Speaker 1: What's up on Laura Creni and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to ad Landia post Thanksgiving holiday. We had a
Speaker 1: good Thanksgiving holiday. We hope you all had a good
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving holiday. Our producer had a very good Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaker 1: Big congrats is now fianced? Is that how you say it? Fianced?
Speaker 1: Congratulations Ryan, Big congrats to Ryan and Ann And joining
Speaker 1: us for this episode is Bob Pittman in our virtual studio.
Speaker 1: And I think this is a note taker and it's
Speaker 1: something that you probably want to like rewind I did
Speaker 1: at least because what Bob talks about through his career,
Speaker 1: he's a hit maker. He is the hit maker MTV
Speaker 1: six Flags, A O L. I Heart, etcetera, etcetera, goes
Speaker 1: on and on on. Bob talks in really simple terms
Speaker 1: about things that are not simplistic, and so it's a
Speaker 1: really good episode to truly think about what he's saying
Speaker 1: and think about how this person has taken, you know,
Speaker 1: media companies from nothing to a O L. I think
Speaker 1: he said when he left was of the internet market
Speaker 1: in the United States and definitely for all of us
Speaker 1: a household name. I think this episode was very grounding
Speaker 1: in terms of the practice and what we do. It
Speaker 1: very clearly brings it back to the reason I got
Speaker 1: into marketing in the first place, and that's to find
Speaker 1: ways to connect with people and deliver on a need
Speaker 1: through the power of communication. The constant push poll I
Speaker 1: I was having as we were going through this conversation
Speaker 1: was we've gotten so hung up on the delivery mechanism
Speaker 1: that in some regards, I think we forget what we're delivering.
Speaker 1: And when Bob breaks down to your point, Alexa, the
Speaker 1: simplicity of putting a clear message in front of consumers
Speaker 1: that delivers on that need and doing it over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, and then you'll hear he says,
Speaker 1: the most effective tactic we have is word of mouth.
Speaker 1: Nothing that relies on technology or a platform or a channel.
Speaker 1: It's the companionship in the communication and the connection and
Speaker 1: the interaction that people have that moves them to take action.
Speaker 1: It's what products today are built on. It is peer
Speaker 1: to peer. It is putting the product at the center
Speaker 1: of a community. And I could not agree more. And
Speaker 1: one of the things everything you said I agree with.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I would punch out in
Speaker 1: addition is that Bob wasn't saying, g RPS is the
Speaker 1: way this is tried and true. He was actually saying,
Speaker 1: question that break that that's breakable, But what you're talking
Speaker 1: about that's unbreakable, and that I believe is what Bob
Speaker 1: was talking about is solidified, almost re verified the work
Speaker 1: that this industry and so many practitioners and listeners of
Speaker 1: the show are doing. So before we give away the
Speaker 1: whole interview, get out your notebooks. We're going to class
Speaker 1: with Bob Pittman. But before we get to Bob, Laura,
Speaker 1: we're joined here with our partners from Yield Come out
Speaker 1: for part two of our four part series talking about
Speaker 1: how to make attention actionable. We're here with Lisa Bradner,
Speaker 1: GM of Analytics and Teddy Jotty, head of Product. So, Lisa, Teddy,
Speaker 1: if making attention actionable is core to yield most value proposition,
Speaker 1: how quickly are you acting on the signals that are
Speaker 1: driving consumer attention? You'll know One of the ways that
Speaker 1: we are able to make attention actionable is we are
Speaker 1: sub fifteen minutes. So if we see somebody in a
Speaker 1: session doing something, we can turn and act on that
Speaker 1: in under fifteen minutes. We're continuing to work to push
Speaker 1: that number down lower and lower. But I hear people
Speaker 1: say real time, and what they mean is we're going
Speaker 1: to batch process it and get back to you in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. That ain't real time, and that's often
Speaker 1: not quick enough to really get the data year after.
Speaker 1: So how are you competing in the marketplace in that
Speaker 1: respect when we have so many different options, as you know,
Speaker 1: media buyers to think about who we line up with
Speaker 1: to target our audiences in the marketplace, how do you
Speaker 1: think about the difference in coming to yield mo versus
Speaker 1: potentially going to another data platform yield most points of difference?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it really isn't our tagline about
Speaker 1: making attention actionable. Uh. Number one, it's the breadth and
Speaker 1: up of the data we collect. We're collecting over seventy signals,
Speaker 1: a number of them proprietary to understand what's happening to
Speaker 1: It's the real time tech that allows us to store
Speaker 1: and process that data because a lot of people, even
Speaker 1: if they could collect all that, they wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to process it in any kind of quick fashion. And
Speaker 1: then three, it's the ability to optimize off of that right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people talk about attention as
Speaker 1: an index or kind of a you know you've got
Speaker 1: more attention, yea, you've got less attention boo. We don't
Speaker 1: look at it that way. We take that signals and say,
Speaker 1: how do we optimize the media dollars you're spending right now?
Speaker 1: We want to get you a bigger bang for your book.
Speaker 1: We know that coming out of this year, cmos are
Speaker 1: going to find their media budgets flat to cut and
Speaker 1: their growth targets tend up. So they can't just anniversary
Speaker 1: last year's media plan. We have a client say recently,
Speaker 1: he said, how am I going to take my MM
Speaker 1: them from two thousand and nineteen and apply it to
Speaker 1: two thousand and twenty one when two and twenty happened
Speaker 1: in between those rights. It's nonsensical. You can't go back
Speaker 1: to that because we are in a very different world
Speaker 1: and tell our listeners what m m M stands for
Speaker 1: a Lisa market mixed modeling one of the classic old school.
Speaker 1: So we'll look back six months and three years of
Speaker 1: data and tell you that newspaper is the number one
Speaker 1: channel to drive your business from here to attorney. It's
Speaker 1: amazing that we're still talking about that it is it is.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense when you're saying that I can
Speaker 1: actually turn a trigger signal to you in fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: when you think about fifteen minute turnaround time, I can't
Speaker 1: help but think that puts yield Mo in the driver's
Speaker 1: seat when it comes to not only making actionable decisions,
Speaker 1: of course, but also finding opportunities or windows that present
Speaker 1: contextual relevancy. We think about contextual all the time, and
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons, with the death of the
Speaker 1: third party cookie, audiences are just going to be harder
Speaker 1: to find and follow across the open web, really across everywhere.
Speaker 1: But also we believe that we may be over analyzing
Speaker 1: and overspending on all the audience layers to get to
Speaker 1: what we're trying to get to. And so when we
Speaker 1: think contextual, it's not just oh, you're on a car
Speaker 1: site looking at and we're going to serve you a
Speaker 1: car ad It's about all the signals we can read
Speaker 1: in that moment to say, who is this person, what
Speaker 1: are they looking for, what are they reading, what's on
Speaker 1: the page? Where on the page is that everything that's
Speaker 1: going on, and understanding what they're signaling attention to can
Speaker 1: help you serve the next ad and the next and
Speaker 1: the next add and really understand in that decision tree,
Speaker 1: should I go left or should I go right? But
Speaker 1: I think Laura, the notion of versus reach and frequency
Speaker 1: is interesting, right, we still need reach. Right, If you
Speaker 1: are a billion dollar brand and you have to add
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars to your top line sales this year,
Speaker 1: I might find you the perfect group of people who really, really,
Speaker 1: really really care about your product. But if they're only
Speaker 1: five of them, there's only there's only so much they
Speaker 1: can buy. And this is for me where audience strategies
Speaker 1: start to break down because we're so maniacally focused on No. No,
Speaker 1: this is our audience. These are the people buying our product.
Speaker 1: We want to help our customers find additional audiences that
Speaker 1: they may be overlooking, find places that their audience strategy
Speaker 1: may be missing because of data degradation, or just unveil
Speaker 1: new opportunities for audiences they haven't thought of. But it
Speaker 1: turns out our great opportunities for their products. I totally agree.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest mistakes I see today advertisers make
Speaker 1: is they um kind of overly obsess on audience strategies.
Speaker 1: They spend all their money on platforms that they can
Speaker 1: track users, they can measure, and it makes sense, especially
Speaker 1: coming from a world where mixed media modeling or you know,
Speaker 1: doing these big buys and waiting six months later to
Speaker 1: see if it works super frustrating. So having the ability
Speaker 1: to track and see how your returns come out is
Speaker 1: a huge innovation. But the world is changing and um,
Speaker 1: things are becoming less trackable and they're becoming more expensive.
