June 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Creative teams have the most impact when they’re trusted stewards of the brand—not just executors.
In this episode, Fi’s Chief Creative Officer Bryant Brennan joins Jason Harris to explore the Soul & Science of in-house creativity, product-first marketing, and building brands with staying power.
From launching Nook at Barnes & Noble to scaling Peloton’s creative team into an award-winning force, Bryant shares how to align teams, collaborate with agencies, and use design to drive results. He also shares how Fi brings those lessons to pet tech—blending emotion, data, and surprising uses of AI.
What’s Inside:
✅ Why internal teams need ownership to succeed
✅ What Peloton got right about scaling brand and performance
✅ How Fi turns utility into emotional connection
✅ The role of AI in creative concepting and brand voice
✅ The hallmarks of a truly collaborative agency partnership
Memorable Moments:
💡 “You’re building the brand in every execution, big or small.”
💡 “The best partners care as much about the product as you do.”
💡 “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.”
Brought to you by Mekanism.
In this episode, Fi’s Chief Creative Officer Bryant Brennan joins Jason Harris to explore the Soul & Science of in-house creativity, product-first marketing, and building brands with staying power.
From launching Nook at Barnes & Noble to scaling Peloton’s creative team into an award-winning force, Bryant shares how to align teams, collaborate with agencies, and use design to drive results. He also shares how Fi brings those lessons to pet tech—blending emotion, data, and surprising uses of AI.
What’s Inside:
✅ Why internal teams need ownership to succeed
✅ What Peloton got right about scaling brand and performance
✅ How Fi turns utility into emotional connection
✅ The role of AI in creative concepting and brand voice
✅ The hallmarks of a truly collaborative agency partnership
Memorable Moments:
💡 “You’re building the brand in every execution, big or small.”
💡 “The best partners care as much about the product as you do.”
💡 “It’s not that I have to. It’s that I get to.”
Brought to you by Mekanism.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I don't like to keep my partners at like too
much of an arms length, because then their ability to
care as much as I do is limited. You know,
you want them to like understand the product experience to
the point in which they're like.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wait, I have an idea to make it better.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The best teams you get to work with are also
the ones that care as much about the product as
you do.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
In today's world, how does a brand break through the
noise and become iconic? Join me Jason Harris as I
speak with the world's leading marketing experts about how they
use soule in science to build an iconic brand.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Think of it as EQ meeting IQ.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So let's lock in and together fast forward our marketing
minds on the Soul and Science podcast. Welcome to the podcast,
Brian Brennan, So today I want to talk to you
about the sole and science of in house creative innovation.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I know you have a lot of experience with.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Building tech focused brands from the ground up, from the
inside out. First time I got a glimpse of this
was when you were a head of global creative at
Peloton and Mechanism worked on I don't know dozens and
dozens of campaigns with you. Now you're the CEO at PHI,
and we'll talk about what PHI is and how you're
marketing it. But I'm excited to talk to you about
(01:21):
some of the nuances of in house creative teams versus
partnering with agencies, and how you specifically think about growing
the brands that you work on through creativity.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Welcome to the podcast, Brian, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Jason excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It's good, good to be reconnected my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, sir, yes, sir, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Tell me about your origin story, how you got into
marketing and the creative side of marketing. Is it something
you always wanted to do or that kind of fall
into your lap.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, first, you know, I live right outside New York,
but originally from just north of Boston. Big family, big
Irish Catholic family, six of us in the family, and
everyone is a little bit creatively inclined. And when I
was younger, my sister in law actually was an illustrator.
She was a creative director on her own, so I
(02:15):
used to help her do some of that work as
I kind of came up through high school and in college.
So actually pretty early in high school, I had said
that I wanted to be a creative director, not that
I knew what the hell that was, what that would entail,
you know, the idea of advertising versus something else. But
(02:36):
I kind of knew early ish roundabout ways that I
wanted to be in this field. And then I went
to school up there, I got my design degree. I
ended up coming down to New York for a girl
who ended up becoming my wife. Now we have kids
and you know, got my little dog. So I've always
(02:58):
been kind of like in this this this world. I
think what was unexpected is, you know, typically you come
up within a creative agency. You know, that could be advertising,
or maybe it's in you know, product design, the design world.
I spent the majority of my career, which I'm sure
we're going to jump into on the brand side and
(03:20):
particularly run startups and then jumping into larger corporations too,
but mostly on the brand side, building teams and you know,
figuring out design and creative within within the constraints of
a company.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
When you got out of school, did you think about,
I want to go you know, agency side.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Do you want to work in an advertising agency or
a design agency?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, you know, I jumped around a little bit like freelance,
contract draft mullin and you know, some stuff on my own,
just trying to pick up work.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You know, those first few years.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Of a creative's life are usually pretty for you know,
my wife's an art teacher and she made more money
than I did. For a long period of time, I
thought that I would be on the agency side, and
then I ended up at this startup called the index
Stock Imagery and they needed a designer to come in
(04:20):
and you know, do some of their product e commerce design,
they're branding. And what I realized really quickly is that Geez,
I loved like doing all the work, like throw me
into something I didn't know, and I'd love to tackle
the challenge of trying to figure it out for the company.
(04:41):
So I would just wore a lot of hats in
that role at a very young age, and you got
to see how the business was doing, Like you know,
every week you're looking at performance, and I was just
excited about the fact that by quarter a company would
be looking at their NU members and you'd have to
quickly pivot into something new for the next quarter to
(05:05):
make sure you're making revenue or you're you're trying to
figure something else that your consumers, your clients or consumers
or members are reacting to, and everyone internally needs to pivot.
You know. That could be the design side or creative side.
It could be on the production or engineering side too,
(05:26):
like all of a sudden, everyone is singing from the
same hymnal and you're pivoting into something else, and you
know there's a lot of like kind of teamwork in
that effort.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
And then from there you went to Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, yeah, so I jumped to a larger company, came
in again like art director, designer type. It was during
a period of time where Barnes and Noble was actually
pretty aggressive on their own innovation, you know, during digital
reading and they had their own Nook devices. They're revamping
(06:04):
all their e comm and their storefront, so a lot
of expansion toys and games like if you remember back then,
like Barnslobo was cool, Like you go to the stores,
which I'd love to go to the stores back then,
and you were just saturated with reading and education and
you know, I think at that period of time in
(06:24):
my career, it's just really fascinated again by being within
the walls of the company, now very different from a
startup because of larger corporation, But within like half of
my time there, we spun off into Nook, which was
all digital reading. So I got to work on that
brand from scratch. Cool. Yeah, all the creative side and
(06:49):
then the product. I think that's the moment I really
fell in love with launching products, and we've done I've
done some of it before, but I was never like
head of and Barnes and Noble. The leadership there gave
me the opportunity to kind of lead a lot of
the product launches on the creative and marketing side, and
(07:13):
I think I realized that it's like that's where you
when you love a product and you're working on that product,
you can bring the best out of it on that brand,
the brand, marketing side, and creativity side, but also just
like you're so in it that you understand all the
nuances to make it better. Plus you know when that's right.
