May 30, 2019 • 48 mins
Just because she's a self-proclaimed data nerd doesn't mean she only cares about the numbers! Julie Rieger, former President Chief Data Strategist and Head of Media at 20th Century Fox is one of the most lauded, out-of-the-box thinkers. In this episode, Julie explains why she looks for specific words in Tweets (it can reveal purchasing intent!), why buying pages in The New York Times and leaving them blank is smart strategy, and why she took up a side job as a Ghost Photographer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of I
Heart Radio. To me, data isn't just numbers. Data is
also words. We struck a relationship with Twitter to be
actually the first one to anonymously connect tweets to purchasers.
(00:22):
What I learned is that there are words that people
use in social media that can tell you whether they're
going to go to a film six months for that
film comes out. It is astonishing. I'm Bob Pittman and
welcome to Math and Magic. On each episode, I chat
with someone I truly admire to explore their stories from
(00:44):
the frontiers of marketing, and we're going to cover everything
from the math of marketing all the way to the
magic of marketing, which of course the creative side of
the business. On this episode, we've got someone who covers
the range in a very unexpected way, which will come
to in a second. Just a note to listeners, this
episode was recorded in early March two thousand nineteen, before
(01:05):
the Fox Disney merger. I can't wait to introduce you
to today's guest. We're sitting here today with the genius
of marketing, Julie Reager. Some know her from her perch
Higah Top industry as president chief Data Strategist and had
(01:28):
a media at twenties century Fox. Did I get that right?
You got it right? Okay? And that sounds like to
some people are listening, I'm sure that that's a mathematician.
But wrong, really wrong. I've known Julie for a while
of the business. With her, we've done some exciting stuff
which we will talk a little bit about today from
the common stories. But she is one of the most
out of the box thinkers I know, which is surprising
with the title like chief data strategist, and she also
(01:51):
has a whole other dimension. I'll give you a little
preview as the ghost photographer, but will come to that.
She's a native of Oklahoma, made her way to l
A the Dallas in San Francisco, state champion golfer when
she was younger. You still play golf. I'm going to
disappoint you know, really, I have so many other things
to do. There's so many things, Okay, Julie. We're gonna
(02:13):
start with one of our favorite features, which is you
in sixty seconds, So here we go. Do you prefer
cats or dogs, both, beaches or mountains, mountains, pancakes or waffles?
All of the above logan or Deadpool, Deadpool Sunrise or
Sunsets Sunset Oklahoma or California, California. Sorry, Arnold Palmer or
(02:40):
Tiger Woods Arnold Palmers love that? Okay? Okay, now it's
gonna get a little harder. Would eat for breakfast? Vegan
protein shake? Topic you can talk about forever? The spiritual world, okay?
The other side. Smartest person you know that one's so
hard at the list. I have to say one of
the smartest people. Note it is actually Stacy Snyder because
(03:01):
she's creative and intelligent. Yes, childhood hero Nancy Lopez. First job?
How's a cashier at the quick stop? Two in Mima, Oklahoma?
Do you ever go back to visit occasionally? Favorite TV
show ever ever? Mm hmm. I gotta say The Golden
Girls historical idol Joan of arc most overlooked actor. Oh
(03:26):
my god, that's so hard in this business. Rebel Wilson.
I just love her and I hope she's listening. Best
place the photograph of ghost my backyard quote to live by. Oh,
I gotta tell you ready, we treat people how we
feel about ourselves. Where did that quote come from? Me?
(03:47):
I like it. We'll write that down. That's a good
bumper sticker. It is a good bumper sticker movie that
should be required viewing hidden figures. Who would play you
in a biopick? I hope it would be Tiffany Hattish
because I love her and she's really funny, but I
don't think she'd take the gig. Spirit Animal, black Panther.
(04:09):
Black Panther actually protects us from the underworld. Thank you. Then,
what did you want to be when you were growing up?
A professional golfer? And here you are not playing golf.
Let's get started. Let's go to the beginning. What was
it like growing up? Paint the picture a little bit
of growing up in Oklahoma. It seems like a long
way from California. It is a really long way. You
(04:30):
don't have the best way to describe what growing up
in Oklahoma was like is that my closest friends in
the world today are friends from there. It was like
growing up in a family of sixteen thousand and you
still say in contact with them, Yes, absolutely do share value,
share past, share ideas, share love. What is it? There
(04:51):
is nothing in this world that can replace history, and
sometimes of that history, are you ready? Is from another lifetime?
And I am convinced. I came back to this one
with a group of people that we've been cruising around
the world for thousands of years together. Boom. Well, I'm
glad I finally found you here because I've been missing
you for the last million years. Exactly where have you been?
(05:12):
I know I'm here now. Your mom was an accountant,
your dad was in the military. You followed a radically
different path. What do you think put you on this
path than what was their influence? Probably the biggest influence
was my mother, Actually not probably, it was most definitely
my mother. My mother was a feminist before it was cool,
(05:33):
and she has always believed that everyone was equal and
brought me up that way and told me over and
over and over again, you can be anything you want.
What she gave me was a very giant canvas. And
I think that's probably the most powerful thing, the biggest
influence that I had. I don't think it really matters
(05:54):
where you grow up. I mean, I think that's very
limiting for people. If you step back and if you
look at your yourself and look at the world and think,
I don't have to be one thing. I don't I know,
you don't I don't have to be one thing. I
can so go hillbilly on you, though. I mean I'll
go I'll go southern and just a minute if you
want me to. But I can go girl from Oklahoma
that sounds like she's not very smart. I can do
(06:15):
all that kind of stuff. But I'm not just from Oklahoma.
I'm also not just a lesbian. I am also not
just a nerd. I'm also not just a writer. I
am all of it. I am everything, and it doesn't
matter where I come from. You're star golfer, Well, first
of all, how did you get to be a star
golfer at an early age in Oklahoma? Not a lot
of grass on the greens there. I suspect we have
(06:37):
two things in Oklahoma. We have athletes and cattle. So
athletics is a big thing in that state. I mean
it is from football to football. You know. I grew
up in this little town and and it's kind of
a crappy town in all fairness, this little crappy town.
And we had a golf course. We had a country
club actually, and it was thirty five dollars to join.
(06:57):
You can't join twenty for our fitness. For what my
mom paid for us to join the country club. So
I just picked up a club. I held it like
a baseball bat, and I was hitting it further and
better than most adults. The first time I picked up
a club, I was seven years old. I had three clubs.
I had a seven of five and a nine iron.
(07:17):
No putter, not then eventually got one. Kim in works, right,
when did you tell yourself no to golf? And when
did you say yes to media? Oh? Gosh, in Chicago
in if you must know the place in the date,
because I remember, I was an internship at Cats Communications.
(07:40):
Cat I saw your eyes just then. I worked for
this wonderful woman named Maryland Moss, and I loved it.
I loved advertising. I loved media. I loved the challenge
of it. And you know, golf was one of those
things that you know, you've been playing since you were
seven and in nineteen would I say eighty eight, I
was a hair from I was around twenty. That's like
(08:03):
a you can be a cop for that long and
retire after that. You know, It's like there's government jobs
that are shorter length in the time I played golf,
so I think it was just my cycle. I was done.
How did you get from that moment? So here you
are today. I transferred to SMU and Dallas because it
felt like a better education for me. So I went
(08:24):
from University of Oklahoma, which was a full golf scholarship,
and then I felt like I really needed to actually
learn learn something new and not just how to play golf.
So went to s m U and my senior year
at s m U, Laniar Timberland, who formerly Bozell Dallas
was named after, was a professor. They kind of plucked
me out of the class in the early nineties when
(08:47):
we had an ad recession, when they were, you know,
twenty five people lined up for shitty job. They gave
me that shitty job and that's how that started. And
the shitty job was was insistent media planner at Bozel
Dallas and I was working on J. C. Penney. God
rested soul And did you think you had died and
gone to heaven with that job? Oh my god. I
didn't even ask how much it paid when they called
me to offer me the job. I didn't care how much?
(09:09):
Did it? One? Six thousand bones, sixteen thousand bucks. I
used to go and eat lunch at Sam's warehouse, I
ate samples for a good year and then from there
where then I met my now wife, Suzanne. We've been
together twenty six years, congratulations, Thank you. And we decided
that we need to live a little freer and have
(09:31):
some liberations. So we moved to San Francisco and had
the time of our lives. It was so much fun.
Oh my gosh. And I worked at that agencies. I
worked at a small shop called Winkler McManus, I worked
at foot Cone of Building, and then I ended up
running the Hewlett Packard business globally for about it maybe
a decade sounds about right. That was quite an undertaking.
(09:52):
I don't think I slept for a day. And and
the go go years of Hewlett Packard, oh in the
Carly years, the big spending years. Those were fun. And
then that brought me to Los Angeles, where I pitched
the twenty century Fox business, actually on behalf of the agency.
And very quickly, like within a year, my client had
decided to move on and went back to the research
(10:14):
side of things, and they asked me to join, so
I did, and then here I sit with you. Wow,
that's pretty amazing. It's a great journey. Right, and what
do you think in your parents are in your background
put you on this path. They didn't even know what
the data strategist was in those days, so they didn't.
I think what's so interesting about my job is that
I am the worst technical person to grace the earth.
(10:37):
I miss clickers, I miss dials. Like what I would
do for an oven that just had a dial, I
would give like limbs for I think my gift to
the business world, to the entertainment industry, even when I
work at AD Agencies, was more of a vision and
a strategist. There are plenty of people who their gift
is being an expert at like writing code, analyzing you know,
(10:59):
tedious number. My job started out as a vision and
I think that the visionary part again came from my mother.
I also think we come into this world with jobs
to do and with gifts we already have that have
nothing to do with our parents. Jim Gianopolis, who is
a former chair person of Fox that I love very much,
(11:23):
said to me the day he left. You know what, Joels,
I've loved working with you. I am a little surprised.
I have to confess that you can operate so well
in the corporate world. So I was kind of like, okay,
by where's this going. What's this man gonna say to me?
And he said, because you're an iconoclast, and he goes
and we need them. They just have a hard time
working in a business structure. So the first thing I
(11:46):
do is I look up iconoclass because I had no
earthly idea what it meant. That's where Oklahoma comes in.
