How Leart Zogjani Advocates for Ethical Practices in Marketing Psychology

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the how to scale a business podcast. My name is Hector Santia Esteban, and I am your host for today. We're here with Liart Zoghiani. He is the founder at Skins Agency, we're gonna talk about everything. And what I love about Liart is what he does and how he touches businesses really Impacts everything from the moment that someone discovers your business all the way to the transaction when they decided to purchase and, even beyond that.

[00:00:24] Hector: So, thanks and I appreciate you hanging out with us today.

[00:00:27] Leart: Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:00:28] Leart: Appreciate

[00:00:29] Hector: we were just chatting before we hit record that you're wrapping up your Wednesday, I believe. I'm just getting mine started. It's beautiful that we can have these conversations across the world right now, but, kind of catch me up on your story.

[00:00:41] Hector: Fill me in on, where you're calling in from and, how you got to this place now working with, companies and transforming their brands, if you will.

[00:00:49] Leart: Yeah, for sure. So, well, I'm from Kosovo. a tiny country, a lot of people don't know exists. so it's, the newest country in Europe. Kosovo has, an interesting story in itself. And I guess I'm part of that as my life included. So, there was a war, 20 some years ago now. And, we went through that and, I think that situation informed a lot of. Who I became and how things move forward. And, fast forward quite a few years from then. I started my company, which is in design. We started just doing experimental design. Really? it was a combination of arts. So fine arts and graphic design and a bit of philosophy. And we were, struggling with that. But, when you're too far into the arts direction, it's hard to make ends meet. And so I had to figure out different ways. build a business that actually is more sustainable, but also can scale and, funny enough, my brother happens to be a psychologist we were having a conversation.

[00:01:37] Leart: I was like. maybe we could do something. so he comes into the company. we transform it all together. This happened in 2019. and now we do branding. So we build brand strategies for scaling companies and we combine data and psychology to build brands and to build those personalities of the brands to connect better the companies with their audience.

[00:01:54] Hector: Yeah, I think it's so cool because I know so many. Brand strategists, some that I love dearly, that just go in and just let me do what I think or what I feel and I think that there is, absolutely merit to intuition and absolutely those people most definitely have a better visual eye than me the whole thing.

[00:02:14] Hector: What I've really seen, and not only in the branding, but also in the marketing and the sale, like when you incorporate data actually leverage this into your changes, it comes with a totally different level of impact. so talk about why that was so important in your guys's approach and why

[00:02:31] Hector: the data was such a vital part of what you guys do.

[00:02:34] Leart: that's actually a very good, way to tackle this. So, I'm not sure if I can say this. So do let me know if I should stop. It is a little explicit if I may.

[00:02:42] Hector: We're all adults here.

[00:02:43] Leart: all right, good. So read this quote somewhere and it was years ago and it was like. Art is like masturbation.

[00:02:49] Leart: You do it for yourself and, enjoy yourself and everything is fine. But design is more like sex. It's made for both sides to have fun. And so there needs to be communication. There needs to be an understanding of the other party as well. It's not just about you. always turn to that whenever I'm into that zone where I just want to create something that I love because I enjoy it and my intuition tells me that's right, which I don't necessarily say no to, but it always becomes a lot more interesting to me when I combine it with the other people.

[00:03:19] Leart: So in this case, I want to marry. right. take that, into parentheses, but I want to marry my customer to their customers, I want to get them closer together. And for me to see that interplay to understand what deeply fascinates my customers. Customers about my customers product or service is something that gets me really fascinated about my work, I guess. And this is where things get very different because we're not working to Build a beautiful portfolio piece for my website and to be honest, when you look at a lot of the work in my website, it seems sometimes people may say it's boring, but when you look at the underlying structure and how fast the companies that we work with grew, you'll notice how that data really played a huge role in it.

[00:04:00] Leart: I hope that answers the question.

[00:04:01] Hector: before we, Hit the record button. This happens often where, someone starts to just get into goldBut you were talking about, a business that you went into and may have some stark realizations. And I find that One of the big things that comes up on this show is that as agencies or experts or consultants, we have a larger sample set. so we see kind of some of these trends or there's some things that stand out to us.

[00:04:23] Hector: But you were talking about something. And I think, someone went into a school or was kind of working with kids. Tell us about that story and kind of how that whole thing played out.

[00:04:29] Leart: Yeah, for sure. So it is one of my favorite clients. We still have a very good conversation and collaboration. So, there was this local school, that teaches kids how to code. they just started having a few, places around the country. they called us to do the branding for them. they were head on with their, competition. Now we asked, the founding members on like, what differentiates them, about their product. And they tell us about, Oh, our curriculum is really good. And we don't have these short term rewards for kids.

