Latest / Frap Rap with GDogggggggg / Ep 19: Paul DeJarnatt (Starcom iPaul)

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Ep 19: Paul DeJarnatt (Starcom iPaul) · Frap Rap with GDogggggggg

• The Mediaocean Podcast Network: And IVO, clap, clap. Does the work so you can go less busy work, more time for you. Nevo gets it done so you don't have to. And IVO, clap, clap. Does the work so you can go. Go to Nevo A-I dot AI. Welcome to FrapRap. I'm your host, Aaron Goldman, aka G, and the artist formerly known on AOL Instant Messenger as G Dog with 8Gs. Yes, one through seven were taken. Twenty-five years ago, I was an AE at an ad network called L90, and my biggest client was StarCom IP. Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone at 35 West Wacker to join me at the Cozy Down the Street for coffee. And for each person that came, I would do a freestyle rap about them, hence the name. Frap Rap. Each episode I track down another OGI peer to reminisce about the good old days and see what they're up to now. My guest today in studio is Paul DeJarnett. Paul, welcome to FrapRap. Thank you, AG. Happy to be here. How exciting is this? this is now my third in-studio guest. So we had Marshall, we had Brojo, and now you appreciate you coming up to my hood to make this happen. we As you might have seen on the last episode with Renee, Bell, Adams, we have Frap Rap merch now. We gotta open the store and make it happen. but I got a special surprise for you when we get to the freestyle round. I fear you might have some surprises for me too, based on this bag of I don't know what's in there that you brought over to the side. but this is gonna be great. Thank you for for doing it. And let's start with teleporting back to the IP days. So when did you start and what was your role? I started in two thousand four, so that makes me a little bit of a poser when you say OG. I feel like I was like part of Sarcom IP the new class. Mr. Belding was still around and Screech was still around and but a lot of the original cast had moved on. So who would who who would AC Slater be in this scenario? gosh. I feel like that's gotta be Governance. Gov. Yeah, that's But he but you but he was still he was still there, so he hadn't quite moved on. but no, it was i it was what a fantastic. place to enter the industry. And so yeah, I joined and I started as a interactive coordinator. The IC. The IC, which is I I like to tell people I started at a job that they eliminated I I had to get promoted into what is now entry level. So but it was it was great. Yeah. so the and we talked about this I think with Pranov in his episode because I think he also started an I see an And I think his was through a temp agency. Is that same same with you? Same with so you weren't like a full-time employee. Pranav s was talking about how he ended up making so much in overtime that they saved money by making him a full time employee. Do you remember anything like that? A hundred percent. I mean you counted every penny back then. And I took a pay cut to get benefits basically. my take home pay went way down with no overtime once I got that that first promotion to associate. But yeah, I came in through a temp agency. the week before I started a StarCom IP, I was filing mail for an RV sales company. And then the next week I was slinging internet ads and never never looked back. But I I couldn't get Starcom to call me back. I tried to get into the whole Leo Burnett Publicis StarCom family. and I'm so happy that they didn't call me back because I probably would not have ended up in IP. Yeah, it's wild how that works. I I did go through the Leo Burnett Starcom track. I actually got an offer for Starcom, but I wanted to work in IP. And they said, No, you gotta go through, regular pit and then we'll place you. And I was like, No, no, I know, the internet's the future, man. I gotta get into it. And they said we couldn't guarantee it. So I ended up taking the internet advertising role at L ninety. So to your point, the you securitist route sometimes is the best one. What made you wanna get into the advertising industry? a paycheck. Okay. That was that was really nice. No, I I I I had a degree in marketing. I'd always been been drawn to it. I wasn't quite sure what part of marketing. I honestly didn't even know what it meant. advertising was the most obvious to an average consumer part of marketing. so I was always intrigued by it. and then, you know, you get into a place with IP and you're surrounded by a bunch of young people doing crazy stuff that we had no idea what we were doing day to day. And it was immediate it was addictive. you were you were working long hours, but you just wanted to go in the next day and do it again. It was awesome. What account were you working on? It was it NetSol right from the jump? Right from the jump. Okay. yeah. They put the new guy on the account nobody wanted and made me traffic keyword tracking codes line by line and redo it every quarter. And that was my job. Unbelievable. Yes. I was talking with Renee about how my role as a sales planner before I moved up to AE was basically taking all the insertion orders and converting them from the the row by row of placement to keying it into the ad server and then having to, v very manually both key it in and then report back. fast forward a couple of years and things got ever slightly more automated, but it was still just a whole lot of Excel. And we we moved from the fax machine to Excel, which I guess was was an upgrade. we were we were still faxing. We the a and in