Helen Thorpe on giving a voice to lived experiences (batyr)

Helen Thorpe, Head of Brand at batyr, sits down with host Mark Jones to discuss building on grassroots marketing, smashing the stigma around youth mental ill-health, and giving a voice to lived experiences.

In a classroom of 30 students, seven of them will experience a mental health issue. Two students will reach out for support, but the other five are left not knowing where to turn – according to Helen Thorpe, Head of Brand at preventative mental health organisation batyr.

batyr’s brand purpose is to turn that statistic around by “empowering and educating young people so that they can improve the future happiness and wellbeing of the world.” 

Helen believes that with the right approach, marketers have an opportunity to create a positive social impact through championing the authentic stories of challenge, recovery and resilience. 

batyr is an organisation created and driven by young people for young people, with almost 900 representatives trained to share their stories and spread positive messages about youth mental health through the community.

“The peer-to-peer approach is reciprocal. It’s a little ecosystem. It’s beneficial for young people at the program to see someone that looks like them share a story and be their most vulnerable, but focus on the resilience and recovery of that story.”

Helen says that educating young people on mental ill-health and empowering them to reach out for support through ‘lived experience storytelling’ is an advocacy approach that puts batyr’s mission into action.

“We are essentially training mental health advocates. We’re not just having an impact in schools, but in the communities as well. We’re building stronger communities that are more connected, more resilient, and also more able to look after the mental wellbeing of young people as well.”

Check out this episode of The CMO Show to hear more from Helen, and find out how marketers can tap into the power of lived experiences to turn audiences into advocates. 

Resources

• batyr

• batyr partners with Western Sydney University to better support youth mental health

• Lifeline Australia – 13 11 14

You might also like…

• Professor John Roberts on Better Marketing for a Better World (BMBW)

• Bianca Bryson on emotive storytelling at International Justice Mission

• Anastasia Symons on achieving cut through at R U OK?

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The CMO Show production team

Producers – Charlotte Goodwin, Candice Witton & Stephanie Woo

Audio Engineers – Tom Henderson & Daniel Marr

Got an idea for an upcoming episode or want to be a guest on The CMO Show? We’d love to hear from you: cmoshow@filteredmedia.com.au.

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Transcript

Host: Mark Jones

Guest: Helen Thorpe

Mark Jones:
Since the dawn of time, humans have gathered around fires and shared stories. Storytelling is entwined with the fundamental nature of being human. It creates connections, and allows us to understand other people on the deepest level. It can even turn our customers or audiences into advocates. For marketers, those who can personally connect with and understand the experiences of their audience are able to have a more meaningful impact. So how do we ensure this impact is positive, and how can we use storytelling to turn our audiences into advocates?

Mark Jones:
Hello friends! Mark Jones here. How are you? Welcome back to The CMO Show as we continue to share stories about brands with a ‘purpose beyond profit’. And if you’re new here, it’s great to have you with us – particularly at this time when Sydney, where we record the show, is in a COVID lockdown. Our 2021 season is all about conversations with marketing leaders who head up purpose-driven brands. Speaking of which – my guest on this episode is Helen Thorpe, Head of Brand at batyr – the ‘for purpose’ preventative mental health organisation, created and driven by young people, for young people. Now, just before we jump into the conversation – a quick content warning. Helen and I discuss the topic of youth mental-ill health throughout the interview, so I encourage you to take a moment and think to yourself if this is a difficult topic, perhaps you don’t want to keep listening. Otherwise, please join me as I speak with Helen about how to build on grassroots marketing, smashing the stigma around youth mental-ill health, and giving a voice to lived experiences. Here’s Helen. 

Mark Jones:
Helen Thorpe. She is Head of Brand at batyr. Thanks for joining us.

Helen Thorpe:
Thanks very much for having me.

Mark Jones:
It’s an interesting name. Tell me the story, just straight up, about batyr and who you are and what you do.

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah. So, batyr is actually the name of an elephant. Batyr was in a zoo in Kazakhstan and it was believed or claimed that this elephant could speak up to 20 human phrases. So, the reason batyr is called batyr is because we are wanting to give a voice to the elephant in the room – the elephant being mental ill-health – we don’t want it to be seen as an elephant. So we are trying to smash that stigma. And the name was actually come up by our founder, who’s now the chair of our board as well – a guy named Seb Robertson. And he established Batyr because he struggled with the isolation and fear of mental ill-health when he was at university. So as a 25 year old, he essentially established batyr to meet a need that he didn’t have met, wanting to create spaces that encourage really positive conversations about mental health, reduce stigma and increase help seeking behaviour amongst young people.

