Mark Rukman: Translating History Into Advertising

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network – Practical History
Host: Patrick
Guest: Mark Rukman
Episode Title: Mark Rukman: Translating History Into Advertising
Date: July 2, 2026

In this episode, Patrick interviews Mark Rukman, a brand strategist with a deep background in history and sociology, renowned for weaving historical insights into his work for Fortune 500 brands. They discuss how historical thinking shapes brand strategy, the realities of the advertising world, the interplay of quant and qual research, AI’s accelerating impact, the power and pitfalls of analogies, and Mark’s new show “Old Takes”—a comedic, historical pop culture analysis. The conversation is rich in actionable guidance for humanities graduates considering business or advertising.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Mark’s Path: History, Sociology, and Advertising ([01:30]–[05:59])

• Educational Roots:

  • Mark paired history with sociology, joking sociology was the “science portion of history” ([02:32]).
  • “I always joked around with my friends who are like psychology majors... we’re all just trying to figure out if we’re okay, but… a societal pursuit… I needed help with.” ([02:32], Mark)

• Early Aspirations:

  • Inspired by classic Nike ads, Mark was captivated by storytelling in advertising from a young age.
  • “I grew up working class… no connections to white collar work, but I caddied… I liked hanging out with the lawyers and the advertising guys.” ([04:11], Mark)
  • Immigration from the former Soviet Union fueled his passion for being “a good American”—advertising was the ultimate proof. ([05:59])

Finding a Place in Advertising ([06:57]–[10:11])

• Discovery of Strategy:

  • Miami Ad School’s “strategy boot camp” opened Mark’s eyes—“Are you going to pay me to be me?” ([07:44])
  • Found his “people”—those who were “too much for the teacher” but got A’s.

• Navigating the Industry:

  • The volatility of advertising meant some moves were forced, others by choice, but Mark always prioritized working with intellectually inspiring people ([09:10]).
  • “Careers expose competencies… jobs find you… personality fit, right place, right time.” ([09:27])

Bridging History and Brand Strategy ([11:04]–[15:09])

• Strategy Frameworks:

  • Outlines the 4Cs: Consumer, Category, Competition, Culture ([11:27]).
  • Illustrates with Jell-O campaign—the emotional core: “Jello is about magic.” Research should recall first memories, not just functional attributes ([11:27], Mark).
  • Emphasizes the gap between popular culture’s “imprint” and deeper scholarly history ([13:52]).

• Humanities & Strategy:

  • Cites E.O. Wilson’s “consilience”; strategy is the “department of analogies,” creative is “department of metaphors” ([15:09]).
  • “Strategy is essentially analogies… creative is the Department of Metaphors.” ([15:09], Mark)

The Limits of Research & the Art of Insight ([18:16]–[22:07])

• Methods & Intellectual Firepower:

  • Rare for research to be truly illuminating—depends on the “intellectual horsepower” of the researcher more than technique ([18:57]).
  • Mark prefers semiotics or metaphor elicitation for their embrace of the “shape of things” ([21:07]).

• Difference with Academia:

  • In business, “weird smart” is rare, while in academia it’s almost a baseline. Mark sees himself as a translator between these worlds ([21:07]).
  • “MBA pedagogy teaches you about certainty… but most things we deal with are nonlinear differential equations, especially in marketing and advertising, because you’re dealing with human beings…” ([21:35], Mark).

Brand Strategy as Translation—And Propaganda ([22:16]–[26:42])

• Finding Brand Identity:

  • The strategist’s core is at the intersection of “what the brand is about” and “what the consumer needs.”
  • “Advertising is the closest you come to propaganda in this country.” ([22:16], Mark)
  • Pet peeve: “What can we own?”—brands must realize influence over, not ownership of, perception ([23:36]).

• Every Team Speaks a Different Language:

  • Strategy is “part thinking, part translation”—like converting abstract concepts (Avogadro’s number) into everyday metrics (grams) ([24:44]).
  • “Your job is to know what a mole is so you can translate everybody’s org to a gram.” ([26:09], Mark)

Why History Matters for Business ([26:42]–[29:35])

• “Nothing is unprecedented.”

  • History brings clarity; most “unprecedented” events are not truly new ([26:42]).
  • Uses Tarkovsky’s “Andrei Rublev” as analogy: “The continuity of time… whatever’s happening now happened before and will happen again.” ([27:16], Mark)

• Strategic Implication:

  • Recognizing historical patterns provides maneuvering room and makes advertising smarter: “If you don’t see the continuity, you don’t fully understand the snapshot.” ([29:16], Mark)

Segmentation, Class, and Pop Culture ([29:35]–[31:32])

• Sociological Analysis:
  • Mark frequently applies class analysis, challenging outdated myths about social mobility and consumer segments ([30:20]).

Research in Practice: The Marketplace as the Test ([30:45]–[33:00])

• Quantitative & Qualitative Testing:

  • Describes using link testing at Millward Brown/Kantar, where understanding and “gaming” the key message is critical ([31:49]).

• Adapting Briefs:

  • “If creative beats the brief, you change the brief.” No attachment to the strategy for its own sake; be nimble ([33:08]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the Why of Advertising:

  • “In some subconscious way, I chose advertising because that would definitively prove to people that I'm not a commie.” ([05:59], Mark)

• On Interdisciplinarity:

  • “Strategy is essentially analogies… creative is the Department of Metaphors.” ([15:09], Mark)
  • “If you don’t see the continuity, you don’t fully understand the snapshot.” ([29:16], Mark)

• On Research and Illumination:

  • “But market research doesn’t have that many people who see that well… Sometimes business is not ready for that kind of illumination… So it’s always been my job to bridge what is up here on the academic mountain to bring it down to business.” ([18:57] onwards, Mark)

• On AI’s Role in Work:

  • “It is a fantastic thought partner… but you need to go through the friction of a rough draft… Otherwise, you get brain rot.” ([34:47], Mark)
  • “AI is great at translating mountaintop ideas to the everyday.” ([36:39], Mark)

• On the Magic and Reality of Advertising:

  • “Advertising does a great job of putting things on a pedestal… but once you pierce that veil, you realize that we’re all just human beings like anybody else.” ([43:01], Mark)
  • “To keep it as an aspirational industry, you have to be thought of as magical.” ([44:02], Mark)

