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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: What's happening Brand Nerds?! I cannot believe that we are coming up on the end of summer in a few weeks Labor Day will be upon us and I will tell you, brand nerds, this has been a very, very long year, a very long year.
Hope you guys have been having fun out there. We got one heck of a show for you all today and you all have heard us talk about on Brands, Beats and Bytes many times that marketing is a combination of art and science. Definitely applied. And even the name of our show keeps these two things, art and science in mind. Brands, we talk about brands, uh, uh, "Beats," we talk about, uh, music sometimes, and then "Bytes" that's the tech of it all. I don't know if you, uh, brand nerds, uh, knew this 'cause I can't recall Larry if I've mentioned this to the Brand Nerds before. But, um, I grew up an artist.
LT: I don't think you have actually D. I don't think,
DC: I don't, yeah, I don't think so. Larry. Uh, yeah. So when I was four years old, um, my mother had my younger sister and I playing violin and, uh, uh, I played on TV in front of a TV audience at four. At 11, my mom got me a lead guitar, and so I played that lead guitar with folks that were a lot older than I was. At 16, uh, LT and Brand Nerds, my mom bought me a snare drum and then a trap set, and I actually got to, uh, uh, my undergrad, uh, Alabama A&M University on a music scholarship. Here's the point of all of this, um, I grew up a performer. I grew up an artist, and I have been, uh, thankful to apply what I learned as an artist and as a performer, in my work, because at the end of the day, brand nerds in marketing and branding, it's really two businesses that we're in psychology and entertainment.
LT: Yep.
DC: These are really the two businesses that we're in and LT in the building today we have someone who is an artist. He's an artist. Like I wasn't, I was an artist. He, he's an artist. Okay. He's, he's a, he's a former artist and he has applied that in his business. So Brand Nerds listen up. For those of you who, who may be starting on the path that doesn't look like it's pointing directly to marketing or branding or business, it may in fact be pointing you exactly there I am extremely excited LT, for you to tell the Brand Nerds who we have in the house with us today.
LT: Oh, d that's a great setup. We have John Rarrick in the house today. Welcome, John.
John Rarrick: Thanks so much. Great to be here, guys.
LT: Yeah, we're, we're really thrilled to have, have you so. Okay, Brand Nerds. Uh, all of us on the Brands, Beats, and Bytes podcast are incredibly thrilled that we have built our own special podcast family, which you Brand Nerds, and our wonderful guests are truly at the foundation of, and I tell this inside baseball part, since many guests are recommended by previous stellar guests. One of those is Jill Dow earlier this year, Album Five Track Seven, Brand Nerds. If you haven't listened, go back and check it out. Um, and Jill said, oh, you've gotta get John on the show. And after having met John in our pre-meeting, we get why John is so highly recommended by Jill. So now let's give John his flowers, one of the great parts of our podcast, is illuminating to our younger Brand Nerds. There are many different successful paths into a successful marketing career, and that's what DC was giving a great preface to. So John is a wonderful example. John attends SUNY Purchase where he earns a BFA. And for those who don't know much about SUNY Purchase, it is known as a superlative school for the arts. Truth be told, I grew up about 15 minutes from there. So John takes this degree and pursues a career in acting in music and becomes a very accomplished stage actor and musician. Again, that's what DC was alluding to. So John, we are going to wanna hear a lot more about this big pivot, but here John decides to enter the business world and D, check this out. As the Director of Operations for WWE or without the acronym World Wrestling Entertainment, used to be WWF. So after a couple of years at WWE, John then goes and co-found PR firm, Bullseye PR, which he successfully runs for nine years. John then gets tapped on the shoulder to go back to the client side at T-Mobile, where he spends five years as their Senior Marketing Manager for the Northeast.
So John then gets a very cool opportunity to join Xfinity Home as their Senior Director of Marketing. So D, check this out. John continues to move up the ladder where he then jumps back to the agency side, joining BHSC Global Marketing as their SVP of Integrated Marketing and Communications where he meets our friend Jill. Soon after both John and Jill go to York and Chapel, and John is there as an Executive VP of Client Services, and after a great few years at York and Chapel, with a confluence of all this great experience in and around technology, John then jumps back to the client side where he is presently the Head of Marketing for Movius. For those who don't know, Movius is the leading global provider of mobile unified communications for the new world of work, offering productivity anywhere and compliance everywhere. Movius software and services integrate messaging, voice and compliance into enterprise workflows which help organizations like JP Morgan Chase and UBS deliver better engagement for their clients. Enterprises around the world use the company's all-in-one mobility platform to connect with their customers in more convenient, cost effective, and compliant ways. So lastly, Brand Nerds, thanks to the wonders of remote working, John is able to split his time between his homes in Philadelphia and Italy, where he is also the founder and CEO of Cantina Di Rosina a vineyard and winery he developed on the same land his ancestors farmed over 100 years ago. So welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes, John Rarrick.
John Rarrick: Thank you so much. Really appreciate that intro. And I gotta tell you, you nailed it. That's pretty much me in a nutshell, right there.
LT: It's a lot of stuff, John. It's very, very impressive.
John Rarrick: Thank you.
DC: Yeah, John, um, uh, Larry does such a phenomenal job of this and it's interesting looking at people. So Brand Nerds, we're looking at John here on the, uh, on the Zoom, but watching the expressions of people as they hear their own journeys read back to them. And I think it's a really, really cool thing because as, as Larry said up front, this is about you getting your, your flowers, John. So couple things. We're now moving into Get Comfy. I usually have one John, but today I have two. I have two. Mm-hmm. Here's,
John Rarrick: Bring it, DC.
DC: Here's the first one, John. Here's the first one. So, uh, can you pronounce the name of your winery? I wanna make sure that I'm getting that right. Yeah.
John Rarrick: Cantina Di Rosina
DC: So, okay.
John Rarrick: And Ro Rosina was my grandmother.
LT: Wow.
John Rarrick: And without her, and without her, none of this happens.
DC: Wow.
John Rarrick: And she was, she was a fearless woman who immigrated to the US in 1920 and basically instilled in me the values that she brought with her of just hard work and tenacity.
LT: Love it.
DC: Wow. Okay. Uh, what, what's your, uh, what's your grandmother's full name?
John Rarrick: Well, her full name was, was Rosina Novello. Her maiden name was Conti. And I still have Conti relatives in Italy that I'm very close with.
LT: That's awesome.
DC: Wow. Okay. All right. So here's where I'm going. Um, um, I grew up John, where I didn't know much about wine. Had not consumed very much in fine wine at all. And truth be told, John and LT, LT knows this, I despise the whole industry. I thought it was snobbery on like, at some exponent. And, uh, really I was just, uh, uninformed. I was ignorant. And so I'll tell you a quick story and then I'll, and then I'll get into the question. Uh, so I'm out in, uh, Silicon Valley. Uh, at the time I was at the Coca-Cola Company. We were, acquiring a company and it was coming into, uh, the company and they would be working closely with my, uh, my group as well as some of the senior executives. And so here we are, um, here we are out in, um, uh, in Napa Valley. 'cause we, the company's in San Francisco, near San Francisco, so we're in Napa Valley. And, uh, the, uh, the guy who's with me, uh, who was, uh, who was the human resources person helping us, uh, with this, Hal Boyd is his name. Shout out Hal Boyd. He is really into wines. And he says, hey, hey, uh, hey DC you, you drink wines? I said, no, I don't drink wines. He said, he asked wine and I go into wine. I don't drink wines. He says, uh, okay. Would you be open to trying some things with, with me on this, uh, at this dinner? Sure, I'll do it. I like Hal a lot. Trust him. So he says, uh, um, so we're, we're now at the restaurants called Brix I think B R I X. He says, uh, he says, John and LT. Um, Have you ever had a foie gras and I'm like, I don't even know what that means.
What, what, what are you talking about? So then he explains duck, liver, that kind of thing. I'm like, okay, I don't really like liver that much. And then thought about a duck's liver. I don't know, but I, I, I said, no, I haven't had it. He said, would you be open to trying? I said, yes. He said, have you ever had a Sauternes?
