The Agency of Others

it's gonna be hot in here. So our next guest this week needs no introduction. She is the woman of the industry. She's showing the industry how to think beyond the industry and how to rethink how we operate. Really excited to hear from the one and only Syddey Gallop. We'll be right back and we're back in the studio with Cindy Gallop. Cindy is the founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn. We are so excited to have you. Well,

I'm deeply flattered. So Cindy, you obviously have um a business that you have built and Make Love Not Porn. But before we get into that you have such a storied career and you've talked about down your Twitter, which is one of my favorite things to follow on the Internet, about what it took for you to crack into advertising. Can you tell our listeners? Well? Um, I read English University at Oxford and film out in love with theater and decided that was all I wanted to work in.

And so for several years I was a theater marketing and publicity officer in the UK. But eventually I got completely bored with basically working and earning chicken feed, which is what happens in the theater. And at the time I was the marketing officer at the Everyman Theater Liverpool and part of my drop moting the theater was to

give talks about it. So I gave a talk to a group of women and after one of them came up to me and said, young lady, you could sell a fridge to an Eskimo, and so I thought, okay, that is the universe telling me something. It's time to sell out the santiafroentt go into advertising, but advertising was very difficult to get into. This was the UK back

in the eighties. Advertising believed or not was the hottest, sexiest and most desirable career, and so I um, first of all, I tried applying cold to a number of agencies, and I said, you know, I've been working in marketing publicity for a number of years. I can bring all of this experience to the table. And I found myself trapped in that double bind of they wouldn't hire me because I didn't have any experience in advertising, but I

couldn't get any experience advertising as they hired me. So I gave up on that and I decided that I would just have to go back and do the entry level graduate trainee application thing. You know. Several years late, I basically took a job at the first agency that offered me one, which was Ted Bates, and had a very happy time there. Then searches Wart Bates and I interviewed with two agencies, specifically bb H and j w T and BBH um basically, we're interviewing me for an

account manager job on on this big retail account. And it was all going frightfully well, and you know, everyone wanted me to join and I was and at the time bb it was the hottest agency in town. And then I was told Nigel Bogel, whose account man in BBH really likes to meet all the all the account managers, all the acount people we high. So it's just a formality, you know, you just need to come in and meet Nigel Bogel. So I went in and met Nigel Bogel.

It was one of those interviews where I got off on the wrong foot. The minute I crossed the threshold, it went very badly. They did lock off me a job. I went ka fine, Um went to j WT instead. From Januty, I went to g g T and then two years and at dug T I got a call from a headhunter saying they're looking for an account director at BBH and I went, oh, no, no no, no, you know they don't want me. And the under well, you know there's a new head account management. Why don't you

just go and talk to them, you know? I went okay, fine. So I went and met with a whole bunch of people again and they all liked me. And then I got the call saying I just need to come in and meet Nigel over. Okay, it's all over, it's all over. Um. So I went over, thinking right, well that's it, and actually Um, Nigel walked into the room and he was carrying the only piece of paper and he said to me, look at what I found. And I thought, oh, it's my resume for the last time round. And it wasn't.

It was one of the letters i'd written from the theater world all those years ago, applying cold and the moment I saw it, I realized by actually been one of the agencies UND applied to, and they'd been the only one where the CEO, Nigel had written back to me and explained very nicely that they didn't hide anybody without experience because of a too small at the time.

But it's been a really nice reply and the interview went very differently, and at the end of it Nigel went, well, you know, everybody here wants you to join us, and I'm being blamed was the only person who stopped you joining us the last time around. Will you you know? Um, we're gonna offer your job and I hope you take it. And so that was my saga of getting into BBH.

And in fact the entertaining thing was after I joined, I had lunch with John Bartle and I said to him, you know, I've been trying to get in here for a very long time, and but you kept rejecting me. You went, oh no, no, Cindy, that wasn't us rejecting you. As I recall, you were too good for the job. Is the Cindy Gallop that everyone knows and loves today and also this powerhouse of voice in the industry that

same person. Or did you hit a place in your career where your voice to yourself started becoming more known and more comfortable? No, plow no, no. I mean everything about life and career has happened by accident. Nothing has been intentional, and there were no moments of revelation. I'm afraid it's very disappointing this kind of thing a lot, and that's an actually good thing because I actually think that's real, that's the real, that's that's the reality, and

maybe that's maybe that's why it works as well. You're coming here today. I was thinking about, um, just some of my own my career, realizing that yes, I have these moments, but at the end of the day, everything has been kind of this nonlinear, right, which is serendipitous thing. So at some point you you hit sort of the end of your agency track and decided you were going

to transition into building. Nope, no, no, that that was completely accidental as well as a thrusting, ambitious young account director does I pinned Nigel build up against the wall and I went, where am I going in this agency? And Nigel is a very good management tactic of turning the question back on me, and so he said, you tell us where you want to go and what you want to do, Cindy, and will make it happen. And he said, don't be bounded by the realms of the possible.

