Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? And
Speaker 1: it really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm
Speaker 1: Alexa Kristin. Welcome back to Atlantia. Episode five. We have
Speaker 1: an interesting guest on the show. In fact, his tagline
Speaker 1: is stay interesting. We're excited to bring to CEO and
Speaker 1: founder of Azzy dot Com, Carlos Watson. We've known Carlos
Speaker 1: for I don't know a few years now, and he
Speaker 1: is truly one of those people that walks in the
Speaker 1: room and you just want to hang out with him. Enamored, infectious,
Speaker 1: his laugh, He's charismatic, and he's charming and smart um
Speaker 1: and what he's done with AZZI is a total reflection.
Speaker 1: I think of him as a person and total So
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to him about AZZI, where they're going,
Speaker 1: what they're thinking, and how to be different in a
Speaker 1: world of news media where everybody is chasing the cliffs
Speaker 1: bait and the lowest common denominator, right, And and Carlos,
Speaker 1: I think has carved out his own niche and there's
Speaker 1: a tone that's reflective that you go, oh, that's Auzzy.
Speaker 1: So happy to have Carlos on later. Yeah, but first first,
Speaker 1: what a week we went to the Twitter verse. We
Speaker 1: had so much fun talking with some of our loyal listeners.
Speaker 1: Thank you at Landia and thank you for staying up
Speaker 1: with us to have a little bit of a late
Speaker 1: night banter was Yeah, and one of our favorite followers
Speaker 1: at go Crisco or go Crisco or not Crisco, not
Speaker 1: c r I s c O. Yeah. He really engaged
Speaker 1: us in this interesting debate about influence, and it's something
Speaker 1: we've talked a bit about in different spheres. We've breached
Speaker 1: political borders, we've gone into media and talent. But he
Speaker 1: was talking just a straight up question about influencers. What's
Speaker 1: happening marketers, Yeah, influencer marketing? Is it going away? What's
Speaker 1: the future of it? Can we talk about that? And
Speaker 1: Laura and I said, yeah, absolutely, we'll talk about it
Speaker 1: because it's actually something that I think is a really
Speaker 1: um prevalent topic right now. What's happened with YouTube and
Speaker 1: a lot of the stars um talking about advertising and
Speaker 1: how important it is and the support and how important
Speaker 1: their voices are. I think marketers know instinctually that influencers
Speaker 1: command more of an audience and more audience stickiness, like
Speaker 1: they stay with you and they become fans better than
Speaker 1: any brand in some ways can do just you know,
Speaker 1: by advertising. Yeah, and a go Chris go Um shared
Speaker 1: an article that he had read on Forbes which talks
Speaker 1: about our influencers the idea of personalities more effective than partnering.
Speaker 1: And this is for brands with media companies. And our
Speaker 1: answer is yes, that is absolutely something that is in
Speaker 1: most cases. I mean, I think it's yes, done correctly, correctly.
Speaker 1: And you bring up an interesting point because one of
Speaker 1: the things that you know, we talk about being really
Speaker 1: important when you start dabbling in this space is oftentimes,
Speaker 1: and we said this on our our Twitter handle, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily about um getting or aligning yourself with the
Speaker 1: influencer who has the most followers or who is the
Speaker 1: most popular. It's about getting with the right influencer who
Speaker 1: buys into And it was authentically reflective of your brand.
Speaker 1: That is a huge difference. Well, it has to be
Speaker 1: someone who I think it goes back to like sharing values,
Speaker 1: like shares values with the brand, right shares what's episode
Speaker 1: one with Ben Cooley talking about you know, when a
Speaker 1: brand and a media company or influence or personality come together,
Speaker 1: where the magic happens is when they share a certain
Speaker 1: ethos ethos or a certain value or for certain perspective
Speaker 1: and that it benefits the audience. Yeah. And one of
Speaker 1: the things for brands to pay attention to when they
Speaker 1: get into this space is not necessarily lining yourself up
Speaker 1: with somebody who's going to promote your product one day
Speaker 1: and then the next day they've got somebody else's clothes on.
Speaker 1: It's really understanding how do you cultivate a relationship where
Speaker 1: that influencer inherently believes in those values, promotes such values
Speaker 1: and I think in their social profile or in their
Speaker 1: their brand ecosystem. Yeah. And I think that brands in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways could think of influencers and talent
Speaker 1: as people who they want to actually invest in for
Speaker 1: the long haul or whatever the long haul is. Um
Speaker 1: you can do, you know, short term programs, but something
Speaker 1: where you say, I want to go in work with
Speaker 1: this influence er on these things in a really meaningful way,
Speaker 1: not just to do something that's maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: more ephemeral and just you know, leans into culture for
Speaker 1: culture's sake, but as something that could stand the test
Speaker 1: of time. And I think what's interesting about that is
Speaker 1: when those two things come together, the earned value happens, right,
Speaker 1: and an influencer who believes in your brand is more
Speaker 1: likely to put more into and amplify on their own,
Speaker 1: on their own time or dollar or platform, in a
Speaker 1: way that brands could never set themselves up to do
Speaker 1: with an actual transaction. I think if you have an
Speaker 1: influencer who is you know, working with lots of different people,
Speaker 1: and their values are changing based on whoever they're working
Speaker 1: with or who's paying them area, they're probably not going
Speaker 1: to survive very long, right Right, I've got an idea,
Speaker 1: tell us, what if we stop calling them influencers and
Speaker 1: we start buying perspectives that because when you can line
Speaker 1: up perspective, these questions don't become questions, they become givens.