Speaker 1: So you know, browsers are limiting this because of privacy
Speaker 1: controls and that's a good thing. And places like Facebook
Speaker 1: are becoming super expensive for brands because you know, it
Speaker 1: is trackable. Um And so I think that smart marketers
Speaker 1: are taking a step back and realizing there there are
Speaker 1: other strategies to achieve that reach and to get my
Speaker 1: message out. And these strategies like contextual that can allow
Speaker 1: you to infer an audience based on the content. And
Speaker 1: it just feels better too, you know, And it's not
Speaker 1: like a stroll or following you around the internet on
Speaker 1: a you know, a sports side. It just feels more
Speaker 1: appropriate when you're that you're reading content and the ad
Speaker 1: just looks like it should be there um and and
Speaker 1: combine that with with AT tension analytics, the ability to
Speaker 1: see in real time, does this add resonate with the user?
Speaker 1: That can be a very powerful strategy that's future proof
Speaker 1: and works um potentially better and um and and more
Speaker 1: scalable than than traditional audience buying. Lisa Bradner, Teddy Jwadi
Speaker 1: from yield Mo, thank you for being our partners, Thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on Atlantia, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: And we're back with chairman and CEO of I Heart Media.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Bob Pittman. Hi, Bob, thank you
Speaker 1: glad to be here. Laura and I were looking through
Speaker 1: your career and we were thinking through this and we're like,
Speaker 1: how did he make the bets he made? You know?
Speaker 1: I think careers and most of life is getting hit
Speaker 1: on the head with meteors uh that things just sort
Speaker 1: of pop up. And I think the difference that people
Speaker 1: have is whether you say yes or know. And I'm
Speaker 1: always up for a big adventure and so a lot
Speaker 1: of the things I did at the time seem to
Speaker 1: make no sense, but they all turned out fine. And
Speaker 1: but I'm very careful. I will only go do something
Speaker 1: that has something to do with a consumer because I
Speaker 1: think my basic skill set is that I that I
Speaker 1: focus on and understand consumers. When I was younger, I
Speaker 1: I claimed I was a sociologist. And so you know,
Speaker 1: whether I'm trying to sell them a house, or sell
Speaker 1: them a pay TV service, or get them to listen
Speaker 1: to watch MTV or by a O L, it's all
Speaker 1: the same human being and the same laws of consumer
Speaker 1: behavior are at work. And I think if you understand
Speaker 1: those then it allows you a great flexibility of of
Speaker 1: you know, jumping to a lot of different situations. Do
Speaker 1: you think that marketers today need to be more sociologists
Speaker 1: or less sociologists in the consumer space? Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I do a podcast called Math and Magic and it's
Speaker 1: and I've always talked about programming and marketing as math
Speaker 1: and magic the perfect blend of it. You have to
Speaker 1: have the analytics, you have to understand what the table
Speaker 1: looks like, you understand what the framework is. But you know,
Speaker 1: if I tell you, oh, I know exactly who this
Speaker 1: person is, I've found them all you Okay, Now what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? How are you going to motivate them?
Speaker 1: Just because you found them doesn't mean you can motivate them.
Speaker 1: That's the magic. And I think you need both, and
Speaker 1: I've tried to be a practitioner of both. I never
Speaker 1: graduated from college, but I did do three years of
Speaker 1: it and my major with social methods of research. And
Speaker 1: I started my career in radio, and I was one
Speaker 1: of the first radio programmers to use research. Before that,
Speaker 1: it was sort of golden gut or I looked at
Speaker 1: sales or the record companies told me what was a
Speaker 1: good song? Are we listening to the request line? And
Speaker 1: I started doing what we call call out research, and
Speaker 1: we still do all these years later, for fifty years later,
Speaker 1: still doing a variation of that, in which we survey
Speaker 1: the consumer about what songs they like and how they
Speaker 1: like them. The old days, it was do you love
Speaker 1: it the like it? Do you like it so much that?
Speaker 1: Or do you not neutral? Do you dislike it? Do
Speaker 1: you dislike it so much you'll change the channel? Or
Speaker 1: do you like it but tired of hearing it so much?
Speaker 1: And and you know, from that we would develop how
Speaker 1: you balance your music and put it together on a
Speaker 1: radio station. And I did that always when I was
Speaker 1: at a O l uh and every place I've been,
Speaker 1: I concept, test everything, and I test my liners and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you recall, but there was a
Speaker 1: time at a o L when we went to unlimited
Speaker 1: pricing and it was dial up and people got nothing
Speaker 1: but busy signals, and we sort of had our J
Speaker 1: and J Thailand all moment. We had one chance to
Speaker 1: get it right and uh so we tested what would
Speaker 1: work with the consumers, what did they believe about us,
Speaker 1: what were they looking for, so that when we had
Speaker 1: that one chance to make a statement, we'd say the
Speaker 1: right thing. And and also helps define For example, at
Speaker 1: at a o L, we understood two things about consumers.
Speaker 1: They tend to want to go where everybody goes. You know,
Speaker 1: if you to a new talent, you very quickly find
Speaker 1: yourself saying where does everybody go to get there? Whatever?
Speaker 1: And we their safety and going to number one. But
Speaker 1: if you just say you're number one, it sounds braggadocious.
Speaker 1: The other thing we knew was that what was we
Speaker 1: saw and it was quite different than everyone else. We
Speaker 1: didn't think this was about a keyness. We thought about
Speaker 1: ease of use and the future is gonna be easy
Speaker 1: to use. People as a slur said oh hey, oh well,
Speaker 1: that's the internet with training wheels. They didn't understand that
Speaker 1: was what the consumer wanted to hear, that it was easy.
Speaker 1: So our our line became so easy to use, no
Speaker 1: wonder it's number one. We can find both of those thoughts.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a combination of math and magic.
Speaker 1: That we understood the math of what they were looking
Speaker 1: for and how they were there, and from that craft
Speaker 1: at an approach which was okay, we're going to use
Speaker 1: the easy, We're going to use the number one, pull
Speaker 1: them together, tied the two together, and you know, as
Speaker 1: you know, by the time I left a O L,
Speaker 1: we have fift of the traffic of the inner at
Speaker 1: in the United States. Went through all this concept of
Speaker 1: math and magic. You know, in an industry as ours
Speaker 1: where seemingly everyone has doubled down on data and in
Speaker 1: many cases it's become sort of a commodity in many
Speaker 1: regards and many people are using the same data. Can
Speaker 1: you talk to us about the magic element? Where do
Speaker 1: you go, Bob for the magic time and time again,
Speaker 1: whether it was figuring out why MTV why then in
Speaker 1: that moment, and what it would be to pivoting. You know, however,
Speaker 1: many years now into my heart and being a mover
Speaker 1: and shaker within the podcast industry. So it's a really
Speaker 1: good question, and I think it's it does start with
Speaker 1: me with the math part. And the math part is
Speaker 1: not exactly the math that everybody uses today is not
Speaker 1: just clicks and numbers. It's math of understanding what verbatims
Speaker 1: people say when they're talking about something. For example, years
Speaker 1: and years ago on as a radio programmer, we said
Speaker 1: we play less commercials because that's gradically correct, and I go, yes,
Speaker 1: but that's what everyone says. And so I think the
Speaker 1: important thing is understand the language, Understand the way the
Speaker 1: consumer frames the issue and what they're looking at, and
Speaker 1: talk about it from their point of view, not from
Speaker 1: our point of view about how we built it or
Speaker 1: what we think it is as a professional. Um. And
Speaker 1: and I think on the on the magic front, it
Speaker 1: is really opening your mind. Um. I read some you know,
Speaker 1: a great student of of creativity and and and you
Speaker 1: know you read a lot. And I believe this that
Speaker 1: you don't come to a creative idea by stepping through
Speaker 1: some business school kind of points of view. And then
Speaker 1: here's the answer that the way the way you get
Speaker 1: the creative idea is you load your head with all
Speaker 1: the information, you mull it over you and then you
Speaker 1: forget about it, and one morning, when you're in that
Speaker 1: alpha zone, when you're sort of almost awake or sort
Speaker 1: of in and out of sleep in a way. Or
Speaker 1: for me, it's when I'm taking a fifteen minute hot
Speaker 1: shower in the morning and I'm just zoning out, ideas
Speaker 1: pop in my head and it's a joke in my
Speaker 1: family forever. I've run out of the shower and quick,
Speaker 1: give me the pen and just write it all down.
