TikTok’s Ex Head of Marketing Reveals The Playbook for Viral Content

26:48So most people remember the viral video right around the middle of COVID where that gentleman named Nathan Apodaca, otherwise known as Dogface420, was longboarding down a road, drinking ocean spray and lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac. Does that sound familiar? I think I did see this. As you know now, you might be asking the wrong person. I think I do remember this. Everyone else is raising their hand. It's just you. Everyone in the audience is raising their hand right now. It's just me, uncomfortable. Yes. So that was one of our Project Cheetah moments. So everyone, mostly in America, minus one person, saw that video.

27:26And we reverse engineered that. So we had reached out to Fleetwood Mac as soon as that video dropped. We asked them to participate with that parody, which they then they jumped in and did their own stitch of that video. We then were able to get other celebrities to also do that. We also had him show up into some late night talk shows. and then we also had a media buy that was already in place and we swapped that media buy with what was supposed to run with this specific video that was edited in 72 hours because everyone in america saw that at that point and they saw it in tv ads and they saw it on late night talk shows they figured that that was something that was happening near real time and the fact that that video had just taken off on tiktok and nowhere else like it hadn't even yeah you know infiltrated instagram or other things yet, it sort of proved out that one, culture started on TikTok.

28:19But two, you could take any video and with the right resources, amplify them to the point where they become an actual viral influencer. I think he got a truck for motion spray. I think he got some deal with other brands, which were also great. And he took a risk and made that video and put it out there. But it was our team that found that and then elevated and brought it to life. We did the same thing in the UK with this gentleman that did a whole sketch, not even sketch, like a series called Sea Shanties. And then we had another one that was doing well in South America and another one in Asia.

28:54So we really were able to prove out that these viral influencers, you know, could be sort of like engineered to have that kind of pickup. My thing about today's world is you're seeing that same kind of pickup with artificial influencers. and that to me is where it just like blows my mind and I've been kind of out of the TikTok game for a little bit but to see some of these influencers popping up and they're not even real or to hear, yeah it's scary but also on the flip side you have you know the biggest song in the country right now is Golden from K-pop Demon Hunters which is the group called Huntrix which is not real that feels more safe but at the end of the day that could very well have just been an AI group brought together to create something and it's not too far off from that reality.

29:43So I don't think it's scary as much as it's just like the way that the future is headed towards. And once people are able to dissect what drives that emotional connection to a song or to a clip or to a short form piece of content or to a long form content, someone will then figure out how to hack and reverse engineer that and then develop that, especially using AI tools because the barrier to entry just got dropped down to near zero yeah yeah amazing yeah that that song my kids will not stop playing they haven't even seen the movie i won't let them see it the movie's fine but like the song is so catchy the song is catchy until you hear it a thousand times and you're like i'll be honest i've heard it a thousand times and you still like it i still like different kind of parents i think we are yeah i'm like no more in this house will i hear this whatever song it is just switch to the other songs don't just listen to that one song yeah i know they're great i don't know.

30:32Yeah. So, I mean, and I will eventually go back to the other conversation, but for this, is there a way to spot these trends now? Like, are you looking around and seeing big opportunities kind of like what you did at TikTok? Like, are you still able to be like, oh, that would be really good if I could put spend behind it? Like, are you seeing things in a similar way? I don't think that's the new playbook. Okay. I think that's what people have been doing for the last five years and they're chasing these viral moments or, you know, you could even go back as far as I don't know 13 14 years ago I forget what year it was but the whole Oreo you can dunk in the dark creating this whole wave of brands setting up newsrooms and social command centers to try to find another moment in culture that they can then do their viral tweet or like Instagram post against and then that became this whole wave of well how do we capitalize on a trend that's happening and do our version of it and now there's all these you know whether it's the Nicki Minaj heel challenge or whatever it is, every brand doing it, it makes you forget which brands are actually doing social and just remembering that, oh, this trend is really popular and everyone's doing it.

