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Product Marketing Adventures is the only PMM show that goes beyond theory and into the real execution of product marketing. In each episode, experienced product marketers co-host two segments of the show: first a case study example of their work, followed by a messaging critique of companies we admire. Listeners enjoy a fun conversation packed with practical guidance to leverage in your product marketing career.
If you spent any time on
Twitter or LinkedIn in
December of last year,
that's 2025, you've
probably seen what we're
about to talk about.
Everyone posting their year
review stats or could look
like screenshots, maybe
swipe cards on LinkedIn.
I'm talking about those funny
little insights about how
people work and what they
listen to, what products
they shipped, what they
obsessed over for the year.
Yes.
I think you know what
I'm talking about, the
popular wrapped campaigns.
Now, Spotify wrapped made
this format famous, but
some of those rap style
campaigns completely flop when
brands tried to copy them.
You guys remember that year
in review from LinkedIn?
Yikes.
Well, today we're talking
about a company that
absolutely nailed the rap
style campaign a scrappy,
AI powered, deeply shareable
experience that generated
millions of organic
impressions and changed
how people talk about
their product overnight.
I am so excited to welcome
Jack Cully to the show.
You guys, Jack is part of
the team at granola, the ai.
Meeting notes tool that
people genuinely love using,
and today he's going to
walk us through how they
created granola crunched.
That's their version of
a yearend review campaign
that spread across tech
workers on Twitter and
LinkedIn like wildfire.
Although he's a founding
marketer at a startup and
owns all of marketing today,
he's representing the granola
team as an honorary product
marketer for their strategic
use of customer insights and
product capabilities in this
incredibly clever campaign.
It is no surprise to me that
Jack and the team delivered
such a successful campaign.
Let me tell you guys why.
Jack was one of the earliest
marketers at Monzo, the wildly
popular, app-based bank in
the UK that redefined modern
FinTech branding, and he
has led a brand refresh at
every single company he has
worked at, which tells you
he's not afraid to rethink
the story from the ground up.
And if that weren't impressive
enough, Jack has also run not
just one, but two marathons.
So clearly endurance is part
of the package deal here.
Jack, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me,
Al. It's uh, it's great
to be here and thanks
for the very kind intro.
Yes, I have been
looking forward to this
conversation for so long.
I know I initially reached
out to you because the
campaign was so popular,
I'm not gonna lie, I had a
little FOMO because I was
not a granola customer,
so I did not get a granola
crunched year in review.
So,
we'll have to get
you this year for,
uh, granola crunched.
Exactly right.
Okay, so let's quickly, get
our listeners up to speed.
For those of you who may not
know what granola is, help
us understand what is granola
So granola is the AI
notepad for people in
back-to-back meetings.
So really simple.
It's a separate app that
lives on your computer.
Or on your phone.
And, um, whilst you are in a
meeting, you can take rough
notes and then, uh, granola
transcribes in the background.
And then once the meeting is
over, granola will take the
rough notes you've made and
enhance them and make them
into, you know, readable
summaries so you can kind
of stay focused on the
conversation you're having
and not worry about making
sure that every detail.
Was captured.
so yeah, we're, uh,
based out here in London.
team, uh, is growing.
There's about 50 of us and
we keep, keep growing and,
uh, yeah, I guess the, the
big thing for us at the
moment is kind of growing
granola from a notes app to
an app that, makes the most
of the context that you get
from within your meetings.
So we just launched
something called MCP, which
is basically the a way to.
let granola talk to
Chacha, pt Claude, and
all your other AI apps.
So yeah, lots of
Whoa.
That is so cool.
Oh my gosh, I'm so
excited for this.
I remember when I would do,
this was a long time ago.
This was before ai or maybe
like right when AI like
meeting summary started to
come out several years ago.
Um, or maybe just like
recording transcripts.
And I remember I, I'm very
much like a hand note taker.
It's just part of my
processing and I remember
I'd go back and like listen
to the recordings to try to
fill in things that I missed.
So I love that.
It just does that for me.
Very cool.
And pretty game changer
with the, the new, um, MCP.
Congrats on the MCP, right?
That's what it's called,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely.
Yeah.
It's, uh, yeah,
it's pretty cool.
People are, people are really
loving it, so that's great.
Ah, I love it.
Okay, well, um, for today
we're gonna dive into the
first segment of this show.
So the first segment
is where we talk about
the case study example,
specifically on granola
crunch in that campaign and
how you guys pulled it off.
So tell me a little bit
more about what was going
on at granola when you
realized you needed some
kind of campaign like this.
yeah, we were really
surprised at how, you
know, how much people loved
granola crunched when we
put it out to the world.
But, um, it all
basically started as
um, maybe a few things.
You know, there was a
desire from on our side to
do something fun for our
users to, be a bit more
visible on, on social media.
And, you know, we
felt that the, you
know, the product had.
good word of mouth
growth already.
Lots of folks are already
talking about us on Twitter.
ai, Twitter, there's a lot
of conversation about granola
already, so that's great.
and you know, every time we
speak to users about granola,
they absolutely love it.
They swear by it.
So we feel very lucky that
they're, you know, we already
had kind of fairly strong,
product market fit the.
Thing that we wanted to boost
is actually people talking
about granola, online more.
because, basically we
thought that we could
juice that a little bit.
So people are already talking
about granola online a bunch.
but, um, how could we find
a way to get customers to
talk about, granola more?
now at the same time, you
know, we've, we spend some
time, brainstorming fund
marketing ideas, and we kind
of all just got kind of,
you know, there's, there's
this desire in every company
isn't there for your product
to go viral at some point.
