Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest this week is Kendall Astro, head of i Q
Speaker 1: Strategy for u t A, one of the three biggest
Speaker 1: talent agencies, not only in Los Angeles, been in the world.
Speaker 1: They used to call it United Talent because it was
Speaker 1: a unification of a couple of talent agencies. And you say,
Speaker 1: who is Kendall Astrow? I didn't know she was either
Speaker 1: until I was on this program in Utah. I met
Speaker 1: her and she was so knowledgeable about social media. But
Speaker 1: she told me this is September she was going to
Speaker 1: sell the first snapchat series, which she then did. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Kendall, good to have you here. Thanks. Okay, what
Speaker 1: exactly do you do at you t A. So my
Speaker 1: group sits across all the departments of the agency and
Speaker 1: we help our clients, you know, from every discipline, build
Speaker 1: their strategy for how they're going to talk to their fans.
Speaker 1: How do you build an audience, How do you talk
Speaker 1: about yourself? How do you use all the best tools
Speaker 1: at your disposal, all the social media platforms to really
Speaker 1: a mass attention and uh control the crowd and figure
Speaker 1: out you know, how to use those things to your
Speaker 1: advantage in today's day and age, and then we use
Speaker 1: all the data and analytics from all those platforms to
Speaker 1: better sell them in the marketplace. So how do we
Speaker 1: make more money on every renegotiation for a television show
Speaker 1: or with every commercial endorsement deal based on the massive
Speaker 1: influence and audience that our clients can bring to the table. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're young enough I can ask this question, and I'm
Speaker 1: asking for different reason. You are how old today? Two
Speaker 1: and a half and a half? And my point is,
Speaker 1: does anybody over forty really understand social media? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And who are those people? I don't mean by name?
Speaker 1: How do they know? I think that you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that social media is not completely new.
Speaker 1: You've got to be ahead of the times. You have
Speaker 1: to trend, forecast and see what's coming. But people used
Speaker 1: to build grassroots audiences and street teams and and things
Speaker 1: like that. It's it's the the idea of amassing an
Speaker 1: audience and building that type of fan base isn't new.
Speaker 1: It's just the platforms by which we do it. And
Speaker 1: so how you communicate, Like if you're entrenched in old
Speaker 1: old business in old Hollywood, sometimes you want to bare
Speaker 1: your head in the sand and not think about these things.
Speaker 1: But I don't think the mechanics are necessarily that new
Speaker 1: the idea of it, so you just have to learn
Speaker 1: the new tools to catch up today. What is the
Speaker 1: number one platform to build an audience depends on what
Speaker 1: your business goals are. Okay, what might my business goals be? Well,
Speaker 1: I think probably in general, most of my clients would
Speaker 1: say that they're spending the most time and attention on
Speaker 1: a platform like Instagram. That's that's where they're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of lift. But our YouTube stars are still amassing
Speaker 1: massive audiences and building out such robust businesses on that platform,
Speaker 1: and the interaction with the fans is so much deeper.
Speaker 1: Sometimes on platforms like that, where it's a little more
Speaker 1: long form, they have a little bit more of a
Speaker 1: community engagement. Um. But you can't be on one like
Speaker 1: you know, you can't just be on one platform and
Speaker 1: think you're going to have a sustainable business. We saw
Speaker 1: people who invested every ounce of their time on platforms
Speaker 1: like Vine, and those people unless they diversified and also
Speaker 1: built how YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etcetera, they kind of
Speaker 1: disappeared from public eye. So you need to build a
Speaker 1: city of towers to build your audience. You can't just
Speaker 1: have one big skyscraper. Wow, you must have said that before.
Speaker 1: That's so good the turns of the analogy. But those
Speaker 1: are people who started on vine. Let's assume now most
Speaker 1: of the clients you're working with U. T. A Are
Speaker 1: already established stars. Correct some, but let's let's just start
Speaker 1: with that. If I'm an established star, okay, and I
Speaker 1: for some reason, I've been enacting school or whatever, I've
Speaker 1: been making my celebrity and this is not really the
Speaker 1: case now because everybody is growing up in our social
Speaker 1: media and I have no social media presence. What would
Speaker 1: you tell me? What we'd sit down and we'd talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, what are your long term goals? Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's just assume I could be an actor, I could
Speaker 1: be a musician. Let's say I'm an actor. What might
Speaker 1: give me an example what my long term goal would be? Well,
Speaker 1: do you want to win an Oscar? Do you want
Speaker 1: to be in a Blockbuster franchise? Are they mutually exclusive?
Speaker 1: But the one that's a little more complicated because Blockbuster
Speaker 1: is really where the world is. Say, let's say I
Speaker 1: want to win an Oscar? What would I do in
Speaker 1: social media? You know, we we are fortunate to have
Speaker 1: a lot of incredible people who are you know, just
Speaker 1: nominated this year, and some have social media like Timothy
Speaker 1: shallow May like you know, he is on and active
Speaker 1: and posting great content on Instagram. And then Francis mcdormant,
Speaker 1: who you know, obviously chose not to and I don't
Speaker 1: you know with it, where like that do you need
Speaker 1: to be on social media? Probably not someone of that
Speaker 1: ilk okay, Francis McDorman. Uh, someone over fifty who is
Speaker 1: a well established career. Would it benefit a person like
Speaker 1: that to be on social media? I think it depends
Speaker 1: on where they want to go in their career. So
Speaker 1: I've back. I no longer represent him. But in my
Speaker 1: previous career I worked with Patrick Stewart for a long
Speaker 1: time and I'm so proud of what we did with him,
Speaker 1: and he was not on social media, and uh, with
Speaker 1: the help of his incredible wife and I, we sat
Speaker 1: down and we taught him kind of how to do
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And he really want to be taken
Speaker 1: seriously as a comedic actor. And you know, with someone
Speaker 1: sir Patrick's you know, credibility and all the awards and
Speaker 1: all the accolades. Do you think he needs to be
Speaker 1: on social But the way he was able to change
Speaker 1: his brand image and the way that he was able
Speaker 1: to get people to see this completely different side of
Speaker 1: him through Twitter was amazing. He was the first person
Speaker 1: that Twitter reached out and actually invited to their headquarters
Speaker 1: instead of people saying I want to come by and
Speaker 1: come to you guys as a press stop when they
Speaker 1: were really doing a lot of those things at h
Speaker 1: Q and San Francisco, and he went, I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to attend the opening bell ceremony when they you know,
Speaker 1: went the I p oed on the New York Stock
Speaker 1: Exchange because they wanted him there as one of their
Speaker 1: most powerful and influential voices on the platform because they
Speaker 1: thought what he did to change his persona and connect
Speaker 1: with the community was just so incredible. So it depends
Speaker 1: on what the goals are. Like I said, like, you
Speaker 1: can't put the formula instead of something in front of
Speaker 1: someone and say it's een, here's what you have to
Speaker 1: do to succeed in this business. There's a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, even like Jennifer Lawrence, like you know she's
Speaker 1: not completely active. I think she has an active Facebook
Speaker 1: page that you know, people will post news and trailers
Speaker 1: and stuff like that on. But it doesn't matter your age,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter um kind of when you were born
Speaker 1: and what you should do. It depends on what you
Speaker 1: want to accomplish. Do you want to be more of
Speaker 1: a lifestyle brand. Do you want to really connect with
Speaker 1: the audience. Do you want to be able to sell
Speaker 1: and drive and you know, produce your own projects and
Speaker 1: then distribute them through this fan base that you have,
Speaker 1: or do you want to stay a little more out
Speaker 1: of the public eye. So I think you have to
Speaker 1: really analyze and and go deep with a client, say
Speaker 1: why are you even doing this? Because if you don't
Speaker 1: commit and really know why you're on and know what
Speaker 1: goals you're trying to reach, you're just gonna put out
Speaker 1: weird stuff that that's not going to build any type
Speaker 1: of sustainable strategy and it's not going to be effective
Speaker 1: for you long term. Let's stay with Patrick Stewart just
Speaker 1: so I know Twitter start in two thousand seven, I
Speaker 1: believe six six. When did he go on? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: um uh must have been two thousand eleven or two
Speaker 1: thousand twelves. Okay, so it was already deep into Twitter's popularity. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would call two thousand ten like the summer of Twitter.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it was two thousand twelve. I think so
Speaker 1: at point many people were already on Twitter, and he
Speaker 1: specifically wanted to get more opportunities in the comedy field.
Speaker 1: So did you sit down and say, hey, make most
Speaker 1: of your tweets funny? How did you decide to do that? Well?
Speaker 1: I was working at I D PR at the time,
Speaker 1: and Kelly Bush has been Patrick's publicists since the beginning
Speaker 1: of of of you know, I D I think he
Speaker 1: was client number one. Um, and she was the one
Speaker 1: who was like, we need to get you on It's
Speaker 1: it's time you need to be on social media. So
Speaker 1: she brought him in and I sat with him and
Speaker 1: we figured out what are your goals? And then we
Speaker 1: sit down and um, you know, for most of my
Speaker 1: clients will sit down and we'll think, you know, what
Speaker 1: are the three things that someone can take away someone
Speaker 1: that you've met taught me uh Linda on uh she
Speaker 1: does a brand triangle, like what are the three things
Speaker 1: people can't wrap their head around? Million assets of your
Speaker 1: aspects of your personality? Do you boil it down to
Speaker 1: what are the three things you really want people to
Speaker 1: know about you? And I use that in social media?
Speaker 1: Is like what are those six images that are before
Speaker 1: below the fold or above the fold on on your
Speaker 1: app on or on your nine images on Instagram? What
Speaker 1: are those nine things that people are going to take away?
