Season 2 opens with hosts Lydia Chan and Oliver Atkinson looking back at the biggest lessons from Season 1 - how behavioral science and culture shaped their understanding of why certain stories connect. What began as a response to the AI wave became a deeper exploration into cultural specificity, “audience of one” thinking, and why brands are finally investing in storytellers as they move from traditional marketing into broadcasting.

They revisit insights from guests like Christine Sanders, Dr. Imran Rashid, Richard Shotton, and Dr. Paul Zak, who revealed how oxytocin, dopamine, narrative arcs, and psychographic targeting influence attention and retention. Data and science may help inform the brief, but vulnerability, emotional truth, and trusted creative execution still determine whether a story resonates.

This season levels up with new and deeper conversations on interactive content, brand communities, creativity at scale, and the science behind why stories work. Whether you're building a brand, shaping culture, or simply obsessed with great storytelling, you won’t want to miss what’s coming. Follow and join us as we unpack the craft, the science, and the future of audience connection. 

 

• 02:46 - Companies Are Desperately Seeking Storytellers: Why brands are finally investing heavily in storytelling after 30 years of slow adoption, and how authentic narratives cut through AI-generated noise to build real connections
  
  
• 10:27 - The Reticular Activating System: How our brains filter out everything that's not relevant to us, making targeted content essential and generic mass marketing a waste of money
  
  
• 16:52 - The Intention Economy Over Attention Economy: Moving away from exploitative algorithms designed to keep people hooked with rage, toward content that considers the long-term wellbeing and impact on audiences
  
  
• 23:21 - Oxytocin, Dopamine, and Story Arcs: How traditional narrative structure with transformation triggers chemical responses in the brain that can predict business results with 97% accuracy
  
  
• 36:20 - Creativity Needs Constraints: Why behavioral science and data don't limit creativity but provide boundaries that help it flourish, making the science and art of storytelling work best together

 

Lydia (00:00)

Okay, everyone. Welcome back or welcome to, ⁓ if you're just joining us for season two, ⁓ to the audience connection. Hey, Ollie, how's it going? Happy new year.

 

Olly (00:10)

Hey, yeah, happy new year and ⁓ welcome back. I'm really excited to start rolling out these new episodes. I did my first record this week and ⁓ it was brilliant. So yeah, good to wrap up on what we've learned so far and then hopefully give a bit of a kind of preview of what's to come.

 

Lydia (00:26)

Yeah, I think last year we had so many deep conversations, so many insights that surfaced, right, from our really expert practitioners when it comes to storytelling, but also, you know, our behavioral and neuroscientists, right, really diving deep into the why behind ⁓ the way, you know, the way certain content can connect or can't connect. So I think, ⁓ you know, just having a little bit of a look back on that, right, to sort of see what themes sort of surface, but also, you know, what can we take with us, right, into 2026? Because I think this is going to be crucial year for storytelling.

 

Olly (01:06)

Completely. Yeah. And, you know, I think when we first started talking about interviewing behavior scientists, neuroscientists, and all the kind of, you know, creative leaders that we've spoken to as well, I never realized just how much it would affect how we look at content, how we produce our work. I never realized how deep it would go. So it would be good to review it and run through that. But yeah, as you said, like it's, it's, we're going into a world now where storytelling is, is the hot topic now.

like all brands are looking for them. You know, it's it's out there now like everybody needs to become a storyteller brands need to become broadcasters something we've been talking about for years. And yeah, it's it's kind of it feels quite timely.

 

Lydia (01:48)

Yeah, no, absolutely. So guys, this is a different format for us. So it's just me and Ollie you got today. So hopefully ⁓ you like it and want us to do some more of these in the future. ⁓ So that's a great segue. Ollie, one thing I wanted to really tee up is this Wall Street Journal article that was blowing up my feed. I'm sure it was blowing up yours. ⁓ Like half my network shared it with me and ⁓ it was titled...

