How Furby Hijacked Christmas | What They Said: The Influencer Marketing Podcast | Ep.4

Old enough to remember Furby from when they first appeared? 
Want to know how Hasbro got Furby to conquer Christmas last year?
Work in marketing and want to learn from one of the biggest toy companies to ever do it? Then this is the episode for you...

Welcome back to What They Said, the influencer marketing podcast powered by PrettyGreen, the award-winning, global comms agency. This week we're joined by Julia Swan, EMEA Regional Communications Manager at Hasbro as we chat to her about how the brand now approaches influencer marketing in 2024.

Learn how their influencer marketing has reduced production costs whilst improving brand performance, when they decide to pull the influencer lever and what an important marketing strategy looks like. Julia shares a few of their secrets when it comes to balancing brand messaging and safe guarding an influencer’s tone of voice… 

With over 3 million organic views in their Nerf campaign with the Beta Squad to a viral Christmas campaign in the ultra-competitive toy market with Furby, get an insight into how they do it here...

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Transcript

WHAT THEY SAID EP 4 - Julia Swan

Sammy Albon: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the What They Said Influencer Marketing Podcast powered by Pretty Green. I am your wonderful, delectable host, Sammy, Influencer Strategy Lead at Pretty Green. Uh, and I'm being joined this season by some wonderful industry titans who live and breathe Influencer, who can speak far more eloquently than I about everything to do with the creative economy.

Sammy Albon: Um, as ever, I'm joined by a real industry titan today and perhaps one of my favorite clients, Julia Swan from Hasbro. 

Julia Swan: Hi. 

Sammy Albon: Welcome, Julia. 

Julia Swan: That was really nice. One of your favorites. 

Sammy Albon: do it again? Yeah. I'm joined today by my favourite client, Julia Smith from Hasbro. 

Julia Swan: Yes, I will take that. Thank you. 

Sammy Albon: Uh, Julia, we have worked together a lot over the past two years.

Julia Swan: We have. 

Sammy Albon: Are we sick of each other? Maybe. 

Julia Swan: I don't know. I feel like when I message you sometimes, you might, maybe you're thinking, oh God, have you muted me yet? 

Sammy Albon: Do you want, should I do the facial reaction that I do when you, so imagine I'm here with my teams. If you're watching the podcast, you'll see this.

Sammy Albon: Typing away, Julia messages. Bye. That's normally what it is. 

Julia Swan: What does she [00:01:00] want now? 

Sammy Albon: What's she asking for this time? 

Julia Swan: How much budget is she going to throw at me now? 

Sammy Albon: What money has she got this time? Um, Julia, I've got a, um, little bio that I basically pinched from your LinkedIn. 

Julia Swan: Okay. 

Sammy Albon: So I've definitely forgotten one of your many accolades from here.

Sammy Albon: So feel free to chime in. But Julia, the Julia Swan, you are regional EMEA, uh, comms manager at Hasbro. 

Julia Swan: I am. 

Sammy Albon: Uh, as regional comms manager at Hasbro, you lead Hasbro's PR and influencer strategy across EMEA. If I can say EMEA and Hasbro anymore in those sentences. Yes. And output across both toy and entertainment brands.

Sammy Albon: Your role includes working closely with cross functional leads and teams throughout various aspects of the business. You focus on everything from awareness and brand building down to driving sales and conversions across your work streams, overseeing PR, comms, um, and influencer as well. Um, you really balance that strategic and tactical mindset across multiple channels, ensuring the delivery of key messages, creative cut through and driving commercial results.

Sammy Albon: Anything [00:02:00] you'd add to that? 

Julia Swan: I'm good.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Julia Swan: That made me sound shit hot. Yeah. Um, no, I think you covered everything, obviously. Yeah. Started in the UK team. Moved to last 

Sammy Albon: year. And that's a bigger role with, uh. It's 

Julia Swan: a bigger role. Yeah. Bigger scope. Different way of working. Lots more 

Sammy Albon: influencer. 

Julia Swan: Yes.

Julia Swan: Lots more influencer. And a lot closer to the strategy as well, like aligning with the global team. So, um, yeah. It's been fun. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. And I think over the years that we've worked together, um. It's safe to say that the way Hasbro works with influencers has also shifted, particularly under the UK, um, and EMEA, but more globally as well, you can see, um, so kind of what I've enjoyed most is seeing the confidence you've built in different platforms as well.

Sammy Albon: Cause originally it was like YouTube and Instagram, mainly Instagram. And there was a lot of questions around TikTok at the time, I think from brand safety and uh, that's those sort of considerations, but how important is influencer now for helping you to connect with consumers. 

Julia Swan: I mean, I [00:03:00] think it's very important, um, agree, you know, when we, I mean, I think when I first started, like, nine years ago, at a consumer PR agency, and it was all about mummy bloggers, do you remember mummy bloggers?

Julia Swan: And then, like, it's, it's just evolved, I guess. And we're trying to evolve with it, but being a big corporate company, you know, things like tick. com and there's guidelines, you know, a lot of our brands are targeted at kids. So I think we have to be brand safe, but yeah, you know, influencer is super, it's well, I call it like a lever of marketing.

Julia Swan: So we have like that. Yeah, so we have like media, we have PR, we have influencer, we have events, whatever else. Um, and I think it's, it's a key lever that we need to be pulling more. Um, especially because as it evolves, as there's different channels we can be working on, you know, the different ways we work with influencers, it just, yeah, it's, it's a key part.

Julia Swan: And I think, I think that there's like a level of education needed. I mean, with, um, Brands and companies [00:04:00] in terms of how influencers should feed in I think a lot of the time I don't know if you find this I find this it's like, oh, what 

Sammy Albon: are you gonna say? 

Julia Swan: Well, it's a bit, you know, sometimes it'd be a little bit last minute.

Julia Swan: There's some budget We need to do something to keep someone happy and you know, of course it is something that we can activate quickly 

Yeah, 

Julia Swan: but I don't think it should be A last thought, it should be part of like the overarching strategy from the get go. I 

Sammy Albon: mean, we always want more timeline, right? We always, but it happens and I think that happens less with Hasbro because you've just got it so integrated into what you do now.

Julia Swan: Really? It happens less with Hasbro? 

Sammy Albon: That's what I'm saying. Anyway, um, give us more time, Julia. But I think what you see with brands, like you said, is that Those that don't value influence is like a core part of it is just a secondary consideration. We're like, Oh, we better activate some influences like work stream here.

Sammy Albon: Um, I think a lot of what I've seen with particularly the campaigns you oversee is the real test and learn mindset where it's, if it's tick tock, what's the [00:05:00] outputs, what are the KPIs and how we deliver and against them if we didn't, why, or if we over performed, why? And it really has helped informed particularly strategies we put forward now.

Sammy Albon: around how we approach things. So how do you, how important is testing, learning and taking those considerations forward for brands? Do you think more should be leaning into that? 

