July 30, 2025 • 40 mins
From music to media to fintech, Frank Cooper has built a career by seeing around corners, and now as CMO of Visa, he’s redefining what it means to build a global brand in a borderless, tech-driven world. In this episode, Frank shares how culture drives commerce, why AI must serve human creativity, and what it takes to lead through complexity with clarity.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. The most important
question of all and AI for me is what's the
kind of world we want to live in? Even if
you believe that AI can do it all, let's say
they can automate every single action in the world and
it requires no human intervention. Is that the world we
want to have? First of all? But secondly, there's one
thing that I know AI is not able to do.
(00:23):
There's two things, actually, and the first one is AI
is looking back at past patterns to try to create
something going forward. But human creativity has done the best
at its best, it's been disruptive, it's been emergent. It's
something that did not exist before.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm Michael Casson and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(01:09):
up a lesson or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good. Welcome everyone to good company. Today,
I'm thrilled to be joined by Frank Cooper, the chief
marketing officer of Visa, a true innovator and one of
the most forward thinking marketers today, but more importantly, a
(01:29):
good friend for decades. I don't want to say how
many decades because it'll make us both feel old. Frank's
illustrious career has spanned industries from law and music to media, finance,
and now fintech. Often called upon for his unique perspective
on the intersection of brand, culture and technology, Frank consistently
sets the trends that others follow. At Visa, He's transforming
(01:52):
the way marketing drives results, proving that cultural relevance and
business impact are not underscored victually exclusive. From rethinking the
role of the CMO in the age of AI to
redefining what it means to build a brand in today's
connected world, Frank's leadership is the blueprint we can all
benefit from. Let's dive in Frank.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Michael, so good to see you, So good to see you.
And by the way, when you say decades, yeah, which
is true, it made me think back on how much
has changed and how much continues to change. But I
think that's what makes it fine, and I'm glad to
be doing it side by side with you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So Frank, I kind of want to begin with you
giving us a little view into a career that has
really spanned so many aspects of the intersection that I
live at. I always describe where I live at the
intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment, sports, and technology. And
when I look at your career trajectory, your career spans
(02:52):
law like mine. We both started out as lawyers, music, media, finance,
and now fintech. How of these sort of diverse world
shape your approach to marketing today because you've been on
virtually all sides of it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The one Michael, that I think people find the most
strained is law. Right, They say, Okay, wow, you're a lawyer,
now you're a marketer. Isn't marketing all creative? And the
one thing I know, you know, is that law at
its best, what it does, It teaches you a certain
way of thinking. You know, it teaches you how to
break down a problem, how to identify issues, and you
know how to create arguments and persuade people around different
(03:29):
sides of that issue. And that applies for me to
everything from problem solving it's out of a company to
actually developing kind of marketing solutions is one of the
best for me, the best training ground across business.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's funny you say that, Frank, because, as you know,
I began my career as a lawyer, and you know,
people looked at me when I got onto the media
side of the business. The joke was, people said, Michael,
what's it like to go from being a lawyer to
a media buyer. I said, well, I used to sell
it by the hour, Now I buy it by the second, right.
But the true answer was exactly what you said, Frank.
(04:03):
And what I've always told people is my background as
a lawyer did one very very important thing. It didn't
teach me how to solve problems, because experience does that,
but the foundation taught me how to spot the issue.
And I always say, if I learned anything from law school,
I learned a lot. But if I learned anything that
was practically applicable, it was issue spotting. And you said
(04:26):
it just a moment ago finding a solution or solving
a problem. As Jensen Wang said, is intelligence. Knowing things
is knowledge. The difference between knowledge and intelligence is knowledge.
As you know something. Intelligence is the ability to solve
a problem. It's kind of like data. Having data is great,
(04:47):
how do you turn that into insights? Is the next thing.
So I guess the law background played well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, yeah, and look at me. And then going from
from knowledge to wisdom step right, you know, which which
I think requires both experience but also an expansive view
of why we're doing any of these things that we're doing.
You know, why do we have business? Well, hopefully it's
to improve life. You know why why are we in
(05:14):
the payments game? Hopefully it's it's allow people to expand
their capability to exchange things with each other or to
become the person that they want to become. You know,
I think that last step is the last dimension, which
they don't teach you in law school, but hopefully that's
becoming pervasive in business.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, I'm going to switch gears in terms of what
we learn in your role at VISA. You've got a
global leadership role and so you're leading things across a
very diverse network of unique geographic situations. And famously, back
in the day, Bates advertising and the reason I'm giving
them credit is once I did this, and I didn't
(05:53):
give them credit and I got to cease and assist
letter speaking of lawyers, because they actually had come up
with this concept, the idea of thinking globally and acting locally.
There's that tension between kind of a global vision or
brand consistency if you will, with Visa and on the
other hand, local relevance. You know, I remember years ago, Frank,
(06:16):
this is twenty five years ago. I was working with
Visa in Europe and advising them and what their challenge was.
In the UK. It was more of a cash society
in the UK back then, and Visa was trying to
get people to use their visa card. Yes, and it
(06:38):
was the campaign was something around small change, like use
it for the small purchases because in the UK, I
guess the research indicated that people would pay cash, not
use their credit card for smaller purchases, and you wanted
to get them, Visa wanted to get them to go
the other way. That was a local problem that you know,
you'd have to address differently in the UK than you
(06:59):
would in the just as an example, so you know,
apropos of nothing, but you deal with that every day.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's part of what I love though and this whole
thing of there's rarely a thing that is truly kind
of global and execution rarely. You know, it might be
multi regional, but what is global. There's some kind of
universal truths, universal expressions, universal actions that play across regions.
They play across cultures, it's played across time. You know,
(07:29):
people want to feel like they're part of something bigger themselves.
That's played across time. People want to be connected to
each other. That's played across time. No matter how you
look at money, whether you look at it as cash
or digital currency, or credit or debit, people want to
exchange things and money has become a facilitator of that.
So these things are true, but universal truths are expressed locally.
(07:51):
And so what we try to do is find out
what are the things that are absolutely true across regions.
Use that as a framework, But within that framework, we
give a lot of freedom to every single country and
every single region because it is definitely expressed differently. Here
in the United States, everyone thinks that we're far advanced
in digital currency. But you think that until you get
outside outside of that state.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And you find out we're not even in the game yet.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
We're not even in the game. I mean, you go
to parts of Asia, parts of Europe, they're so far
ahead in terms of digital currency, but then you might
land in Germany where cash is still strong and so
so that local expression is going to be really important.
And I think, Michael, for me, that's the exciting part
is being able to acknowledge that it's impossible to sit
(08:37):
at the center, whether that's in New York or San Francisco,
develop an idea, push it all the way down to
a country level. It just will never work because the
cultural nuances as well as the regulations are different and
so so. But that is part of what I enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
About Again, Frank, you've brought so much experience to this
role from that perspective, because you've had obviously global brand experience,
but you've had both. Yeah, as a CMO, you know,
marketing as a strategic driver. As a CMO, do you
think you could tell me definitively if your CEO understands
(09:14):
your job description.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Understands by well, well you have me recorded here, so
I'm gonna say absolutely, yes.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
No, no, no, Look, I mean, look, I think the
challenge in answering that question is really that the role
of the CMO continues to evolve, and in some ways
we all have.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You know, you walk into a room any c suite
at any company, and I can guarantee you around that table.
People have differing views of what it means to be
a CMO. Some are locked into this kind of traditional
view that a CMO is is an extensive of madmen
and we do shiny, sizzly things that you know, excite people,
(09:57):
and and we develop these big stories around and like
that's what a CMO does. And others are like, no, no, no,
it's a purely analytical job. It should be bottom of
the funnel driving acquisition. And I think very few people
have a comprehensive view of what the CMO role can be.