If you want a job that does not yet exist, tell us what it is. So I thought, okay, you know, can't say fairer than that, went off, thought about it, came back and said, okay, may in mind at the time we had one office in London. I said, my dream job is running bb H North America. And I said, and I'd be prepared to do that in San Francisco. And the reason I said that was because we had the Levi's business in Europe and they were headquartered in

sanranci is important for us. And I said, but to be my true dream job, I'd be doing it in New York. And so Nigel went, okay, he said actually we have started talking about the US. UM, you know, not sure how they'll go, but your request is locked. So I went out to BBH specific as the number two, and then I got my dream job. I came out here to start up bb H New York. So you know, did that for a number of years or around the agent the number of years. Um. Then in two thou

and five turned forty five. Had my very unpersonal midlife crisis in the sense that I've always thought of forty five as kind of a midlife point. Obviously, by the way, the happy assumption one of us to be ninety fingers crossed. But I've always gone on your footy fifth birthday. That is the moment when you should pause, take stock, reflecting,

review where have I been? Where am I going? So on February one, two thousand five, idly did that, and that was the moment in which I went, oh my god, I've just worked sixteen years for the same advertising agency. Absolutely amazing agency. I honestly cannot say enough nice things about BBH. I love them to death. But I went woe, maybe it's time to do something different. And then the problem was I hadn't the faintest idea. What Because I've always said to people, I'm not going to work in

advertising forever. I'm not gonna work at BH forever. But advertising is a very good industry to work in to find your next thing because you come into contact with so many different sectors people, companies, businesses. I guess I'd always thought that my next big thing would kind of bubble up from the ether one day, and there I was,

an age of forty five, and it happn't. So lots of thought and angst ing ensued, and eventure I went, if I want to examine every possible option open to me for what is effectively the second half of my life, maybe the best thing to do is to put myself on the market, very public thing. Go okay, guys, here I am what you got, and see what comes. So I took a massive leap into the unknown. I resigned as chairman of EVA and the summer of two thousand

five without a job to go to. As I suspected and surmised, a ton of approaches were made to me n which I would never have thought of myself, you know. Um And and so I went, Okay, I still don't know what I want to do. I'm going to be employment slut. I'm going to talk to everybody. I'm going to take every meeting, I'm going to do every phone called, no preconceived notions. And so I embarked on this fascinating exploratory, which was as good for telling me what I didn't

want to do. That's what I did want to do. Cana stabbed there. That is a huge advice. I tacked a lot of friends about the were hemming and hiding about the next move, whether it's the next job or it's the next career move. And what you just said was stop thinking so much, just do, just go in

do And that's like, yep, no, exactly exactly. And also, I mean, you know a couple of important things I think too are I mean, I was lucky I had some BBH shares which you had to sell when you left the company because as a private companies, so I knew I had a bit of a financial cushion. That meant that I could take the time to explore. Um. I mean I recommend trying to accumulate that you know, savings wise or side hustle wise, because to be frank um,

you cannot make your next career decision. When you're working, you are just never going to You need to clear your head. You need to take the time to work at what you really want to do. And also you need to say I'm available. And when you put yourself out there, you're amazed at what comes to you that that would not have come to you if they had not known that you were. You were out there openly talking.

But but I especially to be Frank evangelic size about working for yourself, because that is the only way to be People make the mistake of thinking that a job is the safe option. It's not. In a job, you're at the complete mercy of management changes, market downturns, industry dynamics. You know, I would say, to people whose hands would you rather place your future in, there's the large corporate entity who at the day doesn't give a shit about you.

