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Robert Berkeley  0:02  

Hello and welcome one and all to our next episode of Inside Jobs supported by the leading trade organisation for In House Agencies IHAF and, who support In House Agencies with their production expertise. I am extremely excited to tell you that I am at the world famous Fruit Towers in London. And I'm here to meet a particularly fascinating creative leader, one who is a little out of the ordinary, but according to our guest today, and you might want to correct me on this Carol 3% of creative directors are female. Yes, that's correct. And Carol is one of them, who has actually risen through the creative ranks to become the leader of the creative team here at innocent drinks. It's a subsidiary of Coca Cola based in the UK. And here in UK are a household name with a very identifiable brand and voice. I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you, Carol about how you rose to lead this team and where you're planning to take it. So welcome to InsideJobs.

 

Carol Feeley  1:04  

Thank you very much excited to be here.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:06  

Let's start with you, Carol. Tell us a little bit about what you do, your role and a bit about innocent drinks as well. 

 

Carol Feeley  1:14  

Sure. So I'm Carol, I've been innocent for about three years. I'm the creative director of a team of about 23, soon to be 24 Hopefully. And that's a team made up of copywriters, designers. We've got strategist and we've got Creative Ops team. And that's based here in London in the office. And then we've got a couple of people across in Europe as well for the kind of dark market and then kind of the French plus market as well. The dark market! Dark markets. That's a you put me on the spot now. So that's Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And then yeah, the French plus market includes kind of Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands as well. So I've got two people who sit in my team from those regions. And then yeah, our team is all about kind of making marketing that doesn't feel like marketing. That's literally our team manifesto.

 

Robert Berkeley  2:04  

I can tell you as a UK resident, it really works as well. It's so you have such a such a well known voice and look and feel and I recommend anyone just Google if you're not familiar with the brand, Google it, and you'll see what I mean. So that's your role now that obviously you haven't done this all your life. Yeah. So let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from? What kind of background? What kind of environment Did you grow up in?

 

Carol Feeley  2:26  

So I'm from a tiny little village called Corbridge in Northumberland, which is near Newcastle. It's in the Northeast of England. So lots of rain, lots of cold weather. And I grew up there with three sisters and my mum and my dad, and spent most of my time kind of in my wellies about in nature. So that part of me hasn't really changed. And went to school, kind of the only thing I was good at was design was pretty average or below average in pretty much everything else. So I think unlike some of the other people that you've interviewed, who didn't quite know what their path was, I was designed focused. I wanted to be a Creative Director. That was it, you know, you from

 

Robert Berkeley  3:06  

So you form a particularly creative family. 

Carol Feeley  3:09  

And so my mom was a secretary, my dad was a builder. So I would say like not traditionally, but actually being a builder. My dad ran his own business, like, like he is a very creative man. And my eldest sister, she's extremely creative. She's got her own kind of creative agency trend forecasting. And then I have… 

Robert Berkeley  3:26  

another plug for your sister's agency.

 

Carol Feeley  3:29  

I didn't name it. And then my other sisters, one's a planner, and is very much not a creative, but she won't mind me saying that. But in the business. Yeah. And the other one's teacher, and very creative. And actually, I rang her quite a lot to kind of ask for advice or tips or test ideas like does this make sense? You've got a great support network there iin family. It's great. Yeah, very, very fortunate.

 

Robert Berkeley  3:51  

But you knew you were sketching you were drawing or making things and what was you are making things…

 

Carol Feeley  3:55  

making things. And…andalso, hilariously, I only realised this recently delegating creativity from a very young age. So I was a horrible child, up until probably six or seven really, like horrendous temper tantrums. I think the most used phrase by my parents was like, like, Jenny, just give it to her. So it's like Jenny's my sister, poor sister. But it basically whatever I wanted, I got because I was just this enraged red child. And so I almost learned quite quickly without knowing it, that I could just do what I wanted if I was kicking off, which is terrible waste management style today, as well. Fortunately, I've learned.

 

Robert Berkeley  4:32  

Okay, okay. So you knew you wanted to be well, I don't know if you knew you want to be a creative director at seven because I'm sure you didn't know such things existed. Did you know probably not a seven on reading and curious about the whole world of design at that point? 

