Marketing Isn't Boring, You Are: Inside The Comedy Content Engine That's Breaking Social's Rules
Marketing shouldn’t feel like a meeting.
It should move you.
This week, Verity sits down with Henry Hayes – Head of Marketing @ Passionfruit and the comedic content machine reshaping how brands build attention, internally & externally.
Marketing shouldn’t feel like a meeting. It should move you.
This week, Verity sits down with Henry Hayes – Head of Marketing @ Passionfruit and the comedic content machine reshaping how brands build attention, internally & externally.
Whether you know Henry from his LinkedIn comedy bits or his unconventional marketing strategies at Passionfruit, this conversation peels back the layers on what today’s brand teams really need to nail.
Think funny’s overdone, or simply isn’t for you? Think again.
Press play to hear:
This one’s part tactical teardown, part creative permission slip.
Listen in. Rethink the rulebook. And maybe… be funnier.
Chapters:
00:00 – From Creator to Head of Marketing
05:10 – Building Advocacy Internally
10:20 – Marketing at the Speed of Culture
14:40 – Why Passionfruit Doesn’t Spend on Ads
20:15 – D2C Brands Are Still Playing It Safe
25:55 – Let Employees Create (Then Get Out of the Way)
31:25 – Comedy Is a Marketing Tactic
42:35 – You Are Not the Customer
Rate & review Building Brand Advocacy:
Connect with Henry:
Building Brand Advocacy S3 Ep 002:
Marketing Isn't Boring, You Are: Inside The Comedy Content Engine That's Breaking Social's Rules ft. Henry Hayes
Verity Hurd: Hello and welcome to Building Brand Advocacy. Um, today I'm super excited to chat to the incredible, um, Henry Hayes. He is the head of marketing at Passion Fruit and is also probably better known as, um, the comedy content machine.
Henry, welcome. Hi,
Henry Hayes: EY, how you doing? A comedy content machine. I love that. There we are. I often get told, people say, comedian, I really don't like that. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because I. Comedians I see as like the purest in the space. Yeah. The standups people who've been kind of the journeymen and women
Verity Hurd: Yeah.
Henry Hayes: Okay. Of the UK and beyond. Whereas um, yeah, content creator, content machine is great. Yeah.
Verity Hurd: I'm glad I got that right. You got that right. Nailed it. Boom. There we
Henry Hayes: are. Off to a good start,
Verity Hurd: Henry. Just um, obviously a little bit of intro there, but obviously wanna hear it from you. Mm-hmm. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and passion fruit.
Henry Hayes: Absolutely. Yeah. So, um. Yeah, I'm Henry. I'm 30. I got married two months ago. Big up ring on the finger. Congratulations. Thank you very much. And [00:05:00] yeah, I suppose like people may know me now outside of work and, and stuff I do on Instagram and TikTok, um, I do sort of observational comedy. Mainly focused around Londoners, like sort of gentrified Londoners, but starting to spring out into doing more stuff.
Impersonations of social media, personalities, stuff like that. But actually I do have a nine to five, or actually it's a bit more intense than that. Um, which a lot of people outside of work don't really know, um, is that I actually head up the marketing for passion fruit, passion fruit. Uh, we're a series a, um, scale up that is basically a, a freelance marketing platform.
And what we do is we basically find and source the very best freelance marketing talent for the very best marketing leaders all around the world in brands. So CMOs, marketing directors at the likes of PepsiCo, Mars, AB and Bev, HSBC. And the, the reason or the rationale behind it is it's kind of a disruptive to the agency model.
Yeah. Okay. So we believe as is the way now with modern marketing, that actually it's become a lot more specialized, but [00:06:00] also, um, businesses need more of a plug and play model, as in when they decide to try and scale up or scale down a particular channel. And that's where passion free comes as a solution to people.
And, um, yeah, it's, it's kind of going from strength to strength at the moment. And I've got the very, um. Weird and wonderful role of being the head of marketing within a marketing business that's trying to transform the way in which marketing companies are being ran. It's very messed how many times
Verity Hurd: can you say?
Henry Hayes: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And we're on a marketing podcast.
Verity Hurd: Um,
Henry Hayes: so yeah, that's me really in a nutshell.
Verity Hurd: Brilliant. Um, I mean, you mentioned a lot of things there that I really want to dig into. Mm-hmm. But first of all, I want to kind of. Dig into how you kind of create the internal backbone of the structure, particularly around creating advocacy mm-hmm.
Within those internal teams. Mm-hmm. What do you think is the first thing that brands need to implement internally to lay the groundwork for like consistent, credible advocacy?
Henry Hayes: It's a very good question. I think the first thing to say is that the marketing world is in a very different [00:07:00] place now than it was five years ago.
Mm-hmm. It's a hell of a lot more complex, um, and. You know, five years ago a lot of money was being spent into Google and Meta and that would buy you basically bargaining power and chips for you to be able to be seen on these sorts of search engines. Yeah. Okay. Nowadays things are being played out a lot more infringed communities, and I always use a, an adage or a term that, uh, a kid anywhere in the world, um, could basically do a short form 22nd TikTok.
On a pair of Nike shoes, and that could have way more impact than a whole Nike campaign that has been put forward by, I don't know, WA and Kennedy or Yeah. Um, WPP or whatever like that. So I think the first thing I would say is that people really need to acknowledge now that brands necessarily aren't in charge of that own, uh, destination.
Okay. Um, you know, it's very much in the consumer's hands and the more in which you empower. Both your [00:08:00] community, but also the employees of which, um, are at your business to try and look at what's actually happening. On the streets. Yeah. And the grassroots environ probably the better advocacy that you'll build.
Verity Hurd: Yeah. From that. So are you noticing, like obviously the brands that are coming to you and obviously this plug and play kind of marketing structure that are they already bought into this kind of new way of, I dunno if it's a new way of marketing or just obviously how, how it shifted? Yeah. Or is it something that you're having to have conversations about best practices and
Henry Hayes: it's a brilliant, again, a brilliant question I think.
