Latest / We Built This Brand / Creativity, Data, and the Fight for Better Advertising with FIG
Transcript
- 0:00Mark: What our tool does, and I wish there was more tools out
- 0:02there doing it, is increasing effectiveness versus efficiencies.
- 0:07Chris: Welcome to We Built This Brand, where we pull back
- 0:10the curtain on the people, the ideas, and the sometimes
- 0:12challenging process of building something that matters.
- 0:15Today, I'm joined by two leaders from Fig, the independent
- 0:19New York agency known as storytellers for the information age.
- 0:22I get to talk with Mark Figliulo, the founder, as well as Amber Higgins,
- 0:27their chief strategy officer, and we get to talk about how Fig reinvented
- 0:32Publix with the Make Things Special story, why one chapter was entirely
- 0:36made by hand with no AI, and how data and creativity actually work together.
- 0:41So without further ado, here's my conversation with Mark and Amber from Fig
- 0:50Well, Mark, Amber, welcome to We Built This Brand.
- 0:53It's great to have y'all on today.
- 0:54Amber : Thanks for having us.
- 0:55Thanks for having us.
- 0:56Chris: I'm excited to talk to you all about the work you are
- 0:58doing at Fig, and just to dig into how all that got started.
- 1:02So, generally, I have one guest at a time.
- 1:05It's always fun to have an extra in the mix.
- 1:07So, um, happy to have both of you here.
- 1:10When I start, I like to talk about where your origins are.
- 1:14So like w- how did you all get to the place where Fig was founded,
- 1:17and how did you all find your way to Fig? Um, so Mark, I know you're
- 1:22the founder, so, so talk to me about how, how Fig got its start.
- 1:25Mark: Uh, well, I grew up in the, you know, as a creative in the
- 1:28creative industry, so I've been doing this for, you know, decades now.
- 1:32And it got to a point where I was trying to figure
- 1:35out… I was at Chiat Day as the chief creative officer.
- 1:38I was trying to figure out, all right, what's next?
- 1:40And I, when I, I did all the interviews that people do, I was
- 1:43a global creative director by then, and I was shocked at how
- 1:47many all, you know, the big agencies, how many were identical.
- 1:52They were, they just weren't solving big problems from my point of view.
- 1:56They were just getting by and trying to get to the next day.
- 1:59And that's when I realized, well, if, if I, I either have to shut
- 2:01up and, you know, get in line or I have to start my own thing.
- 2:05And that's what I did, and it was the best decision of my career.
- 2:08So I'm thrilled, and I got to meet Amber, so…
- 2:12Amber : Eventually.
- 2:13Eventually.
- 2:1413 years in, but yes.
- 2:16Chris: Nice.
- 2:16So Amber, what's your, what's your story?
- 2:18How did you start and how'd you find Fig?
- 2:21Amber : Yeah.
- 2:21I, I've had a really fun time in this crazy business called marketing.
- 2:25Um, I have had the unique privilege of sitting
- 2:28in what I would say are all three seats.
- 2:30So I have been a client, I have been a consultant, and I have
- 2:33worked for some of the best creative agencies in the world.
- 2:36Um, and I think having such a well-rounded perspective on how hard this
- 2:40all really is, it should be fun and it should be easy, but boy, is it hard.
- 2:45Uh, and, and I, I'm thrilled.
- 2:47What brought me to Fig was story data and Mark, uh, and the way
- 2:52he thinks about creative and the way he really wants to champion
- 2:56creativity in a way that I think the independents are certainly
- 2:59bringing back, um, and the others have, you know, solely lost over time.
- 3:05So I, I, for me, it was that.
- 3:06It was, he doesn't talk about creative the way everybody else does, but
- 3:10he does the creative I've done with everybody else, so I know its form.
- 3:14Um, but I think it's really interesting to have a creative person
- 3:17say, "We don't, we aren't data. Creative isn't data, and therefore
- 3:21we're losing, 'cause we're not even in the conversations."
- 3:25Tell me more
- 3:25Mark: about that.
- 3:26Back in 2017, we started just really tagging
- 3:30all our creative and trying to understand it.
- 3:32Like, hey, this story's about this, this story's about that.
- 3:35You know, deconstructing creative.
- 3:36It was a very manual process.
- 3:38We didn't, we were just doing it to learn.
- 3:41But then as we did it and everyone kind of got into it, uh, it became a bigger
- 3:45thing, and it, the data started piling up in how we decode creative assets.
- 3:51And then we got to a point where, hey, why don't we automate this?
- 3:54So we, we built an interface, and we started, uh, collecting more and more data.
- 3:59It, it started being a real data set of creative data.
- 4:02And then just recently… So years went by, and we just kept
- 4:06on automating it, and all of our clients started using it.
- 4:09It's a really helpful tool to understand how creative
- 4:12works, how to make better decisions, that kind of thing.
- 4:15All of our clients use it.
- 4:16And then about a year ago, we, we brought on Richard
- 4:18Bush, who's our CTO, and he's taken it to the next level.
- 4:21So StoryData's just getting bigger and bigger and better and better.
- 4:25So it's becoming a really powerful tool that, uh, in the
- 4:28coming months you're gonna be hearing more and more about.
- 4:30Chris: That's exciting.
- 4:31So tell me, like, why is it StoryData?
- 4:34I mean, I, I've got some inference f- here,
- 4:36but I'd love to know, like, why that name.
- 4:39Amber : Yeah, I'll take it.
- 4:40Um, 'cause stories are really information.
- 4:43Right?
- 4:43Like, they are told in an entertaining way, sometimes with humor to
- 4:47be more persuasive, sometimes really emotional, so we remember them.
- 4:51Um, but they really sort of are information.
- 4:54Um, and stories are everything, right?
- 4:55Like we say, you can calm a child and overthrow a government with a story.
- 5:00Name something else that can do that.
- 5:02They're pretty incredible things.
- 5:04Um, and we're creative at, at our hearts and our souls and
- 5:07with our hands, so stories are our medium, if you will.
- 5:11Mark: I would just jump in, 'cause sometimes people hear data, even
- 5:15in the context of creative, and think we're building robots and stuff.
- 5:19It's really, how is creative gonna keep up in today's world?
- 5:23We all know AI and all that stuff, but how
- 5:26are we gonna interface with the new world?
- 5:28'Cause if we don't, as creative people, people who really care
- 5:31about stories, if we don't, the algorithms and the engineers
- 5:35behind them will do it, and th- I think that's very dangerous.
- 5:39They don't really understand the magic of
- 5:41storytelling, uh, or the intuitive pro- process.
- 5:44So we're doing it, and importantly, our
- 5:47systems leave a lot of room for creatives.
- 5:51It doesn't say this is good or bad.
- 5:53It says, "Hey, this one has a probability of working
- 5:56better." And the creatives and the planners and everybody
- 5:59work with it, not for it, and it's a huge distinction.
- 6:02So we're still committed to creative like we love, like we
- 6:07have loved forever, but it is changing, and we have to keep up.
- 6:10Otherwise, it's gonna change for the worse.