Carol Feeley  4:45  

Yeah. And I guess having an older sister who was older as well, yeah. 10 years older, and she was studying fashion at Uni in London, which just seemed like the coolest thing ever to me, and I did work experience with her when she worked at top man. When I was 15 for two Because I came down to London, and you know, everyone else in my class was doing work experience for estate agents or kind of things up north smaller things. And I was like, I'm gonna go to London and speak to the sister and, and I love the environment. I loved seeing people sketching and collaborating with each other. And I probably didn't pinpoint it at the time. But just in that environment, I was like this. This is what I want to be doing. I want to be part of some sort of creative team.

 

Robert Berkeley  5:22  

Right, right. Okay. So how did that then manifest itself in your education and your early job?

 

Carol Feeley  5:29  

So? Yeah, as I said, at school, I was only really good at one thing, I had a really fantastic graphic design teacher, but he actually said despite, like being a straight a student, he said, Oh, you'd make a great account manager. And I was like, Well, I don't even know what an account manager is. But it doesn't sound like a designer. And I, I would love to know now if that was actually because I was female. And actually, it just wasn't a thing for kind of women to go off and be creative directors or lead design teams

 

Robert Berkeley  5:59  

So that would be your best. Yeah. Yeah, So you wanna come back to that later on…Yeah..I want to explore that a bit more. You ignored him anyway, 

Carol Feeley  6:06  

Ignored him anyway.went to uni. And then graduated from University of Arts in Epsom, and moved back up north. A lot of my friends stayed in London, and went back up north be with friends and family. And I got my first job in an art shop, because I had to pay the bills. Yeah. And I worked there for about nine months fantastic art shop in Newcastle, but obviously not kind of the job I wanted to do. But the holiday that I had, I would do any work experience I could with local agencies, anyone who came into the shop, who looked like they ran an agency, I used to check their credit cards, like an absolute stalker, I check the name. And if they had a business name on there, I'd be like, Oh, I see you work for blah, blah, blah. That's interesting. You know, how's it going there? What project are you working on? Just get into that conversation? And I used to sometimes wangle myself work experience, just from those conversations. Sometimes people would be like, You're a weirdo. Or you're a hustler. Yeah, you have to be so competitive. And part

 

Robert Berkeley  7:09  

And it is not the part of the world you associate it with, you know, huge amounts of, you know, all the creative industry. Should we say? 

Carol Feeley  7:14  

Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, and there was loads of graphic design graduates, like, Who wouldn't want to do that job. It's a great job coming up with ideas every day. So I did that for a bit. And then I went to work for a small local newspaper. For I think it's just under a year, which was a, you know, like, pretty hilarious. Looking back. I mean, I was just full of ideas and creativity, and they were like, make this ad for caravans. So I'll be I'm gonna be the best I'd ever caravans. And they just wouldn't approve extra, like, what is this? But I learned some important lessons around time management and how you Yeah, we're managing workloads in

 

Robert Berkeley  7:53  

the newspaper, you're under exactly every day. 

Carol Feeley  7:58  

Yeah. and then I left there to freelance for a bit. And actually one of the clients, one of the agencies that I freelance for said, We'd like we've got an open roll. Do you want to? Do you want to work with us? So the half thing paid off, right. Yeah. And I was like, great. Yeah. You know, this agency looked like the dream. They worked at Disney. They had a contract with Disney Disney Parks globally.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:18  

How did they have that? Again, you know, for for listeners who are not familiar with the UK, a small agency operating out of the Northeast of England is not what you would imagine would be able to have the kind of reach to work for these clients. So what did they have? That was special

 

Carol Feeley  8:33  

Illustration skills, specifically? So trying to find particularly for for someone like Disney, obviously, Watson's character, yeah, licence character characters to find people who can illustrate in that way is absolute gold dust, it's really hard. And the MD of that agency, had worked somewhere else in the past and kind of build up a network of clients. And yeah, found found a niche in being able to do mainly illustration, as well as a couple of other clients along the way. And I guess when I started there, you know, Junior, midweight designer, super eager, I was like, Oh, great. I'm gonna get to work on like, these Disney projects, and we're going to do all this cool stuff. And the reality was, in my first few weeks, I was literally, photoshopping tattoos and stretch marks off wrestlers for a pack of Top Trumps. Like that. Was it collector's car? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, but I was like, this is cool, because I've got a role to play in creating some top temps are Top Trumps, and they will be on shelf. Very famous in the UK as well. Yeah. So and then that laid on two different types of Top Trumps. And then, you know, I got a bit of trust behind me. And then I got to work. I got to lead all of those projects, and I got to manage that client. So that was great. Because then you got to work on monopoly or different things against me was Yeah. So and I ended up with it. great relationship with that client got on really well with them. And, you know, quite enjoyed doing that. But I got, I got bored, basically, you know, it was great doing that stuff. But we got more designers in the team who were juniors, and they could take on that work because I was like, we're at what's next for me. So, I must have been about three or four years in, and I hadn't been noticing. For the first time. I was serious about it. I was like, I'm gonna go in freelance didn't know where you're going, Okay, you're gonna freelance. I was gonna freelance. And they convinced me to stay. Because I was like, you know, if I stay, I want more responsibility. I want to work with different clients. So I stayed, and I got to work with Disney, Nickelodeon, you know, worked with MTV, really cool projects, and that I was like, This is what I want to be doing. And this is

