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Social Fabric Sessions: E9 Nelson Freitas · The Marketing Brief

• Brian: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and this is the podcast where we talk about really anything within the marketing landscape, or maybe even adjacent to it. we've been doing these special subsets of the marketing brief podcast called the Social Fabric Sessions, where we bring on members of the social fabric as we're building and putting putting this kind of IRL community, IRL executive community kind of out there. And I am very excited to be welcomed by Nelson today. Nelson Friedis. Nelson, did I pronounce your last name correctly? Awesome. NESLON: You did, and so few and so few people do. Brian: I practiced. Well, welcome so much. Nelson, how would you like to introduce yourself to the to the podcast? NESLON: thank thank you, everybody. thank thanks, Brian. yeah, it's kind of nice to be on social fabric. I've first heard about it through both Corey. AJ. I'm I'm kind of a New Yorker, relatively new to to Los Angeles. I I spent the majority of my life or my career in the big holding company world. I was at Omnicon at the WPP. And then I just kind of left all that and started my own business, which is really about helping kind of companies in high growth mode mode to find what makes them distinctive, and also working. quite extensively with a lot of with a lot of founders. My work tends to be really about brand articulation and finding what makes them distinctive and kind of building everything around around. Brian: Yeah, I love that. We were talking about it just before we started NESLON: Yeah. Brian: recording. And I know you've recently relocated from New York. How how are you finding life on the West Coast? I also have relocated from New York, so I've gone through it. NESLON: The first few months, I came in hot with all my New York attitude. Just the speed of New York and the directness of New York. And it it didn't I didn't think it worked so well out here because I think people have a different attitude around business Brian: Yeah. Yeah. NESLON: relationships. Everything is slightly less direct, everything is a little bit more vibey. So I've I've I've I've adjusted and I as I was saying to you, in New York, because I was in kind of the I was in the ad industry and I loved it and there was so many so much community around it that it was easy to kind of be social. I found things coming up here, don't know whether it's an LA thing or a post-COVID thing, that oftentimes it's or the travel thing, I gotta get in my car. it's harder to make those kind of one-on-one connections with people. In New York you just reach out to somebody and say, Let's let's shoot the shit about the industry and people are game. Here a a a little less so. At least I found it a little less so. Brian: Yeah, I I think the car has something to do with it. Like I definitely noticed when I moved here, it was like in New York, New York, you are literally bumping shoulders with people, subway, street, you know, it's like you're actually physically touching people in the street like every day. And you aren't doing that here, right? You're in your car, you're driving somewhere, you're getting out of somewhere and you're going into a building. And I think that does absolutely affect how we how we interact with people. NESLON: Yeah. I mean if I if I worked at well for a long time I when I was at WPP, I was at Columbus Circle. I was at Wonderman Thompson. And I could g I can get to anywhere in Columbus Circle, so House Kitchen pretty pretty quickly, but I can also get to Times Square pretty quickly. I can almost get to Harold Square and if I jumped on the subway, I can be in Soho. So it's just like there was an easier way to kind of navigate the city, which is a little a little a little harder here. Brian: Yeah, certainly is a little bit different. The other thing that my wife and I still talk about now is the the la yes is is it means slightly more than maybe. You get a yes from somebody, you can count that as a maybe, but don't go any higher than that because people love to say yes to everything and then not not do it and and then say, did we confirm? Did we confirm that? I was Well, we said yes. I thought that was the confirmation. NESLON: I Brian: But coming from New York, where people just say what they mean, right? They'll give you a no right away. No, I don't want to do that. You know? And you're like, great, thank you. I will move on, but it doesn't happen here. NESLON: That's the thing. There's a certain directness in in in New York. There's there's not a minute to waste. Brian: Yeah. NESLON: There's not there's not a minute to waste. so it that that aspect initially confused me because I think I got a lot of those yeses. Brian: Mm-hmm. NESLON: I would get slightly ghosted. Well, Brian: Yep. Yeah. You get the maybes. NESLON: what happened? What did I say? And I'm like, well, I said nothing. Kind of. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Are you finding communities that that you're kind of a part of now that you I mean, you're here what, two years now? NESLON: Yeah. there well, there's clear social fabric. I there's there's Brian: Yeah. NESLON: a bunch of folks that I've met that is great because we're all slightly in the same industry. We're entrepreneurs or we're you know, we're writers or directors, we're we're all kind of in the same mix. And then I I joined AAFLA, which is the American Advertising Federation of Los Angeles, Brian: Mm-hmm. NESLON: la last year and that's been That's been that's been lovely because I was part of it in New York and I was part of it here. So th those two are the two that kind of come to mind. And then there's kind of actually that you guys promote too. It's like this 8:30 breakfast thing that happens with a lot of advertising people at Zenke in in in Venice Beach. Brian: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Scott Donatin. Yeah. NESLON: Those those have been the the the core the the the core ones. But it tends to be kind of a professional. personal kind of kinds of intertwined net networks. Brian: Yeah. Are there other networks or other communities that you found just in your personal life since you've moved here? Around any activities that you do or NESLON: it's so funny because it interesting, you know, a professional relationship has turned into a personal. Where we, you know, we we tend to hang out together, we tend to have brunch, or we tend to have drinks. But one spun into the other, which is not unlike my life in New York when I started in the industry because there are people that I met 20 years ago during my ad years in New York that I'm still really, really close friends with, you know, and one naturally leads to to to the other. Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I I still have so many friends from New York from those days coming up at the agency when it's like we had no money. We all just kind of worked together and then we worked late because we got a free dinner and just forged such great relationships that I I still considered some of my best friends from from those early years. NESLON: Saying and do because dinner would come and you wouldn't have to go home in New York and either make dinner or pay for dinner. It was that Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Plus you could expense the ride home if you w worked past eight o'clock. NESLON: it was really, you know, f fantastic. And advertising I find is one of those really interesting industry because you because you're so in it. With so many different people, with a great deal of you know, depth and winning and losing emotion and work and craft. There's all these other elements to it that you create quite strong bonds with people that I I still have really, really close relationships with that naturally just bleed into your your your your personal life. It it really I really thoroughly enjoyed it, honestly. I really thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's just I often feel like, geez, people that don't experience that to be in the industry must be hard because that's one of the reasons to get into the industry to get into Brian: I agree. NESLON: industry is is all that kind of camaraderie. Brian: Yeah. And I think, I mean, a big part of that was being in New York in my twenties. But another big part of it was where the digital marketing and media industry was at that time. And it's like whether you were buying, you were selling, you were researching, you were one part of this industry, we were all fighting to like get on a media plant. Right. Like digital was so new and it would had to go so far and we had to sell it so hard and it's like TV was king and print was there and radio was still there. But we were all working together. And then you forged these these relationships that weren't like combatitive. It was like collaborative to try and push the industry forward. And I think that was another big part of it. And I definitely have fond memories of of of doing that, like that tackling that challenge together. NESLON: Yeah, or even a new business pitch, you know, and the emotion and work and teamwork that went went in that and the winning or the losing. So it's just like there was so much built into it that just naturally forged really close ties with with with people. It was it was great. Weekend work, even though who wants to do weekend work now, it it all felt fine, you know. Yeah, it was part of the industry when I was part of the industry. I I don't know if I'd be excited about being in the industry now. No no offense to anybody out there. Brian: No, it's it's just changed so much. I've had some some people on that I worked at agencies with, and it's just like it's such a different beast now. It's you know, a l it and I could talk forever about it, but a lot of the talent has been sucked out. a lot of the the creativity and the fun and the you just like all of the challenges you had are now just a rhythm, you know you you