We didn't have a very good educational system, and I'm
from Mississippi. We looked up to people from oklahow It's true.
The only jokes I have are actually Nebraska jokes. Like
that's all I got, That's all I learned. I'm going
to tell you one what does the end stand for?
On the Nebraska helmet? What knowledge? So I think we'll
(12:10):
get a couple of calls. I think you guys, I
think you guys all sen need a laugh track? Is
there a story? This is how you found and fell
in love with data? There is What was so attractive
to me about data was what we learned about what
our customers were thinking and feeling had nothing to do
(12:32):
with what we actually thought. So it actually proved to
me how wrong we were. And that's how I fell
in love. We made this movie called Love Simon, and
you know, we're the first major motion picture company to
have a wide release of like a teenage gay boy
and his struggles, and we were like, oh, you know,
(12:52):
could we get moms to go to this? And so
I went to the creative team and said, hey, do
you guys mind making like a forty five second spot
for me so I can go in and see if
we can attract you know, moms that might want to
come to this movie. So they did that and the
spot was called Dear Mom, very clever with our titles,
And what we found was actually that moms saw this
(13:16):
topic of sexuality equal to sex because I saw a
lot of R rated movies that came up, and then
I looked on social and saw that they were viewing
at three times their normal rate, but they were commenting
at a third of their normal rate. And I said, oh,
this is too taboo. So let's not go spend the
company's money here, because that was a story that it
(13:38):
told us. So I can tell stories from their stories
because I love storytelling. The first thing I tell used
to tell my class at USC when I taught one
is if you look at your computer or your phone.
I'm going to dock you a great But the second
thing that I said to them was I do this
because I believe storytellers do for the soul what doctors
(14:00):
do for the physical body. So I believe in storytelling.
I believe in the ones you make up. I believe
in the ones that are real. I believe in telling
stories about our customers through their behaviors, through what they
try to tell us. And that's how I fell in
love with data is that it was just another source
for me to tell stories from. One of the reasons
I've always been drawn to you is because you don't
(14:21):
follow the trends. You follow the consumer, which allowed you
to back up and say, that's what's really going on
and let's figure it out. When I first started this
with Stacy, I was fearful that creative executives would see
me walk down the hall and run and hide because like,
there's the data nerd, and she's going to try to
tell me what to do. Can I tell you the
first people that lined up in front of my office
(14:44):
when this stuff started to take off, they were the
creative executives. They're like, Okay, I have this project can
you help me understand what it can look like? What's
our greatest potential? Where our weaknesses with this? It was them?
And what about directors? Did they it into this as
well or do they want to stay away from it?
And you just tell them how to market it. I've
(15:04):
dealt with more producers. Mainly what I do with them
is help understand customers likes and dislikes. I can go
look at a franchise and say, you might think this
is who as part of this franchise, but it's actually
this kind of person, you know, plan of the apes.
There is a particular type of person that loves that movie,
and it's not who you think it is. And the
(15:26):
funny thing it is, it's people who like movies like Tarzan,
King Kong, and ant Man, because here's what they all
have in common. Is there all retro sci fi? Retro
sci fi is not real genre. It turns out it
is though, huh, but it is in my world. I
would take, you know, the six genres, seven genres that
we have, and I would turn it into probably two
hundred because I think that's how nuanced we are. And
(15:47):
do you take two D four hundred? Eventually? I think
that it should go to four hundred. We are complex
creatures and we can't always identify why we do things.
But when we can look at your data, we can
start to figure out some wise. What did you learn
about how to market The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman.
I've learned my best lessons when I've made mistakes. So
(16:08):
with the Greatest Showman, we have Hugh Jackman, who we
all love and brilliant. And what happened is that when
we released our first trailer, we actually used one of
the tools that my data science team built called Nightcrawler.
What we found is those that were watching the trailer
the movies that they had bought tickets to, we're not
(16:29):
what we thought they were. We thought they were. You know,
this was like a musical, right What we thought it
would be would be things like lame Is because he
was in it. You know, we thought it would be
La La Land because it was a musical and it
was recent. It wasn't. It was Cinderella certainly Pitched Perfect
was in there. It was Beauting the Beast, it was
hidden figures. The ones who loved our movie from the
(16:51):
beginning were those that loved stories of underdogs, This is
a story of how narrow we can be in the
industry and actually how complex our customers are. We had
to adjust our messaging. We cannot go and spend the
good company money chasing after ans. It's not really going
to go. We need to spend it after those that
(17:12):
have already shown interest. And this is the type of
person that it is. And so we ended up, you know,
being able to shift. We clearly didn't open the movie
to big box, but we started shifting towards the end,
which I like to think helped us. And the beauty
about data is that we went back in to do
a look back, and when we first looked at those
that watched the trailer, we went and compared those that
(17:33):
bought tickets to our movie and then what tickets they
had bought in the past. So it's the pre in
the post and the post, it's the same list of
movies that showed up. It was Beauty and the Beast,
it was Cinderella, it was a Wonder, it was hidden figures.
It was also pitched perfect, and so you changed creative
in the direct along that take. How quickly can a
company like Fox move? Oh, Fox can be fast. It's
(17:54):
part of the DNA of Fox. Fox can be very
quickly more with Julie Reager right after the break, Welcome
back to math and magic. We're here with Julie Reager.
You supposedly have a proprietary data set that gives you
studio insights to million movie goers. Right, and they're named
(18:19):
after Marvel characters. They are X men characters x men. Okay,
and now you have an AI named Merlin. Yes, because
I like wizards. Oh, I like this, and you get
to name them. I do. See. That's the beauty you
create something. It's like if you're a builder, right, you
buy a piece of land, you put a road, and
you gotta name the road. I got to name the
road one of them. One of the most exciting meetings
(18:42):
I've had is I was in a meeting with you
and we were talking about my heart. Do you want
to know what I said to you? Would you tell me?
I actually looked at you and I said, Bob, you're
a tech company. What the hell is wrong with you?
You have all this great data. You're a tech company.
You're both you're an entertainment audio dada, but you're a
tech company. And so what did you do? So what
(19:04):
I did. We had this little movie called Bohemian Rhapsody.
You may have heard of it at a tiny movie
called Bohemian Rhapsody. And what we did we had your
data anonymized. I want to make sure I say this properly,
so nobody no lawyers start calling either one of us anyway.
So we matched folks that had downloaded your app and
used your app to our movie goers. And the reason
(19:28):
why we were comfortable with looking at your app dating
is because roughly nine that those that have download and
used the app also listened to Terrestrial, So I was
very comfortable with that. So once we matched it in
my pool, I had people that were movie goers, that
had people that were movie goers and also I Heart customers.
(19:48):
Then we created a campaign around Bohemian Rhapsody with you guys,
and so we launched the trailer with you guys. You
talked about magic and creativity, which I thought was so
brilliant because in the film, have a feeling I'm not
going to ruin anything here for any of your listeners
and no spoiler alert. There was a time when the
record producer who's played by Michael Myers, said, nobody's going
(20:09):
to play a song on the radio that six minutes long.
Six minutes is too long. You guys came back to us.
It was just it was like magic, and said we're
going to roadblock six minutes across our entire network. And
once I pulled myself up off the floor and was
able to utter a word, the word was genius. And
(20:30):
we did it right before the movie launched. So what
happened is the movie did all right. And then after
about a month, when I got four weeks of data back,
I was able to look and see who actually bought
tickets to our movie. And I already had my movie
Gover database, and then I had the database within the
database that was movies and I heart. And what was
(20:52):
interesting is that your customers were buying tickets twelve at
a higher rate than those that were just ongoing move
of goers. Is that good twelve percent? Because I promised
early on I wasn't going to use the F words,
so I'll say fantastic. It was fan freaking tastic. I
(21:13):
think what everyone in this business is dying for is attribution.
Dying because they just don't know if it's good money
or bad money that they're spending. And I also went
in to go check to see if are we just
getting a music fan. I just wanted to be able
to answer my own questions in my head. Was just
(21:34):
like a fluke thing. And then I went back in
and I looked at other movies that we had done
with you all in the last four years, and I
found the same pattern. Now Bow Rep was a tick higher,
which I think is where the music might play in.
We did, and the stunt was brilliant. That subsegment always
came in higher than the general movie goer segment. So
(21:54):
I was really confident in what we had done. Everybody
does attribution, or they think they're doing with attributions all
about digital, like I'm going to run a banner, I'm
going to do a video on YouTube or whatever. My
first attribution project was with you doing it with radio
is a likely character. Look, we were so excited about it.
One for getting someone with your kind of skill set
(22:15):
to believe innocent take that leap. I have to congratulate
you on doing the roadblock. Someone in the Los Angeles
market that works here took a video of them punching
between all of our radio stations in l A. And
you're hitting the same song by different artists all playing
their version of Bohebian Rapsy. You couldn't get away from
its pretty amazing. Is amazing, right, I mean all the
(22:38):
artists with the covers. That was so amazing is that
that became into a phenomenon. And let's not forget what
happened on the charts with the album, right, so many
amazing things that happened. Now listen, the movie is amazing.
Was the only thing that contributed to this success. The campaign?
We didn't know because the movie was incredible. We had
other great creative but was it at twelve for sent nudge? Heck,
(23:01):
yeah it was. And I can tell you from my
data science team because they come into me very objective,
like these are the guys, and all my data scientists
are guys. I bet their sock yours are incredibly organized.
They come into me and they are clean slate every time,
and they are factual. They come into me and say, well, Julie,
(23:22):
here's what we found, and they say it with a
straight face. And I again, so from the time I
fell off the floor picked myself up with the stunt too,
picking myself up off the floor with the twelve percent going,
you've got to be kidding me and my wildest dreams,
it would be five. It was twelve. And do you
think it's because radio is really the conversation. It sounds
(23:43):
like your friends talking about the movie. Is that that
part of the brain that it sounds like I'm hearing
people talk about it? I think with anything, it's never
one answer, but I think that that's part of it.
I think another part of it, and why I have
loved radio for so long is because of again, it's
the human nature. Right. So now technology has set people
free to do what they want when they want, except
(24:05):
in a car, so they are A negative word to
use is trapped. I like to use the word they're surrendered.
