Do We Get Paid to Review Cars?! Press Trip Secrets Revealed | Ep 88 | Drive Torque Podcast
Drive Torque Podcast
Do We Get Paid to Review Cars?! Press Trip Secrets Revealed | Ep 88 | Drive Torque Podcast
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73:32
Car
Alpine A290 Plus
The Alpine A290 Plus is an Alpine electric car with a higher equipment level than the base versions. Here, they’re saying the Plus version adds convenience and driving features like one-pedal driving and built-in wireless phone charging.
Term
one pedal driving
One-pedal driving is an electric-car feature where you can slow down mostly by lifting off the accelerator. It helps you drive more smoothly and often means you use the brake less in normal traffic.
Term
wireless charge mount
A wireless charge mount is a phone holder that charges your phone without a cable. You just place the phone in the mount and it charges.
Term
gear selector
The gear selector is the lever or control you use to choose the car’s driving mode (like park or drive). They’re talking about where it’s placed inside the car.
Car
Alpine A110
The Alpine A110 is a famous small sports car. They’re saying the other Alpine they’re talking about borrows the A110’s idea for where the gear selector sits.
Concept
range anxiety
Range anxiety is the fear you might run out of battery before you’re done driving. They’re saying the car’s range changes a lot with temperature, so you have to plan trips carefully.
Concept
temperature sensitivity (EV range)
Electric cars don’t always go the same distance in every weather. Cold temperatures can reduce how far you can drive, even if the battery is fully charged.
Concept
B road blaster
“B road blaster” is a fun way to describe driving hard on smaller, twisty roads. They’re saying if you really enjoy the drive, you still have to make sure you can get back with enough battery.
Term
APR
APR (annual percentage rate) is the yearly interest rate used to calculate the cost of borrowing money for a car loan. When the hosts mention “low APRs,” they mean the financing is cheaper over time, which can make a more expensive trim easier to afford.
Term
finance deals
“Finance deals” are special payment offers for buying the car with a loan or lease. The hosts are saying the current offers make it cheaper to get the car right now.
Car
Renault 5
The Renault 5 is a small hatchback with a classic, retro vibe. Here, the hosts are basically saying they’d pick it instead of the other car because it fits their needs and budget better.
Term
bespoke tyres
Bespoke tyres are tires that are designed for one specific car, not just a common tire model you can buy anywhere. The idea is to match the car’s weight, grip needs, and performance targets more closely.
Car
Alpine
Alpine is the car brand. Here, they’re part of the team that worked with tire makers to create tires specifically for their cars.
Car
Audi S5
The Audi S5 is a faster, sportier version of the Audi A5. It’s made to deliver more performance than the standard model. The podcast mentions it while talking about specific development or version details for that S5.
Term
Pilot Sport S5
Pilot Sport S5 is a Michelin tire model name. In this discussion, it’s the performance tire used on the car’s higher-power version.
Term
Pilot Sport EV
Pilot Sport EV is a Michelin tire designed with electric cars in mind. It’s meant to handle how EVs drive—like strong acceleration and the car’s extra weight.
Term
OEM only tyre
An “OEM only” tyre is one that’s made mainly for the car when it’s new from the factory. It may not be available in normal stores for everyone to buy.
Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is being used as an example of a car that can run the same tire type. It helps illustrate that the tire isn’t broadly sold to everyone.
Term
sidewall
The sidewall is the part of the tire you can see on the outside of the wheel. In this segment they’re joking about whether it can look “sexy,” because it’s part of the tire’s appearance.
Car
Hyundai Venue
The Hyundai Venue is a small crossover SUV. It’s built for normal daily driving and is usually easier to get in and out of than a low car. The podcast mentions it because it was one of the cars people could drive at a brand event.
Brand
Formula E
Formula E is a racing series where the cars are fully electric. The hosts are saying sometimes press gets invited to the race, but you don’t necessarily get to drive anything yourself.
Concept
brand deal
A brand deal is a commercial agreement where a creator or outlet promotes a brand, often in exchange for payment, access, or other benefits. Here it’s mentioned as the hoped-for outcome after a review or event experience.
Concept
press trip
A press trip is when media people are invited to an event so they can talk about it. The hosts are saying sometimes it’s more about filming and brand networking than actually driving the cars.
Brand
fear 500
They’re talking about a limited-edition Fiat 500 launch. The point is that some car events are more about marketing and style than about getting behind the wheel.
Concept
static intro spot
An “intro spot” is the place where you film the beginning of a car video. If the location isn’t available or is too crowded or difficult, it makes filming and explaining the car much harder.
Car
iX3 (G08)
The BMW iX3 is an electric SUV. It’s designed for everyday driving but runs on electricity instead of gasoline. The podcast mentions it as a comparison for what the speaker thought they should have been invited to.
Car
Renault Twingo
The Renault Twingo is a small, easy-to-drive car made by Renault. Here, the host is using it as an example of what a press trip and a review video can earn.
Concept
paid integrations / paid ad content disclosure
Sometimes a car reviewer gets paid to talk about a car. The rules usually say they should clearly tell viewers it’s an ad, but some posts don’t make that obvious.
Concept
blurry line between journalism and sponsored reviews
If you don’t know a review is sponsored, you might think the reviewer is giving an unbiased opinion. That makes it harder to know what’s genuine versus what’s being promoted.
Brand
BYD
BYD is a car brand from China. The host says they received an email connected to BYD’s campaign asking creators to review a new car.
Concept
rates for sponsored video content (e.g., five grand vs 30,000 pounds)
They’re talking about how much money some car creators get paid to make sponsored videos. The host says people in the comments assume one number, but the actual payments can be much higher.
Car
Maserati MC20
The Maserati MC20 is a high-performance sports car. It’s designed to be very fast and exciting to drive. The podcast mentions it because the speaker went to Sicily to drive one.
Car
BMW M2 G87
The BMW M2 G87 is the newest version of the BMW M2. It’s a small, sporty BMW made by BMW’s performance division, and it’s the kind of car enthusiasts pay attention to for how it drives.
Term
manual
A manual is a car where you shift gears yourself using a clutch and a gear stick. Some drivers like it because it gives you more control over how the car feels.
Brand
BMW UK
BMW UK is BMW’s office for the United Kingdom. They often help set up press events where journalists get access to cars to review.
Car
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is BMW’s high-performance version of the 3 Series line. It’s the kind of car reviewers get because it’s one of BMW’s most famous sporty sedans.
Car
BMW M4
The BMW M4 is BMW’s high-performance version of a sporty 4 Series. It’s a popular car for reviews because it’s designed to feel fast and handle well.
Car
Bmw M
The BMW M Coupe (E36) is a two-door BMW built for sporty driving. It’s part of BMW’s performance lineup and is based on the older E36 generation of the 3 Series. The podcast brings it up as an example of the kind of BMW M car people can experience.
Concept
battery electric platforms
Battery electric platforms are the underlying design of many modern electric cars. The hosts are saying that as more cars use similar electric designs, they may drive in a more alike way—so short reviews may not show enough differences.
Concept
press loan
A press loan is when the car company lends a car to a reviewer for longer than a quick event. The host thinks a week is enough time to learn more and make a better review.
Term
stated range
“Stated range” is the mileage an electric car claims it can do on one full charge. Real driving can be different, so they’re saying you want to check what it’s like in practice.
Term
EV
EV means electric vehicle. It’s a car that runs on electricity stored in a battery, and the host is talking about how far it can go and how charging works.
Term
PPF
PPF is a clear protective film that you apply to a car’s paint. It helps protect the paint from small damage like rock chips and scratches.
Term
carbon fiber splitter
A splitter is a front aero piece that helps the car’s airflow behave better. If it’s carbon fiber, it’s made from a lightweight material people use for performance parts.
LIVE
Evening all, welcome to the Drivetalk podcast powered by Michelin. How are we, boys?
Yeah, pretty good. Thank you.
Just looking at your new long-term, it looks very cool.
Well, my new long-term, my second new long-term.
Yes, so I've been writing an LP in A290 for the last three and a bit weeks.
