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AdTechGod Pod
Special Episode: OhHello - Scott Hess on Leadership, Joy at Work, and Creating Opportunity Through Mentorship
00:17:18
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A
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B
Huh?
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C
Oh, that always freaks me out.
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B
What happened?
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C
What happened?
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B
Oh, hello, Scott Hess. How are you?
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C
I'm good. Hello. Oh, hello. Jeremy O. Bloom. Nice to see you.
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B
Nice to see you on this lovely day. Nice to see you too. You are recording from the west coast. I am in our hometown, a few miles north of. Of the hometown, so to speak. But it's great to see you. It's great to be able to record with you so quickly. I have the pleasure of knowing who you are and you have been a 3 part guest 2 years ago when we first kicked off this podcast.
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C
Okay.
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B
You did a three parter when we recorded this, became a three parter. And you have the distinct honor of being one of our few repeat guests for the oh, hello. Pod that will also be syndicated through the Ad Tech God Pod, which is part of the Market Media umbrella. You and I were talking about life, all the different businesses, careers. I'm going to shut my mouth. I want you to introduce yourself to those that aren't as familiar with you. And then we're going to talk about Chicago Advertising Federation Career Day and the importance of careers.
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C
Okay. I'm Scott Hess. Yeah, I'm Scott Hess. I wish I was a writer. I studied poetry in college. I still write all the time, but I have a real job that I think is why you want to talk to me and not for my substack or my. Or my middling poetry. So I'm the Chief marketing Officer of Pubisis Media and the current acting interim Chief Marketing Officer for Starcom, which I've had a lot of fun with in the past year. And I'm really enjoying this particular phase of my career where I'm trying to make sure that everybody that works at and with Publicis Media and our agencies is happy. Our people, our clients, our partners, the communities that we work in. I feel like that connection between us and all those constituencies is kind of my job. It's an impossible but a really fun job at this stage of my career.
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B
It is possible because you're doing something great externally. As someone that has known you for quite a while. I want to circle back on something that you said about your substack and being a poet. You're a very good writer. So for those that don't follow your read your writing and enjoy reading, you have a lot of really heartfelt things to say about life that's not all business oriented. And I just want to let you know that I appreciate it as a reader. So thank you.
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C
Hey, I'll take it. I appreciate it. I'm trying my hardest.
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B
See ya.
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A
Bye.
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C
All right. This is why I have a three. Three timer. All you gotta do is make throw out any little compliment and I'm like, yeah, what do you need me to do? I'll do it.
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B
Spoon feeding you. I'm spoon feeding you. It's so we're, we're here because. Oh, hello. Market Extra media publicis are all behind Chicago Advertising Federation Career Day because we believe in the importance of making sure that the next generation is able to network, get mentorship, meet experienced folks with some hair, folks with little to no hair, and listen to us and talk with us and tell me a little bit more about your involvement with Chicago Advertising Federation.
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C
Yeah, like a year ago, my boss and dear friend Chris Booth told me that I should be a board member of the Chicago Advertising Federation like he was. And when Chris tells me something, I just say, yes, sir, yes, boss, then I do it. So I've for the last year been a board member at the caf, but the real reason I'm excited to be affiliated with CAF is that I like all three of the things in the name. I love Chicago. It's my favorite city in the world. I love advertising. Even though I don't really like working or business or anything that serious. Advertising is kind of pretend business. And so it's become. I'm so thankful that I found some place to be a middling poet, that I could also be a business person. And then federation. This is what you're going to talk about, the caf Career Day. It's all about coming together. When I got to Chicago in 1989 with $200 in my pocket and no plan, I had no connections. I had no grasp of what it would be to work or what industry might even have me. And so when I go to caf Career Day now, as an established old person, I Think I would have killed for this event. I would have killed for the way it demystifies our industry. And it also demythologizes people like me and you, who. Who from afar have titles and career stories and stuff like that that seem inaccessible to young people. So. So the caf is. Is a great thing. And I think my favorite thing that caf does is Career Day for young people that want to get into the business.
