TikTok’s Ex Head of Marketing Reveals The Playbook for Viral Content

Summary

Podcast Summary: Marketing Trends – TikTok’s Ex Head of Marketing Reveals The Playbook for Viral Content

Host: Stephanie Postles
Guest: Nick Tran (Former Head of Global Marketing at TikTok; President & CMO at First Round)
Date: November 19, 2025

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Main Theme

This episode dives deeply into the evolving nature of marketing in the age of viral content, focusing on how brands can engineer virality, reverse engineer cultural moments, and build “worlds” that engage and delight audiences. Nick Tran, who has orchestrated bold marketing strategies at TikTok, Hulu, Samsung, and Taco Bell, shares his unique playbook for sparking cultural moments and why traditional campaign models are becoming obsolete. The conversation spans practical tactics, future marketing trends, and the skillsets every marketer should update to succeed in 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reverse Engineering Virality & Cultural Moments

• Engineering a Viral Influencer: Nick explains that brands can actually manufacture viral moments by identifying cultural “signals” that correspond to viral success—such as late-night appearances, talk show spots, and celebrity parodies—then building campaigns to deliberately achieve those milestones.

  • Memorable Example: The iconic “Dogface420” TikTok (longboarding, Ocean Spray, Fleetwood Mac) was reverse engineered by TikTok’s marketing team:
    • “We reached out to Fleetwood Mac... had him show up into some late night talk shows. We swapped that media buy with this specific video... What everyone in America saw, they figured that was something happening near real time.” – Nick [00:15]
    • Project Cheetah: Internal TikTok process to create cultural virality for selected creators/content within 72 hours.

• The Obsolete Traditional Playbook:

  • Old model: Set objective → agency brief → creative campaign → production → media buy → launch (2–3 months later)
    • “If you engineer everything in this manner, by the time it gets to market, the stuff you were relying on to be relevant no longer matters to people.” – Nick [01:13]
  • New approach: Work backwards from cultural signals of virality and “collapse” the timeline to days, not months.

2. Defining Bold Marketing for 2026

• Shift in the Macro Environment: In a world anxious about politics, economics, and the future, bold marketing means delivering “joy and unadulterated fun” and giving brands unexpectedly vibrant personalities.
  • “I would say... people just want to have fun. They want to see things that are going to be... compelling, engaging, in a way that makes them think about something other than the fact that, like, you know, the world is the way it is.” – Nick [02:54]

3. Playbooks Adapted in Crisis: Learning from the Dumpster Fires

• Lessons from Taco Bell (“make us cool and don’t get us sued” – Nick’s CMO, [07:20]), Stance, Samsung (Galaxy Note 7 fires), and Hulu (making Hulu culturally relevant with creative like “Hulu has live sports”).
• At TikTok, Nick describes flipping previous playbooks “upside down” because the consumption model had shifted: “It wasn’t the Playbook that changed. It was like the world around us had changed.” [09:12]

4. Practical Takeaways: Building Teams and Unlearning Old Habits

• In-house Creativity: Transitioning brand teams to be more self-sufficient, creative, and agile, reducing reliance on agencies and outdated processes.

  • “I think that there’s probably a way in today’s world where you could take those learnings... and then teaching brands how to do it internally rather than them relying on an agency.” – Nick [17:07]

• Five Things Marketers Should Unlearn ([20:17]):

  1. Traditional campaign timelines are obsolete.
  2. Over-obsessing with easily measurable metrics that don’t move the business.
     • “We were optimizing towards spend in Mexico... every dollar they put in was a dollar wasted... the customers were coming anyway.” – Nick [20:38]
  3. Focusing only on external impact—neglecting internal brand culture is fatal.
  4. Believing hustle culture and always being ‘on’ produces the best work; it doesn’t.
  5. Limiting ambition to CMO roles—modern marketing leaders should aim for CEO roles as their responsibilities have grown (customer insights, tech, commercial, growth).

5. World-Building as the New Brand Strategy

• Not Chasing Trends: Nick argues brands should build their own “worlds” rather than hopping from trend to trend.
  • “I’m really obsessed with having a brand that knows where it plays and builds this world for the audience and allows the audience to come into that world...” [30:51]
• Ciroc Athletic Club: Moving Ciroc’s brand world from nightclubs to aspirational, active daytime gatherings (“pickleball, brunch, cocktails, dinner,”) designed for how people really want to socialize today. [34:01]

6. Measuring Success & Chasing the Right KPIs

• Nick avoids chasing “short-term KPIs” like instant impressions or sales lifts, focusing on organic “honey pot moments” (social shareable in-person events) to authentically seed brand relevance.
  • “Those events... are like these social honey pot moments that allow for organic social to really infiltrate people’s feeds and show them what this world of Ciroc could look like.” [39:14]

7. Case Studies & Campaign War Stories

• Taco Bell Operation Alaska: Airlifted Taco Bell food truck to a remote town as a response to a viral prank about a new location ([41:17]).
• Stance & ‘Shop With The Force’: Webcam-enabled online Star Wars sock shopping experience; $132k investment, $3.4M sales in a day ([53:41])
• Hulu & Tom Brady: Pre-Super Bowl social/TV campaign teasing a big announcement, leveraging celebrity suspense authentically ([54:35]).
• Martha Stewart x Liquid Death: “Unexpected juxtaposition” makes for memorable brand content ([55:48]).

8. Trusting Intuition Over Data Overload

• Nick advocates balancing data with instinct, emphasizing speed and intuition without mistaking oneself for the end consumer.
  • “I do think we’re in an age of intuition... because they’re immersed in [culture] rather than someone who’s trying to read it off a spreadsheet.” [60:41]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reverse Engineering Virality:

  • “We did that a few times. We called it Project Cheetah... campaigns took 72 hours to bring to life. Checked all those boxes and made a lot of people very well known throughout the US.” – Nick [12:52]

• On the irrelevance of old playbooks:

  • “By the time it gets to market, the stuff you were relying on to be relevant no longer matters to people.” – Nick [01:13]

• On building brand worlds:

  • “Focus on your world that you want to build. Explain why it’s valuable to your audience to enter that space...” – Nick [31:00]

• On team organization:

  • “If your team hasn’t changed in years and yet the landscape... has completely evolved, then you’re definitely behind. It’s like having a horse drawn buggy in a world of freeways.” – Nick [50:55]

• On data vs. intuition:

  • “I’d rather test and learn and not have it work out than try to pick apart the insights to death and the data and then go with one approach that ends up failing anyway.” – Nick [59:05]

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Timestamps for Crucial Segments

• 00:14 – 01:31: Reverse engineering the Dogface viral moment; traditional vs. TikTok campaign timelines.
• 02:54 – 04:45: Bold marketing for 2026, climate and cultural context.
• 07:20: “Your job is to make us cool and don’t get us sued.” (Taco Bell lesson for marketers)
• 09:45 – 13:33: How TikTok’s playbook was built by working backwards from cultural signals.
• 20:17 – 25:24: Five things marketers must unlearn today.
• 32:44 – 39:14: World-building strategy for Ciroc and how to attract new audiences experientially.
• 41:17 – 42:45: Operation Alaska — bold stunts and their business payoff.
• 53:41–55:48: Favorite campaign highlights (Stance, Hulu, Liquid Death x Martha Stewart).
• 59:26 – 60:41: On trusting intuition and avoiding analysis paralysis in marketing.

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Tools, Trends, & Tactics

• Advocates for collapsing timelines, team upskilling, “learning by doing,” and not outsourcing core creative skill sets.
• Encourages experimentation in both short and long form content, using pop-ups and real world experiences to build authentic, sticky brand moments.
• Sees the next leap in marketing as world-building and identity creation, not trend chasing.

