Live from BBDO Chicago: The Scarcity of Difference in Marketing

0:00Josh Gross: This series is brought to you by TrackSuit. TrackSuit is the affordable, always-on brand tracking tool that helps marketers and agencies answer the question, is what we're doing working? Companies pay$100 ,000, which I still can't believe, or even more, for brand tracking, which is out of the question for most modern brands. Their in-house research experts do the heavy lifting using best-in-class practices to craft your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit gives you brand tracking you can afford. Check them out at gotracksuit.com. That's gotracksuit.com. And by System 1, what if you could predict whether an ad or product or an idea was going to connect with consumers and be successful?

0:50Josh Gross: even before it launched. That's where System One comes in. They're the creative effectiveness platform that uses emotional measurement and norms to help brands predict what will truly drive growth and how to further improve it. From new product concepts and packaging to Super Bowl spots and social campaigns, System One enables you to create with confidence across all of your creative. To learn more, check them out at systemonegroup.com. That's systemonegroup.com. So a couple of weeks ago, it was in August, actually, that we had a conversation in a new format, a new style as part of our live tour.

1:32Josh Gross: Because as you may know, we do these larger live shows with large audiences. And then I wanted to try a little bit more of a salon format with just invitation-only guests. So we did it for the, actually the second time. We did it in Mother last year in London. And then we did it again here in Chicago. and what in essence it involves is like 30 or maybe like 30 people in the audience and we have a round table and we pick a topic and the topic for this conversation was the scarcity of difference and it was a conversation around whether or not scarcity of difference is a reality and is there a scarcity of difference because sameness works it was this sort of a conversation because we We talk a lot about being different, but not all brands want to embrace that.

2:24Josh Gross: And there's a strong case to be made that many of these brands are that way because, you know, the advantages go to the incumbent in the category, and it's very difficult to change brands. And so we talked about whether or not different is only for challenger brands, and when and how can difference be applied to brands that have been in market for a long time? In other words, is it hard to be different once you have been the same for so long? And then on a human behavioral basis, we talked about the idea, is it about the fact that it's that tension between wanting to be different, but also not wanting to be seen as different?

3:03Josh Gross: You know, the idea of wanting to fit in while not being seen to be like everybody else. So there's the human dimension of this as well as the sort of brand dimension of this that we're going to talk about. Now, the people in this conversation who joined me on the night, you're going to hear them because obviously we did not, not obviously, but we did not record this on video. It was only an audio episode. So you're not going to be able to really track with people's names on the screen. So to sort of compensate for that, let me tell you that the first person you're going to hear is Landy Day. She is the Chief Strategy Officer for BBDO in Chicago.

3:43Josh Gross: The second person you're going to hear is Preeti Nadgar, is the Chief Strategy Officer for Starcom here in Chicago. Then Josh Gross is the Chief Creative Officer for BBDO Chicago. You'll then hear Mark Gross, Co-Founder, Co-Chief Creative Officer at High Dive. And Brian Seedband is the co-founder and co-chief creative officer for Quality Meats. So that's sort of the order in which you'll hear folks. And it was a great conversation. So before we dive into that, I want to share just very briefly about some upcoming shows. We are taking the On the Spot series. That's an episode we do every month where planners talk about brands they love but never worked on.

4:27Josh Gross: And it's a fun, more informal, sort of almost a game show-like version of our show. And so we're taking that on the road live in front of an audience for the first time. It's this Thursday, September 10th at GSD &M in Austin. It starts at 5 o 'clock. We would love to see you there. then we're taking it live to uh johannes leonardo in new york city on wednesday september 23rd and in both cities we're starting at 5 p.m we used to start our live shows at 6 but i want to bring it up and you know at least you know check it out how it works if we bring it up an hour earlier i mean people have got stuff they got to do they want to get home they want to get out of the out of the city or whatever the case may be they've got other things in their lives beyond the show So we're trying to start it at five.

5:22Josh Gross: It'll be done by seven. We would, and in each of these cities, we have great strategists. And each of those strategists comes in front of the live audience. And they pitch a campaign they love but never worked on. And they get five minutes to answer five questions. And then we all talk about the campaigns, what we love about them, what we think was at the center of them. and we show the campaigns obviously on the large screens in the room. And then we all talk about them and ultimately the audience votes on which of the three campaigns is the best campaign in their opinion. And then we award the strategist who presented that campaign with the beautiful on-the-spot trophy.

