Harriet Gaywood - Anoumis Communications & Trailing Around Asia

Speaker A: Foreign. Global Marketing Podcast. In each episode we go deep with the world's leading international marketers and discuss the ideas and processes that make their global marketing strategies a success. Let's get radical.

Speaker B: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Radical Global Marketing Podcast. My name's Stephen, one of your regular co hosts and for today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Harriet Gaywood. Harriet is the founder of a numerous communications and training around Asia, having previously been Vice President Public Relations and International Media affairs for the Chinese tech giant Huawei. She's a hugely experienced international PRM communications executive working internationally for over 25 years. She's also a, uh, recently published author with Trailing Around Asia, but Mud, Sweat and Beers, A uh, book about trail running and climbing, quite frankly, ridiculous distances and altitudes in China and Thailand. And I've been really looking forward to this chat with Harriet, which we will get into in just a second. But first we have a quick message from our sponsor. The Radical Global Marketing Podcast is produced in association with Brandigo China. Brandigo's team of local and international marketing talent has been helping multinational brands achieve marketing success in China for almost two decades. This is founded on their unique, radically relevant China marketing methodology, built on insight, creativity and flawless execution across multiple China marketing channels. To find out more about Brandigo China and how they can help your brand meet your China business objectives, visit brandigochina.com or contact the Brandigo China team via email and we'll put all of those contact details in the show notes. But right now, let's start our conversation. Harriet, good morning, how are you today?

Speaker C: Very well, thank you. Thank you for having me on the show.

Speaker B: No, pleasure is mine. I've been really excited to have this conversation. Whereabouts are you sitting in the world at the moment?

Speaker C: I am in Shanghai today.

Speaker B: Uh, we're in the same city. You could have done this face to face.

Speaker C: Fantastic.

Speaker B: And it's. That's so old school these days.

Speaker C: Next time. Exactly.

Speaker B: Next time for sure. So thank you for taking the time to join us. What I'd like to start with is if you'd be so kind just to give us a little bit of an overview of your career, how we've kind of ended up at this point today.

Speaker C: Sure. Um, you know, my, my start in China is probably a little bit unusual, uh, from many people's in that I came and I started studying music, um, I studied music as my undergraduate and then I came to China first in 1994 just to have a look, um, spend a few months starting to learn Chinese Learning calligraphy and starting to study a Chinese instrument called the Gu Qian. Um, and then I came back to Shanghai on a British uh, Council scholarship. And it was British Council in conjunction with the Chinese uh, um, State Education Department. And I studied more formally for a year at Shanghai Music Conservatory. And then I finished my master's with a distance adaptation about um. Well it was really a comparison of the two Chinese instruments, Guccian and Gujiang. Um, but what that really started was that started an interest in China. And it started, I think at that time China was developing, um, if any of you know Shanghai you'll know where the music conservatory is. And it's just off one of the main streets which is Huay Loom. And I used to walk down there and I would see new consumer products arriving on the streets. Um, things that I suppose I'd always taken for granted. Um, like, you know, I'd see people with boxes of shampoo, sort of boxing and a whole group gathered round to see what was in the box. Um, and this just fascinated me because I'd never had this kind of experience. Um, but anyway I wanted to be in China and I basically sort of walked the streets um, until I found a job. And I eventually found um, a job in a very small marketing company which did uh, was actually doing the marketing for uh, quite well known brand of Perrier. Um, so that was sort of my introduction to marketing. Um, but it was really just a way of staying in China because I was fascinated by the country at that point. Um, not long after that I got a job at ah, the British Consulate General doing press and public affairs. The reason for this job was Tony Blair, who was the British Prime Minister at that time coming to China. He was bringing a plane load of journalists and the British Consulate basically just needs some help. What that really kicked off was what they now called the Golden Era. Um, and Tony Blair said, you know, I really think China's going somewhere. Which obviously we all kind of knew if we were sitting here on the ground.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure.