Um. There's two ways of looking at this. Yes, there are at, at, at big enterprise businesses, PepsiCo, Mars. Companies we work with that are very old school, but also marketing champions. Yeah. The CMOs of those businesses may not understand how they need it. Mm-hmm. But they know what they need and they know that things are being played out, um, by [00:09:00] younger generations and at a speed of culture that.
It is just atypical to how they were brought up. Yeah. You know, with their MBAs and the way that a campaign is structured. So in, in that regard, they know what they, they kind of know what they need. They don't know how to execute it, and that's where passion fruit can come in. Mm-hmm. So an example of that would be, you know, we operate across the whole marketing mix.
Yeah. So basically anything that isn't development, which is not marketing, that is just. Tech stack builders. Yeah, but everything from UI right through to organic social, so performance, SEO, copywriting, heads of marketing, um, content creators, TikTok matter, like you name it. And an example would be in the social space.
A company like PepsiCo have decided to use passion fruit, uh, a passion fruit pod, so a passion fruit content creators that then go out into their own networks and then get their fellow content creators to make. Not just one piece of content, but five [00:10:00] or 10 piece of content, then that comes back in to a specialist who then serves that out on places.
So you basically effectively have more shots on goal. Yeah, and we're a big believer in that. So that's one end. You then do have particularly more in sort of the scale up space, um, and maybe in mid-market enterprise spaces as well, where agencies that. Companies have been working with are quite rigid.
They may be, um, are put onto particular retainers for particular areas. Let's call it performance marketing, where they know that they've got six months sprint in this area. Yeah. But maybe the way that that business is structured is seasonal and actually you don't need the hours allocated to that specific channel at that time.
And those people will, will know that we are actually a really good solution. But the problem from them is just getting buy-in from. From senior stakeholders, let's say the, the CEO, let's say the founder. So we often make sure when we are in that buying process, just to ensure that we get as many touch points with as many senior Yeah.
[00:11:00] Individuals as possible. Not just the marketing director, the CMOs, but to scale up the CEO or the founder as well. Mm-hmm. Um, and that often helps our case.
Verity Hurd: Yeah. I love the pod. Example because, um, I was at an event in New York, I think it's at the lead, and there was, um, Mac cosmetics were on stage, right.
And they were talking exactly about that's how they have to operate Yeah. With these in-house pods, because there are no, like, like you said, the culture piece, the speed of like content, just getting things out there, just being like relevant and things. So they, they were talking about they have in-house pods for lots of different areas because that is the only way they can operate to like.
Get this machine going. So yeah, I was just really intrigued by that.
Henry Hayes: Exactly that. Yeah, we were actually at the lead summit as well. It was like back end of May, wasn't it? Yeah, I think, yeah. We did an event there. But yeah, it couldn't be more important to move.
Verity Hurd: Oh, I met you with some of your guys. Yes. You met probably guy.
Yes. Guy. Guy with a massive
Henry Hayes: hair. Yeah, I did. You can't miss him. Yeah. Um, yeah, he's our head of North America. We've just [00:12:00] opened up a New York office now, which is really cool. Um, and he's leading the mission over there. But yeah, we, it kind goes, it, it is the same in B2B marketing as well, like B2B. Everyone goes, oh, boring's boring.
Um, but. You know, we are really trying to champion a lot of our B2B businesses at the moment to think at the speed of culture and believe that they can do it in traditional B2B channels. Yeah, so newsletters or LinkedIn, you know, we're seeing a real change and adoption in how people perceive LinkedIn nowadays, and I am the biggest champion of.
Inherently bringing a D two C mindset into B2B. Mm-hmm. I don't actually watch any B2B content, like apart from the stuff that we do
Verity Hurd: and us.
Henry Hayes: Yeah. Like I look at what's happening on TikTok, look at what's happening on Instagram, look at what's happening in out of home billboards and stuff that you're seeing in, in a consumer environment.
And I just think. Right. Well, let's try and adopt that to B2B. 'cause ultimately the people that are on LinkedIn, they're on LinkedIn way, way more every day than they're on Instagram and TikTok. They [00:13:00] literally have got it up as a tab. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong anyone there, because I really do think that you will be.
So, but, but they're craving the feeling of like fun or entertainment or education, but. You don't have to just wait for it to be on Instagram or TikTok, or when you're having a few drinks down the pub after work, you can, you can like kind of stitch that into Yeah. The everyday fabric. Um, so yeah.
Verity Hurd: I, I 1% agree.
Agree. Because it comes down to also how you consume content as well. Yeah. Like as the consumer, as whoever, as you know. I think about, you know, if we're, if you're trying to reach fashion and beauty brands and you are coming across as like this B2B corporate stuffy, kind of like you can't relate to them, then they're never gonna be brought in and engaged by anything that you're doing.
So for me, like this is ev everything that I preach as well, so love it. Nice. On that, how do you think that marketing teams should, what, what do you think is the best kind of structure internally? Like who, who kind of owns [00:14:00] the advocacy piece as well within that?
Henry Hayes: Uh, yeah. So I would say it all comes down to mindset number one and number two, really kind of, um, really pushing forward, uh, a, a mission statement that everyone feels aligned on.
So, I, I don't believe that marketing teams should be rigid in the sense that, you know, general generalist marketers, let's say, 'cause to be fair with us, we've got three in-house generalist marketers, myself. Uh, Eleanor lc, but then we've got 10 freelancers. Mm-hmm. And the way that I would adopt marketing going forward and the way that I hope people do is you've got this like, really good generalist marketing bunch and I don't think that their roles should be that different.
