← Daring Creativity
Daring Creativity
Brand strategy lessons from Disney's customer-centric thinking - Ezequiel Abramzon
00:56:00
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- [00:01]
Radi Malinj
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- [00:51]
Ezekiel Abramson
Oh, I made so many mistakes and something that I don't. I believe I mentioned this. I had the support of my family, my friends, former colleagues and people from my team that called out. And also I invested a lot of money and time in coaching. I had many coaches, some are great famous which they supported me and taught me and made me see myself more objectively.
- [01:19]
Radi Malinj
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinj and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. How they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. So thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? My guest today is a global brand strategy consultant who helps startup founders shift their mindset and create business momentum. Through his human centered methodology called Epicenter. He helps entrepreneurs build lasting businesses by moving from product centric to customer centric thinking. In our conversation, he shares his remarkable journey from being an art student in Argentina to becoming a senior executive at Disney and eventually starting his own brand consultancy. We talk about his early passion for drawing and graphic design, his 22 year career at Disney where he led digital transformation initiatives, and his experience with burnout that led to a career reset during the pandemic. It's my pleasure to introduce Ezekiel Abramson.
- [03:06]
Unknown Host
Hey Ezekiel, how are you doing?
- [03:09]
Ezekiel Abramson
Good. Awesome. Thank you for having me.
- [03:11]
Unknown Host
I'm very happy to have you on the show. I'm glad we're making it happen because I'm intrigued about your story about what you do, how you get to do what you're doing now. But for those who might have never heard of you, how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:23]
Ezekiel Abramson
I'm an Argentinian that lived in the uk, now in Madrid, Spain. I work as a consultant helping entrepreneurs around the world, building their businesses through strategic thinking, basically focused on the brand strategy. That's what I do today. I've been many things, I did many, many things in my life which I hope to share in this conversation.
- [03:46]
Unknown Host
Oh fantastic. I like that you start with the fact that I'm Argentinian. That's identity that comes through. What was creativity like when you were growing up in Argentina?
- [03:55]
Ezekiel Abramson
I believe Argentina is one of the most creative countries in the world. One of the big export of the country is creative industries and the knowledge industries. There are hundreds of global agencies that were born in Argentina. Graphic designers, artists, painters. So I was born in a very, I would say upper middle class family. Very educated conversations about the world and I don't know, I grew up in an open minded environment that helped me manifest and embrace creativity in many ways. Particularly in my case it was visual expression and art. When I was little I started doing comics and illustration and copying the grades that I knew at the time. Then I professionalized that. I went to art schools, I went to private classes with an artist that taught me how to be patient and copy an apple for hours. I was 14, I took two buses to take those classes. So I was really into creativity around. And for the people that are listening, this is a pre Internet life. So we didn't have Google Image, Pinterest. Inspiration came from books, magazines and life, the world outside. So yeah, Argentina was a very creative. My teenage life was in the 90s, great decade for culture, music, theater, movies, everything. I believe it's better than the 80s. Sorry about that. So I was super inspired everything around me and it was a boom of advertising, it was a boom of the Hollywood industry. We had three movie releases every week in any given week of the year. Big movies, big actors. I was super inspired to from a visual sound and even tangible with museums all around. So yeah, I guess it was a free cultural boost. That was Argentina those times.
- [05:55]
Unknown Host
So with the Disneyland of the 90s and obviously being a young teenager being sat down to be patient to copy an apple. What did you learn through those classes and was that a skill that you acquired for life?
- [06:06]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah, people say that I have, I'm very patient. I was able to spend hours and hours learning different crafts and because of that I couldn't invite my kids to do what I do. I have three teenagers at home and I don't think they are going. They are probably able to spend two hours looking at an apple or a bottle and learn from what they are seeing. They're not wired. I think these generations are not wired, as we did, to observe, to think about the environment in a way that we did, because we didn't have any other stimulation coming from devices, screens, or the base of the world that we are living right now, which is forcing us a big inertia right now that drives us all crazy. But this painter, Pablo Becker, he wasn't famous, but it was established in Argentina. He was around 80 when I went there. I was 14. And I was very excited about that. It was a new world for me. It was learning from a very, very good artist. I looked around his paintings at home and it was incredible. And I wanted to be that. I wanted to do something like that. So I swallowed the bourness of being alone with classic music, classical music in the background, silent. Because he probably left me alone. He didn't even stay with me talking. So, yeah, I embraced that. I think I had to.
- [07:31]
Unknown Host
So how did you go from drawing an apple to be a freelance illustrator for Disney?
