Jo Webber & Sally Kay: The Experiential Shift & Why Strategy Is Overtaking Creativity

When two industry veterans with 25 years in the game sit down and start swapping war stories about making it gold at 2am, you know you're onto a winner. In this episode of Event News DXB, I'm joined by Joe Weber and Sally Kay from This Is Spyro, and this is a conversation that cuts right to the heart of delivering events in Dubai. From impossible timelines and last minute client curve balls to the growing role of data and what they call experiential intelligence, this is a deep dive into how the industry is evolving and where it still needs to catch up. We get into the shift from creativity first to strategy-led thinking, why measurement is finally becoming non-negotiable and how some brands are still getting experiential wrong by repeating the same tied-old formats. But at its core, this episode is about what actually drives impact, not just what looks good, but what builds trust, changes behaviour and delivers real return beyond the event itself. All this coming up in the next 35 minutes. Before we begin, I'm delighted to let you know that season 3 of Event News DXB is once a game brought to you by -45 dB, and I really can't think of a better partner for the podcast. If you haven't come across them already, -45 dB, the team busy transforming noisy conference, exhibition and event spaces into slick sound-reduced environments. From full-size conference theatres to compact meeting pods, -45 dB builds modular spaces that are quiet, customizable and completely turnkey and perfect for podcast 2. Check them out at -45db.com. Event News DXB is also brought to you in association with this is Spyro, a strategically-led and creatively driven experiential agency built for a market where every detail matters. Their brand activation and events team deliver a seamless approach to concept, design and execution, creating moments that bond your brand to customers. Check them out at -5db.com. And without further ado, let's get into the podcast. Joe, Sally, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm going to start where I always start, you know, for the last two seasons, season 3 is not going to be any different. So, Joe, tell me how on earth did you get into events? Briefly. Showing my age here. Started about 25 years ago in PR events. Okay. So fashion springboarded quickly into aerospace and defence. So, other end of the industry spectrum. And I think PR events is a natural progression into experiential. Sally was the cleverest, so same. Yeah, exactly. Same. 25, 25 years I've been in this industry and still loving it. And I actually, as a young girl, wanted to be an air hostess. Okay. Because both my parents are from overseas and I flew a lot as a child. Yeah. And when it was time to decide really what you want to do, I couldn't think of anything worse than going up and down the airplane, going chicken or beef. Chicken or beef? Chicken or beef? Confilty. Sorry. Sorry. And I was like, okay, well, what's the next best thing? It was tourism. Yeah. So I kind of got into tourism, which somehow, somehow led into event management. Fantastic. Well, let's fast forward to today. And you're both here, you're both sat here with your Spyro hat on. We do. So obviously I did a little bit of research before we came into the podcast today, I read up on Spyro. So what is it that differentiates Spyro from, say, other experienced agencies in the market? Joe. It would largely be our experiential intelligence tools. Right. So it's all about blending the creativity, so the design with the strategy, with the data, the insights, the measurement. Yeah, I think our whole ethos is creatively led and strategically driven. And I've seen a real kind of lack of measurement in the industry, and especially from the clients. Sorry. This is a real focus for us. And we do have these tools that are able to support that and effectively measure and strategically lead on these projects, on these events. Measurements are always a tricky one, isn't it, when you come to experiential? Because it's so touchy touchy, you feely, feely. And I'll come onto that a little bit later in the podcast. But I know that you've both been in the region now for 12, 13 years or all they're about. And obviously you're both not from this region. I think you're from the UK and obviously very obviously from your accent. Thank you. If you, people didn't pick that up already or from Australia. So how's been your adaptations, how is it like professionally, working in this region versus, you know, back home? For me, moving here to the Middle East from Australia was a big culture shock. But being surrounded by brilliant people, I think, has really been a key contributor to my success and to understanding these nuances and so forth. But definitely it was a huge culture shock for me when I first got here. This is for sure. Joe, was there anything that stood out for you? I mean, coming from the UK, I mean, obviously it's a very different market. For sure. And not just coming from the UK, but servicing the types of industries like the defence and aerospace. Or, you know, I did a stint agency side with a lot of automotive brands. So I think the cultures within industries is also really relevant, working with the Europeans who might be more respectful of timelines and a project plan and having a plan. Yeah. And as a good place to start, you know, having a plan. Having a plan. Yeah. And budgets, you know, change orders and coming from a culture where that's the norm and then you come here and