[00:04:56] Leart: We think on longterm and all that kind of stuff. And we're like, perfect. so I grabbed my brother, the psychologist, and then, we start doing focus groups and we, Build a bit of a relationship with the students there and they start telling us, they're like, well, when I came here, I was very shy. I had no friends. Everybody in school would tease me cause I was a nerd. Nobody would get my jokes. And then I come here and everybody gets my jokes. Everyone is like me. And then now I go into TV and talk about how I'm learning coding. Okay. That's interesting. And then we look into the psychological development of kids and understand that within that specific age, kids in fact are building their identities. they're finding their way around, their other friends and understanding who they are. so what we do is we, technically play identity politics. we take all the school, we split the school into houses, kind of like Harry Potter style. So we split them into houses and we build competitions, well, healthy competitions against each other.

[00:05:50] Leart: And within a single month, the school like gets over 30 percent increase across social media channels. This company had been in the market for over four years by the time got that right now they're in twenty five countries over five hundred locations so that's when you look into the psychology of your user and understand beneath the value proposition of the company to understand how your user is thinking in their day to day life can really help build a relationship and a bond that scales globally outside local borders, I'd say. And this is one of my favorite stories to tell.

[00:06:19] Hector: It's so interesting because everything informs it. I'd love if you, can share however much you'd feel comfortable. I'm curious if we could go into that, case study a little bit more and just talk about, there was few parts in there, right? There was the questions, the actual data gathering, but then there was actually the implementation of it.

[00:06:37] Hector: you said a competition a little bit. So can you just talk to whatever think is important? Maybe let's focus first on like the data gathering. Is there anything that you can share or corners that you can help us see around blind spots pitfalls to avoid when doing something like a focus group or the surveys or getting feedback.

[00:06:55] Hector: Are there things that people should, know if they're going to start pursuing that sort of research.

[00:06:59] Leart: Yeah, for sure. So, we can go as in depth with this as you'd like, because there's been a lot that's been done in that particular case. So, First of all, we went in, the idea was, look, here's how we see branding. We see branding as the personality of the company to build the personality of anyone, even a human being, what you need is a couple of things.

[00:07:19] Leart: So in the case of the company, we need to know the vision of the company leaders. We want to know where they're headed to, Where's their mind at? second is we need to understand target customers. Who are they attracting and what is their personality like and third is we need to understand the market so what the hell is happening in the market and probably a good parallel to this is if you're going to like an old school ball where you have to dance with people right what you're trying to do is and i'll start with myself i'm a straight man and. Here's what i would probably do it like first i'm looking at that ball and okay what do i want to i probably want to impress that particular woman say that's the case i'm going to go with like the most traditional sort of storyline but just go through that if i want to impress that so consider that that's who i want the most attention out of i want to understand what kind of person she is So I want to know more and more about that, but I also want to know who I am. And then what I need to know is that in this ballroom, everybody's going to wear a tux. And in order for me to stand out, I might get a tie that looks a little different. so that's how I'm going to approach this woman that I'm going to be different from other men. And this is the three points, It's your business, your vision, who you are. It is what you offer to your customer and who your customer is and what their needs are. Versus in the space that I'm working in, how do I differentiate myself? Now, going into a focus group, crucial part is what the hell do you want to get out of it? Us, it was like, we heard everything that the company had to say, but despite that, we noticed that, we really want to know what these kids are feeling, what is their. Mindset like, what are they getting? Why are they standing there? Why they're still there? crucial part is figure out first what exactly do you want to get out of there?

[00:08:54] Leart: Because if you do a focus group, you've already taken like, 15, 20 people's time, or like five people's time, depends on how you structure it. And then you go out of it without something, that's really tough. for us, we don't want to understand specific things. We want to understand the overarching personality because we know that we can match the personality of the company without and build long term relationships. for others, it might be different. but definitely clarify the goal, ideally test that out. So sometimes what we do is we enter up in one or two interviews with some customers before we jump into a full focus group, because that's easier to manage just to know what kind of Questions I should do and then jump into the full focus group.

[00:09:33] Hector: This is brilliant stuff. When we get back from break, I want to talk about get this information and then implementing it, I'd imagine, don't know, maybe it's 80 2050 50. I'd imagine that is just as big of a task as collecting it. so we're gonna talk about that right when we get back from break.

[00:09:52] Hector: Hey, y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a content and podcast production company. Well, we like to think of ourselves as genius makers because chances are if you're listening to this, you have a mission, a message, a product, a passion, something that you want to get out to the world, but you might not have time, the team, or the tech skills to be able to do it.

[00:10:09] Hector: That's where we can help. Go to amplify media. com that's a m p l a f y media. com. You can also check the show notes for info and get all the details there. And with that, let's get back to today's episode. So I'd love that. there's a great one, two punch here, You get information and then you really are able to.

