5 Minutes with… Matt Dyke
Matt Dyke is the founder and chief strategy officer of multi-award winning digital creative agency AnalogFolk Group - which includes content production company Untold Fable, digital transformation consultancy MindWorks and With Robots, a technology and production automation company.
With over 25 years of experience leading digital strategy for the world’s biggest brands, Matt has spent his career helping brands grow in innovative ways to make consumer lives better in some small way. His philosophy is that any new technology isn’t inherently good or bad for our lives, ultimately it’s how they are implemented by tech companies and brands that counts.
His work has been recognised by Cannes Lions, CLIO and D&AD through to IPA Effectiveness Awards. Previous to AnalogFolk, Matt was head of planning at DDB London and worldwide strategy director for Tribal DDB, helping it become the first digital shop to win ‘Global Agency Network of the Year’ in 2008.
In this interview with LBB, Matt discusses his route into advertising through an interest in psychology, and technology for good vs evil.
LBB> Tell us about your influences and inspirations growing up.
Matt> As a kid growing up in the early 80s, I was heavily influenced by the golden age of advertising. The first ad I remember, featured a drop of Castrol GTX oil moving steadily from an oil can into a spanner set to Mahler's Seventh Symphony. I was absolutely mesmerised. Coincidentally when I worked at BMP DDB, I was honoured enough to briefly work with the late John Webster, who had created all my childhood favourites, including Cadbury’s Smash Martians, the Hoffmeister Bear and the Honey Monster!
LBB> How did you eventually find yourself in advertising?
Matt> I studied consumer psychology as part of my university degree and was intrigued by how advertising worked and the power of brands. So, I guess a strategic role was always on the cards. But I had no idea how to get into the industry. I just assumed you had to be a creative to work at an ad agency and I had certainly never heard of account planning. So I started out at a very well-known research agency, pre-testing hundreds of ads and conducting qual and quant brand research. One of my clients was Volkswagen and through them I got to know the account planners at DDB. When an opportunity came up to join the digital arm of DDB, I made the jump.
LBB> You have 25 years of experience leading digital strategy for some of the world’s biggest brands. How have you seen the realm of digital evolve over recent years compared to when you first started?
Matt> When I first started working in digital, AOL was still handing out CDs with free trials to join the internet for a certain number of hours. It was the wild west, where we were helping shape the online advertising standards as we went and every night of the week was a media party at Yahoo, Lycos or Ask Jeeves! So, it was a creatively exciting time and every project felt like a ‘digital first’. Every few months we were wrestling with new channels and formats, whilst measurement and evaluation was a very dark art. Solutions to briefs could be anything from display ads, online games to one-off microsites.
I think the moment I realised that the digital experience could be the focus of a campaign was a project I worked on for Hasbro. I came up with the idea of launching a new version of the Monopoly board game by letting people play it IRL across the streets of London, with GPS enabled taxi cabs as the playing pieces. The idea attracted hundreds of thousands of players, made the BBC news, won gold at Cannes and sold a lot of board games!
In the era of Web 2.0, I have to say that brand creativity has become a little formulaic. Conventional paid formats forced social into just another way to consume linear content, rather than live up to the promise of transmedia storytelling.
With Web3.0, I believe we are once again entering the wild west and I am here for it. Just as in the early days of Web1.0, suddenly anything is possible. I am working on some projects that are challenging the conventions of what brands are and how they can co-create value with people.
LBB> You founded AnalogFolk Group in 2008. What was the catalyst for you to launch your own business and what was your vision at the time?
Matt> At that time, it was clear that digital had changed the game. It was more than just another communications channel. It was a completely different way for brands to create experiences that people would seek out, rather than try to avoid.
To really lean into that opportunity, we felt a need to break away from the traditional advertising agency model. True digital innovation needed specialist focus, versus being featured as the last wacky idea in a pitch presentation after the traditional comms ideas. So we set up a new agency that would build brands by creating digital products, services, content and experiences that consumers would value.
LBB> What have been some of the biggest lessons you have learned since?
Matt> Genuinely transformative digital ideas need to live beyond campaigns. They create ecosystems. And the most connected ecosystems permeate all aspects of a business, beyond marketing. This often demands a step-change in thinking and behaviour across technology, data, operations, logistics and even finance. So, we’ve had to change too.
In the last few years we’ve built upon our creative agency by adding a digital transformation consultancy (Mindworks), a decentralised production company (Untold Fable) and a tech automation business (With Robots).
LBB> Your philosophy is that any new technology isn’t inherently good or bad for our lives - it’s how they are implemented by tech companies and brands that counts. So what’s your stance on the evolution of AI and some of the fears surround this technology?
Matt> I think people are right to be fearful. But not because AI is going to become sentient, evil and then kill us. It’s not the technology itself, but the individuals and organisations that might abuse it. AI at its best won’t replace us, but will accelerate and amplify human effort.
Sometimes that human effort will be for the good of mankind. Other times it won’t be.
The impact on civilisation will be significant, akin to a technological revolution. Some have predicted that the most successful innovations of the next 20 years will have AI embedded into them.
LBB> What would you say brands need to look out for most when it comes to their strategy over the next year? What should they be paying attention to? What challenges will they be facing?
Matt> A good strategy should really be looking five to 10 years out. Then focus on making a first step in that direction within the next year. But if you are looking for a technology trend that people are sleeping on then I would say AR. I believe that the foundational layers are in place to create augmented experiences that will fundamentally change our relationship with media and the physical world. The upcoming Apple Vision Pro signals an exciting first step.
LBB> What are you personally most excited to achieve in the next year?
Matt> AnalogFolk has been through many chapters of growth over the last 15 years. With so many changes to the media and technology landscape happening right now, I’m excited to be leading us through this next chapter as we transition from agency to marketing technology group.
LBB> Outside of work, what is inspiring you?
Matt> I enjoy drawing inspiration from creative people from spaces and disciplines outside of advertising. A couple of years ago I co-created a podcast series called ‘These Three’ with a friend of mine, the cultural affairs presenter and producer John Wilson, best known for the BBC Radio 4 arts programme Front Row and the music series Mastertapes.
We interviewed a number of well-known creative minds such Paul Weller, Sir Anthony Gormley and the playwright Lucy Prebble, who is also a writer and producer for the HBO drama series Succession. John and I have been having some very healthy debates recently about the role of AI in music from a creative perspective!
