Latest / The Yield Doctor with James Deaker / Randall Rothenberg Interview

Transcript

Randall Rothenberg Interview · The Yield Doctor with James Deaker

0:00
my guest today is Randall Rothenberg
0:03
Randall has a long and storied career at
0:06
the New York Times he was a science
0:09
technology and politics editor a media
0:11
reporter and daily advertising columnist
0:15
he was an advertising columnist for ad
0:17
age for a decade and a writer for
0:20
Esquire wired and other magazines his
0:24
books include where the suckers Moon the
0:26
life and death of an advertising
0:28
campaign and history of graphic design
0:31
and American politics he was the chief
0:34
marketing officer at Booze Allen and
0:36
remains a consultant at Randall limited
0:40
most pertinent to this conversation is
0:43
the fact that he is the former CEO and
0:45
president and currently a board member
0:48
of the interacted advertising Bureau
0:50
Randall is a deep thinker on the
0:53
Dynamics that shape the publishing and
0:56
advertising and marketing department
0:58
space and today we're really going to be
1:00
getting into where the industry's at
1:03
Randall you and I first met in taxi over
1:07
15 years ago at one of the IAB
1:09
conferences uh and saw each other a few
1:12
weeks ago at the IAB annual leadership
1:14
meeting it is so good to see you again
1:17
it is wonderful to be here you know what
1:19
I I think though we actually didn't we
1:22
first meet at a meeting at
1:25
Yahoo uh I think but predates there you
1:28
we were certainly in the meeting in in
1:29
in Yahoo I remember that but I remember
1:31
being in a tax you in Florida before
1:33
that okay okay that would well that
1:36
would be a good place to do it
1:39
sure um well thank you for taking the
1:41
time and and let let's start with
1:43
putting the current moment in in the L
1:46
in our industry in context a lot of
1:49
people love to talk about how unusual
1:51
this time is because we're seeing large
1:53
Publishers under pressure due to the
1:56
fragmentation of the media landscape
1:59
driven by the Creator economy everybody
2:01
has a Blog I have a blog or a podcast
2:04
and some commentators are saying that
2:06
this is an unprecedented time but when
2:09
you and I spoke a couple of weeks ago
2:11
you because again you have the history
2:13
you pointed out that it's actually a
2:15
return to the kind of fragmentation that
2:18
the media industry saw hundred years ago
2:21
where every town had at least one
2:23
newspaper and the the anomaly was really
2:26
the later rise of the newspaper
2:28
consortiums and consolidation around a
2:31
few television networks can you talk
2:34
more about that Evolution yeah yeah it's
2:38
kind of the the rankest uh uh like
2:41
misreading of History um even pure
2:44
uh to say that this is
2:47
unprecedented what we're going through
2:49
it's actually a return to uh to Historic
2:52
Norms as you said and just to put some
2:54
data on it um and by the way what the
2:57
data I'm about to site are from a long
2:59
piece I wrote several years ago because
3:00
I got so frustrated by people repeating
3:03
this kind of over and over
3:05
again especially when it started
3:07
influencing Congressional legislation
3:10
inaccurately that um I I set to
3:13
correcting the record um but just to put
3:16
it a little bit of
3:17
context as long ago as as 1910 so this
3:21
is 115 years ago um more than one half
3:26
of all the localities in the United
3:29
States that had newspapers had competing
3:32
newspapers in the 1920s there were more
3:35
than 500 American towns and cities
3:39
including by the way
3:42
43% of all cities that had two or more
3:45
newspapers competing with each other we
3:47
had three 100 cities in the US uh in the
3:52
1920s had three or more newspapers
3:54
competing with each other so now now to
3:57
to look at the change
3:59
fast forward another 80 years the year
4:02
2000 that's a good year because that's
4:05
the year that Google first started
4:07
selling advertising and it's four years
4:10
before Facebook existed 2000 only
4:15
1.4% of uh of American cities had
4:17
competing newspapers so we'd already
4:20
gone from nearly half of all cities
4:22
