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July 15, 2025 47 mins

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, sits down with marketing legend Darryl “DC” Cobbin to explore what it truly means to create culture, not just chase it. From his groundbreaking work at Sprite, shaping hip-hop’s first mainstream brand partnerships, to driving billion-dollar success at Boost Mobile and marketing blockbusters like Avatar, DC shares strategic insights on how brands can authentically shape culture. He dives into the difference between marketing and advertising, why asking the right questions matters more than having quick answers, and how real culture drives real profits.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Culture is like blood in a human being. It travels
through all the organs. It makes sure your brain is functioning.
It makes certainness you can walk and talk. It pumps
your heart. Nothing happens in the human body without some blood.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Brou for me.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
In business, culture is the thing that runs through everything.
It touches every facet of business and life.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
He everybody, welcome to another episode of butter Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler found the CEO of Butter ETL
And today then we got a superstar in the building. Man,
we got a legend up in here. I made the call,
I put the bad signal out. You know what I'm saying,
he answered, I'm just appreciative. You know, it's not awt
when we get somebody that's caliber up in here. Man,

(00:54):
But what the one only mister dear O, DC Cobb
and DC. How you doing? Bro? About what doing any better? Brother?
Be a criminal offense? See yeah, see man, Hey man,
appreciate you pulling up to the pod man. Yeah, appreciate
you inviting me. Man. Absolutely proud of you too. Brother. Oh,
thank you so much doing the thing for a minute now,
hey man, that means a lot, especially coming from a

(01:14):
legend like you. Brother. Now, normally, you know a lot
of podcasts people say tell us about yourself or introduce yourself.
We do something a little bit different here at Better Nomics.
You know, we embrace technology. So what I did was
I went into chat GPT and I said, chat GPT,
tell me who mister Darryl D. C cobbin is. And

(01:37):
it not even done that. It came back with like
fifty pages, and then I had to condense it down
a little bit. So look at Jay, I'm gonna read
you and chat GBT says about you. I do for
all my guests. Okay, says about you. You let me
know if we need to make a phone call. If
it's on track, it might be capp. I think it's
missing some stuff. Right, we go see, let's hear, let's

(01:59):
just do this. Darryl D. C cobbon is a season
marketing executive and brand strategist with the track record of
transforming brands into market leaders. He is a managing partner
at Brand Positioning Doctors, a consultancy that specializes in sharpening
brand architecture and positioning. Before founding his firm, DC held
significant roles at major corporations. At the Coca Cola Company,

(02:20):
he served as vice president of the Sprite brand, where
he played a pivotal role in making Sprite the fastest
growing soft drink in the US. Later, as Chief marketing
officer at boost Mobile, he led the company from a
startup to nearly two billion in revenue within four years.
That's billion with B and he also establishes the fastest
growing non contract wireless brand in the United States. He

(02:41):
has also served as executive vice president of marketing at
twentieth Century Fox, contributing to the marketing strategy for Avatar,
which became the highest grossing film at its time of release.
DC co hosts Brands, Beats and Bytes podcasts, where he
discusses marketing, technology, and culture, and his work has been
featured in various publications and books, including The Tanning of America,

(03:01):
great book, I've Read That, The Romancing the Brand Read
that too, and The Big Payback not just my favorite
James Brown song, but also a great book. He is
also known for integrating social purpose into marketing strategies. At
boost Mobile, he partnered with Rock Corps to encourage community
service among young people, a move that not only benefited communities,
but also enhanced brand loyalty. DC is a graduate of

(03:22):
Clarke Atlanta University, where he earned his undergraduate degree and
NBA in marketing, and he resides in Atlanta, where he's
actively involved in initiatives such as the A Pledge and
aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion in the marketing industry.
I got two words. Who that that's you, brother, Avatar,

(03:42):
Sprite boost Mobile. Yeah. Man, you've touched some of the biggest,
most iconic brands in the last I don't know, man,
ten twenty thirty years. How does it? How does when
you look back on it? Does it? What do you
think when you hear that? When you hear like a
bio like that?

Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm reminded of a speech by Steve Jobs. So he
was doing a commencement speech at Stanford, and one of
the parts of it Brandon.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
He said that.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
When you live in your life, you don't really understand
what's happening, but when you look back, you're able to
connect the dots and it makes sense. So looking back,
I think, wow, I understand how those dots are connecting
for me and my life. But while I was doing
any of that, I had no idea, the impact that

(04:31):
it would have. Absolutely when you're where you're kind of
in the weeds, it's hard to see it sometimes.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Right, No, no idea.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
If someone told me that things that I've worked on
thirty years ago, twenty years ago, ten years ago, and
ten months ago would all be talked about today, I
would have thought you lost your mind.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, but again when you even sit here and think
about things like, you know, the amazing Workie did at
Coke and Spread, I mean you know that culture. Sure,
that company was obviously a little bit different back in
the day, very and you know we're at a different time now, right,
so you know people see you know, whether it's more diversity,
just more you know, faces and places that are normally there.
Like when you think about that time when you were

(05:12):
doing that work, and really Sprite was really the first
brand really embrace hip hop culture in a lot of
different ways in the world in the Hurrul and you
helped lead that. Like what did you see that people
in general didn't see at that time?

Speaker 1 (05:24):
There's a reality, Brandon that most of us have to
deal with, I would dare say all of us. And
I'm explaining like this, so excuse the mic here, but
you're about to hear something.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, that's a pop. Okay, that is the.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Sound of the bullet leaving the chamber of a gun
on your first day at work, and that bullet is
coming toward you. If it's not if it's going to
get to you, it's when that bullet is going to
get to you, you wanna get taken out right or
you're gonna decide to leave. Yeah, recognizing that throughout my

(06:03):
entire career, I made a decision that I was going
to do what I wanted to do, and if someone
was going to shoot me, I'm going out with my terms.
On my terms, and by the way, I also have
a nine, so I'm going to spray back. What that's
set up is the ability to have folks around me

(06:28):
who taught me and who believed in me and our strategy,
that had the gumption to say we can go deep
into the roots of hip hop at a time where
nobody even knows what this thing is at a corporate level,
and if it works, we'll all do well. But if
it doesn't, we will all be fired. I'm okay with

(06:52):
those risks, And so seeing it back then you kind
of again sawm between the lines. I mean, y'all were again,
you know, from everything from obey your first even I
remember growing up and just starting to see you know,
rap and hip hop and these commercials, right like when
you were going through that, what's one of your most
memorable moments at that time when you were kind of
putting that stuff together. First one was strategy data in strategy,

(07:14):
so the data at the time said that while the
Sprite brand hadn't been growing for a decade, that in
small pockets around this country at a zip code level branding,
the brand was doing I eight, where was it doing
I densely populated urban areas, who was driving the entire

(07:35):
non alcoholic beverage category young males, African American and Latino.
That's where Sprite was doing well. So the data supported
where we were going. And then the other strategy point
was that once we shifted from my life to spreading,
you to obey your thirst, which is based on three
other words, trust your instincts. So that was the internal

(07:58):
thing externally expressed as a thirst. At that time, we
knew there's nothing going on in the world that's more
about someone obeying their thirst than somebody with a mic
or somebody break dancing or somebody doing graffiti or somebody
scratching on the ones and twos. No culture manifest obey

(08:22):
your thirst at a strategy level better than hip hop.
So that's why we made that bet.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
You said something really interesting there, like you saw the data,
but from that data, you saw the insight, right, And
I think and so I want to I do want
to go a little bit deep with you on this
for a second, because do it. You know, Atlanta's a
very entrepreneur It's very hustle focused city. Yeah, but at
the same time, man, hustle can only take you so far.
And I think for a lot of times what people
kind of fall into the trap around here is because

(08:49):
they don't necessarily have the corporate experience. They don't know
how to put certain things together. Like they always say,
like working in corporate teaching you how to work, and
you get to work on big things. It's not always
all on you like to do different stuff. But what
I want to talk about, though, is the idea of
strategy is I think something in general that a lot
of entrepreneurs miss and they might do it some of
it instinctually, but I don't think they really sit down

(09:11):
because I talk to a lot of folks, right, everybody
wants to get into the doing part. They don't want
to get into the strategy part. It's the same thing
when I talk to people about marketing, right, Like I
tell a lot of y'all confuse marketing would advertise it.
It's two different things. So let me ask you, as
a as a master strategist, how do you define strategy
and how do you work on putting strategy together? Like
what's your approach and putting stategygether for a bread.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Everything starts with data, okay, And to your point, with
the hustle culture, and there are benefits to hustle. Absolutely, yeah,
I love that about Atlanta. Thinking is work too. One
of my mentors taught me that. So at the beginning
of Sprite, and I would dare say, at the beginning
of any major enterprise, someone has sought out the right data.

