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- [00:00]
Jim Stengel
Hey, everyone. Jim here. And I've got some exciting news. The CMO Podcast is now on YouTube. You can now watch our conversations, not just listen. See the expressions, the energy, and the insights that happen when we sit down with the world's top marketing leaders. Head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel, the CMO Podcast. So you never miss an episode and be part of the community. So please check it out, subscribe and join the conversation. What if the smartest marketing play is not to move forward, but to zoom out? Deloitte believes the most powerful move a CMO can make is to look beyond the next step and see the broader perspective. That's what the Deloitte CMO program is for. A place to gain fresh perspective and connect with leaders who've stood where you stand together. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture. So your next move isn't just fast, but right. Learn more about the CMO program@cmo.delloitte.com hi, everyone, it's Jim. I have Matt Spiegel of TransUnion with me. Matt, I want to start with, what.
- [00:59]
Tim Ellis
Do you love about your job?
- [01:00]
Matt Spiegel
Yeah, it's a great question, Jim.
- [01:02]
Tim Ellis
You know what? I love the fact that I get.
- [01:03]
Matt Spiegel
To be out at events and conferences and working with clients to really think about how marketers solve problems that matter at scale. The job of a marketer is as challenging as ever, and we get to do some interesting things to make their job easier.
- [01:16]
Jim Stengel
When you work with a client, where do you get the most satisfaction?
- [01:19]
Tim Ellis
You know what I think?
- [01:20]
Matt Spiegel
Seeing ideas come to reality, we ultimately are an enable of great marketing. So we don't do creative, we don't do media planning. We provide the data, the insights, the measurement tools that make great marketing possible. So when we get to see the end product, sometimes later, it's really cool to see.
- [01:34]
Jim Stengel
Well, super to have you here. Super to be a partner. Thanks for joining us today.
- [01:37]
Matt Spiegel
Thank you, Jim.
- [01:38]
Jim Stengel
So if you want to turn data into understanding and understanding into growth, visit transunion.com clarity hi, everyone, it's Jim. I'm here with Matt Spiegel, EVP of True Audience Growth Strategy at TransUnion. Matt, you've spent your career helping marketers understand people through data, and. And that's harder and more important now than ever.
- [01:56]
Matt Spiegel
It really is, Jim. There's really just so much information out there, and unfortunately, it's often disconnected. Marketers typically see fragments, you know, maybe a purchase here or a click there, but what they really need is clarity. True full picture of who their customers are and ultimately how to reach them.
- [02:11]
Jim Stengel
Well, tell me how your solution strategy comes in and helps CMOs and their teams bring clarity to chaos.
- [02:18]
Matt Spiegel
Well, Jim, we ultimately do that with a 360 view of the customer. And so it's about ultimately combining data, truly trusted data, identity resolution, which is a deep analytical problem, and measurement that actually helps understand performance. So ultimately, we work hard to help marketers move faster, to deepen their insights, and to ultimately make every dollar work harder. We believe strongly that when you truly understand your audience, you can build a real brand and real relationships with customers that last.
- [02:45]
Jim Stengel
Where were you when I was a cmo? I don't know how to answer that. Learn more@transunion.com clarity that's transunion.com clarity what's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young boy?
- [02:57]
Tim Ellis
Does anybody remember Alka Seltzer, Plop Plop Fizz Fizz?
- [03:01]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, I hope so.
- [03:02]
Tim Ellis
Like, I can't believe I ate the whole thing, right? Like, man, seeing that guy with that huge belly when his wife's trying to sleep and him sitting over there, like, staring out at the void saying, I can't believe I ate the whole thing. God, I'll never forget that because it was just like, you know, understanding the value of that product and understanding, like, how a customer feels, right? And what it means. That to me was like. It's also funny as hell.
- [03:31]
Jim Stengel
Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling, and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go. We're deep in the red zone of the NFL season. The playoffs are down to four teams, with the super bowl just a few weeks away. And the NFL isn't just the most valuable sports league in the world. It's a cultural phenomenon. 95 of the top 100 TV shows last year were NFL games. And the league continues to be one of the most powerful brands in the world. My guest today is Tim Ellis, the chief marketing officer of the National Football League and one of the most creative and culturally connected marketers working today. Since joining the league in 2018, Tim has helped reshape how the NFL shows up. More humans, more inclusive, and more in touch with fans than ever before. And before the NFL, Tim led marketing at Activision Blizzard, turning Call of Duty into a global blockbuster. And at Volkswagen, where he created one of the most beloved super bowl ads of all time, the Force. Our conversation was recorded live at the ANA Masters of Marketing in Orlando, powered by TransUnion. So let's kick this one off. Here's Tim. Tim, welcome to the show. Finally. We've been trying to do this for a long time. We're doing it in Orlando at the Masters of Marketing. You're just off the stage at making a big speech and I caught the end of it and I heard you talk about believing in yourself, which we'll talk about in a minute. But I just want to set the stage for our audience. I talk to a lot of great brands on the show. Big leadership brands, right. Google, Qualcomm, P and G. You name them. I'm not sure we've ever talked to someone who's overseeing as unique, distinctive, and dominant in the category brand as yours. So I am so looking forward to how that happened because actually, 10, 12 years ago, it wasn't quite this way. There has been a lot of really interesting and positive change and I want to go there. But first, you just made a big speech in front of 2,000 plus people. So how did it go?
- [06:00]
Tim Ellis
It went great. The audience was amazing. They were very engaged marketers. Yeah, I mean, I, I, when I particularly, if it's a big audience like that, I do my best to be very personable and to say things that perhaps they don't expect me to say and to be a bit more relaxed and open and transparent than maybe they, they would imagine that the CMO of the NFL would be. And so that usually gets them kind of going with you. And I'm just, you know, I'm very honest about, about things, so. Sure. I mean, like all of us, you have to be careful about how you come across with certain more complex or more sensitive issues. But on the other hand, I think that's been one of my strengths over the years is just the honesty in the work and the honesty in how I approach the work. So anyway, so it was good. And I talked about the helmetsoft strategy, which is all about, you know, getting behind the players and who they are as people and not just athletes and what they care about. I talked about the importance of how we transcend our brand and we act as a force for good within the NFL. So we sort of have a two pronged strategy. The joy of the game, and then how we transcend the game as a force for good. And then we talked about the importance of our flag program, our creator program. We're doing amazing things right now with artists and with creators. We have a lot of exciting things going on around fashion, you know, with our, with our players and with some of our partners. And then, you know, our global expansion, that's the next big frontier for the NFL. So, yeah, we're, we're dominant in the US and we're, we don't take that lightly. And it's a massive responsibility when you have that kind of position. But on the other hand, you know, we have so much upside if we can figure out how to unlock the potential of, you know, NFL football internationally.
- [07:52]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, I mean, let's go there for just a minute. Every company at one point decides they want to go global. I was at P and G when we said we've got to go global, and we did. And we did it aggressively. I mean, you're already starting and it looks like it's succeeding. So where do you think it'll go?
