The world of influencer marketing in the context we typically think of it today dates back about 15 years or so to the emergence of blogs. Jeremy Wright co-founded and was the first CEO of b5media, one of the original blog networks that eventually sold for millions of dollars. He sees parallels and has advice for today’s influencers based on his own experiences, but has also spent his professional time since leaving b5media on the agency side of things.
Wright transitioned from influencer-blogger to publishing platform CEO and then to agency strategist. He sees influence marketing from a high level and with an eye for driving business and growth. We dug into the conversation of the philosophy of influence marketing — transactional versus relational — and how big companies and brands may still not quite “get” social.
As Wright and I are apt to do with just chatting about the industry, we invented a new marketing analytic — the P-GAFF — you’ll want to listen for in this episode. (This is where the explicit warning comes from. Heh.)
There are some interesting similarities to 2005 we both see today. The insights Wright shares are always worth hearing. Give it a listen! And then share the episode with someone who will as well.
Connect with Wright on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Winfluence Transcript – Jeremy Wright – Parkour Marketing
Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. The world of influencer marketing in the context we typically think of it today dates back about 15 years or so to the emergence of blogs. Self-publishers levering newly minted creation tools on the emerging internet then began building audiences. As those followings became apparently large, brands began trying to either advertise there, or partner with the blogger in question to communicate through them to their audiences.
Jason Falls
Jeremy Wright was one of those early audience builders, he and four others joined forces in 2004, with the idea of pooling their traffic to create one significantly larger media entity, so they would be more attractive to advertisers and thus make more money as a group than any of them could individually. Those five bloggers became b5media. Jeremy became the CEO and grew five blogs to over 350 and the ad revenues in the 10s of millions of dollars. The company was eventually valued at over $50 million and sold in 2012 to Alloy Digital for an undisclosed amount of money.
Jason Falls
Wright left be five media in 2009, and has since worked in and around several marketing and digital agencies. So he’s still keenly adept at helping businesses and brands solve marketing and technology problems. And he sees the market and opportunities in rather unique ways. He moved to Thailand a couple of years ago, where he continues to run Parkour Marketing, a problem solving SWAT team of sorts. We connected this week to talk about the parallels between blogging’s rise to prominence in the mid 2000s, and influencer marketing’s current rise anchored on social media platforms. We talked about the evolution of the space and how the big media companies and brands still seem to have the underlying point of social media all wrong. We also did something we often do when we’re together chatting about things, we created a whole new idea — P-GAFF! Listen for that one. It’s the new marketing analytic we’re all going to be clamoring for after hearing this conversation. One of the original influencers from the days of blogging, Jeremy Wright coming up next on Winfluence.
Jason Falls
So when I think of Jeremy Wright, in a professional context, I think of b5media. I know that’s a very small sliver of your career. But that’s kind of how we met. You essentially built a huge media company out of what was a network of blogs, I think, take me back to how b5 came to be explained that whole process for me.
Jeremy Wright
I mean, basically, we were idiots. So there were there were there were five of us initially, hence the five bloggers, hence the b5media. We all had kind of decent sized blogs. So Darren Rouse at ProBlogger. Duncan Riley was running Blog Herald which doesn’t exist anymore, I don’t think. And then two other guys who disappeared through the course of the conversations, but the whole thing was, hey, we’ve all got blogs with decent audiences, we’re all making, okay, money, let’s kind of band together as a group and kind of sell it as a package was the first conversation right? And I don’t think any of the three of us were the first person who initiated that conversation. But from there, it kind of went to well, if we’re going to create a package for advertisers, we should probably kind of fill out the weak spots kind a thing, right? Because it was very blog heavy. And so we thought, you know, if there was some, maybe a travel blog in their sports blog in there, we have a kind of a more rounded approach, right?
