Mark Lester: [00:00:00] It seems obvious now, but the time you're like, could you really call this thing soda? It's obviously made very differently. It's a really different type of liquid. So the first thing was a credibility check. Could it even be done?

Chris Kocek: Welcome to Any Insights Yet, the podcast that explores the intersection of strategy, inspiration, and branding. I'm Chris Kocek. In today's episode, I sit down with Mark Lester, co-founder of Squint, a brand consultancy that has helped brands like Nike. Netflix and Olipop find their Happiness Advantage. During our conversation, Mark breaks down the Happiness Advantage, the framework they use at Squint for helping brands grow, and he shares the aha moments that came out of their research for Ol ipop.

He also highlights how those aha moments led to packaging design changes, partnerships and brand activations that have helped transform Olipop from a sparkling digestive tonic in health food stores into a nearly $2 billion soda brand that [00:01:00] you can find in grocery stores across the country. We also dive into Mark's work with Nike, including his research around Gen Z's fraying relationship with competitive sports, and why collaborative games are becoming increasingly popular.

To get things started though, I asked Mark about his first aha moment, and it turns out it came to him in song form.

What's the first time you remember noticing something where you were like, doesn't anybody else notice this? What was the situation and what did you notice? 

Mark Lester: I think it was band lyrics. You know? It was like desperately trying to understand what Paranoid Android by Radiohead was about, you know? Or you know, like I got very into David Bowie because like he was very sophisticated in his lyric writing.

You know, like I'd be talking to someone to be like, do you know Ashes to Ashes is about heroin addiction and references a character he created like a decade ago. So I don't know if those were like bigger ahas in the way we were describing the industry. It [00:02:00] was just that sort of like, that really nerding out on pop culture, you know, in a deep way.

And you know, you would always find a couple of kids who shared that passion. You know, when we go deep on those things with you, and then a lot of people would be like, mate, you’re just overthinking this thing. Like, what are you, what are you on about? You know?

Chris Kocek: No, I, I think that's great. That's a great example because I think.

That's the first time maybe for a lot of people, usually, you know, in middle school or teenage years, where you start to realize, I think there's another layer going on in this song. I think this isn't just about this. There's something else going on here. And that, of course, serves you very well in strategy and in marketing because you're always trying to figure out what's really going on here.

Oh, very interesting song lyrics is a gateway to strategy. So speaking of which, you have an agency called Squint where you've helped a variety of brands including Nike, Netflix, Olipop, Daily Pay, among others. But before we get to those examples, I do want to ask you about [00:03:00] your agency name, Squint. What's the story behind that?

Mark Lester: We were looking for a term, a word that was just about taking a bit of a, sort of a fresh look or an unusual look at things. But we also had this sort of brief to ourselves, which is we wanted a short fat word, you know, like we wanted it to be short, fat, and fun was what we were saying to ourselves.

And we just felt there was a lot of brand consultancies out there with very formal names. That's not what we want it to be. You know, we wanted to take the insight, fun and creativity of ad agencies into the brand consultancy world. We felt some of that skillset could be moved upstream and needed to be moved upstream.

So we wanted the name to signal that. We had a lot of people telling us and good friends who loved us saying, don't name the company this. It's a terrible name, you know?

Chris Kocek: Really? You were advised against Squint?

Mark Lester: No, a lot of people did, but we always really believed it. And it's funny now, but at the time, [00:04:00] yeah, like people with great intentions being like, don't, you'll undermine the mission of the company.

People wanna take you seriously. But we were like, well, we want to introduce ourselves in the terms that we wanna be introduced in, which is we're insightful, we're imaginative, and that's. The nature of the relationships we wanna have. 

Chris Kocek: Well, it immediately gives me a visual of somebody taking their glasses off and leaning in and squinting so they can see something much more closely.

And I think, I mean, talk about a symbolic name to make people say, look, we look more closely at things, 

Mark Lester: And I think sometimes you just need. All great guitar solos have some minor notes in them. You know, there some notes that don't quite work and you just need something that's like, oh, it's worth paying attention to.

Chris Kocek: Were there any other names that got left on the cutting room floor? 

Mark Lester: Bahoochie was one is one, which is it's Scottish slang firm. Ars or Bottom, and it's actually our holding company name is Bahoochie. But uh, now we were like, do we really wanna have to explain them what this [00:05:00] means to people? Squint was a very clear winner.

There was no viable second candidate. 

Chris Kocek: That's interesting. 'cause you know, if you've got the right product market fit, you can call yourself whatever you want. Right. So, you know, nobody knew what Google was or what it was referencing when they first came out, but it's so good at what it does in terms of search that nobody cares.

They just. Google something. Yahoo, of course at one point, wanted to make everybody have that feeling. When you find the thing you're looking for, 

Mark Lester: They're fun to say. Google and Yahoo, the logic is important, but also this sort of visceral experience of the word is, is important, you know? And sometimes you can, you can rationalize yourself out of a great name, can't you?

Chris Kocek: I love a good naming exercise. Your agency has helped transform Olipop into a $2 billion brand using something that you call the Happiness Advantage. So first of all, in just a sentence [00:06:00] or two, what is the Happiness Advantage? 

Mark Lester: The happiness advantage to us is understanding what the fundamental drivers of happiness in any category are.

