First Round's Nick Tran on Why Brands Should Build Culture, Not Chase It

Summary

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BRAVE COMMERCE: “First Round's Nick Tran on Why Brands Should Build Culture, Not Chase It”

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Adweek, with Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter
Guest: Nick Tran, President & CMO, First Round (JV: Diageo & Main Street Advisors)

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Overview

This episode of BRAVE COMMERCE dives into what it truly means for a brand to achieve cultural relevance in an era of fragmented “microcultures.” Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter sit down with Nick Tran, widely recognized for his progressive marketing leadership at elite organizations (Taco Bell, Hulu, TikTok, Diageo/Main Street Advisors). Tran reveals why it’s no longer enough for brands to “chase” cultural moments—instead, they must actively build communities and experiences that become hubs of conversation. The conversation spans building authentic communities, the shifting playbook of brand strategy, the unique current role of sports and live experiences, adapting to AI, and the personal bravery involved in leadership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fragmentation of Culture & Rise of Microcultures

Timestamps: [03:11], [04:16]

• Sarah Hofstetter points out there’s no longer a single “mainstream” to tap into; microcultures dominate, making it harder for brands to reach mass unifying moments:

  “If you talk to five different people about, like, what's the hottest thing right now, you're gonna get five different answers, even within similar demographics.” [03:13]

• Rachel Tipograph echoes that the proliferation of brands and hyper-targeted content makes standing out tougher:

  “I have been introduced to so many brands I have never heard of because my son is 10 months old... it really makes it hard to stand out...” [04:16]

2. The Unique Role of Live Events and Sports

Timestamps: [02:05], [04:55], [14:53], [15:00]

• Sports and major live events remain some of the few remaining “campfires” that unify large audiences:
  Nick Tran:

  “Sports is one of the few true campfires of conversation that are still relevant and happening on a regular basis... when the World Cup comes around, all the brands are putting their best foot forward and creating these epic campaigns that showcase that moment in culture.” [15:00]

• Rachel Tippograph:

  “...live events and sports, not that they ever went away, but they're so much more at a premium now because there's really only a handful of opportunities where hundreds of millions of people gather around a single moment.” [04:16]

3. Community as a Career and Brand Superpower

Timestamps: [07:17], [08:32], [09:45]

• Nick Tran credits a strong industry peer community and cohort for propelling his meteoric rise:

  “When you have a group of peers that you kind of grow up in the business with... you have a little bit of a safety net... I never really had any fear of failing.” [07:17]

• He stresses mentorship as reciprocal, a two-way value exchange:

  “I've always tried to think of being a mentee as almost a task of understanding what I can bring to the table. That in my mind would be so valuable that they want to continue to mentor me...” [08:32]

• Sarah Hofstetter:

  “It's almost like a currency. What are you giving to them? What are they giving to you? And how do you make it mutually worthwhile?” [09:45]

4. Rethinking the Playbook for Cultural Relevance

Timestamps: [12:37], [12:49], [15:00]

• Nick Tran explains the brand “playbook” he used to navigate (from Taco Bell to TikTok) has fundamentally changed:

  “At TikTok… I uncovered that the playbook as we knew it needed to be adapted and it needed to evolve...the conversations that we have aren't really around the content that we see, because that's so personalized for us now.” [12:49]

• Instead of injecting brands into culture, Tran focuses on building physical and digital platforms that create culture:

  “Now ... it’s maybe big tentpole events... finding those opportunities for people to just have conversation. And that's kind of why I'm building up this whole athletic club platform...” [13:38]

5. “Right to Play” and Authenticity in New Spaces

Timestamps: [16:09], [16:37], [20:21]

• Challenging conventional “brand permission” thinking:

  “I don't know if I fully agree [with only playing where a brand is ‘authentic’]... People just want to see what resonates... So when we were concepting the athletic club, it wasn't starting with...‘where does Ciroc have the right to play?’... If you stick to that, it’s really difficult to shift the perception of the brand.” [16:37]

• Instead, Tran advocates for using deep consumer insight—like the evolution of social drinking from “the activity” to “periphery to the activity”—to justify new brand platforms.

