Joe Quattrone: Building A Brand That Adapts and Thrives

Welcome back to another episode of out-of-home insider today's episode is all about building and scaling marketing teams, cultures that consistently overachieving outperform, and how to do it in a work from home world joined by Joel Quattrone, SVP, and head of marketing at the Sasha group west, a Vayner X company.

We'll take a peek under the hood of the tip of the sphere. That is the Sasha group, an O of social media marketing in the truest sense, and a student of advertising's roots, Joe offers a unique perspective that is equal parts, executive leadership, and practical tactical insight that you can use today. To impact your organization or the brands you work with?

Joe talks about the brands he sees leaning into out of home advertising and offers insight that will be sure to spur some new ideas or dust off some old ones. And if you ever want to get some new ideas, make sure to check out one screen.ai and sign up for our newsletter. It's filled with insights, tips, and opportunities for brands and marketers to predictably scale in any market.

Check out one screen.ai and sign up. Without further ado. Let's go welcome everybody to the out-of-home insider show the podcast like no other hosted by the one and only Tim Rowe.

You ready to have some knowledge dropped on. You went to be entertained because nothing is more valuable than food for your brain. So sit back, relax. We're about to dive in as the best industry podcast is the bathroom.

Joe. Thanks so much for being here. I'm really looking forward to our conversations. Me too, Tim. Thanks for having absolutely. So let's start, let's start at the beginning. How did you get into advertising? You've got a bit of a unique, uh, origin story. I know that you you've had aspirations being a CMO and are certainly a, you know, well on the trajectory to do with that, but maybe start folks with, with how you got into, into advertising.

Uh, yeah. Uh, it was at a very young age. Um, when I was 21 ish, uh, I had a, another, uh, life altering moment in my, you know, happened to me at that point. I had not started college. Um, I was 300 pounds. Uh, I was working, you know, I was, I was still, you know, doing my bit, uh, as a member of society, I was acting as a accounts payable rep for an it firm.

So I was learning a little bit about business math and working for controller. Um, but yeah, I was overweight. I drank too much. I'd probably smoked a little bit too much dope, uh, that kind of stuff. Uh, really wasn't motivated to do anything coming out of high school. I had no idea what I wanted to do. It wasn't that I was dumb or anything like that.

I got decent grades. Highly average and very unmotivated. Um, and then, uh, I actually went through the process of, uh, my lost over a hundred pounds in nine months. Um, so I got down eventually to like 1 75 and, uh, once I saw that kind of, um, Goal setting lead to actual success. Um, and then it just, so people know how I did it.

I essentially just, I didn't set out to lose over a hundred pounds. I set out to run every day for a hundred straight days that the output of running for a hundred straight days led to me becoming more motivated that led to me running for well over a hundred straight days and led to the weight flying off with without even really having to diet.

But then again, I was. Uh, 21 year old with a high metabolism. Um, but we're really coming out of that. It was the act of really like setting my mind to something and achieving it, seeing the success that led me to start to think about what I wanted to do with my life. Um, and I think on some of those days where I was running around the lake in Reston, Virginia, that, uh, I started putting my sights on what was next for me.

And, um, the thing that I kept coming to was, uh, collectibles. Oddly enough, everybody in my life around me was a collector of some sorts, my dad and my uncle collected cars and motorcycles. And, um, you know, in any kind of knickknacks, my dad used to collect old school refrigerators, like cook cope, refrigerators that he'd find animals and he always wanted to fix things up.

And, um, so I started thinking about what it was that made. Things have intrinsic value. Why did people like to collect things specifically with brand icons and logos on them? Um, and that just led me to do more research and eventually I kind of settled in on, uh, something in the creative arts, uh, cause I, I find myself to be a very idea, centric human and, uh, and I, it led me to advertising and marketing and uh, because I had just gone through such a moment.

Uh, occasion, uh, of, of goal-setting and seeing the, and seeing the benefit of that goal planning. I decided to be, to set my sights on an even more ambitious target, which was my career. And, uh, I made a very long-term but very specific goal for myself. And I've been working on that ever since I decided I wanted to be the COO of a fortune 500 company one day.

And I gave myself until my mid forties to get there. Cause I was like, well, you know, by the time I'm 45, you know, I'll be old and finished and I want to be at the top of the mountain by then. And, um, I'm 42 now I'm getting close to my 21 year old definition of old and. But, uh, you know, I, I think my goal is slightly altered since then.

I've had a lot of experience dealing with the fortune 500. Uh, so I doubt that that's really where I want to go. But, uh, being a chief market officer of a brand is, is still something that, um, that I've got some thoughts about that I think would be, uh, I think it would be interesting one day primarily, just because you get to be the person that, uh, that calls the shots and has a very large impact on the trajectory of a brand.

Um, but yeah, so that's kinda how I got my start and. Along the way somewhere in there, there's, there's a bunch of other stories about, you know, building Audi of America, uh, and their social presence getting hired by Gary V and working on a bunch of cool beer brands and stuff like that. But, uh, so yeah, there's been a lot of stuff, fun stuff in between, but, uh, but here we are, and here we are, and we're going to talk about.

At specifically what I want to ask you since you brought up the social aspect is you're an O G to the social game, right? 2008. You you've been in this since before Facebook was really even a football full-blown company. Um, what ha a lot has changed in that time before. What is something that hasn't changed?

