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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: [00:00:00] Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds back at you with another podcast Brands, Beats and Bytes. You know what it is already, LT.
I just have to shout out the team for the guests that we get. The quality of the guests, the quality of the conversations. Just shout out to the team. Jade heads our, our guest up producing duties and Hailey and Jeff and everyone involved. I'm just very thankful 'cause Brand Nerds. We got another special one this week.
We do. I know I say that Brand Nerds often, but I really do mean that I, I I really do mean it. Okay. Brand Nerds, you all know I like things in threes. I'm gonna give you this one. In threes, number one, corporate dexterity, corporate and career dexterity. It's extremely important to understand, and I wish I'd known this when I was starting my career, that while I may have had a design on [00:01:00] one day being a CMO, the route to get there can come from anywhere.
Yep. And oftentimes Brand Nerds, if you want to be on the client side, you might wanna take a tour on the agency side first to really understand how clients operate. So that's number one. Number two, follow the money. Follow the money. Brand Nerds, you'll have many different careers in your marketing, um, journey, you know this, but the one area I can guarantee you where you are always going to be with the money. Is in media. Okay? If you're in media, the money is going to be there. Now you, you could be in some other areas, you know this LT and your budget might VA vanish entirely, but in media, yeah, you are gonna always have money.
And then the third area is that, uh, people make [00:02:00] decisions, buying decisions, voting decisions for emotional reasons, and they justify them with logic. There may be no area that is more passion filled in marketing than sports. Then sports. People are just super passionate about sports. I spent some time in London over there with football, football.
They call some of the fans there, hooligans and, and trust me, Brand Nerds. They take this quite seriously. Okay. They take, so sports is the last area, and, and Larry, in the building today, we have someone who has really exercised career dexterity, deathly. We have someone that understands the money area, media, and we also have someone who loves sports.
Who do we have in the building today, LT?
LT: Your, your preface setup is just getting like incredibly great [00:03:00] DC Thank you brother. We Ed Gold in the house today. Welcome, Ed.
Ed Gold: Hey, glad to be here. Glad to be here with you both.
LT: Well, we're, we're really happy to have you, so, okay. Brand Nerds, as DC really set up so well.
For those of you striving to work your way up, there may be VP of marketing, CMO, maybe beyond that we have a super accomplished marketing leader who started on the ground floor and has worked his butt off to achieve great success. So let's walk you through Ed's path. Alright. Ed attends University of Illinois, the Fighting Illini, where he earns a bachelor of science in advertising.
His first job is with DDB Needham Chicago. For those many young Brand Nerds who we have as listeners. DDB has great history as one of the best agencies in the business and is truly a great place to start. Personally for me, I was lucky to have DDB New York as the first agency I worked with when I got my start [00:04:00] as an assistant brand manager on Shivas Regal Scotch. Okay.
DC: Oh, that's great.
LT: Yeah, it's really cool. It's a nice, uh, nice confluence here, Ed. So. At DDB, ed gets his start as an assistant media planner, where his first assignment is to find a sports radio program for a client State Farm, which by the way, Brand Nerds you will see is quite foretelling. He has a number of great years at DDB eventually working his way up to VP Associate Media Director.
Alright, Ed then moves on to an interesting opportunity to join Executive Sports International as their VP for marketing, sales and Biz Dev. Executive Sports International has been the world's foremost professional, celebrity, and collegiate golf operational services company playing a key role in the success of more than 900 professional golf tournaments.
While really interesting for Ed, he soon decides to go back to his roots. Joining Callus and Savage Worldwide Partners as SVP Media [00:05:00] Director in their LA office. From assistant Media Planner to media director is a long way up, Brand Nerds, it's very cool. Mm-hmm. Now here's the big pivot Brand Nerds. Now Ed gets a big opportunity jumping to the client side.
Joining State Farm. First is director of Media and Sponsorships. Then promoted to integrated marketing and Channel Director, and eventually the Head of Brand Marketing for auto and home in his 17 years at State Farm and, and his team accomplished a whole lot. Here are some highlights.
DC: Hold on. Hold on, lt, I just wanna make sure I heard something correct. Sorry. Sorry to break your flow.
LT: No, it's all good.
DC: Am I hearing that Ed became a big dog at State Farm as the client and he started as a baby on the agency side in media with DDB is, is that what I'm hearing here?
LT: That's what you heard. I love that. Okay. Right, Ed.
DC: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Ed Gold: That is 100% correct.
DC: I just wanna make sure I [00:06:00] heard that right. All right, go ahead Larry.
LT: I'm glad you, I'm glad you pointed that out again to the Brand Nerd here. Okay, so here, here are some highlights, man. These highlights are incredible. Alright, so highlight collaborated with creative teams to drive consistent 2-3% category growth for the number one insurance brand in the US.
You're talking a huge category Brand Nerd. That is a big achievement overhauled entire ad agency compensation structure driving an estimated 25% savings. Next one developed and implemented camera visible sports sponsorship strategy, including the creation of the iconic behind the backboard signage that delivered a plus 800% value first investment. Brand Nerds, if you watch NBA games, you can't miss that, that signage.
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
LT: Can't miss it. Um. Expertly managed almost 1 billion That's right, with a B, 1 billion media marketing budget across traditional performance media, direct marketing, lead generation, social [00:07:00] media and sponsorship strategy. Drove specific KPI focused plans across general market and multicultural audiences to maintain leadership to key segments.
And the last big highlight established State Farm as the leading non-endemic brand in the burgeoning eSports marketplace. So, D, after all of this corporate success in 2020, Ed decides to dive headfirst into the entrepreneurial world with three different ventures. All right. The first, uh, the first venture inverted eSports marketing, which is a full service gaming agency that develops custom sponsorships, delivering impactful results at scale to ensure positive business outcomes within the highly engaged gaming and eSports communities.
Highlight, include highlights, include spearheading the largest women's eSports event that Tampax Gaming Fest for P&G mm, uh, venture Number two, Blue Dog Agency, which is a creative marketing consultancy offering strategic [00:08:00] marketing, advertising and media expertise across a broad based and niche, uh, integrated initiatives helping brands and businesses solve complex problems.
Highlights include leading the new media measurement efforts from multiple agency clients in the automotive category, which is basically the biggest category, and the last venture, D, Chameleon Collective, which is a dynamic team of high performing independent thinkers. Each a veteran and specific verticals of expertise, bringing knowledge to drive meaningful transformations across five expertise pillars, which are one, branding, two, marketing, three experiential, four commerce, and five sales highlights.
There includes serving as Head of Marketing four, his alma mater, the All Alini Guardians, which is the first NIL collective for the University of Illinois, where he worked to establish an ongoing new member subscription model while creating and implementing NIL activities for all student athletes.
Lastly, at has won a slew of industry [00:09:00] awards, which are really indicative of his influence with the brands he has touched. Here are just a few. The canned Bronze Met Media Lion, Tempest Awards, eSports brand of the year, experiential Marketing X Award, Silver Cleo Sports Award, and the Effie Golden Bronze Awards.
We're really looking forward to this one, Brand Nerds. Welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes, Ed Gold.
Ed Gold: Hey, a pleasure to be here. I'm, uh, I, I hope I can live up to, to, to that opening because that was awesome. I'm like, I'm like, wow, I did all that stuff. That was great.
DC: It's all you brother. You did. Larry does a good job.
You, you, you know, Ed, uh, unfortunately for most of us, when there is, I'm gonna be morbid for a second. When there's an obit done, it's done and we can't hear it. Okay? That's, we are, we're outta here. And the way Larry does these so well is you get to hear some of these things, at least on the business side [00:10:00] while you are here.
And it, it's not often that this kind of an introduction happens. So Ed, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Larry. Great job. Uh, earned brother. Earned congratulations. Yes. Okay, Ed, we are into the next section, which we call Get Comfy, but I'm gonna go off script a little bit. Because of your State Farm experience, Jake from State Farm was launched in 2011.
Jake, were you around when Jake was launched in? How the hell did that happen?
Ed Gold: Yeah, I mean, well, you know, Jake from State Farm was actually a State Farm employee back in 2011. Wow. Really? Actually in, yeah, so he was actually a claims, I believe he was a claims or underwriting employee. He's actually in the commercials.
