Brian Rappaport, A Year in Review

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I just kept finding is that the best conversations would just keep, they would just start happening and you're like, damn it. I wish I had pressed record. So definitely. So, uh, so Brian, you've been up to, uh, you've been a busy guy. I've been a busy guy. So most bit a year, uh, March was the last time that, that we sat down just one-on-one of course we had that cool conversation with Douggie along the way.

Happify we've been busy. It's it's been, um, a weird year. I'm not going to, I want to say fun, but like what was fun? I got mad. So absolutely congratulations. And the new birth, the new niece. I have a new, I have a new niece. I have a new doctor. You and I got narrated. It was, yeah. Um, definitely, definitely, um, a fun year to.

I mean, look, we all know what it was. It was a strange year. It still is. Um, you know, especially when it's your first full year in business, it's like, okay, you're like poised to really start to come out of the gate and do some amazing things. And we were building up a client roster and we were set for a really crazy Q2.

You know, we hope that the brakes, because a lot of brands that we're going to spend them with us, you know, obviously tabled their out of home plans, but we've pivoted in, um, that word is so overused, but, you know, come, come late April and may we just started working more with the opportunistic deal route, really educating brands on how ad hump to be viable and strategic, you know, when cities are locked down and then once the cities we opened, it was kind of, you know, business as usual.

And I think a lot of my fellow competitors would agree right now. You know right now it's starting to get really fun again. Um, yes, we're not fully out of the woods in terms of a pandemic, but brands are spending and it's set up to be hopefully a really nice rebound year. Um, we've grown our client roster immensely.

Um, got some old friends back when, when you know, the pesky, not the Pete ran up. So that was nice and sure. Through what a math and through a little bit of cold outreach, we're just looking to build up a really nice, strong, um, roster and health we'll continue doing so. Definitely it's a great roster, right?

It's lots of cool brands that look good on out of home and make out a home look good. And that's fun. Speaking of fun, we're texts a little bit back and forth last night. And, uh, with the Superbowl coming up here, you sent me this and I like, I had a freak out moment cause I was like, No way that's so, so a lot of people who are watching that are gonna roll their eyes and go, oh, here we go.

And I'm sure my brother will text me and be like, are you serious? Yeah. Right. So I remember, like, I remember, I remember seeing, I remember watching this on TV. Like I remember thinking like that was the coolest commercial. Uh, if your watch, if you're listening to this, an audio check the check, the show notes below, it's an iconic, but like commercial, but how did it become that your brother is the a, is the man the myth?

The legend. Yeah. I've gotten this down to a cliff notes version because I can literally spend an hour and it's a really fun story if you've never known it. And I'm always down to tell it. I love, I love chatting. Um, but, but I'll keep it short and sweet because it is seven years of writing, which is wild.

I used to be, it's a real focused river. Um, I give I've done over 200 focus groups. I needed to make extra cash when I was a little bit younger. I still do. But, um, I would do all these focus groups and both my younger brothers would see me making a hundred dollars a year, 1 50, 200. They're like. So when a woman who had, you know, recruited me focus groups in the past, reached out to me in December of 2013.

And she said, I'm looking for guys 25 to 30, the love the are, but sports that are outgoing, we'll pay them a hundred dollars to interview them. Do you have any friends we'd love to have you in? And I said, okay. And I passed the screener along to both my brothers. It was a pretty lengthy open-ended screen or different questions here and there.

Who is your favorite athlete? Who is your favorite celebrity, blah, blah, blah. No, my brothers were, were all for it, except Ian, you know, who's in this commercial straight outset. I don't want to do this. This is, this is annoying. It was really good questions. And I have the email. So my paraphrasing, well, don't complain when I make this money, then you're like, why aren't I getting focus groups?

Um, you know, the one caveat should be that, you know, the focus group recruiter said, you know, out of all the people that are participating, we're going to pick a few to T uh, to participate in, in this mega focus group for six hours, look at a thousand dollars. So I just knew off the bat. I'm like, I'm going to definitely get picked for that group.

I'm always outgoing in these things. I'll be fine. Sure enough. I go, I interview, I do the, you know, the focus group one-on-one interview get a hundred bucks. My brothers both do what they got a hundred bucks. A few of my friends do what they got on. I get called back. Both my brothers get called back. They have a few extra questions.

