67. How to evolve your offering to grow a service-based business | Gregory Nice + Jack Stanton

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reid, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. What does it take to turn a creative partnership into a successful agency? Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton, co-founders of Nice Productions, a creative agency that's evolved from independent filmmaking into delivering major campaigns for global brands. Gregory is an award-winning producer and director. Jack is creative director and visual artist. Together, they'll share how they built a creative business from the ground up, how they scaled through major partnerships like Reid, and what it takes to balance art, technology and entrepreneurship in today's creative economy. Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome not one guest, but two. I have in the studio today with me Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton from Nice Productions. Thank you both for coming in. Thanks for having us. Nice Productions is a London-based creative agency that basically makes ads and other forms of communications. I know them well because they've done a lot of work for Read in the past, so to declare that right up front. And we'll be talking a bit about that in the course of our conversation. But their work spans TV, digital, radio, cinema, outdoor media, and short-form narratives. and I'm acutely aware that lots of young people especially want to get into sort of creative industries you Gregory actually did that you started this company in 2011 how did that happen what was your sort of origin story well starting it in 2011 is when I registered the name nice productions but I wouldn't say we actually launched properly until 2015-2016 when Jack came on full-time before that I was working in film and TV as a production assistant all the way through to then being a production manager by the time that I stopped doing it professionally and I was working on ads and I was working on TV shows but at the same time on the weekend I was making content for startup brands and friends companies and music videos and everything else that you do when you're sort of a young filmmaker just starting out um and to be rude how old were you in 2011 uh 20 so you were literally starting out in your working life yeah you got a job yeah yeah so as an assistant yeah exactly you'd also set up a company i mean that shows some sort of imagination i would say i mean well i'd always side hustle yeah no well i'd always been that person who throughout school i had the secret uh tuck shop like under my desk or you're a wheelie dealer yeah you know i would go i would go to booker on the weekend before i went back to school with my dad and i'd i'd spend 50 quid and turn that into 200 um so i i'd always wanted i think i always had that entrepreneurial spirit of wanting to do something and at the same time i was really into theater and very much into movies and i and i always wanted to move into more of a creative space and so when i finished university um it was kind of my career trajectory was sort of because i did english literally was become a lawyer or go into film and tv and i knew that film and tv is what i wanted to do uh and so i did that um yeah for three or four years working my way up was your dad pleased you didn't become a lawyer or not um he honestly he's he is not something he was relaxed i think he loves film as well so he was he was quite uh positive that i was moving into something that he thought was pretty cool to be honest it wasn't it wasn't something imposed from your family the law idea no my grandfather was a lawyer and he was i enjoyed talking with him and having arguments around the christmas dinner but um and i thought that was something i wanted to do but but also my love of film was once i finished university i decided that was something i want to pursue more and at the same time jack was uh working as a video art was studying as a video artist and and then working as a video artist and so our our skills there uh was just a good collaboration and as i was saying like over on the weekends we were making other projects for other people and in the evening i was going to lots of startup events like escape the city um silicon roundabout and i was meeting startups because i was both a startup So this was in London. This was in London, yeah. And at the time, the startup community was massive. I'm not so involved in it anymore, but that was a way to meet new brands and who knew that video-first content was the way to go, social-first video was the way to go to build their brands. And so we were sort of at the forefront of that change in marketing of social media, video-first, you know, brands wanting to be out there online. and so we saw a niche and after three or four years of yeah of both working full-time and then also creating content in the evenings weekends whenever i had time um yeah come about 2015-16 i stopped working um as a production manager and decided to pursue nice productions full-time which also perfectly coincided with jack um finishing his university career and uh working as a video artist and coming on and working with us. Well, that's a good segue to you, Jack. So you started out in visual arts and video, as Gregory just described. So what attracted you to nice productions? Why did you decide that you were going to join Gregory? What happened? Well, I mean, so I went to art school and mostly did video, some performance-based stuff. So it was a skill that I developed, but in a you know much more sort of open creative sense and i think it was maybe my second year onwards that we actually started working together in the holidays um and also bear in mind jack's a student and i was earning some money at this point so it was a good way for him to earn some money on the weekend yeah yeah yeah um but yeah i mean it was a skill i could apply and obviously i mean working with an old friend i mean i'm not sure if we've actually said that greg and i've known each other for a very long time since we were 13 no you haven't said that that's gonna be my next question how did you meet so you were school friends or something yeah yeah yeah so you were school friends and you got going and then you saw this so you now partners is that how this is organized or yeah yeah equal partners yeah 50 50 is it yeah all right okay that's good so although it is you know nice productions there's a you know bit of a sore spot there that uh it was well the company was started by you yeah yeah exactly so and it's quite a good name isn't it it's an excellent name yeah yeah so yeah and and genuinely speaking when you i think it's memorable to clients as well so we've had conversations about it in the past um but ultimately we've always come back around to wanting to stick to it and we're having that conversation right now again because i don't know sorry if you if you already have this on the piece of paper in front of you But we're now thinking about moving away from nice productions and moving to nice and just being nice rather than nice productions because we have moved away from just being a video first production company to being a more full service creative agency over the last four or five years. Right. And so we don't want to be specific to production. People use the word nice a lot, don't they go nice? but isn't that already sort of widely registered and applied in other business situations? Yeah, but it's my name, so that allows you a lot of leeway in being able to use it because in the way that, you know, like Nice, the drug company. The drug evaluation. Yeah, exactly. I don't think they could sue me for using the word Nice. No, I don't think they could. Because it's my name. Yeah, you should probably double down on that. Yeah, a multi-billion-part drug testing company