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Turning Brands into Fandoms with Maggie Walsh · We Built This Brand

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One of the most closely intertwined parts of nightlife is
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the fact that queer people are part of it, make it, do it.
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In some cases started their movements out of a bar.
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Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to
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the creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you
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with practical insights that you can use to grow your business.
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Today, we're talking with Maggie Walsh, the head of strategy at GLOW, a creative
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agency focused on helping brands transform their customers into fandoms.
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Maggie is a self-described fan, and her work as head of strategy at
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GLOW spans projects with brands like Peacock and their Olympic social
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content to projects with Jägermeister and their recent pride initiatives.
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Our chat covered everything from the projects I just mentioned
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to the science behind what makes fans and communities tick.
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And we even touched on politics just a little bit.
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Now, if you're looking for ways to authentically engage
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with your community, there's a lot of really good nuggets,
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a lot of really good information in this interview.
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And I can't express enough how much I really, really enjoyed having Maggie on.
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This is a fun conversation.
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I hope you get as much out of it as I did.
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And without further ado, here's my conversation
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with Maggie Walsh, head of strategy at GLOW.
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Maggie, welcome to We Build This Brand.
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Hi, thanks for having me.
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Yeah, it's great to have you with us today.
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Really excited today to learn more about you, learn more
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about where you work at now as the Head of Strategy at GLOW.
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And we'd just love to dive in by getting to know a little
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bit about your background and what brought you to GLOW.
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So, I'll let you take it away.
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Awesome, thank you.
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Uh, so I joined GLOW about a year and a half ago, and I think
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for me, it was definitely an evolution of all the things that
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I've loved over my career now packaged in one awesome place.
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So just a little bit about GLOW.
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And then I think it will make sense if you hear a little bit about me, which is.
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You know, GLOW is a creative shop, independent, based out of New York,
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but we have people all over and we work mostly in a lot of social and a
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lot of entertainment spaces, but our real focus is, is fandom and really
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helping brands either uncover or unleash their fandoms in new ways.
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For me, you know, why that was so perfect.
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I started my career in music.
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I've always been kind of a fangirl at heart.
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I've always been the person that's not necessarily the creative expressionist
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where I'm going to make the album or I'm going to make the music, but I really
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love helping people bring that to, you know, the masses or fans in a new way.
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So I started in music.
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Worked in music for a while, you know, in digital and social,
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and then kind of started to want to learn a little bit more about
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the craft of marketing and just sort of how to be more effective.
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And so I shifted agency side from there.
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I went to 360i.
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360i was an amazing agency that really taught me not only how to
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channel social media expertise, but really gave me a background
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in account planning, traditional strategy, really awesome stuff.
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And I got a chance, you know, I worked there for a really long time.
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I got a chance to work on Entertainment brands.
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Brands that wanted to be really big on social.
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One of the first brands that I worked on there and
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ended up working close to a decade on was Oreo.
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Oreo was really, you know, we like literally I think the first thing that
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I did on that project was working on, uh, the Super Bowl Dunk in the Dark,
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but then got to work with them and an amazing team throughout my, my career.
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And then from there, I went to A&E Network.
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I worked in television for a bit.
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I wanted to kind of, kind of go back into entertainment.
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Uh, I worked on the Critics Choice Awards with them.
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Uh, and then from there I went to Anomaly
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where again, I was working more on brands.
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Really, again, things that were focused on
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sort of bringing, uh, brands to culture.
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And then eventually made my, my way to GLOW.
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And I said, I give that little background because I always like to tell people
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is if you look at it, you can tell that maybe I can't decide what I want to be.
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Do I want to work in entertainment?
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Do I want to work in social?
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Do I want to work in agencies?
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And finally I kind of found a place that was like, Why not everything?
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Uh, and it's been, it's been perfect.
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Yeah.
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And, and to that point, so tell us a little bit more about what GLOW does.
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Why all that amalgamation of experience really helps you in your current role.
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Sure.
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So, um, like I said, we're really focused on this idea of fandom,
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but what that really translates to is clients usually come to
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us when they want to figure out social, when they want to build
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a fan community, or they want to become relevant in culture.
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I would say a good portion of the brands that
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we work on are in the film entertainment space.
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So streamers, you know, I just came off working with Peacock, working with
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them on the Olympics and trying to figure out how to take what you were
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seeing on the platform and on television and bring it to a social audience.
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Uh, so there, and we also work on, like
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I said, like a lot of plenty of TV shows.
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I mean, you know, I'm working on, I don't know how many
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TV shows right now, but helping them figure out how
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we're going to launch for a new season or for premiere.
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That's, that I would say is a huge core of what we do,
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but then we also work on brands and we work on other sort
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of projects that are also looking for similar things.
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So I also work on, for example, Jägermeister.
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We're a social AOR, uh, for Jägermeister globally.
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And so they might not be an entertainment brand, but they
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also, they're I've always been very impressed with them as a
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brand because they really understand and have sort of oriented
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their brand to be very social first, very culture first.
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Social is never an afterthought to what they do.
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It's, it's, you know, at the core of, of how they express their brand.
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So that, yeah, that's a few examples of some of the stuff that we do.
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We work on NBA, we've worked with Spotify, any sort of brand
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or client that is interested in sort of tapping into culture.
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Whether that's a subculture or mass culture
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is something that we really specialize in.
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That's really neat.
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And when it comes to building fandoms, I mean, I can see how like going from
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like a music background and working in the music industry really, really lends
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itself to now because you got to get that word of mouth for smaller bands.
