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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: Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. You already know what it is. Brands Beats and Bytes right back at you. All right, Larry, when we were putting this, uh, podcast together. The original idea was yours, Larry, as you know, you, me and Larry, but it was your idea.
LT: Jeff. You met Jeff. We were, yeah.
DC: Yep, yep. And Jeff. Yep. And, and we were discussing, uh, what we wanted this podcast to do. We were taking ourselves back to when we were brand managers. Yep. Wanting to escalate. Wanting to elevate.
And we thought if this podcast could be for people either on the client side or the agency side who were looking to glean some insights so they could up their game, this would be the place they would come.
LT: Correct.
DC: This, this was our desire. Larry. Now, today, brand nerds, we've got somebody here who's going to help you see things quite differently because I got, I got a dirty little secret, Larry, I need to share with the brand nerds, uh, brand nerds.
Um, those of you on the client side, most of you. Write shitty briefs. Okay? Most of you, I just want you to know that by the way, our guest is laughing. For those of you who are listening but not seeing you can't see him laughing. Larry will give the introduction. He's laughing 'cause he knows I'm telling the truth.
Larry, you know I'm telling the truth as well.
LT: Oh yeah.
DC: Clients, we write shitty briefs and then what happens is we give them to agencies, our partners, and then they have to clean it up. But usually we're dealing with one area of the agency as clients. When we're delivering these briefs, we might be dealing with the strategy area or we might be dealing with the account area or we might be dealing with the creative area.
Rarely, Larry is one person on the agency side. Adept equally adept and skillful at all three of these areas. 'cause they don't, they don't go like a creative doesn't hop over to account management. They're like, I don't want any of that. And the account management person says, I don't wanna deal with the creatives.
'cause they're yahoos and the strategy and the people and, and both the creatives and the uh, and the account people look at the strategy and say they're stick in the muds. I don't wanna be dealing with a stick in the mud. That's right. But, but, but brand nerds today we have a unicorn who knows all three of these areas at the big ones like Publicis, Deutsche La, we're talking like the big dogs here.
Larry, tell us who we have in the building with us today.
LT: D, you continue to get so great at providing the preface. We have Ian. Thank you bro. Here, the house. Welcome, Ian.
Ian Baer: Ah, thanks so much. That wow. DC Man, we gotta go on the road. I need that hype every day of my life. Thank you so much.
LT: Well, you haven't heard anything yet, Ian.
That's just to, to preface. So we gotta really let the Brand Nerds in on who we have here. Wow. In the, in the book.
Ian Baer: Yeah. I'm as big a Brand Nerd as, as there is, and yeah, I do pride myself on being that triple threat. There aren't many of us out there, so No, thank you. Thank you for the recognition. I appreciate it.
It's uh, it's been a blast in this business and, and I feel like I'm just getting started.
LT: You are, you are you unicorn brother. We're gonna give the Brand Nerds the details to this Ian. So check this out, branders. So, part of our job is helping you see Brand Nerds what is coming, and we talk a lot about slowing down to speed up.
Mm-hmm. Which we believe is critical, especially as it pertains to knowing what your brand stands for, which starts with doing the hard work to develop and refine the best brand positioning for your brand. The next step is continually seeking the edge, helping us push the envelope and strengthening the emotional connection with brand and optimal brand lover.
That's our parlance. And the target audience. Ultimately, you Brand Nerds know we talk virtually every podcast about the emotional connection between brand and target audience as essential to great marketing. This is the Holy Grail. DC and I have been exposed to many systems, processes, and new tech that are usually focused in media, mixed models and things of that nature that help marketing messages land with the right people at the right time.
This is left brain logical stuff that can have an impact, but is not the holy grail. In speaking with today's guest, Ian, it seems like he and his team at Sooth are onto something that is really next level that goes well beyond media mix modeling and things of that nature. With that, we have to walk you through Ian's wonderful background where you will see how he has the chops to do this.
So after graduating Fordham University with degree in media studies, Ian jumps right into an advertising career on the account side, working at well-known agencies on both ad accounts and indirect marketing branders know this, when you are a great account person, you work your way up the ladder quickly.
Ian starts at Cobbs and Draft moves over to Jay Walter Thompson, where he becomes management supervisor then to Rapp Collins Worldwide where he spends five years starting as an SVP of client services and then working his way up to president while he is still in his mid thirties. Brand Nerds, at this level one tends to take clients with them to a new agency and also follow clients to their new agency.
So his next move that, uh, Ian makes is to Deutsche LA as DC mentioned, where he's EVP, and then he moves over to Chiat Day for four years as President and Chief Strategic Officer. There are a couple more moves before settling in at Rauxa for 11 years where he spends time as both chief strategy officer and chief creative Officer.
So that's what DC was alluding to with all three, which includes six offices at Rauxa, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Orange County, LA, and Seattle. Over the years, Ian works with many blue chip accounts including Verizon, Samsung, American Express, Adobe, JP Morgan chase, just to name a few. Ian makes one more step in the ad world as chief storytelling officer of Publicis.
It is now 2022, and Ian is watching his clients earn outside gains. While most everybody else outside his client base is declining, is not because of bigger budgets or trendier tactics. It is because the work that Ian and his teams are doing is rooted in something different- emotional connection. This is where Ian, DC, has us at hello, right?
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
LT: All right. So these teams that are winning are not relying on personas or post-campaign insights. They're building strategy and marketing executions around what people actually feel, need and are about to do next with this backdrop, in November of 2022, Ian becomes founder and CEO of Sooth in New York to revolutionize brand marketing strategies.
By inventing the patent pending Sooth method, they empower brands to make more informed decisions and maximize marketing investments, helping fix the 93% of marketing data cannot see.
DC: Wow.
LT: The data just can't, can't do anything with, when you talk about something optimizing marketing, predicated on emotional connection, DC and I are so curious to learn more.
Really looking forward to this one. Welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes, Ian Baer.
Ian Baer: Thank you so much. I, I, you, you've both been really kind. I, I feel like you got done talking and like, I should drop the mic. That was uh,
DC: That's fine.
Ian Baer: Not, not only very accurate, but very kind. Thank you.
LT: You did it all.
DC: Well, all you brother still doing it.
Still doing it. That's right. All
Ian Baer: I'm trying to do is change the whole damn business.
DC: Is that all?
Ian Baer: That's it. That's all.
