Episode 266 / Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano / LATAM Senior Marketing Manager
Embracing Improv to Thrive in Uncertainty, Stay Open-Minded & Be Customer-Centric
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano is a seasoned marketing professional in the spirits industry, who has worked on both client and agency side. In the latest episode of the Shiny New Object Podcast, he revealed his unexpected secret to navigating the challenges of data-driven marketing - the art of improvisation.
Managing high volumes of work and the feeling of overwhelm is crucial for marketing leaders. Luis shared how gaming, particularly immersive titles like Myst and Frostpunk, helps him find focus and relaxation amidst constant rush. It’s a meditative and creative approach to gaming, which ties in with his shiny new object - improvisation.
According to Luis, improv trains marketers to thrive in ambiguity, deal with biases in data, and most importantly, stay centred on the needs of the audience - the true consumers. By embracing the "yes, and" mindset of improv, marketers can learn to adapt to unexpected outcomes, iterate on insights, and ultimately deliver more effective, consumer-centric campaigns.
Far from being just a creative exercise, Luis believes improv is a critical skill for data-driven marketers. It teaches them to be comfortable with uncertainty, to see biases as opportunities, and to truly empathise with their audience - all essential for succeeding in a landscape that’s changing and adapting to the rise of AI and technology, among other things. By blending the analytical rigour of data with the adaptability of improv, marketers can improve on their creativity, effectiveness, and connection with their consumers.
Find out more about using improv to level up data driven marketing on the podcast. Curious about how improv has helped AC Founder Tom Ollerton manage a business and use the adaptability and iteration skills? There’s a piece on that here.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 0:00
When it comes back to the example of marketing, you're definitely solving a problem of understanding people and understanding behavior in order to deliver value.
Tom Ollerton 0:14
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. And every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders. I'm in Mexico City today, which is super exciting, and I've been invited here by Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano, and I'm sat in his office. And Luis, it's great to be here. Could you give the audience a bit of background on who you are and what you do?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 0:48
Absolutely. Tom, thank you for having me so I am a Senior Marketing Manager that I've been working in the spirits industry for around the past 15 years, and I started my career working in various agencies, both in PR and advertising, and was fortunate enough to then make the leap and now work also to see the overall strategy of working with brands on a regional level.
Tom Ollerton 1:08
So you've worked both sides of the coin, the dark and the light side. You've worked with some pretty prestigious brands over the years and been responsible for all kinds of different work, but surely you must suffer at times from overwhelm. When things get too much, the inbox gets too full, the pressure gets too high, the intensity ramps up. What do you do when you get overwhelmed? How'd you get out of that funk?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 1:31
Well, it's true. You know, the day to day is a lot about being in this constant state of rush. So I value a lot the usual during the day to pause or to take a long walk, it also helps but. But one of the things that I that I value a lot when I am at the end of my day that really helps me to ground me back into focus is gaming and and I know that sounds unusual, that that immediately I said the word gaming and that the geek thermometer must have gone to the red right, but...
Tom Ollerton 2:00
You don't have to explain yourself!
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 2:01
But, but I found that I mean not only beyond the enjoyment of certain games, of blowing off steam, I'm definitely a man of the hobby, and I enjoy to do that, but also I wanted to focus on games that put you in a different state of mind, more state of mind, of relaxation or contemplation. And I'll give an example. There's a there's famous, very famous, game that's called Myst. It's a fairly old game, and was probably one of the first of its type back in the 1990s and it's a game where you essentially have to be exploring a fictional world and deciphering your way through it. Probably the simplest way to explain this would be an escape room. Perhaps there's no real characters you interact with, but you're just exploring and solving a space, and through that, you're ultimately deciphering the story behind it. So it puts you in a state of relaxation and observation, which I enjoy a lot, and that brings me back into into focus sometimes. And another example I want to share with you, it's a game called frost punk, which I don't know if you've heard there's no it's not that that much of a mainstream game. It's a simulation where you're essentially in charge of the survival of a community of people who are in a post apocalyptic Ice Age during the Industrial Revolution. So it's about resource management. But the most important thing the game challenges you is to make decisions that are very tough in order for the survival of the community. So you have to deal with these decisions and distance yourself from them. So you're exercising how you deal with moral burdens of whether or not you put children to work or whether or not you amputate people's limb for the sake of their survival, but maybe at the expense of their unwillingness to do so. So at the end, it's a game that feeds back you like how you did you know how many people you got killed on your watch? And it it puts you on a distance to situations and and also in a state of mind of of being, you know, more relaxed in terms of the the controlled fiction, to come back to your reality and be more focused on it.
