Building Brands That Last - Steve Cundari

0:00Steve Cundari:Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host, Steve Olenski. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist, I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. My guest today is Steve Conderi, co-founder and partner of Summit House, an award-winning venture studio that's quietly become a growth engine for some of the most recognizable brands on the planet.

0:38Steve Cundari:Steve is a builder in the purest sense. He's founded companies, exited companies, scaled platforms, and now leads a collective of specialized agencies that operate as one integrated ecosystem, blending strategy, creativity, and innovation into real business momentum. From entertainment and tech to sports, hospitality, and consumer brands, his fingerprints are all over modern marketing at scale, and that is not hyperbole. Under Steve's leadership, Summit House has earned top industry honors, including Clios, Emmys, and Film Festival Awards, while supporting brands like Spotify, DirecTV, LiveGolf, Starbucks, Dick's Sporting Goods, the NBA, NFL, Meta, Nintendo, and more and I'm out of breath.

1:25Steve Cundari:He's also an active advisor and investor in early stage companies and venture funds, extending his obsession with building and scaling far beyond a single platform. Steve, my new brother, how are you? Welcome. Thank you so much for that intro. I don't know who paid you to say all that, but God bless him. That was the best intro I think I've ever gotten. So I appreciate that. Just make the check out to Steve. Done. Yeah, done. Absolutely. I'm going to get you to intro me everywhere. Incredible. So happy to be here. And all kidding aside, so many people have said to me who have to read their intro, I get to have you when I go on stage.

2:02Yeah. Yeah. This is recorded, so I'm going to take that and I'm just going to play that clip.

2:07Steve Cundari:It's a burgeoning career for Steve-O. Yeah. Who are you? Here, listen to this guy. He'll tell you who I am. But no, excited to be here. I'm excited to chat. Yeah. All things. If there's one thing, if there's anything better than that intro, it's the CMO Whisperer. So I'm excited to be here. Well, thank you. I'm humbled by that. And I want to jump right in because we've had some great off-the-air conversations. And this is going to be a very, very natural extension of that. So right off the bat, look, you didn't just wake up one day and launch Summit House. You bought companies, exited them, worked across what I would say is wildly different environments.

2:40Steve Cundari:Excuse me. Now, when you zoom out, look back, are there certain experiences that shaped how you see what CMOs actually need today? I would say, yeah. I think it's, you know, especially where I sit now and where Summit House sits now, I think the fact that we and I'll back up and give a little bit of background on myself in a minute. But I think the fact that we aren't specific to any one vertical or niche or industry gives us a real unique insight into how a ton of different industries work. CMOs work, organizations work. And we have the ability, but kind of our secret sauce is our ability to take learnings from each of those different industries and apply them across the board with all of our work.

3:19So we might be working with a B2B SaaS company on a growth strategy, and we might take that growth strategy from our partners at Spotify. Yeah. So I think the, you know, so often, and this isn't specific to CMOs, but people are so they're so often working in their business, as opposed to taking that 30 ,000 foot view of like, what am I missing here? And there's no fault of their own, like, you got to work into like the business has to move and drive profits and revenue. So our ability to take that 30 ,000 foot view, learnings from across different, you know, industries, verticals, companies, brands, you name it has really boded well for us.

3:55And I contributed a lot of our success to that.

3:57Steve Cundari:And I think that's fantastic because, look, some of the issues, concerns, problems, pick a word, are common across so many companies. Now, of course, there's variables, but I love that you guys go, wait a minute, we did something similar for this company. Yep. Let's apply it to that company. Yep. Right? A hundred percent. And I think, you know, with the way that we're structured, I'll back up a little bit and just give a little overview on Summit House. At Summit House, we own and operate seven different specialized creative agencies. and to your point on some problems and issues I've seen in the industry, the reason that we're structured that way and we didn't roll everything up into, oh, we're Summit House, we're full service, we do everything, which is I'm sure in your career and I'm sure anybody listening that's in the industry knows that when somebody says they're a full service agency, and no offend, there's a lot of great agencies out there, a lot of the time that's BS.