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B
Love that you just said that. I. So we are a couple years apart. And with that said, I was. When I started my career, I got my first job through going to the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne and going to Caf Career Day. And no way wanted to tell you that. Now I didn't want to tell you that. And when we were catching up and having a coffee the first 15 minutes. When I was a senior, I went up to Chicago as part of Career Day and I networked with. With someone I'm still friends with. We're not. I don't. We don't see each other as often as we used to. But a lot of respect for Ed Carfagnini, who is a. An SVP of sales over at Clear Channel Outdoor. He has been there for probably 35 years at clear Channel.
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C
Good for Ed for being a mentor.
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B
Yeah. And so Ed hired me and helped me get a role, same with another gentleman by the name of Bob Wolf. So they helped create roles for me when I was 21 years old and I networked and I got a job and I started directly in sales, in ad sales at Clear channel outdoor in 2002. So those can do them. Those that are capable of doing the math. Do the math. You'll be able to figure it out. And I then volunteered for seven or eight years afterwards and I was a speaker for Caf Career Day. So then building. Oh, hello. One of my multiple companies. Something that's been important is the mentorship aspect and making sure that people have access to get advice, guidance, expert feedback that they're able to feel vulnerable, and external advice from people that have been there, done that. It's really meaningful and it makes the difference.
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C
You have had the good sense to try and monetize this sense of goodwill that you have, where all I do is just do endless meetings for free with people because, I mean, I'll never forget. Good for you that you went to CF Career Day. I, like, moved into town, lived on the people's floor, and it took me forever to find. And it took me. It took. First, I ended up in consulting, which was totally a bad fit for Me, and then I kind of ended up in peripherally in media. Rollingstone.com but it took me forever to get here. And then when I got here, it took me forever to figure out what the different avenues were that I could play in. So you have career day. For people like me that moved to town with no common sense or like you that moved to town with a plan, it's a starting point into not just a job. Hopefully you'll get a job, but it's entree into a career. One of the best things about advertising is you come in wherever you come in as a strategist or an investment lead or an analytics person. That's just a starting point. You find your way into the business and then with the meetings that you take and the people that you work with, you figure out, I might be better client side, I might be better on the sales side. I might be an entrepreneur starting businesses. It is such a vast world, and I think the caf Career day is the door to the world. So I feel so jealous of the kids that come to it because I didn't have anything like it.
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B
You are so right when you say that. I. When I was an advertising major at the University of Illinois, I thought I wanted to go the creative route. I'm. I'm still creative minded.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And I do creative things for, for throughout my career. But I realized the talking to clients, the building, the sales components, the, the monetization, there's so many different things that I wasn't that I didn't know when I was in college. But by going to a career day and talking to experts all in one place and being able to be vulnerable and ask questions, it made the difference.
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C
You can't screw it up either. Like, basically all you got to do is show up there and the amount of exposure you get to people and to different, different avenues of the business. I mean, I've been to it a bunch of years in a row now. I won't be there this year because I'm in California. But every time I've been in the business now for a while, and every time I go there, I'm like, oh, that's cool. He's cool, they're cool. She's amazing. Like, I marvel that any kid that even had a middling interest in advertising wouldn't show up at this day. And it's inexpensive. And the only. I tell you what the only downside is. You have to be in Chicago in the fricking winter. But other than that, it's the best, you know, What?
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B
February in Chicago is the worst time of year to be in Chicago, but we've got 11 other months and it's the shortest month, so.
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C
Well, to be fair, we only have like four good months in Chicago.
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B
Oh, don't be one of those. Don't be one of those.
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C
I can't wait. I'm leaving. I'm going to leave in November and not come back in April at some point in the not too distant future. I can't. My, I'm old. My skin is very thin. It's. Pieces of me are breaking off. I don't think I can do the winter anymore.
