Artist-led creative solutions – Josh Moore, founder of Lawless Studio

Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Josh Moore, founder of Lawless Studio, who discusses his path to entrepreneurship and the advantages of artist-led creative solutions for brands:

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 Josh Moore, who is founder of Lawless Studio, and also has over a decade of experience managing brand campaigns and partnerships in the publishing world, which he’ll tell us more about soon. Welcome, Josh, and thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Josh Moore 0:37
Hey Carlota, and hey guys! Looking forward to talking about Lawless Studio and my career kind of to date. Follow me on LinkedIn, go to Lawless Studio.co.uk/agency to find out a bit more about what we do. But yeah, looking forward to talking a little bit more.

Carlota Pico 0:53
Definitely. So let’s dive straight into it. Tell me a little bit about your background experience. How did you get to where you are today, Josh?

Josh Moore 1:01
So I’ve had about 10 years—you really kindly kind of mentioned it at the start—but I’ve had about 10 years of experience working in the world of publishing. So I started my career with Hearst, I was employed as a classified sales executive selling small credit card size ads in the back of Country Living magazine. And from there, I kind of bounced between magazines at Hearst—Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, etc. and then kind of carved out a career in the creative solutions part of the businesses kind of from there. So from there, I moved to Haymarket publishing, where I worked at FourFourTwo, which is amazing football magazine—I’m a massive Chelsea fan—so being in a football environment was yeah, I mean, I knoow Chelsea aren’t for everyone, know it’s not the best team on the planet. But, you know, working working with a magazine is fantastic. And then I got the opportunity to go over to ESI media who look after The Standard and Independent newspaper brands. So I moved from magazines to newspapers, again, with that thread of creative solutions and partnerships working on amazing campaigns for the likes of Sky, AMEX, and sort of huge, huge brands, and got afforded quite a lot of trust and responsibility on that. And, yeah, I was there for a huge amount of time, and really learnt so much from so many people. And then since then I’ve moved to kind of other threads of kind of male lifestyle titles. So GQ, I moved to Condé Nast to work for sponsorships at GQ and Wired, which in itself was an amazing experience. Obviously, always, always read GQ throughout my life. So brilliant to work on that brand. And then most recently worked at Hypebeast, which kind of sneaker footwear, social first brand. And recently, I made the decision to set my own business up with Lawless Studio and harness all of that experience and all those kind of connections I’ve made over the years and the connections I’ve made with brands over the years to work for myself and set my own thing up, which is obviously quite daunting and interesting at the same time. But yeah, the time’s right. I’ve got 10 years of experience in publishing, and now I’m kind of going out and helping brands kind of realize activations through well, through artists, which I’ll obviously dive into in way more detail shortly.

Carlota Pico 3:14
Josh, such an exciting background! So I do want to pick your brain a little bit more on what it was like to work for such iconic and big powerhouse media brands like GQ, like Conde Nast, etc.?

Josh Moore 3:27
Yeah, no, of course. I mean, I guess they…yeah, you’re right. They absolutely are powerhouses in their fields and I guess there’s similarities in all of those, you know, In Hearst you have some of the biggest magazines in their kind of respective niches. They’re the leading kind of circulating magazines in their fields. Evening Standard is the largest distribution of paper in London, in the country. And GQ is the biggest male lifestyle magazine kind of in the UK and possibly in the world. So there’s a kind of standard bit of expectancy in terms of content and kind of every person employed into each of the departments has to kind of be at the top of their game. But there’s kind of a real valuable layer of experience I’ve found with each of those kind of powerhouses, you know, people in departments have been there for 5,10,15 years. And they are the people that I’ve learned the most from, for sure. They’re those people with so much experience, you’ve seen, you know, all the media firsts for every kind of campaign brief, every kind of front page, you can kind of see, they’ve seen it all before. So there’s been so much experience that I’ve kind of pulled from. So yeah, I guess the people have been the main elements of those powerhouse brands that I’ve kind of learned from.

Carlota Pico 4:41
What about the culture? What was the culture like working for those major agencies?