- [08:08]
Tim Ellis
Well, listen, right now we're playing games in various parts around the world in.
- [08:13]
Jim Stengel
Australia next year, right?
- [08:14]
Tim Ellis
Yeah. So we've been in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Mexico City, been in several cities in Germany, and this year for the first time in Dublin, we've been in the uk. So we've, you know, we've, we've been in some pretty big markets in Europe, in central South America. But we're going to go, we're going to go to Australia, you know, next year. But here's the thing. Those are great catalysts for stimulating the market and getting them sort of interested in what's going on with NFL football. Right. But we absolutely can't stop there because we're never gonna, you know, we can't be the circus that comes to town. Right. We're never gonna truly grow fandom with any kind of scale if we don't really apply classic marketing principles and sort of really lean in and do all the things that you need to do to sort of culturally get people to think differently about you and want to engage and wanna understand your game. Because the reality is if you grew up with football in the United States, you kind of like, you know, you're probably born with like a terrible towel around you or, you know, like, you, you, you've been immersed in the sport your whole Life, you don't understand that you actually learned it right? Whereas when our international audiences, they see American football and they like think it's chaos. It's like, what, what are they doing? They keep stopping and starting, they jump together, they get par like they don't understand anything. And it's a very strategic game. So understanding how to unlock the basic principles of, you know, what the game is about and how to appreciate the game is also important. And we're using creators and ambassadors and we're doing all kinds of insight studies to really get behind that. So it's, it's kind of fascinating because I'm applying classic positioning strategies and sort of insight development strategies that I used to do for 19 years when I worked in global marketing for other companies.
- [10:08]
Jim Stengel
Now we're in the 25, 26 season. It is a crazy season, right? I mean, anything can happen. There are so many interesting games, so many great stories, such great drama. Now that's the NFL almost every year. But this year, like it's magnified. So what's going on? I mean, you can't totally control that, but I guess you can create the conditions for it, right?
- [10:31]
Tim Ellis
Well, I will say this. The fact that we're having these close games, you know, sort of high performing quarterbacks and running backs, the fact that, that a team can be in last place in their division in the next year, legitimately be a candidate to go to the super bowl, all that stuff is by no accident. It's not a coincidence. And I have such respect and I admire the teams we have at the NFL around football operations and Roger Goodell himself, the commissioner, because the way that they have been evolving the rules of the game and the salary cap and everything, it's unlike any other sport where you're literally are, you know, you may not have a good year, but the next year might be your year. In fact, we've even done campaigns around the draft, right? This could be our year. If we could only get that, that one player, that, those two players, we could go all the way this year. And fans know it, they believe it and they see it, they experience it, right? And so to me, I'm in awe of those guys. What they've done. It really, it comes from a place of understanding the game and wanting it to be competitive, knowing what fans love, like the kickoff rule, that we call it, the dynamic kickoff rule. Nobody was returning the ball, right? So they figured out a way to insert this new kick. And guess what? There's so much more action this year than we've ever had before on kickoff returns. And that's just all great for the fans and it's great for the teams and the players.
- [11:58]
Jim Stengel
I opened up the show by saying you have a unique brand and you really do. I want to share a few stats for our audience because, you know, all these. But the market cap of the NFL is about 230 billion and growing. I mean, that's the size of Goldman Sachs or Toyota. 95 of the top 100 broadcast last year in the US were NFL games. I love this one. The NFL accounts for about 4% of sports games, but has about half of all online sports consumption. And two of the top five super bowl ads last year according to USA Today's ad meter, were NFL ads. Geez.
- [12:31]
Tim Ellis
It's going well. It's going well. Well, actually, we were the only. As of last year, I think we were the only marketer to ever be in the top five. The ad meter. Three years in a row, which is.
- [12:41]
Jim Stengel
And multiple ads.
- [12:42]
Tim Ellis
Yes. Which is kind of cool. That's right. Listen, I think that the approach that we've done by partnering with players, you know, this helmisoft strategy that I that I referred to really has enabled sort of like strong bonds and ties and relationships between the fans and the players. Right. Also between, very importantly, between our ambassadors of the league. Right. So when I came on board, there was a lot of tension between the players in the league.
- [13:13]
Jim Stengel
And this is seven, eight years ago.
- [13:14]
Tim Ellis
This was seven. Yeah. Seven to eight years ago. There were lots of questions around the safety of the game. There was sort of predictions by the media that the NFL was a dinosaur going away.
- [13:25]
Jim Stengel
Oh, the ratings were down.
- [13:26]
Tim Ellis
Ratings were down.
- [13:28]
Jim Stengel
And so attendance in the stadiums was.
- [13:30]
Tim Ellis
Yeah, yeah, lots of things.
- [13:31]
Jim Stengel
It wasn't always this kind of brand.
- [13:33]
Tim Ellis
And Commissioner Goodell's very open about this now. There were some mistakes that were made in terms of how the NFL managed some of the very important protests that were going on with Colin Kaepernick and Kenny Stills and Eric Reed and many others. And so I think that it was a. You know, listen, I love the NFL. I grew up as a fan. And I'm also as a marketer. I love a big stage and I love a massive challenge. Right. And so for me, I rem telling my wife that when. When I was offered the job, like, this is either going to be the best decision I ever made or the definitely the worst. Right. And I'm like, but let's do it. Let's go for it. Because for me, like to go in and try to help navigate and manage the resurgence of the NFL brand was an incredible opportunity, right. And I was so excited and I knew exactly what I wanted to do the day I walked in the door. In fact, even in my interviews, I didn't pull anything back. I'm saying, like, here's what you need to do. And I just like laid the whole plan out. Which interestingly enough, while we've sort of deepened and broadened that strategy, the same strategy I put forth in my interview is what we're using today.
- [14:39]
Jim Stengel
Right.
- [14:40]
Tim Ellis
And we're just getting now the chances to, you know, do some of the things that we couldn't have done years before. But I think, you know, understanding the game, understanding the fans relationship with the game, understanding their passion, but then also understanding some of the more nuances and complexities around that relationship, some of the tensions that fans had with their teams and with the league and able to address those things and to bring in more fans who had never been fans before or were very, very casual fans. Because let's face it, there's like one in four fans only show up once a year to the super bowl. Okay, we still call them fans because they watch and they call themselves fans, right? But our opportunity is not, you know, just talk to these very core avid fans, is to understand the casual fans and how to bring them in and how to get them more interested and engaged with their favorite teams and players.
- [15:42]
Jim Stengel
We all want to stay ahead of the digital curve and iab, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, invites you to do just that at the 2026 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs on February 1st through 3rd. If you're a qualified consumer, brand or agency leader, you can access free passes and travel vouchers. And for everyone else, you can take $500 off your ticket with code all caps almcmopod26 this is your chance to join a 3 day gathering of the industry's brightest minds and boldest voices shaping the year ahead. You'll hear agenda setting conversations, candid fireside chats and dynamic breakouts on the topics that matter most, from AI and commerce media to measurement and addressability. This year's lineup includes everyone from Kevin Bacon and Bozema St John to Creator Remy Bader, along with leaders from Forbes, Major League Soccer, General Motors and Meta. Visit iab.comalm to learn more and check out the link in the show notes. To Register and receive $500 off your ticket, let's go back to that interview that you're having or interviews you were having before you took this job in 2017. 18.