4:47I would say probably about 95 % of the time it's BS when somebody says they're full service. So obviously we took those learnings, but the way that we operate with seven different specialized creative studios, they're all led by seniors, all have their own presidents and teams. And when we say, you know, we're experts in a certain specialty, we mean it. And we have an agency to back that up. So I'll run through them real quickly. We've got 31 South, which is all things partnerships, growth consulting on both the B2B and B2C sides. We've got Oust, which is our social strategy agency. We've got Wild Places, which is our design house.

5:20So all things branding, identity, web, app design come out of Wild Places. Ritual Film is our production company. So all production work comes out of Ritual, which recently won an Emmy for some work we did with the NFL, more specifically the Arizona Cardinals. Steve, I know you're an Eagles fan. Can't wait to get some work with them because they need it. Hopefully we can help. All that comes out of Ritual. We've got Meridian, which is our technology consultancy, our newest practice that we've spun up. It's led by seniors from Palantir. Really interesting stuff there. We've got Big Bird, which is our golf strategy agency.

5:53We were doing so much work in the golf space across all of our agencies. It just made sense. We call it a genre-specific agency. So all of our golf work, we work with PGA Tour Live, players, endemics, non-endemics, OEMs, you name it. A lot of our team is down at the PGA Tour show as we speak, hopefully closing some new deals. And then we've got an independent film and television studio, which we have not announced yet. that is, I guess I'm announcing it here, but we're raising for that. So that'll be big news coming soon. That's called Common Moment. So that is a snapshot into our ecosystem. I know it's a lot to digest, especially over a medium like this, but the reason that we keep them all separate outside of what I just mentioned is we found that brands and I guess CMOs and companies, we're sick of piecemealing agencies together.

6:38So they work with, what's our fire alarm, sorry. Okay. We're getting this.

6:45Steve Cundari:We keep it real here. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, we got a fire alarm. I'm too hot right now, Steve. After that intro, the fire alarm is going off in my hotel room. Incredible. En fuego, as we say. Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, what I was saying is we found over the years that brands are sick of piecemealing agencies together. So they use us for social work. They use somebody else for web. They use somebody else for production. The work never adds up, and it's a huge – I don't know if this is PG, but it's a huge cluster. uh you can say it by the fcc no it's my show you can say whatever you can say it's a clusterfuck okay great thank you i didn't want to offend anybody nope i'll do it huge clusterfuck and the work has to get redone anyway so we have a land and expand type model where you know the teams are all connected in our ecosystem and we found that you know that works and brands love it clients love it cmos love it but it's just a different model but it works and uh you know we're not the we didn't create this mod but it's uh it's i think it's the new way of the agency world and it works for us.

7:45Steve Cundari:So before Summit, yeah, thank you for that. That's a great explanation. But let me let's go back a minute in history here before Summit House. Yeah, right. Was there was there I don't want to say a seminal moment, but was there one moment or client or situation that you went? I got I got to I got to build a better mousetrap. Yeah, so we originally so there's four four of us that are co founders of Summit House myself, Roman Grimaldi, Carson Nyquist and Dan Duncan. Roman and I had started one of our now agencies in our portfolio of 31 South. And Dan and Carson had started our social, what is now our social strategy agency, which was Oust.

8:20We were all in Atlanta. Dan and Roman have a longstanding relationship, actually going back to high school. They went to high school together, believe it or not. And we were competing for the same business. And back then we were all trying to figure out our lanes. Like at one point, you know, we started at 31 South in the experiential lane in business doing big conferences for companies like Salesforce. And you know, that's just a bit like to just to be completely frank, not a business I want to be in the events business is a whole other separate animal that you have to be so dialed in and on point on all things to be able to pull that off and have a team that can do that.

