Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's a word purpose driven platform. Like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance? How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? And
Speaker 1: it really is? What's up? I'm Laura Coarnti and I'm
Speaker 1: Alexa Christen. Welcome back to Atlantia. We are in March,
Speaker 1: or in March. It's March madness. March is coming in
Speaker 1: like a lion, so march. On to the topic of
Speaker 1: this episode, the content studio. The content studio. So we
Speaker 1: have Auto Bell, who's the chief creative officer of Courageous,
Speaker 1: a Turner Media content studio, and they've been around for
Speaker 1: a couple of years and kind of burning things up.
Speaker 1: So in the spirit of it being our first creative
Speaker 1: lead episode, we are going to make this a podcast
Speaker 1: short and welcome Auto Bell to the show. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Auto, Hello, Otto and you ladies. Nice to
Speaker 1: see you both. Yes, thank you are so happy you're here.
Speaker 1: We are very happy you're here, So I haven't seen
Speaker 1: you since we were both at Ogilvie. You were leading
Speaker 1: Ogilvy Entertainment. So tell us now you're at Creatius. What
Speaker 1: was the path from agency into media company? UM? I
Speaker 1: arrived at CNN because I had UM just like sounds
Speaker 1: like you just went to the doors and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm it wasn't it was? It was. It was a fun,
Speaker 1: fun origin. So I don't know if you know this one, Laura,
Speaker 1: but it's um. We haven't talked about it. So I
Speaker 1: got really friendly with um cat's head of sales at CNN, Kakugach,
Speaker 1: that's right, and we became good friends over the years.
Speaker 1: Because I was at Ogilvy, we were carving out all
Speaker 1: of these interesting deals with like BBC World News and
Speaker 1: CNBC in Times Now of India, all of these these
Speaker 1: sort of multi platform TV lead deals for content, and
Speaker 1: I was always trying to work with CNN with my
Speaker 1: then boss Dog Scott. We were trying to we was
Speaker 1: trying to get something away at CNN, but they were
Speaker 1: so strict about their church and state they just wouldn't
Speaker 1: do anything exotic in terms of hybrid deals or anything
Speaker 1: like that. So it could but then a couple of
Speaker 1: years later, UM cat gave me cool and she said, oh,
Speaker 1: I want you to come in and let's chat about
Speaker 1: a marketing job. And she introduced me to some of
Speaker 1: her colleagues, McAll and we got to talking and it
Speaker 1: became clear pretty quickly that they needed helping in brand
Speaker 1: with branded content. And by that time Jeff Zuccerd arrived
Speaker 1: and and he had really um he'd become a lot
Speaker 1: more thoughtful about about the network, about adding entertainment properties
Speaker 1: to the network. That kind of broadened the definition of journalism,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like Bourdaine and Lisa Laying and w
Speaker 1: Kamal Bell and so the company was ready to do
Speaker 1: to do more and to um but in but obviously
Speaker 1: in a very careful way. So we struck on the
Speaker 1: idea of setting up a brand of content studio. How
Speaker 1: many years ago was that two and a half two
Speaker 1: and a half years ago, So right in the prime
Speaker 1: of everybody started Russia, there was like t brand existed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one or two. Um but that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you swing a cat now on this town,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hit somebody who's opening a content studio right Well,
Speaker 1: about that, let's go right there. Well, they're everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: we very when we set up Courageous Um we named
Speaker 1: after Ted Turners, America's cup winning yacht actually, but it
Speaker 1: also speaks to the mindset um that we want our
Speaker 1: clients to be in, right, We want them to be
Speaker 1: brave and bold and and and and open minded and
Speaker 1: generally courageous. But the but yeah, with everybody opening a
Speaker 1: brand studio, I mean, the trick is you've got to
Speaker 1: really look very carefully at what sits behind that. It's
Speaker 1: very easy to hang a shingle. But to my experience,
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys probably know no better, but everything
Speaker 1: that I see that seems to be a lot of
Speaker 1: hollow studios out there. So a lot of um account
Speaker 1: handlers or folks who will kind of take your order
Speaker 1: and then they'll turn around and they'll produce something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they'll hire a bunch of freelancers to actually execute
Speaker 1: the work. Or it's maybe a rebadged marketing department right
Speaker 1: going by another name in a cool new corner of
Speaker 1: the office. We we built this, We built Courageous from
Speaker 1: the ground up. We took a very different and that
Speaker 1: was part of the part of the deal. When I
Speaker 1: joined is that we're going to need to do things
Speaker 1: a certain way. Had a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: scars and a lot of lessons from from Ogilvie and
Speaker 1: wanted to build something quite, quite deliberate and quite self sufficient.