having competing newspapers to fewer
4:24
than 2% having competing newspapers even
4:27
before the internet existed um
4:30
consolidation had been happening in the
4:33
uh in the uh the media industry and in
4:35
the news industry in particular um for
4:39
almost 50 years uh By the time uh by the
4:43
time the internet uh uh was invented the
4:47
uh the there are many culprits you know
4:50
uh uh that you can kind of blame for the
4:52
pre-internet consolidation I don't
4:54
necessarily consider them culprits but
4:57
uh but number one by far is television
5:00
competition from television was without
5:02
question the biggest you know wipe out
5:06
to the uh to the newspaper industry but
5:08
the second uh uh equally almost equally
5:12
important was uh was public
5:15
policy um you know uh uh I'll you you
5:18
may know the answer to this because you
5:20
did some background reading but uh but
5:22
offand do you know when uh uh when the
5:25
newspaper preservation act became law I
5:28
I read your article and I'm goingon to
5:31
it's surprisingly early and I I can't
5:33
remember I'm gonna say 1970 somewhere
5:36
around there 1970 it was uh let me do
5:39
the math 55 years ago that uh uh that
5:43
the newspaper industry was so distraught
5:46
about its H competitive abilities that
5:48
it pressured Congress and the Nixon
5:51
Administration it was President Nixon
5:52
who signed it to pass the newspaper
5:54
preservation act but what that did was
5:57
it actually fostered more consolidation
6:01
in the industry because it gave
6:02
antitrust protection to Proprietors so
6:06
instead of that generating more
6:08
competition it allowed the largest
6:11
newspaper Proprietors to buy other
6:13
newspapers without having to suffer uh
6:16
suffer consequences so it's just a just
6:20
a a brief little uh uh exercise in data
6:24
history to just show what what
6:27
it is to say that this is an anomaly the
6:30
reality is that uh beginning with um the
6:36
introduction of commercial broadcasting
6:39
really in the 1920s and again there's a
6:42
public policy element here is the 1930
6:45
uh Communications act uh which gave the
6:48
government the uh the authority to
6:50
regulate the airwaves uh including
6:52
licensing of
6:54
broadcasters um you know those facts
6:57
really began this long slog of
7:01
consolidation so by the time I get into
7:04
the industry uh as a journalist
7:08
beginning in
7:09
1978 and you and my younger colleagues
7:13
kind of followed 10 or 20 or 30 years
7:15
later um we we thought of it as the norm
7:19
that you would have giant companies like
7:22
the Walt Disney Company or Rupert
7:24
Murdoch's news
7:25
corporation um or uh or comcast you know
7:29
uh we just thought it was normal that
7:31
you would have these giant multinational
7:33
conglomerates dominating the scene that
7:35
was not the case prior to uh to
7:39
broadcasting let me ask a question I had
7:41
not intended to ask you but it's around
7:43
the role of when should uh legislation
7:47
occur and you know who who invariably
7:50
ends up being the winners and losers and
7:53
I wasn't familiar with all the history
7:54
you just laid out but I looked at Europe
7:57
and gdpr and that's now you know it's
8:00
been out for a number of years but when
8:02
that was coming I looked at that and
8:04
said that's going to hurt the midsize
8:06
Publishers because you're going to get
8:08
the biggest companies the the Mets the
8:10
Googles Etc who have the resources to
8:14
deal with the leg just of Burden the
8:17
midsize Publishers are going to be hurt
8:19
and so I I guess one question for you is
8:22
just generally the role of
8:24
legislation are you there a favor of
8:26
sort of light touch because every time
8:28
legislators seem to get involved they
8:31
have the best of intentions but the
8:34
legislation invariably creates second
8:36
order effects that they haven't thought
8:38
through so what what can we learn from
8:40
these sorts of examples well first of
8:42
all I'll disagree with one premise but
8:44
but but but but just you know very very
8:47
lightly um I don't think they all begin
8:50
with the best of intentions um I think
8:53
you can go back to um to the very very
8:57
earliest days of American history and
