Latest / The Marketing Brief / Izzy, Eli & Brian Discuss the Activation Space and the Power in Bringing People Together (S1 E11)
Transcript
- Brian Aucoin: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief. I am your host, Brian Acquan, and this is the podcast where we briefly touch on topics across the marketing landscape. As always, we're joined by industry experts and we are very excited to be joined by two industry experts today. Thomas and Izzy Holden from the Vagabond. Hello gentlemen, how are you doing today? Eli Thomas: Hello, hello. First time we've ever been called experts. Izzy Holden: I'll take it. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, perhaps it'll be branded that way from now on. ⁓ Eli Thomas: please, it's already going into the signature of our emails. Brian Aucoin: Perfect. Well, thanks for joining me. Do you guys want to introduce yourselves and kind of what you do together? Eli Thomas: Absolutely, yeah. Eli Thomas, co-founder of Vagabond's, very easily described as an experiential ⁓ strategy creative production ⁓ agency. We to shy away from that word a little bit and ⁓ lean more into and things like that, ⁓ that sort of out more of that creative side. Yeah, and this is my Izzy Holden: Izzy Holden, bag of Agrabons. Visual Ambassador was a original doctrine of what I said I did, yeah, Eli does the sales, he does the new business. He ⁓ is the ⁓ of our and I am the behind the scenes, try to make it ⁓ come together of guy. But we've been doing it a long time. Brian, great to be on your show. Brian Aucoin: Yeah. And I've known you guys for a while and I've seen your work for a while and it's very impressive. And I've known you to do and crazy custom things for marketers. What, ⁓ I guess I'll start here kind of like, how's it going? Like, obviously you guys have been at this for a while. I'm sure it's changed over time. Like what's working now that, that maybe you've stumbled into or you've gotten into a pattern of, or, currently what's going on with clients and what they're asking of you guys in terms of experiences. Eli Thomas: So. Great question. I think one that sort of to tell the story of now we have to tell a little bit of the story of where we came from, we'll try and keep it brief, but started as a true art collective about 20 years ago. And those of who would like to tell that story of, you know, we'll say LA starving artists going into the streets just to try and kind of make their voices heard or their art scene or just their creative outlet. ⁓ opportunity. That was Vagabond's ⁓ origin story. And from that, not only were we able to build what we now have, a company, a thriving company, a growing company, all this stuff, but I think more importantly, we were able to build a networking community. And it's exactly like this. Old friends like you calling 10 years later and saying, what can we work on? What can we build together? What can we make? What can we talk about? And I think if Izzy and I were to be proud of any one thing, it's that, is that the Bag of Vagabonds principle creativity, community, ⁓ collaboration. that is what we're doing every single day and most of it's with people that we know and love and are also doing exciting, incredible things. So ⁓ that's origin ⁓ Next time we'll crack a couple and go deeper ⁓ into late night and downtown warehouse events and things like that. I think the... forward to what people are looking for now. It is the words that we kind of talked about in this initial briefing, which is coming out of COVID, What people wanted coming out of that is they wanted to really truly embrace connectivity. You know to be, don't know if we'll ever fully ⁓ the impact of being trapped in our homes for a couple years but what really meant to us was like touch, smell, feel, taste, ⁓ right? things that were were we were robbed up for a couple years and so when we started or when we rebooted after COVID we dug so much more into like how do we not only create environments but we create environments that are not just experience-based or bright lights or fog or great music but like are fully... immersive and creating a feeling. And so I think that's where our business has really taken off in the last three years is we don't talk about it from a, we get to the, how does it affect the brand and where the ROI and all these things that all the marketing questions that we have to ask to get to the point. We ask ourselves, what the person feel when they walk in the room? What are they talking about when they leave the environment of the space? And those words, authenticity and... ⁓ you know value to a person and truly creating environments that are baked in community like those are at the forefront of everything we do because not tricking anyone anymore like nobody's thrown around their ⁓ ⁓ for a ⁓ bag nobody's being fooled anymore but what we've also learned is like if you can give them something magical like it does create connection and brand loyalty and ⁓ what we strive to do Brian Aucoin: Right. awesome. I read a lot about the savvy consumer. So yeah, ⁓ think that's true. It's like there was a time when you'd give up anything for a bag. But now you want more. You want a full experience. I really also connect with the creating a feeling. I think really interesting in terms of what brands are looking for in terms of an activation. It's not just a, you know, a spot in a parking lot, right? It's like, what are we actually, what do we want people to walk away from this? that part of like your briefing process with clients? Eli Thomas: I'll take it from the strategy side and kick it over to Izzy because from the creative side it's something that we absorb at every little micro detail. From the strategy side it is really something that we're... be honest, give it something that a brand approaches us at this point. ⁓ established ourselves as ⁓ to do really great projects with people that we ⁓ and that we're inspired by. And it is something that I get really about strategically to talk about as it to a particular brand, right? Because every brand's from a Birkenstock to a a boot, right? Like every brand has a, it can be a similar strategy, but there's a lot of nuance throughout that. ⁓ so when we start to dig in on those, you know, what does your brand say to a consumer and how do we unpack that in a space? Like that's the part that I'm really trying to get so