- [07:36]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah, that was when I was 14. I started studying art. Then I went to a comic illustration school back in Argentina. That was a school created by a very famous comic artist, cartoon artist there. All of the current generations of artists are established selling books. Probably went through that school in the 90s. And so I've been there for four years while I was at high school, once, twice, three times a week. So I became a really good comic artist. Actually, I started selling those and working for magazines and newspapers when I started after school. But I also got in love of graphic design. I used to wrap ads from magazines, collect those. Something was there that I liked. The messaging, the creative, the display. I started collecting and breaking all of those when I was a kid. I didn't know how those were done, who did those. And that was a huge industry or there was a career to be made out of those. But I like those. And one day I think I had a conversation with someone that told me, hey, I'm studying graphic design. And I said, what is that? It was basically when you pick the letters, pick the picture design, the form, the shapes and the message you want to convey, and then you put it all together in the same page and you might see that as a logo. I was amazed about that. And I said, okay, I have to do this because for some reason I was under the impression that I was forced to have a, like a university title in my family. So I had to be something and so I didn't want to be anything but an artist. So I found in graphic design the win win for my family. It's a university title and degree and it's what I like. Yeah. So studying graphic design was a win win for me and my family because they wanted me to be a university material and like something like that. And I wanted to be a professional in the creativity world, in the art world. And those seem to be connected somehow. So I was 13, 14 when I actually decided that I would become a graphic designer and see what that is again. That was a time where no computers were used to create graphic design. To be a graphic designer and collage and copying and pasting in paper, it was a craft, a real craft. It wasn't mechanical at all. So yeah, I started looking at this as a potential feature apart from illustration, which one day eventually collided into serving Disney as a freelance.
- [10:11]
Unknown Host
If I might interject into this because I love the fact that you discovered graphic designer, knew that you wanted to be graphic designer at 14. Because it always comes especially to people in our generation. What is graphic design? What is a graphic designer? Through so many stories on this podcast, there's even people who want to be something and they're kind of like persuaded to do something which is deemed bit more profitable or more respectable or more secure. And then there's people who've got absolute freedom, freedom to do anything they want and they still going to end up in completely different. So it's almost like the yin and yang right there. If you match the parents of people who wanted to be artists with the parents of you can do whatever you want. I think that would be a different mixture maybe of in career trajectories because it's almost never the right path, but we always find a destination. So in your case I think you got win win because you did what you wanted to do and your parents were like, yeah, it's a university degree.
- [11:05]
Ezekiel Abramson
I think generations over generations parenting evolved a lot. Right. And I guess happiness, wanting your kids to be happy in what they do was secondary to doing something that is established like society accepts and it's a proven career money making path. I think we are evolving as parents to maybe prioritize your kids. You want them to be happy whatever they do and if they make money out of happiness, that's better, right? But first happiness. Do whatever you can and how can we support you? But I always consider myself a learner. I knew that because I started learning new stuff when I was just a child. I knew that I could continue learning more stuff while I was being taught right in the university. So I did many, many other things while I was studying graphic design. I like to say that I started my graphic design business when I was 16. Even though I didn't know how to design, I didn't have a computer. I got a call from a newspaper who would dictate the words and the things that they wanted to put in an ad. I would take that note of that. I would go to the copy shop, tell the guy in the computer he was using CorelDRAW in that time and in a PC, and I would pick the type of letters from a book. I would say, hey, I like this. Make it bigger. Always make it bigger. And use these graphics, these cliparts. They would print it, I would put it on a paper bag and I would take a bus and take it to the newspaper and get 10, 5, I don't know how many bucks in Argentinian currency. So that was my first business, I think.
- [12:47]
Unknown Host
I think every 90s story starts with a coral draw or coral draw features in the 90s story. It's not a dirty thing to admit that was an entry point for many people because that was the thing that it was and it did some of the stuff. And picking the typefaces from the book, I think that was in a way, quite genius because that's how I've seen graphic design being done around the same time on the other side of the world in Czech Republic. And it's kind of like almost like a full foolproof model. What do you want? Copper black. Okay, we'll have a copper black. And you put it on the screen, they're like, no, you don't want a copper black, do you? And it's like how we democratize the design design whilst giving someone voice who potentially shouldn't have a voice. I'm not saying you like some of the proper clients. They're like running a carpentry business and picking apart a font. But it was a way of getting things done. And I think it was quite interesting. That's how you got into it, because you got to see how firsthand you can put stuff together and be paid for it. And I think being able to make money and have that pathway into career from that young age, I think was invaluable. Yeah.
- [13:45]
Ezekiel Abramson
And so I pursue those two things. One is studying a lot. I remember going to A1 Bookshop, that it was the only one in Argentina, or at least in Buenos Aires, to import communication arts. Print magazines, all of those were bibles for us. It was the only place to see what was going on in arts and graphic design and communication in the world. That was the only source of inspiration for looking internationally. What's going on. So while I was obviously studying by myself and going to the university, I started freelancing to friends and family and other companies. I also became a typography teacher in the University of Buenos Aires while I was studying. The University of Buenos Aires is a public school. Most of the teachers are adonorm, which is. They don't have a salary, they just go. They are invited by the heads of the courses and the credits. And so most of us became better professionals by also teaching at that university. Some of the best graphic designers and creators in Argentina were also a university teacher back then. So yeah, I was a typography teacher where I learned how to correct mistakes from thousands of kids like me. So when you train your eye and yourself not only to help someone understand that it's doing something wrong, you learn from yourself because you have thousands of examples of how not to do things.