They can kind of mediate in between. What's the most important thing for them is that they've all got a north star that they all believe in. And ours one, our one is basically to Be the trend setter or be the taste maker in the golden era of B2B marketing. Yeah, that's [00:15:00] what I, that's what I want and that's what we all collectively want.
And so you basically, if you push that, then you know, Elsie's really into athletics, go and make some really cool content about athletics. She also runs up our, um, our q uh, commuter club, which is our events program. We do 22 events a quarter and she does really great suppers and stuff like that and, and breakfast, and really brings that into her work every day, just.
To think outside the blob. Mm-hmm. Eleanor, um, helps Elsie with that and does all of our, like, copy and outbound to get people to the events. But then she's also now in content with me and Yeah. You know, Eleanor and I, she came to me with a really great idea the other day and said, actually, it's Pride and prejudices 20 year anniversary coming up, they're gonna make a Netflix show on it.
You know? She's like, well, she didn't say she looked like Kira Ely, but she says that a lot of people say that to her and she has a really good impression of like. I look quite prick. And so, uh, she was like, why don't we do a Pride and Prejudice sketch? And I'm like, [00:16:00] SHA, I would love to be, is it Mr. Darcy? I don't know.
I haven't seen it in a while, but, you know, we are gonna do that. And so, you know, I'm just there. And that is, that is where you are starting to, I hope, be a bit of a taste maker or a trend setter in not just fulfilling a, a, a static video or something that's about product demo or about even now, like.
Thought leadership, some of it has become quite static. Mm. Um, yeah, and that's kind of what, what I really think that as long as you are, as long as you as a collective, the nucleus of the operation really have a north star to go towards, then I think basically that's the way in building. great Brand advocacy internally.
Yeah. And that's the way that it's actually seeped out into external third parties that you are using.
Verity Hurd: I was gonna say like from a sort of like plug and play Yeah. Freelancer perspective. Like is that, is that how you kind of recommend you keep that consistency with that North Star?
Henry Hayes: 100% because, so yeah.
And to use a quick few examples, we've got great [00:17:00] GTM go to market cold email outbound. Um, freelancers. People think cold email outbound is dead. It really isn't. People just need to use it properly and AI is obviously the big winner in that. We've got like really great specialists who do fantastic copy to get marketing directors, heads of marketing to events, but they are bought into it because they're like, these events that we're putting on are atypical, you know, seven, eight people in a delicious environment like the Devon Show.
People are like. Oh my God, I've never been to the Devvin show. We, I've got a table for you. Or, um, you know, I can't remember the place right now off the top of my head in Chicago where, uh, the bear was, um, sat to, yeah. Going to there and people like, oh my God, that's really cool. But they're bought in because of that.
Similarly, um, Ian and Jack who are on the content side, you are Ian's sort of the creative strategist that helps me write a lot of posts so I can do it at the speed at which I want, at which we want, you know. A lot of people talk about how, how I'm able to put out what I'm [00:18:00] putting out at the consistency.
Yeah. And it's thanks to having people like Ian and people like Jack there, but they're bought in because they're. Trying to actually change or eradicate this view of how B2B marketing is, is quite boring. Right?
Verity Hurd: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I want to just switch gears a little bit.
Henry Hayes: Yeah.
Verity Hurd: Because, um, I wanna talk about something that I think is like probably one of the biggest fault lines in modern marketing today, which is the whole brand and performance Yeah.
Conversation. Um, you know, I think far too long we've got one that's focused on the feelings and one that's focused on kind of like the funnel. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think both you and I know that that's not the case anymore. Mm-hmm. Um. Okay. And most organizations now still split them, right?
Henry Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Verity Hurd: Um, what do you think is the risk of them doing that in 2025 and beyond?
Henry Hayes: Well, I used to be in performance marketing, um, in my previous role was an e-bike retailer. Uh, [00:19:00] and so we constantly use sort of every fabric of performance marketing from things like Performance Max through to meta. And my main struggle with it was the fact that, um, it was obviously just short, short term wins.
Actually. The leads that you get in are such poor quality leads and actually the agencies that you're working with are giving you like. Ridiculous numbers of like how many people are clicking on these types of posts. But actually when it comes down to who's actually come through, it's a whole different story, especially within the like, not consumer packages, but consumer package durable space.
So like products that are worth sort of a thousand pounds or 3000 pounds. It's very hard to quantify actually. If they come in for that reason, then I've gone straight to passion fruit, which is only brand. We don't put any money into performance at all. Now, what I would say is. If anyone is continuing to have a brand team and a performance team that are separate, they really need to start finding a [00:20:00] way of putting those teams together.
Yeah. Like initially and maybe like, I don't know, having them in the same meeting rooms or having them in the same space that they can work together because actually. It is no longer the case that performance content and organic content is separate. Mm-hmm. It has to be the case now courtesy of things like TikTok shops or Yeah.
Social commerce nowadays that those things are aligned. And actually, to be honest, I really do think now that people have broken down the barriers of, um, beings like sold to on Instagram and TikTok nowadays. It is weird. A few years ago, content creators, comedy content creators like me, if they put out an ad on their Instagram, they would get like hounded.
Mm. I kind of believe now it's kind of just accepted. So it's almost like the performance marketing teams really need to have a look at the type of partnerships that they should be able to spring off the organic world. And that's just, yeah, definitely using that type of content. Like if an organic piece of content that's really well on your channel, put it on.
Yeah, put it on your, um, [00:21:00] just boost it. Yeah. Put it as ad, see what happens. Yeah. Um, yeah, that'd be my take.
Verity Hurd: Have you got any examples of where you've seen brands merging the two teams together and it working really well?
Henry Hayes: Mm.
Trying to think of ones with passion for it. Uh, kinda second money's cut this.
Verity Hurd: Is that right? Or have you got Um, not really
Henry Hayes: to be honest.
Verity Hurd: No.