Jeremy Wright
We’re talking 2004. Right. So this was before, really even things like ad networks that were contextualized or subject based existed, right. And so this was kind of us just just saying, Hey, we think this makes sense, let’s do advertisers think And so that kind of evolved into what we need. I think the first round of blogs was 13 we launched with. We started the company set up a blog, and said, hey, we want to hire 13 people on a revenue share basis, kind of write for us. And from that moment, until five years later, it was like hanging on to a rocket ship, like monthly growth was 15 to 30%, kinda thing. And it was just like you’re trying to figure out the legalities, you’re trying to figure operational stuff like we’d all done air quotes startups, like, you know, one-two person companies we’ve built in, whatever, but like, like insurance and all and raising funding from investors and office space. And it was just it was, it was a it was definitely a journey, especially as a you know, 25 year old CEO, it was definitely a journey so.
Jason Falls
Well, and the reason that I asked about that is because I see some parallels in the opportunity that you and your group took advantage of in the mid 2000s, with blogs, and some group of influencers might have that the same type of opportunity today, with their various publishing platforms. I’m kind of waiting on a coalition of influencers, to pool their audiences together into to be a publishing house. I know that there’s versions of that, because the, you know, ad networks and blog networks and media companies have emerged over the years, you know, basically following your lead. But do you think, maybe outside of blogs with instagramers, and YouTubers and whatnot, is that a feasible approach to you know, banding together to build a media company? And what advice would you give to a group that wanted to try it?
Jeremy Wright
So I definitely think it’s feasible. As always, the first thing is like, is that even going to work? So I definitely think it’s feasible. I’ve looked at some of these, you know, channels, publishers, influencers, some of the like, the small teams that work together on YouTube, and that kind of stuff. And I’m like, you guys could be so much bigger, if you only XYZ, right. And so I definitely think it’s feasible. I think that the biggest thing, I think we learned was, it was two things. One, having a plan matters, right? Not just, hey, we want to band together to make more money, cuz that’s where we started, we actually developed a very cohesive plan and phased plan that we executed. It shifted a lot, but we at least knew what we were aiming for besides more money, right. I think one of the biggest foundational things we established we actually, three, four weeks after we launched, actually merged with another network. It was all women blogs, I think there was 12 or 15 of them, run by Shai Coggins, and she became a co-founder because she was there so early on, right. But so many of the best writers, we had some of the best editors, we have some of the best category leaders we had came from that group.
Jeremy Wright
But also, injecting the sense of caring into the company fundamentally changed. Like, I don’t think we would have gotten anywhere near, you know, the $40 $50 million valuation we were at, without those women, right. And I think the biggest thing that contributed was the sense of how critical culture was. And just how much caring for our authors and our bloggers meant, like, I’m still friends with dozens of them today, like on Facebook, we chat regularly. Some of my closest friends are still from from those days, it was never an employee employer type relationship. It was always a us kind of relationship. I think that’s what allowed us to grow so fast as both because when people came in, they felt very welcomed. So they worked hard. It was a team effort. But also that when you got team members who are happy, they’re gonna bring in great people they know as well. Right? So it was kind of a, you know, happy little circle of life kind of thing. It was, you know, each each great person brought another great person in.
Jason Falls
Well, and I think it, I think it speaks a lot though, it’s interesting to talk about how culture was so important, because correct me if I’m wrong with the makeup was basically you had a bunch of basically independent entrepreneurs that were running their own things that came together under sort of a common goal of let’s go to bat as a team. It wasn’t like there was a boss who hired people. It was a bunch of people who just agreed, yeah, this is a collective direction we all want to go in. I think it speaks a lot to even management style today.
