Episode 6 Transcript
[00:00:00] John Kiker: So today we’re honored to have this time with Lance Hill, global head of insights, analytics, and measurement for HP. Now, for those of you not familiar with the nuance of HP after the split from Hewlett Packard in 2015, HP is a 20 billion imaging, printing, and solution business focusing on how they can enable people to bring their ideas to life and connect to the things that matter most based in Palo Alto, California, and operating in more than 170 countries.
[00:00:25] HP delivers a wide range of devices, subscriptions, uh, HP delivers a wide range of devices and subscriptions for personal computing, printing, 3d printing, hybrid work. Gaming and more. How’d I do there on that? Pretty good. Sure. I got it. All right. So while, while Lance has held several positions with HP, he’s also a former agency guy, God bless him.
[00:00:49] Spending time as the VP of planning at Tracy lock director of planning at element 79 in Chicago, just to name a couple of the venerable shops that he’s worked with. So whether it’s planning, uh, global launches with new [00:01:00] PCs and printers, or working with Derek Jeter or Mia Ham on Gatorade. Lance’s experiences have not only, or we’ll start that sentence over.
[00:01:09] I’m gonna start this whole thing over. How about that today? We’re honored to have this time with Lance Hill, global head of insights, analytics, and measurement for HP. Now, for those of you not familiar with the nuance of HP after the split from Hewlett Packard in 2015, HP is a 20 billion imaging, printing, and solution business focusing on how they can enable people to bring their ideas to life and connect the things, connect to the things that matter most.
[00:01:34] Based in Palo Alto, California and operating in more than 170 countries, HP delivers a wide range of devices and subscriptions for personal computing, printing, 3D printing, hybrid work, gaming, and more. So far so good? Absolutely. Alright, good. While Lance has held several positions with HP, he’s also a former agency guy, close to my heart.
[00:01:55] He spent time as a VP of Planning at Tracy Lock. Uh, director of [00:02:00] planning at element 79 in Chicago, just to name a couple of the venerable agencies he’s worked with. So whether it’s planning global launches of new PCs or printers or working with Derek Jeter and Mia Ham on Gatorade, Lance’s experiences have only reinforced his belief in the unifying transcendent power of a great story.
[00:02:17] And we are thrilled to have him with us today. Lance, my friend, good to have you here, bud. Thanks, John. Great intro. Thanks.
[00:02:25] All right, I’m going to copy this out and just, just put this on my, uh, we will send you
[00:02:30] John Kiker: the transcription. Yeah, that’s good. It came right off the HP website, so it should be legally okay to, to disclose.
[00:02:36] And then you use some
[00:02:37] AI to, to spiff it up a bit. A hundred percent. Okay. Yeah, just, just
[00:02:41] John Kiker: go by it. Well, Hey, bud. So the way that we always start these, uh, these conversations off is to allow our guests to tell, uh, listeners their story. And because you’ve been at some amazing agencies that worked with some incredible brands and incredible people and got to this place.
[00:02:55] And I know where you’re from. Um, I think it would be a fascinating [00:03:00] story for people to hear, um, your, your Genesis and how you got to where you are.
[00:03:05] Thanks. Uh, okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll try and do the brief one. Cause, um, you know, the, the, the years are getting a little longer. Um, and the story gets longer, obviously every year and in every new move.
[00:03:18] Uh, so I’m originally from, uh, West Texas, uh, out by Odessa and Midland area for, for those, you know, uh, very small town. If, if you know, you
[00:03:28] John Kiker: know,
[00:03:28] Lance Hill: yeah, exactly. And if you don’t, you have no idea and you never will. Um, uh, so went to Texas A& M, um, from there, uh, funny enough, I actually I joke all the time that my somehow my career has just made a complete circle.
[00:03:49] Uh, I had a job offer coming out of college, um, before I had actually graduated from compact, uh, that as they started [00:04:00] to, to stumble a little bit, and this is prior to the HP acquisition, um, that job offer got rescinded. So I started scrambling and ended up, uh, at an ad agency in Dallas. Um, which was part of the Havas network and spent probably a good six weeks in account service until they figured out I was absolutely horrible at that job.
