One question an amazing lineup of ceos founders and experts. This is marketing for the now. Can you hear me in a second thank you so much that made me feel sick, hello, gary hi hi, it's tic-tac thursday. I am super excited for this one.

This, i think, will bring a lot of value to a lot of people um. Obviously, i've been on this game since it was called musically here in the united states and so it'll be very exciting to see what uh, what these incredible leaders in marketing have to say, and it's great to see. Everybody shirley wu ryan, terry zen, rasta morgan here on linkedin liz on uh linkedin, simon, on youtube. Thank you for joining us at marketing for now andrea.

How was your uh? How was your uh new years how's your first month of 2022? How are you it's been? It's been awesome, i feel really lucky my my family's healthy um and we're launching things like crazy. As you know gary, so it's uh, it's been, it's been a great ride. Yeah, let's get into it. I know we started hair loss, yeah we're gon na go deep.

Today we got a two-hour session, we're gon na kick things off with chris brant we're bringing him back again. Chris is chief marketing officer of tick tock, doing some really cool st at tic, toc, chief marketing officer at chipotle, doing some great stuff on on tick tock. We're so happy to have you back chris? Oh thanks for having me back. I don't know whether that's i did a bad job the first time, and so i'm getting a redo or i don't know no, no self-deprecation here from good work.

Chris chris get right into it, um for everybody, listening because we've only got seven minutes here, so, let's pack it in for everybody listening how is chipotle such an at under your helm, has been so good at contemporary marketing. Truly one of the few brands that i watch from a farm like that crew over there gets it um. Have you been thinking about it and, what's kind of like on your mind, yeah well, thank you for saying that. I think that um, you know all credit to the team.

We've really assembled an amazing team, and i think that you know we we set out in 2018, when most of us started at chipotle to be more visible, more relevant and more loved and a big part of that was being on social and uh. You know, and i think that we just wanted to make sure we were doing the right things, um and the right way and wherever we appear and i think that you need to appear, you know people call it omnichannel. We used to call it 360 degree marketing. Whatever, wherever you need, wherever you are, you have to appear there the right way, and i think that that's the big part, your creative can't be the same on snapchat as on tick tock, as it is on tv as it is anywhere else and the team just Does a fabulous job of figuring out the other about figuring out where the intersection of culture and chipotle lives, because we can't jump on every trend.

We shouldn't jump on every trend. Some of them don't fit us yes, but in the case of tick tock i mean we jumped on that. We we were talking about tick tock as a place that our consumers are back at the end of 2018. But we didn't have a good idea to go on tick tock in a really real, quick and real quick.

I'm sorry to interrupt. I i'm i'm vibing with all this. This is an insight for a lot of marketers watch. This show, so i want to help them and i actually want to get the insight here.

Ideas are everything and then the execution is everything right. A brand - and i couldn't agree with you more - your constituents are were on there from day. One and again, i think the accolades i gave you is because i do think you're moving faster and more native than a lot of your contemporaries in fortune 5000 marketing world. But one thing you just said did catch my attention: does it run through your mind or the brand's team's mind, the teammates, the agency partners, that you don't necessarily when a platform is that meaningful need a core idea like a campaign you just need to actually be In the game that you know, is there ever a debate of like okay yeah, we don't have our idea yet, but let's actually make content from having a day-to-day pulse versus a core idea, or did you or do you normally or or always or sometimes feel? No, i want to go in with an id and then we'll start figuring out the day to day after, because i think it's an interesting nuance that i'm very curious what your take on that is.

I think there's some of both the one thing we don't want to be is lame. When we first go on a platform, though we don't want to go in, we don't want to go in with something that doesn't feel. Maybe, but you agree, you agree. I think, because i'm watching from afar again, you agree that doing a challenge or doing something that's campaign oriented.

You could equally not be lame by just doing an actual good tick, tock right out the gate that you guys know what the is going on, that you could yes and so, but i think that when you're looking to make a bigger splash, we, for example, we When we were talking to them at the end of 2018, we didn't do anything until the beginning of 2019, because we didn't feel like we wanted to do a tick. Tock challenge, brands weren't doing them at the time, and we felt like what is our tick. Tock challenge that will really make a splash. Well, we didn't know so we didn't do anything and we were waiting and waiting and then we, then we we had one of our actually one of our team members in a restaurant.

Had this cool way. He could flip the lid up on to a bowl and we posted it on instagram first, and it got a million views like that. We're like hey this could be it so yeah we got an influencer who loved chipotle was absolutely in love with japo. I think that's, the other part is use influencers, who are absolutely in love with your brand, even if they're, not the biggest influencer, because you'll get content that just feels so much more organic and genuine, and i think that that we launched that and we got you Know at 250 million views, which was a lot of views.