8:59
and predate you know to the earliest
9:01
days of uh of legislatures and uh and
9:06
and non-royal governments um and you can
9:09
see that uh uh legislation when it
9:12
relates to especially
9:15
microeconomics is almost always almost
9:19
always um a form of uh competition
9:23
within Industries uh that industry
9:26
players uh on one side are always trying
9:29
to game the system in their favor and
9:32
against their competition in other areas
9:35
of uh of the business um but but with
9:38
that that's a minor quibble uh because
9:41
yes there obviously are uh
9:44
legislators and parties that do have the
9:47
public uh public interest in mind and
9:49
there are almost always uh second order
9:52
consequences to these things as as
9:54
you've pointed out gdpr when I was at
9:58
IAB uh I can't tell you the amount of
10:01
money we spent the amount of time we
10:03
spent sending people toh to Brussels
10:06
working to organize our uh you know our
10:09
colleagues in the 43 or 45 other iabs
10:13
around the world you know to point out
10:16
that uh gdpr as it was being proposed
10:21
and ultimately as it was written was
10:23
going to grandfather in the advantages
10:26
of the largest conglomerates and make it
10:28
extraord ordinarily difficult for uh as
10:31
you mentioned smbs in the publishing
10:33
industry to compete it's exactly what
10:35
happened there's no surprises here it
10:38
has not created any kind of new
10:40
competition and the reason is very
10:43
straightforward who were the primary
10:45
components of gdpr it was the largest
10:49
German newspaper conglomerates who were
10:52
trying to keep out competition from
10:55
larger and more technologically capable
10:59
American companies that was that was the
11:01
basis of gdpr and uh you know
11:05
unfortunately it didn't work out for
11:07
them uh and it was easily foreseeable
11:10
that it wouldn't work out it didn't
11:11
promote
11:12
competition what can we learn from
11:14
lessons whether it's Europe from five or
11:17
10 years ago the newspaper consortiums
11:19
from a hundred years ago and apply it to
11:22
the current time because again everybody
11:24
says that things are fragmenting but you
11:27
also have the strongest platform
11:29
whether you know I said Google but
11:31
you've got to throw YouTube in that mix
11:33
in the creative economy you've got um
11:36
Twitter X you've got Facebook you've got
11:38
these very strong platforms and you've
11:40
got millions and millions of creators
11:43
and it feels at times like there's
11:45
nothing in between where do you see do
11:48
you see an equilibrium being reached
11:50
that is similar to now or not well I
11:53
mean I I'm not sure if there ever you
11:56
know is was or should be an equilibrium
11:58
uh what it comes uh to uh to Viewpoint
12:01
diversity which is really you know what
12:03
we're talking about now when I say
12:04
Viewpoint diversity that's a uh that's a
12:07
term of art that's used quite a lot in
12:11
uh discussing things like the first
12:12
amendment um and so we tend to think of
12:14
it as relating strictly to uh to news
12:17
and editorial opinions but I think it
12:20
also relates equally to uh to creative
12:23
points of view and the way you know
12:26
different composers and uh and bands and
12:30
Movie Makers you know go about things
12:32
and I think it's not I think it is
12:36
provable it is undeniable that there is
12:40
more Viewpoint diversity in the world
12:43
today than there has ever been before
12:47
period full stop look at YouTube YouTube
12:49
is my favorite example of this um and
12:52
I'm G to get I'm going to get some of
12:54
the data wrong we could probably look it
12:55
up in real time now but there are
12:59
literally uh hundreds of thousands of
13:03
YouTube channels uh uh that are larger
13:07
than the largest television networks you
13:10
know thousands thousands of them larger
13:13
than the largest television networks and
13:16
when you talk about the total number of
13:18
channels when you get down to the the
13:20
smaller and smaller ones there are
13:22
millions upon millions of YouTube
13:25
channels and they are trafficking in
13:27
things that you and I growing up
