Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick, your host.
And today, my special guest is G. Ranasina. Gee
has been in marketing since the days of dial
-up internet and AOL. Today, he's the CEO of
Kexino, an award -winning marketing agency. Over
the past 16 years, Kexino has helped over 400
startups and small businesses in around 20 countries
grow awareness, reputation, trust, and most importantly,
sales. A fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Marketing, G is also a visiting professor at
two business schools where he teaches marketing
and behavioral economics to final year MBA students.
Outside of work, G loves to cook, listens to
music, and plays jazz piano. Well, he wrote very
badly, but let's just leave it at plays jazz
piano. Welcome to the show, Jean. You haven't
heard me play, so the jury's still out. But trust
me, because I don't get very much time to play
nowadays, I'm extremely rusty. But what I fail
in technique, I make up in enthusiasm. But thank
you very much for inviting me on the show. I
do appreciate it. Well, thank you for joining
me. I do love to motivate people and have them
believe in themselves. And if that's your creative
way of releasing all of that energy, kudos to
you. So don't focus so much on the perfection
of it, just the progress. Absolutely. Yes. So
I'd like you to take us back to a moment in your
story, perhaps a challenge or a bold choice that
led you to where you are and shaped how you approach
leadership and marketing today. Well, I think
I can tell you a story which basically was the
birth of the agency. So we have to go back to
my previous role where I was the worldwide director
of marketing for a software company and the software
company was serving. Whilst it is serving blue
chip clients such as Ikea, Nestle, Airbus, Marvel,
big, big ticket names. So I was there for seven
years. And as the worldwide director of marketing,
I was obviously I was inviting marketing agencies
to come in and pitch for a business. And after
a while, it occurred to me that none of them
would take any kind of fiduciary responsibility
for the marketing plans that they were proposing.
Okay. All the agencies I spoke with were more
interested in the tactical stuff. You know, web
design, ads, events, PR, and all that sort of
stuff, okay? Nobody was actually asking me about
the business result on which the marketing plan
was supposed to deliver on. And that's when I
had my sort of light bulb moment, if you like,
my aha moment. It sort of dawned on me that there
must be a ton of startups and small businesses
out there who needed help with marketing. But
from a business perspective, designing and managing
a marketing plan to generate qualified leads
to ultimately produce a tangible commercial difference
to their business. At the same time, we're talking
about the end of 2007, beginning of 2008. So
as you'll remember, that sort of time, the internet
was really sort of gathering a full head of steam.
It was beginning to affect our daily lives. And
of course, like all of these technologies, it
was the bigger brands who were the ones who were
taking advantage of all the potential that the
internet provided, right? Because they've got
more technical resources, more experience, and
obviously deeper pockets, which meant small businesses
were getting left behind. If you remember, 2007
was the year the iPhone was launched, okay? And
affordable broadband was something that everyday
people, normal people like you and I, could sort
of afford, right? And so I thought that there
was a perfect storm, an opportunity for a marketing
resource aimed at small businesses and startups
that could help them leverage the power of online
engagement. So I looked around to see if there
was a marketing agency that took that kind of
approach. I couldn't find one. So we started
our own. And at the beginning, there were three
of us. So I left my cushy corporate job with...
all its trappings and expense accounts and company
BMWs and international travel and all that sort
of stuff. And we launched Kexino, which is our
marketing agency. As I said, it was in 2008,
which you'll probably recall was not exactly
the best time to start a business. Not exactly
my best business decision, but with not a small
amount of luck and with the support of some fantastic
clients who we had at the time. You know, we
weathered the storm of the post -Boomer session,
and 17 -plus years later, you know, we're still
here. We know we've won a few awards. We've branched
out into behavioral science, design, branding,
as well as the usual tactical stuff, you know,
websites, copywriting, PR, SEO, social, video,
and all that usual sort of stuff. Yeah, that
was really the pivotal moment, really, to sort
of get into... uh get ahead really of where the
business owners for small businesses and and
startups were needed to leverage their internet
and cut through the disinformation and misinformation
that was being spread around at the time to actually
find and hone programs which were tangibly effective
right not generating noise and fluff and, you
know, ego -centric metrics, but things that actually
move the revenue needle. Because at the end of
the day, sales is what we're talking about, right?