6:07Josh Gross: It is a phenomenal piece and it's making its debut this week at GSDNM. So come and join us. It's a lot of fun, and we all need a little fun these days. So you can get tickets for both of these shows and all of our live tour shows at onstrategyshowcase.com backslash live tour. onstrategyshowcase.com backslash live tour. And thank you. Thank you to the Effies, to Tracksuit, and to System One for being our live tour sponsors this year. So let's get on with the show. This is our conversation on the scarcity of difference. Thank you to BBDO in Chicago for hosting us and to our brilliant panel. We had a great night.

6:51Josh Gross: I hope you'll enjoy this. It used to be easier, Landy, to sort of spot the difference in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our cars that we drove, in the products that we purchased. And it doesn't seem that way anymore. What's what changed? What has changed?

7:10Brian Siedband: It's a big, big question. big question. First of all, I think this is a great, a really fun topic. I was really excited about it. But I think one of the biggest things is globalization. Like I think the fact that our world actually feels a lot smaller than it has been. We are exposed to the same brands, the same stores, the same experiences. I think culture moves so fast now that a trend can go around the world in no time flat. And I think that we are influenced by those things. And I I think that the algorithm knows what works, serves back what works, and then we're influenced by that. I actually read an article recently that was, am I being influenced or is this actually my taste?

7:56Brian Siedband: At some point, you don't even know anymore what is your taste or what are you being influenced by. And then we're optimizing for everything. We're trying to become more efficient to optimize for what people like. And again, I think the cycle kind of continues. So I think it used to be that being different was a more natural occurrence because we were not as connected as we are now. And now I think we have to work a lot harder to be different. I feel like this is the most exciting time to be a strategist because everything is optimized to average. And so where do you find beauty? As a creative partner or a strategist, that is where you can find beauty difference.

8:37Brian Siedband: I mean, I would say probably everything in the world, you know, brands need to be recognizable. And then perhaps a little bit of them need to be doing something that's exciting or remarkable. And I think that's about it. You know, where do we bring in? Is the humanity, what is the role of our brand? What is exciting? What is interesting? It's all a game of attention.

8:59Preeti Nadgar: Kind of jumping off what Landy was saying too, I feel like keeping up with the Joneses is now like trying to keep up with at Jones 67 on TikTok or Insta or whatever it is. And, you know, I think people are always going to want to kind of feel like they belong to something, but you do want to kind of stand out from your neighbor, whether it's your neighbors on the street, IRL, or your friends in real life. But I think what this globalization that like Landy's talking about, it lets you do is you can find these like maybe smaller communities so i think that the difference still exists but um it's in these increasingly like niche communities online and across social

9:41Mark Gross: media yeah go ahead no i was gonna say it is an exciting time you mentioned this you know when you look at some of the disruptors you know the raising canes um what's the uh water liquid death you know some of these brands so there is differentiation and there are exciting brands and challengers coming into the market so uh while everything is the same i think it makes the challengers that much more powerful when they push against the norm yeah i also was going to say what's really sad is when we go to europe now and travel and there you see the same stores you're Like, I didn't come to see what's at my mall.

10:20Mark Gross: It's very, it's bizarre.

10:22Josh Gross: You know, it's interesting because I think that we talk in the industry an awful lot and we preach it about being different. But I think when you look at human nature, the last thing that we want to be thought of as human beings is being different. We want to belong. We want to feel part of something. So are we getting it wrong when we assume, if we are, that people want different? What is the advantage of different? I think people actually want familiar.

10:54Brian Siedband: I agree.

10:55Landi Day: To a certain extent. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I agree with you that people like the idea of different but don't want to be seen as different. So they look for familiarity. they look for mental shortcuts which comes down to like people they don't want to have to think too much about purchase decisions they want to find things that speak to them that relate to them so when you when you're able to have a to establish some sort of mental shortcut that's like oh i get that i see that that's throughout advertising whether that's in an execution it's got some sort of a mental shortcut celebrities are that um or if it's a vibe or a tone or something.

11:37Landi Day: So the trick that we have to do as creatives is coming up with new and interesting ways to kind of develop that familiarity when it's not there.

11:46Brian Siedband: I think there's a real human need. There's a real human pull to be both. I think people want to express...

11:52Josh Gross: To be both.

