The Business Case for Bold Creative with Nick Tran and Amanda Slavin (From Marketingland 2025) | Ep. 370

0:00Tired of robotic marketing? Customer.io helps turn cold, hard data into real human connection. Email, SMS, push, webhooks, and more. Join 7 ,800 plus brands using AI-powered journeys that connect, convert, and don't annoy. Visit customer.io to start your free trial today. what is up everybody welcome back to another episode of the marking millennial podcast this episode today was a recording from marking land festival 2025 and it featured two of the smartest marketers i know nick tran the marketer behind some of the most culture shifting work in the last decade think tiktok taco bell hulu inasa rock plus lobo 1707 and amanda slavin author strategist and one of the smartest voices in engagement and brand experience.

0:53And this episode is about how bold creative actually drives growth. How can you take big swings? How to sell risky ideas internally? What not to do in 2025 and beyond? And how to create work that earns real attention? This is one of my favorite sessions and I'm excited for you to listen and get into it. welcome to the marketing millennials the no bs marketing podcast i'm daniel murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies the one request i tell our guests stories or it didn't happen get ready to turn the up Welcome to Brandland, and my name is Amanda Slavin.

1:46We'd love to hear where you're dialing in from, so feel free to put it in the comments. I am a former educator, community strategist, and author of the bestselling book, The Seventh Level, which was written to change the way we measure engagement in marketing and learning, employee engagement. I'm co-founder of The Future Frequency, where we're rethinking how learning works in a fast-paced digital world. Today, though, I get to wear a different hat as someone who's deeply passionate about creativity and culture and the power of bold ideas to spark change, which brings me to today's guest, my friend and one of the most brilliant marketing minds I know, Nick Tran.

2:20Nick, I'm going to introduce you, Nick, so you don't have to even say anything about yourself. I'm just going to brag about you. Nick is, you can just sit there and smile. Nick, you are a real person, though. You are going to be communicating after. Nick is a marketing powerhouse who's helped turn brands like TikTok, Taco Bell, and Who Hulu into cultural icons. He's currently president and CMO of the joint venture between Diageo and Main Street Advisors, leading the growth of Sirach and Lobo 1707, building spirits brands that just don't sell, but move with the rhythm of culture. They don't just sell, but move with the rhythm of culture.

2:52They do sell. They actually sell a lot. That's the whole point. Nick is really good with that. From launching record-breaking campaigns to investing early in breakout brands like Liquid Death and Alipop, Nick has built a career around knowing what's next and helping brands get there first. So today we're going to dive into the business case for Bold Creative, what it takes to lead with courage, earn attention, and make sure your brand doesn't just survive the moment, but defines it. So Nick, I have a bunch of questions for you. Again, you did not have to introduce yourself. That's kind of the best thing when someone else just introduces you for yourself.

3:21That is. It didn't sound scripted at all. So thank you. You just know me so well. When we just like hang out and we're like, I'm like, hey, this is Nick. And then I just casually just say that? Like, I'm just like, this is how I introduce you all the time, right? Like even images. All the time. Okay. Anyway, well, so it was not scripted at all. However, what I would just say without reading a little bit of details and bios is that you are such a prolific mind. You've really pushed the boundaries. You have really thought outside the box. You've been unbelievably creative with every brand that you've worked with.

3:56And I think that really the through line throughout your career is not necessarily industry specific or category specific, but it is being able to really push the boundaries and think outside the box. So with that, and that was not scripted. Thank you very much. So with that, you know, you've led some of the most culturally resonant brands moments of the last decade for some of the biggest brands. How has your view of creativity evolved and what does bold creative actually mean today? Yeah, I actually feel that I was very fortunate in my career. So you mentioned that I was, you know, been part of some of the most culturally relevant brands in the last decade.

4:35And the through line hasn't been something that I could craft on my own. I'd say the through line has actually just been going to a place that was in a crisis right before the crisis happened. And so whether it was Taco Bell or Stance Socks or Samsung with phones catching on fire or TikTok, there was always something that almost felt like an existential crisis for the brand that forced us to be bold and take risks and do things that were out of the box. Because the only thing we knew is that if we did the same thing that was done before, we were going to lose, especially in the crisis that we were facing at the time.

