The Hear It Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

We’re speaking with Oli Hills, CEO of Nonsensical, the agency that helps clients  win on TikTok. Having taken over Updates Media Ltd in 2017 after a career in investment management, he evolved it into Nonsensical just as the pandemic hit and TikTok rocketed. In this episode we talk about how to get the right strategic approach for the platform to better engage youth audiences, how to avoid doing it badly and who’s doing it really well. It’s packed full of tips and advice!

You can find out about Nonsensical here and connect with Oli on LinkedIn here and Twitter (X) here plus the Nonsensical blog which is worth a read. 

Things we talk about

Approach to organic strategy and having multiple accounts for different audiences

• Gymshark men and women accounts on TikTok
• Duolingo region specific accounts UK and France for example
• The Works on books and Oli discussses how they could split this out to books and parents

Paid ads approach and finding the right kind of content your audience might be engaging with

• Mukbangs
• Restaurant reviews and tours

Other accounts we mention

• Urban Tandoor Bristol – the restaurant who have amassed over 10m likes through their parody songs
• Duolingo and Ryanair may not need TikTok but they are brands who land their tone of voice well
• Sheer Luxe; digital fashion and lifestyle publication whose team operate as influencers within the content
• Luxe Collective: luxury fashion buying second hand. Interviews with owners, provides a depth of content as well as the shopping option
• RSPB: and how their Bird of the Week is a fun, platform relevant way to engage Gen Z with bird info.

Attribution and it’s challenges with TikTok

• Attribution tools like Fospha
• Post purchase/engagement surveys

Three top tips for winning on TikTok

• Organic: define your biggest audience that has something in common and focus on creating content on just that audience.
• Creative: really thing about being native, authentic, genuine and looks/feels like TikTok
• Repeatable, scalable style of content that you can repeat

Recommendations

• TikTok for Business on LinkedIn
• Disney’s Creativity Inc book

We’re talking about connecting your brand to Gen Z with Alex Haider and Izzy Hall, Senior Content Executives from Pion, an agency that helps brand specialise in student and Gen Z audiences.

Pion is formerly known as Student Beans, Beans ID and Voxburner, before launching as Pion earlier this year. They also run the successful global event, Youth Marketing Strategy (YMS).

We talk about some of the insights from Pion’s recent Youth Trend Report, in particular unhelpful assumptions, tone of voice, aesthetics and pop culture and subcultures and whether cancel culture is done. Along with top tips from Alex and Izzy on how to better connect your marketing efforts with Gen Z we talk trends, insights and a ton of examples. 

Follow Izzy and Alex on LinkedIn

Things we talk about;

• Brat Summer and aesthetics (a blog from Alex)
• Monzo experiential campaign in the Trafford Centre, Flatmate Fortunes
• Surreal on LinkedIn
• RSPB on TikTok
• BBC Sport and the Olympics
• Tala on TikTok
• Glossier on TikTok
• Oatly and their OOH
• Ryanair on TikTok
• DuoLingo on TikTok and Make It Go Viral newsletter from Zaria Parvez
• 93% club on LinkedIn
• Word Tonic on LinkedIn and their website https://www.wordtoniccommunity.com/

Hear from Kyle Campbell, founder of the Education Marketer and self-confessed writer, content marketing evangelist and internet culture nerd. His newsletter and podcast bring updates, insights and examples from around the world of Higher Education.

We talk about the latest trends, how to drive relevant conversations with prospects as well as find out what youth stereotype annoys him the most. 

https://www.educationmarketer.co.uk/ 

https://www.educationmarketer.co.uk/podcast 

The content Kyle recommends.... 

• Beano Brain Youth Insights https://www.beanobrain.com/ 
• This Old Marketing https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/ 

We hear from Jim Tudor, Founder of Future Index, a trends consultancy specialising in higher education, on what the opportunities are for the sector, drawing on inspiration from around the world both in edcation and beyond. Jim is also a founding director of creative agency Waterfall, an education marketing agency. 

http://thefutureindex.com/

http://waterfall.agency/ 

Find Jim on Twitter and LinkedIn

As you might expect from a trends expert, Jim had a ton of great examples including...

• Greenpeace short courses including Storytelling
• Nottingham Trent University's Content Collective
• Loughborough University's Big Ideas sessions
• New York University smashing reels content
• Arts University Bournemouth with their VC Banksy conspiracy theory on TikTok
• Monash University, Melbourne Australia with their virtual reality of the future
• University of New South Wales
• University of Wollongong course finder
• Arizona State University World of Wonder
• Miami Ad School
• International University, Spain (IE University)
• ETH University Zurich
• UA92, Manchester 
• London Interdisciplinary School
• TEDI London. The Engineering and Design Institute

This episode we hear from Rohini Kahrs, Communications Manager at the Runnymede Trust, which is the UK’s leading race equality think tank. From broadening the curriculum to exposing the Windrush scandal, the Trust’s work is rooted in challenging structural racism and its impact on our communities and has produced some incredible insight to continually challenge and influence progress towards racial equality.