11:52Brian Siedband: To be both different and also unique and to belong to something. So I think that there's a real tension there. But it's... I mean, I have an eight-year-old daughter who already I can see that she wants to wear what she wants to wear, but she also is conscious about what other people are going to think. It happens really early on. And so I think as we, as just humans, we want to be different together. I think that's the way I would think of it. I think you want to find your tribe. You want to be able to express yourself and be unique, but you want to find the other people that give you the safety to do that together.

12:26Preeti Nadgar: As a striving to be perfect parent who is anything but, we obsessed over the stroller to stroller purchase up a baby for life but like and it was like i it was like it was a big purchase and it was like we are getting like we we are great parents because we are getting this you know machine that will convert and when we have a second one there's blah blah blah um and it's a great stroller i stand by it it lasted uh two kids um but every you know 80 percent of other parents walking around the neighborhood had the same damn stroller like So I think there is something to this mix of like, I'm going to be special and think through this particular purchase.

13:07Preeti Nadgar: And I am also going to be self-identifying with a particular tribe. And I feel like I'm kind of both. It depends on how many people I see with the same stroller.

13:15Josh Gross: Do you guys think there's a scarcity of difference? I mean, we threw that out there. Do you think that's true?

13:23Preeti Nadgar: No, I would say there is a scarcity of difference from a couple different lenses. I think our clients are increasingly every day feeling the urge or seeing data or being warned to maybe play certain things safe or optimize to do things because it has the best potential of performing at a certain benchmark. I think there's there because it's, you know, doing things a similar way or in a way that isn't so different that it might not not work or might scare someone. I think there's a lot of pressure to kind of conform to play it safe so that things work at an appropriate level, which, you know, the danger, of course, is like you take away the chance to do something that maybe is a little bit scary, that is different, that maybe works even harder.

14:10Preeti Nadgar: And then I think when you look more broadly at culture, it's like, yeah, your algorithm is just spitting you out a million versions of the same thing, whether it's music or entertainment or comedy or whatever. So I think what we've been talking about so far is like it's interesting because you can almost find individuality in this sort of like sea of sameness. But like more broadly, I think, yeah, with the more and more content being put into the world, more and more of it does feel kind of the same. So if we flip this, because we like to do that in our industry, right?

14:45Josh Gross: If we flip this idea and say that sameness has gotten a bad rap because new is sort of seen as being sexier, a little more brave. But when is it okay to be the same? What's the case for sameness?

15:03Brian Siedband: I mean, I come from a media world. We see all the time metrics against, and I hate to be the one who says optimize to best practice. but we need to because if you have a distinctive asset and you change a color that is a problem we see immediately a dip in media tiny pantone change and we see a dip because at shelf they cannot recognize their version of cerulean blue which is how they recognize their brand and they are able to pick it up they meaning the human beings consumers yeah so i would i also think i I think you're on to something around risk. I wonder whether the sameness comes from people not taking enough risks.

15:43Brian Siedband: If an average CMO's tenure is two years, how much risk can they actually take? I'm just thinking it's maybe the alibi of being average. Like, you're always going to be average because who gets fired for being average? You did your job. You went away. I mean, we can probably name, you know, CMOs of companies who tried to be different recently in the last year and do not now enjoy that post anymore yeah sorry no yeah i think it's harder for established brands right um you know we talked about this a little bit on the phone we're

16:18Mark Gross: the other day you know when you look at elon i think he can afford to fail and so when he came

16:23Brian Siedband: up the cyber truck which is not doing well it looks like a dump truck yeah it's um this is true

16:30Mark Gross: But it could have caught on and done really well. I don't know. But I think he's fine with failing and he could do that. I think that's how he built this company and all those companies. But I think established brands, just like you're talking about, I think it's risky to take risk. I think there's fear. And sometimes brands, I don't know if companies want to take the risk. I think they want to appeal to what consumers want. They do a lot of research for that reason and give them what they want and make it seem like it's slightly different.

17:02Brian Siedband: I think there's a difference between being the same as everyone else in the category and being consistent as a brand. I think you have to find a way to be different within your category and to your points. Like being a challenger brand, you have more liberty because you don't have the money. You can't outspend. You can't outdistribute what your competitors are doing. So you have to find different ways to break through. And I do feel like established brands have much more internal infrastructure that keeps things the same on purpose because it's safer to do that. But I think when it comes to being consistent as a brand over time, we've seen a lot of data that's told us that consistency, and like you're saying, Preeti, consistency works.