You know back in 2019, we got that right away, and so we were off to the races, but i think whether it's tick tock or whether it was snapchat or instagram or whatever. I think you want to take a step back too and understand what that platform is about and for the consumer and so instagram's about inspiration, tick tock happens to be about mood, lifting an awareness generator. It's almost like tv for gen z, so kind of behave like that, but have content that looks like it's created by it looks like it's ugc, because if you don't you just you know, you finished you're gon na you're gon na be terrible, you're gon na be The old guy at a hot club, exactly right hundred percent chris, have you you know you're, so busy is there. I know we're talking tic tac, but i'm gon na get value out of you.

Is there any social network that you actually consume, as a human being? Without a marketing mind that lends on or are you just kind of too busy and there's too much going on? I watch a lot of tick tock as a consumer. To be honest, i think because because because the interest graph right because it is you're seeing things, i think the algorithm is really good um if mine looks very different from my wife's, but the number, the the the creativity and the humor that people have amazes me On tick, tock and the talent - and so i that's that's the one it is an, it is a black hole you can get on there and all of a sudden 20 minutes have gone by and you're like. Oh what just happened but i've. You know i've picked up, picked up a lot of golf tips um, but i've also just it's funny.

It's funny i invested in so i talk a lot about like i invested in facebook and twitter, and i always mentioned that. I invested in tumblr at the time, and i remember the reason i invested in tumblr in 2008 or nine or seven um was because they were building a social. They were building an interest graph social network, not a social graph, and i remember being interested in that that people were following not like people but like the kind of art they liked and things of that nature. And i was very fascinated and always felt that the interest graph - that's why i fell in love with early facebook.

You know algorithm, because fan pages could go viral. That kind of changed over time and i think tick tock has really grabbed on to that yeah. I i agree and then - and i think that the outlet for creativity is - is amazing. Chris thanks for having me thanks for having me appreciate it by the way, real, quick, andrea, i'm sorry, uh dan masso gary v, king of interrupting wow.

I apologize it's only 10 minutes with these incredible individuals and i feel like when the essence of what they're trying to say is accomplished to many of you. I try to get one or two more nuggets out of you. It is not because i'm trying to be rude, i'm excited, and i want to squeeze as much in and i'm making a subjective call on the fly that the point was made and i'm hoping that uh that uh lands on to the next one. Next up.

We welcome kalyn thornton he's the cmo of gatorade. He joined in 2021 after 10 years at doing transformational, things at nike and jordan brand and his first sport gymnastics welcome kailyn, oh you're, just gon na put it out there from the top okay i'm gon na get. I might be, i might be uh. I might be a little bit more careful with my interrupting with you, my man, you are a professional football player and a beast.

I'm also i'm also incredibly fond of you. It's been nice getting to know you. This is obviously one of the iconic brands. Obviously so many uh that are on tick tock touch this brand love this brand interactive brand.

So let's this i actually don't know. So, let's go there. What is uh? What is the journey been kt for gatorade? You know obviously you're in this realm fairly recently, so there was things obviously happening before you now you're here, what what's the kind of quote-unquote 4-1-1? No, absolutely one uh echo the sentiment been a pleasure to get to know you and honored to be here. So it's such an illustrious panel of speakers for me uh you're right.

I got i joined last march, um i'm coming up on a year and i'm still learning a ton yeah. I will qualify that but really for for gatorade. We've talked a lot about over the past year, just this notion such an historic brand, 50 years of heritage, backed by science, a massive sports fuel company, but we need to shift more to fueling sport. Culture has been the conversation and so getting into the topic today.

When you think about a opportunity like tick, tock and and what we've leaned into it, is that intersection of sports and culture. It is that intersection of creativity that there's there's just a ton of opportunity for us to take all that dna and heritage and the athletes. We work with, and the conversation um that we'd like to have and bring that into the language and experience that this next generation is seeking. So that's really the future.

That's kind of what we're trying that's, what we're building towards what um? What excites you about? Tick! Tock, i love the notion you were alluding to it in the last conversation with chris, going from the social graph to interest graph is a big part of it um and that's especially critical for us, as we start to think about different sports in different ways in Which consumers athletes define themselves as uh define themselves as an athlete or the sport, so we need to learn more about some of the emerging sports uh. So that's one piece, the other piece, that's really really exciting for me, is this notion of rather than having this two-way conversation that social uh introduced now we're in a co-creation mode. So now we can actually unlock and unleash some of our most loyal consumers and athletes and fans to extend themselves and really drive another voice for the brand. That, quite honestly, we ourselves can't do on our own, so being in being in a partnership with these creators.

Really understanding what are the types of conversations and creative they want to see from us and spaces we want to play in is also the unlock for us and, what's super exciting, how would you grade the brand on tick tock right now, you know. Obviously, it's a that's a tough question: grading your own homework. You have a partners and internal people, but i think it's important for people to see like how leaders analyze their stuff, like hey at the time of that marketing helm for this iconic brand. You feeling good where you're at you know you're.

You are a professional athlete. You were like i'm sure you you have. That means. There's competitiveness, there's there's holding yourself to a standard like.