We've seen a change 13 years is a long time for social media marketing to really be know, growing and scaling and all those things. What's something that is still just as relevant today. That was as relevant in 2008. Uh, the technology that you access, uh, social media from, uh, it has changed in the sense that it's evolved, but the importance of the hardware, uh, as always remained pretty consistent.

Uh, so I would say back in 2000, Even way before 2008, when I was, uh, operating as a professional in the social media space, um, there was the act of getting online and, you know, accessing like a MySpace or a Facebook from your desktop. Uh, eventually it morphed and became more prevalent to, to access such, uh, social platforms through your mobile device.

Uh, and I'd say. Since the advent of the iPhone, which came out roughly one year before I was active in the social media space professionally, um, the mobile phone has pretty much dominated user behavior and attention. So those things kind of go hand in hand, they're yin and yang with one another. The, the attention, um, is, is right there.

And it's, it's palpable on this device. Uh, I haven't seen it shift much. Uh, yeah, there was always. The threat of certain other areas of, uh, being able to kind of bifurcate customer attention into areas like, you know, voice and you know, what's going on on your television screen. And I'd say like by and large, you know, people do consume content on multiple different devices.

Um, but I haven't seen anything slowing down in terms of how much, uh, time and attention people spend putting their eyeballs on these things. Uh, in fact, it's only increased, um, Yeah, so, sorry. Sorry. You just triggered a thought. I just got my Storkey email. If you're listening to this, you don't know what stork is.

Go check out stork Sasha group. I wasn't hosted the episode, but we had the pleasure of having a Mr. James Orsini on gosh, it was probably about this time last year, right as stork was rolling out. And I know that, uh, some listeners of the show went and signed up for stork, but just got my stork email talking about the power of vertical video.

Obviously that's been a theme and a constant theme for the stork newsletter and that, and that product suite. Can you talk a little bit about how brands are using vertical video today? Assume that someone listening to this is maybe a media owner who's just considering, you know, should I be on social media?

How can I use video? I hear all these things talked about. Let me give me the 62nd pitch on vertical video. So vertical video is highly addictive. Uh, they call it V3 viral, vertical video. Tic-tacs Snapchat, Instagram, they've all pioneered the V3 or vertical viral video. But I think, uh, VR viral, vertical video that has a, it's a tongue twister.

I think tic-tacs really scaled it, blown it out to the next level. Uh, but by highly addictive, I mean, highly addictive. You've got people like yourself, speaking to you in a very. Authentic men are. Um, and it's not just people doing crazy skits and dances, which is what the, when it gets, you know, kind of a reputation for, I'd say one of the more powerful aspects of the three is the people that are just like yourself that are interested in the same topics that are giving you life hacks.

So whether you're a auto dealer or somebody that runs a church and you're a pastor, um, you know, if you're a copywriter. Um, you can make a, Hey as an influencer on Tik TOK by, you know, basically just being yourself and talking about the things you care about. Um, and brands should think like influencers on that platform.

Uh, you should be going out trying to add value to people's existence. So, you know, um, if you are a good example, especially in the small business world with what I do at Sasha group right now, if you're a lawyer or you're a tax accountant, if you're somebody that's in any kind of services, Uh, and you feel like you have a really strong grip on what your company does and what the value prop is.

Go on the tic-tac don't necessarily, you don't have to focus on like constantly shilling your products and services for your, you know, overarching company. Uh, but just get out there and talk about, you know, What consumer, not consumer, but what people need to know at tax time, you know, like we just went through a massive pandemic.

Is there anything different about your receivables and your taxes? Like people want to know this kind of stuff and they're going to tick tock more than they ever have been before, uh, to, to, to stumble upon content from experts like yourself. Um, so I'd say one, um, aspect is that, but I think you also have to look at the interplay between your own personal brand and your company's brand and understand the fact that they don't.

To be wholly separate entities. Uh, you can be in creating your personal brand and that can benefit the corporate brand. So you can be driving interest in and traffic into your funnel by increasing the visibility of your, you as a person and speaking of change and change management, then dapped, you know, adapting with the times and circumstances.

You were pretty early on at Vayner employee 3 25, and you've seen a lot of change take place over that. A story that I'm particularly interested in is around, um, the AB InBev and the ingestion of like the has pro-team and, um, how you went from a kind of small team to a huge team in a relatively short period of time.

If you could maybe give us a little primer on that specific instance, and then I'd like to talk through like what it, what it means to be a leader in an organization that's rapidly. Expanding and how you manage personalities and workflows and all of those things. So maybe, maybe if you could just start us with the context, we can unpack that a bit.

Sure. See if, to understand like anything I do, I can only do because I'm already operating in a really great harmonious framework. So because I, I came into Vayner at an era in which Gary was really concentrating on top line revenue and growth. Anyway, um, we were less concerned about, um, Stewing over our losses and stuff like that.

It was more about how do we add revenue and keep our nucleus of highly talented people. Um, and I also, you know, being in client service for a number of years prior to that, I had seen. Some of the most heartbreaking things like my own agency, losing Audi of America, which was the brand that I built on social media, for lack of a better terminology.

Uh, so I know that they're in many service oriented businesses. It's much like a product life cycle, right? There's always a beginning and an end and it's usually in a donut shape there. You're going to go through, uh, uprising and you're going to go through a tumultuous time where eventually relationships ended must your Saatchi and Saatchi and Toyota.