DC: You slouch. All right, Ian, we're gonna move to the get comfy section and normally. We only have one question and get comfy before we get into the, the meat of the podcast, but I got two.
Okay. I've, I've, I've got two.
Ian Baer: Bring it.
DC: The first one, uh, thank you brother. I alluded to it in your introduction. I've never met anyone that I'm aware of, and I've certainly not worked with anyone who has, uh, worked at some of the best agencies in the world at a senior level in account management or client services strategy and creative.
These, as you know, very well, Ian, and LT are often horses of different hues, shall we say. Okay? Mm-hmm. What in made you do those three areas and what did you learn were some of the commonalities? Key differences across the three disciplines?
Ian Baer: It's an interesting question. I don't think it's a question I've ever been asked, so, so Oh, cool. Big credit on that. Uh, look, I never wanted to be an account person. I'm sorry. Uh, but anyone who knows me knows that, uh, I started out thinking I was gonna be a copywriter, but I started as what we now call an admin. My official title in 1987 was, secretary, uh, I know it's an outmoded title. I supported, uh, uh, a pretty large account team.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, but they told me, you know, when something opens up in creative at your level, we'll move you there. And then couple of of circumstances, uh, there was a stock market crash, very shortly after I got hired. A whole bunch of people, unfortunately, lost their jobs.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And then the agency won a whole wave of a new business.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And they came to me and said, look, we can promote you now if you're willing to be an account guy. Wow. So I wasn't gonna turn that down. I, I was, no, I was 20. Right. Um, so I moved kind of reluctantly into account management.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Always thought I'd work my way back. But what I can tell you, after 38 years of being an account guy, an agency president three times, uh, a chief strategy officer.
Adding creative responsibilities. My job's always been the same. Solving problems. Yeah. I, I didn't get into this to be a marketer. Yeah. I've never taken a marketing class in my life. Truth be told. I think I read my first marketing book maybe 10 years ago. I, I, mm. I, I'm not a textbook marketer. I never have been.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And it took me almost all of my career to realize that I wasn't just doing it well, I was doing it differently. And I was doing it differently because, you know, when I started there were no strategists. That wasn't something you
DC: Oh, no. That was not a thing. That was not a thing.
Ian Baer: Right. Strategy came mostly from account.
That's, so I had to stop, start solving problems for clients right away. Mm-hmm. And I found myself increasingly in, uh, what seemed like uncomfortable problem solving waters to me. Meaning I couldn't get inside the head of the target. 'cause I'd never been them and I didn't know them. Mm-hmm. Uh, the, the first such instance, I remember when I was, I think an account supervisor and I was working on Johnson and Johnson personal products.
Mm-hmm. Uh, the brands being Stayfree and OB now. Okay. Yeah. I am male. Uh, I'm an only child. Okay. And I was, I don't know, 23, 24.
I had absolutely,
DC: Hold on, hold on. Ian, can I just say something here? I just wanna stop you at this point and say to the Brand Nerds that Ian, given that he is an only child, male, and, uh, and at the time 23 years old.
His knowledge of the technical definition of his knowledge of the space that he was in with J&J was Ush. Okay.
Ian Baer: Exactly. And I couldn't possibly put myself in, in the mind of that target. And it was the first time anyone ever asked me to do a strategy. I had just moved from a larger agency to a smaller one.
Mm-hmm. And I didn't know what to do, so I went to the library. Interesting. 'cause I, I, I knew I was there to solve problems, right? Mm-hmm. And I knew the problem I was there to solve. Specifically, I worked on something called the J&J Starter Kit. Okay. The starter kit was made for a mom to give her daughter when she had her first period. Now again. What do I know about any of this?
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
LT: What you're reading in the library, the starter kit, that's what you know.
Ian Baer: Yeah. Yes. So I start looking up research on the psychology of mother-daughter relationships. Mm. I start reading on women's experience with their menstrual cycles because nobody told me the way you're supposed to solve the problem is get like their zip codes and their addresses and send them a coupon.
I, nobody taught me that. Yeah. So the problem I had to solve was how do I break through to that mom and get her to believe that J&J is gonna be there to support her and her daughter at this incredibly emotionally sensitive and important time. Yeah. Period of transition, which we know as marketers.
Yeah. Those are marketing hotspots. Yes. Any period of transition. Yeah. So I went to an old fashioned library 'cause there was no internet or it wasn't very available.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Uh, you know, there was like mosaic browsers and stuff, and I'm in the library like xeroxing pages out of clinical textbooks and books on psychology and social psychology.
And that's how I wrote my first brief because I wasn't gonna let myself stand in front of that client and recommend something that I didn't know was grounded in humanity.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Again, nobody told me I was doing it wrong.
DC: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Ian Baer: And the client was happy. So my boss let me keep doing it. Um, so that whole journey of like account to strategy, to creative, I've just been trying to solve people's problems any way I could.
Uh, I went from being an account person to being an agency president. I found that was not a job I liked.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Nor do I think it was the best role for me. 'cause I'm really good at relationships and I'm really good at problem solving. Mm-hmm. And I'm really not the best, you know, with a P&L, uh, because I'm, I'm a heart first kind of person.
DC: Yeah.
Ian Baer: Um, so, uh, when I had the opportunity to pivot into strategy as a full-time career, I grabbed it. I actually spent a year selling myself on the open market as a chief strategy officer. Even though I had never held a strategy job, but I knew what I needed to do was guide strategy. TBWA made that bet.
It was fantastic. Had a really great run there.
LT: Uh, and then, uh, and that's Chiat\Day just for the Brand Nerds, know that.
Ian Baer: Right. And then, uh, eventually, uh, at Rauxa, because we really started to form up this vision of, of a unity between strategy and creative. Mm-hmm. They turned to me at one point and said, Hey, how'd you like to run the creative department?
Mm. Uh and it wasn't something I'd really thought about, but I took 24 hours and came back and said, I'll do it on one condition. I have total free reign to do whatever I need to do with these departments to create something that's never been before. Mm. And we started to team strategists and creatives.
So not the typical art and copy team, but it was art copy and strategy. Wow. And we started to achieve things. That were really extraordinary. You know, we're, we're diving in on accounts and like one of my all time, you know, favorite stories, uh, work that we did for Farmers Insurance back in the day when they couldn't get their footing in social and we jumped in and in 90 days we increased their social engagement, 12 fold.
