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Outsmarting Brand Behemoths with Dustin Artz · We Built This Brand

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And I'm trying to see how many secrets we can go into here,
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because it's not by accident that we do the things we do, right?
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Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the
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creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with
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practical insights that you can use to grow your own business.
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Today, we're talking with Dustin Artz, one
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of the co founders of Familiar Creatures.
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They're a Richmond, Virginia based ad agency.
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And they've worked on campaigns with the likes of
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Duke's Mayo, Crunch Fitness, just, just to name a few.
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And they've done some really fun creative work over the years.
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And on top of that, they've got a really cool brand.
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I can't wait to share it with you all.
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And in this episode, we dive into that.
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We talk about the brand that they've built, the brand they
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created, and we talk about the brands that they help support.
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So this is a very wide ranging conversation.
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I had a lot of fun talking with Dustin and can't wait to share it with you.
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So without further ado, here's my conversation with
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Dustin Artz, one of the co-founders at Familiar Creatures.
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Alrighty.
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Well, welcome back to We Built This Brand, and today
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I am joined by Dustin Artz from Familiar Creatures.
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Dustin, thank you for coming on the show.
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Hey, thanks for having me.
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Absolutely.
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Glad to have you here.
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So, what I typically like to start off with is just learning a little
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bit more about you, your background, and how your business got its start.
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So I see you're the co founder of Familiar Creatures.
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And beyond that, I just love some background.
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Where'd you, where'd you get started in the industry?
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So I'd say my advertising journey started in college.
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I felt like a bit of a black sheep.
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I had to apply to a business school and it was
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great, but I just wasn't passionate about it.
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I ended up enrolling in some promotions courses and there was an advertising
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federation competition that I joined and I was the creative on the team.
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And I was like, yes, this is what I want to do.
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I found myself late nights preferring to do advertising work
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and, and creative concepting and things rather than going home.
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So it, it kind of unlocked me there.
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From there, I went to Brandcenter in Richmond.
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I had no idea it existed, even though I
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was in Charlottesville, uh, an hour away.
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And I decided to work a year at an ad agency
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and sort of build a portfolio and apply.
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So that was back in.
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Early 2000s, not to date myself too hard, but that's when I started.
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And from there kind of worked in big
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agencies, east and west coast, on big brands.
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Pepsi, Lexus, Travelocity, Sony, Geico back on at the Martin agency in
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Richmond, and that's where I met my partner, Justin, I'm Dustin, he's Justin.
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It's always a good icebreaker for new clients because we're the Ustins.
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It's always just like, it makes people laugh.
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And I think our whole vibe is very approachable.
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We're not trying to like intimidate with our
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creative brilliance or anything like that.
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So,
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[laughs]
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so that's, uh, I met my partner Justin while working on Geico.
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Um, this, the story of Familiar Creatures
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starting, if you're interested in that.
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Yeah.
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I'd love to.
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Yeah.
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Please tell me more about Familiar Creatures.
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Now you've, you've built this up.
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And so you met Justin, you got Justin and Dustin,
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and you start or decide to start Familiar Creatures.
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You've been working at these big companies.
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Was it just burnout and wanting to do something different?
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Like, what was it that inspired you to go that direction?
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It's a great question.
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We both are very, we just love doing what we do.
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And sometimes, man, the burnout thing hits close
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to home because industry is rife with that.
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But it was more, I would say it was more just a serendipity
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of one little thing happening and then another little thing.
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I had worked at a lot of big agencies.
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I had left the Martin Agency and then I
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worked at a place called Arts and Letters.
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And I decided to take a break from that and freelance.
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And at the time, I have two brothers and my younger
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brother owns a little design agency in Charlottesville.
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And he used to draw the packaging for
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Devil's Backbone, which is a craft brewery.
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So, so side, side note on Devil's Backbone, that's, that's crazy because
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for my, for my old podcast, Our Humble Beer podcast, we actually interviewed
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Devil's Backbone right after they got acquired and all that crazy stuff.
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So I have some connections there.
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Oh, that's incredible.
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I kind of remember that.
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Honestly, it's like six years ago now, but I, I sort of, or even more.
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So anyway, yeah.
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So my brother drew all the packaging, Anheuser
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Busch, AB InBev, acquires Devil's Backbone.
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And my brother's basically like, look.
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They're going to triple bid this.
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There's, they're going to go after Chicago and New York agencies.
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And at the time, my brother had two people in his shop and he's great at
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what he does, but you know, just not the same rigor as these big places.
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So he sort of enlisted me and I was freelancing at the time.
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And so I put together sort of a ragtag group of freelancers.
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I did the strategy.
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I kind of led the creative, put together a big,
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presentation, and then we won it over all these big agencies.
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They basically said, you blew us away.
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You put the other ones to shame.
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For me, it was very, I'm not trying to brag, but it gave me
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some confidence that, Hey, maybe I could do this at a, at a.
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personal level and on my own.
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And so after that, I kind of led a packaging refresh
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and redesign for all of Devil's Backbone packaging,
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which is in my wheelhouse because I'm an art director.
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And then my brother took over that design initiative, but
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I quickly realized, hey, they need marketing for the year.
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And not only does Devil's Backbone, but a lot of these
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other craft breweries that AB InBev owns might need it.
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So that was the initial, um, Pitch to Justin to join me.
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We had always worked really well together on, you know, as creatives, you get in
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a room with lots of different people and it's always art director and a writer.
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And you see how you vibe and you see if you like the same things.
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And usually your best partners are the ones
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you can be like, "Ah, yeah, I'm not sure.
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I've seen that a million times.
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What about this?
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What about this?"
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And you can just be yourself.
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You don't have to like tread water and be like, "That's a great idea, but
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what if we...," you know, so we were just able to be direct with each other.
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We like the same things.
