Redefining How Marketing Works with We Are Rosie CEO Jeff Levick

0:00Today, I speak with Jeff Levick. He's the CEO of We Are Rosie, which is redefining how marketing works by connecting specialized marketing marketing marketing marketing. with brands. And it's really fun to hear Jeff's perspective as a disruptor because he's seen at work before as an early employee at Google and then at Spotify. I think you're going to like this one.

0:24Hi, Jeff. How are you? Good to see you. Hey, John. Great to see you. All good. How about you? I'm doing good, too. I'm really excited to talk about the marketing world today and the work you're doing at We Are Rosie. You know, you're really disrupting what is happening in the marketing staffing in the marketing world. And before we get into it, I kind of want to look backwards. I think when a lot of people think about how marketing and creativity used to happen, they would think about a show like Mad Men, these Madison Avenue agencies that were these hubs of creativity and innovation. Brands didn't have those people in-house.

1:00Agencies specialized in that. People who were creative wanted to work at agencies. and all that stuff has really been turned upside down. I guess I first want to ask, where do you think that creativity for marketing lives today? It lives everywhere. So you're right. Like what you just described is the antiquated model. I think the best marketers and the best brands realize that like, it's about the talent. I think about marketing talent in the same way that like, Hollywood thinks about talent. Like they have agencies that represent talent. They're not the agency, but they all have agents. And that's how I think about where marketing is today, is that the best talent, the most creative people, no longer have to work and pin themselves to an agency and be beholden to the work that's given to the agency.

1:54Now it's like, you know what? I'm so good, and I'm so creative, and I don't want to live in New York, and I want to live in Austin, Texas, and I might want to walk my daughter to school and do things on my own timeframe. And guess what? They still get the work because it's about the talent. And that's what's happening today. That's the innovation. What's happening in the industry is that it's a talent search. It's how can I find the best person? I don't care where they live or who they work for. And most of them work for themselves. Marketing feels very specialized today to me at times. And I'm not, I don't necessarily mean like, um, like creativity, but do you, do you natively understand social?

2:41Do you natively understand TV? Do you, do you understand offline marketing or, or, or so on? Why do you think that is? I guess maybe it's just the fragmentation of media and, and, um, the specialization of marketing, good thing, bad thing. How do you, how do you, how do you relate to that? I mean, it's, it's, it's just an evolution. I wouldn't call it a good or bad. It's just like, it's the evolution of the craft and the evolution of the industry. And to your point, you know, back to the days of Mad Men, like that was about making 30 second spots and making like a really beautiful, like something that would go into a print like publication.

3:15So broadcast is less relevant. Print publications don't exist. And now there's just so many points of distribution. And the reason why it's so fragmented or why it's sort of, or I should say it's expanded and even created so many more jobs is and the need for specialization is because you can't take an ad that you want to put on TikTok and put it on broadcast TV. You can't take a broadcast ad and put it on TV. You know, when I was working at Spotify back in the day when it was early and people didn't understand what streaming meant and they would just say, you know, we were trying to like get brands to put ads on the free version of Spotify.

3:58Like, oh yeah, yeah, we do radio. We'll just give it their, no, no, no, no, no. That won't work. Like it's a different format. It's a different platform. You actually have to create a new format for a streaming platform. Radio ads won't work on streaming. And, you know, it's just the proliferation of all these different platforms. It's, you know, it's a great thing for the industry. It's a great thing for marketers because specialization is, you know, it provides jobs. You know, if you can promote yourself as one of the best creators on this platform and you know how to create ads on Instagram that convert at a higher rate than anyone else, you don't have to be great at everything else.

4:38That's it. Like, you're done. I think all that specialization fragmentation also presents challenges to agencies because if you're going to be, it's really, really hard to be great at everything. You know, you might be really good at performance marketing, but you don't do brand or whatever. And so it almost requires, even for brands that work very closely with agencies, it's almost like you still need specialized talent outside of that. I mean, I think that was the insight behind the business that I run at We Are Rosie. And that's sort of where we, you know, when I started here, I would meet with clients and they're like, we love working with you.

5:16We love working with you. And I'm like, please tell me why. Like I just, this for me. And the answer was kind of to what you're saying is that we have built in seven years, a network of 30 ,000 freelancers of which we have their information about what they're really good at. So when we're putting together a team, whether it be on a project, or whether it be on a talent solution, we know, like, I have an expert for you, I have an expert for you. Like, we're very good at this financial services. Great. We know someone who's worked in financial services and they know how to build, you know, they can widen your funnel and bring in more like credit cards.