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Lightning Round Highlights

• Playing it safe in 2026 is like: “Sticking your hand through the bars at the zoo—thinking you’re safe but probably getting your arm chewed off. There is no playing it safe. You might as well go all out.” – Nick [60:56]
• Marketing buzzwords to erase: “Authenticity, all the performance-driven terms like CPM/CAC/LTV, and even ‘CMO’ – it doesn’t describe what we do anymore.” – Nick [65:14]
• Dream project with $1 million: “Hire a top screenplay writer, make a film with my brand as a character—brands should be center stage in pop culture.” – Nick [62:46]

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Conclusion

This is an essential listen for marketing leaders grappling with cultural pace, team structure, and impact in the age of AI and short-form content. Nick Tran challenges marketers to unlearn slow, old processes; use world-building to foster customer connection; and build their own cultural moments, rather than chasing the leftovers of viral trends. He paints a future where CMOs are the CEOs-in-waiting—if they can keep up with the culture.

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Connect with Nick Tran:
LinkedIn (he’s active and open to DMs!) [65:48]

Transcript

[A]

Can you actually engineer a viral influencer within a culture?

[B]

That gentleman longboarding down a road, drinking ocean spray and lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac. We reverse engineered that.

[A]

That sounds fun.

[B]

We reached out to Fleetwood Mac, we asked them to participate with that parody. We also had him show up into some late night talk shows. We swapped that media bot with this specific video that was edited in 72 hours. What everyone in America saw that they, they figured that was something that was happening near real time. That video had just taken off on TikTok and nowhere else. It sort of proved out that one culture started on TikTok. But two, you could take any video and with the right resources, amplify them to the point where they become an actual viral influencer. If you think about the original playbook, you have this objective and then the way they go about doing it traditionally is you take your team, you come up with your objective, you then develop like a strategy against that. You then brief your creative agency, they come back with your creative campaign, you then go produce that creative campaign, you go buy media against it, and then you deploy that and then you hope that it ends up working out after this two to three month cycle, which.

[A]

Still sounds normal for today.

[B]

Yeah, but it's not going to work anymore. The world moves so quickly. If you engineer everything in this manner, by the time it gets to market, the stuff that you were relying on to be relevant no longer matters to people.

[A]

I love the idea of finding the signals. It seems like this could work for any company. I mean, B2B. B2C.

[B]

Like, yeah.

[A]

Hello and welcome to another episode of Marketing Trends. I'm your Host, Stephanie Postols, CEO and founder of Mission.org today I'm excited because we have another guest in studio and this is a fabulous one. We've got Nick Tran joining the show. Nick was previously the global head of marketing at TikTok. He led brand and culture marketing at Hulu and led social media and brand at Samsung. And now he's the president and CMO at first.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Along with a lot of other things that we'll get into.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Which I'm going to say like, do you ever hear your background and be like, damn, I'm a G?

[B]

No, I'm more so like, damn, I'm really old. And I remember thinking when I just started, one day I'll do some of those things. And now that I've done them, I'm like, yeah, I'm just really old.

[A]

I mean, I think I've waited for you to come on the show for probably a year, because I saw you on LinkedIn when you started getting active. Yeah, I see how you think about things. So I have been waiting, and then I see all the things you're doing. I'm like, I need him. I need to talk to him.

[B]

I'm excited to be here and in person, too. This is, like, such a treat.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's going to be a good one. So I like to just dive right into it, because people. I mean, I think people reference you, reference you as a courageous, bold marketer. You do things that other people would not do. They definitely look at you that way. And so, heading into 2026, I want to hear, what do you think bold marketing actually looks like?

[B]

Ooh, that's fun. So you said 2026, which feels very specific to me. So I first. When I think about these types of things, like, what's the macro climate that you're actually referencing? So 2026, we're getting into second year of, you know, Trump's second administration. You have, like, macroeconomic concerns with, like, a potential slowdown in the economy. You have, like, a lot of factors that are just weighing on people. So I would say we've hopefully started to enter this era where people are less concerned about being canceled and about being conservative and taking, like, a very, like, boring approach to creative and just realizing that people just want to have fun. They want to see things that are going to be, you know, compelling, engaging in a way that makes them think about something other than the fact that, like, you know, the world is the way it is. So my. My hunch is, like, what bold means is, like, going out on a limb, trying to be valuable to your audience through the lens of entertainment and culture and just really just giving them joy and unadulterated fun. That's sort of like where I think bold will likely go. So I think brands that you would not expect to have a good time might actually show a little bit more personality, be a little bit different, and sort of, like, touch areas that you wouldn't have expected them to touch.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I definitely agree the amount of times I'm talking to CMOs and encouraging humor, even in B2B, or just being ridiculous and, like, seeing how you can compete with the brands who already are doing this in the consumer world. Like, people want to. Like you said, they want to have fun. You need to have that theme. So, like, girls, everyone just wants to have fun.

[B]

But you see how you corrected yourself right there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You said girls, and then you're like, oh, I can't just say girls. So it should be. It doesn't matter. If girls want to have fun, then girls should have fun. Like, it's not a big deal.

[A]

The world, they want to have fun.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So, I mean, it's interesting to think about where you've come from, because when I think of the companies you were at, you probably had a lot of crisis moments and things.

[B]

That's all I've had.

[A]

That's all you've had?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I've never had a situation where it was just smooth sailing.

[A]

Yeah. So you. I'm assuming you built up a playbook for that, like all the companies you were at.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then TikTok probably is a very different scenario, and 2026 is a very different scenario. So walk me through this timeline of, like, where you've been and where you think we're heading now.

[B]

Oh, so like, from each dumpster fire to the next.

[A]

Yes, I want every dumpster fire.

[B]

So I started my career in marketing at Taco Bell, and that was probably the most interesting environment because I was so new to marketing and I didn't know what to expect. So the week I joined, they were sued for not using real beef, which is not true at all. But as soon as you see a headline that says, taco Bell sued for not using real beef, it immediately makes you scared and want to avoid the restaurant altogether. So no one reads the fine print in the headline that says, like, actually this is not the case, and whatever it is is just like a normal lawsuit that happens periodically. And so we entered this scenario where the CMO at the time basically recognized that we had a big hole to get out of. And his approach was to lean into culture and to the millennium audience, which was like, the group that we were really, you know, focused on at the time. And the. The group at Taco Bell hadn't really focused efforts on social media because it was just growing. So social to them was this afterthought. And when I joined, I was an intern, they basically handed the keys, you know, of the corporate social media accounts over to me. Said, you seem pretty capable. Do you want to just jump in and work on this stuff? They called it at the time. And I said, yeah, more than happy to give it a try. I had a background in tech, so I was more so looking to join the mobile team. But the opportunity to actually lead social media was just very enticing. And I started to think about all the things that you could do in social that brands weren't doing so that became my first real entrance into the world of marketing, but specifically through the social route, which helped me become, in my mind, a business better and more, you know, current and relevant marketer. Because social media has become such a big part of everybody's lives that having that foundation really set me up. The one lesson from that boss was that he told me, do you know what your job is? And I told him at the time, yeah, it's to, like, manage the channels, post content, engage with the community. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Your job is to make us cool and don't get us sued. As long as you do that, we'll win.

[A]

And.

[B]

And that sort of was something I took to heart and carried with me from every place since then. I joined Stance four years after my time at Taco Bell. Stance is literally a sock company, which I still wear to this day because the product is so spectacular. But they had a crisis as well, where their top three customers, which were these big retail giants, they'd gone bankrupt. So they had to pivot their business to direct to consumer, open up their own retail and enter that fun world of E Comm early on. So had a lot of learnings there and learned that you could do a lot of really great marketing on a very tight budget if you just put your efforts into being more creative than everybody else. So did some fun, amazing things there and was recruited to go to Samsung. My first launch at Samsung was the Galaxy Note 7, which is the phones that were catching on fire. So you couldn't get on a plane without someone saying, if you're the owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, you have to step off the plane.

[A]

Did you know that when you went into the company?