Speaker 1: It just appears in my brain. And because I know
Speaker 1: that's how it comes. When I work with agencies, I
Speaker 1: don't want the big presentation. I said, you really, just
Speaker 1: save all those account people. I don't need to see them. Uh,
Speaker 1: this will be a more more profitable account for you.
Speaker 1: I want you to get about three or four different
Speaker 1: teams to look at exactly the same stuff. Do not
Speaker 1: have them talk to each other. Do not have someone
Speaker 1: review their work to figure out what you're going to
Speaker 1: present to me and then come and present it. And
Speaker 1: what I'm doing is I'm maximizing the odds that one
Speaker 1: of those people had the epiphany. And it's those epiphanies
Speaker 1: that make the difference. You know. The line H A
Speaker 1: O L so easy to use, no wonders Number one
Speaker 1: turned out not to be the line the agency was suggesting.
Speaker 1: It happened to be in a briefing note they had
Speaker 1: about the line they wanted to create, and and and
Speaker 1: as soon as I see it, that's it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's Matt. When you see magic, you know it.
Speaker 1: That I want my MTV came about because George Lois
Speaker 1: and um and they open who is his partner, had
Speaker 1: been promotions director at w NBC Radio with me who
Speaker 1: I had given the account to to come up with
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, how are we going to
Speaker 1: advertise MTV? And we had this problem that the cable
Speaker 1: operators didn't want to carry us and they wanted us
Speaker 1: to pay the money. We didn't have it, so we
Speaker 1: needed some way to use consumer pull to get the
Speaker 1: consumer to to demand it. And they had originally this
Speaker 1: this uh commercial of America's becoming a land of cable
Speaker 1: brats and blah blah blah blah blah, and in there
Speaker 1: it said call your cable company and say I want
Speaker 1: my MTV. Well wait a minute, that's that's the line
Speaker 1: I want my MTV let's read craft. So to me,
Speaker 1: it's alla is this iterative process that you can edit,
Speaker 1: you can play with, but it starts with that creative epiphany.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look back over your career. Were you
Speaker 1: doing these big, swinging innovations or was it more incremental
Speaker 1: innovation building on itself. I never thought I was doing
Speaker 1: anything big. People have said I was a disrupted I
Speaker 1: never thought it was disrupting anything. I thought I was
Speaker 1: simply solving a need. Okay, I can identify we need this,
Speaker 1: let's go do that. We need this, let's go do that.
Speaker 1: The consumer wants this, let's serve that. But I never thought, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm going to disrupt everything. I just thought I was
Speaker 1: following consumers, or I was looking for a solution to
Speaker 1: a particular issue. I did a Math and Magic episode
Speaker 1: with Fred Cybert, who did the on air look for MTV,
Speaker 1: which at that moment in time, you guys are too
Speaker 1: young to remember, was the what was this incredible breakthrough look?
Speaker 1: But the reason we did the look, as Fred and
Speaker 1: I explored, was because we didn't have the money to
Speaker 1: do what everybody else was doing, which was looked like
Speaker 1: Star wars logos, you know, coming from outer space, like
Speaker 1: the intro to Star Wars. Um So Fred hit upon
Speaker 1: the idea, said, you know, Bob, if we do our
Speaker 1: version of that, we don't have much money, so ours
Speaker 1: will look cheap. But if we do something entirely different
Speaker 1: than no one's ever seen before, then it will just
Speaker 1: look creative. And and he was right, And that's what
Speaker 1: led us to do such a radically different look was
Speaker 1: because we didn't want to look like anything else, so
Speaker 1: we couldn't be compared. And people realize we were spending
Speaker 1: ten of what our competitors were spending and creating that.
Speaker 1: Do you think marketers today ask the simple question that
Speaker 1: you just asked, what is the need? Because I you know,
Speaker 1: I talked to marketers all the time, and we've overcomplicated,
Speaker 1: and we've also and we've also naval geys to a
Speaker 1: point where we don't we can't even ask the simple questions.
Speaker 1: I have a pretty strong opinion on it. I'm a
Speaker 1: research guy. I love data. Um, I think we've gone
Speaker 1: way too far. And I talked to marketers and they're
Speaker 1: I've got I want to target. I want to go
Speaker 1: to the target. And you look at every bit of
Speaker 1: the research and I pull this out for people to
Speaker 1: see sometimes because you get a little lost I go.
Speaker 1: You do realize, of course, that most of your buyers
Speaker 1: are not in your target audience. If you think about
Speaker 1: the target audience and about all the research supports, that
Speaker 1: target audience means you have a high density of buyers
Speaker 1: within this group, but most of your buying is done
Speaker 1: outside the target. So when you super target to this
Speaker 1: target that you've figured out, you've eliminated everybody else. If
Speaker 1: you look at people, if you look at the results
Speaker 1: of companies, and then let's go back to like two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand nine, ten years ago, and
Speaker 1: they shifted their money tremendous amount of money to to
Speaker 1: digital and social where they could absolutely target most of
Speaker 1: those companies. Almost all those companies had stagnant sales, stagnant revenue,
Speaker 1: no revenue growth. And how they're doing all this super
Speaker 1: targeting and missing everybody else. I look at the example
Speaker 1: of Mark Pritchard at PNG, which is I mean, guys,
Speaker 1: she's such a smart guy, and he you know, they
Speaker 1: cut out radio and outdoor almost disappeared from PNG. I think,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, they weren't even in the top
Speaker 1: two hundred three or four years ago in radio, and
Speaker 1: suddenly Mark looks at he needs to cut back his
Speaker 1: marketing spend. If you remember this moment in time, sales
Speaker 1: have been somewhat stagnant, and so Mark, unlike most people,
Speaker 1: say well, it's gonna cut everything. Ten Mark really looked
Speaker 1: at everything any any any you know, if you mean
Speaker 1: conversations with him, and he said it publicly to um,
Speaker 1: you know, he'll said, well, let's see where where did
Speaker 1: we take our money for before and how well did
Speaker 1: that perform? And wait a minute, now that I really
Speaker 1: look at it closely, a lot of those digital's not performing.
Speaker 1: I think the number one he took two hundred million
Speaker 1: out of digital put money back into radio and outdoor.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember you know, you know remember this,
Speaker 1: But as soon as he did that, his sales took off.
Speaker 1: And I think they had something like five or six
Speaker 1: record quarters of sales. And he moved from not even
Speaker 1: being in the top two hundred radio advertisers. So I
Speaker 1: think he was number one or number two last year.
Speaker 1: And uh and and you know what if you find,
Speaker 1: of course with radio, is that yes, it hit his target.
Speaker 1: But and he only paid for the target, but he
Speaker 1: actually got everybody else. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: companies forgot that in the broader reach media, that you
Speaker 1: paid for the target, but you got this extra for free.
Speaker 1: So people really did hear about it when we went
Speaker 1: to digital. And by the way, I started all this
Speaker 1: at a oh well, we convinced people to come to
Speaker 1: digital advertising. But the problem with digital advertising, it's very
Speaker 1: powerful in many ways, but the problem with it is
Speaker 1: you only get the target and no one else. Here's
Speaker 1: your message. You've gone dark with those other people. I
Speaker 1: remember when around six Flags steam Parks. When I got
Speaker 1: to the company, this company was stalled at about seventeen
Speaker 1: million in attendants, have been for twenty years. And as
Speaker 1: we began to look at it, we looked at the
Speaker 1: markets and they say, well, we really get a high
Speaker 1: density of buyers from the market and what they called
Speaker 1: the outer market. They said, well, we don't advertise out
Speaker 1: there because it's hard to reach those people. But I
Speaker 1: looked at it and it was like that was all
Speaker 1: the growth and the growth potential of the company. We're
Speaker 1: already fully penetrated internally. So I figured out ways to
Speaker 1: do cheaper advertising, some national advertising and things like that,
Speaker 1: which reached this outer market which they said wasn't quote
Speaker 1: unquote efficient, and we took the Now we did some
Speaker 1: other things too, but we took the attendance from seventeen
Speaker 1: million to twenty five million, and and it was unlocking
Speaker 1: these people that by mark geting rules that didn't work.
Speaker 1: I also did something there which I bought a ridiculous
Speaker 1: weight level. I bought fifteen hundred grips a week, hundred
Speaker 1: a week, almost impossible to get. We were the number
Speaker 1: one advertiser in every market. And we did this for
Speaker 1: about ten weeks in seven markets. And my agency said, Bob,
Speaker 1: you're wasting your money. I go why? They said, your
Speaker 1: twelve plus frequency is not increasing? And I go, what
Speaker 1: about my twenty plus frequency? What about my thirty plus? Freaks?