17:49Brian Siedband: Compounds. Yes. Yes. So I think that there is a difference between sameness and consistency.

17:54Josh Gross: We'll be right back. We're excited to collaborate with Lions Learning, the training division of Lions, home of the Effies, CanLion, Wark, and Contagious. Lions Learning is now enrolling for its next Master of Advertising Effectiveness program starting on October 12th. Led by James Herman, this eight-week online program gives marketing and advertising professionals a practical understanding of the proven principles behind advertising effectiveness and how to apply them to create work that drives stronger commercial results. James Herman is a globally recognized strategist and advertising effectiveness expert who just published his third book, Future Demand.

18:38Josh Gross: He has won more than 50 advertising effectiveness awards and has spent over 20 years researching, publishing, practicing, and teaching advertising effectiveness. You can learn more about the course and register at learning.lyons.co. That's learning.lyons.co. Now back to the show. If you look at what somebody like Byron Sharp will espouse, and I actually was just reading some of his stuff this morning to prepare for tonight. I mean, he in essence, and I remember the first time I read that book, which was probably 10 years ago, I was kind of like pissed off. And I was like pissed off because he made points that were absolutely right.

19:21Josh Gross: And what in essence he was saying was that brand memories are embedded from years ago. They are extremely difficult to change if you can do it at all. so established brands cannot and should not move far away from those those things that may help us recognize them and so that's what i'm thinking about when i think about sameness we think about it as boring in our industry but maybe they're right maybe sameness is a good strategy particularly for big incumbents i mean they have to the risk is that if you stray away you end up with the inability to recover because it's hard to append any sort of identity above and beyond what you already have it's it's exciting and interesting to see brands do it well and i see if you agree or disagree but old spice you know completely reinvented that brand my dad

20:22Mark Gross: world spice um and it was such an old stodgy brand and uh they completely reinvented everyone was on board the company was willing to spend and the work was out of wyden kennedy did an unbelievable job yes and uh look at where they are today it was unbelievable um mountain dew too i think back in the day i remember you know was people swinging on tires jumping in the in the river and um i think they did a pretty good job of of somewhat reinventing what that brand is about so when when when brands there are some that reinvent themselves and do well um and yeah kudos

20:58Landi Day: kudos to them it's it's still a bit of like same same but different which is probably the key to everything i think what old spice did was sort of lean into its heritage to a certain extent but twist it for like a modern audience and add an irony to it that like people loved so there was a bit of the same but also different and that's sort of the key to everything i think because you need to be different you need to stand out so you need to say relevant it's more about standing out than being different, really. Like having something that makes you stand out from the rest.

21:31Preeti Nadgar: Yeah, I think the daily struggle we have on our most established brands that need to be the most consistent and maybe have powerful platforms and really powerful, distinctive assets like M &M's comes to mind as one of our clients. And you have to be so respectful and careful with that IP because so much of those shortcuts and that meeting in consumers' minds is built up in that. But to your point, if you don't find ways to be unexpected in how the brand shows up in people's feeds or in people's lives or in culture, you get ignored because of all of the content we've already talked about that is flooding everyone's phones and everything else.

22:12Preeti Nadgar: So I think that's really the fun. It's like it's an amazing time to be a strategist. And I think it's also, it would be easy to say that this is kind of a shitty time to be a creative in advertising. Because, you know, I think sometimes maybe we are like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if we just had like one TV spot and a radio ad to make? But I think it's quite the opposite too. I miss that. On some days, if we're being honest. But I agree. I think it's the opposite because every day there's a new technology or platform or trend or influencer. There's a new way you can play with how that familiar brand shows up in people's lives.

22:52Preeti Nadgar: And that's what keeps it going. And it's finding that balance of respecting the distinctiveness and the sameness the brand needs to keep, but mixing it up for how people experience it day to day. I think it's kind of fascinating. And I think a lot of what we're talking about, like difference is important. I think maybe one of the things as a creative that I'm always really sensitive to is that, you know, once you reach a certain level of maturity in this business, you realize it's not different or creative or funny for the sake of it. It's the only reason I can not suck at advertising because I'm not an artist, but I like to try and solve problems.