in our case of course, I was able to, do ha hand delivery down at Cozy. so, you know, we I I'd you know, it'd be like three PM on Thursday, I'd start going down my aim list, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap. And then I do actually there were times where people would come down with insertion orders for me. And that was always the best because I could justify the eighty bucks I had just spent on coffee with an eighty K insertion order is the best ROI as a salesperson you could possibly have. I remember doing that. I brought you something and I didn't realize kind of your end of that dynamic and how you had to justify. I was just like, I'm getting free coffee, I'm throwing some money your way. But yeah, happy. It was it was wild to think about how we had to do that back then. Well i and in that case, I hope I upgraded your coffee that day. At least I got you double espresso that that day. we were talking about with Renee and how her and Kevin actually got to the so I had tickets to the Bartman Cubs game against the Marlins in the playoffs. I've I've totally forgotten about it till Renee told the story. and I guess I just had the extra tickets that that I was able to give to them. I suppose you Yeah, I don't know where you were in the pecking order. I guess not not high enough yet to to rate on the on the tickets, but but hey, you got a nice coffee out of it, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, nice coffee. I in a way I'm I'm glad I wasn't at the game. There was no curse to be had and cast in my direction. So which you know, Kevin would have 100% tried to blame on me. are Cubs? Are you Cubs or Sox fan? Cubs. You are okay. All right, cool. All right. well we'll get in more on that front. Let's stay in IP. So you start as an IC, you're working on NetSul. what was the progression? I mean, we're gonna go all the way up to where are we on this org chart here? five. well, you're in an still at an associate at this point. so ta talk about how you sort of moved through, how did responsibilities change? Yeah, and what was that whole experience like? I mean, it was it was actually the gift that kept on giving, getting put into that role nobody wanted, because it was all search. So they split the account down the down the middle in terms of budget, but it was one side handled search and that was put on me. The other side handled display and all the other kind of opportunities at that point in in the internet and that was handled by a reedy bonsali mm-hmm and and so I just started leaning into kind of search and that core specialty so I I got moved around a little bit for some accounts just to broaden some exposure. I did a little bit, very little bit of time on on Nintendo. but most of my time was spent on anything that needed to be done in search. Yeah. And that's what led me straight into SMG search and governally. So as I progressed through the ranks in IP, eventually, I mean, think I only made it up to maybe manager before I was officially kind of consumed by SMG Search. Yeah. And the search Trajectory, you in and Gov told the story about how Sergey and Larry came in to give the pitch. you were there right at the beginning. granted, you might not have had much to like compare it to, right? But like, did you have a sense that like, all right, this is like a thing that is going to transform advertising? Yeah. I mean, if you're working on an account that is looking at performance, you could see it it day in and day out. So the the world was evolving rapidly. Even as a consumer, you could see how it was being used. I had no concerns about future viability by being a specialist in in that space. And it's kind of funny because now in the later part of my career, I've really expanded out into into being more of a generalist. but that core in being a specialist really helped me figure out like how to scrutinize things, how to pay attention to detail, and then also honestly listen to people who know what they're talking about in their in their field of of of flavor their flavor choice. Yeah. Well let's we'll come back to present day and I'm curious to get your take too, because we're it seems like at another pivotal moment where with AI, cer not just search, everything's kind of being disrupted. but sticking in that mindset at that time, sort of the blessing and curse of being a specialist was, you know, you were in the top point zero zero one percent of people in the world who knew search, who understand the understood the mechanics, you were managing massive search budgets. Yep. at the same time, there was a little bit of pigeonholing. You know, I mean, let's face it, search is kind of freaking boring. Totally. There's a bunch, you know, like you're not, you know, the creative formats are are not exactly the most inspiring. how did you sort of like right did you have some like jealousy of the people who, you know, maybe on a reedy side or other accounts who were doing like the big brand sponsorship type of things? Yeah. I I don't know if I'd call it jealousy. but I I It was it was a bit of a a blessing and a curse. I I was brand new in my job and I was just trying to figure shit out every day and I didn't have the experience to realize we were all doing that. And so you know, I get nervous on a client call and I could escape into the technical details. And and what that told the client is okay, this nerdy guy knows what he's talking about. I probably don't need to ask anymore. And so I would I would get myself off the hook in any sort of like questioning from a