5:15So a lot of my success in my career, I would have to attribute to a heavy dose of luck and being at the right place in the midst of those moments. Now, how I worked with the teams and navigated that, I think, is a testament to what we were able to do and be creative. But you almost have to be in an environment that allows you to push through creativity and do something completely unorthodox in order to be able to do so. because there's also environments that I've seen that friends are in where, you know, they, they come in with this approach that they're going to shake things up, but the system or whatever it is just won't let them do it.

5:52And it's pretty grueling when you're in an environment that doesn't allow you to do that. Um, so I've just been fortunate to have leaders and, um, you know, a moment in time for the brand that just sort of like pushed us to do that rather than hold us back. Do you think those circumstances, I mean, sometimes those circumstances, which something, you know, a catastrophe or something happens actually doesn't push for creativity. It pushes back into more safety or, you know, more, okay, we have to actually think smaller and we have to make sure that we're not taking any risks. So, you know, it's interesting that you said you were lucky to kind of be in those scenarios.

6:26Why do you think so many brands still default to safety when circumstances happen or just in general? Yeah. I, as you were saying that I was picturing this like curve bell shaped curve and if you're on this lower part of it where you're starting out and um there's almost like no blueprint for how to do things there's probably like a high level of innovation and thinking out of the box and then you get into this moment where the whole middle part of the curve where everyone starts to feel like they have to do the same thing in order to continue to win or succeed or figure out, you know, what would work before and apply that to moving forward.

7:05And then you get to this like, end of it, which is like the final, final part of that bell shaped curve where you're in a crisis that's so catastrophic, that you just know you cannot use that same playbook and you have to break out. So I like to play at these like two ends of the spectrum. Whereas a lot of people, unfortunately, in their careers end up working at a company where they're sort of in that middle ground, where it is very difficult to push for that. So I would almost say if the crisis isn't big enough, I can see why some people are forced to just play it safe. But if the crisis is existential in nature, you cannot do that.

7:40And I've been, you know, again, I call it lucky because I love being in those environments. And I almost try to find those environments for myself. I find that like being in those environments is where you get to push yourself, do something completely unorthodox and work with a team that is also of that same mindset of like, we have to do things differently. Because if you have a situation where half the group wants to do things differently and half the group wants to do the same thing, it creates a lot of issues. Whereas if everybody says we have to move in this direction, whether we're right or wrong, the only way out is to go through something different.

8:15It tends to create a lot more excitement, engagement, and ultimately success. Yeah. So that idea of kind of like, you know, half the team might be saying pull back and half the team might be saying push. And so I am curious, how do you decide if something is bold and brilliant or just off brand? You know, what's your framework for knowing when to push and when to pull back? Is it always a push? You know, again, are there some moments where you have to look and say, like, we're just doing this to do it. And maybe we should maybe actually pulling back is the thing that is, you know, really culturally pushing the boundary?

8:48Like what's kind of your take on the push versus the pullback? Yeah. When it comes to the marketing work, I tend to be someone that always wants to push. I think that's a different thought than say what we would do for like crisis comms or like PR. Like in times where the messaging strategy needs to be a certain way, or you need to really understand the landscape and see if you're going to create your own new cycle unintentionally and create a bigger issue. There's definitely moments from a PR, crisis comms standpoint where the best thing to do might be to do nothing. But in the world of marketing, I don't really buy that.

9:27I think that the way to win, generally speaking, in the world of marketing versus crisis comms is to really find ways and take more opportunities to drive the brand forward. and your question of like, is it off brand or is it bold? As long as you have a clear North star on where you're trying to take the brand and you know which insights or what elements of the brand that you're trying to express and bring to life, I find that a lot of brands tend to go down this path of like pushing the creative. And ultimately what they find is that it's not leading to real business success. It's because they're not laddering up to the objectives that they need to.