- 6:12Amber : That's one thing I would just add, is for me, it's taking a lot
- 6:16of the… You know, you've heard creative agencies and creative people
- 6:19especially say, "Just trust me." Like, "I've been doing this for so long,
- 6:23I just, I know what will work or what won't work." And having something
- 6:27where you can show a client What it will look like or what it could be
- 6:32in the context of what other competitors are doing, what other brands you
- 6:37might admire are doing, takes a lot of the subjectivity out of it, right?
- 6:41It, it isn't a creative selfish person telling you to do the
- 6:44thing that feels scary because it'd be great for their book.
- 6:48There's a real reason for it, you know?
- 6:50Chris: I, I, I chuckle at that 'cause I was just at a conference with a
- 6:52bunch of book writers and folks like that, so- … I know what you mean.
- 6:56Um, but yeah, trust me, bro, is not really a good-
- 6:59Amber : Not a good business model.
- 7:01Mark: It's how we've been running, though.
- 7:02It really is.
- 7:03And w- well, well, we go into a room, the same room, same people, but we,
- 7:07we say, "Here's our big idea. We love it, and here's why." And it just helps
- 7:12clients get a, a little bit more context, so how to be braver, how to do
- 7:17the, the things that you're supposed to do 'cause they can see it better.
- 7:20They can see it more like a creative person.
- 7:22Chris: And so just so I understand this properly, like,
- 7:24you're … This information that you have, it's, I'm assume, some
- 7:27hard data that you're able to then tell in a story-like format
- 7:32that helps them understand the reason for it being effective.
- 7:35Is that, is that a fair way to put it?
- 7:37Mark: Yeah, it's a good question.
- 7:38Like, I want to be clear that, you know, we use AI like
- 7:41everyone does, but we started, like I said, in 2017.
- 7:44This is a data set primarily.
- 7:47How we use it, it, we use it a lot of different ways,
- 7:50but I do think data is becoming more and more important.
- 7:53It's what AI machines could read and, you know, work with.
- 7:57If you don't have them, and we're all using the same
- 8:00AI programs, we're all gonna be thinking the same way.
- 8:03So when w- we approach it the same way.
- 8:06We use Claude and everything else, but we u- use it with
- 8:09our data set, and it's a world apart a- and it's consistent.
- 8:13So when we ask it a question, we get the same answer every time, uh, versus,
- 8:18you know, one time you do this, and then you get another answer the next day.
- 8:21Chris: I've learned with Co- Claude and a lot of these AI tools
- 8:24that context is king, especially with if you're using Claude.
- 8:27Like, the more context you feed it, the better answers you're gonna get
- 8:30back, and it really is a matter of what you put into it, so that makes sense.
- 8:33Mark: Yeah, and the other thing, when you think about that,
- 8:36and when you think about, okay, data's really important, what
- 8:39data do you think Claude and all the, uh, programs are using?
- 8:43They're using consumer data.
- 8:45They're using media data.
- 8:47They're using financial data.
- 8:49No creative data is out there.
- 8:51So that's, when I say it's a real problem in
- 8:54our industry, that's what I'm talking about.
- 8:56We have to supply these machines with
- 8:58creative data, and that's what we're up to.
- 9:00Amber : And I think the one thing that we can maybe say with words
- 9:04and you can imagine is we compare our creative data with media data.
- 9:11And why that's really important in today's world is
- 9:15because what you get served, and what I get served, and
- 9:17what Mark gets served are fundamentally different things.
- 9:20So sometimes our auditing capabilities are just really biased,
- 9:24whether we're the CMO or we're, you know, an agency partner.
- 9:28So you need a way of being able to see what, what competitors
- 9:31actually did so that you can see what might be driving
- 9:36success or challenges or failures even, um, and having…
- 9:40Like, machines are good at that.
- 9:42This is actually a really good part to give to the machine.
- 9:46Um, and we can illustrate it, and more times than
- 9:48not, what you get is you have a lot of assets.
- 9:51You're not spending that much against them.
- 9:53And then what you get to talk about is this is why best
- 9:56practices for things like social platforms and creator content
- 9:59are actually very misleading and leading to a ton of wallpaper.
- 10:03Chris: Yes.
- 10:04Amber : Right?
- 10:06Chris: That's, that's the best way I can respond to that one.
- 10:07You're, you're right.
- 10:09That, that makes, I mean, but, but all that makes sense.
- 10:12Like, I, I have learned even within our own business
- 10:14that there's a lot of information out there.
- 10:16Like, we- we're in podcast production, so, like, there's a lot of
- 10:20stats out there, but knowing what to choose, how to analyze it, how
- 10:24to understand it, like, it takes part experience and context, and
- 10:28then it also takes understanding what that information's about and
- 10:31that data to help people make good decisions for how to grow a show.
- 10:35So, you know, being able to, like, we've, we've developed
- 10:38some tools and things like that similarly to, I mean, not in
- 10:42any way identical to what you all are doing, but, you know,
- 10:44in a similar fashion, like in following that same approach.
- 10:47So I'm very much tracking with this.
- 10:48That's cool.
- 10:49Mark: Yeah.
- 10:50One la- last thing I'd say about the industry right now,
- 10:54it's pointing to, uh, AI for production, and we do that like
- 10:58everybody does, but it's, it's not a big part of what we do.
- 11:01But the reason they're doing that is to be more
- 11:03efficient, to reduce costs on creative production.
- 11:07I don't think that's a great thing.
- 11:08Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not.
- 11:11And what our tool does, and I wish there was more tools out
- 11:13there doing it, is increasing effectiveness versus efficiencies.
- 11:17So, and again, that's something that a creative agency
- 11:20would believe in more than a media agency, for instance.
- 11:23So the, the, the battle's out there.
- 11:25We're, we're, we're coming for it.
- 11:26So it, w- it, it's, I think it's the big issue of our industry right now.
- 11:32Chris: I think that's fair, 'cause, yeah, you have people who aren't
- 11:35using context and are just asking AI for an answer on something, and
- 11:39they're getting, you know, some article written 20 years ago or 15 years
- 11:43ago on the internet, and it's pulling it in, and may not be good advice.
- 11:47Amber : Yeah, exactly that.
- 11:47Or you've seen trends in our business, right, where
- 11:49some, some kind of marketing gets really popular, right?
- 11:53Whether it was purpose marketing, you know, thank God that's gone.
- 11:56When, you know, it was entertainment's the new brand, right?
- 12:00Creation, creation, creator, creator, all the things, right, related.
- 12:04It, and it, it isn't true.
- 12:05All of those could be effective Um, so we need to, we need more permission
- 12:10for, uh, yeah, creative representation in all these conversations.
- 12:16Chris: Absolutely.
- 12:17So Mark, let's go back a little bit.
- 12:19You talked about founding Fig. Um, where did the name
- 12:22come from, and what was, what were those early years like?
- 12:25Like, what were some of your big challenges when you started the agency?
- 12:28Mark: All good questions.
- 12:29So it's called Fig, uh, well, t- I'll tell you the story.
- 12:32We used to be called Filio & Partners, 'cause we threw the name together in
- 12:3710 seconds, 'cause our first client was Sprint, and we had the whole thing.
- 12:42Uh, so it was a very unusual start.
- 12:43It was a very big client, so we had no… And then we went from zero to 60.
- 12:48And when I say we, really importantly, uh, Judith Carr
- 12:50Rodriguez is the CEO of Fig, and she was my partner.
