Charlie: Welcome to Rainmakers, the podcast where legal leaders share their winning strategies for law firm growth. In today's episode, Olivia Backon, Client Success Team Lead at Passlel, is joined by two prolific thought leaders: Brinsley Dresden and Geraint Lloyd-Taylor, Partners and Co-Heads of Advertising and Marketing at Lewis Silkin, they join us to share their secrets to leveraging thought leadership, to build personal and professional brands. So let's jump straight in.

Olivia: Hi everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the CMO series Rainmakers. We're excited to be joined by two leading voices in advertising and marketing law. Brinsley Dresden, and Geraint Lloyd-Taylor, Partners and Co-Heads of Advertising and Marketing Law at Lewis Silkin. Brinsley is a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (GALA) with Lewis Silkin, serving as the sole UK member.

Geraint is ranked a leading partner for advertising and marketing by Legal 500, and is recognized as a standout lawyer by Thomson Reuters. Together, Brinsley and Geraint have successfully used thought leadership to build their personal and practice brands while elevating Lewis Silkin's reputation. Today, we'll explore how their approach to sharing insights has shaped their careers in advertising and marketing law, and hear their tips for others looking to leverage thought leadership to build their own brands.

Charlie: The CMO Series podcast is brought to you by Passle, the creators of CrossPitch AI, which makes cross-selling happen. Switch it on and try it today by visiting passle.net. Now, back to the podcast. 

Olivia: Welcome to the podcast.

Geraint and Brinsley: Thank you. Thank you. 

Olivia: Thanks so much for joining us, so we'll jump straight into some questions as we're really keen to hear your perspective and insights.When did you first realize the power of thought leadership in shaping your professional reputation and advancing your practice? Was there a defining moment? Brinsley, I'll come to you first. 

Brinsley: Thank you. I suppose the defining moment was actually when I was stilI… I had an in-house role early in my career. I spent just under three years as an in-house lawyer at BT, specialising for the last two and a half years in advertising and marketing law. And I went to a seminar that was organised by Lewis Silkin and I met the then chair of the firm, Roger Alexander, and my predecessor as the sort of head of the practice, Stephen Groom. And they were giving their insights that day. So, although. The thought leadership was in the form of a seminar rather than the form of writing. That was then probably the moment it clicked to me, and I found it very appealing as a client or prospective client, that I could go along and, and pick up insights from these two industry experts. And at that point, Steven, we might come onto this, but at that point, Steven had already started writing a regular newsletter called News Notes, which had quite a distinctive tone of voice and also quite high design values in, in the front cover, in a way, which was quite market leading at the time in the sort of mid to late nineties.Geraint, how about you?

Geraint: For me, I'm not sure that there was a, a sort of moment in time that I came to realise it, but I just thought the more sort of interesting it is to me, the more likely I am to. Read, absorb, follow people, digest what they're saying and all of that sort of good stuff. And so I worked out quite quickly that it works in reverse and anything you've got to say, if you say it in a very sort of dull, flat tone of voice, like many lawyers might be tempted to do, is a sort of default setting. People either don't bother clicking in the first place, they don't switch on, they don't, or they lose interest pretty quickly. So I think it's all about just sort of sharing information in a way that is engaging and leaving aside the sort of black letter updates and so on that we'll have to keep it up to date with.I think we really enjoy, don't we? Both of us creating content that is giving a bit more of an insight than the sort of black letter stuff. And, and so it just sort of naturally happened and then we sort of started doing it in our own style, if you like, over time. 

Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. And were there any particular topics that you first identified in your field that would make really interesting thought leadership pieces and it kind of grew from there?

Brinsley: I suppose the Advertising Standards Authority provides a steady stream of decisions, so they publish their decisions every week, and that obviously provides us with opportunities. The slightly frustrating thing is some weeks they'll publish one, not very interesting story or decision, and then the following week they'll publish 15 very interesting ones of which, you know, you could quite happily write about 12 of them. So there tends to be a bit of a feast or famine, but they are always writing interesting or making interesting decisions about, or a whole range of issues from. If you like the quite black letter type of issues, like issues on pricing or misleadingness, drip pricing, that kind of thing, through to the slightly more fluffy and cultural issues about portrayal of women in advertising. Gender stereotyping has been a particular issue for them in recent years, and those issues in particular allow, allow us an opportunity, afford us an opportunity to write about them. Also, one of the things that we have really taken very seriously, particularly since we migrated to Passle, is our picture editing. We work very hard to make sure that we provide our readers with an opportunity to actually see the ads that have been subject to the adjudication, which the ASA do not, they don't actually, generally speaking, they don't publish the pictures of the ads that they've been investigating unless they pick them up in something like their annual report. But week to week, they don't tend to. So we always make sure that we find the right ad if we can, and add that to our coverage. 