31:37Like I actually don't think finding that diamond in the rough video and trying to elevate it to help your brand is the way. I actually am really obsessed with having a brand that knows where it plays and builds this world for the audience and allows the audience to come into that world that they're building. Maybe even co-create part of that world with them and then use that as like the launch pad for like a next campaign. I'm currently building a couple worlds for each of our brands and I'm seeing some of the more successful brands today focused on that versus chasing vile trends. It's just focus on your world that you want to build.

32:18explain why it's valuable to your audience to enter that space. And then how do you entertain and sort of, you know, delight them in that environment? Okay. So I love this because I have talked about world building before with different CMOs. However, I have not gotten the details of how to actually do it or how to think about it. And so if you're doing this with multiple companies right now, especially if they're diverse, how do you go in and think, okay, we're going to build out a world? What is it? How do I pull people in? Like, what is your thought process with world building? It's a little bit of like focusing on the insight and the objective of what you're trying to accomplish.

32:51But I'll take our brands as an example. The first brand that I'm focused on is Ciroc. And it was a brand that was born in the nightclub. And it was really made popular with this idea of like bottle service and excessive celebrations and sparklers and all that stuff and what we realize is that one that trend is sort of fading yeah um i don't know when the last time you've hit up a club and stayed out till 2 a.m just downing bottles of whatever it might be yeah no like let's say it hasn't happened in a while yeah and would you say if i were to describe somebody that um like pretend you had a weekend and you weren't worried about like kids and all those activities.

33:38Would this weekend sound fun where wake up, you maybe grab like brunch or something with friends, then you do an activity together, whether it's hiking or pickleball or tennis or whatever it is that you want to do as an activity. And then you hang out, have a cocktail, go to dinner and then actually go home. Like, does that sound like more your speed? That's my speed. That's your speed. Yeah. In bed by nine. Yep. Perfect. Yeah. So that's most people who are in our realm speed. And I don't think brands have capitalized on the trends and the shift in how people are consuming. And still focusing on that like, oh, we're going to have a fun night out.

34:20It's going to be crazy. It's going to be so intense that they completely neglected that like, I actually don't want that. I'd rather just have a casual brunch, do an activity with friends, have this social moment where we can like hang out, talk, have a cocktail, then go to a dinner and then let that be like the night. so the world that we're building is that world for Ciroc it's moving from that nightclub into this idea of the Ciroc athletic club which doesn't physically exist anywhere but we're going to create all these pop-ups and allow people to enter that world where they can play pickleball or paddle or tennis or golf or whatever it is and then hang out with their friends and socialize and then have a great culinary experience together and then end their day yeah so that is that sounds fun that sounds fun also when you think about drinking yeah when and you're in our age bracket, you're like, really not trying to do it past.

35:07Not trying to do it past. Not 7.30, it starts messing with my sleep. Totally. And you're just trying to like wind down as you get to the dinner period where that used to be the point that you started. Yeah. And we wanted to reshift and reframe what it means to, you know, be social, but still be responsible and be like a functioning human being. And on the flip side, there's also this idea that back in the day, we went out to drink. That was literally the activity. It's like, what are you doing tonight? We're going drinking. People don't feel that way anymore. Andrew Huberman came in hot and doesn't allow us to feel that way anymore.

35:41Yeah, exactly. Now we know. Him and many others who say, take your AG1, don't get smashed. But what you could do is just like, do that a little bit earlier. And like the idea that, you know, you used to go out to drink and that was the activity has shifted to, you want to have an activity that's fun, social, and something that you could do with the community. but then in that activity, drinking is just part of it. It's not the thing. It's just something that you're doing on the sort of like outside and that's sort of where I think our brand should play in the world that we should build. So it's going to feel like this athletic club.