23:29Preeti Nadgar: So I got lucky that I picked this because there's always something guiding you. It's like creativity not to make art or be wacky, but it's to do something to achieve an outcome. And I think like when you filter being different through that lens, it kind of speaks to the value. We know this industry and creativity and strategy in general. that it continues to play despite the forces that play out in the world that might be taking away some of our budgets to do that for our clients.

24:00Brian Siedband: Yeah, I think familiar enough to be recognized and different enough to be chosen and then consistent enough to be remembered. I think that's kind of a nice way of thinking about it. We actually talked about Heinz today because I feel like you can be different, your business model can be different, your product can be really different.

24:16Preeti Nadgar: And we debated, to be fair, like, should we say Heinz because, like, Heinz?

24:19Brian Siedband: But I'm like, it's just ketchup. it's just ketchup but they've done such amazing work and they've been so consistent with their distinctive brand assets and all the work that did win at Canva that everyone saw I think before that the fact that they used the shape of a fry box as the label shape or the little dipper or the Pantone colors so you know if there's real Heinz in that bottle. I think that they continue over and over again to use their distinctive assets consistently but show up in a different way and actually make you care. And it's sort of like they're behaving as a brand, a category of one in ketchup.

24:58Mark Gross: Go ahead, Mark, please. I just want to say, even work that's considered out there, if you take a brand like John Starkey who's in the audience and here today, we worked on Skittles together. Oh, wow. And even Skittles, as wacky as they want it to be, the best spots were rooted in somewhat of a truth. It wasn't just wacky. And they were hard to write because you couldn't just sit down and do something for random sake. And so, you know, whether it be the Skittles pox, which was like kind of a nuts, which COVID killed that spot, by the way. People didn't find it funny anymore for some reason.

25:32Josh Gross: Yeah, that's probably true.

25:33Mark Gross: But, you know, weird, but grounded in an insight that everyone could understand. So, again, we keep talking about the same theme, but it's like being different, but the same at the same time. Yeah.

25:46Landi Day: And it's also, I mean, the thing with Heinz too is like they know who they are and they know what people love about them. And they're just proving that and bringing that to life in different and surprising ways. Versus a brand like, was it BMW who did the Jaguar? Jaguar. Yeah, thank you.

26:08Josh Gross: Oh, the new car. Right.

26:09Landi Day: Where people kind of whiff that out immediately. Like, what are you trying to do? That's how in any way does that jive with the Jaguar brand that I know of and that I love for certain reasons. So again, like that sort of self-awareness of kind of understanding, you could always build upon that and you could always change that. But there is a bit of like a shift. And I think people can smell when you're not sort of self-aware of the room and who you are and how you fit in. Heinz does a great job of being aware of that.

26:42Josh Gross: So you did not choose Heinz because I asked everybody here to come up with an example or two of brands that are doing different really well. Who did you guys actually think of and why?

26:56Preeti Nadgar: Go ahead. Well, one that comes to mind that makes me really jealous that I wasn't a part of was what Columbia Sportswear has been up to. And not just like, yes, of course, the Flat Earthers was amazing. I'd have like 20 more lines if I had worked on that. But I think the broader repositioning, and I didn't even realize until I dug into it, which is actually very true to that company's original roots. They had this kind of punk rock hardcore ethos when they were founded. That's right. It's like, no offense to my mom, but my mom wears Columbia fleeces. So that brand is kind of synonymous with –

27:29Josh Gross: Well, wasn't the owner the bad mama or something with the tattoos? Yeah, exactly. This whole family connection. Not my mom. Not your mom. But the mother, yeah.

27:36Preeti Nadgar: It's kind of a somewhat apt metaphor for maybe like where the brand had kind of come. And they did the repositioning a year, year and a half ago where the whole category is, you know, probably leaning into either conservation or the beauty of nature or getting outdoors as it relates to wellness. And which is all great and important. But they were like, no, no, no. Nature is fucking terrifying and it's trying to kill you and you need appropriate outerwear. I just, that was like, I kind of love that that's like kind of like just for me, like very classic, traditional, strategic thinking. It doesn't have any modern bells and whistles.

28:11Preeti Nadgar: Just a really smart, strategic spot timed perfectly in a way that really made sense for the brand.

28:17Josh Gross: You guys are all recognized for creativity, these shops. Are the clients who come to you already looking for new, fresh, brave, and therefore it's easier to sell in? or do you guys feel that it's still a slog depending on the team?

