The Hitmaker Formula with Bob Pittman

Get out your notebooks, Adlandia. Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, joins us for a masterclass in marketing, sharing anecdotes and examples of how he's built hit brand after hit brand from MTV to AOL to Six Flags and more.

Bob breaks down his thoughts on the balance of "Math & Magic" (also the name of his own podcast), placing bets, creative generation, frequency caps, and the future of subscriptions. He also defines audio, unpacks the power of radio, and reminds us that word-of-mouth should be a marketer's primary KPI. 

We'll be rewinding this episode over and over again as Bob sheds light on how he's built businesses through the power of marketing and media. 

--

Thank you to our partners at Yieldmo for supporting this episode of Adlandia. To learn how Yieldmo is making attention actionable, visit www.yieldmo.com.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
What's up on Laura Creni and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
back to ad Landia post Thanksgiving holiday. We had a
good Thanksgiving holiday. We hope you all had a good
Thanksgiving holiday. Our producer had a very good Thanksgiving holiday.
Big congrats is now fianced? Is that how you say it? Fianced?

(00:31):
Congratulations Ryan, Big congrats to Ryan and Ann And joining
us for this episode is Bob Pittman in our virtual studio.
And I think this is a note taker and it's
something that you probably want to like rewind I did
at least because what Bob talks about through his career,

(00:53):
he's a hit maker. He is the hit maker MTV
six Flags, A O L. I Heart, etcetera, etcetera, goes
on and on on. Bob talks in really simple terms
about things that are not simplistic, and so it's a
really good episode to truly think about what he's saying
and think about how this person has taken, you know,

(01:17):
media companies from nothing to a O L. I think
he said when he left was of the internet market
in the United States and definitely for all of us
a household name. I think this episode was very grounding
in terms of the practice and what we do. It

(01:37):
very clearly brings it back to the reason I got
into marketing in the first place, and that's to find
ways to connect with people and deliver on a need
through the power of communication. The constant push poll I
I was having as we were going through this conversation

(01:58):
was we've gotten so hung up on the delivery mechanism
that in some regards, I think we forget what we're delivering.
And when Bob breaks down to your point, Alexa, the
simplicity of putting a clear message in front of consumers
that delivers on that need and doing it over and

(02:19):
over and over again, and then you'll hear he says,
the most effective tactic we have is word of mouth.
Nothing that relies on technology or a platform or a channel.
It's the companionship in the communication and the connection and
the interaction that people have that moves them to take action.

(02:41):
It's what products today are built on. It is peer
to peer. It is putting the product at the center
of a community. And I could not agree more. And
one of the things everything you said I agree with.
One of the things that I would punch out in
addition is that Bob wasn't saying, g RPS is the

(03:07):
way this is tried and true. He was actually saying,
question that break that that's breakable, But what you're talking
about that's unbreakable, and that I believe is what Bob
was talking about is solidified, almost re verified the work
that this industry and so many practitioners and listeners of

(03:31):
the show are doing. So before we give away the
whole interview, get out your notebooks. We're going to class
with Bob Pittman. But before we get to Bob, Laura,
we're joined here with our partners from Yield Come out
for part two of our four part series talking about
how to make attention actionable. We're here with Lisa Bradner,
GM of Analytics and Teddy Jotty, head of Product. So, Lisa, Teddy,

(03:57):
if making attention actionable is core to yield most value proposition,
how quickly are you acting on the signals that are
driving consumer attention? You'll know One of the ways that
we are able to make attention actionable is we are
sub fifteen minutes. So if we see somebody in a
session doing something, we can turn and act on that
in under fifteen minutes. We're continuing to work to push

(04:20):
that number down lower and lower. But I hear people
say real time, and what they mean is we're going
to batch process it and get back to you in
twenty four hours. That ain't real time, and that's often
not quick enough to really get the data year after.
So how are you competing in the marketplace in that
respect when we have so many different options, as you know,
media buyers to think about who we line up with

(04:43):
to target our audiences in the marketplace, how do you
think about the difference in coming to yield mo versus
potentially going to another data platform yield most points of difference?
I mean, you know, it really isn't our tagline about
making attention actionable. Uh. Number one, it's the breadth and
up of the data we collect. We're collecting over seventy signals,

(05:03):
a number of them proprietary to understand what's happening to
It's the real time tech that allows us to store
and process that data because a lot of people, even
if they could collect all that, they wouldn't be able
to process it in any kind of quick fashion. And
then three, it's the ability to optimize off of that right. Um,
you know, a lot of people talk about attention as

(05:25):
an index or kind of a you know you've got
more attention, yea, you've got less attention boo. We don't
look at it that way. We take that signals and say,
how do we optimize the media dollars you're spending right now?
We want to get you a bigger bang for your book.
We know that coming out of this year, cmos are

(05:47):
going to find their media budgets flat to cut and
their growth targets tend up. So they can't just anniversary
last year's media plan. We have a client say recently,
he said, how am I going to take my MM
them from two thousand and nineteen and apply it to
two thousand and twenty one when two and twenty happened
in between those rights. It's nonsensical. You can't go back

(06:09):
to that because we are in a very different world
and tell our listeners what m m M stands for
a Lisa market mixed modeling one of the classic old school.
So we'll look back six months and three years of
data and tell you that newspaper is the number one
channel to drive your business from here to attorney. It's

(06:30):
amazing that we're still talking about that it is it is.
It doesn't make sense when you're saying that I can
actually turn a trigger signal to you in fifteen minutes,
when you think about fifteen minute turnaround time, I can't
help but think that puts yield Mo in the driver's
seat when it comes to not only making actionable decisions,

(06:53):
of course, but also finding opportunities or windows that present
contextual relevancy. We think about contextual all the time, and
for a couple of reasons, with the death of the
third party cookie, audiences are just going to be harder
to find and follow across the open web, really across everywhere.
But also we believe that we may be over analyzing

(07:17):
and overspending on all the audience layers to get to
what we're trying to get to. And so when we
think contextual, it's not just oh, you're on a car
site looking at and we're going to serve you a
car ad It's about all the signals we can read
in that moment to say, who is this person, what
are they looking for, what are they reading, what's on

(07:37):
the page? Where on the page is that everything that's
going on, and understanding what they're signaling attention to can
help you serve the next ad and the next and
the next add and really understand in that decision tree,
should I go left or should I go right? But
I think Laura, the notion of versus reach and frequency
is interesting, right, we still need reach. Right, If you

(07:59):
are a billion dollar brand and you have to add
a hundred million dollars to your top line sales this year,
I might find you the perfect group of people who really, really,
really really care about your product. But if they're only
five of them, there's only there's only so much they
can buy. And this is for me where audience strategies
start to break down because we're so maniacally focused on No. No,

(08:23):
this is our audience. These are the people buying our product.
We want to help our customers find additional audiences that
they may be overlooking, find places that their audience strategy
may be missing because of data degradation, or just unveil
new opportunities for audiences they haven't thought of. But it
turns out our great opportunities for their products. I totally agree.