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Yeah.
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You got a drive interest in what they're doing.
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And what I love about, I love that you said that because
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I love that the parallels to me between like social media
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marketing and let's say music marketing is you're talking
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to an audience with like a very low tolerance for BS, right?
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And so you have to, you know what I mean?
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Like how many.
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I'm not going to name names because I also don't want to get
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canceled, but there's celebrities like right now on TikTok or
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internet being canceled for like lack of authenticity, right?
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Because people want to understand what they're getting.
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And so I feel like that, you know, starting in the music industry
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really kind of, I don't know, created that, that drive in me
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to, to always do stuff that passes that BS test a little bit.
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I definitely.
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Grew up in the era of like indie rock and things like that.
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And so for me, like seeing bands go mainstream and
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watching them, their rise become something more popular.
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Like you just lose interest in bands sometimes because
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they, they try too hard or they go the wrong direction.
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I feel like we're having a kind of a similar, like almost a turnaround, right?
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Like to your, like the indie rock era was like, don't sell out.
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Don't look a certain way.
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Like, don't even be like too clean in terms of how you
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dress, because you're going to look at your haircuts.
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And like, now we live in an era where like every single person has grown up
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kind of marketing themselves for better or for worse right through social media.
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I'm starting to see like a similar backlash right where I feel like
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the similar conversations of like nepo babies or industry plants like.
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Are those new conversations for now?
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Or are they the same conversations that we've always had in a new era?
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I don't know.
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But
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yeah, I mean, Chappell Rowan is a good example
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Yeah
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of like that growth, indie growth people, and now she's getting famous.
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So how long before people were like, Oh no, she's mainstream now.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And then, you know, it's the next thing and then, you know,
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yeah, exactly.
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Well, that's, that's really neat.
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So you're, you're trying to build fan bases.
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It sounds a lot of this is really, they're building, they're
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activating, growing, finding- all of that is a big part of the focus.
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How do you, how do you go about even identifying what a fan base looks like and
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profiling that and, and then, then identifying it and growing it, measuring it?
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I'm asking a lot all in one.
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So feel free to break that up.
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Those are great questions.
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I mean, obviously it depends, you know, I'll give you the answer
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of, it depends on who's asking and what they're challenging, right?
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But I think, We come to, I'll say a lot of times I'll go to brands.
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We'll say, "you know, we're really big on fandom.
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We want to build fan bases," and there are certain
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brands that might go, "well, that's not for me.
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I'm, I'm certain boring product X or something that won't ever have fans.
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I'm not Chappell Roan," or whoever.
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I, those are the ones I love to challenge a little bit more, right?
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Because the way that we like to look at things as sort of, I like
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to look at it as kind of the intersection of, of brand and culture.
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So like starting with the question I always said is
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there is something fan worthy in your brand's DNA.
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You have something that people want to be fan.
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Let's start, like ignore everything else.
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Let's like look deep.
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And so we do, and it can come to life in a lot of different ways, but we go
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deep with the brands and say, Hey, like, do we look into their brand purpose?
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We look at what people are saying in social, what are, let's look
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at your archives, just, I mentioned Jägermeister, one of my favorite
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things that we did when we got that account, we all flew to Germany, we
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went into their archives, we sat with them, like, and honestly, again,
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that's why I kind of complimented them, like They are set up to do that.
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They think that way, really trying to understand, you
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know, what is the thing that we want, you know, we
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don't want to change your brand to fit culture, right?
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I think that's how you lose the efficacy or, you know, the magic of your brand.
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I think, especially in like a lot of social media marketing
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environments, I think there's, I don't say there's pressure,
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but there's sometimes expectation that like you have to keep.
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Reinventing your brand to a degree in order to appeal to
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the current generation or the current trends and things
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like that, and to me, it's more about reinterpreting, right?
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Which is like, your brand is your brand and understand,
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okay, what are the elements that are right that you
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can either bring or contribute to, to today's culture?
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So that, that's half of it.
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The what's, what's in your DNA piece.
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And then there's the other part, which is the culture part, which is like,
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What is fueling fandom right now in culture and how can you serve that?
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So fan, you know, we talk a lot about fan service, right?
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So like fans want something, they need something, or they, you know,
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and it depends, it kind of depends on what we're talking about.
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You take that first part of the equation and
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say, okay, how can we use this to serve that?
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So when I talk about it in that term, I guess it
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sounds like it's just a simple equation, fandom, right?
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But I think starting from there, because I think.
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Sometimes it, it feels easy to kind of just start with what do
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people really like right now and let's attach ourselves to that.
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And that, I'm not, that doesn't work really well.
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Right.
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That's not a bad strategy, but it, you have to keep doing it.
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And again, you start reinventing your brand to kind of fit everything.
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So that, that's why we like to start there.
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So I think that was a little bit about your, your first part of your question.
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I was like, how do we think about it?
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I think you started to say, how do we, you know, Measure it and take that ROI.
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Is that, was that the second part of the question?
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Obviously again, putting out, it depends on the brand in question, but I
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would say over, let's say the past decade, and don't quote me, you can't quote
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me on that because we're being recorded, but, uh, let's say over the past
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decade, I would say that there has been, thanks to digital and social, right?
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We, we, there's been a large conversation that
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people haven't been investing in brand, right?
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Because digital and social advertising methods
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have given you a lot of short term results, right?
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In terms of who you, you know, you don't have to spend as much.
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You can see a number that says the word ROI and all those things.