[00:04:24] And I was lucky they gave me six weeks, uh, cause I didn’t have attention to detail and it did not interest me in the least. And I, I don’t have a good poker face and it probably showed, uh, but thankfully, uh, there were some people there who pulled me into the analytics group. And so my first real job, uh, coming out of college was helping Pizza Hut know which coupons they should be offering and which DMAs.
[00:04:53] So that was my first job was doing analytical analysis on, on [00:05:00] coupons. Uh, but then I sort of evolved from that into It’s always the sexy jobs that launch our
[00:05:04] John Kiker: careers.
[00:05:05] Yes, exactly. But I learned a lot from that. Um, I Uh, I didn’t realize how big of a nerd I was until I started doing that job and got really excited by overlaying weather patterns on coupon redemption and, and sort of doing all these things that you would never think are exciting until you do it.
[00:05:25] And you, you sort of get to see, uh, how, how your stakeholders respond to these things. And that’s still sort of, it’s not that far off from exactly what I do today. So, um, Yeah, so I, I did work with, with a bunch of big brands, um, got to work as I would say, like the, the big brands were, were great, but really what the big brands did was just give me access to, to really smart people and, and to really creative people and people who were so incredible at, [00:06:00] at our industry and who had spent their time creating And had really studied what we do as an art form and a science and sort of helped helped really propel my career by, by teaching me.
[00:06:12] And, and that’s sort of always the best thing. And, and I, you know, I tell people now, don’t, don’t think about what the company is. Don’t, you know, think about the first thing that matters is who you’re going to go work for and think about, can they teach you something? And if they can. It really should be the biggest check mark on a pro list of any job that you’re looking at taking if you get lucky enough to be offered it.
[00:06:38] Um, so I got to work with some really amazing people. Um, I was at Barkley where I got to be involved, uh, with, with Sonic Drive Ins campaign, um, where we got to break a lot of rules. Um, this was really the start of the internet. Um, and we were, [00:07:00] we, we didn’t use the words then, but we were starting to talk about virality and sort of creating moments and, hey, what if instead of spending all these money on these giant spots that are well polished and produced, what if we just strap a high camera, uh, onto a car dashboard and, you know, uh, allow two improv comedians to go off and, you know, Kind of just be jackasses, but it’s funny.
[00:07:27] And we were, I think, producing somewhere around 16 to 20 spots a month for that campaign and literally just throwing it at the wall and seeing what stuck and then starting, it’s sort of what we do now with performance marketing. Um, we didn’t know that then we were just doing it because we thought it was fun.
[00:07:46] And we thought like, Hey, we’re trying to reach this younger audience. And that was really the objective. And That kind of irreverence is kind of what they love. And you just gave them, you just gave them a loose script. Sort of an irreverence, but authentic. Yeah, exactly. [00:08:00] Even a little script was, was, was a little, that’s, that’s a little generous.
[00:08:04] Talk about tater tots. It was basically a, uh, we need to talk about the new shake. Okay. Here’s its name. Go. Um, and they were that good. And, and the creative team was, was phenomenal and would sit there, uh, uh, and, and coach them up and, and sort of was able to sort of just collaborate with them. So it was, uh, you know, we, we were doing fun stuff like that.
[00:08:29] And then to go to obviously Gatorade, where I got to work with just incredible people who really taught me the craft of, of marketing, I think better than anyone else, um, they, they were just best in class, not just at what sort of ad you produce, but the real discipline that goes behind it and the discipline that goes into storytelling, um, and really, you know, narrowing your focus so much that you obsess over the littlest nuances.
[00:08:56] Of, of how a story is going to come together and how it sort of [00:09:00] fits into broader sort of scheme of things and how you’re balancing the different stories you’re telling to sort of help understand what the perception of your brand is going to be, be able to, to forecast that. I mean, we were all the way back then.
[00:09:14] I could tell you if we ran this sort of ad that talked about the scientific integrity of the product. We could lift this much shelf space, or we’ll gain this much share in this bodega in Brazil, it was such a science, not to be punny talking about that brand, but there was such a science to the marketing there that I learned a ton and, uh, and then came to HP where I ran insights for, for quite some time and, and again, really got to, to own the craft of that and, and just focus on that as a job.
