Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Gareth Crew, EMEA social media manager at Garmin, on how and why social media is for everyone:

Carlota Pico 0:13
Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Content Mix. I’m Carlota Pico, your host for today’s show, and I’m excited to introduce Gareth Crew who is EMEA social media manager at Garmin and is also a journalist turned marketeer, which he’ll tell us more about soon. Welcome, Gareth, and thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Gareth Crew 0:36
Oh, it’s my pleasure! Thanks for inviting me.

Carlota Pico 0:38
The pleasure is ours. Okay, Gareth, so it’s a little bit about your background. You’re a journalist touring marketeer?

Gareth Crew 0:44
Yes, yeah, not a traditional route whatsoever. So back in the day, very, when I was very young, I’ve been involved in motorcycle racing for many, many years, like about my father started it, I’d been going to bike races until I was five years old. So when I was starting to do my higher education, all I wanted to be was to be a professional racer. I didn’t have any sort of talent in that sort of area. So those who can’t—they write about it! So I started covering race meetings when I was about like, 18,19, and started to become a journalist and a writer within that field. This is when print was still kind of happening. And as some of the roles that I worked on, I naturally came into working within editorial, then moving on to websites, etc. And I literally just fell into social media, as it began. There was a role that was available, which was very much in the early days of like StumbleUpon, and putting stuff on Reddit, etc., and they needed basically someone with an editorial background to help get blogs on, to help start social channels, and I got that job. What was really interesting about this, where I didn’t, you know, I didn’t really have any marketing background or any knowledge, very quickly how much I really enjoyed the social media aspects of it and learn very quickly where you get that instant understanding and that instant response about stuff that was happening. And then it was just basically an industry that I grew up in and then I just followed it on through my various different roles. And now I’m at Garmin today.

Carlota Pico 2:26
Okay, what a coincidence! I’m actually a journalist turned marketeer as well! I started off in broadcast journalism, and then moved on into PR and now I’m in the podcast world.

Gareth Crew 2:38
Excellent. Were you in print as well, back in the in the good old days in PR print, or…?

Carlota Pico 2:43
So I’ve published PR campaigns in The Guardian, Die Welt, USA Today, some of the world’s most mainstream media channels. But they were actually paid PR campaigns. So it was advertorials.

Gareth Crew 2:56
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Yes. Cool!

Carlota Pico 2:58
The other side of journalism, right?

Gareth Crew 3:01
Yes, yes. The bit they kept us in it.

Carlota Pico 3:03
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so, Gareth, tell me a little bit about the moments that have shaped you as a marketing professional, like campaigns or projects that you’d like to zoom into?

Gareth Crew 3:13
Yes, cool. So when we were involved in social media, I think some of the things that shaped me very much at the start was about the amount of, I think the kind of rejection we had as being a brand, trying to work in these different sort of social media spaces when they were so…they were in their infancy. And I think that was a really interesting point, because we were, we’re kind of doing like clickbait articles and stuff like that, that was kind of going through. And then what shaped me is wanting to be, you know, a better marketeer and a better social media person, was trying to figure out and understand what the actual audience would want, and what would actually help capture the imagination of that audience, but also capture make sure that we can drive like our objectives within that. And I’ve kind of taken that through on some various elements that I’ve done in the history of my work. Some of the specific stuff that comes to mind, we did a Valentine’s Day campaign at an agency I went, I was working out where we sent out we mixed up print and digital, where we sent out later Valentine’s cards to prospects and with a like a QR code, they’re able to scan it and then they got automated, like a specific landing page which said, you know, “Will you be our Valentine?” and it’s like a prospect. Which was really fun, which probably the most fun! And the most stressful thing I remember that day is that we were working with The Drum, UK and publication, and they wanted to do a PR piece for it that afternoon. And I knocked my water onto my laptop. So I remember having to write out the press release on my phone that evening and trying to get it off—I do remember that very much. And then another one, which was very close to my heart was something when I worked within TUI, for Crystal Ski, which is a ski brand. And this is very much with the same idea from the social media and objective perspective, where we had a…our objective was to obviously tried to send people to these different resorts and get them to buy our stuff, and it was a full holiday experience. So my idea that we came up with was to have…we had a competition where you put in from a BuzzFeed type way, what sort of skier you were. So there was a load of like sort of like questions about, you know, it’s 9am, are you on the slopes, are you hungover? Or, you know, do you want to do lots of miles? etc, fairly simple metric like this. And then the output was to say that you are like, you were this skier, you have that skier, this type of skier. And then underneath that, you’d have a recommendation of which resort would be most interesting. So that was something that we were able to kind of…we promoted from a PR and social media perspective. And it absolutely exploded as a concept, which was great news. And I remember having a bet with my team that we were going to get like 5000 entrants, I think we had like 15,000.