Speaker 1: Who said twelves the magic number? And what I wanted
Speaker 1: people to do with buying the silly frequency was we
Speaker 1: were a tarnished dead product. I wanted people to think
Speaker 1: everybody was talking about six flags. So how did I
Speaker 1: how was I going to accomplish that? If I bought
Speaker 1: enough frequency, I knew that the consumer would get confused
Speaker 1: and they would think every time I turned around, I'm
Speaker 1: hearing about six flags, they think people are talking about it,
Speaker 1: so they began talking about it. Then I primed the
Speaker 1: pomp of word of mouth. And to me, that's the
Speaker 1: most effective advertising get a conversation going today in marketing.
Speaker 1: Still today, I don't think we win unless we're in
Speaker 1: the conversation. And I think every product has to get
Speaker 1: people to talk about the product. I gotta be at
Speaker 1: that dinner table conversation. I have to have someone telling somebody.
Speaker 1: And so the way I used that there was massive
Speaker 1: a frequency. And again I think a lot of these
Speaker 1: tricks get lost from people saying and I've got precisely
Speaker 1: seven point three clicks, it's going to be the magic number.
Speaker 1: And I go, you're kidding yourself. You are It is
Speaker 1: not that precise, and you you human brain and no
Speaker 1: computer can capture all the variables that are necessary for success.
Speaker 1: And when we try and do it, it's I promise
Speaker 1: you a full's game. Um. And and so for us,
Speaker 1: for me as a marketer, yes, I want to know
Speaker 1: all that information, but I'm realistic about what it can
Speaker 1: do what it can't do. One of the things you know,
Speaker 1: you're just alluding to to scale, and we know my
Speaker 1: Heart reaches nine and ten Americans. But what we're really
Speaker 1: enamored with is the audience relationship with the platform, with
Speaker 1: the hosts, with each other, and thinking about, Bob, how
Speaker 1: close you are at the community level locally fifty stations
Speaker 1: around the country talk to us about the magic in
Speaker 1: power of local radio at scale. Sure, let me let
Speaker 1: me spend one second, because I think it's poorly understood,
Speaker 1: although I think you guys understand it pretty well. That
Speaker 1: you know, radio is unlike any other media. Most media
Speaker 1: is about a program, a piece of information, a piece
Speaker 1: of quote unquote content. Radio is not. Radio is companionship.
Speaker 1: If you think about, well, your music, I said, of
Speaker 1: our stations don't play music, how do you explain that? Uh?
Speaker 1: And they and they say, well, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: hearing all my favorite songs. I go, I sort to
Speaker 1: hear my favorite songs. You know. The minute we put
Speaker 1: a a tape recorder, Availa Bullet to Uh, we could,
Speaker 1: we didn't have to listen to commercials anymore. And my
Speaker 1: own mixtapes. Uh, why did radio do so well? Why
Speaker 1: is it continue to be big? It turns out, of course,
Speaker 1: what radio is his companionship. We're keeping people company. We're
Speaker 1: writing to work with them every day. In that empty seat,
Speaker 1: that's Ryan Seacrest there. He's a really interesting person. He
Speaker 1: makes your drive to work pretty interesting. Is if you
Speaker 1: had a great, uh, you know, a buddy writing to
Speaker 1: work with you. And so our job is to talk
Speaker 1: to the listener as if we're their best friend, and
Speaker 1: they should think they know us. Ryan Seacrest has this
Speaker 1: wonderful stories he tells about how he knows he's working.
Speaker 1: He said, if he's out with some stars TV, movie
Speaker 1: stars and the and a fan sees them, he said,
Speaker 1: they rush up to the movie star and they go, Wow,
Speaker 1: can I get my picture taken with you? And then
Speaker 1: they turned to Ryan and say, hey, would you take
Speaker 1: my picture? They treat Ryan as their friend and the
Speaker 1: movie star as a star. And he said, the minute
Speaker 1: that changes, I'm dead. He knows it. And I think
Speaker 1: the wonderful thing about radio and what we do is
Speaker 1: that we are having a conversation constantly with the consumer.
Speaker 1: They listen to the radio broadcast radio on an average
Speaker 1: of about seven times during the day. They're always checking
Speaker 1: in to see what's going on like they would with
Speaker 1: a pal, and they're looking to us to give them
Speaker 1: that relevant information. And for us, advertising is the This
Speaker 1: is probably the most native medium for advertising, because what
Speaker 1: does advertising tell you to do when it's done well,
Speaker 1: it tells you what's out there. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think we as a as a as a concept.
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever sell anybody anything. I think
Speaker 1: what we do is we try and connect people, connect
Speaker 1: people to a product they may like by explaining the
Speaker 1: product in a way that they understand. And if someone's
Speaker 1: using radio advertising, their goal ot to be either through
Speaker 1: the weight level, through the creative they use where they
Speaker 1: use it. They want to get the consumer talking about
Speaker 1: the product. And I don't care what the product is.
Speaker 1: There's everything hasn't has a conversation about it. If you're
Speaker 1: clever enough, you'll figure out how to activate it. Are
Speaker 1: the local stations kind of this hidden jewel that I
Speaker 1: heeart has Do you think about that, especially in today's
Speaker 1: world where people have scattered from cities, gone out to
Speaker 1: the suburbs, the local community is really key, Like are
Speaker 1: you thinking about using those local stations in a different
Speaker 1: way or how important they are to the kind of
Speaker 1: overall asset of I heart. It's really fifty brands absolutely.
Speaker 1: We we treat them by the way we treat the
Speaker 1: eight hundred fifty brands, like Pixar treats their movie brands.
Speaker 1: And our Pixar brand is iHeart Radio. And if people
Speaker 1: know one of our radio stations at an iHeart Radio station,
Speaker 1: the quality score goes up about twenty points, just like
Speaker 1: I imagine animated film goes up about that if you
Speaker 1: know it's a Pixar film. But I would say, as
Speaker 1: opposed to being a hidden jewel, it's sort of hidden
Speaker 1: to the advertising business because that's not what they talk
Speaker 1: about all the time. But it's actually the foundation of
Speaker 1: what we do. Um that everything is built on that
Speaker 1: radio station has a relationship with a group of of
Speaker 1: of consumers who are in the tribe of that radio station.
Speaker 1: That radio station speaks to them. It's an organizing principle.
Speaker 1: It's part of My favorite radio station is the one
Speaker 1: my favorite radio station is you know is a Kiss FM.
Speaker 1: My favorite radio station is whatever, And so it's part
Speaker 1: of your life and it defines who you are to
Speaker 1: a certain degree, and we take that responsibility very seriously.
Speaker 1: We're actually regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, the federal government.
Speaker 1: We have standards on what we can and cannot say,
Speaker 1: and we will lose our license if we violate that.
Speaker 1: So we are the safest media. We end and broadcast television,
Speaker 1: which has the same restrictions, are probably the safest media
Speaker 1: out there. Uh. In terms of that, we also take
Speaker 1: the response, but we're actually licensed to serve the community
Speaker 1: and we actually believe that. So when something like Hurricane
Speaker 1: Sandy was barreling towards New York, See one, hundreds stopped
Speaker 1: playing music and talked about evacuation. After the hurricane hit
Speaker 1: Panama City, our stations down there were the only media
Speaker 1: on the air, and most of the cell coverage was down,
Speaker 1: so we became critical to tell people where you go,
Speaker 1: where you get your blankets, how you get help, where
Speaker 1: the medical care is, where you can get temporary housing.
Speaker 1: When the floods hit Houston, I was listening to our
Speaker 1: station on by our radio. I was on l A
Speaker 1: and listening to it, and they would have people on
Speaker 1: the air saying, well, I'm on top of my house here,
Speaker 1: and they go to describe your house and where you are,
Speaker 1: how many people are there? Now? Are there any disabled
Speaker 1: people there? And they were saying, okay, who's got a vote?
Speaker 1: Because if you remember, the government didn't have enough votes,
Speaker 1: so they were enlisted private people with boats. They were
Speaker 1: putting people together with people with boats so that they
Speaker 1: could get people evacuated. And that became serving the community.
Speaker 1: Now in good times, were playing music for having a
Speaker 1: good time. We're doing whatever, but when they need us,
Speaker 1: we're there. During COVID, we've done some very important work
Speaker 1: with getting information out and helping people get through it.