(08:44):
One of the biggest mistakes I see today advertisers make
is they um kind of overly obsess on audience strategies.
They spend all their money on platforms that they can
track users, they can measure, and it makes sense, especially
coming from a world where mixed media modeling or you know,
doing these big buys and waiting six months later to

(09:06):
see if it works super frustrating. So having the ability
to track and see how your returns come out is
a huge innovation. But the world is changing and um,
things are becoming less trackable and they're becoming more expensive.
So you know, browsers are limiting this because of privacy
controls and that's a good thing. And places like Facebook

(09:28):
are becoming super expensive for brands because you know, it
is trackable. Um And so I think that smart marketers
are taking a step back and realizing there there are
other strategies to achieve that reach and to get my
message out. And these strategies like contextual that can allow
you to infer an audience based on the content. And

(09:49):
it just feels better too, you know, And it's not
like a stroll or following you around the internet on
a you know, a sports side. It just feels more
appropriate when you're that you're reading content and the ad
just looks like it should be there um and and
combine that with with AT tension analytics, the ability to
see in real time, does this add resonate with the user?

(10:10):
That can be a very powerful strategy that's future proof
and works um potentially better and um and and more
scalable than than traditional audience buying. Lisa Bradner, Teddy Jwadi
from yield Mo, thank you for being our partners, Thank
you for coming on Atlantia, thank you for having us.

(10:34):
And we're back with chairman and CEO of I Heart Media.
Welcome to the show, Bob Pittman. Hi, Bob, thank you
glad to be here. Laura and I were looking through
your career and we were thinking through this and we're like,
how did he make the bets he made? You know?
I think careers and most of life is getting hit
on the head with meteors uh that things just sort

(10:55):
of pop up. And I think the difference that people
have is whether you say yes or know. And I'm
always up for a big adventure and so a lot
of the things I did at the time seem to
make no sense, but they all turned out fine. And
but I'm very careful. I will only go do something
that has something to do with a consumer because I
think my basic skill set is that I that I

(11:19):
focus on and understand consumers. When I was younger, I
I claimed I was a sociologist. And so you know,
whether I'm trying to sell them a house, or sell
them a pay TV service, or get them to listen
to watch MTV or by a O L, it's all
the same human being and the same laws of consumer
behavior are at work. And I think if you understand
those then it allows you a great flexibility of of

(11:42):
you know, jumping to a lot of different situations. Do
you think that marketers today need to be more sociologists
or less sociologists in the consumer space? Yeah, it's interesting.
I do a podcast called Math and Magic and it's
and I've always talked about programming and marketing as math
and magic the perfect blend of it. You have to

(12:03):
have the analytics, you have to understand what the table
looks like, you understand what the framework is. But you know,
if I tell you, oh, I know exactly who this
person is, I've found them all you Okay, Now what
are you gonna do? How are you going to motivate them?
Just because you found them doesn't mean you can motivate them.
That's the magic. And I think you need both, and
I've tried to be a practitioner of both. I never

(12:25):
graduated from college, but I did do three years of
it and my major with social methods of research. And
I started my career in radio, and I was one
of the first radio programmers to use research. Before that,
it was sort of golden gut or I looked at
sales or the record companies told me what was a
good song? Are we listening to the request line? And
I started doing what we call call out research, and

(12:47):
we still do all these years later, for fifty years later,
still doing a variation of that, in which we survey
the consumer about what songs they like and how they
like them. The old days, it was do you love
it the like it? Do you like it so much that?
Or do you not neutral? Do you dislike it? Do
you dislike it so much you'll change the channel? Or

(13:08):
do you like it but tired of hearing it so much?
And and you know, from that we would develop how
you balance your music and put it together on a
radio station. And I did that always when I was
at a O l uh and every place I've been,
I concept, test everything, and I test my liners and
I don't know if you recall, but there was a
time at a o L when we went to unlimited

(13:28):
pricing and it was dial up and people got nothing
but busy signals, and we sort of had our J
and J Thailand all moment. We had one chance to
get it right and uh so we tested what would
work with the consumers, what did they believe about us,
what were they looking for, so that when we had
that one chance to make a statement, we'd say the
right thing. And and also helps define For example, at

(13:52):
at a o L, we understood two things about consumers.
They tend to want to go where everybody goes. You know,
if you to a new talent, you very quickly find
yourself saying where does everybody go to get there? Whatever?
And we their safety and going to number one. But
if you just say you're number one, it sounds braggadocious.
The other thing we knew was that what was we

(14:15):
saw and it was quite different than everyone else. We
didn't think this was about a keyness. We thought about
ease of use and the future is gonna be easy
to use. People as a slur said oh hey, oh well,
that's the internet with training wheels. They didn't understand that
was what the consumer wanted to hear, that it was easy.
So our our line became so easy to use, no

(14:35):
wonder it's number one. We can find both of those thoughts.
And I think that's a combination of math and magic.
That we understood the math of what they were looking
for and how they were there, and from that craft
at an approach which was okay, we're going to use
the easy, We're going to use the number one, pull
them together, tied the two together, and you know, as
you know, by the time I left a O L,

(14:57):
we have fift of the traffic of the inner at
in the United States. Went through all this concept of
math and magic. You know, in an industry as ours
where seemingly everyone has doubled down on data and in
many cases it's become sort of a commodity in many
regards and many people are using the same data. Can
you talk to us about the magic element? Where do

(15:19):
you go, Bob for the magic time and time again,
whether it was figuring out why MTV why then in
that moment, and what it would be to pivoting. You know, however,
many years now into my heart and being a mover
and shaker within the podcast industry. So it's a really
good question, and I think it's it does start with

(15:40):
me with the math part. And the math part is
not exactly the math that everybody uses today is not
just clicks and numbers. It's math of understanding what verbatims
people say when they're talking about something. For example, years
and years ago on as a radio programmer, we said
we play less commercials because that's gradically correct, and I go, yes,

(16:01):
but that's what everyone says. And so I think the
important thing is understand the language, Understand the way the
consumer frames the issue and what they're looking at, and
talk about it from their point of view, not from
our point of view about how we built it or
what we think it is as a professional. Um. And
and I think on the on the magic front, it

(16:22):
is really opening your mind. Um. I read some you know,
a great student of of creativity and and and you
know you read a lot. And I believe this that
you don't come to a creative idea by stepping through
some business school kind of points of view. And then
here's the answer that the way the way you get

