Live from Minneapolis at Carmichael Lynch

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0:41That's systemonegroup.com. And 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. When I was coming up in the industry, you feared Fallon.

1:28You feared Carmichael Lynch. There were a handful of shops around the country in North America that you really did fear. And they were among the greats. And I'm thinking specifically around the late 90s, which in my mind was the heyday for creativity for these types of shops. There were the big, huge shops in New York and maybe in Chicago. but for some strange reason, for mid-sized shops, we weren't even concerned about them. We did compete against them, but we didn't really think about them as doing the great work. It was shops like Wyden, GSD &M, Carmichael Lynch, Fallon, the Martin agencies.

2:06These were the shops that we feared and going up against them, you better have your best game. So I was excited to go to Minneapolis to sit down with these shops to talk about not only what they had done in the past, which had had such a massive impact on me and my early days in the industry, but also on what they were doing today. If you're familiar with the work coming out of Minneapolis back in the day, it was like amazing spots like EDS, which ironically, not ironically, but famously Greg Hahn was a part of, you know, Greg Hahn from Mischief. That was a B2B spot that ran in the Super Bowl.

2:42If you want to see it, you can check it out on our website. um also great uh campaigns like citibank which in my mind is like the best uh campaign for a financial services firm that's ever been produced that came out of fallon in minneapolis bmw films came out of fallon in their london office if you look at carmichael lynch you've got the extraordinary body of work that was harley davidson and that work i think stands up over time and it It was primarily represented through print work, but was extraordinary. So if you look at all of this body of work, as well as what these agencies are doing today, the Subaru campaign, the Love Platform, is 18 years with Carmichael Lynch.

3:31All of the Walmart work that is done with Walter Goggins, all that recent work you're seeing now, is done out of Fallon in Minneapolis. So it was extraordinary to bring the live show to that city, to talk with those agencies and to talk with people who have been involved in not only the work that has been done in the past, but also the new work to really plug into what is the culture of creativity in Minneapolis. This is an incredible episode. We had a ton of fun recording it and I hope you enjoy it. This is live from Minneapolis. We were hosted by Carmichael Lynch. Enjoy. Welcome to On Strategy Showcase.

4:11I'm Fergus O 'Carroll in Minneapolis.

4:19Thank you.

4:27Good night. That was great. Who wouldn't want to just end with that? Okay, so let's introduce our guests for tonight. This is the first time we have had CEOs at our table. Now, we were originally supposed to have three CEOs, but Nikki Baker could not make it because of a new business pitch, and the overlaps were pretty brutal. So we have Savannah Bryn, who's going to be joining in her absence. But I'm excited about CEOs because they've got a different perspective on it. And what's unique about these CEOs is that they come from unique backgrounds. And so we're going to be talking about that. And they're not only Minneapolis people, Minnesotans, which is a pretty important point.

5:15But first, we will let Stacey Janicki, CEO of Carmichael Lynch, her round.

5:34Next we have Jessica Henricks, the CEO of Donor Coal.

5:47Which used to be Cole McVoy. It still is. Part of Donor Cole. Is Donor still based in Southfield, Michigan? It is. I remember that building very well. Savannah Brin is head of strategy for Fallon here in Minneapolis.

6:09Thank you.

6:13And the main man, Lachlan Badmock is chief strategy officer here at Carmichael Lynch.

6:26Okay, so I have to read out, we have to keep in mind that the people listening to this show may not know that much about these agencies. So I'm going to read just a simple little thing out here to introduce each so we don't have to spend too much time about these things. Number one, Carmichael Lynch. Founded in the 1960s, 1962, I believe. Member of the Omnicom Collective, which is the mid-size integrated boutique screen of boutiques. Awarded in every discipline. PR Media, Effies, Can Lines, Ad Week Media Plan of the Year, PR Week Awards, two sustained success awards for Subaru from the Effies.

7:09We're still trying to make an episode about Subaru on our show. I think we cracked the nut tonight, by the way, on how we can make it happen. Samples of clients include Subaru, Makers Mark, Sherwin-Williams, Corbell, Post Brands, led by CEO Stacy Janicki and Chief Creative Officer Brina Aylward. I hope I pronounced that right. Fallon, 2026 Ad Age Comeback Shop of the Year. We're going to talk about that. Nine new business wins in the last year. Lead creative agency within publicists for Walmart. All of the Walter Goggins work that we all love to see is created at Fallon. Other clients include Disney Novartis.

7:55You may remember the Super Bowl spot with the tight ends. Sleep Number, Home Goods, Pop Tarts. I mean, it could just go on, right? Led by former chief creative officer Nikki Baker, now CEO. And longtime creative partner of Nikki's is Leslie Schaefer. So, brilliant stuff. Lastly, coal, donor coal, partners. Coal McVoy started in 1935. It's 90 years old. Jesus. It's a Stagwell-owned agency. In 2025, it's Adweek's mid-size agency of the year shortlist, media post 2024 planning and buying award winner, 2025 campaign U.S. media planner of the year, 2026 Fast Company Most Innovative Honoree. Clients include Revlon, Lazy Boy, Purdue, McCormick, Frank's Red Hot.