Companies are desperately seeking storytellers, right? And it's not surprising because half my network are probably storytellers. ⁓ But I thought it was a really fitting starting point for our conversation. ⁓ Why do you think this is happening? Why now? And why are companies finally realizing, hey, I need to heavily invest in storytellers in my business?

 

Olly (02:46)

Yeah, yeah, you're right. It did. It went all over my feed as well. And I think, I mean, what I really liked about that article as well, is further down in it, it starts to talk about the brands that are doing some really interesting stuff, like putting on sitcoms. And, you know, we've talked about this, as I said a minute ago, like these brands as broadcasters, that's how you own your narrative, essentially. But it's brands, the storytelling is a word like it as a kind of an idea really for brands has been around for a long time. Like I think if I was talking to someone in professional services who very much kind of led on this and she was saying that it was around 30 years ago this started to appear, but it was an incredibly slow adoption. know, people weren't really taking it seriously or didn't really understand it enough. But I think as we've drifted more into this AI first analytical categorized world, it's suddenly become more more essential in how you connect with people. Because if you're not telling an authentic story, you aren't getting through. And the noise has become so great now that you have to do something different and you have to start telling stories. So I'm actually really excited about where it's going to go. But in terms of like, you know, storytelling as an idea that's been around for donkey's years, really.

 

Lydia (04:11)

Yeah. No, think, like you said too, I think there's, there's like big sort of cyclical shifts, right, that occur in business and culture in, you know, generations. And I think we've really been in this space of, you know, data analytics being very direct in the way that we approach work.

 

Olly (04:12)

But yeah.

 

Lydia (04:40)

and to approach people to be honest too, right? And also our consumers as part of that. ⁓ And people realizing that, look, that's the name of the show, right? Like storytelling builds connections, period, right? And you want to be able to be around storytellers, right? I think when we ⁓ share just a little bit of vulnerability, when we share kind of...authentic moments or again, like stories around a particular either outcome or a particular challenge or just even like a point, right? Like if you tell a story around why you're delivering ⁓ a particular statement, that sticks into memory better, right? And it wants and it pulls people in ⁓ and it makes people build some sort of connection with you. And I think, not only, like our company seeking folks to tell stories externally, but I think truly they wanna build a culture of storytelling because that's going to build a better connected organization ⁓ as well as being better connected with your external ⁓ audiences and stakeholders.

 

Olly (05:43)

Yeah, completely. like just when I was prepping for, I'm going to go into series two already, but I've just been ⁓ chatting to this behavior scientist called Will Leach. And he wrote this book called Marketing to Mindstakes. Right. And I was reading that over over Christmas, getting ready to interview him. And just before we hit record, you know, I said, you know what, I love the stories about how you had to carry your bike over the finish line during the Ironman or how, you know, he, when he worked for this chip company, like the bag was so loud, it was almost like breaking glass. And, and actually he said, I had to, my editor had to go back and through and tell me to put those stories in because it was quite dry, academic sort of scientific work. But all those personal, vulnerable stories felt quite uncomfortable for him to add in, but they're all the things I remember about his book. So that's what really sticks. And you're right. That's why we kicked off this podcast in the first place, right? Like AI appeared on the scene.

And we either pretended to be AI experts, which felt a bit uncomfortable considering how fast it was moving, or we get on this kind of research mode and dig into what makes content connect. And that's what we're doing here is sort of figuring out why these messages are landing and why others don't. And yeah, that's how we ended up here, really.

 

Lydia (07:11)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that happens so much with the type of work that we do, right? ⁓ When we look at ⁓ brand and corporate storytelling. mean, how many times do we recommend when we get those, the brief, right? Or it's like, here's the key messages that we want to communicate. it's like, well, where in this space can you actually put in an anecdote of some sort, right? Where you can really put in some kind of you know, scenario, human scenario where people can say, yeah, like I can relate to that. And then the other bits of it, the other actual bullet points will sink in.