Speaker C: It also created a fascinating time in terms of UK China relations. And we had an amazing number of cultural, um, and sort of trade related visits. You had the Royal Ballet, Manchester United came to visit the Beckham King.

Speaker B: Let's ignore that one,

Speaker C: you know. Um, I think for us it was, it was definitely an interesting time and we saw a lot of different ministers coming through. Um, and that was really what kicked off my interest in, in public relations. Um, so I then decided to do another Master's degree and I did it in um math communications by distance learning. And halfway through that month I uh, I moved into agency life uh where I then spent the next 20 years. Um so that time was um, it was an interesting time. Um there were a lot of brands coming into Pioneer as we all know that we, that was really sort of the big time. Um it was an exciting time when very senior people were coming. Um, you know all companies would send their CEOs on visit and I suppose just the development of Shanghai even alone, not even considering the rest of the country list. Uh, and there was also very challenging times in terms of being PR at that time. Um but yeah I started that journey in PR at that time. Um and then fast forward to after 20 years doing a real mix of brands which I think really reflected what China was about at that time and what it. And so life and agency at that time, you know we didn't have um, events agencies digital came much later obviously. Um and you know in terms of design, design was much less developed at that time and it was a very sort of hands on job. Um but I was lucky in a way for me because I had not pleased working it were goods who was the b. All sorts of all sorts of events. My Expo back when 2010 which was an amazing time. Um and then um, now with 20 years of being on the agency side I thought okay I will burn house. And uh, it was that time everybody in agency, it's always like the grass is greener or it's the dark side whichever way you look. Um um and uh, I was very happy to to have, have a, have a, have a go and sort of move across to um Yinha Huawei and also moved to Shenzhen as well which was, was quite nice for me to actually go and live in another city having lived in Shanghai for so long. Um and then I came back last year and I decided that I wanted to start, start my own. It was you know people had been saying for many many years you know you should be, should start your own agency. Um and actually I think being in China and you know at a time when agencies were growing it it always very felt very very entrepreneurial anyway so it would seem like it's not my own. Um, but anyway I started Anumis Communications and then I also started training uh around Asia. So it's two very different. Which is where I am today. And that suddenly brings us all the way from 1994 to 2025 that would

Speaker B: buy the blink of an eye. Thank you Harriet. So I want to talk about the two recent Businesses in just a second. I think also two startups at the same time is crazy. But then, so as you running hundreds of thousands of kilometers all over the place. But we'll get into that in just a second. I'm interested in that. First of all, I think your academic background is fascinating. So coming from a position of studying music, particularly studying something that's so embedded in Chinese culture, I always think as a marketing person, um, and I've got a PR background as well, uh, one of the things that really helps us do our job properly is to really get under the skin of the culture, of the target audiences that we're looking to shape and we're looking to influence. And I think there's a strong argument to make that being around the culture's musical identity is probably a really good way of doing that right at the beginning. Would that be a fairer summary?

Speaker C: I think it is. I think it is. I think one thing that was very interesting about studying music is that I came to China without speaking any Mandarin. And I, through music, first of all, I went back to 2,000 years. Uh, the first characters I was learning was the ancient notation for guqian, um, and then look at ancient texts. Um, and then from there, um, I was obviously studying at the music conservatory. Um, and I was, in addition to guten and gu jiang, I, um, was also playing the cello as well. The cello is my main instrument. Um, so through music you can immediately sit in an orchestra, you can immediately, um, have a lesson, um, and it becomes another means of communication. But you're right, I think the opportunity to, for example, go and sit at ah, gu qian meetings, which are called tien hui. And um, you, you're immediately sitting with people who have been playing the gu chin all their lives. You are sitting with a very different generation. Um, many cases, uh, a lot of the older generation. Um, I think what's interesting now is actually seeing the surge in interest, um, and a lot of young people are actually now taking up Chinese musical instruments, having gone through that phase almost like to ruddbeto. And there are other historical reasons for that rejection. Um, but I agree it's a very interesting way to learn. Write Polk there.