Pretty much where everybody in advertising breakup. So, uh, when I got to Vayner, um, Gary put me on AB InBev, which was really small at the time. It was like maybe three employees. Wow. One brand. We, we executed a project for Budweiser, but we have one retainer which was shock top. And then on the other hand, I got, I inherited.

Um, the Hasbro account, which was in its like six year of existence. Um, there were really good relationships there. I think it was just, uh, you know, some things had gotten stale and I know there were some, some challenges working together, uh, in terms of like, you know, sow writing and kind of what we were doing and what we were getting paid for.

And. Yeah, you scope creep and all that kind of stuff. Um, but there was a little bit more, you know, toxicity over on that end, even though there was 20, 30 people over there and there was far less people in, uh, in, in a newer relationship that had more promise over on the ABN bedside. Uh, so eventually, you know, Uh, six months to a year in, uh, to my working at Vayner, uh, we had gone in and we had sold in bud light and Stella and some other brands I think, but like Rita's and lime.

And also we had, we had been creating some palpable energy and momentum on the ABN bedside. Uh, but Hasbro was still, you know, kind of plateauing to declining. Uh, and so me and Aja Gary's brother, uh, and Gary. But at our heads together and decided maybe my focus should be more in the AB InBev world and growing that versus managing Hasbro, which was very challenging.

And time-consuming um, so I went and focused on ABM Bev. And about six months after that point, uh, the Hasbro AB InBev at Hasbro, Hasbro of intermediate, a relationship had gotten severed, uh, and Hasbro decided to go in a different direction. Um, because I had. Experience and exposure with a lot of the folks that were on some of those teams, like the Nerf and Mon monopoly teams and all the kind of stuff.

Uh, I got a chance to, um, you know, see where the players were in that organization and, and understand who might be good, uh, on some of my other accounts as we were growing. Uh, so I kind of lucked into one of the biggest advantages of all time, a CEO that was growth oriented and top line revenue oriented.

Uh, uh, you know, uh, orchid, uh, uh, system of brands that was growing and building over time, we were building a lot of reputation in the hallways of AB InBev. So we were winning contracts, um, pretty at a pretty frequent clip without much of a hard sell. Uh, it's not like I was answering a ton of RFPs. A lot of it was organic growth.

Um, and then we had a supply of talent in the building already that was getting ready to be free agents, essentially because we were getting ready to lose a massive plant in the building. Um, so we were able to kind of move quickly. And, and match the rate of growth that ABN Bev was seeing. And I think that was key in being able to hit a few things out of the park in the early stages of our relationship, uh, because if I had to go out and hire all those people that we needed to hire, um, off the street, uh, it would have sapped a lot more of my time, energy, attention costs.

Uh, you know, what most people don't realize is that there's a cost associated with hiring that kind of gets swept under the rug. Um, You know, you have to invest a lot of time writing job specs, interviewing people, hiring them, training them in just to get them up to level of replacement in both cases. Um, so in that sense, like it was a godsend, it was a blessing that, uh, Hasbro was exiting as a BFF is growing.

Um, but I'd say that was only like part of the growth story of AB and Bev. The, in the very early stage of it, the second part of it was more. Uh, I mean, it was, it was based on the work and the tremendously talented strategists and creative that were doing such a good job. Uh, but as we started adding in clients like Budweiser in the U S and, uh, and some other brands, um, uh, one of the ways in which I was kind of leading the team, uh, was based on, you know, my interpretation of what Garrett.

Do holistically. So what I saw in the market at the time was, uh, a tremendous amount of focus on this, on the mobile device, as I've mentioned before, and specifically within that universe video. So a couple of things have been happening in the years prior 2014, the month I got there, we had an all hands.

Uh, organic reach, going to basically nothing on Facebook because they created a pay to play environment. They were getting ready to roll out blue app for mobile. They were getting ready to launch all their targeted ads, uh, you know, that whole ecosystem of ad products. Uh, and they were sitting on really good data and we.

Because Gary was a disaster in Facebook, so there was not much we could do it. Didn't really make sense, sitting around crying over spilled milk and, and, you know, wishing the world will go back to organic. Um, so instead, you know, I kind of looked at the market and said, all right, here's a data point over here, which is, you know, things are going to have to go pay to play.

Plus Facebook is going to begin becoming. Much more robust in terms of their ad delivery mechanisms. Uh, you know, the actual, you know, capacity of, of the, the devices on iPhones and Androids were getting better. At the time I started looking at Mary beaker reports, like state of the internet, um, and noticing all the hockey stick like trends that were, that were happening in broadband internet, uh, you know, multiple device for household penetration and every country around the world.

And it was only expected to grow. Um, not infinitely, but obviously at a steep incline for five more years to come. So I knew we had a long run rate, uh, to be focused on video delivery. Um, and at that point we really weren't there yet. So I just kinda put the challenge out to the team and I just kept reiterating over and over again, uh, to anybody that would listen.

But I said, we're going to be the best that we'll have the world at creating. Uh, videos for mobile phones and the best in the world at distributing them to the phones because nobody understood social like we did. So that implied to inherit things. It implied that we had to be really good at creative making videos specifically.

And we had to be really good at paid media, understanding how to get the, uh, the videos to people so that they can consume them. Um, and that also, and when I say kind of. Comes from Gary's vision. I mean, that's, that's exactly like a direct ripoff from Gary's vision. Gary always has been a person that wants to, he's never understood why creative and media didn't exist within the same roof anyway, uh, because he doesn't come from an advertising perspective, I just came with a different.