Speaker 1: So we set out and we we we hired a
Speaker 1: full time team. I think we're up to about thirty
Speaker 1: five full time staff. Now. UM, well, everybody makes and
Speaker 1: does so with it is a lot when you consider
Speaker 1: that everybody is either a cinematographer or a craft editor,
Speaker 1: or a filmmaker director, or a graphic designer or a
Speaker 1: web developer. You don't have account people running around. No,
Speaker 1: that's handled by other parts of business UM, which is great.
Speaker 1: So we just focus on actually making the stuff. What
Speaker 1: differentiates Courageous from everything else that that is in the market.
Speaker 1: What sort of the elevator pitch um when you walk
Speaker 1: in and are going up against UM bids for commercial
Speaker 1: spots to full live production, uh, cinematography, What does that
Speaker 1: look like UM to you? Because there are skills I
Speaker 1: think that you have within the walls of Courageous UM
Speaker 1: that many folks don't. Yeah, thank you. I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of differentiation, it is it's self sufficiency with that ability,
Speaker 1: I mean we're doing things that at one five the
Speaker 1: cost of a of a creative agency or a glossy
Speaker 1: production company because we've taken the two biggest costs out
Speaker 1: of production. So we don't have day rates for freelancers
Speaker 1: and we don't when we own our own gears, So
Speaker 1: that is one big differentiator. But then we're also pretty particular.
Speaker 1: Snobby is another word about the folks who we've brought
Speaker 1: on board, because in a world where everybody wants good,
Speaker 1: fast and affordable, the good part, the quality part can
Speaker 1: often suffer. And deliberately tried to hire the same caliber
Speaker 1: of people that you'd find kicking around and see an
Speaker 1: n newsroom. We have them courageous working in the dedicated
Speaker 1: way for brands. So I'm talking about Emmy and Morrow
Speaker 1: winning filmmakers. Um. I mean, we've only been going just
Speaker 1: over a couple of years and I would hasten say
Speaker 1: we're probably the most awarded brand studio of in America
Speaker 1: this year already, you know, everything from the can lines
Speaker 1: to to Digit Day naming as the best publisher for video.
Speaker 1: So we are We're very focused on the people that
Speaker 1: we bring in to make sure that they can um
Speaker 1: deliver at at a at a high quality, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of commercial production standards which brands expect. You know,
Speaker 1: just because they're moving, they're moving maybe from an AD
Speaker 1: from an agency of record model to an AD more
Speaker 1: project by project basis, they're not given up that that
Speaker 1: polish that they have spent years and billions of dollars honing,
Speaker 1: you know, like they still very they still care a
Speaker 1: great deal about that. So you know, we're very conscious
Speaker 1: of that, and I try to make sure that the
Speaker 1: work is um certainly looks looks good enough. But then
Speaker 1: also the big the big difference, and we can talk
Speaker 1: more about agency versus publisher, but we're going to go there.
Speaker 1: But I mean that that idea of having a value exchange. Now,
Speaker 1: now there's so you ask, you know, making commercials and
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Our commercial will be a secondary
Speaker 1: output of what it is that we do. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not really in the business of making thirty second
Speaker 1: spots of trying to replace a traditional creative agency. You
Speaker 1: even want to make them do CNN or just sorry,
Speaker 1: just Turner want you to do it? Well, No, I
Speaker 1: mean what we're seeing is a lot of clients asking
Speaker 1: for it. You know, they'll startup. Yeah, they'll they'll well,
Speaker 1: what what happens is we'll start off making something too three,
Speaker 1: maybe an event something like that. They'll see it online
Speaker 1: or they'll see it on TV. You know. We have
Speaker 1: these pod takeovers where were Native plus, where we just
Speaker 1: run a piece of content instead upon a bunch of thirties.