(16:43):
the creative idea is you load your head with all
the information, you mull it over you and then you
forget about it, and one morning, when you're in that
alpha zone, when you're sort of almost awake or sort
of in and out of sleep in a way. Or
for me, it's when I'm taking a fifteen minute hot
shower in the morning and I'm just zoning out, ideas

(17:04):
pop in my head and it's a joke in my
family forever. I've run out of the shower and quick,
give me the pen and just write it all down.
It just appears in my brain. And because I know
that's how it comes. When I work with agencies, I
don't want the big presentation. I said, you really, just
save all those account people. I don't need to see them. Uh,

(17:25):
this will be a more more profitable account for you.
I want you to get about three or four different
teams to look at exactly the same stuff. Do not
have them talk to each other. Do not have someone
review their work to figure out what you're going to
present to me and then come and present it. And
what I'm doing is I'm maximizing the odds that one

(17:46):
of those people had the epiphany. And it's those epiphanies
that make the difference. You know. The line H A
O L so easy to use, no wonders Number one
turned out not to be the line the agency was suggesting.
It happened to be in a briefing note they had
about the line they wanted to create, and and and
as soon as I see it, that's it. And I

(18:08):
think that's Matt. When you see magic, you know it.
That I want my MTV came about because George Lois
and um and they open who is his partner, had
been promotions director at w NBC Radio with me who
I had given the account to to come up with
this idea of you know, how are we going to
advertise MTV? And we had this problem that the cable

(18:29):
operators didn't want to carry us and they wanted us
to pay the money. We didn't have it, so we
needed some way to use consumer pull to get the
consumer to to demand it. And they had originally this
this uh commercial of America's becoming a land of cable
brats and blah blah blah blah blah, and in there
it said call your cable company and say I want

(18:52):
my MTV. Well wait a minute, that's that's the line
I want my MTV let's read craft. So to me,
it's alla is this iterative process that you can edit,
you can play with, but it starts with that creative epiphany.
I mean, you look back over your career. Were you
doing these big, swinging innovations or was it more incremental

(19:13):
innovation building on itself. I never thought I was doing
anything big. People have said I was a disrupted I
never thought it was disrupting anything. I thought I was
simply solving a need. Okay, I can identify we need this,
let's go do that. We need this, let's go do that.
The consumer wants this, let's serve that. But I never thought, wow,

(19:35):
I'm going to disrupt everything. I just thought I was
following consumers, or I was looking for a solution to
a particular issue. I did a Math and Magic episode
with Fred Cybert, who did the on air look for MTV,
which at that moment in time, you guys are too
young to remember, was the what was this incredible breakthrough look?

(19:56):
But the reason we did the look, as Fred and
I explored, was because we didn't have the money to
do what everybody else was doing, which was looked like
Star wars logos, you know, coming from outer space, like
the intro to Star Wars. Um So Fred hit upon
the idea, said, you know, Bob, if we do our
version of that, we don't have much money, so ours

(20:18):
will look cheap. But if we do something entirely different
than no one's ever seen before, then it will just
look creative. And and he was right, And that's what
led us to do such a radically different look was
because we didn't want to look like anything else, so
we couldn't be compared. And people realize we were spending

(20:40):
ten of what our competitors were spending and creating that.
Do you think marketers today ask the simple question that
you just asked, what is the need? Because I you know,
I talked to marketers all the time, and we've overcomplicated,
and we've also and we've also naval geys to a

(21:00):
point where we don't we can't even ask the simple questions.
I have a pretty strong opinion on it. I'm a
research guy. I love data. Um, I think we've gone
way too far. And I talked to marketers and they're
I've got I want to target. I want to go
to the target. And you look at every bit of
the research and I pull this out for people to

(21:22):
see sometimes because you get a little lost I go.
You do realize, of course, that most of your buyers
are not in your target audience. If you think about
the target audience and about all the research supports, that
target audience means you have a high density of buyers
within this group, but most of your buying is done
outside the target. So when you super target to this

(21:45):
target that you've figured out, you've eliminated everybody else. If
you look at people, if you look at the results
of companies, and then let's go back to like two
thousand and eight, two thousand nine, ten years ago, and
they shifted their money tremendous amount of money to to
digital and social where they could absolutely target most of

(22:05):
those companies. Almost all those companies had stagnant sales, stagnant revenue,
no revenue growth. And how they're doing all this super
targeting and missing everybody else. I look at the example
of Mark Pritchard at PNG, which is I mean, guys,
she's such a smart guy, and he you know, they
cut out radio and outdoor almost disappeared from PNG. I think,

(22:29):
I think, you know, they weren't even in the top
two hundred three or four years ago in radio, and
suddenly Mark looks at he needs to cut back his
marketing spend. If you remember this moment in time, sales
have been somewhat stagnant, and so Mark, unlike most people,
say well, it's gonna cut everything. Ten Mark really looked
at everything any any any you know, if you mean

(22:51):
conversations with him, and he said it publicly to um,
you know, he'll said, well, let's see where where did
we take our money for before and how well did
that perform? And wait a minute, now that I really
look at it closely, a lot of those digital's not performing.
I think the number one he took two hundred million
out of digital put money back into radio and outdoor.

(23:14):
And I don't remember you know, you know remember this,
But as soon as he did that, his sales took off.
And I think they had something like five or six
record quarters of sales. And he moved from not even
being in the top two hundred radio advertisers. So I
think he was number one or number two last year.
And uh and and you know what if you find,

(23:35):
of course with radio, is that yes, it hit his target.
But and he only paid for the target, but he
actually got everybody else. And I think a lot of
companies forgot that in the broader reach media, that you
paid for the target, but you got this extra for free.
So people really did hear about it when we went
to digital. And by the way, I started all this

(23:56):
at a oh well, we convinced people to come to
digital advertising. But the problem with digital advertising, it's very
powerful in many ways, but the problem with it is
you only get the target and no one else. Here's
your message. You've gone dark with those other people. I
remember when around six Flags steam Parks. When I got
to the company, this company was stalled at about seventeen

(24:16):
million in attendants, have been for twenty years. And as
we began to look at it, we looked at the
markets and they say, well, we really get a high
density of buyers from the market and what they called
the outer market. They said, well, we don't advertise out
there because it's hard to reach those people. But I
looked at it and it was like that was all
the growth and the growth potential of the company. We're

(24:38):
already fully penetrated internally. So I figured out ways to
do cheaper advertising, some national advertising and things like that,
which reached this outer market which they said wasn't quote
unquote efficient, and we took the Now we did some
other things too, but we took the attendance from seventeen
million to twenty five million, and and it was unlocking