The frame, the vision so that my team would understand what our primary objective was over the next couple of years. And we went out and we dominated. So for, I don't know, the five years that I ran AB InBev, I think we wound up doing something between 400 and 500 incremental video projects for mobile phones.

And that was above and beyond what our retainers look like. Uh, so. Yeah, it kind of worked. Yeah. No, it's, it's pretty remarkable. And, and in, in, uh, convergence, um, the stars aligning and one account going out, we've got the team already in place. They know the culture, they know the people, they will just absorb them and, and blow this up.

And that makes, that makes good sense. How, how have you, you know, I, I see it, I see it from, you know, a lot of members of the Vayner team that. Even through this work from home remote work environment, like culture is paramount and it doesn't, it's not like, you know, you can tell when it's forced, right? Like everybody shared this post on social today, you know, go comment on Joe's post.

Right? It's not that like the team at Vayner loves being on the team of vain. Uh, how are, how are you, how has the culture changed in this remote work from home world? Has it changed if at all and what things are you maybe doing different to continue to cultivate that as the dynamic has changed, not being an office.

Um, I think that I can't speak for Vayner media cause I don't work there anymore. So I don't really Sasha. Yeah. I think that them all on there, I still have a lot of friends there and I, you know, anecdotally I know that they've really reacted pretty positively well to the pandemic as well, but Sasha group specifically, I think the reason why we've had some success there with the pandemic and being able to grow revenues and uh, in grow head count during a really challenging time.

Yeah, we didn't, we didn't see it as a handicap. Right? Like coming into the pandemic, I'd say March, we took a really big gut punch from a revenue perspective because all of our clients did. Right. So immediately, nobody really knew what was going on. And, um, and we took a gut punch just like everybody else did.

Because as, as, as clients supply chains got wrecked, uh, they couldn't afford to pay their bills. Right. You know, uh, well that couldn't afford it, but they weren't certain about the future. So they pause some payments and stuff like that, but we weathered that storm pretty well. We got out there immediately and, and acted with compassion and empathy and started talking to all of our clients and really just wanted to check in with them and see how we could help, uh, strategically, um, as a partner.

Um, and then after that, we didn't really sit around, you know, sitting on our hands. We developed a suite of products that we could sell online virtually. Um, you know, we're, we're kind of like an iteration of what we used to do in person, um, to just kind of be able to get over the hurdle. And, uh, I think the interesting part about that time was that, um, I don't know, I can't speak for everybody, but I can know me myself.

I was looking for an education experience. I was looking to learn. Um, you know, about how we could make virtual happen and perpetuity because some, one of my six senses was that this thing is not going to end for a while. And the future of marketing is probably contained within the learnings that we get out of the next two years.

Um, so how can I, how can we go in there and start perfecting some of these, uh, zoom. Events, uh, zoom platforms, uh, or Google meet, whatever your preference may be teams. Uh, but how can we take advantage of, um, this blessing in disguise essentially? Like one of the things I don't think most people realize is that, um, the pandemic basically accelerated our adoption of, of, uh, augmented and virtual reality and our need for connected internet, uh, and ha.

You know, bro enough broadband to have conversations like this by about five years, like we're doing right now in 2021, which wasn't ticketed or targeted and being possible until 20, 26 that's fathomable, right? Like in 2008, we could have never weathered a pandemic like this because we could have never been on one zoom call without a single interruption.

Now I can be on 10 in a day. Um, so, um, so the way I look at it, Th we've got this massive opportunity where technology is, is closer and more accessible than it ever has been. Why not get a leg up when everybody else I'll let everybody else go out there and complain about why they can't be in an office.

I don't care. I'm going to learn how to adjust and survive and not only survive, but thrive. And I think that's why companies like Vayner X, uh, you know, thrive in, in areas like this. Cause we've got founder that that's in his DNA. You know, it's change. Change is the only constant. Oh yeah. I got introduced to Gary whenever.

Thank you. Economy came out and read that book and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, this guy, I grew up not far from me in New Jersey. We went to, he sold baseball cards at the mall. I got my prom tuxedo from like, I felt like I, you know, knew Gary in this way, but he's been talking. Listen to your point for well over a decade, um, and something that I've only ever heard.

James, we're seeing you talk about that. If you can offer any insight around, this is my one Gary specific question is I heard James, uh, on a podcast. Talk about. Early on. It was about building a, a structure of senior level executives around Gary to give Gary a brand, to, to scale the Gary V brand. Can you speak to that at all?

It's you know, I think generally folks think about, you know, let me find, you know, junior level folks generalists, but there was a very specific focus on now we're going to build out a senior. Level executive team to scale this crazy fast. Can you offer any insight around that? Well, so I can speak, so I came into the company a little bit before James, so I can not, I don't know if I can tell you exactly what he was thinking when he said that, but I can try that.

Give you some context around what the company looked like when I started versus what came after, there was some more build-out of the senior leadership team or the cabinet or whatever you want to call it. Um, the chiefs, if you will. Um, so when I got to Vayner as employee 3 25, I was one of the oldest people outside of Gary, right.

There was not a lot of people that, and I was 35 at the time. Um, I wasn't that old, but I, you know, I was, I was 35. And, um, I was one of the older people Gary was getting ready to go through. I think one of the reasons I was hired was because I fit a specific, um, you know, quadrant of the Venn diagram. I can, you know, on one hand there was this part of the Venn diagram, which was like, can you talk to CMOs?