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We share similar interests, and we could get to stuff so fast,
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which when you have a million projects, when you can just knock out
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like, okay, that's three concepts in 20 minutes, okay, we're good.
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And knowing that they're at the right level.
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So I enlisted him, and long story short, we put together a marketing
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plan for Devil's Backbone, made a lot of work for them, and I could go
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into it, but it's basically gave them a strategic and creative platform
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that allowed them to sort of level up and play with the big boys.
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Sort of the ethos of our agency is taking challenger brands that aren't
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the market leaders and leveling them up to a place where they are.
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We say we outsmart brand behemoths or familiar creatures.
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We outsmart brand behemoths and sort of our name is a
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play on that if you wanted to ask about it, I guess.
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[laughs]
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I was going to ask about it.
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So that's, that's a, that's another great one.
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That, that I'm glad you brought up because I think it's, I
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think it's interesting the branding of Familiar Creatures
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and how you've like, it's just, it's, it's a fun brand.
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Like you've got a mascot for it already.
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Like I'm, I'm digging the mascot stuff.
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That's a whole other side conversation.
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I don't want to get into here, but like I've,
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I've made some, I've done a lot with them.
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We can get you a tubby plushie for Duke's mayo, if you want.
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Oh, sure.
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Justin and I did a lot of Gecko ads.
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So I've worked with the Gecko.
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I've worked with the Travelocity Gnome.
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I've worked with, what else?
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Hmm.
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I don't know.
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I've just, I've, I've dabbled in, in different mascots
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and there's a certain way you, you have to do them.
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We realized at the time that a lot of these.
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Up and coming agencies were very too cool for school.
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They're, they're all trying, they're cool, but they're trying to be like, be
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seen as cool or very like, we will intimidate you with our creative brilliance.
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Whereas really we see the industry as a bunch of marketing people who are
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sometimes understaffed, they're under tremendous pressure and they need a
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partner who is approachable, who gets them and listens and works with them.
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So our angle was as opposed to look like we're hot shit.
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I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, but just like be, be approachable.
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We also noticed that for an industry that prides
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itself on branding, a lot of the brands are terrible.
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Like they're just the last names of, of a guy.
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And then they, they put them with other last names of other men.
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And it's just like, is this the brand?
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And then when you look at their positioning, it's all variations
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of, "We do upper funnel awareness work," which is like, I don't want
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to throw shade on them, but it's all just like, "We get attention!"
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Which is like, yeah, that's the category.
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That's, that's the category.
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You, you said the category.
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So for us, it was become a cool brand that
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someone would want to wear on a t-shirt.
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And then stand for something.
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So Familiar Creatures means, "familiar" is
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we are familiar with like A-level brands.
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We are familiar with brand behemoths.
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We've worked on the biggest brands out there.
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And then the "creatures" part is we like to think we run circles around them.
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Like a crafty brand of creatures.
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And we just liked how approachable and cozy
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it was, and it's like, we're on your side.
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We're, we're collaborative.
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So that's sort of the genesis of the name.
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I like it.
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And I like the little, um, the monster mascot that you have
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on your home page when you show up, and he's a little bit
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of elements of all the familiar creatures you might know.
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Got some horns, some fur, big feet.
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It's got scales on his tummy.
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Like it's
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[laughs]
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just, it's cool.
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It's fun.
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Well, thanks.
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We are, we are undergoing a rebrand refresh, which is taking forever.
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But in the original logo, I kind of drew that a silhouette of the creature.
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And we are trying to refresh it every few years to keep it up to date.
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But we like it approachable, a little
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mischievous, a little, I don't know, friendly.
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Yeah, it definitely hits those vibes.
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Okay.
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[laughs]
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So what is the business model for Familiar Creatures?
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Um, I noticed somewhere you mentioned you all are a fractional AOR.
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I think that means agency of record, AOR, right?
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Yeah.
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So we used to lean into that positioning
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for, you know, the first five, six years.
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We are transitioning now to what I was saying
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about arts outsmarting brand behemoths.
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At the time when we started and we were little,
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we noticed a rise of the fractional CMO.
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We noticed a lot of in-housing.
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And so we really thought that clients needed a partner that
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was like an extension of their own team and borrowing from the
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fractional CMO who kind of comes in, he's hired to do a job.
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He sets up the marketing department.
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He sets you up the first couple of years and then he can be on his way.
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without billing you forever.
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That's sort of where we started because what
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we kept hearing was that agencies don't listen.
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They're expensive.
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They rope you into these long year long contracts.
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Then they try and up the hours on you all the time.
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And it just felt very daunting.
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And we were like, well, let's just get a foot in the door.
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With the fractional concept, like I said, I think that was great for the time.
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We've evolved past that now to where most
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of our clients are year round retainer.
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And we do still follow a lot of the same principles, like being an
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extension of their team, being collaborative, but I think we, now, after
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Duke's and Crunch, which are sort of our biggest clients, um, and most
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well known clients, we really are leaning into the challenger brand space.
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And so that's where We Outsmart Brand Behemoths comes in.
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Please, please tell me more about, so, so then, so
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then where you're at today with the brand behemoths.
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I'm really curious about how you do, like, I mean, obviously you're
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probably not going to tell me all the secret sauce, but like, how,
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how are you approaching that, that challenger space, if you will?
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Like, that's a hard place to be kind of being the up
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and coming, because you have to find unique ways to
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get your foot in the door to get attention for things.
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And they may not always have the budgets that some of the bigger brands do.
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So what's your approach?
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It's a great question.
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I will say that, without giving away too much of
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the secret sauce, I can say sort of four things.
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The first is that we, we concentrate below agency thresholds.
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We, we realized there was a threshold for all the big
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holding company agencies that do the pitch cycle, and they
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all pitch against each other for these pieces of business.
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We are just under that threshold.
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And to us, to Justin and I, those are more of the interesting, they're
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still household name brands, but they kind of stand for something.
