Returning Admigo, Alex Helou - Ad 2 President, The Challenges of Running A Club

Current President of Ad 2 Houston returns to the show and shares his experience as president, and what Ad 2 has in store for this year.To see Alex's Ad that he mentioned during the show click here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CeeCABZjZ3Z/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Celebrate diversity, equity and Inclusion withAT two and AF Houston. Join us
on October twenty fourth at Giant TexasDistillery from six to nine pm for the
triumph and return of the nighted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Enjoy Smallbiites,
your first rink on us in aselling auction featuring some of Houston's top artists.
Follow us on social for more info. Again, that's October twenty fourth

(00:21):
at Giant Texas Distillery from six tonine See you there. Hello, amigas,
and welcome to the at to HoustonAmigos podcast, a podcast for young
professionals in the marketing and advertising industrywho are learning to navigate their early careers.
I am Guido Faconi your host today, Joe Bot my co host.

(00:43):
Hey, this is Jacob Dantune,the current audio chair of AT the Houston
and producer of this fine program.And today we are joined but not know
that Alex Hello, whose name Ipronounced right the first time. Alex is
the current president of at the Houston. He has been this is your second
year, right, yes, thisis my second year. Yeah. And
he is also a former president forthe AAF chapter at UH University. Of

(01:06):
Houston. He's also a multiple addedwinner yep, And I mean you know
he recently got engaged too, Socongrats about that. Thank you. Yeah.
So we're very happy to have youagain. It's been a while since
we talked to I think you werelike episode two or three. How how
the time flight? That was likethree years ago? Really three years ago?
I felt like I might be lying. He's episode four, Wow,

(01:34):
that's why, like two years ago. Yeah, I mean it was when
we first started. So yeah,like I said, it's been a while
we had you. Uh since thelast time we had you on the show.
Many times have change. Right now, you are the president of at
TO Houston, like I mentioned earlier, your second year. Can you feel
us a little bit on what thatexperience has been like? Well, I

(01:57):
can definitely say with all the thingsthat's happened in my term or my first
term, it definitely was a rollercoaster from roers. Yeah, from being
told to include this into our programand do this and that and being overwhelmed

(02:17):
definitely kind of put a strain onme at the beginning. But now after
having a year under my belt andfinally finally getting my stride in, I
feel like I'm more confident and morecomfortable running the organization as a whole and
with the team that I have now, I feel more confident than before.
So I'm really looking forward to thatto my second term right now. Yeah,

(02:39):
and you have built a very capableboard to support you, so yeah,
and that's always great to have that, you know, backup within the
club, right So absolutely, yeah, it's awesome. We are happy that
things are going well. Obviously,myself and Jacob have both been on the
board. Jacobs still on the board, I guess, yeah, I am

(03:01):
slightly too old to be on theboard anymore, but I very much appreciate
what you've been doing for the club. The club means a lot to me
and a lot to a lot ofpeople who came before, So you know,
absolutely yeah, And I'm happy thatyou're still involved in the podcast and
it saves me. It saves methe headache to come by every time and

(03:23):
do it. I appreciate it.Yeah. So as as a board member
or a current board member, Iknow, the last the last year for
ADD two, we went through alot of changes and we had a lot
of things going on. Are thereany memorable moments or challenges that you face
as in your term in your firstterm as presidency, there are multiple facets

(03:46):
that cost challenges for me. Forexample, being instructed to attend these national
retreats a lot of the times.Whenever I had to do East type of
retreats to you know, earn USclub points and show representation, I they
would give us options to go tohotels and the would give us a special

(04:10):
raid and all, but we didn'thave the budget for that, and I
had to I would basically get themost discounted flight path that I could find
to get to the location, andthen from there I would and then from
there I would get an I wouldget in an airbnb at a very sketchy
place, and then I would asksomebody that's attending the event to please pick

(04:30):
me up and take me to thething that Those were probably my most memorable
moments. I think it was whenwe went to when I went to Tampa,
as was in this year when itwas for the America America. Yeah,
and Saint Louis. That one wasfunny. It was actually it was
when I got there. It wasmuch better than what it was when I