Henry Hayes: Like, no, I don't, I think it's because, because performance marketing came in with such like gusto in sort of the teens, like 2000 and tens upwards. And because in COVID it was massive, wasn't it?
Especially within the consumer world. It was just a huge thing. Like, and as well, 'cause you put in a pound and you knew what you were getting out of it. Like from a ROAS perspective. That's what the CEO, the CFO, the founders really care about. Whereas with brands, you generally don't have a clue. [00:22:00] I'm so fortunate that I've got a founder in Raffi that sees the long-term benefits of brand.
Yeah. I, I couldn't be more happy with that because he's not there going, what, how many leads did we get off that? Now, weirdly, what I do off the back of every post. Is I will connect with everyone who's like that post. I will then outreach to them with a personal video message.
Verity Hurd: Oh, cute.
Henry Hayes: Which is really intense.
It's cute. It's cute, but it's quite full on.
Verity Hurd: Yeah, of course. 'cause
Henry Hayes: we are deciding that we are not gonna go down this performance route, but in order to get the short term gains, our brand, we need to still in effect, do a tiny bit of outbound off the back of the work that we are doing. Now, fortunately for me, now I'm getting maybe ten five genuine inbound leads.
Yeah. A month from people saying, oh, actually I, I've just noticed what you guys do. Um, do you have time for a call? Sometimes they're ICP, sometimes they're not. But more often and our leads are split, maybe the content that I [00:23:00] put out, the content that we got, Patrick, is about 30, 35% of monthly leads and 65%, 70 are still the, still the events cohort, but.
Yeah, the lion's share is still me, outbounding off the back of me doing videos at the moment, but that will compound and end up becoming more and more inbound over the next few years. Of course.
Verity Hurd: Yeah. What, what do you think D two C brands can learn from some of the stuff that, like some of the examples that you've just shared there?
What is like some of the tactics or some of the learnings that they can take to do it from a D two C perspective?
Henry Hayes: Yeah, I think, um, I always use the sort of term of a lot of D two C brands. They treat their social media as if it's the shop front, like the shop window. Mm-hmm. Um, of their, of their shop. And it's, it doesn't sort of reak a personality really.
It exceeds really contrived, it seems quite attritional. It seems very two dimensional. [00:24:00] Mm-hmm. You know, loads of brands and even people that I know, some of my best mates, like they're just putting out photos or videos. Like little short form gifs of their products, the whole bloody time. And I'm like, guys, get in front of the camera.
Yeah. Get someone in front of the camera. Dude. There's a great example of someone who nails it, someone I know. Um, he's called Owen. He's a friend of mine and he, um, is the co-founder of a business called Love Juice. Love Juice is a canned drink, um, alcoholic, canned drink, um, predominantly for the gay market.
Um, and now they're sort of, um, you know, expanding actually quite, quite rapidly. But he does a whole series on Instagram of just trying to connect to people on a date. That's all he does. He just tries to get two people on a date. He's holding a can of love juice. He gives them, doesn't even talk about love juice.
Yeah. And it's so engaging and it's all about people finding love together on the middle of the street, just trying to go on dates. What you're, what you're getting there is you're getting an emotional connection because at the very start you are like, oh my God, this [00:25:00] person is single. Yeah. I'm fully in.
Yeah. Are we gonna find someone for them? And that brings back naturally you go back to love juice 'cause you're like, oh, you're connecting two people over a drink. Yeah. And I think what I would like to see more in, in consume, in the consumer world is like just bringing more of potentially like the employees that work at the company into the fold of what you're doing.
Um, I think it would be fab really. Um, you know, then again, B2B, you know, we're trying to adopt a lot of stuff that consumer Yeah. And D two C brands have been doing for a long time. So it kind of works in both ways, I suppose.
Verity Hurd: Well, what, let's talk about that in terms of the employee thing. 'cause we are seeing it.
Uh, we're seeing it obviously in B2B and D two C marketing. Yeah. And we're seeing it a little bit more in the D two C world. Yeah. But I still think there's that element of like, we're, we're scared to never mention the product. Yeah. Whereas we know in the B2B world, we don't really talk about the product
Henry Hayes: No.
Verity Hurd: If we're doing it right. Right. Um, [00:26:00] so I suppose like
Henry Hayes: mm-hmm.
Verity Hurd: You've al already talked about bringing your employees in, in terms of helping you creating the content. What do you think is the, like biggest blockers. Preventing employees like from creating content in house and how do you think we can remove it?
Because I know there's probably people that in in-house that kind of wanna get out there, but I don't know. What are they scared of? Yeah. What are the barriers?
Henry Hayes: I think ultimately it does come from the top and I believe that. You know, people like Gary Vaynerchuk talk about this the whole time. Gary, Jesus.
So I can't, can't stand him sometimes. Um, empathy, you know, be empathetic. Um, but, you know, he, um, what does
Verity Hurd: that mean? Yeah, yeah. What does that
Henry Hayes: mean, Gary? I don't know. Just be empathetic. Um, so shut up man. But what he does say is, you know. A boss in the, A boss in 2025 needs to be championing [00:27:00] their workforce to go out and create whatever they want to create.
Genuinely, no, like no strings attached kind of vibe. Just go out there and do what you want to do. If you want to. Build out a supper club just off the side. Do it on TikTok. Do it. Yeah. If you have a really big interest in dogs, golden retrievers, I've got one. Go and write about dog golden retrievers on Substack.
You never know where it can get you. And I just believe that marketing teams traditionally, because they own the brand and founders traditionally because they are very um, like brand skeptical 'cause it's their baby. Mm-hmm. Don't want a. Junior brand manager, a brand manager, senior brand manager, to have any say in voice.
Also, as soon as the businesses get bigger, they've spent thousands of pounds on brand guidelines, on like various mission statements. They don't want to see the brand in that light. Yeah. But. You know, it's about championing your workforce to, um, go out [00:28:00] there and maybe make a mistake here and there. It's okay.