I think he was the, the roommate of a guy in marketing, uh, at State Farm. And, [00:11:00] State Farm was always known for using real people in their ads. All the most of the time when we show State Farm agents in our ads, they are real State Farm agents. Oh, wow. And so we used a real claims person, you know, named Jake, uh, in the ad.
And you know, that ad took off and, you know, we actually did another version of that ad in conjunction with, uh, NBC and Saturday Night Live when we did a coneheads version of that spot.
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Ed Gold: Uhhuh. Um, and then, you know, and then, you know. We didn't use Jake anymore, you know, and, but Jake was living on, in, in life.
I mean, people would contact State Farm so they could, you know, get a, get a red polo so they could go, uh, as Jake from State Farm for Halloween. I mean, it was like, really, it was a big seller. Seriously. I mean, it's, and it's an easy costume, red shirt, khaki pants, you.
And then, you know, and I was not [00:12:00] overseeing the creative at that time. I was the media and sponsorship or integrated marketing person at that time. So, uh, a lot of kudos to our agency and my creative team partners, uh, for, for coming up with that. But then, you know, Jake has kind of taken on a life of his own, uh, yeah.
Basically, actually since I, I left State Farm where they, where we really started going back to what are the assets that we own that people really know State Farm for. Mm-hmm. And, and we went State Farm, went back to their, like a good neighbor, state Farm is their jingle, which we had gone away from for a few years.
They brought Jake from State Farm because people knew him. I mean, he was living and he was a living and breathing thing. He had, yeah, pretty sure he had his own Instagram and then Twitter accounts and things like that all through this time. And so, you know, and now he's, now he's the star. Yeah. Um, now Jake is not the same guy.
Yes. He's a different guy and he is an actor. 'cause you know, when you're using them in, in that such way, you know, it's always good to [00:13:00] have a professional Yeah. Uh, playing, playing the part. But, uh, but it's a, it is a great campaign and, and continues to do well for State Farm. So.
DC: One of my favorites, Larry, that's one of my favorite campaigns, the tagline, strap line.
You all should have never walked away from lots of grants. Do this. Yes. New CMO comes in new CEO comes in. Oh, we, that is gold. You all should have that for the next a hundred years. Yes. Love it. Larry, any thoughts on that before I get to the actual question for Get Comfy?
LT: Yeah, just a quick one. Uh, this is funny, ed, my, our son's name is Jake and he used, people would say to him, oh, you state, you know, the State Farm would come up like when you, when your name is Jake, which is pretty funny.
Um, but I love the. The story. 'cause I didn't know that backdrop of the authenticity of me either. That being, you know, a, a real, uh, customer service rep. So thanks for sharing that. That was great.
Ed Gold: You know, just, just as an aside, just since we're talking about Jake, [00:14:00] very apropos to happening in 2016, you know, we were very, uh, State Farm was very focused on some key markets, including Chicago.
Uh, we ended up shooting a Chicago specific spot, uh, with Jake Arieta, who was the star pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Yep.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: Um, and obviously he became, you know, Jake from State Farm in, in part of those commercials as well that were done locally. And certainly 2016 was a banner year for, that's right.
Chicago Cubs and Chicago Cub fans, so, you know, we kind of hit lightning in a bottle, uh, at that time too. But that was another way we kept bringing Jake back into play. Ah, even if it wasn't the same type of thing. So Very cool. Um, yeah, and, and, and I think everybody named Jake becomes Jake from State Farm in, in that.
LT: That's right.
Ed Gold: In the world that we live in today. So that's good. In fact, sorry, I'll, I'll, I'll, you know. Oh, no, all good, ed. All [00:15:00] good. But Larry, our PR department, I think he, I, I think he used to play quarterback for the University of Georgia was a guy named Jake Fro. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember him. He is pretty good.
I think he might be in the league somewhere or in the NFL somewhere. But, but we did, you know, our, our public affairs department did some work with him, you know, uh, after he graduated. 'cause this was before the NIL period. Yeah, right. Um, but brought that into play because he was literally Jake from State Farm.
DC: Ah, okay.
Ed Gold: Another nice play.
LT: So I didn't catch that until you said it.
DC: I, I didn't either. Yeah. I, I didn't even, I didn't get a Jack, Jack ffr, of course. Jack, Jack from, uh, alright. So 2016, I, I'm actually, I'm going to get to the actual Get Comfy question, but I just gotta say this since you brought up, uh, your, your cubbies in 2016.
Uh, but I, I also have to say that, uh, [00:16:00] there was not a Jake Bartman. Okay. That was a different guy. Okay. That's not a Jake Bartman. Okay. That was the, that would've been tragic.
Ed Gold: That would've been tragic.
DC: Yeah. That would've been tragic. Alright, I'm digressing here. Uh, Larry, there was something that you read of the many auspicious attributes and accomplishments of one Ed Gold upfront in State Farm days.
You said overhauled entire agency compensation structure driving estimated 25% savings. So Brand Nerds I mentioned upfront this career corporate dexterity. Uh, Ed Gold was on the agency side servicing State Farm and then he goes to the client side to be responsible for the area where when he was a little guppy on the agency side that he worked.
So I can assure you Brand Nerds that there was no way for the agency to [00:17:00] hide. That's right. The money because Ed knew where all of the hiding spots were. Which leads me to my question, ed, for those out there that are on the agency side, considering going client side and those who are on the client side, considering going agency side, 'cause you've gone both ways.
What are the pros and cons of an agency person going client? And then conversely, what are the pros and cons of a client person going agency side?
Ed Gold: Well, I think from from the start, I'm just gonna use my own experience to start, you know, the great thing about being at an agency is that you're not tied to one client, you know?
Mm-hmm. I worked on everything from State Farm to Energizer batteries, to Bush Gardens, Williamsburg and Sesame Place to amusement parks. I worked on Bud Light, I worked on the introduction of Bud Dry. Ah. I worked on, if I said Wilson Sporting Goods already, ameritech a phone com, you know, the [00:18:00] local phone company, you know, Yoplait Yogurt and a bunch of other stuff.
And what that does by being in an agency, it gives you that breadth and depth. Yeah. And seeing how different people do it, because trust me, Anheuser-Busch did media way differently than General Mills who did it differently than State Farm and who did it differently than, you know, Wilson Sporting Goods.
Everyone had a different way that they go about it because some were very, very into, I want a 75% reach at a 30 and a and a and a three plus frequency of 7.2 or whatever the numbers were. You know, and other clients like Anheuser-Busch were very much, we are gonna own NFL football, we are gonna own baseball, we are gonna own these places and, and whatever it is, we're gonna be there.
Because they, they obviously it was sports and their beer and it was, it was the brands. Yeah. And so what it did was it gave me a [00:19:00] great base of knowledge to know, here's how a lot of people do stuff and do stuff differently and think about stuff differently. Good. So, so. I, I, I loved being on the agency side, you know, starting my career.
Mm-hmm. And then moving to the client side, you know, I had that, I had that breadth and depth of experience and yes, I had worked on State Farm and I went to go work at State Farm. So I had even more in depth experience because I knew all the history, you know? Mm-hmm. I, I, I was, I worked a lot on State Farm as well, not just when I started, but there were a number of years there that I was the main, uh, one of the main media people on the State Farm account.
Okay. And so I, I, I had such history there that I could bring that to State Farm, but at the same time, you know, let's just say back in the, back in the mid late nineties, yeah. Insurance was not the most competitive marketplace. I [00:20:00] mean, there was State Farm and there was Allstate. Then after that. Okay.
American Family and Liberty Mutual and a few others, but nobody was really fighting for business. I mean, State Farm didn't mention the words auto insurance in their advertising until like the late, late nineties until the internet and until Geico and Progressive came around. And so, so when I left State, when when I left DDB in '98, I'm aging myself, but when I left, myself left in 98, and then when I came back and was the client in 2003, it was a totally different business.
Totally different. Wow. We were inundated by Geico and Progressive, right? They were spending money like drunken sailors, you know, still are. Category went from. Sleepy, sleepy category to being more competitive, I would say, than the beer category.
LT: Oh yeah.
Ed Gold: More competitive than almost the, you know, wireless phone category. It was [00:21:00] ridiculous.
