Speaker 1Fletcher and Connor Watson, welcome to The Mentor, guys. Thanks for having us. Two brothers. Yes. Pretty cool. Yeah. I didn't realize you had a younger brother. Really? No, I didn't realize. And he's pretty smart, too. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit. Oh, I like it. I like it. I like it. Sportsman. Yeah. Is that a little crack? No, no. Yes, it is. Come on. Yeah, come on. Now, I know your mom. I haven't ever met your dad, but I know your mom. And great mom and pretty switched on. I mean, I met with Connor a few times. And Connor's sort of, you know, I have to disclose, I'm on the board of the Roosters, have been for a long time, and he's one of our key players, been playing with us for many years. And I'm a Connor fan. And he has come to me on a few occasions with little business ideas that he's had, even when he was at Newcastle. He had a bit of a business idea, and he's been sort of trying to sort himself out for his future. Which is what all sports athletes should do that. But in his case, he's liked it because he's got his brother sitting aside. So, we know what Connor does. Fletcher, can you give me an idea of what you have done in the past? What's your deal?
Speaker 2So, I mean, I left high school. I didn't even finish year 12. So, I did term year 12 and gap day. I didn't really enjoy it anymore. And I was at Knox with, kind of left, but I was at Knox too, it's the boarding school. And I wasn't playing rugby at the time. I was injured. I sort of done my shoulder, and I kind of just fell in love with everything. And so, I went back home, moved back to the coast, and started working for mum and dad. So, they have like a supplier company. And they work all through government, sort of health, all that sort of stuff. And just did that. And I actually went to acting school for a few years. Did that. Still do the acting stuff on the side when it sort of pops up. But it's been a bit harder the last few years as we, you know, we started the company. It's gotten a lot busier. But, yeah, I just started working for mum and dad and realized that I actually kind of enjoyed watching. And not just like, yeah, just enjoyed watching them have their own company and sort of run their own thing. And obviously, they had the association that runs off the business. And there was that sort of, yeah, it was fun. And it was good to see. And it was something that I kind of fell in love with. I didn't think I was going to be like a business owner or anything. When I was young, it wasn't really something that occurred to me at all. But, yeah, and then I ended up really randomly. It was through another guy on the board of the association that. Would you just talk about what the association is?
Speaker 3Yeah, it's a cultural choice association. So, it's a charity that we started back in 2017. 18. 18, yes, 18. You know better than me. Sorry, but we, yeah, we unfortunately lost our younger cousin in 2017 to suicide. And from that point on, we started the association to assist in the prevention of Indigenous youth suicide because, you know, the numbers are too high and it affected our family. Yeah. So, we didn't want other families to go through it. So, we started that.
Speaker 1And by the way, equally, you know, your family, you are Indigenous boys, proud Indigenous boys. So, that's as opposed to being white fellas trying to do that. You have Indigenous backgrounds. So, that should be made clear in the film at the very beginning, which is one of the reasons you've done this.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, exactly. My cousin is Indigenous. He was Indigenous as well. So, that was a big thing for us. Yeah. Just looking at the numbers and just. I mean, suicide generally and mental health is an epidemic in society and then even more so in rural communities and then Indigenous communities on top of that. So, we started that to try and bring awareness to the issue and help in prevention in some way. And yeah, it's been going for nearly sort of getting close to 10 years now, which has been a good journey. It's been a tough journey. I think non-for-profits are really hard just trying to keep them sustainable. Yeah. As you know, compared to other businesses where you're sort of selling. I guess you are sort
Speaker 1of selling a product, but it's a product people can't get their heads around. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And how did doing that end up in what you're doing now? What was the inspiration for Wildfire content?
Speaker 2Well, me and Connor have always spoken about sort of starting, we were always obsessed with film when we were kids, whether it was sort of me and Connor doing drama or just getting the camera out at home. Him? Was he doing it?
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, he was doing drama. That's good. He was in there. I actually did it in year 11 and 12.
Speaker 1Really? You know, it's weird. He's a bit weird for a footballer, you know, like, don't you reckon? Like, he's not your normal footy. No. Not having a crack at the footy boys, but like, he's sort of, sometimes he's got long hair and the mow and other times he's like a shorty. The alternative. He changes around. Like, it's, and I used to think, oh, it's just Benny Humblake sort of just trying to appeal to the chicks, but like, but, but like, it's not, he's sort of like got a bit of a bit of artistic in him, a bit of creativity in him. Yeah. Like, it's within himself.
Speaker 2Yeah, of course. Yeah, he always has been. And that's, I guess, how we sort of fell into it. We just wanted to do something that was in film and. Together though? Like. Yeah, yeah, we've always spoken about sort of doing our own thing and if it's making short films or, you know, trying to do music videos, whatever it was, and then randomly we started a conversation with Ben Hamswell, used to work for Great Bowery. There's like this group of production companies and we sort of mean kind of had this idea of starting a production company and he was like, well, have, have you ever worked in production? And I was like, no. And he's like, why don't you come work for me and see if you actually enjoy it before you start a company. So he gave me a job as like a PA, I'd come on and like part-time. One day a week? Yeah, one day a week, traveling down from the central, I was still living at home, so I was traveling down from the central coast one day a week to Paddington and did that and then it just eventually like sort of got two days, got three days and then he offered me a full-time job. So I took that and the whole point of it was to sort of learn, I guess, the business behind production. And then obviously eventually go out on our own and start our own thing.
