Snapchat CMO on fixing social media, being creative leader of the decade and lessons from Dan Wieden - Colleen DeCourcy

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Uncensored CMO. In this episode, I'm talking to Colleen DeCoursey, the Chief Creative Officer at Snap. She is genuinely one of the most impressive and inspirational people I've ever interviewed. She was previous to Snap, the Chief Creative Officer at Wisen and Kennedy, and she ran the Nike account globally, delivering some award-winning, famous campaigns I know you will have heard of. She is a truly wonderful human being and is very inspirational. I caught up with her in this episode to find out what it takes to be at the top of your game and some of the life lessons she's learned and some of the principles that have got her to this point.

0:41I know you're going to love it. Here it is. Now, fresh from her travels around the world, including a stop off in Melbourne, Australia, for Snap Forward, delighted to be joined by Colleen DeCoursey, Chief Creative Officer at Snap. Welcome to the show. Hi, it's so nice to see you again. Well, it's nice to see you on the other side of the world after our adventures down under. And it's sunny in both places, which means it must be us. Yes, it must be. Exactly. We'll take it, right? Exactly. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that. It really was a lovely time. I would say your team put on a great show.

1:07Yeah, they're good people. That was a lot of fun. So many thanks for joining. Yeah, of course. We'll have to bring you somewhere else. We'd love to do it. Yeah. Where in the world are we going next then? Well, you know, we're doing one in London. Maybe you should come. There we go. That's not very good for you though. That's not a saying. We're still half an hour down the road. So yeah, we'll take the exotic ones. That'd be brilliant. Well, listen, let's start with the origin story. How did you get into the creative industries in the first place? And what gives you so much passion that you clearly have for what the creative industries do?

1:31Full transparency. I don't know what I would be if there was no creative industry, because I'm not sure if I'm fit for purpose for many other things. I was very lucky in that from a very young age, people sort of noticed that my sideways kooky lateralness actually like there was some point to it. And my grandparents in particular, you know, my grandfather always used to say, she's going to be a writer. She's going to be a writer. And God knows if I'd shown any talent at all at that point. But like it gets in your head, you know. And then you're like, okay, here's a place to point this. I was really setting out to be a journalist, which despite what people might think, given they're both writing, is very different than advertising.

2:16because, you know, journalism is as little editorial as possible and advertising is, how do I have to say this? You know, so they're very different things. And I just kind of worked my way towards it. I used to always jokingly say, I didn't choose it, it chose me. But after I grew up a little bit, I thought, yeah, that sounds a little bit funny, doesn't it? I mean, I worked really hard at this. I just didn't know it existed. That's the thing I find. I wish someone had told me that you could get paid to do this. Yes. I would have volunteered a long time ago. Yes, because there is a commercial creativity career out there for people.

2:53You know, I wanted to be a war correspondent or probably a rock star or Hunter S. Thompson. There was nothing, you know, that actually fit within the realm of regular and attainable that I knew I could do with my brain for a living until this. And I was very fortunate and made my way through some of the best companies in the world. and feel really blessed by that. Chiat Day, Widening Kennedy, the very, very, very early days of digital. I was the chief creative officer of Organic, which came out of the IT department at Wired Magazine. I mean, you know, we were like really early. First websites, first banner ads.

3:29So it's been a nice journey. Amazing. Now, you've won lots of awards, haven't you? So including like, you know, creative leader of the decade and stuff like that. It must be fun to get the recognition. But what's been the standout moments for you where you've looked back and thought, wow that really meant something it's interesting i guess it is fun i have massive imposter syndrome i think most creative people do i think most people i think most yeah actually it's like the you know the worst kept secret in the world imposter syndrome so i get super anxious every time as a woman in the industry i get additionally anxious because um most times that you get set up to be given something big sets off this cacophony of does she or doesn't she deserve it and is there which i've asked my men friends when they've won things if they feel that and they all look at me like i'm crazy they don't so um it's kind of interesting you know creative leader of the decade really mattered to me because it was about performance over time and it was a hard decade and a decade of a lot of change, but also because they changed the name of it.

4:41The decade before, when Alex Bogusky won it, the award was creative director of the decade. And because Dan Widen always insisted that the person who ran the creative had to run the company because otherwise decisions would be made that hurt creativity, I learned how to run a business with the help of David Lur and who is Dan's original business partner. I think Jean-Marie Drew at TBWA had taught me a lot about business. But so this idea of creative leader of the decade, that was meaningful to me, that they changed the category to suit who I was. But it also elevates creativity where it should be, which is transforming business.