Jeremy Wright
So yes and no. I think for the first two years, I probably personally recruit a percent of the writers and the pitch and I’ll be honest, most of the writers were stay at home moms. And the conversation was very straightforward, not in a rote kind of way. But it was very, very much the same conversation like it was. The first question is like, what are you passionate about? And you get some of the weirdest answers right? So we had like the biggest astronomy blog at the time, because Kelly was totally into astronomy. And now now space is cool. Thanks to Elon and that kind of thing. Right? But in 2005, it was not the biggest topic in the world. We have the biggest autism blog in the world, which still blows my mind. Like it was just so cool to see this small, incredibly passionate and meaningful community come together around this author. And she just, you know, said, that’s what I’m passionate about. And we were like, Well, you know, here’s what we pay, we take care of all the hard work. And you get to just write and be part of the community. And you get paid. That was that was the pitch, right? And it’s, surprisingly, surprisingly, it worked. Right? You know, and so I think at the peak, we had about 400 writers. Give or take around 350 blogs, kind of thing. And then we had kind of, we were also a big ad networks, we had a couple 100 other sites involved and on the platform, and on the on the tech side of things as well, which was a huge challenge. But yeah, I mean, it was very much the community side of things. That, to me, drove success. And so each verticals we call a channel, so business, sports, beauty, that kind of thing, right? It’s each of those had a head. And then each of those had a weekly, either call or Skype chat, or whatever. And then as a company, we did monthly, or more, if needed, if something’s going wrong, chats with everyone. And so, it really was to me about the people. I actually asked on Facebook for people for memories, and all the best memories were just like, just people based memories. Right? So even, you know, almost 15 years later. So …
Jason Falls
Yeah, it’s all about relationships. I wonder, How hard was it in the mid 2000s, to take a network of blogs, to the big media buying companies and the big brands and say, “We want you to invest with us versus Conde Nast or whomever else you’re trying to?” Because back then, I remember the days, you know, 2004 or five, six, when you would say blog to a brand manager, and they would roll their eyes and be like, Oh, god, you’re not going to try to pitch me this bullshit, are you?
Jeremy Wright
So my first time at AdTech was probably my first big non social conference. So besides South by Southwest, and that kind of thing that I went to so the AdTech in New York, which is like the big ad conference. Like 30,000 people or something, right, like, and I remember the first session I went to, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna ask a question. I got, like, amped up in the background, get excited. And I basically said, like, I think there was it was like the head of advertising, like Yahoo, AOL, maybe Technorati might have been there. Anyway, these like big ad networks, right, like major media companies. And I asked some kind of question about blogs and topics and literally got laughed off. And then afterwards, the head of Yahoo Advertising came to me, and was like, “We should talk.”
Jeremy Wright
Because I mentioned some numbers. My question wasn’t trying to make it about me. I really want to know something. I don’t remember what the question was, to be honest. But I did really want know, something. But I want to give context like, hey, we’re doing things, you know, 15-20 million pageviews a month or something at that point. I was like, you know, hey, is there an interest? Like, how would a company like ours work with a company like, yours or something was probably the question. Yeah, afterwards, she was like, well, the way you work with us is, you know, like, you go to your local office, and you talk to the local ad team, and they’ll put you on a test buy, and then if that works out, then blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we work with Yahoo for a few months. And, I don’t know how much you know about Yahoo advertising, but as a culture, whenever new head comes in, they just chop everything off and start again. A new head came in and they chopped everything off and started again. But we learned was that our ads performed much better than the norm. Because people cared about the content, they cared about the author. They weren’t just there to … even the celebrity blogs, like Angelina Jolie kinda blogs, they weren’t just there for Angelina Jolie news. They were there for the community. They’re there for the author. They’re there for the experience. And so the click through rates were higher, the post click engagement was higher the, like, on every metric, we were like way, way above, right. And so we took that data from Yahoo. Thank you, Yahoo, and worked with a bunch of other companies and networks, and those are the early days and it the first real big deal was a company that was called Glam. They’re called something else now. But they were a women’s focused ad network. And they did guaranteed cpms and so we had them at the top and like something ridiculous like $5-$10 bucks cpms at the time, which was just insane. And they took the celebrity channel as well, which was the highest channel. So it was a, it was definitely kind of like a spits and spurts, like things would go really well for a while, and then someone will drop off like a really well for a while it’s gonna drop off. So eventually we create a have a tiered system is what most people do now, which is like, Hey, you know, channel A is worth a lot. And I could served first. Channel B isworth less than I gets served second, Channel C is worth less. And then you’ve got remnant and then super remnant behind it and that kinda. So like we did help. We were probably some of the first people on Dart publishers doing that kind of system, at that kind of scale across that many sites. Because it’s one thing to do it on one site, it’s another thing to balance those users across 3, 4, 700 sites. Right. So I mean, the tech team at B5 was really, in some ways the backbone of what we created. So.