5:51Like it's it's it's that micro level of expertise. And I think that's where the agency model is is like you see the cracks because the agency model has four walls and a fixed number of people that can fit in the four walls. Like we have an infinite number of walls and we have an almost an infinite number of people because that's how people have chosen to work. And we become a platform that allows them to work the way that they want to work and meet them where they are in their careers. I'm really interested in what you said about the team concept, because it sounds like we are Rosie can create a bespoke team of people who maybe never worked with each other.

6:32And then how is how is that work coordinated? Do you have like a project management function as well? That's exactly right. So we basically like, we'll get a brief. And this is, by the way, we are taking on like agency RFPs. So we're going after that work for the reason that you just expressed. And yes, we will. But we do it in a much leaner way. So a couple of differences. One, we don't charge retainers. So I want your money to go to your marketing, not to sit in my bank while we figure something out. So, you know, and I say this only because I've spent my entire career on the client side and I know the things that drove me crazy.

7:08So these, so it's sort of like undoing the things from a client's perspective that we know are like pain points. So there's, there's no, um, so there's no retainer. The second thing is, is that the people, when we bring in a pitch, we do a pitch and we bring the people on the pitch, that's the team. So the team that's pitching is the team that's working on it. So, you know, like if you like this team, that's it. like we're not this isn't like the pitch team this is the working team and that was another i think that's another pain point that we've heard from agencies and also i experienced from the client side is like that's a great pitch but who's going to work on the business um and and we address that and then to your point the third thing is like we run the project we own the deliverables you know we work on the budget and that's on us to make sure that like you know we keep it you know in check with what we say that we're going to do you know i have to imagine, and we were talking off air that We Are Rosie started before the pandemic.

8:07I started hybrid work before the pandemic also. And back at that time, people didn't get on Zoom calls with me, my colleagues. It was conference calls. I mean, I don't even know what would have happened if I'd said get on a Zoom call. And so I imagine that the pandemic coincidentally made everyone's work at We Are Rosie way more efficient. Yeah. I think we've all learned, let's not dismiss all the terrible things that happened from the pandemic. There were a lot of really great things that came out of it. People moved to different places that they wanted to live. People lived differently than they ever could, to your point, because they could work differently.

8:51It's like, oh, I can name a number of people that I know that I'm going to live in Mexico City. just because it doesn't matter where I am. I just can be on the Zoom. And we've always kind of worked that way. But I think that what we found, especially in marketing and putting teams together, it is collaborative and it can work this way. Not everybody has to live in Los Angeles and New York City or Chicago to be a creative and work at an advertising agency. You can now live where you find your own source of inspiration that's going to make you a better marketer, a better human, a better parent a better spouse like which and when those all when all those things come together it does it does work together um which is why we like to say like we'd like we'd love to meet people where they are you know whether it be geographically or at their point in their life like even internally at we are rosie like i tell people like put in your calendar i like because we we believe in like open calendars and they'll say like uh from 12 to 12 30 walking dog like you should like, you know, like that's, that's sacred time.

9:57Like you should be walking, like who else is going to walk the dog, but it's just like, it's giving people permission to not always be like work, work, work, work, work. It's like, you do your job when you have the time. If you want to, if you want to dial in at seven o 'clock at night, if you want to go pick up your child from school, like we cherish all of those like events and let people be great at what they do, but also be people and be humans. And that didn't happen in the, you know, the in-person work that, you know, you and I grew up, you know, living. I wonder about marketers may be great at some specialized field, but they might not be great at marketing themselves.

10:37So if someone who's listening to this, if it's sounding appealing and they might want to become a freelancer, what advice would you give them about showcasing how they're special and earning the high fees that they want and deserve. Selfishly, I would tell them to come to We Are Rosie and sign up to Be A Rosie. So at least we know who you are. I would also tell them, like, you know, have a portfolio of work, like put your work together and don't be shy in sharing it. I think a lot of people, you know, think that they're like humble bragging by just like going on social and saying, like, I did this cool campaign.