6. Build vs. Partner: Owning the Platform

Timestamps: [20:11], [20:21]

• Tran chose to build The Athletic Club rather than just sponsor an existing league to prove seriousness and avoid appearing as a cultural opportunist:

  “We needed to have a year of really doing it on our own to prove to everybody that we were putting our money where our mouth was and that we weren't just trying to appropriate a community... but we wanted to build it alongside them.” [21:11]

7. Category Decline: Finding Opportunity in Challenging Markets

Timestamps: [21:47]

• Tran is unfazed by macro trends of decline, focusing instead on winning market share and outlasting weaker brands:

  “I am not playing a game where I necessarily need the entire category to rise... that will just allow the brands that are in the race... to potentially flourish... I still think there's a lot of opportunity and abundance in this space and I am very much excited about the fact that it is a challenge and it's not just like a booming environment where everybody's winning.” [21:47]

8. AI as a Lever: Efficiency and Unlocking New Possibilities

Timestamps: [24:25]

• AI is not just for cost-cutting or creative streamlining—Tran urges his teams to use time saved for new white space value creation:

  “If they can use AI today to find any efficiencies in their job, that's theirs to keep for the next year and a half... In the next one and a half years... where can they now position themselves to learn, grow, and add value... that we didn't see before?” [24:25] “We've only probably dreamed about [these things] on the marketing front that we can now do with AI.” [26:13]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the diminishing of shared cultural moments:

  “It used to be primetime TV, then it was those specific social media videos. Now it’s maybe big tentpole events... those opportunities for people to just have conversation.” — Nick Tran [13:10]

• On cultural authenticity:

  “I don't think people walk around judging brands by, like, that was authentic, that wasn’t. They just want to see what resonates with them in that moment.” — Nick Tran [16:37]

• On abundance vs. scarcity mindset:

  “You just approach the world through the word that you were using, which is abundance.” — Rachel Tippograph [26:54]
  “If that's the case, then it's not really that fun.” — Nick Tran, on not seeking to avoid challenges [22:55]

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The Bravest Thing: Embracing Vulnerability

Timestamps: [27:00]

• Nick Tran’s most courageous act: Letting himself be vulnerable and emotional during the Henry Crown Fellowship:

  “I've never been so vulnerable and so broken in front of a group of people that I really respect and admire... for me personally, it was probably a more brave element... I'm more open to that side of me that I wasn’t before...” [27:08]

• Tran describes how the experience changed him as a leader, parent, and person.

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• [03:11] – Rise of microcultures and cultural fragmentation
• [04:16] – Brand discovery and live events premium
• [07:17] – Community as a career superpower
• [08:32] – Mentorship as a two-way street
• [12:49] – Outdated playbooks & building cultural ‘campfires’
• [15:00] – The importance of sports as unifying campfire
• [16:37] – Brand “right to play” and the Ciroc Athletic Club case
• [20:21] – Build vs. Partner: Why own the platform
• [21:47] – Category decline: Opportunity not crisis
• [24:25] – AI: Moving beyond efficiency to value creation
• [27:04] – The bravest thing: Emotional vulnerability

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Takeaways / Actionable Insights

• Brands can’t depend on existing culture—they must build it through genuine community and real-life experiences.
• Mentorship, much like brand-building, must be reciprocal and grounded in authentic value exchange.
• Brands need not restrict themselves to “logical” spaces; consumer insights and shifting behaviors can reveal bold new opportunities.
• AI’s promise is not cost-saving alone, but unlocking new business models and value that weren’t previously possible.
• Personal vulnerability is an often-overlooked superpower for leaders, fueling transformation in business and life.