Speaker 1When you say production companies, I mean, for the audience, what does that mean? A bit of production of what?
Speaker 2So we make, it's a whole range of stuff, but it's mainly video and photography content, whether it's like documentary style stuff or like branded content or ads. We do like a lot of tourism stuff too, actually in the middle of a tourism campaign for Sydney tourism, so for Destination New South Wales. So there's like a bunch of different, I guess, aspects of the company that we do, which is
Speaker 1great. Yeah. Because production is sort of. So it covers a lot of stuff. I mean, we do production here, but it's not what you guys do. So maybe you can explain your silo of production. So what's the start? Yeah. Like client or tender and what's the output?
Speaker 2Yeah. So we usually get like a client will basically reach out to us about, we have this idea that we're going to try to execute. Can you sort of look into it? And they'll sort of just run us through. It's like they give us a creative brief. You sort of look through it, see like what's possible, what's not possible in the timeframe and then you kind of just plan it out for them. So it's just like. Basically you do that. And that's why I really enjoy it. Cause you see the product from like sort of the whole thing. So it's A to Z. It's like the whole, the whole thing. So you start with just an idea and then you build it out and then you shoot it, then you edit it and then you sort of release it. So it's, um, it's pretty exciting to see it all sort of come together.
Speaker 1But is it a beauty parade? In other words, um, does a wifi have to line up against, you know, 10 others and you've got to pitch your ID?
Speaker 2Sometimes. Yeah. Is the pitch involved? Yeah. Yeah. So if it's a lot of client stuff, we pitch it. So like, I mean, government stuff. Sorry. So with all the destination, like New South Wales and stuff. That's 10 to 10. Yeah. Yeah. And then we submit our own creative. So we go like, this is what we want it to look like. This is how we want to shoot it. This is the team we're bringing on to, you know, make that happen. And then you sort of have a few meetings with them and they sort of, yeah, they, it's usually sort of between two to five companies that are sort of going for them and then they make a decision on that.
Speaker 1So a lot of people, and it's funny, you know, you should say, because, um, I was only talking to a, um, an indigenous Aboriginal group. Uh, last week about, and they were telling me about, um, this is New South Wales government that in the case of New South Wales, a certain percentage of tenants need to be, um, won by Aboriginals. And then, and, and they were talking about it as Barwarina and they were talking about that not enough people from Barwarina actually win these things as other Aboriginals from other areas, other groups, Aboriginal groups tend to win these things. And they were talking about the pitch process and, um, and how difficult the pitch process is. Like, you know, you can't just walk in and say, look, this is my idea. I mean, there's a, it's a proper process. You've got to be pretty good at that. Yeah. Pretty good at that. I mean, it's, you've got to do all the prep and I'll come back to the prep in a sec, but you've got to actually present and there's a process of presentation. Yeah. How do you two work out who's going to say what?
Speaker 3Yeah. I think, um, when it comes to the technical stuff, like the day-to-day production, that's Fletcher's bread and butter. So he sort of, um, talks about that mostly. And then like a lot of the clients. Clients that we've worked with or people that we've went and had meetings with through my network, I sort of, you know, go in there and make the introduction.
Speaker 1So you, you work at, you, you'll get caught, you'll distribute the products. In other words, you're, you're finding places to go and pitch to.
Speaker 3Yeah. A lot of the time.
Speaker 1And he's doing the pitch, but do you go along to the pitch?
Speaker 3Yeah. Sometimes. If it works out on my training days.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If, if you're available, obviously. Yeah. But like it's odd two brothers working together. I mean, I work with my brother and I know it's difficult. I mean, with my brother, I've been together for 40 years, but how does it work and keep, keep friendly and, uh, you know, keep it cool and do you ever have arguments?
