Episode 4 Transcript
[00:00:00] John: Welcome to giant stories, a podcast inspired by people and brands with meaningful stories to share. I’m John Kiker, your host and president of medium giant, a fully integrated creative agency in Dallas and Tulsa. So while the tools at our disposal to create and share great stories have never been more broad and varied.
[00:00:17] The fundamentals of great storytelling remain as transcendent as ever. Despite the headwinds our industry faces, clients and brands will always covet companies that remain steadfast with an eye on culture, an understanding of the business dynamics at hand, and a commitment to the fundamentals of what makes a great story.
[00:00:35] So for this episode of Giant Stories, we were really fortunate to be joined by Joan Cetera, who is vice president of enterprise communications, global government, and corporate affairs at Caterpillar. But Joan also has an amazing story career, both on the client and agency side. Previous to Caterpillar, she was at PepsiCo Foods where she focused on Frito Lay brands.
[00:00:56] She spent time on the agency side as well, but this conversation was [00:01:00] really about what goes into making a great story, talking about some of her experiences at Frito Lay and what’s ahead at Caterpillar as they celebrate their centennial. She goes into, uh, storytelling around cross mediums, talks about representation, talks about strategy at work, has a really good thought on internal galvanize the workforce.
[00:01:20] This was a great conversation with some great examples of what makes for a great story, and we’re excited to share it with you. Today, we’re excited to be joined by Joan Satara, Vice President of Enterprise Communications, Global Government, and Corporate Affairs at Caterpillar. That’s a big job. There’s a lot there.
[00:01:35] Joan’s career in public relations has included senior roles on both the client and agency side. Uh, prior to joining Caterpillar, Joan served as VP of Communications at PepsiCo Foods, uh, North America, and Senior Vice President of Consumer at Edelman, uh, and in the same roles at MSL Group and Obel VPR.
[00:01:52] How am I doing so far? You’re great. We’re there? We’re there. All right. All true. Perfect. Um, at every stop, uh, Joan’s grasp of how brands best serve [00:02:00] consumers by understanding their needs has built platform after platform for great stories. She’s a Chicago transplant to North Texas. We’d love to talk more about that, uh, speaking of good stories, and we’re very glad to have her here for this conversation today.
[00:02:12] Joan, welcome.
[00:02:12] Joan: Well, thank you very much. Happy
[00:02:14] John: much. Absolutely. Um, so, uh, on Giant Stories, we always like to start with, uh, just a conversation about you and your story. How did you get where you are? Oh,
[00:02:24] Joan: Today
[00:02:25] John: or well, I mean, I heard about your commute down from Irving, so it was a little bit rough. Exactly. No, I was
[00:02:30] Joan: a journalism major. Was kind of my, um,
[00:02:34] John: my path
[00:02:35] Joan: and graduated in the late 90s thinking I would go to grad school and I would be the, you know, in depth reporter, political reporter who kind of, you know, dug stuff up and really got to the to the meat of a story.
[00:02:49] John: Right. I
[00:02:50] Joan: interviewed for the graduate school and the gentleman who ran the program, his name’s Charlie Wheeler at University of Illinois at [00:03:00] Springfield, said to me, you know, and I went through my
[00:03:03] John: whole,
[00:03:03] Joan: who I am and what I do, and I had done PR internships and all these things.
[00:03:07] And he goes, yeah, I really think you’d be better in PR.
[00:03:11] John: And I was heartbroken.
[00:03:12] Joan: He’s like, we could let you into the program. You have all the qualifications. You’ve done all these things. He’s like.
[00:03:19] John: but
[00:03:19] Joan: I really think a PR comms path is your path.
[00:03:24] John: What did he see in you when you said that?
[00:03:27] I don’t know. I never asked. And the
[00:03:30] Joan: thing is, like, we’ve kept in touch with him over the years.
[00:03:32] John: Yeah. but I never asked
[00:03:34] Joan: what it was. And, but
[00:03:37] John: I’m so I was heartbroken. Yeah.
[00:03:38] Joan: Right? Because I was like, oh, okay, this is what I was going to do. And,
[00:03:43] but it was
[00:03:44] one of those moments in life where you just kind of have those interactions where Yep.
[00:03:48] Yeah. You’re so glad you did because it changed my career trajectory. I then, you know, moved back home, got a PR internship at then [00:04:00] Golan Harris, which is now Golan, and it set me up for the rest of my career. So I think I owe Charlie that direction, even though in the moment. I, it was not the news I wanted to hear.
[00:04:14] John: Um, career paths are never straight lines, are they?
[00:04:16] No,
[00:04:17] Joan: no, sir. Nope. To your point.