(07:36):
When I had my son, my son Cooper, and reading
to him on a product that I in part.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Helped to make was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It was like incredible, and that sort of like got
you into the tech side of things, right because that
was really a tech product. Yeah yeah, and then from
Barnes and Noble, Where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So after Barnes and Noble, I went to Surprise, Surprise
another startup. This company was called SABA.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I had a system in my apartment you did, are
you do now?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I don't know in my last apartment I had.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It, So I don't know when you had it. But
we went from taking we rebranded that entire company. Yeah,
both on.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Like the the you know, the top level of.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Identity system, but also on all their interfaces. So just
making their interfaces look premium and cool and fresh and
you know, you know, an evolution from what is typical
in that space can be a little bit kind of
clunky I had. I was offered to make a studio
down in Soho. So I built a studio thirty percent
(08:44):
team down a printing Broadway covered kind of similar to like,
you know, the span of my career, I guess the
last sixty seven of my career, which is building teams
that cover off on like all the type points. So
it had a product design group, packaging group, brand expression,
(09:07):
and then like marketing, so like, how do we think
about all of our creative marketing campaigns.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And then you went to Peloton.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah. So at both Barnes and Noble and Savant, I
had known the leadership, like the William Lynch John Foley,
John folio worked for at Barnes and Noble's he's a
founder of Peloton. So when he spawn that up and
it really began to take flight and catch fire as
(09:36):
a product in a category, you know, I got the
phone call like, Hey, come over here, we're doing something special.
And John always says something that I have transferred to
my teams, which is, you know, you want to make
your masterpiece when you come into this company, and I
believe that's what he allowed me to do. It became
(09:58):
like a blank canvas when I came into Peloton. It was,
you know, taken what they had had as a as
a brand and really beginning to evolve it and express
it in all the different channels and ways in which
would make consumers in our members just really excited, just
really cohesive and type.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
When were you at Peloton when you knew it was
kind of exploding.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So I joined Peloton in twenty seventeen, right around the
same time that you and you had done the first
commercial for Hello let's go. Yeah, and they were already
on that kind of precipice. We're still like a little
bit less than one hundred thousand members, you know, and
(10:46):
that scaled all the way to seven million members. Brand
awareness was around twenty maybe thirty percent. I think it
was still in the twenties at that point. So we're
right at this kind.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Of turning point. I believe when I came in, that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Team was about three people with some contractors, and the
opportunity there was to scale the group. Yeah, build out
a team, make it a foundational element of the business,
you know, make sure the decisions that we make across
product and marketing, you know, the wedge in there is
(11:24):
design and creative, and build something that can be just
really cohesive and special.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And I feel like that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I mean a lot of that was partnering with with
you in the in the team MC unlike our above
the line work all of our biggest awareness projects. But
then it was all the way down, So it was performance,
it was life cycle, it was retail, it was experiential,
any one of those touch points. When I came into
(11:55):
Peloton had a lot of care for it, and I
believe that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
How big was the team like at its at its.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Peak, at its peak, we were one hundred and a
little plus minus one hundred and twenty five people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Wow, that's massive.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean that's as big as an agency by
a pretty big agency. But we covered essentially a lot
of different types of agencies. So we had packaging, design,
we had performance advertising, we had all life cycle, we
had we had all of our digital properties so web
(12:31):
and point of purchase digital platforms, and we also had retail,
So like, how do we build out our retail spaces?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, so really cut across a lot of different types,
which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
And then tell me about your current role.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So the current role is at a company called five.
I'm the CEO of the company. I oversee three functional groups.
Bear with me. They're not as big as what I
just told you about a Telton, but there it's product design,
it's brand creative, and then what I call just like
brand at large. So how do we think about the consumer?
(13:09):
What's our our uh brand positioning? Who was who's our customers? Stuff?
Stuff like that. So here here's the question, Jason, do.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You have Apple watch or whoop?
Speaker 5 (13:21):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Maybe an order ring? Any one of those all right,
so you got.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
The boom we did. We did a brand campaign for wop.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh you did?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, you got have to tell me about that because
my A c D in the team is from woop Ursula.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I'm hardcore addicted to woop all.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, So you want to know everything about your body? Yes,
So what I offers is similar type of technology, but
it's for your dog. So for our dogs, like the
immortal question is understanding that we never really know what's up?
You know?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
They are they secretly?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
All right? They happy? They said? Are they safe? And
five started in twenty seventeen. Jonathan ben Simone is the
founder and with the idea of I want to keep
my dog safe. So it was was built under the
single point feature around tracking, right, so I want to
know where my dog is. If my dog were run away,
(14:21):
I can easily be able to find him or her.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
So it's an air tag and a collar is how
it sort of started.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, so it's essentially like an air tag on steroids.
Lack of a better way to describe its GPS, its
Wi Fi, it's Bluetooth. Over time, they began to build
additional features, so things like steps, activities, sleep, interruptions, in
sleep to like rankings and all this other stuff, and
(14:50):
I came up or because the way I see the
future of dog parenting is the same way that we
are attaching ourselves to technology. The humanization of your dog
is happening in real time. And being able to understand
them and have a centralized experience and app that can
(15:11):
tell me everything about my dog is actually really amazing.
Like I get peace of mind with knowing where he is.
He goes out with the walker. Yeah it's a little
spine a little bit, but he goes out with the walker.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I know where he is.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You know, if something's up, he's not getting enough activity,
I know it. Like there's a little bit of like
parallels between FI and Peloton, you know, there's you're really
getting into the kind of fitness of your dog and
the activity around your dog, make sure they're healthy, while
you also have that peace of mind around their security.