Carlota Pico 6:13
So you won!

Gareth Crew 6:16
It went okay, yes! And then what this did, this was able to be like a proper social media—it was social media lead, which meant that we had a YouTube video that came out this, which was a trailer for the following season. And it was a great way of how we were able to explain to viewers, explain to our audience, about the resorts. It wasn’t the case that we were doing it because we needed to get more people to go to a specific destination, it was more about we were able to say, “Well, if you like this, you could do that.” So it kind of turned it on its head, which yeah, I think you know, that was that was a good moment with how we could like incorporate social. And that was very much within when the time of social was becoming much more than mainstream of like digital marketing and how it wasn’t a separate—I mean, it was kind of moving into the center, and that’s how it works in TUI. I think closer to home—well Garmin, I call Garmin home—is we had a massive launch, beginning of last year in Spain, in Barcelona, which was for luxury products—our MARQ products—and we did this great launch, which was on the track. And we brought everything together from an outdoor, from a social, and PR event. And we brought it all together and that was that was particularly special as well. So I think those sort of things have really kind of shaped me. I think I get a lot of energy from when we can do those really big social projects and when they can actually come off. I mean, I could list all the ones that haven’t really done that as well, but how they kind of all kind of connect with what our objectives are. And then we’ve got more than just a social team working on it. I think when we’re all together, and we can all see a success, those are the things that really kind of drive me forward, and those are the things that make me.

Carlota Pico 8:03
Okay, well, when something works, everything is great, right? Life is great! But what about, what challenges have you had to overcome throughout your career?

Gareth Crew 8:13
I think that’s a really interesting question. I think the main challenge that I have had to overcome, I’d say is about being able to explain social media to people, because I think one of the big challenges that we have had, or we have as an industry is that this is all accessible to everybody. And I think the challenge that we have and that we can face and I have definitely faced is that everybody wants to do it, and everyone thinks that they can do it. I have had challenges in the past about senior management going on to say like the profile pages and kind of looking at that, as opposed to understanding how the newsfeed works, or challenges from a raw sales lead activity. I think those are the challenges that can really damage social media. I mean, it’s great to have a lot of enthusiasm within the company. But I think sometimes it is, maybe social media—and it has done in the past—has just been considered as like a place that can be used for any other marketing, and we need to make sure that it abides by the specific rules. Yeah, I also think one of the, an interesting challenge that I’ve had about social media specifically, is from an approval process. And from previous work that I’ve actually done, if it seems that sometimes companies are scared of any information that goes out has to be reviewed many, many times. And I think sometimes that can lose some of the authenticity of what social media is, if you’re, say working with an agency and it goes through many different levels of approval and refinement—you’re losing that impact of what it can be, and you know, it is just one post, it is just one story but I think social media’s success lies in it being able to kind of react to different things.

Carlota Pico 10:09
On that note, how do you get senior management to buy into your ideas?

Gareth Crew 10:15
I think you have to be very passionate enthusiastic about it. But I really think that you have to be able to support it with objectives and KPIs. So…and I think it kind of depends with who you’re actually speaking to. So you understand your audience. If you’re talking to a senior marketeer, for instance, it’s more about talking about the intricacies, like, you know, different performance and why this would work. But I think if you’re speaking much in more general terms, it’s kind of looking at the bottom line, and kind of talking about, you know, why this would be good for you. But then it’s also about trying to allay their fears about what social media can do and can’t do, and kind of highlight them, but also say, “No, we’ll be okay with this, it will do, it will perform okay.” So I think in answer to that, you really want to kind of like, give them why this would be successful, for some people so as not to worry about it, and for people who are much more passionate or interested in it, really list out those objectives, really list out those KPIs so they understand specifically why you’re doing that.