Speaker 1: What's that first instinct, that first impression they're going to
Speaker 1: get when they type you into Google, when they pull
Speaker 1: up the first five tweets on your account? Like what
Speaker 1: is what is that big takeaway? And are you hitting
Speaker 1: those three things that you want people to know? And
Speaker 1: if you are, we're being successful if I only take
Speaker 1: one thing away of who you are, or if it's
Speaker 1: all completely promotional and I have no idea why, Um,
Speaker 1: you know what drives you? What makes you want to
Speaker 1: be an artist? What are you here for? Like? Why
Speaker 1: are you even popping into my sphere of attention? If
Speaker 1: I can't figure out what those three things are, then
Speaker 1: we have a problem. So a lot of times I'll
Speaker 1: google the heck out of my clients and I'll read
Speaker 1: every article, every interview, read tweets from a year ago,
Speaker 1: like really go deep, and I'll make a complete assumption
Speaker 1: on who they are, what they stand for, what drives them,
Speaker 1: what they believe, what are their hobbies before I ever
Speaker 1: sit down with them. And then I'll talk to them
Speaker 1: and I'll see what alignes and I'll say, well, based
Speaker 1: on what I saw on Google, not knowing you, not
Speaker 1: knowing the business, not hearing from anyone in your inner circle,
Speaker 1: here's what I judge and here's what I assume. And
Speaker 1: if it doesn't match up with what you're telling me,
Speaker 1: then we have a problem. If your goals are to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, launch a fitness company, and I see none
Speaker 1: of that activity anywhere on your channels, and obviously there's
Speaker 1: a huge disconnect. How do you start to seed that
Speaker 1: information and seed that content into the stream and into
Speaker 1: people's consciousness before you want to launch that business so
Speaker 1: they can start to see you as an influencer or
Speaker 1: as a you know, notable person in that space. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. You grew up in
Speaker 1: the state of Washington, and what were your interests back then? UM, Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Always from a young age, you always wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the entertainment business. When I had no self awareness
Speaker 1: and UM completely just did what I loved. I danced
Speaker 1: and took voice lessons for years. And why do you
Speaker 1: say when you had no self awareness? Well, I took
Speaker 1: voice lessons for eight years and can't carry a tune.
Speaker 1: My grandma once told me over breakfast with one of
Speaker 1: my best friends that one of the hardest experiences of
Speaker 1: her life was going as a grandma was going to
Speaker 1: my voice recitals because it was so painful. Um but
Speaker 1: I danced competitively since I was eighteen. I did you know,
Speaker 1: community theater and you know, played every apart from Sunday
Speaker 1: except for the ones that required a lot of singing.
Speaker 1: The callbacks to Annie were just horrible because I can't
Speaker 1: carry it note at all. But it was a good actress.
Speaker 1: Um But I wanted to do, you know. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be in the business I loved. I loved
Speaker 1: every aspect of performing and entertainment. I just wasn't great
Speaker 1: at it. So I had to figure out a career
Speaker 1: that would allow me to be When did you I
Speaker 1: mean you said after eight years you realized you couldn't
Speaker 1: carry a tune? When did you decide you wanted to
Speaker 1: be behind the camera instead of in front of it? Um?
Speaker 1: I just think I wanted to be around it. I
Speaker 1: think I kind of knew I'd never be a performer.
Speaker 1: I always knew that. I knew that I was never
Speaker 1: that good, um or even close to it, even at
Speaker 1: like age nine or ten. I just loved the whole
Speaker 1: process of it. And I would consume pop culture like
Speaker 1: a crazy person. My aunt, uh you know, subscribe to
Speaker 1: every people in Vogue and Vanity Fair. I'd read every
Speaker 1: single thing I could get my hands on. I just
Speaker 1: was a huge consumer of the world and I loved
Speaker 1: staying ahead of the trends and you know, seeing what
Speaker 1: was next. I never you know, Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I just always wanted to be a part
Speaker 1: of it. So in college, I majored in Before you
Speaker 1: get to college, were your parents supportive of this interest? Yeah? Completely.
Speaker 1: I mean my mom would drive two hours every night
Speaker 1: for theater practice or you know, from my rehearsals and stuff,
Speaker 1: so I could, um be in different local productions around
Speaker 1: the state. And um, I think I was at dance
Speaker 1: practice from two o'clock after school until ten pm. And
Speaker 1: you know, they were very very supportive. Dance competitions, the
Speaker 1: whole thing, seven days a week, so you're talking about
Speaker 1: going to college. So I went to college and I
Speaker 1: looked for a big school on the West coast that
Speaker 1: had a Greek system and a dance program. Okay, why
Speaker 1: did you want a Greek system? Everyone in my family
Speaker 1: had gone Greek. I don't know. I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: know much about what I like, what major even like,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even a consideration. It was like, there was
Speaker 1: these weird things that I wanted. I wanted a big school.
Speaker 1: So I went to the University of Arizona, and uh
Speaker 1: ended up retrospect was at the right choice led me
Speaker 1: to where I am and I'm very happy. So who knows,
Speaker 1: you know, you could take a million different paths. You're
Speaker 1: gonna end up somewhere, and I'm really happy with where
Speaker 1: I ended up. And I had a great time there.
Speaker 1: So okay, so could I have challenged myself more based
Speaker 1: on my grades? And yeah? Probably? But what what was
Speaker 1: your vision there? At the University of Arizona. So they
Speaker 1: had a major that was like the film, radio, and television.
Speaker 1: It was like a media arts degree, and I majored
Speaker 1: in producing so the behind the scenes of that business
Speaker 1: and UM took a couple of classes that were really
Speaker 1: instrumental and where I am very slowly. Because so many
Speaker 1: people talk about their educational experience not being helpful. What
Speaker 1: were those couple of classes that were so helpful? Uh?
Speaker 1: There was this one class specifically that was called New
Speaker 1: Media Business or something like that, and it just studied
Speaker 1: new technologies and new advancements in the entertainment business and
Speaker 1: you know where things were going. Um, so just you know,
Speaker 1: really forward thinking, you know, wearable devices. And this was
Speaker 1: two thousand six, I think, so just kind of really
Speaker 1: digging into some of the new trends that were coming
Speaker 1: around the pike. And one of my professors, BARRETTA. Ea
Speaker 1: S Smith SHOWMATI was such a force and I took
Speaker 1: every class that was uh on the schedule with her
Speaker 1: and I was really panicking senior year. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. I really want to
Speaker 1: go to the entertainment business, but I know no one.
Speaker 1: We're in Arizona. I have no idea what to do.
Speaker 1: She was like, sit in a dark room, be bored
Speaker 1: out of your mind for fifteen thirty minutes. Just be
Speaker 1: as bored as you can. Don't do anything. I think
Speaker 1: it was before anyone knew it or anyone I knew
Speaker 1: knew what meditation was, but she was just like, clear
Speaker 1: your mind completely, sit down, and then when you snap
Speaker 1: out of it, when the alarm goes off, what are
Speaker 1: the first things you want to do? And the first
Speaker 1: thing I did was pick up my computer and I
Speaker 1: went to this is embarrassing, uh, Mashable dot com and
Speaker 1: Perez Hilton dot com and it was like tech and
Speaker 1: entertainment and tech and pop culture really, and that's what
Speaker 1: I was interested in. I really wanted to be a
Speaker 1: talk show producer, and I had had internships in radio
Speaker 1: and film and television, and I loved the immediacy of radio.
Speaker 1: I loved how fast it moved, that every day was different,
Speaker 1: that you'd come in and be able to make something
Speaker 1: up on the fly. You wouldn't have to sit around
Speaker 1: and wait for gatekeepers. Whatever you wanted to do you
Speaker 1: could do. And with that it was, you know, prior
Speaker 1: to social media and tech and you know a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff becoming more mainstream. And back in the
Speaker 1: day I was working at Clear Channel, they had which
Speaker 1: I heart now obviously, but um they had text in.
Speaker 1: It was like you text four seven three seven three
Speaker 1: to be part of the show. So it was almost
Speaker 1: like early Twitter in a way, and we would have
Speaker 1: people text into the show and we'd be able to
Speaker 1: change the programming and call people out and get fan
Speaker 1: feedback and completely adjust the show based on what people
Speaker 1: People are unaware. You would text in and text in
Speaker 1: saying what we would ask a question, or people would
Speaker 1: just text in and say I want to talk about this,
Speaker 1: or um, you know, they would just whatever they wanted
Speaker 1: to say, and then we'd print out all these text
Speaker 1: messages like thousands per show and dive into those and
Speaker 1: adjust the content on the fly. And then when I
Speaker 1: was interning in film and TV, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm reading this. It's not going to be produced for
Speaker 1: seven years, Like, I just don't understand. The pace of
Speaker 1: it was not appealing to me. Um, So that immediacy
Speaker 1: I loved. So instead of radio, I thought, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's move to l A and make a go at
Speaker 1: it and television. And so before you go, before you
Speaker 1: go to moving to l A, So how did you
Speaker 1: end up working at iHeart or then Clear Channel. Um,
Speaker 1: my dad is a corporate litigator, but for some reason
Speaker 1: met some sports radio guys on the golf course. I
Speaker 1: think and had done their deals, and he said, I'll
Speaker 1: open a door for you. I don't know what's there,
Speaker 1: but you need to walk through it. And so he
Speaker 1: introduced me to the head of Clear Channel at the
Speaker 1: time in Seattle, and I interviewed and got an internship
Speaker 1: in the street team of the hip hop radio station there.
Speaker 1: And this was when you were in college my freshman year,
Speaker 1: freshman year. So how much did you work at the station? Um?
Speaker 1: My freshman summer, I wore five days a week, I
Speaker 1: think like part of the day at the radio station
Speaker 1: and then part of the day at the Sonics, which
Speaker 1: were upstairs two floors, so they're in the same building.
Speaker 1: So I the SuperSonics the basketball team, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I did both things. So I was a street team
Speaker 1: kind of marketing on both both companies. How did you
Speaker 1: get the gig with the Sonics? My dad also my
Speaker 1: dad represented Kevin Collabra and so the voice the Sonics
Speaker 1: that he helped me there as well, So I was lucky.
Speaker 1: That was the last time anyone of my family helped
Speaker 1: me with the jobs. But those are the two doors
Speaker 1: I got open. Okay, So how many summers did you
Speaker 1: work for the Clear Channel station? Um, basically all three
Speaker 1: summers of college and throughout the year. How could you
Speaker 1: work throughout the year if you're in Arizona. Well, I
Speaker 1: would call into the station to be on the air
Speaker 1: when I was away, and then I would work all
Speaker 1: Christmas break, spring break, summer breaks. Okay, so you're in Arizona,
Speaker 1: you're calling in to say what just check in. I
Speaker 1: was the intern for the morning show, so they would
Speaker 1: just call and check in a couple of times a
Speaker 1: week on what I was up to and how things
Speaker 1: were going at college. So when you by by time,
Speaker 1: you're deep into it and the people know you. What
Speaker 1: is your role in the radio show? Kendle the intern?
