@Avantegardvegan interview and transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Me: So, just a little disclaimer, I’m going to be recording this for my dissertation. It’s not going to be published or anything, is that ok with you?

Gaz: Yeah, as long as I can record it as well.

Me: So, just tell me a little bit about how you’ve built your audience. Did you use any specific techniques or was it more just a case of people just started to follow you?

Gaz: I guess there’s just a few different rules that I follow. One of them is post high-quality content always, whether that’s an Instagram picture or YouTube videos, I will always try and get it as professional as possible. Post consistently, so I upload at least once a week on YouTube and then several times on Instagram. I then have like a trend to see what my audience sort of liked, I would then make sure that I sort of appeal to that all the time. Very specifically on Instagram for example, I used to tag big pages in the pictures, do lots of hashtags and it just naturally and organically grew. And what you wanna do is create a funnel almost, so all the social medias are linked to the same username for example and they’ve got good synergy between them and it all leads to your website.

Me: Yeah, so people can find you?

Gaz: Exactly, yeah.

Me: Did your website come first or…

Gaz: When my Instagram started to go big, I sorted out the website yeah

Me: Because I saw you have a little blog on there.

Gaz: Yeah, I don’t use it that much but yeah. Recipes and everything, all sorts are on my website. That’s basically it.

Me: What kind of followers do you think you have? And then how does this perception match to the followers that you actually have? Do you think that mainly say Vegans follow you or that meat eaters follow you because they’re interested in it, do you think that it’s mainly women who follow you, do you think that men follow you...

Gaz: I think that it’s a good mix. I know that more females follow me but I don’t necessarily post stuff to please one type of person, I just post as broad a range as possible so I will never post all vegan stuff, just to get a vegan audience, I want it to appeal to everyone so it will always be vegan but I won’t necessarily put that name tag on it or preach about it too much. I’ll just, the product that I’m putting out there, whether it’s food or fashion or whatever is vegan influence. But yeah, my audience is I think 65% female, between 16 and 25 (years old), a huge amount of them in the US.

Me: That’s interesting.

Gaz: Yeah, and a lot of them in London as well.

Me: How do you interact with your audience because I know that you reply to comments a lot and obviously reply to DMs. Is this something that you feel helps connect you with your followers more? What made you decide to interact with your followers more because most people don’t really reply to comments.

Gaz: Well it’s hard when you’re getting loads and loads and loads of comments but because I always started always reply when I started, as I’ve grown bigger I still like to reply every now and then and when I can. It’s important because having that personal interaction is vital to any brand. Definitely, the consumers want to feel valued and by replying to people messages and comments etc, you’re making them feel valued. Definitely.

Me: Moving onto creating content and the way you do it. How do you choose to create your content? So, is it more of a quick and natural photo or is it more staged and planned?

Gaz: So we’re talking Instagram specifically?

Me: Yes.

(4: 46)

Gaz: So Instagram is very natural, whether I’m at a video shoot, filming, cooking videos, it would just be random shots from while I’m cooking. Rarely ever staged. Sometimes the odd staged picture but when I say staged I mean like me posing for the camera. I would never stage a picture of me standing with a bag of tea or something for Instagram but all generally just natural stuff. I’ll just say to my photographer can we take a picture and he’ll be like yeah ok!

Me: Do you have a personal photographer? Or is it just a friend?

Gaz: Not necessarily, I do have a photographer that I use all the time. But my manager Tom helps me out. What I try to always do, like I said, put out good quality content so you know Tom will have a good camera if I’m out with him or my photographer will be out with me.

Me: Moving onto more promotional posts. Do you do any?

Gaz: Very rarely.

Me: Yeah, because I never see on your Instagram that you’ve promoted a product of such. I’ve seen that you sometimes do a YouTube video where you’re using a vegan cheese when you made that pizza. I don’t know if you remember, in that nice oven outside.

Gaz: Oh years ago!

Me: You were sort of plugging a product there. Is that sort of the brand reaching out to you and saying a set comment on what our comment is or is that you going out and getting the product and then trying it yourself and saying that this product is actually bloody amazing?

