Creative Judgment in the AI Era | Brandon Mikolaski | Signal & Noise LIVE at Advertising Week 2026

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As AI makes content faster and easier to produce, what makes creative work worth paying attention to?

Filmed live at Advertising Week 2026 at MCM Studios in New York City, this episode of Signal & Noise brings together hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House with Brandon Mikolaski, Director of Creator Partnerships at Forbes Creator Network, for a candid, funny, and wide-ranging discussion about creativity, audience trust, and the human judgment behind great work.

Brandon brings a perspective shaped by stand-up comedy, creative leadership, branded entertainment, and his time leading creative and content at GSTV. Now at Forbes Creator Network, he helps connect creators’ expertise and communities with opportunities across video, podcasts, live events, and original programming.

The conversation explores where AI and automation genuinely help creative teams, where they fall short, and why experience, taste, and a strong point of view still matter. Brandon shares how his team at GSTV used automation to produce tens of thousands of video variations, while keeping quality control and creative decisions in human hands. He also explains why he uses AI for research and operational tasks while keeping campaign ideas rooted in collaboration and human insight.

In this episode:

• Creative judgment in an AI-driven industry: Why generating more content doesn’t automatically mean making better work, and how experienced creatives bring context, intention, and taste to the tools.

• Building Forbes Creator Network: How Brandon approaches creator selection, why demonstrated expertise matters, and what publishers can offer beyond distribution.

• Credibility and brand partnerships: Why the strongest integrations start with a real connection between the creator and the brand, and how audiences recognize when that connection is missing.

• Attention, context, and measurement: Lessons from GSTV about understanding where people are, what they’re doing, and how creative fits into their day.

• The value of showing up: Why live events, comedy, music, and shared experiences can build relationships that go deeper than likes and shares.

• Leading creative teams: Making room for experimentation, exposing junior talent to new environments, and knowing when to defend an idea or let go of your ego.\

  
  

Along the way, the discussion moves from comedy clubs and concert crowds to the New York City subway, exploring how curiosity and everyday observation feed creative thinking. Brandon’s approach to AI is practical: use it to get better at your job while protecting the judgment that makes your work distinctive. For marketers, creators, agency leaders, and anyone building a creative team, this conversation offers a grounded look at what that means in practice.

Watch or listen, then tell us: Where is AI making your creative work better, and which decisions do you still keep firmly in human hands?

Subscribe to Signal & Noise on YouTube or follow on Spotify for more conversations about data, technology, AI, and the people shaping advertising.

#SignalAndNoise #AdvertisingWeek2026 #AdWeek2026 #CreatorEconomy #CreativeLeadership #AIAndCreativity #ForbesCreatorNetwork #BrandStorytelling

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Rio Longacre (00:03.823)

signal and noise. Bringing clarity to data, tech, and AI.

Rio Longacre (00:13.678)

Hey everybody, welcome to Signal and Noise Live at Ad Week 2026 in an incredible studio. We're hosted by MCM Creative studio here in New York City. Here in New York City, right? we've got a bit of a community here, and we've got an incredible guest on the show. But before I introduce our guest, I want to thank our sponsors. They made this possible, didn't they? They made this possible Media Radar, Gradial, Pubex, Telium, and a little stealth startup called Nexa.

have have really made this event possible. we went from a really small activation at Ad Week in the press room like small is like like small as an overstatement. We were we were filming in like in the corner corner of a press room against a wall a fake brick wall with it with an iPhone and now we've got a professional studio environment with with I mean John Bon Jovi was here yesterday.

Apparently John Ham's gonna be upstairs today. John Ham is here today. De Niro was was on set. No, De Niro bailed, apparently. He didn't bail. Apparently he bailed. But but but Brandon Mikulaski. I think I just killed it. I I always kill the names. Mikelasky. I Great to meet you for one. Welcome to Signal and Noise. you're a creative. You're currently at Forbes, right? running creators.

yeah. as part of the program. So tell us a little bit about that. But you also were at GSTV, which for those that don't know what GSTV is, it's gas station television. It's everybody's been exposed to this when filling up tanks. In New Jersey, you don't fill up tanks. Tortured with it when you're in a cab, right? Or tortured tortured with it. when and you've got a long history of both being a creator, running creative teams, a stand-up comedian, so you've got a performer in you. I saw you kinda.

Getting your your your kind of yeah, almost like a boxing match, like you're walking into the ring, right? Which which I really confrontational, I think that was one. Yeah. We bring that out in people. Yeah. Yeah. And so and so we really, I mean, one of the big topics of for Signal Noise Advertising Week this this th during this whole week and really over the last sort of six months, we've been talking a lot about creative and and it's it's the impact that AI is having on the creative class, on creative jobs.

Rio Longacre (02:23.606)

Right, jobs in general, but it seems like creative is sort of seeing a moment. It's kind of rising in importance, and we're realizing how critically important that is. After we've like sort of lived in a world of iteration and audience targeting and programmatic media, which seemed to kind of suck the art out of the out of the process. It seemed to be very science versus versus versus art. So welcome to the show. tell us a little bit about your background and kind of what brought you to this current point.

at Forbes. Sure. Which one signal which one noise? Is this like a tango and cash? It depends on the topic, right? Real Rio does. We all we all know who's signaling noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I like the noise immediately. So I just want to put that in. You'll know by the end of this podcast. Don't worry. I've had I guess a pretty lucrative career in advertising. I actually started out, so as you mentioned, I've been a stand-up comedian since I was like sixteen years old, and I was lucky enough

To land an opportunity at Carolines on Broadway, most famous comedy club in America, first ever headliner club in America. I was their director of advertising right out of college. I worked it before as like an independent study internship and as a freelance producer. So I ended up doing a number of shows there over the years, building out a lot of their network, built their first website. and after that I went to Serena Coin, which was until very until previously an Omnicom ad agency. It was like the largest live entertainment ad agency in the world.

Really cool. from there on I went to a lot of boutique creative hot shops as an executive producer and executive creative director, worked in experiential for a place called Coffee Labs that ended up being acquired by Lagadere. Really stunning work. and then I actually went back to Omnicom for Stint before landing at Destination Media.

DBA, G S T V, so you know, running a that's all one. So destination media GSTV is a s is a sub brand or correct. Yep, because we do have or did have, I I should say, because I I'm no longer under their employee. I left there about five months ago after a four-year stretch. we had about two hundred and fifty thousand screens building the network across the country. We're Yeah, we had all the gas stations and taxi carriers. And then we also we didn't have taxis, it was a different company, and actually somewhat of a competitor.

Rio Longacre (04:32.134)

we also did have some screens that we were testing out, like EV stations, malls, et cetera. But primarily the product was at the pump. and that was about a hundred and fifteen monthly million uniques. So it was a really cool audience. A lot of that was what attracted. And is there direct tracking of those devices? Is there a camera built into those screens that actually done that independently? Yeah, there's sort of it there's attention metrics or some level of engagement as opposed to someone running off going and buying something in the gas station.

convenience store and then coming back and they've never actually looked the correct w what we did have was access to that transactional data so we always can tie the impression to the actual transaction of the gas, which is how we knew the impression was accurately served, which was great. Yep. additionally we did work as part of Densu's attention economy working with Lumen research. Okay so we did some eye tracking studies. We didn't tell people what we're measuring, but they were outfitted with like the crazy glasses. It's actually one of their largest

data sets in terms of like cooperation with hundreds of people doing it over the course of like a day, running errands, and we had ninety five percent eyeballs to screen during the process. Hundred percent because I I I I know a lot of creatives, both both people that I've managed and that I've worked with that complain that they never seem to get feedback as to how well the creative

the specific creative was performing in in in you know somewhat new and there are different UX studies you can run to see okay in terms of usability testing and heat maps and all that. But but you know to your point, I mean it's not the same as actually gathering the signals from the field as well. And being able to, you know, report to a client very accurately like this transaction happened, this impression was viewed. or to action against it.

Right for for some sort of change or optimization to whatever to and we had just an amazing staff for research and analytics and insights to be able to prove out. I mean, as you can imagine, you know, that's part of your errand day typically. You don't just get gas and go home. You're typically then going out, you you know, Mike, you go grocery shopping, which I think was like one of the number one post fuel up destinations, or going to a restaurant, whether it was quick serve or sit down, whatever it might be, you know, and figuring out who that audience is. And and I was obsessed with stuff like this, you know.

Rio Longacre (06:36.12)

time of day of of that purchase being like this could be somebody who already did like the morning drop off at school. It could be like a mom on her errand or, you know, five A.M. it might be construction workers going to job sites. So I was very much into scheduling out the programming and actually really obsessed with day parting, week parting and and figuring out, you know, not just from an advertising perspective, but the content that we were serving as well. Yeah. And what about Forbes? So what brought you to Forbes and in in where what are you doing specifically for Forbes now?

So they launched just a few months ago, right at the start of my employee, the Creator Network, the Forbes Creator Network. So I, you know, knew that this was kind of happening. I had worked with Forbes as an independent contractor for about six years prior. just you know, working with several different teams across video and across the live division. So big fan of the brand, saw the opportunity and finally decided to raise my hand and cash in on a referral and just thought it'd be an interesting thing. And I I think for them it wasn't

like an immediate line of best fit considering my background. So obviously we went through the interview process. It was a few rounds. and you know what I was able, I think, to really drive home is the fact that everything I've done as a director, as a writer in this business always had talent attached to it. I mean, that's how you're pitching to a client. You have to have talent in mind and also talent that's accessible to you through your network. So if heaven forbid they say yes, you can actually make good on that promise. How does it work defining creativity? Because I know that in my

awareness of Forbes. I think most people says they've always had a great executive contributors who you author articles. I think I was I was member for a while. I think you you've written for Forbes as well too. Is it is it is it related to that? Is it is there different types of content? How they define a creator and in like how or maybe that's changing. Love to hear a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean it's certainly an evolution of what the contributor network can be and understanding now just creators are bringing in a lot of expertise.

They're bringing in communities that, you know, we are hoping to obviously leverage to and and program accordingly, right? We want to be able to still maintain the journalist integrity of Forbes, but being able to hopefully tap into some newer and interesting audiences that the creators are obviously speaking to with authenticity every day. So Does the form factor change? I mean, in terms of how they're talking to the audience? Is it is it short term video? Is it does it is it

Rio Longacre (08:53.462)

wide w about across a bunch of different types of formats. That that's what really brought me into the role was understanding that we were opening up our entire ecosystem, which was a huge differentiator from other creator networks. Yeah. And the fact that we're you mean just making it like accepting different forms of content, more experimentation. Well what we do is so we create the opportunities for the creator where my team is specifically working with creators on new IP, whether that's for a scalable live event

trying to work with them on onstage programming opportunities, social first series, which is obviously a great thing. Yep. Someone's just built and sold opportunities. It's incredibly bespoke to the different creator, just because if it's somebody we really want to work with, it's incredibly exclusive, it's invite only. Our initiative was to have 10 creators signed for this first year. We did that and we capped it. just because we don't want people sitting on the sidelines and on a bench and you know, just not being able to take advantage of everything that we have to offer and to our clients. I love what's happening with creators.