Julia Swan: Yeah. I mean, I think I guess as well, because with influencer, especially at Hasbro, you know, not to go in to think too much about budgets, but Often we do with, we're doing things with influencers to a smaller budget versus maybe paid media that would be put behind our TVC or MSA that we call it Hasbro, so like TV ad brand ad, I don't know what to call it.

Julia Swan: Um, and it feels like. Yeah, we can just do a lot more with with smaller budget. I've really forgotten your question. No, 

Sammy Albon: I just said how important is it? You basically said it was fine. Yeah, 

Julia Swan: no, I think I think that it is a really good test and learn and that's what [00:06:00] I was trying to say It's a good platform to test and learn.

Julia Swan: Yeah, because you're not spending, you can be quite 

Sammy Albon: agile as well, right? Yeah, you can be agile, different audiences. 

Julia Swan: Exactly, and I think as well because It's ever changing and because it's still quite I guess new to big brands and big corporate companies Which is 

Sammy Albon: crazy because it's been social you said about your first role in an agency you worked with mummy bloggers 

Julia Swan: Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: but social was existed in some capacity 

Julia Swan: percent 

Sammy Albon: like 15 years if not longer.

Julia Swan: Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: so it's crazy that And I guess a lot of brands that watch this or people that are in similar positions will be thinking the same, but still have to internally educate other stakeholders on influencers valuable. Here's why. 

Yes. 

Sammy Albon: I think there's a lot of misconception around. It's just extra ex love Islanders or someone posing with a teeth whitening strip and it's like, 

Julia Swan: you 

Sammy Albon: know, and that can be effective for those brands.

Sammy Albon: I'm sure there's a reason they keep investing in teeth whitening strips, but ultimately there's just so much you can do for influencer. And I think 

Julia Swan: like you're saying like the test and learn to be able to then take that and say, Hey, we, we did this with influencer and high senior [00:07:00] stakeholder, look how amazing this was.

Julia Swan: That's when it starts building the confidence. And that's when kind of more and more. Budget and I guess potentials unlocked for future campaigns. 

Sammy Albon: I mean, you work with a lot of young adults as well as like family, brand families as well for targeting. Has there been challenges for other brands listing about unlocking that potential?

Sammy Albon: So how do you work with families? Is there a lot of brand safety considerations? 

Julia Swan: Yes. 

Sammy Albon: How'd you get that across the line? 

Julia Swan: Well, there's obviously a lot of brand safety consideration. I'm not like a paid media expert, but you know, if we're talking to kids, we have to be really careful. And there's a lot, there's a lot of kind of rules and regulations around that from like a outside of the business, but also within the business from our legal team as well.

Julia Swan: Um, so that can be lots of hoops jump through. Yeah. And then I think just kind of reaching them in general, like, I don't know if you're going to go, I'm probably going to go into this, but you know, where you would before Like a TV add on in like the middle of Nickelodeon or something, yeah, it's not [00:08:00] the way it works anymore.

Julia Swan: So I think that's another thing that Influence is great for because it unlocks another chance to be where they are because let's face it, 

Sammy Albon: the kids are on 

Julia Swan: YouTube or they're on TikTok and that's where we kind of need to grab their attention, whether it's organic or paid on those platforms. You've 

Sammy Albon: kind of segued on to my next question, yeah, it's like you've seen the questions ahead of time.

Sammy Albon: I have not. Um. Influences in paid ads. This is obviously something we're doing more of. Yeah. And Hasbro's really leaning into as well. Why does it work? Why do you think influences in paid ads is effective? For me, I think it's often they break the fourth wall. 

Yep. 

Sammy Albon: Faces people sell to people. 

Julia Swan: It's 

Sammy Albon: also more believable.

Sammy Albon: Is that what you're seeing in the results? 

Julia Swan: I think so. I think what you're saying is right. I guess, you know, I'm sure there's insights and stats to show that you probably have where, you know, how people are most influenced via like a brand ad up. up until like earned media with influence probably quite far towards [00:09:00] PR side.

Julia Swan: If we were going to do a TVC, imagine how much you're spending on production. Whereas, for instance, we've done this piece recently with, I don't know when this is going to go live. So with, you know, a monopoly. And To think that we're going to use that and put considerable amount of spend behind it. But he's recorded that in his living room.

Sammy Albon: In his normal style. In 

Julia Swan: his normal style, the content feels authentic. 

Sammy Albon: It feels

Julia Swan: great. And also you don't have to pay for the kind of production level of it. 

Sammy Albon: So actually, I guess another point is that working with influences and paid ads reduces production cost to a degree. So imagine if you're going for a huge influence of the cost is there, but I'm not sure what you put down on some TVC production.

Sammy Albon: But if you're paying an influence or a fraction of that, but the asset forms just as well. 

Julia Swan: There's always space 

Sammy Albon: for TVC, but it's, I guess, a balancing act of when you pull that lever, like you said. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, 100%. I think we, I'm not coming in here saying that we should be putting all, you know, doing everything with influence.

Julia Swan: I'm happy if you say 

Sammy Albon: [00:10:00] that. 

Julia Swan: No, but, you know, there's, I think an important strategy should be, you know, reaching our target audience in different places. So there needs to be the paid media. That's, you know, the always on stuff and we've got our PR as well that we're running with earned media. But I feel like influence is such an important plug into it.

Julia Swan: And as well, I think, you know, there's such a weird crossover now between influencer 

Sammy Albon: and celeb. 

Julia Swan: So, you know, like you're talking about Love Islanders and that, so. So 

Sammy Albon: like talent and influencers. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, because people, people generally know them. And it's not like in the past where you would have an influencer who unless you are a follower of them, you probably have no idea where they are.

Julia Swan: Now they've probably been on reality TV or you've probably seen them pop up virally on a ladbible or something like that. So I think, yeah, because of that barrier is kind of really broken down now, it's opened up. Many more opportunities. 

Sammy Albon: I mean talking about talent because you work across essentially full funnel campaigns And they're always in they tend to be integrated where you have like a PR arm and earned arm Coms [00:11:00] objective and then you'll have influencer and all sorts laddering up to that one campaign creative That's when you start having talent attached to a PR moment.

Sammy Albon: You have influences in their own strategy What would you what advice would you give to brands who are perhaps working with an agency for the first time? in that capacity? Like, how do you navigate these fuller, more integrated briefs? Is it the same process? Is it more considered? 

Julia Swan: I think it's the same process.

Julia Swan: I think the brief is so important. Um, I might be saying this to you and you might be thinking how rubbish the briefs are. Wish you wrote a 

Sammy Albon: better brief. 

Julia Swan: But I think that's something that I've been trying to work on internally is just how, you know, when everyone comes and says, right, we must do this. I'm like, right.