 

Robert Berkeley  10:47  

Then you resigning that got them to realise your potential they were going to lose. Yeah. So they, they realised they could give you this responsibility to work with these these super clients. 

Carol Feeley  10:56  

Yeah. And then, a couple of years later, I was kind of getting bored again. So I handed my notice in again, serious again. And I just say now, I really don't recommend this approach at all. It's definitely one of the things not to do. But it's really resigning. Yeah, you know, you can only do it if you really, if you really mean it. And I did. I did mean it. And then yeah, I stayed again.Either they keep you again,or sacked. So that was more about that was when I was like creative director. By the time I'm 30. I was obsessed with it. absolutely obsessed with it, because I didn't know anyone else who'd done it. And I have, you know, this sounds This is embarrassing to admit, but I liked the sound of it. I was like, it's cool job title. So they were like, Yep, sure, I was like, I want to be more involved with the business. So I want to be, instead of getting assets, to make style guides, I want to be doing those assets, I want to be involved with the strategy of style guide, I want to I want to be involved with the idea of collaborating with all these teams. So we used to support a lot of in house teams across kind of Nickelodeon and Disney, I was like, I want to be more collaborative with them and work more directly with the clients. I also want to go out and get new business like I didn't know the we had a great team, and a load of really talented freelancers, as I know that we could be doing more. So they were like, yeah, great crack on and do it. Yeah. And so I was still designing, trying to run the studio. And then I was going to kind of loads a trade shows meeting new clients trying to try to try and get new work. And it was in London pretty much every week, speaking to new clients. And not surprisingly, that became absolutely exhausting. And it was late nights, weekends, you know, standard agency kind of life. And it was a lot of it. I'd say it's like 50-50 agency life, but it's in me like to do that, you know, I fall into that trap regularly. ambitious, and I like being involved with lots of different things. That's where I get my energy until, until I have no energy left. So ten years in, I quit, I was like, I'm pretty much done. I'm tired. I'm not getting the energy out of the work I'm doing anymore. And I guess it was people refer to it as like a quarter life crisis now of like, what's my purpose? Like, what am I doing? And actually, I love leading a team and I love being creative. But could I be doing this for a more purpose led brand? So I left? And then we finally handed in my notice.

 

Robert Berkeley  13:23  

And we finally accepted that

 

Carol Feeley  13:25  

. And then I went to Bali for about six weeks, like proper cliche. Went there, found myself… kind of Yeah, I think you always get perspective on holiday. 

Robert Berkeley  13:45  

And normally gets rubbed off pretty quickly. When you get back.

Carol Feeley  13:46  

 It really does. I think it lasts for about four days. But the the amazing thing was going there and not worrying about work. I had nothing to come back to which was a bit terrifying. It certainly had moments of really being quite scared about that. But I'd applied for innocent just before I left and didn't. I didn't think much of

 

Robert Berkeley  14:07  

it just applied because they were just one place you thought would be quite cool to work for.

