Introduction:
Welcome to another insightful episode of “Scroll Sessions.” I’m Dan, joined by my co-host Shane, and today we have the pleasure of hosting John Huntinghouse, a remarkable individual whose career trajectory took a fascinating turn from genetics to the dynamic world of marketing. Let’s dive into the story of how John redefined his path and became a growth guru.
The Turning Point:
John’s journey is anything but ordinary. Raised in a traditional Korean household, the initial expectation was for him to become a doctor or lawyer. However, a pivotal moment came just before starting med school when a conversation with a friend led John to question his true passions. Realizing that medicine wasn’t his calling, he embarked on a quest of self-discovery, exploring various paths before making a significant leap from being a cardiovascular genetic researcher to entering the world of blogging and marketing.
The Unconventional Shift:
John’s transition to marketing began with LDS Smile, a blog blending LDS culture and pop culture humor, marking his initial foray into social media marketing. This platform, which began as a fun outlet, eventually turned into a full-fledged media company, leading to brand partnerships and significant recognition.
Learning and Growth:
John’s career further evolved with his role as the social media director at KSL, where he introduced innovative strategies and emphasized the importance of personal branding and leveraging social media personalities. His time at KSL was a blend of learning, adapting, and applying new concepts in a traditional media setting.
Agency Life vs. In-House Marketing:
Discussing the pros and cons of working in an agency versus a single entity, John highlighted the breadth of experience and fast-paced learning in agency life. However, he also pointed out the challenges, such as the constant presence of ‘fires’ to put out and the struggle to maintain work-life balance. In contrast, in-house roles allow for deeper focus on specific projects and better work-life harmony.
Current Role and Future of Marketing:
Currently at Tab Bank, John faces the unique challenges of marketing in the banking industry, dealing with regulatory complexities and finding innovative ways to communicate the brand. He believes the future of marketing lies in a deeper understanding of human psychology, the effective use of AI, and the ability to solve broader business problems, not just marketing ones.
Conclusion:
John Huntinghouse’s journey from a geneticist to a marketing maven is a testament to the power of self-discovery, adaptability, and lifelong learning. His story inspires aspiring marketers to embrace change, seek diverse experiences, and continually evolve their skills to stay relevant in the ever-changing landscape of marketing.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhuntinghouse/
Podcast Transcript
0:00
foreign thanks for being here today we’re excited to have you my name is Dan and
0:07
we’ve got Shane here too welcome to scroll sessions everybody I’m excited well awesome thanks for coming John I
0:13
know it’s been a couple years since I think you and I have like connected in person from ldsbc but I would love for
0:20
you to just kind of give an idea of who John is and what your background is
0:25
yeah I mean my background is just crazy non-traditional and as we were kind of
0:32
discussing a little bit Yeah the original goal for like my mom’s Korean and I had the traditional Korean
0:38
household they’d like either be a doctor or lawyer and that was the goal for it ever uh up until my the summer I before
0:45
I started med school ended up having a conversation with one of my good friends and he didn’t mean it to be
0:51
life-changing but it ended up being life-changing he had a throwaway comment uh or a question and asked what are the
0:57
things you want to do like when you don’t have to study at all like what do you study and it just dawned on me that
1:03
like I legitimately never studied anything around medicine unless I had to for school
1:09
um which then threw me into this whole idea of like all right well maybe this is not what I want to do you know and yeah and I spent a few years you know
1:16
probably a good four or five years of just in the wilderness trying to figure out like and trying different things and
1:22
finding things I should have done like 10 years prior to yeah where was and ended up going from a cardiovascular
1:29
genetic researcher into a blogger and uh that’s such the transition I know that’s
1:35
crazy everybody like all my co-workers at Intermountain were like they thought I was wearing like healthcare
1:40
administration or maybe research they’re like what are you doing and I’m like I’m gonna be a blogger a what yeah I’m sure they’re like you’ve
1:47
lost your mind like what and then blogging about medicine oh no no no no no no no it had nothing to do with
1:54
medicine it was actually kind of like uh um it was like LDS culture it means pop culture and and but this is LDS smile
2:01
right this was LDS smile and uh that’s kind of where we’ve got started started cutting my teeth and marketing as just
2:08
being a blogger on social media and kind of grew up social media following and uh
2:13
and it really kind of blew up from there and that’s how I got my start into the world of marketing that’s crazy so
2:20
awesome what can you tell people more about what LDS smile originally was uh
2:26
it really was just us posting things that we found funny right and it was just a way for us because we we felt
2:35
that there really wasn’t an in-between you know it was either cringe-worthy like humor that wasn’t funny at all or
2:42
it was like overly strict you know which kind of that church culture and we just
2:48
didn’t find an in between and so yeah we just started posting things that we just found funny and ideas and and if you
2:54
look at the first year of our posting on social media it’s like the most random
3:00
crap you’ll ever seen I mean it really was just like oh hey I found this funny and then like we would just kind of post
3:05
about it and where we really started to gain traction was I mean this is going to date me
3:12
right like this is like before memes were really mean I was gonna say this is like the brink of meme yeah yeah it was
3:18
like the start of meme uh meme culture and just memes being created and so we kind of jumped on to that bandwagon and
3:23
just found this kind of overlap you know between kind of LDS culture and pop
3:29
culture and it was awesome and it kind of blew up in like gangbusters and yeah we ended up being on the front page of
3:35
BuzzFeed and oh my gosh you know they kind of featured it’s awesome and then just kind of blew up from there so a lot
3:40
of it was on your own website and on social media platforms like where were you getting the most traction was it on
3:46
the actual blog no so it was on social media so yeah so we actually build up a social media following first and then
3:53
built the blog afterwards oh okay um and so when I went full time we had the blog but yeah uh initially it was just you
4:00
know just a Facebook page and we’re just like hey let’s just do stuff for fun and yeah um and then I ended up
4:06
when we made that transition I ended up taking a class up at the University of Utah which was also life-changing
4:12
um because it not only shifted what I wanted to do it shifted like literally how I think and problem solve and it was
4:18
an entrepreneurship class okay and it was awesome you know the the professor
4:24
uh Rob webiker like when I first saw him I legitimately thought he was homeless I
4:30
was like we might need security to get this guy out of here to get this guy out and also turns out like he’s a professor
4:35
I’m like oh my gosh what the heck but I I took the class initially because they gave out free pizza every class free
4:43
dinner like easy class like yeah done undone and then also it turns out to be the most like life altering class and it
4:49
was awesome and so yeah that’s really easy definitely interesting uh transition so so what where did LDS
4:56
smile go like where where was the kind of the peak for you guys yeah or maybe there wasn’t a peak maybe it’s still
5:02
going but yeah I mean we still running on the side um and you know it’s still kind of fun
5:08
it’s it’s still kind of a fun little outlet for us yeah kind of interact and kind of post but
5:14
yeah it at the peak it really was kind of a full-fledged Media Company um where we were doing Productions and
5:20
Partnerships with other brands um and it was funny like some of the brand deals that we ended up doing or
5:26
being pitched I remember we we were being pitched by Folgers and we’re like like do you know what we do like do you
5:33
know our audience because I think this is like the biggest disconnect yeah no kidding um but yeah we did a lot of
5:39
awesome you know brand deals um working from like Mattel to Amazon and it was really really cool and that’s awesome
5:46
and what we did that for you know probably about six seven years full time um and then ended up uh taking a
5:53
position at KSL um being their social media director and it was an opportunity that I you know I
6:00
I loved and I was like hey this would be super awesome to work with a well-known brand and uh you know do something
6:06
somewhat same but like very different yeah from what I was previously doing and you really helped take KSL you
6:12
really stepped KSL up on social yeah like I remember when you came in and there was an immediate like sense of
6:20
change within how KSL was like basically presenting themselves online and in a