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But I think now we're starting to see, because
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it's been, we've had like a long time of that.
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We're starting to see like what happens to brands over time.
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We've had.
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A variety of financial crises or pandemics or things that might impact that.
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I think the bigger conversation now is how do you invest in long term
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brand value while at the same time, obviously seeing short term results.
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Usually the way that we are orienting with how, how to
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measure fandom and how to measure efficacy is looking at.
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And what are the short term metrics that can indicate it,
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but tying those back to brand business and real objectives.
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And I think again, the way that, that we often talk about
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it, I think, and I've seen this with a lot of brands, which
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is the brands that are more culturally relevant, the brands
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that have had more of those things, like it's been measured.
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Or, you know, more brand fame, even let's say sustained over time, they are more
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likely to weather the challenges or the changes that have been facing, right?
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I think not a hundred percent sure of the study, but
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they looked at it from like the 2008 financial crisis.
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And they looked at it with the pandemic.
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They looked at what brands were spending and what brands, and like you
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look at it, the ones that invested in brand and being relevant, not
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the ones that cut their spending, not the ones that just did short term
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stuff, they ended up being more profitable, more successful over time.
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So anyways, it's a long winded way of saying is of course it's
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complicated, but usually it's a format of, okay, let's look
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at what short form or short term metrics can indicate and be
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tied to bigger brand goals, um, relevance and things like that.
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I'm happy to get more specific if that feels too broad.
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I think, I think that's a good, good starting point for, for that, for that
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concept because where you can take it from there is of course, I think the
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next question that I have out of that is, well, you've got, you've got these
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brands that chase trends and then you've got brands that are relevant and you
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can, people can sniff it out like we've been saying, but how do you determine
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what is important in terms of relevance versus what What is just a trend?
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That's great.
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Here's, I mean, I would say you actually, you can pretend, you can sort of
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know, you can say, you know, with hindsight, but I actually think the best
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way to do is to be a little bit experimental, but experiment with purpose.
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The brand that spends years perfecting their
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brand book or whatever version of relevance.
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More than they spend time trying to be relevant in culture will probably
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always be behind the one that maybe chased some trends and had some, in
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my opinion chased some trends, made some mistakes, probably was like,
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wait, you switch strategies, but learned and kind of evolved from them.
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So I am sort of speaking out of two sides of my mouth, but that's what I said.
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On one hand, I would say, start with your brand, say all of the
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things that you want to kind of do and not just trace, chase trends,
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but don't be afraid to make small bets to turn into bigger bets.
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So like a lot of times that is the way that I'm either advising
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clients or we try and structure things where you'll kind of say, okay.
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And that's where social comes in, right?
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Social is essentially like the greatest expression of
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a brand that you can get instant feedback on every day.
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And I think like I'll use Oreo is an example, right?
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I worked and, you know, I was lucky enough to work with them for a
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really long time, but one of the first things that they did kind of as
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an experiment, as part of, uh, the Daily Twist, which was a campaign
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that they were doing around their 100th birthday, was they, they put for
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Pride Month, they did a rainbow Oreo and that posted viral or went viral.
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Not even using the correct terms.
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Went viral.
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Did well and went viral.
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And That particular nugget, at least in my mind, is what gave
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them, it's okay, what are we going to do a little bit more?
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How do we start investing in this community?
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And eventually over time turned into a, a long term partnership and
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allyship with, with that community that was expressed itself in many ways.
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So by the time that they came out a few years ago and
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said, you know, we're going to do a product for LGBTQ
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pride month, right, it wasn't coming out of left field.
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And I.
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Easy to want to start with that and be like, let's do
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this big thing now that we know it's the right thing.
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And a lot of the stuff in one of your social posts doesn't
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take off, then, okay, you learned and maybe it did.
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So I, I would say like, that would be the way that I tend to
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advise, which is yes, mind for your what's fan worthy in your DNA.
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Be, you know, be smart about it, but then make small bets
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so that you can learn and invest and turn into those bigger
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cultural moments, the things that are, that are taking off.
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Yeah, that, that makes sense.
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You saying that brings a, actually an Oreo example to mind.
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And I don't know if you happen to have been there
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during the time when this happened, but the eclipse.
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That happened several, not the, not the most recent eclipse, but the
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like 2014, 15, 16, somewhere in there, there, when the eclipse happened,
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they were trying to make Oreo the official cookie of the eclipse.
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Yeah.
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Somewhat remember this?
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Yes.
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And they were trying to position it as that.
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And then out of nowhere, Moon Pie, who is a great Southern
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brand, came out and basically burned them on social media.
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And that was a spark for Moonpie's social media advertising.
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I, you know, it's so funny because I absolutely love
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Moonpie both as a product and as a social media account.
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And I, when you said, I kind of forgot that that's how that happened.
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And I absolutely love it.
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I, I, you know, I must not have been working on here.
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I don't remember.
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It's all good.
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But,
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uh, I remember it very distinctly.
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Well, I love it because it's an underdog, not an underdog
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story, but like burning, like brands burning each other.
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Or even having a negative opinion on social was, I feel like at that time, like-
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It was risky.
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Yeah.
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Every brand, you know, every, every brand tone of voice to a
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degree, it says, we want to be nice and relatable and approachable.
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And we never mock or whatever.
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And I think, having a brand be willing to do that was, again, authentic.
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I mean, that's how people talk.
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I can roast you right now without being a terrible person or a dislike.
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You actually might like me more for it.
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I won't try, but I could.
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Yeah, please.