 

Olly (07:51)

it'll come through. Yeah. And, and it's like when we take a contributor to a location that evokes an emotion, like, and then talk to them about, it might be, you know, a dry topic, but if you take them out into somewhere that's relevant to them, or evokes emotion in them, you start to get this kind of this different performance from them, really, or more authentic sort of ⁓ an emotional ⁓ delivery. So yeah, through and through, it's, it's, what we need to be doing as brands and as filmmakers as well.

 

Lydia (08:21)

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let's look at some key insights, right? That we saw with just threads, rather, that we found through season one. ⁓ And I think, you know, a good place to start, and we touched upon it a little bit, is audience connection, right? Or specifically the audience. So I would love to have a look at, you know, ⁓ some of those principles behind making sure that you guys as content creators, ⁓ as folks, you know, again, trying to connect deeply with your audience, really prioritizing highly targeted content with cultural specificity. Right. ⁓ And, you know, a lot of the guests that we've had on the show, you know, specifically, ⁓ Christine Sanders, ⁓ who, you know, really spearheaded BuzzFeed's, ⁓ you know, cultural identity channels, right. like really talking about, how do we get down to understanding who the audience is and what they can actually relate to, right? And not necessarily come off as fake too, right? And I think that is so easy for any of us to do, right? To have these like stereotypes in our minds and then we produce content that would be off putting to these specific audiences. And then the other side of it is seeing brands and organizations always creating content for the masses still. We know actually we need to really focus on exactly who you're trying to speak to. Is it ⁓ young professionals who feel like they are behind their peers? That is quite specific.

 

Lydia (10:14)

Right? But if you can imagine, if you're one of those individuals and someone created content with you in mind, that's going to connect more to you than, we're going to create content for young professionals.

 

Olly (10:27)

Completely. that, you know, Christopher Demetrakos was talking about the neuroscientist who's based out in Japan. He was talking about this reticular activating system in your brain. And it basically filters out everything that is not relevant to you. And so if you are just throwing content out there, you're wasting your money by doing that. And you should be more targeted. You should be focusing on where's the, there is the cultural hook. How do we speak to our people to get, to get this message across? Because if you don't make it connect to the get through this kind of internal ad blocker in your head, it's not going to be remembered. It's just filtered and thrown away. So yeah, it's really important. And I think another thing that comes up for me when you talk about that is Dr. Imran Rashid. And that was a bit different to some of the sort of neuroscientists and behavior scientists. He really is focusing on the kind of the wellbeing of people when you're thinking about content. And he talks about, you know, the attention economy has been quite exploitative in a way like, you know, you've got algorithms that are trying to keep people hooked with rage ⁓ and keeping people engaged like that. And, and actually we're moving now into this intention economy where people need to take responsibility for the long-term impact of their products and their outputs and what they're putting out into the world on the human and the wellbeing of the people at the end of it. Right. So I think hopefully we're moving into a sort of world where content will be more considered rather than less.

 

Lydia (11:56)

Yeah. You would hope so though, right? you know, the pessimism in me, it's sort of like, that's kind of the dream state, right? Where, ⁓ you know, organizations, like these huge brands who are like billion dollar companies, right? Actually want to have a positive ⁓ influence on people and then future generations.

 

Olly (11:58)

Fingers crossed, yeah. I agree. I do agree.

I am maybe a bit more hopeful than that because you can see that the bands on social media for young people coming in and just generally feel like there are more controls coming into play, which will help with that. But and also this this idea of AI slop really like everybody is so overwhelmed that I think eventually you get this saturation and actually you do seek out novelty or something different. So I'm hoping there'll be a change.

 

Lydia (12:48)

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's many directions we can go here with what you just said. I'd love to, you know, talk about obviously AI and AI Slop, but also just this like idea of needing to differentiate. And that actually changes over time. ⁓ because we see, you know, once, once like the cool kid does something, then everyone does that.

And then actually then it all becomes the same and you have to differentiate again, right? But let's on that a little bit later. Um, let's talk about like AI and AI slop, right? And I think just generally the, where that, where that takes my mind to is also just the need for more and more content. And I think, I think we need to be again, more focused on.

