Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. People are going to have
Speaker 1: to start making better content. I think we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about this for a long time. When you program
Speaker 1: for everyone, you program for no one. I think it's
Speaker 1: that we're purpose driven platform, Like we're trying to get
Speaker 1: to substance. How was that? Are you happy with that?
Speaker 1: This is marketing therapy right now? It really is? What's up?
Speaker 1: I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: at Landia. So one of the things Laura and I
Speaker 1: have always talked about is why don't people just ask
Speaker 1: more questions? Right? We are super obsessed with the why.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the work that we
Speaker 1: have focused on over the course of our time working
Speaker 1: together and UM, the things that we always point to
Speaker 1: and say, yes, that's the thing, has been what I
Speaker 1: think bleeds into culture. And you can tell when people
Speaker 1: really take their time with wrapping content next um and
Speaker 1: putting work into the market that integrates seamlessly versus lives
Speaker 1: adjacent to And I think as marketers we forget to
Speaker 1: like kind of ask ourselves that question of like why
Speaker 1: what motivates me? What right? What excites me? And putting
Speaker 1: that into your work and actually asking questions about the work.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I sit with a lot of people now
Speaker 1: who are writing a lot of like marketing copy, and
Speaker 1: I always ask, would you read this? Would you actually
Speaker 1: read this? Great simple questions, simple question? And you want
Speaker 1: the answer is how many times? No? They're like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, then we gotta go rewrite it. I mean,
Speaker 1: two of the key things that I think we've heard
Speaker 1: over the last few episodes, I think stemming back to
Speaker 1: Josh Sternberg being on the show, Um, you know somebody
Speaker 1: who's watching the market as as a reporter over ad week,
Speaker 1: to you know, Cody and Mike Tongue, to young guys
Speaker 1: who left the agency world to build their own thing. There,
Speaker 1: there's these piecemeal signals right into the the biggest trends
Speaker 1: that I think we're seeing our the idea of like
Speaker 1: being able to bring your whole self to the table,
Speaker 1: allowing all of the inputs and influences in your life
Speaker 1: to affect your creativity and call that data by the way, right,
Speaker 1: and then the other the other is really about asking
Speaker 1: the simple questions, like questioning it, and I think what
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from our next guest is allowing
Speaker 1: yourself to imagine and allowing yourself to kind of like
Speaker 1: go down the road where you start with a simple
Speaker 1: question actually can lead to bigger and cooler and smarter
Speaker 1: and more impactful work than it is. When we have
Speaker 1: something in a nice little clean box that we've put together,
Speaker 1: either whether it's a brief for a media plan or something,
Speaker 1: ask what isn't there? Yeah, the blue sky thinking. We
Speaker 1: can all talk about thinking this way, but it's really
Speaker 1: about behavior. It's how we start training our brains. I
Speaker 1: think our next guest, Brad Grossman, who is the founder
Speaker 1: of zeit Guide, really has been training sea level executives
Speaker 1: to think like a Hollywood producer, to dream, to let
Speaker 1: their minds kind of go down and pull in a
Speaker 1: ton of data, but use their gut and their heart
Speaker 1: to lead them to what really makes sense. And my
Speaker 1: hope is that that then trickles down through organizations because
Speaker 1: I think some of these young people making these decisions
Speaker 1: in the weeds are in search of those sorts of
Speaker 1: inputs that go far beyond an index or a data
Speaker 1: point or something. As Beth comp Stock has always said,
Speaker 1: they feel like permissions granted. On that note, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back and we're back in the studio with Brad Grossman,
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Zeitguide, the oracle to the industry. Welcome. Wow, God,
Speaker 1: I don't know who is the oracle to you? So where?
Speaker 1: What is the zeit Guide and how did you become
Speaker 1: the zeck Guide to the Zeitgeist? Okay? Zeke Guide means
Speaker 1: guide to the Zeitgeist. Okay, Zeitgeist which many people don't know,
Speaker 1: um what the real meaning is of it. But Zeitgeist
Speaker 1: means spirit of the times in German. What the Zieguide
Speaker 1: is is basically, we guide super busy executives on what
Speaker 1: they need to know so that they can lead themselves
Speaker 1: towards what's next. So you're the coach, the Zeitgeist coach. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we guide them through our constantly changing culture so they're
Speaker 1: best prepared for the future. Yeah. My brother is a
Speaker 1: business guy, so he makes me kind of say that stuff.
