May 29, 2017 • 49 mins
This time around, legendary creative David Droga (whose Droga5 been named Agency of the Year 11 times, as well as appearing on Ad Age’s A-List for a record-breaking seven consecutive years) and firebrand marketer and activist Cindy Gallop (Founder, IfWeRanTheWorld and MakeLoveNotPorn) join iHeartMedia CMO Gayle Troberman to dissect the true value of creativity. Hear about ideas that stand out in a crowd, including solutions for harvesting the wisdom of creatives – all while mixologist Jessica Gonzalez provides an eye-popping and delicious Bulleit cocktail.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
It does take the cineamount of energy to try and
do something great as it does to justify something average.
The business model of the future is shared values plus
shared action equals shared profit. Practical and logical people make
the world go around the credit people make the world
worth living in. Welcome to Tagline. Poor a cocktail and
(00:26):
join us for inspired conversations with the best storytellers, culture makers,
and creators, presented by our friends at Bullet Frontier Whiskey.
Please drink responsibly. We haven't even begun to see the
true value of creativity, both in our industry and in
the world at large. Tagline is produced by I Heart
Radio and partnership with Advertising Age. I'm Gail Turman, I'm
(00:52):
the CMO, and I Heeart Media, and I want to
welcome you to another amazing episode of Tagline. We're coming
to you from our I Heart Radio Red studio ys
in the heart of New York City with an incredible
duo of serious creative award winners that they We're gonna
dig into a far ranging conversation about interesting topic today.
What is the value of creativity? You guys have proved
(01:14):
it's pretty valuable. Our guests here are both known for
creating provocative, risky work zigging a little bit when a
lot of other people are zagging, and we're going to
discuss how they invent, reinvent, evolve and perfect in their
pursuit of capturing the hearts and minds and sometimes wallets
of consumers. With me today, I have David Deroga, creative
chairman of Deroga five. Deroga five has been named Agency
(01:36):
of the Year a mere eleven times, which year, g miss,
We'll talk about that later. Uh. And you're also the
only agency I believe to be named in edges a
list over seven consecutive years. Pretty amazing run you guys
have been on. Uh yeah, psych to have you here.
We also have the amazing Cindy Gallop and advertising icon
who's known for channeling her creative skills into real world
(01:59):
advocacy these days. She launched If We Ran the World
TED in twenty ten as a marketing and business platform
that actually turns human incorporate good intentions into collective action,
a very hot topic these days, one microaction at a time.
She's also created a multi media initiative called Make Love
Not Porn, which you're right there explains the value of
(02:20):
creativity probably enough said, she also encourages an open and
healthy dialogue around how real people have sex. It's a
whole different podcast. I see another topic coming. Take a note. Yeah,
I'm gonna take notes and get some advice. Yeah, exactly.
Or we could just we could just pivot now, absolutely
know you're right, it's crucial. Actually, that's an awesome opening question.
(02:41):
You know which is more valuable, creativity or porn. Well, actually,
I would argue interestingly that creativity is a function of
what my social sex platform, Make Love Not Porn, is
all about, because make Love Porn is kind of an accident.
It came about out of direct personal experience stating younger
men and discovering that pawn was acting by default of
(03:04):
sex education in a world where the issue isn't porn,
The issue is that we don't talk about sex. So
make love and porn is an accident. It blew up
in a way I never anticipated after launched at ted
in two thousand nine. But what is no accident is
the fact that I've spent thirty years working in advertising
in the business of communication. I know therefore that everything
(03:24):
great in life and business is born out of great communication.
And sex is no different. Great sex has brought out
a great communication. That's why I make love not Pawn's
mission is one thing only to help make it easier
for the world to talk about sex. Because when you
can communicate around sex, you can open up around sex,
you can be truly creative. You can have an absolutely
(03:45):
wonderful sex life, a wonderful relationship, and a much happier
life just that easy. So I think we've said sex
is valuable. What about the value of creativity now that
it's accessible to everyone with a bone and an Internet
connection or self connection. Is that driving the value of
creativity down as more people have means? Or is the
(04:07):
value of creativity actually rising? Well, creativity is one of
those generic words. Who's the measure of what's creative or not?
I should paint a little picture before we unpack these questions.
You should be able to hear. I see it through
the lens as a creative person, so clearly I have
a distorted loyalty to it. I pack it down to
practical and logical people make the world go round, but
(04:31):
creative people make the world worth living in? Do you
know what I mean? And you can sort of put
that into any industry, any category. Creativity is in everyone,
how it manifests itself and how it's revealed to the world.
That's subjective, but there is a real value. And I
think I can say, within my limited experience in the industry,
I've seen creativity move from being something that is a
(04:53):
nice add on just something that is crucial. It's a
point of difference now as opposed to just oh, that'd
be interesting if that was creative. If there's a real
logic and there's a real purpose in it, I feel
like creativity can change the world. And you know, even
what's he started saying about, you know, she's taking a
very important issue and not keeping it dry, but making
(05:14):
it something that's relevant and worthy, but delivering it to
people in a creative way. And that makes it more interesting,
and that makes it more obtainable to people. And and
that's what creativity does. It keeps you engaged, it keeps
you interested, it keeps you surprised, it keeps you excited.
And I love that about it. Yeah. Well, here's the
interesting thing, Gail, because very far from creativity having become devalued,
(05:37):
we haven't even begun to see the true value of creativity,
both in our industry and in the world at large.
And what I mean by that is, right now, our
industry thinks that there was a golden age of creativity
and creativity being valued, and that girl need is over.
Our industry thinks it's glory days. A really that our
(06:01):
industrils glory days haven't even begun, because we have not
even begun to see what creativity could be in our
industry as the result of the creativity and talent and
skills of women and people of color. And to give
an example of what I mean by that, at the
top of our industry, as at the top of every industry,
(06:21):
is a closed loop of white guys talking to white
guys about other white guys. I'm from that meaning it's
awesome exactly. And when you have that closed loop of
white guys at the top of every industry, the creative output,
the product you get is Batman versus Superman, which not
coincidentally tanked the box office. When you welcome the creativity,
(06:45):
the talent and skills of women and people of color
into and I use this reference advisedly, the room where
it happens, what you get is Hamilton's which not only
exploded every previous creative convention, the Broadway Musical but also
not coincidentally is making literally billions of dollars. That's the
(07:06):
amount of creativity that has not yet even been tapped
in our industry. It's the amount of creativity that has
not yet even been tapped in the world at large.
And that is how much money our industry and every
other industry is leaving on the table when it does
not welcome, celebrate, champion value, and give free rein to
the creativity of women and people of color. I definitely
(07:27):
agree with that. I feel like, you know, we haven't
unleashed at all, and I feel like we definitely need
to open it up. And you know, the floodgates will
open up when we make it fair for everybody to
voice the creativity and have a platform, but sort of
at a broader level beyond the specifics of people of
color or women or white men. And I'm a white
man and I speaking most like apologizing for it, but
(07:49):
the value of creativity to your point, I think we
haven't seen the best days behind us at all. And
I look at it again, not just through the industry,
and I'm an optimist in what we're trying to cont
good and where I think that it's going. But you
look at for instance, you know, as a father of
four children and I've got a sixteen year old. So
we're at the stage now where we are about to
go into thinking about colleges if he does his homework.
(08:12):
But what's amazing now is you can pick any university
or college in the country across multiple sort of sizes
and everything like that. What are the questions they're asking
now for applicants into these universities, And there's more questions
that are lateral, like Google like sort of questions about
you know, how they try and mind for lateral thinkers,
(08:34):
it's not just based on marks and test scores. They're
trying to see how you think and that you don't
think like that other person. There's I can't remember what
the article was a year or two ago where it
was saying, you know why you're a plus student will
work for my C minus student. The point in that
was if we're all bred to think the same, whether
(08:54):
it be through just color and sex or reciting the
same books and all that, and we don't let the
freak flags fly from those with diverse backgrounds and magical thinkers,
then you know the world isn't going to get interesting.
And that's where that sort of shows you. The billion
dollar companies now, how they harvest and how they nurture
(09:15):
people into the system isn't just through test scores and
through cvs. The universities now, from the most established ones,
they're trying to find creative thinkers, people that are going
to solve lateral problems and think about things in a
different way. So that gives me hope not just for
our industry, but for opening doors for different types of
people who haven't had opportunities for not just book smart people,
(09:37):
you know, not just people who can regurgitate and parrot
back things that learn in school. Yeah, I think there
is a golden age of creativity coming because it has
to interesting. Actually, it has to. It's not like it
would be nice to it has to. When I started
sort of working in the advertising side a little software
company in Redmond, creative was at the core. Right the
creative agency has got two hours forty five minutes of
(09:58):
the three hours of time we had didn't. It was
really about landing the right ideas and then we talked
about where to put those ideas and what the media
plan might be, and over the last decade, it was
interesting to see how the Internet, which you thought would
have exploded creativity, and it did in the world, but
maybe not as much in our industry, was competing with data.
(10:19):
And it almost felt like sometimes the creativity and the
data and the media math where it odds. And you
started seeing that three hour block of time shifting more
and more to math and data and analytics, and and
I do feel personally as I go out and talk
to you know, amazing creative types like yourself and and cmos,
it feels like the pendulum is starting to swing back
(10:40):
to find a balance between what data can inform but
where great ideas need to lead. Are you seeing that happen?
And your people, we were an industry that loves to
run to the other side of the ship every time. Yeah, yeah,
And we're not known for our restraint. And the thing is,
creativity used to be defined as just what was the
(11:00):
narrative of the story or the idea. I think that
you know, a great idea can't live in isolation, can't
just be a script or just a line unless it
is unless there's a reason why it should exist in
that sort of simple manifestation. But data is a great thing.
You know, people expect someone who's a creative person with
my background to be anti that or all. I'm like, no,
(11:21):
I'm I want to do whatever works, and if I'm
better informed by learning this and partner with this person,
I mean, creativity is whatever you want it to be. Yeah,
I think that's what we're seeing right that. The depressing
thing about that is that not enough people with power
in our industry understand that. So it is entirely possible
(11:43):
to read any number of press reports on statements from
the heads of holding companies, the heads of big agencies
on the future of our industry and never have them
speak about creativity. Once you can literally search the as
reports of the last speech by you know at you
know the for a you know whatever can and you
(12:07):
will not find the word creativity once in an entire
full page piece covering that speech. I find that extraordinary
because it is absolutely missing precisely what day was speaking to.