Right? Without like, you know, becoming too overwhelmed. And then on the other end was. Do you actually understand social media, right? You merge those two ends of the Venn diagram. There's very few people that, that actually matched both of them and the ones that did were a little bit on the younger and less experienced side.

Right. Cause they knew they knew social media, but they didn't necessarily have. The stature of knowing how to interact and mingle with like the most senior people in business. Um, and the ones that did have that senior experience typically only understood how to make TV events. Right? Cause that's the, the people that have been around for 15 years, they've been doing integrated marketing campaigns, TV ads, stuff like that.

Um, there wasn't somebody that looked like me. There was maybe like, I dunno, a couple dozen of us that existed that had been operating since 2008 or B or before that. Um, so I came in. Uh, really to help, you know, kind of take over big, huge portfolios like AB and Bev, Hasbro, stuff like that, GE uh, and then they hired a slew of people like me.

Then they hired my old boss, Mark Evans, who now is at Sasha group have made a hire Maribel, Laura, who also at the Sasha group with me now. Um, there is a raft of as Katie Hankinson similar, uh, And we all can't manage to build out these portfolios and really give a senior level of client oversight while understanding social media strategically.

Then they started bringing in the. The, um, the C-suite members and James is one of them. Um, they brought in a new CFO eventually. Uh, they started, uh, you know, a chief creative officer. At some point we hired a chief strategy officer, um, and all of that was done in my opinion, to, uh, give us more scale, uh, not only from a.

You know, we need to be able to like pull down the Fort. So Gary can go off and build out more departments and like, and help grease the skids of, uh, of being able to bring in more clients. But I also think part of it was around the same time. Gary started really focusing on his personal brand. So prior to that moment, he had written a few books.

He was pretty, he was already pretty famous on Twitter. Um, but you know, circuit 2015, he hired deraq. They started filming the clouds and the dirt content launched as Gary V uh, after that, uh, you know, daily V followed a couple of years later. Um, but a lot of Gary's time and efforts started going towards building.

You know, the Gary V brand more as well. And that's been a massive part of our, of our business development funnel. As Gary gets more famous Vayner X gross for all of the different companies that we own now benefit from people wanting to get close to Gary V one on one to work with Gary B. Um, so I do believe that people like James were brought in to help scale Gary, in which way he specifically intended it to be.

I'm not sure. I just know kind of the way it worked out. Um, we wound up acquiring a bunch of companies. We wound up building a lot more department, stand a lot more companies from scratch. Uh, and you need, if you're going to do stuff like that, you need to have really sound financials and people that have operated at these types of scales, like James and Alan, and you know, various different leaders that have done it before you were 3 25.

How big is the team today? All the Vayner properties. If you had to stick a pin in it, any idea how many people that. I don't have an accurate number, but, uh, I've heard whispers that it's, uh, in the 1100 range, maybe that includes like, you know, I think Gary owns like 10 or 11 companies now we're operational on most continents.

Um, we're in Mexico city. We're in, we've got a small little crew of people out in Australia. Expanded pretty rapidly from what I understand and APAC. Uh, so we've got Singapore, but then there's a bunch of regional hubs as well. Uh, I believe the plan is, is, is to get more expanded down in south America.

That's why Mexico city's there, but I wouldn't put it past us to open something up in south America, proper, uh, one of these days. Um, but we were fully integrated. So where we were originally, when I came in and we were a community management focused shop and, uh, social media marketing, specifically focused shop.

Now we're fully integrated. So, you know, VaynerMedia the big SIS big brother or whatever you want to call them. Um, you know, strategy, media, creative project management, account management, uh, the whole nine yards. Uh, there's not a thing we can't do under the marketing umbrella. Um, so typically when you, when you offer that level of service, you're gonna grow up.

You're gonna have. Yeah. And because I know you're a student of advertised thing, it's been a, a hot button issue. My response is Ogilvy made plenty of money before there was anything like data and targeting and measurement. As we see more of these things, roll out, as we see privacy become really the forefront of like brand positioning of how do you use.

Data responsibly as a brand. What, what are you most excited about as we maybe detach ourselves from this? Everything has to be attributable. What are you most excited about as an advertising purist, um, and maybe this little bit of a reset for, for data in the advertising conversation. So I think just like experiencing the world in new and unique ways.

Like, I, I always like seeing, um, you know, seeing the world kind of move along at a faster pace. So one of the things that I keep, I get this question, I'm not this specific question a lot, but I do get. Primarily from, I get asked from a lot of people that I mentor or I get asked from people that are entering into the marketing world, um, that see my career and want to model after it.

And they asked me, well, what would you do if you were me? Or how would you get to where you are if you were me? In my response to them is usually not. I wouldn't want to be me if I were you. I wouldn't want to be to what is going to be relevant 20 years from now, 15 years from now. And my answer to them is like, look, when I planned.

To be in social media back in the day, it didn't happen specifically because I wanted to be in social media. It happened because I, I walked through the windows of opportunities as they were open for me. And, um, and I think most people should do the same thing. We should all have an eye on what we think is going to be the elixir of the economy in 2035.

And so from that perspective, if I had to like start today, And just go into like hardcore research mode and trying to figure out how to shape my life and career, which honestly, I probably will do that at some point as well. Uh, I don't want like Gary, I don't want to get tied down in to specific to like what I'm doing now to get too romantic about this is the way this has to be the way.