28:34Mark Gross: No, brands reach out to us. Fortunately, we get a lot of inbound and they've seen our work and they're looking for something different. And we use it as a guide. We have a couple check marks. We go through filters before we take on a client. Usually that's one of them. Do you want to do exciting work? Yeah. Yeah.

28:55Brian Siedband: I don't think any clients say they don't want to do great work. I think everyone wants to agree. That's a good point, yeah. I mean, we have these conversations all the time. But I think it's the series of decisions that happen along the way that seem like they're all sensible in the moment. We optimize for the research and we optimize for this and that. And then all of a sudden, it's maybe not exactly what we had hoped it would be. And I think optimization is going to lead you more to the average. And there's no proof for something that hasn't been done before yet. So I think that's where trust really matters and, you know, mitigating as much risk as possible and making clients feel as comfortable as possible to do something that is a little bit different from what they've done before.

29:43Brian Siedband: But I don't know. I don't know what client comes in saying we want to do invisible generic work.

29:49Preeti Nadgar: I think what I find myself telling oftentimes younger and very eager, hungry creatives is like, you just have to be aware that every client is on an individual journey to getting to great, great work. And some are way far on the great end of the spectrum and firing on all cylinders and others need to kind of like find the right path. And sometimes you get lucky and culture might give you an easy layup and that gets you further ahead. But every process is kind of different, and sometimes you have to be a little bit patient, or maybe you have to, if it's a new relationship, you might have to build that trust that you're saying.

30:24Preeti Nadgar: And the cool thing is, like, any client, any category can get there. You just kind of have to find the way on the path.

30:31Josh Gross: Is there any questions in the audience? If you have a question, you can raise your hand, and then we'll have Kennedy bring the microphone over to you. Todd.

30:41Landi Day: This has been really great. Thank you. So I work on public relations, the other side of brand building. And one of the things that I'm thinking about in the conversation is really this idea of risk. And individuals within client organizations who have to take that risk. And so I'm just wondering from your perspective, do you think that you evaluate risk differently and drive your creative process differently than you did, say, 10 years ago? because obviously the risks of being exposed or getting exposure are much higher now than they were 10 years ago. So how do you think that's changed in terms of your own creative and strategic process?

31:19Josh Gross: The risk of negative exposure?

31:21Landi Day: The risk of being creative at the risk of polarization or alienation.

31:27Mark Gross: Yeah. Yeah. I heard this quote. It might have been Han who said this, that it's riskier to be safe than it is to actually take the risk.

31:38Josh Gross: Yeah, it's riskier to be going unnoticed, and it's more expensive to go unnoticed.

31:43Mark Gross: Yeah, but I don't know if it's any different now than 10 years ago. Again, I think there's clients that embrace it that aren't afraid of it, and there are clients that are afraid of the risk. But I think if we go back to Bill Birnback and Ogilvy in those days, They were doing similar things with brands when great advertising started, you know, interesting work that stood out that was different than anything anyone was doing at the time. So I don't I know there's maybe more money on the line now, but I think it's I don't know if it's changed much.

32:17Landi Day: When we talk about risk, we talk about calculated risk to a certain extent and responsible risk. It's not reckless risk. and we know that you know everything we put out there there's going to be some people who hate it there's people hate everything even if it's not risky and they're going to be very vocal about that if there's a large group of people then that's a problem but but i think you know and what we try to again that like you guys very early on in the process is um you know are you kind of willing to take take that risk with us we're going to do it in a way that is best for your brand we're going to hold your hand while we do it but just promise us that you know it won't be death by paper cuts or whatever and if it is we'll sort of flag that alarm and that's sort of why we're all here in the first place because taking the right risks in the right way will

33:12Mark Gross: pay off way more than not yeah some stand by their laurels no matter what and i think if you look the Nike Kaepernick situation they did it they were proud of it they don't down on it they didn't they doubled down didn't backtrack Bud Light went south a lot in trouble backtracked and it really hurt their brand um so you know Crack and Barrel not Crack and Barrel Cracker Barrel yes she was just uh let go I think that's right yeah yeah we talk a lot about creating

33:45Brian Siedband: inevitability and like the role of strategy is making choices that ultimately help make the work feel inevitable it's like you bring an idea into the room and the first time you hear it's oh my gosh I can't even imagine that we would you know that's something we would do but by the time you bring it to life you look back and you say we couldn't have done anything else and I think those are the you're gonna how do we help bring bring teams bring clients along in the process to make that work ultimately feel like this is what we have to do. It would be, what would happen if we didn't do this? I think it starts to become the question.