Julia Swan: Let's jump away from the tactic. What is the objective? Because from that objective, then you can work out which levers of marketing you need to pull. Um, so I think it's really important to align on what internally don't bring the poor agency in until you've actually got an objective and who your target audience is.

Julia Swan: Because I [00:12:00] think once from coming from agency side as well, once you have those two and they're super, super clear, I think it really helps you to be able to come back with a response. And then. You know, obviously creativity is so subjective as well. So you can't really be judging things on what the creative concept is.

Julia Swan: It's more about, okay, if you can come with insights to say, this is how you're reaching your target audience, and this is where you need to be. Then I think that's probably the best thing to 

Sammy Albon: do. When do you know? So it's coming to briefing and you're about to brief say us in on something. When do you decide in that process we're putting the influencer lever like, or is it, it's open and you let us make that decision because often the briefs that are through and through influencer, you know, it's an influencer brief.

Sammy Albon: When have you considered that? Cause there'll be a lot of brands that are potentially watching and thinking, how do I even know in the first place if this is an influence work stream, if this is a earned PR comms? What? What? 

Julia Swan: So I think first of all, it depends on budget, what [00:13:00] you've got available to you.

Julia Swan: Secondly, it depends on what other kind of media activity or marketing activities happening. And as well, I think again, to bang on the target audience. So I think when we're looking at like a nerf, for instance, and we want to talk to that eight plus, you know, eight to 12 year old boy, we know that they're watching aspirational influences on TikTok or YouTube, wherever that might be.

Julia Swan: Then to me, I kind of, as I said, I've worked in agency side as well. So I feel like I kind of have a bit of knowledge of where it needs to sit. And obviously there's times where you could build out like a full funnel, multi like integrated campaign across every layer, but you know, not often are we lucky enough to have the budget and the time to do it.

Julia Swan: So I think influencer just is a really nice balance in between, and you just know, You're going to reach your target audience because they're sitting there doomscrolling, aren't they? Yeah. Too much time. 

Sammy Albon: I'm probably on TikTok shop most evenings at the moment. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. It's 

Sammy Albon: quite sad. 

Julia Swan: No. 

Sammy Albon: Have you bought anything at a [00:14:00] TikTok shop?

Julia Swan: No. Um, no. Are you not a TikToker? 

Sammy Albon: You're a Reel? Instagram Reels? 

Julia Swan: I'm an Instagram Reels. I'm like watching things two weeks after you've seen them. Yeah. Do you know what it is though? I have this weird thing that I can't stand it when noise is coming out of my phone, which I know is ridiculous. Do you 

Sammy Albon: watch Reels silently?

Julia Swan: So I just watch everything on silent. 

Sammy Albon: Do you actually? 

Julia Swan: And yeah. And then if I'm Captions, you know, if they put them on there. If I'm really interested, I might turn the sound on. 

Sammy Albon: Okay. 

Julia Swan: So TikTok is just like a lot of noise coming out of my phone. Mentally overstimulating, 

Sammy Albon: yeah. 

Julia Swan: And I can't, I can't deal with that.

Sammy Albon: In terms of creative freedom influencers want it brands really give it what I think you've always been able to balance Is allowing influencers to make content as they authentically would and we call it the a word authentic But someone said on a previous episode that if you're not letting them be authentic, you're wasting your money 

Julia Swan: Hmm, 

Sammy Albon: does that ring true for you?

Julia Swan: Yeah, a hundred percent I think like to keep [00:16:00] going back to like there's various things like we have brand ads for a reason. Yeah And you put paid media behind them because, you know, you can say what you want to say. 

With your actors, with the script. Yeah, 

Julia Swan: with your actors, and you're reaching people because you're putting money behind it.

Julia Swan: Whereas with influencers, you're using them because of their audiences and their following and they follow them because of their authenticity. And I mean, you know, if you're scrolling on Instagram, me or TikTok for you, and you see an ad. Yeah. with an influencer that's like, you know, clearly very scripted.

Julia Swan: I'm not watching it. It's an ick, 

Sammy Albon: isn't it? Yeah, it's an ick. 

Julia Swan: I'm not even watching it with the subtitles. I am scrolling not even 

Sammy Albon: watching with your eyes. You're just scrolling past that. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, I'm just not. Because it's just not, yeah, it's not, it doesn't feel authentic. There must be another word for authentic.

Sammy Albon: Relatable? Real? It's not, yeah. Credible? 

Julia Swan: Credible's nice. Yeah, it doesn't feel interchangeably 

Sammy Albon: in the decks that I send you, so. Yeah, 

Julia Swan: I feel like I just use authentic over and over and over again. 

Sammy Albon: But it's the, it needs to resonate, right? And there needs to be [00:17:00] an affinity between the messaging and the influencer and the audience.

Sammy Albon: 100%. And that's really mixed. Um, really missed quite often, like you just said. Um, so. I guess there is a real balance to be had between the brand messaging and safeguarding that influencer's tone of voice. Do you think there's been any campaigns that you've done or you've seen from other people that have really gotten this balance right or are great examples of this?

Sammy Albon: Um, Say all of your work if you want. 

Julia Swan: I would like to bring up Nerf 

Sammy Albon: Jailfire Beta Squad. That was amazing. I, 

Julia Swan: yeah. I think, you know, it's not often that you're in a position where you have a brand and an influencer or influencers. content creators that fit it so perfectly that fit the brief. So I think, you know, when we, your guys came back and said, we want to work with Vader squad and actually they were keen, but it was like, we have to listen to what works for them.

Julia Swan: So they 

Sammy Albon: were really involved in the process, weren't they? 

Julia Swan: Yeah. A hundred percent. And we share some 

Sammy Albon: more detail on like the collaboration mechanics, like how they were integral in bringing the creative together. [00:18:00]

Julia Swan: So how it worked was we kind of went to them and said, look, we've got this new nerf action experience location in Manchester.

Julia Swan: We want to shoot some content to showcase Jailfire. We want it. It was going to sit on AJ's channel. So, um, AJ and his agent kind of came back and said, look, this hide and seek, um, what do you want to call it? Like concept that they use normally works really, really well. So we were like, okay. And to be honest, we just worked with them and the production company.

Julia Swan: To like, work out a script that, you know, it felt, it felt really authentic and I think when you look through the comments, so when it went live, I literally sat over that weekend watching the views just go up and up and up. I'm seeing what the views are on 

Sammy Albon: now, I'm typing away, I want to find out. What is on three million 

Julia Swan: three million Wow and when you look at the comments some of that You know, obviously a lot of them are like, oh, I love you AJ, but some of them are like 

from you 

Julia Swan: Yeah, some of them.

Julia Swan: I remember reading one saying like this is the best kind of branded 

piece 

Julia Swan: of [00:19:00] content that we've seen because knife Jalfire is You know, it's throughout the whole pitch. You can't really watch anything without seeing Jailfire. It's a 

Sammy Albon: very dedicated video. What I loved about it is that so when you work on YouTube, you know, this is an integrated and dedicated video.