Pretty much everywhere. So just to give you an example from us, right? Like we we started the pod a year and a half ago and like for all these events for CAN, they're like we got press passes. They're giving press passes, you know, you not just to the big publications, but also independent creators and and producers of content. for possible, for ad week, for all these, it's really cool to see this evolution. I think acceptance that

The content the creators are producing, the independent creators, this is legitimate content. They're bringing their own following, they're bringing their own ideas and their own creativity. And it's it's it's become mainstream. a hundred percent. Yeah. And it's and it's not just TikTok short form video, right? Or Instagram reality. But it's not just that. Right. It's yeah, creator is a is a broader spectrum, I think, in terms of how people typically think of it. I think of influencers, honestly, like the

the the kind of just natural stereotype of like younger generation short form video content. But it's really not that. We're showing that it can be all dogs like us too. Yeah, that that that for those that don't know and thanks all everybody for listening is that we with like fifty percent of our our episodes, which are oftentimes an hour and a half to two hours and two hours and fifteen minutes long, we have a a completion rate of about fifty percent, which is about forty five percent forty five percent. You know, but that shows you that long form content has a place in the creator content world.

Rio Longacre (11:04.864)

yeah, that's been a big emphasis for us as well. I mean, obviously you can imagine so many creators have already delved into the podcast space. So we're looking at acquisition or sometimes developing with them net new ideas because we understand what's out there. Everything I've done throughout my career has always really been

reactive to RFPs in the marketplace. Like what are clients looking to activate? What do they want to do? And can I pair the right thing to What's their market for you? Yeah. Well and and that and that's interesting of how the the agency space is changing to be less reactive to RFPs and more proactive in terms of selling. Either either creative ideas or creative delivery models, right? Or tech

Right. the the RFP models kind of under threat or maybe being challenged in terms of how it was typically managed by I think both for agencies as well as for publishers as well too. Even like how like just the expectation we're going to get this RFP, we're going to have a team that's gonna respond to it. a lot of that can be automated with AI now. I think a lot of that like potentially maybe the RFP even goes away at some point and it's becomes more automated and potentially just completely driven by you know by you know by different AI tools people are creating. So I I think that is interesting.

But looking looking at the creator network, how do you how do you f identify talent that you think would be a good fit? I our biggest thing has always been demonstrative expertise in a given area. you know, looking for somebody who they maintain authenticity, but they do it with credibility. I love it. Because that's such a big thing for us. Yeah. So there's a pretty strict vetting process and I I you know, the nerdy part of me.

has always been wanting to make this like my little Marvel universe. Yeah. And just being like, I don't need nine creators in tech and AI. I want someone who can react to an RP centered around sports. Someone who can do something around the future of work. Somebody who might be able to tick off a different box, you know, in luxury lifestyle in that space. So they all are very differentiated in that respect. Yeah. And but at the at the heart of all this is the subject matter expertise in a hundred percent.

Rio Longacre (13:09.452)

You know, let's deconstruct that idea of maintaining authenticity because that could be sort of considered a buzz term with credibility, is sort of what you said. So what do mean by that? What what is authenticity? I hate that word more than anyone. So when I use it is, it's bad as sort of a gintick or orchestration. There's a lot of these bad words in the space.

People know authentic when they hear it and they know BS it, they know what's not authentic when they when they hear it as well. So I think it is still important, but I I I agree it's become overused, maybe a little trade at this point. But love your thoughts on Well then edit it out, guys. I don't really care. We can use a different word. I would say that now, you know, everyone maintaining, especially with a large enough audience, having that digital footprint, people know you. They know you better than you realize as a creator. They know what you're into and what you're not into.

I'm always finding that the best activations, integrations with any brand, advertiser, publisher, it only works when you're a fan of the brand already. So that that's what you're trying to do is to connect those.

And and once he got to the point where he was faking it, I t I tend to bring a lot of music references in. the you know, the it th he l it lost y it lost it for him. He he couldn't do it, right? And so I think I think people see through that. Right. We we certainly try to be you know as honest and kind of unadulterated in in in as we possibly can. And even our sponsors, but these are sponsors that we really like and we believe in it. And I I think you can tell that even when when you look at how people represent brands like like

Give you an example, Joe Rogan podcast. When he talked about a zip recruiter, you can tell he's never used it. Yeah but I mean it's good sound I mean, I I like the podcast. I should listen to it. Some of his episodes are great, some are ridiculous and k kind of insane. But The Giants of Afghanistan. That's a great conspiracy theory. Eight foot giant or whatever it was. Like sixteen feet tall. shot shot by the US Army. And brought in on a pallet. On a pallet, dead.

Rio Longacre (15:20.706)

Yeah. but someone validated it, I'm sure, on the show. So multiple people. Yeah. It's like you cannot believe that people actually it had red hair, apparently to it. but but going back to like the talent itself, so like authenticity, that's a big piece of it. And then what you so are you identifying these people? Are they reaching out to you? Like and how do you how do you find them and then like like are you looking for, let's say, here's an area we we want two or three creators, do you cap it?

within by certain certain type of expertise. Like how do you decide that? Yeah, absolutely. Right now, I think in the earliest incarnation of the Creator Network several months ago, we had a good idea of who our top targets were. And we were doing that outreach because we really it wasn't established yet. So that was a harder selling to go after but you then you had to you had to go pitch. Yeah and and understand so a lot of those came from prior relationships, really people that we trust, people that we had known

had worked with, you know, in in prior relationships, organizations, what have you. So I I think that was a big part of it. And I had always said, you know, knowing the goal that we had, we were I started the first week of May and I said, Well we need to have the first five or six people for the press release signed before can.

We can't we can't be having people walk around can talking about this without people being signed. And we need that first class of some general awareness of who the people are because they all have followings. big time. Right. So they're they're almost brands in and of themselves. Big big fish to land. And for us, I said this because I had built, you know, our our creator activations at GSTV as well. The hardest thing is getting the first one or two because they're always going to ask who else is a part of it. Sure. Because they want to obviously. So getting investment who's invested already, right? Yeah, there's a certain echelon.

So they they don't want to be next to the And then there's a little phone ball, right? There's a what's going on here? Yeah, yeah. Once you get your first couple, yeah, yeah. That was my predictive model. I said if we get to two, we'll get to ten with our eyes closed. And we did, and now we're at the point where there are so many folks approaching us that want to be part of it because they've seen us in the marketplace, they've seen the press releases, they've seen the events, they understand now on social what we're doing. And you've seen the content, you've seen this is legit content. This is not this is not like to your point before, like inauthentic derivative

Rio Longacre (17:28.618)

Absolutely. Slop. And the Forbes name helps tremendously because of what it stands for. You know, so people understand there's already just so much credibility there, so much integrity, journalism at its heart. So that's a big part of where I actually right now what creators have a problem with online is that they're seeking, you know, validation and they want to be seen as also reputable and credible. And many times that's not the case. So having that alliance with the Forbes Creator Network.

I think that's just a one plus one is three. Well, and speaking on the topic of inauthentic slop, right? You know, that that the which a lot of is AI generated, it's sometimes difficult unless it's specifically marked or watermarked as AI created content. there's a lot of talk, and we've talked about this in advance of of automation and its role and creative. I've read recent research that suggested that over the last four years, 200,000 jobs in the creator, call it the creator economy for lack of a better way of saying it.

Had been lost, right? Which is comparable to the job loss in 2008 and the job loss in you know these these recessions in 2001, right? Now, the question there, it's it's a very nuanced reason. It's not simply because of AI, right? Obviously, Hollywood, which my son was going into film at Syracuse, I I brought pulled him off that ledge and said, go into business, don't focus on a specific category. It's a it's an industry that's sort of shrinking for a number of reasons, a lot of out.

outsourcing or offshoring, right? You know, London brought in a lot of gave a lot of tax incentives to bring production studios. So did Georgia, so did Romania, so did older. So that's part of it within the Hollywood economy. But what do you think of as do do you think that that sort of death of the creator class sort of talk, right, is overblown? Is it hype? Is it real? or or do you think something else is going on?

Part of it is certainly real. I'm sure that, you know, we've all seen on LinkedIn and read in the trades that some organizations are shrinking and are naming AI as as the culprit or the reasoning behind what they're publicly stating is the reason. But yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I I think also though, technologically speaking, there's been a lot of production efficiencies in the last ten years, fifteen years. But that's not a hardware from software.

Rio Longacre (19:46.868)

It's not, but I think that right now, but it it's certainly gotten more efficient. I mean, I've seen it too, and and maybe it's just a better way to work at times where let's not even talk about post production right now. Let's just talk about production. I've been on so many smaller sets with smaller crews and still maintained really high output. Yep. you know, advancements in CGI. I mean, lots of output and lots of high quality output out there too, right? Absolutely. and and I think like we were talking about this, you know, right before we we sat down, but

I think COVID forced some of that as well, only being able to have two or three people in a room during production to keep people working and in their roles. we got really used to having somebody on camera running audio. It was a forcing function, right? It yeah. Yeah. Having the person be the producer and a director and the talent wrangler. Like it was just the way we were forced to work to keep working. And I think some of that just came post COVID as a holdover as well. but in terms of AI and and what I've seen with my teams, I was very lucky.

throughout my four years at GSTV, is I didn't lose a single member of my team. My team was actually able to staff up. we were able to, you know, find a lot of efficiencies with automation, not necessarily AI. And I think that was important that my team was able to, and it was a really brilliant process, but we were putting out forty to fifty thousand unique video units every year for our clients. We staggering number. Stagger. It was unbelievable to me. And and you're talking still a small team of probably less than ten folks.

that we were, you know, running like scripts inside of Adobe and using Excel spreadsheets and translating that into, you know, code for visual. Well you can do that without aut a lot of automation for sure. Yeah. And and would I trust AI to do that in terms of like an iterative output of three thousand video units for a client's campaign? Absolutely not. I'm gonna go through and QC that stuff. I know there will be hallucinations. Yeah, like the it's funny you mentioned that like the the example that I saw recently was my daughter's school, they did the school photos and they found a new firm

It was doing it for I I'm imagining was doing it for cheaper, right? And they ran everything through AI and like we've all we've all used AI for creative. If you do it right, you can get high quality stuff out if if you're using the right models, the right harness, using the right prompts, but you know, apparently they weren't. The photos came back, kids were like quite literally like had arms missing, several kids had their gender changed. I mean it was a you know, obviously they didn't pay, they canceled the contract. it's probably gonna be a lawsuit. So like