• On Marketing the Humanities:

  • “History is one of the best things for finding clarity amidst chaos… The more you know what happened before, the more you can guide people on what should happen next.” ([51:59], Mark)

• On Loving the Craft:

  • “I don’t know anyone who is really good at what they do who didn’t love trying to do it… For every history major who doesn't want to go to law school, they should think about advertising… Strategy is the analogy department. History gives you more analogies to choose from.” ([53:51]–[55:10], Mark)

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The Role of AI: Historical Perspective & Technical Impact ([33:58]–[41:26])

• Historian’s Take:
  • Mark likens AI’s arrival to the printing press (1440), using historical arc to forecast the pace and tempo of transformation ([37:08]).
  • Predicts AI leads us toward “post-scarcity”—but with a rough transition and “exponential J curve” like previous revolutions.
  • “What is the pace of history now?... maybe 2–6x faster; let's call it 4x… what will happen between 1969–2069?” ([38:54]–[39:40], Mark)
• Advertising Impacts:
  • AI excels at synthesizing and “doing the lower order thinking,” freeing clever minds for higher-level conceptual work ([39:56]).

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Mark’s New Show: “Old Takes” ([44:28]–[48:18])

• Rationale and Format:

  • Mark’s show fuses history, comedy, and pop culture.
  • “Old Takes brings all the strands that have always been part of who I am: history, comedy, cultural analysis.” ([44:39], Mark)
  • Philosophy: “Everything new is old”; humor as “the medicine that makes the history go down.” ([46:31]–[47:09])
  • Translation again: making serious history accessible and entertaining.

• Aims:

  • Corrects pop culture misunderstandings (e.g., on “look maxing” and “macaronis”).
  • “Humanities are really good at talking to peers, but not very good at talking to one click down. Humor makes the medicine go down.” ([46:31]–[47:35], Mark)

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Guidance for Aspiring Advertisers and Marketers ([51:26]–[55:10])

• Advice to History Students:
  • If you love ads (or analogous creative work), advertising is a “great canvas for what you’ve learned.”
  • “Strategy is the analogy department. History just gives you more analogies to choose from.” ([53:51], Mark)
• Marketing History Departments:
  • “History finds clarity amidst chaos… the historian is the voice of calm and clarity when others cry ‘unprecedented!’” ([51:59], Mark)
  • Departments should focus on translating their value—showing how history is relevant for practical, unpredictable contexts.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:30] — Mark’s background: history, sociology, and immigrant experience
• [06:57] — Realization that strategy exists in advertising
• [11:27] — The 4C model in brand strategy
• [13:19] — The emotional/historical core of brands (Jell-O and magic)
• [15:09] — “Strategy is the department of analogies. Creative is the department of metaphors.”
• [18:57] — What makes research truly illuminating
• [22:16] — Brand strategy, propaganda, and the importance of translation
• [26:42] — How history offers clarity and continuity
• [34:47] — Working with AI: thought partner and translator
• [37:08] — Historical analogies for AI, pace of change
• [44:28] — Mark’s show “Old Takes”: history, comedy, cultural analysis
• [51:26] — Advice for marketing a history department and history majors entering advertising
• [53:51] — Final advice: “Strategy is the analogy department. History just gives you more analogies.”

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Tone, Style, and Noteworthy Dynamics

• The conversation is candid, intellectual, witty—true to the spirit of history-meets-strategy.
• Mark’s deep love of both the humanities and practical affairs shines throughout, inspiring with a humble humor.
• Both host and guest stress translation—the act of connecting disciplines, cultures, and eras through clear, compelling storytelling.

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Transcript

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[Mark]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Patrick]

Hey Mark, welcome to Practical History.

[Mark]

Hey Patrick, how you doing?

[Patrick]

Good, good. Hope you're doing well. I'm excited to have you on the show. So this podcast aims to illuminate the connections between history and practical affairs, especially business and tech. And you studied history and you've been in advertising and brand strategy for 20 years. You've had this amazing career for Fortune 500 companies and your LinkedIn posts are always, and I mean always referencing history. And you told me also that you think of yourself as a historian in the 19th century Gentleman scholar sense. And I love it. And especially since we see the ethos and the kind of echoes of the 19th century every, every, you know, everywhere these days, I think. And there's a passion for history and for advertising and strategy, everything in everything that you write. So I'm very, very glad that we get to chat. Can you tell me first, you you studied history and sociology. Why did you decide to major in history? And why also pair it with sociology?

[Mark]

That's a great question. History has always been one of my loves. And then sociology was a little bit of that, you know, that working class cheat of like, well, I have to have something scientific, I have to have something certain. So it's like to me it's like sociology was almost like the science portion of history. And I think, and I think it's all like, I always joked around with my friends who are like psychology majors. It's like we're all just trying to figure out if we're okay. But it's just like, it's just like to me, I thought a personal pursuit of figuring out that you're okay, you can do that on your own. A societal pursuit of figuring out if society is okay. I think I needed help with.

[Patrick]

Got it, got it. Yeah, it makes sense. So there's the passion for history and you know that history gets certain things right. You also want to have that social scientific validation, public facing validation of things. And I suppose categories is also a nice way of thinking about.

[Mark]

Yeah, it's because basically history has not been corrupted by quantification. Well, sociology is principled on quantification because, because in some ways it's like, if you think about it, it's like all of these disciplines, like economics or like sociology, they were really kind of in the history department. They were like offshoots from it.

[Patrick]

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at your LinkedIn resume and, and there's this very clear path and intention that shines through everything that you've decided to do. And I was just wondering if. Is it because you knew you wanted to go into advertising or is it because it's just a very good polemical argument that is your resume?

[Mark]

Well, it's, it's like I didn't know that I always wanted to go in advertising. But I will say, I mean, I clearly remember like sometime in junior high watching the Nike, it's going to be a revolution. Spa and I, and I remember like going everywhere, going to myself. I don't know what that is, but I want to do that. I mean I grew up working class. It's like my dad drove, drove a limo. So I didn't have like any connections to any like white collar work, but I caddied. Okay. So it's like I remember it's like I like hanging out with the lawyers and I like hanging out with the advertising guys whenever they would show up. The only thing I didn't take notice of, the lawyers were there more often than the advertising people. So that's the only thing that I didn't, that I didn't take notice of. So like when I was in college, I thought about being a history professor, a lawyer, a comedian, or advertising. Okay. And so if you, if, if your grades don't match your LSATs. You should go into advertising. If, if, if you don't feel that your network television funny, you should go into. You should go into, into, into advertising. So it's like all of these things when combined, led me to advertising because ultimately what propelled me there is I just loved watching ads as a kid. My mom and I would either like, make fun of them or like them a lot. So that's kind of what I ended up doing.