Speaker 1: He's one of my partners. Tell us because it's it's
Speaker 1: an unlikely story about how Zeitguide and how you became
Speaker 1: the zeit Guide coach for the Zeitgeist, and it has
Speaker 1: to do with Hollywood. You were in Hollywood? Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth. UM. I started this company
Speaker 1: after doing what I do now for other leaders and
Speaker 1: helping them understand what's outside their company walls. I did
Speaker 1: it for the Oscar Award winning and Emmy Award winning
Speaker 1: producer Brian Grazer, who's a really good friend of yours.
Speaker 1: That's a very good friend of mine. Yes, he produces
Speaker 1: some stuff. And did you grow up together? How do
Speaker 1: you know? Brian? Oh god, you're you're even going further back.
Speaker 1: I actually was now that I'm like a tutor to
Speaker 1: C suites, UM, C suite executives. UM. I was a
Speaker 1: chemistry tutor to high school kids in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: it started this little tutoring company called Institutor. And then
Speaker 1: one day I get a call from I feel like
Speaker 1: there was like some logo on like a geo tracker.
Speaker 1: It's like you're jamming through l A like it's the tutor.
Speaker 1: It's so funny my logo that Yeah, well, I I
Speaker 1: modeled after Charles and Charles meets the Nanny, right. So,
Speaker 1: And I was a delight to you know, all the
Speaker 1: parents of my clients, UM, who were students UM, who
Speaker 1: happened to be from the Hollywood establishment. And yes, I
Speaker 1: had this little Volkswagen convertible and my logo had me
Speaker 1: and the convertible with sunglasses on with the horn honking
Speaker 1: and said too too seriously, Oh how about that? The
Speaker 1: great marketing was it? Totally was? Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: so wanted that car in high school. But anyway, they
Speaker 1: don't make it. They called it a cabrio then, yeah, cabrio. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In what year was this? Two thousand two? I was
Speaker 1: tutoring some of the sons and daughters of Brian Grazer's
Speaker 1: friends and he heard about me. And after three years
Speaker 1: of building this company, I get this phone call from
Speaker 1: Brian Grazer's office and they're like, Hi, this is uh.
Speaker 1: I think his assistant at that point was mc l Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Miguel from Brian Grazer's office, and uh, I'd
Speaker 1: love to set up a meeting between you and Brian Grazer.
Speaker 1: And I'm like really, and you know, does he want
Speaker 1: me to tutor his kid? And I said and and
Speaker 1: they said no, he just wants to meet you. He
Speaker 1: loves doing this thing, he loves meeting with interesting people
Speaker 1: who are outside his UM industry, and he heard that
Speaker 1: you're a great tutor and I'm like, wow, okay, well
Speaker 1: I'll come in and see him. And so I walked
Speaker 1: into his office and he's like, there's Brad Grossman, the
Speaker 1: tutor to the stars. And I'm like, wow, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's generous. And he's like, I don't want you to
Speaker 1: tutor my daughter. I want you to tutor me. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, in what you know? He's like, whoa, what
Speaker 1: do you tutor? I'm like, I do calculus. I do chemistry.
Speaker 1: He's like chemistry really, and he takes out this periodic
Speaker 1: table from behind his sofa and that Oliver Sacks gave
Speaker 1: him and I basically taught him with the oodic table.
Speaker 1: Was you know, Brian was really awesome in the sense
Speaker 1: that you know, he is a self proclaimed dyslexic and
Speaker 1: he said that, you know, the only thing he learned
Speaker 1: in school was that he couldn't learn in school, So
Speaker 1: he wanted this kind of what's called a curiosity tutor
Speaker 1: and just to kind of teach him about the world
Speaker 1: and help him get outside the Hollywood bubble. Curiosity tutor.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. Yeah, and everyone should have or
Speaker 1: you should be your title for yeah, curiosity. How long
Speaker 1: did you work with Brian Grays or tutoring him, being
Speaker 1: the curiosity tutor the curiosity And was that like your
Speaker 1: solo gig? It was solo gig, it was like my life.
Speaker 1: I did it for five years. So how did you pivot?
Speaker 1: Like what was the sort of moment You're like, done
Speaker 1: this thing for five years? Like amazing opportunity, but there's
Speaker 1: clearly something bigger that I could be doing here, Like
Speaker 1: did you have a moment? Was it a lot and
Speaker 1: drown out business plan? Like what was it? Two things?