- 12:54Three days in, I met her, and, uh, it's been great.
- 12:57We're like two coats of paint.
- 12:58Uh, and Richard Tan is our CFO, and he's another partner, along with Amber.
- 13:02So the four of us run Fig. So it, we got, we got lucky right
- 13:06off the bat, and then I got even luckier finding Judith and
- 13:10Richard, because without them I don't think we'd be in business.
- 13:13Like, I just didn't have enough bandwidth to know what the hell to do.
- 13:18I knew how to put a creative campaign together, but that was about it.
- 13:21And the three of us combined, we, we had a diverse approach
- 13:24to the business, 'cause Judith came from a digital background.
- 13:28So we, we knew how to triangulate everything,
- 13:31and I think that was our early success.
- 13:34And then it, it took off from there and it was really a fun ride.
- 13:37I had to m- be honest with you.
- 13:39And it, it went up, and there's times it went down, and e-
- 13:42even the downsides, you feel it, so you know, it's better
- 13:46than when you're at a big agency, you don't feel much at all.
- 13:48Like, y- all the bumps are smoothed out for you.
- 13:51When you have your own agency or a small agency, you feel
- 13:54the bumps, but that's, that's part of the joy, I think.
- 13:57And then s- so the highs are really high.
- 13:59Like right now, we're on a high
- 14:01Chris: That's great.
- 14:03Yeah, it's, it's fun when you're in those seasons of growth
- 14:06and expansion, and opportunities are coming your way.
- 14:09That's, that's awesome to be in.
- 14:11Mark: I realize I didn't answer your question, though.
- 14:12So it was called Figliulo & Partners.
- 14:14We quickly realized nobody could say my name, 'cause it's a hard one.
- 14:18F-I-G-L-I-U-L-O.
- 14:20Uh, so I grew up with the nickname Fig, and that's what we did.
- 14:23And importantly, we, at that point, this is about two years,
- 14:26three years in, we turn, we turn it into Fig the Fruit.
- 14:29That's our identity, our graphics, and that was intentional.
- 14:32It, it wasn't about me so much.
- 14:34I got it off the ground with my name a little bit,
- 14:36but it, the, this quickly became much more than me.
- 14:40So I think it's that more honest approach
- 14:42to call it something other than myself.
- 14:44But there's a connection to the name.
- 14:46Chris: Now that the fig is the actual fruit, the fig, is
- 14:50a part of your brand, like, how, how has that evolved?
- 14:52Because I assume the brand messaging probably evolves once you
- 14:55adapt something like, you know, a fruit as part of your brand.
- 14:58Mark: It adapted, like I said, w- it didn't mean me, and
- 15:01I was, you know, I'll, I'll c- say a traditional, you
- 15:04know, creative director from the brand world and all that.
- 15:08And with our, the people we hired, like Judith and
- 15:10Amber and everybody, came from very diverse backgrounds.
- 15:13So all of a sudden it wasn't about, like I said, me or my background.
- 15:17It was about all of us, and we were creating
- 15:18something very different and very modern, I think.
- 15:21Uh, and the, the, the name helped us do that It didn't, uh, define us too much
- 15:27Chris: And then, I mean, finding Sprint as an early customer, that's,
- 15:30that's always, you know, a great way to get a business started, uh Not bad,
- 15:33Mark: not bad.
- 15:35Chris: How, how nerve-wracking was that?
- 15:37Mark: It was crazy.
- 15:38And like, you know, most of this business is, it was luck.
- 15:42Like, I knew the right people from the past, and, uh, you know, one
- 15:46friend connected me to another, and all of a sudden I was in a room
- 15:49with the CEO of Sprint and pitched him an idea, and he loved it.
- 15:53And away we went.
- 15:53It w- it was fantastic.
- 15:55So and then, you know, a couple years in, we realized Sprint, at that
- 15:59point in time, were, was burning through agencies, and we knew, okay, we
- 16:03have to start our own agency before… This is our first and only client.
- 16:08And we, uh, started pitching.
- 16:10We, we, uh, won Virgin Atlantic and Spotify, and it, it was just a quick…
- 16:15'Cause we had that founding client, we had a reputation
- 16:19immediately, so other brands trusted us a little bit more.
- 16:22So it, it quickly, uh, it just took off.
- 16:24Chris: That brand recognition is key when you're early, getting somebody
- 16:27that you can point back to and share and say, "We've worked with
- 16:31Sprint." I mean, everybody knows who Sprint is, or well, I guess used to.
- 16:34They're not-
- 16:35Mark: Yeah, exactly.
- 16:36Chris: Used to.
- 16:36You know, they're not around anymore.
- 16:37I, I started my career in telecom, so I'm
- 16:39very familiar with Sprint and all that.
- 16:41Um-
- 16:42Amber : Same
- 16:42… Chris: nice, nice.
- 16:44Verizon or?
- 16:46Amber : Verizon, and brought Boost Mobile to the US and sold them to Sprint.
- 16:50Chris: That is incredible.
- 16:51My story is not that cool.
- 16:54I was working for Windstream Communications, so.
- 16:57Amber : It's all learning.
- 16:58Chris: Oh, it was a blast.
- 16:58Yeah.
- 16:59It was, um-
- 16:59Amber : Telecom's fun
- 17:01… Chris: but yeah, that's, that is a great place to be.
- 17:03And then you- you've grown quite a bit since then, and I know
- 17:06one of the things we wanted to talk about today is one of
- 17:08your recent, um, campaigns that you all have done with Publix.
- 17:12I believe the, the go-to-market plan was called
- 17:14Make Things Special, or the, the strategy was.
- 17:17So tell me, tell, just tell me more about that.
- 17:20How did that start?
- 17:20How did that come to be?
- 17:22Amber : You said it, Mark, when you were answering the last question.
- 17:24It's, it's relationships and luck, um, is the foundation
- 17:27of most great things that are happening in this business.
- 17:30Um, and for us, it was the relationship.
- 17:32I mean, it was love at first sight in both directions.
- 17:35It was the perfect first date.
- 17:37Um, we really wanted what they wanted, um, and appreciated who they
- 17:42were as a brand, um, and took the task very much to heart not to change
- 17:48something that's been in business for so long, but breathe new life
- 17:51into it, um, and really learn who they were and how they got here.
- 17:55And we talk about it a lot, about, like, sort
- 17:57of crafting the next chapter of a brand's story.
- 18:00We're very respectful of the fact that brands have been around
- 18:03before us, and they'll probably be around after they work with
- 18:06us, and so we want to give k- give it great care while we have it.
- 18:10And for Publix, it was that.
- 18:11Make Things Special was an elevated moment for them off of a line that
- 18:16they had had for, for some time, which was, "Where shopping is a pleasure."
- 18:21Um, and they'd lived it and breathed it and built, built
- 18:24themselves to be quite large and quite successful off of it.
- 18:28Mark: Yeah, it was the founder's line, right?
- 18:29And he, he wrote it himself like, I don't
- 18:32know, 100 years ago or whatever it was.
- 18:34Amber : Yeah.
- 18:34But 100 years ago, the grocery market looked a lot different
- 18:37than it does now, especially with the Whole Foods of the world
- 18:40and all the, you know, Trader Joe's having a second coming.