Was somebody who will always have your best interests at heart. I EU, and so I recommend to people that they consider starting own business. I especially recommended to women because the existing industry is not working for us. We need to redesign and reinvent our own um. And in fact, the closing keynote I gave it a three Percent conference two years ago was here are the ten easy microactions

you can take to start your own agency now. And I made the point that I used the word age agency in quotation marks because I don't mean start an agency like any of the ones you see around you today. I mean start something that gives you agency, that lets you decide how you want to work, what you want to do, what you want your output to be, and then start that. The thing is that I think it's not easy, but not to be mistaken that it's not doable. Okay,

I'm a big fan of radical simplicity. First of all. You know, what I say to everybody is just take a long, hard look around you and identify what you think is missing from our industry or from whatever industry you want to start something up in. You know, identify what you would love to be there that is not what is not there that you could bring to the table, what you think the industry can really benefit from, but

nobody else has spotted that. And then start that. Yes, and there is so much opportunity when you do that, especially through the female lends. And then you know, there are a couple of good things about our understand I mean First of all, you don't have to jump ship and do it in imediately. You can absolutely begin doing

it in the form of side hustle. Secondly, you know, depending on the nature of your business, the combination of service industry, it's you and your brain working from home, plus all your friends in your network and their brains as and when you can call on them when you have a contract. Plus a lot of these days free technical tools that enable you to build and structure and put out there anything you want I mean, storry and business could not be easier, especially given the nature of

what we do. And and incidentally, this is another reason why I say to all women and and actually people of color, anybody who is other in our industry, you have to go to the three Percent conference. Okay, this year's in Chicago November eight to night. I'll be given the closing kennote again. But the reason you have to go there is because there are your clients. There are your contacts, your network, I mean, your future employees, your

co founding partners. But there are the people who want to give you as when you start your own agency company, doing something that is not available in the industry currently. Following all my years and our industry. I feel very strongly the future of business is doing good and making money simultaneously, and I believe it's very important in that context to design new business models. And so I believe the business model of the future is shared values plus

shared action equals shared profit, financial profits and social profit. UM. In other words, when brands and businesses and companies come together with their audiences and by the way, that can be your consumers, your employees, your analysts, you know, whatever audience it is, when you come together around values that you will share, which, by the way, is the most important requirement for good relationship in life as much as business. You will never truly bond with somebody don't share the

same values. When you come together around shared values, when you are then collaboratively and collectively enabled to coact on those values, to walk the talk together, you can then make things happen in the real world that will benefit consumers, benefit society, and benefit the brand. It's business. And so I started a company called if We Run the World, which is coaction software designed to help brands implement that

business model. Whether that's actually software, I called UM if We Run the World marketing enterprise software because that's that's what it's intended to be. You know. Um A lot of brands see um the future of advertising marketing as co creation with their consumers, and I see it as co action. And so it basically enables you to take any goal break it down into micro actions. And micro action is an incredibly small, simple, easy to do action,

which is so easy. Why would you do it? I want to think for our listeners to like an action, define an action in this case, so my philosophy and by the way, you know, I live my own philosophers. I designed my startups around them, and so my philosophy is one of micro actions. So, as I said in micro action is incredibly small, simple, easy to do action, which is so tiny and easy to do, why wouldn't

do it? And the reason micro actions are important is because I believe that change happens from the bottom up, not the top down. Every single one of us, every single day undertaking tiny micro actions to change what we want to see change cumulatively add up at scale to enormous impact. I mean, one micro action can start a

change reaction that can change the world. So so yeah, but if we run the world enables you to break any going into micro actions that can be shared out amongst different communities, different audiences, within businesses, and within brands, so that you can all coact to achieve the goal together. Can you imagine like a media plan. You say, this

is not a media plan. This is a set of microactions like that, which is totally the way we've been talking ab We haven't coined it as micro actions, which is completely subvert The bullshit of goals that we've been talking about need to be subverted and changed. Now, you're absolutely right. And actually the interesting thing for me was that when I was sharing IF Around the World in concept form with a with a venture capitalists this is years ago. Um, he said to me, Cindy, You've created

the advertising agents of the future. And I had not thought about like that. And actually, um, I mean, first of all, I was enormously flattered when twelve months into IF We Round the World released in beta, Harvard Business School contacted me and said, this model is so innovative we want to write it up as a case study and teach it. So I had the extraordinary surreal experience of going to Harvard sitting in the back of a

lecture theater. Um, you know watching my top and they'll start up being talked to a class of business students. And so it exists as as a Harvard Business School case study, and so I hear from business students all around the world about it. I very much want to go back and reactivate it around the world when I can.

