Announcer (00:02)
And now you’re listening to the last analog marketers podcast. For marketers who live in the middle and the new marketers who inherit, using the past as the present and navigate the future with intention. With your hosts, Aaron Peterson and Jamie Jones.
Aaron Peterson
Hello and welcome to The Last Analog Marketers, the podcast with analog roots and digital reach. We’re very excited to be here and have you join us for our first of what will hopefully be many episodes. we’re your host, I’m Aaron Peterson.
Jamie Jones (00:42)
And I’m Jamie Jones. We grew up before the internet and we learned marketing in the 2000s, which I think gives us a unique perspective on the entire landscape of the transformation that is happening today, because we both come with 20 plus years of practice in marketing. Aaron and I have talked a lot about putting this show together. We’re finally here doing it.
But we have noticed a lot as individuals about what’s going on today and what we’ve missed as a collective group of marketers and what we think we have to gain in the future. So we’re just here to talk about it and we’d love to have a great audience pulled together to hear more about it.
Aaron Peterson (01:26)
Exactly. And you know, of course we have our experience. We have a lot to talk about. And you and I can talk for hours. We often do. but we’re also hoping to feature, you know, episodes where we have seasoned experts that we’ve met with or connected through those years because we want to help them, you know, let them impart some of their wisdom and guidance.
And we also want to create opportunities to have conversations with the next generation of marketers too, because we both have also been in situations where, you know, we’ve had to work with folks in generations younger than ours. And, you know, we’ve had enough I I guess wisdom to understand that there’s things that we can still learn from those people too, right? Like and we were in their boat at one point as well. And so I I think this is a great opportunity for us to sort of
look at some of the opportunities ahead and sort of explore some of the latest ideas and innovations with that group of people.
Jamie Jones (02:18)
He’s not calling us old, but he’s sort of calling us old a little bit. Okay. So now that you have the lay of the land and some of the goals for why we’re here, it’s probably a good idea to introduce ourselves. Not everybody knows us. I think some people listening will know us. Aaron, why don’t you give us a little bit of background on how you got into marketing?
Aaron Peterson (02:40)
Of course. So my name is Aaron Peterson and I’ve been working in marketing since 2005. I spent the first decade of my career on the agency side. I was managing multi million dollar budget media accounts, and eventually I was also serving as a research and planning director for a mid sized media buying agency. but then in the last decade plus I moved over to the client side where I’ve led major marketing efforts for Kantar, SurveyMonkey, and several other businesses in the space.
Jamie Jones (03:11)
And why marketing, right? Like we could have done other things. Like how did you sort of land in that facet of business?
Aaron Peterson (03:19)
For me, I accidentally stumbled into my calling as a marketer. I was the editor of my high school’s newspaper. and I always really loved creating content that resonated with my peers. That was always a really fun thing that I did. And so, you know, I went to college thinking, like, hey, I’m gonna probably go into marketing or advertising. and even in those early years when I was in high school, you know, I was already starting to be a part of that transition from analog to digital. I mean I can remember starting out laying out the newspapers on light tables that were, you know, glass top tables with lights underneath them and we literally were putting the pages out and laying out the newspaper pages on them and bringing in PageMaker as like this, you know, revolutionary way for us to lay out the pages online. And so all of that sort of stemmed me into this exciting excitement of like, I’m gonna go into journalism. But I got into college and in my first semester, ended up having a journalism class with a professor who was an editor for a newspaper in the region. and the way he talked about the career of a journalist and the way he talked about his own life, which could have been, his own experience, but it just imparted to me at a very impressionable time. And so I kind of got nervous about that. I was like, “I don’t know if that’s the life that I really want to be living.”
And at the same time, you know, I’d always been really involved in student government and paying attention to the news and things that were going on in the world. I was in student government in high school. I was in the student government in college, and so I ended up transitioning my major to political science. And through that I took tons of courses that were related that ended up being related to marketing. So, you know, statistics, sociology, psychology, all those sorts of things that you end up taking. And I thought I was gonna leave and either be a campaign manager for people running for office, or I was going to go work in an embassy because I was also minoring in French. And so I really thought it was one of those two career paths.