client situation just by going deep on the details. Well, that's not great as you get, more elevated. You're trying to accomplish an objective and help the client bring them along to understand and and tell a good story. So I really had to learn the storytelling aspect. On the flip side, Redis over there doing all this really cool, really splashy, really visual stuff. And the story almost tells itself and everybody gets excited. I was I was a little jealous of that, but what they couldn't do as easily is articulate what that brought to the business. And so I had a much cleaner story to articulate how I'm having an impact. They had a much cooler story around just hey, this is exciting. And and there's definitely a less like the closer you can attach yourself to the ROI, the, you know, more of an impact you'll have, the safer your jobs are. And the the more you'll be able to make make that sort of tangible t tell a tangible story, not just tell a story, tell a tangible story about the power of online advertising. I remember as as we move into you were moving into SMG Search. L90 by this point had merged with Double Click Media to become Max Online. we were doing quite a bit of kind of keyword ultimately brokering was kind of the the role we played. and then when so we got bought by first it was Excite Network, then it was Ask Jeeves and then finally IAC. But right around that time with Ask Jeeves was when they started to come in with a more heavy hand to try and encourage us to sell inventory on Ask. And I think I might have told this story w on the Gov episode, but like with the volume Network Solutions was spending, like I could have given you every keyword that was being searched on Ask Jeeves, no matter if it had anything to do with, you know, domain names or web hosting. Totally. And I couldn't have fulfilled the million dollar, you know, quarterly spend that that that you guys were doing. and so timing actually worked out. as as SMG search became more of a capability, you didn't really need us as sort of like a third party to do the the brokering and buying on top. and we kind of went into our our dual paths. as you move through SMG search and now now it's more of a kind now you're you know managing people in addition to managing keywords and accounts. what was that transition like for you? And and what do you remember about like that point in your career where you kinda went from individual contributor to now playing a a manager role? I I think I was just I I was blown away by two things. One, somebody's letting me and people my age manage other people. And two, people are letting people me and my age manage this much money. It was insane. I I don't understand how we functioned as a as an industry with so much uncertainty, discovering things left and right and having all of this capability at our fingertips. Like it was insane. And so I I think because everything was new and it was being figured out, it's not like today where everybody knows the structure, they know how it works, you're gonna get tracked, you do you have to do things a certain way. it it gave you a little bit of pressure relief on managing people too. Like you could just make mistakes and move on and just you're learning from it. And I'm sure we made, I mean, know we made a ton of mistakes. I was at the apartment crawls. Like we were making mistakes left and right. Things we probably shouldn't have been doing with our coworkers we were doing with our coworkers. Cheers to Cheers to that. We'll get to we'll get to the some of those stories in our apartment crawl round. But to your point, and and you said it earlier, there's this feeling of almost imposter syndrome. Like what and but what you don't realize is that everybody has it. It's not just a a you thing. I wish I had internalized that sooner. Yeah. okay. And so what what came what what was the path from through SMG search? When did you wind down your time within the group? And then what came next? Was it I remember performance was Was that the next thing or was that another there was a little bit? There was a it was a couple stops. so I went to SMG Search, Govern Alley pulled me over there. I worked on GM. that was super cool. just got to go onto this massive piece of business. not great for GM, but I was there during the the bankruptcy. And that was just it was it what an incredible learning experience to just figure out how to get through tough times as well as good times. And yeah, he was a governale and and Kevin Lang kind of went over and created that and pulled me over pretty shortly after. And just what a great place to work on an established business, but still feel feel experimental bringing that spirit of IP over into this behemoth GM plan works organization, where they did have a lot more routine and a lot more rigor. And so we had to do some growing up. but That got me a little bit more ingrained in the hierarchy of the overall agency, a lot more exposure to how what I was doing would be impacted by or impact other parts of the business, which set me up to to come back. And eventually, as publicist does every so often, they restructured and search went kind of back into the brands and it wasn't a a specialty unit. and and then I I started working under a guy named Mark Pavia. at StarCom who led the the digital practice. and and eventually at Starcom I got to lead kind of all the biddable units. So when they got rid of the trading desk at Viva Key and all that and rolled it all together, I I kind of managed that whole unit. Then I went to Performix. Yeah. and