[00:04:19] John: I never thought
[00:04:19] Joan: be sitting in North Texas, but you know, I think after, so after 18 years of agency life
[00:04:27] and I,
[00:04:27] John: which is like 75 years in dog life kind of thing, having been there, my
[00:04:31] Joan: why, um, my hairstylist is kept in good business to take care of all the,
[00:04:36] John: are taken care of. Um, I
[00:04:40] Joan: had the opportunity to go in house, as they say, and join an amazing team at Frito Lay, uh, running, at the time, marketing communications. So, working with all my friends in marketing on all the fun brands. Yeah. Um, and did that for about three and a half years, then [00:05:00] was, uh, given the opportunity to be the head of communications, did that for five all through COVID, um, and then kind of leveraged a lot of that experience to bring over to Caterpillar to be the lead communications role
[00:05:15] John: there. So how has it been transitioning from a, you know, one of the world’s largest food companies, um, that has so many brands within it and has so many unique stories to tell for each brand. I mean, you can see, you know, just watch any Superbowl broadcast and you’re going to see several of those commercials to, um, a very, a totally different category, totally different products that we, that tells totally different stories.
[00:05:36] Was that part of the allure? Like, how has that transition been? Absolutely. It was. You know, I had done on the agency
[00:05:42] Joan: side, a lot of CPG brands. I’d worked on PNG brands. I built a Facebook page for Pepto Bismol back in the
[00:05:50] John: day. So I’d
[00:05:51] Joan: kind of done that side of it.
[00:05:54] John: And
[00:05:54] Joan: so yes, industrial machinery was, was new. [00:06:00] But it still is equally recognizable.
[00:06:02] I think one of the fascinating things that I didn’t expect, you know, I knew I lived in a world where like, you just see Cheetos, Doritos,
[00:06:11] John: Fritos everywhere. I
[00:06:14] Joan: then now have transitioned to see Caterpillar machinery everywhere. And when it’s not our machinery, like the
[00:06:20] John: construction going on outside your office, I get a little, a little miffed.
[00:06:25] And I’m like, wait, I now identify those components. It’s kind of like seeing Pringles at the shelves, like, hey, wait a minute. A hundred
[00:06:31] Joan: percent. So it’s still,
[00:06:33] John: Like, I’m very
[00:06:34] Joan: proud to be a member of these companies that are part
[00:06:38] John: of everyday life.
[00:06:40] Joan: that, you know, People do recognize the cat logo. You can buy t shirts at Costco with it on there.
[00:06:47] The cat hat, Ryan Gosling, when he was, um, rehearsing for the Oscars singing, I’m just Ken,
[00:06:54] John: Yeah. Wore a cat hat. Wow. So
[00:06:56] Joan: the cat hat is so ubiquitous and as part of [00:07:00] pop culture. So
[00:07:01] John: I think that’s actually the
[00:07:03] Joan: I was able to bring to the new role was this is still. A that we have a very powerful brand.
[00:07:10] John: How does that
[00:07:12] Joan: kind of halo up to a corporate brand with Caterpillar and how can we leverage it and build on it to tell our story?
[00:07:19] John: So check out. Talk a little bit about Caterpillar’s presence in culture, because to your point, like, they’re the company with the machines that, that build things, right, that, that, that clear the way to, to, to build things. And so how have they made their way into culture? What is it about the Caterpillar brand’s story that has permeated all the way to, to Ryan Gosling’s
[00:07:38] hat, which
[00:07:39] he was amazing in that performance, by the way.
[00:07:41] I mean, I would, you know, I know, right. Wow.
[00:07:44] Joan: He was so great. And we’re so grateful he wore our
[00:07:47] John: hats the day before. Thank you, Ryan Gosling. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, it
[00:07:51] Joan: is, you know, I think the Caterpillar brand has been helped
[00:07:55] John: by the fact that
[00:07:56] Joan: we’ve been around a very long time.
[00:07:59] Next year will [00:08:00] be our centennial. So we’ll be celebrating a hundred years.
[00:08:04] John: and we’ve
[00:08:04] Joan: been at all these major milestones globally throughout that
[00:08:11] John: Little, little things like
[00:08:13] Joan: machines helped build the Hoover Dam,
[00:08:15] John: helped
[00:08:16] Joan: build the Hollywood sign, helped power, and this is the interesting segue, power the generators that put men on the
[00:08:24] John: moon.
[00:08:25] So
[00:08:25] Joan: we’ve been part of all these major milestones over those hundred years.
[00:08:30] So it’s a,
[00:08:30] the interesting part though, is The primary way people know us is the big yellow machine that you see on the side
[00:08:37] John: of the road. Iconic. The harder colors, iconic, even, right? Yes.
[00:08:42] know,
[00:08:42] trademark, trademark, the whole thing.
[00:08:44] Yeah.
[00:08:46] Joan: But where people don’t know us is that Caterpillar, much like a Frito Lay, much like a P& G, actually has multiple brands under
[00:08:56] John: the
[00:08:56] Joan: heading of Caterpillar. We have
[00:08:59] John: [00:09:00] Progress
[00:09:00] Joan: Rail. We have trains. We have generators that are actually generating some of the power that is needed for AI and for all of these data centers that are
[00:09:12] John: growing
[00:09:12] Joan: more and more.
