Thomas Sugar is the Founder and CEO of PinkSquare, a digital production company specializing in premium visual content. Starting his career in finance in 1989, Thomas worked with esteemed institutions such as Bear Stearns, PaineWebber, and UBS in London. In 1999, he co-founded Mindship, which played a pivotal role in creating a global network of VCs and tech incubators, fostering joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and technology transfers. PinkSquare, founded in 2005 and operating out of Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, marks a significant shift in his career towards digital innovation. His expertise in 3D animation has driven PinkSquare to streamline the process of producing 3D product animations, making it more efficient, transparent, and cost-effective.
In an era where digital marketing is rapidly evolving, how is 3D animation changing the game for global businesses?
According to Thomas Sugar, a seasoned innovator in digital production, 3D animation is pivotal in creating more engaging and interactive customer experiences. He underscores the versatility of 3D animation in detailing complex products, making them accessible and understandable to a global audience. Thomas also points out how these animations cater to the growing consumer preference for self-guided exploration. This approach not only streamlines the marketing process for businesses but also revolutionizes how consumers interact with and understand products, fundamentally transforming global marketing dynamics.
In this episode of America Open for Business, Cameron Heffernan speaks with Thomas Sugar, Founder and CEO of PinkSugar, about revolutionizing 3D animation in global marketing. They discuss the impact of the pandemic on business practices, the evolution of customer preferences in digital content, and the future of interactive marketing solutions.
This episode is brought to you by Your B2B Marketing.
Are you a mid-market B2B company facing challenges articulating your value proposition to customers? Without a well-defined strategy, allocating marketing funds may not yield optimal results.
Your B2B Marketing, a team of experts specializing in devising and implementing plans, helps entrepreneurs and leaders understand what makes them invaluable to customers and puts that front and center in their messaging for scalable growth.
Discover how strategic marketing and communication approaches can drive your expansion by visiting www.yourb2bmarketing.co/ or contacting us at info@yourb2bmarketing.co.
Narrator: 0:03
Welcome to America Open for Business, where we talk with high-growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets.
Cameron: 0:13
Hello, I’m Cameron Heffernan, and this is America Open for Business, where I talk with high-growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets. This episode in our Founders and Owners series is brought to you by us, your B2B marketing, a truly global marketing agency. Many mid-market B2B companies face challenges in clearly defining their value proposition and articulating it to customers. We help founders and leaders understand what makes their products and services invaluable to customers and help them put that front and center. Discover how we can drive your expansion by visiting yourb2bmarketingco. That’s co, not com Past.
Cameron: 0:56
Guests include Brian Smith, the founder of the UGG brand, the famous sheepskin boots from Australia, and author of Birth of a Brand, about his personal journey to the creation of what became a billion-dollar consumer footwear brand. And today we have joining us from Denmark, thomas Sugar, who is the founder and CEO of Pink Square. Thomas began his career in finance, working for various banks and investment banks in London From 1989 and for the next 10 years past that, he held various positions with Bear Stearns, payne, weber and UBS, and then in 1999, thomas co-founded Mindship, creating a global network of selected VCs and tech incubators that facilitated joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions and technology transfers. In 2005, thomas started Pink Square, a digital production company specializing in premium visual content, with offices in Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, argentina, and his URL. Their URL is pinksquarecom and we’re going to welcome today to the show Thomas Sugar. Thanks for joining us.
Thomas: 2:09
Thanks Cameron.
Cameron: 2:10
Okay, I am very glad to have you on the show today and we’re going to just jump right in with a couple of questions. Looking at first at Pink Square and how you got to here. Founded in 2005 with and I’m getting this from your website because I found it very interesting a vision of making it simple and affordable to purchase premium visual marketing content for technical products using a platform similar to those that companies use to purchase and create websites, why was that a problem that you focused on? Why was that?
Thomas: 2:52
important. Actually, it was not a problem straight away. It’s something that I recognized later on as we started entering the US. Actually, I started the company, or I founded the company traveling between New York and Buenos Aires a while back. I recognized how South America, and specifically Argentina, was an interesting area or location, for they have a very European, a very Western design culture, but still you know a salary level that’s, you know, lower than Europe or North America, and that’s actually unique because pretty much everywhere else in the Southern hemisphere where they have, you know, lower salaries, because pretty much everywhere else in the southern hemisphere where they have lower salaries, they have often a very different design culture and as much as India and Pakistan and these places they’re great at development and coding they’re not exactly known for the design, or at least from our perspective, because it’s just too different. The same goes for Africa. So that was the foundation that I started this.
