Latest / Frap Rap with GDogggggggg / Ep 2: Erin Vogel (LiquidAsset)

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Ep 2: Erin Vogel (LiquidAsset) · Frap Rap with GDogggggggg

• GDogggggggg: Welcome to Frap Rap. I'm your host, Aaron Goldman, aka AG, the artist formerly known on AOL Instant Messenger as GDogggggggg with eight Gs. Yes, through seven were taken. Twenty-five years ago, I was an AE at an ad network called L90, and my biggest client was Starcom IP. Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone in Chicago at 35 West Wacker to meet me at the Cosi across the street for coffee. And for each person that came, I'd do a freestyle rap about 'em. Hence the name, Frap Rap. Tyler Marcum: You're listening to the Mediaocean Podcast Network. For more of our shows, visit www.mediaocean.com/podcasts. Added up as part of the MediaOcean Podcast Network. To find GDogggggggg: Each episode I track down another OG IP er to reminisce about the good old days and see what they're up to now. And boy, do we have a good one today. My guest is Erin Vogel. Erin, welcome to Frap Rap. LiquidAsset: Thank you for having me. I am nervous and excited. GDogggggggg: Well this is gonna be This is gonna be so much fun and I knew I had to have you on early. So so we kicked off with Marshall to kind of get the grounding story, but you're like the the heart and soul ⁓ of IP and so I can't wait to unpack it all with you. ⁓ where where are you at the moment? Where are you like physically? LiquidAsset: I am physically in Chicago in my living room. GDogggggggg: All right, and I can see we got the is that the Chicago flag or the stars of the Chicago flag behind you or just random red stars? LiquidAsset: That is That is actually ⁓ a former ⁓ IP'ers husband's artwork. That's Hooper. That's Hooper's husband. That's Blake's some of Blake's work. GDogggggggg: No kidding. All right, well shout it out. Very cool. All right. We'll have to get Hooper on to talk about ⁓ the origin story of the artwork, but more importantly, her connections ⁓ into the IP world. ⁓ all right, so yeah, definitely want to like catch up on life and all of that stuff, but like let's start all the way back ⁓ to the beginning of of your time at IP. So when would that have been and what was your role when you started? LiquidAsset: I started officially in Starcom IP in 2000. ⁓ I came in I think we were called just Associates. I think we're just called Associates back then. I was GDogggggggg: That was before like the IC role was like the entry point, right? LiquidAsset: It was before IC was an entry point. ⁓ I came in a group about ten of us, so we were like employees ten through twenty. I was an intern in 1999. And back then, if you were a good intern, you were offered a job. And the way they have said it is we got the IP picked the best of the interns, and Rishad pulled us out and day one I found out I was an IP. GDogggggggg: Who else was part of that class of you? Do you remember some of the others? LiquidAsset: Yeah, that class it was a Grasham, Kari ⁓ Nicole Haygood Lily. Saneel came, he traveled for the summer, so he came a little bit later. ⁓ Brian Johnson, Andrew Derr. GDogggggggg: Tchau. LiquidAsset: Feel like I'm forgetting someone. But yeah. We were all picked up in the lobby and and brought up to thirteen fourteen. GDogggggggg: Some all stars. Unbelievable. ⁓ the y you've been called by other Kortni, yeah. huh. Lee Kortini she'll be on soon. We got her scheduled and and Ghammy's coming on soon too. So but my hope is to make it through everyone. And as the ⁓ you've been called the IP historian. ⁓ I guess first d do you accept that ⁓ claim? LiquidAsset: Kortni Lee. I can't forget Kortni. Yeah. I do accept that claim. GDogggggggg: Okay, cool. And I know you ⁓ you've saved a lot of stuff. and I'm gonna need to pick your brain. I think you've got like so have my org chart, but mine ⁓ is actually have a few of them. ⁓ I'll hold it up so those watching on YouTube can see. And it's got like a at the very bottom, like a little date. I don't know if the camera's gonna focus enough to show that. I have one that was updated March 2005 One from June 2005 and one from August 2005. So I think what happened was ⁓ towards the end my time, that would have been like after ⁓ MaxOnline was bought IAC, iWon Ask Jeeves. At the end of my run at Ask Jeeves, when I packed up and went to Resolution, I think I just took these off the bulletin board with me. So that would have been that timing. But like these org charts, ⁓ You're actually yeah, you're still on here. ⁓ at at this point. You had it moved into Pixel and we can talk about what that became in a minute. ⁓ Hopefully you've something that goes back even even older than that because ⁓ my memory's only so good. So what what have you saved from that time? LiquidAsset: I feel it would be really funny to call some of these. I have I what I think is not the original original because the group I came in with was like employee 10 through 20 and the group had been