Gaz: Well, the reason I rarely do them is because… it’s hard, I don’t really know how to explain it… genuinely I’ll only ever do a sponsored video if I am actually a fan of whatever it is people want me to be sponsored by. So, yeah they will approach me and if I’m a fan of their product then I’ll use them in a video or Instagram etc but I’ll vert rarely do it. Because the thing is it costs so much to make my content and any little helps, so if someone asks me to do a sponsored video and I’m a fan of their product then of course, yes, it helps. And plus I would never ever do what I guess what other influencers do and it’s really just slamming it down people’s throats, I just do it in my own style and I’ll say to any brands that approach me now that yes I’ll do it but I wanna do it in my own studio, my own blah blah blah.

Me: So it’s authentic then?

Gaz: Exactly, yeah.

Me: What sort of content do you enjoy creating the most? Because you’ve started doing more fashiony things now or is it more food?

Gaz: Food always. Food and travel stuff is like my dream. Yeah defo.

Me: Have you travelled to many places thus far?

Gaz: Yeah, I’m getting about a bit. I’m going to Boston on the weekend…

Me: Yeah! I saw!

Gaz: And New York, and LA, yeah getting about. I’m lucky.

Me: What sort of content do you think your followers enjoy seeing the most? Do you think it’s the food and travel more or do you think they like the fashion?

Gaz: Well definitely the food because that’s what I started doing predominantly. So some people are like are you still cooking? Why are you posting this lifestyle stuff but I’m just going to do whatever I feel like I wanna do and if it’s all stemming off the vegan lifestyle then i’m happy to do it. I just wanna make entertaining stuff, I’m doing fun things so why not post about it. But genuinely, my audience like the cooking stuff more but more and more people, the reason why I started doing the fashiony stuff is because more and more people asking me where I get my clothes from that I wear in the videos and I talk about ethically sourced, sustainable clothing etc.

Me: I watched your Gordon Ramsay video yesterday and I thought it was really funny because obviously you filmed it was really cool and the way it was edited, but I was reading the comments and a couple people were saying…

Gaz: Loads of people…

Me: ...how it’s jumpy and all of this. Do you read the comments and take that into consideration or do you just sort of like you said. You’re doing what you’re enjoying, if people don’t enjoy that then…

(9: 40)

Gaz: Well I take constructive criticism like that not personally, I take that on board and I agree with the comments for that particular video, I was just experimenting with a new videographer etc and it hasn’t really worked. Some people liked it, some people don’t. It seems to be the people who don’t like it always air their opinion and the people that do like it never say anything. It’s a shame so I’m only really seeing the negative ones but it’s made me realise that my older videos, I’ve never had any comments about the editing, it’s always fine because it’s nice and no one feels the need to comment about it. So, I won’t be using that type of edit again, however, the content of the video I am happy with. If I get a comment about the me personally, or something I’ve said then I would probably take that to heart.

Me: Have you ever?

Gaz: Oh yeah. I get it all the time. I get bad comments. It’s just one of those things. People are just very strange.

Me: I don’t know how i’d quite deal with that.

Gaz: It’s fine, unless you’re having a bad day already.

Me: Sort of just push you over the edge.

Gaz: Not literally, but it just gets you in a more bad mood.

Me: So, onto time and labour. How long do you spend on creating a single post? Is it planned out before hand and then filmed and then edit or is it more just a sort of we’ll just film and see what we get.

Gaz: I wish it was just like that. No, it’s planned a couple of months in advance. A good few weeks where I’m getting some recipes together, thinking about what my audience need and what they’re wanting. I’ll write my list, book the studio, book the videographers, makeup artist, food assistant, photographer…

Me: Hahahah, what makeup do you get done?