- [15:11]
Unknown Host
I think it makes perfect sense when you think about it. We want to learn from the things that are done right, but I guess you learn a little bit more by things that are done wrong.
- [15:20]
Ezekiel Abramson
And I think back then, I think that's when I planted the consulting seed. Like I liked to teach, I liked to help. I like to listen, ask questions, understand what was in the table that was brought from these students like me and take it from there with their own truths, with their own aspirations for the projects. How can I help you take it land that project where you want. I didn't know that was consulting, but I think that's when I started liking to. I didn't present an idea in my whole career. I actually taught that idea to people.
- [15:58]
Unknown Host
That's a very interesting insight because you either start in consulting or you either really want setting in your ego and get that identity of a creative until you realize maybe consulting might be something you want to do down the line. But obviously, as you said, like, you liked helping people, you like listening and like learning from their mistakes. But then you embarked on a career with a conglomerate with a Mickey Mouse as a main character. How did that go? Let's briefly touch on this, because I want to talk about your consulting and what you do now, because you've mentioned that pretty much everywhere you've gone, there was a quite aspirational figures in your life. He talked about Pablo Becker, he talked about people that were coming to University of a big statue, which must be great and inspiration because you see the product of what you could be. You're not taught by some sort of. I was going to say the word loser. Sometimes not every university professor is the best one. And I've seen sometimes in creative industries, sometimes you get people who are just. They shouldn't really be teaching. There should be other people teaching. But I've met more of those good ones than the bad ones. So you do that and then you go into working for Disney. How did you let go of that sort of wanting to help or how was your role at Disney that sort of guide you through that sort of element of actually making things better? Yeah.
- [17:10]
Ezekiel Abramson
So I was freelancing a lot at that time. Illustration and graphic design for small and big companies. And I actually wanted to move to the US and be something like David Carson. If you look at all my university work, it looks like that. Like a dramatic, surreal way of taking graphic design and communicating and deconstructing everything. I was like that as a designer and so I wanted to go there. Then I got a job at Disney after freelancing. My first job at Disney was drawing the characters for a project. Mickey Mouse and all of those. My dad was an event organizer and one of his clients was Disney in Argentina and Latham and I did tiny work for them and then asked who did that. And so I connected with Disney in one of those events and then I was invited to help them with a project. And that project was amazing. So then they offered me a formal job and I stayed for 22 years. I joined as a junior graphic designer in the theatrical business in movies business, the marketing department. My job was localizing to Spanish every marketing material that we would use to promote a movie. So starting with the Spanish version of the logos of the movies, from a bachelife to I don't know so many movies at that time. But I also. I didn't mention this, but as a freelancer, I also designed websites in the 90s and CD ROMs. I don't know if you remember those. Interactive design. And I also had a job. One of my first formal jobs was in computer animation in 93, before Toy Story, which was the first animated movie in computer animation ever. So I had a kind of an electronic technological flavor to my craft. And when I joined Disney, I asked where are the websites? Almost got the answer. What is a website in that time? So I started as part of my marketing role at Disney, I started launching the websites in Spanish, supporting the Portuguese as well. I became the Digital guy in the team, the only one that actually cared about that honestly in the 90s and one thing took to the other and I started having more digital projects than actual traditional graphic design print materials. And in 1999, the Walt Disney Company in Latin America merged. All of the divisions that reported separately to the US Were converged into one integrated organization under one management. And I became the digital guy for all of them. Parks, movies, soon TV and radio and other consumer products. Whatever we did online at that time for the whole company, I was coordinating that and I started building a team and we started building many, many things for the first time in the company. To make it short, 20 years later, I was the general manager of the digital business. We built hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in new projects with B2B and B2C operations in multiple digital platforms. And we did many, many things that were the first for the company ever, like the first Twitter account, the first Facebook account in that region, the first digital campaigns, databases, banner ads, all of that. We were embracing the technology advancements in marketing and creativity and we were applying that in a way, we were the digital version of the Walt Disney company Milata, like a startup within the company. That was most of the years that I was at Disney was actually leading the digital endeavors of the company. In that transition, I joined as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. And over the 15, 20 years, I became a senior executive sitting at small tables meeting with rock stars in the business that we can talk about if you want. But I had this whole transformation from an artist to an executive. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [21:17]
Radi Malinj
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration, all the way to career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day.