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But no, the, the Moonpie story stuck out to me because
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where I'm from or where we live now in Knoxville,
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Tennessee, We have Tombras who runs the account for Moonpie.
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So it was big news here locally when that happened in the marketing
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community, and I just remember it being such a big deal that it happened.
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And yeah, it just, it felt like a huge shift in their tone after that too.
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You know, like I said, I was, I'm aware of their stuff and I didn't
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know that that was the impetus, which is even more exciting to me.
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I have a strategist here who is awesome, who is all, who went to school
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at Knoxville, went, was working at, at Tombras I'm going to check in
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with her and she'll probably school me and tell me I know all about it.
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Yeah.
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But that's, that's a really neat example of like where.
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Where that that pays off like that, that edginess that they were
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going for, which I know it was happening before the eclipse and
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everything, but when Oreo made that grand statement, Moonpie had
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this great chance to just like steal the thunder with that joke.
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And it did great.
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It was one that helped them, I think, really elevate their brand and move on.
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So that's the one example that comes to mind for me.
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I was like, what I love about that example is like, you know, one
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of the things I would, I always like to say is like, your brand
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is what your fans say you are, and that's such a perfect example,
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which is your fans didn't say you were sponsoring the Eclipse.
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Uh, and so we could, it was, you know, I
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can dig at it a little bit and it worked.
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You know what I mean?
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I That's really cool.
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Yeah.
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That's a, that's a very good point.
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So there's, there's another side to it, which is, of
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course, people finding out you're fake, that inauthenticity.
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You mentioned working with Jägermeister during pride.
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And as we've seen in recent years, alcohol brands
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have not had the best relationship with pride events.
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So like, how do you, how do you navigate those water,
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a traditional German brand and something is potentially
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challenging as, you know, celebrating pride month can be.
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Yeah, I mean, I think all the credit is to the brand itself, right?
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I think they are coming from it from a very authentic place in the
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sense that They have been investing in the LGBTQ community for a very
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long time probably at least in my mind before it was cool to do so
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But in so that in terms of authenticity, right, but I think for them
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in particular it was kind of twofold I think number one- They're,
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they're big on investing in nightlife and the future of nightlife.
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Right.
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Which is, you know, not only are they a product that's drunk during them,
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but like, if we all want to continue doing that, nightlife has to exist.
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And I think there are a couple, there are different things
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in the world that can be a threat to nightlife, right.
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I think, and one of them is that.
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One of the most closely intertwined parts of nightlife
20:43
is the fact that queer people are part of it, make it, do
20:47
it, in some cases, started their movements out of a bar.
20:50
And I think starting from a place of that deep understanding
20:53
has also pushed them to really invest in keeping that alive.
20:58
Just, you know, even on the, on the back end, they invest in You know,
21:01
again, all of this is, I think, predating our relationship with them.
21:05
This is just, lucky enough, I feel like, to be involved, um, on, on
21:09
some of the work that they're doing now, but they invested in, um, a
21:13
project called the Lesbian Bar Project, which was essentially about the
21:17
fact that lesbian bars were closing nationwide and closing globally and
21:22
helping not only spotlight them, but help sort of what's now kind of
21:26
turning into a bit of a resurgence and renaissance of the lesbian bar.
21:29
And then similarly during COVID and when, when nightlife
21:33
closed down, realizing that who were really affected were
21:36
bartenders, people that are owning that spaces, those spaces.
21:39
So they created Save the Night Fund, which was
21:41
really around helping invigorate nightlife.
21:44
So when we were working on it for this most recent Pride
21:47
Month, that was the foundation that we started from.
21:49
It was less about how do we promote ourselves and
21:53
like, just throw a party and like, tap into stuff.
21:55
And really about partly honoring queer people's contribution to
21:59
nightlife, especially at a time right now when those things are
22:02
kind of being called into question, especially in our country.
22:06
And then secondarily, we also had this insight that
22:09
supposedly Pride Month is for LGBTQ people, but if you work
22:13
at a gay bar in June, you are working all month, right?
22:17
You're having a fun, but you have just worked
22:18
probably like the craziest month of all time.
22:22
What we did was we did a give back essentially, which was essentially July
22:27
1st when a lot of brands are like, let's take off the rainbows and go away.
22:30
We're like, this is actually where we're really mostly starting.
22:33
And we essentially gave away and paid off bar tabs for queer nightlife staff
22:39
and folks around, around the globe so that they can take their staff out
22:42
and sort of get that time off when they had essentially worked all of June.
22:46
I'm using those as examples because I think it is marketing, but essentially
22:50
it's all coming from a place of respect and, again, like consistency.
22:54
A lot of brands want to start with the party or the celebration
22:58
versus the work and the investment to kind of get there.
23:01
Yeah.
23:01
It's kind of, kind of like one of the things I always notice about
23:04
the pride month in recent, probably the last decade or two when
23:08
it's really become prominent for corporations to get involved
23:11
is their logo turns rainbow for, A month and then they're gone.
23:16
And what I love out of what you just said is that you started on July 1st.
23:21
And to me, the, the idea of being intentional with
23:24
something beyond just June is what really matters.
23:29
And I think that has a lot of value in showing that you're doing something
23:33
that's leaving a legacy, not just, hey, we're just going to be here.
23:36
That shows you're actually serving during that month
23:38
and you're not just adopting a color scheme for a month.
23:41
Yeah, that's a really elegant way of putting it, which is, are
23:45
you benefiting more from your association with the movement?
23:49
Or is the movement at all benefiting from your association with it?