Speaker 1: Kendle the intern. So it's like Howard Stern, it his
Speaker 1: internee plage on you talk and you're also doing roles
Speaker 1: when you're not on are Yeah okay. So you graduate
Speaker 1: from college, you have the epiphany that you want to
Speaker 1: be in the entertainment business. You pull up Paris, Hilton
Speaker 1: and Mashable. Ironically, you ended up marrying someone who was
Speaker 1: the number two a Mashable. Yeah, okay, so you graduate
Speaker 1: from college. When you graduate from college, you have a job. Um,
Speaker 1: so I the same professor that told me to sit
Speaker 1: in a dark room. Um knew when she went to
Speaker 1: college with a producer on Jay Leno and I was
Speaker 1: told at the time there were a couple areas. There
Speaker 1: was only two ways to break into the entertainment business.
Speaker 1: You either did the mail room in an agency or
Speaker 1: you did the Page program NBC, and those were the
Speaker 1: two options. That's all you could do if you wanted
Speaker 1: to get a foot in the door in Hollywood. And
Speaker 1: at the time, Entourage was on and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh lord, I don't want to be an agent. That
Speaker 1: seems horrible, just money hungry and crazy, and that that
Speaker 1: was my only, uh, you know, assumption of the business.
Speaker 1: So I was like, well, I'm going to do the
Speaker 1: Page program and I want to be in that. I
Speaker 1: want to do a talk show. I want to work
Speaker 1: and you know, daily produced entertainment television the way that
Speaker 1: you know, the next step from radio and what I
Speaker 1: what I kind of was thinking. And so I did
Speaker 1: the Page program. I applied, Okay, can you apply specifically
Speaker 1: to be on a talk show. It's like a general program.
Speaker 1: So I applied. I didn't hear back. I reached out
Speaker 1: with follow up probably twice a week. Once a week,
Speaker 1: I'd call an email. I was I was relentless. Never
Speaker 1: got a call back because they it's a rolling program.
Speaker 1: They're not going to hire me ten months in advance.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really understand how it worked, but
Speaker 1: I was just a dog with a bone. I had
Speaker 1: to get the page program. It was all I want it.
Speaker 1: And I finally got a call from Betty, who ran
Speaker 1: the program at the time. This was we're in your
Speaker 1: college career. I was two steps from walking across the
Speaker 1: stage at graduation and Betty called me and I said, Betty,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for this call all my life. I
Speaker 1: really want to take it, but I've got to walk
Speaker 1: these fifty yards before i can take the job with you.
Speaker 1: Can I call you back on Monday? And she said absolutely.
Speaker 1: I was so upset. I was like, I may have
Speaker 1: lost my chance, but I have to graduate. If I
Speaker 1: don't walk out there, I can't take this job. So
Speaker 1: I walked across and I called her, and I drove
Speaker 1: to l A that day. I think I called her
Speaker 1: on the way and I was like, Betty, I'm driving
Speaker 1: to you. Can I interview tomorrow? And I got went
Speaker 1: in and I got the job. Okay, we'll return to
Speaker 1: this conversation with Kendall Lostrow, head of i Q Strategy
Speaker 1: for U t A. In a moment. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast recording you to tune In
Speaker 1: studios in Venice, California. Each week, I interview a new
Speaker 1: guest to get their story. I want to find out
Speaker 1: what makes them tick, and I hope listening to these
Speaker 1: successful people makes you smart them. If you like the show, subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate and review it. Also, please check out earlier episodes.
Speaker 1: You can hear them all on tune in, Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts now More with Kendal Astro,
Speaker 1: head of i Q Strategy for U t A. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's sue you hadn't got the job. What was your plan? So?
Speaker 1: I had flown to l A a a month before to
Speaker 1: try to knock on her door and get it. And
Speaker 1: I'd also applied to a bunch of internships and jobs,
Speaker 1: and I went to I went to I had to
Speaker 1: I like, interviewed to MTV for an internship which I
Speaker 1: ended up taking for like a couple, you know, six
Speaker 1: weeks that summer before the page program opened up. Because
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to have downtime. Um. And then
Speaker 1: I had my resume and I remember walking miles that day,
Speaker 1: just dropping it off at every door in Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: trying to get meetings, trying to like completely crazy, but
Speaker 1: I just I was going to make it somehow. In
Speaker 1: with Betty and the internship with MTV. Were there any
Speaker 1: other opportunities? There was pretty much a closed door at
Speaker 1: all these places. No. I interviewed all right, and Um.
Speaker 1: I also interned at Donald the Line Pictures and realized
Speaker 1: that the film business was a little slow for me. Um.
Speaker 1: But I mean I moved out and I started, you know,
Speaker 1: within eight weeks. I think. So you drove out, you
Speaker 1: had your interview with Betty and she said, yes, but
Speaker 1: you gotta wait because it was a rolling program. I thought.
Speaker 1: She said, yes, eight people, nine people every um every
Speaker 1: two months. I think is closed her immediately, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Well where'd you where? Um? I lived with two roommates
Speaker 1: from college in Santa Monica until that commute to Burbank
Speaker 1: got a little crazy, and then I moved to I
Speaker 1: went on Craigslist, much to everyone in my family's horror,
Speaker 1: and moved in with two guys I didn't know much
Speaker 1: about anything. Um, But it was a great house and
Speaker 1: they had a recording studio in the back and when
Speaker 1: I was there, some people were showing up to start
Speaker 1: recording music. It turns out they were a band for
Speaker 1: that Tattoo band, the girls back in the day. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. So I lived with that band for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. And that was where in Toluca Lake, Okay,
Speaker 1: very close to Burbank for those in l A and
Speaker 1: valley savvy. So you get the job in the pay
Speaker 1: per gram. When you get the job, how long is
Speaker 1: it supposed to last. You have to be out within
Speaker 1: a year. Have to be out within a year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to find a job within a year. So
Speaker 1: you do assignments and it's an apprenticeship program. So I
Speaker 1: did tours and I wore the peacock tie, you know,
Speaker 1: the Kenneth the Page suit. It was awesome. It was
Speaker 1: like a little mini uh college campus with all of
Speaker 1: us because we were all about the same age, all
Speaker 1: brand new, first time in l A. All became best friends.
Speaker 1: And how many of those people ended up in the
Speaker 1: entertainment business. Oh quite a lot of them. My best
Speaker 1: friends still. Um, the couple you know, chose different paths,
Speaker 1: but from most part most of them are still okay.
Speaker 1: So you knew you wanted to work on a talk show,
Speaker 1: So did you get to work on a talk show?
Speaker 1: So it was the old NBC lot, the Bob Hope
Speaker 1: a lot. So I worked on you know, we did
Speaker 1: tours and we sat audience at Carson Daly at the time,
Speaker 1: and Leno and Ellen, and then I was at Ellen.
Speaker 1: Um and everyone wanted to work at Ellen and no,
Speaker 1: I mean she is just she. It was the best,
Speaker 1: and I think there was not very much turnover at Leno.
Speaker 1: Most of his employees had been there for you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen years at that point there, everyone had been there
Speaker 1: for a really long time. Ellen, it was season five
Speaker 1: and it was still uh, you know, there was still
Speaker 1: some turnover and still some opportunity there. So Um, within
Speaker 1: two and a half months of being in the Page Program,
Speaker 1: I got the interview at Ellen for the executive producer's
Speaker 1: assistant and got the job. And so within three months
Speaker 1: I was out of the Page Program and working at Ellen.
Speaker 1: So the Page Program is basically away. It's a wheel
Speaker 1: to try to spin yourself out to get a job,
Speaker 1: and was three months short or long relative to the
Speaker 1: other people. I was the first in my class to leave.
Speaker 1: And you're okay, your gig was the assistant to the
Speaker 1: executive producer. Was that a fulfilling job? It was great.
Speaker 1: It was you know, grad school for the entertainment business. Oh,
Speaker 1: when you're a page, you're getting paid, yeah, kind of
Speaker 1: kind of okay. So then when you when you go
Speaker 1: to work for Ellen and getting paid a kind of
Speaker 1: but yes, you're still you know, it's still an assistant
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, you get um, you get experience more than
Speaker 1: you get money, probably until you hit that inflection point
Speaker 1: when you become a couple of years into being an
Speaker 1: exact maybe okay. So then when you work for Ellen,
Speaker 1: how much of your time does it take up? Um?
Speaker 1: Self inflicted or self inflicted? Self inflicted? I probably left
Speaker 1: the house every day at six am and got home
Speaker 1: somewhere around eleven pm midnight. And did you work on
Speaker 1: the weekends, And what would you do on the weekends
Speaker 1: with with the studio will be dark with or you'd
Speaker 1: just be working at home. I'd be working at home.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'd go in. But it again, self inflicted, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't that, it was it was demanding of course
Speaker 1: you have. You know, there's no when you're in production,
Speaker 1: you have to be there, you have to be present.
Speaker 1: You were there as long as you know. You're the
Speaker 1: first one and the last one out in a job
Speaker 1: like that. But it was self inflicted. Like I read.
Speaker 1: I noticed that my boss got every magazine subscription and
Speaker 1: every newspaper in the world, and you know, was a
Speaker 1: he wanted to consume a ton of information but didn't
Speaker 1: always have time. So I would read every single thing
Speaker 1: that would come into his desk and highlight and flag
Speaker 1: what I thought was relevant. So I was more informed
Speaker 1: than I've ever been in my life. And I would
Speaker 1: send him articles. I was a power Google Reader user,
Speaker 1: like I must have been in their top one percent
Speaker 1: of users. And I would go through every single dog
Speaker 1: and website and you know, magazine. What should we book
Speaker 1: on the show? What I was so annoying, I'm sure
Speaker 1: to every producer because I'd be like, this is a
Speaker 1: brand new thing, this is a brand new thing. You
Speaker 1: guys should be on top of this, you guys. Have
Speaker 1: you guys have heard of Twitter? Have you heard of Facebook?