the clients like change order what? No thanks. And you're like, oh, well, how are you going to pay for all of these additional things that you've asked for? And so you very quickly learn about the cultural nuances, you know, the cultural approach to money. Here is very different to it is in UK and Europe. And my first job out here, you know, it's a running joke. Like we were asked to in the morning to change the whole colour scheme, the whole thematic of the whole event. And I'm like, oh, no, no, it's two in the morning. It's open in at 8 a.m. And you know, the agency leads like, no, no, no, they've asked for everything to be changed and it's two a.m. and they're like, shut up. Yeah, yeah, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. So I'm like, huh? So now it's a running joke internally. It's like make gold. You know, just change it overnight. Yeah. So, you know, internally, that's even come into this agency now. Yeah. With my current team, they'll still laugh at me and they're like, Joe, we make gold. Yeah. That's what we do. So make make it gold. And the funny thing is, isn't it, that if there's people, you know, sat listening to this and watching, they'll be all, I mean, many, many, many, probably 95% will be nodding furiously with their own story. I think one of the things that comes up for me a lot when chatting to guests on the podcast is the timing thing, isn't it? I mean, I also run an event venue, Warehouse 4. And I remember we had a young lady come in. It would be in perhaps six months in the marketplace and still could not get her head around. And she'd come from the UK. And she just could not get her head around or was struggling to the fact that, you know, what normally she would give be given a six-month timeline in the UK. She'd get three weeks. Yeah. And for this funny, I've asked a lot of the guests this question. You know, where does this come from and how do we change it? And I don't think there's an answer. It just seems to be a facet of the marketplace and it's something you deal with or you don't. It's utilities, isn't it? And I think when you're in such a new country where everything moves fast and is built fast, you know, you spend a summer away and you come back and the whole road system's changed here. So I think when things like that can happen overnight, it's not surprising that your events are also expected to be delivered overnight. Yeah. How difficult then is it as an agency then to push back on times like that? Because obviously, you know, there are some things that we know that are just no matter how much money you throw at things, you know, you need time for a lot of these things. And sometimes, you know, there just isn't enough time like to your point, you know, how do you change the whole colour scheme for something overnight? There's a lot of there's so much fabrication there, etc, etc, etc, etc. How difficult then is it, you know, in your roles to push back? And how much of that can you kind of head off at the pass by, I don't want to sound condescending, but by educating ahead of time? That's exactly what I was going to say actually. It's not about pushing back because by the time the brief is in and the project needs to be delivered next week, there's no time to push back right. It's a risk you ever choose to take the risk or you don't. But to your point, it's an education. So you can't really change the project in hand, but then all you can do is work tirelessly to try and educate your partners on how you could do things differently next time. And we've done full strategy, deep dive consultancy pieces of work with our clients to come up with an ideal, put two process for them, because they don't have one internally. And then that then impacts their agency partners. And if they want to impact their own quality, that's a decision they need to make. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's being also transparent as well. And having that kind of expertise or advice to your clients by giving them the confidence that you know what you're talking about. And it's not about coming with the problem. It's about coming with the problem and also the solution and options. I think options are very important because if you're only coming with one option, there's nothing for them to choose from. And so it's almost like you're, would they feel like perhaps maybe they're getting backed into a corner or yeah, there's nothing to choose from. So I'm a big big advocate of options. I know it's more work, but definitely coming with that confidence, I think is really important and creating that bond and that trust with your client so that they do listen to you ultimately. Yeah. You've raised some really interesting points there. And I mean, one or two of them, in particular, like building relationships that I'll come on to explore that again a little bit later in the podcast as well, our industry like many goes in cycles and we're very much into a cycle at the moment where experiential seems to be in. What are you most excited about given that such a focus now is on the experiential business? And also what sort of trends can you see emerging? Well, we were laughing about this. I'm like, oh God, the domes back. So you know, in all of our creativity, it's like the dome is back and people want to be in there and they want to be fully immersed. So you know, we're talking more from a tactical, you know, a creatively led strategically driven. So from a creative design perspective, we got these fully immersive rooms back in from a strategic perspective within that