Geraint: Yeah, and our audience is a pretty creative audience usually, so I think our sort of style of doing things lends itself. To that audience quite naturally. Again, it's not about writing long legal pieces, it's about getting very quickly something insightful out into the market. And as Brinsley says, every Wednesday we get these ASA rulings that are published in the morning and very quickly, I mean, within. Well, not to put a clock on it, but that, that same morning, we're able to sort of issue useful, insightful pieces, not regurgitating, and not just distilling it to, you know, the one legal point, but actually giving our take on something and tying it to something. That is part of the cultural zeitgeist is the ideal. And sprinkling it with a few awful puns is always our sort of chosen approach as well. And over time you, you develop a sort of trust with an audience where people don't actually bother checking the ASA website. They come to our blog post to see what's what's relevant, because we'll do the editing of, you know, filtering through what's relevant and what's not. And we'll give them the insights, not just this sort of word-for-word ruling that's been published.

Brinsley: It's probably worth.. we've probably given the impression that it's all about ASA decisions, and of course there's much more to it than that. We also will be covering new legislation. So for example, we've been writing a lot about the DMCC act recently about, um, the new regulations that are coming in around advertising less healthy foods, um, CMA investigation decisions and new rules and regulations that they put out. So it's a whole wide range of issues that we cover off. 

Geraint: And the DMCC is the Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act. So it's very much expanding out from the advertising practice into consumer law, adjacent sort of areas. And the Competition Markets Authority is one of these regulators that from April, 2025, is going to have massive new powers to issue penalties of up to 10% of global turnover. So it's an obvious thing that all of our audience is already thinking about and a very natural sort of expansion progression of what we're already doing for clients. And it's interesting because that often would lend itself to slightly more detailed in-depth, let's say, legal analysis, but we try and maintain the same sort of style, very light, approachable, but insightful style for all of that content as well.

Olivia: And it sounds like you are taking a lot of these updates around legislation and actually giving a very rounded view at them and, and you know, how that applies to your clients and others in your network. So I really like the point you made about actually being able to highlight that advert that's been picked up or just actually giving a very rounded view of an issue. Brinsley, how has writing and publishing regular insights helped you establish authority and credibility in a really competitive space? 

Brinsley: A good question. It's, it, it's like that old adage, the old cliche of somebody asked, I think a big, a big marketing director, a big advertiser, you know, how do you measure the return on, on your investment in your advertising. He said, well, I know that I'm wasting 50% of it. That probably means, I dunno, which 50%. It's really hard to actually measure how it's established credibility. All I would say is that, you know, over time, Geraint and I have both worked our way to sort of top rung of the directories. I think we're both the sort far and away the most well-known advertising lawyers in the uk. So over time, I'm pretty, pretty satisfied that it has had this beneficial effect. From time to time, often, you know, unsolicited comments from clients, they'll say, oh, I really enjoy reading your newsletters these days they'll say, really enjoy reading your blog and now listening to the podcast that we do, and so clearly it is, it is having an impact. And even, you know, I've got clients. In-house lawyers at big brands who, obviously they're on the mailing lists for all sorts of law firms, and sometimes people have said, oh yes we do get the newsletters from other law firms as well. But to be honest, yours is the only one we read because it's so much more interesting and fun and engaging than others. And so. We're finding that now as we migrate into the podcast, which really has been Geraint's kind of passion project, if you like. And he's kindly brought me along with him on that journey. And that's amazing. And that's, and also to pick up on something Geraint said, which was about how sometimes lawyers just write these very dull articles, which are often simply restating whatever's been put out by the, by whichever regulator it is. And we've, I mean, I've certainly listened to other podcasts by law firms and. You can hear that it's scripted. You can hear a scripted question is then followed by a scripted answer, and it's just, we just can't listen to it for more than five minutes. It's really painful. So we're prepared to kind of take the risk that we might misspeak or we might stumble. Obviously, we hope we won't actually get any points of law wrong, but we don't fret about the minutia of every single syllable that we say because we want to make something which is more discursive and conversational and hopefully more enjoyable for people to listen to. 