Thomas: 4:20
In the beginning we did quite a lot for Scandinavian clients, but then as and I think Scandinavia is quite unique in the sense that Scandinavia is very quality conscious, whereas I see the US is more value conscious we can talk about that later but where Scandinavia is very, very quality conscious. That’s also very much from a visual, from a design, from an aesthetic point of view. You know like Scandinavian design is also quite famous. Right, and just as a fun little story, because I remember I used to know a lot of when I worked in finance. I met a lot of you know bankers and finance people and where you would meet you know just an average 25-year-old guy in Scandinavia who lived by himself. They would have apartments. That was like very you know nice furniture. You thought about you know the, the, the, the decoration, and and you know quality, quality pieces here and there.
Thomas: 5:42
While you know I worked for wall street banks for quite a while and I I would go to this, you know there was. This was a general thing, but specifically I remember to go to one guy’s you know apartment on central park south. This guy was was making a lot of money, right, I think he had. He had 10 million dollar bonuses back in the mid 90s, wow, and just like how his apartment was decorated, it was just like a black leather sofa chucked in. You know nothing else, and I just kind of saw this often. So I kind of always like experienced how this thing about design and aesthetics is how important it is. It is here, like inherently in us, and this means that, especially when we started out working with 3D animation and that type of content, you know it became quite expensive because a lot of these we did configurators for Scandinavian furniture companies back in 2008.
Thomas: 6:45
And they would just go on and on and on about this and that and how the little you know the you know gradients and what materials would look like and reflections and everything, and they would go on about that endlessly and they would pay for it, okay, and these were not.
Thomas: 7:06
You know, know, obviously the nikes of the world you know that have massive, massive marketing budgets. But there was obviously furniture companies. But even for b2b companies with kind of machinery type products, you would speak to some engineer in some little town in in in rural denmark and he would just talk about, you know, like how the materials had this kind of surface and shine and it was just like wow and it would make, it would make things very expensive and they, they just generally our impression was that they just could not live with a lower quality. Then they would rather opt for something completely different. We started to do business in the US.
Thomas: 7:53
I mean, we recognized quickly that value and the financial part of it was and is much more important. So I think there’s to a much higher extent there’s a willingness to obviously it has to be correct. You want to tell the right story and you want to. You know you don’t want to miscommunicate what the product can do and the benefits, but there’s very much a willingness to go down in quality if it also brings the price down. And that’s why I meant like there’s an emphasis on value. It doesn’t have to be the very best, but if you kind of get something that’s fine for the right price, then it’s a go.
Cameron: 8:38
How about emphasis?
Thomas: 8:39
That was a long answer to a short question.
Cameron: 8:41
No, no. A long answer to a short question, no, no. I think I want to probe a little further with asking how does that affect the, the perception of, say, scandinavian or european companies versus american companies? For, uh, perception of roi, you know, return on the work on a marketing project or deliverables, is that still the same, or is there even a difference with that as well? Um, I.
Thomas: 9:15
I can’t give you a clear answer on that because I think quite often that we’re trying to educate the companies, that we speak to our clients about this. Sometimes there are some real challenges in actually getting an ROI from creative 3D animation, right, yeah, so sometimes the numbers can be hard to get. The numbers can be hard to get, but furthermore, it’s also our experience and often they’re not that sophisticated, so it can be both levels of sophistication. So I can’t give. I don’t know exactly what the numbers look like, but obviously they need to have a real sense of it. Yeah.
Thomas: 10:10
But also, I think, scandinavian companies. Often they go my experience they go to less trade shows. So therefore, often I think part of the budget or bigger part of the budget goes to, you know, online and digital experiences, right, and the Midwest type of these type of not always very sexy but industrial, technical type products and those kinds of manufacturing companies. We’ve seen a lot of change in the States over the last couple of years, but I don’t think going 10 years back, most of them weren’t very digital.
Cameron: 11:04
How did COVID affect your business and what you guys were doing?