Tom Ollerton 4:14
I have to be blunt here. That doesn't sound like a break from work at all, right. So it was explained to me recently that marketing is is a problem and not a puzzle, right, right? So if you want to sell an FMCG product, then, then it's a it's a problem to solve, where there's lots of different ways you could do that. It's not a puzzle. Whereas a puzzle is to solve a Rubik's cube or something like that. And Myst sounds like a bit of a problem solving game, and what's it called frost?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 4:47
Frost Punk.
Tom Ollerton 4:47
So, yes, that sounds like resource management. You know the like, definitely, yeah, unpacking the problem of marketing and FMCG products and managing resource. And keeping different people happy. I mean, I'm sure you don't amputate your agency. You may want to at times, but they actually sound quite similar to the skills you'd need to use in marketing.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 5:09
Absolutely. And there's something interesting also. You can go in in the game as frost punk, as deep as to even read a short biography of each one of the individuals in your community. So you can go as close as that to understanding the people. Obviously you have to deal with how close you want to get when you're making these hard decisions, but when it comes back to the example of marketing, you're definitely solving a problem of understanding people and understanding behavior in order to deliver value, so to practice or to exercise this in a very fictional or even fun way. When it comes to games, I found it interesting as something that I that I can spend my free time on.
Tom Ollerton 5:49
So I I'm terrible at saying no to things. That's just my kind of nature. Some people would say addictive personality, but I think that's a fancy way of saying you're not very good at saying no. How do you manage to stop doing it like I find games very addictive and and when I start playing, I kind of get quite obsessive about them. So how do you sort of manage that? So you're not playing till three in the morning, or are you? Can you just get away with doing both?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 6:14
No, it definitely depends. I mean, I'd be I'd be lying if I didn't say that I enjoy in the entertainment of games like Fortnite that have a tremendously addictive side to it, and it's a hobby that I share actually at home with my wife, and we can be hours upon hours on the weekend, and we have even a shared community of virtual friendships that that we've never met in person. But every week, we gather and we and we and we exchange this experience together. But when it comes to the these other types of games, it's all about being very purposeful of the activity that you're doing as work or as any other activity, even even practicing a sport or meditating. You enter an activity being very mindful of the time and the purpose you're doing it for. So that is how, to me, when it comes to a game like mist or a game like frost punk, of these examples, it's about entering for a purpose of achieving a certain goal or a certain time frame that I'm going to dedicate to this. And I know that I have scheduled something afterwards.
Tom Ollerton 7:23
What is your best bit of advice for someone who wants to become a better data driven marketer?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 7:29
Well, throughout my experience, what I found is that there's a there's a very high importance of continuous learning, but also training. I mean, unlike a profession, as you were saying, it's not just a puzzle that you can formulate and solve and apply the same formula every time. Marketing is profession where we have to be constantly training in the same way a musician does, is not just the practice of the basic principles that we have. You know of of strategy or management, of segmentation, you know, the trinity of targeting and positioning. This is something that is always going to be in touch with people. And people are changing. Their environment is changing their their media consumption is changing. So I believe in the power of of continuously training in marketing. And I'm definitely a fan of books such as how brands grow, or I'm a proud alumni of the mini MBAs in marketing from Mark Ritson. I believe marketers need to continue training in marketing. I find that very valuable. But also I found that there is a great value that comes from studying or training, maybe more unusual set of skills that also feed into our profession.
Tom Ollerton 8:47
So there's a lot of choice out there for learning and training. How do you make sure you're doing the right ones?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 8:54
I think it's a matter of how you can ultimately bring it into practice. And sometimes it's about connecting the dots. It doesn't have to be on the nose that you're training something specific to practice it the next day. But ultimately, the skills when you're exposed to certain challenges or to a project, and you find that this is useful, that is when you see that it was worth it. And I think that as human beings and as consumers, marketers need to be fully emerged in this world, to to be, to be unlocking those types of of experiences.
