5 Minutes with… Beth Noonan

M&C Saatchi Fabric’s director tells LBB’s Zoe Antonov why brands should aim to connect people to each other to build communities

Beth Noonan, director at M&C Saatchi Fabric – a division of the group created in 2020 and entirely concerned with inserting brand relevance into the fabric of everyday life and culture – joined the agency in 2010. Ten years later, her and managing director Laura Coller led the creation of Fabric which began with just the two of them. It has now grown into a team of over 25 ‘lifestyle specialists’ and an impressive client roster, including Coca-Cola, Reebok, and adidas, to name a few. 
Beth is an expert in talent-led activations, having worked on a number of recent large-scale global media events across the world, which helps us bring a fresh perspective on the growing opportunities for brands to tap into the lifestyle space. Celebrities, the likes of which include Ariana Grande, Victoria Beckham and Christiano Ronaldo, are only a few of her client partners. 
Her latest project included launching a dedicated social team to work with adidas runners and build their running community across 47 markets. Their role? To focus on developing editorial content to create inclusive environments where runners of all abilities and backgrounds can connect and thrive. 
It’s important to understand that Beth’s role goes way deeper than just putting a famous person on a brand’s website – it is understanding that things that were ‘once necessities or hobbies’ have now become passions, and consumers are always engaging with their passions. This is, to her, what creates the essence of lifestyle, which is a multilayered space that virtually anybody is able to tap into with the right help.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Beth to better understand the dangers of activating talent, how authenticity is built through small steps, what ‘lifestyle’ really means, the difference between global and local relevance and much more.

LBB> You joined M&C Saatchi in 2010 – what were your first years there like and how did you climb the ladder internally?

Beth> My early years at M&C Saatchi were an electric introduction to agency life – it was fast, furious, and I loved every minute of it. Right from the beginning, I was working on incredible campaigns; as an account executive I was working on projects for huge brands, with massive global talent like David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gigi Hadid, and travelling all over the world. I’ve been very lucky that travel has always been a big part of my role – over the years, my job has taken me all over the world, from Brazil with Coca-Cola to Hong Kong, LA, Boston and New York with Reebok, to San Francisco, El Paso, Paris and Berlin with adidas to name just a few. 
I climbed the ladder quickly. I loved what I did and was extremely passionate. I worked hard and put in the hours to always make sure the work was something I was proud of. I joined the agency relatively inexperienced but wasn’t intimidated by how much I had to learn – even today, one of my favourite things about my job is that I am constantly learning. PR, and the lifestyle space, is an ever-evolving landscape. This is an industry where the playbook changes every day and specialists need to be creative, agile and adaptable to keep up. 

LBB> Tell me about the creation of M&C Saatchi Fabric and your role in it. Why was it an important step for the agency and where did it fit into the market for brands looking to push through popular culture?

Beth> We launched the Lifestyle Division within M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment in 2016, and then launched M&C Saatchi Fabric in 2020. Sport and entertainment connects brands to consumers through two clearly defined passions, but the lifestyle space isn’t defined in the same way – it’s about the things that form the fabric of our everyday lives. We saw there was a real opportunity for an integrated creative services offering for brands operating in, or wanting to break into the lifestyle space. The essence of lifestyle culture is the shift from product consumption as a functional utility to product consumption as community membership. Things that were once necessities or hobbies are now passions, and consumers are living their passions in a more ‘always-on’ way – essentially, we’re more passionate about more things, more of the time. It’s braggable to be interested in multiple things and the digital landscape is only accelerating people’s depth of knowledge. The lifestyle space is constantly growing as a result and the opportunity for brands is huge. 
I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside M&C Saatchi Fabric managing director Laura Coller for over 13 years now. The Lifestyle team began as pretty much the two of us, and now we have grown Fabric into a team of over 25 Lifestyle specialists with an incredible client roster. I’m very proud of what we have achieved in such a short space of time. 

LBB> Tell me more about your work with the ‘lifestyle specialists’ and what that role entails?