11:13And it's okay. Like it's okay to share the work that you're doing. Um, you know, and I think people, you know, will see that and, and it's not a humble brag. And I also think that, um, you know, LinkedIn is still like a valuable platform. Like, you know, it's a great place also to showcase, but it's not the only place I think, especially in the world of creatives, like, you know, I think a place like Instagram is a great place to showcase like beautiful objects, beautiful things, beautiful campaigns. So it's almost like you, you have to be a marketer for yourself and not be shy about it. And I do find that the younger generation today, because I have a younger generation in my household, like they think everything I just said, they would tell me that that's like braggadocious.

11:57And I'm like, it's not. You did something that you're proud of. It's not that you're like telling the world that you're like a Kardashian. Yeah. And different and different platforms are for different things, too. You can have a platform that's more personal or two different accounts or whatever. I totally agree with that. I want to ask what inspired you to join the company? You mentioned you were Spotify. I know you were Google also. What attracted you to We Are Rosie? I mean, I like to, I love marketing. I also love disruptors. And I've always worked for disruptors and I've always been on the marketing side, on the brand side.

12:32And, you know, what I saw, what We Are Rosie was doing and doing successfully and doing for Fortune 100 companies for a company that at the time was five years old. I'm like, something is happening when this little company is winning business with some of the biggest brands in the country. And there's a movement. And it's turned out to be true. And it is a very disruptive model in the sense that we're winning business that people probably would say, how is that possible? And the answer is because the traditional way of doing things in the marketing world, the smart brands, they're not doing it.

13:13They're done. They need to move fast. They need specialization. They need quality. And they need predictability. And, you know, if you, which is everything I just said to you is contrary to the way that if you wanted to work with an agency, we'll do the pitch. Then we'll do the paperwork. then we'll build a team then we need to onboard for the next 30 to 60 days you know and then you may not like the team and we have to move people around we can staff up in three days i mean it's it's just it's it blows my mind and i've i've heard that from our clients because again i'm always asking like why are you so happy it's like i've never seen anything move so quickly without sacrifice of quality and it's because you know again we we can pull the this this this network of marketers who have chosen not to work at agencies, I like to think that they're like all individual businesses, right?

14:12So if you're a freelancer, you're a business, you still have to like have an accountant and do all this other work. But you're a business. And, you know, you're motivated, you're probably even more motivated, because great, I just got work. And I'm going to show them like the best of what I can do, versus, I've worked here for 10 years, I just got pushed over to this new insurance account. And I'm so excited about working on the insurance account. Like, no, it doesn't work that way. I wonder if there's a different type of person at a brand that's hiring and thinking this way. Is there a different type of talent needed at a brand in order to leverage specialized marketing?

14:57You know what I'm asking? Yeah, I mean, I do, because I'll tell you a quick anecdote, and I won't name the client for obvious reasons. But this is another client who is waxing poetically. And I was just like, we would like to have more Rosies in the building. And I'm like, of course, I'm like, why? Because they're so good. They're so good at what they do. And I'm like, you're like a Fortune 50 brand. You have this huge marketing department. And this person said, yeah, but the average tenure in my marketing department is probably around 20 years. And their expertise is navigating our massive organization.

15:37You guys actually just come in and do the work. And I was like, oh, OK, well, that makes sense. That I understand. And this person's like, listen, it's going to take me years to transform this marketing organization. Like this isn't like an overnight thing. So I need to supplement specialists to get so that I don't get fired. And then these career marketers can navigate how to get the work through the system internally. There's also something just in this whole whole dynamic. Something I learned is this way that people talk at Amazon is that everyone has superpowers. And when you're when you're working on your superpower, you're like 20x better, 10x better than when you're when you're not.

16:17And so if you're essentially plugging in all these superpowers, people are called in just to do their special their special talent. then you can really, really, really move fast. You know, you, you mentioned, um, working at, at disruptors and some of the places you've worked or Google and Spotify, people might not think about them as disruptors. Now, now, now they've taken control, but back when you were working on them, they were really in periods of really hyper growth. I'm kind of curious, maybe we can start with Google about something during a period of hyper growth that they just did really, really well that you've said, oh, okay, this is something I'm going to file away and that you're using now today at Rosie.

16:57Yeah. So when I joined Google in 2001, we were 300 people. Oh, wow. We were not the dominant anything. I think one of the things I took away from Google is that there was this spirit of fearlessness and disenchantment with the way that things had always been done like if you take it from the tech side it was like these search engines are terrible and larry and sergey were engineers and they were all about just building a better product period build a better product build a better product and we don't care and at the time yahoo was the biggest search engine i remember yeah competition that we were going to take down and what i did also take from that experience was is that i do think it was somewhat helpful to have like a goal like who are we going to beat and we we literally were like we are taking down yahoo period like that was and then on the advertising side because we also had to make money um building a disruptive product and it was again at that time like when i was when i joined google they were selling ads on c on a cpm basis like there was no adwords there was no auction there There was no online.