10:11Um, some examples are in the QSR space. I won't name brands cause I don't, that's not what we're here to do, but there's been some brands that are like amazing at marketing, but you see no traction when it comes to sales because they're no longer talking about their product or the quality of their food or why you should go dine there. They're literally just like making noise for the sake of making noise. And in those instances, they might be great at marketing, but if they're not building the, you know, bottom line or boosting the bottom line, it's sort of irrelevant. So I think it's less about being off-brand and more so like, are you laddering up to the business objectives and doing the brand a service?

10:48Yeah. I mean, that's what I think it's so interesting because you're really looking at it holistically from the perspective of, again, like crisis comes because things are going to happen and marketing and branding, but also core to the actual product and to the business, which is what marketing does need to serve. So in an era of performance marketing pressure and short-term KPIs, how do you protect creative bravery without losing business credibility? I mean, I feel that there's a cost to not being bold. And it's almost this idea of doing something for the sake of doing it and doing it because it won't get you fired is just an inevitable decline for your brand in the long term.

11:31performance to me is nuanced because there are some instances where I fully feel it is the you know catalyst for growth for a company like I would go so far as to say when we were at TikTok we almost had this 100 performance plan in the early stages because if people hadn't downloaded TikTok yet then there's no real brand that we could build on and we won't be able to really generate that flywheel and drive that word of mouth because there's no one in the platform. So we had to rely on performance because if you were to do brand marketing at those moments, people would drop in and there'd be nothing there for them to see or participate in because it was a platform that was generated by users essentially and content creators.

12:15In time though, you have to balance that out. So I think where marketers tend to fall a little bit flat is when they rely solely on one thing, they see the success of it and they don't realize that as their business grows as their scale increases, that shift almost has to be done prior to you seeing it in the actual, you know, measurements. And you have to sort of have the experience to navigate a large brand to go from being, you know, predominantly, let's call it like performance driven, and then switch over into a heavier brand position before the data tells you otherwise. Because if you don't anticipate that, you will become slightly inefficient.

12:56And then you start to rely more on the data and it kind of creates this death spiral. But yeah, I find that the best marketers have that feeling and know how to navigate that. And they know that in the end, they're building their KPIs overnight, but they have to build that brand over time or else that long-term value just won't be there. Yeah. And I mean, it is so much, right, the science and the art. And so I want to talk a little bit more about the art of it all, which is this idea of culture. Because we keep talking about culture and cultural relevance, pushing the culture and the boundaries of culture.

13:25So a lot of brands want to be part of culture, but end up chasing trends instead of creating meaning. What does cultural relevance really look like to you? And what does it take to build a team that's set up to move fast when culture shifts, like you were talking about before? Yeah. So I always find that we use culture so broadly as marketers that I like to try to break it down into big culture, like big C, and then like little C culture. So little C culture is where I see brands playing a lot in. So it'll be like, oh, we need to get into entertainment or sports or music or, you know, fashion or art or whatever it is.

14:02That's like the little C culture because it's the pillars of, quote unquote, you know, what makes up pop culture and are the things that people want to discuss and talk to their friends about. Right. That's sort of like one area that I see a lot of brands play. And then you have like big C culture, which is like where big movements and shifts in society happen at like a macro level. And I think it's pretty difficult for most brands to play in that big C space. I saw it happen a couple of times in my career where if you're building a platform and you're working on something that can actually change the way that people fully function and behave, like what TikTok eventually did, that's when you're starting to play with big culture where I couldn't walk down a street without hearing somebody talk about some TikTok video they saw and seeing it.

14:51TikTok person trying to, you know, create content off to the side, like that's when you really were moving culture at like a macro level. As far as, you know, your question, I think when brands are playing in, you know, let's call it little culture, as in like the pillars that make up pop culture, I think it's just really important to not follow the trends and think about how that might resonate with your audience and bring your specific brand to life and help you get to that North Star. So So I'll make it a little more concrete. You know, when we were at Hulu before the acquisition by Disney, there was this feeling that like Hulu is really just like next day TV.