Sammy Albon: So integration, a bit of the video is dedicated to the product, the rest is just their usual content. Whereas dedicated is where the whole video is sponsored and dedicated to the brand. I think there's very few occasions where they land really well, and they're a fuller piece of work. But this one was just so authentic, so seamless, and it just worked.

Sammy Albon: And the comments were like, we obviously look at a brand lift when we report on the campaigns review. The comments were around joy and love and like excitement. And it was like quite adrenaline packed. Like it was, it was. a good piece of content it 

Julia Swan: was and it was just such a good mix as well yeah yeah it has been nominated for some awards it was such a good mix because it had like it you know really showcased the product but also it was funny as you say it was adrenaline filled in your 

Sammy Albon: face was it it [00:20:00] was just but 

Julia Swan: it was just like completely and utterly them 

Sammy Albon: and 

Julia Swan: And I think what their fans were looking for, which is, we wanted to speak to their target audience, which is why we chose to work with them, so, yeah, I think that.

Sammy Albon: Their audience wants them, and you let them be them, um, and the results, and that'll continue to grow for years, that's gonna stay on their channel for a long time. Um, I think one other one I wanted to call out, which I thought was a runaway success that we didn't expect, was Cluedo Murder on the Internet.

Julia Swan: Yeah, you love that. 

Sammy Albon: I love that campaign. Um, This time last year, was it? 

Julia Swan: Yeah, do you know what? It came up on my like, you know, your memories thing on your photos. Did it? Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: I was going to say, Facebook memories. Do you use Facebook? I don't 

Julia Swan: use Facebook. Nah, we were talking 

Sammy Albon: about this in one of the other episodes with someone else and we were just like, unless I want to get in touch with mum.

Sammy Albon: I just don't want to 

Julia Swan: cringe anymore at the awful statuses I put up when I was younger, like. 

Sammy Albon: Delete that. Cut that negative energy out of your life. No 

Julia Swan: one needed to see that or know that. 

Sammy Albon: But um, on Cluedo Murder on the Internet, which actually came up in your camera roll, not on your Facebook, Um, [00:21:00] I'd had conversations in the weeks since that where people say, Oh, that I saw the Cluedo murder on the internet campaign.

Sammy Albon: I was like, that wasn't even the biggest budget campaign. It was just really outlived itself because you let the influencers, uh, for anyone watching, there was like this online murder mystery. Um, and the influencers took part in it. Some from true crime, others just, generally interested in crime content.

Sammy Albon: Um, and it just lived beyond itself. It just went so far. Yeah. And people were bringing up that there was the photo shoot and there was just the energy behind it was just so intriguing. I thought that was another great example of when Hasbro has just been able to let influencers speak to their audiences in their own way.

Julia Swan: And I think it was just a great example of Hasbro actually activating a global campaign. So it was our first, I think, social led campaign that was, you know, piece of social content that and I think The US had an influencer a true crime, but they kind of did the same to have a content each week And we were the only market that brought other Influencers on board and it was [00:22:00] a lot 

Sammy Albon: of work for you for approvals I mean, it was 

Julia Swan: but I think 

Sammy Albon: it was fun though 

Julia Swan: to be able to go back after and say hey look what we did This was incredible.

Julia Swan: And I think it like It was genuinely a really cool campaign, so the influencers were, they, it wasn't fake, they were involved, and I the 

Sammy Albon: spoilers, they weren't aware of the whole whodunit, wasn't it? No, they were going through it, 

Julia Swan: yeah, they were going through it live to work out whodunit. And I just think, yeah, I think Cluedo is also a really underrated game, and it's personally my favourite Hasbro product.

Sammy Albon: Is it? 

Julia Swan: Yeah, I love Cluedo. Really? 

Sammy Albon: I thought you'd have you down as Furby. 

Julia Swan: I like Furby, but I love Cluedo. The nostalgia of it all. I love Cluedo. 

Sammy Albon: When was the last time you played Cluedo? 

Julia Swan: Uh, about three weeks ago at a friend's house. Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: I've never played a full game. 

Julia Swan: My boyfriend hates it. Because he's rubbish at it.

Julia Swan: That's why. 

Sammy Albon: Get better. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Don't hate the player. 

Julia Swan: you have to, you have to be on the ball. 

Sammy Albon: Mm. 

Julia Swan: But, very good game. Are 

Sammy Albon: you, are you a sore winner? 

Julia Swan: No, um, depends who I'm with. I don't play [00:23:00] Monopoly because I 

Sammy Albon: can't I always had a mate that was always a dodgy banker And I was just pilfering money. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, there's a lot about 

Sammy Albon: someone's character 

Julia Swan: It does and I think you know, you just have arguments for no reason playing Monopoly.

Julia Swan: It's just you know, it's 

Sammy Albon: for some fun Christmases 

Julia Swan: It's literally a board game, like, we don't need to argue about it. 

Sammy Albon: Messaging we steer clear of in all Influencer comps. Yeah, this is 

Julia Swan: true. 

Sammy Albon: We're like, play the game authentically, but not that authentically. Yeah, 

Julia Swan: don't hit each other. 

Sammy Albon: Keep violence out of the content.

Sammy Albon: Um, I wanted to touch on your experience of cross platform campaigns, um, or different campaigns activating on a range of platforms. When do you decide on the platform? So obviously we've discussed TikTok, we've discussed Reels, when do you know which platform you want to activate on? 

Julia Swan: I just ask you and you tell me.

Sammy Albon: You just trust what I 

Julia Swan: say. Um, no, I think, again, it depends on who we're trying to reach, depends on the type of product. I think TikTok is really having its moment at Hasbro. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. Every conversation we [00:24:00] have. I 

Julia Swan: think as well, there's a level, you know, when you work in house for, for brands, there's a level of, you've got like senior stakeholders that have certain expectations and obviously we've got our own socials that we're doing things on, but, um, so keeping them in, in consideration as well.

Julia Swan: But yeah, Tik Tok seems to be. at the minute, where, because we're obviously reaching parents or we're reaching that older kind of kid, you know, young adult, we should say. I 

Sammy Albon: think TikTok's got a really unique position of like, and we spoke about this recently, but it does really unite the generations. And I think the misconception of it being just for kids, the amount of, I mean, I'm using it for like home decor inspo and like parents are using it to, you know, Either look for in both for their kids' birthdays or Christmases, but also just generally using the platform for fun.

Julia Swan: Yeah, and I think, I know I said to you, I don't really, I don't doom scroll on TikTok, but I like personally would use, like say if I'm going on holiday, I'd be looking at best things to, like I went to Florence last year, best things do, and Florence, and then best restaurants as I, so I think, yeah, a lot of people are using it for like information [00:25:00] finding as well.