8:53Historically, an ag and B2B shopper. We're going to talk about how that's all changed. It's now reinventing itself under CEO Jessica Henricks and Chief Creative Officer Mariano O 'Kelly. Now, for those who listened to what I just said, it's important to note that these three agencies are all run by women.

9:24And not just women in the leadership CEO role, but women many times in the president role and in the chief creative officer role. So it's pretty amazing that that is the case. So we'll talk a little bit about that as we go through this conversation. I have one other thing I want to read out before we start asking questions.

9:46The names of the people that have come through these agencies over the last few decades are worth taking 60 seconds here to read. Lee Lynch, and many of these are legends of the industry. so it's worthwhile giving them credit because not only do they represent what happened in the past but I think they have a lot of influence on what's happening today Lee Lynch, Jack Carmichael Pat Fallon, Nancy Rice Tom McGelligot, Fred Sand Sue Krolick Dave Peterson, Bob Barry Jack Supple Rob White, Bruce Bilstein who actually emailed me today he said he's sorry he couldn't make it today Michelle Fitzgerald, Greg Hahn from Mischief, David Lubars, who went on to run BBDO, Creatively Worldwide, Seth Gaffney, a preacher, Michael Fanuli?

10:45Fanuel. Fanuel, I know I screwed one up. Marty Sen, Jim Nelson, Dean Hanson, Dean Buckhorn, and, of course, this guy here, Randy Hughes. this is an amazing list of names why did it happen here I mean why many happens Stacy Janicki came through Cole McCloy too yeah right right you know that's a very good question but I think the I mean obviously I have the perspective of a Brit that came here and moved here because of the creativity and because of some of the names that you just mentioned. That was the overarching reason why I ended up here. In full confession, I knew very little about Minneapolis other than that when I first moved here.

11:40But there's a really interesting dynamic that I think the others at this table probably know better than me in the sense of you have a big enough city with huge amounts of art and music and kind of maker creativity, I would say. Like big business that came out of making stuff or inventing stuff. You know, it's not tech or finance. Like a 3M? Yeah, like 3M and it's like, you know, cereals and wood and like shipping stuff and, you know, mining. Yeah, airlines. But a medical tech, you know, making devices, not making apps, stuff like that. And whatever that spark was, I don't know what started it off.

12:22There was then the fuel, I think, in the city and that energy and that creative sensibility and just passion in all these other groups that I guess fed it. Yeah, I mean, don't ask me, I was in Scotland on a small farm in town. What's interesting is that I think when you and I talked the last time, we were talking about the fact that, and this is no diss on Minneapolis, but when you go to LA, you go for the weather and the buzz and the culture. If you're in our industry you don't come to Minneapolis for Minneapolis weather, for example. You come here for Fallon, for Carl McVoy, for Carmichael Lynch, right?

13:04It's one of those places that you definitely, it's a specific destination. Yeah, you come for the agencies, but you definitely find, I do think it's a bit of a cliche, but I think the weather also provides some of that grit and drive. And when you see the, also I meant to mention this, there's a really unique cultural mix of how this part of the Midwest was settled I always describe it again as a foreigner so you know take with a huge pinch of salt but it's like one part Canada, one part Midwest one part Copenhagen and one part Germany and then with some other stuff mixed in and that's a really interesting like I've never seen that somewhere else that's a really interesting mix that you have and it's very visceral in the city and the culture and the history and the traditions and languages that people have.

13:57And it's also a big part Prince, which I hear is a connection to this building in Prince. Oh yeah, that's a fun one. And first, I just want to thank, I mean, you named all these countries that, of which Scotland is not one, but we have your people to thank for drinking Boston out of beer this week. So that's something pretty amazing. There you go. Yeah, no, it's, But this building, for people who have been around for a while, used to house Glam Slam, which was Prince's Club. And there's pictures of it in the building somewhere. And then on these floors up above were actually where he officed out of.

14:30Laura Norton's our resident, kind of expert on this. But I think there were some rooms that had, like, wall-to-wall purple shag carpet in them. But I think it's interesting. You touched on it a little bit. But what happened in January with the occupation, like to me, underscored why this has been a thriving creative community. Because it's not in spite of the weather. It's because of, I think we're hearty, we're bold. There's something that like, there's this quiet humility, but much like Prince and much like Bob Dylan, these very humble at the surface artists that are really culture shifting underneath.

15:06And find ways to make impact and difference. in a way that isn't as obvious, hit you over the head as maybe East Coast, West Coast. But I think that creative blood and that creative density, whether it's our food scene, we were just obviously named one of the top food cities in the world, our music scene. So Prince, yes, and we like to claim him, especially here at Seattle. But I think it's just the creative community that is just the lifeblood for the agency world here and has been from day one. So let's talk about some of the people that had an impact on you coming up because both of you were born here?

15:42Yeah, I was born here. So your careers have been full, mostly. You've gone away and come back. We'll talk about that. But you've worked most of your career here. What were some of the highlights and some of the people that influenced you? Yeah, I mean, I've worked at every holding company agency now. My first boss was Steve Warenberg. I had lunch with him a couple weeks ago. And he laughed because he kind of was giving me shit. I was an intern just out of college, and we were pitching AirTouch Cellular, which became Verizon. And it was a huge pitch. It was like a$25 million business. And it was 7 o 'clock at night.