I said, I don't know what that is. And he told me, Hey, it's a, it's a, it's a wine. Um, some have it for dessert, but it also goes very well in pairing it with, uh, foie gras. He says, are you open to having that? I said, yes. He says, so here's what I want you to do. When they arrive to the foie gras and the, uh, and the Sauternes, I want you to take a small slice of the, of the foie gras put it in your mouth. Don't swallow it. Don't swallow it. Okay? Then get the Sauternes and then swallow the, uh, uh, uh, one swallow of Sauternes and take down the foie gras with, with it. So this is what he say. John, I have not been the same human since. I'm not, I'm not the Brand Nerds. It turned me out. Okay. It turned me out.
So here's my question to you. Uh, John, you have a winery. You, you split time between Philly and Italy and you are on the grounds of your ancestors of a hundred years. What is it that you are taking from this experience? The care and things that you give to the vineyard, that you apply to your business? Are there corollaries?
John Rarrick: Absolutely. You know, you mentioned it in your intro about how there's an entertainment quality to marketing.
DC: Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: And what's entertainment other than tapping into emotions?
LT: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: I made a decision that anything I was going to do in my life was going to. Tap into my own emotions that I chose. Ones that I, ones that I wanted to elicit, joy, happiness, um, you know, just community. And that helps steer my, steer my career in the directions that I wanted, is to keep that, keep that focus. Um, staying away from negativity. And the feelings that I get when I am in Italy are, well, from the first time I was ever in the village where my grandparents were from, which is called Caronia, I almost just felt like I was supposed to be there.
LT: Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: And I don't mean always year round 365, but you know, it, it felt like I was connected to it immediately and. When I looked at acquiring the, the old vineyards and the house of my grandfather, it took me no more than five minutes to make that decision. In fact, I picked up the phone called the guy who owned it, 'cause I had heard he was looking to possibly sell. I may have an offer on the phone, and he accepted. And that was as easy as it was. Boy, man, if every, if everything you bought was that easy, that would be pretty great life. But, uh, it was meant to be. Um, so for me it's, there's a real emotional connection to the, to the area and to the land itself.
In the, in whatever products we can produce from the land. I want them to bring people that same happiness that I feel making it.
LT: Ooh, that's deep.
DC: Wow. Wow. Well, uh, John, uh, I would like to, uh, partake of some of the vineyards. Uh, Releases. So we'll talk about that after the, uh,
John Rarrick: I know a guy who can arrange that for you.
DC: Cool. Alright.
LT: I would too. That sounds great.
DC: I've got a second. But Larry, anymore to uh,
LT: No, that's wonderful stuff.
Alright,
DC: so here's, here's the second one. All right. So Brand Nerds we know here we are in the month of August, 2023. This is the golden anniversary. 50th anniversary of hip hop. Lots of celebrations have been had, in fact, just over the past weekend. Now, uh, Jade Hailey and uh, and Jeff will be mad that I'm dating this podcast, John, they don't like when I do that. But just this past weekend, there was a celebration of Big Win at Yankee Stadium, also one here in Atlanta, uh, where we are. And there'll be more throughout the, um, the month of August and Brand Nerds, you all know how much I love the hips and the hops. Before we got onto to the, onto recording this podcast, I did a little kind of fake rap on my 1, 2, 1 2, and then John said, hey, hold on. Now I might have a story around this hip hop thing for about three hours. So what's up with that, John?
John Rarrick: Alright, so 1983, um, when I was at Purchase College, my, my girlfriend's father was a record producer and I was trying to, uh, I was trying to win him over. So I was just trying to let him know that, hey, I, I know a couple things about music. Do you mind if I hang out in the studio with you one weekend? Um, what are you working on? He goes, yeah, I'm working on a record, come on by. And I, I said, can I bring anything to help it out? He goes, what do you got? I said, well, I, I just won in a card game, a Linn Drum Machine for the folks listening at home. That was one of the first ever sampling drum machines.
LT: Wow.
John Rarrick: It was a low qu, I mean, compared to today's standards, the, it was a very low qual quality sample, but hey, it could sample off a record and you could take that sound and turn it into a beat.
LT: Right.
John Rarrick: And, uh, I had the book and everything. I won it. I actually won it in a card game, um, on a bluff hand. And it was the, a guy had put it in as his last thing. He had no money left. So I win the Linn Drum Machine. I got the manual. I'm in my, my dorm room. I figured out how to use this thing, and I got a stack of records that I brought with me to college.
So he, I told him about this. He goes, yeah, bring a bunch of records and bring your Linn Drum Machine that'll come in hand, what he's working on or anything. And, and quite honestly, hip hop was so new. I my knowledge of it was pretty minimal. Pretty minimal, right? So I get to the studio and he is working on a, a, a record called The Show by Doug.
DC: Oh. Oh, oh, no.
John Rarrick: And they aren't having a hard time finding a snare drum for the show. And I happened to bring with me a couple hundreds snare drum examples there, and wouldn't, you know it, uh, uh, and, and this is now public knowledge, so no, no problem with me sharing this one. I pulled out Phil Collins solo album and, In the Dead of Night, as you know, in one of his big hits, has that big old fat snare drum.
I sampled that, I tuned it way up, and that's the one that made, that's the one that's on the wreck. Hi.
LT: That's amazing.
DC: That's wild.
John Rarrick: And I was gonna go to that Yankee Stadium event that you talked about, but I had a conflicting business trip, so I wasn't able to make it, but a couple of my friends were there.
DC: Oh wow.
LT: You have a speechless on that one. John
DC: Larry!
John Rarrick: So that's my, that's my one uncredited credit in, in the world of hip hop.
DC: Oh my goodness.
LT: Um, we're personally huge. Dougie Fresh fans. Yes. And I remember when that came out. Again, date. But I mean, to me, and as DC knows, one of my best friends, Peter Borzak, shout Pete, um, who's a huge hip hop fan, and he came, he's from Chicago.
When he came into New York, when that, when that was released, I'm like, this is, it was so different, right. Dougie Fresh was so different than anything else out there. And the show was just so special and it, it just blew all of our minds, at least mine at the time. And that was such a mega hit in the hip hop circles when that came out. Right, D? I mean,
John Rarrick: So many great artists coming outta the Bronx back then.
LT: Right. I remember when I heard it like that. Still remember that the first heard it.
DC: I, I am, uh, I am awestruck. Um, I'm gobsmacked. I, I, I, I don't even know what to say. Okay. Wow. Uh, okay. So I will say this and then I know we gotta move on. So shout out to Dougie Fresh. Um, not only was he iconic, then he, he continues to be iconic, and I don't know if you knew this, John, but he has, uh, an organization outside of music, but leveraging music to our very point about entertainment and emotions. It's called Hip Hop Public Health. So he's, he's using the power of hip hop to help people who love hip hop become healthier.
LT: Yeah.
DC: I mean, it's just, it is, it's a phenomenal organization. So I want to, I wanna shout that out, uh, for, uh, for Dougie Fresh. And, um, and then the second thing I wanna say, this is, um, I. We never know what part of our lives will end up in some form of a capsule. Yep. What part of our lives, what remnants of our lives might end up touching other people in ways that we did not expect. And John, your one, that one snare, that one snare, that one thing that sound has been through the ears of hundreds of millions of people and celebrated. So, respect.
LT: That's right.
DC: Respect.
LT: And D would you ever have connected Dougie Fresh and Phil Collins? You know what I'm saying?
DC: Uh, uh Well, well, about that. Yeah. I, from a sample perspective, yes. Because Yeah. But you know, Phil has been, uh, but, but I would never have connected Phil Collins, Dougie Fresh and John Rarrick now that and, and a freaking Linn uh, sample machine. No, that would not, I would not done now. At another time. Uh, John, we'll have to have a conversation with you about this, this card game, but not now.
LT: That's right.
