Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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: Happy New Year Brand Nerds at the top of the year. We're back at you with another episode of our beloved podcast. We love this podcast Brands, Beats, and Bytes. This is album six, LT, our sixth year doing this, and while this is track two, it is the first guest of the year. So the person kicking off the year, Brand Nerds, who's a Brand Nerd himself, we are about to drop this one on you.
So LT, can you believe that we are into year six?
LT: Crazy.
DC: Man, thank you. You're six. All right. So LT, um, we have a trifecta here today and it's not often that we have a trifecta in our guests. Number one, he is a brilliant marketer, talented, highly advanced marketing mind. So that's one that we have. The second is we have someone LT who has giving, given us an opportunity.
He actually invited us to a university, which is going to come up later to do our first recording of Brands, Beats and Bytes live in front of an audience. So that's the second thing. And the third one, which may be most important, LT and Brand Nerds, you guys will be familiar with this when you're working and you go from company to company or from group to group inside of these different companies, you will find folks who are really good at their jobs. But quite frankly, many of them are butt munches.
LT: Okay. Do you have a definition for butt munch?
DC: Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a fancy way to say a hoe. Okay. You just, you just find that in, uh, over the course of your career and A lot of them are also politically adept. So they may or may not be great at producing results, but they are phenomenal at producing political wins. Our next guest is nothing like that. And he was in a place with us, you'll talk about this, Larry, where there were political sharks swimming all over the tank, all over the aquarium, all over the ocean. This dude is a great human being.
LT: Yes.
DC: Just a great human being. So when you combine a brilliant marketing mind with someone who's giving and his giving showed up for us and giving us the opportunity to do our podcast in front of our marketing students. And then thirdly, who's also just a really, really good human. It just has me excited to think about how fortunate we are to start our year off with this person. LT, who do we have in the building with us today?
LT: Oh, DC, we have Tim Halloran in the house today. Welcome, Tim.
Timothy Halloran: Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having me. That's, uh, quite an intro, DC. My mom would be very proud, so thank you.
DC: We're just getting started.
LT: Ooh, ooh, Tim, we're just getting started. It's about to get better. That's right. And, and brand nerds out there, uh, this is not an accident that we have Tim leading off as DC suggested as our first guest of the year. Um, we don't do that accidentally. We, we saved that spot for special folks and Tim is a special person. So we're going to, we're going to Tim, this is just starting, bud. You're going to, you're going to, uh, really find this one interesting. Your mom's going to really like this. I think so. Okay. Brand nerds.
This one is as DC sort of alluded to another Coca Cola alum. I trust us Brand Nerds. We only bring you the best ones. Tim is currently a marketing professor at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech. More details to follow. So let's walk you through Tim's stellar background to show you his full path.
So Tim grew up in Florida and attended Washington and Lee University in Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Accounting, and where he's on the swim team and manages to graduate cum laude. He then goes to the University of Georgia Terry School of Business, where he earns a master's in market research, which, by the way, is the strongest market research program in the country.
DC: In the country.
LT: In the country. That's right. He also works as an intern at A. C. Nielsen. Brand Nerds, for those of you who don't know, is one of the largest and most prestigious research companies in the world. So guess what account is part of Tim's internship, Brand Nerds? It is Coca Cola, and specifically Powerade.
D and Tim, I am not sure if I have told either one of you the full background of what happens here, but I will share it on this podcast. We had been looking for an Assistant Brand Manager for PowerAid. For me, it seemed at the time like we had been looking forever. We had interviewed numerous people and we could just not find someone that was the right fit.
So, Tim, you may have to correct me on some of the details, but my recollection is, you and I have been working together on Nielsen based research analytics, and decandidly, I was really impressed with this dude, and thought to myself, gee, I wonder if Tim would be interested in brand management, since Brand Nerds, he was at the tail end of earning his master's in market research.
So, one day we were on the phone, and I said to Tim, hey, would you be interested in working on our brand team? My recollection was, he enthusiastically said yes. So Brand Nerds, this is the key. I was already working with him and because he was doing a great job with our research and analytics work, even though that this was brand management, but for me, the research and analytics work is foundational for all great brands because of that. I was super confident Tim would walk into the job and help us from day one. Tim, I don't know if you know this, but there was lots of lobbying behind the scenes to get you on the team versus those that were inquiring, gee, why should we have a research guy join brand management?
Well, those of us who were lobbying for him, we won.
Guess what, Brand Nerds, Tim was awesome from day one, and for 10 plus years in Coca Cola brand management, working on brands such as Powerade, of course, and also Diet Coke, Nestea, and also where he and his team developed Gold Peak Tea, which is now a billion dollar brand. Things work quite well for all, I think, D, don't you think, for Tim joining Coca Cola in brand management?
DC: Okay. So LT, I did not know this story, brother. I did not know. You, you kept this in the bag. This is a good one.
LT: Yeah. Yeah. So, so Tim's laughing. So after, after leaving Coca Cola, Tim enters academia and consulting. He becomes a marketing professor at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business, where he teaches both undergrads and grads, brand management, and also develops and teaches a grad level course called New Product Lab.
Additionally, he starts consulting company Brand illumination, enabling clients to better understand the relationship between their brand and target consumer, leveraging this knowledge into strategic marketing recommendations that strengthen this bond. At this point, Tim then decides to obtain his doctorate in marketing from the University of Florida, Warrington School of Business, and completes his dissertation on the impact of consumer engagement in social media brand communities.
So we got a doctor in the house is mentioned earlier. Dr. Halloran then joins the esteemed faculty at Georgia Tech, where he teaches both undergrads and grads and brand management, market research, and also serves as the faculty director for the executive MBA program. Of course, with Tim's great success working in the real world, he's able to provide his students.
And Tim, can we call your students Brand Nerds? I think we can, right?
Timothy Halloran: Absolutely.
LT: Okay, he's providing his students because of his amazing background and education second to none. So lastly, Tim is also a published author, having written the great book, Romancing the Brand. Brand nerds, this is a fantastic book.
And if you are interested in furthering your brand education, you need to go get this. We have been looking forward to this one for a long time. Welcome to Brands Beats and Bytes Tim Halloran.
Timothy Halloran: Wow. Thank you, LT. I appreciate it. Uh, and Daryl, this is, this is great. Do you see, and you guys, uh, are, are, I will talk, I'm sure, about this, but it's a thrill to kind of be with you guys. You guys are always two that, you know, have some stories, plenty of stories, uh, stories, right? That, that I admired and, and were just like, wow, these guys, and I love what you're doing with this. It's a fantastic, fantastic, um, just media vehicle, I think for all of us that are so, I love it. Interested in the latest and greatest in terms of what's going on with branding.
What's going on with marketing technology. Um, and we love having you here at second. We want to have you back. So we've got to figure out why we'll talk offline on that. Get you guys back again, because that was a really well received, uh, event and, uh, and we'll do it.
DC: That's great, Tim. Thank you, Tim. Hey,
LT: D before you get into the get comfy, did you know the background Tim, that I ever told you that?
Timothy Halloran: I knew, I mean, obviously, I knew, you know, it's funny, I was talking and thinking about this. The different paths that we all take in our careers, right? The little steps that you don't think is a big deal at the time, but turns out to be huge, right? I take this little Nielsen internship coming out of UGA.
And yeah, it just happened to be put on the Coke account. I just happened to be working with you on power aid of all the places I could have gone. You just happened to be needing an assistant brand manager at the time. Um, so, you know, it, it really is a remarkable sometimes how there really is. I feel like there's a grand plan in place and you don't realize it as you're in the middle of it.
LT: Yeah, Tim, I'm so glad you said that and D, I'll shut up in a second, but because this is really important. Brand Nerds, you got to control everything you can. So you got to be the best you can be. So when the opportunity does present itself, you take advantage of it like Tim, but you got to be lucky too. You got to be lucky too. But when you're lucky, you got to seize it.
DC: Uh, I am blown away by this story and, uh, as long as I've known you, Tim and Larry, I mean, I've, I've, I've known you both for, you know, 30 years, uh, approaching, if not that, uh, to not have known this story. So, I've, I've, I've had a relationship with Tim for many years, independent of you, Larry.
I've had a relationship with you for many years, Larry, independent of Tim. And I knew you all work together, but I didn't know the in superhero parlance, the origin story, right? I did. I did. I did not know the origin story. So great segue into get comfy. So normally, Tim, we have one question in the get comfy section.
