Increasing messaging power with customer-centric branding.

Speaker A: Welcome to the Real B2B Brands podcast. I'm Ann Rimmer, Founder and Chief brand strategist at UH Propelled. We specialise in brand positioning for B2B companies and this podcast series features niche B2B companies with great stories to tell. Today's episode features Hannah Berriwood, Director of Global Marketing and communications at AH Savitech. Hannah has been with Svitech for over 14 years and I've been lucky enough to work with Hannah and Cervitech over the last eight years. So I'm delighted to welcome Hannah to the Real B2B Brands podcast. Sovitech has a story worth telling and today we will learn much from Hannah on marketing in a highly challenging and changeable world. Sovitech is a global survival technology leader. They operate in over 2000 ports spanning 96 countries. And Sovitec is the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of life rafts, marine evacuation systems and offshore rental ppe. The Svitec team live by their purpose. We exist to protect lives and um, throughout its hundred year plus history, so Vitek has remained at the forefront of innovation, design and application engineering. And so is the trusted name when it comes to critical safety and survival solutions. I know I'm always reassured when I spot survive tech brands on planes and ships as I'm lucky enough to know the heritage story, the care and attention to detail that goes into the products that they make. So in this episode Hannah shares the change in customer demands, particularly since COVID how the business has invested time in understanding custom customer needs and um, the customer journey. With Savitech, the transformation from being a corporate brand with a house of 24 brands that have come through acquisition to a single specialist brand focused on marine. We also have time to discuss technology that gives a single view of customer, how their marketing is evolving and AI as a tool to remain agile with market opportunities.

Speaker B: Opportunities.

Speaker A: So there's lots to unpack in 40 minutes. It's a masterclass I think, in clarity and focus, which are two of my favourite objectives for any B2B brand. Without further ado and um, welcome Hannah Berreywood to the podcast. So, hi Hannah, Please could you begin by explaining your role at cevitech and what makes.

Speaker B: Uh, thank you Anne. Uh, so I'm responsible for all things marketing and communications at ah, Surviatech. Uh, Surviatech stands for survival technology and that's exactly what we do. We manufacture and service survival technology predominantly for the maritime industry. So think, uh, life rafts, um, lifeboats, fire safety equipment, anything that's going to Protect your life in an emergency when you're, when you're out on the water is what we, is what we do. Um, the survivor tech purpose is we exist to protect lives which obviously aligns perfectly.

Speaker A: Yeah, and you've got a gorgeous kind of backstory because there's over 100 years of heritage in Surviatech, isn't there? So could you, just for the listeners, would you mind just explaining that kind of the, the starting story really of survive tech for us?

Speaker B: I absolutely, uh, can. So the original survivec brand is a brand called rfd. RFD stands for Reginald Foster Dagnall who was the founder of rfd and Reginald Foster Dagnal invented the first ever inflatable life raft. Um, so the thing you see in my picture, um, uh, that will inflate and protect you should you be in a scenari where your vessel sinks. Um, was invented by our original founder and then obviously the story continues from there. Since then we've invented all sorts of things. The first marine evacuation system that you would use to escape a cruise ship. The first ever uh, inflatable life jacket. They all came from either the original, the original RFD brand or they came from a brand that we later, uh, acquired and is now part of our business.

Speaker A: And you were in other sectors as well. But we'll kind of COVID that as you go through where you're focusing today and why you've kind of gone on a bit of a journey with that. So if I can kind of go into the quality of Savitech and how you've always been this quality focused and I would say at times premium product as well because of that, um, and the exacting standards, the attention to detail and the whole kind of focus on minimising risk to lives. Can you tell us of the changes the business has gone through over recent years whilst retaining that commitment to quality?