13:29
never ever had access to why didn't we
13:33
have access to them because we were
13:34
consigned when I was growing up you had
13:37
three broadcast television networks in
13:40
the United States that dominated all
13:43
opinion making and news distribution now
13:47
the fact of the matter is that we grew
13:51
up in a gatekeep media environment that
13:55
I'm going to use the word controlled but
13:56
I don't mean it in a in a kind of a pol
13:59
itical or economic sense I just mean it
14:00
in a distribution sense they controlled
14:03
what we saw and thus and what we heard
14:07
and thus how we thought and today we
14:10
have millions and millions of them that
14:13
we never ever had access to I could
14:16
never watch a a Bollywood movie uh and
14:20
and that's mainstream that's mainstream
14:22
in India you know you go further down
14:24
that list um it's extraordinary what we
14:27
have access to well what what does this
14:30
mean for the future role of um I don't
14:34
want to use the word serious journalism
14:36
or curated or but when you and I think
14:38
about New York Times you know the Wall
14:42
Street Journal you know paid journalist
14:45
on staff and that model has been under
14:49
pressure it continues to be under
14:51
pressure even my my former colleagues at
14:54
at Yahoo and Yahoo news that would have
14:57
been considered a sort of midsize
14:59
publisher has challenges around a lot of
15:01
these pressures do you see a path out
15:04
for those types of I'm going to say I
15:06
don't know we want to categorize them as
15:08
news agencies or aggregators of news
15:11
content but but that role do you think
15:13
that that's sustainable going forward
15:15
well you know I think you've got a a
15:17
number of interesting issues that that
15:20
intersect and they're not necessarily
15:23
all consistent with each other but they
15:25
create the uh the the complexity that
15:28
leads to the this question you know what
15:30
what do we do um and in no particular
15:33
order well I I I actually I think
15:36
starting at the top I would
15:38
say you we in this industry uh
15:42
especially you the yield doctor uh you
15:45
know we tend to think uh uh uh
15:50
uh almost in narrow economic terms that
15:53
everything is a question of supply and
15:55
demand and what I would say when we're
15:58
talking about
15:59
uh news in particular but also um kind
16:03
of publishing more broadly which can
16:06
cover lots of things that aren't news as
16:08
we we just discussed it there there's
16:10
not an issue here of supply and demand
16:13
there's an issue of
16:14
attention and and so one of the um uh
16:19
one of the the the
16:21
ramifications of living in a gatekeep
16:25
media environment is you have a degree
16:28
of uh of reasonable control over
16:31
people's attention and the more you
16:33
fragment that attention by increasing
16:36
the supply of other things out there you
16:40
know the less you're able to get people
16:42
to focus on this very important thing
16:45
over here or that very important thing
16:48
over there or that very important thing
16:50
over there so you know there's a dilemma
16:53
here too which is and and I I I see very
16:57
few people in
16:59
uh the publishing industry really
17:01
grappling with this I'll return to that
17:04
point in a minute is
17:06
okay how much do you want to and this by
17:09
the way what I'm about to say gets into
17:11
a very very interesting area relative to
17:14
public policy antitrust and the like
17:17
which is okay how much uh competitive
17:21
ability how much competition in an
17:24
economy in a society are you willing to
17:27
sacrifice in order to concentrate
17:32
attention and you know from the
17:34
standpoint of let's say antitrust law
17:37
they go well that's not we that's not
17:41
for us no we want more competition well
17:44
hold on there you know I've got you know
17:47
10 million uh YouTube channels over here
17:49
you're telling me that uh YouTube is a
17:52
threat to democracy okay what do you
17:54
want to do about that what do you want
17:56
to do how much how much of YouTube do
17:58
you want to shut down in order to be
18:01
able to concentrate attention oh by the