DC: We don't wanna talk about the card game. All right. So, All right, LT, any more on that before we go to the reading of our sponsor?
LT: No, I'm, uh, let, let's, let's go to Specificity. So, hey, Brand Nerds back here to talk with you about Specificity and Brand Nerds. We know many of you are immersed in digital marketing or simply involved in it.
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DC: Great read out to you as always, brother.
LT: Thank you.
DC: Alright, we are now going to what we call five questions. So here's how this goes down, John. I ask a question, Larry, ask a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at the final number of five. Alright. Mr. Linn drum machine, Phil Collins, one snare drum sound pitched up a bit. What was your first branding experience, John, where it hit your emotions? You talked emotions earlier, it, it captured your emotions. Something about it you fell in love with either the experience of it, wearing it, listening to it, tasting it, whatever it happened to be. There was a moment of love for you with this particular brand when that happened first. What was that?
John Rarrick: Oh, DC That's a great question. And, and there's a, a story behind that. When, uh, when I left WWE and started Bullseye PR, my, not only was I in a very entrepreneurial stage, but I think it was contagious, even in my household. I remember coming home from work one day and my wife was with one of her friends, and they were baking these, these little tiny muffins. Mm-hmm. And I was like, what's up with the little muffins? And I just grabbed the one and eight, and I'm like, man, that's good. Mm-hmm. And, uh, she's like, well, we're making these little mini muffins. And the, because, you know, when you give a kid, we all had young kids back then. When you give a kid a, a full size adult muffin in the backseat of the car, what happens? Things all over the car. Right? Right. So the, so these two smart ladies were making little itty bitty muffins that these kids could just eat in like three or four bites. Easy peasy. Everything was clean. No problems. I was like, that's a great idea. Mm-hmm. Well, They listened to when I said, that's a great idea. I just set it off the cuff and about a month later they came to the, I get a call at work. Hey, can you come home for lunch? We got something we wanna run by you. And when a woman says that you should, probably, the best thing is to run for the hills. But I did come home for lunch that day. And, uh, they're like, we think that these things would, we we're, we're giving 'em to all of our friends and their kids. We, we think it'd be a great business. Hmm. I was like, okay, go ahead, go back and write a business plan. Mm-hmm. And, uh, come back to me with a business plan and we'll talk about it now. I just figured they would never do that. Right. That, that's what, that's what everybody says to somebody who comes to them with an investment opportunity. You're like, let me see the business plan.
DC: Yep.
John Rarrick: Well, a month later they call me back again. Hey, you remember that thing, the business plan thing, come home for lunch again. And boom, they laid this big document on me. Oh, wow. And they said, we wanna call it Monkey Muffins. I'm like, okay. That sounds great. And, uh, They had a backstory behind it. They had everything laid out. They had really thought this thing through, but mostly the product was insanely good. Mm-hmm. So I was all ears. And when it came time to launch Monkey Muffins as a business, we needed to do some major branding. And that was part, I was mostly in acquisition marketing at that point. So really branding and brand development was not my thing. Mm-hmm. So I sought out the advice of a number of people that I really trusted for some of the companies I've worked for in the past, or people I knew in the agency space who had done that. And I listened and we did it the right way. I hired a great designer. We actually put it out to RFP and I got sample designs from three or four different Oh wow. Different designers till we found the look we were looking for. And then once we started to, then we started to dig into what the brand means and we got deep into it, like, where's that emotional tie to the brand? Who's gonna be our audience? And we really pinpointed it down so that we knew, we wanted to make sure whatever was the visual identity really rang the bell with, with the audience, not only the parents, but the kids who were gonna be ripping into these packages. And then we did focus groups and started to actually put some hard data together. And the focus groups were all young moms with young kids. Um, and we did 'em over and over again until we started to get some, some commonality with the data we were receiving, with the images we were showing until we landed on this. Awesome cartoonish monkey that everyone seemed to love with. The color palette seemed to resonate. And then we tweaked the color palette a few more times. The branding process for this product was about six months. We could have gone to market much sooner. Right. But I knew it was gonna be that important. I, I want, I knew. You also, you have one chance to launch a product. Mm-hmm.
LT: Say that again, John.
John Rarrick: You have one chance to launch your product.
Mm yep. Take a step back and do it right. If it's 30, 60 days later than you wish it was gonna be, it's okay. Make that happen because you can't go back in time and redo it. And if you did redo it, you probably lost the little audience you already had. So when we did launch this product, um, We, it only took about a year and a half to get in 500 plus stores from Vermont to Virginia.
And we built this as a northeast product in supermarkets. You probably heard of like Food Emporium. Oh yeah. And, and Pathmark. And you know, sadly it was prior to Whole Foods 'cause that would've been the perfect location for it because these muffins were, they were all natural. The first ingredient, every one of 'em was a fruit or a vegetable. It was really quite ahead of its time. And, uh, it, the, they had a great six year run and it was, the brand was acquired by a private equity firm, but I'll always remember that is getting it right the first time. Mm-hmm. And I've preached that since that day.
LT: Great story.
DC: That is a hell. Wow. Wow.
LT: That's a great story. I'm glad and I'm glad you walked folks through the whole process because, uh, what you're saying is, There's a right way to do this. There's a right template to do this, and you took all the right steps. And it doesn't mean you're guaranteed success, but it sure increases your odds. Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: Absolutely.
DC: And then also, lt, what I heard from John is they did research and, uh, and some analysis. So you got some of the hard, uh, financials in the business plan. So that's what he asked for first. And then he goes right to the emotional, like, that's right. How are we gonna make an emotional connection to both the parents and the, and the children? So once again, that art science piece that we've talked about, that, uh, that John has, uh, it, it came to, uh, came forward with this particular project.
John Rarrick: Yeah, DC I'd, I, you know, it'd be really easy just to talk only about the emotional, but I always stress the business planning part because I. Without, without the proper plan, the finances in place, all of that. It's just a dream. It's just a dream you can't make come true. So the two have to come together and they both have to come together in a really, in a very realistic way. It can't all be a kumbaya.
DC: Nope. Great.
LT: John, uh, one quick example before we go to the next question. When I was in Tropicana at Tropicana, uh, the Brand Nerds know this, I was a Tropicana, you know, um, uh, juices and Tropicana had this really cool, great new product idea that, uh, was going to be this thick, viscous, you know, a hundred percent natural juice. Um, that ended up to be what Jamba Juice and everything else was a few years later. But they couldn't figure, they knew like that there was a great consumer need, but they couldn't figure out a, a way to make it work. Financially because they knew it had to be, you know, a hundred percent natural and all those things. And they, and they just, the economics didn't work. Um, but while the consumer demand they knew was there, so there's an example. Yeah.
John Rarrick: One other deal.
DC: That's a great example. LT. I'm gonna build on that LT and then we'll go to the next question. Perhaps another reason, and you would know this Larry, not me, why they, they didn't move forward with it is when you're trap and you don't have 100% natural in everything you do.
LT: Yep.
DC: If you come out with a, like a line extension, if you will, or new brand says this is 100% natural, you might have consumers responding to it in the way that I responded to McDonald's when they released a Quarter Pounder and it says now with fresh beef. And I'm like, okay, what's in the other stuff?
LT: Right, right.
DC: All right, Larry, you wanna do the next question?
LT: Yeah, let's hit the next question. So, John, who's had or is having the most influence on your career?