[B]

No. That was just like a fun surprise that I was not expecting.

[A]

Take care of this.

[B]

Yeah. But ended up being another great opportunity to rebuild a brand that was focused on just product marketing and learn from some of the best people on how to do that. So to your point about the Playbook, a lot of the Playbook just came from being in those environments back to back to back, and then seeing the patterns that these brands took to get themselves out of that crisis. I basically deployed that exact Playbook at Hulu to get it out of this irrelevant realm where people didn't really know what it did for them, but they knew of it. So they just didn't even have any consideration for Hulu at the time. We use that Playbook, we turned up the creative a notch, talked about how Hulu was going to ruin TV for You talked about how Hulu has live sports and all these little, you know, ads that really, like, brought to life what Hulu was for people and why it mattered. And then that became sort of a moment where I was like, okay, this is all coming together. Like, I think I have the Playbook down and then I get to TikTok and I realize it wasn't the Playbook that changed. It was like the world around us had changed. And the way that people consume content completely changed. And that made me completely reverse engineer how we won at all these other places to figure out how we could win at TikTok and how the way that we were feeding content to people made it a necessity to completely flip that Playbook upside down and start from the back first.

[A]

So, okay, walk me. What it was that. What's the back? If I can imagine the Playbook, maybe we can even draw a visual event.

[B]

Yeah. So, like, if you think about the original Playbook, it's. You have this objective and sometimes they say increase brand recognition, drive brand awareness, do whatever these things are. And then the way they go about doing it traditionally is you take your team, you come up with your objective, you then develop like a strategy against that. You then brief your creative agency with your business objectives, they come back with your creative campaign, you then go produce that creative campaign, you go buy media against it, and then you deploy that and then you hope that it ends up working out after this two to three month cycle has gone through that process.

[A]

Yeah. Which still sounds normal for today.

[B]

Yeah. But it's not going to work anymore.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Because the world moves so quickly and people don't consume content in the way that this model was built for.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They're consuming most of it in the world of social and short form, that if you engineer everything in this manner, by the time it gets to market, the stuff that you were relying on to be relevant no longer matters to people. So what we had to do at TikTok was realize that the strength of the brand was in proving the point that culture starts on the platform. And I can't prove that culture starts on the platform. If I'm going through that whole process and then showing you something two months later, and then you thinking, well, that happened so long ago. You clearly aren't on top of what's happening in culture. I should go find out what's happening on other platforms. So the way that we reversed engineered everything is like, okay, if people see certain signals as being indicators that something has gone viral or is culturally relevant, let's just take those as the actual objectives. So one of the things I found out was that people thought that if you became famous on the platform, that would mean that the platform had done what it's supposed to do and that culture starts there. So I would have that as a little box. Okay, how do I make someone famous? Next little check was like, okay, if you were to take a viral, you know, video, what would that look like? And how does success manifest itself for that person? Well, they'd end up on like a late night talk show talking to like, Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel or whoever it is. And that means that, okay, that viral video is so significant that they ended up on a talk show and then seeing it in culture, whether it's parodies on SNL or parodies through other creators or celebrities, these are all like indicators that something was truly viral. So what I told the team at the time was, if those are our new inputs and those aren't just outcomes of being successful, let's just reverse engineer everything to win those and see if we could condense the campaign timeline from two or three months down to 72 hours with the main goal of getting someone to show up on late night, have someone have a video that is parodied by a bunch of celebrities, and then ultimately making that person famous. And then if you actually think about that, if you have the resources, you can actually engineer that altogether without needing it to actually be done on its own so you can actually make your own virality. So we did that a few times. We called it Project Cheetah. And we ultimately came up with a bunch of campaigns that took 72 hours to bring to life. Checked all those boxes and made a lot of people very well known throughout the US Leveraging different mechanisms as placing them in the TV late, late night TV talk shows, or buying advertising that would put them in front of millions of Americans every night, or doing those things that would help them become famous, or even in one case, executive producing a film that allows one of the biggest TikTok stars at the time to actually be in a film to show that they transcended social media culture and are now in real films. So, like, all those things were stuff that we were playing with and again, like working backwards and flipping the Playbook upside down.

[A]

Wow. I mean, one, it's amazing thinking about having a KPI, but then also knowing you can hit that KPI internally.

[B]

Yeah, of course.

[A]

But when you come up with those metrics, I mean, how did you figure out, like, those are the ones that Matter, did you? Yeah. Tell me about the thinking behind that. Like especially coming to agreement on, yes, those are the goals.

[B]

I don't know if there was ever like full fledged agreement. I think it was just instinctively what we thought mattered, and it turns out it was the case. The other one that people love to see as an indicator is if a creator started to get a lot of brand deals, it meant that they were successful and that they had gone beyond the world of just social. So we would also help push a lot of our clients and partners to then partner with certain creators and do brand deals. So, yeah, those were all things that we did early days to try to engineer the idea that culture starts on the platform. But yeah, it wasn't as complex as you might think. It was just like a few of us discussing, well, what are the things that people look at and what are signals that, you know, the platform is successful? And we also took what YouTube had done up until then and then where they kind of like plateaued and then thought, like, what would that evolution have looked like if the YouTube stars of, you know, a decade ago had actually transcended culture and became mainstream? Like, that was sort of where we were also noodling around and brainstorming.

[A]

Yeah, I love the idea of finding the signals. I mean, it seems like this could work for any company. I mean, B2B, B2C. Like, yeah, figuring out, like, what would actually look like success for our customer, what would make them feel like the hero? How do we reverse engineer it and actually make sure it happens? And you know how creative projects usually means juggling six different tools and dozens of different version histories of the project? Well, this is exactly why Lightricks built ltx, the all in one creative suite for AI driven video. It handles every phase from conception all the way to final delivery. And it's all powered by LTX2, their latest and greatest model. It creates 4K synced audio and video with studio level detail. So no exporting, no waiting, just pure creation. Go try out LTX and see what it actually means to create at the speed of thought. Visit LTX Studio. Yeah, I mean, have other companies come to you and asked you to help them? I assume they're gonna be like, hi, come over here and do the same thing.

[B]

Not as many as you think. And ironically, there are some brands that I was just obsessed with where I'd reach out and say, I know what you're dealing with, I know what you're trying to accomplish. Let me just come in and help. I know the platform in and out. And they would just basically ignore me, which I was shocked by. But then there are other folks that were like, we know you know how to do this. Can you either consult or help us build this? And my realization during this, like sabbatical that I took was that a lot of agencies will tell clients they know how to do this. And when I see their methodology, I instinctively know that they're just throwing spaghetti on the wall and they don't actually know. So I made it a point to reach out to some of my friends who are either CEOs or presidents or CMOs of different companies and say, hey, I'm taking a little bit of time off, but I think I could train your team internally to learn how to do what we did in three to four months. And the whole proposition was, let me help you do that in that timeframe and help you become less reliant on your agencies or on paid media, specifically paid social. And sure enough, it ended up working for a lot of these folks. So it was a, you know, fun time just teaching and training up folks. I think the same thing can be applied to long form content. So right now you're seeing this shift where a lot of the short form stuff that you're seeing in market is starting to evolve into brands taking a risk and doing longer form content. And they're either putting it on their social channels or on YouTube or in some cases even piloting their own, you know, little miniseries and shows. So I think that there's probably a way in today's world where you could take those learnings that I had from, you know, being at these various companies and then teaching brands how to do it internally rather than them relying on an agency to do it in perpetuity and then getting those learnings and being able to be self sufficient and put money into doing more fun things than just putting it into a retainer. So I definitely believe that there's a new era where brands can take a little bit of the responsibility and bring the creativity and the short form and the long form creation in house. Just learn how to do it and then just run it on their own.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so if you were to go into, let's say a larger company now, what, what does that look like, working with a team? What things are you having to train them on? What are things that you didn't think you'd have to train them on? Like, how does it. Yeah, how does it work?