and see what happens. your parents for giving you this name. It's very memorable. It works. Especially in a space where you're trying to create cut through for people. Exactly. And we like it as an ethos as well. You should be nice to deal with. Exactly. A name to live up to. Yeah, exactly. That's right. What were you going to say, Jack? That is something we hear a lot. I think, especially in film production, there is a bit of a kind of a culture of what would you call it sort of it's just a bit sticky isn't it a bit sticky bit kind of inaccessible people like to play with all the kind of fancy gear and set up like barriers between the people making the work and who they're working with um which has just never been something that we've done right in terms of thinking about changing the name just tonight you're actually changing your sort of approach as well i'm hearing sort of widening the number of possible business lines you might offer exactly talk me through that a bit what what's what's in your mind um well quite honestly a big part of this comes down to our relationship with reed because um prior to to working with you we were video and photography so you know a lot of our campaigns were video with and then also with a sort of subsidiary of photography so it'd be it'd be video first then there might be a photography campaign to support it. But working with Reid was the first time that we actually had multi-channel. So it wasn't just video and photography. You also asked for the photography to be out of home. So that is an extension of the photography part of the work that we were doing previously. but it is there's much more involved in technically in delivery in deliverables and working with you know the media agencies and the media buyers which was something we hadn't really done before and then also you asked for radio which in to be completely honest we'd never done before so we were very happy to learn how to do that and um now it's something that we offer to clients quite a lot and like online um audio ads especially seem to be something that people are pushing towards more and more and a lot of the people we work for now are asking us to do spotify ads for them um which is great because it's fun creatively and it's relatively cost effective for brands to do um for us to write a script and then to record a 30 second ad is not that is not the same as a tv ad which is a quarter million pounds you know it's like or and more it's it's you know a tenth of that easily i love radio for that reason yeah exactly so this is interesting to me because we wanted a campaign that was multimedia, that would reach people in different ways, depending on what they were doing. So radio, out of home, video, TV, all of those are important channels, as well as social media. So you're, in a sense, adapting your business model to meet your customer halfway in terms of offering that service is what I'm hearing. Yeah, I mean, definitely. But it's also a bit of a chicken and egg situation is that I feel as though previously, because we didn't have the experience of doing those things to doing the multi-channel, it wasn't something that we would sort of actively push or promote. But now that we have the experience of doing it, it's something that we can then actively promote. So, you know, a brand previously might come to us and say, we have this, you know, social media campaign that we want to put out across Instagram and YouTube, and we want pre-roll ads, and but we also want branded content and we with it photography great that's absolutely something to do but now when they come to us we can say have you had to think about an out of home campaign or have you thought about an additional radio campaign because you know you're already spending x amount of money on the video campaign which is most expensive and the video and the photography which also can be expensive but less so and but then here are these other channels that are you thinking about because we can support you in creating them and in some ways they're the most cost effective of all the channels that you're talking about so it'd be a shame not to be having that conversation with you just because you're coming to us because we're well we were a video first social agency and now we're sort of a video video first creative agency but trying to push and trying to push the all the other channels yeah i can see how that would have evolved from yeah but you know reed gave us the opportunity in this podcast we'll include a couple of ads and we'll make sure they're ads made by you guys reed.co.uk's million job giveaway has been extended into 2026 reed.co.uk is giving away not 100 not 1 000 not even 100 000 but up to 1 million free job listings right now employers post your jobs for free looking for a job discover your next role today Head to reed.co.uk forward slash millionjobgiveaway to find out more. Terms and conditions apply. So people can evaluate your work. We're very grateful. How do you divide this work up? It sounds like you have a good collaboration. Greg's the brain, so I'm the muscle. That's pretty much it. What does that mean? No. So I'll walk you through it. So, you know, every project has like a cycle. So at first you've got to come up with an idea. You know, we're both across that. We figure that out together. Then once we've got the budget together, we go, you know, we enter into pre-production and production. Greg is much more on top of the logistics, keeps an eye on the money. Whereas I stay more on the creative. When it comes to direction on the day, we are both, we're co-directing. but Greg's a little more if you looked around on set you'd say that he's the director you know he's a little better at barking orders at people. I might be by a monitor or you know working with whoever's actually on screen. So you're more the art director are you? Yeah I'm officially creative director yeah yeah yeah and then on the post end that's where I take over more and oversee everything that comes in post. So you mean post production and what is everything that comes in post what are you talking about? Editing music, colour, all the sort of nitty gritty of deliverables, various formats. Yeah. And you've also, you know, over the years have also become quite savvy in the media delivery side as well. I think because you've run most of the post-production side, then because you're creating the deliverables, you then also become the person who then has to communicate how those liberals are put across all the channels whether or not it's on social or um on tv or radio wherever it is jack's the one who's communicating with clear cast and all the other agencies you have to speak to about you know getting permissions and sharing the scripts to make sure that's a that's a sort of area that people may be unaware of but you have to get ads approved tell me about that how does that work you mentioned clear cast again this is this is jack because okay jack jack Jack handles this for me. Well, very simply, scripts have to be signed off that they don't contain anything that is problematic in any way. So you submit ahead of time, you get it checked in a kind of preliminary way. But then once you've actually produced the ad, that then has to get checked. But you're talking about radio and TV? Radio and TV, yeah. You can put a poster up pretty much without anyone checking it. Yeah, yeah. that tends to sail through. It's interesting, isn't it? Which is strange, which is not something I've thought an awful lot about. And social is also a bit of the Wild West as well. I think it's still, you know, people do get pulled up by the ASA about their social media posts, like these sort of things that you have to say as an ad if you being paid for it Oh yeah these influences and stuff like that They meant to say that but often they don Yeah exactly They meant to