[00:09:48] Um, I did take a couple of detours where. I ran our commercial marketing group for a few years, uh, just because if nothing else, I was a little bored and I wanted to sort of [00:10:00] understand the full gamut of, of the corporation. And then I went over to Europe and, and ran marketing, uh, so for the whole company, not just one division, uh, for a market or a region there, um, which again, really opened my eyes.
[00:10:17] I got to sort of see, okay, when we do this, this is how it sort of translates all the way down to the lowest levels. And then, uh, got a call, um, when we had some changes in management, uh, they asked if I would come back and run insights, uh, analytics and measurement. I jumped at the opportunity and said, yes.
[00:10:35] And super excited to be doing it. It’s a, it’s a really interesting time, uh, to be in our industry and it’s a really interesting time for technology as well. So sort of that intersection, uh, made for, for just a great time.
[00:10:49] John Kiker: For sure. So in, in your role. Right now when, whether it’s a PC or a printer or whatever it may be that you’re talking about, talk about the process of [00:11:00] uncovering what a story could be.
[00:11:02] When you can’t think about one specific geography, you have to think about, you know, is there a third that pulls through or do you have to think of multiple stories? Because how it serves one market is completely different in how it serves another market. It it’s, it’s,
[00:11:17] um, Almost everything we do, well, while there are definitely universal truths that we’ve been on, we found, um, that w we, we sort of, it had for a while and I, I had been, you know, sort of working on those, even in my prior iterations in the job, I think that what’s changed is that, um, and, and if you think about the trajectory of HP is that technology itself and the role technology plays has changed so much in how we work.
[00:11:52] And for us, that’s primarily where, where we make our money is, is in the commercial space, in the [00:12:00] B2B space, um, selling technology and really helping IT departments improve employee engagement. I mean, as well, simple form it’s that. But in order to do that, if you sort of start drawing the rings around, then you have to understand the context of work and even the context of work is changing.
[00:12:20] I mean, we all went through the pandemic and all of our sort of what we want out of work changed radically, which as an insights person, you get to geek out over that and sort of long term, uh, behavioral impacts that are still sort of trickling out of the pandemic. Um, the role of technology changed because no longer do you go to an office, you’re sort of in multiple places, sort of, there’s three main workplaces.
[00:12:44] There’s your home, there’s your office. And then there’s the other, um, when you’re traveling or, or just at a coffee shop and where it used to have to focus on one, now they have to focus on three. And then you take those new needs. And the reason I work is [00:13:00] changing and why I, what I want out of work is changing.
[00:13:03] That’s also radically different in every single country. Um, so talk about,
[00:13:08] John Kiker: talk
[00:13:08] about some polarizing
[00:13:09] John Kiker: differences that you would observe. Give an example.
[00:13:11] Yeah. I mean, I think that, um, they’re really nuanced to get into, but you know, the idea of if you take even something as simple as the idea of fulfillment, uh, which is not accomplishment, accomplishment is like a very short term thing.
[00:13:27] Fulfillment is like a long lasting, I, I feel like I did something today. I feel like what I did matters. How that manifests itself in India versus Japan versus France are radically different. Um, and, and the importance of that does change, but it’s always there. It’s just how it manifests and what I need to do out of it.
[00:13:54] What’s different is while that used to be very much a relationship between the employer,
[00:14:00] employee, and through the employer was mostly HR that look out for that. Now with the entrance of AI and all the AI tools, now technology and the IT department are sort of responsible for how I, as an employee, am able to feel fulfilled at the end of every day.
[00:14:19] And actually, how do I get more fulfillment in each individual moment in my day? And that’s with. I think where, where I. T. is starting to play a bigger role and their, their sort of paradigm had already changed a little bit because employee engagement became more of a metric for most I. T. as this was going on.
[00:14:36] But these are the sort of things that we study daily and then, you know, not to be too meta about it, but now that we’re using A. I. to understand the impact of A. I. and how it sort of changes our, our work habits and, and how we work and what we do every day is, is just really fascinating. It’s a fun time to sort of be back at insights because it’s not the old world of just utilizing a [00:15:00] survey and you read the survey and puke out a bunch of data.