- 18:43Um, there's like quite, quite a bit more going on in
- 18:46the world than there was when George started it all.
- 18:49But yeah, we really honored the, the lineage and the history,
- 18:52giving it, like, I would say probably, like, another breath.
- 18:55Um, hopefully that lasts for some time, 'cause boy, are they fun to work with.
- 18:59Chris: How challenging was that, changing that tagline
- 19:01from where shopping is a pleasure to make things special?
- 19:04Mark: Yeah, I wanna be clear, we ke- we've
- 19:06kept, uh, where shopping is a pleasure.
- 19:08I don't think… Once you have a, a brand asset
- 19:11that strong, you shouldn't just chuck it out.
- 19:14What we did is we said, "Okay, how could it be more than a line?
- 19:16How could it be your strategy, your positioning?" And so we
- 19:20really deconstructed that idea, and if you think about shopping
- 19:23being a pleasure, it's like everyday stuff made special somehow.
- 19:28And that really is how they approach, you know, their service is like, every
- 19:32little thing, just elevate it, um, a little bit and make, make it special.
- 19:37So they're very good at making the, the things
- 19:39they do, the service and the products very special.
- 19:42We said, "Why don't you invite your customers to do the same?
- 19:45Make other people feel special around the Christm- Christmas time,
- 19:47for instance." Um, and you know, you, you do that with preparing
- 19:52food for people that you buy at Publix, that kind of stuff.
- 19:55So it just, all of a sudden it took what was already there,
- 19:58like Amber said, it's, this is just the next chapter.
- 20:01So we took what's already there, and we just broadened it, and so
- 20:05everybody in the company could hold onto it and give it new meaning.
- 20:09Amber : The reception, because we were so, uh, respectful of what
- 20:13we feel they were still doing right and where there was room to
- 20:16improve it, I've never had, and I've been in this business a really
- 20:19long time, I've never had such wide reception on first view, right?
- 20:26Oftentimes, you know, you might get a light pause in the
- 20:28room, like, "We appreciate that, thank you," and then
- 20:30the, you know, comments and feedback start pouring in.
- 20:33Um, but this was, not only did we get it, like it made sense and we
- 20:36understood the shift, but man, that's exactly what we need to do.
- 20:41And that was coming from business line owners, you know, heads of media, people.
- 20:46The really special thing about Publix that maybe is
- 20:48worth knowing is everyone's been there a real long time.
- 20:52Um, and people in their highest ranks there started
- 20:54as baggers So they grew up in this business.
- 20:58There is such an immense amount of respect and
- 21:01appreciation for, like Mark said, all the details.
- 21:05Um, so the line was part of it, but I would also argue that the way we
- 21:09helped them understand how they would go to market through that lens,
- 21:12so make things special as a core, core commitment and a core promise.
- 21:17Now, now tiering, um, what they would advertise against three really
- 21:23specific jobs to be done, for them reorganized the way that they market.
- 21:29And that, I think, was as surprising to them to understand and want as
- 21:33it was for us to, you know, wrestle to the ground and write and craft.
- 21:37Um, and it has been a, a, an organizing, um, pillar for them as they
- 21:42go through quite a bit of transformation, which any business still
- 21:45operating today and being successful in these markets is having to do.
- 21:50Chris: Yeah.
- 21:50So you mentioned three very specific things.
- 21:53What, what are those?
- 21:54Amber : So one was exactly what Mark was touching on, which is
- 21:57you have this incredible core value, and people have it too.
- 22:02So the thing that Publix shares in common with its, um, customers is
- 22:06that making someone else feel special means something to them, right?
- 22:10It's, it's… There's a people who instinctively seek to
- 22:14delight others, and they use food in the gesture of that.
- 22:20Um, and so it works for Publix, why their, um, employees are
- 22:23there, why, why… What they wanna do for a customer every day,
- 22:27what a store manager wants to represent, and it works for people.
- 22:30So we called it a, you know, an establishing a shared value Um, and really
- 22:34making sure that people understood that, because Publix does cost more.
- 22:38It is a, it's a premium-positioned product, which is not easy to
- 22:41do in food these days, as we are all suffering the price of bacon.
- 22:46Uh, and so shared, uh, shared value is one.
- 22:49The second was not to take for granted that as they grew into
- 22:53new markets, which they did not have 100 years of history
- 22:58established in, we really needed to make our difference tangible.
- 23:02So we needed to make sure that people understood, if
- 23:05I said, "Why Publix?" They could list off reasons.
- 23:08And so we said, "Don't underestimate for the markets that you've been
- 23:11in, that people know this. You have to communicate it. You actually
- 23:15have to talk about it," because we're trying to expand into new markets.
- 23:17And even in our existing markets, there are
- 23:20a lot of new people to those markets, right?
- 23:23'Cause they're, they're South, Southeast, and
- 23:25there's a lot of trend- people moving that way.
- 23:28And then the last one was they're a grocery store.
- 23:30This is a daily business, one in real time, right?
- 23:32It is, will you turn left into my parking lot or right into Trader Joe's?
- 23:36And so we have trigger, more time-sensitive reasons to visit.
- 23:41Um, and those core pillars became why Make Things Special was the focus,
- 23:46how we were going to deliver it, and how we were gonna reorient all
- 23:49of their marketing endeavor against it, and it's been really helpful.
- 23:53Chris: That's a big challenge.
- 23:55Amber : Yeah.
- 23:56Chris: You're not just changing a brand title, you're
- 23:58actually, in, in a way, enabling some organizational change
- 24:03and some shifts in mindset to really align with that brand.
- 24:06It's not just a, a picture or an ad campaign at that point, and it's very deep.
- 24:10Amber : Yeah.
- 24:11It's, it was structural.
- 24:12Well, well, well observed, for sure.
- 24:15Chris: Well, that's cool.
- 24:16So with this, I know there were three, I think
- 24:18three different ad campaigns that you all built.
- 24:21Um, I believe they were Merry Birthday, Best Friends, and Our Pleasure.
- 24:26Um, so would love to, love to dig into those a little bit.
- 24:29And how does, you know, one bre- brand story, you know, stretch
- 24:32into these three different, um, campaigns and make them feel unique?
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- 25:19Mark: Yeah, it's a good question.
- 25:20The, uh, uh, as an example, our very first assignment was, uh, a Christmas
- 25:26campaign, which publicly I, I have to, uh, give a shout-out to them that Mark,
- 25:31our client, uh, built a really great brand with communications over time.
- 25:35They were telling good stories, including Christmas stories.
- 25:38He just wanted to upgrade it again, and that- that's when we came in.
- 25:42Amber and I and our-- the team built this, this idea of make things special.
- 25:46So the first story we told was Christmas, and we talked
- 25:49about it in context of, well, who doesn't feel special?
- 25:53And, uh, one of the creatives came up with a great- it was, his name
- 25:57is Tom and Ke- Tom and Keegan are the creative team behind this.
- 26:00Tom just came up with this insight of like, well, there's a lot of people
- 26:04born on or near Christmas that just lose their birthday because of it.
- 26:09You know, Christmas, you know, dominates their birthday.
- 26:12And we thought that was huge.
- 26:14So we worked on various stories, and we came up with one where
- 26:17it was a little girl who was kind of pissed off at Santa.