DC: Wow.
Ian Baer: 12 x
DC: Wow.
Ian Baer: Yes. Because, no, because all they were doing was playing the averages. They were like giving away Farmville points. Remember Farmville?
DC: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Ian Baer: Um, and, and getting social engagement that way. But, you know, talk about like writing a check that's not gonna pass the bank. Right? Like you, you've started a relationship on false pretense.
Mm-hmm. So we broke it down. We did a deep analysis on what type of content was actually sticking, getting shared, and it was all content that was satisfying. Somebody's need to feel safe, to feel protected, to feel smart. We started building all the social contact strategies around that. And then portfolio managed out the stuff where the signal wasn't landing.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Amped up the stuff where it was landing and 90 days later we were at 12 x engagement volume. Um, so, so there was something really powerful in that synergy. Mm-hmm. And, and that whole farmer's experience is probably one of the things that changed the path of my career. 'cause at that point, I really put my head down and said, you know what?
There's a better way to do this. And it's not what everyone else is talking about. And I'm really fortunate, I'm gonna give a huge shout out to, uh, my, my partners and, uh, and leaders at Rauxa because they let me break whatever. We had to break in the old marketing model to make things work better and differently.
Uh, we wound up collectively growing Rauxa to become the largest woman owned agency, uh, in the us.
DC: Oh, wow.
Ian Baer: Uh, led by our, our founder Jill Gwaltney. And, and, uh, Jill was an amazing partner and mentor for me. Um, and, and wrote that right up until we were acquired by Publicis. And then, uh, as, as I continued to feel the need to, I don't even want to say break things.
'cause at that point marketing was so broken.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: I just wanted to fix things.
DC: Mm.
Ian Baer: And I realized the best way for me to do that was to finally get out of the agency space and create a repeatable, scalable, scientific model mm-hmm. That would let any brand do the kind of work I've been doing so successfully.
LT: That's a great place to put a pin because we're gonna get more into that. Ian. We are.
DC: We are.
LT: And I love that story. And Dee, before we get, we'll, we're gonna move to the next section, but I just want to, uh, call out something for the brand nerds in case they don't understand this. Ian, I. Um, typically the way most creative teams and agencies are broken down is Ian alluded to there's, uh, an art director and a copywriter, and they put those folks together, and that's the creative team.
And so what Ian did is add a strategist to that team, which it, as Ian said to my, to my knowledge, hasn't been done before, so I just wanted to lay that foundation for people who didn't quite understand it, so they they would understand that. D, you want to take us to the next section?
DC: I do, I do. All right.
We're going to five questions, Ian.
Ian Baer: All right. Bring it.
DC: I ask the question, Larry. Ask the question. We go back and forth till we arrive at five. I get to begin this thing. I can't wait to hear, uh, his answer on this one. Uh, Larry.
LT: Me too.
DC: All right, Ian, take yourself back. Take yourself back, brother, to the first branding experience you had that gave you goosebumps. So, or, or as my European, uh, brethren and sister would say, chicken skin. I mean, it just, it just lit your, lit your mind and your soul a fire, like a first love. What, what was that for you?
Ian Baer: Can I give you a twofold answer?
DC: You can.
Ian Baer: And I don't, uh, goosebumps may or may not be the right word, but they definitely impacted me. Um, so everything I learned about advertising to start with, other than, you know, I was constantly staring at the tv. Uh, but I watched a lot of PBS, so I didn't watch a lot of commercials when I was a little kid. I was the first Sesame Street generation. Okay. Uh, but I read a lot of comic books when I was a kid.
DC: Ah, yeah.
Ian Baer: And the ads in the back of 1970s, comic books, they were a smorgasbord of whacked out advertising. And the one that always, I so think about it, I'm an only child. Spent a lot of time by myself with the TV when I was a kid. Don't, don't pull out the violins. Like that's just, you know, I was kind of a latchkey kid, right?
Mm-hmm.
LT: As many, as many of, of our generation I would. You were, yes, that's right. I wasn't That's going DC was too.
Ian Baer: You'd never do it now, but back then we all did it, right? Yep. So I'm flipping through a comic book and I see this ad for Sea Monkeys.
DC: Oh, yes.
Ian Baer: Okay. And all, like,
DC: all the Sea monkey, the sea monkeys.
Ian Baer: I'm like, well, they kind of look like freaks, the sea monkeys. Right. But they all seem to like each other and like, I don't know, one of them is wearing pearls and holding a martini and they're all like, hanging out in the living room. Yeah. And, and I'm thinking, I would like to have friends like this.
DC: Yes.
Ian Baer: That, that's what's going through my head when I'm four years old. So I like, take a bunch of pennies and I tape 'em to the inside of an envelope. You know, nowhere near enough money. Uh. And, and my sea monkeys never arrived. But like a couple of years later, a friend of mine got sea monkeys and you know, I I, I walk in his bedroom and I'm like, what's that?
He goes, sea monkeys. Now you know what sea monkeys are, right? They're dried brine shrimp that then spring back to life. There are these tiny little specks that just float until they die. And I'm like, where are the pearls? Where, where's the martini? You know, they're, they're supposed to be, where's the living room?
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And, and it was my first realization that, you know, advertising is not always shooting straight. Mm. Um, my other realization, this is the second part of that is when I was six years old, uh, I saw a commercial for handy wipes. And in the commercial for handy wipes, this guy was showing you how much stronger handy wipes are than, uh, paper towels.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: So, uh, he took a handy wipe and he put it over a door and he hung himself. He was holding onto this handy wipe and it was keeping him suspended. Mm-hmm. And I said, oh my God, that's fantastic. We have handy wipes. So I go in my bedroom with the handy wipe, you know, and I lock myself in and I throw it over the, the door to the hutch in my bedroom.
The one that my mom had been yelling at my dad to secure to the wall, but he never did. Ooh. And next thing I know, I am out cold in a pool of blood. I've got the door closed. 'cause I didn't want my mom to see what I'm doing. My mom, who's like a total hypochondriac. Anyway, I say that with love. Hi mom. She burst in the room.
6-year-old me. I'm laid out in a pool of blood. False advertising again, I thought that handy wipe was gonna keep me safe. So my first two experiences, they weren't necessarily goosebumps, but they definitely put something in me to shoot straight with people in advertising.