Geraint: And the related point, I think, going back to your question as well is that consistency is key with most things in life. But including in this sort of area where it's no good having a sort of burst of activity one or two points of the year. You've got to have a really consistent approach to informing your audience and letting them know when the updates come through. There isn't going to be a massive update that's relevant all of the time, but there might be something of use to say, certainly every month or every quarter, but much more often than that. And so we try to keep a sort of consistent approach. It's easier and it's harder at different times of the year. And there's again, more or less to say, and you might have beyond holiday, or it might be Christmas or whatever else it might be. Life gets in the way, but there is a degree of consistency there so that if you are visiting our sort of LinkedIn accounts, etc, you'll usually see a consistent approach to the content that we're putting out. And a lot of people think it takes us weeks to create this kind of content. And the truth is it doesn't take long at all once you get into a flow and a rhythm with it. 

Brinsley: Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing I think what works well is that Geraint and I are good friends and longstanding colleagues, and so particularly with the podcast, I think that's a success. Well, I hope it's a success and to the extent it is, that is partly because, you know, it is like listening to two nerdy friends having a chat about advertising regulation. 

Geraint: Speak for yourself.

Brisnley: And so, yeah, so hopefully that, that also is apparent to the listeners. We're not, you know, we're collaborating, we're not trying to score points of each other or, or anything else like that, which often you two get with VO when they're sharing a microphone or sharing a stage.

Olivia: And we'll come onto to this a little bit later, but I did want to ask you around, do you think that collaboration has been really supportive in your journey to being the thought leaders that you are Now, would you say that's something you recommend for, for other teams to look into?

Geraint: Collaboration? Is that between the two of us or…

Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. Between the two of you. 

Geraint: Yes, I think so. I think so because I think then you are able to present that consistency that I mentioned. Even if one of you is busy or engaged on a massive investigation or whatever else it might be, you're able between you to to work things out and then at times we're able to, to generate content together as well, which is also fun and engaging and because. Some people might take collaboration to be two people who are sort of chalk and cheese and then you get a lot of interesting friction, etc. We're probably not in that style. We're probably more complimentary by being similar in the things that are interesting to us and the way that we like to present information and, and what we find interesting. So I think, yes, it does help to have us both working on this at the same time. 

Brinsley: Yeah, definitely. I think because sometimes, you know, Geraint will have an insight that hasn't occurred to me. And I would like to think vice versa. That might happen occasionally. You never know. But also, I mean, I think you alluded to the wider team. I mean, I think one of the things that I was keen to embrace. When we moved from using paper News Notes, as we used to call our newsletter publication to our Passle based blog post, one of the opportunities was that it allowed the young lawyers and the team to kind of put their name to an article that they had written. Yes, Geraint and I would approve them before they were published, but they would go out in the sole name of whichever member of the team had written it, because I think all too often. The, you know, you see other law firms, they'll put something out and, and it's always quite suspicious, I think, where an article or has been published by two people. One is a partner and one is a trainee. And I immediately think, well, I, but I know who did the lion's share of the work here and did most of the drafting and then some partners come along. I mean, possibly to give the piece a bit more credibility than it might do if it was just the trainee. But I think if you are, it's, I think it can be quite dispiriting for young lawyers when they, they go, they spend the time and effort to write an article and then when, you know, a partner just comes along and puts their name first in the byline. So we've tried to adopt a different approach and I think it's been very encouraging. And, some of the team, I mean more, some more than others. Some people enjoy writing more than others, but some members of the team have absolutely embraced it and write very regularly. And I think it's been rewarding for them intellectually, but also professionally. 

Olivia: And you mentioned there really around, you know, that personal brand building for more junior colleagues. Are there any other tips that you have for other individuals in your position to help encourage wider teams to get involved with thought leadership strategies? Specifically, you know, those junior colleagues.