Speaker B: Fantastic. And, uh, now if we could, you mentioned sort of being around the consulate during the golden age and working in PR communication. Some of those early media visits. Would you be able to speak to some of those kind of early challenges that came with that position and that role?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of the very obvious ones, which I think you still have today is, um, you know you look at bilateral relations and the state of them and sort of, you know the, the interest level in any one country at, at a particular time. Um, at that point um, there was definitely interest in the uk. Um, it was one of the key trading partners. But again you know the volume wasn't that great. But we did do some interesting partnerships. For example, um, ah, sister city relationship. So I was involved in um, the launch of the sister city relationship between Shanghai and Liverpool in the uk. Um so for example at that time we did some fun campaigns. We had um, we had a uh, taxi advert campaign where we basically just had pictures of the waterfront in Liverpool and the waterfront in Shanghai which looked very, very similar. It's a very very simple campaign. Um, but that was also a time when you know we're talking about old sort of paper style adverts which you sort of inserted on the back of the seat. Um, and just a way to sort of you know, raise awareness of this winning sort of relationship. Uh, we also did um, a lot of sort of radio campaigns as well. Um, again something uh, we do a little bit less of now. Um, so I think you know that, that, that was definitely a good time. It was also. But I have to say it was also at the time there was also a challenge for some brand ah, about whether or not they really wanted to be associated with being British. So for example, and I think you still have that today to a certain extent. So for example you have the larger brands, they want to be seen as international brands. They want us to see as global brands when they come into the China market. And then you've got the smaller ones which nobody's really heard of which do see a benefit in being British but may actually be less valuable to your overall campaign. Um, so there's a campaign called, it was called the Britain in China campaign at the time. It then evolved into what you have now which is the Great Campaign, um, which is still game today. Um, so I mean it's interesting to see how these campaigns actually um, over time they do create value I think.

Speaker B: Yeah, well as part of my, my, my day job I um, am. We were responsible for launching the Great Campaign um, in its first iteration and relaunching the rebrand as well, focusing on the fmb. And you're right, it's interesting how some of the smaller brands want to play on the themes of those campaigns but then some of the larger brands want to, to do their work, speak to China. But from what they perceive the strengths of their uh, individual brands to be. So it was really interesting campaign to work on.

Speaker C: No, I think that that is actually, I mean that that challenge is, is one. I think British brands have actually been uh, I suppose quite lucky in that way, in that sense that there is uh, there is ah, a history which, which people are quite proud to be associated with in terms of the brand. Um, I think there are other countries which definitely will suffer a little bit more in terms of that. They have, you know, they have a lot of crises. I think British brands don't tend to have crises but it's, it's more about what it means to be British and I think that's also a very challenging thing. And I don't think, I don't think we've still, we still cracked it because also we have an idea of what it means to be British in China and that's constantly evolving as well. So um, yeah, it's very different.

Speaker B: Yep, for sure. Uh, my hometown as I often mention is Liverpool, which is why I was averse to talking about Manchester United at the start. But that whole sister city project, because I think Liverpool was the first sister city with Liverpool. Shanghai was the first um, sister city relationship between a British and a Chinese city.

Speaker C: It was indeed. Um, but ah, just uh, to keep you happy we did also bring uh, the Liverpool youth team, uh, the youth football team to Shanghai, um, back in, back in the 90s. Um, and they came and they did a tournament with um, not only Shanghai but Shanghai was actually. There was a Chinese sort of international tournament at that time. Um, and they brought, they brought their youth team. So um, you know there's more, there's more to it. It's not just about Manchester and we also, and we also brought space as well. Um, I don't know if you remember the pop band.