And that's really what I think you're you're pushing it
and so what it can be. And and the challenge
(10:19):
is because some of it is the same as it
always was. I think the CMO's role has always been
to help the company drive profitable growth. The problem is
that at one time there was a formula an approach
for doing that. And you know, if you've got a
great thirty second spot, put it across the three major networks,
you push it through it actually would actually move the needle.
(10:41):
Then you know, you went through other phases, you know,
data driven marketing, et cetera. Today, the capabilities and skills
required to tell the stories, create the expectations, design the experiences,
build the memories, build the relationships. Those techniques, those capabilities
are so expansive. Now that's what's hard to get your
mind wrapped around.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And it's also frank you and I have had this
conversation over the years, but it's ever more topical now.
The idea of the roles of your CIO or CTO
and your CMO continue to merge because you, as a
CMO or test with making way more technology decisions than
you ever had to make in the early parts of
(11:20):
your career. And I bet you the CTO or CIO
cohorts at Visa are making more marketing decisions or or
involved more in the marketing process than ever before.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, I mean, look, I actually really do feel very
fortunate Visa. So you know, Ryan has me on the
executive committee. So I'm sitting around the table with the
head of Technology, the head of strategy, the head of product,
and so already I started from a great place, right
because I'm at the table. We're at the.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Table, and that's a big That's part of where my
question was going. Are you at the table?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
That's right, and so that's been a great I mean,
what's what's new is that because technology is becoming such
a core part of marketing and now the AI is
seeping in, and now we have agents that are going
to be out there representing the brand, the lines are
blurring so much. And so my solution to those very simple.
I think in any complex organization where it's highly matrix,
(12:15):
no one, no leaders should obsess over what the org
lines look like. What you should obsess over is like,
who can help me get done when I need to
get done? And how can we work together to how.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Do I get from here to there? And what's the
road I should take?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But you know, Frank, I want to switch gears for
a second because we've been talking about more technology here
and that's critical. But you have always been a believer
and you've been the personification of it in your various
roles of the incredible value of culture as the engine
of commerce, I think is how you've articulated it previously
(12:55):
in a world of kind of invisible frictionless transactions. That's
the world of visa on the one hand, right, it's
enabling and all the things that it enables us to do.
How do you fuel the future of commerce using culture here?
I mean, how does that play out in the real world?
Because I've always marveled at the fact of using the
(13:18):
word content and commerce today. I've said very often recently
you rarely see the word commerce now not modified by
the word content. Right, But here we're saying culture as
the engine of commerce.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
How do be saying? In my view, content is one
expression of culture, right, Yeah, you know, So you break
content down, it's a movie, it's a story, it's a
TV program, it's an advertisement, it's part of they kind
of it's a cultural expression. And for me, I came
from I was in music early on, early in my life,
and then you know, early in my career. I've always
(13:52):
been connected to music. And what's always fascinating fascinating me
about music is that it is probably one of them
is a quintessential kind of cultural expression, but it's also
a business. It's also commerce around its such and so
for me there was always a natural extension. But I
look at everything else, So video gaming it's a it's
(14:14):
a it's a cultural space. There's more value exchange happening
in video gaming than almost any other space. For for
young consumers today, their first experience with value exchange is
like it happened on video on video games sports, you know,
dominates U. Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well, hopefully it's a lemonade stand first and then it's
later on.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
You would hope, but I doubt it that. I think.
I think they're going to be exchanging robots on roadblocks
before they actually have the tencent leimonade stand. But you know,
my own belief, by the way, is that as we
go through this whole process, the analog experience will become
even more precious. Like right now, right now, we're in
that mode. We're in that swing of everything digital, everything AI.
(14:56):
But I think the human condition the way it is today,
we're going to want something physically tangible, including our the
presence of mind.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Well, by the way, Frank, you know, we all experienced this.
It was something called the pandemic, and we all experienced
that we had to conduct our business without that human interaction.
We had to do it this way on a digital
you know, interaction on a virtual and then we realized
that there was something about being together again that's right,
(15:22):
and we realized the importance of it. You know how
many times during the pandemic, I said, I'm never going
to do that stupid thing of getting on an airplane
for a lunch meeting or a dinner meeting. You don't
need to do it anymore. I can do this on
a zoom and I can and I know the person now,
you know, first meetings are different. But yet we all reverted,
or at least I did. I'm sure you did too.
(15:43):
We reverted back to the I'm going to get on
the plane and fly across the world for a dinner
I mean, and I thought I would never do it again.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And it makes a difference, you know. I mean, look,
I mean, it's like you want to have a festival.
We can put on a festival right now across the
world and make it virtual. It is not the same
as having one hundred thousand people in the same space
where that physical energy is feeding off each other. It's
it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
As we're talking about technology and human interaction in your world.
How are you managing that, How are you educating yourself?
How are you bringing it into your day job? You know,
in rethinking the way you do what you do, whether
it's from an organizational standpoint, do you need the same people,
do you need different people, what kind of skill sets?
(16:27):
And where are you finding ai you know, generally or
you could be specific, you know, changing your day job.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
At this point, this is one of the hardest things
that we're all facing, which is everything around us is
changing at an accelerating rate. If you ever get to
that point of everything everywhere, all at once, is a
chaotic thing, right. But but what we can do is
we can do at least two things. Number One, we
can remain curious and keep learning and keep exploring and
(16:57):
keep pushing our thinking, you know, and not fall into
that kind of routine of this is the way things
are done. As soon as you think you're an expert
and you think you have it all figured out, that's
the moment you'll start to decline. And so for me,
the kind of maintaining that curiosity, continuous learning, exploring to
do that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Though, going back to our roots, Frank I used to
somebody said to me, that's why they call it the
practice of law, because you're constantly practicing.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's constantly changing and and and that is true
in every dimension that we that we're facing. Right, So
for me, if you don't have that curiosity and that
hunger to keep learning and that energy to explore new things,
it's it's a slow decline at first, and then it accelerates.
And so so it's first the second thing, Michael, and
this is harder. It gets harder, hard so that you
(17:42):
can do yourself control. That second thing is surrounding yourself
with people who think differently and who expand your thinking
and maybe even challenge your thinking. And so a lot
of people confusing. You know, I actually love robust debate.
Maybe that's the lawyer of me too, But but for me,
it's not so much of like not a tension point
(18:02):
as much as it is it's a process to get
to truth, to get to better understand.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
If you put my word on it, I always use
the word friction in that context. Yeah, people think of
friction as bad. I think friction can be very positive.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I think it's I think it's fantastic. I mean, look,
some of the greatest creative ideas, you know, you know
you go to a writing room, for example, it comes
from that friction that you're talking about and you know, Yes,
it's to come from positive intent that people should be
trying to build something and not tear something down. So
you have to have that mindset. But both sides have
(18:35):
to look at it as you know, pressure testing these
ideas to get to a better place. So I like
that that process.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break. We've got more insights to share.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I've kind of.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Heard this in the Markt place that some folks at
Visa are talking about the you know, the rise of
autonomous agents and what I think I heard, and I
want to make sure I've got this right that there's
a view at Visa generally that marketing will eventually ship
from what we talk about B two C to be
(19:20):
to AIA. You know, I've been talking about B to
H as opposed to B two C or B to
B because B to H is business to human so
that was a different spin. But the idea of business
to AI. How do you think this changes kind of
the fundamental way that you're engaging with the consumer.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So first of all, I love B to H, yeah,
because I do think that that is that the heart
of it. And ian if you're dealing with in a
B to B context as.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
A human as a person on the other end.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Exactly right, and maybe a group of people, but they're
all influenced by their consumer experiences. They're influenced by all
the factors that we are as human beings are so
so I love that idea. But what's interesting is as
people develop their own agents, and you have a bunch
of agents running around, and at some point the agents
may even out number the number of people on the planet. Right,
(20:10):
the question for brands, do we develop our own agents
so that there's agent to agent communication at a minimum.
