Episode 310 / Jayne Andrews / Fentimans Ltd / Marketing Director

If you can get people to relax and be themselves, they'll do great work. Jayne Andrews, Marketing Director at Fentimans Ltd, shares why happy people are the future of marketing.

Many marketing leaders think they need to be cracking a whip and making people feel on edge to get their best work. In reality, Jayne believes that teams are far more productive when they are not stressed out, but instead feel happy, welcome, and free to be their true selves.

Jayne has worked in a wide variety of environments and work cultures, from Australia to the United States, and now in Hexham, UK. But where you are doesn't influence how good your work is. What matters is good communication, a boss that is approachable, and treating people well. As she puts it, "I want to create teams that are productive for the right reasons." This aligns with our values at Automated Creative, where we always seek to create a work environment where people thrive and bring their best selves to work.

As for data driven marketing, Jayne notices a shift in how she combines data and creativity. Her view is that, "even if you're a creative marketer, your best and most successful ideas are going to come from data, they're going to come from an insight."
This is why marketers shouldn't consider themselves either a data or a creative person - the key to success is marrying the two together.

Listen to the full episode for more great insights from Jayne.

The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.

Jayne Andrews 0:00
People shouldn't think they're one or the other. As long as you've got the right people on your team and you can draw upon their skills, you should be marrying those two things together.

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Tom Ollerton 0:47
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform, and this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders about where data driven marketing is going to go. And I think this is the first time I've interviewed anyone from Hexham, maybe even Northumberland, where I'm from, but I am on a call with Jayne Andrews, who's marketing director at Fentimans limited. So Jane, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, can you give us a bit of background?

Jayne Andrews 1:21
Sure, Hi, Tom, at the moment as you've said, I'm marketing director of Fentimans, which is a soft drinks company based in the Northeast of England, but I've had a bit of a journey to get there. I've been doing marketing for 30 years via London, Sydney, Miami and now in Hexham. I was agency side for half my career, and then the last 15 years I've been in marketing director roles with quite a big stint in travel marketing.

Tom Ollerton 1:50
So lots of interesting places you've been, done brand side, agency side. But what is your biggest ever mistake, Jayne, what was that big mess up that you felt very red faced at the time, but in retrospect, glad it happened?

Jayne Andrews 2:06
Yeah, it was probably more a decision mistake, and it's probably something that lots of people can share right now. I was marketing director for Carnival Cruise Line in Australia for six years, and that role was coming to the end, and I actually got offered a role to move to America, to be the brand director for Carnival Cruise Line for the whole of North America. So I was like, Whoa, oh, my god. Opportunities like that don't come up very often. So I moved to America with my husband, who was only my husband for a couple of weeks, four weeks at that point, dragged him to America, um, whilst I'd take up this big job at carnival. But this was in December 2019. So off to work for a cruise line, the biggest in the world in 2019 and I guess it was a fuck up in the sense that I didn't realise what was going to happen in the next three months and covid coming in. So in many ways, I kind of killed my career, going to work for a cruise line during covid. But I also, as well as killing my career, I probably did some of the most amazing work I've ever done in my career at the same time. So I still wrestle with it in my in my head, was that move to carnival a fuck up, or did I actually learn a great deal? So I was only in the role for three months when the whole company was shut down and thrown into crisis management mode. But in terms of what I learned, I think one thing that was pretty amazing is I moved in to be the Director of brands. So for the first three months, I was working on fabulous TV commercials, working with the best agency, one of the best agencies in America. I was working with anomaly in New York. So it was so big and exciting for me, and then when the world kind of crashed around me, I was like, shit, what now? 1000 people got made redundant in one day at carnival, and that was just the office staff. Then all the ships closed down. But thankfully, what was quite interesting is a lot of people in the team had better experience than me, but I think having come from a smaller business and being a generalist, it saved me, and it actually saved my job, and where other people were laid off, they kept me in my role as brand Director, and then I was given lots of other areas of responsibility to handle for the whole duration of covid, so I picked up partnerships, customer communications, additional PR and crisis management, health and safety messaging. So my little more humble background saved my job during. Covid, still to this day, I'm not sure whether it was a complete fuck up, but it did feel certainly like a fuck up to land in a cruise line in covid.