16:21It was like week one, and I fell asleep in the conference room while Steve was talking. And he kind of knocked on the table, and he said, am I not saying enough interesting things to keep you awake, Stacey? And, you know, I'm not having a job tomorrow. And so when it was announced when I was promoted to CEO, his post on LinkedIn was, intern falls asleep, wakes up CEO.

16:49So he was an account person by trade, but I always considered him more planner than account person. And I think I was really inspired by account people that had that strategic gene in their DNA. the other person I would mention and there's just too many for all of us to mention you named like the tree to me if you're a sports person it's like the Bill Belichick coaching tree there's this creative flywheel where you look at the main agencies and you could kind of chart out where all the people have landed but Sue Krolick who is 84 I see a lot of people nodding she had hoped to be here tonight but wasn't able to make it I met her about 15 years ago She was being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Advertising Federation.

17:34And her story is such a fascinating one. And she, I kind of went up to her afterwards and said, can we be friends? At the time, there was like Tuesdays with Maury. So I'm like, we'll call it, you know, Sundays with Sue. Wasn't she the first art director, the female art director? There's a lot of people that claim that the character of Peggy was probably modeled after her in Mad Men. and so I just started to like learn about like what she did and her work and now it's interesting to look around like she's kind of networked and met a lot of the young women in the industry that have been doing this for a while but she was employee number three at CL and she called herself a girl Friday so she was kind of a jack of all trades but she's you know she's worked in Detroit on car accounts imagine being a woman in the 60s in Detroit because there was a lot of unrest happening and working on car accounts.

18:24So I think for Jessica, I think there's this question of Colin McVoy because I remember Colin McVoy in the point of time where they were doing some amazing ag work. As did Campbell Methune, as did Martin Williams. And I was at the time at the Martin Agency and we did ag work and I worked on it. And it was actually amazing shit. That stuff is, I mean, it sounds it's just like, you know, when you look at the dentures and you think, oh, it's just boring. No work is ever boring. It's just boring people. I agree. I agree. And that category. So tell us a little bit about where that 90 years got to. And then we're going to talk about how this transitioned.

19:03Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're 91 now, I think. The longest lasting agency in all of Minneapolis and certainly born B2B and ag primarily in a market that's pretty good for that business too and I think what you learn working on ag applies to so many other categories so I think that was certainly helpful in our reinvention in the last five or six years but the spirit of what Cole McVoy has brought to the ag industry really stands in that it's Cole McVoy has the ability to come up with work that maybe you didn't see coming you know it might be brands that aren't the Nikes or the brands that are really known for doing disruptive and distinctive work.

19:49What I've been so impressed with, what I saw from Colm McVoy before joining there and what really is still true and alive today is we can take these brands that maybe aren't known for showing up in ways that are unexpected and creating ideas that you didn't see coming. And so now I would say we are maybe about 30 % to 40 % B2B. We have a number of clients who are B2B2C, but predominantly consumer-facing. And in the last six years, we've really reinvented almost everything about Paul McFoy, how we work, the creative ambition that we have as an agency, how our capabilities come together, our method.

20:31You know, we've been able to bring a lot of household names onto our roster. You mentioned a number of them. I would add Dairy Queen and several others to the mix that are these iconic American brands. Many are global brands, but really rooted in America. And that understanding of that core consumer that, you know, the values that we bring, that sort of between the coast mindset that we've talked a little bit about tonight, that is alive and well, and it's what I think gives us an advantage, I think gives shops in this market an advantage to bring to the work that we do. We understand how to connect with real people and how they live today.

21:11And, you know, it just so happens that 70 % of the GDP is between the coasts. You know, this is where decisions are made and brands are chosen or discarded. And to have that mindset to be able to apply outside of the coastal kind of eco-chamber and that understanding of the core consumer that lives and works here, whether it's ag or B2B or consumer brands, I think is incredibly relevant today. I mean, the thing for me is, because we've done a lot of these live shows in markets, and I entered the tour thinking, there must be a Boston way. There must be a Dallas way. There must be a this and a that.

21:52But I've stopped asking that question because I don't think there is. I think there's talented people are coming to a market. They're bringing their talent. They're executing it. But it's not because we're from Minneapolis. It's because we ended up in Minneapolis. What about Fallon? So for Fallon, Dan Sutton is here tonight standing up there. Number one, I bring him up because he was the planner on the Citibank work. Sure, amazing. Which we did an episode on it, and it's still one of my favorite campaigns ever. And if you haven't heard that episode, you should check it out. um fallon has an amazing history and i know that you have you have a connection to some of those original people you worked around pat how do you describe the culture there and the history of that show i mean so my history with fallon i feel very humbled to represent fallon because it actually my dad worked at fallon in 1986 he worked there through 1993 so i grew up at Fallon as a six-year-old.