Thomas: 11:11
It has affected us hugely. I would say, before COVID, every third or maybe 25% of leads that we would get from the US, it would turn out it would be an issue that we didn’t have an office in Salt Lake City or Philadelphia or whatever, that we didn’t have a local presence. Right, we have a registered company in the US. At times we’ve had a colleague in the US we’re reviewing that at the moment whether it’s necessary or worth it but in general, so it used to be an issue, not enough that it didn’t make sense for us to be in the States and to market ourselves to the US, but from having been an issue, it’s totally not an issue anymore. Right, when we have initial calls with new potential clients, it’s almost as if they don’t even want to hear the whole story of where we have and locations and offices. They just don’t care anymore. Wow, yeah, that from our point of view, how we experience it, has really really changed. Okay.
Thomas: 12:29
But I guess also, you know, even within companies, they have more and more colleagues who work from different states, work from home. So you know, so it’s just been the norm, become the norm for everybody to sit and have Zoom meetings and you know and once you experience that we’ve worked remotely since you know we started using Skype. Actually, we started doing work back in 2004. So even a year before we officially started being registered as a company. So I’ve been Skype since 2003, 2004 when I moved to Argentina. So we’ve done that for many years. So it’s easy for us to say, but for someone who’s not done that kind of digital deliveries and meetings or whatever, I understand that that’s a bridge to have to cross. But once you cross it, it just doesn’t matter anymore and I think a very, very high percentage of working people have crossed that bridge during and since COVID.
Cameron: 13:26
Jed Macosko MD. Yeah, absolutely. Tell us in a nutshell what Pink Square does. What are you best in class at? How do you work? What kind of companies do you work with?
Thomas: 13:39
We work pretty much only with companies with physical products. And due to the nature of 3D and how 3D makes sense and 3D animation makes sense when showing what you know, fairly complex products, where there’s a functionality, what it can do, how it works, 3d is an obvious choice for that. So that’s why we kind of early on, we got into we’ve we’ve done a lot for furniture as well, but that’s kind of that’s the not the majority of business, but there’s an element of, you know, changing colors or changing legs on the sofa. That’s how we got into these configurators, you know, in the early days, yeah. But but we’ve pretty much one of our earliest biggest customers but that was a Danish company who’s, I think, globally the biggest company is doing equipment for the mining industry, for the cement production and and those type of industries, and we started out doing a lot for them and that kind of brought us into that whole you know, manufacturing technical products, industrial type products, construction equipment, etc most conducive to what you do.
Cameron: 14:57
That’s our biggest oh sorry, most conducive to what you do, that the need for a 3d interactive model.
Thomas: 15:04
It’s a good fit yeah, so it started out with 3d animation uh, you know, purely just showing how something could be instruction or just showing how something works. And then because then we we actually under the radar and and and 3d still our, that’s how people find us. But we would say 30 to 40% of what we do is web development. Okay, because a lot of what we did ended up online and then we started to get into how they were using it online on product pages, right, so for that reason we started to. We got into web development as well. So we think today that we’re unique in the sense that we have both 3D and we have web development skills, which is kind of taking us into something that interactive solutions, which we find very, very interesting, and we do more and more of those types of solutions, and I can explain, give you an example of what they are. But we have more and more clients that come through to us looking for 3D animation that end up with what we call interactive solutions or interactive 3D models.
Cameron: 16:22
Okay, yeah, tell us a little bit about that.
Thomas: 16:27
So it’s basically, you know we’ve all seen how you can go in and take a product and turn it around 360 degrees on a webpage.
Cameron: 16:36
Yeah.
Thomas: 16:37
At some point, these solutions that were based on a series of images that you would kind of, you know, you would scroll between and turn around, then they got into kind of online 3d models. For then, for a period, you had to like download plugins or they were based on flash, which then got obsolete. But now there’s happened so much in terms of the technical side of things that you can, so you can have these models without plugins or downloading anything, that you can place them on web, but they work on mobile, mobile devices as well. But the really interesting part that you can actually embed 3d animations or animations into these models as well. Okay, so, whereas you earlier on you could take a sofa and and change colors on it, but now you can actually say or, if it’s a chair, you will see how do I fold this chair, and you can click and the and the chair will, you know, go apart, or you will see it in exploded view, or it’s going to do some movement in the 3d model, as you can turn it around and zoom in it, and you can also, you can place hotspots. You can place information inside the model or the object or the product as well. Right, we think that’s hugely interesting because what we’re hearing back from our clients is that, as opposed to a two-minute video, as our attention levels, they’re kind of dropping, ever dropping. So for people to do a two-minute video, you start to jump in the video right and click forward, because you almost don’t have the patience for that anymore. But what we’re hearing is that these interactive models, people actually spend considerably more time with that.
