Eric Salama: Influencing decisions in a data-filled world

Babita Earle:

Hi, everybody. Welcome to our next episode of Inside Insights, a podcast brought to you by Zappi, which is really about bringing personal stories of people within our industry, outside our industry, to you at home or wherever you're listening. We've got a really, really exciting, and I would say almost a celebrity interview that Ryan has managed to schedule. Well done, Ryan, tell us about our guest.

Ryan Barry:

Why thank you, Babita, and hello listeners. Thank you for subscribing . Please rate us five stars, so your friends can find us. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing Eric Salama. Eric was the CEO of Kantar for almost two decades and led an organization through many of the Insights' industries transformations, helped sell the business to Bain Capital and then exited to work on other priorities.

I'm personally really excited about this interview because I actually worked for Kantar at one point in my career. And obviously Zappi for many years had a partnership and an investor relationship with Kantar, but the truth is Babita, I've never actually got to just chat with Eric about his story, and I'm really excited about it. I'm excited to learn more about him. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Should we get into it? Let's get Eric on the phone.

Babita:

Let's do it. Let's go for it.

[Music transition to interview]

Ryan Barry:

Today, I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing Eric Salama, industry icon and legend, former CEO of Kantar, and a very busy man these days. Eric, I appreciate you making the time to talk to me today.

Eric Salama:

It's a pleasure, thanks for having me on.

Ryan:

Absolutely. Eric and I are going to cover a bunch of topics today, Eric's somebody who I've always admired but never really had the chance to get to know, so this is kind of a cool excuse for me to do that at the same time. But Eric, this podcast is really designed to give people a glimpse into the inevitable change that exists all around us, whether it be in culture, in politics, in education, and of course grounded in insights, which is the space that we both love.

Eric:

Yep.

Ryan:

I wanted to start by asking you a question: you led one of the biggest, most successful market research companies for a long time, and you've just now-

Eric:

18 years.

Ryan:

18 years.

Eric:

That's a long time.

Ryan:

So that makes you, what, 32?

Eric:

Just, yeah.

Ryan:

So you've seen a lot in that time, but I'd be curious for your words update on what you're up to these days, because I think somebody in your position, we read press releases, but how has it been since you've transitioned out of that role into some of the new endeavors that you're working on? What have you been up to?

Eric:

That's a big question. There's a short answer and a ... the short answer is, it's been a really nice transition. I haven't missed traveling, although I'm beginning to miss it now. And I deliberately wanted to kind of stop doing what I was doing to be able to explore different things. That's worked out well, so I'm chairing a charity called Comic Relief, which is one of the U.K.'s biggest charities, which uses the power of entertainment to raise money. Largely comedians and sports stars who we use to make films and move people through storytelling and raise money, and then distribute that money to mostly Africa and the U.K.

Ryan:

Got it.

Eric:

So I'm chairing that, and I've been appointed a senior fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard, and I'm doing work on data privacy and the intersection of what agencies, advertisers, organizations, social media companies, regulators, and most importantly people are trying to get out of data privacy, and just understand, do people care about their privacy? What are they doing about it? What could be done to help them? And looking at that, and that's interesting, that's a really interesting bunch of people at the Kennedy School as well.

I'm doing some work with the global team at LinkedIn on a variety of things, and I'm on the board of a not-so-startup called Morning Consults, which at the moment in the States is getting lots of press around the polling that it's doing every day around the congressional and presidential races. And they're a really nice bunch of people, they're a young management team, really hungry, really ambitious, doing very well, doing interesting work.

That gives me lots to keep me busy while being able to have a bit more time to play some tennis and go cycling and see friends and do all of the things that are really hard to do when you're running a global organization as I did.

Ryan:

Yeah, I would say the last 18 years of your life, most weeks you're on a plane and hotels, right? So it must be nice-

Eric:

Yeah, it was kind of like traveling every week for two or three days a week. It probably took more out of me than I did realize.

Ryan:

Yeah, it's interesting. So I'm now, similar to you, I haven't traveled since that day, and it dawned on me only a few weeks ago that I've become so used to traveling that it became part of me, but now I'm in a position where it's been a while, and the only parts I really miss are being in nice places, nice cities. I do miss some of the connections, but there's something to be said of being able to have dinner with your family at night, you know? People in roles like we have, you miss that for a long time. I guess some positive in what's been a tough year.