and they don So they do get pulled up but it is yeah as I say it's still dead. Months later and no one knows they've been pulled up. Exactly, and then at that point, the ad spend's already gone and it's already had its millions of views. So I was really bad at Latin at school, but I remember the words caveat, empty, buy it, beware. And they still apply. And so, you know, if you're buying something, Don't rely on the advertising standards agency. You need to be sure for yourself, I always think. But it's good, I suppose, that these extra checks are in place. Sometimes they can be a bit frustrating when you want to use a bit of creative license, can't they, Jack? Yeah, I mean, I don't think we've ever had a problem with the creative. They tend to be quite lenient, but it might be on details like it's the T's and C's that we're often figuring out with Reid. And that can get a little bit last minute sometimes to make sure all the boxes are ticked. T's and C's, terms and conditions. Yeah, it's the same with, yeah, I mean, it's sort of the same with all our clients. It's like, they just get very sticky about if you're saying that you're the biggest or the best and you're putting a number in or however you want to sort of push or promote your brand as in those sort of ways, then they push back and say, how are you the biggest? How are you the best? And then you have to prove it or disprove it either way. And yeah, that can get a little bit complicated. So you have to change the wordage to fit the campaign. So from your point of view as nice, nice productions, whichever it is, I mean, this is a crowded space. There are lots of people making content, lots of people doing what you do. How do you stand out and how do you stay relevant? I mean, that honestly is the million dollar question right now and is something that Jack and I discuss pretty much all the time. especially as we're in a, what I would consider a growth period again. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's been a nice gradual incline and we would obviously like it to incline further, but, um, I, I honestly don't feel like I specifically have an answer because there are so many people doing it, but we've also seen a lot of other agencies drop off when we haven't. And, you know, it's been, it's not been the easiest period of time, I think, across the board for any business to start and run a business in the UK from when we finished university to now. From, you know, the general global political climate that's happened in our lifetime, you know, and especially things like COVID. COVID was a big killer of a lot of companies and brands that worked in our space. They just, I guess, didn't have the capital to survive that. And we were really lucky. And I think, I think because we have a really good relationships with lots of the companies we work with, and I think one of our big skill sets is our post-production. We were able to offer to a lot of our clients additional post-production work so that they could keep, they needed content. And obviously we've been shooting them for years. So we were able to remix and reevaluate what it was that we had to be able to put out new content in the world over that period of time. So we were still getting paid. but I know from other people in the world, they really struggled. And then post that, there's been a big knock-on effect in the content creation world from the proper film and TV world where because of the writer's strikes and the writer's strikes in America, that massively affected all the cast and crew who are working in the UK. So it kind of had a knock-on effect whereby the people who were working in TV and film and working in, everyone just sort of had to scale down. So then there was a lot more people who were now, who let's say you were a cinematographer working in TV, TV's completely gone. So you're now reaching out to your network of commercial production companies like us and saying, do you have work? So now you have big name cinematographers who are happy to be doing social media content because there's no other work in that system. So it was kind of a knock-on effect that then the bottom end of it was then falling away. But I think, again, we were just fortunate to be in the position that we have really good relationship with our clients and who we've worked with for years and years and years. And people like you and some of the fashion brands we work with who want to do two campaigns a year with us, that we were able to survive that as well. We weren't knocked off the bottom by people coming down. So this writer's strike you referred to started in America. I mean, that was a response to dangers of AI, wasn't it, in part? Yeah. So these new technologies coming in caused disruption. Yeah, which again is another thing that I think has affected a lot of companies in this space. In what way? Well, I mean, to be honest with you, even with us, we were recently approached to create some content for quite a big corporate with their senior management team where they wanted us to go in and they had basically created these scripts in relationship with an AI company to speak for 45 minutes. minutes. So the, I probably shouldn't tell you this in case, in case you get an idea to speak for 45 minutes. And then the AI company was basically promising that after you'd been filmed in this multi-camera setup for 45 minutes, you would never have to speak on camera again. They could take that 45 minutes of footage and they could use it in perpetuity to make you say whatever you wanted to say. So you could just send them a script saying, okay, let's say, I know, for example, you speak a lot in the press and on TV about the current state of the employments in the UK. So what they would say was, is that you could do a weekly outreach of talking about the current economy, the current employments in the UK, and you send us a script of what you want. And they didn't actually tell me how quickly you'd get it back, but I imagine it was very quick. In half an hour, they'd send you back a five-minute video, multi-camera of you, in essence, talking about the current climate. And you could do that every week, every day. And they were just, I guess they charge a fee. Anyway, we turned this down because we were basically being asked to kill our own job. And yeah, I had to say to the agency that was asking us, I was like, you do know you're asking us to basically kill our own job so thank you but no thank you um do you think that's going to take off i mean i mean would someone want to watch some sort of avatar rather than the actual person saying what they think i mean that's been my feeling on ai in general in that i personally don't want to watch a film that was written directed filmed by an ai and i don't want to listen to music that was filmed and directed by ai sorry recorded and directed by ai um and i think my this is this is my general feeling on it is why i'm maybe less worried than other people who are in the industry in that i think that's probably the general population's feeling on it is that ultimately people won't want that they they want their relationship with the band that they that they listen to they want to go watch them live and they want to buy the merchandise and they and they want to listen to it on spotify and same with film and tv i think people don't want to watch ai performers and they they they want the relationship that they that they have from experiencing art visually um so yeah i i i'm possibly less worried about it but saying that when it comes to the the example i just gave you where we where we turned down the work I think that that probably will happen and so if your production company is in that space making those type of ads as the corporate talking headspace then I think I would be very worried the thing is is that we're not in that space we're in a very