5:24It's not a service function that, you know, it should be at the heart of business and what business is about, shouldn't it? Yes, and that's why I love the Dan Wyden's, the Jay Shietts, the David Droga's, the people who have that AB business creative who can change a moment just by putting their ideas against. I think that's really something. But I would say that the one that really set me back on my heels and just gave me pause was The Lion of St. Mark. Second woman. And the first one was Mary Wells Lawrence, which was a very long... That's been a while. Yeah. And she'd only gotten it the year before me, but that's how long she waited.

6:06And so it was really meaningful to me. And the fact that it was voted on by people that were my peers that mattered. So that still, when I think about that, I'm like, I didn't get that, did I? And then I think, am I that old? Was I supposed to retire? I did. We'll come back to retirement because you quickly got yourself out of retirement for a good reason. But before we do, I'd love to know the 10 years or so you spent leading Widen. I mean, the most iconic partnership, isn't it? I think it's fair to say, isn't it? The Nike one and Widen and Kennedy. I'd love to know what it's like working for Dan Widen and what kind of, you know, on the shoulders of giants, all those kind of phrases that must come with it.

6:49So give us a bit of an insight into what that time was like and what you learned from it as well. Yeah, I mean, I learned so much. I would say that that was one of those formative work experiences that is like a formative life experience. It changes who you are, how you see the world, what you know about yourself. Dan is a real cipher. Dan loves to puzzle people. he had this saying that he always used which was chaos is the only thing that truly wants you to succeed chaos asks things of you that order never will and so you can imagine what it was like to work for Dan and to be mentored by Dan during the time that I was you know Dan passed not long ago and it was hard to imagine he had Alzheimer's and so when I got there there was some urgency of who was going to take on and run Whiting Kennedy and I didn't get as much time with him there would never be enough time with Dan but I really didn't get that much before he was just you know a lovely person who built this amazing thing that I didn't want to mess up but it was incredible to work for him And, you know, he had some fundamental beliefs that I think, you know, you mentioned Nike as well.

8:11Those are two companies that know who they are. Fundamentally know who they are. Dan always used to say that Nike didn't discover the power of advertising. It discovered the power of its own voice. And because the two companies were cleaved together right from formation on both sides, really, this idea of authenticity and finding your own voice, you know, people came to Widening Kennedy. to find their voice. To help people self-actualize was one of Dan's biggest goals. It wasn't to sell the campaign. That was the thing we did. He used to call it a social experiment by the banks of the Willamette River.

8:51And what came out of it was advertising because we all needed something to focus ourselves on. And I think that the two companies always stayed very true to who they were, stayed very true to each other, understood each other's strengths and weaknesses, and had a shorthand and a belief in something that traveled across time. And it was profound to work inside that environment and see that happening. I feel, ironically, that we shared the same relationship with P &G, which is such a different client than Widening Kennedy. But they always brought us in and let us be who we were, understanding that however problematic or troublesome or irritating that may be to them, that was the thing they were missing.

9:38And that was why we were in the room. And in both instances, it created years and years and years of magic. One of the last things that I worked on before I left Widening Kennedy was the final Thank You Mom campaign for Olympics. Proud sponsor of Mom. You know, near the end, my business partner used to call it Rocky 8. We're back for Rocky 8. You know, a year because they bought a sponsorship, which lasts across time. And every year, Mark Pritchard changed that fundamentally in a way that reflected what was going on in culture and then allowed us to use our voice to be the commentary on that. And again, you know, when you know, when you find someone who knows how to use you, there is no better situation.

10:30and we had that. We could only be what we were. And when we weren't right for someone, they really knew about it. A very quick side story of what it was like to work for Dan Ryden. I remember very early on being in a meeting with a very large soft drink manufacturer who we had done lots of really great work with and had a wonderful relationship. And so I walked into that meeting. We'd flown to their headquarters And I thought, this is really important. Like, cannot mess this up. This is like a partnership across time. And look at the work. So we're in the meeting and it's very clear that this idea is not going to land.

11:10And I was working from my past experience somewhere that wasn't Widening Kennedy. And as a creative leader, my job was always then to figure out when we were really not going to get anywhere and figure out your fallback position. What you would wind back to so that you could bring the client along. So I kind of, you know, launched into that. And at a certain point, Dan stood up and he called a halt in the meeting. He's like, can we take a break? We'll take a bio break. Let's just take a break for a minute. And he stands up and he walks over to the little snack table and he kind of motions. And I went over and he's like, what the are you doing?