(04:51):
got to Tampa, mainly because ofthe area that I was in. I
got a really nice Airbnb. Actuallyfunny story. When I got to Saint
Louis, it was twelve am,it was really late in the evening.
The host was asleep. I gotto I got to my Airbnb. It
was it was on the second floor, or in the second the first floor

(05:13):
of the apartment. So I wentup the stairs. I tried opening my
door and there was somebody in myroom that was me, and then that
is not what you want. No, I don't want that at all.
It was just like it was oneof those weird moments where you just open
the door and you have this awkwardeye contact with the person that they're and
then I just backed out. Iopened it again, I then backed out

(05:34):
again. I went down the stairs, tried messaging the host what yeah,
yeah, but I didn't have hisnumber, so I was just kind of
left at the living room. Itwas like about thirty minutes and I'm just
I was thinking to myself, Oh, I guess I'm most likely going to
have to sleep in the living room. So then I was getting my suit
out from my bag because I didn'twant it to get it wrinkley. But

(05:54):
eventually the guy came in the roomthat the person that was in my room
had he booked like a master sizedbedroom, but he took my small,
small room instead because he just foundthe door open when he got there,
so I took his room. Itwas much bigger than mine. Yeah,
I have a free upgrade, soit was great and all I had more

(06:15):
privacy compared to the other guests aswell, which was nicer too. Yeah,
so you know, I had agood trade off, and it was
close to the venue. Really fun, really convenient. I think that that
was probably my most silliest story Ihad as a president this time this past
Yeah, somebody in my room takingit and just trying to figure out what

(06:39):
am I supposed to do. Butgood things happened, I suppose. And
at the same time I got tomeet a lot of great people at America,
especially I finally got to see thenational stage for the American Advertising Awards
and see the winners that come tothose. It's different compared to what I
see here in the local chapters.The ads are safer, they're more business

(07:02):
centric, they really tie into youknow, they feel more professional in a
sense of like, oh, we'renot taking any risks and things like that.
But national entries typically go to avery extreme sense of what's funny,
what could be edgy, things likethat. It's that was the trend that

(07:26):
we were I was seeing with ProfessorKelly at the time when we were commenting
about it. That's probably one ofthe most interesting highlights I've had this year.
It's good. It's interesting to hearthat the AAF the big advertationment awards,
the national the ones I make it, they are the more daring,
right, like, the more outthere, out there entries. Yeah,

(07:47):
yeah, yeah, because they youknow it, you know, like my
damn famously said for Favors the Ballin a very stupid, cripp about commercial.
Yeah, it's so dumb, exactly. You didn't see a lot of
that, you know what was reallyfunny to see. I saw a mint

(08:09):
mobile ad on there Reynolds. Yeah, I do love those as. Yeah,
it was really interesting. The adthat actually won an Addie that I
believe he submitted that they submitted wasone where it was a partnership with Arizona
t Oh. Interesting, it wasa it was a weird one. I
don't know. I didn't get thefull premise because they didn't display it on

(08:31):
the screens, but I saw iton the gallery exhibition that they had of
all the entries that one. Yeah, it was it was really cool.
That sounds interesting. Yeah, Imean s two things. I love Arizona
T and Ryan Reynolds. So Ilooked that up later for sure. Yeah.
So you know, you talked alittle bit about how you have h

(08:54):
kind of learned the role so thatyou went being a president, right,
So how has you rolled the ballsince you've joined us last in this podcast,
Like you're all within the organization.Organization wise, taking on this leadership
position straight out of college was definitelyan interesting path to take, Yeah,

(09:16):
because at the same time, Iwas trying to understand where I fit into
the overall vision or better yet,trying to understand my vision for this organization
to be where it's just similar towhat I had back when I was in
college with a few of ages,to be a community where a lot of

(09:37):
individuals with different passions can come togetherto collaborate, and to an extent,
that's where a lot of the eventsthat I've been coordinating and figuring out as
we go moving forward. So ina sense, there's a really fun there
are some fun twists and turns thathappened with planning events here, especially with
AT two, trying to figure outhow we can align our schedule with AF

(10:01):
with AF Houston, and just tryingto know how we can support each other
as a whole in terms of crosspromoting, hyping up an event itself so
that we can have more attendees toalso lead to bigger growth for our respective
memberships. We had our membership driveand that one was very successful for us.