18:03
way what do you want them to concentrate
18:05
attention to who's going to make those
18:07
decisions you you want the government to
18:09
decide which of course is what Trump is
18:11
trying to do right now so I think these
18:13
are you know these are our fascinating
18:15
issues um where I have less tolerance
18:18
for it I have a lot of Tolerance um you
18:21
know I just got off of a a zoom there's
18:24
a a weekly Zoom among New York Times
18:26
alumni some of the greatest people I've
18:28
ever had the the honor to work with uh
18:31
in in my life um and uh uh and this
18:37
issue you know kind of continues to
18:40
arise it it's yeah we liked it when
18:43
everybody paid attention to us when we
18:45
had the front page that everybody read
18:47
but don't we also like it now that that
18:51
we've got other places that are putting
18:55
their resources into the things that we
18:58
didn't actually have the resources to
19:00
cover I mean I I give you an example um
19:03
the blog scotus blog which is uh has
19:06
broken more stories about the Supreme
19:08
Court than the New York Times ever did
19:11
and we had the best supreme court
19:12
reporters on Earth well aren't we better
19:14
off that scotus blog exists aren't we
19:16
better off with uh um uh talking points
19:20
memo which is a terrific political uh
19:23
publication that that I look at which
19:25
does incredible investigative work in
19:28
polic politics well they're doing better
19:31
investigative work than even the largest
19:33
newspapers were able to do back then
19:35
because we now have structures and
19:38
systems and economics that allow for uh
19:41
for smaller scale publishing on more and
19:43
more topics so I mean in a way I I I'm
19:46
not really worried uh about the supply
19:50
side because it's being filled all the
19:53
time by creators by journalists uh I'm
19:57
not worried about the demand side
19:58
because obviously there's demand out
20:00
there or else those 10 million or so
20:02
YouTube channels wouldn't exist I don't
20:05
know how you
20:07
reconcile that uh that Supply demand
20:10
equilibrium which I think is is out
20:12
there already with this problem of
20:15
concentrating attention on specific
20:18
issues such that you can create mass
20:21
action or mass movement when necessary
20:23
so I I think you're right in terms of
20:26
society we're not going to be short of
20:27
the right type of supp for content and
20:29
demand is certainly not going to be a
20:31
problem but staying on sort of The
20:33
Business of Being a midsize publisher
20:36
given that attention continues to get
20:39
more
20:40
fragmented what are the options that
20:42
people have one option might be try to
20:44
aggregate the attention another might be
20:48
try to become more Niche and more
20:50
focused off the top of your head what
20:52
are the two or three things that you
20:54
think that Publishers can be doing to
20:57
react to the current environment well I
21:00
say you got to start first of all with
21:02
the premise that you don't need uh
21:04
conglomerate ownership you don't need
21:07
rollups uh in order to create
21:10
networks uh that networks can actually
21:13
information networks can and do and have
21:16
always
21:18
self-organized uh and that um if you
21:21
want to be able to you know take
21:23
advantage either as a soloist publisher
21:27
or as a publisher that's part of an
21:30
actual Network or a self-organized
21:33
network there's nothing better than
21:35
quality and and serving the needs of
21:37
your audience uh to be able to attract
21:39
the attention that uh uh attention that
21:42
you need I mean I'll give you another
21:43
example based on history you know what
21:46
the first uh uh uh you know you know
21:48
about the Associated Press obviously
21:51
United Press International you know
21:52
these the new news uh news networks news
21:56
associations you know what you when the
21:57
first one was in the United
22:00
States no reason for you to know it was
22:03
in the uh it was in the late 1800s uh uh
22:07
uh I'm sorry in the late 1700s early
22:10
1800s the uh the founders of the United
22:13
States basically built into the
22:17