- [22:01]
Unknown Host
I think I got my answer there because I found the way of your work was going to be more one directional. But having heard about your CD rom, about your animation, like you've got this bag of that contains a plethora of different skill sets and interests and the willingness to actually look out for the best interest of the company or the business or the Idea or the project that again, that's the word help comes to play. Because you could sit there and go, oh my God, I'm working on Bugs, live in Spanish, I'm moving on in life. But you're like, there could be other things to do. What can we do with this? And I think that shows that amazing drive that you've had because that's carried you all the way to where you are now. Because I'm guessing there was a natural endpoint to a Disney life. Could you see yourself ever working there forever? Or was there a natural sell by date?
- [22:47]
Ezekiel Abramson
For me, career at Disney was okay. One day I'm going to be part of a movie, maybe creative characters, be directing. So my pathway, the early beginning was okay, I need to end up in Burbank, in la, right? That was my vision at that time. But I got in love of technology and how these new platforms allowed me to expand my limits as a creator, as an asset for Disney as well. I saw a point of difference as well, because nobody else cared or knew about these things. And I knew a little bit. So I started also digging into that. And one thing took to the other half. I made it short. But I had many, many roles over the years. In that time things came in and came out. I hired thousands of people and let go hundreds of them because the ups and downs of the digital business for Disney, the different focuses. And in 1980 the Walt Disney Company merged, acquired Fox, a huge company like the size of Disney. So it was like the collapsing of two huge organizations and Disney started to change their structure and deciding how to adapt to swallow such an amazing animal like Fox. And in those restructurings I decided to let digital go for many reasons and keeping one of the additional roles that I have. I was also at that time the head of creative for Disney Latam. So I decided to, okay, go back to the roots and spend my time at Disney with designers, with product developers, with style guides again in the new world. So helping Disney innovate in how to create new styles and all of that. So while I was doing that, I was invited to do the same, but in Europe. So I moved with my family to London to lead the creative teams. 150 around people in the team in Europe, in multiple countries. Designers, product developers, 3D animators, character artists. It was an amazing team as well. And in 2020 I wasn't having a great time. It was the middle of a pandemic which made me think, where am I going? Who am I surrounded by? What's the Outlook for my professional life, what's the next step? And I looked back and I decided that the executive life was done. I didn't want to pursue further up in the mountain of executives and I agreed to leave.
- [25:21]
Unknown Host
That's a fascinating story because obviously I think sometimes, and the reason why I say it's fascinating, sometimes you tell people what you've done in your life and they're like, that's five lifetimes. Like we have expectations of linear careers which you can have a non linear career. Would you describe to me and in a kind way, like it sounds like you're like 65 years old, you've did this, you've done this and that you've led people. I'm like, you don't do that in your early 30s. Oh yeah, you did that in early 30s. Okay, so you lived a full life already. You've got all of this wealth of knowledge and experience from the center of what's meant to be the center of fun, like creating these things. But of course you're not going to be naive to say creativity is all this fluffy subject full of flows and happy days. It's a creative conflict. Like amazing things don't happen by just a simple accident. Just because you put amazing bunch of people together. And if anything that can cause you a problem, because if you put your super chickens in the coop, they'll pack themselves to death. Because if you try to satisfy their egos. So you've decided that your sort of executive career going up, up, up, it's not going to happen anymore. And obviously you've decided from leading hundreds of people to go to team of one. How did that transition feel to you? Almost physically, because you used to one tempo or multi tempo of living your life, obviously creating work, having discussions, having creative collaborative projects. And then you've decided to change. How did that feel? How did that go?
- [26:48]
Ezekiel Abramson
It's like jumping from a moving plane. That's the feeling. And I didn't mention this, but at the time that I left, I had a burnout. I was on a medical leave, dealing with stress, with my health. And that also was a driving force for me to look for a change, to look different if I continue this path, maybe cost my life or something similar. I wasn't the person that I wanted to become at that time. So yeah, I made the leap. You need to picture the moment. It was mid-2020, so we were all at home doing songs, people dying, no vaccines, no flights, no go back home, no almost nothing. So I decided to leave. Changed my life. We Moved to Spain in the middle of the pandemic. So I had two pandemics, the London UK life and the Spanish UK life. The second half, which was way different. So we moved to Spain, adapt to a new country while everyone was at home as well. So, yeah, it was a time for me to reinvent myself, to think, okay, what am I going to do in the next 10 years? Maybe who do I want to be surrounded by? What type of things that I want to do? And I started really going deep into who I am again. Because over 22 years at Disney, as an executive, you become the role. My last name was Disney, Izzy from Disney. That was my name. And people knew me by Disney, not because what I did. So as an artist by nature, I needed to really reborn.