(24:58):
these people that by mark geting rules that didn't work.
I also did something there which I bought a ridiculous
weight level. I bought fifteen hundred grips a week, hundred
a week, almost impossible to get. We were the number
one advertiser in every market. And we did this for
about ten weeks in seven markets. And my agency said, Bob,

(25:19):
you're wasting your money. I go why? They said, your
twelve plus frequency is not increasing? And I go, what
about my twenty plus frequency? What about my thirty plus? Freaks?
Who said twelves the magic number? And what I wanted
people to do with buying the silly frequency was we
were a tarnished dead product. I wanted people to think

(25:41):
everybody was talking about six flags. So how did I
how was I going to accomplish that? If I bought
enough frequency, I knew that the consumer would get confused
and they would think every time I turned around, I'm
hearing about six flags, they think people are talking about it,
so they began talking about it. Then I primed the
pomp of word of mouth. And to me, that's the

(26:04):
most effective advertising get a conversation going today in marketing.
Still today, I don't think we win unless we're in
the conversation. And I think every product has to get
people to talk about the product. I gotta be at
that dinner table conversation. I have to have someone telling somebody.
And so the way I used that there was massive

(26:25):
a frequency. And again I think a lot of these
tricks get lost from people saying and I've got precisely
seven point three clicks, it's going to be the magic number.
And I go, you're kidding yourself. You are It is
not that precise, and you you human brain and no
computer can capture all the variables that are necessary for success.

(26:45):
And when we try and do it, it's I promise
you a full's game. Um. And and so for us,
for me as a marketer, yes, I want to know
all that information, but I'm realistic about what it can
do what it can't do. One of the things you know,
you're just alluding to to scale, and we know my
Heart reaches nine and ten Americans. But what we're really

(27:08):
enamored with is the audience relationship with the platform, with
the hosts, with each other, and thinking about, Bob, how
close you are at the community level locally fifty stations
around the country talk to us about the magic in
power of local radio at scale. Sure, let me let

(27:30):
me spend one second, because I think it's poorly understood,
although I think you guys understand it pretty well. That
you know, radio is unlike any other media. Most media
is about a program, a piece of information, a piece
of quote unquote content. Radio is not. Radio is companionship.
If you think about, well, your music, I said, of

(27:50):
our stations don't play music, how do you explain that? Uh?
And they and they say, well, I'm you know, I'm
hearing all my favorite songs. I go, I sort to
hear my favorite songs. You know. The minute we put
a a tape recorder, Availa Bullet to Uh, we could,
we didn't have to listen to commercials anymore. And my
own mixtapes. Uh, why did radio do so well? Why

(28:10):
is it continue to be big? It turns out, of course,
what radio is his companionship. We're keeping people company. We're
writing to work with them every day. In that empty seat,
that's Ryan Seacrest there. He's a really interesting person. He
makes your drive to work pretty interesting. Is if you
had a great, uh, you know, a buddy writing to
work with you. And so our job is to talk

(28:34):
to the listener as if we're their best friend, and
they should think they know us. Ryan Seacrest has this
wonderful stories he tells about how he knows he's working.
He said, if he's out with some stars TV, movie
stars and the and a fan sees them, he said,
they rush up to the movie star and they go, Wow,

(28:57):
can I get my picture taken with you? And then
they turned to Ryan and say, hey, would you take
my picture? They treat Ryan as their friend and the
movie star as a star. And he said, the minute
that changes, I'm dead. He knows it. And I think
the wonderful thing about radio and what we do is
that we are having a conversation constantly with the consumer.

(29:19):
They listen to the radio broadcast radio on an average
of about seven times during the day. They're always checking
in to see what's going on like they would with
a pal, and they're looking to us to give them
that relevant information. And for us, advertising is the This
is probably the most native medium for advertising, because what
does advertising tell you to do when it's done well,

(29:41):
it tells you what's out there. Uh, you know, I
don't think we as a as a as a concept.
I don't think we ever sell anybody anything. I think
what we do is we try and connect people, connect
people to a product they may like by explaining the
product in a way that they understand. And if someone's
using radio advertising, their goal ot to be either through
the weight level, through the creative they use where they

(30:03):
use it. They want to get the consumer talking about
the product. And I don't care what the product is.
There's everything hasn't has a conversation about it. If you're
clever enough, you'll figure out how to activate it. Are
the local stations kind of this hidden jewel that I
heeart has Do you think about that, especially in today's

(30:26):
world where people have scattered from cities, gone out to
the suburbs, the local community is really key, Like are
you thinking about using those local stations in a different
way or how important they are to the kind of
overall asset of I heart. It's really fifty brands absolutely.
We we treat them by the way we treat the

(30:47):
eight hundred fifty brands, like Pixar treats their movie brands.
And our Pixar brand is iHeart Radio. And if people
know one of our radio stations at an iHeart Radio station,
the quality score goes up about twenty points, just like
I imagine animated film goes up about that if you
know it's a Pixar film. But I would say, as
opposed to being a hidden jewel, it's sort of hidden

(31:08):
to the advertising business because that's not what they talk
about all the time. But it's actually the foundation of
what we do. Um that everything is built on that
radio station has a relationship with a group of of
of consumers who are in the tribe of that radio station.
That radio station speaks to them. It's an organizing principle.
It's part of My favorite radio station is the one

(31:31):
my favorite radio station is you know is a Kiss FM.
My favorite radio station is whatever, And so it's part
of your life and it defines who you are to
a certain degree, and we take that responsibility very seriously.
We're actually regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, the federal government.
We have standards on what we can and cannot say,

(31:54):
and we will lose our license if we violate that.
So we are the safest media. We end and broadcast television,
which has the same restrictions, are probably the safest media
out there. Uh. In terms of that, we also take
the response, but we're actually licensed to serve the community
and we actually believe that. So when something like Hurricane

(32:16):
Sandy was barreling towards New York, See one, hundreds stopped
playing music and talked about evacuation. After the hurricane hit
Panama City, our stations down there were the only media
on the air, and most of the cell coverage was down,
so we became critical to tell people where you go,

(32:37):
where you get your blankets, how you get help, where
the medical care is, where you can get temporary housing.
When the floods hit Houston, I was listening to our
station on by our radio. I was on l A
and listening to it, and they would have people on
the air saying, well, I'm on top of my house here,
and they go to describe your house and where you are,

(32:57):
how many people are there? Now? Are there any disabled
people there? And they were saying, okay, who's got a vote?
Because if you remember, the government didn't have enough votes,
so they were enlisted private people with boats. They were
putting people together with people with boats so that they
could get people evacuated. And that became serving the community.
Now in good times, were playing music for having a

(33:19):
good time. We're doing whatever, but when they need us,
we're there. During COVID, we've done some very important work
with getting information out and helping people get through it.
And with the the unfortunate and tragic killing of George
Floyd Um. We had a last year we were looking
at our radio station or portfolio and saying, you know,
we got some stations we're not we're not doing enough

(33:40):
with We need to do something bigger, and we got
them all over the country. We get something really one
big national idea, and we're looking at opportunities and realize
that the black community had zero, zero, not one, not
even one news all news service, the talk services they
talked except no all news service. Where's the ten ten wins?