They wanted to give us another a hundred dollars to this fund. I'm like, this is amazing. I've made $200 for, for nothing. I mean the focus group is a one-on-one interview questions about pop culture, you know, like to do in your free time. It was a lot of fun. Um, and Ian calls me up, you know, a few weeks after these two rounds of focus groups and goes, guess what I got picked for that super focus group, they're gonna pay me a thousand dollars.

Uh, And at this point, we still don't know what super focus group actually. I just thought he was going to be sitting in a room for six hours, which is pretty long, and he'd get a thousand dollars, which to me at that time, and still is it's equivalent to $25,000. Sure. I was immediately furious. I'm like, that's ridiculous.

I passed this along, but me and my brothers are both pretty close. I was happy for him and, you know, It still is three years younger than me. And you know, that that was good money for him. So I said, you know what? I have a great time. Let me know how it goes, whatever combats, sure enough. He goes to do this focus group on a Thursday night in January of 2014.

Calls me. Um, the next morning, Friday, he went on the Thursday, said let's grab lunch, which isn't weird is that I want to tell you about this focus group was the weirdest day kudos to him for keeping this in the bag. Cause I'd have been well get out. Yeah. Um, sure enough grandpa and you know, no big deal.

It's. It would probably be work, same industry. And, and, you know, I was at depth media at the time and he basically told me that he went to meet the two women running the focus group at a bar that you saw in the beginning of that commercial. And they said, you know, it's going to be a great night. We're getting things set up, just hang out here, have a drink.

We'll be right back. We'll get things going. Um, and when the two women wanting to focus group left and they started filming that commercial. Wow. It was a complete setup. They built it from scratch out of an empty storefront. Every one in there was an extra dime me and went through that entire night, not knowing he was being filmed.

He just bought that, you know, this was. Weird and crazy and like, something's going on, but this has to do with the focus group and I'm just going to go with it. I'm going to go with it because like, why not? And we're very similar. So I would have, you know, putting myself in his shoes, I put them in the same thing.

Um, and I think for him, it was like, you know, getting into a museum full of bachelorettes, you know, at first I was like, okay, this is just crazy. I don't know where I'm going. And Reggie Watts, who's pseudo famous that he's famous, but like didn't really know who he was at the time. Like that was like, okay, that's interesting.

You see, make a Kelly and then wants to see Don Cheadle. Don Cheadle walks into the elevator and the llama. This is a normal, we can be on for an hour discussing this, but the bottom line is it was an absolutely incredible thing for my brother and for my family, you know, in general, um, this was not a cameo here in spotlight had spot one eight in the super bowl, which is you are the first commercial out of the first time out.

This was their full rebrand or whatever they had completely rebranded to BR my brother was the face of the. Um, the super bowl was in New York that year, but life took over a massive cruise ship that was parked in the, in the Harbor by the U S Intrepid. Our whole family was invited to stay on the cruise ship for the weekend.

Um, it was only bud light, like major sponsors, celebrities, you know, the cruise ship acted. It was stopped, but everything was 100%. We did everything from CMH and dragons and concept to food fighters, met everybody from Justin Berlin and dedicate update or Rob Riggle. Um, and it was, I would say a really insane 10 months for Ian who, you know, coming out of the super bowl had interviews all over the place with mind secrets, ABC.

And then the commercial kind of tapered off for a month. And once March Amanda's role started every five seconds, it was a shortened version. I'd be in the gym, on the treadmill commercial. And I just laughed and ended the day. There's a lot more to the story. And it's so much fun to tell for people who don't know.

I think right now a lot of people are like, okay, we've known this story, but a first for me. So that was super kind of happened. Look, was there a little jealousy store at first? You know, I'm a very outgoing person. I will be the center of attention. It couldn't have happened to a better person. I mean, Ian made sure that.

You know myself and then branding, our other brother was included in everything. I mean, we were involved that whole weekend for super bowl. Every event, everything fun. He was calling me to let me know what was going on left and right. And then to cap it off, you know, later that year in September bubble, I literally bought a small town in Colorado for $500,000.