Carlota Pico 11:22
Okay, so tie it back to business goals.

Gareth Crew 11:25
Absolutely, absolutely. But I don’t think but you can still be, you can still use, like, be really imaginative, and you can use all of the expertise from that. But I think you just need to give them that piece of understanding about why you’re actually doing it, because that’s obviously the language that they’re speaking.

Carlota Pico 11:42
Yeah. So basically be able to relate to your senior managers in the same way that you would want to relate to your audience as well.

Gareth Crew 11:50
You know, I just thought that exactly same thing. I was just about to say that. So thank you for making it much more succinct.

Carlota Pico 11:57
Great minds think alike, Gareth.

Gareth Crew 11:58
Yeah, well, yeah. It’s interesting, because it is an interesting point is that as a marketeer, you are marketing to everybody. So you’re marketing to your team, you’re marketing to management, and then you are also marketing to your consumers as well. So I think that’s actually a good analogy. Yeah.

Thank you. Gareth, why did you choose a career in social media out of everything you could have done? Why social media—what makes you passionate about it?

Carlota Pico 12:23
I think it’s a really interesting field to be in. I really like the fact that they never actually stand still. I really like that it’s always changing and you always have to learn about it. There’s always new things coming out. There’s always new platforms to do, there’s always new ways of measuring stuff. And I think that’s the bit that I’m really interested in. I feel that I am, I can be quite creative with social media, and I think it allows you to do that. But completely on the other side of that, you know, to understand and get really deep into having that instant response, and all of those metrics come through, I think that’s just as exciting. Because you can do something, you can see if it’s performing or not performing straightaway, and then you can instantly make that decision. And then you can kind of move on or you can refine. And I think that’s the bit I like. I also, I really think that social media, at its core is good. Even though a lot of you know, it has bad press. I mean, you know, some people do struggle with it. And you know, there are completely legitimate reasons about that and about some of the challenges within social media. But I do think it is a movement for good that you can connect with people, you can talk to people, you can learn different things, there’s a democracization of information, people always have that. So I think that’s a really good thing. And I think it’s really cool that we can, you can work with lots of different people across the world, and you can get all that instant feedback. So that’s why I like social media. I think personally, I think that’s why it’s really cool. But you have to be aware of the other side of it as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. I’ve come across a lot of companies that have said that social media just isn’t for them. Mainly b2b companies, although they are on LinkedIn, they’re not on other social channels, like for example, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc. Do you agree with that? Do you think social media is for every brand and everyone?

Gareth Crew 14:27
Yes, I do. I think you know, it is within the b2b space and I have worked in b2b and in b2—I would add that it’s much easier in b2c for sure. It’s, you know, you can be, you can change your messaging. But ultimately, I believe that is social media is a part of marketing, and you need to market to the areas where these people are. These people who are in b2b, they are engaging within you know, Facebook, on Instagram or WhatsApp, LinkedIn—especially on these channels. So it is definitely a route to get there. I think what you want to make sure of is like what that if that channel is right for them. And if the tone and what your expectations and objectives are to start with, you’re not going to be able to sell Internet Security over a Facebook ad. But what you can do is that you can position your brand, your culture, and have them at the top of the funnel, so they’re actually aware and interested about your company, which means it can contribute to that bottom line as well.

Carlota Pico 15:34
Well, as marketeers, we are in the art of measuring society’s pulse. So let’s talk a little bit about COVID-19. What have you learned about business people and just marketing during these really unstable times?

Gareth Crew 15:49
It’s been a very difficult time for everybody, I think. So I think what I have learned is that people seem to be looking out for connections with each othe, and I think they want to have a connection with the company. And I think that they want to be able to feel that the company is supporting them. I think that’s probably the most important part that we have learned specifically, within Garmin. We have created content, not for any other reason, but to kind of like help people through this time. If you would look on some of the stuff that we put on LinkedIn recently about how you can work out at home, if you’ve been locked down, how you can kind of understand about from some of the features that our products have, the path of your breathe in, keep yourself calm, keep yourself not being anxious—not providing any sort of medical advice, but also just trying to help people and to make sure that they feel calm, and that were their friend. And I think that’s the thing that I have learned is that if you have that, if you are that as a brand, and you’re able to provide that to people through COVID, they want that support, and they want that help, I think people are kind of looking for answers as well.