Even if you don't develop your own agent, you will
find yourself interacting with someone else's agent who is trying
to make something happen a purchase, a transaction, an experience.
And so I think for marketers one of the opportunities
(20:33):
we have is to understand and start to project forward
what agent to agent communication may look like and what
human to agent communication may look like from the transactional
side of it. So we've been aggressive in terms of
leading this kind of movement around agentic commerce, AI driven
shopping experiences and what we do protecting and making sure
(20:59):
you're trans actions are fast secure, free of fraud. You
know that that's going to apply in the AI environment,
and so we're just kind of transporting that those ideas
into this new space.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
The human touch is so important here, Frank. We could
have an entire you know day talking about this, but
marketing has to have a human element to it, or
at least the sense of human emotional kind of resonance
you hope for. I guess the biggest challenge we have
is will AI be able to embody? Will these agents
(21:36):
be able to have that emotional resident I.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Think we what you what you're touching on right now
is the most important question of all and AI for me,
which is what's the kind of world we want to
live in? Even if you believe that AI can do
it all, let's say they can automate every single action
in the world and it requires no human intervention, is
that the world we want to have? First of all?
But secondly, there's one thing that I know AI is
(22:00):
not able to do. There's two things, actually, and the
first one is AI is looking back at past patterns
to try to create something going forward. But human creativity
has done the best at its best, it's been disruptive,
it's been emergent. It's something that did not exist before.
You know, in music, I'll go back to my roots
(22:21):
of music. Having blues come out after classical music is
one of the greatest. It makes no logical sense. A
computer would never come up with that solution. You know,
where does funk come from? You know, how did you
get rock coming out from from from blues? These are
discontinuities in creative development, and I think that's a human endeavor.
(22:44):
So that's one that's my own prediction. But the second
one is this, I think what makes us human and
the thing that way I think will increasingly appreciate our imperfections.
You know, you know, if you have the early cartoons,
you know they used to draw it. The heads were
super large, and those imperfections actually made them feel more human.
And I think those imperfections are the things that we're
(23:05):
going to be looking for. If you want to listen
listen to music right now, someone can give you the
cleanest digital platform with no noise in it, and then
it's like, hey, you can hear every single instrumentation. But
still people are going to want to have vinyl records.
Why it's the imperfections what they interpret as warmth, and
so I think there's always a space or for kind
(23:26):
of human capability. Now, having set all this, I think
we're going to enter the most extraordinary period of creativity.
You know, we're going to go through the rough time
where people there's gonna be a lazy period of people
are going to turn to AI and say do it
for me. But someone's going to start figuring out how
does AI enhance my human creativity? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
For me, Frank, I could speak to this personally. My
experience thus far has been I'm a good editor. I'm
never as good on a first draft. So using AI
to do that first draft gives me the ability to
use my strongest suit, which is editing.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So so, but Michael, what would you do? I'm curious
what you would do with this. So you're like, hey,
I'm a great editor. So AI is doing my first draft.
Now AI the platform that I use for AI. We've
now done a hundred projects together. Now a I says,
we don't Michael, I can actually go further than the
first draft. I'm now kind of figure out your pattern
(24:23):
of thinking and how you kind of bridge to the
final draft. I think I can go straight to the
final draft. For you.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And by the way, I think that's that moment is here?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Or it's damn close.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah. What do you do in that situation?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Uh? You know, I keep iterating. You know, when do
I accept the final draft? You know, final draft?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah? You know, Look, I've drafted enough contracts. Frank when
I put you know, put my director's hat on and
said final edit, I know what that means.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That's right, that's right. You know, I like a met
regard because I'm almost walking on the stage still editing.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Right, yeah, or final cut. You know, I worked in
the entertainment business enough as a young lawyer and knew
that there were a couple of those directors who literally
got final cut. That's right, And and that's how I
look at that last day I draft would be that
somebody's got final cut. I'm not giving that up yet.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So so my only hope in all this is that
we create space for things that don't make logical sense
to me. That is the space of true creativity. The
machine will will take you logically down to a conclusion,
but then there's a space at the end. I want.
I want Christopher Nolan to give his intuition at the end,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And so Frank, I want to go back to where
we were a bit of go on culture. You're famous
for a lot of things, but I think you you've
become famous in the industry for having a real, real
thumb on the on the scale, if you will. I
don't mean that in a pejorative way of culture and
understanding that is there a recent cultural moment or movement
(25:59):
that you think, Visa or otherwise that has really been
captured brilliantly or not.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, So if I take culture at the macro level,
I think we're right in the currents of that, you know.
So if you go back, Michael to the nineteen fifties
and sixties, it went to me the cultural time epoch
of that time was science. Remember they had the they
had the Worldfairs, that was all about science. Time magazine
nineteen sixty, the corever Time magazine all scientists.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well remember the Time magazine issue that was the computer
was the person of the year.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right, And that was that time. And by the way,
at that time Visa launch in nineteen fifty eight. Their
whole communication was around the scientific nature of digital payments.
And our famous ad at that time was think of
it as money. They had a money clip with a
card in between it, and it was more about the
kind of the digital distribution of money. But perfect timing, right,
(26:55):
you go to the eighties, people concern with upward mobility.
You know, we had you can do it. You know,
that's when the yuppies are coming out. Everyone's you know,
we're like, hey, there's a moment for the middle class
Expand you go to late nineties, remember of Pine and
Gilmour wrote the book The Experience Economy. It was all
about experiences and people like you know, Sandel was writing
to book there's things some money can't buy. They went
with that, but there's about experiences, and we said everywhere
(27:18):
you want to be.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
It's what It's the one that resonates the most for
me because I've always thought of that as quintessential visa,
but it became quintessential because of Visa one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Hundred percent right, and it aligned with the cultural epoch. Right.
So come fastward to today. You think about all the
changes that happen, says late the late nineties, rise of
the Internet, rise of social media. iPhone came out, what
two thousand and seven, you know, you had the global
financial crisis in two thousand and eight, you had forty
(27:52):
years of declient trust, and institutions pension plans shifted over
to four one k. People like, Okay, it's the confluence
of I'm empowered through all these technology coal shifts, but
I'm kind of on my own, you know, in terms
of building and crafting my own career and my own life.
And so our belief is that people we're in the
moment now where people are asking the question, who is
going to help me move forward? Who's going to help
(28:14):
me become the person I want to become? And for us,
our brand positioning sits squarely within that. It is all
We're fortunately have a founder liked Hawk. It's always been
about expanding opportunities for people to become more of who
they want to become, and so I feel like we're
squarely in the moment of that. But that's a high
level kind of cultural shift. And of course we're looking
(28:37):
at the lower level of culture shifts like creator economy
and video gaming and the transition of music and evolutionary
sport and how that's playing out the rise of women's sports.
We're looking at all those other cultural vectors, but that
high level one is the most important.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Good company will be right back after the break as
you reflect on your journey, Frank, both at Visa and
beyond and previously, is there a personal legacy that you
(29:17):
hope to leave behind A and B not that you're
going anywhere and B do you have a personal north
star right now?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
For me, legacy is always funny because, with very few exceptions,
no matter what you do, no matter how great something
seems at the moment, it becomes background noise eventually. And
so for me, the greatest legacy always happen through people.
So if I'm fortunate, what I would love as my
legacy is for something that I've done for other people
(29:47):
to live on through them, through those people, if I
can get If I can do that, and you can't
do it with everyone, it's not you know, you know,
we're in a business where you know you have to
make hard decisions. But I'm hoping, I'm hoping that at
the end of the day done enough for enough people
that they carry it forward and that something positive that
I've done with them or for them kind of lives
(30:07):
in their heart.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a great legacy. It's a great
legacy and I was. It reminds me of a conversation
that I saw at the New York Times deal Book
this past year when Andrew Ross Sorkin was interviewing Jeff Bezos.