Josh Moore 4:45
So the culture, yeah, I guess, I started my career in magazines, where it’s two or three days of kind of frenetic buzz of maybe almost like a circus before press day. Then the issue goes to press. And then there’s a little bit of a lull and you get kind of a little bit of a chance to read. And then it all starts again, especially with monthly magazines, it’s so cyclical, and you’re kind of thinking so many months in advance. But it’s a nice kind of routine. And it is really interesting to see how it goes up right before press day, and that whole buzz in the office, and then it calms and then it all kind of builds up again, it’s kind of like that. But then I moved from magazines to papers, and then the paper is being published every single day. So the morning is frenetic in terms of getting that paper for the next day sorted, and then kind of by the end of the day, the phones are all still ringing up until about five o’clock, but then the paper is pretty much all gone to press. So it all stops and then it all starts again and it all stops, and starts again. So it’s definitely when I moved from magazines to papers, that frenetic buzz and pace that you usually get around press day—that really small window and monthly magazines— that was happening every day. So yeah, a really interesting shift, and a really interesting way…I had to really adapt and get used to that kind of daily cycle thing. But I guess the daily cycle thing is kind of more in tune with digital and social and the way that we’re always on so I guess it was a little bit more representative of how media is consumed and kind of delivered. But yeah, that was the most interesting shift, I think between going from magazines to a daily paper.

Carlota Pico 6:22
Okay, very interesting. So you’ve worked with a lot of iconic brands as well, like Adidas, Nike, Sky, and many more. Were you part of the sales process?

Josh Moore 6:31
Yes, yeah. So in terms of all of my roles, up until now, and including now, I did the sole responsibility of the sales process— that was led by me. So if I am, if I’m holding a role at GQ or Hypebeast, or ESI, I was tasked with kind of developing impactful creative solutions for those brands—Nike, Sky, etc. Starting off with the concept, coming up with that with the with the wider team, and then leading that process from then to sign off and staying close to the project through the delivery of assets, content, etc, post sale. And then staying close a bit—obviously there’ll be a project management team kind of coordinating that—and then coming back around at the end of the campaign lifecycle and delivering post campaign reports. So essentially, I’m there from start to finish, and I am that person, that point person, that Adidas, Nike or Sky will hold accountable if the idea that I initially pitch doesn’t deliver or it goes wrong with kind of off concept slightly. So yeah, everything in terms of the sales process is it was kind of myself—it would let it lie with me sort of thing.

Carlota Pico 7:40
So walk me through a pitch, what does it look like for major iconic brand like Nike? How do you pitch?

Josh Moore 7:46
Okay, yeah. I mean, obviously, I am that point person, I’m that kind of responsible person for the sales, in the sales process with the client, and I’m…I have that relationship with the client, right. So I am really, the key responsibility of the person in the pre sale part of that process is to be as close to the client as possible, so that you understand their world and you understand their marketing objectives and you’re really close to kind of everything they have coming up in the year. So that when—because obviously you’re having conversations about kind of collaborating and working together—and sometimes there’s a brief straightaway, sometimes it’s a little bit of a dance to kind of get there. So you have to be ready for when that brief lands, you know that they have something coming up, you know, this is the pressure point in their business, you know about all of these things that they want to achieve—because even if they’re not in the brief, you have to kind of know that from the conversations you’ve had with that brand. So in terms of the process it’s generally 80% of the time, a brief will land and a brief comes from Adidas or Nike—they have a certain thing they have coming up, they have a campaign they want to launch they need you to create content or to come up with that idea, and it’s sometimes really far down in the funnel where you have to start right at the start and come up with a huge concept or sometimes it’s a really tight idea that they have and you just have to kind of create content for that specific idea. So it’s 80% led by the brand in terms of their turn around, their calendar, their marketing, kind of rollout for the year. Sometimes—20% of the time—it’s a proactive that the media owner will take out so that could be like a new editorial launch that some, you know, magazine at Hearst are starting to bring out that we think would be perfect for the Adidas brand. Or a tentpole moment in the year—Euro’s World Cup, you know something to do with Halloween, you name it, you know when you’re dialed in to kind of, especially in the newspaper world, you anticipate those moments, you know, the content is going to go around those moments, so you take the opportunity to the brand. So that’s kind of basically 80% brief, 20% kind of proactive, and then you kind of work on the concept and it’s constant communication with the brand, the client, making sure the concept is correct tonally and kind of delivers all the deliverables you deliver it and then, you know, hopefully they sign off, and then it moves to post-sale. So then it moves to a project management team on both media on a side and kind of client side. And that all varies how many people are involved. If there’s intermediaries like media agencies, or PR agencies or creative agencies, then it might, the campaign might then move to another department. And it’s always really important than that the person who kind of sold that campaign to the brand is close to that campaign throughout that process, because there’s so many instances where you hand work over to a producer or to kind of another team. And communication is always so key in that because interpretation, and I’d say a producer, takes kind of your, your deck in this, okay, okay, this is signed off Adidas, the producer might interpret it differently, because they speak a little bit of a different language in their day to day, so you have to be close to everybody working on that campaign, every single point throughout the way. So communication is really key. And I think that the thing that Nike and Adidas have in common—and to an extent Sky—is that this is all being done at breakneck speed, it’s all being done really quickly. Adidas get a decision from above that this campaign has to go out next week, or it has to be shot in two weeks time. So the turnarounds are ridiculous. We have to turn work around for them in super quick time. So it’s about knowing that they value speed, and having support structures and kind of structures in place that enable you to work in an agile manner and get stuff through to them quickly. So it’s about anticipating that and knowing which clients really value speed, and the things turn around quickly. But yeah, the two main things in terms of success with with that process, the pre-sale and post-sale process is communication. And, you know, anticipating how quick things need to be done.

