WEBVTT - The Hitmaker Formula with Bob Pittman 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.960 What's up on Laura Creni and I'm Alexa Kristen. Welcome 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:18.880 back to ad Landia post Thanksgiving holiday. We had a 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.200 good Thanksgiving holiday. We hope you all had a good 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:26.160 Thanksgiving holiday. Our producer had a very good Thanksgiving holiday. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:30.880 Big congrats is now fianced? Is that how you say it? Fianced? 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:37.879 Congratulations Ryan, Big congrats to Ryan and Ann And joining 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.640 us for this episode is Bob Pittman in our virtual studio. 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.560 And I think this is a note taker and it's 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.839 something that you probably want to like rewind I did 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.640 at least because what Bob talks about through his career, 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.280 he's a hit maker. He is the hit maker MTV 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.480 six Flags, A O L. I Heart, etcetera, etcetera, goes 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.600 on and on on. Bob talks in really simple terms 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.880 about things that are not simplistic, and so it's a 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.600 really good episode to truly think about what he's saying 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:16.920 and think about how this person has taken, you know, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.800 media companies from nothing to a O L. I think 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.240 he said when he left was of the internet market 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.160 in the United States and definitely for all of us 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.520 a household name. I think this episode was very grounding 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.920 in terms of the practice and what we do. It 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:44.280 very clearly brings it back to the reason I got 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.119 into marketing in the first place, and that's to find 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.440 ways to connect with people and deliver on a need 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.040 through the power of communication. The constant push poll I 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.040 I was having as we were going through this conversation 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.040 was we've gotten so hung up on the delivery mechanism 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.800 that in some regards, I think we forget what we're delivering. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.160 And when Bob breaks down to your point, Alexa, the 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:16.119 simplicity of putting a clear message in front of consumers 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.160 that delivers on that need and doing it over and 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.239 over and over again, and then you'll hear he says, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.519 the most effective tactic we have is word of mouth. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.600 Nothing that relies on technology or a platform or a channel. 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.760 It's the companionship in the communication and the connection and 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:40.600 the interaction that people have that moves them to take action. 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:46.200 It's what products today are built on. It is peer 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.480 to peer. It is putting the product at the center 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.080 of a community. And I could not agree more. And 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.600 one of the things everything you said I agree with. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.160 One of the things that I would punch out in 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:07.880 addition is that Bob wasn't saying, g RPS is the 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.520 way this is tried and true. He was actually saying, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:16.480 question that break that that's breakable, But what you're talking 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:21.120 about that's unbreakable, and that I believe is what Bob 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:26.880 was talking about is solidified, almost re verified the work 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.840 that this industry and so many practitioners and listeners of 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.600 the show are doing. So before we give away the 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.080 whole interview, get out your notebooks. We're going to class 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.800 with Bob Pittman. But before we get to Bob, Laura, 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.800 we're joined here with our partners from Yield Come out 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.560 for part two of our four part series talking about 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.240 how to make attention actionable. We're here with Lisa Bradner, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:57.800 GM of Analytics and Teddy Jotty, head of Product. So, Lisa, Teddy, 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.920 if making attention actionable is core to yield most value proposition, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.920 how quickly are you acting on the signals that are 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.520 driving consumer attention? You'll know One of the ways that 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.360 we are able to make attention actionable is we are 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.320 sub fifteen minutes. So if we see somebody in a 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.560 session doing something, we can turn and act on that 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.839 in under fifteen minutes. We're continuing to work to push 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.799 that number down lower and lower. But I hear people 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:25.520 say real time, and what they mean is we're going 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.160 to batch process it and get back to you in 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.200 twenty four hours. That ain't real time, and that's often 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.600 not quick enough to really get the data year after. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.920 So how are you competing in the marketplace in that 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.159 respect when we have so many different options, as you know, 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.520 media buyers to think about who we line up with 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.680 to target our audiences in the marketplace, how do you 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:48.840 think about the difference in coming to yield mo versus 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.080 potentially going to another data platform yield most points of difference? 