(34:02):
Where's my CBS news radio eight? Um? And so we
set about building one, and then COVID came along. Ad
sales go down, we cut costs, We put it on
the shelf. George Floyd killing happens, and Tony Coles, who
was the executive internally who was really developing this with
a couple of other folks, reaches out and he said, Bob,

(34:24):
I know we've cut cost. I know we fur a
little people. I know every penny counts, but the country
needs this and they need it right now. So we go,
you know what, right, talk to the board of directors,
We all talk amongst ourselves and we say, no matter
what it does economically, we're gonna launch this. We're gonna
launch the Black Information Network. And we as part of it,

(34:45):
we said, you know the problem with news being ad
supported is that they then will need to get a
rating because it's all costs per thousand. Right, And if
and I was I was sponsible for CNN part of
my portfolio when I was CEO of Time Warner when
Fox came along, and we had lots of discussions about

(35:09):
whether we should also do sort of opinion news, take
a position, and at that moment we decided to know
we're gonna be really balanced news. And as you know,
Fox ran away with the ratings. So we know that
if you if you want a rating and news the
way you do it is you basically do clickbait headlines,
you do clickbait news. You you get people's blood pressure up.

(35:31):
You sort of sensationalized stuff. Don't tell them the whole thing,
So slap that story a little bit to get them
riled up because think it's a rating. And we wanted
to figure out a way not to do that. So
we hit upon this idea and we reached out too.
Then we were limited to ten companies to come be
founding partners with us. Let's develop this service as a authoritative,

(35:54):
fair and balanced news source that always covers the black
community the perspective. And so we came up with a
model of we found these bounding partners, fantastic companies that
shared our mission, and we together came together to go
to the Black Information Network and launch it. And oh,

(36:15):
by the way, from the time Tony said let's do
it till the time was on the air, I think
was four weeks. And you know, when I was talking,
some of these bounding partners said, yeah, I like that.
I don't know when are you talking about launchets in
two weeks? The two weeks Wait a minute, We we
never operated in two weeks and it was but we
all came together and moved at a speed we knew
are normally moved. But to me, that's the power radio.

(36:36):
We can do things immediately. We can do it quickly.
Hurricane Sandy's heading this way. We can drop the program
literally in a second and start talking about something new.
We don't have to get camera crews out there or
do anything else. We were connected. Yeah, I I well,
I actually think, by the way, congratulations on that, because
I actually think it is a big deal. You know,
when I think of my heart and I heart audio,

(37:00):
I also think of you as a talent network as well.
You're almost a talent network. Have you and your kind
of leadership team talked about what the future of talent
in audio sounds like, looks like, etcetera. Yeah, it is.
It looks like the entire community because we reach Americans,

(37:25):
and our view is if we reach ninety percent of Americans,
we ought to be that that diversity ought to be
represented with us on air. And uh so we look
for people from all walks of life. And and not
only am I talking gender race, I'm also talking liberal conservative,

(37:45):
I'm talking progressive. I'm talking about young old um suburban,
rural urban that we need to cover it all. And
when we make decisions, when we talk to the community,
we need to sound like the community. And if you're
gonna be authentic, you have to be real. It has

(38:06):
to be up the community. And so that's a really
important thing for us, and we continue to strive and
work on that. And we also work on developing talent um.
We have talent coaches that help sort of people reach
their potential. We have so many radio stations that we
can use and such a career path that it's hard
to imagine somebody wants a career on the air, you know,

(38:30):
being someone's friend, being uh, this kind of personality that
could say, oh, I'd rather be anywhere else, that this
is the place to be. We take it seriously, uh.
And we also know that no matter who we have
on the air, we need to be building the next
generation and we need to be listening to them. You Know,
the biggest advantage I have and the biggest drawback is

(38:52):
I've been around a long time. I started MTV when
I was twenty seven. I'd already had a great career
at at NBC Radio, starting at age twenty programming their
stations out in Chicago, and then went to w NBC
and New York program them and but so I have
a lot of pattern recognition, a lot of experience to bear,
but I also understand that I'm not at the moment,

(39:14):
and since I'm not at the moment, I need to
listen to the equivalent of Bob Pittman. At I worked
for a man named Steve Ross, who is this great
entrepreneur who built Warner Communications and the time Warner and
I was the young guy that beating him sort of
fresh ideas, and I somebody I forgot who it was
talking about the Mentor program where they actually do the

(39:34):
reverse thing. They have young people mentor their senior executives
um as opposed to the senior executives mentoring the young people,
and they mentor them so they know what's really going on,
what the world really looks like today, not yesterday. And
I think that's so critical to the work you do,
the work we do, and all of us that are

(39:56):
in media communications advertising where we're trying to reached the
public and have a dialogue with them and have a conversation.
What you said about pattern recognition is so interesting, and
I love we love to talk about audio in general,
going from radio to podcasting. What has the podcasting space

(40:20):
allowed you to do potentially that that radio has limitations
in but also areas of where it can bring the
future of audio. Sure, it's a great question. Let me
before I go there, I'm just gonna do one thing,
because we keep talking audio. They're really two pieces of audio,
and they actually are radically different. They're they're mirror images

(40:40):
of each other. One is the music, just my music,
my music collection that used to be a box of
CDs or LPs or forty five um and today it
is your streaming service Apple Music or Spotify probably And uh,
but when I listen to my music, I'm escaped in
the world. I'm putting myself in a one to one

(41:02):
relationship with my music. I'm putting putting a cone of
silence out. I don't know what. I want to know
what's going on the outside world. I don't want information.
I don't want to joke, I don't want whether, I
don't want the time. I just want to go and
it makes me feel a certain way. Radio is the
opposite of that is companionship. It's when you want to
know what's going on in the world. And so I

(41:23):
think you think about those two is very different pieces.
And and by the way, every time we get close
to trying to do something in the music collection, we
tried to do on demand music on the I Heart
Radio app and he was like, that's not yea, what
what is that? You know that I'm looking for radio
here and uh, I'm looking for that companionship. And so
when we look at podcasting and why we've been watching

(41:46):
it for years start trying to understand how big it
could be and what how it could grow. Is I
think podcasting is sort of Netflix. Uh, and what do
I mean by that? I think Netflix is t be
on demand. Uh. That really the TV networks probably should
have started it because initially it was built on just

(42:07):
a replay of stuff you would see on TV, except
I can have it on demand. I could get it
when I wanted it, and uh. And then that is
really when I look at radio, like TV had a
limitation of how much they could put out there because
it was linear. I've only got twenty four hours in
a day, seven days a week, So I do the math.
I can only have so much programming on the air.