Speaker 1: Like this should be something that you guys are all over.
Speaker 1: It's free marketing. Have those website people in the corner
Speaker 1: do it and kind of didn't get taken seriously. And
Speaker 1: I was so fresh out of college I thought that
Speaker 1: writing like thesis style essays about the future of how
Speaker 1: these social media platforms would be used and uh in
Speaker 1: the entertainment business was a good idea. And those thesis
Speaker 1: papers probably weren't received the way I intended them to be.
Speaker 1: But um, I would write crazy essays on what I
Speaker 1: thought the future of the business would look like and
Speaker 1: how we went from sitting around, you know, the fireplace,
Speaker 1: to the electronic hearth with the radio, and then the
Speaker 1: television and the water cooler, and then social media was
Speaker 1: like the new gathering spot where people would talk about
Speaker 1: Ellen and I pitched that basically, you guys are producing
Speaker 1: for one hour a day everyone in this building. Let
Speaker 1: me produce for twenty three hours a day, round the
Speaker 1: clock on her social media for all the hours that
Speaker 1: you know, you guys aren't on the air. And um,
Speaker 1: after a while, Diddy came on the show and told
Speaker 1: her about social media. Diddy, I don't know, this might
Speaker 1: have been two thousand and eight to early two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and um, didd he told her about it and she
Speaker 1: was like, what the heck is this and they were like, Kendall,
Speaker 1: get down to the control room. It was like everything
Speaker 1: is already set up, let's go. So it became my
Speaker 1: job overnight and so that launching all her social media
Speaker 1: and I had to figure out how to do it.
Speaker 1: So I was reading a lot of Mashable and tech Crunch,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't really a road map. There wasn't really
Speaker 1: a plan on how to do it. I just thought
Speaker 1: about it a lot. And so we developed that strategy
Speaker 1: and UM to launch her and put up everything and
Speaker 1: I think CNN was number one, Ashton Kutcher was number two,
Speaker 1: and Ellen was number three on Twitter, So back in
Speaker 1: the day, back in the day. So how long did
Speaker 1: you work for Ellen um three? Around three years? And
Speaker 1: did they ultimately, as they say, once they saw that
Speaker 1: you were ahead and we're right, did they respect you
Speaker 1: and give enough responsibility. I think when you work for
Speaker 1: one person like that, I ended up becoming kind of
Speaker 1: a community manager. You know, you launched, We launched Facebook
Speaker 1: and Twitter and YouTube and UM. She was one of
Speaker 1: the first to have four square badges, and you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff that was really fun
Speaker 1: that we could do. We gave away a ton of
Speaker 1: tickets on the air, UM to have you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to tweet out that Ellen or her team is
Speaker 1: going to be at X location at this time, and
Speaker 1: thousands of people would show up. We did a lot
Speaker 1: of like really cool community engagement live on air, hits, etcetera. UM.
Speaker 1: But at a certain point your community managing your you know,
Speaker 1: drafting tweets and really maintaining all those channels, and I
Speaker 1: wanted more of the strategic overall role. And so that
Speaker 1: is when I moved to I DPR and I worked. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you moved to I D p R. How did
Speaker 1: you get that gig? And what were you envisioning would happen? Um?
Speaker 1: Through mutual friends. I got connected with a woman named
Speaker 1: Natalie bruss Lent at the time. Who UM I joined
Speaker 1: that team and and worked on a bunch of different UM. Now,
Speaker 1: PR is not exactly the same thing you were doing
Speaker 1: maybe what your role was, but working for Ellen and
Speaker 1: working for PR, that's actually radically different. Did you know
Speaker 1: that you wanted to work for a PR company? Not
Speaker 1: at all? And I didn't seem I wasn't a publicist,
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing any PR, I was doing social strategy,
Speaker 1: digital strategy building. You know, if at ELLEN I was
Speaker 1: producing content, I thought of myself as a producer and
Speaker 1: I just executed that on social. At I d I
Speaker 1: was doing digital strategy, producing a persona, how do we
Speaker 1: drive media attention, how do we get our clients more
Speaker 1: into the cultural conversation? All through things I can own
Speaker 1: control the things that they you know, have power over.
Speaker 1: On social but in PR, you're in the retainer bit nous,
Speaker 1: and you got to teach your clients how to fish.
Speaker 1: You can't do it for them otherwise they're never going
Speaker 1: to be successful. So I would just burn ensuring clients
Speaker 1: like crazy because hopefully within a month three months, they'd
Speaker 1: know everything that I needed to teach them and they
Speaker 1: could be set on their way. That doesn't work in
Speaker 1: publicity using that business model. So after three years before
Speaker 1: you get there, when you get the getting the gig
Speaker 1: at I DPR, were you checking, were you knocking on
Speaker 1: many doors or that opportunity to just come up? It
Speaker 1: came up? Okay, So after three years at I DPR,
Speaker 1: you were telling saying, I recognized that so much of
Speaker 1: the value that I was bringing to clients for building
Speaker 1: their audiences to a place where they can monetize it
Speaker 1: in a million different ways. And I thought maybe being
Speaker 1: on the percentage side of the business was a little
Speaker 1: more It made more sense based on how I approached
Speaker 1: interacting with clients, building their audiences, the value that I
Speaker 1: could bring to their their careers. So how did the
Speaker 1: next transition happen? Um, I, through room mutual friends, had
Speaker 1: coffee with um Brent Weinstein, who runs the digital team
Speaker 1: at U t A. Or maybe it wasn't even mutual friends,
Speaker 1: like we we just knew each other out Like I'd
Speaker 1: see him at south By and we'd always run into
Speaker 1: each other everywhere, and we just sat down and we
Speaker 1: were talking about the business. He was like, come work here.
Speaker 1: And at the time, was there anybody doing that gig
Speaker 1: or in that department? Yeah, I mean the U t
Speaker 1: A has the longest I think the first digital the digital,
Speaker 1: first digital practice in the entertainment business, so there had
Speaker 1: been you know, they were the first assign YouTube stars
Speaker 1: and really they've have a long history and really being
Speaker 1: forward thinking and entrepreneurial in this space. And to Jeremy's
Speaker 1: ammers credit, like, I don't think anyone in my role
Speaker 1: exists I don't think anyone in my role exists at
Speaker 1: any other agency. Is because I'm not completely transactional in
Speaker 1: any way, Like I don't come in every day and
Speaker 1: add things to my booking slip, Like I don't you know,
Speaker 1: do the final deals for clients. My value to them
Speaker 1: is long term and such a long tail effect, like
Speaker 1: we build their audiences so we can make them, you know,
Speaker 1: more successful and um on every deal they do. But
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily something that you can completely account for
Speaker 1: at the end of the year. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeremy's really invested in this, and from the board and
Speaker 1: the partners, they'll all top down in really seeing the
Speaker 1: value and growing this. And ever since I've joined, it's
Speaker 1: just gotten bigger and bigger, and it's it's been amazing. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go through the varying platforms and give me your take.
Speaker 1: Facebook essential, it's the yellow Pages. You amplify that a
Speaker 1: little bit. If you're not on Facebook, it's weird, like
Speaker 1: you have to be on Facebook. Like if you meet
Speaker 1: someone out and you're like, you're not on Facebook, why,
Speaker 1: Like it's a it's a weird thing. It's the yellow Pages. Now,
Speaker 1: it's like how you know you're talking about from a
Speaker 1: person in general or from someone who might be a
Speaker 1: client of U T a person in general, person in general,
Speaker 1: you have to be on Facebook for a client. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful platforms because the art ad
Speaker 1: targeting is just insane, Like if the way that you
Speaker 1: can geo target and you know, the the add the
Speaker 1: way that Facebook's built out the ad platform, it's just
Speaker 1: it's such a powerful tool for our clients when they
Speaker 1: can use it. Historically, it's not been easy for our
Speaker 1: clients to use, like it wasn't set up for public
Speaker 1: figures at all when it first launched, and so it's
Speaker 1: been a long road for them to get to a
Speaker 1: place where now, um, it's a little easier for our
Speaker 1: clients to manage. Some clients still kind of have the
Speaker 1: impressions from Facebook from two thousand and ten when it
Speaker 1: was um a little cumbersome to kind of go on
Speaker 1: and post um, but we we definitely prioritize it. You
Speaker 1: have to be on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if you're
Speaker 1: going to be on social media. If you're not going
Speaker 1: to be on social media, that's fine, but if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be on one, you have to be on all
Speaker 1: three okay, but a little bit slower. When you talk
Speaker 1: about ad targeting, etcetera. Do you your clients, because you
Speaker 1: say they're in you know, they have multi uh desires,
Speaker 1: would they literally be buying ads um depending on the
Speaker 1: client and with like if they own their own business, yes,
Speaker 1: if they're musicians, it's incredible, But then the promoter and
Speaker 1: tour marketer and all that staff are taking it out.
Speaker 1: But they need to be able to have the platform
Speaker 1: the audience. Like our clients aren't usually manually pulling any
Speaker 1: of those triggers. Okay, but do you supervise that in
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, we can help advise, but we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't do their advice. We're in the business and
Speaker 1: making my Bob spending it. Stay right there, We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more of my conversation with Kendel Astro, head
Speaker 1: of i Q Strategy for U t A. Here on
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast. You're listening to the Bob
Speaker 1: Left Sets podcast recording at the two non studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: Each week, I interview a new guest to get their story.
Speaker 1: While they're here, we take photos and shoot some videos.