And that's what ruined TV and magazines and all that kind of stuff. Um, if I had to look at what I think is going to be relevant, To 60 year old bay or to, you know, my daughter when she's 21, um, I would say. Spend time understanding the blockchain, spend time understanding, um, anything VR, AR uh, virtual and augmented reality, uh, understand psychology and communications, understand empathy.

Um, we as humans are evolving as well, and we're being asked to do more than we ever have been in the past on less time. Um, That's okay. It's not a bad thing. I don't think, I think it's just, we're learning how to take more advantage of who we are as a species and our time that we're being given on this earth.

Um, so some of these technologies are going to aid us in, in being able to just comprehend and process all of that information. Um, so I wouldn't be really interested in understanding those things. Cause I think the world is going to revolve around them. I think I could very, I can very well see. Uh, and, and, and I say this just because there's a multitude of side benefits that could come of this.

Could you imagine a world in which Gary V doesn't have to get on a plane to go give a speech in Tokyo? He can just beam his hologram there, and it's just the same thing. And people would pay just as much money for it. Um, I can, and guess what not, he's not far off. We'd save a ton of carbon emissions, not sign Gary beads 250 cities a year.

Now. I don't know if that's how many he traveled before the pandemic. It's the, but I know he was on the road a lot. Um, so those are the types of things I'd be embracing. I don't want to be on zooms all day long, but I don't mind. I think it'd be kind of cool to have a leadership meeting. You know, I can be in my house, but it also feels like we're in a conference room for Hudson yards because all of our, you know, likenesses or PR or representative.

Um, so, uh, you know, I think that'll also spill into our communications as well. Uh, the other thing I think about is in your industry out of home, like for so long things revolved around the city and, uh, and now things are coming back out to the suburbs and to the excerpts and they're, they're inventing terms like excerpts and stuff like that.

But what are the opportunities there? Like if somebody's spending all their day in, um, you know, back-to-back zoom conferences and then like me breaking up the monotony by going for a walk around the neighborhood, how do you reach them in those moments that aren't, you know, you might not have a billboard opportunity, but there's probably some opportunity in there to kind of reach them when they're, you know, ramping up or ramping down from their current work day.

And it's not just look out the window, see the billboard, right. Uh, so. That's super interesting to me as well. Like what are the, the population migration patterns and what is the world gonna look like? Are we going to continue to have our industry revolve around cities like New York and Atlanta and Miami LA Chicago, San Francisco?

Or is it going to be a little bit more stratified? Are we going to be, you know, more of like a global. Community that happens to be in different locations. And it's one of the reasons I'm so excited to be an out of home at this time. It feels like being maybe like early Google, like Google, you know, 2002, um, before things really explode because out of home has that power to create real world.

Variances and it's based on movement. If we don't, we don't need data and targeting, oh, you want to target people that go to the gym? Well, Hey, there's a billboard outside the gym, or there's an advertising opportunity in the gym. If you want to target people based on real-world behavior, there's no better way to do it than without.

In, in, in the brands that you work with, uh, social groups really focused on that 1 million to $250 million company. How do you advise those folks around something like out of home? Do you have clients that are using out of home are having more conversations about the use of out of home? What are you seeing on that?

I think it really depends on which, what type of company it is, um, where I've seen the most interest in out-of-home is from, uh, startups that are building out double-sided marketplaces. So things that look like rideshare programs, things that look like, um, apps that involve getting a, a buyer and a seller, a, so you have two ends of the spectrum of what you're trying to like create.

Community and membership. Um, so, you know, anytime you have that kind of thing where you're trying to create a buyer seller marketplace ecosystem, um, you typically want to. Take advantage of, you know, geolocation. You want to take advantage of local cultures, uh, things like live, read on the radio as well, works in that environment.

Um, but I'd say it's typically on, it's kind of ironic because it's, I've seen, I've seen it more on the higher ticket clients and, but not in the old school, traditional CPG marketers, it's more on the. You know, very well endowed, VC funded companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank that are going to try to spend a lot of cash, very fast to gain some notoriety.

Uh, they're using the, the marketing mix a little bit more, uh, and a little bit more of an integrated fashion. Whereas your CPG brands that we deal with that are smaller, uh, maybe they're a little mom and pop service companies, stuff like that. Um, they're really focused on. Scaling their business, uh, from a digital transformation perspective.

So they've been doing terrestrial stuff for years and years. Maybe they've taken out ads in the yellow pages. Maybe they've done some, you know, spot marketing here and there on billboards, or they've run some local TV, uh, ads. Uh, but when they come to us, they've got limited funds and they're looking to spend them, uh, very surgically and that's typically more digital transformation.

So getting them on. Something like Facebook and Instagram on Google, YouTube, and just activating in the mid to lower funnel, uh, can help them, uh, you know, recognize some immediate dividends. Uh, so it really just depends. I'm not in my, and I, again, I've only been doing this at the Sasha group now for a year and a half.

Um, I can't necessarily speak for Mark Evans or James or CD or Mickey cloud, and some other folks that do business development. What they've seen, what I've seen specifically is when we have customers that are interested in, um, an out-of-home and it's primarily coming from, I would say, closer to that $250 million range of annual revenues, and they're predominantly newer companies, um, startups, tech companies, people that they're, they're generating income via apps since stuff.

