Disruption with Discipline: Michael Corcoran’s Social Playbook

Welcome to Attention Shift. We unpack where communication and communications is headed. I'm Sean Garrett and supported by Dell's the top level context engine for comms. My co-host Allison Braille and I talked to industry experts about how we show up and get our message across in an era of limited time and shortened attention spans. Let's dive in. Oh hey Allison. Hey Sean. You know this is our last episode of our first season or 12th episode and I think it's a perfect one and it's a perfect one because this thematic of attention shift obviously is about shifting attention and fleeting attention and capturing attention and we have a guest today Michael Corcoran who used to be the head of social at Ryanair who proved that you could be a budget European airline and capture the world's attention which is a pretty good trick. Yeah I mean like pretty unheard of and I'm a huge fan of his work. We'll talk to him in a little bit but Sean let's talk a little bit about social more generally and sort of our philosophy on that whether your heart takes right now. My heart takes are that my heart takes on social. I mean you're talking to a a Gen-Xer who like has a private Instagram account and if you like to look at my you know I don't have a Finsta I mean my kids have like seven but I should probably get one someday but I mean like if you look at my my feed it's basically like music videos from the 80s and 90s golf instruction. Yeah and baseball content and then mixed with like stuff from my friends who go like I'm parties on yachts in New York City. Alison really. Yeah I mean really I that was a fun one for me I'm like a huge Richard Branson person but the intersection of social there was the night I Christine Choi I'm 13 great team invited me on that boat to run my mouth the new virgin ship there were also like a zillion youtubers on there touring the ship for the first time and just the amount of screens capturing everything was was a sight to see and I'm sure each one of them it felt like they were the only ones on the ship. Yeah exactly like as if Richard Branson personally invited me alone to be here yeah. I think people know that I was the first head of comms marketing anything at Twitter and I was like a very big Twitter user for a long time it was injected into my bloodstream it's became part of my DNA and somewhere along the Elon Musk era I blew up my account in my many thousands of followers and I do have a burner Twitter account. Do you? I have to be on there I mean I have to be on there with my current job and I have to be like checking things out but I haven't recreated my Twitter experience on X and any kind of sort of imagination I'm mostly just there to make sure that I'm not completely in the dark I guess at this stage and social what excite you like what interests you I guess Allison what captures your attention. It's a good question I'm obsessed with the guy on Twitter now X Derek guy is actually his name he's a guy named guy but what I like about Derek this he sort of writes about menswear he also writes about all kinds of other things and really uses menswear as a way into talking about other things and his his just like depth of knowledge is so impressive he goes so incredibly deep on that one subject and is really the authority but people for whatever reason fight with him about things and there is not an argument that he has not won which is again a gift I appreciate and a gift that our our guest later in the episode also has that Ryan air has has really leaned into but he's one example for me but I think probably at work about social there are kind of like two principles that I try to explain to companies when it comes to social and one is sometimes companies still in the year of our Lord 2025 come to me and say I just want like big press I just want like big brand name media to cover me and so I don't really want to dabble in all that other stuff I just want to get press and I'm like well you can't get press anymore without having content and the dreaded thought leadership and social like all of those things ladder up to people covering you because then you're visibly an expert on something like nobody wants to talk to you as an expert on something site unseen like they they have to know that you are in fact an expert there's no avoiding those things and and and hopefully you can use those tools to sharpen your point of view so that when you do talk to mainstream media it's locked in and the other principle I think about a lot you know with social these days is that it's really in everything we do and so if you're doing any sort of a campaign for your company and you're not considering what the internet writ large as as Nick Shapiro in our last episode called it you know if you're not considering what their reaction is going to be we're kind of doing it wrong 100 percent I mean you know I mean my personal experience with social does not color my professional experience with social and in my professional life to me it is the fabric of everything what we do it's basically the spine of everything we do it is the connective tissue to both you know long-term thought leadership to near-term action it sparks how you think about messaging and doing messaging in real time and getting input and figuring out like what actually resonates and what doesn't resonate it's what makes you colorful what makes you fun it was what makes you human and I think there's just like to the point of the conversation with with Michael in a bit there's just like so much you can do with it if you can break out of the sea of sameness that exists and I think that's my main frustration is just that there's never been more activity on quote-unquote social on all the different platforms that we know and know well but there's just like only pockets of originality and only like small pockets of things that can break through and grab your attention so I mean I'm excited for what is on this other side of where we're at and I think we're actually maybe on an uptrend towards a more interesting space like post 2010s Instagram vibe but I don't know I'm fired up with that I'm hiring someone to run social and community at a firm and I kind of feel like it's I don't know if it'll be the most important hire ever make but it certainly is going to be one of the most important hires because I just think that it's it's a role that I don't know just pleads over into so many different things that can be so powerful so so if you know someone great