DC: Or the cola wars in their heyday
Ed Gold: or the cola wars. I mean, there's only two Colas, right? Yeah. Well now the three, I guess. 'cause Dr. Pepper's killing it, but Yeah. But in insurance, think about it. There's State Farm, there's Allstate, there's Geico, there's Progressive, there's Liberty Mutual.
There was E-surance back in the day. There's Travelers, there's so many players. Yep. So I mean, it was, it was a great time. But, but bringing that back around, you take all those experiences that you had on different types of clients and you start bringing that, you bring that to State Farm because they needed some of that sophistication from a media standpoint and a sponsorship standpoint that I had that they didn't have internally, and I was the first, you know, director of media and sponsorships there before if you were an advertising director, you oversaw creative and media, you know, and so everyone, it, it wasn't, uh, brought together from a corporate standpoint until I joined me. [00:22:00]
LT: Well, that's, that's interesting backdrop, D. And, and I love where that Ed laid it out because today it is, all those companies are spending, you know, upwards of a billion dollars. I mean, it's the most competitive category there is. And, and you're giving the genesis of it Ed, uh, which is really great. Uh, great learning for the brander. So thank you for laying that out.
Ed Gold: Yeah, and DC I do want to answer your other question, which was the other side of the coin.
DC: Yes, yes.
Ed Gold: Going from the brand to the client. Yes. I think it's harder and, and again, I haven't worked at every brand. I mean, I've worked at State Farm, I've worked with people.
LT: Did you brand to agency Ed? I'm sorry? You said brand to client?
Ed Gold: Um, i, I mean being like at State Farm to going to an agency.
DC: Agency. Okay. Yep, yep. Okay.
Ed Gold: Um, and I think it's harder because you don't get a lot of that base knowledge and understanding of what media planning is. Oh. You know, when I came outta Illinois, when I came outta Illinois, we actually have a great [00:23:00] advertising program and, and we actually, I actually Stu had two classes specifically in media planning and buying.
So I had some base of knowledge coming in, but you know, most schools don't have that and most people that go into advertising aren't always advertising majors. So I think it's harder. I do think it might be harder if you went from a brand. To then going to a client because, or sorry, going from brand agency to then going to the agency.
Yeah. Because you don't have some of that base of knowledge, you know? Yeah. And you're not surrounded by others that also have that knowledge, you know? Yeah. Because you're in a media department. There was like a hundred people in our media department and we were working on everything. Sure. Everyone's doing different stuff and so it was, it was a great place to learn.
So I loved, I loved working at the agency, but you know, it's good to be the client too.
DC: Yeah. It, it's good to be where they actually have the money that, that's not, that's not bad. Alright. [00:24:00] One, one other thing here, uh, Ed, and we're spending more time on Get Comfy. We're gonna make it up, uh, in other areas of the show because, uh, you, you, you've got an incredible background with things that people don't even know that they know about, that you have a connection to.
So Brand Nerds. Uh, on August 30th of this year, there's gonna be a legendary sports personality named Lee Corso, who is going to retire from College Game Day. This is a Home Depot property that has been on, uh, ESPN for 30 years. Thank you. Tim Spengler, our friend Tim Spengler for making that happen. Tim.
Tim. Tim Spengler. Yes. For that. So, uh, not many times Brand Nerds in one's career. Do you get an opportunity to be around something like that? Like that's clear. A part of American sports culture and redefined pregame [00:25:00] shows for sporting events, it. You were you here, here, here you are. You're, you're, you're, you're looking at this and this, this is a, a competing property.
Now your deal is more basketball. Yeah. But as a media person looking at a property like that, what were, what were you and your teammates thinking, looking at that?
Ed Gold: Oh my God, this is going to, we need to get this. Okay. Okay. And the thing about sports properties is that it's like there's one of them and if you don't get it, you may never have the chance to get it.
That's right. In the first year of college game, college game day for Col or college basketball game day. Yeah. On ESPN, mountain Dew, I believe was the sponsor. Okay. Okay. And they were giving it up. And so Mountain Dew, I believe, [00:26:00] was represented by the same agency by OMD that we utilized, or Optimum Sports.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: That's their sports marketing group. And so I'll name names. Tom McGovern from Optimum Sports came to me and said, ed, are you interested in college game day for basketball? Mm-hmm. I'm like, it's ours. Just doesn't matter what it costs because, because be because it's beyond GRPs. It's beyond spots and dots.
It is, it's how much it is promoted as, you know, driven by State Farm on ESPN. Yeah. How much it's, oh my God. How much It's, it's it's, you know, utilizing in social media and everything. Yeah. And just, it just goes. You can't just go, yeah, we get two or three spots in the show per game. Yeah. We're, we're, we are all over that broadcast, you know, including the, the half court shot [00:27:00] where a, where a kid, $15,000 and sometimes they make it, and then that's like the gift that keeps on giving because they show that on SportsCenter, they show that that's a top 10 play of the day.
I mean, it is just, sometimes there's media things that you have to go, either we're gonna get this now or somebody else is gonna do that. And it's one of the things that, you know, I, I kind of, if I pride myself on anything, it's like, you know, I like to make decisions and, and, and, and go, because you don't sometimes have time to wait.
Mm-hmm. You know, and if you wait, you miss it. Or, or if the agency tells you, you know, I don't really like the CPM on that. It's a little too expensive.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: But you're looking at it, the, you know, you're only looking at it from the pure CPM standpoint and not all the other stuff that comes with it that is not countable.
But [00:28:00] now we're able to count a lot of that stuff. And, and I've, I've, I talked to an, uh, a group recently that measures sports sponsorship and how much that behind the backboard sign shows up, how much of the outfield wall stuff signs up. Yeah. It was, it was an amazing revelation. And we can get into that at a later point in this conversation if you want to.
DC: Alright, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna move now, but Brand Nerds. I just wanna highlight something that Ed said. So here is college game day, the, the football version of it that Home Depot has. Here they are looking at this and we all were looking at that going, wow, look at that property at the moment, state Farm gets the shot at doing it on the basketball side.
Ed does not go. Hey team, we need a report of all of the impressions and yeah, the value. We didn't, Ed said it's ours. Okay, [00:29:00] it's ours. Sometimes Brand Nerds. You just gotta make those calls. Okay, here we go. Next section, right? Five questions. We go back and forth. Larry and I and uh, arrive at a total of five questions for you.
I am in the batter's box, tip of the cap to the Cubbies. What was the first branding experience you had? Ed, take yourself way back. Where it just lits your soul. A fire, like the hairs on the back of your neck stood up when you engaged with this brand. You love this brand, you thought you were engaged with this brand, wearing it, looking at it, experiencing it for like 10 minutes.
It was like, oh man, it's been an hour and a half. This is how much you love this brand. What was that first experience for you?
Ed Gold: I, I don't even want to use a first experience. I just wanna use one that I know was like another, oh my God moment.
DC: Okay. Okay. That's fine.
Ed Gold: Because, you know, I watched a lot of tv, we all [00:30:00] watched a lot of TV growing up and, you know, it's what got me interested in advertising.
But, you know, I remember when I was going to buy my first new car, okay? Mm-hmm. It was gonna, and I. I had driven an old Toyota Celica with a liftback on it that I bought for my parents. Then I bought another Acura Integra from my parents, you know, 'cause they gave me a good price on it.
DC: Yep.
Ed Gold: But now I'd been in the business for a little while and I wanted a new car and wanted something very specific.
I really wanted a convertible.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ed Gold: And I really wanted a Miata. I wanted a Mazda Miata. Yeah. Because, gosh, I love the look of that. I love the, the, the freedom, the joy of driving something like that.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: There's only one problem with that car. You can't put a set of golf clubs in the trunk. Okay.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: Big, huge problem.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: So I'm literally like trying to figure out how am I gonna buy a Miata, [00:31:00] you know, I went to go test drive him. How am I gonna make this work? And I saw a print ad for the new Toyota Celica. Convertible. Ooh. It was a purple. The, the car was purple in the ad. This is how much I remember it.
The car was purple in the ad and the top was down and it, it had four seats in it, and it was like, literally looked like a four seater Celica.
DC: Okay.
Ed Gold: I, I mean a four seater Miata.
DC: Yep.
Ed Gold: And I'm going. That's it. I'm, I'm, I'm going to go to the dealership and I'm going to go buy this car. And literally, this is the end of 1994.
I bought a, I bought a white with black top convertible sica. I think it's probably the first one sold in the Chicago land area. 'cause it's November, you know, and I'm buying a convertible and I, I had to have that car and I had that car for 17 years. Wow. So I loved that car. I loved that car.
DC: [00:32:00] Wow. Wow.
Ed Gold: Um, and so, so when you're talking about brand, you know, I already was precon.
I, I did have some preconceived things 'cause I had a Toyota Celica previously, and let tell you, that car started in minus 26 degree weather. I mean, wow.
DC: Really?
Ed Gold: Yes. I mean, I mean, you know, we already talked about how cold it can be in Chicago. Yes. Yep. You know, I remember the coldest day, it was minus 26.
That was without the windshield. With the windshield. It was 80 below and I was out 'cause I was in high school, 80. And that's what we did. You know, we went out, you know, we were out. It didn't matter what the weather was, but when I saw that sica, I had to have it. And I bought the, I went to the lot and I just bought it and it was, and it was great, great, great car.
In fact, I'd love to buy it again. I keep looking at them on the used cars going, you know, maybe I could just get an old one, just get that again. But I get a little more practical and go, Hey, I have to carry other stuff. 'cause I have kids and a wife and things like that, so. Right. But that's my [00:33:00] like moment of seeing something in an ad and going, I, I need that.
LT: So, so D, what, what are you thinking?
DC: Uh, I, I'm a car guy. I, I appreciate it, uh, the story. But the thing that just really strikes me, uh, Larry and Ed is one would think that people that are in the profession of marketing would not fall for the marketing bullshit, but we do. We do. He says, I see a print. It's a print ad. I gotta have it. Meanwhile, he's placing print ads for clients. Right.
Okay. That, that's it. Absolutely. Go ahead, Larry.
LT: So my, my reaction, I, I, I love the, the, the detail that Ed told this story with.
DC: Yes.
LT: And Ed, you know, we always ask this question as you know, to all of our guests, and I'm just struck with whenever we ask this question.
I [00:34:00] love the enthusiasm and the passion that people bring to this because they know all the nuances and details of said brand, that's theirs. And the way you described that story, you had me at the dealership in November. Yes. The wind blowing and, and, and the salesman's like, what's my lucky day? I didn't think I was gonna sell this till April.
Right. That's right. Um, so I just love how passionate you are about that and even the end of saying, man, I'd love to buy this again. And, and yeah. And Brand Nerds. What, what, what we try and convey is. When you're emotionally connected to a brand, these are the things that come out. And when we do our job at the highest co at the highest level, that's what you do. And guess what, you are enhancing people's lives because Ed talked about 17 years of that car, and he, and he wants to get another one, and that's brought a lot of joy [00:35:00] to Ed Gold in his life. So I, I just love the, all of that.
DC: Well said, well said. Larry, you want to go to the next question before we talk about how the salespeople were chuckling at Ed when he was walking into the dealership in Chicago in November? Wasn't a convertible, but go ahead Larry. Next question.
LT: Let's do it. Okay. Ed, who has haters having the most influence on your career?
Ed Gold: Well, you know, I, I think there's probably been two people and I have to go, you know, I'm gonna go back to college for the first one. Um, so, you know, there I am. I'm in at the University of Illinois.
And the fun thing about that is that, you know, it was 83, it was the summer of 83 when Tom Cruise in risky business goes, Hey, it looks like the University of Illinois. And, you know, I was literally going to Illinois that fall. So like, this was like, it was like, awesome.
LT: That's great.
Ed Gold: You know, I went to school not knowing what to study, you know, I, I just wanted to go to Illinois.
My brother had gone somewhere else. He didn't love it there. I wanted to go to [00:36:00] Illinois where I knew people and, and, and where we had good sports teams and stuff like that. So, um, I went to Illinois sitting in the library with a friend of mine going, what, what am I gonna study? You know, what am I really gonna study when is as an, as an urban planning, um, major?
Because that's the way I got into the school. Mm-hmm. And I was looking through the, you know, the coursebook and the colleges and I'm like, wow. The College of Communications. Wow. You can study advertising. Wow. You don't need to take a foreign language or calculus. This is gonna be great. I love television.
So I, I, I, I worked my butt off to get myself into college communications and then was looking at, you know, what, what is advertising? What do you do? Learned a lot about that. And then, you know, I mean, I wanted to get a job coming outta school. I, I mean, I was dead set on. I wanna leave school with a job.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ed Gold: Um, but advertising's not an easy business. It's not, you know, [00:37:00] there's a lot of ups and downs. It's good times, bad times. And so I, I, I went and talked to my media planning professor. His name was Kent Lancaster. And, you know, I went to him, I said, you know, how do I stand out? You know, I mean, how do I make myself stand out in the marketplace?
I go, I've done a good job in a lot of these media planning classes and then my other stuff. And he, and I'm like, you know, he's like two things. One is, you know, don't, don't. Cookie cutter yourself into having a one page resume if you think you have more stuff to put on there, even though you're just coming outta college, you know, use your two page, you know, use a two page resume.
And I had done a number of jobs and done advertising related jobs, both selling for the student newspaper and then working for a local stereo store doing all their advertising. And so he is like, you know, do a two page resume. And then he said, in your career objective, you know, back in the day we had those, you [00:38:00] know, make it a career objective not to obtain an entry level position in advertising,
LT: Because that's what everybody said, by the way.
Ed Gold: Yeah. What everybody said and what I said, you know, based on his direction was obtain an entry level position in media planning. Leading towards the position of media director with a large advertising agency. Ah, that was, that was my career objective. And it showed, you know, by doing that, it showed I don't just want a job, I want a job in media and I just don't want a job.
I am looking for a career. And that was great advice. And I came outta college having two different offers that, you know, I debated back and forth about Joe's the one that for a lot of different reasons. And, and you know, and that set me on my, my path forward. Uh, and then, you know, I have to give, uh, Pam [00:39:00] Eel, who was the VP of marketing at State Farm, uh, the next credit here.
I don't think she really wanted to hire somebody from the ad agency that knew a lot about State Farm. I think she wanted somebody that would bring in different thinking because. Sometimes you come in from the ad agency and you go to the client, you're gonna bring the same thinking, you know? Mm-hmm. And I don't think she wanted that, but I think I impressed her enough.
I impressed enough other people, and obviously I got the job and stayed there for almost 17 years and really, you know, I believe really helped drive that company forward, you know, from a marketing standpoint.
LT: Those are good. Those are really good ones. And man, I'm struck with the great, uh, the great things that Professor Lancaster shared with you, but then you taking that information and taking it to a whole other level.
That's what I'm struck with, Ed, that [00:40:00] you know, for you to take that, you know, career objective and different, you differentiated yourself and you showed vision in one line. Yep.
Ed Gold: Exactly. Really cool. And you know, it's, I, I have two kids in college right now and I, you know, both my wife and I tell them, you know, go meet your professors.
Go meet, go, go be, you know, be friends with them, talk to them, get them on your side. Get them to be able to want to help you because you know, a lot of them have been in the business or they understand the business. Yep. Or they just understand the bigger world. Mm-hmm. And you know, and, and, and they can really help you get on, get that start that you're looking for.
LT: And that's what, uh, what's your wife's name and your kid's name? We'd love to shout them out when you
Ed Gold: Okay. My wife's name is Lynn, uh, Lynn Gold. And I actually met her in the halls of DDB. So, you know, there's a lot of love that, lot of benefits to gonna work at the ad agency. At that time I met my wife there and then my, my sons are [00:41:00] Montgomery and Henry.
Awesome. Yeah. I got one, one's at the University of. St. Andrews in Scotland studying ancient and medieval history. Oh, wow. Not sure what he's gonna do with that, but he loves it. And, and the other one's at Williams College out on the East coast, uh, Western Massachusetts studying, uh, something in finance, econ something where, you know, hopefully he'll make a lot of money.
So at least that's his
LT: good for him. DC you got anything to add before you go to the next question?
DC: I do not. I'm ready. I'm ready to give the next question.
LT: Cool.
DC: Ed. Uh, here you are, brother. You, you've got, uh, Cannes, Bronze, Media Lion, tempes Awards, eSports brand of the year, experiential Marketing X Awards, Silver Cleo Sports Award, Effie Gold Award, uh, and Bronze Awards, not to mention, helping a massive category, uh, brand and insurance grow two to three, uh, percent.
[00:42:00] Those are all Ws. This next question has nothing to do with any of that. Okay. Uh, this is all about.
Ed Gold: By, by the way, you missed one. You missed, you know, sports, sports sponsor brand of the year, you know? Oh, I'm, my, my, my, that one is, uh, again, a 20, I think that was 2016. That was again, that, that same year.
LT: You know, the, you couldn't name 'em all.
Ed, come on now. We would've taken the whole show.
DC: My sincere apologies, Ed. Okay, please. Okay. Okay, go ahead. I'll come. Taran feather me in center field at, at cub at Wrigley Field. Okay. Alright. But I don't want to know about any of those for this question. Ed, please tell the Brand Nerds the biggest f up of your career.
It's on you not someone else, not what someone else did, not some industry thing. Your biggest F up Ed Gold's biggest F up and what? Ed Gold, this is more important. Learn from it.
Ed Gold: So this is [00:43:00] always a good question. You know, no one likes to admit to, oh, I did something wrong, or anywhere. And, you know, I've heard other people's stories about other stuff they've done, but, uh, I think the biggest F up was when I first presented the idea of State Farm sponsoring a theatrical movie, uh, promotion to State Farm.
Okay. I thought it was in, I thought it was one of those things that's just like, it was in the bag. Okay. So it's 20. I, I just started at State Farm. It's probably 2004. And we get presented with the opportunity from Disney or from Pixar. This was before Disney bought him from Pixar to sponsor the movie.
Cars. Cars, yeah. Okay. Familiar with Cars, lightning McQueen and Sally and Maker and all, all the folks. And I'm like. And I, I, I see this thing and I'm like, oh my God, it's a Disney, [00:44:00] Pixar movie. You know, State Farm's a very, very conservative company, so, you know, I mean, we don't do things that are, you know, have any questionable things to it, but I'm like, this is an animated movie.
Right. Um, and and, and it was from Pixar who had only had like they were six for six on, on Exactly. Oh yeah. Hundred million dollar movies. Oh, yeah. And, and it was about this car that's gonna go driving along Route 66, where State Farm, actually our corporate headquarters is on Route 66. Wow. I mean, it was this whole thing and it was just like, oh my God, this is gonna be great.
What I didn't anticipate, and I should have anticipated, was the much bigger reaction to this is a race car movie. Okay. And, and I bring that up because I, yeah, because back when I was at the agency back in like 95, I wrote a point of view to the State Farm client that we should get involved in NASCAR.[00:45:00]
Okay. Because NASCAR was on a, on this huge, tremendous growth path back then. Right. And I'm like,
DC: do do you mean, is that NASCAR where there, there are accidents that happen? Is is, is that what you mean? That that's the one, yes. Okay. Alright. Okay.
Ed Gold: Okay. That's the one where, where, where, where people want to watch cars flip over and over and over and over.
DC: Okay. I'm just checking. I'm just checking.
Ed Gold: Okay. So back then, and again, this was on the agency side, you know, but trying to push the client, you know, push the client forward, you know, um, they told me that, sorry, we can't sponsor nascar 'cause NASCAR does not promote safe driving. Yeah. So for that reason, I'm like, okay, okay, well, you know, that's, that's a good reason and, and what it is.
But I thought this is now almost 10 years later that maybe things might have changed a little bit. Okay. That, that this is a, this is a NASCAR ish movie, you know, thematically 'cause Lightning [00:46:00] McQueen's a nascar, but you know, it's a, it's a Disney pix or it's a Pixar movie. And, um, so we went and presented it.
Had we, I got a team of people at State Farm. We really had this really integrated plan all set up, and we were all gonna be in this thing together and we're told no. Mm-hmm. And I was like, there's no way you just said no. I was like, there's no way. This is, like, this is gonna be awesome. And, but you know, you, you, you take your licks and, and, and sometimes you get another chance back up at the plate.
You know, you struck out. You know, something, three innings later you're gonna be back up at the plate. Mm-hmm. So, so in that time some other things happened. Okay. Some senior management changed and when senior management changes, sometimes thinking changes. Yeah. And when sometimes thinking changes, they actually like NASCAR and they [00:47:00] want us to do, they want us to get involved in nascar.
And we actually got involved in NASCAR. We were like sponsors of, uh, not Jeff Gordon. Jeff Burton was, uh, was our driver 'cause he promoted a lot of safe driving things. And while we never sponsored a car, 'cause nobody wanted to watch the State Farm car. Right. Tumbling down the na tumbling down, then down coming down the speedway.
Mm-hmm. You know, we were involved in NASCAR. We sponsored another driver who happened to be a big state. His family were big state farm policy holders already. So there was a whole, there was a great story we could make a great commercial on. So when that came around. I'm like, oh, we have to go back. We have to go back and represent Cars.
And one of the benefits that happened was Steve Jobs, who was the head of Pixar, decided, Hey, I don't wanna launch cars in December of 2005. I wanna launch it in the summer of 2006, make it a big summer movie so then I can have some bigger DVD sales come November. [00:48:00] Mm-hmm. So, so since he moved the timing, we had the time now to represent the idea ing and get it approved.
And let's just say best, well, first we were the, so let's just say we got it approved. Finally the thing, everything came together and there was like, you couldn't say, couldn't say no. Mm-hmm. Got it approved and easily the biggest promotional effort State Farm had ever done. We integrated it across everything in the OR organization.
Mm-hmm. Agents were able to buy co-branded merchandise, uh, for State Farm and the movie Cars. We did screenings at State Farm agents could bring their policy holders to, we sponsored a tour, uh, a PR tour of Lightning McQueen and Mater. We actually had the cars come in and sit in the atrium of the headquarters of State Farm.
Oh wow. You know, [00:49:00] and, and you should have seen families bringing their kids, you know, over the couple days that the cars were sitting there in the atrium. And it was just w just the perfect confluence of, of things. So, so while it was a failure of my not being able to understand, you know, that I couldn't make the company changed its own mind on, its on itself.
When the company did change its mind, and then I brought it back up, you know, and what was a failure became probably one of my biggest successes, you know? But I think it's perseverance. I think it's, it's it's vision and it's perseverance and, you know, sometimes those can be the death of you, you know?
'cause they, those don't always work, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, sometimes you have to take no for a no. And I tell that to salespeople all the time. I'm like, guys, a no is a no. We're not gonna buy you. It's no. Mm-hmm. [00:50:00] But you know, other times sometimes you just have to go for it. And, and we did. And it was spectacular.
LT: It's a great story.
DC: Larry, anything on that? I got one comment and then we'll go to your question.
LT: Nope.
DC: Brand Nerds. Sometimes you are working on a project that you think is a project. But that actually becomes legacy. 'cause Ed, I don't think they had done anything with the movie before that, or at least that at that scale.
Is that correct?
Ed Gold: The category had never done anything.
DC: The category had never done anything. So let's cut.
Ed Gold: And State Farm had never, yeah, and State Farm had never done it either. So I mean obviously.
DC: So yeah, so so that was 20, uh, 2004, did you say?
Ed Gold: That's when we initially, uh, presented selling.
LT: That's when they got the No.
DC: Yeah, yeah. You got the No, in 2004. So now cut to 2025. The producers don't like when we aged things, but we're [00:51:00] now in, in 2000, uh, uh, 2025. And we are in the month of April. And in heavy rotation now is State Farm and the Batman movie with Jason Bateman say, you don't need Bateman, you need Batman. And they're comparing off, off-brand insurance system.
So. At the time, Brand Nerds, ed didn't know, nor did the team know that they were setting a foundation right. For what would happen, you know, a couple of decades later, you just don't know Brand Nerds. All right, Larry, next question, brother.
LT: Exactly. Okay. Uh, next question is, um, when you think about the confluence of, um, of technology and marketing, can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech?
Or you can hit us with areas that you think they should be leery or simply avoid?
Ed Gold: Well, being someone that now is actually hands on keyboard in the programmatic world. [00:52:00] Okay. Usually, you know, when I was the client at State Farm, I had an agency and they, you know, they did all that stuff. But now as an entrepreneur, um, I've had to actually be hands on keyboard in this programmatic environment.
This is the most unbelievable. Opportunity, um, that we've ever had. Okay. Our ability to be able to target very, very specific audiences, you know, down to minute things like the household owns a pool or, or the, you know, you, you were a veteran, or whatever it is, you know, or you own a Toyota Celica, you know, whatever it is.
We are able to take all this data that's available to us and target people directly through all these different media, whether it's connected tv, streaming audio, all the digital display that you might see on your mobile device and your desktop and things like that. It is [00:53:00] just, um, I am a big fan of the technology and we were a big adopter of it at State Farm because what we were able to do then is take our first party data and be able to target people who were State Farm customers
LT: Wow.
Ed Gold: With one type of ad and then target those that weren't customers with our auto and homeowners insurance products. And so we're able to get so much more efficient in what we were spending and how we were targeting people that, um, you know, it is just great now. There's a lot going on, certainly in this technological world.
And do I think AI is gonna take over marketing? I don't know, because I don't think the AI is going to tell you to go by college game day. Okay. Yeah. I don't think it will tell you to do some of the things that aren't inherent in. An algorithmic number. Okay. It can tell you, yeah, put more money here [00:54:00] because search is doing great like a marketing mix model does.
Um, but I think there's a lot of things that still require human attention. And so I, but I think it's, there's, there's great combination of human and technology now, you know? So that's kinda where I'm at on this. And, uh, so do you think,
DC,
LT: you have a reaction?
DC: Uh, I, I don't You go, you, you go, Larry.
LT: Um, my reaction before we go to the next question is that, uh, I love. Ed's view of everything, and this is indicative of it, lean in Brand Nerds. That's what he's really saying. Like, you know, pre programmatic, like, like almost, you know, the, the dark ages. You couldn't do any of the things that Ed just mentioned. So now with the programmatic infrastructure that's there, um, there's a real opportunity instead of being leery and scared of it, man, lean all the way in and, and, uh, [00:55:00] optimize it in the best way possible for your brand.
That's my, uh, sort of view of, of all of this and this specifically. Wanna hit the next question?
DC: I do. Brother, brother Gold. What are you most proud of?
Ed Gold: Well, so I mentioned before that I sat through this webinar from this sports marketing, uh, analytics company. I don't even name their names, Relo Metrics. Um, and they were talking about.
The biggest brand sponsors in sports.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ed Gold: And basically what they were looking at was not the television advertising in there, but, but the sponsors that you could see. So all the signage that you could see from, whether it's State Farm, or Gatorade or Nike or Under Armour or American Family, or Allstate, or Bank of America, whoever it is.
All the title, sponsorships, all [00:56:00] the everything.
LT: And Ed, I just wanna be clear for the Brand Nerds here, what Ed is saying, Brand Nerds, is that every single touch point that there is, is what they're looking at, the aggregation of all of it, right? Ed is, that's what you're talking about.
Ed Gold: A hundred percent. Yep.
That, that's what I'm looking at. So, so they did this study, they, you know, it's what they do. They measure all this stuff. They're measuring second by second, right? Videos and social media and everything about where brands show up and they put a noticing value on it and you know, for how long it was on the screen and things like that.
And so they're going through the presentation and I'm sitting there going, you know, I'm always interested in this 'cause I like to see, you know, how State Farm is doing. You know, just 'cause I started a lot of it. So the number one brand in, in sports is Nike. Far and away number one. I mean, endemic.
DC: Talk about how often endemic you see. Yeah.
Ed Gold: Look at [00:57:00] you right now DC I'm looking at you right now. I see you got the Nike sweatshirt on. You know, so think about how many times you see the Nike logo on every uniform across all the major pro sports. The number two brand is the State Farm insurance companies.
LT: That's amazing.
Ed Gold: It is. It was unbelievable to me.
'cause I also come from a background where I worked on Bud Light. I mean, I worked with Anheuser-Busch and the, and before they got bought by, during the height of the days with,
LT: By the way Ed, we had Tony Ponturo we had Tony Pontoro on the show as a guest. So you know that that's the heyday.
Ed Gold: That's the heyday. So it's right there in the heyday.
LT: Yep.
Ed Gold: And, and when I saw that State Farm is number two.
LT: Wow.
Ed Gold: And again, it's individual brand.
DC: Yeah, that's fine.
Ed Gold: But there wasn't an Anheuser-Busch product, I don't think, in the [00:58:00] top five. You know, there wasn't a beer in the top five. Right.
DC: That's incredible.
Ed Gold: Gatorade came after State Farm. Okay. Yeah. And I'm like, how is that possible?
Like how is, how, how is it possible? Well, I I I, I know the answer. Okay. Because that behind the backboard sign is on television. Yeah. So much when you are watching a game, you know, you can't miss it in a highlight. Can't miss it in a replay. Yeah. Because what are they taking a picture of? They're taking a picture of the backboard.
DC: That's right.
Ed Gold: What happens when the guy in the, in, in the slam dunk tournament is making some great slam dunk? There's a State Farm sign right behind him. Mm-hmm. Right there on tangent and, you know, and then State Farm has a ton of baseball signage and stuff like that. And this was just in the four pro or six pro sports, including, uh, MLS and, and WNBA didn't even include college basketball, so.
LT: Wow.
Ed Gold: And we were number two. [00:59:00] And you know, and that's just something. I, I, I'm proud of 'cause I see it all the time, you know, and it's like, you know, if, if, if I'm gonna leave a legacy behind, I think that's the legacy because if I'm State Farm, I never give up that signage, you know? Yeah. I thought there in, you know, you're, you're, there's 26 of, like, at the time it was 26 of the 30 NBA teams had the State Farm signage, and the only ones that didn't were in, uh, were either encumbered by another insurance company or, or, or were in Boston because State Farm doesn't do business in, in, in Massachusetts.
And so, um, which is a big miss by the way, from a signage standpoint, but that is
DC: more, more people watch it on TV than live in Boston.
Ed Gold: Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Just didn't send the right signals, you know, just didn't signals. So, so yeah, I mean that's one of the things I'm, I'm very proud of.
There are many [01:00:00] other. Things I've accomplished and done. I mean, the, the whole getting State Farm involved in eSports, I mean that's was ginormous. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, 'cause I didn't want State Farm to like, take the leadership position. I didn't wanna be like the first one in the Reconstituted League of Legends back in 2018 when they went to a much more professional professionalized organization and competition.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ed Gold: Because I didn't wanna take the heat, I didn't want State Farm to take the heat. I could take the heat ed Gold to take the heat, but my brand and my, yeah. And my public affairs department, they don't wanna take the heat.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: Um, but it came down to that moment where you're like, you know, there wasn't another brand that was kind of stepping up to be there in January of 2018.
And we were ready. And I'm like, you know something, let's just go.
LT: Let's do it.
Ed Gold: And we, we, we went. [01:01:00] Uh, it got announced in like January, like 15th or something like that. I'm watching the Twitter feed and at one point in time I thought it was gonna go south. People started saying, oh, you know, why are these brands getting involved in our, in in our right, uh, in our game?
And then someone wrote, and it wasn't me wrote, no, we want brands involved. We want them to acknowledge in the same way they acknowledge pro sport, you know? Yep. Professional sports, we want 'em to acknowledge us in eSports. And that was great. And then I quote this one all the time because later in the feed, and I think it's still there, someone typed in, hell yeah, I'm getting State Farm.
And that was like the greatest, from my standpoint, the greatest tweet ever because after that it was, there was nothing bad said, right? Nothing. Negative. Everything was positive. And [01:02:00] you know, it was one of those, uh, moments that was just, you know, you, you, you hope for the best. And, and thankfully the best happened.
LT: So we love those. And I love the last part about it is that to, for you to tap into younger consumers, look, oh yeah. Like, you know, you, you have to reinvent your brand. You have to reintroduce your brand to someone every day. Sergio Zeman said that when we were Coca-Cola, and it's so true. Somebody doesn't know you.
And so for you to have that opportunity, like you said, Ed, you look at the glass half full and you, you took it from there. Um, so those are things to be really proud of. Uh, D, anything to add before we go to the next section?
DC: I have one, I'm looking now at this, uh, at this tweet where somebody said, hell yeah.
The State Farm and it's tweeted by Golden Edward. I don't know who that person is, but I just thought I'd point that out.
Ed Gold: I know. You know, Larry, you, you brought up a good point and sorry, I just wanna take a second here. [01:03:00] Please. Do you know, part of being a, a media professional is also looking to the, you know, is also looking to the future.
Yep. Looking at what's happening now and making sure you're positioned well for the future. And, you know, somewhere in the mid teens, 2000 fourteens, fifteens, there was this precipitous drop in 18 to 24-year-old television viewing.
LT: Right.
Ed Gold: It was a huge, it was like, like 20%. It was like, and you're going, where did Nielsen go wrong here? What, what, what happened?
LT: And it ain't coming back too, Ed, it's not coming back.
Ed Gold: You know, and, and it didn't come back. And what, what I was looking at was. We wanna get this younger audience. Right. You know, this is who we want to get, you know, get, you know, it. It's not different. You know, insurance isn't different from the beer strategy.
Get 'em early, get 'em off. And if you get them to sign up when they buy that first new car, you know, they may stay with you forever. You know? 'cause then they'll buy a, then they'll get married, then they'll buy a house. Then they'll have kids [01:04:00] and they'll need life insurance. And so, you know, we wanted to get 'em early and, you know, that's why I said, you know, we need to move some money out of television.
Right. And put it into eSports. And that's what we did. And, you know, certainly I thought eSports would continue on the path, this upward trajectory. It's not that gaming isn't, but I thought eSports would continue. It just kind of, you know, after the pandemic kind of leveled off a bit. Right. But hopefully, hopefully it comes back.
DC: It's, it's, it's not done yet, Ed. No, it's not. It's not done yet. Yeah. Yep.
LT: All right. We're gonna go to the next section now. Uh, ed, and this is, uh, we love this section DC, Ed. What's popping?
DC: What's popping? LT? What's popping?
LT: So, Ed, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply have something happening in and around marketing today that we think is a good fodder for discussion.
All right, so I think I got a juicy one for the three of us here. So, you know, Ed, we noticed that your foray in [01:05:00] helping your, uh, your illustrious align eye into the world of NIL, you've been involved in that. And DC and I have actually, well, the school will go unnamed, but we've been approached by one of the, uh, most well-known, um, uh, power five conference schools about, uh, talking to them about NIL and how they should handle it and whatnot.
So we've gotten ourselves pretty learned about it and, uh, so I thought it would be great opportunity for the three of us to talk about NIL. But talk about it from this standpoint, from the brand out. So thinking about, you know, we all know, and let's e explain this to the Brand Nerds a little bit. What a lot of people don't understand.
And DCI, and, and I only learned this because we, we, again, we didn't get all the way in, but we got pretty in with this one school that I, that I will meant that I'm not gonna name, um, the way the NIL is working now, um, you [01:06:00] Ed, you had it at, at University of Illinois, they have these organizations, each school has them, they're not part of the school and they take in money and then they end up paying the student athletes, right. Or as I, I like to call them, you know, I, I hate the word student athlete because I think that's BS NCAA term, but that's the way this is working. So a lot of times there's not really a lot of work going on with the brands, you know, meaning NIL and Ed's laughing because he knows that.
True. And we didn't know that DC and I didn't learn that until we really got immersed in this. But that is the backdrop. There's still a great opportunity if you're a brand out there to have all these wonderful college athletes at your, at, at your beck and call to utilize in a way that could really work for your brand.
I'll just say one more thing before I go on Ed. I launched Powerade for Coke. So that's, you know, you, you, you mentioned Gatorade. We used to have a pocket of money. [01:07:00] We re, we were really good at understanding who our consumer was and we would, we would get pitched all the times to sponsor different things, and we had a pocket of money that we would utilize and we would then sponsor things that worked, you know, for the brand, what we called our brand lover. If we were running power aid today, we'd have a pocket of money that we would wanna put into college athletes, um, to really help, you know, uh, uh, promote Powerade and do it in the right way. So that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about. What do you guys think as it relates to, from a brand standpoint in NIL, what should happen?
Ed Gold: So from, from, from my perspective, NIL was created so that the college athlete or the athlete could make money off their name, image, and likeness, right? In the same way State Farm would pay Aaron Rogers to be in our spots, or, or Patrick Mahomes [01:08:00] or, or Chris Paul or whoever it was. You know, they're making money on their NIL.
Why shouldn't a college student who has a very limited earning window, unless they're gonna go pro, unless they are Cooper Flag and maybe five other guys from, from, from this draft class, that will really be great pros. There's gonna be very limited time to make money. So, so while they are the big man on campus, while he or she is the big man on campus, why shouldn't they be able to go make money off of their name, image, and like this?
Why shouldn't they get to be in a commercial for the local Chevy dealer and then drive around a Chevy Blazer around campus? Right? Versus what was happening before in the underhanded way that things got handed out, right?
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ed Gold: That we're gonna talk about that. So that's why NIL was created was to, I believe, um, was to.[01:09:00]
Give kids the opportunity to make money. Right. When they have that chance. The collective isn't about that. Okay. It's not, the collective is basically a business. That's right. And they're in the business of generating money to pay college athletes
LT: Right.
Ed Gold: To do something. They're not promoting the collective, you know, they're not promoting Right.
Alli Guardians or whatever the Boilermaker people or the West Virginia people or whatever it is. They're not promoting that. They're, what we ended up doing a lot of was we had the athletes go do good in the neighborhood. We had a, the girls basketball team go to the library during a afterschool program for underprivileged kids and they hung out with the kids.
Fabulous, fabulous thing for the kids. Okay. Fabulous things for the for, for the, for the players on [01:10:00] the team is great, but that's not what NIL was really about.
LT: Nope.
Ed Gold: Okay. NIL was about giving athletes the opportunity to make money and it was never a pay for play thing. It was never supposed to be pay for play.
Obviously if you're a marketable athlete, you're gonna get paid if you're not a marketable athlete, sorry. It's just, uh, law of the Law of Survival, law of the fittest. Um, and you know, I think where, where it's gone, you know, and obviously we're, we're waiting for this whole house decision on this, on, on, on the court case is, you know, it literally is becoming pay for play.
It is will be pay for play.
LT: It is pay for play. DC What are you thinking about this?
DC: Just quickly? I have an analog, uh, bacon, uh, baking powder. I am not a big baker, but when I did bake a few things, like a cake or cupcakes, I'd have a little, uh, arm and hammer baking powder. [01:11:00] That is that, let's call that, that is the intent of NIL, to use it to do baking powder, to use it to get these athletes money.
I don't use baking powder that way anymore. I put it in the damn fridge. That's how it's used. And I think right now, N-A-N-I-L has gone from baking powder to make stuff to It's in the fridge. Yeah. It's got a completely different use. It's still baking powder. Right? It's still NIL, but the use of it is completely different.
These are employment contracts now, except it's not a contract. That's exactly right. Yep. That's exactly right. Well,
Ed Gold: I mean, that's it. If you're signing for a million dollars, you know, look at the kid who just left a. Tennessee, I guess he's now going to play quarterback at UCLA. Yes. He, he left a $2 million a year gig for a million and a half dollar a year gig for whatever reasons, but with a lesser team.
It was 2 million, but, but it was $2 million. And what was he doing for that?
DC: Yes.
Ed Gold: Who [01:12:00] knows, because it wasn't, the money wasn't coming to him from the, from the local real estate guy. It wasn't coming from at t, it wasn't coming from anything from a brand perspective. Now you look at Cooper Flagg, I think he was in an AT&T commercial.
DC: He is, yep.
Ed Gold: During the, uh, uh, final Four or the, yeah.
DC: And Gatorade
Ed Gold: Great. And Gatorade great. Okay. Paige Bucher great. She's in commercials. They're using her name, image, and likeness to help sell the brand. That's what NIL should be. Okay. And, and now with this house decision, basically the schools are gonna have a $20 million a year budget.
Right. To pay players. Right. So it is, it is pay for play. And then how do you split that up? Oh. And how does a school that's subject to Title IX stipulations split that up between men's and men and women's sports? I mean, this is like a,
LT: We don't have time for that, Ed.