[B]

I mean, I'm going through it right now, like I'm starting, you know, a New role as now president and CMO of First Round, which is a joint venture with Diageo and Main Street Advisors. And in this, you're certainly battling some of the, you know, idea of, well, this is how it's been done in this industry, and this is what works, and this is what we need to be playing into. And it's no surprise that I recruited a couple folks that are, you know, people who've worked with me at either TikTok or Samsung or Hulu and who have that appetite for, one, taking risks, two, moving quickly, and then three, recognizing that my biggest advantage, which I've leveraged here and there throughout my career, but I'm really doing it now. Our network and group of, like, friends that we've been able to do some fun things with throughout my career, they're now coming and reaching out and saying, I love the way that you think about things. Would you want to partner with one of your brands now and create something really special? And that's where it's unlocking a lot of possibilities that I didn't know these brands had before, because people are actually proactively reaching out and saying, I want to partner with Ciroc or I want to partner with Lobo 1707, and I want to do something that's innovative and fun that hasn't been done before. And we know, you know, how to do that, so can we leverage the partnership that we might have to bring some of that to life? And that's some of the stuff that we're. We're working on. So a lot of it is unlearning the marketing approaches of the past and ensuring that you enable the team to feel confident enough to, like, move quickly and make some mistakes, but also get a lot of wins along the way. And then. And then, you know, realistically building up a culture internally where people are having fun and developing work. Because when you have fun doing it, the work just feels different than if you're, like, afraid, anxious, and just trying to make sure you don't fail.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So we're working on all that stuff right now.

[A]

So. Fun.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so you. You mentioned unlearning.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What are maybe five things in marketing that marketing leaders should unlearn right now?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's quite a bit. I think traditional campaign timelines are just out the window. If you're still using that playbook, regardless of the industry you're in, I think you're going to be, you know, just a bit behind when it comes to what's happening. In culture and what's relevant. You said five, so I'm going to actually try to do five.

[A]

Yeah, I get it.

[B]

Second one I'd say is people were chasing the things that they can measure so aggressively that they started to actually build out processes and put things in place that just yielded better numerical numbers but didn't actually move the needle on the business. So at a superficial level for social media, people were saying let's drive up engagement. Let's try to make sure we get all the views and all the likes and all the comments and whatever else there might be, only to find out that you could be amazing on Twitter, Slash x/TikTok and see no impact to your sales. Right. So that's like second thing where they're chasing on things, even the ones that are chasing metrics that look like they're all positive. I think it could go down a pretty dark hole quickly where I had an example where I won't say the company, but this one company, they were spending money in Mexico on paid search and driving a lot of what they called roi. One quick look at what they were doing made me realize that the team had now been optimizing towards spend in Mexico because whenever they quote unquote put a dollar in, they'd get $4 back. So in that paid world it looked really ROI positive. What they completely neglected was that there was no competition in Mexico. So they were essentially a monopoly in that specific country. And every dollar they put in was a dollar wasted because all those customers were going to go to that one site to buy that one thing anyways because there was no one else to buy they could buy from. So it's so interesting that a CMO will see those results and the paid search team will see that impact and they're getting bonused off of efficiency and roi. And they're showing their boss or their manager like look how great we're doing. And the boss is like, I can put that in front of the CFO and justify more spend for the marketing department. Let's go all in on that. That they are now doing something that's actually diluting, like diluting their value and not investing in the things that will build their brand and build the value over time because they're chasing these short term metrics that they think are yielding roi. So that's definitely one that I think is not great. So that's three, I think places that focus on all these elements that are outside the walls and don't take effort into like building up the culture inside are also doomed to fail. I've heard so many companies over the last few years, especially post Covid and this whole return to office sit, take like such a hard stance and forget about the employees and like the, the stuff that they have to do. And I've hear these new lines out in the, you know, LinkedIn world where that's like there is no work life balance like or you have to love what you do. Like all this is a little bit like overwhelming. And I think this idea of needing to be on all the time and always be working and grinding and hustling, I don't know if that's like what's going to drive greatness or the best creative or the best success. So that's probably number four. Now I got to think of a fifth one.

[A]

You're doing so great.

[B]

We're so close to number five. I think what is another thing that CMOs are chasing that they shouldn't be chasing? Oh, I don't know if this fits with your answer, but I'm going to throw it out there. I think CMOs also are reluctant to take the top spot in businesses and in companies so they sell themselves and their team short because for marketers you now see the CMO suite or the office as being the end game. And I don't think people realize COOs, CFOs and those folks that traditionally take on the CEO job, their jobs haven't changed that much in the last 10 years. Like a CFO still doing what most CFOs had done 10 years ago. When I look at like what a CMO does today, the job has evolved so much. We have to account for so many new factors like how people consume content, what's happening in culture, what matters to people, all these macro trends that are feeding into it and really changing the way that we think about what we do. And looking at data and customer insights and performance marketing and the balance of brand and all these elements that I feel like the best leaders for tomorrow will actually be the ones that had to deal with all those inconsistencies and evolve over time and make those changes that I would love to see more marketers step up into the helm of and then lead a company. And we have some great examples today of a few that are doing it and doing it incredibly well. And I think if we can continue to see that trend, you'll see a lot more heart and empathy and brand brought to life in a way that I think would look bold for 2026, but actually should just be table stakes.

[A]

Yeah, I love that last one of just, like, claim it. You're already doing so many parts of the organization anyways, like, get into that CEO role and really claim, you know, totally.

[B]

Because we're also now responsible for more commercial aspects than we have been before. Growth aspects. There's so many things. Technical aspects, technical products development and innovation. So I just feel that, like, the marketer CMO, traditionally of like, 10 years ago, that was just focused on advertising and how to reach people in various channels, it's evolved so much that it's almost weird to just call them a cmo.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I do think there's something there that could be, you know, hopefully inspiring for folks to jump up and take that next step in their career.

[A]

I have wondered if there's like a new role emerging, because I have seen this too, where I'm like, okay, you say you're the cmo, but you're also basically leading customer success. And there is also a customer success person, but you're doing that and then you're over here leading, like, you're kind of like a CRO as well. And the sales team should be really close with you guys. And so I wonder if there's like a new role or just consolidation or is it just moving to the CEO role? Either way, it's a badass time to be a marketer.

[B]

Either way, it's a badass time to be a marketer, for sure.

[A]

Can you actually engineer a viral influencer within a culture?

[B]

Yes, you can. I have an example of where we did it, but then there's also probably examples today that blow what we did, you know, four years ago out of the water. So most people remember the viral video right around the middle of COVID where that gentleman named Nathan Apodaca, otherwise known as Dogface420, was longboarding down a road drinking ocean spray and lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac. Does that sound familiar?

[A]

I think I did see this, but as you know, now you might be asking the wrong person.

[B]

Anyone else? I do remember those ahead. Everyone else is raising their hand.

[A]

Everyone in the audience is raising their hand. Right now. It's just me. Uncomfortable. Yes.