or you are someone great reach out to Sean but I think I wanted to mention quickly before we get into the episode is I looked at a technology as part of my job in VC the other week that you know one of my partners brought up and said hey since you work in comms you should evaluate this with me I don't know if we're going to end up doing the deal but I was fascinated by this company it is a company that is using AI to help you win any argument and so basically it will ingest your brand tenets brand voice whatever and then it can basically program responses not necessarily even from your account surrogate accounts you know it was sort of dystopian in a way but also potentially the future where like let's say you know you have 1500 employees who were on social you could almost pre-draft them too with these you know stickier talking points and it's very AI powered and it understands the internet and who you're talking to and I don't know it's interesting to me to consider where AI will take some of this listen I'm a huge user of AI I'm not a anti AI person you know in our jobs at the same time I have not seen AI create actual content yet that actually breaks away from the pack it makes things more interesting does this was the first one I've seen that does that oh really that's sort of designed for that there's a dark side to it obviously where you could see bad actors spinning up an entire bot army that's very well trained but you know you could also see people using it for good like any technology so it was an interesting one to look at but anyway that I think is where the future of this is going what is the future of this podcast also yeah so this is episode 12 and Sean and I had sort of shook hands and agreed to a 12 episode season Sean has like a very serious job now you do too I think I just had Sean's this one time at the end of the year I have nine more business I just I just had a first serious job you know and I like holy crap does actually what people do it work publicly traded company though that's like that's hard but anyway we would like to bring this podcast back at some point we're not sure when that will be I mean obviously our schedules are crazy but we definitely want to bring it back so if you have guest ideas if you have feedback for us if there are people or topics or things that we didn't cover season one that you're pounding the table for please reach out we would love to do this again and run it back and also if you're a sponsor who wants to be a part of season two you know reach out test as well 100% and that both those things will accelerate us bringing this back and I think like finding great guests you know it's kind of underrated in how like the process around that and I think that if people have really great ideas and you kind of know the flow you know who what we know after 12 episodes now you know like kind of folks that we gravitate towards so I 100% if you know folks like that they seem like the folks that we've been on have been on for 12 episodes send them over we're like super interested yeah I mean and notice too like the guest we've chosen I hope haven't been right down the fairway and so if you have somebody who's outside of comms but you think has an interesting perspective on communicating we're very we're very open to those and excited about those guests but Sean what are we doing today we are talking to Michael Cork It's the idea that airline can win the internet by trolling its own customers would have sounded insane not too long ago, but that's really what happened at Ryanair. Under Michael Corcoran's leadership, their social team turned baggage fees, cramps seats, windowless rows, all the things about airlines that you're supposed to hate into viral content. And in the process, it kind of set a standard for creating a unique brand voice. Today, Michael is building slice and consultancy that's focused on kind of making this socially smarter, braver, more strategic bottom line. If you care about the tension, creativity, and cutting through the noise and indeed capturing one's attention, this episode is for you. Enjoy. And I was hoping Michael would absolutely drag us, but he did not. He's a very nice man. So stay tuned. These days, it's not just about tracking what's being said. It's about understanding the deeper meaning behind it. Exactly. The smart teams aren't just collecting data and providing insight through spotting patterns and using that context a bit faster with more precision. That's where Dell comes in. It's a context engine for comms, ingesting every public mention across your universe decoding it, then pushing past the top level insights to create real usable intelligence. So you just don't see the noise. You see the patterns, the shifts, the why behind the what, and you can act on it in real time. It's giving comms professionals more insight to work with than they've ever had. Pop global companies and agencies are already using Dell to stay ahead. You can try it for free your first month at Dell.News/Shift. Dell from coverage to context. Hey, Michael, great to have you. Thank you for having me. This has been fun so far. Dear listener, you missed out on so much great tech prep. Speaking of just being at the top of the game, I've certainly have listeners in the UK and in other places outside the United States. But I would say the most of our, at least the strong majority of our listeners around the United States, and I think most people when they, who work in comms here, here are the term Ryan Hare. They're, they're aware it's an airline, but they're also aware that it had some like something to do with social media. And that's like the connection. And great. It's a social media company that monetizes through air travel. And I think Michael, you're, you're, you're to blame for that. And so I'm curious just one how you got to Ryan Hare and then maybe tell us kind of the origin story there, but also maybe provide for the, you know, US audience kind of why this was kind of a particularly interesting, perfect storm. And I try to probably make up a few too many stories on the way, but it might have started off as community service, but for some, but yeah, look, I was navigating through social media in the traditional sense of a young social media manager claiming to the ranks working for numerous brands in the ocean and European market. And I was getting a little bit frustrated that I wasn't convincing enough brand marketer as a decision maker that there is more than one way to use these platforms. And we were coming