23:01And so I remember a lot of the faces that you're, and the names that you're talking about, as like sort of intimidating, scary people in a boardroom. You know what I mean? Arguing, fighting, like it was not a, it's not the Minnesota nice that you think. Everybody has a voice. Everyone, like the idea was what, it was an obsession with the best idea. And my dad was that way and it was you know every when we would go to work we would get shoved in a room and you know a vhs tape would get put on and we would not be visited for eight hours so like they that was it was all about making amazing work like that's what it was and i think um those guys in particular you mentioned um you know bob barry and dean hansen and bruce biltzen like michael scarbo i I mean, Doug DeGruy, like you could keep going on and on and on.

23:55I think that it started there and it started with that idea of like the idea is the most important thing. We're not in the advertising business. We're in the ideas business and that you could sell anything and you could do anything. But I also think that there is a competitive spirit in Minneapolis that comes from it being just a deep, like you mentioned a creator culture. I'm like, this is, you go to Artoworld in May, this is a full, people are making things, you're absolutely right about that, but they're doing it, and they want to make things, and they want to build things, and you can, you can collaborate with each other because it's such an accessible city.

24:34and so when you look at the restaurant scene and all these different places and all these different spaces in Minneapolis I think that all of that felt all that energy is what I remember from from Fallon of just bringing in people like these were writers and artists and you know they weren't they didn't go to school for advertising so to me that was what makes it so special and I think that is still in Minneapolis but also it's still definitely at Fallon I think that's what's giving us momentum today is that that idea of you know it's not it's not about advertising things it's about the best idea and finding those human insights as a planner and really helping clients entertain you know and and those kinds of things I think are what's really changing it so for those listening to the show not here in the room you guys already know this in the room but when we talk about Fallon we're talking about Citibank we're talking about United Airlines Sony EDS Yes, that herding cats ad from 2000 is again one of my favorites.

25:36And that was Greg Hahn. Miller Lite, that shit was so crazy back in the day. Coca-Cola, BMW Films out of the London office of Fallon. PBS Stay Curious. And there's so many different campaigns. So that spirit of Pat Fallon and all of those people who came through, is it evident today and in what ways? Well, I think that when you walk through Fallon, you know. Like Fallon to me is a part of my identity. If you spend any time working at Fallon, you know that you absorb it. You feel that, like any time the bar is raised that high, you feel you have to reach that. it's not something that we say is from the past it's something about who we are today and we learn from it and so I think that it just creates a group of people that want to live up to that to that work and have such a deep deep respect for the people who made it and so yeah I mean I think we still talk about all of it we still bring it up we still discuss it we still use it I mean a lot of things are cyclical too so you look at some of the lessons learned from making BMW films, which I know I worked for Bruce Bilston.

26:53He gave me one of my first breaks. He's an amazing person. And he, you know, when I hear him talk about that, so many of those lessons, the fights that they went through to make that work happen are a part of what we're doing today. It's just different context. So I think that it's important to keep talking about that work. Because again, I keep going back to like, they were just brilliant ideas. Like it wasn't as if it was like this attempt to sell something to a client it was like well the idea is going to sell itself it's a brilliant idea and so that that's where it feels really simple to kind of keep looking back I mean when you look at when you look at brawny academy when you look at bmw films I mean I think they would be as relevant today if you launch them today they'd be as sticky as they you'd probably be stickier than they were back in the day yeah and I and I think it's important to note too that there was there was a real reason behind it you know when you look at something like BMW films and you think about like who were they going after these were people who are not as impacted by direct advertising you know they didn't want to be interrupted they knew a lot about the car so you were really trying to figure out a way to circumvent traditional channels to get something to them that they were going to connect with and find you know this more affluent auto shopper.

28:10So I think that there was also, there's a real purpose. It wasn't just made because it was like, oh, someone had a wild idea that they wanted. Like there was a real, there was a real strategy behind what they were doing. And it just happened to be that it was the first time that you would, that it had been done in that sense. But I think there's so many stories behind it that you can learn from about kind of how to make sure that something is placed both in the moment in time, but also understand how important the strategy was to actually selling it. And a real all hands on deck effort. I mean, both of the ones you just mentioned that was either directly or tangentially close to.

28:48And I think is again, something that all of our agencies still do today that's part of that Minneapolis spirit is everyone figuring out ways to do different new things. So it's hard to remember when BMW films launched, there were no YouTubes. Most people didn't have broadband. the only way you could watch a video online was to download the thing and there wasn't even a player that was apt for the purpose so the IT department and the digital department had to code and build a player that would download in the background and to watch them you had to download and install the thing and then the media department had to figure out how and justify and connections planning Michelle Fitzgerald was a real pioneer of that and incredibly influential when I joined Fallon, figure out a different way to talk about effectiveness and to talk about the value of, I think we call it the brand minute and like shifting huge amounts of media money into production, because of course that cost a fortune to make, but with a really thought out plan from the tech side of it to the brand planning, to the connections planning, to the media investment, to the PR that stepped in to get some of that broader publicity.