So, you
know, we were just kind
of talking through some of
these, some, some ideas and,
you know, it was, back in
the summer where, We were
brainstorming some ideas and
someone, you know, talked
about Spotify wrapped,
which is, I guess for
every marketer, it's every
marketer's dream to do a
version of Spotify wrapped.
But, you know, over the last
10 years, they've become a
bit, ubiquitous, shall we say.
And they're very, you know, I
think lots of people do them.
And you mentioned
LinkedIn at the beginning.
Not many of them are done.
Very well, and they just
become more noise rather than
like, genuine user value.
So we were kind of, you
know, thinking about how
we might be able to do it.
And, you know, the one
thing we didn't want to
do is just do something
that was, was gimmicky.
that said granola
knows a lot about you.
It's surprising how much,
because you say a lot in
meetings that reveal a
lot about you, the phrases
that you use in meetings,
the people that you spend
time with in meetings.
the decisions you make,
the, uh, projects that
you advance and, uh, you
know, the achievements
that you celebrate.
These all happen in
conversations with
your colleagues.
And so, you know, we
thought there was an
opportunity here to use
that context in some way.
and actually it not feel like
a gimmick in the way that,
some of the recaps do today.
So yeah, we, we were in our
summer kind of, we were going
through things in the summer.
We were actually working
with some, um, interns.
Uh, shout out to Luke and
Malika, who with us over
the summer, incredible
engineering interns.
They were super, super
smart people and, um, they
worked on a bunch of things
whilst they were here, but.
for their last week, which
also was a week that the
whole team was, at the company
Villa in Majorca, which,
uh, we call Casa Granola.
we thought we'd
give them a fun.
project to work on.
And so we thought, well,
why don't you work on,
granola wrapped as we
called it at the time.
And so they built a very
basic version based on,
a, technology that we
have called recipes.
It's a feature that basically
lets you save custom prompts.
And, um, the results
were really surprising.
Like they, even with a very
basic prompt behind it,
we were all kind of a bit
blown away by the things
that granola could say about
us and what we had done.
And so.
after seeing the prototype
of it, I just thought
we have to do this.
So, you know, they finished,
um, their internship with us
and went back to university
mid-September, which is
around the time that we
were doing, Q4 planning and.
I just put launch granola
wrapped into our Q4
plans, and I just wrote
that just, just the words
launch, granola wrapped.
And I did that because I
wanted us to do it because
I knew how cool it would
be just based, based on
the team's reactions.
So I kind of forced
ourselves to think about
how we might do it.
and that's, yeah, I guess
that's, that's where we
ended up by kind of pursuing
it as a project, I guess.
Yeah.
And then you just
made it happen.
So, um, I love this story and
I know you mentioned at the
beginning the goal in mind
was around getting people
to talk more about granola.
You had this initial like
word of mouth conversation,
but it sounds like a lot of
that initial word of mouth.
Probably happened more, I
dunno, behind closed doors.
You know, you didn't
necessarily have people
creating an organic
post on LinkedIn saying,
Hey, I use granola.
It's great.
Like, you know, but this
is obviously people started
doing that, but, um, but
just in wrapped up, no
pun intended, in your,
you know, insights
that you guys,
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And you know, we did have some
folks sharing, but I think,
you know, we felt that the
product was, so people do
really love using granola.
Like you should see
our feedback forms,
which is full of.
Praise, which I, you
know, feel very genuine,
lucky to be here.
And I just thought we can get
more people to talk about it.
So we thought,
how do we do that?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
And going back to something
that you said about, when
you were, you saw the initial
results with a super basic.
Basically prompt that the
interns were able to put
together, and that you were
just blown away with it.
You know what it reminded
me of, and maybe this is
still the actual output
of the whole campaign and
I think is a testament
to why being so customer
centric and specifically
using the insights
that you had available
to you so successful.
Tapping a little bit into
human psychology, it's kind of
like why people like reading
about their personalities.
Or their personality, you
know, they liked people like
taking personality tests.
Oh, what's my
personality type?
You know, like, so it's
a little, it has a little
bit of that flavor to it.
so it's just very interesting.
I don't think that
that wasn't necessarily
intentional for you.
It's just something that
you guys discovered as you
started to, you know, run
those, internal, you know,
I guess not experiment
necessarily, but the, you
know, the test internally
with the interns and kinda
the rest of the company for
that summer end project.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, for sure, for sure.
Yeah.
I mean, that was a
big learning for us.
And you know, maybe we'll
talk about this, uh, in
more depth in a bit, but
a big learning for us was,
people really love to read
and read about themselves,
and then they like to talk
about themselves, but they
don't like doing it directly.
So like, people like
saying how great they are.
But they don't like to
say that they're great
from their own voice.
So if granola can do
it for them, great.
Uh, and that's kind
of, yeah, that was a
big thing we learned.
Totally.
Right, right.
I think in our prep call ahead
of this recording, I think you
said something like, what's
an acceptable way for, for,
you know, a user or a listener
or, you know, people out in
the world might be thinking,
what's an acceptable way
for me to brag about myself
without bragging about myself?
Like, you know, so it
kind of creates that.
so,
Well I was gonna ask you
about the insights that
you decided to use and how
you found the insights.
I guess like you mentioned
before, that by nature of
the product that Chronologist
knows a lot about you
and has that context.
how did you decide which
insights to include?
So great question.
I think, well, we set
ourselves a bunch of criteria,
and I think first and foremost
they needed everything that we
showed, folks needed to feel.
They'd been seen.
So they needed to feel
really, oh my God, like
granola really kind of
gets me, it should reveal
something quite meaningful.
and it should be something
that you want to share.
So, hear something that you
want to share and you maybe
think, okay, post it on.
LinkedIn or on on X or
somewhere else, uh, like
a social media platform.