Rio Longacre (22:07.354)

To your point, if you if you don't use these, like you probably wouldn't use AI to rip output a hundred thousand video files that you're gonna publish directly to these to these gas stations without reviewing them first. But there certainly are things you would use it for, right? Honey, Janet's missing her arms. Call the nurse at school. Janet is not Joe and the photos in the school photo. This is problematic. Most people aren't proofreading. They're not

Yeah, yeah. Well, and you mentioned with GSTV that there was kind of a board mandate, which we've heard a lot, right, at brands and otherwise, right? Of like implement AI. Oftentimes it's being driven by some sort of either profit or margin motive, like we want efficiency, we want less. Or just use AI, period. Like just don't get left behind. Which is a great thing to try to upskill members of your staff and just say, This is something that you should put

A focus on throughout your workday. If you have downtime, utilize these tools and you'll have access to the Yeah, but just telling people we want you to burn tokens just for the hell of it. I I I can understand what's okay. We want people to use AI. We think it will make them like more productive, probably h hopefully even happier work. I'm much happier using AI than I was before because a lot of the menial, annoying, repetitive things are now just done by AI. But I think that just telling people you need to use it, then giving them incentives. I mean, show the incentives, I'll show you the outcomes. I've heard stories we talked about before in the pod, where people

Look, we'll get we'll bonus you based on number of tokens you burn. Well, guess what? People are gonna burn a lot of tokens, right? I mean they'll they'll have like agents playing tic-tac tokens to other agents you know endlessly in the background, right? And that'll burn a ton of My AI agent put this today. I thought it was a brunch. But you know, hey, I'm here at nine thirty AMC. There's a boil water, right? Between either the board or upper level management that's mandating this stuff, and you saw this firsthand, and actually how the teams, you know, tactically need to implement either automation.

So give the ch share that example of how you guys implemented automation, which is really AI, but you did it in a very controlled way to be able to version without hallucination, that was very different than how the board was sort of seeing it. Yeah. Right? I think I actually changed some of that nomenclature within the organization where we then started to actually say,

Rio Longacre (24:16.408)

Teams need to be leveraging AI and automation because you know you can do things in large batches and you can leverage existing tools like a media encoder that maybe are AI driven, they're AI powered because nowadays everything is AI powered if it's coming out. But you know, there's a big difference to me in you know utilizing existing tools and trusted partners like using an extension of Getty and using Getty's AI tools.

And because they've already gotten through they gone through so much vetting. You're right. These tools like they're being used by tons of people. They're vetted. They've been they've been battle tested. Yep. And we've already got those relationships. You know, I would I would did this with my team and I think this was such a great exercise. Setting up so many demos, so many betas, and just being like, let's talk to Adobe and let's get a demo of these tools. Let's see what we actually want to utilize and what works for our workflow. Like it's a high volume user, they'll

They'll listen to you as well, too. Hundred percent. Yeah. And and that was the thing. Like we want to keep our business here. And I want my team to not feel this overwhelming black cloud threat that this is going to be the thing that replaces me. I want it to be the thing that makes you superhuman in your output. Yeah. And for I think for me specifically, because you know, a big part of my career has been based on my work as a writer, a copyright writer, and a concept artist. Three, four years ago everyone's like pointing their finger at and being like, you're probably afraid AI is gonna replace you.

I've never once been afraid of it because I'm not using it for that part of my brain. Yeah. What I'm doing is I'm using it for my research, which is the backbone of creative output. That's that's what we do for signal and noise. Yeah. I it should take me two days. Yeah. That's what we do to to power this. And it's like this would take hours, countless hours.

And that's that's the part of the job that's not fun. Correct. Well, the bit no one's paying Brandon Mikulaski to do their spreadsheets. Trust me. That's something that needs to be done in automation. If I'm trying to calculate year over year, you know, line items in a budget, I'm gonna take that into AI. I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it. You're talking about coming up with campaign development. I'm not going to AI for that. That stays here, that stays with my team. That's something that gets workshop, that's something that gets brainstormed.

Rio Longacre (26:26.134)

Yeah, and the and well and there's just a really com important component here. It's creative judgment, it's human judgment. I actually just did a heard a speech from a guy named Brandon O'Reilly, I believe was his name, at a at a company offsite. And he was talking about how how oftentimes in like in corporate environments, people will do they'll they'll d do a huge output, right, of of AI. Let's say it's research that they've done competitive research, let's use it as an example. And then they'll hand it off to a team member.

And they forced the team member to put all these extra hours to synthesize this this information that they just you know vomited out from AI, right? So it could be a three or four or five page report, right? Versus actually applying sort of a level of human judgment in in in the actual output so you're not actually burdening the people around you with the Yeah, yeah. Someone probably takes that four or five page output, puts it through AI again. Yeah, that's just exactly yeah, and so his whole thesis is like write the draft yourself, right?

Create the structure, the the the creative concept, the idea yourself, and then use AI to interrogate, right? Like if I'm if I'm looking at this through the eyes of a CTO or a CEO or a CFO or CMO, right? Whatever the whatever the the interrogation points are, use AI to do that because that'll help you sort of pressure test your idea. But keep your idea and the judgment around around it as part of your IP. That's critical, I think, from a from a creative idea. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean for

The way that I prefer to work with AI tools right now, you know, in my career specifically.

I'll bring it in sometimes at the end of my creative process. And and and I love winning. And I just like, what I came up with was so much better than that. Because I understand that it's utilizing the tropes of our industry. I'm like, you're you're using copywriting, it's only gonna be alliteration. Yeah. It's gonna be rhyme. But you don't understand how homonyms can be really funny sometimes. You don't get a double entendre coming out of AI output. Those happy accidents happen in the human mind with our human condition and having emotion behind what you're doing. So

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I love looking through and doing that comparison sometimes and being like, you know what? I was on to something. I like what I did better. But it's good to see because to me, that actually is the median output, right? That's the it's the median is what you're getting from AI. Yeah, yeah. It's derivative of what came prior. So I'm like, well, that's good to know that maybe that this is something that could have already been in a marketplace existing like this. I've probably even seen it. What I have is more originality to it. Yeah. Yeah, I really like that. Yeah. And it I think judgment, creativity, all these are things that I mean, these these large engagement models are incredible.

prediction machines, right? And but to your point, they're looking at everything that's out there and they're they're they're ripping through an incredible amount of information, really all the information in the world is published and using that with these models to actually predict what'll be next. And so that's what they're really good at. They're not creating anything new necessarily, although they they can be very creative given that data set. But one thing I think is I found interesting is looking at the creative profession. There are many designers who are design professions contracting overall

Even though think there's more creative work being done and the quality is generally better. And there's a lot of like slop out there too. But I think this has revealed something about the the creative profession that a lot like just looking at advertising specifically, right? Looking at digital advertising even more so, a lot of what we thought was design or people were saying was design work was really just pixel pushing on retouching this. They're not creating anything new. And a lot of that is now being automated. So I think s roles that were just let's say

production design. A lot of that's being automated. Some of those roles are going away. But I think that certainly the the roles that are actually like require true creative talent, there's more demand for those is what I'm seeing. yeah, I mean the cream will always rise and and that's the best part of our industry. And I think it's been that way traditionally. For me right now, so much of the power is with the artist because

If I were to design something right now using AI, I think the most creative you can get is with your prompting, right? Good in, good out. That's that's the basis of all this where I'm not gonna ask it to design an image for me. I might ask it I I dream in layers. Design a character for me, design a background. You know, I can then bring it into Photoshop, put those layers together, I can add lighting elements to it. It's more malleable, it's more changeable, especially when I need control over it because

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AI falls apart in the revision stage, right? And if AI doesn't know what clients off. But if then if you want to take that, you want to put it into a prototype, you can do that using using a using the AI coding tools too. So I think for a designer, it opens up all of these things that you would would have required other roles before. Totally. Yes. It makes you That sort of busy work, the janitorial work that often took a lot of you know, eighty percent of your time, sort of eighty percent like like

perspiration and twenty percent inspiration. Now you're sort of allowing yourself to focus more of your energy on that twenty percent and sort of think of think of it as you know as Rashad Tobaccoala said, alien intelligence. Think of it as something something something you can delegate to.

As you would delegate to a human being to do some of the stuff that that is that generally took a lot of time but wasn't very valuable. It's like hiring someone on Fiverr. You it's like three out of five times it might be great. And the other couple times you toss out the work and you go, Well, I tried that path. And honestly, I could probably do it better myself and it might take me some more time, but that's part of the learning curve of it. So I I've never minded that too, getting something where I'm just like, okay, this is not gonna actually work. But

Again, having it from the creative lens and being able to go into a program and speak to something to to you know, from like up here, like top tier creative, there's a big difference in saying generate an image versus like here's where the camera perspective needs to be. I'd like to see depth of field. I'd like to give it time of day and environment and perspective. If you can get super specific, you can get really close.

No one is gonna beat me from the banking industry going in and creating an image because I have so much information historically from my career to draw. And that's experience. I mean you know, th like AI can draw derive from knowledge, right, and predictive analytics, but it can't really it doesn't have wisdom. Yeah. Right. And human brains being r which is where judgment lies, right? It's wisdom. It's the experience of knowing and it's very nuanced. It's very hard to just predict

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what those combinations are because those unique combinations is sort of the source of hu you have human creativity. It's making all of us Rick Rubin right now. You have to know it's good. You know, that's the ultimate like pressure test is like, do I have better taste than most other people? If I think this is good enough, is it good enough for everyone? Or will I never be happy with it and I have to keep pushing forward depending on the different tools and the different platforms. So you think the death of the creative class, back to that original question from from AI, is a bit overhyped that that that

Creativity's gonna kind of maintain its domain in terms of of of like the creative class in general, despite some of the job loss. I mean we'll be The people pushing that narrative are probably more afraid than the artists are because honestly, when you're doing something with code, when you're doing something with calculation, those have checks and balances put into them. You can understand pretty quickly if something is accurate. Art is so subjective at this point. You know, that's to me where again all that true power lies is that.

This could just be a tool in your toolkit. This is just more software, more hardware, more platforms you have access to. Yeah, coding. I think it's so interesting. There's been all this talk about all there's gonna be no coding jobs left. Well, there will be no coding jobs where you're just cranking out a lot of code anymore. That's for sure. Because like AI does that already extremely well. It was the first thing it did well. But but good engineers, good developers were spending most of their time in code review anyway. Correct. Right? So the best developers can now spend

All of their time, like more time doing the actual code review, almost no time actually coding. And so like the the 10x developers now like a 50x or 100x developer. So I think that it hasn't it's eliminated some jobs, but it's created more. And the people who are working are more like you look at the number of apps that are being launched, number of businesses that are being started, number of new jobs being created. Yes, some jobs have been lost and companies are saying it's because of AI, but there's very little proof it isn't. Even if you say maybe some of them are.