Tom Ollerton 9:29
And what was the training you've done that you wish you'd done at the start of your career?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 9:35
Well, I've found it being very valuable, a maybe an unusual skill to me that let me take a step back to that, to the music analogy. So I was mesmerized the first time I saw musicians that were not only great at performing their craft in music, but also great at reading the other musician next to them. Iterating in what they were doing, and even better, at iterating in terms of what the audience was reacting to. That's called Jazz, and we love that when we see it. When I saw it for the first time in theater, it was a show of improv, what they're doing, musicians and actors, they're improvising. And it struck me as something that is not a talent, that's a skill, and I believe that it's an amazing thing that we can practice as people and as a marketer to improvise better.
Tom Ollerton 10:33
So this is your shiny new object, right? Yes, your shiny new object that you think represents the future of data driven marketing is improv.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 10:41
Yes, as unusual as that can sound, I do believe that there's a great value in the intrinsic of of improv acting, because unlike classical theater, actors are are rehearsing and preparing to execute a plan. However, improv they're training to react to an unexpected situation, in pretty much the same way marketers do we train and improv gives you three very main skills. The first one, it trains you towards the skill of thriving in ambiguity. I think it can resonate with any marketer that no marketing decision has ever been made with 100% of the data. There's always in management dealing with uncertainty, and you can be lucky enough to be exposed in your work experience, to situations, to projects, to deal this. But how do you train it? I found that in improv, you're constantly exposed to train, how do you be comfortable with uncertainty? It All. It ultimately takes it to the to the extreme of being embracing it. But we're not going to go there. But at least whereas training and marketing or in business, you're you're ultimately training to how you're going to deal with the data that you do have improv trains you and how to deal with the one you don't. And I found that to be a great way to explain
Tom Ollerton 12:07
that last sentence. So marketing trains you to use the data that you do have, but improv trains you to use the data that you don't have.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 12:14
Exactly what I mean is improv is built on the fact that you start with a clean slate the same way, when you approach diagnosis, you distance yourself from all the biases that you have, from all the predisposed ideas, and you face this in a completely blank slate. That's a state of mind that we're not very used to when we're dealing with data. Definitely, we bring and try to be very objective in in having conversation based on data and not based on emotions or prepositions. But improv is training you constantly to be in that blank state of mind and feeding into the data that would be the second skill that it brings to mind. It deals with biases of data. In an improv show, you have no idea how the audience or how even your co actors are going to react by what is brought to the table, and you're dealing always in this constant iteration of seeing how any unusual or random piece of information has to be translated into a coherent story. And the wonder of that is that when you are working in in a business meeting, and you're you have your data at hand that's going to help you to be very objective. You have to deal with the biases of the stakeholders. It takes framing of the information or it takes translating it into insight. And this is not a skill that we're very used to be practicing, and I found that in improv, you are constantly having to do that mental translation.
Tom Ollerton 13:47
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So tell me how you've used the improv skill of dealing with biases within data. I know we can't talk about the day to day too much, but definitely like, could you talk about, like, a previous job? Or help me understand a practical example where you get given some data and your improv brain kicks off and goes, right, okay, there's another way to look at that.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 14:50
Okay. I think we've all faced with a classical example of when you run a study and you don't get the outcome that you expect or you hoped for. It's very common that we go into a study to validate something we already think and we want.
Tom Ollerton 15:04
In which case it's not a study, but anyway, moving on.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 15:06
Definitely, but, but it would be more often than you think that we try to, to push, to get what we what we want to see. And it's very important how you you take that as the gift to move forward, maybe in another direction and fully forward. I don't mean just in in, you know, the doing this concession of saying, Well, okay, let's run something else, or let's iterate this. So this makes better sense. I'm talking about really having the courage and and the mindset to take this as the gift that it is that will move whatever campaign or product innovation into a completely uncharted territory, and it's worth it.
Tom Ollerton 15:45
So in I mean, I've done some improv.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 15:48
Good for you.
Tom Ollerton 15:50
Well, not very well, but it was fun. It really is. And there's the yes and principle, right? So you're saying exactly, saying yes. And this is my, this is my iteration on it. So what I'm hearing from you, is that you're saying kind of the way to get rid of your your bias is to Yes, and it so you you want a certain thing to come back from the research. It doesn't. So you go yes, and let's go over here.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 16:15
absolutely or or in when you start the diagnosis of a new project by seeing how that your last campaign, your previous campaign, went. That's exactly that moment as well to be yes, this happened, and now we can do this.