They ran the night, they branded it, whatever USA, great experiential marketing case. So. Hurrah last Geraldo. They wanted an out there to meet and greet and hang out. And what is he going to make sure that me, his now wife, um, and our other brother was invited to come for the weekend. And like, that's just, you know, when people say, how do you like working with your siblings and, you know, especially now really working with your siblings and having siblings in the same industry, it's like, we're so close and we get to do so many fun things together.

It's just, it's awesome. So it's a great story. Every Superbowl, you know, the farther we move away from it, it's always going to be like it's father and father in the past. A lot of pictures, a lot of incredible memories that commercial will, will always be wild. Um, you know, I bumped into, uh, last thing I bumped into Ryan Tedder as a lead singer on Republic at iHeart radio music festival.

Oh, about a year ago. And you know, I went over to him and I said, Ryan, I just wanted to say hello. And at first he was like, oh, here's another fan that said my younger brother is Ian from up for whatever commercial. You're like, no, it was like up for whatever onstage, man. I'm like, yeah. He's like, this is crazy.

He said, we have to take a picture. It's kind of funny. So small world it's wild story, super bowl week, you know, always something that I remember as a wild story. And congratulations, your brother, Brandon coming, joined the team at Quan. That's exciting. Um, obviously good signs that the quants doing all of the right things and, you know, uh, amongst all of the amazing brands you've introduced to out of home.

Uh, have introduced out of home to, um, you did some really important work over the last year, and I know it's a real core tenant of, of what you do at Quan. Talk to me, I've got three campaigns that really stood out to me, uh, around the vaccine around social justice and most recently bar stool. But what, what is that core guiding principle?

Gets you involved with some of these projects and it really big scale. I think everyone on the buying side knows, but you're always going to be asked to do something on the pro bono side of things, if not multiple times throughout a year. And like, you kind of like, you know, you get the chills, cause you're like, here we go.

I gotta go out and ask for all of this free space. And especially when you're on a larger shop, it's kind of like you have to, you really have to do it. And I think part of owning your own business is really being able to align with. You know, pro bono campaigns that resonate with you personally, that you really, you know, you're not, I'm not going to go ahead and we don't have the buying power that, you know, some of the holding companies out.

So I can't call in all my favors multiple times a year and ask for free space, you know, when our spend is X. Um, but there were three this year, specifically in the past, I would say in the past 11 months, that really. Were amazing. And one was partnering with, well, we could look at this one since it's on the screen.

This is the most recent one. And I know that my friends had at-home today. We're on a fan and everyone's entitled to their own opinion. You know, it's all fine and good, but this was with the agency mischief at no fixed address. So yeah, call the Mr. But they originated, uh, originally from Canada opened up the U S shop to CR in New York and they are killing it.

They have some of the brightest creative minds led by BrickCon whose industry known, um, over there. Um, and they are just incredible. And the second that they launched a New York and I kind of run up on them, I knew I wanted to. Along with them, the apartment, you know, for any out of home needs. So we had already worked with them on that, uh, election day or a campaign, which was super fun.

Um, but this they've come to us at the end of the summer and said, look where we were asked by Pfizer to put out this pro vaccination campaign and. Anyone who talks to me knows that I'm the optimist. I might think that we're going to get through this. It's just about being safe, about being smart and better days are ahead and this after seeing the creative and how kind of sentimental it was, grandparents came up to meet their grandchildren for the first time.

You know, people celebrate graduations in person. I was like, this is amazing. And while yes, the font is small and yes, you know, maybe difficult to read here. The majority of our placements happen to be in very pedestrian friendly areas. So people are going to be walking. They're going to have time to stop and dwell and actually read the message.

And regardless the photo is going to grab you. And the message is going to grab you. And for me, people need to get vaccinated because those are the same people that, you know, want life to go back to normal. So. This was a no-brainer to align with when Mr. Pascal. Yeah, I think it's killer. And so much of like, especially the, with the way that you frame this, um, on social.

I'm sure that picture got a ton of play on it. Probably got more impressions on Instagram than it got wherever it was. It is, you know what? They started to release TV spots a few weeks ago and they had a homeless and ready to go when it got, you know, the creative itself got incredibly. You know, incredible reviews from the traits for the most part, just the message itself has really hit home.