Speaker 1: They'll see it, they like it, and then they'll want
Speaker 1: to graduate it to a full campaign. So they want
Speaker 1: to take it off of our network and play it everywhere,
Speaker 1: you know, on the side of a building in Austin,
Speaker 1: or in cinemas or around the Super Bowl. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are all real examples. That's a good question. Is
Speaker 1: you said campaign, but then you were talking about a
Speaker 1: specific execution. I mean, are you seeing the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing informing larger kind of campaign or campaign strategy.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing them being picked up and used as a campaign. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the best brief you've gotten? Um? The one that
Speaker 1: can change, you know, the one where I can do
Speaker 1: what I want? Can you still pay me? I got
Speaker 1: far better people than than I'll give you an example, um,
Speaker 1: video game company Square Nicks. They they do Hitman and
Speaker 1: Lara Croft and stuff. They have another franchise, d s
Speaker 1: x UM. It's set like fifteen years in the future
Speaker 1: and mankind is divided between people who have changed their
Speaker 1: bodies with technology and people who haven't. It's like this
Speaker 1: war going on sounds like my kind of game. It's
Speaker 1: mine kind of divided day sex mine kind of. So
Speaker 1: they came to us and they're looking to go beyond
Speaker 1: average gamers. Um. The initial brief that came in was
Speaker 1: for like some homepage takeovers the day the game released,
Speaker 1: Like why you know why because people don't even think
Speaker 1: about media, right, so how can they go on brief
Speaker 1: you on something that they came and they said, we
Speaker 1: want some because impact. Well, yeah, I mean company who's
Speaker 1: creating cinematic content that people interact with. What was it
Speaker 1: good about the brief was they listened. So they started
Speaker 1: to look at the brief and because they're journalists, they
Speaker 1: can't help themselves. These are a lot of my my filmmakers.
Speaker 1: They these are the people on your journalism. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they start looking they're like whatever, They start scratching away
Speaker 1: at it and they're like, well, you realize that this
Speaker 1: isn't science fiction. Like a lot of what your game
Speaker 1: deals with that's actually happening now, and they found, you know,
Speaker 1: the first cyber hate crime in France like six months earlier,
Speaker 1: and and then the and then what they pointed out
Speaker 1: though in the case that we made back to the
Speaker 1: client is yet there is no bill on the floor
Speaker 1: of Congress. There's no one body who's thinking about this
Speaker 1: subject matter. This is all you know. The science is
Speaker 1: galloping ahead, but nobody's nobody's tackling it in a thoughtful way.
Speaker 1: So what we ended up doing was we ended up
Speaker 1: having the first UM summit on human augmentation, like the
Speaker 1: first conference for cyborgs in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: So we'll be back after this quick break. So we're
Speaker 1: back in the studio with maybe first creative on the show,
Speaker 1: officially our first creative on the show, Atto Bell, chief
Speaker 1: creative officer of Courageous. Can you explain to our listeners
Speaker 1: how do you push back or redirect the conversation. So
Speaker 1: you said you came to the table with insights, you
Speaker 1: were looking at weight, deeper contacts, differ context. What what
Speaker 1: it was that process like for your team to sort
Speaker 1: of pivot the client to get to from hoping to
Speaker 1: take over to a cyborg conference. If you didn't even blink,
Speaker 1: it's um. It's the first word. Well, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things. There's UM, a lot of communication and then yeah,
Speaker 1: backing it up with insights and research. You're not going
Speaker 1: to get past go without a counter argument, you know,
Speaker 1: a big media insight backed up with statistics, UM and
Speaker 1: some kind of concrete research. Before you go on any
Speaker 1: kind of flight of fancy or creative meandering there there
Speaker 1: has to be the counterpoint, like we heard you on this,
Speaker 1: but did you know that x um so they wanted
Speaker 1: to go beyond a hardcore gaming office audience and we
Speaker 1: did that. You know, it's it's public knowledge. We we
Speaker 1: boost the sales by on Amazon during the during the campaign,
Speaker 1: like we have real results on how we affected the numbers.
Speaker 1: You've got to have the client who's open to it.
Speaker 1: I mean the amount of time that we'll spend and
Speaker 1: we've worked together, you know, the amount of time will
Speaker 1: spend talking about things in pre production. It saves you
Speaker 1: so much time later write. One of my pet pees
Speaker 1: with publishers is like trust us. You know, hey, we've
Speaker 1: got this from here on out time. What I haven't
Speaker 1: done right is dumped something on your desk after two
Speaker 1: months of radio silence and said like, hey, review this
Speaker 1: rough cut, and it's a million miles away from anybody
Speaker 1: who works with Alex, and I know that we don't
Speaker 1: live in silence. So um, it's interesting. Alex and I
Speaker 1: go back and forth a lot. And you were getting
Speaker 1: to this earlier on the conversation around talent and the
Speaker 1: types of backgrounds or skill sets that you're pulling from.
Speaker 1: What you were just described riving would be research and
Speaker 1: strategy in a way in which you're pulling from different departments.