Speaker 2Oh yeah. We argue quite a bit. Um, but it's just like, it's not too bad. It's not personal. No, no. But I'll be arguing. Yeah. Intellectually. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's cause you both care about the thing. You both care about the product and we want the company to be as good as, as possible that we can make it. And you know, sometimes you don't, I mean, honestly, we do align on sort of, I'd say 99% of what we want the company to be. And before we even. Started the business, we sort of sat down and we had a big, we sat down, we rewrote everything out. We have like all these. policies and stuff in place what about values of the company yeah i think we we did do some values i think yeah coming from i guess working with mom and dad and working the association and and then transitioning for like a not-for-profit into a profit business you kind of carry that um i guess the integrity along with you where it's like you know it is a business but at the end of the day i'm only employed by you because i'm going to make your product look as good as possible like we're not here to sort of you know take whatever profit it is and sort of ruin your story or your brand integrity because at the end of the day all the brands feel as personal about their companies that as we do about ours so it's like yeah at the end of the day it's i guess it's yeah just trying to take that integrity and and making sure that whatever you do is at the utmost respect for your client but also for your own name and for wildfire and um because like you're only as good as your last
Speaker 1job right yeah totally so do you find occasion if you had occasion where you had to say something we're not doing
Speaker 2this job yeah when you get to a stage where you're quite busy sort of doing a few projects and then one come by and it you know maybe the you could make a good amount of profit on it but it's like it's going to be more of a headache than it will be for like because you look at it you know sometimes the work is great that you're going to get out of it and sometimes we've made very little money on anything but we know the product's going to be really good it's going to come out of it so that's
Speaker 1good to have in your portfolio
Speaker 2yeah and i know that i'd rather you know spend x amount of money on this project because i know in the long run it's going to i'm going to get something out of it as a company
Speaker 1so that's interesting so as a business model you do take a portfolio approach in other words there is a bit of investment managers take this too by the way like they don't mind losing on some things in order to make on other things um like a portfolio approach is uh it's in my portfolio yeah it's in my book yeah here's my brand book yeah this is what we've done yeah even if you just do break even yeah is that more in the beginning of your business you do that and less so do you think towards the end of the business
Speaker 3um i think we definitely at the start yeah if this is going to help us our portfolio let's do
Speaker 1it like brand alignment align someone else's brand like coca-cola comes to you says do this campaign for me global i'm not going to even make any money but i don't mind having you know my brand associated with coca-cola
Speaker 3yeah exactly yeah um and then sort of as it's uh evolved like we've been fortunate enough that having that portfolio has helped us get bigger jobs like you know destination for example but um but i think as we sort of progress through like we have these conversations all the time around you know even though even now you know some of these clients come to us and there wasn't a good amount of profit in it we'd still do it just to continue to build that brand
Speaker 1reputation and how do you leverage someone like connor with his social media connections and he's so you know his presence how do you i mean without sounding horrible how do you leverage brother no
Speaker 2of course i mean that was like when we started the company it was like you know you're the he's got the the connections that we've got and we've got the connections that we've got and we've got the i can't get you didn't get your deep voice though i don't know
Speaker 3i throw it too much i
Speaker 2always had a deep voice even when i was like yeah he did a little kid i'm like
Speaker 3run around deep voice and like
Speaker 2really old man
Speaker 3hair i think he was i'm an old man but how do you
Speaker 1how do you leverage it and what do you say like hey mate like come on like they'd love to see you standing there like at the meeting i mean how do you do it without yeah it's like yeah
Speaker 2just take him along and it's good for him to because i guess you know football doesn't last forever and
Speaker 1it's also niches you you it niches you and you become you start to say well who's kind of what's on his state of origin play plays the roosters when that stops and who am i yeah because that that doesn't last forever it does stop yeah
Speaker 3like we i think for a long time like my the last couple years i've been pretty uh great or good
Speaker 1with injury but you had a bad run there before that and when
Speaker 3i had that bad run like i had the bumper teletendon um that was sort of when i started to actually think about because after the achilles at that point in time some people were saying this is like a career ending injury the science has got a lot better so guys are coming back in half the time they were now for an achilles so i was sort of worried at that point and thinking like what what happens now if my career is over so i did start to plan or search for passions outside of it and you know working in the charity was a big one like able to lean into that and actually give back through that but then also gain business skill through you know being on the board um now president of the board as well so that sort of changed my perspective on things a little bit and then um just the evolution of starting this with fletcher um we had the podcast when i was in newcastle and seeing like the business side of that and you know doing deals with sponsors and all this sort of stuff and yeah i know that this is an area that i want to get into more when i'm when i'm finished footy so i'm just lucky that i'm able to do that and i'm able to do that i've got my brother who's who's who's leading it take taking you know doing all the hard yards for us at the moment um then i add my piece when i can and then when i finish you know it's something that i want to dive into more as well as some other things
Speaker 1in a partnership of two where one is working on full-time the other one's sort of in and out when he can how do you work out what's fair in terms of who takes what like in terms of wages you're going to pay some wage i mean do you say fletcher you're going to take the bigger wage yeah well i don't you're taking any out of it no no so you're even split too and after after even splits is is on profit after all costs yeah yeah
Speaker 3and we have we've also got another business partner as well but the the between the the three of us we've all spoken about for this stage of business all profits that we make we just we don't we don't want a dividend like that's we don't need it so let's just put it in and continue