[00:15:03] It’s and try and find a story in there somewhere. It’s really sort of, there’s a lot of new tools that make the, make the job really fun and, and make, I think our ability to tell stories. Much more interesting and I think much more authentic because we’re able to capture a lot more essence now.
[00:15:18] John Kiker: It seems like there’s actually a really interesting stories in there as a story in there, in this friction between the traditional notion of, you know, you would perceive it to have this.
[00:15:29] Let’s call it a less personal role or interaction with their employees to where it’s very, Hey, there’s the overlord who’s making all these decisions that are out of your power and you have to live with them. And now actually they have to be able to connect with you on a much more empathetic level to say, Hey, I’m responsible to help you work.
[00:15:47] And your most productive, uh, space, wherever that is, talk about that evolution, because I can’t, I couldn’t tell you any, any it brand out there that really epitomizes or has historically, [00:16:00] uh, symbolized that sort of more human element to it.
[00:16:03] Yeah. And it’s, it is a change and it’s definitely a change. I think that, uh, we, we’ve certainly proven we, we can, uh, um, through a bunch of research we’re doing.
[00:16:11] Um, but we have to, um, I, I think it’s our, where we want to go as a company. Right. We have to own these things and you know, it is interesting because you know, you go back even five years The role of IT was really sort of trying to keep you and the company’s information safe I mean that was sort of right, you know now keep you productive meaning make sure your stuff works and make sure that what you’re doing Doesn’t create any problems For the company.
[00:16:40] Cause that’s, unfortunately we all want to say like, Oh, the hackers, they’re coming in because somebody clicked on something. Um, so that was, that was, I see job is sort of, you know, almost sort of create a fence and keep everyone safe. And, and yeah, probably be a little bit more at a distance. Now it is a
[00:17:00] complete flip because if you think about, you know, what, what they’re doing now and the new roles that AI brings in AI.
[00:17:08] At its purest sort of form helps replicate domain knowledge So now it’s job and data scientist’s job Are to sit with a domain expert and learn how to get more out of that domain knowledge Than one person could possibly do and so it’s how do I replicate that and actually how do I make that person better?
[00:17:33] How do I allow a company? To better utilize the experts. So I think we’re going to see a return. Well, I think so many people get scared of AI actually. Um, and these aren’t mine. This is, uh, there’s actually a really brilliant, uh, guy by the name of Shonda comp Patel, who’s got this theory that actually we’re returning to an age of, of expertise.
[00:17:54] Because if you could be an incredible expert at one very specific thing. [00:18:00] AI can take that, replicate it, and expand it and allow more people to utilize that expertise, but it still takes humans, or the human intelligence, to develop that domain knowledge. AI can’t do that, it can only replicate it. So that’s what I think we’re starting to get to is, you know, even people like surgeons, their knowledge is only going to be really expanded, one, by being able to pull in from sort of the hive knowledge, but I think also By allowing them to sort of take those experts and extend it to other people.
[00:18:36] That’s really the hour. And it’s, and again, it is at the heart of that. So their job function is expanding and changing and, and I would say increasing in importance at such a rapid rate. Um, and that’s, we, we just kind of happen to be in, in the right place at the right time to, I think, take advantage of a lot of others.
[00:18:56] John Kiker: Very cool. So, um, I want to go back to [00:19:00] your Gatorade days there, because there’s a lot of obviously rich stories that you were able to tell when you have access to the roster of athletes that they had relationships with, and you think about product development and innovation and okay, which person makes sense with which product, how do you go looking for sort of the, the alignment of those stories, the product that’s features, it’s benefits, which are very, you know, Good competitive, but there’s a lot of other brands out there, but the magic of Gatorade was always about telling the story of these athletes and the role that Gatorade had in their life and how it drove performance for them.
[00:19:33] What did you always look? Um,
[00:19:34] it was, you know, it sort of started, um, the, the team that there was a team that was basically responsible, um, for athlete relations that, so that created a baseline sort of knowledge of each player. Um, what sort of, what was driving them. And there was just a basal understanding like who that person is our job.
