WEBVTT - Jacki Kelley: “Don’t be afraid to zig and zag.” 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:06.160 You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.879 I hear our clients and our agencies have done the same, 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.840 and so I think it's a very different conversation. You 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.599 see cmos becoming growth officers. You see cmos taking on 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.360 sales and taking on a datascope far broader than what 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.200 they used to have, and I think that speaks to. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:26.360 Marketing as a growth driver. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.040 Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic. 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.760 Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Our guest today is 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:40.560 someone who's covered the waterfront of media and advertising USA today, Bloomberg, Yahoo, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.040 Media Brands, and now the CEO of the Americas and 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.240 global Chief Client Officer of the advertising giant Densu. It's 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.400 Jackie Kelly. Most folks who know her in our business 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.760 think of her as some of this very sophisticated, urbane person. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.320 They might not guess that she's from a fifth generation 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.320 cattle ranching family. She was a member of four h 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.440 who raised steers to show at the county fair and 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.080 sold them to pay for her first year of college. 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.520 She was there for the transition of newspapers to digital 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.240 and the handoff of web portals. To social and search, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.360 and has worked with high powered personalities like Mike Bloomberg 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.160 and Martha Stewart. She's brought that range to her work 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.440 in advertising, helping clients navigate the rough waters of change. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.000 She's also got a big heart along with her brilliance 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.720 and her drive to make a real difference in the world. Jackie, Welcome, 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:33.800 Thank you, Bob. 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:34.720 It's great to be here. 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:36.959 So before we jump in, we got a lot to 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.480 talk about. I want to do you in sixty seconds 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.000 to set the context. Ready to go, excellent, Ready to go? 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.240 Do you prefer cats or dogs? 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:46.000 Cats? 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.120 Are you an early riser or night out? 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.080 Early riser? Definitely? 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:55.560 La or New York, LA, city or country country, winter 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:56.200 or summer? 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.800 Winter, salty or sweet salty. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:04.600 Farmers or ranchers, ranchers, beach. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.760 Or mountains, mountains always mountains. 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:12.200 Pop music or country country? USA Today or New York Times. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.320 Oh, I gotta go with USA Today. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.720 Cooker, read out, cook vacation with family or friends, family chat, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.160 GPT or Google Search, still, Google Search, smartest person you know? 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:32.240 Mike Blimberg, childhood hero, my parents? And finally, what's something 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:33.120 you can't without? 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:34.720 My faith? 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.440 Great? Okay, let's jump in. Let's start with a big 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.120 topic in marketing today. As marketers, we got spoiled in 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.399 the eighties, nineties, and oughts because Middle America was fascinated 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.160 by the coastal elites and wanted to emulate them. But 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.440 in the last decade that began to change. Consumers in 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.000 America don't necessarily look up to the coastal elites as 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.960 the cool kids anymore. There's a different mindset for real America, 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.840 Middle America, or flyover America, whatever you want to call it. 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.680 You're from rural Colorado and have a special understanding and 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.840 connection to this world. So here's the question. How do 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.160 we put something like Uber and TikTok and perspective. I 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.239 mean Uber, which I think everyone thinks is universal, that 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.480 only has ninety million active users in the US, and 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.840 TikTok reaches less than thirty percent of the American population, 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.680 not what you would think of. How do we keep 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:32.160 that from swaying our own judgment as it influences our 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.040 creativity and our decisions we make every day. 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.280 Well, I think it starts with each of us as individuals. Personally, 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.000 I work really hard to watch and listen to things 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.200 that I wouldn't normally watch and listen to just to 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.320 see the other point of view. Right, if you're an 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.400 individual that only watches Fox News, you should turn on 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.360 MSNBC every now and again because you get the contrast. 