Mark Jones:
So, what I love about that story is that you’ve got a – if you like, an active metaphor, as well as a really strong origin story.

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah. And a strong origin story makes the art of storytelling so much easier because it comes from a place of authenticity.

Mark Jones:
Right. Now, your role as Head of Brand, obviously speaks to all of that. But tell me, how do you think about your role? What’s important to you?

Helen Thorpe:
What’s important to me as Head of Brand at batyr, it’s creating a brand that’s as authentic as the stories that we share. Because at the core of batyr is lived experience. We basically train young people to share their experience of mental ill-health in a safe and impactful way. We take those young people out to schools, universities, the places where young people are thriving and yearning to learn, and we educate and empower them to normalise conversations about mental health. And we teach them the tools, the resources of where they can go to seek help should they need. And we also teach them of how to recognise the signs and symptoms of mental ill-health in themselves and others. So, essentially as Head of Brand, it’s my job to reflect that exact purpose in our brand personality, in everything we do. So we’re walking the talk, essentially. Living and breathing all those values externally to the public.

Mark Jones:
So, obviously there’s an element of consistency. So, making sure that everything we do is on brand, obviously. And then you’re also thinking about the growth, “How do we get awareness, for example, to improve in certain demographics and target audiences?” So, what are you doing in that space?

Helen Thorpe:
We’re actually at a really exciting point at the moment because batyr, as I said, it was established by a 25 year old. We’re 10 years old now. And the brand has been a reflection of all of those values and the purpose. So it’s an authentic brand. It’s colourful, it’s vibrant, it’s lively, it’s youthful, but in terms of growth, we’re now at a point where batyr’s direction is changing. We’re starting to work more in the advocacy space because we’ve realised we deal with thousands of young people year on year. We’re hearing their voices. And so we’re in this unique position where we can actually take those insights, and we can use that to inform policy, decision makers, government. And so the brand now, we kind of need to grow up. We’re 10, but we’re about to be a teenager.

Helen Thorpe:
And so now it’s about polishing it up so that we can still be still down with the kids, but we can roll with the big dogs as well. Yeah so in terms of a growth strategy with our brand, it’s now about building a better level of coherency, because we have come from that grassroots place. 

Mark Jones:
When you talk about advocacy, you’re talking about working with governments, government departments, ministers, there’s a whole sea of activity in that whole space. This is an organisation for young people, by young people.

Mark Jones:
I just think that’s fantastic. And my experience of the advocacy space is that – that is a refreshing approach that I imagine connects well to some of these stakeholders in government, because they do value a voice from young people, right? Has that been your experience?

Helen Thorpe:
Absolutely. The thing about batyr that makes it really special, and something that I as Head of Brand can really pull on is that we really do practise what we preach. So, we say we’re by young people, for young people. And we mean it. Our CEO is 34 years old. We have a 21 year old on our board. We have young people at all levels of decision-making at batyr, because it’s really important for us that we’re informed by those young voices that we’re hearing.

Mark Jones:
What is it about youth that is necessarily different and positive and advantageous for your organisation?

Helen Thorpe:
Well, there’s a few elements to that I suppose. The first thing is that young people are informing the future. So, our vision at batyr is that we’re empowering and educating young people so that they can essentially improve the future happiness and wellbeing of the world. So that’s why young people are so important. And there are so many amazing services out there and amazing organisations doing great work in the mental health space. But the unique thing about batyr and the services we point people to is that they are specifically for young people. And that’s so important because 75% of mental health issues form before the age of 25, and suicide is actually the leading cause of death for young people in Australia. So, young people are important because we’re informing the future, as I said, but also this is a real issue that’s impacting many, many people right now.

Mark Jones:
Look, I couldn’t agree more and I’d even say it’s probably it’s the biggest issue, but it’s also one of the biggest unspoken issues in the sense of consistent coverage in the media and community – to borrow the elephant in the room metaphor. Do you think there’s still a stigma around the conversation itself?