- [16:55]
Tim Ellis
Yeah.
- [16:55]
Jim Stengel
You had conviction. You wanted to come in, and you had conviction. You knew what to do. Talk about that. How'd you form that? How'd you convey it in the interviews without being sort of a jerk?
- [17:05]
Tim Ellis
Well, interestingly enough, I was being interviewed for. I was a final candidate for another huge company. They were hesitating to make the final call on it. And so, you know, once you decide. I'd been at Activision for seven years, and once you decide that you're going to move, then, like, you want to move.
- [17:22]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, right.
- [17:22]
Tim Ellis
Right in your brain when you say, like, it's time to go. Like, okay, I want to go now. So I was. I was. This other company was a. You know, it was a good opportunity, and they had, I don't know, I think me and one or two other people, and they were kind of hesitating. I'm like, okay, I'm getting sick of this. If you're not going to make a decision. I asked the search company, what else you got? They said, well, I got this NFL thing. I'm like, wait, what do you mean, NFL thing? What?
- [17:45]
Jim Stengel
Why didn't we talk about this before?
- [17:47]
Tim Ellis
Why did. Why didn't you tell me this was like. They said, well, it's a CMO of the NFL. I'm like, holy crap. Do you have a job description? You know, and I like, I look at the job description, I'm like, are you crazy? This is me. Like, this is exactly my background, and I love the NFL. Like, why didn't you tell me about this? So I immediately told the search executive who was in charge of the search. I'm like, this is what you say about me, right? Let me position myself for you. And he went there, and he goes, oh, they really want to talk to you. I'm like, yes.
- [18:19]
Jim Stengel
Oh, shit. Yes.
- [18:20]
Tim Ellis
And so anyway, so listen, all my experiences around understanding how to attract youth, engage youth at Activision, my experience around how to build big brands and how to manage brands at Volkswagen and Volvo, those were all very meaningful to them. Also, interestingly enough, knowing how to work with constituents and partners like the studios and the car dealers and big retailer companies with the automotive industry, those were important to understand how to work with owners because each of them have their own businesses and their own brands. And so understanding how to, like, bring people together and focus and work. Work is one. And, you know, and focus properly on the. The biggest initiatives that will drive your company forward were very important to them as well. And then I just think. I mean, I didn't hold anything back. I'm like, you have to focus on the youth 100%. You, you cannot worry about the 35 plus, you know, white male. You're going to have them forever. Like, you have to bring in younger audiences. Because I could see in the data that they, year after year after year, for seven years in a row, they, they were losing that segment. They were not working at all. Work bringing in girls and women. Like, how do you do that? And again, repairing the tensions and earning back the respect of all of those entertainers and musicians and creators who had abandoned the NFL and didn't want to be close to them, they didn't want to even be near them because they thought that the whole relationship had become toxic. And so part of that was about earning back that respect and being consistent. And also talking to the commissioner and to the broader executive team about the importance of being open about mistakes being made, being open about, if I could go back and do things differently, I would. And essentially saying, hey, we're committed, we're going to do things differently from here on in. And then doing that, you know what I mean? Like, getting behind it and doing that on a consistent basis. So anyway, so all of those things, I think they were very taken by my passion and my honesty and my logic, quite frankly, because everything I recommended was grounded in data and grounded in good marketing logic. And at the end of the day, let's face it, creating big human high performing assets and campaigns also was part of it, right? Like, if you look at the campaigns that we have developed over the last seven years, they're not just creative and entertaining, they get you in the heart. Right? Like people today, when I was walking after I spoke, like, oh my God, you made me cry. I'm like, my own ads make me cry. Like, every time I see them, I cry. Like getting, you know, being able to do work which, you know, 72 and Sonny, our partner in this is amazing in the way that they do that. And I asked for it. Of course I work with them. I'm very collaborative on the creative side. I get involved on the creative side of things. And so I want things which touch people, which get them to feel something, which get them to think differently about it and not just sort of hit them with a rational argument in the head, but that really grab them by the heart and get them to sort of really think differently.
- [21:34]
Jim Stengel
Well, you've had creativity as a red thread in your whole career, which I think we'll probably get to in a bit. But I want you to Stay with this. What? In those thoughts and plans you had in your head and you conveyed in the interview when you joined, which one was the real, like, aha. Is it the youth? Is it the opening their arms wider?
- [21:54]
Tim Ellis
Yeah, I think that when. So like, listen, the first AD is amazing. So the first AD I got a chance to do was 100th celebration of the NFL. So at that time, they had never done an AD with players that had been more than, I don't know, four or five players at a time. And we were going to do this huge celebration for the 100 year anniversary of the NFL. But I wanted to not just look backwards, I wanted to look forward as well. So yes, I wanted to sort of embrace and celebrate the past with all these amazing legends, but I also wanted to sort of point toward the future. So that AD ended up being sort of basically the strategy that we've continued on the entire time that I've been here. But like, so when I went to the football operations team, I. I said, listen, I need 65 players. And they're like, wait, did you say six or five? Because that's a lot. I said, no, I said 65. And it was so audacious, the ask. The idea was so audacious that everyone started getting excited about it. And then I said, and I want two minutes. They didn't do two minutes. Like at most they did like a minute of an ad, right? Like, no, this is going to be awesome. And we had this great idea and. And I said, we're going to start by talking to Tom Brady and Dion. We're going to get the biggest legends ever. And then people are going to be begging to be in this ad. Right? Which is exactly what happened. And I say all that because then we inserted like the premier young woman's who was in tackle football. We put her in the ad as well. the very end, we took all of these creators and influencers from the gaming world and we put them in like Ninja at the time, who was huge at that time, we put him in the ad, right? And like the players who loved gaming, we connected them with Ninja in the ad. So we did all these things. And I say all that because it was the first time that we really put together football youth and sort of cultural, sort of magnetism. Right. And by bringing all that together, it.
- [23:56]
Jim Stengel
Was just magic and very symbolic of your direction, right?
- [24:00]
Tim Ellis
Completely. And it was okay. We had to say that too. It's like, it's okay if like all of the people don't know who Ninja is right. In fact, we even had fun with that. We had all these old guys from the Dolphins, from the original team, the unbeaten team, like, hey, Ninja's here, right? So we had Jim Brown, go, Ninja's here. Like, it was really fun. And we realized, like, okay, well, some of these guys aren't going to know who Jim Brown is, the younger people. But then it's going to create a conversation at home, like dad's going to. Or mom's going to talk about who these guys are, and the kids are going to tell them who these other young artists are and creators are. So anyway, it was just a great way to sort of bring people together. And a mantra of mine since I joined the NFL has always been like, how do we open our arms wider, as you said earlier, and how do we bring more people in? Football's for everyone, right? So let's not worry about whether we ruffle some feathers with some of our fans. Let's not worry if we bring in certain creators or certain messaging that might not be a cup of tea for all of our older, more established fans. They're still going to be fans, and we have to be willing to make some people uncomfortable in order to bring more people in and strengthen the brand and the fan base.