I was thinking about today actually, because so today's equal
pay day. And I don't know if you guys saw that.
R g A approached me some weeks back with this
(12:27):
bloody brilliant idea which I absolutely said yes to, which
was that for equal pay day, they would turn me
into a chatbot, and I would like, I thought you
already were. And so today we launched Cindy Bot on
Facebook Messenger, which basically talks every woman through how to
get a pay raise. It was built with the help
(12:49):
of the muse Reply Ai, which is AI bot building
company with pay Scale, so it pulls data on pay
so literally, for example, you can enter your zip code,
it will say to you entirely my tone of voice.
So you know, the average salary for an art director
in your area is black. But you're not average, are you?
So you're gonna ask them more. And the reason I
(13:10):
bring this up is because when r g A took
me through everything they planned, I was blown away by
the fact that they had created a chat bot that
was me. So, you know, the creative team, Kate and Brad,
who literally built the boat, spent hours watching all of
my talks researching me online. Kate said to me, I
am now like the Cindy out at Brand Steward. I
(13:30):
was the one going said you would never say that,
you know when they're mapping out the language, but the
bard and so they infused this chat bot with my personality,
my language, my sense of humor. And actually testimony to
that is that it's been a phenomenal response on social
media and it was your getting paid well. So if
you watch the video like introducing the chat board, and
you will see that I say, you know and and
(13:50):
so you know, they said, you know, here's we wanted
you to do. Sendey, I go with a great cause
and they went and as it's, you know, for a
good cause, do you think you could do it for free?
And I went, I know my value, pay me and
I'm going to show you how to as well. So
the response has been amazing. But there're been a lot
of people saying this is the best use of a
chat bot I've seen. And I'm telling you that because
(14:13):
what they built was a thing of utility and value
that was also enormously engaging, that took technology and with
real creativity gave it a personality and a purpose that
vast numbers of women today given the evidence of finding
enormously actively useful. It's why I say the future of
(14:34):
our industry is not add units, but add products, literally
creating things of utility and value that utterly delight consumers
and are welcomed by them and there is huge opportunity
at the intersection of creativity and technology that again I
really feel our industry has not begun to tap because
they seem to think it's either one thing or the
other in many pockets of it, especially the more powerful ones.
(14:57):
That's a great example, and congratulations again on doing that,
you know, something so important, But it also illustrates the
point is it's embracing technology. Technology is not the idea
like too many people think, like exactly the technology on
my idea is to use this. Yeah, let me check
the point of technology and that is just the canvass
or the jo exactly. And actually on that front, I
(15:17):
want to pick up on something you just said. And
this may sound like I'm playing to our company and
allocations think it's going to be about radio, It's just
a guess. So radio is one of the most underrated
media in our industry, and I say this with feeling
for a couple of reasons. The first is that I
sit as one of the AD Council's Campaign Review Committee chairs,
(15:42):
and the AD Council obviously relies heavily on donated media
spread of partners exactly, and so radio plays a very
key role in every AD Council campaign and radio is
a phenomenal way of reaching vast numbers of Paul at
very interesting contextual moments, drive time, commute time, etcetera, in
(16:05):
ways that can actually be leveraged to get them to
do what you would like to do. It enormously frustrates
me that very often, and I hastened to it's not
true of all the presentations I see the ADD Council,
but very often the pattern of the presentation and the
relative weight follows the old world order thinking in industry,
which is the big TV spot, Okay, the big TV commercial,
(16:27):
followed by a number of thematics printers, and radio is
the last on the list. So much so that I've
actually proposed to the AD Council, and I've said this
number of agencies because we review campaigns at strategy and
then at the creative concepts, and then at rough cuts
sort of almost finished work stage. I sent to the agency,
I would love you at the strategy stage to go
(16:50):
away briefless work in and come back and show us
how the idea works in radio. First lead with radio
because radio is potentially enormously creative media him and it
requires a very different creative approach to anything else, and
I'm really tired of seeing TV scripts on wheels as
a radio ad. And at least favorite car I have
to make is when I have to tell a CMO
(17:11):
that we spent months and months convincing somebody we should
be doing radio as part of a campaign and the
listeners are there and it's a great creative platform. And
then I'll pick one of our people and be like, hey,
can I hear those spots? I think it's launching next week,
and I'll go, this is the TV without the video,
isn't it? It is precisely and I feel strongy about
the best. Years ago, when I was at PBH London,
(17:33):
I ran our Cadbra's business and we had a chocolate
bar cabras May called Boost with a tiny budget, so
we had to be enormously ingenious and we created a
radio campaign for Boost, featuring a very popular comedy duo
vickn Bob in the UK at the time, and that
campaign blew the doors off. It's sold vast amounts of
Boost the r R and it was ridiculous and it
(17:56):
was through an extremely creative use of radio. It's an
interest thing art in the creative community. Right. Audio podcasts
are really hot right now, but there's like this interesting
there's a difference between what might make a great spot
um as a pre role or mid role or post
role in audio, and what actually is great contextual content
(18:18):
or how do you use audio to grab attention and
tell a story? Differently, good as good is good, and
I think people are returning back to not just what
they understand, but what delivers for them, and radio is
the reason is prevailing. I'm a proud board member of
new or public radio, so I'm fantastic podcasts of Booming
and I feel like smart audio, smart narrative, great relationships
(18:40):
with your local radio station's coming back, and I think
that's the thing that's familiarity with it. There's reassurance and
if it's done well. I agree with you and that
the theater of the imagination of radio is second to none.
The limitations are not budgets you're not trying to make.
It's not a budget. Is not your remember agonizing and
trying to make a living room with nextbox in it
(19:00):
look right for thirty one markets impossible right now, but
it's wrong everywhere where. If I talk about your living
room in audio, it's right, picture yourself in your living room.
But we're all in the moment, right. I do remember
that when I first started in the industry, you know
someone saying to me, on rightio, you can do anything
you want, Like if you want to convince people at
this is banana walking down the stairs, you can make
them believe that as opposed to just having to bring
(19:23):
it animated. Audio is one of those new creative green fields.
It's interesting. We talked a lot about millennials, and I
think as marketers, one of the things I've realized is
in this digital error, particularly millennials in America, I think
we really miss the mark in for the generation like
the most educated generation and the history of human beings.
(19:44):
We actually made everything shorter and a little dumber. Right,
And now you're seeing six hour podcasts with ten million downloads,
and documentaries are back in vogue. I agree. I think
if it's smart and interesting, people things like the World
loves appetizes. But I don't want to live on just appetizes.
I want things of substance. I don't care how they live.
(20:06):
But everything can't be saxized. No, look at the size
of the average Harry Potter book. Yeah, those teens, those
kids everyone, Oh they only want what are they sitting
down and glue to all the way through to the end.
I know. We cut everything down from like, remember sixties
were the norm, like not all that long ago. And
then we went to fifteen and we said, hey, you
(20:26):
can only handle eight seconds. That's cool seconds because two
hours of us and compelling, they'll ask for more. Speaking
of appetizers, I got a little thirsty. Time to take
a break with our friends from Bullet Frontier whiskey, please
drink responsibly. So you have our friends from Bullet here,
(20:51):
I thought. I believe their line is making friends on
the new Frontier. Welcome Jessica Gonzalez. She is one of
the leading female ale mixologists talking some new Friends look
sensational a new mixology treat. Yeah, these look great, beautiful glassware.
You have the fruit inside the glassware, lining it, and
(21:12):
then you have the actual mini bottle of bullet. Oh
my god, I love that. I love that. So now
as that's going through a restaurant or a bar, not
only are you remembering that's a Bullet cocktail, but you're
also intrigued. And for those of you who can't see
in a podcast, Jessica has taken the little airplane mini
(21:35):
bottle of bullet and actually put it upside down, pouring
itself into this insanely beautiful minty strawberry delicious nous. I
love that idea because that's precisely the problem with any
bar call. Once it's made, you've got no idea what
brand actually went into it. And I think it's this
genius And literally we know what brand went into because
(21:55):
the brand is actually bottle in the bottle glass. We
love that. We love ectacular because it is sort of
like how do you get that cross? Because on a
menu it's so easy to be forgotten. Are you buying
the cocktail because it says bullet? Are you buying it
because it says whiskey, or because it says strawberries or mint?
All of these things are like how you get somebody
(22:17):
to buy a drink because it says strawberries. Oh I
don't necessarily like whiskey, but I love strawberry, so I
order it. Well, you know, bullets my actual bourbon of choice.
And I'm not saying that because I'm sitting here about
to drink a Brandon. It actually is brilliant. Love the
Olmstead Park Smash. It has lemons, sugar, mint, strawberries, a
(22:37):
little bit of a local spicy bitters, and Bullet bourbon.
Very refreshing tasting summer cocktail. Stead actually in Louisville, Kentucky.
He actually designed all the parks and he actually had
a little hand in Central Park. I think history of
(22:58):
the Louisville Parks in New York one. Well, whenever I
do a podcast, it's my drink of choice. Yea, exactly, yes,
making friends on the New Frontier podcasting we love my pleasure.
M m m m m m m mmmm. It's still
tastes delicious, yes, exactly. Sorry, beyond the theater of that,
(23:19):
it actually does taste, oh my god, populous. Yeah, get
a little more whiskey when you pour it in on
the top. Delicious. How does the flavor profile of bullet
inspire you? Is it different than other beverages? So when
when you're making cocktails, sometimes what helps a lot is
when you're working with a really great product. So if
(23:41):
it's a quality product, you're going to end up with
a quality drink. You don't have to mask it. I
bet you would agree with other flavors and you can
do something. Yeah, when you have something you can do
simple and it's just like the products piece for itself.
Can I ask you a question this is now just
selfishly wanted tonight, like do you prefer rye or bourbon?
You know what? It depends, And I'll be completely honest,
(24:02):
I like to mix them both together. So I actually
like a little bit of bourbon in my rhymantin, just
to say, when you take one thing at a little
bit of something else, you can make it even better.