Speaker 1: I know that you have Launchpad, for example, which is
Speaker 1: a tremendous social insights tool that your team uses to
Speaker 1: field editorial. Can you talk about some of the inputs
Speaker 1: and what the skill sets look like in this sort
Speaker 1: of modern version of content creation. Well, in my case
Speaker 1: where I've sort of netted out is it's weighted in
Speaker 1: favor of folks with editorial backgrounds, with a healthy mix
Speaker 1: of advertising professionals, and then just the dash a data
Speaker 1: science that would be that that would be the recipe
Speaker 1: that I'm cooking with. So those editorial guys, Um, those
Speaker 1: people are worth their weight in gold. It's a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot easier to teach marketing to a journalist
Speaker 1: than it is to teach a marketer how to be
Speaker 1: a journalist, like their instincts to kind of source report,
Speaker 1: to get on the phone and track down a right
Speaker 1: story and not stop until they've got to an under
Speaker 1: explored angle or an interesting narrative hook like that. That tenacity,
Speaker 1: it has been a revelation for me coming from advertising. Um.
Speaker 1: On top of that, UM, it is good to have.
Speaker 1: I don't think you talked about that enough, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that when you kind of go into these meetings.
Speaker 1: You know, for anybody who has a studio, everybody talks
Speaker 1: about we have the pipes, we have the scale, we're
Speaker 1: built into X, Y and Z network. But actually coming
Speaker 1: at it, that's a point of differentiation in comparison to
Speaker 1: a creative agency. Right, you're selling this is a commercial
Speaker 1: but this is a commercial company you've got And and
Speaker 1: to that point though, that's one of the promises that
Speaker 1: I make to the journalists who do come over and
Speaker 1: and work with me and concentrate on brands, is you know,
Speaker 1: you give me a few years of your time and
Speaker 1: I will in turn make you kind of fluent, commercially
Speaker 1: fluent right, like tell you how to market and how
Speaker 1: to market yourself, and which in today's business isn't essential,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely crucial. I mean, if you've got a passion
Speaker 1: project you want to extract money from somebody in order
Speaker 1: to realize you'll create a vision, chances are you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to walk into a room and present and and
Speaker 1: know how to lay out an argument and and explain
Speaker 1: to a financier or somebody who's commissioning a project, why,
Speaker 1: why you deserve it. I always thought it was fascinating
Speaker 1: that j school and business school were separate tracks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, there's really a
Speaker 1: need for at least the business school angle to live
Speaker 1: within journalism. It was interesting in yeah, the Oscars this weekend,
Speaker 1: you know, Francis McDorman is saying, finance our films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to go out, you know, you need to
Speaker 1: go out and know how to sell your work. What
Speaker 1: is the difference between advertising and branded content anymore? Or
Speaker 1: how are you actually are you putting a line in
Speaker 1: the sand? Do we need to anymore? Is that funny?
Speaker 1: There's that good two thousand one wasn't at Seth Godin
Speaker 1: said Content Marketing is all the marketing that's left. I
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think we're there yet. I think
Speaker 1: TV is still pretty powerful. I would say that, though,
Speaker 1: wouldn't I work at and then look, I think the
Speaker 1: idea of of a value exchange, but to me, that's
Speaker 1: always informed good marketing as well. So you know how
Speaker 1: much of this is new? I don't know. Theoretically not much,
Speaker 1: but in practice, in the articulation, in the expression of it,
Speaker 1: we are definitely living in a different time than we
Speaker 1: were even five years ago. The output, when you think
Speaker 1: about the traditional thirty and sixty, is focused on the brand. Correct,
Speaker 1: When you think about the output of branded content in
Speaker 1: the sense in which the three of us are talking
Speaker 1: about it, the value and the focus is on the
Speaker 1: consumer and protecting that experience and making it hopefully a
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship in the context of what they are watching.
Speaker 1: And that's the fundamental difference. It's not a break in
Speaker 1: the content. It's additive to the content, but it's also
Speaker 1: about the context of the brand. The context of how
Speaker 1: a brand shows up is so important and probably more
Speaker 1: important now to brands than it ever has been before. Right,
Speaker 1: And at the end, I go back to trumping your values.
Speaker 1: Our first episode just so you know, auto, you should
Speaker 1: listen to it if you haven't already. Um, we talk
Speaker 1: about brands and and expressing their core values. I think
Speaker 1: that content gives the ability. Good content gives the ability
Speaker 1: for brands to both express their core values in context
Speaker 1: of the consumer, and the consumer actually to interact with
Speaker 1: the brand in their own context. Right, So it's this
Speaker 1: two way. And and I think it was really interesting
Speaker 1: as well, is that in what you say, oh, brands
Speaker 1: expressing that cool values, that there a lot that scares
Speaker 1: a lot of people and like, oh, you're you're expecting
Speaker 1: me as a brand to take a stand and to
Speaker 1: wait into these That is not. No, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be divid iceive in order to take a stand,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the great misconceptions, like what we
Speaker 1: did on New Politics and purpose. And there's also a
Speaker 1: difference between taking a stand and having a perspective. It's
Speaker 1: like having a pulse and being a corpse there. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear either one or the other. But there
Speaker 1: are plenty of moments out there, like like New Year's
Speaker 1: Like what I did that our first live ad was
Speaker 1: around the eclipse. Yeah, that's great. But what was nice
Speaker 1: about that is, alright, the country's and uproar, a lot
Speaker 1: of people taking sides, but on that day, everybody looking
Speaker 1: at the same moon, everybody united in this fabulous moment.