Today's news is yesterday's story. I always say that to my team, like, you know, things are never as good as bad as they first seem. And also it's all about just being consistent and putting out stuff, um, 'cause ultimately a compound. So I would just say like, it just comes down to, to feeling free within that working environment.
And it does come from the top. Yeah. Really, like we are very lucky that we've got people at the top who allow us to go out with creative autonomy and do things.
Verity Hurd: Yeah.
Henry Hayes: Um, yeah.
Verity Hurd: If you were to switch that though, so it was coming from, you know, the likes of us in the marketing team, we wanna be putting ourselves out there.
We can see an opportunity. What would you think would be the mind shift that we would need to present to the people at the top? I hate that kind of saying though. Yeah, that's fine.
Henry Hayes: Um, um.
Well, I think, you know, rule number one, to be honest, and it sounds a bit basic [00:29:00] saying this, but you have to be hitting your own targets, number one, in order for you to even go out there in the first place to ask the question. So whatever you've been brought into do, just make sure you are nailing that.
Mm-hmm. If I'm just being honest, because if someone in my team is coming to me and saying. I want to do marketing stunts. Yeah. I want to like go mad and do, I don't know, banksies on across the wall or something and do some cool. I'm like, great. That sounds like a great idea. Providing you're still doing a good job and what you are brought in to do.
Yeah. Um, and. From my side. That is where it kind of ends, to be honest. If you are, if you are doing the job on what you're meant to do and you want open up a new channel, you can do that. I think ultimately still does come down to mindset. That's it. Mm-hmm. The bo, the bosses of, I believe that this is gonna get a lot easier because I believe.
Courtesy of, of media and courtesy of um, even things like LinkedIn and thought leaders and stuff like that. Nowadays people are getting so much more education in how they should champion a great [00:30:00] workforce nowadays, whereas, um, generations before didn't have this access to information. Yeah. So the modern day boss is becoming a hell of a lot better in this, in this, um, in this world.
Does that kind of help? Yeah,
Verity Hurd: that's so true. I 100%. Yeah, I get that. Yeah.
Henry Hayes: Um. So, yeah, I would say that's gonna, I mean, like, to, to, to end on that, you know, Eleanor, I, I think my last point on that would be you have to play to your strengths. So, um, and maybe I should have said this beforehand, but, so I'm gonna say I, I think you have to play to your strengths.
Okay? So what do I mean by that is, um, you know, obviously with me, I'm not, my boss told me, he said, Henry. I'm being serious here, mate. You know you are not gonna be a better CMO than the CMO of HubSpot. I said, yeah, you're right. I'm not. 'cause the CMO of HubSpot is probably some AI driven nerd. No offense to whoever it is.
Um, okay. He's
Verity Hurd: a [00:31:00] really big listener.
Henry Hayes: Okay. But really, really big listener. Okay. I think it's Kieran Flanagan, but anyway. Okay. Let's say it is. Kieran know Kieran is an AI nerd, okay? Who is so good at the analysis. The analytics probably has loads of certificates in performance marketing knows a hell of a lot about attribution funnels.
There's a hell of a lot about stuff, okay? I'm not gonna be as good at him as that. Okay. But he said, what? You could be better at, what you will be better than most people in the space is being funny. And I was like, I agree with that. And he said, so go out there and get noise for us. Mm-hmm. Because that's how we are gonna get awareness.
And I was like, oh God, that actually just clicked in a second. I'm like, you are right. I don't need to try and act like a spreadsheet nerd. I hate spreadsheets. I'm terrible at it. I can't add up.
Verity Hurd: I can't either.
Henry Hayes: Genuinely, I'm looking at the camera. I'm a head of marketing at Series A, bat to be series B startup, and I can't head up genuinely, but he says, you don't need to.
You need to, your job is to build the awareness now. I'll use that kind of one level. [00:32:00] Dan Eleanor, who got brought into our team three months ago, she's an artist. She's a really cool artist. She went to, I think it was Central School of School Central, um, St. Martin's. Mm-hmm. She just had something about her, like she had a really good, when we in, we Raffi, my boss spends 70% of his time on, um, on LinkedIn trying to find, so sorry, that was my phone.
Um, trying to spend. Time finding, uh, people to Yeah. Come into the company. And he just saw her copy on her LinkedIn profile mm-hmm. And the way she wrote. And he was like, that's just different from what I've seen. Yeah. So we interviewed her and she's a really cool artist and she'd never really done marketing before.
And when she came into the business, she's now doing cold, like email outbound and outreach. But she's now, as I said, doing these like sketches and she loves art, so I'm like, why aren't you? Mm-hmm. Drawing art. You know, on LinkedIn and like showing people all these restaurants you're going to and all this stuff.
She said, oh, that's a pretty good idea. [00:33:00] Like, play to your strengths basically. Yeah. And then work becomes play not work. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah,
Verity Hurd: just thinking about what my strength is.
Henry Hayes: What is your strength? Well, pod podding, eh,
Verity Hurd: no, I'm thinking outside of it. Uh, got your green dance.
Henry Hayes: Hey, love that.
Verity Hurd: Anyway. Love that.
We'll leave that there. Love that. We'll leave that there.
Henry Hayes: What's your, what, what, what type of Contemporary. Okay. Contemporary. Contemporary.
That's good.
Verity Hurd: I did go into, uh, street and breakdowns after that though.
Henry Hayes: Oh, really? A bit of that.
Verity Hurd: Wow. Bit cooler than that.
Henry Hayes: Okay. Bit cooler than that. Fine. Fine. There we go. Yeah, mine's gone. Less cool. To be fair, I actually, for my wedding, we, um. We did the Napoleon Dynamite Dance. Oh
Verity Hurd: my gosh. Yeah.