What was that study? We we we had it in a podcast a couple weeks ago, right? Over a million jobs in the US this year created created by AI plus all the new six million new companies started in twenty twenty six to date year to date. So I I'm advising a startup and we applied for a new business license in the in the state of Delaware. They said there's a two almost two month backlog. Wow. Yeah. I mean we And and so think about that. That's like that a lot of that is creative production. We'll put it without without maybe using

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Creative is in the kind of Maybe not a big C creator. But it's it's people that are building, that are builders, that are building something, right? It it's a technical solution. They're building a company, they're buying they're taking an idea, they're and I think all these things are tied. That's where human ingenuity is, right? In terms of the ability to come up with something from nothing based on years of experience or knowledge or wisdom, right? And and being able to breathe life into it, right? And and to me that seems like that's something that's never really gonna be fully replaced. Right.

To me, it's trying to make you like Olympic in whatever you're doing. Yeah. Have you ever seen like, you know, the 99 best swimmers in the world and the person who wins a gold medal just happens to be that much better, a millisecond faster than everybody else? Is you know, right now I'm not ever trying to replace 50% of my task. I'm trying to get 10% better at my job. And and that's to me an achievable number. Is if AI can make me 10% faster, 10% more accurate, 10% more efficient.

I don't think that's replacing a lot of work. I think it's gonna create to just more output, better output. I'm saying way more than ten percent. Yeah, why I I'm saying like, you I'm I'm yeah three or four times more productive in my job right now. Yeah, but just I because granted, I'm realizing a lot of what my job was as a I've been doing consulting work, strategy consulting for many years, right? A lot of it really was those repetitive tasks, listening to meetings, taking notes in meetings, synthesizing large volumes of work. You know, granted Building presentations. Building presentations, a lot of that can be either

Done by AI or at least assisted by by AI, so I'm realizing wow, I'm way more productive and I'm doing better work. And I'm able to focus really on the recommendations client needs faster. And I'm still going through the same process, but it is just accelerated so much. So I think it's making me much more productive, better work, and I'm frankly I'm happier at work too. Assisted is a great word. Yeah. I think that's how people should view it. Yeah, 100%. So so let me ask you this, and a little bit of a pivot, but why is why is

Creativity and an artistic sort of invention been so undervalued over the last twenty years. I mean, you look at the music industry, right? From the rise of Napster to Spotify, which pays, you know, pennies on the dollar to artists for for attention, for basically people's attention. you know, where they're they're really forced to change the business model. And the music industry specifically. They've had to go live. Right? Because they can't generate.

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like parabolic. It was just crazy how but it said if you compare that to album revenues revenue it was like They're they're the they're they're actually the opposite. It was like it was like a K shape. It was like so the artists need to make their money. Yeah business changed. It used to be that you

To support the album sales. Now the album is put out for the tour. Yeah. Totally importantly changed. We grew up in that MTV era, right? You get that that that video playing, you know, smells like Teen Spirit playing on on auto, you know, or you know, and and that drove album sales, which then you supported with with with a tour. Now it's the tour that drives all, which makes that it makes starting out as a band much more difficult because you don't really have any, even if you're not.

you know, y like y like a i an artist back in the day could sell, you know, tens of thousands, small small numbers, but still it would support their livelihood. Now they they it's it's hard to actually build from from the ground up, right? Yeah. And actually I I love that we're pivoted to music. This is this is my passion here. I I would say that accessibility i is really what changed that perception of value is that

You know, you didn't have to go into an Avatar Studios and be working on a $90,000 console and somebody's behind the Knee and it costs hundreds of thousands to make an album. People were able to then do that inside their home and build a home studio. And I think the same thing happened in our business with editorial. You're not on $140,000 avid. Some guy came up with a Final Cut Pro at his machine for $600 and they were doing similar work. And I think it just took the value of it down and what clients were willing to pay for it.

I used to get billed out at almost a thousand dollars per hour in the agency. We're all doing like client editorial on an avid. Wow. Then when things shifted and the software changed, clients were like my college student son. Yeah, we're not paying those prices anymore. And the model changed. and and I think we're seeing that just across the street. Just a normal thing. As things things start out, it's very specialized, they're hard to do, there are few people that could do it, supply and demand. So yeah, you're just gonna you're gonna have to pay a thousand dollars an hour for the very few people who can actually use that software. But as things become more accessible to your point.

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Easier to do. A college kid can do it instead of a you know professional twenty-five years' experience. Yeah, it's gonna be less expensive. But you're also gonna get much more of it. Correct. Right? I mean there's gonna be and I think that's the thing that people are forgetting about. Like all those new businesses, with six million businesses. Well, guess what? Like like that's unleashing a ton of creativity. Many of them will fail, but the fact that people can start a business, I think the cost of starting a business now, it's it's collapsed from like a few million bucks to like what, like tens of thousands or something. Yeah. And most of them will fail, but the fact that people

These ideas they had, they can now take them and they can create a business, they can create an app, they can create a company, they can create they can take their idea, they can bring it to life. And I think if someone in a creative class, all these tools like they don't need to license all these tools anymore. For twenty bucks a month, they can have they can have a lot, they they'll need more than that, obviously, but it's giving people access to incredible information expertise that would have been very difficult and very expensive to get otherwise. Yeah, and as you as you sort of democratize access.

It probably makes it a lot more competitive, right? And the competition is gonna drive, you know, it's kind of like restaurants, the restaurant scene in New York City. Like if you're not competing at a pretty high level, you're gonna go out of business, right? So I'm assuming that that you you would hope at the end of the day, right, that that competition is gonna drive better outputs, better differentiation, right? You're not gonna be able to get away as a creative leader or a creative talent or an artist with sort of sameness, right? You're gonna have to radically differentiate. So the idea of using AI to

reduce your output is gonna you're gonna arrive at the median, right? You're gonna arrive at this sort of like this n undifferentiated through line that nobody's gonna pay attention to. So it's probably gonna drive better creativity. I'll probably need like my own watermark where it's got like my name, like human, you know, human spirit has been a part of this. Yeah. Just so you know, and the human soul has been in this art. I I like being very upfront with

you know, clients. I think you should always have those disclosures if you utilized AI for any part of a presentation. I've worked with major clients that have actually gone the other way in the last two years that inside of RFPs were letting you know that throughout any part of the process, from pitch all the way through production, no AI could be utilized. And if so it had to be disclosed. And there's a great amount of regulation behind that, a and as it should be. But I feel like also because clients don't want to be spending

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six hundred thousand dollars on a TV spot anymore, especially if they find out that it was generative AI. So, you know, there's probably a lot of a lot of good reasoning behind that. But I think just being very upfront throughout the process on where you probably are going to find those efficiencies is important going forward. You have to be honest about it. So there's a that great example recently I think it was from Australia where like they there were these the government was paying for these really lengthy reports every year. And I think one of the one of the big four consulting firms w one the

one one the pitch, one the bid for for less money and they used AI obviously to crank it and they didn't disclose it and they got caught because I mean they didn't I mean they didn't even check it. You know, some of some of the I think the cases it was referring to in the in the legal section actually didn't exist. They it made it up and it's just sloppiness, right? but they should have disclosed that. You know, we're using it or but but but people take the shortcuts. They just think, we're gonna use it, we'll get away with it. But you know, you gotta be careful. Yeah, it's I I did this really early on with Chat GPT where, you know, I was able to figure out

very swiftly, the more you know about a subject, the more you realize how many hallucinations are within, right? So I was like, okay, I'm a big Mets fan. Well, because yeah, you can filter out the the the bullshit and the full. But then you figure out also where it's pulling from. Because I'm like, okay, the Mets didn't make the playoffs. I'm sorry, they didn't make the World Series in 1988. you know, that was the first year I actually went to a live baseball game. so I was like

Construct what a 1988 Mets World Series roster could and should have looked like. And it was pulling guys that had retired three years earlier, but maybe they were there in 1988 for a ceremony, guys that hadn't yet come to the team, maybe two or three years. And then looking at all of that, I was like, I see how it went out onto the internet, pulled all of this data, tried to mine it and synthesize it for me, and it did it incorrectly.

And then I would do that. Yeah, yeah. And if I didn't know any better, I could have published that. Been like, wouldn't this be a great team if they made I yeah. Look at my my editorial, my byline on the Mets. Yeah, exactly. Look what I dreamt of. And then then the comment section would have been like Yeah, Mets fans are the they're hardcore, right? Yeah, they would have been all over you. Yes. But it was a great exercise just trying to stump it, trying to beat it, and then figuring out where the inaccuracies are and the inconsistencies, because then when it comes down to using something for client work, you know where to look under the

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Yeah, yeah. So we've talked a lot about sort of creative is like the iterative component of creative, right? Which is we'll call creative management, right? Which is where a lot of the AI solutions, both in the agency world and sort of startup tools and and and and products are are sort of powering the ability to version, ad nauseum, thousands of variations. You talked about it with ZST GSTV, right? you know, that that plugs into sort of a a a problem that the ecosystem has had for a long time. It's like, well, we've got

This many our our audience segmentation schema at a brand looks like this. We've got these 10, these 50 or 100 cohorts, right? We've never been able to sort of keep up with the variation that we need to show these different groups, right? so the the larger question is is what do you think of sort of cohort based advertising and being able to creatively reach cohorts in very relevant ways, right? Spe specifically to their context, their

you know, time and place, their demographics, all that sort of stuff, versus sort of this promise of personalization. Right. And one to one, right? Which which seems to be, and I think we've kind of concluded over the last few episodes, that it really is kind of a pipe dream. And do are people really that different? Right. So from a brand advertising perspective and a creative perspective, I mean, how do you think about how you create stuff that's relevant to specific audiences, but but not to a point where it's just

just more stuff being thrown at the at the wall, so to speak. Yeah, I was a big proponent of contextualized advertising in inside of GS TV and elsewhere in my career. to me, that's kind of always a surprise moment where, you know, someone is speaking to you in your environment. It's relevant to what's going on around you. It's incredibly topical. It's seasonal and you know environment. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. And and it's more memorable in that aspect.

but then to your point, the degree of personalization can sometimes get a little bit of that ick factor where it's like, okay, you know way too much about me. I don't like that this ad is actually speaking to Brandon right now. people like Brandon is one thing. Surveillance capitalism. It makes people c concerned about that. Maybe they probably maybe And then when it's incorrect, it's even more icky because you're like you're looking at something that's old or outdated or something. Or just do your to your first name where someone screws that up, right? And the and the question is, is it even needed?