And it was an interesting interview because he said, you know,
when when when he was considered quote unquote the richest
(30:29):
man in the world or one of the richest men
in the world, he says, you know, on the one hand,
that sounds great, of course, but on the other hand
carries great responsibility and in a funny way and not funny,
but he was he was right, he said, but I
would rather be famous for not becoming rich. I'd rather
be famous for how many other people I made rich. Yes,
(30:50):
And that was like, Look, that's what If I'm going
to be famous for something, I'd like to be famous
for the amount of people that I made rich, not
that I became rich.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And Michael, and that's that's what lives on, right, because
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Paraphrasing, that's not how he said it, but but that's
close enough.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And I believe that point because there are no parades
for people who hoarded all the things for himself or herself.
They're no parades for that person. You know, the parades
are for the person who actually is given something to others,
And so I believe what if Basil said that I've
been without one hundred percent. But look on the second
part of your question, I think is you know, is
(31:27):
there something that's guided meet through all these changes? And
you know, and I've told the story before, but coming
out of law school, I've had a chance to spend
time in Russia with a lawyer that had practiced for
twenty years and we're working on the game Tetris. You know,
there's a lawsuit over that between Atari and Nintendo, but
we got time to spend a lot of time together.
He forced me to go through the process of thinking
(31:50):
about what are the things that really just energized me
and give me a sense of fulfillment in life, and
how do I connect that to what I do? And
so I've landed on something that it's evolve over time,
but it's always been the same as a general matter,
is that what I love to do is to expand
what's possible for people and for communities of people like
(32:12):
expand that potential and that possibility I always felt I've
always the reason I love music. In part I mean
I've played music, I've been in around musical but I
do feel like it expands what's possible for people. You know,
absolutely builds bridges and makes connections. And I feel like
hearing payments we expand what's possible for people. And I love,
for example, what even what we're doing in the continent
(32:32):
of Africa right now and trying to get people, give
people the opportunity to leverage digital payments in a way
that make it safer for them to transact and make
it easier for them to stand up small businesses. I
think doing that across the world for me, is like
a beautiful thing that's consistent with what I've always been about.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Frank, you define humility and it came through in that. Okay,
now this is the fun part. Although I think this
has been great fun lightning round. I'm just going to
throw some things out, obviously again for our listeners. Frank
hasn't heard these questions before. I'm going to start with
one of my favorites. If you could give your younger
(33:11):
self one piece of guidance, what would it be.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
One piece of guidance It would be make time for others,
you know, because sometimes you can get so focused on
a specific goal and I can get really focused on it,
but it might might But the big, the most important
thing of going back to the legacy you want to
leave making more time for others. For me would be
would be my advice to my younger self.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
That's magical. Who was your mentor early in your career
and did that person give you one bit of advice
that you you stuck to? You mentioned a lawyer, But
is there anybody that sticks out as boy that person
really mentored me or gave me one bit of advice
that's carried me forward.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I've had so many mentors, man, it's very crazy, you know.
You know early in my career, you know, I mentioned
how Kruth was a lawyer, Lois Scali and I Row
and Larry Tribe, you know. But the person that kind
of has been with me, It was with me for many, many,
many years.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Can I tell you in the industry something that they
probably don't know is that, you know, the famous person
in the advertising industry is the first cousin of Lawrence Tribe.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Oh, I do know, because he's the head of media
for many many years. Yes, and they look alike by
the way they look.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
People who know you know, if you know, you know
Irwin's mother and Lawrence Tribe's mother were sisters.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I love they are first cousins. And when you tell
people that and they look at Lawrence Tribe on the news,
you go, of course. I mean, it's shocking how much
they look alike.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I know, those who know no exactly, We're going to
do a side by side one time. I'm I going
to just post it. But you know, but the person
for me though, was Clarence Avon. You know, I met
Clarence Avon when I was a young lawyer and he's
kind of been with me, guiding me throughout, and you know,
he's given me a lot of advice. But the one
piece of it wasn't even advice. It was a statement
(35:07):
that he's made. He said, Hey, I've seen a lot
of successful people across politics, business, entertainment, and I can
tell you they all wake up the same way, they
put on the clothes, the same way.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
When they put their pants on, one leg at a.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Time, one lego at a time. And so the only
thing stopping you from achieving anything of greatness in any
area that you want is going to be you. Because
I can tell you. It's not that there was something
extraordinary about any one of the individuals, but they were
committed to what they wanted it, focused and persistent. So
I always remember.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
That you said the word committed. I always loved that
expression about the difference between commitment and involvement. You know that, right, Frank.
The difference between commitment and involvement is best demonstrated by
a plate of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved,
the pig was committed.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
So it's the way the best way to say, that's
crazy having a right, Frank, is there one industry buzzword
that you wish would disappear forever?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh? You know you don't, Michael. I don't have one,
honestly because I don't. I don't, I don't, I don't subscribe.
I try with a deep, deep, deep passion to avoid
the buzzword, and if I catch myself using a buzzword,
I work really hard to avoid it or to understand
what's beneath the buzzword. So, like you know, it's never
(36:32):
been a thing for me. So yeah, yeah, So no,
I don't have one.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well, I want to come back to your primary passion,
which is music. As we know, if you were only
allowed three songs on your playlist, I may even tell
you mine. Go ahead your first.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Oh my god, three not three albums, three songs.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm making this difficult.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
That's really difficult. Oh my god. So I'm gonna do
I have to do one. I'll do one. There has
to be Stevie Wonder, so I think I would do
as on that one. You know, one of my favorite
groups of all time is Steely Dan, So I'm gonna
pick a Steely Dan song. I'll probably go with like
the Asia album. So I'm gonna go with let's go
(37:15):
Why not go with the title track because it's complicated,
complicated enough. And of course, let's see, what's the most
interesting hip hop song that I would want to hear
over and over and over that it's not gonna drive
me crazy. I would pick something that's not a hit.
It will be Kendrick Lamar and I probably would choose
(37:37):
something off the Good Kid Mad City album. So since
I'm at Visa, let's let's go with Money Trees. I
like that. I like that.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Well, I'll tell you only one of mine because it's
what one is guaranteed. I'm not testing myself today, but
maybe one for sure is Mack the Knife.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh really? Why?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
First of all, love Bobby Darren as a performer, love
how the song was created in Threepenny Opera. Yes, just
loved it right beat. If I'm ever asked to do
karaoke ever, it's Mack the Knife.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh really? Oh yeah, yeah, it's my go to song.
If I've ever asked to do karaoke, I excuse myself,
so I'll be right back and never say. Uh.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
My fantasy you're asking me a question I'm asking myself
was to be a lounge lizard. Just put a brandy
sniff on the piano, drop in five dollars bills and
let me sing Cold Porter, George Gershwin and Tin pan Alley.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I always wish I could sing, man, you know, It's
one of things like I could play multiple but never
could sing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Well, it's funny because Mike Canter is a personal friend, Frank,
I think you've met him with me before, and he's
obviously got a magnificent singing voice. Yes, and I can't
carry a tune to save my life, but I'm a
pretty good dancer. So I told him he and I
should go on the road. We could be a song
and dance. Man.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
There you go. Do it now, man, do it now,
They'll let it stop you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Frank Cooper. I could go on for hours, but I
want to thank you for taking the time to join
me on Good Company today. I know there's so much
more we could talk about, but I feel like we
touched on some of the more important issues of the day.
And Frank Cooper, thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Michael. Always good to see you, man, and thank you
for your friendship, and thank you for this podcast. Actually,
I mean I think what you're doing is helpful not
only to marketers, I mean across the board, to anyone
who actually has any interest in business at all. So congratulations, sir.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Thank you, sir. I'm Michael Casson, Thanks for listening to
Good Company.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Good Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures
and iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borgero Purdo, our
executive producer and head of Content and Talent, and to
Carl Catle, executive producer at iHeart Podcasts. Episodes are produced
and edited by Mary Doo. For joining us, We'll see
you next time.