[00:19:58] Then when [00:20:00] we’re going to come out and tell a particular story is to go in and dive deeper into that. So to really get inside, um, the athletes mind under understand what’s sort of driving them and strip away. Honestly, like you’re almost kind of stripping away a lot of what’s unique to them and finding those things.
[00:20:19] It’s like, yes, that’s that is true. And not only is it true for you, it’s, we see that being true for the broader sort of, uh, tribes that are sort of the, the driven athletes. So we would be looking for those things and just trying to peel back that onion. And so we found that thing that would be true to them.
[00:20:39] So therefore it was authentic and the authenticity shows, um, you, you know, I think that especially now with commentary on the internet, if you’re, you know, If you’re not telling something that’s completely, purely true, you’re going to get called out for it immediately. And, um, that’s what we were kind of trying to do.
[00:20:58] Even before we had to [00:21:00] withstand the barrage of, of YouTube comments and, and Reddit posts and all of that.
[00:21:07] John Kiker: So talk about, because obviously you have to go pitch these athletes and their agents on these stories. Talk about one of the riskiest pitches that you did that actually turned out to be a hit.
[00:21:19] Um, I, I know the story, I, the one that immediately pops to mind, and it wasn’t my story, I, I didn’t do it, um, but, uh, there was a creative team that came up with a, it didn’t air long, although I do think you can find it on YouTube, um, but there was a Dwayne Wade, uh, spot that was sort of talking about his inner voices.
[00:21:46] And Dwayne Wade was one of the kindest, most intelligent people I’ve ever met. , but when he was on the court, there was a, there was a nasty side that would kick in. That’s what the spot was, was he
[00:22:00] sort of had the angel devil, except in this case it was sort of nerd and you know, very aggressive person. But they were both him, so he had to act.
[00:22:11] He actually had to portray both of these. And it was like, uh, do you do this? Do you not, um, that was a, that was a, you know, like, can he pull this off? Cause if you can’t pull this off, this is going to be bad, but if you can’t pull it off, it’s risky. And therefore there’s something really exciting when there’s something kind of risky and you feel like maybe you shouldn’t do it.
[00:22:36] Um, so he, uh, we pitched it, he, he did it, he crushed it. It was so good. And unfortunately about, I think two weeks into the campaign, he broke his knee or, uh, for an MCL, so it was out for the season. So we had to pull the campaign. So it never really got the limelight that I think that one deserved. Um, I think the other [00:23:00] one of asking the question of is retired Jordan, or sorry, close to retirement Jordan at the time when he was wearing 45.
[00:23:12] It’s. If old Jordan played young Jordan, who would win in a one on one? And we actually, that was one of our Super Bowl spots. That’s that one to one of the most competitive people to ever walk the planet is also an incredibly risky thing that the team had to go sell in. And fortunately got it. And you, you actually don’t see who won, which was a very careful editing Storytelling technique is you don’t really see who won and who lost, um, which is kind of the point.
[00:23:48] The point is that he was a very different player at the end of his career than he was at the beginning. That he wasn’t all aggression and charge and slam. He was much more [00:24:00] calculated and we just kind of played off that and just sort of showcased that evolution of his sort of, uh, playing style. Um, and then had a nice little cameo at the end.
[00:24:11] It’s fun at wheat. I think back cause I see some of the work now that everyone is doing with, you know, sort of de aging and I think I remember what we paid for that and how long that took that today is like a Snapchat filter that back then took months to de age him back to his, cause we had a cameo of him in his, uh, UNC Jersey at the end, uh, Just to find, just to find
[00:24:37] John Kiker: editing.
[00:24:37] Yeah. Just to find editing equipment that had the, the, the power to be able to do that.
[00:24:42] Incredible. Yeah. Uh, but those, those are, I mean, like, I think those are just times when though, when you’re, you know, you’ve got a truth, you just don’t know if that’s the truth that needs to get out or not.