Tom Ollerton 16:31
So we had dealing with uncertainty. We've had dealing with the biases of data. What was the third?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 16:36
So maybe linked to precisely that moment when something unexpected happens. And in improv, that is the basic nature of it. You're going to go forward and the story is not going to unravel the way you wanted it to. But that's precisely what makes it a comedy show. The audience is laughing when they see improv, because there's truth that's that's being revealed there on stage. Actors came in with all their biases. They left them behind. They they went on this thrill ride, and at the end, out of the blue, out of thin air, came out a coherent story. So the third point and third skill that that improv has brought is that you're acting. You're training to act as a person, not according to what you want to happen, but what the audience wants to see. And I found that is like the simplest way of consumer Centricity in action. And we have so much talk about the need of being separated from our personal desire of what we want when we're looking at a problem to solve, of how you are not the consumer. And it's great to train that in the marketing principle that it is, but I found it as a practice of of a state of mind. Improv is all about the audience as the consumer should be when we are marketers.
Tom Ollerton 18:09
I love I love the analogy, and it's great to talk about improv. I think the last person that talked about improv was Pete Markey, who's the CMO of Boots in the UK. I should definitely forward it on to you. So let's take the last point, right? So do what the audience wants to see, consumer centricity. And this week, I've been in, you know, as I say, in around Mexico City. And I think it's so symbolic that large corporations have these large offices nowhere near the consumer. It's not like there's a there's a corner shop downstairs where, you know, you're not looking at a family drinking their drink, you know, like, or consuming their product, or wearing those clothes or plugging in that device. It's quite strange that you'd have large corporates like in London. They'd be based in in Slough, or they'd be so and they actually physically remove themselves from from the audience. I think, do you think that's ironic?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 19:07
Well, I think there's a lot of criteria when it comes to real estate, for for corporations, but I think it's when it comes to people that really, that's what a marketing team, or any team, is formed by. I think it's very valuable that people always have in this business, that proximity to the market. That was a great value that I that I took from being able to work in several agencies, that you really have a hands on, one to one relationship with the execution. There's always that gap between what the strategy is being done, and how it's really performing on the ground and people, I believe, regardless of the physical location of offices, and even more now, after pandemic, after that, we've seen so normalized, a much more fluid state of of the physical presence of people and organizations. I think, in this practice it's always the importance of being in contact with the medium the consumer is in within your category, in my case, in alcohol is very important to be in touch and close to the to the entree channel, to the places where the people are actually drinking.
Tom Ollerton 20:18
And it's been really refreshing to hear you talk about improvisation in in the sort of the FM and in any category, or the FMCG category particular. But I'm going to be cynical. I'm going to push back on you, just for for the sake of fun. Yeah, that in my experience of automated creative work with some of the largest FMCGs on the planet, some of the biggest brands of the world, which is great, but generally, you're not seeing improvisation. You think we are this brand. This is what we stand for. Certainly, this is our look and feel. This is our tone of voice. And you don't see a ton of improvisation, certainly in the FMCG category, in the in low interest categories, someone gracelessly described it as you grease it up and you ram it in, right? You want to sell detergent. You just, you just crank it out there. You get that in front of as many eyeballs as possible. So at point of purchase, someone chooses your detergent over someone else's Yes, in a mid to high level, high level consideration categories, it's different. It's it's a harder sell. It's a longer sell. There's more, more buttons need to be pressed. But if you want someone to buy your toilet roll instead of someone else's, you know, the the P&Gs of this world, for example, will just, this is us. This is our point. Then we're just gonna put it out there. It's not improvisation.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 21:36
I think it ultimately always comes back to your goal, your strategy and what you want to achieve, and when, when I talk about improvisation, and I completely relate to what you said. Obviously, I'm not talking about, let's go and and perform as actors. I'm not even a great one myself. I mean, if I may, but, but I, I'm talking about that there's this subtle mindset that it brings you, coming back to the to the jazz players or to the improv actors, what you're doing is you're training to iterate, to be flexible, to be adapting, and that is as as natural and common as the challenges that any brand or campaign faces. We also call it a lot, this entrepreneurial mindset within large organizations that is that necessity to be flexible, to be fluid, to be reactive. And it's and it's great when, when organizations can manage that. On a personal level, what I found as a marketer is that training these set of skills helps you to navigate better this wave of constant need of adaptation.