Organizing a brand around it for commercial advantage. And we are not trying to argue that this is an original thought in the world of branding. All the best brands have effectively found their path to this. But what we were trying to argue when we introduced it is. One, it's not done sufficiently well upstream, and even in places like creative agencies that have historically grappled with these things, it's just not implemented in process well enough.

Like how many times do you actually sit there and say, have we audited? What delights people within this category? And what frustrates them. So we really wanted to entrench it and make it the focus of our company. We thought it was a timeless truth, and we also thought that it was a timely one in the nature of the sort of, uh, unhappiness crisis that we live in.

So for all of those reasons that I described became the sort of founding principle of our. 

Chris Kocek: So [00:07:00] take me back to the very beginning with Olipop. Olipop launches in 2018. The original packaging says sparkling digestive tonic. It's doing okay, but it's not exactly catching fire. Then Squint comes along around 2021 and you join forces with Olipop, and one of the first things you do is you go on a hike with the founders.

Mark Lester: Yeah, and particularly this was with Ben Goodwin, one of the two founders, and super interesting because this was a transition moment for me in my career of going from working. You know, large corporate organizations like Heineken and you know, founders of very different animals, you know, and so even the first meeting being a hike in California was just, you know, it was just a very different experience, very unstructured conversation.

A lot of what Ben wants to understand is your values, you know, as a human being, which, you know, feels very [00:08:00] exposing. Honestly for recover in the corporate world. The thing that Ben was passionate about was prebiotics and gut health. You know, a really deep sense of mission around that. You end up with a very deep conversation about public health, how people make choices in your values.

I think I about survived, not in terms of keeping up with the conversation. I think at times I was very disorientated because, you know, I was used to meetings with agendas and, you know, all, all the above. So I, I think to begin with, I felt very exposed. 

Chris Kocek: It sounds like something from a TV show, people would be like, no.

Their first meeting wasn't out in the Hollywood Hills. Now his co-founder is David Lester. Your Mark Lester. Do you think it helped that you share the same last name as one of the co-founders? 

Mark Lester: David and I are brothers, yes. 

Chris Kocek: So what was the original challenge that Ben and David came to you with? What did they think their biggest problem was?

Mark Lester: So all those guys at that stage, you know when you're, so they're a sort [00:09:00] $50 million a year business and there's the hardest yards to get through, but they're all thinking the same thing. For a packaged good founder, which is, I'm succeeding in a specialty store, I want to get into mainstream retail, they really deeply believed in.

The difference that getting more prebiotics into people could make, and they wanted to make it easy for people, and we just said, what is the way that we can get this so that it's not just a somewhat successful item, Whole Foods, but a very successful item at Walmart, CVS. At that stage, they hadn't done any consumer research, so the conversation is very framed around what are the retail buyers telling you that they want?

Retail buyers are great and very smart people. But they often get stuff really wrong, 

Chris Kocek: right? Oh, we've got plenty of experience on the CPG side. And retail buyers are great. They know what's going on on the ground in certain ways, and there are certain things they're looking for. But in the world of CPG, you've gotta have another [00:10:00] perspective.

As well if you want to catch consumers. And it sounds like you guys really wanted to cross the chasm from natural to mainstream. What did you think their biggest problem was that was holding them back? 

Mark Lester: We always had hypothesis about how much people wanted a health drink. You know, kombucha was doing very well at that point, but you know, you always had this thing of how big is gut health.

You could see there were sort of signals in where it was fit. The liquid was great, but was the way that the thing was being packaged. There was a sense that it was just like wasn't quite in the right slip stream. Yeah. 

Chris Kocek: It's funny, you know, when I think about brands that get started, and again, we've worked with a lot of brands that are in the natural food space.

It reminds me almost of like the primaries in a political season where it's like, okay, you're just playing to your base here. But after you win the primary, if you want to go mainstream and take the nation by storm, you're going to have to appeal to a wider group. 

Mark Lester: [00:11:00] It's a great analogy, and I think a lot of what happens is as you're coming through a Whole Foods, they convince you of things that if you're not careful, can limit your ultimate potential, even within Whole Foods itself.

Chris Kocek: So Whole Foods was the first big retailer that Olipop was in. 

Mark Lester: One of the first ones. Yeah, it was a series of like Whole Foods Erwon, uh, you know, all those kinds of specialty health stores. 

Chris Kocek: Now I want to keep going with Olipop, but before we keep going, I do want to ask, are there certain questions that you like to ask clients at the beginning of a new project to help crack things open or create a perspective shift?

Mark Lester: The two big questions for us are always, what do people really love about this thing? What frustrates them about it. We have a more complex framework that we take into research, which is we look at four things, which is associations, habits, beliefs, and memories. When you're saying like, what do people love about this?

Like if you're thinking about association, what are the other things that people love that this is like. What [00:12:00] would they associate with? If you're thinking about from a habit standpoint, like what is the thing that they do that makes it lovable? What are the important elements of that ritual? What belief does it reinforce for them in the thing that they love doing about it?

Like does it make 'em feel better about themselves or does it cast up a memory just positive for them? And if so, what kind of memory? So again, that sort of associations have its beliefs and memories. That's sort of a big part of our happiness framework of saying like, those are techniques to get deeper.

Chris Kocek: Were there any negative memories associated with, uh, drinking Olipop

Mark Lester: What we came into was an exploration of different types of framing. Of what the product concept was. So if you take two of them, tonic and soda, the fundamental associations behind a tonic is a health drink. And actually both prebiotics and tonic had some negative associations with folks because it makes it sound like taste like shit.