Carlota Pico 17:05
Okay, so you’re on socoial basically to be social.

Gareth Crew 17:09
Yeah, that’s that’s a fair way of saying it. Absolutely. And I think we really don’t, you don’t want to be seen as a company or a brand who wants to kind of profit from this at all. I think you need to be able to be social and you need to be one to support people. And I think you know, Garmin has done a really good job with that as well to be able to kind of help support people and provide that insight. So we can say, look, we can help you with this, you know, if you know, you’ve got a product, this is called…this is what you can actually use.

Carlota Pico 17:34
Okay, you mentioned—and I have as well Garmin several times throughout this interview—so let’s give our audience a thirdy second elevator pitch. What is Garmin?

Gareth Crew 17:44
Okay, so Garmin is…so essentially, they produce a lot of different products which utilize GPS technology. Easiest way to say it. Originally, they produced like navigation equipment for planes or marine products, and then also for cars. Now, we as a company diversify in many areas and provide wrist watches, sport watches, fitness watches, and also stuff within for cycling. I have some—this isn’t set up, this is always on my desk, by the way! So there’s like a cycling computer here. This is a radar. So this is a cool thing that you put on the back of your bike that tells you if people are behind you, which is quite fun—it’s a Varia radar. And then obviously their watch range as well. So a lot of these watches measure your heart rate. Let’s have a look to see how I’m doing in my interview—only 77! So it’s nice and chill. And then you can measure like running or you can do breathing exercises. And there’s different sort of coaches and maps. It’s like everything in one device.

Okay, well, let’s keep on talking about COVID-19 because obviously it’s a subject that’s affected brands worldwide, and people as well. I’d like to read a quote by the CEO of Walt Disney, he said that “The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation.” In light of the global pandemic, Gareth, in what ways has Garmin been creative and innovative this year?

So I think from an internal perspective, we’ve had to innovate a lot with how we create our creative, I think, because normally, we’re all kind of working together, and we’re kind of facing each other, and we’re talking to each other. So we have to be innovative as how we’ve been able to kind of discuss these things and work together. And we’ve had to kind of understand and innovate within what we’ve been doing with like, video chat and how we’ve been sharing content and how we’ve had to kind of be able to be comfortable with doing those sort of elements and just work from our home. I think that’s a that’s a point that we haven’t been able to…that no one should kind of like ignore that we’ve had to kind of innovate by working in workspaces and kind of change that. I think from what I was touching on earlier was the content that we have actually provided within… from the COVID, when the COVID pandemic was at its peak—hopefully within March period—I think that was one of our great pieces of content that we produced with our with our series of events, and we were able to make sure that we could try and, you know, support our audience. After that, I think as we’ve gone, I think we’ve innovated with our creative to provide more products to kind of help support and encourage and inspire people. We’ve created the some solar powered watches, and which means that the idea, we had a lovely creative piece from the global team about doing what you love longer and for people to be outside. So I think we’ve been encouraging people to stay well, to stay happy, to stay healthy, whilst also helping support, you know, some of the products that we actually want to actually sell as well. So I think those are the kind of areas I think, we have tried to adapt to what’s been happening outside, but also we’ve had to try and innovate with like using Teams and Zoom and everything else, whilst we’ve been working together as well.

Carlota Pico 21:13
Obviously, COVID-19 hit Europe through different ways, right? Like Spain and Italy were hit first. Then came the UK, the US was a few months afterwards. How did you address the challenges of your audience through your social media channels, according to different stages that they were in during COVID-19?

