containers. Yeah. Who has a pantry? Not me. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. Doing all your various different flavors of ice.

Ted Robinson: Pasta in the jars, lentils in the pots, spices in the jars. All this endless little acrylic containers of things. Yeah. And you have to take the cereal out of the box and put it into an identically sized container. Acrylic cereal box. All that plastic. Yeah. And then with a nice label, get your label maker for TikTok shop.

Ted Robinson: 1. 99 for some reason. 

Sammy Albon: It's the aesthetic I wish I could get, but I don't have time for. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. Welcome to my Caucasian home. Yeah. [00:29:00]

Sammy Albon: Watch me decant everything. 

Ted Robinson: It's really bad with my, all my books in like, in like color order. Yeah. How'd you find a book? 

Sammy Albon: It's like people that I ended up on a TikTok, they have to have someone rearranging their iPhone home screen.

Sammy Albon: Oh yeah. Into colors. 

Ted Robinson: Oh no. That's like, what do you do? You have to be like, Oh, when I'm like, when I'm looking for an app. I have to remember what color it is. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. Facebook. All right. Facebook. Who's using Facebook these days? I'm not. 

Ted Robinson: Checking in on Facebook. Be like. Checking in on mum. Just posting on here.

Ted Robinson: Posting on the feed like, Hi Sandra. Great to see you and the kids the other day. I don't. Love from me and Darren. 

Sammy Albon: I just, like, I can't. Facebook for me. I know at one point, do you know, my record, my prediction for you Ted is that we'll all be back on Facebook. We'll be back on Facebook. In five or six years.

Ted Robinson: Me and you on Farmville. 

Sammy Albon: Hay Day. That was some good times. I remember once. I went on holiday once and I had to get my friends to look after my farm. No you didn't. Get the strawberries. 

Ted Robinson: That is so good. 

Sammy Albon: That's commitment. 

Ted Robinson: Can you guys, can you go and tend to my farm while I'm away? 

Sammy Albon: Yeah, I came back, the milk, the cows hadn't been milked.

Sammy Albon: I was like, you've missed out on three [00:30:00] days. Animals have three days. Yeah, I could have had three lots of milk in that time. Yeah, god. I remember there was a real pursuit for watermelons as well. 

Ted Robinson: You can still poke people on Facebook. I'm gonna poke people. Where do they go though? I mean, there's, you can't, I've deleted, there's, there's an app called Pokes on Facebook, which is still on Facebook.

Ted Robinson: You can poke people and it sends 'em a little notification. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go home with, I'm gonna find me. I'm gonna poke, nudge me. I'm gonna fucking gonna nudge you. , but we're on msn. 

Sammy Albon: Oh yeah. Nudge. See? Nudge was more fun. It was really more intrusive, wasn't it? You're so old. I know. I'm 32 now.

Ted Robinson: Really? So am I. 

Sammy Albon: Are you? I thought you, I thought you were younger than me. Oh wow, no. We're both over the hill now. 

Ted Robinson: But look, content's like Jack, sorry, yeah, that's what the podcast was about. Yeah, Jack Stein's was a really interesting one for us because like, he also was like, he makes this kind of cleaning content without, he hasn't, doesn't seem to have become like a clean fluencer.

Ted Robinson: I'm sure he's, I'm sure he's getting that scrub daddy bag. But like, I don't think he's like, he doesn't, he doesn't, he's not making, um, content about cleaning satisfying, he refills his coffee pods and that content, I mean, [00:31:00] yeah, we run it as like, we run that as paid ads and it's great for us. 

Sammy Albon: You've worked with Jack in that way.

Sammy Albon: And he's made some nice content that has been effective for you. 

Ted Robinson: Effective, like longterm as paid ads. We run that. We run that forever. He's also lovely to work with. 

Sammy Albon: And that's a really important part when we're of influencers that are just easy to work with, um, and have strong working relationship with you.

Sammy Albon: What we've seen. So we run paid ads from most influence ranges is I'm sure do what we've seen from the insight side is that the view through rate is higher versus non influencer led ads. The, the, um, completion rate is higher. The conversions are higher. And from what we see, we think it's definitely down to faces, people's faces, uh, optimized and prioritizing the algorithm.

Sammy Albon: Um, and just that breaking the fourth wall and talking in a non scripted way to the consumer is really effective or they don't even need to be speaking. They can just be demonstrating the product in a real like platform native way. Yeah. So I think it's down to being platform native and also Faces itself.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. There there's something, a face, there's a i I think [00:32:00] it's Is social proofing? Yeah. I think it's both a combination of like generally like a human brain thing about seeing people's faces now. Mm-Hmm. also, I think the algorithm must optimize for it. Like the amount of that kind of, that to camera content is just still your like bread and butter.