 

Carol Feeley  14:11  

Yeah, so actually, an important part that I left out was that about 16-17 years ago, when I was at uni, I wrote an email to innocent to say, can I come and do some work experience with you? And they said no, they were like, Oh, we don't like we're really sorry, but we don't accept people work experience. And I was like, I reckon they probably would if I turn up at the office. So there's me and five of those from uni who were in little creative team together. We turned up with a cake and we were like, please check care. Okay, it was the old office. All right, okay. And they took pity on us and they were like, all right then. So they sent us a full week project and we check in with them every week and we got to go to the students as well as Greg got loads of free smoothies, so it was absolutely gold. Yeah. And And yeah, we did a project for them. And that that was that really we said, thank you. And that was it. And then yeah, the the job came up, however many years later, to say we're looking for a creative lead, and I was like, oh, you know, I'd always love the brand and follow the brand ever since. But probably a bit of imposter syndrome. Where I thought, actually, you know, is my skill set right for this role? I haven't worked for reduce

 

Robert Berkeley  15:25  

Interesting you say impostor syndrome, because everything you've said, so far, doesn't feel like you would ever suffer from impostor syndrome. But I think what you're saying is, you might look confident, and you might be risk to risk not risk averse. But that doesn't mean to say in your in your heart, you're not actually thinking, Can I do this? 

Carol Feeley  15:45  

Oh, like horrendous impostor syndrome. And I found that as I've progressed, it's gotten so much worse. It's literally at times, completely crippling, like, it's so so difficult. And it's something we talk about very openly, at innocent. And I'm really passionate about talking about it, because once you talk about it, and particularly as a senior leader, it's really important for my team to know that I get these feelings as well, I can push through it.

 

Robert Berkeley  16:14  

the expectation is as a senior person, you, you bottle that up, right? And you don't let that add on you give this car a piece of, of strength and determination and confidence. And it's very unusual to take the line. Yeah,

 

Carol Feeley  16:26  

yeah, it doesn't work like that. Like everyone gets nervous. Protect, like, and I think everyone is open about that. Innocent. We've got some amazing people who are like fantastic storytellers, and amazing it presentations and present to the whole company. And they're like, oh, yeah, I still get nervous for that. But it's about how you manage it. And I don't think it's, I was always looking for the fix for impostor syndrome. And there's not a fix, it's something you need to manage. And there's I found the kind of tactics, the things that the books I've read that have helped me with it, and I think it is getting better now. But almost the more you progress, the the more and more pressure you put on yourself and you get externally as well.

 

Robert Berkeley  17:09  

I'm just gonna take a slight sidestep them, because clearly innocent smoothies is a very creative lead company from from the get go, it really is about that, at the end of the day is quite often even you say it's just juicing bottles, right? You have the brand will say that, but it's brand driven, and it's very creative lead, but I don't know whether this is associated, but you're also quite well known for, for taking care of, of mental health around the company. And you were telling me before we started that you have Mental Health First Aiders, who are in roles in the company that are extremely accessible. Do you think there's a connection between your willingness to talk about impostor syndrome and the company's broader culture of mental health awareness and support for mental mental health issues?

 

Carol Feeley  17:54  

Definitely.

 

Robert Berkeley  17:55  

I've done it perhaps somewhere else,

 

Carol Feeley  17:57  

no way, I never would have been open about that in any other role. And I think as cheesy as this sounds, that's, that's what keeps me here at innocence is that I can be the best version of myself. And that's good and bad. However, we, you want to look at that. So you'll get the best of me creatively, because I can be honest, and I can have honest discussions with mental health first eight hours, but I can also be honest with my team, and I really hope and actually they do do it. You know, my team come to me and say, You know what, I've got this presentation coming up. And I'm, I'm a bit nervous about it, or I'm not feeling great today. And I'll be like, Well, why is that and we can chat about that. And that. I just think that's so important. And I know how it feels like I was a designer, you know, I am a creative and I know what it feels like, particularly if you if you're working on something for a long time, and it's not going the way you want it to go. That knocks you confidence. That's when you get the voices in your head being like, Oh, God, is it a good idea? It might be good enough. Yeah, totally.

 

Robert Berkeley  18:53  

Alright, so the cake story I love so you know, yeah, hustling is obviously the name of the game to quote, Rhinestone Cowboy. So let's fast forward back again10 years at this creative agency, they obviously knew talent. When they saw it, they they did everything they could to keep you on but but the day came when when you were too big for it. And you know, you wanted to move on and develop. And you said innocent smoothies had an opening. So take us from that point and to what you found when you got here.