There in a car, you have to surrender. You're forced
to surrender. And what better to surrender to than someone
you've been listening to a good part of your life.
Or you're going to hear a new story, or you're
gonna be introduced to a new song, or you're going
(24:25):
to hear about a movie maybe you hadn't heard about,
or get excited about one that you haven't heard about.
And our business we talked to her on their personalities
and we say, you know you're somebody's best friend riding
in that empty seat with them every day to work,
and the greatest talent we have turned out to be
a very interesting friend. And they also talked about what's
happening in your city in that moment in time, in
(24:48):
that moment, and you're part of that, because what we
all long to be is a part of something, whether
we want to be a part of a family, want
to be a part of a community, you want to
be a part of the city. Like that's we have
pride in our local football teams or college teams, like
it's that pride of that connection. And I think your
(25:09):
talent gives them another layer of connection, and we all
desperately want to be connected, to be a part. I
have a quick story for you. I don't know if
I've ever told you. For about four years I taught
entertainment marketing at USC During my tenure, I you know,
ran the gamut of talking about various parts of marketing
(25:29):
with them. I said, oh, you guys must only listen
to you know, Spotify or Pandora. Can I tell you?
They're like, yeah, but we listened mostly to the radio.
I go, really like, I was shocked. I go, you
do They're like yeah, And I said, well why and
they said, because I can listen to that stuff anytime,
(25:49):
but when I'm like driving offices, is l a right.
So we live in our cars and they're like, when
I'm going somewhere, it's like I'm out in the world
and I want to feel a part of that world.
These are college students that are telling me, is that
every put up your hand who listens to the radio live,
Every single hand went up into the air, and that's
when it dawned on. It's when it clicked with me.
And it's something that data can't ever tell you because
(26:11):
we want to rationalize either in or out of data.
Radio is that thing that connects everyone from thirteen to
eight plus. It's that one thing where social animals, going
back to human nature and my music collections, want to
want to be by myself. I want to sort of
be in my zone. The radio is what's going on
in the world, and we can't stay away from it
(26:33):
too long. It's interesting you find all this from the
other angle, and obviously we look at it in depth
and a lot. It's interesting in research studies show often
hear save where you hear about that, um it was
either a friend or on the radio. They've confused it
and it's in that same part of their brain we
talked about the car. It's interesting what alexas doing now
is opening up the home to us again. Homes used
(26:54):
to have a clock radio and now it is down
to about. But suddenly the new clock radio is Alexa
and to find me this surge in the home, and
I think people thought, are they're gonna listen to their music?
Turns out the number one use some Alexa's a MFM
radio for the same reasons exactly. I want somebody to
keep me company while I'm brushing my teeth in the morning,
while I'm doing some work around the house, or by
(27:14):
the way, go to the cash register. The person working
the cash red shirt the convenience store. They're listening to radio.
They are well listen enough hyping of us, I know,
but I think it's crucial to talk about this stuff
because it is about you know, we're not a number.
We're human. Most people looking from the outside who don't
know you personally would think you're a math person. Let
me hit one of your high profile magic moments. What
(27:37):
did you do with the New York Times for the
book The back in two thousand thirteen for Legendary. Oh
that was that was a great moment. That was a
great moment. So we made this little movie based on
a novel called The Book Thief written by Marcus Uzac.
It was about this young girl set in the Nazi
time in Germany. She couldn't read. Really, the heart of
(28:00):
what the movie was was the power of words. I
kept thinking, I remember seeing in a room, going how
do you communicate to folks? How powerful words are? I
came to the conclusion in that moment that the way
you teach somebody the power of something as you actually
take it away. So I went and talked to the
New York Times. Actually true story is, actually talked to
l a Times, and they wanted to charge so much
(28:22):
money from my idea, and they actually wanted to try
to hold it over my head and take it from me.
I'm just telling you that was a nasty moment. No,
I didn't apologize to the a lot of Times because
I'm still bitter. So I took it to the New
York Times, really thinking they would say no to the
idea of having blank pages and literally blank, No, this
is an advertisement on it. None of that they loved
(28:43):
it so much because I think that's who they are.
It's kind of like in the radio business taking a
voice away, right, It's like taking words away from a journalist.
So they did it. This was two thousand and thirteen,
maybe it's almost six years ago. Things didn't go really
viral like they do now, Like things didn't catch on
that moment when people were opening up their newspaper and
(29:03):
seeing it. They started to tweet about it right about it.
And what's crazy is that it is now in curriculums
and colleges around the world about having an idea that
is deeper than surface. Right, that's not just a superficial
like get somebody's attention, like it had purpose to it.
So that's actually really cool is that it's actually gone
(29:23):
down and a little bit of history. We had a
lot of history. Let me hit a few Let's go
to the science side of marketing here for a few minutes.
Talk a little bit about how you analyze conversations on
Twitter and what have you learned to me. Data isn't
just numbers. Data is also words. When you want to
understand what a customer is and what they think and
(29:45):
what they feel, you're not going to get it just
based on purchase data numbers ones and zeros. You're gonna
get it based on the language that they use and
how they communicate. We struck a relationship with Twitter to
be actually the first one to anonymously connect tweets to purchasers.
What I learned is that there are words that people
use in social media that can tell you whether or
(30:08):
not they're going to go to a film six months
for that film comes out. It is astonishing. There's like
a bag of words that people use, and there's another
bag of words that people use and they're not going.
There seems to be some consistency. I brought in a
brilliant woman named Dr Pam Rutledge who has her PhD
and media psychology, who helps us understand all of this.
The first movie we did it with was Logan. I mean,
(30:29):
Logan was a success, but I could tell based on
language that people that didn't buy tickets, And it was
really fascinating. When you get people who are all wishy washy,
and of course in our business, thinking that well we
can change their mind. No, actually no you can't. You're
not going to shift them. This is just kind of
where they sit now. Granted this is all based on Twitter, right,
(30:49):
and there's still more work to be done, but Twitter
when it's connected to ticket purchases a really fascinating experiment.
Can you tell us a couple of those words are
just top secret? There's a lot of them. Actually, there's
a bucket of definitive words, and then there's a bucket
of like wishy washy words. And the problem is what
marketers have They look at the wishy washy words and
(31:10):
they think they're definitive. Our industry, marketing, entertainment, media, all
of it. We haven't bothered to invite what I have
found to be the most pivotal expertise into hours, which
is psychology. Because once we invited psychology into our world
is when our world got big, and it's when our
(31:32):
heads blew up, and when we started to truly understand people,
and when we started to understand people is when we
started making better decisions. It sounds to me like you're
one of those believers that everything boils down the human nature. Oh,
I very much believe in that. And if you think
(31:52):
about what's happened in the television industry, you know, people
had must see Thursday, right, like must see TV and
everybody may sure they got home so they could see it.
That wasn't human nature, right. It's kind of like being
told where you're going to have a turkey leg tonight,
and so you're like, oh, I get better have a
turkeu lator, I'm not gonna eat at all. But now
there's this giant buffet and you can go watch or
(32:16):
listen to what you want when you want. That's human nature.
It might be tech that enabled it, but it was
human nature that made it what it is today. That's
why live viewing. It's like, if you're there, great, you'll
watch it, but you might want Lazagia tonight, so you
can save that turkey leg for when you want it.
And that's human nature. So you're saying that technology is
really doing nothing except unlocking human nature. Absolutely absolutely it is.
(32:39):
It also is unlocking some not great parts of our
human nature to like, I think it's unlocking a lot
of obsessiveness that we have that is built into who
we are. I think it's also unlocking some rudeness, Like
if I picked up my phone right now, that's rude.
I mean, how many restaurants do you walk into and
everybody has their phone up. I'm like, you're with a human.
But I also think that it un locks hiding for people,
(33:01):
you know, like people who get addicted to Facebook. I
think it's a real problem, like there's an unhealthiness to it,
and that's part of our humanness. Let me jump back
to movies. You've been on the front lines a long time.
What's the future movies, the theaters, streaming services. I think
we're going to have fewer than we have today of
(33:22):
films and theaters. From the time that I started working
in the business till now, I think the number of
new releases on weekends have doubled. I don't think the
industry can I don't think the consumers can support that.
One of the reasons that I believe comedies and horror
will always be such a massive part of our business
is because when you are alone and you see something funny,
(33:44):
you do not laugh out loud. You might just smile.
But when you're in a group and there's laughter, you laugh.
And what happens when we laugh is that our body
chemistry changes. Our enjoyment level goes through the roof because
we're releasing endorphins. That's real and horror. What happens in
horror is that we grab each other, we touch each other,
(34:05):
we are experiencing this together. I think family films because
you can bring everybody to it. You know, those are
things that will go on. But I just think that
the volume of movies is a lot. In any given weekend,
there's can be four or five movies opening easily easily.
I think the future of streaming services is going to
be fascinating to watch. Oh my gosh, I mean, and
(34:26):
we have front row seats. I think there's going to
be a lot of fighting with what looks like parody products.
I think only a few will win. Everybody's just getting
their gloves on right now. And I think that streaming
is going to be fascinating to watch. So the high
budget limited series hurting movies, new form of movies, how
do you see it? I think that everything has hurt movies.
(34:49):
Gaming right. Gaming is something that has taken people away
from theaters. I think that TV is better than it's
ever been. Game of Thrones is better than most movies
you've ever seen in your life. I kind of wish
they'd show it in a theater, to tell you the truth,
makes you want to go buy a much bigger television
and the greatest shows I've ever seen, I mean visually storytelling,
(35:10):
so you can get the experience in home and a
longer experience. Okay, future of ad agencies LOI gosh, that's
a tough one. I love ad agencies where I started.
I think, what's the intersection between a consulting company now
like the Anderson's and ad agencies? Right? I mean, that
seems to be an interesting competition that's happening. I think
(35:31):
that neither of them have the greatest advantage, which is data,
because the best data cannot be held by them. The
best data can really only be held by the client.
So for me, because I am disintermediated from a customer,
I have to go rent that data. So when you
rent a data, it's like the difference between renting and
own and a home. I can't go paint the walls
(35:53):
without asking permission. I can't go take a wall down
or add a new bathroom because I'm renting the data,
which in the rental agreement with data means I can't
let other parties have it, including the agency. Including the agency,
and I think that they all are going to struggle
with that because you don't have the purchase data. So
I think they're all in trouble for that. And I
(36:13):
think they're all in trouble because the business is based
on paying for head count. There needs to be some
more machine learning that they can get with the media business.
