EP 130: Gerry Hopkinson Sold His Agency, Stayed Five Years, And Became A Cultural Strategist

Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Gerry Hopkinson discusses his 20-year career journey with the agency Unity, covering its founding, sale to Selby Anderson, and his subsequent

Key takeaways

• Selling an agency requires a psychological shift to treat the business as no longer your own, much like selling a house.
• The 'living lab' approach at Pizza Express used customer involvement and multi-disciplinary teams to revitalize brand relevance.

Main topics

• Agency succession and selling
• Cultural strategy and sociology

Notable quotes

It's about the chicken, stupid.

Conclusion

A valuable exploration of how deep human insight and authentic brand i

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You had an agency for 20 years. First of all, that's amazing. Speaker 1 (0:02) Unity started in, we started Unity in 2005. Speaker 3 (0:06) It amazes me, like, with brands that move away from, like, the old school. A Speaker 1 (0:12) lot of marketing directors go and go, I don't want to follow, you know, I'm going to change it up. Speaker 2 (0:16) You'd be mad to change it up. Speaker 1 (0:17) When I talk about innovation, I mean, if you take a brand like KFC. It's about the chicken, stupid. Speaker 3 (0:25) Although your Pizza Express example is a good example of where if you test it, you Speaker 1 (0:29) can get it right. What we did was we created what we ended up calling a living lab. So we took over Pizza Express in Richmond. So we said, look, we're going to, we want to reimagine Pizza Express and we need your help. Speaker 3 (0:50) Jerry Hopkinson, welcome to the show. Speaker 1 (0:52) Thank you very much. Nice to be here. You Speaker 3 (0:55) had an agency for 20 years. First of all, that's amazing. Anybody that can have an agency for 20 years needs a trophy, I think. But for me, Will and I have never, we haven't really consulted on selling the business and getting out. But I've heard it can be quite a painful process. However, you stayed for five years, which is really impressive, like after you sold the business. So how did that come about? How was it being an owner, an entrepreneur, and then selling out and staying for five years? Speaker 1 (1:25) Absolutely. Thank you. I'll try to explain all that very quickly. It's just this is my story. It probably will resonate with a lot of people listening if they've done similar things. So actually, we started Unity in 2005 and sold in 2020. So actually 15 years. Good innings, long time. And then I stuck around for five years. So in total, it was 20 years, just to clarify. I think, look, the thing about... I think the thing about selling is probably a bit, in my experience, and I'm going to talk about my own take on it, it's a bit like a relationship. You know, you can go and date X number of people until one day, you know, you just know. You meet the person and you're like, hang on, this feels good. This feels right. Where have you been? And in terms of selling, you know, I... Over the course of the 15 years, there were several moments where we were having conversations, probably quite lighthearted ones with people about, oh, we ought to buy you. You ought to sell to us, blah, blah, blah. We ought to merge. Those kind of things, as you know, in agency life, they come up for whatever reason. But actively in 2019, Speaker 1 (2:53) I started to lean into looking for an investment in the agency and probably looking for someone to buy it outright. And I had a short list, spoke to a few people, and as luck would have it, two guys who I knew very well were on the lookout and had started a group called Selby Anderson, who I sold to. They were called Dom Hawes and Simon Quarandon, both of whom understood PR very well, but also understood marketing, understood agencies, and understood the other side of the equation, finance. They'd brought together some private equity and had capitalized that group, had purchased a number of agencies already, so I wasn't a guinea pig. And importantly, as I say, we knew each other. In fact, Dom was a client. way back when at a previous agency called Band and Brown, back in the day. So we knew each other. And I'd known Simon from awards dues and things and pitches because he worked at a, I think it was, I'm going to say Ketchum. Might have been Edelman. I can't remember. He'll kill me for not remembering, but I can't remember. Anyway, so we got on really well. I was ready to go. I had a succession plan. which was some of the advice that I got from friends who had sold previously. He's like, look, you know, a couple of things you really need to be clear about. One is how, if you're prepared to stick around and for how long. What are your kind of absolute deal breakers, if you have any? You know, a lot of people, for example, get very emotionally involved in their agency and they're like, I don't want to give it away. And they want the money, but they don't really want to let go of control. And it's like, how's that going to work? So, you know, you've got to do a bit of get yourself to a place which is, you know what, I am selling this. A bit like if you're selling your house. It's not yours anymore. If they want to paint the bathroom purple, that's their, they want to knock it down, put in a spa. It's their business. So it's kind of like that. You just kind of have to do that. But the good news is they knew me, they knew me, they knew what they were buying. They knew what they wanted. So yeah, I did that. And then the reason I stuck around for five years was the first couple of years were just bedding everything in and doing this succession plan. But they're a really good bunch of people, interesting group of agencies from advertising to experiential to a bit of what I would call, because I'm a granddad, direct marketing. But it's probably now referred to in other ways, personalization, content marketing, that sort of stuff, some performance marketing. So really interesting group and great people running it. And after a couple of years, they said, look, would you stick around and do something else? So I was like, yeah, great. So anyway, I hit them with an idea which they liked, which was connected to my big passion in agency life and in PR and really since I was at uni, really, which is human beings. I'm really interested in people. So I'm much more interested in the public than the relations bit of public relations. I'm really interested in what makes people tick, what are their needs, what do they want. What do they find interesting? And within that, you know, how do we make sense of things and how the world, as it changes, affects our attitudes and our beliefs and our behavior? So I basically created a research and foresight business called Selby Labs, which served the clients in the group. And, yeah. Then that had a kind of natural moment where it was