Geraint: It is important to, to show the world that you have a team of people working in particular areas. And it's a great way to be able to do that. And one good example is the sort of the consumer law updates that we put out. We tend, regardless of who, between about four or five of us will write the article. We put the names of four or five of us on them and it really helps us lift everybody's public profile, it lifts just the sort of recollection factor of people, you know, you want all of them to be involved and to feel involved. And then it comes to sharing things on LinkedIn and spreading the word. It's very hard to tell, to Brinsley’s point, who of the four or five of us in that sort of given example, has come up with the article and often a few of us will have chipped in and done different things. But yes, I think it's really important to bring people along with you on the journey. It's not about one person standing out and everybody else just very quickly gets bored. Particularly if somebody's writing the content and they get removed from the article and don't get credited. I think that's probably the worst type of behavior that we wouldn't really, we wouldn't have as a firm. But it's interesting when a whole team gets together and decides to make an area their specialism. And they're able to use this as their main platform in many ways.

Brinsley: Yeah, and I think there's, guy mentioned LinkedIn in that. LinkedIn has been incredibly useful and the integration, the, the pretty seamless integration between the Passle blog and LinkedIn works very well. So, you know, I'm always in the habit of uploading articles as, as all my team are as well. Everybody uploads to LinkedIn and then in terms of what we've had to do, you know, you do have to make sure, encourage everybody in the team to make sure that they are. Connected with their colleagues on LinkedIn and then as much as possible encourage people if they see a colleague has posted something on LinkedIn. I would always encourage them not just to like it, but if possible to share it. And then that way you, you know, you get the greatest spread of an article and sometimes, you know, it is quite remarkable.  LinkedIn has become an incredibly important distribution channel, I think for us, for our knowledge marketing, because I think. Quite a lot of clients don't want to subscribe to newsletters and blogs because they're worried that they'll get their, their inbox will be inundated. So some people just prefer they're happy to be on LinkedIn with, with you. And so then that becomes, LinkedIn becomes a way that you reach that segment of the audience, so it's, it works well.

Olivia: That's really interesting insight from your team that actually LinkedIn seems to be the preferred method to stay in touch and keep up to date with your knowledge. Back a little bit to your writing style and how it's developed. Geraint, your team is really well known for the really punchy, and as you mentioned, humorous writing style. Do you think this approach was important for connecting with clients specifically in creative industries? And why do you think that is?

Geraint: I think so. I mean, I'm slightly biased because it's, it's my preferred sort of default style of doing things, to be honest with you. I just think life is boring enough. Life is boring enough without reading dull, dull, dull drafts, and I've been in webinars, we were talking about this recently, where, you know, the audience is yawning and sometimes the room is very warm or whatever, but I always think it's a, not a reflection on the audience, but a reflection on the speaker if anybody yawns. And so you have to, in the moment, you're able then to go, right, let's spice it up. Let's do something more interesting. 'cause I take your, your yawning feedback on board. Let's do something more interesting. You don't really get that opportunity if you write a piece of content, so you have to assume that you are looking for somebody's interest and that you have to pique their interest pretty quickly and keep it and say something meaningful otherwise, even if you entertain them for two minutes, you're not going to get them reading your article the next time. If they come away thinking, well, I didn't really learn anything from that, even if it was mildly entertaining, hopefully. So I think it's just my favoured way of doing things and similarly with the rest of the team and, and certainly with Brinsley as well, is as collectively it's our way of doing things. And as a firm we have a slightly more interesting, I think, quirky tone of voice than many firms. We've got that freedom to do it. So, why not? And the one, one person I wanted to give a shout out to as well is, is Helen Hart, who's our sort of unsung hero. 'cause she's one of our professional development lawyers who does either write or start off some of these articles or gives us the, the knowledge and the bones to, to get them off the ground. She does a lot of the legwork. Sometimes I'll do as little as adding a few terrible puns as headlines. And, you know, Helen really deserves a lot of the credit for coming up with a lot of the content, but you've got to add that extra bit of something to them as well, not that Helen doesn't, she does that too, but sometimes collectively we'll come up with some, just some different headline that really transforms an article from something that is like a sort of putting it out there, floating it in case it's of interest type, piece of content to something that really connects with people and what's on their desk at the moment, or what they're thinking about every morning for the last week, or whatever their concerns are. You can really change something. With a really subtle twist to a headline, and we, I think we spend a bit of time doing that. That's a good investment of time, I'd say. 