 

Lydia (13:41)

what exactly that volume of content is and ⁓ being able to create content at scale that is very specific. And I think that's like the biggest challenge for ⁓ whether that's like agencies or ⁓ in-house agencies, right? I recently came across this ⁓ survey of in-house agency leaders, right? I think one of the challenges that they face is the sheer volume of content that they have to produce. And I think that's kind of maybe where the pressure on utilizing AI comes in. ⁓ but you're getting sometimes AI slop. So, you know.

 

Olly (14:21)

completely. And it takes ages to get something that's decent with AI. It's changing, obviously, you can produce things much faster now. But again, I fall back on Christopher Demetrakos' session there, because, you know, he would argue that the reason everybody is chasing the volume is because we're in this Gentoo marketing, where we're looking at clicks and likes, and we're driven by these large tech companies, know, meta. coming out with their infinite ads where it's like, don't need an agency anymore. We're just going to pump ads into, you know, the right people's in front of the right people on Instagram and you're, just going to buy your, your products. There's no need to kind of worry about ad agencies anymore. But again, I think when, when you actually focus on something that's relevant, if we go back to the idea of the reticular activating system, filter everything out, it really doesn't matter how much you produce the volume should actually come down and you should start to produce something that is targeting someone's personality or their mindset or, you know, it's starting to work on this more psychological idea to target people in that way. And that doesn't need to, you know, that sounds quite manipulative to just say out like that, you know, target people's psychology, but it can be a really beneficial thing, right? Like if you're trying to employ wellbeing in the workplace, or if you're trying to recruit the right person, you can use personality traits, you can use these, ⁓ these neuro and behavioral science tricks essentially to find the right people for your organization or communicate to people more effectively.

 

Lydia (15:53)

Yeah, yeah, I actually, mean, I would say, and I agree with all that. I do think actually we want more content, right? But ⁓ very, each content should be so different and focused on, you know, like, like we say on the show, like the audience of one, right? And I, you know, that's the nut to crack here is how do organizations create this ⁓ very bespoke high volume level of content without

 

Olly (16:11)

Yep.

 

Lydia (16:22)

you know, blowing the budget, Cause at the end of the day, it's all a budget conversation. but I definitely would love to see a world where, there's huge investment in understanding of, you know, the, the people that you're trying to talk to and, an organization can potentially want to talk to like a hundred, you know, different segmented groups of people and segmented, like you said, based on like psychographic traits, right? ⁓ you know, could be like moms who have a problem about X, right? And that X can be Y or can be Z or whatever, right? So that means that in itself, it's like you're targeting moms, but you're targeting them with, ⁓ or rather different groups with 10 different pieces of content because they have problems with different things.

 

Olly (17:14)

Yes, yeah, and that's why you end up with these kind of clusters, these personality clusters, and you target people with different sorts of content. And I do agree with you in a way, like you do need more content, I think you need more considered content. in a sense, you're just scaling back, you're not just throwing everything out there, you're planning it out, you're doing something that hits that cluster, you can then start to do something maybe a sitcom or do some more authentic documentaries or whatever, you're gonna start to come up with these really kind of creative ideas. And that's the really exciting thing I think is that AI from when we went into this, was seriously kind of concerned that AI was going to sort of destroy us. coming out of this year, I've actually feel really hopeful is that it's sort of getting rid of the noise in a way. It's so oversaturated now that actually the brands that are able to become authentic produce work that is really differentiated.

 

Lydia (17:58)

Ha

 

Olly (18:14)

they're the ones that are gonna really kind of like stand out in this really messy ocean of content.

 

Lydia (18:20)

Yeah, no, no, totally agree, right? Because if the, when you're looking out, it's like the sea of whatever sameness and it will be so easy just to stick a sore thumb out and be like, yes, that is very differentiated. ⁓ I did want to, I want to jump to, because we talked, we talked about, ⁓ again, cultural specificity, right? And like creating these

 

Lydia (18:49)

⁓ psychographic profiles, so these audience groups, if you will. And now let's talk about actually how to create content that is relevant to them, right? So we're talking about now the people doing the work, the storytellers, right? And it makes me think about, you know, conversation I had with Eternal Polk, who is a film director, and he...