Constitution uh what I'll refer to as a
22:19
franking privilege by which
22:22
newspapers in any part of the country
22:26
could mail themselves for free they
22:28
wouldn't have to pay postage to mail
22:31
their newspapers to other
22:33
newspapers why well very deliberately
22:37
that they wanted to uh uh create this
22:41
kind of national uh News Network to help
22:44
news Proprietors in distant places fill
22:47
their pages with news without having to
22:51
report it directly but why would the
22:54
Congress get involved in that because
22:56
they wanted to create uh through time as
22:59
the United States grew further west you
23:02
know from the East they wanted to create
23:04
this National economy and the best way
23:06
to create a national economy was to
23:08
create forms of national attention and
23:11
by linking newspapers together in this
23:13
informal Network that was made
23:16
economically viable because they didn't
23:17
have to pay postage to each other uh uh
23:20
or to mail to each other is what did it
23:23
so there there are ways to do it but in
23:25
the end it wouldn't have worked if
23:27
newspaper a that's mailing itself for
23:30
free from
23:32
Nebraska uh to newspaper B in
23:36
Massachusetts well unless newspaper a
23:39
had something to say that was going to
23:40
be of interest to newspaper B it
23:42
wouldn't get picked up so that's I think
23:44
a lesson that we also continue to learn
23:47
I'll throw in something else also from
23:49
uh a little bit from left field but it's
23:52
very recent and and I know it applies
23:54
but we'd have to talk it through I was
23:57
fascinated with uh this year's Academy
24:00
Awards um now partly we were paying
24:03
special attention because I think you
24:05
know my my wife was in Anora that one
24:08
best picture and so we're paying a lot
24:10
of attention to that congratulations but
24:13
Anora Anora cost $6 million to make uh
24:17
one of the other uh top nominees the
24:19
brutal list uh which is visually
24:21
stunning I thought it was kind of empty
24:23
but it was Vally stunning cost $10
24:24
million to make Wicked cost 140 million
24:28
to make now you know what $6 million is
24:34
kind of the equivalent of a of a low-end
24:38
uh YouTube channel you know or a low-end
24:41
Blog in the world of movies and I think
24:43
we should be celebrating the fact that
24:47
the tools of production and distribution
24:50
have grown so inexpensive that it
24:53
unleashes it has Unleashed this wave of
24:56
uh of creativity and insight
24:59
uh in our world so we ought to be
25:00
thinking more about that and again what
25:03
what makes it work you know why did
25:05
Anora get all this attention because
25:08
it's a great movie that's why yeah uh
25:12
changing directions a little bit Randall
25:14
you you have worked with a ton of
25:17
different
25:18
agencies and over that time do you have
25:21
any lessons that would be useful for
25:24
someone running a branding campaign
25:28
I'll tell you one story you you want a
25:31
story about that absolutely that would
25:33
be fantastic so um I uh uh very proud of
25:39
a book I wrote uh it was first published
25:45
in
25:47
1991 uh called where the sucker Moon uh
25:50
it's still in print it's the subtitle is
25:52
the life and death of an advertising
25:54
campaign and as a lot of people in the
25:56
industry know it was the um it was the
26:00
narrative story of uh Subaru the car
26:03
company's search for a new advertising
26:06
agency and a new brand that would
26:08
resurrect it uh uh to its former glory
26:11
that it had fallen way off from and I
26:14
used that story the Subaru narrative to
26:18
do a cultural history of advertising but
26:20
I went deep into the uh the history of
26:24
Subaru because I was fascinated with the
26:26
question where does a brand come from
26:30
how does it work and when we ask the
26:33
question how does a brand work what do
26:34
we mean by that what is the meaning of
26:37
is it working and so I followed that
26:40
everywhere including the the history of
26:42
Subaru now at the time the problem that
26:45
Subaru had run into it had gone from
26:48
selling a peak of I want to say about
26:52
120,000 units a year uh to a trough of