(10:22):
In particular, we had a totalincrease of membership by thirteen new members,
people that never joined before, soit was really it was really nice
to see that the community's growing anda lot of the things that we've been
doing has been catching people's attention.It's kind of giving more of an opportunity
for us to incentivize and to takemore risks in some of the things that

(10:48):
we're doing, and I feel likeit'll definitely help us out in the long
run with other plans that we havein the near future. And even with
my current role and my current job, I've been a lot of opportunities to
take time off to help support thiscommunity and to even take on certain responsibilities
as well, like contacting people,securing sponsors, getting in contact with universities

(11:13):
to ensure students are being notified aboutthese events and things like that. And
yeah, it's been a really funride in terms of just learning how to
grow this organization from the ground upagain, and that's generally it. It's
good to hear. Yeah, there'salways been a necessity between AAF and AT

(11:35):
two to work together. Oh yeah, right, to build that. It's
not just building the membership, ofcourse, that's great, but it's also
building up the members right, that'sthe point of this to help them grow
kind of find their way through,especially if we're AT two. Yeah,
find their way through the industries andsee where they belong, right, especially

(11:56):
with circumstances that we thickly tend toface. Are just ensuring that people are
getting notified on potential recruitment opportunities.But at the same time, it's been
a challenge to figure out who's whowas an actual member of at TO Houston
versus somebody that just kept attending andnot paying for things. And lately,

(12:18):
because of the membership drive, I'vebeen able to finally get a database that's
very accurate to this year. Imessaged all the new members welcoming them in
to the organization and just basically startingthat direct line of communication just so that
we have more coverage and hopefully withtime, will have a system in place

(12:41):
for us to have like a buddymentors mentor system where we can just catch
up with some people or hold someof our team members accountable for just ensuring
that members don't just fall off inthe face of the earth and things like
that, Right, Alex, Iknow we have some exciting things planned for

(13:03):
this year. I know we havesome real cool events coming up, and
I know, or at least I'mpretty sure we have some ads for those
future events on this episode. Butcan you talk about what ad Too has
been involved with recently and what eventswe've we've done in the in you know,
this past year. So, ourfirst big event, which was probably

(13:24):
my biggest milestone was Boil Your AdsOff. Boil Your Ads Off was basically
our bowling tournament. So in thepast with previous chairs, this was a
typical event that happened with that toHouston, and it was a fundraising tournament.
So this last year or the pastyear, when it was basically me

(13:50):
and the programs, the previous programschairs responsibility was to ensure that the event
was smoothly went smoothly, and wehad all the materials we needed to promote
it. And this is where thefirst hiccup technically happened was we both didn't
know what we were doing and tryingto figure out what was the best venue
because there were so many options andso many different prices, as well as

(14:13):
how we were going to promote it. Also trying to find artists for another
component that we have, which wasa silent auction where we had we would
basically buy bowling pins and we wouldhand it out. We would ask local
artists or designers to customize it tobe put on the silent auction and it

(14:33):
was really really great. I lovedhow a lot of these pieces from last
year turned out. We still needto post them on social and call out
the artists that did them. AndI didn't forget we are going to get
to it for our upcoming programs justas a callback because of restrictions and timing
and everything. It definitely helped meback in particular. Yeah, and then

(14:58):
afterwards, after learning from our issuesfrom Bail Your ads Off, we then
went straight into Beers with Peers andand this Beers with peers is typically a
social event where it's like a networking, drinking social that's that was originally designed
or concepted by Dwight who Dwight Doutfit. From there, we also had this