(09:58):
And when you seek out the right data before that
you have to have the right questions. That requires thought.
So for Sprite, it was yes, when you average the data,
Sprite's not doing well well.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Brandon. If you put if we laid you on this
table and we put.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Your head in an oven and we put your feet
in a freezer, you might have an average body temperature,
but you be very uncomfortable, yes, because you'd be missing
the details, all right. So for us, our questions were, yeah,
it might be average, but if we take away distribution
advantages and we just break it down to one facing

(10:45):
of sprite versus one facing of coke or one facing
of seven up, how does it do.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Velocity? Brother?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
We find that velocity This is as a result of
thinking in these quest questions. Then you can go to
we've identified who we call our brand lover, and you
can develop a strategy or repositioning based off of that.
If you just start doing shit, you miss that, and
that's often what hustlers miss. There's another thing I think

(11:17):
that the hustlers can relate to, especially.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Here in Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
We love hip hop here in Atlanta, just love it.
And so in movies and discussions on IG this thing
comes up all the time. Who's your top five em cs,
who your top five ecs? So people go back and
forth about who they think they are. Let's take the
thinking part for a minute and apply it to that

(11:43):
and then connected to hustle culture, what's your criteria Before
we get into that l F p c C l
F p CC Lyrical skills like what's what's the word play?

Speaker 2 (11:57):
How can an MC do storytelling? What's all of that?
F the flow? Can they ride the beat? P performance skills?
When they get on the stage, do they have presence?
Can they control the crowd? See cultural impact? When they
do something? Does the rest of the world follow them?

(12:21):
And the final sea is the catalog? What have they
created that you can point to? Now, let's take that same.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Criterion for like, this is how I decide my top
five MC's and apply that to hustle culture. What's your skill?
What are you known for or you think you could
be known for that nobody else can do as well
as you?

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Flow? How are you.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Going about your flow and riding out your expertise? How
do you ride that thing better than anyone else? Performance?
When you are going through a pitch deck or you're
trying to get resources, how is your performance? How do
you evaluate that? Cultural impact? Have you created something that

(13:10):
can actually move the culture?

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Have you done that?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Have you impacted the culture? You have a plan to
do that, a business plan to do that? And then finally, catalog.
I don't want to know nothing about your LinkedIn. I
don't care nothing about your ig post, about what you
say you did. I want to know does your catalog
stand up to where other people will say, this is
what you did. When you do that, then you can

(13:37):
hustle harder and more efficiently. Before you do that, In
my opinion, it just kind of make a noise.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Not the hustler framework man. And I love that, you know,
because I'm a big believer in frameworks. I think they help.
I know, they just help you kind of think through things.
My wonder is that we'll get u some more stuff
like your bio started talking about coc colon sprite, Like
where did you learn this stuff at? Like how did
you even get to that point? What were the things
you were doing? What were the blocks the other dots
you were connecting before? Then it even got you in

(14:06):
that position to even be able to do the kind
of work you were doing in the first place.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Look to start, I'd never heard of the words brand
management before. Brandon, my frat brother, was at CAU in
business school before me. He called me and said, Yo,
D calls me D, Yo D, you need to come
check this out. I wanted to go to law school

(14:31):
and so I said that the boy's name is Jeff.
I said, yo, Jeff, you know I'm.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Going to law school now.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Never mind that I had not done one application or anything,
but in my head, I'm thinking I'm going to law school.
He said, yeah, I know, you're going to law school.
But if you get an MBA, you can hire attorneys.
And I thought, ooh, that's like a checkmate, that's a bar.
So then I went to I went to CEU, and
that's where I found out about brand management. So I

(15:01):
went to Coca Cola because they used entertainment just broadly
to build their brands. Brandon, I saw a commercial commercial
was only on BET had Curtis Blow in it. And
then I saw another commercial that had heavy d in
the boys only on BT, and then the third one
that had Kitten play only on BET.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
So that was the black stuff. And I said to myself, Brandon,
if they're willing to try that, just try it. I
know they think it's only for the black folks, that's it.
It's only one commercial every few years. I get it.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
But if they're willing to try it, because of my
love and knowledge of hip hop, I get in there.
I think I could really do something. But when I arrived, man,
I failed. I arrived at a time where they recruited
NBA's from the best schools in the world business schools Harvard, Stanford,