Speaker 1: Same thing with New Year's. Show me somebody who's not
Speaker 1: hopeful for the New year on December one, you know,
Speaker 1: So there's plenty of it's talk to them January. Different purposes,
Speaker 1: a very different thing of politics. Yeah. At a upfront
Speaker 1: a couple of years back, I remember Donna Special up
Speaker 1: on stage talking about Turner moving away from frequency in
Speaker 1: the number of spots that they were putting in their
Speaker 1: prime time programming and focusing on building longer pods to
Speaker 1: allow for this narrative, this longer narrative which you call
Speaker 1: natas plus within prout programs on T and G, TBS, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, NBC came out just a few days ago
Speaker 1: and he said, we are going to be moving to
Speaker 1: fewer of them to protect our programming as well. Is
Speaker 1: there a trend to sort of protect the consumer experience
Speaker 1: and does that change the difference between content versus commercial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of experimentation happening, and for
Speaker 1: good reason, right. You know, the problem or one of
Speaker 1: the side effects of the rise in subscription models is
Speaker 1: that it accentuates the adverts that remain, the commercials that
Speaker 1: remain in your life. When you have a a newspaper subscription,
Speaker 1: when you have a Spotify subscription, when you have Netflix subscription,
Speaker 1: all of these things they exacerbate the commercials that are left.
Speaker 1: They feel even more painful, they feel even more interruptive.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so you're right. The traditional broadcasters and cable nets,
Speaker 1: they are you are seeing them cut their their adload.
Speaker 1: NBC is is ten, you know, that's that's two cable
Speaker 1: promos a sorry, two network promos per commercial break. We'll
Speaker 1: get them to that target. So I think, honestly, I
Speaker 1: think they I don't know if that's enough. You know,
Speaker 1: we did fourteen hours of commercial replacement last year, which
Speaker 1: is where we put content like mine made by Courageous
Speaker 1: into commercial pods and kicked out all those thirties and
Speaker 1: we did fourteen hours of that. So it's it's what
Speaker 1: was the reaction for that. Some of them are holding
Speaker 1: the rating, which, as you know is is very depressive incredible,
Speaker 1: so um, which, yeah, so more of that please, But
Speaker 1: that takes to take you know, we turned around an
Speaker 1: oil tank. It it takes time. Is there a future
Speaker 1: where brands start taking over and producing content themselves and
Speaker 1: maybe even more with editorial lens like what to you
Speaker 1: is going to want sustain your business and grow it?
Speaker 1: And then what do you think we're like some interesting
Speaker 1: pops or turns or swerves that you think may be
Speaker 1: coming in the industry, Well, it's already happening. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, did you guys see the Lego movie brought
Speaker 1: I mean, we brought it. We've brought this up. We
Speaker 1: brought them in in the documentary space, you know you
Speaker 1: had that. But not every brand is going to make
Speaker 1: a Lego movie like a full feature film, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agreed, But I think in the short term there's
Speaker 1: going to be a reckoning. Quite I agree, quite honestly. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know a lot of these magazines with
Speaker 1: websites are in trouble because because that the brand studio is,
Speaker 1: the cost of production is not commensurate with the ad
Speaker 1: revenue that it generates. Right, they can't chuck. So you've
Speaker 1: got to there is a certain point where you've got
Speaker 1: to have either an incredibly valuable audience or critical mass
Speaker 1: in terms of distribution to sustain these kind of custom
Speaker 1: content deals, right like if you know, so for some
Speaker 1: what you're seeing is it's kind of like a death
Speaker 1: rattle of of print. And you know Facebook's algorithm change,
Speaker 1: They're only going to accelerate that as well. So I
Speaker 1: think in the short term there'll be a reckoning. But
Speaker 1: long term, I think the future looks very bright for
Speaker 1: what we do. I think all the trade winds are,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing in our favor, and I think you
Speaker 1: will see more and more commercial replacement. I think you'll
Speaker 1: see more and more addressable UM custom content UM. And
Speaker 1: I think it will be at the vanguard of a
Speaker 1: lot of these changes that we've been promised for so