Tom Ollerton 5:07
I don't think it sounds like a mistake at all. Really. You didn't know it was going to happen, so that you can't be blamed for making that decision. But it sounds like you, like all of us, the ones that survive, are the ones that adapt, and you did just that. You've adapted to change. And there's incredible list of things that you just rattled off, and it's all marketing, right? Sure, you're not selling bums on seats or bums in rooms or whatever they say and travel, but, uh, you did it. That's incredible story, yeah.

Jayne Andrews 5:33
And it was, it was a, I I've always been one of these people that doesn't do a lot of research before they do anything. I'm quite impulsive. So when the call came up from Miami, I just went, Yeah, brilliant, let's go. And I didn't research heavily whether it would be a good place to live, whether, you know, like, I could speak, you know, a lot of people speak Spanish in Miami. I didn't do any of this research. I just went. So there was part of me when the covid thing happened. Like, God, I probably should have put a bit more thought into this and just kept in my safe role back in Australia. But, yeah, there were so many things that I got out of it. In the end, the team I ran in Australia had been only seven people, and I was used to having a 3 million Aussie dollar budget. And then I came into America, and before covid, it was hundreds and hundreds of million that my budget was. But as soon as all of our budgets got cut, I was actually somebody that knew how to manage that, because I had spent my whole career just having a small budget. An example of one of the things I did, which was, okay, I've got no budget here. Back in 2019 Carnival Cruise Line, one of the biggest brands in the world, didn't have Tiktok so I just sat in my bedroom and did a packing video and put up the first Tiktok video, and I look back now at what that channel has achieved and my humble little video from back in 2019 in my bedroom, you know, it's got 100,000 views. And then some of the content we then produced after that was got several million views. So I guess what, what started as a like, oh, shit, situation turned into finding new opportunities for the brand, and then, you know, thinking on my feet as well. What else I could do?

Tom Ollerton 7:26
So, can we get more practical now? What's your best bit of advice that you give to people when it comes to data driven marketing and being better at it?

Jayne Andrews 7:43
I had a penny drop moment a few years ago. I've always seen myself as being more of a creative marketer, and I used to think that being data driven and creative, those had to be separate people. You couldn't do both, which is actually wrong. Even if you're a creative marketer, your best and most successful ideas are going to come from data, they're going to come from an insight. And I worked on a very simple campaign, which was the penny drop moment back when I was working at Carnival in Australia, we we couldn't fill the ships during winter, or we could fill them, but we could only sell the tickets for a low price. So my boss said to me, how are we going to get the pricing up in winter, when nobody wants to sail on these ships? And the solution came from being data driven, and it ended up being quite a creative one. I looked at the database, not me personally, because I can't do things like that, but I got the analyst on our team to have a look at the database, and I said, Tell me who is travelling in winter? Who are the people going on these ships when it's freezing cold? And we realised that the people travelling were couples over 50, and they were just going to have a bit of fun, because they could travel any time of the year, at the cheapest time, because they didn't have kids at home anymore. And then I realised, I was like, Oh my God, these people are actually having, like, a second honeymoon. They're going on the ships during winter for a second honeymoon. And then off the back of that, the agency that was working with at the time coined the term honey boomers, and we ran a couple of campaigns for two or three years all around the honey boomers and getting couples to come on board our ships to revitalise their relationships and put fun back into them. And it might sound really simplistic, but that was the moment where I realised that, yeah, I'm a creative marketer, but actually we would not have come to that idea had we not looked at the data. And people shouldn't think they're one or the other. As long as you've got the right people on your team and you can draw upon their skills. You should be marrying those two things together.

Tom Ollerton 10:02
That is a wonderful story. And it chimes with the podcast recorded a few weeks ago in Amsterdam, and the guest was talking about how no one really wants to market to that age group. It's not cool. It's not exciting. And actually, specifically women as well, they would often in media over over that age, certain age is seen as sort of comedy characters, you know, then it's all about like, how do you how can we get you to look younger on all that stuff, where it's actually it's very patronising, when, in reality, they got loads money, and they can do whatever they want, and they can like and it's kind of odd that there's this, this fetish with advertising to 21 year old good looking people in, you know, skinny jeans and stuff. Anyway, they probably don't wear skinny jeans. I'm nearly 50, so we're gonna move on now to your shiny new objects, which is high performing and happy teams. Now that sounds unbelievably obvious what that is. Sometimes these things take explanation. But why have you chosen that as your shiny new object?