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio. The most important
question of all and AI for me is what's the
kind of world we want to live in? Even if
you believe that AI can do it all, let's say
they can automate every single action in the world and
it requires no human intervention. Is that the world we
want to have? First of all? But secondly, there's one
thing that I know AI is not able to do.
(00:23):
There's two things, actually, and the first one is AI
is looking back at past patterns to try to create
something going forward. But human creativity has done the best
at its best, it's been disruptive, it's been emergent. It's
something that did not exist before.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm Michael Casson and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(01:09):
up a lesson or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good. Welcome everyone to good company. Today,
I'm thrilled to be joined by Frank Cooper, the chief
marketing officer of Visa, a true innovator and one of
the most forward thinking marketers today, but more importantly, a
(01:29):
good friend for decades. I don't want to say how
many decades because it'll make us both feel old. Frank's
illustrious career has spanned industries from law and music to media, finance,
and now fintech. Often called upon for his unique perspective
on the intersection of brand, culture and technology, Frank consistently
sets the trends that others follow. At Visa, He's transforming
(01:52):
the way marketing drives results, proving that cultural relevance and
business impact are not underscored victually exclusive. From rethinking the
role of the CMO in the age of AI to
redefining what it means to build a brand in today's
connected world, Frank's leadership is the blueprint we can all
benefit from. Let's dive in Frank.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Michael, so good to see you, So good to see you.
And by the way, when you say decades, yeah, which
is true, it made me think back on how much
has changed and how much continues to change. But I
think that's what makes it fine, and I'm glad to
be doing it side by side with you.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So Frank, I kind of want to begin with you
giving us a little view into a career that has
really spanned so many aspects of the intersection that I
live at. I always describe where I live at the
intersection of marketing, media, advertising, entertainment, sports, and technology. And
when I look at your career trajectory, your career spans
(02:52):
law like mine. We both started out as lawyers, music, media, finance,
and now fintech. How of these sort of diverse world
shape your approach to marketing today because you've been on
virtually all sides of it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
The one Michael, that I think people find the most
strained is law. Right, They say, Okay, wow, you're a lawyer,
now you're a marketer. Isn't marketing all creative? And the
one thing I know, you know, is that law at
its best, what it does, It teaches you a certain
way of thinking. You know, it teaches you how to
break down a problem, how to identify issues, and you
know how to create arguments and persuade people around different
(03:29):
sides of that issue. And that applies for me to
everything from problem solving it's out of a company to
actually developing kind of marketing solutions is one of the
best for me, the best training ground across business.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It's funny you say that, Frank, because, as you know,
I began my career as a lawyer, and you know,
people looked at me when I got onto the media
side of the business. The joke was, people said, Michael,
what's it like to go from being a lawyer to
a media buyer. I said, well, I used to sell
it by the hour, Now I buy it by the second, right.
But the true answer was exactly what you said, Frank.
(04:03):
And what I've always told people is my background as
a lawyer did one very very important thing. It didn't
teach me how to solve problems, because experience does that,
but the foundation taught me how to spot the issue.
And I always say, if I learned anything from law school,
I learned a lot. But if I learned anything that
was practically applicable, it was issue spotting. And you said
(04:26):
it just a moment ago finding a solution or solving
a problem. As Jensen Wang said, is intelligence. Knowing things
is knowledge. The difference between knowledge and intelligence is knowledge.
As you know something. Intelligence is the ability to solve
a problem. It's kind of like data. Having data is great,
(04:47):
how do you turn that into insights? Is the next thing.
So I guess the law background played well.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, yeah, and look at me. And then going from
from knowledge to wisdom step right, you know, which which
I think requires both experience but also an expansive view
of why we're doing any of these things that we're doing.
You know, why do we have business? Well, hopefully it's
to improve life. You know why why are we in
(05:14):
the payments game? Hopefully it's it's allow people to expand
their capability to exchange things with each other or to
become the person that they want to become. You know,
I think that last step is the last dimension, which
they don't teach you in law school, but hopefully that's
becoming pervasive in business.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, I'm going to switch gears in terms of what
we learn in your role at VISA. You've got a
global leadership role and so you're leading things across a
very diverse network of unique geographic situations. And famously, back
in the day, Bates advertising and the reason I'm giving
them credit is once I did this, and I didn't
(05:53):
give them credit and I got to cease and assist
letter speaking of lawyers, because they actually had come up
with this concept, the idea of thinking globally and acting locally.
There's that tension between kind of a global vision or
brand consistency if you will, with Visa and on the
other hand, local relevance. You know, I remember years ago, Frank,
(06:16):
this is twenty five years ago. I was working with
Visa in Europe and advising them and what their challenge was.
In the UK. It was more of a cash society
in the UK back then, and Visa was trying to
get people to use their visa card. Yes, and it
(06:38):
was the campaign was something around small change, like use
it for the small purchases because in the UK, I
guess the research indicated that people would pay cash, not
use their credit card for smaller purchases, and you wanted
to get them, Visa wanted to get them to go
the other way. That was a local problem that you know,
you'd have to address differently in the UK than you
(06:59):
would in the just as an example, so you know,
apropos of nothing, but you deal with that every day.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's part of what I love though and this whole
thing of there's rarely a thing that is truly kind
of global and execution rarely. You know, it might be
multi regional, but what is global. There's some kind of
universal truths, universal expressions, universal actions that play across regions.
They play across cultures, it's played across time. You know,
(07:29):
people want to feel like they're part of something bigger themselves.
That's played across time. People want to be connected to
each other. That's played across time. No matter how you
look at money, whether you look at it as cash
or digital currency, or credit or debit, people want to
exchange things and money has become a facilitator of that.
So these things are true, but universal truths are expressed locally.
(07:51):
And so what we try to do is find out
what are the things that are absolutely true across regions.
Use that as a framework, But within that framework, we
give a lot of freedom to every single country and
every single region because it is definitely expressed differently. Here
in the United States, everyone thinks that we're far advanced
in digital currency. But you think that until you get
outside outside of that state.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And you find out we're not even in the game yet.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
We're not even in the game. I mean, you go
to parts of Asia, parts of Europe, they're so far
ahead in terms of digital currency, but then you might
land in Germany where cash is still strong and so
so that local expression is going to be really important.
And I think, Michael, for me, that's the exciting part
is being able to acknowledge that it's impossible to sit
(08:37):
at the center, whether that's in New York or San Francisco,
develop an idea, push it all the way down to
a country level. It just will never work because the
cultural nuances as well as the regulations are different and
so so. But that is part of what I enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
About Again, Frank, you've brought so much experience to this
role from that perspective, because you've had obviously global brand experience,
but you've had both. Yeah, as a CMO, you know,
marketing as a strategic driver. As a CMO, do you
think you could tell me definitively if your CEO understands
(09:14):
your job description.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Understands by well, well you have me recorded here, so
I'm gonna say absolutely, yes.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
No, no, no, Look, I mean, look, I think the
challenge in answering that question is really that the role
of the CMO continues to evolve, and in some ways
we all have.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You know, you walk into a room any c suite
at any company, and I can guarantee you around that table.
People have differing views of what it means to be
a CMO. Some are locked into this kind of traditional
view that a CMO is is an extensive of madmen
and we do shiny, sizzly things that you know, excite people,
(09:57):
and and we develop these big stories around and like
that's what a CMO does. And others are like, no, no, no,
it's a purely analytical job. It should be bottom of
the funnel driving acquisition. And I think very few people
have a comprehensive view of what the CMO role can be.
And that's really what I think you're you're pushing it
and so what it can be. And and the challenge
(10:19):
is because some of it is the same as it
always was. I think the CMO's role has always been
to help the company drive profitable growth. The problem is
that at one time there was a formula an approach
for doing that. And you know, if you've got a
great thirty second spot, put it across the three major networks,
you push it through it actually would actually move the needle.