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.480 You hear and understand what the other side is saying, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.360 and it doesn't always have political Right. If you normally 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.200 listen to pop rock, turn on country every now and again, 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.720 just make yourself, as an individual be more curious about 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.440 how others experience the world. Travel to places that you 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.040 wouldn't normally choose to go to, and be present when 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.560 you're there. I think that's one when I bring it 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:20.920 into the context that you're speaking of with you know, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:26.320 professionals designing product or in our case, really understanding consumers 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.520 of products, whether that be current consumers or those that 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.720 our brands want a conquest. We spend a ton of 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:37.279 time really diving into what is unique about those individuals, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.200 what do they have in common, what is different. We 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.280 still do ethnographies to really go deep and understand the 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.479 psyche of those consumers so that we can be more 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.039 specific in how we communicate with them. It takes a 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.800 ton of energy, but again it's all about relevance. It's 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.760 all about individuals feeling like you know them, like you 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.640 understand them. It is about that deep understanding and the 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.840 channels that they rely on. Your point about TikTok, while 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.520 that is significantly growing, How people use it, why they 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.520 use it, the role that plays in their life is 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.200 significantly different than the other channels that we would be 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.200 advocating for brands, they all might play a role, and they. 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:14.520 Play very connected roles. 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.960 So really understanding how consumers are using different channels and 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.000 how those channels can come together in powerful ways is very, 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.680 very valuable. I also think the other thing that's changing 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.200 in our organizations to different degrees depending on the companies 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.120 we work with, but I'll use DENSU as my example. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.360 One thing COVID taught us is that people can work 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:36.040 from anywhere. 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.840 We are hiring people from all over, so we now 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.120 have thousands. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.120 Of people that sit in the middle of the country. 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.520 To your earlier point about it being so skewed by 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.040 the coasts and potentially being in a bubble, let's jump 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:49.480 to AI. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.680 Couldn't be a hotter topic right now? 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:53.040 Couldn't be a hotter topic. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.640 How will it change advertising and the work you do 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:57.440 for your clients. 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.960 There is not a meeting I go to where AI 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.320 is not a topic, if not the first topic. 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.359 And I think there's so many layers we have to 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:07.919 work through. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.480 If I start with us as an enterprise, we use 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.840 AI today, we will continue to use it to make 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.400 the work we do more efficient, faster, the quality of 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.279 it being potentially better done by computers, so we can 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.520 reframe our human capital against things that only people can do. 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.240 There's many places where we're using it where it's still human. 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:33.039 Assisted because it requires some oversight to make sure that 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.279 it is indeed giving us the best decision. Some of 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.919 that is around how do you quickly scroll through a 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.919 lot of resumes? We still want human assistance in that 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.680 to make sure that there's not bias. It's being integrated 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.440 into the system by virtue of AI. But I think 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.960 the enterprise business application, we're just beginning to fully understand that. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.400 I think that's pretty game changing for agency holding companies. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.960 When I turn to how we're using it with brands, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:03.520 I'll give you two examples. One of them is for Intel, 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:10.600 which has incredible technology to help remove fake content. So 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.880 the campaign is called deep fake, and through their facial recognition. 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.239 Using AI, they can identify very quickly on a computer 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.240 screen who is a real talking head and advocate or 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.880 pundent and who is fake. And that is now being 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.080 applied to governments and companies and media owners to make 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.720 sure that we get fake content out of the realm. 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.000 So that's one example of a client that's using AI 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.240 to really drive good in the world. Another is something 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:46.400 we've just launched with a brand called Europharma that is 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:52.080 using AI technology deeply in a scrolling sense on your 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.360 phone where it helps those with Parkinson's do their daily 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.960 exercises to make sure that they don't lose their facial expression, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.480 which is a very sad consequence of Parkinson's. So there's 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.720 game changing ways to use it to make our work 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.400 far more powerful. The final point I'll make that I 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.680 think we have to be careful about is there's just 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.200 as many probably downsides to it if we're not careful. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.520 And I am an advocate for proactive regulation and I'm 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.040 excited about some of the groups that are driving this, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.240 but I think there's lots of ways in which it 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.880 can go wrong if we're not very very astute and 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.240 hold hands as an industry and are very careful about it. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:35.720 Hot topic right now. The economics slowdown. Historically advertisers go, oh, economics, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.600 slow down, quick, take money out of advertising. Save that money, 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.680 We'll throw it to the bottom line, or let's hold 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.360 it and see what happens. There were some important lessons 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.560 learned from twenty twenty. I think one of them was 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.720 that people found that when they started spending again, it 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.800 cost them a lot more money than if they had 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.000 kept spending through the downturn. What do you see happening 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.280 now and what do you what are your thoughts on 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.240 at tizer spending in times like this. 