Do you guys think you're you're killing it do you got? Are you? Are you worried? Do you think you're you're focused on some macro work, so you're just not getting to it. Given you know how big brands, sometimes you know i mean you've gotten to know me. I think big brands. I think big brands underestimate the emerging and over fantasize of the past, like what.

How do you grade gatorade on on the talk right now? No, it's a great question. I think about it and i'll go back to the athlete analogy as an athlete. One thing that we're always doing is working on our craft and you're at different stages of your development and your training at the different stages in life and and for for us as a brand gatorade is very much so we're still we're at the beginning stages. We just picked up the weights, we're just running our first few sprints out on the field um and so we're trying to establish our foundation and really learn from the platform as we build and potentially get to a place where we are setting the standard across.

Not only our space but across the industry, so i'd say very much so we're at the beginning. I wouldn't give us a grade because i think we're doing amazing at what our training goals are for today. So our training goals are, for today become more familiar with the platform, understand the tools and we've we've learned a ton, a lot of the conversation that we're just having how to show up an authentic way, how to make sure that we are leveraging the creative economy And creative lens: are you thinking a lot about that? Like hey? Look at that dope, video that got four million views with that kid that used gatorade for it? Should we team up with with kid over there, is that some of the stuff going through your head? Absolutely that, and even like one of the things you actually actually i'm sorry interrupt everyone uh do you recommend for a lot of people listening here who are creators that love brands to just naturally do it, because i know a lot of creators. Tell me i love this brand, but i'm gon na make them pay they're gon na.

If they're gon na get something for me, i'm gon na wait to get paid. I'm like no no make something awesome with that kitkat bar and then then kitkat will come back and come like. Do you think it's actually a smart strategic move for some people here that are wildly creative to just integrate big brands into their content, with the knowledge that if a couple of them hit they're going to be getting a phone call from that brand and saying yo? Let's dance yeah, i mean first and foremost even back to what chris was saying, whether you're on the brand side or the creator side do what's most authentic to you and what you're passionate about. So if you love gatorade, then the question around whether or not you should get paid almost shouldn't even be a question if you represent, because we're looking for it and ultimately uh, at least in our case, we're going to take care of it, and that was really What was at the heart of what was successful for us in tick tock in our social squad we reached out to the community and basically asked who wanted to start this relationship with the brand who felt like they could speak to it.

Authentically and - and i think is an exact example of what you're saying where it wasn't as much around transaction. It was setting up a relationship on how we wanted to partner with these creators uh in order to, in order to speak authentically on the platform. Quick little left turn. What's your recommendation for people that are looking to pivot in their career right, because you surely did that um or the youngsters here who want to be, i mean, there's a lot people freaking out about your about your hoodie right it.

You know gatorade is a super popular brand you're, the cmo, the chief marketing officer, what about two minutes of advice for the kids or the 45 year old kids? And what i mean by that in a good way is that youthful energy of like i can still change my you know. I've been a lawyer, but i'm going to be the cmo of gatorade one day. What's a good way to, in your opinion, get into the marketing field and get to the highest levels like you have um one, i'm incredibly humbled. If you would have told my younger self that i would be in this position today to be cmo of gatorade to have an amazing career at nike and jordan, and all do that after playing in a couple years professionally for the cowboys, i would not have believed You i'd been like.

I was trying to keep the cowboys part out, because i know it's salty in dallas right now: okay, it is salty out there. You know i rap strong. You know wrong um, but to answer your question like honestly, the best advice i ever got was chase the learning chase. The experiences like figure out what it is that you that you want to have in terms of your own development and don't worry about the role or the title or or the job like that.

That will come. If you have enough intellectual curiosity and i think, as i've gotten older one of the things - that's that's similar advice that a lot of mentors give, but i think the other thing i've i've appreciated now is like what do you actually also have to unlearn, especially when You're getting into these new spaces where it might challenge the status quo of what you may have picked up along the way and such a fine balance, and it also requires you to be completely self-aware, understand where you might have your own biases or philosophical philosophical differences. But i think that notion of being curious and electric learning is big before i let you sleek out sure biggest thing biggest thing. You've learned in the last call it 36 months that changed your perspective on a belief you had about marketing anything.

I think i don't know if it changed my perspective on marketing, because i always knew change was a part of marketing. You always have to be up to speed. I don't think i quite fully appreciated how marketing and brands are going to fundamentally shift business drivers moving forward until i started understanding where the intersection of a company like gatorade and what we do also well with supply chain, is now meeting up with this digital frontier And so we're talking a lot about marketing through the lens of tick tock today, but i think you're going to see a lot more platforms. I know you're an expert in all things: metaverse and nfts.

I think that is fundamentally going to change the way we even define ourselves as marketers marketing as a profit center yep yep yep great, to see you my friend, you too thank y'all for having me thank you kailyn, gary next we're going to welcome jeremy padauer he's The chief brand officer at jazz wares, you know squish mellows pokemon, it's it's pretty crazy, all the things that i've been learning from jeremy. What i didn't know is that jeremy sold his company, wicked cool toys and i'm hoping you're gon na get into that. A little bit. Um he's now recognized as uh one of the biggest faces in the business of play, he's an entrepreneur toy industry executive and a badass collector among many things, jeremy.