to this stage and social where it was a very fake filtered, you know, correlated approach to the platforms and brands 10x that by being perfectly polished, conservative and didn't really understand the inner workings of how we consume content on these platforms. So the frustration made me go to client site. So I would have been working agency site for the best part of eight years. And I went to rank called Paddy Parabet Fair and I did a stint there, which is a sports spelling gambling company, sister owners to Fanjul in the US for those who are wearing. I served my time there, figuring things out and still didn't really know how to solve this. So I eventually left there and went on another mission and it was just this happy timing. Oh, I think and that's the, I think that's the general trend of everything that I'm going to like link this back to, yes, there was incredibly a good piece of strategy. We recruited and developed an incredible team, but timing and look really, really helped me here. This job came just after COVID started to kind of decrease and at this stage, travel was decimated for airlines and the brief was a car plans responsibility on social media and actually doing the right thing of how Ryan air should operate as a brand. And I would have been a huge fan of Michael area, the CEO of Ryan air. There were all true waiting years and childhood when you see a story like that from an Irish businessman who he did go over to the US. He did spend some time with spare airlines. He did steal the model and bring it back, but he put it on steroids and what he built as an operation in the machine, we couldn't help but admire him. We also admired his, you know, he's a reverence and he is, you know, a self-deprecation tone of voice that kind of built the Ryan air marketing brand in the olden days for a long period of time. I applied for the job, I had a 30 minute interview and I got a call the next day and I got offered the job. Now whether I did an amazing 30 minute interview or they were desperate to fill the position, I don't really know, but I managed to get it and they gave me the time to absorb what was going around. They gave me time to put up a good strategy in place whilst delivering the original day today. And once I presented back the strategy, I got bought in and I started to go on the journey of building the brand that I guess people know of it today. What about their perspective? Why did they want someone like you and I get the timing of where we were that kind of post? Why did they want someone like you? It's a great question. I have no idea. I imagine on the call I was knowing Ryan air the brand that it is and knowing that there was a no bullshit operation, I gave them a very candid no bullshit interview and I basically told them I am frustrated and fed up of how brands are operating in this space. I feel that there is a DNA within Ryan air is marketing and it's brand over years that has not been brought to these platforms. And I guess the seniority and the experience to actually carry it forward to, yeah, and they took a punt. A punt I'm very grateful for. I'm sure they are too. How did you get to the insight that elite to your shit posting would be the way forward? Are you yourself a shit poster prior to Ryan air? The last question that answers yes. I probably would have been a bit of a straight talker shit poster as well and I would have naturally gravitated to the art of the one line or the quick weight. I would be very quick with a nature but I don't think that had that influence the strategy itself per se. I don't think the focus on the roasting of customers was the core strategy. Now it was a tactic that came from the strategy. But I took a piece together the four C's brand strategy framework model and if I'm being fully transparent about six years prior to this nobody and including myself and social were working from strategic frameworks. We were putting together content pillars. We were trying to make ourselves look so self-important that this was the shiny telly over here that no other marketer could understand or touch because we're the young generation who knew this and I came to the realization that we haven't got to clear what we're talking about. I started to learn about brand learning and strategy, Red, Binett and Fields, Red, how brands grow. I started to actually learn the go to material to figure this out. I need to put some sort of framework together so I can actually document and get to clarity of a strategy. So I used the four C's, the brand framework model again, most or a lot of brands, big brands like PNG would have used this for years and it's based on company category culture and the customer. So we would have mined insight and we would have unpacked that insight to try and find a point of view. And like from a company point of view, if I could simplify the core insight that came from there was, Ryanair was a disruptor in the industry but also a disruptor marketing. Again, people might not be familiar with seeing the marketing of Ryanair in the past in the 80s and 90s. It would have been very provocative, very self-deprogaming, very irreverent. And then you had basically the spokesperson who was Michael O'Leary and any time Michael O'Leary goes in front of press, he's going to get global coverage because he knew the art of generating publicity. So that disruptor DNA was there for many years, including a disruptor tone of voice. And again, if you go back and you actually watch a lot of Michael O'Leary's content and interviews of the past and compare them to the tone and the approach of the social tone, it's Michael. That's what was born from. So we have this thing with the founder centric. Yeah, completely. And it was built and it worked because Ryanair are never going to spend too much money on marketing. They obsess so much about the operation that marketing isn't nice to have. But that doesn't mean you can't market. And PR and publicity was the domain lever of that. So we took that as like, you know, that hasn't disappeared or can't be a thing. Social is that space and place to generate word of mouth if you can get it right. And we already had this in our system. So we're like, we can do this because everyone else in the category is conservative premium even though there are low cost. their lines, and they're all trying to be something they're not. And if you really are honest with yourself, like if you're not fine for us class, it is 35,000 feet in the air in a big sweaty box. It's not a pleasant experience. So why are