like, okay, I've done five years. I'm signing off. I'm going to go do other things. And it was all good. So that's what I did. Because Speaker 2 (7:00) you mentioned the emotional side of things. And Speaker 1 (7:03) I Speaker 2 (7:03) think I'd imagine if you don't get that right, it could be awful, couldn't it? Those subsequent years are sold. Speaker 1 (7:10) Well, absolutely. And you do hear stories, and I won't name names, but of people who sell their agency. and then are so kind of invested in it emotionally that they buy it back. Speaker 1 (7:25) from the people that they sold it to, often at a moment when it's maybe not doing that well, whatever, for whatever reason. But, you know, it happens more often than you think. And I think, as you say, Will, that is an element. Now, Speaker 3 (7:40) it's Speaker 1 (7:42) inevitable. You will know this very well, both of you, that when you found something, any business, you invest in it. You put your blood, sweat, and toil into it. you sacrifice a lot. You have much to apologize to your family and partner for about it taking a lot of a toll on you. So you are invested in it emotionally. And if you're not at all invested in it emotionally, unless you're walking away on day one, that is a bit of a problem. But like almost anything in life, it's a balance. I'm still... passionate about the people and the work that was done. And I feel... Speaker 1 (8:28) strongly about that and about, you know, the ways in which they go about it. But it's kind of a bit like being a parent as well. You know, you kind of need to find your moment. Like I'm at that stage of life now where I can't, you know, let him go a bit and thinking, yeah, you, I have two daughters, you know, and they're grown up and like, you've got this, you can, you know what you're doing. And you become, you have a different relationship, you know? Speaker 3 (8:56) I suppose that's true, but with kids, right, you don't sell it for some money. I suppose if I take the cynical side of you. Can I just Speaker 1 (9:06) say on the record, that is absolutely right. I've not sold my children. Speaker 3 (9:11) You've got to go on to Egypt and swap them for camels. But I was saying, imagine someone knocked on the door tomorrow and went, Chris, Will, will you take six million? Yeah, lovely. And then we sold for six million quid and we'll go off and buy yachts in the Bahamas, which was never going to happen. But anyway, say it did. And then a year down the line, the agency's on its knees and we hear from somebody inside saying they're really, really struggling. Speaker 1 (9:39) And Speaker 3 (9:39) I think they'll flog for, you know. 500 grand and you can get it back i can see then that that would make it a you're going back to be the savior and you rescue it you know for the ego thing but b is your baby like will and i've grown this company from nothing so the personal investment you've got to go through the pain like you say a parent yeah but i'm also on the other side with you which i've got like two sides of it like yeah once you've sold it like off you go it's up to you guys isn't it well Speaker 2 (10:07) look at um look at um You mentioned people buying it back. BrewDog, as an example, you know, James Watt now trying to actively buy the brand back. I mean, what his Speaker 1 (10:16) reasoning Speaker 2 (10:18) for that is, I don't know. But, you know, obviously a brand he founded, it's been bought, stripped back. It's quite interesting. Speaker 1 (10:27) Exactly. And, you know, look, I think there's analogies. You know, you make a good point about it's money. Money changes hands and that's it. But, you know, other people used analogies of bands, you know. Like, you're in a band, the band breaks up, you know, maybe you start having another band. Some people can't get over that. Other people are like, great, you know, let's move on. And then some bands, as we know, fall apart and come back together and fall apart and come back together. Oasis comes to mind, but there are loads. In the early days of Unity, we worked a lot with musicians and stuff. So, you know, you kind of see that. But I think everybody's different. For me, it was the right time to do it. You know, I sold the business to people I really respected. And it was a good experience. Yeah. Speaker 3 (11:18) We interrupt this fascinating podcast with a little message from us, the sponsors of the show, Prohibition PR. We offer free webinars to marketing professionals, comms professionals, anywhere around the world. If you're interested in getting free training and frameworks, then be sure to check out our events. They're happening every month at the moment. We're obviously into August, but August, September, October, November, December. We've got quite a few coming up on content. We've got some on influencers. We've got some on AI. We've got a real life event that we're doing as well. You can find all our events if you go to our website, which is prohibitionpr.co.uk and go to insights and click on the events hub under insights. There you'll find all our events like social media trends, 2027, which will be happening in January, February, March. But we've also got a number of AI events that are going to be coming up. We're going to break down AEO, GEO, and how you can maximize your visibility. on the LLNs because I know there's a lot of people asking a lot of questions about that and we're Speaker 2 (12:16) going to break that Speaker 3 (12:16) down for you so if you find this show interesting please be sure to subscribe thanks for listening we really appreciate it thank you Speaker 2 (12:29) Yeah. So, Jerry, I was going to say you're, you know, fast forwarding to what you're doing today. I think you're probably the first. Is it right? You're a cultural strategist. Is that your job title? Because I think you're the first cultural strategist we've ever had on the show. Speaker 1 (12:43) OK. Yeah, it's a fancy. I'm not going to lie. It is a fancy title. What that really relates to. So I'm doing a couple of things now. The main thing is that is cultural strategy. So I'm working with. Speaker 1 (12:57) a mate who I've known for 20 years, and our world did cross over a couple of times. He set up a very successful business and sold it called Jump Studios. And what Jump did, it was an architect and an advertising man. And what they did was they literally did bringing brands to life, right? So they did, for example, Red Bull's headquarters. They did a lot of work. They did some of the early Google campuses. They did, you know, Nike Town. They did Mother, the ad agency's big, you know, offices, Widening Kennedy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they also worked with brands like Honda. They did Honda showrooms. They had a really successful business. And after he'd sold, and so we'd done some stuff together over the years with Unity and Jump. And then he sold and he said, look, you know, I've