[B]

So that was one of our Project Cheetah moments.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So everyone, mostly in America, minus one person, saw that video, and we reverse engineered that. So we had reached out to Fleetwood Mac. As soon as that video dropped, we asked them to participate with that parody, which they then they jumped in and did their own stitch of that video. We then were able to get other celebrities to also do that. We also had him show up into some late night talk shows. And then we also had a media buy that was already in place and we swapped that media buy with what was supposed to run with this specific video that was edited in 72 hours. Because everyone in America saw that at that point and they saw it in TV ads and they saw it on late night talk shows. They figured that that was something that was happening near real time. And the fact that that video had just taken off on TikTok and nowhere else, like it hadn't even, you know, infiltrated Instagram or other things yet, it sort of proved out that one culture started on TikTok. But two, you could take any video and with the right resources, amplify them to the point where they become an actual viral influencer. I think he got a truck promotion spray. I think he got a some deal, you know, with other brands which were also great. And he had the, you know, he took a risk and made that video and put it out there. But it was our team that found that and then elevated and brought it to life. We did the same thing in the UK with this gentleman that did a whole sketch, not even sketch, like a series called Sea Shanties. And then we had another one that was doing well in South America and then another one in Asia. So we really were able to prove out that these viral influencers, you know, could be sort of like engineered to, to have that kind of pickup. My thing about today's world is you're seeing that same kind of pickup with artificial influencers. And that to me is where it just like blows my mind. And I've been kind of out of the TikTok game for a little bit. But to see some of these influencers popping up and they're not even real or to hear, yeah, it's scary. But also on the flip side, you have, you know, the biggest song in the country right now is golden from K Pop Demon Hunters, which is the group called Hunt Tricks, which is not real. That feels more safe. But at the end of the day, that could very well have just been an AI group brought together to create something. And it's not too far off from that reality. So I don't think it's scary as much as it's just like the way that the future is headed towards. And once people are able to dissect what drives that emotional connection to a song or to a clip or to a short form piece of content or to a long form content, someone will then figure out how to hack and reverse engineer that and Then develop that, especially using AI tools, because the barrier to entry just got dropped down to near zero.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Amazing. Yeah, that. That song, my kids will not stop playing it. They haven't even seen the movie. I won't let them see. It's fine.

[B]

But, like, the song is so catchy.

[A]

The song is catchy. You heard a thousand times and you're.

[B]

Like, I'll be honest, I've heard it.

[A]

A thousand times and you still like it.

[B]

I still like it.

[A]

Different kind of parents I think we are. Yeah. Like, no more in this house will I hear this. Whatever song it is.

[B]

Just switch to the other songs. Just listen to that one song.

[A]

I know. They just. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I mean it. And I will eventually go back to the other conversation, but for this. Is there a way to spot these trends now? Like, are you looking around and seeing big opportunities? Kind of like what you did at TikTok? Like, are you still able to be like, oh, that would be really good if I could put spend behind it? Like, are you seeing things in a similar way?

[B]

I don't think that's the new playbook.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think that's what people have been doing for the last five years, and they're chasing these viral moments. Or, you know, you could even go back as far as, I don't know, 13, 14 years ago. I forget what year it was. But the whole Oreo, you can dunk in the dark, creating this whole wave of brands setting up newsrooms and social command centers to try to find another moment in culture that they can then do their viral tweet or, like, Instagram post against. And then that became this whole wave of, well, how do we capitalize on a trend that's happening and do our version of it? And now there's all these, you know, whether it's the Nicki Minaj Heel Challenge or whatever, it is every brand doing it. It makes you forget which brands are actually doing social and just remembering that, oh, this trend is really popular and everyone's doing it. Like, I actually don't think finding that diamond in the rough video and trying to elevate it to help your brand is the way. I actually am really obsessed with having a brand that knows where it plays and builds this world for the audience and allows the audience to come into that world that they're building. Maybe even co create part of that world with them and then use that as, like, the launchpad for, like, a next campaign. I'm currently building a couple of worlds for each of our brands, and I'm seeing some of the more successful brands today focused on that versus chasing vile trends. It's just focus on your world that you want to build. Explain why it's valuable to your audience to enter that space, and then how do you entertain and sort of, you know, delight them in that environment?

[A]

Okay, so I love this because I have talked about world building before with different CMOs. However, I have not gotten the details of how to actually do it or how to think about it. And so if you're doing this with multiple companies right now, especially if they're diverse, how do you go in and think, okay, we're going to build out a world. What is it? How do I pull people in? Like, what is your thought process?

[B]

With world building, it's a little bit of like, focusing on the insight and the objective of what you're trying to accomplish. But I'll take our brands as an example. The first brand that I'm focused on is Ciroc. And it was a brand that was born in the nightclub and it was really made popular with this idea of like bottle service and excessive celebrations and sparklers and all that stuff. And what we realize is that one, that trend is sort of fading. I don't know when the last time you've hit up a club and stayed out till 2am it's been a while. Just downing bottles of whatever it might be. Yeah, no, like, let's say it hasn't happened in a while. And would you say if I were to describe somebody that, like, pretend you had a weekend and you weren't worried about, like kids and all those activities, would this weekend sound fun where wake up, you maybe grab like brunch or something with friends, then you do an activity together, whether it's hiking or pickleball or tennis or whatever it is that you want to do as an activity, and then you hang out, have a cocktail, go to dinner, and then actually go home? Like, does that sound like more your speed?

[A]

That's my speed.

[B]

That's your speed?

[A]

Yeah. In bed by nine.

[B]

Yep. Perfect. So that's most people who are in our realm speed. And I don't think think brands have capitalized on the trends and the shift in how people are consuming and still focusing on that. Like, oh, we're going to have a fun night out. It's going to be crazy. It's be so intense that they completely neglected that. Like, I actually don't want that. I'd rather just have a casual brunch, do an activity with friends, have this Social, you know, moment where we can like hang out, talk, have a cocktail, then go to a dinner and then let that be like the night. So the world that we're building is that world for Ciroc. It's moving from that nightclub into this idea of the Ciroc Athletic Club, which doesn't physically exist anywhere. But we're going to create all these pop ups and allow people to enter that world where they can play pickleball or paddle or tennis or golf or whatever it is, and then hang out with their friends and socialize and then have a great culinary experience together and then end their day.

[A]

Yeah. So that is. That sounds fun.

[B]

That sounds fun.

[A]

Also, when you think about drinking when you're in our age bracket, you're like, really not trying to do it past. Not trying to do it past 7:30. It starts messing with my sleep.

[B]

Totally. And you're just trying to like wind down as you get to the din period, where that used to be the point that you started.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we wanted to reshift and reframe what it means to, you know, be social but still be responsible and be like a functioning human being. And on the flip side, there's also this idea that back in the day we went out to drink. That was literally the activity. It's like, what are you doing tonight? We're going drinking. People don't feel that way anymore.

[A]

Andrew Huberman came in hot and doesn't allow us to feel that way anymore.

[B]

Exactly. Now we know him and many others were saying, take your AG1, don't get smashed. But what you could do is just like do that a little bit earlier. And like the, the idea that, you know, you used to go out to drink and that was the activity has shifted to. You want to have an activity that's fun, social, and something that you could do with the community. But then in that activity, drinking is just part of it. It's not the thing. It's just something that you're doing on the sort of like outside. And that's sort of where I think our brand should play in the world that we should build. So it's going to feel like this athletic club. It's going to feel aspirational and premium, but it's going to be accessible to everyone. It's going to be open and we're going to have amazing merch drops that people could then go grab. And there's going to be like, opportunities to come to those events and then potentially go to the super bowl or go to the US Open. Or whatever else it might be. So we really want to build that idea of the balanced lifestyle where people want to still be fit, be active, be participatory in whatever it is that they want to do, but then also be okay to have a drink or two.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So when you're trying to shift a brand's, you know, perception like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're going after maybe a new clientele too, who might not be thinking of you for that, how do you pull these new customers in? Like, what do your tactics look like?

[B]

I think to the point that I was making. You see pickleball as an example is like one of the fastest rising sports in the US Right now.

[A]

Especially in Austin.

[B]

Especially in Austin. It's the hub for pickleball. So, you know, imagine instead of focusing on a big commercial where like I'm going to show people drinking a cocktail and like playing pickleball and wouldn't that be great? I actually just build up a pop up here. It's like a, you know, weekend event that might lead into a music festival or a sporting event, like let's say Austin F1, if there was an opportunity to build up a Ciroc Athletic Club that goes right before F1 comes in. So people are already here, they're hanging out, they're looking for something to do and then they can go play pickleball, which is now. I didn't know this. Austin's the hub for pickleball. You could then, you know, be entertained there, have a different connection and an emotional feeling to the brand and then ultimately have that amazing weekend where you're experiencing F1 and one of the, you know, best places to do so. And then walking away thinking like, that was a really fun, memorable experience. I did that with some of my friends and some new friends that I just met. And at the end of the day, I still feel great. Like that's sort of the tension that we're trying to. We're trying to work our way into, to bring in the new audience into our world.

