Hogarth Australia Is Looking for Next Gen Creatives on TikTok
TikTok has been the biggest social media platform for sometime now. With over a billion users globally, it’s become the platform to share slices of life, participate in trends, and offer opinions. For brands, it’s an undeniably huge opportunity to gain new audiences.
Although TikTok seems to be similar to the other social media platforms, its focus on short snippets of creativity is what sets it apart from the rest.
Hogarth Australia has taken inspiration from Hogarth UK’s internship, ‘The Originals’, and launched their search for creatives using the platform as their resume. With the prompt, ‘Sell us an avocado, and that's it…’, Hogarth is looking outside of the traditional pathways in order to find creatives.
The internship programme is designed to diversify, remain future focused and, most importantly, find authentic creatives looking to break into the industry.
LBB’s Casey Martin spoke with Hogarth Australia’s CEO, Justin Ricketts, content strategy director, Lilli Lo Russo, and Woolworth’s head of content, Keshnee Kemp about what this internship means for Hogarth and why it’s important to keep up with gen z.
LBB> The way agencies find and develop new talent has not substantially changed in decades, why do you think this is, and what problems is this causing the industry?
Justin> Up until relatively recently, I would suggest that the majority of brands were still spending the majority of their ‘content’ budgets on making traditional content. This has effectively meant that the demand for making ‘traditional advertising’ has actually remained fairly strong and there hasn’t really been enough of a need for agencies to change their approach to creative talent.
I believe that with many clients now waking up to the fact that the majority of their consumers are now spending most of their time on non-traditional channels and are effectively able to avoid traditional or mass advertising that we’re starting to see a tipping point where client budgets are shifting towards social channels and this in turn is going to force agencies to make this change.
Keshnee> Today, Aussies are spending more time on social media than ever and the Marketing mix is evolving, prompting evolution not only in where we engage our customers but how we engage our customers.
And it’s not just social that’s evolved, it’s across all brand touchpoints. This convergence of platform-first production and Artificial Intelligence means we need to be more creative and more reactive than ever before to really make an impact.
This new world means agencies are forced to prioritise capability - and prioritise the platforms that will make the most impact. Setting the right foundations for the next few years has taken time but we’re starting to see a shift - this program is a great symbol of that change.
LBB> Internships normally mean formal applications/portfolios and/or a rigorous vetting process. The choice to ask people to sell you an avocado via TikTok is very specific. Talk us through why you chose this pathway?
Lilli> The industry is notoriously bad at cultivating ways for the emerging generation. We discredit those who have got their foot in the door via nepotism – yet advertise an entry level position (and salary) with a prerequisite of three years working in the industry? It doesn’t make sense – nor does it allow the actual holy grail of diverse creators, communities and subcultures to enter the game. These are the creatives who are leading the forefront of the creator community too. What was crucial for us is to set a submission criteria that not only allowed us to plug into these creators – but also reflected the work that we’d eventually be asking them to do.
Justin> Ultimately, we’re looking for people that understand how to reach and engage a new generation of audiences. For us, it is more important that they have a native understanding of the social platforms and communities that these audiences are spending their time within. We need people that think about the audience and platform FIRST and then consider how to integrate a brand into this message…and given this is a relatively new ‘craft’ it’s crazy to try and find people through the traditional approach.
LBB> Is this an attempt to democratise entry to the creative industry, why is this important and can diversity help agencies be more successful?
Justin> To some extent yes. Our industry needs more diversity and we want to remove anything that restricts more diverse talent getting into our industry and to ensure that we’ve removed all conscious and subconscious bias in how we find talent. Our core objective is to find people that understand how to create content that connects with new audiences and to do this we need to find people from different backgrounds.
Keshnee> On social platforms, evolution is the only surety. The capability required to create and produce effective content might be described today and sound completely different tomorrow. It’s vital that we’re leveraging the creativity and ingenuity of talent who intricately understand the platforms we’re creating for and can adapt as the platforms do.
LBB> TikTok has become the world's biggest and most influential social media platform. How can brands learn from the gen z generation in order to maintain relationships with that demographic?