Speaker 1: You can see what they really look like check us
Speaker 1: out on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Follow at tune in,
Speaker 1: let's dive right back in with my guest Kendall Astro,
Speaker 1: head of IQ Strategy for U t A. But talking
Speaker 1: about some of these platforms in society at large, Facebook said,
Speaker 1: you know, they have a lot of excuses saying they're
Speaker 1: not going to be news focused. But engagement dropped. Okay,
Speaker 1: so is Facebook? Uh for old people and young people
Speaker 1: are not so much on Facebook. You need Facebook to
Speaker 1: sign in anywhere you go on the web. There o
Speaker 1: office everywhere. So I think everyone, like I said, everyone
Speaker 1: has Facebook. I found Facebook to be a lot more
Speaker 1: useful the last couple of months as they've gotten rid
Speaker 1: of a lot of Like everyone's complaining so hard about
Speaker 1: the engagement dropping, but the media is writing those stories
Speaker 1: and they're the ones who are losing most of their traffic.
Speaker 1: When I go on Facebook now, I enjoy the experience
Speaker 1: more because I'm seeing stuff from my friends and family.
Speaker 1: And that's what Facebook was when it you know, I
Speaker 1: joined Facebook into I was in four when it came
Speaker 1: to Arizona UM and it was so fun. It was
Speaker 1: so enjoyable to see you know, friends and family and
Speaker 1: updates and photos and whatnot. And then the last year
Speaker 1: it's been all articles and weird viral videos and kind
Speaker 1: of people using exploiting the algorithm to to have their
Speaker 1: business be served. It's getting I think it's getting so
Speaker 1: much more enjoyable. So the clients that we have that
Speaker 1: are really using it authentically, responding to comments, going in
Speaker 1: and like engaging and posting and putting things out there
Speaker 1: that have value are still seeing a lot of engagement
Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, great lift from their
Speaker 1: content on Facebook. The people who are just posting an
Speaker 1: article and you know, some of those companies that we're using, um,
Speaker 1: you know, putting up just kind of generic articles and
Speaker 1: then giving clients a piece of the ad sense revenue
Speaker 1: or the ad revenue on those articles, they're failing. So
Speaker 1: just to hammer this one more time, if you want
Speaker 1: to reach a demo eighteen or younger, are they on Facebook?
Speaker 1: Probably not as much as they're on other platforms. Okay,
Speaker 1: but they all have a log in so they can
Speaker 1: log in around the world. I can't say they all do,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think most I think most people have
Speaker 1: Facebook accounts. Okay. Twitter. Twitter has gotten fun because politics,
Speaker 1: it's gotten fun again. Um, you know again, most of
Speaker 1: our a lot of clients, my clients used to love Twitter.
Speaker 1: Twitter was where they broke news, where they controlled the
Speaker 1: narrative around their careers and their you know, their personal lives,
Speaker 1: and um, I think that maybe some fans went away
Speaker 1: from Twitter for a while, but I think the fans
Speaker 1: have really come back over the past eighteen months. For
Speaker 1: my clients who are doubling down and engaging on Twitter,
Speaker 1: depending on what what area you sit in and how
Speaker 1: good you are at it, I think you can still
Speaker 1: have a lot of um, a lot of interaction, a
Speaker 1: lot of engagement, and see a lot of value from
Speaker 1: that community. Let's assume you're advising someone who's on Twitter.
Speaker 1: What is the strategy again depends on the Let's not
Speaker 1: talk about comedians, because certainly it's been a legendary platform comedians,
Speaker 1: but for someone else. How much should someone tweet? You
Speaker 1: have to tweet multiple times a day otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 1: get lost. So like it depends like how much should
Speaker 1: you tweet? Well, what are your goals on the platform?
Speaker 1: Do you want to be Do you wanna have millions
Speaker 1: and millions of followers? Do you want to be driving
Speaker 1: your business through it, then you need to be on it, posting,
Speaker 1: you know, five times a day probably, And to what
Speaker 1: degree should you worry about alienating people? Potentially if you're
Speaker 1: not standing for something, what are people going to rally around?
Speaker 1: So let's say we're in a divided political country. So
Speaker 1: let's assume you're either on the right or the left.
Speaker 1: And would you advise your clients to put their views
Speaker 1: out there or to hold it back for fear of
Speaker 1: fear of alienating some potential fans. I think it depends
Speaker 1: on who your client is. If they just have a
Speaker 1: one off opinion that they feel like if they jump
Speaker 1: in on this conversation that they're going to um, they
Speaker 1: might get a ton of engagement. See some followers by
Speaker 1: saying this one thing, Probably not because that's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: You're not building an audience that believes in and can
Speaker 1: follow you in that direction. But if it's your passion
Speaker 1: and it's something that you are fully committed to supporting, endorsing,
Speaker 1: it's what you believe, and it's super you know, true
Speaker 1: to everything you want for your career over the next
Speaker 1: couple of years, and you should speak your truth and
Speaker 1: you should you know, figure out what's the smart way
Speaker 1: to do that? But you have to again with every post,
Speaker 1: with every piece of content you put into an interview. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, anything you put online, it's got to it's
Speaker 1: got to drive to a larger mission, a larger goal.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's throwaway content that can really hurt you. Well,
Speaker 1: I certainly have a human regular person standers, have a
Speaker 1: good number of followers on Twitter, and I find it's
Speaker 1: like pissing in the wind in that most people don't
Speaker 1: read it. Now, I'm in a unique position. I'm a
Speaker 1: writer and I can reach my audience directly. But if
Speaker 1: I say the same thing on Twitter, where I have
Speaker 1: you know, seventy thousand followers, I find I get much
Speaker 1: less of reaction because it moves so quickly depends. I mean,
Speaker 1: we would have to dive in on the back end
Speaker 1: of your account to see what your engagement is. How
Speaker 1: many of those people are logging in every day? Where
Speaker 1: you did? You have a lot of early adopter fans
Speaker 1: that didn't that are no longer using the platform anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't gone that deep because I have
Speaker 1: a bandon it for other reasons, although I'm a very
Speaker 1: heavy Twitter reader. Okay, but um, general, as I say,
Speaker 1: I'm an unique position because I'm already reaching these people.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, I would say it's people who subscribe to
Speaker 1: my newsletter already. I just wonder how many of those
Speaker 1: people because your audience is I had something on the
Speaker 1: podcast the other day. They were talking about Trump and
Speaker 1: they say, he's not tweeting, so people read it. He's
Speaker 1: tweeting it, so the media reads it and amplifies it. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: and certainly people make news on Twitter all day long,
Speaker 1: but it's it's you know, this speaks the other thing?
Speaker 1: To what degree is Twitter a club that many people
Speaker 1: are outside because they find it incomprehensible. As much as
Speaker 1: Twitter has made changes, I think it's a lot more
Speaker 1: comprehensible than some of the other platforms that exist, Like what, well,
Speaker 1: Snapchat is a lot harder for people over thirty. I
Speaker 1: think that that's a harder one for people to wrap
Speaker 1: their heads around. Like Twitter. I think, you know, Twitter,
Speaker 1: Twitter has always had a problem with onboarding, Like how
Speaker 1: do you if you don't curate your feed in a
Speaker 1: you know, in a great way with awesome content, it's
Speaker 1: going to keep you coming back and engaged and you
Speaker 1: have a community that's responding and really in it with
Speaker 1: you all the time. It's going to be difficult to
Speaker 1: latch on and come back every day and find value
Speaker 1: in that community. Um but well, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: in my you know, Okay, I'm reading Twitter all the time,
Speaker 1: but you still miss stuff. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: I can't follow everybody because it's too crazy. But let's
Speaker 1: go to Snapchat. So Snapchat is redo and redid their
Speaker 1: interface to make it easier for people. And there's been
Speaker 1: a huge backlash amongst the acolytes. What's your viewpoint on them?
Speaker 1: There's so much backlash every time a major platform makes
Speaker 1: a change, Like when Facebook introduced the news feed, people
Speaker 1: thought the world was gonna end. Like people are so
Speaker 1: angry about the profile changes or the news feed changes.
Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of understand when Evans says,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't matter like you're gonna snap job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, people are going to get used to it.
Speaker 1: And I think what they're so in talking to them.
Speaker 1: The algorithm on that right side, on the discover side,
Speaker 1: is supposed to get better and better every day as
Speaker 1: it learns what you've clicked on, what you've gone away
Speaker 1: from what other people who watch the same type of
Speaker 1: content as you do are looking at. Because they had
Speaker 1: the worst problem with Discover. It was so hard to
Speaker 1: find anyone. And before they allounced you know, official stories,
Speaker 1: and before they started verifying, which is official stories is
Speaker 1: their version of verification, it was just so impossible to
Speaker 1: figure out who are famous people on the platform and
Speaker 1: who you should follow, and um, you know, they kind
Speaker 1: of shied away from having even celebrities on the platform
Speaker 1: at all early on. They wanted it to just be
Speaker 1: about you and your friends. And so all of your
Speaker 1: unidirectional relationships are now on the right hand side and
Speaker 1: all of your bi directional relationships are on the left
Speaker 1: hand side. So we're playing to my audience what you
Speaker 1: mean by you in a directional If I'm following, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Kylie Jenners made a bunch of news. But like,
Speaker 1: if I'm following her and she's not following me back,
Speaker 1: she's on the right side. If we're following each other
Speaker 1: because we're friends in some alternate universe, she's on the
Speaker 1: left side. So you're still seeing that content from your
Speaker 1: friends that you both followed. It's now calling out So
Speaker 1: you know, everyone that's not following you back, which is
Speaker 1: interesting and I wonder how that's playing out in high
Speaker 1: schools around the country, around the world on the right
Speaker 1: hand side. Um, but hopefully you'll see more important and
Speaker 1: influence figures that you want to follow based on those algorithms.
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm a couple of years past being
Speaker 1: core core Snapchat. But I know, you know, my younger brothers,
Speaker 1: like all of my cousins, like we text, we only
Speaker 1: talk through Snapchat. We don't use message, I message or
Speaker 1: SMS like that's how we communicate videos, photos text. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's still very influential for a different demo.
Speaker 1: They just have had a really hard time creating multigenerational.
Speaker 1: And then how about you know, in terms of news
Speaker 1: and other stories on Snapchat, they a lot of companies
Speaker 1: have come and gone. Is there a future there or not? Sorry?