- [28:18]
Unknown Host
I'm loving the fact that you've gone from burnout to pandemic, from London to Spain. You didn't really look after yourself much, did you? Because that's just the stress after stress after stress. But obviously you're sitting there and looking healthy and happy and obviously very thankful for making that decision, to find that resetter in the pandemic. Because pandemic was a resetter for many people. People starting their businesses that wanted to start for ages because we had finally time to actually sit back and have a time to think. Because most of our creative lives and most of our professional lives, we don't inbuilt that reflection. We are not Stefan Sagmeister, who puts a year every seven years to have a refresh and actually what you want to do. And again, that was a brave choice by him, and it wasn't an easy one, as he told me on the show. But having that time to rethink what you want to do and look after yourself, it's strange to even think that this was only five years ago. Like, it feels like a lifetime ago. What was our reality back then? It's no longer. And it's a faint memory. We're like, yeah, we did that, didn't we? Yes. Because it seems just strange. But tell me about that Eureka moment when you realize easy from Disney is no longer easy from Disney. I'm like now living in Spain and my next career is going to be inspired by xyz. I'm going to do this because I'm sure that the world help in some way was featured in your decisions.
- [29:43]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah. So in that time, I did what I think I suggest everyone to do, which is reconnect with your purpose and write it down if you know it. I did the IKIGAI thing. I started studying again. I think I read more books in the last five years than in my entire life, which is something that helped me. I think you said it as well, what we talk that creativity saved me because I started reconnecting. I'm a graphic artist. If you look at my profile on Instagram, that's not a brand consultant. You wouldn't see anything about branding design. It's just art. Of course, if you look at LinkedIn, there's nothing about artists. It's two different. Like a bipolar person. So I had to decide, okay, should I go back to art and should I start my artist career again or should I continue this? Of course, I have a family, so I need to pay the bills and made the math and I decided to okay something else. So art is going to some way continue with me, but in a different place. It's like a sanctuary where I go. By the way, if you look at what I do as an artist, you will see the patience that I learned when I was a child. Because the thing that I do requires a lot of time and precision. But going back to that time, I made the math in terms of, okay, what did I learn in the past 20 years at Disney? And it's missing in this world. Who needs this? Who can I help? Who do I want to work with for the rest of my life or the next years? And I started checking the boxes of okay. So of the 22 years at Disney, one of the things that troubled with me was I was always in a strategic role, something that was always ahead of the other things. Second, I was always like for the last 20 something years, related to technology. So technology is something that is part of me. Second is creativity, storytelling, Disney, everything is brand led. The brand is first. So what else? Storytelling to convey the ideas of a brand. And after that, great products. Whatever product you do is going to tell a story. So it's quality and storytelling and everything around the brand. And there are two things that I also learned from it, which I believe that made me realize that I had something to help to these people that I'm going to talk about, which is Disney is very customer centric, which is everything that the company does. Whatever line of business, whatever product. You see, we always thought about customers, people, the age, the country, the culture. It's always tested. And really the customer is in the office, whatever business you are in. And the other point was long term. And that was it. Disney always plans for the next 5, 10, 20 years. Seriously. So every year as an executive, I had to present my five to ten year plan. Even though I presented that last year, every single year you would adjust that five and 10 year plan, which is something for so many years it was internalized. I didn't know that it was not common in business outside. So I was always related to technology entrepreneurs. I was surrounded by them as vendors, as partners. I was a mentor as well. So I knew that I wanted to help these people in my new phase. These people are founders, creators of technology world changes. But there was something wrong. It is something wrong in this startup technology world, which is no strategy. 99% of the companies that are created every single day, they don't think enough, they just do.
- [33:34]
Unknown Host
Would love to unpick this answer. There's so much in there. So much in there. I made so many notes and I literally have just stopped making notes for the rest of this podcast because I've got plenty now. Love it. So let's start at the end because you talked about 90% of the startup businesses are lacking strategy. And then you talked about the fact that Disney that you represent your plan for 5, 10 years to 20 years every year. And then you find tweaks which when you say that it makes perfect sense. You should really have that. When you start up, you're a novice, you're a young baby child, you're a toddler. And when you're Disney, you're a hundred year old man that knows what he's doing. To have a strategy in something that's done purely mostly on passion or problem solving. We build that car as we drive in it. I hate that expression, but it makes sense. Like you go bare bones and you get it on the road and you fine tune it because you learn more about your direction, about your purpose, about your strive, about your story. With the world of strategy and startups, is it your sort of residue of your Disney that you've seen everything strategical sort of point of view that you realize all of a sudden when you look around you go, yes, this world can function better.