Speaker 1yeah reinvest it yeah yeah i mean i'm going to get into something a little bit more difficult like so you got the two of you now do you have a shareholder agreement i mean do you have an agreement between the two of you written or a written agreement like a shareholder's agreement like something yeah yeah yeah you're going down that track yeah yeah oh good well done yeah because in business with my brother like i often say um i cut my brother's shows so i know what i'm good at yeah um i know what he's good at um and vice versa and i can never do what he does i just can't do what he does he had a skill that i did like a personality skill that i definitely never had yeah and then it's turned out now he has all the what i say is all the sewing so he sort of follows me around and sewing up behind me you know and if you're making a suit someone's got to cut it into a really good shape and have a bit of an idea what it looks like you know i wanted this suit look like this but it's no good unless someone can execute and turn it into it so where would you two fit
Speaker 3like we've both been pretty clear of where we want to go um for me like in all the previous projects i've worked and i felt like it's all i've sort of been a bit probably more like you you know with the vision and i just needed well i've been lucky to have people that have been able to execute it like mum and the charity and you know zoe who's on board with us now fletcher and this i think that's a big part of uh me doing things outside of footy is that i actually have people who can help me you know execute them or execute them together because if i don't i just know i'd half-ass things because i need to keep the main thing the main thing still which is so important so that's why it's so great being in business with my brother because he understands that well he
Speaker 1will probably better so let you get away with it i mean and i don't mean that a bad way but like because he's patient enough to know that you're fed income enough that when your time comes that you'll put in yeah because like if you come to another person if he wasn't your brother the other dude's gonna say mate come on yeah you're earning one and a half million a year i think you got the wrong bloke didn't he tell you you're earning one half million dollars a year and i'm doing all the work and i'm you're you're a third owner of the business like because that's a tough thing in a in a in a business model or shareholders arrangement um and that's in my case i'm blessed too with my brother like uh yeah but then on the flip side of it you're dealing with your brother so and you're dealing with your older brother yeah and i don't care what anyone says the older brother still that sort of in in that difference between the two that sort of um range that an older brother has lasts for a long time do you still feel that a little bit like the younger
Speaker 2brother uh yeah i mean he tries to be brother to me sometimes does it mate yeah someone needs to
Speaker 1keep me in line but then but that's an interesting dynamic for people listening to this like who who want to or don't want to experience the drama as to how you deal with that sort of stuff is that a mindset for you is that something you just go no
Speaker 2i'm gonna i can rise above these things i mean yeah you try to but sometimes you you sort of do get back in your sibling bickering but um like honestly i think growing up and mom and dad were in business when our whole childhood basically and then you know and then a pie is the same thing they're in business their whole like mom and dad's whole childhood so we've always like been around i guess family that have had business together um so it wasn't it wasn't something that when we started a lot of people did say the same thing like are you sure you should be going in business with your brother and it wasn't something it wasn't even our second brother it wasn't it wasn't even our second brother it was like whatever like when i i think we're both mature enough and both strong enough in our own character to not sort of let i guess business devolve like yeah ruin our relationship as brothers and if it does get to that point we'll we're just we're very open we'll just sit and have a chat to each other and sort of say you know i'm not liking the way this is going i'm or you're not liking the way this is going and yeah i think it's as long as communication's open between both of us i think we're completely
Speaker 1fine how important is um your parents in this in that regard and all these decisions you're making and all these sort of mature
Speaker 3positions you're taking huge i mean um mom in particular Like dad's sort of a bit more low key, um, goes about his business, but mom is like, I'll ring her every second day for a voice on different things. Even, you know, whether it's footy or, um, yeah, business, how we sort of deal with these different situations. Like, yeah, she's been awesome for us. And I think just growing up, like having both of them around and both of them in this business, just sort of opened both of our eyes up into, you know, that we can go and do it ourselves. So that's why it's, um, yeah, it's been so enjoyable, but I've sat with you and had before and yeah, she's.
Speaker 1She's pretty impressive. Like a mother who's got her eye on the ball. Let's talk about some of your clients. You've got some pretty interesting clients. Yeah. Yeah. Well done. Like, do you mind naming a couple of the clients?
Speaker 2We've worked sort of with Louis Vuitton a bit in the past, sort of Chanel. Um, do you all, they're like the sort of luxury ish clients and then Vogue, yeah, done a bit of stuff with Vogue, Harper's Bazaar. Um, so we sort of come from, well, I came from a fashion, I was working for a fashion production company. So when we sort of started, we could transfer a lot of those clients across, which was great. Cause you already knew them. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas now we're sort of doing a lot more, I guess you'd run your advertising stuff, I reckon. So like I said, working with Destination New South Wales, did just a really big job with Hyundai. So the international kind of. Yeah. Um, which was like another random one that just came through a relationship that we'd done like a favor for last year for a job and. But it's one of those jobs where you didn't make any money. Yeah. It was a lost lead. It was, and it was a really cool, um, campaign. It was. It's a thick one. Yeah. So it's from microplastics and like men's, men's balls and. How they affect your endocrine system. Yeah. And it was, um, it was released during the Geneva convention and it was all like on a big billboard overseas and they come to us and it was like, I think we got the job on a Wednesday. We shot it on Sunday. And it was out on Monday. So that's a crazy turnaround for like one of the shoot like that. But we had to get a stylist to come in to like get plastic bottles and like to sew them in your undies. So we did like a fake Calvin Klein. Yeah. Rip off.