23:51
And, you know, especially in like social movements like that, I think it's
23:55
always, you want to lean on the other, the other end, the other side of it.
23:58
So that's, I love how you put it.
24:00
Yeah.
24:00
If you're going to do something like that, you got to commit.
24:02
I mean, Bud Light showed us that one.
24:05
Yeah,
24:06
absolutely.
24:07
In the worst way possible.
24:09
Um.
24:10
But yeah, that's, that's really neat.
24:12
So what other work happens at GLOW?
24:15
Like what, what else is part of your portfolio or what
24:18
other projects have you been really proud to be a part of?
24:21
I know you mentioned before we got started with the interview that you've done
24:24
work with Peacock and the Olympics would love, I mean, that just happened.
24:27
We'd love to hear about that.
24:29
Yeah.
24:29
We just wrapped a project with Peacock on the Olympics, which was really fun.
24:33
And honestly, it just like.
24:35
If you want, if I wasn't a super fan of the Olympics before I started
24:37
that, I think I came out of it as a super fan of the Olympics.
24:40
I don't know.
24:40
I feel like just even as a consumer and a
24:43
marketer, I had so much fun working on it.
24:44
Um, but yeah, so Peacock obviously is the, the streaming platform under NBC.
24:50
And so the, both of those organizations are responsible
24:53
for bringing the Olympics to American consumers.
24:56
So yeah, Peacock partnered with us to essentially do what I would call the
25:01
culture side of the Olympics, which is how do we take the coverage that
25:04
you're seeing on platform and on television and bring it to a social audience?
25:09
And in particular, how do we bring people that maybe aren't
25:12
huge sports fans into the conversation who could become a fan?
25:16
Right.
25:16
And I think we were talking about how rugby became
25:19
such a huge part of the conversation, this Olympics.
25:23
And in particular, the, I would say the star
25:25
player of that team, Ilona Marr, who is.
25:28
Basically, you know, one of the first social athletes from the Olympics, right?
25:32
She came really onto the scene the last Olympics.
25:34
For example, we saw like a lot of conversation
25:36
around, you know, people getting excited about rugby.
25:38
People would never watch rugby.
25:40
People would never, didn't know that we had a national rugby team.
25:42
Getting excited, taking that and turn, bringing it to, to social.
25:46
So like one of the things that we noticed that a lot of fans do is they
25:50
do fan cams or what they call like fan edits, where it's like whoever is
25:54
their favorite person in a space sort of something that's, or in a, when
25:57
I say space, I mean like a musician and an actor or something like that.
26:01
They'll do like a little edit to kind of celebrate them.
26:03
We started just doing that during the Olympics when certain things would happen.
26:06
We're like, let's do a fan edit.
26:07
And Ilona, you know, reposted a ton of those things.
26:10
It was just a way to speak in fans language as they were watching it.
26:16
Yeah.
26:16
And when you say fan edit, you mean you're
26:17
actually pulling like fan created content.
26:20
So it's original content.
26:22
We would mostly, I would say, pull from,
26:25
well, you know, the actual broadcast itself.
26:28
Yeah, I gotcha.
26:28
We mix that with some of our own stuff in the style of, I think when I say
26:33
sort of fan edit or fan cam, I mean, as if we are a fan, you know what I mean?
26:37
And like we're hyping her up more so than,
26:40
who we're pulling from or things like that.
26:42
Yeah.
26:43
I know there's content licensing issues.
26:45
I'm a big F1 fan and I'm watching everything
26:47
happen in that world right now too with.
26:49
They're cracking down on creators.
26:51
That's a whole other side note.
26:52
That's not part of this conversation.
26:53
But yeah, like the, yeah, I know that's a challenge in that field.
26:57
Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, Congress is dealing with it on the TikTok side.
27:02
I mean, not just a copyright, but like who owns what and where's the data.
27:07
And, you know, especially when you're working with a TV
27:09
streamer, you know, who owns what, where can you put it?
27:12
All part of a, of, a conversation now.
27:16
But that's, that's neat.
27:17
I mean, getting people excited about rugby.
27:19
I mean, I'm a fan of rugby.
27:21
I played rugby for a little while myself.
27:23
Very, very little while, but it was, it was still a lot of fun when I did it.
27:27
It's cool to see stuff like that become more prominent.
27:30
What was the other sport that got really big this year?
27:32
I'm trying to remember.
27:34
Well, there was definitely a sport that got a lot of conversation.
27:37
Now, is it popular?
27:38
Uh, you know, which one I'm talking about?
27:41
Boxing.
27:42
Well, box, Oh, boxing.
27:43
Yeah.
27:43
I also break dancing, but I break dancing.
27:47
Yes.
27:47
Break dancing.
27:48
There we go.
27:49
Much better topic.
27:51
I mean, that was.
27:53
Again, probably for not always the best reasons.
27:56
But like more people are talking about boxing and breaking
28:00
around what was happening more so than I think ever talked
28:03
about either of those sports leading into the Olympics.
28:06
And so good or bad there, I think is something really powerful to see, right.
28:11
Which is like a sport like the Olympics being able to, not a sport,
28:15
an event like the Olympics, being able to inspire that conversation,
28:19
and I think at least for this year, it felt like everyone was
28:22
sort of watching and participating around one thing, which
28:26
I think, right.
28:28
And, and I was about to say, you know, as you're saying that I'm, I'm realizing
28:32
like, like if you look at presidential elections, the way we engage with.
28:36
Elections and the way we engage with politics now is way different.