LT: I love it. Ian's coming from a different approach.
Dee. I love it. Uh, I love it. Those are great stories. D, you have anything or should we go to the next question?
DC: Uh, no, no. I actually just one thing quickly before we go to the next question. Uh, so Brand Nerds, uh, our team, we've had a pre-meeting with Ian. We spent a little time with Ian before we got onto the, uh, to the podcast. And immediately I begin to think to myself, did Ian hit his head as a young person? And now I'm beginning to understand it was the, it was the handy wipe moment.
Ian Baer: Yeah, I have a scar right here. It's like in the shape of a peace sign. I always feel like it's been sending me a message. I think it's alien signals actually.
LT: That's what happened. Yeah. That's what happened. Alright.
Ian Baer: It explains so much.
LT: Question two to Ian, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
Ian Baer: Right now or ever? You decide I'm gonna go with ever.
LT: Okay.
Ian Baer: Because right now it's probably Sam Altman. God bless him. 'cause Oh, yeah. Open AI has become my, my all time favorite tool. Mm-hmm. But, um, it, it's Malcolm Gladwell.
LT: Ooh.
Ian Baer: Oh yeah. He love Malcolm. Um, it what a powerful storyteller. Uh, a a person who can make anything relatable and interesting if you've never seen his speech on spaghetti sauce.
DC: No.
Ian Baer: It's like 20 years old. Yep. How somebody can make variations in spaghetti sauce, uh, really as a, uh. Uh, a compelling, uh, fable, uh, about human connection and seeing and hearing and recognizing the differences in each other and embracing that. Uh, it still blows me away anytime I lead a class on presentation skills.
I don't care how old that clip gets, I make people sit through the 17 minutes.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Because that spaghetti sauce story is not about spaghetti sauce.
LT: Right. Right.
Ian Baer: And, and it really, when I read the tipping point, yes. That was one of the things that, that changed my perspective. And then, you know, all his work blinks super powerful because
LT: Yep.
Ian Baer: You know, our, our hearts make up our minds and, and, and then our brain justifies everything we've already decided. Like, his work was so impactful and unfortunately it was a perspective I wasn't seeing in marketing. You know, I, I said, I didn't read a marketing book, but I read plenty of books on psychology and cultural anthropology and, and social psych.
I am a, uh, a social science nerd, and it's really my love of social science and storytelling that, um, created my craft.
LT: What? Listen, Ian, I love that you said that DC and I are huge fans of Malcolm Gladwell. Have you read Revenge of the Tipping Point? Have you read that? His
Ian Baer: I have not. No. It, it's high on my list.
LT: Go read it. Go read it. Because he actually debunked some of the things that it was in the tipping point for, for DC and I, we actually, uh, consumed the tipping point. And, and I'm not gonna say in the opposite way as you, but for us it reinforced our theory of marketing and what, what comes about in the Tipping Point, Brand Nerds, if you haven't read it, please. If you're into marketing, you need to read that book. Even if you're not just into the human condition, you need to read that book. But what the tipping point suggested and the hush puppy story is the story, right? And what Brand Nerds, uh, Malcolm Gladwell talked about in, uh, the tipping point that there was this group of influential folks, and this is back in the early nineties.
Uh, there's the, the shoe called the Hush Puppies that was big in the 1960s, went away, became old fashioned, but then these kind of, these cool bros in the East Village in New York started wearing Hush Puppies again. And these few people started wearing Hush Puppies and it blew up. It got, it got big. And so DC and I, um, Jim Emery, Jim is our guru.
Jim, if you're listening, we love Jim. Jim who's who we learned from the Coca-Cola Company. That we were, we learned at the Coca-Cola company, Ian, actually, that you've gotta find your brand lover. I mentioned that in the preface to you and the brand lover, right? Is the person or the group, the small group of people that we call, uh, that's the, the people that would show up to the, uh, constitutional convention, shall we say that really at the highest common denominator represent your brand lover.
So when we launched Powerade, our brand lover was the captain of the football, baseball, and basketball team. So every piece of marketing we did, Ian was towards that guy. And I'm saying that guy specifically. And if it didn't, it, if it didn't resonate and emotionally connect with that guy, we did not do it.
So when the Tipping Point came along, after we have learned that, we were like, ah, right. Thank God someone else is actually espousing what we know to be true.
Ian Baer: Absolutely. It's because it's all the Tipping Point's really about. Movement, right? How movement starts, how movement gets cut off or redirected.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: You know, it starts with the, the story about Paul Revere and the other guy. Oh yeah. And, and it's still one of the greatest, uh, lessons. You, you could possibly learn it, it's not enough, you know, for years, I, I've worked with a lot of technology companies. It, it's certainly one of my most experienced categories and they fall in love with their engineering. Oh yeah. And they fall in love with things like signal bars and stuff that nobody cares about.
DC: Nope.
Ian Baer: People care about if their stuff works. Yeah. People care if it connects 'em with the kind of experience they want, and they tend to want a new one when there's breaks or when they see somebody else use a cooler one.
That's it. I've just given you the entire book. That's it on technology marketing. But then that's right. You gotta figure out it's not what it does. It's what it feels like to use it.
LT: Exactly.
Ian Baer: And that has been, uh, a challenging bridge to cross with a lot of tech brands over the years. 'cause often they just feel like the engineering should sell the product.
Uh, people should want the innovation. I, I don't think they realize that the definition of innovation is not just an invention, but it's a commercially viable invention. Yeah. Um, so you can't just assume because you think it's innovative that anyone's gonna care. And, and I feel like there is so much that we still continue to see in the nature of movement, compelling storytelling.
And again, Paul Revere and the other guy who they listen to and who they don't, that's a matter of emotional connection. What Paul Revere did, was emotionally connect with those people. He had a level of understanding as he went from door to door, he could spin his story in a different way. And, and that's not the way most marketing works, right? Most marketing, just, it's the law of averages and mm-hmm. And it's demographics and, and, and there's a reason it doesn't work.
LT: Yeah. You have us at, hello, the segmentation, et cetera. Segmentation isn't real, it's concocted. Um, DC You want to put, add something before you go to the next question?
DC: I don't. I'm gonna go to the next question.
LT: Great.
DC: All right. So Brand Nerds, uh, those of you all who work or aspire to work on the client side, here's what happens. You get to one company and probably now you stay there two or three years and you move, but it's one company. When you're on the client side, you might see 10 different clients. Or more in a single year.