What's actually been really interesting to me is that the membership,
(15:52):
our member base, they they come for the tracking, but
they stay for everything else. They justly love the community,
they love the brand, like they're super attached because we're
building a product that's actually doing good in the world,
you know, it's like you're on the side of angels
(16:12):
all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It's a it's a dog brand, it's dog content.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, And so it's it's sticky because you once you
you know, go beyond tracking and you want to know,
did they get enough exercise, what were their steps, did.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
They end up sleep? How healthy is my adult? Like
you kind of don't leave once you have that information
about your pet that you love. You're not going to
not want that information, right, Like you don't get a
lot of churn.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
No, our turn is yeah, our turn is very low, yeah,
and our NPS is very good.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
But you're right, it.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Becomes very sticky because all that information, all that data
is uniquely yours.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So you never want to lose it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And at our core or like we're delivering all these experiences,
but we're a data company, like the amount of data
that we store around your dog and personalize that back
to you so you understand your dog really well. And
then in addition to that, just like breed specifically French
bulldogs are very different than a lab for a golden
(17:20):
so getting recommendation smart recommendations around your particular breed, you know,
it's also like it just keeps you there. Then we
have like some things that are a little bit more
kind of shareable and gamification stuff. So if you go
to a dog park, you're getting alert that you're at
that particular dog park and all the other dogs that
are five dogs that go to that dog park, they
pop up.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Oh that's awesome. You can kind of meet people in
real life too. Tell me about the community. How do
you build community with this product?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's one way. The other way is shareables. So if
you've seen my like Instagram, you've seen me post about
being more than anything else. You could share your walks,
you could share like summaries, you know, like we have
Spotify has a year review, Peloton has a year in review.
We don't have it yet, but like we have the monthlies.
(18:09):
So these things that are like allow you to share
with others word of mouth, right, building word of mouth
around your dog. Everyone loves to talk about their dogs.
So the other aspect is we just have a community
within you know, it's like an Instagram a version of
Instagram or TikTok whatever, pick your social platform.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Within our own app.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And it's really interesting because it's all dog content. Everyone's happy,
people are pretending to be their dog and propos videos
of the hygiens of their dogs. There's there's no social
currency in our community. Like you know Instagram, everyone wants
(18:53):
a heart or something. Yeah, here, it's just people just
want to post because they love their dog so much
and they are happy to be around the dog, and
they just want to share, and yeah, it becomes really
cool that way.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
What's something that you learned about being through the product?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Uh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Everything. I mean, from his sleeping habits, which is on
you sleep eighteen hours a day, to like actually like
his interruptions, yeah, to his activitiy. So like you know,
French bulldogs aren't always the most fit, fit breed in
the world, but you know, being's kind of jacked. Like,
you know, I make sure he's up for his steps.
(19:37):
We go for our walks, like he helps. This product
helps keep me accountable, which is another interesting kind of
vector of what FI offers.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So it makes you a better owner because you're like,
I only walked him X amount of steps today.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
That's not enough.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh yeah yeah, And when he doesn't meet his step
goal every day, then I I feel guilty, Like if
I'm away for work, you know, I'm calling, you know,
like hey, Coop, at lasta can you get Yeah, he's
gonna miss his streak.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
He's on a forty five days streak. I can't I
can't miss you.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah. So there's that that.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Other thought of like accountability in there that I really love.
And I had that a peloton too, Like you know,
you have a community that's always inspiring you to kind
of keep going. You have instructors that you know you
just wanted to get on the bike and work out with,
and in here it's like I got you know, there
(20:38):
is oh you know, I got him that's helping to
keep me accountable for both him and me. Like it
gets me outside and walking and you know, going a
getting some air down at the dog park or walking
along the water or whatever it may be. But like, yeah,
it keeps you, keeps you motivated.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Do you feel like there's a lot of new features
and places that five can go.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, as a ton of room for like a centralized platform
that allows dog parents to have one place to go,
not trying to figure out all the bits and pieces
in different ways, but just one place that's going to
be able to translate and think about like you know,
with the advancements in AI, like you could have lllms
that are like having a conversation with you and your dog.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
At some point are you doing a lot with AI
or are you looking to add a lot to Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I mean AI within our company is pervasive, Like every
department uses it as a tool, a functional tool, Like
for us, I use it on the you know, I've
used it for everything from our brand strategy and how
do we think about our positioning that it's you know,
I can bounce ideas off of it to We made
(21:54):
GP custom GPTs for brand Ton of Voice, so like
you know, salespors can go in and say, I want
to say this about five and it's like you have
your own digital copywriter that's going to give you a
pitch and tell you things you can't say, things you
should not say, which which is cool. And then on
the image front, we we've pushed really hard on you know,
(22:17):
how do we manifest this brand to look as as
real and authentic as possible an imagery that has developed
through AI, So like think platforms like mid Journey, et cetera.
And we've you know, a year and a half ago
we were messing around with it, and you know, the
dogs didn't look real, but now we've been able to
(22:41):
push it.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And they had an extra par or something.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, they're like there's something in the eyes. You're like,
there's nothing in there. But what we use it for
is content, So we'll put out We do a lot
of photography and whatnot. We have a really strong bullpen
of photographers and videographers. But you need to ideas and
it's a quick way to kind of iterate, come up
with the concept, put it on paper, say okay, that's that.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
You know, you and I are very used.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
To like put it in a mood board and yeah,
a contact sheet, and the teams are pulling from everywhere
on the on the web. Here you're really dialing in
on what's the angle that I want. Yeah, you know,
and you can see it like it's not like, hey, I'm.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Pretty sure this is going to work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
You're you're almost one hundred percent positive that you can
develop a look and feel that's exactly how it's going
to be delivered. When you get to a photographer or
you're doing a capture with a director and a videographer.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And you've had an interesting career, i'd say it's you know,
focused on pretty innovative products, tech products, kind of circling
around community and then managing teams that are bringing those
those products and marketing to life. What do you think
you are particularly good at that makes you successful.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Maybe this goes back to my origin story, where have
you know, the six of us in the family, the
four brothers and a sister, and this always chaos grown up,
I am I am very good at making decisions in
the midst of chaos, like when things are happening. I
kind of enjoy like trying to figure out that problem,
(24:29):
and you know, the hard problems that typically might cause anxiety,
it's actually a little bit of the opposite for me.
Like being that steady hand that can navigate the problem
with the company, that can help steer a team into action,
and to be able to do it quickly, you know
(24:52):
at times at scale.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Has always been something that you know, I've enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I think it's a lot of the reasons why I've
been put into the these positions because people have been like, oh, yeah,
if I put Bryan there, He's going to solve the
problem and I'm not gonna have to worry about it
as much.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I don't know if you're at that stage with five,
But when do you determine when you have your internal
group do it.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And when you need an outside party to come in.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's a really good question. I think it first, it
starts with that group knowing what they're supposed to be
good at. Yeah, and then from there when you're adding
in partners, it's about unlocking new capabilities. So you know,
at Peloton, the beginning stages were I just want to
(25:42):
make sure that this group understands the brand, the design.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Of it, we're curating it.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
They can make things like toolkits that could be used
with partners, but they became like a source of truth
both in how we wrote and how we we thought
about Tipoger see how we thought about the brand at large,
like all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But the early days they could not do all the
things sure.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
That that are a really.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
High performing marketing group has to do to perform. So
I think it's fit for purpose first. Same thing at
THI we have a really small group in comparison to
my past, but that's okay, Like there's nothing wrong with
that because they know that they are core to the
to the brand. They know that they're they're in charge
(26:34):
of they're the sharers of design, positioning, art, direction, and creative.