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.280 I mean, you know, it really isn't our tagline about 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.800 making attention actionable. Uh. Number one, it's the breadth and 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.760 up of the data we collect. We're collecting over seventy signals, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.880 a number of them proprietary to understand what's happening to 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.600 It's the real time tech that allows us to store 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.000 and process that data because a lot of people, even 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:14.880 if they could collect all that, they wouldn't be able 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.000 to process it in any kind of quick fashion. And 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.040 then three, it's the ability to optimize off of that right. Um, 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.320 you know, a lot of people talk about attention as 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.000 an index or kind of a you know you've got 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.679 more attention, yea, you've got less attention boo. We don't 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.440 look at it that way. We take that signals and say, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.919 how do we optimize the media dollars you're spending right now? 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:41.360 We want to get you a bigger bang for your book. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:47.040 We know that coming out of this year, cmos are 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.200 going to find their media budgets flat to cut and 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:55.000 their growth targets tend up. So they can't just anniversary 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.000 last year's media plan. We have a client say recently, 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.000 he said, how am I going to take my MM 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.919 them from two thousand and nineteen and apply it to 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.760 two thousand and twenty one when two and twenty happened 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.559 in between those rights. It's nonsensical. You can't go back 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.920 to that because we are in a very different world 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.240 and tell our listeners what m m M stands for 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:20.719 a Lisa market mixed modeling one of the classic old school. 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.080 So we'll look back six months and three years of 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.039 data and tell you that newspaper is the number one 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.640 channel to drive your business from here to attorney. It's 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.280 amazing that we're still talking about that it is it is. 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.920 It doesn't make sense when you're saying that I can 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.840 actually turn a trigger signal to you in fifteen minutes, 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.320 when you think about fifteen minute turnaround time, I can't 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.000 help but think that puts yield Mo in the driver's 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:53.120 seat when it comes to not only making actionable decisions, 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:58.280 of course, but also finding opportunities or windows that present 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.480 contextual relevancy. We think about contextual all the time, and 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:04.440 for a couple of reasons, with the death of the 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.120 third party cookie, audiences are just going to be harder 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.320 to find and follow across the open web, really across everywhere. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:17.280 But also we believe that we may be over analyzing 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.800 and overspending on all the audience layers to get to 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.320 what we're trying to get to. And so when we 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.320 think contextual, it's not just oh, you're on a car 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.720 site looking at and we're going to serve you a 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.440 car ad It's about all the signals we can read 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.000 in that moment to say, who is this person, what 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.360 are they looking for, what are they reading, what's on 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.680 the page? Where on the page is that everything that's 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:44.160 going on, and understanding what they're signaling attention to can 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.160 help you serve the next ad and the next and 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.280 the next add and really understand in that decision tree, 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.240 should I go left or should I go right? But 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.600 I think Laura, the notion of versus reach and frequency 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.560 is interesting, right, we still need reach. Right, If you 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.880 are a billion dollar brand and you have to add 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.480 a hundred million dollars to your top line sales this year, 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.320 I might find you the perfect group of people who really, really, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.600 really really care about your product. But if they're only 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:15.760 five of them, there's only there's only so much they 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.480 can buy. And this is for me where audience strategies 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.400 start to break down because we're so maniacally focused on No. No, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.080 this is our audience. These are the people buying our product. 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.240 We want to help our customers find additional audiences that 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:34.439 they may be overlooking, find places that their audience strategy 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.320 may be missing because of data degradation, or just unveil 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.560 new opportunities for audiences they haven't thought of. But it 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.920 turns out our great opportunities for their products. I totally agree. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.400 One of the biggest mistakes I see today advertisers make 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:52.720 is they um kind of overly obsess on audience strategies. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.679 They spend all their money on platforms that they can 0:08:55.720 --> 0:09:00.000 track users, they can measure, and it makes sense, especially 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.559 coming from a world where mixed media modeling or you know, 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.120 doing these big buys and waiting six months later to 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.560 see if it works super frustrating. So having the ability 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.599 to track and see how your returns come out is 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:18.040 a huge innovation. But the world is changing and um, 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.600 things are becoming less trackable and they're becoming more expensive. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.880 So you know, browsers are limiting this because of privacy 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.760 controls and that's a good thing. And places like Facebook 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.160 are becoming super expensive for brands because you know, it 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:36.600 is trackable. Um And so I think that smart marketers 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.720 are taking a step back and realizing there there are 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.120 other strategies to achieve that reach and to get my 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.080 message out. And these strategies like contextual that can allow 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.719 you to infer an audience based on the content. And 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:51.840 it just feels better too, you know, And it's not 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.200 like a stroll or following you around the internet on 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.240 a you know, a sports side. It just feels more 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.080 appropriate when you're that you're reading content and the ad 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.120 just looks like it should be there um and and 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.079 combine that with with AT tension analytics, the ability to 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.839 see in real time, does this add resonate with the user? 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.640 That can be a very powerful strategy that's future proof 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.920 and works um potentially better and um and and more 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:22.760 scalable than than traditional audience buying. Lisa Bradner, Teddy Jwadi 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.640 from yield Mo, thank you for being our partners, Thank 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.760 you for coming on Atlantia, thank you for having us. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.680 And we're back with chairman and CEO of I Heart Media. 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.680 Welcome to the show, Bob Pittman. Hi, Bob, thank you 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.520 glad to be here. Laura and I were looking through 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.920 your career and we were thinking through this and we're like, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.720 how did he make the bets he made? You know? 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.760 I think careers and most of life is getting hit 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.760 on the head with meteors uh that things just sort 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.400 of pop up. And I think the difference that people 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.160 have is whether you say yes or know. And I'm 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.360 always up for a big adventure and so a lot 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.720 of the things I did at the time seem to 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.280 make no sense, but they all turned out fine. And 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.920 but I'm very careful. I will only go do something 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.520 that has something to do with a consumer because I 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.079 think my basic skill set is that I that I 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.520 focus on and understand consumers. When I was younger, I 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.600 I claimed I was a sociologist. And so you know, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:27.319 whether I'm trying to sell them a house, or sell 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.520 them a pay TV service, or get them to listen 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.719 to watch MTV or by a O L, it's all 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.360 the same human being and the same laws of consumer 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.959 behavior are at work. And I think if you understand 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.960 those then it allows you a great flexibility of of 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.360 you know, jumping to a lot of different situations. Do 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:50.320 you think that marketers today need to be more sociologists 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.840 or less sociologists in the consumer space? Yeah, it's interesting. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.720 I do a podcast called Math and Magic and it's 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.240 and I've always talked about programming and marketing as math 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.760 and magic the perfect blend of it. You have to 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.600 have the analytics, you have to understand what the table 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.280 looks like, you understand what the framework is. But you know, 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.200 if I tell you, oh, I know exactly who this 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.120 person is, I've found them all you Okay, Now what 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.240 are you gonna do? How are you going to motivate them? 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.679 Just because you found them doesn't mean you can motivate them. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.120 That's the magic. And I think you need both, and 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.680 I've tried to be a practitioner of both. I never 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.120 graduated from college, but I did do three years of 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.800 it and my major with social methods of research. And 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.760 I started my career in radio, and I was one 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.000 of the first radio programmers to use research. Before that, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.440 it was sort of golden gut or I looked at 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.679 sales or the record companies told me what was a 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.280 good song? Are we listening to the request line? And 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.880 I started doing what we call call out research, and 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.079 we still do all these years later, for fifty years later, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.440 still doing a variation of that, in which we survey 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.920 the consumer about what songs they like and how they 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:59.600 like them. The old days, it was do you love 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.839 it the like it? Do you like it so much that? 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.720 Or do you not neutral? Do you dislike it? Do 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.800 you dislike it so much you'll change the channel? Or 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.080 do you like it but tired of hearing it so much? 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.160 And and you know, from that we would develop how 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.480 you balance your music and put it together on a 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.520 radio station. And I did that always when I was 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.199 at a O l uh and every place I've been, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.480 I concept, test everything, and I test my liners and 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:26.000 I don't know if you recall, but there was a 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.439 time at a o L when we went to unlimited 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.600 pricing and it was dial up and people got nothing 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.800 but busy signals, and we sort of had our J 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.520 and J Thailand all moment. We had one chance to 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.880 get it right and uh so we tested what would 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.000 work with the consumers, what did they believe about us, 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.160 what were they looking for, so that when we had 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.760 that one chance to make a statement, we'd say the 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.560 right thing. And and also helps define For example, at 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:56.480 at a o L, we understood two things about consumers. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.640 They tend to want to go where everybody goes. You know, 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.000 if you to a new talent, you very quickly find 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.120 yourself saying where does everybody go to get there? Whatever? 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.560 And we their safety and going to number one. But 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.160 if you just say you're number one, it sounds braggadocious. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.000 The other thing we knew was that what was we 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.400 saw and it was quite different than everyone else. We 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.960 didn't think this was about a keyness. We thought about 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.160 ease of use and the future is gonna be easy 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.680 to use. People as a slur said oh hey, oh well, 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.640 that's the internet with training wheels. They didn't understand that 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.320 was what the consumer wanted to hear, that it was easy. 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.160 So our our line became so easy to use, no 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.720 wonder it's number one. We can find both of those thoughts. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.160 And I think that's a combination of math and magic. 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.040 That we understood the math of what they were looking 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.720 for and how they were there, and from that craft 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.760 at an approach which was okay, we're going to use 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:51.800 the easy, We're going to use the number one, pull 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.960 them together, tied the two together, and you know, as 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.280 you know, by the time I left a O L, 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.160 we have fift of the traffic of the inner at 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.400 in the United States. Went through all this concept of 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.480 math and magic. You know, in an industry as ours 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.640 where seemingly everyone has doubled down on data and in 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.280 many cases it's become sort of a commodity in many 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.320 regards and many people are using the same data. Can 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.840 you talk to us about the magic element? Where do 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.840 you go, Bob for the magic time and time again, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.120 whether it was figuring out why MTV why then in 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.720 that moment, and what it would be to pivoting. You know, however, 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.640 many years now into my heart and being a mover 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.240 and shaker within the podcast industry. So it's a really 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.520 good question, and I think it's it does start with 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.040 me with the math part. And the math part is 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.320 not exactly the math that everybody uses today is not 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:51.960 just clicks and numbers. It's math of understanding what verbatims 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.200 people say when they're talking about something. For example, years 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.560 and years ago on as a radio programmer, we said 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.840 we play less commercials because that's gradically correct, and I go, yes, 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.920 but that's what everyone says. And so I think the 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.960 important thing is understand the language, Understand the way the 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.880 consumer frames the issue and what they're looking at, and 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.840 talk about it from their point of view, not from 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.920 our point of view about how we built it or 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.320 what we think it is as a professional. Um. And 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.520 and I think on the on the magic front, it 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.240 is really opening your mind. Um. I read some you know, 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.040 a great student of of creativity and and and you 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.680 know you read a lot. And I believe this that 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.880 you don't come to a creative idea by stepping through 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.560 some business school kind of points of view. And then 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.680 here's the answer that the way the way you get 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.880 the creative idea is you load your head with all 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.640 the information, you mull it over you and then you 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.440 forget about it, and one morning, when you're in that 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.400 alpha zone, when you're sort of almost awake or sort 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:58.760 of in and out of sleep in a way. Or 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.680 for me, it's when I'm taking a fifteen minute hot 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.440 shower in the morning and I'm just zoning out, ideas 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.719 pop in my head and it's a joke in my 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.160 family forever. I've run out of the shower and quick, 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.280 give me the pen and just write it all down. 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.400 It just appears in my brain. And because I know 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.240 that's how it comes. When I work with agencies, I 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.800 don't want the big presentation. I said, you really, just 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.320 save all those account people. I don't need to see them. Uh, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.760 this will be a more more profitable account for you. 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.360 I want you to get about three or four different 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.240 teams to look at exactly the same stuff. Do not 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.600 have them talk to each other. Do not have someone 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.119 review their work to figure out what you're going to 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.960 present to me and then come and present it. And 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.320 what I'm doing is I'm maximizing the odds that one 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.080 of those people had the epiphany. And it's those epiphanies 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.359 that make the difference. You know. The line H A 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.800 O L so easy to use, no wonders Number one 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.359 turned out not to be the line the agency was suggesting. 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.360 It happened to be in a briefing note they had 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.639 about the line they wanted to create, and and and 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.919 as soon as I see it, that's it. And I 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.760 think that's Matt. When you see magic, you know it. 