30:08Just everyone figuring out new ways to do things. And we've done that with things like Helzberg. First of all, you're just listing out, and I get jealous in the best way hearing all of those things. And I think there's a frenemies thing going on with Minneapolis agencies. In the 90s, there was the Mad Men era, and a lot of these founders were in the 60s starting their agencies. And then I think the second golden era was the 90s. And I think there's a reason why we're all watching the love story on FX, even though it's a really shitty show, because there's a pining for... Can I swear on this? Because there's this nostalgia pining for the 90s was right on the precipice of cell phones, streaming services, all the things.

30:53and there was monoculture where we could even advertising extended to that tv shows like and commercials were part of that where everyone knew about you know the buddy lee ads which we didn't name that one right the buddy lee stuff and the that's right the the miller light stuff so i think it's like it's different now it's harder to get people's attention but when you do when there's these cultural zeitgeisty moments like the knicks winning like i'm sure everyone's seen that term of cultural effervescence of like even if you're not a Knicks fan we all just were engaged because like there's these like same thing when the astronauts were right like there's so very few things we share as a culture anymore that we can one agree on two we're all watching at the same time that just gives us joy and I think there was more opportunities for that in the 90s and advertising even was like more of a form of entertainment then yeah because you couldn't fast forward you I had to entertain people.

31:49Yeah. But I think if you look at, to you guys, I think for Carmichael Lynch, when you look at, I was looking at it today, the Harley Davidson work, the Porsche work. I mean, that stuff would still work today, I think, in terms of social posts. People still ask me about it today, as if I was around for, you know, and not people in the industry, but there are ads that are from that era that have that cultural legacy. I mean, and also, you know, cat herders, people ask me about that randomly now and again you know um they have real sticking power some of those ads and there's just some real great i mean just amazing ideas and also deep craft of like the copywriting and the art yeah there's a there's a print ad i miss the days of print because you can tell a story and one headline with a beautiful visual and people still in pitches and meetings say like oh my god i love that harley ad and it shows a rider driving off into the sunset and it It just says, somewhere there's a businessman opening a small bag of peanuts on an airplane.

32:51And it's just like, I hope I got it relatively close. But it's just a brilliant idea that a lot of people have seen. And even though it's, what, 30 years from that, we still remember, we still play it back. I think, like, I'm looking at Randy and Alyssa sitting behind me and my colleagues who work on Subaru. Randy, 18 years, the architect of that brand. It's unbelievable. There is nothing more simple than the idea of love to sell a car company, but it's simple shouldn't be mistaken for easy, right? Because it's a human truth, but for 18 years that idea was insightful and smart enough that we can breathe life into it and find ways to execute it, both from a media perspective, from a creative standpoint, that like to win two sustained success FEs, I don't think it's ever been done in the automotive category.

33:43And that comes when you do that hard work of simple. It's kind of like, I liken it to middle school morale and algebra and you like solve for X. And what you turn in is like a simple X equals 12, but you have two sheets of paper where all the work's been done to like figure out what that simple variable solves for. And that's, you know, you can build on that because that's a lot of how we pull in planning and think about how we get to that reductive. Yeah, let's talk about that in the context of SUBRE because that's a good point to turn about do you want to do that yeah we can turn it to super as well but they that that hard work piece it's back to the point that we've all been kind of touching on of um really anchoring it to something that's deeply true in culture but also rooted very deeply in who the client is who the brand is and getting to that simple thing that's true to them is more important than ever because the world is noisier, messier, you know, advertising is a weaker force than ever because of all the other things going on in people's lives, but also because it allows you the consistency and repetition to do year after year after year and build that brand equity and shout out, I don't know where we're sitting there, but, you know, that's one of the amazing things I feel really fortunate that we're now in an era where we have great data from people like system one and the work they're doing with the effies and beyond that really proves the case of not only emotion being so powerful but finding that simple thing that you can be true to and consistent to over time drives wildly outside business results and like if we're not doing that we're not really doing the we're not doing our clients justice we're not doing ourselves justice but we're not doing the real hard work um so yes we always want to have breakthrough fun ideas but I think to your point I think your question about planning's role is helping make sure that we're always tethering it back to those deeper truths about culture and consumers and about the brand and who they are and can they commit to an idea and are they able to run it through every part of their organisation so it changes the way that phones are answered or that dealers do promotions or sign contracts and all of that kind of stuff which is where a lot of the magic happens.

36:04Yeah, I think there's a legendary spot called Baby Driver that is, if you haven't seen it, you probably just don't know it by name, but it was one of the first spots we did for them. And in pitches, people always say, I always bought a car because of that spot because it was all about safety. And you watch it and you're like, we don't even use the word safe in it. It's a human story about a dad who hands the car keys over to see his teenager drive off. and you know in a moment he looks and you realize he's looking at his three-year-old in the car behind the wheel because it's like all of us that have had um you know i get goosebumps still talking about it um and she drives off and it's it's really amazing because um that's such a simple idea and for anyone that's had a kid where you've handed the keys to them and you're like oh my gosh this is everything i love and care for that's about to drive out of my driveway it just resonates and it hits you but it's interesting because we got to get the casting right on that and they had gone through casting reads i don't know how many takes and finally there was a guy on the production team who happened to have a sag card and he says you know i have daughters that are that age we can give it a shot i mean and you because you can't manufacture the emotion of those you know characters and so that was brilliant and that spot ended up being nominated based on how it promoted safety.