room. You can then be fully immersed in in the story. So that's where the strategy comes in. And you know, we're back in there with the full 360 experience, all the realities, you know, people don't just want the augmented reality or the virtual realities. It's mixed reality. So definitely was still trending on that and it's back. And I think also as well, people do crave the storytelling and the emotion and the immersive human, I think, connection as well. But I think there is a certain fatigue when it comes to digital. So I think it'll be really interesting to see perhaps if there is a shift away from a digital into more hybrid or yeah, is it still very much that hands on kind of experience and experiential experience that some audiences want? To be honest, I'm going to refer to just to COVID this one time because obviously it's been a topic that's been exhausted. But I do feel in this case, I wonder how much, and I guess this is my question to you is how much of an influence was everybody's experience throughout COVID, in perhaps the growth and the popularity now of experiential and in-person events because we had obviously such a long period of not being able to do that. And there seems to be in sort of like a reaction to move against that now. What's your take on that? We were definitely forced into a pivot of virtual events. And well, you don't know what you got till it's gone. I think the fact that no one could then have that human connection and that face-to-face experience. They were like, oh no, we didn't like not having it. So bring it back. You know, how many people would get forced to attend an event is like, oh, more small talk or go to these exhibitions and they're listening to lectures and seminars on topics and take it for granted. And then suddenly when it was taken away, it was like, oh no, that was even worse doing it online. Can we go back to face-to-face? But I think also as well, brands are investing more in experiential more than ever. But what we are seeing is the same static displays and the same formula. And I think that's not a creative problem. That's a strategy problem. And this is where I think strategy is leading now and is so important moving forward so that these experiences are, I guess, moving forward and becoming measurable. So when it comes to deciding whether an event has been a success or not, how do you manage that process with your clients? I mean, it's often talked about as ROI, but there's lots of other terms as well. So do you talk to me a bit about that? ROI is just one element of what we're measuring. So we're measuring the total return on, the TRO, you call it. And within that, we are measuring the return on the experience, the return on the operation and the return on the community. The community is fostered to remain way beyond the event itself. One of the things we look at when we're doing experiential events is behavioral change. And that sort of leads me on to another question for you both. I mean, can experiential events realistically influence behavior or is the role more about starting conversations? Who wants to go with that? Well, I'll start because experiences build trust, trust builds belief and belief drives behavioral change. I think it is about what people feel and what they did. And so it's a measurable thing to have those. And when you're ticking all of those boxes, then that's where it starts happening. I want to move on to sustainability because that's a big topic. I know for you guys and also just in the industry in general, where does Spirost stand on sustainability? Sustainability should be part of your strategy. It's not an option. Obviously everybody has budget considerations, ethic considerations. We don't just want to jump on the buzzwords, the greenwashing, the carbon neutrality goals that are unrealistic. It's about being strategic and taking those small measurable steps to meet your goals. Absolutely. Look from my own experience. I don't think any of us could sit here and put our hands on our hearts and say it's absolutely top of the agenda for all our clients. For one or two, it very much might be if you're working for Patagonia or somebody like that. Then clearly they built a whole company based around that. But for many, I think I wouldn't be remiss by saying for many, it has been in the past a pretty much a box ticking exercise. But how much has the attitude changed around sustainability? I would say fairies from brand to brand. Definitely I have some brands that are much more motivated around our shed values when it comes to a corporate responsibility. There are some brands where it's not priority at all. Some procurement process now actually involves a whole element on sustainability. I have seen that trending probably in this region more than the Western regions, which surprised me. I think actually we're in a really good position to shape things when there's nothing there in existence. We work with the Saudi Ministry of Energy multiple times. In some of their flagship events, we're actually helping them to shape the sustainability policy for the country. Huge. Which is no mean feat. I think the bar was pretty low to be perfectly frank. I'll say that so you don't have to. I think anything that we can do to raise that bar is going to be an improvement. Is it as far as perhaps some other continental countries are possibly not? Is it a step in the right direction? Absolutely. I think whatever we can do to raise awareness and to walled sustainability is going to be a good thing. And Lee, by example. I was just going