Carlota Pico 11:57
Yeah, but surely you’re not the only agency for who’s competing for a project from Nike or from any of the iconic brands. So…

Josh Moore 12:04
No, no, no, yeah. Yeah, I skirted over that bit a little bit. That pre-sale/post-sale, is assuming the campaign happens, right? But there’s so many instances where you’re pitching for work, and you’re pitching against your competitors. So yeah, I mean, is that the percentage of work pitched to versus work, you know, signed off, varies between brands, obviously, I’m lucky enough to work at places like GQ and Evening Standard, where a lot of the campaigns are going to happen, because they’re such kind of leaders in their field. But a lot of work is done in the pre-sale that doesn’t then move to post- sale. And either that work goes to a competitor, competitive agency, competitive media arena, or it doesn’t happen. Sometimes the clients pull a budget, and they decide that they can’t go ahead with it, or it’s just an idea, and they don’t want to go forward with it. So yeah, there’s often in instances where you’re either competing and you don’t win the work, or the budget gets pulled in doesn’t happen.

Carlota Pico 13:04
From a mental health point of view, how do you deal with that type of rejection when you put so much effort and work into a project that doesn’t end up in your hands?

Josh Moore 13:13
Yeah, it’s tough, it is tough. You get…you get resilient to it. It’s a process—brief plans, and you have to make sure that their brief responses are well. I think it’s easier when you work with a client like Adidas who have multiple projects going on through the year and therefore multiple briefs come in, and you get kind of like a way of working with them and you get used to communication, trust is built, and you understand what they do and don’t like. But yeah, it’s tough. Yeah, there are so many times when things that you’ve put your heart and soul and the whole team’s put their hearts and souls into work, which doesn’t come off. And often it is those, it’s those really exciting, amazing big media first campaigns that you’ve kind of developed, that won’t happen. Or you get really, really, really close to sign up and something happens where the client kind of loses not trust, but something will happen where they can’t sign it off, or it will go to a competitor at the last minute. I think having it happen so many times, builds resilience. In terms of the mental health aspect, it is tough, it really is tough, but you have to just trust that for all the good work you put in that will then come good at some point for either that client or someone else. So it’s about understanding the process and just seeing it happen. I think if it could have easily knock you back when you first start out. But I think that definitely trust the process. If you’re good, the work you put in which will always be in the top drawer, and itt will happen at some point down the line.

Carlota Pico 14:44
Okay, talking about things that unexpectedly happen. Let’s talk about COVID-19. How has COVID-19 disrupted your marketing plans?

Josh Moore 14:55
Massively, yeah, massively. When I was at Hypebeast it really did disrupt the whole kind of cadence of the year and you’re looking at kind of brand calendars and their sort of output for the rest of this kind of calendar year. Stores closing for Adidas and Nike was a huge thing. You know, you assume that’s where a huge amount of their revenue comes from. So they had to pivot as businesses to basically pull marketing spend, I think I think that’s the long and short of it, marketing budgets have dried up, for sure, this year. But now, I think we’re coming into an age—well, not an age—but a kind of period of recovery marketing. Brands are starting to be warm to ideas and to maybe take risks towards the end of the year, with the view to 2021 being that big recovery boost year for their brands. So yeah, it’s…I think, when I’m speaking to brands, a lot of them are saying that they don’t have the marketing budgets they used to—that was kind of going that way anyway. Brands had to be more nimble and agile with how they spent their marketing dollars, but COVID decimated some brands’ marketing budgets, so brands and now looking for really clever ways to spend their marketing dollars. They’re doing things that will really deliver maximum ROI, but for small kind of budgets. So it’s about being wise, and kind of fostering trust and saying, look, give us a go— especially with Lawless Studio, the solution we’re trying to build is a really nimble, agile solution for brands that don’t have huge budgets, but wants access, great talent and wants to access you know, platforms like Instagram and huge followings that can be done on small budgets. It’s just about getting the trust of the client and showing you showing ways of doing that.