(10:41):
Then you know, you went through other phases, you know,
data driven marketing, et cetera. Today, the capabilities and skills
required to tell the stories, create the expectations, design the experiences,
build the memories, build the relationships. Those techniques, those capabilities
are so expansive. Now that's what's hard to get your
mind wrapped around.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And it's also frank you and I have had this
conversation over the years, but it's ever more topical now.
The idea of the roles of your CIO or CTO
and your CMO continue to merge because you, as a
CMO or test with making way more technology decisions than
you ever had to make in the early parts of
(11:20):
your career. And I bet you the CTO or CIO
cohorts at Visa are making more marketing decisions or or
involved more in the marketing process than ever before.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, I mean, look, I actually really do feel very
fortunate Visa. So you know, Ryan has me on the
executive committee. So I'm sitting around the table with the
head of Technology, the head of strategy, the head of product,
and so already I started from a great place, right
because I'm at the table. We're at the.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Table, and that's a big That's part of where my
question was going. Are you at the table?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
That's right, and so that's been a great I mean,
what's what's new is that because technology is becoming such
a core part of marketing and now the AI is
seeping in, and now we have agents that are going
to be out there representing the brand, the lines are
blurring so much. And so my solution to those very simple.
I think in any complex organization where it's highly matrix,
(12:15):
no one, no leaders should obsess over what the org
lines look like. What you should obsess over is like,
who can help me get done when I need to
get done? And how can we work together to how.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Do I get from here to there? And what's the
road I should take?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But you know, Frank, I want to switch gears for
a second because we've been talking about more technology here
and that's critical. But you have always been a believer
and you've been the personification of it in your various
roles of the incredible value of culture as the engine
of commerce, I think is how you've articulated it previously
(12:55):
in a world of kind of invisible frictionless transactions. That's
the world of visa on the one hand, right, it's
enabling and all the things that it enables us to do.
How do you fuel the future of commerce using culture here?
I mean, how does that play out in the real world?
Because I've always marveled at the fact of using the
(13:18):
word content and commerce today. I've said very often recently
you rarely see the word commerce now not modified by
the word content. Right, But here we're saying culture as
the engine of commerce.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
How do be saying? In my view, content is one
expression of culture, right, Yeah, you know, So you break
content down, it's a movie, it's a story, it's a
TV program, it's an advertisement, it's part of they kind
of it's a cultural expression. And for me, I came
from I was in music early on, early in my life,
and then you know, early in my career. I've always
(13:52):
been connected to music. And what's always fascinating fascinating me
about music is that it is probably one of them
is a quintessential kind of cultural expression, but it's also
a business. It's also commerce around its such and so
for me there was always a natural extension. But I
look at everything else, So video gaming it's a it's
(14:14):
a it's a cultural space. There's more value exchange happening
in video gaming than almost any other space. For for
young consumers today, their first experience with value exchange is
like it happened on video on video games sports, you know,
dominates U. Uh.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Well, hopefully it's a lemonade stand first and then it's
later on.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
You would hope, but I doubt it that. I think.
I think they're going to be exchanging robots on roadblocks
before they actually have the tencent leimonade stand. But you know,
my own belief, by the way, is that as we
go through this whole process, the analog experience will become
even more precious. Like right now, right now, we're in
that mode. We're in that swing of everything digital, everything AI.
(14:56):
But I think the human condition the way it is today,
we're going to want something physically tangible, including our the
presence of mind.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Well, by the way, Frank, you know, we all experienced this.
It was something called the pandemic, and we all experienced
that we had to conduct our business without that human interaction.
We had to do it this way on a digital
you know, interaction on a virtual and then we realized
that there was something about being together again that's right,
(15:22):
and we realized the importance of it. You know how
many times during the pandemic, I said, I'm never going
to do that stupid thing of getting on an airplane
for a lunch meeting or a dinner meeting. You don't
need to do it anymore. I can do this on
a zoom and I can and I know the person now,
you know, first meetings are different. But yet we all reverted,
or at least I did. I'm sure you did too.
(15:43):
We reverted back to the I'm going to get on
the plane and fly across the world for a dinner
I mean, and I thought I would never do it again.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
And it makes a difference, you know. I mean, look,
I mean, it's like you want to have a festival.
We can put on a festival right now across the
world and make it virtual. It is not the same
as having one hundred thousand people in the same space
where that physical energy is feeding off each other. It's
it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
As we're talking about technology and human interaction in your world.
How are you managing that, How are you educating yourself?
How are you bringing it into your day job? You know,
in rethinking the way you do what you do, whether
it's from an organizational standpoint, do you need the same people,
do you need different people, what kind of skill sets?
(16:27):
And where are you finding ai you know, generally or
you could be specific, you know, changing your day job.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
At this point, this is one of the hardest things
that we're all facing, which is everything around us is
changing at an accelerating rate. If you ever get to
that point of everything everywhere, all at once, is a
chaotic thing, right. But but what we can do is
we can do at least two things. Number One, we
can remain curious and keep learning and keep exploring and
(16:57):
keep pushing our thinking, you know, and not fall into
that kind of routine of this is the way things
are done. As soon as you think you're an expert
and you think you have it all figured out, that's
the moment you'll start to decline. And so for me,
the kind of maintaining that curiosity, continuous learning, exploring to
do that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Though, going back to our roots, Frank I used to
somebody said to me, that's why they call it the
practice of law, because you're constantly practicing.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
And it's constantly changing and and and that is true
in every dimension that we that we're facing. Right, So
for me, if you don't have that curiosity and that
hunger to keep learning and that energy to explore new things,
it's it's a slow decline at first, and then it accelerates.
And so so it's first the second thing, Michael, and
this is harder. It gets harder, hard so that you
(17:42):
can do yourself control. That second thing is surrounding yourself
with people who think differently and who expand your thinking
and maybe even challenge your thinking. And so a lot
of people confusing. You know, I actually love robust debate.
Maybe that's the lawyer of me too, But but for me,
it's not so much of like not a tension point
(18:02):
as much as it is it's a process to get
to truth, to get to better understand.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
If you put my word on it, I always use
the word friction in that context. Yeah, people think of
friction as bad. I think friction can be very positive.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I think it's I think it's fantastic. I mean, look,
some of the greatest creative ideas, you know, you know
you go to a writing room, for example, it comes
from that friction that you're talking about and you know, Yes,
it's to come from positive intent that people should be
trying to build something and not tear something down. So
you have to have that mindset. But both sides have
(18:35):
to look at it as you know, pressure testing these
ideas to get to a better place. So I like
that that process.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break. We've got more insights to share.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I've kind of.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Heard this in the Markt place that some folks at
Visa are talking about the you know, the rise of
autonomous agents and what I think I heard, and I
want to make sure I've got this right that there's
a view at Visa generally that marketing will eventually ship
from what we talk about B two C to be
(19:20):
to AIA. You know, I've been talking about B to
H as opposed to B two C or B to
B because B to H is business to human so
that was a different spin. But the idea of business
to AI. How do you think this changes kind of
the fundamental way that you're engaging with the consumer.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So first of all, I love B to H, yeah,
because I do think that that is that the heart
of it. And ian if you're dealing with in a
B to B context as.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
A human as a person on the other end.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Exactly right, and maybe a group of people, but they're
all influenced by their consumer experiences. They're influenced by all
the factors that we are as human beings are so
so I love that idea. But what's interesting is as
people develop their own agents, and you have a bunch
of agents running around, and at some point the agents
may even out number the number of people on the planet. Right,
(20:10):
the question for brands, do we develop our own agents
so that there's agent to agent communication at a minimum.
Even if you don't develop your own agent, you will
find yourself interacting with someone else's agent who is trying
to make something happen a purchase, a transaction, an experience.