Thank you. So much jeremy, i mean look you you know this. I mean when anybody who has a backdrop that is similar to the one i have in my office is always going to be somebody. I love.

It's been a fun interacting with you through the years brother nice to finally do something together, um. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about jazwares first, because i think some may not know it as much. They know the brands that are associated, but when we talk about that for two seconds and then we'll go into the tick tock question yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for having me today.

I feel like i'm representing the toy industry, so jazz wares is the sixth largest toy company and we have been blowing up. Uh jasper's about is 25 years old this year, founded by a guy named judd, zuberski who's, a genius in our space and through acquisition, as she mentioned, wicked cool toys and a lot of organic growth, focusing on brands like global uh partner for pokemon roblox fortnite. We own squishmallows uh um, my goodness coco melon, which is a brand that we found a few years ago when we focused on the social space i mean jazwares has competed by focusing on areas that other people are not participating and, frankly speaking, everything in the toy Industry is very much like fashion. It's trend based, so we constantly are looking at change.

We're constantly looking at pivoting to make sure that we capture. What's the latest opportunities in the space and look even in your world, i mean the the nft universe is part of that uh we've been at the very forefront of that on the individual level as collectors, but also trying to identify how to extend that as a Larger business opportunity, especially in the world where things are so decentralized and individual holders of nfts, can compete with the larger brand organization. So we are dealing with all of that right now, but the biggest i would say the thing that jazwares does better than anyone else is that we don't just look for brands. We participate, we invest, we individually go after opportunities and just pour ourselves into it.

I love it talk to me about tick tock, considering that you guys and gals are in the business of trends uh and just obviously me spending a lot of time in that universe. You know one even for squish me, which has been just such a monster hit. I don't think people, you know anybody that knows in the comments, if you know what's going on with squish leave it so everybody else can see what's going on, because if you're in it you know um was tick tock, a big factor in that explosion. Was it not um? What are you seeing in tick tock? Well, you know collecting and community go hand in hand, and it's it's just like.

You cannot break that bond. If you don't have a community, you don't have a collection, it's not just about secondary market value. It's about who you have shared experiences with, and squishmallows is quite possibly one of the greatest examples of collecting by community squishmallows originally was launched in 2017.. It was a company called kelly toy guy named jonathan kelly and when it was launched, it was literally another one of these just toy brands.

That was going to try it at walgreens to see what happened, but this special huggable phenomenally identifiable character, um, which was the original squish squad, squishmallows character of eight blew out within 24 hours, with no marketing wow and immediately what was identified. Was you know what this is exactly the type of brand that if we seed it with enough youtubers and enough uh at the time, youtube instagramers that something might happen, and it absolutely did sent it out to about 100 youtubers sent out the entire squad? And then what happened was in 2018-19 there was a migration from the investment in facebook and instagram into tick tock by the influencers themselves, identifying that that was going to be the next big medium and we've had over four billion organic integrations with tick tock. So what we've learned is it's been: it's been as much about learning when not to spend money on marketing. Yes, let the community drive, as it has to been to spend money on marketing, which is spending about look.

Spending on marketing is always right when you spend good money when, when something's happening organically, there's nothing better, there's nothing better than when you make a hoodie and four famous people just find it in a shop. You haven't spent a dollar on anything. You didn't have enough money to give samples to influencers and they love because they love it and they wear it and they post on instagram and your business takes off like like nothing. There is not a pe.

You could spend the best penny. I've been very proud of how good i am at spending money on marketing, because i'm always at the thing when it's underpriced, yes, the best penny i ever spent on marketing for myself or my dad - is not better than organic. Yes, absolutely and - and that has been again our lesson is that if we support the communities and we and we love, we love the communities we integrate ourselves to the communities that they drive, the messaging and, and so while we are harnessing the power of that. We're.

Not directing it we're allowing and and making sure that we clearly communicate that this is you know this is theirs and we're simply fostering and and ebbing and flowing with that and, frankly speaking, you know the way you run your business and looking at things like v. Friends, it's a very similar philosophy. What did you when? Did you get tick-tock personally, just your own journey, you're busy? You got a lot going on like when did it really and what was it that made? You go? Okay, you know. Okay, this is not a this.

Isn't thirteen-year-old just dancing, there's something going on here yeah, i i think i think charlie dimiglio uh dancing was the original uh. What tick tock is big. Wow she's got 20 million followers now 50, now 100. and but you start flipping and it the algorithm kind of figures you out and it says hey, maybe you don't want to see dancing kids, maybe what you're interested in is cooking and what you're interested in is Collectibles and what you're interested in and it figures you out, it is one of the smartest engines.