So you think the compensations sort of hurting their structure.
I think it's killing all of them. And I think
that recessions were terrible for the agencies because they just
wanted to hold onto business and clients were in trouble,
and they just want to pull every cost down. I
(36:34):
don't think agencies make the money they should make in
all honesty to to provide the service that they need
in this fragmented world we live in. You know, back
in the day when we only had the three networks,
then we had the fourth network, right, and then we
had MTV. You know, to buy a TV ad was
a big deal because it was expensive, right, and the
talent to make those there was only a small group
(36:54):
of talented creative types to make those ads. I think
what's happened, it's hurt the creative side of the ad
business is that there's not enough talent to make all
the ads that are necessary. Now it costs you a
buck if you want to put a video on right,
you can actually buy media with a dollar now, where
before it was like a million, now it's a dollar.
(37:15):
The problem is there's not enough creative executives to make
great work anymore. It became the costco right where it
was once a boutique. You can't fill up the costco
with talent. You can't just manufacture talent. I've not heard
that before, but you're right, it fits the facts. I
think it's a problem with clients too, because how much
(37:36):
bad work have you seen or heard? A lot? A lot,
sadly sadly. So let's jump to TV for a minute.
TV reach has dropped a lot for TV with ads
in it. How is that shifting media plans? TV used
to be the reach medium foundation of every body. Then
we'll add all the other stuff to it. Is that changing?
(37:56):
I think it's definitely changed, And think there's a tremendous
amount out of denial from the older folks in the business.
You know, when I first started, the industry itself was
probably spending upwards of their budget to open a film
on television. Last I looked, I think that it has
fallen to probably fifty or sixty. I think when the
(38:17):
biggest problems is that, you know, the cost of television
has gotten so high as well, some of it is fantastic.
There's still some really great television out there. People still
love TV. They be careful. I'm not saying people don't
love TV, because they do. They reaches down and it
is so I think that it has a hard time
finding its space. Also, they're losing talent, just how like
(38:38):
ad agencies lost talent and I've watched them lose some
great talent to go work at a Facebook. They go
work at a Google, to go work at a Twitter,
because it's a brighter, shinier object. Here we are doing
a podcast. Some people are saying, instead of doing the
TV or instead of putting the video to it, I'll
just do the story without the video. We just did
a podcast with ron Berg and d He's back and
(39:01):
doing by the Way extraordinarily well. But it sort of
feels like that's like the next version of the movie
is there in the podcast, and that I've got everything
in my head. I need to make that story come alive.
So what did you learn from all of that that
you brought to what you are today? Oh my god,
I've learned everything. I don't even know where to begin
with that, Bob, that's such a magical question. I have
(39:24):
to tell you. The best learning I've had were in
the worst times, right, because it's contrasts, so it's like
all the shitty stuff that happened is when I really learned.
All the dumb things I've done is when I've learned.
The fun parts are fun, but not the most learning,
and that the best education that you get. I think
probably the one thing that I really have taken away
from all of it is I am fearless to do
(39:48):
anything and everything. So what's the dumbest thing you've done? God,
I've done something. Okay, like one dumb thing, and tell
us what you learned from the dumb thing. Dumb things
that I've done. Um, I bought a house without looking
at it. That's pretty dumb. It was dumb. Oh. The
best dumb one, though, was when I traveled for HP.
I started taking ambient so I was traveling all around
(40:08):
the world and I couldn't get off of the stuff.
One night, Susanne and I went to go see a movie.
We went to go see Where the Millers. They have
an RV and They're like drug mules across Mexico. And
the next morning I wake up and I have a
notification on my phone this is congratulations you've won, And
the text was from eBay I apparently and an ambient.
(40:32):
Hayes bought a thirty five ft nineteen eight six airstream.
You still have it? Uh No, I redid it, but
actually donated it to victims of the first blaze in
California up north because there were teachers that were sleeping
in sporting good stores. Now that makes me look like
I'm a saint. That was pretty dumb and awesome. She
(40:52):
got an r V. It's got to be the first
RV you had, right, it was the first RV and
it was amazing, And I stopped taking Ambian That a
two fur jumping again. Your quota is saying being a
lesbian in the professional world as a gift, not a handicap.
You've been very honest and very open about who and
what you are. But what's been the reaction to the
revelation of your psychic abilities. Yeah, it was way easier
(41:15):
to come out as a lesbian than it was a
crazy ghost photographer, slatch, psychic ish human. I will tell you.
I am so lucky to be in the industry that
I am, because we are the land of misfit toys.
We just are. You go talk to any of them,
and none of them, by the way, were like the
homecoming queen and king and the you know, quarterback of
(41:36):
the football team, and none of them were. We were
all weird. The best place for me to be weird
was in this industry. So let's talk about the ghost photographer.
What's the journey on the recognition from you had these abilities?
When did you feel like you could tell somebody else? Uh,
this is going on in my head and I think
I have these abilities. Mine was a journey through grief.
(41:59):
I lost my I'm to Alzheimer's. I was absolutely positively devastated.
Five months later lost one of our closest friends to
a car accident. It just compounded grief. I am normally
a pretty funny human being. I was not funny. I
was sad. Met this amazing woman named Brenda Via, an
amazing psychic who did a group reading for us. That
moment was very pivotal change in my life. Shortly after
(42:22):
meeting Brenda, I started seeing ghosts and photographs. That was weird.
I'm gonna say it. It was weird, and it was
in my backyard. And I got nine thousand of them,
if not more. Now I think I've lost count. So
why did they come to your house? At first, I
thought that I had opened a ghost portal, because we remember,
movies have kind of ruined everything for all of us.
We made Poltergeist, and so I'm like, a crap, I'm
(42:44):
gonna be like carry Anne, I'm dead or Caroline or
whatever the hell her name was. I thought like it
was going to suck our house down into I don't know,
the great hell abyss. And then I later started to
learn that they're just everywhere. Were some of them coming
to visit me? I think, so, how could you not, like,
if you're a ghost or I'm going to say the
A word, even an alien. I mean, I'm sorry, people,
(43:06):
but you read the book. It's it's in there. If
you're one of them, and you're like, hey, this lesbian
in this corner over here on Sherman Oaks taking pictures
of ghost I want to go be in one. They
must have a club or like at least like a
phone tree to let him know what's going on. And
I think I was like the top of that phone tree.
I see ghosts everywhere. Do I see one in here? No?
I don't. Just for the record, I know that's what
you wanted to ask me, right, I was gonna ask
(43:28):
with spirit animals. Spirit animals? You love that You told
me I would say it was an eagle? Was my
spirit animal? You called my kids, you called everyone in
my family, and when I looked it up, well, yep
they are. It's a weird thing, right they are. So
please ask me, Julie, how do you see this? How
does this happen from you? Pretend I said that. I'm
going to pretend you said that, because it's a really
(43:50):
strange thing. I get asked a lot about you know,
how do you see the other side? And what I see?
It's another dimension with the spirit animals, especially sometimes I
can see with my eyes open. It's a best when
I close because they always show up over your head.
And sometimes they'll show up like I had somebody with
my spirit animal, and I'm like, will hold on a second,
I see a fin. I can't tell if it's a
(44:11):
whale fin or a dolphin fin. Hold on a second.
They need to show me. And it happened to have
been a dolphin at that time. So I see them
above people's head and they're not stagnant, they're moving. Having
disabilities it changed your own sense of life, what life is,
and mortality and life and death and what's on the
other side. It has changed everything in all the best ways.
(44:34):
I think it really plays into the fearlessness, right It's like,
whatever happens, I'm going to be okay. But I think
what has changed the most for me is now that
I have these abilities, it's what I do with them,
how I can help and serve other people. People have
found me from my book. A couple have become friends.
(44:56):
One has become a very close friend. And I just
recently spoke to her great grandmother. I said, she had
a nickname for you, but it's not a derivative of
your name. It's like, there's a nickname she keeps showing
me my dog. So all I can tell you is
that maybe it was Pudding and she was That's what
she called me, was Pudding, because that's my nickname for
my dog. Your great grandmother was smart enough to show
(45:17):
me my dog to come up with your nickname that
she called you through your life isn't that crazy, that awesome,
that just happened two nights ago, and for her to
feel more connected is the greatest gift I think that
I could ever give. If I am able to connect
with someone's loved one who has passed, it's very woo woo.
We remember, this is math and magic. We believe in
(45:41):
them both. You do both. So let's go to the
last questions. We go to beside you, who's the greatest mathematician?
You know, there is a guy named Peter Masanagro who
is the head of operam Are Marketing Science agency at
who I believe is the best mathematician that I have
(46:03):
ever met. He is Steve Jobs, Like, Wow, what is
the greatest magician? Who is it? Oprah Winfrey? I think
that she has turned her own life and other lives
into gold because I think storytellers are the ones who
actually run the world. She is a brilliant storyteller. And
you're right, that is a magician. By the way. We
could go on forever, but I'm gonna tell people read
(46:25):
your book The Ghost Photographer. I had two of them
on my desk and I can't tell you how many
people walked in my office sort of picked up the
book and thumbed through it. A couple of borrowed the book.
A couple of them said, I'm getting my own book,
so whatever it is, there's a great interest in it.
And everybody enjoyed the book, including me. Do you need
some more? Always need more? Three books is like free food,
(46:47):
right and you had gally copy number one brilliant today.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Here's three lessons
I take away from this episode with Julie Reager. One
data isn't just looking at numbers. Look at the language
people use around your product and the ways they communicate
it for deeper insight. Two data doesn't have to be
(47:09):
restrictive for creatives. If you frame it correctly, it should
open you up to new potential ideas and spaces that
aren't being explored. Three. Challenge yourself to look for the stories.
It's how Julie fell in love with Dada, looking at
our customers through their behaviors. Julie Reager's book is called
The Ghost Photographer, Hollywood Executive's true story of discovering the
(47:32):
real world of make believe. It's out from Simon and Schuster.