Speaker B: Yeah, that was one of the, one of the first bands that I ever saw live was Space. I was, when I was doing my, my A levels. Harriet, can we talk a little bit about then the role at Huawei? Because I think Huawei's a fantastic business. It's a fascinating business. It's probably one of the first Chinese businesses that was, I would say truly sort of chuhai in that it was, it was boiling in China and then looking to, looking for growth around the rest of the world. And obviously your role at the company played a role in that. Can you first tell us a little bit about how that role came about, what the day to day kind of aspects of the role were and then I'd be interested in some of the challenges that came with working within that role. We've been a huge Chinese business. It became a global player.

Speaker C: Yeah, sure I did. I mean before, before we talk about my role, um, you mentioned Chuhai and um, Huawei was indeed the very early Chuhai and I think it's interesting to look back and understand why it was one of the early Chuhai. Um, whereas now there's very much a policy of encouraging, um, of encouraging businesses to go overseas by China. Actually at that time, as I mentioned in the 90s and 80s, it was actually the international brands that were favored. So in terms of being what it really was at the time, which was an electronics company coming um, in China, it didn't have a lot of credibility. Um, and so at that time it was actually the, the companies like Ericsson for example or um, Alcatel for example that were actually winning all the contracts dingfar. And therefore that kind of paused Huawei to go overseas, uh, to find business. So now when we look back on history we actually think of Huawei as being a now global company which is what it's established. But it almost, one way of looking at it is actually almost happened by accident.

Speaker B: That's really interesting.

Speaker C: Yeah, as a company, if it had been um, more, more welcomed domestically, it may not have gone overseas in the same way.

Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting. Okay, well we can dive into that in just a little while. But so, so tell me about the role within the business.

Speaker C: Absolutely. So my role was very much on uh, international media. Um, so you know I joined there in early 2021. So um, so at that time, yeah there was a lot of um, negative media coverage. Um, um, geopolitics regarding Huawei were at a sort of all time high. Um, and so the release of two parts to it. One was um, doing the sort of daily, sort of priceless relations, actually working with the media to help them understand um, you know, some of the facts that you know, where it's possible to share. But the other part was actually helping them sort of trying to work with me to help them understand where the company was going. And I think, you know, now we look see just how Huawei has platformed as a company. But uh, I joined that a lot of the media headlines were just dominated by talk about chips. They talked about you know, um, various company issues. Um, so it was really to start helping people understand. Okay. Actually Huawei's business has transformed her. Drones really aren't quite a conversation at that time. Um, there's a lot that they're doing in terms of um, Departmentization and um, one of the parts of that was telling some of the stories about um, how Huawei's work was how it's sort of partnering on projects to really transform a lot of China's infrastructure. So you could stand for um, looking at. Cause uh, you for example using AI in industrial AI. For example how you get people out of the mines in China. Um, you know mines in China, you know they've had so many, so many um issues, so many deaths, um, and so many illegal mines as well. So how do you really transform the industry and pull people out of the mine and make mindset. Um, so how do you work on say the, the operations, the maintenance, all of that side of things. Um, or for example ports. How do you get people out of ports? Ports again that's of highly dangerous places. You've got vehicles going around, you've got containers swinging around. So it ends up telling some of these sorts of stories. Um and also ones for example around um, energy. Um, you know there are lots of products for example like um, say inverters. Um, you know one of the problems with China is that China is just such a vast country. You have um, all the solar panels on one part of the country. We need the power on the other side of country. Um, you know you basically need the China, you need power of the equipment of Seaboard. But what was happening was by the time that power would cover plus the country who only sort of lost power um, creating products which nobody sees on a day to day basis. Very sort of B2B products, ah but also very very important. Um so helping, helping media on this side, um, um also about running the cloud around, um doing a data storage. Um when I mean we, we receive a huge number of messages every day. The amount of data we're using every day was huge. And if I go to do my inbox, we know half of which released but all of that is storage, all of that ticking. Um and um, but you know how can you store that in an environmentally friendly way? So actually there's a lot of, there's um, a lot going on within fabi, but it's actually sort of challenging every single business unit through really be looking at every single product. Um, not just giving you a box of um, packaging which is recyclable but really looking at ah how a product is made and really sort of rethinking and really in a lot of cases completely rethinking um the way products are made to try and use um, the minimum amount of meth hour.