But we kind of thought
about it in maybe
three different ways.
We, we, we thought about it
in terms of posting publicly.
So posting something, on
LinkedIn or X like, and that
kind of a thing would maybe
be, you know, an achievement
that you did at work.
Something that
you, felt really.
Proud of doing, or something
that sold your services.
So we had a lot of, uh, people
who were consultants basically
using their granola crunched
as a bit of a customer
testimonial ad for their own
business, which was really
interesting.
so that was definitely,
useful because it's, it's
valuable for the user
and for, for for granola.
Right.
The second thing that we,
the second like vector of
sharing that we're thinking
about is Slack or Teams or
email, probably not email,
but certainly Slack and teams.
these are the kind of
like company in jokes
that you might have.
So, you know, someone's
always falling asleep on a
call or, um, someone always
uses the same buzzwords.
so we kind of optimized for
that in terms of, yeah, so we
had like, uh, catchphrases and
we also had your work bestie.
I can't remember what
we called it, but
it was like, you are
partnering crime or something.
And then the third vector was
maybe sharing with friends.
Um, so something that you
say at work that may be
transferrable outside of
work, you know, what would
you send someone on WhatsApp?
so yeah, we, we, we saw
success on the first,
on the first two.
Like a lot of
people did share.
very publicly on LinkedIn
or X and then there was a
lot of kind of, from what
we can see, obviously we
don't know for sure, but,
anecdotally we heard that
lots of people were sharing
on Slack, and we also kind
of saw that, you know, we had
analytics on the share button.
We saw lots of people were
pressing share and not
necessarily seeing that
same percentage show up
on, uh, like LinkedIn or
X. So you can deduct that.
There was a lot of sharing
on, on Slack as well.
So, so yeah, that's kind
of how we thought about it.
Uh, happy to go into more
detail about how we, how we
made that work, but, uh, yeah.
Right, right.
And part of what works so well
with the campaign, and I guess
the output of the campaign
is that it was funny and fun
and witty and entertaining
and I think, and that was
intentional as you mentioned.
So I guess like how
did you make it funny?
Um, so, it's a very
difficult thing to do
well, especially with ai.
It is very hard to make
AI funny, and I can, I
can claim no credit really
for making, for making
granola crunched funny.
we spent a lot of time
thinking about, the tone and
what kinds of things we want
to say about granola, about
users, in the experience
and, you know, we, we
always wanted it to be
accurate, first and foremost.
We wanted it to kind
of be respectful.
We didn't, you know, a lot of.
Certainly Spotify and some
others have, have kind of
gone down a roasting route.
and we tried that.
We tried to roast people
and it just felt super mean.
Honestly, it, it did
not work.
Yeah.
You're like, ads doesn't
make me feel good.
Right, a hundred percent.
And like I can kind of
see how like roasting
definitely works on Spotify
because you can be like,
ha ha, you listen to Taylor
Swift, let me roast you.
But there's something
different about when it
comes to your conversations.
So yeah, we, we basically
set, talked about it, we
kind of set ourselves, a
bunch of principles that kind
of were aligning on like.
How do we make this super
shareable and interesting,
but also we don't cross
a line where we kind of
upset and offend people.
And way we mainly did that
honestly, was by kind of
making an example, showing
it to people inside the
company and then getting their
reaction and just kind of
seeing how they felt about it.
And so our chief of staff
here, Joe, Is behind all of
our kind of AI prompting.
And so she spent countless
hours, I, I would say over
24 hours worth just pure,
tweaking the prompts to make
it work and do it properly.
Like the most attention that
we spent on this whole project
was tweaking the AI and the
kind of prompting behind it
to make sure that it felt.
Really sharp, but also
empathetic and, uh,
pulled the right detail.
Didn't make any assumptions
about you, didn't offend,
you didn't say anything that
was confidential because
a lot of your meeting
context is confidential.
You think about, you know,
we, we spent a lot of time
thinking about, people
who work in, The people
teams or HR or recruiting,
you know, some, sometimes
you're having very difficult
conversations and the
last thing you want is for
that to come up in this, in
Absolutely.
Or if you're, yeah, like
revealing product details or
product roadmap information.
There's
all kinds of things, right?
Yeah.
So, so we spent a lot
of time thinking about
those use cases and.
Yeah, slowly but surely we
worked our way into a prompt
that felt like it was giving
good and funny results, and
it felt safe enough to start
scaling out to more people.
But I, as I say, I can
take no credit for that.
That was all Joe who
did an incredible
Yeah, shout out Joe.
That's awesome.
And what I love that, you
know, and this is, uh,
credit, you know, entirely
to Joe and then, but then
also the rest of the team to
sit down and think through
what those principles
are and you really put.
Yourselves, kind of in the
customer's shoes to think
through what, how would we
make this like, like what
is required to make this
shareable, you know, something
that they're proud of.
Basically, it has to be
something that they're
proud to put their name on.
everyone likes to, everyone
likes to be funny, you know,
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's kind of like,
yeah, were we.
The way we thought about it
really was, is this something
that says something about
someone like, yes, no.
And if yes, does it say
enough about that person
for them to share it
with someone else or feel
really warm about granola?
And if it didn't hit that
bar, then it was out because
everything had to feel.
Like you'd been really seen
by, and you know, the reason
we did, we had, I can't
remember the exact number
of, kind of screens we had
in it, but the reason we did
eight or nine in the end is
because everyone's different.
And as we were testing it
with folks, some people really
resonated with, their partner
in crime, whereas other
people really resonated with
their catchphrase and other
people really resonated with.
Their achievements.
And so we wanted everyone
to feel warm about the
whole thing, but different
people are minded to
share different things.