[00:09:13] John: Especially in North Texas, it’s kind of crazy, actually. Oh,
[00:09:16] Joan: yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we have
[00:09:20] John: all
[00:09:20] Joan: other industries that we are part of that I think are lesser known So to your question of what was the challenge for me going there,
[00:09:29] John: I have a
[00:09:30] Joan: opportunity to tell a story of where do we go in the next hundred years, right? Because Caterpillars, in all these very important parts
[00:09:40] John: of
[00:09:42] Joan: people’s lives globally, and
[00:09:45] what a,
[00:09:46] what a great opportunity to have those stories to tell.
[00:09:49] John: Absolutely. Um, just real quick. Talk about your involvement with, uh, forward DFW and Caterpillar, um, specifically in North Texas, because many people might not know this, but Caterpillar is actually [00:10:00] recently relocated to this region.
[00:10:02] So talk about your involvement with four. Oh, I’m happy to. Yeah. So Caterpillar
[00:10:06] Joan: Caterpillar relocated its headquarters.
[00:10:08] We still have many, many, you know, we have 113, 000 employees globally. Yeah. But our headquarters are now in Irving.
[00:10:15] John: And that,
[00:10:17] Joan: we started kind of trickling down on our own. Two, two, maybe three years ago, we now have more than 700 employees in Irving. And the ask was made of me and and you’ll laugh because I
[00:10:32] John: Um,
[00:10:33] Joan: Lots of those people have just moved down from Illinois.
[00:10:36] I did it nine years ago and they were like Joan How do we get known in North Texas? How are we? How do we kind of get on the map for people to come work here, for people to know that we’re here? And I immediately thought of Forward DFW having been, you know, on the ground floor with
[00:10:53] John: it,
[00:10:54] Joan: with Frito Lay. And I was like,
[00:10:55] John: Oh, well, I,
[00:10:56] Joan: I’ve got an easy way.
[00:10:58] Let’s do it. Let’s work with these guys. [00:11:00] It’s a way for us to get the brand name out there. It’s a way for us to
[00:11:05] tell
[00:11:06] stories that people may not know about Caterpillar.
[00:11:09] John: And the
[00:11:10] Joan: interesting thing is because we’ve had those couple of years to kind of, you know, get our, our bearings, so to speak, we’ve gotten really involved in the community.
[00:11:19] John: Love it. So
[00:11:20] Joan: kind of hearkening back to the original Vision of Forward
[00:11:24] John: is
[00:11:24] Joan: is telling those community stories. We have plenty to tell and we’re excited to tell them. So Forward DFW was a great.
[00:11:34] John: avenue
[00:11:34] Joan: for us to do that.
[00:11:35] John: Love that. Uh, shameless plug for those who are watching and listening of 4DFW is a product of the Dallas Morning News. So, uh, it’s a, it’s a wonderful avenue for companies to demonstrate corporate involvement, corporate citizenship. So thank you for that.
[00:11:49] And thank you for, for, for, for being a great partner for that. Um, so Talk about when you’re looking for great stories to bring to life, you’ve given some amazing [00:12:00] artifacts of what Caterpillar has represented, but even let’s go back into the Frida Lai days. So when you’re working with all of these brands, especially around the super bowl, because from a PR perspective, that’s when a lot, or maybe an NFL partnership, talk about.
[00:12:11] So, you know, when you’re seeing marketing programs come forward and what are the elements of a story from a PR perspective, you’re like, okay, what’s actually going to really catch on and, uh, get traction with, uh, with the media or, or whomever you’re targeting. Sure.
[00:12:25] Joan: No, happy to. And I love that you keep mentioning the Super Bowl because The Superbowl was our Superbowl, you know,
[00:12:30] John: A lot of people are
[00:12:31] Joan: Oh, this thing is our Superbowl. No, it truly
[00:12:34] John: actually, literally is the Superbowl.
[00:12:36] Joan: Um, the interesting thing about
[00:12:39] focusing on marketing is the distinction of what is newsworthy and what isn’t.
[00:12:46] I oftentimes would kind of get information brought
[00:12:49] John: to me and it was yeah, okay,
[00:12:52] Joan: it’s a new product or a new flavor, right?
[00:12:55] John: That’s it. People
[00:12:56] Joan: introduce new flavors, new products all the time.
[00:12:59] John: Yep. [00:13:00] That
[00:13:00] Joan: on its head is not newsworthy. What we do with it, the backstories we tell, is what’s interesting. So when I think of good storytelling, it comes down to how we, you know,
[00:13:16] John: remember when we
[00:13:16] Joan: were little kids and we used to sit on our parents laps.
[00:13:20] ago.