I've ever seen it's brilliant because it it knows you, it knows your interests and it delivers it to you and it's just day after day after day that that information, simple, very simple, so for for me, what i recognize as a marketer is that it is the Best dollar spent, because if the algorithm is that smart - and it knows the consumer that well then it's able to extend mentally. What's the next thing, they may be interested in participating in and if it's collectibles goodness, we know how to deliver those um. What was the first collectible just for fun now, a couple of minutes left first collectible that you entered your life, so my brother's 13 years older than me and uh, i'm 11 years older than aj, oh, and so many of the questions that i've heard aj asked About sports or collecting or business always start with well my brother gary's 11 years older than me, so that was a really funny moment for me: yeah well, i've i had that same. I went to kindergarten the same day.

He went to college, but he made an indelible mark on my life and when i was three years old, he took me to a flea market and uh. He bought me uh a penny that was 97 years old and we communicated about when i was 6 years old. This was going to be 100 years old and i will tell you that my entire life was shaped on that moment in terms of collecting like. I am a collector for life um i, and - and it's not just about the item - it's it's.

What goes with the story? The story, it's always the story i was trying to make. I was doing props and drops where i was talking about why i thought 2014 name: coin bitcoin and very early ethereum, 17 18 19 projects how they were going to play out differently in 50 years than all the projects that are dropping now yeah and i in Real time was doing the show and went on ebay and pulled up that somebody sold yesterday a valentine's day card just a valentine's day card from 1907 for 15 for 15, and the point i was trying to make is humans will always collect and there will always Always always, even if there's not a ton of demand, if you go old enough, it's going to just play out as meaning something and that the fact that this whole world is coming and it will evolve and there'll. Be you know i. I talk a lot about thinking.

A lot of things will collapse, there's so much going on in nfts that are similar to beanie babies. People are only buying for the sake of this. Flip means they're not falling in love with the characters right. The community part's - not there, the commerce part is so you know one of the reasons i think 98 to 99 are gon na fail.

Is they have the beanie baby thing? They can be hot for three or four months or a year, even but and but nonetheless um. I totally understand the shaping of collectibility and the fun grown-ups, having fun grown-ups, having fun with this stuff collecting is the trend of the last five years that people are missing it that there's a joy factor, a relationship factor of collecting cards. I think vhs tapes why you used to watch movie like you could see the whole thing happening, no germ, absolutely tickets vhs. All of that you could see it happening in real time.

Love you buddy, thanks for being on the show, we'll talk soon. Okay, andrew thanks for having me on, i know you guys have a killer. Lineup want to give some people the preview, because i know some people occasionally bounce off when i when i leave but like the lineup's insane, oh yeah, it's it's incredible! So next up, we've got um the nfl uh and we've got emily zuge who's going to be joining in. On that conversation, we've got the cmo from eos um and a creator that they've done a lot of collaborations with carly joy.

We've got a whole bunch of creators, so spencer, x, the four old gays, michael lee um and then we're bringing sophie jameson back the chief tick-tock officer from nerf. We want to hear what's up in her world as it continues to change, so don't leave anybody bye. Everyone you go gary all right. Take it easy! So next up we're going gon na welcome vayner media's peter chun to the virtual stage: hey peter how's.

It going in california, looks like it's a little sunny out there, yeah hey andrea. This is um yeah, very fortunate to be out here, given the weather and the circumstances on the east coast, so yeah fantastic, well, super fired up to uh for to have our next guest join us. It is none other other than ian trumbetta he's svp of social influencer and content marketing at the nfl uh ian has done a masterful job. If i can say in really helping to transform a more modern approach at the nfl he's going to give us some some tips and tricks on that, he oversees the integration of all things: social and content for not only the league but players and all of the Club handles so lots there and has put a particular focus on gen, z and youth audiences, so i will leave it to the two of you to get started thanks so much for joining.

Thank you. Thanks, andrea, hey great, to see you again, yeah so excited for this man, um all right. So so one of the things we discussed and and gary alluded to this in some of the earlier sessions is, you know you are in a position where there's so much growth and impact that you've had just not only in the tick tock platform to consumers, but Also to advertisers and in the spirit of trying to deliver some value, i think we're going to have really good conversations and nuggets for those that are on the brand side that are looking to lean in. So i actually would love to start with your origin story.

So talk a little bit about your background and i think it's really important, because people will assume, because you have the nfl logo, that you'll just be successful on the platform and it's actually the opposite. It's probably harder - and i think a lot of this comes from your background, your dna, so i think it'd be super helpful to provide people a little bit of that context. Yeah awesome thanks peter, and i first of all just want to shout out all of you at vayner. You guys do such an awesome job, building this community and putting events like this on.

So i just wanted to tell you how humbled i am to be a part of it and thank you guys for having me on um as a as it relates back to my origin story um, i i was very fortunate. I started as an unpaid intern at shy day, uh in the late 90s and early 2000s, and was fortunate to get a job there, but uh that was a place that was really magical at the time i mean you had apple there with steve jobs and launching Itunes and the mac, and so on, um. In addition to that, you had taco bell and the ioc so just a very diverse slate of brands that were doing incredible, world-class work uh. So that was a really foundational time for me to be there uh and learn from some of the best like lee clow, and he would spend time with us as young account people and and teach us about what he was thinking about from a creative strategy perspective And so on, um, as the years went on there, i had a great run at shyat um.