- 26:20She was like, "I've had enough. Uh, I, I just, I basically,
- 26:24I want a birthday for Christmas." And we show Santa
- 26:29stopping his sleigh going towards a Publix, and he stops it.
- 26:32Publix gets not only all the stuff for birthday, but a special cake
- 26:37that says Merry Birthday, and that's the big reveal at the end.
- 26:41And importantly, we were able to, that cake that, uh, we designed with
- 26:45Publix together, we sold at the stores, and it was a huge success.
- 26:49So it wasn't just the film, it was a whole activation surrounding it,
- 26:54and it got on the news and all this stuff 'cause we were doing something
- 26:58special for people who needed something a little special that day.
- 27:01Chris: Well, I thank you for that campaign.
- 27:03My birthday is December 13th.
- 27:05Mark: There you go.
- 27:05Chris: My uncle's is December 21st, 24th, and my father-in-law's
- 27:10is December 26th, and my sister-in-law's December 14th.
- 27:13So I have a lot of December
- 27:16. Amber : That we will send you a cake
- 27:18. Chris: Yes.
- 27:19Yeah, that, that story resonates really well with me.
- 27:21So yes, we'll have to.
- 27:23Amber : The really treasured moment for me was the CEO
- 27:26then also went with his wife to the local hospital on
- 27:29Christmas Day and delivered cakes to all the new moms.
- 27:32I love that
- 27:32Chris: so much.
- 27:33Amber : Yeah.
- 27:34That's awesome.
- 27:34It was really great.
- 27:34They really embraced it.
- 27:35To your point, what a treasured moment to have something that we make, right,
- 27:39which is commercial in nature, um, turn into something so much bigger than that.
- 27:43Those are, those are the moments, you know, you hope for in
- 27:46your career . Um, and we were lucky to do that with them.
- 27:49And the thing to know about it too is they own Christmas.
- 27:52If you fly to Florida to go see them, and you get in any cab or, you know, Uber,
- 27:58and they say, "Oh, we're taking you to Publix." Oh, they're Christmas spots.
- 28:01That's, the whole town talks about it.
- 28:04It's like, well, I shouldn't say town.
- 28:05The whole s- state talks about it
- 28:07So it is not an easy bar to elevate is all I will say.
- 28:11Mark: And that was directed by Seb Edwards, just for the record.
- 28:14And that's another thing we, I do think the agency brought to Publix
- 28:17is, uh, a quality of production Uh, 'cause it, we, we, when we first
- 28:22met them, we all looked at the very best Christmas ads done around
- 28:25the world, and one thing they had in common was they're longer than
- 28:29the average commercial, and they're very high production value.
- 28:32So we were committed to that, and Seb Edwards a great example.
- 28:36The Best Friends commercial you're talking about, that
- 28:37was, uh, directed by Mark Malloy, who's just A+ director.
- 28:42And, um, Miles Jay is, uh, for the third thing we'll talk about, he's the
- 28:47director there, and each of them are in top, at the top of their game.
- 28:51So it's an important element of it.
- 28:52Chris: Absolutely.
- 28:52We've had, had the good, um, fortune to talk
- 28:55to, um, the folks at Breakwater Studios.
- 28:57I don't know if you're familiar with their work.
- 28:59But yeah, that, that whole industry, like I, I love it when, when you see people
- 29:06in commercial work that are really good at what they do, because it shows.
- 29:09And being able to work with them and find ways to get them involved
- 29:13in projects, I, I just think when you can do it is… I, I know
- 29:16you know this, but it's worth every penny and every bit of it.
- 29:19Oh,
- 29:19Mark: absolutely.
- 29:20Absolutely.
- 29:20Chris: So the Merry Birthday campaign, that's awesome, and then Best Friends.
- 29:24Tell me, tell me what the Best Friends campaign was about.
- 29:27Amber : There's a connection there.
- 29:28Yeah, and then I'll let you, I'll let you do this one.
- 29:29There's a connection because, so they have
- 29:31this stellar reputation for Christmas.
- 29:34Um, and the, and our observation was, you need ano- we need another Christmas.
- 29:39We need another moment in time where we go that
- 29:41big, and we really start to establish our presence.
- 29:45So strategically, it started with strategy.
- 29:48It started with wh- where is this other moment where we can show up, and
- 29:52it makes sense for business reasons, and what is our, what is our way in?
- 29:56And we found, um, a pretty interesting idea around how communities, they're
- 30:03a community grocery store, they grew up, you know, one, one town at a time.
- 30:07How do communities show affection and, and engage?
- 30:11And a lot of community efforts are around food.
- 30:15Right?
- 30:15So you have the neighbor moves in, you make,
- 30:18you make something and you take it over, right?
- 30:20Potlucks galore.
- 30:21You start adding cultural nuance to that.
- 30:24Different groups of people, different backgrounds.
- 30:26Food is at the center of all of that.
- 30:29Um, summer, winter, every time of year.
- 30:31So, um, it started with this idea of we have the right to talk about
- 30:35community engagement and, and community, uh, com- community comes together
- 30:41around, around food, and we sell food, and we're a community grocery store.
- 30:44So, uh, that's the strategy bit of it anyway.
- 30:47Mark: Yeah, and that's where we take over and we say,
- 30:50"Okay, community, neighborhood, uh, who, who needs to
- 30:54feel special?" Well, what if it was a group of dogs?
- 31:00And who do they wanna make feel special?
- 31:04And it turns out they wanted to make the mailman feel special because they,
- 31:08it was, there's some miscommunication, and they found out that the mailman
- 31:12is leaving the block because they've been up to bad things with them.
- 31:16And that, that was the story.
- 31:18So it starts off with a, a community center, and it's all filled with
- 31:21dogs, and we did it all with puppetry, like old st- old-fashioned puppetry.
- 31:28Uh, and it, they look amazing.
- 31:29It's really, Mark Malloy did a fantastic job with the craftsmanship.
- 31:32And it starts off with these dogs having a meeting,
- 31:35and they're saying, "What are we gonna do about Bob?"
- 31:38Bob being the mailman.
- 31:39Uh, "He's, he's leaving the block, and it's our fault." And they're like,
- 31:43"Well, what do we do?" And then we do a series of cutbacks to them biting
- 31:46his leg and peeing on his leg and eating his lunch and all this stuff.
- 31:51And they're, they're like, "Now what?
- 31:53How do we make him stay?" And the, one of them says, "I got it."
- 31:57And he goes, "We're gonna bake." And so they go to
- 32:00Publix, y- you see them with the bags and everything.
- 32:02They dump it out, and they're in the kitchen of one of the owners,
- 32:05and they just go to town trying to figure out how to make a pie.
- 32:08Not very good at it first.
- 32:10They learn it, and then you see them delivering the pie to the mailman.
- 32:14And, and on the pie it says, "Stay." And then he's like,
- 32:17"Oh, how could I leave you guys?" And, uh That's the story.
- 32:21So it's great.
- 32:21It's the same thing, is they're trying to make
- 32:24someone feel better, and they use food to do it.
- 32:27Um, so it's pretty straight story, but it's
- 32:29really well told because of the craftsmanship.
- 32:32Chris: So this was handcrafted, like no AI-generated content,
- 32:35Mark: just- N- none at all, yeah.