But in this case, I've got two and one relates to how this, uh, Just so happened to be, uh, in an internship with Nielsen. Just so happened to have Coca Cola as a client. Just so happened to have Larry looking for a brand manager, assistant brand manager in, um, on, on Powerade. When you were, um, uh, taking up your research master's degree, At, uh, at UGA, what were you thinking was going to be your next step after grad school before you met Larry?
LT: A great question.
Timothy Halloran: That's a great question. Yeah. And I wish I had been so precise to have my whole plan. You kind of outlined, and I got to be honest with you, I got interested in that program because I worked in my undergrad, you mentioned Washington, which is a small liberal arts school with a small little business school kind of attached to it.
I worked very closely with the marketing professor there, and there's only one, there was only one. Uh, and, and, and really started getting interested, I, I helped him write a case. So that was kind of my first foray into kind of academic kind of thing, is we wrote a case on a local, You wouldn't know this, but if you ever know these, it's a local Virginia company that makes these mailboxes with different nature scenes on them and stuff. You might have seen my one. Anyway, we wrote a case for them And I was like and we did a lot of research kind of just consumer surveys and focus groups that kind of stuff And I was like, wow, this is really cool. I really I really uh find this interesting and so I the time that I had to go and either think through going getting an mba or getting the specialized degree in marketing research at georgia And it was a really at that point very lucrative program.
It was like one of these things that gave you a scholarship. You didn't pay tuition. Wow, you know what it's a little it's you know, it's it's it's the equivalent of like a master's of science, you know with Right, right And a specialized master's is what it is And I thought you know what this I like the marketing research piece, but but I you know, but I really It was the best option for me at the time.
And so it's kind of jumped into it. And, uh, and I thought, you know, going out of that, I wanted, I thought I wanted to work at a big company. I, you know, I didn't know in, in research there's the suppliers, which is like the Nielsen people and then there are the clients, which are your PNGs and pokes and that kind of stuff who, who kind of get the information.
So I kind of wanted to know, knew I wanted to go on the client side, but. The idea of going into brand management, you know, I kind of had a taste of it. Larry, I don't know if you remember this, but you know, we were working on, um, again, funny that you remember this is we were working on Gatorade had come out with a sports bottle at the time.
Yes. 20 ounce push pull, had a push pull top. And Larry was getting all kinds of heat from Coca Cola management about, Hey. You know, you need to, uh, you need to figure this out, what's going on. So, LLT was calling me and basically saying, Hey, help us figure out what's going on here. And that really opened my eyes into some pretty interesting things that we were doing and analyzing.
And, and, and so, I kind of, I guess, brought to the table the fact that, Hey, here's what was going on with the Gatorade sports bottle and Maybe here's some things we need to think about it for Powerade.
LT: I totally forgot that until you just that that was the I didn't remember what the project was until you just said it. And by the way, Brand Nerds, we came out with a power aid. Remember, Tim, and this is when you came on the team. We came out with a with a sports bottle that was much better than theirs.
DC: Funny enough. Oh, he's gonna, he's going to pull it down. That's right. Remember that thing?
Timothy Halloran: It had the little, I can't, you can't get it.
My thing is messed up. You can, it's got this little top and it was kind of this. Oh yeah.
LT: Hailey you're going to have to show that when we, uh, when we share this.
Timothy Halloran: Power flow is what we ended up calling it.
DC: Oh, that's right. I remember power flow. I remember power flow. Okay. All right. So didn't know that background either.
So, uh, Brand Nerds, especially those at Georgia tech, as you, as you listen to this, I hope some of you all, some of you all listen to this, what I'm, what I'm gaining, Tim, from your story is. You didn't have necessarily a grand plan when you were in graduate school of, I'm going to go to the Coca Cola company and work on Powerade and meet this guy named Larry. So you didn't, you didn't have that plan, but what you were doing is you were operating. At the top of your game as well as you could during the internship and handling of this client and because of your dedication and your skill, Larry noticed it. So Brand Nerds even sometimes when you're not paying attention. Other people are and these other people can unlock opportunities that you have not fathomed. So that's a great story to I'm going to my second question now. Okay. Okay. When in, uh, when in school, whether you are in undergrad, grad school or, uh, some doctoral program, we find professors who are really good, tim and Larry, they're really good. However, their entire experience is on the academic side. Now, they're good. They're good. They're going to teach some stuff. You're going to learn and you're going to be able to go out into the world and do wonderful things. We've all had those professors. Yep. But every now and again, you get a professor Like Tim, who has actually built brands and businesses, who was actually okay, Gold Peak, uh, what, what kind of, uh, what, what kind of brand is that?
It's a billion dollar brand. Okay, Gold Peak. So we have, we have some folks that did that first and then went into academia and they bring both of these things forward to teach students and Brand Nerds. And so, uh, this question, Tim, is not to diminish one or another, but just your perspective on having both experiences on the corporate side and the academic side and how you see that impacting your ability to teach your students.
Timothy Halloran: Right. No, I think that is great. And you're right. There are two very different tracks in the academic world for anyone who's ever thinking about going out there is that. You have the traditional, as you say, DC, the research types. And I'm just going to think they're the brilliant, they're brilliant. And, and, and they're the ones that come up, you know, the stuff you read in the textbooks, they come up with the, the, the, the thoughts behind, you know, the theories that land in the textbooks, um, but then you have a whole practitioner side, as you say, and these folks are all about the ones that have been there.
I can bring in. This lesson from and I and I know my students get tired of Coca Cola stories, but I mean they're fine, right? Because everybody can relate to Coca Cola Absolutely bring in coca cola stories or I bring in a story from a from a firm i'm consulting with Or, or, or an issue that, that someone may be having and you throw it out there because this is what's relevant and this is what's common to them right now and, and they can relate to it. So it works both ways. I bring in, you know, and I bring in some of my clients to talk to students. So it does work in a nice synergistic kind of way.
DC: Oh yeah. Hmm.
LT: I'm glad you brought that up because in my experience. You know, I, I was very lucky to have a great MBA education at the University of North Carolina Kenan Flagler School.
Shout out to them. It was amazing. Uh, but I remember two marketing professors in particular, and I'll shout out one, Professor Klontmaker. Uh, interesting name and he worked, he, he had a great corporate career like Tim before and you knew as a 20 something in my mid, like you knew what he was saying was actually, uh, something that was already considerate of the real world as, as I thought, whereas there was another marketing professor, great guy, nice guy, brilliant, but when he talked and he would use examples, he'd go, eh, that doesn't smell right. And he never had had a court. He never had worked. He was an academia person, and even if it's a 20 something, you can smell that stuff.
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, I mean, and I'll just add on to that, LT. I mean, the idea is that the textbook only gets you so far, right? And there's a lot of realism that they don't teach in the textbook that you have to say, yes, this works in this kind of situation.
But what happens if this is your situation right now.
DC: Yeah, I've got an analog to describe this. I'm going to call it double "P"s. professorial and practitioner and how these things go together in our business. Tim, we, uh, we talk about ourselves as practitioners because we are, and, and, and one of the things we do is we, we teach marketers how to become better marketers and we describe it, um, and logistically as, uh, a car teaching someone how to drive a car.
Now, when I grew up, Tim and LT. This is how you got your, uh, learner's permit and then your license. You're in high school and you go to a class and in the class, the teacher talks with you about all of the things that have to do with the laws of the road and what it's like to drive a car. And then the teacher shows these pictures and it has lanes and turn signals and signs and all of that. So all of this happens in the classroom and everyone before they got a learner's permit, you start off in the classroom. Okay. So he was like a, a professor, then everyone's looking forward to getting in the car on the road. And when, when I was learning how to drive and I suspect you too, Tim and LT, you got on the side of the of the steering wheel with the pedals, and then you're the driving instructor at a break steering wheel at a break. And so what what what happened is I'm driving along and I'm thinking about, okay. What did he say about left turn lane and right away and that kind of stuff? And then I'm like, I think I got it.
And all of a sudden, ROPE! He hits that brake. He hits that brake. And I'm like, what the hell's going on here? The point was that he had become a practitioner for me, which allowed me to become a better driver, thereby getting my learner's permit and getting my license. That's you, Tim. It's like you have the ability to talk with your students about theories, which are great behind some of the greatest activations in marketing, and then you're able to talk about it from the perspective of a practitioner who's done it. So your students are lucky, the university is lucky, our marketing community, we are fortunate to have you, brother.
Timothy Halloran: Well, well, thank you. And we always like to, one of the things I also make sure is part of most of my classes is we bring in real world projects.
So we let them kind of get their teeth, right, get their hands dirty. I mean, I know we do simulations, but most of the time we'll bring in some real world projects to where they can kind of, Hey, yours is a current issue that this company's having tell them what they need to be doing. And I think that's the best kind of experience you can get.