around for a hot minute. I have one that's only this long and very few people even have cell phones listed because we didn't have them. So GDogggggggg: well. Now, ⁓ how many of those do you think are still at 'cause like this was back before like your number was permanent with you and moved forever. How many of those do you still think ⁓ are are valid? LiquidAsset: I think it'd be really funny to call them and see. Maybe we'll do a bonus episode later and just sit and call everyone. GDogggggggg: ⁓ I love that. So so ⁓ our speed round's called the apartment call and I feel like after we do a couple of the speed rounds we should just dial dial a couple of folks and and ask if we can come over. LiquidAsset: I got Marshall's. Let's see if Marshall's work still. GDogggggggg: Do you remember the first account you worked on? LiquidAsset: I do. I had a couple 'cause when I came in I was on a team, there's three of us, and we had I had Guinness World Records, the book, ⁓ Keebler. I think I went on to Lego a little bit later. Sony Sony was coming out with a product well ahead of its time called Screen Blast, which essentially is was an early version of Canva and a video editing tool when no one had the means to upload videos and computers strong enough to do it. So Screen Blast was one of them. ⁓ I think those were the first couple. GDogggggggg: Do you remember for Lego? ⁓ when I was at L90 we represented Alfy.com and we did like a Lego sponsorship. Alfy was like this weird make playland for kids. ⁓ And so did this like Lego takeover on there. I don't remember anything further than that, but I just remember pitching you ⁓ Alfy.com for Lego. Does that ring any kind of bell? LiquidAsset: It does. And back then, literally anything was for sale. We could make like Guinness World Records, we made we made full screen shake for like the spinning of browsers would spin to represent breakdancing. And it was an executable file in the middle of a banner. And we could just do that. GDogggggggg: Because Unbelievable. ⁓ all right. So here's something else I've got. ⁓ and I'll hold this up. This is your business card. and interestingly enough, so I I used to write notes at the bottom. This was before we had like Salesforce, right? So you would keep ⁓ you know, a business card like in a Rolodex. ⁓ and then at the bottom I wrote notes and it says Guinness World Records met with BP nine thirteen at Starcom. I didn't put the year on there, but apparently I met you September thirteenth with BP. Do you remember who BP would have been that I worked with? This would be super bonus points if you get that one. LiquidAsset: Is that Piggott? GDogggggggg: Yeah, there go. Brad Piggott. Well done. Nice pull. ⁓ so yes. And then I also have on the other side of the card Sarah Lee Direct and Keebler. So I must have met you pretty early on when you were on some of those initial accounts. I mean, I started L90 July of two thousand. ⁓ and I told the story on the Marshall episode, but like my two choices coming out of school were Starcom ⁓ for twenty seven grand was the offer. LiquidAsset: Yeah. GDogggggggg: or L90, same same dollar amount, 27 grand. And so the money wasn't an issue. My dream, you I went to school for advertising. My dream was always work for Leo Burnett. Like what, you know, that's all they tell you in school. Like that's that's especially in the Chicago area, that's where you want to go. ⁓ but Starcom couldn't get I I knew I wanted to go into internet in the online. ⁓ and they couldn't guarantee they said I got to do a pit rotation, yada yada. So I said, well I'm gonna take the sure thing. L90 is gonna be online advertising. I can build my career there. ⁓ but who knows we could have ⁓ we could have been teammates, but instead I was on the other side of the aisle. You and the ten All Stars get placed into was it called IP at the time or was it called something else? LiquidAsset: It's called Starcom IP. ⁓ GDogggggggg: Okay. And did they like how did you get like trained up on it or was it just sort of seat of your pants, learn as you go? LiquidAsset: When I got there, probably fifteen ⁓ there. So you you already had your your Jeffs, your PJs, Jason Taylor had started Steve Governale, Shelby was there, Chandra Panley. ⁓ so had a group by years. ⁓ Saneel came us. You had Navarro, Hillary. A lot of folks had come up through Leo Burnett Media or Starcom and they kind of got plucked into the digital space too. By age, we're only three, two, three, four years apart for the most part on average, but by experience and level... They kind of started to establish practices from traditional media, but it was make it up as we go. We literally were making up everything and anything when we realized we needed, which then led to like an IC role being needed for reconciling billing and trafficking and tagging and all of the op side of it didn't exist for the first year. GDogggggggg: Yeah, it's a great call out. Like the I mean, and it wasn't just you, of course, like the whole industry was basically like, let's re replicate traditional media ⁓ into this this new world. And then you ⁓ you realize, okay, wait, it operates a little differently. We need to optimize for it. And so as you grew, as IP grew, ⁓ and and it sort of took on a life of its own, structure of its own, you would still of course have to work with Starcom. proper, right? And so the the traditional media folks. So like what was that like? Did you feel like you were always sorta educating them? ⁓ did you get pulled into like a lot of new business because you were like the person who understood that's this new fangled web thing? LiquidAsset: Yeah, I think what was great about being part of what became Starcom from Leo Burnett media and part of like the 35 West Wacker of it all was in the headquarters was Chicago. We had the access of everything that existed there. So we had the same trainings, we were in the same pit classes, we were in the same kind of basics and fundamentals of media. Like I was talking with someone as we were hearing about your new podcast. The fact that we graduated, most of us, without a media media wasn't something that was like a core class. So when we got our job, we didn't know what media necessarily was. So I think you got that piece of it and kind of that power of the huge machine that became Leo Burnett and and Starcom. But then we had the permission to create and learn and educate and kind of present it back. So it was a little bit of a crossover, but we knew we had to stay close to to everyone 'cause that where the client relations that's where the client relationships were. That's where ⁓ the foundational media plan was. And we were the ones brought in to help convince them to switch it over to digital. GDogggggggg: Yeah, so I mean and and some of those same principles, like the you know, the consumer insight, like just need you know, that of course carries over. and you know, we can also fast forward today, but I won't I won't rush this too much, but you know, now with AI and everything, and and it'll interesting to talk with your progression, you know, going through like creative roles and such, like ⁓ there's changes, but some of the core principles really stay the same. ⁓ so so actually maybe let's go there. So so talk about your your progression. At what point did you move off of like the main body ⁓ of the org chart to then all of a sudden down at the bottom into this thing called Pixel What was that? And and yeah, actually let's let's see that. What what was that all about? LiquidAsset: Yeah, I think it was about five years in ⁓ what what Rishad and Jeff and Tim were great at was we did go out and get our own clients. And by that point, there was probably a couple more satellite offices from other big holding companies that started to open up in in Chicago. And we at the time had won the largest online account, which was the Network Solutions. So we had one, we had won that in probably about 2004. GDogggggggg: That's all. LiquidAsset: The client called the story as I remember. The client called and said, What do you mean you don't have anyone on staff that can change my banner or update pricing? And Rishad said, We will tomorrow. And that's when brought on the Nick Yeckes the John Raffertys And within Starcom IP, we had this kind of hybrid that could code and develop and make some of those quick updates. And then we quickly realized that the big ad agencies didn't understand digital and the big digital agencies, like back then it was AKQA and and some of those big agencies, they didn't want to do the small space of digital advertising and marketing if didn't come with thousand-page websites and Shoppable and and and some of those pieces. So started to carve out this opportunity. And because we knew we could literally build anything and run it, and we got to like the Lego example, we had Spybotics was one of their campaigns of remote controlled cars. And we had them driving across websites. And with networks, we could drive across hundreds of websites with them outside before rich media existed, before the word Shoskeles was ever uttered. We were just making these ad campaigns and we were making creative. And then eventually, Jeff, Jen Schreiber, Yecke, Rafferty, ⁓ spun it off into IP Pixel. And I kind of stayed on the IP side and was the bridge and conduit to a lot of clients that became the first pixel clients. So I would hear Sarah Lee doesn't have anyone doing a website. Facebook had tabs for brands back then. I would be like, hey, we can do that, and would bring in Yecke and and Schreiber to do their dog and pony show. And then after about 18 months, I was like, I I don't want to be that person. I want to be in that room with you guys. And ⁓ we made it happen. So about 2005, Starcom IP ⁓ started to roll into Starcom proper. and then I headed with Schreiber and Jeff over into IP Pixel. GDogggggggg: Was it literally like a room over in the corner on the same floor or what was the setup for Pixel? Yeah. LiquidAsset: Yep. ⁓ once everyone once Starcom IP was integrated into Starcom and Starcom IP name kind of just became Starcom, we had our own floor. ⁓ and it was a half floor. We sat down on three right above ⁓ Catch 35 seafood restaurant for anyone not from Chicago that would come wafting through the floors. ⁓ and then catch and carry was around the corner. And then eventually we got moved to a misfit toys floor where all the startup groups that had two or three people kind of all sat together. GDogggggggg: was the to go play catch and carry, right? That was the Yeah. Yeah. And and at some point that was the next stop liquid thread? And what was that about? LiquidAsset: Yep. So after Pixel, which was essentially a a small space creative, by the end of it, we were building websites. We had developers. We had designers. We had some of the best developers and coders that have gone on to amazing, amazing roles. ⁓ and we were pitching. We were pitching websites. We were pitching apps. We were pitching games for clients. ⁓ Laura Desmond was CEO of what was Starcom MediaVest Group. And she came and said, I have three groups that are doing branded content with Starcom Entertainment, which was more integrations into movies, concerts, IP. Media Vest had a group called Connective Tissue. And then we had Pixel. And she said, I need you all three to come together, come up with a name, come up with a brand, and then sit in one team, and then we're gonna take it global. So that was the the birth of Liquid Thread in 2010. GDogggggggg: And what was your role ⁓ within that? LiquidAsset: So for a while we sat as the digital part of the branded entertainment and then started to do the cross training of folks that grew up in like the lower Caracoli development world, ⁓ show development show runners with the digital coders and designers and developers, ⁓ and started to bridge that that gap on some accounts. GDogggggggg: And what was your role personally? Were you like running that group or? LiquidAsset: I was ⁓ by then I think I would have been Maybe a VP? VP to S V P I think in Liquid Thread. So GDogggggggg: And chronology wise, here are we are we up to like 2010 at this point? LiquidAsset: I kinda went in five year up until ⁓ liquid thread. So every five years I kinda which was the fun part, I got a new email, I got a new business card, but stayed in the same elevator bank, sometimes a new floor. So it was something new every five years. So it was Starcom IP, then it was Pixel, then about 2010 was the launch of Liquid Thread. GDogggggggg: Okay. And and you know, spoiler alert, for those who don't know, ⁓ know, we're gonna get up to like twenty five, twenty six years later and you're still with the group, which is incredible. ⁓ do and by the way, do all those email addresses still work? Do they redirect like if someone hits you at IPpixel.com LiquidAsset: Up until last fall they would have. And then I had to do a full reset on all my emails, so they no longer GDogggggggg: Okay. That that must have been like a nice purge. If you stopped getting some of like the newsletters you signed up for in like 2001. LiquidAsset: It When they yeah, they were developer newsletters. I I was joking I had not seen a zero inbox in maybe ever. ⁓ so that was nice for a little while. GDogggggggg: That's well. Okay. So so we're ⁓ twenty ten ish with Liquid Thread ⁓ what what came next from there? LiquidAsset: Similar Merry Go Round. Liquid Thread moved from the center where it was service to all of the agencies to re-embedded back into the media companies. So I went, had been attached to Starcom my whole career at that point. ⁓ followed ⁓ Jeff had moved on. Jeff had been my boss for the about eight years there. ⁓ had moved over Eric Levin, who was over at Spark. with Chris Booth, Shelby had gone over, Starlink at the time and then Spark. So I joined Spark in two thousand fifteen, ⁓ to join Eric's team doing content and branded content, but as a Spark content person. GDogggggggg: And was that still in the building or at that point ha was that across the street? LiquidAsset: Those were the three years I was outside of 35 West Wacker So I moved over to the mart and then they eventually us all back into 35 West Wacker. So GDogggggggg: Okay, got it. And ⁓ shout out to Shelby. Now now here ⁓ she does she she have you beat? Did she start at IP before you did? LiquidAsset: She did. There's about ten folks that were before my class. GDogggggggg: Anyone else besides Shelby who's still with the group that's been there as long as as the two of you, any original IPers? LiquidAsset: Lily is still there. My my ⁓ org chart, I stopped doing it, but it has there's a lot of boomerangs. Like were you two tours of duty, how many different companies? GDogggggggg: ⁓ wow. We should by the way I d well, it has people's cell phone numbers on there, so maybe we can obscure it. But ⁓ it would be awesome to like get a version of that that we could post. I don't know, this is a new show. I don't know if we do like show notes or have a website for it, but ⁓ it'd be cool to show that. LiquidAsset: What I think ⁓ Chandra and Becky are still in the group somewhere. Like in a global role and a centralized role. Yep. GDogggggggg: And what the Lily was ⁓ Chakrabarty? Okay. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, at some point she went to New York, Mediavest ⁓ okay, we can Okay. All so you're in the top five in terms of original IPers still tenured with the group. Is that fair fair statement? Okay. So what do you think ⁓ w two part question. One, what's kept you all this time? And two ⁓ LiquidAsset: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It is. GDogggggggg: ⁓ you know, every five years you were sort of tapped to help build the next new thing. What what what made you kinda uniquely qualified to do that? LiquidAsset: I don't I part of it was asking for it and wanting to be a part of it and the curiosity of it, I think I always came up through like looking back through a lens of and it's a very biased opinion, but team sports and working in service industry are very strong kind of character growth development for what you would become if you if you go into a career ⁓ in in like a nine to five role. ⁓ so I could kind of was always questioning authority and breaking things and wanting to be a part of of that and had demonstrated converting it into real business dollars and and ⁓ whether it was my charm and my smart strategic ways or or wearing people down, ⁓ would would do amazing things, would would really look at the collaboration and the team part of it. I think early on Rishad and Shelby had kind of instilled the philosophy of you'll get you'll get promoted when the people underneath you are promotable. And you kind of had this feeling of it's not just your individual contribu contributions or what you're doing. You you you have to be a part of something and you have to kind of bring the team up together. ⁓ and I think I just GDogggggggg: Mm. LiquidAsset: curiosity and I would I probably would have left if I stayed in the same role for forever because I would have got bored. I would have wanted new challenges, so it was kind of a way to stay connected and build on what I had but still be challenged. GDogggggggg: And you still feel that way today? You're still feeling challenged? I mean, do you have another twenty five in ya? LiquidAsset: I hope I hope to be retired at some point, but I did stay at the agency side for this long. So maybe I'll I'll stick around a little longer than retirement age. ⁓ GDogggggggg: What does Rishad call all you the agency folks cockroaches? ⁓ a ⁓ a good way, for those who don't know the reference. It's a good it's a good ⁓ comparison. LiquidAsset: Yep. I'm gonna be ⁓ so Spark I was at for ten years, and that was the longest. And I have just recently been reunited with Shelby and came back into Starcom. And the reason your first question of the reason I stayed is because of the fundamental belief that there is a different way to do things and a better way to do things. And there's still and Publicists now Publicis, ⁓ gave that ability to do it and gave that permission to do it and I still think there's there's a lot of fun work to do. And I like I like multiple clients. I like different teams. I like the access to the Fortune fifty clients I get to work on, all the way down to really small ones. So yeah. GDogggggggg: And so and so so yes, so so you mentioned now you're kind of back in ⁓ Starcom proper. What's what's the current role in remit? LiquidAsset: I ⁓ a to-be-defined role, but I am ⁓ from content more experienced design, experienced planning and strategy, but working very closely with ⁓ the content team and Dana who runs the content team at Starcom. So helping her her team as it grows, ⁓ and then helping some accounts think about how to do their plans a little bit differently and give some value to the ⁓ stories we can tell with our media partners that are opening up their studios to to brands. GDogggggggg: That's awesome. And and in some ways that's that's the full circle moment, right? Coming you know, ⁓ it's it's about storytelling, it's about connecting brands with their audiences and consumers and the ⁓ palettes have changed, the tech has changed, the process has changed. In most cases the people has changed, not necessarily in yours. ⁓ but at the end of the day that's that's still the challenge we're trying to solve. LiquidAsset: It is the full circle. Still the same foundations. GDogggggggg: Yeah. what's your ⁓ favorite memory? ⁓ f let's do both from the IP well yeah, w favorite memory from the IP days. Yeah. LiquidAsset: So ⁓ There's stories that I can tell and stories I can't. think one of my favorite memories was very early on, and I'm gonna show I'm gonna show it because I still have it. This is from March 14th of 2002. ⁓ we Saneel, Amanda Ghammy, and myself were out one night because we would work till ten o'clock. We would go out. Till two o'clock and then we get up and do it again. We created what became the shots card and the the game shots and it was the I went home that night and I wrote it up, designed it, and printed it. And it is See if it focuses. The Trifecta Rules. That's a little horse racing. Amanda was from the Louisville area. And it was we built it because we realized we were all hanging out together and we talked about work a lot. And we started to hear from our college roommates or our friends that would come hang out. Like, I can't hang out with you guys because all you do is talk about work. So we have 10 rules and then some some footnotes on the back if you talk about work, if you make any puns ⁓ cookies, sticky, surf, ⁓ you answer webmail from the bar, if you ⁓ a funny story that isn't funny about work. If you mention words like proposal, RFP, IO someone could call shots. And in that moment, you had to go buy a shot and do a shot, or the next opportunity that you had to do a shot, you had to do a shot. And then the Tritfecta would chip in money, be encouraged to do it with you if you couldn't afford it because that $27,000 salary was real. ⁓ but yeah, we have The original the original card. GDogggggggg: And did you ⁓ to have the card out at the bar with you to call someone on it, or it just 'cause there were there certain people like who were the sheriffs of the game who could pull the card or it just went without saying. LiquidAsset: Nope. The tr the trifecta was myself, Saneel and Ghammy. We got to vote if it was shots worthy. And we'd have three so we could have a tiebreaker. Majority vote. If we would have brought this card out everywhere, I don't think I'd still have it. ⁓ But I the legacy lives on because as recent as last week someone called shots at me. So it is still in the lore. It is still amongst the friends from that time, twenty-five years later. GDogggggggg: Incredible. ⁓ and ⁓ another one, yes, th that's I think ⁓ we could all take that to heart, ⁓ 'cause that still happens a lot. And ⁓ I'm not sure when this will air, but ⁓ some of us will be in in Cannes and ⁓ you know s ⁓ doing it over rose, but it'll be important to remember too that ⁓ we need to catch up on on lives and other things. ⁓ although now of course the world's a little different and it is only once or twice a year we get to get together with these people as opposed to Back in the day it literally was every single night. you know, we'd end up in a you know, somewhere like Friar Tucks doing karaoke or ⁓ the Shotski. remember the Shotski at at Tucks that we come out? LiquidAsset: Prior to X. There was also the sheep. You remember the sheep? GDogggggggg: ⁓ yes. ⁓ yes, that was another ⁓ alternate ⁓ shot position. if you know, you know. ⁓ okay, so so we haven't aired at as of the time that we're talking, we haven't aired Marshall's episode yet. So you don't have the benefit of knowing what he said. ⁓ at some point, ⁓ I'm trying to get like a few in the can before we launch the show, ⁓ so that you know we we know we have like a an actual show here and then we'll release it. At some point. LiquidAsset: Yeah. GDogggggggg: Everyone will be able to listen to the one that came before before they come on, but you don't have that benefit. So I talked to Marshall, and he brought up a ⁓ one of his memories was from Life's Too Short, and you probably know where I'm going with this. ⁓ and the question was ⁓ I ⁓ I had a ⁓ a memory ⁓ fart and thought that you were one of the people who jumped in the river. And he said, No, no, it was two others. ⁓ was it you? LiquidAsset: ⁓ I was. Yeah. GDogggggggg: I guess. All right, great. I'm gonna run down the street and claim that with Jeff. He he named two other people. Were there two others that also did it? LiquidAsset: ⁓ Buczaczer did. I think he was the first one. I don't know if anyone else jumped from the bridge itself and this might have been two different years. ⁓ Kiki jumped in off the dock in there might have been one more person. GDogggggggg: That's what I okay, so he named Kiki and and Dan, yeah. Okay. And how nasty was that water? LiquidAsset: So my story was even worse, or maybe better. Did he give the story of how it came to be? GDogggggggg: Yeah, was it Kugel who was ⁓ doing the like bet you know, what what how how much would it take to get you to? LiquidAsset: How much would it take? But the day it happened was back then on Leo Burnett's birthday, you would get handed cash for whatever the equivalent of his birthday was. And then the second half of the day, the teams would go out and have their team outings. We all had, again, we talked about our associate salaries. We had $70 of cash in our pocket. And then Kugel started saying, like, how much would it take to get someone to jump off that that bridge? And everyone threw their 70s, Rishad threw his 70 dollars in, and it became like this wad, and mine got up so high, other people started offering to do it for less. And I was time out, nope, stop that dollar amount, this is mine. So I went up there, Buczaczer, Nicole Haygood helped me. And if you've ever seen the river in Chicago and the bridges, the bars are about four and a half, five feet. So I needed a little jump boost up to get over it. So I'm standing in the middle GDogggggggg: Yeah. LiquidAsset: Dan's coaching me to jump straight, don't lean forward, don't you look down, it is stories high, it's way higher than you think. And then all of a sudden I have a spotlight on me, and a barge, which goes three miles an hour, is coming through, and they have a spotlight up on me, and there's nothing I can do. The only way off this bridge at this point is like foot over foot for like 30 yards or wait it out. And GDogggggggg: And to be clear, the spotlight was like warning, don't jump, not like let's make sure all your friends can see you clearly. LiquidAsset: It was don't jump and are you gonna hurt yourself and why are you jumping? ⁓ so I had the benefit and at that point Nicole and Dan, I found out later, had a plan if a cop pulled up that they were gonna act like Nicole's purse was stolen to distract them. ⁓ so I had the benefit of a barge clearing out all of at least the debris I would have jumped on and the dead fish. ⁓ but when jumped, Life's Too Short, it must happen all the time. GDogggggggg: Yeah. LiquidAsset: You have to leave the bar immediately, but they let you walk through and and go out. It was like the bog of eternal stench from Labyrinth. It was so bad. So many showers, clothes just thrown out. Pranav was nice and gave me his flannel because I was wearing a white t-shirt when I jumped. I was like, I don't even know how to replace this. I gotta buy you a new shirt because there's no way to get the smell out of it. Yeah. It paid my rent for two months, my studio apartment. GDogggggggg: But you were flush with cash, so you were able to. That's incredible. Yes. And for those who don't know, this is the same like Chicago River that like the Dave Matthews band unloaded their bus ⁓ tank onto a a passing boat of tourists. Like that's kind of what happened in that river. You that's just where you dump all your crap. ⁓ and yes, Vogel took the leap ⁓ into it. So unbelievable. And ⁓ I feel I feel redeemed. I can't wait to hold this over Marshall's head. ⁓ all right. LiquidAsset: Yeah. Yeah. GDogggggggg: I think it's time for the apartment crawl, which is our speed round. ⁓ for those ⁓ who remember, this was the tradition where ⁓ IPers and and a few a few chosen reps. I feel like it was ⁓ at the time ⁓ Michelle Ball, Brenda Coan you know, we were on the short list of folks who got to come along. ⁓ and we go over to people's places, we bring our red solo cups. I don't suppose you have one nearby, do you? There we go. Cheers. ⁓ it's early in the morning when we're recording, so I've got iced coffee of mine. You got anything in yours? Is it empty? LiquidAsset: Well, I have water in this one. I have my coffee and my ⁓ my tips mug. This is when you ask about training. We made our own training group outside of Pitt and it was teaching IP or some bleeep and it was our training class. ⁓ I have I have graduated to a ceramic solo cup. Yeah. GDogggggggg: ⁓ yeah. wow, okay. So that's yes, good for you. Mu very ⁓ environmentally friendly. Yes. It was a shock when I realized that the ⁓ these cups could not actually be recycled. I ⁓ Brea ⁓ Keating Schofield ⁓ at ⁓ at one point was working for the Dart solo corporation which made these cups and I remember she was like, Yeah, we are trying to decide how we manage this. This was like during the time when you know everybody was greenwashing. At any rate, let's get to the ⁓ cooler round. So th ⁓ this is our lightning round ⁓ QA apartment crawl. LiquidAsset: Do you before you get in the lightning round, do you want the history of how the apartment crawl started? GDogggggggg: ⁓ yeah, I f I forgot I'm talking to the historian. Yes. Tell us. LiquidAsset: So the apartment crawl started when I forget who it was, saw each other on the bus on the way to work in the morning. And we s probably four months in, we realized we all lived in East Lakeview. And we're like, We need to organize something so we can see each other's apartments. And that was the birth of the apartment crawl was because we all realized we lived within four blocks of each other. GDogggggggg: It and was not was this tied to Burnett Breakfast or would this happen on a a different day a different day? LiquidAsset: No. This would've been in the fall and we would collect twenty dollars from everybody and we would go buy the booze and come up with a theme and then it took on a life of its own. GDogggggggg: Probably, yeah, after Burnett Breakfast, you probably nobody was probably standing in in the evening to well, it would be literally crawling ⁓ to apartments. ⁓ amazing. Okay. ⁓ all right, so just quick answers here, sort of first thing that comes to your head. The first one ⁓ is easy. I'm pretty sure you remember yours. ⁓ what was your first AIM handle, AOL Instant Messenger? LiquidAsset: No. Yeah. The one I ha my first one as in grade school was ECV2004 