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.840 I think there's so many case studies in history. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.800 Even if you go back to nineteen eighty two, another 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.000 moment where there was a recession, you had some of 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.720 the best brands launched during that time or grew during 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.520 that time as a result of their spending into it. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.680 So I think over history we have seen that continue 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.520 to be the case. What I see most with marketers 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.400 right now, which gives me a ton of optimism, is 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:31.160 there has been a focus certainly on performance right, performance 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.000 and ROI and all of that has definitely come even 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.120 more into focus in the last i'd say eighteen months. 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.520 We have some clients that are probably trading off some 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.680 of their brand spend and brand effort in preference of 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.760 performance right now, but not exclusively, and most are really 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.199 trying to figure out how you work up and down 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.839 that spectrum in order to ensure that you've got brand 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.079 love at the top, which naturally begins to drive performance 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.679 at the bottom of that fine. Well, the other thing 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.840 that gives me a ton of hope is I hear 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.079 our clients and our CEOs especially talk about marketing as 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.480 an investment, as a growth driver, not as a cost. 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.679 And I think that is to the credit of the 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.599 cmos who have embraced data. They've embraced the importance of 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.320 proving the value of every dollar we spend. Agencies have 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.640 done the same, and so I think it's a very 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.679 different conversation. You see cmos becoming growth officers. You see 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.240 cmos taking on sales and taking on a data scope 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:36.320 far broader than what they used to have, and I 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.600 think that speaks to marketing as a growth driver, not 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:40.280 as a cost. 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.640 I want to dig into topics we're talking about, but 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.840 I want to first get a little context on you. 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.360 I want to go back in time when you look 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.120 at the Dutton family of Yellowstone, anything there that reminds 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.160 you of your fifth generation Ranching family in rural Colorado. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.920 Oh my god. I love Yellowstone largely for that reason. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.280 Did not look like Yellowstone, So I want to be 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.360 perfectly clear. And we never branded each other, only the cattle. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.199 And I wish I was as crazy and as fun 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.720 as Beth, but I'm not. I wouldn't trade my upbringing 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.640 for anything because it was simple, right, it was, And 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.920 I don't I mean that as in the best way, right. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.680 I grew up in a very rural area, a little 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.760 town called Franktown in Colorado. I think at the time 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.480 there was probably twenty three hundred people in Frankown. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:29.960 There's probably not that much more now. 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.720 My graduating class in high school was two hundred and 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.160 probably bigger than most would think in a rural town 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.839 like that. And I walked into third grade and met 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.280 my best friends. There's seven of us, so we met 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.000 in third grade. We still celebrate every birthday and every 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.320 high and low of life. And I think that that 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:54.080 connectedness and that family and friends and faith first has 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.920 always stuck with me. You know. We sat around the 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.480 dinner every night together and talked about our day, and 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.440 somebody had to cook, somebody had to clean the dishes. 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.360 I just the routine of that and the consistency of that, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.400 I think served me well as a human. I hope 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.760 it has helped me raise children in a similar way, 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:16.920 although never raised with that level of ruralness that I had. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.360 So what influence did your family in that environment have 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.520 on you that's still with you today? That makes you, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:25.760 in essence who you are. 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:32.600 I had the gift of parents that believed anything was possible, 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.120 and they allowed us to do what we wanted to do. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.640 They never placed their points of view or their desires 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.080 on us. When I was deciding where to go to college, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.319 everybody in my family had gone to a university in Colorado, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:48.440 and for me, I felt I had four years to 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.600 live somewhere else, and everybody comes back to Colorado my 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.280 family and I raised it to my dad and he said, sure, honey, 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:56.360 you try, you. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.400 Go anywhere you want. You can do anything. 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.360 And you know, I guess whether or not I believe 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.200 that the fact that somebody else believed that in me 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:05.880 mattered a lot. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.440 Four h I told that story raising Steers. I'll bet 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.480 many of our listeners don't even know what four H is. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.640 Can you explain real quickly what four H is? 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:15.400 Yeah? 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:21.960 So four H is an organization where youth take on 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.880 different projects and those projects range from agriculture, which is 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.240 what I did, as well as home economics so cooking 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:31.960 and sewing, and I also did that. But it also 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.439 now has a lot of technology projects. They have archery. 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.559 The span of what they do now is far different 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.439 than it was when I participated, and it is across 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.280 the United States. Plenty of people in rural New York 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.079 do it and they teach horticulturalism and different things. It's 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.000 about giving your heart and your hands and your health 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:56.800 to better living and to really learn different projects. And 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.079 then you display those projects. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:13:59.160 So in my case. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.320 Is where I showed my steers, and then you sell 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.120 them and that money which I did for gosh, I 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.720 did that for twelve years. The money that I had 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.440 saved selling cattle helped pay for my first year of college, 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.160 as you mentioned. And it teaches you responsibility at a 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.480 really young age. Right, You're up at five thirty in 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.600 the morning to feed your animals. You have to walk them, 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.680 you have to show them, you have to bathe them. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.320 All of that is happening when you're nine years old, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.320 So it's a really good way to teach young leaders 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:28.120 at a. 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:29.080 Young age. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:37.440 Moral math and magic. Right after this quick break, welcome 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.920 back to math and magic. Let's hear more from my 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:45.040 conversation with Jackie Kelly. Let's get your career how and 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.840 why USA Today when you join, newspapers are still in 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.560 full swing and over time. Of course, we know what 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.000 happened to the newspaper and they made the transition to digital 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.080 and other kinds of businesses. What did you see in 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.920 USA today that initially excited you and then how did 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:04.440 you navigate that change? 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.280 I joined USA Today when they had just turned five 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.600 in nineteen eighty eight, and I joined as an intern, 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.600 and my initial reason for joining was it was opportunistic, right, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.280 I wanted to learn something. I was interested in broadcast journalism. 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.080 Obviously that wasn't broadcast journalism, but it was the opportunity 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:27.840 to get into a journalistic organization. And USA Today at 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.880 the time, I love the innovation of that product. At 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.520 the time, there was no color newspapers, there was no 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.720 nationally distributed newspaper. There was no newspaper that could have 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.960 the sports scores from the game ends at eleven o'clock, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.680 and it's in that morning paper. That was by virtue 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.000 of the satellite technology of printing that USA Today was 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.280 using at the time. So USA Today was breaking every 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:57.280 rule in newspapers, and I thought that was incredibly exciting. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.720 So I joined as an intern. Learned a ton That 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.000 was a company that gave me the opportunity. That was 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.920 a company that grew leaders. They would bring people in young, 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.080 they would teach them and train them and give them 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.040 lots of different opportunities. And so I left eighteen years later. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.840 I liked to joke that I was the longest living intern. 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.640 I had spent nine years in circulation and I spent 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.800 nine years in advertising. So you know, the distribution side 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.480 of a company like USA Today is just as critical 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.160 as the advertising. In the case of USA Today, we 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.120 had just as much revenue, sometimes far more in circulation 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.440 than we did in advertising, especially in the early days, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.360 as we were convincing advertisers that this was a viable product. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:37.840 So I loved it because it was innovative. 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.880 You went on to Yahoo, you did a stint with 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.920 Martha Stewart, and then you crossed the fence to the 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:48.800 agency side running media brands. What made you jump the fence? 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.400 This is kind of a fun story, and I give 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:56.080 credit to people that can identify talent and then encourage 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.480 us to do something that would not be obvious to us. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.240 Case I had left USA, I had gone to Yahoo 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.840 and worked for Wyndam Millard. Wynda Millard is an incredible 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.800 mentor for me and convinced me to come to Yahoo. 