DC: All I'm sorry, Larry. Go ahead, brother.
LT: No, I say no question. That's Tim's example of your driver's ed class, right?
DC: Absolutely. So I'm going to offer this now. We'll do this offline. The same thing you said earlier, Tim. Thanks for extending an invitation for us to come back. But if you would like for Larry and I to participate with your students in some of this real world, getting their hands dirty and we find some way to make that a part of the podcast.
We're down. I'm just saying it right now. We're down.
Timothy Halloran: Okay. Okay. Let's talk about it. That would be fun.
DC: Absolutely. All right. Uh, we are going to the next section Brand Nerds and we call that five questions. So Tim, here's what happens. I asked a question. Larry asked a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at five.
Now, given your experience, I cannot wait to hear your answer to this question. I'm just I'm looking forward to this brother. All right. So take yourself back to to a time where you engaged with the brand and it was the first time that a brand captivated your attention. Had you excited, it got into your soul.
You could not spend enough time with this brand. If you, if you spent 15 minutes, you thought with the brand and you, Oh, wow. It's I've been thinking about this for an hour. I thought it was just 15 minutes. You really had a passion for this brand, almost like it was your first love. What was this brand for you, Tim?
Timothy Halloran: You know, I was thinking about this and and I got to go back I Larry mentioned I grew up in florida, right? And and Literally in Central Florida right near the down the space coast are about 45 minutes away from orlando Which man I was about 45 minutes away from walt disney world as a kid We would go over there.
I mean, this is for a lot of people, you know, it's a once in a lifetime, or once in a time, I think my kids have been a couple times, but, but like, when I was a kid, I mean, we would go over there, and that was really the idea of this magical experience for me, and realizing, and That cascaded and the idea of experiential marketing and just feeling the almost the 360 degree experience that a brand would have um, and that that kind of started with that and then it evolved to you know I could go back and and we would go to football games at the Orange Bowl in Miami and you would see the dolphins and that experience and that that just environment My first baseball game, we didn't have baseball teams in Florida back then.
We drove up one year to the Atlanta, old Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium. Yeah, the brain, the Braves. And you go and you walk through that tunnel and you see the green of the field. So, so I, I think, you know, I'm kind of stretching it a little bit, but there's the, your definition, but. There's this experience that I've felt, this idea of being surrounded, and so many different touch points.
This is what I teach in my classes, about how to really make it work. It's, you're hitting them in multiple ways. Multiple, you know, we all have, we go back to third grade, or kindergarten, I guess, when you learn about the five senses. And great brands, I feel like, can really hit you at all five of those senses.
Sight, taste, touch, smell. Um, what's the last one? Touch? Why did I say hearing? I guess. So that's kind of, you know, that's where I'm going kind of with that, is the idea of You know, these brands created, I'm big in terms of relationships, right? Brand consumer relationships and how strongly the experience was for me, whether it is Disney World, the Atlanta Braves, the old orange bowl and the Miami dolphins, I was sold for life.
Um, and, and I think that might be some of the impressions of a, of an eight year old, but it really, and I really found just the product experience. So. Fascinating.
LT: Ooh, I love that. I do too,
DC: Larry. Go ahead, man.
LT: Yeah. Well, I love where Tim is going, Brand Nerds, about the experiential part, because, uh, that's where it's all encompassing and it really envelops you, right?
That's the way you, you took us back to the Orange Bowl and you and Disney World and walking into, you know, the old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and, and, uh, that's where, like you said, Tim, the highest, the optimal level of brand is when you can get people to feel on all five senses, right? You can't always do that.
Some, some, some folks overreach. Like MasterCard having a money smell. That doesn't work, right? Um, it's gotta be authentic. And so all the things that Tim alluded to were incredibly authentic.
DC: All right, um, cart, horse, horse, cart question. Okay. So, Disney. You're in Central Florida. You're 45 minutes from, um, Disney. You talked about the magical experience and the five senses and being surrounded, did you have a love for the Disney brand before you went and experienced everything that you experienced? Or did you have just a tepid connection to the Disney brand and then once you had the magical experiences you were like, Oh, this is everything. How did that happen for you?
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And I think, you know, obviously you knew it and you knew Mickey Mouse movies and that kind of stuff, but, um, It was less connected, right? That connection happens when you get and have a tangible experience in my mind, a positive tangible experience with the brand itself.
Um, and I, I totally hear, I mean, the authenticity is so. Part of everything in the realism. So, so the main, you know, there's, there's plenty of examples, right? But you know, the message you said, the master card to money, if things are not authentic and real and trustworthy, then that just falls flat. It all has to kind of fit together.
DC: That is so good. Uh, I want to do one quick follow on and then go to the next question. But Larry, any response to what Tim just said?
LT: I'm tracking.
DC: All right. So, uh, uh, the Brand Nerds, uh, our Brand Nerds sometimes. I think they get tired of us using Coca Cola examples as well, but we use them because they work because they work.
I'm going to use a, uh, a metric now that Tim will be very familiar with as will you, uh, LT, and the metric is called virtual consumption. And so when we would do, uh, our analysis, one of our panels had to do with people stating how much they thought they'd consumed. That was typically above what they actually consumed.
So when we would compare it to like retail data, to what people stated, there was a delta. Yeah, okay. And so there you go. And so that's exactly so that delta we refer to that as virtual consumption. And so I've always thought of that in those terms, but listening to your answer about Disney Tim, you knew about Disney, so you were consuming it, but you hadn't made it to the parks yet, you had not made it to the park, so there was some degree of virtual consumption that was happening and what you thought it would be like, and then once you got all those touch points, that Delta got closed.
Yep. That Delta got closed and then you were really able to fully embrace this brand. I've never thought about virtual consumption in that way until Tim, you just said what you said.
Timothy Halloran: That's cool. Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's, it's opportunity, right. And it's making what you see and hear about and make it come to life. And I think that's what it does.
DC: Yeah. One last thing, by the way, Brand Nerds, just like it can go positive. It can also go negative. So Tim and his family show up and, uh, Mickey Mouse is running them out with a fork, a pitchfork, okay. That's not helping them out a little. All right. Wasn't it
Timothy Halloran: like Chevy Chase on the original day cake?
DC: While we were. All right, I'll see you next question from the panel.
LT: So yeah, question two, Tim. So, uh, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
Timothy Halloran: Well, we've already talked about one person, and that's the guy I'm looking at, uh, Larry Taman, uh, who, who, um, really, you know, uh, again, like I said, it's amazing little things that you don't realize impact, right?
You, I don't work on Powerade. I mean, I don't work with you on that. I don't get hired by Coke. I don't spend the next 10 plus years there. I don't you know, you have all these great stories that I translate into the book I know I mean, they just it just It's, it's amazing to me and I would just tell your, your folks out there to, um, that your listeners that, that, you know, don't ever ignore little things, right? I mean, you know, because that one little thing, that one little door, that extra door that you knock on, Hey, it may be the one or that one path you can potentially take. It may be the one. So I think you really got to know yourself and right, know what you like and know what you're passionate about. And.
And I think my, I am the fact that it was, I have a huge interest in sports and the fact that powerade was sports and marketing and oh, by the way, Tim, uh, we're going to leverage the 1996 Olympic games that were the official sports drink. Uh, we're going to use that to launch this brand nationally. I mean, it's like, okay, let's go.
You know, it was not a real hard decision to be perfectly honest with you. Um, but, but over time, I mean, I've, I've had a lot of, I think. You know, I will say just a more recent example is, is my graduate advisor at Florida. Was, was great. I mean, I was making this big transition and I made a conscious choice, um, you know, and you mentioned that I worked at Emory and, uh, and, and, and, and worked and taught one class there became multiple classes and it's basically full time on Emory. But then at 1 day, the guy, a person in the department said, you know, Tim. Uh, we're kind of changing direction with the department and, and you and another person that taught consumer behavior. We're moving much more into analytics. We're going away from branding and consumer behavior or taking a step back from that. So we're going to offer fewer classes in that. And so thank you very much. And, and we'll, we'll, we'll have you move on. You know, it was the classic example, I could have been like Florida State, not to use a bad analogy here. Oh Tim, easy, easy. Maybe that's not a good example. No, you're right,
LT: it's actually a very good example, it is.
Timothy Halloran: So I could have been like, just all upset about it, and just, you know, I'm done with academia. But you know what? I really like teaching. It was really something to me that I was passionate about and I, you know, I was like, how am I going to, how am I going to change that? How am I going to put myself in a situation where they just can't willy nilly, um, and, and you know, the doctor that they did, what I have is a doctorate of business administration at DBA, which is a practitioner doctorate.
