Rival ad industry stars launch ISOLATEDTalks.com to lighten mental load of lockdown

Rival podcasters collaborate from isolation to create exclusive talks from the biggest names in ad land and raise money for Samaritans


WEDNESDAY, 22ND APRIL 2020


A group of fellow creatives and rival podcasters have come together to produce ISOLATEDTalks.com, a platform that aims to continue to share ideas and insight from some of the ad industry’s biggest names during the coronavirus lockdown in the UK.


Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy), Vikki Ross (Sky), Dave Trott, Laura Jordan Bambach (Mr President), Amy Kean (&us), Rob Schwartz (TBWA/CHIAT/DAY), Nicole Yershon (The NY Collective) and Mark Pollard (Mighty Jungle) are just some of the ad land stars who have contributed exclusive talks to the project.


With a loving nod to the TED talks, the idea grew out of a thought Giles Edwards – creative director at Gasp and host of the Call to Action Podcast – had to share talks recorded from isolation for people in isolation that reassure us when we feel vulnerable


Giles explains: “I noticed people I know struggling mentally. I personally felt it. There’s been a lot in the media suggesting the lockdown is a ‘mental health ticking time bomb’ so I wanted to find a way to help anticipate that challenge. It costs about a fiver for the Samaritans to answer one call and I thought people might donate that to see a talk from someone like Rory Sutherland.”


Collaborating with Glenn Fisher – author, copywriter and host of the All Good Copy Podcast – they dug deep into their contacts to bring together a broad range of industry experts to film exclusive talks and interviews from around the world.


Meanwhile, designer Tommy Mason (Scamp Design) and developer Matt Ballington (Kober Digital) went about designing and building the platform itself, which went live on Wednesday, 22nd April.


As well as being able to donate financially to help support the Samaritans, people are also able to donate their own ‘isolation talk’ through the website. The length and content are left up to the contributor, the only stipulation being it must be filmed in isolation.


Commenting on the response so far, Glenn Fisher says:


“There’s been a huge variety of brilliant people sharing all sorts of ideas and insight. And we hope more people will donate talks as we go live. Frankly, we’ve been blown away by the response already. We can’t say thank you to people enough.”


For more information contact Giles Edwards at giles@gasp4.com or Glenn Fisher at glenn@theglennfisher.com



WEBSITE:


www.ISOLATEDTalks.com


TWITTER:


@ISOLATEDTalks

@giles_edwards

@allgoodcopy

@_tommymason