It's brilliant. Yes, yes, great thing. I think Cindy's chat
bart would enjoy the skytail. My chatbot isn't enjoying the
(24:24):
cocktail as we speak, precisely. And I love how the
the whiskey like, even though it's integrating in the drink,
you could slowly sort of drink it. Half of the
whiskey's in there, and as you drink it more, the
whiskey goes in. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've never seen fascinating.
Can I just say something on the front, which is
(24:44):
that I'm extremely pleased to see you here a female
mixologist talking about rhyme bourbon because the thing that really
frustrates me because I also a bourbon drinker, a right drinker,
and a Scotch drinker. And you know those are union
lack truly marketed to men. And trust me, the future
(25:05):
of all of them is women. Okay, I agree wholeheartedly,
and I think that it's changing. I have to say
to Bullets credit, not only do we have a lovely
female mixologist, but I think at least two thirds of
the people we've dealt with, like the lovely Michelle here
from Diagio, have been women on this process. So I
think Bullets kind of getting it right. It is awesome.
(25:26):
I agree with you, though I I do probably all
too many women's panels. And remember going to a women's
eventum that typically is a very male dominated entrepreneurial event,
and they had a special women's event and it was
just wine, and I was like, are you kidding me?
Years ago, the economists brought me in to do some
consulting with them, and I had this conversation with them
(25:47):
about business publications. Because you know, I'm a woman in business.
I read you know, the economists, I read Forbes, Fortune Wide,
Fast Company, and with all of those magazines, I know
that they're really talking to men and they are assuming
I'm just along for the right. We know when a
(26:07):
brand is talking to men and considers us an afterthought
to be swept up, you know, behind the men. I
have this conversation actually on a panel to conference as well,
where I said, the first business publication that makes me
feel that I really am it's target audience has my
undying loyalty. I will subscribe for life. I will go
(26:27):
to all their conferences. I will join their wine club,
I will join their dating service, because that's where they're
all trying to make money. That literally, again, there is
a huge amount of money to make that is not
being made out of taking women seriously. I think that
that that's true broadly speaking, definitely, but I don't think
it it's true of everybody. I think that, you know,
there are some publications that I don't think you're thinking
(26:49):
about a specific gender. Do you think The New York
Times is thinking about just a male audience or do
you think they're thinking about an intelligent audience. I think
the New York Times, which is well known to be
a male dominated workplace, you know, look at what happened
to Jill Abrams, and in that scenario is looking at
things from the male lens, and that makes a difference.
I think the course correction is massive that needs to happen.
(27:11):
And I agree with that. And I say that as
a male. I say that as someone who's benefited from
being a white male. I said that, it's also someone
who's proud that I can only speak for my company.
I think six of our ten top executives are females,
So you know, I feel like we based it on talent,
not on no And and and you have the fantastic
Sarah Thompson. We have this totally potentially, And and I
(27:36):
see the benefit of surrounding myself with incredibly intelligent people,
and it just thankfully happens to be more women, I mean,
and my businesses flourished because of that. The diversity of
thought is hard enough to sort of cast for a
higher four, right, keep the ideas diverse. But when you
try to balance that with the shared values, I think
(27:57):
that's where it gets really challenging, right where you're trying
to read a needle of Great things happen when brand
share values with consumers, When a team shares values, and
there's a culture that and you need that seem to reflect.
For me, it's not about diversity. It's about humanity. Yes,
it's simply about reflecting the world as it really is,
and our industry doesn't do that sufficient. But finding diverse
(28:18):
people who share thoughts is much more challenging, I would
imagine then finding no, not at all. No, No, it's
extremely easy to find diversity. It's all around us. We
just don't look hard enough for it. Women buy, but
also crucially, women share. So social media is simply a
honly methodology for us to do what we have been
(28:39):
doing since the dawn of time, which is sharing the
out of everything in a way that mendate Because we
are the gossipers, were the chatters, we are the sharers,
the recommenders, the advocates, ambassadors. So much so that I
actually say to brands that think they're targeting men, talk
to women because women will influence men more than men
will influence other men. In this context, I agree that
(29:00):
I think maybe the promising thing for that point is
I'm hearing more and more in client meetings them saying that,
oh good. I mean, I'm not saying every but you're right.
I definitely feel like maybe the light bulbs finally gone
off from and obviously we need it to be you know,
consistent and widespread. But I'm definitely hearing that more there's
a generation that's grown up with much more diversity of
(29:22):
thought and experience and access to cultures and people who
weren't exactly like them that I think don't necessarily see
the disconnect or the awkwardness, or that there is any difference.
Um so I'm hopeful to that definitely, as a practical businessman,
as a citizen of the world, and as a father
of multiple daughters, we can only hope. Yes, we'll do
(29:43):
our part. One female mixologists and great cocktail at the time, Jessica, amazing,
Thank you, It's delicious. Cheers, cheers, thanks for having me.
Im sure your drink spirit, the story all disappear. The
(30:21):
bullet frontier whiskey, please drink responsibly. Speaking about millennials, maybe
the other myths that we have is everyone's distracted, Right,
there's this attention economy. When you think about creativity and
capturing attention, do you start in lengths and formats? How
do you start your creative process knowing that we live
(30:45):
in this world where people are distracted and attention is
a scarce resource. Yes, as a sort of three thousand
foot thing. Yes, everyone is distracted, but twenty years ago
people said they were distracted with the head. It's an
ezy alibo. I think, you know, the starting point is,
as I said before, like why would anyone give as
And also not just what the content is that you're
trying to push out there in the canvases, but it's
(31:05):
the context, the context in which you're going to try
and engage them and talk about them. You know, there
are times to try and have a conversation or try
and be a part of their lives, and there are
times where just stay out of it and just yeah,
I'm a big fan. Sometimes you just say it. Good
things prevail and cut through and boring tish doesn't. And
that's a fact what I think on that, And picking
(31:25):
up on Dave's point, which I can ly agree with
about why should I give it fish? I live my
own philosophers in the startups that I've created. I believe
that the future of business is doing good and making
money simultaneously, and therefore that the business model of the
future is shared values plus shared action equals shared profit,
financial profit and social profit. In other words, when brands
(31:48):
and businesses come together with their consumers, their audiences on
the basis of values that you all share, which, by
the way, is the most important requirement for a good
relationship in life as much as business. You will never
truly on with someone don't share the same values. And
if you're then enabled collectively and collaboratively to coact on
those values, to walk the talk together, you can then
(32:10):
make things happen in the real world that will benefit consumers,
benefit society, and benefit the brand. It's business and so
for me, a key part of attention getting if you like,
is when as a brand you demonstrate very clearly you
project a set of values, and consumers align with you
around those values because they're the values they also hold.
(32:32):
And what is interesting about that is I'm not talking
about putting something out there deliberately to appeal to consumers.
I'm talking about literally going, this is who we are,
is what we stand for that brand, and you will
absolutely draw to you people who go those values completely
aligned with mine and I want to be a part
of whatever it is you're doing, and then you've absolutely
begun the relationship building process. That's such a great point
(32:54):
because I definitely agree because that the distracted thing or
people not caring or giving is thankfully. Now. That's the
greatest thing that's happened now with the technology and transparency
is that brands their body language has to be in
sync with what they say. Ten twenty years ago, it didn't.
They could say this whole behavior you could show up
here with. People are drawn to people that share values.
(33:14):
I mean, that's the whole thing. I mean, that's why
Facebook you collect people who agree with who you are,
you know. I mean it's people are drawn to things
of people that valid who they are and share values.
You're right, the brands that are flourishing are those ones
that actually put something out there, stand for something, and
people sort of you know, their aligned principles and values.
And I think that's a really good point. Yeah, I
totally agree. In life and marketing and everything, I think
(33:37):
you said it well. You know, I think in this
new sort of world of everything is accessible, everything is possible,
experience has gone out of vogue a little bit, but
it feels like maybe it's coming back in. How do
you look at experience and through creative filter? Do you
mean experience of the creative themselves? Yeah, you know, I
think we've been in this entrepreneurial new next I can
(33:57):
start a company, I can create things. I have the
means a youth culture. Maybe we're experience has almost gone
out of I'm not sure if that's true in the
creative well, I think there's there's an argument for either,
because I feel like experience, with that comes wisdom and
learnings and shortcuts and knowing where the maze ends and
all that which is helpful and wisdom will never go
(34:17):
out of style. But then also with lack of experience
comes naivety and ignorance, which is also some of the
biggest fertilizers of creativity, which is not knowing that that's
the stupid things that you'll pursue it, and then it's
something could come out of that. So it's a tough one.
And maybe I'm going to pivot because now I'm getting
into the experience category, moving from the sort of young
guy too. In the beginning, I think that I benefited
(34:39):
from being young and naive and all those things that
come with that, and now I'm trying to piloy that
into world. You know, there's greatness in wisdom, and you know,
I love sitting down. If I meet someone and they
have an obsession about any topic, whether it be owls
or surfing or whatever it is, like if they've started
a lifetime. And I always try and get what I
(35:00):
can out of the minute our conversation. So there's great
stuff that comes from experience. Not everything has to be
surface level and disposable, and wisdom does going back to
radio right now, everything has to be into them disposable,
you know. So I was having this conversation a few
weeks ago with a very reputable credit rector and our
(35:21):
industry who was expressing frustration about the fact that ages
UM absolutely operates, particularly the belief that the older creators
and now industry are not digitally savvy, you know, can't
deal with the modern world, etcetera. And so I was
thinking about this just within this discussion. I said to him, actually,
(35:42):
here's what I do. If you want to do something
about that, here's what I do. I would tackle that
issue head on. So I would bring together around you
a whole group a collective of other older creatives in
our industry who feel the same way. And by older
I mean over the age of fifty, let's say, and
in fact, not just creatives, but strategists, accountany of whatever.
(36:02):
I would form a collective I would give it a
name that tackles this issue head on, and so I
would call it the Old Folks Home. Okay, and I
would do two things. The first is that I would
announce publicly that every week, let's say, every Wednesday, between
the hours of seven and nine in the evening, the
Old Folks Home will take up residents at this bar,
(36:24):
cafe wherever where they will offer free you can basically
come along and you can talk to them about any
issue troubling you in the industry. You can get instant
mentorship advice. The only criteria is that you can only
do that if you're under the age of twenty five.