people talking about it like that? John and I were both just in those sweaty boxes yesterday. So like, and they they pander to this. And there was all about the luxury of travel and the journey, not the destination. And if they talked about the destination, it was always blue ocean and palm trees. And if you think about like as a brand, like you have no point of difference, no differentiation, nothing distinct. And when that comes on social, it becomes even harder because when you're scrolling at the speed everybody else is scrolling at, all you see is is similar images. And if you remove the color of the brand and the logo, you probably can't differentiate the difference between any of these airlines. So when you look at the two of those, we simply just had to be ourselves. We had to disrupt our mental, disrupt our behavior. We just needed to transfer it and actually find a way to look and behave the opposite of everyone else in the category. Then when you get it down to the other two, which is category and customer, this is where it starts again, like, get really, really solid or sorry, culture and the customer. Like culture was interesting because like when you look at culture and social that, you know, we were coming at a time where I mentioned earlier, people were tired of this fake filter nature of social media and Instagram and TikTok came to time. And Kim, when COVID happened, it became discomfort blanket where people were being more wrong on us. They were sharing and processing all the crazy things that are happening in the world. And a lot of the Gen Zs would have, you know, used this as a way to process what was happening. And it allowed for like a dark type of humor and a different type of social to appear that was a little bit more wrong, ready and rugged and real. So we leaned into that and went, okay, well, if we have a brand that's like this who doesn't like care about all the fluffy premium things and there's a desire there, we've got an instant connection. But the last piece is the one that really underpinned it, which was again, customer. What we were seeing was the customer's expectations of flying or costs were way too high. And like, it wasn't the boomers and it wasn't the Gen Zs. Like, the boomers, like, Ryanair democratized travel back in 1985, 1986, '87, people flying from Dublin to London, London to Dublin, it costed about 4,500 bucks for like a flight. And that was not accessible to much people at the time. Whereas Ryanair came, they became 50 euro. Like, the boomer generation could see Europe travel Europe go to the best and wonderful sunny destinations multiple times a year because they could afford to. The Gen Zs were the same. They didn't have money, they're tech savvy. They were able to do it, return flight to Italy and for the price of a can of coconut packet of crisps. And they could do it because they were young, free and single. The millennials was the real problem. They were playing off this car. It's always in the millennials' minds. Yeah, I mean, it's still in our mouths. We grew with the Celtic tie-in, or the boom in the mid-2000s. And the expectations of flying with Ryanair at the time for like a 10-year-old flight, they were expecting hot-told USB chargers and a foot massage from the pilot. And, you know, we had to do something about it because that's what was causing a lot of the discourse online or the perception about the brand. Now, we were not very different in the other brands. Actually, one of the most on-time airlines, one of the most efficient with the biggest network. Yes, I still have a bit of a cool aid in my system, but, you know, it was unnecessary. So it was that was the problem. We then unpacked, solved the trailer, things, but was the way we looked, we approached and how we sound it. So, again, the problem we solved was customers' expectations were way too high. And that was being clear to the social media. So we wanted to find a way to, you know, decrease the friction around flying with Ryanair, to hate us less, and find a way to do it in an entertaining dark, humid way that would get the message across. And that's where the crooks of the strategy was. So then we went about trying to do it. And we did it with kind of two main levers. One was, again, reactive in community, which the things that a lot of people would associate Ryanair to, which was the news-jacking, the tapping into like things that were happening in the world and indirectly, directly bringing it back to the airline and some shape or form. And then there was the always on, which was this was the one that was the friction changer. It was explaining the terms and conditions. It was explaining the business model. No, that sounds pretty boring when it comes to content, but not how we did it. You didn't do a boring Q&A or whatever. No, not at all. We found the the pain point of the friction people complained about. And we flipped it then to explain the reason why that friction was in the process. Like, take an example, planes on the ground cost more than planes in the air. So the second you get down and you taxi, money's on the clock. So people are putting to the stairwell, the broad end to the tarmac. Ryanair do this thing, which is called the 25 minute turnaround, which means then your part of the process. But people thought there were been treated like cattle been heard it on an awful plane. And they were just this is not a pleasant experience. But that's because you didn't know why. So we want to pay less. There you go. There you go. But nobody knew. But again, people, the privilege generation just started to complain because that's what they do. So we then went on finding ways to then change people's perceptions, use content that cleverly educated on the process. And we started to see a shift. Technology moves fast. And Mike worldwide, the nation's leading independent public relations firm. Make sure your reputation keeps up. They connect the emotional with the transactional, translating complex innovation into stories that matter to real people. With a unique mix of PR, digital and AI-driven strategy, they help tech companies grow, connect, and stay ahead. One powerful message at a time. Mike worldwide, protect finds its voice and its audience. Visit mww.com for more information. I love kind of your perspective. I mean, you use the four Cs and you talk about your founder. But I mean, effectively, I mean, Allison, I work with a lot of tech companies, a lot of startups, and they're evolving and they're going from being really small to really big, really