Speaker 3But with plastic bottles.
Speaker 2Yeah. Did you have the Calvin Klein? No, no. So it's just a plain undies. Yeah. But in post it was like quotes on it. So it was like four out of five, four out of five penises complain, have microplastics or something.
Speaker 3We'll show you the, after this.
Speaker 2It's funny. But that was a job and we saw it and it was a great creative. So I was like, yeah. Well, of course we're going to try to do this. But it was great. But it was got cut through.
Speaker 1Yeah. Bottom line. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it was a bit risky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Cause I was going to tell, cause I knew about this and I wanted to talk to you about what, how important is risk in, or having a bit of risk in the campaign for you guys?
Speaker 2For us, I think, I reckon it depends on the client or like the, I guess where it's being released to, but I feel like it's massive. I could, nothing really, especially in advertising. It's so like sharp, you know, you got five, you got five seconds or whatever it is. And there's ads constantly turning out. Like every day you sort of get on, you know, everything. And there's like, like YouTube's got ads, Spotify's got like every single app. Netflix got ads now. Yeah. They've all got them now. Right. So it's like, and it's really funny cause everyone thought ads were going out. Everyone looked like, you know, it's, everyone's on the streaming platforms. There's no ads anymore, but they've just sort of brang in all the ads back. So like, they're just pumping all of them.
Speaker 1Well, soon they'll be on AI, whatever, whichever platform you're using on AI that you're going to get them at some stage. Yeah. sooner or later you'll happen for sure. And you made a really interesting point in terms of cut through, um, advertising and advertising. Advertising hasn't gone as just got shorter and there's lots more of them on just about every platform we look at every platform we look at nearly. And uh, therefore, therefore what do you need to do for campaigns? What do you feel you need to do if the, if the processes, the content needs to be shorter and there's more, more competition in terms of eyeballs. What do you need to do? What do you guys look at?
Speaker 2I think authenticity is, um, massive. And I think everyone is searching for authenticity and whatever, if it's your, the clothes you buy, the shoes you wear, um, you know, your makeup, whatever it is, there's, I feel like, cause there's so much junk out there. Yeah. Beef and income. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just beef and income about what you're trying to tell or the story you're trying to tell, or, you know, if you close your show made or if you're, you know, your makeup is sort of animal free, cruelty free, like all that stuff. Everyone's just looking for it. Everyone's just looking for authenticity and whatever, I guess, story you're trying to tell. So I think, yeah, if you, whatever you're doing, I think if you lead with authenticity, I think you're going to be, you sort of get through.
Speaker 1Maybe you could first open up authenticity, what you guys mean by authenticity. And then secondly, how do you plan the attention getting game?
Speaker 2Yeah. Back in the last year and did like a, as a really cool job with the traditional owners. So basically they're re, there's a lot of, um, NGOs up there that are repurchasing the Daintree cause it got split up, I think in like the, it could be in the eighties or the seventies. I think, and it got taken from, I think it was, um, national park and then it got made private and they started selling off parts of Daintree. Um, and then basically there's NGOs purchasing back the Daintree to reforest it cause it's all been cut down and destroyed and stuff like that. So, but Alamaze there, they, I think when you buy one of their pieces of clothing, they put a percentage of the funds back into, um, reforesting the Daintree. So we got to go up there and sort of document the first planting of like this whole area. And that was, that's a job that was amazing. It was sort of going up there and shooting with the traditional owners and interviewing cause they have like all the local community that's coming and working on the farms and they're planting. So it's like creating that sustainable employment in like that, in those sort of areas, which is great. Um, so that was like. Using locals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Using the local, um.
Speaker 1So the story for that then is about acknowledging the traditional owners, acknowledging the Daintree for the forest itself. Yeah. Um, and sort of, it's a, it's a good story. Like, uh, but, but the cut through, what would you call that? Would that be actually? You physically being there and, and like, instead of taking stock images, actually filming
Speaker 2there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's making like a, I guess a beautiful piece of, of art too. So it's not just at this video, it's not just like a promotional piece of material for them, but it's like going up there and shooting a beautiful piece of art. So that's going to last forever. Um, hopefully, but, um, yeah. And it's one of those jobs that they, they sent us up, we were up there for a few days. We sort of sat with. We sort of hung out in the farm with them, we're planting with them, so you sort of get in there, you're getting your hands dirty, you're sort of spending hours out in the field with them. Um, but it's a great job.
Speaker 3I think, um, with what you're saying before, Mark, about like the two channels of, you know, being at risk, taking risk and also being authentic, you know, you'd probably seen brands that push it too far. Yeah. Um, then others have found the balance of, of it, but I think it's important for brands to do both.
Speaker 1Because if you don't cut through, no one's going to even look at it.