Speaker 1: And with the the unfortunate and tragic killing of George
Speaker 1: Floyd Um. We had a last year we were looking
Speaker 1: at our radio station or portfolio and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we got some stations we're not we're not doing enough
Speaker 1: with We need to do something bigger, and we got
Speaker 1: them all over the country. We get something really one
Speaker 1: big national idea, and we're looking at opportunities and realize
Speaker 1: that the black community had zero, zero, not one, not
Speaker 1: even one news all news service, the talk services they
Speaker 1: talked except no all news service. Where's the ten ten wins?
Speaker 1: Where's my CBS news radio eight? Um? And so we
Speaker 1: set about building one, and then COVID came along. Ad
Speaker 1: sales go down, we cut costs, We put it on
Speaker 1: the shelf. George Floyd killing happens, and Tony Coles, who
Speaker 1: was the executive internally who was really developing this with
Speaker 1: a couple of other folks, reaches out and he said, Bob,
Speaker 1: I know we've cut cost. I know we fur a
Speaker 1: little people. I know every penny counts, but the country
Speaker 1: needs this and they need it right now. So we go,
Speaker 1: you know what, right, talk to the board of directors,
Speaker 1: We all talk amongst ourselves and we say, no matter
Speaker 1: what it does economically, we're gonna launch this. We're gonna
Speaker 1: launch the Black Information Network. And we as part of it,
Speaker 1: we said, you know the problem with news being ad
Speaker 1: supported is that they then will need to get a
Speaker 1: rating because it's all costs per thousand. Right, And if
Speaker 1: and I was I was sponsible for CNN part of
Speaker 1: my portfolio when I was CEO of Time Warner when
Speaker 1: Fox came along, and we had lots of discussions about
Speaker 1: whether we should also do sort of opinion news, take
Speaker 1: a position, and at that moment we decided to know
Speaker 1: we're gonna be really balanced news. And as you know,
Speaker 1: Fox ran away with the ratings. So we know that
Speaker 1: if you if you want a rating and news the
Speaker 1: way you do it is you basically do clickbait headlines,
Speaker 1: you do clickbait news. You you get people's blood pressure up.
Speaker 1: You sort of sensationalized stuff. Don't tell them the whole thing,
Speaker 1: So slap that story a little bit to get them
Speaker 1: riled up because think it's a rating. And we wanted
Speaker 1: to figure out a way not to do that. So
Speaker 1: we hit upon this idea and we reached out too.
Speaker 1: Then we were limited to ten companies to come be
Speaker 1: founding partners with us. Let's develop this service as a authoritative,
Speaker 1: fair and balanced news source that always covers the black
Speaker 1: community the perspective. And so we came up with a
Speaker 1: model of we found these bounding partners, fantastic companies that
Speaker 1: shared our mission, and we together came together to go
Speaker 1: to the Black Information Network and launch it. And oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, from the time Tony said let's do
Speaker 1: it till the time was on the air, I think
Speaker 1: was four weeks. And you know, when I was talking,
Speaker 1: some of these bounding partners said, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know when are you talking about launchets in
Speaker 1: two weeks? The two weeks Wait a minute, We we
Speaker 1: never operated in two weeks and it was but we
Speaker 1: all came together and moved at a speed we knew
Speaker 1: are normally moved. But to me, that's the power radio.
Speaker 1: We can do things immediately. We can do it quickly.
Speaker 1: Hurricane Sandy's heading this way. We can drop the program
Speaker 1: literally in a second and start talking about something new.
Speaker 1: We don't have to get camera crews out there or
Speaker 1: do anything else. We were connected. Yeah, I I well,
Speaker 1: I actually think, by the way, congratulations on that, because
Speaker 1: I actually think it is a big deal. You know,
Speaker 1: when I think of my heart and I heart audio,
Speaker 1: I also think of you as a talent network as well.
Speaker 1: You're almost a talent network. Have you and your kind
Speaker 1: of leadership team talked about what the future of talent
Speaker 1: in audio sounds like, looks like, etcetera. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It looks like the entire community because we reach Americans,
Speaker 1: and our view is if we reach ninety percent of Americans,
Speaker 1: we ought to be that that diversity ought to be
Speaker 1: represented with us on air. And uh so we look
Speaker 1: for people from all walks of life. And and not
Speaker 1: only am I talking gender race, I'm also talking liberal conservative,
Speaker 1: I'm talking progressive. I'm talking about young old um suburban,
Speaker 1: rural urban that we need to cover it all. And
Speaker 1: when we make decisions, when we talk to the community,
Speaker 1: we need to sound like the community. And if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be authentic, you have to be real. It has
Speaker 1: to be up the community. And so that's a really
Speaker 1: important thing for us, and we continue to strive and
Speaker 1: work on that. And we also work on developing talent um.
Speaker 1: We have talent coaches that help sort of people reach
Speaker 1: their potential. We have so many radio stations that we
Speaker 1: can use and such a career path that it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine somebody wants a career on the air, you know,
Speaker 1: being someone's friend, being uh, this kind of personality that
Speaker 1: could say, oh, I'd rather be anywhere else, that this
Speaker 1: is the place to be. We take it seriously, uh.
Speaker 1: And we also know that no matter who we have
Speaker 1: on the air, we need to be building the next
Speaker 1: generation and we need to be listening to them. You Know,
Speaker 1: the biggest advantage I have and the biggest drawback is
Speaker 1: I've been around a long time. I started MTV when
Speaker 1: I was twenty seven. I'd already had a great career
Speaker 1: at at NBC Radio, starting at age twenty programming their
Speaker 1: stations out in Chicago, and then went to w NBC
Speaker 1: and New York program them and but so I have
Speaker 1: a lot of pattern recognition, a lot of experience to bear,
Speaker 1: but I also understand that I'm not at the moment,
Speaker 1: and since I'm not at the moment, I need to
Speaker 1: listen to the equivalent of Bob Pittman. At I worked
Speaker 1: for a man named Steve Ross, who is this great
Speaker 1: entrepreneur who built Warner Communications and the time Warner and
Speaker 1: I was the young guy that beating him sort of
Speaker 1: fresh ideas, and I somebody I forgot who it was
Speaker 1: talking about the Mentor program where they actually do the
Speaker 1: reverse thing. They have young people mentor their senior executives
Speaker 1: um as opposed to the senior executives mentoring the young people,
Speaker 1: and they mentor them so they know what's really going on,
Speaker 1: what the world really looks like today, not yesterday. And
Speaker 1: I think that's so critical to the work you do,
Speaker 1: the work we do, and all of us that are
Speaker 1: in media communications advertising where we're trying to reached the
Speaker 1: public and have a dialogue with them and have a conversation.
Speaker 1: What you said about pattern recognition is so interesting, and
Speaker 1: I love we love to talk about audio in general,
Speaker 1: going from radio to podcasting. What has the podcasting space
Speaker 1: allowed you to do potentially that that radio has limitations
Speaker 1: in but also areas of where it can bring the
Speaker 1: future of audio. Sure, it's a great question. Let me
Speaker 1: before I go there, I'm just gonna do one thing,
Speaker 1: because we keep talking audio. They're really two pieces of audio,
Speaker 1: and they actually are radically different. They're they're mirror images
Speaker 1: of each other. One is the music, just my music,
Speaker 1: my music collection that used to be a box of
Speaker 1: CDs or LPs or forty five um and today it
Speaker 1: is your streaming service Apple Music or Spotify probably And uh,
Speaker 1: but when I listen to my music, I'm escaped in
Speaker 1: the world. I'm putting myself in a one to one
Speaker 1: relationship with my music. I'm putting putting a cone of
Speaker 1: silence out. I don't know what. I want to know
Speaker 1: what's going on the outside world. I don't want information.
Speaker 1: I don't want to joke, I don't want whether, I
Speaker 1: don't want the time. I just want to go and
Speaker 1: it makes me feel a certain way. Radio is the
Speaker 1: opposite of that is companionship. It's when you want to
Speaker 1: know what's going on in the world. And so I
Speaker 1: think you think about those two is very different pieces.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, every time we get close
Speaker 1: to trying to do something in the music collection, we
Speaker 1: tried to do on demand music on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app and he was like, that's not yea, what
Speaker 1: what is that? You know that I'm looking for radio
Speaker 1: here and uh, I'm looking for that companionship. And so
Speaker 1: when we look at podcasting and why we've been watching
Speaker 1: it for years start trying to understand how big it
Speaker 1: could be and what how it could grow. Is I
Speaker 1: think podcasting is sort of Netflix. Uh, and what do
Speaker 1: I mean by that? I think Netflix is t be
Speaker 1: on demand. Uh. That really the TV networks probably should
Speaker 1: have started it because initially it was built on just
Speaker 1: a replay of stuff you would see on TV, except
Speaker 1: I can have it on demand. I could get it
Speaker 1: when I wanted it, and uh. And then that is
Speaker 1: really when I look at radio, like TV had a
Speaker 1: limitation of how much they could put out there because
Speaker 1: it was linear. I've only got twenty four hours in
Speaker 1: a day, seven days a week, So I do the math.