[00:13:22] John: Not that long. And get
[00:13:24] Joan: told bedtime stories. Right. They had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and they made you feel something. They weren’t just information. It wasn’t just,
[00:13:36] John: okay,
[00:13:38] Joan: you know,
[00:13:39] John: Jack and Jill saw a hill, period.
[00:13:43] Joan: There’s a, there’s a story and there’s a cadence to the way that we as humans tell stories.
[00:13:50] And I try to remember that.
[00:13:53] John: Every time we’re looking to
[00:13:55] Joan: something, right, because for me to, let’s, let’s break it down to a tactic for [00:14:00] me to write a press release and say, Joey Shmoey today launched
[00:14:03] John: X. Right.
[00:14:05] Joan: It’s not that interesting, but the back story of why you’re launching it. If it is a new flavor, why?
[00:14:12] What were people telling us? Did we?
[00:14:15] John: one of the most
[00:14:15] Joan: interesting, um,
[00:14:16] John: um, Or did you collaborate with NBA star? Right. Um, I’m trying to think of, It was one of the, I think it might have been with Tostitos or Fritos, you had an NBA partnership. I mean, NBA and NFL have always been good partners for, for Frito Lay, so that, that’s fodder for good stories.
[00:14:31] So it’s not just a, a, a flavor release, it’s somebody helped develop that, somebody co branded it. Absolutely. Those kinds of things. And the
[00:14:37] Joan: the more that you can bring it to, Consumer the tighter and you can get we had a product at Frito Lay called Oh, and I’m gonna forget what
[00:14:47] John: they were called,
[00:14:48] Joan: but it had been discontinued Okay And then a GoFundMe was started to bring
[00:14:53] John: it back, love it. And
[00:14:54] Joan: gained so much momentum and so much online
[00:14:58] John: engagement
[00:14:59] Joan: that we
[00:14:59] John: [00:15:00] brought the product back. Right.
[00:15:01] Joan: So we were able
[00:15:02] John: to then That’s a great story just in and of itself. So then you
[00:15:05] Joan: could tell
[00:15:06] John: back by popular demand, that story, right?
[00:15:08] Joan: you were trying to get awareness that the new product was out.
[00:15:11] John: Love that. So, you’re talking about story arcs. So, the way that, that, that we think about it, we, we sort of have this critical context. So, like, what is the, what is the narrative and the context within which this is going to be interesting? And then what’s that inciting incident? What is the thing that’s going to draw somebody in from a story perspective?
[00:15:27] And then, especially from a PR angle, like, what’s the earned ending? Like, what is it that we’re, what, what, um, equity are we gaining? And, uh, what trust are we earning from consumers to want to engage or buy? Okay. Or shop or browse or visit or do whatever, right? So, um, talk about when you guys, uh, are looking at partnerships and whether this is with Caterpillar or Fredo.
[00:15:47] Just in your experience, when you’re looking at partnering with brands, how do you think through co creating these stories together? Like, how do you evaluate the value of that from a partnership perspective? Interesting. I think, [00:16:00] so,
[00:16:01] Joan: It ultimately comes down to, can we craft the story? The trick of my, my role is there still has to be a business
[00:16:13] benefit.
[00:16:13] John: Right. I think
[00:16:15] Joan: so many times internally, because I’ve now worked, you know, in house for a decade.
[00:16:22] John: Yeah.
[00:16:23] Joan: There’s the, the thought of, yes, okay, we should do this, we shouldn’t do this.
[00:16:29] Sometimes it’s okay to say no.
[00:16:31] John: Yeah. I think
[00:16:32] Joan: that’s, it’s not
[00:16:33] John: more nos than yeses. You’re probably being, you know, strategic about.
[00:16:36] What you’re trying to accomplish.
[00:16:37] Joan: And if we’re going to actually
[00:16:40] John: go out there, you know, I
[00:16:41] Joan: firmly also believe in doing it across mediums
[00:16:46] John: Because
[00:16:47] Joan: these days stories are so, you can tell stories in so many different ways
[00:16:52] than you used
[00:16:53] to be
[00:16:53] John: able right?
[00:16:54] Joan: I think when I
[00:16:55] John: started
[00:16:57] Joan: in communications, it was earned media [00:17:00] only, and
[00:17:00] John: there were lots
[00:17:01] Joan: of
[00:17:01] John: Sure.
[00:17:02] Joan: You could have media lists that were really, really long. Now with the advent of social and how many stories we’ve seen in both, you know, my current role in my previous role. News outlets have more traction with their social channels than they do on the actual outlet, the original outlet.
[00:17:23] So I
[00:17:23] think to your point of partnering and what we think about, From a storytelling standpoint, it’s can it also travel,
[00:17:31] John: right? And what are the
[00:17:33] Joan: quarter turns on that story?
[00:17:35] John: a PepsiCo word, quarter turn. Oh my gosh. I know.