Jayne Andrews 11:01
I think, yeah, I'm going to be quite frank now. Over the years, and you know, I've worked for 30 years. I've worked for some complete narcissists and a few wankers over the years, and I've also had it said to me several times, ah, we have to create a high performing team to be successful. And a couple of you know, years ago, I actually rewrote my CV and I wrote, I stopped writing, I want to create high performing teams, and I started writing I create high performing and happy teams. And although it sounds bloody obvious, I think it's really important to remember that you don't have to create an environment where you know you're cracking the whip and you're making people feel on edge. If you can get people in the environment around you to relax, be themselves, be authentic. I hate that word that's also wanky, but get people to just feel like they can say what's on their mind, you will actually get a far more high performing team than one where everybody's completely stressed out all the time. So this isn't about me being all cuddly, but I've always tried, over the last few years, to maintain an environment where people can offer up ideas, offer suggestions, and it makes a much more productive environment. And I think even more so this has been important over the last five years. During covid, everybody was stressed about their jobs, you know, insecurities about what the future would look like. And since covid, you know, I've worked in teams where people are still worried about their jobs because the economy hasn't picked up as much as we thought it would, and people are like, Oh no, we're not performing enough. So I always remind myself, and I'm try and check in with my team and just make sure is everyone all right? You know, I want you to work hard, but are you also All right? So that would be, I guess, just one of the mantras I take forward. Now maybe it's because I'm sort of, I've been working for many years. I want to create teams that are productive for the right reasons.

Tom Ollerton 13:21
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Tom Ollerton 13:58
Yeah, there's so many things there, which chimes with my experience in, you know, co running automated creative, you know, look, we have these mantras that we share when people come on board, and one of them is like, we want to work with a real you, and if that's the same as authentic, probably in that in that area. And it's just like, look, the question that everyone, like, rolls their eyes whenever asked this in the interview, but I'm always like, well, what? What's the thing that you know about most outside of work that isn't work? Like, what is your specialist subject? Yeah, and someone said to me, once they're into, like, luxury hotels, and then the other person interviewing said, what they say? They said, Oh, like the French Renaissance. And I'm like, Well, who I'd rather be in the pub with chatting to? And then, you know, I'm sure they're both interested in their own ways. But what makes you you, and I think the thing that adds on to that is I did loads of research, research. I listened to some books, sounds very grand, into productivity. And then the one thing that you know, you got apps and mindsets and said, the things make gonna make you most productive is you enjoy what you're doing, right? If you. Like you have all the apps, you can have all of the techniques, and have all of the mindset, you know, Pomodoro, all the rest of it. You hate what you're doing, you're gonna walk so much slower than if you're happy, and that leads high performing. But the SEO, you'll pull that out yourself. You know, it's, it's where it gets fluffy, which I think it falls down for a lot of people. So I'm curious to know, practically, how you how you make happy, like a real and tangible thing that you can report back to the business.

Jayne Andrews 15:27
Yeah. I mean, I think if you did it officially, you know, you get all these. We're having conundrums about this at work at the moment. And this is sort of all the teams in Fentimans business, you know, what is their value in these things like your Great Place to Work surveys. Do people even answer them truthfully? You know, so I think to measure it is quite hard, but I think you can see through the very basic things like Team retention, how long are they sticking around? Even if you can't necessarily, and I work in a really small business at the moment, you know, there's only 50 of us all together. So there's not necessarily the opportunities for people to, you know, stay there for a long period of their career. But what I can see that is, if you make a nice environment, people will stay that little bit longer. And some of my team, you know, have said that to me, like, Oh, I'm we're struggling a little bit with the opportunities here, but they'd be taking a risk if they went somewhere else and they didn't get on with the people around them. So I do think retention, but also I can see on a day to day, and hopefully I'm right. I hope my team are not listening to this, and go, Jayne, you're completely nob end. This is not how it is. But you know, in team meetings that everybody feels like they can speak up, you know, whether it's the person that only joined the team a couple of weeks ago to the person that's been there for three years. So you can get ideas from anywhere. And I always tell, like, my team as well, like it's not just about the job that you do now, relationships have been a key part of my career. Most of the jobs that I've had have been, you know, some kind of relationship I had years ago, and the person pops up again, and then a door opens. So, you know, I say to my team, even in things like how they work with agencies, like, just don't be a dickhead. You know, work with these people. You know, treat them how you want to be treated, and they don't work for you. They're experts in what they do. So just, you know, treat people well and you'll always get the best work.

Tom Ollerton 17:43
It reminds me our client, Lindsay Barrett, who's the head of Global Head of data driven marketing at Mars. Sorry, Lindsay if you listen to this. She said on stage at madfest A couple years ago, and she said that her mantra to her team is be a delight to work with, which so much. Yeah, brilliant. Similar to, you know, treat people how you want to be treated, but it's in that, it's in that has that intention. So I'm curious to know, like, do you you sound that you're not really much of a planner and you do things impulsively, but is there a sort of a framework or set of skills, or, like, you know, when you're speaking to people who report into you to pass on the happiness and high performing by doing these things, or are you trying to reinvent it? Or do they come to you with ideas? I'm curious to know, like, if someone listened to this podcast came and worked for you, what? How would they experience that?

Jayne Andrews 18:32
I think, in even just some basic things, like having your one to ones with team members. My direct reports I have one to ones with, but I make sure that they're checking in regularly with the people that report into them. You know, it's that whole thing, you know, you you shouldn't be catching up with your team member at their appraisal every six months. You should be, you know, having that regular cadence of chats, and also use those conversations not just to talk about the to do list and what they're working on, but to genuinely just check in if they're okay, you know, learn a little bit, like you said, about their personal life. And you know, I'm quite a candid person, so I talk quite openly about what's going on in my life, you know, the ups, the downs, the moans. And I kind of hope that creates an environment where if somebody is unhappy that they're able to chat to me as well, and you've got to get the balance right. But I do think you're a friend to the people on your team as well. They see you every bloody day. So if something's going on in their personal life, you should be aware of it, and you should be able to step in and help them as well. So I think, yeah, just regular communication, nothing, nothing too fancy, and and making yourself approachable.

Tom Ollerton 19:55
And so when does this not work? When are the situations where you're like, oh. Like, I've leaned too much into happiness and not enough into effective, because some people take liberties, right? And they go, Oh, Jayne, she's pretty relaxed. She's cool. I'll do this tomorrow, and I won't, like, you burn the midnight oil. I'm not saying that is that that's always the right thing to do. But some, some, and it's definitely not, certainly not in our business anyway. But sometimes, sometimes opportunities arrive and you have to kind of go and keep cranking up a gear, you know, light that candle, or get on with it. But so is there a time when this really doesn't work?

Jayne Andrews 20:28
Yeah, I mean, I won't lie. I think, you know, there's always instances, and, you know, I've had several, because I've been doing this for so long, where you've got a disciplinary issue, you've got someone that's, you know, taken the piss, or they're really not performing. And I think at that point you you, you have to really follow processes and and take that step back so your communication is really clear, and you're not you know, if it's a disciplinary type situation, you're not coating it in fluff. They know what's going on, because I don't think it's fair on somebody, if their performance is is underperforming, for them to not be crystal clear that they're underperforming, because it's not fair to them. It's not fair to you. So, yeah, there's obviously instances where it isn't all hearts and rainbows, and you have to to really, you know, put people straight. But I also think that if you've created a good environment and people respect you when there is an emergency situation, and you know when you do have to work that weekend, or you know you need to pull a favour from somebody, and you know something needs to be done last minute. Hopefully there's a bit of credit in the bank because they know that you're not a piss taker and making them do all the time. I mean, I don't clock watch people, and I don't make them work their hours to the letter. But if something needs needs to be done, I'd say, shit, this really needs to be done. We've all got to, like, pull our weight here and and do it. And if you've created an environment where you're respected, I think people are a bit more likely to do that.