Gaz: There’s lights and stuff, I need it, yeah so photographer, accomodation, all this stuff so it’s a bit long process so I organise all of that and then I’ll film three recipe videos a day and for four days in a row so then I’ll have 12 and those videos are released over the next 12 weeks after. So recipe videos are a long process, but for an Instagram picture, if it’s a food picture then I would have probably had to do the food photography myself or if it’s just a picture on my Gaz Oakley Instagram, that can just be me thinking randomly oh I’m going to post this type of thing. Unless there’s a video that has just gone live then I’ll make sure that I’ve scheduled a post on Instagram to go up when the video goes live. There is a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, I try and be as prepared as I can be.

Me: So it sounds like quite a long process. Does it feel like a 24/7 job to you now. Or is it still sort of something that you’re doing for fun?

Gaz: I’m doing it for fun but it is 24 hour, very stressful but I’ve got some very good people around supporting me now which helps but yeah, it’s a lot of work, it’s hard work but it’s fun. It’s really fun.

Me: You’ve already answered a lot of my questions in what you’re saying. When you get approached by a brand, do you say that in the video that it’s sponsored or do you not really disclose that?

Gaz: If a brand wants to sponsor a video, I’ll mention that it’s a sponsored video in the first minute just to inform my audience, however, if a brand say for example just want me to promote their oil in a video then it wouldn’t necessarily be a sponsored video, it would just be me using it so I’ll just give them a shout out and mention below that this is sponsored by so and so. But you need to be clear with an audience definitely.

(14: 50)

Me: I understand that people look up to you guys a lot but then I feel like people are quite aware of sponsored advertisement but then people might think that because you’re using the product that it’s a really good product and want to go buy it.

Gaz: If the influencers are authentic like me then would only use a product that I like then my audience would trust that. But then there’s some people that would just say yes to some money to promote something they don’t really care about and that’s the type of people that need to be making sure they’re saying this is an ad because you see loads of times people saying I got my flat tummy from drinking this tea but they’ve never drunk that tea so that’s when you need to make sure that you state ad because people will think oh look my favourite celebrity has got a flat stomach from drinking this tea when that’s not the case. For example, this protein shake I’ve got here. I contacted them and said, I like your shakes so much, is there anything that we can do. They’re not paying me but they have given me a discount code for all my followers and I’ll get a percentage so I’m hoping that people would understand that I’m only going to promote something because I actually like it. Fingers crossed anyway because it is pretty good.

Me: You seem pretty authentic with your posts still because I think it helps that you don’t do a lot of the promotional posts yourself, it’s more about your journey in a way.

Gaz: I don’t wanna do any sponsored posts if I’m honest with you. I find it quite cringey really.

Me: How are you making your income then?

Gaz: With the book, YouTube, events, tours, so many different avenues it’s hard to summarise it.

Me: Do you get a percentage of the vegan dish being sold to people coming to your event tonight?

Gaz: No. So on this particular collaboration I did not get paid whatsoever. I’m being paid for turning up tonight. But in terms of me pushing and promoting it on my social media, that’s just something I wanted to do because I wanted it to do well and the reason I’ve done this dish for free is because I’ve been a fan of Wagamama and they’re so big and they’re going to put my name onto all of the table mats so you’ll see it tonight everywhere. It’s definitely worth while.

Me: Is this an actual thing or just a limited time.

Gaz: Limited time. Unless it’s so good and so popular, then they’ll put it in more places but I don’t know.

Me: How was the London one? Is it still there?

Gaz: Yeah, still in London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Boston next week and New York the week after.

Me: So what’s the trial period?

Gaz: I don’t even know, they’re keeping me very… tbh I think they’ll want to do a different collaboration with someone else after and that’s when they’ll say ok you’ve had the time now. It’s going. The vegan egg, I can’t see why they’d want to take it off the menu because it’s so interesting. But, I don’t know, we’ll see.

(19: 24)

****Break in the recording*****

(21:08)

Me: How did you make the book?

Gaz: Well, it’s just a collection of all the recipes that i’ve been collecting since I’ve been vegan until the day I handed in the text. It’s sort of just like a bible of everything anyone could ever need or want some simple recipes, some complex recipes, some basic things like milk and bread.