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:11.679 But it wasn't that hard to convince me because I 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.280 knew newspapers were changing. I knew I needed to get 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.359 a much better digital education. I wanted to go to 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.359 the deep end, and at the time, Yahoo or Google 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.119 were your two choices, and Yahoo was teaching brands how 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:24.720 to build a brand on the web, so that was 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.880 obvious for me. And then followed Wenda to Martha Stewart 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.960 to fully integrate Martha's organization. It was post her being 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.960 in what she calls the clink clink, and we were 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.840 building her brand back and consumers never left her, advertisers had, 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:40.760 so there was a lot of work to do around 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.600 integrating her organization. I'd love that challenge. It was in 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.920 that moment that Wenda actually had heard about an opportunity 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.720 through a friend of hers that was running UM globally, 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.760 a gentleman named Matt Siler, and she said, you should 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.560 look at this because it would be a next phase 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.760 of your career. And I had wanted to be at 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.840 the agency side. I'd been on a panel at Advertising 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.320 Week and famously referred to agencies as a barrier to 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.240 my progress as a media owner, which did not go overwhell. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:17.160 But I believed that agencies were failing clients and media 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.439 owners because they were not giving us the gift of 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.080 time and transparency. Those were the two things that I 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.959 really wanted from an agency, and I just couldn't get anyway. 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.720 Long story short, Matt saw what I saw. Matt saw 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.520 the opportunity to leverage media owners as real content partners 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.320 in the work that media brands and UM specifically was 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.600 doing for clients. And it was the first time that 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:43.600 I saw an agency executive see what I saw as 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.199 the opportunity to partner differently with media owners. And it 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:47.760 was one of those moments in life where you can 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.439 keep complaining and pointing the finger and wishing it was different, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.800 or you can jump to the other side and help 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.399 make that so. And then I got bit right then. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.000 I just loved the agency side. It's such an incredible 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:01.000 place to operate in our industry. But that's how I 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.320 got there, great people that told me I should. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.920 Well, you jumped the fence again, back when you went 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:08.919 with Michael Bloomberg when he had just come out of 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.840 his twelve years as probably the most spectacular in New 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.800 York City mayor ever, and you joined just as he 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.199 was re entering the private world. Tell us what was 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.040 so great about that that caused you to go, Wait 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:22.840 a minute, I'm in the ad world, but now I'm 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:23.399 going back. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.080 So I'm one of those people, and this is probably 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.560 not a good thing to share, but I keep my 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.280 head down and I don't really look for new opportunities, 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.680 but then something will get into my line of sight 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.160 and I get excited about it. And that's what happened 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.119 with Bloomberg. Mike was coming back to the organization, but 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.960 it was assumed he'd come back into the foundation. I 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.560 don't think anybody assumed he'd come back and be the 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.199 CEO of the company again. And the leadership at the 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.639 time was going to take the twenty six hundred journalists 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.080 of Bloomberg, which is at the time was more than CNN, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.119 New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal combined. It 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.280 was a for Milis still is a formidable journalism team, 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:06.760 and again going back to my love of journalism and 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.040 the importance of that and being in a newsroom, I 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.760 missed that aspect, and so the intention was to take 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:18.040 that incredible journalistic team and really create a competitor to CNN. 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.280 So it was broad in the aperture, from financial news 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.840 to broader general news as well. That's what got me 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.520 in there. And it was integrated right. They had broadcasts, 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.040 they had print, they have the terminal, they have incredible 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.919 digital property, and so the ability to run that and 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.960 have some oversight of editorial was super interesting to me. 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.280 We talked a little bit about den Sue. You obviously 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.520 came back to DENSU. You've had a spectacular impact in 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.720 advertising again through DENSU. I want to talk a little 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.360 bit about corporate culture. People have said our corporate cultures 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.199 and our values is our operating system, and just like 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.240 in technology, if you don't get that right, none of 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.920 the other programs work well. Had DENSU you got the 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.280 far flung organization. We've talked about people working remotely. Now 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.240 and wyoming in places like that, how do you get 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:11.000 buy in, especially post pandemic, the new work environment. 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.840 I will say post pandemic, it's harder. I think it's 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.359 harder because we do not have people coming together in 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:19.760 the way they used to, which means as leaders, we 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.760 need to work harder at it. First and foremost, my 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.000 executive team and I work really hard on making sure 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.240 that we are embodying those cultures. We spend a lot 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.560 of time becoming as productive as we can as a 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:36.400