37:23How did you get to Simple with Subaru? Was that a hard journey to get to that? My understanding is they had been doing... I'll try to tell this story as brief as possible. I wish we had Randy sitting here because he would be the best person to tell it. There's literally a book written about Subaru called Where the Suckers Moon that was required reading in MBA classes about what not to do in marketing. They had gone through seven agencies in eight years, six taglines in seven years. For multiple years, their sales had plateaued at about 180 ,000 cars per year. And they're owned by a Japanese company that's very engineering driven.

38:01It was a very great car. So their instincts were to focus on the rational benefits of all-wheel drive and a boxed rear engine. And when we won the business, we started doing focus groups. And the one thing we realized is the people that drove Subarus, it was a really small, small group, but they were fiercely loyal. They were the most likely to buy another Subaru of any other car manufacturer, even though it was like a 21 market share. And now it's, I think it's at 11, 8, I forget what the number is now. But they were the most, we used our strategy group. They were the most apt to assign a gender to the car.

38:39They were the most apt to name their car. We have a Subaru my daughter named Riggins after the character in Friday Night Lights. Orange cross track. In part, that was because these cars lasted so long they became part of the family. Not really, though. Like, yes. But it was because there was something we had to uncover of why people bought them. And I remember one of the planners that worked on it told me this story. They were in focus groups and someone just bought a Subaru. And they said, well, why did you buy a Subaru instead of a Toyota? He's like, I look around at my neighbors and the people that actually own Subarus actually did stuff.

39:15Right? Like even more so than people that were buying Jeeps that were cosplaying as adventurous people. So like, and I think the reason why Subaru took off is like the strategy in sight was it's a co-conspirator to the life you love. And that's what was the unlock about love because whether you love camping, whether you love your dogs, whether you like adventure, whether you love your children, right? Like safety thing, right? it's the catalyst to that, it's the co-conspirator and we shared that with our consumers, so that was the key to telling those stories back to something you brought up about the rigor or the reason behind work people look at dogs driving cars and go, that's so fun but part of that investigation of what is that life that Subaru owners really love and use the car to really engage with was digging through all the data and looking at MRI and saying oh wow they really over index for owning dogs oh my god they way over index for like multiple dogs so it's like that's like we have dogs in the ads is it fun yes it's then it does super fun ads and it helps make them break through but that's not the reason why they're there there's a deep product and consumer truth as to why that is and shout out to media because the media team uncovered that data point.

40:31It's probably a real expression of their love, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So let's talk about Walmart because it's the most recent sort of major national campaign that's come out of Finland. And I think also you've kind of changed the way that they market themselves too. I mean, I think Walter Goggins is probably the most obvious expression of that, but where did that all come from? What was the heart of it? Yeah, so it's kind of, I mean, Walmart is run by some amazing marketers and I think you know William White brilliant vision and I think what what I I was there for for the for the creation of the positioning of of all of that work which was several years ago and it sort of had its evolution since then but yeah really at the beginning what what we what we found was Walmart was known in this known in people's minds in a very functional way.

41:29People thought of the bricks and mortar store. They thought of needs. They thought of toilet paper and they thought of paper towels and diapers and things that you need to stock up on. And they were shopping in a very specific way. And what they didn't realize was that there are half a billion items on walmart.com that Walmart has available. They didn't know that Walmart has a delivery service for groceries that will put them away in your fridge. They just, they didn't know all of the things that Walmart can offer to them. And I think that sounds like kind of one of those things that you hear and you're like, what am I going to do with that?

42:06Every brand has come and said that to us. But what we really found was that we, you know, as when we looked through a planning lens, we actually started to talk to people and we started to realize that behind the function was actually a lot of love and a lot of passion. And so what we did was we started to kind of harness and understand that through Walmart, people basically live their entire lives. You build that dream patio that you wanted to build. You throw your kid's graduation party. There's all of these amazing moments, but they're really deeply personal. The positioning went from welcome to Walmart, which you get the greeter every single time you come in, to welcome to my Walmart.

42:44It was really that small, subtle shift. It was just a small shift, but a huge implication because what you see in the Walter Goggins work with who knew is really, you know, if you move past that, we used to talk about it internally as we wanting to move from need states to want states. And so everything from the beginning with Walmart, you know, when we first launched the work until now. But who knew doesn't feel like that's a My Walmart expression. Who knew that they had what's for me, right? So if you start to look at how it's like the recent work that just came out, which I love, is all about, I think his name is Luis Suarez and he's a football player, a soccer player, and he's throwing the ultimate fan party.

43:27They're teaching him how to be a fan. And so it's for anybody who's watching FIFA, thinking about soccer, wants to throw a fan party for themselves. So what they've done so brilliantly is figured out, look, the world is not all the same. There are millions of verticals. Nikki always says she's a big fan of those, she calls them sexy dragon novels. And so she's like, Like, look, we go to Walmart and we present sexy dragon novel ideas to them because you know what's going to happen? There may be only this many people who love that, but those people have a huge audience outside, and those people are going to sell our brand.