Gareth Crew 21:32
It was… it was a big challenge for us, I think. So within the structure that we have within Garmin, I speak to all of the local social media managers and marketing teams all the time. So it was very much as in understanding early what those challenges were. I mean, I can remember within like, February within like Spain and Italy, that it was very big news. And we had to kind of make sure that we could adjust what those objectives were that we had set. So the way that we use it in normal times, we have a normal cadence of what sort of content and what sort of segments that we want to push out—by segments, I mean, like, talk about running in the spring, talk about cycling. That was definitely a challenge. And it was it was a case of how we, we listened and we understood those specific areas. It wasn’t that we wanted to be like completely autocratic about saying, “Well, no, this is the launch, this is what happened!” But we had to be really sympathetic. And we used different sorts of solutions and different sort of areas within our business. We’re very lucky within Garmin, that our watches and our products do a lot of different things. So we tried to kind of focus on different areas, but whilst like continuing with those goals. We also kind of looked a lot at the UGC content as well within social media, which gave us a bit more of a steer about what people were producing. So that was kind of how we had to manage that situation. And it was us being aware and we had like—I talked to everybody a lot of the time, but we were having weekly Monday calls with everybody just checking in making sure everyone was alright. My colleague from the US was with me as well, just so that everyone felt aware and that they kind of talk about, like the temperature of what was happening between the different countries.

Carlota Pico 23:22
Okay, very interesting. So you were programming your campaigns according to local struggles?

Gareth Crew 23:28
Yeah, we had our overall for all objectives, which we were still running in countries that are able to do this. But obviously, for the local challenges that they had, we were like moving them around a little bit to make sure that they could support that. And then we were providing help and support to them to make sure that they had as much support as they needed throughout those bad times as well, because it was, quite it was anxiety for everybody throughout that time, I think.

Carlota Pico 23:54
And you are doing that in order to resonate better with your local audiences, right?

Gareth Crew 23:58
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, yeah, for a couple of reasons. I think for the first thing to make sure that a lot of the people within those within those different offices felt like, you know, we understood what was happening. And, you know, we were sympathetic to what was going on, but also, yeah, to resonate with those audiences. I mean, it makes no sense for us to kind of be telling people in Spain and Italy at that time that they need to be outside running, when you couldn’t do that, really, unfortunately. So we had to basically show—again, back to my point I was talking about social being authentic and everything—we needed to have that and it just…it, yeah, it was just all about us understanding those things for this local thing. And that’s what’s really good about the countries as well. They have great local knowledge, they know what their audience wants, and they were giving us really great feedback in the local and global campaigns to make sure that it all worked properly.

Carlota Pico 24:52
Okay, well, let’s move away from COVID-19 because obviously, we have enough of that in our life already.

Gareth Crew 24:57
Absolutely.

Carlota Pico 24:57
Let’s turn towards your expertise in social media. So let’s say you have a really small budget to spend on social media, what would you invest it in, and why?

Gareth Crew 25:09
Oh, that’s a very leading question. I think my… I would kind of want to understand which areas and what the business objectives are for. I know this is quite…but I think that you can never just say that you want to spend this amount of money on something and this is what you’ll get. I think what I would like to do is to kind of see what would be the best performing thing that we could use for what we have. So for instance, if we say like, it’s a b2c, and we wanted to push out a new product, maybe we could kind of look at investing in that money on an influencer, or an ambassador, or maybe for if it was more b2b, we can look at like investment into LinkedIn. I think the answer is it always depends on what actually it is, and what our sort of objectives are. I don’t think this is one of the fun things with social. It’s not just one thing that fits all. That’s kind of a dodge, really, but you know what I mean.

Carlota Pico 26:00
Okay, Gareth, I’m gonna throw you another curveball. So how do you know what’s going to work and what’s not going to work on social?

Gareth Crew 26:07
I think you can use your different experience, and I think you can use what you have done in the past. So I think you could say, so if you went completely generic, you could say, “Okay, well, let’s just put some money on to the platforms that are the most popular, most successful.” So I would probably say we could put some money in, say Instagram stories, a bit of Instagram, perhaps TitTok—depending on the region, depending on the audience and what assets you have available—or perhaps just a bit on LinkedIn. So I think, yeah, those would be my go-to, I would probably stay away from, say, Twitter at the moment. I think it has its place definitely for what it’s doing this year, especially from a journalism perspective—because it’s close to our hearts—but also, I think, you know, that isn’t where all the marketing is happening. So I would probably lean towards like the new stuff within Instagram, perhaps TikTok.