There was a brand. This quirky uh austrian brand called red bull that was popping up all over the city. It was very mysterious and weird i mean it was. It was in the clubs and you'd see the sampling cars around.

You started seeing these kind of these grassroots events popping up and my friends and i were really taking note of it and uh. One of my buddies from cheyenne actually went to go work for red bull and he kept telling me for months so you've got you've got to come over here. There, we're rewriting the playbook for marketing and the space and inventing a new category. This energy drink category uh, so i declined initially, but after about six months of seeing what was going on uh, i took the flyer and actually went over to work together with with red bull and help out with their advertising and marketing, and at that time i Think there was about 30 people in the north american headquarters, just to give you a sense of how how small it was at that time, and it was just a tremendous experience - learning about grassroots grassroots events, on-premise marketing, understanding, really how to do athlete marketing in some Of these niche sports at scale just a tremendous opportunity, so while we were there, i had a couple different stints um gaming became a vertical uh.

Gaming became a vertical for us, and activision was one of the partners. We were working with and a fast forward in 2014 uh. They offered me a role and that role was to work across titles in a variety of different ways and was fortunate to to learn all about you know launching titles and, through our cmo tim ellis. This idea of big entertainment marketing tied to always-on engagement.

That was a really big part of how we marketed those games and then, when tim took the job at the nfl as a cmo, you know he offered me a great position and i'm a huge sports fan. I mean i'm as big of a steelers fan, as probably gary is a jets fan and and uh when the opportunity came over for for me to to help out and really look at what we're doing from a youth perspective. What we're doing from a gen z perspective across social influencer, i had to jump at the chance. So for the last three years i've been here at the nfl overseeing social influencer and content marketing, and it's just been - it's been terrific yeah.

So so, really i mean red bull in its day. Today is such a commonplace brand, but in its heyday, when it was ramping up, it was an unknown brand. It was very grassroot with culture and community um, so really you've been at the forefront of really being part of companies that have been disruptors in the space, obviously activision being another part of that. So it's great to hear a lot of this isn't just the logo.

A lot of it isn't just kind of the reputation a brand might have on instagram. A lot of it is really just staying close to the community, the culture you're trying to get to so, let's, let's talk a little bit about tick, tock and how tick-tock came to the nfl right. I mean it feels obvious, but the nfl's been cutting deals with every other major social platform for a long time, so it feels like. Maybe there was a moment early on where there was a little bit of a bet that you you you took on yourself and the organization to say we have to invest into tick-tock.

Tell us a little bit about that moment because i feel many brands are on the precipice of coming in. But you feel a little bit of risk and a little bit of concern and your experience might be able to help them over the edge sure yeah. So when i started at the nfl, there were three big observations that i had the first one was that there was an opportunity to broaden the storytelling beyond the field with players and to do that social was going to play a key role in that right. You know independent of platform.

You we really needed to to leverage that and understand ways that we could supercharge that uh. The second one was that we needed to rebuild a structure internally that could scale internally. We didn't have a structure that could take on a tick tock effectively or take on you know some of these new emerging platforms really well, and the third was building direct relationships with influencers that were more social, influencers, so think phase clan versus bradley cooper right and We were much more. I was much more interested in and going after the phase plan than this going after bradley cooper, because we could drive always on engagement.

Now, where were those people spending most of their time? Uh? Increasingly, it was you know, platforms like instagram platforms like twitter and then obviously tick tock emerged in 2019. So we wanted to be on that platform before it really reached a huge scale and we were basically losing out on that audience and so 2019 we launched uh. Pretty quietly, i would say we were testing some things and quickly. We found out that the game highlights were not really what was driving the platform.

It was all this ancillary content off the field, the the humor-based content, the content that was really focused on storytelling through personality that was resonating to the top, so that we we really leaned into it. That way - and i give my team - you know great amount of credit - we have functional experts that are on the platform every day and understand it very intimately and that's, i think, super super important yeah. I think one of the things i've observed is is how nitty gritty you folks are in the comments and a brand like the nfl engaging with an individual that that might have. No followers on the platform is what has allowed you to find those opportunities to get close to culture.

Let's talk a little bit about culture, um and how you think about creators and finding creators that allow you to speak authentically to the community yeah yeah. Let's get into that and of course i want to bring up bring on emily z after that yeah yeah. Absolutely for us i mean our influencer program and what we do on the platform is, is really designed to build direct relationships, and how can we benefit the creator or the influencer in a way that we're using our brand scale, the league scale to help build their Brands right and how can we do that in ways that are accreted for both right them, bringing new audiences to us and vice versa, right we bring a ton of scale and opportunities with access and so on, around our games or otherwise. That could be really interesting to them for great content opportunities.

So as we do that uh tick, tock is obviously very interesting. I think it's it's fantastic, we're all these amazing creators and we're going to talk to one here in a minute: uh, they're, emerging and they're merging very quickly. So just having your finger on the pulse of that uh is super important. We i've got an amazing team.

Again that that does that and identifies who these creators are, we keep an eye on them and we see how they're posting we want to make sure that they're staying in a lane, that's positive that we're not going after anything negative or tearing down. You know any teams or individuals and then once we have a level of comfort, you know the team will come up with ideas on ways that we can engage them and obviously emily's a great example. But but one of many that we've been working with over this past year, we're going to continue to scale that up yeah i mean to that end: let's, actually, let's bring emily on hi guys, hey. How are you good? How are you amazing, amazing? I'm i'm expecting the uh the comments to go pretty nuts right now, but why don't we just do a quick, intro um! You can give a quick 30 second intro, not that you necessarily need one but it'd, be helpful context for this crew, because you're so multi-dimensional, and then i want to jump to a sizzle reel that actually talks about the partnership you and the nfl you and ian Have effectively put together, which i think is one of the best we've seen um so please go that's crazy yeah.

Thank you so much for having me um. My name is emily zuge um. I make ugly logos on tick, they're beautiful. I mean beautiful, beautiful, sorry um.

I started on tik-tok last year, i'm just kind of goofing around. I found some success with satire content. My first satire video i ever made made barstool sports, so that was like oh there's, some potential here and then um in september. The logo thing blew up, and now i'm on this beautiful show so check out the linkedin page.

You can see how she blessed us with this piece of work that we may or may not convert into an nft call it again um. But we won't talk about that. But you folks have done in a pretty a pretty incredible and very organic partnership, and i think it speaks to a lot of what ian discussed earlier: around structure, infrastructure and being close to culture. And of course, you just doing what you do.

So, let's play. Let's play this quick video for the audience and then i think it'll set up the follow-up combo. We have. I graduated college with a degree in design and recently redesigned some logos that i thought needed help after going through the comments.

A lot of large brands reached out to me for a new logo, so i said yes, it's a really bad logo. This is my redesign of adobe. I really think i blew it out of the park like a waste of space to me. So this is your new logo nicole reached out to me.

They do sports like football and such so. I redesigned it in a much more patriotic way. I'm pretty sure he is the president of the football in america. Thanks to emily.

We now have this beautiful new logo for the niffle and because we are the nipple, we also wanted to lend our resources to emily. Just like emily, i have a passion for graphic design and i thought her profile picture could use some spicing up. So i did some digging and thought this best represents you and also a name tag, because it's not good with names. Next, i did detroit's football team, the lines and i don't really understand your logo, so i just cleaned it up, and this will look a lot nicer on jerseys helmets merchandise.

What are lying in, they don't even say lions. Try it that's so good, so um. If we can like what made this partnership, so valuable in my mind, is how authentic it was, it was clearly you're getting hit up by brands all the time. What was it about the nfl that stood out? What was it about? How ian's team was connecting with you um if it was something else? What was it that made you gravitate towards it and then ian would love to put your your thoughts on just giving freedom and letting emily do her thing.

You know nfl is such a heritage brand and just being free and letting the creator do her thing here, i think, is a really important takeaway sure i think it was um sort of when all this was blowing up. I wanted to sort of test the limits and see how big of a response we could get with it. So the nfl is, like everybody knows the nfl. You know what i mean um, so i just threw them in there.

I thought hey. Why not - and i think people responded in such a positive way because they met me where i was at um with the type of content that i make even my like personality, the delivery was just so fantastic um. I loved your video and um. I think people responded in such a positive way because we built this fantastic relationship off of like a joke um.

I think people just responded in such a positive way and loved to see the nfl just collabing, with some random tick-tocker and being able to sort of um. You know poke fun at their own brand yeah and i think that's a great a great point. Emily and peter, i think, looking at at tick, tock understanding that there's a self-mocking nature to it, creativity and humor are at the center. So if you're gon na play on the platform, you have to be ready to embrace that, so that that is really central to having a great team uh a big shout out to shannon and kylie and josh and team for putting it together and - and they came To me with it, and we decided hey, what's the what's the worst worst, that can happen here and ultimately this was not going to kill the nfl.

If it didn't go well, i it was, it was worth the the risk. If you want to call it that - and i think that's really as a brand, you have to do that analysis for yourself. Is that something that you're going to embrace a level of risk uh and then really take the tone uh that is on on tick-tock, especially humor, self-mocking, nature, creativity and, if you're not going to do that, i'd really question what you're? What you're going to do, especially with creators like emily, because we wanted to share a bit of a sandbox for her to create and then obviously come back at her in a playful way. That was also in her style.

So a couple takeaways, let the creator have his or her freedom. Don't take your brand too seriously and kind of live into the culture. Um, so really really valuable. All right - and we have about you, know six minutes or so, and i want to spend a little bit of time.

Talking about you uh and some of your work. Um and one of the things that stands out is this idea of episodic content, which we believe that painters are such an important thing. We think 2022 is going to be a really big year of long form, not long form, short long form etc, but branded content in this episodic type of way. Can you talk a little bit around your thinking and the approach to the logo design? Was it one of many ideas? How did that go and it start did it immediately explode or did it require a lot of commitment to it, um to really kind of build that out yeah um? So i think i i experimented with episodic content really early on.

In my tick tock career, um, so sort of how i mentioned before how my my satire videos would they would do pretty well because um, i would play this almost dumb blonde character and people feed into it, and i just thought it was the funniest thing and Um eventually, though, some of the comments they were hurting my ego, so i was like okay, there are some people who know this is a joke. Some people don't think it's a joke. So how can i bring this to the next level and eventually um? This is what really grew my my relationship with my audience too. I started to make these comment reading videos where i would choose the best comments, just the funniest um and i saw that people would want to come back for those and and they loved it.

They wanted to see the next one, so um the logo. Design was just another idea i had of maybe some graphic designers will see this and and be like what is she doing? That is not how you do it and um it kind of blew up right away. I think just the sheer number of brands that were commenting on it. I think that was what made it crazy.

You know, i think alone. The concept is pretty funny, but just the fact that so many brands were behind it and were jumping in you know and wanted to kind of be in on the joke um. The comment section was just like: no man like it was a free-for-all. It was so fun though it was, is great.

I mean to the point around the fake accent um. I don't know how many folks here know the ellen story, but you should give uh. You should give everyone here a little bit of that yeah so um. If you've ever seen my tick tocks, you know i don't smile, i don't laugh um.

I have a pretty dry sense of humor on tick tock but um. My whole concept behind that was to i went to art school. So i wanted to be the person that, like annoyed me in art critiques, so i tried to channel that and um just be that person everybody kind of looks at is like. Are they serious, so um yeah in real life? I i smile.

I laugh. I i have a personality and um when i got the call for the allen show there was an idea thrown out where they said hey. You should be like your tick tock persona, and i didn't sleep for like three days after that, because i think it works very well on tick tock, but to be in a space where i'm speaking to somebody - and i can't edit it the way i want to You know i can't cut it. I was freaking out um and eventually i got the green light that i could just smile and be myself so that really calmed my nerves, yeah yeah, as we you know, as we think about tick tock and we, you know uh earlier we've had we heard some Of the guests speak about the algorithm, how the algorithm is so different and speak a little bit about that challenge, potentially as a creator, because i know even our creators and others that we work with find that to be inconsistent.

But any tips and advice around how to deal with that as a creator, yeah um, i think you know at the end of the day you really can't get to you - can't get too married to one concept, because the way that tick, tock works and society works Trends come and go so i think you definitely should enjoy any success that you do have, but don't be afraid to branch out and try new things um, because why not i i don't know i mean there's just so much potential on on the app and there's So many things that you could do with it so um also, i think, branching out to different forms of social media, is really important, because the tick tock algorithm can be great, sometimes and then other times it can be like. What's going on, you know if you're trying to to switch up your content and uh try a new, a new concept um. So i think branching out to other forms of media is really important. You know it's a great point, because tick tock is now everywhere yeah and so you know, are there look? Are you looking at other platforms, whether it's snap or ig, reels or youtube shorts, um and where we, where we could potentially find you? Yes, all the above i'm doing my absolute best to grow anywhere that i can i'm going to start streaming on twitch soon and uploading to youtube, also um.

So that's in the future and i'm excited - and i'm thankful uh for tick-tock, to give me this platform too. Fantastic yeah go ahead, andrea! Thank you, emily ian and peter. This was remarkable. It's really nice to hear the back and forth and love love all the work that you've done thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you. Thank you, see you soon and thank you. Peter and next up we welcome britney diamond from vayner. Can you believe her doc? Oh my gosh! Well, it's gon na get even better in just a second, because we've got the cmo of eos products.

Who's gon na be joining you. Can you believe it brit? How often do we talk about her and all the work that we do her ears must be ringing. I think they are okay, so let's bring her on her name is so young kang um. I have to share one.

I i love so young. You can tell she loves to take risks, but there's a story that she shared with us. That, i think, is a must tell because i think it's something that she embraces in her day-to-day work life as well. So while so young was on a backpack trip and she was piranha fishing in the amazon river, she happened to fall into the water.

So i think that says something right there about how she goes about her life. So i'm going to now depart from this conversation and let you guys take it from here. I love it, i'm so excited for this. You have no idea.

Um andrea, already said it, but we talk about you weekly. If not many times a week, um we've been following you ever since the you know the interaction that you had with carly, which we'll go over in a little um, but eos is just so great on tick, tock, stalk them follow them, um love it all. So can't wait for everyone to get little nuggets of wisdom from you. I'm super excited to be here.

Thank you of course, so i guess we can start with um. You know: what's your overall philosophy on social as a whole, oh yeah, i mean well.