And when I agreed to have it, they said, look, we've actually,
the ones that we've got on fleet, they've done, the one I had done 7000 miles,
it was ready to be de-fleeted and replaced.
And I said, look, you can either wait for the new one or we'll just give you the old one.
And then when it's ready, we'll just swap them over.
So they swapped it over while I was away.
And it's nice. It's the matte, matte grey, Alpine A290 Plus, because it's now a plus.
What's a plus all about?
The plus, are you ready for this?
So the plus, the difference between a GTS and a plus,
is the plus has one pedal driving and a wireless charge mount for your phone.
Oh.
Wow.
Okay.
That's it.
So it's not a GTS that's better than your McCann GTS, because it's a plus.
It's got a GTS interior pack, so it's all right.
And how much more is the plus? How much more do you pay?
It's not, I don't think.
It's just...
The fact that the old one didn't have a wireless charge mount was a bit rubbish.
And I mean, all it really needs is somewhere to put like a cup holder somewhere.
There's no cup holders in it at all.
Sorry? There's no cup holders in it?
No, nothing.
Is that the same as the Renault 5 then as well, I suppose?
No, I don't know. I think the Renault 5's got some, but the Alpine has some.
Because the Renault 5, the Alpine has the gear selector where the cup holder and the Renault 5's are,
because it's from the A110, whereas the A5 has the like a steering column mounted gear selector.
But it is...
It's a brilliant little car to drive.
A huge amount of fun.
Its issue is range if you are...
It's very, very temperature sensitive.
So the old one I had, it's gone...
When it was a little bit colder a couple of weeks ago, with 100% charge, it only showed 175 miles.
Whereas this one, I charged it up, it was 100% charge this morning and it was showing 215 miles.
Which is what it's meant to be really.
So it's not the biggest range in the world.
One of the things I want to do with it, because I think it's floor, and it's not the only car to have this floor,
is it's sold as a B road blaster.
But if you drive to a B road and have a blast, you have to be really careful if you want to be able to drive back again.
So I'm going to do a longer trip where I'm going to go and find a knife,
so let's say I might go to Wales.
So you're going to drive to Wales, charge before you have a blast, charge before you come home and then come home
and stick it on charge when you get home.
I think that's its issue probably.
But it looks ace, it's a cracking looking car.
And has there been any price updates with the plus or is it staying at the same price?
That's a very good question.
I don't think if there is a change it's not a massive one.
I don't think so.
There's some really good deals with them at the moment.
They've got some very low APRs and some good finance deals.
So you know that and they are five.
If you want one, now is the time to finance one because there's some really good deals.
Yeah, I think for the use case and the looks, I think I still go for the Renault 5 personally.
Probably because they're like 10 grand difference.
Yeah, it's a lot.
A 10 grand difference.
The difference, the thing I like about the 1890, I like it's wider.
It's a bit more of a me look.
It's a bit wider.
It's got a fog lamps on the front.
It's the interior is, I mean there are five interiors and bad, but the A290 GTS interior is really lovely.
It's like Napper everywhere and it's really premium feeling car.
But it's more money, but it does look good.
Yeah, it looks good.
Apart from that, I don't like the pinstripe wheels on this new one.
No, that is a pack, I think.
They do it in a very bright royal blue as well.
I think it looks better in the blue actually than the red, but it looks really cool with the red calipers.
Lovely tyres.
Yeah.
It has very cool tyres.
Seeming as we are a podcast supported by Mission.
Excellent flag there, Mr Whelan.
It has bespoke tyres for that car.
So they were, I think Mission and Alpine worked for two years on the development of them.
They are an S5, Pilot Sport S5, but they are A29 marked.
And they actually developed three Michelin tyres for that car.
So the GTS, so that's the top power one, which is 220 horsepower, has an A29 marked Pilot Sport S5.
Then there's a 180 horsepower Alpine A290, and that has an A29 marked Pilot Sport EV.
And then they've also got an A29 marked Alpine 5 winter.
Oh, nice.
So yeah, so they are bespoke to that car, which is quite cool actually.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And it does.
It's interesting because I think we've talked about the S5 before, because it's still an OEM only tyre, isn't it?
I think the S5.
They haven't off the shelf version of it yet.
So to drive a car with an S5, you have them on your M5.
Have you got them on the M3?
No.
No, they don't make them.
So M5, the new Aston Martins on S5s.
There aren't that many cars on S5s at the moment, I don't think.
No, I mean, it was like, yeah, it's only a certain amount, and there won't be any, my guessing is, this is an official, but there's not going to be any.
There won't be any future cars on them either, because it was a tyre that was developed for those cars.
And I think the idea was that it was going to be the 4S replacement, but I think they decided that it wasn't.
And so now we're probably going to see the 4S replacement in the next few years or so.
Because the 4S has been, I mean, I've got 4S's on my M3.
And that's a tyre that's been out for 10 or 11 years now, believe it or not.
And yeah, it's still, you know, such an incredible tyre.
I absolutely love it, but yeah.
But it doesn't look as good as, oh no, it's trivial.
It doesn't have the real purpose.
Does it have a sexy sidewall?
No, it doesn't.
So yeah, I want some of them.
I got called all kinds of horrible things on a video recently, because I referred to them as sexy sidewall.
And so I was like, how can it be a tyre?
How can it be sexy?
You need to get a grip of your life.
And I'm like, no.
But it is.
It is quite sexy.
It is, definitely.
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah.
So we've got a topic today, it's a chat about, that we thought we'd unpack a bit.
And that is the whole thing about press trips.
Because if you listen to the podcast, we've talked about press trips so many times.
And if you watch our content, you know, I probably mind more than Joe's.
You'll see me on press trips and things.
Certainly over the more recent month, stroke years.
But we thought we'd have a chat about them because, firstly, what are they and so on.
But they have changed quite a bit, I think.
And I think also the cars that we are going on press trips to drive have changed.
And I think it's just an interesting subject.
Yeah, definitely.
So I guess we should probably, and also there's lots of misunderstandings about press trips
and whether or not we're paid to be there or who pays for them and so on.
So I guess, should we do that?
That's something we need to shut down.
Because I think that's why, yeah, that's why I initially wanted to talk about this.
And we will get onto that.
But is that actually it couldn't be further from the truth in the sense that we actually walk away.
Most of the time we walk away out of pocket from a press trip.
And that's my biggest gripe with press trips.
But we're going to get to that later.
Yeah, and seeing as you guys are the people who go on the press trips
and I normally will only support someone if I have the opportunity of going on one.
Should I ask the questions?
I've written down a few different questions.
Yeah, that's a good idea, Pat.
What's the most out of you two and to get both of your different answers?
Because on some things maybe you disagree or see it differently.
But I guess the started like, can you both try and explain in your own words, what is a press trip?
Because we understand that phrase.
It's just like second nature.
But to anybody that maybe watches a car video and just assumes you own it or you rented it,
like what is a press trip?
What's the point of a press trip?
Okay, I think there are three different types of press trip.
Okay, so the first type of press trip is when a manufacturer is bringing a new car to market
and that car is in very early stages.
It's not been launched and they invite journalists or content creators.
We'll come on to exactly who comes on trips in a minute.
To a static environment and you just see the car, it doesn't move.
It might have camo on it.
It might be, you know, a mock-up.
It might be a concept, but you're in some kind of enclosed static environment.
And that's what we would refer to as a studio shoot that you regularly take the mickey of me.
Oh, yes, studio shoot.
And for me, those types of events are a way for a manufacturer to get as much PR and comms out on a new car as possible.
So that's type number one.
Type number two is what I'd call a first drive event where those cars are now ready to come to market
and you'll be invited by the brand to come and drive the car.
And that's either sometimes if it's really early on, it might still be in camo.
Joe tends to do more of those than me.
But it could be now it seems more and more abroad trips because after COVID,
they were all kind of shut down the abroad ones and before COVID, they were wicked.
Bless you.
So you might go abroad or you might go somewhere in the UK and that would be like a first drive press trip.
And then, oh, I've got a third one.
So I'm going to do four.
Then there's what I call a range day.