Carlota Pico 27:00
Okay. Let’s say you have a new campaign that you want to launch in Spain, and that your target audience are consumers from 25 to 35. How would you approach that on social media?

Gareth Crew 27:13
I think it’s going to have to be very influencer and ambassador lead, I think. I think for that audience, specifically, definitely led by their peers, and I think there’s like stats that say like 86% of them would rather want to be able to buy from like, if they had a recommendation from an influencer, instead of a brand. I think, also that audience is very savvy about like sponsored posts, and the way that the algorithms work a bit more. So I think they wouldn’t be that interested and I think they’re kind of they’re more… they’re more conscious about their data then you would expect, as well. So I think it would definitely be a bit more of an ambassador/influencer led campaign, which would then drive down into the channels that they’re actually working on. So again, I think Instagram, Instagram Stories, maybe putting in some sort of competition, or quiz or something fun, something interesting that we can use with a giveaway, and then kind of rolling out that. I think, specifically for that audience, you don’t really want to do a call out for them, because I don’t think they are creators in the classic sense. So from like, Instagram on the newsfeed or Facebook on the newsfeed, that content isn’t actually being created as much. I think it’s more about when people are doing the short, snappy things—that’s what they’re consuming, that’s what they’re creating. So it will be definitely a message to interest them from someone coming out, as opposed to getting them to do something as well.

Carlota Pico 28:44
Okay, and what about a channel that doesn’t have a lot of traffic? Do you have any tips or tricks in terms of driving organic traffic to that channel?

Gareth Crew 28:54
Oh, wow. Yes. I mean, that’s always a challenge. You know, also, if you could talk about it in the b2b space, I think working on your SEO would definitely be one of the biggest tips and tricks. I think it’s still one of the biggest drivers out there. I think, making sure that you can get everything right, making sure the contents working. But for instant results, I think, you know, you’d want to look at maybe some PPC, some AdWords and also from like, your standard link clicks and Facebook activity, you know, even from quite a small amount of money, perhaps, or even maybe word of mouth, etc. That would be where you could go. Another area would probably be groups, I think groups is a great untapped potential. I mean, sometimes it’s a bit of a weird thing to go into. But if you have a specific niche, and you’re able to join groups and become an authority on that, I think that is going to be a great way from an organic perspective to drive to a site that’s not getting that much traffic.

Carlota Pico 29:54
Very interesting. So I want to pick your brain on SEO

Gareth Crew 29:57
Okay.

Carlota Pico 29:57
How does SEO work on social channels?

Gareth Crew 30:02
That’s a good question. I think it’s kind of how we can kind of… how they complement each other a little bit, I would say. So I think you have from SEO from the great content that’s being generated from say, like a blog and everything else and all that area. I think it’s a way of driving people through to that, and then owning the whole journey from an SEO perspective.

Carlota Pico 30:25
Okay.

Gareth Crew 30:25
So I think, you know, there are discussions, or there’s thoughts about how much you want to have like a link on your social media channels, especially from an organic perspective. But I think if you’ve got like that, metadata, right, and that all correct, when you have your link, and it is enticing for people, I think it can actually be supported through social media by drawing that through.

Carlota Pico 30:48
Okay, thank you. And now moving into the last question of this section: Companies are expected to spend $120 billion US dollars on marketing by 2021. So that’s only four months away, and obviously a big part of this will be spent on digital marketing and on social media. As a social media experts, can you foresee any trends taking shape in 2021 that we can anticipate now?

Gareth Crew 31:15
I think it’s going to be much more video driven. I think, whenever we come out of this period—I know were not allowed to talk about it anymore—but once we come out of that, I think people are going to be wanting to look for those organic connections. And I think video, people are so much more comfortable on video and talking on video, that I think them wanting to have that replicated in advert, in say ads being served to them—that’s what they want. I think they’ll want to have authentic content inspiring them to kind of have their connections and to kind of connect with their friends, connect with their family more, and just to experience different things and to do whatever they can and do everything. I mean, I was thinking about going to Japan—I’d never been to Japan—and I was looking at it and I thought, well, I can’t now even though like six months ago, it wasn’t a problem, I could have gone! There was just about the cost and everything. So I think people want to connect and go out and explore more. That’s what people want to do, and from a social media perspective, we can inspire that and help them build those connections I think through video platform…I think Reels is going to be really interesting. And it’s always fun when they create something which is like other other things. I think that’s going to be a big part. And I think the way that the written language of like our social content is going to even further drop down in the way that people going to communicate, from a global perspective, it will just be through video content and through that that sort of communication, like through dances or whatever that will be. That’s where I kind of see it happening.