so then at Performix I had a blast. That was that was a fun role. It was just it was a global role and my my mandate was go find the coolest shit people are doing in all of our countries and offices around the globe. And then try to figure out if it's just good because it's good in that ecosystem or if it can survive and enhance our quality everywhere. And so I just got to fly around the world listening to the smartest people in the network and quickly realized that even good stuff gets defeated by PL dynamics. amen to that. Was this was this the Michael Kahn era or this is the Mi Michael Kahn era. And then into Scott Schamberg. And then into Scott Schamberg. I was there during both. Got it. Yep. So there's a great podcast that if you haven't and w and I'll recommend it to the audience too. just came out. the so it it's part of the Wisery, which is Jason Wildler's podcast. And he had on Dana Middleton, Michael Kahn, and Scott Schamberg to talk about sort of the CEO progression and how, there were some stories certainly from that time, but also just general advice on how you think about succession planning and what you need to do when you're an incoming or outgoing CEO and how you set the teams up for success. And so it was a really interesting combo. And they talked about some insider stories of of what happened and to your point about the dynamics. there were a lot of dynamics in play, to say to say the least. so when by the time What was your final role within the group and and when did you end up leaving? Yeah, so the the tail end of my time at Performix, they were starting to get rid of these global roles and and yet another restructure. And I remember Scott pulled me into his office and he's like, Hey, we we think we're getting pretty close to a real bad spot on on our Lenovo client. Would you like to take over trying to run an account? And I was like, well, I've only heard terrible things about working on this piece of business and nothing against the Lenovo client or crew turned out to be fine. It's just, accounts get reputations. And I was like, I don't know, it sounds pretty tough. will my job still be here if I don't take this role? They're like, probably not. And I was like, Okay, I'll do it. It sounds good. and and so I I got into leading accounts and I loved it. it was really, really tough. And really difficult but really challenging in a way that just really spoke to the need to learn a bunch of things very quickly and I loved it. So I had to oversee all the different functions and understand, you know, what was going on with analytics, what was going on with digital, with offline investment, with strategy and, you know, run an account. And and I love that. So that then springboarded me into my final role at Publicis, which was Digitas, also running accounts. I I took over the Victoria's Secret account shortly after me too. I didn't from hardware to softcore now. I I I literally I was like, Are you sure you want a middle aged white dude running the Victoria's Secret account? And I asked it three times and I was no no no problem, no problem. it turned out fine, they were great. I know Victoria's Secret. So that came out while I was running my account and they were not that was Not a great time. Is that the artist Jax? Jax. Yeah. The influencer returned artist. Yeah. So that that came out. but yeah, so I ran that for for about a year. And then that's when one of my old Starcom mentors, Rob Davis, who had moved on already to a smaller agency called Novis, gave me a call and was like, Hey, would you be interested in coming over? So that's how I made it over to where I am now, which is a Novis. Cool. And talk a little bit about that. What's the current remit? what's the focus of of the team and the shop and and yourself? Yeah. So I came over to lead The kind of digital investment practice, later turned that into overseeing all investment. now I'm going through a pivot, going back to leading accounts. And so I'm I'm actually really enjoying that pivot. and then yeah, I mean, Novus is it it's a company focused on understanding how to do advertising through the lens of location and how geography can be really important to a lot of different businesses. And that's an area of advertising that I hadn't spent a lot of time in. I'd done I'd kinda gone with GM and big national advertising and then Lenovo globally and gone through the global arc, but never really honed in on the deep location. And so it was something new to learn. And I think it's gonna be really continue to be really important. So I think that that gave me some good skills too. Yeah, and dare dare I say AI proof in that like that there's you know certain signals you can build businesses, campaigns on, et cetera. And and inevitably the whack-a-mole between whether it's Apple or Google or, the could be the government. there's always that cat and mouse that's, you you find a great way to do some new form of targeting and then it gets rolled rolled back. We're in that rollback era and there's certain signals that you can rely upon to be indicative of the right type of of audience you want to reach, the right customer propensity. And location can just tell you like so much about what you need to know. And yes, you might not have like the cookies to know exactly what they were looking at, you know, the the day before the next day. but just by having an understanding of of proximity, that becomes a a competitive edge when you're, you know, out out in a world trying to create compelling solutions. So I'm in for