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They're not so ubiquitous that it's just an awareness play
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of trying to get attention every six months with some TV.
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So we really love building brands from the ground up.
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And a lot of those marketing teams really need help.
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One place we worked, I'm trying not to out the place or the brands,
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but these huge brands that you're like, they're global, yet they're
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still treated like they don't matter because it's like, "Oh, we can
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only afford three people on that for like a quarter of the year."
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And these brands are massive.
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They're just not using the money as nimbly as a smaller independent shop would.
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So, I'd say the first thing is we play in a certain space of media thresholds.
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The second thing I'd say we charge by deliverables and not hours.
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And that's something that kind of came up that we saw at
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different holding company agencies that held them back, is
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that you're almost incentivized to take longer on projects.
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Like, if you take, if you nail something in one week with like a team of
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three, you're almost penalized by the, that model, because you'd almost
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want to take a year, rebrief it a million times and put 20 people in there.
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Cause then you make more money.
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That's, that's, that's.
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That's general.
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Obviously, there's a lot of constraints and I feel for the
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creative department and agencies is not as profitable as media.
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So there's, there's some real headwinds and things you're trying to achieve.
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But in general, when we started an agency, we
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didn't want to be rewarded for taking longer.
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We would have rather made more work.
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So we charge by deliverables.
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Another area is we don't pitch.
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We kind of philosophically disagree with it.
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We've also spent many weekends, you know, as creatives, burnout on pitches
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that you never had a chance for in the first place, they end up being one
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team's freelancers against another team's freelancers, battling it out.
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It's a big song and dance and.
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In general, we think it's a little unfair for your paying
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clients to be footing the bill for you to be pitching new work.
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It's, for us, it feels a little, I don't know, shades of gray.
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I don't want to be too harsh, but you can make these decisions when you're
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I totally, I totally understand where you're coming from because you don't,
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like, it's a lot of wheel spin to go through all that effort, all that time.
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And yeah, if you've got clients that are waiting on deliverables
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over here, like, I mean, they may not see it that way, but
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like you may feel it because you got to be responsible back to
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those people that you're working for on a day in day out basis.
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So.
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It, I think I've seen a million thought pieces on this, but
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like just trying a project together to see if it works is
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probably more helpful than doing a four months pitch process.
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There is.
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An element to me as someone who's been in the industry for two decades
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now, where I just look at other businesses, like from plumbers to
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accountants, to doctors, to lawyers, it's like, which of them is like,
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we'll do three months of free work and then they out compete each other.
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I would think less of those professions.
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So I do think it has a undermining effect
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on the whole industry, which I don't like.
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That, that said, you know, people love it and people love winning, so.
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Alright, and then the last area I would
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say is we try and have a work-life balance.
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I think this is, feels really like, "No duh," to other
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companies, but Justin and I have small kids and families.
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And we always were, it felt like the victims of, you know,
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you got to work the weekend, you got to work the weekend.
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And it's like, why don't we just manage this better so that we didn't.
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And so we always, as a small group, you can't just burn out your people.
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They'll leave.
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So we try and be pretty good.
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So I'd say that those areas are a lot of our
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secret sauce without getting too into the weeds.
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Although, I don't know, pretty descriptive, I guess.
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I mean,
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I think, I think work life balance is important too,
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and especially in a creative agency because you, you
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have to have the space to come up with the ideas.
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And that space doesn't just happen by sitting down at a desk and staring
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at a computer screen for eight hours a day, like it's going to come to
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you in the shower, it's going to come to you at the gym, might come to
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you while you're out hiking in the wilderness, you know, like there, there
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are all these things that you can do that can help stimulate your brain.
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Better than just being in one place.
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Yeah.
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Lin, Lin Manuel Miranda, when he came up with the
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Hamilton concept, I think he had a tweet about it.
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He was like, I had taken, finally had taken time for myself.
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And that's when he came up with the best idea of his life, you know?
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So it's, it's like, I also had a, you can edit this out later because
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there's profanity, but I had a, um, a T a teacher at ad center.
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He said, "You got to eat the sh-."
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Basically you have to bring in a lot of stimuli to make a lot of work.
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To, to have, to put concepts together and to vomit it out.
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[laughs]
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I get it.
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Sorry if I'm too crass.
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Oh, I think this is fine.
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This is totally fine.
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And I mean, it's, it's a good truth too, because like
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it does, it does take a lot to come up with a good idea.
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And I know when we've worked for our clients, like I've,
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I've had similar situations of like, Oh yeah, that I could
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tell you where those ideas came to me or how they came about.
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And it's not always just sitting down and spitballing ideas.
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Like, yeah, there's so many different places.
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I'm a strong believer in like your subconscious working
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through things, even when you're not paying attention.
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And usually I used to, as a creative, always want to
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do two things at once, because your brain might try
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and solve the one, but really you solved the other one.
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So like, you always have, I think your brain is working for you.
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But to that point, that's what's so hard about a creative industry is an idea
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can come to you within two minutes, or it can come to you within two hours.
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And it's so hard to budget when you have a bar for like, that's not good enough.
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It does, as much as I'm talking about work-life balance, there are times
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when it's like, we need to, we don't just cut it off if the bar isn't upheld.
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So it's tricky.
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Definitely is.
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And I will say, I mean, I think y'all have come up with some pretty
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creative work, the stuff that I've been able to experience and see online
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and even, I think, experience in person too, to some degree, you know,
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through television and media, and of course, like y'all work with Duke's,
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as you mentioned, and I love what y'all have been able to, to do with that.
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I wasn't even aware of Duke's a few years ago.
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And then it feels like over time, I've, I've seen it more and more.
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I've tried it.
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I've just, I've found it to be a really good, mayo that I like.
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And so, yeah, for what it's worth, I mean,
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the marketing and branding has worked.