Helen Thorpe:
Absolutely. Our whole purpose is to smash that stigma surrounding mental ill-health, because we know that’s one of the main barriers that stop people from help-seeking. So, I mentioned that suicide is currently the leading cause of death for young people in Australia, 75% of mental ill-health issues occur before the age of 25, but also over 75% of young people won’t reach out for support when they’re suffering. And there’s many barriers to that, stigma being one of them, but other things it’s that fear of judgement, embarrassment, the fear of being dismissed. But that, again, all comes back to stigma. And a lot of the time it’s not even stigma created by anyone else, it’s self stigma, people putting those own kind of barriers on themselves as well.

Mark Jones:
Now, I actually wanted to pick you up on something that the way that you talk about mental ill-health, it seems to me quite a deliberate phrase. Tell me about that.

Helen Thorpe:
That’s right. So, we say mental ill-health. We don’t just say awareness of mental health, because mental health is on a spectrum. And that’s something that when we do go out and run these programs in schools and unis and workplaces, that’s what we’re trying to teach people. We’re trying to normalise that idea of mental health being just the same as our physical health. It can be good sometimes, it can be bad sometimes, but what we find at the programs that we do go out with our facilitators, we’ll ask the question at the beginning, like “What phrases come to mind when we say mental health?” And they all say negative ones.

Mark Jones:
Yeah. Right. So, in other words, I can be mentally healthy in the same way that I can be physically healthy.

Helen Thorpe:
Exactly.

Mark Jones:
And so there’s a problem that you’re addressing there. Now, let’s get stuck into storytelling, which I think is yours and my favourite subject in the universe, because this really is foundational to the program. Firstly, you got to tell me how it works and what happens when young people go in and speak to young people about their stories.  I’m really interested to know how that’s contributed to the success. 

Helen Thorpe:
That’s something that makes batyr really unique. At the core of everything we do is lived experience and storytelling and sharing lived experience. So, we’ve run a program called Being Herd. So that’s where we train young people with the lived experience of mental-ill health. And that could be the young person themselves has gone through that. Or it could be someone they’ve cared for. We teach them how to share that story safely in an impactful way. And a lot of that is also about safe language. So that’s another thing we can talk about and something that we have to reflect in our brand as well. And then we take these young people who we’ve trained, they become speakers and we take them out to our school programs and university programs where they can then share that experience.

Helen Thorpe:
And then the young people in that program, they see another person their age who looks like them, who does all the same things as them, talking about an experience that they have been through and seeing them come out on the other side. So, it resonates. And it’s a much more effective way to kind of give information, I suppose, on coping mechanisms and ways to reach out for support in a way that’s not coming from a usual authority figure where there could be a little resistance to that.

Mark Jones:
Yeah. And obviously teenagers in particular are looking to each other for inspiration and possibly even a normalising of my journey and beyond the mentors that they would otherwise look to. So I imagine that’s enormously powerful. What’s it like for the speakers themselves? What are the sorts of stories they tell about doing this work?

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah, they’re incredible stories. So, that peer-to-peer approach is reciprocal. It’s a little ecosystem. So, of course it’s beneficial for those young people at the program to see someone there standing in front of them that looks like them sharing a story and being their most vulnerable, but seeing them focus on the resilience and recovery of that story, but then for the speaker themselves sharing that it’s hugely cathartic and part of their recovery as well. So, we’ve had young people, who’ve gone through the whole journey. They’ve seen a school program and then they’ve had the penny drop, the light bulb moment and they’ve gone, “Wow, I wish this had been explained like this to me before.”

Helen Thorpe:
So, they go on and they do another program. They do Being Herd and they become a speaker. And when they go back and they’re sharing that story, it’s hugely beneficial on that recovery journey too, because it’s repeatedly engaging with that journey and recognising that it is constant and it might be evolving all of the time and reducing that self-stigma and reminding themselves that, you know what, this is a journey and it’s maybe not going to go anywhere, but at least sharing it safely is helping others and helping myself at the same time.

Mark Jones:
I can only just imagine how enormously meaningful it would be. And empowering to step out and actually do something. So, that’s fantastic. And also just for a bit of fun, I’m quite sure that you’ve spelled it H-E-R-D, right?

Helen Thorpe:
That’s correct. Another play on the elephant there.

Mark Jones:
And I got to say too, just to connect what you’re doing in that work that we’re speaking about here, this lived experience, this storytelling. It seems to me it’s an advocacy program, it’s an advocacy strategy. So you’ve identified the opportunity to foster advocates. So tell me some of the thinking and the strategy behind that, because advocacy is clearly an approach that’s used in any sector, but you’re using it as a particularly sharp, front end of the whole activity and strategic focus of the organisation.