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B
I assure you I understand. And for those of our friends, peers, me that are, that are also in other cold weather climates like they, they understand. The last thing I want to touch on that I think would be helpful, especially for those that are experience, that want to be able to give back but also those are younger that are watching us and want to be able to realize like, oh, I can ask real people that are grown ups these kinds of questions on how to get a job, how to ascend within my career. You have two sons right now. One that you were telling me earlier that got into advertising, which is awesome. Another you're, he's at his university right now, hence part of the reason you're in California. Tell me like just how your elder son got into the world. What made him decide to get into the world of advertising, marketing, tech, media?
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C
Yeah. The older of my two sons went to Michigan State and when he went there, he decided he was going to go major in environmental engineering, which was a great plan. And I was very proud of him. He's a brilliant kid, terrific at math, great ACT scores. He was bright. Of course he was going to be an engineer. The challenge for him was he went to the engineering classes and he was so bored and he took, he'd been exposed to advertising because I did it, you know, his dad did it. He was like, well, that's for, that's for idiots. But he took an advertising class and he's like, this is, this class is cool. I would go to this class, you know, for nothing. And so after he took that class, he called me and he said, hey, I'm gonna run something past you. Would you mind if I majored in advertising? And I said, cj, you don't have to do that. You know, you, you have a perfectly viable major in environmental engineering. Maybe you can make more money and not deal with as many lunatics as we advertising. But he's like, dad, it's joyful. I like this. And so then he got an internship and spent the summer working on the Molson Coors account, which, you know, at the time he did it, he was a 211 1/2 year old guy. So it was essentially like the dream assignment. And, and, and now he works on that account at Spark Foundry. But he's like, some of my friends make more money than me, but nobody has a better life than I do.
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B
They don't have as much fun. The fact, the fact that your son is at one of the best agencies in the world on one of the best and coolest, most innovative.
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C
He loves it.
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CPG companies, beverage companies, the leadership at Molson Coors is so fantastic. They're so creative and just you think about Coors Light, Miller Light, you think about Blue Moon, you think about just how they highlife. The list goes on and on and on. Every brand and how they storytelling and the nostalgia that comes with it and the innovation. What an amazing account for your son to work on.
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C
He is so thrilled. And it's funny because as you mentioned earlier, you said we were a couple years apart. I think it's a lot more than that. I've been doing this a long time and it's very easy when, when you get to a certain age to be jaded and so, you know, and just, oh, it's when I get to listen to him and his friends at work and the level of excitement, enthusiasm and affinity they have for their accounts and the brands that they work on, it reminds me of the greatness of the business and it makes me excited to help young people get into it. There is Nothing like a 22 year old that's launching into a career in advertising and their mind is blown by how good our lifestyle is and by the stuff we get to do. My son used to watch my wife who works in insurance and then he would watch me work in advertising and he was, he was pretty clear. My younger son's now he's like, you're laughing and happy all the time and mom's serious and spreadsheeting. I'm going to go in that direction. So there's plenty of people that love the world of finance and that kind of stuff. Advertising's for the people that are a little bit weirder, like to talk about music and culture and be creative every day, which is its own pressure, but it's a source of joy.
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B
Very, very well said, Scott. This has been great. We jumped on to record so quickly. Thank you for doing this. Thank you to the Chicago Advertising Federation for giving us the opportunity to talk about CF career day. And also for anyone and everyone listening, Marketecture Live is our conference on March 10th and 11th in New York at the Glass House. We have 40 something different sessions. We've got the commissioner from the FTC here. We're talking about Molson Coors. We've got the C suite from Molson Coors. We have the cmo, Sofia Colucci. We have, we have execs from publicist from other top, well respected agencies in the space. We've got the CMO of the NFL. The list goes on and on. Thanks. So the reason I'm saying that, everyone listening, if you go to marketlive.com and you have a coupon code which is CAF30, you get 30% off to attend Market Extra Live, a two day event for the thinkers and doers in the advertising, marketing, media and tech communities.
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C
New York in March is quite lovely. Better than Chicago in February. Yeah.
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B
All right, Mr. Hess, thank you. Have fun in California.
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C
Okay. Nice to talk to you. Take care of yourself.
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B
Thanks, Scott. Thanks, everybody. Bye.