(15:24):
other component called Triviad. Now inthat particular instance, we wanted to combine
the two and this wasn't a directsupport between at TO Houston and af I
was in communication with Dylan at thetime, and everybody in the board wanted
to help us out in organizing anotherevent because we still needed that experience for

(15:46):
this coming year, and they werenice enough to basically pay for a lot
of the expenses that came with thevenue, while as we were more responsible
for the promotions, the prizes,the sponsors and all these fun things.
And it really got us to apoint where we're getting more comfortable and doing

(16:07):
these things on our own, whichis really important, especially if we're trying
to grow a community here in thecity. Comparing ourselves to like Austin and
Dallas, they have a lot ofthese social events and the social components where
people can come in and hang out. Especially even here organizations like AMA or
AIGA, they really encouraged the generalpublic to attend and that's what we want

(16:29):
to try and do, is tobe that hub. Because we're the advertising
club. Advertising covers practically everything andmore as much as what marketing and design
is. I feel like were supposedto be that bridge between the two,
not people going into these random clubswithout meeting people that's within the same industry.

(16:51):
That's kind of where a lot ofthe crossover happened and me just attending
to their respective events, trying tounderstand and make new friends. Inviting them
to our events really make a bigdifference, especially in attendance, and it
shows like that there are there isa general there's a general gap and how

(17:12):
can we fix it? It's kindof getting it's trying to get me into
that type of situation is just howdo we solve this? And so far
this year we're trying to put ourselvesin put ourselves in a better position to
build that community. Yea, Soit's really exciting so far. Yeah,
we do have, you know,obviously some events coming up, like another

(17:36):
pieceful years if I remember correctly,we have a Pickaball tournament coming up to
which we'll be talking a little bitmore about later. So you know,
I know you guys have a lotof great ideas. Yeah, and especially
we also are going to be bringingback a cookoff. Yeah, that's right.
I wasn't sure that was happening.That is happening, but more to
come on that later. Right now, it's just a matter of first,

(17:57):
how well does the pickaball tournament,yeah, perform And then we were in
conversations with bringing back also the bowlingtournament to however, that would be great,
it would be fun, It wouldbe fun. It's just a matter
of how well do we perform thisyear and how do we not burn out
burn each other out? Because thatwas another big goal for me this year
with the new board, is howdo we not burn each burn ourselves out

(18:19):
with all the work that we haveto do right, And I think that's
like the biggest thing about my teamin particular. I want to make sure
that everybody's taken care of. Nothing'sbeing over is, nothing is being overburdened.
So a lot of the times Ifind myself picking up some of that
slack so that things still move andprogress. But that's more in terms of

(18:41):
just events and creative Yeah, andTo and To definitely had like a like
a lot of transitionary periods this lastyear. Yeah, a lot of evolution
happening. Absolutely. I'm excited aboutthis kookoff thing, yeah, because that's
time we had like the tackle kukoff. It was delicious. Yeah, we're
trying, we're we have a goodteam, especially AF wants this to happen

(19:02):
as well, so we're in directcommunication with their team and they want to
help us out make this happen.So it's going to definitely be an event
that's happening after January. Yeah,that makes it most likely in the sea
around the spring. Yeah, whenit's a good time to have a cookoff.
Yeah, before it gets too hot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
so thank you for sharing some ofthat. We are very excited. We

(19:22):
always try to push all the eventscoming out because I mean we're going to
go anyways, but you know,we want people to come out and check
them out, right if they're inHouston obviously. If you're not in Houston,
a flyer here, check it out. Yeah. Get in a train
or a bus or a plane.Yeah. Car yeah, well car bus
drives are pretty reasonable now when youlook at pricing, really driven advising a

(19:48):
lot of time. But the train, I do like a train if they
have a train passenger train. Yeah. I was on the East coast though,
so and they have the amtract there. Fantastic. I know I've seen
thirty Bucks. I've seen at leastone passenger train. Like, let's go
through Houston, So I don't knowif it's no excuse and I'll be So