fast. And there's a core DNA to all these companies. And basically, my belief is you never can break the DNA. You only can accentuate it. But likewise, British Airways says a DNA. And it's probably not that interesting. But maybe it is. I don't know. But like, if you got a call from British Airways today and said, Hey, we love what you did with Ryan Air. We'd love for you to make British Airways way more interesting and way more edgy. Can you do that for us? Yeah. So I start by saying, tell them, stop using the word edgy and grow. I would, I would try and find their way. And again, do I know what that answer is no, but I would follow the similar process to only lack that. Now, there was a piece of work that I've done recently around the business leisure and the third reason why you travel, which I thought was a wonderful proposition. And they did it with, with such lovely creative, because again, the probably the association many people have is business or higher-stage as people of fly British Airways because it's a more classy airline. And clearly, they were struggling with, again, capacity. So they wanted to show the other reasons why people should fly British Airways. And I thought it was a really good piece of brand strategy work. But I think they've failed to manifest it properly on social to bring that to life a little bit more. And when it comes to their tone of voice, they don't have to lose their heritage in what they are as a brand. They just need to modernize it in ways that can work for different audiences. Because if they keep treating it like, you know, they have been in the 60s, 70s, 80s and try to, you know, market to people who are maybe of an older demographic, they're not going to win the new customer for British Airways. And that's where it becomes a struggle. And so yeah, like I couldn't give you a proper answer, but what I could do is I can play with a little bit with another airline, for example, EasyJet will be a competitor of Ryan Ayers in the European market. And if you take what Ryan Ayers were doing around decrease in friction about the model, you look at the position about the third reason why you travel for British Airways. There's other insights that are out there that could give the likes of an EasyJet a point of difference. And one of those is not all reasons why we travel are happy moments. And people always travel for other reasons. They're immigrating because they have to see a better life. They are maybe traveling home because I love one past away. They're probably traveling because of heartache and break up. And what am I getting to here? Like it becomes a really strong insight that unlocks an emotional reaction or creates tension and marketing. And that's essentially what we have to do. And they can't just do speak or act like what British Airways are doing or they're just going to be a poor version of it. They can't really approach what Ryan Ayers are doing because they own that position. And again, people would just call them out for trying to copy and many airlines have. What I always trying to do is finding and unlocking an insight that people can own that nobody has has. And if you own that insight of, you know, there are other reasons why people on a plane of 200 people are traveling. Even if it's not like remotely connected to the reasons why all there's a traveling at that time, it still hits emotionally. It still becomes memorable. Like funny enough, I actually have a TV script in my brain for EasyJet based on that insight using a Zach Prine song called Something in the Orange. And if you listen to that song, it would absolutely put you into tears, build it with that emotion, build a lovely story around the emotional reaction to those reasons why. Now you've got something that becomes memorable. Yeah. And it's a totally different strategy. I imagine selling people on this strategy. You obviously relied heavily on the existing DNA of the company. But was there resistance to this internally? I can only imagine trying to explain to BCV, you know, being capital ventures where I work that, hey, we're going to, we're going to be really honest about what the value proposition is. In some cases, that's going to result in us kind of roasting customers. What was the reaction internally and how did you manage it? There was plenty of resistance, but most of it resistance came from people who didn't understand Ryanair and who were marketers who came into the business. But I got a really good stagepiece for advice a few months into it when it was happening as we started to push the boundaries for more from the chief technical officer and fun enough it was the day before we put out quite a dramatic post about the UK and Boris Johnson during the Donner Street parties issues they had and he basically said if you're going to survive in this business Michael you need to do things and then ask for forgiveness. So that really stuck in my mind at the time of you know I'm going to have to be brave here because I really do believe in this I really understand that this is right for this brand because I don't think the way we behaved and operated would have worked for most other brands very few have that because it's just to fight me in our DNA and you know we got the other components right and the timing right to make it work. So it took a while and there were moments where people would constantly question it but I would ask them to look play me I'm are you can you can put in control me in the fire like something happens but it was funny enough that moment that day after we we started to talk about these decisions during you know the Tories in the UK and why was that important for us because travel was decimated this business suffered dramatically during these times and you had the governments in the UK going and behaving and doing what they want and that kind of frustrated the nation and nobody was saying it to the level that it should have been. So we did it on our on our behalf and did it in a very funny way but when that went low of my boss nearly lasted he popped over the desk and looked at me and said what the hell have you done and I literally went please leave it up just stick with me if it goes south you can let it be on my head but what was crazy then and things that unfolded thankfully is a couple of days later there was an article put in the financial times where it screamed about brands need to be more right in air when it came to operating been truth in themselves and how they were talking with things in an irreverent way. A