 

Carol Feeley  19:22  

See they had opening for creative lead role. So when I applied for it actually referenced the fact that I'd made them a cake 16 years prior. I remember that will actually put on my cover letter like hi, remember me. I've done a lot of research into innocent tone of voice. So you know, I'm not going I'm definitely not a copywriter. But I kind of understood a bit about the tone. So I kind of tailored my application. Yes accordingly. And yeah, came in for a first stage interview. And I must admit, I thought it went awfully. Why? I think I kind of they said select three pieces of work to bring in which I do Here to talk through it. I was confident in the interview, quite like interviews. But I just came out and I was like, There's no way that I'm gonna get the job there, my skills aren't the right fit, I don't like I don't know anything about juice. But actually, like, that's exactly what I want from people who I hire and my team, I don't want them really to, to have worked for another juice brand, I want them to come back to come to innocent with a really diverse background. And that's what I brought. So I'd worked with lots of different clients, and had loads of experience with kids. So I didn't know the stuff for entertainment, one with Peppa Pig. So I kind of understood that kind of target market. And then I've done stuff with the likes of Royal Ballet to completely different. And I'd worked across point of sale digital. At home, I've done loads of different things. And that's, that's the experience, you need to be able to lead lead a team, right? Yes, but we didn't have a strategist at the time. So it was definitely a gap there. But the head of creative at the time left, two weeks when I joined nothing to do with me, was already planned.

 

Robert Berkeley  21:10  

It saw the writing on the wall.

 

Carol Feeley  21:13  

Well, she actually yeah, sorry. Um, and then yeah, so we got a new head of creative, and he had a very different skill set to me. So actually, pretty much instantly, it meant that I got a bit more responsibility, which I was I was happy with. So yes, so I think I was supposed to be 

 

Robert Berkeley  21:31  

Promoted in two weeks. This is the job for me 

Carol Feeley  21:36  

Pretty much, and then we realised together that the team wasn't big enough. So that's when we kind of went to kind of pitch for more people in the team to make it bigger. We needed a strategist. You know, it's we needed to expand and bring those European creative leads within the central creativity as well. What were the issues you were facing them? Probably the same sort of issues we face now to be honest. So just the amount of briefs. So loads and loads of work. We do loads of stuff internally and

 

Robert Berkeley  22:05  

And these briefs are coming from your marketeers around the place. 

 

Carol Feeley  22:09  

Yeah. not confirmed from everyone, basically. So you could get a brief saying we need a new sticker for the copyright. For for the photocopier, or you'll pretty much yeah, so all you need, you know, a campaign for 9 million quid for next year was something like it was it we didn't really have any processes in place for how we prioritised? How we scheduled

 

Robert Berkeley  22:33  

What’s between about  f the processes coming from your agency background very little. Are you naturally organised?

 

Carol Feeley  22:41  

No, No.. not at all, 

Robert Berkeley  22:43  

isn't boding? Well, no. See how the story unfolds. 

Carol Feeley  22:44  

So, that was one of the really interesting things in my interview, actually, which someone picked up on. They were like, Oh, she's so process driven. I was like, I got that. I was like, I love process. I'm not going to make it. Like don't ask me to make your process. What would you say? Yeah. And you need the process, a big believer that you need that process to free up for creative thinking absolutely need it. But yeah, I'm not the right person to go for make a process be a disaster if I was in charge of doing that. But yeah, we didn't have enough process in place. One of the big things that we've done, which probably was done in the last 12 months or so was scheduled in the workload, which is crazy that we didn't do it for it really. 

 

Robert Berkeley  23:26  

So what would happen before it was literally emails sitting in inboxes, I've got to do this. And I've got to do that. Job tickets, and I'll get around to it. And that looks important. I'll do that today. And I forgot about that. So I'll do it tomorrow and

 

Carol Feeley  23:36  

Sort of in the best guesstimate of a very busy studio manager. So she allocates the workload, she check in with me and we'd kind of kind of make a guess of it. But it wasn't until we got our head of packaging in who she was x m&s and they had loads of processes in place. So you know, when I interviewed her I was like, that's gold because she can bring all of this stuff to the team hiring

 

Robert Berkeley  23:58  

the person you're hiring that very specific expertise. Yeah, that big company stuff, I guess.

 

Carol Feeley  24:03  

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we were. That's definitely what we were missing. And kind of education to the business as well of this is what use a creative team for and actually this other stuff, and probably do it yourself or use an agency you know that that's also an option.

 

Robert Berkeley  24:19  

Okay. All right. So you you came in as a creative lead and that was a very long time ago that was that was July 2019. Hmm..Yeah. For listeners in the future we had a pandemic right after that. But you emerge from that as global head of creative so what tell us now about the the the in house agency innocent drinks that how its structured the size of it, and you touched on it very, very early on. But can you describe what you've got, what work they cover and what they don't cover? Again? You touched on that but a little bit more?