- 32:37The m- a touch up at the end, but um, each, each dog, we had I think
- 32:42a total of nine dogs, and each of them had three puppeteers each.
- 32:46So it was a significant production, uh, but it was fantastic.
- 32:50They, they did a good job.
- 32:52Chris: So from that one, I mean, you then move on to the Our Pleasure
- 32:56campaign, and let's, let's talk a little bit about that as well.
- 32:59What, what was really the, the focus there?
- 33:01Amber : This one is what I was touching on earlier around, like, the pillars.
- 33:04It's making our difference tangible for people.
- 33:08Um, so this is now Publix's chance to say to its customers
- 33:13what it's doing to make their time with us special.
- 33:17So sometimes those can be really specific human moments.
- 33:20Like, I might remember you don't like tomatoes on your sandwich because
- 33:25I know you come in on Tuesdays, and you always get the same one.
- 33:28It could be a long-standing tradition where they walk
- 33:31bags to cars for people who need a little extra help.
- 33:35Um, so the way they bag the groceries, which is my number one
- 33:38complaint about Trader Joe's, um, is they do not throw your
- 33:41fruit in the bottom of the bag and bruise it after you've spent,
- 33:44you know, gobs of time making sure that you got a good one.
- 33:47Every ounce of the store, um, the way they, you know, reorder things
- 33:51on shelves, making them look clean and, and dusted and perfect all day.
- 33:55You never see someone working there standing
- 33:57in a corner, you know, texting on the side.
- 34:00They are always looking after that store, making sure if someone's lost,
- 34:03they take them to an aisle and show them where they can find something.
- 34:08Um, all the way down to free cookies, which I grew up on.
- 34:11I grew up in Miami, and we all know, "Can we go? Can we go?
- 34:13Can we go?" Because, uh, kids get free cookies at the bakery.
- 34:17Oh, yes.
- 34:18Yeah.
- 34:19Mark: And the scale of the stories are different.
- 34:22Th- these are really s- you know, small little gems.
- 34:26Um, like a couple of them are just one-shots, um, with
- 34:29voiceover, and they have a really powerful, quiet vibe to them.
- 34:33Whereas the Job One stuff, the stuff at the
- 34:36top that we were talking about, are big.
- 34:38They're expansive stories.
- 34:39Um, they're, they are kind of crown jewels, but that
- 34:43second layer is really important, and there's a lot more
- 34:45of them, and it, it, the one-two punch is really great.
- 34:49They do different things, but they do it…
- 34:50It's, they complement each other.
- 34:52Chris: And if I understand correctly too, this
- 34:54last one was actually done on film as well.
- 34:56It wasn't a digital, um, or it may have been simultaneously.
- 35:00I know that happens sometimes, but-
- 35:02Mark: No, it, you're right.
- 35:03You're right.
- 35:03It was shot on film, which is that nod to craftsmanship, which we have
- 35:08in all of the productions, and, um, so it's important to us as an agency.
- 35:13It's also very important to Publix because they put a lot of effort into
- 35:17everything they do, and that, that effort has to include communication.
- 35:21So production value and storytelling is very important to them, which is great.
- 35:26Chris: As someone who shot film, photography, but not, not
- 35:30video, but, um, who shot film back in the day, I understand the
- 35:33value of having, you know, that negative too that they have.
- 35:36It's like an archival thing.
- 35:38It's, feels like you actually get a physical product from the work.
- 35:41It's not just, "Oh, where is that in our Dropbox account?" You know?
- 35:44Mark: It's the second client this year that we've shot on film.
- 35:48So f- Benjamin Moore we did a spot with, shot
- 35:51on film, and I don't think it's a coincidence.
- 35:53I think it's a statement against AI.
- 35:56When it… One of the things I never would've predicted is because
- 35:59AI is so cheap and, you know, ready and, but not high quality,
- 36:03clients are saying, "Well, I wanna do… I want to prove our
- 36:06quality. I, I believe in craftsmanship." I didn't expect that.
- 36:10I thought everyone was gonna jump on the bandwagon, and that hasn't happened.
- 36:13And it's another reason we did puppets in a analog sense.
- 36:17We could've done that with CGI, but we thought it was important to get
- 36:20that craftsmanship, so i- I think craftsmanship is in right now, so.
- 36:24Chris: I have noticed that's a trend this year, especially
- 36:27with technology and things, um, as I was looking,
- 36:29like, what's, what, what is everybody trying to do?
- 36:31Like, in the creator space, what's being pushed really hard is
- 36:34doing livestreams and things where you have a really hard time
- 36:38faking it or using AI to prove it as, you know, anything but real.
- 36:42And, um, yeah, I think there's, there's definitely a push
- 36:45for that, and if you look at the consumer market, typically
- 36:48when they find out AI is involved, there's a revolt.
- 36:51It's not every time, and it depends on how it's handled, but, like,
- 36:54you know, Coke has, like, doubled and even tripled down on doing AI
- 36:58ads and things like that, and every time it comes with some level of
- 37:01hate, some level of annoyance, and, you know, people kind of passively
- 37:05accept it, I guess, but I don't see a lot of love for it right now.
- 37:09And I could be wrong, but I don't see a lot of love for it.
- 37:12Amber : Yeah, I feel like it went through a phase, right, where as
- 37:15creative people with new tools, you wanna see what it can do, and
- 37:19there was an, uh, a surge to lean in and be like, "Can it do this?
- 37:22Can it do that?" So you could figure out where, "Oh, that's not good.
- 37:26Don't do that.
- 37:26Don't set this precedent." Like, we all had to sort of
- 37:29form our own opinions, but I would agree with you now.
- 37:31I feel like people's go-to is like, "Pfft, That's AI,"
- 37:34and you're like, "No, it's not." Like calmed down.
- 37:37Mark: Just to bring it back to what we were talking about before with
- 37:39the story data thing we're doing, as an example on Publix or any of our
- 37:44clients, we do not sit there and type in, uh, what kind of commercials.
- 37:49We go do what we do, is great strategy, great creative, and then we s- we ask
- 37:55the tool, we put our, our creative into it and say, "Hey, is this emotional
- 37:59enough? Is it different enough? Is it…" So it's just like a, a guide.
- 38:02It's not, uh, you don't, you don't get a output from it.
- 38:06You just get like, yes, this, a probability
- 38:09that you're, you're doing the right thing here.
- 38:11I think that's very different than, um, how
- 38:14a lot of agencies are using AI right now.
- 38:16Chris: That's, and, and I think that's the way to use it, honestly.
- 38:18Like, I, I think using it as a structural framework tool or to assist with
- 38:23automations or to, to do things in that realm is where it makes sense.
- 38:29But yeah, once you start making it, "Hey, here's the final product.
- 38:31Oh, this was all AI," you start running into issues.
- 38:34I mean, we're, yeah, you know.
- 38:36And then of course you have the clients that want to stay cheap,
- 38:39and they're like, "Oh, we'll just use AI on it," and then they
- 38:41come back to you and they're like, "We did, and this took us
- 38:43twice as long because all the input, all the outputs were bad."
- 38:47Um, so yeah, so it just, it becomes a whole thing.