creative space where it takes Jack and I days and days and days of script writing and idea generating and storyboard drawing and everything else to come up with what we think are good ideas that help brands put out their messaging. And I don't know if people have used AI creatively, but it's just not good. Like you, it's rather lazily every now and again, your last chat GBT to help pump up a script or, you know, you're in a hurry. So you just want it to support you in some capacity and it's no good. It doesn't get humor. It doesn't get humor. It doesn't really get creativity and it doesn't help you generate ideas that are used to, I think, to a brand. That's my position. But, you know, maybe I'll... If I could add one thing to that. I think what AI does remind me of a little bit is in our earlier days, we were to some degree having to outrun smaller businesses making content themselves on smartphones. and so you're constantly trying to climb the ladder and get projects that require some real filmmaking. With AI now, I think that's what's happening. I think the idea that we should be scared about or worried about films made in their entirety with AI is maybe not so much the issue. It's more that the lower end stuff is being mopped up by small businesses or medium-sized businesses who can now just produce. You know, you see them on Instagram, you can tell that the entire thing is AI generated. Maybe someone has dropped the logo on Photoshop or Illustrator or something. But if we were starting out now, that's where the struggle would be because there isn't that sort of entry point first rung or it's not quite as easy to hop on because businesses can make these smaller, cheaper things themselves. Well, that's happening to sort of entry points right across the economy. entry-level jobs are affected in the same way because AI has been used to do those more simple tasks very effectively. Exactly, and that's the problem. And I suppose the question is how far up the value chain will that ultimately go? Will it go all the way to the top and do my job, your job, you know, the jobs of the creatives and the commissioners? Yeah. I mean, will there be two computers sitting here talking to each other in 20 years time well possibly will they do a better job i don't know i mean as as ai currently sits i feel like it basically it is already two computers talking to each other and because they're not that good at it it's getting worse so any communication that seems to be having with ai is like they they're generating more errors and right and that's your experience that's what i've that's my experience yeah yeah so you're not troubled by it in that way well in a different way that it doesn't work very well yeah okay but i mean obviously you know we're at the we're possibly at the forefront of it but who knows and you know it probably will only get better as time goes on uh and that is a worry but like it's entirely possible it's been overhyped and the whole thing will come crashing down as some something that was sort of the emperor's new clothes there's one theory i quite like which is that ai will break the internet um and that over the last 10 years or so uh well there's a term i'm not sure the the inshittification of the internet is uh something that i think everyone experiences and um the ai will actually hasten that and just make the internet uh a place that no one wants to be anymore and maybe we'll all return back to reality and uh i quite like that as an idea the inshittification that is an official term but i didn't just point that before no but i thought you were going to start going on about the singularity but you didn't okay inshittification of the internet everyone that's something that could be coming soon well it's already happening your thing's already on us so someone needs to clean out the stables yes exactly yeah where are you hercules so okay so going forwards um jack from what i've heard so far you do more of the sort of choreography design well no i want to be clear certainly like like greg and i when it comes to you know concepts and and creativity we're we're very 50 50 on that but particularly film projects i mean we did a piece of music you wrote it i mean you're being very nice to each other come on let's get to the point i mean you can't do everything both of you yeah no to be fair i know it's called nice but let's let's try and get some sort of clarity hands up who does what i want to know to be fair that camp that campaign uh jack wrote the theme music sang the theme he sang it yeah he did everything so yeah but the initial ideation was very much collaborative so what was the idea but so this this is our love mondays campaign mondays are working for me um you wrote a song an earworm shall we call it that has been quite widely played that lots of people know but what was the how did you get to that point from i just probably said i want to love mondays ad well yeah exactly i mean i think the this is probably quite a good illustration of what often happens with projects which is you talk to a client they have a history of you know if they're they're marketing and you're wanting to take from that move it a step forwards but you're also always playing a game between the two of us of what do we want to do as filmmakers you know what would be fun for us and how can we make those two things overlap and i mean i remember i think we were sat in a pub in in london somewhere and we said you how much fun would it be to do a big Technicolor-style movie musical snippet for Love Mondays? And so you start there and then you kind of figure out, well, how can we make sure everyone's happy if we do this idea that we'd like to pursue? So it ends up with a man jumping off a pink bus, a sort of flash mob in Wembley somewhere, which is what I remember recording with you, which was great. I mean it was very interesting that ad I mean I think the music great I enjoyed the ad very much it just went down badly on one program do you know what it was? It was the darts yeah the people watching darts did not like that ad I don't know why but everyone else seemed to quite like it but it was there were a lot of angry comments on X I think after the darts well this is where the media buying side is important that was quite funny well now you know not to play an singing or dancing ad during the darts so if anyone's doing a sort of cabaret style ad don't put it on in the darts yeah yeah just you know play your standard heineken and uh bet 365 ads you'll be fine exactly exactly but overall it was a successful campaign for us i'm very happy to share that so people listening know it worked well right um but one of the things i liked about it was this multimedia aspect because it's very expensive putting ads on television but if they're supported by out of home posters um you get much more value for your money really well we saw some out of home on the escalators on our way here yeah yes yeah well it was massive monday just this week was the biggest day for job applicants in the year so we tend to advertise at this time yeah oh very nice yeah so it's been a very busy week so january and february very busy for job applications it's a lot of fun uh that the ad still runs obviously we have worked with a lot of the dancers that we worked with from the very beginning and we've reused them and taken their characters and given their characters new stories and new motivations across multiple campaigns for you now. And I regularly get WhatsApp messages from them saying, I'm on a massive billboard driving through Birmingham you know And I think that very cool Well good Well I glad they like them as well Yeah And i like it too so i mean part of our motivation was to give you know young people an opportunity in terms of making and performing in these ads because you know we want to help people progress in their jobs