John Rarrick: Oh, wow. You know, there are, there are so many influential people that I've, I've brushed up with along the way. Um, you know, I think I'd like to cite two, and please, oddly enough, they're, they're, they're not in my industry, nor are they in marketing, but I learned lessons from them both from, the first one was a professor I had, um, his name was Dr. Joe Stockdale, and he was a pretty renowned Broadway director that I had. I, I, I was fortunate enough to have him as a writing teacher when I was at Purchase and as a freshman, I thought I was a gr a great, I, you know, I was full of myself. I thought I was a great writer. And if anybody's ever seen that movie, A Christmas story, when Ralphie turns in his, uh, in his essay and he thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Only to find out perhaps not the greatest thing ever. That's kind of what happened to me. I, um, I turned in, um, a, a report, I think on like a streetcar named Desire or some Tennessee Williams play. And I thought, I thought this thing was the most solid paper I I'd ever written. I was certain that I was gonna get accolades. And, uh, he dismissed the class after a lecture and he goes, thank you everyone. Uh, Mr. Rarrick, if you could stick around for a few more minutes, uh, I'd appreciate that. Joe Stockdale was a big six foot four, skinny kind of ichabod crane imposing character. And uh, he says, he, he says, listen. He goes, I said, what can I do for you? He goes, I have one question for you. And he pauses. And I'm like, now he's gonna tell me this was a great paper. This is my moment in the sun. He goes, just tell me how the f you ever got outta high school.
DC: Wow.
John Rarrick: And it was, it was like, he just kicked me in the side of the head with a roundhouse kick and I just stood there, mouth agape and he's like, you need to learn how to string three sentences together properly and then come back with a new paper. And I was just devastated. I went back to my apartment and my brother is an English teacher for 30 years, a high school English teacher, and I called and I said, I need help. And my brother sent me every style guide you could possibly imagine. He goes, read these books. Call me in a couple weeks and you're gonna send me writing samples every month until that happens. Until, until we've improved your writing. And my brother helped me through there, but without Joe Stockdale. I would've continued thinking I was good. Like sometimes in life you need somebody to send you a big old wake up call. And it doesn't happen often because we live in a world of platitudes and, you know, just handing out compliments sometimes and, and trophies for participation. And it, every now and then somebody's gotta tell you, Hey, you're not very good at what you're doing. Get better. And that one lesson set me on the path to just get good at writing. And without that skill, I could never have done what I've done throughout my career. So that's a big one for me.
LT: That's a great story.
DC: Awesome.
John Rarrick: I have another one in this one. Again, no one in my, no, no one in my field. But as a kid, I, and still to this day, I loved baseball. In fact, at one time it's, if you had asked me probably until age 18, like what I wanted to do with my life because I was relatively successful in high school baseball and beyond, I would've told you that's what I wanna be. Um, and that's the kind of attitude you have to be, if you wanna be a professional athlete, no question. Straightforward. This is what I'm gonna do. Um, I was a big fan of Louis Teon. So for those of you at home who don't know who Louis Teon is, he pitched for the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees throughout his career, and he was incredibly effective. Now, in early in his career, this guy could throw heat. He just blasted by and no problem. And somewhere around halfway through his career, he had an arm injury and he could no longer bring it. So what did he do? He didn't quit. He just reinvented himself. Yep. And figured out a way to throw the craziest curve balls with the most insane motion to completely baffle the batter. And when I say insane, he would twist around. He would, he'd have a leg kicking up in the air. You didn't know where it was coming from or what, what, how fast it was gonna be. This guy went on to win 20 games over and over and over again to become one of the most successful pitchers in baseball history. And I always admired the fact that he was, he, he, he could continue to recreate himself. I was fortunate enough when I was at Bullseye PR to meet him and to have him involved. I had created a charity that, that one of my clients was, was, um, in charge of. And when we were at an event in Boston, I reached out to his agent and got him to participate in the charity to sign some things. Honestly, I probably brought him in mostly so that I could meet him. I wanted to thank him and he was the most gracious guy ever. And, and, and he was just so thankful that I, I took the time to not just say things about baseball, but to apply what I learned from hi, you know, to, to know that I had applied things I learned from him in my everyday life and my career, which is just because you might have lost a skill, or your skills might have diminished for whatever reason, or just an environmental change out there somewhere changed how your skill fits into the world. You can still change yourself and continue to move forward. So shout out to Louis Teon. He's still out there smoking those big Cuban cigars.
LT: What a great story. I remember Louis well, and the way you described it is perfect because, He just figured out he was, seemed like he was a step or two ahead in, like you said, deception, right and, and just figuring out, uh, we go, one of the, our things is we have, uh, seven connection points and one of them is performance. And he did it with style and performance. Like no one, no one else. Those, yes. Right.
John Rarrick: Absolutely.
DC: Yeah. Um, Louis Teon and then I'm gonna come back to, uh, professor Joe Stockdale, but with Louis T, uh, because he was prolific after he lost his, uh, his heat. Uh, most don't even realize that he lost his heat. They just think about the 20 games he, he won year after year after year with the theatrics. So that's, uh, that's Louis T but back to your Professor Joe Stockdale, story. Brand Nerds, there were three. Quick, like a little, little phrase that had a letter and then two words in it that I want to call to your attention that John said that it is okay, in fact, helpful for us to say when we get into a situation where maybe things aren't going the way that we expected them to go, or maybe hope that they would go, and they are, he said to his, uh, his brother, I need help. I, I need help. And we all need help. It is when we think we don't need help that we have problems. All right? Mm-hmm. I need help. That's, that's a great story. Two great stories. Two great stories. Uh, Larry, shall I go to the next question?
LT: Please do.
DC: Alright. John, you've had many successes in many different areas. I mean, you, you, you, you got a winery for, for, for goodness sakes here. So you've had some wins, you've had some, what we call ws, some dubs. But for this question, I am utterly uninterested in any of your Ws, utterly uninterested. I only wanna know about the Ls the loss, and if you could take us to pick out one of your big juicy Ls where you made a mistake and it was a lost, and then give us the second L, which is what you learned from that lost. What's the biggest F-up for you?
John Rarrick: Well, we talked about, um, when we talk, I guess first it's, it's important for me to say that if you're gonna take big swings, you're gonna miss the ball sometimes, right? But Right. That's part of the game. However, you should try to mitigate the misses as much as possible. And there's, sometimes smart people don't listen to their own wisdom, and this is the case of that. So we talked earlier about that Monkey Muffin branding project that was successful. And why was it successful? Because I knew what I didn't know. I knew that I had to reach out and for help, I knew that we needed data to back up what we were doing, and the execution was pretty seamless. Well, if you've fast cut to about 10 years later, I had a client, um, and we'll, well, the client for this discussion will remain anonymous, but it was a, it was a boutique candy brand and they were launching a, a line extension of their candy bars into a, a wafer bar. And everything I did, I, I was absolutely certain on what this product should look like, how it should feel, what emotions it would resonate. And the client wanted to get the market pretty fast. So we took some major shortcuts and by that I, I, I did everything that I normally wouldn't do, which is I didn't do any focus groups. I used no data. I went completely with instinct. And as you guys know, the old adage, you know, without any data, you're just another knucklehead with, uh, with an opinion. Right. Insert other word for knucklehead there. Of course. Yes. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you do. Yeah. We used, you know, subpar, subpar designers. I don't think I wrote a very detailed brief for subpar designer. Like everything we did was shortcutted to try to get to market too quickly and, I would call it hubris. I would call it failure by hubris. Like I was so certain that just my instincts alone could launch a successful product. Now listen, if it was my company and that was my choice, that would be one thing. But when you are trusted with a client's brand, you absolutely have to, you cannot take shortcuts. And I did that and the product was not successful, fortunately, that we had had such previous success with that client, that they actually gave us another shot at the next line item extension they were doing. And I only did it under the, uh, you know, with the idea that we're going to do it right. And we took, you know, six months to make it happen. And that product was incredibly successful. So, swing and a miss, but not because the ball was coming in hard, but because I didn't, I hadn't gone to batting practice in a while. Sorry for all the baseball references, but
LT: No, those are good ones.
John Rarrick: Everybody. Yeah. You know, in this case it was, it was complete lead failure by hubris.
LT: D, you mind, I have two quick things to hit John with on this. So, John, first one is, when did you realize, what was the uhoh? This is going sideways. Like we, did you have something in the back of your mind while you were in it and just ignored that?
When was the uhoh
John Rarrick: When this incredibly tasting intre in incredibly good tasting product was bought by no one.
LT: Okay. So it was, it it was really towards the end when you were actually had already launched?