This is something that the young people in industry are
gagging for. Okay, and I say that as somebody who
(36:46):
does workshops and consulting with agencies, because as we all know,
it's a bloody nightmare today the economist staff, the numbers
are down. Your pitching, nobody's got time to dispense wisdom
as a result of many years of experiences to the
people at the bottom, that's if you even see them
by the way, versus the person's running around putting something
(37:06):
together in a meeting. So the umpian redustry could really
benefit from that advice and that wisdom. And secondly they
would go back to their agencies and they would talk
about it big time. I'm all about communication through demonstration.
That's one of the quickest ways to get the value
of experience and wisdom in our industry, you know, reappraising
respectabil And then secondly, I would actually make that collective
(37:29):
what in fact Rick Boyko did with Sparks Starters with
which I've been a part of, which is bring together
a bunch of industry veterans who are available as consultants,
as trainers, as workshoppers again to provide all of that
expertise that when you are pitching you can't always manage
an house to be able to coach people and get
(37:49):
them to best practice operation the way that you always
like to. Now, that's a good idea. Many years we've
been talking about this in the office about we're trying
to do something with potential around this was that you know, essentially,
wisdom is probably the greatest natural resource that's wasted in
this country anywhere. Like you think of the amount of
learnings and brain power and experience and all that that
(38:11):
is either put to pasture or that could be tapped
into the next generation. As we live older and older,
that bank of wisdom and experience is going bigger and
bigger put on ice like, I think if they could
create something that could tap into that almost like what
you're talking about, like, there's very few I wouldn't say
there's nothing, but there's very few things that haven't been
seen before, maybe in a different context, shape and size,
(38:32):
but where you couldn't learn something from the generation above us.
You know, no matter how old we are, there's someone
above us who sort of been in similar sort of
footsteps that we have and could teach us something. So
I think that's a good idea. You're right because everyone's
in such a snap frenzy eight second da da da,
But realistically, you know, a lot of the things they've
done and questions they have aren't new. Yeah, that's interesting.
(38:53):
We did a women's episode of Tagline recently, and one
of the things that struck me was an awesome group
of senior women in the industry, and one of the
first things they did was they started apologizing for not
having time to mentor people. I thought that was really interesting,
and I think the men's episode necessarily would have gone there.
You know. One of the things that's always struck me
about creatives as a whole, and you guys are great
(39:15):
examples of this too, is there's a youthfulness that comes
from curiosity. And I think what tends to draw people
to creative fields, any creative field, is a natural curiosity
that I don't think goes away as you get older.
And I think that is one of the things that
keeps great creators great great. I think curiosity is contagious,
and I'm glad it is because that I think that
(39:37):
is what whatever your birth says, your curiosity is something
that keeps you young and agreed. I think everyone has
an innate age. That's that's something my wife would I
always say, I'm five at heart. No, no, exactly. I
think that's the thing I feel like, no matter what,
I'm so happy to be a creative person because I'm
always desperate to sort of be like looking, exploring, solving, learning.
I had that conversation honestly to today with someone who
was coming in for an interview, and I said, let's
(39:58):
just forget the text of what we're talking about this
job or this thing, and I said, we are paid
to day dream I just think about that, like someone
whether they be a billion dollar client or a startup
or a politician or an NGEO, like they are paying.
We're not making a widget, or we're not on the
factory line, and someone's paying us. We can help all
of them contribute that, but we're paying to use our imagination,
(40:21):
and that is unbelievable as a job. I think that
is the real value of creativity in some ways, right.
It's the luxury of being able to be curious and
think and provoke and ask questions as a maker, and
then on the other side is a receiver the ability
to be provoked and prodded and open people's minds or
hearts and make them think and feel. It's a luxury
(40:42):
where it is a luxury even on our hardest voice
days in our industry, we have to sit here and
have a podcast talk about is although to the point
you just made so because this is another thing I
think I'm is missing out on. So because it's not
as if we're in transmit mode and the audience is
and seve mode. There's a huge opportunity, particularly today with
(41:03):
everything that social media affords, for us to put brilliantly
creative campaigns, programs, objects, whatever they are out there, and
too then welcome and study the response and to then
leverage it and interact with it and build and build
on it and actually welcome in areas of creativity from
(41:27):
it that can then be expanded on going forwards. And
the problem is that too many brands and agencies are
too scared to do that because oh my god, somebody
has interact with us on social media, must not go there.
What do we do get the crisis communications people? Our
tweet back has to go through seven nurs approval. You
can't do that. There is enormous potential in releasing your
(41:49):
creative product into the wild and seeing how people respond
to it, and then seeing what you can build on
out of those responses in real time to create even
more whatever it is. Living forward, we talked without a
lot internally. Where honestly has changed is back in the day,
we were paid to come up with some concept or
narrative that was always in a neat bow, whether it
(42:11):
came alive through a thirty second television ad or a
billboard or whatever it was, but it was sort of
put out into the world as his finished, completed thing.
And now the narrative of the idea. People's reaction is
part of that now absolute. It's one of the reasons
that live radio is still reaching, you know, ninety plus
percent of Americans every day. And the reason is because
it is live and messy and human and raw, and
(42:32):
it's always changing. And and you see right away, if
you know, Ryan Seacrist goes on air and says something
provocative or controversial or unpopular, he'll know instantly because consumers
will start responding and reacting in real time, and that
changes his dialogue on air. It used to be telephone lines, right,
It used to be all the buttons would laid up
and we're like, oh my god, people hated that. I
(42:52):
can't believe. Oh sorry, hey, let's have a conversation about it.
Whereas too many brands put their video on YouTube and
disabled the comments. Yeah yeah, yeah, ka's it's ridiculous. It's challenging.
They're learning to live in a world of real time creativity,
isn't it. But the interesting thing, to go back to
the point of my daily was you don't have to
worry about it if you are living according to your values.
(43:16):
So if you know very clearly what you're about what
you stand for, and you are behaving according and you're
communicating accordingly, then how have people engaged with you? You
never have to be worried about it because they're not
trying to be anything you want, and you can just
be who you are. You can respond us who you are.
You know, you're being open, you're honest, you're real, you're authentic.
There's nothing to worry about. It's so true because we
(43:36):
work with some great brands who have strong points of
view that have been provocative and they've stood their ground
because they genuinely believe it's something like honeymade and things
like that. But then there's brands that say we stand
for this, but if they hear any back life, they're like, well,
we don't really stand our principle. We stood yellow and
outstanding anyone else. They're doing amazing things you wish you did.
(44:03):
There's always people I'm jealous. There's always jealousy, jealousy motivators. Yes,
I think in lots of calgories in different industries. You
from the art world of film, world of television, world,
design world. I mean, you know, I sit on boards
things that are inspire me, that are creative, that a
commercial thing. You know. I sit on the board of
New Museum, I sit on the board of the Public
Theater and things like that, going back to Hamilton's and
(44:23):
stuff like. Yeah, I'm most jealous of people that are
building sustainable businesses but doing good. You know that it's
done through social conscious and making impact. Like we live
in a era now where you don't have to choose
between you don't have to choose it's increasing doing good
or having a good business like you can actually choose
both and that is the win win, right, absolutely beautiful thing.
(44:44):
How about you, Cindy. What I'm envious of is anybody
in the industry who has done something enormously creative that
is fundamentally rooted in the product, the brand and the
business and so a campaign I totally wish I'd done.
Is the enormously clever thing that Crispin did with Craft
for the new Mac and Cheese, which you may not recall.
(45:08):
Craft decided to change their formula for Mac and Cheese.
But obviously whenever anybody does that, instant outcry, I look
at New Code the absolute epitome of how not to
do it. What they did was basically, they changed the
formula and they killed nobody, and they sold it in
the same pacts for three months as the new Mac
and Cheese, and then they came out and said the
(45:30):
announcement is we've changed it, and you love it because
you have spectacular failed to notice for the past three months.
I just thought that was genius. Again. I'm about communication
through demonstration. What better way to get buy in into
a new formulation than to do that. The thing with
our industry is, you know, to try and justify who
we are, We've craized so many levels of responsible, smart
(45:52):
people whose job is it to find responsible reasons not
to do these things? That is, yes, yes, there's so
many people you can almost with good intentions. It's not
like everyone who kills something or who's like it's like
we all have opinions. You have enough responsible hoople you
can find a reason for something not to happen. And
that's the enormous tragedy of our business because every single
(46:14):
one of us, if you are an ad person worth
your salt, you have in your mind forever that shortlist
of bloody, brilliant ideas that never got to happen, that
still make you burn red hot with rage all these
years later, Right, and we all have them. They represent
such an appalling waste of creativity, of talent and brilliance
(46:37):
and ingenuity, and because they were killed not because they
were bad ideas, but for a whole host of reasons
that ranged from client's appetite for risk, through the lack
a budget whatever. And honestly, in the work that got
made and never saw the light of death. I always
wanted to do like the other can event where you
had to go through a metal detector, check your cell phones,
(46:58):
all your devices, and then just share in a dark
room all the work that never really got seen. But
we talk about in our office, you know. And I
genuinely believe this. It does take the same amount of
energy to try and do something great as it does
to justify something average. Actually, because I think all the
people come along for the ride, all the other pieces
(47:19):
just yeah, the whole businesses and people justifying. Yeah, absolutely, justifying. Absolutely,
that's the name of my agency, exactly. That's the truth. Well,
I know you don't like it, but I'm going to
have Mr blah blah blah with ex give you a
presentation about why Medioperaty was the right choice. Absolutely, We're
(47:40):
just going to stay in this lane right here. Yeah,
I try and do something great awesome. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. Have one final question that
we always ask our esteemed guests here on tagline, what
is your tagline? When I think a lot of the world,
there's mine, I like to blow the shut up. I
am the Michael Bate of business. It's terrific. Does he
(48:03):
get a royalty every time you say that? He should
be giving me roles? Somebody said he should be a
sparring to be the Cynic Galicas movie theater, isn't I
don't have a tagline it maybe I need to get
used to get a team on that. I think my
thing would be um cam or yeah, profound, profound. I
(48:24):
don't know how I can top that. And that's episode three. Yeah, yeah, terrific.
Thank you guys so much for sharing provoking some thoughts.