[A]

Yeah. So good. So it's more experiential, real world, 100%, but probably not a metric that can be instantly tracked. Which is also probably why some marketing leaders might be like, well, this one shows me right away what I get. This one might take a week or so to show if they become actual customers for a long time.

[B]

Yeah. But I've never been one to chase those short term KPIs. I think ultimately all I know is that if brands continue to do what they've been doing, they will become less relevant than they were back when that was the medium that everyone consumed content. So in today's world, those events that I just described are like these social honey pot moments that allow for organic social to really, like, infiltrate people's feeds and show them what this world of Ciroc could look like. And then from there, I'm hoping that headlines will then come out that talk about the new world and the new aspects and the experiential and how fun it was and how engaging it was and who was there. Those are the types of things that I think will become a better indicator for success than, you know, how many eyeballs saw it on tv.

[A]

Yep, I agree.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So way earlier in the interview, we were talking about bold marketing. Just marketing. I'd love to hear any stories where you went super bold and maybe you were like, that took it too far. Like, I'm trying to figure out the. The line between like, is there a line between like, too far and it's just risky versus being lame, obviously, which is, you know, what can happen very easily when you're, especially when you're in corporate. It goes more to lame. So tell me a story or two if you can, and then just how you find the line.

[B]

I don't feel I've ever taken anything too far in terms of bold. I mean, like, you know, taking a tweet from. I'll think of different examples at different stages of my career. But, like, one of the first things that I did with a few folks at Taco Bell that was considered bold was someone tweeted that they thought a Taco Bell was going to open in their town, 6,000 person town called Bethel, Alaska. And that town thought that because this person was playing a hoax on their neighbor, so they put up signs that said, taco Bell opening soon. For job inquiries, call this number.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

And that number was their neighbor's number. So that the phone was just ringing off the hook.

[A]

Who's this person? This is great.

[B]

It's mad genius is who that person was. And when we found out that that story was developing, we immediately reached out to see if there was a way we could build a Taco Bell for them. And due to supply chain constraints, it just wasn't possible. So the bold idea was, well, we have a Taco Bell truck. Can we just bring the Taco Bell truck to Bethel, Alaska and serve them the first taste of Doritos Locos Tacos, which at the time was the newest launch. That wasn't possible because it turns out in the summer, that little town becomes an island, because when the ice melts, there's no road to access that island. You have to get there by a boat. So then the bold idea was, well, can't we just airlift the Taco Bell truck and just drop it in the middle of the town? So that's what we ended up doing.

[A]

So you did it?

[B]

Yeah. It was called Operation Alaska. It was badass. It was a few people at Taco Bell who just jumped on this idea and worked as, like, a little SWAT team, brought it to life. And within two weeks, literally, you have this Taco Bell being airlifted by a helicopter, drops in the middle of town, and then 10,000 people, because people from other towns also came and just descended upon the truck and just got free tacos. So that was bold. It worked. I feel like even the stuff we did at TikTok with TikTok kitchens and some of those things were bold, but never pushing it too far. One of the brands that I've been an investor in and have just been absolutely in love with, Liquid Death, they push the limits all the time. I don't know if anything has gone too far, because their brand ethos is to be edgy, irreverent, and sort of like, you know, proving out that there's a better way to consume beverages. Yeah. I more so get frustrated when either my team or brands do something that looks fun for the sake of being fun, but has no impact to the business. I'm more concerned about those things because I've never seen anyone be so bold that it goes too far. I've seen bad creative. I don't consider that bold. I just think that's just bad creative and that sometimes, you know, really cripples a company. But there's nothing that I see where I'm like, oh, wow, that was really bold. And it was so amazing, but so bold that they should have gone that far. I don't know if I have an example of that off the top of my head.

[A]

Okay. Have you seen any campaigns lately that you thought were bad? I mean, you write about a lot on LinkedIn, so.

[B]

Oh, just bad. Just the ironic thing is I write a lot about campaigns on LinkedIn.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I tend to avoid bashing campaigns and more so highlighting the ones that I think are doing really great work. Like, recently, I talked about Anthropic and what they did for Claude.

[A]

Oh, was it the meme one? I saw a great meme the other day.

[B]

What was the meme?

[A]

It was where it was Like a bunch of them where maybe someone was looking at someone else's phone and it was like anthropic. And then ChatGPT was the person looking at their phone.

[B]

Oh, that's funny.

[A]

So they had a bunch of those settings where basically like ChatGPT was trying to like copy in different scenes. I'm like, yeah, that's smart.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's fun. I'd say my realization is that the bar for creative continues to go up and I think making good creative is hopefully becoming easier for marketers. So I don't see as many, like just terrible campaigns. I see ones that are like, pretty good. And what I realize is that there's lots of ways to win and there's not always just one winner. So when I looked at the recent campaigns from OpenAI and from Anthropic, they both were great because I think they were serving different audiences. I think for Claude is really targeting someone that's a little bit more advanced in their AI journey. They know how to use LLMs, they're a little bit more comfortable. There might be maybe even like a coder or a developer. And the angle that they had was really about being smarter with your AI and taking it up a notch. And then OpenAI drops this like ChatGPT version. That's just like for the everyday person who just wants to do basic tasks, here's how you would use it. I don't think they were competing against each other as much as they were saying, this is for this audience and this is for this audience and we both can play in this world together and we can both win. So I thought that was really interesting recently. I'd say I'm really obsessed with out of home. I tend to talk more about out of home on LinkedIn because when I see something that just makes me stop in my tracks and then, you know, read what was happening with it and thinking about it a little more deeply, it tends to stick with me a little bit more than, you know, other forms of media would. And it's to the point now where I, I, you know, will ask my 9 year old son what do you think that's trying to tell you? And he'll give me his take and I'll be like, do you think they're accomplishing what they're trying to set out to do? And like, he's, he's only 9. But I think out of Home is meant to be so simple and you're supposed to be able to get the message within like two to three seconds. That even a nine year old can kind of process what it is. So I'm really excited about, you know, something that's simplistic but beautifully well done and then like very witty in nature. Those are always fun for me. Yeah, I mean those are like a handful of things that catch my eye right now.

[A]

Yeah, I love it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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[B]

I don't advise a ton. I invest in a bunch.

[A]

Invest, Sorry. Okay, so you, you invest in.

[B]

I invest in. I invest in some startup brands and I try to give them my advice whether they take it or not.

[A]

Okay. Okay, so you're not an advisor, but you.

[B]

I'm not an advisor because I feel like an advisor is like a formal role.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I would say like I throw money at them with the hopes that they'll listen to one or two things that I'll say. And sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

[A]

Okay, so what are you seeing with these companies that you're investing in? Because to me, I mean, we talked about this, I think before we were recording like such a good way to see what's happening, you know, on the front lines with these startups who are trying things that probably big companies are not right now. So what are you seeing that's exciting you?

[B]

I think smaller brands are more willing to take risks in the sense of like not using the traditional path to winning. And I think that's starting to become more the norm and probably scaring some of the bigger brands. It's not a surprise to me that you hear brands like Unilever shifting their budget and becoming a little bit more, you know, social first with their mindset. I think that should be the norm. I think brands that are stuck in this like outdated traditional process of building campaigns, they're only benefiting the agencies that are doing the creative for them, I think, you know, Pepsi moving into this hybrid model with their agency partner, which I think is Vayner. That to me is very interesting because they're just trying something new and breaking the traditional process by like engineering a new team like model. That to me is very interesting. So I'm more so looking at how startups are finding ways to win without spending the amount of money that you used to need to spend to break into a market market and recognizing that, you know, spending millions on media isn't a guarantee for success. And especially in this new world where the algorithms across social platforms don't care how much you spend, they just care how relevant that content is to the audience. You're seeing people take bolder risks when it comes to the creative. They're doing very outlandish things to try to stand out. And sometimes that works and sometimes it actually doesn't work because if it doesn't ladder up to what the brand stands for and what it's trying to deliver to a customer, it falls flat. So I definitely see more brands that are in that startup phase chasing trends and forgetting that the point of the marketing and the trends is to drive your bottom line and has nothing to do with trying to just get the most laughs or the most likes on social.

[A]

Yeah, okay, that's, yeah, that's interesting thing about chasing trends, creating trends and hey, you have a business here that you need to focus on first.

[B]

Yeah. And that's sort of like the tension that the modern day CMO has to make where you have to be commercially minded and not just try to rack up awards or get those vanity metrics up? I think it really matters if you are moving the needle on the business.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So are there, there any tools that are favorites that you're watching these startup companies use or just ways that they're doing things in a different way that you think others should be watching?

[B]

I mean, a lot of them are trying to figure out how to do things on their own and they're reaching out to whether it's me or other people to say you have this great knowledge and this vast experience. Could you just teach us how to do this and avoid using agency? The ones that ask that question I think have a better chance of winning than the ones who are saying who are the best agencies out there for me to work with. So I really appreciate and I'm happy to just like give advice to some brands when they say I want to be better at long form content, how do I Build up that capability. I feel like me wanting to become a teacher when I grew up, essentially hearing that question excites me and it makes me want to tell them like, oh my gosh, if you want to learn and do it on your own, let me help and lean in and give you some of those tools. Like, you know, just, just because I think it's a good thing for you to do, then be someone to recommend. Like, here are the top three agencies that could like make a lot of money by doing that thing for you when you could technically have done it yourself. So I definitely appreciate those types of conversations. But I'd say, yeah, between the tools that people are starting to pick up from short form, content creation, long form identifying, like what are those metrics that kind of take you down the wrong path? And learning from the mistakes of CMOs in the past that were like determined to only focus on those things. And actually this one that I had recently where someone asked me, how do I organize my team for success? I thought that was a really great question because they recognize that it's not just the output but the way that the team is structured that will yield a better result. And so then they obviously, when they asked me, I was like, oh my gosh, that's a great question. Let me think of how your company might be able to like, you know, reorganize themselves to be set up for the future. Because the other thing is if your team hasn't changed in years and yet the landscape that we're marketing in has completely evolved, then you're definitely behind. It's like having, you know, like a horse drawn buggy in a world of freeways. Like if you don't adapt, there's no way for you to actually survive in that new environment.

[A]

Yeah, I mean that, that's. It makes me think though, like more layoffs to come, probably in smaller teams, at least that's. There was like some exclusive dinner with a bunch of CEOs and they're asking about like in a year or so, how much of your workforce do you think will be remaining after these AI transformations and all this? And I think they said 30% was the number. Maybe you were there, Were you there? I just wasn't there. But I heard about this from one of the advisors who were in the.

[B]

Dinner and I'm like, yeah, I think that's a common theme. But my hope is that these companies, before they cut their staff, they think, can I redeploy my staff to do something? That we were paying an agency 10x more to do on the outside. Because if you're going to reduce your team by 30, but then still rely on all these external sources of help, then I would just want to ask them, like, could those folks do the work that you're paying other folks to do as good, if not better, if they were just given the tools and the training to do so, because they know your brand better than anyone else? So could you give them a shot specifically in marketing?

[A]

So tell me about other campaigns similar to the Taco Bell one.

[B]

So this the simplest stunt that I ever did, as in, like, low cost. It was for Stance, the sock company. We figured out that when we were launching Star wars, there was. We didn't know this at the time, but there were multiple sock brands, including Target, that made socks that had the license for Star wars as well. So when you're in this crowded market where there's a bunch of sock manufacturers making Star wars socks, like, how are you gonna stand out, especially if your sock is $20 a pair and the other ones are like $5 a pair? So for, I think it was like $132,000. We created a website called theuncommonforce.com. i don't think that site still exists, but essentially we were able to use your front camera, the front facing webcam, and you could use that to track your hand movements. So we let people shop with the Force. So you could actually go to the website, pick out the different socks, scroll through them, drop them into your shopping cart, and then do an interactive animation based on your hand gestures. And we sold out within that day. I think we made, like $3.4 million in that same day. And it was something that didn't cost that much to do, but it was just, like, really fun. So that was another campaign.

[A]

Oh, that'd be a good one.

[B]

Hulu. We did. Oh, this is actually timely because everyone was talking about LeBron's Decision 2, which ended up being an ad for Hennessy.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I thought that, like, the idea was fine, but, like, LeBron is just like, such a prolific figure in the NBA and in pop culture as a whole that if you were to try to tease what seemed like a misdirect, where it looked like he was potentially going to announce his retirement or something important, I feel like they could have done it in a much more elevated manner for someone of his stature. So when I was at Hulu, we were dealing with that same moment for Tom Brady in his career. And the piece that we did for the super bowl ad that was trying to tell people that Hulu doesn't just have live sports. They also have all these other things. And just to remind people that Hulu is for a lot of different entertainment needs. If you go back and you see the way that we filmed the Tom Brady spot and the social tease that we had that made people wondering, is he retiring? Is he not? Is he leaving the Patriots? Is he not? What's happening? I think it was just, like, a very different approach to how it was executed, and I wish they would have, like, given that much. You know, I don't want to call it effort because they probably worked really hard on it, but, like, that much like craft to what they did with LeBron, because he definitely deserves a send off in that. In that sort of, like, you know, realm.

[A]

Yeah, that's good.

[B]

So those are all some fun campaigns from the past. TikTok had so many. But, like, a lot of the things we did with Martha Stewart, especially Martha Stewart with Liquid Death, was all just, like, super fun and out there. Whenever you juxtapose a personality in an environment where you would never expect to see them, I think that works really well. We had Martha Stewart selling candles of a hand holding a Liquid Death can. And the spot that she helped make, the little, like, piece was her seemingly greeting fans who didn't know they're walking in to get their hand chopped off so she can make the thing.

[A]

Oh, my gosh.

[B]

And it's just so, like, off the wall and gruesome at the same time. It's Martha Stewart.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So this, like, juxtaposition on one hand makes you feel kind of weird, but also, you're like, that's actually really memorable and fun. That thing generated, I don't know, billions of, like, views and impressions. And I think it's those unexpected, you know, moments that come together that end up making work really, really memorable.

[A]

Yeah, it's good. The one thing about Martha Stewart, it was funny. I had someone from Fiverr on there. She's the VP of brand and comms at Fiverr, and they had Martha Stewart. She was an intern on the platform that you could hire. And I'm like, that's so good. Like, knowing you could hire Martha Stewart as an intern. That's.

[B]

Yeah, she's one that doesn't take herself too seriously. She has fun with it. So, yeah, those are all good opportunities. Yeah. I mean, there's just. Yeah, there's. There's. There's a. A long list of campaigns that I think were fun that I've been a part of, but also like there's a list of ones that I sometimes think to myself, like, man, I wish I was working on that. Just because it came to life in such a fun, you know, fun manner.

[A]

Yeah, it could be interesting with all these things you're talking about of like how do you actually figure out what they want? Not what consumers say.

[B]

Yeah. So consumers don't know what they want. That's been an age old theme in marketing. When I was on a panel with someone that used to run marketing at Dyson, he said that if you asked anyone in the consumer research, what do you want to do with all the dust once it gets sucked up in the vacuum cleaner? Everyone basically said like, I don't ever want to see that. Like, it's gross, it's disgusting. Put it in a bag, make it so I can throw it away and then like be done. And yet their biggest and most successful product was the vacuum that had no bag. And it's transparent. It shows you all the stuff you did. And the insight there that I thought was amazing was you want to see the work that you've done. And like nothing makes me happier than when I'm vacuuming with actually a Dyson because that's what I have. And I see how much stuff I just pulled up into that thing.