[00:17:39] Joan: Well, you know. Park is back.
[00:17:40] John: is back. So many memories. There you go. Yeah.
[00:17:42] Joan: it’s such a good way to
[00:17:43] John: think about it. A hundred
[00:17:44] Joan: then that means
[00:17:46] Okay, in that 360 communications, how am I quarter turning a story so it matters to an employee?
[00:17:53] Employee storytelling, I think, has come a long way. I think internal comms or [00:18:00] employee comms used to always be seen as like a nice to have, not a must have.
[00:18:04] John: Yep. I think between things like
[00:18:08] Joan: Going through COVID, going through,
[00:18:11] John: um,
[00:18:12] Joan: people working in different
[00:18:14] John: ways.
[00:18:15] Joan: The stories that your employees hear about the company.
[00:18:19] I would argue are almost the most important because then that’s what they go and tell people.
[00:18:25] John: Right. That’s
[00:18:26] Joan: what they’re going to say in an
[00:18:27] John: elevator when people are like, where do you work? And
[00:18:31] Joan: the quarter turns so it’s an
[00:18:32] John: applicable
[00:18:33] Joan: for an employee audience, applicable for an investor audience. You know, I’ve worked at publicly traded fortune 100 companies.
[00:18:41] That’s a key audience.
[00:18:43] But
[00:18:44] at the end of the day, every audience is made up of humans,
[00:18:48] John: who want to be told
[00:18:49] Joan: story, not just facts and
[00:18:51] John: So talk about that because at Frito, for example, It was really easy to get to get internal employees excited about what you’re doing because you can [00:19:00] show brands and campaigns. And here’s what we’re doing. Here’s the spokespeople, you know, like Dion Sanders comes in and gets everybody fired up or about, you know, whatever it may be.
[00:19:08] How do you think about that at Caterpillar? So a company with amazing heritage and history and obviously a massively important role in the category. How do you get internal employees excited about what’s going on? Whether it’s Caterpillar. campaigns or initiatives and things like that. Like how do you craft stories for them?
[00:19:26] Yeah.
[00:19:26] Joan: Um, it’s
[00:19:28] John: funny.
[00:19:29] Joan: It’s not as easy as bringing a celebrity in because sometimes people would go, Oh, okay. Like they’d almost see it as
[00:19:38] John: a
[00:19:38] Joan: little much. Yeah. I think
[00:19:41] the key thing is so that people can see themselves in the story,
[00:19:46] John: Right. That
[00:19:47] Joan: you,
[00:19:48] John: if an
[00:19:49] Joan: internal event, let’s say it’s a town hall, a quarterly meeting,
[00:19:54] John: Are
[00:19:54] Joan: representing as many of your employees in that meeting as possible?
[00:19:59] [00:20:00] So both of the organizations I’ve worked in the last decade have strong frontline workforces.
[00:20:07] Those workforces, the
[00:20:09] balance of power has shifted. From their ability to either organize, join unions, and the labor market, as that has shifted, that audience is
[00:20:22] really
[00:20:23] at the top of everybody’s minds to make sure they feel included, that it’s not, you know, they’re the ones who were still going to work in factories five days a week during COVID.
[00:20:34] John: was going to say, like, if the spotlight’s shown on them, because if frontline workers for Frito Lay aren’t showing up, then food’s not getting in the store. If frontline workers for Caterpillar aren’t showing up, the construction’s not being done.
[00:20:45] I mean,
[00:20:46] Joan: they are, they are truly critical employees.
[00:20:49] And so
[00:20:51] the focus
[00:20:53] and the ability to include them and have them feel included is paramount.
[00:20:59] And [00:21:00] so I think when I,
[00:21:02] John: You know,
[00:21:03] Joan: to answer your question,
[00:21:05] John: it’s
[00:21:05] Joan: not just the, the,
[00:21:09] John: fanciness
[00:21:10] Joan: or the the
[00:21:11] John: hook of an event.
[00:21:13] Joan: Yes, Dion might be the hook. But if we can show a gentleman or a woman who has driven a million miles in a free to lay truck safely,
[00:21:23] John: then
[00:21:23] Joan: everyone who also has a similar job feel seen
[00:21:27] John: the workforce, right? They just,
[00:21:29] Joan: people want to. I was just on a call earlier today where I’m like, people want to feel heard.
[00:21:34] John: If you
[00:21:34] Joan: want to feel seen and if you feel seen and heard in your workplace. You’re that, you become an advocate for it. You’re that much more likely to stay.
[00:21:45] So
[00:21:45] John: I
[00:21:45] Joan: think that’s the similarity with Caterpillar too.
[00:21:48] I think we’ve started a new series called strategy at work where we start to talk about
[00:21:54] John: what
[00:21:55] Joan: are the strategies of, you know, how are we reflecting
[00:21:59] John: the Caterpillar
[00:21:59] Joan: [00:22:00] strategy, which is to,
[00:22:02] um, help our
[00:22:04] customers build a better, more sustainable world.