Thomas: 18:26
Yeah, it also ties into a couple of big trends, uh, b2b marketing trends, the first one being like experiences being tailored or personalized. Yeah, so if you have, like, a product in 3D and you can trigger animations and you can find information in the product, that means that you can experience it exactly as you want to experience it. While a video is a very linear experience Okay, starts here, ends here. Yeah, in this model you can kind of go exploring and you can click on and open and do what you find interesting and ignore the rest. So that’s one trend, and the other trend is like a self-service trend. Gartner came out with a survey for 2023 that said 75% of Bb buyers they would almost, they almost prefer like a sales rep, free experience right, at least as as as much as possible. So that means it’s so if you can, if you, if you have a product page that lets you explore and find and figure out as much as you can yourself before you know getting a call. That’s what.
Cameron: 19:49
That’s what buyers prefer why do you think that is?
Thomas: 19:56
I think that’s, I think a lot of it is time, okay. I mean, the other day we were looking for a freelancer, you know, for a certain project.
Cameron: 20:12
Yeah.
Thomas: 20:16
And we wrote out on some platform where you can find these type of you know and like we got 30 people writing back. You know they’re happy to have a call, but yeah.
Thomas: 20:22
No, I just don’t want to get on a call with 20, 30 people writing back. You know they’re happy to have a call, but yeah, no, I just don’t want to get on a call with 20 30 people. So the more we can figure out ourselves the better. I think you have the flexibility. You don’t have to book it in calls they always end up taking at least 20 30 minutes.
Cameron: 20:39
So I think that that’s part of it, um and I think technology has certainly enabled more and more of that. I look, I don’t know about there, but here we have not one now, but two companies where you can go and buy a car, a new car, without talking to a salesperson. You, you drive down the freeway and there’s a big tower with the cars in them. Carvana is one, vroom is the other, and 10 years ago someone told me it’s like a vending machine for automobiles. Right, and I think it’s because of just what you said. People have lack of time, so that’s going to just continue to affect other consumer experiences and then B2B as well.
Thomas: 21:24
Yeah and yes. No, you’re right, and I think that may. I don’t know what you think, but do you think there’s also an element that if, once you get in touch with the sales rep, that he’s going to pound you subsequently? Right, I think?
Cameron: 21:42
that’s definitely part of it. Companies that are look at what you can do online Amazon, for instance. There’s so much information you can get all on your own. I think smart B2B companies understand that and they are giving away more information, not just static sales collateral and pieces in video, but more webinar content or here’s thought leadership, good, engaging content that I will find value in, and then that’s implanted in my mind that I am ready to buy. I’m going to come back. I don’t necessarily need someone to keep following up with me if it’s not the right time, whatever that might be right time, whatever that might be. So what you guys are solving is that we’re giving away all this information for our clients. If it’s a, you know, a technical design or some kind of a product, you can see a lot more. Just you know whenever you need it, when you’re ready, you have the information. You’re equipped with it yeah, yes, no, most.
Thomas: 22:39
And then it also. I think it also just. First of all, we’re all getting smarter and smarter and faster and faster. You know digesting information. I think that’s a general trend, you know.
Thomas: 22:52
Look at your kids you know, I just think it’s efficient and it increases productivity and that’s the way world are going. So all this back and forth and chit chat and you know that, yeah, I mean. So I think from a from, even from a business perspective, yes, you might not get the same opportunity to, to, to lead the clients or to keep, you know, following up or reminding them, but but then again you also save cost, most probably because you need less. It’s like the better that instruction and we worked a lot with instruction type videos and animations Not even if they are good, but it’s also if it’s easy to find the right one. That also means that you save money on support calls and of course, some companies would say support calls are great because we’re in touch with a client, but then again also you have to pay for support staff.