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And I guess with that said, like, I'd love to hear a couple of projects.
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Obviously we'll start with Duke's, but like Duke's and maybe Crunch Fitness,
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like what are some projects you've worked on that you're really proud of?
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And if there are others, feel free to tell me, but let's,
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let's look at Duke's first, really curious about that.
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Yeah, we love Duke's.
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Duke's is for us, allows us to really flex
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and show what Familiar Creatures is all about.
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So Duke's Mayo is super beloved in the South.
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But it has really just a area of 12 states that really know it well, and
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we are on a march to kind of push into new frontiers across the country.
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And we have a new campaign that we just shot, actually
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a spot for it that is coming out around August.
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It's called Welcome to Duke's Country, and it's, it's going to be really fun,
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and make, it's going to turn some heads because it's, there's always this built
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in tension with Duke's when it's like, "Wait, a mayo company's doing this?"
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So it's, it's really fun to work on.
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It's sort of exemplifies what we do because
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they are outspent 40 or 50 to one by Hellman's.
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Hellman's is the market leader by far.
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And Duke's is this little brand in the South that is a superior product.
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If you ask, you know, it was just ranked in Bon Appetit magazine.
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Even, uh, an editor there who loved and was diehard Hellman's.
21:11
They did a blind taste test and he was like, this one's better.
21:13
It was Duke's.
21:14
It's because it doesn't have sugar in it.
21:16
It's because it's just egg yolks and it's just, it's got a tang to it.
21:21
That is great.
21:22
That aside, it's.
21:23
It's like a storied brand that dates from World War One, 1917.
21:28
It was, you know, woman owned and led and she made sandwiches
21:33
and like, and gave them to troops in World War One.
21:36
And so just like this fascinating story.
21:38
So we have this like entrepreneurial.
21:40
Feisty spirit in this brand that we love.
21:44
And I'm trying to see how many secrets we can go into here
21:47
because it's not by accident that we do the things we do, right?
21:52
Their team, they're owned by a company called
21:54
Sour, which is owned by a private equity group.
21:59
And that happened, you know, let's say six or seven years ago, and they
22:03
brought on a new team and they had aggressive goals and they really
22:07
put together an awesome team to maximize what this brand is all about.
22:12
And so the target market shifted from the traditional mayo audience,
22:17
which was like old women who bake because they buy a lot of mayo.
22:22
And then we shifted it to millennials.
22:24
And specifically our target is more Southern minded
22:28
millennials with some other psychographic stuff.
22:30
So one of the nice things about being a challenger brand is you can really
22:34
understand your audience and have the brand cater to them as opposed to
22:40
you watch like Hellman's, and you watch a Super Bowl spot, and they have
22:45
funny comedians or SNL people, but then you can just tell things were focus
22:51
grouped to death with Unilever or they had to be like, "Oh, we have to get
22:55
the, this demographic and this demographic and this and this and this."
22:57
And it just neutral, it like neuters everything down.
23:00
Whereas like Duke's, we are loud and proud what we're about.
23:04
We try and be bold and saucy is some of our behind the scenes language.
23:09
But really every, we, we try and show up in a certain way.
23:13
Okay.
23:13
And a lot of this podcast is called We Built This Brand.
23:16
But a lot of the backstory with that is a typical
23:19
holding company approach to this brand would have been
23:22
to be like, make a 30 second spot and run it everywhere.
23:25
And then take that slogan and just put it on banner ads and do programmatic.
23:29
And I think our approach has been a lot more nuanced of fanning
23:33
the flames of brand fanatics and ambassadors and making sort
23:39
of activations for them, whether it's a tattoo event that we
23:44
just gave away free tattoos and was covered by national press.
23:47
We've made events such as in the South, a
23:51
tomato and mayo sandwich is like a thing.
23:54
And we partnered with restaurants.
23:57
We're now in, um, we started in Richmond and now this is year four, and
24:02
we've slowly grown to six Southern cities that do a hot tomato summer event.
24:07
So we ask restaurants to combine mayo and tomato into unique dishes.
24:12
And sometimes that's ice cream.
24:14
Sometimes it's like tomato pies.
24:16
It's super creative.
24:17
And then we, Give away this award.
24:19
It's like a, um, a baker holding a tomato.
24:22
It's, it's cute.
24:23
So we just, you know, we can, without having a holding company playbook,
24:28
where is like, you have, you are the TV agency, you do the TV, here's the
24:31
web, here's the web agency, here's the PR agency, here's the social agency.
24:35
It's like, we can be like, okay, this is what's needed.
24:38
Let's do this and create it.
24:40
And there's no red tape.
24:41
So we are able to be super nimble.
24:44
And my favorite examples of, of success with this brand are,
24:47
you know, when we did that tattoo event, it like sold out.
24:50
We had 75 tattoos to give away.
24:52
And some people were like, nobody's ever going to do this.
24:55
Nobody's going to brand themselves with a logo.
24:58
It got thousands of people signing up for it.
25:01
We had press fly in from Vice.
25:04
It was covered by Food and Wine, CNN, just like, it just was, it took off.
25:10
And then Hellman's, Hellman's heard about it and tried to
25:13
do their own tattoo event, and it just fell on its face.
25:16
And it was just like such an example of how does the
25:19
company with so much money not able to listen and react?
25:25
You know, it's just because there's too many people there.
25:26
So we love that example.
25:29
There's another thing you can see they're really threatened
25:31
because Duke's has this Mayo Bowl where they're like, It's absurd.
25:36
We created this mascot Tubby for it.
25:38
He's just a big jar and he's got these like big black Eugene Levy eyebrows.
25:42
And he's a little, he's a little untinged and he was crowdsourced.
25:46
His name is Tubby because that's what people chose.