[00:22:09] John: How
[00:22:09] Joan: does that play out in. And employees day to day life.
[00:22:13] And so we’ve done, you know, kind of these
[00:22:16] John: round table,
[00:22:16] Joan: I’m a I’m a big fan of
[00:22:19] John: round tables
[00:22:20] Joan: or
[00:22:21] John: um, panels, right? I have one this afternoon. As a matter of fact,
[00:22:24] Joan: It’s so much easier than standing up and giving a presentation. And It’s just a little more natural and so with strategy at work, we’ve brought in different aspects of the company to have them tell the stories of how they’re bringing the strategy to life.
[00:22:43] And it
[00:22:43] really, again, people can go, Oh, okay. That person’s representing,
[00:22:48] John: um, our
[00:22:50] Joan: energy transition. And they’re talking about, you know, how, what we are doing in the energy space. I can see myself through her.
[00:22:58] John: Um,
[00:22:59] Joan: And it [00:23:00] just that connection and making sure we have that as much as we can.
[00:23:06] That’s,
[00:23:07] that’s literally what I wake up and think about every day is like, just make people feel something, make them remember.
[00:23:13] Because if you feel something, you’ll remember it.
[00:23:15] John: Absolutely, Maya Angelou. Uh, talk about, you had mentioned cross medium storytelling, how do you think about that at Caterpillar? Because, You’ve, to your point, you’ve got so many constituents that you could be talking to, whether it’s internal, whether it’s, uh, the street or whether it’s consumers and, you know, you, you, you operate and you connect in a very different way as Caterpillar with potential consumers than a CBG brand would.
[00:23:39] So talk about that, how you think about platforms. Yeah, it’s
[00:23:41] Joan: definitely,
[00:23:42] John: Um,
[00:23:44] Joan: we are. Because we’re not
[00:23:48] John: B2C,
[00:23:48] Joan: you know, we have dealers and customers.
[00:23:50] So our dealers, like you could, you could drive to a Holtcat dealer, which is the North Texas dealer here. And that’s where you [00:24:00] would actually purchase the machine. That’s where you would get it serviced. So we, the power of our storytelling has to also influence
[00:24:10] John: And
[00:24:12] Joan: connect into what that dealer is doing.
[00:24:15] John: Well, they want to embrace it, right? I mean, if you’re giving them the materials to tell a better story, it’s only going to help them sell more vehicles, right?
[00:24:23] Joan: So, to go
[00:24:23] back to the example of the centennial, we have done things that are specific for our dealers so that, first of all, awareness, right?
[00:24:33] John: Sure. I, I
[00:24:34] Joan: literally for years have made the joke of hashtag no surprises,
[00:24:38] John: But I live
[00:24:39] Joan: by it where
[00:24:39] John: I’m like, I,
[00:24:40] Joan: my job is to make sure as many people know what we are up to as possible so that nobody’s surprised. So that’s the big difference is that storytelling has to kind of
[00:24:54] John: permeate
[00:24:55] Joan: and resonate enough so that people can kind of. [00:25:00] take it in
[00:25:01] John: Yep.
[00:25:01] Joan: and then make it their own a little,
[00:25:03] John: Sure. Because
[00:25:04] Joan: one dealer in North Texas may be telling a very different story than a dealer in Arizona, right? Just
[00:25:10] John: Absolutely. What companies are there or what perspective companies are there and what are their needs going to be? And the customer needs are going to be different. Exactly. But
[00:25:19] Joan: the commonality of the storytelling needs to kind of trickle through.
[00:25:24] John: So that’s
[00:25:24] Joan: really the biggest difference between the two companies is that the
[00:25:28] John: You know, that, that
[00:25:30] Joan: B to B layer
[00:25:33] John: gets added into it, but we still,
[00:25:36] Joan: you know, we have myriad social channels for all of our brands. And You know, our social channels are sometimes how
[00:25:45] John: employees find out
[00:25:46] Joan: information, not just our intranet,
[00:25:48] John: Because intuitively that’s where they’re going to go for any kind of, to, to search any brand.
[00:25:52] Joan: So why not make sure that, okay, if something goes, because the other big thing I always say is internal is external, right?
[00:25:59] John: Both [00:26:00] good, bad, and
[00:26:00] Joan: and otherwise, but, so if you’re putting something out on your intranet.
[00:26:05] John: see glass door,
[00:26:07] Joan: exactly, but
[00:26:08] not, why not also put it on
[00:26:12] John: a
[00:26:13] Joan: facility Facebook
[00:26:14] John: page
[00:26:15] Joan: Because you’re right, if after, you know, if you’re working a frontline job, you’re not in front of a computer all
[00:26:22] John: day long. No. But,
[00:26:24] Joan: when you have a break or when you go home, you’re scrolling. Why not be part of that scroll and meet people where they are?