 

Carol Feeley  24:52  

Yeah…yeah So yeah, mix of designers and copywriters, and at the moment the team's almost split into so I've got a head The packaging, and she deals with packaging designers and creative ops. So that's everything from kind of up to we call it creative complete getting the labels ready. And then that goes off to an artwork agency and they stick it on bottles in a very simplistic kind of basic terms. It is definitely. And then my side of things is more about the calm side of things that'll be out of home campaigns, but also bit below the line stuff as well. So shopper assets digital, and that's copywriters, designers working together, we've got one quite stretched strategist who is absolutely fantastic. But because she's so fantastic, everyone in the business wants to use it. So we we've got this thing in isn't called spring roll which means that anyone in the business can apply for a job. For it's usually one or two days a week alongside their current role. You just need to agree with the manager. But if you want to get experience in working with a creative team and learn about strategy, you can apply for our spring roll. And that's from any part of the business. Yes, supply, finance, whatever if you have to go through an interview process. But it's a great way particularly if you want to work in Creative region copyrighted spring rolls, we've done designed spring rolls, and actually one of our recent hires for design, she was one of our office angels that was chat to you about earlier, she came to do a two day a week spring role in the design team. And she was brilliant. So you're so she got the job you would never have seen otherwise. Nope. Wow. Which is great. And again, one of the very special things about innocent is that it gives you those opportunities to be able to kind of do your day job. But actually, if you can agree that with your manager, you can go in find experience in lots of different areas across the business.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:41  

Okay. All right. So that's super progressive, all of that stuff. But you are an in house agency at the end of the day. And as an in house agency, there's a common complaint about creativity and keeping things fresh. I know from the brand, it's it seems to be very creative, but I can't imagine that happens by itself. Do you have any particular approaches to keeping the team creative and fresh?

 

Carol Feeley  27:02  

Yeah. And that's pretty much my job is trying to create the right environment to get the best out of the creative team. And a lot of that is inspiring the team so that that could mean anything from we've got something called golden hour, every Thursday, where that's an hour for the whole team to come together. It's three to four. And that will be sharing outside work that we found, which we might think is great. All right, thanks a bit rubbish. But we'll talk about 

 

Robert Berkeley  27:26  

So this is who's sort of big table or is this in a in a sort of, you know, lecture style sort of seating I mean, how to how I don't know how big a team we're talking about for this for these golden hours.

 

Carol Feeley  27:34  

So it's a whole team. So it'd be you know, 23 of us and they usually hybrid and particularly with the people who have gotten the team across Europe for someone dialled in, yeah, and yeah, but the people in the office, Thursday's our core team day, so we'll be sat around a table. Yeah. Thursdays? Yeah. Okay. So we've got golden hour, and then we've got within that golden hour, it's like a weekly rotation. So we'll also do I think they call it the copywriters rave. I haven't been invited to it. But that's where the copyright is. I'll get together for an hour 

 

Robert Berkeley  28:04  

You have been invited. So this is not your initiative. No, that's coming from Yeah, right. Yeah.

 

Carol Feeley  28:09  

We've got designer, I think it was called designer brunch. But I think they must have had to change that because it's no longer kind of brunch time. And they'll do. They'll either kind of share work with each other or do something inspirational in terms of design. And then we'll do a show Intel as well, which is bring the projects that you're working on at the moment and tell the team about it, because actually the team are working on lots of different things. 

Robert Berkeley  28:35  

But the people there for critique, or is it? Is it a stand back and admire thing? Or is it a question of oh, you know, that's great. But if you did it like that, it would be better?

 