- [25:13]
Jim Stengel
Now, the culture of the NFL had to morph, evolve, shift to enable this to happen. So talk about that change, because it feels like a very different, I hate to say corporate culture, but organizational culture.
- [25:29]
Tim Ellis
Yeah, pretty. Pretty conservative. And then if you consider the owners and so forth in general, not, you know, not. Not everyone, of course, but in general. So I think that a couple things. One is, is that really Commissioner Goodell, you know, he's probably never going to listen to this podcast. So I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to please him, but he's been amazing in terms of him believing in modernizing the NFL. And he just allowed me to do the things I knew that were right. He wants to know the results. He wants to know what my performance indicators are, but he doesn't get involved with how I do it. He trusts me. And I've just, you know, I respect that trust and I've done lots. So he's gotten behind that quickly.
- [26:11]
Jim Stengel
How'd you earn that trust?
- [26:12]
Tim Ellis
You know, listen, I think that just for the. From the first time I met him again, when. Because he was my last interview, and when again, I laid out exactly what I thought was important, and he was just nodding his head the whole time, and. And he's just like, that's exactly what we need to do. And so I think that when he saw it all and then I, you know, listen, I brought the clubs along with me, so I found a way to sort of show them that we could bring all these things together, still stay true to our football roots, of who we were, but to actually add on things that we weren't. And then, quite frankly, I just showed them the data of how it was bringing in new fans and how it was a much more efficient, effective way to go to market. And all these guys are business people. They saw it. It might not have been what they would have done themselves. And they may not have liked everything that I was doing with my team, but they saw the results, and they saw the logic in it, and they're like, okay, this is good. So I think that that reinforced, right, that reinforced some of these things. By the same token, I was willing to do things that I knew was. Would not be embraced by, you know, a lot of the folks who were, you know, in important positions, let's put it that way, inside the NFL. I did an ad one or two years after I can't, you know, one or two years after I started. And the first line of the ad was, football is gay. And the reason I did that ad was because we had Carl Nassib, who came out as the first active player to be who was gay, and I wanted to celebrate him. And so I wanted to do an ad, like, on a dime. And so we did an all type ad with a really cool soundtrack. And the first line of the ad was, football is gay. And, man, when I first played that ad to lots of folks inside the building, you could have heard a pin drop. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody knew how to react. A lot of the players didn't like that ad either. But guess what? One in four people in this country identify with lgbtq, okay? And they were so taken by that ad and by that gesture, if you will, and by us opening our arms and speaking to them, that it made a huge impression on them and also made a huge impression amongst young people and girls and women. And it was one. I think it was one of the boldest, most courageous, but smartest things we ever did. And again, I tell you all that because you have to be willing to take risks, you have to be willing to fail, if you will, and to upset people in order to sort of really change the way people think and bring people in.
- [28:47]
Jim Stengel
Now, a big change has been the players. The helmet's off. You see more of them, you get to know them. They can be themselves, they can celebrate. I mean, to me, that's one of the most visible changes that I remember from 10 years ago or eight years ago. So talk about that change. I mean, they are the heroes, right? They're the people who are on the teams, and people come out to see, and they have great stories and they're amazing people. So talk about how that shifted and how you orchestrated that.
- [29:13]
Tim Ellis
Well, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the importance of trust and sort of having a vision that people can understand and get behind. I immediately went out to the players and began to establish that level of trust and, like, talk to them about the vision. So I. I just got the introductions to. I knew who were influential players, and I talked to them about, you know, what do you want? Like, how do you. How do you want to build your brand, right? What's important to you? What do you. What do you. What do you burn for? Like, what are your passions? And that could be anything, right? It could be cooking, could be art, could be gaming, whatever. And I legitimately then try to find opportunities for them to connect with their own audiences through our communication, right? And I did that on a consistent basis. I remember I had used, you know, a very successful player, DeAndre Hopkins. He's been in league a long time, and, I don't know, we had done, like, two or three things together in the last, you know, couple of years at that point. And I said, DeAndre, why do you always say yes? Why do you keep. Because, you know, you don't have to say yes. Why do you always say yes? Because, Tim, you make me look cool, and I'm like, okay, that's what you want. You know what I mean? It's just like, okay, he loves fashion, right? He loves design, right? So I knew the things that he loves, and I did my best to find opportunities to bring him in to do that. And obviously, I respect him and like him. I took the time to get to know him. And, you know, players talk. They talk to each other, like, you know, I may not like this one, but, like, this guy over here, I really like him, and here's why. And if you can trust these guys. And I think that we also started doing things, like, we'd bring together groups of players, and we would have deep dives in things again that they cared about. We would talk about how to connect on social media. What are the rules for building out your profiles and your audiences on social media? How not to get caught by somebody who's beginning to sort of ruffle your feathers or don't get caught because somebody's trolling you. How to stop from doing that. We brought in experts who could help them. We let them talk to each other and help each other, right? We talked about very sensitive, complex subjects like social justice and how do we do that together. So bringing in players and being open and transparent and vulnerable and allowing them to sort of be honest and even vent about things was important because it built trust. And so I think, listen, the work. I remember Bobby Wagner came in, he was shadowing Roger Goodell one day and we were talking about super bowl and should we continue to do these two minute ads and all that because they're very expensive and so forth. And Bobby was sitting there and he goes, well, you know, the NFL now, it's one of the brands that everyone looks forward to seeing what they're going to do this year. And all the players want to be in your ads because they know they're going to be awesome ads that'll make them look good, right? And I'm like, that's pretty simple. But it was huge. I'm like thinking like, thank you, Bobby. Thank you for coming here today and expressing that. I couldn't have said it better myself. So it just meant something, right? Because you know, he was expressing something that was, that was the result of a lot of work over a period of years that built up the respect and the expectations from players. And I can tell you, people ask me, you know, people think I have a dream job, I think I have a dream job. People say, well, what's the most, you know, what's the best part of your job? Like, it's working with the players. And that's not a bullshit answer. That's it. Like, it's working with the players, these guys. And let's face it, to get to the NFL, you gotta have a lot inside. Yes, you have to be a great athlete and you have to have amazing strength and speed, but you have to have something inside that gets you there, right? And so these human beings are incredible. They're very, very special and unique. I celebrate that. And I just want to make them be, you know, I want to make them be as big as stars and as successful as they have. Not just on the field, but off the field.
- [33:18]
Jim Stengel
Everyone seems to be chasing the next big thing, the fastest answer, the quickest win. But great CMOs believe the real power isn't in the speed. It's in stepping back to see the bigger picture. That's why everything Deloitte does in their CMO program, from their industry leading capabilities to their connected network of CMOs, is designed to help you zoom out and gain fresh perspective. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture together. Learn more about the CMO program@cmo.delloitte.com so it is a dream job. Yeah, right? People think it's a dream job. You say it's a dream job. You love it. It's obviously a great match for you. Tell us a little bit about what you do. I mean, I know it's all over the place, but kind of how do you approach the job? Where do you spend your time?
- [34:03]
Tim Ellis
Well, it's very important too that marketing people have a seat at the highest table in a company, right? So you're representing the fan, or in our case, the fan. You're representing your audience. You're representing things that you know will expand your business. Right? So I spend a lot of my time sitting with Roger and his direct reports and talking about the business. Sure, we talk about marketing, but we talk about a lot more than just marketing. We talk about the business. And I get, I have the opportunity. That's a huge responsibility. But I have the opportunity to weigh in on things that literally have nothing to do with marketing, but everything to do with our business and our game. Right? And I love that part about my job. And I'm very, very thankful and respectful for the opportunity I have to influence people. So that's part of my job. The other part of it is I get very involved with my team. I think one of my strengths is that I build great teams. I know how to bring in the right people, how they fit together, how they complement each other. I let them do their thing. I don't micromanage them. I bring in people who are great at their discipline, but who are also marketing athletes. And I also ensure that they're good, nice people. I don't hire any assholes. And if I somehow did, I get rid of them immediately because I definitely have a no asshole role in my group. Because I want everyone to get along and I want everyone to get along with the people who are not in marketing. I want them to be the best colleagues of everyone in the different groups across the NFL and on the teams.
- [35:36]
Jim Stengel
Right?
- [35:36]
Tim Ellis
And so I build great teams and I spend time with my teams. I spend time with not just my direct reports, but with the VPs and with the directors and with the managers. And sometimes I'll pick managers and coordinators to speak with me on panels and to do projects with me and so forth. So I want to know who my teams are. I also spend time with the agencies. I get very involved with the creative I at every stage of development. I mean, one of the most fun things we do with our biggest campaigns is I hang out with them in the editing suite and we like look at the edits and we talk and we go. And then when we do the audio, I'm there together with them and we're having a great time making awesome work. And to me, that's one of the reasons I got into the business in the first place. I think it's been a strength of mine. Even when I was on the agency side, I used to work for Goodbye Silverstein and Partners. And one of the reasons I was successful there was because the creative people love me being with them because I knew I cared about the work and I had usually some ideas which helped them, right. And then of course I'd help them sell it to clients. But like, you know, I mean, I cared about the work and I wanted to get the work to a better place. And I think that's why my relationship with agencies is strong. And I have long tenures of agencies. A lot of, I think that's a, that's a problem right now. Our industry, a lot of their relationships are very contractual, very transactional and the contracts are like for one or two ads and then they go to somebody else and so forth. And I understand that we all need to make sure we contain costs and have an efficient, fair agreements with our agencies. But you can do that and still retain a good, strong, long lasting relationship. And I've done that. And I think, you know, when somebody trusts you and they know that you have their best interests at heart, they will find the people to work with you. So if you know what I mean, like, you will do great work if as long as you have that level of trust and that level of common vision. And I think that's so. Anyway, so I. So to answer your question, it's a lot of time with Roger and his team, it's a lot of time with my own team thinking about where to go and what to do and then getting engaged and involved with the creative process. And that could be social media, that could be a big ad campaign. That could be how we unleash our AI programs on data driven programs. I mean, I get very involved with all those things.
- [37:49]
Jim Stengel
You have a long track record of inspiring creativity with your partners. You go back to Volkswagen, Activision, et cetera, et cetera. So you're kind of going there already. But what's your magic in that? How do you approach that? Why do you have such a great track record over a long period of time?
- [38:04]
Tim Ellis
I think I'm lucky and fortunate because I do feel things and I trust myself. I trust my gut on things. Over time, creative people and agencies realize that I usually have good instincts. So when I say something they don't mean, like, oh, God, the clients, like, they're like, oh, what did he say? What did Tim say? So we're thinking about it together. And again, I trust them as well. Right. So I think I have good natural instincts. I'm a creative person. I mean, when I got out of high school, I was an actor. I was a photographer for a while, a writer. So before I ever got into marketing, I was 30 years old before I ever even got into marketing. Right. So I was a creative person at heart when I was in my teens and twenties. And so I love the work. The passion is there. I love the work. I didn't get into advertising to do shitty work. I got into advertising to do work that people talked about, which is why I'm so attracted to big stages. Why do I want to be able to do these massive campaigns for video games like Call of Duty? Why do I want to be on a stage where 200 million people are watching my ads or at minimum, 20 million people at the NFL? It's because I love the work. I get excited about a big stuff stage and I want the work to be awesome. And I'm not afraid of, like, saying, looking at work and saying, I'm not telling you that I'm right. Who knows if I'm right? But I don't like that at all. And here's why. And if it's only because to me, it doesn't get me, then that's okay. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have to explain through a logical breakdown of why something doesn't get me in the heart. It's emotional. Exactly. And so I think that these things, I think it's the passion, the care, the instincts, and the vision for how great work actually changes brands. It drives revenue generation, it drives growth. There is a return on high creativity, which is insightful. And I think that belief and that sort of like, kind of like mantra for everything that I do has helped me be successful.
- [40:08]
Jim Stengel
You talk about your team and you're great at building teams. Now you have teams in 32 teams, right? Yeah, marketing teams. Some of them have CMOs. I'm not sure all of them do. I've Had a few of them on this show. So that's kind of an interesting element of your job. You have your team, you have Roger and everyone, but you also have all these great organizations at 32 different places.
- [40:26]
Tim Ellis
Yeah.
- [40:27]
Jim Stengel
How do you work with them? I mean, how do you ensure that they're with you, that you're tapping into their creativity, their ideas?
- [40:33]
Tim Ellis
Jim, that's a really, really important question. So after I got our own sort of like, you know, strategy and team in order, I immediately turned towards the 32 teams, and I made it my business to understand their level of competency and their strengths and weaknesses. Okay. And I. And I really took the time to look across all 32 teams, and then I got in front of the presidents, right. Who were in charge of the business. And I said, in terms of the quality of your teams right at that time, I said, it's uneven at best, and we have a really huge opportunities. And so I took the liberty to map out a blueprint for a local club marketing organization with a range of people in different competency areas of what you need to be successful. And yes, selling tickets and getting people into the stadiums is a big part of that. But there are lots of other things we're going to do which is going to help you grow fans, it's going to help you monetize those fans, and it's going to help you build the value of your brand, of the equity around your brand and your business. And some of the presidents were like, wait, who the hell is this guy telling me what I should be doing with my team? You have no jurisdiction over my team. And then others were very intrigued and wanted to know more. And I spent time with them. And then guess what? Over a short period of time, they realized, again, I had their best interests at heart. I helped them build up their teams, and now I'm incredibly proud of the 32 teams. The quality of those marketing teams is amazing. Some of the best marketing teams in the sports industry are on the NFL clubs. Right. I could name off a bunch of CMOs who you would know, Jim, who were like, oh, yeah, they're amazing. Right. And that, to me is incredibly important. And then we work together so we get on the same page. Yes, they have some things which are more club oriented, and I have things which are more league oriented, but we have a common vision. Flag football is a great example of that. We've really worked together to create flag. Flag drives participation, participation drives fandom, and fandom drives monetization. Right. They know that. And so that's one of the great examples of how we've really collaborated in a great way. We just did this great. We call it the Rivalries program. Right. Which is a new alternative uniform program together with Nike. Right. And it's really interesting because it was a fan development idea around uniforms, because the uniforms, they talk about the history and everything, the way that they were designed and the graphic elements and everything. It's all about the history of the team. So it's all about the equity of each of the teams. Well, these guys got so involved with this project together with Nike that it's been a massive success. Right. It's just the first eight teams that we've done, it was like the biggest sales days in the history of fanatics with these things. And like, the teams were ecstatic over the level of excitement and momentum they had with young people and the sales that they got. And again, that comes from working closely together with the teams, with. With our partners at Nike and doing something that had never been done before, which turned out to be a pretty exciting success.
- [43:56]
Jim Stengel
I want to talk about your career path for a moment, and then I want to go to the audience. We have a flag football player in the audience, a woman, so she may ask you a little question about that, but your career path. You went to San Diego State. I did. Right. And then spent about 11 years in advertising. It looks like most of that was in Sweden. Do I have that right?
- [44:15]
Tim Ellis
So I had four years at Goodby.
- [44:16]
Jim Stengel
Okay.
- [44:17]
Tim Ellis
Right. You know, because I spent my whole twenties living around the world. So I lived. I worked on oil rigs in Norway and drove tractors in Israel and worked as an actor and a model in Tokyo and worked on a cruise ship as a bartender. I worked all over the world.
- [44:31]
Jim Stengel
What drove that?
- [44:32]
Tim Ellis
I had been in the theater. I didn't know if I wanted to spend the rest of my life as an actor because everybody I admired had a terrible personal life. They had, you know, broken marriages and kids all over the country. And, like, I love what I do. I love being an actor on the stage, in the theater. But I don't want that for my life. But I don't want to do anything else. So I'm like, I'm just going to go to Paris, study French and study literature, and I'll figure it out after a year. So I went to Paris and while I was there, I met a guy from New Zealand who said, tim, stop agonizing. You're only like 21 years old. If you spend the next five years of your life dedicated to Traveling and living around the world, you're still only going to be 26. You'll have your entire life advice to live a 21. I'm like, oh my God, that's the smartest thing I ever heard in my life. It's exactly what I want to do. So what happened that gave me the kind of alibi and I didn't worry about it. I just explored and I got into the world and learned things and experienced things, which, guess what, made me so much more interesting when I did enter the workforce, Because I had all this knowledge, because I read voraciously as well, and I met all these people, I had all these knowledge and experiences that made me a different person. That made me a more expansive, sort of like marketer when I. When I got into it. So when I. And I gave myself that time to really enjoy it and to. To kind of get the most out of it. So then when I did go to finally go to school at San Diego State, I sailed through. I mean, just sailed through. And my first job. Then I began to sort of get promoted quickly, right? But, you know, after four years of goodbye, I wanted to go back overseas again. So. And I thought, I always thought, like, okay, I love doing great creative work, but, man, what's it like to do creative work for like 30 countries? How do you connect with different cultures when you're not using language and all that? And actually, and I think, you know, we talk a lot about the emotional side of my work and how I connect from the heart. Well, that was like trained by connecting with people from different cultures around the world because you couldn't do work which depended upon dialogue, right? You had to do work that was based on universal themes that connected people's hearts. The stuff that everybody can relate to, right? And some of that work we did were like winning Titaniums. Like I won a Titanium in Cannes. I mean, I was winning Grand Prix. We were winning some of the most prestigious awards in the world.
- [47:03]
Jim Stengel
What won the Titanium?
- [47:04]
Tim Ellis
Life on board for Volvo. And that ran all over Europe. And that campaign was basically a simple premise that we put two people together who had never met before, but who had some commonalities. We put them in a Volvo, we drove him for, for two days with lipstick cameras inside. And all they had to do was talk about life, which is somehow connected to a theme, which is connected to a car. Okay, so talk about scary and taking risks. I had no idea how that thing was going to turn out. And it turned out brilliantly. The raw honesty of that and actually Ironically, the jury of the duty that gave me the Titanium on that was Jeff. Goodbye. And he didn't know it was me. He didn't know it was my campaign because I'd gone over to Europe. And so that was kind of a satisfying. It was only the second Titanium ever. You know, the first one was BMW films and the second Titanium ever was. And it was for the most forward thinking campaign and I was incredibly proud of that. But anyway, so I thought to me, what a great challenge to like, do highly creative, highly emotive work that resonated in multiple countries and cultures. Foreign.
- [48:17]
Andrea Sullivan
Hi everybody. I'm Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive and we have produced the CMO podcast with Jim Stengel for many years. And I'm sitting in his seat right now. It's so exciting. I wanted to tell you a little bit about one of our programs. It's called Vive by Vayner. It's a 12 month program that's designed for C suiters and founders. And we want to help people to grow their businesses, but also to grow themselves. And so we bring in people from Shark Tank to talk to our founders, but we also focus on wellness. We want to make sure that people are leaning into becoming their best selves, their best and happiest selves. So if you are someone that wants to learn how to grow your business and grow yourself, check us out at Vive Co. That's V Yve Co. We'd love to talk to you.
- [49:15]
Jim Stengel
Okay, audience, let's take a question.
- [49:17]
Tim Ellis
All right, audience.
- [49:18]
Michelle Doyle
Hi, Michelle Doyle with TransUnion in the early 80s, played flag football. I was only two girls in the whole league. And I really want to thank you for leaning in on the flag football. If you can talk about that a little bit. But my burning question, I also love live music. My whole family, we go to at least see 200 artists a year. Got two daughters that are 23 and 21. And we've had family discussions at our dinner table. We bring up the history of the super bowl halftime show and we've studied it and we talk about it, we text during it. And how do you choose that show? And does the marketing come into play with you talked about that casual fan. Do you try to use that or is it. There's some other. It's a burning question.
- [50:06]
Tim Ellis
I've always had 100%, the halftime musical show, which by the way, is the biggest musical performance in the world.
- [50:12]
Jim Stengel
In the world, right?
- [50:13]
Tim Ellis
In the world. We use it as a growth driver. Right. So if you look at the last six years since I joined the NFL, the musical acts have been focused on youth, right. And casual audiences, including girls and women. Right. And most recently, also because we're now growing internationally, we're really going to appeal also to a global audience as well. So we know that some of our audiences may not like everyone we put out there for the halftime show, but we do know that the people who show up at that game, which, by the way, all the data points to the biggest driver of fandom is seeing the super bowl first. That's how people get hooked, right? Unless you grow up with it. Right? That's a pivotal point of actually seeing the Super Bowl. And at the peak of the super bowl of audience size is the halftime show. The audience just grows to a peak at halftime show. So we're very, very strategic and careful about the acts we pick. Now, I can't take any credit for the actual artists who come on board. I have an opinion and I give my point of view on the strategy and so forth, of course, but we have a great partner in Roc Nation, and obviously Roger Goodell is the ultimate decider, but, like, they've done a wonderful job in helping us expand our audience and bring in new people. Now, from a flag perspective, thank you for mentioning that. Flag has been. When I say football is for everyone, this has been an incredible opportunity to like, grow our audience with. With women. I'm very fortunate. My wife is an avid football fan. She know. She knows more about the statistics of players than I do. She's our commissioner in our. In our. Our fantasy league, and she kicks my ass all the time, and it really ticks me off, but she loves football. But not. Not everyone has that knowledge and that understanding of football like she does. But, man, girls and women who love football, they're such great fans. And so I knew that participation would drive fandom. So by working together on the league level, together with the 32 clubs and building a strong program, and then working with the IOC to get flag football and the LA28 Olymp for the first time ever, that was a huge strategic initiative. And the growth of flag football today is amazing. It's undeniable. Like, it's just, you know, it's growing like, almost 100% in the last few years. Over 650,000 women played last year in the United States. It's incredible. So that's a really big initiative. So thank you for mentioning that about you yourself having an affinity for it.
- [52:49]
Jim Stengel
I think it's going to do so well at the Olympics It's a huge audience. I do too.
- [52:55]
Tim Ellis
And they've greenlit having our pros play as well. I don't know how many will play. There's good rules around it about how many can play per team and things like that. But it's going to be really fun.
- [53:04]
Jim Stengel
It's going to be fun. Anyone else? Question.
- [53:06]
Andrea Sullivan
Hi, this is Michelle Stipkovich from Progressive Insurance. I oversee brand strategy in my own role. And I'm so curious about the transition that you've made from essentially rebranding the entire NFL image. And I know you talked a lot.
- [53:20]
Tim Ellis
About all the steps that you took.
- [53:22]
Andrea Sullivan
But I'm so curious, where did you start when you first decided a change.
- [53:26]
Jim Stengel
Needed to be made?
- [53:27]
Tim Ellis
I organized the team and the competency levels of the team to focus on things that I knew would drive the most growth in the short term. Right. You got to get wins when you first, when you have a big job like that to come onto, you got to demonstrate and show wins. And I showed them I could do that without adding one person. Okay. So I changed the whole orientation of the team. I essentially rebuilt it, which didn't mean I'd hired all new people. Sometimes I just had different people, same people doing different things. But I really focused on the things that I knew would drive interest and engagement. And I purposely went with young people first because I knew I shared all the evidence. I got in front of a bunch of owners and I showed them all the data, completely transparent about where we were strong and where we were weak and culturally and with young people, we were incredibly weak. Right. And so then I sort of like built up our competency levels in these areas. I built up a very strong social team, an influencer team, which I had done at Activision. I knew how to do that. I brought in the right leadership in order. Who could, who could drive that forward. And then I began to sort of like take traditional media money and I put it all in more engagement driven activities that were designed to exponentially reach more young people through social programs, social media programs, influencers and creators, as well as a much stronger data one to one program.
- [54:59]
Jim Stengel
Right.
- [55:00]
Tim Ellis
Who could reach and really build the relationships on a one to one basis with, with our fans and get better data and more data who we could contact. Because before that we weren't able. We had, we had a lot of data. We couldn't contact anybody. Right. So building up those programs was incredibly important. And when I got to sort of, and I began to get some early wins, then the owners and the leadership team and Everybody saw it. And then I also spent a lot of time with our biggest corporate partners, right? The marketing team up before that time did not have strong relationships with the P and GS of the world, the Nikes of the world, and so forth. I made it my business to understand their business and help them be more successful. So I work very closely with our corporate sponsorship people like, you know, and then work with people like Mark Pritchard and, you know, like, some of the biggest CMOs of the biggest companies in the world, and help them be successful, help them get the most value out of the NFL. And so, again, getting those wins early on, and then, you know, you just. If you can build that sort of exponential strength, getting the players on board, getting them to start working on their behalf, but also on your behalf, right? Getting working closer in unison together with your corporate partners, who are also helping you build your own brand while they build their brands. It just made everything that we did it. You know, essentially we built our touchpoints with fans from anywhere around a million people to close to 600 million, right? Like, just by working differently, you understand? So. And we basically did the math on it, right? And so we were able to do that in a very efficient, effective way. And so by making those early wins and by being very open and transparent about the math behind the wins and why it was working, it just gave us more confidence internally to continue on our path.
- [56:55]
Jim Stengel
All right, three questions to end the show. First one is, I ask this of every guest. What's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young boy?
- [57:04]
Tim Ellis
Does anybody remember Alka Seltzer? Plop Plop Fizz Fizz?
- [57:07]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, I hope so.
- [57:08]
Tim Ellis
Like, I can't believe I ate the whole thing.
- [57:12]
Jim Stengel
Right?
- [57:12]
Tim Ellis
Like, man, seeing that guy with that huge belly when his wife's trying to sleep and him sitting over there, like, staring out at the void, saying, I can't believe I ate the whole thing. God, I'll never forget that. Because it was just like, you know, understanding the value of that product and understanding, like, how. How a customer feels, right? And what it means. That to me was like, it's also funny as hell. So I love that. And then you know what? Like Coke. And I'll tell you why, because I remember back in the early 70s, they did that. I'd like to give the world a Coke. Or I can't remember exactly what the song was.
- [57:47]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, like the.
- [57:47]
Tim Ellis
Buy the world Coke. Buy the world a Coke. I just remember they were on a grassy knoll and they were all singing it was beautiful. And I could feel the kind of the union of all those folks around the Coke. And it was a bigger message. So to me, it represented transcending the brand and the product itself to something bigger and greater and something that unites us all. And believe me, that's exactly how I feel about the NFL. Right? I feel like it's like, yes, we're a great entertainment company. We thrill people with our product, but we're bigger than that. We are a force that unites people, that brings people together, and we try to transcend the brand and the sport in order to be a force for good.
- [58:29]
Jim Stengel
Your main stage presentation, I caught the end of it. And Bob Liuti just asked you, what's your message that you wanna leave behind? And you said, believe in yourself to the audience. So how did you develop belief in yourself?
- [58:40]
Tim Ellis
You know, you just gotta be willing to put yourself out there again. I'll just tell a short story here. When I first joined at goodbe, I was a coordinator. It's like the lowest of the lowest in the agency.
- [58:49]
Jim Stengel
Aspirational title.