11:45I'm like, uh, well, I, I'm finding a fallback position. He's like, why? I said, well, because I'm afraid they'll fire us. He's like, well, I'm afraid they won't. and I thought oh good lord what a reframing what a reframing I'm afraid they won't because they don't like this idea maybe we're not right for each other anymore no harm no foul yeah and we ended up sticking with it and we did sell the idea and it ended up being really good but it taught me something about how independence is everything how bravery is a thing unto itself yeah how selling an idea isn't about right and wrong it's about how much you believe and where and saying no matters as much as saying yes.

12:28You know, it was fascinating. So that's what it was like to work with Dan Wyden. You reminded me slightly, actually, I know you know Anselmo Ramos very well at Gartons. I was chatting to him about what they do when they get an RFI. And he said, oh, we send one straight back and ask them a few questions. You got questions for us? We got questions for you. You know, better to weed out the problems before they begin sort of thing, you know. Something to be said for that, though. I mean, my reaction when he said that was like, oh, you're brave. But I thought about it. I thought, do you know what? you're actually doing an enormous favor to the client by making them think what do they really want versus what they say they want what they really want and actually it's uh probably best all around isn't it and it might not be us yeah and you know to your point of sending back the rfi a very big automotive client who asked us if we'd wanted to be part of a pitch and we kept saying no not that we didn't love them but like it was a big global thing we didn't think we were the right size we didn't want to do all like the dealer like it just wasn't how we were built we weren't a holding company and we did end up actually that widen still has this account as a client and um the more we told them why we weren't right the more they found their way to why we might be it's a very clever strategy yeah you tell people i'm going to give you five reasons why we're not right which basically are reasons why you should be but also if you do get us then remember we know exactly what you're buying right exactly you said this you wrote it down you know exactly but talk your principles i know there was a principle that cost you quite a lot to do with the time interview and i mean i remember hearing you talk about this is quite a moment wasn't it i'd love to hear a bit more about the moment you were on time did the time interview and what happened next yeah you know it was um one of those leadership moments where you have to figure out what your values are how they map over your company's values what you've been paid to represent and hold up and if you can do all those things professionally and still be really true to yourself.

14:25It also taught me a little bit about being more savvy, I think. But we were doing an interview. I was doing an interview. It was during COVID, so it was like early days of doing all this over Zoom. And really, the interview was about all the great work we'd been doing for Nike, the Kaepernick work. I mean, we've always been a very lefty-leaning social reform. I mean, I think it just comes from actually a basis of optimism about humanity that we really, really believed in as a company. Do the right thing by people, and they will always do the right thing. So at the end of this interview, as we're wrapping up, you know, it's that old moment when you're taking off the mic and, you know, kind of like having a chat.

15:18And the interviewer, because I was used to the trades, not an investigative journalist, said, it's just really interesting. It's hard for me to pack all of the work we just talked about against the fact that, you know, you're the lead creative on the agency's Facebook account. A lot was going on then in the world. Cambridge Analytica just happened. Civil rights leaders were showing up wanting to talk with the company. We had a very young, very agitating employee base that came to Widening Kennedy because we always told them that their voice and their opinion and their agitation was what made the world great.

16:02And he said, how do you square that? And my answer was, it's a day-by-day proposition. You set a destination for a brand of something they can be, and you hold space for them to get there. But our patience is not infinite. I think that no company should have to hear that in a podcast or an interview. at that point it wasn't a podcast um an interview so that was my bad but it was the truth and it's how we work widening kennedy's mission statement was to create provocative relationships between good companies and their customers and when i got there i changed it to and their audiences to encompass a whole different kind of work what constitutes a good company for me i needed to attract and retain the best creative talent in the world that was my edge as a company and i knew if we crossed wires on our values i would no longer be able to do that and so i had to make the decision that i had to make to protect my own company and I wish I had not it had not turned out in that way but I remain unwilling to apologize for that moment because I think that good partners speak the truth to each other they do and I would say that the to each other is where I fucked that up but there it stands and here I am now But the consequence of this.

17:49The consequence is I'm the CCO and CMO of Snap. You are, which is great. But just to finish the story as well, because time went to print, didn't they, on what you had said off the record. And you ended up having to retire. What's the right phrase? No. I didn't have to retire. No, I don't mean you retired in terms of the relationship between the accounts. We shook hands and went our separate ways. So it had pretty big implications. It did. It was 11 % of our staff. It was our third largest client. But Dan had always maintained that it's not a principle unless it costs you something. There you go.

18:24And I will live and die by that sort. But yeah, you know, it's a funny business, right? Who are you manufacturing consent for? And you really have to decide that and be okay with it, whatever your answer is. You do, you do. Which brings us actually nicely on, of course, to the temporary retirement. the very short-lived retirement my not even enough time to grow out a haircut retirement exactly so what got you out and why snap as well in particular particularly given what we talked about as well so you know you put yourself right in the middle of the sort of social media you know confluence of all these things but yeah talk to me what's going through your mind and what what what caught your imagination yeah i mean you know i'll start with i just i love a big hairy audacious problem.