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.959 That I want my MTV came about because George Lois 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.359 and um and they open who is his partner, had 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.760 been promotions director at w NBC Radio with me who 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.879 I had given the account to to come up with 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:26.800 this idea of you know, how are we going to 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.399 advertise MTV? And we had this problem that the cable 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.119 operators didn't want to carry us and they wanted us 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.159 to pay the money. We didn't have it, so we 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.679 needed some way to use consumer pull to get the 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:42.240 consumer to to demand it. And they had originally this 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.800 this uh commercial of America's becoming a land of cable 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.119 brats and blah blah blah blah blah, and in there 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.360 it said call your cable company and say I want 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.399 my MTV. Well wait a minute, that's that's the line 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.520 I want my MTV let's read craft. So to me, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.760 it's alla is this iterative process that you can edit, 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.200 you can play with, but it starts with that creative epiphany. 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:09.239 I mean, you look back over your career. Were you 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:13.240 doing these big, swinging innovations or was it more incremental 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.840 innovation building on itself. I never thought I was doing 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.879 anything big. People have said I was a disrupted I 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.600 never thought it was disrupting anything. I thought I was 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.680 simply solving a need. Okay, I can identify we need this, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.320 let's go do that. We need this, let's go do that. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.960 The consumer wants this, let's serve that. But I never thought, wow, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.280 I'm going to disrupt everything. I just thought I was 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.600 following consumers, or I was looking for a solution to 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.320 a particular issue. I did a Math and Magic episode 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.119 with Fred Cybert, who did the on air look for MTV, 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.480 which at that moment in time, you guys are too 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:56.119 young to remember, was the what was this incredible breakthrough look? 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:58.960 But the reason we did the look, as Fred and 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.679 I explored, was because we didn't have the money to 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.600 do what everybody else was doing, which was looked like 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.320 Star wars logos, you know, coming from outer space, like 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.280 the intro to Star Wars. Um So Fred hit upon 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.520 the idea, said, you know, Bob, if we do our 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.200 version of that, we don't have much money, so ours 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.480 will look cheap. But if we do something entirely different 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.199 than no one's ever seen before, then it will just 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:30.000 look creative. And and he was right, And that's what 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.439 led us to do such a radically different look was 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.879 because we didn't want to look like anything else, so 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.040 we couldn't be compared. And people realize we were spending 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.240 ten of what our competitors were spending and creating that. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.879 Do you think marketers today ask the simple question that 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.600 you just asked, what is the need? Because I you know, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.480 I talked to marketers all the time, and we've overcomplicated, 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.520 and we've also and we've also naval geys to a 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.480 point where we don't we can't even ask the simple questions. 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.240 I have a pretty strong opinion on it. I'm a 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.280 research guy. I love data. Um, I think we've gone 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.560 way too far. And I talked to marketers and they're 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.720 I've got I want to target. I want to go 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.080 to the target. And you look at every bit of 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.439 the research and I pull this out for people to 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.600 see sometimes because you get a little lost I go. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.680 You do realize, of course, that most of your buyers 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.000 are not in your target audience. If you think about 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.639 the target audience and about all the research supports, that 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.440 target audience means you have a high density of buyers 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.120 within this group, but most of your buying is done 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.200 outside the target. So when you super target to this 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.879 target that you've figured out, you've eliminated everybody else. If 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.200 you look at people, if you look at the results 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.000 of companies, and then let's go back to like two 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.240 thousand and eight, two thousand nine, ten years ago, and 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.800 they shifted their money tremendous amount of money to to 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.879 digital and social where they could absolutely target most of 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:10.160 those companies. Almost all those companies had stagnant sales, stagnant revenue, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.240 no revenue growth. And how they're doing all this super 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.760 targeting and missing everybody else. I look at the example 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.560 of Mark Pritchard at PNG, which is I mean, guys, 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:24.200 she's such a smart guy, and he you know, they 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:29.280 cut out radio and outdoor almost disappeared from PNG. I think, 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:30.840 I think, you know, they weren't even in the top 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.280 two hundred three or four years ago in radio, and 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:38.280 suddenly Mark looks at he needs to cut back his 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:41.879 marketing spend. If you remember this moment in time, sales 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:46.280