Chris Kocek: Hey, would you like a tasty prebiotic drink? It's got prebiotics. [00:13:00] Yummy. Exactly. 

Mark Lester: So that was, and with taste, the number one driver, effectively, you can overboard on your health messaging without realizing you put yourself in a not tasty category. You know, some of the stuff around prebiotics and gut health, uh, for some folks they're like, sounds like I can't drink a lot of them.

Because I'm gonna be over full or I'm gonna poop too much. You know, like, not necessarily negative, but it's a limiting belief. Whereas one of the things we had when we're testing a soda concept is, do we have permission? It seems obvious now, but the time you're like, could you really call this thing soda?

It's obviously made very differently. It's a really different type of liquid. So the first thing was a credibility check. Could it even be done? And the, the answer to that was absolutely like people most intuitively, naturally saw it as a soda because it had some soda flavors in there, like root beer, and so people were very happy to associate with soda.

And soda just runs so deep in America. You know, there's like regional [00:14:00] pride in different forms of flavor. So it's a very emotive subject, but what people would always bring it back to was childhood memories. What was interesting was this three-year-old brand was getting a lot of credit for things that happened when these people were like seven years old.

Because again, like that stage, there wasn't tons of soda flavors, but there was a few like the root beer that were creating the architecture for those associations, and it was like. I remember mowing my grandma's lawn and having a can of root beer on the porch afterwards, and I remember a feeling of being loved, safe, and at home.

And that's what everyone described, like that was the sort of emotional construct forum. And so when we were comparing these different constructs, it's just like there's a clear winner here. Like there's one of these is a happiness concept, or those are health concepts and. We were like, the happiness concept is gonna win.

But you [00:15:00] know, people told us we want the thing to be branded like cereals were in the eighties. We just wanted to be fun. We did a millions partnership. We did Barbie, we created Yetis for the, you know, Christmas. You know, we talked a lot within the group of like, what would Coca-Cola in the heyday have done?

You know, like Coca-Cola, the seventies, you know, we really went and wanted to go and attack like a very classic soda playbook, and we just felt like. The functional innovation of the beverage, it just needed to get mapped into that existing memory space in American consumers' heads, which in some ways, traditional servers can't do anymore.

They can't own wholesomeness because people know that it's bad for 'em. You've seen them jump around to all different types of spaces in their positionings to try and cope with that, whereas the wholesome beverage was able to kind of come in and occupy that. Occupy that space. 

Chris Kocek: Well, I know, I mean, what attracted me to Olipop initially was just the fact that it has so [00:16:00] few grams of sugar, right?

And sugar became public enemy number one. I guess it's been that way for a little while. And that was also what was driving a lot of people to just the sparkling waters, right? The Waterloos, the LaCroixs. Is it LaCroix or LaCroix? 

Mark Lester: Well, I think everyone's got their own spelling. Don't you think that's one of those brands like Le Pain Quotidien or whatever, where like, either sound pretentious being too French or, or like an idiot. You know?

Chris Kocek: Uhhuh.

Mark Lester: To your point, one of the things we did was restructure the health messaging and, and for most folks, sugar, low calories were the biggest thing. Prebiotics was third or fourth, depending on how you cut the data. So like a more general wholesome and things like fiber become quite important because I think part of the functional health revolution is, it's not just about taking stuff out, it's about the idea that there's good stuff in there.

Chris Kocek: Absolutely. I mean, it reminds me of like [00:17:00] Dave's Killer Bread, which you know, here you've got this thing bread, which is just a useless carb, right? It's not giving you anything, and I call them like Product Plus. Where basically they're plusing up the product so that now it's got fiber, it's got seeds, it's got protein, you know, like who knew bread could give you so much?

And of course Dave's did that and, and Olipop did that in the, in the soda space. You mentioned associations a second ago. Let's do a quick word association game. What were some words, words or phrases associated with sparkling tonic? 

Mark Lester: Tonic was always the operative word there. It's health, it's pharmacies, and everything to do with health.

You know, it's good for you. And then on the flip side of that, yeah, it's bad tasting. That was really the whole, it's a, it's a health and good for me bad taste map. 

Chris Kocek: And it's medicinal. I mean, you mentioned the pharmacies. It's [00:18:00] interesting that soda fountains began in pharmacies because it was this thing to promote health.

How far we've fallen, how far we've come. 

Mark Lester: They were giving people cocaine and, uh, and out of these soda fountains to, to make them feel better. It was interesting. Yeah. 

Chris Kocek: The original energy. 

Mark Lester: The tonics loaded with all those things, and it's just, it's alienating to most people. Like, they're just like, I don't think I would wanna drink a tonic.

Chris Kocek: And then what were some of the words or phrases associated with soda that were vastly different? 

Mark Lester: Soda is love in America, it's home, warmth, it's comfort, it's safety. It's exceptionally emotive. You get this really interesting mix of relaxation and stimulation. It does both. I don't think we've ever found the right way to describe that, but yeah, everyone, honestly, everyone goes back to.

Childhood, childhood memories. The word home just comes up a lot and it's that home. What home is, is [00:19:00] it's when you didn't have worries, you felt loved and safe. If that's what soda, silver takes people back to, and it's still, that's still the winning proposition in soda and your ability to go and occupy that space is the thing that propels you to the most success.