It's a terminal degree, but it's a, it's a, it's for people that have a doctorate of business administration. Industry background, but want to teach full time. And, and that's, that was very appealing to me and got, uh, my advisor got in Richard Lutz, who's a genius in the brand space, uh, took me in and we worked very closely together and really helped me make that transition into full time academia. At the same time, Georgia tech was calling and it ended up again, right place, right time, and you just never know how these things are going to fall out. So what was. A low point for me in terms of Emory and them saying, okay, we're going to change direction and you're kind of just an adjunct and we don't, we don't, we're not going to use you really turned into a motivating factor for me to, to move on into, uh, going and doing this and making a commitment to it.
And, and now, you know, here, I'm very happy here at Georgia Tech.
LT: Wow. I remember talking to you when you were at Emory and that how they were transitioning to that, which. Again, Brand Nerds it's, um, it's gonna sound like I'm taking a shot at Emory, but If analytics are only important is as it as it relates to the brands that they help. So to go full force into that, in my opinion, doesn't make sense. But what do I know? I'm not in academia. Um, but it's really interesting the way you talk about, you know, that that's really making lemonade out of lemons, right? What you what you did. And now you're arguably a much better place than you ever would have been if they didn't throw those
lemons at you.
Timothy Halloran: I mean, I think, uh, you know, and again, and they, they've kind of come back a little bit from where they were, but at the time, I was a little, I was, it was, you know, you get mad at these kind of things Sure. But you have setbacks in your career. And it was not, you know, my happiest time. And, and, but like I said, it's, it's how you choose to respond, I think.
And, and again, use it as a, as a motivating factor.
LT: And I just want to say one thing, D, I'll throw it to you. I'm thrilled to be the, one of the people that Tim mentioned, because he said, as you said, he's brilliant and such a good human being. So it makes my heart happy that I played my small role. All we did was give him the opportunity and he ran with it.
So I just wanted to say that point.
DC: Well, I think it's a little bit, you did a little bit more than that, brother. Um, Larry, I, I appreciate the humility, um, but Brand Nerds. What you'll find throughout your career is you're going to have more bad bosses than good bosses, just the reality. And, uh, it's not because folks want to be bad bosses.
It's because most people get promoted and get more responsibility based on their performance as an individual contributor, not as a manager. And we promote these folks who are really good at doing a particular job, but they're not good at getting great work done through others. They can produce great work themselves, but it's a different ball game to get great work uh, done through others. And so, LT, what you were able to do is identify Tim's talent, which you've talked to, uh, earlier, and then allow Tim the space to bring his talents forward. So, I think that was a really big deal, and that is why Tim has acknowledged you as one of the people who has had the most influence on this, Chris.
So, I just want to take a moment to say kudos, brother. Well done, Larry. Well,
LT: I'm proud of it.
DC: Then the second thing, uh, uh, Tim, what year was it when, um, Emory made the decision that they weren't going to do the adjunct? Ooh, uh,
Timothy Halloran: 20, 20, 13, 20, 20, 13, 20, 14, 10 years ago,
DC: 10, 10 years ago, 11 years ago now. So you've got, uh, high schoolers now.
So they're, they're teenagers. They're teenagers. So at the time they're like under the age of 10. Yeah. So you got Yeah, my oldest, oldest
Timothy Halloran: is around 10 or 11 Uhhuh. Yeah.
DC: Okay. So you got three kids. 10, 11, and younger. Alright. So, and you are being told we're going in a different direction. Mm-Hmm. , you're being told.
Okay. So this is a, this is a very critical time for you and your family, Tim. Yeah. So my question to you is. Why didn't you just say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going back to the corporate world. What made you stay the path on academia? Cause you certainly could have gone back to do the regular corporate thing.
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, um, that's great question. And, and I, I should also add that at the time I was also, you know, I was doing consulting, right? I've been doing consulting this whole time, right? So it was kind of, you know, I kind of balanced my, the Tim Halloran income thing is, you have to break it down, his income stream is both teaching and consulting.
So obviously teaching took a hit, so I have to plug in more. I knew, you know, I did 11 year, 10 plus years at Coca Cola and I had done the corporate thing. Um, with the politics and, and, and again, Pete, there are some people that thrive in that environment. And I think they're more power to, I knew it wasn't me. I, I, there were too many times where I was kind of trying to buck the system and push a little, you know, and, and, and kind of do things that. Trying to be more innovative probably than
LT: I was a bad role model for Tim in bucking a system, but go ahead
Timothy Halloran: Um, so and I love to have flexibility and and part of it was a family it was a lifestyle choice, right?
I had my um My son at the time when I left Coke was one of their impetus for me leaving Coke to begin with was my son was two Three years old and I I wasn't seeing him that much So I just happened to be you know, and again people can manage it. I'm sure now that was again 20 years ago 18 years ago Uh, but but and people can manage things differently these days. But for me, it was partially a lifestyle change and I just love I knew when I was at coke And managing and like doing stuff with our interns that we would bring in for the summer at Coke and brand and I would be running their training and running some of them.
I found that guy. I really have some passion for this. So I wasn't gonna let I I DC I would admit there was a time where I was like screw this screw academia, you know, and I was on that kind of train and then I think your true love will start calling back to you, even if you take a break from it for a while.
And that's what happened to me.
DC: That's good, man. See, Brand Nerds, this is why we have Tim picking off album six. This is why we have him at the top of the year. That's so good, Tim. Larry, any follow up for you before I go to the next question?
LT: Oh, this is awesome.
DC: Alright, Tim, you're an accomplished person on both the corporate side and the academic side.
You have many successes. Kudos on those successes. Larry went over all of those and we hope it's making your mom proud. What's your mom's name by the way, Tim?
Timothy Halloran: Diane.
DC: Diane with, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Miss Diane, Miss Halloran. We just want to say. Uh, kudos to your son for all of his many successes. Uh, but now Tim, we don't want to know about any of those for this question.
We want to know your biggest F-Up the big, I'm talking, I'm talking about the stankonia being in Atlanta shout out cast the stanky one and, and what you learned from it.
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, um, there's plenty there and and so when when I knew you had asked me this question where to start, I thought maybe it's done by the time there'll be, but too much food coloring in the Powerade jagged ice flavor.
And there was issues. We got, we got a call from the 1 800 hotline at Coca Cola. You're in trouble. Um, but, but I, I do. It's a Coke story. Um, and it was actually my first experience as a, Brand Manager, right? I'm Powerade. I've kind of been this sister associate brand manager, but this is I was kind of taking the lead And this is on the Cherry Coke brand and let me give you just a minute or two of background So that your listeners can understand what what's going on here was A few years prior to me being on the Cherry Coke brand Coca Cola made a strategic a very big strategic decision to take Cherry Coke To replace it was a line extension.
So it was in the same graphics as Coca Cola. It was on the same shelf set. It was in the contour bottle, um, and make it its own brand. Okay. change Cherry Coke and put it in kind of a bottle that looks like the Dasani bottle today was out of that Coca Cola contour bottle. They had these crazy graphics on it. And they gave me this brand to run and and first of all, it was a fun brand It was because it was like the whole idea was hey Let's use this as a laboratory to kind of do crazy stuff on the whole Brand idea behind sherry coke was a different kind of cola. So the taglines do something different. So kind of push the envelope, of course We were expected to push the envelope but not a whole lot of marketing budget, right?
So we couldn't do a lot and Um, this movement from the contour bottle on the coke shell to this other bottle that moved the brand down with in like in a, in a convenience store instead of being with all like the coke and the diet coke, he's in another part of the cold ball with like Barqs Root Beer, Mellow Yellow, Mr. Pib okay. What do you guys, and, and, and, and by the way. In markets where we, we, we would, we would, we kind of created this plan where we would have model markets and you would throw a bunch of money at like a Kansas City or a St. Louis to show, hey, if we market this brand, it's going to do well. And yes, where we marketed it, it did great. But that was only about 6 percent or 7 percent of the country, right? What do you think happened in the other 93 percent of the country where we didn't have any marketing and we had moved it out of the Coke, a contour bottle on the Coke shelf into another place on the call. What do you think? How's it
LT: Precipitouss fall?
I mean, S oh
DC: oh. Oh, yeah.
Timothy Halloran: This is an easy, people can't see it, but my hand is going down. Yes.