(20:15):
let's stap a little bit into theworld of advertising, because that's what we
do after all, right, we'rean advertising club. Right, So in
the past few months, have therebeen any ads that you've seen that kind
of cut your eye and you know, made you think about yes, absolutely,
you know it. There was onein particular where it caught my attention

(20:37):
on social mainly because of how connectedwith me personally as well. Google has
been doing this segment called or thiscampaign called Best Phones Forever, where it's
a really fun commentary where iPhone andthe Google Pixel phone are together and they're
just basically, you know how Googlehas their Ai voice and then Apple has

(21:03):
Siri, so the phones basically talkto each other using those voices and very
interesting scenarios and it was made byI believe, Google Labs. And what's
really cool about this campaign in particularis that it's all about promoting and selling
the idea of the Pixel. Sothey're not burning, they're not, you

(21:23):
know, making fun of iPhone fornot having this feature in that feature,
but they're putting it in a veryfun, casual scenario. And I have
some of them right here that wecan pull up. So this was one
of them. Sure, yeah,we're just day. What do you say
we shoot some videos? iPhone?Oh no, iPhone, don't you die

(21:45):
on? Oh I been here,Come on, power, you can do
it. There we go. Youokay? I thought I thought I just
lost you. Why are you lyingon top of me? I'm using my

(22:06):
battery to charge your battery? Itwas empty? Oh sorry, I was
binging that Joe about the friendly soccercoach. Thank you for chusing me up.
I didn't even know that was possible. Pretty cool, right, It's
more than cool. I mean,if you weren't here, I might have
I might have never, but Iwas here. I didn't realize that people

(22:37):
Pixel had battery sharing. That.I didn't realize that they have a battery
sharing. That's that's an impressive feature. Is the voice of Sirie Gladows?
Yeah it sounds like it, butI don't think it's no, but I
know exactly. Yeah. Yeah,I played Portland. It sounds like I
had to turn it off. Andwhat's really cool about these ads in particular

(23:00):
is that they really center around thethings that you wouldn't really figure out about
the pixel, Yeah, put itin a very fun, playful perspective where
they're just best friends. Yeah,and that's what I love about it.
It's a camp. The campaign iscalled hashtags Best Phones Forever, yeah,
which I love the title. Yeah. It's just really smart. Yeah.
Yeah, I will say it's alsovery unifying. Sorry, it's also very

(23:23):
unifying considering like I don't know Androidand iPhone users. Yeah, they're like
still yeah, I think finally Androidusers. But the pixel is not an
inroid yeah Android. Yeah, it'slike a proprietary software and all that.
It reminds me slightly of those commercialswith justin long for back in like the

(23:47):
mid two thousands. I'm a MacimiPC and it's like, yeah, there's
nothing wrong with you PC, butlook at me, I'm a Mac and
yeah, exactly. I feel likeit's a really cool around. Yeah.
There's this other one that I like, Well that's more cultural. Let me
see if I can pull it uphere. Thank whatever happened to just In
long Man, he still does stuff. He's not an all the time.

(24:07):
We're gonna have to cut this out. Oh soccer, you know pixel.
This tournament has taught me that,no matter our differences, there are some
things that unite us all. Wow, that's deep. So even though you've
got Live Translate and can automatically translatemessages in over twenty languages, I'm fluent

(24:32):
in the one language the whole worldunderstands. What's that iPhone soccer? Ah
football, soccer soccer footh but soccerfootball soccer football for timbo soccer, gotcha.

(25:00):
I feel like you're not understanding me. Oh, they're translating in real
time. That's kind of cool.Yeah, Like, for example, if
you were to speak to me inSpanish or better yet, I have Google
here, So if I just say, hey, Google translate English to Spanish
and then just talk to it,yeah, sure, I'll be your interpreter.

(25:21):
Hear this sound It really means I'mlistening. Let's get started. Hi,
I'm trying to figure out where thenearest bathroom is in Spain in Spain
style. That's really interesting. That'sreally cool. Cool. I mean you

(25:41):
know me, I don't go anywherewhere people don't speak Spanish or English.
No, I I mean typically likeif you went to Japan. Yeah,
let me talk to my phone.It's funny. It's also kind of quirky,
but at the same time, atleast how they presented it in this
advertisement, Yes, with Google orby Google Labs, it was really cool.