I need to find brand partners and investors. But the world still needs what that startup is all about actually seems like the sort of strategic media lens UM are planning lens that needs to be put on up with a block chain. For those people who have they're starting trying to figure out, like how do we move through the tech element you have sort of that strategic land So so talk about make love not porn? How did you how did that happen? Again, by complete accident, I

date younger men um. They tend to men in their twenties, and about ten or eleven years ago, I began realizing through dating younger men that I was encountering what happens when today's total frame of access to pawn online meets our society is equally total reluctance to talk openly and honestly about sex. When those two dynamics converge, pawn becomes

sex education by default in not a good way. So I decided something about this nine years ago, put up a very small, clunky, no money website at Make Love Not Porn dot com UM that was just myth versus reality,

porn world versus real world. Launched that ted um back in two thousand nine, became the only TED speaker to say the words come on my face on the TED stage six times, I think probably still by the way, undoubtedly, I don't think you've had any followers that Doubtedly that the talk went viral and and it basically triggered this huge global response to my tiny, clunky side that I've

never anticipated. And I reast I've uncovered a huge global social issue, and so I felt responsibility to do something about that. And I saw the opportunity to do exactly what I believe in, which is do good and make money simultaneously. So I saw the opportunity for a big business solution to this huge, untapped global social need. And I used the word big advisedly because even then, back in two thousand and a concept stage, I knew that if I wanted to counter the global impact of porners

default sex it. I was going to have to come up with something that had the potential one day to be just as mass, just as mainstream, and just as

all pervasive in our society as pawn current is. So I was thinking big, right, then get go, And so that led me to take make Love Not Pawn forwards as make Love Not Porn dot tv, which is the world's first and only social sex video sharing platform that celebrates real world sex as a counterpoint to pawn in order to socialize sex, to make it easier to talk about for everyone in the world, in order to promote good sexual values and good sexual behavior. We call ourselves

the social sex Revolution. The Reverend part is not the sex, it's the social it's dove tails. Like you said, your principles and your beliefs have dovetailed into and you're speaking. It's like all of these things actually line up. It's our agency into being one of the loudest voices in the industry for industry change around equality. Let's call it at the highest level right for everyone. Um, but uh, you know sexual harassment. You have been the one of

the loudest voices. Was it make Love not Porn? Was that you know, your belief system was everything that made you this kind of the one who had to or one of the you know, big people in the industry who had a step up and call it out. No again it you know, um nothing so intentional. Speaking up about me too was kind of an accident as well.

I mean it's not in the sense that I had deliberately been speaking up about sexual harassment in business for years, way before the met movement, essentially because nobody else would, you know, and you know I would. I would make it, make a point of including it in every single business talk I gave, no matter to whom, no matter how corporate, the environment, and I would say to the audience, you know, this is a huge sexual harassment is a huge business issue.

I would say. Every single woman in this room knows what I'm talking about. None of the men do. At the last minute, I rewrote my three Percent conference closing keynote of last year, and the topic I meant to talk about it was called where the money is And having spent the previous year telling women and people are colored to start their own agencies, my talk was meant to be about the areas you can start agencies in

that will really make you money. And I pushed that into the back and I made the front half of the talk all about um what I realized with this avalanche, and and I said to the audience, I've changed my own thinking because up to this point I thought diversity was the single biggest business issue facing industry. I realized it's not. Sexual harassment is because sexual assment is keeping out of leadership the female leaders who would actually welcome

in gender quality, diversity, and inclusion. And as long as sexual harassment keeps women out of power, we will never be gender equal, diverse, and inclusive. And so we absolutely have to solve the issue above all others before we solve anything else. What's your perspective on what needs to happen, whether micro actions or kind of bigger organizational changes to change this behavior, but also to change it really does come down to an organ structure as well, Right, it

comes down to hard organ structures. What does that look like in your mind? No? Absolutely, And so so this is why I take issue with Cheryl Sandberg, because Cheryl Sandberg wants us to lean in within the existing system, and I want us redesign the system. And I'm very frank about this on the stage at the se comference every year. I've given up trying to make organizational change happened.

