Serdar Paktin @ pakt

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:07:10EllieI am talking today on the podcast to Serdar Paktin in from Pakt. Thank you so  much for being on our podcast.00:00:07:17 - 00:00:08:19Serdar PaktinThank you for inviting me.00:00:09:00 - 00:00:16:07EllieSo I'm really excited to learn where your agency came from. So a bit about your  background and a bit about how you started your agency.00:00:16:21 - 00:00:44:16Serdar PaktinI was working as a strategist and I was getting on the side projects from UK and  overseas agencies when I lived in Istanbul. I was working as a cultural inside  semiotics consultant for global agencies that are focussing on Turkey, and then I  extended doing that to Middle East and North Africa. And when I started doing my  own business, I had one thing - the international on the sides, and I had one local  brands on the other side.00:00:44:21 - 00:00:55:03Serdar PaktinAnd the international side of the business grew by itself. Me, without investing any  time in it. I was investing all the time to my Turkish clients, and it didn't really pick  up.00:00:55:03 - 00:00:55:14EllieRight.00:00:55:14 - 00:01:08:14Serdar PaktinIt was like a clear decision which direction to go. And I moved the agency to  London in 2018. And since then I'm working with international clients and other  agencies that we helped to discover.00:01:08:14 - 00:01:32:07Serdar PaktinTurkey, Middle East and North Africa region. And we were extending beyond that  to more often non-Western markets. Pakt is a holistic sense making agency. We  focus on cross-cultural understanding and cultural insights to help our clients make  better decisions across cultures and understanding their audiences, discovering  opportunity areas in different cultural spaces, so to speak.00:01:32:18 - 00:01:37:01EllieHave you managed to stop your clients from making any major faux pas?00:01:37:08 - 00:02:12:10Serdar PaktinI believe that we made a few things with Netflix, for instance, in 2019 made their  first Turkish Netflix original, which was a super hero saving Istanbul from immortal  evil people. And that didn't really pick up. In its first season, I think they were  wondering what they did wrong, and we worked on a bigger semiotics project. We  watched more than 50 titles: Netflix and non-Netflix; International and local; TV  series and movies, and we came up with a map of storyline and characters and  production, and we came up saying:  "These are the insights.00:02:12:10 - 00:02:37:05Serdar PaktinThese are what you should focus on and is what you're doing wrong." One of the  major things is that Turkey and most Middle East and Eastern markets are  collectivist cultures. So it's based on the community rather than the individual. And  most of the Western countries are based on individuals. Therefore, in a Western  market, a superhero story might be interesting because it's based on an individual  accomplishing something.00:02:37:05 - 00:02:46:03Serdar PaktinBut in the Eastern market, it is more focussing on the community about  neighbourhoods, about families. So there is more of a community in there and00:02:46:09 - 00:02:47:19EllieIt just wasn't resonating at all.00:02:47:19 - 00:03:05:22Serdar PaktinExactly. So, a super superhero saving Istanbul is not resonating and they also  prefer realistic characters, somebody they could really sit down at a dinner table  and have a conversation with. By the time when we were doing the research, I  visited Istanbul and I was talking to this cab driver and I said: "Look, what do you  think about the superhero on Netflix?"00:03:06:05 - 00:03:31:01Serdar PaktinHe said: "We are all superheroes making home at night. You don't need somebody  saving the whole city, making home safe, feeding your family is good enough to be  a superhero. For your community." Since then, Netflix is creating really successful  series in Turkey, Netflix originals, and they also recently published a report how  much they contribute to the Turkish economy in the last three years.00:03:31:02 - 00:03:36:04Serdar PaktinAnd I think we have part in that, but I can't really claim that part of it.00:03:36:04 - 00:03:42:01EllieDamn it! You can't claim it was solely you, but you were part of it. That's amazing -  how exciting!00:03:42:01 - 00:04:02:24Serdar PaktinIt is, as you said, we help them understand the culture, the cultural codes in that  market, and we helped them make better decisions or design new products or  develop new services for that cultural opportunity in that region, in that subculture.  