Carol Feeley  28:42  

That's what it should be. Yeah. And I think when we've done that in the past, so we used to have an hour meeting called crit. Which was it that's exactly what it should have been. Yeah, we pile of definitely. But it meant that it wasn't very inclusive, because innocence quite an extroverted business. And actually, designers, you've got lots of people like me who are quite loud. Oh seeculturally, yeah. And I'm well aware that for a creative team, you do often get more introverts. And we've probably got about a 50-50 split. But for an environment like that, when you're all on a call together to get people to have the confidence to say, I think, you know, I think that works great, but have you considered blah, blah, blah, you're not going to get that from introverts. So we've spent a lot of time figuring out what questions we ask if you present in work, what questions do you ask at the end to encourage people and actually, it's one of the good things about having teams calls, because you can type in the chat. So people still have a voice, but they don't have to speak up in front of it. They're not comfortable. Yeah, we always encourage that. But it's a good way of kind of keeping that chat go in and if people feel more comfortable that way. It's the best thing to do. And we also have, everyone gets an inspiration day, once a month. So that's a day where you agree with the manager. You Gonna be offline, and you're gonna go and do something to get inspired. And someone. The best example of this is someone who went to an underground magic show. But yeah, we've got four pillars. When we're doing great work, it's hot, honest, human, playful and unexpected. And sometimes that unexpected thing, when you're bogged down with work can be quite difficult to get ideas for. So she went off and went to a magic show. And sometimes they go together. Yeah, so we do team inspiration days, we've got one coming up, which is all about being bored. So there's a couple of our designers, and they've planned it all, I think they're gonna book a space, which is like a really boring office environment. And we're just going to sit there for a day because there's a study about the importance of being bored. And what that does to your brain to come up with more ideas, you

 

Robert Berkeley  30:49  

You know, I can reel out one of my quotes that I locked away my brain for about the past 40 years, which is something Voltaire said, he said, Why can't man stay happy in an empty room? Remember that one? Change, change the change the context? So you seem to have a lot of meetings, Carol, but I know you have specific approach to meetings as well, you actually don't like to do a lot of kind of sheduled meetings. Is that right?

 

Carol Feeley  31:13  

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's probably well, any business, but any inherits agency, as well will complain about the same thing of the amount of meetings. And it's certainly something that my team have complained about in the past. How have you addressed that? So we did a session with my my senior leadership team in the creative team. I basically tasked them delegating, as always, with, look, I hear we've got too many meetings. So go off and find out which ones are useful and which ones aren't from the team and score them out of five. You know, five is absolutely we can't do without it. Warren is an absolute waste of time, hate it, and figure out within the meetings that we've got, how can we do things more efficiently. And they they came back with a bit of a plan. Some of it I didn't agree with, we've got a Monday huddle, which is half an hour every Monday. And we had really bad feedback on that people don't like the Monday huddle, because it's a bit boring. And it's Monday, but I'm like it's fundamental for our team to have that huddle to structure the rest of the week. And for me to give team updates. I have compromised. We do that on a Thursday now because we're all in the office together. So we'll do Thursday, huddle. Yeah. But we used to have what was talking about before where we had credit, that was an hour, every Thursday, we turned that into golden hour. And now we've repurposed that's actually for meetings that we were having. So that's four hours a week, if everyone's time went into that one, one slot, but you just put it on a four week rotation. And that's worked really well. But it's it's behaviours around those meetings, making sure we're using each other's time efficiently. And, you know, I certainly don't know it all, you know, if that was really interested in getting the feedback on which means working.

 

Robert Berkeley  32:55  

Yeah, yeah. And that's know that I think that's a tremendous initiative. And I'm thinking maybe I could find a way to apply that myself, actually, because I know, I definitely run lots of very boring meetings. So I need to I need to. Alright, so that brings us up to where we are today. I do want to hear a little bit about ladies wine and design, if I if I may. I've mentioned this since we spoke some weeks ago, to a number of other people. And I'm getting a lot of people saying I'd love to know more about that. So can you tell us something about your affiliation and how you found out about it and what it is? And so

 

Carol Feeley  33:31  

yeah, so ladies wine design was set up, I think it was to be in about 15 years ago, by Jessica Walsh. She's design entries based in New York. And she realised as a as a creative director that there was actually no very, very few less than 3% Creative Directors globally.

 

Robert Berkeley  33:50  

I remember telling you that I'd counted it up over half the interviewees, we have over 40 now and Inside Jobs are women. But when you start looking into their backgrounds, they're not necessarily as many of those formally creative directors as as men. Yes. So yeah, it's sort of bears out really?

 

Carol Feeley  34:09  

Yeah. I've actually got some stats here, which I printed out because I want just to have the stats ready. Wow this is research folks, it really is 11% of creative leaders are women. 70% of young female creators have never had worked with a female creative director. And then 88% of young female creatives, like a female role models. So I must admit, we do something in a team called juicy conversations, which is again about how to kind of inspire the team. And we invite creative directors to come and chat to the team about how they do things in their agencies. And haven't had a single female creative director. It's all men.