36:14It's going to feel aspirational and premium but it's going to be accessible to everyone and it's going to be open and we're going to have amazing merch drops that people could then go grab and there's going to be like opportunities to come to those events and then potentially go to the Super Bowl or go to the US Open or whatever else it might be. So we really want to build that idea of the balanced lifestyle where people want to still be fit, be active, be participatory in whatever it is that they want to do, but then also be okay to have a drink or two. Yeah. Okay, so when you're trying to shift a brand's perception like that, and you're going after maybe a new clientele too who might not be thinking of you for that, how do you pull these new customers in?

36:54What do your tactics look like? I think to the point that I was making, you see pickleball as an example is like one of the fastest rising sports in the u.s right now especially in austin especially in austin it's it's the hub for pickleball so you know imagine instead of focusing on a big commercial where like i'm going to show people drinking a cocktail and like playing pickleball and wouldn't that be great i actually just build up a pop-up here it's like a you know weekend event that might lead into a music festival or a sporting event like let's say austin f1 yeah um if there was an opportunity to build up a cirak athletic club that goes right before f1 comes in so people are already here they're hanging out they're looking for something to do and then they can go play pickleball which is now i didn't know this austin's the hub for pickleball you could then you know be entertained there have a different connection and an emotional feeling to the brand.

37:51And then ultimately have that amazing weekend where you're experiencing F1 and one of the best places to do so. And then walking away thinking like, well, that was a really fun, memorable experience. I did that with some of my friends and some new friends that I just met. And at the end of the day, I still feel great. Like that's sort of the tension that we're trying to work our way into to bring the new audience into our world. Yeah, so good. So it's more experiential, real world. 100%. But probably not a metric that can be instantly tracked, which is also probably why some marketing leaders might be like, well, this one shows me right away what I get.

38:24This one might take a week or so to show if they become actual customers for a long time. Yeah, but I've never been one to chase those short-term KPIs. I think ultimately, all I know is that if brands continue to do what they've been doing, they will become less relevant than they were back when that was the medium that everyone consumed content. So in today's world, those events that I just described are like these social honeypot moments that allow for organic social to really like infiltrate people's feeds and show them what this world of Ciroc could look like. And then from there, I'm hoping that headlines will then come out that talk about the new world and the new aspects and the experiential, how fun it was and how engaging it was and who was there.

39:06Those are the types of things that I think will become a better indicator for success than, you know, how many eyeballs saw it on TV. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Okay, so way earlier in the interview, we were talking about bold marketing, just marketing. I'd love to hear any stories where you went super bold and maybe you were like, that took it too far. Like I'm trying to figure out the line between like, is there a line between like too far and it's just risky versus being lame, obviously, which is, you know, what can happen very easily when you're, especially when you're in corporate, it goes more to lame.

39:40So tell me a story or two if you can. And then just how you find the line. I don't feel I've ever taken anything too far in terms of bold. I mean, like, you know, taking a tweet from I'll think of different examples at different stages of my career. But like one of the first things that I did with a few folks at Taco Bell that was considered bold was someone tweeted that they thought a Taco Bell was going to open in their town. Six thousand person town called Bethel, Alaska. and that town thought that because this person was playing a hoax on their neighbor. So they put up signs that said Taco Bell opening soon for job inquiries.

40:26Call this number. And that number was their neighbor's number so that the phone was just ringing off the hook. Who's this person? This is great. This mad genius is who that person was. And when we found out that that story was developing, we immediately reached out to see if there was a way we could build a Taco Bell for them. And due to supply chain constraints, it just wasn't possible. So the bold idea was, well, we have a Taco Bell truck. Can we just bring the Taco Bell truck to Bethel, Alaska and serve them the first taste of Doritos Locos Tacos, which at the time was the newest launch? That wasn't possible because it turns out in the summer that little town becomes an island because when the ice melts, there's no road to access that.

41:07You have to get there by a boat. Oh. So then the bold idea was, well, can't we just airlift the Taco Bell truck and just drop it in the middle of the town? So that's what we ended up doing. Oh, you did it? Yeah. It was called Operation Alaska. It was badass. It was a few people at Taco Bell who just jumped on this idea and worked as like a little SWAT team, brought it to life. And within two weeks, literally, you have this Taco Bell being airlifted by a helicopter, drops in the middle of town, and then 10 ,000 people because people from other towns also came and just descended upon. on the truck and just got free tacos.