It doesn't have to be different cultures. It could be a subculture within a country as  well, because cyclists, it is a culture.00:04:03:01 - 00:04:11:03Serdar PaktinYou have to understand cyclists to be able to provide them value. Vegans,  vegetarians, they all have their own culture underneath that.00:04:11:03 - 00:04:23:00EllieThat's brilliant. What's it like starting an agency in a new country? Had you lived in  London before, or did you just come over completely fresh, thinking: "New country,  new agency? Here I go!"00:04:23:06 - 00:04:48:02Serdar PaktinWell, I'd never been to the UK before. I came here first time in 2016 or 17. By the  time I was contemplating about moving abroad and I had two options be it's either  New York or London, and I lived in New York before and that's why that was my  first choice. But I had a project in New York and I spent a month there and I  decided: "No, New York is no longer where I want to live."00:04:48:12 - 00:05:10:24Serdar PaktinAnd then I came to London and the first step out of this tube, looking around,  seeing the people, I said: "I could live here!" But also UK had a visa deal with  Turkey. So it was easier to get a visa. I already have clients here, so it was also  another advantage to choose here. And there's also little time difference between  Turkey and London and also it's quicker to fly in between.00:05:11:03 - 00:05:29:22Serdar PaktinThese are the four main points why I chose London, and that was my first time  moving here. So it was difficult because my background is in cultural studies that  have focus on American studies. So I already knew American culture, American  type of business, and American way of doing things. But the British way of doing  things and British business culture was a novelty to me.00:05:30:00 - 00:05:39:11EllieThat's really interesting. So as a cultural insight specialist, what are the business  cultural differences then between the US and the UK?00:05:39:22 - 00:06:02:12Serdar PaktinThe polite indirectness in the culture is the major thing. I'm good at understanding  it, but implementing it, I'm still having difficulties. Americans are very direct and  Turks are quite direct as well. The UK is not as easy as the US to penetrate as an  outsider. Once you come in, it would need some time for the community to accept  you.00:06:02:13 - 00:06:21:16Serdar PaktinMy first years were trying to prove myself again to ex-clients, long standing  relationship. Well, when you're in the country, I think that relationship changes a bit  to them, until once again, we are able to get to that point. US is more open to  people who want to do things, and once you start creating it, they just let you in.00:06:21:16 - 00:06:27:06Serdar PaktinAs long as you're producing value. This is more of community that's letting you in  slowly in the UK.00:06:27:09 - 00:06:28:16EllieA bit more sceptical.00:06:28:19 - 00:06:46:07Serdar PaktinI would say so, yeah, but that's also probably related to that long standing culture  of business. US in comparison to UK is just the last few hundred years and there's  this almost a thousand years of business tradition here and it's quite  understandable to have that checkpoint, so to speak.00:06:46:19 - 00:07:02:23EllieSo how do you find your clients for Pakt? Is it a case of you going in, and trying to  source and trying to suss out who might have a need for your services or when  you have the need for cultural insights? Is it really clear and is it really apparent?00:07:03:03 - 00:07:27:18Serdar PaktinMy background is in strategy. So I have always been a strategist and then I moved  into a niche part of strategy, into cultural insights, into semiotics. And most of my  clients have come to me through existing clients and through referrals. And as I  said, I'm a strategist, so I'm not really good at new business. So I am not  really creating new business myself by reaching out to people and creating  connections -00:07:27:18 - 00:07:30:20Serdar PaktinMost of my business still comes from referrals and networks.00:07:30:24 - 00:07:32:12EllieA brilliant way to get your new business.00:07:32:18 - 00:07:57:13Serdar PaktinYeah, it means that you're doing a good job, so that they're referring to other  people, which is great. I think you need to be able to get good at creating new  business through new relationships. Out of blue or reaching out to your potential  clients. And one of my methods is to build hypothesis on opportunity areas  because our skill set is to find opportunities within a cultural space and presenting  it to potential clients.00:07:57:13 - 00:08:05:13Serdar PaktinBut as long as they're not aware of that opportunity, that's not really resonating  with them. So it was a good experiment, but it's not the way forward, apparently!00:08:05:13 - 00:08:13:21EllieYou were talking to yourself, I imagine. You were like: "There's this space where  you could do this!" And they're like: "What is that? I don't want to do that. We're not  doing that." So you're like, "Oh, I see."00:08:13:21 - 00:08:19:04EllieWhat have been your key challenges and learnings the past four years?00:08:19:08 - 00:08:41:06Serdar PaktinIt's a difficult question. There's so many things that's rushing to my mind  immediately. First thing, we have a saying: "A tailor cannot mend his own clothes  or a doctor cannot cure themselves." Even though we consult with our clients. You  need to listen to your target audience. You need to know who they are and shape  your value proposition and your benefits towards their understanding.00:08:41:06 - 00:08:59:13Serdar PaktinWhen I first came in, I wasn't doing that really. I was doing what I believed would  be the meaningful thing and then just implementing it, not even testing it, not even  thinking through