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Do you need to like are we really that different? If you and I share music taste, for example, and we're part of the same sort of music zeitgeist, right? Or you and I both share comedy love, right? There's probably a way where you can appeal to us almost equally without individually talking to Brandon or individually talking to Brett, right? So Yeah, I want community. I want consensus to be like, okay, this is speaking to the other 3,000 people that are like me, not exactly to me, and now I feel alone, where it's like that that really is targeting. I feel like there's a target on my back.

Yep. It's you're I agree. You don't need one to one. I mean, I think if that was always like anyone who's worked in marketing, advertising, that was always the goal. we're going to go one to one. Yeah, but you don't need it. I mean, if if you can go down a a universe of 3,000 for targeting and you know a lot, you you know what what they'll respond to, you know enough about them to to have a creative that's going in an offer and like a messaging that's gonna resonate, that's more than enough.

Yeah, that's a nice niche. Yeah. Appeal to that that community, right? Appeal to that specific niche, right? People tend to operate well in collectives, right? And I think that to me is sort of the essence of of brand advertising, right? Like how do you get more in relevant to specific community groups of different types, right? Because you can speak to them in in less of a one-to-one way that's actually gonna probably drive better performance, better engagement, right? Better time spent with the content.

That's a good point though about the creative. I think that like one thing we've seen certainly in advertising, like in digital advertising, is the I think devaluing of creative because of programmatic, right? We're just gonna like crank we'll automate these processes and then we'll we'll optimize using these algorithms, right? And then

You need good creative, but creative also fatigues. And I think that is something that people have gotten away from the last, you know, 15 years, so since programmatic. And I think now I'm seeing, I mean, we're seeing all these great startups. Remember we talked to VidMob, Craftsman Plus, that these these are companies that are focusing on analytics on Creative to understand the performance of creative, to have better in insights and metadata on Creative, to actually have be able to produce better creative, whether it's AI produced or not, or AI SIST or whatever. But knowing that I think

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understanding the value of that and using that to create better experiences, whether you know whether they're three thousand people or three million, I think that was kind of lost over the last year. And I see I feel like there's a resurgence of it now. I I this was a big initiative of mine too at GSTV because sometimes we had campaign flight that could be for like three months. And you know our person was typically viewing one point two X per week, which is in line with their fueling behavior and consumption. Whereas like, you know

Calling back to a campaign and keeping so much of the visual DNA together, but changing something slightly every three to four weeks. You know, whether it's an end card, whether it's the messaging at the introduction, whatever it might be. I always just say it like keeps campaigns feeling fresher longer. Yeah. It's probably like a double minute. And you can do that in a very controlled way. Absolutely. Right? Where it's like you're you manage the templates and the variations, right? Maybe you get some ideas from from some AI.

interactions but and then and as opposed to just ai making these decisions in an automated uncontrolled way to to but but again that variation can be critical right to absolutely to to tailoring doing something that's city specific I've always been a big fan of that we were talking about like heat maps earlier and you know there's nothing I I did this thing years ago with Crown Plaza and Spotify and the band fits in the tantrums and it was just an amazing campaign.

And the idea was that we would have fits in a tantrums virtually DJ all like hundred and thirty-six crown plazas across the world. And what we're doing was finding the different zones inside the hotel. So the gym would have a totally different playlist than they would at the front desk. We were optimizing things for time of day. Thank you was my idea. And then also the best part about it was being able to leverage

the interactive heat maps from the area and pulling in local bands during certain times. And that started getting community chatter going too. And employees, I remember we we were getting feedback because the brand was soliciting it from their actual staff members. They were like, dude, we used to know what time of day it was during our shift because we'd hear mighty mighty boss tones for like the fourth time. And they were like, thank you for coming in. We were putting out about sixteen hundred songs per month across the hotel, keeping it unbelievably specific. And again, changing with seasonality and being like, cool, this is approaching summer.

Rio Longacre (50:29.258)

It was such an amazing campaign. It was so fun to do. And if you know anything about my career, of course there was an IRL component to it all. But but the local bands thing, that is so cool. It's fun, right? hell yeah. And then plus the the IRL thing. So I think that's something we've seen a lot of, right? And this is our first big like activation, let's call it, Brett. Like for like where we're we're really you know, we not only have the pods during the day like this, but we've got the the event tonight, which is just gonna be awesome. Where we've got a band coming in, we've got

panels. So I think there's been a thirst for this stuff. And I think I we found too, it's easier to create lots of content because of AI, because you know the prep to your point bread, the editing, all that stuff is just much easier and faster. So we can produce more high quality content faster, but you need the IRL component like to actually help evangelize it and to build your community around it.

Yeah. It legitimizes you. Yeah. Butts and seats. People are showing up. It's the best real time feedback. That's why I love stand ups so much. Yep. You know, pretty quickly. I was gonna make this connection. I was gonna make this shift. Yeah. It's bu it is building community, right? Communitas. That's one favorite word. Communitas, right? And and whether you're doing it like a as a targeting schema or as a brand awareness builder for with a big brand, right? But the the key and the the influencers and creators. It's more valuable engagement than a like or a share. They're showing up. Yeah.

And and it's and I think with the in real life experience, right? We were talking about this before, is like the Jack White shows, right? Or I went to see Iron Maiden, yes, I occasionally go and see some geriatric heavy metal live, but it's a it's a community experience and they're very explicit, both Jack White and Iron Maiden, but a a bunch of artists have said this. And I'd love if comedians are doing this, right? We should probably do this tonight in our show. But are are telling people to put down their phones, right? Don't live vicariously through your

your phone while you're seeing a show, like experience it. Yeah, you're I guess you're in a sense you're connecting with your community because you might share it after the show to say, hey, listen, you know, and then people like so that's a digital community, but there's community on site in person that you should be sharing this live in real life experience with that oftentimes gets sullied because some dude is standing in front of you that's like sits in Like yeah, filming filming like 80% of the show.

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There's a great voids lyric about this, where Julian Casablanca says, Soon you won't have memories only pictures. Like you're not actually living in the moment. Like it's the same you know you're appearing through a screen. Like after the strokes, yeah. The strokes are back. But these people they're not even like this stuff they're filming, they're not even gonna watch it. Like they're just gonna sit in their phone. They're maybe they post it once it's done. So what's the point, really? I yeah.

And you and you're doing it at the expense of your own experience with your arm outstretched the entire time and who are you living for? Yeah, you're you're watching a live show through a little mini screen. dude, I was at a concert a week ago, someone was like FaceTiming someone from it. I was like, you know what, they missed it.

Okay, like they don't need to be here right now. I paid for the ticket. I don't need your arm in front of my face. Yeah, he's just like like bobbing his head. I'm like, Can we just stop all of this right now? This is p this is sad. And I'm the one who I'll say something. I'll take the arm and be like enough. You had you had your thirty seconds, enough. Yeah, I'll let it go for a little bit, but I'm in New York over I'm like, this is gonna stop. Yeah, yeah. I was I was at we were at Jazz Fest and I don't know, you I think this is before you came New New Orleans Jazz Fest, which you go to every year.

And we go with a big group of guys. Right, talk about in real life, like being in the moment, being absolutely present the entire time you're there. Well, it's the music, it's the food, it's the like the craziness of New Orleans. It's just it's it's everything. Yeah, and and so I was at so I went to Pearl Jam, which I hadn't seen since 1991. in Lollapalooza, when when Eddie was climbing up, right? And everybody thought like he was not suspend he was not being held up by anything. If he fell, he was gonna die. so

So I'm so I'm like, I haven't seen this band in forever. And so you've got this kind of wild, kind of multi-demographic mix of people. Like they've really crossed over in terms of generational fanship. But I'm standing so I I it's super crowded. So I stand next to this big, beefy, muscular dude with tats all the way down, with a little girlfriend. And I'm like, I'm gonna stand next to him because he's gonna like maintain the the the the like the space. Like we're gonna create our little space. I always kind of messed And I like I'm gonna sit I'm gonna stand next to the muscle. So I started talking to the muscle, and he was actually a really nice guy.

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And some guy comes through the crowd. He comes wandering through the crowd, bumping people, and then he stands right in front of Mr. Muscle over here. He's like Tink Sinatra. Like he's a he's like a he's muscle. And and this guy stands right in front of him with his phone. And I admit Mr. Muscle was like, you better get out of here, I'm or you're gonna be unconscious. Shove the phone. You're gonna be unconscious. And like he basically like verbally was just like th you know, like get out of here now. And the guy just like

Turned around and panicked or r and it ran away. Did you like go like and yeah, just like behind a muscle guy for the rest of the flexing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You take that. And so for the rest of the show, I was I said the muscle guy like, Hold me back. Let's make a big show of this. Like this is the crazy one back here. You're lucky he's here, right? You're taking off the glasses and putting them away. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

Last time Matt Cameron played with the band, like he retired surely there. Brett, you mentioned Communitas. And I think that 'cause Communitas is not just the people. I mean, that's but it's also the content, the vibe, the feeling you get. Yeah, can someone buy that URL for me, please, before this podcast? Communitas.com. Yeah. Such a good it's such a good word. And then Ronnie Batista, like that that's the guy who told me about Communitas. He's a Rutgers professor, right? He's a professor of UX at Rutgers, and he's just

Such a such a great dude. We we worked together for many years. And like he was always had incorporated that in his coursework. I just such a great term 'cause it really encapsulates that whole feeling you get. Like when you're w when you're with people, like when you're at a you know, a bet at the Pearl Jam concert, or all all sorts of people that you know, much probably like all different age groups 'cause yeah. What one thing that is cool too about some of these bands that have just continued on is like they have the old fans. Yeah. But then there's a whole new generation. I can play the old card any day. It's like I saw them thirty years ago. I mean I saw Pearl Jam open up for s

For smashing pumpkins, open up for the red chili pepper. So it was the red chili paper show, right? B blood sugar sex magic tour, right? With with and nobody knew who so Pearl Gem was the opening opening act. Yeah, no one knew who they were. Nobody knew who they were. I mean I swear to God, we're in the And that's back when people actually showed up for the opening act, which no one really does as much as and next thing you know, they're the biggest band in the world in the universe, right? And this you know, you could you could say that they kind of bored bored people for a little while. At least I was bored after a few albums of kind of sameness from a rock and roll perspective. But I'm like, hey, you know?