41:40So that was bold. It worked. I feel like even the stuff we did at TikTok with TikTok kitchens and some of those things were bold, but never pushing it too far. One of the brands that I've been an investor in and have just been absolutely in love with Liquid Death, they push the limits all the time. I don't know if anything has gone too far because their brand ethos is to be edgy, irreverent, and sort of like, you know, proving out that there's a better way to consume beverages. Yeah, I more so get frustrated when either my team or brands do something that looks fun for the sake of being fun, but it has no impact to the business.

42:25I'm more concerned about those things because I've never seen anyone be so bold that it goes too far. I've seen bad creative. I don't consider that bold. I just think it's just bad creative. and that sometimes, you know, really cripples a company. But there's nothing that I've seen where I'm like, oh, wow, that was really bold. And it was so amazing, but so bold that they should have gone that far. I don't know if I have an example of that off the top of my head. Okay. Have you seen any campaigns lately that you thought were bad? I mean, you write about a lot on LinkedIn. Oh, just bad? The ironic thing is I write a lot about campaigns on LinkedIn, but I tend to avoid bashing campaigns and more so highlighting the ones that I think are doing really great work.

43:03Like recently I talked about Anthropic and what they did for Claude. Oh, was it the meme one? I saw a great meme the other day. What was the meme? It was where it was like a bunch of them where maybe someone was looking at someone else's phone and it was like Anthropic and then ChatGPT was the person looking at their phone. Oh, that's pretty funny. So they had a bunch of those settings where basically like ChatGPT was trying to like copy in different scenes. I'm like, oh, that's smart. Yeah, it's fun. And I'd say my realization is that the bar for creative continues to go up. And I think making good creative is hopefully becoming easier for marketers.

43:41So I don't see as many like just terrible campaigns. I see ones that are like pretty good. And what I realize is that there's lots of ways to win. And there's not always just one winner. So when I looked at the recent campaigns from OpenAI and from Anthropic, They both were great because I think they were serving different audiences. I think for Claude, it was really targeting someone that's a little bit more advanced in their AI journey. They know how to use LLMs. They're a little bit more comfortable. They're maybe even like a coder or a developer. And the angle that they had was really about being smarter with your AI and taking it up a notch.

44:14And then OpenAI drops this like chat GPT version that's just like for the everyday person who just wants to do basic tasks, here's how you would use it. I don't think they were competing against each other as much as they were saying, this is for this audience and this is for this audience. And we both can play in this world together. We can both win. So I thought that was really interesting recently. I'd say I'm really obsessed with out of home. I tend to talk more about out of home on LinkedIn because when I see something that just makes me stop in my tracks and then read what was happening with it and thinking about it a little more deeply, it tends to stick with me a little bit more than you know other forms of media um would and it's to the point now where i i you know will ask my nine-year-old son um what do you think that's trying to tell you and he'll give me his take i'll be like do you think they're accomplishing what they're trying to set out to do and like he's he's only nine but i think out of home is meant to be so simple and you're supposed to be able to get the message within like two to three seconds that even a nine-year-old can kind of process what it is so i'm really excited about about something that's simplistic, but beautifully well done, and then very witty in nature.

45:26Those are always fun for me. Yeah. I mean, those are a handful of things that catch my eye right now. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Have you ever wished that your entire video production workflow lived in one place? Well, you're in luck because that is LTX, the creative suite that was built by Lightrix, all for AI video production. It takes you from idea to final 4K video, all in one workspace. And under the hood, you've got LTX2, the next generation creative engine powering native 4K, synchronized audio and cinematic quality fast. So if you make content professionally, this isn't just another tool. This is your new creative home.