few days later after that that same piece of content was put on page 7 of the print of the Sunday Times newspaper. Why is this important? Because Michael O'Leary and the investors of right in air are not on social media watching funny tiktoks or skits on on twitter they're reading the financial times and they're reading the Sunday Times. We actually got little old social media content into their media consumption and once that happened we got two handwritten letters from the CEO right now and the CEO of right now group Michael O'Leary saying keep up the good work signed by him on our desk that was literally the golden ticket that any other person in the business could not say anything because if the gaffer and the boss was saying go for it we can go for it it gave us the permission of from that point then I got the cover and I got the control to do it that's awesome I mean you mentioned before Ryan air you're kind of this on this journey trying to find a place where social strategy wasn't an oxymoron why is this such a blind spot for so many marketing and communications leaders why can't they see social for what it is because it's still treated as a nice to have in an afterthought now again that's the majority not the minority there are plenty of brands who are investing the money but even those who are investing money I don't believe they're thinking strategically either I think they're just out screaming others and stealing with pride ideas that are happening out there I just think it hasn't been considered and the shift hasn't happened but I believe there's a catch 22 with that though like C-suite and CEOs know that social is the opportunity because it's where the majority people are spending their time these days but we as professionals have not done a very good job of fighting our case and getting the respect we need in those rooms and that's why I saw it out to understand strategy more of then being able to communicate it in those rooms those 30 minutes you might have once or twice a year that it's not just here is a viral TikTok we made actually talk brand and business and make a make sense to the people who are who are making the biggest decisions and if we don't have that like we're still going to struggle and I do believe there is a big absence still a strategy and I think the problem is is because my generation who started in this industry we were the juniors in the office when social became a thing we rolled that wave we were the digital savvy generation at that time and we got lucky we have people who are in heads of social roles in big brands around the world on incredible money that if you were really asked them to present a strategy to you they can't and that's the scary part and they're not going to say that publicly because they don't want to put their careers in jeopardy but that is the reality right now so when you have a generation of senior social media people who say they talk strategy when related or they talk in tactics who copy and paste what most other brands do with a really understanding how to have a point of difference for the brand and then a C suite who just won't buy into it they'll give you budget they'll give you some head count they'll give it an increase it's slightly because they know the media it needs to shift there because that's where people are spending their time but there's a huge gap in the middle to try and fix this and like it's why I created what I've created in in slice because my job is to change decision-makers minds with better strategy my job is to coach internal teams so they actually understand it more and deliver and be focused and not get you know and blindsided by the naval gazing of a big green now doing disruptive things on the internet thinking that's the only way to win or a talking airplane being sassy to their customers because there's more ways to skin a cat we just need to figure that out and I think there's a huge amount of timeless truths of marketing education needed for social media professionals that just doesn't exist right now or they're not willing to do it and we've decoupled ourselves because again I don't know if you're you're you're you're you disresonates in any way but when it when social became a thing it became this land grab for who wanted to own a creative agencies pure agencies digital agencies and then social media agencies became a thing it then decoupled from the rest of marketing because it was this all this new elusive thing that nobody understands or or has a clue about it was special and then we just sat over here in our little island and we were like oh let's figure this out because nobody knows but we forgot to actually figure out well how do we actually build brands and that's the gap of that is there and unless we close that it's going to be a long time before others will do better at the same time I think on the marketing side and the brand side it's some companies there's just so like so much process and there's so much like this kind of law of brand and forseas is a good framework but but there's just like this kind of rigidity around doing things around having process around briefs around all this stuff that kind of gets in the way of actually getting worked out there and making shit happen and so like I do think that there's probably a happy medium that social brings to the brand side and meanwhile over here like Alson and I like working in comms we're constantly trying to like disintermediate what's going on in the world all these conversations happening we're connected into social too and I just think that a lot of this just hasn't congealed yet and I just posted it for a role of head of social community at the company I'm at now a firm and I'm trying to figure this out in real time like what is the perfect archetype for this job right now to sit between these things and so I'm curious what you think yeah like again like there's no right or wrong but it's not black and white either like strategy and social and like until you have kind of and like if I'm being honest like brand strategy if you're not considering being a social first brand with your brand strategy I think you're already losing like do you need to have a separate social strategy I don't think you do and like it all depends on the size of the brand the life cycle of the brand the size of the team your marketing mix immediately mix because there might be some reasons where you don't need a director of social or a head of social in your operation at all you actually have a brand manager who's social first