Rio Longacre (57:09.918)

Still doing keep with it. Just like Neil Young. Just keep going. I still think because I I've worked in the music industry for quite some time as well. you know, everything from directing music videos, I've built video games for bands, one of Clio for one, which was awesome. Like just rethinking how they engage with their audience is such a big passion of mine. Yeah. Because there's still so much room to grow. Like there's still so much merch that isn't

The concert going experience is so much room for improvement. Yeah, it's the merch launches are still terrible. They're they're they will always be terrible. How do we not find ways to expedite this? The most important thing is having that leave behind, having that keepsake, having it up on someone's wall. That's free marketing for a band. You want to get that into people's hands. And the fact that we haven't been able to optimize that still in twenty twenty. But but it's funny, so my my daughter was a big Taylor Swift fan. Like she if she's listening to this now, she'll swear she never was, right? 'Cause she's, you know, graduated past that. So we we ended up getting

Suckered into going to her show in New Orleans, funny a couple of years ago. But I gotta say, like her, she and her posse, they they revolution. They revolutionized, they revolutionized the whole merch thing. Yeah. Like they had a whole thing the day before set up, and they opened it up at a certain time. And I I you I was jogging that morning. I jogged there with like my my phone, and and there was a huge line, and I got a huge line of people. It was like a machine.

Like they would send you through this thing. I mean, I ended up getting all the stuff she wanted, which she now will never wear, of course. Yep. but it was but eBay. Yeah. Yep. We we may have to sell it. Maybe maybe maybe worth money, right? But it's so funny. But it that was the first time I'd actually seen any innovation in the merch department. But it it was it was incredible. They had these corrals that went there were thousands of people lined up. And it they they ripped through that in like a few minutes. It was it was kind of amazing. Like 'cause I've never seen your point. It's just you go to the show, there's like a

Yeah, there's somebody in the parking lot selling the ch the cheesy black shirt, right? You know, for for like fifteen bucks, you know, for whatever the show is massive lines, you know, take you like forty five, it's just ridiculous, right? Yeah. You know, the market for those has exploded, right? The parking lot bootlegs. Yeah. From like vintage shirts and like famous concerts. Like have like a misspelling where like anthrax is spelled incorrectly and like people really seek those out now.

Rio Longacre (59:17.41)

Because no one bought them. Yeah. So it's like now they're such a commodity, which is such a fascinating thing. You you've got I mean, maybe KISS had it right all along, right? If you look back and like I grew up, it was the first band I ever listened to, right? I was listening to Detroit Rock City on a Fisher Price record player. A Fisher Price record player, and Ken and I was about five years old, jumping up and down on the bat on my bed, and my brother would go to like the local garage sales and find KISS albums, all the solo albums, right? But Kiss had a television show.

They had the kiss dolls, they did an animated show, right? Yeah, they merchandised the hell out of that whole right. And maybe it was to make up for for you know, I mean you you could argue was the music good enough to stand on its own. the sorry sorry Brian if my brother's listening because he's he's like, What are you talking about? And I'm like, Yeah, I wouldn't say it's stood the test time. It's okay, right? I mean, yeah, I think you know, but but po point being is that that's sort of like creative thinking in terms of how do we make this

You know, it w maybe there's a fine line between creativity and artistic creation and sort of commercialization. I mean, where would you think that cutoff is? I mean, I I think the best artists are so involved in every aspect of their business because it really is their brand, that they're working with the best artists, they're putting out interesting variants, they're putting out like

poor art for every stop on the road, which becomes so collectible. And all of that again just builds just such a deeper level of immersion with the property and with that band and and whoever that might be. So I I just think that the best ones always do it right. that's just how it's going to be is that they care so much about what they're putting out. It's as important to the music because all of it is meant to be enjoyed as a singular experience where they care, you know, even the best bands have a say in like the vendors that might pop up. This is part of the if it's

If they know what they're doing, if they really care, it'll be a great experience. It'll be part of the experience. Yeah. Yeah. And they want you to come back, right? That's the ultimate. So, you know, just making sure that they're mindful of what the fans are going through. I I've always been which I love about what you guys are doing today specifically, I think I've always I've always been so focused on attention and keeping a crowd just energized and moving things along. Even when I would produce like stand-up shows that I would be on, very little stand-up.

Rio Longacre (01:01:33.59)

I'd love to have a DJ. I'd love to have a live band. I like that. There might be other types of performance, more of a variety show. Maybe there's sketch in the middle. Yeah. Just to because if it's not your thing, you can move on from it quickly. And you guys will have like bands and there will be like panels and you're doing live pods all day. There's something for everyone which is great. And I've always been so protective of an audience and other people's time and attention and especially their money. I want them walking away with a good experience. I I would always be so

Obsessed with like, my god, there's gonna be a stand-up show I'm inviting someone to it's a two and a half hour lineup. There's gonna be a bunch of people who I can't vouch for. I don't, you know what I mean? You know, at the end of it, like everyone's held hostage. Unbelievable. Yeah. But but part of it's like you've got an idea, you want it, you you and for us it was like multimedia from the very beginning. It's like, how do we actually share this kind of stuff? And part of it's like give people a platform for community gathering. I mean, all this stuff really comes down back to to community and the idea whether you're

a music band, whether you're a brand that's trying to appeal to certain cohorts, it's all about really how do you relevantly develop something, content franchises, branding, that that that matches the interest of the community in a way that's not shamelessly selling or shamelessly pitching or or you know, and that's that that people see through that stuff. When it's done correctly it feels like an extension, which is what it should be, you know, and and it's something that you

Like the best bands right now and you know are doing pop-ups and the best creators are going IRL and they're looking to engage with the people that they speak to on social media every day and actually see them show up. And that's been such a a a big purpose of mine inside of Forbes with our creator network is I'm actually going to a Forbes event right after this future of work, which is amazing. We're doing a creator event next month in November, and we just had our first ever creator day last month.

And that was just that was closed off from outside audiences. That was just getting all the creators with each other. just to hang together. And we did a day of content creation and conversation. And I was like, let's bring in all of our available resources. And we did a live vodcast with two creators. we also went out and did like a person on the street out and about series. We did another Docu follow series. We were just like, what do you want to make today? Because also there's this fatigue for them as well where they've just been sitting, maybe at home, using a phone to create their content.

Rio Longacre (01:03:50.464)

editing on their phone, sometimes they like being opened up to a larger team. Yeah. And just being like, let's work with a real producer, director, challenge my assumptions, right? Because I'm in this isolated environment. I'm not I'm not getting the feedback. Yeah, get the feedback. Yeah. And let me be talent for once where I'm not worried about every possible aspect of this and not running my own audio and worrying about like, you know, capturing takes and all that stuff. Let's just singularly focus on the concept, on the idea and you have other people. And yeah, they cross pollination, like you'll be pushed, I think, to make better content.

yeah. You know, through that. You'll see what other people are doing. I mean, like you know, creative is ultimately there's an iterative component to it, right? Yeah. There's like the the I think the creative spark, but there's also okay, you see what someone see someone's idea, you think, that's great. I'm gonna add my own flair to it. Someone else sees that. So I think that and so being in that group setting, like having that must have been awesome. It is, and I think a big thing that you know, for my career specifically, I've always been a person who cares so much about like

The room, the environment, and creating like a safe space for things like that to happen. Yeah. because you know, again, comedy is incredibly vulnerable. my yeah, the yeah, you're going to this topic. yeah. Like doing it a camera. You know, and if you're doing that, whether you're a brand that's like cliff bar that's appearing at like, you know, cycling events, right? For people that are also part of this endurance, you know, athletic community, right? That that can, you know.

Is it can you experiment with stuff? Can you test stuff out, right? I don't know if I don't know if it's as as applicable for brands as it is for sort of comedy because 'cause I think we talked about that, right? How there's less of a safe space oftentimes because of the the growth of social media and the fact that we can just send out things, you know, broadcast things to the entire universe, right, instantaneously. There's less test and learn, especially from like live events, because you know, whether it's a song that you're testing.

that you haven't released, it's gonna become instantly public. Or it's a or it's a joke that bombs, but you're not you but you're testing it to see if it's gonna go in the final set. Well well how do you think that's changed like with with social media and with cancel culture and all these other things like cancel culture that's its own episode. We won't delve into that just yet. I would say that, you know, everything like needs to evolve and as like a comic

Rio Longacre (01:06:06.39)

I mean sometimes it would take a joke maybe six months to find its rhythm in your set. Yeah to figure out maybe a better punch. A lot of tries, probably a lot of tries. You're getting reps, you know, every night if you're doing it right. And and just, you know, that's part of the the best part of it is just looking back on where something was six months prior and being like, Wow, we ended up in a better place. It became so much funnier because I was able to get that live feedback and and make those tweaks on the fly. And same with music and and forgive me if I'm

you know, attributing this incorrectly, but I think it was David Lynch a few years ago, was saying that's why like music and and and certain live performances have suffered so greatly. Things don't get workshopped anymore. It used to like I'm premiering a song tonight, and then someone puts it on YouTube and people are like, That song sucks. And it's like it wasn't yet ready for the masses. The benefit of the doubt here, right? Especially in comedy, right? And Eddie Murphy was was has been on, you know, like the on record saying the reason why I didn't go back

Ever to stand up comedi comedy, which we were all sort of begging for, one of the greats of all time, right? In his prime, I mean. I mean dangerous, you know, like was there was Chappelle in terms of just how good he was. Yes, exactly. I say Delirious is the only perfect hour of stand-up ever capital. Richard Pryor, I he's at the eye. There's no fact he is at the pinnacle of the greatest of all time. And he couldn't workshop any material. Right. So he would go out, he would attract audiences, even small clubs, and when he was workshopping material

oftentimes either it was too controversial or it bombed and it would just be broadcast across the world. yeah. And he's just like irritating. Then it's on like TMZ the next day, like you know, Murphy bombs out in local club. Like, okay. Or Murphy says something really offensive to XYZ community, right? And and when again he was workshopping through and that test and learn is critically important, I think, in all of these context. But I think brands

To just your point from before, I think brands do need to embrace that to a certain extent, right? I mean, like in like in in B2B, we talk about this a lot. How like as an employee and as a as a creator, like you have you own the distribution now. Like you have your own LinkedIn, you have your own Twitter, you have the same AI tools that the big companies have, maybe even better versions, right? You have the your $20 a month version might actually be better than like the lockdown six model ago version that like the like that Ape

Rio Longacre (01:08:30.784)

Acme corporations letting its employees use, right? So been you've access to this incredible stuff.