(26:02):
I was doing some general overview oflike the campaign itself, and it
looks like what they used as wellas like in typical campaigns, whenever they
do it, there's like a lotof integration that comes to it. For
example, like let's say, Idon't know, like Sharknado. Yeah,
that was I guess that's kind ofrelevant because a movie came out about it

(26:25):
a while ago. But what happenedwas there was a member of my previous
org who came back to do atalk and he was talking about his experience
where they launched a campaign for Sharknado. And when he was at this agency,
he was more in charge of thesocial media social media aspects, so
like when Ember people was doing ortweeting online, they were responsible for responding

(26:48):
back. And what Google Labs didfor this campaign in terms of those communications.
This was like a series I thinkthat was just mainly posted on YouTube.
Yeah, and they had an AIor some artificial intelligence that was running
through all those comments and responding backin the tone of the campaign something something
that, yeah, that was responding. But they had like a sample written

(27:11):
by the actual copywriters so that itcould reference the tone the words and make
it more natural, which I thoughtwas really really interesting. And I guess
like those scenarios that they put themthrough. There's one about Wi Fi.
There's one where they're looking at theat the stars where Google pixel is looking
up into the stars and iPhone too, and they're just saying Google is just

(27:33):
talking about oh do you see thatstory? It looks so amazing, and
iPhone's just like what, I don'tsee it? And then came, yeah,
the camera is just not as goodapparently, and apparently we'll have to
be very very careful. We're treadingon light waters. But and what was
really funny about the ad was Googlesaid, hey, I'm going to take

(27:56):
these pictures and I can send itto you, and then iPhone sponse back
saying no need, I can takea picture, and then just you see,
like this awkward flash. Yeah,I will say, well maybe because
have the cheap bush but my iPhonecamera's not great. Yeah, we'll just
I don't take pictures. I thinkit's a very interesting campaign. I like

(28:18):
the fact that you get a littlecultural right when's talking about football soccer.
Yeah, but I didn't realize thatit had that like that translation thing right
away. That is impressive. Idon't know if there's an app on the
iPhone that that's that. I'm sure, but it's like maybe, but yeah,
I think with the iPhone in particular, the SI has some probably for

(28:40):
that. Yeah, it's just Iguess it's just not as promoted as well.
But yeah, which just again Iwouldn't have known about that either.
I'm sure a lot of people whohave pixels wouldn't know until they like they
see this, like that's great.Yeah, especially like for example, if
you just light your phone there onthe table. Yeah, you just drop
my phone and just charge it too, that's pretty funny. Yeah, and

(29:02):
I know there's there's I he hasa lot of features that we just don't
know about. Oh yeah, sothat's that's really cool. I really like
that. Yeah, absolutely, Alex. Are there any emerging trends or creative
approaches and advertising that you've been keepingan eye on before. He answer this,
actually speaking of ads and stuff,I do. I mean, obviously
I work in radio and stuff,so I hear a lot of like quirky

(29:23):
radio ads. And one of myfavorite ads that I like to hear is,
I mean, we all know MattressMac, right, local celebrities.
He's doing this thing where he's tryingto sell like ten thousand mattresses. So
he's got this radio commercial where he'slike, Mattress Mac and I'm until I
sell ten thousand mattresses, I'm sleepingin the tower of my my. Yeah,

(29:45):
is he doing that? I don'tthink. I think that was an
old ad that he didn't It wasfrom back in June. It was from
back in June. It started inJune. But I supposedly like he's still
trying to sell the mattresses because we'restill we're still playing them. But like,
I love it so much. Thetheater of the mind is just like,
this is great. This is agreat ad. I love that.
That's funny. Yeah, And Iguess that kind of ties into the whole