Speaker 1: Right there. There are things that if you know what
Speaker 1: that person stands for, like Arianna Huffington's Sleep, Sleep Well,
Speaker 1: Sleep and Balance, and I think there's no mistaking what
Speaker 1: you're going to get out of that conversation. And because
Speaker 1: she's so passionate, it's so authentic. That brings us to
Speaker 1: the next kind of topic that we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: and everyone's talking about it. And in fact, when when
Speaker 1: we talked about talking about this, I kind of rolled
Speaker 1: my eyes and I said, I'm so done with the
Speaker 1: pepsi conversation. But it's an important conversation to have because
Speaker 1: we want to put our spin on it because we
Speaker 1: don't want to add to the noise. I think everybody's
Speaker 1: for points for why they shouldn't have done it, how
Speaker 1: tone deaf like, we agree it was a mistake. But
Speaker 1: the thing that we thought, there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that we were like, oh but why, but why
Speaker 1: are people saying this? So one of the things that
Speaker 1: really got under my skin, got my real panties in
Speaker 1: a bunch, so to speak, was around um people kept
Speaker 1: pointing at the in house agency and saying, well, if
Speaker 1: they hadn't used it in ouce agency, and as a marketer,
Speaker 1: I actually took total offense to that. When we were
Speaker 1: it was hilarious, Lauren, I were texting and I was
Speaker 1: like starting to text this and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I am, I can't even talk about it makes me
Speaker 1: so frustrated. And so why does that frustrate us? One?
Speaker 1: I think that marketers in house should be totally responsible
Speaker 1: as much as their agency for making great work, actually
Speaker 1: more responsible, because they should be close with the brand
Speaker 1: and understand the brand values and making sure that those
Speaker 1: things are reflected. I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: we got frustrated with was why should a marketer in
Speaker 1: house be any less accountable than an agency than an
Speaker 1: agency would if at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 1: all marketers accountable and capable. Right, those were the two things.
Speaker 1: It was like accountable and capable. Well, and what it
Speaker 1: was funny? I said to Laura, have we as marketers,
Speaker 1: like have we become expected to outsource our brain to agencies?
Speaker 1: That that kind of bothers me, So are we like
Speaker 1: brainless bodies and jobs? Saying sure, just show me the
Speaker 1: media flow, like what is that? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: And it and it actually reflects some of the things
Speaker 1: that are happening in data, which was point number two. Right,
Speaker 1: That really kind of like got our goat, which was, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm Greek, we like goats, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the interpretation of it right, And I to me,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily that they were any less tone deaf.
Speaker 1: It was that everybody who is a part of culture
Speaker 1: at this moment in time, or has been for the
Speaker 1: last I don't know, six months, should have recognized many
Speaker 1: red flags on the field. And so whether you're somebody
Speaker 1: who is sitting internally close to the brand, to me,
Speaker 1: that actually heightens the respond instability and accountability by saying
Speaker 1: I've got to protect this house. And if my brand
Speaker 1: ethos is meant to be joy in this case or
Speaker 1: you know something for another brand, that might mean X,
Speaker 1: how am I showing up in the world. And that
Speaker 1: litmus test should not be uh solely the responsibility of agencies.
Speaker 1: It should be the responsibility of the marketer, and it
Speaker 1: should be the responsibility of partners, right. I mean, there
Speaker 1: were obviously a lot of people involved. There are always
Speaker 1: many people involved when making UM a cultural piece of
Speaker 1: that magnitude. And this is also why I believe comm's planning,
Speaker 1: which quite frankly has been stripped away, automated, diluted, complements
Speaker 1: of things like data and algorithms, where you know, some
Speaker 1: person somewhere said this is a very um pervasive trend
Speaker 1: or or cultural moment, and this is an opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to seize an our way instead of really paying
Speaker 1: attention to cultural context and what audiences have to say.
Speaker 1: And this is where the idea of I'm not so
Speaker 1: sure tests and learn is really at this day and
Speaker 1: age where we need to be starting. I think it's
Speaker 1: more about listening and building and like using your gut.
Speaker 1: But the thing that like, so I used to work
Speaker 1: for Pepsi. They were my client early in my career.
Speaker 1: It's actually the first client I ever had was Pepsi.
Speaker 1: I have a love for Pepsi. I actually have a
Speaker 1: love for Pepsi and coke. But Pepsi is totally built
Speaker 1: on being a reflection of pop culture. Whether it was
Speaker 1: in Russia, whether it's with Michael Jackson and Britney Spears.
Speaker 1: They've been this amazing reflection of pop culture. And when
Speaker 1: I think we saw here, which made me really sad,
Speaker 1: was a brand not knowing where they fit in anymore,
Speaker 1: like pop culture, we're reflecting it. Hey, here it is, guys,
Speaker 1: this is what pop culture looks like and not doing
Speaker 1: more evaluation. To your point around like, Okay, we understand
Speaker 1: that millennials want to stand for something, that they want
Speaker 1: to be involved, that they want to do good and
Speaker 1: yes this is a global as we can't be specific
Speaker 1: about anything, but we want to reflect those are universal
Speaker 1: themes what you just went through. But there are many
Speaker 1: ways to show up in culture if you're paying attention
Speaker 1: to audience and your consumer has to say the brand
Speaker 1: to me was in an emergency of self identity, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing is like this an emergency of
Speaker 1: self identity. But and to your point around comms planning,
Speaker 1: like data ain't a strategy, folks, And in this case,
Speaker 1: the strategy showed. I I love this line and I've
Speaker 1: heard a couple of people use it lately, like your
Speaker 1: strategy is showing. I mean, their strategy was all out
Speaker 1: there for us strategy. But I think where this brand
Speaker 1: struggled the most in the last five eight years has
Speaker 1: been again there this mirror on pop culture. They've never
Speaker 1: been a Pepsi. You never look at Pepsi and be like,
Speaker 1: Pepsi's a leader of culture. No, Pepsi is a reflection
Speaker 1: of culture, and now I think that they've been in
Speaker 1: this like almost like you know, emergency of self right
Speaker 1: of who are we? What would have been the right tone?