John Rarrick: Yeah, when we went to market, I, I really thought the moment it hit the shelves, it would just be flying.
LT: Interesting. Okay. Um, second part was did you have pressure from your client and or other folks. You know, involved in the project to, to make, you know, like, oh, we have to, you know, get it out at X date. Like, you know what, what, what was driving you to, to get it, uh, out so quickly?
John Rarrick: Yeah. Pre pressure, not only from the client, but from their pressure points, like their distributors, their retailers. Because you know, with retail, once you've secured shelf space, you better get it filled because somebody else is gonna come along and take it. Yep. So there was certainly a time element, but that doesn't, excuse me, for not going back to all of them and saying, Hey, we need to do this. Right. Um, we, it's gonna take us x amount of time. You know, I listened to them just wanting to get it out quickly,
LT: John, that's why I asked the question because you, you just hit it. Right. And that's why I wanted to hear the Brand Nerds. There's gonna be times, there's times in everyone's career. Where you're gonna be hit with situations like this. And I've heard people who I work for, um, a mentor of mine, Rob Warren, who's on the show, and he would always go to the, to the three things. You know, it, can, you have the choice of whether it's gonna be low cost, whether it's, it's going to be actually, uh, something that people, um, really connect with. And now I'm forgetting the third, you know, the, you can have, you can have it. D you know this
DC: fast, high quality, cheap, right? Choose two. That's it.
You choose two. That's right.
LT: You can't have all three. Yep. Yep. Thank you D. So yeah, fast, high quality, and cheap. You can only have two of those. And I think it's the duty of what, John, when you're in situations like you were in, for any of us, you gotta push back on folks because ultimately it's gonna fall back on you if you, if you try and please people, it's, it, it, it's going to, it's gonna be a disaster for everybody involved.
So
John Rarrick: You nailed it, LT. Absolutely. Great story.
DC: That is a, that, John, you are really dropping some jew-els on the Brand Nerds today. Yep. I got two things. The first is, at what point did you own it? Were you like, hey, my bad?
John Rarrick: Oh, I remember going home and contemplating who I could blame. Hmm. And then knowing that that next client meeting, there was no one else to blame but me. So I took, probably took me a day. There was, there was certainly a part of me that, that looked around and said, I wonder if there's a way I can get out of this.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Oh, that's so real. That's so real, John. It is. Mm mm Okay. Second thing is this, uh, Brand Nerds, um, at the Coca-Cola Company. Um, one of the senior executives there now who I have been, um, um, friends with for, for now decades. Her name is B Perez. B Perez. Uh, one of her hallmarks in her career is she helped the Coca-Cola Company really get, uh, explode on the NASCAR scene. So this is one of the things she did, uh, along with other very smart people at the, uh, Coca-Cola Company. So one day during one of our senior management meetings in, uh, in North America, she had one of the drivers come and talk with us. Uh, one of the NASCAR drivers that were on the Coca-Cola team. And this particular driver, uh, I believe it was Tony Stewart, I think it was Tony Stewart. And so he's before us and he's talking and, um, uh, most of the questions are that we're asking him and he's talking to us about our business questions.
And I'm sitting there looking at the guy and I'm thinking, John, uh, and, and Larry, well, yeah, I know he knows some stuff about business, but this dude is one of the best NASCAR drivers to have ever been behind the wheel. So I want to know something about his world. And so I said to, I said, Hey, Tony, when you are out in a race and it's coming down towards the end, you've got the final few laps going, and uh, you are in first place.
You're in the lead and there's, and there's a car behind you barreling down on your backside. What are you thinking? What, what, what, what do you think? What are you doing? So he kinda looks at me and he, he, oh, he smiles. He said, the first thing I do it is slow down. And I'm like, slow down. I just said, he's on your butt, dude. And then he said, he says, he says, I don't mean slow the car down. I mean, slow myself down.
LT: Wow.
DC: And really think about what's happening. And as a result of slowing myself down in that moment, I then can go faster. And I thought, whoa, that dude. Now I know a, I don't know anything about driving a Nascar, but I do know something about the need to slow oneself down in order to go faster. And what Larry was saying in my connection to you, John, is that this, this is not a criticism of you. You weren't slowing down to speed up. You were speeding up and slowing down.
John Rarrick: Exactly.
DC: Okay. Wow. Okay, man. Uh, Larry, anymore before we go to the next question, bro.
LT: No. Other than John is dropping, like you said, some jewels on us. This is a, and these are the kind of stories we love because we've all made that mistake, John, we have. And so, um, right. Young Brand Nerds out there don't make the same mistakes that we are. That's why we have that question. Okay. So question four, regarding technology and marketing.
So, you know, tech continues to play a larger and larger role in all of our lives, both professionally and personally. And obviously John, from what you've told us about Movius, That your business is predicated on this. So can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech or areas that you think they should be layered?
John Rarrick: Yeah. I, I just had this talk with my US team actually the other day because we get continually, we get approached by MarTech firms who have, you know, the next greatest thing that we should be using. And my team's first instinct is to take the calls, listen to what's out there and you know, some probably get 10 or 12, um, companies a week approaching us about different, different things.
And my first question to my team will always be, so what, what, what is, what they're proposing going to solve for on a week, like on any given day for us?
LT: Right.
John Rarrick: Show me how it solves for something for a problem we have. Show me how it can actually make you as a team more effective. And if you can't answer that question, I don't even want it. Like, I'm not even gonna take a look at the solution that that's in front of us right now, because there's just so much out there that's tech for tech's sake.
LT: Right.
John Rarrick: That is not a fit for your particular company. So I look specifically for, and by the way, we, we do this at Movius too, with what we provide our company, our, our our clients, is we are there to help solve problems. So like our software makes something that's hard for you, easier for you, end of story. And we can talk more about that later. But anything I'm going to buy that we're gonna use on a regular basis needs to do the same thing. So I would say that my advice to everybody out there is lean into what's gonna make your life easier, more effective and increase the quality of, of the work you're doing. Everything else, let it go because otherwise you'll just spend your entire, you, you'll spend way too much time just demoing new products, seeing if they work, and you'll get mired down in the process rather than the result. At the end of the day, my team's gotta provide results. I'm less interested in the process they use to get there. When it comes to technology is, is particularly.
LT: Well said.
DC: Mm.
LT: D, you have anything to add?
DC: Just one quick one. Um, one of my prior, um, bosses name's Chris Lowe shout Chris Lowe. When we would go into him, John, and tell him about some major research project we were gonna be doing. It could be a quantitative, and this is a Coke by the way. Just wanna let people Yeah. Thank you. Uh, Larry. This could be a quantitative research project, uh, and or a qualitative research project. So we would go into Chris and we, hey, we're doing this project 'cause we wanna learn these things. And then he would say, um, pretend you've done the research and you've got the results back. Just let's pretend. I know you haven't done it. You got, you gotta go spend whatever you gotta spend, how much time you gotta do. But let's just pretend for a moment you. Tell me what you think you might get back from the research and then what you do with it. And no one had ever asked us that question, John and Larry, but him. And so what it trained us to do, just like you're doing, uh, with, with your team now, it trained us to find out if we really were going to be able to apply what we were about to launch in research to something that would meaningfully move the business, a. B, it would help us. Further refine the research. 'cause sometimes, let's say if it were a football field, it was like we wanted all 100, uh, yards, plus the 10 yards on either side of the end zone. And then we would kind of bring it in from like the 40 to the 40. So we'd be more yard line to yard line. We'd be more narrow in terms. So that would make it speed up. It would also make it cost less. And then the third thing is that when, when we got the research, we were able to make better decisions because we went through that exercise. I have only heard Chris Lowe say that until today. And your, this is your version of it. Uh, uh, John, as it relates to tech right? As it relates to tech powerful,
LT: What do you think of that analog, John? Makes sense?
John Rarrick: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And, and it, it makes perfect sense. There's just, there's always gonna be a lot, someone's always gonna be coming up with the next thing, right?