Marketing is sales. Marketing involves selling.
And, you know, if it doesn't sell anything, it's
not marketing, right? It's fluff. It's just extra
noise that's being added to the environment.
That's where we come from. We come from a business
first perspective rather than looking to shoehorn
existing cookie cutter approaches into an organization's
business growth plans. Sorry for the long answer
there. No, no problem. So since you work a lot
with startups and small businesses, going back.
to how you were in corporate in a nice cushy
job and then went out on your own, what advice
would you give to someone today that's in that
position? They're in corporate and they want
to step out and do their own business or their
own startup. Be careful of what you wish for.
I remember, I think it was something that...
You said in one of your podcasts, like 99 % of
entrepreneurs actually go back to a corporate
environment. You said that on a podcast or an
article. I remember reading that. Entrepreneurship
is a very different position from being a salaried
employee. You never switch off. It takes a very
certain type of personality. It's a very lonely
endeavor. Even if you go into partnership with
someone, there are things that you can and can't
confide in with people. And the amount of self
-discipline required cannot be underestimated.
So yes, obviously the other side of the coin
is very attractive. What's missing is that when
you're in your corporate job, whether you...
Bust your balls to work as hard as you can. Sorry,
I didn't check whether colourful language was
appropriate for this podcast. I apologise if
I've overstepped the mark. Sorry, I normally
check these things in advance. But yes, whether
you bust a gut working as hard as you can for
20 odd days of the month, or whether you sit
back with your feet on the desk for all of that
time. you still get your salary check at the
end of the month. That safety net is instantly
removed when you go out on your own. It's sink
or swim time. So you need to be physically and
mentally prepared for that and not to underestimate
the physical demands that it imposes on business
owners. A business owner of any size, whether
you're talking about a startup, small business,
or if you're buying an existing... an existing
organization, it doesn't really matter. The amount
of energy required is substantial. Well, I agree
with you with the self -discipline. It's required.
It's not optional, is it? No, it's not. But,
you know, being an entrepreneur and, you know,
the isolation, there's different ways around
it as well. You can find support in communities,
perhaps a partner as well. Although you said
sometimes it still feels... I've worked with
family. I've worked on my own. And each experience
has been quite different. But no matter whom
I've worked with, even alone, you always need
your pillars of support because it's really hard
to make decisions sometimes alone. There's no
such thing as a self -made successful business
owner. There's no such thing as a self -made
business owner. Every single business owner on
the planet is standing on the shoulders of giants,
right? There is a support network in there that
help them get to where they are. And anybody
who says that they're self -made is as deluded
as far as I'm concerned because you can't make
it on your own. And you're really in a state
of delusion if you think you can or you have.
One of my guests previously. He had brought up
a great point that with AI, and I haven't even
finished asking you the questions with the AI,
but with the AI, there's going to be a lot more
solopreneurs moving forward because they're able
to use AI for a lot of different tasks. And we'll
come up to a question with the AI. But that led
me thinking, wow, you know, with AI, if entrepreneurs
are able to leverage it. then they're not even
going to need that big of a team. So he firmly
believed that solopreneurship was where we're
heading in terms of entrepreneurship. So in your
writing, because I did enjoy reading a lot of
your blogs that you have in your website, they
had a whole different angle to marketing. I enjoyed
some of them. One of them was the dark side of
marketing. how people sometimes don't share in
public. And so how do you measure that metric?