46:05Go explore it at ltx.studio. Okay, so I wanna dig into some more like trends you're seeing on the front lines because you do advise quite a few startups, which I'd love for you to maybe go through. Any startups or anyone that you're advising. I don't advise a ton. I invest in a bunch. Invest. Sorry. Okay. So you invest in a couple of startups. I invest in some startup brands and I try to give them my advice whether they take it or not. Okay. So you're not an advisor, but you give advice. I'm not an advisor because I feel like an advisor is like a formal role. Okay. I would say like I throw money at them with the hopes that they'll listen to one or two things that I'll say.

46:38And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Okay. So what are you seeing with these companies that you're investing in? Because to me, I mean, we talked about this, I think, before we were recording, like such a good way to see what's happening, you know, on the front lines with these startups who are trying things that probably big companies are not right now. So what are you seeing that's exciting you? I think smaller brands are more willing to take risks in the sense of like not using the traditional path to winning. And I think that's starting to become more the norm and probably scaring some of the bigger brands.

47:10it's not a surprise to me that you hear brands like Unilever shifting their budget and becoming a little bit more you know social first with their mindset I think that should be the norm I think brands that are stuck in this like outdated traditional process of building campaigns they're only benefiting the agencies that are doing the creative for them I think you know Pepsi moving into this hybrid model with their agency partner which I think is Vayner that to me is very interesting because they're just trying something new and breaking the traditional process by like engineering a new team like model that to me is very interesting so i'm more so looking at how startups are finding ways to win without spending the amount of money that you used to spend to break into a market and recognizing that you know spending millions on media isn't a guarantee for success.

48:06And especially in this new world where the algorithms across social platforms don't care how much you spend. They just care how relevant that content is to the audience. You're seeing people take bolder risks when it comes to the creative. They're doing very outlandish things to try to stand out. And sometimes that works and sometimes it actually doesn't work because if it doesn't ladder up to what the brand stands for and what it's trying to deliver to a customer, it falls flat. So I definitely see more brands that are in that startup phase chasing trends and forgetting that the point of the marketing and the trends is to drive your bottom line.

48:40And it has nothing to do with trying to just get the most laughs or the most likes on social. Yeah. Okay. That's, yeah, that's interesting thing about chasing trends, creating trends, and hey, you have a business here that you need to focus on first. Yeah, and that's sort of like the tension that the modern day CMO has to make where you have to be commercially minded and not just try to rack up awards or get those vanity metrics up. I think it really matters if you are moving the needle on the business. Yeah. So are there any tools that are favorites that you're watching these startup companies use or just ways that they're doing things in a different way that you think others should be watching?

49:16I mean, a lot of them are trying to figure out how to do things on their own. And they're reaching out to whether it's me or other people to say, you have this great knowledge and this vast experience. Could you just teach us how to do this and avoid using agency? The ones that ask that question, I think, have a better chance of winning than the ones are saying, who are the best agencies out there for me to work with? So I really appreciate and I'm happy to just like give advice to some brands when they say, I want to be better at long form content. How do I build up that capability? I feel like me wanting to become a teacher when I grew up, essentially.

49:52Hearing that question excites me and it makes me want to tell them like, oh my gosh, if you want to learn and do it on your own, let me help and lean in and give you some of those tools that like, you know, just because I think it's a good thing for you to do. Then be someone to recommend like, here are the top three agencies that could like make a lot of money by doing that thing for you when you could technically have done it yourself. so I definitely appreciate those types of conversations but I'd say yeah between the tools that people are starting to pick up from short form content creation long form identifying like what are those metrics that kind of take you down the wrong path and learning from the mistakes of CMOs in the past that were like determined to only focus on those things and actually this one that I had recently where someone asked me how do I organize my team for success?

50:44I thought that was a really great question because they recognize that it's not just the output, but the way that the team is structured that will yield a better result. And so then they obviously, when they asked me, I was like, oh my gosh, that's a great question. Let me think of how your company might be able to like, you know, reorganize themselves to be set up for the future. Because the other thing is if your team hasn't changed in years and yet the landscape that we're marketing in has completely evolved, then you're definitely behind. It's like having, you know, like a horse drawn buggy in a world of freeways.