It's certainly the clearest. Best business path in. And so, you know, for us taking a tonic and putting it effectively into the soda mainline. Gotta embrace and love what soda is really about in America. 

Chris Kocek: So you move Olipop into the soda category. That's a huge shift in terms of the competitive set and now it really kind of feels like Olipop and Poppi are the new Coke and Pepsi of this generation.

In February of 2025, Olipop was valued at 1.85 billion, and in spring of 2025, Poppi ends up getting acquired by PepsiCo for $2 billion. So you guys are running neck and neck. What would you say [00:20:00] is the difference between Olipop and Poppi? 

Mark Lester: Well first I'd say there's some pretty fundamental differences with the liquids, so I would encourage everyone to go and read the back of those cans.

And uh, obviously I'm not impartial, but I would say they are branded very deliberately, I think to look very similar. The underlying liquids are very different. So that's one thing I would bear in mind when it comes to sort of brands and associations. The Coke, Pepsi parallels is perfect and, and really that's what consumers understand.

They understand Olipop as the sort of classic, traditional. Wholesome brands and they understand Poppi as the young, trendy brand. You ask people like, how do you describe the differences? You know, they expect Olipop to show up in a way that's like intergenerational and like inclusive and you know, there's things that they, they, they think it shouldn't do.

You know, as the sort of like more adult and they [00:21:00] see Poppi as the sort of slightly brasher, more sort of trendy out there, one. 

Chris Kocek: Right, and you've also got Liquid Death getting into the mix, also valued around 1.5 to $2 billion. They're starting to take some shots at prebiotic beverages. I'm sure you've seen the ad that came out recently that just showed a people sitting in a toilet stall, a bathroom stall, and they're saying, “our products won't make you go to the bathroom.”

Do you feel like the competitive set is shifting again? 

Mark Lester: Not yet. Uh, obviously got a lot of respect for Liquid Death and, and what they've been up to. I don't think it's a sign, you know, it's, it's not a significant part of the commercial landscape, you know, of, of this category right now. You know, it'd be interesting for a brand like Liquid Death, which that has very much not been their proposition or their reputation as they, you know, as they move into space, you know how they fare.

But every man and his dog is having a go at it. And as you know, as you know, Chris. The vast majority won't, won't succeed because it's not as easy as it seems. Would [00:22:00] liquid death be the one I would back? You know, I don't think so. You know, personally, I think for the reasons I've outlined, I think it's too big a transition for them.

It's still a young market, so certainly something disruptive could happen. 

Chris Kocek: For sure. So let's switch gears and talk about another $2 billion brand that Squint has been part of. It's in a totally different category. It's something called Daily Pay. And for our listeners who may have never heard of Daily Pay, what exactly is Daily Pay in a couple of sentences.

Mark Lester: So Daily Pay does exactly what it says on the tin. It gets you your pay, or some of your pay every day instead of every two weeks. And it's particularly important for hourly wage workers or blue collar workers in America. So it's really a service designed for folks that are living paycheck to paycheck, who would potentially like more flexible access to their money.

So, but the reach of, it's called the earned wage access category, it's enormous. Now, like if you know an hourly wage worker, they will know these services [00:23:00] and Daily Pay has about 70% of the market. If you work at Target or you know, other supermarket if you're a nurse, those things are a super important part of the pay landscape now.

Chris Kocek: Mm-hmm. And you discovered something in the research that was really interesting and quite powerful actually. What was it? 

Mark Lester: As you can imagine with a service like this, there is a danger that a limiting factor becomes, it is viewed as non aspirational. Like effectively it's viewed like food stamps. You know, it's a great service, but not something you wanna be seen to be a part of.

And they'd actually done a ton of great research on this stuff. We didn't do any original research, we just audited all of the research that they had. And one of the things. You know, it was a case of a client not necessarily realizing the power of their own data. One of the things that we came back and showed them was people didn't actually take money out very often.

It was only, yeah, I think it was on average less than once a month, but what most people were doing was checking the bank balance once a day, and [00:24:00] often it was a thing that people did in the morning. It was basically a thing that you worked. By the next day, you could see the money go in and there was no rational reason to do that.

Like, you know, you know how much is going in, it's a repeating pattern, but people really talked about how transformative that moment was for them and. If you've got a job where you're working for a large organization, you feel like a small cog and a big machine, like any sense that you're bringing power back into your own life is enormously powerful.

And so it had this enormous sort of emotional effect on people and it, it pays an incredibly popular service like it's. Positivity rating. I have never seen a financial product with anything close to it. It's like it has a 4.8 on the app store, like it's got like an 80% positivity rating. Like it's great.

People love it. So we were like, this is, this is the template. And if we unpack what is powerful about that? It rebrands you as something that's not remedial [00:25:00] in nature. It's not about running outta gas money and needing more cash. It's about an optimistic sense that your hard work does pay off and can move ahead in your life.

Chris Kocek: So how did that finding that, you just talked about it somersaulted into a more compelling creative, right? So this finding led to more compelling, creative, what was the creative execution before? And then you just mentioned where it went as a result of this. So can you paint a picture for me? What would an ad for daily pay have been like before you tapped into this Happiness Advantage framework?