But the one that really caught my attention was
one that talks about seeking consensus, that
that can stifle innovation. And it points out
that with strong leadership and unconventional
thinking, those are the two things that drive
real change. So looking back on your journey,
what moment in your history, in your story, Have
you had to push against, you know, conventional
thinking or conventional wisdom to be able to
shape an innovative approach to marketing? We
were working with a client a few years ago now,
a client based in Atlanta. And they are a company
that does menu boxes. If you know what a menu
box is, you subscribe to a website and every
week, day, two weeks, whatever you want, they'll
send you a box full of chilled, fresh ingredients
and a preparation card to enable you to make
a delicious, nutritious, home -cooked meal at
home. Okay? So you don't have to buy anything.
You have got all the ingredients in the box.
You just need to add salt and pepper. All the
spices and seasonings and proteins and vegetables
and carbohydrates and all that stuff are all
in the box. So it's very easy. So for people
who are time short, don't have time to cook or
don't have time to shop for a week or even for
a couple of days, the stuff arrives. None of
the meals take longer than 20 minutes to make,
okay? But it stops you buying takeout and just
being, you know, going down that road. So this
company had been doing this for a while and they'd
been pretty successful, but they'd sort of hit
a ceiling in terms of sales and they couldn't
really move to the next level. They also looked
at where their existing market was and the ICP,
the ideal customer profile. The ideal customer
profile is an archetype of the most likely profile
of person who is going to be receptive for whatever
you're trying to sell. So they identified a number
of different ICPs, you know, in terms of demographics,
ethnographics, age, social class, you know, whatever
it may be. And they were hitting a bit of a ceiling
and they wanted to expand because they're ICPs
were generally in a similar sort of age group,
you know, from mid -20s up to about mid -30s
in age. And what they wanted to do was to get
to an older generation of people, specifically
over 50s, because they thought of people who
were either newly single for whatever reason,
were cooking for... for one, was a bit of a pain
because of the economies of scale that you get
if you're cooking for two, three, or four. But
none of the marketing work that they were doing
seemed to resonate with that particular type
of audience profile. They were doing a lot of
digital advertising. They were doing a lot of
inbound stuff. But nothing was working. We had
a look at the problem. We did a lot of customer
research. We did a couple of focus groups. And
I remember having the first conversation I had
with the marketing director of this company.
And I said what we needed to do, or what we needed
to at least test, was communication via snail
mail, direct mail, USPS mail. And seriously,
Sheila, you should have seen her face. She was
like, what? You know, it was like I was suggesting
bringing back dinosaurs or something. It was
like, you're kidding, right? And I said, no,
seriously. The thing is about printed direct
mail is, number one, we don't get very much of
it anymore. Remember the days when we used to
get tons of this stuff filling up our mailboxes,
our physical mailboxes? Nowadays, not so much,
especially if it's personally addressed to us.
The other thing is, if it's personally addressed
to us, Unlike any form of electronic communication,
there is pretty much a 100 % open rate to success.
You get an envelope addressed to Sheila, I bet
the farm that you're going to open that envelope.
Now, you may throw it in the bin straight after,
because you found out, oh, it's a bit of spam
or whatever else, but you will open it. Yet,
how many times have you got an email, and just
by looking at the sender who you've never heard
of, or just by looking at the subject line, you
know that this is just spam. And you delete it
without even reading it. Also, people of a certain
age, and I'll include myself in that group, I
wouldn't dare include anybody else on this call,
but I'll certainly include myself in this age
group, grew up with snail mail. And there is
a familiarity with that form of communication.
which perhaps doesn't exist with people who are
younger. It's a thing called costly signaling.
So what that means is the very fact that I've
actually spent money by communicating with you
through a particular channel lends additional
gravitas to the veracity of that communication.