The time, isn't it making friends here on the podcast
with Cocktails. You've been listening to Tagline presented by our
(48:46):
friends at Bullet Frontier Whiskey Bullet Distilling Company, Louisville, Kentucky.
Please drink responsibly. We want to hear what you thought.
Joined the discussion on Twitter now by using the hashtag
tagline catch all of our episodes on i heart radio
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or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah Audiation
It does take the cineamount of energy to try and
do something great as it does to justify something average.
The business model of the future is shared values plus
shared action equals shared profit. Practical and logical people make
the world go around the credit people make the world
worth living in. Welcome to Tagline. Poor a cocktail and
(00:26):
join us for inspired conversations with the best storytellers, culture makers,
and creators, presented by our friends at Bullet Frontier Whiskey.
Please drink responsibly. We haven't even begun to see the
true value of creativity, both in our industry and in
the world at large. Tagline is produced by I Heart
Radio and partnership with Advertising Age. I'm Gail Turman, I'm
(00:52):
the CMO, and I Heeart Media, and I want to
welcome you to another amazing episode of Tagline. We're coming
to you from our I Heart Radio Red studio ys
in the heart of New York City with an incredible
duo of serious creative award winners that they We're gonna
dig into a far ranging conversation about interesting topic today.
What is the value of creativity? You guys have proved
(01:14):
it's pretty valuable. Our guests here are both known for
creating provocative, risky work zigging a little bit when a
lot of other people are zagging, and we're going to
discuss how they invent, reinvent, evolve and perfect in their
pursuit of capturing the hearts and minds and sometimes wallets
of consumers. With me today, I have David Deroga, creative
chairman of Deroga five. Deroga five has been named Agency
(01:36):
of the Year a mere eleven times, which year, g miss,
We'll talk about that later. Uh. And you're also the
only agency I believe to be named in edges a
list over seven consecutive years. Pretty amazing run you guys
have been on. Uh yeah, psych to have you here.
We also have the amazing Cindy Gallop and advertising icon
who's known for channeling her creative skills into real world
(01:59):
advocacy these days. She launched If We Ran the World
TED in twenty ten as a marketing and business platform
that actually turns human incorporate good intentions into collective action,
a very hot topic these days, one microaction at a time.
She's also created a multi media initiative called Make Love
Not Porn, which you're right there explains the value of
(02:20):
creativity probably enough said, she also encourages an open and
healthy dialogue around how real people have sex. It's a
whole different podcast. I see another topic coming. Take a note. Yeah,
I'm gonna take notes and get some advice. Yeah, exactly.
Or we could just we could just pivot now, absolutely
know you're right, it's crucial. Actually, that's an awesome opening question.
(02:41):
You know which is more valuable, creativity or porn. Well, actually,
I would argue interestingly that creativity is a function of
what my social sex platform, Make Love Not Porn, is
all about, because make Love Porn is kind of an accident.
It came about out of direct personal experience stating younger
men and discovering that pawn was acting by default of
(03:04):
sex education in a world where the issue isn't porn,
The issue is that we don't talk about sex. So
make love and porn is an accident. It blew up
in a way I never anticipated after launched at ted
in two thousand nine. But what is no accident is
the fact that I've spent thirty years working in advertising
in the business of communication. I know therefore that everything
(03:24):
great in life and business is born out of great communication.
And sex is no different. Great sex has brought out
a great communication. That's why I make love not Pawn's
mission is one thing only to help make it easier
for the world to talk about sex. Because when you
can communicate around sex, you can open up around sex,
you can be truly creative. You can have an absolutely
(03:45):
wonderful sex life, a wonderful relationship, and a much happier
life just that easy. So I think we've said sex
is valuable. What about the value of creativity now that
it's accessible to everyone with a bone and an Internet
connection or self connection. Is that driving the value of
creativity down as more people have means? Or is the
(04:07):
value of creativity actually rising? Well, creativity is one of
those generic words. Who's the measure of what's creative or not?
I should paint a little picture before we unpack these questions.
You should be able to hear. I see it through
the lens as a creative person, so clearly I have
a distorted loyalty to it. I pack it down to
practical and logical people make the world go round, but
(04:31):
creative people make the world worth living in? Do you
know what I mean? And you can sort of put
that into any industry, any category. Creativity is in everyone,
how it manifests itself and how it's revealed to the world.
That's subjective, but there is a real value. And I
think I can say, within my limited experience in the industry,
I've seen creativity move from being something that is a
(04:53):
nice add on just something that is crucial. It's a
point of difference now as opposed to just oh, that'd
be interesting if that was creative. If there's a real
logic and there's a real purpose in it, I feel
like creativity can change the world. And you know, even
what's he started saying about, you know, she's taking a
very important issue and not keeping it dry, but making
(05:14):
it something that's relevant and worthy, but delivering it to
people in a creative way. And that makes it more interesting,
and that makes it more obtainable to people. And and
that's what creativity does. It keeps you engaged, it keeps
you interested, it keeps you surprised, it keeps you excited.
And I love that about it. Yeah. Well, here's the
interesting thing, Gail, because very far from creativity having become devalued,
(05:37):
we haven't even begun to see the true value of creativity,
both in our industry and in the world at large.
And what I mean by that is, right now, our
industry thinks that there was a golden age of creativity
and creativity being valued, and that girl need is over.
Our industry thinks it's glory days. A really that our
(06:01):
industrils glory days haven't even begun, because we have not
even begun to see what creativity could be in our
industry as the result of the creativity and talent and
skills of women and people of color. And to give
an example of what I mean by that, at the
top of our industry, as at the top of every industry,
(06:21):
is a closed loop of white guys talking to white
guys about other white guys. I'm from that meaning it's
awesome exactly. And when you have that closed loop of
white guys at the top of every industry, the creative output,
the product you get is Batman versus Superman, which not
coincidentally tanked the box office. When you welcome the creativity,
(06:45):
the talent and skills of women and people of color
into and I use this reference advisedly, the room where
it happens, what you get is Hamilton's which not only
exploded every previous creative convention, the Broadway Musical but also
not coincidentally is making literally billions of dollars. That's the
(07:06):
amount of creativity that has not yet even been tapped
in our industry. It's the amount of creativity that has
not yet even been tapped in the world at large.
And that is how much money our industry and every
other industry is leaving on the table when it does
not welcome, celebrate, champion value, and give free rein to
the creativity of women and people of color. I definitely
(07:27):
agree with that. I feel like, you know, we haven't
unleashed at all, and I feel like we definitely need
to open it up. And you know, the floodgates will
open up when we make it fair for everybody to
voice the creativity and have a platform, but sort of
at a broader level beyond the specifics of people of
color or women or white men. And I'm a white
man and I speaking most like apologizing for it, but
(07:49):
the value of creativity to your point, I think we
haven't seen the best days behind us at all. And
I look at it again, not just through the industry,
and I'm an optimist in what we're trying to cont
good and where I think that it's going. But you
look at for instance, you know, as a father of
four children and I've got a sixteen year old. So
we're at the stage now where we are about to
go into thinking about colleges if he does his homework.
(08:12):
But what's amazing now is you can pick any university
or college in the country across multiple sort of sizes
and everything like that. What are the questions they're asking
now for applicants into these universities, And there's more questions
that are lateral, like Google like sort of questions about
you know, how they try and mind for lateral thinkers,
(08:34):
it's not just based on marks and test scores. They're
trying to see how you think and that you don't
think like that other person. There's I can't remember what
the article was a year or two ago where it
was saying, you know why you're a plus student will
work for my C minus student. The point in that
was if we're all bred to think the same, whether
(08:54):
it be through just color and sex or reciting the
same books and all that, and we don't let the
freak flags fly from those with diverse backgrounds and magical thinkers,
then you know the world isn't going to get interesting.
And that's where that sort of shows you. The billion
dollar companies now, how they harvest and how they nurture
(09:15):
people into the system isn't just through test scores and
through cvs. The universities now, from the most established ones,
they're trying to find creative thinkers, people that are going
to solve lateral problems and think about things in a
different way. So that gives me hope not just for
our industry, but for opening doors for different types of
people who haven't had opportunities for not just book smart people,
(09:37):
you know, not just people who can regurgitate and parrot
back things that learn in school. Yeah, I think there
is a golden age of creativity coming because it has
to interesting. Actually, it has to. It's not like it
would be nice to it has to. When I started
sort of working in the advertising side a little software
company in Redmond, creative was at the core. Right the
creative agency has got two hours forty five minutes of
(09:58):
the three hours of time we had didn't. It was
really about landing the right ideas and then we talked
about where to put those ideas and what the media
plan might be, and over the last decade, it was
interesting to see how the Internet, which you thought would
have exploded creativity, and it did in the world, but
maybe not as much in our industry, was competing with data.
(10:19):
And it almost felt like sometimes the creativity and the
data and the media math where it odds. And you
started seeing that three hour block of time shifting more
and more to math and data and analytics, and and
I do feel personally as I go out and talk
to you know, amazing creative types like yourself and and cmos,
it feels like the pendulum is starting to swing back
(10:40):
to find a balance between what data can inform but
where great ideas need to lead. Are you seeing that happen?
And your people, we were an industry that loves to
run to the other side of the ship every time. Yeah, yeah,
And we're not known for our restraint. And the thing is,
creativity used to be defined as just what was the
(11:00):
narrative of the story or the idea. I think that
you know, a great idea can't live in isolation, can't
just be a script or just a line unless it
is unless there's a reason why it should exist in
that sort of simple manifestation. But data is a great thing.
You know, people expect someone who's a creative person with
my background to be anti that or all. I'm like, no,
(11:21):
I'm I want to do whatever works, and if I'm
better informed by learning this and partner with this person,
I mean, creativity is whatever you want it to be. Yeah,
I think that's what we're seeing right that. The depressing
thing about that is that not enough people with power
in our industry understand that. So it is entirely possible
(11:43):
to read any number of press reports on statements from
the heads of holding companies, the heads of big agencies
on the future of our industry and never have them
speak about creativity. Once you can literally search the as
reports of the last speech by you know at you
know the for a you know whatever can and you
(12:07):
will not find the word creativity once in an entire
full page piece covering that speech. I find that extraordinary
because it is absolutely missing precisely what day was speaking to.