Jason Falls
Right. So So give me to give everybody a little bit of context, though, you know, we’re talking about, you know, this happened, you know, 15 years ago. So to give them a little bit of context, you went from B5 Media to Thornley Fallis, I think, which is, at the time, and I assume To this day, still a very successful agency in Canada, you’re you were based in Toronto then. You’ve, you’ve worked a couple different places, and in a couple different roles since then, I know you’ve been at Parkour for five or six years now. And I know you’re an investor as well. So you’ve been involved in some startups over the years. Give us a sense of where your career took you after be five from abroad level in terms of the types of roles, the types of agencies, companies that you were with. There’s a lot there. So I want to give you the opportunity to give us a high level overview of what you’ve been doing since B5, so people can sort of understand your perspective on the market.
Jeremy Wright
Sure, I mean, I’m one of the weirdest careers with anyone, you know, like I was a professional drummer, I was a youth pastor. I was special forces, like, there wasn’t a lot of cohesion in my career until, until B5, really, at the end of B5, I was basically dealing with divorce, running a big startup, dealing with investors writing, raising money, I burned out, right. I put on a bunch of weight, I wasn’t sleeping at night, I wasn’t happy at home. And so I took six, eight months off, I guess, and basically, you know, laid on a beach in New Orleans. And there’s definitely worse places to hang out. So, and I got a call from Joe Thornley. He was like, hey, like, I know, you’re, you’re chillin, but we really kind of need a head of digital to come in for three, six months. And, you know, they have two agencies, they have a PR agency. And then they have a production agency for web design apps. Like I want you to run the production shop. And I want you to be a VP at the PR thing for anything digital, basically. So went in for a year. And I mean, amazing team. Joe is, you know, definitely one of the leaders in the industry and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. And so I spent a year there. My first job as an agency, and so jumping into the VP level was definitely a lot of learning. Thank God for timesheets, right. Everyone loves timesheets. And then, so I spent just under 10 years at agencies, did three of them where I was joining early and kind of helping them grow to, 4 or 5 million a year, I joined Match. When they were 50-60 people, my team was three, I think in digital. Then when I left four years later. And the team was a company with 6,000 people. My team was 200 or something.
Jeremy Wright
Basically, they raised a bunch of money, we went and acquired a bunch of agencies. And so I was in charge of the entire digital side of things. But basically, they were and I think it still are the largest consumer packaged goods focused agency in the world. Pepsi’s been a client for 17 years. And we’re like, global strategy on Ford. And it was a lot of fun because we got to work on big accounts and small accounts. But again, I put everything and I burned out. Something of a habit, I think. And so since then, I’ve been doing have a third, Parkour, which is we’ll talk about later, but of a SWAT team agency kind of thing. And then a third as a professor. Teaching, it’s one of my deep, deep loves, So, I’ve taught at several major universities, either as a guest or a adjunct professor. I deeply love it. And I’m looking to do it again here in Thailand, and then a third volunteering. So one of the things we work on here is a dog shelter, elephants and that kind of stuff. So try trying to have a bit more balance between the things that I love to do and the things that I’m really good at. I love seeing the results from.
Jason Falls
That’s good stuff. Okay, so Parkour, you said you kind of a marketing SWAT team approach? What? What’s the thinking there? And how do you guys? How do you guys help your clients?
Jeremy Wright
So it kind of came up organically, because I’ve been doing some consulting here and there and, you know, some clients are coming up with big challenges. You know, and, and it was too big for me personally take as an individual, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d go to like a McKinsey for, because that’s too much. And so it was like, Hey, you know, our entire market. So I’ll give an example. So there’s a big agency in Toronto, they hadn’t closed a single client two years. Okay, something’s clearly wrong, right? How do we fix that? And you don’t hire a big, you know, McKinsey, you’re that kind of thing for it. Just they don’t know, it’s gonna cost you a million dollars and they live in the space and I kind of thing. And so what we do is we I, depending on the client, the agency is my business, but worked with auto manufacturers and all kinds of stuff where you just go in and you evaluate the problem, and you bring in a team that’s custom for that project for 2, 3, 6 months. And then you build the internal team based on what you’ve learned and what you know, and what’s worked. And then you kinda keep an eye on it off for a few months, and you walk away. So basically, I think of as a SWAT teams, we go in, we figure out what’s wrong, we’ve fixed the problem. And then we hire the team for the long term. So it’s, it’s meant to be, hey, if you could spend a million dollars and fix your $40 million business, would you do that? Well, yeah, of course I would. Right? Okay, well, let’s do that. So we’ve got a great track record going in solving really some random, random stuff, to be honest.