And so I think for marketers one of the opportunities
(20:33):
we have is to understand and start to project forward
what agent to agent communication may look like and what
human to agent communication may look like from the transactional
side of it. So we've been aggressive in terms of
leading this kind of movement around agentic commerce, AI driven
shopping experiences and what we do protecting and making sure
(20:59):
you're trans actions are fast secure, free of fraud. You
know that that's going to apply in the AI environment,
and so we're just kind of transporting that those ideas
into this new space.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
The human touch is so important here, Frank. We could
have an entire you know day talking about this, but
marketing has to have a human element to it, or
at least the sense of human emotional kind of resonance
you hope for. I guess the biggest challenge we have
is will AI be able to embody? Will these agents
(21:36):
be able to have that emotional resident I.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Think we what you what you're touching on right now
is the most important question of all and AI for me,
which is what's the kind of world we want to
live in? Even if you believe that AI can do
it all, let's say they can automate every single action
in the world and it requires no human intervention, is
that the world we want to have? First of all?
But secondly, there's one thing that I know AI is
(22:00):
not able to do. There's two things, actually, and the
first one is AI is looking back at past patterns
to try to create something going forward. But human creativity
has done the best at its best, it's been disruptive,
it's been emergent. It's something that did not exist before.
You know, in music, I'll go back to my roots
(22:21):
of music. Having blues come out after classical music is
one of the greatest. It makes no logical sense. A
computer would never come up with that solution. You know,
where does funk come from? You know, how did you
get rock coming out from from from blues? These are
discontinuities in creative development, and I think that's a human endeavor.
(22:44):
So that's one that's my own prediction. But the second
one is this, I think what makes us human and
the thing that way I think will increasingly appreciate our imperfections.
You know, you know, if you have the early cartoons,
you know they used to draw it. The heads were
super large, and those imperfections actually made them feel more human.
And I think those imperfections are the things that we're
(23:05):
going to be looking for. If you want to listen
listen to music right now, someone can give you the
cleanest digital platform with no noise in it, and then
it's like, hey, you can hear every single instrumentation. But
still people are going to want to have vinyl records.
Why it's the imperfections what they interpret as warmth, and
so I think there's always a space or for kind
(23:26):
of human capability. Now, having set all this, I think
we're going to enter the most extraordinary period of creativity.
You know, we're going to go through the rough time
where people there's gonna be a lazy period of people
are going to turn to AI and say do it
for me. But someone's going to start figuring out how
does AI enhance my human creativity? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
For me, Frank, I could speak to this personally. My
experience thus far has been I'm a good editor. I'm
never as good on a first draft. So using AI
to do that first draft gives me the ability to
use my strongest suit, which is editing.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
So so, but Michael, what would you do? I'm curious
what you would do with this. So you're like, hey,
I'm a great editor. So AI is doing my first draft.
Now AI the platform that I use for AI. We've
now done a hundred projects together. Now a I says,
we don't Michael, I can actually go further than the
first draft. I'm now kind of figure out your pattern
(24:23):
of thinking and how you kind of bridge to the
final draft. I think I can go straight to the
final draft. For you.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And by the way, I think that's that moment is here?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Or it's damn close.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah. What do you do in that situation?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Uh? You know, I keep iterating. You know, when do
I accept the final draft? You know, final draft?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah? You know, Look, I've drafted enough contracts. Frank when
I put you know, put my director's hat on and
said final edit, I know what that means.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
That's right, that's right. You know, I like a met
regard because I'm almost walking on the stage still editing.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Right, yeah, or final cut. You know, I worked in
the entertainment business enough as a young lawyer and knew
that there were a couple of those directors who literally
got final cut. That's right, And and that's how I
look at that last day I draft would be that
somebody's got final cut. I'm not giving that up yet.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So so my only hope in all this is that
we create space for things that don't make logical sense
to me. That is the space of true creativity. The
machine will will take you logically down to a conclusion,
but then there's a space at the end. I want.
I want Christopher Nolan to give his intuition at the end,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And so Frank, I want to go back to where
we were a bit of go on culture. You're famous
for a lot of things, but I think you you've
become famous in the industry for having a real, real
thumb on the on the scale, if you will. I
don't mean that in a pejorative way of culture and
understanding that is there a recent cultural moment or movement
(25:59):
that you think, Visa or otherwise that has really been
captured brilliantly or not.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Well, So if I take culture at the macro level,
I think we're right in the currents of that, you know.
So if you go back, Michael to the nineteen fifties
and sixties, it went to me the cultural time epoch
of that time was science. Remember they had the they
had the Worldfairs, that was all about science. Time magazine
nineteen sixty, the corever Time magazine all scientists.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well remember the Time magazine issue that was the computer
was the person of the year.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right, And that was that time. And by the way,
at that time Visa launch in nineteen fifty eight. Their
whole communication was around the scientific nature of digital payments.
And our famous ad at that time was think of
it as money. They had a money clip with a
card in between it, and it was more about the
kind of the digital distribution of money. But perfect timing, right,
(26:55):
you go to the eighties, people concern with upward mobility.
You know, we had you can do it. You know,
that's when the yuppies are coming out. Everyone's you know,
we're like, hey, there's a moment for the middle class
Expand you go to late nineties, remember of Pine and
Gilmour wrote the book The Experience Economy. It was all
about experiences and people like you know, Sandel was writing
to book there's things some money can't buy. They went
with that, but there's about experiences, and we said everywhere
(27:18):
you want to be.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
It's what It's the one that resonates the most for
me because I've always thought of that as quintessential visa,
but it became quintessential because of Visa one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Hundred percent right, and it aligned with the cultural epoch. Right.
So come fastward to today. You think about all the
changes that happen, says late the late nineties, rise of
the Internet, rise of social media. iPhone came out, what
two thousand and seven, you know, you had the global
financial crisis in two thousand and eight, you had forty
(27:52):
years of declient trust, and institutions pension plans shifted over
to four one k. People like, Okay, it's the confluence
of I'm empowered through all these technology coal shifts, but
I'm kind of on my own, you know, in terms
of building and crafting my own career and my own life.
And so our belief is that people we're in the
moment now where people are asking the question, who is
going to help me move forward? Who's going to help
(28:14):
me become the person I want to become? And for us,
our brand positioning sits squarely within that. It is all
We're fortunately have a founder liked Hawk. It's always been
about expanding opportunities for people to become more of who
they want to become, and so I feel like we're
squarely in the moment of that. But that's a high
level kind of cultural shift. And of course we're looking
(28:37):
at the lower level of culture shifts like creator economy
and video gaming and the transition of music and evolutionary
sport and how that's playing out the rise of women's sports.
We're looking at all those other cultural vectors, but that
high level one is the most important.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Good company will be right back after the break as
you reflect on your journey, Frank, both at Visa and
beyond and previously, is there a personal legacy that you
(29:17):
hope to leave behind A and B not that you're
going anywhere and B do you have a personal north
star right now?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
For me, legacy is always funny because, with very few exceptions,
no matter what you do, no matter how great something
seems at the moment, it becomes background noise eventually. And
so for me, the greatest legacy always happen through people.
So if I'm fortunate, what I would love as my
legacy is for something that I've done for other people
(29:47):
to live on through them, through those people, if I
can get If I can do that, and you can't
do it with everyone, it's not you know, you know,
we're in a business where you know you have to
make hard decisions. But I'm hoping, I'm hoping that at
the end of the day done enough for enough people
that they carry it forward and that something positive that
I've done with them or for them kind of lives
(30:07):
in their heart.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a great legacy. It's a great
legacy and I was. It reminds me of a conversation
that I saw at the New York Times deal Book
this past year when Andrew Ross Sorkin was interviewing Jeff Bezos.