Brinsley: Yeah. I mean, and I would say it does it, I mean, humor is very important to us, but it would also, you know, sometimes it's about making a, a really expressing a really strong opinion. And not being afraid to do that. And yeah, sometimes it's about making parallels and drawing comparisons and pointing out anomalies between different decisions. So humour is, is one tactic, but there are other ways of, of adding some value. I always feel as though if all you've done, I mean it's just, Geraint said this before, if all you've done is basically rewritten the ASA adjudication or the CMA press release, whatever it might be, then really, why are you bothering and why would bother anybody bother to read what you are writing when they could just go to the primary source and read that and get the same information direct from the horse's mouth. So there has to be an extra element to it in order to make it attractive. The only issue we've ever had, I think, with the humour bit is that sometimes I've had junior colleagues say, oh, I can't write in the funny way that you write. And so I don't, you know, it's, I'm finding it really difficult. And for them, we've said, look. We're interested in the blog as a whole. We don't have to make every story doesn't have to be funny. There's space for the more straightforward articles, provided that you are offering some kind of insight and originality. 

Olivia: I imagine it's very topic dependent when you insert that humor into your writing style. You know, I'm sure there's lots of things within your industry where that humorous style isn't appropriate. And so it's really around addressing, you know, the topic and, and the value you want to add.

Geraint: Exactly. If the topic is, you know, discrimination or any sort of sensitive issue, then yeah, humor is certainly dialled down and then it's appropriate depending on the context as you say.

Olivia: Brinsley. How has this unique voice that you've developed, you know, yourselves as thought leaders, but also within Lewis Silkin, how has that helped you to build your brand and also the firm's brand as well?

Brinsley: I think it's differentiated us from a lot of our competition. I mean, you know, there are, there are our competitors who are, you know, excellent lawyers and, you know, have a lot of respect for them as practitioners. So how can we, how can we differentiate ourselves from them? And I think we can do that through our tone of voice and our slightly quirky, offbeat insights. I think, actually the process of producing all the content has made us better lawyers because sometimes, for example, a decision will come out from the ASA and Geraint might say to me, do you know I wrote something about the similar topic last year? I remember that. Hang on, I'll forward you the link to it. Or he might write something. I'll say, oh. You weren't involved in this, but I was working on a different investigation a few months ago on the same topic, and so we'll, we'll share that information and that knowledge. So, you know, I guess as lawyers all covering the same practice area, it is quite difficult to differentiate yourself and it's impossible really for clients, generally speaking, to be able to sort of know whether one practitioner is in any way better than another practitioner. But what they can pick up on is tone of voice is, are you somebody who they think that they can relate to or somebody who they're going to find that they have nothing in common with, and hopefully through our content marketing, we are able to make people feel as though we're kind of relatable for them and people that they would actually enjoy talking to rather than feel that it's a bit of a chore.

Olivia: I think you highlighted there around content and knowledge marketing and actually what's really important is showing your personality, showing your interests and the similarities you might have with that client or someone in your network. 

Brinsley:And, and I have always been quite open, I think about our political opinions and our, our sort of you know, our point of view on various is issues. I do remember I wrote one particularly excoriating piece about Boris Johnson and the false advertising on the side of the infamous bus, his 350 million pounds a week claim. And that went up onto LinkedIn and I got some very distributing comments from Lord Jim Bethel about my article with which he clearly hadn't agreed. And I was delighted. I thought. Good. Okay, fine. Well, I'm glad it's provoked to response and you know, you don't have to agree with me and in fact, I'm not unhappy with the fact that you don't agree with me. But it is good to think. Okay, somebody is reading this and some member of the house of laws is reading this and I don't, you know, and he's making comments on it. Whether he agrees with me or not, I don't really mind. But, you know, you wanna provoke a reaction. You want people to think, hopefully most people think, yeah, that's what I think too. And occasionally somebody will think, what an idiot, how can he possibly say that? That's fine as well.

Geraint: And we really use it to hold their feet to the fire sometimes. So the regulators we write, you know, we don't really hold back and then, but we have a good relationship with them and we know that many very, very senior people at most regulators are reading our content. And sometimes it's interesting their response because sometimes you'll get sort of, you know, back channels sort of saying, actually I don't disagree with you, even if you said something quite sort of punchy and controversial. So I'd say it's not a negative as Brinsley says, to stir up a bit of conversation. 