So where a brand has a bunch of their cars at a venue and you come along and you can drive one or more cars for the day.
And then the final type is where they want to showcase or demonstrate something about the car and they might do some kind of adventure
or an event where I guess like the BF Goodrich thing you did where you drove through Moab or I went and slept in the back of a Hyundai Santa Fe
or you might go and drive a car through the mountains in Morocco or something.
So that will be for me what I think.
I don't know whether that tells what you think, Joe, probably.
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
And I think like there's some nice different levels as well.
So there might be like an international press launch that you go on.
There is like for all markets in the world, they fly to a destination.
So if it's like BMW, it would probably be maybe in Germany or wherever and everyone flies out.
And then your local markets will also have usually a launch of that model.
So then BMW UK will also have a BMW UK launch of it a bit later on.
So it's like the second wave, isn't it?
So yeah, yeah.
I would say there's one more maybe and sometimes they're a part of what you've already discussed.
But there is an element of schmoozing as well, isn't there?
So sometimes you get invited to the Formula E race with the brand and there's no car to drive.
There's no impression to make on a vehicle or a brand.
There's just free champagne and a lovely time.
And sometimes that is part of brand building and showing that maybe the wider brand environment that they're in racing,
that they're in some other sport they've decided to be involved in or some music event that they're sponsoring.
And so that won't come with any car experience unless you're getting chauffeured around in it.
That would just be meet the people, have a nice time and hopefully the next time you're on a review car,
you remember them and pick up a brand deal.
Yeah, and I find those hard because I never know what I'm meant to do.
Can I just go and maybe come on to this a bit later.
Can you just go and sometimes I've been on press trips and I really wish I didn't have to make a film.
I just want to enjoy it without having to worry about making content.
And the less car related they are.
I remember went to a thing with fear years ago in Milan and it was a thing around fear 500.
They did this little limited edition fear 500.
And it was a car launch in a department store in the middle of Milan with loads of fashion people and stuff.
And guess what? Tom Howard was there.
Of course.
And it was like, what the hell am I going to do here?
It was just really a fool.
So, yeah, no, absolutely those ones.
Who comes, I guess is.
That's the next question.
Who goes on press trips?
So again, you guys go on press trips.
You are content creators.
You then have the word of influencers who may drive the cars or review them or just be around and try and get that audience.
But then you've got is there journalists?
Like, do you go on all of the same trip at the same time?
Like, how does that work?
Who goes on a press trip?
You could take this one, Joe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, so there's everyone you mentioned there and the influences.
There's also a blurry line because some influences are there at these press events, inverted commas.
But then some of them are being paid.
So they're actually there.
They've been invited by an external agency or marketing agency.
So that always gets a bit blurry because you're there going, wait a second, I'm here off my own back and someone else is here getting paid for it.
But I'm going off on a tangent.
So, yeah, the events, I think they've they've changed a lot over the years because if we go back even 10 years, let's say 15 for argument's sake, a press launch was set up for written journalists predominantly.
You'd have your top gear TV.
You'd have your fifth gear, you know, various, but they would go and do their own thing somewhere with a car before its launch, et cetera, et cetera, completely standard event.
So let's talk about the press event.
Back then it was literally we're catering for journalists.
They fly in, we, you know, schmooze them.
They take the car out on these big long test routes.
They come back.
They write their article on the plane away home or the next day, depending on when the deadlines are.
Obviously, over the last 10 years, that's changed a lot with the digital world that we all live in and what Penn and I do, what these influences do, whether it's making an Instagram real, because I mean, yeah, a lot goes into a very good real.
You could spend hours with a car or whatever it is.
So suddenly they're catering for this new media, but they've also still got a cater for the old media.
And in some cases, depending on how big the launch is, some of these launches are like a month long.
So the brand goes and pitches up in the south of Spain, finds a hotel with their cars, and they'll run it for a month and invite different different countries over different waves, TV waves, written waves.
So each week might be a slightly different setup scenario, but a lot of the time they're not really too different.
So, Penn and I might turn up to one.
And we're there, we've given the car for a few hours, which is a little bit difficult like the Volvo one we were recently, although it was a great event.
Ideally, you want a bit more time because you need to understand the car before you switch cameras on, but you can't when you've got that short of time.
But then you might be on it with a written journalist or with a Tom Howard who's there to get a couple of stylish photos in his sunglasses.
So, you know, but you've all got different, different targets, right?
And so, you know, but the written journalist can jump in that car, do the two and a half hour route that they've given us, which neither of us use because that's just completely pointless for what we do.
But they were just getting the car and do exactly what you said earlier on, Penn, get in there and almost relax and enjoy the day,
enjoy the car, learn things along the way, not have to worry about anything, then go and consume it all and write the article.
Whereas we've got to literally gather everything and go, oh, okay, and now I've got to understand how it drives, talk about the camera, all these things.
So, I think, yeah, I've kind of, I don't know if I've explained that very well, but there's a lot of people that these brands have to cater for now.
And I think no matter what they do, there's always going to be someone that's not happy, i.e. me most of the time, because, yeah, you either haven't got enough time or the routes aren't good.
Or I think in my opinion, and where they all seem to fail a little bit is just the static, like they hire these amazing places and spend all of this money and we'll get onto what they spend a bit later.
But, you know, per head, and then you get there and it's like, oh, have you got a good, where can I do an intro spot?
Where can I take the car and go and chill out somewhere for an hour, put my cameras up and talk about the car, do our intro.
And a lot of the time, they don't have it, or there's one spot and there's 30 of you there.
And it's just like, that is basic fundamental.
Or some of them are like, oh, yeah, the people on this estate that we've hired are a bit tricky with it.
They don't really want us setting up, but it's just like, that's so important.
So there's a lot of areas, it's such a big, big room for improvement, I think.
Yeah, I mean, I think the who goes on it is, Joe's done that really well.
We've all got different things we need out of a trip.
And for me, I'll simplify the three.
There's the video content creators like me and Joe, there's the written journalists, and then there's the short form content.
And they use that word rather than influences, but they all require different things.
And I think the challenges, the good press trips are always the ones where those groups are nicely differentiated and separated.
They're either on different waves or treated differently.
Where it gets really difficult is when they're all bundled into the same group.
And I think one of the reasons I really want to talk about this, actually, is all of our audience sees is the output from a press trip
and that we've been flown to some lovely part of the world.
And don't get me wrong, I've been really lucky this year.
Just this year, I've been to some lovely places.
Split in Croatia was beautiful.
I went to Ibiza recently.
I've been to Spain a couple of times.
I'm going to South Korea in a couple of weeks time.
And that's always amazing.
But for me, the pressure I feel whenever I get invited on something like that to make sure I justify my place on the plane is huge.
And when you turn up, you want to do the best thing.
And the simple thing of I want a nice backdrop to film with my static car, that would be the amount of times you don't get it.
And the problem is you get in the car and you need to find that place and you might only have the car for a matter of hours.
And you spend an hour looking for somewhere to do the filming.
And in that hour, all you're doing is panicking because you're looking at the time and you'll be thinking, I'm running out of time here.
And that's if the weather's nice.
If the weather's not playing ball, it's even worse.
And then you'll be told, oh, there's a great spot there was on a thing last year with with a brand.
I won't say which one.
And I said, I need somewhere to statically film them.
Oh, we've got this on the route.
There's a brilliant vineyard.
It's beautiful.
The house is lovely.
We're going to stop there for photos and stuff.
Film there.
It's lovely.
Great.
Brilliant.
So I get there, set my cameras up, start filming just about to finish.
This guy walks out of the vineyard and he's like, in Spanish, what are you doing?
I'm like, I'm filming.
I'm filming.
Oh, I've just said the brand.
I was.
I'll hear that.
Don't worry.
Yeah.
I said, oh, they said we could come and film here.
They went, well, they haven't even talked to us.
We don't even know who they are or what they're doing.
No one's asked permission at all.
And we don't allow filming on site.
And I'm like, right, but I've already filmed everything.
Can I just get my B roll and be off?
And luckily he said yes and off I went.
But it is tricky.