[00:10:29] Hector: Use that to inform your execution of it. And I think that so many people, they just go to step two. I'd imagine there are some people that do step one, but given your brother's background, you know, that, that makes a lot of sense. so when you pair the two, I think It really, like I said, extends the impact.

[00:10:44] Hector: I don't think it makes the execution any easier necessarily, though. So, you said that you guys did a competition, for that school. Can you talk about, you some of the learnings or, maybe the mistakes, if there were any, or, Things that you might, do over if you had a chance, but kind of talk us through that execution phase.

[00:11:00] Leart: Yeah. So, there's this saying that goes something like this. I hope do it justice, but, execution eats strategy for breakfast. So, you know, I am a strategy guy. we leave most of the execution to the marketing teams and we support them with that. But nonetheless, it is down to the execution after all. much respect to that because it is a tough thing to do. And, for us, first things first was we were playing ultimately with people's psyche, it was important for us to understand that last time that people tried. And this was through experiments and fortunately enough for us, we actually knew that because we were doing the research behind it.

[00:11:35] Leart: But, there was an experiment, I believe it was in the seventies, that they tried to replicate that identity politics and sort of identity formation that had happened before the second world war in Germany. And with students and they managed to replicate it. basically it escalated students started thinking that they're better than everybody else and they started, Writing and doing all that stuff pretty similar to what had happened in germany and we were playing So to speak with the same flame at our hands. So it was crucial for us to first know what? Execution of that type of strategy can lead to, fortunately have the research at hand and we knew where to put all the stops and how to help the company structure it in a way that it won't escalate because it is relatively easy to escalate. And especially we're talking about very young kids who get every information very seriously. So that part of it, like tying up the strategy to the execution is also looking for pitfalls before they happen. And I was. Very glad we did that. but on the other hand, one thing that I, wish I'd done better. And fortunately for us, it worked. It really worked, but otherwise it wouldn't have worked is back then.

[00:12:35] Leart: One of the things that I missed was to look into the capabilities of my client's team to execute. what are their strong suits? Now, what we were very lucky with was that in our clients case, they got the teachers to support with building the houses because they were already a crucial part of the learning system and the competitions were happening because it was COVID time just then, so it was competitions were happening online.

[00:12:59] Leart: So it would be quizzes or something like that. They were then regular and then houses would get extra points for winning competitions and stuff like that. So that all happened online just as everybody went in. So yeah, It really helped us. And, there was a lot of help in that regard. The other part was that the teachers were extremely careful with the kids and they really knew how to manage the situation. And that helped us. Had we had someone in marketing to execute on that, we'd probably never succeed. But we have the, teachers who knew the kids by name and knew exactly how to make sure that they're going to feel supported and helped. And there's going to be healthy competition that really helped us succeed a lot and, change the whole aspect.

[00:13:38] Leart: So I guess one thing that I would have done much better, or like I would have hoped to have done much better was to not only look into what the strategy. Looks like, and what are the pitfalls, but also look at who's going to execute it and what would be the pitfalls of the person executing considering that it's a very sensitive aspect to play with again, people's psyche ultimately.

[00:13:57] Hector: Yeah, I'm such a, marketing psychology nerd that it's, so cool to hear those being kind of integrated, but I'm not sure if everybody necessarily feels the same. However, I'd imagine that so much of marketing is kind of throwing. darts at the wall, right? Or darts at the board.

[00:14:13] Hector: all of a sudden, if you can inform your decision, you can start to aim a little bit better. it's not guaranteed that you're going to have home run like this one was, but it at least closer to it. So you guys have done this a lot. And it seems like, a number of years now, though, as you look forward to This, I don't know, definitely changing, but insert your own adjective about the world.

[00:14:34] Hector: as you look forward, there's chat GPT, there's AI, there's, I don't know, pick any number of, things that people are, either excited or up in arms about, but as you look forward. What are you guys thinking or what are you guys excited about or preparing for? what's important for you as you look at the business landscape, looking forward with regards to what you guys do and how you guys help brands.

[00:14:55] Leart: so I find the biggest challenges that are going to happen sooner rather than later. And I believe, well, it is already there. The challenge is there is just that we're not dealing much with it. And that's something that I've been trying to explore is. The ethics of the use these strategies this type of knowledge in this arena, because I'm talking about behavioral change.

[00:15:14] Leart: I'm talking about, getting people to buy a product that I want them to buy, and I'm doing that deliberately. And I understand the psychological underpinnings behind that decision. When doing that, there's a lot of questions on should I do that or not, that need to happen.