Ted Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is interesting. If you think about how much of that is, like how much of that is intentional changes in the algorithm to make that happen? Or is it the fact it's just what you and I like kind of, yeah. Yeah. I reckon it's that thing of, that you see a human's face. I think you probably. on average scroll a few fractions of a second later, but enough to kind of influence the algorithm one way or another.

Ted Robinson: Yeah, definitely. But like, I think that's like that kind of, I think there's also a really like, there's an, I mean, this is, this, this, that kind of content now is, obviously it's changed. It has a different face than the way that we did when it was, when it was in Instagram previously. But like, I think that kind of content is now got such a clear kind of visual language and even the way that people, that kind of influence a style of talking, that, that kind Um, has now meant that you can kind of, you can trigger some of the same cues, even [00:33:00] different types of content.

Ted Robinson: Like you see a little bit of that and you see it, but on the other side, I do also think it comes with its doubt. Like the kind of, I mean, the term influencer comes with some kind of downsides now, right? There's often a lot of negative connotation around it, right? 

Sammy Albon: Well, influence or content creator? 

Ted Robinson: I think probably it's probably content creator.

Sammy Albon: Certainly the people you work with, I would say are content creators. 

Ted Robinson: It was interesting how, like when Instagram started letting people put those little. Job titles underneath it. Like you can pop, probably put entrepreneur or whatever in there, but you can also see founder and then you'd put like a, and then you'd put that.

Ted Robinson: There's always content creator rather than influence. And I think also the kind of the influencer brands thing has also been like, has been maybe like as in like creator owned brands. Yeah. I think that, that, It feels like the star is kind of faded on that one a little bit in the light. I think there were a few, there was, there was some kind of, I think they're really successful.

Ted Robinson: So I think like Grace Beverly has some like incredible brands. Yeah. And just the stuff that's really exciting on the other hand, there's quite a lot of it where it does feel a little bit more like, yeah, I think that like in your head, when I see, when I think content creator, I think of [00:34:00]someone who's making really interesting, engaging content.

Ted Robinson: When I hear influencer, I feel like probably that's probably it's a content creator. He's probably not got that much else going on. 

Sammy Albon: It's an interesting, I think most. People have had in the past, we asked that question, influence or content creator. I think when I was a creator, I would never have said influencer because it's my embarrassing, right?

Sammy Albon: Like also at that time though, but you can't 

Ted Robinson: call yourself 

Sammy Albon: that. So for me at the time, it was definitely in the mainstream media. There was a lot of negative connotations around the word influencer. We call it the creator economy. We call some of the people influencers, some of them talent, some of them content creators.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. Ultimately, I think there's a real range of different partners you can work with. Some of them, like for Grind, make really premium content. It looks great. It appeals to your consumers, whereas, you know, some brands maybe hair, lifestyle, beauty, one influencers who have maybe been on reality TV or reach that.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Ted Robinson: That's what you, that's what you think of an influencer, right? You think of like, this is a, this is someone who's X love Island. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah, definitely. And I think that's definitely a thought a lot of people have. And [00:35:00] then creators could also just mean you GC creators. Yeah. So it's like a real mixed bag and I don't think there is an answer.

Ted Robinson: It's really interesting on the UGC point around like, that like, I'd like, it would be interesting to see it move away from it. There's a guy, there's a guy, um, you know, that, um, Daniel Simmons from, he was on YouTube for a while and he, and now he's massive on TikTok. He's like an architect, wasn't he? I think, I think he was like.

Ted Robinson: No, I know exactly. He does, he does these kind of get ready with me videos and they're always very, very, he's obviously very cool. He's very well dressed, but they're also very like. He's Australian, isn't he? Yeah, but he lives in London. I think he has like, I think he's, I think he has like a, kind of, you might have like a closing range now.

Ted Robinson: Either way, I think he's doing incredibly well. And I think, and I find that I see quite a lot of like copycat creators to him and that people who are doing this kind of get ready with me as a guy, they kind of set the whole thing up the same. They're doing this kind of, it's all quite considered, but it's also very like well edited and well executed.

Ted Robinson: And I think that like there is, it would be interesting to see if the UGC thing does swing the other way eventually. Like are we some point going to get. Are we all going to get there on our [00:36:00] media literacy that the idea that there's someone who looks like a someone they're being like, Oh, look at this is not going to be that we're not, we're going to lose the trust in that.