And I notice many leaders are afraid to talk directly to their their customers and their employees and and and the public and people are afraid to do it. I think I think people need to embrace it more, right? And and like yeah, d granted there's some stuff you shouldn't say or do, you can get into trouble. Like you know, you for sure, but but generally speaking, you know, I'd I'd rather be controversial than invisible. Yeah. There was this really great I I sent this to so many people, probably was like two years ago. I at one point I

worked in wrestling business and would write for that must have been wild. Totally wild. Yeah. Because so many wrestlers want to be funny, right? I mean that's like a big part of like doing a promo and being memorable and and that's a harder thing to do than just going out there and you being like a muscle bound guy. That is I really wrote some of that stuff. And you know one of the one of the interesting things that I had seen there was a WrestleMania a couple of years ago it was it was in Vegas. So the time of day had shifted

Where they had all these extra couple of hours and fans wanted something to do. So they were like, Why don't we do like a late night roast? And so they were working with, you know, Kill Tony and they decided to do this event. And I remember the promo they cut for it. They're actually like in the writer's room. And Paul Levesque, chief creative officer there, I believe that's still his title. He's looking around and he says, man, this could be very risky for our brand. And they do this montage of all these really

Crazy kill Tony moments. The most offensive, crazy stuff on the planet. Everyone's looking at the room and he goes, This could blow up in our faces. Let's freaking do it. And then they cut to the promo port. And I'm like, and and it and maybe it wasn't the best activation coming out of what happened, but just having egg on your face and being able to take that risk and then owning the outcome is totally something more brands should be doing because

Rio Longacre (01:10:23.958)

Sometimes you do strike gold that way and it could be a really magical experience and something that you scale out and you build a brand from. Yeah, yeah, and there's so much there's so much tight control on on brand executives out speaking in public, right? It's you know, in in people in the industry. There's risk aversion for sure. Yeah, there's risk aversion, especially if they're publicly traded. But hey, as long as there's rules of engagement, if you are your people as a brand, right? Let your people speak. Let them go out and and share learnings and wisdom.

Whether it's a aligned to their own career, it doesn't have to be the secret sauce the brand is using to differentiate themselves from the competition. But but I I think there's there's something to that, right? Because those are your brand ambassadors internally. And as long as there's rules of engagement, you're not gonna do anything that's gonna to challenge the stock price, so to speak. For sure, but I think there's a difference between a publicly traded company that has a big communications department, which you know, I mean I mean, I think that's an untapped resource to your point. Yeah, I'm agreeing with you. They should

encourage people to be out there more, you know, within certain guardrails. But I think for if you're a startup, if you're a smaller company, if if you don't have like the the worry about the street every quarter, you should be out there. You should be shit posting. You should be saying crazy stuff in my opinion. Yeah. You should be out there being controversial. I mean you gotta you know you don't want to insult people. Yeah. But like you should be I think you should be funny. And maybe, maybe some of your jokes are gonna bomb like a stand up, right? Like but you got to test it. So I I mean I I don't think there's enough of that.

Yeah. It should just be real, right? If that's like a part of what your brand identity, what you want to come across as, if you want that to be part of your brand vocabulary and your tonality, then like you need to own it because certain brands like Snickers have done great things with comedy and becoming incredibly like sardonic with their content and it's worked out really well for them and now you can't imagine it going any other way, you know, versus just saying like we're packed with peanuts, who cares? Like they're they're it's outlandish and it's outrageous and that's part of the experience of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about Dollar Shave Club and how well so Katie Sue came up with that idea, Dollar Dollar Shave Club. Yeah, we interviewed her last week. Yeah, and w we'll s well we don't know when it's gonna come out from a post production perspective, but terrific terrific interview. And so she created that sort of Dollar Dollar Shave Curve, which was irreverent. It was very it almost reminded me of like the early DIY like indie albums that I'd get where people would like

Rio Longacre (01:12:36.706)

you know, write all these kind of thoughts and ideas, you know, and it it's it looked very little in the album covered inside. Yeah, inside kind of lo-fi production, right? There was some spontaneity to it. They'd write out the song list and like chicken scratch. They a lot of I mean it wasn't quite that bad, but like the the the I was like, what does this have to do with razors? And it was tied to just this larger lifestyle story of you know, the of like being part of this which didn't seem contrived at all.

I was always fascinated on like this on like brown paper and I'd I'd read through this and I was like almost like comic book style. you know, and then they upsold me on dude wipes. I was like, wow, they these guys are doing well at getting me in their in their brand circle. There's certain brands you can really point a finger to to say they've done a really good job of creating that sense of sort of community and uniqueness and connection. And being able to like

expand that audience over time. You know, it's a long game just to be like we absolutely know who our ambassadors are, the people who live and die for this brand and

We think there's also an opportunity that they could be into X and Y. And the more you learn about them, yeah, that's it. It's building lifestyle brands. I mean Trek does a really good job of it. I talked about Cliff. I I'm bringing these same brands because of those ones, but Monster Energy's done a wonderful job, you know. Red Bull. I mean she could say that outdoor lifestyle, you know, and in their advertising's not even about the drink. They never like it's yeah. Yeah. It's skiers, extreme skiers, motorcyclists flipping through the air, you know, like you get this idea of like, wow, this is something more than they don't even manufacture the drink.

Like they're just a marketing company. Red Bull. It's freaking wild. I mean, that's genius, right? Yeah. Nike. Nike you could argue is is more of a brand and a lifestyle choice than it is. I mean the product is there. I've never found their running shoes particularly good. They hurt my phone. You're right. They always br wear down way too quickly. But point is they create this sense of like pushing the envelope. Just do it. Like, you know, go and in in and follow your passion in life, right? And that's that's more than just selling shoes. I'm not gonna take another swipe at

Rio Longacre (01:14:32.938)

Any type of AI, but you know, just saying like to me that's been the most important thing that's missing so many times is like the emotion. Like there's so much emotion in that copywriting and everything that they do. And I always find that to be and you know, one of the things that I did for many years, I was when I was at Sereno Coin, so I would direct our voiceover sessions in studio for like nine years. Worked with John Leguizamo, James Earl Jones, Tucci, Bet Midler, like you name it, yeah.

And there's so many happy accidents that happen when you're live in person in a studio environment with somebody. Those natural pregnant pauses during delivery, just that that rhythm that somebody has, the pacing that they bring to it. Just it y you're not gonna be able to ever do that with an AI voiceover. Yeah. And and even sometimes just the way a script naturally involves when you hear a person saying it back to you, things that are easier on the ear, things that you know might be a little sticky.

I just feel like that's always gonna happen in person bouncing off other individuals. Turning back to creators though, I mean I I I'm interested to hear like

Creators, I mean, they're going to be trying new things, pushing a boundary. So for a brand who wants to tap into that, like what it like it's I mean, it's they they're gonna bring some of that energy, I think, but you know, there's also some risk as well too. I think when you so like associate a brand with one how like how have you balance that? It's absolutely just matchmaking. It's it's communicating to the brand like this is who this person is and the type of work that they like to do, knowing things that they're into and absolutely not into.

you know, things that we will never compromise on. And then also being able to communicate that to the creator and being like the brand will have their asks and these are their must-haves. And if that doesn't align with what you're thinking, then we'll probably either have to A, for you work with a different brand and for the brand, A, B, work with a different creator. and I think that's always gonna be, you know, those perfect marriages where it's like, I like what you're doing, you like what I'm doing, like let's come together and make something special.

Rio Longacre (01:16:31.444)

And really keeping an eye on the revisions. You know, once you get to that point where we're past a couple rounds and like we're with the concept is no longer the concept, obviously that's not gonna be something that somebody gets behind. But when you make something that everyone is proud of, everyone's in on the action. The creator is sharing it out on socials, they're sharing it frequently, their their audience is respecting it, they're the ones sending it to others. I mean that's just like the perfect outcome.

You have to create good content, but you also have to create a lot of it. Like it's almost like a comedian thing. Like a lot of your content's not gonna land. Yep. And you're gonna learn what lands, you're gonna learn what doesn't, you're gonna get better at it. I mean, like the podcast business, Brett. We've we've created like hundreds of episodes now, right? And like I think our earlier episodes they people do listen to them. So I I get I get people hit me up sometimes, I I listen to this episode from a year and a half ago. But I think generally we're like we're much better at our craft today than we were a year and a half ago, like hundred and fifty, two hundred episodes ago.

So I think a lot of being a creator, so it is a content treadmill, meaning like you gotta constantly create content, but you get better and better and better at it. And I think that people don't appreciate for a lot of these creators how hard they've worked. it's yeah. Yeah, it's the wisdom building. I'm telling you, you gain you gain perspective, you gain some of its art, some of its science, right? There's there's mechanisms, but at the end of the day, we're this is a this whole conversation's kind of a creative per process.

Right. Like we came in with a we had a script of questions. I don't think we've asked a single question. Thank goodness I didn't read any them. So you didn't read any of them, but it gave you it gave at least a framework and we said, hey, what's the launch pad for this conversation? And we know kind of thematic, you know, but to me this is all a creative process and this is where the creative energy comes to the surface and you're able to share and learn.

in in in a way that you just can't do in short form content. You know, you can't you can't do outside of in real life type of experiences, right? 'Cause it is a it's a creative sharing and exchange process. It's it's communitas. yeah. Right? You have to always be willing to throw out the script. And I've never been precious about it. And I think that's probably, you know, an asset of mine is I understand that there are so many stakeholders and everyone needs to win.

Rio Longacre (01:18:48.396)

I think that's why partnerships have been so important in my career and why I've had so many longstanding ones. Everyone's gonna bring a perspective to it. Everyone's gonna bring a point of view. We all wanna make this a win and it's a negotiation. There's certain things I have to let go of.

Certain things I'll fight for as well. Yep. And understanding that, you know, we're not always gonna you know, the the baby sometimes will get thrown out with the bathwater and and I have to always be okay with that because also yeah I've been doing this for a long time. Yeah. I'm not in it now where I'm just Don't be so precious, right? Learn learn how to let go of of an idea, right? Like you know, it's like never n always be the harshest editor of your own work, right? And to be like, hey, if someone says this needs to be taken out, whether it's a paragraph, whether it's a segment, a song.

Right. And lose your and lose your ego. Yeah, lose your ego and realize, hey, you maybe you can see things through other people's eyes and realize that your your ego is getting in the way of like actually good decision making. The only thing that matters in this business is getting it out there. Yep. Because if you kill it because you're just you have a stick in the mud and you say this is something I'm not willing to bend on, then who cares? It's a tree falling in the woods. Like I wanna make sure that

To that's the ultimate mark of success is that this was approved by so many different by agency partners, by advertisers, by publisher, by talent, and it still made it out into the world. That's the pressure test. Yeah. That's like, okay, cool, this was good enough that it succeeded through all those rounds, iterations, revisions, et cetera, and it made it out into the world to the audience. That's all it's And and leadership needs to give, and we've talked about this a couple of times, is leadership needs to give it room to breathe, right? Even if you don't understand the humor that was being delivered in a particular segment.