28:39
It feels like one giant conversation, for better or worse, or at
28:42
least two different conversations happening, for better or worse.
28:45
But when it comes to the Olympics, this year felt like the
28:48
first time I'd seen something of that level happen in a while,
28:53
at least when it comes to like the conversations that were
28:55
happening all over the globe and the way people were tuning in.
28:58
I mean, we've had the Olympics for years and years and years, but it
29:02
feels like for the first time in a long time, like people were actually
29:05
dialed into it and interested in a way I hadn't seen in a long time.
29:10
It feels like to me, and again, this is hypothesis and also bias from
29:15
being involved, I guess, but it feels like the it, and I don't know if
29:19
you remember, but the last Olympics were not in 2020, they're in 2021.
29:23
They hosted the 2020 Olympics in 2021.
29:26
So it's a little bit shorter time.
29:27
It was also, you would, you would think that
29:29
that would be the time we're all inside.
29:31
We're all trying to like, let's all kind of do it, but
29:32
I think at least our country was feeling very divided.
29:35
There was a lot happening, right?
29:37
Whereas I think this time around, we had two things change, right?
29:41
We had a different cultural environment.
29:43
Yes.
29:44
We also had the first time, at least in my opinion, Gen
29:48
Z athletes with their phones in the Olympic village.
29:51
And they also, the rules were a little bit
29:53
looser this year versus previous years.
29:55
They've, they've at times been somewhat restricted on how
29:59
much content or things they could share and things like that.
30:02
Not only, like, you know, we're talking about this
30:04
rugby player, but her time's like a thousand, right?
30:07
They're in there making content and doing stuff and bringing in all
30:10
these people that are just following them as influencers into this event.
30:14
And then the other side of it, I think again, kudos to, I would
30:18
say like a peacock, which is everything was happening live.
30:21
So even though the games were happening in Paris, which
30:25
is a tiny difference from here, you could watch it live
30:27
as it was happening and you could watch it in primetime.
30:29
So I think.
30:30
It created this groundswell where we could watch it all at the same time.
30:34
We could talk about it.
30:35
And then you also have the most social generation
30:38
in the world filming it from their own iPhones.
30:41
That, that is a good point.
30:43
I think that's probably why it felt more prominent was because.
30:45
There was more social content from individuals that were there participating
30:50
and it brought a new level of awareness to it that I hadn't really seen.
30:53
Now I grew up a swimmer.
30:55
I made state in high school, so I was
30:57
swimming pretty competitively at that point.
30:59
50 free, 100 free, um, and backstroke were my three big, big swimming events.
31:04
And they would always throw me in the 500, which I hated.
31:07
I was the one that had to like, I could never do that.
31:10
I just did the, like the little counting for my friend.
31:13
Oh, nice.
31:14
Nice.
31:15
So did you swim?
31:16
I did, but I wasn't a good swimmer.
31:18
Like, not competitively.
31:20
So you watched the swimming.
31:21
Do you also watch, did you watch the diving as well?
31:23
I did not watch the diving as much, but since I swam all the way through high
31:27
school, like I always try to pay attention to at least some swimming, see some
31:30
of the events that, that French swimmer this year, man, that was, he was, wow.
31:35
Um, the, the guy who did the, the 400 IM that he did, like finishing by
31:41
that far ahead, is just impressive in any sport, but when it's the top of
31:46
everybody, like it's just, it just shows you how incredible someone is.
31:51
Yeah, that's really cool.
31:52
Yeah, the, the Olympics were just really fun this year.
31:54
So I, I definitely agree.
31:55
Did you, were you actually over there during
31:57
that time or were you just working remote?
31:59
Uh, I, we worked out of, there's a NBC sports
32:02
as a studio in, in Stanford, Connecticut.
32:05
So not Paris, but Stanford, Connecticut, where they
32:08
were doing like some of the commentary and stuff.
32:12
That's really neat.
32:13
Complete non sequitur.
32:14
My My wife, one of my wife's best friends is a videographer
32:18
and he was over there with NBC doing some of the
32:21
filming over, I think, wrestling or something like that.
32:24
Like background content or like broadcast?
32:27
Broadcast.
32:28
He was, he was helping with broadcasts.
32:29
His, my wife's alma mater, Asbury University, has a relationship
32:35
with NBC and they always send a group of students over.
32:39
So he's been going since he was in college and
32:41
he's been involved with the Olympics since college.
32:44
Yeah, that's the kind of person I would love to pick their
32:45
brain where I'm like, tell me, like, what are the, how does it,
32:48
like, I have a perception difference of like, what I think host
32:52
countries bring to each of them, but I'm watching the broadcast.
32:54
Like, I want to know is like, what's it really like?
32:56
What's it really like?
32:57
How does it feel?
32:58
One of the, one of these days I'll get over there or we'll, we'll find one.
33:01
I mean, it's coming to LA next.
33:02
It shouldn't be as difficult.
33:05
I said, of course, LA traffic is already, already a mess, we'll say.
33:10
Right, yeah, you go from a six hour time difference one
33:12
way to a three hour, then the other way the next, so.
33:15
In terms of the industry right now, just as we're
33:18
wrapping up, like, what, what is top of mind for you?
33:20
What are you thinking of as you look at
33:22
brands, as you look at what's coming next?
33:24
I mean, there's things like the TikTok ban on the horizon
33:27
and some of these things, like, what are you, what are
33:29
you thinking of right now for, the future of fandoms?
33:33
Oh geez.