(16:00):
this Duke Darden, Virginia, Oxford. These are the best business
Kellogg at Northwestern, best.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Business schools in the world.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
And I did not feel confident that my c au
shout the panthers one time, find a wall, make one,
make one, make one. I was not confident that my
NBA stood up. So I tried to do it their way,
and I failed miserably. I also discovered during that process

(16:31):
of failing that looking back, I had dyslexia ADHD and dysgraphia.
Do you know what dysgraphia? That's when you write like
a medical doctor. There's a there's something going on with
the brain to the hand, and you have bad penmanship,
but you ain't.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
No doctor, Okay, So that's basically what it is.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
I failed, and then I made I paused and I said,
you know what, if this is not going to work,
I can't do it like they do it. I grew
up in the trap of Detroit. I went to bed
every night listening to gunshots. I saw people doing hip

(17:12):
hop things. I know that I haven't gone to like
a boarding school. I don't know what that's like. I
know what it's like to get through the streets and
stay alive.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I know what that's like.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
I know what this music talks about. That what they
talk about is what I understood because that's what I lived.
Once I made the decision that I know that and
nobody else knew it, that was the shift. And so
that shift, in addition to the data, is what allowed
me and others to make that connection between hip hop

(17:47):
and sprite deeper. It started before me with Tom Burrell
and what they did in advertising, but what we did,
along with Reggie o'jolly creative genius, was do it in
a way that had never been conceived.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
No, it reminds me of the whole idea of you know,
be yourself, everyone else is taken. Love that quote, and
I think, you know, I remember kind of a similar
experience when I got my NBA at Georgia Tech. Like
I walked in and you know, I remember I kind
of everybody was dressed up. They had their shirt, your
jackets on and everything, and I remember kind of saying
I was like, look, y'all. We're all here like we
already made it. There's nothing else to prove. And you know,

(18:24):
I'm not gonna lie. Man. Like I was the black
guy in class and in the beginning, people weren't really
feeling that, and I just thought I was being myself.
And you know I'm not the same thing. Man. When
I got there, I got my butt kicked because I
had never taken an accounting class before. Oh yeah, you know,
I was my background. I was in tech. But let
me tell you something. When we got into the market
and stuff. Oh man, it's something about creating distance. Oh man,

(18:46):
I was. I was walking backwards to the finished line,
one of the top students because to your same point, right, like,
you started applying just I think, just real world understanding.
You started seeing in between the lines. You started seeing
how you know there's so many ways we can get
between point A and point by entertain me. I kicked
ay butt so bad when I did my capstone DC.
They accused me of cheating. I worked in that project,

(19:09):
did I worked in that project for seven months and
they accused you of cheat. We came in first play.
We whooped everybody behind so bad, they said y'all cheated.
They accused me of cheating. You want to know why
they accused me of cheating is because we had to
get up there and do a pitch. We had to
do a twenty minute pitch to VC's. We had to
come up with a business idea. We had to do
this pitch. And I've actually done pitch competitions. A lot

(19:30):
of people don't know that. Okay, I won the Black
Enterprise pitch competition years ago. I probably raised over six
figures and do it. I did not know this. You
so to your point right presence, Like I remember a
long time ago, I had a mentor that told me, looks,
get you in the door, talent, get you hired. But
the end of the day, it's all about stage presence.
What do you doing the lights come on? So I
always kind of remembered that, and so I said to myself, well,

(19:51):
look man, if we get up here and we try
to because everybody was like rehearsing their little script. Okay,
you go first and you say this, and then you
go first, and I was like, then we ain't doing
that shit. I got even better ideas. So what we
did was we recorded a video of ourselves doing our pitch.
Nobody said we couldn't use video. Yeah, so we just
made a video pitch that literally got it, the whole

(20:12):
idea down in like three minutes. We had twenty ah
and we spent the next twenty minutes going into all
the data, all the questions. But our stuff was so tight.
Were no fumbling and so back and forth. Oh yeah,
the vcs who were judging at the end of every
team that went up, they ripped them the shreds. You
forgot about this? What about that? You forgot about this?
Our group got up there, you know what they said.

