Sam Kelly is the managing director and partner for one of the nations top social media creative agencies. He caught up with Greg ‘Sparrow’ Graham to talk creativity, what’s holding the industry back, some of the work that he is proud of, and advice on how brands can build trust.
1. Your business is a bit tricky to define. How would you describe the agency?
Put simply, we’re a 60 person integrated marketing house. We’ve got business units across: social, talent, media, PR and create – our full service studio, all supported by strategy, creative and client experience. We are showing up on rosters as a creative agency, a media and performance agency, a social agency, an influencer agency or an integrated agency handling end to end campaigns that drive fame – this is where we do our best work.
2. You have been incredibly successful, how do you continue the momentum?
For me it’s really come down to not getting stuck in our ways and rinsing and repeating something that’s worked before. Our space is moving quicker than ever, and to help brands stand out in the digital era, we’ve got to go big, be brave and differentiate. Having grown up an entrepreneur and marketer, I’ve always found the advertising space fairly formulaic. How can an industry that is underpinned by creativity operate like a sausage factory, where only one team is ‘allowed” to be creative. That never made sense to me. Process can make a business, but no one ever talks about how it can break a business.
There has to be flex and customisation in your approach based on the situation. There’s an infinite way to do things and everyone thinks differently – we’ve really embraced this diversity of thought. This coupled with a belief and confidence that we can do anything has been our secret sauce.
3) Is yellow your favourite colour?
When it comes to our colour palette, I certainly skew towards black and white, but the yellow has become synonymous with Hello Social. I’d love it to become a highlight not our primary but hey you have to value the sweat equity earned under the yellow flag over the last 13 years!
4) You are the deputy chair of AiMCO, how do you prioritise all your responsibilities?
I think the reason I am in the hot seat is because of what we’re doing at Hello Social. My role as Deputy Chair of AIMCo is to share this expertise back with the board, council and our members. In return, the AIMCo role gives me a lot of new perspective and ideas which help refine things back at Hello – they are very complimentary.
5) In your creds, you mention brands building trust, but that doesn’t happen overnight, any advice?
Trust is everything. We’re seeing trust continue to show up as one of the biggest drivers of preference across many brand sets. This is where decisions are ultimately being made. It takes continued investment across a multitude of marketing functions. The big advertisers can buy sexy ads, reach and frequency to hold mental availability but in many instances, we’re seeing adverse effects of single ad plays on trust.
Adam Ferrier talks about the psychological principle of conditioning, which umbrellas trust-building activity. You pair one stimuli with another to create this nice warm feeling and that’s how very simple advertising works. It makes it easier for a customer to consume your brand over someone else’s.
We’re driving trust and preference through our three pronged fandom formula: 1) Experience it, 2) collect it, 3) give it purpose. In our latest Uber x Red Cross Clothing Drive with Sam Kerr, we managed to lift trust and reputation by 8.9 points and Ad Recall by 20 points. Proof that fandom backed by reach can shift even the hardest to move brand metrics.
6) You have an impressive client list including Uber , Paramount+, etc. Any new campaigns that you are excited about?
Well, here’s a bit of tea for your column Sparrow, we’ve just nabbed a new executive creative director from The Monkeys and he’s combined with our existing team to lead some epic new work.
First is our “Uber Eats Test Lab” campaign that lives under the Get Almost Almost Anything platform. The digital series sees us test a series of high risk deliveries in a lab environment with the ultimate conclusion being you don’t really want absolutely everything. The outlandish deliveries featuring dragons, flying saucers and tornados link back to everyday grocery items that you would want and are actually available on Uber Eats. They’re eye-catching and fun!
Second is our work for Budget Direct. We’ve been working in partnership with 303 MullenLowe to push their platform into a multi-objective digital media plan. Our bespoke digital creative has led to some of the brands best online results to date.
The next is our new work for LYNX’s new fine fragrance collection. I can’t share it yet but it’s some of our boldest work to date. You’ll see the launch PR and ads across TV and OOH as well as ambassador activity throughout the year. I can’t wait!
Outside of this we’ve had a big month of new business picking up Under Armour, Afterpay UK, Panasonic, Vinnies and R U OK Day.
7 ) You are passionate about social, what’s one thing clients must do to ensure its effectiveness and ROI?
The social and influencer space as a whole needs to find ways to measure beyond the platform if they want to attract more brand investment. We’re unlocking some brilliant findings through brand and sales lift studies and surveys. I spend too much time hanging out/annoying our in-house media and data science team because that’s where the real creativity and effectiveness is unlocked. Feel free to email our head of media and marketing science with all your questions on digital measurement – sorry Dan!
8) Do you have a mentor, coach, or leader who has been influential in your career development?
My first boss Amanda Wood absolutely whipped me into line. I credit her with a lot of my success. In today’s workplaces there is a lot of emphasis on subject matter know-how but we often forget to teach the youngins how to work and navigate. It’s something I’d really like Hello Social to get better at. I want to be able to teach juniors how to thrive in their career, not just how to be better marketers.
I spend a lot of time catching up with CMO’s across key clients like Lou Crompton from Paramount+ and Andy Morley from Uber. You can’t beat experience sharing and staying across their challenges ensures we can continue to help solve and provide value.
Outside of this, I watch what the likes of Cade from Special Group is doing from afar. They are a wildly impressive outfit and their global roll out is inspiring. I hope one day in the not so distant future we can follow a similar expansion model.
9) Can you share with us something that’s not on your LinkedIn profile?
I have two beautiful daughters Riviera who is three and Arkie who is eight months. This year has been a wild ride! Becoming a parent teaches you all sorts of resilience, toughness and empathy. They’ve provided me with some much needed perspective and made me a better leader. I’m grateful I have a family that puts up with the highs and lows of owning a growing agency. They’re certainly on the ride too. Lucky my wife can read me from afar like a mood ring!
10) Do our parents know what you actually do?
I think so… My mum is a retired English teacher who cares less about the work per se and more about the impact I can have in my role as an MD. She pushes me hard on our corporate social responsibility and diversity and inclusion. I grew up in a household where this stuff mattered so it’s always top of mind and hammered into me every time I see my parents! It’s affectionately known family-wide as “the Jennie Kelly sermon”. I’m proud of what we’ve done in this space to date and have publicly committed to doing even more in our chosen areas as we continue to grow. Onya mum x