34:20Preeti Nadgar: More data and more tools that Landy and her team, thank God, help keep us honest on when we do have one of those crazy ideas. I mean, earlier last year, we learned that it was because of some really vocal negative peanut M &M experiences on Reddit that actually alerted Mars to a much bigger problem with their supply chain and resulted in them spending 10 years and$10 million to grow a better peanut. And we were like, well, that's amazing. More people should know about that. And we were like, well, we should go back to the Redditors that complained. Oh, that's right. For a lot of clients, Reddit can feel like kind of the wild west of the Internet where there's no control.

35:06Preeti Nadgar: and we were able to kind of say okay, yes, it's a bit of a risk but what really is the risk and break it down and it kind of very quickly becomes a no-brainer like let's do something and turn it into a positive.

35:17Josh Gross: Wasn't it like Green Skittles had a similar thing? Lime, yeah. They switched the flavor. You have to come on microphone in a second because everybody's pointing at you. It was green apple. Green apple from lime. Green apple, okay. I think there's a question over here.

35:33Brian Siedband: I love the conversation and actually I've had this conversation with a few of you, but one of the things I'm noticing too when it comes to doing things differently, clients I think are doing things differently within a campaign, but I call it the sideshow effect. A little bit, we're experimenting with it off to the side. We might not even have any paid media behind it. We're just gonna see what happens in social. I'd love to hear from this group. One, are you seeing that, the sideshow effect? But two is, what examples do you have where you've helped get the confidence and help clients build the confidence to move it from the side to the center?

36:07Brian Siedband: Because that's the real idea, just hiding over there, and we're going to play it safe with the rest of the campaign.

36:15Mark Gross: Someone else? It's the age-old problem. We deal with it all the time. We'll do it with earned. We'll do it with a stunt. But in linear TV, in video, they want to be safe. So it's the struggle. We're always trying to get them to do more interesting stuff that's seen by more people, but sometimes it's good. It's like candy. You just have to succeed once with a client. They see the success it has. We've had that before with Pervetty Van Mell, a great client of ours that has airheads, and we started to do some interesting online and earned stunt work, and they really loved it. It did very well for the brand, and now they're doing it more frequently.

36:56Mark Gross: So it's just a matter of, I think, of getting, like you said, like you sort of ease him into it, get them to trust you, sell the idea, and hopefully if it does well, they continue to do more.

37:06Preeti Nadgar: Yeah, it can work. I think sometimes it can be a helpful way down the path of, like, any client can get to great work. Like what comes to mind for me is a few years ago on Bear, they created an internal structure to let ideas that didn't need to have a particular brief and would not have a huge amount of budget but give those ideas a place to live and go out into the world. and we did some really fun scrappy stuff. I mean, we were planting female trees to help allergy sufferers, which we don't have enough time for me to get into botanical sexism, but it's a thing. And that was admittedly one that was probably more off to the side than we would have liked to it.

37:44Preeti Nadgar: But what it sort of ultimately culminated in, which is like a weird one that I'm like very proud of, is like for Miralax, which is a laxative, which one is a really great way to build culture and community within your agency is to work on any toilet paper whatever you get you know just right right to the core but um it was it was the perfect example of like we got one of those ideas that i i think originated from that side process that got like the major media and was an actual thing and what we did was we we partnered with um abby and alana from broad city and actually brought them back to do this like piece of content that was actually them talking about how constipated they were so like a weird like uh thing to be proud of that They have this cult following online that is just like when Broad City went off the air, the fans are like, bring it back, bring it back, bring it back.

38:36Preeti Nadgar: And it was Miralax that got them to reunite. So that's one that comes top to mind for me. That's smart. Any other?

38:43Brian Siedband: I've listened to this wonderful conversation. Two competing forces have come to my mind. One is the scarcity of difference. brands want brands and marketing 90 familiar 10 remarkable whatever the math is you know it's not exact at the same time at the same time audiences are almost 100 different representation in all shapes and forms and those audiences don't want to be seen as the same they want to be acknowledged as being different. So how are you thinking about that duality? I can speak from a media point of view. I think every client, because we have so much data, we are able to address people in the ways that they want to be communicated with, would like to be able to do that.

