Episode 288 / Tom Holmes / Haleon / Head of Marketing, Altogether Dental
Tapping into Behavioural Psychology
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Healthcare is an ideal domain for using behavioural psychology in marketing, says Tom Holmes. As Head of Marketing at Altogether Dental within Haleon, he’s picked this is as his shiny new object as it can both help persuade audiences, and change their attitudes.
Tom’s advice is to remember that “not all problems can be solved with logic and rationality alone.” Often, people’s motivations are deeply ingrained, to a point where they don’t understand them themselves. Marketers who can tap into that behavioural psychology and truly understand what drives consumers can both become better at selling them a product, and have the opportunity to change behaviours and habits to improve consumers’ lives.
Tom is a big fan of Rory Sutherland, whose advice he quotes on this topic. We talked about how behavioural psychology is used at Altogether Dental, the brand that Tom looks after within Haleon, and also about Tom’s career evolution. Unusually for most of our podcast guests, Tom started at then-GSK first as an intern, then on the graduate scheme, and remaining with the company through many changes and evolutions.
That’s why he feels that the best investment he’s made in his career was developing the ability to change and adapt, internally and externally.
Tune into the podcast to find out about Tom’s always-changing attitude to his marketing career, his top data driven marketing tips, and more on modifying behaviours and understanding consumers.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Holmes 0:00
That's a life lesson I've learned, which is, you know, if you're not going for the most expensive, then just go for the cheapest, because it'sprobably better than the second cheapest.
Speaker 0:11
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Tom Ollerton 0:38
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of the creative effectiveness ad tech platform, automated creative and this is a podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so, I have the immense privilege and pleasure to interview someone who is senior and exciting and interesting in our industry. And this week is no different. I'm sat here with in front of Tom Holmes, who's head of marketing at Altogether Dental, which is part of Haleon. It's a treat to do this podcast in person. I've worked with Tom over a number of years, so it's a pleasure to be here. But Tom, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do? Can you give them a bit of background?
Tom Holmes 1:21
Absolutely. Yeah, really excited to be here. So thanks for having me, Tom, and we've just had a great chat before we started recording. So I'm hopeful that the brilliant conversation can carry on and it's no worse now we're actually recording it. But yeah, so I'm Tom Holmes. I head up marketing for Altogether Dental, which is a digital service as part of Haleon, and I've worked at that company for 14 and a half years. So started there as an intern, before coming back on the graduate scheme. So very traditional kind of marketing background. I was brand manager a number of brands, and then did various different digital roles, global innovation roles, work with yourself and yeah, now now leading that digital service. So yeah, that's That's me in a nutshell.
Tom Ollerton 2:01
Well, Congrats on getting in early days on the on the grad program. So this is unusual. I'd say that a lot of folk we have on the podcast haven't stuck in the same organization. So I'm really curious to know what has been the best investment of your own time, energy or money in your career at GSK and now Haleon?
Tom Holmes 2:24
Yeah, absolutely. So for me, it's all been about that ability to change, and to your point, around, you know, staying at the same company that long, there's been huge amounts of change, you know, many different joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions and and obviously internal moves I've done as well. But yeah, it's, it's, that's probably been the most useful skill that I've been able to use across multiple different roles in my whole career to date. And what I mean by that ability to change is both kind of internally, whether that's changing strategies, restructures, priorities, and clearly externally, consumer trends, technology trends, how you can stay on top of those. And an example I kind of give a little bit is, you know, perhaps more from an internal lens. But actually, if you can't understand a decision that a senior leader's made, or you feel like you're almost competing for budget with another team, well then how could you ever do that leader's job? And so I think that's just, it's, for me, it's that kind of, that ability to understand that kind of wider direction or context or change that your team or your brand or your whole org is going through, and is, yeah, it's something that has certainly helped me in my career and helped me grow and develop.