it. I'm I'm curious why don't you know, we actually haven't done this in a while at the beginning of of the Frap Rap series. I think the last question of the apartment crawl round was give me your hot take on AI. Yeah. And it kinda got to a point where it's like, you know, it it was kinda like a buzzkill at the end of like, you know, the this fun little, you know, rapid fire when, you know, then we this like big heady question about like the the future of not just advertising but the world. but this is not the the apartment crawl round, so you can actually give as as long or short an answer as you want. Okay. how are you thinking about like what AI is is doing and and the opportunities and challenges it's creating. Yeah, it's gonna kill us all. And scene. Yeah. No, we're out of here. And we're done. We're good. honestly, like I don't know where it's gonna go in terms of agentic buying and consumption of signals and doing half our jobs for us. I I will say that I don't think it's gonna replace anything I th com completely. I think it's gonna replace a lot of pieces of things. And I think our biggest danger, and I fall prey to this, but I absolutely see it, especially with some of the more junior members of our team. It can replace a lot of missing knowledge. So if you don't have a lot of experience in an area, you can ask AI and it'll tell you. But it also is replacing critical thinking. And I think that's the biggest danger is you've got to understand: is this contextually relevant? Is what it's telling you passing the sniff test? Is it right? And so much of what we're passing along, we're just We're just passing along more stuff and we're not stopping to think about it. And I think that's a real danger. So in the short term related to business without them becoming murdering robots, I think it's I I I think it's real danger is just nobody remembers phone numbers anymore. Yeah. What are you what are you offloading into the machine that maybe you shouldn't Yeah. If we come just too relying on it, then the then all differentiation's gone and all humanity's gone. all right. Well, on that positive note, Wait, we really lift in the sphere as I do think b well, let me just ask before we get into apartment crawl round, any other stories or or memories, either from experiences at IP or since that you wanna share? I was listening to the Governale episode and I was cracking up when he was talking and he sounded a little too defensive to me. So I think that they may have been right with their suspicion that he actually came from a porn company. and he's like, I swear I didn't. He's gonna be really mad, but I think he did. but I just it it reminded me of something as an extension of that I just thought it's funny. I don't think it's relevant today. But we would get in every couple of weeks, we all get in the conference room and we do our big starcom IP wide meeting. And oftentimes Rashad would come in and say something and and usually then Marshall would turn that into something constructive. And I just remember being this young 20-something and having the this visionary leader of the company come in. And expound on the innovation of pornographers and how we all need to be studying porn because they're the first ones doing IP targeting. They're the first ones doing this, that like all of the new forms of the of media were coming out of pornography. And I was just like, are we allowed are we allowed to say that? Like, but nobody was stopping anybody doing anything at that point. So I I always just thought it was funny that they thought the qualification for Govern Alley was that he worked in porn because It was driving innovation coming from one of the most visionary leaders in our in our agency. And I was just like, This is a weird world. And and by the way, it's he's right. I don't know if we can reach it over there. I'm gonna try and grab it. There's this great new book I'm gonna do a plug for, called Welcome to the Age of Feudal Media. so it's written by Alan Woke and basically his his whole thesis is, you know, the monoculture has collapsed, right? Like so we used to when when there was, you know only a couple of newspapers or or or broadcast channels. we all got our information from the same place. There was a source of truth. there were cultural moments that we could all, you know, connect around regardless of our differences in, you know, religion or politics or anything. Like we could still just, you know, all watch you know, the the whether it's could be the Super Bowl or fr an episode of Friends and gather around the water cooler and and talk about it the next day. and Now we're in this era a age of feudal media, feud feudal system harkening back to the dark ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, when all of a sudden it was no longer everything was standardized on, th that way of doing it and and everyone kind of broke into their own little bubble and made up their own rules, and some were based on feels and others were based more in fact and science. And you know, he's like we're kind of in that now as as sort of the the the broadcast media structure is now broken down into all these little groups and bubbles. but long story short, what made me think of it was he gives a few examples where the adult entertainment industry was always the first to, you know, was right on the on the bleeding edge of whatever was gonna come next. And anyways, it's a compelling read. I did manage to get Alan to sign it for me. So shout out to Alan. Thank you for that. I I I have two comments