Speaker A: Um.

Speaker C: Yeah So a lot of my job was around that five. So it wasn't just like the news that annual results, all that side are going to um, um, where twips are going, all that side of things. It was much more about trying to bring out some of these stories. Um, and I think what is interesting with my time quality, I mean it's not just my effort but the effort for the team. And by doing this the number of negative definitely decreased. Um, and now when you look at um, Huabi, it's really quite well respected in terms of quality of products we're bringing out. You look at phones, you look at cars, you know, people are very excited about um, Huawei. And also I think going back to my comment about earlier about why when you're the. At that time the product quality probably wasn't that great, but now it's very much using premium high end product. I think that's also a huge turnaround.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I think I am just the diverse nature of the products. I think you could put Xiaomi as another Chinese manufacturer in this as well. The fact that they're making everything from consumer goods to I think my first ever GoPro version of a camera was a Xiaomi model, all the way up to cars. You know, the fact that they can make uh, a hugely uh, advanced mobile phone and also produce what's pretty well known as a great EV vehicle as well, I think that's just amazing in and of itself.

Speaker C: Well, what I think is really interesting is just the way the Chinese brands have really managed to just reverse the way we think about products. So this idea that, you know, I mean it's been said so many times before but you know, um, an EV is essentially a mobile phone sort of on wheels. Um, you know it's, it's this idea that you, you don't think of it as being a traditional petrol vehicle. It's basically, it's a vehicle which needs to get you from A to B. But it can be so much more than that and it can really be a complete sort of ecosystem for your life. And I think that's what's interesting is how Chinese brands are really pushing forward with that idea that you have this interconnected life, um, whether you're at home with your, your um, out on the road or whether you're just, you know, you know, enjoying a sort of leisure time. I think that that to me is, is fascinating about how you interconnect all of that.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to. I've just got one more question I'd like to ask you about Huawei and then we'll move on to, to the latest businesses. But one of the things that, that we find with the brands that we work with, uh, my background is PR as well. I graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor's degree in public relations. And that industry that I walked into pretty much doesn't exist anymore with the democratization because of social media and, and digitize media m all of that kind of stuff. But when I started working in China, one of the things that I really noticed is that that line between paid and earned media is incredibly blurry here compared to other territories. So we have a lot of conversations with international brands looking to do PR campaigns in China about explaining how the relationship with the media is different, how it's a little bit more transactional, how it gives you control, more of the message, but it also means there's more noise and competition. So those PR fundamentals of creating a great story still stand up. But I'm interested to know from, uh, kind of working with a Chinese business that's looking to do international media relations. Was there a challenge for you with internal stakeholders in explaining how that relationship with journalists is a little different overseas compared to as it might be within the home market?