Tom Ollerton 3:33
So what about though, those people who aren't good at change? Because as you get older, happens to us all, it's happening every minute, something's happened, and you're like, Oh, really?, I've got so... But whereas when you're you're 18, 19, 20, 21, you're like, brilliant, you absorb all that stuff. And you're like, everything's changing. Everything's new. So how would you, how do you make sure not only that you change in the right way, but you have the energy for it, and how would you, how would you make yourself change when you've got so much muscle memory about doing it a different way?
Tom Holmes 4:07
I think, so what you allude to there, it links massively to learning and learning agility, you know. So it's that constant kind of curiosity, I think is, is very, very helpful. But also, the other piece advice I would give people, if people feel like I'm not particularly good at change, or I get nervous at change, or I want that kind of continuity. Would be to try and put yourself in as many new positions and opportunities that you can and so. And actually, I think that's probably easier to do outside of work, like what you don't want to do is be constantly changing role into a totally new function and feeling out of your depth every six months, whereas you can kind of learn those things and develop that, that kind of skill set, and that, to some extent, mindset through, through doing things externally. And a great example I can, I can give you, which I think you also, if I read your blog correctly recently, you also did, but last year, I did a stand up comedy course. Now there's nothing I could say that, that I could directly attribute back back to me being a better marketer, or in any way, but it does just help you putting yourself in those new experiences and that kind of that some some respect, that kind of state of fear, and just helps you feel more confident in other different situations.
Tom Ollerton 5:13
Yeah, I also did that course many years ago. And I know there's tons of attributable stuff, I think that the main thing for me was the idea that you have, like, a five minute set, and then you do that set in front of different audiences, and people laugh at some things. People laugh at people didn't really laugh very much at my stuff. It was painful, man, but you're like, oh, that bit works, or that bit body language seemed to make sense, or that change of tone of voice or pace, and so you include that in the next round. So it's very, kind of, very much. It's startup. You really, it's like, you create a thing, you put it out to the audience, and you receive data, and then you sharpen the product based off the back of it. And I think, but most importantly, it completely destroys any fear you have about presenting.
Tom Holmes 5:57
Yeah, absolutely.
Tom Ollerton 5:57
I mean, like, I've got 50 slides, all the words are pretty much on the slides. There's nice pictures versus still in front of a room going through some awful material. It just, I think it changes you on the inside.
Tom Holmes 6:08
I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure it's the best advice to become a better marketer, but certainly it's one of those examples that helps you, I think, improve and be just more prepared and ready to change and be able to adapt. And if I look at my own career, pretty much every, every role I've done in the last 10 years has been brand new to the org, so I've not had a handover in a decade. And that's very much how I try and position myself, which is this, like I can go into any, any type of role, any change, any opportunity, and and make a success from scratch. And so, yeah, it just just, really, that is, that is the kind of one area that I think has has helped me in good stead in that in that 14 and a half years.
Tom Ollerton 6:45
So what advice do you have for people who want to become better data driven marketers?