Julia Swan: So 

Sammy Albon: it's replacing Google for Gen Z. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Which is terrifying. 

Julia Swan: And I remember you came to me with these stats because I was one of these like three years ago. And obviously there was a lot of legalities around TikTok as well wasn't there to like get through because it wasn't in the same space that like the meta was there.

Julia Swan: It wasn't as 

Sammy Albon: established as meta as YouTube and Google. Exactly. 

Julia Swan: Um. Yeah. So I think it took, it took, and I don't think Hasbro are the only brand. I think it took a lot of big corporate companies a while to be, to be there. 

Sammy Albon: Well, it's having a moment in the U S at the moment, isn't it? 

Julia Swan: Yeah. Oh, it is having a moment in the U S.

Julia Swan: A 

Sammy Albon: real big moment. Is it going to be banned? Will it be banned? 

Julia Swan: I don't know. Let's 

Sammy Albon: hope it's after our campaigns. 

Julia Swan: Exactly. Let's get the coverage first. In the UK, eh? Um, but yeah, I think TikTok's big at the minute, but again, it really depends on what we're looking for. I think sometimes Instagram's a really nice fit.

Julia Swan: For some of our campaigns and Depends 

Sammy Albon: on the product, doesn't it? Yeah, 

Julia Swan: and YouTube as well. I think YouTube, like, had its moment years ago. Instagram came out and everyone's like forget about YouTube. It's 

Sammy Albon: because it was [00:26:00] easier. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, and now I think YouTube's kind of coming back again because I feel like YouTube fans and followers are like, they're loyal to YouTube, aren't 

Sammy Albon: they?

Sammy Albon: You know, this is what I live for. I want YouTube to be more and more at the forefront of campaigns we do, but it's not always fit for purpose in terms of like driving to sales. Obviously we can do it organically, but it's not always the right option. But YouTube, like you saw with, um, BetaSquad, is just phenomenal in driving that sort of community.

Julia Swan: Yeah, we'll often supplement as well, won't we? So we'll have like a long form video on YouTube and then 

Sammy Albon: BetaSquad, 

Julia Swan: for instance, they then shared on their Instagram with a, like a swipe up link with a call to action. So. 

Sammy Albon: So it's like the full sort of 360 of the platform. Yeah. favourite platform at the moment?

Julia Swan: I think, I think in terms of work, TikTok. Bit of a bit of a crater 

Sammy Albon: on the side. 

Julia Swan: Um, not really. 

Sammy Albon: No. 

Julia Swan: No, I'm, I couldn't do it. Are you 

Sammy Albon: a LinkedIn girlie? 

Julia Swan: I post every now and then on LinkedIn if something good happens. I dabble. I dabble. [00:27:00] I might tell you actually, my last post on LinkedIn got about 200 likes.

Julia Swan: Did 

Sammy Albon: it? 

Julia Swan: Yeah, and I was like, what's going 

Sammy Albon: on here? What, LinkedIn influencer 

Julia Swan: over here? What's going on 

Sammy Albon: here? Someone's famous. 

Julia Swan: It was about the firb trees. 

Sammy Albon: Can we talk about the Ferb trees 

Julia Swan: we can because I'm obsessed. 

Sammy Albon: I was honestly that campaign so towards the end of last year I think you briefed pretty green on like we need a quick turnaround reactive 

Julia Swan: quick turnaround three weeks.

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah 

Julia Swan: for 

Sammy Albon: a Furby stunt 

Julia Swan: Yes, 

Sammy Albon: what was delivered? I think has been hugely successful But depends how you view it because Furby eyes were either nightmare nightmare fuel or I Right up people's streets. Can you explain kind of what what the activation was 

Julia Swan: and how 

Sammy Albon: that involved like social? 

Julia Swan: So what it was was we wanted to jump on the sort of CGI AR trend I know people calling it AI and I don't think it is AI.

Julia Swan: I think 

Sammy Albon: it's it's AR. Yep 

Julia Swan: Yeah, it's 

Sammy Albon: AI. AR. Yeah, it's like VR. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. CGI, I'm gonna call it. So we wanted to jump on that trend that we'd seen, you know, some other brands do really [00:28:00] nicely like North Face with Big Ben and, um, Maybelline with the eyelashes on them. Yeah, and the London buses. Um, and so yeah, we briefed the team and said, hey guys, we've got three weeks to turn this around.

Sammy Albon: Can you do it? 

Julia Swan: And I think, bless the team, I had a call at one point with them and they had about 40 ideas. So we went through and then we narrowed them down and yeah, it kind of came to light with the fir trees, obviously the firby Christmas trees. 

Sammy Albon: It was Paris. 

Julia Swan: So we did one in Paris, we did one in Berlin and we did one in London.

Sammy Albon: And there was sort of big CGI trees that the stump was, I mean, Were they real? Weren't they real? 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: We wouldn't even know. I mean, 

Julia Swan: it's really, it's really cool how it works in terms of like the CGI and how I mean, we learned a lot, you know, like you, you can get, you know, you know, you can get stock images, but you get stock footage as well.

Julia Swan: Um, so yeah, I mean, it, what was interesting about that is it worked so well in the UK. It [00:29:00] absolutely like smashed KPIs. I think it technically went viral. We did media partnerships. We did like, and the way we did it as well was to have the media partnerships go live. And then obviously, you know, we did it as well.

Julia Swan: paid against those media partnerships and then these were sort of the likes 

Sammy Albon: of like, um, Love of Huns and yeah, 

Julia Swan: yeah. Great British memes. And then we went with the earned media afterwards to say like, look what's happened over the weekend. But in France and Germany, it just didn't get the same pickup at all.

Sammy Albon: Is that because of Furby's level of love in those? 

Julia Swan: No, absolutely not. Furby is still as popular. I think in France, they'd already done a lot of stuff from, you know, Furby. So they had a lot of ad media coverage already. And I don't think they did the media partnerships, but in Germany, it just wasn't the same.

Julia Swan: Media was just not interested. Really? It wasn't, and, and Meta took the, so they had paid behind it, and Meta like, stopped it, because they, um, because it had no call to action, they thought it was like, 

Sammy Albon: Right. [00:30:00]

Julia Swan: I don't know, like a fraudulent thing or something, because, So 

Sammy Albon: it's navigating that as well with the platforms.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. That's interesting. I 

Julia Swan: mean, it's, it's good that I guess they pulled it up, but, um, and then the last thing that they had like, uh, A Farmer's Strike or something happened at Brandenburg Gate on the day that we did the So they 

Sammy Albon: knew that it was a VR stunt. Yeah. AR stunt. Yeah. 

Julia Swan: So, um, but no, it was, it was really interesting because as I say, the UK media and UK consumers just lapped it up.

Julia Swan: They absolutely loved it. 