DC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This, okay. I, I want to give another analogy to explain what, what I would've guessed, and I certainly would've guessed this in the famous movie, Friday. There's a bully. Okay. And his name is Debo.
Okay. Debo is the bully in this movie, Friday. And so if Debo has your back, you're good. If Debo does not have your back, you're in trouble. Coca Cola and Diet Coke are like Debo. Okay. They can take care of everybody else. Y'all decided to move away from Debo and you got smashed. Right.
Timothy Halloran: So great analogy. Fantastic. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah. Okay, so we, we figured this out, right? You do these annual Coke, you do this annual planning process. We're showing all the data and we sit in, so I put together this whole thing, and by the way, my job is kind of like, I'm the brand manager of Cherry Coke, but mm-hmm,
The right thing to do here was to say, look, you've got a choice to make. You can either put a lot more money behind this brand and oh, but by the way, we've shown it does. Well, when you put money behind it, you put some support behind it. Or if you can't do that, you need to put it right back into the contour bottle so it gets right back to where it needs to be.
Right. Okay. Back. Make it a line extension again, wico. So I presented this to, um, the man, my manager at the time, and, and, and my manager at the time was a pretty politically savvy guy at Coca Cola. He was he was not gonna rock the boat He was he was gonna, you know, he did not like rocking the boat at all Okay, I come into his office and say to him Here's what we need to do You would have thought that I had just, you know, dropped a nuclear bomb there because he kicked me out of his office so fast to tell me that we would never, that some, this is where my, DC, you mentioned politics, right?
I got the line of too many people have been working too hard on this to make this kind of a change. Oh And that was my first direct experience with the big corporation politics I had always i'd seen it and and experienced it secondhand. I mean, you know Larry would take the brunt of it with Powerade, right?
I was kind of under him right and I had another manager on what became dasani bottled water, which is all other story But where where this leads up into what I should have done right is is I had all the data. I had the information And, and I should have gone and I let it drop and I was like, you know, I let it drop and, and I probably, and then when I brought it up again, I probably didn't bring it up in the right way.
I should have come back with another more sophisticated analysis to kind of go in there and saying, look, guys. This is not not the um, not the right way to go Um, and and I I regret in my time at coke not fighting the politics a little bit more and and and making it me more frustrated and and I think you know The idea is I it's a classic.
You've got to pick your battles and and you know three years after we presented that analysis. Guess what? Coca cola did?
DC: Right in the back.
Timothy Halloran: Yep. Bam. It's a story of my life there I would come up with these ideas and plans and two and three years later is when they They will often, you know, kind of be, be, be execute.
Bottle water, took it two or three years later to launch. The cherry coke back of the Contour bottle took two or three years. We had, I did that when I was on Prescott, we did this Prescott thing, where we were kind of repositioning it as a boomer drink, and even considering it, making it an alcohol, having alcohol in it, you know, ten years later they did that.
Um, and so, so I think to kind of circle around this story, I mean, you know, I, I think when you have the data and you have the information and, you know, and, and you got to feel confident to go in there and, and, and, and push back and, and, and, and be aggressive and, and, and facts will win. Um, but sometimes the politics can get in the way as well.
LT: Oh, this is a good one, D. What a story.
DC: Yeah, what a story. Go ahead, LT.
LT: So, Tim, I just want to make sure I've got this straight. So, when you went in to, uh, your boss, you said, look, man. We either have to invest like we've done in Kansas City and St. Louis again, making up with those in the market and do that, or if we're not willing to do that, you just got to put this back into the contour bottle and have it just be in line extension.
That was what your recommendation was.
Timothy Halloran: That was my, yeah, that was the idea. That was, it was either one or the other. Um, and, and. Um, and I also feel bad because I had an intern that summer and he really wanted to tackle that too. And so he indirectly made it part of his intern project, which presented to the same manager.
That didn't go over well.
DC: Oh, yeah. You're not listening to me. Yeah.
LT: Yeah. So D I have to add this and then I want to throw it to you. Brand nerds. I'm going to put a hypothesis in here, and Tim, I won't tell the full story, but you'll remember, well actually it might have even been before you came, but one of the things when you're in a place, any place, whether it's Coca Cola, P& G, or Google, they're very political, and lots of times, the senior executives, and then, and the middle managers, and then the top have bonuses that are predicated on certain things that you may or may not know about.
Most of the times you might not know about it. And so Tim's manager might have had his, his or her bonus predicated on whether Cherry Coke as an individual brand entity, how well it did. So that was going to drive that decision because it was tied to that manager's bonus, even if it was as D, we talked about this all the time, even if it wasn't right for the business, because Tim. Again, Tim is all about, he was just saying, here's what's right for the business. And there's many times that you're going to encounter that. And whenever you can, you need to try and find out what's your manager's bonus and or stock options or whatever predicated upon. So you understand what you're walking into.
Timothy Halloran: LT, I mean, that's a great point. And, and I, you know, I, I think that's great. I mean, I did not do that. I mean, I didn't, I didn't know what his, his, I, I just was trying to, you know, and I think the other thing you gotta think about when you're a brand manager, you are so laser focused on your brand. And that could, and, and you should be, that's your job.
Yep. But you don't necessarily, and as you advance in an organization, and I saw this. When I grew up, when I kind of had multiple brands under me, you have to intentionally think of things much more broadly and think, and that's one thing I preach to my students, you got to think about it as a portfolio.
My analogy is, is, Hey, you got multiple brands. It's like a basketball team, right? You got your, your five players and you've got your defensive players. You've got your shooters, different guys, and they each played to have different roles. You got to think about it in terms of that as well. And Sherry Cove was, it's role in our portfolio was.
We'll get a little volume on it. We'll get some school volume on it. Yeah, and and oh, by the way It's our learning lab. So anything until go crazy with it, right? Go this thing called the internet go figure out the internet and how we can use the internet to market our brands Cherry Coke had the first internet promotion at coca cola and then sprites the world once was kind of team Oh, it's kind of did.
Okay for Cherry Coke. Let's learn from that And so it was really a a learning lab and that's what the role of the brand was Right,
LT: but keep that goddamn contour bottle.
DC: All right. Okay. So let Larry and Tim, this story pisses me off. Uh, and it does so because you Larry said Tim's manager and maybe others had their bonuses and compensation attached to the performance of Cherry Coke. Well, Tim had the data that said this thing's going down in a hurry where we're not supporting it. And unless we pony up X amount of tens of millions of dollars in marketing investment. Yeah, this thing's going to keep going down. So what that says to me, Tim and Larry is that volumetrically this thing was going down.
So that would go against the very notion of some performance based metric, which means this thing was political because what Tim said is. Clear Tim, clear. You want to say something? Well,
Timothy Halloran: unless, unless that, because by the way, our group was the flavors group. Right. If it switches into Coke, guess what happens to the brand?
It goes back into the Coca Cola brand.
DC: Ah, okay. Great point.
LT: That's where I was going. It
Timothy Halloran: could be politically, yeah.
DC: Okay, okay. Okay, great point. But I don't know. Sorry
LT: Larry. No, that's where I was going because that, that manager was gonna be you know, compensated or looked upon about how cherry Coke as a brand entity did, and if it got pushed back to Tim's point, to the Coca-Cola brand group, he or she would've failed and that would've made that person look bad.
DC: Uh, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. I don't
Timothy Halloran: know, I, I, we, can I ? I don't know. All I know is I was kicked out the office , so
DC: to me the, the, the, the way, well, I wasn't there, but I'm gonna, I'm at a hazard of guess. Because the person said there's so many people who have worked so long to be that makes it political, not performance.
Timothy Halloran: That's an excellent point, DC. And that was I was told that. Yes.
DC: Okay. So, so to me, it's, it's my political. So then, so now Brand Nerds, uh, what do you do when that happens? What, what do you do when you walk into your manager's office, you have data backing you up, you know, that the decision that had been made is not the right decision.
And you are, uh, unceremoniously tossed out of the office for reasons that are not business based. I'm going to recommend that you consider a yes and strategy. Yes. And. So Tim's my manager. I come in, I present this information, not Tim, because Tim would have taken me to say, Oh, wow, we got to change this.
But let's just say Tim's more political than he is performance based. Tim then says, get out of my office because so many people have done too much. And I go, yes, Tim. And if we keep going the way we're going in the next six months, Not only will we know this isn't working, the entire company is going to know this isn't working, including the bottlers.
And let's not put this team in that position six, eight months from now. Let's deal with it now so that we're seen as proactive in recognizing this and turn it around. Now, I'm not saying that would work, Brand Nerds, or Tim and Larry I'm just saying a yes and strategy. Might be useful. Then I want, I want to tell a story.