I was thinking about today actually, because so today's equal
pay day. And I don't know if you guys saw that.
R g A approached me some weeks back with this
(12:27):
bloody brilliant idea which I absolutely said yes to, which
was that for equal pay day, they would turn me
into a chatbot, and I would like, I thought you
already were. And so today we launched Cindy Bot on
Facebook Messenger, which basically talks every woman through how to
get a pay raise. It was built with the help
(12:49):
of the muse Reply Ai, which is AI bot building
company with pay Scale, so it pulls data on pay
so literally, for example, you can enter your zip code,
it will say to you entirely my tone of voice.
So you know, the average salary for an art director
in your area is black. But you're not average, are you?
So you're gonna ask them more. And the reason I
(13:10):
bring this up is because when r g A took
me through everything they planned, I was blown away by
the fact that they had created a chat bot that
was me. So, you know, the creative team, Kate and Brad,
who literally built the boat, spent hours watching all of
my talks researching me online. Kate said to me, I
am now like the Cindy out at Brand Steward. I
(13:30):
was the one going said you would never say that,
you know when they're mapping out the language, but the
bard and so they infused this chat bot with my personality,
my language, my sense of humor. And actually testimony to
that is that it's been a phenomenal response on social
media and it was your getting paid well. So if
you watch the video like introducing the chat board, and
you will see that I say, you know and and
(13:50):
so you know, they said, you know, here's we wanted
you to do. Sendey, I go with a great cause
and they went and as it's, you know, for a
good cause, do you think you could do it for free?
And I went, I know my value, pay me and
I'm going to show you how to as well. So
the response has been amazing. But there're been a lot
of people saying this is the best use of a
chat bot I've seen. And I'm telling you that because
(14:13):
what they built was a thing of utility and value
that was also enormously engaging, that took technology and with
real creativity gave it a personality and a purpose that
vast numbers of women today given the evidence of finding
enormously actively useful. It's why I say the future of
(14:34):
our industry is not add units, but add products, literally
creating things of utility and value that utterly delight consumers
and are welcomed by them and there is huge opportunity
at the intersection of creativity and technology that again I
really feel our industry has not begun to tap because
they seem to think it's either one thing or the
other in many pockets of it, especially the more powerful ones.
(14:57):
That's a great example, and congratulations again on doing that,
you know, something so important, But it also illustrates the
point is it's embracing technology. Technology is not the idea
like too many people think, like exactly the technology on
my idea is to use this. Yeah, let me check
the point of technology and that is just the canvass
or the jo exactly. And actually on that front, I
(15:17):
want to pick up on something you just said. And
this may sound like I'm playing to our company and
allocations think it's going to be about radio, It's just
a guess. So radio is one of the most underrated
media in our industry, and I say this with feeling
for a couple of reasons. The first is that I
sit as one of the AD Council's Campaign Review Committee chairs,
(15:42):
and the AD Council obviously relies heavily on donated media
spread of partners exactly, and so radio plays a very
key role in every AD Council campaign and radio is
a phenomenal way of reaching vast numbers of Paul at
very interesting contextual moments, drive time, commute time, etcetera, in
(16:05):
ways that can actually be leveraged to get them to
do what you would like to do. It enormously frustrates
me that very often, and I hastened to it's not
true of all the presentations I see the ADD Council,
but very often the pattern of the presentation and the
relative weight follows the old world order thinking in industry,
which is the big TV spot, Okay, the big TV commercial,
(16:27):
followed by a number of thematics printers, and radio is
the last on the list. So much so that I've
actually proposed to the AD Council, and I've said this
number of agencies because we review campaigns at strategy and
then at the creative concepts, and then at rough cuts
sort of almost finished work stage. I sent to the agency,
I would love you at the strategy stage to go
(16:50):
away briefless work in and come back and show us
how the idea works in radio. First lead with radio
because radio is potentially enormously creative media him and it
requires a very different creative approach to anything else, and
I'm really tired of seeing TV scripts on wheels as
a radio ad. And at least favorite car I have
to make is when I have to tell a CMO
(17:11):
that we spent months and months convincing somebody we should
be doing radio as part of a campaign and the
listeners are there and it's a great creative platform. And
then I'll pick one of our people and be like, hey,
can I hear those spots? I think it's launching next week,
and I'll go, this is the TV without the video,
isn't it? It is precisely and I feel strongy about
the best. Years ago, when I was at PBH London,
(17:33):
I ran our Cadbra's business and we had a chocolate
bar cabras May called Boost with a tiny budget, so
we had to be enormously ingenious and we created a
radio campaign for Boost, featuring a very popular comedy duo
vickn Bob in the UK at the time, and that
campaign blew the doors off. It's sold vast amounts of
Boost the r R and it was ridiculous and it
(17:56):
was through an extremely creative use of radio. It's an
interest thing art in the creative community. Right. Audio podcasts
are really hot right now, but there's like this interesting
there's a difference between what might make a great spot
um as a pre role or mid role or post
role in audio, and what actually is great contextual content
(18:18):
or how do you use audio to grab attention and
tell a story? Differently, good as good is good, and
I think people are returning back to not just what
they understand, but what delivers for them, and radio is
the reason is prevailing. I'm a proud board member of
new or public radio, so I'm fantastic podcasts of Booming
and I feel like smart audio, smart narrative, great relationships
(18:40):
with your local radio station's coming back, and I think
that's the thing that's familiarity with it. There's reassurance and
if it's done well. I agree with you and that
the theater of the imagination of radio is second to none.
The limitations are not budgets you're not trying to make.
It's not a budget. Is not your remember agonizing and
trying to make a living room with nextbox in it
(19:00):
look right for thirty one markets impossible right now, but
it's wrong everywhere where. If I talk about your living
room in audio, it's right, picture yourself in your living room.
But we're all in the moment, right. I do remember
that when I first started in the industry, you know
someone saying to me, on rightio, you can do anything
you want, Like if you want to convince people at
this is banana walking down the stairs, you can make
them believe that as opposed to just having to bring
(19:23):
it animated. Audio is one of those new creative green fields.
It's interesting. We talked a lot about millennials, and I
think as marketers, one of the things I've realized is
in this digital error, particularly millennials in America, I think
we really miss the mark in for the generation like
the most educated generation and the history of human beings.
(19:44):
We actually made everything shorter and a little dumber. Right,
And now you're seeing six hour podcasts with ten million downloads,
and documentaries are back in vogue. I agree. I think
if it's smart and interesting, people things like the World
loves appetizes. But I don't want to live on just appetizes.
I want things of substance. I don't care how they live.
(20:06):
But everything can't be saxized. No, look at the size
of the average Harry Potter book. Yeah, those teens, those
kids everyone, Oh they only want what are they sitting
down and glue to all the way through to the end.
I know. We cut everything down from like, remember sixties
were the norm, like not all that long ago. And
then we went to fifteen and we said, hey, you
(20:26):
can only handle eight seconds. That's cool seconds because two
hours of us and compelling, they'll ask for more. Speaking
of appetizers, I got a little thirsty. Time to take
a break with our friends from Bullet Frontier whiskey, please
drink responsibly. So you have our friends from Bullet here,
(20:51):
I thought. I believe their line is making friends on
the new Frontier. Welcome Jessica Gonzalez. She is one of
the leading female ale mixologists talking some new Friends look
sensational a new mixology treat. Yeah, these look great, beautiful glassware.
You have the fruit inside the glassware, lining it, and
(21:12):
then you have the actual mini bottle of bullet. Oh
my god, I love that. I love that. So now
as that's going through a restaurant or a bar, not
only are you remembering that's a Bullet cocktail, but you're
also intrigued. And for those of you who can't see
in a podcast, Jessica has taken the little airplane mini
(21:35):
bottle of bullet and actually put it upside down, pouring
itself into this insanely beautiful minty strawberry delicious nous. I
love that idea because that's precisely the problem with any
bar call. Once it's made, you've got no idea what
brand actually went into it. And I think it's this
genius And literally we know what brand went into because
(21:55):
the brand is actually bottle in the bottle glass. We
love that. We love ectacular because it is sort of
like how do you get that cross? Because on a
menu it's so easy to be forgotten. Are you buying
the cocktail because it says bullet? Are you buying it
because it says whiskey, or because it says strawberries or mint?
All of these things are like how you get somebody
(22:17):
to buy a drink because it says strawberries. Oh I
don't necessarily like whiskey, but I love strawberry, so I
order it. Well, you know, bullets my actual bourbon of choice.
And I'm not saying that because I'm sitting here about
to drink a Brandon. It actually is brilliant. Love the
Olmstead Park Smash. It has lemons, sugar, mint, strawberries, a
(22:37):
little bit of a local spicy bitters, and Bullet bourbon.
Very refreshing tasting summer cocktail. Stead actually in Louisville, Kentucky.
He actually designed all the parks and he actually had
a little hand in Central Park. I think history of
(22:58):
the Louisville Parks in New York one. Well, whenever I
do a podcast, it's my drink of choice. Yea, exactly, yes,
making friends on the New Frontier podcasting we love my pleasure.
M m m m m m m mmmm. It's still
tastes delicious, yes, exactly. Sorry, beyond the theater of that,
(23:19):
it actually does taste, oh my god, populous. Yeah, get
a little more whiskey when you pour it in on
the top. Delicious. How does the flavor profile of bullet
inspire you? Is it different than other beverages? So when
when you're making cocktails, sometimes what helps a lot is
when you're working with a really great product. So if
(23:41):
it's a quality product, you're going to end up with
a quality drink. You don't have to mask it. I
bet you would agree with other flavors and you can
do something. Yeah, when you have something you can do
simple and it's just like the products piece for itself.
Can I ask you a question this is now just
selfishly wanted tonight, like do you prefer rye or bourbon?
You know what? It depends, And I'll be completely honest,
(24:02):
I like to mix them both together. So I actually
like a little bit of bourbon in my rhymantin, just
to say, when you take one thing at a little
bit of something else, you can make it even better.
It's brilliant. Yes, yes, great thing. I think Cindy's chat
bart would enjoy the skytail. My chatbot isn't enjoying the
(24:24):
cocktail as we speak, precisely. And I love how the
the whiskey like, even though it's integrating in the drink,
you could slowly sort of drink it. Half of the
whiskey's in there, and as you drink it more, the
whiskey goes in. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've never seen fascinating.