Jeremy Wright
But it is, to me, that’s the fun stuff is you have to go in and you hire the right experts. And we’re talking like world experts, where you’re paying like $100,000 for two months work. But their insight saves you so much time, and gives the client so much confidence. And so you’re not working with not that have any issues with juniors, but you’re not working with juniors, you’re working with real experts, and you’re hiring the right team. And part of that, when we talk to clients, the pitches, often for clients who have issues that go in and they hire a social media person, especially when sales aren’t working, that doesn’t work. Or they hire a consultant. And that doesn’t work. And they try four or five different things, they waste so much time so much money. It’s like, let me just, let’s just do it right, take a little bit of time. And at the end, it won’t just be fixed, it’ll be better than you even imagined. So that’s, that’s, that’s the two minute version of what we do.
Jason Falls
That’s a that’s a great thing to do. Obviously, you know, helping a lot of a lot of people make better money and make better decisions. That’s good stuff. Now, I wanted to ask that question, because I wanted everybody to understand that you still are very much finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the marketing world, and with agencies and brands and whatnot. And in and because I want to dive into a couple of topics here and just kind of get your take on where we are today. Let’s go back to blogging for a second and publishing platforms a bit. Now, blogging was a huge part of your, obviously, you know, rise to success. But blogs, I think have largely been pushed aside in favor of social networks and influence building on other platforms. I even had a veteran marketing strategy person who also like you teaches at a university and she asked on Facebook the other day, if she should remove blogging, from her digital marketing course that she teaches. You know, you’re in and out of a lot of agency and brand situations, where do you see blogs in the array of a marketer’s arsenal today? Are they dying? Do we need to revive them? Or am I wrong in that sense of things?
Jeremy Wright
Interesting question. I mean, like I wrote, Blog Marketing, which was the first social media marketing book way back like 2002. At the time and using case studies, like, oh, Disney has a blog! Kind of thing, right? It was it was big news. These days. I mean, it’s to me and it’s just my voice. It seems like it’s either, you know, a website or it’s a part of your corporate site. It’s, it’s, it’s rare for me to see what feels like what blogging was. It’s rare for me to see sites where it’s about the community or the author or that kind of thing. And seems like it’s much more subject driven, content driven. It’s basically just, I mean, WordPress is the platform most sites are using anyway. And so it’s just published an article have a homepage, you might comment you might not. And there’s an RSS feed, right? And I’m not sure if blogging has subsumed other sites or just everything is now functionally a blog. And so there’s no difference. But there there is a sense of that magic that I think has been lost. It probably exists in some places. I’m not seeing, I’m not saying it’s gone forever. But that sense of what blogging was or having a blogging conference, and I remember when we could fit all of social media into a room. That’s, and we did.
Jason Falls
Yeah, we did.
Jeremy Wright
So that’s, that’s not it’s, it’s, I feel like that sense of community, that sense of togetherness, that sense of purpose has been lost. And now everyone is functionally trying to be a media company, you know, this time.
Jason Falls
Yeah, it’s interesting, I have the conversation with people a lot about just the term blog, and you touched on it a little bit, it is a functional mechanism, it is a content management mechanism on your website. But that doesn’t really define what that content is. And it doesn’t define what you do with that mechanism. And I think that’s what I believe you’re pointing to is having been lost and everyone turning into functionally a publisher these days. No one’s using the mechanism to really build community and connect with people anymore. And those that are, eventually get to a point where they realize, “Oh, I’m a media company, I should start, you know, doing more ads and more sponsored stuff and making money doing this.” And so that’s kind of where the evolution is. Well, if there are either brands or agencies out there listening, or even influencers, trying to build their brands online, they’re sort of starting from that scratch position. What would you tell them about blogs? Would you tell them to care at all today?