 

Robert Berkeley  34:43  

Right? If you're listening Inside Jobs, please. Yes. Look forward.

 

Carol Feeley  34:47  

Yeah, definitely. And it's something I'm really passionate about. And it's, it's really depressing. It's such a shame. It's such a waste. Yeah, it really is a waste and I think that's it. The The important thing for me as a leader is to have a diverse team with diverse backgrounds. But I think you need to have diverse leadership as well. And women bring a different set of skills to men. And actually, when you work in, when you've got a diverse team, you bring a whole load of skills together and a whole load of different insights together. And that's where you get the gold. I think someone recently referred to it as kind of like radical collaboration. And that's like, I love that term of bringing different people from different backgrounds together to collaborate on something. But at the moment, there's still even now just such a low number of of women, it all people who identify as women in these roles as creative, either creative directors, or creative leads, I think it's it's something like nought point 1% of agencies are founded by women. I've just checked that it is

 

Robert Berkeley  35:52  

it is utterly scandalous. Actually, it's not it's not in this day and age it anytime. But in this day and age, it's absolutely amazing. So ladies, wine design.com. Yeah, I think that's fantastic, inspirational thing. You also, you also can mentor, I think as well, or you can critique and help students and early stage career people, perhaps get some feedback, advice, and so on.

 

Carol Feeley  36:14  

Yeah. And it's a great way of networking. So like, everyone hates the term network, and don't they and networking seems like the worst thing in the world, I think to a lot of people. But in that environment, literally, you get like a cheese board and a glass of wine if you want it or whatever, somebody doesn't have to. Yeah, and you just get to meet some like minded creative people. And I've met some amazing people through it and made some friends through it as well, and people who I never would have met otherwise at all different stages of their career. And that's, that's what's really important to me kind of outside of work, but connecting with other creative people who can inspire me, you know, in a way that, you know, in subjects that I don't know anything about the chat to someone recently about NF T's and stuff. And I don't know any of that stuff I need to, because it's coming my way. But I was like, This is gold, this stuff like and that's great

 

Robert Berkeley  37:02  

to get this kind of information. So we need to wrap this up, unfortunately, but your reader, you're good. You're quite an enthusiastic reader, you said when we met, I don't listen to podcasts I do reading I know. I'll send you a transcript. But anything you're reading at the moment that you'd like, share,

 

Carol Feeley  37:22  

Something that I've just finished reading, which will help people hopefully with impostor syndrome is a book called Chatter. I must admit, it's not one of the most, it's quite hard read, it's a lot of data. But the back few pages, they've got eight tactics of how you can kind of calm down that chatter in your brain, your brain, okay. And it's referencing a lot of people in sports and Nadal. He's, you know, when he's playing tennis, and he's getting nervous, you make sure that he's got all of his things aligned to will have his water bottle set up in a certain way. And he does his hair a certain way. And it's all about having control, so that he can stop his brain from doing that chatter. And I find that like such a useful technique. So if I'm bit nervous, and I've got that impostor syndrome creeping in my meeting, I'll make sure I've got my passport, which I've got one here right now. I'll make sure that my pens are lined with my laptop, just little things that spark control in my brain. I thought that book was was shatter. Yeah. So stick with it. Yeah,

 

Robert Berkeley  38:23  

I'm pretty sure that there'll be listeners here who'd love to contact you. And what's the best way for them to do that? Right. LinkedIn?

 

Carol Feeley  38:31  

LinkedIn? Yep. Find me on LinkedIn. And, you know, send me a letter. People don't send post anymore. Send me some posts for town. 

 

Robert Berkeley  38:38  

Yeah, send a letter to fruit towers. Yeah, you can find the address online. I want to thank you so much for agreeing to join us on Inside Jobs. Absolutely. fascinating interview. I know, we could have spent more time doing it. And I want to thank you also for hosting us here at Fruit Towers. Wasn't really well famous when I said that at the beginning, but it is now for sure anyone who's listened to the podcast. And I want to thank the dear listener as well for listening to Inside Jobs. If you've enjoyed it, please tell other people and the best way to do that is to leave a comment and, and, and score rate obviously a high rating and wherever you subscribe to your podcasts and have a look at IJpodcast.com. There's a back catalogue. Now evergrowing have some amazing in House leaders who have some fascinating things to say. Thank you very much for listening.