In other words, if I advertise a bunch of steak
knives for 50 bucks online you have one perception
of the quality of those steak knives but if i
take out an ad for a 48 sheet billboard poster
for the same steak knives you have a different
perception of the quality of those steak knives
because of costly signaling because you think
well these knives must be good because if they
weren't then this company would not put their
money where their mouth is, right? They've got
skin in the game to actually spend money on advertising,
which I don't know how much it is, but I know
it's certainly more than putting an ad on Facebook
or Instagram or something. Do you see what I
mean? So the very fact that somebody's taken
the time to find out your name and print it out
onto a piece of paper, fold that piece of paper
into an envelope, address that envelope and stick
it in the post, It gives additional credence,
additional authenticity, additional trust signals
to the recipient. So I explained all of this
to the marketing director of this food box company,
and she wasn't having any of it. And it took
two or three conversations before eventually
she said, OK, OK, good grief. She waved the white
flag. She said, OK, let's do a test. We'll pick
a couple of zip codes. And we'll do a test and
we'll compare it to zip codes where we didn't
do the mail drop. And we'll see what happened.
Long story short, what happened? 34 % uptick
in sales compared to any campaign they'd ever
done ever. Not just for the target demographic.
They ran it two or three times afterwards and
it was still well into double digit growth compared
to anything they'd done before. So just by thinking.
irrationally, illogically, but thinking from
a behavioral standpoint about what will react
favorably with the customer, they were able to
buck the trend of their industry and then their
category and realize over and above sales targets
for any of their competitors. Now, I'm not saying
that the answer to your problems is to do a mail
drop. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying
is unconventional thinking. sometimes gives you
the answers to your problems because if you lose
purely logical pragmatic thinking you will only
get one particular solution set and that's the
same solution set that your competitors are going
to arrive at because we're all thinking logically
and rationally but logical and rationally doesn't
mean you're going to get to the right answer
whatever the right answer may be Because as human
beings, we are not logical and rational people.
We're beings, okay? We don't operate, we don't
function predictably, logically and rationally.
Our predisposition is emotional and contextual.
We can change our decision -making process based
upon the context of what that decision is made.
as well as our emotional state at that particular
time. And I defy anybody to disagree with me
on that. We have all bought something for reasons
that are emotionally based, as opposed to reason,
rationality, or logic. Now, we'll tell ourselves
a story after the fact. We need to have that
narrative to go with that. But anything we buy.
Whether it's a home or whether it's a pair of
socks, anything in between, we buy here. We buy
from the heart and we post -rationalize logically.
We tell ourselves a story to justify the purchase
and reassure our mind that we haven't made an
unwise purchase. Sorry, that's another very long
answer. That's called buyer's remorse. right
if if we tell ourselves a story and we believe
it then we keep it if we can't then we're down
to the store and we're getting a return well
i love that you brought back what some may consider
the dinosaur times, right, of print. But I think
the real lesson behind that is that your company
also did all of these focus groups. And whether
you do it in polls or you did them in person,
you took the time to ask the very segment of
people. that you wanted to target what they thought
and that helped you come up with what you're
calling or perhaps that business owner was calling
out of this world or irrational. But I want to
bring you now back to the future and talk about
that AI because you have been in marketing, you
have a lot of experience. And I know that when
we even use the words dial up internet, some
people perhaps can't comprehend that it was a
line that you had to plug into a wall. And it
made a phone call and then it made some screeching
noises, you know, before. We all relive that
music, don't we? Absolutely. But now you're navigating
the rise of AI in the industry. And you're probably
not just reacting to trends, but you're anticipating.
them so that you can stay sharp. So what's one
thing that you're doing that's shaping how you're
approaching using AI to lead Caxino today and
moving forward? So I'm probably going to piss
off a few people now. 90 % of the claims which
are made by AI devotees today are absolute BS
and do not stand up to. any form of in -depth
scrutiny. We've all seen the images and videos
that have been 100 % AI driven, even from very
large agencies, even from very large brands.