Henry Hayes: Yeah. My wife and I, and she had, I, I had vote for Chesky, which was her name.
We need to see. And she had vote for Henry. Yeah. Yeah. We were quite brass ass at the time. So Sounds a lot better than the actual, you know,
Verity Hurd: I wanna see it. Yeah. Okay, let's get [00:34:00] into the thing that you're really good at then. The comedy. Okay. Yeah. Um, and. I suppose again, let's flip it in terms of what do you think D two C can learn mm-hmm.
From of like this? I think the comedy content often fit, often comes across as sort of like fearless, like a fearless tone. Um, that I think obviously the B2B world is doing quite well at. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah. Is there like a formula or a structure that you kind of use when you're building out this whole kind of comedy content machine that you've built?
Henry Hayes: Yeah, I think. It's split really. I, I think with Instagram and TikTok, that's kind of separate and that is very much me looking at people on the street the whole time and just observing. And it's quite annoying being in my head because I'm, I'm permanently thinking about it. I'll just leave today and I'll have a thought or something and then I'll be writing it and I write every day.
Mm-hmm. I write for 30 minutes before work every day. Just consistently have done for years now. Yeah. When it comes to LinkedIn. [00:35:00] I think the main overriding feeling is, is, is really to instill like a great emotion in the individual. So if what, what I, what I mean, as an example, I went over budget in May by about, let's call it 15 grand.
It's not loads, but, um, 15 grand over budget. And my boss pulled me in and he was like, you know, you're trying to go for this head of marketing role, which I've now got. Thank you. And I was marketing at the time, but he went, this isn't really head of marketing material. Like, it, it, you know, we've got the money, it's okay, but the fact that you've gone over mm-hmm.
And the fact that you didn't communicate that to me, the FD not really good enough. So I was like, cool. And, um, and then I, I. I kind of was watching YouTube and my wife, um, was really into ddo, uh, getting back into ddo, and I saw the Stan video, Stan Eminem died, and I saw that [00:36:00] Eminem. Um, and Stan, Stan was trying to emulate Eminem by looking like him in the music video.
Yeah. And I thought, bang, there we are. What if I am trying to emulate Raffi the boss and wearing, he wears orange shirts and I'm trying to wear his shirt, and what if I get in a line? That's actually true about the fact that I went over budget in May which is what the whole thing stemmed off. And what I'm trying to get at here is.
My creative process is always linked to like the truth. Mm-hmm. Like if it is actually something that's happening in the working world or in business or, so I think it, I think it's funnier because I think the people who end up performing it, or the creative campaign that ends up being led, actually people
Verity Hurd: think find
Henry Hayes: funny.
Right?
Verity Hurd: Because they resonate with him more. Because they resonate with more. Like
Henry Hayes: don't try and fabricate something. You know, Ricky ve someone who I like. Used to look up to a lot more than I do now, I suppose. But he just says, always write what you know, like what, you know, that's really important. And so I think [00:37:00] everything that I'm trying to do at Passion Fruit, kind of that's worked has got that to it.
You know, we actually recently did a, um, we started, we started to do sketches now, and so, uh, like two minute, three minute actual sketches and we did one on the bear. Um, the bear for marketers and I was playing like Jeremy Allen White, and that was all stemmed. The stuff that I was talking about in there was all stemmed or stuff that we really know about.
And so I felt really natural talking about it. I've since done one on succession, um, for marketers, which is, um, uh, yeah, based on sort of Logan Roy and it, the script just wasn't quite right. We were just trying to be a bit too silly. Mm-hmm. And it didn't quite land enough and I wasn't actually comfortable with it myself doing it, but I thought I'd give it a go.
And lo and behold, it didn't perform as well. So that's why I would say normally route one is always just to find out what like the truth is in it. Yeah. And then build out from there.
Verity Hurd: Yeah. Why do you think, um, they're great tics by the way. Um, [00:38:00] why do you think, do you see brands are so scared of it
Henry Hayes: because of brand image?
Verity Hurd: Mm-hmm.
Henry Hayes: Because of their brand image? You know, it's, um. It is incredibly hard for DC brands who are trying to, okay. Either they're big legacy brands. Yeah. They have years behind them. Chanel Dior. Now my dad's in the cosmetic space. You know, these people have, um, marketing teams that are nucleus of the operation in France or in wherever, and so.
They are just terrified of not doing anything that isn't by the book. Mm-hmm. AKA, some sort of shitty newspaper, um, advert with, I don't know, Margot Robbie on it. Yeah. Fucking boring. Okay. Or like David Gandy getting his kiss off in Sicily. I've seen it once. I've seen it twice. I've seen it three fucking times, David.
Okay. Doesn't mean I wouldn't wanna shaggy you. Okay.
Verity Hurd: I was gonna say [00:39:00] you'd see her fourth time, right? Yeah, I'd see her fourth
Henry Hayes: times be there. In fact, David, keep on doing that one. Okay. But, um, you know, you just know what you're going to get with a lot of these businesses. I'm trying to think of like, real disruptors in the D two C space, um, and what they're doing differently.
I think, you know, a, a company that's doing really well at the moment in the UK is perfect, Ted. Um, they are a matcha. They're a matcha drink.
Verity Hurd: Yeah.
Henry Hayes: And what I really like about them is like a very much, and I've never spoken to them, but mm-hmm. They have a really good omni-channel content sort of flywheel.
Yeah. And their content on their, uh, uh, consumer channels is very, um, personality led. But they're doing neat colabs, like they did one with, uh, the hardest Gier who ran across Africa. Mm-hmm. And they were there for that. Like they were really built into the lifestyle. And I think like the great Det C brands nail lifestyle, you know, like your Patagonia, [00:40:00] your Art Taric and stuff like that.