And I'm just really thankful to the partners that we have on the media side, that we're we're without a, you know, that has a patient willing to donate. It was pretty much every anyone that I had asked for. The orange bar will be at Logan communications. You know, be it my friend, you know, Allen down, down in Florida, you know, with his mobile trucks, like who volunteer it out after seeing this, throw it on there, like it's awesome.

And we should be spreading the word and people should have. So it's one thing that it's like, look a blank screen. It says, get vaccinated, be safe. And like what I have still reached out for space shore. I thought the creative was incredible. I still think to great up is incredible. And I, I. Kind of admire the way that mischief, you know, approaches each project and approaches each campaign, whether it's pro bono and us.

Right. And it's, it's a proper integrated campaign. Like if you see the TV spot, it's probably got the same look and feel, right. And then you see that like it's, it's, it's meant to be consumed in multiple levels. So I I'm with you. I think, I think it looks good. It looks clean. This is one that stood out to me and it was, uh, you know, an especially, uh, Tense time and the execution.

This was just awesome. Talk to me about this. This is obviously a social justice focus campaign, but how did this come to be? So I don't want to come off as sounding cliche. Cause I feel like this was a really sensitive time. You know, June was, was a really difficult month for our country and you know, when the black lives matter movement really, you know, was brought to the forefront for our country, I wanted to donate.

And I personally like. Yeah, look, I can't, DNI is always going to be very important to me. Um, but the bottom line is we're a company. We're not a massive company. We don't have, I, you know, I don't have a ton of people. I could build the company on really from DNI, um, you know, inclusion and all of that, which I will continue to do.

So, but. And trying to find out what I could do. That was a little bit more other than like donate space. Zambizi is a fantastic agency that we, that we work with. They're based out in LA they're female led, which is incredible. Um, and they, they, our black employees came up with this campaign in house, the open waters movement, and they showed us, you know, the messaging that they wanted to get out there and quite simply said, look, can you.

Find some out of home space that would take this messaging. And it was blunt. It was to the point. And it was, it was pretty impactful. Again, just like, you know, completely different initiatives. But Mr. Griffin and the vaccine, like this hit me and I was like, this is pretty amazing. And I immediately wanted to do something about it.

So. You know, I was fortunate enough to be able to reach out to a bunch of media partners. And in fairness, I really do try to, you know, split up the favors like there so many players in the media space, like you could ask someone for help with one pro bono initiative, and then you could ask someone else for another.

But this was just, this was something that I felt like I wanted to do more of this helped me feel like I was doing more outside of the general donations to specific funds. And obviously. The social media posts, you know, clarifying your view and then the way that you feel. And this is one of the campaigns that I personally am most proud of since starting like in general.

Uh, and I will always, it will be up on our site forever. It'll be something, you know, that, that I will always be proud of. It's something that I personally, you know, I believe it's super important to continue to spread the word. And the diversity and inclusion should be the backbone of every agency. And the advertising industry needs to continue to prioritize that in both hiring and in building, you know, their internal teams, it was bald like the, the creative is bald and AOL.

It's easy. It's easy to look at, you know, maybe how things have changed or, you know, things have tempered off maybe in some parts of the country or what have you. 22 weeks ago, right? When this campaign was live in the market, things were still hot. Yeah, it was bold. It was, it was a risk. It was, you know, what, it was a risk, but I, I liked it because it said what you would do.

Like things, there were photos, it was just texts. And it was very straight to the point. And I liked who, you know, but it wasn't me writing it. You know, it, it was, it really came from, from a sister agency that, you know, We're we're writing it and doing the creative themselves. And I felt that that resonated even more.

So I was really happy to get behind this. It was something that I personally believed in and I love San BZ. They've been a great honor to us. Continue. We'll continue to, we're doing some really fun stuff with them this year, and I'm excited to share a suit. And yeah, I mean that, that campaign I will say is, is a top three for me since starting well, it's, it's funny.

Uh, and this isn't to take the conversation in this direction, but just to reflect on it, Over the last couple of weeks. Uh, if you have a TV or a telephone, uh, you've probably heard of game stop. You might've forgot that they were a business, right. But that's, that's a red hot conversation. I was talking with some of the Redditors who are taking out like blip billboards and their 22 year old college students who never in their life would have ever thought about doing a billboard, but they're doing it.