[Patrick]

Okay. And you watch those ads and you mentioned that you have an immigration story. Can we talk about it? Yeah, yeah, sure. And I'm asking also because I think it can shape one's perception of the world and advertising. I grew up in Poland. When I first went to West Germany, I was dazzled by all the colorful advertising. So I was just wondering if you have a resonant.

[Mark]

We have a very, we have a very similar narrative. So it's like, you know, I came over, I was born in a former Soviet Union, so I came over, came over to the US When I was four, four and a half. And I think part of it, and I didn't consciously know it then, but I think looking back on it, why did I choose advertising? Because I wanted to be a good American. Because I remember like, you know, like in kindergarten or first grade. And like, you know, think about it. It's kind of the height of the Cold War. I remember being called a commie. And I'm just. And I'm just like, well, I like advertising. It's like, I love supermarkets. It's like, I'm not a commie. So I think, like, in some subconscious way, I chose advertising because that would definitively prove to people that I'm not a commie.

[Patrick]

It's always fascinating to hear these layers of choice that one makes in life. And then. Okay, so after college, you went to the Miami Advertising School? Yeah.

[Mark]

Can you talk about it? Yeah. It was essentially, I didn't know strategy and advertising existed because before I thought about just being like a copywriter. I want to write the ads. I've always been good at writing. And then I remember going on an interview and somebody pointed out, like, what Miami Ed school was and what the strategy boot camp was. And I read the description and you know, when you're like, really young, you don't break form. You don't like, break formality of the interview, because that's what you've been taught. I broke the formality of the interview and I said, wait a second, are you going to pay me to be me? And she's like, yeah, because I remember like going to my first like, conference for strategy. It's like, oh, I found my people. Here were the kids who got straight A's in high school but got kicked out of class.

[Patrick]

That's a good moment.

[Mark]

Not, not because, not because they didn't do the homework. Just they were like a little bit too much for the teacher.

[Patrick]

Got it. And okay, so, so what did, what did, what did you learn in the Miami advertising school?

[Mark]

Miami Ad school? It's basically, there's like what, a 12 week module? Like, here's qualitative research, here's quantitative research, here's what an ins. Here's what strategy is. And so it's all those various components. And I felt this way in like sociology classes. Well, this is obvious, of course, the case. It's like it, it's like when I was like going through this class, I'm like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. So what happened is I got hired for my first job and was going to school at the same time.

[Patrick]

Oh, okay.

[Mark]

So it was, I remember like talking to my mom. It's like, yeah, I haven't had a day off in three months, but I think I found a career, so. And at that age, you're like, I don't care, whatever. It's like, this is the time to not worry about what your work hours are.

[Patrick]

Time to hustle. Yeah, yeah. And so when you moved through various companies, may I ask you how you made those choices? Obviously, outside of what everyone does, which is choose a, you know, place that pays better, were you, were there also some strategic, kind of qualitative choices that you were making in terms of company culture or what people do that drove you to change positions?

[Mark]

You know, I think, I mean, sometimes it was my choice, sometimes it wasn't my choice. I think, I mean, advertising is kind of one of those more volatile than usual industries. But I've always chosen people that I want to work with.

[Patrick]

Okay.

[Mark]

And I, and I, I just talked to like one of my favorite, like history professors and he was talking about like the difference between careers and jobs. Careers expose competencies. They let you know what you're good at, while basically jobs find you. They're a little bit more idiosyncratic of like, personality fit the right place, right time.

[Patrick]

I like that.

[Mark]

So I think that there was like, elements of that. But there's definitely people across, across that career journey who made a very huge difference in my life. And I picked those jobs because of them.

[Patrick]

Makes sense. Ultimately, people is what matter most Right. The people who you, you have to get along with, you can trust and things like that. Yeah.

[Mark]

Because I remember like my first advertising job. It's like I remember like my first cost. I go to my mom. It's like I met somebody who's smarter than me in the ways that I think I'm smart and they're older than me. I have a lot to learn. She's like, that's great. Good, good.

[Patrick]

That's pretty awesome. Yeah. I mean, part of this podcast is also supposed to help history students and any humanities students to make these kinds of choices. And I think the kinds of things that you just mentioned aren't always part of any formal script in college counseling. So this is really wonderful. Yeah.

[Mark]

And she happened to be a history major as well, so we basically just like, we just jived right away. But I think that ultimately advertising depends on context. And there's not too many better vehicles than history to set context.

[Patrick]

Okay, so let's get closer to that, to the core of our conversation, kind of at technical question to set a little bit more of a context for this.

[Mark]

Sure.

[Patrick]

So you've been working as a brand strategist, brand planner for many years. Could you talk about, you know, what that meant and what you did day today?

[Mark]

Sure. I think like the elements of strategy, there's oftentimes there's like the 4C model and what is the 4C model? It's basically, it's what does it know about the consumer, know about the category, know about the competition, and know about the culture. And then basically what is, what is the. Either the intersection or where is the heat? And basically find an insight there. You can find an insight in culture, you can find an insight in the consumer, you can find an insight in the brand. To me, it's like, let's say like one of the better strategies that I did was for, for Jell O. And we went through the, you know, we asked to go through the brand archives and what we found in the brand archives. And this, you know, Jello is like an over 100, like 100 year old brand or something like that. And Jello is about magic. And so I remember like telling the creative director, it's like, I don't care what research we do. It's like Jello is about magic. That's what, that's what we're doing. And so what I did was like when we were doing research, the first 15, 20 minutes of like this meeting with the client about the research we wanted to do, they spent about 15 to 20 minutes talking about the consistency of Jello, whether it was going to be right, because this is for the Hispanic market. Should we add milk to it? Should we add to this? It was an extremely functional conversation. And I went, I'm like, okay, I understand we want to be culturally relevant and we want to make sure that the consistency of the Jello is right. But do we want to start the conversation there or do we want to start with what's the first memory of Jello? And the thing. And the thing is, it's like, if you think about, like, what is the essence of history? What is your first memory of this? You know, And.