Rohini on LinkedIn

Runnymede Trust https://www.runnymedetrust.org/

Rohini talks about

https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/press-release/lack-of-progress-on-closing-educational-inequalities-disadvantaging-millions-throughout-life/

Penguin Lit in Colour & their TikTok

Falling Further, Runnymede Trust 

Confronting Injustice: Racism and the Environmental Emergency. Runnymede Trust

Choked Up

Stormzy - Merky Books working with Penguin, Cambridge Scholarship

This episode we're joined by Isobelle Panton, Director of Student Recruitment and International at University Academy 92, a higher education offering founded by the Manchester United Class of '92, in partnership with Lancaster University. 

We talk about adapting the higher education offer to youth audiences, challenging the typical format of an undergraduate learning experience and why championing student voice is key to staying relevant in an ever competitive market. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isobelle/

https://mobile.twitter.com/isobellepanton 

https://ua92.ac.uk/

Rebecca mentions

Hyper Island as being a unique Higher Ed offering https://www.hyperisland.com/

Gary Neville on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@gneville2?lang=en 

Isobelle mentions 

Gymshark as a brand that knows its target youth audience https://uk.gymshark.com/ 

Gymshark's realistic mannequins https://hypebae.com/2022/11/gymshark-london-flagship-location-mannequins-community-body-positivity 

Ryan air as usally being brilliant on social

https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanair?lang=en

But no so much their mean tweet at Jordan Sancho https://talksport.com/football/1243911/ryanair-twitter-jadon-sancho-england-world-cup-squad/ 

This week we speak with Penny Norman, Strategy Director at Rescue, a behavioural change agency working with Governments and non-profits to tackle behavioural health campaigns in the U.S, specifically nicotine, cannabis and opiods.

https://rescueagency.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennynorman/

https://rescueagency.com/webinars

We talk about the subcultures within the 'teen' bracket, how to engage youth audiences to influence behaviour, whether that's preventative or informative and Penny shares lots of advice on how to improve the conversation, better understand the drivers of drug use and to develop the right mix of measures to indicate attitude and behaviours are changing. 

Penny mentions...

Stoner Sloth campaign https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/20/stoner-sloth-anti-drug-campaign-gets-reality-check-as-medical-experts-walk-away 

YMCA $10 a day childcare https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/ymca-child-care-refunds-start-toward-average-10-per-day-promise

Laced and Lethal in King County https://www.lacedandlethal.com/ 

Research using fake teen accounts to test how easy it is to use Instagram to access drugs https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/instagram-makes-it-very-easy-for-teens-to-find-drugs-on-the-platform/articleshow/88157357.cms 

Meta legit script approval https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/787684018620830 

This episode we hear from Ndubuisi Uchea, co-founder of Word on the Curb, a youth research and creative consultancy. Having literally established Word on the Curb to represent youth voice, particularly from minority and under represented groups, the YouTube platform grew to the creative, research and content agency it is today. 

https://www.wordonthecurb.co.uk/

Word on the Curb YouTube

Examples of work we talk about

• Adidas + Mother London
• Home Office #KnifeFree Chicken Box
• Organ Donation with the NHS
• Word on the Curb for Black History Month 'What I wasn't taught in school'

Ndu shares YouTube's Black Creators' community and how it's been a programme that engages young Black voices well, and invests in them. 

You can apply for the Black Creator Fund from YouTube here

This episode we welcome Bruce Daisley onto the podcast. Bruce previously ran Twitter's business and development across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Now a writer and consultant on better working, you can find his work https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/ 

Including his brand new book, Fortitude, which as he explains is all about resilience https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/fortitude/

Bruce recently wrote about Gen Z and handling stress, following some commentary that younger audience are weaker at work than ever. Something he argues, isn't the case. We explore this blog, why firms need to go beyond office snacks and table tennis to attract and retain young talent and what resilience and purpose should foster for younger audiences at work. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/12/gen-z-stress-resilience 

Bruce mentions: 

Insight into US teens in lockdown from Jean Twenge https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/final-teenquarantine2020.pdf 

Men's Sheds in Australia

Rebecca mentions

Teen Vogue article from young people who have disabilities and/or chronic illnesses https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-young-disabled-and-chronically-ill-people-want-you-to-know 

Season 3 is back and to kick us off we hear from Brett Booth, youth marketing strategist, on what brands and organisations can do to better position themselves to engage youth audiences within their marketing. 

Brett is a former partner of Nerds, a UK youth agency working for major brands that celebrates artists and youth voice. Having worked on a whole breadth of campaigns to help brands better connect and appear culturally relevant to youth audiences, he's now working as a consultant, strategist and mentor. 

He talks about the importance of good insight to inform campaigns that actually deliver for brands and young people. 

Brands Brett mentions 

Palace Skateboards https://www.palaceskateboards.com/ 

Jordan Brand https://www.nike.com/jordan 

Cortiez from Clint https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/corteiz-clint-and-the-future-of-streetwear 

Tax3 https://tax3.co.uk/