51:17Like if you don't adapt, there's no way for you to actually survive in that new environment. Yeah. I mean, that's, it makes me think though, like more layoffs to come probably in smaller teams. At least that's, there was like some exclusive dinner with a bunch of CEOs and they're asking about like in a year or so how much of your workforce do you think will be remaining after these ai transformations and all this and i think they said 30 was the number maybe you were there were you there i just heard about this from one of the advisors who were in the dinner and i'm yeah i think that's a common theme yeah but my hope is that these companies before they cut their you know staff they think can i redeploy my staff to do something that we were paying an agency 10x more to do on the outside.

52:02Because if you're going to reduce your team by 30, but then still rely on all these external sources of help, then I would just want to ask them, could those folks do the work that you're paying other folks to do as good, if not better, if they were just given the tools and the training to do so? Because they know your brand better than anyone else. So could you give them a shot, specifically in marketing? So tell me about other campaigns similar to the taco bell one so this the simplest stunt that i ever did as in like low cost um uh it was for stance the sock company we figured out that um when we were launching star wars there was we didn't know this at the time but there were multiple sock brands including target that made socks that had the license for star wars as well okay so when you're in this crowded market where there's a bunch of sock manufacturers making Star Wars socks.

52:56Like how are you going to stand out, especially if your sock is$20 a pair and the other ones are like$5 a pair. So for, I think it was like$132 ,000, we created a website called theuncommonforce.com. I don't think that site still exists, but essentially we were able to use your front camera, the front facing webcam and you could use that to track your hand movements so we let people shop with the force so you could actually go to the website pick out the different socks scroll through them drop them into your shopping cart and then do an interactive animation based on your hand gestures and we sold out within that day i think we made like 3.4 million dollars in that single day and it was something that didn't cost that much to you but it's just like really fun so that was another oh that'd be a good one um hulu we did oh this is actually timely because everyone was talking about lebron's decision too which ended up being an ad for hennessy okay and i thought that like the idea was fine but like lebron is just like such a prolific figure in the nba and in pop culture as a whole, that if you were to try to tease what seemed like a misdirect, where it looked like he was potentially going to announce his retirement or something important, I feel like they could have done it in a much more elevated manner for someone of his stature.

54:20So when I was at Hulu, we were dealing with that same moment for Tom Brady and his career. And the piece that we did for the Super Bowl ad that was trying to tell people that Hulu doesn't just have live sports they also have all these other things to remind people that hulu is for a lot of different entertainment needs if you go back and you see the way that we filmed the tom brady spot and the social tease that we had that made people wondering is he retiring is he not is he leaving the patriots is he not what's happening i think it was just like a very different approach to how it was executed and i wish they would have like given that much um you know um i don't want call it effort because they probably worked really hard on it but like that much like craft to what they did with lebron because he definitely deserves yeah a send-off in that in that sort of like you know realm yeah yeah that's good so those are all some fun campaigns from the past tiktok had so many but like um a lot of the things we did with martha stewart especially martha stewart with liquid death was all just like super fun and out there whenever you juxtapose a personality in an environment where you would never expect to see them.

55:28I think that works really well. We had Martha Stewart selling candles of a hand holding a liquid death can. And the spot that she helped make the little piece was her seemingly greeting fans who didn't know they were walking in to get their hand chopped off so she can make the thing. And it's just so off the wall and gruesome. At the same time, it's Martha Stewart. Yeah. So this like juxtaposition on one hand makes you feel kind of weird, but also you're like, that's actually really memorable and fun. Yeah. That thing generated, I don't know, billions of views and impressions. And I think it's those unexpected, you know, moments that come together that end up making work really, really memorable.