They set, they set what that look and feel is
and then you add your partners. So at Peloton those
early days, we didn't have packaging, so we used a partner.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You and the mech team did we're here.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
To do all of our advertising right because we weren't
ready to do that. We couldn't do we didn't have
a skill set to do it. So my philosophy is, well,
you're augmenting your group and your bringing in partners that
are going to be part of your family. Right, So
you get someone that's company that can be really tight
(27:21):
to you and believe in the mission. They can live
the brand as much as you do. Then they become
like a natural extension. It becomes all like one organism,
so to speak. But that can every company is different.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Some companies with the in house team, there'll be an
agency that will pitch the idea against the in house
team and then you know, the CMO or someone will
pick what direction to go in. I don't know if
that's a very healthy setup.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
No, I don't like that at all to me. Again,
you come back to what's that core team within the
walls of company, what's the pose and then you're augmenting
around them, Like you should never have a pitch against
an in house team and an agency. To me, like
(28:11):
that fundamentally that's fundamentally flawed.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
It creates a no collaboration.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, it creates a dynamic where there's no trust.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right, And you need the thing you need most in
the world of marketing, brand building and creative.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Is trust within your teams.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
How do you balance the need for performance driven work
and demands on results and is the work performing and
more creative innovation or earned media or.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Getting people talking about the brand?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Who determines like your KPIs for a particular project, how
does that work.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Well?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Like every place I've been in now I feel like
is acquisition first. But I would say, like the biggest
thing to me is I don't care whether it's it's
performance or not. Like you are building the brand in
every single execution that you do, So it could be
the smallest thing that is you know, more UGC oriented
(29:18):
because because it works in performance, or content creator because
it works in performance. You should be influencing everything that
you put out into the world as a brand with
that brand aesthetic you believe in, so it should have
some version of a look and feel. It should never
be a race to the bottom on like creativity. We
(29:39):
should always be pushing. So to me, like you're you're
building brand all the time, Like it really doesn't matter.
With that said, there's always KPI. So like in the
world that I've lived in the most you're driving towards
CAC which is a cost to acquire customer. That's usually
(30:01):
your headliner, right or row ass if it's in performance,
so return on your advertising spend. But you need balance,
so like where you're getting brand awareness versus your more
performance matrix. So like I like to do them both simultaneously.
Like even at five, we're Series B, so we're smaller
(30:24):
in scale. In April, there was a National Lost Dog
Awareness Day, so we just kind of bootstrapped a fun
campaign throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, which is we called you know,
not lost Dog. So we put up these posters all
throughout the city. And that's that has nothing to do
with like selling callers and has everything to do with
(30:48):
brand building. Yeah, putting your personality out there, putting your
brand out there, so it's cool and fresh, it's something
interesting and unique, So I think you have to do
both at the same time. The majority of your of
your of your investment, typically my experience is within like
your acquisition marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
You've worked on a lot of brands and done a lot.
What's one or two things that you've put out into
the world that you're most proud of.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
H Let's see, I think the Pond and Noble days of.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Like launching Nook and like, you know, I love that
period of my my professional career, the days of Peloton,
Like I'm most proud of that team that we built,
Like they were special. They won awards for all different
types of things, and you know, I loved it on
(31:48):
the on the creative side, you know, launching multiple products.
You know, Peloton Row is one of the last ones.
It was kind of soup the nuts. The team did everything.
You're really proud of, Proud of that work that we
put out there, the stuff that you that honestly that
we did together.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You know, on the day to day.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
We launched like what three four different big ad campaigns
a year.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I seem like forever, NonStop work. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Great that the brand campaign. Everyone has their reasons that
beautiful campaign. One of the top performing campaigns in that
company's history. Number two, the first one still to this
day is hello, let's go. Is it really yeah? Just
performance wise, not scale like revenue, but just like pure
(32:38):
like performative results. And then like it's even if I
like this last little thing we did, Yeah, you love
building a muscle within a company and that all of
a sudden you unlocked like a new way of working
and it seems like simple and easy and small. But
then when you do it and they come be realized,
(33:00):
is like, oh wait, we can do that. Like that's
those things are kind of really special to be able
to do for a company.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Are there any.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Anything that you've learned on the in house out out
of house partnership that I don't know, maybe didn't go
well that you wouldn't repeat, or ways of working that
work really well that you always think about. You kind
of mentioned not making it competitive and making collaborative. That's
(33:29):
like one takeaway I got.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The best teams you get to work with are also
the ones that care as much about the product as
you do. Like, when I think about our relationship, the
first person that comes to mind is like a Katrina. Yeah,
Katrina was killer, right, she still is an amazing person,
but like she was in it. And when you have
those partners that live the product, in the brand as
(33:54):
much as you do, then you just get better work
because everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone is complementary to
one another. You speaking the same language, right, You're you're
developing a short shorthand on how you execute together. So
like bringing in people or an organization that really does
(34:19):
believe in what you're doing, and they're not just doing
it because they're winning a job, but rather they want
to be a part of it. I don't. I don't
like to keep my partner is at like too much
of an arms length because then their ability to care
as much as I do is limited, Right, So I'd
(34:40):
rather pull them in further, like you know, the number
of conversations you and I had, the number of conversations
I had with other partners, Like, you know, you want
them to like understand the product experience to the point
in which they're like, wait, I have an idea to
make it better and.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Breathing it with you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, Do you have a mantra or a quote that
you always think about or that you live by or
that you have tattooed on your shoulder.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Or your lower back. And as you know from Boston
and I heard this Joe Mizula, whos their coach, had
mentioned how you know, Tatum was getting a lot of criticism,
and one of the reporters is like, you know, Jason
(35:28):
has to and Mosula interrupted said no, he gets to. Yeah,
And immediately it struck me, Like everything, it just changes
your headset from a negative to a positive when you're like,
oh my god, I have to do this presentation. Like
I'd say this to anybody now, like if you have
to get in front of people and your thought processes,
(35:48):
I have to You're you're actually putting yourself at a disadvantage, right,
You're you're already like thinking of it as a negative
as opposed to the positive, which is I get to,
like I get to do.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That makes it something you want to do versus like
a burden.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We have the most joyous profession in the world for
all the pressure and the introverts that all of a
sudden became creatives in our agencies. We are makers. And
when you're makers, that is very different than a lot
of different professions in the world that go to a
job and they have to do a task, but they're
(36:27):
not creating all the time. We're creating, so like, to me,
there's just inherent joy in what we do.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I love it. It's it's a good shift because it's
really about opportunity versus obligation, and it reminds you how
lucky you are versus Oh, man, this meeting is going
to blow and it's going to suck, and I got
to make a hard decision. But it's like, oh, I
have opportunity here, and not a lot of people get
that opportunity, and it's it shouldn't be a burden.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That's exactly right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I love that. All right.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Well, thank you so much much for your time and
being on the podcast and sharing all your wisdom.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I love it, Love the podcast, get stuff and killing it.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
We're doing all right.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Thanks so much for listening to Soul and Science and
we'll see you next week. Sole and Science is a
mechanism podcast produced by Maggie Bowles, Brian Tillotson, and Louie Jablonski.