And if we just, there was
a, there was one version
where we basically were
just gonna go with one or
two slides and that's it.
But what we found is that
actually there was no clear
winner on the slides of
which people would share.
So we shipped them all
and made, and hopefully,
you know, it felt like
an appropriate length.
So, yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
I love how you kind of
just went with your gut
a little bit on that.
Oh yeah.
Which intuition is sometimes
part of the game, you know,
just leaning into intuition.
okay, let's talk
about the launch.
How did you actually put
this into the world and
make sure that it kept up
with the fire, you know, the
wildfire spread.
Well, yeah, so we, we spent
in total, probably myself
and James, who's a design
engineer on our team.
We probably end to end spent
six weeks on this project.
we started roping folks
in at weeks two to three.
Uh, and it ended up with,
five of us, I think.
kind of looking to
ship the experience.
You know, we did lots of like
readiness checks from like an
engineering and platform point
of view, uh, to make sure that
we were super, super ready,
uh, in kind of all scenarios.
you know, I was expecting
folks to resonate with it,
but I really didn't expect
what was about to come.
So, on the Monday, we launched
on a Tuesday, on Monday night,
we did all our final checks.
We went through.
The experience.
We had one last minute
change to the beginning of
the experience, which was
actually, just to reiterate
how private this data is.
Like no one at
granola can see it.
No one, inside your
company can see it.
The only time this data
gets shared is if you, um.
Choose to share it.
So we didn't have that in
there and we thought it
was important to put it in
to kind of set the scene.
Um, so we made that change
on a Monday evening, uh,
before we went out on Tuesday.
And then, yeah, Monday,
uh, Tuesday morning, About
8:00 AM UK time, we'd
basically made the calculate.
So most of our customers
are based in the us.
and generally speaking,
when we launch something,
we launch, around 9:00
AM uh, Pacific Time.
Uh, the reason we do that
is because that's when
folks in San Francisco,
our biggest market, uh, are
waking up but we made the
calculation this time that
actually we have enough
users in the UK to see it.
Then start talking about it.
Then New York, wake up at 3:00
PM and by the time New York
wake up, hopefully there's
a critical mass of people
talking about it online.
And that transfers
to New York and then
again to San Francisco.
Turns out that that was a
good decision because that's
exactly what happened.
So we set the product live
at 8:00 AM We put a banner
inside the product, so.
In granola, we have like your
upcoming meetings at the top
we have your, uh, meetings
that you've taken notes for
at the bottom, and then we
put a bar in the middle that
just said your 2025 crunched.
And then very much
just like tap to see
what this is all about.
we sent an email which slowly,
I mean, you know how long it
takes for emails to roll out.
It probably took about
six to eight hours
for the email to send.
Uh, which again was
perfect for folks waking
up in San Francisco.
So, we sent it out and then,
we had planned to tweet
about it and post about
it on LinkedIn and do a,
kind of, do our socials.
We'd planned to do that about
1:00 PM UK time, which was
a couple of hours before
folks in the US wake up.
But we found, we saw that
we were getting so much
traction from the uk, like
just really people just
absolutely going for like
tweeting us and um, you know,
posting about us on LinkedIn
that we decided to go early
with our announcement post.
So we went probably, I can't
remember exactly, maybe
10, a 10:00 AM UK time.
There was just
so much going on.
so yeah, it was crazy.
Uh, and then.
I kind of, you know, all
the conventional wisdom
for social says that if you
are mentioned on something
that you want other people
to see, you should reply
to it and engage with it.
So I decided that for
crunched, I was gonna
reply to every single post
about crunched, whether
granola was tagged or not.
So anyone posting
about crunched, I would
just reply to, uh.
So from 8:00 AM through
to, think it was eight or
9:00 PM I was replying to
posts and I just was co
It was all day, all day.
Wow.
I was replying to every single
one, just trying to be a bit
funny about what they'd said.
I don't know, I, it was,
it was a bit of a wild day
and I feel very delirious
even thinking about it.
But I
But you wanted that like
organic engagement that was
unique to every post, not,
you know, not just like
copying the same thing and
putting it on the same post,
because that just feels so
inauthentic, which is the
opposite experience of what
you wanted the campaign to be.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And I wanted people
to feel that granola
had a personality.
I wanted people to, you know,
I, folks who followed granola
would hopefully see the fact
that we were interacting.
The person who posted
would feel, um.
There's always like a
sense of like, okay,
they've recognized me.
And I think, yes,
validated is the word.
Mm-hmm.
And then I think if you've
posted something, you see
others posting, well if
you want to post something,
you see others posting,
you are more encouraged to.
But then if you see the
thing you are posting
about post back to you.
There's just like a human
psychology thing where you're
like, oh, I am gonna post
'cause everyone else is.
right.
right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I love that.
Yeah.
Wow.
Your fingers must have
been cramped up after that.
I'm very impressed.
I'm very impressed.
I myself, like I, I, I was
not a granola customer,
and when I saw it popping
up everywhere, I'm not
gonna lie, I had some fomo.
I was like, I don't have one.
So I think it does, you
know, it definitely.
Works.
Right.
Um, so what can you share
in terms of results?
You know, your initial goal
for all of this was to get
people talking about granola
in a socially acceptable way.
so, and you've talked a
lot about how you did that,
which was so clever, but
like, what were, can you
share a little bit about
actual business impact and
you know, what that, what
that did for you guys, um, in
the success of the campaign?
Yeah, I mean, for sure.
So, um, I think just the fact
that granola was visible on
the internet and very, very
visible on the internet for
a few days, we've done a
rebrand since, but it was
a shame 'cause if we'd had
the rebrand, it would been
great to have all the colors.
but just the fact that the
granola name was out there
for a few days and we were
kind of being talked about,
a lot of people were saying
some very kind things about
us, like Spotify wrapped.