56:09Yeah. That's good. The one thing about Martha Stewart, it was funny. I had someone from Fiverr on there. She's the VP of brand and comms at Fiverr. And they had Martha Stewart. She was an intern on the platform that you would hire. and I'm like that's so good. Great. Knowing you can hire Martha Stewart as an intern. That's yeah. She's one that doesn't take herself too seriously. She has fun with it. So yeah those are all good opportunities. Yeah I mean there's just yeah there's a long list of campaigns that I think were fun that I've been a part of but also like there's a list of ones that I sometimes think to myself like man I wish I was working on that just because it came to life in such a fun you know fun manner yeah it could be interesting with all these things you're talking about of like how do you actually figure out what they want not what consumers say oh yeah so consumers don't know what they want that's been a age-old theme in marketing when I was on a panel with someone that used to run marketing at Dyson he said that if you asked anyone in the consumer research what do you want to do with all the dust once it gets sucked up in the vacuum cleaner everyone basically said like I don't ever want to see that like it's gross it's disgusting put it in a bag make it so I can throw it away and then like be done and yet their biggest and most successful product was the vacuum that had no bag and it's transparent it shows you all the stuff you did and the insight there that I thought was amazing was you want to see the work that you've done and like nothing makes me happier than when I'm vacuuming with actually the Dyson because that's what I have.

57:40And I see how much stuff I just pulled up into that thing. And that's what I'm like, I did a good amount of work. If it were not transparent and in a bag, I'd have no idea how much I picked up and whether it was worth my time to do that. But now I'll vacuum three times a week because it's fun and I get to see the impact that my vacuuming has done. So things like that, I think are fascinating. There's a whole book, May Contain Lies by Alex Edmonds. It really points the fact that almost every data point has an underlying element that you could tease out and realize that it's not actually valid or accurate.

58:13So even when I see, you know, brands lift studies or like studies about like, you know, what consumers are saying, I take all that with a grain of salt and just try to like put my, you know, is this practical hat on where like, is that actually how most people would feel about that thing? And regardless of what the data says, is that something that would move them to like make a purchase of this thing? Because at the end of the day, I've been able to do this myself where with any amount of data, you can put together any story you want. And you can also put a counter story to the exact thing that you're trying to prove with the data with, you know, the opposing view of the data.

58:51So I've just never taken as much, you know, as much from that data as being a source for what fuels my creative approach. I just more so try to like just lean back into like what's the insight we're trying to impact how do we really like influence culture at scale and in you know the most efficient way possible and then test and learn I'd rather test and learn and not have it work out than try to like pick apart the insights to death and the data yeah and then go with like one approach that ends up failing anyways yeah it's just much more fun to just like run with it and move at the speed of culture I'm sure a lot of people listening will find that approach refreshing just because of all the data that's coming in all the things are on ai and i i feel like i hear two kind of cmos one that's like data everything you have to track everything and i hear the level that they're going into it i'm like whoo that's a lot you're spending a lot of energy on that a lot of energy the other half are more like trust your intuition like it's now is better than any time to be very human and ask your human self would i like that like does this seem interesting and i'm more on that side as long as you're able to tease out who your consumer is versus who you are yeah because the last thing you want is to cater to your perspective or your you know likes and then realize you're missing your target altogether and then the worst thing that we've seen as like you know heads of marketing are when somebody comes in and says we should try this because i talked to my son or i talked to my daughter and they really like this person so we should like do something there those always get me and they don't work they don't work and they cost a lot of money and you go down these rabbit holes that you shouldn't have gone to.

1:00:30But yeah, I do think we're in an age of intuition and that you need to hire the right people who have that instinct and can move with culture because they're just immersed in it rather than someone who's trying to read it off of a spreadsheet. Yep, I love that. So good. Okay, so we're gonna shift into the lightning round. Okay. This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Okay, first one, fill in the blank. Playing it safe in 2026 is like? playing it safe in 2026 is like i can't think of the right analogy but it's something where you're like you're not supposed to be playing with those zoo animals that are behind the bars but like you're sticking your hand in between them only to realize that you're gonna get your whole arm chewed off that's kind of like where you think you're playing it say because you're like i'm behind the bars of this thing oh the double bars yeah yeah but in fact like you're there and then the animals can still reach you.