The show is edited by Daniel Ferrera with theme music
by Kyle Merritt and I'm your host Jason Harris a Mechanism,
(37:37):
we build iconic brands with soul and science.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
The soul is.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Culturally relevant brand building, and the science is the always
on marketing activities that drive the bottom line. Learn more
at mechanism dot com.
I don't like to keep my partners at like too
much of an arms length, because then their ability to
care as much as I do is limited. You know,
you want them to like understand the product experience to
the point in which they're like.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wait, I have an idea to make it better.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
The best teams you get to work with are also
the ones that care as much about the product as
you do.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
In today's world, how does a brand break through the
noise and become iconic? Join me Jason Harris as I
speak with the world's leading marketing experts about how they
use soule in science to build an iconic brand.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Think of it as EQ meeting IQ.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So let's lock in and together fast forward our marketing
minds on the Soul and Science podcast. Welcome to the podcast,
Brian Brennan, So today I want to talk to you
about the sole and science of in house creative innovation.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I know you have a lot of experience with.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Building tech focused brands from the ground up, from the
inside out. First time I got a glimpse of this
was when you were a head of global creative at
Peloton and Mechanism worked on I don't know dozens and
dozens of campaigns with you. Now you're the CEO at PHI,
and we'll talk about what PHI is and how you're
marketing it. But I'm excited to talk to you about
(01:21):
some of the nuances of in house creative teams versus
partnering with agencies, and how you specifically think about growing
the brands that you work on through creativity.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Welcome to the podcast, Brian, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Jason excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It's good, good to be reconnected my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, sir, yes, sir, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Tell me about your origin story, how you got into
marketing and the creative side of marketing. Is it something
you always wanted to do or that kind of fall
into your lap.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, first, you know, I live right outside New York,
but originally from just north of Boston. Big family, big
Irish Catholic family, six of us in the family, and
everyone is a little bit creatively inclined. And when I
was younger, my sister in law actually was an illustrator.
She was a creative director on her own, so I
(02:15):
used to help her do some of that work as
I kind of came up through high school and in college.
So actually pretty early in high school, I had said
that I wanted to be a creative director, not that
I knew what the hell that was, what that would entail,
you know, the idea of advertising versus something else. But
(02:36):
I kind of knew early ish roundabout ways that I
wanted to be in this field. And then I went
to school up there, I got my design degree. I
ended up coming down to New York for a girl
who ended up becoming my wife. Now we have kids
and you know, got my little dog. So I've always
(02:58):
been kind of like in this this this world. I
think what was unexpected is, you know, typically you come
up within a creative agency. You know, that could be advertising,
or maybe it's in you know, product design, the design world.
I spent the majority of my career, which I'm sure
we're going to jump into on the brand side and
(03:20):
particularly run startups and then jumping into larger corporations too,
but mostly on the brand side, building teams and you know,
figuring out design and creative within within the constraints of
a company.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
When you got out of school, did you think about,
I want to go you know, agency side.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Do you want to work in an advertising agency or
a design agency?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, you know, I jumped around a little bit like freelance,
contract draft mullin and you know, some stuff on my own,
just trying to pick up work.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You know, those first few years.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Of a creative's life are usually pretty for you know,
my wife's an art teacher and she made more money
than I did. For a long period of time, I
thought that I would be on the agency side, and
then I ended up at this startup called the index
Stock Imagery and they needed a designer to come in
(04:20):
and you know, do some of their product e commerce design,
they're branding. And what I realized really quickly is that Geez,
I loved like doing all the work, like throw me
into something I didn't know, and I'd love to tackle
the challenge of trying to figure it out for the company.
(04:41):
So I would just wore a lot of hats in
that role at a very young age, and you got
to see how the business was doing, Like you know,
every week you're looking at performance, and I was just
excited about the fact that by quarter a company would
be looking at their NU members and you'd have to
quickly pivot into something new for the next quarter to
(05:05):
make sure you're making revenue or you're you're trying to
figure something else that your consumers, your clients or consumers
or members are reacting to, and everyone internally needs to pivot.
You know. That could be the design side or creative side.
It could be on the production or engineering side too,
(05:26):
like all of a sudden, everyone is singing from the
same hymnal and you're pivoting into something else, and you
know there's a lot of like kind of teamwork in
that effort.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
And then from there you went to Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, yeah, so I jumped to a larger company, came
in again like art director, designer type. It was during
a period of time where Barnes and Noble was actually
pretty aggressive on their own innovation, you know, during digital
reading and they had their own Nook devices. They're revamping
(06:04):
all their e comm and their storefront, so a lot
of expansion toys and games like if you remember back then,
like Barnslobo was cool, Like you go to the stores,
which I'd love to go to the stores back then,
and you were just saturated with reading and education and
you know, I think at that period of time in
(06:24):
my career, it's just really fascinated again by being within
the walls of the company, now very different from a
startup because of larger corporation, But within like half of
my time there, we spun off into Nook, which was
all digital reading. So I got to work on that
brand from scratch. Cool. Yeah, all the creative side and
(06:49):
then the product. I think that's the moment I really
fell in love with launching products, and we've done I've
done some of it before, but I was never like
head of and Barnes and Noble. The leadership there gave
me the opportunity to kind of lead a lot of
the product launches on the creative and marketing side, and
(07:13):
I think I realized that it's like that's where you
when you love a product and you're working on that product,
you can bring the best out of it on that brand,
the brand, marketing side, and creativity side, but also just
like you're so in it that you understand all the
nuances to make it better. Plus you know when that's right.