Mark Lester: Daily Pay was probably, I think a 10-year-old organization at that stage that had mainly grown itself through like B2B sales, selling into the likes of Target, and then effectively email access to the employee base. So they never really had, you know, like they had some [00:26:00] performance based marketing, they had some social and they had their, their sales decks and website, which are really still their most important com, you know, comms channels in, you know, in many ways.

And so part of our remit was to introduce a brand platform for the first time. Part of that was priming the organization for what a brand platform was, what it was about. And how it could influence all of the things that I've just, you know, that I've just talked about. So that hard work pays off in the Daily.

That was the brand platform that was developed and we worked kind of closely with them on a, you know, on a partnership strategy, which led to the, the sponsorship of a load of stadiums. Sports stadiums around the states and for us like that just became like the perfect vehicle for this message around hard work paying off.

But also the sports stadiums were great spaces for them because of the employees that they had working in there. And so. Part of what the team was actually able to go and do this is Daily pays internal team. Like they created these great moments which were actually about [00:27:00] celebrating the best employees at the sports stadiums in hotline moments.

All under the banner of hard work pays off on the daily and like where we're really kind of proud about that work I think is like it just became about celebrating. Hardworking employees and their progress. A big transformation for us from a sense of something quite remedial to something very optimistic and positive, and reinforcing a belief that if you work hard in America, you can still move up, you know, in the world, which we know is a belief that's under attack.

Chris Kocek: You've also done some exciting work with Nike, specifically around youth sports and refugees at the Olympics. Do I have that right? 

Mark Lester: Yeah. Well, so we'd sort of come into Nike talking a lot about the happiness crisis. There was a few teams there where that thinking really resonated as the thought piece.

One of them was the purpose team, and they were working on a brief at that time, which was really thinking about. You know, Gen Z sort of frame a relationship with sport. I think, you know, it's well documented that like sport participation, uh, within the US you know, is, is overall declining. Like it, it [00:28:00] sport doesn't quite have the stranglehold on aspiration with young folks that it, that it kind of once did.

And they were sort of thinking about how to use the Olympics as a springboard to reinvigorate and appeal and connection. With a younger generation. We did a number of, you know, bits of research within Gen Z and talked to folks about what was frustrating 'em about sport as they understood it and the things that they really loved about it when they, when they got it right.

And I think what just emerged that really clearly was you can push competition too far. And for a generation that is exceptionally anxious. Right now and is in the midst of a health crisis, an anxiety health crisis, more pressure is the last thing they want. So other spaces like video games are not necessarily putting them under those kind of pressures.

They're easier places to go and relax, you know? So this sort of traditional. Quite confrontational world of, of competition for a lot of kids could really alienate them. But the thing that they really loved about sport was a sense that [00:29:00] it can build your resilience. Like it, you know, they, they can create skills for you outside of sport, you know, and actually the things you can learn within it.

And again, it can create a hopeful belief that actually, even if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, you have it with inside yourself to deal with those challenges and support can help you find those capabilities with yourself. 

Chris Kocek: Was there anything else about Gen Z's changing a relationship with sports that stood out to you in the research?

Mark Lester: Well, one of the things we ended up talking about quite a bit, I suppose through this, was the nature of ambition and success. And I think this could be a contentious topic, you know, because I think if you talk to older folks on this, they're like. They lack ambition. And we are always trying to present this within the voice of Gen Z where they're like, we think your system's broken and we don't wanna play by it.

You know? And that became a big thing, you know, because I think even in the sport within the sports infrastructure, it was like. You know, do you wanna win [00:30:00] the skateboarding competition or do you wanna become a skateboarding YouTube creator? Like is the competition the important thing, or is it just, is the real thing not to win it, but to participate a bit and spin off and create a really successful YouTube channel?

And you know, obviously like Nike's an aspirations based-company. And so the nature of ambition, aspiration is really central to them and does shape their relationship to sport. I mean, there's an overhype view that, you know, they don't admire athletes anymore, which plenty of kids who love, you know, famous athletes and footballers, but they, there is this nuance in what, what success means to them, what achievement, you know, and, and that sort of, that message of just sort of sticking to the playbook and working your way through.

Like, it's not always exactly what resonates with kids these days, I think. 

Chris Kocek: Well, it makes me think about like cutthroat competition. There's quite violent imagery in certain, uh, competitive metaphors, and I wonder if we're moving into another space that's more collaborative competition. I know [00:31:00] that may sound like an oxymoron, but there are games out there that are not about winning and losing.

Like yoga I, there, there's no such thing as competitive yoga. And yet. It's a sport. I think it would be considered a sport, wouldn't it? 

Mark Lester: Yoga sport. I look, I think that the performance matters, but I think performance can be confused with zero sum competition. And I think for the younger generation, zero sum competition isn't what's attracted to them.

The idea that you can improve your performance and reach new heights is still a very appealing idea and obviously to the heart of what the, you know, a brand like Nike has been around for a long period of time. It's when you really start saying. Second place is First Loser. You know, I think those are the types of things that can be quite alienating and like the highest growth areas in sport.

Things like cycling and rock climbing. You know, they're coming from lower bases. They are performance base sport. Like if you look at like rock [00:32:00] climbing, it's very interesting 'cause it's almost structured like a video game. You can go at your own pace. There's different levels to it. You can keep pushing yourself and you can decide at your own pace how you navigate the different levels, and there's a general community around it that's supportive and encouraging.