- 38:49I mean, what, the horror stories this year are people going,
- 38:52"Oh, we didn't get our annual bonus because, you know,
- 38:55our boss blew the budget on AI tokens." And so… Right.
- 38:59Mark: Right, exactly.
- 39:00Whereas what, what we do is we have this data
- 39:02set so, it w- that we've taken years to build.
- 39:06AI is just helping us ask it questions You know what I mean?
- 39:09That, that's all that it really is.
- 39:11And then production-wise, we do, like I said, we, we do the prototyping
- 39:14and everything, but I, we don't use it for final production.
- 39:18Not yet.
- 39:18It's not ready yet.
- 39:19Chris: I mean, it's, it's definitely handy for people like
- 39:22me who are stick figure artists when it comes to drawings.
- 39:25If I wanna block out a storyboard for a client on something we're
- 39:29working on, it's much easier to have a visual representation, but-
- 39:33Mark: Yeah, exactly.
- 39:34Chris: So Publix is really big campaign for you all.
- 39:38What's, what's kind of on the horizon?
- 39:40Is there anything you can talk about or anything
- 39:41you're excited about in the coming year for Fig?
- 39:44Mark: Well, we just dropped a new, uh, campaign for Tropicana.
- 39:47I don't know if you got a chance to see that, just last week.
- 39:50And it, it's a really fun one.
- 39:51I think it's, uh, it's gonna disrupt the category.
- 39:55Uh, it doesn't look and sound and feel like a orange juice ad.
- 39:59Um, it's really different and, and it just makes a lot of sense.
- 40:02Amber and the team came up with a breakthrough strategy on it of
- 40:06that orange juice is actually how we use it for uplift, for energy.
- 40:11And we took that, the creatives took that.
- 40:13We wrote stories about it, but we placed it in the tropics.
- 40:16So Tropicana in the tropics just makes so much sense.
- 40:19But it just wasn't, it hasn't been done.
- 40:21So, uh, all of a sudden it's gonna … The whole brand
- 40:24has a new look and feel that I think is really exciting.
- 40:26Chris: We'll provide a link to that.
- 40:28I think we've got … I think y'all have some of that on your website.
- 40:30We'll provide a link to that in the show notes for people.
- 40:32That and all the Publix stuff, 'cause that's just, it's so fascinating.
- 40:36Publix, actually funny side note for me personally, is we live in Tennessee,
- 40:40and we, we used to go on vacation, we still go on vacation to Florida.
- 40:44Florida is like, going to Florida and seeing a Publix is
- 40:48like f- some- for my family for years it was like, "Oh
- 40:49my gosh, they have a Publix." Like, it was a destination.
- 40:53And then when they finally came to my hometown in Knoxville,
- 40:56like, family was just like, "Oh my gosh, we got a Publix."
- 40:59And now there's one on my drive to my parents' house.
- 41:02So it's, it's become a lot more of our local story, so we don't have like the
- 41:07… The, the history behind it for us is like, this is the vacation grocery store.
- 41:11And now it becomes like the place we can go, you know, to get stuff.
- 41:14It's well-respected.
- 41:15You know, "Where'd you get that cake?" "Oh, we got it at Publix." "Oh." I was
- 41:18Mark: gonna say, for the neighborhood, you'll
- 41:20definitely get a merry bir- birthday cake.
- 41:22Yeah, indeed.
- 41:23Chris: Yes.
- 41:24Yeah, I'm gonna have to go check it out.
- 41:25Um- Yeah, and for all my family too.
- 41:28Okay, so as we wrap up, I always like to ask, I mean, we talked a
- 41:31lot about AI during this conversation, but it doesn't have to be AI.
- 41:35But, uh, in general, with the trends and with things going on in the
- 41:39industry, what are you looking forward to in the industry as a whole?
- 41:43Mark: I was thinking about this, that you know
- 41:44how in engineering there's front end and back end?
- 41:46Yeah.
- 41:46Nobody talks about or thinks about it, but that's where all the stuff happens.
- 41:50And the front end's just kind of the, "Oh,
- 41:52isn't this nicely designed?" You know?
- 41:54I think the same thing's happened in our industry.
- 41:57The creative's the front end, and we think that's what
- 42:01everybody's seeing, and this- we're making all the big decisions.
- 42:04Meanwhile, it's the back end making all the decisions.
- 42:07And the back end is the, the programmatic, and it's, uh, tension
- 42:11media, and it's, uh, traditional media, and performance media.
- 42:16The media guys, you know, they've done a very good job at optimizing media
- 42:21and getting attention of a client, making it cheaper for them to go to market.
- 42:25The problem is it doesn't work.
- 42:27It doesn't, it just doesn't work.
- 42:29Not as effective as they say.
- 42:31So they need the creative, and I, I hope the industry,
- 42:34and I do see signs of it, are gonna come back together.
- 42:37And creative does its thing with effectiveness, and media does its
- 42:41thing with efficiencies, and together we could solve big problems.
- 42:44That's what I'm excited about.
- 42:46Uh, 'cause I don't think right now creative has the voice it used to have.
- 42:51People like me could've g- walked into a room
- 42:53at one point and clients would listen to you.
- 42:55Now they're listening to the data, and we
- 42:58don't, we the creatives don't have the data.
- 43:00That's what I'm excited about changing, getting back in a room and
- 43:03making creative the first and, uh, last thing that a client thinks about.
- 43:07Amber : Yeah, that's well said.
- 43:08I think for me it might be similar and, but I'm
- 43:10gonna say it more provocatively because it's just me.
- 43:14But I think we need to, we need a reckoning.
- 43:16I think it keeps happening, and I think really big
- 43:19headlines get found out, and people break really big stories
- 43:23about the lies that are very lucrative in this business.
- 43:28Um, and I like that we have a lie detector.
- 43:33And I would like to, yeah, get in as many boardrooms and,
- 43:36and conference rooms as I can to be like, "That's not true.
- 43:39That's not true.
- 43:40That's not true.
- 43:41Look, look, look." Because I think it would help creative, and creative still
- 43:44is a pretty phenomenal tool, uh, in the toolbox for businesses and brands.
- 43:49Chris: What do you think is the biggest lie
- 43:51in, right now that you see going around?
- 43:53You're like, "If I could just stop it, I would stop it."
- 43:56Amber : I think for me it's the black box, that you have marketers spending
- 43:59enormous amounts of money, and they don't even really know what ran.
- 44:03Mark: Yeah, on top of the, another lie I should say is performance.
- 44:07Every- anybody who spends 10 minutes looking at it, it's based on clicks.
- 44:12And clicks could be cheated.
- 44:14The bots click for you.
- 44:16So, uh, right off the bat you're looking at something
- 44:19you don't really know what you're looking at.
- 44:20S- that's a huge problem, and when I say performance, that's not the kind
- 44:23of work I do personally, but that work is growing and growing and growing.
- 44:27CMOs have to deliver numbers, and performance
- 44:30is, you know, it appears the only way to do it.
- 44:33So I, I think that's a huge threat, and it's based in large part on fraud.
- 44:37Not intentional, but the result is a lie.
- 44:41So it is something we have to solve, and I think everybody wants to solve it.
- 44:44I don't think anyone's saying, "No, let us lie."
- 44:46Like, the systems are just… They have, you know, holes that we have to patch.