Carlota Pico 16:42
Speaking of Lawless Studio, you launched a company in middle of a global pandemic, which already takes a lot of courage. Nevertheless, just launching a company on its own is quite courageous as well. Could you talk to me about the competitive advantages that Lawless Studio offers when compared to other agencies?

Josh Moore 17:05
Yeah, so I guess for yourself and for the audience, it might help me to, it might help everybody for me to kind of explain what Lawless Studio, right? Because it sounds like quite a cool concept, but you guys might not understand kind of what it really is. So I guess the the 30 second elevator pitch or whatever it’s, you know, Lawless Studio is a trend-conscious, greater than production service that offers brand offers artist-led creative solutions to level-up brand projects. So what that means in English is, we have an incredible roster of artistic talent, right? With a specific scooter tattoo and graffiti artists. We connect those artists to brands, and projects when a particular kind of artistic style is needed. So it could be really granular like an event, they need three tattooists, because the campaigns is all kind of sorted and have this marketing stunt and they need tattooists to kind of level up this campaign. So it could be a really specific solution where we provide the artistic talent, or it could be just that a brand wants our personality to launch and they kind of have a loose idea around a mural in Shoreditch, but they kind of need help with the concept and kind of driving that forward. So we know that brands are kind of thirsty for that culture. But it can be a fine balance in getting that done in kind of in a right and authentic way. It’s quite a tricky kind of thing to do. So our thing, and our point of difference is that our ideas and solutions are artists-led. So they, the artists guide the brief response, they guide the idea and it allows that brand to tap into that culture in a really credible way. That the next kind of thing that I guess sets us apart, because there are some companies that that connect brands to artists in that way, shape or form, but they’re very much production-led and in production capacity for brands. But our point of difference is we also offer a distribution method. So we kind of connect brands to the audiences of each artist through Instagram and their other social channels. So we use their social touch point as a distribution point to kind of close that loop and make it make, make our offering almost like a turnkey solution for a brand looking to tap into visual culture, if that makes sense. So I guess we’re essentially part content creation service part niche influencer agency. If you were to sum it up.

Carlota Pico 19:22
Absolutely, I understand. So why did you leave the comfort or the security blanket of major media powerhouses to venture into the world of entrepreneurship?

Josh Moore 19:33
Yeah, I mean, a good question. I mean, the whole world right now is so uncertain, so why not add more uncertainty to it? Yeah, like I think COVID, the way we all work from home now or the way we’ve had to pivot to working from home has been really, I think, important and it’s been a bit of a lesson and it’s allowed us to think about values and motivations and what we kind of find important. I mean Lawless Studio itself has been an idea that’s been in my head for two years. I went traveling two and a half years or so ago, and kind of when I came back from there, I was like, right, this is it—I’m going to launch Lawless Studio. I had this idea kind of floating for a while I was like, this is the time to launch it. I’m so glad I didn’t launch it then because working at GQ and working at Hypebeast, working with artistic talent on video-led projects within those two years has allowed me…I’ve learned a lot from both both those roles as well. So I needed a few more years of actually kind of, you know, working with influencers and talent, just to learn their skills, and to figure out kind of how to take that forward. So yeah, I guess COVID has given me the opportunity to figure things out a little bit and give me that impetus and that opportunity to kind of do it. And now that I’ve launched it, the reaction to what we’re doing has been so overwhelming, so supportive. I’ve been able to, you know, I’ve got so much conviction belief that it itself will work. And then I’ve kind of had that opportunity now over the last three or four weeks to stress test Lawless Studio as a proposition with some of my best contacts who are huge players in the industry. So everyone’s been overwhelmingly supportive, and kind of what I hopped back to a moment ago—brands are looking for these nimble solutions and every time I speak to a brand, we’re looking for a nimble kind of budget friendly solution. So the more I speak to bands, the more I speak to my contacts, the more I’m validated in that I’m doing the right thing. And I think also now I’m starting to do it—I’m starting to kind of live that life as an entrepreneur, entrepreneurship—that the word. There’s a certain satisfaction to it. It’s kind of self fulfilling and self driving. I’m working more hours than I ever have done when working in established roles at brands. But at the same time it almost doesn’t feel like work, if that makes sense. Yeah, it definitely is work but it’s it’s so self-motivating, it’s so self-driving, and there’s so much momentum through kind of what I’m doing that, yeah, sometimes it doesn’t feel like work. I don’t kind of notice it as work. It’s just something I’m so passionate about. But yeah, you’re right, there is risk and uncertainty and that’s something I think about a lot, for sure. Eeryone does, I think at the minute. But yeah, Lawless has such momentum, and it’s evolving so much so quickly. But for now, it’s just an amazing feeling. And it’s just driving me forward.