Everyone's on their own kind of path and journey. To be clear, that's coming at a very, very lower base than, you know, professional football or soccer. But those are the high growth areas. 

Chris Kocek: It's such an interesting shift, you know, from this kind of I win. You lose to how do we all win? Or how do we push each other?

The Latin root of the word competition is competi, which is a verb that means to strive together. Oh, interest. 

Mark Lester: Yeah, 

Chris Kocek: right? Mm-hmm. So competition is this idea of we strive together, we push each other so that we both get better at this. And I've always loved that idea much more so than [00:33:00] cutthroat competition, because if I win and you lose, I'm not striving with anybody anymore.

I've got no one to push me. 

Mark Lester: You know, it sometimes gets labeled as woke nonsense or something, but it's. It is the way the majority of kids feel. So I think it's important. And so if you look at like kids, particularly below the age of 12, comparison is miserable because if you, if you think about, it's so brutal about life, say middle school famously, there's so much going on that's so difficult for them already.

They're already being ranked in so many different types of ways. They're getting graded all the time. So then in their spare time, in their leisure or enjoyable time to now being, say. You are gonna be comparatively ranked with all the kids in another way, in a way that might not be favorable to you. Or the nations with the highest sport participation, which include like Norway got rid of ranking systems under certain age brackets, like particularly under the age of 12.

And they're like, just let 'em get to the [00:34:00] joy first. If they can just find the joy for the sport. You'll get big numbers through and then a smaller group of those will come through into a lead competition. But what's happened in states particularly is. Opposite competition. Practice has gone younger and and younger.

It's really reshaped, you know, high school and middle school sport in America, and it's pushed kids out, you know, so this isn't a new woke idea. It's actually in some ways returning sport in America back to its origins and this sort of hyper competitive behavior too early. Like obviously by the time you're competing for a World Cup or a gold medal, you need that mindset.

But if you push it to too many kids too early, you just push kids out of sport. And that's a, you know, that's a big part of what's happening. 

Chris Kocek: Oh, that's fascinating. 

Mark Lester: I tell you who else has done it. The NBA, the NBA was, was one thing that's, uh, been very cautious about having kids ranked under the age of 12 [00:35:00] because they just want 'em to, to learn the joy of basketball first.

Chris Kocek: Oh, interesting. Now, before we get into the speed round, what is the secret to happiness? Personally? 

Mark Lester: So I lived in America for 10 years and moved to Europe six years ago, and. You know, I, listen, I live in Amsterdam these days and it is, you know what's great about here, it's just, it's not about complicated things.

It's just like there is a lovely park bench, very close to my home overlooking a canal where you can read a book, you know? And I'm like, if I can get like 20 minutes of that into my week somewhere. I'm happy, you know, I really don't need much. And you know what? It's like modern working life. Sometimes it can strip out those tiny little things that are actually the difference between feeling good and feeling bad.

Chris Kocek: So taking those little moments to rejuvenate yourself. 

Mark Lester: I know it sounds very cheesy, but I really do think it's sometimes the difference between. When you [00:36:00] feel burned out, which we've all got to within this industry, and that's actually just feeling like you're in a pretty good place. Sometimes you just need a bit of a breath, you know?

Chris Kocek: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Absolutely. That's great advice. Alright, we're gonna go into the speed round. It's everybody's favorite. We'll start with an easy one. What's your favorite Olipop flavor. 

Mark Lester: I will go Vintage Cola. 

Chris Kocek: What's your favorite word in English, Dutch, or any other language? 

Mark Lester: The nickname for Amsterdam is Mokum, or one of Amsterdam's nickname is Mokum, which means sanctuary, which I've always loved and I've found it to be very true. 

Chris Kocek: Mm. And how do you spell that word? Markum. Mokam. 

Mark Lester: M-O-K-U-M. For anyone that visits here, you'll see it around, you'll see like boats branded, you know, like moham boat tours and things like that, you know. Um, so it's, it's a affectionate nickname for Amsterdam, but, um, it's, I think it's he Hebrew, but it's certainly from, uh, the Jewish community.

And it, you [00:37:00] know, it comes back from the days of this, you know, being a sanctuary for Jewish people. And, but I think this, this city can be a sanctuary for lots of different types of people as well. It's, it's, uh, it can have a beautiful effect. 

Chris Kocek: Mm-hmm. That's lovely. What was your favorite subject in school 

Mark Lester: history?

History was debate, really. You know, we didn't have debate in the UK schooling system, so history was great because it was just like, here's, here's the facts, what do you think was really going on? And I loved that. I always loved trying to conceptualize facts. Figure out the underlying meaning. 

Chris Kocek: So my daughter doesn't really enjoy history that much, uh, but she loves Hamilton.

Maybe because it's in song form. Uh, do you have any recommendations that I should take back to her to kind of spark that interest in history? 

Mark Lester: Well, Hamilton's is a great place to start. I've seen that play five times already. I think to me that's a play about ambition. And every time I've seen it at different stages of my life and I get very different things out of it.

But what they did so well, I think sometimes what history misses [00:38:00] is, you know, the characters on statues, right? Like, you know, these were rebels. And I think sometimes that's what the telling of history misses a bit, isn't it? Real life sense of characters. 

Chris Kocek: I love that idea. That they're, they're not just statues.

These were rebels. 