LT: Right. Yeah.
John Rarrick: Don't get mired down in the gadgetry. Mm-hmm. I even remember back, back, back in the day when I was a musician and, and, and my cohorts and I launched a recording studio. We were like, we're always in a studio. We should just open one, right?
DC: Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: So we opened a studio and back in the analog recording days, the, the only way you could compete was to have the newest, coolest thing, right?
DC: Mm-hmm.
John Rarrick: But I can't tell you how many times we would spend thousands of dollars on the newest, coolest thing. And I could have done the same thing with the last thing we had, but
DC: Yeah. Yeah.
John Rarrick: But the, but the clients demanded the new cool thing, and I would always have to convince them, look, it's, it's not the gadgetry, it's what you do with it. And always take a look like you, you, you phrased it. Exactly, DC, see the right way. Like, what are you going to do with it? Like, know ahead of time, what's that gonna solve for you? How are you gonna use it? And know that before you go ahead and buy it.
DC: Hmm. It's so simple that it's alarming, at least to me, that that thought was nowhere near my mind until Chris Lowe said it. Yeah. And I never for, I've never forgot it, and I've not talked about that very much because he just wired us to think that way.
So it became normal for us, if you will. But I, I, I think it's not all that normal what you do, what you do, John. Yeah. I mean that as a compliment. I mean that as a compliment.
LT: Big compliment. I think what, what you're saying, Dee, is that so, so often, and it goes to a little bit of John's f up story, people are so doggedly busy in their job and sometimes they don't come up for air to really think the meta point. Okay, why are we doing this?
DC: Yes.
LT: What, what's going on here? And that's what I think great leaders do. And obviously John and your head of marketing space, that's what you, that's where you're adding that real value to get people to slow down and think about that. It's, it's, it's, it's simple, yet hugely important.
DC: Oh my. All right. I'm gonna go to the final question here, but I'll just say this, John, in our, uh, in our work, we have a slide where we capture a quote from someone that we think a lot of. His name is Jeff Waterman. Jeff Waterman, and he has these sayings, we call them Waterman iss. He and I worked together, uh, at, at, uh, Boost Mobile and at the Coca-Cola Company.
And one of his sayings, uh, John, is a, uh, a well-defined problem is 50% solved a well-defined problem. So what you are doing with your team, Is you are helping them truly define the problem because you said, okay, what problem are we, are we solving? Right? You one, once, one, you get clear on that. Now you can go do, do something about it and, and then to your studio point. And it isn't, well, our studio will have a bunch of new stuff. It'll have a, not like that's the, that's not a problem. Okay. Right. That's not a problem. Alright, last question, John Rarrick, what are you most proud of?
John Rarrick: You know, I've, I've raised two amazing kids that are off onto their own careers, both completely different career paths from mine, thank God. And, and they're both tremendous people too. So that is my, that is my biggest personal achievement and. In all likelihood, my wife had much more to do with the outcome of that than I did. I like to think I did have a hand in there though. Um, so that's on a personal level. On a professional level, I can think of two things, probably one's pretty current and one led me to this current one that, that will stand out forever. I had the opportunity to, to participate in something that you usually never get to do. Um, in 2011, Bullseye was just knocking it out of the park and sometimes when that happens, people step up. And I, long story short, I, we had a great exit with a private equity firm and suddenly I find myself not knowing what the next chapter of my life's gonna be. And I had friends at T-Mobile who said, hey, why don't you come work with us? Um, you know, let me introduce you to the team here. So, met the folks in New York, where I'm originally from and phenomenal people. Like, that's the first thing I noticed was these people just seemed switched on. Mm-hmm. And I knew that they were not doing well at the time, but that still didn't hinder me because I was really open for any new experience at this point in my life. So I came onto T-Mobile and shortly, it was at a time when they were literally running on fumes. They had a failed merger with AT&T. Um, they were just not doing well. And shortly thereafter, they, they got a new CEO, a man named John Ledger, who was a real disruptor in the industry. And we had the fortune, um, of having a $4 billion breakup clause in the AT&T deal that the government didn't, didn't, um, greenlight. So we put all that money into the, uh, into the network to build out a really great network. Now you can make bold choices when you're in last place 'cause you got nowhere to go but up. So being part of what T-Mobile called the unveiling of the UN-carrier strategy, essentially the remaking of the entire wireless industry was one of the most satisfying things I could ever have asked to participate in. Literally, we just took the entire model, smashed it on the floor, and put it back together again. And we did it in what I think is the coolest yet most simplest way. And this shows the genius of John Ledger. He said, why do we have to be part of this broken industry? And guys, think about all the industries that are inherently broken, right? That don't treat their customers right. Right. Cable. Yep. Insurance. Airlines. And previously Telco, right? The wireless carrier. You know, try, you used to try to get your wireless carrier on the phone. Some of them, still to this day, you're gonna be on the phone for an hour. You might as well write the day off. I think the only worst customer service in the world is, you know, the Department of Motor Vehicles. So, and we'll cut 'em a little slack. 'cause that's, that's, that's government, that's a whole separate thing. So John Ledger said, I got an idea. Let's listen to our customers, find out what they hate about their current carrier, even if that happens to be us. And then let's do the opposite. It's what I call George Costanza marketing. If anybody's a Seinfeld fan, you might remember that episode where George starts doing everything opposite how he's been doing it his whole life, and suddenly he becomes incredibly successful. So what do we do? We listen to our customers. They didn't want contracts. They didn't wanna be told when they could upgrade. They didn't wanna go to, uh, Canada or Mexico and come back to a $3,000 phone bill that they had no idea why it was $3,000 and on and on and on. And we just listened to them. And now you couldn't fix everything all at once. So we put it into a hierarchy of, of solving problems that meant the most to our customers. And as we took away early termination fees and contracts and all of that stuff. Funny thing when you, when you take a customer and you, and you stop trying to keep them, they stick around. Mm-hmm. So the early termination fees are to make you stick around. Right? We did away with 'em and nobody left. Suddenly our churn just stopped. It just went from like 12% to 2% in about six months. But the thing that I'm most proud of is doing all those things within about two years, two and a half years. Our brand sentiment, our positive brand sentiment. Went from 17% to 80%.
LT: Wow.
John Rarrick: Now, I had never seen that previously, but I learned a lot of lessons doing that. Like what it takes to turn a brand around when it came to Movius. So here's number two guys, it came to Movius and we had really not gone to market with our core product yet. So in this case, there was no negative brand sentiment. There just wasn't a lot of brand awareness yet. So I applied a lot of those un-carrier, that methodology that we did for the UN-carrier strategy to Movius and essentially brought our brand from positive brand sentiment from what I'm gonna say is zero, just because there was so little brand awareness to 80% in less than two years. So one of my goals was to kind of personal goal anyway, was sort of chase that number and that timeline that we had done when with the UN-carrier T-Mobile, now. T-Mobile happens to be our exclusive wireless partner in the United States, so I'm with them every day, and that that vibe is still there and, and it's rubbed off on the folks at Movius. So it's kind of come full circle from that 2013 to now 10 years later, following some of those same, that same roadmap, we've been able to replicate a very similar culture and vibe. So that, I think those are, those are two professional things that like I remember saying when I left T-Mobile. Wow. I think you only get to do that once in your career. I'm pretty much, and to be able to do that twice, man, it's like, what else could I ask for?
LT: Wow. Yeah.
DC: You're blessed, John. Yes. Truly blessed. Uh, Larry, any reflections on that? I, I have one,
LT: Just a quick one. I, I'm, thank you John, for sharing that because, uh, it is very cogent. And, uh, you know, very meaningful to you both on the personal and professional level. And I, I love the way you, you strung all that together to where you are today. So, great stuff.
DC: Yeah. Brand Nerds, what John outlined with his T-Mobile example, and he used this word, he said a playbook. So he outlined the playbook. And if you've been paying attention, and I know many of you all have, there are remnants of that playbook in some of his earlier stories as well.