 

Olly (18:53)

Yeah.

 

Lydia (19:16)

you know, was he, he says that it's extremely important that you are deep in culture, right? And that you're, you're literally like walking the walk, talking the talk with the same group of people, right? Cause this, all these models or these studies can kind of, ⁓ statistically spit out these, these like profile groups for us, right? But if I'm not part of that profile group, how am I going to actually deeply understand what connects with these individuals and then go ahead and directorially, creatively produce that content? How do you think about that, right? Because as filmmakers, we have certain passions ⁓ and some of us are generalists, but I think it takes really kind of being deeply embedded in certain subject matters and certain people to actually find that deep truth, if you will, of like, yeah, what the story is there.

 

Olly (20:17)

Yeah, I agree. I think it's it there is time is always an issue in our work, isn't it? Like, you know, you're often sort of rushing to get things done. And so I would love to have more opportunity to get over the other side of the table with the client, sit down and start to do that research and really understand the culture and the audience more deeply before we head into production. I'd say that from our side, but I think you if you talk to some of the neuroscientists, they would be like, well, you just profile it and you do this and you know, use this, these platforms and you profile it you go that way. But I think from, you know, the conversation I had with Nikki Russell, ⁓ she was saying, she was brilliant. She was saying that the, you know, creative ops and this kind of, that's the hidden driver behind creativity. And you need to kind of really understand again, it's about vulnerability, you need to be able to be vulnerable and speak to people and, and just be very open. But I think, know, what eternal saying there about being embedded in the culture, I think is right. And I think from our side, it's about getting the crew in when you're producing that, right? Like you need the right director, you need someone who who is when you're speaking to them, you're like, okay, this, feels like a good fitBecause you just roll out the same old old people every time you you're gonna get similar stuff back

 

Lydia (21:42)

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. feel like I want to also touch on, you know, story arc, right? ⁓ And, you know, this whole idea of, and maybe you can pepper in the why, right? Or the maybe, you know, neurochemicals that occur when we look at stories in certain structures, right? So when we look at, say, ⁓

 

Olly (21:52)

Yeah, yeah. I've got those neurochemicals right here with me. I'll be ready to pepper them in. ⁓

 

Lydia (22:11)

Yeah, yeah. Get them ready. know, I mean, we talked to like Brad Argent from Ancestry. We talked to, know, Samantha Charlotte, also, you know, screenwriter, creative director. And they talk about, you know, transformation stories, right? They talk about, ⁓ you know, change has to occur, right, within the story that you're trying to tell. A hero's journey, if you will. Right. So, you know, how do we like apply these story arcs, but also like why, right? Like what is happening in our brains neurologically when we're exposed to this type of storytelling.

 

Olly (22:52)

Yeah, completely. that there's, when you say there's no change, there's no story that's that's bang on really. And that is, is where the you know, what Paul's act would say is that's the narrative arc is the most successful and effective way to sustain this, this idea of immersion. he, he, go back and listen to the episode. It's quite, you know, there's quite a lot to unpack here, but you know, he basically found that oxytocin and dopamine is released in the brain when you are truly invested in a story. And we are effectively like cognitive misers, right? So we are making 35,000 decisions every day. So our brain is overloaded when making these decisions. And so we need something that's going to get through the reticular activating system and really start to kind of ⁓ speak to that person. Because once you've got through that reticular activating system, you're in, you've kind of essentially burnt a neural channel into someone's mind, which is again, sounds terrifying, but it's actually, you know, a way you're building this real state of your brand in somebody's mind and then you could the other stuff you send over will be well received. but yeah, Paul says that, you know, this oxytocin and dopamine, once you're in that state, you can actually predict a business results off the back of it. Right. And, and, and some of the studies they did were incredible. Like the one that really stood out for me was, with a music company, ⁓ where they

 

Lydia (24:10)

Mm.