Thomas: 24:00
I mean, we’ve started sometimes where we do this, uh, what we do these, these manuals or maintenance videos or instruction videos, where they’re like you know, we just put them in a, in a web framework that you can basically so like a three minute long video, instruction video that’s chopped into, let’s say, 10 pieces, and every little piece it just keeps looping until you are finished with that step. So, for instance, if, if, so, if, if, if you are assembling an ikea table, anything that you assemble yourself, if ever you’ve seen a video of it, it’s like you constantly have to like pause it and go back right because you cannot assemble it in the, in the speed with which the video is going. So this way is kind of you know, so you kind of it loops until you’ve done that step and then you just tap and it goes on to the next step and it keeps looping that until you’ve done it. So it’s just an example of the better you can instruct or you can help people with these type of things, the less they also need to to use your time as a company, because when they can’t figure it out, or because they’re lazy to figure it out, because it seems too hard or you have to do too much work yourself I’ve been thinking that when I go, you know, to fix something around the house in the old days, pick up the phone, find a plumber, electrician, whoever it might be, gardener.
Cameron: 25:24
Now I’ll go at least take a crack at it myself. Go on YouTube, hey, that’s actually not too bad, I can learn from that, and sometimes it’s a plumber themselves who’s made that video and oftentimes end up just going right to the expert eventually. But at least I can take a crack at it and understand better what the need is. And I think companies that are shifting more to that kind of approach sharing knowledge, sharing information, building trust, rather than, hey, let’s just hit them, hit them hard with email after email or message after message. I think that shift is definitely evident and more and more companies are having an awareness of it. You’re seeing more content. Here’s our eight-page white paper. No form not gated. Just go ahead and take it If you find it useful. You’ll come back.
Thomas: 26:12
Yeah, and to use the example you gave, if there was a QR code on everything in your home, you could just scan it and it would say, say, let’s say, using the plumber example, is it dripping or not? Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. Okay, then it’s got to be this. This is how you do it. Here’s a video, five steps. Start by doing this, keep showing you and then next, next, you can make it really easy, but that’s a lot of potential for improvement. I think we try to do the little bit, you know. Coming back to what you mentioned about us wanting to make purchasing these type of products or this type of content easier, so we’ve we made a, a brief generator, because quite often companies that come to us, they might not have purchased 3D animations before, right, and you know.
Thomas: 27:07
It’s like everything else Once you know something, you know it. It’s simple, but it’s never the first time around. So by going through that, it kind of says are you using this for instructional marketing or this? There’s examples, what’s the difference? And also we use dollar signs what’s costly, what’s not? I mean, how long do you think you’d want to be? Do you want simple or complex? Here’s an example. This is simple, this is complex, right?
Thomas: 27:35
you you know, do you want quality a, b and c, so you can kind of see and understand what it is, and by the end of it it just generates a PDF, you know, and that’s kind of like the first step at something like this. Obviously, when you’re an agency’s certain type of custom work, you can never completely make it a shelf product, right, right, also, by by nature, you know the the client’s products. They’re not the same, but there’s certainly a part of the processes where we see a lot of potential and that also, even that comes to like content, we can use temp. So, for instance, one of the things that we’re really looking at is the kind of clients we have. They have relatively small marketing budgets and marketing departments compared to the size of the companies. Right, they’re not B2C type products, products.
Thomas: 28:43
So what we see often that these guys, they’re really, really overworked and they’re kind of under pressure to. There are more and more channels and touch points where they need to. You know they want to be thought leaders. They have a YouTube channel, they’re on LinkedIn, they go to trade shows, newsletters, you know all these kinds of things, and providing content on an ongoing basis for all these, you know, channels becomes a lot. It’s time consuming, right right, as these guys they’re not doing kind of I keep coca-cola type size campaigns. So I think, well, at least what we’re experiencing often, that we’ve shown, shown them how we can take existing content, like the 3D animation, and repurpose that to make a three-minute video which is for explaining the product on a product page. That might not be right for lead generation on LinkedIn. That needs to be 20 seconds With a different call to action. It just needs to get them interested. It doesn’t need to tell the whole story in depth, but just enough to raise awareness and interest, right Right?
Thomas: 29:52
So what we’ve done sometimes we said, okay, so we do more and more of that type of content where we take the core content and we create these three, four other simple, fast type content from it. So what we’ve done sometimes is that we’ve shown examples of two, three clients we’ve done this for and they say, oh, we want exactly something like that, just with our logo, our colors. So it also shows us that very often these guys they don’t need, you know, they don’t need to go to four meetings at an agency and start a whole creative big thing. It becomes expensive, but it also becomes very time consuming. So this seems to be very open on a more like template example type Okay, we want A, we want B, we want with this. Here’s our logo, great.