DC: Good luck. [01:13:00]
LT: We don't have time for that.
DC: Larry, Larry.
LT: Yeah. No, I, I, I think, I think this has been great conversation. I think, uh, you know, I. This is, uh, this is something that I, that I knew you both would be passionate about. So I think it's, uh, it's time. Unfortunately, Ed, we're hitting the show close here, so, uh, we're gonna posit our, our show close and, and, um, and go from there.
So Ed, this has been awesome. Yeah, you've been great. We really appreciate, uh, you being a guest here and you've dropped, uh, some as DC like to say, jew-els on us. I have five, um, with a bonus. Alright, so number one, Brand Nerds, learning, authenticity and marketing like Jake from State Farm is foundational. It.
The mm-hmm. The story that, uh, that Ed posited us, that, that actually Jake was real. That there's something about that authenticity that you can really build from is really [01:14:00] cool. That's number one. Number two, icons like Jake and the, like a good neighbor State Farm is there. That tagline. So important for great brands.
Ed, we have a, um, we have a 10 commandments of great brands and I, iconography is one of them and those are two incredible icons for State Farm. And, uh, those are the things that really differentiate brands. One of the things that really differentiate brands, that's really big. Number three, agency side beginnings as Ed alluded to provide You with Brand Nerds, lots of different exposure and hence great learnings for what is done well and not well. Whereas if you're on a client side, you're just seeing one, one thing that one company. So that's a really interesting one. Number four, there are some things you face, such as Ed was with game day, where you've just gotta make the decision and go.
If you wait, you miss it. So no analysis [01:15:00] paralysis, it's the opposite of that. Number five is Ed did with his resume in your life. Do what you can do to differentiate yourself and show vision like Ed did with his objective on his, his career objective on his resume. And the last one, my bonus one is like Ed did with State Farm, you've gotta fit when you have first party data as a brand, there's so much data out there.
But if you can lean in and really figure out how that first party data can help you to optimize insights and maximize your results, that will take you to winning. Those are my learnings. DC You're up.
DC: Fantastic. LT brother. Ed Gold. This has been quite a ride, brother. This has been quite a ride. And if you've listened to any of our podcasts, you know, this is the point of the show where I try to make an assessment of like, what, [01:16:00] what's this person giving us that we can only get from this person?
If we don't get it from Ed Gold, we simply are not going to get it. I'm going to attempt to share at least my view on what I believe that is for you. Ed, on the question about your first branding experience, you said I wanna talk about the first. I just wanna talk about one that really got me, that really got me and it was this convertible Celica.
You saw it in a print ad, it was purple. Now you got yours in white and black. But there was there, there was like a wow to like, oh, I wanted a Miata. You mean I can get my golf clubs and this thing that looks like a four seater Miata. Oh, wow. So that, I was really paying attention to that. And then second, when you were ask, uh, answering a question about influence on your career, you talked about your professor in school.
You, here you are, you started urban planning. [01:17:00] And then you go, wow, I can study advertising. Like that's a thing. People can do that, and I don't have to take these foreign languages and all that kind of stuff I'm in. But again, it, it was a wow moment for you. Then on your biggest f up question, you talked about Cars, the movie, and, and, and once again, you, you said it, you actually said, oh my God, Pixar, like, we get to work with Pixar, with the line of it, it is cars and we do auto insurance.
And you actually said OMG. And then similarly, not to this question, but on college game day, when when it came available on the basketball side after Mountain Dew had it, you were like, wait, what? Oh, it's ours. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's ours. We don't, we don't need to go, uh, any further. And then finally, when you answered the question about what you're most proud of.
You talked about the fact that of all of the brands in sports, when you, to your point, [01:18:00] uh, LT aggregate all of the impressions, all of the touch points. Number one was Nike, and number two was State Farm. And you, you even said that like, wow, like what we State Farm is number two and number three is Gatorade.
Like how, how does State Farm get sandwiched in between those two endemic brands of sports? And so all of this, to me, there's a theme started to develop. I said, wow, you all are familiar with the moniker og. So one could say that. Ed Gold is the OG of marketing. But actually no, that's not what you are. Uh, ed, you are the OMG of marketing.
Yeah, the OMG of marketing. And I want to quickly describe before we close this thing down, what does that mean? So I'm gonna, this is what AI says. [01:19:00] The phrase OMG often conveys surprise, excitement, or disbelief. So describing people who live a life with that kind of mindset could involve terms like spontaneity.
They embrace the unexpected and are open to new experiences, adventurous. They seek thrills that are willing to take risk to enjoy life, fully enthusiastic. They approach life with passion and energy, often expressing joy and excitement. Free spirited. They prioritize personal freedom and auten authenticity, often living in the moment vibrant.
Their personalities are lively and colorful, often bringing positivity to those around them. And finally, optimistic. They maintain a hopeful and positive outlook focusing on the very good in every situation. That's you, Ed Gold. It is. You are the OMG of marketing.
Ed Gold: Thank you very much [01:20:00] guys. It's been a pleasure.
Really, really enjoy this. I don't do this very often, but I, I really enjoyed doing this with you guys. And, uh, thank you DC Thank you Larry. Thank you to your team and, uh, you know, happy to do it again 'cause there's a lot of other stories back there somewhere that, uh, well
LT: Ed, we, you, you, you said it because we have, uh, we have what's popping, additions where we pull folks in.
We do. Um, and we, we might be calling you for that, for the, for some of the, those special what's Poppins Um, ed, before we sign off, is there anything you wanna share with the audience that you learned from this conversation?
Ed Gold: You know, I think it's, you know, as, as, as you think about this, you know, and, and a lot of, sometimes, you know, you're doing your own self glorification and, and, and I don't want to do that 'cause, 'cause there were a lot of people, there are a lot of people on the teams, you know, that, that either brought the ideas right, that came.
A lot of these ideas. I didn't think about it. You know, like I didn't create the behind the backboard [01:21:00] signage.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: Dave ick at a NC created the, or wherever he was at the time, um, created the behind the backboard signage. Yeah. But he came to State Farm because we were the ones that could pull it off.
DC: Right. Yeah. You know?
Ed Gold: Yeah. He could actually do it. We had all the relationships with Learfield, you know, 'cause he wanted to do it in college first. Oh, Learfield. Yeah. IG with everybody, you know, and we made it happen because we were, you know, to your point, early in this discussion, those that have the money, you know, can do a lot of things.
DC: Yep.
Ed Gold: And, and we had the money. We were already there and you're talking about what could be the highest profile position available. So how could it not, how could we not move that forward? Same thing with our partners at the ad agencies, you know, while we talked about, you know, bringing down, bringing down compensation costs, you know, and that's just bringing things to reality.
Yeah. But you know, you still look at your partners, at the agencies, whether it was. At TMA or at DDB or it's, or at Translation or at uh, or at Optimum [01:22:00] Sports, you know, those are the guys that help make things happen. Like I watched, sorry, I just, one last thing. Literally watched the 30 for 30 last night about Dude. Perfect. And Oh yeah,
DC: yeah.
Ed Gold: And I sat there and I'm like, oh look, there's Aaron Rogers with Dude. Perfect. Because the agency had come to us with a dude perfect idea back when they only had like 7 million followers.
DC: Yeah.
Ed Gold: And we did, we brought Aaron Rogers and Chris Paul out to with Dude. Perfect. And you know, it is one of those things you go, you know, as long as you can have some vision and see, you know, it's, it is, you know, everyone quotes the great, you know, Wayne Gretzky's quote about, you don't skate to where, where the puck is.
You, you, you, you go to where the puck is going to be. And, and, and that's what you have to do as a marketer. You know, you have to. See the future. You don't always have to create the future, right? You have to see it and go, I, I need to be part of [01:23:00] that too. You know, whether you're the early adopter or you're, or you're jumping on the bandwagon, it's okay.
It's okay. Just you're moving your brand forward
LT: So that, that is a mic drop to end. That was awesome. You're so right. Uh, Brand Nerd. Thanks for listening to Brands Beats and Bytes. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl DC Cobbin, Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro. It is. Hey, and if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share for those on Apple podcast if you are so inclined.
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