Tom Ollerton 22:14
So have this theory, and you can laugh at this as much as you like, but with social media, we get attracted to the shocking things, right? Someone described, I think Rory Sutherland, said something like, if we're having a conversation in a cafe and there's like a ruckus outside, what the first thing we'll do is go and stick our heads out the door, right? And say, what's going on? Human nature to move towards drama. And the critics of social media that would call it like a Scott Galloway or call like a rage machine, you know, where it's just, it's all like, the most extreme view is the thing that rises to the top right, which we use for good or ill. And I wonder whether the the mass market, mainstream conception of a leader is someone who's a bit of a meanie for the same reasons. You know, I'm just watching Succession at the minute. Thanks. I could, I think I was too excited about any whatever. But, like, whatever the guy's called, can't even remember Logan, he's like, awful. And you got, and then you got, like, Alan Sugar, and you got, you've got Gordon Ramsay, and you've got all, you know, all these, all these people. I don't watch Dragons' Den, but they don't seem particularly nice all of the time. And there's this idea of a leader. The most shocking, the most rage inducing person, is that, quite often, sort of toxic masculine shelter. And that is our you know, when you think, what would a mainstream person think of a CEO, you wouldn't think like, oh, this like person who wants people to be happy and high performing, who lives in hex, and perhaps it works for a soft drink company. Tell me. So that's just an observation, really, that, like we in business, most of the most of the bosses are meanies. You know, do you think that? The question is, are managers in marketing starting to emulate that behaviour?

Jayne Andrews 23:56
Perhaps, I've definitely had bosses who've, you know, banged their fist on the table. I've worked with one that's used to shake people's chairs, you know, to shake them into action. And I feel like, Oh my God, but maybe it's when you get exposed to that you realise that that's just really ineffective. It just makes you clock watch. It makes you, you know, stressed. So I think having been through situations where I've worked with those fist banging people, I'm like, screw that that. That does not work. I do think, I think you I can use it because you used it. But that kind of toxic masculinity phrase without sounding like some raving feminist here, I do think there is a particularly maybe with female bosses, you feel like, do I need to shout a bit louder? Do I need to be really assertive to you know, to get my point across? But I think you, as you get a little bit more mature into your career, you start to realise that you do need that diversity. So just don't pretend you're something that you're not. And I think, you know, I probably should bring it back to the work, because I think at the end of the day, the work is the most important. You know, is a really important thing. And I always try and say to my team, like, we want to make this work. It's really important to be proud about what you create. And you want to make this work the best it can bloody be. And I think as well as being, you know, cuddly and happy, just getting people to have that pride in what they do, so they're like, fucking hell, this is really good, what we've just done. And I was on a panel, actually a few weeks ago about working, and it was all about regional marketing, and it came up about working in the north of England. And somebody asked me about the agency that I worked with. Did I work with them because they happen to be up north in England? And I said, No, I work with them because they're bloody good at what they do. And you know, I think I've worked all around the world, London, Sydney, Miami, and now Hexham. And one thing that's important to me, and important to get out of my team is wherever you are, you can do globally good work. I don't care that, you know that now I work in Hexham, that shouldn't make any difference. I still want my team to produce work that I would have been proud of wherever. And it's about I think maybe that's the other thing, maybe I should add to my high performing and happy but also people that are proud of what they do.

Tom Ollerton 26:39
Yeah, I was just thinking that there's almost, like, this triangle, yeah, if you take out pride, or like that was all about making the work as great as possible. And yeah, so yeah, it needs to be happy, high performing, proudful. I don't know.

Jayne Andrews 26:57
I need to rethink this as a little, yeah, having pride in what you do. Just, you know, I think everybody wants to come out of the end of their career and go, God, I did some good shit.

Tom Ollerton 27:08
That's what I want. You know, it's not something you hear a lot. I'll tell you that like it's, I think there's a lot of people just trying to get it done. There was, it's getting a couple years back now, but the WFA did, the World Federation of Advertisers, did a survey and said, You know what, as an industry, we were really good at and the thing that they excelled at was, like, just getting stuff out the door. That's all the CMOs agreed, like they could get something out of the door. Not was it great? Was it optimal? Was it all the rest of it, but it's just, yeah, we can do that. And I think what you, you know, you've reminded me something that was much more prevalent when at the start of my career, when it's all about like, how great can this work be? How can we make this a bit of art that really sings, you know? Anyway, I'm getting teary eyes about my good old days. Maybe I'm misremembering, that. Jayne, thank you so much for your time.

Jayne Andrews 28:03
No problem. That was fun. Thank you.

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