Carlota Pico 22:28
Very interesting.

Josh Moore 22:29
Does that makes sense?

Carlota Pico 22:30
Definitely! And you mentioned at the beginning of this interview that you started off in advertisement and now have moved into partnership. What’s the difference?

Josh Moore 22:40
I guess advertising in the way I would kind of translate it is that advertising is, I guess, your traditional display advertising when a brand and your employees at a creative agency come up with a visual look and feel of an actual advert which would slot into— not the olden days, but maybe 10 years ago—when I worked at Men’s Health, I was tasked with selling digital display ads, which were the leaderboards of the ??? on Men’s Health. That’s paid advertising. And you know, the front page spreads, double page spread in front of GQ, that’s paid advertising. A brand sends you their creative, their copy, kind of whatever language you want to use, and you run it. Partnerships is different in that there’s more dialogue in the start of the chain, and that there’s a brief from a client, and then you come up with a creative solution that kind of ticks all the boxes of the brief, delivers against their KPIs, you know, a solution that works against the stress points of their business. But it does it in a way that kind of, it’s more connected to the audience of that product. So it’s written in the language of, I guess an advertorial is what we were kind of saying earlier, it’s written in the language of someone who writes content for the Evening Standard. And it’s in partnership with x brand. So it’s created by the media right now.

Carlota Pico 23:55
Okay, excellent, well you set up the stage for my next question. So considering your experience working with influencers, how much freedom should brands give to their influencers?

Josh Moore 24:10
A lot. Yeah, a lot that I mean, if I’m looking at taking a brief from a client right now, and putting that to my artists, I would want to give the artist as much creative freedom as possible. Because that drives authenticity. And that makes it credible, especially in the age of social influencer marketing, when I think that that language in that world of kind of in partnership were with is so prevalent, and people are used to it now in a way that they weren’t how many years ago. So it’s normal for someone to log on to Instagram and who in partnership with and that’s kind of the world that they’re used to now, but it has to be met by the artists. Consumers are more savvy than ever and more tech savvy than ever. They’re more kind of digitally in tune than ever. So I think they will be able to sniff something wrong and tell when it’s inauthentic, not credible. So that’s our kind of point difference—we make sure that when we get a brief, these solutions artists that they’re not, I mean, I obviously oversee all the solutions, and I come up the solutions with a commercial lens to ensure that they sing right for the brand. But they have to be artists-led, otherwise when they go out on the artist channels, it doesn’t shine with the rest of the artists feed and it doesn’t come and look right, and almost that whole reason that you were briefed in the first place falls apart. Yeah.

Carlota Pico 25:34
Okay. So then why go through an agency to do that? Can’t a brand just tap into the influencer themselves? Wouldn’t the agency add extra costs?

Josh Moore 25:43
Yes and no. What we do is we offer multiple artists with different skill sets, I think. And also, it’s a labor cost. A brand could spend a lot of time sourcing the right artists, but I look at kind of sourcing talent as my as my chief role and I know the kind of nuances and differences between each of the artistic skill sets. So one of my artists is really adept at kind of illustration, and can do some really cool AR stuff. But then one of the artists is a bit more, I guess, experiential learning—can do amazing stuff on a wall or a mural. And these differences in artistic talent, are really important to kind of tap into—it adds a layer of strategy to using tattoo or graffiti artists in the first place, and tapping into visual art and visual culture. For the benefit of your brand campaign, there has to be strategy employed, because if you’re just using tattoo and graffiti as a stamp of call on your project, then it will probably get snuffed out quite quickly as being false. But if it’s artist-led, and it’s really in tune with the artists kind of specific style and skill set, then that’s when amazing things can happen, and that’s when it elevates above just a stamp of cool, it validates it to real credible collaboration between brands and artists.

Carlota Pico 26:53
Okay. Okay, Josh, very interesting, which actually leads me into my next question: do you have any marketing hacks for brands that are on a low budget?