on that front. Yeah. One, I think it was the lack of rules. I don't think pornographers felt the need to follow a bunch of rules. And so they weren't worried about privacy concerns. They weren't worried about over targeting or offending someone. And I think that that gave them the freedom to really be innovative marketers, which was which is cool. And I think that was part of what made IP so magical was we were also freed from a lot of the rules of the broader, you know, publicist Arcom agency. And we could just go innovate to our heart's content. And that's that's a thing that was not easily won. As you look back and hear the stories and you find out how hard people like Rashad and Marshall and others had to fight to build that culture and it just makes you love it all the more. And two, is that the only book you're gonna promote today? I've got my book on the back shelf there. Okay, so that's two books. If anybody in Polymarket, if you have three or more book promotions bet on this engagement here, we're getting close. You're about to get a payout. All right. That sounds like a tease and we should pr Speaking of tea, so final final porn story, and then we need to move off that topic. so after after I left what had become Max Online, I went to help start Resolution Media, which was of course a search agency ended up getting bought by Omnicom. And so actually there was some time when you know between SMG and and then into Performax, like resolution, we were like the two shops in town sort of dueling for budgets and clients. but our first office for Resolution Media was on Weed Street. and so kind of seedy part town for those that that don't know Chicago as as the name Weed Street might might imply. And our neighbors in the suite down the hall, and I s I use the word suite lightly, in in the unit down the hall was an adult entertainment film production company. And are you kidding? Not kidding. I never heard the story. well, let's just say that one day on a Friday they came in and asked if they could use our conference room over the weekend for a business scene. And we said, No. we and also, I won't say who we and this is all unrelated to that company, but just the type of part of the Chicago we were in at the time. one of the women who worked for us got proposition when she was walking back to her car. So at any rate, we've we've all been through a lot. Here we are now. cheers. Let's start our apartment crawl round. and as always, this is speedfire. And the first question is what was your AOL and Subessenger handle? Starcom iPaul. iPall, and I still call you iPall. You still do. Dude, this has lived on. But the iPhone always wants to autocorrect it every time I put an iPall on it. No, I meant iPall, not just Paul. Yeah. first boss at IP. Kevin Lang directly with Renee Bell Adams as my AMD and Steve Gravinale as my director. What a crew. favorite client? I mean I I mostly only worked on the one on Network Solutions. so I guess that that by default it wins. Okay. if you could have worked on any account other than that, what would it have been? I I don't I'm gonna say Sarah Lee because I just picked a name out of a hat. I really always wanted to work on Schreiber's accounts because she's just a ball and I thought it'd be fun. So the wildest thing that we learned on the Schreiber episode, and I'll I'll show it first I'll hold it up to the camera and then I'll show it to you. But they were like, is it gonna focus? Let's see. Wait for it. Camera work. Maybe. look at how many Sarah Lee accounts there were. And I didn't realize Sarah Lee owned all these companies. So there's the Bakery Group, which I think is mostly what we associate with it. There was something called Cerelee Consulting. There was Senseo, which was like the coffee machines. Yep. Bally Brass. bra is that Bra Bras. That probably is one S there or two. We need better Canes. PlayTex. Okay, so there's a theme there. Jimmy Dean's. I didn't realize that so which of those? be more specific here. I just wanted to work with Schreiber. You're making me go way too deep. I don't know. She just she was Fun and loud. That was my first person I spoke to outside of the network solutions account was Schreiber walking into the office one day and loudly proclaiming to anyone who wanted to listen that it was her birthday. at which point, and I don't know what birthday it was. at which point I loudly turned around and said happy fiftieth or something like that. And and she came over and smacked me up the back of the head and then sh said she liked me. So we were friends after that. That's awesome. that is the way to Schreiber's heart. Yeah. present company excluded, who was her favorite vendor? I'm gonna go with gentleman named Chris Lindbergh, who is also Sling and Search for Yahoo back in the day. And and was he overture before? Yeah, into and then into Yahoo, right? Yeah, right. Yes, overture into Yahoo. Great memory. And I I to this day keep in contact, we're still friends, and it never ceases to amaze me how he can make what some random twenty-three, twenty-four year old is saying sound and feel so important. Like he just listened to you and respected you and he's just a good dude. That's awesome. Shout out, Chris. all right. so tell us about family. what laid out what's wife, kids, wife, kids. Yep. Wife, two daughters, 15 and 12. one one dog, a guy named Gus. He's a little fluff ball. We love him. we love our kids too, but they're teenagers. So you know that can vary. but yeah we live we live in in Oak Park. It seems like Between your