So you add that up over five years.
LT: You meant agency side
DC: Agency, I'm sorry, excuse me. Agency side, sorry, agency side. My bad. My bad. Agency side. And you add that up over the course of four or five years and you have a level of breadth and diversity that you just don't get on the client side. So that means Ian has had a lot of wins across many different clients businesses and for this question, Ian, I would like to know exactly none of those. Okay. I only want to know about your biggest F up, the big, stinky danky, wet, nasty F up that was on you, not somebody else on you.
Ian Baer: Mm.
DC: And most importantly in what you learned from said F Up.
Ian Baer: I'm not sure I've ever admitted this except to one person. So here we go. And that one person,
LT: You have a hundred countries or more you're talking to, so go ahead.
Ian Baer: That, that's okay. Uh, that one person is, is no longer with us, but was my greatest mentor. Okay. And the last time I saw him, um, I told him how much I regretted, uh, ever leaving the opportunity I had to work directly under him.
So the, the story about the biggest mistake was when I got offered that first agency presidency at 33 years old. Mm-hmm. I took it, I wasn't ready. Ah, I was ready to lead from a thought standpoint. Yeah. I was ready to partner with senior clients 'cause it's what I had done. I was ready to take responsibility for improving the work product.
I wasn't ready to lead people at that scale.
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Ian Baer: And I did it in a new environment. I left New York, moved to Chicago for that opportunity. So uprooted everything I knew.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Put myself into an environment that expected me to be a savior. Yeah. We actually did have an incredible turnaround to the point where like, you know, made the cover of Adage and Adweek and won the President's Award and, but I really didn't know what I was doing.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And I do not look back on that as a success because in the end, uh, they closed the office. Wow. And I will always look back on that. The lessons that I took out of that two year journey
DC: Yeah.
Ian Baer: Uh, have always stuck with me. And the biggest one is. The promises you make to people, especially when you're in a position of leadership, you can't just speak from the heart.
You can get yourself in a lot of trouble just focusing on the things you wanna do.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And not really paying enough attention to the things that you are responsible for doing. The mantle of leadership. And I really came to understand the mantle of leadership at a later stage of my career, no matter how much I was stoked about the idea of being a president, I should have stayed with my mentor.
I, I missed the additional time working with him, took a job I wasn't ready for. And it led to a bit of stumbling around for a few years until I found my footing again.
LT: Ooh. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, Ian, like that's. That's the kind of thing Brand Nerds that we have really successful people like Ian share with you because we all have F up, F ups.
And while, uh, you could look at that, uh, you know, yeah. 33-year-old president. But what Ian is suggesting there is that sometimes the glossy object that looks so wonderful isn't so wonderful and that you need to be thinking 360 about that before you jump at the shiny object. Um, and yeah,
Ian Baer: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
LT: Yeah. I'm sorry, say that again.
Ian Baer: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
LT: Exactly. D what are you thinking?
DC: I'm thinking this is sublime.
LT: Yes.
DC: Ian, thank you. At what? You're welcome. At what point when you were in Chicago, did you come to the self realization. I'm not ready for this.
LT: Ooh, great question.
DC: What was the moment?
Ian Baer: I wish I had a better answer than after it was too late. Hmm.
DC: Ah, okay. Okay.
Ian Baer: Uh, I'm looking around. We we're having a, a few bad months after an amazing year. Yeah. And I'm thinking, okay, I know exactly what I need to do and I'm going through some, you know, instability in a couple of areas, but mm-hmm.
And the whole network was going through a rough time because that was the time when digital was just becoming a thing.
LT: Right.
Ian Baer: And every, uh, traditional agency, every analog agency was trying to decide like, are we in, are we out? Are we gonna let these people change us? Are we gonna let this internet thing pass?
You know?
DC: Yeah. Yeah.
Ian Baer: And, and, um, so it was a very tricky time. Mm-hmm. So I'm looking around saying, okay, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna reset and everything's gonna be fine. Then Sunday night, I get a call from my CEO. And he goes, how you doing? I said, well, you tell me you're calling me at home on a Sunday night.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: And he said, yeah, we gotta close your office. We're we, we we're gotta, we're gonna narrow down to two offices in the US. We're gonna move you back to New York. You're gonna bring all your Chicago clients. We're gonna put you back in your old job. And, and I couldn't do that. And I couldn't do it because of all the people I looked in the eyes and, and sold them on a dream that I could no longer back up.
DC: Hmm.
Ian Baer: Uh, and that really man sticks with me to this day, um, lined all those people up to tell 'em we were closing the office broke down crying, you know, it was like the, the Mike Schmidt Retirement Press conference. Like it was that kind of messy sobby you know. But, uh, it, it always stuck with me. And I, I learned.
That you just cannot take anything cavalierly when people are looking to you to lead them.
LT: Hmm.
DC: Alright. Brand Nerds. I'm gonna say this, uh, Ian mentioned the mantle of leadership. If you don't hear me say anything else during this podcast, Brand Nerds, I like to make certain that you hear me say this, leadership is lonely.
You're not going to have, um, all the people around you that you'd like to talk to, to make you feel comfortable when you're leading. The other thing that makes leadership lonely is, um, when you're leading, not everyone's going to like you, they're not gonna like the decisions you make. They're not gonna like the, um, the strategies that you buy into.
Uh, it's hard. So Brand Nerds as you're offered opportunities for growth, don't chase the money, chase the learning. And I dare say, uh, Ian, what's, what's the name of the mentor who's not with us? Now that you left? What's his, what's his or her name?
Ian Baer: David Schultz.
DC: David Schultz. Okay. I dare say that if Ian had spent more years under the tutelage of David, he would have been ready, right?
Just a few more years later. He would've have been ready. No,
Ian Baer: Even a year.
DC: Yeah, even a year. He would've been ready. So brand nerves. Remember this portion of this podcast. Remember this portion? Wow. Alright, uh, Larry, next question, brother.
LT: Well, this is so good, Ian. Thank you. Really good. Really good.
Ian Baer: Thank guys.
LT: So Ian, this is great. Right up your alley man for where you're at.
DC: Um, so we talking Yankees.
LT: Oh, we could get into that at another time.
Ian Baer: Alright, sorry.