So I want to start with some of the work you're doing at Comic Relief. I got lost last week diving into their website, I think it's just fascinating work. I really wanted to talk to you about culture, people and politics, but given some of the things…

Eric:

Okay.

Ryan:

So let's start with people. It sounds like what Comic Relief is doing is using the platform of entertainment to connect with people who are really struggling and help them through, both with positive storytelling, but also with cash. So what are some of the trends you're seeing in how that works, being utilized, and just expanding upon kind of how the work's really implementing itself into the community a bit. I give you and that team a lot of kudos, I think it's just fascinating.

Eric:

I've just come into it, so you shouldn't give me any kudos, but It's raised almost $2 billion since it was founded 30 years ago, and it was founded by a guy called Richard Curtis, who was the screenwriter and director of films like Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Richard is still incredibly involved. One of the big pleasures is actually working with him on things, but it really starts from a premise that, actually entertainment and laughing can release lots of things, and that charity isn't always about making people feel guilty ... They can enjoy themselves and be made to think differently, and the power of emotion releases lots of things.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Eric:

So that's really the idea, and that idea has proved very powerful over the years. And once a year, there's a six-hour show on the main channel in the U.K., which is the BBC, where there's lots of sketches and people come together and raise lots of money. Naturally, the team before I joined did something during lockdown which was a kind of special, which they put together over six weeks, all totally virtually, and raised $100 million or so.

The concept is a great one. It's got lots of challenges which we're grappling with: how do we move from raising money through TV to raising it more through other channels the whole year, and what could we do with other vehicles for comedy and sports to raise money that way? There's a whole load of challenges on the giving side, all charities are facing this issue of, they have to understand the communities that they're giving to. We give a lot of money in Africa; how do we make sure that we really understand those communities, and actually how do we help those communities tell their stories, rather than us telling their stories? How do we facilitate them telling their stories directly, and how do we help them decide where the money could be spent to best effect?

There's lots of challenges, and not just in the U.K., but charities this year are going to have a terrible time. Charitable giving is going to be down by probably 25% this year.

Ryan:

Wow.

Eric:

And obviously lots of charities relied on events: you run the Boston Marathon and you raise money for charity, you run a race somewhere, you go on a sponsored swim, you do something. You raise money in schools, and a lot of those forms and venues aren't available this year. We're probably on the cusp of one of the worst recessions that we've had in a very long time, so people are going to think differently about giving money. It releases two things at the same time, it releases a desire for people to help and to give, and at the same time, it makes people more conscious of what they're spending money on.

Ryan:

It's true.

Eric:

So there's lots of challenges there, but it's a really lovely group of people to work with. The need for a charity like Comic Relief has never been greater, and it comes with lots of challenges which makes it kind of stimulating and fun.

Ryan:

Yeah, for sure. I'm really drawn to just this notion of using humor. I was involved in a charity here in Boston, it's Life is Good Kids Foundation, and their whole thing was, people in difficult situations, impoverished, parents with drug addiction, what have you, they don't learn the power of playing and having fun and smiling because they grow up quickly. It's similar to a lot of the communities that I'd say you're donating and investing in.

It's just something I'm really drawn to, because I always say optimism's a superpower. You're bringing that to people.

Eric:

And you need to release, as we know in terms of work that we've done in terms of testing advertising, emotion is an incredible thing. People are emotional creatures, and we give of our time and of our money and of ourselves more through emotional things that move us, as opposed to purely rational ones.

Ryan:

It's true.So let's transition: the Morning Consult work is a great company, something I've been following for a while. I'm particularly interested ... you're not going to be surprised by this, by the time this interview comes out, we'll be a few weeks removed from, I guess you could call that a presidential debate. I'd love to just get your view on what you're seeing in the polling space, and I know you're interested in politics, just the U.S. political climate and how the polls are manifesting what's happening. Those of you listening are wondering, why is Ryan going into politics so quickly? Well, because it's a really interesting time, that's why we're going there.