Speaker 1: I mean, what would have been to strike a balance
Speaker 1: to lean into millennial culture. How would we have done
Speaker 1: it differently? I mean, I think that I would have
Speaker 1: gone down maybe more of an influencer route. I would
Speaker 1: have if I really, if I really wanted to rally
Speaker 1: people around the idea and the zeitgeist of social unrest,
Speaker 1: but people coming together in social unrest to form new communities,
Speaker 1: um new dialogues, those types of things, and that PEPSI
Speaker 1: somehow was like the universal connector. I would have probably
Speaker 1: gone down a route of going really local and doing
Speaker 1: it globally all over the world, and not probably with
Speaker 1: giant pop stars, but probably investing in up and coming
Speaker 1: talent that I wanted to have a longer term again
Speaker 1: relationship with. So going back to what we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, so I think what we've talked a bit
Speaker 1: about over the course of our first few episodes is
Speaker 1: getting back to community and grassroots, and there were undertones
Speaker 1: of that reflect But if you extract the grassroots and
Speaker 1: you extract subcultures, and passion points, and you start to say,
Speaker 1: what are the things if I'm listening truly to the
Speaker 1: millennial pepsi consumer, who are those subcultures? Not the generic
Speaker 1: ones we've come to expect, but who truly are they
Speaker 1: sneaker heads? Are they collaborative artists? Are they interpretive dancers?
Speaker 1: You know, you get the point, and then understand to
Speaker 1: your point, if I put a pepsi in their hand,
Speaker 1: which presumably stands for joy, what does that community galvanize around?
Speaker 1: And there's your content series because the product is reflective
Speaker 1: of an ocean and that emotion has been joy, but
Speaker 1: put in the wrong context, here we are. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: can I ask a question? Sure, cam our producer, you
Speaker 1: can ask a question. The thing that you guys didn't
Speaker 1: bring up. But the thing that I thought of as
Speaker 1: a consumer was like the second a commercial is political
Speaker 1: at all, I'm extremely skeptical because they're using something really
Speaker 1: serious to sell something. And then in this case, they
Speaker 1: suggested that a can of pepsi can beat the solution
Speaker 1: to police brutality, which which no one's gonna buy. But
Speaker 1: I mean, how do brands, even you know, touch on
Speaker 1: political topics if people like me kind of like are
Speaker 1: averse to that to begin with because they think they
Speaker 1: have to talk about it from like, so, okay, how
Speaker 1: do brands touch on political topics without being I think
Speaker 1: like they have. You have to go back to it's
Speaker 1: not funny, I say money because one of our Twitter
Speaker 1: followers asked us, you know, how do you think about
Speaker 1: advising your clients around politics? And we talked a bit
Speaker 1: about it on our first episode with Ja and I'll
Speaker 1: go back to what the core theme of that show was,
Speaker 1: core values, core values, and like Bend talked a lot
Speaker 1: about um, if there's five things that are on your
Speaker 1: front wall when you walk in the door, like if
Speaker 1: the if the company actually, if the people do not
Speaker 1: feel like that is actually who the brand is, then
Speaker 1: you shouldn't even be talking about externally, I think is
Speaker 1: what you're thinking. I doubt PEPSI has a big Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter sign in their lobby. It shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: about politics. It should have been about people and the news, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what they were trying. And then you know,
Speaker 1: having some weird policeman basically, which was like the modern
Speaker 1: Tianamen Square thing right with PEPSI, Like I didn't really
Speaker 1: totally like, I don't know why they did that, and
Speaker 1: it made it definitely more political. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like they even and I don't know because I'm
Speaker 1: not part of the world, and you guys might disagree,
Speaker 1: but I feel like the ad would have been fairly
Speaker 1: successful if Pepsi hadn't even appeared in the commercial. Total
Speaker 1: totally agree with that, like banner at the end, because
Speaker 1: commercials do that all the time. You're like, what the
Speaker 1: hell is this about? It's not about the product, and
Speaker 1: then you see the what if the flash and you're like, well, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: what if they had said something like you know, now
Speaker 1: is the time where we need more joy? That commercial
Speaker 1: is completely different, right, So anyway, we could go on
Speaker 1: about every I mean everyone has and everyone's talked about it,
Speaker 1: and I think like the reason we decided to talk
Speaker 1: about it was because those things were kind of just
Speaker 1: really rubbing us. So we did and we hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy and you'll always get that from us at Landia.
Speaker 1: So we'll be right back with Carlos Watson from Ozzie
Speaker 1: Stay with Welcome back, everybody. We are excited to have
Speaker 1: Carlos Watson from Azzi dot Com in the studio with
Speaker 1: us today Carlos Watson, co founder of Azzy dot Com,
Speaker 1: this breakout media company that we've been watching for a
Speaker 1: few years now. Carlos, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: It is really fun to be with you guys. As
Speaker 1: we were saying before, when last I saw you, you
Speaker 1: were carrying a beautiful baby girl to be thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. I'm slightly smaller, but I can't
Speaker 1: say all the way. Well, you know what, she she
Speaker 1: did her part, and I assume she's healthy and happy.