But I think for me, where they're, what I've seen over the last, because I do probably
more press trips than Joe recently, although it used to be the other way around.
And the other thing, Joe will back me up on this one, is there's nothing worse, right?
Then you'll open up your Instagram one day and you'll see that someone's, you know,
on their stories off somewhere and you're like, where are they going?
And they'll tag in the brand.
And you're like, they're flying to America with that brand.
Hold on.
I didn't get invited to that.
And you feel massively left out.
And in the past, I've got, I've had some real saddens because I haven't been invited to
something that I thought I should be a bit like IX3 actually.
I thought I should have been invited to that.
I wasn't.
I've got a press one coming in a couple of months time.
But that's the worst one because you think you should be on that one.
Yeah.
Question just to help still build this picture.
Because I think there's one element that hasn't been explained yet.
We've talked about all the different types of press trip and what a pressure.
Who goes on them?
I know the answer.
And I know that there isn't one answer, but paint me a picture of a standard press
trip.
So you're being flown abroad somewhere.
There's a car to drive on some lovely roads.
They're hoping for good weather.
There's some good food, but like how, how much time is that taking out of your day?
Just all park, you know, is it a one day trip?
Is it a two day?
Is it three?
Yeah.
So if we do a foreign one, because I've done, I've done three or four Spanish stroke
European ones this year and they've all been pretty much the same.
So you'll, you'll fly out and normally you'll fly out either the afternoon and then the
press trips the next day, or you might fly out very early in the morning, get to the
venue, have a bit of driving on the first day, a bit of driving on the morning of the
second day and then fly home.
So it's normally in and out.
You have one night there.
I don't know about you, Joe.
I haven't been on many trips where you get more than one night.
Not if it's Europe.
If it's, if it's long haul, that's a little bit different.
Um, so you'll, you'll get there and it may will be you land at the airport and you might
pick up the car at the airport and then there might be a route.
And this is what we did with the Renault Twingo in Ibiza that they, um, Renault had like
a tent in the car park and we had a little bit of lunch.
We had a very brief briefing and then we picked up a car and we drove it on a route to the
hotel, which was about anything up to three hours of route, but you could drive directly
to the hotel in about 50 minutes.
So you had a, and we had, I think we left there at one o'clock in the afternoon and
we had, uh, pre-dinner drinks and press conference at half six.
So as long as we were back to the hotel for six, that's five hours, then that was, that
was, and then the next morning we did the reverse.
We drove back to the airport.
So that, that's your content creation time.
And that, that's not unusual.
I don't think it's, it's normally, you know, you'll, you'll get there.
Sometimes you might fly in and then do all your activity in the morning and be done by
like three or four o'clock in the afternoon and then fly home and get home really late.
So it's, it's normally a very early start on a very late home.
And I'm lucky because he throws an hour for me or an hour and 20 minutes.
Um, if, for those journalists that live further away, cause I guess we're probably the same
distance from Heathrow for you, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
About the same.
Yeah.
An hour and 10.
Yeah.
So, so it's two days.
And that, and that, you know, and, and out of that too, so that's two days worth of time
spent being there.
So filming.
And then you get back and you've got to edit the film.
So you're probably looking at, I don't know, a half a day minimum edit time for a film like
that.
Maybe a little bit more.
So it's, so it's about a, I, I, I normally allocate like a two and a half days to maybe
three days for a press trip.
Yeah.
Joe, would you say that's about the same for you?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm not as fast at editing as, as Ped.
I think I also film way too much stuff and, and my videos are probably a little bit longer
sometimes, but, but yeah.
So it's about three days.
I'm going to be, be super open and transparent here.
So my last Renault Twingo.
So I went to Ibiza for Renault Twingo.
Just a quick one.
Did you share, and this is a good example with Twingo.
Did you share that card?
You get it on your own.
How does that work?
So the trend I'm seeing more and more is that I think too many people get invited on the
trip and there are not enough cars and you end up sharing and, and that, I asked the
question almost the second I get there, are we sharing cars?
And then, then if you're lucky and you know the brand enough, they might will let you
choose who you share with.
And if you can share with another youth for us, another YouTuber that you know and get
on with that helps because you can sometimes, sometimes it's actually quite handy because
you can help each other film.
But if you share with a print journalist, it's much, much more tricky.
But yeah.
So Renault Twingo.
So two and a half.
This is coming back to Joe's point.
Two and a half days out of my schedule to do Renault Twingo.
And now in terms of payment, there is no payment to go on a press trip, but most brands will
pay for your parking at the airport, but I still have to pay for my own fuel to get to
the airport.
Okay.
So I've got my fuel to get to the airport.
And then when you're away, you generally don't spend anything.
So you'll have all your meals provided.
They'll, they'll give you some drinks and all that kind of stuff.
So you pay for anything while you're away.
But it's two and a half days.
And my ad revenue from my Renault Twingo video was £122.
And that's before tax.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's revenue into your business before any, anything else is considered.
So once you take your 30 or 40 pounds worth of fuel and overpriced stuff that you bought
at the airport, like food or snacks, in some cases, yeah, you end up, you basically, yeah,
it's, it's crazy, isn't it?
It's like, it's really tricky.
You know, and even if one, I'm trying to look for one that's done well, Ioniq 6N.
So that was a similar timeframe.
What's that?
I hope it's done a bit better than that.
Otherwise my accountant's going to be ringing me.
That's 155 quid.
And that's that video is done, that's done double nearly three times the number of views.
Yeah.
Now that's not to say I couldn't put some kind of paid integration in there from a
brand, but I don't like doing that so much on press trips because I don't know.
I don't know.
I never really know how the brand feels about that, but I know people who do.
I tend to try not to do that on, on first drive, press drives, unless I absolutely have to.
Yeah.
Although I did, to be fair, I think I'm, which did I do?
It might have been, I did do one on a, on a video.
It might have been Ioniq 6N actually, just to help out because otherwise, if you look
and now before everyone starts getting their violins out and stuff, for me, there's a bigger
picture to that though in that I, and this, this maybe comes onto who gets invited on
the press trips.
There are some channels.
So I, I review cars, Joe reviews cars, but I am not a car review channel.
Most of my content is car reviews, but I do other stuff as well.
I do some, some stuff around events.
I do behind the scenes stuff.
I do, do you know what I mean?
The, the, the not just a pure car review, but I know there are channels out there.
Every single video on there, on their channel is a pure car review in exactly the same format.
So my, my income stream can be kind of bolstered up by, by those other types of videos that
are often the ones that do better commercially for me.
But that, that, that visibility of being seen to be invited on some of these, I think is
quite important for my audience and for the brands that I work with to see that I can go
onto these trips.
I can produce good content.
And I think that's been hugely important in growing my channel's credibility, even though
sometimes those trips aren't commercially that, that brilliant.
In a business sense, you might, you might consider them like a loss leader.
That would be the technical business terminology.
Exactly.
You'll seem to be there.
You get put in front of an audience.
Exactly.
You also, I would you both say, and Joe, you can answer this maybe there's also an element
of a, of a gamble on a press trip.
Right.
I mean, Joe, you went to South Korea.
I was there too for the, the Ioniq six N and like that video for you, I think did quite
well, didn't it?
Got over, over a 100000 views or at least close from memory.
Yeah.
It's like 140 odd thousand, I think.
Yeah.
And so would you, would you say, obviously I appreciate it.
That was a very international trip and I did take a few more days than normal.
Would you say that was a maybe financial and experience side, a net positive for you?
Definitely not financial.
I mean, I've just looked at 145,000 views, 560 quid.
So after tax, that's 300 pounds and I was away for five days and it took me a day to edit.
So what's that 50 quid a day?
What a day rate that is.
Don't be a window cleaner or something.
And that's, and that's a successful video.
Like, so, but, but I, I went, I went on that trip.
That trip was very different.
I went on it for a number of reasons.
Number one, because, you know, I got an invite.
Yeah.
Well, I got an invite out of the blue by, by, by their head office because UK don't,
don't invite me to anything.
Number two, I spoke to PED.
I know you also had a similar one the year before or something with them.