Jeremy Wright
Um. That’s an interesting question. I mean, I’m generally a fan of of the, you know, test and learn approach, right. And so, you know, the first three, six months of any account, you’re gonna try a bunch of stuff. Or, I mean, obviously, you’re gonna do research and strategy and planning and stuff to figure out where your audience is and what they’re listening to who they’re talking to what they’re reading. But like, you know, it’s okay to try Instagram and see what happens for a bit. Try blogging and see what happens for a bit. But I mean, if you’re a beauty brand, I don’t know how much value there is in pumping out yet another series of listicles. And that kind of thing. I think that standing out, matters. I’m still, even to this day, still such a big believer in how do you build a community? Because they’re gonna care, they’re gonna come back more, it’s functionally you’re getting a customer who was not paying yet. They’re gonna just care more, I think there was an index for how much your average reader cared, then community would drive that index up.
Jeremy Wright
To me, that’s where I’d be thinking more than specific channels like blogging or Instagram – whatever – like, how do we really connect with our audience? Never mind defining who the audience is, and all that jazz. But like, once you figure that out? How do we really connect with them will be my, my first question. And it could be a blog, but it could be a micro social network. Or it could be you know, here in Asia, we have apps like Line and stuff where you got private conversations, and we chat way more on the same thing out here in Asia. So I don’t really have a firm answer. I think you want to grow your audience, but then you really want to figure out how to connect with them. Right. And once you have, the other stuff becomes easy. You can make a lot of mistakes along the way. But if your audience gives a flying fart, they’ll be pretty forgiving too.
Jason Falls
That’s, that’s very true. I personally, you know, love blogs, I waned, you know, my own activity and driving mine for several years, because I just got busy, but I like it because I’m a writer, and it just gives me a place to write. And I would prefer to write content, then do a video or things like that. But and I think that that’s another factor in there too. If you are an influencer or brand trying to build things and you have the chops, you have the talent and the people that are writing then that might, you know, open up that opportunity a little bit wider than other channels.
Jason Falls
So what do you what do you think about the big enterprise software companies approach to influencers? I think most of them the IZEAs, the Mavrcks of the world. I think most of them think of influencers as a media spend and treat them like endpoints on a transaction. Now my relationship with you is a perfect example of why I don’t like that approach. I’ll explain a little bit more of that context after I hear your answer though. Influencer philosophy transaction oriented media Buy, or relationship based long term partnership, how would you advise clients to approach it or how would you approach it for your own brand
Jeremy Wright
Trying to keep this simple since we’ve only got like five minutes left. But my short answer is both. I do believe there’s a place for the I do view a lot of influential stuff and see a lot of it as what is effectively a media buy, right? Media buy slash content creation budget, right. So there’s both sides often. So you’re getting a bunch of content for what’s effectively a very cheap cost — much cheaper than photography, or that kind of thing, or a photoshoot, which can run sometimes $20-30 grand. So just on that basis, sometimes influencer marketing is cheaper just because you’re getting a fairly high quality content with a much lower cost. When you combine that with the media spend, and reach and eyeballs engagement, the numbers often make pretty good sense. I don’t like that, to be honest. I really don’t, I mean, I hate to repeat myself, but I really you know, that’s not going to, generally to me, you get a great image on a huge influence Instagram, and you drive 1000 purchase purchases, and then nothing happens. It is basically a media buy which nothing happens, right? If you were designing a media program, where your goal was to sell 1000 units and nothing happens, you probably and hopefully get laughed out of the room. And rightfully so. That’s not what any brand is trying to create. If they were doing that they just be Amazon resellers or something. You really do want to create a long term connection, you want them to believe in the brand you want the messaging you want them to give a flying fart. Trying not to swear in your show. But like …
Jason Falls
You know, you’re welcome to I mean, it’s me. C’mon.