Speaker 1: She's very healthy, happy and a lot of fun. Good
Speaker 1: Thank you. She has Alex as many may so. Carlos,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming to Atlantia. I mean we were talking
Speaker 1: a little bit before we came back on year, and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to see the tremendous growth you've had
Speaker 1: in the last three years or so, breakout growth, you know,
Speaker 1: it has been. It's funny because before we started, I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to get to have some conversations with
Speaker 1: Arianna Huffington, and I got to talk to the folks
Speaker 1: that started Politico and the folks who started Slate, BuzzFeed,
Speaker 1: and the folks from Bleacher Report, and so we tried
Speaker 1: to do our homework even as we tried to prepare
Speaker 1: our plan, and we ended up coming to learn a
Speaker 1: couple of things. One, we didn't realize how old a
Speaker 1: lot of the well known digital media companies were, and
Speaker 1: so Shane Smith made it clear to me that he
Speaker 1: wasn't a four to five year old company. Year old.
Speaker 1: We were just talking. We were literally just talking about
Speaker 1: right craziness early nineties and Vox there was various incarnations,
Speaker 1: is almost fourteen fifteen years old, buzz Feed twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, Refinery twenty nine has been around twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: years old. Thrillist. Ben was just telling me, I mean,
Speaker 1: they've passed a decade, and so we still relatively young Bucks.
Speaker 1: And what I really have come to appreciate is how
Speaker 1: long it often takes to get any kind of meaningful momentument.
Speaker 1: So I'm even more appreciative that in our first three years,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've offered something really good to our audience,
Speaker 1: whether it's our presidential daily brief for our daily features.
Speaker 1: And I feel really good about the kind of audience
Speaker 1: that we built. There's a lot of what we call
Speaker 1: a and ees, addicts and evangelists, you know, and then
Speaker 1: there are a lot of new opportunities, like events and
Speaker 1: like television. One of the things that Alexa and I
Speaker 1: really have enjoyed watching, and maybe you've just studied the
Speaker 1: industry really well, is that when it seemed like everybody
Speaker 1: started to go right in chasing the lowest common denominator,
Speaker 1: looking for scale, in some instances almost replicating the model
Speaker 1: in terms of coverage. In terms of format, Ozzie seemed
Speaker 1: to veer left. Ozzie was always actually built for people
Speaker 1: who think of the word different as a positive right,
Speaker 1: Because there are people whom you can say, hey, this
Speaker 1: food is gonna be a little bit different, and they
Speaker 1: actually get more excited. Or you have people say hey,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a different kind of dude and they go, okay,
Speaker 1: I actually will meet him that right. What about the
Speaker 1: people who are scared of different food but love different people. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, we liked this type of left and right,
Speaker 1: but I'll hang out with you. Is that like an
Speaker 1: ambidexterous We like those because I think Alexa and I
Speaker 1: are that well, you know what, then come on down
Speaker 1: and spend some more time with uh. We from the
Speaker 1: very beginning wanted to be different. There's a thing on
Speaker 1: a sesame street. Some of these things are not like
Speaker 1: and we wanted to be different because there are no
Speaker 1: winners in the long lines. You know, the short lines
Speaker 1: are where the winning is right. And so we were
Speaker 1: comfortable being in a different place. We were comfortable not going,
Speaker 1: as you said, for the lowest common denominator. We really
Speaker 1: admired what HBO didn't said. You know what, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do a million different shows. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: a handful, but really really well, they're gonna be monsters
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be excited about and so and our
Speaker 1: mind was always Apple, HBO Tesla do a few things
Speaker 1: really well and and don't just have people like you
Speaker 1: have see if you could have people fall in love
Speaker 1: with you was at The impetus to be in the
Speaker 1: Valley was because you admire and want to exemplify certain
Speaker 1: things that Apple Tesla have done. The biggest part of
Speaker 1: the reason was unfortunately my mom was really sick, and
Speaker 1: so I moved out there. But I love the valley
Speaker 1: and I stayed because I think it's a place where
Speaker 1: people have seeing crazy things happen, and where they can
Speaker 1: indulge your idea and not immediately skeptically push it aside
Speaker 1: that no, they can see it actually come to light
Speaker 1: because enough of their neighbors went to go join some
Speaker 1: crazy sounding thing called Uber or Google or Snapchat and one,
Speaker 1: and so in New York they're always like, get the
Speaker 1: am I allowed to say something like the funk out
Speaker 1: of here, and uh, I'll let lower do the Jersey access.
Speaker 1: But but but it was pretty good. But out in
Speaker 1: the Bay they'll say, like, tell me more. Now, they
Speaker 1: still may walk away from it, but they'll say tell
Speaker 1: me more. And so I thought there was power. And
Speaker 1: then the other piece of it is I wanted my
Speaker 1: team even when we had the chance. We had investors
Speaker 1: who were pushing us, even after we started to move
Speaker 1: to New York, And I said, you know what, if
Speaker 1: my guys moved to New York, they will fundamentally compare
Speaker 1: themselves to the New York Times, to BuzzFeed interesting and
Speaker 1: no disrespect. I want my guys comparing themselves to Apple,
Speaker 1: to Uber, to Tesla. Why are media companies like Ozzie right,
Speaker 1: like some of the smaller players, but some of the
Speaker 1: newer players on the scene. Why can't they be the
Speaker 1: ones who are creating technologies and architectures for new products
Speaker 1: in ways that we're not thinking about. So everyone looks
Speaker 1: at like the A, T and T s right, or
Speaker 1: the Googles or the Apples and says, oh, they're going
Speaker 1: to be the ones, right, Why why can't media companies
Speaker 1: be the disrupter? And even like media companies that are
Speaker 1: what I would say are more niche like in some
Speaker 1: ways because you're creating the a in the ease right
Speaker 1: in audio things, dropping on our meetings last week? Do
Speaker 1: you know what's coming in queue? For to know what's
Speaker 1: coming around? This is why people come to at Landing Carlos.