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah, exactly. You’ve hit the nail on the head there. We are essentially training mental health advocates. And so those people are going to be going out – and it’s not just in the school programs that is having an impact, it’s in the communities as well. So, it’s building stronger communities that are more connected, more resilient, and also more able to look after the mental wellbeing of young people as well. And it’s assuming all of these speakers are in a good place now, but that may not always be the case.

Helen Thorpe:
So we’re also really always on top of that and making sure that our pool of lived experience, because I think we’ve got over 185 at the minute. It might be that they’re active at the minute. And that’s something that they’re doing and they’re helping us. They’re going out and advocating and they’re sharing their story, but it may be that they then need to take a break and they’re not in a good place, but it’s learning that recognition. And again, that’s something that we educate in our programs is recognising the signs and symptoms in yourself and others as well.

Mark Jones:
Now, we’ve talked a lot about the programs, I want to know about the app called Our Herd. Tell me about it.

Helen Thorpe:
Our Herd, it’s an amazing platform. It’s still in development at the moment. We’re actually testing it at the moment, in beta phase. And it’s essentially social media that’s good for the soul. Some people are calling it the TikTok for mental health. So what it is, it’s a platform where young people can share their stories of lived experience with a community that they can relate to, but it’s all online. So, a lot about spreading messages these days is actually more at people’s fingertips. Communities are going more online. And so this was a really important space for us to play in, especially after we digitised a lot of our programs because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realised the power of digital and that’s how we needed to be playing in that space.

Mark Jones:
And I noticed that privacy and control was a big deal. So, how does it work? Can anyone just jump in and download it and use it?

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah. So anyone can jump in, download the app, use it and consume stories. But the thing that makes it really different and much safer than other social media apps is the fact that it’s moderated. So when people go to submit a story, they can’t just post it online and it’s published, it goes through a moderation process. So, that’s not that we’re trying to censor people. It’s making sure that, that storytelling and that sharing of the lived experience is safe. And that people are using language that’s not going to be triggering or harmful to other people.

Mark Jones:
Yeah. That’s a really important point. What do you hope the outcomes will be from the app?

Helen Thorpe:
It’s amazing, it was co-designed with 500 young people and a 100 industry experts. And the really amazing thing about it is that we’re going to be able to use the insights that we’ve gained to actually go back into the sector and inform better mental health systems for young people. We’ll be launching officially later in the year.

Mark Jones:
Now let me ask this as a father of four and two of which, by the way, of my kids are teenagers. So, I’m well into this space from the, if you like, parental perspective. One of the things that I’ve noticed about them on social is massive oversharing with their close, trusted friends, particularly in Snapchat where there’s a lot of back and forward, “How you doing?” It’s instant, immediate, don’t really think a lot about it. 

Mark Jones:
But when they’re in not a good space, is there can be a lot of unfiltered, information being shared as well. How do you address that? Because I actually, to some degree you could actually argue that’s actually quite counterproductive. How do you address that?

Helen Thorpe:
Absolutely. So, you’ll have heard me say safe a lot. When we train young people to share their story, we say safely. And so what we mean by that is using safe language and safe storytelling techniques because yeah, you’re exactly right. That could be really counterproductive to someone’s mental health improving because using unsafe language could trigger unhelpful stereotypes. So, you’ll hear it all the time. People saying like, “Oh, she’s crazy. Or that was insane.” And people don’t really realise the impact that that language can have on somebody. And so when we are taking people through our programs, we’re teaching them as well about that stigmatising language and why it’s unsafe and how it’s unsafe and what kind of language to use instead.

Mark Jones:
So again, connecting this to the marketing universe and the brand universe. For many marketers, we focus on our messaging and the ideas behind these keywords, and we kind of set it up and forget it. We just kind of expect it to roll, but there’s a very active engagement that it seems that you have around intentionality of messaging, words that we use words that we don’t. How do you govern that? How do you steward it? How do you look after that?

Helen Thorpe:
You do have to be pretty flexible, because obviously with a brand like batyr, we still need to, like I said, need to be down with the kids, which doesn’t sound like we are very down with the kids when I say it that way. But we need to be youthful and we need to be relatable, but sometimes that idea of safe language, it can restrict that as well. So sometimes it is just about calling it out and drawing attention to the ways that make it more relatable. So, for example, if we were doing something on International Women’s Day, we drew attention to harmful female stereotypes in the media and made that subject matter more relatable.