Speaker 3Yeah. And it doesn't. It doesn't have to, my opinion, and this is, I'm not sure Fletcher's is the same, but it doesn't have to be in the same piece of content also. You know, it can be, you can at the same time be, be leaning into risk stuff and then also grabbing attention that way. But then the, the other stuff that you as a brand is other campaigns that you're running is you being authentic. You know, you catch people with a risk and you make them stay with how authentic you are as a brand. And I think it's important for, like we sort of working through a, uh, proposal for a client. At the moment, and they're probably too far one way with risk stuff, you know, the TikTok trends, all this sort of stuff, grabbing people's attention, but we feel as a brand that we can help them actually make people stay through more authentic stuff, actually creating a community sense in, in their content.
Speaker 1So when you talk to that, that particular client or potential client, um, do you pitch into them how you can, you think you can improve their brand? Do you, I mean, do you actually say that? Yeah. Yeah. We think you're leaning a little bit too heavily on the, you know, the attention grabbing, the attention grabbing side and, uh, probably could do tone one down and tone one up. Yeah. Like volume stuff. Yeah, exactly. Turn the volume up, turn the volume down.
Speaker 3Yeah. I've had that conversation with, with, um, the owner there already. So, um, but it's about, cause there's also as well, like for a business, um, you know, everyone wants clicks and engagement, but is it actually driving?
Speaker 1Does it end up at the bottom of the funnel? Do they transact?
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's it. At the end of the day, you might actually like the risk stuff is what gets the engagement and catches people's eyes, but then the authentic stuff might not get the same. Like, cause an authentic piece, like what we just talked about before might be a three to five minute video and the watch through rate won't be the same as a 30 second video or a 15 second clip. But at the end of the day, this authentic stuff, does it drive revenue more? Like, you know, it's, it's, I mean, it's different for different brands, but I think for me, as a consumer, I know that this stuff catches my attention. This stuff keeps me, it makes me want to, want to purchase.
Speaker 1And when you do that, um, where do you send them to, to get the, uh, longer form?
Speaker 3Well, I think, um, I think Instagram.
Speaker 1You show them a link or something, do you?
Speaker 3Instagram and like YouTube's a big one. Yep. Um, that's a big one, but I think the way that, uh, we see it and when we talk about it is, you know, TikTok is where you're more risk.
Speaker 1That's a bit more forgiving too.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you still want some of that stuff in the Instagram to catch people's attention. But Instagram is more like a, it's more curated, I think, than what a TikTok is. You know, you want people to go onto your, your, um, Instagram and see, you know, like what your brand actually is, not just these short little videos. Like you want to get a sense of what your brand is trying to tell through their Instagram, the way you look at it and the different videos.
Speaker 1On that day entry one, the long, in terms of the longer form stuff. Yep. Um, do you, do you put, you guys get your guys to put that up on YouTube?
Speaker 2Yeah. Cause they're not Vimeo. Um, so yeah, basic, but we're still, I think the long form is still on Instagram, but we always link everything. So you go on like to wildfires of Vimeo, it's got the long form of sort of everything. So yeah. um like you said instagram you know when you post like a three minute video you don't get a whole lot of no you sort of get probably the first 30 seconds everyone's kind of watching so we always do cut downs of every yeah there's cut downs of everything yeah so it's always like you know there's a 30 second cut down of this but i know if i want to watch the whole thing i can go for the full yeah yeah there's always a link like on a story or on a post or whatever it says like link to the full video here
Speaker 1so you guys have had to become not only good at the production side of things but you have to be pretty good at their social media stuff
Speaker 2yeah yeah it was a bit of a
Speaker 1learning curve and how do you learn about that sort of stuff or is it just trial and error yeah
Speaker 2it's trial and error and i just i'd sort of especially in the wildfire page i just kind of look at a lot of different production companies and marketing companies and uh just companies i liked their sort of their feel or the vibe a lot of like overseas guys that i sort of look at um and sort of see how they're curating their content or how they're posting sort of the work they're working on and um same thing like i use pinterest a lot like sort of just go through pinterest and look at cool photos or videos or um and vimeo vimeo is actually really good for production companies i think even marketing companies to sort of look at whoever's posting stuff and you get like a really wide variety of different work um but yeah i think it's just like you have to sort of turn yourself into a bit of a consumer of the sort of sit back and be the consumer yeah for a bit and to sort of to figure that out because i think you know everyone has a taste but it's kind of hard to find what that taste is you know you kind of sometimes it's all over the joint and i know when we first started wildfire like you are trying to grab whatever job would come your way because you need to make profit yeah well you're going to get turnover at least exactly so but you know we've kind of found ourselves randomly into this branded content branded documentary space without even trying to fall in there can you
Speaker 1just that's important what you said the branded documentary style yeah you're not making documentaries this stuff but you've got a branded documentary style yeah um and that's sort of a little bit new to me um so can you explain what you mean by branded documentary relative to a client yeah