Josh Moore 27:06
Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s a hack of such, but I harness the reach and voice of influencers, and look for a specific niche to own, not just graffiti, or tattoo, because self serving to my kind of offering, but look to a niche to own, gain credibility in that niche, by working with the best talent in that niche, and that can be done on low budgets, for sure. I guess another hack, also, which I’m kind of learning about quite a lot at the minute is visual identity. And again, this is a low budget thing: logos, brand colors, fonts—they play such a part in contributing to visual identity. And that makes content stand out. So if you’re using older content, or refreshing or repurposing content for your own channel, get that visual identity, right. And for each platform, refine it for each platform. So LinkedIn is gonna be slightly different for Instagram, obviously. But yeah, that’s low budget, you don’t have to kind of invest in huge teams or kind of huge solutions to do that. It’s getting that kind of visual identity right. And I guess then the next thing is speed and timing. So get the speed, right. If there’s newsworthiness to the content, get it out quick. This is something I learned at Hypebeast—get that content out before anyone else. But there’s a caveat—do it at the right time. If the newsworthiness of the content lands on your kind of on your phone, as it probably does now. And you think, great, I’m going to post that and it’s Friday afternoon—don’t post it. Maybe if it comes out on Saturday afternoon, probably don’t post it—wait to the oportune moment. So speed is really, really important getting that kind of message out before competitors, if that’s kind of what your your kind of thing is, but as long as it doesn’t kind of hinder or add to the detriment of timing. Because obviously, we know that Fridays and Saturday afternoons are not probably the best times to post things. So wait until there’s a more opportune moment, kind of later on earlier on in the week.

Carlota Pico 29:06
Right? Well, life is all about timing anyways, right? So why would a campaign be any different?

Josh Moore 29:12
Yeah, absolutely.

Carlota Pico 29:13
Speaking of campaigns, because you have over 10 years of experience leading campaigns for major brands, could you zoom into a few campaigns that just really stood out?

Josh Moore 29:25
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you’re right. I’ve worked on some huge campaigns with brands like Sky and Adidas. I’ve been lucky enough to work on some—well, not lucky enough, I guess, fortunate in the end to work on some campaigns have won awards. So there was a campaign from a McArthurGlen that we ran in 2016, who are kind of fashion outlet all over the UK, and that won a Newsworks Awards because it was aligned with Fashion Week and it was really quick and agile turnaround. Yeah, I’m really proud that that campaign itself won an award. A campaign that we ran for Adidas this early this year, launched earlier this year at Hypebeast, that has just been put up for an award this week, I think it’s just won an award this week at Berlin kind of festival. So when those campaigns win awards, that’s such a really, it’s a really gratifying thing that work you kind of put in or part of that team making that happen that that came to life and was recognized for it. But my favorite campaign was one that we did for Sky in 2017, for Game of Thrones. So it was the last Game of Thrones series that when that launched, Sky wanted to do just a big stunt, basically a big marketing stunt to land the announcement of Game of Thrones, and it was kind of, it went out on the day that that final series started on Sky. And then there, we were talking about all sorts of ideas. But the main thing that we kind of were landing on, was turning the cover of the Evening Standard into ice—but not actual ice—but you know, looking like ice, right? So we had this idea of a kind of, I guess a see-through cover up, which looked and felt and communicated that kind of icy messaging, “Winter is here” and all that sort of stuff. And in itself, that is just a bit of paper technology. It’s a marketing stunt. And it probably doesn’t sound that sexy, or that kind of developed in terms of a campaign I did. But the reason I find so much satifasction in that, why I think of it as my favorite campaign, is because it came at a time when content was, I guess king, and the Evening Standard was set up to create amazing content for brands. And they wanted to do this paper tech execution but there weren’t really any people in the building that had that expertise anymore, maybe 10 years ago there were, but it came at a time that that sort of execution wasn’t in Vogue, because the Evening Standard prints a million copies a day, the production cost of doing anything like that is huge. So brands have stopped doing that sort of execution. So I had to really lead the research and development of that execution. And I had to just drive it myself. I worked very closely with our head of design, it was essentially just me figuring out whether transparent paper or see through paper over a cover looks good. So I was going over to Sky at head office with bundles of Evening Standard papers and transparent paper that I’ve got from the art shop to show a first mock up that I’d stapled together to see if that if that would work. So it is very kind of very old school in that respect. And then I had to move that conversation forward, I had to convince the business, even the Standard business that this was going to happen, and we should put some investment into having some test shots to test issues printed. So that was obviously another thing that we had to—I had to convince the business to pay for. So, and the campaign hadn’t signed by this point. So there’s a lot, it’s just a lot of back and forth on that should be relatively easy. But then Sky did it, they signed it off. They were there, obviously so happy with the campaign. And then when you…the satisfaction of seeing that paper land kind of in the street and people kind of picking it up…there was a funny moment when I went down to the platform on High Street, Kensington, about to get the tube over to Sky with the first copies of the paper from that day. You know, the furore of the campaign I was, you know, going between place to place to kind of, to align all the marketing things that we had going on. I remember seeing someone reading the paper, looking at the cover wrap, ripping the cover up off, and then just looking back at the paper again. I was kind of sat there thinking, that was months of work. But it just goes to show advertising isn’t for everyone, and at the end of day, it is just advertising and sometimes you can’t please everyone. But that was just a funny kind of way, the guy who had ripped the cover off the paper. But on the whole, the campaign was very well received—the brand loved it. It really landed a perfect time and kind of put me kind of on the map in the company. So yeah, that was my favorite execution—an old school paper tech, print execution. It seems mad, I mean, now going into a world of influences and social first content. The paper tech campaign was my favorite of the last 10 years.