18:10It was all manual. The scariest moment was when we basically said, we've got to flip the switch. This doesn't scale. We need to automate the way that the marketing product works. And we did. And customers at first were like, this is terrible. We're not going to do this. And we believed in it. And I think that that sort of belief system is like, no, we believe so strongly there's a better way that you will come along with us. And we managed through that. And then AdWords became what AdWords is. At Spotify, when I joined, we were 20 people in New York City. And it was similar. The idea of streaming didn't exist in music.

18:49Like people downloaded, like it was all the Apple Store and it was Pandora. Like that was it. And I think the other lesson from that one is, is that we just believe that the world is going to change. And we believe that we're going to be the change agent. And we're just not going to deviate. We're going to keep going and chugging and chugging. And I assure you, the first two years, they were not like pretty. Like this thing was not blowing up in the States. Like it was, it was a slog. And we had to build an ad system and we had to build, you know, similar, a free service, a paid service. We had to change user behavior.

19:25but eventually like the better product in my opinion the better product will always win if you have the patience and the the determination and the belief system to stay just keep going and chugging and doing it so i mean that's also that's how we feel about this is that i truly believe that the traditional agency model is broken what makes great campaigns are not companies it's people. And, you know, I do think about Rosie as a talent agency. Like I think about us the same way that like William Morris Endeavor or CAA thinks about all the artists that they represent. We represent talent. And I believe that like, if, if we are, if we feel this strongly about it and we truly treat people as talent and we cast them as talent.

20:13And when we build teams, we truly are putting together the best possible teams for the brief at hand or what the client's looking for, it's going to be very hard to compete with us. In the same way, it became really hard for these other companies to compete with Spotify and for Google to compete with Yahoo. I was thinking, looping back to the beginning of our conversation and how we spent our formative business years in the office with people. And in those situations, you described Google and Spotify, everyone's probably in a, you know, a small New York city office or small Mountain View office or, or whatever.

20:50How as, as CEO of a distributed workforce, is it same, is the same and different as far as getting everybody on the same page and feeling, feeling that visceral energy? I mean, it takes more work. I mean, I, I will say like there's, there's so many positives about being distributed because you can get the best talent from anywhere. from a cost basis basis i'm not paying for you know new york city real estate and passing that cost on to my customers right so that's another benefit but we work really hard on you do have to be methodical about thinking about people and culture so you know one of the things that i'm very i'm conscious of and i think everyone at our company is is that we don't just jump into a meeting like okay here's the agenda let's go like that's what we would do in an in-person environment we are very um conscious about how's your day you told me that your daughter was going to be like you know at a volleyball tournament did they win like it's just truly like we start with the human side and then we go into the business side because otherwise you you are all business and that doesn't feed culture i i just had a chat with someone i do this all the time i just had a chat with someone i'll set up a call for 30 minutes actually slack will with the donut slack um but But that 30 minutes, we do not talk about work.

22:14It is all just personal. What's going on? How's life? How are you feeling? Oh my God. Did you see that ball? Whatever is on the topic. I just spent 30 minutes talking about like women's sports and just like, it's how much more exciting it is right now than like what's happening. We were saying like, we're excited for March Madness, but for women's March Madness. And it was so much fun. I want to end here. You have so many freelancers. Do you ever look at when you're like, wow, this is a really cool specialty? I didn't realize we had something so niche that is so in demand. What we're always trying to do when people sign up as Rosies is to learn and mine our own database to see where are we deep and where are we shallow.

22:59And obviously, where we're deep, that's the work that let's not go pitch business if we don't have that type of talent. but we also have to pay attention to emerging trends in terms of what people are doing. So, you know, like, like MarTech, like it's, you know, this is an area that may not necessarily hit the freelance market, but it's starting to, but creatives deep, deep, deep, deep, like it's creatives are, I could find you a creative and I don't know, before the end of this podcast. Love it. Jeff, thanks so much for joining me today and best of luck with We Are Rosie. Thanks, John. I appreciate it.

23:36Thanks for having me.

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