But Eric, I'd love for you to, from your view of what you're seeing in the data from the business, but also I know it's a topic that's interesting to you. I'd be fascinated to get your read.

Eric:

Well, I think there's lots of different things ... maybe four years ago, we had Brexit and we had Trump's election, and a lot of people kind of called it on polling and said, clearly polling doesn't work. Clearly people lie or people don't tell the truth or any of that kind of stuff. And actually, the evidence, and I was really proud that our team at Kantar did call Brexit, we didn't do the polling in the States, but the evidence since then has been, generally speaking, polling is pretty accurate.

I think it's really important that we remind ourselves that survey research does have a role. It's great that we all talk about behavioral data, and I'm a great believer that behavioral data tells you things that you can't get from survey data, but I'm also a great believer that actually survey research does work, and that the most powerful combinations are where you have attitudes to understand why people are behaving, and behaviors to understand what they're actually doing.

I think polling, generally, when you look at elections around the world, has been pretty accurate. And yes, there's lots of things that people kind of go back and adjust, and certainly in the States people have to go back and weigh differently. They missed out on education being such an important factor, so people have re-weighted education. There's been lots of tests, I saw one that Morning Consult did last week comparing online and phone voting to see whether or not there was a group of people that somehow lied when you asked them about it directly, but would say something differently online where they're more prone to telling the truth, in a way.

Ryan:

They won't say, right.

Eric:

Polling's got one really hard thing, which is it's really hard to predict how many people actually turn out on the day, and quite often, turnouts are the things which really drive elections. Do we actually turn out at the polls? The difference between a percentage point or two of turnout could make a huge difference. So it's not just what are you going to do, it's do you actually follow through and do it?

Sometimes it's, for lots of reasons, I might get disillusioned, it might be a really crappy, rainy day and I don't want to go out, or I've been busy and I forgot. And remember that we might be kind of politically interested, but in lots of Western democracies, 50, 60, 70% of people turn out to vote. That means you've got 30, 40% of the people not voting. We can't also overestimate the level of engagement that people have with politics, because for lots of people, it's not something that they really follow and care about, and they just get sound bites and they get impressions and that's what drives them.

So that's lots of caveats. I do believe that generally polling is good. The polls that Morning Consult are doing at the moment show that, at a national level, Biden is and has stayed seven or eight points ahead pretty consistently for the last few months. And more interestingly, at a state level, he's ahead in a lot of those key states where he has to win, so states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan. He's still ahead by pretty healthy margins.

So if you look at all of the polling evidence that I've seen at the moment, it would suggest that Biden's going to win. But it's still, what, five weeks away? So lots can happen still. And I'm not sure that anyone can take two more debates of the sort that we saw the other night, but we'll see what the new rules are for the next two debates.

Ryan:

It's hard not to laugh, and then you realize it's your own country. It's like, oh wow, this is fascinating. I think you're right, I always feel like it is about actually getting numbers to the polls, right? If I go back to the first Obama election, he won because he drew the crowd. To your point, there was a much higher degree of turnout than there was probably four years ago, so I'll be curious to see what happens on the day, particular given, on the day we probably don't really know what happens. It's probably December before we officially have a new president or an incumbent or what have you.

All right, I want to talk about two more things with you: consumer insights and changes in your career. Let's start with consumer insights. Two questions, the first one, 18 years, you've led an organization through, I would argue, multiple horizons of big change, from mail to phone, from phone to online, and to this new age that we find ourselves in, which, I don't know about you, is buzzword bingo every single day when I wake up and read the industry press.

Take me through the biggest change you saw on your watch in the 18 years of running Kantar, the biggest change in the industry that made the most profound impact to how you worked and how your customers worked with insights. I imagine you've seen a lot.

Eric:

I think certain things didn't change. The questions that clients have had haven't changed, they still want to be able to understand what people are doing, why they're doing it, and be able to predict what they're going to do in the future. And obviously some of that has changed in the sense that we've now got more media channels, so you're thinking about, how do I allocate my budget across different media channels, you're now thinking about, how do I allocate it across social media? 