The best thing since
Spotify wraps, which is
obviously very, very kind.
just like the thing that that
does to people's perception
about the granola brand is,
is invaluable and, positions
us as like a real, necessity
for, for businesses, right?
Like, and I think
that's important.
So, you know, we had millions
of organic impressions
within the first few days.
Of that campaign and
there was a long tail.
we still get people
asking us today for
their granola croach,
which is, you know, wild.
It's, it finished
four months ago.
So like, it's amazing
that people are
still asking for it.
so yeah, millions of
organic impressions,
um, which was great.
we saw very strong sharing
rates, so we were, we
could see the percentage
of folks that were
clicking the share button.
you know, click through rates
on a on something like this
are, you know, typically
in the low single digits.
We were looking at
something like 25% of
people were sharing their,
were sharing their
that's really good.
I think I think that's,
yeah, those are some
really strong metrics.
It was kind of amazing
to, to, to see.
but yeah, I think, I think it
did for some folks change how
they felt about granola too.
So, you know, we saw some
really high acquisition
for the kind of week or
so after, after crunch,
like the highest to date,
um, which was great.
That was great.
So we achieved that goal.
Something that we didn't
anticipate, but I think did
happen was people started
to think about granola as
more than meeting notes.
Like as in granola is actually
a place that understands you
at work and, that context is
really valuable and useful.
I think that was a very good
unintended consequence that
I, I personally didn't expect.
So,
yeah.
Absolutely.
So you, not only did you,
you achieved the goal,
people definitely talked
about you as you pointed
out, every marketer's dream
to kind of have a marketing
campaign go viral like that.
but then to also have that
happy, unintended outcome
of the mind shift that
customers and prospects
had about your product is.
It's a dream.
It's a marketer's dream.
Yeah,
congrats on that.
Just again, so clever, very.
All perfectly executed.
okay, so now I want to
shift gears just a little
bit and let's say that
you're my coach and I am
trying to pull off a, an
engaging marketing campaign,
and I wanna use customer
insights and my product.
You know, help me understand
what the playbook looks
like for this, and what
would step one looks like.
What's the, what's the first
thing I need to go do if
I'm trying to, to pull off
a, not, not necessarily a
wrapped campaign, but you
know, using the approach of,
you know, customer insights,
product capabilities,
and wanting to create
some customer engagement.
Yeah, for sure.
So I, I think firstly for any
kind of customer engagement
campaign like this, you
have to have a product
that users love using.
and so if that isn't the case.
If that needs to be fixed
first, I would say, because
users won't, users are not
gonna share something that
they don't love using.
even if the insight, you
know, maybe you could do it if
something, if there was like a
really unhinged or ridiculous
thing that they might share
for different reasons, which
would give you visibility, but
not necessarily, kind of like
a, a, a positive, Association.
so look for things like
people proactively saying
that they use the product.
We had kind of a baseline
level of this on, uh,
Twitter, X, and LinkedIn
as well beforehand.
look at your
retention numbers.
Look at your daily active use.
look for your customer
conversations with customer
support and see how.
Sentiment is there.
If there's like strong
emotional language being
used there, you should look.
but really without a
kind of genuine emotional
connection with your
brand, this doesn't work.
So the reason this worked
is because the team here
have made an amazing product
and, uh, as a result, I very
luckily had permission to
do a campaign with, with
the team on top of that.
Yeah, so step one, you
have to have a to for a
minimum viable campaign,
you absolutely must have.
Customers, current
paying customers who just
genuinely love the product.
okay.
As assume I have those
conditions, what comes next?
What's step two?
So the next thing I think is.
Having a think about
how you can actually,
execute internally.
So, you're not gonna be
able to do it on your own.
You're gonna need a, a team.
something like this required
a lot of what you, I guess,
called cross-functional
collaboration.
I mean, for us it
was, engineering.
On the back end and the front
end, it was AI prompting,
it was design, both from
a product design point of
view, but also from a kind
of brand and marketing
design point of view.
so identify the people
who can do all of the
core functions of the
thing you need to deliver.
Um, and so, yeah, just
described those for us.
And if you don't have
those, where are you
gonna get 'em from?
Like, could you work
with someone, could you
engage an agency or a
freelancer to help you?
noting that if you go
externally, it might
take a bit longer and
so you'd need to give
yourself a bit more time.
Yep.
Yep.
So basically identify what
are the jobs to be done and
who's gonna do those jobs.
Who, what are the roles I
need cross-functionally to
make this super successful?
okay, so I got my conditions.
I, I know customers
love my product.
I figure out all the roles,
you know, cross-functionally
who are going to help
me pull this thing off.
I put the people in the
place and, you know, in
place of those roles.
So what's next?
What's step three?
So I think next is kind
of what can you use from
your product that would
be genuinely interesting
or useful to users?
So.
Firstly, like think
about, you know, what's
the artifact inside your
products that could be
useful?
Um, and really the whole
time here, you need to be.
I think what a lot of people
do is they love something
inside their product and
they want more people to see
the thing that they love.
So they boost it or they put
that forward for consideration
at a stage like this.
Whereas you need to flip
that completely and put your
customer's sunglasses on and
look through those glasses
and, uh, see the world
with, with the, that tint.
And, once you've got those
sunglasses on to, I guess
extend the metaphor, you know.
Identify the signals that
a user will think, oh, I
see myself in that thing.
So, you know, for us, we,
catchphrase is a really
good example of that where,
you know, we have someone
saying the same word more
than five times, uh, in the
space of two weeks, excluding
things like, and the I.
Um, that is a good,
good candidate for, for
this kind of a thing.