[Patrick]

And so it's an emotional angle in some ways.

[Mark]

Yeah, it's. It's a very emotional angle. Because the thing is, it's like, to me, it's like I've always kind of operated at that intersection of, like history and literature. It's like, I'll give you an example. Like, I took a history class. One like, I read on the Road in a history class. I read Brothers Karamasoff in a history class. So it's. It's just kind of like there's always been that intersection of what is known from a pop culture standpoint, where the literature comes in and what is known, let's say, from a historical scholar standpoint.

[Patrick]

Okay.

[Mark]

Because if you think. If you think about it, it's like there's very few people that are going to know the historical scholarship of it, but there's going to be a lot of people who know the pop culture of it.

[Patrick]

Right.

[Mark]

So it's just kind of like, what is that intersection in thinking about what is imprinted for most and what is known to few.

[Patrick]

I love that intersection for all the disciplinary silos that institutions have and our commitments to our own methods, which are often distinct. It's a magical moment. And it's also, I think, inevitable that we draw these connections, especially with literature and with philosophy, which you also do.

[Mark]

I mean, it's basically it's just like thinking about, like, E.O. wilson's concept of consilience. It's like, how do all these different disciplines in the humanities connect? I mean, he was thinking about it more like physical science, social science and humanities, like, all of those things connecting to me. It's like, how to. Because oftentimes it's like, what people make fun of me in my career is like, you're really good at analogies. Well, strategy is essentially analogies. It's like, I joke around, like, strategy is a department of analogies, while creative is the Department of Metaphors.

[Patrick]

I like it. So it's very Kafkaes. Also the Department of Metaphors.

[Mark]

That's pretty cool. What are we doing? We're the Department of Analogies. What are they that are the Department

[Patrick]

of Metaphors or Monty Python Or Monty Python? Right.

[Mark]

Well, I mean, why did I read Proust? Because a teacher inspired it? No, Monty Python did.

[Patrick]

So speaking of external influences, you know, on. On the idea of strategy, I recently saw. Actually, a couple days ago, you reposted this. This very interesting post by Martin Weigel, who published a book which is called Strategies of Verb. And I'm gonna read it because I think it gets to the core of some of the things that we're just thinking about right now. He said strategy is a verb. No formulas, frameworks or hacks, no five secrets or awesome iconic brands I've ever worked on. Nonsense. Equal parts kindling and kerosene and an articulation of the mental posture. Strategy demands imagination over optimization. Exactly what you were saying. Judgment over process, conviction over compliance. And of course he wants to buy the book. And I think I will because it resonates so much with the things that just feel right. Like if there were a formula, a strict formula that you can learn in business school without imagination, without all that fuzzy stuff, then everybody would be using it, right? Yeah.

[Mark]

I mean, I think that first, I can't say enough, like, complimentary things about Martin Weigel. He's fantastic. We're friends. He's terrific. I think that one of the things. I was the worst one on the math team. So it's like I took differential equations in high school and it also let me know that I should probably not major in math or anything like that. So one of the things that I learned, it's like all linear differential equations, they've been solved while almost all non linear differential equations have not been solved. How does life work? Like a nonlinear differential equation. So it's just kind of like, I think like one of the things that we suffer in our industry, and I'll say like advertising or marketing, is the delusion of certainty. Because I think like we have. We have gotten really good at the numeric value of things, but we have gotten worse at the shape of things. In history, it's like kind of. That's the difference between history and sociology. History understands that it could only understand the shape of things, while sociology tries to turn that into certainties.

[Patrick]

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[Patrick]

terms It resonates very much as I as I think more and more about history as a type of quantum physics. And apparently I'm not the only one. So that's very reassuring about where this is going to go in the age of AI especially. Can you talk about what research means to you? And, and I'm asking also because I know for a fact that you have strong opinions on methodology and the differences between academic and market research. In one of your posts you wrote that rarely is research illuminating. There are exceptions to every rule. But I can count on one hand the times I've been a part of research that I would label insightful. And the reason it was insightful was less the technique and more the intellectual horsepower of the researchers. Can you elaborate? Sure.

[Mark]

So basically where that comes from is think about Da Vinci. Da Vinci put people into three categories. Those that see, those that could be made to see, and those that will never see. And what I do is like, look, I'm not going to kid myself that I see as well as da Vinci, but I'm going to try to read, I'm going to try to read books that are at that level so that I can see better. So research is there to illuminate things regardless of like what methodology. But market research, let's. Market research doesn't have that many people who see that, that. Well, it's kind of the same thing. Like when I was talking about like the sociology class, of course that makes sense. But then when you have like a professor that's like smarter than you, it's like, oh my God, I never thought about it that way. That's illuminating. So it was rarely that I found in market research people with that kind of intellectual horsepower that are going to be illuminated. Now some methodologies are more illuminating than others because I have a bias towards the shape of things and that would be like, say, like semiotics or metaphor elicitation and, and stuff like that. But more often than not, the practitioners who specialize in semiotics or metaphor elicitation have more intellectual horsepower. Mm. It's like, I don't think it's a coincidence, but all the times that I've like had people with that, you know, unusual intellectual horsepower, it's been really illuminating. But I think it's also kind of like business sometimes is not ready for that kind of illumination because there's kind of like, there's that cliff in business. It's like not that many people in business are weird smart. Well, most people in academia that you know about, they're weird smart. So there's always this kind of like chasm of understanding. So it's always been kind of my job to bridge like what is up here on the academic mountain, to basically bring it down to business.

[Patrick]

This is awesome. I think we're fellow travelers here. And this is exactly what I'm hearing and seeing in terms of comparing training in business schools and training in academia. In academia, being weird or weird smart is kind of part of the job almost. Right. And maybe it's not so much on the other side of the fence, which brings certain stability and frameworks and linearity, which can also be useful for part of that path.