25:48
Anyway, it's like an outlandish, absurd college bowl, like embracing
25:53
the absurdity of Mayo being a sponsor of football and then Hellman's
25:57
you can tell is, is threatened because they are now partnering with,
26:01
SEC schools like Alabama, because they're like, stop the bleeding.
26:05
Duke's is the fastest growing Mayo in the category, especially with millennials.
26:10
So it's just like shows that rather than a silver bullet approach, these
26:14
like smaller activations that build fanaticism really compound over time.
26:19
And you, you brought up, you brought up the super,
26:21
or not the Super Bowl, but the bowl games thing.
26:23
It feels like last year specifically, there was this trend.
26:27
And I don't know if you all were in on this.
26:29
Or if this was, this was intentional, but like.
26:32
Talking about the Pop Tarts.
26:34
Yeah, the Pop Tarts, your, your mascot, like, was it, did, I mean, did, I
26:39
don't, I'm not trying to say like this was a copycat thing, but it just,
26:42
it felt really weird that everybody kind of had the same idea at once.
26:46
I do think people in the creative space are always looking for what's out there.
26:50
It's like one of the first things you do and you, you, you audit.
26:53
So I don't know, I don't want to take credit for that, but it does
26:56
seem like the Pop Tart being sacrificed and eaten and things like that.
27:00
I do think one, one baby step in absurdity kind of begets more.
27:06
Um, it's sort of, Justin and I learned it on Geico.
27:09
It, it took a lot of innovation at the time for Geico.
27:12
To do humor in a category that was largely somber and about trust.
27:18
You could see all the MBAs saying, "this, this is about trust.
27:23
People want trust.
27:24
You have to be, you have to show that".
27:25
And then Geico comes in and their CMO says, "This is not like a normal industry.
27:31
People need this.
27:32
We can at least entertain them with what we're doing."
27:34
And then now you see all of them are trying to be funny from State Farm.
27:39
Who's number one, but we saw just with massive, you know,
27:43
obviously massive budgets, but with awareness, geico kind
27:47
of rose up from being behind Allstate to being number two.
27:51
And it's, it was, I don't know, it made it kind of very formative moment
27:55
for Justin and I to see the power of creativity with business results.
28:00
Um, and of course y'all did a Mayo Combine as well, which
28:04
Oh, we did.
28:05
Also amazing.
28:06
Thanks.
28:07
Yeah.
28:07
So they have some, it's so funny.
28:09
Mayo is such a fun brand because Like I said, there's a
28:12
built in tension of like, wait, what, what are you doing?
28:15
So we had a, for the, the combine, it was a lot like
28:18
the NFL combine where people are proving their muster
28:21
with the fastest 40 time or bench presses or whatever.
28:24
But this was like, how far could you throw a jar of mayo and
28:27
how, you know, just really silly mayo related activities.
28:32
And then the winners were able to dump, uh, a big thing of
28:37
mayo on the winning coach of the Mayo Bowl, which always gets
28:40
a ton of press every year because it's ridiculous and just fun.
28:46
I think it's to your point.
28:47
I remember McDonald's had a mascot social takeover of
28:51
Grimace, and he was a lot like Tubby, how he took over.
28:56
And I'm just like, are these people copying or not?
28:58
I don't know, but it's kind of cool either
29:00
way, just to be part of something fun.
29:03
I do think, I think everybody would echo this, but since 2008 and the
29:08
recession, the amount of humor out in the industry has just, it's like
29:13
a lot of that combined with like data and even a lot of the new, I
29:18
don't know, analytics schools and like trying to get advertising to
29:21
a science has taken a lot of the joy and fun and humor out of things.
29:26
And I think there's just such an appetite for it, especially when you're in
29:30
an industry, like mayo, where it's like, this is just, it's just a condiment.
29:35
It's fun.
29:36
I love this condiment.
29:38
You are entertaining as opposed to sort of finger wagging.
29:42
I think something a bigger holding company would do is say, we need a purpose.
29:49
We need a why.
29:50
And so Hellman's does.
29:52
We're all about eliminating food waste.
29:54
And for me, as a consumer, it's like, do I want to have the, huge company
30:00
that makes billions of dollars telling me what to do with my food?
30:04
You know, like, I don't know?
30:05
I'd rather, I'd rather buy the one that has a mayo, uh, a mascot running around.
30:10
[laughs]
30:10
That's right.
30:11
They're just, they're just saying that cause you're dumping that,
30:13
that big jar of mayo on, on the coach at the end of those games.
30:17
I know.
30:18
I, I've always thought of that.
30:19
Like it's very, very, uh, you know, yeah, you should use your food wisely.
30:25
And then we're just like dumping it on a coach.
30:26
[laughs] But that's, that's great.
30:29
That's great.
30:30
Um,
30:30
Potato, pohtato.
30:31
Exactly.
30:32
Um, so what about Crunch Fitness?
30:35
I've noticed you've done some very clever stuff for them.
30:37
Some I'd say rather surreal stuff for them too, with that
30:41
moving, talking hand and some other stuff y'all have done.
30:44
So tell me a little bit about them.
30:46
We are super proud of Crunch because of the results as well.
30:51
They started out as.
30:52
They're in the retail, if you haven't heard of
30:54
Crunch Fitness, they're in the retail gym space.
30:57
A lot of their deals are like $9.99 a month.
31:01
They compete with Planet Fitness, who like Hellman's, outspends them.
31:05
And then there's like Equinox and there's Golds and
31:09
then there's Crunch and then there's like a few others.
31:11
And it's all this kind of sea of sameness, although I
31:14
will say Planet does a good job of having a good spirit.
31:18
A lot of, a lot of these models are franchise driven.
31:21
So they have franchises in Miami, they have franchises in Washington and Idaho.
31:25
And.
31:26
It really makes it hard to have a particular audience you're talking to.
31:31
So a lot of the work gets generic.
31:33
And on top of that, sales overnight versus brand
31:36
over time, they over index on the sales overnight.