But, but it was going to South Korea.
There was a lot of, it was going to, for me, there was, there was a really nice package.
It was like, yeah, we'll come straight away.
They're like, let's know about your airport parking.
We're flying your business cost, which is proper business cost.
Choose your airline.
We stayed in, as you know, Pack, because you were out there.
We stayed in a really cool hotel.
It was a completely new country that would I go there off my own back?
Maybe if I had the money, but it's probably not in my top five list to go away to.
But suddenly it's like, you can go there.
And also you can have a day there before the shoot just to do touristy stuff.
So the whole thing was like, okay, well, this is cool.
I'm going to get to see a really interesting country, business cost flights.
I'm going to get looked after all of this as part of the trip.
And it's a cool car that should do relatively well.
So that sort of thing for me is, I mean, it's so rare though.
It's very rare that you get an invite like that.
I think we'll definitely come on to kind of why that's getting rare as well.
Because I think maybe again, you talk about that journalistic time.
I mean, I've heard other podcasts or interviews where people are getting my iPads and laptops
and like, you know, the being treated right element was like,
there was way more budget flowing around where there was lots more on offer for you.
And so this comes on to keep us on a positive tangent for now.
And we'll come back to then how things have changed and petrol versus electric.
I've got, no, I've got one before.
Can we, can we have just one negative before we move on?
Because it's relevant.
Oh God, as long as you've got a good best, best press trip experience.
Oh, I've got some mega ones.
And allow you to one negative beforehand.
No, no, it's, it's, I mean, I'll, I'll back up what Joe said.
Sometimes you go on these events because it's just an awesome thing to do.
I'm off to South Korea in a couple of weeks time.
How cool is that to be seeing, to go and see another country and culture and all that kind of stuff.
The negative side of things.
And it comes back to the cost bit and is so we're that that's, that's the reality for Joe and I.
Okay.
We're going there to review a car.
Now, I have had multiple occasions in the last 12 months where I've been invited on a trip by the brand as a journalist, even though I wouldn't call myself a journalist.
And under those conditions that we've just described.
And I had one only a few months ago, I got invited on a trip.
I couldn't go because I was already committed on those dates.
Okay.
And then I got invited on exactly the same event by an agency on behalf of the brand.
The differences.
They wanted to know what my rate would be to pay you to make the same thing to be there.
Okay.
To go to exactly the same, the same event and the thing that sticks in the gullet and I'm going to we met.
We always push the around when it comes to this.
I've been on events where I know for a fact that there are and I'm going to use the word influences on the same event as me probably being paid multiple thousands of pounds to be there for the day.
Maybe it may be 5,000 pounds for a day.
So if you know and that that for me and it's this blurry line that we're starting to see and I'm going to say it's it tends to be Chinese brands that tend to do it.
And the reason for that is in China, it's absolutely normal practice for journalists to be paid by the brand to go to an event.
That's not it's that that's how it's done.
So to come over to this market and behave in that way is just seen as well as how we do it at home.
But what it means is you get people going on the same event and some people are there and one of the things Joe and I haven't said which I think is really important to say before we move on is at no stage,
even though I'm being paid to fly out there as in that they pay for my flights and my accommodation and all that kind of stuff at no stage to any of those brands say and this Peter is what you have to say about the car and this is what you can't say about the car.
I can go to any of those events and if I like the car or say I like the car and if I think it's a piece of rubbish, I'll say it's a piece of rubbish.
And I've done that and I have no qualms about it at all.
The second I get paid to be there.
I just don't think you can do that and I went back to this agency and I said I'm sorry but I am I've been invited to the event anyway I can't go.
That's that's fine but you can't pay someone to be at that and then expect a free and fair and unfiltered view of the car.
It just crosses a line and it's a filthy line.
That's more and more now being bought into the industry we're in.
And I think it's wrong.
I'm quite happy to go to an event be paid by a brand and front content for them.
And I've done that and I would love to do more of that because I'm very good at it and it's very well paid.
But to go and put content out on my channel and be paid to do that.
I think that is wrong.
And there are lots and lots of influencers and people that you know I won't name the names of those influence but they make an awful lot of money doing that on a weekly basis.
And I think it's wrong.
And they don't it wouldn't be as wrong because I know some of the people that do it and just don't care and fair enough they must earn a lot of money.
But it wouldn't be as wrong if 50% of these people if not more put on their posts or their videos that it's paid content that never happens.
And that's where it becomes really blurry because it and it's weird because whenever I've done like paid integrations as you have paid that it's in your contract.
You have to you have to display that it's a paid advertisement or paid ad content whatever but the amount of these especially with the Chinese stuff you just it never says paid but you know it's paid.
But it's so then yeah then that blurry line becomes even worse because the end user the person that's watching all this content has got no idea that you're there as a journalist giving an honest review and they're there getting paid to say positive things.
I also got an email from I've had quite a few over the years from Chinese brands recent years but I got one from an agency for BYD beat the pump campaign.
This was literally a couple of weeks ago.
And it goes into all this stuff.
Basically, we're inviting you to this car launch would love you to review this car in your own style.
This is but then it goes on to but this is what you want.
We want you to say this is what we want you to listen in your own style, but this is what we want you to say.
And and and and then they asked for my rates.
And I know a couple of years ago was it last year jam on cars talked about a jq video that he's been off and he's I think in his video he stated that that people are getting paid five grand in that video.
I know for a fact that one of those people was getting paid 30,000 pounds for that video 30,000 pounds.
Five grand was the ad push.
That's how much they were giving you push to add not how much they got paid exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
And so that's where yeah.
And I saw all the comments on James video going, oh my God, they get paid five grand.
No, no, no.
A lot of these people wouldn't get a bed for five grand.
Some of them are getting 30 grand.
So there's massive money and the Germans, for example, don't have that kind of money, maybe for one or two people globally, but they just can't afford to do that.
Whereas the Chinese are just coming on strong and pushing this stuff.
And like I said, if if I was if I cared less about my audience and my content and my own, I just, I just have a conscience and I can't do it.
The challenge, neither can I, but the challenge is so, you know, we've got high morals.
But when someone drops that kind of money in front of you thinking, oh yeah.
No, of course.
It's hard.
But I think, I mean, I don't want to, to sound bitter.
Like, oh, they're getting out and I'm not because I get offered it too.
But I just, yeah, it's just, I just think you have to be.
I think if it's, it's complete, basically like an advertorial, absolutely great.
But when it's trying to be or disclosing itself as an advert, then I think that is not, that's not great at all.
Yeah.
That's so great.
I think I think just to jump jump in here as well.
I think the biggest difficulty with all of this and we'll move on to the positive pressure experiences we've had before afterwards.
But the biggest difficulty of all of this is, is the fact that you can't invite people to a press trip and then pay them to make a video because then that it takes all of them because maybe the car is amazing.
And maybe they're being paid to say it's amazing, but actually it is, it is amazing.
Like, so, so you can't, you can't, all of those then journalistic reviews kind of get blowy as well, right?
Like they, they kind of get.
Then, you know, I think the other problem is.
Because if you do, if you do a paid activation away from a brand trip, I think it's as long as that's clear is described as such and maybe you get an idea enabled that's your own idea or a brand idea.
But if you're going on a, like I said, if you're sitting next to somebody who's getting paid and yet you're on a, you're on a journalistic trip like that really then blurs the lines of like, are they being influenced as well?
Like, do you even know who is actually on the, on the side of honesty here and who's not?
Yeah.
Hey, look, at the end of the day, the reality is to do what Joe and I do full time and you, you work with the range of creators and you know that they're the same.
You have to, you have to back it up with commercial deals with partners.
Otherwise you just can't add revenue on its own.
Nowadays is not enough to live on.
You just won't.
Sorry, I have to be.
It's not, it's not a, it's too variable and it's just not enough for most people to have, you know, pay the mortgage or whatever it might be.
Maybe the best way to put it is it, it doesn't make it a business.
It would be a very nice hobby or a secondary income to your normal job.
You know, it would afford you a lovely lifestyle if you had a job too, but to make it a business where you start having to pay corporation tax and everything else and pay yourself.