[Mark]

Yeah, exactly. It's like, basically it's like an MBA pedagogy teaches you about certainty. It's like, kind of like it. But I think that few people have that philosophical notion of, well, of course the linear differential equations have been solved, but most things that we deal with are non linear differential equations, especially in marketing and advertising, because you're dealing with human beings rather than machines or supply chains.

[Patrick]

So what are some of the, maybe one or two biggest base questions they've always tried to answer as a brand strategist for in recent years?

[Mark]

I think it's an intersection of like, what is the brand about and what is the consumer think and need from you? Because those are sometimes, those are, those are sometimes different. Because I think that sometimes you need to ask. It's like, okay, as a brand, who do you want to become and how do you, how do you get there? This is back to like my Soviet roots. It's like, you know, it's like when I first interviewed for a job like an app with the person who is a history major, it's like, you know, advertising is the closest that you come to propaganda, right? In this country.

[Patrick]

The Soviet Union was a big advertising project.

[Mark]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, every, every nation state is a big propaganda project. And so it's like, to me, it's always been that kind of like intersection. It's like, I know that, I know that it's like propaganda. And so what does that mean? One of my pet peeds is I hate it when somebody says, what can we own? It's, it's like when I was, this is a long time ago when, you know, when I had a dating profile and you know, it was like one of those. I kind of like more of a dating profile, like for intellectuals. So I said like, what are my, One of my favorite books? I put this Land Is My Land by Joseph Stalin. And I mean, if you know, you

[Patrick]

know, and if you know, you know,

[Mark]

and if you don't, whatever, keep going. And so if you think about it, it's what do you want to own? Because ultimately it's like Stalin wasn't worried about what you thought. He was worried about the propaganda that can get you to think something else. So it's just like a brand always has to take into account that it is a propaganda vehicle, but it also has to take into account what is public opinion.

[Patrick]

Okay, so I understand better now about the, the questions you're pursuing and you gave examples of some, you know, like with Jello, about how you translate some of these insights into actual strategic insights. Could you talk about day to day working with people who aren't like you in these spaces who complement your skill sets and your, your, your, you know, thinking angles that you have to convince them. Well, I'm, I actually, I think I'm onto something. You know, what, how do you tell them this, what reactions you get? And also like, do you, do you write reports? Yeah, yeah. Do you have meetings where you.

[Mark]

Yeah, there's a lot of ducks. There's a lot of, There's a lot of, there's a lot of meetings. But ultimately it's, there's only going to be so many people that can deal with the raw insight or the raw thinking. It's like that's, that untranslated. It's like, all right, we're at the mountaintop and we're not translating. Okay, then, then what happens is there's an element of translation that has to happen. It's like the way that I, the way that I look at it, it's like strategy is part thinking but also a big part translation. I'll give you an example. Every org or every function, every discipline, like creatives have their own language account people like, you know, the, the, the quote unquote business suits. If you've ever watched like Mad Men, it's like, you know, the account people that are in charge of the relationship. They have their own way of thinking. It's like the strategists have their own way of thinking. But I firmly believe that strategy is in charge of translating. And what do I mean by translating? Remember like when you were in high school for chemistry and you had like, here's grams, here's moles, here's avogadro's number. Nobody knows what avogadro. Nobody knows what a mole is, but they know what a gram is. So your job is to know Avogadro's number is to know what a mole is so that you can translate everybody's org to a gram.

[Patrick]

So. So you really. Yeah, I like the idea of translation and all this. That's something that I think doesn't often come up as well in conversations about the value of history where communication plays such a role and. Yeah, okay, so I think that this would be actually a good moment for me to ask about this big question and very cool answer that you had for me about the role of history. You're at a cocktail party and somebody's asking you, so how does history help with business? And you have a great answer. Can you share that?

[Mark]

Sure. I mean, the way that history helps is that history brings clarity. And the reason that it brings clarity because we always hear in the media and it's a ratings driven media and makes sense. This is unprecedented. There's very, very few things that are unprecedented. And the overall sinusoidal pattern of history, it's kind of like this is me being, being a door. It's like, you know, like Tarkovsky's movie, like Ivan Ruble. So the bell. The bell. Bell maker.

[Patrick]

Yeah.

[Mark]

So like, what is that whole thing? That is the continuity of time. It's like whatever is happening now happened before and will happen and will happen again. So it's like, that's one of my principal, like, philosophies. If something's really unprecedented, fine, I will treat it as such. But that's such an edge case that when you tell, like, here's kind of a thing, like everybody's worried about, like, AI, of course. Or you can think about like Robert Gordon's Rise and Fall of American Growth and how he talks about the special century between 1870 and 1970. So does that mean we might be on the precipice of the next special century? And are we in that, like, you know, that J curve of like, hey, 1880 electricity, 1920, you start seeing it in the productivity. So yeah, we're probably on that J curve of like before we have like Full AI infrastructure. But where is it headed? It's headed there. We're thinking about like social media. It's like I did a thought leadership piece from like looking at information technology revolutions from Socrates to social media. And so there's always a period of digestion. It's, it's like everybody, every scholar during the printing press complain about information overload, right? It's like what's happened? But the beauty of the printing press is that before that knowledge evaporated, you know, and then after the printing press knowledge accumulated. But what people forget is everybody skips to the Enlightenment. But people forget. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There was the Reformation.

[Patrick]

I can see how based on what you just said, you know, this idea of bringing order out of chaos would make sense because essentially it seems like brand strategies, but observation of trends. And if you can tap into this other dimension that history brings, then it gives you room to extrapolate from so many different things.

[Mark]

Right, exactly. It gives you much more room to maneuver rather than. It's like history provides continuity. It's like advertising too often functions as a snapshot. And I think that if you don't see the continuity, you don't fully understand the snapshot.

[Patrick]

That makes sense. I'm reading one of your posts here and I think that historical and sociological analysis can help you with this very granular segmentation that brands need. That companies thinking through categories. Here's, here's a snippet from one of your posts where you write that the downer elite, downward, excuse me, the downward downward elite term most prevalent and right wing think tanks to smear socialist leaning voters is going to be more prevalent group to target for marketers. What will they hold onto as class signifiers? What will they cut down on as economists start to buy? And you often go back to these categories, you go back in time to think about what's happened, what hasn't happened.