and careers as a business and that applies to the people who work with us as suppliers so you know i was delighted that you were up for it and had the idea that you had yeah the reasons i like you in the beginning is you weren't as expensive as the others because i still think we're very cheap james so you know you want to watch that because that's one of the problems with with advertising especially television yeah yeah of course expensive it is i mean not the making of the ad and then the the playing of it you know buying 30 seconds yeah that's a fortune of course but i think i think the thing that um we probably excel at beyond tv is that as you say because we're creating these multi-channel ads for you we're always thinking okay here's the here's the expenditure here's the spend how much can we get from this so you know where before maybe you'd only have a tv ad now we're thinking okay well we have a tv ad maybe we could have a 30 seconds but maybe we could have a 40 second cinema ad and then we could also have the out of home and we can have social cutdowns and we can have verticals for your phone, and we're already thinking about radio. So, you know, what used to be a huge spend just on a 30-second TV ad, we're now thinking a much smaller spend, but we can push a lot further. And I think that's beneficial. Well, there are many more channels now that people consume, so it makes more sense to do it that way. That's a big change in the market. So what else are you working on that you can talk about? What can we talk about? I mean, I think the big one for us right now is, I mean, we're recording this just after Christmas. So this is a pre-Christmas campaign, but we've been working with Itzu on a few campaigns, which for us are the first time a organic campaign has gone what we consider sort of mega viral. So across the two campaigns that we shot for them towards the end of last year, they both achieved over 20 million organic views together. together. So what was going on? The one that the big one and the one that probably most people will have seen because of how viral it did go was the Wilsdon Raider Christmas campaign. I didn't see it. Describe it to me please. They're describing it as the anti-Christmas ad. So Itzu struggles with people wanting to go and eat dim sum and noodles pre-Christmas and in January. It's not the sort of... No, exactly. People want their turkey and potatoes. They're not thinking about bao buns and chikinkatsu. I don't know if they're dishing a soup, but let's say noodles. So it's not a good time of year for it. So it's not a good time for it. So that was the emphasis behind the ad. We'd already made an ad with the Wilsdon Raider, who is a gentleman who went viral sort of 10 years ago for getting a bit silly at a football game. Let's put it like that. A Wilsdon Raider. What football game? Who is the Wilsdon? A Wilsdon is a very small football team, obviously in North. Well, I know where Wilsdon is. North East London. So it's a small league. North West London. North West, sorry. It's near Harlston. Yeah, yeah. So Wilsdon have a football team. They have a small football team. I think they're in, you know, a Sunday league or like, you know, one of the smaller, smaller leagues. And I, so yeah, so he, he, he says some funny lines. Like, you've got no fans. You've got no fans. Lots of people know it. And also lots of people we were speaking to. So you were aware of this before? I actually wasn't, and neither were Jack. So how did it come under your nose then? So we've been working with a data agency called Block Report, and they basically generate for brands these very heavily data-led reports. What you're saying is sort of blowing my mind. So you're trying to sell chicken katsu in December, and you're using a bloke from Wilsdon Football Club who used to shout abuse at the three opposing fans. Is that the concept? Yeah, quite honestly, that was the concept. It's quite wild. It's quite obscure. Yeah, really obscure. But somehow it hit some note. Well, it's speaking the language of the internet. It's meme culture. And in this case specifically, it's nostalgia meme culture. So this idea of organic, candid moments with characterful individuals. You know, this has been around for 10, 15 years now, and it's got its own history to draw from. Yeah, okay, it's an organic candy moment with this individual. But what actually happens in this meme? Well, I'm going to talk to describe it. In the original meme? No, the one you made. What happens? Why did it go viral? Because I still can't see it in my mind. I don't know why. I can't think that we have a specific reason when it's viral. It's kind of what Jack said. Do you mean the original one? I think we have to describe it. No, Jack, you have to describe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the original video, we're at a low league football match and someone's winding someone else up. He became known as the Wielsen Raider, but he was there sort of shouting relatively good natured abuse at the opposing team. And someone comes up to him, they're filming it. And his mate sort of prods him a bit and has a little chat. And the guy goes as if he's like maybe going to square up to have a fight with him. But he doesn't mean it. He's joking, but he's playing a part. He's also five foot. Yeah, yeah. He's a very small man. Right. Yeah, yeah. He's in on the joke. I think it plays to the humor of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he became like a beloved character. The idea was, okay, so his iconic line was, you want some. That then became, you want dim some. And that was the in. Yeah. Yeah. Quite simply, it's, you want some, you want dim some. and that's the in so then the christmas so you then had to go and sell this idea to someone at itzu no it's it was already bought into the idea so they knew that the line you want some some dim some yeah yeah yeah so they just told you to go away and make it yeah exactly so they they gave us budget to go away and make it and then that went very viral that did super well and then pre-christmas they then wanted to do another ad um and so that going back to what i was saying before it's who does very badly pre-Christmas in terms in comparison to the rest of the year so they wanted to turn in they wanted to make an anti-Christmas ad you know against the backdrop of John Lewis spending five million pounds on an ad they wanted to spend 0.1% of that to make a to make a Christmas ad that had the same sort of messaging but anti and so that so this ad is basically the Wielsen Raider is trying to hand out dim sum pre-Christmas saying you want some you want some dim sum handing out Christmas to a Christmas fair a Christmas market and yeah I mean that's pretty much the whole ad so if anyone wants to look at this as a sort of study in contemporary marketing that goes viral where do they find this stuff on Itzu's Instagram and TikTok yeah and you'll see that it's got hundreds of thousands of likes across the two and yeah um from a creative perspective what was quite fun about it was the original ad the objective was to imitate the original video as closely as possible so even you know making the quality very bad making sure the angles were right the people walking in the background the idea was that you might think you were watching the original um artifacts and then to move away from that into a more clearly ad space with the same character was a lot of fun. And it didn't just get picked up by the general populace who seemed to apparently really connect with it. It also, within the marketing community, got really picked up as well, and by other brands. Other brands seemed to really like it. And the retweet comment section below it was all Greg's, Waitrose, et cetera, all commenting underneath it, getting in on the gang. So that's good. in a way for you, but they don't know