Okay, so Tim, you mentioned Cherry Coke as a learning lab, and I don't know, Larry, if I've told you the story before or not. But Tim, I certainly haven't shared this with you. Well, at the Coca Cola company, everything not called Coca Cola is a learning lab. Okay. Okay. At least when we were there, I don't know about now, but when we were there, that was the deal.
So, uh, today, Brand Nerds, you all may or may not know, Coke Zero, Coca Cola Zero, is the biggest performing brand in the last 50 years for the Coca Cola company. It's one of three or four things in the last 50 years of the Coca Cola company that you point to as a roaring success. Coca Cola Zero. But before it was launched, my manager, who will remain unnamed, said to me, I want you to consider launching a Sprite Zero first as a learning lab for Coke.
Okay. Yep. Okay. So I was asked to consider this. All right. So I considered it for about a nanosecond and I didn't do shit. Okay. I didn't do anything. All right. I did not ask for any research. I did not do anything. So now months go by. Okay. And so my manager's asking, Hey, uh, where are we on this thing? And I was like, we're nowhere on this thing.
And he was like, what? What do you mean we're nowhere? And I said, I said, the consumer profile of Coca Cola is not the same as Sprite. We have mostly a multicultural audience. We like sweet shit. We're not drinking this diet shit. Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. We're not drinking this. So to do that, while it might be a wonderful learning lab for Coke, it would be terrible, using my Charles Barkley parlance, terrible for my brand. So, no, I considered it. I said, no. Do you know I caught so much heat? For that, I was branded as a, as a maverick. Yeah, Malcolm, it was written up in my review as, and you know what? I don't regret it at all. I don't regret it. I don't get it off, but to your point, Tim and, uh, and Larry, you guys know this. Because of politics, in this case, it was politics and performance. They wanted to protect the flagship brand, so I get that. But, uh, I wasn't going to allow them to, I know we're in the question of F up, F up my brand to try to learn something for Big Daddy Coca Cola. Can't stand that stuff. Okay.
LT: This is a great conversation, Tim.
That's a really good one, dude. Really good one.
DC: That's a really good one. Alright, uh, Larry.
LT: All right, Tim. So regarding, uh, technology marketing, uh, with your great background and also happened to be a play at a place called Georgia Tech. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech? Or areas that you think they should be leery or simply avoid?
Timothy Halloran: My advice and counsel great question on this is Put it in its proper perspective And I see this all the time, especially at a place, you know where technology is the impetus Is use it in the right way. It is a tool period. It is a tool an additional tool for us, remember I was talking about those relationships that brands and consumers have with one another.
All technology is, is another channel or another way to enhance that consumer and brand relationship. You still have to know about what the consumer is all about. You still have to know what the consumer's needs are. You still have to find that sweet spot that your brand is going to appeal to that consumer.
Now. In our day and age, right? It was all about TV, radio, and print. It was about screaming from the mountaintop. We need this media away, we're going to tell you how great our brand is. What technology, and I'm specifically referring to things like social media, uh, in terms of engagement in social media, uh, what it enables us to do now is have, instead of us just dominating and shouting from the market, from the mountaintop, it now becomes a two way conversation. So, for brand people, You gotta think of your consumer even more in a relational mode. You are now having a conversation with them because they can talk back, they can share, you know, they, they're, they're contributing creatively with Instagram posts or Snapchat posts or whatever. But it still gets back to the idea of engagement being, you know, engagement is kind of the new metric, right?
And it still gets back to you creating a bond with the consumer and leveraging technology as a means to further that relationship. That's what I'm seeing.
LT: Yeah, I love this. What do you think, D?
DC: There's nothing new under the sun. Um, we, we've talked about this before. And in, uh, in this case, It's a bit like, uh, the relationship between brands and humans are becoming more similar to relationships between humans and humans. That that's what's happening. And so Tim, your point of now, um, uh, consumers can, can talk back, they can engage, they can share.
These are all of the things that have been a part of human relationships. For millennia. And now what's happening is these same kinds of relational dynamics are taking place between brand and humans. But there's a problem that happens when this goes wrong is when humans who run brands think that the brands belong to them rather than that brand belonging to the consumer.
This is where this is where this thing goes pear shaped. It's a simple concept, Tim and LT, but man, so many brands forget this to their peril.
LT: D, say this a lot. The brands own the IP, but they, the consumer or in the B2B case, the customer really do own the brands because if the brands go sideways, they get called on it. And, uh, yeah, I was just looking at some, um, some for work that we're doing the Peloton brand and how, how all the difficulties they've had in 2019. They did an ad where a very, like, woman who was very thin, attractive, uh, she was given a gift from her husband of a Peloton. And, you know, it looked as if The way, and this is what happens, Brand Nerds, when you're too close to something sometimes. From the way people responded, and I saw it this way too, it looked as if the husband said, Hey, wife, I've got a great gift for you, and you better keep your ass on that Peloton. You know, that was the underlying message that people got, and they got this huge pushback to it. And you know what their response was? Well, I'm sorry if you misunderstood it. No, no, no, no, that's not the way it works. What you need to do as a brand is the exact opposite of Peloton. Say, our bad, we messed up and we own it and we're sorry. Um, because when, when you do it this way, you know, it really goes sideways. We've gotten a little sideways from the technology point.
But D, I wanted to make that point to your point about, about the brand and who owns it. Because I think that's really important.
Timothy Halloran: I totally agree, and I think, um, just to kind of close this idea out, is that we, um, you know, I did a paper, kind of an offshoot of my dissertation, and it's getting back to kind of measurement, and that you still want to kind of measure these technologies, the engagement and understanding being authentic.
Measuring the type of engagement, what we basically did was we did, we used a local chain, national, um, chain with a, with a, uh, loyalty program. And we're able to kind of connect people's loyalty with that chain, with their social media engagement. And we did a fancy analysis that showed, do any types of engagements predict future purchase intent?
And we looked at what, you know, if people made a positive comment, if they made a negative comment, if they shared it, if they liked it, if they loved it. On Facebook, you can put all these little like emoji kind of things on, you know, har, you know, besides the heart. Wow, laughing, whatever. And basically we said, is there a way to tell any of these engagements work?
And believe it or not, we saw that there were few that helped drive or predict increased purchases. Mm. And guess on what they might be. No, uh, heart. Heart, a heart lt. That is the only emoticon. I mean, DC that's the only emoticon. That drove purchase intent if someone went over and said just click in the like went over and let the heart pop up and Clicked on the heart that drove future purchase intent The others were a positive comment if someone made a positive comment took the time to make a comment again engaging. Hey, love this blah blah blah this new menu item. They were predicted They showed we showed that they were going to be future buyers And if they made a negative comment, obviously they were they were gone, right? Guess what likes didn't mean a thing, you know, we always talk social media Technology measurements or how many likes do you get?
Well, guess what likes do likes mean nothing likes don't mean anything in terms of actual sales so The other thing besides it just being a tool and engagement tools, we need to figure out ways to measure engagement. And if you can figure out ways to measure engagement and get the right types of engagement in terms of your social media, you become that much more stronger.
LT: Well, and also to measure engagement that actually is connected to purchase that's important engagement, right?
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, absolutely.
LT: Love it. Do you want to go to the next question?
DC: I do. Tim, what are you most proud of?
Timothy Halloran: Uh, gosh, you know, um, well, I'll say personally, I'm proud of my family. Uh, I'm proud of my, you know, my wife and kids.
LT: Please give everyone a shout out. Everyone, please.
Timothy Halloran: Well, in my family, my wife is Nancy, who's been Putting up with me for now 29 years, uh, believe that. And then I have a 21 year old son who is a junior at Villanova University where he is a swimmer on their division one men's Villanova swim team and I have twin girls who are juniors in high school and right in the middle of starting the whole college search process and they are big dancers. So they're, they're the apple of my eye. So, yeah. And we have a dog named Gus. That's our crew. So, uh, but, but yeah, that's, that's kind of the, obviously that's first and foremost, but you know, career wise, career wise, I look back to my time at Coke, obviously very positively. I feel like I did push the envelope. I won an award, innovation award for some stuff we did on Cherry Coke. We won that kind of the innovation award of the year and did some cool stuff. Writing the book was a big thing for me. Um, I, I was really, you know, the idea of writing, Romancing The Brand and it being accepted and even winning a couple of awards or something I'm proud of.
And then
LT: It's still available on Amazon, Brand Nerds.