But none of them stand up to further scrutiny
because all we're talking about is production
and we're not talking about ideation. We're not
talking about creativity. We're not talking about
making those strategic decisions which ai today
and only today cannot do what we are doing is
an industry the marketing industry the advertising
industry because that's the only industries that
i can speak of right is we are trying to fit
ai into solving problems which ai is not very
good at solving instead of using ai to solve
problems that AI is actually very good at solving.
Firstly, AI doesn't have taste. It doesn't have
creativity. It doesn't know when it's wrong.
But we as human beings, even if we think we don't
have a creative bone in our body, we can look
at a piece of writing as an image, as a video,
and something doesn't smell right. Okay? AI doesn't
have that arbiter. to be able to make the distinction.
So the idea of a solopreneur using a bunch of
AI tools to fill in the gaps for work is perfectly
possible. And there may well be the first unicorn
organization, a billion dollar valued company,
which consists of one person. Maybe there will
be. But the idea that the AI will be able to
think, to be able to make emotional, taste -based,
experiential -type decisions is for the birds.
Yes, it will do tasks, but it needs to be prompted.
And we've all played around with AI, put a prompt
in, and got an absolute pile of cat vomit coming
out of the other end because we don't know what
we're doing, right? Like the old acronym is garbage
in, garbage out. If you don't know what you're
doing at the front, then you know what you're
going to get at the back. This is the issue.
So we're already seeing it in the advertising
industry where certain businesses are producing
like 500 ads with 500 dips of types of creative,
500 headlines, 500 bits of copy, throwing it
into a digital ad platform, The platform itself,
to find the audience, we're not even doing the
customer targeting stuff. We're leaving it up
to the algorithms to do that. And then measuring
whatever ad gives like 0 .001 % better uplift
compared to the rest, and then doubling down
on those ads. And we're forgetting about the
99 % of people who've seen the crud ads. before
they actually see the good good. I'm using that
relative in the relative term, of course, ad.
So we're pissing off 90 % of our target market
in order to get a algorithm based result, which
is still not going to be as effective as something
that was produced by somebody who's had experience
or education. in the subject matter. AI would
never come up with I'm loving it. AI could never
come up with just do it. AI would never come
up with think different. Right? It could do the
poster and it could make it according to printing
specs or banner specs and all the rest of it.
But, you know, that's further downstream. That's
production stuff. I'm not interested in that.
I'm interested in the strategy stuff. In the
stuff that, Like I said, we all buy emotionally
and then post -rationalize logically. So any
form, you look at any ad that you can remember,
or any memory that you've got throughout your
life, every single one of those memories is underpinned
by a strong emotional force. It could be happiness.
It could be sadness. It could be anger. It could
be fear. It could be anything. There's positive
emotions as well as negative. But it's the emotion
that creates the hook to form those memory structures
in our brain. Every January, Super Bowl time,
we all go through and we look at the Super Bowl
ads and we talk about the Super Bowl ads that
we remember. What are the ones we remember? The
ones that stand out because they're funny. or
because they make us think, they create pathos,
or they create nostalgia, or whatever it is.
These are all emotions, Sheila. It's not a question
of sticking it out and putting a bunch of bullet
points on there. No one's going to remember that,
are they? So pulling those emotional levers in
order to create, like I said, these mental structures
is paramount to anything we do from a marketing
perspective. Now, to help do that from a production
side, AI can do lots of things. If we're looking
at making sense of large amounts of data to actually
look at trends and nuances and find out exactly
where there are tangible commercial opportunities
by sorting through data, AI loves that sort of
stuff, and it does a great job doing it. But
for some reason, we're trying... AI has become
a proxy for cheaper and faster rather than better.
And we should be using it to augment our services
so that we can reach ever greater heights of
performance rather than a race to the bottom
where we're just trying to do something faster
and cheaper and get ever -decreasing results.