Speaker 1: long UM, in terms of attribution models and and addressable
Speaker 1: I think custom content will increasingly be bound up in
Speaker 1: those discussions as the primary vehicle to get us to
Speaker 1: that nirvana that you know, that future we've been promised
Speaker 1: for so long. Do you see Courageous becoming the agency
Speaker 1: of record for blue chip brands? UM? Yeah, yeah, I do,
Speaker 1: certainly entertainment agency of record UM. But then I also
Speaker 1: think the ao R model is somewhat outdated you know,
Speaker 1: I'm quite happy. Like, look, I mean, I really pride
Speaker 1: ourselves on our annuities. I think it's it's the way
Speaker 1: that you build a sustainable business. I want Courageous to
Speaker 1: be around twenty years from now, and I want people
Speaker 1: to look at it in the same way that they
Speaker 1: look at Ogilviana resume and like that place is a
Speaker 1: great quality. Yeah, that's a great university for for what
Speaker 1: you know, that's a badge of come on in the
Speaker 1: water's warm kind of thing. But right now, would you
Speaker 1: say that most brands are discovering you because they're coming
Speaker 1: in through the front door of CNN from a media
Speaker 1: perspect to have our people coming in from the side
Speaker 1: door looking for creative solutions. Now, the majority is it's
Speaker 1: coming through the UH, through the through the traditional media
Speaker 1: sells absolutely, I would say that, yeah, a slim majority.
Speaker 1: What's it going to take for that to become a
Speaker 1: standalone service? I'm not looking. I'm fine servicing media deals
Speaker 1: at the moment. I don't have a um a big
Speaker 1: interest in a white label production operation. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of people. In fact, that's kind of a tough business
Speaker 1: and increasingly is and I think it is going to
Speaker 1: see its own degree of contraction as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel very good about the production model today. That said,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is changing. Like if you don't if
Speaker 1: you don't like standing on a burning platform, you probably
Speaker 1: shouldn't be in marketing and advertising right now because it
Speaker 1: is changing day by day. But as of today, do
Speaker 1: you see courageous in And Tom, you kind of said
Speaker 1: no to this, but I'm going to ask anyway, do
Speaker 1: you see courageous inventing any new forms of media that
Speaker 1: are um, you know, based on specific content or I
Speaker 1: P uniqueness. Yeah, I think one of the great revenue
Speaker 1: areas for us in the future is in some way
Speaker 1: or another. And we've had lots of conversations about it.
Speaker 1: We haven't we haven't landed on exactly how best to
Speaker 1: do this, but it is unignorable the fact that we
Speaker 1: are generating so much I P on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: You know, I was in conversations like full stats, CNN,
Speaker 1: Great Big Story. These guys are churning out stories, headlines,
Speaker 1: investigative stories, feature reports. I mean, I was in a
Speaker 1: conversation recently with a competitor from a development team on
Speaker 1: a cable company and he goes Oh yeah, My my
Speaker 1: staff might runs a development apart because they love Great
Speaker 1: Big Story. Because they wake up every morning and the
Speaker 1: first thing they do they check out Great Big Story
Speaker 1: for ideas well, for ideas for them exactly. And I
Speaker 1: think that we should be doing a better job of
Speaker 1: harnessing that. And we've got a lot of people who've
Speaker 1: got great commercial instincts. You know, that's what we do
Speaker 1: all day for our advertisers. So UM, I think we
Speaker 1: should um, you know that that that's that's one potential
Speaker 1: area I think in which we can grow. Do you
Speaker 1: see a brand ever buying courageous? Oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Again, let's see what
Speaker 1: happens to the landscape in the marketplace. But right now
Speaker 1: I think it's it's um, it's settled nicely, um where
Speaker 1: it should be incided to turn a servicing, you know,
Speaker 1: working outwards. So it's time. It's time. We're going to
Speaker 1: play our favorite games. You know this game she never
Speaker 1: told you No, I didn't tell him. I was creative.
Speaker 1: He can come up with something on the spot. So
Speaker 1: we play our version of kill Fuck Mary, which is
Speaker 1: called killed by d I, Y killed by d I y,
Speaker 1: and it's what would you kill in the market? What
Speaker 1: would you buy? And what would you do yourself? So
Speaker 1: I don't know what would you kill? What would you kill?