Speaker 1: We have these conversations. Well, so, the only folks in
Speaker 1: media who have kind of used tech is BuzzFeed used
Speaker 1: it a little bit when they were kind of gaming
Speaker 1: social and obviously now they just pay for it. And
Speaker 1: The New York Times is kind of used tech from
Speaker 1: personalization to kind of a little bit of virtual reality
Speaker 1: to other things. But there's not a media company yet.
Speaker 1: And obviously I realized that Facebook and Samchat and others
Speaker 1: would be offended would say we are media companies, right,
Speaker 1: but there's not a media company yet. In my mind
Speaker 1: that has clearly said a media and technology just riffing
Speaker 1: on that from the tech standpoint, it's interesting that you
Speaker 1: want your employees, your competitive set presumably to consider you
Speaker 1: as let's just say media and tech. Yeah, when we
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit earlier about you going left,
Speaker 1: Alexa had this really great kind of synopsis and saying,
Speaker 1: AZZI is credibly human you when in bridge relationships, not
Speaker 1: with the Googles and the face if you went in
Speaker 1: bridge relationships with why they said and so well synchronized.
Speaker 1: Maybe because I have three sisters, I like partners, you
Speaker 1: realize you have to go along to get along. We
Speaker 1: always said that we were out to thrill our audience.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like a special thing to say until
Speaker 1: you realize that most companies are looking to serve their audiences.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean any disrespect to a lot of
Speaker 1: the people we know, but you know, most of the
Speaker 1: companies you know, as much success as Dell has had,
Speaker 1: as much success as Delta have, they would probably say
Speaker 1: we do a good job of serving our customers with
Speaker 1: jet Blue when they first started. What Apple has said,
Speaker 1: what others want to say, They want to Yeah, they
Speaker 1: want to thrill in delight, and that's what Ozzy has
Speaker 1: always been about. I met a few years ago a
Speaker 1: guy named David Neilman, who had founded Jet Blue. Helped
Speaker 1: found Jet Blue, and I love Jet Blue. When it
Speaker 1: first came out, I would switch flights. I would pass
Speaker 1: up business class or first class just to fly with them.
Speaker 1: I love them. And I remember I met him at
Speaker 1: LaGuardia and when he finally realized I wasn't a stalker
Speaker 1: and stopped and talked and just that I was just
Speaker 1: a super fan. I was like, how in the world
Speaker 1: did you build something that I really like this much?
Speaker 1: Because you don't really have an emotional reaction to an airline,
Speaker 1: but I love that. He said, was that for all
Speaker 1: the analysis he did, in the end, he kind of
Speaker 1: followed his heart and his gut, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: be happy and other people like him. And so a
Speaker 1: slightly tall guy tired of his knees getting banged, and
Speaker 1: so he created seats with more room, not just for
Speaker 1: himself but for everyone. You know, he was a guy
Speaker 1: who was flying often from the West coast, East coast.
Speaker 1: You taught to New York and he said, cause if
Speaker 1: I could have had anything in that time, I would
Speaker 1: have had TV time. And so I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember, they were the first to put a time
Speaker 1: on the back of He had like that's why I
Speaker 1: used to fly them and they had like yeah, it
Speaker 1: all kinds of So I say all that just to
Speaker 1: say that part of the reason why I hope you
Speaker 1: feel like we're different and we are human is it
Speaker 1: for all the studying we did in the end, we
Speaker 1: were willing to put our books down and kind of
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and kind of say what would
Speaker 1: make you fall love? And and that's what we tried
Speaker 1: to do. You get that from experience. Because one of
Speaker 1: the things that Alex and I were poking at a
Speaker 1: little bit is what audience is the Aussie sweet spot.