LT: Come to a Tigers in the Giants fan San Francisco. But anyway, Tigers and the Bravo
DC: Bravos as well. Now the Bravos. Alright, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. That's
Ian Baer: Tigers are, tigers are having a great year. They're scary.
LT: They are, dude. That's why I said that. Regarding technology and marketing, right? It's right up your alley right now, Ian.
Ian Baer: Yeah.
LT: Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech? Or you can go to areas that you think they should be leery or simply avoid. What say you?
Ian Baer: Uh, I have so much to say about this, so let me start with, um, I. Putting a pin in, in what I think is one of the lies marketers have told themselves, uh, many times in the last decade, and that is that the thing we should be chasing is customer centricity.
DC: Hmm.
Ian Baer: Didn't like it when I heard it. Uh, watched all these companies invest multiple millions of dollars in building these customer centric marketing systems, which really just meant hyper response systems.
But if all you're doing is chasing and responding, and the only way you see the people who buy from you is as customers.
LT: Yeah.
Ian Baer: And not human beings, you know? Right. We, we associate with brands in sliding windows and, um. There are moments when you will need that brand to sell you something, and there are moments when you may just need that brand for other purposes, either to give you authoritative information to help you decide when maybe it's not the right time to buy something.
You know, these are human beings and, and the more brands got conditioned and read too many articles saying that the thing to do is just, you know, tech, tech, tech, data, data, data, and let's just optimize the hell out of things that were never gonna work in the first place. That's how we got into this trap.
Mm-hmm. So the, the big thing with tech is it needs to be used in ways that have meaning to people.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Very few people. Only the, you know, early adopter crowd appreciates tech for the sake of tech.
LT: Right.
Ian Baer: Mm-hmm. And, and that applies to the business, to business application of technology as well. It, it, I don't really care how many terabytes of data you have or you know, how well integrated your Adobe stack is.
How did the customer who received that touch feel about you and feel about themself? And if you're not using tech to make somebody feel something, all you're doing is playing a losing game. And the odds, you know, Larry, I think I mentioned this when we spoke, uh, the other day, uh, the, the average, uh, dollar invested in advertising returns 85 cents.
According to Nielsen. Uh, the average dollar put into a slot machine returns 93 cents. So we gotta stop placing the same bets over and over again. And I think for too long, people fell in love with capability and, and lost sight of connection. And that's why marketing results continue to suffer. I'm waiting for the marketing leader that I speak to who tells me they're doing better than they were doing five years ago.
Nobody is.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Everyone's bailing water and, and it's because we're misusing all this wonderful data in tech that we have.
DC: Mm.
LT: Well said. Mm. And you, what I think Ian's saying is you get caught up in the tech and the, you know, the, the metrics and all the data that comes with it when you lose sight of what you're really in it for, and it's about human beings and it's about emotionally connecting with humans.
We keep going back to that. You know, it's,
Ian Baer: it's so parallel to the story we were telling about my time at Rapp Chicago, uh, in, in that, you know, just 'cause you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. Yeah. And the same, you say that a lot, by the way, applies to the way brands use data and tech. You know, one of the things, I, I was at a conference last week where I got to lead a think tank with like 30 CMOs, and we got on the subject of testing.
And I will tell you, I'm not a huge fan of testing. Mm-hmm. Because I had a conversation with a client once and it went like this. Oh my god, Steve, you must be so happy about the results of the test. And he said, really? Why? And I said, well, look, the, you know, it was a five cell test. And I said, uh, because the winning cell outperformed the control two to one.
You must be thrilled. We have a new performing control. And he says, it's really interesting that that's how it feels to you. I have to go explain to my boss the four cells that failed and why I spent money on that. And even worse, why I exposed our customers to an experience that I knew wasn't the best thing for them.
And certain conversations just stick with you. And so, you know, I get why we test, but we know enough now we have enough data that we could do more homework and and spend less time in this endless loop of tests and refine when the fact is consumers are changing so quickly.
LT: Right?
Ian Baer: By the time you read the results of that test, they've changed again.
LT: Really interesting.
DC: Uh, Ian, Larry, uh, and the brand nerds. Okay. We, we, we are hitting on something that kind of puts a burr in my saddle, if you will. And it's about the, the incessant testing.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Uh, the rounds of it. And there's a volume that comes from the data that is problematic for marketers. And let me use something that's in technology that I think most will be familiar with.
Netflix. So Netflix has an enormous amount of content. When, uh, Larry and I were growing up, Ian, I suppose you might be able to relate to this. There were three channels. Three channels. That was it. You had three channels. And so we would, we would if something,
Ian Baer: Well, unless you were willing to stand at the window and hold up the UHF antenna,
DC: Then maybe you got another one.
Yeah, that's right. Three channels. Then maybe you got another one. Four at the most. Now there are hundreds. And so when we were coming up and we wanted to watch a particular show, we would all gather around the TV at that time to catch that show. So it was an easy decision because there were limited choices.
Netflix has thousands of shows. There's a phenomena that's called, uh, choice paralysis. And what this means, Brand Nerds is that, and some of you brand nerds do this. There is more time spent searching for the show you want to watch on Netflix, right. Than watching the fucking show. Okay. Okay. More time
searching than watching.
Ian Baer: Okay. You just described the experience of me on GrubHub twice a day. There you go.
DC: There you go brother. And so, uh, and the reason why that is, is because of the volume of the data in this case, different programming. And so it causes paralysis and we marketing folks are experiencing the same thing. When if we just took a moment and and go, Hmm, I know enough.
Make the choice, make the call.
Ian Baer: That's right. The call. Know what Larry, and, and it's, I mean, I agree with you so passionately and it is not opinion. It's science, right? Like there's a real condition called decision fatigue. Yes, that's right. Our, our brains get physiologically worn out.
DC: Yep, that is correct.
Ian Baer: From all the stimuli and all the choices. If you ever wonder why all the unhealthiest foods in the grocery store are a checkout, that's because research has shown that decision fatigue reduces your ability to discern what's good for you by the time you reach the checkout. So they're gonna get you to buy that candy, you know, on, on your way out the door.
It's the same thing. Choice is exhausting.
LT: It is. This is so good.
DC: This is so good. This is so good. Larry, anything more from you before we go?
LT: No, I think that was, I love this conversation. I think we can go to the next question.
DC: Ian, what are you most proud of?
Ian Baer: Oh. So I've been, I've been doing this a long time.