I'm like big YouTube subscribers to those because it's all about the lifestyle. Yeah. And a little can drink from England. Have just cottoned onto someone like the hardest geezer, brilliant win-win. But then their content from a B2B stand standpoint is brilliant as well because they're really giving you access to the personalities behind the business and what they're doing.
They're not just showing you the chuff in cans. Yeah. The whole time. Yeah. Um, so. Um, I've really gone off on a tangent in a Rory Sutherland way, and I can't even remember what the first question was there.
Verity Hurd: Um, I can't, but I was really in interested in what you were saying. Yeah. Um, it was, where's my vape for Sutherland?
Henry Hayes: Sorry.
Verity Hurd: You were thinking about disruptive brands that were doing it well from a, and I suppose it was like, why they scared of it and it was, oh yeah, that's
Henry Hayes: it. Why they scared of it? I just think, yeah, they, there's, there's that side to it and then I think, um.
I think there's also an element with direct consumer brands of [00:41:00] people having a vision of how they want it to look, but then actually the consumer themselves has an entirely different approach of what they want. Mm-hmm. And when we talk to brands who are trying to go out and do stuff, the reason why we talk about these shots on gold being so important is put out four contemplators.
Okay, four contemp you think are gonna be good. Let's use this perfect head. Uh, drink as an example. Yeah. Personality led ones do with founder, um, gr everything green in the city because things are green with matcha. Um, I don't know. Um, you Wimbledon or something. A, a sport. And then one other thing, like, um, I don't know, other, other type of, uh, products that you associate with that.
So you get that, right? Let's put out one video a day, let's say on TikTok that hit those four pillars. Do that across three months, you'll find out the two out of those four that are worth the, the customer themselves have then gone. I actually like that content. Yeah. [00:42:00] I want to be fed more of that and then run with it.
But the problem is you yourself have an image yourself of how you want the brand to be perceived. And it comes back to the start starting point I want to raise, which is you are not the customer. All of us on LinkedIn right now, Andrew Tyndall did a really good post on this last week. Look, I know. Yeah.
We are not the fucking customer. Like we need to get a hand out. They are at a, our US everyone, the Jeremy Clarkson video goes up, you know, fuck off. Yeah. And I was like, oh, the LinkedIn customers like, this is brilliant. This is brilliant. It's like 80% of ads that are still being watched in the UK are on linear tv.
We are there saying, you know, oh, it's all on phones. And we, we believe, 'cause we're LinkedIn marketers. We have the answer. No, you fucking don't. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, we, how arrogant of us to think that. So when you are building a D two C brand, go out there and just buddy, push out everything you've got and some of it will stick.
And that's what you've gotta work on for your next year until you maybe come up with another idea or something. 'cause that's the way that your brand is being perceived.
Verity Hurd: Yeah. Great advice. [00:43:00]
Henry Hayes: Sorry, I can't, a book on a Wolf of Wall Street there. I love
Verity Hurd: it though. It
Henry Hayes: won't quite Leo, should
Verity Hurd: I say
Henry Hayes: Not quite. I'm not sort of James Gordon on that.
Verity Hurd: Do you think comedy is a tactic or a tone or humor? Is a T Uh, yeah.
Henry Hayes: 100% tactic.
Verity Hurd: Yeah.
Henry Hayes: 100% tactic. I think. Um, yeah. Okay. I'd say that, but the overriding principle of it is you've gotta have taste. And I'm not saying that from a, oh, the guys are doing it really well, just have really good taste. What I'm saying is that you really need to be cautiously optimistic about the end viewer Now, okay, I'm using, using an example here.
I'm doing, um, a video at the moment. It's gonna go out today on TikTok or go out on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, Instagram, tomorrow. And it's called POV, everyone, um, uh, POV. Uh, p Oh, lemme out done that Literal, I've literally just forgotten [00:44:00] a video. I'm literally just working on, okay, so it's called p uh, period, how everyone Acts on LinkedIn.
Okay.
Verity Hurd: Do we need to start this way again? Sorry.
Henry Hayes: Okay, let's, let's ask this question 'cause it's scare. Um,
Verity Hurd: I'll ask the question again. Yeah. Is humor a t or a tone?
Henry Hayes: 100% a tactic. But what I would say is there's no overriding principle that needs to be, um, adopted, which is, you know, you've got to have taste.
And I'm, I'm not just saying that, it's like, oh, you know, oh, you've certain comedians or certain content creators have taste and others don't. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's really imperative that you understand and be cautiously optimistic about the end user. Mm-hmm. So if I was gonna use an example.
I actually have it here. I, I basically put out a video. I'm about to put out a video. By the time, by the time this is out, it'll obviously be out. And it's called POV, um, how everyone acts on LinkedIn. Okay. It's 40 [00:45:00] seconds Now on LinkedIn, I've got three out of the five clips, or sorry, four outta the five clips are exactly the same.
Um, but I've got one in there about an engagement pod or whatever, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, but like. Um, on Instagram, I've done a bit about, you know, how like porn sites now you need to like put in, sorry. You know how you have to do selfies? You have to put like your age verification. This is the thing that's literally just landed a week ago.
Okay. And it's become very big news and it's all over the press Now, I can't put that on LinkedIn, but I can put that on Instagram. Yeah. So it just comes back to understanding who your audience is. Yeah. That's really, really important and I think. They, a lot of people don't get that. A lot of people are just putting out the same stuff on loads of different channels and expecting the same results.
Verity Hurd: I think it's 'cause we're being told to repurpose, right? Yes, exactly. But actually, repurposing is not just as like straightforward as that. [00:46:00] You know, we, we have got, you know, our audiences on this different platform want different things from these platforms.
Henry Hayes: I understand. And that, and that is. My biggest bug bear, but also the thing that I love challenging myself the most towards.