Speaker C: I think one of the biggest challenges when you know, when you have a company which is under fire in the media, um, you know, and it's not just for Huawei, and it's true of any company, is that people don't really want to put their name out there as say marketing director or sales director. Um, so they need a lot of reassurance if they're going to put their name to decide something. Um, so that, I think that's one consideration was that was it was always quite hard to get names, um, for quotes, for example. Um, but we would probably be, tend to be a bit more creative and you say bylines where, you know, the content can be managed that little bit more easily. Um, in terms of doing editorial, uh, and you know, paid placement, um, I think that pr, I don't think has, has changed that much over the years. I think, you know, we are still, we're still very much focused on having domestically and making it credible and using the editorial route. Um, I think for on the trade side it's definitely increasingly commercial. Um, and I think, you know, the, with brands, um, and the market. So we had some partners which were willing to put money towards the paid placement, um, or like think partnerships with the trade medium. Uh, but for the, the dailies, for the International medium. Um, it's very rare to do a sort of paid placement or some kind of partnership, uh, as with the only exception would be, I suppose, more on terms of video partnerships, um, video content. They would more uh, paid. And it all clearly says this was done in partnership with the brand. Um, but I think in terms of editorial content, I think it does take a little bit of effort to educate people. But I think that hasn't changed. I mean it's, you know, 25 years on, people are still asking the same questions. Um, I think there's more about getting some result, helping people understand what is possible. Um, and then also building up that relationship with the media so that you do have good content. And I think when you do have good content, you have genuine content and media likes that and they respect that. Um, I think, you know, historians and a story, it doesn't really matter how much the pain, nobody's going to read it. Um, for me personally, when I see advertorials, I just flip across the page. I don't even look at them. So, um, you know I, I think of myself as a consumer and um, when I think of the way I behave, I assume that most other people behave in the same way.

Speaker B: So I think that gives us a nice segue now into the present day. So, and I'm interested you touched on this, this earlier, but I'm interested now to the inspiration around the setting up of a new miss and kind of what the, how you see the values of the business and, and, and what are some of the kind of your challenges that you're working on, the direction that you're taking the company? If you give us some background into that.

Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Um, so I mean Anumis was the idea behind Enumis, um, had been around for a while before, you know, I formally sort of registered um, the company. But I think one of the challenges I first faced was where to focus and what did the industry need. You have so many small shops, um, you have um, a lot of people just think digital. Um, I looked at my own experience. I was also thinking about, you know, where is the opportunity. And um, so gradually I sort of narrowed it down and it was, it was, it wasn't a question of okay, should I do consumer, should I do corporate? Um, as projects started to come in, the focus became a lot clearer. So for example, before I went to Huawei, I hadn't really done much tech and still for me that I was a little bit nervous about doing tech. Um, if I'm really honest about It. But I then started doing some AI projects, um, or AI related projects, um, and that's what gave me the confidence actually in terms of my writing. When I see things getting published and editorially published, it's okay. This is standing up within the industry. So that, that's my first, um, question is like, if I'm, how big do I want the agency to be and how many, you know, how many additional resources do I want it to have or how much can I do by myself? So that, that was the first. Um, so gradually the types of projects I've been doing been more to tech, um, AI, um, and also some, some corporate projects as well. Um, so that. And the types of projects, um, interestingly, um, have been doing a lot of writing. And I think what's interesting about the writing is yes, we have the press releases that we've got. The press release hasn't gone away. So I suppose in terms of the early requests I was getting, um, they were very much for press releases. And you know, that question that we always have, um, is, you know, is the press release still valid? Um, how do we use a press release? Um, how do we slice and dice it and actually turn it into other content? Um, but for me, I always like the press release. And I'll tell you why I do. It's because in a press release you are forced to really think about the core messages that you're trying. You really take that time to get them really concise in a way which I don't think you do, whether in other, in other formats. That's not to say you don't use them when you go into, say, a feature article or whether you're doing a condensed post on LinkedIn or whatever. But I do think the uh, press release is, is a great tool in that, in that sense. Um, so we started from that. Ah, we started from that. And then obviously this is a media relations side and the placement side came from that as well. Um, so I think I've been doing more, I suppose, more creative writing, um, now than I've done for a long time, which I enjoy because I also, you know, I, I do enjoy research as well. I love, I love going deep onto, onto a topic. Um, so, you know, I, you know, I mentioned my first masters, I mentioned my second masters. I've also done two more masters. I did an mba, I did another, um, Master's more recently, um, about international relations and um, cybersecurity. So I love sort of going on to these topics and really researching them and I find, um, you know, it's fascinating that it also really helps you, it really helps you to actually provide proper counsel to clients. Um, and I think this is where the public relations industry is often not fully understood, that it's actually very strategic. Um, you know, I think a lot of people think it's um, that sort of end. You're just making an announcement but actually when you're working much more closely with senior executives, um, you can really help, help, help them understand a lot of the external issues as well. So whilst the press release, I talk about the press release a lot but it actually much more about the general pride around that which I think after my length of time in the industry, I think I'm still quite well placed with that.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Tell me a little bit Ben, about how um, sometimes I think when you, when you're, when you're a business founder and you, you're focused on doing great work for the clients, you sort of get stuck into that a little bit. But I'm interested in learning a little bit about how you're positioning Anubis as a business itself. Where does marketing fit into your own strategy?