Now industry. My core now to women, to people of color, to disabled people, to older people, to LGBTQ people, is start your an agency. Um. The white male ecosystem is not working for us. We have to start our own ecosystem. And the opportunities are enormous when we do. Because you know, our our entire industry is fucked. That close loop of white guys talking to white guys but other white guys

is not taking it anywhere. And the downfall of the holding companies and the down in tradectory of their share price just demonstrates that the opportunity is enormous for our new models. I've been saying for years that I want to see the female foundered holding company of the future because they were very different. Oh. Yes, I've just been talking to an The woman in industry who is determined

to do this has a very interesting model. I've told her, I think the idea is brilliant, um And and I will give her all the help I can to make that happen. UM and her and she was second guessing herself. I mean she was giving me ideas that nobody else is having, and she was second guessing herself because she's been so beaten down by all the men telling her she's crazy over the years that you know, this is

this is a worrying thing. And so I'm trying to encourage all the women, people of color, people who are considered other an industry, Um, start your own industry, because emily possible, and it'll make your ship ton of money. Do you believe in like cultural training? So a lot of big companies will go into like sexual harassment training, UM equality training, like are you um you know um uh you know silent biases, things like that? Do you

believe in training? Or how do you think these types of things that you're talking about really get a foothold and matriculate through an organization that already exists. So I am dying for organizations to hire me as a consultant in this context because all that training does absolutely nothing, okay for for a couple of reasons. And and by the way, what I'm about to say is backed up by loads of research. First of all, um sad fact

of life. The more a company talks about diversity, talks about inclusivity talks about what it's doing around gender quality. The more you alienate the societal norm white men, they get actively angry and alienated and do not wish to help with any of that. So so it doesn't help you in trying to change the culture. Secondly, fundamental human nature. Um, if we feel we are doing something virtuous in one area, we feel it gives us an excuse to engage in

a vice in the other. So the very mundane everyday example is you know, um, I'm having a diet coat so I can eat the bagg of chips and the danger again with the company going blah blah, blood diversity, diverse diversity is people go all right, So we've got diversity covered off over there, I can just carry on recruiting the same bast way I always have. So I have plenty of ideas and I'm dying to implement with the right brave company, our creative philosophy B H was

I don't sell, I make people want to buy. I'm not selling diversity and making people want to buy it. Um. I want us to basically bring to bear all of what we're good at human insights, psychological understanding, extremely ingenious strategy and highly creative execution to create programs that will absolutely drive cultural change without the people in the culture

even realizing they're changing. Is there work that you can point to in the marketplace right now that signals when all of these things are working in the way they are to be, that you can point to and say, this would be an example when you have other at the table, this is a manifestation of what can happen. Well, I'm going to give you know what I think is the best possible example in response to that, which is

Hamilton's mhm. Because basically, you know, when you have at the top of an industry a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys, but other white guys, the creative output you get is Batman versus Superman, which tanked

the box office. When you invite women and people of color into the room where it happens advisedly, then what you get is Hamilton's, which is not only exploded every creative convention of the Broadway musical created a completely new theatrical phenomenon, but is not coincidentally making literally billions of dollars. But the really important thing about Hamilton's is that it is diverse through and through. You know the team who created it, the writer, the composer that you know, everybody

you know. It's not just what you see on stage. Every single thing about it is other, which is why it is unlike anything else theatrically, musically that's ever been. The world needs more others. Yeah, that's right, Cindy. Before we let you go, we have a game we like to play. Killed by d I Y, Cindy Gallop, What would you kill? But well, I mean I would kill the patriarchy. I would buy anything created through the lens

of someone who was other. And you know, if I weren't already working in my own billiondill adventure, I would undoubtedly start the female founder holding company's future it Cyndey Gallop. If people want to get in touch with you, to hire you, to talk advice from you, where can they reach you? Um, Cindy at if we run the world dot Com? Um, you can follow me on Twitter at Cyndy Gallop and you can find me on LinkedIn Cindy

Gallop again and on Facebook. Cindy Gallop. Can you change when you go back to if we were in the world dot com? Can you change it to when we run the world. We will, we will, thank you, Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Big thanks to Cindy Gallop. The way she kind of simply put things was really refreshing. And I think that it's not just for the individual, right, It's not just for female or quote unquote the others.

It's for brands. It's for um startups who are thinking about how they're getting into a space and who they want to be and how they're going to sell and how they're going to open up a market in a position for themselves. I think it always goes back to those values and running those values through every single thing that you are, that you do, that you sell, that you say, that you hire. When she said it, I think kind of impeccably. So make sure to follow Syndy Gallop.

She has one of our favorite Twitter handles in the industry. Big thank you to our producer, Dana Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, Jacob Weisberg, all of our friends and family at Panoply. We'll be back in two weeks. Full disclosure, our opinions, our own