Latest / The Marketing Brief / Brian and Brian Talk Agency Solutions for 2026 and a Possible Return to Local Networks (S1 E23)
Transcript
- Brian Aucoin: to the marketing brief podcast, I am your host Brian Aquan. This is the podcast where we briefly touch on subjects across the marketing landscape. we're always joined by an industry expert. And today we're very excited to be joined by ⁓ Linder. Brian, welcome into the pod. Brian Linder: Thanks, Brian. It's always good to have two Brian's in one place. Brian Aucoin: Two Bryants, we'll see how this goes. ⁓ Brian, would you like to yourself and what you're working on? Brian Linder: Sure, I'm a creative director and co-founder of a boutique agency called This Will Be Good. Right now it's composed of three individuals, myself, who's more on the art side, co-founder on the writing side, and co-founder who's strategy. And ⁓ a boutique agency designed to provide basically everything that an agency can provide you ⁓ without the We say all good stuff. that you get in an agency and the whole objective is to be able to move friction free for our clients, to be able to move fast, to be able to be efficient. gotten really good at our jobs over the years and we've realized it's a lot easier for us to move when we don't have a giant agency surrounding us. And yeah, we work on clients such as Good Good Golf, World's Finest right now and Builders Movement Texas. We're brand new and having a really good time enjoying the freedom and the, ⁓ you know, making on market this weird fluid place that the advertising world is in right now. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, well, I've spent time at large agencies. I think the promise of the boutique agency is just that, right? It's the nimbleness. It's, you what can we cut out for clients and still deliver? Why do think that's important, I guess, right now, right? In 2026, why ⁓ do you boutique agencies are seemingly doing really Brian Linder: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with ⁓ purses getting tighter. The budgets are getting smaller and smaller. ⁓ agencies have an enormous amount of overhead that they have to worry about. They have enormous payrolls, and so they have to charge a lot, and people just get more expensive year after year. ⁓ you're having agencies that have to make cuts ⁓ They can't afford a whole creative department and a strategy department and a copywriting department and an account management department and a media and so on and so forth. And so if you could just have the right three people, that's really all you need. And you'd find that anybody who works the advertising and marketing world really knows that the work's getting done by three or four people that are really tuned in. A lot of other people are making comments or on the side or setting. The money situation has a lot to do with it. We have to become more efficient and the boutique agencies able to do that. think another element is the emergence of AI, which ⁓ a force multiplier for people like myself and for agencies. so trying to figure out right now what that means, what that looks like. think we don't know yet ⁓ where this is going to go. I've got some interesting theories and thoughts on it, but for right now to have ⁓ somebody who's 25 years creative experience and all the tools of AI at their Brian Aucoin: Yes. Brian Linder: disposal, they can operate like a whole creative department just themselves. So I think that the opportunity for boutiques to fill this gap that sort of occurred between needs and budgets. Brian Aucoin: Certainly. Yeah, I've certainly over my career seen it ebb and flow. I graduated in 1999, started with an agency in New York City and digital media was on the rise, right? And then you started to see all these digital only shops crop up and creative digital shops. And then I think I saw it, then the big guys kind of suck them up and say, okay, this is a capability of mine now. And then mobile makes its statement there and it's again, moved towards do you have a mobile agency? How do you figure that out? ⁓ And now we're obviously the AI age. I it's also like agencies do figure things out, right? It's because they to, right? Their business is to know these things and to help clients kind of ⁓ navigate these So ⁓ it doesn't me that clients and brands are looking to boutique agencies to help them figure out ⁓ AI right now. Brian Linder: Yeah. Yeah. And in some cases it's, it's, you know, sure they want to figure out AI, but they just, they want to solve their problems without breaking their own banks. the, the we do in advertising marketing, ⁓ isn't hard. ⁓ if you spent all your time focused on it and doing it, but sometimes agencies can make it seem harder than. we work the boutique, you're talking to the guy directly. There aren't all these layers. You know, you have a creative from a. art director and copywriter come up with an idea, the ACD needs to look at it, the CD needs to look at it, the ECD, the CCO, all on and on, and then you understand, oh, that's why it takes five weeks for them to put a campaign presentation in front of me. Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Brian Linder: It's a lot fun when you're just dealing with a couple of people and we like to say that we keep our clients on the group chat. And so there is this closeness that happens, directness, we are available, you're talking to the people. You don't have to play any game of telephone tag to get your directions across. I think that's also really nice. The small scale becomes really nice for people that are tired of dealing with a lot of layers. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, I think the small-scale works on both sides too, right? I think, you know, as we move in our careers, we get further away from work, work, right? But I love to have my hands on the work, especially when there are big changes in the industry, like new tools and new trends. So definitely works from an employee standpoint. And then, like you said, there's three people touching your business, right? Brian Linder: Yeah. Yeah. Brian Aucoin: Do you want them to be super junior? Do you want them to super senior? Like how close do you want the people who are ultimately making the decisions and have all of the experience, how far do you want them from the work? Nope, I don't think so. Brian Linder: I don't think you want them too far from the work really. And that's part of it. When you become a Chief Creative Officer, you're not doing the work anymore. You're dealing with office culture, office politics, and all that sort of stuff. And when you're a small boutique agency, you don't have a lot of Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Yeah, you certainly don't. Well, I know you're big into AI and you've done AI filmmaking. When did you start that? Because you've started that a while ago, right? Brian Linder: I started as soon as Mid Journey a competent model. It a mindblower. I want to say this maybe three or four years ago. became, you ⁓ that, ⁓ know, when presenting a client. you have to show them the thing you wanna make before they've you, they've given the funds for you to make the thing you wanna make. And so you have to share visuals that represent what you're trying to make. And you do that with mood boards, do that with ⁓ image searches, comping things up with a Getty Images account, taking images and making new things. Just try to... You know, people that are oftentimes working in marketing on the client side don't have a creative foundation typically. And in the old days when you can't show just, you'd show just a pen of one board and you'd read your script and everybody could use the theater of the mind and their abilities to abstract to be able to see. And that's kind of gone away. And so you really need to show clients a really close approximation of what is that you're selling. And mid journey, really for it was mid journey. There were others around at the time that really kind of broke open into ⁓ Pandora's boxes and it wasn't going to get closed again. And I stopped my Getty Image account whenever I'm pitching. I will certainly do mood boards and take inspiration from other places. But when it comes to building a frame, visual and that sort of stuff, a lot of times ⁓ I would mid journey. period, and our whole team did. And so it's used to build visuals and decks. And then, and that led me into prompt engineering with the assistance of a Clauder, a ChatsDBT, and that takes it to a whole other level. a lot of times I don't even see the prompts I'm writing. I tell it like I'm talking to a director of a film. This is what I want. You're a director of a film. I'm your agency. These are the things I want you to make. Write the prompt as though you're talking to your director of photography. And then it was crammed with these long prompts. And I'm not even reading the prompts at that point. I'm just boom, grab my pump, throw it in. And then AI film started coming along and becoming... Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Brian Linder: Its efficacy was getting stronger, I'd say, a year plus ago. It was before VO3 came out. It was when Kling, Hit, and Runaway were starting to their stride. And I decided I need to be able to make films. And so I just went into the process. I made a four minute kind of music video, wrote the song, recorded the music, put it all together. It's a crazy story about... Brian Aucoin: A salsa? Yeah. Brian Linder: What would happen if a salsa caused the apocalypse? Salsa, salsa, that's so hot, it's called del cante. And I'm playing with a consistent character, trying to create dance, trying to create consistent scenes that the character kind of moves around in. And that became, I don't know, that became a thing that got some other people to say, oh, you can do that. Hey, would you do this for me? And so I started getting some commissions. There's a company called AI Assurance that's kind of a startup that's, they're the guys that make sure your AI is doing what it's supposed to be, mistakes, businesses like construction, engineering, medical, that type of world. And so that's a perfect AI film. And so did some stuff for that. And there's an app called Sportsmo that sort of gamifies. that gamifies donations to your college of choice. you love, let's take Texas, if went to Texas University and you're a big fan of their football teams, well, you can make bets during the real time, only instead of getting money back from your bet, you're donating. So, hey, if this quarterback, ⁓ if they a turnover here, I'm gonna give you 50 bucks. ⁓ They make turnover, boom, your 50 bucks go. So it's a kind of gamifies giving to your alma mater. Brian Aucoin: Gotcha. Brian Linder: And situation was they just had a pretty expansive media plan, but they didn't have the money to get the video for it. ⁓ And so I was able to make a video that practically probably would have cost them $600,000. With AI, you're able to create things that are, you for that type of business, it makes sense. think ⁓ you are a Coca-Cola, you should probably be making this stuff for real. ⁓ I think there is something important about. having to be, have it done for real. There's a right time and right place to use AI film. It's not a fix for everything. There's a right situation, there's a wrong situation. And I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on that now, but every quarter the tools get stronger and the rules sort of slide around. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, but it also, you know, this is something I've been thinking about with AI is just how it's leveling the playing field. And like you said, Coca-Cola is still has an expensive creative agency. They're still spending a lot of money. They're still shooting things like a film. And then you've got these challenger brands that can come up and almost meet the same quality, if not meet the same speed. You know, ⁓ could certainly challenge ⁓ brands and larger productions with a more lean kind of approach. Brian Linder: Yeah. It is, and you see like Ben Affleck's AI studio that he's selling to Netflix. It's not replacing the human element with AI so much as creating like the special effects. It's getting rid of a lot of the production drag and expense that comes with it. And so you could just have two people acting in a living room that's not set up to be the scene or anything, and then transform it into the scene you want. know, it's, it's ⁓ emergence of the virtual wall, the volume that a lot of people are using these days, the evolution of the green screen to those volumes. ⁓ then now it's like, ⁓ no, we can just Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Brian Linder: shoot people on a whole white background, set up the obstacles and then just repaint, automatically repaint the background scenes to be whatever you want. ⁓ It is fascinating. You know, like our clients go good golf. They're a brand that spun out of a crazy successful YouTube golf trend. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah. Brian Linder: These golf creators just became super famous and started an apparel brand and started a legit golf brand. That's, know, Callaway under forties. And for guys using AI doesn't make a lot of sense because it's about authenticity. It's about really knowing the guys. It's about these personalities. ⁓ The spirit the brand is born out of something that's very real. and so it doesn't make a lot of sense to go into ⁓ that realm. That When we've done some work with them that requires VFX, we go to the VFX people and we're using AI. We're not paying a bunch of money to create. There's a spot we did for them in Anthem that has a trophy that swings his club, like a golf trophy, just swings his club. And that was a shot of a real trophy that we got. And we were talking about, should we make it move or not? And I was like, no, should be, let's keep it realistic. Let's keep it earthy. not bring in the AI stuff. then I was like, but show me, show me what you got. And the next day I looked at a cut and they had that in there. was like, okay, we got to do that. It's just such a memorable little moment. The guy swings. looks great. And they actually did a test. One person tried to create a model of it to do it practically in AI. there was no, from quality to speed of getting it put together, there was no comparison. Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Brian Linder: And I like, you you want to make your decks move. can, you know, our decks have little gifs running and things and creative kind of comes to life a little bit more. it's, it's a, it's a really fun tool. And I'll tell you, man, working on it just by myself, I felt like I was an orc, ⁓ like a conductor of an orchestra. ⁓ like all the team was there. I would just talk to it like I was talking to a director or producer, like, Hey, let's make this. Oh, let's make that over here. And Hey, let's have this as more like that. And it's so fluid and so quick to go from idea to thing that you're looking at. It's a little addictive. does get a little addictive. Brian Aucoin: Yeah, I found that too in my writing. It really helps me iterate a lot quicker and see different points of view and really try out things. And I almost describe it as like, you I'll have a point of view and then I'll flip it up in the air my AI agent and be like, hey, what if I looked at it from this point of view? What if I looked at it from this point of view? ⁓ love to get your take on this though, because I'm thinking, you know, in the content we're seeing now and we're seeing a lot more AI generated content. ⁓ think the thing Brian Linder: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Brian Aucoin: that's always gonna be missing if there is no human involved is one, ⁓ and taste. Is there anything else, ⁓ I think taste as like, ⁓ what ⁓ you to tell a story about? ⁓ And heart the human telling the story because to date still, there are humans who are receiving these stories, right? And the ones that are told by humans ⁓ are certainly resonate. Is there anything you think that ⁓ AI lacks or you agree with those? Brian Linder: mean, we are in the age of discernment to hear comment about taste that ⁓ is ⁓ really experienced seasoned creative is gonna have ⁓ larger mental Rolodex ⁓ styles and things ⁓ instigate prompts. into Tenant Guide style. you're starting with, you you can go into start making prompts. I would rather have somebody who's been doing this for 20 years working on prompts. They're going to have better results than someone who's been doing it for a year. There is that. And so ⁓ discernment is key. Any CMO can create a video of something, but will they have the taste to know whether it's good or not? You know, that's one thing. And the other thing is, and this plays into the taste element as well is, you know, AI gives you a whole lot of options. Um, but humans can, I don't think, you know, if you want to tell a story that's going to make the hair raise on somebody's neck in a good way, if you want to tell a story, it's going to make someone laugh out loud or cry, or, you know, really get hit in the feels. I really don't see AI providing that much. I got to give a lot of credit to our copywriter who he can outwrite AI any day of the week. And it's not the speed necessarily, but he's going to say things that no prompts are going to get you to, you know? Yeah. Andy, your point of kind of like, I don't know, using it as a way to sort of like... Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Yeah, it's a life lived, right? Brian Linder: version out your thinking or to challenge your thinking in various ways. For me, gets me out of my ADD. You using ChatCPT or Claude for copy gets me out of my ADD spin. know, it's, it's really put a lot of things out there that my mind can respond to. You know, cause there's a, there's we're just throwing a lot of things together and then you need to go through and filter and see if these things really work or not. But working an AI, ⁓ you just get tons and tons of ideas. Hardly ever I use anything right from AI, but I'll see two things that a connection will happen. My brain, and then then feed that back into the AI and starts, you know, spawning off of that. And so for me, when it comes to writing, it's incredibly quick. It's a great way for me to get over that sort of first hour rut, trying to get the gunk out of concepting. But for people like my copywriting partner, like he just does that automatically. Like words just flow out, you know, in a wonderful way. Brian Aucoin: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I always ask my guests what's something they're excited about. Is there something in your professional capacity? Obviously you have a new venture ⁓ your personal capacity that you're excited about right now. Brian Linder: Man, I don't know if I'm excited. Excited is a good way to say it, but when I look at how AI is evolving, how look at what Apple's doing, and Apple's, Tim Cook's just stood down. And two guys that are in charge now is a hardware guy and a chip designer. They are betting, and there are some other pundits in the tech world that are talking about this, that Apple is betting on going from cloud compute to local compute is going to be something we're going have to do because the cost of running chat GPT. is not going to be covered by our subscription fees. It's going to get too much. It's going to get too crazy. And the way that they're scaling is just, it's not going to make sense. And it's going to get to a point where if I want to have, if I want to be able to afford all these tokens, I need to be working for an enterprise company or I won't have the resources to have access to this device. you know, companies that are high stakes environments, like medical or engineering that are going to want to have an in-house device to protect privacy. They want to have things that aren't attached to the cloud. And so I think Apple's ⁓ about this where going to have to go back from the cloud back to your computer to have control over this stuff. And so you're seeing the Apple minis are selling out like crazy because all these AI engineers are using them as ⁓ compute Brian Aucoin: Gotcha. Brian Linder: Which is really cool. And so we might look in about two years, we might not be talking about chats, you BT anymore. We might not, we might be all have our Apple devices, all the AI tools. don't have to wait for, we have to pay for subscriptions. Uh, if we do, we're probably paying an Apple subscription, but, uh, they get to a point where all that, all that processing for any videos you're making or any chat that you're using is all being done locally, like here. And I get excited about that because it returns control. to the individual. I also love it because it's, it's kind of Apple's model coming full circle because model was like, Hey, they have these super computers can do amazing things. ⁓ just want a tiny little computer that can help people make small apps. ⁓ then it ⁓ from, ⁓ only get it from all these guys to, ⁓ on your own terminal terminal. ⁓ then it went out to the cloud and everything became cloud. And now it's like coming back to what Apple does best. So excited about that because I don't think any of us know. Brian Aucoin: Yeah. Yeah. Brian Linder: where this is going a lot of things shifting every day. And lot of the tools we're using right now might disappear just as fast as they showed up. And there might be a lot of structuring that kind of takes place through all that. And so I'm excited by the independence, hopefully that can afford us. And ⁓ anytime put the AI in an individual's control, instead of being owned by some giant conglomerate, you know, where you don't know what that information is doing. You don't know who's using it. don't where that data is going. It just, feels good to know that there's, there's a movement within this world of AI that feels positive and human based. Brian Aucoin: That's awesome and great insight. Thanks for sharing that. Well, this has been a great conversation. Thank you for joining me. Your new venture, this will be good. Yeah. One of mine too. This will be good. How do people get in touch with you if they're interested in working with you? Brian Linder: That's all. This will be good. Not There Will Be Blood, which is a great movie, one my favorite movies. This will be good. This will be good. Small. You could go to thiswillbegood.co. Do not go to .com, go to .co, or just Google this will be good agency. That's right, CO the ⁓ top. yeah, just reach out, send us an email, give us a call. ⁓ We helping people solve problems. ⁓ Brian Aucoin: Or just stop after the C-O, yeah. That's awesome. Ryan Linder, thank you for being the guest today on the Marketing Brief podcast. I am your host, Brian A'Quann, and stay curious, everyone.