44:02And so I think that it's a collaboration between Nikki Baker, 100%. She's the CCO. We work with other agencies and publicists, so it's a very collaborative group, and lots of credit goes out to those agencies, but also deep collaboration with a client. They're really, really smart clients. They're willing to take risks. They believe in entertaining work. And so I think that's what that is. What was their long-term, for a very long time they had, what was it, something live better, it's lower prices? What was it again? Does anybody remember what that was? I've forgotten. It's always about saving money living better is what it is.

44:37And, like, it's never not good. We're never going to hide the prices. Like, we're never going to pretend that that's not a part of what the motivation is, but also that there's so much access and ability there too. Yeah, I mean, it's always a good reflection about when you've got a positioning message or a tagline that in essence, sometimes that runs out in terms of its ability to grow shares. You've got to bring more people into the tent and you've got to pivot a little bit or evolve it as you go forward. So Lazy Boy is a big one for Cole McVoy in the last year or two, right? Yeah, in the last few years.

45:12Tell us about that campaign. Sure. Well, Lazy Boy came to us after they had done some soul searching. They had really dug into the data because they had come to a point where they were telling people they were something that they weren't. They almost hid the recliner in the back of the store, ashamed of it. They were trying to be a modern furniture store. They hired people like Kristen Bell and other celebrities. And you saw the white couch. And there was sort of this cognitive dissonance. It's like, that's not Lazy Boy. If you Google Lazy Boy, the brown chair shows up. So it was really trying to prove something and ended up finding itself in a sea of sameness, as we all like to say.

45:50And so the CMO at the time who reached out to us really recognized that there was an opportunity to be more lazy boy, to embrace who they are at their core. Because at their core, they're the originators of comfort. When you look at their founder's story and the two men who founded Lazy Boy, they were the ones who designed the world's first recliner. The chairs weren't meant to just sit up and have great posture. They were meant to unwind and relax. And so when we got started, it was through a PR and earned creative engagement. and we got to signal what Lazy Boy really stood for out to the world while at that time we were also working on our partnership to lead their brand identity and so the timing of that was really remarkable because we started to come up with ideas to tell the world who Lazy Boy was while we knew kind of where the brand identity was headed to get back to its roots to some degree so the first idea that our PR and earn creative team came up with that I love so much it was the first idea and they were like no this is the idea you know you give them an idea and it's like okay we'll do a brief and they're like no no this is the idea and it tapped into we all know FOMO the fear of missing out and this was coming at a time post-COVID where really there was this trend online around JOMO, the joy of missing out.

47:26We had all leaned into hustle culture for so long that we were like getting that text on a Friday night, you know, do you want to have dinner? Do you want to go to a movie? You're like, no, I just want to relax. I don't want to go out. I want to stay in, which was so relatable to me. And so they came up with the idea, they called it the decliner, which is great. I love a good name. And it's the world's first AI powered recliner that with the pull of a handle, it declines invitations on your cell phone. So you can stay in at the comfort of your own home, which Lazy Boy celebrates. And at the same time, we were partnering with their creative agency to launch Long Live the Lazy, and we were building the brand identity to really redesign every touch point of the brand.

48:11It's a nice line. Yeah, it's a good line. Yeah. And so from the store experiences to the e-commerce positioning to, you know, we really looked at their identity as obviously so much more than just a logo. And we launched that just a bit over maybe a year and a half ago. We launched their new identity at a time when the world was talking about Jaguar and Cracker Barrel and other brand identities gone wrong. And we told the story of intentionality around Lazy Boy. We hearkened back to some of the original script writing. We modernized it with really intentional details that really showed the consumer, whether it's the pull of a handle or the curvature of the chair, we really brought that in.

48:51And we thought about, what is the Lazy Boy scent? What do we want the color palette to make you feel? And how do we bring it to life through all the senses? And so we were really proud it was named one of the best rebrands of the year. And I think one of the things that's important to note, because you guys have all touched upon it in what you've said here. You guys have what most agencies I think are struggling with not having. I mean, you're fully integrated, meaning you have the media function inside your group. We never separated it. We never decoupled. And I think that's creative media is one of our superpowers.

49:35We have full funnel media, full ecosystem media, but we bring media to the idea whether it's asked for or not. We don't know necessarily how to pull that apart in today's fragmented media ecosystem. We have to understand how the idea and how it's coming to life are truly inextricably linked. And so how does this play out? Because I hear from shops all the time, they come to this roundtable and then they're like, boy, I wish we could bring it all back together. You guys have it, still have it. Again, I was in the position where... A little closer. So before I left London, I was at Leo Burnett when Starcom was still called Leo Burnett Media.

50:21And they sat side by side with us. They were in the meetings. They were in the creative brainstorms. And then the whole industry trend towards leveraging media, buying power happened, and they broke it off. And they moved out of the offices, went to different buildings, and we almost never saw them again. Like, I'm exaggerating a little, but only a little. And it was kind of catastrophic for exactly the stuff we're talking about and the stuff that I know we're always proudest of the ideas where we're like, was that a PR idea or a creative team idea or a media idea or a digital idea? And it's kind of all of them.