It's funny because I'm going to snip this clip, Mike from production. If you could just intentionally snip this clip for me, we're building a two-sided marketplace, that one screen for out of home advertising because it's funky and hard to buy and fragmented. Because we want to make it accessible to a lot of the types of companies that, that you mentioned there.

And that's really who we're having a lot of success with. They've spent as much money as they can on Facebook. And all right, you obviously affected by some of the iOS updates and looking for ways to diversify the media mix and turning to out of home. Uh, so gosh, I couldn't have paid you to give a better answer to that.

So traditionally commerce company, so like traditional DTC companies, Predominantly just trying to figure out how to sell product on Amazon or their website. And if it, if Facebook's not as effective from a ROAS perspective, as it was nine months ago, now they're trying to figure out how to set up, you know, a more robust DSP and like get into OTT and all that kind of stuff.

But, um, Yeah. I mean, th the two-sided marketplace thing, for some reason, I always hear about radio podcasting. Out-of-home like, that stuff comes up. When I talked to those guys for some reason, it's an exciting time. It makes, it makes a, it makes me feel good about starting a podcast about out of home, the convergence of those two things.

I want to bring us home on this thought, um, here, cause I've heard you talk to it and even just, you know, just getting to know you is. How important is setting intentional time for thinking in this world where we're so focused on production and work from home, I can get more done and do all these things.

How important is time to just think? I mean, I think it's super important. Um, I, again, I'm, I'm like a very goal oriented individual, so, and I think one of the things that Gary always reminds people of that's resonated with me over the year is understanding the difference between the macro and the. Right.

And understanding that they're always going on at the same time. Like it's okay to be busy and hustling in the micro while always kind of slowing down and taking a look at the broader spectrum of the macro. Um, so for me, it's just really making sure that you have the right tools to be able to do the thinking and that you're setting aside the right amount of time.

Um, so in James likes to bring up an example, um, um, and he's used it from time to time called the Eisenhower matrix. Uh, so I went out and found that. An app on the, on the iTunes store called focus matrix was just essentially an Eisenhower matrix. And, uh, what it does is it, it splits your tasks up into quadrants and you've got one that's important and urgent one that's important and not urgent one, that's not important, but urgent.

And then one that's not important or urgent. And the goal is to kind of move stuff through that matrix and be able to like, you know, out of the a hundred things you have to do, if you. You know, if you can move seven to the, you know, the red matrix, which is, you know, important and urgent, that helps you think through that a hundred, those a hundred tasks, and be able to put a better effort towards what really matters while if you've got stuff going on in other quadrants, you can either delay those initiatives or you can delegate them out to something of your team members.

Uh, so I find that. It's not just important to think, but it's also important to know how to think and ha, and how to create a framework for yourself that allows you to do the thinking that you need to do. Um, so that's one way is an Eisenhower matrix or a focus matrix. Um, another way that I've been able to, um, to, to really get into this with my team, and I would recommend people do it specifically with their inner circle.

You know, adding, you know, start figuring out communication styles as you go out. Um, but understanding the communication flow and the style of people that you work with. Um, and having in, in setting those intentions at the beginning of a relationship are very important. Um, so I've established my team, um, A very specific and strict protocol of how, of, of kind of what the rules of engagement are.

Um, with me and my time specifically, because I don't have a lot of it. I'm a father of three kids and they're all young, they're six, five, and one. And now granted those people on my team didn't do anything to, you know, warrant having a boss that has that kind of lifestyle. I think it's really important for me to tell them this is who I am.

This is what my life looks like. Therefore, these are the types of ways that communicating for me is going to be effective for you, right? Like it's for it's for the benefit of you, that you understand how my life and how to reach me to be most effective. And it's also, it works both ways. It's important for me to understand your lifestyle.

So I can understand the culture in which you work with it. Right? So if you're a community manager and you spend all day long in slack talking to team members across the country, and I'm over here sending you text messages that you're not looking at, because your phone's plugged in across the room, then it's kind of shame on me.

I didn't really get into your mindset. And it's me. That is the person that came to you with request. Um, so just kind of understanding that teams operate. In a way in which you can psychologically understand them. Like the teams can operate like an individual and if you can hack it, the psychology of how that team operates in unison with one another.

Um, I find that as long as you're being transparent about what you're doing, and you're setting it up that way in advance, you get a much better result from your team. But I don't have a lot of, because I don't have a lot of people complaining to me. Right. Like people don't come to me complaining that they can't get ahold of me.

Uh, even though I'm very busy all the time, it's because they know how to get ahold of me. They know that, um, if they really want to, if they want a response from me, if they want me to approve something they've done and they want it in five minutes that they got to send me a text or they've got to send me a Marco polo, just like, I know that if I need to get my producer of stork Eric to do something, uh, that I'm probably going to have to send them a slack and a text, right.

Those two levels of female communication we'll use. Um, and I think that's just kind of, it, it's kind of figuring out what the unlock codes are for the people in your life. Uh, and as long as you're adhering to them, like usually attitudes and behaviors are pretty good. Most people don't get angry, they don't get hostile.

Um, and they actually appreciate it a lot more. So, um, that's kind of. You know the last bit, I'll kind of the part I know we talked about a right before we got on here was, um, understanding you and yourself. Like for me, I told you Rick, before we get on here, like I I'm an introvert. I really, I get my energy from like my one time, my one-on-one time with myself and being able to carve out some of the.