I don't want to come across as a Luddite here,
okay? And I can do lots of really cool stuff,
but we're not pushing it in that direction for
some reason. We're trying to make it, we're trying
to put a square peg in a round hole and I don't
quite know why. Because it's really good at certain
things and it's really crap at other things and
we're just trying to make it do the crap stuff
rather than make it do the good stuff. It's great
to be able to look at figuratively, or uh legitimately
you don't have to stare at a blank page anymore
right you you can cut you know it's the hardest
thing in the world is to stare at a blank page
and think okay where do we go right so from an
ideation perspective having a stick in the ground
you know figuratively speaking that we can work
around um is is fantastic um But we need to remember
to take into consideration that the conversation
is taking place based on previous existing ideas.
So the chance that we could hit something fresh
and original using AI prompts is infinitesimally
small. Okay? So I think it'll fuel more mediocre
work because if you're using AI to create, you're
just combining ideas from what's already there.
Okay? So until AI has emotional intelligence,
It's incapable of creating something on its own.
It's a curator, okay? Not a creator, okay? So
all of that boring, non -creative, repetitive
stuff should definitely be thrown at AI, okay?
Most of the performance marketing stuff, the
pragmatic style ads, banner ads, A -B testing.
Rationality -based copywriting, you know, things
like features and colors and availability and
all that stuff. All the basic, what I call grunt
work, you know, the test and learn work, the
stuff we used to give to interns. AI can do all
of that stuff and it can do it far better than
a human being. Where it gets interesting is where
it can do things that humans either can't do
quickly or can't do at all. So like I said, gathering
data, working with what -if models around that
data. You know, link all the moving parts together
and help us with strategic planning. You know,
for example, the ability to gather what we call
in marketing category entry points, okay? Basically,
to create more detailed market segmentation,
identify the optimum positioning strategy, build
funnels, work out the best leverage points, recommend
new product development ideas, that sort of stuff.
And then... You can imagine taking all of those
things together that have been created virtually
instantaneously and having them all speak to
each other to identify the optimum strategy for
our business in the next 6, 12, 24, 36 months.
And we can run a gazillion scenarios where we
can change variables, objectives, pricing, distribution,
ad spend, whatever, and model those possibilities
and work out the best one and review it. every
year, month, every day, if you want, you know?
So AI can connect the dots and spot trends and
augment what marketing teams are already doing,
creating private GPTs around our own particular
business, our own particular market, all of that
customer -facing messaging that our businesses
have created, our financials, our reporting,
our research, our presentations, everything.
It's like your second brain. to help you anticipate
trends and that sort of thing. But for creative
execution, for the principles of behavioral optimization,
AI sucks. It's not even close to being there.
But all of this stuff I've just said, it excels
at. And we should be doing much more of that.
And that's really where the opportunity exists
within the marketing and advertising sphere.
So what is your next milestone? I've been teaching
for a long time. I'm a visiting professor, so
a part -timer. At the end of last year, I was
invited to speak at a conference in Copenhagen
in Denmark. And I hadn't done any public speaking
for a long time, excusing the stuff I'm doing
at university because it's not really public
speaking in the same way, right? And I got a
really good feedback. The organizers were blown
off. blown off their chairs. They weren't expecting
as positive a feedback as they got. And I've
heard this over the years, but I've never taken
it very seriously. But I'm actually going to
give a good go in seeing whether I can secure
more public speaking opportunities, because people
who know about these things and are looking at
it a lot more. objectively and pragmatically,
which I can't because I'm looking at everything
from an inch from my nose, right? Think that
I can actually command some kind of presence
within a room. That's my next mountain to climb,
to see whether I've actually got what it takes.
But that's what I'm going to give a go anyway.
But I think you got this. That's very kind. So
thank you very much for joining me today, G.
I had a great time. I was delighted. It was a
wonderful time. I hope you and I hope your audience
will enjoy our discussion today. And I will leave
all of your contact information in the notes
so that anyone that wants to reach out to you
or learn more about Kixino or perhaps your future
speaking engagements can do so by looking in
the show notes. Thank you all for tuning in to
another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. Until next time.