Sammy Albon: It is an interesting one. I don't know. I look at my predictions. I don't know how long UGC creators I feel only exist because TikTok has made it a possibility. Yeah. Like you wouldn't, I'm sure you do now, well you do, we've seen them, we work with them, but you do get UGC creators on Instagram. At that point, when, is that even influence marketing?

Sammy Albon: Probably not. Because they're just creators that are in our sphere and we end up working with them. It's an interesting one. But again, it could be a cost effective way for you to look at working with more UGC creators but you don't get the brand, the, the awareness tick unless you pay behind it. So yeah.

Sammy Albon: Um. We've had a lot of chat and I've got some questions that I wanted to focus on. There could be a lot of, some brands watching this, uh, that have no idea where to start. Yeah. What advice would you give yourself now that you wish you [00:37:00] had 11 years ago or eight years ago? I think, look, I think. Is it testing?

Sammy Albon: Is it just 

Ted Robinson: in life or influences? Yeah, we can go. I think, no, I think like that for influences, it would be, um, I think that finding people who you kind of, I think the, the, Finding people that you can work with in a way that you're not kind of betting the house on it, right? This is a, this is, this is, this is simply a part of a, a broader strategy, a broader set of things you're doing where you want to be working with, like, whatever it is that you're doing right now, a content creator or influencer can help you do that.

Ted Robinson: Bet help you communicate that better. And often these are people who have just have just demonstrated through perhaps growing a following their ability to just communicate. Be sure they own these platforms, right? Like it's like they are just another tool by which that you can communicate your message and they can help.

Ted Robinson: And they're out there and they're very, very happy to help. Right? I think that we found that some of the best content we've ever even for paid is. Influencers. We find that it's a really, it feels like a [00:38:00] really coherent part of a new product launch for us. It's just like, it's just great to have some of this out there in the world.

Ted Robinson: Mm-Hmm. Being used by, by real people is a great part of, a great part of launching a new product for us. Mm-Hmm. It's kind of, I, if I had to give some, some advice, I kind of had looked at it as being this very specific channel, and actually what it really is, is it's kind of a support layer on. almost everything else we're doing, right?

Ted Robinson: There's, there's very little we're doing that we can't add, plug in, that we can't plug influences into to just kind of amplify more, make it feel coherent, or make it feel a lot more real, a lot more tangible. Because otherwise you're kind of, you've got quite a lot of pretty product imagery. Most people's products exist better in the real world.

Ted Robinson: And I think influences kind of help you get a little bit closer to it. 

Sammy Albon: Definitely. I think the final point I was going to touch on, and you said it so nicely, was that I think there is not. a single marketing activity that you can't lean into. And I think part as an integrated agency for us, whether it's experiential, whether it's social PR, there is always the opportunity for either influencers to ladder up to what is happening or to be the lead channel that other channels [00:39:00] play into.

Sammy Albon: There's a real mix there. And I think a lot of brands. which is necessary for testing, see influencer in isolation, but actually it all sings so harmoniously together and they should be integrated where they can. 

Ted Robinson: And it also just feels, it feels better when it's attached to other things, as in like, that you, as I said, you're scrolling in your feed and you see a paid ad and then you see an influencer and then perhaps, perhaps one you do know, perhaps it's a paid ad from someone that you don't know, but looks kind of, looks and feels like someone you might relate to.

Ted Robinson: Or like, yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Definitely. We. Definitely went off piste. This conversation was definitely the most intriguing one that we've had. But I've got some quickfire questions that I want to fire away. 

Ted Robinson: Oh no. 

Sammy Albon: Okay, go on. These are not like, these are not hard. These are just fun ones. Um, There's no right or wrong answer, but just I think the quickfire gives a sense of jeopardy So it means that we're gonna have a lot more fun with it Short or long form content?

Ted Robinson: Short form content. 

Sammy Albon: But you just said you watch deep dives on YouTube 

Ted Robinson: But like I'm just a sucker. I just want to scroll. 

Ted Robinson: I just want to scroll. 

Sammy Albon: We love a scroll worthy. Yeah Lie in or early finish? [00:40:00] Lie in or early finish? Yeah 

Ted Robinson: Early. No, Lie in. You're a lie in yeah. You're a night owl. To be honest, I quite like, uh, burn the candle at both ends.

Ted Robinson: Go wild. Both. Yeah. Uh, 

Sammy Albon: Instagram or Snapchat? 

Ted Robinson: Oh, Instagram. Like, snap. Absolutely not. 

Sammy Albon: You just said we're 32, so there is no chance that we'd be. 

Ted Robinson: Snapchat is, yeah, I think that's, uh. That is a red flag. Big ick. 