Longer blocks on my calendar, where I can think deeply and strategically on a project that gives me a lot of, uh, benefit and a lot of energy, um, being on zoom calls all day, they drain the energy out. Um, so what I noticed early in the year is that I was getting into a bad habit of just accepting all invites that came onto my calendar.

And I know better than that, like, so it didn't take me long to nip it in the bud and kind of course. Correct. Um, but it was more. Why I decided to have a communication with my team about it that I think has led to a more harmonious kind of atmosphere. Um, I actually went and did a survey. I wouldn't say a scientific survey.

I pulled some people on LinkedIn, but I did get about 75 responses back. And from what I was learning from my cohorts and peers in the industry was that he really shouldn't be on more than like three to five meetings a day. Right. Um, so I started trying to bring that back into my life and I told my team.

Let's just try this, see how it works. Um, no more than five zoom calls a day. Right. Let's just cap it. And if, if we need to have more meetings in that, we're just not ha we're not, we're not using meetings the right way. So I wanted to encourage them to understand why they were creating meetings, what the purpose of it was, and being more strict with themselves about how they set them up.

So I usually require all my people, if you set up. You own that meeting, you're responsible for notes. Um, urine spots are responsible for writing, uh, inviting people. If you mark people as optional, they truly are optional and they have the option of not coming if they don't want to. Uh, or if they can't. Uh, so don't, don't get into any politics about optional versus not optional.

Like if you meet it, if they're optional, they can be optional. And it's, it's your responsibility to understand if they don't show. And you needed them there, then they shouldn't have been optional. I also make people put in, uh, uh, objectives of meetings and agendas of meetings. Uh, that way, if it's a 15 minute meeting, I can understand whether we can actually get through the talking points and 15 minutes, uh, that also helps me and people like James and mark.

Um, because if, if three people invite us to the same meeting to, to, uh, to three different meetings at the same time, and we're sitting there trying to evaluate which meeting to take and which meeting to push off it for me, the winner always is the one that is, that gives me the more detailed meeting agenda, because if you're just putting something on Willy nilly and not telling me what the meeting is for and what you want the outcome to be.

I assume that this is just a think tank meeting that could be handled in different fashion. Um, and, uh, the other thing I've done is I've, I've paid for my employees Markopolos subscription. So if you really think you need to get a team together to think about a topic and align on a, on an issue, send a group art, Marco polo, you know, we'll, you know, we'll get it as a message.

I also make them keep, uh, keep the notifications turned on so that I can guarantee that the messages come through to them. Um, but once they do come through to them, then, okay, we're getting a message that comes through in the form of something like a text. So it's immediate for people that are more tethered to their phone.

Um, but then we're also getting a context, right? We're getting facial expressions, we're getting a tone of voice coming through. Uh, we're getting the message the way that it was intended to be inside of a meeting, setting the main differences. Everybody that's on the team that needs to weigh in, can watch the meeting at their own timeframe.

It doesn't have to be immediate. It could be, you know, within a five hour timeframe, you're still going to get your answers from all of us. Uh, but you don't have to like, navigate this confusing labyrinth of like five people's schedules, just to pick out the 15 minute meeting, uh, to just put something on people's calendars, it's going to drive them nuts anyway.

Um, so that's kind of how. Handling time right now is, is understanding myself, understanding the broader team and then trying to put measures in place that can kind of streamline our lifestyles that make working from home, working, remote, working on zoom all the time palatable. Um, and I think it's working.

This has been a master's class, John, I can't thank you enough. I think that the audience is going to get a lot of value out of this. As the workforce is the team dynamics are constantly changing as advertising, as social media marketing continues to change and how all of those things fit together. This has been awesome.

How can folks get in touch with you, find you? Where are you most active, um, plug Sasha groups to work? Give them the lat-long. Um, I think a good, um, A good place to reach me. If you wanted to chat about all things, life, business marketing would be LinkedIn. I haven't been as active as I'd like to be. Uh, it's life is getting catching up to me with like birthdays and stuff like that.

Um, but, uh, but yeah, I do check LinkedIn at least once a day. So feel free to DMV there. It's just, just search my name, Joseph  Joel Quattrone or super Quatro, which is usually my handle and most social properties. Uh, I do get on Twitter and Instagram, uh, every once in a while. So it can be. Awesome. We'll make sure to link out to all that below.

We'll make sure to link to Sasha group. We'll make sure to link to stork. If you're not on stork, you should be. It's just weekly content and a great group, and just access to a ton of information. And, uh, especially in today where it's so busy, you do a really great. Curating top actual tactical and practical insights.

So Joe, thank you. And if anybody wants to join stork, uh, I'll offer 10% off to your audience. Just try this DME on LinkedIn and let me know. Uh, and, uh, I'll arrange to have a link sent over to you that you can apply to the. The discount on at checkout. Uh, typically our product is $300 for 12 months. Um, but obviously I'll give you the 10% off and it would be 30 bucks off that product.

So, um, come hang out, learn from us, learn from, uh, the, the Sasha group folks. Uh, it's not Gary V specific content. It's just people that have worked a long time for Gary V in there, uh, doing the how to stuff. In fact, James, uh, I think holds the record for our most successful one. He, uh, He did a how to do a business plan, a episode of store back in like January.

And I think it helped one of our stork members onboard a massive investment in their company. So, uh, you can get your money there just by watching his content trust. Awesome. Have you found this to be helpful? I encourage you to share with somebody else who could benefit, make sure. Smash that subscribe button down below in the corner and we'll see y'all next time, quarter century.

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