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Recommended for:

• Brand marketers seeking to engage culture authentically
• Leaders rethinking mentorship/career growth
• Anyone interested in the intersection of sports, live events, and brand relevance
• Innovators exploring AI beyond efficiency
• Those seeking inspiration on personal and leadership bravery

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Transcript

[Jenny Rooney]

Brand week is back September 15th through the 17th in downtown Atlanta. And if you're serious about where marketing is going, this is the room for you. I'm Jenny Rooney, Chief Brand and Community Officer at adweek, and for three days we're bringing together the sharpest minds in marketing for the ideas, insights and connections shaping what comes next for brands. From culture and creativity to growth, leadership and consumer behavior, Brand Week is where brand leaders come to think bigger, connect deep, deeper, and leave with a clearer plan for what's ahead. Get your tickets [e-mail] and use code BW26 for 20% off. That's brandweek.com code BW26

[Nick Tran]

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[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

[Nick Tran]

I remember telling my boss it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Cut the bull. Spend LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn, spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com and conditions apply.

[Nick Tran]

I think sports is one of the few true campfires of conversation that are still relevant and happening on a regular basis that people can plan against. It's no surprise that when the World cup comes around, all the brands are putting their best foot forward and creating these epic campaigns that showcase that moment in culture. And you're looking at Cannes and whether it's Sport beach or whether it's the Ciroc Athletic Club or other areas that I've seen start to develop. Even with Boardroom, you see sports really coming into play because from a content perspective, it's the one thing that people are universally still talking about.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

Welcome to today's episode of Free of Commerce. I'm Sarah Hofzetter.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And I'm Rachel Tippograph. And this is a show that talks about what's relevant in commerce for the world's biggest brands. Sarah, who do you think is great at building culturally relevant brands today? Like, where do you look?

[Sarah Hofzetter]

You know what's interesting? I think we have a problem with defining culturally relevant because we're in a world of microcultures. And so I look at so much today, and, like, if you talk to five different people about, like, what's the hottest thing right now, you're gonna get five different answers, even within similar demographics.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

I was with my nieces this past weekend. One's 21 and one's 15, and they were talking about, like, a billion different things I never heard of, of course. But then each one of them was, like, finding one moment that would, like, actually intertwine them. And it happened to be Michael Jackson movie. That's the most culturally relevant thing. And then I was like, okay, well, have you seen any brands that are doing anything associated with that? They're like, no, brands don't do that anymore. Like, that's, like, a thing of the past. We don't like it when brands get involved. And I'm like, my mind keeps getting blown because there's no unifying culture. The Knicks had it for about four minutes in New York. But there's also, like, where and how brands get to play. That cheese continues to move. I don't know. You feel differently?

[Jenny Rooney]

No.

[Rachel Tippograph]

I mean, I agree with you, especially in the life stage that I'm in right now. I have been introduced to so many brands I have never heard of because my son is 10 months old. And so I think between the microculture that you're describing and then simply just the proliferation of brands, it really makes it hard to stand out, which is why I think live events and sports, not that they ever went away, but they're so much more at a premium now because there's really only a handful of opportunities where hundreds of millions of people gather around a single moment.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

It's true. And I guess I should give the Knicks more than two minutes because it's still impossible to find merch.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Exactly.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

But as we live through World cup in our backyard, as well as so many others, that does become a big part of it. So beyond that, as we try to find those moments, finding the talent that can figure out the difference between a fleeting moment and something that has got a little bit more to it, there are only a few people that come to mind that really know how to nail it.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah. And one for me is. Is a longtime friend, and it's Nick Tran. You're going to hear from Nick. I think he's one of the greatest living brand builders that exist today, and I hope you study this episode. So on that note, let's bring Nick onto the show today. We are very excited to have a dear friend, Nick Tran, who is president and CMO of First Round, which is a joint venture between Diageo and Main Street Advisors. Nick, you and I have known each other a long time. We go all the way back to your Taco Bell days, which, I mean, at this point, we might be going on nearly 20 years of knowing each other.