Cameron: 30:42
Yeah.
Thomas: 30:43
Interesting. Okay, we want a, we want b. One with this is our logo. Great, yeah, go interesting. Now we’re paying, you know, 1500 bucks for something that it would pay ten thousand dollars for if they went to an agency right.
Cameron: 30:54
So part of the value for them is that you, working with other companies industrial, mechanical, uh, r&d kind of companies that you’ve done this enough to see what is effective. They adapt it, modify it to their needs, whatever those are trade show, outreach, website, other digital needs and they’re also learning from your expertise on having done it with other clients, seeing what’s working, what doesn’t work. In words, you’re now more of a value center, a knowledge base for the use of videos or the use of animation for their marketing, not just straight production.
Thomas: 31:34
Yeah, I like the way you put that, but that’s I mean very much so. But also, what I was also trying to say is also that I think that these guys they’re very much because you know and I think Gartner also had some numbers for 2023, about 71% of you know B2B marketing departments, departments, and it’s probably not a surprise, but they feel that what they expected to produce, compared to the budget they have, that that’s kind of out of whack, right, right.
Thomas: 32:09
So, these guys. They are under pressure to perform. They’re under pressure to perform in more and more places and more and more platforms and in order to do so, they’re happy to, or they’re completely willing to, to kind of like, have a more process and template based type process. Right, yeah, because it’s not, like, you know, we need all this creative power of an agency and we’re going to have five meetings. You know it’s more like, okay, we, we just need to. We want to post more on LinkedIn or we want to create this thing for a trade show. We don’t need. It’s not rocket science, but we don’t need to develop something absolutely fantastic from scratch.
Thomas: 32:57
Then there’s obviously also an element of whoever provides those templates or those kind of examples that can be used and the processes, that they know what they’re doing. Like, we’ve done it a lot with clients, so we have an idea of what works. But, yeah, so it’s kind of reusing knowledge, reusing examples and what’s already out there instead of just starting from scratch, and it makes the process. One thing is that they get something at less cost. I also think there’s a very big element of it saves time, right, absolutely, because if you had to create a post or put something on Instagram, a 20-second video, I mean you’re not going to have 17 meetings and 25 emails going back and forth. Right In the old days where people would do TV campaigns or they had like four big trade shows a year, you could work three months on content right and pay hundreds of thousands or whatever tens of thousands for it. But now you just under pressure that things they should cost thousand dollars, $5,000, $10,000, but not, you know, $40,000.
Cameron: 34:07
Yeah.
Thomas: 34:08
And then one of the ways to make that happen is that, you know, we kind of use processes, we use templates, we use examples, kind of.
Cameron: 34:19
I feel like a message there that I like to give when I’m talking with companies is work with us as an agency. It will allow you to make the best and highest use of your time in running the company, conducting R&D, reaching out to customers. You don’t want to be spending your time on execution of marketing campaigns, execution of outreach, whatever it may be, creation of interactive videos. You hand that over to us. You then go and do those more strategic priorities that you need to grow the business.
Thomas: 34:50
Yeah, and I believe this is happening not just it’s happening everywhere, right, yeah. Yeah, for instance, you would go to a law firm to get a contract. They would kind of at least that’s where you were led to believe that you would start with a blank sheet of paper, while now you have a lot of different platforms. You’re saying this type of company, this is the situation, that, and you’re going to have templates and you’re going to adjust the templates to your situation, but you’re kind of reusing knowledge and reusing stuff. Right, that was already out there and that’s being passed on now to not end yeah, end consumers and and companies. And that makes complete sense, right in this digital age yeah, and the digital tools enable that.
Cameron: 35:38
Just do something once, repurpose it, reuse it multiple different ways, different channels. I also see that with the fractionalization of anything you know chief financial officers, chief marketing officer more and more of the ability for companies to bring in an expert, whether that’s an agency or an individual, to do their specific best function and it works. You can still get the high use of expertise of someone in a specific area.
Thomas: 36:08
If that’s not your area of expertise, yeah, and you don’t need them 40 hours a week either, because we all become a lot more, becoming faster and more and more tools and whatever. So somebody can actually maybe even just with 10, 15 hours a week they can be a CMO for a company and actually overall, especially if they have support, less costly support options.