So some of that has changed in terms of granularity, but I think that the biggest changes have probably been there is now no shortage of data, and I don't know any client who thinks, oh, I really need more data.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Eric:

It's shifted from, I need to get more data to, there's so much data out there, what's the right data for me to actually look at, and how do I make sense of it all? Because a lot of it will be contradictory and a lot of it will tell you different types of stories. So how do I make sense of it?

I think that's a pretty big change. I think the other one is that technology is much more central to the way that both agencies and clients think about the work. Now remember, not even six or seven years ago, in these conversations with clients about, well, I know you want more quality, but you can't have better, faster, cheaper. That's a contradiction. You have to choose two out of three.

And actually, clients don't need to choose two out of three, they can get all three. So how you use technology to make stuff better, make it more real-time, make it more predictive, make it cheaper, I think all of that is now possible if you invest in the right kinds of technologies and if you have the right kind of relationship with clients.

And then last, the questions haven't changed and nor have the importance of people. You still need really great people to interpret research, to make sense of it, to inspire people with storytelling, to understand what you need. I don't see any fewer mistakes being made now, either by agencies or by clients, than I did 18 years or 10 years ago or five ago. They're just different types of mistakes.

Ryan:

Yeah. What I love about your answer is the focus on what doesn't change, because we all see it around us, but there are constants in life, right? Our customers are still trying to understand people and launch products and brands that stay. 

The other thing that you said that resonates with me, Eric, is it's one the reasons why I got into technology was not to sell a widget, but to say, imagine what people could be doing with their time if they weren't writing briefs and programming surveys and all these mundane tasks. So to turn that question, what are the things about consumers that have changed, and what are the things about consumers that have not changed, from your perspective?

Eric:

I don't think consumers have changed that much, emotion still drives a large amount of purchase behavior and of actual behavior, we've got a lot more choice, we still use brands to help us make those choices. We haven't got time to process all of the information which is out there. Now, you can then say, okay, but how you actually, if you want to get kind of jargon-y, the path to purchase has changed. Obviously I'm subjected to more media, there's a lot more peer-to-peer information which is available, I can get information from different sources, I can disconnect where I get the information from from the actual store that I buy from, so I could go to a physical store, see what I want, and go and buy online.

In lots of ways, there are lots of obvious things that have changed about my path to purchase, the choice that I have, but have some of the fundamentals changed? I still rely on emotion to make a lot of choices. So I think in terms of us as human beings, a lot of stuff hasn't changed. But we live in a world where we have a lot more choice, a lot more channels, a lot more media channels, so in helping clients and advertisers and organizations make better decisions, we obviously need to take all of that into account.

Ryan:

Yeah, it's how we integrate and build business that's potentially changing, but they're tactics. It's interesting to me, because there's always a new social media platform, and I'm like, oh, which one do I have to engage with? But it's really from the place of understanding. You're right, it's our job to help the businesses we work with integrate. I like the focus you have on constants. I've gone back and read old advertising books, likeDavid Ogilvy's books on advertising from the '60s. Nothing's really changed, he's still moaning about things about market research, as an example, that you still would hear with a CMO in the room today.

I think there's so much learning we can have from just psychology and the way people work. I'm validated to hear you say that. The biggest unlock for the way consumer insights adds value in the future as a function lies in what developing? What needs to happen, what trend do you see that is the most important to really elevate the impact the industry has?

Eric:

I think one of the biggest things that the industry is facing is that it's seen as old-fashioned and lacking in credibility by senior decision-makers.

Ryan:

Yep.

Eric:

And the need for insight has never been greater, but if you talk to a lot of CEOs and CMOs, they would say we're not well-served by what we get. So they look for work-arounds and they get dissatisfied. It's no coincidence that research budgets generally have been cut at a time when, generally speaking, media budgets have gone up. That tells you that a lot of clients, and I'm not talking about just this year, when obviously everything's been cut, generally speaking, if you look back over the last few years, the amount that advertisers have spent on media has gone up; the amount that they've spent on research has gone down.

Now, obviously you've got some industries which have grown, you've got some new companies emerging, they're spending more, but generally speaking, the more established players have cut back on what they spend on insights. And that tells you that they don't think it's good value for money, and it's not giving them what they need. So I think that's ... the biggest issue for me is, how do we make insights really relevant and compelling for CEOs, CMOs, chief financial officers who are making certain decisions, and instead of them thinking about insights as, oh God, it's old, they're not telling me anything new, they're not helping me innovate, there's so many examples of new products that have been launched where they didn't use research. All of that kind of narrative.