Speaker B: Yes, I mean it's an obvious one, right? Like if you um, are going to purchase something that's potentially going to protect, protect someone's life, you would assume that you, you're going to want the best possible product. Right. Um, that's going to protect you in the best possible way. And um, for many, many years Surviatech would pride themselves on having the most innovative design and the safest possible product and we would be very, very successful in winning in that space. As sort of markets evolved, especially since COVID really, um, the maritime market has not, um, ah, costs have become much, much, much tighter and it's become harder to win at that more premium price point. Based on being the best product alone. So we've really had to evolve, um, how we operate as a business and certainly how we go to market to really consider that. And in the past all of our marketing would essentially, in short be buy our product, it's the best. And these are all the features and benefits that tell you why. And that's just not enough anymore. It was kind of too easy for us. Um, now we're really having to really consider exactly what matters to the customer beyond having the best product on board their vessel. Because of course majority of the time you're never going to use it. It's a product that's going to sit in a container, um, and never come out. And so we've really looked at what matters to customers beyond just having the safest product on board. And how can we really, uh, show the value of that, of what we offer beyond just being the lowest cost solution? Because we're never going to be the lowest cost solution. You can't have a really high spec product and be the lowest, lowest cost solution. And so then it's about, let's really lean into the things that really matter to them and make sure that we really pull that out in how we go to market and how we demonstrate the full value proposition of our product. Um, I guess a fun example of how we've done that that considers the kind of commercial proposition is there was quite a shift from how customers wanted to procure survival equipment. And so traditional models would be you would buy it and you would own it and everyone would want to own their equipment. But we see this in the car space as well. There is a lot more trends towards sort uh, of leasing or renting, um, equipment. Companies seem to like to not have to invest in capex in the same way that they once did. And so one example is shifting our sales model for more products to be on rental or higher models rather than uh, ownership models. And that's an example of sort of understanding the customer, understanding how the market and their preferences are evolving and then shaping our value proposition to meet those needs beyond just the product design, which is what we would have focused on primarily sort of eight, ten years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that's the typical approach, isn't it, of a manufacturing company is just really focus on the product, make sure you get that right and then all the customer needs to know is what are the products, features and benefits and get your pricing there or thereabouts and you go to market. So I find it fascinating actually that you've made this Kind of decision to really get closer to the customers and look at their needs and challenges and understand how you adapt around this changing world that we're in and how it's become more price sensitive. So you've got to do more, haven't you, to really understand that. So, uh, tell us, how has Cervitec kept up to speed with customers? What's the process you've been through to get under the skin of a customer? Really understand.

Speaker B: Yeah. So from a marketing perspective, I'd say, you know, we've really transformed our approach to marketing over the last, I'd say 24 months. And obviously that starts with understanding the customer way more than we ever did before. The best way we found to do that, I'd say there's three things to focus on that we focused on there. One is, uh, the obvious, which is getting their feedback, capturing customer insights. That is, of course, inherently quite difficult. They don't like to fill in feedback forms, all that sort of stuff. It's still a process that we need to go through because when we do get that kind of feedback, it really helps. The two areas that have been the most successful for us is mapping out customer Personas. And certainly in the maritime industry, there are a number of different customer Personas. Some are, uh, decision makers and some are influencers. They are all important. But really mapping them out and getting under the skin of what makes them tick has really helped us in terms of how we go to market and making sure that we market the right message to the right audience. And it really lands, um, in a way that resonates to them. The third one is mapping out the customer journey, and that's been really insightful. And we've done that in collaboration with our sales, commercial and operations team, so that we've really understood the full customer journey from end to end. And then actually that's been the most insightful in terms of triggering real change. Because when we've mapped out that customer journey, we've realized that there are some really, um, fruitful opportunities for marketing campaigns that we weren't accessing before. So an example of that is we did a customer nurture, uh, mapping session in our site in Fujairah in the UAE in January this year. And what we uncovered in that, in that session is that there is a trend in terms of the number of, uh, vessels that are ending up in detention on a more frequent basis. So you can imagine a vessel comes into port, it gets inspected, and if there is found to be a safety defect, the vessel will get held up in detention, that is catastrophic for a vessel. It means that they're delaying their operation. It means whatever goods they might be delivering, um, uh, they're going to be delayed in their delivery times and it's going to cost them more money in port fees. But fixing whatever issue they have for a number of different reasons, detention rates are increasing quite dramatically. So vessels are ending up in detentions more. So of course that suggests that there are ah, things uh, not happening that should be happening during their service intervals means those safety defects are being found. Um, that's obviously a, um, opportunity for Surviatech to highlight um, to them the benefits of choosing a provider uh, on value as opposed to price because actually that it might feel cheaper upfront to go with the lower cost options. But actually the longer term is you're ending up in detentions more frequently and that's costing you more money. So actually if you pay a bit more upfront you're going to have a much easier life overall and it's probably going to cost you a bit less as well. We wouldn't have uncovered that insight had we not gone through that exercise and now we've turned that insight into, you know, a full marketing campaign. We've got, got white papers, we've got targeted advertising, that sort of stuff. Yeah, and the update, we launched it in June, um, and the uptake from it has been really positive. Certainly the industry press we've made, we've had a number of articles, schools covered in various different industry media, we've been on front covers of certain trade press, etc. Etc. So it's a really strong example of getting, finding the right message, um, at the right time, um, and distributing it to the right audience and then seeing the results pay off. Um, and that was all down to taking the time to understand the customer, understand the journey they're going through and identify where the pain points are and then show how we can plug the gap for them and relieve those pain points.