that I can package that up and kick it over to Izzy and the design team and they can ⁓ take that information and do what they do. Izzy Holden: Yeah, I think, you know, we're out of COVID, we've been ⁓ to be lot more efficient, get to the quicker. There's a lot wasted time. ⁓ both on our end, on negotiating, on finding clients. There's a better efficiency and that also can help projects, can expedite conversations and get things moving. And it also helps in efficiencies for ⁓ to the client and what they're trying to do. We've ⁓ continually our network to be to grow, but for us to grow at a sustainable ⁓ pace and not to take on the that we have. had ahead of time. Again, it has allowed us to work with clients across the country and many more different markets. We've overseas more now because of our growing network. We have people in all of these different places, but we haven't taken them all on as full-time employees, but partners. They're vendors that feed the and have grown in our network. Brian Aucoin: Mm-hmm. Izzy Holden: to get more bang for their buck too. We can take on more projects. We can say yes when they have a crazy ask. So a lot of that business that we've negotiated post COVID ⁓ allowed us to be more creative and ⁓ do So we try to pass those efficiencies on, but I think, you know, the details that, that we give a client, you know, we'll go as far as they'll let us go on that. And then executing on site, like we see when the seam is just, just off, you know, when we build it and we want to make sure that it's tightened together the next time that we build it. We see when, you know, the, jar, the can isn't set on the shelf. You know, we, those are the things that we're seeing, Brian Aucoin: Alright. Izzy Holden: maybe the client or the consumers not seeing, in the bigger picture is why the things that we build, work and they work again and again ⁓ they look like they're supposed to look. Eli Thomas: Also in the efficiency model were getting a lot of partners coming up saying like, hey, we have a warehouse full of unusable assets or this one company built this thing for us and we use it once and like, you refab it? so it used to be in a lot of agencies work in this sort of like sales handoff to creative handoff to go make this and us being a company that is we really work in two ways. One is brand direct, right? So we have a roster of brands that we're constantly And then we also have all these agency partnerships where they'll sell something through and come to us and use us as infrastructure, whether that's white labeled or as an external partnership. what we're finding is that a lot of these companies work in silos. And what we really work to do is working together where our strategy influences our design, influences our fabrication, influences our production. So we're building everything we have and we're promising is useful in a variety of ways. It's modular, it creates, it ships, it can turn from a 30 by 30 to a 10 by 20, it can be used at trade show, it can be used in a consumer fashion. And like really thinking through all that stuff, which is tough. To Izzy's point, that is the slog at the beginning. months to get through this stuff but once we do we have you know we've built these things that are entirely useful and they're strategically like built with you know this very specific brand in mind but with a variety of purposes right and I think that's where we found a lot of success is to be somebody that people can come to then We also have this big trade, how do we create an asset that's useful for all of that? And that's something now after 10 to 15 years of doing this, we really can take a step back Brian Aucoin: Yeah, totally. Scaled solutions, that's what everybody's looking for. You guys have mentioned post-COVID a couple times. I talk about it too. I agree with you that I don't think we've even understood how it's affected us yet. But ⁓ one the other trends that I've been watching and writing about is ⁓ a shift from what I was calling the attention economy to a conversation economy. And ⁓ kind defined the attention economy was every brand, every marketer wanted to... own your headspace. know, they're like this 24 hours a day. How many times can we get in front of this consumer because we want to drive frequency, which drives conversion, right? And I think now we've shifted to a conversation economy. And I think it's largely been driven by consumers who have grown up in a space. Now they've seen brands in their social networks. They've seen brands on Twitter talking to people, right? Brands are characters now that are part of your life. And the expectation is that a brand can communicate with you. whether you're pissed off or you want to compliment them or you have a question that they're there to kind of communicate you. Is that something you guys hear from marketers? Is it something that you put into your design when you're building out projects? Eli Thomas: 100 % I love the word conversational and I think everything we're doing ⁓ conversation like that it used to be our I Would use it at this this standpoint. I think a lot of our business early on came digital down, right? So whatever they're doing on the digital platform whether that's out of hunting on some bigger brands out of home or ⁓ even commercial Super Bowl commercial blah blah blah that trickled down trickled down trickled down and then it led to us building something and I think that conversation is reversed now where now will be the ones that are creating those make the creative landscape for something and then that ladders up through digital expression, through social media, ⁓ PR media in our space and showing them how the brand lives and breathes and ⁓ like that. And it used to be like, cool, ⁓ were a touch point on a consumer's journey. So at the time we lived in Venice, it was like, ⁓ and we're an alcohol, how do we make sure we're at the ⁓ local liquor stores on either corner and then there's a billboard in between and then we're sampling during first Brian Aucoin: Mm-hmm. Eli Thomas: And now it's sort of like this idea of natural integration, ⁓ so you're ⁓ part of the consumer's life. You're a part of ⁓ ⁓ process. it's really, instead of us getting these briefs that are like, Jack and Jill, they wake up in the morning and they blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, what do they literally do at 752? ⁓ type of coffee are they drinking? What are these micro decisions that everybody's making? When do they go to their phone and check their Instagram if they do it all? that involve microdata for us that to me are very conversational at the beginning and again guide the creative process that then is like okay like Brian Aucoin: Mm-hmm. Eli Thomas: You look up and you see this thing over here, but then, we know that they're at the festival and they want to take 20 minutes and chill. Or we actually know they need a meeting place. So how do we create a flag that says like, meet us at the, you know, this blank, like really thinking through those creative solutions to make sure that all that nuance is pulled through speaks in a way that like people understand. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, I get that. to add? Izzy, I love that you guys go deep on consumer insights. That's always where I want to start with all of my solutions is really understanding who is this consumer, what are they doing, what are their needs and wants. Izzy Holden: Yeah, I think that's, you know, one of Eli's specialties and what he has really gotten excited about in the last five, six years and brings that over to the creative side and we digest it and then figure out the best approach from that. Yeah. You know, we've been able to strategize on some formulas internally that have helped us be creative and efficient and different, but working internally within these formulas, like getting our team to buy in on certain things. You know, I speak to the conversation that we're having more from our internal team and how we are. creating the need you're seeing is. And lot of it is. It's just being true and not blasting people in the face, like giving them something that is crafted, that's handmade, that is, still very little in the digital. We're still very little on having robots do things, even from fabrication to ⁓ anything. Like talking with people daily ⁓ on all and trying to figure it out together. It ⁓ is that way before the consumer Brian Aucoin: Mm-hmm. Izzy Holden: It's the conversation within the people trying to figure it out. And I think that's what we pride ourselves on. When we show up at a trade show and everything's bells and whistles and print and lights and this and that, hey, we didn't do trade show before the pandemic. It's definitely been a need coming out that people, and we, we hesitated on trade show, but we're going in with that same mentality and building things by, by hand and painting and custom moments. Thinking the flow differently and thinking about out POS and swag and things that actually will be used and will be considered relevant. ⁓ our trade show booth sits next to the one that didn't have that, there's a difference and people are feeling that. And we went in to trade show. did one and the next year we did three and the next year we did six, you know, and people were like, ⁓ who did that? And that's different. ⁓ And think, you know, you saw that 15 years ago at ⁓ Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Izzy Holden: Santa Monica Pier really hasn't changed. We've just gotten a lot better and ⁓ a lot more people on ⁓ do quality work with good people and have fun while doing it. That will never get old. people willing to pay for quality. And I think pre-COVID, was blast everybody with as much as you could blast them with. now it's, that conversation like let's. let's do less with more and be thoughtful about it. Brian Aucoin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, well that authenticity definitely comes through in the stuff that I've seen you guys build. I love, have a tagline, do cool stuff with good people. That's pretty simple. Eli Thomas: Yeah. Real simple. We tried to overcomplicate it a long time, but ⁓ conversations with my grandparents. I love down with anyone and just ask anyone what I have done differently or the meaning of life, whatever. And it really boils down to how you spend your time and who you spend ⁓ your time And it shouldn't change in a work setting or in a travel set and we're fortunate enough to get to go to some of the greatest places in the world. I just got back from Qatar. We do a project in the south of France. We're at all these culture moments that everyone wants to be at and we never want to take that for granted. And also like preach a big part of our business remains in that community but positivity element. Like our team is our ⁓ go-getters not in that fake way and that genuine setting a culture and a respect and an empowerment model for our team and our staff and just show them like, hey, we believe in you and let's do this together. Izzy brought up the trash part at the beginning, like he and I inevitably are the ones taking out the trash at the end of the night. And it used to be a joke and now we love to do it because we laugh and we giggle and we still get to just sort of like... sit there and absorb this thing that we built from the ground up. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, you built the culture and you've stuck to it. So congratulations on that. Thank you guys for joining me today for this brief conversation. How do people get in touch with you if they're interested in Vagabonds? Eli Thomas: get this one. ⁓ Izzy Holden: Perfect timing, Brian. just rebuilt our website. ⁓ did it during the pandemic. ⁓ so that was our exercise when we didn't have jobs. But ⁓ just took and revamped that. So www.bagofagabonds.com. also have an Instagram that we're going to start re-updating next week. ⁓ So lot of new content, a lot of new stuff in the projects that we're working on, both on website and on our Instagram and a lot more coming. ⁓ ⁓ and to have a conversation with ⁓ that thinks this interesting or wants to ⁓ see what else we can do. Brian Aucoin: Absolutely. I vouch for you guys all the time. You create amazing experiences. You turn your outsider perspective into an asset, which I think is really awesome. So I want to thank you guys for joining me today. It's been great to have a conversation. Eli Thomas: Thank You too buddy, I appreciate the call and let's do it in person soon. Brian Aucoin: Absolutely. This has been the, ⁓ go ahead, is on a mountain. favorite venue is a mountain. Thanks joining us. This has been the Marketing Brief with Brian and Quan. Stay curious. Izzy Holden: or on the map. or on a mountain.