I think the biggest unlock is getting to a place where they say, we need to spend more on insights because it's delivering so much to us. And at the moment, that's not where senior clients are. They're dissatisfied and they're pissed off.

Ryan:

It feels like it. I have two hypotheses, I want to get your reaction to them. The first one is talent, and what I mean by this is I got into the insights business 12 years ago. I, at that time, felt like a good percentage of the corporate insights folks were still in a world of, I would argue, most of their job being procurement management. So commissioning a study, having a supplier come in and present, and what I see now, Eric, is a lot of pressure from the upstream coming down. You've got your Deloittes and your McKenzies coming in, saying we must digitize, so it goes from the chief growth officer down.

I know you saw this at Kantar because we've competed in things, we've worked together on things over the years. I then see the flurry of, we need to become agile, without the understanding of what that actually means. I view it as a, it's people, process, and technology, oftentimes, that are at the crux of change management. So I don't think as an industry we've provided the upskill to our talent around storytelling, business acumen, PNL orientation, et cetera. So that's my first hypothesis.

My second is, I watched Xaxis, a business that WPP owned, and it blew up just like digital media did. And then I go and sit in a room full of insights VPs, and the data lake team, the BI team, the programmatic teams, somewhere else and they don't take. Marketing seems to be evolving exponentially. But it does still seem to me like those worlds have not yet intersected. Am I full of it, or do you think-?

Eric:

I think that's right, and I think that's one of the challenges for the insights function, is that lots of those worlds have grown up outside and are offering insights into the organization. So in a way, insights aren't the preserve of the insights team anymore.

They should be. I don't want to exaggerate, because there are lots of companies that I know where you've got a head of insights who is incredibly well-respected, talks to the CEO and the board the whole time, integrates information from across the organization, but more often than not, that doesn't happen. I think it's a mixture of, you put it quite nicely, talent and process and technology.

And if you think about where agencies add value. Let's say you were starting and saying, right, you've got the opportunity to recruit 30,000 people from scratch, would you recruit those same types of 30,000 people? You wouldn't. What you'd do is you'd recruit much more heavily in certain areas and you'd downsize a whole bunch of other functions. So lots of the big companies are dealing with legacy issues of, how do we move from where we've got to to where we need to be, and it's harder for a big company to do that than it is for a startup. 

Now, the big company has got lots of advantages because they've got client relationships, they've got a global footprint, they've got history, they've got so many things going for them. But what they haven't got going for them, which is what they need to work on, is how do we make ourselves a company which really adds value in the right ways, and what does that mean for our talent pool and the types of people that we recruit and we promote and all of those types of things?

Ryan:

Yeah, that's a great response. All right, so a lot of people listening to this are going to be saying, okay, what can I do? For the up-and-coming insights people, the managers, the directors, client and vendor side, what's some advice you have for those folks as they navigate the next couple years of their career? 

Eric:

Always take on new challenges, always put yourself out of your comfort zone and learn new things. Inertia is dead in the industry. Ask yourself how you add value, and really concentrate on that. That doesn't mean you need to be great at everything, but you need to really find the areas where you can add value in ways that other people can't. 

I think I would also periodically step back and just say, am I doing certain things just because we've always done them, and are we doing them for the right reasons? Have I actually spent my time effectively, or have I got drawn into all kinds of things and have I spent money all kinds of ways that don't really add value to what I'm trying to achieve?

Ryan:

Wow, that's great advice. The way I always try to look at it, Eric, is 80% of my day is going to be BAU, that 20%, I better be thinking and reflecting. But it does come with the ruthless prioritization and sort of discipline. 

To your point a few minutes ago about the bigger companies wanting to be able to move faster, from my perspective, it starts from the people working in the big companies not being scared to go and call a guy like you and say, hey, we're doing this wrong. Here's four ways we can do it better, I want to experiment and actually challenge it. I think executives are less scary than maybe they come across.