who made it. They just know it's issues. Yes, but... So how do you then use that to your advantage as nice, the company? Well, ultimately, we then try... If we see that interaction online with them, we will then try and approach their marketing company. So have you had any success with that subsequently? We've had some good conversations. That hasn't... So, which, honestly, I'm kind of surprised by because the... The intersection between the person who runs the social media account, who responds to a viral video, to the marketing team within said company, to then a cold email approach seems quite hard. But quite honestly, yeah, we've had some really good responses. And from some relatively big brands, they said, oh, that was you. That's great. Let's have a conversation. I asked you earlier, how do you stand out? I mean, if you can become known as the people who can make low budget ads that go viral, I'd have thought that's quite a good way to stand out as a person who buys commercials. I'd be interested in meeting people who can do that. 100%. And hopefully that the adverts are sort of slightly charming and have like a fun edge to them that works. So this is interesting to me for younger people who are thinking of doing this in the future. I mean, they can almost make these ads now with their phones for next to nothing, can't they? Yeah, 100%. And they perhaps should give it a go, which is sort of what you did, Gregory. Yeah, exactly. Back in 2011. Yeah, I mean, I rode the same wave. I mean, I think ultimately the slight difference to when I started. So I would say that there's sort of been that before, so to give you the history of how we were able to get into this business and how the business has changed over the last 15 years. No, let's say, actually, it's actually almost exactly two decades. So prior to 2005, the film industry, both film and commercial film, was completely siloed because the technology was just so incredibly expensive. So you were either pre that filming on film or you were filming on Alexas and digital cameras, which were just astronomically expensive. So the process by which to hire them and have them on set, you needed cinematographers and cranes and et cetera. And you needed assistance. It was a whole process. They needed lights. Then you need a light. That was 20 years ago. That was 20 years ago. And then what happened was the 5D came out, which was made by Canon. And that democratized filmmaking in general because it was a five grand camera that created a very beautiful image. that you could, you know, I mean, obviously five grand is still a lot of money, but it's not the same as what you were just describing. It's not the same as 150,000 plus a huge crew. So what happened then was, is that, you know, us in 2011, other cameras came out off the back of the 5D that further democratized it. Like, you know, we're being filmed in here by A7Ss, I think, which are made by Sony, which again, I think a couple of grand each, but they create a very lovely image and you could you can shoot a film on that you could you can create short films films music videos whatever it is you want to do so you know you could save up a little bit of money buy a camera buy a lens and you could call yourself a filmmaker which is kind of what when we were going to go back that's what we were doing on the weekend we bought relatively inexpensive cameras we bought some cheap lights and we made videos for social media and we made short films and we made music videos and then what happened is is that then you could then make films on your phone and that was the next democratization of the whole thing and like obviously then video has just completely blown up that everything's video now well youtube's huge as well youtube youtube is massive advertising on youtube is massive um you know obviously google is basically the biggest marketing advertising company in the world that's their main business model and um what how that sort of affects us in some ways is that yeah it has in further increased the democratization of filmmaking and allows young people just to go out and make films with their friends um you know the thing is is that um danny boyle very famously shot the latest 28 years later films on an iphone so you can shoot a hollywood movie on a phone that you can get on a contract for I don't know, 40 pounds a month. Obviously he had the whole crew and everything else to make it possible, but he still shot it on the iPhone. And then for him, it was because he shot the previous one on DV cams, which was a beginning of a bit of the democratization of filmmaking, but they just, the image quality wasn't very good. Whereas the 5D's filmmaking quality was amazing. And then to now where your iPhone film quality can be fantastic. And so my messages to people would be like, if you do want to get into making films and tv or advertising just do it just take your phone go and make a video with your friends if you've got a friend who's you know it seems to me that like everyone wants to be the next gymshark so they're making some hoodies make some cool ads of the hoodies you can shoot in slow motion on your phone you can shoot in relatively poor light you know there's so much opportunity to make things and you can edit it in your phone there's so much you can do there so it's even more democratized but for us as filmmakers i think we've just got slightly lucky as we were also saying earlier it's like we rode that 5d wave and we're able to start a business that's been able to supply both jack and i with like you know a good living and like creating work that we love to make and then we got there early so then we were able to be a little bit above the iPhone, you know, phone filmmaking part of the, of the industry. So when people come to you now and, and you're then talking about the lower level work where people just are happy for an influencer to be shot on their phone, we, we sort of risen above that, beyond that again, which is great because I think if you were starting out now and you were expecting to be able to start a very successful marketing agency that primarily shot video, it probably is very hard because you are competing against other guys and girls coming out of university. You'd need a good client, wouldn't you? Exactly. You need someone to say, I'd like you to do this for me. Exactly. And we got really lucky in that, you know, we had Reed and we have other agencies we work with and we have other brands that we work with. And, you know, a big part of what we do is fashion. And the message for sort of businesses is to give, young filmmakers a go i mean what's to lose actually yeah i mean it's not gonna cost you a lot to make some of this content that's totally true there's a lot of places you can put it out there and it's who seem to have done pretty well from doing this yeah what i imagine wasn't a huge budget yeah yeah so there's so from so the negative from your point of view is there aren't many barriers to entry to this business but the positives for people think of getting going is it's definitely doable although there are challenges yeah yeah yeah but yeah and i think that's what when i said we got lucky is we've kind of we were kind of at the forefront twice in that i think it would be very hard to make a lot of money now and obviously there are agencies who are coming through and and have done very well and i think especially the agencies that were very specifically influencer marketing led. A lot of those have sold over the last, you know, four or five years for tens, hundreds of millions off the back of using influencer marketing successfully. But I think less so production companies like ours who were sort of video first creative agencies because there are so many of them now that it hard to then stand out So, you know, we just got very lucky to have relationships with