From Photographer in Africa to CEO of Cannes Lions, the journey of Phil Thomas.
“Everything works out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out, that just means it’s not the end yet.” — Phil Thomas
Phil Thomas’ career is full of twists and turns. Steeped in the world of creativity, initially as a photographer, then as a writer, it’s no surprise that Phil runs the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity (you can think of it like the Oscars of Marketing).
This interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Overcast and Soundcloud.
Here are the three things I learned during the interview:
1. When scaling a business internationally, cultural Differences are very real. After taking over as head of FHM, Phil and his team scaled the U.K. based magazine across the world. As an example, even though Paris and London are separated by an hour train ride, the content of the magazine could not be more different:
We went to Paris. We said, “This magazine works all over the world, here’s the formula.” And I’ll never forget, they said, “There’s a page every month that you insist we put in the magazine about cooking.” And we said, “That’s right because young men often don’t know how to cook and they want to cook for their girlfriends, so we have a page on cooking.” And they said, “Young men in France do not need to be taught how to cook.” So I said, “Okay,” that’s difficult. And then they said, “We notice every month you have an article about how to make love to a woman.” And we said, “Yes, because every young man is worried about whether he’s any good at making love to a woman, and he wants to learn the better way, and he wants to learn from other men, and he wants to learn from women that that is life.” And they said, “French men do not need to understand or learn about how to make love to a woman.”
2. If you run a sampling company, distribution is your key asset. After running the FHM business, he took over running a company called EMAP. The company was primarily built on magazines and events, but also had a small division called Bounty, which distributed samples to new mom’s in hospitals. Similar to us at Exact, who’ve aggregated a network of eCommerce retailers to distribute samples across North America, Phil’s Bounty business created value for brands by doing the leg-work to aggregate a distribution network of hospitals.
3. Meditation, sleep and breaking down problems into chunks help Phil manage stress. Similar to my experience with meditation, Phil uses it in spurts to calm his mind or invigorate himself with energy. When facing a tough problem, Phil’s advice is to “worry in sequence”, which means tackle one piece of the problem at a time to avoid “having your head explode”.
Hope you enjoy listening.
Daniel
Daniel Rodic is the Co-Founder of Exact Media, which is transforming the world of direct mail by enabling brands owned by companies like P&G, PepsiCo, Unilever and L’Oréal to distribute samples and coupons using the excess space in eCommerce parcels that have already been shipped to consumer.
Daniel was named Top 30 Under 30 by Forbes Magazine & Marketing Magazine, and represented Canada at the G20 Entrepreneurs Summit in Moscow and Beijing. Daniel served on the Leadership Council for the United Nations Media for Social Impact Summit and he is a 2016 finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