Mm-hmm. And when I speak to people who maybe haven't been in the business as long, a question I get asked a lot is like, what's your all time favorite account? What's your all time favorite award? What's your all time favorite agency that you've worked at? And none of those really matter to me in terms of legacy.
The legacy for me is in the people.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Uh, what I am proudest of, and the reason I'm not only staying in this game, but trying to fix what's broken in marketing, is because of all these talented people, there are people I, you know, gave their first job and now they're chief creative officers, or they're mm-hmm.
You know, or, or one is the CEO of a major restaurant chain and, you know mm-hmm. I worked with him was, he was an assistant account executive. Um, the legacy, the people I touched and helped see things a little differently, with a little more empathy, with a little more understanding. Uh, when, when people tell me that they do things because they remember a conversation we had 15 years ago, that's why I'm doing this.
Mm. Uh, I'm, I'm doing this because, uh, we all have the opportunity to be disciples for good and I'm gonna witness good to as many people as I can. And, and I'll tell you what, when I was out at this conference last week with these 30 like very esteemed CMOs and they're sending me notes afterwards saying, I.
I took your presentation back to my team, we're gonna start doing things differently tomorrow because of what we learned from you. That is, that is so humbling. Um, all my, my legacy is anybody I've had the opportunity to help along the way, I, that probably sounds really goofy, but I wouldn't be doing this otherwise,
LT: Ian, it doesn't sound goofy.
Uh, it sounds awesome.
DC: Not at all.
LT: Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Thanks. D Dee, anything to add to that?
DC: No.
LT: I think that's a mic drop for the, for that section. That section. All right, Ian, uh, we're we're well man. This is so much fun. We're moving right along.
Ian Baer: All right.
LT: We are coming up to our next section and that section we affectionately call What's popping?
What's popping D?
DC: What's popping?
LT: So Ian, 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 we understand that you have a good one.
Ian Baer: Uh, well, gosh, there's a lot happening ar around marketing, uh, uh, the, the discussion, you know, AI is a big one and everyone's like in on it, and, and everyone wants to talk about AI.
And because I have a company where, you know, there's AI mentioned on our website, everyone thinks I'm an AI expert, and I don't think anyone's an AI expert yet. Um, but man, we're having the wrong conversations about AI. Mm-hmm. And, and the, uh, the firestorm that started up at Meta a couple of weeks ago and is now just continuing to freak people out all over this industry, this vision that, uh, marketing is just gonna be reduced to, you know, data in dollars out.
And he said, look, you don't need a brand. You just need to give me money. Yeah. And tell me how many of X you wanna sell and I'll keep pumping out irrelevant crap. Sorry.
LT: Yep.
Ian Baer: Uh, until the bell goes ding. And it's scaring people, but I'll tell you what, it shouldn't, it's not gonna work.
LT: Agreed.
Ian Baer: Uh, and it's not gonna work because, uh, the law of averages really doesn't apply when people have so many options to get exactly what they want that meets their need in the moment.
You know, Forrester published a great stat years ago. I've never let go of it. It's only more true today. 95% of the time people choose the brand that meets their needs in the moment.
DC: Yes.
Ian Baer: Um, so I continue to bet on that. And, and my challenge to everyone who is ringing their hands over Zuckerberg's rant is.
Do better.
LT: Right.
Ian Baer: I'm gonna do much better than that. And, and the AI tool set shouldn't scare you. Mm-hmm. You shouldn't be worried about how it's gonna take your job away. The same way the internet didn't take your job away. You should be figuring out how you can use it to be a disciple for good. That, that's certainly what I'm doing with my company.
That's my bet.
LT: Ian, were you at the Georgia Tech, uh, marketing Innovations conference in February?
Ian Baer: I was not.
LT: Well, I'm laughing because we almost had, we almost said verbatim what you just said at that, because we were asked the question, we were part of a panel about AI and marketing and, you know, we were asked the question of, so, hey, there's a lot of undergrads and grad student marketing students in the audience here, and they're really worried, like, you know, is, is AI gonna replace them?
There's all the, the fear around that. And our answer was as follows. We said, actually, we think, just like you said, there was all these different technologies, the internet and all the different technology that have come through in the span of our careers. And we found that the people who leaned in and embraced those things and really understood it to the best of their ability and became the experts in those areas, they're the ones that actually zoomed in their career.
And so our advice to those students was, don't fear it. Lean in, learn it. And, and because technology is something that you've grown up with, you can actually be the, the kind of the, the native learner of it that you become the expert. That's right. And the, the older people, when you're at your job, they're going to actually look at you as someone who's the expert and you become indispensable.
So that's, we're we're saying the same thing. But, and, and it's a really important Brand Nerds that you, we've talked about it on this show a number of times, but we, you're in the, the throes of it, and it's really important to get that message across to people. Uh, you know, and we think that's the metaphor for life, quite honestly.
You're gonna walk out the door trepidatious and fearful, or you're going to, you know, run out the door and jump into things and really participate in life. And we think that that's where, where things should be with ai.
Ian Baer: Amen to that. I, I got together with a guy last week who I, uh, he was one of my direct reports at my last agency job.
And I told him, you know, some of what we're doing at Sooth and how we just, I just built a, a, an AI system, uh, to govern all the kinds of decisions I always wanted to govern. He said, I just have to ask you a question. Uh, and you know, he's a few years younger than me, not like decades. And he said. You've had a remarkable track record of reinventing yourself over and over again.
And he said, I'd like to be able to do that with my career. Do you have any advice? And I said, you know what? I never reinvented myself. The world reinvents itself every day, right? Mm-hmm. And I'm trying to stay one click ahead.
LT: Right.
Ian Baer: That's all I've ever been doing. Mm-hmm. You know, it's the old Wayne Gretzky quote, that'll never get old for me.
Never. Right. Everyone else is skating to where the puck is. I'm skating to where it's gonna go.
LT: Yep.
DC: Yeah.
Ian Baer: Um, to me that's a requirement. And I would suggest that we look at technology, look generative AI is just about faster, cheaper, faster, cheaper. It's not, it's not gonna have an impact on anything other than, you know, shareholders of, of a number of very large companies.
Uh, but what we're seeing consistently is that these all in investments in AI like what's happened at a place like, you know, Duolingo turning their customer service over to AI there's this story arc of, you know, trumpet the news count, the dollars when you're only really counting dollars saved. Mm-hmm.