15:33And as much as we were winning in the entertainment space, we knew that if we didn't land a few other cultural pillars, little c cultural pillars like sports and entertainment and music, we weren't going to necessarily drive the growth that we were looking to drive, which is why we got into sports pretty heavily, especially with Hulu Has Live Sports campaign. In my mind, that was a strategic decision on the company to find a way to break into culture where we weren't trying to take over and create new conversations that weren't happening, but just find conversations that were existing, which was in this case, the world of sports, and just bringing our brand into those conversations, which is a lot easier.

16:13I think when brands try to create their own wave, one, it's really hard unless you have that kind of scale. And then you were mentioning when brands jump on trends, you almost forget the brand and you just remember the trend. So I could probably rattle off 10 trends over the last two or three years that most people would say, I remember that trend. I remember the people that created that trend or I remember some of the things that were done during that moment. But if you were to specifically say, like, remember that brand getting into that trend, the answer would be most likely no. But if the answer was yes, there'd be nothing that would tell you more about that brand other than they were watching social media and they jumped on a trend.

16:54So I kind of feel that like the brand approach of just jumping on memes and trends and trying to create or copy or mimic a viral video is now kind of done because those might drive views, but they're definitely not going to drive the results that you're looking to have, which is any impact to your bottom line. yeah and meaning and i think i mean go the there's a huge difference to creating a big idea creating culture culture creating a cultural shift and again like tapping into something that already exists it's a lot less risk so when you are you know when you're president cmoc and you do have a really big responsibility uh to make sure that you're also ensuring that the bottom line like you have stakeholders and you need to make sure that the business is successful So how do you actually sell big ideas internally, especially when they are maybe high risk?

17:43What helps you get buy-in at the board level? We are all marketers here, so I'll say it. I hate batch and blast messages. It's not 2010 anymore. We've got data. Let's actually use it. That's why I love customer.io. It helps you turn first-party data into personal messages across email, SMS, and push. Build it, automate it, and make it not suck. Start a trial and join 7 ,800 plus brands already doing smarter marketing with customer.io. Visit customer.io to start your free trial today. Yeah, I have a very fortunate situation where the board is incredibly supportive of taking these risks and doing things that are a little bit more out of the box.

18:26So I personally don't necessarily have like, this is how to win over the board because the board has just been so incredibly supportive. I think it's more so just getting the buy-in from your team because one, it's not like I'm the only person that comes up with the ideas, right? So that'd be obviously like one approach. But I think when you trust your team, excuse me, and you trust them to bring the best creative to life, you have to also let them fail and let them do it in a way where there's no real repercussions about what happens when it doesn't work out the way you want it to work out. I would say that I've been in environments that were very much preaching, failure is fine.

19:12And then when shit happens, you're literally under the gun and it becomes a very hostile environment. And it comes from the leaders, not just the board, but the actual leaders that are in the day-to-day to instill that confidence for the team to be willing to take those risks and not be afraid of what would happen. And when the ideas are obviously coming from different areas, as a leader, it's really up to you to get everyone on board and champion that idea through to, you know, concept to execution and bringing the board along to ensure that there is no, you know, moment where they see something and they're now concerned and it becomes this issue.

19:51But how do you just bring everyone along with you in that journey so they feel that you're not only doing something bold, but also something that will drive value for the business. Yeah. So I love the idea of when you were talking about TikTok, it really made it contextual and people could wrap their heads around it. So can you share a moment where Bold Creative made the biggest impact for a brand you worked with, even if it felt uncomfortable at the start? I mean, I could throw out a bunch of examples. I'll rattle off a few. And then if there's one that you're particularly interested in diving deeper on.

20:25We can go deeper on. But when I started my career at Taco Bell, a single tweet created this opportunity for us to airlift a Taco Bell truck with a helicopter and drop it in the middle of Bethel, Alaska, which was a town of 6 ,000 people. What? That sounds fun. Super fun, super bold,

20:48very much a lesson in how to react quickly and bring something to life on an operational level. Um, I'd say, uh, another, you know, fun one was, I mentioned it earlier, but like Hulu has live sports in the Tom Brady Superbowl spot. Like that was an incredibly fun moment where we had to think about what was happening in culture and where the conversations were going naturally, which is whether or not he was going to retire, was he going to stay in the NFL. And then ultimately was going to stay in new England or move to a different team and being able to create a spot that almost poked fun at this, but having him be part of the joke and having him be so self-aware of the situation that he could actually play with that a little bit.