Tom Holmes 6:54
Well, it's somewhat links that last point, but, but for me, it's, it's really all about understanding the bigger picture, being able to take a step back and be clear on what, what you're trying to achieve. And an example of that for me is that there's just no point in chasing, you know, better, higher metrics for the sake of, for the sake of chasing metrics. And, you know, I saw a post on LinkedIn recently that was kind of saying, Oh, this is how you can get your email open rates above 50% you know. And it was all about, you know, pretend it's an internal staff discount, only your fake an email from the CEO that was meant to be sent internally, and it's like, okay, cool, yeah, you're getting a higher open rate. And maybe, maybe then get some sales off the back of that. But ultimately, it's just a very short termism approach, and a really interesting example, I think that's quite topical currently. And actually, before I say this, I'm hyper aware that the more well known someone is, the more famous they are, the easier it is to kind of point out flaws. And in many ways it's someone, someone I've got a lot of respect for and admire, but very topically currently is, is Stephen Bartlett, right? And I think they've clearly gone and they've talked very publicly about the Diary of a CEO podcast, and how they're constantly chasing that kind of like data driven, data driven, data driven, growth, growth, growth. And we'll optimize 300 images at a time for every for every podcast that we record. And really what that's led to, if you look at their YouTube page, it reminds me a lot of the Daily Mail in the noughties. It's very like, you're not going to believe this food causes this illness, you know, type, you know, hooks to try and get people in. And they've skewed more towards health. I suspect that's probably because it gets more engagement. It might just be, it's more of an interest, you know, for the host as well. But, but, and now they're in that tricky position of, you know, they're getting called out for having, you know, poor health advice, misleading scientific advice, you know, multiple ads of brands he invests in have been banned for being misleading. And so I think that's just an example. If you chase just growth upon growth upon growth at all costs, you will eventually get to a place where actually what you're trying to achieve probably wasn't really what you sent out out to. And then if Stephen, if you are listening and you do want some of my advice? And then, if he was here in the room, I would say, you know, what's that purpose? What's that bigger picture like, what are you trying to achieve? Is it just purely commercial success, okay, but actually, is it that he wants to inspire generation? Is it he wants to try and, you know, make get people more interested in business and be able to develop themselves and grow themselves and and then I would use that kind of, like, bigger picture purpose to then be like, great. What does that mean? And what does that mean? And what are we trying to achieve?
Tom Ollerton 9:29
So we're gonna move on now to your shiny new object, which is behavioral psychology. I think the last person to talk about that at any length on this podcast was Rory Sutherland. So, you know, I've high expectations.
Tom Holmes 9:42
Well, I mean, to be honest, I'm just such a massive fan of his. So really, most of what I'm about to say is just probably repeating things he said in the past. But I got to meet him recently at an event. It was kind of a charity book launch, and I just, I just really, really rate him, you know, he's, you know, he's someone that has. Is just a totally different perspective and and I find really, really insightful. I really buy into that. You know, not all problems can be solved with with logic and rationality alone. And I think the reason it's, it's kind of my shiny new object. You could argue it's not particularly shiny, and it's not particularly new. It probably more is to me. And I just found, as I've got older, I'm really interested and excited about psychology. And I don't know about you, but like for me, when I was at kind of school in the sixth form, in particular, it was a real dos subject. It was kind of what you did as an easy subject to kind of, I don't know, and it was kind of unpopular. And just as I've got older and older, not that I'm not old now, but as I have got older, I just find it really, really fascinating, both in kind of life, and clearly the obvious links to marketing. And I think the other thing as well around it is, if you look at a lot of the topics of typically, people, what we talk about on this podcast, those shiny new things. There's just been so many that have been overhyped, so many that haven't been. Clearly, AI is here to stay, and is clearly a wonderful tool, and there'll be so many more applications we'll see. But if I think back over my kind of 14 year career, there's so many different things, like Metaverse, I put up there as one that was huge. We're all going to be living in this digital world and constantly wearing VR and AR goggles, constantly. I remember vividly when I worked in a digital role before being like, how are we going to leverage blockchain to improve our marketing and having to, like, phone up my brother, who did a degree in computer science, to be