6:26
really good way talk talk about how that change came about yeah I mean I can’t yeah no there was
6:34
you know it’s funny because when I look at my time during KSL it was kind of a love-hate relationship right um it was
6:40
there was a lot of cool things me too yes you worked for DDM so I mean and and
6:47
it’s funny like you know TV and radio are also very different cultures you
6:52
know and I worked really well with uh radio TV it was uh you know Hit or Miss
6:57
um and but it’s not KSL per se it was just TV news media culture it’s not just
7:05
that culture yeah um and I don’t know if it’s like my personality kind of fits
7:10
very well like with that culture and vice versa that culture fit very well with me but that being said yeah we did
7:17
a lot of cool and awesome things you know and we because I came from a non-news culture like the way I viewed
7:24
and looked at social media was very different than what they were doing and you know we really leveraged you know
7:31
the personalities and kind of building the brands around the the anchors and personalities and tying the main core
7:37
brand to that and really kind of creating this flywheel effect or this
7:42
kind of Hub and spoke model you know and like you have these personalities and they all have their own personal you
7:48
know media social media accounts but that it also ties into the main brand you know
7:54
um and it’s actually an idea that I I totally completely ripped off from Jessie stay and you know and Jesse was
8:00
you know a great you know example of leveraging that model and we’re like hey
8:06
this is what we’re going to kind of reproduce here at KSL yeah and it worked really well yeah well it seems to be I
8:11
feel like I follow more anchors on KSL than I do KSL if I’m if I’m on a star I
8:17
I don’t know if you pioneered them doing lives because I feel like I see every anchors going live basically on their
8:24
own uh page all of the time you know every day they’re doing a live so yeah I mean
8:29
that’s one thing that we push and and that’s you know one of the areas where we kind of had a disconnect between the
8:35
two was you know a lot of their lives like they wanted to own their content on
8:41
TV right yeah that was their thing it’s like we can’t give away too much on social because TV is where the dollars
8:47
are at we need to increase viewership there and you know that was my big question I’m like we are looking at
8:53
completely different audiences here you know and it is not the same and you know
8:58
and it’s funny because you know I proposed a question I was like when’s the last time anyone under the age of 40 watched a 10 o’clock newscast live
9:06
and you know the general feeling was you know it’s been probably a couple months it was years right like they don’t watch
9:14
it live and they consume a lot of their uh news and we know this now and and I
9:19
think KSL and a lot of the news organizations are there now um where they understand kind of that divide but
9:26
this is kind of like more in the earlier days of social media generally and just understanding it’s a different it’s a
9:33
different audience and so yeah well I think that speaks to a very common thing now which is that nobody wakes up in the
9:41
morning and checks their social media hoping that a business posted yeah right yeah nobody nobody hopes a business
9:47
posted on social they want to see their favorite Creator yeah and their favorite influencer and what they’ve posted so
9:54
yeah that just goes to show how I mean when was this this was back in 2017 16.
9:59
yeah 2016. and now that’s even more common and such important approach I
10:05
follow for example uh minted is uh hoodie TV or t-shirt brand and they uh I
10:12
don’t follow their page I don’t follow any of their Instagram accounts but I follow the guy who created it and what
10:17
he does every day in New York City yeah absolutely so it’s that that same concept that’s so important right now
10:23
and kind of part of what we’re trying to do this year which is grow our personal Brands because nobody’s waiting to see what scroll has to post yeah yeah and
10:31
let’s let’s scroll for the Post like all good things about scroll right like yeah so it’s like you took it with a grain of
10:37
salt but when you start to build it out with personalities around it I mean that’s I mean this is the kind of the
10:42
same idea that we have like even with LinkedIn is you know I I don’t go there to follow
10:48
you know businesses or companies you know I follow people individuals and personalities that lead to and it helps
10:55
me understand their culture helps me to you know educate what these businesses do and a lot of the good work that
11:01
they’re doing but a lot of the good work I see through individuals not the brand itself so yeah no for sure and well and
11:07
yeah social media has evolved so much it’s it’s cool to think of I think where
11:13
you’ve seen it go throughout your entire career because it’s like another 10 years past what I’ve seen uh and not to
11:19
age ya um but I but I but I do think I think it’s cool to just see that Evolution from where from basically from
11:27
nothing into now like really diving into like Legacy Media and stuff like that so
11:33
it’s it’s really really cool so what you finished at KSL and now what what’s the
11:39
rest of the story for John yeah so then I ended up transitioning into agency
11:45
life and so I oh yeah and I jumped head into uh agency uh over at Epic marketing
11:52
yeah and it was awesome um I I loved my time at Epic and God
11:57
worked with a lot of cool people got a lot worked with a lot of cool Brands and I would say my time in the agency really
12:06
honed in the skills and experiences that I had up into that point A lot of it was kind of experiences that I’ve just
12:12
learned on the Fly and you know educated myself and just kind of working through experiences but
12:19
refining all of that really came about working that agency life and you know it was incredibly valuable for my career
12:26
and where I ended up going from a career standpoint but also you know a lot of the best
12:32
friendships and working relationships that I created came out you know I mean
12:37
Asians I mean you guys know like it’s life is nuts and it’s crazy it’s a
12:43
constant fire you know and there’s always something there but there’s also something like being in that fire with other people and you just build these
12:49
friendships uh that last I mean even to this day like we’re still texting and yeah communicating even though we’ve
12:56
kind of gone separate ways we there’s still a lot that we do together and you
13:01
know and communicate with each other I think community and especially at the riot agencies let me say I think is so
13:08
important like it’s it absolutely is how everything operates within agency life
13:13
because there’s so many things that interconnect with an agency that’s why it’s called an agency
13:19
but that’s there’s so many things that come into play with clients with customers with uh you know interpersonal
13:25
relationships and the only way to get through it is with each other yeah you know can you give us some of the pros of
13:31
working for an agency and some of the cons because really what I’m trying to get at here is uh some of the pros
13:38
working for an agency versus working for a single entity because at an agency manage multiple clients where uh at a
13:45
company you might just manage a single entity and you’ve had experience in both and what did you do in agency world so
13:51
yeah I was the director of digital marketing okay so um you know I my experience I had a lot
13:57
of experience in you know specifically social ad buying and uh you know doing a lot from Facebook and kind of
14:04
growing and evolving from there um but yeah to that point I mean it’s one thing because you know I still teach
14:11
and you know I taught enzyme College yep um taught at
14:16
um we were safe and one of the things I I always suggest to new College grads is
14:21
actually go Agency Route first if you can um because I think one of the most
14:26
valuable you know experiences that you can have at agencies the amount of width
14:32
that you get working at an agency I just think it’s invaluable you know when you’re working you’re trying to solve a
14:38
solution for a gym versus a non-profit versus you know an e-commerce you know
14:43
it’s it just requires different muscles and and you just learn so much on the
14:49
fly yeah then I you know rather than going in-house with just a brand
14:55
um you know on the flip side the nice thing about a you know working in-house is that you can go deep like yeah really
15:01
because you don’t have you know multiple clients like you can go like really granular really deep you know learn a
15:07
lot of insights that you just can’t do with an agency because um your bandwidth is just you know so
15:13
short but I always suggest if they can you know for college students to work
15:19
you know when they’re trying to get experience and learn to get that
15:24
experience at an agency because like I said for me while I had a lot of experiences along the way just it really
15:31
just complete really completely 180 my entire career trajectory when I started
15:36
working at the agency and you just learned so much so quickly and so fast because there’s always fires and there’s
15:43
always things you have to kind of work through that I think is super beneficial working at an agency on the networking
15:50
opportunities are massive as well like you just the amount of exposure you get so fast to all these clients all these