Sammy Albon: I think there's so much love for Furby. And 

Julia Swan: all these Furby fan sites just came out of the woodwork. 

Sammy Albon: Have you got a Furby? 

Julia Swan: I have about six Furbys in my house. I still don't have 

Sammy Albon: one. 

Julia Swan: Um, I can give you mine. 

Sammy Albon: Um, you can keep it. 

Julia Swan: I haven't actually unboxed any of them. Okay, because I don't 

Sammy Albon: want them to talk.

Sammy Albon: I remember I used to have a little black and white one. I called it Patch when I was like, five. And, uh, I was probably older than that. Probably shouldn't have had a Furby, I was too old. Um, And it kept going off in the night, so I had to put it in like the dining room. 

Julia Swan: I locked mine in the cupboard, [00:31:00] because it kept going on.

Julia Swan: That 

Sammy Albon: is furby abuse. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, I locked it in the cupboard. I remember it wouldn't stop talking. Now, our new ones, you can actually send them to sleep. You have to like, do something. Into like 

Sammy Albon: a wellness meditative state, isn't it? Yes, 

Julia Swan: like meditating, yes. 

Sammy Albon: Um, so it's kind of, you've said you've been obviously agency side in the past.

Sammy Albon: So you've kind of seen both sides of how the dynamic works. Um, at Pretty Green, we kind of use, Insights to really inform our strategic approach and inform the campaign output. So whether that's topicalities, audience tensions, brand superpowers, which we like to establish per brand. So you've seen us do a lot for different Hasbro brands.

Sammy Albon: As a brand, how important is it, um, for you to work with agencies who dig into that insight, who aren't just, giving you a strategy that looks ill informed. How important is the upfront? 

Julia Swan: I think it's the most important bit. 

Sammy Albon: You always say this. Yeah, 

Julia Swan: because we said this, I said this earlier as well, like creativity is subjective.

Julia Swan: And I struggle with that sometimes because you'll have one person that loves an idea [00:32:00] and another that hates it, but it doesn't matter. It needs to come from insight. So if you can come to us and say our like audience insight, the brand insight, the culture insight is this. Then it doesn't really matter if certain person or one stakeholder doesn't like the creative if we can showcase that it's going to meet the objective from the insights, then it's kind of a no brainer.

Julia Swan: So I think it's super important, not just because it's going to do the job, but also it's going to help me do my job. So when I'm internally speaking to stakeholders, I can say, 

Sammy Albon: yeah, this is 

Julia Swan: why we're doing it because of X, Y, Z. It's underpinned 

Sammy Albon: by that creative, uh, strategic thinking. 

Julia Swan: Exactly. 

Sammy Albon: So if there's someone listening that is perhaps a smaller brand and they're thinking about bringing on an agency, do you have any advice for them?

Sammy Albon: How do I best sort of ways of working or how important is chemistry? Obviously we can't stand one another, but that doesn't matter because the content's great. But how important, like what are the central pillars to that? 

Julia Swan: So I think this is really [00:33:00] cringe. When I first started at Hasbro, it was like the agency has to be an extension of your team.

Sammy Albon: I've heard that a lot. Yeah. 

Julia Swan: I genuinely do think that's true. I'm working 

Sammy Albon: out right now how to block you on Teams. 

Julia Swan: Like, it's so important to have, to feel like they are an extension of your team, because I can. It's not just a 

Sammy Albon: supplier. No, exactly. It's more than that. 

Julia Swan: And I think because I've been agency side as well, I understand, you know, we've all been there with clients that aren't necessarily the nicest to work with.

Julia Swan: So I think, I like to think that I work with you guys and have like a level of respect as well. Um, But I think it's, yeah, if you're looking for an agency, they need to feel like an extension of your team. You need to feel like you can reach out to them for advice, because Some, you know, we don't all know everything and, you know, we were joking around earlier about our briefs and stuff.

Julia Swan: But yeah, you know, we're putting briefs together and sometimes it's a case of like, I don't actually know, let me just pick up the phone or send you a note on Teams. Um, and just have an honest conversation to say, here's what I'm [00:34:00] being asked of internally. How can you help me? Um, And I think, yeah, just working together in that way, because I think a lot of the time we don't have a lot of lead time.

Julia Swan: I mean, maybe you said we're not the worst. I just need six 

Sammy Albon: weeks, but yeah, you often give me that, so that's fine. 

Julia Swan: But when we can then say, okay, well, we can work together. I don't need you to pull together a massive deck with 50 slides. We can just jump on a call and you can run through everything like that.

Julia Swan: There's, I think it's just ways of working and 

Sammy Albon: Just being more collaborative, but also making it like you're one team. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: As opposed to just. an agency client telling each other, you know, telling us what to do. It's more like, here's why we think you should be doing this. 

Julia Swan: And I think as well, like from my side, giving you guys insight on what I need to showcase stakeholders internally, because then you can make sure that you're delivering that, you know, with decks or whatever that looks like, because that's the whole maze that we need to go through as well that 

Sammy Albon: I try 

Julia Swan: to keep you guys out of.

Sammy Albon: You do. We never get in front. This actually [00:35:00] brings me on to my last question, because I'm conscious that you've got to taxi in a little bit, so I need to make sure I, uh, Um, evaluations. I think there's often misconception that they're not that important. I think that's probably the most important part, partly because I do them.

Sammy Albon: But, um, it is important to reflect on the campaign successes. So particularly in a large corporation like Hasbro, where you can then say at a glance, this is what worked, this is what didn't. Here's the award winning campaign number three, you know. What metrics are important to you as a brand? Obviously, we can report on awareness, consideration, conversion, brand lift, but what excites people?

Julia Swan: So I think, for me, I, uh, being in the level of detail, I don't really care about things like reach and opportunities to see, unless that was our objective, like get, 

Sammy Albon: eyeballs, 

Julia Swan: yeah, crazy eyeballs on it, um, but I think to the wider business, to a senior stakeholder to say, or senior management to say, oh, we got this.

Julia Swan: Two billion reach. They love that. They love that they that, they want to [00:36:00] put that in presentations. And I think, you know, it works as well when we're speaking to customers, retailers or partners to have those types of stats. But from my point of view is definitely more deeper dive in terms of it depends on the, again, on what the objective is, but you know, in terms of engagement or like comment, sentiment and things like that, that we can really read into.

Julia Swan: Um, 

Sammy Albon: so it's not just CPMs. It's not just CPCs. things like this. I mean, we've spoken quite a lot about brand lift in the past, so it's looking at that comment sentiment, it's looking at what the intention was behind the comments, and how it played out. made people feel exactly impact, particularly for a brand that is for Hasbro looking after family brands that want kids and parents to feel great.

Sammy Albon: They want families to play games together and feel something that's really important. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. And I think, you know, we've had briefs before where it's more around like brand affinity and stuff like that and driving those types of conversations. So I think to measure that, if you guys would come back and say, Oh yeah, but we've got.