(20:33):
We got done. We don't have no questions. The only
question we got is how did y'all come up with
this idea? This is a great idea. That was the
only question. That was the only question they had. Because again,
when you learn how to put me, you see how
the game works, and you've been in situations you got
to see in between the lines. You start seeing opportunities.
And that's why they accused me. That's why I booked
the behind so bad. The accused me. They didn't say
we could use video. They wrote a letter to me,

(20:54):
to the dean of the school of a business up
there and he was like, how's that cheating? That's a
dope story. Yeah. Man, So again I think to your point.
You know, when you when you see certain things and
you understand and you start to understand who you are
and you stop trying to be like everybody else or
show up how you know you think you're supposed to
show up and start being yourself. You see opportunities. One

(21:25):
thing I remember you saying is that there are just
certain elements of branding that are timeless. Yes, so when
you think about that, what what kind of comes to
mind when you say, like, there are certain elements that
are timeless? M hm.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
So you know I like frameworks. Yeah, look, I love
a good framework. Okay, like frameworks on it, Brandon. We
have a framework. It's proprietary brand positioning doctors, and it
is a It's a reality.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
It's not an opinion. And I would like for the
folks that are listening.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
To just test me on this. Okay, every successful brand
in the world they are applying one of four strategies
to get us to buy either they are centering their
brand on what we call a brand lover. That would

(22:18):
be like Nike. This is the Nike brand lover. We
are talking to this person and this person only if
you want to get down with Jordan or you want
to get down with Lebron, this is who you need
to come to Nike. The second is category reference. So

(22:40):
this is where you compare yourself to different brands. That
would be like a bounty. What they say is our
category is absorbency. Or Harley Davidson, our category is sound.
And on the axis of sound, at Harley, we're the loudest,
we're the loudest. The third is analogy. That's like State farm.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Now we don't think of us as like an insurance company.
We're like a neighbor. Think of us like that.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
That's why we have these neighborhood shops because we want
to be neighborly. And the final is the benefit. So
what am I gonna get? That would be like Netflix,
get all of your movies and your contented TV shows.
Tap of a button right here, very easy. These are

(23:35):
the four strategies, all right, each of these four points.
And so for us in our business, because we know
this and we know how to craft a statement, we
call it a statement of meaningful difference or brand creation statement.
Around the world, everybody calls it a positioning statement. Nah,
positioning statements they kind of whack. I'll tell you why

(23:59):
they whack.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Brother.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
When you do a positioning statement, you start with the target.
Your competitors know the target too, y'all smart, So y'all
got the same target. Then after that you go, uh so,
what's the category where compete Now, well, they got the
same category. Then thirdly you go, oh, okay, point of difference.
So that's the one thing, that's the one thing that

(24:22):
you do that might serve your brand. And then the
fourth thing is a reason to believe that point of difference.
That's like a regurgitation of the point of difference. So
it's like playing baseball with one strike, we give you four.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's how we do it. That's how I did it.
On all of those brands. No, I mean that, Yeah,
I mean now as you say it, Yeah, all those
brands do kind of fall into that category, one of
those categories or you know a little bit maybe of
something brand. But they say you got to pick a side, right,
you can't live in the ale. Pick yes. When when
you when you see this, how the brands cause again,
like a lot of people don't get to go in

(24:58):
the same rooms that you go in. So when you
even go and you explain to start positioning, like how
do you overcome you know, the the not necessarily agreeing
or like, you know, any kind of you know, issues
you might run into and trying to get people to
really see it in a different kind of way because
they probably only hurt it one way before. Yeah, like
we all do all right, So I got dirt.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
A little secret to share here kind of everybody when
it comes to business development. My business partners and I,
Larry and Jeff. I'm gonna use Charles Barkley parlance here.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
We are terrible. Yeah, we don't pitch brother, we don't
do RFPs. We don't do that.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
So we're not in a situation where we are trying
to convince someone of the efficacy of what we do.
We get our business to this phone call, text email.
People know our work and they're like, I want some
of that. They may not know how we did it,

(26:02):
but they say I want some of that. So we
already have a hot lead, if you will, before we
a hot prospect before we go in. Now, where the
doubt comes in is usually at the beginning of our process,
because our process is a workshop. So we do two
day workshops. We do discovery before and then coming out

(26:23):
of the workshop, you get an architecture, a brand creation
statement of what we call a brand activation. Will you
get these three deliverables? At the beginning, people are suspect
branded because they're like, come on, now, we got to
do a workshop. We know what positioning is and that
kind of thing. These are some of the best companies
in the world. Once we walk them through our process,

(26:44):
then they go, oh, you've cracked the code on why
people buy what they buy and one of the principal
things that comes out of our workshop, I need to shout,
my boy, BJ buyin or could branding for explaining this
is you mentioned marketing and branding and advertising. Most people