it. Just going straight ahead. Like any other entrepreneur - When  we talk to them,we say: "That's not the way forward." And then doing it yourself is quite ironic.00:08:59:17 - 00:09:13:14EllieAgency founders do that all the time, though. You can do the do for your clients,  but actually when it comes to yourself or your self-promotion or web development  agencies that never work on their own website, because you don't fix yourself. It's  interesting, isn't it?00:09:13:19 - 00:09:19:05Serdar PaktinThat's interesting. We know how to do it and we don't really do it for ourselves, and  it's very ironic.00:09:19:05 - 00:09:31:16Serdar PaktinSecond thing I would say, most of the agencies in our space, like working with  cultural insights and semiotics, when I first moved in, I was doing this research and  I realised that we were all trying to sell the methodology.00:09:31:16 - 00:09:50:07Serdar PaktinIt is like a car company trying to sell VDU machine engineering. But a car company  sells mobility. We get you from point A to point B and people who buy the car does  not really care if it's machine engineering or AI technology: "Whatever you do, you  do it. Just give me the product and I'm here for the benefit that the product  provides me."00:09:50:07 - 00:10:13:16Serdar PaktinAnd the agencies, we're more focussing on the methodology rather than the  outcome or the benefits that they are providing for their clients. So I try to focus on  that and I think I didn't really do it a good way because I was also focussing on  something missing the point rather than the benefits. After doing it for two years,  the pandemic gave you quite an extensive time to think about these kind of things  that are00:10:13:17 - 00:10:16:04EllieTwo years of some solid thinking time.[LAUGHS]00:10:16:16 - 00:10:40:01Serdar PaktinI realised: "I'm doing everything wrong!" And I'm still not doing everything right, but  I'm working on it to realise how to simplify things, turn it into a storytelling approach  and then make it very clear and simple for clients to understand what benefit  you're providing them. And as you can see, I'm still not really good at it.00:10:40:12 - 00:10:50:21EllieI think you're doing fine. Agency founders are going to be listening to this podcast.  In terms of cultural analysis, what would you say the key benefits are for them  doing a real deep dive?00:10:51:11 - 00:11:16:13Serdar PaktinI can say two major things. One, to avoid any major mistakes that they wouldn't  realise in their branding strategy, product development, that's going to take them a  long time. Investing in a cultural analysis beforehand saves a lot of time and  money. For instance, this is from a very early project. We were working on a soup  product and the soup product was going to be liquid form and we were focussing  on the Turkish market again.00:11:16:13 - 00:11:43:20Serdar PaktinAnd then at the end of the project we came up with soup means nutrition in Turkey  - could be a full meal by itself, but in a Western culture, soup is more liquid  because it's regarded as an appetiser mostly and then if they have the assumption  of a soup in a Western sense and they implemented a liquid form soup into a bottle  or a box and put it on the shelf and then it didn't work, it was going to be first: "Did  we do something wrong with the shelf choice that we made in there?"00:11:43:20 - 00:11:57:05Serdar PaktinAnd then it was going to be the branding and the packaging. And then when you  come to the content itself as it's meaningful or not, what's going to be the last thing  that they want to think? When it becomes the first thing that you think it avoids all  that big layering of mistakes.00:11:57:11 - 00:12:01:01EllieYeah! All of that old hoo-ha! You want your products to be the most impactful,  right?00:12:01:10 - 00:12:26:10Serdar PaktinFocussing on the content and the semiotics and the cultural codes of your market  gives you all the clues. What your product should be, how it should speak, what it  should present as a benefit. As cultural codes define our preferences and beliefs  collectively. They speak about consumer psychology. But before psychology,  comes culture and our decisions and behaviours are automatically defined in our  culture.00:12:26:10 - 00:12:41:06Serdar PaktinAnd if you understand the cultural codes, you know what moves people or what  people think is meaningful or not. And by that you avoid  doing a lot of mistakes in designing and implementing and executing and market  entry. But it saves a lot of time and money.00:12:41:06 - 00:12:53:17Serdar PaktinSecond thing - it could help them discover new opportunity areas: Developing new  products, new services for that cultural space, or pivoting their products to the  needs of those spaces.00:12:53:17 - 00:13:24:06Serdar PaktinFor instance, we had this talk with a major music streaming platform before they  were going to penetrate into Middle East, but the music listening habits and what  people expect from music and when they listen to music, why they listen to music  is different than the Western audience. So if you are going to enter the Middle  Eastern market, you need to pivot your