Now check it out. That's it for today's episode. Thanks
so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production
of I Heart Radio. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our
(47:54):
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Nikki Etre for
pulling research bill plaques, and Michael as Are for their
recording help, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gayle Raoul,
Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring this
show to your ears. Until next time, m
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of I
Heart Radio. To me, data isn't just numbers. Data is
also words. We struck a relationship with Twitter to be
actually the first one to anonymously connect tweets to purchasers.
(00:22):
What I learned is that there are words that people
use in social media that can tell you whether they're
going to go to a film six months for that
film comes out. It is astonishing. I'm Bob Pittman and
welcome to Math and Magic. On each episode, I chat
with someone I truly admire to explore their stories from
(00:44):
the frontiers of marketing, and we're going to cover everything
from the math of marketing all the way to the
magic of marketing, which of course the creative side of
the business. On this episode, we've got someone who covers
the range in a very unexpected way, which will come
to in a second. Just a note to listeners, this
episode was recorded in early March two thousand nineteen, before
(01:05):
the Fox Disney merger. I can't wait to introduce you
to today's guest. We're sitting here today with the genius
of marketing, Julie Reager. Some know her from her perch
Higah Top industry as president chief Data Strategist and had
(01:28):
a media at twenties century Fox. Did I get that right?
You got it right? Okay? And that sounds like to
some people are listening, I'm sure that that's a mathematician.
But wrong, really wrong. I've known Julie for a while
of the business. With her, we've done some exciting stuff
which we will talk a little bit about today from
the common stories. But she is one of the most
out of the box thinkers I know, which is surprising
with the title like chief data strategist, and she also
(01:51):
has a whole other dimension. I'll give you a little
preview as the ghost photographer, but will come to that.
She's a native of Oklahoma, made her way to l
A the Dallas in San Francisco, state champion golfer when
she was younger. You still play golf. I'm going to
disappoint you know, really, I have so many other things
to do. There's so many things, Okay, Julie. We're gonna
(02:13):
start with one of our favorite features, which is you
in sixty seconds, So here we go. Do you prefer
cats or dogs, both, beaches or mountains, mountains, pancakes or waffles?
All of the above logan or Deadpool, Deadpool Sunrise or
Sunsets Sunset Oklahoma or California, California. Sorry, Arnold Palmer or
(02:40):
Tiger Woods Arnold Palmers love that? Okay? Okay, now it's
gonna get a little harder. Would eat for breakfast? Vegan
protein shake? Topic you can talk about forever? The spiritual world, okay?
The other side. Smartest person you know that one's so
hard at the list. I have to say one of
the smartest people. Note it is actually Stacy Snyder because
(03:01):
she's creative and intelligent. Yes, childhood hero Nancy Lopez. First job?
How's a cashier at the quick stop? Two in Mima, Oklahoma?
Do you ever go back to visit occasionally? Favorite TV
show ever ever? Mm hmm. I gotta say The Golden
Girls historical idol Joan of arc most overlooked actor. Oh
(03:26):
my god, that's so hard in this business. Rebel Wilson.
I just love her and I hope she's listening. Best
place the photograph of ghost my backyard quote to live by. Oh,
I gotta tell you ready, we treat people how we
feel about ourselves. Where did that quote come from? Me?
(03:47):
I like it. We'll write that down. That's a good
bumper sticker. It is a good bumper sticker movie that
should be required viewing hidden figures. Who would play you
in a biopick? I hope it would be Tiffany Hattish
because I love her and she's really funny, but I
don't think she'd take the gig. Spirit Animal, black Panther.
(04:09):
Black Panther actually protects us from the underworld. Thank you. Then,
what did you want to be when you were growing up?
A professional golfer? And here you are not playing golf.
Let's get started. Let's go to the beginning. What was
it like growing up? Paint the picture a little bit
of growing up in Oklahoma. It seems like a long
way from California. It is a really long way. You
(04:30):
don't have the best way to describe what growing up
in Oklahoma was like is that my closest friends in
the world today are friends from there. It was like
growing up in a family of sixteen thousand and you
still say in contact with them, Yes, absolutely do share value,
share past, share ideas, share love. What is it? There
(04:51):
is nothing in this world that can replace history, and
sometimes of that history, are you ready? Is from another lifetime?
And I am convinced. I came back to this one
with a group of people that we've been cruising around
the world for thousands of years together. Boom. Well, I'm
glad I finally found you here because I've been missing
you for the last million years. Exactly where have you been?
(05:12):
I know I'm here now. Your mom was an accountant,
your dad was in the military. You followed a radically
different path. What do you think put you on this
path than what was their influence? Probably the biggest influence
was my mother, Actually not probably, it was most definitely
my mother. My mother was a feminist before it was cool,
(05:33):
and she has always believed that everyone was equal and
brought me up that way and told me over and
over and over again, you can be anything you want.
What she gave me was a very giant canvas. And
I think that's probably the most powerful thing, the biggest
influence that I had. I don't think it really matters
(05:54):
where you grow up. I mean, I think that's very
limiting for people. If you step back and if you
look at your yourself and look at the world and think,
I don't have to be one thing. I don't I know,
you don't I don't have to be one thing. I
can so go hillbilly on you, though. I mean I'll
go I'll go southern and just a minute if you
want me to. But I can go girl from Oklahoma
that sounds like she's not very smart. I can do
(06:15):
all that kind of stuff. But I'm not just from Oklahoma.
I'm also not just a lesbian. I am also not
just a nerd. I'm also not just a writer. I
am all of it. I am everything, and it doesn't
matter where I come from. You're star golfer, Well, first
of all, how did you get to be a star
golfer at an early age in Oklahoma? Not a lot
of grass on the greens there. I suspect we have
(06:37):
two things in Oklahoma. We have athletes and cattle. So
athletics is a big thing in that state. I mean
it is from football to football. You know. I grew
up in this little town and and it's kind of
a crappy town in all fairness, this little crappy town.
And we had a golf course. We had a country
club actually, and it was thirty five dollars to join.
(06:57):
You can't join twenty for our fitness. For what my
mom paid for us to join the country club. So
I just picked up a club. I held it like
a baseball bat, and I was hitting it further and
better than most adults. The first time I picked up
a club, I was seven years old. I had three clubs.
I had a seven of five and a nine iron.
(07:17):
No putter, not then eventually got one. Kim in works, right,
when did you tell yourself no to golf? And when
did you say yes to media? Oh? Gosh, in Chicago
in if you must know the place in the date,
because I remember, I was an internship at Cats Communications.
(07:40):
Cat I saw your eyes just then. I worked for
this wonderful woman named Maryland Moss, and I loved it.
I loved advertising. I loved media. I loved the challenge
of it. And you know, golf was one of those
things that you know, you've been playing since you were
seven and in nineteen would I say eighty eight, I
was a hair from I was around twenty. That's like
(08:03):
a you can be a cop for that long and
retire after that. You know, It's like there's government jobs
that are shorter length in the time I played golf,
so I think it was just my cycle. I was done.
How did you get from that moment? So here you
are today. I transferred to SMU and Dallas because it
felt like a better education for me. So I went
(08:24):
from University of Oklahoma, which was a full golf scholarship,
and then I felt like I really needed to actually
learn learn something new and not just how to play golf.
So went to s m U and my senior year
at s m U, Laniar Timberland, who formerly Bozell Dallas
was named after, was a professor. They kind of plucked
me out of the class in the early nineties when
(08:47):
we had an ad recession, when they were, you know,
twenty five people lined up for shitty job. They gave
me that shitty job and that's how that started. And
the shitty job was was insistent media planner at Bozel
Dallas and I was working on J. C. Penney. God
rested soul And did you think you had died and
gone to heaven with that job? Oh my god. I
didn't even ask how much it paid when they called
me to offer me the job. I didn't care how much?
(09:09):
Did it? One? Six thousand bones, sixteen thousand bucks. I
used to go and eat lunch at Sam's warehouse, I
ate samples for a good year and then from there
where then I met my now wife, Suzanne. We've been
together twenty six years, congratulations, Thank you. And we decided
that we need to live a little freer and have
(09:31):
some liberations. So we moved to San Francisco and had
the time of our lives. It was so much fun.
Oh my gosh. And I worked at that agencies. I
worked at a small shop called Winkler McManus, I worked
at foot Cone of Building, and then I ended up
running the Hewlett Packard business globally for about it maybe
a decade sounds about right. That was quite an undertaking.
(09:52):
I don't think I slept for a day. And and
the go go years of Hewlett Packard, oh in the
Carly years, the big spending years. Those were fun. And
then that brought me to Los Angeles, where I pitched
the twenty century Fox business, actually on behalf of the agency.
And very quickly, like within a year, my client had
decided to move on and went back to the research
(10:14):
side of things, and they asked me to join, so
I did, and then here I sit with you. Wow,
that's pretty amazing. It's a great journey. Right, and what
do you think in your parents are in your background
put you on this path. They didn't even know what
the data strategist was in those days, so they didn't.
I think what's so interesting about my job is that
I am the worst technical person to grace the earth.
(10:37):
I miss clickers, I miss dials. Like what I would
do for an oven that just had a dial, I
would give like limbs for I think my gift to
the business world, to the entertainment industry, even when I
work at AD Agencies, was more of a vision and
a strategist. There are plenty of people who their gift
is being an expert at like writing code, analyzing you know,
(10:59):
tedious number. My job started out as a vision and
I think that the visionary part again came from my mother.
I also think we come into this world with jobs
to do and with gifts we already have that have
nothing to do with our parents. Jim Gianopolis, who is
a former chair person of Fox that I love very much,
(11:23):
said to me the day he left. You know what, Joels,
I've loved working with you. I am a little surprised.
I have to confess that you can operate so well
in the corporate world. So I was kind of like, okay,
by where's this going. What's this man gonna say to me?
And he said, because you're an iconoclast, and he goes
and we need them. They just have a hard time
working in a business structure. So the first thing I
(11:46):
do is I look up iconoclass because I had no
earthly idea what it meant. That's where Oklahoma comes in.
We didn't have a very good educational system, and I'm
from Mississippi. We looked up to people from oklahow It's true.
The only jokes I have are actually Nebraska jokes. Like
that's all I got, That's all I learned. I'm going
to tell you one what does the end stand for?