Julia Swan: Um, [00:37:00] and I love as well, which I tried to use a Hasbro, you know, like the one, nine, ninety four. And I know that was just initially that was more just for events, but I feel like you guys are rolling out more into, into other, um, evaluations because it just makes so much sense. And I think at the beginning to align on 1%, the 9 percent or the 90.

Sammy Albon: Yeah. 

Julia Swan: It's super important. So then that's going to help you with your evaluation. I feel like I need 

Sammy Albon: to give a context of what the 1 9 90 is now. 

Julia Swan: Should I give you what I think it is? Go on, 

Sammy Albon: and then I'll tell you if you're completely off. Okay. 

Julia Swan: The 1 is, the 1 percent is the people that directly engage. So they are attending an event or whatever.

Julia Swan: The 9% Yeah, they're making the content. The 9 percent are those that are Sort of involved with it, they might be commenting on there, they'd be sharing it with a friend, they'd be liking it. And then the 90 are just the passive people that are watching it happen, they're seeing it, you're getting their eyeballs.

Julia Swan: But they're not actually engaging in any way, shape or form with it. 

Sammy Albon: Basically, yeah. Correct? [00:38:00] We, we came up with this KPI framework. So, um, Pretty Green has this KPI framework called 1 9 90, which you're right, it came from events originally, where it's like the 1 percent were the attendees, the 9 percent was maybe the content they put out, and then 90 percent were the eyeballs, either before or after the event that saw the content.

Sammy Albon: So now we have 1 9 90, which is the 1 percent is the outputs. So for influence, that's the content, that's the influences turning up, that's the outcomes, that's the 9%, so that will be reach and awareness. Um, So the outcomes is actually the content and the outreach, which is the 90 percent is, is the, is the number of people looking at the content.

Sammy Albon: So like impressions and things like that. So yeah, it's, it's just a way of what we think is really useful for you as a brand is no matter what you're activating, you have the same KPI framework. You can see this versus the other campaign performed. So you can at a glance compare it. So it's really important for your agency partners to have like a KPI framework that you can hold them to each time.

Julia Swan: Yes. [00:39:00] And I think what else is really great is again, having those conversations in advance. So if you're putting the evaluation together and I say, Can you like a campaign on a page slide so then I can pull that out and send that to like the most senior people and then I can, you know, I will pull different pieces to send to different people.

Julia Swan: Yeah. It needs to 

Sammy Albon: be choppable. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. And I think to have those honest conversations, I can say to you, don't put in every single stat from every, from 12 different information. You don't need 

it. Because 

Julia Swan: no one's going to look at it, but pull out the biggies, you know, the ones that So there's like, so the call to action or, you know, we're getting massive click through rate, then people want to see that because driving convergence is obviously important.

Julia Swan: And 

Sammy Albon: why it happened as well. 

Julia Swan: And why? Yeah. And I think understand and learnings is so important from evaluations as well, because understanding what we, how we could do something differently next time or what worked really well, because that's going to inform decisions, not just that we do, but I can then take them to the larger business and say, For instance, that, you know, we've got our, we're [00:40:00] doing our piece of monopoly with the paid, you know, we've got paid cut down, we're putting spend behind it and then other markets are running it in a different way.

Julia Swan: So 

Sammy Albon: you can like for like compare? Yeah, 

Julia Swan: so we can literally compare and say, well, this is what the influence content delivered. This is what the brand, branded assets delivered. And it's going to put us in a really good spot as we move into like the second half of the year and 2025. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah, definitely. So learning is like the most important part to inform future stuff.

Sammy Albon: I mean, I've gone through all my questions, but what we have got, uh, and I'm going to get producer George to join us in our hot seat. Oh wait, you know, you've got a microphone over there now. That's George's voice that you're hearing right now. It does exist. I've been allowed a microphone this week. It's creeping me out actually.

Sammy Albon: I don't like it. Yes, I don't like anyone else having a microphone other than me. Um, Georges got some quick fire questions. Okay. So we're gonna go through these and we're both gonna do them so you don't feel like you're in Grand Norton chat at the same time. Yeah, but you can go first 'cause I'm Cuties.

Julia Swan: Okay, thanks. 

Sammy Albon: Go on George Schitt's Creek or Friends? Shits Creek. Sorry. You supposed to go first. What was [00:41:00] that? 

Julia Swan: Friends? I do really like Schitt's Creek though. 

Sammy Albon: I just love the mum. Um, 

Julia Swan: Moira. 

Sammy Albon: Moira. 

Julia Swan: I just love all of them. I love it. I love Alexa. 

Sammy Albon: Alexa. She's so funny. 

Julia Swan: I just love it. I love her so much. She's like, who's the um, I love that for you.

Sammy Albon: Secret millionaire. Um, 

Julia Swan: works. Twyla. 

Sammy Albon: Twyla. 

Julia Swan: What a name. Cause she, and she, you know, she's sister in real life with 

Sammy Albon: To Adam, who plays the brother. Is it Adam? 

Julia Swan: What's his Why, why is his name escaping my brain? 

Sammy Albon: Let's have a look. I love 

Julia Swan: him. Like, I literally love him. 

Sammy Albon: He, they went viral over lockdown. David. 

Julia Swan: Ew.

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: David. Ew, David. Uh, Dan Levy. 

Julia Swan: Dan Levy. Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: Dan Levy. 

Julia Swan: Love him.

Sammy Albon: Not, not David or whoever I said. I did 

Julia Swan: ask him when he said it. I was like, that's not his name. I 

Sammy Albon: just love that when he founds that little apothecary, you know, and he just walks around like this, like. I 

Julia Swan: love him so much. 

Sammy Albon: Sorry. Carry on.

Sammy Albon: That's fine. Christmas or birthday presents? Christmas. 

Julia Swan: Birthday. Lucky 

Producer George: day. How about you? 

Julia Swan: Don't know why. 

Producer George: [00:42:00] Which actor or actress would you like to see or hear voice a Furby?

Julia Swan: Justin Timberlake, because then I'd like to be there as he recorded it and I'd love him. 

Sammy Albon: Justin Timberlake. I'm trying to think of someone really, Mr. Bean? It'd just be like, little grunts and sounds. 

Julia Swan: That could work. I used to, also, I used to love Mr. Bean when I was younger. Did you? Me and my brother used to watch him all the time.

Julia Swan: Niche. 

Sammy Albon: He's not done anything for years. 

Julia Swan: Well, as in Bean or Rowan Atkinson? 

Sammy Albon: Both, I haven't 

Julia Swan: Apparently, he's a really miserable guy in real life. 

Sammy Albon: We should get him on a Hasbro campaign. 

Julia Swan: No. Justin Timberlake. 

Producer George: Go on. Nerf Transformers or Beyblade. Beyblade, 

Sammy Albon: just a nostalgia. 