But in this case, he talked about the playbook at T-Mobile and then he replicated this playbook again with Movius. Now Brand Nerds, uh, T-Mobile was truly at the bottom. I know this because I was at a startup, in wireless, and we were one of the first carriers in this country to launch with no contract, and that was Boost Mobile. Boost Mobile. So we were into that game when the big, the big ones were all still in contracts. T-Mobile was the first of the big ones to go, oh, we're not gonna be on this contract thing, but check this out. So they have a, uh, a, it was gonna be an acquisition, not a merger, an acquisition. AT&T was gonna buy T-Mobile, probably mostly Spectrum and that kind of stuff. And then say, give us your subs and we'll put 'em on our thing and it's all good. And the T-Mobile brand, I guarantee you, had there been a merger that was gonna go away. Yep. But they broke up. And so T-Mobile survives. Now you've got Sprint, they buy Nextel so now they get bigger. Okay. Now T-Mobile's still at the bottom now, so you got it. It, it was, uh, it was, uh, It was at AT&T at the time. They had, uh,
LT: Verizon, probably, right? You're thinking of Verizon?
DC: Yeah. No, no, no. Not Verizon. I forgot the name. It, it was singular. Singular, okay. Singular was a, one of the brands. And Orange, by the way, Orange here. So now Sprint buys Nextel. They get bigger, $32 billion, and then their next target is T-Mobile because T-Mobile's a little weak. So they try to go after T-Mobile, they try to put this thing together, and then there's another breakup. They, they say, nope, same organization. Government says, no, you guys can't come together. Not good for customers. Then cut to a few years later, based on the strategy, this playbook that John is, T-Mobile buys Sprint. Okay. They buy Sprint. Okay. They buy Sprint and now Brand Nerds. You may or may not know this, the Sprint brand isn't around anymore. It's gone. It has been, it has been put to bed. Right. All based on this playbook. Powerful John.
LT: Yep.
John Rarrick: Yeah. I wanted to think about, T-Mobile went from last place in the US in, in, in 2011 to cut to a decade later. They're the largest telecommunications company in the world.
LT: Wow.
DC: Wow. Wow. Okay. All right. Geez. Well, that's it. That's it. On, uh, on five questions, LT.
LT: Alright, John. Uh, we're moving on. The next section, the what's popping? D what's popping?
DC: What's popping?
LT: John, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. And John, we know you've got something good, so hit us with it.
John Rarrick: Yeah, I've been given a lot of thought to, um, you know, as we're growing as a company, we're interviewing people all the time. I'm always interviewing marketing folks. We have in an internship program that's pretty aggressive too. So what I'm noticing is a distinct lack of diversity in the tech sector. And, you know, it, it's, it's really baffled me and I noticed that even in my agency days. We, you know, um, we've got a mutual acquaintance with Jill Dow and, and even when I was looking for designers, there seemed to be a lack of diversity, but really much more so in the tech industry, like people of color, women. I'm just not seeing enough of them. And it's not for lack of trying, you know, we, we post a job and you interview who, who applies, and you go down the list and you're looking for the best people. So, I've been trying to figure out why is that, like there's gotta be a cultural reason for it and, and how can we, and I mean we in technology collectively solve the issue. And I, and you know, I don't think it's for me to crack that code. I think it's gotta be a joint effort with a lot of folks with, with the education system, with um, just basically making folks out there know that these, these are careers that are out there. If you wanna learn how to do this, you know, there are, there are paths to get you to that point. Um, do I have the answers? No. Am I really excited to try to find other like-minded people who wanna come up with the solutions? Yes. Because. It's, it's always on my mind when I look around on a Zoom call and I see that it like, hey, just where's the diversity in, in the crew? And at Movius, it's, it's at the front of everything we do from a hiring standpoint for sure, but I don't see it with a lot of other companies that I'm on calls with and I'd love to know, and I, I think it's a topic for discussion here and beyond and for, for all the other folks you talk about, where do we start to make that happen? So my what poppin is not, I have an answer. My what's popping is more of a question that I think is gonna be an ongoing question for a while until we can figure it out. But until we do, I think we're holding back a lot of great creativity.
DC: What a great, what's popping? What a great, what's popping? Larry, you mind if I take this one further?
LT: Please do.
DC: Wow. John. Um, I don't know what the numbers are, um, but um, I do know that in terms of a percentage of, uh, of folks working in STEM that it is, uh, amongst the lowest of all sectors in the, um, in the country, in the world. I do, I do know that. I don't know what the specific number is. So you have a question. Let me attempt to, um, answer it, and I don't have all the answers, but I'll attempt to give a couple. The first is, John, something that you're doing. You've made a shift and I would recommend that other firms in the tech space and beyond consider the same shift. You have moved from passive recruiting to active recruiting.
Passive recruiting is, I put out a job and whoever comes, comes. That's passive recruiting. Active recruiting is when you go, hold on, wait a minute. Be, I'm not just gonna put out a job. In addition to putting out a job, I'm gonna actively try to figure out. How I can solve to your earlier point this problem. I'll give you an example. So where, where do you go? This is just one, and this'll sound self-serving, John. I don't mean it to be so brand nervous, but it, it is, uh, one of our clients is Tuskegee University. You may or may not have heard of an organization. Legendary John Cogg. The Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen.
Yeah. So Brand Nerds, for those of you, certainly not who may not. Yep. Those of you who may not, uh, know about, go look at the movie Red Tails. There was a, uh, uh, uh, an a squadron and beyond of African American airmen who fought in wars and they often fought, fought the most dangerous, um, uh, missions. And they did not have the same kind of equipment. They did not have many of the things that the rest of the military had yet they were astonishingly successful. All right, so this is. This is what the um, uh, Tuskegee Airmen went about. So that university has a history. John, in tech, you don't have pilots and engineers, et cetera, without some tech. So perhaps moving to my second, uh, point here is that it's about with whom you partner and a, a university like Tuskegee University. This is just one could begin to be a resource to get a pipeline. And there are universities like this all over the country with people of color. So that's the second thing is that find a partner that can guide you to it. The third is senior level women and people of color and diverse folks. When you start to hire senior level folks, I have done this and I've seen this, John, they bring other people with them. So their passive recruitment actually becomes organizationally active recruitment just because their base is different. So those are some of the things that I would say right off the top for you and, and others to, to consider. So that's where I am. Larry, what say you?
LT: Yeah, I this, uh, John. So first John, thank you for bringing up this topic.
DC: Thank you.
LT: It's an important one. It, it really is. And, and so, you know, um, Dee, I I think you're gonna laugh at this be, well not necessarily necessarily laugh, but, um, we have, uh, somebody named Kevin Therm. Kevin Therm is the CEO of the Clinton Foundation. And, um, we've gotten to know Kevin, uh, he's a wonderful person. And we were talking about some things and Kevin said that it is up to quite honestly white males and other folks who are in the quote unquote majority, to go out and find someone who does not look like them. And find those people. And so it does, it, it, to DC's point, it, it can't be passive. It's gotta be more, uh, in the, in the prominent part of what one is doing. So, uh, DC just so funny, he brought up Tuskegee, which is a wonderful client of ours, DC and Jeff, uh, Jeff Shirley, our, our producer, they, they went to Alabama A&M and they are some of, uh, it's an HBCU, um, in Huntsville, Alabama, which is Rocket City, right? Yeah. And the, the whole foundation of the school is predicated on folks in tech. And so the, while people might not apply, um, I think we've gotta be more aggressive to go out and seek. Especially when it comes to interns, right? Um, which is the wonderful way, John, of, of, of getting to know folks, um, you know, and both personally and professionally. And so that's, that's what I would say, that it's, it's gotta be much more prominent in, uh, in what people were thinking and, and, and actively seeking is what DC was saying. Not just falling back and thinking who's applying?
John Rarrick: Thank you guys. There's, there's some wisdom there. I like both of those points of view and um, definitely have given me some ideas to take back to the team.