15:56
people to all the different things there’s no there’s nothing else like it really yeah yeah I think what are the cons yes
16:04
that’s what I was gonna ask what are the cons about working at an agency um it’s it’s probably that right is that
16:10
there’s always a fire right yeah it’s you know I I remember like going on vacation I like I would never go on
16:16
vacation without my laptop because I I had to like because there’s always some kind of fire that would inevitably pop
16:23
up um you know and every agency kind of structured differently and you know they
16:29
kind of there’s a lot some that do it worse than others and some that do it better than others um but I for me it really was when I
16:38
ended up going to tab Bank where I currently am one of the reasons I did that was to create a little bit protect
16:46
a little bit of my family life right like in that family balance um and and it’s funny like our you know
16:54
two of our newest hires that we’ve had on Town come from an agency life and you know and it’s funny because we we have
17:00
this shared uh you know about exact experience but yeah I tell them I was
17:05
like this is going to be different like you’re going to have Gap like you’re going to have gaps in your day which
17:11
you’re not kind of used to because you’re trying to like constantly doing something yeah you’re constantly working on you have these projects
17:17
um but those gaps are awesome because it allows you to go deep like I was saying um and I think that’s where a lot of
17:23
value Lies when working within a brand is you can really go granular and really build out these robust you know very
17:30
in-depth um strategies and campaigns and whatnot and I and really it does kind of protect
17:37
your time so like when I go on vacation now I’m on vacation you know and and what’s kind of cool at tab you know and
17:43
some companies you just others don’t but like we have a mandatory fine day which we literally get locked out of the
17:49
system right like nobody like so it comes in and they lock you out and you you can’t get into your email you can’t
17:56
nobody can message you because you’re locked out of the system for a whole week and you really just be it’s pretty
18:01
cool yeah you’re able to kind of relax and just enjoy your time and being present with your family or you know
18:06
whatever yeah um but you know with the agency even when they’re not contacting you it’s kind of like in the back of your mind
18:12
you’re just like oh yeah I know this campaign’s coming or you know black Friday’s coming up and you know I just
18:17
have a crap time to do there’s all the way up to that thing yeah it’s giving me anxiety yeah
18:24
[Music] I think that’s a the model that we’re playing with this year is scroll plus
18:31
which is something that we have learned over the years is that uh we’ve tried to
18:36
charge the lowest cost possible to still be profitable because we want to be able
18:42
to uh serve the underserved all these accounts that aren’t being touched by agencies and it’s actually been very
18:49
beneficial and semi-profitable to do that uh but we are creating scroll Plus
18:56
for the specific reason that you brought up of going deep where we have a lot of accounts that are asking us to go deeper
19:03
yeah but we literally can’t we don’t have uh bandwidth right now bandwidth to do it at the price they pay so uh in
19:10
order to go deep we have to charge exponentially more and then only assign uh a person you know six to ten accounts
19:18
instead of 25 accounts uh when we’re not going as deep so I think that that is a
19:25
great point and it takes off so much of the stress uh when you get to go deep
19:32
because yeah it also changes the type of marketer you are instead of being just this analytical quick turnaround
19:37
marketer you become a creative marketer right you have these gaps in your day where it’s like hey go deep think
19:44
creatively come up with new ideas and you bring that to our perspective or you
19:49
bring that to us and we’re going to think like how do we do that like it’s been yeah it’s been a long time of just
19:54
trying to Crunch everything into a certain time so that’s a great point I think yeah and I would say when you go
20:02
and work for an agency be careful who you go and work for you know do your research like really understand the
20:08
model that that agency is putting not only putting out to their clients but
20:13
putting out internally because sometimes those don’t match and when they don’t match you can have a lot of problems
20:20
um but we’ve we’ve really tried to work hard to make sure that that matches and is good for everybody there’s a lot of
20:27
agencies that yeah you know I I would not touch with a 10 foot pole or a 20-foot pool yeah yeah it’s you know and
20:35
it is it’s the same thing with you know these culture it’s it’s like you know I I tell them like going getting this
20:42
experience with the agencies are great but yeah you do have to be careful um because agencies can be a machine
20:49
um and unless it’s you know intentional from the get-go and and you really do see this from the founders uh Founders
20:55
presidents um like holiday think about it is really does kind of trickle down into the
21:01
culture of the agencies and I just know agencies are crazy toxic and you know
21:06
are just awful to work with and people can’t get out there you know nice enough and then you know other agencies you’re
21:12
crazy busy but that have a culture that kind of finds a way to
21:18
yeah but I will say balance in agency is difficult if not near impossible we
21:25
we’re constantly working on it we do a four day work week we try and tell people hey do not work after five and we
21:32
still get urgent requests or things that happen you know a website goes down or a
21:37
budget isn’t spending and those type of things have to be addressed so it makes it so so difficult but um yeah I mean I
21:45
totally agree though I think out of school or even if you’re taking it out that isn’t school go work at an agency
21:51
get all the experience you can work with a hundred customers over a couple years and
21:57
learn all about digital ads learn all about SEO learn all about web design and then you can transition into this uh one
22:06
entity that you work for and and give it changes yeah your life changes a lot well and and you really do just work
22:12
with really really smart people you know and you know like when I was at Epic yeah just working I remember you know
22:19
from a design standpoint I was so like anti-designing I I don’t know why I was I was maybe it’s just because I’m so
22:26
analytical and kind of data driven my own mindset but it wasn’t until I started you know working uh over there
22:32
then like my light you know started to open up my mind started to open up I’m like okay all right now Design’s like a
22:39
huge part you know there is a ton of value added here if it’s done well and yeah you it’s just another benefit of
22:47
working with an agency you worked with really smart people doing a lot of crazy cool work yeah yeah so how are you
22:53
enjoying tab now yeah and how did you get this goal too this is because you went from epic to tab yeah so how did
23:00
that happen um yeah I mean it was kind of a a little bit of a long journey and but it was uh
23:07
it was fun though like going into tab which you know my backgrounds I I didn’t
23:13
have any financial banking in the background yeah in the finance industry I didn’t have any background there and
23:19
it really was what was funny it was actually one of my first uh questions when I was
23:25
um talking to the board and whatnot was it’s like you don’t have a finance background like what makes you feel like
23:30
you can do this job yeah um and a lot of my background experience is working with
23:36
various Brands were like I didn’t have experience before that but we we had a framework that worked
23:41
um and we had a way of thinking about these marketing campaigns that allowed us to learn quickly and iterate and
23:47
experiment in a in the right way and and really dive into getting those results
23:53
and um but yeah working on tab has been amazing and like I said it’s you know
24:00
you do have kind of the old running joke of you know Banker hours and it’s nice
24:05
the difference between working at Tab and an agency is like night and day you know oh my gosh I could be I could be
24:12
focused I can work on the things that we want to work on um but then you know on the weekends I’m like I have the weekends right and yeah
24:18
it’s very very rare um that we have a fire um we I mean we did
24:25
with uh you know during covet and ppps and and really just trying to help customers
24:30
um but that was probably that was probably the one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen uh at the bank because it wasn’t about us because we
24:38
knew that every time we got an application through then like there was a company on the other end that was
24:43
getting it and if we didn’t get it done in time they wouldn’t get the money and they wouldn’t be able to pay in place yeah and so we I mean
24:52
literally every night because we’re a small bank and you know we’re not a mega Bank like a chaser or a U.S bank and we
24:59
were up all on teams together just two three o’clock in the morning um and Loans through yeah we were just
25:05
like walking through these applications and so um when there are legit you know fires
25:10
and it was kind of it was nobody told us right it wasn’t that my boss was saying John I need you to work through we just