Speaker 1: I can only have so much programming on the air.
Speaker 1: But there's programming like that that could be on that
Speaker 1: network if I had time for it. That was Netflix.
Speaker 1: I think in our case, I think a podcasting is
Speaker 1: still an extensive companionship. And what we know about podcast
Speaker 1: is podcasting is completely host driven. It is you don't
Speaker 1: have a great host, I don't care what your content is,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna have hit podcast. And so for us,
Speaker 1: it was the same radio experience, except it was on demand.
Speaker 1: It was not necessarily in real time. But every show
Speaker 1: that's a podcast could really be on the radio. Uh,
Speaker 1: and sometimes some of our podcast actually are the radio
Speaker 1: shows delivered on demand, and uh, we have uh just
Speaker 1: said okay, that's our that's an important part of our future. Yes,
Speaker 1: we want to keep radio going. But there's a whole
Speaker 1: new on demand feature. Let's don't let Netflix happen somewhere
Speaker 1: else has happened with the broadcast networks will be a problem. Rather,
Speaker 1: let's do it the broadcast network should have them, which
Speaker 1: is basically started their streaming services themselves with all this
Speaker 1: other content. And that's what we did. And today we're
Speaker 1: the number one podcaster. We've been the number one commercial podcaster,
Speaker 1: and we have a lead of about two to one
Speaker 1: over the next largest commercial podcaster. I think podcasting continues
Speaker 1: to grow. This has grown much faster than streaming music did.
Speaker 1: So I think we're looking at something the consumer wanted.
Speaker 1: We're looking at a service that's that you know, we
Speaker 1: build the infrastructure to deliver um and I think it
Speaker 1: continues to grow and be an increasing part of the
Speaker 1: important part of the media landscape. And by the way,
Speaker 1: what you do in terms of engagement with a advertiser
Speaker 1: and podcasting you couldn't do anywhere else, you know. But
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here going like, what business is Bob Pittman
Speaker 1: in right, Because I'm sitting here thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: that you're a town hall, your local community center, You're
Speaker 1: an IP generator, you're a creative discovery engine. Like, there's
Speaker 1: all these businesses and it just so happens that you know,
Speaker 1: a broadcast, radio station or streaming platform. Is how you
Speaker 1: put that work out in the world, or put those
Speaker 1: conversations out in the world. It's really interesting to think
Speaker 1: about them. I'm sitting here imagining, you know, your sales
Speaker 1: team's pitch deck, and I'm saying, like, is it an
Speaker 1: audio company? Because when you start to really pull apart
Speaker 1: the businesses that you're in, it's really not audio or
Speaker 1: talk radio or music or it's really about the community
Speaker 1: and the creators at the heart of it. And that
Speaker 1: really unlocked all of these different businesses. Um to me
Speaker 1: that I heart media then becomes we will also tie
Speaker 1: it together. I mean, you bring up a very good point,
Speaker 1: because I guess we really don't even think of it
Speaker 1: as audio. We think of it as companionship. The best
Speaker 1: way we do it is having audio conversations. But when
Speaker 1: the we did all these big events and then the
Speaker 1: lockdown happens, and we realized the consumer is feeling very isolated.
Speaker 1: So we work with Fox and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: we think we can get these big stars to do
Speaker 1: this living room concert one night, shoot their stuff on
Speaker 1: iPhones and first of your iPhones, so it's gonna watch
Speaker 1: iPhones on TV. And we we get Elton John the
Speaker 1: host it. You know, Alicia Keys kicked it off. We
Speaker 1: had all these great performers in that in that one show,
Speaker 1: and we did it instead of doing the award show,
Speaker 1: which got canceled because we obviously couldn't put people into
Speaker 1: a theater and do an award show. And we used
Speaker 1: that slot with UH with Fox to do it. And
Speaker 1: we really didn't know what we were going to do,
Speaker 1: but we knew companionship is very powerful and I Heart
Speaker 1: knows how to do it. So the the I Heart
Speaker 1: UH Radio living Room Concert with Fox and it's interesting.
Speaker 1: We raised I think the total was sixteen million dollars
Speaker 1: in that night, and it's important just to demonstrate the
Speaker 1: power of it at that time. And I think it
Speaker 1: still maybe the highest rated Sunday night entertainment show on
Speaker 1: TV for the year. Who we produced that it's TV,
Speaker 1: but we didn't say think it's TV versus radio. We
Speaker 1: thought it's companionship. It's us connecting with this audience and
Speaker 1: this community and UH and you're right, it so happens
Speaker 1: were audio, but the essence of what we're doing is
Speaker 1: something that's probably more refined than audio. Where do you
Speaker 1: take this because we're not out of COVID, I think
Speaker 1: we all think, right, it's going to take a long
Speaker 1: period of recovery. Live sports is is in question. Moments
Speaker 1: where community has rallied in mass is in question in
Speaker 1: general physically on broadcast, etcetera. How are you thinking about
Speaker 1: taking companionship or are you thinking about taking the idea
Speaker 1: of companionship even further, even further than what you're describing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it is about, um, how
Speaker 1: we use it and what they gotta go back to,
Speaker 1: what's the need right now? Uh. When the protest came
Speaker 1: up over social justice, racial equality, uh, you know, following
Speaker 1: the killing of George Floyd, we brought instead of you know,
Speaker 1: say okay, it's hard to get out there and do
Speaker 1: what we would normally do, we did these virtual town halls. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was even a moment in which the Breakfast Club
Speaker 1: chatted with Rush Limbaugh. Um, you know, Charlemagne the god
Speaker 1: in the Breakfast Club and Rush Limbaugh talking about this
Speaker 1: that there was a moment, you know, in which the
Speaker 1: country needed a conversation, and so we had to rally
Speaker 1: to provide the conversation. And we did them in local markets,
Speaker 1: we did some national ones, uh, and we did them
Speaker 1: in sort of all flavors. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: we have to do, is is just listen for the moment.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. There
Speaker 1: may be something tomorrow which we need to change whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing, and we will and we can. And I
Speaker 1: think having that attitude if we will and we can,
Speaker 1: is really what makes the company great and which makes
Speaker 1: us invaluable to the consumer. And over time, I think
Speaker 1: a consumer values us because of the cumulative impact of
Speaker 1: what we've done. And I think that's what's exciting about
Speaker 1: the company. And that's exciting about the work we do.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when we deal with our advertising partners,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, we'll sell you some spots, but that's
Speaker 1: the least interesting thing we can do. What we can
Speaker 1: really can do is talk about what are you trying
Speaker 1: to do and how do we come buying your smarts
Speaker 1: and our smarts, what you know and what we know,
Speaker 1: and your assets and our assets, and figure out how
Speaker 1: to make this thing work? And uh, and I like
Speaker 1: it one because of the service we do. I also
Speaker 1: like it just because I'm a very curious person and
Speaker 1: I like making things. And there's nothing more interesting than
Speaker 1: me than getting involved with one of our clients who's
Speaker 1: got a particular need and brainstorming and coming up with
Speaker 1: these ideas. Because I think all of us in this business,
Speaker 1: probably everyone listening and certainly you folks are. We're turned
Speaker 1: on by creating, and uh, it just gives us satisfaction.
Speaker 1: It's like that's what I wake up in the morning
Speaker 1: to do. And I think we have this bed with
Speaker 1: this huge reach, all these markets, all these product lines
Speaker 1: where we sort of don't run out of territory. We
Speaker 1: can There's a lot we can create and if someone
Speaker 1: comes to us with a brilliant idea, we can just
Speaker 1: say sure, we can do it. Well, we'll say yes
Speaker 1: and then figure out how to do it later. Does
Speaker 1: the industry sometimes gets held back in what you just
Speaker 1: described getting turned on by making things that people need?