(27:06):
don't know the difference between them. Branding is about defining
why your brand exists. Marketing is about how you convey it.
Advertising is one of the tools used.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
To convey it.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
People don't think about it like that. So most folks
get to your earlier point about hustle culture the doing.
We need to add we need some content before they
figure out why their brand exists and how they are
going to articulate that. You don't get over, but your
thirst brand. Unless you get trust your instincts, you don't

(27:45):
get it.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
And now that you connected back to that, yeah, like yeah,
treasure is just another way of saying but it's interesting
too because when you even think about it, that leans
really into you know, what resonates with culture? And right
now more than ever, I believe you know, everybody's talking
about cultural relevancy and we gotta be we gotta be
tied into the culture like these these are the new buzzwords.

(28:10):
What's your definition of culture? I like to look branding
at things that do not change.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
And also, dare I say things that are spiritual? So
I look at nature or I look at humans, and
I'll say, okay, how are we made? How are we functioning?
Why do we do as humans? Our human species?

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Why do we do what we do? Okay?

Speaker 1 (28:43):
So comparing a human to the marketing world, right marketing,
as you said, some people in advertising they do stuff.
We as humans do lots of things. We do lots
of things, just like marketers do lots of things. Sometimes
as humans.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
We don't know why we do what we do.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
We think we make decisions for logical, rational reasons, but
we don't we make This is research provement. We make
decisions for emotional reasons and then we justify it with logic.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Right, So I got that all right?

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Now, culture is like blood in a human being. It
travels through all the organs. It makes sure your brain
is functioning. It makes certainness you can walk and talk.
It pumps your heart. Nothing happens in the human body

(29:47):
without some blood brouh and when it gets too low,
they'll go hook you up with some more pints.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
But you have to have the blood. For me.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
In business, culture is the thing that runs through everything.
It touches every facet of business and life. Unfortunately, it's
not that well understood. So my analogy is culture is
like blood.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Brother, No, I love that. Like I actually heard somebody
say one time that you know, black culture is like
the oil in a car and all the you know
what I mean that. I can definitely understand that. So
but I guess my question then, is, so, now all
of a sudden, you're working on something like Avatar, Like
that's a world that doesn't even exist. Like how does

(30:42):
these things you learn from culture and insights and branding
and strategy, Like how does it all inform how you
bring something like that into the world. Okay. Now, actually
with Avatar it did exist.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
And I'll explain. When I first got to the studio, Bro,
they have sort of a slate of films that are
gonna be coming out. It was like twenty twenty five,
and I'm looking over this slate like, man, what's this one?

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Right here was Avatar. I'm like, now, this one seems
like he could be a brain brand, not just a movie.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
So most of the scripts at the studio at the time,
you could just tell somebody to email you a copy
of it. Not with Avatar, you could not get an
email of the Avatar script. You had to go to
a room on the studio lot. It's twenty century Fox,
get the script like the library, like old school library,

(31:38):
and read that joint there. So I read it intrigued.
So I have a conversation with John Landau. John Landau
is James Cameron's partner producer, and I'm like, yo, like,
tell me about this thing. He says, I want you
to come see something. So I go into a strip

(31:59):
mall in La just a nondescript building, and he takes
me inside. I walk into a room. Randon in this
room was the entire world of avatar in this room.
Weapons were in this room that were used in the
movie The Nave were in this room.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
These ten feet blue people.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
But most intriguing was that James Cameron created the culture
of the Navy. He got a linguist specialists from USC,
I believe, to create a language for the Navy. They
had cultural.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Norms and mores. All of this was written out before
a single frame was shot. Culture. Brother, that was culture.
It was already there. He created it all before any
film role. And then when you start working on that,

(33:04):
how do you then start to put that together? Like,
how do you then say, okay, now that I understand that,
because again, these ain't people we talking about. What you
might be about to tell me is, look, Brandon, culture
is culture doesn't matter where it is that if that's
what we go, and that's cool. But like, these ain't people. This,
this is the nobby. These are ten foot tall blue aliens.
This you know, this riding these these they like dragons

(33:25):
or dragonlizer like you know, So how do how do
you bring their culture life? How do you create strategy
around that? Right?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
So I joke sometimes that I am a true multicultural
marketer because I can I understand in our business, we
with our Caucasian brethren and sister and black folks, Latinos
and blue people and and Muhammad Ali rest in power.
That brother he used to talk about also being relevant

(33:53):
to He loves everybody, including sky blue or pink pigs.
He used to talk about that anyway, So how did
we do that? How did we lead with culture? One
of the first activations that was done for that movie
was actually not marketing. It was constructing a news network