Speaker A: I love that, uh, you've obviously hit a nerve with that message. So that's really good. That's the gold, isn't it? It's finding the thing and then as you say, reaching them at that right time in the right way to the right audience as well. There's a lot of things that have got to kind of come together at the same time. Um, so what's on my mind there is putting customers at the heart of changes you're making in marketing. Sounds really obvious, you know, listening to customers, understanding customers, etc. But very few businesses really do this. So what I see a lot is companies that do customer surveys. So it might be around satisfaction or it could be around uh, some of the changes within the products and things like that. And they're looking for this continuous loop of feedback. But it's not often you see real deep qualitative work like you're doing on the customer and on their experience and the whole journey as well. So I suppose what one of my questions is, how do you get buy in from the board to do this work, um, and particularly from the sales team to undertake it as well? Because, um, I don't know whether it's the same for you, but what I see with some companies is that uh, they believe all of that sits within the knowledge of the sales team. Um, so how did you overcome that or did you not need to do and how did you bring the board along with you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say fortunately that hasn't been too difficult. I'd say generally, um, we've had a reasonable amount of support and certainly not too much pushback. Um, I think generally the business is really open to um, understanding the customer and being a kind of customer at the heart, customer centric business. And I think there is general agreement that we're not there yet. We've got a lot of work to do. Uh, certainly Robert, our CEO was, when he joined the company several years ago, um, he was very clear that things like mapping out the customer journey is, you know, exercises that he is used to and really keen on and seems to benefit. So I'd say we've had quite a lot of support in that regard. Um, we're in an interesting position because we're a global business. We've got sites everywhere, but we're relatively small as well. We don't have a, you know, really huge marketing team. Um, and so all of the sites that we visited to um, run these sessions, I think they actually really appreciated the attention and um, you know, being able to showcase their work and you know, tell us how we can help them, you know, bring it, bring it to the forefront. So yes, I think generally the business is really has really seen the benefit. What really, you know, what really matters is not just running the exercise but proving it. And so what's been really important to me is now that we've run the exercises and we're delivering the campaigns is making sure, I'm always reminding everyone, yes, the detentions piece is excellent, isn't it? It was the customer nurture mapping session that we came up with that idea. So I uh, think it's important for me and the marketing team to keep connecting it back and keep reminding the business of that. But yeah, certainly generally at the start I think, I think was generally, generally supportive. The difficulty is, as it always is in any business, it's resource right while you're hosting nurture mapping sessions, you're not, you're not pushing campaigns out the door. Um, and obviously getting that balance is, is always tricky.