Can I just say something on the front, which is
(24:44):
that I'm extremely pleased to see you here a female
mixologist talking about rhyme bourbon because the thing that really
frustrates me because I also a bourbon drinker, a right drinker,
and a Scotch drinker. And you know those are union
lack truly marketed to men. And trust me, the future
(25:05):
of all of them is women. Okay, I agree wholeheartedly,
and I think that it's changing. I have to say
to Bullets credit, not only do we have a lovely
female mixologist, but I think at least two thirds of
the people we've dealt with, like the lovely Michelle here
from Diagio, have been women on this process. So I
think Bullets kind of getting it right. It is awesome.
(25:26):
I agree with you, though I I do probably all
too many women's panels. And remember going to a women's
eventum that typically is a very male dominated entrepreneurial event,
and they had a special women's event and it was
just wine, and I was like, are you kidding me?
Years ago, the economists brought me in to do some
consulting with them, and I had this conversation with them
(25:47):
about business publications. Because you know, I'm a woman in business.
I read you know, the economists, I read Forbes, Fortune Wide,
Fast Company, and with all of those magazines, I know
that they're really talking to men and they are assuming
I'm just along for the right. We know when a
(26:07):
brand is talking to men and considers us an afterthought
to be swept up, you know, behind the men. I
have this conversation actually on a panel to conference as well,
where I said, the first business publication that makes me
feel that I really am it's target audience has my
undying loyalty. I will subscribe for life. I will go
(26:27):
to all their conferences. I will join their wine club,
I will join their dating service, because that's where they're
all trying to make money. That literally, again, there is
a huge amount of money to make that is not
being made out of taking women seriously. I think that
that that's true broadly speaking, definitely, but I don't think
it it's true of everybody. I think that, you know,
there are some publications that I don't think you're thinking
(26:49):
about a specific gender. Do you think The New York
Times is thinking about just a male audience or do
you think they're thinking about an intelligent audience. I think
the New York Times, which is well known to be
a male dominated workplace, you know, look at what happened
to Jill Abrams, and in that scenario is looking at
things from the male lens, and that makes a difference.
I think the course correction is massive that needs to happen.
(27:11):
And I agree with that. And I say that as
a male. I say that as someone who's benefited from
being a white male. I said that, it's also someone
who's proud that I can only speak for my company.
I think six of our ten top executives are females,
So you know, I feel like we based it on talent,
not on no And and and you have the fantastic
Sarah Thompson. We have this totally potentially, And and I
(27:36):
see the benefit of surrounding myself with incredibly intelligent people,
and it just thankfully happens to be more women, I mean,
and my businesses flourished because of that. The diversity of
thought is hard enough to sort of cast for a
higher four, right, keep the ideas diverse. But when you
try to balance that with the shared values, I think
(27:57):
that's where it gets really challenging, right where you're trying
to read a needle of Great things happen when brand
share values with consumers, When a team shares values, and
there's a culture that and you need that seem to reflect.
For me, it's not about diversity. It's about humanity. Yes,
it's simply about reflecting the world as it really is,
and our industry doesn't do that sufficient. But finding diverse
(28:18):
people who share thoughts is much more challenging, I would
imagine then finding no, not at all. No, No, it's
extremely easy to find diversity. It's all around us. We
just don't look hard enough for it. Women buy, but
also crucially, women share. So social media is simply a
honly methodology for us to do what we have been
(28:39):
doing since the dawn of time, which is sharing the
out of everything in a way that mendate Because we
are the gossipers, were the chatters, we are the sharers,
the recommenders, the advocates, ambassadors. So much so that I
actually say to brands that think they're targeting men, talk
to women because women will influence men more than men
will influence other men. In this context, I agree that
(29:00):
I think maybe the promising thing for that point is
I'm hearing more and more in client meetings them saying that,
oh good. I mean, I'm not saying every but you're right.
I definitely feel like maybe the light bulbs finally gone
off from and obviously we need it to be you know,
consistent and widespread. But I'm definitely hearing that more there's
a generation that's grown up with much more diversity of
(29:22):
thought and experience and access to cultures and people who
weren't exactly like them that I think don't necessarily see
the disconnect or the awkwardness, or that there is any difference.
Um so I'm hopeful to that definitely, as a practical businessman,
as a citizen of the world, and as a father
of multiple daughters, we can only hope. Yes, we'll do
(29:43):
our part. One female mixologists and great cocktail at the time, Jessica, amazing,
Thank you, It's delicious. Cheers, cheers, thanks for having me.
Im sure your drink spirit, the story all disappear. The
(30:21):
bullet frontier whiskey, please drink responsibly. Speaking about millennials, maybe
the other myths that we have is everyone's distracted, Right,
there's this attention economy. When you think about creativity and
capturing attention, do you start in lengths and formats? How
do you start your creative process knowing that we live
(30:45):
in this world where people are distracted and attention is
a scarce resource. Yes, as a sort of three thousand
foot thing. Yes, everyone is distracted, but twenty years ago
people said they were distracted with the head. It's an
ezy alibo. I think, you know, the starting point is,
as I said before, like why would anyone give as
And also not just what the content is that you're
trying to push out there in the canvases, but it's
(31:05):
the context, the context in which you're going to try
and engage them and talk about them. You know, there
are times to try and have a conversation or try
and be a part of their lives, and there are
times where just stay out of it and just yeah,
I'm a big fan. Sometimes you just say it. Good
things prevail and cut through and boring tish doesn't. And
that's a fact what I think on that, And picking
(31:25):
up on Dave's point, which I can ly agree with
about why should I give it fish? I live my
own philosophers in the startups that I've created. I believe
that the future of business is doing good and making
money simultaneously, and therefore that the business model of the
future is shared values plus shared action equals shared profit,
financial profit and social profit. In other words, when brands
(31:48):
and businesses come together with their consumers, their audiences on
the basis of values that you all share, which, by
the way, is the most important requirement for a good
relationship in life as much as business. You will never
truly on with someone don't share the same values. And
if you're then enabled collectively and collaboratively to coact on
those values, to walk the talk together, you can then
(32:10):
make things happen in the real world that will benefit consumers,
benefit society, and benefit the brand. It's business and so
for me, a key part of attention getting if you like,
is when as a brand you demonstrate very clearly you
project a set of values, and consumers align with you
around those values because they're the values they also hold.
(32:32):
And what is interesting about that is I'm not talking
about putting something out there deliberately to appeal to consumers.
I'm talking about literally going, this is who we are,
is what we stand for that brand, and you will
absolutely draw to you people who go those values completely
aligned with mine and I want to be a part
of whatever it is you're doing, and then you've absolutely
begun the relationship building process. That's such a great point
(32:54):
because I definitely agree because that the distracted thing or
people not caring or giving is thankfully. Now. That's the
greatest thing that's happened now with the technology and transparency
is that brands their body language has to be in
sync with what they say. Ten twenty years ago, it didn't.
They could say this whole behavior you could show up
here with. People are drawn to people that share values.
(33:14):
I mean, that's the whole thing. I mean, that's why
Facebook you collect people who agree with who you are,
you know. I mean it's people are drawn to things
of people that valid who they are and share values.
You're right, the brands that are flourishing are those ones
that actually put something out there, stand for something, and
people sort of you know, their aligned principles and values.
And I think that's a really good point. Yeah, I
totally agree. In life and marketing and everything, I think
(33:37):
you said it well. You know, I think in this
new sort of world of everything is accessible, everything is possible,
experience has gone out of vogue a little bit, but
it feels like maybe it's coming back in. How do
you look at experience and through creative filter? Do you
mean experience of the creative themselves? Yeah, you know, I
think we've been in this entrepreneurial new next I can
(33:57):
start a company, I can create things. I have the
means a youth culture. Maybe we're experience has almost gone
out of I'm not sure if that's true in the
creative well, I think there's there's an argument for either,
because I feel like experience, with that comes wisdom and
learnings and shortcuts and knowing where the maze ends and
all that which is helpful and wisdom will never go
(34:17):
out of style. But then also with lack of experience
comes naivety and ignorance, which is also some of the
biggest fertilizers of creativity, which is not knowing that that's
the stupid things that you'll pursue it, and then it's
something could come out of that. So it's a tough one.
And maybe I'm going to pivot because now I'm getting
into the experience category, moving from the sort of young
guy too. In the beginning, I think that I benefited
(34:39):
from being young and naive and all those things that
come with that, and now I'm trying to piloy that
into world. You know, there's greatness in wisdom, and you know,
I love sitting down. If I meet someone and they
have an obsession about any topic, whether it be owls
or surfing or whatever it is, like if they've started
a lifetime. And I always try and get what I
(35:00):
can out of the minute our conversation. So there's great
stuff that comes from experience. Not everything has to be
surface level and disposable, and wisdom does going back to
radio right now, everything has to be into them disposable,
you know. So I was having this conversation a few
weeks ago with a very reputable credit rector and our
(35:21):
industry who was expressing frustration about the fact that ages
UM absolutely operates, particularly the belief that the older creators
and now industry are not digitally savvy, you know, can't
deal with the modern world, etcetera. And so I was
thinking about this just within this discussion. I said to him, actually,
(35:42):
here's what I do. If you want to do something
about that, here's what I do. I would tackle that
issue head on. So I would bring together around you
a whole group a collective of other older creatives in
our industry who feel the same way. And by older
I mean over the age of fifty, let's say, and
in fact, not just creatives, but strategists, accountany of whatever.
(36:02):
I would form a collective I would give it a
name that tackles this issue head on, and so I
would call it the Old Folks Home. Okay, and I
would do two things. The first is that I would
announce publicly that every week, let's say, every Wednesday, between
the hours of seven and nine in the evening, the
Old Folks Home will take up residents at this bar,
(36:24):
cafe wherever where they will offer free you can basically
come along and you can talk to them about any
issue troubling you in the industry. You can get instant
mentorship advice. The only criteria is that you can only
do that if you're under the age of twenty five.