down. I was just going to say that. These are our best practices. If I can sit there with my partners and say look, we have these carbon neutrality goals. We are doing this for corporate responsibility. How does that suit your brand? Do you want to be part of it? We've almost then created a playbook that they can just jump on rather than them having to hire a consultant to write them a corporate responsibility or a sustainability or ESG. Whatever the buzz word is because it's the same face, we're just changing the terminology over time. And we're giving them a framework. I think it comes about to what you said earlier, isn't it about giving people choices and not it's just been such an open-ended sort of question. You can do A, B or C and also to point that, you know, not everything has to be on such a huge gigantic scale. I mean, you know, the day, absolutely. Absolutely. And the end of the day, you know, we're not talking about saving a whole species, but what it can be, I mean, just, I can relate this to my own experience, for example, in running the event venue. For many years now, we've insisted on no single use plastics. So no water bottles, no plastic utensils and things like that. And initially, we'd get a lot of pushback, you know, from catering companies that come in who go, what do you mean? And then they'd have to rush out and find a solution. Yeah. And now having built it in, people go, okay, yeah, we know already. And they come already. I mean, I don't know what they do in other venues and for other clients, but certainly in ours. Yeah, they come with, you know, wood or, or in most cases, you know, proper porcelain or, you know, and I think it goes back to your point about leading by, by example, this is also starting in your own house as well, not your own house, but meaning your own company. We have just a great initiative programs and it's about creating this culture within the company because I really do think it starts in your own house. If you want to call it that, it's so important to mold and educate and teach the people that are next to you that you're working with because then that becomes organic through your work. With the clients that do, you know, put an emphasis on sustainability, what about their sort of post event reporting then in what do you do for them? Are more clients asking for that now? Yes, a million percent. It's a real trend. And as a response, we've then had to invest in the right tools that can deep dive into those metrics and the analytics and do it with position. For sure, like some clients want to know exactly how many running meters of wood were saved by them having a reuse or recycle program. I will deep dive into electrics, furnishings. There's so much that can be redone. So looking ahead, I mean, we mentioned earlier that we seem to be in a phase at the moment or a cycle of experiential being the sort of the in thing. If we were to look ahead to the future, what does experiential look like? The future is knowledge, is data. We have really heavily invested in our research, development, measurement, insights, data tools for this very reason. We have a tool called Amir, it's a reporting tool. That really helps us future proof and creates a shift from we think this worked or this was liked or this was well received by the audience without having the real data behind it. You can then say we know this worked. Would you say this is got to be, I mean, this is a prerequisite, isn't it, going moving forward? I mean, if it's been done already, but as we have more and more tools that are disposable with which to collect data as if there aren't enough already. But as you say, it really is going to be, it's going to provide in many cases the blueprint for what you actually do. Yeah, we want to know what is driving conversion, what's driving trust, what's driving growth. We need to be able to consult our partners on that. And so when you put your pictures together and your events, that's the starting point. And what point then does the creativity come in and that you start actually, okay, let's build a story around this that can put all this into action. Where does that come in? And who on your team? Is it you guys on your team that does that or you bring in people or you have people that can come in as and when needed? We have a huge creativity. And we have seen a shift in trend. So there has been a requirement more focused on the content curators and the strategists and the copywriting and the story and the journey. People have so much information at their fingertips, you know, Uncle Google is everybody's best friend. So people have so much data available to them all the time. It's then making that data impactful. Well, it's actually now chapter GPT. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm just just quickly on that though. I think what I'm seeing, especially is a big shift towards AI being used as a tool to, I guess, create these experience and so forth for you, which I think is maybe gone a little bit too far left if that's how you want to kind of describe it. And what I'm seeing is that in particular, just in one instance, we received a inspirational image of a Christmas tree. And we were told to basically build it. We were asked whether the RFP was to basically to build this. And it was to be kinetic as well. And when we actually looked into it and spoke with the suppliers and so forth, it was physically not possible. Impossible. It was impossible to do. And so what we did was, as we spent so much time actually trying to produce and develop a Christmas tree that would kinetically move. That looked obviously similar to this picture. And we presented it and the client said that that doesn't look like the picture. And we said, no, no, understand. But was this produced by AI? And they said, yes. And yeah, what can we, what can we do? I look at, yeah, I mean, I said my own take on that, which is I think, you know, I'm probably very similar to many people. But I mean, I think AI can be very useful when it comes to ideation. But, you know, we're still in a process with a lot of these LLMs where they they spume out some pretty questionable things. So I think to use them as a starting point for ideation is a great inspiration. Yeah, exactly. Can be very inspirational. I think, but there obviously has to be still that human element that comes involved that comes into play. And also to your point, you know, there are some things as well. I guess if you haven't given it the right, the right prompts, you need to be asking, you know, whether or not that's, you know, literally from a production point of view, is this feasible? Yeah. One of the things I wanted to ask you about that when it comes to the sort of the idea nation is how important is it to have the client involved in that stage? I guess there's two, two parts of this question. How important is it to have the client involved and how many clients want to be involved or do they sit back and let you present and then jump in? It's a tough one, isn't it? It's back to your point around old long-term relationships versus new. Right. I think when you're on board and a partner in for the first time, you need to build that trust and you need to get to know preferences, the playbook, you know, you're building that out. So they might be more involved if it's the first time you've worked together. Whereas once you've established that trust, they're like, we know you know how brown, we know you get it, hands off approach. So I think it depends on whether it's a new logo. Does it fit on the individual as well? I mean, you know, if I were a client of you, I mean, that's the sort of, I get a kick out of that. I kind of want to be involved in that. You know, I'm sure there's probably stuff a lot of people going, God, no, keep him out of the room. Just let us do that. And then some clients are really excited by the process. To the point they want to come sit in and look over the designer's shoulder and what check get 3D modeled in real time. Which we do welcome. And I also think time is key here because I know software has evolved and we don't have to render all night anymore to get the output. But it does help if the sets of design iterations are done in one go and it's done prior to rendering. Because at the end of the day, our partners need to go back to their management and show them a glossy brochure on what this thing is going to look like. And only if they've been part of that process can talk to it why that got changed, why that got removed, why that's been put in. Is it feasibly and physically possible to build? And how much time have we got? Do we have time to keep doing loads of design iterations and then render in again for hours and hours? Or are we really sure on time? And we need to go to production tomorrow. Therefore, you need to come and see this before it gets modeled and rendered out. And you need to come and approve this before you then take that to your management. So I think there's so many different variables that go into the creative process. And I think I'm a big fan of what we call a tissue session. So this is where we get to a certain point in the creation phase where you do invite the client to sort of have a progress check-in. Just to make sure that we're not going too far off on track and so forth. So I do sometimes feel given the client, given the time. frames given the complexity maybe of the project or the brief, a tissue session can be quite valuable. Definitely. Designs subjective. Why a tissue section? People leaving tears? I'm not sure. I didn't make that. Oh my God, you've done it so far. I didn't make it. Oh my God, you've got it so right. No, I'm not too sure. Yeah, happy tears. I didn't make that one up. So it's a good question. It might ask Uncle Google after this one, but yeah, no, definitely a big fan of a tissue session. It can be very, very valuable. Listen, there's so many things I could chat to you both about, but I am conscious of time. We do try and keep the podcast to around about sort of 35, 40 minutes tops. One of the things I will ask you though before we wrap up though, if there was one, if there was one aspect of your industry and maybe your, let's say, let's widen it a little bit. One aspect of your industry or job that you could change, what would it be? Whether that's whether that's timelines, whether that's budgets, whether that's, I want a three day working week. Yes, I mean, let's not go into work life balance. We know we don't do this job because we want work life balance. We know it doesn't work like that. The show is opening whether you're ready or not. If you want a nine till five type of job, you're not going into events. Go work in spirits. Let's not go there. What about on an industry level then? What would make, what would make your life easier on an industry level on a sort of day-to-day basis? Longer timelines? 