[Mark]

It's just, it's just basically it's like, look, I've, I've been obsessed with history and I guess I've been obsessed with social class just like any other good communist. So, so, so it, so it's just like. But I think that if we ignore history and if we ignore social class, we're not really doing our jobs as marketers. We're doing our jobs and upholding a mythology that lasted like in the 50s, 60s and part of the 70s.

[Patrick]

Yeah. So how do you test your ideas?

[Mark]

I mean, I mean we, I mean the marketplace is a test. If it doesn't have to go through like you Know, creative testing, but it's like, it's like qualitative. I enjoy more because you. You understand more of the why. But there's other. So my first job was at Millward Brown. They're Kantar now. And so one of their tools is linked. And lingq basically tests is like a predictive score of how effective this piece of advertising is going to be in the market. So it's kind of link is the beauty of it is extremely standardized. And one of the things that drives the formula for the score is do people understand the key message?

[Patrick]

Okay, and are these focus groups or is it completely.

[Mark]

This is. This is quantitative. This is quantitative. It's like usually like 150, 200n.

[Commercial Announcer]

It's.

[Mark]

It's. It's like, basically it's like link is. Link is one of those, like, standard procedures for a lot of top brands.

[Patrick]

Okay, but. But it's real people feeding some. It's real people. Okay.

[Mark]

Yeah, it's real people, like feeding quantitative. It's not synthetic. It's like, it's. It's real people. I mean, this was way before synthetic, synthetic research. And what I learned is, okay, since I know the formula, I know how to game this formula, and the only way that you gain something that is so standardized is. Is like there was key message and then there's the key message net. So this is like, you know, I thought about being a lawyer. So this is when the lawyer and me turned up and I said, okay, what are. Because I know that you get three or four things that are close enough to the key message. So you fight like hell for what those three or four things are, because the overall formula matters, what your key message net is. So you can have the key message, and then you have, like, things that are close enough, and you fight tooth and nail over the things that are close enough to get a higher score.

[Patrick]

So you've. You've got enough quant to make this work, which is great.

[Mark]

Well, yeah, I was the worst one. It's like this. I was the worst one on the math team. So it's just. So it's just I kind of like, I can, I can, I can do the quant. It's just that I've never been able to speak in the language of math. I can read the language of math, but I can't write in the language of math.

[Patrick]

And so it would tell you. Also this, this link system would tell you. Would reveal whenever you would be wrong. So when you had something off, it would.

[Mark]

It would let you know. It's like, I know, you know, it's like I'm, I'm a big believer. It's, it's like the way that I was taught in the beginning was if creative, it's like one of the things that strategy does is it delivers a creative brief, which is basically like, you know, kind of like, hey, here's your instructions for what we need this campaign to be about. And I was always taught, if creative beats the brief, you change the brief. It's like I don't really get attached to my strategies. It's like I might get attached more to like a historical, like, perspective, but I don't get attached to, attached to my strategies because that's just not the way the best work is made. Because all of it is kind of like a conversation because, you know, you're playing in a nonlinear space.

[Patrick]

You mentioned a few minutes ago AI, and this is a topic for every conversation now. And it's good because it's so evolving. So on the one hand, in some of your posts, you talk about it as an echo of the industrial revolution, which is interesting. And it's a rather common way of thinking about this. I'm also thinking, okay, what about maybe it's a little bit like Empire in the sense that it's a part of every conversation that people had in the 19th century. So on the cultural level, it feels like, oh, what's going on with the colonies? What do you think of AI? Everybody's asking this, right? So I'm curious to know, you know, how does the perspective, the historical perspective on AI change your work? And also I'm kind of interested in like the technicalities of your work in advertising. How does that shape your day to day activities?

[Mark]

Well, I can answer the day to day activities, then I'll answer the perspective. Okay, the day to day activities. It's a great thought partner. I mean, it is a fantastic thought partner. It's just like, it's a great synthesizer, it's a great reconciler. I have found that you need to go through the initial friction of getting to a rough draft. I think one of the things that people make a mistake is that they don't go through the friction of a rough draft and then start using AI and that leads to brain rot. I agree, but if you've gone through the initial friction of a rough draft, you will then be able to really polish in advance with AI and the other thing, it's like, I keep those chat threads open. It's like, because it works just like, you know, like a search Engine does, the more that goes through it, the better that it gets. So then it understands you, it knows your style and everything like that. And the other thing that I've learned with AI, it's like, you can go, hey, that's not good enough. And it will do something better. And it's just like, hey, can you talk to me like an Ivy League professor? It will do that. You know, can you. It's like one of. One of the. And also it's like, you think about, like, the translation thing. What I wanted to do, like, one time was I forgot, like, what science series does this? They go, hey, explain quantum physics to an elementary school person. Explain it to a high school kid. Explain it to a college person. Explain it to, you know, a physics peer. So essentially, AI is great at, let's say, like, hey, you're on the mountaintop of semiotics. How do I translate this to say it to somebody who's in junior high? So how do you. How do you, like, basically make it simpler? So it's like, AI is great at

[Patrick]

doing that, at explaining things. Yeah.

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[Patrick]

Okay, and so what about this, this other aspect of AI, the analogous resonances with some, you know, past. Past centuries. How does it philosophically impact your.

[Mark]

All right, well, you're the history professor, so I'm going to. I'm going to give you the longer thing that I've been thinking about. So let's think about, like, AI in the same way. Like the printing press. So the printing press, whatever. 1440, what is that analogous to? That's analogous to, let's say, the first email sent. And I can't remember if it's between if Berkeley sent the email or Stanford sent the email, but it was like, in 1969. And so that's like 1440. And let's think about, like, 1848. Why am I stopping at 1848? Because that's when, you know, we officially went from feudalism to capitalism, you know, so it's just kind of like, what in 2100 do we go to post scarcity? Is that kind of like the arc? Because I think, like, where AI is ultimately leading us is to post scarcity. But I'm not under any delusion that it's going to be a rough road to getting to post scarcity. Because you're going to have the same kind of like J curve of like, huh, there's no increase in productivity. What is this? And then all of a sudden it's going to go. But I've also, here's me being a dork, the math team thing, it's like, what is the pace of history now? It's like if, let's say, let's say like 1440 to 1848, make the math easy, it's 400 years. So does that mean, you know, this 1969 journey, is this going to be a hundred year journey? Is this a 200 year journey? Is this a 400 year journey? And to me it's like, I've worked with like AI. It's kind of like we've, we've come up with like, depending on what it is, it's a 2 to 6x faster factor. So let's just like split the difference and kind of go whatever. We're at four.