Beth> At M&C Saatchi Fabric, we create change for brands by making them culturally relevant within people’s passions. As such, it is imperative that our team is made up of dedicated lifestyle specialists and experts in the space. Our work is predominantly within the earned function so our role is to create campaigns for brands that media, influencers and tastemakers want to engage with, that will ultimately inspire communities and consumers. Most brands aim to connect themselves to the community, but we instead believe that brand impact comes when you connect communities to each other. Our team is all skilled at building culturally relevant, topical campaigns with layered storytelling which deliver editorially relevant, shareable output. 
Everyone plays an important role. A lot of our work is in the youth culture space, and so our junior team members are often the ones guiding us in terms of what’s hot and the cultural tastemakers and trends we should be engaging with. They are our ears to the ground and their insights are often crucial to informing campaign development. 

LBB> You lead a range of global, European and UK PR campaigns for M&C Saatchi Fabric’s client roster – tell me more about the most prominent experiences you’ve had and which brand projects stand out for you? Which were the most challenging and equally, which were the most fun and why?

Beth> I’ve been really lucky to have worked on some incredible campaigns over the years. A real career highlight for me was launching Victoria Beckham’s collection with Reebok – her first move into sportswear, streetwear and the lifestyle space. This was a true collaboration between two giants so it was imperative that we crafted the storytelling and creative execution strategically to make sure it landed in the right way with the press. I’ve also become very used to having to pull together huge events on very short notice – we once had just three weeks to organise a global media event in Hong Kong to announce Ariana Grande as Reebok’s newest ambassador. 
Luckily, I prefer working under pressure! Most projects will come with their own set of challenges – especially when working with high profile talent or partners – and we work through them as a team. We once launched the adidas Y-3 collaboration with Virgin Galactic at Spaceport America which is in the middle of the desert in New Mexico. Running around a tiny town in the desert called ‘Truth and Consequences’ with one of the senior Virgin Galactic scientists, desperately trying to find mannequins for our product display is an experience that I still laugh about now.

LBB> Working on talent-led campaigns is your specialty. How has the culture changed around audiences’ trust in brands that utilise celebrity talent or influencer? And what kind of considerations are taken when you put together talent and brand with a certain goal in mind? 

Beth> Audiences are much more discerning now when it comes to paid talent and influencer campaigns. Whilst I think most consumers now accept it as the norm, most still hate feeling like they are being ‘sold’ to and are having brands and products pushed onto them. 
Authenticity is imperative – there has to be an authentic narrative between the brand and the talent/influencer or audiences will see right through it. When activating talent particularly, the most important thing is creating a concept that the talent buys into. If you have a concept that the talent loves, they will tend to give more of their time and energy because they are invested in the idea. A successful example of this is work that we did with Hailey Bieber a couple of years ago for adidas and JD. At the time, she wanted to be seen as more than just a model and by making her the brand’s first ever ‘style creator’ and hosting an off-schedule catwalk show, we created an activation that she was invested in. She gave more of her time and input into the event as a result and that showed in the quality of generated media coverage.

LBB> The rise of ‘cancel culture’ has also risen rapidly over the past few years. How can brands navigate that and what are some dangerous zones that you try to help them get over? Or should authenticity help the fear disperse? 

Beth> Consumers expect more from the brands they buy into than ever before, and a lot of brands are now naturally wanting to get involved in more purpose-led marketing as a result. But brands can’t just make empty statements. Before engaging with any specific conversations, causes or communities, we always interrogate whether the brand can truly be a part of that conversation in a credible and authentic way. If not, they need to take a step back and begin laying down the groundwork with smaller moves into the narrative. These aren’t conversations brands can just insert themselves into. If you’re not making or contributing towards meaningful change, it comes off as tokenistic. 
This isn’t all though. The more that brands work with talent and influencers, the more they are potentially at risk of being brought into damaging situations. Brands are now not only held accountable for their own actions but for their partners’ actions too. Talent can be unpredictable and you can’t control what they’re going to say. Proper vetting of talent to make sure they are brand-safe and align with your values should help to minimise the risk, but brands need to be prepared to take a stand against any controversial behaviour that does not align with their own principles. A social media storm can ignite quickly as anger around a controversy galvanises. Brands need to act quickly and decisively. It is much better to look like decision-making is being governed by real brand values, rather than as a result of bowing to public pressure. 