[Nick Tran]

No way. But maybe close.

[Rachel Tippograph]

It could be like 18 years.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Tran]

Yes.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Yes.

[Nick Tran]

That's true. I feel like we met when I was first starting my career. I started as an intern at Taco Bell in 2011, so it would have been in probably 2012. So, yeah, it's probably 14, 15, 15 years. But we were babies in the space trying to navigate the world of social media together and entered a Facebook group that ended up becoming a long lasting friendship with you, me and a few others. So it's been great.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah, it's been awesome. And especially it's been amazing to witness your career. You know, when I think about a lot of our peers, there's less than a handful of people I can name that's had such a meteoric rise to cmo. And not just CMO at any company, but we're really talking about the marketing leader at some of the biggest companies, TikTok, Farfetch. Now your work at Diageo and Main Street Advisors. I'm curious, when you look back at the last 15 years of your career history, what do you think has differentiated yourself against the peer group of CMOs that exist today?

[Nick Tran]

Yeah, I think it's a fun question because I'm getting a point in my career where people are asking me to reflect on what I did and what the trajectory was and what are the elements that helped me get to the places that I've been at. And the biggest factor, I think was having that community and cohort similar to what we started with. I think when you have a group of peers that you kind of grow up in the business with, you have not only an opportunity to bounce new ideas off of people, but then you also have a little bit of a safety net to where if something happens, you can reach out to them and figure out if you can be plugged into some other spot. So because of that, at an early point in my career, I never really had any fear of failing. I knew that if I got fired or if I did something that it failed, there would be a community to help back me up and then also the opportunities to find other roles in a very short order. So that's been almost like a superpower to kind of think of life as like a team sport versus as an individual sport.

[Rachel Tippograph]

When you think about the community, you know, a lot of people always are looking for mentors. And what I always explain to people is that it's a two way street. Like you got to give as much as you're getting. And so how have you been participating in this community that you feel has supported you?

[Nick Tran]

Yeah, I think I tend to find folks that love the creative energy and the big ideas that I can bring to the table. This is more so early in my career. And what they were able to provide me was not only that mentorship that you're talking about, but also they opened up their network to me. And so when you say mentorship should be a two way street, I think oftentimes you see younger individuals that want to be mentored and they just don't know quite yet what they bring to the table and how they can expand their network of mentors. And it's probably more simple than most people realize because sometimes people just want a fresh perspective. Sometimes they want to see things through a new lens. Sometimes they want some of your expertise in a specific a category that they don't have yet. Or ultimately they just want to know how they can reach someone that's in your demo. So I've always tried to think of being a mentee as almost a task of understanding what I can bring to the table. That in my mind would be so valuable that they want to continue to mentor me and be in my sort of like life from a career standpoint. And when I always think of it as how much I can bring to the table versus what I can take, I've seen more come out of that than anything else I've done.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

It's almost like a currency. What are you giving to them? What are they giving to you? And how do you make it mutually worthwhile? A lot of that applies to brands and culture as well. And reflection in the way consumers engage.

[Nick Tran]

What counts as a video impression sounds like a simple question, but it isn't. Because when it comes to unified reach, different measurement providers can evaluate the exact same campaign and deliver very different results. And those differences matter. In fact, 79% of agencies and marketers say that if they don't feel confident in unified reach metrics, they cannot fully trust campaign outcomes. So Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising took a closer look. The result is a new white paper, the Unified Reach Paradox. Learn what's really driving the differences behind Unified Reach and what that could mean for how your campaigns are measured and valued. Different assumptions, different results. Download the full report today. Visit advertising.wbd.com unified that's advertising.wbd.com unified flowing

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard Confessions.

[Nick Tran]

I remember telling my BO it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it it wasn't.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

Cut the bull. Spend LinkedIn lets you target by company job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com Campaign terms and conditions apply.