Sammy Albon: Big ick, really? I think that You mean you don't see walking down the street like a 

Ted Robinson: No reason. I think apparently it's doing really well.

Sammy Albon: Oh, it's doing fantastic. It's big with the kids. Yeah, some of our campaigns have just been huge on Snapchat. It's just really interesting. Really big with the Roblox market. Yeah. It's about anyone under like 18. Yeah, Roblox. Tea or coffee? 

Ted Robinson: Oh, coffee, absolutely. 

Sammy Albon: Iced or hot? 

Ted Robinson: Probably iced. I think. 

Sammy Albon: Okay, so you wanted 75%?

Ted Robinson: Yeah, I think like, I think like, yeah, iced coffee's great. 

Sammy Albon: What's your coffee order? If it's iced? 

Ted Robinson: In Starbucks, I might have a, I'll have a venti caramel.

Sammy Albon: No, no, no, in Grind. 

Ted Robinson: No, I'll have a, look, I'll have a, I'll [00:41:00] have a flat white Grind. It's just a classic. I think we do it very well. 

Sammy Albon: So go for an unadulterated flat white.

Sammy Albon: Absolutely. You're going to Starbucks to live your basic life. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah, with my little, with my Stanley. 

Sammy Albon: Refillable. Um, do you get syrup? 

Ted Robinson: Is it syrup? No. Like, I think like. So just quite a plain. Yeah. I'm really, really, really, when it comes to proper coffee, it's quite boring. If I'm, if I'm having a large ice dessert at a competing coffee chain, I'll maybe I'll go wild.

Ted Robinson: Okay. Uh, 

Sammy Albon: Costa, Nero or Starbucks? 

Ted Robinson: Costa, Nero or Starbucks. It's gotta be Starbucks, right? Really? No, I don't know. Like, yeah, Costa, Nero. Really? Yeah. I've not been in a cafe nearly a year. No, that's, that is criminal. 

Sammy Albon: Do you think? Yeah. Well, it's only because I went to my local one and I had to tell them how to make my coffee.

Sammy Albon: So I was just like I went to a, I went to a beige flag for me. 

Ted Robinson: A beige flag? 

Sammy Albon: Telling the barista how to make my coffee. Oh man. And it was just a nice decaf. 

Ted Robinson: I was, I was at, I was in a Starbucks in New York and someone came in and asked and they were like, Oh, can Sandra make my coffee, please? And I was like, that is like, that is like what like a three year old does [00:42:00] with like, can mummy make my milk, please?

Sammy Albon: That was, I don't know, you walking into, um, Old Street Grind. 

Ted Robinson: Oh no, I'm going to Oswego, and they have no idea who I am, I go and pay, because I'm so embarrassed to be like, I'm like, oh my god, what can, what can I get? You can have a little pink card, you know, like the We have those, but I also, like, honestly, I would like, I would, I would go to Orange Wednesdays.

Ted Robinson: On record. I would go to Orange Wednesdays, and I would like, and they, unless they said, oh, do you have Orange Wednesdays, I'd pay it full price, because like, I can't do that thing, be like, I've got a coupon! I've got a coupon! 

Sammy Albon: Ted, I don't know if you've been in a time capsule, but Orange Wednesdays hasn't been a thing for like 20 years!

Ted Robinson: Do you not remember Orange Wednesdays? 

Sammy Albon: No wonder you can't get in with it anymore! 

Ted Robinson: I mean, I've been 20 years of asking, like, Guys, are Orange Wednesdays? And they're like, no, it's called like Meerkat 

Sammy Albon: Mondays. I'm on T Mobile. Uh, YouTube or TikTok? 

Ted Robinson: TikTok, I guess. 

Sammy Albon: TikTok, uh, shop. For my sins. TikTok shop, Facebook marketplace.

Ted Robinson: Oh God, neither. Like, it's just like, like, no, go on. Just like TikTok shop is just like [00:43:00] Timu. Are 

Sammy Albon: you more of a Gumtree guy? 

Ted Robinson: Oh no, none of, none of the above. Like, I don't know. Have you ever bought anything on Facebook marketplace? No. I think there's some, I think there's some, there's some good stuff. There's some dodgy dealings going on in Facebook marketplace.

Sammy Albon: I live for Depop drama. If you don't follow them on Instagram. Oh yeah. 

Ted Robinson: Love, love a bit of Depop drama. Vinted is where it's at. 

Sammy Albon: Is it? Are you selling on vintage? 

Ted Robinson: I'm not, not. Neither am I buying on vintage. I like . Just scrolling. I should 

Ted Robinson: argue with people. , . I

Sammy Albon: don't want this, but misleading. 