Eric:

Yeah, I think that's right. And I've always thought about it as the urgent and the important, that we all get drawn into the urgent stuff, and especially during a year like this year. There's lots of urgent stuff, but one of the reasons why actually having goals that you set for the year is useful is if you set them properly, they should be about what's the really important stuff that I need to achieve this year? That's not a long list of 100 things, that's like two or three things.

Ryan:

Correct. I say this to a lot of younger people on teams that I talk to: you can show up at 8:00 a.m. every day and work till 6:00 and be busy, but do nothing. You genuinely can just do it. So Eric, you've been very generous with your time, I have more questions, and it links to a segment, Babita Earle, who, as you know, used to manage our partnership with Kantar . We have a segment in our podcast called Understanding Misunderstandings. All around the world, we have these words that people ... A.I. would be one of them, agile is another.

I've got a fun one for us to talk about.

Eric:

Okay.

Ryan:

Zappi and Kantar: I think it's a big Understanding Misunderstandings…

Eric:

Yeah.

Ryan:

What was your take on why it ended up not working out? Because I've got a lot of people who call me and say, oh, you divorced Kantar. I'm like, it doesn't matter, businesses go in different directions, but I love your read, because not many people know this, but before I went to Zappi, I worked in one of Eric's companies and I got a call from Eric when I was leaving. It was like, hey, we really value you, why are you going to Zappi?

I don't know if you remember this, but I sort of said I just kind of need to do this and see how it goes. And at that time, I remember you very distinctly saying to me, "We're not sure." I remember then the next day going to my new employer being like, Kantar, they love us! And I'm like, I'm not sure that they would say that.

That's why I wanted to talk about it in Understanding Misunderstandings. Say a little bit from your perspective on how deals like that go and where they go awry, with any specific comments to Zappi.

Eric:

I'm not sure that we should look at it as a failure, because I think it helped both companies achieve certain things. At Kantar, we knew that we needed to deliver more in real time around some of our solutions, and we had to automate around them. In all of those situations, you always have a kind of build-or-buy-or-partner choice to make. Zappi was kind of starting up, and I think for the first few years, maybe even longer, Kantar was Zappi's biggest client.

Ryan:

Oh, yeah.

Eric:

So I think it was very successful in helping Kantar launch a bunch of its products to its clients in a way that meant that clients could get quick-turn delivery, and it helped Zappi build its credibility in the industry, offering solutions. So I think that was good for both parties.

Ryan:

I would agree with that.

Eric:

And then I think you just get into ... I don't think it's about it going awry, I think you just get a misalignment of priorities. I think we found ourselves, in a few cases, not being clear who owned the client relationship.

And without mentioning specific clients, there were a few clients that came to Kantar and came to Zappi and asked for the same things, so you get into a ... from being totally aligned that you're both trying to do something, you suddenly get into this situation where you get into a conversation about whose client is it, and there were different priorities.

Ryan:

There was one client in particular listening to this, we're talking about you.

Eric:

I think you get into that situation where you've both got priorities, if I think about that particular client, you wanted to develop more direct relationships with clients, we obviously felt that, in parentheses, it was our client.

Ryan:

Yep.

Eric:

I think, in a way, that platform of quick turnaround is so fundamental to you and to Kantar that, really, a parting of ways was kind of evitable, because either we had to have a majority stake in Zappi so that your focus was totally on us, and that would've caused you issues with your other clients, or without that, it was almost inevitable that we both needed to have an offering in the area which was our priority.

I think that, for a number of years, it helped both companies get to a better place than they could've done without partnering, but that at some stage, a parting of the ways was kind of inevitable. And I don't see it as a failure, I think it helped us both.

Ryan:

You know what, I would agree. It's cool to have this conversation with you, because I often talk about this when somebody asks me, and were there some stressful days when, 18 months ago, we lost our biggest customer? Of course. I vividly remember putting a picture up in front of the company of us in a little dinghy boat being like, all right, we're in the ocean now.