(30:08):
idea with like the trends and advertisingis not a lot of people, at
least when I went to AD Americaas well, a lot of people the
ads that win the big awards arethe ones that you know, make you
stop and think about them. AndI feel like that's still a big trend
to this day. Nobody's gonna,you know, with attention, with there

(30:29):
being an attention deficit and that attentionspan shrinking and shrinking. It really kind
of leads into the idea of,oh, how am I gonna catch these
people's attentions to build that thing?And there's also like this idea of having
a soul and making it personal andall these really cultural influential pieces or components

(30:51):
that are incorporated to it. Itkind of like brings me back to a
time when I did the national StudentAdvertising Competition with Ben Sac an ad that
I made in particular, we werereally close to winning. I think in
the last episode that we had withTexas with Cooper and Texas State, there
was a conversation that we had about, you know how my team and their

(31:11):
team back in twenty twenty two ortwenty twenty one, we were really close.
We were like points something points away. What happened with that ad in
particular, when it was in acompetition setting where we were I guess competing
for a bid two percent in frontof a lot of people in the national

(31:33):
stage, was I guess the soul, which was a really weird concept to
grasp. Yeah, just like inthe competition, it's just like there's nothing
that really ties or emotionally, there'snothing that a user can emotionally invest themselves
into without seeing it directly. Andmy case, when I was directing this

(31:56):
particular piece, there was just alot of fact sits to the use case
of the meta quest that really puta lot of difficulties for us to one
edit it and compose it, compositeit into a shot that felt more natural
into a series, which we endedup doing and we were really close.
Actually that ad that I did thatI showed you guys actually won a ADDY

(32:19):
as well, or it won anADDY and it made it up to it
won a district level addie. Ithink I that was actually my first district
ADDY that I won, which wasreally cool. Yeah, it was really
cool. Congratulations on that. Thankyou absolutely. Out of all the other
addies, I think I've won likethirteen and then I let's not start writing,
right, We should have won one. It's still going to get into

(32:40):
that. Let it, let itstaying in there for a big Yeah.
I feel like, you know,we're winners. Of course you're my winners.
You guys. You guys been managingthis for a while, so I
can't really thank you guys enough fordoing this. Yeah, it's you know,
as far as trends, listen,I'm not gonna lie to you.
Guys a lot of money for alot of streaming services that don't offer ads,

(33:01):
so they won't be ads. SoI don't get a lot of ads
myself right when I'm on YouTube andit's always very random. I don't know,
but what I do like, andthis is not really a trend,
but I like very targeted advertising lately, especially on Instagram. Oh what about
Interest? Have you been going on? I have no used Painterest. Actually
I have Pinterest. I have abunch of outfits on Pinterest that I save,

(33:25):
but I usually Instagram. I'm justscrolling out and I'll get like an
ad and it's like, don't takeout this shirt and I'm like, oh,
I want that shirt? Yeah,because what's really helping my case?
It's really crazy, it's very natural, like you said like natural ads that
are specifically targeted. Yeah, thosethe ones on Pinterests are very very unique.
They their stuff. Whenever you scroll, you think it's like an actual

(33:47):
pin that you can click on andyou can look into it, but it's
an actual ad and when you clickon it, it takes you to the
website and you're just but it's reallyclever. It's very well hidden or it
feels very seamless, which I feellike that's like a very that's I think
a really cool trend that for advertisedadvertising professionals like ourselves or marketing professionals in

(34:08):
general. It's just how to makethat targeted ad experience seamless to the customer
journey because at the same time,you don't want people to lash out at
you on social for god knows what. You want it to be integrated to
their to their search. And Ifeel like it just being a whether it's

(34:29):
like a picture of a shirt thatthey just think, oh, this must
be part of my Instagram, likeone of the stories or something because of
what I've been watching whatever exactly.But then there's the whole case with privacies.
Well, but you know at thesame time that information is basically provided
by Facebook. You go through theirad services where you pay and you set