product a bit to reflect the needs and the  culture of that thing, because music is a cultural product and you can't just  implement a global product into the whole world the way it is.00:13:24:11 - 00:13:46:12Serdar PaktinAnd Facebook and Netflix understand this a lot, and they do a lot of research in  understanding different cultural spaces, and they implement that. So you can see  the success of Netflix originals in regional spaces because they do these  overarching cultures. They do one for the Turkish Netflix audience and sell it to the  whole region. Taking an Israeli or Lebanese Netflix original, selling to the whole  region.00:13:46:12 - 00:13:59:08Serdar PaktinAnd then they go to global scale. It's like Casa de Papel or Squid Game. They are  supposed to be regional products, but they got something right in a global sense  and they exceeded beyond expectation.00:13:59:08 - 00:14:19:07Serdar PaktinTo summarise: By doing this cultural analysis, agencies and brands could avoid  doing major mistakes in different markets, in different cultural spaces, or discover  new opportunity areas in those cultural spaces to build new products and services  or pivoting their brands and positioning into those cultural spaces.00:14:19:20 - 00:14:31:04EllieThat's brilliant. Is the majority of your work in other countries or like you said, is it  becoming more about the sub communities, like the way you speak to cyclists and  their interests or vegans like you said?00:14:31:06 - 00:14:58:15Serdar PaktinI mean, I can see that there is work being done towards subcultures but they're not  still doing with a cultural emphasis on it. Still, the creative agencies do it in their  own way. I don't think they do it with a cultural emphasis on it, but also I don't know  the whole space. So it's my assumption, but it's still - more of a regional, local and  national cultures are the main essence of this kind of work, but I think it's already  moving to that space.00:14:58:15 - 00:15:23:04Serdar PaktinBut it is still done by not cultural experts - like mostly creators and other kinds of  researchers, I guess. So we should move the subcultures into the cultural domain  in terms of understanding their semiotics, understanding their cultural codes, with  cyclists, with vegan, with weekend campers - they all have a certain code of  conduct and cultural codes, and there's certain things that they aspire to.00:15:23:04 - 00:15:29:16Serdar PaktinAnd I'm giving cyclists and vegans as an example because those are the most  obvious ones that we can relate to.00:15:29:23 - 00:15:35:11EllieAbsolutely. So what is next for Pakt - what's coming up? What do you see  happening in the next couple of years?00:15:36:02 - 00:15:57:12Serdar PaktinGreat question. We had two years hold, so we want to continue where we left off in  2020 because it was like first two years in the UK. We just established and got into  a steady cash flow and growth and that stopped where it was. And there was  literally no work in 2020, because what we do is new opportunities, new spaces  and everybody retreated back to00:15:57:12 - 00:15:59:19EllieNo one was going anywhere!00:16:00:01 - 00:16:10:17Serdar PaktinExactly. Everybody was in their safe space and that's why we didn't have any  work. But now with the pandemic reasonably under control, apparently, and the  economy is going somewhere.[LAUGHS]00:16:11:23 - 00:16:14:16EllieThe economy is doing something, who knows?00:16:16:13 - 00:16:17:10Serdar PaktinDefinitely!00:16:17:10 - 00:16:17:18Ellie[LAUGHS]00:16:17:18 - 00:16:45:14Serdar PaktinOur next two years will be getting back on track and growing in the UK and  hopefully growing our team here and doing more cultural work on a broader  regional and cultural framework. We are still mostly doing the Islamic markets but  we want to extend beyond that and that's one of our main goals to get projects  going beyond regional cultures and also going into different subcultures.00:16:45:14 - 00:17:04:16Serdar PaktinAnd not only discovering the culture but also imagining a future in those cultures.  How are things going to be meaningful towards the future? And discovering those  cultural spaces, that's going to be more meaningful in the following five to ten  years. More into connecting futures with cultural analysis and mashing up a  methodology out of that?00:17:05:01 - 00:17:07:08EllieWhat? Almost predicting trends that there may be?00:17:07:24 - 00:17:22:07Serdar PaktinIt's not really predicting trends, but it's more like a personalised meaningful area  discoveries towards the future. It's more than what's going to be meaningful, what's  going to be meaningful for you as a client or as an actor in that space.00:17:22:19 - 00:17:33:02EllieExciting times coming up. Serdar, thank-you so much for being on the podcast. It's  been really eye opening in a part of agency life that I really haven't given much  thought to. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.00:17:33:14 - 00:17:39:14Serdar PaktinThank you for inviting me and all these great questions, because I wouldn't be able  to explain them otherwise without your questions.00:17:39:17 - 00:17:40:09EllieMy pleasure.