Cameron: 36:33
That’s right, particularly if your actual executing team is in Argentina or Brazil or Romania, whatever that might be. And my thinking is, companies can also do that themselves. So, as an agency or as an animation specialist firm, you need to think of where are we really adding the most value to our clients? Because if we’re not, they’re just going to be. I call it disintermediation. They’re going to go work directly with. They’ll go find their own team in Latin America or in Eastern Europe and make it work on their own. So we always have to be thinking of that next level of the value we’re delivering.
Thomas: 37:09
Yeah, that makes me think of that. It’s actually interesting. Like years back it was, it was quite it wasn’t unusual at all that when we spoke to a potential new client about an animation job, that very often would end up communicating with the agency. The agency would also get involved. That pretty much never happens anymore.
Cameron: 37:34
Right, right, interesting Right yeah.
Thomas: 37:38
So I think companies also getting, I would say, smarter, in the sense that they are getting more selective about when to have their agency involved and when not to. I mean, this is obviously. I think this is a. This is something that’s been going on for years. Right, it’s not a 2023 or 24 thing, but it’s been a gradual change over the last, I would say, five to ten years. Absolutely.
Cameron: 38:06
Where do you see the future of interactivity heading with interactive animation? Where do you see that in five years?
Thomas: 38:14
uh I think interactive, what we, what we also really find very interesting about, about the interactive solution that is just getting more and more complex. So in the beginning it was just like an item. We just delivered something not long ago which is kind of this whole water. It was a whole big like a plant right where you move the whole plant around but you can click hot spots and they now want to keep working on it that you can when you I want to do something over here. You actually have characters going over showing how it’s done so it can be taken to length. But also what we realize more and more, that we think that this is kind of a really interesting because there’s been so much talk about AR and VR.
Cameron: 39:03
Yeah.
Thomas: 39:05
And AR and VR is somehow we don’t think that it’s not ready for mainstream yet. It’s still a while. It’s like do you remember when QR codes came out? Yeah, 10, 13 years ago? Yeah, I do. It was kind of a gimmick type thing for some fun games and then it kind of disappeared a little. But now we’re using QR codes more and more, so it’s kind of found its use case, right? Yeah, so I think VR and AI got everybody very excited, but I think we’re still far away.
Thomas: 39:34
You know, to just sit on your phone and see a chair on your floor, yeah, that’s great, but it hasn’t really taken off, as we can see, Right, and you need glasses, goggles, equipment, all kind of stuff. So the interesting thing about we think about these interactive solutions and interactive 3D models you don’t need equipment. It’s kind of it’s a step in that direction. Yeah, so we think that that’s going to be. You know, and we see it everywhere we saw on Gatorade’s website the other day that you can take this bottle and you can write your name on it and it shows up on the bottle and you can turn it around. So these kinds of things they’re really in sort of with an oral B toothbrush, we can click and this is the same you know. So we see it appearing more and more places and we think so that we think a lot’s going to happen over the next 10 years.
Cameron: 40:26
Interesting.
Thomas: 40:26
And also there’s a lot of space for it to happen because technologically, you know, internet, internet speeds keep going up, loading times get faster and faster because of technological advances for these, yeah, and at the same time we’ve kind of opened up for this whole mindset because of ar v, then again, it’s kind of still hard to get something AR and VR that makes sense for most companies, and also I believe that those solutions are very expensive and for very specific use cases.
Cameron: 41:04
Yeah, yeah.
Thomas: 41:05
So I think several things are coming together making these interactive and again dropping, dropping patience levels of to sit and watch video for minutes and minutes on end. Also, people getting more and more critical. Videos have to get shorter and shorter, while these things right now seem to be able to catch people’s attentions, and it’s also a great way of learning and understanding, because it’s as close to standing with a product, you know real life.
Thomas: 41:34
Right, right and that never goes out of fashion right To touch and feel and things you know, so as close you can get to that. And it also connects the online and the physical to a higher degree.
Cameron: 41:49
Yeah, what do you see as the biggest differences between marketing and communications in Europe versus here in the US?
Thomas: 42:12
I’ve always felt it’s not something I have that much of an opinion on, but I still kind of always felt that you have to in Europe, and even more so in the Nordic Northern Europe, that you kind of I think in the States communication and marketing is more salesy. That you kind of I think in the States communication and marketing is more sales-y. Okay, does that make sense? I think you have to kind of tone things down a little bit here, okay. So it kind of it’s a little bit more like you know you would use the words as awesome, less, less in your marketing here, right, right, because it’s almost like people get suspicious if you over and it’s like, yeah, that’s too much, right, so you gotta, you gotta take things down a notch.