Speaker A: Yeah, I really love that example actually of reminding the business um, and joining the dots for them because it's so difficult with marketing. A lot of things take time, um, and we all tend to focus on the things that give us the instant rewards, the instant lead generation and so on. But actually there's an awful lot of work comes before that stage. So I think it's really good that you're constantly in communication and reminding the board of all the steps that have been needed to get to that point. Um, because that's how you get the success, isn't it? Ultimately it's a series of steps. It's not just you've hit it lucky with a digital marketing campaign and it's brought in a load of leads in

Speaker B: the top of the funnel. So uh, yeah. And certainly in our business the sales cycles are so long that it just doesn't happen that quickly either. So what I find can often happen is the sale that we closed yesterday could have been influenced by a campaign that we did a year ago. Everyone's gotten that campaign because they remember the one a week ago. And so I think uh, and it's definitely really important for us where our sales cycles can be very long to make sure that we're always continuously pushing and building that connection. Because people will forget. The marketing campaigns that happened six months to a year ago. Yeah. Are making the impact today. And the reality is the campaign that we're delivering today, it will make an impact in terms of brand awareness, but it won't make an impact in terms of direct lead generation for months time.

Speaker A: True, very true. And having done that customer work then you presumably figured out during that process, if you didn't already know it, which were the customers that you really needed to focus on and the ones where you were going to win and there was going to be a longer term relationship. How has that then informed and helped the business stay focused on understanding what it should be going for and also what it shouldn't be going for. Because that's always a challenge, isn't it? Is just to say yes to everything. But where do you Focus when like you say there's not a lot of resource.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And I think like in the past you would do a lot more of this kind of broad brush marketing that would kind of um, target everyone. And I think as, as the years have gone on it's becoming clearer and clearer that you can have so much more impact the more targeted and focused you are. Uh, um, fortunately survive. Tech is pretty well organized in that regard. We've got Salesforce, we've got our customers organized into different buckets and it's very clear to us uh, where the largest opportunities lie and where kind of that sweet spot is. We've got a clear business strategy, we've got a clear set of growth levers. Um, and the nurture mapping kind of reinforced that what was already there. But no is relatively clear through um, some of our other programs exactly who we should be targeting with specific messaging. And it's definitely an area that we've really evolved as um, the years have gone on is not worrying about having a brochure that can be used by everyone and worrying about this message is for this target audience. They have the opportunity to grow by this amount in this, in this area we're going to intentionally target that rather than trying to do a bit for everyone. And that's certainly been a shift um, from sort of five to eight years ago to now.

Speaker A: Competing in B2B today can be tough, especially in complex or established sectors where everyone sounds the same at uh propelled. We help businesses break out of that sameness by grounding strategy in deep customer insight. We capture the voice of the customer to uncover real needs, real decision drivers and real opportunities. Then we use that knowledge to build a clear, differentiated brand position. The result? Better conversations, stronger leads and greater pricing power. Yeah, I guess that's uh, part of the process you've been on as well is deciding to focus purely in marine as well. Has that come from the work that you've done with customers?

