From building social for artists, celebrities. even heads of states, to spinning his team out of VICE via an MBO to launch GH05T in 2016, Adam Biddle has honed an audience-first playbook. In this Q&A, the GH05T CEO shares how that approach translates to corporate and financial brands, balancing creativity with compliance, the KPIs that matter beyond vanity metrics, and the platform trends shaping what’s next.
You began your career managing social media for high-profile artists and celebrities. How did that experience shape your approach when you pivoted to corporate clients?
When you’re building platforms for people who are shaping culture – artists, celebrities, even heads of state – you learn quickly what resonates, where, and why. I have spent over 10 years mastering that at the highest level. When we pivoted to corporate clients, I brought that same audience-first precision with me.
With celebrities, it’s culture-first, driven by creativity and the influence of a global name. In the corporate world, it’s message-first, translating complex ideas into social content that connects with specific, niche audiences to drive outcomes. The principles are the same: know your audience, craft the right creative, and deliver it with intent. The execution just looks different.
What motivated you and Angus Donaldson to do a MBO of your division inside of Vice Media Group and launch GH05T in 2016?
VICE was never set up to be a social media company. I was running a highly specialised agency with a clear mission that got lost within the scale and structure of a global media publisher. We were effectively bolted onto a business that wasn’t built to support or scale what we did.
Back in 2016, it was already clear where the industry was heading. Social required deep expertise, not generalist thinking. That gap has only widened. We wanted to build something purpose-built for the future of communications: a business laser-focused on social media strategy and content, with specialist strength in industries like corporate, finance, B2B, and sport.
At 27, I had the experience, credibility, and conviction to do it myself. Partnering with Angus Donaldson brought the commercial acumen and operational rigour to build GH05T, designed from day one to be exactly the agency we knew the market needed.
By 2017, GH05T had already won clients like HelloFresh. How did you convince brands of social media’s strategic value so early on?
We ensured we weren’t just answering briefs, but shaping them alongside the brands. Often, we find that brands think they just ‘want social’ but what they don’t realise is that there are multiple avenues within social to generate value.
From the outset we educated clients on the value of what they were doing. Was it brand value or commercial value that was driving the ask? Who in the business will have eyes on this and what are their KPIs? We’d then shape our services accordingly.
For HelloFresh, who were very clear on the ask, that meant showcasing their product in an (at the time) innovative way that drove consideration and primed audiences for sales messaging.
Financial brands often struggle with engaging content. What unique challenges do they present, and how do you overcome them?
There are three main challenges when it comes to the financial services:
- Education
- Risk mitigation/ad control
- Subject matter
Before we can do great work, we need to educate marketers and non-marketers alike on best practices, social language, and the potential of doing things right. For some, the awareness isn’t there that social can be more than a box ticking exercise and better ways exist to communicate to audiences and drive better reactions.
Risk mitigation and ad control sometimes means we’re starting with a ten-point deficit to those without similar constraints. Despite the FCA recently cracking down on bad actors in the space, we’re constantly fighting against finfluencers and other channels for attention. Success here is about being smart with the delivery of information, because we can’t rely on a “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE THIS INCREDIBLE INVESTING HACK” YouTube video to generate attention.
The content’s subject matter means we’re often talking about investing, savings, mortgages etc – subject that often people find a chore or would rather not talk about, so creating positive sentiment is a challenge. We get around this by making content useful, easy to digest, and entertaining where possible.
How do you balance regulatory constraints in finance with the need for creative, authentic social media storytelling?
With a lot of creative scrutiny! The important thing is that we are the ones pushing the creative whilst having a great relationship with legal teams and those that sign off ideas. Primarily, this is about collaborating with all departments as early as possible to ensure we’re not having to pivot last minute to meet regulations.
Social storytelling can be memorable without the need for memes or trends. You need to be smart to find the right angle and relentless in striving to make content as platform-first as you can.
With clients like HSBC UK and Unilever under your belt, what best practices have you developed for ensuring consistency across global markets?
Boring answer, but this all boils down to communication and the correct processes.
A lot of the time, markets are siloed. That’s not their fault, they’re working on their area, and so they should.
It’s our job to partner with global teams to ensure communication runs across markets and purpose, strategy, creative and execution is clearly outlined and integrated.
The more walls you break down, the more cohesive communication becomes.
- Data and analytics are crucial in social media. Which KPIs do you prioritise for financial brands, and why?
This isn’t necessarily just a question for the financial industry, but all of social. As an industry, we’re hung up on vanity metrics such as engagements or likes, when in reality, social needs to mature if it wants to be taken seriously in the board room.
We don’t completely discredit reach and engagements, but instead prioritise brand uplift, sentiment, traffic and conversion. If brands don’t invest in the first two, they’re missing a major section of insights that can drive value lower down the funnel.
How has the rise of new platforms changed your social strategy for both celebrity and corporate clients?
There is a symbiotic relationship between platform developments and human creativity. Add technological advancements to that, and you have the triumvirate of power that shapes social content.
We ensure we understand creative trends as well as listening to the platforms on where they’re taking them. TikTok has influenced every platform to reintroduce sound into the mix, LinkedIn is pushing people to share opinion while Instagram is now populating in Google and so brings in an SEO-angle to content creation.
The reality is that no week in social is the same. So, I could tell you we’re focusing on lo-fi, people-led video content currently, but that might be out of date in three months.
Looking ahead, what emerging trends in social media should financial brands prepare for to stay ahead of the curve?
Sound the AI klaxon! We have to be prepared for a rise in AI-generated education in financial services content. It’s important for the industry to lean into its superpower; authenticity and legitimacy. A corporation that has looked after customers’ money for over a century needs to lean into that legitimacy and make it their USP. Outside of this, we’re likely to see content created for Meta that is SEO-optimised in terms of copy and subject matter. Not making the mistake of becoming an SEO bot will be the key to success here.