Ted Robinson: I think they, the ads they were on the YouTube are really good.

Sammy Albon: They are, but they pay for YouTube ads. They pay, they pay for an actor to be an influencer in the YouTube ads. I will sort that for you, so, if you get in touch. 

Ted Robinson: I didn't mean vintage, I meant Vinteria, Vinteria, Vinteria on the shoot, Vinteria, they like, it's like, I guess it's vintage for like furniture, but there's some really good stuff on there.

Ted Robinson: Okay. I'm really, I'm old here and I'm talking 

Ted Robinson: about, talking about. You're like boot saddles. Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Latte or cappuccino? 

Ted Robinson: Oh, latte. 

Sammy Albon: And then, um, we had one earlier, it was Do You Believe in Ghosts? [00:44:00]

Ted Robinson: No, don't be ridiculous. Interesting. 

Sammy Albon: Well, season two is all about, uh, paranormal activities. Really? Absolutely not, no.

Sammy Albon: Um, I do want to touch on the Jacob Elordi controversy. You said earlier that, uh, 

Ted Robinson: We're not, we're not official, we're not official. We've been photographed together, like, he like, I go over to his house, he mixes me a martini, I give him a little back rub, I'm like, here, Jacob. No, um, yeah, the tube ad thing.

Ted Robinson: Yeah, it's quite funny. People keep complaining to us about it. Like, so we give context to what the ad is. Oh yeah. So we're running an ad at the moment that says, uh, We've run a series of ads now that are about our coffee pods and about how quickly they disappear. Because like, we've all seen these things about kind of compostable things where someone says, Oh, they disappear faster than a banana peel.

Ted Robinson: And we've done some like increasingly unhinged ones over the, so the most recent one that you've says, uh, disappears faster than Jacob Elordi's bathwater, right. Which is as a whole, is absolutely insane that they say, let's get away with that. Right. Like, I mean, like to some [00:45:00]extent we find these things and we expect to be correct.

Ted Robinson: Yeah, it is. It is quite, and also it was, it was, it was good fun. Is the thing with those TFL is you have to buy them like weeks in advance. So by the time that you get it, you have to, we had to go very early and then kind of hope it was still in the, I don't know, people's, people's mirror by then. But no, someone emailed us and they were like, Oh, how can I explain this to our children, my children?

Ted Robinson: And I'm like, it's up to you. If you want to, like, like how'd you expect not make, not make investments to your children? Like, like, like, do you go around the ad being like, Oh, this is indeed. com. It's a way for you to like, like, like love your job. Yeah. Like who's like, who's explaining who's going around explaining ads for.

Ted Robinson: well woman to their children. I don't know. 

Sammy Albon: Anyway, navigating that conversation must have been fun. 

Ted Robinson: Yeah. Navigating this conversation has been fun. 

Sammy Albon: So many points will be removed by the time this airs, I'm sure. But I know. Thank you, Ted, for joining me today. Thanks so much for the questions. 

Ted Robinson: Anytime. So is this your house?

Sammy Albon: I, [00:46:00] yeah, I sleep there. I never leave. I just said, I was like, podcast in my living room. Thank you for listening to this episode, Ted. It's been wonderful chatting. Um, where can people find you if they want to hear more of your ramblings on Influenced Mind? 

Ted Robinson: Oh, they can find me on Instagram at, at Shoreditch, which is a whole story into itself.

Ted Robinson: There is a story about that. But also on LinkedIn. I'm Teddy Robinson on LinkedIn. Have you ever been approached asking for Shoreditch? Yeah, I have. Someone offered me loads of money for it. It wasn't that much. Okay, it was quite a lot. 25, 000. Why did you not say Instagram?

Ted Robinson: This doesn't, this probably isn't sharp, this probably isn't, it's just gone mute. But bidding starts at 25 grand. Yeah, no, that's, No, it's Joshua Dimon. At some point, I need to get the TikTok and have a package deal. And then the TikTok is owned by like some child in America. I'm never gonna, 

Sammy Albon: called Shaw Ditch.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Ted Robinson: And if you are that child, 

Sammy Albon: he's open to talking. I'm looking at the wrong [00:47:00] camera. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the WhatTheySaid Podcast powered by Pretty Green, where we dive into Everything to do with influencer marketing. We've chatted to Ted Robinson's day on all things from flat whites to iced coffee to Jacob Elordi's bathwater.

Sammy Albon: Join us next week. We're hopefully talk about none of those things. Uh, and I will see you again next time. Thanks Ted.