Speaker 1: One um, I didn't want to be a movie producer,
Speaker 1: so and you know, so there was no reason for
Speaker 1: me to stay in that position. I realized that I've
Speaker 1: always had a career in terms of education, but educating
Speaker 1: people in a way that inspires them. That's why I
Speaker 1: call myself as a guy's coach instead of a tutor,
Speaker 1: because like, I'm more of a coach, right, I didn't
Speaker 1: call myself a chemistry tutor. I called myself an academic
Speaker 1: coach because my job is to help you reach your
Speaker 1: full potential. And I just thought that what I did
Speaker 1: for Brian I could do for other people. At first,
Speaker 1: I was meeting with a lot of people and telling
Speaker 1: them what my idea was to work with people in
Speaker 1: every single vertical so to speak. Um and they're like,
Speaker 1: what are you kidding me? Like, go back to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: that job doesn't exist. You went from and are going
Speaker 1: from just giving people information to actually teaching them how
Speaker 1: to think. Yes, right, so people are pulling you into
Speaker 1: their organizations and you're actually teaching sea level executives how
Speaker 1: to think and then how to train their teams to think.
Speaker 1: They don't really have time to really sit and think
Speaker 1: and brainstorm with the person who is outside of the
Speaker 1: chaos let's I mean, let's you know, the chaos of
Speaker 1: their daily lives and the chaos of the industry or
Speaker 1: how their companies are being disrupted. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: they could strategize with the geniuses inside, and they could
Speaker 1: hire a bunch of consultants to kind of come in
Speaker 1: and advise them what to do, but very few of
Speaker 1: them have the time to just kind of like think
Speaker 1: like a science fiction writer with somebody who is very
Speaker 1: multidisciplinary like me and my team. So what is curious?
Speaker 1: So that's really interesting, like thinking like a science fiction
Speaker 1: writer or a filmmaker creator, like I I got taught
Speaker 1: how to think like a movie a movie producer right
Speaker 1: in the movie business. And that's basically thinking in a
Speaker 1: way that is so blue sky that anything can happen
Speaker 1: from because they can't take. What we're realizing now is
Speaker 1: that anything can happen. I mean, and anything that happens
Speaker 1: now has more impact on the world and business than
Speaker 1: anything that has ever happened before. It's any black swat
Speaker 1: event that you know, everything is happening so quickly, and
Speaker 1: we're so connected and at the core, media impacts culture, right,
Speaker 1: and now that social media is causing more media to
Speaker 1: be out there and connecting to more people, just more
Speaker 1: things are happening that you never really thought that would
Speaker 1: expect be expected at a much faster right. Right. So
Speaker 1: things you just said are on media impacting culture, right.
Speaker 1: So obviously is the show talking to brand marketers and
Speaker 1: gency folk and creative types who are creating the messaging
Speaker 1: that's it's adjacent to that media using that pipe to
Speaker 1: disseminate you know, thoughts and provocations and and all the
Speaker 1: things that we do as marketers. Um, is it fair
Speaker 1: to say and and curious your take as as a
Speaker 1: zeitgeist coach tutor guru. UM. The brands nowadays have more
Speaker 1: or less influence in the market. We're seemingly consuming more
Speaker 1: and more and more, But at the same time it
Speaker 1: feels that consumers are equally skeptic. I think, well, I
Speaker 1: think consumers have more power than ever before. Now more
Speaker 1: than ever. Uh, consumers are shaping businesses UM because they're
Speaker 1: just not gonna buy anything that you're you know that
Speaker 1: that you're that they're selling to you unless they actually
Speaker 1: want it. And there's so much information out there that
Speaker 1: the brands don't have the direct Not only do they
Speaker 1: not have the direct line to them, they also UM
Speaker 1: their messaging is being crowded out by everything else that's
Speaker 1: worked at Goldman Sachs, I've worked with Unilever, Disney, worked
Speaker 1: with Fox, um Sony g E. S, beethcom Stock, I mean, Nickelodeon.
Speaker 1: I've worked with What is the key to curiosity? Like,
Speaker 1: how does a curious person behave no where you go
Speaker 1: excited about learning, knowing that they don't know UM, not
Speaker 1: going to the most obvious source for the answer, UM,
Speaker 1: not even having direction sometimes and not even having a plan.