like, what is blockchain and how could it be applicable to marketing? And him just saying, it can't. So it's there's just been so many of those things, and some of them, I mean, admittedly, another one that sprung to mind was QR codes, which I remember being huge when I first started my career, and they were gonna be this game changer. But actually, you know, that was 2010 2011 time. Clearly, no one had the technology on their phones. So, you know, it was completely and they died a death until COVID, right? And then suddenly they were this really useful technology and tool for the use case that that we all found ourselves in, and we all had much better smartphones, so they'd actually, actually work. But so I guess what I'm saying is, I used to be really obsessed about the shiny new things. And perhaps, as I've got a little bit more older and probably slightly more senior in my career, I'm I'm wary of, I'm wary of the shiny new things. And I think, I think sometimes, if you're a if you're a CMO with AI, for example, you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you come out and saying, actually, the bulk of what we do is going to remain the same, and it's not going to be fundamentally shifted by AI says no cmo ever, because you're going to look like a bit of a digital dinosaur. But equally, I imagine most CMOS of big, large, FTSE, 100 companies, aren't thinking that AI is going to replace, you know, it's going to change every single thing they do in 2025, so it's that kind of balancing act. And maybe that's why I think, for that reason, I think, like psychology and behavioral psychology, and behavioral psychology, and it's applicable. Its applicableness to marketing is, is always, always going to be relevant. And clearly it's hyper relevant for health care and and how we can help people make better kind of, like, more informed choices, or make take better actions and, and really, that's the for me. There's that. There's the it could be simplified into two main ways that it can be used, and that's either understanding consumers and understanding that it's not always logical and rational, and really understanding their kind of motivations, even sometimes when they don't fully understand it themselves, and then, like I say, how we can change a consumer's behavior, you know, whether that's through kind of nudge theory or, you know, different psychological principles like scarcity principle or social proof and and so it's, and there's loads of good examples I can touch on of brands that have done that brilliantly, but it's just an area that I'm constantly wanting to learn more about and and apply to my work. But it's but certainly not an area that I would, I would say I'm an expert in, certainly not compared to Rory Sutherland anyway.
Tom Ollerton 13:39
So give me some of those examples of the brands you feel who used behavioral psychology well?
Tom Holmes 13:44
Well, I saw something really recently, actually about McDonald's and how actually their revenue has declined, but they've massively increased profitability. And it was really all about, how do we help, or how do we help convince their shoppers, their customers, to make more profitable choices for them, you know. So it's kind of upselling and and so although that's dipped, their revenue, actually, their profitability over the last kind of 15 years has has doubled. And a lot of that through the how you construct the menu and the extra add ons and all Do you want this as well, type, type, that behavior and that kind of choice architecture. And similarly, I remember one of our agencies saying before that also worked on also worked on Beefeater restaurants, I remember them telling us that actually they moved the location of onion rings on their printed menu in restaurants, and it cost them 75,000 pounds a year. So it's like such a tiny thing that you'd be really, really hard to to think about. And actually, if you were the designer, if you were the marketer, you probably I wouldn't make a huge difference. But actually, you know, having that in a certain position, you know, next to the burger, means people are more like, Oh yeah, okay, great. I'll get that as well. And, and again, I mean, this is just a classic Rory Sutherland example. And I really can't stress enough how much of a fan I am, but you know, also kind of from a restaurant perspective. He, you know, he talks about that example of why the drinks list is called a wine list, and why there's already wine glasses on the table, and it's just because it's highly more profitable. You can sell a bottle of wine for any kind of price you want, really, whereas actually a beer, we will have a kind of more fixed price in our mind of what that will cost. And of course, you can add to that that you know, typically the cheapest bottle of the actually the second cheapest bottle of wine on most drinks menus is actually the most profitable, because most people don't want to pick that bottom bottle of wine look like they're trying the cheapest. So that's a life lesson I've learned, which is, you know, if you're not going for the most expensive and just go for the cheapest, it's probably better than the second cheapest.
Tom Ollerton 15:38
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So how are you? How are you using behavioral psychology in your work today?