Speaker 1: So we have a theory AZZI is actually super serving
Speaker 1: an audience that is not necessarily spot on millennial and
Speaker 1: not definitely in the older boomer but somewhere in the
Speaker 1: gen X millennial crowd, people who are maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more seasoned in their career, more more yeah, more
Speaker 1: experienced seasoned consumers, and people who are looking for maybe
Speaker 1: something slightly different. It's not the different take on the
Speaker 1: same story. It's giving a different story and put it
Speaker 1: in context. Two things that are happening culturally, politically, economically,
Speaker 1: from a business standpoint. I think you guys do that
Speaker 1: probably better than anybody else. So when Laura and I
Speaker 1: were talking about it, we're like, are they millennial? Not
Speaker 1: from our field? It actually feels like you're super serving
Speaker 1: maybe a slightly older thirty six I'm thirty six, thirty
Speaker 1: six year old to forty five year old audience that
Speaker 1: are ravenous readers, curious, interested. Yeah, I think you were
Speaker 1: right that we've got a love affair with them, And
Speaker 1: I think with millennials. When we first started, people thought
Speaker 1: it was bullshit if I said it, But I used
Speaker 1: to say that our audience was like what I call
Speaker 1: the change generation. They were people who weren't just okay
Speaker 1: with things being different, or they didn't just tolerate things
Speaker 1: being different. Actually different had positive connotation, and different might
Speaker 1: mean different food, different clothing, different places to travel, different
Speaker 1: people to date and marry, but that fundamentally they weren't
Speaker 1: just open to it but like it, like had a
Speaker 1: positive connotation and not everything, but that more often than
Speaker 1: not they would say why not and give something a shot,
Speaker 1: and that that was our tribe and that while that
Speaker 1: might disproportionately skew millennial and gen xer. It really was
Speaker 1: more about a mindset. And in fact, what was funny
Speaker 1: was that my mom makes you rest in peace, who
Speaker 1: was an eighty something year old teacher. I felt very
Speaker 1: strongly that Ozzy was for her, and she would literally
Speaker 1: put up her dukes with anyone who would try and
Speaker 1: tell her that it was just for my niece, who
Speaker 1: at the time was uh twenty and in college. And
Speaker 1: who say, you know, Grandma, this is for me, this
Speaker 1: is my thing. Why are you trying to read OUI?
Speaker 1: And she was like, because Ozzy is for me. Ozzy
Speaker 1: is for whoever is curious, whoever open. I hope Azzy
Speaker 1: has a nice mix of seriousness and sexiness right over,
Speaker 1: both smart and sexy. Or someone told me, really well,
Speaker 1: Heidi Browning, if you're listening, I love it. She says
Speaker 1: smart is sexy and uh and I love that when
Speaker 1: she said that. And I think that that's hard because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the sites that are known
Speaker 1: as millennial sites, if I'm honest and you're honest, they
Speaker 1: feel a little thin. Millennials have eclipsed as the highest
Speaker 1: population in the world. How billions of people are we
Speaker 1: talking about there's not one thing that ticks them off.
Speaker 1: There are a million, and there's sometimes even different. I
Speaker 1: went to China a couple of years ago. I was
Speaker 1: pregnant and I went to China and I sat down
Speaker 1: with a bunch of like I don't know, taste makers, entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: people in business, marketers and have these conversations about Chinese
Speaker 1: quote unquote millennials, right. And the difference that everyone said,
Speaker 1: and this was in separate conversations, was they could like
Speaker 1: things that are actually at cross purposes. They could actually
Speaker 1: believe in brands as strongly that has one perspective and
Speaker 1: another one that has a completely opposite perspective. But somehow
Speaker 1: that works out. And I think that we're going into
Speaker 1: this place right in culture, in media, where you could
Speaker 1: be a conservative African American that totally loves kid rock.
Speaker 1: From an advertising and marketing perspective, sometimes we under serve
Speaker 1: and under delight that full total set of interests, the
Speaker 1: idea that we're rallying around like minded communities that have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with where you're from, how you were raised,
Speaker 1: what's your ideology is. But we all gravitate to this thing,
Speaker 1: whether that leans into politics, whether that leans into the arts,
Speaker 1: whether you know, whatever it is that you may be covering.
Speaker 1: There's no barrier to entry. It's just you really need
Speaker 1: to enjoy this thing. Yeah, you've leaned a lot into
Speaker 1: this idea of natural, authentic conversation and are building franchises
Speaker 1: around it. Can you talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of that original i P and some of
Speaker 1: the programming that you're going into, some of the events.
Speaker 1: I love when you tell me the best brands that
Speaker 1: are coming to the table, the ones who are asking
Speaker 1: for experiences, whether that's events or otherwise. You guys are
Speaker 1: doing fest Yeah, so, what's what's the premise for the
Speaker 1: original i P? And where are you going with it?
Speaker 1: We started digitally with the idea, could we not just
Speaker 1: catch you up on the day's news, but help you
Speaker 1: vault ahead and be that place to help you discover
Speaker 1: not just original takes, but original stories. We started hearing
Speaker 1: pretty early, because we do fairly detailed surveys that people
Speaker 1: were saying they use different words. They were saying, as
Speaker 1: much as I like ASSI online, I wish I could
Speaker 1: see Aussie in the real world, And so we started
Speaker 1: thinking about at it first, doing kind of small events
Speaker 1: in the way that fortune in the Atlantic have done.
Speaker 1: But then a very smart woman who was an Auzzi
Speaker 1: attic who works for the City of New York was like, guys,
Speaker 1: you're not thinking big enough. She said, south By Southwest
Speaker 1: used to be something really special. It's gotten a little sprawly.
Speaker 1: Why don't you guys really commit yourselves not to playing small,
Speaker 1: but really to building the next south By Southwest. And
Speaker 1: so we've made a five year commitment to the City
Speaker 1: of New York to build something called Azzy Fest in
Speaker 1: Central Park. My favorite review called it Ted meets Coach Ella.