Brinsley: Yeah. I mean, our friends at the Advertising Standards Authority in particular are, you know, they take a very grownup attitude towards it. And sometimes they'll write something and say, we didn't really agree with what you said for, for these reasons. In which case, on one or two occasions, I've thought, no. Well, okay, that's, that's fair. And I've edited a piece, or at least added in their kind of point of view as a response. But often, I mean, generally I think their attitude is. We are glad that you are writing about this. We're glad that you are kind of keeping this on people's radar and keeping it on the agenda. So, you know, they'd rather be written about than not, than not written about and they certainly don't, you know that there's no expectation that we have to be flattering about them or something. No, not at all. They're quite happy for us to be critical and I think their only concern is so long as we are factually accurate, they're quite happy for us to be critical.

Geraint: Yes, we're not some sort of tabloid newspaper, but we sort of, we creatively point out things that they might make them uncomfortable. But similarly, the CMA, the other regulator that we've to touched on and talked about, we create a lot of content that really holds them to account and we've given them a platform to respond. And so sometimes they will create content, a series of, a couple of articles, which we can then publish on the page as well and say, you know, well this is their view, and then we can give our view, and they can sit alongside each other and we can have those conversations. 

Olivia: It's real collaboration across the entire sector really from, from yourselves and, and other bodies within, within the sector. That's really interesting. I'd be interested to know as well, Geraint, how you've. Integrated your thought leadership content where you're giving opinions and obviously, you know, your, the, the facts around these topics and issues, but how have you integrated this with other marketing strategies to enhance your client's experience of the firm and of yourselves as individuals as well?

Geraint: In a couple ways, I think the podcast is, is a good example. So leaving aside the actual content of the podcast, what we do is we will publish a passel at the same time and it enables you in a sort of slightly more multimedia sort of way to let people follow along. So in the podcast we'll talk about different  rules, different rulings, different pieces of content, and we can provide links to all of those things in a sort of chronological order. And I think people respond well to that, actually. That ability to, you can either listen to it on your way to work or you can actually sit at your desk and follow along and think, oh, that would be an interesting ad to watch or an interesting piece of content or guidance to read and, and we've linked to it. So you can, you can do that. So that's, that's one way that it's been really, really helpful. Other times, in the rare examples, when we're sort of giving quotes to journalists and so on. We can have a more expansive conversation by publishing a Passle on the same topic and we can link back and forth to that sort of content. So that's always quite useful. And then in other instances, I suppose looking at the strategy, when we focus on particular areas like consumer law developments, we can really use this as one strand of that strategy to get out our content. To raise the profile of the team who are working on that, you know, to really make it work for us in a way that goes beyond just, we're not firing off random Passle’s about things we're doing it in a way that is slightly more thought through and that fits together with a short term, medium term and long term strategy around what we want to focus on and what we want to be associated with.

Olivia: And do you feel that ultimately has broadened your reach as a team, but but also as a firm?

Geraint: Yes, almost certainly. I mean, the content that we put out via Passle either falls into the category of, it would be a long, dull article that sits on the website somewhere and we try and link to it and that's fine. Well, I say dull a long article. We'd make it as interesting as, as possible, and I'm sure it would be interesting, but it wouldn't have the same zip and pizazz that we would want it to have on as a Passle, or it falls into the sort of let's think about this for too long, and then it becomes still, and then it never really gets out type, piece of content that never sees the light of day. So really it fills a pretty big vacuum in between those two poles to be able to put out a Passles, a varying length, varying styles, varying content, some of which are full of links, some of which are thought pieces, some of which are, you know, sort of variations on a, on a theme.