Carlota Pico 32:57
Okay, very interesting. So I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the future has in store for us. Okay, moving into our rapid-fire set of questions. To get this section started off, I’d like to ask you about your source of inspiration. So who do you admire—a professional role model or an influencer?

Gareth Crew 33:14
Okay, I think the first people that I admire is my family. I think, you know, I’ve had my…members of my family do amazing things, and they’ve done amazing things in the past and to have some people that can kind of keep you wanting to drive forward. I think that’s always a great source of inspiration. I think from more of like a professional perspective, someone I admire very much is Dave Brailsford, who works with one of the cycling teams—has to come back to sport!—but the stuff that he’s done, some of the thoughts and insights that he gives about like marginal gains and driving always across. I think that always kind of resonates with me, I think. I really like the idea of never ever giving up—even on a Monday morning, I try to think that, and that, like being able to do anything that you can, that you want to set your mind to. I think that’s what really inspires me.

Carlota Pico 34:09
So the sky’s the limit!

Gareth Crew 34:11
Oh, nice! That’s very good!

Carlota Pico 34:15
Gareth, what about a book, a publication, a group, a community or an event that you’d like to recommend, or even a hashtag?

Gareth Crew 34:25
I think I would like to go more with a book called The Chimp Paradox. So this is a book that kind of helps you understand about yourself and about…it kind of gives you an idea about taking things personally and not personally and how people react to different situations. I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s about if you are in, you know, in business situations, I think also from a creative perspective, when you always think your idea is the best, right? Sometimes it isn’t always the best idea and I know that you sometimes feel “Oh my goodness, this is good! Why does everyone hate me? Why is this not working!? etc. So that is something that really helped me allowed to kind of like compartmentalize what I’m actually doing, etc. So, have a look. It’s quite big, but it is worth it. It’s very good.

Carlota Pico 35:16
Excellent. And last but not least, what’s your favorite app or tool at the moment?

Gareth Crew 35:22
Okay, so I think so my tool, it would definitely be the tool that we use, it’s the Sprinklr Social Listening tool. I really love social listening. I think it’s really interesting, really exciting. I’d spend all my time on that and just querying it, looking at different things, and I think it provides a lot of great insights, a lot of great inspiration. For myself personally, apart from like, looking at the Garmin Connect app for my runs and everything else, I do think and I am being such very much into TikTok as being my favorite app, I think. I really like the idea that you can just scroll through and scroll through and discover these sorts of things. And I think it’s actually really nice and entertaining, it’s still quite fresh and people are doing interesting things, and I actually find some of the stuff quite a source of inspiration, as well for how we kind of approach it.

Carlota Pico 36:18
Okay, well, we’re gonna have to see what happens with TikTok in the US.

Gareth Crew 36:22
Absolutely. It’s gonna be really interesting, I think, yeah. I think this is why Reels is going to be so interesting. I mean, with the Stories, that happened with Snapchat as well. As you know, when Facebook moves on to these things, we like to see how they can compete. It’ll be interesting to see.

Carlota Pico 36:39
Yeah, the battle the social media.

Gareth Crew 36:42
Yes.

Carlota Pico 36:43
Okay, Gareth, well, thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Gareth Crew 36:47
It was a pleasure.

Carlota Pico 36:47
It was so nice to meet you and learn more about Garmin and to pick your brain on social media.

Gareth Crew 36:53
Thank you.

Carlota Pico 36:54
Thank you so much, and to everybody listening in today, thanks for joining us on The Content Mix. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out The Content Mix. We’ll be releasing interviews, just like this one every day, so keep on tuning in. Thanks again, have a fabulous day, and see you next time. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai