October 12, 2023 • 32 mins
Entrepreneurial legends Travis Montaque and Bob Pittman discuss their exceptionally young career beginnings, identifying and obsessing over what matters most to people and how to leverage your influence for positive impact.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to season two of the Future Legends
of Advertising podcast on iHeart, featuring the hottest up and
coming stars in advertising as well as the biggest legends
in the game.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In this series, we explore the future of the advertising
industry through never before heard conversations between those who created
it and those who are shaping its future.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We're your hosts, Hailey Romer and Ross Martin.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now let's meet the Legends.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
To all of our listeners. I truly won the episode
lottery when I got chosen to moderate this conversation of
incredibly remarkable and influential people, and I have to say
it doesn't take much to realize the commonalities despite different
backgrounds and experience and the level of talent on this
podcast to day. Travis Montague is a serial entrepreneur that
(01:04):
believes in building businesses and the context of his values.
This first became apparent when, after a few years of
his after school job as a fast food restaurant cashier,
he left as manager of two of its locations at
age nineteen and has not slowed down for a second since.
He is the co founder and CEO of Group Black,
which aims to support black owned media and creators by
(01:26):
connecting them with agencies and brands. The organization is also
focused on investing in black owned media companies. Launched back
in June of twenty twenty one, is the largest black
owned media collective and accelerator focused on dramatically transforming the
face of media ownership and investment. And Travis is also
the founder and CEO of Creator, a first of its
(01:46):
kind creator network that accelerates next wave culture, and the
CEO and founder of Holler, a messaging technology and conversation
media company. Travis, you're pretty busy these days, so thank
you so much for making the time to come talk
to us.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
My pleasure.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's no wonder that you are being inducted into the
Advertising Hall of Achievement this year, and I have to
say that I think you're well paired with someone we
know to be a legend in the truest sense of
the word for our conversation today. Bob Pittman is currently
the chairman, CEO, and co founder of iHeartMedia, which has
transformed broadcast, radio, streaming, audio, and podcasting. Bob as spearheaded
(02:28):
many media, advertising and cultural transformations. Most notable involvements have
been America Online, Six Flags, Theme Parks, Quantumedia, Century twenty
one real Estate, Clear Channel, Outdoor, Cossadercnis Tequila, and this
little TV broadcast network you may have heard of called MTV.
He serves on countless boards and has been named on
countless lists of visionaries. He remains a steadfast in his
(02:51):
impact on the world around us, with an equally long
list of philanthropic endeavors ranging from supporting the arts to
medical research, theaters, museums, and charity that helps fight poverty
in its Mississippi hometown. Bob was inducted into AAF's Advertising
Hall of Fame in twenty fifteen and has continued to
receive accolades ever since. Bob, it's a pleasure to have
(03:13):
you with us today and with Travis. Thank you for
making the time.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I'm delighted to be here and nice to meet you Travis.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Bob, the pleasure is live.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You know, it would be weird if I didn't first
say that we are here on the platform that Bob
has created, and thanks to Bob and the iHeart team,
we are able to actually post this conversation. So it's
a pleasure to be here and really look forward to
you know, having our audience learn from both of you,
because I know that you've got so much wisdom to impart.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Well, I am, I'm delighted to be here, and I
was particularly I lookover Travis's bio a bit and I
saw one major commonality we had, which is we both
started working at age fifteen. And it looks like you
haven't stopped yet. I actually stopped for an eight year
period and then went back to work. But what do
(04:01):
you think Travis working at that young age, Tortua, and
what edge did it give you in building your career?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, I love that you asked that question.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
First.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I think that every from my perspective, every experience that
you have is a makeup of the type of leader
that you are today. Right, And so when I look
at my experience as a fifteen year old, I got
my first promotion at fifteen in management and then got
five promotions after that, And what was core to that
(04:34):
experience was teaching me the leader that I was going
to be right. And one of the things when I
was working at Chick file A taught me about servant
leadership right and great leaders serve and that stuck with
me like that stuck with me in a really big way.
And that's why with all of the businesses that I
have done afterwards, whether it's serving the people that come
(04:56):
and join our team or serving the communities that are business,
this touch it's been central to me. So I think
that it was foundational. It was a core part of
why I am the type of entrepreneur I am today
and something that I would never regret.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
It's interesting.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
I started at age fifteen, and I didn't think it
was weird that I was working full time at fifteen.
Five years later, I was on the air and programming
the NBC station in Chicago. Again, that didn't seem weird
to me, But looking back on it now, I go,
how on earth did I go from Brookhaven, Mississippi to
(05:37):
WMAQ NBC in Chicago in five years and as a
twenty year old. And I often think about what an
early start we get for those of us who started
working full time as teenagers, and by the way, what
we gave up probably was our teenage years. I always
I went back to some high school reunion ones and
I had sort of thought of myself as this really fun,
(05:58):
great guy and everybody goes, no, no, no, no, you were
that guy that was working all the time, and I
realized that my self image was not at all what
others thought of me. And I look around at friends
I have that have been successful in life and especially
in management jobs, and so many of them got to
start very very early and hit the pause, never took
(06:20):
a break.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Bob, Canna ask you a question. So you started your
radio career at the age of fifteen, right, and you
started running your businesses around that same age. And then
now if you look at your career, I mean you've
still you've been in media of all sorts of shapes
and forms, especially with what you do at iHeart. Did
you expect like one iHeart to be the company that
(06:44):
it is today? And when you started doing that work
at fifteen, did you think that it was something that
you were going to be doing in that moment of
time or was it going to be a lifelong journey
for you?
Speaker 5 (06:54):
You know, it's interesting. I had a fifteen year old's
brain looking forward, which meant that I was on the
radio at age fifteen, and I was a very very
minor celebrity in this little bitty town wherever are new anyway,
So how could to be a celebrity if everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
But I got bitten by the bug.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
And I actually started not because I was interested in radio,
but because I loved airplanes and I wanted to take
flying lessons. And my parents said, well, if you want
to take flying lessons, you better get a job. And
I'd had some other jobs, but you know, none like this,
And so I went and the only job I could
find in this town was on the radio. And so I,
(07:35):
by the way, did go on and become a pilot
and blah blah. But I fell in love with radio,
and like you, I found And I wasn't in management
really until I went to I guess Pittsburgh when I
was nineteen. They let me program my first station, which
meant I was the head of the creative group. I
developed the station and ran the creative side of the business.
(07:59):
But what I learned from being on the radio as
service to the community. And I've been in a lot
of business. Some have not been media six like Steam Park,
Centray twenty one, real estate, but they're all consumer facing businesses.
And when people say, how can you go from MTV
to Centry twenty one real estate to AOL so It's
always the same consumer now, whether I want them to
(08:21):
watch MTV or buy a house or come to my
theme park, it's still the same consumer, and I'm still
talking to that same person. And what it gave me
was a great sense and a great grounding in the
fact that if you want a successful consumer business, you
better listen, to, study, and worship the consumers, because they'll
(08:42):
tell you what you need to do. You know, I've
been through enough cycles that if you will follow the headlines,
you will certainly get it wrong. If you follow the consumer,
you won't. You know, trends come and go. I was
just watching CNBC a little while ago and they were
talking about roadblocks, and they were talking about how the
stock was so hot and now it's way off the high.
(09:04):
Because it turns out the metaverse was not what we
thought the metaverse was going to be. Turns out AI
is to transformational thing, so they sort of jump from
one thing to another. But when you look at the consumer,
the consumer will let you know if you're on the
wrong track, or if you're too early, or if you're
too late. And that's been sort of the hallmark of
my career is I put the blinders on for whatever
(09:26):
the press is saying, whatever the conventional wisdom is, whatever
the experts are saying, and we study the consumer because
the consumer's always right.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
You just got to figure them out.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know. It's interesting that you say that, and I
remember I'm a nineties baby, so I mean, I think
that was like Get hold of School.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
MTV was like it.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And so it's fascinating how even MTV as immediate company, right,
there was such an influence on culture. And that's important.
And I think about not only an MTV, but all
the other things that you mentioned with respect to the
things that you've developed in your career, that it touched
the human experience in so many different ways. It makes
(10:07):
me think about why I started the various companies I did,
especially Group Black which and Creator which it's really designed
because we believe that lack of diversity and ownership and
diverse perspectives in media is actually dangerous for society, right,
not having these types of different viewpoints from a creative
(10:30):
perspective and a story perspective and a narrative perspective. Because
media truly shapes the experience that people have. It shapes
the perspectives and stereotypes that people have and for us,
it's been a critical part of our agenda to be
able to not drive and create all of the media
that's out there, but facilitate the opportunities that enable other
(10:53):
media companies of all different types to thrive. And so
I just love hearing your story and your journey that
you had. Why you started in this journey flying planes
and then ended up doing both. Actually it's really inspiring.
And the question I keep going back to my head
as I hear you talk right like you reinvented the
(11:13):
way media and music interacted as the boundary of MTV,
it was the first profitable network. What do you believe
was the reason that MTV stood out to advertisers?
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Well, first of all, it did not stand out to advertisers.
We almost went belly up because the advertisers didn't show up.
But I think why MTV broke through was we did
something different and we captured the hearts and minds of
a certain part of society, the young people. If you
think about it, TV had been around for a while,
(11:44):
and music, you know, rock music, rock and roll, whatever
you want to call it, had been around for a
long time. The two had never come together and MTV
was we finally figured out how to marry music to TV.
Everybody kept trying to make music fit the TV for me,
which is narrative, show, linear, and we were the first
ones to say, no, no, no, We're going to make
(12:06):
TV that the music form, which is mood, emotion, feeling, attitude,
and we were the first attitude channel. Before MTV came along.
You sort of knew the show you liked on TV.
You might not know what network it was on, and
you didn't care about the network. You cared about the show.
MTV's the first network where you cared about the network.
(12:26):
I'm going to tune in MTV to see what's going on.
It was sort of the TikTok of its day that
I've got nothing to do, I'm going to hang out
on MTV, and that was revolutionary at the time. It's
interesting when you think about advertising, and there's probably a
lesson in this for today in terms of measurability. MTV
hit there was no rating, so we went to advertisers
(12:49):
and said, you know, we've got this great thing m TV.
Look how great it is, and everybody loves it and
they go, you don't have a rating, I can't buy
you no measurability. So Roger and Rico at Pepsi was
running the beverage company at the time. He went on
to run the parent company, and Roger and his folks said, Wow,
all the kids are on MTV. I don't care where
(13:09):
they got a rating. I want to be there. Immediately
became my number one advertisement. Coca Cola his competitor. We thought, oh,
Pepsi's here, Cocoby right behind them. Coco's You're not you
don't have a rating. So then finally Nielsen comes up
with a cable network TV rating, so we had a rating.
We go back and they go to Coke. They go, no, no,
(13:30):
you don't have a sixty five percent reach of the
country and a three national rating, so you don't qualify
as a quote unquote network.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
We can't buy you.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
So for about a six year period, not one ad
for Coca Cola ran on MTV, and Pepsicola had a
de facto exclusive. In that period of time, Pepsi moved
their market share against Coke the most it had ever
been moved before or after. As a matter of fact,
it was so bad. I don't know if you remember this.
(14:00):
Coca Cola thought they had a product problem, so they
changed their product and came out with new coke if
you remember that disaster. Finally they figured out, wait a minute,
Pepsi's talking to this crowd day in and day out,
and Coca Cola is not even a part of it.
They when they finally figured it out, they outspent Pepsi
two to one for the next ten years to erase
(14:23):
that advantage. And I think there's a lesson in that.
I mean, it was very hard. We almost were shut
down two or three times by the board. Because no
basic cable network adds support network and ever made money.
There was questions if any of them ever could. We were,
by the way, the first profitable basic cable network.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
We had the biggest.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Revenue of any of them in my day there, and
we then went on to do Nickelodeon.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And VH one and a lot of other networks.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
But the lesson in that today I talked to advertisers
sometimes they say, what, well, we were looking for measurability,
and I go, if you had a choice to be
met surability or impact performance, which would you pick? And
they somehow think the two go together. They don't necessarily
go together. Sometimes you can have a huge impact, but
(15:11):
I can't measure it precisely. It's sort of like quantum physics.
You know, I'm looking at a particle. I can lead
look at its position, or I can watch it in
the wave, but I can't do both at the same time.
And I think, you know, look, everybody's going to measurability.
Measurability is probably not what we think it is. We
had the iHeartRadio app, which has done extraordinarily well, and
(15:33):
at a certain point a few years back, the head
of our digital operation came to me and they said,
bob our measurement. We buy some downloads, you know, marketing wise,
like everybody does, but by all accounts it's eighty according
to them, it's eighty to ninety percent of our downloads
are coming from the ones we bought, but we're running
(15:53):
all this radio advertising.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I can't believe that's true. He said, I want.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
To go to sending zero money for purchase downloads to
see how many it really is. Turns out it was
well less than ten percent. So the measurement we have,
which we thought, well, this is digital measurement, it's great,
showed it to be ten times what it was. And
I think there's a lot of that going on in
the world today, and the challenge I think we have
(16:18):
as marketers and as business leaders is to focus on
results and not to get too caught up and all
these things in between the surrogates for success. And I
see more and more people obviously coming around to that,
and some of the biggest ideas are not ones that
are driven by I precisely can measure everything about it,
(16:40):
but I know at the end, I've either got a
big hit or I don't have a big hit.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, you know that. The point that you're bringing up
about like measurement and impact and how it impacted marketers
quickness to start investing in MTV, ass Alien the reason
I literally just had this conversation this week. So all
of these things from my perspective, fall into categories of
emerging media.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So you just discussed how what was unique about MTV
is that you made TV fit music, not the other
way around, right, Right, And I distinctly remember that because
every other channel you would watch your show and leave, right,
MTV you would just kind of leave on all day, right,
and certain things come in and come out, and it
would be it was just kind of there with you
(17:26):
like after school, for example, and you had to go
on a journey to get brands to start investing into
this medium. Right now, when I look at what's happening,
and we've seen this all the time, right like, we
can't measure it, we don't know what to do social media,
right like, we've seen this in different places. When I
(17:48):
think about what was interesting when I started my journey
in black owned media two years ago was the fact
that one of the key things that advertisers and brands
flag that's the reason for not having not invested in
this category historically is because they can't measure or they
(18:09):
didn't there wasn't the measurement capabilities to be able to
understand the ROI. But the problem was is that because
there hadn't been investment, a lot of these companies couldn't
afford the measurement and all the tools and the infrastructure
to be able to provide that. And so we're in
a predicament right because then there is a structuring place
(18:29):
that doesn't enable the diversification of investment into this category
that you would expect. And what's crazy too at the
same time is that you don't have even though without
specific measurement strategies in place. There's so many examples around
how culture and diverse voices are impacting growth. That's a
(18:50):
very important growth vehicle, especially as we move into this
next wave that we're going into where a lot of
the brands that we're working with are seeing growth because
they're targeting multicultural audiences. They are who are growing in
size and spending power, and they're coming and they're reaching
these audiences with residence. So if you look, my favorite
(19:11):
example is McDonald's and what they did right. McDonald's added
billions of dollars to their market cap by leveraging Travis
Scott right and making a Travis Scott Burger.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
They didn't it was the same products that they've been
selling for decades, right, But it was a way that
they connected with that consumer, right, and something that was
important for him. And now that Burger had resonance and
that drove sales, and that drove products to sell out.
The product didn't change the way that McDonald's connected with
that consumer did And how do you measure there was Well,
(19:46):
I guess they measured when they had no more bunds.
But like it just shows that if marketers step out
what in the way that you're describing, right, Focus on impact,
Focus on that consumer. You never wrong, not the trends
and other data points that you know, not all data
points create real information, right. And so if we could
(20:10):
create an environment where we are more focused on those
core outcomes, and I think we would be better off
and we could have more we will be able to
innovate and advance in certain areas more swiftly than we
have into the past.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
You know what, I think you are hitting it exactly right.
I think what really motivates the consumer is when you
say this product is a part of my community, this
product reaches my community. With MTV, that community was young people.
They're black people, they're Latinos. There are LBGTQ plus, there
(20:47):
are all sorts of people who say, I want you.
By the way, I'm now elderly by definition, do you
recognize me?
Speaker 4 (20:56):
And oh, by the way, are you.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
Painting me as somebody in a wheelchair? Are you painting
me as someone who lives like I do? And we're
looking for that resonance with advertising, and I think you're
exactly right.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
I think people have missed it.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
They've tried to turn into how many clicks and how
many views, and what they really should be focused on
is how did it connect? And that connection I think
becomes figure and McDonald's example is a brilliant one that
sent a signal that, yeah, you recognize my community, I'm
(21:32):
going to give you the business. We have the Black
Information Network, which is the only twenty four hour news
source for the black community. Tony Coles and a group
of brilliant executives pulled it together. And what I think
is interesting about it is that when you measure what
the impact is for the community, the best thing you
(21:53):
can do is you're doing something for me, not how
many clicks. As a matter of fact, we refuse to
get people read. We say it's not about ratings. A
great news service has very good ratings on newsday and
very low ratings on the non newsday. And what we
don't want to fall victim to is trying to get
you all worked up and excited about issues that aren't issues.
(22:15):
So when you get a rating on the non news days,
which has been right now sort of the plague on
news and it's interesting that this service, which is for
a specific community, has sort of led the way in
we're okay with it's not a big news date, don't
worry coming here. But when there is a news day,
(22:35):
come check us out because you can trust us, and
you can trust us, we're.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Going to give you the whole information.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
And I think it's that that building of trust identification
is so important, and by the way, in every aspect
of marketing, and I think it's sort of been lost,
and all of our data and analytics and by the way,
I was an early data and analytics person, and by
the way, at our company, at iHeart, we have all
the data and analytics and look it. But what we're
(23:01):
really concerned about at the end of the day is
are we connecting? Are we making a difference either making
a difference in terms of doing good affecting the community.
Are we doing good for our advertisers? Are we doing
right for our listeners?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Well, I have a question for you. You know, as
a person who's achieved so much in your career, someone
I deeply aspired to be like, achieve as much as
you have during my lifetime, how do you decide how
you spend your time today?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
You know what?
Speaker 5 (23:33):
And that's a good question. I'm not sure I decide.
It sort of decides for me every day is a
different day. What I don't do is try and plan
too much, because I think once I put that artificial
language with an hour on this, an hour on that,
two hours on this, there's no two days that are alike. Yeah,
And if I did that, it would deprive me of
(23:55):
the ability to go with the flow. And I think
so much of what we do and in leadership positions
is we've got to go where we needed. I managed,
by exception, once a year we put together a business
plan for the year after that. Please don't tell me
every day that you're doing your job. I just want
to know what's better, what's worse, and I'm going to
(24:15):
spend all of my time on what's better and what's worse.
And obviously from that we spot new opportunities. When you
find something that's better. Podcasting was growing faster than we thought.
Suddenly we doubled down on it. When you find problem areage,
you just say we probably shouldn't be in that area,
or we need to fix it.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Something's wrong, and so we spend our time there.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And I think I want to have that ability to
be that fluid, and I think the organization needs me
as the leader to be that fluid. I know what
our mission is, I know what our business plan is,
and I'm just focusing on the areas where i can
add value and where I'm needed at the moment.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Welcome.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And the last question I have for you is, you
know you also spend time a lot of time around
philanthropic causes. How do you identify the causes you choose
to give your time to.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I try and give my time to everything I can.
Many of them find me. There's some that are important
to me.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
I grew up a.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Poor kid in a rural southern town. I appreciate people.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
I want.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
I want other people have the same opportunity I did
to get out of that environment to grow to not
be limited by that. So I've you know, years ago
and the Internet was just coming on. I spent a
lot of time raising money and giving money to get
computers and all the classrooms in Mississippi. But it's also
something that our company did in nationwide AOL at the
(25:39):
time of trying to get everybody the opportunity of the
Internet would bring them. I have spent a lot of
time with Robinhood Foundation in New York, which fights poverty
and fights it in an unusual way, because they're not
too high bound, they can move quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Not a lot of.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Bureaucracy measure results. If we can see results, let's feed it,
but let's demand results. Not everything sounds good, but what
we really need to say is are we really.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Having an impact? And if we're having an impact, let's
double down there.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I have, you know, obviously medical stuff, people in my
family or people close to me have hit I'm always
available to help those as well. But I also listen
to people and everybody, and I shouldn't say this in
a podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Go always going to come to me.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
But when people come to me and say I've got
a great idea, I try and help every great idea
I can. I try and do something for that cause
because it's important to at least one person who came
to me, and unless it's really, you know, a terrible idea,
which very few of them are, I think we all
all deserve support. And I encourage people in our organization,
(26:45):
people I meet, to just whatever moves you get involved,
help out. By the way, if every human being in
the world would just help one other human being, we
have no problems in the world. And I think sometimes
we think I've got us solved for some math. I've
got to do live aid, which I did. We got
to do something at that scale.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
But you don't.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
You really can help somebody across the street. You can
help somebody on the sidewalk get off the sidewalk, sort
of one on one help is really what is at
the basis of our society, and I think the more
we do with that, the better society will be.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, Bob, you know this conversation has been great to
me for many reasons. When I started Group Black a
couple of years ago. You know, our mission was simple
but for me very important, which has been to dramatically
transform media ownership and investment. And I've been looking at
this as a new frontier for innovation. And the reason
why is because I've seen you know what, For me,
(27:45):
I believe that inclusion is not just a nice thing
to do, right, It's one of the biggest opportunities today.
And what I mean by that is that when you
see I loved watching that. Was it Disney who did it?
Or the flaming hot or the story about flaming hot Cheetos? Right,
how when they created the product that included the Hispanic market,
(28:09):
it wasn't just a good thing to do was a major, big,
the major business decision right. And in this journey, what
I've found is that the brands that we've been working
with have been unlocking incredible amounts of growth, activating on
HBCU campuses for the first time and selling out their
(28:29):
products all around it by reaching that community in a
unique way, talking to and engaging with. We did a
study with Nielsen that was around the impact of Black
creators and showing that these the Black creators had ten
point five times media value, were creating ten point five
times media value in their counterparts, but they're not nearly
as invested in right, and so there's a general like
(28:52):
under indexing in this category, which represents a huge growth
opportunity and area of innovation from so many brands. But
also it unlocks so much opportunity I've seen. I think
the most inspiring thing to me is to see the
companies that we a lot of the companies and individuals
that we work with now even if they had one
(29:13):
they were themselves and they hired one person right. That
to me is special because that shows trajectory in my book,
and if group Black could help create trajectory from anyone
in any way, and the company that we built helped
to do that. That's inspiring. And so I've been able
from like I've in a weird way, been able to
connect my social work to my daily work every single day.
(29:36):
Maybe I was trying to be maybe I was being lazy,
I didn't have time to do both, but it's been
it's it's ended up into a situation where, you know,
I've been able to learn from folks like yourself see
and learn from firsthand experience to really for what we
believe is charting a environment that's for the better in
the future. So thank you for kind of chatting with me.
(29:59):
This has been great.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Well, look, thank you for doing what you're doing. I
do believe there is such a need in our country,
certainly in marketing for diversity. And I think, finally, and
I've had a long career, finally, I think people are
really beginning to appreciate it. It's not a platitude. We're
not doing it because it's good. We're doing it because
it's necessary. We can't have a society that's a diverse
(30:22):
society if we don't have diverse people leading it. We
also can't do marketing that reach diverse communities if all
those diverse communities aren't representing it. And I think what
you're doing is giving people a path into a particular
community with an enormous amount of expertise, an enormous amount
of commitment. And I think those people who are looking
(30:43):
to reach it, I think need someone like you to
help them navigate it and help them understand how to
reach it. I go back to the way the conversation began.
I think all businesses start with looking at the consumer
and understanding the consumer. You've got a superpower of understanding
(31:03):
this community extraordinarily well. And also you talk about black leadership.
It's enabling the next generation of entrepreneurs too, which become
very very important to us.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You guys are fantastic. Thank you both so much for
making time for this conversation. I knew would be great.
I don't think I envisioned that we would have so
many salient points of wisdom and advice, and quite frankly,
I think that in just a short period of time
people can learn a lot about the path forward, whether
it's thinking about putting the consumer first, working both on
(31:35):
your sort of passion projects at the same time as
you do your sort of daily career, and perhaps the
best comes out of people when they do both at
the same time, which is it's clear that you neither
of you are lazy, and you are doing it all
at the same time. So thank you for your inspiration,
thanks for engaging this way, and for everything that we've learned.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Thank you very hopefully.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Well.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That does it for this episode of the Future Legends
of Advertising podcast on iHeart.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
I'm Ross Martin.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And I'm Hailey Romer, and thank you for listening. We'll
be back with another episode before you know it. And
for more information on the American Advertising Federation, go to
AAF dot org.
Hello, and welcome to season two of the Future Legends
of Advertising podcast on iHeart, featuring the hottest up and
coming stars in advertising as well as the biggest legends
in the game.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In this series, we explore the future of the advertising
industry through never before heard conversations between those who created
it and those who are shaping its future.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We're your hosts, Hailey Romer and Ross Martin.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now let's meet the Legends.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
To all of our listeners. I truly won the episode
lottery when I got chosen to moderate this conversation of
incredibly remarkable and influential people, and I have to say
it doesn't take much to realize the commonalities despite different
backgrounds and experience and the level of talent on this
podcast to day. Travis Montague is a serial entrepreneur that
(01:04):
believes in building businesses and the context of his values.
This first became apparent when, after a few years of
his after school job as a fast food restaurant cashier,
he left as manager of two of its locations at
age nineteen and has not slowed down for a second since.
He is the co founder and CEO of Group Black,
which aims to support black owned media and creators by
(01:26):
connecting them with agencies and brands. The organization is also
focused on investing in black owned media companies. Launched back
in June of twenty twenty one, is the largest black
owned media collective and accelerator focused on dramatically transforming the
face of media ownership and investment. And Travis is also
the founder and CEO of Creator, a first of its
(01:46):
kind creator network that accelerates next wave culture, and the
CEO and founder of Holler, a messaging technology and conversation
media company. Travis, you're pretty busy these days, so thank
you so much for making the time to come talk
to us.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
My pleasure.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's no wonder that you are being inducted into the
Advertising Hall of Achievement this year, and I have to
say that I think you're well paired with someone we
know to be a legend in the truest sense of
the word for our conversation today. Bob Pittman is currently
the chairman, CEO, and co founder of iHeartMedia, which has
transformed broadcast, radio, streaming, audio, and podcasting. Bob as spearheaded
(02:28):
many media, advertising and cultural transformations. Most notable involvements have
been America Online, Six Flags, Theme Parks, Quantumedia, Century twenty
one real Estate, Clear Channel, Outdoor, Cossadercnis Tequila, and this
little TV broadcast network you may have heard of called MTV.
He serves on countless boards and has been named on
countless lists of visionaries. He remains a steadfast in his
(02:51):
impact on the world around us, with an equally long
list of philanthropic endeavors ranging from supporting the arts to
medical research, theaters, museums, and charity that helps fight poverty
in its Mississippi hometown. Bob was inducted into AAF's Advertising
Hall of Fame in twenty fifteen and has continued to
receive accolades ever since. Bob, it's a pleasure to have
(03:13):
you with us today and with Travis. Thank you for
making the time.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
I'm delighted to be here and nice to meet you Travis.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Bob, the pleasure is live.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
You know, it would be weird if I didn't first
say that we are here on the platform that Bob
has created, and thanks to Bob and the iHeart team,
we are able to actually post this conversation. So it's
a pleasure to be here and really look forward to
you know, having our audience learn from both of you,
because I know that you've got so much wisdom to impart.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Well, I am, I'm delighted to be here, and I
was particularly I lookover Travis's bio a bit and I
saw one major commonality we had, which is we both
started working at age fifteen. And it looks like you
haven't stopped yet. I actually stopped for an eight year
period and then went back to work. But what do
(04:01):
you think Travis working at that young age, Tortua, and
what edge did it give you in building your career?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, I love that you asked that question.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
First.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I think that every from my perspective, every experience that
you have is a makeup of the type of leader
that you are today. Right, And so when I look
at my experience as a fifteen year old, I got
my first promotion at fifteen in management and then got
five promotions after that, And what was core to that
(04:34):
experience was teaching me the leader that I was going
to be right. And one of the things when I
was working at Chick file A taught me about servant
leadership right and great leaders serve and that stuck with
me like that stuck with me in a really big way.
And that's why with all of the businesses that I
have done afterwards, whether it's serving the people that come
(04:56):
and join our team or serving the communities that are business,
this touch it's been central to me. So I think
that it was foundational. It was a core part of
why I am the type of entrepreneur I am today
and something that I would never regret.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
It's interesting.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
I started at age fifteen, and I didn't think it
was weird that I was working full time at fifteen.
Five years later, I was on the air and programming
the NBC station in Chicago. Again, that didn't seem weird
to me, But looking back on it now, I go,
how on earth did I go from Brookhaven, Mississippi to
(05:37):
WMAQ NBC in Chicago in five years and as a
twenty year old. And I often think about what an
early start we get for those of us who started
working full time as teenagers, and by the way, what
we gave up probably was our teenage years. I always
I went back to some high school reunion ones and
I had sort of thought of myself as this really fun,
(05:58):
great guy and everybody goes, no, no, no, no, you were
that guy that was working all the time, and I
realized that my self image was not at all what
others thought of me. And I look around at friends
I have that have been successful in life and especially
in management jobs, and so many of them got to
start very very early and hit the pause, never took
(06:20):
a break.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Bob, Canna ask you a question. So you started your
radio career at the age of fifteen, right, and you
started running your businesses around that same age. And then
now if you look at your career, I mean you've
still you've been in media of all sorts of shapes
and forms, especially with what you do at iHeart. Did
you expect like one iHeart to be the company that
(06:44):
it is today? And when you started doing that work
at fifteen, did you think that it was something that
you were going to be doing in that moment of
time or was it going to be a lifelong journey
for you?
Speaker 5 (06:54):
You know, it's interesting. I had a fifteen year old's
brain looking forward, which meant that I was on the
radio at age fifteen, and I was a very very
minor celebrity in this little bitty town wherever are new anyway,
So how could to be a celebrity if everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
But I got bitten by the bug.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
And I actually started not because I was interested in radio,
but because I loved airplanes and I wanted to take
flying lessons. And my parents said, well, if you want
to take flying lessons, you better get a job. And
I'd had some other jobs, but you know, none like this,
And so I went and the only job I could
find in this town was on the radio. And so I,
(07:35):
by the way, did go on and become a pilot
and blah blah. But I fell in love with radio,
and like you, I found And I wasn't in management
really until I went to I guess Pittsburgh when I
was nineteen. They let me program my first station, which
meant I was the head of the creative group. I
developed the station and ran the creative side of the business.
(07:59):
But what I learned from being on the radio as
service to the community. And I've been in a lot
of business. Some have not been media six like Steam Park,
Centray twenty one, real estate, but they're all consumer facing businesses.
And when people say, how can you go from MTV
to Centry twenty one real estate to AOL so It's
always the same consumer now, whether I want them to
(08:21):
watch MTV or buy a house or come to my
theme park, it's still the same consumer, and I'm still
talking to that same person. And what it gave me
was a great sense and a great grounding in the
fact that if you want a successful consumer business, you
better listen, to, study, and worship the consumers, because they'll
(08:42):
tell you what you need to do. You know, I've
been through enough cycles that if you will follow the headlines,
you will certainly get it wrong. If you follow the consumer,
you won't. You know, trends come and go. I was
just watching CNBC a little while ago and they were
talking about roadblocks, and they were talking about how the
stock was so hot and now it's way off the high.
(09:04):
Because it turns out the metaverse was not what we
thought the metaverse was going to be. Turns out AI
is to transformational thing, so they sort of jump from
one thing to another. But when you look at the consumer,
the consumer will let you know if you're on the
wrong track, or if you're too early, or if you're
too late. And that's been sort of the hallmark of
my career is I put the blinders on for whatever
(09:26):
the press is saying, whatever the conventional wisdom is, whatever
the experts are saying, and we study the consumer because
the consumer's always right.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
You just got to figure them out.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You know. It's interesting that you say that, and I
remember I'm a nineties baby, so I mean, I think
that was like Get hold of School.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
MTV was like it.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And so it's fascinating how even MTV as immediate company, right,
there was such an influence on culture. And that's important.
And I think about not only an MTV, but all
the other things that you mentioned with respect to the
things that you've developed in your career, that it touched
the human experience in so many different ways. It makes
(10:07):
me think about why I started the various companies I did,
especially Group Black which and Creator which it's really designed
because we believe that lack of diversity and ownership and
diverse perspectives in media is actually dangerous for society, right,
not having these types of different viewpoints from a creative
(10:30):
perspective and a story perspective and a narrative perspective. Because
media truly shapes the experience that people have. It shapes
the perspectives and stereotypes that people have and for us,
it's been a critical part of our agenda to be
able to not drive and create all of the media
that's out there, but facilitate the opportunities that enable other
(10:53):
media companies of all different types to thrive. And so
I just love hearing your story and your journey that
you had. Why you started in this journey flying planes
and then ended up doing both. Actually it's really inspiring.
And the question I keep going back to my head
as I hear you talk right like you reinvented the
(11:13):
way media and music interacted as the boundary of MTV,
it was the first profitable network. What do you believe
was the reason that MTV stood out to advertisers?
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Well, first of all, it did not stand out to advertisers.
We almost went belly up because the advertisers didn't show up.
But I think why MTV broke through was we did
something different and we captured the hearts and minds of
a certain part of society, the young people. If you
think about it, TV had been around for a while,
(11:44):
and music, you know, rock music, rock and roll, whatever
you want to call it, had been around for a
long time. The two had never come together and MTV
was we finally figured out how to marry music to TV.
Everybody kept trying to make music fit the TV for me,
which is narrative, show, linear, and we were the first
ones to say, no, no, no, We're going to make
(12:06):
TV that the music form, which is mood, emotion, feeling, attitude,
and we were the first attitude channel. Before MTV came along.
You sort of knew the show you liked on TV.
You might not know what network it was on, and
you didn't care about the network. You cared about the show.
MTV's the first network where you cared about the network.
(12:26):
I'm going to tune in MTV to see what's going on.
It was sort of the TikTok of its day that
I've got nothing to do, I'm going to hang out
on MTV, and that was revolutionary at the time. It's
interesting when you think about advertising, and there's probably a
lesson in this for today in terms of measurability. MTV
hit there was no rating, so we went to advertisers
(12:49):
and said, you know, we've got this great thing m TV.
Look how great it is, and everybody loves it and
they go, you don't have a rating, I can't buy
you no measurability. So Roger and Rico at Pepsi was
running the beverage company at the time. He went on
to run the parent company, and Roger and his folks said, Wow,
all the kids are on MTV. I don't care where
(13:09):
they got a rating. I want to be there. Immediately
became my number one advertisement. Coca Cola his competitor. We thought, oh,
Pepsi's here, Cocoby right behind them. Coco's You're not you
don't have a rating. So then finally Nielsen comes up
with a cable network TV rating, so we had a rating.
We go back and they go to Coke. They go, no, no,
(13:30):
you don't have a sixty five percent reach of the
country and a three national rating, so you don't qualify
as a quote unquote network.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
We can't buy you.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
So for about a six year period, not one ad
for Coca Cola ran on MTV, and Pepsicola had a
de facto exclusive. In that period of time, Pepsi moved
their market share against Coke the most it had ever
been moved before or after. As a matter of fact,
it was so bad. I don't know if you remember this.
(14:00):
Coca Cola thought they had a product problem, so they
changed their product and came out with new coke if
you remember that disaster. Finally they figured out, wait a minute,
Pepsi's talking to this crowd day in and day out,
and Coca Cola is not even a part of it.
They when they finally figured it out, they outspent Pepsi
two to one for the next ten years to erase
(14:23):
that advantage. And I think there's a lesson in that.
I mean, it was very hard. We almost were shut
down two or three times by the board. Because no
basic cable network adds support network and ever made money.
There was questions if any of them ever could. We were,
by the way, the first profitable basic cable network.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
We had the biggest.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Revenue of any of them in my day there, and
we then went on to do Nickelodeon.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
And VH one and a lot of other networks.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
But the lesson in that today I talked to advertisers
sometimes they say, what, well, we were looking for measurability,
and I go, if you had a choice to be
met surability or impact performance, which would you pick? And
they somehow think the two go together. They don't necessarily
go together. Sometimes you can have a huge impact, but
(15:11):
I can't measure it precisely. It's sort of like quantum physics.
You know, I'm looking at a particle. I can lead
look at its position, or I can watch it in
the wave, but I can't do both at the same time.
And I think, you know, look, everybody's going to measurability.