Lilli> Gen z is flipping years of linear and binary thinking roles and responsibilities and approaches on its heads. You're seeing videos shot on an iPhone and lapel mic out performing multi-million dollar shoots. The demand and consumption of low-fi and ‘dirty’ content is the obvious first lesson for brands to nail (gen z will definitely hold you accountable if you don’t get this right too). Creator’s are also now their own creative director, editor, talent, writer, post-producer and community manager all in one. You’ve got 18 year olds commercialising their creator presence without a chartered PR practitioner or talent manager representing them. Ensuring brands and agencies are challenging and reviewing the ways they look at traditional advertising positions, management styles, recruitment methods and marketing approaches is pretty critical right now. The talent needs to be harvested in a completely different way.
Justin> There are so many things we (and our clients) can learn from how gen z (and to be fair other successful content creators) are building and maintaining audiences on Tiktok. First and foremost – it’s about being audience/community first. It’s about being authentic to the channel and the community and being culturally relevant and on trend. The things that have mattered to older audiences are simply no longer relevant.
Keshnee> Like any platform, authenticity is at the core of true and powerful engagement. It’s not necessarily vital to be of a demographic to understand the demographic but of course gen z creators naturally understand the world they’ve grown up in. Manually reading customer comments, engaging in two-way conversation and understanding macro and micro trends are all vital. Gen z can make quite natural, intuitive creative and strategic recommendations because they’re part of the social conversation, every day - often many hours a day.
LBB> This internship has proven to be a success in the UK, how will Hogarth AUS be adapting the programme for Aussie creatives? What will change and what will stay the same?
Lilli> The program’s core DNA is pretty agile in any market. Brazil, USA and the UK ensured that mentorship and future-focused thinking were at the crux of their programs. We are definitely planning to echo that. However, our clients and their asks will always ensure we nail localisation. And going back to how we plug in culturally – the biggest differentiator between the Australian cohort and others will be exactly that. How do we localise our approach to creator content for our clients and their communities?
LBB> You stated that ‘Cultural relevance is the new brand currency’, can you expand on how this belief shapes the way Hogarth interacts with brands looking to make it big among socials.
Lilli> We know that the brands that are winning on social media are those who are acting like creators. Their secret sauce is in community building. And to do that, you need to be plugged into culture and the events and trends that catapult conversation. It’s not saying you need to give up your core brand DNA (we know how crucial it is to stay to brand ethos). But at the nucleus of every social strategy we deliver, I’d say we really endeavour to nail that central POV for a client. What’s their way in that’s entrenched with cultural relevance?
Influencer strategy, operational systems, paid and creative strategies, etc. – these can all come later. But if you nail where your brand meets your audience and where this meets culture – it sets the blueprints up for success.
Keshnee> Authenticity is the vital ingredient of engagement - we show up in context of the platform and engage with our customers by offering culturally-relevant entertainment, hacks and inspiration. With so much choice on social, we want to enhance our customers’ experience in a uniquely Woolworths way, rather than interrupt, and relevance is key.
LBB> Do bigger brands such as Woolworths need to harness the power of TikTok or can they get away with taking less of a risk when it comes to their advertising?
Justin> I believe this is relevant to all brands (whatever their size). Naturally, for brands that are targeting younger audiences, it’s even more relevant, but it is also important to realise that older generations have also significantly changed how and where they are consuming content. For example, my wife and I are both in our early 50s and we almost exclusively watch content on demand and the only time we watch live FTA / linear TV is a sporting event. Big brands will genuinely struggle to reach us via traditional channels (outside of big sporting events) and therefore they need to find a way to reach and engage me in social platforms that we too are now spending most of our time.
Keshnee> It’s vital that brands are where their audiences are - and our customers, community and team are on social platforms. TikTok is an entertainment and search platform and we have a lot of fun engaging with and entertaining audiences on TikTok. It gives us an opportunity to have two-way conversations and create fun, relatable content that represents us, authentically. We make the choice to engage and entertain our customers on the platform because that’s where they are.
LBB> Why an avocado?
Lilli> Why not?
Justin> Cheap to buy and kind of culturally relevant given our apparent obsession with smashed avocado (that was invented here like the Pavlova and Crowded House wasn’t it?).
Hogarth UK - The Originals cohort