25:17
knew what had to be done um and we were all just collectively willing to kind of participate and work
25:23
through that but that being said yeah you really do for the most part you know just you kind of work your your time and
25:30
you kind of give it your all but then when you have your time with your family and you have that time often it’s really
25:35
nice to not have to stress or worry about work until you have to worry about work yeah my brother-in-law is a VP over
25:41
at DL Evans and a similar probably Bank in size to Tad bank but they I remember
25:46
him telling me all the stories with the PPP stuff and just the craziness with these small local Community Banks it
25:52
really helped I think obviously the banks get a a lot of recognition and being able to
25:59
serve customers they probably wouldn’t have otherwise you know because they were they were faster at processing these loans than a lot of the big boys
26:05
were so well and it was funny because we have I mean we had 13 Google reviews in
26:11
the history of the bank like ever right yeah um and after PPP we had over 430. wow
26:18
that’s amazing they were just like yeah they and all these different comments it was just um it was really great to hear
26:24
from these customers who were like in a real life crisis with their business and you know finding a way in our small part
26:30
to be able to help those businesses to grow and Thrive that’s cool that’s so cool so um
26:36
marketing for a bank that’s a that’s a very unique and sounds almost difficult
26:43
approach uh how do you create a unique structure around that compared to just
26:49
you know I wear a bank yeah keep your money here and we hope it’s
26:54
different than like an e-commerce yeah yeah where it was flipping a product you know yeah how do you create this uh
27:00
unique product offering yeah well and you know to add a layer of complexity
27:06
right so you have regulatory complexities right like yes that was like one of the biggest challenges for
27:12
me when I first got there was the fact that like when I had an idea or like one of our team members had an idea normally
27:18
I’m just like all right let’s just run so I could go with it then oh wait no we we have a compliance process we have to go through we have to get it vetted by
27:25
literally so many people and so you have a regulatory layer that’s on top of it but you know at tab specifically right
27:32
we have a B2B b2c um and then B to B to C um and we have these three pillars that
27:38
act very differently um and that don’t really you know on on the outset have a lot of overlap like
27:45
they’re very distinct audiences and like the product works very very differently in a lot of different ways
27:51
um but you know for it’s something that I I tell the the team all the time is I
27:58
think in Bank marketing generally we run into complacency because there are so many
28:04
barriers right and there’s so many roadblocks we’re just like you know what we’re just going to do the easy way where like we’ll play it safe not deal
28:11
with any of the regulatory headaches you know and compliance issues and we know what we can say and then we’ll just kind
28:18
of run down that lane but you know one of the challenges that when I first got at tab bank it’s like let’s just use
28:24
these constraints as our way of innovating right like make the roadblocks be the way right like to
28:31
create this new path of how marketing can be awesome and kind of work yeah and we’re not perfect by any means on all
28:37
things you know like we’re a small relatively small marketing team um but you know kind of working with
28:43
agency partners and our internal team like really just leaning into the
28:48
constraints as opposed to like complaining about it and it’s like you know throwing our hands up like there’s no way you’re not doing this
28:55
um but yeah it’s it’s not about of whether or not we can or not it’s just what whether or not we’re willing to put
29:00
in the work to find a way right yeah yeah it’s fun though it’s it can be
29:05
frustrating at times but at the same time it’s I think it’s an entire industry that’s kind of ripe for kind of
29:12
marketing disruption totally um because it’s funny because a lot of times people ask ask me is and say hey like what are
29:20
some competitors that we can kind of Benchmark against when we’re trying to put together like a deck or a
29:25
presentation I’m like don’t like don’t use other competitors right like for the most part I’m like look at other people
29:31
outside of the industry because you know a lot of Bank marketing has very similar tone
29:37
um they say all the same things you know and we we literally just had a marketing Retreat where we were talking about this
29:42
like you take off the logo off most of those ads like you can’t tell who the ads buy right like it’s not
29:48
differentiated like it’s a good Financial ad it’s a horrible brand ad um and so like leaning into like how do
29:55
we actually differentiate the message while still being true to you you know the overall brand essence of who we are
30:01
um it’s a challenge but it’s it’s a fun challenge what are some of the regulatory roadblocks I guess I’m
30:07
semi-familiar but I’m curious like what are those roadblocks that like what are I assume it’s things you can’t or cannot
30:14
say you know some things to do with brand guarantees promises I’m sure but what what does that look like yeah I
30:20
mean if you have everything from you know reg D and like bait and switch um and messaging and you literally have
30:27
to bear like you have to be able to show every claim that you make um so if you just say world-class you
30:34
know technology like you just said world-class technology like now you have to back it up like are
30:40
you actually world class or is it just an average like how do they Define world class is it well that’s that’s kind of
30:45
that’s up through The Regulators okay um and that’s actually part of the Nuance right like it’s challenging because it’s
30:53
the inter the interpretation of The Regulators so like the the mark moves right like it’s not the same mark from
30:59
year to year um and from an Administration to Administration and so you you kind of have to understand like how they are
31:05
defining certain things um but you know for the most part like a lot of the regulations that are in place
31:10
make sense right like and it is to protect customers and making sure that you know you have this like crazy low
31:17
interest rate for a car loan but like literally nobody can you know get it like you don’t want to have kind of this
31:23
like bait and switch where you advertise that bring everyone in and then they get a loan but like literally there’s no way
31:28
that they were ever going to get that rate you know or just making claims and it is one of the
31:35
things that I think is again another constraint but it’s another thing for us to Think Through it’s like okay let’s be
31:42
very intentional with the wording that we’re seeing right and we’re not going to make claims that we can’t back up and
31:49
if we’re going to make a claim that we need to make that claim so it’s it’s a fun challenge but yeah like those are
31:55
just like a couple of examples what’s been like your favorite I guess uh campaign to get around some of those
32:02
regulations recently for tab yeah I mean we
32:07
um unfortunately we had to shut it down but we um because we had a partner that uh was
32:12
in solvent with it but they it was an awesome product it was it was a soccer
32:18
awards debit card um so it wasn’t a credit card it was a just a normal normal checking debit
32:23
account um but it would give you fractional shares rewards that you spent money
32:28
um and then as you worked with different as you shopped at different brands then you would get different stock rewards in
32:35
those Brands it was such a cool product but now not only do we have one
32:40
regulatory body we have two regulatory bodies right and so we have finra and the FDIC and and we have our bank
32:47
regulations and we just had so many Hoops that we had to kind of jump through and so we have this really cool
32:52
Innovative product but like how do we say it without you know overs you know overstating or overstepping some of the
32:59
claims that we need to make and you know the campaign that I we ended up and landed on I think was awesome and you
33:07
know Fast Company like we had everyone from like Fast Company to all these different media uh Publications like
33:13
promoting it and you know American Banker was kind of showing it’s like hey look this little uh kind of smaller uh
33:20
Bank in tab bank is coming out with this like crazy Innovative product um and so that was probably one of my I
33:26
mean we spent you know almost two years prepping um for that that campaign and we
33:32
launched it and we had a lot of success uh early on um you know but unfortunately it kind of
33:37
went by the wayside but we’re just going to do that again you know with new products and right now we’re in the
33:42
middle of that with our high yield savings account right and so again it’s one of those claims things you know like
33:48
it’s it’s 11 times better than you know the uh average savings account but even
33:54
in this past week it was really cool because Apple uh has made a lot of news yeah they came
34:01
out with their high yield Savings of like 4.7 or something like yeah it was like 4.1 4.1 yeah yeah and but what was
34:08
cool is on almost all of those uh mentions where they’re talking about