[Patrick]

That's.

[Mark]

So it's like, what's going to happen over the next hundred years between like, let's say 1969 to 2069? Do we get to post scarcity though?

[Patrick]

I like it. It's not just about change, structural change, qualitative change, but also change of speed.

[Mark]

Yeah, it's change of speed because it's like what I started, like feeding the AI is like kind of like the classic like Yuval Harari construction. It's like hey, 1330 to 70,000, that was like prehistory, you know, 10,000, that was agriculture. And then 500 is like scientific revolution. So you can even kind of start doing pace factors there. And so it's like I fed that into AI and then we started coming up with like, all right, that makes sense that it's like 3 or 4x faster.

[Patrick]

Now. Does that inside influence how you think about your own industry? Advertising, which I saw that you see it somewhere on a declining path or declining path of prestige rather maybe.

[Mark]

I think it's a declining path of prestige. And I think that ultimately AI is an amazing synthesizer, but I don't think that AI is at an elite level of synthesization, of human synthesization. It's already at a, you know, average layer of like synthesization. Some of it's actually like amazing. But I think that the smarter people that you get into an industry, the better synthesis that they can do. And, and ultimately it's like advertising used to have a lot of prestige until like the 90s, you know, when holding companies came in and it became like more financial instruments. If you think about like, you know, like you read like David Halberstam's the 50s, it's like, what was, what was the contract in the 50s? It's like, hey, you were really clever in high school. Why don't you go do this and be clever here? And so you had much more of a revolving door between, let's say Hollywood or people who wrote for the New Yorker were in advertising. Now there's a bigger and bigger chasm between the two. But we've never needed more higher order thinking. Because if AI can do the lower order thinking, it's like, great, you get to do the higher order thinking. But to what extent are you capable of doing higher order thinking?

[Patrick]

And that, and that's possible to measure, I suppose. But I think the institutions for that you function as the conveyor belts from one place to another aren't necessarily there yet for that new.

[Mark]

Well, they used to be. It's just kind of like before you had more people from top schools who majored in the humanities. Now what you have is more specialization. What do you mean you didn't major in advertising? I remember in the beginning of my career, people would go, it's like, what do you mean you didn't major in advertising or marketing? I'm like, okay, let me, let me think about this. Who do you think smarter, Plato or Peter Drucker? And then like, some people would go, well, Peter Drucker is amazing. I'm not arguing about Peter Drucker, whether he, whether you think he's amazing or not. I'm saying Plato versus Peter Drucker. And then if people get that intuitively, fine, we're going to be friends. If you still think that Peter Drucker, like, is, you know, equivalent to Plato, maybe we're not going to find as much common ground, but I'll figure out how to translate things for you.

[Patrick]

So having, having worked in, you know, in advertising for 20 years and, and having had major roles in big tech firms, what do you think is the most surprising to most people? What, what insight that you have about the world will be most surprising to most people based on your work at this interconnection between technology and culture and mass consumer.

[Mark]

I don't know if this is surprising, but I think that it's one of those things that could be surprising from the outside in is that we're still fallible human beings. It's like, if you think about kind of like I remember before I entered the industry and a lot of things that people would say it's like, you know, don't. Don't put Fortune 100 brands into your book. Into, like, you know, for, like, copywriting. It's like, only the best people in the world get to. Get to. Get to. Get to work on it. And I met those people, and they're just. They're just regular people.

[Patrick]

Like.

[Mark]

Like. I know.

[Patrick]

Or.

[Mark]

Or something like this. So I think that advertising does a great job of putting things on a pedestal for the exterior perspective.

[Patrick]

Interesting.

[Mark]

But essentially, like, once you pierce that veil, you realize that we're all just human beings like anybody else.

[Patrick]

That's very platonic, by the way, isn't it? Like, this is the Republic in some ways.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Patrick]

Yeah.

[Mark]

It's just kind of like once you pierce that veil, once you're inside the veil, you understand that it's just normal people. But to keep it as an aspirational industry, if you're outside of that veil, you have to be thought of as magical.

[Patrick]

Yeah, I like that. Go back to magic. It's everywhere. Okay, so you have a new show. I don't know if I can call it a show.

[Mark]

It is kind of. It's old take, so it's bringing all the strands together.

[Patrick]

The formal name is actually Old Takes

[Mark]

because, I mean, it actually started from that thought leadership thing because the name of that thing from Socrates is social media. It's like everything new is old.

[Patrick]

Okay. And.

[Mark]

And so it's just bringing back all the strands that have always been a part of who I am. It's history, it's comedy, it's cultural analysis.

[Patrick]

I was going to say. Yeah, that's what you say in the. In the intro. In the intro video that you. You have these different things going on and you get to do all of them in all takes.

[Mark]

Yeah. So all takes, like, brings. Brings. All of it. All of it together. And it's so much fun to perform, and it's so much fun to do, to do the research.

[Patrick]

I watched the first episode. It was on Lux Muxmarine, where you make a very interesting and compelling case that I think may not be obvious to everyone that Lux Maxine is not old at all.

[Mark]

No, it's like. It's like people used to be fencing and carving each other's faces so they can go. It's like, look, I did manly things. Great. Now you can command an army.

[Patrick]

Awesome.

[Mark]

Go ahead, go for it.

[Patrick]

I think it's pretty cool that you're doing this. It's really funny. And I think it also has a pop culture historical value that I feel like our age needs. Because there are so many people who thinks that they're basically inventing the wheel. And I feel like history itself, and maybe humanities have a kind of communication problem in. In how they appear in popular culture. I feel like we need something that is equivalent to maybe Indiana, what Indiana Jones did for anthropo, you know, for archeology. For archeology. Thank you. For archaeology. But. But shorter now because people have shorter attention spans, but just as funny. And I think that, you know, like. Yeah, this. This is. This is really cool.