people that read. So what's next for you guys? That's a great question. I mean, so we're right in the middle of basically having a big rebrand from, as we were saying earlier, from Nice Productions to Nice. because it doesn't sound that big no i know well it is for us it is for us it is for us rebrands go what was i mean what repositioning repositioning yeah yeah so what where does that take you hopefully to the next level of the success that we want to be at you know but what what is that i mean quite honestly it's sort of two or three more reads So you need to find more customers who have multi-channel requirements. Yeah, exactly. That's definitely the goal for us. We have other friends in the industry who have built businesses and taken them to that next level from ours, which basically for them is four or five reads, scales. And then once you're at that point, You then have the scalability to take on more people in a new business role, which are obviously very vital because Jack and I don't really have that skill set. But we've actually taken on our first employee, Frankie, who's our new head of production. So she's been sort of us in a production role, but she's also a fantastic new businesswoman. So she's been doing great work for us doing that. And then you can scale. like you know we definitely need we definitely need a probably a second full-time editor because a lot of the time we just get too busy in all the other capacities but uh cash flow wise it's just hard for us to take on an a full-time employee when you're just not positive that you know especially for us like december january february well yeah the income is intermittent i suppose because it depends when the project it's very cyclical and like we always know that december January, February are just tough months. There's not that much going on. And then we know that August is completely dead. And I think if you, if you're, if you, if you have the cash flow to start taking on employees, you just have to know that over those months, it's not going to make you struggle. And we're nearly there, you know, but for us, it's just like a little bump and then we'll be safe. And then it's an, but it's always been like that. I mean, you know, our, it was for us, it was doing work for Bentley. That was the first bump for us because that gave us the kudos to, it was a chicken and egg situation where you couldn't work for big brands and you couldn't work for specifically like big luxury brands without having worked for a luxury brand. So getting to work with Bentley not only gave us the kudos to work with those brands, but it also seemed that it gave us kudos to work for other brands. Like, for example, one of our big clients is the Intercontinental Hotel chain. and we've traveled around the world with them and done projects uh both here in london and across the world and they're a fantastic client and we make we love working for them and the work we make we really enjoy but when we first met them i don't think they would have spoken to us if we hadn't been already working for bentley um because prior to that we were working for small medium so how did you get the Bentley gig honestly nepotism Jack's mum worked at the agency that uh yeah had a connection to um to like a driving experiences agency they used to call my red letter days um I think that's nepotism that's just sort of context just yeah no of course but you know exactly I mean that's the more you work in this industry as well the more you realize that who you know is the biggest thing the biggest part of the whole industry the most just asking people to introduce you to people exactly yeah no and it was you know they didn't have to take a chance on us it's not as though um it's not as though they had to work with us just because we'd been introduced to them no of course not we had a we had a back catalog of work that allowed them to trust us and they didn't have a huge budget because it was a new project for them and but it but you know it was also amazing for us because we got to fly out with a crew to finland and we were filming the arctic circle and it was also probably for us the first time we worked on a project probably of that scale so even though the budget wasn't amazing again we probably over invested and took more people than we should but that the end product allowed us then to open more doors and and now and then and you know probably even helped us meet you and then from there we were then we were we were able to scale up and then we able to meet reed and then reed was the next scale for us so you know we went from being a video first social agency to then buy a read we very much been able to massively push that we're now a full service creative agency i mean it's clearly very important for your plans for the future to win more clients to build your client base you know you've mentioned that contacts are clearly helpful what other techniques are you using or ideas are you deploying to help win clients? Gregory, if I could ask you. I mean, it's the hardest part of any industry, I think, especially when you're sort of in the scaling phases to win new clients. But I think we use all the current techniques available to us, from cold outreach, which generally speaking, we don't think is particularly successful. But the most successful thing for us ultimately is asking the clients that we already work with to introduce us and share our work with their wider network. And word of mouth is quite honestly 95% of our business. Very small amount of it comes from SEO. We get a few inquiries a year, which turns into, again, a few jobs via just people. I'm not even sure what they'd be searching because I've never found our website online, but they do come across our desk. So, you know, that is something that we're probably going to look into pushing more into the future. Yeah, LinkedIn proves to be a pretty good place to be able to promote our work. So, you know, for example, the Itzu campaign, we were able to use that to both approach brands and start conversations with other people because it because of the virality of it people were posting their own stories in their own stories about the work so we were then able to jump on so you know a lot of people were sort of jumping onto the story in the way that was worked well for us where they were saying look you don't need to spend five million pounds here's it's who's latest campaign which has probably in some ways gone more viral than john lewis has for like i said 0.0001 percent of the cost people were posting messages in similar way and then we would jump in hey we were the guys who made that if you would like to do similar work get in touch and that has been really quite successful for us so you know there are there are lots of other channels and and to get new business these days but nothing is better than word of mouth because it sounds like you really need to be on it though you need to be super active and alive to making the most of opportunities as and when they arise 100 super because you're right every business needs to be good at sales if it's going to succeed and that my other question that's sort of in my mind is this creative process i'm very interested in ideas where they come from and how you develop ideas um because ideas are so important again to every business to innovation and to make a good campaign you're going to need good ideas how do you i don't like the phrase ideate i think i don't know where it comes from but it's a sort of corporate speak so we won't use that word but how do you generate ideas and make sure that you get the best thinking creatively well i think you know we've now got 10 plus years of doing it together so you might go away and have a few ideas you know by yourself and make a few notes and have a few you know things that you might ideally like to like to create but then