Speaker B: Uh, well that's, that's a combination and obviously that goes into our business structure as well. Um, and so yes the work with customers is some of it but also Surviatech is a private equity owned business.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And um, I think um, in the past our ah, priorities have been to grow through acquisition and what that can lead to is rapid growth, um, huge expansion in brands, portfolio people, all that stuff. Um, but what hasn't always been prioritized is truly integrating what's been acquired required. Um, and that's fine at the time. And I think in private equity you can often uh, be in a very short term focus mindset. It's the nature of private equity. Um, but as time's gone on you then struggle to uh, scale up or expand or um, cross sell different product categories from different brands because you haven't taken the time to manage your brands, intentionally consolidate your ERP systems, um, and all of those sorts of things. Um, I think in more recent years we've realized that not doing that work at the time of acquiring the brand has then made things a bit harder for us as time has gone on. Fortunately we have very patient shareholders who are um, very committed to doing that work now. And so from my perspective that obviously really sits within the brand space where at one point in Surviatech we had 24 active brands. They were active in different capacities. Some had websites, social media sites, they were a go to market brand, some didn't have any marketing, but they were still stickers being put on products, um, etc. Etc. Obviously 24 active brands for a company of our size is just uh, is not manageable at all and it's limiting our ability to have impact in the market because it's spread so thinly. And so over the last sort of four years I would say we've really made sure that we've intentionally managed that brand portfolio and scaled it right down and we've made, finally made the tough decisions about the brands that are going to be phased out, but also the brands that hold really strong equity and are going to be dialed up. Um, and that really led to um, what survive tech was in the past. It was originally a corporate brand designed to house all of these acquired businesses. And then as time went on, survivor tech became this hybrid of a corporate brand and a go to market brand. And then the brand story became very confused because it became very top level and uh, it needed to meet the needs of multiple different sectors, which was of course quite difficult. So as we managed that brand portfolio, we had some brands that we dialed up and specifically that was um, what is now referred to as the Beaufort brand, which was for our defense business which we um, then later sold actually. And then more recently than that we've um, integrated our offshore transfer business into our handsome protection brand. What that means for Surviatech is now Surviatech no longer has to be this corporate holding brand that has very generic messaging and it can now be a very specific intention maritime brand. And it means we can really dial up our brand positioning and our brand messaging to really uh, to tailor to the needs of the maritime audience. And, uh, make sure that it really resonates with what matters to them, which we've of course identified through the nature mapping and Personas. So those brand exercises have been done and we're just kind of in the, uh, realms of being ready to kind of launch this new sort of more maritime focused, survivor tech brand.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a critical piece of work that isn't. It is so difficult when you've grown through acquisition of multiple brands, like you say, and you just spread so thinly and budget is spread so thinly and sales teams are trying to manage multiple different sectors and customer bases and so on. It's very difficult. So hats off to you really to go through that process because it's painful. It's never easy to let go, um, of anything that you've invested and built over many years. But I love that you have got to a place where you've really identified, where you can really excel and win and give yourselves that focus as well. So that's fantastic. And the private equity piece is really interesting because they're obviously, as you've said, they're willing to do that piece of work, that whole repositioning and to spend that time and get that right because they can see where the opportunities are and how that's going to provide the growth, uh, going forwards. How have you helped the board with that? What process did you go through to really engage and help them understand that process that they needed to go through and to have confidence in that piece of work really?

Speaker B: I mean, we did it, um, bottom up actually, rather than top down. Um, although obviously would have had engagement from our, ah, senior leadership team at some point. But the branding project, obviously we did, we did the Beaufort rebrand, we did the Handsome Protection rebrand and then, so now they're, now they're separated and they're detached. Now is the time for Survivor Tech to shine. We held a, um, sales conference in Athens in April. And actually what we really wanted to do is rather than, and what I said at that sales conference is that the new brand positioning, it's not going to come from me, it's not going to come from an agency, it's not going to come from Robert, our CEO, uh, it's going to come from you, the sales team, because you're closest to the, the customer. And so we hosted a workshop during that conference and I gave them a number of different positioning territories that we could potentially adopt and I asked them in groups to discuss the positioning territory that they felt was best for Surviatech and more Importantly, could help them win in the market more successfully. And so they did that and they were presented, um, where they thought was the best fit. And then, um, we totaled it up and, and went with the, went with where there were the highest, highest number of votes that made sense and were, were aligned. And so actually what was really important is to get that buy in from the business and that input from the business so that they really felt like it was a project for them rather than. Yeah, that you don't, um. Yeah, exactly. Rather than our leadership team saying we must do, we must do this now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: When it comes to the leadership team, they've, they've always been on board. You know, it hasn't been a difficult process in me trying to sell them something that we should do. It's, it's been a natural evolution of the business that has become, that has become very obvious and it just felt like the natural, natural right step, um, after those rebrand projects. So there have been presentations to our leadership teams, but they've been very collaborative and they seem to understand it and certainly on board.

Speaker A: I think that's, um, the beauty of how you've done it, because like you say, you've gone bottom up. You've already engaged the right people from the very beginning. You've got all of the people that are facing with the clients to really get behind what will help win. And so that inevitably would make it easier if, if it was needed at all for anybody to get their head around. Well, this is the right decision for the positioning and the focus, because that's where we feel we've got the best opportunity, the best advantage. Um, but it doesn't often happen like that. So it's just really interesting to hear the approach you've taken because I know you've always been very much around engaging with the team and involving the team and marketing, not being something that sits separately, but very much is there to work collaboratively across the business. So I think that's a really good demonstration of that value that you hold and how you bring marketing much closer to the commercial end of the business as well. Um, so the, the thing that I think would be really good to just unpick a little bit is now you've done all this great work and you've got this focus and you finally can kind of focus your spend and your resource and everything on a sector and a customer base. Tell us how you're kind of splitting the marketing spend and the focus and how your marketing's evolved because of this focus.