- 44:52Amber : Yeah, I would think that's that.
- 44:53It's that we should all revel in the day where we don't
- 44:57have to pass the tests, because the state that passing
- 45:01the tests has taken our industry to is horrifying.
- 45:06And really lacks inspiration and excitement,
- 45:09and that's why so many of us are in this world.
- 45:12It's… We are creative people, whether we hold the
- 45:14pens and, and the creative or cameras, if you will.
- 45:17Like, we, we all are creative people.
- 45:19It's why we like it.
- 45:21Mark: It's still there.
- 45:22I mean, just today we were sitting around
- 45:24with some of the creative directors and stuff.
- 45:26We were all hanging out, talking about, "Did you see that spot?"
- 45:29Like, I think we were talking about the Adidas spot with Timothée Chalamet.
- 45:34It, it's amazing, and we were just like, "Holy
- 45:37shit, did you see it?" It, it, it's still there.
- 45:40Everybody just marvels.
- 45:41When there's a great story, people just gather
- 45:43around it and are jealous of it, and it's just great.
- 45:46And that's still happening.
- 45:48It's just we have to push some of these
- 45:50forces back and let it happen more often.
- 45:52Chris: So on that point of creativity, um, I have two kind of wrap-up questions.
- 45:56One I don't normally ask, but I'm gonna
- 45:58ask it anyway because I'm really curious.
- 46:00Um, and that first question is, how do you stay inspired?
- 46:04I mean, I find that creativity is something that you can't just magically have.
- 46:08Like, you have to feed that engine somehow.
- 46:11So how do you stay inspired for creativity within your own business?
- 46:14Amber : It… I always go back to something I was told when I was a kid, and
- 46:17that was I'd say, "I'm bored, I'm bored." She's like, my parents would be
- 46:20like, "You're… If you're bored, you're boring." And I was like, "Ah, what?
- 46:25What does that mean?" I mean, I just consume the world.
- 46:27Uh, everything.
- 46:29Pictures, books, I'm a big reader, movies.
- 46:32You just… Ideas are everywhere if you go looking for them.
- 46:35Even a walk around the block.
- 46:36So you gotta stay out there.
- 46:38You have to stay connected to the world and
- 46:40appreciate its changes and just consume.
- 46:44Uh, s- not, not stuff necessarily.
- 46:47That's not really my thing, but, uh, definitely ideas.
- 46:50Mark: Yeah.
- 46:50I, I guess I would say hitting my head against the wall.
- 46:55I, I'm really inspired by a problem, uh, and the harder the problem the better.
- 47:00And once I have it in my head, and I think it's true of most- Creative
- 47:04people in the broadest sense, anybody who works at a, a ad agency.
- 47:08I think we're, we're those types of people.
- 47:10Engineers are like this too.
- 47:11It's like you throw a problem at them, they drop everything, and all of a sudden
- 47:14they go from this to this, and they really laser point, you know, focus on it.
- 47:20I love that process, and it's, it's the kind of thing
- 47:23you stay up all night doing, not 'cause it's your job.
- 47:26It's 'cause you want to solve the problem in an elegant way.
- 47:29Uh, so that's how I get s- you know,
- 47:31inspired, is just by figuring something out.
- 47:34Chris: Well, and the next question, final question, y'all probably know this is
- 47:37coming, but just wanna ask, um, what brand do you all admire the most right now?
- 47:42Amber : Uh, I thought about this one a lot.
- 47:44There's a few.
- 47:45I really do thoroughly enjoy watching a industry compete, so I do like watching
- 47:51Anthropic compete with OpenAI from an advertising perspective, 'cause boy,
- 47:55do I miss those days when, you know, cars would fight for the, the moment.
- 47:59Um, but for me, the most surprising one I saw recently, 'cause we had,
- 48:02you know, the Olympics and Super Bowl, was ACG's return from Nike.
- 48:08That was like… You were like, "Oh, I haven't seen that version
- 48:11of Nike in a really long time." And it was culturally in the
- 48:18landscape in a way that I just kept getting served and discovered.
- 48:23It felt alive as work in a way that I was like, "W- who did
- 48:27th-" I remember reaching out to everybody, "Who did this?
- 48:30Who is in charge of this?
- 48:31This stuff is absolutely amazing." So for me it was ACG.
- 48:34Mark: Yeah, I started in the same place.
- 48:36I have two.
- 48:37So, uh, Anthropic or Claude is right up at the top for me.
- 48:41First off, it's really good advertising from Mother.
- 48:44Uh, they're doing competitive, really good advertising.
- 48:47More importantly, it's a great product.
- 48:49We use it all the time.
- 48:50And then that third is the, the company has an ethos.
- 48:53They do try to make good decisions.
- 48:56At least I'm buying it.
- 48:57Like they- they're, they're pushing back where they're supposed to push back.
- 49:00All those things add up to what a brand story really is.
- 49:03Uh, you know, advertising and co- communications are part of it,
- 49:07but it's not everything, and when they line up, it's fantastic.
- 49:10Oh, um, Squarespace.
- 49:12Just, uh, David Lee is the creative director there.
- 49:15Uh, he just hits home runs every time he gets to the plate.
- 49:19And, uh, this past couple years he's just, you know, on fire.
- 49:23And both brands, because they're so good, and they have that belief system
- 49:28and everything, they know- they have the confidence in storytelling.
- 49:32They really believe in their brand, and they're proud to do
- 49:35it, and do it in a different way that really captivates people.
- 49:39So, uh, bravo to both of them.
- 49:41I think they're doing great.
- 49:42I
- 49:42Chris: mean, those are all really good brands.
- 49:44I remember the Nike campaign, if it's the one I remember, was really impressive.
- 49:48I was like, feel- you felt like Nike's back.
- 49:50Like, where has it been?
- 49:52But it really, it really felt like it came back.
- 49:55I had the good fortune years ago to meet Stanley Hainsworth, who was part
- 49:59of that team and everything, and I'm just… You know, there, there's just
- 50:03a nostalgia with Nike as a brand, um, that I think a lot of people love.
- 50:08And so to see them come back with that campaign was really great.
- 50:11But yeah, those are, those are all awesome.
- 50:12Well, thank you all for coming on today, and for chatting.
- 50:15Um, if people wanna get in touch with Fig, or,
- 50:18um, you all individually, where can they go?
- 50:20How can they get in touch with y'all?
- 50:22Amber : We are figagency.com, for those who are worldwide web inclined.
- 50:26Um, and we are Fig both on Instagram, just Fig on Instagram and LinkedIn.
- 50:31Um, Mark and I, and all the names he's, you know, shared with you today about
- 50:35Fig are all contactable individually, um, in any of those platforms as well.
- 50:40Chris: Well, thank you all.
- 50:41Thank you all for coming on.
- 50:42And, um, and yeah, we hope to maybe have you back someday.
- 50:46Amber : Thanks for having us.
- 50:47Mark: Uh, thanks for having us.
- 50:48Yeah, it's been a pleasure.
- 50:50Chris: Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.
- 50:53Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe on your player of choice.
- 50:57You can also keep up with the podcast on our website at webuiltthisbrand.com.
- 51:02If you liked this episode, please give the podcast a five star review, and make
- 51:06sure to tell all your friends about it so we can continue to build this brand.