33:35
I mean, probably a hundred things.
33:36
I feel like a thing that is a big conversation
33:41
or a theme of conversations that I hear a lot of.
33:44
But when you talk about things like TikTok ban, I also
33:46
think about like AI or things that are supposedly threat
33:49
story industry, and they're gonna change our industry.
33:51
They're changing our industry.
33:52
Now, if TikTok gets banned, who knows?
33:55
Lots of things will change, but I don't want to say I don't worry
33:59
about those because again, like I, I feel like people are adaptable.
34:03
Brands are adaptable.
34:05
The brands that are able to adapt to change are the ones that will
34:08
have longevity and I believe our ability to help them with that.
34:12
And then another thing that's actually really big on my mind this week
34:16
is ethical fandom, which I know sounds like a buzzword that I just
34:20
invented, but we were talking about Chappell Roan, you know, I saw
34:25
fans, like, you know, these people that are blowing up really quickly.
34:28
And there's a lot of conversation right now, both around positive
34:32
things of like, Chappell Roan came out on TikTok this week
34:35
saying famous, essentially like, fan culture is really bad.
34:39
And like, there are stalkers and you can't own her and all of this stuff.
34:43
And like, it was really, really emotional and empathetic.
34:46
At the same time at the Olympics, other things I'm seeing people sort of, for
34:51
lack of a better term, cancel, let's say, a Blake Lively right now for how
34:57
she's essentially appearing in interviews and potentially with somebody else.
35:00
Now, again, I'm not taking a position on either of these right
35:03
this second, but it brings up this question because we're
35:06
an agency that is very much around how do we build fandom?
35:11
I'm also kind of interested as like, what does more ethical or what standard or
35:16
what responsibility do we have as, as an agency involved in creating this and
35:21
creating a fan culture that is mutually beneficial to fans, but also the people
35:26
involved, because like, even like, again, I'll use Chappell because we're using
35:30
her as an example, but like, she started out as a fan, you know what I mean?
35:34
Her, like.
35:35
She started out with a TikTok.
35:36
She was doing all of these things that we're talking about.
35:39
So like, I, I don't think it's like fan versus artist or this or that.
35:44
I think we're all kind of part of this fan culture.
35:46
And now we're kind of, again, it's one of those things that
35:48
hasn't been happening in the social media age now for so
35:51
long that we, a lot of, you know, we're seeing kind of the
35:55
repercussions over time because we've had enough time pass.
35:58
And so.
35:59
Again, that's not a, I don't have an answer to that question,
36:01
but it is something that's been weighing on me a lot, which is
36:03
like, how do we, it's the same thing that you were talking about
36:06
with brands getting involved in like pride or LGBTQ, right?
36:10
I think when we were in the frontier of that and it was
36:12
new, it was different than what you're doing it right now.
36:15
You know what I mean?
36:16
And I think similarly, It's the question that
36:19
I'm starting to have in what we do as well.
36:22
And again, I believe in it.
36:23
I'm a fangirl.
36:24
I think everyone should be obsessed with
36:25
something, but it's a question that I wonder about.
36:28
I think that's a, you know, that's a great thing
36:32
to consider because my day job is HumblePod.
36:36
We're a podcast production company.
36:38
We deal with creators and originators of content and
36:42
we don't deal with too many people that are like really
36:45
high profile, but we do have a few that we've dealt with.
36:48
And in what I've noticed, like in interacting with them, or like I went with one
36:53
client recently, I'm going to try and stay vague so people can't figure it out.
36:57
They'll probably figure it out if they know
36:58
me and the client, but it's nothing private.
37:01
I just don't want to talk about too much, but like going to events
37:04
where they're known, going to places where that person, even in the
37:08
small smear of influence compared to someone like Chappell Rowan, like
37:13
you get people that you get people that just act like they know you.
37:17
It's that, you know, the parasocial relationship is the term I've heard.
37:22
It sounds so terrible to say, but like, it's just like, they
37:25
think they know you because they listen to you on a podcast
37:28
and, or they, they hear your voice and they get to know you.
37:31
They get familiar with that voice.
37:33
They get familiar with that conversation.
37:35
And eventually they get to a point where I think
37:37
they just feel like, Oh, I can talk to that person.
37:40
I can walk up to them.
37:41
They're my friend.
37:41
I, I identify with them in so many ways.
37:44
They would, if they just knew me better, we'd be cool.
37:47
And it's just that, that logic that, that sometimes puts
37:50
these people in a position of like, I can't handle that.
37:53
Like, you know, I need space from this because these people just
37:56
assume that they have this access to me because they listen to
37:59
my podcast, they contribute to this, they contribute to that.
38:02
And it's, it's difficult.
38:04
It's a difficult water to navigate.
38:06
Yeah.
38:07
And I, I don't know the answer to it
38:09
because I think there's good and bad, right?
38:11
There's the benefit like people love to create.
38:15
They love to have people, like, most people love to have fans, right?
38:19
The idea of fandom is generally positive and not every
38:22
individual fan is bad or the extreme version of it.
38:27
There has been a culture shift, you know, as fandom has
38:30
expanded and become less of a, you know, being a super
38:35
fan was like for really niche things or sports teams.
38:38
And now it's sort of like part of our culture because of social media.
38:42
And yeah, I don't think we've quite figured out how we want to be as a culture.
38:48
Like we're still figuring it out.
38:49
We're like, that's weird.
38:50
We're doing that.
38:50
Okay.
38:50
Let's go the other way.