[Mark]

It's. It's. I think it's. It's ultimately. I mean, this is. This was in, like, one of those completely conscious things, but this is another element of translation. Because if you think about it, it's like, humanities is really good at talking to peers. It's really good at talking to peers. It's like, oh, okay, you know, the language. I don't have to, like, dumb anything down. Humanities is really not good at talking to one click down. Because it's like, oh, that's too brainy. I don't know what you're talking about. And I've always. I mean, this. I'm biased, of course. It's like, humor makes the medicine go down.

[Patrick]

Oh, absolutely.

[Mark]

It's. It's like one of the elements of that show is like, there's gotta be one, like, guffaw. There's gotta be like one real, real laugh rather than a chuckle. So it's like that kind of. That kind of like, starts out, like, you know, in the beginning of the episode, but there's also some serious history behind it. It's just delivered in a way that is not often delivered in that style.

[Patrick]

In that style. And so there's a. There's a form of translation and there's. There's a. It's a nice doorway to something, to a topic that people can then pursue in any way they want.

[Mark]

Exactly. It's like all of a sudden they're like, I never heard about. Who are these macaronis? It's like, it's like it. All of a sudden, it's like, I remember. And I'm sure. Sure you do as well. It's like there was a few history teachers that were really great performers, and they made more of an impression than most.

[Patrick]

Absolutely. Yeah. And so are you. Are you promoting the show and where. And also, how long do you think you want to. You want to. You want to do this? You have six episodes in the works, I believe.

[Mark]

We're going to. We're going to, we're going to keep going. Because it's like, it's. I. I mean, the way it's like, some of my friends are extremely harsh critics, and if they're saying that this is pretty good, I'm going to. I'm going to. And it's like, I'm an extremely harsh critter. And so it's like I sent. I sent the looksmaxing episode to my wife, and I'm like, I'm not embarrassed by this, which is a good sign. So it's just like, to me, it's, it's also just. It's like I remember, like, going to, like, you know, I remember my 40th birthday party. I remember my friends, like, 40th birthday parties. And there's a big difference between 40 and 50. It's like what I joked around with. There was a lot of people, like, from this is when I work in an agency, and a lot of people from my team, like, showed up and so they would ask, it's like, you know, they were all under 40. They would ask. It's like, so how does it feel to turn 40? Well, we've run out of Runway. This thing's got to take off. And when I went to, like, my first, like, 50 year old, like, party, this is before I was 50. It's like, oh, this is who I am. This is where I've arrived in life. And so there's a different perspective that you bring to this show. It's just like, this is how I've always been. I mean, I've always. I've always loved comedy. I've always loved history, and I've always loved culture. So this is just basically putting them all together. And I'm working with, you know, with the producers. Fantastic. And we're working with the editor and camera person from Subway things. So it's like, it's like the way that I look at myself, it's like, because I played basketball seriously until my basketball dream died in eighth grade. I'm a short, you know, it's like I joke around. It's like I was the player who played it, like Duke, who was like, you know, sixth or seventh man who got a job in investment banking rather than play pro overseas. And now is like, basically it's like, huh, I want to see if I still got it.

[Patrick]

That's really cool. I love it as a moment in your personal journey of self recognition and self fulfillment. It's a wonderful moment. Other than adding value to, like, you know, the popular understanding and Exposure to history. It's, it's great.

[Mark]

I, I mean, look, I, I know this about myself now. It's like if I, I was, I grew up working class, I mean, classic immigrants stepped down. And it's like if I was born rich, tried to be a history professor, you know, I'd, I'd teach in some like, rural setting. And it's like I just want to read my books and leave me alone. You know, it's like I, I can always visit luxury. If I was born upper middle class, I'd be a comedian because I would still need that striving, but I would have that parental safety net and also probably the parental connections to do it. But I grew up working class and advertising was the easiest growth.

[Patrick]

And it's intellectual stimulating, obviously, because brands

[Mark]

are a great canvas for thinking.

[Patrick]

So I have a couple of concluding points. Questions. One of them is a little self interested, but here it goes. Essentially, history departments everywhere are, and humanities departments are scrambling to get more students with your insights into history and passion for history and expertise in marketing. How would you go about marketing a history department today? Because my gut feeling is that we can all do what we've been doing for the last X number of decades.

[Mark]

I think that his history is one of the best things for basically finding the clarity amidst the chaos. And I think that it's a great major for that. I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, it's great for any professional environment because ultimately what mo. What mostly happens, it's like, oh my God. Oh my God. This is unprecedented. What's going on? How do we, how do we deal with this? Nothing is unprecedented. So ultimately, I think the historian has a great ability to be that one, that voice of calm and also that voice of clarity and moving forward. Because the more that you know what happened before, the more that you can guide people on what should happen next.

[Patrick]

Excellent. I love it. Yeah. So this is, this is a, we're revisiting the, the, the sort of credo we talked about, but now we're applying it to, to actual, trying to transmit it to the wider world from, from the departments themselves.

[Mark]

And, and I, and I think that it's like, look, I understand within the academia why you, within the academy and why you chose to be in the academy. You want to talk to each other as peers, but depending on what stages you are, figure out what that translation is. What's that version of like history and pop culture that allows the medicine to go down?

[Patrick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I completely Agree. And my last question. What advice would you give to a soon to be history undergraduate, or maybe a present day history undergraduate wants to go into advertising? How would you describe the most valuable skill or maybe even strategy to get that?

[Mark]

I think the most valuable skill is. I mean, I don't know anybody who's really good at what they do that didn't love trying to do it. It's like, I loved ads when I was a kid. I don't know what it was, but I love them. And so I said to, you know, I said to my parents, and they're like, oh, no, why doesn't he want to be a lawyer? Why can't you just be a lawyer? You know? So it's just basically, it's like, I love dads and I wanted to make them, and so I got to do that for a living. And I met wonderful people along, along the way. And I think that for every, like, history major who doesn't want to go to law school, they should think about advertising. Because advertising gets to bring all of those things that you've thought about doing, whether it was law, whether it was history, whether it was maybe you got the creativity bug. It's like, there's a lot of lawyers who wanted to be writers. And so it's like advertising is a great canvas for what you've learned. And it's a great way of. You know, when I joke around, it's like, strategy is the analogy department. History just gives you more analogies to choose from.

[Patrick]

Mm, I love it. Great. Well, Mark, it's been a great conversation. Thank you very much for your time.

[Mark]

No, thank you, Patrick. This has been wonderful.

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