Carlota Pico 33:58
So interesting. Such a great example. I would have picked up that plastic paper and stapled it back like “No, no, hold on. This took me so long!”

Josh Moore 34:05
Give it back to him!

Carlota Pico 34:09
Josh, in your former response you said that back in 2017 content was king. Is content no longer king in 2020?

Josh Moore 34:21
No content is still, king, yeah, for sure. No, I didn’t mean that content isn’t, is no longer king. Content is still king. But I think there are new supporting kings to it. Cadence is really important. The cadence and delivery and frequency of content is now as important as the actual content itself and speed and getting things out… lots of frequency and lots of speed.

Carlota Pico 34:46
Okay, well, I’m gonna throw my final curveball as you before we move in your recommendations.

Josh Moore 34:52
Okay.

Carlota Pico 34:52
Josh, if you could do anything in this world, would it still be marketing?

Josh Moore 34:59
Oh, if I could do anything, I would be on a stage at Glastonbury with a guitar playing to 500,000 people.

Carlota Pico 35:08
Okay.

Josh Moore 35:09
If I could do anything…but you know, such is life. Maybe another life.

Carlota Pico 35:14
Okay, so you go from managing influencers to be one of the influencers yourself.

Josh Moore 35:19
Oh, I’d be the influencer! Yeah, I’d be one of the most famous people on the planet. I mean, if you’re asking me if I would do anything differently, if I had the option, if I had an end goal in sight, lead singer, with the guitar at Glastonbury, headline slot, one of the most famous people in the world. That’s, the only thing I do differently.

Carlota Pico 35:37
I love it. Okay, excellent. Well, now moving into our last set of questions. It’s a rapid fire set of questions. So basically, your recommendations for audience. So my first question would be, who do you admire? Is there a professional role model or an influencer that just really inspires you?

Josh Moore 36:06
Okay, so the first first ones that I’d like to call out might be cheating a little bit, but it’s the artists that I work with. You know, I mean, kind of, you know, one of the tattooist, Jack Watts, at his studio in Sang Bleu, when he’s tattooing and just after a coffee or kind of a little bit of conversation with him. I’ve got 100 ideas of how we can kind of work together and harness his potential for brands. Or similarly I’m catching up with a graffiti artist is doing the mural and again, I’m coming in with so many ideas, just from that short conversation or that short meeting. So the artists that I work with, check them all out, they’re at LawlessStudio.co.uk/agency. They are my inspiration, number one at the minute. But there’s other inspirations. There’s a guy called Mike Winnet, who he’s a bit of a personality, shall we say on LinkedIn? He has a video series called The Contrepreneur, where he calls out kind of big, motivational speakers and pokes holes in their sort of offerings. And he is just genius. He’s brilliant. He’s fantastic. Definitely go and check him out. Benjamin Dennehy he’s a no nonsense sales trainer. He says a lot of things that kind of people possibly don’t like. But he has built an amazing career from basically telling businesses how the sales process should work. But his videos are amazing. He’s really influenced me, so I’d definitely recommend him. A guy called Dan Kelsall and his team at Offended Marketing. They talk really honestly and openly about the way they work with brands. They’re not for everyone. They’re quite, you know, out there and a bit outspoken. But they also really talk openly about male mental health and mental health in kind of media. In an industry that can be quite cutthroat and high pressure. They are really outspoken about supporting men, and generating mental health awareness. So definitely check them out. And also Lastly, a couple of guys are Adam and David who run the Creative Rebels podcasts. They’re great. They…it’s kind of like a motivational podcast, but it’s geared to kind of, I guess, YouTube influencers, people that have almost…basically people that have ditched the 9-5 and have followed their creative passion and all of, each of, their episodes is around, you know, following your creative passion and kind of making business and making kind of a career from it. So yeah, check out the Creative Rebels podcast. They are amazing.