Mark Lester: Yeah. Like that's what one of the things I think was so good. They brought to life and they were fighting with each other and they had extreme views and you know, like of course they did. They're revolutionaries. 

Chris Kocek: If you were talking to a five-year-old, how would you describe what you do?

Mark Lester: Being a nerd for a living. 

Chris Kocek: Alright. And what does it mean to be a nerd? 

Mark Lester: Get to read about stuff that you don't know about. To me, that's fundamentally still the job. You know? Like I always said to a young strategist, if you don't enjoy reading, I just don't know if this is for you, because you've just gotta throw yourself into topics and absorb as much as you can.

And the jobs at its best, I think, where it throws you into different subject matter, you know? And I think, so you've gotta really have that real passion for learning and reading. Like to me, [00:39:00] just underpins. Being good at the job. 

Chris Kocek: Yeah. One of my favorite things about the job that I try to tell my kids about and other people about is I get to ask people questions about all kinds of things that I normally, in polite society, let's say, I wouldn't necessarily be able to ask them those questions.

But if you're carrying a clipboard and you ask those questions, people will, will tell you all kinds of things, uh, or, or in a focus group setting or, or in some sort of research context. So it's, it's a great way to learn about. All kinds of things that you never knew about and connect the dots between diverse, disparate things that you never realized were connected.

Mark Lester: Everything's interesting. I've been fortunate to work on some very trendy and fashionable brands like Nike, but you know, Daily Pay is so interesting to me, how people get paid. The nature of, you know, what it means to be a blue collar worker. I think you just gotta have that passion for learning about things that you don't know about and trying to.

Trying to get your head around it from other people's perspective, you know, and that's very fun. You gotta get your [00:40:00] kicks out of that, I think fundamentally. 

Chris Kocek: What's the most recent good book you've read, uh, overlooking that Canal? Or if not a book, uh, what's a movie or TV show that you've watched that you said, oh, this is unbelievable.

Everybody should see this 

Mark Lester: right now, exclusively read novels. Novels are my escape now. I don't wanna do anything that in any way. Develops me or helps me with perform my job. So it's my escape. There's a writer called  Kazuo Ishiguro, who's the guy that write Remains of the Day. It's his most famous, but he's a British writer with a Japanese heritage.

Uh, he's just one of my favorite writers in the English language, and I, I've sort of slowly made, made my way through pretty much his entire. Collection. I, I read a book Never Let Me Go that he wrote, but he's sort of famous for, um, characters remembering what happened and telling you reliable narration and sort of misdirects and they just kind of take you through these different ways.

But every book he's ever written is amazing. I would strongly recommend it. Never Let Me Go is an excellent book and just completed that one. Would strongly recommend to anyone. 

Chris Kocek: [00:41:00] What's a subject that you recently got super interested in and you just went down a rabbit hole because of insatiable curiosity?

Not because it was related to work, but because you were like, what is this all about? 

Mark Lester: I think the origins of peri peri sauce was one that we just kind of ca came up with and I, I dunno if it's insatiable curiosity, but, well, a combination of insatiable curiosity and having a debate with someone, you know, because there's this famous fast food chain in the UK called Nando’s. Dunno, you've heard of, but it's sort of in some markets brands itself as Portuguese and some markets brands itself as Portuguese African.

They serve peri peri chicken, which is a sort of Portuguese national dish. But anyways, there's big debate about. Is really Portuguese or African origin or a mixture of both. And you know, I think so much my learning has stemmed from pub debates like that, I think, where you're like, I need to get to the bottom of peri peri sauce, you know?

Chris Kocek: what did you find? 

Mark Lester: It is a mix. My fundamental [00:42:00] argument was I don't believe that those chilies came from Portugal. You know, like there's no press in in the Portuguese diet. And it was probably a product of empire if you like. You know, sort of somewhat of a collaboration between a cultural occupy and another Nando’s is building itself on top of an ex, actually extremely emotive political fault line.

Chris Kocek: Well, food is a history lesson. 

Mark Lester: One of the things that I found, so there's two Nandos restaurants, I think in the States, and we visited one. This is embarrassing because Nando’s is not a very aspirational brand, but we visited one in Washington DC and one of the things was it was branded Africa. Uh, he got beautiful branding in the store, you know, and so that was one of the first, that was actually one of the first bits of Genesis for this debate, you know?

I was like, that's actually so interesting the decision they've made around that. 

Chris Kocek: It reminds me of, um, when interviewing, uh, Gordy and Brian from, uh, quality Meets Creative. Uh, they were talking about, uh, doner kebab. And bringing doner kebab to the United States. Nobody really knows what doner kebab is [00:43:00] here in the United States and the way that it's branded in the UK and in Dubai.

There's, you know, Lamborghinis and just all this over the top stuff, and they're like, that's never gonna fly in the United States. You need a totally different approach. And, and so they, they did that. And so it's interesting when brands try to jump the pond or come to a different country, they say, well, this is the way we're gonna play it.

Mark Lester: Branding, the doner kebab in, in the states is a pretty interesting Yeah, everyone puts everything in a taco in America now, don't they? If you want someone to try it, put it in a taco. 

Chris Kocek: Yes. Some sort of tortilla. But the wrap, you know, it's, it's, it's everywhere. It's funny when something's in a tortilla, it's maybe considered a little less healthy, but if you put it in a wrap.