All of a sudden you, you're over, not even your overheads.
It's just your threshold of income required.
That number can be massive on paper, but what actually comes into your bank account ends up being, I don't know, 30% of that, doesn't it?
Or 40% of that or 25% of that, whatever the number ends up being.
So yeah, it's a necessary evil, but it's taking that away.
We go back to the press trip thing.
You can't pay people to go on press trips.
You can pay people to have experiences with brands where they publicly and openly promote a brand as long as they disclose it.
And it's all done correctly.
That's the game we play, but you can't go on a press trip and get paid to do that because that brings into question everybody.
Because who else maybe has got paid and just hasn't said anything at all?
Or, you know, how many agencies are going out there fishing for people on the same press trip?
It's difficult.
The other problem for me that the agencies fish based purely on audience size, not from what I see anyway.
Some of the people I see on the press trips.
Their audience are massive.
Their demographic isn't right for that brand or the interest.
It's just pure number size.
And most of those, the really annoying thing coming back to our all favorite is those big audience.
People are getting invited and get paid those big amounts of money.
Most of them, their audience is completely fake anyway.
Yeah, or completely irrelevant.
Completely irrelevant.
Yeah.
So anyway, Pat, move us on before we start going down the wormhole.
Best press trips you've ever been on.
What are some highlights?
Because we've talked about the downsides of negativity or the difficulties in today's market of press trips and the time you get.
But like, what was a press trip?
You're like, wow, I got an amazing car, an amazing location, the right amount of time, the right amount of like talking, you know, because again, Pete, you said sometimes you wish you could just not have the camera at all.
But what were those press trips?
You're like, that was perfect.
That was come home being like, I got a mega video, I had a mega experience, you know, I've got a suntan as well.
Everybody's a winner.
I've got, I mean, the one I was thinking about beef four years ago, I guess now I went to Sicily with Maserati to drive MC 20 cello.
Into a bus.
Well, we'll come to that in a minute.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever told the internet that thanks Joe.
But they know now.
We brought it up a few times in the pod, I think.
So the reason it was great is there were only two people on it.
They had two cars.
So we had the car to yourself.
We had loads of time.
So we had like a whole day.
And in the morning, they gave me a briefing about the car.
I had one of the guys walk me around the car and that's always good for my that's how I look.
I kind of remember stuff much better if I get walked around the car.
And they said, OK, here's the route.
And along the route at this point here is an amazing location to do your static filming.
And there's a film crew waiting for you.
And then at this point here, we've got a really lovely road that's great for some car to car stuff.
There's a film crew will meet you there.
And at this point over here is really cool to do some drone shots and some drive-bys.
There'll be a film crew just there.
And also we'll get some photographs and stuff for your thumbnails.
And then and the roads were amazing.
And then I crashed into a bus and we went home.
The bus crashed into you.
Yeah.
Was it your fault?
No, no, no.
Yeah.
And so it was because the team kind of knew exactly what I needed.
And I was a bit stressed anyway because it was my first thing I'd done with Maserati.
I knew I was one of only two people to go from the UK.
It was a lovely car, a very high performance car.
You say you want to get the most out of it, but you also don't want to crash it into a bus.
And they helped a great deal.
And it doesn't need to be rocket science.
If you compare that with the worst trips, the worst trips are always where you're paired with somebody
and you've got like a four hour drive, no time at all.
And you've got to try and just go on and run a video on the fly.
And then that's all the time with my favourite one, and I had this earlier on the year.
So you do the drive and you try and get the film done and then you get to the hotel
because you're flying back home first thing the next morning.
And at the end of the day, after you've driven the car, they give you a technical briefing about the car.
Yeah.
And you're at the technical briefing and I'm like, I've already filmed all the written journals.
They're going, oh, this is great.
Yeah, all that backs up what I've driven in it.
And I'm like, I've done my video now.
And yes, you can drop voiceover and stuff, but it's not my style and stuff like that.
So yeah, they're the kind of the opposite ends.
How about you, Joe? You must have had some mega ones over the past.
Yeah, I know you obviously talked about this question coming up before we start the pod,
but it's one of those things that when this is finished, I'll be like, oh, no, that one.
But I think off the top of my head, one of my favourites.
Finker.
Anywhere with Finker.
That was, yeah.
I mean, the Finker ones.
Yeah, they were fantastic.
That was one of my favourite trips on A.U.
their pedin.
That was brilliant.
That was location.
Just the way we were looked after business class flights.
You know, they were the good days.
But no, I think more recently, when I went out to the new M2 G87 launch in Phoenix, Arizona,
that was although the timings weren't great, the actual launch, it's as in we flew in and I think we got to the hotel at like 9pm.
And the briefing was 7am the next morning.
And, you know, we're like seven hours behind.
So no sleep, whatever.
So that side of it was just like, why did we not fly in the day, you know, 24 hours before.
But if we forget about that, the actual, it was like, which colour of car do you want?
I'll take the Zanvoort Blue.
Join it manual.
So I'll have a manual.
Right, there you go.
This is where we suggest you go.
There was a food really cool cafe there.
We had lunch and stuff provided.
We had, so I was there, I flew out with Matt Watson and a few others.
And there was on this amazing road that was going through sort of just outside of Phoenix with like lakes and stuff around us.
We had sheriffs.
BMW had employed sheriffs to be with us and close the roads at any time we wanted them closed.
So, so an example, Matt Watson.
So we're there for the M2 and the XM, unfortunately.
But Matt wanted to do, it was, it's on car bow.
He wanted to do a drag race.
So he asked me the night before he was like, can you drive the XM?
So it literally, he ran out to the sheriff said, can you close this road?
And it was, I'm not kidding you.
It's like a two mile dead straight, pin straight road that was in between cactus trees and, and, and these sheriffs, one went that end of the road, this one, this end of the road, block the roads up.
We had radios.
They said, they're closed until you say that you're done and they're open.
And, and we just were burning up and down this.
I mean, we're doing, I think I did, I did about 150 mile an hour in an M2 on an American road that had a 50 mile an hour limit.
But, and it, I mean, that was just, and yeah, and having a car for the entire day, you know, come back, dinner is at half seven, it gets dark at six.
Go like do your stuff.
Do take that to me is just like perfect.
Like it was a nice car.
It was in perfect location, really good roads, really nice weather.
That's, and that's all, you know, that's all that you could ask for in a press launch is yeah, no, no time constraints, no stress and just openness.
I mean, you could stop.
You talked earlier on about not finding any way to do an intro and that is so hard.
Even while I live, it's hard.
But there, there was like, laybys and car parks and all sorts of stuff everywhere.
There was a hundred locations you could have done an intro.
No stress.
Like, it just, and it just makes the day so much easier because you can just relax.
You know, so yeah, that's, that's pretty much it.
I mean, the more you think, I remember that one.
I mean, it was a long time ago now, but I did.
We drove three minis to Turin and recreated the Italian job on the Fiat car factory roof on Lingotto roof.
And that was, it was just such a cool thing to do and a great, and it was one of those great examples actually.
Mini needed to get three minis to Turin for a press event that they had.
And they looked at all the options.
They were going to drive them down there on the back of a truck.
And then it was, I think Georgina Cox, who you probably know, Joe from, I think she's now, still involved with us.
Anyway, she came up with the idea.
Her and Helen were chatting about, well, why don't we just get three guys, three influencers to drive, drive them down and we could make some content and stuff.
And we did.
And it was wicked.
So yeah, they are the good ones.
When you have a great one, you know, the worst one I've ever had.
I remember it was a static reveal of a car.
We got there.
We only had a short period of time with the car anyway.
The press briefing was three hours long.
And when it finished, he went, right, you can, you know, fill with the car now.
There was a room of 200 people.
And there was everyone around the car.
And it was 15 minutes before the car took us back to the airport.
Oh, my God.
I went all that way.
I didn't make a film.
I went to the PR team.
I went, I'm really sorry guys, but I'm not making a film.
I can't.
It's impossible.
Yeah, that's crazy.