 

Olly (24:21)

listen to unreleased clips of music three months in advance and if there was a spike of this immersion so when they could measure this metric there there was they could predict a hit with 97 % accuracy three months in advance now the interesting thing is if you think about the sort of self-report what people thought was going to be a hit there was zero they could predict nothing

So once the actual kind of decision bubbles up through our cognitive layer cake, and we say, actually, I like this and I like this, I like this, it's completely unreliable. And so you either need to be a really good, um, you need to run a survey really well and look for the kind of behavior rather than what people are saying. Or you go back to this neurological way of working and start to kind of really look at sort of, you know, what, what chemicals are being released at that time. But what, what I really liked about it as well as it goes back to this idea that

It's a traditional story arc. know, it's, it's really strong characters. it's, it's a kind of a challenge. get disrupted in some way and, then there's a resolution and they overcome their adversity. That is, is peak immersion. It's perfect. Right. So keep going with that. And, again, like I think in the behavior science stuff, Richard Shotson talks about chunking and like putting things into episode, really clear episodes. And again, this is stuff we've known as filmmakers for a long time and I love all this stuff because it essentially like gives us the most bulletproof why it works because it's grounded in science. So, ⁓

 

Lydia (25:50)

Yeah. It's like reaffirming what we've always known, but it's like, see, this is why.

 

Olly (25:55)

I know, finally. Yeah, look, these guys, these guys have been taking 10,000 blood draws and they realized that a narrative works. so yeah, it's really, it's really exciting. But I think it's, ⁓ it's, I think it's a bit of a jump for people to make this, this whole idea of measuring and the idea of, know, 95, 99 % of our decisions are made beneath awareness. The idea of targeting the subconscious is quite a leap.

 

Lydia (26:03)

Yeah.

 

Olly (26:23)

what I've realized, clients are finding it quite hard to sort go there. But I think once clients do, then it'll be really effective. that narrative structure and clarity is really important, yeah.

 

Lydia (26:37)

Yeah, I think also especially in, ⁓ you know, customer stories, right? Or, ⁓ you know, when you look at just people's stories in general, whether that's employee stories, I think really trusting in that narrative arc is going to make your content super successful. mean, you know, I think about the work that we did with GoDaddy, ⁓ you know, for, I think roughly five years. And we had, you know, Jillian Johnson on this show ⁓ and what I loved about that project was being able to talk to everyday individuals who are running their own businesses, right? And really took that leap, right? From the corporate life to pursuing their passion. And for a large organization to say like, hey, I'm going to invest in these stories and I'm going to invest in actually like a high volume of them because we know that as long as one of those 300 stories that were created connected with you, then that creates that brand connection, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean that actually all, whatever, let's say 300 of them needed to have a million views each is whether one of them had the impact it needed to have with the customer it needed to have the impact with.

 

Olly (27:58)

Completely. there's that that again, that's the idea of resonance and relevance and that really connecting in someone's mind. And then I think the other side to it is Richard shot and talked about mirror exposure. So, you know, the more we see but David Parkinson also said, you know, it's about familiarity. It doesn't breed contempt. It actually, you know, people get comfortable when they see something again and again. So if you think about the GoDaddy stories, you've got them being released on a cadence through the year. And suddenly you've got a story that's really relevant to you, but because you're constantly seeing it come in your feed, you're actually becoming quite kind of comfortable with the brand.

and you're more receptive to it. So I think there's still a place where, you know, producing quite a high volume of these stories is a really good idea. But yeah, I think, and again, like, you know, Orlando Wood talked very much about this idea of in advertising this left and right brain, you know, concept and in the right brain is where we process metaphor, emotion, and these human feelings. And that's in itself like,

 

Lydia (28:37)

Yeah.

 

Olly (29:02)

you know, a story about somebody or the, you know, going into these organizations and creating a really strong narrative about this all very right brain that's going to stick in the memory. Whereas if you're going into dry facts and figures, it's, it's, again, it's going to be kind of got, it's going to be there for a little while, but then it's, it's, it's short term, really.