Speaker 1: Isn't that our jobs people need? Like it's that freaking
Speaker 1: simple and it's explained stuff to people. You know, what's
Speaker 1: the biggest problem with all the products that we're all
Speaker 1: involved with. They don't know enough about it. We know
Speaker 1: so much about it because we make the product, we
Speaker 1: failed to comprehend that the consumer doesn't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: In the in the old days when I was a
Speaker 1: radio programmer, and one of the first things I observed
Speaker 1: was at the time a disc jockey was saying, I'm
Speaker 1: sick of playing this record. Is about the time the
Speaker 1: consumer goes, what's the new song you're playing? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are way ahead of the consumer, and we have
Speaker 1: a body of knowledge the consumer doesn't have, and we
Speaker 1: as creative people. The job we have is how do
Speaker 1: we I go back to how do we connect to people?
Speaker 1: With the music industry, we see our job it's connect
Speaker 1: the music to the fans, the people that will like it.
Speaker 1: With an advertiser, our job is to connect that message
Speaker 1: to a consumer who will be responsive to that message
Speaker 1: and explain in a way that gets them excited about
Speaker 1: it as opposed to turned off to it. Bob, we
Speaker 1: know that you're in the subscription business, and throughout this conversation,
Speaker 1: just thinking about the word companionship and the emphasis on
Speaker 1: the relationships that you have around your I P. Do
Speaker 1: you see a world where my heart continues to move
Speaker 1: into subscription and starts to look at different options and
Speaker 1: going direct to consumer, not as a as a replacement
Speaker 1: of ad supported, but potentially finding new ways UM to
Speaker 1: give consumers experiences directly UM, experiences so unique UM that
Speaker 1: they would want to pay for them because they want
Speaker 1: to stay engaged in that conversation with that community, with
Speaker 1: that talent. For example. Yeah, you know what's interesting I
Speaker 1: did at a O well we want the great success
Speaker 1: stories and subscription UM and we had when I left
Speaker 1: about thirty five million subscriptions stay Oh well, and uh
Speaker 1: we we, unlike anybody else in the internet, wade money
Speaker 1: on our our subscription revenue. Um, I do. But I
Speaker 1: think it's we got to be careful with subscription. People
Speaker 1: jump to the conclusion of I'll do subscription and everybody
Speaker 1: will want it. Actually, they only want subscription if it
Speaker 1: makes sense. And when when I say it makes sense,
Speaker 1: is is it cheaper? Is it more efficient? Is it
Speaker 1: more effective than what I was doing? You know, Netflix
Speaker 1: was a huge hit with a subscription because it was
Speaker 1: so much cheaper to pay that one price for a
Speaker 1: subscription that it was to buy all the product a
Speaker 1: la carte. Um. But I've seen people in the podcast
Speaker 1: business gone, I'm gonna start charging before podcasts. I remind them,
Speaker 1: I go, podcasts are free today. Like what business can
Speaker 1: you tell me where something was free and people start
Speaker 1: charging for it and the consumer goes great, that's a
Speaker 1: great idea. Uh none, um. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if we could find a sub scription business where we
Speaker 1: were doing a service to someone by providing a subscription,
Speaker 1: not providing a subscription because to be good for us,
Speaker 1: By the way, who wouldn't want a recurring revenue stream
Speaker 1: every month, hitting a credit card the time and time again.
Speaker 1: But I think you have to be realistic about it,
Speaker 1: that a business need is not a substitute for a
Speaker 1: consumer need. And if I could find something where I
Speaker 1: was serving the consumer by giving them a subscription, I
Speaker 1: jump in a second. But I think too many people
Speaker 1: today as I look out there are trying to cram
Speaker 1: a subscription down the consumer's throat and they are to
Speaker 1: be a surprise that the consumer doesn't buy it. So
Speaker 1: I think the really successful on is I mean, I
Speaker 1: I think Netflix had a great model. Well, I think
Speaker 1: Disney Plus is great. Who doesn't know those brands, who
Speaker 1: doesn't know what Star Wars is or what Marvel is
Speaker 1: or what Pixar is and putting it out all the
Speaker 1: gay I go, I got it? And what I don't
Speaker 1: want to pay each individual one? And they're all there,
Speaker 1: sign me up. It's a service to the consumer. And
Speaker 1: I think we have to be respectful of consumers and say,
Speaker 1: if it's not a service, don't kid yourself. I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking about all of your festivals and how unique those are.
Speaker 1: Is there an I Heeart festival subscription that I want
Speaker 1: to pay for five concerts? We can brainstorm. But yeah,
Speaker 1: just thinking about the service the service note like really absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think those are the kinds of service. If
Speaker 1: I go, I'm gonna go to every one of them.
Speaker 1: I can't keep track of them, and it cost me exit.
Speaker 1: You give me a good deal and I subscribe and
Speaker 1: I'm a member of the whole thing. That's a service.
Speaker 1: And I think you're exactly right. But I think any
Speaker 1: But you know, we're just in a world right now.
Speaker 1: We were talking about people sort of over analyzing analysis,
Speaker 1: you know, paralysis, analysis, paralysis, and now we're getting into
Speaker 1: you know, sort of subscriptions. Everything not for everybody, most cases,
Speaker 1: is not. You're exactly right. You have to find the
Speaker 1: opportunity where people go. Yeah, that's great. Please thank you
Speaker 1: for doing that for me. What would people be surprised
Speaker 1: to know about Bob Pittman that they don't currently know?
Speaker 1: But look, I'm from Mrs Sippy, Uh, preacher's son, Um,
Speaker 1: not a college graduate. I'm not one of those fancy
Speaker 1: educated people. Um, it's uh. I used to ride motorcycles
Speaker 1: a lot. I got to into my sixties and I
Speaker 1: decided I'd ride motorcycles a little too recklessly. And my
Speaker 1: reflexes aren't quite what they were, so time to give
Speaker 1: that out. I'm still flying fly helicopters and airplanes. Um,
Speaker 1: have been flying for fifty years. I actually got in
Speaker 1: the in the media business because I was a plane
Speaker 1: nut as a kid and I needed money to pay
Speaker 1: for flying lessons because I could solo when I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and the only job I could find in a small
Speaker 1: rural Mississippi town was as a radio announcer in w
Speaker 1: c h J in Brookhaven, Mississippi. So so those are it.
Speaker 1: I go to burning Man every year. Uh, and except
Speaker 1: for this year sadly. Um and Uh. I love to
Speaker 1: travel and uh that's probably it. Other than that I'm
Speaker 1: a boring guy. I think we doubt that we want
Speaker 1: to do a quick speed round. Question. Uh, what's your
Speaker 1: best learning from burning Man community? Um? Open your mind? Um?
Speaker 1: And Uh, freethink is is an improvement over life? How
Speaker 1: do you freethink with your teams like in a corporate setting? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think the pretty think is there no bad ideas.
Speaker 1: You may we we may not do them, and we
Speaker 1: may eliminate them eventually. But every time you start thinking,
Speaker 1: you start the wheels going. When I was at MTV.
Speaker 1: We did these great promotions. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember them, of the Lost Weekend with Van Halen, for
Speaker 1: the John Cougar, Mellencamp, Pak Your House paink, the House
Speaker 1: Pink promotion, the one night stands. Every one of them
Speaker 1: began as a joke like let's get let's buy a house.
Speaker 1: You go, wait a minute, we could buy a house
Speaker 1: that could be fun. Or we were talking about the
Speaker 1: Lost Weekend and we were joking about some of our
Speaker 1: employees that would have their lost weekends and that joke
Speaker 1: turned into the Laws Weekend with Van Halen. And so
Speaker 1: I think when you I remember that because every idea,
Speaker 1: once you to start ideating, stupid crazy ideas can turn
Speaker 1: into very important ideas. And uh and I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we try and start with an important idea as opposed
Speaker 1: to just start the ideation, just start talking. There is
Speaker 1: no bad idea. And Burning Man is this incredible acceptance
Speaker 1: of everyone is you can be anybody you want to
Speaker 1: be a Burning Man accept at asshole and uh and
Speaker 1: and you're accepted and nobody's nobody's judging, nobody's putting you down.
Speaker 1: You have this freedom to be. And I think that
Speaker 1: freedom to be is important in the creative community because
Speaker 1: I think when you start in a box, you're never
Speaker 1: gonna leave that box. Uh. If you can sort of
Speaker 1: see the world broadly and and just understand that around
Speaker 1: every turn is going to be something to a wow,
Speaker 1: where did that come from? That's gonna be a whole effect,
Speaker 1: and you open your mind to it and don't judge it.
Speaker 1: I think you won. Your life's a lot better. But
Speaker 1: I also think your business ideas get a lot better too. Bob,
Speaker 1: what's the next bet you're placing? Gosh, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I'll know it when I make it. I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people in my personal life in business life that
Speaker 1: if I hear something, Greg, go ahead, I'll take it.