neighborhood and my neighborhood, we have a monopoly on media professionals in the city of Chicago. but yeah, been there been in the burbs for like fourteen years. it's great. Can you see their kids going into advertising? Maybe, maybe not. my youngest maybe. She's like she's not great at it yet 'cause you she's twelve, but man, everything is a negotiation. Can I have a cookie? Mm, no. Well then how about two? No. How about three? No. Well then maybe one. All right. You know, she'll she'll wear you down. My my oldest I think wants to do something better for humanity and become like a speech therapist, but maybe the younger one. All right. I love it. what are you most looking forward to in the coming year? Man, I I rediscovered like just in my personal life, I rediscovered a love of snow skiing, which I didn't know I'd get back into, but my kids started doing it and been loving that. So I'm really looking forward to the the new season of doing that. And then professionally, just I like pitching. There's more pitches coming down all the time. so looking forward to continuing to get out there and, you know, push our way or something. Well said no one on this podcast yet. What are you looking for in coming year? Pitching. I know. It's weird, right? It it takes a rare breed. all right, time for the frap wrap round. I'm not quite sure what's going on in this bag of tricks, but one thing I have for you for the occasion is the now I debuted this on the last episode, the Frap Rap Bucket hat, which because you're the first in studio guest, you will get to wear and take home with you. So wear it in good help, that's exact now That is what I'm talking about. I am honored. This is By the way, I'm just realizing too. we're like I'm like a half a foot shorter than you in how we sat here. I'm gonna have to like get my posture going for this round. so how do you wanna do this? Do you wanna just give me some keywords or show me whatever you've been hiding over here? Okay, I forgot to plug this during the during the regular thing. So this is the trophy. I'm the last recipient from StarCom IP of the please buck your bad data presentation trend. trophy. And it is And it's a it's a buck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's clever. And I got it because in my pit class we had to do some sort of poll from some sort of system to figure out a media mix for a competitor. And I fucked up the poll and it said a hundred percent coupons. And I asked if I really needed to make a pie chart that demonstrated a hundred percent. And they said yes. And that of course made it back to my bosses at IP who promptly put it up on the screen in front of the whole department and awarded me a Bad data presentation trophy for creating a big purple circle. That is incredible. So there's my something that would never happen in today's. And I still have it on my desk as a reminder. Okay. For Frap Ram, here's what I want to challenge you with if you're up for it. I'm up for anything. So I've got I've got a bag of lyrical mysteries. Okay. It's just they're flash cards. And so if you're up for it, I have created a mix of hit songs. From two thousand four when I joined StarCon IT. Okay. And Common phrases from our industry from the time. Okay. And so in your wrap, I'll show you one and then when you use it, I'll move on to the next. So can you do is that does that work? Sure. This feels like a Jimmy Fallon segment here, but I'm I'm I'm game for it. let's do this. Let's yeah, why don't you hold them up to the camera so everyone can see at the same time as me? I'm just gonna point this thing down a little bit. I'm gonna get wow. All right. And producer Rob is gonna have to earn his keep on this one 'cause no idea how we're gonna get a background beat. I actually used to make you beatbox for me. Do you remember at the apartment crawls? It's and you would like bang on the table a little bit. In my nightmares, I had it was I think the highlight of your week because I have no rhythm whatsoever. Okay. And we can confirm. Yeah, can't confirm no rhythm. And yet week after week I had to provide the beat for your All right, we won't make you do we'll we'll try your th this time you're in control. All right, so I guess Here we go. maybe we start with this. Yo, yo, AG, and I don't give a fuck. I'm right here with my trophy. It is a buck. Don't pass it over. Don't pass it to me. I Paul, what you got? I said, hey. Hey, I like Outcast, I'm a thriller. No doubt. Let's see what's next and put me to the test. It's a broadband, you know we're gonna penetrate it. We talked about porn, ain't no time to master it. I could have gone bad. yo, it's the theme song Michigan Wolverines. No, they on the right side. No, it's Mr. Bright side. And we got to go up and under. We pop them in the flow and we got to bring the thunder. Everything that comes, we drop it like it's hot. We pick it up, we don't stir-stir the pot. We tell another story, we go for the glory. We're navigating the future of communication architecture. And if you don't know, now you know that I'm with our Paul and we about to rock the show. Thankfully there are no more notes for me. I'm gonna send this trophy and get the frick out of here. Yay! That was awesome. Thank you, man. I appreciate you, Paul. we will see you on the next episode of For Rap Rap. Peace. I wanna know and you help me. Take me to the river, drop me in the water. That's for the outtakes right there. Peace. You're listening to the Media Ocean Podcast Network. For more of our shows, visit www.mediaocean.com slash podcasts.