This is something that the young people in industry are
gagging for. Okay, and I say that as somebody who
(36:46):
does workshops and consulting with agencies, because as we all know,
it's a bloody nightmare today the economist staff, the numbers
are down. Your pitching, nobody's got time to dispense wisdom
as a result of many years of experiences to the
people at the bottom, that's if you even see them
by the way, versus the person's running around putting something
(37:06):
together in a meeting. So the umpian redustry could really
benefit from that advice and that wisdom. And secondly they
would go back to their agencies and they would talk
about it big time. I'm all about communication through demonstration.
That's one of the quickest ways to get the value
of experience and wisdom in our industry, you know, reappraising
respectabil And then secondly, I would actually make that collective
(37:29):
what in fact Rick Boyko did with Sparks Starters with
which I've been a part of, which is bring together
a bunch of industry veterans who are available as consultants,
as trainers, as workshoppers again to provide all of that
expertise that when you are pitching you can't always manage
an house to be able to coach people and get
(37:49):
them to best practice operation the way that you always
like to. Now, that's a good idea. Many years we've
been talking about this in the office about we're trying
to do something with potential around this was that you know, essentially,
wisdom is probably the greatest natural resource that's wasted in
this country anywhere. Like you think of the amount of
learnings and brain power and experience and all that that
(38:11):
is either put to pasture or that could be tapped
into the next generation. As we live older and older,
that bank of wisdom and experience is going bigger and
bigger put on ice like, I think if they could
create something that could tap into that almost like what
you're talking about, like, there's very few I wouldn't say
there's nothing, but there's very few things that haven't been
seen before, maybe in a different context, shape and size,
(38:32):
but where you couldn't learn something from the generation above us.
You know, no matter how old we are, there's someone
above us who sort of been in similar sort of
footsteps that we have and could teach us something. So
I think that's a good idea. You're right because everyone's
in such a snap frenzy eight second da da da,
But realistically, you know, a lot of the things they've
done and questions they have aren't new. Yeah, that's interesting.
(38:53):
We did a women's episode of Tagline recently, and one
of the things that struck me was an awesome group
of senior women in the industry, and one of the
first things they did was they started apologizing for not
having time to mentor people. I thought that was really interesting,
and I think the men's episode necessarily would have gone there.
You know. One of the things that's always struck me
about creatives as a whole, and you guys are great
(39:15):
examples of this too, is there's a youthfulness that comes
from curiosity. And I think what tends to draw people
to creative fields, any creative field, is a natural curiosity
that I don't think goes away as you get older.
And I think that is one of the things that
keeps great creators great great. I think curiosity is contagious,
and I'm glad it is because that I think that
(39:37):
is what whatever your birth says, your curiosity is something
that keeps you young and agreed. I think everyone has
an innate age. That's that's something my wife would I
always say, I'm five at heart. No, no, exactly. I
think that's the thing I feel like, no matter what,
I'm so happy to be a creative person because I'm
always desperate to sort of be like looking, exploring, solving, learning.
I had that conversation honestly to today with someone who
was coming in for an interview, and I said, let's
(39:58):
just forget the text of what we're talking about this
job or this thing, and I said, we are paid
to day dream I just think about that, like someone
whether they be a billion dollar client or a startup
or a politician or an NGEO, like they are paying.
We're not making a widget, or we're not on the
factory line, and someone's paying us. We can help all
of them contribute that, but we're paying to use our imagination,
(40:21):
and that is unbelievable as a job. I think that
is the real value of creativity in some ways, right.
It's the luxury of being able to be curious and
think and provoke and ask questions as a maker, and
then on the other side is a receiver the ability
to be provoked and prodded and open people's minds or
hearts and make them think and feel. It's a luxury
(40:42):
where it is a luxury even on our hardest voice
days in our industry, we have to sit here and
have a podcast talk about is although to the point
you just made so because this is another thing I
think I'm is missing out on. So because it's not
as if we're in transmit mode and the audience is
and seve mode. There's a huge opportunity, particularly today with
(41:03):
everything that social media affords, for us to put brilliantly
creative campaigns, programs, objects, whatever they are out there, and
too then welcome and study the response and to then
leverage it and interact with it and build and build
on it and actually welcome in areas of creativity from
(41:27):
it that can then be expanded on going forwards. And
the problem is that too many brands and agencies are
too scared to do that because oh my god, somebody
has interact with us on social media, must not go there.
What do we do get the crisis communications people? Our
tweet back has to go through seven nurs approval. You
can't do that. There is enormous potential in releasing your
(41:49):
creative product into the wild and seeing how people respond
to it, and then seeing what you can build on
out of those responses in real time to create even
more whatever it is. Living forward, we talked without a
lot internally. Where honestly has changed is back in the day,
we were paid to come up with some concept or
narrative that was always in a neat bow, whether it
(42:11):
came alive through a thirty second television ad or a
billboard or whatever it was, but it was sort of
put out into the world as his finished, completed thing.
And now the narrative of the idea. People's reaction is
part of that now absolute. It's one of the reasons
that live radio is still reaching, you know, ninety plus
percent of Americans every day. And the reason is because
it is live and messy and human and raw, and
(42:32):
it's always changing. And and you see right away, if
you know, Ryan Seacrist goes on air and says something
provocative or controversial or unpopular, he'll know instantly because consumers
will start responding and reacting in real time, and that
changes his dialogue on air. It used to be telephone lines, right,
It used to be all the buttons would laid up
and we're like, oh my god, people hated that. I
(42:52):
can't believe. Oh sorry, hey, let's have a conversation about it.
Whereas too many brands put their video on YouTube and
disabled the comments. Yeah yeah, yeah, ka's it's ridiculous. It's challenging.
They're learning to live in a world of real time creativity,
isn't it. But the interesting thing, to go back to
the point of my daily was you don't have to
worry about it if you are living according to your values.
(43:16):
So if you know very clearly what you're about what
you stand for, and you are behaving according and you're
communicating accordingly, then how have people engaged with you? You
never have to be worried about it because they're not
trying to be anything you want, and you can just
be who you are. You can respond us who you are.
You know, you're being open, you're honest, you're real, you're authentic.
There's nothing to worry about. It's so true because we
(43:36):
work with some great brands who have strong points of
view that have been provocative and they've stood their ground
because they genuinely believe it's something like honeymade and things
like that. But then there's brands that say we stand
for this, but if they hear any back life, they're like, well,
we don't really stand our principle. We stood yellow and
outstanding anyone else. They're doing amazing things you wish you did.
(44:03):
There's always people I'm jealous. There's always jealousy, jealousy motivators. Yes,
I think in lots of calgories in different industries. You
from the art world of film, world of television, world,
design world. I mean, you know, I sit on boards
things that are inspire me, that are creative, that a
commercial thing. You know. I sit on the board of
New Museum, I sit on the board of the Public
Theater and things like that, going back to Hamilton's and
(44:23):
stuff like. Yeah, I'm most jealous of people that are
building sustainable businesses but doing good. You know that it's
done through social conscious and making impact. Like we live
in a era now where you don't have to choose
between you don't have to choose it's increasing doing good
or having a good business like you can actually choose
both and that is the win win, right, absolutely beautiful thing.
(44:44):
How about you, Cindy. What I'm envious of is anybody
in the industry who has done something enormously creative that
is fundamentally rooted in the product, the brand and the
business and so a campaign I totally wish I'd done.
Is the enormously clever thing that Crispin did with Craft
for the new Mac and Cheese, which you may not recall.
(45:08):
Craft decided to change their formula for Mac and Cheese.
But obviously whenever anybody does that, instant outcry, I look
at New Code the absolute epitome of how not to
do it. What they did was basically, they changed the
formula and they killed nobody, and they sold it in
the same pacts for three months as the new Mac
and Cheese, and then they came out and said the
(45:30):
announcement is we've changed it, and you love it because
you have spectacular failed to notice for the past three months.
I just thought that was genius. Again. I'm about communication
through demonstration. What better way to get buy in into
a new formulation than to do that. The thing with
our industry is, you know, to try and justify who
we are, We've craized so many levels of responsible, smart
(45:52):
people whose job is it to find responsible reasons not
to do these things? That is, yes, yes, there's so
many people you can almost with good intentions. It's not
like everyone who kills something or who's like it's like
we all have opinions. You have enough responsible hoople you
can find a reason for something not to happen. And
that's the enormous tragedy of our business because every single
(46:14):
one of us, if you are an ad person worth
your salt, you have in your mind forever that shortlist
of bloody, brilliant ideas that never got to happen, that
still make you burn red hot with rage all these
years later, Right, and we all have them. They represent
such an appalling waste of creativity, of talent and brilliance
(46:37):
and ingenuity, and because they were killed not because they
were bad ideas, but for a whole host of reasons
that ranged from client's appetite for risk, through the lack
a budget whatever. And honestly, in the work that got
made and never saw the light of death. I always
wanted to do like the other can event where you
had to go through a metal detector, check your cell phones,
(46:58):
all your devices, and then just share in a dark
room all the work that never really got seen. But
we talk about in our office, you know. And I
genuinely believe this. It does take the same amount of
energy to try and do something great as it does
to justify something average. Actually, because I think all the
people come along for the ride, all the other pieces
(47:19):
just yeah, the whole businesses and people justifying. Yeah, absolutely, justifying. Absolutely,
that's the name of my agency, exactly. That's the truth. Well,
I know you don't like it, but I'm going to
have Mr blah blah blah with ex give you a
presentation about why Medioperaty was the right choice. Absolutely, We're
(47:40):
just going to stay in this lane right here. Yeah,
I try and do something great awesome. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. Have one final question that
we always ask our esteemed guests here on tagline, what
is your tagline? When I think a lot of the world,
there's mine, I like to blow the shut up. I
am the Michael Bate of business. It's terrific. Does he
(48:03):
get a royalty every time you say that? He should
be giving me roles? Somebody said he should be a
sparring to be the Cynic Galicas movie theater, isn't I
don't have a tagline it maybe I need to get
used to get a team on that. I think my
thing would be um cam or yeah, profound, profound. I
(48:24):
don't know how I can top that. And that's episode three. Yeah, yeah, terrific.
Thank you guys so much for sharing provoking some thoughts.
The time, isn't it making friends here on the podcast
with Cocktails. You've been listening to Tagline presented by our
(48:46):
friends at Bullet Frontier Whiskey Bullet Distilling Company, Louisville, Kentucky.
Please drink responsibly. We want to hear what you thought.
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