19:15And I would say that this is one. I also believe deeply in progress and in technology. Very early in my career, I went, you know, that's why organic. I wanted to leave traditional and figure this thing out. And I know the good it can do. And I believe that we always have to be designing with intention to make sure that that good is actually really happening. I thought maybe I would, we met through mutual friends, Evan Spiegel and I. Evan and Bobby are the founders, both lovely men with real world consciences and values. You know, I liked Evan immediately, but we also both had, our brains work nicely together.

20:01I think we like to challenge each other and we have a common sense of humor in some instances and in others not, you know, which we shouldn't because I'm twice his age probably. He has points of view that I wouldn't have thought of, and I hope the same for me. But as we discussed this thing, what I really do believe is that we can't completely reverse out of people using technology to connect with other humans. That ship has left port. And so we can complain about it, Or we can sit down and figure out what are the right ways to do this. Where does the harm come from? Where does it start? Where do we find it?

20:44How do we fix it? And Evan and I had a really amazing conversation about that that made me interested enough. And I think at one point he said, you know, we mentioned what had happened. And he said, well, so then you have to help because you can't just say the negative without being part of the solution. And he's right. Yeah. And that's a sure way to get me to do most anything is to appeal to my values. But I did not intend to be the CCO and the CMO and be this far in. But it is enjoyable. I love having it the total problem. I am fascinated by the number of business problems that I never realized I was actually not even getting to look at from my agency seat.

21:27and you put all that together and then I looked at a lot of statistics and research that had been amassed both by SNAP and by third parties and I believe we're on to something and I believe we have a shot at the right thing here and so what better thing to give my time to in a moment when I could choose to give it to anything yeah to like do something that has to do with my values yeah and so here i am and it's fun actually it's hard and it's fun and i mean it's important isn't it and you know the impact on kids young people you know i mean i've got two daughters you know 15 and 16 massive snapchat users i mean their life is literally managed yeah you know through the app so the implications are huge aren't they yes how big a problem do you think you're facing into i mean there's a lot of discussion isn't there about it and you know it's and it's a really hard one because there's a whole machinery now isn't there around it there's vested interest there's huge amounts of money there's an advertising ecosystem that's driven by how the algorithms work how deep does this go and how big a issue have we got to deal with here i think as a culture a global culture we have some choices to make you know i talk a lot about the friendship recession and the self-reported feelings of young people right now in the world and how they're feeling.

22:52And I look at those timelines of the upticks in these things, and there is no denying the correlation between the advent of always having a phone in your pocket and where we are right now. I honestly do believe that a lot of the damage that came out of this, You know, I mean, social media started with the best of intentions. I mean, I don't know if you remember the very early days, but as someone who went to like many, many, many, many high schools and lived in 13 different places across the time. It's a lot of reunions to get to. Yeah, you know, I don't go to any of them. Because I was so excited when I first on social media realized all those people could come back to like to my life.

23:36Yeah, yes, yeah. And it was like, oh my God. And then your first birthday that you have. And it's like, this brings something. and then we started to monetize it and then you know it also tracks to kind of like a downtick in the american industrial economy technology and social media has brought a lot economically and i think we really need to sit down and say okay when it's designed this way it can make a shit ton of money but look what it does when it's designed this way it performs like a real advertising platform as we know it across time. And that always used to be enough. And look at what it doesn't then do to people.

24:20And what are the choices that we're going to make? So, you know, this isn't a sudden shift for me or for Snapchat. One of the things that delighted me is 12 years ago when Evan and Bobby started this company, they did it because it was the early days of social and they kind of thought it wasn't cool. It didn't feel right to them. It felt performative and They wanted an antidote, something unique. And in this moment, I think we need to, all of us, take a moment and remember what it was that worked and made people happy and double down there and then give it an honest assessment of what that does as an economic driver and do the right things.

24:58And you've got some powerful statistics, haven't you, on the happiness score? I was blown away by this. I mean, you and I are chatting because the company I work for, system world we actually measure how happy advertising makes you right that's what we do actually what we do in our job because you know that's right the secret not so secret that's right you know and astonishing like 90 percent happiness 90 percent of snapchatters say they feel comfortable happy and connected yes when they're using snapchat nine zero that's incredible we literally make people happy. We make people feel more connected.