(42:27):
But there's programming like that that could be on that
network if I had time for it. That was Netflix.
I think in our case, I think a podcasting is
still an extensive companionship. And what we know about podcast
is podcasting is completely host driven. It is you don't
have a great host, I don't care what your content is,

(42:47):
You're not gonna have hit podcast. And so for us,
it was the same radio experience, except it was on demand.
It was not necessarily in real time. But every show
that's a podcast could really be on the radio. Uh,
and sometimes some of our podcast actually are the radio
shows delivered on demand, and uh, we have uh just

(43:08):
said okay, that's our that's an important part of our future. Yes,
we want to keep radio going. But there's a whole
new on demand feature. Let's don't let Netflix happen somewhere
else has happened with the broadcast networks will be a problem. Rather,
let's do it the broadcast network should have them, which
is basically started their streaming services themselves with all this
other content. And that's what we did. And today we're

(43:31):
the number one podcaster. We've been the number one commercial podcaster,
and we have a lead of about two to one
over the next largest commercial podcaster. I think podcasting continues
to grow. This has grown much faster than streaming music did.
So I think we're looking at something the consumer wanted.
We're looking at a service that's that you know, we

(43:54):
build the infrastructure to deliver um and I think it
continues to grow and be an increasing part of the
important part of the media landscape. And by the way,
what you do in terms of engagement with a advertiser
and podcasting you couldn't do anywhere else, you know. But
I'm sitting here going like, what business is Bob Pittman

(44:15):
in right, Because I'm sitting here thinking about the fact
that you're a town hall, your local community center, You're
an IP generator, you're a creative discovery engine. Like, there's
all these businesses and it just so happens that you know,
a broadcast, radio station or streaming platform. Is how you

(44:35):
put that work out in the world, or put those
conversations out in the world. It's really interesting to think
about them. I'm sitting here imagining, you know, your sales
team's pitch deck, and I'm saying, like, is it an
audio company? Because when you start to really pull apart
the businesses that you're in, it's really not audio or
talk radio or music or it's really about the community

(44:57):
and the creators at the heart of it. And that
really unlocked all of these different businesses. Um to me
that I heart media then becomes we will also tie
it together. I mean, you bring up a very good point,
because I guess we really don't even think of it
as audio. We think of it as companionship. The best
way we do it is having audio conversations. But when
the we did all these big events and then the

(45:20):
lockdown happens, and we realized the consumer is feeling very isolated.
So we work with Fox and say, you know what,
we think we can get these big stars to do
this living room concert one night, shoot their stuff on
iPhones and first of your iPhones, so it's gonna watch
iPhones on TV. And we we get Elton John the

(45:42):
host it. You know, Alicia Keys kicked it off. We
had all these great performers in that in that one show,
and we did it instead of doing the award show,
which got canceled because we obviously couldn't put people into
a theater and do an award show. And we used
that slot with UH with Fox to do it. And
we really didn't know what we were going to do,

(46:02):
but we knew companionship is very powerful and I Heart
knows how to do it. So the the I Heart
UH Radio living Room Concert with Fox and it's interesting.
We raised I think the total was sixteen million dollars
in that night, and it's important just to demonstrate the
power of it at that time. And I think it

(46:23):
still maybe the highest rated Sunday night entertainment show on
TV for the year. Who we produced that it's TV,
but we didn't say think it's TV versus radio. We
thought it's companionship. It's us connecting with this audience and
this community and UH and you're right, it so happens

(46:43):
were audio, but the essence of what we're doing is
something that's probably more refined than audio. Where do you
take this because we're not out of COVID, I think
we all think, right, it's going to take a long
period of recovery. Live sports is is in question. Moments
where community has rallied in mass is in question in

(47:06):
general physically on broadcast, etcetera. How are you thinking about
taking companionship or are you thinking about taking the idea
of companionship even further, even further than what you're describing. Yeah,
I think a lot of it is about, um, how
we use it and what they gotta go back to,

(47:26):
what's the need right now? Uh. When the protest came
up over social justice, racial equality, uh, you know, following
the killing of George Floyd, we brought instead of you know,
say okay, it's hard to get out there and do
what we would normally do, we did these virtual town halls. Uh.
There was even a moment in which the Breakfast Club

(47:48):
chatted with Rush Limbaugh. Um, you know, Charlemagne the god
in the Breakfast Club and Rush Limbaugh talking about this
that there was a moment, you know, in which the
country needed a conversation, and so we had to rally
to provide the conversation. And we did them in local markets,
we did some national ones, uh, and we did them
in sort of all flavors. And I think that's what

(48:11):
we have to do, is is just listen for the moment.
And I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. There
may be something tomorrow which we need to change whatever
we're doing, and we will and we can. And I
think having that attitude if we will and we can,
is really what makes the company great and which makes
us invaluable to the consumer. And over time, I think

(48:33):
a consumer values us because of the cumulative impact of
what we've done. And I think that's what's exciting about
the company. And that's exciting about the work we do.
And by the way, when we deal with our advertising partners,
you know, yes, we'll sell you some spots, but that's
the least interesting thing we can do. What we can

(48:56):
really can do is talk about what are you trying
to do and how do we come buying your smarts
and our smarts, what you know and what we know,
and your assets and our assets, and figure out how
to make this thing work? And uh, and I like
it one because of the service we do. I also
like it just because I'm a very curious person and
I like making things. And there's nothing more interesting than

(49:18):
me than getting involved with one of our clients who's
got a particular need and brainstorming and coming up with
these ideas. Because I think all of us in this business,
probably everyone listening and certainly you folks are. We're turned
on by creating, and uh, it just gives us satisfaction.
It's like that's what I wake up in the morning

(49:40):
to do. And I think we have this bed with
this huge reach, all these markets, all these product lines
where we sort of don't run out of territory. We
can There's a lot we can create and if someone
comes to us with a brilliant idea, we can just
say sure, we can do it. Well, we'll say yes
and then figure out how to do it later. Does
the industry sometimes gets held back in what you just

(50:03):
described getting turned on by making things that people need?
Isn't that our jobs people need? Like it's that freaking
simple and it's explained stuff to people. You know, what's
the biggest problem with all the products that we're all
involved with. They don't know enough about it. We know
so much about it because we make the product, we