 

Lydia (29:21)

Yeah, yeah. Definitely something that we're going to continue to push, ⁓ you know, clients to do more of, or again, just the industry in general, right? I think a big part of this show is, it is really more about creating industry shifts too, you know, in the way that we think about how we tell stories and why. ⁓ and again, you know, focusing on who we're trying to speak to as well so that we're not just, ⁓ saying the same thing to everyone's talking about the neuroscience, ⁓ and behavior science aspect of things and connecting that to story arc, et cetera. ⁓ when I was prepping for this, this chat, Ollie, ⁓ what I did was I, I put all our episode transcripts into notebook LM. And if you guys are not.

you know, if you guys don't know about notebook LM, it's a really great tool, really great AI tool for research, et cetera. So I put all our episodes in there and there's this function ⁓ of like creating a conversation, a podcast essentially about the content. Yeah, so what I did was I said, okay, give me a ⁓ debate between ⁓ essentially, you know,

 

Olly (30:31)

Yeah, I've heard those two, cheeky chappies.

 

Lydia (30:44)

Ollie's guests and Ollie's views versus Lydia's guests and the way that they kind of approach the application of storytelling. And what's funny was what came out of it is, I guess what Notebook LM decided to do with your content is to sort of say, is essentially like data. It's essentially using data to tell stories right, in a way. So it's like, it's this whole science or data versus art of storytelling.

 

Olly (31:15)

Mmm.

interesting.

 

Lydia (31:24)

Go.

 

Olly (31:26)

I disagree with notebook LM on that front because I think it's again, you know, saying before, like I think these are created, these are backing up decisions we've made for years as filmmakers and creative decisions. Now there is, I know there's a sort of an argument that if you go down this sort of neuroscience or behavior science route, then you are sort of clipping your creative wings effectively. So you're creating content using data and what will kind of penetrate. But I disagree with that. I think what it does is it gives you boundaries. think and I think in within a kind of boundary process, creativity can flourish. It's not, it's not changing the way we're coming up with our creative, you we've recently done a pitch with Richard Chotton as a kind of behavior science consultant and the creative was very separate to that. But then we could see that things like social proof and you know, all these different elements, these behavior science nudges could be threaded through the creative work. I still think there's an opportunity to be really creative with this stuff and more creative, I would hope.

But I don't know, think data versus art is a fantastic sort of talking point. We've done some very small kind of round tables with that topic exactly. So yeah, it'd good to hear your take on it as well.

 

Lydia (32:54)

Yeah, I mean, to be fair, as the prompter, I created the need for the battle. But for me, what I realized through our conversations, as well as through, again, our practical sort of knowledge and experience around creating content for over 20 years, 20 year anniversary, guys, for Casual this year.

 

Olly (33:02)

Yeah, yeah. we're starting to feel old.

 

Lydia (33:24)

Yeah. But for me, it's not versus, right? It's a, it's and, right? It's a togetherness. you, I think the science and the data helps inform, ⁓ like you said, the inputs to the creative, but then you have to let the creative flourish from there, right? ⁓ Because also at the end of the day, it's all about application.

 

Olly (33:32)

Hmm.

 

Lydia (33:54)

Right? Like we can understand again, all these, ⁓ psychographic groups, like, what, you know, what will, ⁓ bypass their, their RAS, right? You know, we can have that all written on paper, but in actuality, ⁓ what's beautiful about filmmaking is that if you received that brief, Olly, you would create a very different film than I would. Right?

⁓ so that's, I think that is the beauty of, and again, a lot of, ⁓ our contributors mentioned this, but it's, it's trusting your, your creatives, right? It's really, ⁓ when you're, you know, from the brand side is relinquishing some of that control, right. And really trusting in the, people who understand how to do this dance, right. To understand how to create this magic. ⁓ and I think, you know, the magic of it all shouldn't be underrated to, right? You know, people, kids, adults, like we all love some little bit of a magical, you know, moment in things. Otherwise, then it just feels very cold, you know?