Brinsley: Yeah. And occasionally, I mean, I did a very long article. A few years ago about racism in British advertising and I kind of looked back over the course of about 20 years and that was really too long for a Passle, but not least as well. 'cause I wanted to put in lots of the images that are relevant. So that was like a long piece that got published on the website with a shorter, that was done as a Passle on and linked through to the longer piece. And then. A few months ago, there was a bit of a, this story came back to, to the news agenda again, because Heinz got into trouble both in the States and in the uk over two different ads, which were a bit unfortunate to say the least in, in the way they portrayed black people. And we had a trainee at the time who was black and who looked at these with me. And then, and we were chatting about it and I said, look, why don't you write the Passle? 'cause you've, you know, you've got the, you are in the position to really be able to talk authoritatively about this. And she wrote a really good piece that was very eloquent, but also very kind of heartfelt, wasn't it? So, yeah, we, so that's just another way we, as a link to our podcast, linked to longer pieces on the website. Also, we now integrate it very much with our webinars and when those are coming up, we can, we can publicise the fact they're upcoming and then it gets onto LinkedIn. And then the other really significant piece probably is, you mentioned that I'm on the Global Executive Committee of the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance and GALA has also got a Passlel platform. There's no need to say thank you, but you can, and so. You know, we always then repost our, well nearly always, we repost to the GALA Passle blog, and that is fantastic for anybody who wants to get international insights on developments in advertising marketing, given that GALA members represent about 80 countries around the world and most of the main markets of the world. It's a really a unique source of information on latest developments in advertising, marketing globally. So that's been another way of integrating and, and, and amplifying what we get from, from doing the blog posts through the Passle platform.

Olivia: Thinking about this kind of amplification that you've had and, and the broadening of your reach, um, have you got any examples of how your regular thought leadership content has delivered really tangible results for clients or even helped you to generate new business or increase your network?

Geraint: A few examples recently actually of clients have, well prospects let's say, or people that actually have come from the ether who have said, oh, I read your interesting piece on, particularly this DMCC legislation, the consumer law legislation and the developments. 'cause we've, we've really funneled it down certain specific strands, so the subscription, green claims, pricing claims and discounts and fake reviews. And it's a very clear sort of set of content on each one of those strands. And somebody was very interested 'cause they'd seen not just one, I think two pieces of content that we'd put out recently on that. And so they were able to say, you know, I was really interested to speak to you 'cause I know that you wrote this and, and we got the conversation started. So that sort of thing does happen and that's obviously the kind of thing that's a very direct response. Sometimes it's less visible. I think, and as Brinsley says it comes up in conversation that people have been reading our content over time. And so that's harder to measure as to whether somebody has read a few pieces of content, not mentioned it, and then got in touch with this. But certainly it's helped raise the profile. 

Brinsley: I had a good experience just in the last couple of months where I was doing a pitch to a prospective client in the alcohol sector. And I realized that they owned a brand that had been the subject of an ASA investigation last year. And in fact, the ASA had not upheld the complaint, and I'd written a very sort of positive blog post about that decision, but also saying, oh, and it was a great ad and it would've been such a shame if it had been banned by the ASA because it's so beautiful and well made and everything else. So that was great because then when I was doing the pitch document, I was able to say, oh, and we've, you know, we have this great thought leadership blog. And by the way, we've even blogged about your brands in the past and here's a link to it. And because it was six months ago, I think they, you know, there was no way they could have thought that I had done that deliberately. So yeah, that, but that was very helpful. And then with other brands, sometimes in sectors, we can go back and say. Well, in the automotive sector that you are in or in the food sector, whatever it might be, here are links to some stories we've done in in recent months. I'm preparing to go and see a, a prospective client quite soon, and I’m doing exactly that. I'm kind of going back through our old blog post to see, you know, what articles we've written, which are relevant to their sector. So it can be very useful in that way. It shows that we have industry knowledge. It's kind of showcases our sector knowledge as well.

Olivia: And so would you say that for other lawyers it's really about building a catalog of your knowledge that you can refer back to? 

Geraint: Yes. Yeah. But, but it remains quite topical. So you can find, you know, topical issues lend themselves to more than one. And then once you get a critical mass, you can even send emails to say, here are five things we thought you should know developments this month, this quarter, whatever else it might be. And start that conversation with a client with a sort of prepackaged set of Passles that might include a couple of other pieces of content as well. That's something we've been doing recently very successfully, and it it's just about giving a sort of tailored perspective to a client who know that you are thinking of them, who appreciate the fact that you've bundled together several updates that, you know, come along all at once. And then you can consider whether that's worth… if it's in particular sectors, whether that's worth doing something else with, whether it's arranging a webinar, whether it's doing an episode of podcast on alcohol, motoring, whatever else it might be. So, yeah, it's a sort of virtuous circle in that way.

Olivia: Fantastic. And talking about the podcast, you both host the AdLaw podcast. Could you share a little bit more about the podcast for our listeners and how it's contributing to your group's credibility in advertising law?