On the Nebraska helmet? What knowledge? So I think we'll
(12:10):
get a couple of calls. I think you guys, I
think you guys all sen need a laugh track? Is
there a story? This is how you found and fell
in love with data? There is What was so attractive
to me about data was what we learned about what
our customers were thinking and feeling had nothing to do
(12:32):
with what we actually thought. So it actually proved to
me how wrong we were. And that's how I fell
in love. We made this movie called Love Simon, and
you know, we're the first major motion picture company to
have a wide release of like a teenage gay boy
and his struggles, and we were like, oh, you know,
(12:52):
could we get moms to go to this? And so
I went to the creative team and said, hey, do
you guys mind making like a forty five second spot
for me so I can go in and see if
we can attract you know, moms that might want to
come to this movie. So they did that and the
spot was called Dear Mom, very clever with our titles,
And what we found was actually that moms saw this
(13:16):
topic of sexuality equal to sex because I saw a
lot of R rated movies that came up, and then
I looked on social and saw that they were viewing
at three times their normal rate, but they were commenting
at a third of their normal rate. And I said, oh,
this is too taboo. So let's not go spend the
company's money here, because that was a story that it
(13:38):
told us. So I can tell stories from their stories
because I love storytelling. The first thing I tell used
to tell my class at USC when I taught one
is if you look at your computer or your phone.
I'm going to dock you a great But the second
thing that I said to them was I do this
because I believe storytellers do for the soul what doctors
(14:00):
do for the physical body. So I believe in storytelling.
I believe in the ones you make up. I believe
in the ones that are real. I believe in telling
stories about our customers through their behaviors, through what they
try to tell us. And that's how I fell in
love with data is that it was just another source
for me to tell stories from. One of the reasons
I've always been drawn to you is because you don't
(14:21):
follow the trends. You follow the consumer, which allowed you
to back up and say, that's what's really going on
and let's figure it out. When I first started this
with Stacy, I was fearful that creative executives would see
me walk down the hall and run and hide because like,
there's the data nerd, and she's going to try to
tell me what to do. Can I tell you the
first people that lined up in front of my office
(14:44):
when this stuff started to take off, they were the
creative executives. They're like, Okay, I have this project can
you help me understand what it can look like? What's
our greatest potential? Where our weaknesses with this? It was them?
And what about directors? Did they it into this as
well or do they want to stay away from it?
And you just tell them how to market it. I've
(15:04):
dealt with more producers. Mainly what I do with them
is help understand customers likes and dislikes. I can go
look at a franchise and say, you might think this
is who as part of this franchise, but it's actually
this kind of person, you know, plan of the apes.
There is a particular type of person that loves that movie,
and it's not who you think it is. And the
(15:26):
funny thing it is, it's people who like movies like Tarzan,
King Kong, and ant Man, because here's what they all
have in common. Is there all retro sci fi? Retro
sci fi is not real genre. It turns out it
is though, huh, but it is in my world. I
would take, you know, the six genres, seven genres that
we have, and I would turn it into probably two
hundred because I think that's how nuanced we are. And
(15:47):
do you take two D four hundred? Eventually? I think
that it should go to four hundred. We are complex
creatures and we can't always identify why we do things.
But when we can look at your data, we can
start to figure out some wise. What did you learn
about how to market The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman.
I've learned my best lessons when I've made mistakes. So
(16:08):
with the Greatest Showman, we have Hugh Jackman, who we
all love and brilliant. And what happened is that when
we released our first trailer, we actually used one of
the tools that my data science team built called Nightcrawler.
What we found is those that were watching the trailer
the movies that they had bought tickets to, we're not
(16:29):
what we thought they were. We thought they were. You know,
this was like a musical, right What we thought it
would be would be things like lame Is because he
was in it. You know, we thought it would be
La La Land because it was a musical and it
was recent. It wasn't. It was Cinderella certainly Pitched Perfect
was in there. It was Beauting the Beast, it was
hidden figures. The ones who loved our movie from the
(16:51):
beginning were those that loved stories of underdogs, This is
a story of how narrow we can be in the
industry and actually how complex our customers are. We had
to adjust our messaging. We cannot go and spend the
good company money chasing after ans. It's not really going
to go. We need to spend it after those that
(17:12):
have already shown interest. And this is the type of
person that it is. And so we ended up, you know,
being able to shift. We clearly didn't open the movie
to big box, but we started shifting towards the end,
which I like to think helped us. And the beauty
about data is that we went back in to do
a look back, and when we first looked at those
that watched the trailer, we went and compared those that
(17:33):
bought tickets to our movie and then what tickets they
had bought in the past. So it's the pre in
the post and the post, it's the same list of
movies that showed up. It was Beauty and the Beast,
it was Cinderella, it was a Wonder, it was hidden figures.
It was also pitched perfect, and so you changed creative
in the direct along that take. How quickly can a
company like Fox move? Oh, Fox can be fast. It's
(17:54):
part of the DNA of Fox. Fox can be very
quickly more with Julie Reager right after the break, Welcome
back to math and magic. We're here with Julie Reager.
You supposedly have a proprietary data set that gives you
studio insights to million movie goers. Right, and they're named
(18:19):
after Marvel characters. They are X men characters x men. Okay,
and now you have an AI named Merlin. Yes, because
I like wizards. Oh, I like this, and you get
to name them. I do. See. That's the beauty you
create something. It's like if you're a builder, right, you
buy a piece of land, you put a road, and
you gotta name the road. I got to name the
road one of them. One of the most exciting meetings
(18:42):
I've had is I was in a meeting with you
and we were talking about my heart. Do you want
to know what I said to you? Would you tell me?
I actually looked at you and I said, Bob, you're
a tech company. What the hell is wrong with you?
You have all this great data. You're a tech company.
You're both you're an entertainment audio dada, but you're a
tech company. And so what did you do? So what
(19:04):
I did. We had this little movie called Bohemian Rhapsody.
You may have heard of it at a tiny movie
called Bohemian Rhapsody. And what we did we had your
data anonymized. I want to make sure I say this properly,
so nobody no lawyers start calling either one of us anyway.
So we matched folks that had downloaded your app and
used your app to our movie goers. And the reason
(19:28):
why we were comfortable with looking at your app dating
is because roughly nine that those that have download and
used the app also listened to Terrestrial, So I was
very comfortable with that. So once we matched it in
my pool, I had people that were movie goers, that
had people that were movie goers and also I Heart customers.
(19:48):
Then we created a campaign around Bohemian Rhapsody with you guys,
and so we launched the trailer with you guys. You
talked about magic and creativity, which I thought was so
brilliant because in the film, have a feeling I'm not
going to ruin anything here for any of your listeners
and no spoiler alert. There was a time when the
record producer who's played by Michael Myers, said, nobody's going
(20:09):
to play a song on the radio that six minutes long.
Six minutes is too long. You guys came back to us.
It was just it was like magic, and said we're
going to roadblock six minutes across our entire network. And
once I pulled myself up off the floor and was
able to utter a word, the word was genius. And
(20:30):
we did it right before the movie launched. So what
happened is the movie did all right. And then after
about a month, when I got four weeks of data back,
I was able to look and see who actually bought
tickets to our movie. And I already had my movie
Gover database, and then I had the database within the
database that was movies and I heart. And what was
(20:52):
interesting is that your customers were buying tickets twelve at
a higher rate than those that were just ongoing move
of goers. Is that good twelve percent? Because I promised
early on I wasn't going to use the F words,
so I'll say fantastic. It was fan freaking tastic. I
(21:13):
think what everyone in this business is dying for is attribution.
Dying because they just don't know if it's good money
or bad money that they're spending. And I also went
in to go check to see if are we just
getting a music fan. I just wanted to be able
to answer my own questions in my head. Was just
(21:34):
like a fluke thing. And then I went back in
and I looked at other movies that we had done
with you all in the last four years, and I
found the same pattern. Now Bow Rep was a tick higher,
which I think is where the music might play in.
We did, and the stunt was brilliant. That subsegment always
came in higher than the general movie goer segment. So
(21:54):
I was really confident in what we had done. Everybody
does attribution, or they think they're doing with attributions all
about digital, like I'm going to run a banner, I'm
going to do a video on YouTube or whatever. My
first attribution project was with you doing it with radio
is a likely character. Look, we were so excited about it.
One for getting someone with your kind of skill set
(22:15):
to believe innocent take that leap. I have to congratulate
you on doing the roadblock. Someone in the Los Angeles
market that works here took a video of them punching
between all of our radio stations in l A. And
you're hitting the same song by different artists all playing
their version of Bohebian Rapsy. You couldn't get away from
its pretty amazing. Is amazing, right, I mean all the
(22:38):
artists with the covers. That was so amazing is that
that became into a phenomenon. And let's not forget what
happened on the charts with the album, right, so many
amazing things that happened. Now listen, the movie is amazing.
Was the only thing that contributed to this success. The campaign?
We didn't know because the movie was incredible. We had
other great creative but was it at twelve for sent nudge? Heck,
(23:01):
yeah it was. And I can tell you from my
data science team because they come into me very objective,
like these are the guys, and all my data scientists
are guys. I bet their sock yours are incredibly organized.
They come into me and they are clean slate every time,
and they are factual. They come into me and say, well, Julie,
(23:22):
here's what we found, and they say it with a
straight face. And I again, so from the time I
fell off the floor picked myself up with the stunt too,
picking myself up off the floor with the twelve percent going,
you've got to be kidding me and my wildest dreams,
it would be five. It was twelve. And do you
think it's because radio is really the conversation. It sounds
(23:43):
like your friends talking about the movie. Is that that
part of the brain that it sounds like I'm hearing
people talk about it? I think with anything, it's never
one answer, but I think that that's part of it.
I think another part of it, and why I have
loved radio for so long is because of again, it's
the human nature. Right. So now technology has set people
free to do what they want when they want, except
(24:05):
in a car, so they are A negative word to
use is trapped. I like to use the word they're surrendered.
There in a car, you have to surrender. You're forced
to surrender. And what better to surrender to than someone
you've been listening to a good part of your life.
Or you're going to hear a new story, or you're
gonna be introduced to a new song, or you're going
(24:25):
to hear about a movie maybe you hadn't heard about,
or get excited about one that you haven't heard about.
And our business we talked to her on their personalities
and we say, you know you're somebody's best friend riding
in that empty seat with them every day to work,
and the greatest talent we have turned out to be
a very interesting friend. And they also talked about what's
happening in your city in that moment in time, in
(24:48):
that moment, and you're part of that, because what we
all long to be is a part of something, whether
we want to be a part of a family, want
to be a part of a community, you want to
be a part of the city. Like that's we have
pride in our local football teams or college teams, like
it's that pride of that connection. And I think your
(25:09):
talent gives them another layer of connection, and we all
desperately want to be connected, to be a part. I
have a quick story for you. I don't know if
I've ever told you. For about four years I taught
entertainment marketing at USC During my tenure, I you know,
ran the gamut of talking about various parts of marketing
(25:29):
with them. I said, oh, you guys must only listen
to you know, Spotify or Pandora. Can I tell you?
They're like, yeah, but we listened mostly to the radio.
I go, really like, I was shocked. I go, you
do They're like yeah, And I said, well why and
they said, because I can listen to that stuff anytime,
(25:49):
but when I'm like driving offices, is l a right.
So we live in our cars and they're like, when
I'm going somewhere, it's like I'm out in the world
and I want to feel a part of that world.
These are college students that are telling me, is that
every put up your hand who listens to the radio live,
Every single hand went up into the air, and that's
when it dawned on. It's when it clicked with me.
And it's something that data can't ever tell you because
(26:11):
we want to rationalize either in or out of data.
Radio is that thing that connects everyone from thirteen to
eight plus. It's that one thing where social animals, going
back to human nature and my music collections, want to
want to be by myself. I want to sort of
be in my zone. The radio is what's going on
in the world, and we can't stay away from it
(26:33):
too long. It's interesting you find all this from the
other angle, and obviously we look at it in depth
and a lot. It's interesting in research studies show often
hear save where you hear about that, um it was
either a friend or on the radio. They've confused it
and it's in that same part of their brain we
talked about the car. It's interesting what alexas doing now
is opening up the home to us again. Homes used
(26:54):
to have a clock radio and now it is down
to about. But suddenly the new clock radio is Alexa
and to find me this surge in the home, and
I think people thought, are they're gonna listen to their music?
Turns out the number one use some Alexa's a MFM
radio for the same reasons exactly. I want somebody to
keep me company while I'm brushing my teeth in the morning,
while I'm doing some work around the house, or by
(27:14):
the way, go to the cash register. The person working
the cash red shirt the convenience store. They're listening to radio.
They are well listen enough hyping of us, I know,
but I think it's crucial to talk about this stuff
because it is about you know, we're not a number.
We're human. Most people looking from the outside who don't
know you personally would think you're a math person. Let
me hit one of your high profile magic moments. What
(27:37):
did you do with the New York Times for the
book The back in two thousand thirteen for Legendary. Oh
that was that was a great moment. That was a
great moment. So we made this little movie based on
a novel called The Book Thief written by Marcus Uzac.
It was about this young girl set in the Nazi
time in Germany. She couldn't read. Really, the heart of
(28:00):
what the movie was was the power of words. I
kept thinking, I remember seeing in a room, going how
do you communicate to folks? How powerful words are? I
came to the conclusion in that moment that the way
you teach somebody the power of something as you actually
take it away. So I went and talked to the
New York Times. Actually true story is, actually talked to
l a Times, and they wanted to charge so much
(28:22):
money from my idea, and they actually wanted to try
to hold it over my head and take it from me.
I'm just telling you that was a nasty moment. No,
I didn't apologize to the a lot of Times because
I'm still bitter. So I took it to the New
York Times, really thinking they would say no to the
idea of having blank pages and literally blank, No, this
is an advertisement on it. None of that they loved
(28:43):
it so much because I think that's who they are.
It's kind of like in the radio business taking a
voice away, right, It's like taking words away from a journalist.
So they did it. This was two thousand and thirteen,
maybe it's almost six years ago. Things didn't go really
viral like they do now, Like things didn't catch on
that moment when people were opening up their newspaper and
(29:03):
seeing it. They started to tweet about it right about it.
And what's crazy is that it is now in curriculums
and colleges around the world about having an idea that
is deeper than surface. Right, that's not just a superficial
like get somebody's attention, like it had purpose to it.
So that's actually really cool is that it's actually gone
(29:23):
down and a little bit of history. We had a
lot of history. Let me hit a few Let's go
to the science side of marketing here for a few minutes.
Talk a little bit about how you analyze conversations on
Twitter and what have you learned to me. Data isn't
just numbers. Data is also words. When you want to
understand what a customer is and what they think and
(29:45):
what they feel, you're not going to get it just
based on purchase data numbers ones and zeros. You're gonna
get it based on the language that they use and
how they communicate. We struck a relationship with Twitter to
be actually the first one to anonymously connect tweets to purchasers.
What I learned is that there are words that people
use in social media that can tell you whether or
(30:08):
not they're going to go to a film six months
for that film comes out. It is astonishing. There's like
a bag of words that people use, and there's another
bag of words that people use and they're not going.
There seems to be some consistency. I brought in a
brilliant woman named Dr Pam Rutledge who has her PhD
and media psychology, who helps us understand all of this.
The first movie we did it with was Logan. I mean,
(30:29):
Logan was a success, but I could tell based on
language that people that didn't buy tickets, And it was
really fascinating. When you get people who are all wishy washy,
and of course in our business, thinking that well we
can change their mind. No, actually no you can't. You're
not going to shift them. This is just kind of
where they sit now. Granted this is all based on Twitter, right,
(30:49):
and there's still more work to be done, but Twitter
when it's connected to ticket purchases a really fascinating experiment.
Can you tell us a couple of those words are
just top secret? There's a lot of them. Actually, there's
a bucket of definitive words, and then there's a bucket
of like wishy washy words. And the problem is what
marketers have They look at the wishy washy words and
(31:10):
they think they're definitive. Our industry, marketing, entertainment, media, all
of it. We haven't bothered to invite what I have
found to be the most pivotal expertise into hours, which
is psychology. Because once we invited psychology into our world
is when our world got big, and it's when our
(31:32):
heads blew up, and when we started to truly understand people,
and when we started to understand people is when we
started making better decisions. It sounds to me like you're
one of those believers that everything boils down the human nature. Oh,
I very much believe in that. And if you think
(31:52):
about what's happened in the television industry, you know, people
had must see Thursday, right, like must see TV and
everybody may sure they got home so they could see it.
That wasn't human nature, right. It's kind of like being
told where you're going to have a turkey leg tonight,
and so you're like, oh, I get better have a
turkeu lator, I'm not gonna eat at all. But now
there's this giant buffet and you can go watch or
(32:16):
listen to what you want when you want. That's human nature.
It might be tech that enabled it, but it was
human nature that made it what it is today. That's
why live viewing. It's like, if you're there, great, you'll
watch it, but you might want Lazagia tonight, so you
can save that turkey leg for when you want it.
And that's human nature. So you're saying that technology is
really doing nothing except unlocking human nature. Absolutely absolutely it is.
(32:39):
It also is unlocking some not great parts of our
human nature to like, I think it's unlocking a lot
of obsessiveness that we have that is built into who
we are. I think it's also unlocking some rudeness, Like
if I picked up my phone right now, that's rude.
I mean, how many restaurants do you walk into and
everybody has their phone up. I'm like, you're with a human.
But I also think that it un locks hiding for people,
(33:01):
you know, like people who get addicted to Facebook. I
think it's a real problem, like there's an unhealthiness to it,
and that's part of our humanness. Let me jump back
to movies. You've been on the front lines a long time.
What's the future movies, the theaters, streaming services. I think
we're going to have fewer than we have today of
(33:22):
films and theaters. From the time that I started working
in the business till now, I think the number of
new releases on weekends have doubled. I don't think the
industry can I don't think the consumers can support that.
One of the reasons that I believe comedies and horror
will always be such a massive part of our business
is because when you are alone and you see something funny,
(33:44):
you do not laugh out loud. You might just smile.
But when you're in a group and there's laughter, you laugh.
And what happens when we laugh is that our body
chemistry changes. Our enjoyment level goes through the roof because
we're releasing endorphins. That's real and horror. What happens in
horror is that we grab each other, we touch each other,
(34:05):
we are experiencing this together. I think family films because
you can bring everybody to it. You know, those are
things that will go on. But I just think that
the volume of movies is a lot. In any given weekend,
there's can be four or five movies opening easily easily.
I think the future of streaming services is going to
be fascinating to watch. Oh my gosh, I mean, and
(34:26):
we have front row seats. I think there's going to
be a lot of fighting with what looks like parody products.
I think only a few will win. Everybody's just getting
their gloves on right now. And I think that streaming
is going to be fascinating to watch. So the high
budget limited series hurting movies, new form of movies, how
do you see it? I think that everything has hurt movies.
(34:49):
Gaming right. Gaming is something that has taken people away
from theaters. I think that TV is better than it's
ever been. Game of Thrones is better than most movies
you've ever seen in your life. I kind of wish
they'd show it in a theater, to tell you the truth,
makes you want to go buy a much bigger television
and the greatest shows I've ever seen, I mean visually storytelling,
(35:10):
so you can get the experience in home and a
longer experience. Okay, future of ad agencies LOI gosh, that's
a tough one. I love ad agencies where I started.
I think, what's the intersection between a consulting company now
like the Anderson's and ad agencies? Right? I mean, that
seems to be an interesting competition that's happening. I think
(35:31):
that neither of them have the greatest advantage, which is data,
because the best data cannot be held by them. The
best data can really only be held by the client.
So for me, because I am disintermediated from a customer,
I have to go rent that data. So when you
rent a data, it's like the difference between renting and
own and a home. I can't go paint the walls
(35:53):
without asking permission. I can't go take a wall down
or add a new bathroom because I'm renting the data,
which in the rental agreement with data means I can't
let other parties have it, including the agency. Including the agency,
and I think that they all are going to struggle
with that because you don't have the purchase data. So
I think they're all in trouble for that. And I
(36:13):
think they're all in trouble because the business is based
on paying for head count. There needs to be some
more machine learning that they can get with the media business.