38:52
I think, I think that's a good way to put it too, as a culture,
38:54
that is, because it is, it is very much an American thing,
38:58
I think, to feel entitled to be able to talk to celebrities.
39:01
You know, I've been, been a big fan of the show Top Gear for a long time.
39:04
And so, guys like Jeremy Clarkson and James May and Richard Hammond,
39:09
like when they're in the UK, my understanding from fans abroad and stuff
39:14
is you, the, the, the rule of thumb in the UK is you just let them be.
39:17
You don't bother them.
39:19
You don't come up and interrupt.
39:20
It's a politeness thing.
39:22
Yeah.
39:23
How do you, how does that, is that British culture or is it?
39:27
You know, it's like, be polite.
39:30
I think, I think it's British culture.
39:31
Cause there are definitely other cultures where they're not that way.
39:35
I've definitely, definitely, there was a girl, this is way back in
39:38
college, dated a girl and she had red hair and somebody thought she,
39:42
some, some group of tourists thought she was Scarlett Johansson.
39:44
I think there was an Asian group and they were
39:46
just like, Oh, this person, you're this person.
39:49
And they, they flocked to her and took her picture and
39:51
acted like she was a celebrity just harassed her until
39:55
they they had gotten their fair share and moved on.
39:57
So it's definitely culture-to-culture.
39:59
It varies, I think.
40:00
But, but yeah, it definitely is something that like, I don't know, it'd
40:04
be, it'd be an interesting thing to, to evaluate as you evaluate how
40:08
you deal with celebrities in different locales and different places.
40:12
That's an interesting question.
40:14
What is, what does celebrity mean globally?
40:17
Probably mean, and, and what kind of celebrity is also valued,
40:20
is both cultural in place, but also cultural, I think, in time.
40:24
Evidenced by who's getting canceled and who's rising up right now.
40:28
But
40:28
yeah, it definitely is something that I would, you know, Love
40:31
to see more research on and you need to keep a pen in myself.
40:33
So I'm right there with you.
40:36
That's, that's cool.
40:37
Well, as, as we wrap up, I always like to ask at the end of
40:40
the interview, you've mentioned being a fangirl multiple times.
40:43
What brand are you most a fan of right now?
40:46
I mean this apolitically, but something that I've just been
40:49
obsessed with because of my inner fangirl is Kamala HQ.
40:53
It's just, I've just been like, holy cow.
40:56
I love it.
40:56
It's like, which we, you know, which I could have done that.
40:58
Uh, I love being healthily jealous, but, um, yeah,
41:02
they've been, been an incredible sort of study on being
41:06
authentic and relevant, uh, as a social media strategy.
41:10
Yeah, I would totally agree with that.
41:12
I've been keeping up with politics and things and it's, it's been a
41:15
really wild ride this past few months with everything going on, but
41:21
to see, to see that social change around her, yeah, she's relatable.
41:27
It'll be interesting to see how people relate to her.
41:30
Yeah, I'm curious, you know, it's hard for
41:33
me, I can't evaluate the efficacy of it yet.
41:35
But in terms of like a brand and brand social, it's
41:38
been something I've been really impressed with.
41:40
And I think it's funny if you had asked me in 2016, I might have, again,
41:46
not endorsing anything, but you know, I was impressed with the social
41:50
media culture around Trump doesn't mean I agreed with it, but in terms
41:53
of like Reddit and meme culture and what they were able to do, I thought
41:58
was also something to learn from, even if the lesson is, is different.
42:03
Very different lesson, but, but something that I've, I've
42:06
definitely been fascinated with as well over the years.
42:09
Follow politics quite a bit, but yeah, that, that whole like deep dive, that
42:13
went from just being a Trump fandom to almost being a cult around, around.
42:16
And
42:19
it's probably the other side of the coin of what we just talked about.
42:22
Where does deep fandom turn into something more sinister, essentially?
42:28
And is it, whose responsibility is it to keep it from turning that way?
42:33
Something that we teach on ourselves or I'll go move to Britain, maybe.
42:36
Yeah, it's that's, you're, you're touching on something that, I mean,
42:39
should be a podcast in and of itself, but is also, is also one of the
42:43
things again, like just when I think about podcast content, we create,
42:46
it's that same thing of like, what are we influencing by putting
42:49
this voice out here and by allowing them to say what they're saying?
42:52
I admire folks in your position who have to make that kind of decision.
42:56
Um, because, you know, we only see the results of it.
43:00
We just see what we see.
43:01
We don't see it.
43:02
The nine or 10 decisions on, on what that was.
43:04
So, yeah,
43:05
exactly.
43:06
Well, where can people get in touch with you?
43:07
Where can they find out more about GLOW?
43:09
Well, you can definitely go to our website.
43:11
Uh, we are GLOW.
43:12
com and then people can easily find me on LinkedIn, Maggie Walsh,
43:17
and then social media handle is the same on every platform.
43:20
It's at monster mags.
43:22
M A G G S.
43:24
Love it.
43:25
Awesome.
43:26
Well, Maggie, thank you for coming on the show today.
43:29
Thank you.
43:29
This has been fantastic.
43:30
I really appreciate this and I've enjoyed talking to you.
43:33
Absolutely.
43:34
I've enjoyed it as well.
43:37
Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.
43:40
Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe on your player of choice.
43:43
And you can also keep up with the podcast at WeBuiltThisBrand.
43:46
com.
43:47
If you liked this episode, please give the podcast a five star review and
43:50
be sure to tell all your friends so we can continue to build this brand.