Speaker 1: I'm not much of a a you know, uh thinker
Speaker 1: about it and you know, let's spret about it and
Speaker 1: worry about it. I think that we intuitively know the
Speaker 1: right ideas when they hit us, and we should see
Speaker 1: some and move as quickly as we can on. What
Speaker 1: are you most excited about in media right now? Podcast?
Speaker 1: Fair answer? Okay, I have to ask this question. What
Speaker 1: would MTV have been like if social media had existed
Speaker 1: when it had just started? That's a great question. MTV
Speaker 1: was drew even so much by the conversation and about
Speaker 1: the camaraderie of the listeners that sort of brought into
Speaker 1: the MTV culture that I think it would have been
Speaker 1: able to start its own social network, which would have
Speaker 1: been massive. Uh. And if it didn't have its own
Speaker 1: social network, it was certainly would have been the number
Speaker 1: one topic on social and it would have been the companion.
Speaker 1: And if you look at social today, even it's replaced
Speaker 1: the phone. Uh. Years ago, people would watch a football
Speaker 1: game together and they'd be on the phone saying, what
Speaker 1: did they do? Look at that? That's crazy. Now they're
Speaker 1: on social doing the same thing. We're sharing our comments.
Speaker 1: And for the radio, in the old days, the personality
Speaker 1: would be doing stuff on the air and people would
Speaker 1: call the phone the request line to talk to them.
Speaker 1: Today they call him on social and it provides a
Speaker 1: feedback loop. And I will say, in our case and radio,
Speaker 1: it's gotten better as a result of social. I think
Speaker 1: MTV would have gotten better as a result of social
Speaker 1: to have that instantaneous feedback to whatever you're doing. So, Bob,
Speaker 1: we do a little game at the end of every
Speaker 1: episode called kill by d I Y what would you
Speaker 1: kill in the world? What would you get rid of?
Speaker 1: I'm more of an enabler, believe it or not. I
Speaker 1: love to listen to other people. I was always a
Speaker 1: people watcher. I still am, and I'm an idea watcher,
Speaker 1: and I love just watching what other people are doing
Speaker 1: and then figure out how I can join the bandwagon
Speaker 1: and help them along, whether it is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: had an idea for a sipping tequila, something so smooth
Speaker 1: you could sip it and uh, And I found Bert too, Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: and my great love has been watching Bert make this thing,
Speaker 1: this huge hit, and enabling her and helping her build it,
Speaker 1: but freeing her to go do it and reach her potential.
Speaker 1: And so I think, rather than me making stuff, I
Speaker 1: really am one of those people that love to help
Speaker 1: other people make their ideas. When I was a young person,
Speaker 1: I made my ideas. As an old person, I help
Speaker 1: other people make their ideas. And what would you buy?
Speaker 1: What would I buy? Gosh, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: would buy out there. I'm at that age and you'll
Speaker 1: you'll hit this age one day where you're trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of stuff. So when it comes to gift
Speaker 1: giving time and say Please don't give me anything. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of stuff. Take something, but the gift.
Speaker 1: Just take some of my stuff. So I think I'm
Speaker 1: sort of past to buy stuff. I'm I'm I'm in
Speaker 1: that mode of let's slim down and what would you
Speaker 1: do yourself? What's the thing that you would love to
Speaker 1: to make ice cream? All right? What flavor? Vanilla? What?
Speaker 1: I don't believe that it's simple? I like it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for spending so much time with us and giving
Speaker 1: us inspiration and companionship. Thank you so much. And by
Speaker 1: the way, thank you for all you're doing too, and
Speaker 1: thank you for this podcast. So I took a ton
Speaker 1: of notes during that episode. One of the biggest takeaways
Speaker 1: for me is something that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: marketers overlook. We are simply filling or solving a need.
Speaker 1: And that was one of the best and most important
Speaker 1: things that Bob said to me. Well, he talks about
Speaker 1: following the consumer, right Like he when we asked how
Speaker 1: do you place your next bet? It was very simply
Speaker 1: and very directly, you have to follow the consumer, follow
Speaker 1: the consumer, and you have to fill a need. I'm
Speaker 1: solving a problem. He talked about being a sociologist, and
Speaker 1: I really think, you know, maybe more marketers actually need
Speaker 1: to think of themselves as sociologists. So it's following the consumer,
Speaker 1: but it's also being ahead of them and understanding what
Speaker 1: is that need? What are those simple needs? And then
Speaker 1: how do we get to them? And Bob, you know,
Speaker 1: Bob goes against kind of what I'll say is modern marketing,
Speaker 1: modern marketing, kind of Shun's reach in frequency, Shun's TV,
Speaker 1: Shun's g RPS radio, Shun's radio, Shun's outdoor shuns, all
Speaker 1: of these different types of media that actually are extremely
Speaker 1: effective when you are filling a need, when you are
Speaker 1: talking to a specific audience. And I think that Bob,
Speaker 1: you know, laid that out really really clearly, and then
Speaker 1: talked about how he used word of mouth and how
Speaker 1: he created or at least entered into a community. All
Speaker 1: of those things are things that we talk about. But
Speaker 1: when you sit down and you look at a at
Speaker 1: a media flow chart, usually you're going with whatever your
Speaker 1: media buyer tells you. When I loved that he was
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, his g RP cap and he
Speaker 1: was like, who said, who said that's the cap? Why?
Speaker 1: Who said twelve was the magic? Number who said twelve
Speaker 1: was the magic number exactly, and I think that more often,
Speaker 1: you know, taking it from Bob's advice, we have to
Speaker 1: question those things and really use media. And Laura, this
Speaker 1: is something that I think you and I have tried
Speaker 1: to do in our work together, is use media to
Speaker 1: not just be a vehicle to tell a message, but
Speaker 1: be a vehicle to really create a swirl and a
Speaker 1: presence and punch out a brand in a way that
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of brands are just you know,
Speaker 1: doing their points. There are two g rps a week
Speaker 1: because they're playing on the same field, but you're not.
Speaker 1: We're in a different game, folks. So I think there's
Speaker 1: huge opportunity with everything that Bob was saying, even though
Speaker 1: in some ways it sounded really traditional, but it's not.
Speaker 1: I love what you just said and thinking about swirl
Speaker 1: as a KPI. I don't know where I heard it.
Speaker 1: I don't know when I heard it. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I heard it. I don't know how I heard it,
Speaker 1: but I heard it. My friends are talking about it
Speaker 1: everywhere I'm looking, listening, engaging, It's being talked about, and
Speaker 1: so as a byproduct, I start talking about it. This
Speaker 1: idea of creating a swirl. I think is a really
Speaker 1: interesting point in that you can't create a swirl in
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet. You know, It's a really interesting concept when
Speaker 1: you think about impact in that capacity and the idea
Speaker 1: not just being a part of the conversation, but the
Speaker 1: idea of being the conversation. And I think Bob has
Speaker 1: been able to leverage the power of brand to drive
Speaker 1: different outcomes. I totally agree. And the debate, because there
Speaker 1: is a debate are you investing in brand? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm as part of this group and the bunch of cmos,
Speaker 1: we're talking about how much are you investing in brand
Speaker 1: of your budget? How much of your budget are you
Speaker 1: investing in brand? People came back huge advertisers twenty on this,
Speaker 1: some people thirty on this. We'll tend because worth this
Speaker 1: and that brand isn't a line item investment. And I
Speaker 1: think this debate about brand having our o I and
Speaker 1: brand having effectiveness to your business top line growth or
Speaker 1: bottom line numbers has got to stop. Bob proves brand
Speaker 1: pulls through. It pulls all the way through the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So it's not a percentage of your messaging or your
Speaker 1: creative or your media mix, it's not a percentage. Brand
Speaker 1: is all the way through that relationship and in fact,
Speaker 1: to your point, is the thing that is the most recognizable.
Speaker 1: And with that, thank you Bob Pittman. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: Bob Pittman for dropping by and giving us a masterclass
Speaker 1: and marketing. And for more from Bob Pittman, be sure
Speaker 1: to check out his podcast Math and Magic, available wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your podcasts. Laura hit it with a
Speaker 1: list of all of our friends and family at my
Speaker 1: Heart who have been so good to us and helped
Speaker 1: us get back on air. Big thank you to Bob, Conal, Carter, Andy, Eric,
Speaker 1: gayle Val, Michael jen. We appreciate you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Gay