Um, that said, you need to
build a system as you start
thinking about these things.
Uh, so as you start thinking
about that context and how
you might wanna, uh, present
it back to users, you have to
think about the privacy story.
So, if anything is, uh,
sensitive or private, or, um.
You know, privileged even,
need to make sure that only
that user can see it and
they know that you have put
those protections in place.
Um, so yeah, I hope
that makes some kind of
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, absolutely.
And can I just say, I
love, I've never heard
your specific metaphor for
looking at things through
the customer's perspective.
I will be stealing the
sunglasses metaphor.
Don't worry.
I will give you credit.
I literally LI literally
just came up with it.
I literally just
came up with it.
It's the best thing
I've ever heard.
I love it.
Um.
Something else that you've, I
think you've already said, but
it's worth kind of repeating
here, is that when you look
at all of this, use customer
data that you can, that, um,
you wanna try to see what
context is available and how
you can use it for a campaign.
And you talked about wanting,
making sure that it's, you
know, not proprietary, not
private, not things that
people don't want shared
externally, but what you
guys did with crunched.
And I think what should
be done in any kind of.
Leveraging customer insights
for an engaging campaign
is to make it about the
customer and the user, not
the company they work for.
If it's like, if it's
like a B two, if it's a
B2B setting, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah,
I,
Definitely.
yeah, and I think that's
something again, that if you
wanna, going back to what
makes something, you know,
shareable is that it's about
the person who's sharing
it, not necessarily like.
The company they work for?
Yeah.
And you, you're totally right,
and like there's a, um, hmm.
I was about to
use the word lazy.
Maybe I should
use the word lazy.
There's a very lazy version
of this, which is you
used feature XY number of
times that is.
that is.
not the way to do it because
I don't care how many,
right?
I don't care.
I don't care how many times
I've used that feature.
What I care about is the thing
that I did with the feature.
If you can reflect
that back to me,
Right.
Right.
I know.
And it's just, yeah, it's,
again, a lot of this has to
do with like the context and.
Uh, sharing or building that
context around it to make
it a fun and entertaining
and interesting story.
Um, okay, so let me dive into
now you, um, you talked about
some earlier on with a crunch.
You talked about that, like
you said, some like, kind
of established some guiding
principles around this.
So this is kind of digging a
little bit deeper into like.
I have the context now for,
you know, or I have the
insights that I wanna use.
You know, tell me about
how those principles, the
guiding principles, like how
should I consider that as
part of the, um, you know,
the insights that I now have
and how I should use them?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, we found this,
uh, really useful early
on where we, we, you
know, followed the steps.
We had a bunch of,
um, context and.
We had some ideas for what
we could do for the whole
experience, but we kind of
stepped back a bit and started
to set some rules about
what we should actually do.
Um, and as soon as we
set the rules, it was
actually much easier.
So I think for everything, if
you're doing like a campaign
that uses context in some
way, setting yourself these
rules are like, it just
makes things so much easier.
Because you can consider an
idea and then if it doesn't
meet the rules, you can
throw it away or change it.
So, you know, some principles
that we set before, where
we've talked about this quite
a lot, but give people a way
to talk about themselves.
Use make you make users
feel seen, surprise
and delight them.
Make them feel
like entertained.
And the tone should be
positive, should be safe,
it should feel, Like, it's
not kind of taking aim at
you, but rather celebratory.
Um, but still like that
edge of fun, which I
think we did really well.
Yes.
Okay.
So if I were doing this today,
I would come up with whatever,
know, guiding rules or
principles makes sense for me.
But if I want, and this
is something you did
with Crunched too, is
you re, you worked really
hard to define the tone.
So maybe that's part of this
step is to define the tone
and to, you know, figure
out what, like what are
those, um, must haves for?
The insight and, and
how I'm using it.
Um, so now once I have
the, the insight and,
you know, those guiding
principles, like what's next?
Is it just to build or
is there anything else I
need to consider before
I jump into building?
Yeah, I guess, you know,
we, we didn't do it slightly
this way round, but I
would do it this time.
I'd kind of set the
rules first and then
I'd brainstorm second.
Um, but sometimes you
need to come up with
ideas and then you can.
Um, and then you can kind
of set the rules based on
the example ideas you have.
So I guess these two stages
are interchangeable, but
brainstorm and then, see
if they fit the principles
or create the principles
and then do the brainstorm.
Um, either way I think are
interchangeable, but yeah,
come up with some ideas and
narrow them down, I think
would be the next one.
Fun enough, and you can
bring, uh, bring on board
all the people that you.
Put into roles, to get the
brainstorm accomplished.
Okay.
So then once you have
the idea, now you build,
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And we, something that's
kind of is culturally very
important at granola is
getting as close to the.
thing that you want to ship as
quickly as possible and then
iterating and refining until
you get to something that
you feel is ready to ship.
So we did that with crunched.
We made a very minimum viable
version of, of crunched.
We just, James made it in
a couple of days and then
we started playing with it.
So we shared it with the team.
They played with, it
gave loads of feedback.
We iterated based
on the feedback.
We did it again.
We did it again, and then we
reviewed it a couple of times
with, um, some key folks.
and, you know, testing
against our principles.
Again, the things that
we kind of spent the most
time iterating on were
accuracy, humor, whether it
felt useful, whether it was
like genuinely delightful.
And, you know, the first
three versions were fine,
but they weren't really fun.
And I think we would not have
got to the experience we had,
uh, back in December if we
hadn't have done this step.
So this step is
I have got it.
Ah, okay.
So the internal kind of
like testing and iterating
and making sure that
it, it's gonna land.
Yeah.