Measurability is probably not what we think it is. We
had the iHeartRadio app, which has done extraordinarily well, and
(15:33):
at a certain point a few years back, the head
of our digital operation came to me and they said,
bob our measurement. We buy some downloads, you know, marketing wise,
like everybody does, but by all accounts it's eighty according
to them, it's eighty to ninety percent of our downloads
are coming from the ones we bought, but we're running
(15:53):
all this radio advertising.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I can't believe that's true. He said, I want.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
To go to sending zero money for purchase downloads to
see how many it really is. Turns out it was
well less than ten percent. So the measurement we have,
which we thought, well, this is digital measurement, it's great,
showed it to be ten times what it was. And
I think there's a lot of that going on in
the world today, and the challenge I think we have
(16:18):
as marketers and as business leaders is to focus on
results and not to get too caught up and all
these things in between the surrogates for success. And I
see more and more people obviously coming around to that,
and some of the biggest ideas are not ones that
are driven by I precisely can measure everything about it,
(16:40):
but I know at the end, I've either got a
big hit or I don't have a big hit.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, you know that. The point that you're bringing up
about like measurement and impact and how it impacted marketers
quickness to start investing in MTV, ass Alien the reason
I literally just had this conversation this week. So all
of these things from my perspective, fall into categories of
emerging media.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So you just discussed how what was unique about MTV
is that you made TV fit music, not the other
way around, right, Right, And I distinctly remember that because
every other channel you would watch your show and leave, right,
MTV you would just kind of leave on all day, right,
and certain things come in and come out, and it
would be it was just kind of there with you
(17:26):
like after school, for example, and you had to go
on a journey to get brands to start investing into
this medium. Right now, when I look at what's happening,
and we've seen this all the time, right like, we
can't measure it, we don't know what to do social media,
right like, we've seen this in different places. When I
(17:48):
think about what was interesting when I started my journey
in black owned media two years ago was the fact
that one of the key things that advertisers and brands
flag that's the reason for not having not invested in
this category historically is because they can't measure or they
(18:09):
didn't there wasn't the measurement capabilities to be able to
understand the ROI. But the problem was is that because
there hadn't been investment, a lot of these companies couldn't
afford the measurement and all the tools and the infrastructure
to be able to provide that. And so we're in
a predicament right because then there is a structuring place
(18:29):
that doesn't enable the diversification of investment into this category
that you would expect. And what's crazy too at the
same time is that you don't have even though without
specific measurement strategies in place. There's so many examples around
how culture and diverse voices are impacting growth. That's a
(18:50):
very important growth vehicle, especially as we move into this
next wave that we're going into where a lot of
the brands that we're working with are seeing growth because
they're targeting multicultural audiences. They are who are growing in
size and spending power, and they're coming and they're reaching
these audiences with residence. So if you look, my favorite
(19:11):
example is McDonald's and what they did right. McDonald's added
billions of dollars to their market cap by leveraging Travis
Scott right and making a Travis Scott Burger.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
They didn't it was the same products that they've been
selling for decades, right, But it was a way that
they connected with that consumer, right, and something that was
important for him. And now that Burger had resonance and
that drove sales, and that drove products to sell out.
The product didn't change the way that McDonald's connected with
that consumer did And how do you measure there was Well,
(19:46):
I guess they measured when they had no more bunds.
But like it just shows that if marketers step out
what in the way that you're describing, right, Focus on impact,
Focus on that consumer. You never wrong, not the trends
and other data points that you know, not all data
points create real information, right. And so if we could
(20:10):
create an environment where we are more focused on those
core outcomes, and I think we would be better off
and we could have more we will be able to
innovate and advance in certain areas more swiftly than we
have into the past.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
You know what, I think you are hitting it exactly right.
I think what really motivates the consumer is when you
say this product is a part of my community, this
product reaches my community. With MTV, that community was young people.
They're black people, they're Latinos. There are LBGTQ plus, there
(20:47):
are all sorts of people who say, I want you.
By the way, I'm now elderly by definition, do you
recognize me?
Speaker 4 (20:56):
And oh, by the way, are you.
Speaker 5 (20:57):
Painting me as somebody in a wheelchair? Are you painting
me as someone who lives like I do? And we're
looking for that resonance with advertising, and I think you're
exactly right.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
I think people have missed it.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
They've tried to turn into how many clicks and how
many views, and what they really should be focused on
is how did it connect? And that connection I think
becomes figure and McDonald's example is a brilliant one that
sent a signal that, yeah, you recognize my community, I'm
(21:32):
going to give you the business. We have the Black
Information Network, which is the only twenty four hour news
source for the black community. Tony Coles and a group
of brilliant executives pulled it together. And what I think
is interesting about it is that when you measure what
the impact is for the community, the best thing you
(21:53):
can do is you're doing something for me, not how
many clicks. As a matter of fact, we refuse to
get people read. We say it's not about ratings. A
great news service has very good ratings on newsday and
very low ratings on the non newsday. And what we
don't want to fall victim to is trying to get
you all worked up and excited about issues that aren't issues.
(22:15):
So when you get a rating on the non news days,
which has been right now sort of the plague on
news and it's interesting that this service, which is for
a specific community, has sort of led the way in
we're okay with it's not a big news date, don't
worry coming here. But when there is a news day,
(22:35):
come check us out because you can trust us, and
you can trust us, we're.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Going to give you the whole information.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
And I think it's that that building of trust identification
is so important, and by the way, in every aspect
of marketing, and I think it's sort of been lost,
and all of our data and analytics and by the way,
I was an early data and analytics person, and by
the way, at our company, at iHeart, we have all
the data and analytics and look it. But what we're
(23:01):
really concerned about at the end of the day is
are we connecting? Are we making a difference either making
a difference in terms of doing good affecting the community.
Are we doing good for our advertisers? Are we doing
right for our listeners?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Well, I have a question for you. You know, as
a person who's achieved so much in your career, someone
I deeply aspired to be like, achieve as much as
you have during my lifetime, how do you decide how
you spend your time today?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
You know what?
Speaker 5 (23:33):
And that's a good question. I'm not sure I decide.
It sort of decides for me every day is a
different day. What I don't do is try and plan
too much, because I think once I put that artificial
language with an hour on this, an hour on that,
two hours on this, there's no two days that are alike. Yeah,
And if I did that, it would deprive me of
(23:55):
the ability to go with the flow. And I think
so much of what we do and in leadership positions
is we've got to go where we needed. I managed,
by exception, once a year we put together a business
plan for the year after that. Please don't tell me
every day that you're doing your job. I just want
to know what's better, what's worse, and I'm going to
(24:15):
spend all of my time on what's better and what's worse.