(07:36):
When I had my son, my son Cooper, and reading
to him on a product that I in part.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Helped to make was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It was like incredible, and that sort of like got
you into the tech side of things, right because that
was really a tech product. Yeah yeah, and then from
Barnes and Noble, Where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So after Barnes and Noble, I went to Surprise, Surprise
another startup. This company was called SABA.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I had a system in my apartment you did, are
you do now?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
No?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I don't know in my last apartment I had.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It, So I don't know when you had it. But
we went from taking we rebranded that entire company. Yeah,
both on.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Like the the you know, the top level of.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Identity system, but also on all their interfaces. So just
making their interfaces look premium and cool and fresh and
you know, you know, an evolution from what is typical
in that space can be a little bit kind of
clunky I had. I was offered to make a studio
down in Soho. So I built a studio thirty percent
(08:44):
team down a printing Broadway covered kind of similar to like,
you know, the span of my career, I guess the
last sixty seven of my career, which is building teams
that cover off on like all the type points. So
it had a product design group, packaging group, brand expression,
(09:07):
and then like marketing, so like, how do we think
about all of our creative marketing campaigns.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And then you went to Peloton.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah. So at both Barnes and Noble and Savant, I
had known the leadership, like the William Lynch John Foley,
John folio worked for at Barnes and Noble's he's a
founder of Peloton. So when he spawn that up and
it really began to take flight and catch fire as
(09:36):
a product in a category, you know, I got the
phone call like, Hey, come over here, we're doing something special.
And John always says something that I have transferred to
my teams, which is, you know, you want to make
your masterpiece when you come into this company, and I
believe that's what he allowed me to do. It became
(09:58):
like a blank canvas when I came into Peloton. It was,
you know, taken what they had had as a as
a brand and really beginning to evolve it and express
it in all the different channels and ways in which
would make consumers in our members just really excited, just
really cohesive and type.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
When were you at Peloton when you knew it was
kind of exploding.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So I joined Peloton in twenty seventeen, right around the
same time that you and you had done the first
commercial for Hello let's go. Yeah, and they were already
on that kind of precipice. We're still like a little
bit less than one hundred thousand members, you know, and
(10:46):
that scaled all the way to seven million members. Brand
awareness was around twenty maybe thirty percent. I think it
was still in the twenties at that point. So we're
right at this kind.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Of turning point. I believe when I came in, that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Team was about three people with some contractors, and the
opportunity there was to scale the group. Yeah, build out
a team, make it a foundational element of the business,
you know, make sure the decisions that we make across
product and marketing, you know, the wedge in there is
(11:24):
design and creative, and build something that can be just
really cohesive and special.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
And I feel like that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I mean a lot of that was partnering with with
you in the in the team MC unlike our above
the line work all of our biggest awareness projects. But
then it was all the way down, So it was performance,
it was life cycle, it was retail, it was experiential,
any one of those touch points. When I came into
(11:55):
Peloton had a lot of care for it, and I
believe that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
How big was the team like at its at its.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Peak, at its peak, we were one hundred and a
little plus minus one hundred and twenty five people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Wow, that's massive.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean that's as big as an agency by
a pretty big agency. But we covered essentially a lot
of different types of agencies. So we had packaging, design,
we had performance advertising, we had all life cycle, we
had we had all of our digital properties so web
(12:31):
and point of purchase digital platforms, and we also had retail,
So like, how do we build out our retail spaces?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, so really cut across a lot of different types,
which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
And then tell me about your current role.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So the current role is at a company called five.
I'm the CEO of the company. I oversee three functional groups.
Bear with me. They're not as big as what I
just told you about a Telton, but there it's product design,
it's brand creative, and then what I call just like
brand at large. So how do we think about the consumer?
(13:09):
What's our our uh brand positioning? Who was who's our customers? Stuff?
Stuff like that. So here here's the question, Jason, do.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
You have Apple watch or whoop?
Speaker 5 (13:21):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Maybe an order ring? Any one of those all right,
so you got.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
The boom we did. We did a brand campaign for wop.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh you did?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, you got have to tell me about that because
my A c D in the team is from woop Ursula.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I'm hardcore addicted to woop all.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, So you want to know everything about your body? Yes,
So what I offers is similar type of technology, but
it's for your dog. So for our dogs, like the
immortal question is understanding that we never really know what's up?
You know?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
They are they secretly?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
All right? They happy? They said? Are they safe? And
five started in twenty seventeen. Jonathan ben Simone is the
founder and with the idea of I want to keep
my dog safe. So it was was built under the
single point feature around tracking, right, so I want to
know where my dog is. If my dog were run away,
(14:21):
I can easily be able to find him or her.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
So it's an air tag and a collar is how
it sort of started.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, so it's essentially like an air tag on steroids.
Lack of a better way to describe its GPS, its
Wi Fi, it's Bluetooth. Over time, they began to build
additional features, so things like steps, activities, sleep, interruptions, in
sleep to like rankings and all this other stuff, and
(14:50):
I came up or because the way I see the
future of dog parenting is the same way that we
are attaching ourselves to technology. The humanization of your dog
is happening in real time. And being able to understand
them and have a centralized experience and app that can
(15:11):
tell me everything about my dog is actually really amazing.
Like I get peace of mind with knowing where he is.
He goes out with the walker. Yeah it's a little
spine a little bit, but he goes out with the walker.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I know where he is.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You know, if something's up, he's not getting enough activity,
I know it. Like there's a little bit of like
parallels between FI and Peloton, you know, there's you're really
getting into the kind of fitness of your dog and
the activity around your dog, make sure they're healthy, while
you also have that peace of mind around their security.
What's actually been really interesting to me is that the membership,
(15:52):
our member base, they they come for the tracking, but
they stay for everything else. They justly love the community,
they love the brand, like they're super attached because we're
building a product that's actually doing good in the world,
you know, it's like you're on the side of angels
(16:12):
all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It's a it's a dog brand, it's dog content.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, And so it's it's sticky because you once you
you know, go beyond tracking and you want to know,
did they get enough exercise, what were their steps, did.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
They end up sleep? How healthy is my adult? Like
you kind of don't leave once you have that information
about your pet that you love. You're not going to
not want that information, right, Like you don't get a
lot of churn.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
No, our turn is yeah, our turn is very low, yeah,
and our NPS is very good.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
But you're right, it.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Becomes very sticky because all that information, all that data
is uniquely yours.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So you never want to lose it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And at our core or like we're delivering all these experiences,
but we're a data company, like the amount of data
that we store around your dog and personalize that back
to you so you understand your dog really well. And
then in addition to that, just like breed specifically French
bulldogs are very different than a lab for a golden
(17:20):
so getting recommendation smart recommendations around your particular breed, you know,
it's also like it just keeps you there. Then we
have like some things that are a little bit more
kind of shareable and gamification stuff. So if you go
to a dog park, you're getting alert that you're at
that particular dog park and all the other dogs that
are five dogs that go to that dog park, they
pop up.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Oh that's awesome. You can kind of meet people in
real life too. Tell me about the community. How do
you build community with this product?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's one way. The other way is shareables. So if
you've seen my like Instagram, you've seen me post about
being more than anything else. You could share your walks,
you could share like summaries, you know, like we have
Spotify has a year review, Peloton has a year in review.
We don't have it yet, but like we have the monthlies.