Timothy Halloran: Yes, it is. Yeah. I, I still use it in some of my classes as well. And then getting that doctorate degree after what I mentioned to you earlier with, with Emory and, and that kind of stuff and, and, and, you know, completing that play, um, and, and, and, and, uh, making it kind of staying with it.
It wasn't easy. It was a distance program or we would go down there and and it was all it was a three year haul but doing that and then capping it off with this paper that I just told you about which kind of completed the journey in a way because it it won it won the paper of the year for the journal of interactive marketing So it was like wow Okay I know He at least knows a little bit of how to do this stuff not much but he knows a little bit of it.
So, uh So that's kind of in a nutshell,
LT: That's a lot to be proud of the, you know, and, uh, it's for me, I have, uh, the, I'm going to use a Yiddish word, nothing but that, which means that I saw this young man when he was a young man and to see him become what he's become is, is makes me so proud, um, that I had my little part of that.
I'm really proud of you, bud. Really. You've done great stuff. Yes.
DC: Nice. Nice. All right, LT, ready to hit the next section, brother?
LT: Let's do it. Okay, Tim, uh, so you know, you as a listener of the program, you know this, what this is, What's Poppin What's Poppin What's Poppin Tim?
DC: What's poppin?
LT: So, Tim, to our Brand Nerds out there, there's 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 Tim, I know you have a good one. So I'm throwing it to you.
Timothy Halloran: Yeah. Okay. So I thought about this a little bit. And you guys remember when we were in graduate school, and I'm going to use my academic, my, my professorial and my experience, what I'm seeing with students today.
Yep. When we were in graduate school, everybody wanted to go work at Coca Cola. Yep. Everyone PNG. Crap. The CPG companies were where it was at. Guess what? That's not the case anymore. Not anymore. It's Google. It's Amazon. It's Apple. It's any tech company out there, you know, Tesla, wherever it's that's where it is the best and the brightest. And that and then this is not you guys say, Oh, it's him. You're Georgia Tech. Of course. No, when I talk to colleagues and at other schools. No, it is about tech tech tech tech tech. They all want to go work at the big tech companies. And, you know, and I wondered, you know, what has made, uh, the CPG companies and, you know, lose a little bit of their luster. And I, and I'm trying to figure out what happened. And is it just that tech is so sexy? The tech is, is where it's at. You know, that's where all the growth is and news. Yeah. You know, what happened to going and working at the Coca Cola company or Pepsi or Kraft or P& G or Nike, right? Some of these other places.
LT: Wow. D, I knew you'd like this one. What's your reaction to that?
DC: That's a great one. Tim and Brand Nerds. Larry, Jeff and I talk about this from time to time. So, uh, giving some context to your excellent what's popping question, brand nerds, I'm going to read for you the top 10 brands globally based on brand value from a source called Interbrand.
So here are the top 10. All of which Tim has mentioned. One Apple, two Microsoft, three Amazon, four Google, five Samsung, six Toyota, seven Benz, eight Coca Cola, nine Nike, and ten BMW. Alright? So there's only one CPG in the top ten today. We're in this same study, you know this Larry and Tim, for the first 12 to 14 years of the Interbrand brand value.
So when they started it, Coke was number one every year. Okay. So, uh, that's, that's just given some, uh, some quantitative backing. To what you're saying, Tim. All right. So what are we to do? What's what's changed? Um, today, those companies that I listed, especially all those in tech, they're the largest companies in the world in terms of market cap right now.
So when you start to think about what are the biggest in a particular domain, that's it. When we were coming up, CPG as a category was a sexy category. Today, tech is the sexy category. So that's one reason why I think people, uh, are flocking to these, uh, these tech companies. But I will say this, and maybe I'm the old man on a horse when people are driving cars.
But I will say this. Of those 10, those 10 brands that I just mentioned, and many of, um, that tell. Only one of those only one of those brands is truly something that is a want that by the skill of the marketing can be converted into a need. Only one you're not doing any work today without a computer.
You're not doing anything without a mobile mobile phone. Okay. You have to have that. You got that. That's that's that's Apple and Microsoft. You got to shop for stuff. Okay. So this, this is, this is Amazon and Samsung, most folks in this country, unless you live in a densely populated area with a very nice public transit, like New York, you got to have a car.
Okay. You got to have a car. So that takes care of Toyota, Mercedes Benz and BMW. And most of us got to wear clothes. So that's Nike or shoes. You might decide not to wear Nike. Maybe you wear Adidas or something like that, but you got to wear shoes. Okay. No one needs to drink a Coca Cola. We can drink water and be just fine. Some would argue you would be better. So my pitch to those that are considering where to go now, absolutely tech is the sexy industry, but if you really want to learn how to market from a consumer perspective and how to psychologically convince someone. That thinks I don't really need this thing. I just wanted and then that be replaced with. Oh, now I need it. Coca Cola is not a bad place to start. So that's my response.
LT: Tim, I'd love to hear your point of view on this.
Timothy Halloran: I think, yeah, and only. You know, in a perfect world, we're trying to create both, and Apple has done this well, right, emotional and functional kind of benefits and create brand personality.
LT: They do it great.
Timothy Halloran: They do it, they do a fantastic job. The others, eh. As, as, as D said, right? It's, it's, it's, you know, some are just, you know, just plain, you know, I, I have to have these things, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, but I think Coca Cola is still the one place that you really have to, you are forced to create a brand persona that I can relate to, that I can, you know, it's, that, that it says something about me.
Yeah. What I am drinking, what I, you know, it's a badge, right? And, and being able to align yourself with that makes for some really fun, engaging, sexy kind of marketing, and I don't think that's going away. I think maybe they've lost their way a little bit in the last few years, but I think the potential is always there.
LT: So my two cents is, uh, I love this topic, by the way.
DC: I do too.
LT: Tim, you, I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of students come to you for career advice I'm gathering, right? Mm-Hmm. , sure. Yeah. Right. Um, so I would love to hear even more after I finish my quick thing. I would suggest I would add Nike to that list D 'cause anybody can have any kind of close, but you're choose, they've done an incredible job of emotionally connecting with folks, um, to get them to wear their stuff.
To wear their shoes, right?
DC: Oh yeah, absolutely agree with that. Yeah. Know. So, but my point there, I'm sorry, was one has to wear clothes, though, I got never has to consume a coat.
LT: I got you. No, I totally get you. But here's, here's the point. I think what we're all landing on is great work in tech, but you know, would be great for your career, go work at a Coca Cola or Pepsi. Again, we all work to cook Pepsi or another CPG that you're going to really learn the fundamentals. And if you know the fundamentals, You're going to take it to a whole other level. If you look at the people who are the best at what they do, the best of what they do from, from sports to anything, they know the fundamentals, Michael Jordan's the best, you know, again, I think Michael's better than LeBron, but LeBron's amazing, but you know why those two guys are great. They have athleticism, they have all the things, but they have their great. Fundamentally, they're so fundamentally sound. So if you're thinking about being the best marketer, you know what, the best point you might want to do is go work at a CPG for the first few years. And we all know the way the world works today. People don't work at the same company for a while, cut your teeth there. And then you'll be that much more adept. If you want to go, then move into a big, you know, a place like Amazon or a big tech company or a startup. Because if you go to a startup, then you really have the fundamentals that you can take to a whole other, other place. So Tim, I would love to hear what your thoughts about that.
Timothy Halloran: Yeah, I just want, I think that's a great point of view. And to that end, even when you're going, if you go to one of these places, you know, because at the end of the day, The brand manager at Apple is Tim Cook, right? At the end of the day, you're going to be, if you go marketing for Apple, you're going to be in charge of third quarter promotion on this product or whatever.
That's right. Um, when, if you go to a CBG place, what I always say is don't be afraid to work on the smaller brands. Yes. Coca Cola. I intentionally avoided brand Coke. So I didn't want to work on it. Why? Because I would only see a small little slice.
LT: Yep.
Timothy Halloran: Of the big picture. I was much more content in new products or on Cherry Coke or what we did on Powerade, right? It was, you saw the whole business and you had so much more autonomy, the amount of autonomy you could have in a go go, but you had so much more autonomy when you were working on smaller brands. And I thought it was a better learning experience, to be honest with you.
LT: That's a great point. And that's why D went to Sprite.
That was his goal from day one.
DC: Yeah, I want, I wanted no parts of, of, uh, Coca Cola, no parts whatsoever. No,
Timothy Halloran: I mean, God bless the people that work on it, it's great. And you get a lot of exposure when you're working on it. Different strokes, you know, different strokes for different folks. It wasn't for me. So Tim, going back.