Cameron: 43:02
Okay, probably the easiest way for me to to answer that, sure, I remember in I felt that way in belgium that the belgians were very I lived, that’s where I lived in europe very understated as a people. Part of it’s their particular history and background languages. But when, when a belgian would make a big deal of something, it would really be noticeable because it was so uncommon and, if anything, it’s a country that could benefit from a little more of a kind of, you know, be proud of what you got. Not that they don’t do that, but it just felt like it was compared to as, from an american perspective, it was quite noticeable to me.
Thomas: 43:41
They were, they were a quiet, but that’s I mean you hit it right on the nail, right on the head when you said, understated, you have to a little bit less, and that’s actually so. It’s not even just the same in france also, if you go, this is the most amazing product, you know, it’s like people almost going to kind of ridicule you a little bit, right. So you kind of have to find it that what feels like a more. I’m not saying that people are more honest or that companies are more honest or that they’re dishonest in states, but at least you have to appear a little bit more kind of, because you almost get the adverse effect if you overdo it.
Cameron: 44:20
Right, people are suspicious of that kind of an attitude, right, yeah, yeah, what do you?
Thomas: 44:26
feel and I don’t want to. I think it’s harder for them to kind of then trust it, because then it can be anything right.
Cameron: 44:33
Yeah, what do you feel Scandinavians are absolutely best at?
Thomas: 44:49
I think Scandinavians have a very and actually we touched on this earlier. I think they have a very high sense of quality, so they’re very thorough. They really, really want to pay for. They don’t mind paying for. They don’t mind paying for as much as they they can. They will pay a premium for something they perceive as as better and which also sometimes it also makes them more snob.
Thomas: 45:21
So, for instance, lexus as a brand yeah, I don’t think has done that well this part of the world. So it’s like then people rather pay for the mercedes right, because, well, in the states people are like wait, it’s great value, you don’t have the same level of snobbism. Okay, because let’s assume I’m not a specialist, but let’s assume that lexus is as great as mercedes. So a lot of people in the states will say as well, why the hell pay more for mercedes where I can get a lexus, same same right? But while here it’s like, well, you know, it’s probably that bit better. We trusted it’s german or you know, so right, yeah, and in that sense, and it’s interesting because denmark has become like a food capital, uh, one of the food capitals of the world, yeah, last 10 years, yeah, and again, I can also just see with.
Thomas: 46:11
I spent a lot of time in the uk where they don’t have the same food culture. I mean, they have a high level of quality for other things but yeah, but just like it’s. It’s so hard to get a bad meal and in this country now and you would go to some golf club in the upper center of the country and get a club sandwich is like fantastic, every little detail, the toast has been and the dressing and everything. And I remember to go to some you know expensive golf clubs outside london. I mean these are some years, years back, but still comparable. At the time, yeah, it was something which is like absolute rubbish and things like how can you serve this right? So I just see, I see in in design, I see in the food, I see everything and also, you know, especially also with this whole green, you know the wave of of green and you know that it’s just kind of like and and and there’s very much an inventor mentality, so things are always being like fidgeted and improved and done better and, and you know so.
Cameron: 47:17
Yep, yep. Well, I have one last question for you, and before I ask that, I’ll point people to your website, which is wwwpinksquarecom. The last question is if, in in 10 years, you’re at the interactive animated mediaated Media Hall of Fame Awards being honored, what do you want them to say about Thomas Sugar?
Thomas: 47:48
I want them to. That’s an interesting question. I want them to. That’s an interesting question. I don’t know how can you say visionary at a lower? You know again, now we’re doing the understated right. Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to take visionary down a little bit. And also a great, a great. I’ve always I’ve had an interest in it and I’ve traveled for many years. I’ve lived abroad in various places, so I kind of I like to speak like five languages, so I like to see myself as a fairly international and having a great understanding of what works across borders okay, we can live with that.
Cameron: 48:32
Well, thank you so much, thomas, for uh joining us today. This has been america open for business and I greatly appreciate your time that you spent with us, and we look forward to catching up on the next episode. Thanks so much, I appreciate it.
Narrator: 48:47
It was a pleasure it was a pleasure, cam, thanks for listening to the America Open for Business podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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