[Jenny Rooney]

Brand Week is back September 15th through the 17th in downtown Atlanta. And if you're serious about where marketing is going to this is the room for you. I'm Jenny Rooney, Chief Brand and Community Officer at Adweek and for three days we're bringing together the sharpest minds in marketing for the ideas, insights and connections shaping what comes next for brands. From culture and creativity to growth, leadership and consumer behavior, Brand Week is where brand leaders come to think bigger, connect deeper, and leave with a clearer plan for what's ahead. Get your tickets [e-mail] and use code BW26 for 20% off. That's brandweek.com code BW26.

[Nick Tran]

I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually, actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shopify.com

[Sarah Hofzetter]

One of the things that you have been really good at over the course of your career is making brands culturally relevant. What's the Playbook that you've got there? What's your formula for creating that relevance?

[Nick Tran]

I used to think that Playbook existed the same approach that we used at Taco Bell. We applied to Stance, we applied to Samsung, we applied to Hulu. It was really at TikTok that I uncovered that the Playbook as we knew it needed to be adapted and it needed to evolve and what we ended up doing was recognizing that TikTok itself was creating these campfires for conversation. At the time when we were all working there, it felt like anything that I saw in my feed, you saw on your feed. So we had something immediately, a bond that we could discuss. So I could say, remember that one video that did XYZ like, oh, my gosh, I love that video. I was just talking about that with my friend. In today's environment, that's shifted so much so that the conversations that we have aren't really around the content that we see, because that's so personalized for us now. So what I've been trying to do now is find conversations that people are having, which isn't too different from how it was, you know, a decade ago, and seeing how our brands can participate in those moments in culture, because those quote unquote, campfires of conversation are now gone. It used to be primetime tv, then it was those specific social media videos. Now it's maybe big tentpole events. So people could be talking about the World Cup. People could be talking about the New York Knicks winning the first NBA championship in 53 years. It's finding those opportunities for people to just have conversation. And that's kind of why I'm building up this whole athletic club platform, because I feel like people are missing those moments in culture that they can talk about in a more universal manner. So luckily, if more people are playing pickleball or paddle or whatever it is, and I can have that as an anchor and gives people that opportunity to have that conversation and discussion, then it lets my brand enter that space and become part of that conversation. So it's really that approach that I think I'm working on. And it takes brands to invest in building these real life experiences because we're seeing that that's void in a lot of people's lives these days.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And so, yeah, obviously, we're all just at Cannes. Do you feel that's why sports has infiltrated Cannes so much?

[Nick Tran]

Yeah, I think sports is one of the few true campfires of conversation that are still relevant and happening on a regular basis that people can plan against. It's no surprise that when the World cup comes around, all the brands are putting their best foot forward and creating these epic campaigns that showcase that moment in culture. And you're looking at Cannes and whether it's Sport beach or whether it's the Ciroc Athletic Club or other areas that I've seen start to develop, even with boardroom, you see sports really coming into play because from a content Perspective, it's the one thing that people are universally still talking about. It's the same conversation. If I say the Knicks, we can immediately have the same conversation about, oh my gosh, like, the Knicks just won for the first time in 53 years. They haven't been in the final since 1989. And this is just from me being in New York for the last 10 months. Right. It's palpable. So I do think sports is a very easy entry point for brands that can figure out how to be a part of that. But there likely is going to be other opportunities and categories that are less developed that can easily become those new conversation starters for communities.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah. Food, music, fashion.

[Nick Tran]

All of it. Yeah.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

I think when you kind of look at that, the question becomes, what does your brand have a right to do in those environments? I mean, there's been a lot of conversation about that guy from Loop and what he was doing kind of hanging out behind the Knicks in his T shirt. Definitely like components of, like, where does your brand have right to play? As you think about your role with Soraki and just talked about this rock athletic Club, how do you reconcile why that brand needs to be there?