So even, so if, let's just
say like internally, you
guys are, you're using your
product, so, and just the,
again, the nature of your
product, you can test it
internally on just internal
employees, but if you don't
have that, if you were doing
this at a different company,
different product, would you
maybe consider maybe doing
like a little beta test with
some like trusted customers
to get their feedback?
Yeah, I think so.
I think, um.
We did do this with crunched,
so we showed it to, I think
about 10 users of lots
of different backgrounds.
Um, uh, so we did that.
I definitely would
recommend it.
Um, we were quite picky about
who we chose because we wanted
specific feedback, so we
wanted to get feedback from
someone who manages a team of.
Um, talent and people, people.
Um, we picked out a
bunch of industries
that we thought it might
be a bit risky
to do this with.
and so yeah, definitely, but
make sure that they don't make
sure you trust 'em enough not
to reveal all the secrets.
of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, uh, it's pretty
standard when you have,
you know, some kind of
beta group or I would.
I've never experienced not
having some kind of, you
know, MDA kind of thing.
so, um, okay.
So now once I have, you
know, the test, I've done the
testing, I'm ready to launch.
Is there any last minute
suggestions that I should
consider as I'm launching,
you know, a customer
insights engagement campaign?
Hmm.
Good question.
I think, just be ready to
like social, is your friend
organic social Is your friend.
Organic social is
where all this happens.
So spend all of
your time there.
you can't influence,
well, I'll come back to
this in a second, but
on, on the day, you can't
influence private channels.
So don't bother spend
all of your time making
it happen on socials.
Um, and to do that, reply
to everyone, make it feel
really personal to them.
give them something
that is surprising.
So.
You have, with campaigns like
this, you have permission
to be a bit different.
You have permission to
drift slightly from your
brand tone of voice.
so encourage that.
I think, optimize your product
beforehand for sharing.
So we did that with Crunch,
so it was really easy
to share to wherever you
wanted to share it to.
And we made a bunch of
iterations on that as well.
and, uh.
Just keep, keep replying.
I think that's the
Yeah, what, what did you
spend like 12 to 15 hours on
LinkedIn Replying to maybe
find like part of a team
who can take shifts and.
Good idea.
Yeah.
That's one for next year.
Okay, so let me quickly recap
what I think the steps were.
So the first one was
to, um, look over making
sure that my product has
the, you know, that it's
loved by my customers.
The conditions
are right there.
And then step two is
making sure that I have
the right team, you know,
the jobs to be done.
Then putting the people,
the right people in
those roles to help.
Pull this thing off.
Um, and then I wanna audit my
data, try to gather context,
figure out what insights I
should use, and then define
the guiding principles around
how I'm going to use that.
Then moving on to, you
mentioned the brainstorm.
Bringing the people in the
room, looking at that data,
figuring out, you know, how
we're gonna, you know, what
should we do to actually
leverage it in a campaign,
then build everything.
And that's part of getting
the right people on board who
are gonna help me build it.
Um, testing and iterate and
then launching, making sure
that I'm staying engaged.
Um, anything else to the
story or did I miss anything?
I guess, um,
I.
just, uh, yeah, as we
talked, just talked about
actively engaging and making
sure that, um, you don't
just launch and then leave
launch, stay in the room.
And keep going.
and then, yeah, I guess if
you do get a bit of a, a boost
or it does go better than
expected, think about how you
can use that in the future.
Um, which, which
Yeah.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Okay.
My last question for you
on this topic, what's one
piece of advice that you
want a, a marketer to take
away from trying to launch
a campaign like this?
If there's only one thing that
they should like, consider and
remember, what should it be?
Biggest takeaway.
Ooh, make it easy for users
to reflect themselves quickly,
through something else.
So like, crunched is basically
a mirror that lets you talk
about yourself to others.
Um, and as a result, people
shared because that's
what they want to do.
They wanna talk about
themselves, even
if humans don't.
It's, it's embarrassing
or it is, uh, not
societally acceptable
to boast about yourself.
And that is like, I very
much subscribed to that.
I'm very embarrassed
Oh, a hundred, a
hundred percent.
but still shared my
crunched and, uh, so did
lots of others, so, yeah.
I love it.
I love it.
Okay.
Well this story was just so
clever, so impressive, and
I know captivated clearly
millions based on the
impressions that you garnered.
So congrats again on the
campaign and thank you
for sharing it today.
No, no problem.
Thank you.
All right, so now I'd like
to switch gears a little
bit and get into the second
segment of our show, which
is the messaging critique.
So this is where, uh, Jack,
you and I as marketing
experts get to analyze
real world messaging.
And the fun part is you
get to pick the company
that we will look at today.
So what you're gonna do
is you're gonna reveal the
company, you're gonna tell
me what you're loving about
it, something you wish the
product marketer would've done
differently or considered as
they were putting together
the messaging or the story.
And then we're gonna
brainstorm a little bit upon
around how the marketer,
product marketer can take
it to the next level.
So, uh, Jack, if you don't
mind, reveal the company that
we'll be looking at today.
Lovable.
Ah, love it.
Okay, so lovable.
I love it.
Ha ha.
So that's lovable dev
for those of you who
want to follow along.
Okay.
So tell me what's
standing out to you?
What are you, what are
they doing really well in
terms of their messaging?
So they did a, the, the, the
messaging that's like sticking
in my mind at the moment is
they just did their first
brand campaign or brand video.
Um, and the messaging
is, uh, oh my God, I've
literally just forgotten it.
Some ideas are too
loud to ignore.
That's it.
Um.
Ah,
yes.
I really love, how, you
know, lovable is basically
a way to make websites and
apps with ai and all of the
other players in this space
are talking about the coding
capability of their tools.
Um.
Claude has started to do this,
but they haven't done it with
Claude code, um, lovable.