Speaker 1: What was that? You know? With third parties, you know,
Speaker 1: media outlets who have a presence on Snapchat. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't I'm not in the mechanics of
Speaker 1: those deals. I don't know the actual usage on a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff because they have been pretty you know,
Speaker 1: untransparent on um A lot of that the stats there,
Speaker 1: so I can't speak to how the media business is
Speaker 1: really gonna sustain and survive there. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going away. I think that the way they've innovated, they've
Speaker 1: made more progress, like with their A R filters and
Speaker 1: some of the stuff they're doing on the tech side
Speaker 1: is so much more progressive than any of the other platforms.
Speaker 1: They're still super nimble. Um, I just don't know about
Speaker 1: that long term media business with them. Okay. Then Instagram,
Speaker 1: which of course is owned by Facebook, and one would
Speaker 1: say stole some of the ideas of Snapchat, like Snapchat
Speaker 1: stories where what's the status of Instagram? Why they it
Speaker 1: the visual content, the way that you can consume it
Speaker 1: so quickly, it's so easy to use the way that
Speaker 1: they took stories, and you know, everyone kind of everyone
Speaker 1: I know that felt like they had to be on
Speaker 1: Snapchat abandon it the second that stories launched because they
Speaker 1: loved the format, but it was so much easier to
Speaker 1: consume in their community, and their audience was already on
Speaker 1: Instagram and so all their follower accounts. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you get that endorphin rush when your friends and like
Speaker 1: and comment, and you know, get engaged in your content,
Speaker 1: and that was happening on Instagram, and they've really just
Speaker 1: adapted quickly and launched a bunch of really cool features.
Speaker 1: And I think most people I now use Instagram more
Speaker 1: than any other platform out there, most of my and
Speaker 1: my clients for sure. Okay, is the addiction, the endorphin rush.
Speaker 1: I think it's all of it. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I think because you because you're talking about
Speaker 1: how you use Twitter and you don't. I think you
Speaker 1: can be a passive consumer on Instagram. But I think
Speaker 1: the barrier to entry is so low to post good
Speaker 1: content that people do really like that feedback loop, and
Speaker 1: you get it on Instagram. I guess with Instagram at first,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's because I'm a tech big guy, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, it's pictures, it's too simplistic, and then I
Speaker 1: was wrong and it burgeons. Okay, But and also, but
Speaker 1: isn't it on some level Facebook just you know a
Speaker 1: few years later where everybody's basically advertising how great they
Speaker 1: are and their lives are, and that might I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about famous people, I'm talking about the average person,
Speaker 1: and that might burn out. Well, I think what will
Speaker 1: explain to clients is like Facebook's your trophy case. You
Speaker 1: post the best of the best content, like you know,
Speaker 1: you post At least most of my clients will post
Speaker 1: the stuff they'd hang on a mantle or the stuff
Speaker 1: they really want to be known for. On Facebook. They
Speaker 1: because they post less on Facebook, and I think the
Speaker 1: normal person post less on Facebook than they do on
Speaker 1: most other platforms. On Instagram, it's like your glossy magazine.
Speaker 1: It's your aspirational lifestyle. It's what you want to be
Speaker 1: known for. It's the the really premium content, the stuff
Speaker 1: that's just aesthetically pleasing, that is what you want, your
Speaker 1: mood board, your vision of who you are to stand for.
Speaker 1: Stories takes that down a little bit because it's so,
Speaker 1: you know, just of life and ephemeral and you don't
Speaker 1: have to put as much premium content on there, so
Speaker 1: people post more of just the mundane. But I think
Speaker 1: what's on your feet is really for most people highly curated.
Speaker 1: And so what about the ones that used to get
Speaker 1: a lot of press, They're all a little bit different.
Speaker 1: But it seems like also rams now, Tumbler, Pinterest, Pinterest
Speaker 1: is still such a utility, like it doesn't get as
Speaker 1: much attention as I think it deserves. But I think
Speaker 1: when you have a project, when you're remodeling, when you
Speaker 1: want to plan a wedding, when you want to do something,
Speaker 1: you go to Pinterest. So for brands or for talent
Speaker 1: who want to build companies or have lifestyle brands, like
Speaker 1: you're converting. That's like the highest shopping conversion is Pinterest.
Speaker 1: It's still amazing, and Tumbler is so interesting from like
Speaker 1: an artist community standpoint, Like on Tumbler, if you know,
Speaker 1: the conversation after a television show is going to go
Speaker 1: away within an hour, like we're going to see that
Speaker 1: sharp spike and then that sharp decline as soon as
Speaker 1: the time's over. But on Tumbler for a week or
Speaker 1: two weeks, will continue to see like fan generated art
Speaker 1: and gifts, like people who spend time with your work
Speaker 1: and really care about the community and delve into those
Speaker 1: niche interests kind of areas are still posting a lot
Speaker 1: on Tumbler. So having like a really active fan base
Speaker 1: and curating that those are almost like you're like, what's
Speaker 1: the value of a fan? I think Tumbler still has
Speaker 1: a lot of value in those areas. Okay, some of
Speaker 1: the things you know, a little clean up work in
Speaker 1: the area that we've talked about. Live broadcasting started out
Speaker 1: with miracat where's that going HQ. It's the first time
Speaker 1: I've seen any platform that I actually want to tune into.
Speaker 1: Live is so hard live for anyone live music you
Speaker 1: know on online, it's just not as well produced as
Speaker 1: seeing something you know well produced and curated and edited.
Speaker 1: And I'd rather watch a five minute recap clip than
Speaker 1: sit through an hour and a half of just kind
Speaker 1: of bad angles and bad sound. So live was really interesting,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of plat ms out there that
Speaker 1: were doing it and things like you now where you
Speaker 1: could just watch someone sleep and like you know, it
Speaker 1: was much more for the teens, but they were monetizing
Speaker 1: and making money on their interesting. HQ is amazing, and
Speaker 1: I think it's my audience and maybe unaware of what
Speaker 1: HQ is. So HQ pings you at three pm and
Speaker 1: nine pm e s T. Every day and you get
Speaker 1: you know, it's a live Q and a game twelve questions,
Speaker 1: pot of money at the end split between whoever lasts,
Speaker 1: and it's so hard to win um, but it keeps
Speaker 1: you engaged, your participatory and the content. It's funny, it's
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I'm surprised that something like
Speaker 1: Snapchat hasn't adopted it already. I'd be surprised if it
Speaker 1: doesn't launch within the next couple of months where they
Speaker 1: try to put in their own version. But live participatory
Speaker 1: media that keeps you engaged, that brings you in, that
Speaker 1: allows you to participate in the content is fascinating. Well,
Speaker 1: it's also fascinating. We've grown from appointment TV to on
Speaker 1: Man to now hu Trivia, which is you know, appointment Internet. Well,
Speaker 1: when you and I first met, one of the things
Speaker 1: that we were talking about is, you know, back in
Speaker 1: the day radio, there's radio programs that we've never heard again.
Speaker 1: You didn't make media to last forever. You didn't make
Speaker 1: media so you could DVR and tune into it and
Speaker 1: watch it whenever you wanted. You either had to be
Speaker 1: there or you were left out. And there's episodes of
Speaker 1: television that we've never seen again, you know, talk shows,
Speaker 1: episodes of I Love Lucy, I Read a Thing that
Speaker 1: literally have never been seen after their original airing. But
Speaker 1: then the VCR was invented, and then the DVR, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people just think that we have
Speaker 1: to have all this content forever, and every tweet you've
Speaker 1: ever posted is in the Library of Congress, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, all these things that just are supposed to
Speaker 1: last forever. And then Snapchat came out and so many
Speaker 1: people were like, well, why would I participate in that?
Speaker 1: Why would I spend time making awesome content if it's
Speaker 1: just going to disappear? And now that seems to last
Speaker 1: forever because it's twenty four hours. If you're not in
Speaker 1: that HQ game within the minute it launches, you missed out.
Speaker 1: You can't be part of it, you can't join it.
Speaker 1: So we went from you know, just literally we're almost
Speaker 1: back to with things like HQ back back in the
Speaker 1: day in the thirties and the forties and the fifties
Speaker 1: when you had to be there. Are you or to
Speaker 1: what degree is there still opportunity? If you look at
Speaker 1: the Internet at large, we have four arguably five big
Speaker 1: companies show Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, and maybe Microsoft. So
Speaker 1: in the social media world, is there any room for
Speaker 1: entrance or is it really solidified along the lines of
Speaker 1: the companies that we just mentioned. I think it's harder
Speaker 1: and harder to break out. Uh, we're not seeing things
Speaker 1: pop out it We're talking about this this morning at work.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not seeing things pop out at south
Speaker 1: By the way we were and two thousands six to
Speaker 1: two thou like, it's much harder to have an original idea,
Speaker 1: And I think when you do, uh, how much of
Speaker 1: it can't be replicated by the big majors. But I
Speaker 1: think interesting content is an interesting ideas are still going
Speaker 1: to champion. It's just what form is that going to take?
Speaker 1: So are we going to have a huge platform killer.
Speaker 1: I don't have a crystal ball, but I think you know,
Speaker 1: innovation is still happening every day. Okay, left field here,
Speaker 1: we're the heyday of the me too movement? What do
Speaker 1: you personally feel about this? Um, let's let's break it down. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you feel limited in an opportunity by being a woman.