Speaker 1: It's actually perfect. With the success of that, we now
Speaker 1: began doing smaller events all around the country. So we've
Speaker 1: done them in d C, in Boston, and got one
Speaker 1: coming up here in New York, San Francisco, a variety
Speaker 1: of other places. And we're now I'm excited, We're going
Speaker 1: to smaller towns and places and uh, is that inspired
Speaker 1: by everything that's going on? Part of that, But we
Speaker 1: always wanted to do that. There was a guy Gordon,
Speaker 1: Donnelly Gordon, if you're listening out there in Missouri, we
Speaker 1: still love you and remember you. Uh. But Gordon lived
Speaker 1: outside of Ferguson and kind of a relatively a rural,
Speaker 1: rural suburban area. Gordon was an azzy addict who saw
Speaker 1: some of our Auzzy t shirts online and he's like,
Speaker 1: how do I get one of those? And we were
Speaker 1: like a sign up five of your friends, And about
Speaker 1: a week later, Gordon comes back and has signed up
Speaker 1: fifty bam and so we sent them with love. But
Speaker 1: I'd been lucky enough to get together with President Clinton
Speaker 1: before we launched Ozzy, and he really liked the idea
Speaker 1: and he said, cars, we have to promise me something.
Speaker 1: He says, you have to promise me that Ozzy's not
Speaker 1: e didnt use his words. Isn't just gonna be for yuppies,
Speaker 1: he said, because there are a lot of nurses who
Speaker 1: worked the overnight shift. There are a lot of taxi drivers. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are curious who
Speaker 1: want to know and whether or not they had the
Speaker 1: same education, opportunities are took the same route. Every bit
Speaker 1: is curious and so you gotta promise me that what
Speaker 1: you're doing is about curiosity and not about a degree.
Speaker 1: And so we have always known and believe that our
Speaker 1: audience played all around the world and wasn't just in
Speaker 1: blue states in big cities, um, and wasn't just in
Speaker 1: the US, And so we're doing events in places that
Speaker 1: people might not immediately expect. It's gonna be fun and
Speaker 1: it's exciting. We're doing a fifty state tour in all
Speaker 1: fifty states, and we called States of the Nation. When
Speaker 1: are you kicking that off? We just kicked it off,
Speaker 1: So I'm getting ready. When are you coming to New Jersey?
Speaker 1: You know that's actually a good question. I don't know
Speaker 1: what we're hitting the Jersey? Are you thinking up a
Speaker 1: Corey Booker? He's doing so much of this, this activism
Speaker 1: ground and you know, he was one of the stars
Speaker 1: of our first ASSI Fest. He was such a winner
Speaker 1: at our first ASSI Fest and it was so good.
Speaker 1: We were fortunate to have him, to have Karl Rove,
Speaker 1: to have Malcolm Gladwell, have the Broad City Girls, to
Speaker 1: have Ray, to have Alex Cornachelly, to have all kinds
Speaker 1: of folks play in the sandbox and make it. In
Speaker 1: India they call it massala, you know, make it a
Speaker 1: really nice mix and yeah yeah, um, so what is next?
Speaker 1: Frasie like big big swings. When we met, like what
Speaker 1: two it was like two years ago. Now you came
Speaker 1: in and you talked about the valley, You talked about
Speaker 1: what people aren't thinking about. I think you've paid off
Speaker 1: on that in so many ways. But I know that
Speaker 1: there's more. We know that there's more. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: not every media company or publisher has someone like you
Speaker 1: that's as charismatic and also approachable. You know, one of
Speaker 1: our investors, Ron Conway, has probably be the most successful
Speaker 1: angel investor in history. You know, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Uber, Snapchat, interest,
Speaker 1: on and on. Almost sounds made up, but he reminds
Speaker 1: me again last week he's like Carls investent over seven companies.
Speaker 1: And while I've got arguably the greatest record for an
Speaker 1: angel investor ever at the garage stage, not once it's
Speaker 1: great it's gonna win, but when it's just a person
Speaker 1: or two or three people and an idea and a dream,
Speaker 1: he said, the reality is that nine out of ten
Speaker 1: don't win big. He's like, you gotta stay humble because
Speaker 1: the chances are just as easy that you're one of
Speaker 1: the nine as you are the one right at any time,
Speaker 1: By the way, at any time, at any time. And
Speaker 1: so Samir and I always say that we're in the
Speaker 1: sweet sixteen right now. Like we used basketball, we said,
Speaker 1: like we've played our way into the sweet sixteen and
Speaker 1: we haven't cut down the nets and won the championship yet.
Speaker 1: But we're in the sweet six team, maybe the Elite eight.
Speaker 1: So what gets you to the final four? What? What
Speaker 1: are those? So? I think a couple of things have
Speaker 1: to be true. One is, I think our friends Advice
Speaker 1: very smartly led the way and said that if you're
Speaker 1: doing good work in one platform, it should be able
Speaker 1: to live in other places. Were and the idea that
Speaker 1: high quality digital series can become television and film, I
Speaker 1: think makes complete sense. And you guys know, we were
Speaker 1: fortunate to sell our first show last year. We haven't
Speaker 1: announced that we just sold our second show. We've partnered
Speaker 1: with CIA, and we hope that we've got, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple more shows coming. And so we think that
Speaker 1: that's a real meaningful part of us. And it's a
Speaker 1: meaningful part not only as a revenue driver and as
Speaker 1: a chance to partner with brands in ways that they
Speaker 1: really want, but it's also an opportunity, I think, to
Speaker 1: build our own brand. And for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: that's how they will discover Ozzie is through a show
Speaker 1: like The Contenders or a couple of the others that
Speaker 1: we have coming up that are gonna be awesome and great.