Mm-hmm. Because people find it very odd that I am, I do all this Instagram and TikTok stuff that I never put on LinkedIn and vice versa, none of my LinkedIn stuff. This will be the first LinkedIn post that I put on Instagram and TikTok. The first I ever mentioned LinkedIn. Okay. As a, as a post. Yeah. And I've been doing LinkedIn probably now for seven months.
Because I'm just so skeptical of not that I, I'm just so skeptical of that end user and wanting to ensure the end user. Yeah. Like actually enjoys what I'm doing and I just know that they wouldn't, um, if I'm just putting out the same stuff into your point Reupping the whole time.
Verity Hurd: Yeah, of course.
I'm all right for time. Sorry, I just saw that big flashing thing in. It's alright. [00:47:00] Okay, cool. I can't hear you.
Henry Hayes: There's eight minutes to begin. Great. Eight minutes. Okay. Cool. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. You, um, do quick fire and photos in that time.
Verity Hurd: Okay. So, okay. Okay. Okay. That has gone so freaking fast. That's gone fast.
Yeah.
Henry Hayes: Jesus. Yeah.
Verity Hurd: Um, I'm gonna make this really quick then. I know it was something you wanted to talk about. What would you like, shall I just say, if you had to bet on one shift that you'll define in the next three years in marketing, what is it? And then we can go into some of the. Prediction stuff.
Henry Hayes: And that was, remind me what I said it was about, so there was
Verity Hurd: stuff about, um, like obviously the, it is all changing, putting the power back into the individual hands.
There was also Oh,
Henry Hayes: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Verity Hurd: Shall I, shall I ask that one big question and
Henry Hayes: I'll be quick on that answer and then we can go into the quickfire. Yeah.
Verity Hurd: So do you want me, sorry, just to confirm, I'll
Henry Hayes: answer that question that you just asked, asked, put the
Verity Hurd: power back into, okay. Okay. So just kind of zooming out a little [00:48:00] bit, you've said that passion fruit is helping put the power back in individual hands.
Henry Hayes: Yeah.
Verity Hurd: Um, what other structural problems do you see in the current agency model?
Henry Hayes: Okay, fine. I think the way I'd answer that is probably how would I like for things to be ran in the next five years. And I think, uh, the, the problems inherent with the agency model are. It's not specialized. There's long-term retainers and actually more importantly, the value of the individual doing the work is, um, completely at odds to what is actually, sorry.
Let's ask that again. I say that right. Um, okay. So the way I would answer this is actually how would I like for the marketing world to be ran in in five years time? Whilst I believe that there are certain agencies out there that are, that are doing all right in this, what I really think that they are struggling with, which is why the share prices of all of these big companies going down is [00:49:00] they're not as specialized as.
Certain individuals now who are really leading the forefront in certain areas, number one. Number two, long-term agency retainers are problematic for constrained marketing teams nowadays who need to move at the speed of culture, and more importantly, the individual who is right at the bottom of the poll.
Of this agent of these agencies who are the smart, bright individuals of tomorrow are being paid a penance in comparison to the boards at the top. Yeah. And the likes of the biggest companies in the world be them B2B or D two C are shelling out a huge amount of cash to essentially people in ballrooms they ultimately shake hands with at can.
Okay. And then they're under a five year deal and they don't know where their money's going from. The little 22-year-old kid who's bright. Who's just done a bit of copy on an, I don't know, some sort of campaign. Mm-hmm. And that campaign's being sold for a hundred grand back to the brand, that [00:50:00] person's not getting anything out of it.
Yeah. And so what I would really love to see, and it's what passion fruit. Is trying to strive towards in the fullness of time is making the world work for everyone and actually democratizing the value put on the specialist. Mm-hmm. So we will know courtesy of our AI driven platform plug that really, that individual what that actually.
What their like monetary value is. Yeah. As against the work that they're doing. And actually the more work they do, or the higher they go up the ladder, or the more campaigns they do, whatever, increases their chance of actually what their rates will be and how much they actually are legitimately in um, yeah.
In actual sterling. Yeah. As opposed to them not earning what they need to be earning or similarly. Being far up above what they're meant to be, being like, I'm gonna make it quite serious. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm head of marketing and passion for it. I do certain things, but I'm not brilliant in [00:51:00] loads of errors.
God know, like we're all not, yeah. And so I may be put on a pedestal if I leave Passionary one day and get paid way more the asking price than what I deserve. Yeah. Purely on the fact that I've got a few followers on LinkedIn. Yeah, no. Like you need to come back to the democratization of. Um, of the people at hand who are working within those environments.
Yeah. And I think that is where marketing really can go. Courtesy of ai, and it's what we're trying to do as sort of the, the leading marketing operations platform for, for the 21st century
Verity Hurd: and so needed.
Henry Hayes: Exactly.
Verity Hurd: So needed.
Henry Hayes: Yeah.
Verity Hurd: Henry, this has been awesome. I wish we had longer, but thank you so much. If anyone wanted to get in touch, where would they find you?
Henry Hayes: Ooh, thanks, variety. Um. So first up on, yeah, on LinkedIn, Henry Hayes. I'm on Instagram and TikTok at Henry Hayes Comedy and at Passion Fruit. Really. So, um, yeah, give us a follow on on LinkedIn. Um, but yeah, thanks a lot. It's been fab chatting. I've absolutely loved it. Awesome. Um, wicked.
Verity Hurd: Thank [00:52:00] you. Cheers.
Insights Hub
Podcast
Industry Tips & Tactics
Blog
About
Address
London
21 Lombard Street,
London, EC3V 9AH
Bristol
Runway East, 1 Victoria St,
Bristol, BS1 6AA
Copyright © 2025. All Rights Reserved by Duel. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy.
.png?width=333&name=Spotify%20Circle%20Logo%20(final).png)
.png?width=333&name=YouTube%20Circle%20Logo%20(1).png)
%20(1)%20(1).png?width=333&name=YouTube%20Circle%20Logo%20(1)%20(1)%20(1).png)