Geraint: I think, everybody else in the world has a podcast. And so we decided it was about time we did. So we decided to do it not for the sake of it, but because we could see that there weren't sort of other podcasts doing what we wanted to do and what we wanted to say. And it felt like an extension actually of the Passle content that we've been putting out given that we had honed our style over that, that sort of few years that we've been doing posts, we thought we'd do a podcast that was a next step, if you like, in this, in the same journey. And so it started off as an experimental one, we picked a couple of topics that we thought were interesting and then we put out a podcast. And then a couple of months later did the second, then a couple of months later did the third, and then more recently, the fourth episode I think we did with a video rather than just audio, we had a guest star for the first time, which is something we can develop. So it, it's taken on a life of its own. And I've already said that, you know, we use Passle to support that, but it does also help us focus on topics that we think lend themselves to, to being discussed. And so, yeah, it, it's been, I think it's been successful. 

Brinsley: Yes. I mean, I think that we are, we are building the, building the audience using the blog and using LinkedIn. And I, I've been pleased by the number of people who've said, oh yes, you know, I, I download. Download it from there, whether it's on Spotify or from our website, wherever it might be, the agenda. 

Geraint: And Apple. 

Brinsley: And Apple. All, all good. All the usual. Whichever your platform you use, it's available. And people have said, oh yes, I've, you know, I listened to it on the way to work, or I listened to it while walking the dog. I think the key thing is that. In fact, even more than the Passle, Geraint and I have developed this, this ability, I think when we're, when we're doing, originally, when we were doing in-person seminars together, then it emerge, you know, particularly over the last five years where we've gone to webinars. We have developed a sort of affinity for co-hosting things and that, I think then, then puts us in a very good position to co-host the podcast 'cause it's not that different from when we co-host a webinar in and the team that we work with in our business development team who helped us with the technical side of things, like putting on webinars, have often said to us, oh, there's a really good interaction between the two of you. It feels really natural and spontaneous, so I think. We've got an affinity for that and we've hopefully managed to kind of now carry that over into the way that we do the, do the podcast. 

Geraint: And I think in terms of advice for people, I think doing that as two of you, three of you, makes content more interesting, Including Passles 'cause you could give two points of view in the same article, for example, but certainly on podcasts and, and webinars and, and other sort of opportunities to speak. People like to hear a variety of voices. Yes. I mean, listening to the same one for an hour, it is difficult. So it's good to sort of mix it up. 

Olivia: Yeah, I think it's more engaging to listen to a conversation rather than, you know, almost being spoken at by one individual. Geraint and Brinsley, thank you so much for your time and for joining us. I do have one final question for you both. If you were to give one key piece of advice to others looking to build their personal brand or practice or firm brand with thought leadership, what would your one piece of advice be?

Brinsley: Wanna go first? 

Geraint: Sure. I'd say. Related to that last point we just touched on, not to try and hold it on, you know, hold onto it yourself and just do it all yourself in your name and sort of be sort of zealously guarding your own sort of. Platform if you like, but share it amongst your team. Share it with your colleagues.Do things in collaboration with one another, and it's greater than the sum of its parts, than it really does take on life of its own and, and be open to the way that it might evolve over time. You can start with a plan and don't go into it with your eyes closed and hope for the best. Have some sort of idea of where you're going with it, but be open and flexible to, to changing and evolving your style and your technique and your content as as you grow.

Brinsley: Yeah, and I think my, my piece of advice would be. To have your own tone of voice and don't be afraid to, you know, express your views and your opinions and don't be too lawyerly about everything. Make jokes, express opinions, and you know, live with the fact that. Some people might not agree with you.

Some people might not like your sense of humor. Some people might think that you are a bit of a smart alec, whatever. But for all of those people, they'll be, I think, a much greater number of people who just enjoy the fact that you are giving them something of your own personality. You're not afraid to reveal your own personality and just be yourself and express yourself and don't be too lawyerly. 

Olivia: Two brilliant pieces of advice that people can definitely take action on. Thank you so much for joining this episode. 

Geraint and Brinsley: Thank you. 

Charlie: The CMO Series Rainmakers podcast is brought to you by Passle. Passle makes thought leadership, simple, scalable, and effective so professional services firms can stay front of mind with their clients and prospects.

Find out more and request a demo at passle.net. You can follow the CMO Series podcast on your preferred platform. Thanks for listening.