But the truth is, you're right. It was, for a long time, a productive relationship for both organizations, and the reason why I bring this up in Understanding Misunderstandings is channel partnerships always look good on a whiteboard. Our whiteboard had, oh my God, we've got Kantar, they've got 30,000 employees, they'll just sell our platform. Kantar's whiteboard has a different story, and the point isn't Zappi and Kantar, it's the understanding of, and I think you said it so eloquently, the priorities of the business have to be aligned and stay aligned for partnerships to really work out. And in the case of the early days, the priorities were aligned, right?

Eric:

Yep.

Ryan:

It's all love and it was a great few years, and let's be real, we made a big impact on the industry together. So I think it's really exciting. Thank you, Eric, for your time. I really enjoyed it.

Eric:

Thank you so much.

Ryan:

When the world ends, we'll get back to New York City and meet for that beer we never got to have.

Eric:

Yeah, I know, that will be lovely. And good luck with everything.

Ryan:

Thanks, Eric. Very, very much so. Take your time, mate. Take it easy.

Eric:

Take care.

[Music transition to takeaways]

Ryan:

Wow. That was a really, really fun conversation. I felt like I took too much of Eric's time. He was very generous and very humble. I was excited with that conversation. What did you think of Babita, what were some of your key takeaways?

Babita:

I thought that was absolutely brilliant. I don't very often use the word awesome, but I would go as far as saying it was awesome. It must've been a cathartic experience for you Ryan, because, obviously I joined Zappi to look after partnerships, and Kantar was the biggest partner we had at the time. So being able to ask him those questions that perhaps we always wanted to ask him, throughout those two to three years actually must have been quite...

Were you nervous about having that conversation with him, did you think?

Ryan:

Yeah. I was, definitely nervous this morning and Eric really disarmed me. He's a very humble guy and it was a great conversation, but it was cathartic, and I'll tell you why.

When the writing was on the wall, that our businesses were going to go different ways, what Eric said in his narrative is pretty consistent with what I would've said. And so it was great to see that it was exactly what it was, advantageous for two companies for a long time and then the right thing to do to go separate ways. But I imagine for you, being somebody who advocated for a partnership that eventually wasn't the right thing to continue, it was also cathartic. So what were you thinking?

Babita:

Oh God, where do I start? I think there were some key takeouts for me. The first thing was where he talked about faster, better, cheaper, and the role of technology, and that was just something that we were continuously landing on a day to day basis within Kantar. And to hear him actually say that now is like, yeah, finally we've got that. And that was really, really good to hear.

I also liked when we were talking about change, because our podcast really is about change, that's a big part, but he didn't focus on change. He talked about constants, and it made me think, actually, let's think about the constants and amplify those, which will help drive greater change in the longer term. And then when we got to the partnership piece, which was the bit that I just loved hearing you talk about, was his reflection that it wasn't a disaster?

Because I remember the day we found out it was ending, and you saw I was just distraught because it was a big part of our business going, but he sort of reflected on that. And actually in hindsight, he is right, because we both got so much from that partnership, and we are where we are because of that partnership. We knew it wasn't going to be forever, so we got a lot from it and we learned a lot from it.

But it was really interesting that at the time it broke up, I just felt we were getting so much ground-up momentum. We were actually doing some of that stuff that you talked about, that changed behavior stuff, which we know is just so difficult at scale, but it is what it is. And it ended up in this conversation, which I'm just really pleased you had with him. I just thought it feels like a bit of closure for me. Maybe that's a bit emotional, but it was brilliant. Well done.

Ryan:

Yeah, and well done to you in managing a partnership. And we're going to transition here in a minute to this week's segment of understanding misunderstanding, we're going to talk about channel partnerships. But I do just want to comment again about the constants, right? I think we're going to have a lot of discussion on our podcast around change, and I've been pleased so far, we've had very few buzz words.

But I think what Eric reminded us of are the truths that don't change. People are people, there are still questions that businesses need to answer that are better informed by their customers than not. And we can go through 50,000 buzzwords of technology, all just the way to get there, right? And so I was inspired by that because in a world that's changing, what are the truths that don't, and those are things that you can really latch onto. And so I really enjoyed that. So I want to talk to you about channel partnerships.

Babita:

Yeah, go on. We've talked about this a lot.

Ryan:

We've talked about this a lot. Channel partnerships, one of the biggest things that gets misunderstood as far as I'm concerned. Name me something that looks better for a business, Babita, on a whiteboard, than a channel partnership.