and you do have all the social first expertise within the marketing team so it's very hard to give the right diagnosis and then it depends on the actual output of the strategy and how you want to step up and operate and this is where people can get it wrong too where they think the first hire is a head of social and the salary could be $300,000 which is a lot of money and they end up being this overpaid community manager where they are still very executional imagine being paid that much money for an executional role that you could probably hire two midwits or juniors to double your output your work because you think that's the right thing to do and it like there will be frustrations there will be tensions and then you end up not getting the best out of your investment in your time in your resource so it's very hard to give you black and white answer you do need somebody who is really good at content strategy you need somebody who understands who can be brave in the right way you need somebody who can talk up and talk down in the business and that's that gap we're talking about to had the ability to educate your senior stakeholders and educate your juniors and the other thing is will this person be managing many people and if they like if they don't have any direct reports I wouldn't be putting them that high up I would be finding somebody who has the potential of not two I would be then leaning on somebody in upskilling somebody else in the marketing department to be more social first and their growth is to be educated and then when the person develops and grows within the business then reward them and incentivize them and bring find a pathway to make this work because if we go to top heavy we're going to have very expensive executors and I don't think that's a very smart use of the businesses time or budget yeah in my case looking for this role, I'm looking for someone who will actually make every comms person and every brand person. on the team social, like social thinkers, good and like active on social. And I don't want this people to say, oh, we have a social team. Let's go send it over to this person. They'll handle it in this expensive executor. Like, I need, I need like an entire team of social first people. Brilliant. And, and so that's, that's, I think, where I'm headed with this. But like, you know, I mean, this is like in a very real time consideration. And I love this conversation for a piece of learning a ton. That's a great break for somebody to come in. Yeah. And I'm curious, like, you know, in some cases, it companies I work with that are earlier startups, obviously, they're in a firm, but people are saying like, let's just get AI to do it. Or like, hey, I can't we just like get creative from, from the AI, you know, or whatever. Like, let's just, let's just use mid-journey or, you know, things like this. Obviously, I have opinions about whether or not that's a good idea. But curious to get your take, you know, Michael, and yours too, Sean, it's sort of like a growthier organization now that that's public. Do you feel like AI is going to take parts of this job or be or help this job or how does AI play in? It makes the mundane things easier in its simplest form. Like, when you think about insight mining or finding trends or spotting patterns of what's happening out there on the internet, it's going to help you find that faster. It's going to make the production process leaner and smarter. It's going to make the admin side of things where a lot of our time is being spent on to free up to be more strategic, to be more creative to think more about the work. Is it going to make the output better in case it will? But again, what you prompt and put into that prompt as the creative output, that's the gold, not what you see the final product because the tech and the sophistication of making video content in that elk is going to be amazing and really impressive. But unless the idea is strong enough, it's not going to win. So it's just going to enable the most creative people and be more creative. I think it's going to be very good for the jack of all trade style professional in our space where what's happened with marketing is we've just siloed so much of the journey. And this is probably why brands aren't building brands as best as they can. And everything is performance driven to the end degree that you have so many different people working in singular specialist roles that aren't really thinking like brand and other platforms in the way they needed to see how it all connects and joins up. So if anything, it's going to take all those kind of siloed roles in where you've got AI agents who are optimizing paid media or optimizing search that we already had roles, pull out those roles, bring people up here to actually be the lever pullers and the thinkers that doers and have a more of a wider perspective of how to build brands across multiple platforms rather than silos on their own. That's a good vision for the future of marketing where everybody gets to be more of a strategist and we all have these execution tools at our fingertips. That's correct. Michael, tell us about what you're doing now with with slice. You say, do you want to make yourself null and void and set team set to win without you? You'll be on the add. Yeah, tell us about that genius strategy. Yeah, look again, when you think of how you need to position yourself, like when I set up, we're consultancy of sorts. And again, I hate marketing buzzwords, but I probably need to get over myself a little too because that's what people understand what these roles are. So maybe I need to just stop. But essentially, once I left Ryanair, two of the greatest things that I think I'm really good at is developing strategy, hiring teams and building operations and then handing over the keys and showing them how to do it. But you know, that's the crux of what we do. And the reason why we with the line is we aim to make ourselves redundant is because there's nothing worse than a consultant who lingers around a business for years upon years upon years with all school frameworks and ways of thinking just to continue to get there. I don't feel I'm doing my work if I don't make impact and I don't show people how to do it and then hand over. So it's again, it's a good marketing line. Do we want to continue our relationship with some brands? Long term, of course you do. As they grow, we grow too. But don't let that get in the way of a good of a good copy line. But in essence, it's true. Like we want a legacy of trying