[Nick Tran]

Okay, so I get this quite a bit and I hear people, well respected CMOs talk about their right to play there. And I don't know if I fully agree. If you were to ask me, does an alcohol brand deserve to play in a premium athletic club environment, the initial reaction probably would be like, I don't see how that would fit. Because you have one thing that's seen as a vice and you have something else that's tied to health and wellness. And there's no real quote unquote, you know, authentic connection there. I don't think people walk around judging brands by, like, that was authentic, that wasn't. They just want to see what resonates with them in that moment and they want to either participate or they don't want to participate. So when we were concepting the athletic club, it wasn't starting with a point of view or perspective of, well, where does Ciroc have the right to play? Because if you were to confine yourself into that discussion, I think 99% of people would say Ciroc deserves to play in the club or like in nightlife or in X Y culture. I think if you then stick to that, it's really difficult to shift the perception of the brand because you're limited to what you believe people or your audience believe where you can play. When we were looking at this, we Looked at different insights that allowed us to adapt and end up playing in this space. And the biggest insight that I found was when we were growing up, you know, and you were to ask me, what are you doing this weekend? I would easily say, oh, we're going drinking. Do you want to come out with us? Drinking was the activity. The thing that I'm noticing now is that drinking is no longer the activity that people go out for. They want to go out to do an activity, and they're happy to have a cocktail or a beverage as they're doing it. So whereas I used to think about, you know, the history of entertainment, over the last decade, we built constructs around drinking. So, like, the club was just a place for people to gather and drink, and then they would have music, and then they would make it a dancing environment. Then they do xyz, and then they had bottle service and tables. And it was really around drinking. But they needed to make it a little bit more than that. Whereas in today's world, the activity is the star and drinking sort of on the periphery. So when we found that insight, we were thinking, okay, well, then what are the places that people want to go hang out and can have a cocktail or a beverage if they chose to? If you ever go watch people play five on five or three on three pickup basketball, nobody is grabbing a cocktail while they're doing that. If you're seeing people do.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

Not nobody. Let's just say not nobody.

[Nick Tran]

Very few people.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

I don't know that the audience cohort's gonna be that big, but, you know.

[Nick Tran]

Yeah, it's not big, but. Yeah, there's certainly some folks. But when you think of certain sports that are more competitive in nature, people aren't having a cocktail and doing it. So we really looked at, okay, in this world of activities being the driver for socializing and the idea that leisure sports allow for the individuals to have a cocktail and still feel like they're engaging in the sport. We found that sort of, like, element where we could play, and that's where we really leaned in. So we decided to go into leisure sports because of those things that I just mentioned. It's able to broaden beyond just the pickleball and the paddles and the tenn in the golfs. Like, I think we can look at any leisure activity where people are happy to hang out and then have a drink. And that's where the, you know, athletic club will expand into and continue to be built around.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And how do you decide to build it yourself versus partner? Like, you built The Athletic Club as a platform versus sponsoring the major pickleball league.

[Nick Tran]

I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I'm happy to talk to the major pickleball league. I'm happy to talk to the pro paddle league. I'm happy to talk to you. Name it. I think we as a brand lacked, I guess, back to Sarah's point, the credibility to enter those spaces. And if we were to jump into that, it would look like we wrote a check to put our logo and draft off of the rise in popularity of whatever that thing is that we were sponsoring. The other difficult thing earlier on is there was a little bit of, I'll call it baggage that made people not necessarily want to partner with us and have us be a sponsor so invested in the first year to really highlight the vision and the potential of what the Athletic Club could be in order to let the folks that we wanted to partner with be able to justify to their managers. No, no, no. Ciroc isn't the same CIROC that, you know, here's what they've been doing, here's why we should partner with them, or here's why we should let them sponsor this thing or participate in that. So I think we needed to have a year of really doing it on our own to prove to everybody that we were putting our money where our mouth was and that we weren't just trying to appropriate a community that already existed, but we wanted to build it alongside them.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And now that you're a year in, against the backdrop that everything is happening within the alcohol industry, which we talk a lot about on this show, how is it impacting sales?