(50:25):
failed to comprehend that the consumer doesn't know anything about it.
In the in the old days when I was a
radio programmer, and one of the first things I observed
was at the time a disc jockey was saying, I'm
sick of playing this record. Is about the time the
consumer goes, what's the new song you're playing? Yeah? Yeah,
we are way ahead of the consumer, and we have

(50:47):
a body of knowledge the consumer doesn't have, and we
as creative people. The job we have is how do
we I go back to how do we connect to people?
With the music industry, we see our job it's connect
the music to the fans, the people that will like it.
With an advertiser, our job is to connect that message
to a consumer who will be responsive to that message

(51:09):
and explain in a way that gets them excited about
it as opposed to turned off to it. Bob, we
know that you're in the subscription business, and throughout this conversation,
just thinking about the word companionship and the emphasis on
the relationships that you have around your I P. Do
you see a world where my heart continues to move

(51:31):
into subscription and starts to look at different options and
going direct to consumer, not as a as a replacement
of ad supported, but potentially finding new ways UM to
give consumers experiences directly UM, experiences so unique UM that
they would want to pay for them because they want

(51:52):
to stay engaged in that conversation with that community, with
that talent. For example. Yeah, you know what's interesting I
did at a O well we want the great success
stories and subscription UM and we had when I left
about thirty five million subscriptions stay Oh well, and uh
we we, unlike anybody else in the internet, wade money
on our our subscription revenue. Um, I do. But I

(52:16):
think it's we got to be careful with subscription. People
jump to the conclusion of I'll do subscription and everybody
will want it. Actually, they only want subscription if it
makes sense. And when when I say it makes sense,
is is it cheaper? Is it more efficient? Is it
more effective than what I was doing? You know, Netflix
was a huge hit with a subscription because it was
so much cheaper to pay that one price for a

(52:36):
subscription that it was to buy all the product a
la carte. Um. But I've seen people in the podcast
business gone, I'm gonna start charging before podcasts. I remind them,
I go, podcasts are free today. Like what business can
you tell me where something was free and people start
charging for it and the consumer goes great, that's a
great idea. Uh none, um. And so I think, you know,

(52:58):
if we could find a sub scription business where we
were doing a service to someone by providing a subscription,
not providing a subscription because to be good for us,
By the way, who wouldn't want a recurring revenue stream
every month, hitting a credit card the time and time again.
But I think you have to be realistic about it,
that a business need is not a substitute for a

(53:19):
consumer need. And if I could find something where I
was serving the consumer by giving them a subscription, I
jump in a second. But I think too many people
today as I look out there are trying to cram
a subscription down the consumer's throat and they are to
be a surprise that the consumer doesn't buy it. So

(53:39):
I think the really successful on is I mean, I
I think Netflix had a great model. Well, I think
Disney Plus is great. Who doesn't know those brands, who
doesn't know what Star Wars is or what Marvel is
or what Pixar is and putting it out all the
gay I go, I got it? And what I don't
want to pay each individual one? And they're all there,
sign me up. It's a service to the consumer. And
I think we have to be respectful of consumers and say,

(54:02):
if it's not a service, don't kid yourself. I'm just
thinking about all of your festivals and how unique those are.
Is there an I Heeart festival subscription that I want
to pay for five concerts? We can brainstorm. But yeah,
just thinking about the service the service note like really absolutely,
and I think those are the kinds of service. If
I go, I'm gonna go to every one of them.
I can't keep track of them, and it cost me exit.

(54:24):
You give me a good deal and I subscribe and
I'm a member of the whole thing. That's a service.
And I think you're exactly right. But I think any
But you know, we're just in a world right now.
We were talking about people sort of over analyzing analysis,
you know, paralysis, analysis, paralysis, and now we're getting into
you know, sort of subscriptions. Everything not for everybody, most cases,

(54:46):
is not. You're exactly right. You have to find the
opportunity where people go. Yeah, that's great. Please thank you
for doing that for me. What would people be surprised
to know about Bob Pittman that they don't currently know?
But look, I'm from Mrs Sippy, Uh, preacher's son, Um,
not a college graduate. I'm not one of those fancy
educated people. Um, it's uh. I used to ride motorcycles

(55:11):
a lot. I got to into my sixties and I
decided I'd ride motorcycles a little too recklessly. And my
reflexes aren't quite what they were, so time to give
that out. I'm still flying fly helicopters and airplanes. Um,
have been flying for fifty years. I actually got in
the in the media business because I was a plane
nut as a kid and I needed money to pay

(55:34):
for flying lessons because I could solo when I was sixteen,
and the only job I could find in a small
rural Mississippi town was as a radio announcer in w
c h J in Brookhaven, Mississippi. So so those are it.
I go to burning Man every year. Uh, and except
for this year sadly. Um and Uh. I love to
travel and uh that's probably it. Other than that I'm

(55:57):
a boring guy. I think we doubt that we want
to do a quick speed round. Question. Uh, what's your
best learning from burning Man community? Um? Open your mind? Um?
And Uh, freethink is is an improvement over life? How
do you freethink with your teams like in a corporate setting? Yeah?

(56:20):
I think the pretty think is there no bad ideas.
You may we we may not do them, and we
may eliminate them eventually. But every time you start thinking,
you start the wheels going. When I was at MTV.
We did these great promotions. I don't know if you
remember them, of the Lost Weekend with Van Halen, for
the John Cougar, Mellencamp, Pak Your House paink, the House

(56:42):
Pink promotion, the one night stands. Every one of them
began as a joke like let's get let's buy a house.
You go, wait a minute, we could buy a house
that could be fun. Or we were talking about the
Lost Weekend and we were joking about some of our
employees that would have their lost weekends and that joke
turned into the Laws Weekend with Van Halen. And so

(57:03):
I think when you I remember that because every idea,
once you to start ideating, stupid crazy ideas can turn
into very important ideas. And uh and I think sometimes
we try and start with an important idea as opposed
to just start the ideation, just start talking. There is

(57:24):
no bad idea. And Burning Man is this incredible acceptance
of everyone is you can be anybody you want to
be a Burning Man accept at asshole and uh and
and you're accepted and nobody's nobody's judging, nobody's putting you down.
You have this freedom to be. And I think that
freedom to be is important in the creative community because

(57:47):
I think when you start in a box, you're never
gonna leave that box. Uh. If you can sort of
see the world broadly and and just understand that around
every turn is going to be something to a wow,
where did that come from? That's gonna be a whole effect,
and you open your mind to it and don't judge it.
I think you won. Your life's a lot better. But

(58:08):
I also think your business ideas get a lot better too. Bob,
what's the next bet you're placing? Gosh, I have no idea.
I'll know it when I make it. I'm one of
those people in my personal life in business life that
if I hear something, Greg, go ahead, I'll take it.
I'm not much of a a you know, uh thinker