Speaker 1: I would kill um lazy p s A s All right,
Speaker 1: don't you give us an example? Well, you know, you
Speaker 1: see a lot of them. Taxi TV is like a
Speaker 1: nest of bad p s A. You know, it's always
Speaker 1: like or a brilliant revenue stream strategy. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. The business model is fantastic. I
Speaker 1: just mean the content. You know, whenever you see it's
Speaker 1: always a celeb holding a sign in front of like
Speaker 1: a white psych and then it's like written signs exactly
Speaker 1: and then they prayed twenty of them out and that's
Speaker 1: supposed to have a real impact on you. I think
Speaker 1: there's just that whole industry can be so much more powerful,
Speaker 1: and they, I don't know, they just let themselves down sometimes.
Speaker 1: I would really want to improve the state of p
Speaker 1: s as generally Like that, What was the next one?
Speaker 1: What would you buy? What I buy? It would have
Speaker 1: to be some kind of proprietary technology, because you know,
Speaker 1: buying like a VR company or an influencer network. I
Speaker 1: mean those are all things. You can hire somebody to
Speaker 1: do that and you don't have to pay a premium.
Speaker 1: So what tech like would change your life? Embedded branchips.
Speaker 1: I think it's got to be something like that. It's
Speaker 1: got to be something. It's gotta be, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: something voice driven right now, but something is something really like,
Speaker 1: something that is proprietary where you're not just buying It
Speaker 1: would be three small people who I don't know, something
Speaker 1: like that, something like some kind of next um, some
Speaker 1: kind of frightening delivery system. Right like, so you're still
Speaker 1: black mirror, like you really want to be black mire
Speaker 1: And what would you do yourself? Something you've seen in
Speaker 1: the market that you're like, I could have done this better,
Speaker 1: the auto bell way um experiential I we've we've dipped
Speaker 1: our toe into a few, you know, tad like events.
Speaker 1: Everything a tadlike event because it's the easiest shorthand like
Speaker 1: the monika for it. It's just it's just a way
Speaker 1: for people to But even that, I think that format
Speaker 1: is right for overhaul as well. I just think blending.
Speaker 1: I think well, I think events are a really efficient
Speaker 1: way to harvest a great deal of reusable content. Generally,
Speaker 1: I think they're fantastic for that. And you know, in
Speaker 1: a day you can get eight hours of content which
Speaker 1: you can dice up and and and put out into
Speaker 1: the world. But the actual occasion itself, properly scheduling that,
Speaker 1: properly um curating it so that you've got everything from
Speaker 1: music to food to insightful human stories. You know, no, please, really,
Speaker 1: I think we've all been to those conferences held by banks,
Speaker 1: held by management consultancies, held by our agencies, and they
Speaker 1: they they're not that interactive, they're not that varied. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot to you guys do that at the
Speaker 1: upfront this year. Maybe that's uh, yeah, yeah, have an idea, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little a little bit close maybe maybe nineteen Yeah, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: one more question. Sorry, what thing? Whether it's some kind
Speaker 1: of physical art piece, um, audio things some band er into,
Speaker 1: Like what are you jamming on right now? I got
Speaker 1: I got my new new film project coming out. We
Speaker 1: just got financing for that. I can't talk about the
Speaker 1: subject matter, but it's um, it's it's gonna be uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a doozy. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: hell of a film. So I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1: And and you know the full feature film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what going for a cinematic feature documentary. All right,
Speaker 1: Otto Bell, always a pleasure. People want to get ahold
Speaker 1: of you? How do they do it? Also Dot Bell
Speaker 1: at Turner dot com. Thank you Auto again. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've seen Auto for a few years now, so
Speaker 1: it's nice for me to see Auto. You've been working
Speaker 1: with him, Yeah, he's He's tremendous, and it's really fun
Speaker 1: to watch them sort of differentiate themselves in the market,
Speaker 1: and which is a very competitive space right now, super competitive.
Speaker 1: And I liked, Actually, I liked the honest answer. Everyone
Speaker 1: says this part of it. Everyone says, like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: all know there's a little bit of a doomsday coming
Speaker 1: for like content studios and branded content in media companies.
Speaker 1: And he said that. But what I liked was a
Speaker 1: very honest response of like, this is a tough game,
Speaker 1: right and so I'm going to get the best people,
Speaker 1: and I'm very comfortable being a part of the media
Speaker 1: company that I have, and right now they're good with that. Right.
Speaker 1: He wasn't looking to white label his Lucian. He wasn't
Speaker 1: looking to spin off and become a standalone creative shop.