[00:24:53] John Kiker: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:54] Awesome. Um, so you are an observer of, of marketing at large [00:25:00] and you obviously see every, every kind of story out there being told. What do you think we have an overabundance of? What are we just flooded with stories that just like, Oh my God, another one of these.
[00:25:11] I think the over the top stuff, I mean, you know, there’s so much there’s, there’s so many just big over the top things.
[00:25:20] I think there is in a completely inauthentic use of influencers is sort of a really close second. Uh, we’re paying someone who has nothing to do with your product, doesn’t really care about your product is obviously reading off a teleprompter to even talk about your product because they know it’s so little.
[00:25:39] I think people see through that, at least from our analysis, those things don’t work. Um, you guys have always been
[00:25:47] John Kiker: careful. You guys have always been really careful with your influencers though, and how you deploy them.
[00:25:51] Yeah, it’s, we, I mean, again, we’re, we’re, we are very entrenched no matter which CMO we’ve had in, in the seat.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] The authenticity has been something they’ve all shared. And a lot of that sort of, you know, does stem from the fact that most of them did come from Pepsi. Uh, we’re still sort of in a. In a, in a weird hierarchy lineage tree of Pepsi marketing, which, which did preach a lot of authenticity and that that was sort of one of the keys, right?
[00:26:20] It’s, it’s how you stood up and how you gave yourself a chance in the cold war is against, you know, we’re Coke drinking polar bears. So it is,
[00:26:30] John Kiker: it’s amazing. The PepsiCo and the P and G you could probably pick a GM or a Ford, like the webs of alumni that are out there. Maybe you’d believe her. That have permeated so many organizations.
[00:26:41] And so you see a lot of commonalities there. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So conversely, what do we not have enough of from a story perspective? What’s, what do we need more of?
[00:26:52] I don’t know that we’re taking as many risks as we used to. I mean, I think, and I think that’s not just, I think that’s in [00:27:00] storytelling in general, right?
[00:27:01] It’s not just in the, in the advertising world. I think it’s true in the movie world. I think it’s true in the novel world, television. Um, We, we, we can become overly dependent on formulas so fast and the ability to prove before you do it, that something’s going to work really can start to clamp down on creativity versus saying, what can we do?
[00:27:27] What should we do? And now let’s sort of use that as the, as the jumping off point versus starting with, uh, some sort of formula that I know is going to work. Right. Right. It’s, I think you even look at the Superbowl. I mean, you know, agencies 20 years ago figured out the admeter and, and how to win on the admeter and therefore it became formulaic really fast.
[00:27:51] And when someone still has the gumption to go out and do something different, that is also good because different for different sake [00:28:00] doesn’t work right. Different. That’s good. That’s thoughtful. That’s that’s artistic. Uh, when, when you see a master go out and do something crazy different, It, it, it stands out for a reason because it’s good and it, it does sort of capture attention.
[00:28:15] Um, and I think we’re, we’re kind of getting back there a little bit on TV shows now, but movies still have a way to go to sort of, I think, catch back up to get away from the formulas and utilizing IP and all of that, the sort of known tropes that we know are going to make money. So you’ve,
[00:28:31] John Kiker: you’ve been with big agencies, smaller agencies, you’ve worked with both.
[00:28:36] Do you see a nuance, you’re talking about risk taking specifically. And like do, and there’s a lot of news out there about smaller boutique agencies, getting opportunities to work with bigger brands. And I think in some cases it might be, um, uh, cost related in some cases. It’s like, you know, Hey, we want something less formulaic than maybe what a big agency is offering.
[00:28:58] What do you guys see? Because [00:29:00] obviously you guys have the chance to work with agencies across the spectrum. Absolutely. Um,
[00:29:06] I do think, I think there’s, there’s, there’s sort of the, I would put them into three camps right now. I think there is the, the old school, um, we, we did some reviews recently and some of it is, it’s the same pitch I was giving 20 years ago.
[00:29:25] It hasn’t changed. And, and while times have changed and in what we have the ability to do is so much different now. Um, so there’s sort of the old school, let’s call it the traditional, uh, agency. Then there are the, um, those that are becoming more and more. Data power and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, it’s a where they’re starting from when you start with data and when you start with, um, sort of how the back of the house of an agency works and you start there and build up.