Speaker B: Yeah. So Obviously brand is one thing, obviously customer focus and learning the customer is another. I guess the other strand we haven't spoken about is technology. Sort of alluded to um, us not uh, integrating our technology as well as we could and sales and marketing CRM has not been exempt to that. Um, um, we have Salesforce but we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we have um, a really uh, a sales and marketing CRM M a technology led sales and marketing CRM M that really works for us. Obviously I mentioned about the sales cycles being very long and one of the things that is tricky about that is if it's not going to CRM. In CRM it's much harder to track um, if we want to target specific customers but the data isn't in CRM that's obviously, you know, that makes that whole process a lot trickier. Obviously we're in the, we're in the tech enabled era. Um, and um, that certainly has to be an area of focus is how we can dial up um, our marketing through sales and marketing CRM and of course AI um, and so there is, there is definitely a big area of focus there and a lot to do and a lot to learn.

Speaker A: So you get in a single view of customer but you're making sure that single view is shared. Um, and it is literally a single view because often even with tech you just see different business units capturing data in different ways and it never gives you that single view. So it's really difficult isn't it to, to track especially the nurturing. If it's a 12 month process you, it's really key isn't it that you keep hold of every touch point with that uh, customer in one place.

Speaker B: That's exactly it. And there's so many, you know we do so much LinkedIn advertising, so much going on with our website, all these uh, different website analytics tools which are incredibly useful. Um, they need to all come together in one place for, for those target customers we need to understand their activity, their interests, uh, their preferences of course across all those different platforms in one location and we need to be able to pass that on to our sales teams to uh, help them use that information as part of their customer conversations. And so yeah, there's certainly a big piece of work from our side to do to make that more, more automated and um, um, more effective I suppose.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that, that piece is really to do and it's a work in progress I guess.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you've already kind of touched on, you're doing campaigns um, so how many campaigns do you do and how do you decide when to do a campaign?

Speaker B: There's plenty of campaigns, there's always lots to, to talk about. Um, what campaigns we do come from a number of different avenues. There's campaigns that come through the customer nurture mapping. Um, so I'd say they're organic campaigns that we've kind of found ourselves. We're obviously in a regulation driven environment. So as regulation changes, the um, requirements for what safety equipment and servicing you need a customer need changes. And then we obviously have to speak to that. And so it's often a lot of what we do is driven by what regulation movements are happening at any given time and making sure that we are front and center of that and positioning ourselves as the authority in that area, as the company you can trust and go to, to access all of that information and that we will support you in that transition. So, so that's another area of focus from a campaign perspective. There is of course the traditional NPD route, um, that matters and that always matters. And then I mentioned growth levers and that sort of areas that we've identified where we have very specific opportunities. Um, and so then accessing those opportunities through targeted marketing. I think a lot of our campaign focus is always given the nature of our business is always around thought leadership is always about how we can position ourselves as the authority and really um, dig out those proof points that we can bring to market. So white papers, case studies, customer testimonials, that is always a really big area of focus for us because when you're purchasing safety equipment, you want someone you can trust and obviously all of those things really work, uh, to work to deliver that.

Speaker A: How do you measure success then? What does, what does that get measured by?