31:39
So it's like, we're going to get a ton of people in the door.
31:42
If you just show that we have 60 pound dumbbells, show that
31:44
we have 60, or I don't even know if that's right, but like 75
31:46
pounds, that's going to get people in the door, just show it.
31:49
And that will work, but it's to the detriment of like, why
31:52
this one over this one, if this one's closer to my house.
31:56
Why would I go down there?
31:57
And you have to really stand for something and believe in something.
31:59
So when you are a new agency and you don't rely on pitches to have a
32:06
constant supply of, of new business leads, you have to kind of invent some.
32:10
So we started working with a local franch-
32:14
Crunch franchise and made work for them.
32:16
And we didn't know, but we were out of compliance.
32:20
Cause you're not allowed to do that.
32:21
You are not allowed to work with a single
32:23
franchise instead of the national brand.
32:26
And it put us in the attention of the national brand.
32:29
And they were like, "Number one, don't do that.
32:31
Number two, how did you get that done?
32:33
Because it's really good."
32:35
And then that's how the relationship started.
32:37
At the same time, we are nimble and we can
32:41
make budgets go far, no matter what budget.
32:44
As creatives, you have a special, when you know, a budget
32:47
is 15 grand, a 50 grand to 150 grand to half a mil to a mil
32:53
to two mil, like, you know, the production at each level.
32:56
And so you can tailor the creative to be like,
32:59
this is the best creative we can get in this range.
33:01
And I think we've done a good job of growing
33:04
that pie with results over time with Crunch.
33:06
We started out by doing more retail work and now we, just
33:13
recently, it makes me think of We Built This Brand, but we always
33:16
do these things called brand workshops with when we first start.
33:19
So a brand workshop has we do like five or six exercises and I
33:24
don't want to go into all of them, but one of them is like the
33:27
golden circle by Simon Sinek, which most marketing people know.
33:31
Something like that.
33:32
Finding out your why, why you exist outside of making money.
33:35
And we have a bunch of exercises.
33:37
So we brought, you know, we do a ton of stakeholder interviews.
33:41
We brought a bunch of Crunch at the time
33:45
they had two CEOs and an experienced leader.
33:48
We brought all these people together and
33:49
we kind of did a brand workshop with them.
33:52
We did a challenger brand archetypes with them, exercises,
33:55
and really get out, like, what are you guys about?
33:58
Because their problem was, not that they didn't have a really good
34:02
start and positioning, it's just that Planet sort of subsumed them.
34:07
They, Crunch was first to be about no judgments, and Planet Fitness
34:11
just kind of stole it from them because they didn't trademark it.
34:15
They both have hands in their logos.
34:17
And so like, I remember in the beginning, I was just like.
34:20
I just put in, this is a good way to see what people across the
34:23
internet think, but I just put is "crunch" in like the search bar.
34:27
And it was like the same as Planet Fitness owned by Planet Fitness.
34:30
It was just like, they're very identical.
34:32
Right?
34:32
And you need to, you need to stand for something else.
34:35
And so we, what their marketing team is super savvy.
34:39
Led by this guy named Chad and together really wanted to figure out,
34:45
"Yes, we have a no judgments philosophy, but what is our purpose?
34:48
What is our positioning?
34:49
How are we going to stand?
34:50
um, which I could go into, but I won't, "how do you differentiate?
34:52
How do you stand out?"
34:53
And I think you said we had a, a talking logo, like a, a surreal logo singing.
34:59
That was because that was like a, a brand awareness play.
35:02
It was, their logos are, the logos are similar.
35:05
How do we, how do we get Crunch into households?
35:09
And we made it a thing called Crunch Mode.
35:11
We showed the gym, but we made the logo like sing.
35:15
And it was just like, the unaided awareness shot up after that.
35:19
Like they're, they're number two in the category now for unaided
35:21
awareness, I think largely to that work, which was awesome.
35:25
And then now it's, we are, we have a campaign called "Feel Good.
35:28
Not Bad."
35:29
which came out of a position that everyone deserves to feel good.
35:33
You have the golds of the world that are more for bodybuilders.
35:35
You have the equinoxes who are more sort of like trying to be elite.
35:40
Fitness people, you have other players, and then we just
35:43
noticed, notice sort of some white space and some backstory
35:47
with Crunch around owning, like everyone needs to feel good.
35:51
So this is where you come for that.
35:54
And we have this silly campaign, which is "Feel Good.
35:56
Not Bad."
35:57
Which is so elementary that we love it.
36:00
It's like.
36:02
It's like advertising 101, like, "This good, this bad.
36:05
This good, this bad."
36:07
And so we are, uh, it's just working really well, and we're super proud of it.
36:10
We've always thought, Justin and I, it's not, it's not enough to just be
36:14
creative and to win awards because sometimes that's for the wrong audience.
36:18
Sometimes it's, there's a number of examples of things that win awards
36:22
and the client gets fired the next year, and that to us is a fail.
36:26
If you own a business and.
36:29
You win some awards and everyone's like, "Hey, awesome job."
36:32
It's like, not really because you lost your, your, your business pipeline.
36:37
It's all about those Addies.
36:40
[laughs] I think it's award season right now too.
36:43
So I don't want to.
36:43
It probably is.
36:45
Oh no, I can, I can do it all day.
36:47
I'm a president of American Marketing Association for my local chapter.
36:50
I'm still bitter.
36:53
[laughs]
36:53
Um, but we, yeah, when you like own a business and you're looking at your
36:57
like, your P& L over year over year, you're like, okay, yeah, we, you
37:02
know, it's not just about what can we get away with, with as creatives,
37:06
it is like, what is going to stand out based on what we can achieve.
37:12
Um, that will work over time and overnight.
37:14
So...
37:15
Cool.
37:16
And it's neat when you see the reward for that success.
37:19
I think that to your point, like building off award
37:22
seasons or building off of the awards you get.