- [34:40]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah, this is something that I realized many, many years ago. But I had a job and I knew that Disney did it well, which was at Disney, strategy is inside and execution can be outside, but not the opposite. Disney never outsourced strategy to keep the operation or the execution. So first we secure the strategic thinking inside. Everyone that works at Disney has a level of strategic involvement from an inter to an executive somewhere somehow. And then we try to do what we do with the hands and the muscle we have. But if we don't have it. The things that we outsource are primarily operational, executional, creators and production, whatever, but the ideas, the majority of the thinking is inside. Because of that, they are able to lead, to judge, to assess, to make informed decisions on whatever they do. So I was educated by this for over the years. And so I knew two things. One is of course, for the pace of technology and for the sake of complying to commitments with investors and all of that. There's a velocity in the startup world, the MVP culture, which is prove fast fail, fast leap forward, leapfrogging many thinking processes. I knew that was a reality. And the other thing is this. I don't know if you agree with this, but I don't want to sound patronizing, but the creative industry has something wrong that I recognized many, many years ago, which is we speed up the strategy part to go fast to the creator part, right? Most designers, creators agencies that are probably listening to this, they have a questionnaire that they give to clients or even do a two hour workshop to justify the creative decisions we make later. And those are sometimes not connected at all. But we educated people, clients, that strategy, it's a tiny step that we need to jump quickly to be hands on and execute.
- [36:54]
Unknown Host
I do agree with you in certain way because again, I think it's something that unless you come from educated place of mind, that you can justify the process or you can do it really well and it shows, obviously it helps you because if you make a good plan, you're gonna drive it better. You know, that's always there. But I think with the explosion of information and accessibility of information, we have opened the Narnia box, the wardrobe of information and everyone can cherry pick what they feel like, okay, oh, I need to do some strategy. Most like a cake recipe or to have a birthday party, I need a cake. So I'm going to bake a cake and this is my ingredients. I don't really understand half of them, but I'm going to put them in anyway. And you jumble it up and then you're like, okay, here's the cake. It was like, it's inedible. It doesn't work because you made it really quickly. You don't really understand. So in my opinion, most of creative people are not strategies in the first place or they don't think that way. And the process is just a justification of, okay, maybe this is going to get us to the creative process faster. This is what you described. If I can say it from a personal perspective, strategy is a one third of a project. And nothing happens in a creative way for the first two months. It's just a conversation. It's the questionnaire. That's one way of getting things up. At least you've got a questionnaire. But to really understand people and to really justify the process, I think it also needs the mindset of the client to say, show me strategy. Because some clients will want you to get to the creative part as soon as possible because they want to see the justification of their cash. They will spend the roi. Okay, we spend money. Where is the staff? Like, why do we need to keep talking? And I'm sure we'll talk about it next, that when you get to the strategy part and you start asking questions, that's when the magic happens. That's when really you go, oh, I came here for a birthday cake, but I'm coming back home with something completely different. And this is much more exciting because I didn't even know what I wanted.
- [38:54]
Ezekiel Abramson
Absolutely. And with that, I don't want to say that no one is actually doing strategy or know about this, but there's a proliferation of the idea that if you include strategy in your process, you can charge more. Right. For the junior people, there's the gig economy. People confused that if they are great doers and executors, they are missing something because they are not selling strategy. But to sell strategy, you need to have experience, you need to have a worldview, you need to understand a lot of things. Yeah. And the other problem I saw is not only that, but some companies have multiple partners, vendors, like one for the website, one from social media, one for branding or experiences, one for visual identity logos. And those that. And all of those would ask different questions about the strategy to justify the one piece. So then it's a puzzle that nobody's putting together because they end up having a website that looks different from the visual identity, that speaks different from social media, the pitch of the company, and many other things that are deconstructed, maybe inconsistent. And the real problem is that these companies don't know who they are and what they want to achieve. They don't have a strategy themselves, because if they had a strategy, they could lead, they could assemble all of these partners in a coherent way, and there's a way to do it well. And that's when I realized that I had to do something about it. And I created a process that turns that around. So what many branding executives or companies do in a week or in a questionnaire or even in a workshop of two hours, fill in the blanks I do it for four months. So companies that work with me, we spend over four months building and writing and discussing and workshopping the strategic part before doing anything.
- [40:48]
Unknown Host
Earlier we talked about the age of impatience. We're not hardwired anymore to have patience. How do you convince someone who wants to go from two week questionnaire quick, rough up some sketches into execution and you're like, hold back. Of course, if they hire you, they will know your process. But obviously this sounds like it's the strategy done the right way. So how do you get people to be patient for four months?
- [41:12]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah, it's a good question. And not only people, but the technology entrepreneurs, which is faster than the regular human. I don't know. I think we tend to use the word fit, like get the fit with the right team. Because it's not just one person, it's actually the work I do is assembling a team within the company and I lead and facilitate that team. So I created this process not to be disruptive to the day to day operations of a company. Right. Because of the FI space. So over the four months, we meet at least once a week in the same time, the same day for two to three hours is like going to the gym. So instead of doing from Monday through Friday in a hotel, like in a room, like an intense week, because people forget next week what they did, who they did it, why they made decision. So I forced a pause, a break, a mental break between sessions so we digest, elaborate, and manifest better what was discussed in the previous one. So yeah, there's a particular moment in the company that allows them to sit down and do this. A maturity, a certain level of experience or capabilities and profiles in the team and a lot of conversation. Most of the clients I work with, they took almost an average of a year to work with me since the first time we met. And that's something that is not only surprising, but a pain when you started a business. But now I'm starting to work with companies that I met in 20, 24, 2, 23, which they've been following me, they've been understanding the process. We met five times, we crossed in technology events around the world. People talk about me in other meetings and say, yeah, yeah, I work with Ziggy. Oh, you really? Yeah. How is it? It's amazing. So they talk about the experience and it's something slow about the decision making, which is fine with me.
- [43:07]
Unknown Host
That was a really beautiful juxtaposition, or should I say dissonance. In the end, this answer, because you instill A slow process, obviously. And then you said, oh, it took quite a long time for people to start working with me. But that is potentially the right way to match the client with the solution. Because you don't have to go too far to trip over an inpatient client. Like, we need to launch tomorrow. I had someone recently telling me like they wanted me to be part of their project and I'm like, I can't start till January, I can't start till Feb. We need to do it in the right time. They're like, oh no, no, no, no, no. We need to launch by January because we're going to lose a market share. It's just like what you've done, what you want to do is already been done, it's out there and it's done badly and you want to do another bad option on this. Good luck to you all. Be my guest. You can do this because I often say that doing a good work with good people is like finding a life partner. You can be with working with certain client for years and if you want, that's your cheap client. That's impatient client can do something quickly, it can work out. Doesn't work out. Ratio is 50:50, but whatever. By going and working with people for long term, it takes a long time. It takes a long time for them to buy. That's why we've got so much now. Psychology within marketing, knowing like how many emails it takes time to for people to buy, like how many points of contact you need to see how many and that all of it is obviously rooted in strategy. So I think what you're doing is perfectly aligned with the people and how long it takes to account it.
- [44:31]
Ezekiel Abramson
Yeah. And also there are many misconceptions about strategy and brand strategy. Right. Most of brand strategists have a process that lands in a visual identity, but a brand is not visual at all. Or at least it's many, many more things. It's a 360 degrees experience is a multidimensional being or institution. It's more intangible than tangible. So there's no way you can know exactly what that is in a week. So because of my experience at Disney, being a general manager, being involved in more than 70 industries along the years and being in the small table decision making, I had visibility experiences in multiple things. So my work is not just to land a good looking new identity, it's also how do you design your teams? What is the process? You take a client from A to B, how do you name your process internally? How do you hire, what's the, tell me how you interview people, what's the onboarding of your employees, how do you think about expanding the team? What's the organizational design, what's your marketing strategy and how are you going to invest in this or that. So I go into the numbers, I go into the capabilities, I go into the talent development of the company, I go into how are you, when are you, and how are you going to fund your, your company? Are you going to go for a round? So I, I, I get involved into their pitch, the narrative, I train them, we rehearse. So it's really a, a overcompassing companion that we, we package into this idea of a brand strategy which is actually really, really, really leading to everything company.
- [46:19]
Unknown Host
What's been the most satisfying problem to solve? What problem would you like to solve?
- [46:25]
Ezekiel Abramson
Long term thinking. So I think when an entrepreneur creates a company, they have an idea, they have maybe the funding, whatever. The first brand decision they make is naming the company. It's a creative decision, it's a very emotional decision. Then afterwards, a logo, right? Because they need to visualize that name somehow. And then that logo is put into a presentation or a website. And then people stop making decisions about the brand, what that means for people, what's the position, the company, the market, they forget about that and they focus on the product, right? So to really be brand led, to become a brand, a branded founder, you need to move from product centric to customer centric. You need to really put the customers in the center. That's why my process is called epicenter, because we put customers at the center of a brand, a brand at the center of a business epicenter. And we need to flip that mindset, I call it the brand mindset. We need to flip that 180 degrees from product to customers. And that takes time and that takes multiple decisions, tackling those decisions through different angles. Because people is also customers. I would say people centric because you have employees as well. They are brand ambassadors. They make decisions as well. So flipping that takes time. And I get multiple breakthrough phases of the process in different parts of the methodology. When they realize this, oh, this is going to take two years. Yes. If you want to make it right, if you want to last, which brings other fears or other problems. Because when they realize this, in order to achieve all of the things that we are talking, they need to last, they need to survive, they need to go through. I know you're a surfer, you need to first pass the first waves in order to serve one, right? So you are going to face a lot of waves that might make it difficult, but if you surpass those, you might find the right way to serve. And I believe that the early years of a company, the first five years, four years, are very, very difficult. You face so many obstacles and so many things, but there's one thing that you can avoid, which is not having a board to be on top. I believe that's the strategy that's belie is knowing who you are and where are you going and what do you want to be perceived as to make decisions. On top of that, I like your.