Speaker 2um i could say like the hyundai one we just did uh it was like a three minute video it was based on so basically hyundai worldwide they've been um helping to reforest kelp forest in the in the in the ocean um because obviously and then they're they did this whole campaign it's called forest without names so the whole point of the campaign was to name these forests that are all over the globe because you can't see them and you don't know what it's called you don't care about it so we did this documentary that's like all underwater it's like above water stuff it's bringing these kelp forest scientists in that are sort of going there they're farming it they're restoring it and it's making a documentary although it's like it's presented by hyundai but it's a documentary sort of apart from what the company is known for there's no cars it's not about anything to do with that but it's about the work they're doing sort of you know whether it's in community um the alamaze one same sort of thing was a smaller documentary i think it's like a minute long that video the same sort of style that you're going you're telling a story that's like it is technically about the company but not necessarily about the the run of the mill the day-to-day product that they're usually selling there's real branding yeah full branding yeah values branding yeah and i think a lot of like clothing companies now you see all the time they're sort of it was like randomly watch like a video on instagram or youtube and it's like a they're selling a product but you wouldn't know like did a job for chanel it was like a short form video that was like a love story about like obviously the jewelry but like you could hardly tell like it was just rings it was like montages of rings or like they're in a shower and had a necklace it was like really subtle brand dropping but it's not like shoving in someone's face being like buy this buy this buy this i think a lot of brands are doing that now
Speaker 1in tv we used to call it in program advertising so like it's the most powerful form of advertising christian advertising yeah you're not saying buy this and you know it's looking at a you know ipad yeah apple ipad it's just in program all of a sudden so what you know because and if the show's influencing you so what you're saying is um your your um production um the business where you do production for your client the reason the client's doing the production is to sort of in program advertise what they're doing because i'm watching what the kelp company's doing yeah at the same time i'm seeing the name hyundai it's completely associated with a motor vehicle yeah so in the back of my mind i'm thinking well they're not a bad organization good stuff yeah yeah and is that a new trend yeah i
Speaker 2think i think it's becoming massive in that last 12 months it's been really picking up and i think it's becoming and a lot with fashion to a lot of um you see a lot of like companies the same thing with fashion uh and it's sport i think sport is becoming big well we did it with adidas
Speaker 1yeah recently yeah we did we produced that adidas yeah the pub yeah thing yeah the pub and uh had some you know coming yeah yeah 40 legends i was in there too i saw you yeah for about about a second i was there for a second yeah yeah but i mean but but it wasn't about the game it wasn't about anything it was about it wasn't about adidas yeah but it was sort about adidas you know it was about our history yeah and uh how long we've been around and all the legends have gone through the club blah blah blah and uh and i when you were telling me about it just and i thought about our adidas ad and and i've never really thought about it in that context yeah or in that frame i mean the way you just framed it is really good like so that's a new trend though is it
Speaker 3yeah i think it's um it's it's almost like a repercussion of the other trend you're bouncing it in your face yeah like yeah it's it's been a fallout i think from that where brands have just been like
Speaker 1on the back of the bus you've seen it yeah
Speaker 3things being sold to them push down their throat like is there another way we can do this is there a more authentic way we can do this yeah
Speaker 1it's funny you know you should say because there's there's a well-known back of the bus campaign about a female fashion brand like it's a fast fast fashion right they just have the name in the bottom they don't say where you get it they don't see any phone number there's no website no nothing and i don't even know it took me a while to jerry what it was about yeah yeah and uh it and then i found it like apparently very famous uh female fashion brand there
Speaker 2was a great thing that another company that was very effective though yeah did you see did you see what the other company did there's another company it's like very similar to them they bought the same the buses on the buses up and they just said like basically like what was it uh
Speaker 3basic i can't remember the exact copy but it was like sydney um we thought we'd give you a break okay because you know how you know yeah yeah well but it's very clever both are very clever it's
Speaker 1funny how many years ago when i when i set up my business wizard uh 1998 um john simons owned everything aussie home loans owned everything and aussie home loans bram was um if you want to beat the banks go to aussie so um and like he used to just pound the ads out so hard and uh our very first advertising campaign the full page ad and the very back page of the sunday telegraph which is expensive because you had to take the sport out and i only had enough money to do one ad yeah um and uh and i wrote wrote on there if you want to beat the banks go to aussie you want to beat aussie go to wizard and guess what they got their phone number wrong oh no yeah so i rang up and blew up and they gave me two weeks more another two weeks and i said for the amount of money i spent for one hour i got three weeks worth yeah and that's sort of how we launched our brand but that's what i said to them yeah yeah yeah you know that and uh you know we weren't sophisticated oh my god we definitely weren't sophisticated this is like 30 years ago we were definitely unsophisticated and no production process like you guys do but today um given the platforms it's actually over the pathway for good quality production like film film quality production yeah you know like it's and you'd be crazy not to do it yeah and you can put up anywhere now because these are all tv channels yeah yeah they're all movie channels youtube like as a tv channel yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah your channel uh vimeo like it's they're all channels like including instagram so like uh that that's a great place to be i mean do you feel really lucky that you can um apply your skills