'cause I thought I was gonna to college and then four years of advanced degree as a thirteen year old. And then my work one was Liquid Asset. GDogggggggg: Liquid Asset. Okay. and that's of course what we'll call the episode. So you're stuck with it now. it'll be in the ⁓ in ⁓ engine algorithm. ⁓ who was your first boss at IP? LiquidAsset: ⁓ Wendy Barsky McGregor and then Jen Schreiber. GDogggggggg: Who is your favorite client? LiquidAsset: That's hard. I think I I don't think I ever had bad clients. Because I had the triage, I had the fun clients, I had the fun teams at the clients who were doing new things. I didn't work on the big ⁓ commerce accounts. I didn't work on network solutions. I didn't work on ⁓ some of more of the performance driven hardcore clients. ⁓ so yeah, I think I had the fun ones. I don't I liked them all. GDogggggggg: All right. was there a client that you didn't work on that you wish you could have? LiquidAsset: Sometimes the Molson Coors team would have been fun, 'cause it was they were just doing fun stuff. Probably would've got me to the Super Bowl. But yeah. I I I I was close enough to it that I got to I got to be part of their meetings. ⁓ but that was probably one that was the fun one. GDogggggggg: Okay. and ⁓ do you have a hot take on AI and advertising? LiquidAsset: Yes. I think my my biggest hot take is How do I say it? I think the the irony The irony of companies rushing to show efficiencies, reducing headcount from a layoff perspective. Are going to slow down the progression and the potential of what AI could be, and ultimately they're gonna be behind where they need to be because it's a it's the point for me right now. More people need to be using it, more people need to be ⁓ in it, and even after. we use it, you're gonna need people to keep it honest and apply it and ⁓ there'll be functions that can run and talk to themselves, but I think that's the irony of procurement rushing to efficiencies that we're not ready yet to to do at that rate. And I think there'll be a lot of cost to in a couple of years to rehire people to catch up to those that kept ⁓ kept enough people on to help help it. So I think that's that's my hot take. GDogggggggg: Yeah, well said. Well said. Like imagine if ⁓ Burnett Starcom had done that back in the digital days and said, Okay, you know, digital's here and everything's just going digital. So we could just make a bunch of cuts and, you know, and save some money, as opposed to let's invest in this thing, let's hire people to figure it out, let's get good at it, and then we can fi and in then we can figure out how we reorganize ourselves. Where would we be today? Certainly not on ⁓ a show called Frap Rap that's reminiscing about ⁓ the good old days. So ⁓ all right, well said. And speaking of Frap Rap, so for the close of the show, and and you'll recall this was ⁓ always agreement, everyone that would come to Cosi would get a freestyle rap where I'd get to work in ⁓ whatever was kinda whatever they were wearing or working on at the time. ⁓ and for this one I'm gonna ask you to give me three keywords ⁓ that I can Turn into my freestyle. You got something you can write with there? LiquidAsset: I do, I have my box of props. GDogggggggg: ⁓ I love it. Yes. Hold up some props and whatever you hold up, I will incorporate into my freestyle. Okay, right off the bat. ⁓ let's get this going. Here we go, here we go. I slip into the flow. I'm here with Erin Vogel and we're keeping it local. She's got the big E and I see it on the screen and she knows who's the A G and you know what I mean. What's next got you got for me? Throw it up in the air. LiquidAsset: And I was I've got GDogggggggg: Everybody put your hands, flip your hair. ⁓ my god, it's the pets.com sock puppet. You know, I don't do it up. It's like a Muppet. I put my hand inside and I let it ride. It says what I think and I don't mind what I drink. It looks like a cup, a little higher, please. I can't see what that thing is. ⁓ my, I'm on my knees. It's the L90 mug. L90 in the place to be. It's the water cooler, and everybody can see. When I was back there with Keith Kappy, we would drink out of that for you and me. You got anything else? Let's keep it going, cause I'm feeling the flow and I gotta get it going. Topnet, my god, it's a print magazine and I'm blowing my mind. Everything she's in her bag of props, she's like carrot top and the fun don't stop. my goodness, is that a flip phone? I don't know what brand is that. Is that the rim BlackBerry Tell me, yo, Motorola. The ESPN version, mobile ⁓ I better stop there because that's the end. Respect Erin Vogel, Liquid Asset. Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Appreciate you coming on. Cheers to you. Cheers to twenty seven or twenty six years. Where are we at as of today? LiquidAsset: Yep. Twenty twenty six and an internship twenty seven. GDogggggggg: Twenty seven years. Incredible. Thanks for coming on Frap Rap. Appreciate ya. And ⁓ we'll see you on the next show, everyone.