- [58:50]
Tim Ellis
Yeah, coordinator. Like, nobody expected you to do anything but pass papers around. And I remember sitting in a meeting with one of the top two creative people in the agency. Very, very strong. And goodbye. At that time, they always said it was much more difficult to bring in an account person because essentially they didn't want the account person to screw things up. Right. They wanted an account person who understood the value of the work and somebody who could actually help the work get better and help with their clients. And so I took that to heart. But let's face it, most of the people at my level at that point, coordinators, they were scared to death to say anything. But, like, I heard this idea. I'm like, oh, I love this idea. But, like, there was something wrong with it. And so I said, you know, I just said it. I just said, as a coordinator, I just said, well, I think that this doesn't make any sense to me. And I don't know why you didn't, like, you know. And I remember everyone looked at me like, oh, shit, you were so dead. I can't believe he just said that. He's out of here, you know, like, this guy is not. He's not going to be here tomorrow. And Bob Kerstetter was a creative guy who went on to form Black Rocket with Steve Stone. And Bob looked at me and he stared at me for a few seconds. He goes, that's a really good comment. And that was the first time that I realized I mean, I have good instincts, you know what I mean? I know I feel things deeply. I know I have good instincts. So you have to believe in yourself. Even if somebody might not like it or you're putting yourself at risk like that, you have to believe that what you have is a value, right? And I think that ultimately that care, that passion, that sort of forward leaning of trying to do things which really haven't been done before, or things that they haven't been expressed that way before, I think is just important for us in advertising and marketing. You know, we can't keep retreading and doing the same things. And quite frankly, with everyone talking about their fears around AI and all that business, I'm not afraid of AI. But you know what I don't want? I want to want shit that's been done before. I don't want to keep redoing the same things over and over and over. I don't care if they've been proven to be successful before. I want to break new ground. I want to do things that haven't been done before. I want to express ourselves in ways which the world hasn't seen. And so to me, if AI can help me do that, awesome, I'm all for it. But I'm not going to go back and just do something because it's been done before and because it was successful before. When I did the force, the Volkswagen ad right there, I cannot tell you how many people changed the super bowl, right? That's the ad that changed. In fact, Time magazine, that's right, they wrote an article, the ad that changed the super bowl forever. And I cannot tell you how many CMOs and people wrote me and called me and said, like, what's the secret behind that ad and how do we. Like, you cannot bottle that and do it again. It was its own, had its own magic. So you can't try to rehash something. And that's one of the problems that I see sometime in the super bowl, right? They see something that was successful the year before and they just try to redo it again. And that's a big, big mistake. So this is all to say, I have instincts, I believe in myself, I believe in my instincts, I do listen. It's not that I don't listen, because I do. I've changed my mind many times because of something somebody said that was compelling to me. So it's not that I don't ever change my mind, I absolutely do. But when I have conviction on something, that's what I'm doing.
- [62:19]
Jim Stengel
Okay, last question. Recently it was publicly announced that you and I are being inducted into the AAF hall of Fame in late April. So. And for those who don't know about it, it's the biggest award in our industry. The evening is crazy. It's a lifetime achievement. It's tough to get it. I mean, it's a very rigorous process. They only do a few a year. You and I are two of the candidates. How'd that make you feel when you.
- [62:42]
Tim Ellis
Got that call, Man, I started crying now. It was so cool. You know, less than 300 people in 75 years I know. Have been inducted there. So it's like.
- [62:57]
Jim Stengel
Yeah.
- [62:57]
Tim Ellis
And like the people you see who have done that, my God, it's amazing. So it's like. And you got to go through a lot of layers to like, get there. And like, you got to be. You got to be nominated and you.
- [63:10]
Jim Stengel
Got to like, who present you?
- [63:11]
Tim Ellis
And you presented me the CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And he is an amazing man. I've done a lot of work with. With them. I'm on their board, but I also did a lot of work with campaigns and things like else to them. And I'm incredibly proud. One of the things that we did together. So we not only did a Super bowl ad, which they were prominently featured. I am somebody. But we also did at the draft, we did a special draft for mentors, for Biggs. Let's use the draft to put a dent in that list. There are 30,000 kids on that list who need mentors. And that list had not been less than 30,000 in. He said, Over 10 years, I think. No. Or 30 years. Maybe it'd be forever. Decades. I'm like, well, we got to do something about that. So we did this really, I think, incredible program, and for the first time in all these decades, it went down a third to 21,000. Amazing. Right? And so the work that we did not only resonated with people emotionally, it worked like it literally changed kids lives. And so I thought, okay, he was a former cmo. He understands marketing. Yes. I have a long history that he didn't work with me on, but he knew the power, I think, of what I brought beyond just good work. Right. And he made the case, and here we are.
- [64:32]
Jim Stengel
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to celebrate that in April. I was also very touched. It's just. And I, by the way, when I was P and G cmo, the first thing I had to do when I went up to that big office on the Top floor, which was so intimidating and so weird. Yeah. They put a file on my desk as you have to submit. John Smale, who is this? Chairman and CEO of P& G. When I joined as a young guy to enter the hall of Fame, that's my first project.
- [64:56]
Tim Ellis
Wow.
- [64:56]
Jim Stengel
So I had to prepare the application. I did the video about him, you.
- [65:01]
Tim Ellis
Know, and what a great way all the way around.
- [65:03]
Jim Stengel
It was so.
- [65:04]
Tim Ellis
It was so cool.
- [65:05]
Jim Stengel
It was so cool. So congratulations.
- [65:07]
Tim Ellis
Congratulations to you. I can't wait to see you there.
- [65:09]
Jim Stengel
See you in April, New York.
- [65:10]
Tim Ellis
Yep. It's going to be amazing.
- [65:12]
Jim Stengel
That was my conversation with Tim Ellison. It was a great one. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand in life. The first one Build great teams and let them fly. Tim believes one of his greatest strengths, if not his greatest strength, is building great teams and then trusting them to do what they do best. He hires people who are world class at their discipline, creates a culture with a strict no asshole rule, and makes sure people genuinely enjoy working together. Second takeaway from this conversation? Lead with heart and believe in yourself. Tim's instinct for storytelling comes from experience, not just in conference rooms and boardrooms, but out in the world. In his 20s, he traveled the globe, read every book he could get his hands on, took jobs across industries, and learned how to connect with people beyond language. That's where his creative compass was built. He learned that the best marketing starts from the heart and that trusting your gut is often the smartest data he'll ever have. And the third takeaway? I love this one. Open your arms wider as a brand strategy. From his first day on the job, Tim set out to make the NFL for everyone. His vision for the league is bold and unapologetically inclusive. He's pushing the NFL to open its arms wider and make more people feel seen in the game. Sometimes that means making people uncomfortable, but he's okay with that if it strengthens the brand and grows the audience. Audience campaigns, like Football is Gay weren't made to provoke. They were made to celebrate, to show that the NFL truly is for everyone. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or its personnel. Nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.