LBB> Besides utilising celebrity talent, what is the best brands can do today to stay culturally relevant in such a dynamic media landscape? And do some brands have it easier compared to others?

Beth> Our objective is always to create earned stories that permeate culture. Aside from celebrity talent, you can achieve this by tapping into cultural passion points through a lifestyle lens and through tactical partnerships with the people, entities and brands who authenticate cool factor and who will align with and elevate your brand values.  
To stay culturally relevant, brands can really help themselves by investing in the ‘earned’ function. Earned is able to deliver depth of storytelling and layered messaging more than any other medium and it is unique in that it requires the audience to opt-in to the narrative. It is also truly the only channel in the marketing ecosystem that is able to move at the speed of culture which is essential to staying relevant. 
In terms of whether some brands have it easier to be culturally relevant, the huge, globally recognised brands that are leaders in their spaces are in a fairly unique position of being able to actually shape culture and lead the news agenda. However, most brands have the opportunity to reflect culture by leveraging the news and piggybacking onto something that’s hot. That doesn’t always need to be an expensive tactic – it’s about harnessing something topical in a clever and relevant way to get people talking about your brand. 

LBB> Tell me about how you manage to navigate the evolving lifestyle landscape, especially when it comes to working across many countries with extremely differing popular cultures?

Beth> It’s essential to appreciate the global versus local experience and understand the nuance between global and local relevance. When building global campaigns to create multi-market impact, we focus on creating narratives that have universal appeal and then building in local precision to make the execution feel both globally cohesive and bespoke to the market. The overarching narrative will remain the same across all markets, but that storytelling is then brought to life in a locally relevant way by bringing in the partners, talent, collaborators, artists, musicians and communities that are leading cultural change and have media currency locally. 

LBB> And are there some drivers of culture and lifestyle that are always at work, regardless of the country? A lighthouse in the space that you can always be guided by?

Beth> To have cultural kudos, brands need to be able to be reactive to the news agenda; most cultural moments now originate on social, and with the speed that social moves, a trend can peak and then become old news, fast, so you have to be agile. However, there are things in the cultural calendar that it is possible to plan against to try and leverage. Culture is driven by shared experiences so there are certain big, global moments in time that will always have a macro impact and set the cultural agenda year after year – fashion month, the Met Gala or the Super Bowl halftime show for example. Then there are the pop culture moments that we can plan against as we know the whole world will be talking about them – e.g. a huge artist like Beyoncé going on tour, massive movie releases like the Barbie film and highly anticipated shows airing. Think about the final series of ‘Succession’ which not only took over our TVs and feeds, but also our wardrobes thanks to the ‘quiet luxury’ fashion trend it ignited. These are pop culture moments which brands can tap into and be part of the conversation to carve a slice of the hype. 

LBB> How can brands avoid being a one-hit wonder in pop culture and instead make a lasting impact?

Beth> Being culture-first means infiltrating the people, places and platforms your audience loves. To maintain relevance, brands should aim to cultivate ongoing relationships with cultural-shape shifters, whether that be individuals or like minded brands or collectives.It’s not something that will happen overnight though, you have to keep showing up. Credibility is something that has to be earned. You can be culturally relevant in the moment, but the objective should always be to drive long term, meaningful cultural relevance. Culture is built from the ground up and so meaningful storytelling is essential. 

LBB> Lastly, what are your passions and hobbies outside of work?

I am an avid reader so books are a real passion of mine. Trying to balance a career with two very small children unfortunately doesn’t leave much time for many hobbies of my own these days! That parental ‘juggle’ is something that I am very passionate about though. I am the co-chair of the M&C Saatchi Family Network and our aim is to build a progressive family friendly culture that allows employees to thrive. Part of my role is to spearhead policy and cultural change and I’m really proud that this work will have a positive impact on the experience of employees with caring responsibilities within the group. 

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