[A]

So good.

[B]

And that's what I'm like, I did a good amount of work. If it were not transparent and in a bag, I'd have no idea how much I picked up and whether it was worth my time to do that. But now I'll vacuum three times a week because it's fun and I get to see the impact that my like vacuuming has done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So things like that I think are fascinating. There's a whole book May Contain Lies by Alex Edmonds. It really points to the fact that almost every data point has an underlying element that you could tease out and realize that it's not actually valid or accurate. So even when I see, you know, brands lift studies or like studies about like, you know, what consumers are saying, I take all that with a grain of salt and just try to like put my, you know, is this practical hat on where like, is that actually how most people would feel about that thing? And regardless of what the data says, is that something that would move them to like make a purchase of this thing? Because at the end of the day I've been able to do this myself where with any amount of data you can put together any story you want, you can also put a counter story to the Exact thing that you're trying to prove with the data, with, you know, the opposing view of the data. So I've just never taken as much, you know, as much from that data as being a source for what fuels my creative approach. I just more so try to, like, just lean back into, like, what's the insight we're trying to impact? How do we really, like, influence culture at scale in, you know, the most efficient way possible and then test and learn. I'd rather test and learn and not have it work out than try to, like, pick apart the insights to death and the data and then go with like one approach that ends up failing anyways. Yeah, it's just much more fun to just like, run with it and move at the speed of culture.

[A]

I'm sure a lot of people listening will find that approach refreshing just because of all the data that's coming in, all the things around AI and I, I feel like I hear two kind of CMOs. One that's like data, everything. You have to track everything. And I hear the level that they're going into it. I'm like, woo, that's a lot. You're spending a lot of energy on that.

[B]

A lot of energy.

[A]

The other half are more like, trust your intuition. Like, it's now is better than any time to be very human and ask your human self, would I like that? Like, does this seem interesting?

[B]

And I'm more on that side. As long as you're able to tease out who your consumer is versus who you are. Because the last thing you want is to cater to your perspective or your likes and then realize you're missing your target altogether. And then the worst thing that we've seen as like, you know, heads of marketing are when somebody comes in and says, we should try this, because I talked to my son or I talked to my daughter and they really like this person, so we should, like, do something there. Those always get me.

[A]

And they don't work.

[B]

They don't work and they cost a lot of money. And you go down these, you know, rabbit holes that you shouldn't have gone to. But like, yeah, I do think we're in an age of intuition and that you need to hire the right people who have that instinct and can, like, move with culture because they're just immersed in it rather than someone who's trying to read it off of a spreadsheet.

[A]

Yep, I love that. So good. Okay, so we're gonna shift into the lightning round.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

This is where I ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Okay, first one. Fill in the blank. Playing it safe in 2026 is like.

[B]

Playing it safe in 2026 is like, I can't think of the right analogy, but it's something where you're, like, you're not supposed to be playing with those zoo animals that are behind the bars, but, like, you're sticking your hand in between them only to realize that you're gonna get your whole arm chewed off. That's kind of like where you think you're playing at sea because you're like, I'm behind the bars of this thing.

[A]

Oh, the double bars.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But in fact, like, you're there, and then the animals can still reach you.

[A]

The gorilla can pull you through.

[B]

Yeah. Like, my point is, like, there is no playing it safe. You shouldn't be playing it safe. And when you think you are, you're actually still not. So you might as well just go all out.

[A]

Oh, my God. That's good. That's really good. Okay, Describe your creative process as if it was a dating app bio.

[B]

I've never had a dating app bio.

[A]

Well, now's your time on live tv.

[B]

Can you give me a, like, quick rundown of what's in a dating app profile?

[A]

I'm a visionary focused on, you know.

[B]

Oh, God, Marketing and ads.

[A]

Spend none of that with a specialty in spirituality.

[B]

No, no, no. Is this like a long walks in the beach type of event?

[A]

Exactly. Like, put your creative process into a bio with. With extra fluff and extra. Like, you're really trying to lure someone in.

[B]

Short walks off a fun cliff where you could dive into a pool of amazingness. I have no idea.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

I don't do dating apps, but I would think that I can't do a bio for one either, then. Which is probably a good thing.

[A]

It's probably a good thing. Your wife would be happy.

[B]

I'm sure she would be proud of.

[A]

You if you were given a million dollars right now. And, like, no one's going to ask you questions about how you spend it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

What would you do with it in the world of marketing? Like, it needs to be something with, like. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can tell me personal, too. I'll hear that after. But let's stick with the focus here.

[B]

Wait, so you're giving a million?

[A]

So this is million dollars? No risk, no strings attached. Just, like, go try something, whatever you want, and come back and report back.

[B]

Okay. It costs about 200 grand to hire a very renowned director or, like, a screenplay writer. So I would take the first 200k and hire a badass screenplay writer to write out a piece of content that call it like a film's length and centered around like my brand being a character or something within that. Within that world. So that's 200k. Then I would take the remaining 600 of that 800 and figure out how I can quickly produce something to be like a test of that thing, that script. So don't hire real actors. Don't necessarily go shoot anything. Maybe shoot a little bit of stuff, but add in a lot of stuff to just like storyboard that out and make it like amazing and then spend the last 200 to work to just pitch it and actually have it be made. If I had no strings attached, I would love to like make a full length feature film. Just focusing on a brand as a character in this whole world, in this ecosystem, and then letting that, you know, become hopefully the next big movie.

[A]

Dang. You've thought about this. Someone come hire.

[B]

I've never thought about this. I've literally never thought about this happen.

[A]

It needs to be made into a reality.

[B]

Yeah, I wish I had someone.

[A]

That would be awesome. If someone hit you up after this and like, hey, I want to make.

[B]

This movie great, I'll do it.

[A]

Hit him up.

[B]

Yeah, he's active on LinkedIn. I'm ACT. I am active. My DMs there are clean. Where's my inbox?

[A]

All right, last one. If you could erase one marketing buzzword from the vocabulary, what would you kill?

[B]

Oh, there's so many you can do.

[A]

You can kill a couple if you want.

[B]

I would kill authenticity because everyone uses it. And I actually think people don't care as much about that anymore. They just want to have fun. I would kill any of the performance driven buzzwords like CPMs and CAC and LTV and all that fun business. Because again, I don't know if that's leading people down the road. Not that it's not useful. It's just taking so many people down the wrong path when they were almost dancing around the answer. And then they get focused on these KPIs, they just go down this other path. KPIs just get rid of that altogether. What other buzzwords? CMO. Who needs CMOs anymore? Like, you should just figure out a new way to describe what it is that person does. Like the Chief Marketing Officer doesn't only do marketing. So, like, that's a buzzword we should just get rid of.

[A]

You have to think of a new one then. You can't just be coming in here killing some words and not have a new one for everyone listening, being like, well, what is my title then?

[B]

Yeah. President.

[A]

President.

[B]

That works.

[A]

That does work. President, yeah. Any others?

[B]

No, that's enough to kill for today.

[A]

Okay, that's good. Well, Nick, this was super fun. I'm so happy you came in studio.

[B]

Of course. Thank you.

[A]

I definitely want you back in the future.

[B]

Amazing, wonderful studio. I love it.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Austin's a beautiful city. It's amazing. So glad to be here.

[A]

Same also, where can people find you? Where can they hit you up at? Where can they hire you to create your film?

[B]

I mean, I'm on LinkedIn but with my full time job I don't have as much time as I used to. But I will say LinkedIn's an easy place to reach me.

[A]

Me. All right, thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.