26:56
about 885,000 units it's a year but that
26:59
had happened in a very short period of
27:01
time and one of the things that uh they
27:05
knew just from all their um their owner
27:08
research and buyer research is that um
27:11
Subaru was heavily oriented in fact it
27:14
was almost a caricature of Subaru owners
27:17
that they uh were all teachers and
27:19
engineers and in fact salespeople who
27:22
worked at um you know dual or triple
27:24
dealerships you know with multiple
27:26
brands on them said uh say they could
27:28
tell a Subaru buyer walking onto the lot
27:31
you know from a 100 yards off the
27:34
teachers or
27:35
engineers and Company wanted to kind of
27:37
break out of that uh at all and so it
27:41
was something that was really
27:41
interesting and it kept you know was
27:43
pursuing it and I decided to you know go
27:45
back to the origins of Subaru which are
27:49
fascinating because it was the um it was
27:52
the offshoot of one of the last zatu in
27:56
Japan and it was actually founded
27:58
uh by uh a guy named Fuji uh who was the
28:03
Godfather of the uh uh uh Japanese proar
28:08
movement after World War I he was the
28:10
guy who said Japan must build an armed
28:15
Air Force and this is really the early
28:17
part of the 20th century and um and so
28:21
pursuing the story and I end up uh uh
28:25
when I'm in Tokyo having a meeting with
28:27
the the uh the top car critic at one of
28:31
the top Japanese newspapers uh is the
28:34
Brock Yates of Japan he was a guy who
28:36
reviewed cars and and and his word was
28:39
like the word of God and so uh through a
28:43
translator talking quite a lot about the
28:46
history of Subaru and you know where it
28:48
came from and the history of uh the Fuji
28:52
heavy Industries
28:53
zatsu and uh and I said to
28:57
him tell me who Subaru's customers are
29:00
now Japan couldn't be more different
29:01
than the United States obviously tell me
29:03
who Subaru's customers are it says oh
29:05
everybody knows Subaru's customers
29:07
they're all teachers and
29:10
engineers and that was just like
29:11
fascinating because here the US they're
29:15
all teachers and Engineers but the US
29:17
company was an import company it was a
29:20
bunch of Jewish salesmen from had been
29:22
founded by a bunch of Jewish salesman
29:23
from Philadelphia from the ground up and
29:25
they just imported these cars so how is
29:28
it that these two different countries
29:32
with two different marketplaces could
29:35
end up having the same exact
29:37
demographics of their buyers well the
29:39
answer was very straightforwardly this
29:41
is my aha
29:43
moment your brand is built into your
29:47
company and your products advertising
29:50
agencies cannot no matter how arrogant
29:54
they are they cannot change your brand
29:57
for you you your brand lives inside your
30:02
product your company your culture your
30:05
history and all the relationships among
30:08
the many constituencies that make up
30:10
your company the uh uh the people on the
30:14
production line the the engineers who
30:16
are doing the designs the colorists who
30:19
are trying to figure out what color the
30:21
car should be obviously your dealers and
30:24
your salespeople and your Distributors
30:26
they are your brand
30:28
and their Collective Consciousness is
30:31
what makes the brand the only thing that
30:33
a that a great Ad Agency can do that say
30:36
an average Ad Agency cannot do is to
30:39
take that Collective Consciousness and
30:42
realize it in an extraordinarily novel
30:44
and creative way that will somehow break
30:46
through to the audience so I think
30:49
that's my my my my my best lesson about
30:52
where Brands come from I I I love it and
30:56
I guess one question about that was
30:58
there something that you found about the
31:00
brand that resonated with the teachers
31:03
and
31:05
Engineers what was it well Subaru and
31:08
this is what what grew Subaru in the
31:10
United States um they uh very very early
31:15
in their history here they locked into a
31:19
uh into hiring what was then a a small
31:21
agency that grew much larger called
31:23
LaVine Huntley Schmidt and beaver later
31:25