And it was an interesting interview because he said, you know,
when when when he was considered quote unquote the richest
(30:29):
man in the world or one of the richest men
in the world, he says, you know, on the one hand,
that sounds great, of course, but on the other hand
carries great responsibility and in a funny way and not funny,
but he was he was right, he said, but I
would rather be famous for not becoming rich. I'd rather
be famous for how many other people I made rich. Yes,
(30:50):
And that was like, Look, that's what If I'm going
to be famous for something, I'd like to be famous
for the amount of people that I made rich, not
that I became rich.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
And Michael, and that's that's what lives on, right, because
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Paraphrasing, that's not how he said it, but but that's
close enough.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And I believe that point because there are no parades
for people who hoarded all the things for himself or herself.
They're no parades for that person. You know, the parades
are for the person who actually is given something to others,
And so I believe what if Basil said that I've
been without one hundred percent. But look on the second
part of your question, I think is you know, is
(31:27):
there something that's guided meet through all these changes? And
you know, and I've told the story before, but coming
out of law school, I've had a chance to spend
time in Russia with a lawyer that had practiced for
twenty years and we're working on the game Tetris. You know,
there's a lawsuit over that between Atari and Nintendo, but
we got time to spend a lot of time together.
He forced me to go through the process of thinking
(31:50):
about what are the things that really just energized me
and give me a sense of fulfillment in life, and
how do I connect that to what I do? And
so I've landed on something that it's evolve over time,
but it's always been the same as a general matter,
is that what I love to do is to expand
what's possible for people and for communities of people like
(32:12):
expand that potential and that possibility I always felt I've
always the reason I love music. In part I mean
I've played music, I've been in around musical but I
do feel like it expands what's possible for people. You know,
absolutely builds bridges and makes connections. And I feel like
hearing payments we expand what's possible for people. And I love,
for example, what even what we're doing in the continent
(32:32):
of Africa right now and trying to get people, give
people the opportunity to leverage digital payments in a way
that make it safer for them to transact and make
it easier for them to stand up small businesses. I
think doing that across the world for me, is like
a beautiful thing that's consistent with what I've always been about.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Frank, you define humility and it came through in that. Okay,
now this is the fun part. Although I think this
has been great fun lightning round. I'm just going to
throw some things out, obviously again for our listeners. Frank
hasn't heard these questions before. I'm going to start with
one of my favorites. If you could give your younger
(33:11):
self one piece of guidance, what would it be.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
One piece of guidance It would be make time for others,
you know, because sometimes you can get so focused on
a specific goal and I can get really focused on it,
but it might might But the big, the most important
thing of going back to the legacy you want to
leave making more time for others. For me would be
would be my advice to my younger self.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
That's magical. Who was your mentor early in your career
and did that person give you one bit of advice
that you you stuck to? You mentioned a lawyer, But
is there anybody that sticks out as boy that person
really mentored me or gave me one bit of advice
that's carried me forward.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I've had so many mentors, man, it's very crazy, you know.
You know early in my career, you know, I mentioned
how Kruth was a lawyer, Lois Scali and I Row
and Larry Tribe, you know. But the person that kind
of has been with me, It was with me for many, many,
many years.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Can I tell you in the industry something that they
probably don't know is that, you know, the famous person
in the advertising industry is the first cousin of Lawrence Tribe.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Oh, I do know, because he's the head of media
for many many years. Yes, and they look alike by
the way they look.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
People who know you know, if you know, you know
Irwin's mother and Lawrence Tribe's mother were sisters.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I love they are first cousins. And when you tell
people that and they look at Lawrence Tribe on the news,
you go, of course. I mean, it's shocking how much
they look alike.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I know, those who know no exactly, We're going to
do a side by side one time. I'm I going
to just post it. But you know, but the person
for me though, was Clarence Avon. You know, I met
Clarence Avon when I was a young lawyer and he's
kind of been with me, guiding me throughout, and you know,
he's given me a lot of advice. But the one
piece of it wasn't even advice. It was a statement
(35:07):
that he's made. He said, Hey, I've seen a lot
of successful people across politics, business, entertainment, and I can
tell you they all wake up the same way, they
put on the clothes, the same way.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
When they put their pants on, one leg at a.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Time, one lego at a time. And so the only
thing stopping you from achieving anything of greatness in any
area that you want is going to be you. Because
I can tell you. It's not that there was something
extraordinary about any one of the individuals, but they were
committed to what they wanted it, focused and persistent. So
I always remember.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
That you said the word committed. I always loved that
expression about the difference between commitment and involvement. You know that, right, Frank.
The difference between commitment and involvement is best demonstrated by
a plate of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved,
the pig was committed.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
So it's the way the best way to say, that's
crazy having a right, Frank, is there one industry buzzword
that you wish would disappear forever?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh? You know you don't, Michael. I don't have one,
honestly because I don't. I don't, I don't, I don't subscribe.
I try with a deep, deep, deep passion to avoid
the buzzword, and if I catch myself using a buzzword,
I work really hard to avoid it or to understand
what's beneath the buzzword. So, like you know, it's never
(36:32):
been a thing for me. So yeah, yeah, So no,
I don't have one.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well, I want to come back to your primary passion,
which is music. As we know, if you were only
allowed three songs on your playlist, I may even tell
you mine. Go ahead your first.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Oh my god, three not three albums, three songs.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm making this difficult.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
That's really difficult. Oh my god. So I'm gonna do
I have to do one. I'll do one. There has
to be Stevie Wonder, so I think I would do
as on that one. You know, one of my favorite
groups of all time is Steely Dan, So I'm gonna
pick a Steely Dan song. I'll probably go with like
the Asia album. So I'm gonna go with let's go
(37:15):
Why not go with the title track because it's complicated,
complicated enough. And of course, let's see, what's the most
interesting hip hop song that I would want to hear
over and over and over that it's not gonna drive
me crazy. I would pick something that's not a hit.
It will be Kendrick Lamar and I probably would choose
(37:37):
something off the Good Kid Mad City album. So since
I'm at Visa, let's let's go with Money Trees. I
like that. I like that.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Well, I'll tell you only one of mine because it's
what one is guaranteed. I'm not testing myself today, but
maybe one for sure is Mack the Knife.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Oh really? Why?
Speaker 2 (37:56):
First of all, love Bobby Darren as a performer, love
how the song was created in Threepenny Opera. Yes, just
loved it right beat. If I'm ever asked to do
karaoke ever, it's Mack the Knife.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Oh really? Oh yeah, yeah, it's my go to song.
If I've ever asked to do karaoke, I excuse myself,
so I'll be right back and never say. Uh.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
My fantasy you're asking me a question I'm asking myself
was to be a lounge lizard. Just put a brandy
sniff on the piano, drop in five dollars bills and
let me sing Cold Porter, George Gershwin and Tin pan Alley.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I always wish I could sing, man, you know, It's
one of things like I could play multiple but never
could sing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Well, it's funny because Mike Canter is a personal friend, Frank,
I think you've met him with me before, and he's
obviously got a magnificent singing voice. Yes, and I can't
carry a tune to save my life, but I'm a
pretty good dancer. So I told him he and I
should go on the road. We could be a song
and dance. Man.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
There you go. Do it now, man, do it now,
They'll let it stop you.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Frank Cooper. I could go on for hours, but I
want to thank you for taking the time to join
me on Good Company today. I know there's so much
more we could talk about, but I feel like we
touched on some of the more important issues of the day.
And Frank Cooper, thank you.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Michael. Always good to see you, man, and thank you
for your friendship, and thank you for this podcast. Actually,
I mean I think what you're doing is helpful not
only to marketers, I mean across the board, to anyone
who actually has any interest in business at all. So congratulations, sir.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Thank you, sir. I'm Michael Casson, Thanks for listening to
Good Company.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Good Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures
and iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borgero Purdo, our
executive producer and head of Content and Talent, and to
Carl Catle, executive producer at iHeart Podcasts. Episodes are produced
and edited by Mary Doo. For joining us, We'll see
you next time.
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