Speaker 1: I've definitely had roadbox because I'm a woman. A lot
Speaker 1: of times I used to I didn't really know it
Speaker 1: was because of my gender. I thought it was because
Speaker 1: of my age, because you know, I've been fortunate to
Speaker 1: be in some incredible rooms at an early age, I
Speaker 1: thought that I was being limited by those things. And
Speaker 1: then I remember it was like a month after I
Speaker 1: got married, I was speaking at a conference and someone
Speaker 1: came up to my husband and I and said, isn't
Speaker 1: it so great that you get to come business trips
Speaker 1: with your husband? I was like, um, excuse me, he's
Speaker 1: my guest. I'm the keynote here, Like it was, it's
Speaker 1: just crazy. And then you start to recognize, well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's not because of my age. Maybe it's not because
Speaker 1: of my lack of experience. Maybe it's because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman. As you start to age and you
Speaker 1: get more experience, it's not you know, you realize what
Speaker 1: actually is holding me back. I don't think I was
Speaker 1: as conscious of it as I should have been growing up,
Speaker 1: because I was raised in a family where every woman
Speaker 1: was the leader of the house, like we were, you know,
Speaker 1: every every woman. I was surrounded by my grandma's, my
Speaker 1: mom my, you know, aunts with you know, strong, independent,
Speaker 1: really brilliant women, and I didn't realize that that was
Speaker 1: something that, uh, I would have to contend with in
Speaker 1: the way that I ended up realizing later on, to
Speaker 1: what degree do you feel a responsibility to mentor or
Speaker 1: help other women climb the ladder? I think that the
Speaker 1: thing that drives me the most every day, Like, the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm most about is teaching. I love teaching
Speaker 1: my clients how to be better visions themselves and how
Speaker 1: to use these platforms to help their careers. And I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with mentoring. Like the more that I can teach
Speaker 1: others and bring them up and make them better, that's
Speaker 1: what gets me out of bed every day. Stay right there,
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of my conversation with Kendall Astro,
Speaker 1: head of i Q Strategy for U t A here
Speaker 1: on the Bob left Sex podcast. This is Bob left Sex.
Speaker 1: Do you like hearing from the heaviest I love talking
Speaker 1: to them and that's exactly what I'll be doing at
Speaker 1: my Music Media Summit and Santa Barbara at the end
Speaker 1: of April. Take your wallflower role to the next level
Speaker 1: by actually meeting the players, maneuvering and manipulating the chessboard.
Speaker 1: Go to Music Media Summit dot comfert tickets and more information.
Speaker 1: See you in Santa Barbara. Let's dive right back in
Speaker 1: with my guest Kendall Astra, head of IQ Strategy for
Speaker 1: U t A. Okay, looking at entertainment at large? Uh,
Speaker 1: certainly there was a heyday of movie stars. There was
Speaker 1: a heyday of rock stars. Now we have YouTube stars
Speaker 1: who are going to be the stars of the future.
Speaker 1: I don't think people are being put in boxes anymore.
Speaker 1: I think you're a star when you are an entertainer. Like,
Speaker 1: do we have any great, great movie stars who only
Speaker 1: exist on the screen today? Maybe? But are more the
Speaker 1: people that we're talking about existing in six buckets and
Speaker 1: six verticals? Are they multi hypen it's across multiple industries.
Speaker 1: Are they people who you almost identify more within a
Speaker 1: human level and you root for and no matter what
Speaker 1: they do, than you know, having them be isolated to
Speaker 1: one box of talent. That's on the talent side, But
Speaker 1: looking putting on your sear hat in terms of where
Speaker 1: you think it's going. Where will the stars of the
Speaker 1: future pe Will they be on in social media? Will
Speaker 1: they be in television? Movies? That's what I mean talent.
Speaker 1: I think engineers are talent, voters are talent CEOs or talent.
Speaker 1: But if you are in one vertical, in one box,
Speaker 1: are you going to be as successful in today's day
Speaker 1: and age as if you are playing in multiple fields,
Speaker 1: touch multiple different demographics and multiple interest groups and you know,
Speaker 1: are more of a well rounded, uh, public presence. Let's
Speaker 1: I want to win an award. Okay, what might I do? What?
Speaker 1: Or what award? Let's say it's an Oscar dynamic. Uh,
Speaker 1: I think that Emmy for sure. Social media, like I
Speaker 1: think that community is so much more conversation, so many
Speaker 1: more of the the voting members are, you know, looking
Speaker 1: at what's happening there and what you said earlier about
Speaker 1: Trump not doing it necessarily for fans to see, but
Speaker 1: to drive the media. If you want to be in
Speaker 1: those award conversations and you want to be taken seriously
Speaker 1: at that table, so much of that is driven by
Speaker 1: social and what you're talking about online. And so why
Speaker 1: do you wake up every day and to do you
Speaker 1: want to be an actor? You want to win the award?
Speaker 1: Like what is it? Is it the prestige? Is that
Speaker 1: the storytelling? Is it your passion for the industry? Like?
Speaker 1: What is it about this career? It's so hard, the
Speaker 1: auditions and the grind and to get to a place
Speaker 1: where you could even be considered for an Emmy is
Speaker 1: such a long battle for most people. Why do you
Speaker 1: do it? And if we start from that place, because
Speaker 1: if all you want to do is win an award
Speaker 1: and market your project. No one's going to follow you.
Speaker 1: How boring? Is that just self aggrandizing? It's horrible. But
Speaker 1: if you can go in and you can say I
Speaker 1: did this project or I'm so proud of this. You
Speaker 1: know this show because of X, Y and Z and
Speaker 1: here's what it stands for and here's what I learned,
Speaker 1: and like, I'm so excited for you to come on
Speaker 1: the journey with me and we can create a real
Speaker 1: narrative over why you're enthused about it, and we kind
Speaker 1: of have to build it out, like what else are
Speaker 1: you interested in? You know? Do you have any of
Speaker 1: that stuff? Are you even comfortable? And if we go
Speaker 1: through that whole exercise and you decide this is something
Speaker 1: you want to do, great, If it's still totally skieds
Speaker 1: you out, then we just have to figure out a
Speaker 1: way from maybe you to get great content to your
Speaker 1: co stars or the network for them to promote on
Speaker 1: your behalf without you having to be on. But you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't force anyone to do any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: You just have to present all the options. Educate them
Speaker 1: on the landscape, Educate them honestly on you are literally
Speaker 1: going to not be successful unless you do these things.
Speaker 1: And in some cases it's almost better not to be
Speaker 1: on at all than to be on with a really
Speaker 1: horrible strategy and no engagement and no good content. To
Speaker 1: what degree to self promotion work against clients? Uh? The
Speaker 1: million degrees of you know difference there being completely over
Speaker 1: self overly self promotional and blind to everything that's going
Speaker 1: on in the world, and you know reactions that your
Speaker 1: fans are giving you and just sell, sell, sell, You
Speaker 1: might as well just take out ads in magazines like
Speaker 1: that's not I'll give you an example more. And this
Speaker 1: is really sort of a unique But she's a writer
Speaker 1: for the New York Times. She only tweets when she's
Speaker 1: advertising her own column, and it's like, that's a turn
Speaker 1: off to me. How many followers does she have? Do
Speaker 1: you know? Probably you know, high five figures engagement, I
Speaker 1: don't know, probably not working that well. If I'm a
Speaker 1: power fan of Marine Down and I have to read
Speaker 1: everything she puts out there, I probably want to follow.
Speaker 1: That just makes to make sure I don't miss anything.
Speaker 1: But is she having is she building a relationship? Is
Speaker 1: she diving in? Is anyone learning more about who she
Speaker 1: is and what she stands for and why she wrote
Speaker 1: that article, what it meant to her? How long you know?
Speaker 1: What was her process? Can you tweet too much? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: So give us you know when does it start to
Speaker 1: become too much? Um? When I when your fans will
Speaker 1: log in and all they'll see is your stuff? Like
Speaker 1: you know, probably if you're live tweeting at television show
Speaker 1: or something like that, I'd probably say max for the
Speaker 1: whole hour. And how about retweets? If you're not adding
Speaker 1: your own context, I usually don't understand why you do it.
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you if I'm following you. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we talked about clients who want to win awards.
Speaker 1: How about clients? What other desires might there be? They
Speaker 1: might be building a business. What else might they come
Speaker 1: to you wanted to do? They might want to change
Speaker 1: public's perception. There might be a bad story out there.
Speaker 1: There might be, um, you know, just something that they'd
Speaker 1: rather people. You know, they want to change the conversation
Speaker 1: or they want to um be known in a different
Speaker 1: vertical they made okay a little bit slo I want
Speaker 1: to change the conversation. What would your strategy be? Depends
Speaker 1: on what the Well, let's use an example. John Mayor
Speaker 1: is not a client right now. John Mayor had the
Speaker 1: situation in Playboy. He said things there was negative public perception.
Speaker 1: What might and granted this years ago, but it hurt
Speaker 1: his career? What and he disappeared from Twitter, said he
Speaker 1: was going to tumboy, disappeared from there. What would have
Speaker 1: been a strategy that you might have proposed. I think
Speaker 1: he did it right. Really we had to mute him.
Speaker 1: I'm a big Mayor fan. He was such an early
Speaker 1: adopter on most of these platforms. I loved it when
Speaker 1: he went to Tumblr that remember what album it was,
Speaker 1: maybe it was Battle Studies, the when he really showed
Speaker 1: the process of making the album and there was like
Speaker 1: a time lapse of him setting up the studio, and
Speaker 1: he he was so early on some of those platforms,
Speaker 1: and you really got to know who he was, and
Speaker 1: you know, his comedy and his sense of humor and
Speaker 1: his interests and everything that kind of made him tick
Speaker 1: outside of the music you fell in love with. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, he got a little over exposed
Speaker 1: in that whole scenario, and he didn't know the line
Speaker 1: between I'm speaking as a fan, but between him as
Speaker 1: a you know, he was friends with all the stand
Speaker 1: up comics and I think he thought he was one
Speaker 1: maybe during that interview and it just did not play well.
Speaker 1: I think he needed to go away for a little
Speaker 1: while and you know, and he came back and it's
Speaker 1: so fun to watch him now, like the way he
Speaker 1: uses Instagram live and um, you know, he was super
Speaker 1: early was at Periscope. I think he was. He was
Speaker 1: on Periscope, not Merecap. I would watch his live recordings
Speaker 1: on both of those, and he uses these platforms in
Speaker 1: a really interesting way, in a unique way. That's you know,
Speaker 1: he's been writing all these weird like just text on
Speaker 1: Instagram stories like these weird thoughts and things lately. It's
Speaker 1: been fun to It's just fun to see how his
Speaker 1: mind works because I think he's such a unique genius
Speaker 1: in that way. Can he recover? Can you ever recover
Speaker 1: from something like that? Will women forgive you? I think
Speaker 1: he has well, he's been out with the debt. It's
Speaker 1: a slightly different audience. But I saw him three times
Speaker 1: on this last tour, but those are arena shows that
Speaker 1: were sold out. You know, I think he I think
Speaker 1: he'll have a career for decades. Okay, so the point,
Speaker 1: let me go a little change a little bit. If
Speaker 1: you are someone in the me too era and you
Speaker 1: let's let's go totally different. These people, uh, Louis c
Speaker 1: K and other people who have been uh caught up
Speaker 1: in the me too thing? Can they rehabilitate their careers?