And you just think it's a whole day completely wasted.
What am I going to do now?
So, but yeah, no, they, they, when they're done, right?
I think the, the ones where there's just time, just give me time in a car.
Give me a decent spot to film.
Nice rose.
I don't need a three hour long, uh, press trip.
I need a piece of road that's like five to maybe 10 miles long.
That's twisty and, and scenic.
And then I can drive up and down a few times and do my filming.
That's all I need.
And give me a, give me a pack lunch in the car.
Cause I'm not interested in going to a fancy restaurant.
Give me a pack lunch.
That's it.
And I'll see you tonight.
Goodbye.
There's definitely a level of that.
Like, um, back to bare basics, right?
With a press trip.
Like you're there to drive the car.
You guys are petrolheads enthusiasts.
Plus you have to document it.
So you've got to get those flybys, the talking bits.
Like Pete, you said, you know, a piece of road.
Maybe you can actually do more than once.
So you can do the talking, but then maybe you want the flybys as well.
Yeah.
And so yeah, sitting down for two hours for a fancy lunch.
All your mates will be impressed when you tell them down the pub that you
went to this mission style restaurant or you had this amazing food.
But you just want to eat a sandwich or for Joe,
another avocado and chicken salad.
But like, you just want to eat something simple and actually crack on.
You don't, your time limited, right?
Your time for.
When, when, when you, I mean, the guy who I just,
I don't know how he does it cause he comes on, on the same press trips,
but you look at Rory Reed's content.
I mean, normally that's the other thing.
By the way, haven't mentioned that is Joe and I and most,
most guys I know come on these will go on our own.
So yeah, I'm, we refer to ourselves as a single shooter.
So you do everything yourself.
If you can take a camera person with you, that's amazing.
And some brands will allow you to do that.
And a lot of the, the bigger channels like Matt Watson will have a camera guy
there, Rory will have a camera guy there.
I know Pat, that's what you do with, with some of the creators you work with.
You are there, camera person and help them make content.
And that's, and I've had that opportunity.
I've done a couple of really cool films with Toyota, for example,
where I've taken someone along.
But the problem with that coming back to the revenue side of things is if I did
take someone along, you can only ask mates to do it for free so many times.
You then have to pay them.
And that payment comes out of that 150 quid worth of ad revenue.
So it doesn't, it doesn't work.
Then you're paying to go on a trip rather than just losing a bit of money.
So it, but how Rory does what he does in the time he has, because he's got the
set, I'll often watch the video.
Well, I was on that shoot.
How did he do that?
I remember being M3 and M4.
Yeah.
I did one film that day.
He did M3 and M4 in one day.
And they were brilliant.
Yeah.
Well, you were, you were there with me that day, weren't you Pat?
Cause we, we did.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
BMW UK.
I'm sure you were.
Yeah, you were.
I might be.
I can't remember.
Yeah.
M3 M4.
Yeah.
But yeah, you're right.
And what confused me about that day more than anything was every time we came back
to base.
So I at lunchtime when I came to swap the cars in the morning, Rory was just standing
there, very chill, like with his cup of coffee.
And I was like, are you not filming anything today?
He's like, yeah.
And then he suddenly, then he watches films.
You're like, oh my God, they look like you spent three days filming them.
But you couldn't have because you anyway.
Yeah.
I mean, unreal.
I think maybe final thing here.
Cause I think there was a few more things to talk about.
We'll probably put two questions into one minute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't got to the point.
The whole point of this was for me to say, to moan about something.
So I need to get that in at some point.
Well, I was going to talk about my next question and this will hopefully bring you
onto your point as well was going to be when, when do you feel press trips
changed and why have they changed?
And what is the future of press trips?
Are they even relevant anymore?
Because, you know, if you can't go and have that experience, you can't go from
the car, you feel pressure to make a video that video doesn't do well for you.
So you've got no incentive to go.
The brand is costing them.
I mean, I don't know if you guys can approximate a per head cost on a, on a
generic pressure, but it's huge amounts of money.
I think it would surprise a lot of people just how much that costs.
But like, yeah.
At the end of the day, what's the point?
Yeah.
I think this is where we maybe differ a little bit now because I've got a bit
cynical in recent years and a lot of the time.
Have you noticed that?
I've not noticed that.
No.
What do you mean?
And I just can't, I don't see the value in it.
And I see PED going off to a Vauxhall shoot somewhere in my head.
I'm just like, this is me being totally honest.
I'm just like, why?
Like, nobody's going to care really relatively about the video.
I couldn't care unless it's going to sound really harsh, but I don't care about
my relationship with Vauxhall at all.
And so, and I'm just using them as an example.
I just, and that's, I mean, maybe an extreme example, but I'm becoming more
and more like that, even with brands that I do love now, because I'm just like
things, it's little things that wind me up where we talked about the M8 launch
back in the day.
Here's your parking.
Here's your business class flight.
And when I say business class flight in Europe, in Europe, for anyone that hasn't
been lucky enough to fly, it's not that special.
You just get a blank seat between you, but you do get fed some food and you get a
lounge in the airport and things like that.
Because when we're on these flights, we want to be editing and working.
So that makes difference, but so much of that is gone now.
Business class flights within Europe pretty much gone parking.
Yes, some brands pay for it, but some of them don't.
And when you ask them, they get all funny about it.
And if you looked at the price of airport parking, I mean, this is, I'm off to Italy
in a couple of days with a most bike brand, probably giving it away, but we're flying
out of Stansted on Ryanair.
Parking at Stansted for two days, 95 quid for, and that's the most basic car park
before having to go park and ride or whatever.
You know, I don't want to get off the flight and 10pm on Saturday and have to get on a
bus.
So that's 100 quid Stan says five hour round trip for me.
So that's 60 or 70 quid in fuel.
It's Ryanair.
I already know that I'm going to be overweight and all my luggage.
So I've worked out I'm going to be spending about 40 quid each way on excess luggage.
So now we're up to 400 quid.
Plus there's no one there at the airport to pay for our, when we get their breakfasts
and this is an extreme example and I'm going to sound like I'm really complaining here
and I am going on this because it's going to be a very cool day and experience
because it's on my mobile channel.
I'm going to make 17 pounds if I'm lucky.
But this is like, this is where I can see the car.
This is where the car landscapes going and they're just expecting you to put your hand
in your pocket all the time.
And as much as press launches, we shouldn't be earning any money out of a press launch.
We should, we also, in my opinion, shouldn't be having to put our hand in our pocket
for anything on that launch.
We're there.
It's our time.
We're being invited by the, you know, we're being put in a five star hotel.
Great.
But what about my 100 pound parking?
I'd rather go to a four star hotel and you cover my costs.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, yeah.
And that really boils.
It does start to great on me.
And that's the first thing I'll ask now with anyone.
It's like, are we sharing a car?
If so, not interested.
Are you paying for airport parking at the very minimum?
If not, I'm probably not interested.
And I know it sounds trivial and maybe tight, but when I look at a video like we talked about,
if a video does relatively well, 50,000 views, yes, that's going to cover my expenses.
Great.
But I want to walk away with a little bit of profit just from my own well being just to go,
oh, well, I made 100 quid on that.
And I think that's, that's where it's getting difficult in my, in my cynical head.
I just look at things that I'm like, I shouldn't.
And I guess in the old days, when you go back to old school media, they're employed by a magazine,
a publication, and they're, so they're paying for airport parking.
Everywhere they just expense it back to the company.
And also something we've talked about a lot on the pod over the years is not only that,
so the individuals not paying for it.
The magazine is earning a lot of money off whatever the manufacturer is via advertising throughout that year.
So they're getting money funneled in for other things.
So when they have to fork out a little bit of money for their parking stuff, it doesn't matter.
But the likes of Pet and I, we don't get, well, I haven't ever had a manufacturer knock on my door and go,
oh, Joe, would love to, would love to advertise on your channel.
Would love to approach you for a part of a bit.
Well, yeah, I say that.
Obviously, I did that area M thing and did get openly paid for that at the end of last year, which is fantastic.
It was a brilliant, I would have gone on that.