34:14
Apple’s new products uh they did bring up the the accounts that have a higher rate
34:19
um than Apples um with the same like no deposits or anything and yeah tab was mentioned in all of it oh that’s that’s
34:25
awesome so it was really cool too all of a sudden you see this massive uptick and yeah to be kind of tied alongside with
34:32
you know all of the press that Apple was generating and kind of that Apple machine and then have tab kind of tied
34:37
and connected to that story was really kind of cool to see I was just gonna say
34:44
um this apple thing kind of confused me and maybe you can help explain it because to me it did seem a little bait
34:50
and switch what they were doing because it isn’t necessarily a banking it isn’t necessarily a bank account right well I
34:57
mean it is but and so it’s a B2B to C play right and so
35:03
there’s the Strategic Partners right so apple is not a bank in and of itself right
35:08
um but they’re working as essentially a partner and a strategic partner and so the bank that’s behind them is Goldman
35:14
Sachs right um yeah and so so we do that a lot too like we work with Partners who
35:19
on the front end so like a venmo is a good example of this right so venmo
35:24
um you know originally when it started it wasn’t a bank it partnered with a bank in order to do it in order to move
35:30
money you still have to have banking rules right yeah um and so but they weren’t a bank you know when they
35:36
started out and so they partnered with Bank in order on the back end in order to do the things that they do
35:42
um and so this is just Apple doing this right and so this is Apple kind of going in diving into the kind of financial
35:48
space um but you know in a way it’ll be interesting to see what Apple chooses to
35:54
do with this um because they could very well you know in the long run like you know maybe this
36:00
is yeah actually want to become a bank right a Lending Tree did this like Lending Tree started off as kind of our
36:05
partner not as a bank but then they ended up going full flights into uh getting a bank Charter which is you know
36:12
a pretty heavy moat but you know for I mean if you’re an apple like it’s it’s inevitable that it probably will happen
36:19
it’s so it’s getting into cars you may as well have a bank yeah so it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out
36:24
but yeah are you able to move quickly for example on Tick Tock if you were if
36:30
you had an employee making tick tocks saying hey this is blowing up everywhere
36:35
about Apple but we’re being mentioned is better and we want to hop on Tick Tock and say hey we’re tab bank I know
36:40
everyone’s talking about Apple but here’s the advantages to using tab over Apple would you be able to do that or do
36:47
you have to get even stuff like that approved yeah yeah like so we would have to get it approved uh I mean to be fair
36:54
our compliance team you know relative to other compliance teams in other Banks
37:00
they’re awesome um and I actually feel bad for them because like because we’re
37:06
like oh my gosh here’s we’re dumping all this on you and by the way we have a 24 hour turnaround like we need you to do
37:11
this oh and they can do it that fast but they’re they’re awesome like the our compliance team is so good at um just
37:16
being able to respond and respond quickly whereas you know I think a lot of Bank marketing compliance teams can
37:22
be like you know a lot longer process but that being said um it is more kind of strategic in like
37:29
where do we want to jump and kind of put our limited resources and bandwidth around
37:34
um but social media I mean this is a thing like so I’m a social media guy right and that’s I’m not my background
37:41
um but we just have not done social well at all right because it just wasn’t the front of mind and yeah it wasn’t the
37:48
low-hanging fruit and when I first came into tab you know like we had a lot of pushback right on on social like crazy
37:55
amount of push uh um pushback and so I was like okay this is not a battle worth
38:01
fighting yet like we have all of this other low hanging fruit that we need to attack first and then we’ll eventually
38:07
get to Social and so now we’re at a point where we have enough wins under
38:12
our belt right that they’ve seen with all of these various campaigns it’s like yeah we still don’t understand what you
38:18
guys are doing um but we’re gonna trust you because you’ve proven results in the past with these other products and other
38:24
campaigns and so finally we’re starting to get into that brand building and the social media it’s going to be a really
38:30
important component of that brand building um process how do you guys how do you guys track like our Roi on your
38:37
campaigns like from a banking standpoint are you tracking like I’m just curious like online signups or is it people
38:44
coming in to sign up for an account like what what is that how does that work yeah I mean each product is kind of
38:51
different on how they you know how we kind of generate that but the long and short of it we we
38:57
basically calculate a lifetime value yeah um for these various products and then as we gain new customers we just
39:04
you know just measure relative to our you know our overall caps on those uh
39:10
marketing campaigns and compare it to our uh those lifetime values and you know like with our working capital
39:16
campaigns it’s you know I remember you know very distinct when we when we first
39:21
got a budget like previously we didn’t have any budget and for it’s essentially our business lending uh line you know
39:28
it’s a little bit more specific than that but anyways essentially it’s a business lending account um and when we started that campaign I
39:36
just remember there’s like the budget for this should be zero um like we we’ve we’ve never done anything in marketing
39:43
that’s actually worked for this it’s a very Niche industry you know like if you can’t it can’t be cash cash can’t be
39:50
involved it’s you know it’s a working capital uh line of crap credit and so
39:56
um it’s based on invoices like they they’re selling us invoices and so it’s a very Niche product and they’re like
40:01
this you know we had a lot of pushback and like the budget should be zero and so we we’re we’re like give us a little
40:07
bit of a budget we’ll just prove it out we’ll experiment with it and maybe you’re right maybe it doesn’t work out
40:13
um but we we’ve essentially from the first year that we had our campaign to now
40:19
um we’ve 10x that budget because of the success amazing the success that we’ve seen and it’s like yeah like and even
40:26
those who kind of doubted us and now are like leaning into it they’re like all right let’s let’s do more of this and
40:32
let’s continue to build it out and Yeah and we ended up having record you know 2021 2022 years um like literally in the
40:39
history of the bank um in a large part because a lot of those campaigns and a lot of the product teams just working really really well
40:46
with uh with each other oh cool that’s super cool what kind of marketing uh
40:52
channels and avenues do you guys use do you use traditional marketing at all
40:57
like Billboards or paper mailers or is it all digital footprint do you use any
41:05
influencers yeah so we for the longest time it was your
41:12
standard digital channels um and events like that those were kind of like our two big areas that we
41:18
invested a lot of time and money into but we’ve expanded that um quite a bit and so uh traditional is a component of it
41:26
it’s probably our smallest component of our budget um but no longer traditional yeah
41:33
yeah but it’s it’s it is interesting though because even in a traditional sense because you know
41:40
having this General Mantra of like zigging when everyone’s zagging right and so everyone’s pointing money into digital well money’s coming out of
41:47
traditional and so now where it was there there is time where it kind of makes sense to kind of dive into some
41:53
traditional um buys and some are just like well like I mean this is so cheap
41:58
like let’s just try it out let’s just do it experiment with it but so we do some traditional
42:04
um some Billboards and um but we do a lot we’re still heavy on events
42:10
um we’re still heavy on digital um digital a because it’s part of the expertise that we have as a team
42:17
um so a lot of you know we have like really um literally world-class experts you
42:23
know uh who can speak better than anyone that I’ve ever seen speak
42:29
um and I don’t even know how we got them to come to Tampa then they decided that coming to town um but you know they’ve added a
42:35
tremendous amount of value um but I would say yeah we’re you know paid social search your traditional uh
42:41
digital marketing channels and then events are still comprising most of what we do we we did just start influencer
42:48
marketing um hey because it’s a space that I’ve been in um yeah I mean almost you know 14 years
42:57
now um so like I’ve been in it for a long time and I’ve just kind of seen it grow and I just feel like there’s so much
43:03
opportunity and you know and we have just uh it was about two weeks ago we had like a super successful Mario movie
43:11
night with influencers and oh cool and it worked out so well um and it was sorry that I couldn’t come back oh yeah
43:17
no it’s not bad it would have been awesome yeah Dan is is a pretty big influence
43:23
I know you sent me the invite and I was like dang it I can’t come it just wasn’t gonna work out that night though well it
43:30
was just cool because what we ended up doing is we we ended up having influencers from very different Industries so we had some LinkedIn
43:36
influencers we had some old school like OG vloggers like myself like that I’ve
43:42
known for years uh we had Instagram influencers and they all had different niches and different uh customer bases
43:48
up to to speak to um but yeah it just worked out so well and you know and it’s funny because it’s
43:55
like so many Brands when they work with influencers want to control the message so much right like they want to say on
44:01
brand but you know in my in my experience where you have so much value when you’re doing influence marketing is
44:08
allowing the influencers you know it’s like hey this is the general message that needs to get out but however you know the audience better
44:15
like you make it true to you and your audience and just kind of let them run with it and it’s amazing like the
44:21
content that they create um and I mean I remember one time we did that with Bossa um and Vasa Fitness here
44:28
locally it’s you know more well established well-known brand but we were just opening up in Arizona
44:35
and Arizona nobody knew who Vasa was right and they had no no expectation
44:40
there was very very little brand value and our caps were just so high because
44:45
of that um yeah and so we’re like okay let’s do an influencer marketing campaign but the caveat with this is
44:52
like you have an influencer come in and they have millions of followers but or you know anywhere from 100 000 or
44:59
millions of followers but the geographic area for a gym is only five miles right
45:04
like the effective like to get actual synapse as a five mile radius and so it’s like cool you have 10 million
45:11
followers but like 9.99 you know like million of those followers won’t matter because they’re
45:17
outside of that five mile radius and so we’re like okay how could we do this still Leverage The Power of influencer
45:23
marketing while at the same time you know make it effective for account and what was what was super easy and I don’t
45:30
know why I haven’t thought of this providing to that but we just took their content that they created and repurposed
45:36
them as apps and then geofenced it right within that found my radius yeah and it destroyed our best performing ad that we
45:43
had up until that point um and so that’s awesome yeah it was crazy good it was crazy effective and
45:49
um so there’s a lot of different ways to utilize influencer marketing than just you know that sharing a you know
45:55
organically socially to their audiences and in the banking industry you have to
46:00
control what they say right because if if they say even one word or one phrase
46:06
that’s outside of what you guys do that has to be completely shut down yeah so it is a little bit more uh stringy right
46:14
like um you know and when we do these formal influencer campaigns working directly
46:20
with them we do kind of have a one sheet of things that like you can’t say more importantly what you can’t say yeah and
46:28
um but even when they do like they’re still close through our compliance team right and yeah and so but yeah but again
46:36
it’s a because it’s a hurdle right most banks aren’t willing to do this the
46:41
world it’s like yeah that’s too much of a pain a lot to do that so I’m not wanting to do it um and so it’s like let’s just lean into
46:47
it and let’s you know again zigging when everyone’s zagging and and finding the
46:52
ways to break through the noise and this is one way to do it because you know if tab Bank officially you know from our
46:59
official Channel talks about how great or even me as you know the VP of marketing right like if I’m saying good
47:05
things about Tav well of course I’m going to say good things about tap because I workout tab or you know tab’s
47:10
going to say good things about tab yeah um but when you’re when you’re latching on and building these relationships
47:16
trust um you know these influencers can be wildly uh effective at conveying a
47:22
message you know coming from them upside in so how do you feel your top of funnel is it through uh paid Media or is it
47:29
through events and then you’re doing a lot of retargeting is your top funnel uh
47:35
do you have a big organic top of funnel or how’s that work um it depends on the product
47:41
um and so you know when it comes to like our equipment and trucking um I mean we’ve
47:46
been in the space for 25 years and a lot of it is just organic and it’s you know
47:51
it’s just Word of Mouth people tell us in the trucking space because tab actually you know respond out of Flying
47:58
J truck stops right and so okay um and you know a lot of our sister companies right now like Maverick gas
48:04
stations and Crystal and the hotels like we are all under that same umbrella umbrella of the Flying J Management
48:10
Group but um so certain areas are more organic like when it comes to uh specifically
48:17
with some of our business lines you know those events um are probably our best you know full funnel you know like just
48:25
bringing them where they’re seeing us consistently over time and then you know speaking with us to you know speaking
48:31
with ourselves same team could get those uh deals done um but like in the consumer space from
48:37
the b2c space you know that’s something we’re in the middle of building like we don’t have top the way like you ask any
48:44
average person out there like hey like not only have they not heard of our product they just haven’t heard of us at
48:49
all right they they would have no idea who tap bank is and so now we’re in that process of trying to fill up that fund
48:56
electric uh awareness like not even top of Mind awareness we just need awareness
49:01
of who we are period and then we can start working down and building on that funnel but yeah right now a lot of that
49:07
is through influencer marketing as well as uh our paid channels okay that’s awesome cool if you seem like I mean
49:13
you’ve had such a huge Road in your journey like going from you know working
49:19
for IHC in research to you know the agency life to all these different
49:25
things very a lot of it being heavily analytical as you’ve talked about and a
49:31
lot of it being extremely creative so how how have you Blended the two of those things together to obviously give
49:37
you a really I think a good Edge on other people in the industry
49:43
well you know one thing that I’ve what I’ve learned is you know
49:48
it’s kind of like a non-marketing answer but it really is kind of building out a strong Network and so you you have the
49:54
old adage you know it’s not who you know or someone you know it’s who you know um but I’d like to kind of have a little
50:01
bit of a Twist to that saying and which is like who you know is what you know right like like your network literally
50:08
defines your effective intelligence to get things done um and so like if we’re reliant on just
50:13
John hunting house this is mine like everything that I know how to do and why I can effectively put out there
50:21
um it’s not that much right like it’s uh it kind of sucks and I mean it’s uh I
50:26
might be good more on the analytical data side of things but when especially like creative side like I’m I’m probably
50:33
not the best right and like you’re probably not going to me to kind of build out a creative uh deck and so like
50:40
learning to build out this network and learning to have people that you trust and know that can kind of show up for
50:47
you um you know and for us it’s everywhere from agency partners to just people I’ve
50:52
known for years that I can kind of just pick their brains um you know and kind of have a a little
50:57
bit of a Brain Trust um so like one of my favorite like well it’s not one it’s the my favorite book
51:04
ever is creativity Inc and um I love it so much because I just think there’s so many practical uses for
51:09
it um but one of the ideas that kind of pulls from that book is this idea of a Brain Trust right and their job is not
51:16
to solve your problems right um it’s just to identify issues and um it’s just like there’s something with
51:23
this or with this campaign that feels weird or off to us or there’s something about this that we feel like needs to be
51:29
looked at um and that alone helps you like you usually can solve the problem
51:35
um it’s just identifying where those problems exist in the first place and you know having a network of people that
51:41
you can just go to and just like pitch ideas too like it’s just incredibly invaluable because even like
51:47
tab if we’re only you know if we’re only able to solve the problems that we ourselves know how to
51:54
solve like we’re even limited to that right yeah and so you really do have to Branch
51:59
outside your industry you have to Branch outside of you know your own Network and and it really kind of shows the power of
52:06
networking and I was like when I was getting my MBA at the University of Utah that was like the big pitch is like
52:12
networking and yeah it’s like this is like such bull crap like I don’t care like I could have cared less about now
52:19
networking I was just like I just want to get my education get my degree and then just kind of move on yeah yeah um
52:25
but then hindsight now it’s just like it’s just incredibly invaluable you know because everybody runs into things that
52:32
they can’t solve and when you run into those roadblocks like yeah the the best way to solve it is finding people whose
52:38
art who have already done that and so you know that’s super cool well and and you’re involved with uh school still I
52:47
mean you’re still you’re still teaching aren’t you adjunct both Weber and enzyme or just Weber now yeah just a weaver
52:53
just do whatever now oh wow I guess for somebody maybe wanting to get into adjunct because it’s it I think it takes
53:00
a special person to have a full-time job and to teach adjunct so why teach and have a full-time job and doing
53:06
everything that you’re doing yeah well what is you know on a
53:12
it does keep me connected right like two kind of the boots on the ground like on the in the weeds of like what are
53:17
students kind of running into like what are the questions they’re asking um and what are the problems that they’re running into so it’s a good way
53:24
to kind of keep me grounded um but really it is to a it is to
53:29
network um I I really do network with my students um and it’s like yes I’m I’m
53:34
helping you and I’m I’m solving you know helping you instruct you know whatever
53:39
marketing Theory or practice or learning how to run Google ads and what what not now about 5 10 15 years from now there
53:47
could very well be a challenge I run into that I need their help for right yeah um and really it’s just to kind of
53:54
get back um because for me in my career there’s no way for me to grow as fast as
53:59
I have in marketing um without the help of people who like
54:04
just pulled me along the way right who just kind of showed me how to get things done and I had a handful of great
54:11
mentors who just so John just you don’t know what you’re doing so just imitate this right like just literally
54:19
word for words just imitate this and then you can build upon that and what
54:24
I’ve learned is like that’s literally how we learn as human beings right like initially
54:29
like when you are you know first learning how to cook you know no Chef is gonna be like don’t copy my recipe like
54:36
get your own recipe it’s like I don’t know what a recipe is right and so your initial when you’re first learning how
54:41
to cook it’s literally word for word following instructions of someone else who’s done it before yeah and then over
54:47
time you start to add your own little variations and then as you gain experience you really start to like you
54:53
know what I’m going to take this in a whole completely different way I’m going to create my own new thing
54:58
um and yeah I mean it’s it’s one of the things that like I’ve learned and gained a ton of value from in my life and so
55:04
it’s uh it’s the primary reason why I teach because it is a way to give back yeah and kind of pay it forward
55:11
um because I benefited from a lot of amazing smart individuals doing the same thing for me totally no that’s awesome
55:17
and I I think school does provide that structure and that mentorship I think if you do it right I think there’s there’s
55:24
there’s a right way to do school and there’s a wrong way for sure um how did you find the men enters over
55:30
there it seems like mentors you still have now how I mean uh maybe give us an
55:35
example of how you’ve found and and kept a mentor yeah and even for students how
55:41
do you find the right mentors that you can trust that yeah you know should be your mentors yeah I mean
55:47
second question is a lot harder question yes for sure yeah it’s it can be challenging and difficult
55:53
um and finding that right mix um and and you’re constantly finding new mentors right like because there’s
55:59
constantly new things that you’ve never built in and so I um you know so one
56:04
when I was first getting into Facebook ads right I was like I really didn’t know what I was doing I was just testing
56:10
a few things for our own stuff with LDS while and I was like nothing was really working very well and so I went and you
56:18
know there’s some classes and courses that people put out there and I and I took a lot of those courses and most of
56:24
them were just garbage and that was in the early days too yeah that was in the early days they’ve only gotten worse
56:30
yeah those courses have only gotten worse that’s for sure yeah and so I was like it was kind of frustrating but I
56:37
ended up running into a guy named Dennis you um and Dennis um just on his stuff like he was just
56:44
willing to share so much information just on this is popular for you he’s built an amazing Community yeah and
56:52
so then I was just like all right you know what this Dennis guy I’m just gonna like just follow social media posts um
56:57
and then I ended up being able to get to know him individually and directly um and then we started to build this
57:03
relationship and yeah like he was he was the one who really helped me refine my
57:10
paid social approach and it’s like okay like he gave me a framework like which I
57:15
could look through and and the framework worked you know and I had to adjust it and I had to do different things over
57:21
time but um it was his guidance that really got me into the whole social paid social
57:28
um you know media buying um where then I ultimately that’s where my Milhouse became um over the years because I just
57:35
had a lot of experience in that um but you know even something recent right uh Andy rubon over uh who’s the
57:41
CMO at El Pollo Loco and I ended up just getting partnered with him last year and
57:47
and that’s a completely different propane right like yeah Dennis was I kind of sought him out looked at you
57:53
know trying to follow him on social and just reached out and kind of build out that network but relationship but you
57:58
can also have more formal you know mentorships and so mine was through the admin uh ad week program where they take
58:05
senior Executives and partner with them with like uh these in like big time CMOS and you know his perspective is awesome
58:12
and it’s been really valuable for me just to kind of look outside of even marketing right because like what’s my
58:19
goal like my goal as a VP of marketing it’s like it is to start to go into that
58:25
CMO role you know and working with these Brands yeah and so just kind of moving
58:30
from the you know I’m in a new phase right like and so
58:35
I’ve I’ve become my VP of marketing but now it’s like how do I you know if I’m trying to take that next step and the
58:42
next value out um you know working with Andy has been awesome like and he’s just such a smart
58:48
kind of analytical mind and he’s worked on everything from four to McDonald’s you know and uh to now El Pollo Loco and
58:54
just watching his own career growth he’s live if you want to take that next step like you have to stop only solving
59:01
marketing problems you have to solve business problems like your peers like as a CMO your peers are not other
59:07
marketers your peers are the CEO it’s yeah it’s the CEO and so the CFO yeah
59:13
CFO and so you have to think like that right like have you have to get outside your
59:18
marketing bubble and and a lot of that feedback and advice that he’s kind of given me uh over the past year it’s been
59:25
really really awesome but to that second question which is like how do you find them right so I’ve been lucky both
59:31
Dennis as well as Andy um and there’s been other people like Susan want to grab like just like her
59:38
content is like amazingly good but you know not only do they have to
59:43
have the right information and good information they also have to you know they have to be available and and
59:49
finding that that person who smart understands it can provide great feedback
59:55
um but also find availability it’s a little bit of a trial and error and yeah you know sometimes you you find those
1:00:01
people and they’re just not available or like they you can never touch base with them if that’s the case then like you move on right like you find someone who
1:00:08
has that availability that’s willing to do it because I promise you there’s a million people and a lot more people
1:00:14
than you think who are willing that are willing to kind of provide that mentorship especially if you’re willing
1:00:20
to bring specifics to them right um and like my biggest pet peeve is when
1:00:25
I have someone it’s just like Hey general advice you know and I’m like first of all like it’s not the question
1:00:33
you just asked me is not specific enough for you to move on therefore like like don’t be an advice suck right like don’t
1:00:40
just asked me for advice and you know Direction and then me providing that to
1:00:46
you and not in your head it’s like oh yeah that’s great and then therefore then not do anything with it right yeah there’s going to be things that like you
1:00:53
know your mentors are going to give you that are going to be wrong or off base but you have to kind of take it with a great install but you have to like take
1:00:59
action on it um and yeah in order to for it to be actionable like you really do have to
1:01:05
think through the questions you’re asking and making them specific like have a goal in mind this is what I’m
1:01:11
trying to achieve this is what I’m trying to accomplish like what are some of your thoughts about this you know yeah show them you value their time yeah
1:01:18
and you bring their eyes to the table Yeah like bringing value to the table I think is huge to get a mentor whether
1:01:24
whether that’s your time whether that is your talent whether it’s whatever it is
1:01:29
giving to that Mentor usually is reciprocal yeah no it’s very true um so
1:01:35
one thing we like to do kind of towards the end of our uh episodes is always ask
1:01:40
where you think future of marketing is going and because and most people that
1:01:46
we interview tell us that they have no clue right which I think is a sign of a good marketer because we never have any
1:01:53
idea but uh but best guesses right what what is the future of marketing digital
1:01:59
is it tick tock is meta gonna be the biggest player are we gonna be how are
1:02:04
we fill in our top of funnel stuff like that no I I think that’s a really good question and you know it’s it is true
1:02:12
like um if you were to go back and see what these guesses are and you know 99 of
1:02:18
them are wrong unless you’re Gary vaynerchuk then they’re all right or you just do so many predictions
1:02:25
you’re bound to be right on something yeah that’s really awesome Gary Gary does but yeah I mean when I think about kind
1:02:33
of the future of marketing um it is kind of a multi multi kind of pronged on this and so I mean
1:02:40
you have an emergence of AI right like like right now ai is such a Hot Topic right
1:02:46
um but the the the real problem with AI is finding a way to use AI as an effective
1:02:54
tool right um to still solve business problems and so this is going to be like an old
1:03:00
school like not like sexy answer um but it is kind of the trend that that
1:03:07
we’re already starting to see so it’s a shift in marketing already right so back in the day it was all brand power right
1:03:14
it’s all about because people trusted Brands and that’s where we got most of our information then you know Google
1:03:19
came along and now a lot of that like Brands still do matter but peer reviews uh reviews reviews like
1:03:26
highly informed that information along the way but you’ve also seen kind of a shift from marketers being primarily
1:03:33
creative driven to more data focused and analytically focused um in terms of trying to solve
1:03:40
um for these campaigns but I I do think you’re going to see a much higher
1:03:46
increase in kind of the psychology right like really understanding like The Human Experience
1:03:53
um because I still think like that’s going to be the context that like even AI is going
1:04:00
to have a hard time getting that Nuance right yes because AI is like AI is ripe with biases right
1:04:08
like it’s and it’s it’s only as good as information that’s given to it
1:04:14
um but also for marketers and I just think it’s just something that we’ve sucked at for so long and it’s just
1:04:20
something that we have to be stronger at which is like solving the ultimate business problems like it’s it’s cool
1:04:27
that you want to do everything like all these cool uh social media campaigns to
1:04:32
um you know either social causes or whatever like that’s these are all fine and Daniel but at the end of the day
1:04:38
like you’re trying to grow a business um and marketers like we we’re talking our own
1:04:44
language we we reference our own marketing metrics but we don’t talk in business metrics enough right
1:04:50
um and so I I really do think you’ll start to see a shift this is actually why I think you don’t see many marketers
1:04:55
as CEOs because we suck at doing this like um CEOs CFOs do this really really
1:05:01
well but marketers kind of have a struggle struggle to kind of do this but you’re starting to see what the shift
1:05:08
from Brands to you know and creatives to the data data people
1:05:14
you’re going to start to see the shift of more marketers being CEOs because they’re learning to like they’re
1:05:21
thinking through it like a business and solving business problems but communicating as an actual human yeah I
1:05:27
think we’ll see a lot more of a Resurgence of traditional personally but yeah yeah interesting I I do see a lot
1:05:34
of that zigging zapping right like and we have a tendency to do that we yeah history repeats itself yeah we look back
1:05:40
well as attribution starts to get muddy people just start to say okay I mean the
1:05:46
reason that it’s been so sexy to advertise on Facebook and Tick Tock and all these platforms is because you’re
1:05:51
you get this direct attribution hit of dopamine and you think oh my gosh I know
1:05:56
I got exactly a 5x I’m an analytical marketer I’m gonna dive in and I’m gonna do this again Double Down repeat but
1:06:03
then as attribution gets muddy it goes back to what even happens with Billboards it’s like how many people saw
1:06:09
our billboard I don’t know there’s about 150 000 people that pass by there every day but let’s start paying attention to
1:06:15
your top funnel and see if your awareness is growing so totally our our trackable data is going to become only
1:06:21
the data we own yeah um shout out bestie the the app that is
1:06:26
coming out that is helping uh us all collect first party data but we get into that another time I just think yeah that
1:06:33
first party data and also the idea of maybe uh marketers instead of going and
1:06:40
getting a marketing degree you get a psychology degree and start understanding how humans actually work
1:06:46
yeah and what that could do for the future of marketing could be so wild and it’s it’s not linear right and like we
1:06:52
we love to put people in buckets and it’s like and we love to treat it like we love to treat marketing like it’s a
1:06:57
physical science in life yeah if you do this this is always going to happen it’s like it’s human people like they’re
1:07:02
you’re dealing with humans you do irrational things and I mean like brand is literally that right it’s people
1:07:09
paying like making irrational decisions right like sure like I shouldn’t be spending 250 on a Nike like like it
1:07:16
doesn’t actually like put that much value if you like break down like the actual you know logic behind it but we
1:07:23
do because there’s Brown yeah and all of us wearing kids yeah like this is what
1:07:29
oh my gosh we are every single one of us Grand value yeah the brand value because it’s right like that’s awesome and it’s
1:07:35
like could I buy cheap repair you know like I don’t because like Acoustics are
1:07:40
the only thing that I own because I just love the brand and do I make irrational decisions yeah like that but it’s okay
1:07:47
like I’m okay with that and we all do like me buying I mean they’ve got a great value pressure yeah they do have a
1:07:52
they do have a pretty awesome value problem but eventually that’s when I wear it off right like they’re they’re
1:07:58
going to be other competitors in that space But um I do think the one thing I will say
1:08:03
that’s not existent right now that I do think will be a pretty seismic shift
1:08:10
um and this is something I’ve been on for a while that will change the market like how we do marketing is the
1:08:15
portability of first part like of your own personal data right like right now a lot of the businesses own it
1:08:21
um but I do think we’re going to get to a point that it’s going to be kind of like a telephone number right like it’s like I own it and then if I choose to go
1:08:27
from like ATT to um Verizon then like I can Port that number but I it’s still my number right
1:08:34
whereas back in negative to me yeah back in the day the number the numbers were
1:08:39
owned by the businesses and so like the companies and so when you you switch carriers you had to switch phone numbers
1:08:45
you couldn’t Port that over but legislation came in you know it was just like hey you know what you own the phone
1:08:50
number of business doors so you can Port it um and I do think that we’re going to run into legislation that allows
1:08:57
individuals you know with all this talking about privacy um like I do think we’re gonna
1:09:02
eventually get to the point where we’re going to have legislation that allows you to own your own data and then you
1:09:07
can Port it to companies as you want to um which I think is going to really change the landscape of how we go
1:09:14
especially on the more analytical data on the attribute that’s all going to go away on the attribution side it’s going
1:09:19
to Disappear Completely wow wow super interesting this has been really insightful I think that we learn a lot
1:09:26
about one pros and cons working for an agency or working for a single entity we’re about working how to Market a bank
1:09:33
yeah a lot of this is stuff I had no idea well I had some idea but I think it’s really interesting and a very Niche
1:09:40
category yeah and the future marketing where it’s at now attribution like this
1:09:46
conversation is so worthwhile for anyone who’s looking to get into uh digital marketing or anyone who’s
1:09:54
maybe starting to take that turn into a single entity and how to have that
1:09:59
unique perspective that you have with tabs so where can people find you this is like your Shameless plug point in the
1:10:05
show yeah I mean probably LinkedIn is the easiest way to find me and yeah it’s the platform I’m I’m the most active on
1:10:13
um I mean you can find me on my other platforms but again it’s probably the LinkedIn yeah yeah it’s the professional
1:10:18
platform John hunting house on like yeah John Hunt tickets okay cool and then uh if and what class do you teach at Weber
1:10:25
State for those that might be interested in this so I I teach different classes though depending on where the needs are
1:10:32
so it’s right now is marketing strategies but it it varies from
1:10:37
semester to semester well if you’re going to Weber State and you’re signing up for classes look for the one taught by John 100
1:10:44
thanks again John for coming today we appreciate having me yeah really appreciate it
1:10:50
hello
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