LT: So when you, when these, when these students come to you, is that the kind of advice you give them? If they're asking you for a advice, is that the sort of advice you give them, or does it depend on the kid? Yeah,
Timothy Halloran: I'm just going to depend on what again. It's almost like a one on one with a consumer, right? It's like what are their strengths? What are they interested in? How do we you know, what do they want to do? And then yeah, they say I tell them I say both, you know They want to go work at a at a cbg place or whatever and they say well Should I work on a big brand or a small brand? I basically tell them I just told y'all right? I mean, there are yeah upsides and downsides to each of that.
Um, but but I really enjoyed my time. And I think to, to see a holistic, I mean, remember LT, we had P& L responsibility on us on Powerade. It was like, it was a really holistic understanding of the business.
LT: Totally. Oh boy. This is good.
DC: I wish I'd heard this discussion that we're having now, the whole thing, whole podcast, When I was in grad school and considering where to go, or when I was, uh, uh, uh, coming in to thinking about, uh, entry level jobs, where do I go?
I wish I had this kind of information to inform my decision.
LT: Totally agree. Guys, this is incredible, but we're at the show close, man. I mean, Tim, Tim, I expected this show to be awesome and it's been better. You've been amazing, dude. Just amazing. Um, we're going to share our learnings now. I'm going to start off and I have a bunch, but I'm going to call them down.
Um, so I've got five, um, Jeff will be happy. So number one,
DC: Jeff will be happy.
LT: So Brand Nerds if you don't have a grand plan for your career, it's all right. Just like Tim did do your job with dedication and excellence. And let's see what happens from there. That's number one. Number two, the best brands are experiential through all senses and must be authentic.
Think about Tim's Disney, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Braves examples. Number three, Brand Nerds life. You're going to get knocked down. And like Tim did with his situation at Emory, it is how you get up and respond to this adversity that matters. The true making lemonade out of lemons. Number four, like Tim did when he was running the intern program at Coca Cola, and he realized that he had a passion for teaching, tap into your true passion.
And when you find it, seize it. And number five, the last one, as Tim said, tech is great. And as long as you see it as a tool to strengthen relationships with your brand, it is still about connecting your brand. Unlike many folks. In here in Silicon Valley who get so enamored with the tech and then they try and shoehorn the tech into something.
No, it's got to come from the brand first and go from there. Those are my five and great, great five, Tim.
DC: Phenomenal five. Phenomenal five. That's great. Tim, I've enjoyed knowing you through the years. Uh, when we work together, uh, seeing you in a hallway or in a meeting, uh, I often had a smile on my face thinking about you and, uh, as a marketer and as a, as a human, and, uh, I rooted for you.
Yeah, I rooted for you. I wanted the things that you worked on to be successful because I thought this is a person who's earned it. And if the more successful this person is. The more that it communicates organizationally, uh, inside and outside that you can do really well and be a really good human at the same time.
So I hold you in very high regard, Tim, and I'm, you're welcome. And I'm thankful that you have blessed us today with your presence. So as you may or may not know, during these podcasts at this part of it, I make an attempt to better understand who is this person in front of me and what is it that they bring to this planet that is uniquely theirs to bring. Now, I'm not a psychologist. I am, I am, I, I'm not clairvoyant, but sometimes something will hit me and I just need to share it. So I like to do that with you. And I find these things even more interesting when it's people that I know. And so I'm going to make that attempt now with you.
First, I'm going to go to a decision you made earlier of getting an MBA versus a specialized area. So you could have done an MBA. You decide you were going to go to a specialized area and do research and sciences at, uh, at UGA. UGA. This was a pivotal decision for you because that then led to the next thing, which is you got a research intern, you got a research internship, and then that led to brand management now, because you decided a specialist degree versus an MBA, you could have just been on the research path, but it ended up being the second versus, which is a research path versus a brand management path. All right. And then finally, here you are at Emory now in the world of academia and they say to you, you know what, we don't want to do the adjunct professor thing anymore. We're going a different direction. Nothing personal town. We're going a different direction. And then that led to you going to Georgia Tech.
So you had an Emory University adjunct opportunity versus a Georgia Tech full term, uh, full time opportunity. I know you do your consulting thing as well, have been doing it for many years, and you now have a PhD, you know, a PhD. And when, when I asked you what it was like at that time for you to make the decision to stay on the academic path, When you had a two year old son, you said, I wasn't spending that much time with him.
And I also had this sense of the whole political thing or corporate thing. I knew it wasn't me. I knew it wasn't me. You also talked about how, hey, don't, don't ignore the little things. And the reason why you said don't ignore the little things is because NBA and specialized, uh, a master's degree are pretty freaking close.
You just happen to pick the other side, a research path and brand management are pretty close. You just happen to pick the other side. And Emory and Georgia Tech are both here in Atlanta. Okay, they're both here in Atlanta, same city, so they two are pretty close. You just happen to pick the other side after Emory opportunity went away.
Which then leads me to this. Napoleon Hill is one of my favorite authors. And one of his books is Three Feet From Gold. And for those brand nerds who are not familiar with this book, I'll just give you a quick version of this thing. It's like a parable. So there's a guy who goes out west seeking gold and fortune.
He finds a place out west and he finds a little gold and he goes, wow, if I had the right equipment, I could mine this gold and be wealthy beyond belief. So he tells his people he stops. He marks the place. He goes back home. He gets investment from his family and friends. They give him the equipment. He goes back out to the place.
He then starts to dig dry. It dries up. It gets a little gold, but not enough. He's still digging. No gold. So he gives up. He sells his land, his plot and his equipment to someone else. That person then does some research and finds that the vein was three feet away from where this prior owner was digging the vein.
So they move over three feet and all of the wealth and riches that would have been. available to the first person went to the second owner and it was three feet away. Well, it was three feet away, which then leads me to this. This is what I think you are. Tim Halloran and your life and career has suggested this.
You are the three feet from gold brand guy. That's you. You have been three feet from gold at major inflection points throughout your life and career and somehow you did not give up and because you were only three feet away, you stayed in the game and you found your way to the gold or in some cases, Larry said, I got gold over here and you said, yep, I'm going to come over here for the gold.
So I would say to the brand nerds to your students and others, right? Pay attention to someone who is actually a three feet from gold brand guy because they may be able to learn from you how to be closer to their gold mine when it's three feet away.
Timothy Halloran: Like that. I love that analogy. Absolutely.
LT: Hey, Tim, only DC could do this, man. And it's like perfect, right?
Timothy Halloran: Absolutely. Keep digging. Get closer. Get within three feet. Yeah,
LT: that's right. And you get there, which is not a small thing. Those three feet are the hardest feet and you do it. So, yes, that's something about you. Okay. So, Tim, before we sign off, what have you learned from this wonderful conversation with us today?
Timothy Halloran: Well, you guys are great. I mean, I have admired both of y'all throughout my career and look to, you know, I mean, and, and by the way, DC, you know, you guys are both, uh, I mentioned the Sprite repositioning story as a classic example of, of repositioning every single last I teach because there is no better.
Thank you. Larry, I have so many Powerade stories that we did not share. You probably, you probably would put out, you know, you probably could add a whole lot of more context even to what I, what I provide. So you guys have been really, I am, I'm blessed to kind of have known both of you guys. I just think, you know, we don't do this enough.
I mean, we don't do this conversations talking about reminiscing, but also talking about how it applies today and how the lessons that we have. And all I'm trying to do when I'm teaching folks is, you know, some of the discussions we've had today, you know, just how do you take our experience and looking back and it's the years are adding up guys, looking back and how do you use that to benefit mankind at least in my perspective benefits students and um, and you guys I mean, this is yeah I'll just tell everybody and I you know, it'll be required listening we need I I I to for my students to to come in i'm gonna start making this podcast become required listening because I think it's you guys touch on so many great areas that uh, you know And especially what's popping I think you know, I think it's great to talk about current events But also from the context of people that have done it and I think that's what's really beneficial about these kind of conversations.
LT: Yeah. No, thank you. We, uh, we appreciate that. And, and again, to the Brand Nerds out there, what we're all 3 saying is those Brand Nerds when, as you're early in your career, it's great cut your cut your teeth on the of the world and then go out and and do your thing. Um, and you'll have the fundamentals down and that's a beautiful way to go.
So that's a way to put a bow on it. Oh man. Thank you so much, Tim. Uh, Jade, I'm going to the close. Thanks for listening to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, the executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Daryl D. C. Cobbin, and Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin, and Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The Podfather.
LT: That is he. And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share.
And for those on Apple podcasts. If you are so inclined. We love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast, and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.