50:59And you can't unpick them, just like you were saying. And, you know, you look back, you know, whether it's Brawny, BMW, you know those sort of ideas um are so so much better and only happen when you have that really strong connection um and again chapeau to the data that people are doing these days really proving that yeah you can you can do just media and improve sales you can just get a better creative idea, when you do them together, the results are exponentially better. And it's so clearly the thing to do. And I think we're all fortunate in the fact that we have never lost it. And it's a deep part of our culture and the way we think and a deep part of the creative ambition, to your point, that isn't just about the creative department, it's all of us.

51:54And it's all the better for it. Yeah, I mean, we've had many healthy discussions on the show about the fact that planning and strategy has been splintered into so many different versions. And it's impossible to keep together for the best of strategists, let alone for people who are trying to come in and figure it all out. It's tough. There's duplication of effort there seems to be at many touch points. There can be, but again, if you're working closely together, and again, I'm going to come back to something you said about the central nature of creativity in the creative bar. I think that was one of the things that I was incredibly, I want to say relieved when I moved to Minneapolis.

52:40And it's one of the reasons I came back and one of the reasons I came to Carmichael Lynch is that I was moving to the city knowing the creative prowess and the deep, deep history and craft and belief in the power of ideas and really crafting those ideas to the best they could possibly be. But lots of people were questioning me in London about is that craft and that rigor of planning, is that in the agencies in Minneapolis? And they weren't sure because they knew It kind of got to San Francisco and L.A. and New York a little bit, but they were like, does it exist there? And very quickly, I was fortunate enough to interview with people like Dan Sutton and realize, oh, my God, yeah, they're absolutely that deep, rigorous, hardcore planner that is not just a strategist, but understands and is kind of intimately connected with creative thinking and creative power, if you like.

53:46There are strategists and types of strategy that don't ever need to know about why certain kinds of creativity work or how media amplifies a creative idea. And I'm not one of these people that cares a lot about whether you call yourself a strategist or a planner, but there is a history and a craft and a metier of planning or creative strategy that is deeply embedded in the agencies. I've been lucky enough to work here and is such a rich environment to work in personally, but also is incredibly important to the effectiveness of the work we do. So let's go back to the point we made at the top of the conversation, which was the fact that these three agencies are women-led at so many levels.

54:36What difference has it made? How has it changed? Or Lachlan, would you like to answer? What difference has it made? I feel like I shouldn't be the first one. Jess and I might have conspired a little ahead of time. Notes have been passed. Well, I'll try and keep my answer on this short because really you should be answering this. That's a good start. On a personal level, it means I get to work with amazing, brilliant people. Period. They are brilliant, amazing people because of fundamentally who they are. But I think it's super important in what it signifies and the message it sends more broadly because we're still in a world where it's not like the glass ceiling has gone away.

55:26It's not like there are lots of inequities and, you know, biases and prejudices that still influence lots of corners of business and the world we live in. So to see that there are places where that is not true and there are places where it is genuinely the merits and the talents of the individuals that are in these jobs that feels like it's a very important signal in the world I think we would want to see the most qualified people at the top of any of these shops at one of the most complicated eras that we're going to be facing in advertising, I love that for the brands here in the Twin Cities those are women, I hadn't made that connection until you told me and I that makes me happy too because I look across and I see really qualified leaders who are doing incredible things and it had to be pointed out to me that we all happen to be women you know we didn't get here on our own there are a lot of women who paved the way in this city you know you mentioned Sue there are so many incredible women who have led at a time when And it was harder to knock down that wall.

56:41And certainly it's not easy today to become a leader of an agency, man or woman. But I love that we're in a moment right now where that's not something that is looked at as such an exception. I think we're looking for the most qualified people who have worked really hard and have a vision for where we're going. Yeah, our industry is pretty... It seems that our industry is doing pretty brilliant in that area. Yeah, look at this room. And I know about 80 % of the people here, and many are... If I haven't worked with them, I've had the ability to get to know them. And there's just so many brilliant women.

57:26And like you said, I think the city has a legacy of women who have been in leadership positions. So like, Jaslyn, you said it well. I didn't really think about it until you said it. So we're going to wrap it up there. It's been fantastic to have the four of you here at the table. Thank you for being here. Our next stop on the live tour is at GSD &M in Austin, Texas. And we're going to be at Cannes next week doing roundtables there too. But being here, and I have nothing but hope you got the energy that I have. That work, that body of work, just it made me excited to be in the business and to want to be a part of it back then.

58:07And now I still see great examples of work happening again in this city. I think there's a renaissance happening in Minneapolis, which is amazing. Thank you to everybody here. Thank you to Laura. Thank you to Laura. I don't see Laura here, but I wanted to thank Laura for making everything possible. Laura Norton.

58:39And thank you for everybody coming out here. We had an amazing turnout, and I know that tomorrow's the start of a long weekend, so we appreciate you coming here to hang out with us. We'll see, as we end up with every show, we say we'll see you on the next episode. Good night. Thank you. Thank you.