However, they're, they're
basically really kind of
zeroing in on this idea
of ideas and bringing
those ideas to life.
And they've done it in a
really beautiful way on,
um, with their new film.
Um, they've just done lots
of out of home in London.
We, they were all over
the tube, kinda all
centered on this idea of.
Making your ideas come to
life and I just, I really
like how smart that is, just
in terms of pulling on the
actual thing a user is doing.
Yes.
And you know,
what else is that?
It's, um, it's a little bit
motivating, you know, so if
you have an idea that's just
kind of like itching at you
and you know, that's been in
your mind and seeing something
like that, it's, it's
motivating to be like, yeah,
this is too loud to ignore.
So.
So what, um, and, and
as you're think clearly
this is geared toward
like, creators, right?
Or, you know, someone
builders, not necessarily
builders who are technical,
but those who want to, you
know, vibe code if you will.
Um, so what's one thing you
wish the, their marketers
or product, I don't even
know if they have product
marketers, but 'cause
they're kind of, kind of a
startup, but what, um, what
do you think they would've
considered differently
as they were thinking
through this campaign?
I mean, I think it's a
really good campaign.
So, um, there, I don't
think there's too much
to consider differently.
what I would say from the,
their brand film, the use
case in the brand film
is basically a website
dedicated to this song that.
Is in their head, and I know,
I know why they've done it,
because brand films that have
music in them, particularly
catchy music, are more
likely to be remembered.
So, but I, I feel like that's
why they've done a brand
film with a catchy song.
Like I know I, that would
be my guess as to why
they've
a hundred percent.
Yeah.
but, but what they've,
in choosing that, which I
think was the right thing
to do for a brand film.
But in choosing
that the use case is
slightly weaker because
it doesn't really say what
most people would build a
website for necessarily.
Like they will have loads of
data on like what people are
actually building, and I think
they've slightly sacrificed
specificity in the brand film,
but I think it was still the
right choice because I think.
If you are doing kind of upper
funnel marketing awareness,
consideration stuff, if you
are looking at just awareness,
you need to optimize for
memorability, which is what
they've done with the song.
But
with a PMM hat on, you want
those use cases to be fresh
and sharp and um, I think
they lose a few points
just for that, but it's,
I think it's a good ad.
Right.
Absolutely.
Okay, so how would you
iterate on it or take
it to the next level, or
maybe expand the campaign
beyond just the video?
Well, so they've already done
so really well with out of
home, really crisp, nice,
billboards or kind of tube
cards that say very, short
snappy value prop lines.
Like, your idea
could be shipped by
the time this train.
Reached its station
or something.
It was, it was
shorter than that.
Um, really nice,
really nice stuff.
I'd like to see some kind
of, uh, kind of stunt
or activation that like
really brings this to life.
Like, wouldn't it be cool
if, um, they stopped people
in the street and said
something like, what's
your idea, dream, whatever.
And then lovable just
goes and grants them
that wish or gives them a
That is.
I think that's a really nice
expansion of the idea, maybe.
Yeah, kinda like people,
like stopping people in the
street to like conduct little
mini docuseries or something.
They do like a similar
campaign that expands on it.
I actually love that.
Okay.
Shout out lovable.
I think you guys, you
know, reach out to Jack.
Not that, sorry, we're
not stealing granola, but,
Love those guys.
but yeah, there's
something here.
Um, all right, so Jack, one
thing that I always try to
make space for on the podcast
is a moment of gratitude.
So thank you so much for, I
know as a founding marketer at
a startup, you have no time.
So thank you so much for
making time to come on
the podcast and share the
story, share your playbook.
Um, it's so helpful
for the rest of the
marketing community.
So thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
That was a real
pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Yeah, and you kind of already
gave some shout outs to
the rest of the granola
team, but, um, just wanted
to open the door again.
Anyone else you wanna quickly
shout out and say, you
know, Hey, thanks, you've
made a really big impact
on my career, the canola
campaign, and anything
to Now's a good time.
Um, in the spirit of giving,
giving gratitude, which I
love that you do this on
your, on your show by the way.
Yeah.
Just a big shout out to
Tristan Thomas, who was the
VP of Marketing at Monzo,
gave a chance on me as a, to
kind of start doing marketing.
Um, and he kind of taught
me that, if you just
like go and try and learn
something, you'll probably
be able to learn it.
as long as you like, apply
yourself and dedicate yourself
to like figuring out, So I
learned a lot from, like, that
has really stayed with me.
and uh, yeah, I've had loads
of very, um, influential
kind of marketers in
my life at my time.
So I feel very, very grateful
to have worked so many.
Another Adam Little who was
my manager at Monzo for a
long time and taught me a
ton about marketing as well.
Oh, we're gonna have to go
get the Monzo guys and have
'em come be on the podcast,
Oh, definitely.
Oh, there are some
amazing pmms at Monza.
You should totally
have them on.
Oh, good tip.
Okay.
My last question for you,
Jack is the best place to
find you on LinkedIn if
anyone wants to connect.
Find me on LinkedIn.
Find me on LinkedIn.
I also have a newsletter
that I haven't written in
in a very long time, so I
don't, I don't recommend
subscribing at the moment,
but I will get back on it.
Um,
our
Specky news.
Okay.
We will keep our
eyes open for it.
I'll link it in the show
notes just in case people
wanna just have it in
their inbox to be ready for
when the next one comes.
Uh, again, thank you so much
Jack and hey PM m listeners.
If you like this episode,
please share it with a
PMM friend and I'd be so
grateful if you would leave
a review or hit subscribe.
It helps so tremendously
with our reach.
Thank you for coming on this
adventure with us today.
I hope this episode leaves
you with inspiration to
take on the next step
of your own journey.