Julia Swan: Um, Nerf, possibly. Oh, 

Sammy Albon: I do like Transformers though.

Sammy Albon: You have Power Rangers. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, Power Rangers as well. 

Sammy Albon: That's doing a comeback on TikTok at the moment, have you seen it? 

Julia Swan: No, I haven't. 

Sammy Albon: We'll chat about it. 

Julia Swan: Ah. 

Sammy Albon: Massive numbers for the Transformers. Big 

Julia Swan: fans on Power Rangers, yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Diehard. Favourite Cluedo character? 

Julia Swan: Colonel Mustard. 

Sammy Albon: [00:43:00] Plum. 

Julia Swan: Plum. 

Sammy Albon: Got new characters now though, haven't they?

Sammy Albon: Well, the same names but different designs. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Chef White. 

Julia Swan: Chef White. I'm always, I always want to be Plum. Scarlet. 

Sammy Albon: Scarlet? Miss Scarlet. 

Julia Swan: Just Scarlet now, I think. Is 

Sammy Albon: it? 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Colonel Mustard's my favourite. Are you 

Julia Swan: trying to name them all? Um, yeah, I've given up. Reverend Green. 

Sammy Albon: Peacock.

Julia Swan: Yeah, Peacock, Scarlet, Reverend Green.

Julia Swan: Colonel Mustard. White. Colonel Mustard. Plum. 

Sammy Albon: I swear there's one more. 

Producer George: Black. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, Professor Black. 

Producer George: Professor Black. Operation Gesu or Jenga, and which Schitt's Creek character would win at it? Jenga.

Sammy Albon: Alexa. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Operation. 

Julia Swan: Moira. No, she, because she's too drunk probably. I love the trailer. Who's David's husband? Well, I can't remember any of their names. 

Sammy Albon: Um, I want to say like Pete or something. 

Julia Swan: No. He's got 

Sammy Albon: like a very light vanilla name. 

Julia Swan: I love him when he sings Simply the Best. 

Sammy Albon: Oh [00:44:00] no, I'm so cringed, I can't watch that.

Sammy Albon: No, 

Julia Swan: I, that, for some reason it doesn't make me cringe. I love it. I thought 

Sammy Albon: you had the same sort of cringe I 

Julia Swan: do, but I really like that. What's his name? David 

Sammy Albon: Schitt's partner. 

Julia Swan: That's gonna come out as some 

Sammy Albon: weird stuff. Yeah, it is. Oh, Patrick. 

Julia Swan: Patrick. Patrick. 

Sammy Albon: Who is the guy that Alexa went out with that went, was a vet and then went to like 

Julia Swan: I can't remember any of their names.

Julia Swan: I love him as that. The 

Sammy Albon: Galapagos Islands. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. No, he would be good. He'd win an operation because he was a vet. Yeah, he's 

Sammy Albon: a vet. I think, what was the other game? Guess who? Guess who? Operation. Oh, so guess who? 

Julia Swan: I feel like, no, or, yeah, or Alexa because they, like, know everyone. Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: because Alexa did PR, so.

Julia Swan: Yeah. Oh, she did do PR. Yeah, 

Sammy Albon: she did PR for Moira. Yeah. For the Crows film. Oh, 

Julia Swan: it's such a good show. 

Producer George: No, finally, we've got a question from a listener. One, Kit Wilson. If you could have a dream celeb talent for a campaign, who would it [00:45:00] be and for which brand? 

Julia Swan: I just said. 

Producer George: You just said Justin Timberlake. Am I 

Julia Swan: just being selfish because I want to meet them, or is this actually because it's You can say someone else.

Julia Swan: I'd get Billie Eilish. Um. Really? It's the witch brand. She'd be great on Furby. 

Sammy Albon: Yeah. She could do like a Furby coat. Yeah. 

Julia Swan: I would. Take that. If you use 

Sammy Albon: that, I want kickbacks. 

Julia Swan: Okay. Okay, I'm gonna go with my other favourite celebrity, Lewis Hamilton, um, on Monopoly because I feel like on like a Monopoly knockout or something.

Julia Swan: In a little 

sports car. 

Julia Swan: Yeah. There should be a Formula 1 Monopoly. Oh my god, I would pick a lot of the shit out of that. 

Sammy Albon: Lewis Hamilton, talent attached. 

Julia Swan: Be like, are you working on anything else? No, I'm still just doing this. 

Sammy Albon: This is my focus now? 

Julia Swan: Yeah, I just want to go around all of the Formula Ones and 

Sammy Albon: I have to interview all of them as part of the role, that's know what?

Julia Swan: I think Lando Norris, um, and maybe it was Carlos Sainz when he was racing for McLaren, were playing with Nerf on Drive to Survive. 

Sammy Albon: I [00:46:00] forgot how much you love Formula One. It's just clicked in my head. 

Julia Swan: Yeah, I'm going off it a bit because I just can't. 

Sammy Albon: Actually, have you watched Formula E? 

Julia Swan: That's 

Sammy Albon: got AR in it.

Julia Swan: Oh yeah. 

Sammy Albon: Do they go through these little boost things? 

Julia Swan: No, I've never seen that. I 

Sammy Albon: have, I watched it once. I was like, this is weird. I know one of 

Julia Swan: the drivers, because I met him. Personally? Stoffel van Doorn. No, not personally. I think I met him somewhere. 

Sammy Albon: You dropped a name? 

Julia Swan: Stoffel. 

Sammy Albon: Is it 

Producer George: a Stoffel? 

Julia Swan: I met Max Verstappen.

Julia Swan: Yeah, I went to an after race party. 

Producer George: Is he as miserable as he looks? 

Julia Swan: This was when he wasn't, like, as big as he was. I hate him. I went to, like, this after race party. And, um, yeah, I met Max. And I met Valtteri Bottas. Waited for him to go to the toilet so I could get a picture of him. 

Sammy Albon: In the toilet? Or, like No, 

Julia Swan: not in the toilet.

Julia Swan: I was like, he's going to get up any time soon. But, yeah. Anyway. Well, 

Sammy Albon: I'll tell you what. We'll leave it on that. That was a lovely note to finish on, but uh, Julia, thank you for joining us this podcast. I hope it's the most fun you've had in a long time. [00:47:00]

Julia Swan: It was. It was really fun. Probably wasn't. Thanks for having me.

Julia Swan: That's right. I asked you first, 

Sammy Albon: just so you know. What do 

Julia Swan: you mean?

Sammy Albon: After everyone else declined, then I asked you. Yeah, thanks. What joke did I ask? Please make sure you like, comment and subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast. Please get involved in the comments and make sure you give us a review.

Sammy Albon: It really helps. You can catch us on all your favorite podcasting platforms, Spotify, Apple podcasts. You can't escape us. And make sure you stay up to date on LinkedIn. And I'll see you next time.