(18:09):
So these things that are like allow you to share
with others word of mouth, right, building word of mouth
around your dog. Everyone loves to talk about their dogs.
So the other aspect is we just have a community
within you know, it's like an Instagram a version of
Instagram or TikTok whatever, pick your social platform.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Within our own app.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And it's really interesting because it's all dog content. Everyone's happy,
people are pretending to be their dog and propos videos
of the hygiens of their dogs. There's there's no social
currency in our community. Like you know Instagram, everyone wants
(18:53):
a heart or something. Yeah, here, it's just people just
want to post because they love their dog so much
and they are happy to be around the dog, and
they just want to share, and yeah, it becomes really
cool that way.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
What's something that you learned about being through the product?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Uh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Everything. I mean, from his sleeping habits, which is on
you sleep eighteen hours a day, to like actually like
his interruptions, yeah, to his activitiy. So like you know,
French bulldogs aren't always the most fit, fit breed in
the world, but you know, being's kind of jacked. Like,
you know, I make sure he's up for his steps.
(19:37):
We go for our walks, like he helps. This product
helps keep me accountable, which is another interesting kind of
vector of what FI offers.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So it makes you a better owner because you're like,
I only walked him X amount of steps today.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
That's not enough.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh yeah yeah, And when he doesn't meet his step
goal every day, then I I feel guilty, Like if
I'm away for work, you know, I'm calling, you know,
like hey, Coop, at lasta can you get Yeah, he's
gonna miss his streak.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
He's on a forty five days streak. I can't I
can't miss you.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yeah. So there's that that.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Other thought of like accountability in there that I really love.
And I had that a peloton too, Like you know,
you have a community that's always inspiring you to kind
of keep going. You have instructors that you know you
just wanted to get on the bike and work out with,
and in here it's like I got you know, there
(20:38):
is oh you know, I got him that's helping to
keep me accountable for both him and me. Like it
gets me outside and walking and you know, going a
getting some air down at the dog park or walking
along the water or whatever it may be. But like, yeah,
it keeps you, keeps you motivated.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Do you feel like there's a lot of new features
and places that five can go.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, as a ton of room for like a centralized platform
that allows dog parents to have one place to go,
not trying to figure out all the bits and pieces
in different ways, but just one place that's going to
be able to translate and think about like you know,
with the advancements in AI, like you could have lllms
that are like having a conversation with you and your dog.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
At some point are you doing a lot with AI
or are you looking to add a lot to Yeah?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I mean AI within our company is pervasive, Like every
department uses it as a tool, a functional tool, Like
for us, I use it on the you know, I've
used it for everything from our brand strategy and how
do we think about our positioning that it's you know,
I can bounce ideas off of it to We made
(21:54):
GP custom GPTs for brand Ton of Voice, so like
you know, salespors can go in and say, I want
to say this about five and it's like you have
your own digital copywriter that's going to give you a
pitch and tell you things you can't say, things you
should not say, which which is cool. And then on
the image front, we we've pushed really hard on you know,
(22:17):
how do we manifest this brand to look as as
real and authentic as possible an imagery that has developed
through AI, So like think platforms like mid Journey, et cetera.
And we've you know, a year and a half ago
we were messing around with it, and you know, the
dogs didn't look real, but now we've been able to
(22:41):
push it.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
And they had an extra par or something.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, they're like there's something in the eyes. You're like,
there's nothing in there. But what we use it for
is content, So we'll put out We do a lot
of photography and whatnot. We have a really strong bullpen
of photographers and videographers. But you need to ideas and
it's a quick way to kind of iterate, come up
with the concept, put it on paper, say okay, that's that.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
You know, you and I are very used.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
To like put it in a mood board and yeah,
a contact sheet, and the teams are pulling from everywhere
on the on the web. Here you're really dialing in
on what's the angle that I want. Yeah, you know,
and you can see it like it's not like, hey, I'm.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Pretty sure this is going to work.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
You're you're almost one hundred percent positive that you can
develop a look and feel that's exactly how it's going
to be delivered. When you get to a photographer or
you're doing a capture with a director and a videographer.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And you've had an interesting career, i'd say it's you know,
focused on pretty innovative products, tech products, kind of circling
around community and then managing teams that are bringing those
those products and marketing to life. What do you think
you are particularly good at that makes you successful.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Maybe this goes back to my origin story, where have
you know, the six of us in the family, the
four brothers and a sister, and this always chaos grown up,
I am I am very good at making decisions in
the midst of chaos, like when things are happening. I
kind of enjoy like trying to figure out that problem,
(24:29):
and you know, the hard problems that typically might cause anxiety,
it's actually a little bit of the opposite for me.
Like being that steady hand that can navigate the problem
with the company, that can help steer a team into action,
and to be able to do it quickly, you know
(24:52):
at times at scale.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Has always been something that you know, I've enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I think it's a lot of the reasons why I've
been put into the these positions because people have been like, oh, yeah,
if I put Bryan there, He's going to solve the
problem and I'm not gonna have to worry about it
as much.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I don't know if you're at that stage with five,
But when do you determine when you have your internal
group do it.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And when you need an outside party to come in.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's a really good question. I think it first, it
starts with that group knowing what they're supposed to be
good at. Yeah, and then from there when you're adding
in partners, it's about unlocking new capabilities. So you know,
at Peloton, the beginning stages were I just want to
(25:42):
make sure that this group understands the brand, the design.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Of it, we're curating it.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
They can make things like toolkits that could be used
with partners, but they became like a source of truth
both in how we wrote and how we we thought
about Tipoger see how we thought about the brand at large,
like all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But the early days they could not do all the
things sure.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
That that are a really.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
High performing marketing group has to do to perform. So
I think it's fit for purpose first. Same thing at
THI we have a really small group in comparison to
my past, but that's okay, Like there's nothing wrong with
that because they know that they are core to the
to the brand. They know that they're they're in charge
(26:34):
of they're the sharers of design, positioning, art, direction, and creative.
They set, they set what that look and feel is
and then you add your partners. So at Peloton those
early days, we didn't have packaging, so we used a partner.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You and the mech team did we're here.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
To do all of our advertising right because we weren't
ready to do that. We couldn't do we didn't have
a skill set to do it. So my philosophy is, well,
you're augmenting your group and your bringing in partners that
are going to be part of your family. Right, So
you get someone that's company that can be really tight
(27:21):
to you and believe in the mission. They can live
the brand as much as you do. Then they become
like a natural extension. It becomes all like one organism,
so to speak. But that can every company is different.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Some companies with the in house team, there'll be an
agency that will pitch the idea against the in house
team and then you know, the CMO or someone will
pick what direction to go in. I don't know if
that's a very healthy setup.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
No, I don't like that at all to me. Again,
you come back to what's that core team within the
walls of company, what's the pose and then you're augmenting
around them, Like you should never have a pitch against
an in house team and an agency. To me, like
(28:11):
that fundamentally that's fundamentally flawed.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
It creates a no collaboration.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, it creates a dynamic where there's no trust.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Right, And you need the thing you need most in
the world of marketing, brand building and creative.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Is trust within your teams.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
How do you balance the need for performance driven work
and demands on results and is the work performing and
more creative innovation or earned media or.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Getting people talking about the brand?