Babita:

We've had countless whiteboards around which channel partners would be good for our business, how that would look, and the principles behind great channel partners. But as you said, translating that into execution is so bloody difficult because you're actually working with people's emotions and their fears and their own ambitions. And it's just so difficult, it's really, really difficult to get right.

And that was ultimately the challenge with Kantar, who was essentially a channel partner, but actually they were our biggest customer in the end. So I think, relating to that understanding misunderstandings, the bit that we need to get clear when you get true channel partners a success, is what are your aligned goals, and the incremental benefit that you both bring to that relationship? And full transparency, whether it's good or bad.

I would say be totally aligned on what you've got to do, and get rid of those misunderstandings, and have those difficult conversations. Because that is the secret source of success when it comes to channel partners. But it is really difficult as we've learned, it is really, really difficult.

Ryan:

Yeah, it is. And I think the alignment of goals is so critical and translating that into relationship ownership, how incentives are actually managed, how things are going to be rolled out. The best partnerships for me are where there's no tension in the middle of the Venn diagram.

So Babita, in your day job now you manage a strategic partnership, that's not a channel partnership, but with a soda company. So they sell soda, we sell technology, we work together, it's beautiful. But oftentimes in industries, it's not that simple, right? So, I vividly remember the notion of the Kantar-Zappi partnership. They have 3000 salespeople, we have software, we're rich. It's perfect.

Babita:

Of course it doesn't translate like that. Similarly with our current partner, which is an amazing partnership, and I feel as much as part of their organization as I do ours, that actually what you agree at a central global level as a partnership, doesn't necessarily translate at the ground level to change behavior.

Activation is so, so difficult when it comes to channel partners, that bottom-up approach, and we've learned this top-down approach. Great, it's all great to get senior executives on the team and say, this is a great partnership, we're going to do this, and we're going to deliver X million dollars within five years. But actually when you get those people on the ground that really drive, that is the key. That is the most important part.

Ryan:

It is. And we'll talk about this in a lot of other episodes, because the days of top-down mandate employees not having an opinion or a say, they're gone, right? On purpose, big companies, small companies, startup companies, I don't care what kind of company, are. You're organizing yourself in a fluid way so that you can be closest to your customers, your category, your relationships.

And so, as a result, the central teams, which we both sit on, are nothing without the local teams, right? The local teams, they're the ones actually moving P&L units in a market. And I think that global-local tension is something that, if businesses and people listening to this podcast are going to be successful, understanding those levers and how they work together, and also where they're at odds, is such a critical insight.

We were talking about this before the interview. The day that our partnership with Kantar ended, I don't think things had ever been better at the ground level than they were. But the corporate organizational goals had changed to the point where I said, okay, this doesn't make sense, right? So I think I would argue, if you had to pick one, the ground swell approach is more important in a world where product-led growth companies like Slack and Dropbox and all these others are crazy growing. But in big enterprises, you do need both.

Babita:

Yeah, totally. You do need both, and you need different kinds of people managing the relationship at the overall level and from a ground-up level, and engaging different emotions, and driving different sorts of incentives. It's not change that happens overnight, especially in our Insights world, as we know. And we've been talking about change for such a long time, and I believe we've been ahead of the curve, and we know how difficult it is to do it. But I think we're getting the recipe right slowly. I think we're getting there.

Ryan:

I agree with you. So this will wrap up this week's Inside Insights episode. Babita and I are always looking for really great people for us to talk to about how they're driving change around them. Babita, email address for people if they want to subscribe?

Babita:

Oh, I should remember, but I can't. Is it insideinsights@zappi.com? God, this is terrible.

Ryan:

Insideinsights@zappistore.com. Podcast, subscribe button, find it. It's a beautiful UX for podcasts or Spotify. You can find us on our website and if you want to give us a five star rating, we appreciate it. Have an awesome day.

Babita:

Thanks everybody.

Ryan:

Be kind to each other, and remember to understand what people actually mean so that you don't think you're on the same page, but you're not. Babita, it's good to see you, my friend. Thanks everybody for listening.

Babita:

Great chat. Thanks, Ryan.