8:52It's just it's a why it's a different beast altogether. So we were there, then we were a full service house and oust was and we all decided like, let's build something bigger you know i'm a i'm a believer in you know the sum of all parts is greater than whatever that saying is uh everybody by themselves um someone correct me on that i don't know what it's saying

9:12Steve Cundari:he's on west coast then give him a break yeah sorry i'm gonna get fire alarms going off the intro got me all nervous i'm sweating to death it's eight degrees in new york i don't know what's going on i don't know how i'm sweating anyway uh so we we decided to build summit house we came together and thought that you know there was a better way like we we never set out to build this you know, behemoth two, three, four thousand person agency. I have a lot of views and thoughts on why I don't like that model. I think the lean, hyper specialized, flexible, tactile teams to go into brands and companies and be able to really deliver results.

9:48As you know, like a lot of there's so much fluff in marketing and advertising and anybody that says they can come in and I'm going to deliver you a I can promise you this ROI or I can probably like, you know, it's all testing and iteration and our ability to be tactile, flexible, come in. And, you know, we're of the belief that we want to be partners with our clients. We don't want to be, you know, we're not service providers, we're service partners. So as opposed to just going, you know, clients coming to us and being like, we have this problem we want you to solve. We want to, you know, get in bed with these companies and brands that we work with and help them also identify problems.

10:23We don't want to just be the ones that come in and solve problems that they already have. We want to take that 30 ,000 foot view, you know, within our different specialties in our ecosystem and go, Hey, let's help you identify some problems also that we can solve together. So I love that. That's the mindset we take.

10:38Steve Cundari:Yeah. I love that. And I want to, I want you to elaborate a little bit on that in terms of what separates, you know, look, everybody says they're this and that and everybody's a partner versus someone who's just selling and invoicing. Right. Yeah. How do you define, you know, what a partner really is? Well, I think on the front end, you know, at the top, it is also helping to identify problems, really becoming ingrained in all things within your business brand, not just on the marketing and advertising side, but, you know, on the finance side and on the development side and on the customer success side and, you know, whatever else that might be and really helping identify inefficiencies or waste or whatever you want to call it.

11:20But really, I think it's identifying problems alongside your client. That's how you partner. That's how you truly partner with somebody as opposed to just, we're here to service your problem that you've identified, that you think you, you know, and sometimes it's having those hard, honest conversations. There's a lot of brands that we go into that I would love to send them an invoice to go rebrand them. And they go, we have a, we want to rebrand. And, you know, our experts in this specific instance, wild places on the design side go, you don't have a design problem. you have a messaging problem your your identity your word marks your logo they're all fine maybe we can refine them a little bit but we would be remiss to come in and take a few million dollars to rebrand you when that's not your real problem you have a positioning problem or a messaging problem so i think being honest too um there's a lot of you know i'm not going to throw shade on anybody but there's a lot of snakes out there in our world and in specific to marketing advertising agency space.

12:15So I think just doing good business at the end of the day, like all above all else, doing good business is a way to be a good partner.

12:22Steve Cundari:It's really not much. Sorry to interrupt you. I knew within the first 30 seconds, you and I met this guy gets it. And it's just, and I'll say no bullshit. I appreciate that. Don't sell me something that you know, I will pay for, but I don't, but you also know I don't need. Yep. Yep. And that's like, to my previous point of above all else, it's, it's being honest. And that's how you're a good partner to like, if I'm take me out of my seat and put me in a CMO seat at a brand, like any amount of agencies that as a CMO, you have to deal with and listen to and the dog pitch of like, oh, well, they promised this and they said, they think we need a rebrand.

13:02It's like, if you just at the end of the day, if you're a good person, you do good business. I've been doing this a long time in a number of different seats and capacity, but I've always owned my own business. I've never worked on the corporate side. I've always done my own thing. And I think it's just doing good business, being a good person. People want to work with people they like at the end of the day. You know, so I, if I'm a CMO and I, the greatest agency in the world comes, but they're a bunch of dickheads as opposed to somebody I really want to work with that I like, that I get along with, that I can partner with.