Speaker 1: I tell my clients that they should just like have
Speaker 1: one day, which is almost impossible. UM two, just go
Speaker 1: on a learning journey. You know, what would that look
Speaker 1: like for like Beth com Stock, Disney executive, what does
Speaker 1: that look like? What I say that to them, is
Speaker 1: that right on a piece of paper, every single question
Speaker 1: that you've been having or been thinking about that you
Speaker 1: don't really know the answer to. Um. That's one part
Speaker 1: of the process. The other part of the process is,
Speaker 1: you know, get all the material, all the emails, and
Speaker 1: basically just see like what your gut is really you know,
Speaker 1: connecting to Like I think we're all curious right now, subconsciously, right,
Speaker 1: but I think you have to be curious consciously as well.
Speaker 1: First of all, you have to admit that you don't
Speaker 1: know something, and if you don't know something, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel bad about it. You. I think we do a
Speaker 1: lot in this industry. I think that we have a
Speaker 1: lot of questions that we don't actually allow ourselves to ask.
Speaker 1: Like you don't actually stop and say, I just I
Speaker 1: have a question about that. Why doesn't that make sense?
Speaker 1: I got this media plan? Like how many people have said, oh,
Speaker 1: I got this media plan and someone says, well, what
Speaker 1: about Dad? And they're like, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: ask why. Well, I think that that's a tremendous uh
Speaker 1: distinction in the marketplace of people focused on transactional media
Speaker 1: versus creative media. And I think ultimately the end of
Speaker 1: the day, people are judging things on face value, and
Speaker 1: rate cards and things that have finite definitions are an
Speaker 1: understanding of the way the market works. And then I
Speaker 1: think the difference of other people's work is what you
Speaker 1: just said, pushing back and saying that actually isn't finite,
Speaker 1: like a rate card is the fucking finite, right, But
Speaker 1: but I do think that that is a distinct difference.
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting too, and I think it
Speaker 1: is a sign of some of the leaders that I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed are the people who know are comfortable knowing what
Speaker 1: they don't know, and they surround themselves with people who
Speaker 1: can help input those answers so that they can come
Speaker 1: to a more informed decision. And I think seeing that offering,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. Just as you're talking, I'm spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time right now looking at tools and resources
Speaker 1: and inputs that helped make us better marketers and specifically
Speaker 1: better media planners. And frustrating thing is so many of
Speaker 1: the tools and resources that are currently available do everything
Speaker 1: but provide context and culture. And so I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you're not onto something. We also had Pierce Fox on
Speaker 1: this show at PSFK, and you know, all of this
Speaker 1: different trend spotting and these signals and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know you're sort of contained right now in in
Speaker 1: the c suite, Like I want to see the Zeke
Speaker 1: coach unleashed to the area of the market where I
Speaker 1: think it's so desperately needed. And that's the people making
Speaker 1: some of these these daily decisions that companies are a
Speaker 1: mass a lot of data, a lot, a lot, a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of data. Um. You know that they're going
Speaker 1: to be starting to donate their data for good in
Speaker 1: the like the United Nations. Any buddy who's researching the
Speaker 1: impact of AIDS, of anything, frankly anything. I think it's
Speaker 1: more about solving big global problems and where corporations could
Speaker 1: use that data, um, not just to help their consumers,
Speaker 1: but to help their consumers that are just citizens of
Speaker 1: the world. So should we get into our game? Yes, Brad,
Speaker 1: it's time kill by d I Y. If you could
Speaker 1: kill anything, what would it be? Bullying and hate? But
Speaker 1: I'm down with that. What would you buy if you
Speaker 1: could buy anything love and peace? And what would you
Speaker 1: do yourself that somebody else may be doing that? You
Speaker 1: want to build a yoga instructor? Nice? Um so, Brad.
Speaker 1: If people want to get in touch with you, ask
Speaker 1: you more about the zekegeist, how do they get in
Speaker 1: touch with you? They want to ask you about the
Speaker 1: zeke geist and get your coaching? Yeah, um, well they
Speaker 1: could go to zeitgut dot com. Um again zeke does
Speaker 1: z e i t g u i d e um
Speaker 1: ze meaning time in German to help you remember guide
Speaker 1: like TV guide which you know doesn't existing or does it?
Speaker 1: Um so zegui dot com And uh, I'm also at
Speaker 1: bragg ro Well, Brad, thank you, thank you, thanks, This
Speaker 1: is really fun. So thank you to Rad Grossman, the
Speaker 1: CEO of Zagat. A big thanks to our family and friends,
Speaker 1: the Panoply, Matt Turk, Andy Bower's Jacob Weisberg. Will be
Speaker 1: back in two weeks see you at Landia. Full disclosure
Speaker 1: our opinions are