Helen Thorpe:
So, people kind of having that moment in their head where the connecting the dots and going, “Oh yeah, you know what? I do hear that all the time.” And so we can still use the language as long as we’re pointing out why it’s unhelpful. So, we use the example of a crazy cat lady or the psycho ex-girlfriend. And you hear that every second minute in TV, radio, film. And so by us taking that and flipping it on its head, demonstrating why it’s not cool essentially is a way we can kind of govern our own messaging. So staying on trend with those types of things all the time, finding examples of stigmatising language that may be becoming trendy and trying to kind of nip it in the bud.

Mark Jones:
Yeah. Look, I think that’s enormously important and there’s a really powerful insight there about staying with it, being flexible to your point and trying to find that connection between what we’re doing and then what the kids are doing cause the kids are going to use their own language anyway.

STING.

Mark Jones:
Now let’s just talk about the competitive environment. We’ll just sort of step into the organisational space for a minute. You’re out there with many, many other organisations also in the youth space. How do you approach that from a brand perspective?

Helen Thorpe:
We’ve always been very adamant that we are a peer to these organisations and we don’t really view them as competitors because we realise the value in collaboration, because we all have our unique point of difference and we can’t possibly do everything. So, we’re operating in quite a unique space, as much as we do cover many elements of mental ill-health for young people. We still want to connect people with the right services for them. We’re not a support service. We’re in the early intervention and prevention space. And yes, we’re educating young people around signs and symptoms of mental ill-health, but we can’t provide the appropriate service if that is something that’s occurring.

Helen Thorpe:
So we’re someone that will point you in the direction where we can’t meet your needs. So that’s the way we see it. We kind of build each other up. We collaborate, we literally point to other organisations within our programs. We point to Reach Out, Headspace, Lifeline, Kids Helpline. And then in terms of other youth organisations, it’s kind of learning from them as well. Because when you’re educating people in a subject like mental ill-health, you have to be appealing and you have to learn from others, because they’re doing other things better than we are. And us recognising that only means that we’re going to be better at what we do.

Mark Jones:
Now, what about the partnership and funding side of the business and how do you think about that? I mean, obviously the money’s got to come from somewhere, but how do you involve partners? How do you sustain those sorts of long-term relationships, which help the organisation grow over time?

Helen Thorpe:
So, for batyr we are unique in that sense as well, because we do have a fee for service. We do charge a nominal fee to go out and run our programs for schools – for the schools that can afford that. Sometimes we’ll get those programs funded if there’s a need that needs to be met. And that’s where corporate partners will come in as well if they’re quite passionate about a specific area or running a program somewhere regionally that we’ve not been able to reach or something like that. So, partnerships are absolutely inherently crucial to the work that we do. And in terms of kind of sustaining funding and things like that, we have to take people on the journey with us.

Helen Thorpe:
With batyr we’re quite different to other organisations because word of mouth is actually one of our biggest promotional strategies. And that means that you have to make the experience best, first and foremost. So you can’t be investing in huge marketing and advertising campaigns because if word of mouth is key, then people have to be talking about you like you’re the bee’s knees constantly. So you’ve got to be investing in that first. And so that’s where the kind of donor dollar needs to go. 

Mark Jones:
It also means that you’ve got to make sure the experience of the programs continues to be on brand as it were.

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah. The experience of the programs is on brand, but also it’s reflected in that external world as well. So, we’re depending on word of mouth and being absolutely amazing and making sure these young people have an epic experience at our programs, then we have to continue that onto our social platforms. We have to be amazing at community engagement. We have to be brilliant in user generated content and storytelling. We have to be bigger and better at maintaining that same language that people experience within the programs as well in our brand.

Mark Jones:
Now let’s go to a different topic, which is research. The research is a big part of understanding how you build programs that are backed by appropriate and grounded insights. So, how do you make sure that you’re continuing to be relevant and if you’re on point with the best practise advice? How does that inform your work?

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah, research again, it’s so important that we use that to continue evolving and changing and making sure that we stay relevant. We do surveys at the end of every single one of our programs to find out the engagement rate and the likelihood of help seeking. And we’re always hearing from young people firsthand, thousands and thousands of young people year on year. So we learn from them constantly and we can evolve the effectiveness of our programs based on what they are telling us, literally from the horse’s mouth.