(58:28):
about it and you know, let's spret about it and
worry about it. I think that we intuitively know the
right ideas when they hit us, and we should see
some and move as quickly as we can on. What
are you most excited about in media right now? Podcast?
Fair answer? Okay, I have to ask this question. What

(58:50):
would MTV have been like if social media had existed
when it had just started? That's a great question. MTV
was drew even so much by the conversation and about
the camaraderie of the listeners that sort of brought into
the MTV culture that I think it would have been

(59:11):
able to start its own social network, which would have
been massive. Uh. And if it didn't have its own
social network, it was certainly would have been the number
one topic on social and it would have been the companion.
And if you look at social today, even it's replaced
the phone. Uh. Years ago, people would watch a football
game together and they'd be on the phone saying, what

(59:32):
did they do? Look at that? That's crazy. Now they're
on social doing the same thing. We're sharing our comments.
And for the radio, in the old days, the personality
would be doing stuff on the air and people would
call the phone the request line to talk to them.
Today they call him on social and it provides a
feedback loop. And I will say, in our case and radio,

(59:53):
it's gotten better as a result of social. I think
MTV would have gotten better as a result of social
to have that instantaneous feedback to whatever you're doing. So, Bob,
we do a little game at the end of every
episode called kill by d I Y what would you
kill in the world? What would you get rid of?
I'm more of an enabler, believe it or not. I

(01:00:13):
love to listen to other people. I was always a
people watcher. I still am, and I'm an idea watcher,
and I love just watching what other people are doing
and then figure out how I can join the bandwagon
and help them along, whether it is uh, you know,
had an idea for a sipping tequila, something so smooth
you could sip it and uh, And I found Bert too, Gonzalez,

(01:00:35):
and my great love has been watching Bert make this thing,
this huge hit, and enabling her and helping her build it,
but freeing her to go do it and reach her potential.
And so I think, rather than me making stuff, I
really am one of those people that love to help
other people make their ideas. When I was a young person,
I made my ideas. As an old person, I help

(01:00:56):
other people make their ideas. And what would you buy?
What would I buy? Gosh, I don't know what I
would buy out there. I'm at that age and you'll
you'll hit this age one day where you're trying to
get rid of stuff. So when it comes to gift
giving time and say Please don't give me anything. I'm
trying to get rid of stuff. Take something, but the gift.
Just take some of my stuff. So I think I'm

(01:01:18):
sort of past to buy stuff. I'm I'm I'm in
that mode of let's slim down and what would you
do yourself? What's the thing that you would love to
to make ice cream? All right? What flavor? Vanilla? What?
I don't believe that it's simple? I like it. Thank

(01:01:39):
you for spending so much time with us and giving
us inspiration and companionship. Thank you so much. And by
the way, thank you for all you're doing too, and
thank you for this podcast. So I took a ton
of notes during that episode. One of the biggest takeaways
for me is something that I think a lot of

(01:02:00):
marketers overlook. We are simply filling or solving a need.
And that was one of the best and most important
things that Bob said to me. Well, he talks about
following the consumer, right Like he when we asked how
do you place your next bet? It was very simply
and very directly, you have to follow the consumer, follow

(01:02:22):
the consumer, and you have to fill a need. I'm
solving a problem. He talked about being a sociologist, and
I really think, you know, maybe more marketers actually need
to think of themselves as sociologists. So it's following the consumer,
but it's also being ahead of them and understanding what
is that need? What are those simple needs? And then

(01:02:43):
how do we get to them? And Bob, you know,
Bob goes against kind of what I'll say is modern marketing,
modern marketing, kind of Shun's reach in frequency, Shun's TV,
Shun's g RPS radio, Shun's radio, Shun's outdoor shuns, all
of these different types of media that actually are extremely

(01:03:06):
effective when you are filling a need, when you are
talking to a specific audience. And I think that Bob,
you know, laid that out really really clearly, and then
talked about how he used word of mouth and how
he created or at least entered into a community. All
of those things are things that we talk about. But

(01:03:28):
when you sit down and you look at a at
a media flow chart, usually you're going with whatever your
media buyer tells you. When I loved that he was
talking about, you know, his g RP cap and he
was like, who said, who said that's the cap? Why?
Who said twelve was the magic? Number who said twelve
was the magic number exactly, and I think that more often,

(01:03:50):
you know, taking it from Bob's advice, we have to
question those things and really use media. And Laura, this
is something that I think you and I have tried
to do in our work together, is use media to
not just be a vehicle to tell a message, but
be a vehicle to really create a swirl and a

(01:04:13):
presence and punch out a brand in a way that
you know, a lot of brands are just you know,
doing their points. There are two g rps a week
because they're playing on the same field, but you're not.
We're in a different game, folks. So I think there's
huge opportunity with everything that Bob was saying, even though

(01:04:35):
in some ways it sounded really traditional, but it's not.
I love what you just said and thinking about swirl
as a KPI. I don't know where I heard it.
I don't know when I heard it. I don't know
why I heard it. I don't know how I heard it,
but I heard it. My friends are talking about it
everywhere I'm looking, listening, engaging, It's being talked about, and

(01:04:56):
so as a byproduct, I start talking about it. This
idea of creating a swirl. I think is a really
interesting point in that you can't create a swirl in
a spreadsheet. You know, It's a really interesting concept when
you think about impact in that capacity and the idea
not just being a part of the conversation, but the
idea of being the conversation. And I think Bob has

(01:05:19):
been able to leverage the power of brand to drive
different outcomes. I totally agree. And the debate, because there
is a debate are you investing in brand? I mean,
I'm as part of this group and the bunch of cmos,
we're talking about how much are you investing in brand
of your budget? How much of your budget are you
investing in brand? People came back huge advertisers twenty on this,

(01:05:44):
some people thirty on this. We'll tend because worth this
and that brand isn't a line item investment. And I
think this debate about brand having our o I and
brand having effectiveness to your business top line growth or
bottom line numbers has got to stop. Bob proves brand

(01:06:07):
pulls through. It pulls all the way through the bottom line.
So it's not a percentage of your messaging or your
creative or your media mix, it's not a percentage. Brand
is all the way through that relationship and in fact,
to your point, is the thing that is the most recognizable.

(01:06:29):
And with that, thank you Bob Pittman. Yeah, thank you
Bob Pittman for dropping by and giving us a masterclass
and marketing. And for more from Bob Pittman, be sure
to check out his podcast Math and Magic, available wherever
you listen to your podcasts. Laura hit it with a
list of all of our friends and family at my
Heart who have been so good to us and helped
us get back on air. Big thank you to Bob, Conal, Carter, Andy, Eric,

(01:06:53):
gayle Val, Michael jen. We appreciate you. Thank you so
much for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
Gay