Tom Holmes 16:19
Well, a lot of what we're working on currently. So Altogether Dental is a dental membership, helping people access more affordable dental services. So we're exclusively in the US where, obviously, you know, dental and healthcare costs are, you know, significantly, much more expensive than here in the UK and and probably the most expensive in the world. And actually a big growth driver for us as we move into next year, we've typically been very D 2 C focused and search and social and digital marketing spend to acquire customers. But actually a big focus is how we can, how we can drive sales via B 2 B, so offering this kind of membership option as an alternative to dental insurance. So whether that's company that already you know, looking to save costs and want to kind of scale back on their dental insurance costs and offer this dental savings program instead. Or potentially, companies where, you know, some of their employees, potentially in a head office role, get really great benefits, and some others in a warehouse or a factory, perhaps don't get that same level of benefits. How can they still offer a kind of saving and and what's, what's really interesting is we're seeing that people that come via their employer, although they're actually very similar to our D2C audience in terms of demographically and lower lower earner, actually, they're much more likely to make, quite frankly, for us, like more profitable choices. They're more likely to add their family members and pay for a family plan. They're much more likely to sign up annually rather than rather than monthly and so clearly, there's some quite like, obvious, rational reasons why they might do that. They feel kind of more job security, or, you know, they feel like actually, that that that cost will, you know, if they lose their job, they'll no longer be tied into that cost, because it comes out of their their pay packet. But, but one of the things I'm constantly kind of probing and exploring and trying to understand is, what are those other deeper motivations, and is it just this kind of really obvious rational answer of why people are doing that behavior, or is there something else that actually is probably unknown to us, and if we knew it could, could really help us drive more growth of of that channel and offer a better product and service to those consumers?
Tom Ollerton 18:15
And is there any ethical consideration here really? I mean, just going back to the Rory Sutherland example of like, you know, put wine on the table because it's most profitable. It's not like, Well, what do you want? It's not like, come to this restaurant and we want to give you the best possible experience that's right for you. And if we make more money out of you or someone else, doesn't really matter, because we love food and we love creating that moment, but it's manipulation.
Tom Holmes 18:39
Totally and completely agree with you, and like I kind of alluded to, I think for healthcare, it's a real positive. You know, if we're manipulating people and almost psychologically tricking them into stopping smoking, that's broadly a great thing. It's great for the individual. It's great for their family. It's ultimately great for the taxpayer. So there's, there's lots of knock on benefits that you can justify by using those different psychological techniques and tricks that that's it's all positive. But you're right. You look at other industries, and I'd put maybe the restaurants and the McDonald's in the kind of gray area of that maybe they're just optimizing people to pick more profitable products for them, rather than getting them to consume more food. But you look at some industries, I would have thought gambling is one where actually it's, it's all negative, really. And so certainly I would, I would describe myself as a very kind of purpose driven and values driven individual. So I wouldn't want to be doing that for something where you just feel you're, you know, you're exploiting someone and and a crazy example that I weirdly heard via my barber, who, I think had the had someone else who, who goes there that told me this story, but you'll be familiar with them. You know, the game on the mobile phone Candy Crush, you know, so just kind of, you know, one of those fun, kind of easy games, and you can pay for kind of upgrades, you know, or new kind of different bits of candy, or to skip a level, and those kind of things, but pretty low amounts, like normally, you know, you could pay a pound a time, I don't know, maybe up to five. I'm not exactly sure, but guess how much, the highest, the most amount that any person playing Candy Crush has ever paid to King that you know, the company that made the game?
Tom Ollerton 20:12
A million pounds or something. I don't know?
Tom Holmes 20:14
10 million pounds. What 10 million pounds? I know more about the vague identity of the individual, but I probably shouldn't do probably shouldn't divulge any further. But it's just, I mean, clearly that someone that's very wealthy, but it's, it's, it's crazy, right? It's insane, and so, and by all accounts, they're now just making more levels for that one individual who keeps buying more levels, so almost just funds the development of the game. So it's, that's, that's, I suppose, a great example where it's like, is that, you know, is that kind of they've probably got that person hooked, they're addicted to it. They're getting rewarded. You know, is that a good use of behavioral psychology or not? I would certainly say, in my opinion, no.