(34:21):
reporting from Pandora. So reporters were reporting, here is what's
happening on the planet. That's the name of the planet, Pandora.
Here's what's going on on Pandora, like CNN or Fox
News or something like that. So we made it appear

(34:42):
as if it was a legit new network, not marketing
for the film, So there was no Hello, this news
segment is brought to you by Avatar. No, it was
like it was a news a legit news thing. And
sprinkled in the news were elements of the culture. People
were first introduced those that were there. These are more

(35:04):
fanboys and fangirls were introduced to Avatar through culture.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
What kind of mind does it take to even start
there because it's like, we're not just gonna do this,
We're gonna go back and we're gonna create this thing
and create the culture. Then we're gonna go back like like,
how do you even go from zero to one on
something like that?

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Now that you're gonna ask James Cameron about the culture
because like him creating it the culture that no one
had anything to do with that, but James Cameron that
was from his mind. But I will say this, when
you are working with creative genius, even if you're not
the creative genius, you gotta honor the creative genius. So

(35:59):
the response ability we all felt was how can we
do our part of our jobs to honor that brilliance?
And typically that comes Brandon and most of our people
in marketing don't know how to do it. You gotta
write an exceptional brief, brother, Yeah, most of our folks

(36:20):
we write shitty briefs. We don't spend the time doing
the brief. To your point earlier, were just ready to do.
You have to write a great brief and the most
important question of a brief, which in most briefs this
question is not there. But this is the most important
question and it is this what is the singular most

(36:41):
persuasive idea we can convey, what is the singular most
persuasive idea? We can convey that is the most important question.
And we don't answer that fucking question. Man.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
When you answer that question, then you get to activations
like that. Man, that's that's that's that's good, man, that's good.
And then so now you know, fast forward, you done
all this stuff, and all of a sudden, now we
got this crazy thing called AI everywhere. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know. And and again for those that don't know, y'all,
there's more to AI and just chat GPT please, there's

(37:21):
way more out here. But like, as a person that
has worked in you know, culture and strategy and creative
and just think there's there's a big lot of concern
from the creative, you know, from the creative side that
like AI is going to take parts of that personally.
I think it's going to free more people up to
be more creative personally, you know, I think there's a
lot of benefits in using the tool, especially when you
use it to augment and kind of use the certain

(37:44):
It's not a replacement. I think, if anything, it's gonna
you know you can't replace human creativity, but what are
your thoughts on AI and its placed in this whole
world of creativity and marketing and branding. Well, I love
me some AI.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
We've had several guests on our podcast as which you
have to come on, brother, who've been experts in AI.
My belief is that AI has flipped the intelligence definition.
Modern humans have been around for three hundred thousand years, brother,
three hundred thousand, and for all of that time until AI,

(38:24):
intelligence was defined by people who knew how to answer
a question. So you go to the Homo sapiens. They
were probably grunting at one another, not really using language,
but the grunts were like, how we gonna get this
food and not get killed? And the answer was you

(38:45):
go over here. Whoever had that answer, they were good
because you were living all right. Einstein known as one
of the most intelligent people ever. He was considered intelligent
and still is because he has the answers. He what's

(39:06):
the answer? He equals MC squared That is the answer.
So we salute people and have saluted people for three
hundred thousand years because they have great answers. With AI,
it's flipped now, I believe intelligence is going to be
defined by those who ask the best questions, otherwise known

(39:31):
as prompts.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Let me give you an example.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
When people are asking questions like in interviews like this,
they will they will do this. Let's say some some
artist is known to use colors like very very well.
Let's let's say we're talking about a modern day Andy
Warhol or modern modern day Basquiat where the colors are

(39:57):
really prominent. Someone who is not that good would say, Brandon,
what on this thing that you created? How come you
didn't use black, purple, red, and green? So that immediately
boxes you in. Okay, you're thinking about black, red, green,

(40:19):
You're boxed in. That's a bad question. Another question might
slightly better is, Brandon, you decided to use the color red?
Why did you use the color red? That's slightly better,
but they have zeroed you in on the color red.
The better question is colors have an impact on mood

(40:43):
and emotions. Brandon, what were you feeling when you created
this magnificent piece of art? Totally different question, Yeah, you
will get a totally different answer. So for me, Brandon,
AI is a tool to leverage if you learn how