Tom Ollerton 22:44
So not wanting to get too much into automated creative, but the spirit of improvisation is core to what we do. So yes, you'd have the brand platform, and there'll be some kind of shoot working with influencers, creators, whatever it is, and there will be an asset, some assets are produced. And then what we love to do is to automate all the different sizes and shapes and variants, but then optimize towards the best performing messaging and visuals based on what comes back from the data. And then during and at the end of the campaign, we can come back to a brand and say, Look these are the these are the written and visual elements that drove emotion, right? This is what the audience wanted to your point, which is like we we took the core idea and we improvised it, using technology to give the audience what they want to see.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 23:39
Yes, and I think it's a brilliant tool, because ultimately, what AI is giving as a tool is aggregation and iteration of information. So maybe you can, very quickly, to your example, go back to the consumer and iterate, whereas to other examples, where you would take a long period of time to get a response back. If this tool allows us to do it in a matter of minutes, in a matter of days, then it's, I think there is the value of of iterating this into action. And now we're, we're becoming more and more experts, not just on briefing, but on prompting, right towards an AI tool to give back a very solid response.
Tom Ollerton 24:19
We talked about this before. I think this, I have a real frustration with AI at the minute. I think that people are seeing it as something that will help them do the same thing they've always done cheaper and quicker, right? If it was expensive, that would be kind of fine, but, you know, licenses to any of these platforms don't cost very much, right? So you could replace all of your like low level copywriters with whatever tool you wanted to but then so can your competitors, absolutely, so can the rest of the industry. So it's not a it is not a competitive advantage. It's only a disadvantage not to do it. And so our thing is like, how can you use AI to make better adverts or do things that you couldn't have ever done before. What is AI plus a human? As opposed to, how do we replace that human with with an AI? And we, and we think like, don't, don't make your creative a machine, but use the machine to make your creatives better.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 25:17
I agree. I think, as any exponential technology, AI is a tool that is to be harnessed to do better human work, and absolutely not the other way around. I believe that that we need to be proficient enough to know how to use it, to understand it the same way markers. I mean, we talked about, for example, creativity or digital marketing, when before, you would have specialized people just in Digital Marketing, and today, that is just a skill that any marketer needs to know and understand. As a brand manager, I don't necessarily have to be the most creative person. I definitely need to understand creativity to be enabled, to brief it well, and I think AI or any exponential technology will do the same. We need to understand it in order to harness it to our advantage, as you mentioned.
Tom Ollerton 26:11
So we could sit here for another five hours, I think, at the end of the podcast. So if someone wants to get in touch with you, where would you like that to happen? What makes a message that you'll respond to?
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 26:25
Okay, that's, that's an interesting one. Well, definitely, I think the most common point of my professional media is LinkedIn. So you can find me as Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano on on LinkedIn. And to your point of, how do you I respond? I think it's, it's all about the purpose of the contact. I value a lot. For example, students or recently graduated that reach out and they come up front saying, I'm trying to expand my network, and I saw you, or saw the company work for so I want to get in touch. I definitely go for that, but it's definitely as any tool also used a lot for promotion or for sales, and those are the type of of messages that I avoid. I believe that any social media is a tool for sales when it's connected to an objective, but doing it systematically is something that I try to avoid. And I go for more to connecting with people than just to organizations that are randomly trying to expand their database.
Tom Ollerton 27:26
Although I do think there's an irony there isn't it for them, as a brand, you will willingly put your advert in front of any number of people, invited or not. But when it happens to you, it's it's different, isn't it? But no, I agree with you, man, I get, I get pitched on LinkedIn all of the time, and I hate it, but at the same time, I run a business where, you know, we're involved in a process of serving ads to people within us to see them.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 27:50
So, yeah, we're all the same.
Tom Ollerton 27:53
Thank you so much.
Luis Pablo Perez Torrescano 27:54
Thank you very much, Tom, very happy to be here.
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