Mark Jones:
How do you understand, track and measure sustainable positive change over time from an impact perspective?  Because when you have repeated access to these stories, constantly have opportunities to engage with the community, that’s where I understand the literature points towards sustainable impact in their lives. 

Helen Thorpe:
The idea of giving young people the tools and the skills to reach out for support when they need it is one thing, and teaching them how to have a very positive conversation about mental health is another way that will impact a broader community.  These young people becoming mental health advocates, they’re going out into spaces, they’re talking about mental health positively, openly, honestly, they’re telling other people about where they can go to reach out for support.

Mark Jones:
So you’re really looking for that ripple effect.

Helen Thorpe:
Yes.

Mark Jones:
I’m interested in the concept of impact, because increasingly we’re seeing organisations through their storytelling looking to measure what happened to the kids afterwards, what happened six months later? How can we understand how these activities that we engaged in led to an actual change that was long lasting?

Helen Thorpe:
The other thing about the programs that we run is that they aim to improve what we call mental health literacy. So, that’s another barrier to young people finding the help they need and recognising the signs and symptoms in themselves when they are struggling and for other people who are struggling. So the tools and resources and the skills we teach young people is all as well pointed towards improving that literacy. So, that’s another thing that can have a greater impact in the wider community, because the more people that know about that stuff and have that better understanding, the wider that goes.

Mark Jones:
So, just to understand what you mean by literacy, that’s an understanding at a personal level, but also the resources that are out there. How I can engage?

Helen Thorpe:
Yeah. A bit of both. So, with mental health, a lot of people don’t often recognise the signs in themselves of how that’s manifesting, and then they don’t know how to talk about it. And then they don’t know how to reach out. And so all of those things compounded lead to people, like we say, very literally suffering in silence. We often use this statistic in batyr programs that in a classroom of 30 students, seven of them will be suffering with a mental health issue. Two of them will reach out for support, that’s it. So, that’s at least five young people not knowing where to go and suffering in silence.

Mark Jones:
No, that’s not okay.

Mark Jones:
Well, all the best with maybe improving that statistic. I’m interested to know what are the big challenges that you’re facing. What’s on the, ‘haven’t done yet list’ in terms of brand, engaging with the communities, getting the ear of politicians, who knows?

Helen Thorpe:
I suppose, challenges – I prefer to call them opportunities.

Mark Jones:
Fine. Let’s go there. Issues.

Helen Thorpe:
And I did mention this earlier in that we are 10 years old and we came from that very organic grassroots beginning. And as a brand, that’s been amazing for us. We have all these brilliant ingredients. We are inspired by young people. We live and breathe young people, and we are as authentic, I think, as the stories that we share. But sometimes when you have come from that humble beginning and you’ve needed to focus on programs, you haven’t been able to invest massively in the brand and polishing it up and making it incredibly coherent. And that’s really important when you do change direction and you want to be influencing policy decision-makers and things like that. So, I suppose an opportunity we have at the moment is that we’re actually going back to the drawing board and we’re going to do a bit of a brand polish, and we’re going to build off the things that really worked for us as a brand, but introduce new elements, so that we’re just a little bit more grown up, more of a teenager.

Mark Jones:
I was going to say, you want the brand to grow up a little, to look just slightly more polished as you say, well rounded. Well, that’s exciting.

Helen Thorpe:
It’s very exciting.

Mark Jones:
And I will watch it with great interest. As I said, this is a particularly personally important issue for me. And I know for many people. And I think some of the insights you’ve shared really have helped people from outside the sector to really connect with some of the techniques that you’re applying here in some very meaningful ways. So, congratulations to you and the team on 10 years. I’m really encouraged by your story, Helen Thorpe, thank you so much for being our guest on the CMO show.

Helen Thorpe:
Thank you very much for having me.

Mark Jones:
So that was Helen Thorpe. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. I got to say, what an inspiring brand story! For me, it reminds us that storytelling has the power to create a big, and important impact. Batyr, I think, is a great example of a brand that has recognised the need to connect with their audience on a grassroots level and empower them to create a positive impact in the future, and create advocates along the way. Now as we said at the start of the episode, if our conversation has brought up any issues for you, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 for confidential support.

Mark Jones:
If you haven’t already, please “subscribe” to The CMO Show on your favourite podcast app, so you never miss an episode. And if you like what you’ve heard, follow @thecmoshow and @impactinstitute on all the social channels for sneak peeks into upcoming episodes. Thank you for joining us on The CMO Show. As always, it’s been a pleasure. Until next time.