1:01:24The gorilla can pull you through. Yeah. Like my point is like, there is no playing it safe. You shouldn't be playing it safe. And when you think you are, you're actually still not. So you might as well just go all out. Oh my God. That's good. That's really good. Okay. Describe your creative process as if it was a dating app bio. I've never had a dating app bio. Well, now's your time. On live TV. Can you give me a quick rundown of what's in a dating app profile? I'm a visionary focused on you know oh gosh and ad spend none of that with a specialty and spirituality no no no is this like a long walks on the beach type of thing exactly like put your creative process into a bio with with extra fluff and extra like you're really trying to lure someone in short walks off a fun cliff where you could dive into a pool of amazingness i have no idea wow i I don't do dating apps, but I would think that I can't do a bio for one either then, which is probably a good thing.

1:02:20It's probably a good thing. Your wife would be happy. I'm sure she would be. She's proud of you. Okay. If you were given a million dollars right now and like no one's going to ask you questions about how you spend it. Okay. What would you do with it in the world of marketing? Like it needs to be something with like, yeah. I mean, you can tell me personal too. I'll hear that after, but let's stick with the focus here. Wait, so you're given a million. So this is... Million dollars, no risk, no strings attached. It's just like go try something, whatever you want, and come back and report back. Okay.

1:02:47It costs about 200 grand to hire a very renowned director or like a screenplay writer. So I would take the first 200K and hire a badass screenplay writer to write out a piece of content that call it like a film's length and center it around like my brand being a character or something within that world. that's 200k then i would take the remaining 600 of that 800 and figure out how i can quickly produce something to be like a test of that thing that script so don't hire real actors don't necessarily go shoot anything maybe shoot a little bit of stuff but add in a lot of stuff to just like storyboard that out and make it like amazing and then spend the last 200 to like work to just pitch it and then actually have it be made if i had no strings attached i would love to like make a full length feature film, just focusing on a brand as a character in this whole world, in this ecosystem, and then letting that, you know, become hopefully the next big movie.

1:03:50Dang, you've thought about this. Someone come hire Nick. No, I never thought about this. This needs to happen. It needs to be made into a reality. Yeah, I wish I had someone. That would be awesome if someone hit you up after this and you're like, hey, I heard your pitch. I want to make this movie. Great. I'll do it. Hit him up. Yeah, million bucks. He's active on LinkedIn. I am active. My DMs there are clean, whereas my inbox is not. All right. Last one. if you could erase one marketing buzzword from the vocabulary, what would you kill? Oh, there's so many. You can do, you can kill a couple if you want.

1:04:19I would kill authenticity because everyone uses it. And I actually think people don't care as much about that anymore. They just want to have fun. Um, I would kill, um, any of the performance driven buzzwords like CPMs and CAC and LTV and all that fun business. Because again, I don't know if that's leading people down the road. Not that it's not useful. It's just taking so many people down the wrong path when they were almost dancing around the answer. And then they get focused on these KPIs. They just go down this other path. KPIs, just get rid of that all together.

1:04:57What other buzzwords? CMO. who needs CMOs anymore like you should just figure out a new way to describe what it is that person does like the chief marketing officer doesn't only do marketing so like that's a buzzword we should just get rid of you have to think of a new one then you can't just be coming in here killing some words and not have a new one for everyone listening being like well what is my title then yeah president president that works that does work president any others no that's enough to kill for today Okay. That's good. Well, Nick, this was super fun. I'm so happy you came in studio.

1:05:34Of course. Thank you. I definitely want you back in the future. Amazing. Wonderful studio. I love it. Austin's a beautiful city. It's amazing. So glad to be here. Same. Also, where can people find you? Where can they hit you up at? Where can they hire you to create your film? I mean, I'm on LinkedIn, but with my full-time job, I don't have as much time as I used to, but I will say LinkedIn's an easy place to reach me. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.