Speaker C: So I, first of all I've been. Been quite fortunate so far in the sense that I, I do have clients coming to me in terms of sort of volume. Um, but I think actually looking at where I want to focus. So you know, I say the corporate side, the corporate B2B um, AI, that sort of area. But obviously AI is evolving. AI is also becoming much more segmented as well. So even a year ago we used to talk about doing AI. Um, now we're sort of talking about the segmentation. We're doing one part, a small part of AI. You know, the types of clients we can do are actually, it's almost like going back to the old categorization because everybody's doing AI. So for example, if you're doing AI in healthcare or you're doing, you know, AI gaming, um, you know this, they're all very different. Um, so yeah, the, the types of, um, I suppose the types of activities I've been doing. I've been doing some speaking, um, speaking engagements which is always, always fun. Um, I've also been doing more writing as well. Um, um, just. And I think that that was a bit of a first for me as, as a founder is actually writing in my own name. So I spent, I spent my entire career writing for other people, you know, writing the words that other people say, that words that other companies use. And I think that was a bit of a change around actually having that confidence to, to put things out in my own name. Um, um, so that, that's been one change and one, One bit of marketing that I also do. But I, I do it, let's say, because I, I enjoy it and I'm interested in the topics.

Speaker B: Fascinating. Okay, so let's move on. Tell me a little bit about the trailing around Asia.