And it's interesting to hear their take on it because the way they look at. Hey, like, this is kind of like the last bastion of free speech is, is out of home. And I think that that's a super power we can really play on. Is it works. I mean, Alexis Ohanian tweeted for those Redditor billboards yesterday on his Twitter.

And I mean, it's just, you know, it's obviously a different way to utilize that a home then like our data, they use of it for the clients that we work with, but it's pretty great. So yes. Definitely. And the last one, uh, this is one that I know a lot of folks are familiar with, uh, just in general, but you got involved with Barstool, like personally first, right before his campaign, or was it like, were you like, how did this how'd you get involved with the Barstool fund?

This is a weird, weird story, right? So the Barstool fund was also something, you know, it was something that resonated. Look, I, I worked at a restaurant in Jericho, long island that is still open that as a small business for over 10 years, my brothers worked at a competing Italian restaurant on long island that was open for five.

I'm sorry that they were at for over five years and the actually just got funded by the Barstool fund. So that's kind of amazing. How about that? So, you know, I'm someone that admires somebody that builds something from scratch it, doesn't get it handed to them that that builds up something successful will always be a tinge of jealousy when you're a multi multimillionaire, but like you can't help, but say, wow.

And that's what they important or has done with Barstool. I just think of friendly. Um, and when he started this fund, the fact that Monday, you know, Marcus, Limonus challenged him to donate and build this up and he did, and now it's at $40 billion and he's helped over 200 small businesses. It's like, what can I do?

And like, I can go and donate $20 and you know, I'd still feel good about myself, but I want it to kind of do something. Right. So at first I was like, I'm going to take a deep breath. And I donated a thousand dollars and that's a lot of money that was big. Yeah. It's a lot of money and odds are, you know, Did they want to know personally that I donated it, but I felt good to do that.

And that I kind of thought. You know, being somewhat of a, someone that hustles a lot, I was like, well, Erika Nardini, who's the CTO of car stolen who spent a lot of time in the ad world and has this great podcast, token CDO. I'm like, it would be kind of interesting if now that I've donated, if I am able to hop on to our podcast and kind of share the story upon, which is in fact, a small business and that exposure would essentially.

Upon this bar store. So many amazing brands. Um, so it wasn't like, I was like, I had an ulterior motive. I'd be donating them to get on the show. If I didn't get on the show, I still love Barstool, but I shot, uh, you know, posted on LinkedIn. And then I shot her an email out an email. We had actually emailed back and forth a few times just about a number of things and said, look, the abuse, my story in short, I think it would be interesting.

I know that maybe it won't be I'm self-aware so maybe you don't find this interesting. If you have a 10 minute block on, on tokens seat, y'all love to come on and tell Quan story and how we've kind of navigated through a time when people were told to stay in home and we're pedaling out of home media.

And sure enough, our producer reaches out to me about two days later and is like, here's a link. Does 11:00 AM on Thursday work. Erica wants to talk to you and I'm like, that's nuts. So. I basically wait for that Thursday, click on the link and I'm waiting for a zoom to start just like I do five times a day and showed up Erika Nardini, his face pops up and it's not like 80 people.

And it's like a production studio. It's just Eric at her desk. And I'm like, this is kind of, I'm not star struck, but it's like, this is kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. We sit down and she's, she's an incredible person and has an amazing story. And we sat down for 20 minutes and I basically she's like, tell me the story of Kwan.

I shared the story of how it was conceptualized and how we've kind of navigated through dependent. And let's turn the tables and asked me to ask her some questions, which I was not prepared for, but no pressure on it, on the fly. And the thought, you know, asked about our school's plans for 2021, how they've navigated the lack of in-person events, which they rely on so heavily.

And then I asked what they, why they don't do more paid media, especially on the at-home side. So many different pieces of content, especially let's just stop. Brian had the shot, take your shot. If you've got your shot, take your shot. I guess you guys have like, you can be strategic and smart with where you advertise them.

Grab the viewers. If you don't have. She bounced back with kind of like we do out of home with Penn national gaming and Philly. And I'm like, yes, obviously there's that partnership, but like, you know, I wasn't gonna push back anyway. I don't think anything really came of it. I don't think I ended up on token CDO that wasn't the point.