37:24
I know product projects that I've been on that have won Addies that I go.
37:29
"Cool, but we didn't keep the business," or
37:32
"Cool, but it didn't bring them any business."
37:34
Like there's no ROI tied to what's going on.
37:37
And therefore you don't really feel as rewarded by that as, at least
37:40
in my opinion, as you do by the end result you provide to the client.
37:44
So...
37:45
I do think the, one of the most rewarding things about as stressful as
37:50
it can be over time, it does feel like, justin and I, and the larger
37:54
Familiar Creatures agency, we are, we work for brands that we believe in.
37:59
And a lot of times when you work for a big holding
38:03
company agency, It's, it's a lot of generalist mentality.
38:08
Like we'll work for any, we'll work for anybody, you know, it'll be
38:11
Walmart or we can do a brand that's completely different, that has
38:14
completely different values, it doesn't matter, we're going to do it.
38:18
And I think you can kind of navigate a little more.
38:21
But we really believe in our, our client success.
38:24
And that's when we get the most excited is when things work.
38:27
It's just, it's so rewarding to see, because as you said, Justin
38:32
and I are creatives and sometimes you're so far down the pipeline.
38:35
You have this big media agency making all these
38:37
decisions, and then you have layers and layers of people.
38:41
And then when you're like the lowly creatives.
38:43
You're like, "Hey, whatever happened to that thing?
38:45
Is it working?
38:46
Like what, what happened?"
38:47
And you're not like really in on it.
38:49
You don't even know.
38:49
You just kind of like gave your, the last three months to it.
38:53
And then it's just like, "Oh yeah, I think it's good?
38:54
I don't know."
38:55
You know, it's weird.
38:56
It's just like, they're so big.
38:58
You just feel, you feel more invested.
39:00
I think when you're a smaller shop.
39:02
Yeah, no, I, I can, I can definitely understand that.
39:04
So looking down the road to the future of Familiar Creatures, what
39:08
do you, what do you see on the horizon for the company, and what are
39:13
you looking forward to?
39:15
It's so interesting, this question, because I heard this great speech,
39:20
I think it was by Susan Creedle, and it was about how in the beginning
39:23
of your career in advertising, you are, it's very, like, selfish.
39:29
It's like, "I need to make this to make my path," and it's like,
39:33
based on scarcity, "Like, don't take my ideas, it's my ideas."
39:36
And then later in your career, you have to like somehow flip the switch
39:41
and be about abundance, and you have to give ideas to other people.
39:45
You have to care about their success and not your own.
39:48
You have to care about your clients and not your own.
39:50
So it's interesting that question, you know, 20 years ago, it'd
39:53
be like, "Oh, I'm going to make this cool thing for Duke's.
39:56
This like, we have this great spot coming out.
39:58
It's going to be awesome, and who are going to go know how
40:01
creative I am and stuff like that," which now is not, it's
40:05
just fun to work on, but it's just one of many things I do.
40:08
Like, creative is like 10 percent of my job now.
40:11
It's really weird, but the business background is kicking
40:13
in now with finance and accounting and all that stuff.
40:17
Welcome to owning a business.
40:18
Yeah.
40:19
No shit.
40:21
[laughs]
40:23
Let's see.
40:24
Uh,
40:25
I feel that so much.
40:26
I feel that so much.
40:27
Anyways.
40:28
So now it's, yeah, I mean, you know, anyone who's, you kind of, I've
40:31
heard you kind of have to be naive when you start a business because like,
40:34
after you see it, you'd be like, "Oh my God, if somebody was like, you
40:37
have to do all this stuff and whatever," you'd be like, "Okay, no way.
40:40
I'm just going to be the, just going to be kind of the cog in the machine.
40:43
It seems pretty easy."
40:44
[laughs]
40:47
There have been days.
40:49
Yeah, no, I wouldn't.
40:50
This is my best job.
40:51
This is my favorite job across the board.
40:52
It's just, it's so much fun every day.
40:55
So I was going to say with the theme of abundance,
40:57
it's more like where is Familiar Creatures headed?
40:59
Like we just hired two new creatives.
41:01
So I'm excited about that.
41:03
We just want a bank client.
41:04
They're a regional bank called Chesapeake Bank, but
41:07
there's such a sea of sameness in that category.
41:10
That it's going to be really fun to do the Familiar Creatures
41:14
thing with them and like really embrace what makes them special
41:18
and unique, and they are so cool that it's, it's really fun.
41:22
I'd never thought I'd say it about a bank client having worked on so many
41:25
financial clients in the past, but it'll be really fun to bring that to life.
41:29
But I think I'm most excited about new business opportunities and growth
41:34
because we're finally really getting a name for ourselves and what we do.
41:37
I think we are a specific, we're very dialed in as a specialist
41:41
for challenger brands for outsmarting the brand behemoths.
41:46
And, and I think when you're a specialist like that, you
41:50
start to have these brands coming to you as opposed to just
41:53
being a generalist where you're like, yeah, we do everything.
41:56
We get attention.
41:56
It's just so fun to see the possibilities.
41:59
So I'd say that we have a lot of new business prospects on the horizon.
42:03
And, you know, are getting more exposure, like, such as this, this podcast.
42:07
Thank you for having me for kind of talking about what we do, we do, and then
42:11
having now a track record where it's like, oh, this stuff is working, like
42:16
your approach is working as opposed to the traditional templated approach.
42:21
Yeah.
42:21
I always ask, you know, I forgot to ask that question on, on, on this episode.
42:26
But you kind of answered it right there.
42:27
I always ask what that moment of validation is.
42:29
And I think you just answered it right there.
42:31
It's that, that moment of like, Oh, everything's working.
42:34
The things that I'm telling people to do, they work.
42:36
They are, but you're always, the anxiety never goes away, Chris.