But again, it was one of those things where as I was at the end of college having conversations with my grandparents who were trying to give me life advice, they said, think about what it’s like to be a campaign manager. You’re gonna have to find a person and you could have to go from time to time and that could mess things up. And so you just really never know. And so when I got out of college, I decided I was gonna start just looking for a job. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do. But it turned out I was going to Massachusetts. I was staying with my grandparents and my grandmother was playing Mahjong, with a group of friends of hers. She mentioned that I was in…
Jamie Jones (06:16)
She’s before her day playing mahjong. Popular now.
Aaron Peterson (06:19)
Right? That’s so popular now. And so she said to me, she said to this, you know, group, Hey, my my grandson’s in town, he’s looking for, you know, somewhere to, you know, to work. This is like his experience. And one of the women who was on the team, in the Mahjong group said, you know, my son owns an ad agency. He’s actually looking for \an account coordinator, someone just to help with accounts. And so I got a job as an account coordinator there. And it kind of just has become this wild ride since then, like I said – ending up working at Kantor and SurveyMonkey and doing some of these really big things with big brands.
Jamie Jones (06:55)
Yeah, I mean wild ride is kind of the best way to describe it because I feel like no one sort of ends up here purposefully. It’s a little bit accidental. A little bit of your skills plus just like fate where it takes you, right? You know, for me, I was really, really creative. And honestly I think if my parents had been more supportive, I would have gone into fine arts because I just loved art classes. Like, that’s all I did. This is a painting that I painted behind me. I was always creative enough. Honestly, no one was even talking about being a graphic designer at the time, but that’s probably what I should have done. But my mom really pushed me into business. And so I thought, well, if I’m gonna be in business school, I might as well be a marketer because that feels like the most creative part of being in business.
And I think it’s worked out pretty well for me, though sometimes I really do miss being like the creative, the creative piece of it. And I actually had one of my first internships where I got to be the project manager in charge of the creative team. So I would make sure that they checked off all of their different ads. Like it was for a cable company. And so as you can imagine, they had a million spots and a million different advertisements. And so my job was like literally to make sure that they hit all the different spots in the sizes and in the types of formats they needed to be in. And I thrived in that because I’m super analytical and very detail oriented. But you also have to be looking at creative all day.
So, anyway, that’s sort of how I got into my first internships and then my first job, which happened totally by accident. I was trying to get a job with a different company. And this alumni who didn’t know me at all, I just sent a random email. He wrote me back saying, I hate this company. You definitely don’t want to work for this company. I’ve been trying to work for Blackboard. You should go try to work for Blackboard. And hey, here’s a link to an actual entry-level marketing position that they’re hiring for and their head of HR went to Penn State. And I’m like, okay, that sounds like a good opportunity for me. So I got really lucky. I don’t think people get jobs like that anymore. I think we’ve been chatting about how difficult the job market is today, but 20 years ago that’s what it was like. So I cut my teeth in those early days in product marketing. It was an education software technology company, which again at the time was so innovative and different and just the idea of learning completely online was still kind of revolutionary. I know today it seems like nothing, but that’s how long we’ve been in this business. From there I landed with a part of WPP, which was their long tail media buying arm. It had a couple of different names. And then I sort of headed over to Kantar, which is where we met.
And I was there for 14 years and I really got to do like jack of all trades marketing, which some people say with a little bit of, I don’t know, disgust, but I think it was good. I got to do everything. I can do everything. And I feel like you and me, we approach all of our projects with that experience of feeling like we can kind of take anything on because we’ll figure it out. So, website management, event ownership, PR content. I mean, you know the drill.
Aaron Peterson (10:24)
And I mean I think also on just to add on to that too, I think that it’s useful to be able to be in that position because even when we are put into into roles where we aren’t that, where we do need to focus on a specific part of marketing, we’re so much more effective, in my opinion, at doing those roles because we understand the other elements of it that other people are doing or or should be doing on around us, right? To make it all work effectively. Which I do think makes a big difference, right? It’s like anything else. When you can walk a mile in the other person’s shoes, you can obviously understand them, work with them a lot better. And because we have done all of those roles before, we can be like, “Yes, I understand the stress you’re going through trying to plan that event.” You know what I mean? Or, “Yes, I can understand how frustrating that CRM program is getting those automation set up.”
Jamie Jones (11:19)
Been there, done that. Yeah, I think both you and I have had challenges where we people do come to us for our experience, strength, and hope, as they say, but we also don’t want to take over because we’re no longer in those positions of having to do all the work. So I think that’s an interesting balance. And I also think, I’ve I have thought about, why did I go into marketing? I should have done maybe some other facet of business.
And I was telling you in preparing for this episode that my first boss asked me, how about sales? Like you’re doing product marketing, why don’t you jump into sales, wouldn’t that be good? And I sort of scoffed at the idea. I mean, gosh, over 20 years ago, why would I want to be in sales? I’m already in marketing. Isn’t this the job to have? And I think that’s one of the questions we’re gonna explore on these episodes, because twenty years ago it really did feel like I had fit into a place within the business that was a good fit for my personality, was a really good fit of being part of all the different things that happen within the business, a creative part of the business and maybe like in some ways a safe part of the business. I don’t necessarily think that that’s true today, but it definitely was 20 years ago.
And I think the brand strategy, the execution, kind of just passion, creative. And even more recently, the stuff that I’ve focused on with data and analysis – like marketing’s been really fun, but I have a lot of questions about where it’s going. And those are kind of the things we’re going to start exploring in these episodes.
Aaron Peterson (12:48)
Yes, I’m very excited for all of our talks because as we’ve been exploring over the weeks with preparing for this, we could go into some of these topics for hours and hours and days and really what we have to do is focus ourselves so that we get through these episodes and don’t bore anyone.
Okay. But brand strategy is actually a great transition into us talking about our time together at Kantar, right?
Jamie Jones (13:09)
Well, let me ask you because I think it’s interesting. And I always had this conversation because I’d meet people – you’d meet them online, because of course you’re working remotely. So half the time you never even met the people, but you’d meet and you’d say, “How’d you ‘grow up’ at Kantor?” Because everybody kind of has a different route towards the big conglomerate that Kantar became. And it usually started with a different brand. So tell me how you grew up at Kantar?
Aaron Peterson (13:36)
Yeah, I mean that’s one of the craziest parts about Kantar in the years there, right? It’s like how it transitioned through the years was an incredible journey to be a part of, which we’re gonna go into talking about all of that and the consolidation and the brand stuff. We’ll get all into those experiences as we talk through some of these other things. But yeah, so I had been working, as I said earlier, at a media buying agency. I was the head of research and planning there. And so I was using a lot of market research tools. And a number of the different tools I was using were Kantar-owned products. Which at the time, like you said, they all had very different branding. So they weren’t necessarily even known in the market as a Kantar product, in some cases, unless you were really, really paying close attention to industry buys and acquisitions.
But I ended up wanting to leave the agency world. I wanted to move back to Boston because I was living in central Pennsylvania at the time. My husband and I had first met there and we kind of wanted to be back in the city. And so I started looking around and I saw that Compete, which was a Kantar company, was hiring not for a marketing person at the time, but for a client service lead. Now Compete was an interesting product and brand. They owned, at the time, the largest behavioral data set in the US. And so basically what that meant was like every millisecond that you were online on your device, if you were in the panel, we were at Compete getting a data point for what was happening on that device and what you were doing. So it really allowed us to do a lot of competitive Intel stuff.
I did the client service work there for a year and a half or so. I was managing some big clients. I had Sony Pictures, Sprint. I did work for Verizon and ATT because I was sitting in the tech and telecom team. So it was largely working in that sort of space and just advising them on what to do with their marketing strategies and their digital and web strategies based off of this behavioral data and how people were behaving online on their devices.
But I also at one point saw that there was this opening on the marketing team. And I was like, “There’s my chance. I’ve got to move over into marketing.” Not that I didn’t enjoy the client service stuff; it was really great and it was really interesting. And I got to fly out to their offices. So, going up to the top floor of Sony Pictures Tower in Hollywood is like a crazy thing to do when you’re 31 years old and to be like, “My god, I’m going up and presenting to all the suits at the top of the tower.”
But I knew I didn’t really want to do that forever. I really wanted to be into marketing, which is where I thought I’d have a lot more success and a lot more satisfaction. I was able to get that role. But not long after that, Kantar started doing a series of consolidations of their brands. So, first Compete was merged with a company called Dynamic Logic that did media effectiveness work, that was combined to create a company called Millward Brown Digital. Then that was combined with the legacy Millward Brown as they started to put Kantar in front of all of the names and that became Kantor Millward Brown. And then they decided okay…
Jamie Jones (16:40)
Really long logos.
Aaron Peterson (16:42)
Yeah. My God, those logos were so hard to work with. I feel bad for the graphic designers during that era because it must have just been so frustrating for them.
And then Kantar did eventually make it to what was the end goal, right? Which was a single brand, single consolidation, single website, just Kantar, dropped all the other separate brands. Everything got reorganized internally as these sort of subsections. And you and I got to work on and through all those massive changes, and it was a lot of work that went into that. A lot of really interesting work.
In the moment, it didn’t always necessarily seem like it was the most fun. But the outcome and being able to look back at that and say, “Hey, you know, we were able to take fifteen or so brands and effectively do all that work and consolidate them down,” like, that was a really cool thing to get to be a part of that, you know. And so eventually as all that happened, I was doing content and thought leadership, the PR, hosted events, and a lot of the digital marketing, managing the websites and stuff for Kantar in North America. And of course, through that process, that’s kind of how I got to meet and interact with you.
So why don’t you tell a little bit about your side, then, and how you ended up getting into the single Kantar world?
Jamie Jones (18:00)
Well, I hope you all appreciate our jokingness because I don’t think anyone survives corporate America without having like the scars to go along with it. And I think the joking is probably the best coping mechanism for the good, bad and the ugly. So
Aaron Peterson (18:18)
That or you go into alcohol, which is not as good of a coping mechanism.
Jamie Jones (18:22)
Maybe we’ll have an episode where we have some drinks, but not today, not the first one. But anyway, we laughed through it because it was super fun. And I’m glad, Aaron, you had the opportunity to appreciate some of those experiences, like Sony in the moment. Cause I think sometimes that’s part of our career is you don’t even recognize when it’s good until it’s over. And then you look back and think, I kind of miss how that was.
So I also came up through Milward Brown, but mine’s a little different than Aaron’s. I came up through the brand tracking business, kind of the traditional Milward Brown business. And I was joking that the calf was fat. Their business was doing really, really well. I didn’t know that at the time. Only in retrospect did I realize how good it was and how far, far it fell.
But my role was definitely a little bit of a stretch for my experience, but I’m so glad that I was, given the opportunity. And those first years at 11 Madison [Ave., New York, NY] were so interesting. The floor was color-coded by which part of Kantar you worked for. So I only knew the people in the green section because that was the Millward Brown section. And there were a whole bunch of other sections that you just didn’t know those people. Like, that’s the yellow section. That’s the pink section. We don’t talk to those people. So it was funny working for a small company within a big company. But it was all one company, but it sort of wasn’t. And as Aaron said, eventually they really did try to consolidate things together.
Aaron Peterson (19:54)
Well, not only that, it’s just funny how different that is from the general corporate office culture now, right? Everybody’s about being open, connecting, like, “Sit where you want, sit across departments,” all that sort of thing. Now, in practice, that doesn’t usually happen because people end up sitting still in their groups and their teams. But, just the way that the business culture also has changed is really a lot.
But yeah, it really was when leadership finally decided to sort of consolidate the marketing functions, which was somewhat in line with the consolidation to a single Kantar. It wasn’t necessarily a hundred percent lined up with that, but it was somewhat similar in timing. And that was really I think where we really connected and came together, us, you and me, but also just like the whole team as a marketing team. I credit a lot of that to the person that was selected to be our lead, which was our former boss Melissa Wilson. You know, she came in, she had a lot of that sort of the right attitude about how to approach the business. She was really collaborative. She recognized that she had a team of experts under her and she didn’t come in and try to tell us what to do or take over our roles or anything like that. She really listened to us and just supported us being great at what we were doing. And she was like, “What do you need to be better at your job or be successful at your job?” And I think she also just enabled that sort of collaboration across us.
So, you know, I was managing the big Kantar event, Breakthrough [Marketing Summit]. And it wasn’t until she really came along that it was kind of okay for me to extend the invitation out and have more of the marketing team be involved in it and have more of you guys come to the event and be a part of putting together the event. And I think that’s the years that it became really incredible and we had just like the best events and the best turnout and all that was because we all really did that.
Jamie Jones (21:46)
The Compete CMO summit, right? It had a completely different name. So those are the types of things that marketing gets put in charge of, right? It’s not just the external branding and creating a new color scheme. It’s internally bringing together the entire organization for one marquee event. Like, those are the things that marketing doesn’t always get the credit for. Like, people see the branding, they don’t realize you’re actually bringing together an organization through putting on an event like that.
Aaron Peterson (22:17)
Well, yeah, and you’re hundred percent right. That’s a perfect example because at the time, one of the things that people, especially internally, maybe didn’t realize, and maybe some of them still don’t know that this is what happened, but the [Compete] Digital CMO summit, we were seeing declining attendance and we were starting to struggle to get people to come speak to it because when it started as a Compete event, it was a really exciting thing. It had big names, Martin Sorrell, you know, big names in the industry were coming to present to it, but it was trailing off a little bit.
And it was because the naming of it was turning it off. The digital part was a bit of a deterrent because by then we had moved past the sort of digital versus traditional. We were talking about integrated marketing in the industry. So that kind of took some people back. And then the CMO part also pushed people away because we’d have clients who were the VP or director of research for Facebook or Meta at the time who were doing lots of work with Kantar on research. And they were like, “Well, my title’s not CMO, so I don’t feel like I’m invited to this event.” So, not only did we change the event because we were trying to bring the thing together, but there were a lot of strategic reasons that went behind making that event into something different so that it worked for the broad Kantar as a whole group once it was that, right? Because it wasn’t going to work anymore for all of Kantar if it just stayed as the Digital CMO summit. It would have continued to fail.
So, yeah, we really did make a big impact and we saw those impacts too. Like you said, one of the things is we were able to start to measure the influence of those things and look and see, like, “Hey, how many of our existing clients that we deeply integrated into these programs – like content programs, having them in thought leadership and in PR, and then having them speak on stage – how many of those clients either maintained or increased their budget with us year over year, when we maybe were seeing losses in other places?
And so there were a lot of ways in which that I think really brought us together and made the team just feel like we were a much more robust function within the organization and less like we were this sporadic set of specialists.
Jamie Jones (24:30)
Right. And I think event management really brings a marketing team together, right? And I think that’s probably how we became, you know, friends, not just colleagues, because it’s late nights, it’s early mornings, it’s “This person doesn’t have a name tag.” It’s, you know, “This thing isn’t going correctly. This person doesn’t have their specialized meal.” I mean, man, people are never more high maintenance than when they’re attending an event. And I have never been put in a position of catering to more different specialized needs of senior executives than I have in event management. But you do it and it’s fun. And it’s one of those things that I don’t think marketing necessarily gets credit for, but it is really important because those branding opportunities of talking about Kantar in front of our clients and prospects retain business and create new business in a way that is measurable and sometimes is challenging to measure. But I think the best companies I’ve worked for see the value in those types of opportunities and continue to invest money in them year over year.
Aaron Peterson (25:32)
Yeah, you’re a hundred percent right. I mean, I can think back to – as just another quick aside – but I can think back to when we were doing one of the last Breakthrough events that we did right before the pandemic hit, and we were doing the site visit and testing the hotels to make sure they were the right fit. And I remember I’d gotten to the point where not only was I thinking about all the elements that go into producing an event and the the stage and all the dinners and entertainment and all the logistics and stuff. But I was getting to the point where I’d go into the hotel room and I would be testing the water pressure of the showers. I’d be laying on the bed and turning off all the lights to see if there were lights that flashed in the room because, are the lights gonna flash in the room all night and wake you up? And I was like, we need to make this pick the best experience and if there’s things we can do to make this experience better, that’s what’s gonna make people remember how this was so awesome. So it’s like, to your point, we don’t get credit for a lot of those little things in the back end that we think of as marketers, but that’s where our specialty really comes in. It’s really thinking beyond what’s just right in front of us.
Jamie Jones (26:40)
No, you’re totally right. We’re way more than just marketers. And in every role I’ve ever had, marketing is the default. If there’s not a standard department to take care of something, it’s marketing’s job. So we end up really collecting all kinds of challenges within an organization and figuring them out, which is what we talked about in the beginning. We’re people who figure things out.
Aaron Peterson (27:02)
Yeah, and I love that. I mean, that’s…I’m a puzzle solver. I love to do puzzles, I’m a problem solver. That’s what I was gonna say.
We really could go all in all day about Kantar stories, and obviously, audience, don’t worry. We have lots of tales to share from our experiences through the years, not just at Kantar, but in all of our different roles and different places. We’ll weave those in throughout this podcast as we continue to have episodes.
But for right now, let’s transition and just talk a little bit about “Why did we want to start a conversation about marketing in 2026?” I mean, I feel like we grew up in an analog world. You know, we were still at the time where our parents would send us out at night in the summer and they would just yell, or we’d have to be back by a certain time, and it was fine. And
I don’t know if my parents have any idea of where I went to or where I rode my bike to in those days or anything like that. But since then, we have built our careers in an evolving digital one. And I think that puts us into a small group of marketers who sort of exist in that space between traditional and digital. Not only have we lived in both worlds, but we actually grew up with the digital world. So we’ve not only been growing alongside it, in ways we’ve also been growing with it, right? And having impact back and forth between it and the way that we interact with it.
And as our former bosses and some of our mentors are starting to hit some of the later stages of their careers and or even some of them have started to retire, which is just crazy for me to think about. Again, I don’t mean to call us out as old, but I do think it’s important that we capture some of those stories and share some of the insights across generations that otherwise might be lost. I think there’s a lot of things that textbooks or even the articles that get written in the trade publications don’t necessarily see the level of detail or the background behind everything that happens in the marketplace.
And so, just like we were sharing a few little small insights a few minutes ago. There’s so many things for us to hear and learn about from the people who have been here and been doing it, but also to learn from those new people, right? And those future marketers and how they’re approaching these challenges and seeing it, who aren’t from an analog world, who’ve grown up in a digital only world, and so their perspective is very different. And it’s not that it’s a bad perspective; which, sometimes there’s a tendency to wanna create animosity between generations, right?
But that’s the opposite of what we want to do here, right? Like our purpose in this is the opposite. We’d instead want to make sure that we’re bridging the gap between the generations to say, “Hey, how can we make sure that we’re learning and understanding from each other?” Because there’s still people like me and you and some of our superior former bosses or whatever who are still in this industry who still have things to learn from those younger people. But obviously as that next generation comes forward there’s a place for, a role for us to play in helping to make sure that they can see and understand how we got to where we are right now and how that might help them make better decisions as they approach some of the problems that they’re presented in the future.
Jamie Jones (30:25)
Yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. We’re talking about bridging the gap. And I think that’s what we, you and I, feel really strongly called for this project, this initiative, whatever we’re doing here. Because there are stories to tell from the past and also a lot of great thinking coming from the future. And we feel sort of in between both of those.
And so we’re here to recognize how important the people who’ve come before us have been, how important the 20 years of our experience has been. And then also the people who are growing up through it now and what they can bring, the up-and-coming practitioners. They’re mastering new and emerging technologies. I like to think that I can always take any technology and be a master at it, but truthfully, the older I get, the more I’m like, “I don’t know if I want to learn that thing.” And it makes me realize that when we were in our early parts of our career and other people said that to us, that it is just a natural thing that happens in your life and your career where you start to get a little bit rooted in older ways. And so we’re trying to create opportunities not only for us to learn more about how we can be better marketers, but to bring that information out to like the larger audience of friends and colleagues and people we don’t even know.
Aaron Peterson (31:41)
Yeah, and I mean, I think overall we just found that there was sort of a space or a need, now more than ever, to sort of open up a conversation about where we are, how we got here, and where we’re going as marketers, as an industry, as a society. We certainly have ideas and opinions on that.
Jamie Jones (32:02)
Yeah, if you haven’t already keyed into this, Aaron and I are not quiet and we bring our personalities and our perspective and our voice to almost every conversation we’ve ever been a part of. We’ve been told that we dominate a conference table and a whiteboard session. So if you’re into that, keep tuning in. If you’re not, then nice knowing you. But that is definitely our personality.
Aaron Peterson (32:29)
Yes. Well our charming personalities and outspokenness aside, I do think that forty plus combined years of experience and expertise in a multitude of industries at least qualifies us for something, right? Most importantly, I think we’ve cultivated a number of great friendships and relationships with smart and really thoughtful colleagues who I think will enhance our conversations and bring additional perspectives. And so with that being said, Jamie I know that one thing that we wanted to make sure we did in this first episode was just to quickly outline what our three goals were for this project. So as sort of our last segment before we wrap up this episode, why don’t you walk us through what the three goals were that we have for the project?
Jamie Jones (33:18)
I hope that these are always the same, but they may change. But as of today, and in the what, four or five conversations we’ve already had in planning for kicking off this podcast, the goals that we talked about were first and foremost: Infotainment. like, I don’t know about you, but being in my head with my own thoughts isn’t always a safe place to be. So we really wanted to bring you something that’s fun and light, but also informational, quick hitting. A relevant distraction from your day-to-day, something you possibly could listen to at work or on a walk with your dog. and so hopefully as time goes on and more episodes are created, you’ll start to see that and look forward to it. Look forward to that episode drop every week because it’s 20 or 30 minutes that you get something really great to listen to.
The second goal, as we’ve talked about a couple of times, is part guide, part historian, part fellow hiker. You know, we’re in this boat with you. We’re seeing a lot of things in the industry. We’ve seen a lot of things in the industry. We definitely don’t know where this is going, but we’re curious about it. And so we’re here to bring that information to a talking audience and you know, hopefully get some other perspectives from, as Aaron mentioned, our friends and colleagues from along the way.
And last but not least, we have a lot of creative energy. I told you alrI have had creative energy my whole life. So, since we walk in stores, listen to ads, listen to other podcasts, and stuff is constantly popping into our minds about how marketing and advertising and just overall branding works in the world, we just want to bring that to an audience and discuss it more and figure out what we think works, what doesn’t work. And get some perspectives from other people. So each week, we’ll try to do that for you guys and hopefully it’ll be entertaining for all.
Aaron Peterson (35:10)
My husband, I drive him crazy when we’re driving down the road because I critique every single billboard that we pass. And not just them like that’s bad or that’s great. But if it’s bad, I am gonna spend at least another fifteen minutes dissecting why it’s bad and what I would have done to fix it. And he doesn’t want to hear it. But maybe you guys do.
Jamie Jones (35:31)
Bring that here. Yes, exactly. All right. Well, we have chatted for a good amount of time today. I think we probably could have gone twice as long, but we’ll save that for another session. We are gonna try to end every week with the same sort of ending, and we’re gonna call it The One Last Thing. So when we have guests, we’ll ask the guests to answer The One Last Thing. But since there’s no guest today, I’m gonna ask Aaron to end with The One Last Thing with something that he’s been seeing the last couple of weeks with the World Cup going on.
Aaron Peterson (36:05)
Yeah, so one of the things that I’ve seen recently that really stuck with me, The One Last Thing, is these clever approaches some of these major brands really took related to the World Cup and branding stadiums that weren’t sponsors of the games. I mean Levi’s did it in such a subtle way, they wrapped their logo, which has such a distinct shape to it, but they just wrapped it in white cloth or vinyl wrap of some kind. And they did it in such a tight way that the shape of their logo was still visible.
And then I also saw that Gillette did something similar where they covered their branding on the stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, with what appeared to be a large glob of, like, white shaving cream foam. And I was just really impressed and inspired. You know, it’s such a clever and classy way to handle something that’s somewhat of an awkward situation, right? I know from personal experience negotiating brand contracts with a large stadium that there’s a lot of ins and outs behind exactly what you get branded. And it’s like, is your logo going to appear above the concession stands or not? Is it going to be like in the VIP room or not? And all of those elements you build into it. And so I just thought that like those brands, that’s a master class, I think, in sticking to their brand principles. They didn’t have to step away from who they were for as a brand. They didn’t have to do anything that was sort of loud or obnoxious.
But they just, they stuck to their identity even in a situation that was awkward and maybe not the easiest. And so I just think that that’s something to really be celebrated in a time when I think, authentic authenticity really, really matters a lot.
Jamie Jones (37:43)
No, I totally agree. It’s been super fun to watch all of the brands interact with the World Cup. I’m gonna be so sad when it’s over because it’s been so fun to watch, but I love that example and I thought both of the stadiums did a really good job leaning into something that, as you said, could have been really awkward. Well, with that, it concludes our first ever episode of “The Last Analog Marketers.” Thanks for joining us.
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Aaron Peterson (38:31)
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