(34:51):
the parameters for all these facets andit just kind of makes it. It
makes it work in their algorithm.As a marketer, I can't get too
upset about privacy because I mean,it's part of the industry and it's how
we do it. It's how wedo our job. It's how we get
people what they need. Right,and even with like the political side of
a you know, we have representativesin Congress that actually helped protect yeah,

(35:15):
the lobbyists that helped protect those rights, and there was a recent law that
they helped prevent as well that atleast secures the pipeline, or I believe
it was something related to how wethe process in terms of securing ads and
getting certain informations, like the peoplewere lobbying about making it more difficult for

(35:36):
us, changing the way that wewere working, and really it's just making
it less business friendly in general.But anyway, that's at least more than
I can say because I'm not wellequipped to talk about it as much.
But this is just part of theconversation in general. But it's also part
of what af does right and whatpart of what your your membership pays for

(35:57):
it is that lobbying aspect that protectsthe advertising industry. Yeah, I think
it's like a matter of Yeah,it really does count in the sense with
me, I'm trying to build acommunity here in Houston in the likes of
Austin and Dallas, where it's theyhave memberships over a thousand people while we
only have like thirty something people,And so it's a matter of just one,

(36:17):
how do we build that community sothat it's equally represented across the district.
And then from there also just havingthat pipeline for people to support and
have that to show their support andto also evenly represent and call out the
top performing people here in the city. Yeah, because I feel like that's

(36:38):
what we're missing. It's just likewe don't know who's the hot talent this
city has to offer. We're reallykind of limited to agencies showing their strut
with the pieces that they made,but not calling out the top players versus
just like employee of the Week onLinkedIn high Connections, I'm here to tell
you about my current employer and howhappy I am. It's not fun get

(37:01):
a call out from a better froma better source. I feel like that's
probably the best thing to do.Yeah. Yeah, it's completely unrelated,
but I once one employed the monththree months in a row, an American
ego, completely unrelated. Just wantedto brag a little bit. Yea,
I do believe that's what the questionswe have, right, I believe.

(37:21):
So yeah, No, Alex,this was great, very much enjoy watching
these ads. SI. Obviously theuh go Google Pixels one forever. I
mean even the name is so clever, like it's so cute. But first
you'll have to unlock your device,turn that off. Turn This is why

(37:43):
I don't have anything that listens tome in my house, not a single
Alexa around me. Uh. Butno, this was a lot of fun.
I mean, we really got toconnect. We really got to hear
from you after a few years obviously, I mean we see each other often,
but you know, by having youon the on the podcast was great
to kind of score over. Youknow what I too is going through to

(38:05):
Houston very specifically, uh and Iknow that you know, it's a lot
of great things coming up, SoI'm very happy. I'm very excited to
see what you guys are coming upwith. Uh, Like I said,
I'm too old now to be nottoo that's okay. I mean you're so
involved with a Yeah, I'm stillpart of the yeah. Yeah, you're
a part of the You're a partof the inner circle at the web that
ties this whole community. So itreally just yeah, it's a part of

(38:30):
that segment. Just makes me sadto not be good to cool young people
anymore. But what do you mean, don't worry. You'll be a part
of the hype committee work committee.That's that's an energy that we have right
now. Hype commedyy. We needa hype commit guys. But yeah,
but anyways, thank you so muchfor It's a lot of fun, and
you know, we'll, like Isaid, we'll be having some ads running

(38:52):
for some of the upcoming events.But I'm really looking forward to this,
to this year and what you guyshave having a store, yeah store.
Obviously, I'm very excited about thiscook up because last year or last time,
I didn't cooked, but I ain'twell and i'd probably do another again
this year. Helpful, helpful,We'll see how it goes well. Thank

(39:13):
you so much for having Yeah,thank you, thank you for joining us
today. The add to Houston,a medio's podcast is produced at Radio Lounge.
Add to Houston is a collaborative collectiveof young communications professionals. Heage thirty
two one under. We are lookingto make a difference in the industry.
If you would like to becoming atmigo, join us at the Number two

(39:34):
Houston dot com. You can alsofollow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
at add the number two Houston.Thank you for listening.