Jeremy Wright
And so if I was designing a program, I’ll do both, right? Typically, yes, you want, what cheap reach, great content and the hope for 1% maybe other people to give a flying fuck. But I would invest more of the money in the long term. True acquisition, not customer acquisition, but the true acquisition of people who give a flying fuck. How do we drive that metric in a way that makes sense? How do we track and how do we continue engaging with those people? And that’s where some of the enterprise stuff does make sense from a CRM standpoint. Right? So I mean, IZEA has kind of gone a bunch of ways over the years, but they’re being driven by the people who are paying the money, which these days is the big agencies, right? And the big agencies do view this as a media buy , functionally. And I’ve worked with many of them, and I’ve had them as clients and that kind of thing. I don’t think they’re wrong. I just think there’s more that can be done.
Jason Falls
Yeah. So the context of what I said earlier, the reason that I don’t like the transactional approach, and our relationship is a perfect example of that is I met you, basically, because you were at B5 and you were going to, you know, conferences and blogging conferences and whatnot. We got to know each other because you were an influencer. And I was at an agency and or trying to be a bit of an influencer myself. If I’d looked at you like a media spend in 2006, or 2007, whenever we first met, we’d have missed out on a good friendship. We’d have had, we’ve had a lot of missed out on a lot of fun hanging out together at events over the years. I mean, you know, we along with several other people co created WangCon together, which is an inside joke about people will understand, but it’ll make them all laughs I’d work it in there. I don’t know. Exactly. I don’t know that I ever pit that I ever pitched you on anything are we ever actually worked together on directly on a project. But I’m sure if I reached out to you now or you, to me that influence activation would be really easy and seamless and fun because of the relationship and that’s why I get hung up on. It’s not about the transaction. It’s about building that, you know, people who give a fuck thing over time, right? So I’m worried that that possibility is lost on many people driving influence marketing today. And I think that’s something that we need to talk about on shows like this.
Jeremy Wright
I completely agree. It’s insultingly I was hired twice as a consultant before, I was a real agency management guy. So at Razorfish, and Blue Helix, and the only reason they hired me is because they learned that I could just call up people like Chris Brogan and you and Scoble and that kind of thing, if I wanted to, and that you’d take the call, and you’d listen. And that was, that was the only reason. And when I learned that I walked out the door … respectfully, not that day, but you know, two weeks later. But like, it was just like, the fact that they thought they could just pay me money. And I’d you know, take advantage of those relationships and they’re relationships, real relationships, right? They’re friendships. Some of them are more active than others. But they are there to me, they’re their friendships, right? I talk about you, I told my girlfriend I was like, um, when our podcast tonight with Jason, he’s an old friend. You know, it’s like, you know, you’re coming to my wedding or anything, but you consider your friend and that’s where, you know people give a flying fuck is my metric. And I definitely give a flying fuck about you and you know, your kids and all that jazz.
Jason Falls
Well and and a perfect example of that is you know, I’m in Toronto a couple years ago with my son and we, you know, met you for lunch, you’re not going to do that with everybody you’ve come across.
Jeremy Wright
And so I think we’re on the same page here is that those relationships matter the people who give a flying fuck metric … I wish it existed. I’m not sure what the acronym would be. (Everything’s an acronym in marketing. ) But I think that that, to me is still where my heart is, from the days of B5 and earlier. But functionally, that’s what B5 was as a company was getting people to give a flying fuck about stuff and giving them a platform.
Jason Falls
I think we’re going with P-GAFF. P-GAFF. Is people who give a flying fuck. P-GAFF. There you go. We’ve created a new metric for you.
Jeremy Wright
P-GAFF. There we go. So I will I’ll happily introduce anyone who wants to create said startup with that dashboard to investors. So I’ll give it my full Kevin O’Leary endorsement. Without without the awkward photos, hopefully. That’s where my heart is right is I’m a marketer. I’m a data guy to heart. But to me, the data shows that P-GAFF drives much higher engagement, return results, repeat visits, basket size, same store sales, growth, all things. So …
Jason Falls
That’s good stuff. So real quickly, you’re in northern Thailand. Now, I assume. You know, I know that that was, you know, there are lots of reasons for your move to Thailand. And I know you’re there for personal reasons and whatnot. I think you’re in Chiang Mai, which is near the Myanmar border, I believe what what’s life like there? And do you have a sense of influencers and influencer marketing in Southeast Asia and how brands are leveraging them?