(41:06):
to ask brilliant questions, then it will help you. If
you ask dumb questions, it's not going to help.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
You, No, absolutely, And kind of coming off of that,
you know, a lot of times you learn how to
ask questions through you know, reps and experience and kind
of having a chat opportunity to do things. But you
know that's always that that weird thing, right, Like, in
order to get experience, you got to get the experience,
you got the opportunity. So what advice would you give
to you know, young marketers and young creatives that want

(41:36):
to break into space, especially knowing now that AI is
out here, Like, how do they get those.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Reps in experience? Never take the first answer. If you
want to know the answer to something, ask the first
question and get the answer.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
This is even of.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yourself, but don't stop there. Ask yourself, why is that
the case? Second one, answer make come to you and
why why does that matter?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Third one?

Speaker 1 (42:04):
If you take that down the six questions, because most
people will never go unlocked to you will be a
cornercopia of possibilities. Unfortunately, Brandon, I'm gonna say this, and
I'm not meaning the sound arrogant, but most people are
intellectually lazy, brother, yeah. Yeah, they're like, Okay, wait, wait,

(42:28):
what's the answer to the question. You give an answer, Okay,
I'm good. Gotta be curious and keep asking and asking
and asking, and you will start to operate at an
altitude that few others can survive.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
And I'm gonna tell you, DC Man, I don't know.
I for those that are listening, I don't think y'all
understand the level of gems and jewels that were just
dropping this. You know what I'm saying, Like, DC Man, Look,
we were about to wrap this thing up before we
got here. One thing I want to know is, yeah,
like if there was a speaking about branding and position

(43:05):
and strategy all this stuff. If there was a a
DC Common billboard anywhere in Atlanta that you could put
whatever you want to put on it, what would you
put on it? What would it say? I wouldn't have
a billboard because I'm not that I'm not that guy
who would you have. A Long time ago, Brandon, I

(43:29):
was asking myself the question of why am I on
this planet. I didn't think it was to do marketing.
I didn't even think it was to have a family.
I kept asking myself.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
These why questions, Why do I believe I was created.
Why do I have the gift of walking around this planet?
And I arrived after a while at three things to inspire,
uplift and subtly educate, inspire, uplift and subtly educate. I

(44:11):
have endeavored to be true to those three things and
every single thing that I have done. So while on
the surface it may look like I'm building some brands,
I'm not really doing that. I'm doing those three things.
The brands and businesses that become billion dollars and more

(44:34):
in value are the outcomes the results of me staying
true to inspire, uplift and subtly educate.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
That's that's perfect. Man. Well, look we're gonna ended on that.
This has been the amazing conversation. I just want to
ask you before we got out here, man, how can
people yeah, I mean I know you got the phone yea, yeah,
saying if you want to find you, if they want
to learn, if they want to work with you, like
give them all the things. Man, how can they How
can they track you down? I don't know if they
can afford, you, say, to track you down.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
So my my daughter would say, Dad, this is where
you need to have your socials life right here. So
I'm gonna say that my daughter, Hayley and Na, Larry
and Jade and Jeff. I'm gonna disappoint you because I
got all that. But I will tell you this. Uh,
if you want to get at us on the on
the podcast, it's brands, Beats and bites.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
We're on IG so that will come up.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
We're on like Apple, any platform, Spotify, probably some iHeart
stuff too. Since we're here, our company is Brand Positioning Doctors.
You can go to that for the for the website.
That's how you get to us.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, hey man, look DC your brother. You are a legend.
Thank you. You have done amazing things. And again, the
work that you have done is helped shift the culture
to people living day to day more than they probably realize.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
And so.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
I appreciate you. Thank you, brother.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
I appreciate the work that you've done. I appreciate you.
Pull it up, man, and I appreciate you brother. You
keep doing what you're doing, and Brandon, do not be dissuaded.
Do not be dissuaded. And then finally, brother, keep taking
big swings.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Absolutely absolutely man. And with that said, we out y'all.
That's the pod You've been listening to button Nomics and
I'm your hosts Brandon Butler, Got comments, feedback? Want to
be on the show. Send us an email today at
Hello at butternomics dot com. Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta,
Georgia at iHeartMedia by Ksey Pegram, with marketing support from

(46:37):
Queen and Nikki. Music provided by mister Hanky. If you
haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never missed an episode,
and be sure to follow us on all our social
platforms at butter dot at l. Listen to button Nomics
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts
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Host

Brandon Butler

Brandon Butler

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