Speaker 1: He was very comfortable playing in the space knowing what
Speaker 1: a network like Turner brings the space, and that's quality content,
Speaker 1: that's global pipes, that's differentiated. You know, I p in
Speaker 1: the market UM, and it's interesting. I think that they're
Speaker 1: just getting started and I'm really excited to see where
Speaker 1: they had next. One thing that I think that Turner
Speaker 1: has that a lot of people don't have. A lot
Speaker 1: of media companies don't have is the ability to be
Speaker 1: live anywhere, kind of in a minute, in a second.
Speaker 1: And you guys prove that out with some of the
Speaker 1: you know, it took work, but and and pre planning,
Speaker 1: but you proved that out with a live ad you
Speaker 1: guys did with Mass Mutual. I would love to see
Speaker 1: programming where brands come in and actually do programming with
Speaker 1: them like that, but it's it's commercial, and I think
Speaker 1: people would watch it if it was great programming. Totally.
Speaker 1: The biggest takeaway I took was um the idea of
Speaker 1: interspersing journalists and people with strict editorial background owns in
Speaker 1: the branded content space, and that's something I'll take away
Speaker 1: and start thinking about how we incorporate that in the
Speaker 1: agency model because it's not a skill set I think
Speaker 1: many people are looking for. And until he said it,
Speaker 1: I didn't really kind of connect the dots around the
Speaker 1: rigor and fact checking and um looking for what he
Speaker 1: said a different way in and an angle that And
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things that has been
Speaker 1: um un merchandised as when it comes to branded studios.
Speaker 1: I think that like to that point, and one of
Speaker 1: the big things on the marketer side that's like boggles
Speaker 1: my mind is like, do we actually expect our creatives,
Speaker 1: whether it's at a branded studio or content studio, an agency,
Speaker 1: a media company, to actually give us really rich and
Speaker 1: phenomenal stories, right, and content and ideas when we're doing
Speaker 1: it in a fucking one page briefright. So with that,
Speaker 1: thank you, Cameron Drews. Are all our friends and family
Speaker 1: at Panoply, met turk Andy Bowers, Jacob Weisberg. We will
Speaker 1: be back in two weeks after south By coming back
Speaker 1: at your atland. Yeah see out there y'all. Mm full disclosure.
Speaker 1: Our opinions are our own. Who do you think outside
Speaker 1: of courageous because you of course they're going to say courageous, Like,
Speaker 1: who do you think is actually producing the best content
Speaker 1: the Bronze studios or just in general. I mean you're
Speaker 1: going to say, like the BBC because you're British. What
Speaker 1: am I enjoying right now? I think the New Times
Speaker 1: do a great job, you know, I think, UM, I
Speaker 1: think Anonymous is the kind of company that Anonymous and
Speaker 1: what Patrick milling Smith is doing with Smuggler, those are
Speaker 1: a couple of companies that I you know, that I
Speaker 1: would aspire to to. I mean, with Courageous, those are
Speaker 1: like but those are like production companies. Well they well
Speaker 1: they're diversified, you know, like like they have a bedrock
Speaker 1: of a commercial business. Radicals another great example of this.
Speaker 1: Um they've got a bedrock of commercial business which does
Speaker 1: very well, world class work. But then you look at
Speaker 1: them and they're diversified, and they have been from diversified
Speaker 1: into like editorial Broadway. Yeah, yeah, I mean Anonymous, You've
Speaker 1: got an Oscar winning studio, UM, Patrick's got VR and
Speaker 1: and Broadway going very nicely. Radical or obviously you know
Speaker 1: it must be one of the top five producers for
Speaker 1: Netflix at this point, Like UM, there are great opportunities,
Speaker 1: and I think my point is this, like I would
Speaker 1: like to grow a business where it is totally format agnostic,
Speaker 1: right like where the medium or the story dictates the
Speaker 1: medium and the channel. We're getting there. One of the
Speaker 1: nice things of out being at CNN is I can
Speaker 1: play this game a little bit. I've got two TV stations,
Speaker 1: we've got an international network, we've got the airport network,
Speaker 1: we've got a Snapchat channel, weve got V O D,
Speaker 1: we've got O T T, we've got biggest social handle
Speaker 1: and us. What that equates to is a channel agnostic
Speaker 1: sort of approach whereby you tell me your problem as
Speaker 1: a brand channel challenge exactly, and I'll build you an event,
Speaker 1: or I'll build you a TV show, or I'll build
Speaker 1: you a short form film series, or I'll put all
Speaker 1: of those things together working in concert. So I'd love
Speaker 1: to get to that, um, you know, even outside the
Speaker 1: commercial realm marketing. Yeah, and STELLF financing marketing and financing
Speaker 1: and that that's that's the that's the utopia. You know.
Speaker 1: I've done it a couple of times in my career.
Speaker 1: Literally