LT: Awesome. Excellent. We can have more conversation on that too, if you'd like.
DC: Yeah. Larry, I was gonna say the same thing.
So John, if you would like to as a follow up, uh, talk with us about any ideas we have and we're not looking for business here. This is just purely for the betterment of humanity and business. These two going together. We, we'd be happy to have the conversation with you brother and whoever else you'd like to invite.
John Rarrick: Thank you.
LT: Welcome. All right, Dee, I think we're, I think we're done with the most of the content of this program. John, this has been amazing, John. We've, uh, we've thoroughly enjoyed this, you know, uh, Brand Nerds, again, a little inside baseball. Again, we have pre-meetings with all of our guests and almost all of them, we go, oh, this, this is, this guest we think is gonna be really good. And, uh, you know, 95% of the time that's true. And this is one of those where John is like, I knew a hundred percent this was gonna be great. So John, uh, you've, uh, even exceeded those expectations, so we appreciate you. So now we're just gonna go to our, our learnings here. So we, John, I have multiple learnings, but I'm gonna do five with a bonus to, uh, to, Jeff doesn't like us to do even numbers.
So it's five with a bonus. He does not. He does not. So, so here's my, I'm gonna go quick. So, number one, John, we talked about this early, um, Brand Nerds, when you're thinking about marketing your brand, you gotta tap into emotions. And when it comes down to it, it, it also comes down to you personally. So, John talked about being conscious, he was choosing, I wanna tap into a career where I choose my emotions of joy, happiness, and community. That's really powerful. That's the first one. It's number two, like John's Joe Stockdale story. If you're lucky enough, like John, to have someone deliver what seems like bad news, don't view it as bad, feel fortunate for it, and take the criticism for self-improvement to move your life forward. So that's number two.
Number three, uh, this is huge Brand Nerds know what you don't know and know what you're good at. And outside of that, outside of those realms, seek the best people to help you. So that's three. Four, no shortcuts like John's boutique candy story and DC's, Tony Stewart story, um, uh, whi, which was building on, uh, the, the boutique candy story. When you are in time pressure situations, slow down and make sure all the people understand the right way and what this means in that particular situation. That's four. Number five, and this is the tech one. Don't get mired down in the gadgetry and numbers. And the, the last one, the bonus. And this is huge Brand Nerds in any phase of marketing.
B2B, B2C, no matter you gotta listen to the customer or consumer, you gotta start there. Those are mine.
DC: Phenomenal. Larry, John, you may or may not have heard some of our podcast. If you have, then you have, uh, noticed, at least. I hope you noticed that at the end of it. I make an attempt to describe, uh, the human that is before me and recognize some of the gifts that they have. And man, have we been, uh, blessed John? We've had so many epic guests drop so many pearls of wisdom. It's, it's been overwhelming to just be a part of this. And so I'm gonna attempt to do the same thing with you, John. Attempt to do the same thing with you. So let's see how this goes.
LT: It always goes well, John,
DC: you're raising, you're putting pressure on me. I'm trying to go down. Slow down. Lemme see.
LT: That's right.
DC: Put the pressure on me. Alright, when we, uh, in, we're in the Get Comfy section and we talked about your winery. You mentioned that it was, uh, named after your grandmother, uh, Rosina, um, and then I asked, are there any connections between the winery and your, your business experience? And you talked about, you talked about emotions. Larry mentioned them, joy, happiness, community. These are things that were important to you, and you intentionally chose those. Like, where can I go as John where I can experience joy and happiness and, and community? I'm, I'm thinking about this. I'm going, Hmm, where did this come from for, uh, for John? So I, so I went to my friend here, uh, or other business partner ChatGPT, and uh, uh, I looked up the name, Rosina says the name Rosina has a rich history and a charming meaning. It is derived from the Latin name Rosa, which means rose. Rose has long been associated with love, beauty, and passion making Rosina a name that exudes grace and elegance. And then at the end it says, today the name Rosina continues to be cherished by many parents around the world. It's timeless appeal and melodic sound. Melodic sound. Make it a delightful choice for a baby girl. So this is what Rosina means. Um, you were Rosina's grandbaby. You were, you were her grand baby. And I imagine that you all had quite a special relationship grandmother to grandbaby. But this, this notion of love, this emotionality started coming to you as a child. Second point. Now you're talking about your wife and her friend, they call you home for lunch. Hey, come home for lunch. We gotta talk to you. You are thinking, should I buy a ticket somewhere? But you go, you come home. You come home. Uh, by the way, what's your wife's name?
John Rarrick: Her name's Robin.
DC: Robin, okay. So Robin, so you come home, you talk to Robin and her friend. What's your friend's name?
John Rarrick: Lisa.
DC: Okay. Robin and Lisa. Shout Robin and Lisa. And they tell you about this, uh, this idea they have. You tell 'em to do a business plan, they call you back. We've got it. We got the business plan, uh, Robin and Lisa, and the thing's called Monkey Muffins. And you talked about the research that was done where you really wanted to find out the emotional connections. And then you said the reason why the product was good was because it was small and it could fit in the hand of kids. You said the big muffins, they're all over the place. You know how that works? The kids. So now we got. Rosina and her grand baby. And we've got your, your wife who is saying, I got something for kids. So now we got these kids coming in, baby and kids. Here's my third point. And I'm, and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm coming home now. I'm getting ready to come home now, John. Um, you said after an exit, and by the way, he said, good exit for you Brand Nerds. If you're not understanding the nomenclature there in current day lexicon, that mean that John got the bag. Okay. That's what that means. He, John got the bag. All right. So he's, he's talking to T-Mobile 'cause they say, Hey, come to New York, talk to us at T-Mobile. And he knows that from a performance perspective there at the bottom. The bottom. But he said there was something about the people, something about the people, the culture and the vibe. Alright? And then he mentioned this. He said, you know, on this, on this, uh, uh, on, uh, positive brand sentiment, in a short period of time. We went from 17 to 80, 17 to 80. And then he mentioned with Movius, he had this similar experience where it started here and then it went there, here, up, and then I mean down, and then up. Okay, so now let me bring all of this home. We have grandbaby, you, John, to Rosina, we have kids that were touched by, uh, monkey muffins, and then we have people, adults, culture and vibe. But you're still looking for these emotional connections. Here is what I believe is your gift. My brother John. You are the creator of a, of business seesaws for big people. Business seesaws for big people when they ride on the seesaw with John Rik. They have fun. Ah, we, they have joy, they have happiness. It becomes a part of the culture. But the other thing that happens when they ride on this seesaw that John Rarrick creates culturally, is they can go from low to high, quickly, just like a seesaw. That is what I believe is your gift, brother. One of them.
John Rarrick: Well, you honor me with those words in DC I'm gonna throw it back at you. You have the gift of being able to uncover the connective tissue in someone's life, because we all have different stages of our life and they're all tied together. But it's hard to see that the, it's hard to see where they connect sometimes with people and, and you all have been able to really, really uncover that nicely.
LT: And dare I say, a thread to that is community. John mentioned community. That's all community. Right.
DC: Totally agree. Totally agree.
LT: So John, before we sign off anything, uh, you wanna share with us any learnings you've, you've gotten from this wonderful conversation we've had?
John Rarrick: I really enjoy the discussion, guys, and, and I, I love the work you're doing here and just keep doing, keep doing God's work here on the podcast because the more you can share, uh, with the folks out there that might just be starting their career or may maybe trying to, trying to improve things out there with, with the brand that they're working on, um, you know, that's just sensational because wi, wi wisdom is no good if you don't pass it on.
LT: So true.
DC: Well said. Another jew-el just dropped.
LT: That's right. That's the John Mic drop. Right. Jade, I'm going to the, I'm going to the real close now. Uh, thanks for listening to the Brands, Beats and Bytes recorded virtually on Zoom and our production of KZSU, Stanford, 90.1 FM radio worldwide. At kzsu.org, the executive producers of Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The pod father.
LT: That is him, and if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great if you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share with your friends and colleagues and everyone. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.