Speaker C: Sure. So when I, when I start. Actually, you know, when I started trailing around Asia, but also when I started Anumis, um, one of the things that I realized in terms of, you know, to your question about marketing was also that, you know, I needed to create a website. I need to do this by myself. Um, you know, all of these, uh, small things which you could. In the past you probably had, you know, another partner that could help you do that. You sort of buy yourself. Um, so trailing around Asia, it started on one level just for fun. Um, it started almost as a channel where I could experiment a little bit because I was already doing a lot of, uh, trail running, doing trip, and um, first of all about the idea of writing. I was never writing about the races, but I was going to some quite interesting places all over China. So I just, I just started sort of writing articles and I'd send them off to publications and they would get published. So I thought this, you know, this is quite fun. Um, but then I also started things like, um, Instagram. You know, I've never been on Instagram. And um, again, you know, I sort of thought, you know, my daily life that wouldn't be very interesting. But maybe, um, maybe there might be more interest in, you know, a trailing around Asia, Instagram. And also it helps me just experiment with what works, what doesn't, what kind of video content, uh, photos, you know, what, what has the, Uh, again, that useful. And a lot of people again were saying, what's the value of having a website in 2025? Um, but again, you know, you've still got overseas, um, audiences that you're communicating with. So I was writing articles. Um, I had my website, I had my Instagram, Um, more recently I've started my, um, my YouTube channel. I've got my, my Red Node like everybody else does. Um, but about halfway through last year, um, I sort of had the idea to actually write a book, um, and actually make it a little bit more fleshed out. And so as I wrote, I then stopped sending articles to publications and then pep for the content. Um, and at the end of the year, I qualify for no. 1 of don't like it's the big old running world. Running um, in Salmoni, which I just got back from school. QTMB Australia model. So within the sort of trail world this is considered to be an achievement. So then looked at the year and I realized I'd got, you know I run 1850 races. I climbed over um, 90,000 meters in these races. Just in the races, not including like general training, um, over 10 times the height at Everest. I thought okay, actually this is quite interesting. This is, that might be something that has had some weight. Um, and then on top of that I sort of thought about you know, what is my perspective on trail running. So it helped me in that sense because I thought you know, I'm you know m. Middle age, middle aged British, British lady like running in China. China. And um, and time, you know this is, this might be of interest to people. It's not, it's not the perspectives that you always see. A lot of the perspectives that you see are always you know, top champions. Um, whereas for me I'd be sort of, I'd be sort of ranked you know, like in the often I'd sort of say win my age category or like win like be within the top 10. But you know, not first. Um, I thought this might be more inspiring to people that actually anybody can, can start running. And you know my story goes, actually goes back to agency, um, life about 10 years ago, um, when I wasn't doing any running at all, um, I wasn't interested in running and in the agency. One day I was working on this sort of international team of um, of Blue Focus, which is Niabli Digital, which is China's largest agency. And they decided that we should all be doing some sort of team building activities. So we all had to go think of an activity we would like to do. And one of my colleagues suggested that we do a 5k race. Um, it was a charity race happening in, in Shanghai. Um, and to me I, I felt slightly embarrassed because I was slightly horrified by the idea of, of having to go running. Um, but anyway I then you know we all signed up and um, and from then I just started training and uh, you know it's really from 5K that I started doing what I do now, which is ultramarathons. Um, an ultramarathon for those of you don't know. It's 100 miles, it's 100 and usually 168 kilometers. Um, so I thought you know, that that score in itself might ease it up of interest. So as a result of that, what's happened with the you know you asked about founding 2A, two platforms at the same time. I now have Anumis which does the corporate B2B side and I've now got um, trail related brands which are now coming to me um, for support. So initially it started with you know product trials. Great. But now I've actually got brands which are actually looking for content and so I'm helping them develop content. Um, and it's not just trail um brands but I also have um, sponsors of races um so for example um, van um insurance companies, they're now coming to me for content as well. So interestingly that the, the two um platforms although they look very different fact in terms of the pipe component um, and the type of parfum things are actually quite similar.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. That's fascinating Harriet. It's been a great chat. There's so much more stuff that I'd love to talk to you and ask you about and hopefully um, you'll agree to do a follow up piece in 18 months time when we've grown it all a little bit more too. But just to sort of bring things to a close. What's next for you? What's next for Anubis?

Speaker C: Great question. Uh, I think you know I think uh what I see is um, the demand for uh. As you mentioned we talked about Truhai earlier so I think it's quite relevant. The supporting more, more brands with their true high activities is definitely an area which seems to be growing. There's definitely demand for that. At least I'm seeing demand for that. Um, um. I think there'll be definitely more AI related projects but I think the, the AI part will for me will become a little bit more segmented as I mentioned. Um, and uh, where that will be, I um. I'm not entirely sure but it, it won't be. I won't be talking about AI in 18 months. I will be talking about a, a part of AI, a small part of it. Um, and then on the trailing um around Asia side and say that that side like is growing and um, interesting. It may or may not become bigger than Onis. Ah,

Speaker B: fantastic. Well look, we will put, we'll put links to all of your platforms in the show notes. We'll put a link to the book as well. I encourage our listeners to check that out too. If anybody else wants to reach out and get in touch with you. What's the best way to get a hold of you?

Speaker C: Uh, they can either add me on WeChat or they can um, they can reach me@harriet gaywoodnumis.com or harrietradingaroundasia ah.com great.

Speaker B: And like I said, we'll put those in the shovels. Harriet, thank you so much for your time this morning. I could have done this for hours. And like I said, hopefully we can pick this up at another point in time and do a future follow up episode. But really appreciate you coming on.

Speaker C: Amazing. Thank you very much for having me. Great to talk.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Radical Global Marketing Podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed making it. Join us next time for more insight, best practice, case studies, and shared experiences from some of the world's most radical global marketing leaders.