I shouldn't say, but I would have almost gone on that for free because it was brilliant.
Delete that part that muted.
Yeah, delete it.
But we don't get that privilege.
Everything we spend is out of our own pocket and our own business.
And we're also not getting other money in from that brand via other avenues like you would in the magazine.
And I think that's a big difference.
And it's something that when people point their finger at Pet and I or whoever it might be in our space and say,
oh, well, you're clearly getting paid by.
So actually, actually, it's really almost the other way around.
They're not directly a magazine journalist.
They're not directly being paid by the band brand, but the magazine is a whole.
Oh, if you open a magazine, you go to the back and you, oh, look, there's an advert by that manufacturer that just happens to be in the same copy of magazine as the review.
So then you look at that and you're like, yeah, it's maybe.
Yeah, it's a good point to clear up that because it's the advertisement.
Your audience, the people listening to this watching this will see your guys channels will have seen an advert beforehand.
They might have just seen an advert just before I say this, you know, there's a few adverts placed within that.
You guys don't get to choose who those people are.
You don't get to set their prices.
You have no control over that marketplace of monetization and also what YouTube takes 45% of whatever that brand pays YouTube and you receive the kind of the difference.
And it's a very competitive market.
The thing with magazines is, and I think this is the big difference for you guys is you guys are people, not brands.
And so like Joe, you said, a magazine can get paid to put a would keep using BMW because it's an easy example, but BMW will promote the new IX three in whatever magazine it is.
But that won't be associated to the journalist reviewing the IX three.
And so there is some separation there.
We can get into the nuances of awards and other elements that may or may not be influenced by financial contributions shall we say.
But but inherently a car review versus the the magazine as a whole.
Like you said, Joe, like they get to expense back all of their costs.
It's very different when you've got Joe Achilles or Petrolped going of reviewing a car and putting your name against a review and advocating for something.
You guys can't you can't have all of your BMW videos sponsored by BMW before they play like you don't get that ability that choice.
The business works differently.
And so as much as Joe, you can do the BMW M experience.
You're not selling a car in that video and you're not pretending or you're not you're not placing an advert in front of a review.
You're doing work for a brand that you love and you're having an opportunity to help promote that brand.
We'd only do that if you wanted to.
If it was a brand coming along, even when we were discussing before with with lots of money, you too, I think would pick and choose the brand you wanted to represent.
But you have to represent them as yourself.
You don't get to represent them as a wider brand.
You know, you might work with the brands in a magazine in a commercial capacity, but never review their cars.
They get to choose that.
That's a that's a choice.
You guys don't have that choice.
You can't just put me on a car review instead because you've been paid by BMW now and you don't want it to look kind of biased or whatever.
So that's that's the way I think the influence world gets a way more tricky.
Is that all of these people that are getting paid or are receiving financials, it it can't it can't not be direct, right?
Like it has to be a video on their channel with them fronting it.
Otherwise, the brand won't pay the money.
So yeah, it's a different economy.
And in that, I think, yeah, again, the press trip isn't really doesn't function to benefit creators directly, the indirect effects.
And I'm sure Pete, that's what you'll come on to now as we kind of end this podcast.
But like how you perceive a press trip and where the value is.
And, you know, it's indirect.
It's not it's not a direct thing from the press trip itself.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe we probably should wrap it up because we've been gassing on way too long.
I go I still see a relevance in in and I don't say yes to everything.
I know I know a few people who literally just say yes to everything and they're on like three or four trips a week and I just couldn't do that.
I don't have a bandwidth to do that.
I'll be selective and go on cars.
I think my audience from brands that my audience are interested in the thing I wanted to end on the challenge.
I think that we're seeing I find is that as as cars move more and more to battery electric platforms, the amount of things you've got to talk about when you're reviewing a car in a short period of time disappears very, very quickly.
Yeah, because the vast majority of you is they drive very, very similarly.
So for me, I get much more value or I think would get much more value and make a much better review if I had the car as a press loan for a week.
And I live with a car because with an EV you want to know, can it do the stated range?
What does it charge like and you don't have the ability to do that on a short one day press trip.
You just don't.
I mean, apart from a Vauxhall Mocha GSE, I can tell you exactly what the range is with one of them because I ran the battery flat and didn't make you back to the hotel.
But yeah, no, you so I think I think that the press trips are still are still important and I still think they are valid.
I just think they become more difficult.
And that's why for us as creators, Joe and I, that's what I said earlier on, I don't do just reviews.
I want to do other things and those other videos.
Firstly, I think I would just be bored senseless if all I did was a car review twice a week.
That would just do my head in.
I want to do other things, whether that's I shot a film today about having some PPF put on my car or I'll do some stuff when I'm on a drive tour next week.
Or I'll go and look at how to make a carbon fiber splitter for my car and I'll do those things or you show us how your M3 was made because they're more that it's more diversity, more interest.
So I couldn't just live on press trips alone.
No.
I think the biggest challenges for me, press teams need to understand that what the people going on trips need to get the most out the trip and the most out of their budget and produce the best marketing and PR content out the other end of the sausage machine is they need to treat video guys and print guys and influencer guys completely different
and understand what they need and deliver that a lot of teams do it a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can I end on could you just give me both of you what you think and don't confer like an average press trip again very wide but just like a number like how much do you think because I think the numbers way bigger than people would expect you know all those costs the time the
are we talking about a UK based one or a European based one.
Let's let's just go in the middle so we'll make it a European as you describe fly in one day trip fly out the next morning for a brand how much how much are they spending per head and again it can just be like what you think I don't I'm not looking for
definitely just to give you an idea.
My gut feel would be somewhere between five to 10,000 pounds per person.
Yeah, I was going to say five to eight.
Yeah.
And that's exact.
I was like it's it's more than multiple thousands like without a doubt just the raw cost and then you've got the cars there you've got the teams there you have to yeah.
The teams and say the teams.
I mean even the Volvo event that had no one recently.
There must have been 40 or 50 people there from like Volvo and then performance comms and then the events team and it was like how many people here like and then you've got all the technicians and then you've got the validers and it's just like.
But yeah, I reckon five to eight grand.
And I was talking to Chris.
Well, we'll finish.
But I was talking to Chris Baron rumble just before this about it.
And he was saying that he's been saying to motorbike brands over the years like rather than spending five grand 10 grand per head.
Wouldn't it be amazing if they just said here's the bike or here's the car.
And here's the it doesn't need to be five grand.
Here's here's here's 500 quid or 1000 pounds that you can put towards and every single penny of that has to go towards the video.
So whether it's sort of a prepaid card but you have to provide like prepaid card.
It's a crew ball of it.
Yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
And I know the logistics of that also going to be difficult because of the availability.
But could you imagine and every video would be completely different.
It wouldn't be the same bloody location with the same entry spot.
And it was just that that to me would be the way it would cut down the costs massively for brands.
But yeah, it causes other logistical problems.
But anyway, let's go.
We've all got I got to go.
I need to go on the and then I'm playing paddle.
Oh, yes.
Don't forget your shoe.
Ben, go and put that on.
Finish the shot with it.
Move your chair out the way and go and stand in the background so we can see what it looks like with it on.
What size did you say it was again?
UK 31 or something.
UK 31 and a half.
I don't need to stand in the background stand over there.
I want to see what it looks like.
Show us a profile shot.
Oh, that is amazing.
And on that bombshell.
Yeah.
Times that ends.
Oh, my God, that's so good.
Chewie, right.
Speak to you guys soon.
Thanks for tuning in everyone.
Appreciate your support.
About this episode
The Drive Torque crew kicks off with quick Alpine/Renault comparisons—what the A290 Plus adds, how cold weather can slash EV range, and why bespoke Michelin tyres are often OEM-only. Then the conversation turns to press trips: who pays, what “paid” really means, and why reviewers can end up out of pocket. They break down press-trip formats, filming constraints, and the ethics of sponsored access—plus how longer loans and clear disclosure can lead to fairer, more useful reviews.
Original notes
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Drive Torque Podcast
Joe Achilles and Peter Greaves (Petrol Ped)
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73:32