So you think the compensations sort of hurting their structure.
I think it's killing all of them. And I think
that recessions were terrible for the agencies because they just
wanted to hold onto business and clients were in trouble,
and they just want to pull every cost down. I
(36:34):
don't think agencies make the money they should make in
all honesty to to provide the service that they need
in this fragmented world we live in. You know, back
in the day when we only had the three networks,
then we had the fourth network, right, and then we
had MTV. You know, to buy a TV ad was
a big deal because it was expensive, right, and the
talent to make those there was only a small group
(36:54):
of talented creative types to make those ads. I think
what's happened, it's hurt the creative side of the ad
business is that there's not enough talent to make all
the ads that are necessary. Now it costs you a
buck if you want to put a video on right,
you can actually buy media with a dollar now, where
before it was like a million, now it's a dollar.
(37:15):
The problem is there's not enough creative executives to make
great work anymore. It became the costco right where it
was once a boutique. You can't fill up the costco
with talent. You can't just manufacture talent. I've not heard
that before, but you're right, it fits the facts. I
think it's a problem with clients too, because how much
(37:36):
bad work have you seen or heard? A lot? A lot,
sadly sadly. So let's jump to TV for a minute.
TV reach has dropped a lot for TV with ads
in it. How is that shifting media plans? TV used
to be the reach medium foundation of every body. Then
we'll add all the other stuff to it. Is that changing?
(37:56):
I think it's definitely changed, And think there's a tremendous
amount out of denial from the older folks in the business.
You know, when I first started, the industry itself was
probably spending upwards of their budget to open a film
on television. Last I looked, I think that it has
fallen to probably fifty or sixty. I think when the
(38:17):
biggest problems is that, you know, the cost of television
has gotten so high as well, some of it is fantastic.
There's still some really great television out there. People still
love TV. They be careful. I'm not saying people don't
love TV, because they do. They reaches down and it
is so I think that it has a hard time
finding its space. Also, they're losing talent, just how like
(38:38):
ad agencies lost talent and I've watched them lose some
great talent to go work at a Facebook. They go
work at a Google, to go work at a Twitter,
because it's a brighter, shinier object. Here we are doing
a podcast. Some people are saying, instead of doing the
TV or instead of putting the video to it, I'll
just do the story without the video. We just did
a podcast with ron Berg and d He's back and
(39:01):
doing by the Way extraordinarily well. But it sort of
feels like that's like the next version of the movie
is there in the podcast, and that I've got everything
in my head. I need to make that story come alive.
So what did you learn from all of that that
you brought to what you are today? Oh my god,
I've learned everything. I don't even know where to begin
with that, Bob, that's such a magical question. I have
(39:24):
to tell you. The best learning I've had were in
the worst times, right, because it's contrasts, so it's like
all the shitty stuff that happened is when I really learned.
All the dumb things I've done is when I've learned.
The fun parts are fun, but not the most learning,
and that the best education that you get. I think
probably the one thing that I really have taken away
from all of it is I am fearless to do
(39:48):
anything and everything. So what's the dumbest thing you've done? God,
I've done something. Okay, like one dumb thing, and tell
us what you learned from the dumb thing. Dumb things
that I've done. Um, I bought a house without looking
at it. That's pretty dumb. It was dumb. Oh. The
best dumb one, though, was when I traveled for HP.
I started taking ambient so I was traveling all around
(40:08):
the world and I couldn't get off of the stuff.
One night, Susanne and I went to go see a movie.
We went to go see Where the Millers. They have
an RV and They're like drug mules across Mexico. And
the next morning I wake up and I have a
notification on my phone this is congratulations you've won, And
the text was from eBay I apparently and an ambient.
(40:32):
Hayes bought a thirty five ft nineteen eight six airstream.
You still have it? Uh No, I redid it, but
actually donated it to victims of the first blaze in
California up north because there were teachers that were sleeping
in sporting good stores. Now that makes me look like
I'm a saint. That was pretty dumb and awesome. She
(40:52):
got an r V. It's got to be the first
RV you had, right, it was the first RV and
it was amazing, And I stopped taking Ambian That a
two fur jumping again. Your quota is saying being a
lesbian in the professional world as a gift, not a handicap.
You've been very honest and very open about who and
what you are. But what's been the reaction to the
revelation of your psychic abilities. Yeah, it was way easier
(41:15):
to come out as a lesbian than it was a
crazy ghost photographer, slatch, psychic ish human. I will tell you.
I am so lucky to be in the industry that
I am, because we are the land of misfit toys.
We just are. You go talk to any of them,
and none of them, by the way, were like the
homecoming queen and king and the you know, quarterback of
(41:36):
the football team, and none of them were. We were
all weird. The best place for me to be weird
was in this industry. So let's talk about the ghost photographer.
What's the journey on the recognition from you had these abilities?
When did you feel like you could tell somebody else? Uh,
this is going on in my head and I think
I have these abilities. Mine was a journey through grief.
(41:59):
I lost my I'm to Alzheimer's. I was absolutely positively devastated.
Five months later lost one of our closest friends to
a car accident. It just compounded grief. I am normally
a pretty funny human being. I was not funny. I
was sad. Met this amazing woman named Brenda Via, an
amazing psychic who did a group reading for us. That
moment was very pivotal change in my life. Shortly after
(42:22):
meeting Brenda, I started seeing ghosts and photographs. That was weird.
I'm gonna say it. It was weird, and it was
in my backyard. And I got nine thousand of them,
if not more. Now I think I've lost count. So
why did they come to your house? At first, I
thought that I had opened a ghost portal, because we remember,
movies have kind of ruined everything for all of us.
We made Poltergeist, and so I'm like, a crap, I'm
(42:44):
gonna be like carry Anne, I'm dead or Caroline or
whatever the hell her name was. I thought like it
was going to suck our house down into I don't know,
the great hell abyss. And then I later started to
learn that they're just everywhere. Were some of them coming
to visit me? I think, so, how could you not, like,
if you're a ghost or I'm going to say the
A word, even an alien. I mean, I'm sorry, people,
(43:06):
but you read the book. It's it's in there. If
you're one of them, and you're like, hey, this lesbian
in this corner over here on Sherman Oaks taking pictures
of ghost I want to go be in one. They
must have a club or like at least like a
phone tree to let him know what's going on. And
I think I was like the top of that phone tree.
I see ghosts everywhere. Do I see one in here? No?
I don't. Just for the record, I know that's what
you wanted to ask me, right, I was gonna ask
(43:28):
with spirit animals. Spirit animals? You love that You told
me I would say it was an eagle? Was my
spirit animal? You called my kids, you called everyone in
my family, and when I looked it up, well, yep
they are. It's a weird thing, right they are. So
please ask me, Julie, how do you see this? How
does this happen from you? Pretend I said that. I'm
going to pretend you said that, because it's a really
(43:50):
strange thing. I get asked a lot about you know,
how do you see the other side? And what I see?
It's another dimension with the spirit animals, especially sometimes I
can see with my eyes open. It's a best when
I close because they always show up over your head.
And sometimes they'll show up like I had somebody with
my spirit animal, and I'm like, will hold on a second,
I see a fin. I can't tell if it's a
(44:11):
whale fin or a dolphin fin. Hold on a second.
They need to show me. And it happened to have
been a dolphin at that time. So I see them
above people's head and they're not stagnant, they're moving. Having
disabilities it changed your own sense of life, what life is,
and mortality and life and death and what's on the
other side. It has changed everything in all the best ways.
(44:34):
I think it really plays into the fearlessness, right It's like,
whatever happens, I'm going to be okay. But I think
what has changed the most for me is now that
I have these abilities, it's what I do with them,
how I can help and serve other people. People have
found me from my book. A couple have become friends.
(44:56):
One has become a very close friend. And I just
recently spoke to her great grandmother. I said, she had
a nickname for you, but it's not a derivative of
your name. It's like, there's a nickname she keeps showing
me my dog. So all I can tell you is
that maybe it was Pudding and she was That's what
she called me, was Pudding, because that's my nickname for
my dog. Your great grandmother was smart enough to show
(45:17):
me my dog to come up with your nickname that
she called you through your life isn't that crazy, that awesome,
that just happened two nights ago, and for her to
feel more connected is the greatest gift I think that
I could ever give. If I am able to connect
with someone's loved one who has passed, it's very woo woo.
We remember, this is math and magic. We believe in
(45:41):
them both. You do both. So let's go to the
last questions. We go to beside you, who's the greatest mathematician?
You know, there is a guy named Peter Masanagro who
is the head of operam Are Marketing Science agency at
who I believe is the best mathematician that I have
(46:03):
ever met. He is Steve Jobs, Like, Wow, what is
the greatest magician? Who is it? Oprah Winfrey? I think
that she has turned her own life and other lives
into gold because I think storytellers are the ones who
actually run the world. She is a brilliant storyteller. And
you're right, that is a magician. By the way. We
could go on forever, but I'm gonna tell people read
(46:25):
your book The Ghost Photographer. I had two of them
on my desk and I can't tell you how many
people walked in my office sort of picked up the
book and thumbed through it. A couple of borrowed the book.
A couple of them said, I'm getting my own book,
so whatever it is, there's a great interest in it.
And everybody enjoyed the book, including me. Do you need
some more? Always need more? Three books is like free food,
(46:47):
right and you had gally copy number one brilliant today.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Here's three lessons
I take away from this episode with Julie Reager. One
data isn't just looking at numbers. Look at the language
people use around your product and the ways they communicate
it for deeper insight. Two data doesn't have to be
(47:09):
restrictive for creatives. If you frame it correctly, it should
open you up to new potential ideas and spaces that
aren't being explored. Three. Challenge yourself to look for the stories.
It's how Julie fell in love with Dada, looking at
our customers through their behaviors. Julie Reager's book is called
The Ghost Photographer, Hollywood Executive's true story of discovering the
(47:32):
real world of make believe. It's out from Simon and Schuster.
Now check it out. That's it for today's episode. Thanks
so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production
of I Heart Radio. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our
(47:54):
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Nikki Etre for
pulling research bill plaques, and Michael as Are for their
recording help, our editor, Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gayle Raoul,
Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring this
show to your ears. Until next time, m
Host
Bob Pittman
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