And obviously from that we spot new opportunities. When you
find something that's better. Podcasting was growing faster than we thought.
Suddenly we doubled down on it. When you find problem areage,
you just say we probably shouldn't be in that area,
or we need to fix it.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Something's wrong, and so we spend our time there.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And I think I want to have that ability to
be that fluid, and I think the organization needs me
as the leader to be that fluid. I know what
our mission is, I know what our business plan is,
and I'm just focusing on the areas where i can
add value and where I'm needed at the moment.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Welcome.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
And the last question I have for you is, you
know you also spend time a lot of time around
philanthropic causes. How do you identify the causes you choose
to give your time to.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
I try and give my time to everything I can.
Many of them find me. There's some that are important
to me.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
I grew up a.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Poor kid in a rural southern town. I appreciate people.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
I want.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
I want other people have the same opportunity I did
to get out of that environment to grow to not
be limited by that. So I've you know, years ago
and the Internet was just coming on. I spent a
lot of time raising money and giving money to get
computers and all the classrooms in Mississippi. But it's also
something that our company did in nationwide AOL at the
(25:39):
time of trying to get everybody the opportunity of the
Internet would bring them. I have spent a lot of
time with Robinhood Foundation in New York, which fights poverty
and fights it in an unusual way, because they're not
too high bound, they can move quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Not a lot of.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
Bureaucracy measure results. If we can see results, let's feed it,
but let's demand results. Not everything sounds good, but what
we really need to say is are we really.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Having an impact? And if we're having an impact, let's
double down there.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I have, you know, obviously medical stuff, people in my
family or people close to me have hit I'm always
available to help those as well. But I also listen
to people and everybody, and I shouldn't say this in
a podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Go always going to come to me.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
But when people come to me and say I've got
a great idea, I try and help every great idea
I can. I try and do something for that cause
because it's important to at least one person who came
to me, and unless it's really, you know, a terrible idea,
which very few of them are, I think we all
all deserve support. And I encourage people in our organization,
(26:45):
people I meet, to just whatever moves you get involved,
help out. By the way, if every human being in
the world would just help one other human being, we
have no problems in the world. And I think sometimes
we think I've got us solved for some math. I've
got to do live aid, which I did. We got
to do something at that scale.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
But you don't.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
You really can help somebody across the street. You can
help somebody on the sidewalk get off the sidewalk, sort
of one on one help is really what is at
the basis of our society, and I think the more
we do with that, the better society will be.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, Bob, you know this conversation has been great to
me for many reasons. When I started Group Black a
couple of years ago. You know, our mission was simple
but for me very important, which has been to dramatically
transform media ownership and investment. And I've been looking at
this as a new frontier for innovation. And the reason
why is because I've seen you know what, For me,
(27:45):
I believe that inclusion is not just a nice thing
to do, right, It's one of the biggest opportunities today.
And what I mean by that is that when you
see I loved watching that. Was it Disney who did it?
Or the flaming hot or the story about flaming hot Cheetos? Right,
how when they created the product that included the Hispanic market,
(28:09):
it wasn't just a good thing to do was a major, big,
the major business decision right. And in this journey, what
I've found is that the brands that we've been working
with have been unlocking incredible amounts of growth, activating on
HBCU campuses for the first time and selling out their
(28:29):
products all around it by reaching that community in a
unique way, talking to and engaging with. We did a
study with Nielsen that was around the impact of Black
creators and showing that these the Black creators had ten
point five times media value, were creating ten point five
times media value in their counterparts, but they're not nearly
as invested in right, and so there's a general like
(28:52):
under indexing in this category, which represents a huge growth
opportunity and area of innovation from so many brands. But
also it unlocks so much opportunity I've seen. I think
the most inspiring thing to me is to see the
companies that we a lot of the companies and individuals
that we work with now even if they had one
(29:13):
they were themselves and they hired one person right. That
to me is special because that shows trajectory in my book,
and if group Black could help create trajectory from anyone
in any way, and the company that we built helped
to do that. That's inspiring. And so I've been able
from like I've in a weird way, been able to
connect my social work to my daily work every single day.
(29:36):
Maybe I was trying to be maybe I was being lazy,
I didn't have time to do both, but it's been
it's it's ended up into a situation where, you know,
I've been able to learn from folks like yourself see
and learn from firsthand experience to really for what we
believe is charting a environment that's for the better in
the future. So thank you for kind of chatting with me.
(29:59):
This has been great.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Well, look, thank you for doing what you're doing. I
do believe there is such a need in our country,
certainly in marketing for diversity. And I think, finally, and
I've had a long career, finally, I think people are
really beginning to appreciate it. It's not a platitude. We're
not doing it because it's good. We're doing it because
it's necessary. We can't have a society that's a diverse
(30:22):
society if we don't have diverse people leading it. We
also can't do marketing that reach diverse communities if all
those diverse communities aren't representing it. And I think what
you're doing is giving people a path into a particular
community with an enormous amount of expertise, an enormous amount
of commitment. And I think those people who are looking
(30:43):
to reach it, I think need someone like you to
help them navigate it and help them understand how to
reach it. I go back to the way the conversation began.
I think all businesses start with looking at the consumer
and understanding the consumer. You've got a superpower of understanding
(31:03):
this community extraordinarily well. And also you talk about black leadership.
It's enabling the next generation of entrepreneurs too, which become
very very important to us.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You guys are fantastic. Thank you both so much for
making time for this conversation. I knew would be great.
I don't think I envisioned that we would have so
many salient points of wisdom and advice, and quite frankly,
I think that in just a short period of time
people can learn a lot about the path forward, whether
it's thinking about putting the consumer first, working both on
(31:35):
your sort of passion projects at the same time as
you do your sort of daily career, and perhaps the
best comes out of people when they do both at
the same time, which is it's clear that you neither
of you are lazy, and you are doing it all
at the same time. So thank you for your inspiration,
thanks for engaging this way, and for everything that we've learned.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Thank you very hopefully.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Well.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
That does it for this episode of the Future Legends
of Advertising podcast on iHeart.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
I'm Ross Martin.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And I'm Hailey Romer, and thank you for listening. We'll
be back with another episode before you know it. And
for more information on the American Advertising Federation, go to
AAF dot org.
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