100%, this is without a doubt. I would definitely say that in a nutshell, would be timelines and timeframes. I think it absolutely shocks the other global entities of Spyro that we are always designing pitching in the month for the month. It causes all types of forecasting questions and anomalies. They think you don't know how to forecast or it's like, yes, and bagging these opportunities. I'm like, no, the client really did just decide to do this. It's interesting is that I was chatting to a colleague a few years ago now, but he works for a much larger global entity. He was being asked about forecasts for Ramadan and he said, oh, I'll let you know after Ramadan. Yeah. Exactly. I'll let you know after Ramadan. Yeah. And we all laugh for me because we know exactly what that means. Exactly. Being in this market. But if you're not familiar with this market, you can understand how that's a lot of shock and horror. I think I have another one for myself. One of my pet ones was just clear at briefs. And you get a clear brief across your desk. You're just like, oh my God, where did this person come from? Thank you. The amount of one line sentences that I've received is I can cannot count them on one hand. And phone, phone brief where you're desperately scribbling down. But like I said, I think this goes back to these strategic approach and the discovery session. If you can really start answering the right questions and almost squeezing it out of the client, you're off to the right, you're off to the right start. It's very, very, very important to take the right approach from the beginning and dissect a brief as best you can. That's right. I'm smiling because my favourite briefs are the ones I've normally written on behalf of my clients. Perhaps I should have done more of that. I remember getting a brief once in my production days. It said, we want a 30 second television commercial. I'm like, okay, any brief? No, we just want a 30 second television commercial. Followed by, I think the next email was, how much? Yeah, right. So I just wrote back two million. One million dollars. I actually just received a phone brief. I just took a brief over the phone and then I was asking just questions on the fly and I received afterwards an email saying, thank you for your time. Here is the actual brief. I swear it was everything that I had. I think it's a word. I mean, it gives you a certain sense of, I guess, pride that they've taken your word for verbatim, if you will. But I think that also goes back to when the our global officers do get impressed by how quickly we turn things around. You also do feel very kind of. You're a bit chuffed over it. It's normal to us. It takes the global office to make us go, oh yeah, that's not normal, is it? Yeah, so you do. You kind of feel like, oh yeah, wow, I am really good at my job, but I'm really special or something like that. So it gives you a little bit of an ego. We had our global president in town, so we have a bell in the office. Just to remind us to stop for a little minute and celebrate our success. Otherwise, I just feel like we're on the hamster wheel and we never stop. So Sally's ringing the bell. So the president's like, wow, what did we win? She's like, Bentley, woo! And then he's like, autumn, when is the event? She's like, Saturday. And he's like, what? I was like, yeah, don't mind us. Back in the meeting, we're in place, you know. Horrified. Horrified expression. Absolutely. Horrified. Well, before we wrap up, I'm going to ask you both an easy question. It's something that we, I ask all the guests on the podcast, just to finish things off. I'm a huge music fan, you know. I'm now collating my second vinyl collection. I think I got rid of it all 20 years ago. Find myself back in the same place, buying all those records I used to buy before. I mean, we all use music for different kinds of things. I don't know about you guys, but I kind of sit back and chill out when I'm, you know, a stressful day. What's on your playlist, though, at the moment? Joe. I'm the worst person to ask. My music has a personality crisis. So, does that depend on who's hijacked your Spotify account? Or who's hijacked my brain normally? Right. OK. I, you know, I love a bit of vocal house. Let's call it. I'm not a hardcore house. OK. I'm going to, you know, my entry into my Raven days, my garage. I liked the old school garage. What are you playing in the car at the moment? Probably a bit more sing-songy. I like a bit of vinyl witty or Alicia Keys. Something like that. OK. Sally? I would say I'm very eclectic, yes. I listen to nearly everything. And it depends on my mood, you know? So if I met the gym, I want something a little bit more high energy, a little bit more relaxing, obviously a bit more calmer. But I also will say to you, with you're in with me in the car, you say three-hour road trip. I say three-hour personal concert. So. Really. Fantastic. Well, Joe, Sally, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast today. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for having us. Yes. Event News DXB was brought to you by -45 dB. The team busy transforming noisy conference, exhibition, and event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments. The podcast was also brought to you in association with This Is Spyro, a strategically-led and creatively-driven experiential agency, built for a market where every detail matters. Event News DXB was hosted by myself, Ian Carlos. The studio engineer was Manny Penamora. The executive producer was myself and Joe Morrison. And this podcast was produced by Podworks, one of the industry's leading branded podcast and content studios. And if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. It really does help us reach a wider audience. Until next time, stay safe.