Speaker B: Well, I'd love an integrated sales and marketing CRM to give you a very specific, specific answer on that. But unfortunately that's not there yet. But I certainly hope it will be in the future. Uh, at the moment I'd say leading indicators are ah, a big thing for us. Um, when we launch things like a detentions campaign, obviously we can see the data, we can see who's downloaded the white paper, who's visited the website, you know, what publications have reviewed it. All of that ah, is important. But what we've really tried to access is where there is a behavior change. And so for example, on the detentions campaign, I can see that there are a lot more people specifically in our workforce that are posting, uh, posting content on LinkedIn around detentions. Right. So I would suggest that that is a really strong leading indicator that we've been able to um, change the conversation or the conversation about detentions, align ourselves to it. So I think at the moment I'm always looking for that. Not necessarily what did marketing do, but what did marketing change? And trying uh, to access those kind of leading indicators and bring them to the forefront. Really important.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So final question then. You've touched on AI, but we've not gone into any kind of depth with it. I just wonder how the team is using AI and what you see as AI's role, if there is one within marketing, um, and within the business. And is it something that you see? Uh, I suppose that you'll, that will grow or. Yeah, just interested on your thoughts on how you think I could have a part to play or not.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm by no means an expert, I'm learning.

Speaker A: Um, I think we all are.

Speaker B: Like everyone, like everyone else. I think it would be naive to suggest that there isn't a role for AI to play in marketing. I think that there is a really important balance between uh, when you should use AI for marketing and when you shouldn't use AI for marketing. And we obviously will see the classic examples of AI driven artwork that all look the same. Um, uh, we've had some real success using AI for some things. Um, in fact on the detentions white paper that I've spoken about a lot, the front cover of that white paper is an AI driven image. It is a vessel in a port with a big padlock around the change because it's going to tensions. You would never have been able to create that image without AI. Um, or you might have done, but it would have been very hard and cost you a lot of money. Yeah, that's a really great example of where AI just works so well. Yeah. Then there are of course, like I say, other examples where it doesn't work well. I guess what we, what we're having to do is learn how to go from a sort of ad hoc AI process for content creation to something that's more streamlined, where we're really clear on the tools we use. We're really clear on how we use AI for content creation and where it can really work for us and where we absolutely don't want to use AI and actually where it's, it's going to hold us back, it's going to prevent us from being unique in the market, where it's going to stifle creativity. Um, and I think we've kind of been through this Learning exercise, kind of figuring that out and we're now kind of ready to really set out our stool and say this is the process for AI and marketing at Survive Tech, this is where we want to use it and this is where we absolutely who don't want to use it. So that's been a really big thing for us and the team sort of just going through that trial and error process and learning on the job. I suppose the other area where um, we've been exploring and really feel like we've got an opportunity is around AI driven insights. Because the reality of the customer nurture mapping is it's really important, but it's also not hugely practical to send the team on a roadshow traveling around lots of different sites, nurture mapping sessions every year. So what we've been looking at is, okay, how can we continue to capture insights, to have the right message in the right place to the right person at the right time, but in an AI driven way. And so we've been looking at getting these uh, external driven AI dashboards. And basically what that does is there is so much information available in trade, press, in various different intelligence platforms, various different uh, reports, regulatory bodies, it's just far too much for anyone to consume. And so can AI read it all for us and tell us what the trends and opportunities are and um, help us identify where we have those ruin opportunities by downloading everything coming through on the press, et cetera. And so that is the other area of focus for us in terms of how we're trying to use AI to help us work smarter and more efficiently. We haven't got that nailed yet. Um, it's very much still a work in progress but certainly that's how we feel. We can really use it to our advantage and maintain a kind of customer focused approach, but in a more practical way, I suppose.

Speaker A: Amazing because I mean you're working across 96 countries, so it's absolutely huge, isn't it, to try and capture all of that, uh, read everything, digest it and actually then start to strategically look at how you can operate different campaigns or whatever's needed, the opportunities in different markets is. Yeah, that's uh, a really good, if you can get it to work, really

Speaker B: good use of AI, I would think. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: That's where it wins, isn't it? Where it can take things at scale and complexity and just give you what you need to know. Uh, yeah, that's brilliant. What a fantastic 40 minutes we've had. You've just taken us through so much. It's such a, a pleasure to catch up with you and hear about the business and, and actually understand the journey that you've been on, to go from being as you were with 20 odd brands to focusing on marine. So I'm really, uh, looking forward to seeing what you do with that, uh, over the coming years as well. And maybe there'll be another 14 years of Hannah leading the marketing. He's still young.

Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker A: Not at all. Thank you.