[00:26:32] John: Yep. Absolutely. I love it. So let’s talk about what stories do you think right now, just in the, in, in culture, marketing culture, PR culture, do we have in overabundance?
[00:26:43] What’s, what are we oversaturating right now?
[00:26:46] Joan: Well, can I say politics?
[00:26:49] John: I mean, it is October 1st. God, please let November be here and gone as soon as possible. But I think, I mean, all kidding aside.
[00:26:57] Joan: we’ve even seen, you know, cause part of my job [00:27:00] is still earned media, getting stories out in traditional major media outlets.
[00:27:07] John: The
[00:27:07] Joan: pendulum, you know, we’ve literally gone to them and been like, Hey, we want to tell this story. We’d love to talk to you about this. They’re
[00:27:13] John: like, okay, that’s great.
[00:27:14] Joan: Talk to me on November 11th because so many of them are being pulled off of their day to day beats that the, it’s, it’s, it’s.
[00:27:24] John: Yeah, like
[00:27:25] Joan: an energy force, right,
[00:27:27] John: Well, yeah, I can tell you the newsroom around here between now and the election is going to be plenty busy and rightly so, but it’s hard to get any oxygen for anything else, right? That’s, and so
[00:27:37] Joan: that to answer your question, I also feel like
[00:27:40] John: good, happy stories, I
[00:27:42] Joan: I don’t I shouldn’t use happy, but like feel good stories
[00:27:46] John: are lacking.
[00:27:47] Joan: It’s funny. The New York Times started doing.
[00:27:50] John: like, I,
[00:27:52] Joan: subscribe to their newsletter, and they literally, I think it’s on Friday or Saturday, they, for a while there, they’ve stopped, because again, I think their [00:28:00] energy has gone elsewhere, started to do, just feel good stories, just like, tell me a good story about, you know, somebody in Dubuque, Iowa,
[00:28:10] John: going
[00:28:10] Joan: to the grocery store, having like,
[00:28:13] John: because
[00:28:13] Joan: those stories, I think as humans, we need to hear those as much as we hear
[00:28:19] John: all the other
[00:28:19] Joan: ones.
[00:28:21] John: just
[00:28:21] Joan: to have balance,
[00:28:23] I
[00:28:23] John: think that there’s actually, and, uh, I’m, I’m a no, by no means a psychologist, but there’s something about for every X amount of negative stories you have, you can actually kind of fill your cup with one positive, right? Um, because I think we’re, we’re, we’re somewhat numb to, to all the negative things that are out there that you can over, over index on sort of refilling your emotional cup in a positive way with one positive story.
[00:28:45] I think that’s where brands have a real, uh, Opportunity, you know, whether it’s simple entertainment, whether it’s aspiration, whether it’s inspiration, I think that’s where brands have the, have the biggest opportunity.
[00:28:56] Joan: It’s why, so it’s so funny, if you look at the way [00:29:00] advertising has gone, look how much humor has now kind of been re infused in advertising.
[00:29:06] And I think it’s because we do, we need that
[00:29:07] John: outlet. Absolutely. Right.
[00:29:09] Joan: There’s so many, and because we are all walking around with, you know, Pocket computers, for lack of a better term, that
[00:29:17] John: can give us
[00:29:19] Joan: whenever we want it. We can curate where that information comes from.
[00:29:24] John: And
[00:29:25] Joan: it’s very rare to just have those moments of levity, those moments of brightness.
[00:29:31] John: Well, and yeah, I think that also it, you know, for, for all of the benefit that big data and, you know, uh, the AI’s ability to help us synthesize that big data, you risk getting into such a programmatic. Formulaic thing when creating advertising that you forget, we’re talking to human beings and you know, all the, all the algorithmic empirical data that you can extrapolate from something isn’t going to tell you how to be funny, [00:30:00] isn’t going to tell you like what, what is going to trigger them emotionally.
[00:30:02] It might tell you what their needs are. It might tell you how much somebody makes, where they live. Um, how they view certain products, but it’s not going to tell you, like, what’s that creative figure and that’s where the creativity and bringing stories to life, like where we do is as masochistic as some of us might be sometimes about what we do.
[00:30:19] That’s where the brilliance comes from. This is what’s great about telling stories is that we get to, we get to do things that find those. Little human nuggets that somebody will laugh. That you, you connect dots in a way that nobody would thought possible. And all of a sudden you’ve created culture, you’ve entered culture, you’ve driven culture.
[00:30:35] Like that’s the magic in what we do. Oh, absolutely. You know,
[00:30:38] Joan: that’s literally those moments. We used to call them at Fredo, like moments of joy. Yeah. And you know you’ve struck gold if you can
[00:30:49] hone in on that.