42:42
[laughs] You have, once you start thinking you
42:45
made it, you have, you, uh, that's when you drown.
42:48
No,
42:49
I am right there with you.
42:50
[laughs] You gotta keep, you gotta stay, uh, no, I, I heard, um, He was
42:57
like PJ Pereira talk at a thing where he was like, he gave a metaphor.
43:02
Oh, like owning your own company is like, you're in a car, and you're driving
43:06
really fast, and it's really foggy, but you can see three feet ahead of you.
43:10
And you just gotta, you gotta keep it.
43:13
You gotta keep going and just hoping.
43:15
But, um, yeah, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of luck involved too.
43:19
You know, I don't want to discount that.
43:21
Like having the Duke's situation pop up at the right time.
43:25
Having me freelancing when Devil's Backbone went into review.
43:29
There's a lot of timing stuff that is kind of lucky.
43:32
And so I think like just hard work, having a vision and
43:37
sticking to it and then getting a little lucky, I think, helps
43:40
Definitely, definitely.
43:42
Well, that's really cool.
43:43
As we wrap up, I always like to ask this question at the very end.
43:46
What brand do you admire the most right now?
43:48
I think it's.
43:49
Kind of a no brainer.
43:51
I mean, as a challenger brand agency, I love Oatly.
43:54
I just think that they are so, they can be so savage.
43:57
Like the, this is, this isn't my answer by the way,
44:00
but I love like, "It's like milk, but made for humans."
44:03
Like a little line like that, that is such a dig is to me, just
44:08
love my subversive, like heart just goes, Ooh, that's amazing.
44:12
But I would just say Liquid Death right now.
44:15
Just reminds me of the kind of branding and advertising that got
44:20
me into the industry that was like going into when you learn at
44:25
like Brandcenter and when you're first starting as a creative.
44:28
You look, you're just like, we have to be invited in.
44:32
We are a stranger disrupting someone.
44:34
So you have to make things that they enjoy.
44:38
And they, I love that they view themselves as an
44:41
entertainment company who happens to sell water.
44:44
There's certain people who just don't get it.
44:46
That don't get the brand, that don't get the irony, they don't get the humor.
44:50
And I just love how out of simple branding, which
44:55
is like the purity of what we do with water.
44:58
I mean, I guess, yes, they have like a murder, like, don't kill
45:02
the planet and, um, use cans as opposed to plastic bottles.
45:06
There is that.
45:07
But aside from that, it's like the equity is coming from the creativity.
45:12
And now when you look at the company's valuation, I
45:16
think as like an MBA, you'd be like, I don't understand.
45:20
I tell me why this water company is worth so much money, and I just love that.
45:25
I just love that.
45:26
I think it's, it's so great.
45:28
And they also, Their creative process is very much modern.
45:33
Whereas we used to be very precious about spending six
45:37
months to a year to make like one piece of content.
45:40
They're just like, they try and own the media cycle like every
45:43
month, you know, it's like, what's the best thing that somebody
45:46
is going to pass around and they view it as kind of disposable.
45:49
Which
45:50
viewed the wrong way could be dismissive of our like precious
45:53
ideas, but it's, it's how people view content these days.
45:57
So they're just, they're very bold.
45:59
They know who they are and I, I just love, I love them.
46:02
I think they're great.
46:03
Yeah, they are.
46:05
They are really cool.
46:05
I mean, right now they're trying to give away a jet,
46:08
like a literal, like, you're going to get this jet.
46:10
We promise you'll get it.
46:12
We'll even give you hangar space for it.
46:14
I'm just like, that's amazing.
46:16
It's so good.
46:17
It's so good.
46:18
That's like, uh, I think Pepsi did that, but
46:21
it was like, there's a "Pepsi, Where's My Jet?"
46:24
Where a person, they didn't mean for someone to win the jet.
46:26
And then, yeah.
46:27
[laughs]
46:28
Well, they, they, they, they referenced that in the ad.
46:30
They're like, no, no, no, we're not Pepsi.
46:32
We're not doing that.
46:33
We're, we're not giving away a Harrier, but.
46:35
That's so, yeah.
46:37
[laughs]
46:37
Yeah.
46:37
It's, it's.
46:38
It's wild.
46:39
My only concern is that like, I don't know if within six months
46:42
you could go from a novice pilot to actually being able to fly
46:46
No.
46:46
No.
46:47
No.
46:48
No.
46:48
A jet of that caliber.
46:48
But who cares?
46:50
I think there has to be a waiver you have to sign for sure.
46:53
Like, [laughs] if you damage yourself or any property, that's not on us.
46:58
[laughs]
46:59
That's right.
47:00
That's right.
47:01
We're Liquid Death, not Aviation Death.
47:04
Oh man, you're right.
47:05
The death, the death.
47:07
They actually cause a death.
47:09
It's not going to be good branding forever.
47:11
It's a, yeah, it's scary.
47:12
They have a lot of, a lot of indemnification in there.
47:16
I'm sure.
47:18
[laughs] They talked to their lawyers a bunch before that.
47:20
I bet the lawyers cost more than the airplane on that one.
47:22
But anyways, well, Dustin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
47:26
Really enjoyed having you.
47:28
Where can people connect with you?
47:29
Where can people connect with Familiar Creatures if they want to learn more?
47:32
So they can find me at, uh, familiarcreatures.
47:36
com is our, is our site.
47:38
We are on all the social channels.
47:41
We have a good enough SEO game where if you just type in "familiar creatures"
47:46
or "creatures advertising," it would probably pop up so you can find us there.
47:51
Yeah.
47:51
But thank you.
47:52
It's been really fun.
47:53
Yeah.
47:53
It's been a pleasure, Dustin.
47:54
Thank you for coming on today.
47:56
Alright, thank you so much.
47:59
Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.
48:01
Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe to the podcast
48:04
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48:07
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48:11
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