Tom Ollerton 20:53
It reminds me of an app. It was like 10-15 years ago. It was the 10,000 pound app, or $10,000 app. So on the app store when you were you could develop for it. Like, there was a, there was a you can either charge a pound or 10,000 pounds for an app. So someone made a 10,000 app, and there was a, like, a little, like, video of, like, it's like, a gem or something. And so really, it was, like, it was a way of social proof for you. Oh, have you got the 10 grand app? I've got this. I didn't do anything. There was no network. There was no all you could do is get your phone out in a club in a VIP area and go, I've got the 10,000 pound app. And, like, I don't know this person sold, like, 50 of them or 100, or something like that, and made 10 grand off each of them. A lot of people asked for their money back, but it's like, it's the sort of behavioral psychology. It's, you know, it's making money by by not tricking someone, but preying on those psychological triggers that we all find so hard say no to, and I'm not, I ask you the ethics question. I don't think people get into advertising to be humanitarians mostly. So I appreciate the answer, but we've got, we're gonna have to wrap it up. But one thing on on Rory Sutherland, right? So I interviewed Rory Sutherland for my upcoming book about data, creativity and advertising. Yes, for the year, for the can I write another book? Let's get this one done, and we'll talk about it.
So Rory speaks at conferences, and he's all over Tik Tok. I heard an interesting rumor that someone took all the Rory Sutherland clips created that Tik Tok, and then that was bought by Ogilvy. Yeah, yeah. So apparently, I don't know, maybe that's, that's a, that's a rumor, but anyway, someone's done well, somewhere, um, but I'm interested to know what is Rory Sutherland's behavioral psychology, psychology department at Ogilvy funnel X, there's a lot of Rory, there's a lot of Rory awareness, right? And but I want to, I would love to know how that go it turns into cash for Ogilvy.
Tom Holmes 23:04
Yeah, I just got no idea.
Tom Ollerton 23:05
But the website, have you been to his like, have you gone past Rory content?
Tom Holmes 23:11
Well, I don't know. When it comes to Ogilvy. I couldn't say.
Tom Ollerton 23:17
You could potentially employ that department, right? So I think there's something quite interesting that Rory's amazing at doing Rory, brilliant. He's got a fantastic partnership product with Mad Fest and mad masters. But I would love to know how that stuff converts.
Tom Holmes 23:34
Well, I imagine his answer would very much be like, well, it's not it's not rational, it's not linear. And if you went and asked his their Ogilvy clients, or did you did you would particularly want to partner with Ogilvy because of Rory Sutherland. They wouldn't be able to give you an exact answer, but, but what I certainly would say is it's what I found really interesting, is his appeal is stretching beyond marketing. So actually, some of my friends that work in, you know, kind of like tech roles and AI or other things have heard of him and are fans of his and are buying his books because it isn't, explicit to marketing and so, and I think that's probably a good thing, right? The more we can different interviews can learn from each other and apply those learnings, is probably just a massive positive.
Tom Ollerton 24:10
Well, we'll leave it on a quote from Jerry Daykin, who said that marketing does a really bad job of marketing itself, and Rory is doing a good job.
Tom Holmes 24:17
Yeah, and I'd add to that as well, I think marketers are really poor at knowing when they're being marketed to, so, particularly when it comes to kind of like, Hey, are you awful? And all your other colleagues are really brilliant at marketing? Well, buy my course and lots of examples like that, but I don't think we're the best at realizing sometimes when we're being marketed to.
Tom Ollerton 24:36
So Tom, can I leave it there if someone wants to get in touch with you about behavioral psychology or being a chameleon with an ability to change and understanding the bigger picture and so on. Where's a good place to do that, and what, crucially, what makes a message that you'll actually reply to?
Tom Holmes 24:52
Oh, great question. I mean, LinkedIn is definitely the best way to contact me. Haven't got my own website, yeah, don't really have any plans to and I think the most, the most important. Thing is, it's, like, tailored and relevance. I mean, there's so much trash isn't there. It's just like, Hi, I'm doing this and it might be of interest to you. So, yeah, my advice would be, you know, put in kind of three minutes of research to look at what someone does and what they might be interested in, because otherwise it's, I just, it's a classic ignore, you know, when it's clearly just a kind of sales message.
Tom Ollerton 25:19
Brilliant. Tom, thanks for your time.
Tom Holmes 25:20
Thank you so much. This has been awesome. So thank you so much for having me.
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