[00:30:51] John: and I think that
[00:30:52] Joan: like, when you think
[00:30:52] John: of what I
[00:30:54] Joan: contribute to an organization, it’s, What’s that surround sound [00:31:00] storytelling that we can because you can, you can have a piece of content
[00:31:05] John: that makes
[00:31:05] Joan: laugh.
[00:31:06] But then what’s the cool behind the scenes where somebody also? So you’ve now gotten someone’s attention. They’ve now felt something.
[00:31:15] John: What’s that little extra nugget
[00:31:17] Joan: that you give them so they also feel in the know? Yeah. And that’s where you
[00:31:21] John: build brand affinity. Absolutely. Of all the brands at
[00:31:25] Joan: Lay, Funyuns has like the strongest brand affinity because people feel part of something.
[00:31:33] It’s like, oh, you
[00:31:33] John: love Funyuns. I love Funyuns.
[00:31:35] Joan: That says something about us. We’re now connected.
[00:31:39] John: Well, and it’s, it’s the community, but it’s also, again, you go back to the vehicles, you have to tell a story thinking of, you know, to your point, like behind the scenes, the making of, um, you know, conversations on social media that a particular spokesperson might get into as part of the deal.
[00:31:53] Like that’s where the magic of storytelling. Can really come to life. And if you have that fun little hook, um, like I [00:32:00] think of Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis and their Super Bowl commercial, where it was, you know, their, their song that they did was hilarious. But the way that it showed up in different spaces, you know, beyond the Super Bowl commercial, that’s what makes, that’s what makes those kinds of efforts worth it.
[00:32:10] Yep. Oh, totally. Absolutely. Um, okay. So, um, Last question. How do you see storytelling evolving over the next five years?
[00:32:18] Joan: man. I’m going to go on the record with this.
[00:32:20] John: man. Okay. Yes. We’re going to put it in a five year time capsule and we will revisit.
[00:32:25] don’t.
[00:32:26] Joan: don’t.
[00:32:27] John: Unless I’m right, then please revisit. Um, I
[00:32:31] Joan: think five years is pretty close.
[00:32:35] And I, my gut is
[00:32:38] there
[00:32:38] will likely be another social channel that’ll become like the
[00:32:45] John: thing
[00:32:46] Joan: pay attention to. I think five years ago we didn’t see TikTok
[00:32:50] John: being
[00:32:50] Joan: what it is now, but TikTok has become the only way my daughter, who’s 15, gets information.
[00:32:58] John: And so [00:33:00] in five years
[00:33:00] Joan: she’ll be 20, right?
[00:33:02] John: So I think her,
[00:33:04] Joan: the TikTok influence on storytelling will likely have played out in the
[00:33:09] John: next
[00:33:09] Joan: five years,
[00:33:10] which means we might have even less time.
[00:33:14] To
[00:33:14] connect with someone. If you’re marketing or communicating with people, you’ve then, you know, we all like for video once upon a time, you used to be able to do a three to four minute video and people would watch it.
[00:33:27] John: would watch more than 15 seconds Yes, now you’re lucky right
[00:33:29] Joan: get a minute.
[00:33:30] John: Yeah. Oh and it’s gold if you get a minute
[00:33:32] Joan: right?
[00:33:33] And so I do worry a little that that’s going to get shrunk to 30 seconds, which means as, Okay. Anyone who’s trying to get a message across, you’re gonna have to be super crisp, super
[00:33:47] John: quick,
[00:33:48] Joan: and clever. I think the
[00:33:49] John: ability to In this much time. Right. Right. And then be gone. Yeah.
[00:33:53] Joan: Be big, be bright, be gone.
[00:33:54] John: Right. And be shareable. That’s the, that’s the biggest challenge. So I think [00:34:00] storytelling, but,
[00:34:01] Joan: so there’s that. I think that’s where the pendulum’s gonna swing. But then you look at the flip of that, and you look at people who listen to long form podcasts,
[00:34:09] John: podcasts
[00:34:10] Joan: who, who watch, you know, six parter
[00:34:14] John: stories evolve.
[00:34:16] So
[00:34:17] Joan: either,
[00:34:18] John: I think it may almost become
[00:34:20] Joan: where you have
[00:34:22] John: that
[00:34:23] Joan: or you have really
[00:34:24] John: long. Yeah. I don’t know
[00:34:26] Joan: the 23 minute sitcom,
[00:34:29] John: main
[00:34:29] Joan: that sits in the middle,
[00:34:31] John: That may go away. Isn’t it funny though, on the streaming services, you think about that a lot of those shows, even the shorter ones, like they’re not locked into any particular formula outside of whatever production confines that they’re working within, right?
[00:34:44] So the show might be four to three minutes, it might be, We probably have a little bit more on that. But, uh, so, we’ll be sharing it with you. [00:35:00] I hope you’ll come back for another episode. for being here. We’ll see you next time. We’ll see you next time. Bye.
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