39:31Brian Siedband: And I'll go back to your point, Joanne, as well, that it's probably they want to take the risk of being able to jump in and do that. Structurally, from 10 years ago, we do the same things we did 10 years ago that we do today but yet I would say like the media world has changed I don't know 10x in the last few years we can tell you so much about your audience we can talk to your audience in a very non-big brother way we can communicate in in how they want to be looked at you I can present to myself a 50 year old Indian woman and who I might connect more with and yet we don't do that we still create creative asset systems, ecosystems that belong at least 10 years ago.

40:18Brian Siedband: The word spot was probably used here at least 20 times even in this group of very, very bright and brilliant individuals. We start there. We don't even, I mean, what was the last, like, if we were not creative people or strategy or worked in advertising, what's the last spot anybody remembered? And instead, we still start there. And so, again, like, I go back to we know so much we hear all the time as media people from clients that 50 percent of all of the asset work that is created by their global agencies is not used at all by anyone within their organization i am sure you have heard it and maybe that number is even higher so 50 percent of the work that is produced is not used at all that's kind of sad so that's 50 percent of the creative

41:02Josh Gross: assets that were produced

41:06Brian Siedband: are not used at all. Therefore, what are we building these things for? Are we starting in the wrong place? Are we, you know, it's wonderful to work sometimes with partners who want to create from the bottom up, who want to really understand the granularity of the data and build from there. And then you get really rich work and you can see sales just start to spike because people want to be talked to. I mean, I completely agree with you, people want to be talked to you want to be talked to you want brand to talk to you i don't think people are like yeah brand don't talk to me but they don't feel like they're talked to and so i think that's the bigger part and then maybe in speaking to one person there's not that much risk maybe in speaking to multitudes there is a risk and we can de-risk we have we have just one more question we have time for please go ahead perfect thank you um as pretty just mentioned the media world has changed 10 times over.

42:01Brian Siedband: And so with the growth of influencers and creators, how does that change your thoughts on what you build, knowing in many cases it's going to go out into the world and other people are going to be bringing those ideas, those assets, those logos, those talking points to life? How does that change how you think about putting together a campaign?

42:23Preeti Nadgar: I think it can be really hard for creatives to do, but one of the things we talk a lot about in our department is being okay with giving up that control, to your point. And I think certainly when it comes to like an idea that needs to flourish and flourish and social and is designed to have people kind of put their mark, put their spin on it and make it their own. But also I think it's a reality of needing to move faster as an agency is like sometimes an idea needs to change hands multiple times and we need to more comfortable partnering more closely with whether it's the media agency or a PR agency or a social influencer agency, you know, every client has a different mix-up and I think historically or at least I came up in the industry and it was about well if I had the idea I'm going to protect that idea at all costs and nobody else can touch it because it has to be just so.

43:10Preeti Nadgar: And I think to your point we have to be okay with like modern ideas they get messed with in culture and we kind of have to be okay with that.

43:19Landi Day: Yeah and the biggest idea is these days transcend any particular form of media at least the good ones do right the we don't think of things in terms of filling the 30 second the 60 second film spot we think of like okay what's the big idea that has and then what's the best most interesting way to bring that to life and that could be and it will end up living in film in some way but influencers and content creators are often a part of that so it has to have those legs to be able to kind of pass that idea along for them to run with it and that's sort of how we think about it um is this big enough to hand to them for them to do something cool where they're still kind of reinforcing what's interesting about this the big idea and brands just have to

44:06Mark Gross: willing to take that risk because there's going to be good and there's going to be bad remember the movie popcorn incident what was the dune uh popcorn popcorn box uh so uh i never got one unfortunately but um you know there's good and bad i think they have to be willing if you want want to take that risk because you can't control it. Some you can. Like you said, you're passing it off and you can control it, and other times you can't.

44:31Josh Gross: So we leave it there. We're back in Chicago for a live show, and hopefully we'll do it again at High Dive. This is me leaning on this guy. We've done it at High Dive for the last three. We do the holiday ad special. We take the best of the U.S. holiday ads in the U.K., and we get together and we just talk about and show the ads. It's a lot of fun, so hopefully we'll see you there. Our next live show is September 10th at GSD &M in Austin, Texas. But thank you to this crew tonight. Pretty Nat, Gar, CSO Starcom, Landy Day, Chief Strategy Officer BBDO, John Gross, Mark Gross, not related, and Brian Seedband from Quality Meats.

45:13Josh Gross: Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, everybody.