25:33Again, self-reported, we did a bunch of, well, we actually have third party, but I'm quoting specifically now something that is from some research we did during COVID. But young people said that it was a savior for them because it was the only place they could stay connected still to their real friends. It is a relationship first built platform. We will not be a culture smoke machine to distribute messages for people. We moderate before content can get around the world and back and cause harm and damage. We delete by default because that's how it is when we talk to each other as people. The entire platform is built to encourage real world engagement with people you actually already know.

26:29Like it's a different animal. And I do think in this moment, I want people to understand that it isn't on or off. It's there are ways we can do this together where everyone wins. And I think it's just, I think it's time we all had that conversation. It is, isn't it? The fascinating thing about it, of course, is I think what you're referencing earlier, which is the fact that the money-making machine has been set up to monetize our anger and our negative emotions, whereas actually you've got a different model, which is trying to create happiness and connections and community, right? Which by def, well, I don't know, maybe you'll tell me I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem to be as monetizable in the short term, at least, as the other model.

27:14And yet you're leading the way on that one. That must bring with some, you must have some interesting challenges. Some interesting anxiety. How you set it up. Sure. I mean, listen, you know, what's amazing is that we continue to grow. I mean, our numbers continue to grow, both our size and our monetization. We see a thing that works. 800 million monthly active users is a big number of people. This isn't a tiny little thing. This is bigger than Twitter. This is bigger. You know, I mean, like this is a real thing. I think what we have to do is re-look at the advertising model and why it works. And that's why we do so much of this research about happiness and people's open-mindedness to receiving messages, how much further a recommendation goes when it's from a friend, how we facilitate the enjoyment of brands in this environment where people are actually there really as friends is a deeper, fuller, more meaningful, sustainable kind of engagement.

28:22But, you know, I will say I've always been the idiot that is bucking the trend, right? I mean, at Widening Kennedy, we really, really believed that great creativity scaled itself. We weren't a company that did performance marketing. I'm not saying that performance marketing doesn't work. but I am saying that without a brand and a sticky message or a point of view people care about with their hearts and their minds the second your dollar stops hitting that tray your performance marketing stops working yeah and so with snap I really believe we're also that kind of stubborn company that says no we can do this differently yeah and so it's it's a little in keeping I think with my career to be here right now.

29:13You have to draw a collection as you hadn't done before, which is in the research system one, what we notice with advertising is that negative emotions and particularly intense negative emotions can drive action in the short term. They don't have much long-term value. Happiness has far greater long-term value. So I suppose what's happening is you've got the other platforms monetizing in your performance market, marketing and energy, they're monetizing negative intense emotion because that's what gets people to act and gets eyeballs, right? Long term, it's happiness that wins out. It is. And we are working very hard and seeing real results on building out a more direct model.

29:52But it means starting from a different place. Yeah. And it's working. So, you know, the goal is that we can provide both, but it won't be the way that it happens right now. Now, I'd love to talk about 3D chess. Yes. Because I was fascinated by your description of your role in this way, going from kind of chief creative officer at Widen Kennedy, of course, with all the amazing brands you're working on, and then being given the train set, I guess if I call it that, you know, suddenly then you're both the client and the creative in the agency. That was sort of the agency. That's the point. You're in the brand now, aren't you, on the platform.

30:28So how is it like being in the organization and having this kind of role? how do you how do you manage all the i guess the knowledge of everything the business issues the long and the short all those things all those things that you've now got to kind of navigate your way through it's brain crushing some days i would say it could probably make me very like i just need i just need everything to stop for a minute but and you know this goes back to a a dan quote too actually he used to talk about um excellence not being math, being jazz. The thing about the 3D chess is that I have to set a very straight course.

31:14It's got to have the values in it. It's got to have the desired outcome in it. It's got to be super aware of all the business problems. You know, we used to say at the agency, like, our job is to come in stupid every day and not care about what your problem is because that stops you from getting to the right answer. And like that is a good tension with an agency. But if I showed up at Snap Inc., my stupidest self every morning, I would quickly find I was not getting anything done at all because I have to have all the concerns in my mind. So this three-dimensional chess can either, I find, I'm finding, it can send you one of two ways.

31:57one way is you operationalize the hell out of an organization because it just is like a a machine right you just like i gotta know all the problem i'm internal so i've got to have this happening here and that firing over there and that and as long as you're putting stuff into the machine and it's moving you're marketing i can't do that so the other way with three-dimensional chess is where you do just say this shit ain't easy and you let yourself go you trust fall into it and you every hour of the day know what it is that you're looking at and where you're trying to get and you let your aggregate amount of knowledge it's almost like um catch and release it's that very like active um you know that zen thing of unattachment all the truths are equal they have to be as they go by my head.