13:30Like it's a pretty easy choice. I think in that capacity, it's a no brainer.

13:33Steve Cundari:It really is. What are some things you're hearing, you and or the agent are hearing from CMOs, like kind of beneath the surface, if you will, like pull back the curtain for us a little bit? What are you hearing that their needs are? I think branded entertainment is a big need right now. Obviously, how to partner with creator. Like everybody, the creator, influencer, like influencer marketing not going away. It's only growing. Everybody knows that. But what are unique and interesting ways and authentic, I think, you know, authentic, obviously, it's a buzzword that's always used, you know, we got authentically partner, we get it.

14:06But like, what does that actually mean in today's day and age, like attention spans are shortening, like everybody's got a product, every influencer has a brand and this and that. Now, like, what do you do? Like, how do we cut through the noise and like really do something impactful that resonates with our audience, whatever that might be like for, I'll give a personal example that launched today, actually, We are the agency of record for Dunlop Sports, Cleveland, Strixon, and Zexio, a golf brand. I know if you're a golfer, Steve, we should go play. I play golf. I'm not a golfer. So I'm a golf course.

14:38Okay, perfect. We'll have a great round. We should do this on the golf course next time. So we partnered, actually, even closer, story to home, my significant other, Carissa Thompson, NFL broadcaster, huge golf fan. And Zexio, she's going to be the face of Zexio's new campaign, the Play Easy campaign. and Zexio, which good for them. And I love the way they operate. Chris Kircher, the head of marketing over there goes, I want this to be authentic to Carissa. I don't want to come in and, you know, I could go get any pro or any real golfer, put them on a golf course and a pose, take some pictures, run a campaign.

15:11Like that playbook's been done before. How do we do something that's authentic to Carissa that she's excited about that will resonate with her audience? So we shot this first campaign up at our ranch, which is, you know, obviously authentic to Carissa. We've got a driving range up there. We shot the it came out today. You can go look it up. It's the play easy campaign just launched about an hour ago. And it's it's so different than what you would normally see in a golf space or a partnership announcement. She's she's at home on her ranch, like with her animals. And it just it turned out to be a really beautiful thing that I think will resonate with audiences.

15:44And the way, you know, the intricacies of the campaign of like we don't need just a face to talk about golf and go sell golf clubs. Like, let's go on Carissa's golf journey with her. Like Chris is not a pro golfer. She's a, she's an NFL broadcaster, a damn good one. I'll say that just so that's on the record, but she's not a golfer. She's not a pro golfer. They didn't, you know, hire her to be the face of this campaign. Cause she's the best golfer in the world. So they're like, let's go through your job golf journey together and let's build it from scratch. Be authentic, be honest, be vulnerable.

16:16They're like, I'm not the best golfer, but thanks to my partners at Zexio, they're going to come along this journey with me and they're going to turn me into a golfer which steve we should probably actually get zexio clubs they are i've swung them

16:27Steve Cundari:they're incredible and i'd love to have their cmo on the show for sure i think chris you'll get along with chris he's fantastic but yeah it's just how do you authentically back to your question of you know pull back the leaves what are cmos looking for like what is that authentic way to tell these stories and that sounds so cliche i know it does it's there's only so many ways that you can have a talent, you know, hold a drink our water. It's great. Like it's how do what is that next wave of that? How do you distribute that? I think with all the work we do in the sports side with different leagues, for example, with live, like how do you distribute that content once it is you do have it in the can, I think letting a lot of the talent and creators and depending on the space you're in own that that distribution as opposed to being like, we shot this, we paid for We're going to distribute it.