Speaker 1: But do you want to say, I wish I could,
Speaker 1: but you'll come back and tell us. But when you
Speaker 1: watch Assi or listen AZZI read Ozzie, whether it's about
Speaker 1: Brazil's crazy hot dogs or the young foreign minister in Austria,
Speaker 1: or the crazy thing that's happening treating addiction these days,
Speaker 1: the idea of vaccinating my addictions. You're learning. We think
Speaker 1: over the long term, people may take courses and maybe
Speaker 1: even one day do even kind of more advanced kind
Speaker 1: of education. And so you know, you think about Oprah
Speaker 1: starting as a talk show host and by the very end,
Speaker 1: you know, causing more people to read than anyone else, right, um,
Speaker 1: causing more people to change their lives anyway. So I
Speaker 1: think if Ozzy becomes the world's best teacher, I think
Speaker 1: that's one big opportunity that I actually think we'll speak
Speaker 1: again to what you were saying earlier, that there's kind
Speaker 1: of a deeper level of substance Dazzy than maybe there
Speaker 1: are not only originality but substance um. And so I
Speaker 1: think that will end up um being something that people
Speaker 1: may not always articulate, but they will know. But I
Speaker 1: also think it's something that people will pay for, and
Speaker 1: I think there's gonna be a big opportunity there. The
Speaker 1: other thing is, and I have to give one of
Speaker 1: my sister's credit for this, she says, when I hear
Speaker 1: that a guy reads Ozzy, it tells me he's not
Speaker 1: going to talk about himself all night. Interesting, and she said,
Speaker 1: she says, I immediately know that he's a curious person
Speaker 1: and that he's open, and I can tell him and
Speaker 1: then he's outward and he's outward, and so I actually
Speaker 1: think that Ozzy could end up going down one day.
Speaker 1: Is one of the greatest matchmakers in history. Swipe left,
Speaker 1: swipe left and right, you know, you remember right, I'm married.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But I also think that there's a
Speaker 1: what you're kind of I think nicely nodding without telling us,
Speaker 1: is that there's totally new ways of building community that
Speaker 1: you're looking at very much, very much. And I would
Speaker 1: say more than that, I would say that our audience
Speaker 1: is looking at and I would say honestly that they
Speaker 1: are driving us towards I mean, you know, part of
Speaker 1: what I'm telling about education because we have over a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand professors and teachers who have written in or
Speaker 1: at various points of let us know that they are
Speaker 1: Aussie readers and are using them in the classroom, from
Speaker 1: high schools in Melbourne, Florida, to Brown University, from the
Speaker 1: military academy to community colleges in California. And the fact
Speaker 1: that people are are, you know, assigning our presidential Daily
Speaker 1: Brief to their students or or using what we call
Speaker 1: him honest Proposal to spark debates. You know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of pulled us into the education sphere more aggressively than
Speaker 1: we are, which ironically, you don't hear a lot of
Speaker 1: media companies talking about like I remember being in college
Speaker 1: and it's like what was your source of reference? And
Speaker 1: I don't really remember it being like this broad reaching
Speaker 1: scope of like media companies like there were some traditional
Speaker 1: credible to their professors were bringing in and talking. I
Speaker 1: just don't remember like somebody saying, hey, did you see
Speaker 1: you on I mean been at home page of whatever, like,
Speaker 1: which I think is a really interesting white space for
Speaker 1: for media companies to be leaning into. This is a
Speaker 1: really simple lesson for brands listen, just listen right like
Speaker 1: you're not saying we're going to create audiences where we
Speaker 1: think audiences need to be created. We're listening, and they're
Speaker 1: driving us there, and we're going there and we're building,
Speaker 1: and then we're building. That's that's it at home. So Carlos,
Speaker 1: leave our listeners at Landia. Last tweet of the show.
Speaker 1: What's interesting to you? You talk about staying interesting. What's
Speaker 1: interesting to you? As a last tweet of the of
Speaker 1: the show. I'm always interested and unlikely suspects and people
Speaker 1: who weren't supposed to have a podcast, or weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to start a company, or weren't supp was to be
Speaker 1: a writer, or weren't supposed to do a movie like Moonlight,
Speaker 1: and I want to know how that happens and what
Speaker 1: we all can take from it in order to be
Speaker 1: a little bolder, maybe a lot more bold, inspired by
Speaker 1: the David's yes, yes, well, Carlos, you inspire us and
Speaker 1: we always learned something new and interesting from you every
Speaker 1: time we see you. So fun, We always have fun
Speaker 1: with you. You are welcome anytime, Carlos Watson. Everybody, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for stopping back. People want to find
Speaker 1: you like someone in Missouri. How do they find you?
Speaker 1: You could find me on Twitter, you can find me
Speaker 1: on Facebook. Lots of good ways. Also Carlos Watson at
Speaker 1: azzy dot com. Thank you, Carlo. Thank you, Carlos. Talk
Speaker 1: to you soon. Take care. Big thanks to Carlos Watson
Speaker 1: for coming down to Brooklyn to record with us. Um
Speaker 1: all the way from California. Big fans of Ozzie check
Speaker 1: them out out Central Park, Ozzie Festa, Manhattan. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be awesome this summer. That said, we have a couple
Speaker 1: of people to thank, Cameron Drews who was active today.
Speaker 1: Cameron Drew's on the microphone. People, our producer, Laura Mayor,
Speaker 1: Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, all of our family at Panoply.
Speaker 1: And we have one request to our listeners. If you're
Speaker 1: liking at Landia, review us on iTunes, Google Play, wherever
Speaker 1: you can review and also get into conversations with us.
Speaker 1: But we're having some fun banters back and forth on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. Yeah, so go ahead
Speaker 1: and follow us on Twitter at Atlantia Podcast and we'll
Speaker 1: be back in two weeks with another show. We're out.
Speaker 1: Thanks at Landia Full disclosure, our opinions, our own