It suddenly went up by a few health points, didn't it? 

Mark Lester: I, I had a friend, well, still one of my best friends, he grew up in Manchester where they have Indian style kebabs. But you're talking, you know, freshly baked, nan bread, like, you know, a real proper tender oven. You know, like, like there's a lot of artisan craft and he's like, why is the moment [00:44:00] you put in in a sandwich that it gets less respect?

He's like, if that was just served on a plate, people would be like, that's a beautiful thing. But the sandwich just like limits its potential in people's minds. And he is always very passionate on this topic, but like, yeah, I agree with him. 

Chris Kocek: It's fascinating, fascinating stuff. Is there a brand whose work you really admire or that you think to yourself, oh that's so good.

I wish I'd come up with that. 

Mark Lester: We do a lot of work within different types of like the startup CPG space and you know, and things like that. So like, you know, tons of great brands, but. I loved ones like dude wipes, you know, which I, they had a big acquisition fairly recently. But I just kinda love because it's like just baby wipes reprinted for, for grown men.

But it's true. It's just like they, they came on this thing being like, why shouldn't grown men be using moisturized wipes to clean their butt? And so it's a brave sort of just realization that some of the fundamentals of brand new were just missing here. Things were. Wrongly positioned, and then they [00:45:00] just, they got the fundamentals.

They've had all types of fun with it. I think my bottomless confidence was like, it was like one of my favorite lines, but there's, there's all types of great fun that they've had with that. And they, the big success just from realizing someone had just really got the emotive factors wrong in a market.

Chris Kocek: Yeah, that's a great example. Uh, what's one of the most interesting jobs you had before you got into the work you do now that has helped you do your job better? 

Mark Lester: So I, I had a gap year after university and I, you know, went straight into the industry, but the gap year lasted three years. And in it I did all types of stupid stuff, which included like, I was au pair in France.

And by the way, the full French name for au pair is jeune fille au pair, like means young girl. So like, I was living, I was very fortunate. I was in Bay Rich, which if you don't know, is it's seaside, it's a beautiful seaside. Towns one, the surf s of Europe. I working as jeune fille au pair and it's like everywhere I'd go they'd be like, what you do? I'm like, jeune fille au pair.

They'd be like, you're a young girl. Au [00:46:00] pair. Like a young girl. But, so I did all this sort of random stuff, you know, with just such great life experience, you know, like same as everyone. I'm from somewhere quite limited, right? I'm from a. Tiny corner of England that had limited life experience, very little experience of any form of diversity.

I did three years of living in sort of New York, France, and Amsterdam, and it just sort of really opened my eyes to the world. I do think kids being able to have that space for emotional and social development as well as just. Seems like the whole podcast industry is focused on hustle culture, and every minute of your day being optimized.

But when you're still in your twenties, you need those bits of emotional and social development, and they come, they come in different ways. And all of that stuff was, it was really important for me in terms of finding myself as a happy, healthy, functioning adult, you know? 

Chris Kocek: I was never an au pair, but I was a dog walker in Boston for one day.

[00:47:00] For one day, and then I thought, I think I can do more than pick up after Fifi and write in people's diaries about how she did on her walk today. And so I, uh, I traded that in for, uh, you know, some, some photojournalism and some, uh, writing stuff. 

Mark Lester: All those types of jobs are, you know, very formative. For the record, I loved being an au pair.

It was great. The kids were great. We had a great time. It was awesome. 

Chris Kocek: Yeah. No, that sounds wonderful. Uh, last question. What's a piece of advice that you got early on in life or in your career that you still remember to this day or that you think of often? 

Mark Lester: I think the best piece of advice I got was your job's to get your client promoted.

It's very practical advice. You know, when I first came in I was very academic. I really was deep on theory and putting insights on a pedestal in many way, and, and I needed to really just fundamentally reset and be like. It is their business. You have to start with where they're [00:48:00] at and that includes, you know, like this individual sat in front of you who is a human being who wants to get promoted.

I think it took me a while to believe that feedback, to wrap my head around it, but, but to really just sort of take seriously what's going on with your clients, you know, because we still work in a service-based business. Folks that don't do that, don't go very far. Hey, I think for any strategist you, you've gotta stay grounded in that, in that truth still.

Chris Kocek: Well, I feel like I've been promoted to what title? I don't know. But having this conversation with you today makes me feel elevated, makes me feel promoted, makes me feel happier for having done it. So Mark, I really appreciate you taking the time, sharing your thoughts, your processes, and your insights.

Thank you. 

Mark Lester: Thank you so much, Chris. It's been lovely. Uh, lovely chat to you as well.

Chris Kocek: Thanks again to our guest, Mark Lester from Squint. If you want to connect with Mark, you [00:49:00] can find him on LinkedIn. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us five stars on your favorite podcast platform and share it with colleagues and clients who could use some inspiration. Just send them a link and say, you see, this is what I'm talking about, insights.

If you're looking for even more ideas and aha moments, head over to chris ec.com. There you can find some of my newest online courses, case studies, and creative exercises. You can even sign up for one of my hands-on workshops where I show you firsthand how to build effective insights faster. The workshops are great for helping with new business pitches and for creating culturally contagious campaigns.

Special thanks to Megan Palmer for editing, sound mixing and production support. Until next time, keep looking for patterns, finding contradictions, and asking what if more often.