Speaker 2yeah into those environments i mean i was sort of talking to mom over the weekend about it's just a bit stressed about work and sort of stuff going on and i'm like well i just need to like sort of sit back and smell the roses a bit and have a winch yeah well i'm doing my dream job it's like i'm loving doing it so it's just like sometimes you know you get caught up in the day of it that sometimes you sort of forget that you know you are doing your dream job and you're sort of like you said you're making i mean eventually hopefully wildfire we can become a a brand that's doing a you know we just had the off season stuff like that so we're doing our own shows and things like that yeah we'll just can we
Speaker 1talk about the off season
Speaker 2yeah that's your new podcast is that a podcast no it's more of a i guess like a mini documentary style show youtube
Speaker 1yeah yeah yeah talk about the off season tell me
Speaker 2about that um it was actually connor i come up with the idea um sort of back end of life it was a rush back in the last year he sort of we've always been talking about the off season and i'm obsessed with uh 30 for 30s the espn sort of sport documentaries oh yeah yeah um and i just thought our whole childhood we just watched we obsessive sort of nfl and basketball and things like that and um they just nail these beautifully sport documentaries and then i guess recently we kind of both have like really got into anthony bourdain and and dirt there's like this other show called dirt yeah i don't know but i definitely know anthony boy yeah and they do these really great like travel documentaries but it's also based around the people that they're meeting and with and they're cooking with and things like that and um kind of come with the idea that wouldn't it be interesting to do the same thing but for athletes but seeing like who they are away from the sport i think so much as a fan that you sort of see them on on tv or on a big screen you're always like like who is the person when they're not in front of the camera and i mean they are in front of the camera with us but who are they away from the big screen i guess and um audience wants to know that audience loves that yeah and yeah we're fortunate enough to sort of shoot it the back in the last year you're doing
Speaker 1very well so far because we looked at the stats you're killing it you've only done like six seven episodes before or else then you've already got big good big numbers yeah it's
Speaker 2a surprise because we're trying to figure out if we wanted sponsorship for the first season to sort of we're trying to sell the idea and then you know we can make it but we come to the decision that and it was the same thing like Lost Leads so we spent we funded ourselves so we spent our own money on it the production like our company's money on it because we were like we want to see what the outcome of it could be if we get the four episodes and they do have a big enough you know they've more like enough views enough comments whatever you share so you sort of ran a pilot for yeah basically and then we can sell that on the idea or are yourselves doing it are the are you selling it on the sponsors or are you yeah it's the sponsors yeah yeah and yeah we were very fortunate that sort of kind of got four of his good mates to come on and deal with this and they gave us their time in the off season to sort of hang out with us and it was great how long are they it was great 15 to 20 and how long does it take
Speaker 1to film how much film we got
Speaker 2a day it's a day a day's film yeah just a day and you edit it down to 20 yeah and then that's the hardest part it's a day in the life life of basically yeah yeah and the post is definitely the hardest part of it so it's just cutting down you know you got to sort of film for eight hours and it's like how do you cut that down do you know when I used to do
Speaker 1The Apprentice we used to film for 55 hours and we used to do for 42 minutes of telly really yeah that's crazy 55 hours of television got cut down to 42 hours of telly 42 minutes of telly yeah but that's I think that's sort of I mean it's probably a little bit inefficient but like it's sort of it's that's pretty much normal I mean you're you're cutting your one day down to 20 minutes so
Speaker 3yeah we could have went longer but we made a decision because we didn't want to
Speaker 1I think 20 is about right yeah it was good it was a good length I think yeah so where to from here boys what's going what's anything interesting coming up
Speaker 2we got a few like sort of just jobs in the works that we're doing and I think the off season is probably the main thing that we're sort of working at the moment is figuring out the sort of six athletes or eight athletes that we want to do for next season not just football no and that's another thing that we trying to we don't want to just actually I shouldn't say just athletes because we don't want to just do athletes we want to just do sort of anyone interesting that's at the top of their field what if it's an actor if it's a musician like a chef it doesn't really matter Mark Boris Mark Boris maybe
Speaker 1I don't have an off season I wish I did just one day just one day yeah but some of the great chefs would be yeah what do you do to calm down yeah like just to chill you know like you know like chef banded up in Byron Bay like what like the guy's running businesses he's got real estate he's got partners he's launching new businesses left right and centre I'd love to know what someone like him does or the Matildas I'd love to know what they do in their off season yeah because they play here then they go off and play overseas so do they have an off season and what is it what's it look like off button yeah well boys really good to meet you Fletcher good to see you Connor thank you mate good luck on the weekend good luck to us who do you support by the way in rugby league
Speaker 2I actually grew up a Storm fan but I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm kind of forced to go through here I was a massive Kerm Smith Billy Slater Cooper Cronk I used to love King actually yeah and by the way
Speaker 1speaking of Storm shout out to Bellamy great Bellamy good luck to you mate
Speaker 2thanks boys thanks for having us thanks
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