were replaced by an algorithm. And and programmatic and just find your audience, right? Where it's like you used to actually have to do the work to to identify where the audience is and and sell that through. And it's like, nope, now you can just do it programmatically. NESLON: You know, it's really interesting. I say this all the time. You know what? When I was super young in the industry, and I was at TBWA Chai Day in San Francisco for a moment, and then I moved to Ogilvie, New York, and my my either immediate bosses or bosses all the way up the hierarchy, all the way up to the CEO of the organization were practitioners of the trade. They had like myself or like you had grown up the industry. So they knew exactly why a client would come into the industry and what what it was there. And my job was super clear, as I'm sure yours was, you know, craft, killer insight, beautiful storytelling, originality. And it's interesting as as my tenure grew and grew and grew. and increasingly my bosses were less practitioners of the trade, not naming any names, less practitioners of the trade and were more administrators or holding company people. It became exactly what you just said. It became much more transactional, programmatic, Brian: Mm-hmm. NESLON: scale, templatize, standardize, PM your to death. And In many respects, what I was doing before became the bottleneck. Brian: Yeah. NESLON: which is which was interesting for me growing up in the industry because it became so much harder for me to defend what was incredibly easy to defend early in my career. Brian: Right. NESLON: that that was really interesting because as I became more senior, it became har I became the the work that my team and the creativity became often Persona non grata, it says like the bottleneck, Brian: I know. NESLON: or we don't that's a luxury the thing. that that's interesting, I think, for me. And that's not saying templatization is bad, but for me it is, because it's not around what I love to do. Originality, craft, storytelling, what the industry needs more of, distinctiveness, beautiful things that tell stories and engage people and brands that are at the forefront of culture. Brian: Mm-hmm. I agree. Well, I think there's still a place for that. I think, you know, there's a lot of business migrating to boutique agencies because they want the people with the knowledge and the craft to touch their business. So I'm seeing I'm seeing a lot of that in the industry. You've you've certainly held some positions on the agency side. I I've kind of had a journey on across agencies as well that's kind of brought me to where I am today. One of the ideas we've been exploring is how relationships shape. your opportunity. Is that something that you think you've benefited from as you've gone from place to place in your in your career? NESLON: my God. I I I say this, I say this all the time. I feel like I was such a sponge. I was such a sponge early on in the industry. And I would watch like just these luminaries of our industry like Lee Clau and Shelly Lazarus, who were my, you know, at both those agencies in in action. And I I I say this, and I say this truthfully, I almost learned everything I needed to learn from those two people from slightly different angles. Everything else just built on that. because there was this sense of you know, when the power of incredible thinking blends with great storytelling, against a business objective of defining a brand, just Magical things happen. and I just kind of grew up in that. and there was so much push to originality and clarity and points of view and sharpness and conviction and courage and disrupting that I feel like has evaporated, like literally evaporated from Brian: Yeah. Yeah. NESLON: from the industry. And that's kind of just what I grew up with. So for those, those are two people, and there were others around them, like Rick Boyco. Shiat Steve Hayden, that I they were so senior to me, but I observed them and I watched them in action. and I just didn't necessarily model myself after them, but learn from them a great deal. and they those relationships kind of defined how I looked at the industry and what I fundamentally did. because of it. So it was the relationship and the learning from them that really shaped. Myself and how I Brian: Yeah. And from what it sounds like, like that romantic view of what the industry can be, right? NESLON: Exactly, which now feels like just not even possible. Or maybe Brian: I know. NESLON: I'm not I'm not inside of enough in it's the way I treat my business now, clearly, because it's like at my core. But I don't know if it's possible, which is why sometimes I'm a little bit saddened when the people in charge of some of the holding companies now are just unnecessary the practitioners of the trade. I just prefer it. I just feel like if you haven't lived it and been in the trenches, it's very hard to understand it. And don't I don't Brian: Yeah. It totally is. NESLON: say that disparagingly. It's just I I just feel like if you