6 marketing lessons from Netflix series The Gentlemen

Updated: May 31

If you're not already diving for the sofa as soon as the washing up is done, then you soon will be - this is your new evening obsession.

It's a Guy Ritchie masterpiece, seamlessly weaving together high drama blood and guts, with quintessentially British entitlement and privilege meets gritty crime lord mess.

So what can the dry wit and machete wielding combo of a show teach us about marketing?

Here are your Guy Ritchie marketing lessons

1. Use humour, but carefully

Many of us marketers dream of effortlessly dropping witty banter and edgy puns into our marketing copy, but it can easily backfire. If your tone of voice and audience combo allow you to add fun into the mix, then do it with care. Go to generic and it looks lazy; go to niche and people will miss the point. The key to good humour in marketing is to make people feel like they're in on the joke - imagine the audience excitedly parroting 'I've been saying that for ages'.

2. Don't forget the details

Some of the most brilliant and clever aspects of The Gentlemen are hidden in the detail. Remember how astute and intuitive your customer can be - create interest and intrigue in your naming conventions - one of the middle names of the late father is 'Landrover'. Add style and finesse with brand elements in your style guide that are uniquely you. Create a dress sense for your brand and stick to it.

3. Understand audience personas

The Gentlemen is one of those shows where you ask your companion who their favourite character is. Mine is Freddie, the well-meaning, incident prone brother who is the catalyst for pretty much every drama that unfolds. In the same way that fictitious TV characters appeal to us, make sure you know how to segment your audience and what appeals to each of their personality types.

4. Create dynamic partnerships

Early on in the series, the new Duke creates an allegiance with cannabis farm boss Susie Glass to try and reclaim independence and stave off other crime gang demands.

Their values are aligned and together they are a more powerful force - word spreads and it creates a surge of attention. Following this same logic, align with brands that share your slightly less likely to result in death values, and create a wider circle of influence for your brand.

5. Hire the right team

Many businesses have a Freddie, the chaos-causing but well-meaning wally by default. This can often be a constant source of frustration, so first off, put Freddie in a role where he can add value and not do too much damage. After all it's hard to remove your brother / longest standing employee from the picture.

On a more practical note, hire smart - find people who can make wise decisions independently and bring a wide range of skills to the country pile. Having a Susie - the strategic mastermind, a Jeff - the safe pair of hands and a Lady Sabrina - the quietly astute head of analytics will mean that you have the right people on hand, especially in a crisis...

6. Have a plan for a crisis

There are some extremes that you can't plan for that could be akin to your head of cannabis product development getting wooed over pancakes and losing millions of pounds worth of drugs.

There are other scenarios that you can have a battle-ready plan in place for. Spend time with your team considering the worst eventualities your business could face and try as best you can to map out the series of events and resulting actions you would need to take. Can you resource them? Fund them? Cope with them?

Subject header: One of those annoying emails asking you for help again

Dear Bob

You get so many emails from people asking for stuff, you usually just delete them.

But hang on, here's why you should carry on reading.

- Invisible Cities trains people who have experienced homelessness to be tour guides in their own cities which is really positive, right? Here's a quick hello from founder Zakia. (inc link to video)

- We also support with loads of other life skills - all of the training costs money, which is fair of course

- We invest 100% of profits from the tickets we sell for our three tours, back into more training and more support - so that's brilliant.

- BUT! Getting support is hard because it's not tangible, you don't see the impact, and it might not be a good cause. WRONG!

The great news is that every business that can help us, even with as little as £60, gets a report outlining exactly how their donation has helped. Not only that...

- You'll be doing vital work to make Manchester an even better place to be.

- Why not come on a tour with your colleagues and see why everyone says they're so good. We have three to choose from.

- Be featured across our channels as a supporter and tell a bit of your story too.

- Get more involved by offering time, space or resources - partners often do tours of their business or offer our guides a training course they run which is amazing.

We know it's a tricky time to give to others, but the work we do really is quite unique and we only ask that you consider us, talk about us to others, keep us in mind and keep in touch.

Thanks for reading, we appreciate it.