[00:15:28] Leart: And frankly, I don't believe that people in marketing are, too worried about that right now, even if they're not doing the whole strategy behind it. In their execution. They're using all of the tricks, from neuro marketing, from all of these other aspects of science that we've learned them, we now do them by default that, are very worrying because all of the AI tools will be able to automate and Get us to purchase stuff we don't want or we don't need much faster than we thought we would and much stronger than we could protest against, so to speak, or like stop ourselves from buying. And so I think one of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest topics is finding, Common ethical ground in the market on what can be done, what cannot be done, especially us having this background and introducing so much of human psychology in our, work, that's going to be one of the biggest topics for me in the coming years.

[00:16:14] Leart: It's how do I build a company that doesn't haunt me in my dreams tomorrow? Right. that's probably. The biggest one for me,

[00:16:21] Hector: Yeah. for the longest time, the marketing person at places like, I think it's Philip Morris, which is like the big tobacco company in the US or, Pepsi or Coke, which is the big soda companies, the marketing people there, the only thing they had to think about was just selling more cans of soda or more, packs of cigarettes.

[00:16:37] Hector: but today I think that There is a need for more of those ethical considerations, and it's, happening from the small businesses, it seems, and I think that, maybe there will be bottom up kind of movement, but absolutely, I think you're on to something, and you kind of hold the keys, if you will, to this stuff, you know, kind of have the arsenal leading that charge, if you will. this has been a fantastic conversation and I love the opportunity to learn through examples, specific case studies because a lot of people can come on here and they can spout off their three points or their three tips or they can start lecturing people, but I think some of the best learning is.

[00:17:12] Hector: when it's through real life examples, but with that being said, is there anything else that you think is worth saying about today's topic or anything else that you think is worth covering? with regards to what we talked about today?

[00:17:23] Leart: speaking about scaling companies, I guess, I think it's more and more obvious that any founder should know their customer as well as possible. we're living in a world where people are more and more knowing themselves, We're going into this inward journey and we're trying to figure ourselves out and all that kind of stuff more so than we've done in the past, I would suspect.

[00:17:40] Leart: And, I think it's just crucial to mention that, moving forward, the companies will need to do more and more of this, clarifying their brands, clarifying their positioning, understanding their audience, not only from like a purchase behavior standpoint, but more so from a personality standpoint.

[00:17:56] Leart: I think the more we understand about that. definitely the more questions we need to raise as founders, for ourselves and for our companies as to what we want to do and what we should do and what we shouldn't. I know that's not like A very clarifying sentence, but it's just a couple of points that I want to point out and, having helped quite a few companies, I've understood the power of this I think it's important that other, people also just, hear about it, know about it and know that whether or not they're doing it deliberately. they're still doing it, in regards to changing people's behaviors one way or another. So, it's just important to have that thought in mind.

[00:18:26] Hector: Yeah, it's great that you bring the ethical, perspective to this conversation because without it, it could be great. Thank you. why we're perhaps in a lot of the situations that we're in. So, uh, you just came out with a new show or relative. I think it launched this year. in the last few months talk a little bit about that and then where people might be able to find you online or on social.

[00:18:43] Leart: Yeah. So that's actually interesting. so a lot of my work had been in my head and around our portfolio, but not so much public. And then I started talking to a mentor of mine from New York and He was like, what do you do? And that was our first encounter and I was like, well, we do brand and psychology and he's like, oh, that's interesting And you can talk.

[00:19:00] Leart: I mean clearly I start talking you can see I don't shut up easily and he's like you should start your own show and actually talk about these things and That's how it started. it's skins agency podcast that's called brand and psychology But I do tap on exactly branding psychology and the ethics of it.

[00:19:16] Leart: talking to a lot of marketing folks About this, I want to understand whether or not they're thinking about it. And I've had some cool people on the show that have managed some of the world's largest marketing teams or brands. I'm asking these questions.

[00:19:27] Leart: It's like, do we have an ethical ground to stand on? And that's, the overarching story there. so yeah, anyone Who's interested in branding marketing ethics, psychology within these terms, probably might find something interesting there, but also very interested to talk to anyone who, has a branding or marketing background and is interested in talking about these conversations.

[00:19:47] Leart: This should be a message would love to have a conversation.

[00:19:49] Hector: Well, this has been fun conversation. Selfishly, these, conversations, they tend to happen always at the perfect time. see how, essentially every business can, can implement this stuff. So really, really good stuff here. Those of you listeners who stuck with us, we appreciate you being here.

[00:20:04] Hector: We would love a rating, a review, wherever you get your podcasts. If you know someone who is running a business in the midst of scaling it, or thinking about starting one, send this episode to them and let's help them grow together. and as always, thanks for being a part of the tribe. Y'all we'll see on the next one later, fam.