[Nick Tran]

Sales is nuanced, right. Because I think everyone talks about these trends and like the declining categories, I am not playing a game where I necessarily need the entire category to rise. Right. Like I need my brands to win. And alcohol consumption is still significant, especially in the U.S. so when. When you are forecasting a 3%, you know, categorical decline in XYZ spirit as a category, we're still talking 100 million cases. So a 5% decrease, let's call it 5 million cases, you're still dealing with 95 million cases per category. And if you're looking at a brand, a million of that is a meaningful amount. So if you're saying out of 95 million cases out there, that's factoring the decline. I'm using, like, rough numbers just as an example. To be illustrative, it's still not that difficult for me to capture a million cases out of 95 million cases. So I see that, yes, it's challenged. Are we going to see fewer brands emerge? Yes. Are we going to see less startups jumping into creating their own brands? Most likely. Are we going to see some brands fold that maybe weren't positioned in the best manner and didn't have the right distribution and the right supply chain? Likely. But that will just allow the brands that are in the race, so to speak, to potentially flourish. So I see these moments of opportunity and I've kind of seen it in everything from the cell phone wars to the streaming wars to social platform wars. And every industry that I've been in, everyone talks about the decline of xyz. I still think there's a lot of opportunity and abundance in this space and I am very much excited about the fact that it is a challenge and it's not just like a booming environment where everybody's winning. Because if that's the case, then it's not really that fun.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

So we've been talking about a lot of things that are like, almost like exogenous, if you will, things like alcohol intake, things like sports, like big categorical changes. And some of it is within a marketer's control to adapt to your point. You're not necessarily looking to grow the category, you're just looking to grow yourself, which I think is a smart, selfish move, one of those other mega things. And when people weren't talking about sports and can, they were talking about AI, what's your point of view on where AI makes the impact and what will remain human in our industry? And it doesn't have to be just about the creative because I feel like there's just almost this bias to default to the creative process. But there's so much more around the space.

[Nick Tran]

Yeah. So creative aside, I think if we can challenge ourselves to just not have a knee jerk reaction to the efficiency conversation of AI and figure out, oh, AI can replace these individuals. So I'm going to immediately cut that so I can add to the bottom line and bo my share price or boost my bonus potential or whatever it might be. And we just take a step back to think about what could we do now that we couldn't do in a pre AI environment and then leverage those resources that now have quote unquote, more time to then think about how they can develop that white space and expand and drive incremental value for the company. That's really where I'm pushing my team. So as an example, if they can use AI today to find any efficiencies in Their job, that's theirs to keep for the next year and a half. Two years. It started off with two years. Now it's closer to a year and a half. My team knows that if they can use AI to cut two days of the week from their actual workload, and then we see no change in efficiency or, you know, operational capabilities, you know, quality doesn't suffer. I don't need them to then fill their time up with other things just yet. They can literally take those two days off and go do whatever they want to do personally. Now, the idea is that in the next one and a half years, once they've developed that muscle memory in the machine where they can actually do those things more efficiently, where can they now position themselves to learn, grow, and add value to the company that we didn't see before? And that's where I find the AI conversation to be really interesting, because there are things that I can do personally that I'm not able to do without AI. I was able to develop a website in 30 minutes. I've never coded anything in my life. Right. So if that's just like scratching the surface, there's going to be an unlock of things that we can do, and we've only probably dreamed about on the marketing front that we can now do with AI. So as soon as the team can then make that transition and tap into that, that, to me, is where we're going to see Companies start to 2x, 3x 5x, and not by just being more efficient or letting their creative process be more streamlined, but they'll find new business lines and new revenue opportunities that they never thought about before, but they're now accessible because of AI. So that's where I find it to be really fascinating and where I want to, like, spend more of my time and my team's time thinking about.

[Rachel Tippograph]

I love how all of your answers are always glass half full. You just approach the world through the word that you were using, which is abundance.