 

Olly (34:54)

Yeah. Yeah. Completely. I, yeah. And like, I, I, again, when I've spoken to kind of clients who are fairly new to filmmaking, I'm always saying, I really trust your gut of what you like and dislike, because I think you can get so tied up in, in data. And I think there's, ⁓ you know, the real, what I talking about with Sabrina Godden when, when she was on like, you know, the goosebumps tests, like if it's giving you goosebumps, you get a physiological response to something when it's actually touching you. so I think, I think we've drifted into this data driven world through the big tech companies using data science to really target and tell us what's good and what's not. I think, I don't think it's been pushing us in the right direction. And what I'm quite confident with is when you look at more of this psychological application, you're starting to get back towards what's more human, what's actually connecting, why, why are you speaking to that person and what's relevant to them?

So think we're actually, by drifting more towards the type of work that we're talking about here, you're actually moving away from this focus on data, but you're using the psychological element of it to really make sure you're connecting with the right audience. And then the creativity flourishes from there,

 

Lydia (36:20)

Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like, like you said, mean, you know, creativity needs constraints. Like we, need to, you know, understand, ⁓ where it's going, what are we trying to do with it? Right. Like, ⁓ what are we trying to make people feel, ⁓ or do, ⁓ and without those things, then yeah, it's just kind of a free for all. And then you just get this like disoriented output.

 

Lydia (36:51)

I don't know, what do you think? Did we touch on everything we wanted to touch on? Should we end there and set some expectations for season two?

 

Olly (37:01)

Yeah, I think so. You know, firstly, thank you to all the amazing guests that took took a punt on coming on to the first season of the show. we're really pleased of how how it's performed over this first year. So it's really exciting to see the guests we've got lined up for season two. You know, I'm going to be speaking to some more behavior scientists. There are some professors in interactive content, which is something I was really interested in a few years ago, really, really interested in interactive content and how you actually crack that nut and why it works. so we've got a professor from I can't remember the university she's at, but one of the big London ones, UCL, think. And she focuses on interactivity and how you use that to really kind of speak to your audience. So there's going to be things on interactivity, again, culture. how you find that fan base and what you can do with those groups once you've found that tribe. And yeah, hopefully more neuroscience and more understanding the kind of psychology behind audience connection from my side. How about yourself, Lids?

 

Lydia (38:11)

Yeah, I I'm looking forward to continuing to have deeper conversations with practitioners who are really, again, at the forefront of applying these principles of bringing these briefs to life ⁓ and really learning from them and exploring how, or rather how big of an impact this is having on their organization. Because that also is always The sticking point too is how do we measure that impact and are we having an impact to these large brands as storytellers, as creative operation groups, ⁓ et cetera. So I'm really looking forward to learning more, right? for us ⁓ connecting the two, right? And really helping ⁓ our audience, you guys listening, to just create better content and also enjoy doing it too, to find that passion again of like, hey, actually, this is what I love doing and this is my POV that I'm gonna apply to my storytelling ⁓ and really just have fun with it.

 

Olly (39:23)

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, it's gonna be interesting to see how it all unfolds. Obviously, AI is gonna continue steamrolling ahead and transforming into whatever it goes into. So it's gonna it's gonna be interesting how how the whole landscape changes over the next year. But yeah, I think we should do this more often. I think we should, you know, have these conversations and unpack what we've been speaking, you know, to these guests around and seeing how our listeners can apply. I think that's a good idea.

 

Lydia (39:49)

Yeah, well, stay tuned for more of those guys of me and Ali kind of riffing along. ⁓ Yeah. Well, thank you for, ⁓ you know, ⁓ listening to another episode of Audience Connection. ⁓ And if you enjoy us, if you want to leave us a comment ⁓ and just let us know how we're doing, you know, definitely reach out to Ali and I. love to connect with you all ⁓ and

 

Olly (39:55)

I'm rabbiting on.

 

Lydia (40:17)

Again, stay tuned. There's just so many great conversations ahead. We've already got few episodes in the bank. So, you know, we're really excited to share those with you guys. Thank you, Ollie.

 

Olly (40:30)

All right. Speak soon.