17:14We hope their audience comes and finds us and sees it. Let them distribute it on their terms, in their way, so that you're building brand advocates, audience, fans, whatever it might be, through those creators that you're paying. Let it be authentically told that way. So, you know, on our side, we're solving a lot of problems for a lot of brands in that way. And then, you know, obviously, you know, this is no secret, or I'm not pulling back any leaves here. It's AI is coming. What do we do with it? How do we do it? and what's going to happen to all of us in the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months? Am I going to still be a CMO or is it going to be a robot?

17:47Steve Cundari:So the AI conversation obviously is big right now too. Exactly, but it's even more reason, and again, I'm going to cliche, I don't really give a shit, that the need to be so authentic, so transparent has never been more paramount. Oh, for sure. As we enter this age, literally, like you just said, 6 months, 12 months, the world could look completely different from an AI perspective. and to have that no no no i'm gonna be me like the converse today that you just talked about with chris and by the way i'd love to get her on the show as well yeah is they could have thrown a bajillion dollars at you and the agency but if it didn't feel right and i'm gonna say it for you you wouldn't do it no we and and you know especially with you know people want especially in the agency world like a lot of people went through a really tough time with covid and lost a lot of business and like it's been you know but at the end of the day i and my partners will stand by the fact that if you are a good person and do good business and are honest with clients and don't you know aren't that snake agency that just run around collecting checks because you have some good sales people and then get you in the door and get a check like you will outlast and you know we're we're going on you know eight nine almost ten years now like of doing business that way and i I believe that's, that's the only way to operate.

19:00Like you'll be around, you'll be around for, you know, a good time, but not a long time if you're operating as a snake and, uh, it'll be good for a second, but you won't last. So, um, yeah, being honest, like I don't, I could never, I don't care who the, if they have all the money in the world, go in there and sell something that I don't believe in, or, you know, it just, it would be nice to cash that check for sure. Everybody loves money, but you just can't, I can't morally do that. Um, so that's how we operate.

19:24Steve Cundari:and it's it's it works well your your achievements speak for themselves right that's very nice yeah my bio again we could do that for the next uh 60 that was great uh if you want to do that again uh but no um you know but it's so simple it's so damn simple it is yeah it's yeah it's a great way to put it that in its simplest form it's simple yeah i don't get it i mean i i have jokingly say to people i don't know how to be an asshole oh i do but just okay the right situation well maybe you can teach me but yeah you're doing all right we all you can't whisper it can't be an asshole you gotta be but you know what i mean yeah um i'm not gonna you know rig people over the coal and get shit and get money no i couldn't i couldn't do that to anybody yeah i want to talk about sports yeah really and get into that so you've worked across sports entertainment media Let's go back five years to now, right?

20:22Steve Cundari:Or even three years. I mean, because the way the world's changing. How different is sports marketing today? I mean, completely different. I mean, there's been a complete shift in the way sports is consumed. And, you know, it's specific to each sport. But, for example, like in the golf space, golf is younger, more diverse than ever. But the way that sports is consumed, it's consumed on TikTok. It's consumed on Instagram and clips on YouTube. So I think that is the, you know, from what is the most seismic shift from five years ago? It's it's that the way that sports is being consumed by these new generations is wildly different than in previous years.

20:57So the way that that leagues and teams have to keep up with like you can't abandon, you know, the Eagles fans that have been watching and listening to Eagles games for the past 50, 60 years on the same radio network and, you know, watching it this way. But you also have a whole new crop of fans that is being born and coming in year after year that you have to tailor your content and strategies and distribution to because they live in very different places than the way that you consume.

21:23Steve Cundari:Exactly. So I think that the shift there, you know, what content and advertising and marketing organizations and sports have had to hire for and look like are wildly different than they were five years ago. And that's going to end. But here's the next thing, though. That was five years ago till now. My guess is, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, it's not going to take five more years to have such a dramatic change anymore, right? The change is here. The change is here. It's happened. I think it will only continue to go in the way of the YouTubes of the world, the TikToks of the world, the Instagrams of the world, the Xs of the world.