got got sold to gray advertising um and
31:29
they kind
31:30
of uh I'm going to use a a word out of
31:33
postmodern literary Theory uh they
31:35
reified Subaru's brand in one of the
31:39
most brilliant U advertising slogans
31:42
that I've ever know ever known ever
31:45
heard of and that was inexpensive and
31:48
built to stay that way and and the idea
31:53
that it was uh
31:55
unusual it was cheap to own but it was
32:00
rugged and durable put it you know in a
32:03
place where the most
32:06
intelligent people who are willing to do
32:09
research about what they should buy will
32:11
be attracted uh will be attracted to it
32:15
and so that that was it there was a
32:17
there was a great story that I learned
32:19
when I was in Japan that um uh the the
32:25
the zatu you know was broken apart after
32:28
the end of World War II when the you
32:30
know the US uh uh the Allies win the war
32:33
they break apart all these um uh
32:35
military conglomerates and so here's
32:39
Subaru uh or you or the its predecessor
32:43
which made the engines it actually made
32:45
the engines for the zero Fighters those
32:47
are the kamakazi planes um but what it
32:50
was famous for you it was it was known
32:52
as such a fanatical engineering company
32:55
that even after it was broken up and
32:58
after it was broken up they weren't even
32:59
allowed to make cars they were only
33:00
allowed to make motor scooters not even
33:03
motorcycles motor scooters but those old
33:06
Engineers that had been working on those
33:08
engines for the Fuji Fighters people
33:11
were telling me stories about going in
33:13
and the engineers would be filing
33:15
Pistons by hand to make sure that they
33:17
were perfect that's how fanatical they
33:19
were about engineering so that
33:21
engineering culture was so embedded in
33:24
the soul of this company that finding a
33:28
way and that's why it attracted teachers
33:30
and Engineers but finding a way to
33:31
communicate that outside that cohort was
33:36
uh was the challenge that they needed to
33:37
rise to brilliant I love it uh Randall
33:41
as we come to the end of the time
33:43
firstly thank you so much for for taking
33:45
the time to talk through all these
33:46
different Dynamics do you have any
33:49
closing thoughts for our audience and
33:51
what is the best way for people to find
33:53
you if they have questions or want to
33:55
continue the conversation uh well let's
33:58
see what my concluding thoughts uh I
34:01
would say that you know per our earlier
34:05
conversation uh publishing remains a
34:08
great business uh always has been and
34:12
you know by and large it won't make you
34:14
rich and you know what it really didn't
34:18
unless you were he or puler pretty much
34:20
didn't make you uh Rich could still make
34:24
you one of the most prominent people in
34:26
your community but like when I was
34:28
growing up you know the local newspaper
34:31
owners they were prominent because they
34:34
sponsored Little League teams and that's
34:36
how they use their money so so I would
34:38
say that that if you want to really have
34:41
a great career in publishing you should
34:44
do it because you're serving a community
34:46
and you're making enough money to live a
34:48
decent life not because you're GNA be
34:50
some you know gazillionaire uh Tech
34:53
oligarch don't do it is a good call to
34:56
action yeah and if people want to reach
34:58
me it's a it's very easy my website is
35:02
Randall Rothenberg dcom one word Rand
35:05
well with a dot in it Randall rosenberg.
35:07
comom and I'm Randall at Randall
35:09
Rothenberg dcom and I am you know open
35:13
for business I do uh real Consulting
35:16
projects uh some of which are uh well
35:20
they vary you know i' I've done
35:22
everything from um you know helping
35:24
create a thought leadership
35:26
infrastructure for a
35:28
for a measurement company to uh
35:31
co-authoring a book with a US senator so
35:34
so I do a lot of different things and if
35:36
anybody is interested they know where to
35:38
find me again thank you so much taking
35:41
the time Randall has been absolute
35:43
pleasure James a pleasure I hope to be
35:45
in more taxis with you in the future
35:47
[Music]