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Who determines like your KPIs for a particular project, how
does that work.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
Well?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Like every place I've been in now I feel like
is acquisition first. But I would say, like the biggest
thing to me is I don't care whether it's it's
performance or not. Like you are building the brand in
every single execution that you do, So it could be
the smallest thing that is you know, more UGC oriented
(29:18):
because because it works in performance, or content creator because
it works in performance. You should be influencing everything that
you put out into the world as a brand with
that brand aesthetic you believe in, so it should have
some version of a look and feel. It should never
be a race to the bottom on like creativity. We
(29:39):
should always be pushing. So to me, like you're you're
building brand all the time, Like it really doesn't matter.
With that said, there's always KPI. So like in the
world that I've lived in the most you're driving towards
CAC which is a cost to acquire customer. That's usually
(30:01):
your headliner, right or row ass if it's in performance,
so return on your advertising spend. But you need balance,
so like where you're getting brand awareness versus your more
performance matrix. So like I like to do them both simultaneously.
Like even at five, we're Series B, so we're smaller
(30:24):
in scale. In April, there was a National Lost Dog
Awareness Day, so we just kind of bootstrapped a fun
campaign throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, which is we called you know,
not lost Dog. So we put up these posters all
throughout the city. And that's that has nothing to do
with like selling callers and has everything to do with
(30:48):
brand building. Yeah, putting your personality out there, putting your
brand out there, so it's cool and fresh, it's something
interesting and unique, So I think you have to do
both at the same time. The majority of your of
your of your investment, typically my experience is within like
your acquisition marketing.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
You've worked on a lot of brands and done a lot.
What's one or two things that you've put out into
the world that you're most proud of.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
H Let's see, I think the Pond and Noble days of.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Like launching Nook and like, you know, I love that
period of my my professional career, the days of Peloton,
Like I'm most proud of that team that we built,
Like they were special. They won awards for all different
types of things, and you know, I loved it on
(31:48):
the on the creative side, you know, launching multiple products.
You know, Peloton Row is one of the last ones.
It was kind of soup the nuts. The team did everything.
You're really proud of, Proud of that work that we
put out there, the stuff that you that honestly that
we did together.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
You know, on the day to day.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
We launched like what three four different big ad campaigns
a year.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I seem like forever, NonStop work. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Great that the brand campaign. Everyone has their reasons that
beautiful campaign. One of the top performing campaigns in that
company's history. Number two, the first one still to this
day is hello, let's go. Is it really yeah? Just
performance wise, not scale like revenue, but just like pure
(32:38):
like performative results. And then like it's even if I
like this last little thing we did, Yeah, you love
building a muscle within a company and that all of
a sudden you unlocked like a new way of working
and it seems like simple and easy and small. But
then when you do it and they come be realized,
(33:00):
is like, oh wait, we can do that. Like that's
those things are kind of really special to be able
to do for a company.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Are there any.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Anything that you've learned on the in house out out
of house partnership that I don't know, maybe didn't go
well that you wouldn't repeat, or ways of working that
work really well that you always think about. You kind
of mentioned not making it competitive and making collaborative. That's
(33:29):
like one takeaway I got.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The best teams you get to work with are also
the ones that care as much about the product as
you do. Like, when I think about our relationship, the
first person that comes to mind is like a Katrina. Yeah,
Katrina was killer, right, she still is an amazing person,
but like she was in it. And when you have
those partners that live the product, in the brand as
(33:54):
much as you do, then you just get better work
because everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone is complementary to
one another. You speaking the same language, right, You're you're
developing a short shorthand on how you execute together. So
like bringing in people or an organization that really does
(34:19):
believe in what you're doing, and they're not just doing
it because they're winning a job, but rather they want
to be a part of it. I don't. I don't
like to keep my partner is at like too much
of an arms length because then their ability to care
as much as I do is limited, Right, So I'd
(34:40):
rather pull them in further, like you know, the number
of conversations you and I had, the number of conversations
I had with other partners, Like, you know, you want
them to like understand the product experience to the point
in which they're like, wait, I have an idea to
make it better and.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Breathing it with you.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, Do you have a mantra or a quote that
you always think about or that you live by or
that you have tattooed on your shoulder.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Or your lower back. And as you know from Boston
and I heard this Joe Mizula, whos their coach, had
mentioned how you know, Tatum was getting a lot of criticism,
and one of the reporters is like, you know, Jason
(35:28):
has to and Mosula interrupted said no, he gets to. Yeah,
And immediately it struck me, Like everything, it just changes
your headset from a negative to a positive when you're like,
oh my god, I have to do this presentation. Like
I'd say this to anybody now, like if you have
to get in front of people and your thought processes,
(35:48):
I have to You're you're actually putting yourself at a disadvantage, right,
You're you're already like thinking of it as a negative
as opposed to the positive, which is I get to,
like I get to do.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That makes it something you want to do versus like
a burden.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We have the most joyous profession in the world for
all the pressure and the introverts that all of a
sudden became creatives in our agencies. We are makers. And
when you're makers, that is very different than a lot
of different professions in the world that go to a
job and they have to do a task, but they're
(36:27):
not creating all the time. We're creating, so like, to me,
there's just inherent joy in what we do.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I love it. It's it's a good shift because it's
really about opportunity versus obligation, and it reminds you how
lucky you are versus Oh, man, this meeting is going
to blow and it's going to suck, and I got
to make a hard decision. But it's like, oh, I
have opportunity here, and not a lot of people get
that opportunity, and it's it shouldn't be a burden.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That's exactly right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
I love that. All right.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Well, thank you so much much for your time and
being on the podcast and sharing all your wisdom.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I love it, Love the podcast, get stuff and killing it.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
We're doing all right.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Thanks so much for listening to Soul and Science and
we'll see you next week. Sole and Science is a
mechanism podcast produced by Maggie Bowles, Brian Tillotson, and Louie Jablonski.
The show is edited by Daniel Ferrera with theme music
by Kyle Merritt and I'm your host Jason Harris a Mechanism,
(37:37):
we build iconic brands with soul and science.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
The soul is.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Culturally relevant brand building, and the science is the always
on marketing activities that drive the bottom line. Learn more
at mechanism dot com.
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