Speaker 1: It will be we will have to see how that goes.
Speaker 1: I think certain people have not maybe um approached the
Speaker 1: controversy in the correct way, and others, you know, it
Speaker 1: seems like Louis c K is maybe Louis. I mean
Speaker 1: I think he, you know, without talking specific because we
Speaker 1: verge on some of your clients, He's addressed it totally
Speaker 1: different from everybody else. He said, I did it and
Speaker 1: I disappeared, And that seems to bring the right strategy.
Speaker 1: People don't talk. We're talking about him here, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: he's not part of the conversation, and I think that
Speaker 1: will make it so his rehabilitation, uh will happen earlier
Speaker 1: than other people that happens at all. But can are
Speaker 1: these a stain or can you be rehabilitated? I We're
Speaker 1: going to have to see. Okay, so then let's just
Speaker 1: go one other thing. I mean we have Jessica Alba.
Speaker 1: She a client, Okay, she started the Honest Company. Let's
Speaker 1: say you have a client who wants to start a business.
Speaker 1: What would you advise them. We have an incredible ventures
Speaker 1: team that does this for clients. So they sit down
Speaker 1: and they build out the business plan and bring in
Speaker 1: advisors and raise capital and you know, help launch the
Speaker 1: launch the full business. We have a brand studio that
Speaker 1: does all the logo and design and you know where
Speaker 1: we are very well versed in that and do it daily.
Speaker 1: We have a full team dedicated businesses around clients. Once
Speaker 1: they wrap that up, they come to you and they say,
Speaker 1: how do I promote it? And how would you promote it?
Speaker 1: So we'll build out marketing strategies and connect them with
Speaker 1: the right team and make sure that their audience kind
Speaker 1: of knows that this is coming without announcing it well
Speaker 1: in advance, because if all of a sudden, you wake
Speaker 1: up one day and you had you know, let's say
Speaker 1: Jessica Alba had no kids, had never talked about wanting
Speaker 1: to be a mom or you know, anything, and she
Speaker 1: launches this company. It's like, where the hell that come from? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you start to see these ideas where a
Speaker 1: fan comes along for the journey with you and it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like you just did it for the cash.
Speaker 1: And what if I'm a client and I say where
Speaker 1: I am as okay, but I want more opportunities. I
Speaker 1: want more business opportunities. What might you say, we'd figure
Speaker 1: out what those business opportunities are, what those verticals are in,
Speaker 1: and then what platforms and what strategy using, what partnerships,
Speaker 1: what collaborations, what verticals we need to dive into there,
Speaker 1: what's the pr strategy, what's the career strategy? How do
Speaker 1: we ladder you up to those things? So is there
Speaker 1: anything that I've missed in the world of social media
Speaker 1: or in the world of agency business. I mean, we
Speaker 1: could talk about it a million hours. There's a million
Speaker 1: things we missed. But yeah, we covered a lot today.
Speaker 1: And then personal goals beyond where you are now. I
Speaker 1: just want to keep being better every day. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've never plotted it out. I've never seen what's behind
Speaker 1: the other corner. I think if you have a direct
Speaker 1: path that you need to follow in order to be successful,
Speaker 1: you're gonna end up. You know, You're you're gonna miss
Speaker 1: every other detour that comes along. So I love what
Speaker 1: I do. Every day I learned something new, and this
Speaker 1: business it's it's all about, especially with what I do,
Speaker 1: It's about staying ahead of the curve and seeing what
Speaker 1: other people are. You know, what technology, what try and
Speaker 1: what culture doing and how do we help our clients
Speaker 1: future proof against all of that and stay ahead of it? Um?
Speaker 1: I Every day I just read forty fifty plus articles
Speaker 1: on the business and where cultures going and technology and
Speaker 1: you know, try to figure out how you connect those
Speaker 1: dots to make yourself and all your clients more successful.
Speaker 1: So well, I don't what are some of those trends
Speaker 1: for the people who don't look forward as you do?
Speaker 1: Where are things going to the degrees? Can see that? Um?
Speaker 1: I think? I think what some of the stuff you've
Speaker 1: been saying about politics driving the culture is so interesting?
Speaker 1: I don't see you think we're seeing a ton of
Speaker 1: technology that's necessarily changing the game right now. There's nothing
Speaker 1: that I can't think of anything right now that I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: no one else is seeing this, no one else is
Speaker 1: covering it. But the way that things like me too
Speaker 1: are just skyrocketing out of nowhere, and the way that
Speaker 1: cultures latching on to UM some of the trends that
Speaker 1: are going on, and what you know, the the ability
Speaker 1: for people to really create movements and drive change something
Speaker 1: we really need to be conscious of and ahead of
Speaker 1: to keep I mean, I was reading I don't know
Speaker 1: when there is a layer, but I was reading today
Speaker 1: in the wake of the successful resolution of the West
Speaker 1: Virginia teacher strike. Now the Kentucky teachers are protesting against
Speaker 1: cutting their pensions. Question is is there a role for
Speaker 1: entertainers in this world? Because so far park Land, etcetera.
Speaker 1: This has not been entertainment driven to any degree. I
Speaker 1: think we can. It's kind of interesting that so much
Speaker 1: of what happened before used to be entertainment driven and
Speaker 1: these personalities making a stand and it's incredible to watch
Speaker 1: with the students in Parkland are doing. And how do
Speaker 1: we support that? How do we how do our clients,
Speaker 1: who you know, have strong opinions about that space, uh
Speaker 1: support and dive in with you know, different benefit things
Speaker 1: than and you know, just how do we stay ahead
Speaker 1: of that? How do we help our clients um support
Speaker 1: the things that they're passionate about. But I think it's
Speaker 1: needing to be driven by other things at the moment.
Speaker 1: And once again you said in social media, if you
Speaker 1: want to take a stand as part of your identity,
Speaker 1: you can hammer that. But if it's a one off,
Speaker 1: you would not recommend that. Like, it depends on what
Speaker 1: the one off. You know what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: I'm really leading to a different question in terms of
Speaker 1: your clients aligning themselves with some of these causes, because
Speaker 1: certainly in the music business for a long time, everyone's
Speaker 1: afraid of alienating a potential audience member. What would you
Speaker 1: tell a client relative to that, Because if you take
Speaker 1: a stand, someone's always going to be angry about the
Speaker 1: stand you have. Country music is interesting right now, they're
Speaker 1: fin like that's coming around. People are taking a stand,
Speaker 1: like Tim and Faith standing up for a gun control.
Speaker 1: I think the people who have no stand, and there's
Speaker 1: a couple of artists that we don't want to name,
Speaker 1: probably but who just like, what do you believe? How
Speaker 1: have you, with certain things you've said, been completely silent
Speaker 1: in all these issues. Um, I think you're getting in
Speaker 1: trouble more for that than in stating your beliefs. And
Speaker 1: I also believe in a country of three plus million people,
Speaker 1: if you can reach twenty million people, you're like a billionaire. Okay,
Speaker 1: so these people are, you know, afraid of alienating people?
Speaker 1: I agree with your point. It's it's drawing the people
Speaker 1: close to you and solidifying that relationship. I think niche
Speaker 1: audiences are the only thing that matters today. Well, I
Speaker 1: would say everything is niche other than uh politics. People
Speaker 1: believe you know, if you go to the number one record,
Speaker 1: the number one movie, number one television show, one would
Speaker 1: be stunned how many people have not experienced it. It's
Speaker 1: really crazy, completely Like I think you need to dial
Speaker 1: in and really know who your chorus. I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that people don't think about on
Speaker 1: social media at all. They post and they like all
Speaker 1: the likes and the but they have no idea who's
Speaker 1: out there. It's like the same people that are liking
Speaker 1: and commenting. You think it's so weird that they're commenting
Speaker 1: on the internet. They're the ones that are paying for
Speaker 1: meet and grades, and they're the ones that are coming
Speaker 1: to all your shows, Like, look at them, pay attention.
Speaker 1: Know who is commenting back. You can understand your fan
Speaker 1: you know demographics, their affinities, what are they interested in
Speaker 1: what they care about. We have so many incredible, robust
Speaker 1: analytics tools to look at these types of things. How
Speaker 1: do you understand who those people are and how do
Speaker 1: you help super super serve them, give them content? How
Speaker 1: do you dive in and create conversations and lead change
Speaker 1: on the things that you care about that also line
Speaker 1: up with what your audience cares about, Because just posting
Speaker 1: whatever you want just to satisfy your three tweets a
Speaker 1: day or whatnot doesn't make any sense. People really need
Speaker 1: to spend more time thinking about those niche communities and
Speaker 1: how they serve them and how they use them to
Speaker 1: amplify their message and build their brands and achieve their
Speaker 1: career goals. Like it's, it's a lot more complicated, but
Speaker 1: the tools we have available and the way that you
Speaker 1: can do it is is so fun if you actually
Speaker 1: think about it and take time to consider it and
Speaker 1: really use it as a career builder as opposed to
Speaker 1: just something you have to do. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: Kendall Astral on the Bob Left Set Spycast. If your
Speaker 1: head is not spinning, you're literally Kendall. She knows more
Speaker 1: about social media than anybody I know and she's not
Speaker 1: someone who is sitting at home just posting. She's in
Speaker 1: the thick of it. Over you, t A, you would
Speaker 1: only dream of being one of her clients. Kendall, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for being here. Thanks for having that. Wraps
Speaker 1: up this week's episode of the Bob Left Sets podcast,
Speaker 1: recorded here at the tune In Studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: I hope you'd liked listening to the conversation with Kendall Ostrow,
Speaker 1: head of i Q Strategy for U t A. It's
Speaker 1: almost like you're at the dinner table with us, as
Speaker 1: we often get together and talk shop. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what you thought of the conversation in the podcast.
Speaker 1: In general, you can email me at Bob at left
Speaker 1: sets dot com. Okay spains out out se