it's about sharing it between the two of us and you know maybe picking holes or you know strengthening things but what is that process i mean how do you do that do you go into an office or do you go to the pub what do you do it's not formalized at all is it i mean it's we've known each other very long Sometimes we do think about formalizing it a bit more, but a lot of the time it just... So it's informal. I mean, I want to understand this because it's sort of important. Where do ideas come from? So yours is an informal process based on a long period of knowing each other. And, you know, we'll create a shared doc where we'll throw down ideas, however silly, however fun, however serious, depending on what the campaign is. and I think I sort of generate my best work sort of as I'm falling asleep or when I wake up first thing in the morning, I sort of, I do kind of have those creative epiphanies and I'll just get on the Google Doc and I'll throw down the idea no matter how jumbled or gargled it is and then message Jack, like when you're up, have a look. And yeah. I'm always up later apparently. Sounds like it, yeah. So you create a repository for thoughts. Yeah. And it's not like someone has an idea and you go, oh, that's not very good. It sounds to me that... No, we are quite mean to each other. You are, but it sounds to me like you give enough space for the ideas to sort of be left to cogitate. Yeah, yeah. And you take ideas seriously. Because I think a lot of ideas get sort of killed off too early by people I've observed. Well, you're trying to work out, there's two main branches of whether or not something's interesting or captivating or fun or whatever it is. And then whether or not you can pull it off, you know, so you've got to make sure you've got both of those things. Not the execution of the idea. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. a lot and probably in our relationship a lot of the time what one of us will throw down an idea and then the other will be like okay but are they going to give us a million pounds because this is a million pound idea but this is a reason for having a partnership i suppose yeah because you wouldn't if it was if you if you hadn't invited jack to join you and jack hadn't wanted to you wouldn't have been able to do that on your own gregory no you've been lost Lost at sea. Lost at sea. So you might have been in your own head, I suppose, but it's much more, there's a sort of dynamism by being a partnership that you'd have missed out on. Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, we have a great working relationship and it works really well. So someone who wants to make a similar journey or start a creative business, in many ways should be looking for the right partner to spar off, generate ideas with, and work with over a long period of time because there are benefits arising from that. Would you agree? Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, from back in the day when I used to, you know, attend all these startup events, the conversation there was always about finding the right partner. You know, in those spaces, it was all about finding the right technical partner. So if you were coming up, whatever it was, whatever the app was, if you were more of a creative ideas person, they were always talking about find the right technical partner for you. And I think that's probably true of us is that possibly I'm more of the technical partner and Jack's more of the creative partner. But together, my creative side complements both of our creative side and my technical side probably complements Jack's creative side more. So like between the two of us, we cover a lot of ground by having capabilities across the board. And that's on the ideation side, but also all the way through. I mean, like on set or on location, you know, filmmaking is such a collaborative pursuit. And quite a large part of it is checking everyone else and making sure that problems have been spotted before they become problems. So whether it's something as simple as, well, in that last shot, he's looking left, so you better make sure that we do that. Or if it's something more interesting, but half the time you're just politely and quickly going, actually, no, so that's not right. We need to do this or we need to do that. So it goes all the way through. So if people want to see your work or find out more about you, where should they go? Nice-productions.com. But I don't wait because we're going to do a big website relaunch. And then, yeah, but obviously now go to nice-productions.com. Have you got nice.com? No, I wish. I think, obviously, you'll know this, but we looked at buying new website addresses. And Nice AI, I think was £350,000. Well, that's much more expensive than Read AI. I'm sure it was, yeah, because obviously Nice is a bit more of you. Your name is more desirable, you reckon? Yeah. All right, well, I'm glad that ours is cheaper. But we do own Nice.Productions. And even though we are moving just to Nice singularly, we're going to move to Nice.Productions as our primary website. But the most important thing is people know how to find you and there's examples of your work there. Yeah, exactly. So Reed's on there, Bentley's on there, Incontinental's on there. See what you do. Yeah. Well, thank you both very much for coming in to talk to me this afternoon. I always end with the same two questions. I'm thinking I might ask one of you one and one of you the other. Or do you want to both answer both? Both of you can answer both. So the first question, which I ask all my guests because at Read We Love Mondays, you know that, is what gets you up on a Monday morning? And I'm going to start with you, Jack. it's a lot easier to get up when we've got a fresh juicy project especially when you're at the beginning of it and there's all the potential and you're figuring out what you can do with this budget that someone's trusted you with and like we were saying earlier particularly with filmmaking with marketing campaigns it's this cycle and the uh the earlier phase of it when there's all that potential ahead it's probably the most exciting part for me that's what you know what about you Gregory what gets you up on a Monday morning um quite honestly I get off very early and go to the gym that's what gets me up what's very early for you just so that's just showing up uh I I try I try to leave between 6 and 6 30 right yeah and then well I was up doing a bit of training at 6 30 so yeah good for you so um the next question and the last one is um in my interview but why you where do you see yourself in five years time i'll ask you this first gregory in five years time quite honestly looking at the other businesses who who you know similar in size and scale i i would really like to be at the point where we were had a 10-ish employees and we were making just bigger and better ads that people hear about and love and I'll be right by your side, Gregory. So you want the same thing, do you? Absolutely, of course. Well, that's good because you're a partnership. It would be a problem if you didn't. So you want the same. Well, that's fantastic. Well, I wish you every success and I hope you achieve that objective. I see no reason why you shouldn't. And it's very nice of you to come in and talk to me. And also thank you for making our commercials, which has been a pleasure working with you. I'm very happy to endorse you to anyone listening as a good partner. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Gregory. And thank you, Jack, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reid, a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to learn more about Nice Productions, Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton, and their work on campaigns, including Reid, you'll find all the links in the show notes. thanks for listening and see you next time