Carlota Pico 38:25
Oh, interesting. I would have to tune into their podcast as well. And Josh, you have a tattoo going on, right, on your arm?

Josh Moore 38:31
Yes, yeah. A few. I’ve got a few. I wouldn’t be—how can I represent artists if I don’t have tattoos myself? This is a guy who I’m just bringing on now a guy called Patryk Hilton. He’s based in Poland. Check him out. He’s got about 70,000 followers on Instagram. He’s got an amazing graphic, a really playful, bright color sort of style to his work. So check him out. Patryk Hilton.

Carlota Pico 38:54
Very cool. Very cool. Okay, what about a book, a group, a publication an event or community that you’d like to recommend?

Josh Moore 39:01
In terms of publication I’ve tried to stay away, I usually I read quite a lot of the news and then listen, yeah, read the Guardian and, and tune into the Independent where I used to work at ESI. But I’ve tried to stay away from news for the last six months or so because the news is generally pretty bad. But a publication I’d really like to call out is a called The Book of Man. So the book of man is essentially a men’s lifestyle digital magazine. It was started by a guy called Martin Robinson and he used to be at Shortlist. So Shortlist closed. It used to be quite a successful magazine handed out here in the UK. Everything around The Book of Man is around male mental health. It’s kind of like an empowering sort of male-focused lifestyle website but with a skew towards kind of mental health and raising awareness on mental health issues. So check out The Book of Man. Love those guys, love everything that they’re doing. In terms of a book, I just had this delivered: Steal Like An Artist. That’s just… I can’t remember the recommendation, I think I found on LinkedIn, but already I’m kind of flicking through. And this will be—not saying that I am an artist, but obviously work with artists—and I try and harness creativity in as many ways as possible. So Steal Like An Artist—haven’t read it yet, but it’s already going to be good. In terms of hashtags, there’s so many hashtags that I don’t even know where to start. on Instagram, my favorite at the minute is #AccidentallyWesAnderson. So basically, any bit of architecture or any kind of place in the world that looks a bit like it should be from a Wes Anderson film: pastel colors, kind of, you know, a lot of places in Jaipur and India look like they could be on the set of Wes Anderson film. So this hashtag, basically, is for people to put up photos of random hotels and kind of random architecture across the world that looks like it could be in a Wes Anderson. And it’s just a really playul caption—hashtag, sorry—that you never would have expected. And yeah, so follow that hashtag. It’s fun!

Carlota Pico 41:02
Okay, excellent. And last, but not least, Josh, what’s your favorite app or tool at the moment?

Josh Moore 41:10
There’s two: LinkedIn—which is really boring, but it’s a really…I think there’s so there’s not enough organic content on LinkedIn. I go on LinkedIn, and then I’m scrolling down and then after a while, there’s post from yesterday, posts from last week. I don’t know it’s the algorithm. I think there’s such a lack of organic content on there. So I try and put slides up around on the studio as much as I can. I put new artists announcements on LinkedIn as much as I can to kind of communicate with with my wider network. So LinkedIn is really valuable. And it’s my probably most used tool at the minute. My other most used app is an app called The Athletic. So that is a it’s a sports app, a sports content. It’s almost like a sports newspaper. But they really invested heavily over about a year or so ago in some of the best football writers on the planet. So there’s so many amazing football writers on that app. And yeah, the content is really good. And someone recommended it to me, like “Have you you’ve tried The Athletic” and I was like “I’ll get around to it.” And then yeah, signed up to it. I think it’s quite small subscription model—a few pounds a month or something. And yeah, the content is amazing. So that is kind of what’s taking my attention right now LinkedIn and The Athletic.

Carlota Pico 42:28
I actually just interviewed their EMEA marketing director! So stay tuned for a podcast with The Athletic very soon!

Josh Moore 42:36
Okay! Wow, how timely.

Carlota Pico 42:38
Okay, Joshua, thank you so much for joining us on The Content Mix. It was awesome to meet you. I can’t wait to see what you do with Lawless Studio. And yeah, let’s keep in contact.

Josh Moore 42:48
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Carlota. And thank you, everyone for listening. Yeah, connect to me on LinkedIn, go and visit LawlessStudio.co.uk/agency. And yeah, looking forward to talking to you guys again!

Carlota Pico 43:00
Me too. And to everybody listening in today, rhank you 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!