She took 20 minutes out of her day, which is insane to me. And that was amazing. So I said, you know, what, what else can I do? And I. Reached out to our producer and said, what do you mind if I happen to get some free at home space? If I throw the Barstool fund up there and we're just simply. You know, throw this message up and look, Barstool knows nothing about really out of home.

It's not an insult. Like I can't send them specs and they're not going to turn around and design crater. I literally had to do everything. So, you know, the producer thought it was amazing. Uh, the, the, the Barstool talent that runs the fundamentalism is Alice she's really well-known, um, reached out and was like, this would be.

Um, and they sent me the logo and I basically came up with, you know, it wasn't really coming up with it. It was like, here's how many businesses? Here's the money I sent it to, to two upfront on the production side to build it to spec for digital billboard. And what happens. I've reached out to a few people.

I hadn't yet called in favors to, um, we're have, and that our friends and know like, doesn't look for me, it was two part. It was like, it's an incredible cause that has gotten lost, I think, among everything else, vaccinations. So on and so forth. Small businesses are closing I'm in New York city. My favorite bars are closing every other day.

Um, and you know, the exposure, Barstool sports, like they, they go viral, someone tweets, something they're like a million people are going to see it. So if you're donating. Media space, like odds are, it's going to be good for your company. I mean, the picture of the wild billboard that you just showed, you know, it was retweeted by both Erica, Dave and Liz, and somebody commented that's fake.

That looks like a TV. And it's really, it's funny because while just came up with this great article, I think it was immediate post about how their quality of the screens are absolutely incredible. It looks incredible. And they are like, they are one of my favorite assets to buy in the Los Angeles market.

I mean, You kind of get mass reach and, and they're just all incredible rates like that. And it was just awesome. You know, it kind of went viral on that. We got a lot of great media partners that volunteered to run the message. And I have people LinkedIn, like me who had found out about me from Twitter, who I didn't even know was in the ad industry.

Some people who have, you know, boards down in, in, you know, suburban Atlanta and wanted to run it on their, on their independent screens go files. Um, you know, it just went kind of viral. But most of all, it was just great. It was great. Getting out a good message like that. There's no ulterior motive here.

I'm not working with Barstool. They're not my client. They're not, you know, I'm not going around saying I have four schools, a client did not on my website. Like this was not, you know, you saw an opportunity to help and you help that's it. And it's over now. Like, you know what, I'm sure if you go around to different markets, it's still running, but like, you know, this was fun.

It was, it was a cool little case study on, on how to, um, persistence. And doing something for a good cause. And, um, I've been, you know, a suit stoolie for a long time. They're good people. I tweaked back and forth with a lot of their talent over there and why not kind of, it didn't really, you know, take away from what I do for our clients.

They. And I just thought it was a great cause. And I really do think that like, look, we put so much effort into doing things for paid media, um, day in and day out. That's what, you know, the buying agencies do and shops. And it's kind of nice now that we can say that we've now helped three completely different, separate, really important causes.

I think we've now been able to bring to all three of these partners, you know, combined somewhere close to $4 million in and free out home space, which is pretty amazing. And look, media partners never get enough. Love. I can't name everyone. Now. I tried to do it on LinkedIn, but like, we've got to stop using the word vendor, start using the word media partner.

They are partners. They just come through. There's always going to be the argument with negotiating and holds that are lost and something posting late, but like the safe world. Peace, you got to remember who really helps. I don't know. I don't think I've ever cursed that immediate partner in my 13 plus years.

I never will because you know, it's one team, one dream. So I'm just super appreciative for the people that I'm across. All three of these initiatives were able to help us out and don't know that there's a better place to end on that. Brian, where can folks learn more about all the great stuff that you're doing?

A Quan Quan media group.com. Um, we recently did a little website redesign at the end of last year. So it's exciting. We have some case studies a little bit more about us. But that's it. I'm excited. I think the whole industry should get amped. I think we're gonna have a really good rest of this year.

There's a law, a lot of business for everyone. And I think there's a lot of good things coming. And, um, I think we just got to hang on for a few more weeks and the tide's going to turn and we're going to have a really nice spring into the remainder of the year. So , it's only up from here. If you found this to be how for interesting or engaging any of that, please share it with somebody else who could benefit as always make sure to smash that subscribe button down there in the corner.