[00:29:59] [00:30:00] Um, should it be really incredible in terms of what you can enable, because not only are you, you’re, you’re not necessarily, I would say, minimizing risk because that’s still going to come with creative choices. But what you’re doing is you’re sort of focusing the, the territory in on the most, you know, instead of saying the old school, let’s do a segmentation model that takes me a year and a half.
[00:30:27] And I’m going to have some. Filters that I think work that media probably can’t really buy versus now starting with propensity models and just building those up in there by every different market, every different business unit. And, you know, you’re sort of building those up and then those are feeding into creative, but, you know, you’ve got an overarching creative platform, but how you iterate that, how you allow for that to be translated into 40 different languages and keep all of that running really smoothly.
[00:30:59] And ensure [00:31:00] grand consistency that only happens when you start with the data, then there is the other, I would say, radically opposite side of the spectrum, which is just the super risk taking creative that is, you know, let’s just make a splash. Let’s do something that’s sort of crazy and we’ll get us noticed and fame has an inherent value and we may not know exactly what that value is.
[00:31:25] We may not know exactly. How you amplify that, but there is an inherent value there. And I think that’s kind of what we see. I think for, at least for us, we’re much more in the, Hey, let’s utilize data. Let’s make sure we are being incredibly smart, everything that we do. And when you start there, you can allow the creative, I think, to focus and be better because you’re not asking them to go crazy and, you know, give me a hundred ideas that say, no, no, no, this is exactly what I want.
[00:31:56] And you’re going deep. You’re allowing the creativity to go deep versus wide. [00:32:00] And nine times out of 10, they’re going to find something better when they’re spinning iterations, going deeper, they’ll uncover something that’s, that’s really, really exciting there versus say, here’s something over here, I hope to God it works.
[00:32:12] John Kiker: Yeah. Freedom of
[00:32:13] the type brief.
[00:32:14] John Kiker: Um, awesome, man. Well, uh, last question for you. So we look ahead and whether it’s AI or, I mean, there’s a million different variables, but how do you see, Um,
[00:32:33] I think in a lot of ways, I think that, um, I think a lot of what wasn’t possible before, but it’s used to budgets used to handicap creativity.
[00:32:46] I think that’s disappearing quickly, um, which is a good thing. I think that, um, I think the ability to tell more individual stories continues to [00:33:00] accelerate, um, from, you know, from the data science side, it’s funny if you look back four years and everyone went, Oh crap, we’re losing cookies, what are we going to do?
[00:33:09] How I built up all these plans based on, you know, sort of individualization. And I don’t have cookies. So I have to go back to the old way of doing things. And actually it forced us. To, I think, be even smarter on how we address and how we utilize our data, both first party, second party, and third party data, and to really get smart about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what we really want, who we really want to go after.
[00:33:37] Um, a lot of the, the ways that, that different philosophies on proclinicity models evolved was because we lost quickies. And therefore, the idea of that, I think, took hold and, and really exploded. And now we’re better, I think, than where we used to be with cookies. So I think more individualization, um, is, is another big part of, of, of that.
[00:33:58] But again, when you can [00:34:00] iterate so fast, those two things sort of go together. Because what the tools now enable the creativity to be able to do a little bit more of these sort of individual things. But at its heart, I think what doesn’t stop is that sort of need for just a really good, deep insight and human truth, whatever word you want to throw at it, but sort of understanding the culture around us, because the culture is changing, you know, everything in the world is changing faster and faster, but culture is changing incredibly fast.
[00:34:32] And, Fortunately, there’s a lot of tools that also allow us to stay on top of that better now too.
[00:34:39] John Kiker: Awesome. My friend. Well, Hey bud. Um, I think if I could sum up your, your career, uh, in, in a biography or an autobiography, maybe just it’s a, it all started with the pizza hut coupon and here you are. It does.
[00:34:51] So, you know, bogos
[00:34:53] bogos always win
[00:34:55] John Kiker: good stuff, but well, Hey, I really appreciate you spending the time. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. [00:35:00] Thanks.
Back to Top