to make social media better and social media for brands better. And if we can offload really good thinking and upskill the next generation to think more like marketers, but in the social space, then we're on to something. And then we can prove that these are platforms that if done right, can do amazing things for brands that isn't just trend hopping and all the things we're all guilty of behaving in right now. If you're successful, what's the world look like in a few years and other kind of smart social people are successful? What does the world look like? Oh, that's a great question. Well, in a few years, I want to be back farming. So I'm not in this space or place anymore. And maybe doing some consulting and some sort of hay barn with some really big budget marketeers touching grass. I want brands to show that they are delivering metrics and things that can shift their brand and not pander to the platforms. I think what's going on in social right now is the copy and pace mentality of what everybody's doing is just feeding the algorithms rather than actually building brands. And when you do all of this trend chasing a trend hopping, it's killing trends faster. The life cycle of it is worse. And when people consume the content, the user and they're scrolling and seeing hundreds of brands doing the same thing in the same way, we're just doing what we were doing on Instagram five, six years ago with the conservative brand. And what ends up happening is people will remember the trend, but they won't remember the brand. And our job is to be build brands that are memorable. And if we can get more people to find all the different ways to use these platforms to be more memorable, it would be very, very happy. Speaking of being memorable, one question we ask every yes at the end is, what is keeping your attention? Do you see a lot of stuff in a day and day out? Like what's grabbing you? What's like, what's reaching out? This is always such a tough one because again, I guess the boy product of being having a, we're having an unhealthy relationship online. You don't remember as much of the good work, but one brand that I do love and I really give it scooters is a brand called Frida. And Frida is actually a postpartum mother care brand originated from the US. And I just love what they're doing because they are being unapologetic in the realities of postpartum mothers and the journey of motherhood in this early years. But they're not doing it in a way where it's a pamper side where it's all warm and fuzzy and cute. It's actually the realities and the shit show that goes on being a parent, the nappy tsunamis, the uncomfortable nature of going through healing after having a baby, the truss intribulations of breastfeeding. And they do it in such a creative way that just makes it, you know, it takes it to do off the topic, especially for people who aren't mothers, who would be quite awkward seeing or experiencing this. They're just, they're breaking down the barriers. But they've got so creative in so many ways where like, they're trying to like change the stigma over breastfeeding and breast milk. And they launched a campaign recently where they delivered a breast milk ice cream. And they set up a breast milk ice cream shop. And they're like, they were, they just playfully went on the whole like, like, cannot can people have or not? Is it safe or not? And they use a clever way just to remove the stigma over, you know, consuming breast milk in public. They had this big tanker going down at the end of the day. I know they had this big tanker going down through Times Square with like breast milk on the milk tanker. And it just grabbed everybody's attention. I just love how creative they're getting with it. I love what they're taking a brand that is would normally approach this with very tutorial education, clinical, warm, fuzzy style, and totally talking in a different way that's breaking the barriers in a way that works on social. And everybody's talking about it, including people who don't necessarily like it. But that's what I like about what they do because they're creating tension and tension is good for marketing. And there's one little quote like Jane Woodward who was the founder of Dermallagica. And like, this is a cracker. Like, I saw it on a diary of a CEO park as many, many moons ago, but she landed this line. You need to piss off the 80% to win the 20%. Like you can't be all things to all people. If you do, you're just going to be vanilla. Like some will like you, but not a lot. Some will hate you, but not a lot. You're on the fence. And that's probably 99.9% of brands right now. And it's those that are getting off the fence, you know, evoking emotion, disrupting in some way and disrupting doesn't mean in social customers. Disrupting is doing what free does doing, which is like fantastic. And just finding a way to be a bit braver that will get a reaction. And that's half the battle. Like we can simply, once we get to those points, it can be quite simple. And you get creative with repetition with it. And now you start to actually, you know, deliver recall brand awareness uplift and become a brand that people might even think about when they're in the busy shopping oils or those crazy spaces where they have to make that decision on what the hell we buy. You got me fired up, Michael. And I'm ready to wait. I don't know. Yeah, I know. I'm going to get out there and do some more. Let's be brave. Yeah. No, seriously, but I really appreciate it. And this was awesome. And it was great perspective. This also wraps up our last episode of our first season. And I think it wraps it up in a really nice way because we've taken something that people see as really tactical and turn it into the strategic and the strategic level that it deserves. So thank you for closing us out. Michael, I really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. this was fun. I appreciate it and congrats on the end of it. You didn't roast us on this episode, even though I'm sure we deserve it. No, no, no. See, this is what I mean. I play a character in Ryanair. I'm really just a nice person. I look forward to touching grass with you sometimes. Yes. Amazing. Bring your Wellies. Okay. Cheers. Thank you for joining us today for Attention Shift for today's deep dive on communication strategy. Check out our sponsors [email protected] and [email protected]. Please like and subscribe to Attention Shift on Apple, Spotify, or your podcast platform of choice. And we'll see you in a couple weeks for our next episode.