Right, the joke, maybe it was an influencer. Or the generational thing too. Yeah, yeah. So we d we talked to Katie Sue and she was talking about how they brought it was at HBO Max, right? How they brought in a team of influencers to create the short form content that were passionate about certain shows and the brand in general. And upper execs, she was a pretty upper exec, but like people above her.

Rio Longacre (01:20:41.912)

didn't get the humor and so she got a note. They watch these clips like this isn't funny. Yeah, and they wrote her note saying this isn't funny, I don't know why you did this. And she's just like, it's not funny to you, right? You're missing the fact that we're talking to a community, a cohort, back to this topic. We've got a thematic through line here, right?

That is is this is actually very funny to them, right? And I and so I brought up the old the back to the music topic, how George Clinton, that's how he sort of constantly evolved, Parliament Funkadelic for those that don't know, is he always said, you know, he started out as like a barbershop quartet out of called the Parliaments, right? Which they actually couldn't use that name because it was a a black band singing using something that was government oriented.

that was the Parliament that got in the way. Parliament, yeah. And so that's why they came up with the name Funkadelic, because they were actually they were being criticized by certain powers that be to be. But point being is that he would he would start out as well, he could have stayed Motown, he could have continued to do that that type of music, but he realized, even though I'm comfortable with this and I'm comfortable with this type of art, right, there's some other stuff that's happening around me.

He was looking like Lee Dorsey. But he was also comfortable bringing in other people. Yeah. That yeah, exactly. But stuff that makes him might have made him uncomfortable when he first heard it, right? But he realized this was the next thing. And so he'd bring these people into the fold and let them spread their wings and do stuff that he wouldn't have come up with himself. And guess what? It evolved and created something new. yeah. Right. And and I think that's that's the key for leaders, right? As a creative leader, I mean, would you would you say that that how do you actually let your your team sort of fly?

I mean there there's gotta be a certain amount of trust. And I I think again building these little Marvel universes, always letting people be in a place where they can succeed. Yep. And just being like, I know what you do really well. I wanna always play to everyone's strengths on a team. you know, understanding limitations that we might have as a team also when it's great to bring in extra talent. I think one of the ways I've been able to like re-energize teams, reinvigorate creative throughout a process.

Rio Longacre (01:22:49.698)

I would do field trips all the time. Like, let's go to a studio like this. Why don't you meet other creative leaders? Why don't you see what they're that must be so fun for especially for junior person. They they absolutely love it. And just being and look today, we'll go to a recording studio. And maybe you've never been in this environment and maybe it's gonna spawn something in you. Maybe something will click. Yep. you know, bringing in, like as we said earlier, doing different demos with my team and different betas and giving them accesses access to different resources.

the most important team I lead is at home. I have a five-year-old daughter, she would say five and a half. So apologies if she sees this. and it's the same thing. Like ten percent of her life at this point. I I get it. Yeah. You know, it's it's one of those things where you learn that as a parent, is that you hide different toys and things to reintroduce them and to get them re-excited about something and constantly bringing in things that are resources for them so that they can learn and they can grow.

And I do the same thing with a team. It might just be something we need to dust off. It might be a skill that we haven't, you know, utilized in quite some time. I was always big and I still will be big on this my entire career on test projects. Yeah. Being like no clients asking for stop motion right now, but you guys have been saying you want to do something.

Summer's a little down, let's take that down trying to turn it into something. Cause you never know when it might show up on an RFP. And now we've already flexed that muscle and we know how to do it. Or maybe it's gonna be something that we can, you know, I don't know, it'll translate to some other skill or something else we want to build. But then also, you know, we do so much for them, let's do sometimes one for us. And I think that was really great for my team teams throughout my career. Yeah. That's a good point too about how like sort of junior people the stuff we take for granted.

Like you're gonna go to Ad Week after this, you're gonna go to s what sounds like an awesome event. Like yeah, I was I was there yesterday, went we went to that that that party last night and you know, ran like think we knew like three quarters of the people there, right? And then you know, you take these things for granted, you do year after year, event after event, and you realize your junior people, like they've probably never done that. And at some point it occurred they probably will, but they won't do it unless someone brings them in. Yeah. And shows them it and gets them comfortable there. And like and and as they see like these are normal people too. yeah.

Rio Longacre (01:24:55.422)

Like I can hang with Brandon, he's just a normal guy, even though he maybe's done this for thirty years. No one's ever called me normal. But I think he'd edit that part out. But like but I just think for junior people to see that that's powerful. Yeah. These are people I can talk to. Yeah, they and I can I can learn from, but also like maybe I can bring in your point early, I can bring in maybe my own like way of looking at things that that people my age and my in my community understand that will have some relevance. Yeah, yeah. And I think you said normal and why and maybe we end on this, but I think I think ca like like

Creatives have a very good, I've I've noticed that most creatives can really tap into the zeitgeist, into we talked about this a couple of times with Katie Sue, the the counterculture, right, as a way for kind of creative inspiration, because these are things that oftentimes are going against the thread, right? Like otherwise you're sort of producing stuff for the median, which is kind of what AI is. Like, like nobody needs another Taylor Swift, right? Like, what is the next thing?

Right. And and to do that, sometimes you have to go against, you know, the direction of travel. Right. And and you might you might be in the underground. I mean, I came from that type of music scene, right, before Lollapalooza was a popular thing. I mean there th this was a freak scene, right? Of that's the Dinosaur Junior documentary, I think it's called freak scene. But but you know, of just people that were sort of going against the threat. And so I kind of came from this this world of zor sort of zeitgeist of this.

You know, and for me it was just a place that I could call home that felt like people felt like I did growing up, right? Like, there's other there's other people that are growing up a little unusual. Well growing up in the suburbs in like the eighties, nineties. I mean, yeah, like like you felt like it was natural to feel like unless you were like a jockey or something, I guess. That like which you know, I I certainly was not gonna think you were either. Then you certainly felt like an outsider. Yeah. You felt like you needed a community to be a part of and you found we found that like going in going into the city and going to like C BGBs and like

Sneaking in underage and like checking out some. Is that what you did in New York City? Yeah, I I f I fled, I was in western Massachusetts in a little town called Long Meadow, and I fled Long Meadow. you know, once we could drive, we were 16, 17, and we drove up to Northampton, Massachusetts, which is where UMass Amherst, it's right around that area. And it's just a totally eclectic, that's where Dinosaur Jr.'s from, Sonic Youth Kids, the Pixies, all were so like you just go to the record stores and it was just an eye-opening experience. But my point being around all of this, tying to kind of the overarching theme of this conversation.

Rio Longacre (01:27:15.146)

Is that that's where a lot of the creative juice comes from. Like my brother always told me, he's like, when you apply for an MBA, he's like, How are you different than the 900 Goldman Sachs guys coming in, or women, that are all dressed the same men, sound the same, act the same, right? How do you distinguish? What is your narrative, right? And that's a creative process. It's like a self self-awareness creative process, right?

I mean ha ha like you you just said it. You're like I nobody's ever called me normal. Why do you think that's the the kind of key to your success from a creative perspective? I think what will always probably keep me like on the pulse,

I'll always use public transportation in New York City. We just talked about this yes. That's your melting pot. Like I look around, I'm always gonna be around someone who's eighteen, yeah, blasting different music than what I'm used to, using different slang, dressing a little bit differently. Not that I'll ever emulate or copy. I certainly have my own distinct style for that. But it's always great to see like what different generations, what different cultures, what different age groups are buying into currently. and just seeing the way that they communicate with one another, how where they're coming from.

I think that's the thing that will keep me young forever is being on the subways, being on the buses and just you what they call that in New York City, and like I was I was doing I was having a conversation with ChatGPT and I was trying to understand, honestly, my wife was shopping and I wanted to understand, I mean, I was really evaluating like the generational difference between me and my parents. So my parents are relatively young, they had me when they were twenty-three and my brother when they were nineteen. So I've always had like a friendship type relationship with them.

But you know, as they age, I've realized like they've grown up in a very different environment, right? A very suburban environment, never lived in a big city, especially a city like New York. And I'm like, what are the subway, right? What what makes New York City? Yeah, totally, right? And what makes New New York City different, both from the suburbs, but also from other cities. And so I started doing all this analysis of like cities around the world, right? And the thing that I landed on, which I thought, you know, thanks to GPT interrogation interrogating this topic, didn't give me the idea, but forced adaptation.

Rio Longacre (01:29:17.666)

Yeah. Right. It forces you to adapt to things to put you out of your comfort zone, right? And and it that that creates like an adaptation response and it's a creative. It's also a level of everyone takes a subway. almost everyone. Everyone's on there. Everyone has that same shared experience. Yeah, the meaner toss. Maybe that's the through lap. We all hate how it smells. We all hate how hot it gets. We all complain about the poop train or the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but there's art artists come to places like this, right? That aren't just the sea of sameness.

Right, you know, the the the the you know what I mean, that that doesn't really challenge your s challenges your assumptions. And so you settle into kind of a I don't know if it's a catharsis, but you settle not a catharsis, you settle into kind of a a sameness, right? You're you're kind of unwilling to think different. And it's it's also I mean, this is so bizarre, and we could probably end on this, but for me it's so oddly meditative.

being on the train because sometimes you'll provide your own soundtrack and everything's just whipping around you and all these new characters come in. It can feel very cinematic as part of your morning. You have to be incredibly alert because there's everything going on around you. but I I've always paid a lot of attention to my morning commute, looked around me and just taken stock of the cast of characters that are in my little ecosphere and and I've really grown to enjoy it and love it and finding I think that's probably

one of my haters would detract years ago and just say that I liked everything, which I've always had the response to say, like, no, no, my job is to find the beauty in things. That's like if there's a product where there's maybe only one great selling point, how do I take that and how do I communicate that to an audience? how do you find what you love about anything and everything? In New York City you can fall in love every day and just with architecture, with any aspect of it.

But that's the job is just like how do you always stay impressed? How do you always stay receptive to different beauties around you? And quiet that fear brain, right? That sort of brain that's telling you the the mind is a terrible master that's telling you you should be afraid or you should be right, quiet that and you'll you'll be amazed at what you'll learn. being on stage for so many years, I don't even that doesn't even scare me. Appreciating things, just appreciate it, be able appreciate different things. I mean that's I I think people could generally stand to do more of that. So yeah.

Rio Longacre (01:31:29.952)

Well, hey Brandon, this has been awesome. I knew we were gonna go over an hour, right? We could probably go for three and a half. In comedy, the red light would have been blinking. Yeah, yeah. The red light they're like, they're off, they're like, cut it, cut it. So so everybody that join has joined us for this episode being aired across social media and streaming platforms. thanks for joining us. there's a lot more to come from Signal and Noise Live at Ad Week 2026, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for having me.