- [48:55]
Unknown Host
Analogies and I like the way you describe it because, yeah, the analogy of the ocean and the waves, we've got expectations of what it potentially could be. We don't necessarily start businesses because we want to be problem solving. Unfortunately, if you're at the top of a company, you're not there to have a good time, you're there to solve problems. You have to do things that are uncomfortable and obviously you steer in the ship. So when you get on the top of that peak of the wave, it's down to you how you're going to do the next move, how are you going to surf it, how you're going to style it, how are you going to recover from it and how you get that resilience. So what you're describing here, I think it's an amazing sort of amalgamation of the life skills. You said you are a life learner and it sounds like everything that you picked up for your early career and for Disney and what you're doing now is amazing because you talk about strategy, you talk about tech, creativity, storytelling, and I'm going to bring bringing that into the product, which actually should be customer centric, which is a beautiful way of putting it because it's easy to have a point of view that you believe that point of view is the gospel, that's how it should be. Whereas obviously having people like yourself coming to these companies is very valuable. And the reason why I said valuable because you said when you were doing your reset, he said, I was thinking, should I go and be an artist or shall I do the maths and do I need to be consultant? When you think of it back, like your parents said, you can be an artist, you're like, okay, I'm going to be an artist. When you are in your 40s, you're like, I'm going to use what I know and see. Maybe from a pragmatical point of view, because yeah, I think there's a Natural crossroads. So with your decisions that you've chosen and made to take it where you are, I can see that you're very happy in content place and where you've gone. But how do you look back in the last five years?
- [50:35]
Ezekiel Abramson
Oh, I made so many mistakes and something that I don't believe I mentioned this. I had the support of my family, my friends, former colleagues and people from my team that called out. And also I invested a lot of money and time in coaching. I had many coaches, some are great famous which they supported me and taught me and made me see myself more objectively. And these things like have you heard what you just said? These kind of things that I do with my clients, I needed someone to help me and doing therapy as well. All of these multidimensional approach put me through in a trajectory. And what I'm really more proud of is that I've never stopped. Like I decided when I moved to Spain. The idea was to take a sabbatical 12 years. I left detox from work, from corporate, from life, from all of this traveling and enjoy a little bit more of doing nothing. But my nature is against that. I can't do nothing. So that's why I started doing that. And I'm lucky that I'm happy that I never stopped doing that. But yeah, it's funny because you mentioned you compared entrepreneurs and Disney or startup as Disney young teenagers. But the average entrepreneur has over 40, 45 years old. If you look at reports right. I'm 50 now. I don't look 50 year old guy. I don't have gray hair, but I am. And the last five years of my life were the years that I feel that I learned the most incredibly that I met the most interesting people in my life and I felt the most productive as well.
- [52:12]
Unknown Host
That's very good to hear because you said it. You have read more books in the last few years than you've read in your lifetime. It's a wonderful thing to have been more patience and time to listen and actually read books. Oh, fantastic. Shout out. He's showing my books. Thank you so much. And thank you having them. Yeah. To read us out. You talk about Ikagi, you talk about many wonderful things that has led you on this journey. And I'm never really a person who would say what would be the advice that you would give to people in an earlier stages of their careers because you've mentioned so many wonderful things. But let's look forward like what is the next 5, 10 years or 20 years look like?
- [52:50]
Ezekiel Abramson
Maybe you will give me advice soon but I'm struggling with finish my book. I'm writing a book. I have pretty much everything in my mind and written as a draft. But I'm a little bit so busy that I've been procrastinating this. One of my coaches said the book is not important to you if you are not writing it right and not important enough. He's wrong in a way, but right in another way because I really want in the next year to actually finish it and share with the world some of the ideas that I have on all of these. I also want to help more people. I take very few clients a year because I decided not to build a company, a consulting company like multiple consultants and I'm not in the day to day of the client engagements. So I am one. The scale that I have is limited and that's why I do these deep long term commitments that make me face it first row. So scaling probably this type of business is one of the challenges in the next years, which I hope I find a way without losing control and losing the energy that I leave being in front of the camera, in front of the meetings and all of that, but with a team. So that's probably my next stage in terms of the consulting. Yeah.
- [54:08]
Unknown Host
Fantastic. You're a man of great tenacity and patience and purpose, so I think I'm excited to see what comes back. Thank you very much for your time, for your vision, for your knowledge and for your story. I think it's been wonderful to have an idea of how someone can grow from a company that's considered a pinnacle of creativity right in this world. To go through this burnout for do this reset to actually realizing that what you've been doing all along is to help people. And that's the most wonderful thing. So thank you for your time and thank you for spending time with me. Thank you.
- [54:40]
Ezekiel Abramson
Foreign.
- [54:50]
Radi Malinj
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radha Malinich. Editing and audio production was massively done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see.
- [55:14]
Unknown Host
You on the next episode.
- [55:32]
Radi Malinj
Foreign Just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.