Jeremy Wright
Chiang Rai is where I am, which is about an hour from the Myanmar Burma border, as you said. And so it’s interesting because this part of Thailand is home for what are called kinda digital nomads. It’s one of the top 2-3-5 destinations in the world for digital nomads. I mean, I mean, the borders locked down right now. But once things are lifted, it will come back to be. Because it’s it’s paradise. And the cell service internet is unbelievable. I come from Canada, which has the just some of the worst internet in the world. Like you’re paying like $70 bucks a month for like five gigs of data kind of thing. Last month, I used 195 gigs on my cell phone for $6 at gigabit speeds. And that’s just my cell phone, not the landline or anything, so and everyone’s super friendly, you get lots of skills. And there’s not a lot of influencer stuff here, per se, you get much more of it in areas like we call HiSo areas, so high society areas like Singapore, has tons of Korea overall has tons of tons of models and fashion, not bloggers, but influencers and that kind of thing. And so that’s most of what I see influencer wise in Southeast Asia is not to sound crass, but pretty young girls. Where they’re working fashion brands and beauty brands and that kind of thing. But relatively their reach is not massive fingers, we’re talking someone who can get, you know, $1,000 bucks a month off 10,000 fans, but the fans are hyper engaged here. Right? So you’re not talking to someone with 10,000 fans and a 1% engagement rate. You’re talking like, sometimes 70-80% engagement rates on posts. And so just the numbers here are just and when someone goes viral, they just it’s in an instance, kind of thing. It’s not it’s not a slow ramp, it’s not 5-10 PR pieces. It’s like it’s it’s just a culturally, obviously, it’s very different in Asia. But marketing wise, I’ve had to learn to shut up and listen a lot more. Because the trends aren’t the same. The patterns aren’t the same. But the fundamental way to approach building things, my 20 plus years of experience still applies, by end up leaning on local teams to tell me a bunch of things that just aren’t obvious to me. And so that’s I mean, it’s a great learning experience. But and one of the reasons I did move here professionally was that I could drop my rates, so I can work with smaller companies didn’t have to be on multibillion dollar multinationals, right? I could work with, you know, a two-three restaurant chain or one restaurant that’s doing really well who the owner is just the nicest guy and just want to help him now. You know, I can’t get that feeling of being taken advantage of. So, one of the beauties of being here is that the cost of living is in the order and so I can, I can feel like I’m helping more than just doing work.
Jason Falls
That’s great. Well, you, you do me the honor of comments talking on my other podcast, Digging Deeper, which we live stream on Tuesday mornings here Tuesday evenings there, and I appreciate you certainly doing that being involved. It’s it’s always great to see you there. And it’s certainly great to catch up my friend and talk to you here. Where can people connect with you online if they want to work with you or just make a connection?
Jeremy Wright
Well, it’s a little disjointed because we’re going through a bit of a merger right now. So Facebook, it’s FBJeremy, the URL so Facebook Jeremy, and then email is wearecleardigital-at-gmail.com just we are going through a bit of a merger so things are touched, just literally like doing it as we speak. So great, always great to talk to you, but slightly awkward timing on hey, here’s my three things. Get in touch. Yeah, so Facebook, obviously the easiest one. I respond. I live on Facebook. It’s where all my clients are. So that’s the easiest one. Emails is wearecleardigital-at-gmail.com
Jason Falls
Excellent. We’ll make sure the links are in the show notes. Jeremy, thanks so much for the time my friend.
Jeremy Wright
Thanks, man. Always good to talk to you.
Transcribed by otter.ai
The Winfluence theme music is “One More Look” featuring Jacquire King and Stephan Sharp by The K Club found on Facebook Sound Collection.