21:29That was a big, fun moment that I think was a big win for the brand. And then obviously at TikTok, it was less of a big, bold, creative effort and more of a, how do we change the process and operationalize our ability to get to market quickly and go from a two-month campaign cycle down to one that lasted or that took 72 hours to bring to life. That to me was very bold because most people, when we first talked about this idea, thought it was impossible and that we were crazy to try to bring a marketing campaign to life in 72 hours. But once you are able to get close to succeed, not even succeeding, but getting close to it, you basically generate a lot of momentum and support within the community and the internal employees to rally around that and then believe in it so much that you actually are able to pull it off not only once, but a few times across different regions around the globe.

22:25So that to me was like a big, crazy, audacious situation that ended up being great. And even now with what we're doing with Ciroc and Lobo 1707, there's a lot of questions that people have about where we're going to be taking the brand and the legacy of the brand and where we want to go. And ultimately, I find this challenge to be one of the most exciting challenges of my career and one that I'm very much proud of being able to help lead. And working with a board that's not only supportive, but has a lot of the right connections and network for us to be able to do what we do and do it effectively.

23:06So obviously like more to come on what we're doing with both brands, but I'd say like my biggest adventure to date will probably be what hasn't yet happened yet. Yeah. You've had such a prolific career, but you've been bold from the beginning. So for those in the room who have a brave idea that they're sitting on, but are not necessarily the CMO or CEO, they could be, but just wherever they are in their career, but haven't pitched it yet. what would you say to them? It's about building trust, I think. And, you know, when I was early on in my career, I obviously had big aspirations on, you know, becoming a big creative, you know, executive or becoming a CMO.

23:47And it's not enough to want to take on that role. It's really about proving that you have not only like the right ideas, but the ability to execute on those ideas because a great idea that's executed average, you know, won't be really that good. But a good idea that's executed perfectly ends up becoming like a great campaign or a great, you know, activation. So I think early on in my career, I used to always think that it was about the idea and that if you were the one with the idea, that's what kind of like proved your ability to then lead in the future. it it was pretty apparent to me during my like early taco bell days that ideas are um dime a dozen and that it really comes down to how you can push that idea through not only you know the corporate environment but also bring it to life on an operational perspective and execute it flawlessly and it was that discipline that i learned you know during my time at taco about that probably made me a better creative and a better leader.

24:56But it's really about owning that early in your career and knowing that it almost doesn't matter where the idea comes from. You should champion all good ideas, whether they're from you or not, but really be able to get your hands dirty and help bring it to life. I think that's when it really counts. So people who are looking for advice, I think if you can own the execution of it and bring it to life and work well with the creative teams, you have a good chance at eventually becoming the CMO because there's two paths in marketing. One's purely creative and one is truly like a more business leadership role.

25:33And I'd say that the true creatives end up going down the chief creative officer path. And then the business-minded folks that can execute flawlessly and bring things to life at scale and know the impact that it has to the business end up taking the CMO or president route. So last question, uh, finish this sentence, uh, in 2025, the brands it's like Mad Libs. In 20, in 2025, the brands that will win will be the ones who dot, dot, dot. Oh, I'd say take advantage of efficient and undervalued channels that aren't expected. So So for example, when I was on the tech side, it was obvious to go down the path of like, oh, do digital.

26:22And now everyone's talking about AI. And at one point, it's all about social. I love doing just radio. I love doing out of home. I love disrupting those spaces and being a little bit more open-minded about where we might bring these brands to life. Because at the end of the day, you just want to do something that makes people think twice and be a little more disruptive. And if everyone's doing the AI thing, and if everyone's going down this path, then you're not going to be able to really stand out. So as much as most people, I think, would believe that in 2025, brands that win are going to do AI, I'm not saying that's wrong, but I think you have a really good opportunity to pivot and do something completely unexpected that seems incredibly archaic, but ends up becoming almost like an innovative way to bring that archaic traditional channel to life that makes everyone think twice.