have an experience it's really hard to understand the beauty of it. Brian: Right. Absolutely. Well, you're part of the so social fabric. We're excited to have you as part of it. I've been asking people like, what is it that drew you to joining the social fabric? And obviously you you made a move, so it's it's helpful to kind of have a new community to explore. But either what is it that drew you to it or what do you think that you can give back to the to the social fabric? NESLON: I think one of the things is I feel like digital has made it really easy for us to have a lot of connections. We we have thousands of connections in our lives from our social platforms or whatever. But oftentimes they're just connections or transactionals kinds of things, whether you know those people or not is like TBD. What I enjoyed about the social fabric are the the founders, I fundamentally connected with them. Well, AJ and then I had meetings with them. I I I I connected with Corey and Austin and I connected with A AJ here. So it's just like it felt like rather than I'm just connecting, it it moved from a connection to actually a feeling of belonging. And there's Brian: Nice. NESLON: actual conversations that are happening and we're sharing and we're building together and almost helping each other, which is Very nice and very interesting because I I've learned and I've I've I've been helped. I feel like the opportunities to give back is that there's this element of reciprocity. Give and take, give and take, give and take is probably the best way to look at it because I think connections are abundant, the sense of belonging is quite scarce, and reciprocity is quite scarce. So I feel Brian: Yeah. NESLON: it's it's that combination with the social fabric that I'm getting that I'm I might not necessarily be getting from something from something else. Brian: I really love how that you put that as like the it it kind of morphed into a sense of belonging. I really like that. NESLON: Yeah, I I mean, we all have plenty of connections, right? I don't know if I belong to all of them, but this one I felt like I belonged because we had this shared sense of where we were personally and professionally. And then this sense of like, you know, who's going to can? Well, let's have a drink session at Cannes, exchange ideas. Who's gonna be here? Let's have and that's just felt not fabricated, but just organic and natural. You know? Brian: Yeah. Yeah. NESLON: and Natural, you know, just capturing the moment, I guess. Brian: Yeah. And and like we were talking about, com combat that like transactional nature of kind of meeting up that's kind of always existed in our industry. And as like we said, since COVID has kind of been like the reason people get together. Like what if there was an antithesis of that, right? What if there was a non transactional way to to kind of get together and and talk about the industry and lift each other up? So that's the idea. NESLON: It's hard for me to do work for client if I in a transactional way. It's like we're not we're not selling transactional things where it's like $4.99 or $10.99, you buy it and you leave. There needs to be a relationship there, a mutually sharing of values, of principles, of ideas for it to kind of work, you know? and Brian: Mm-hmm. I agree. NESLON: if that's not there, it makes the work very, very difficult. with the work that I do is like with founders, understanding why they're building this and why, what drives them, their belief system. And there's things that you can't, you can't do that if you start transactional. You have to start with just no agenda, a relationship. Brian: Exactly. NESLON: Do how do how do we how do we think about the world? How do we think about AI? And then in those conversations you can figure out whether you can work together Brian: Sure. Yeah. Well, I'll get you out on this. is there anyone that you would nominate to either join the social fabric or come on and have a conversation with me if they're already part of the network? But is there anyone that comes to mind when you think about who else should we get involved? NESLON: actually there is, but I don't want to find if I want to disclose them. Actually, now that you reminded me, yes, there is a a group of an agency out of El Segundo that are just these really interesting, cool guys that I think they'd be great. Brian: Okay. NESLON: The the the social fabric. Brian: All right. Well we can we can tag them when we when we post this and and and go after that way. NESLON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they they should they should come in. They should come in, definitely. Brian: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me, Nelson. It was great to to better know a Nelson. NESLON: th thanks Brian. Thanks for including me and good luck to your boy tomorrow in first grade. I can't Brian: Yep, Calvin's going to first grade. NESLON: believe it's like Brian: Yeah. Well, and and to the listeners out there, stay curious and find your community.