[Sarah Hofzetter]

Yeah.

[Rachel Tippograph]

We could pick your brain all day, but we actually have to ask you our famous last question.

[Nick Tran]

Okay. Yes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Which is, what is the bravest thing you've ever done?

[Nick Tran]

How familiar are you with the Henry Crown Fellowship?

[Rachel Tippograph]

We are, but maybe tell our audience about it.

[Nick Tran]

So Henry Crown Fellowship essentially is an Aspen Institute fellowship that brings business leaders who found success in their careers together to try to figure out how to make a better society, Essentially, in a nutshell, I think I've been known to be more stoic, and everyone uses the word Zen when they refer to me or they talk about me. I have been pretty calm and collected through all the crises that I've developed, and I think I've kind of been known to just not have much of an emotional reaction to most things I would say. It's so funny for me then that when I went to the Henry Crown Fellowship and I was, like, doing my first seminar, someone who had nominated me, I think it was like, moj. And then there was, like, five other, like, Carla Hassan and a few other folks. They had, like, really recommended that I do this program. And one of the things that they said to me was, prepare to go into it and have your perception sort of, like, shattered. And, like, you will definitely. They basically, like, you're gonna cry. And I. I was like, there's no way. Like, that's not something that I would ever do. It's not something that people have ever seen. My wife, even famously within our circle of friends, is mad. The fact that I didn't cry at our wedding. Like, not a single tear. But it's because I was, like. I was happy. Like, why would I cry? I've never been so vulnerable and so broken in front of a group of people that I really respect and admire as much as I was with the Henry Crown Fellowship. And in that first seminar, I probably cried, like, three or four times and just, like, sobbing in front of everybody. And to be that emotionally vulnerable in front of, you know, founders of Instacart and founders of this and founders of that, I think, for me personally, was, like, a struggle. And it was brave in my. Not because it was something that was transformative to the outside world, but it really showed me that having that vulnerability and the ability to show your emotions is not necessarily a bad thing. And it allowed me to think about things a lot differently as a parent, as a leader in a business, and in many other facets of my personal life, I'm no longer trying to put up that facade and project a level of strength and stability. I'm more open to that side of me that I wasn't before, which, you know, for me personally, it was probably a more brave element that I, you know, wouldn't have otherwise been able to do.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Have you cried since the fellowship?

[Nick Tran]

Oh, yeah. Over things that I never would have expected to now, which only makes my wife more upset. I cry about, like, random things. She's like, you didn't cry at our wedding, but you're crying over this? Like, come on.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, Nick, it was a brief conversation, but I think you did a ton of marketing myth busting in a short period of time and this will become a must listen for many marketing leaders. So we appreciate you letting us pick your brain.

[Nick Tran]

Of course. Always happy to see you catch up. Yeah, I'd love to hang out again soon.

[Rachel Tippograph]

If you like what you heard and you want to keep thinking about how especially legacy brands can become culturally relevant, go check out a recent episode we did with TikTok and Kurg Dr. Pepper. And don't forget, tell a friend, write a review. Thanks for listening.

[LinkedIn Ad Voice]

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[Nick Tran]

My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had.

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[Jenny Rooney]

Brand Week is back September 15th through the 17th in downtown Atlanta. And if you're serious about where marketing is going, this is the room for you. I'm Jenny Rooney, Chief Brand and Community Officer at Adweek, and for three days we're bringing together the sharpest minds in marketing for the ideas, insights and connections shaping what comes next for brands. From culture and creativity to growth, leadership and consumer behavior, Brand Week is where brand leaders come to think bigger, connect deeper, and leave with a clearer plan for what's ahead. Get your tickets [e-mail] and use code BW26 for 20% off. That's brandweek.com code BW26

[Sarah Hofzetter]

hi, I'm Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As a result, I've met some of the most fascinating and inspiring people on the planet. It now on Touch of Truth, we're coming center stage and sharing the mic to experience stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.