Uh, then you gotta figure out what went wrong. You back up and you start bringing people in again. Um, generative AI is not a standalone answer to anything. If the inputs are wrong, the outputs that's right will be crap. It'll just be fast, cheap crap, right?
LT: Yes. Garbage in, garbage out.
Ian Baer: Same principle. More true than ever because a lot of people who haven't gotten their hands dirty with AI you may not realize AI is a mirror.
Yep. AI doesn't take over. AI gives you a hyper speed version of your own capabilities and your own point of view.
LT: Right. Mm-hmm. That's awesome. Dee, what do you got to add to this?
DC: Ooh, Ian, I'm with you brother. I'm going to fuse new school. Old school and using analog.
Ian Baer: All right.
DC: New school with AI and performance marketing, that kind of marketing could get 90,000 people to show up at Wembley Stadium.
That kind of marketing with, okay, something's gonna happen in this stadium. We are there. So this is the role of performance marketing and AI. right? And it will get them there fast and cheap. The marketing to get them in that arena will happen fast and it will be cheap. That's what we call the new world.
This is what it can do. Now, let's go old world. If I rock up on stage in front of these 90,000 people who are there waiting, okay, we got. I would not get through one song before 90,000 people exit. They, they're gonna exit right away in, they're, they're gonna do it. They're gonna, they're gonna pass all the merchandise and all of that kind of stuff.
Yep. Alright. And by the way, performance marketing and AI generative AI machine learning would then give the data to explain, this is how many people left, this is when they left. This is how much, this is, how much money they spent on food when they were there. Fish and chips. Right. They'll give you all of that.
Okay. This is the role of what new school can do now, back to old school. But if Michael Jackson in his prime is on that stage, there are going to be people fainting, falling out, screaming, et cetera. Okay? You can't measure that. You, you, it's hard to measure that to performance, performance markets. So what I would say is to all of the marketers out there, before you have your 90,000 people show up, what are you gonna say and do with their attention when you get it?
And I believe this is where our marketers fall down because they think getting them into Wembley is enough. It is not
LT: Right.
DC: It is not enough.
LT: And they also think their job is done, D.
DC: They think it's done correct. They think I'm done now. No, no, no, no, no. Oh. Very
Ian Baer: often it's 'cause of the, the way those jobs get divvied up, you know, they're in silos.
LT: Right. A great point.
Ian Baer: Um, one of the smartest people I've ever worked with always used to say, uh, people don't do what you tell 'em to do. They do what you pay 'em to do.
LT: Oh, so true.
Ian Baer: Ah, yeah.
DC: That's good.
Ian Baer: And you know, so many marketing organizations, there's one big set of KPIs. Except the number of people who actually own all the KPIs everyone's looking at.
DC: Yeah.
Ian Baer: They're all at the C level. They're actually not the people driving day to day. So if I'm the CMO and I own acquisition and I own retention, and I have two people who report to me and one owns acquisition and one owns retention, yeah. The likelihood of those two people aligning is very, very slim.
Yes. Why? Because chances are they only own their respective KPIs. Yeah. I remember once being called in an emergency, uh, when I was working with DirecTV way back in the day, and I, I get into the office and first thing it's like shit's blowing up at the client. We gotta run out there to El Segundo and see him.
So we sit down and they're having like a giant retention crisis. Mm-hmm. First thing I say is, what do we know, right? Like anything else, like I, I grew up on, you know, cop shows. What do we know? And I'm not getting answers that make any sense. So I say, okay, I want to talk to, uh, the head of, of customer retention and I wanna find out where all this churn is coming from.
And I hear that little voice in my head. People don't do what you tell 'em to do. They do what you pay 'em to do. So I sit down with the head of customer retention and after asking her a couple of questions, I said, you got any like special incentive chases going on in your group with all these phone reps?
And she said, oh yeah, we do. I said, is it like, is it something I can read? Can you explain it to me? She said, oh, it's real simple. Uh, our call times are running too long. So, uh, we were told by management that we needed to get our average call times down by about 30 seconds. Mm-hmm. So we are bonusing people based on reducing call times.
I said, well, my work is done here. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're paying people to rush people with problems off the phone. Yes, yes. And you can't figure this out. Yeah. And that stuff, it still goes on every day.
LT: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. That's good. That's a great story. That's a great story. D, I think this what a great topic Ian had, man.
And Ian, we're at the end here. Dude, this has been so much fun. My God. Yes. I knew. I knew.
Ian Baer: Even more fun for me. Thank you.
LT: I said it would be great to you yesterday. So we're gonna go, uh, we're gonna go to our learnings now, and I have a bunch of them. All right. I'm gonna try and keep 'em crisp. I have 10 of them, so I'm gonna go fast.
So, uh. Brand Nerds Ian sees his job, his whole career is solving problems, period. Two words. So some say if you can solve problems for your bosses and you do that, it is a big win for all. Keep that, make it your own, how you figure that out. But that's a wonderful thing. Number two, like Ian did when he was 24 years old with feminine products, you need to dig deep into the psychology and the humanity for the brand, product and situation that you were in.
That's number two. Number three, take a cue from Ian thinking about zagging and building better mouse traps. Instead of following what the herd is doing. Uh, number four, there's a quote from Ian on tech. It's not what it does, it's how it makes you feel. You can make that apply to not just tech products, but all brands.
Number five, coming from the place of doing what you say you're gonna do as a leader, be very mindful for what you promised your team and make sure you can actually do what you promise again, do what you say you're gonna do. Number six, as DC said from Ian's biggest F up, it's probably best served to chase learnings not dollars. The dollars will follow if you chase the learnings first. Number seven, you need to use tech to make people feel something. It needs to be used in ways that are human to people. Feeling. It's all about the feels. We like to say emotional connection. Number eight, like Ian, be a dis disciple for good touch people where they remember like he has done nine, stay one click ahead like Wayne Gretzky says, skate to the puck where the puck puck is going, not where it is now. And the last one, number 10. Remember people only do what you pay them to do, not necessarily what you ask them to do. So make sure that the monetary situation for people that are working for you are set with what you're asking.
Those are mine. And tho those are awesome things to Ian. Thank you.
DC: Really good.
Ian Baer: Thank you.
DC: Really good, Ian. This is the part of the program where I make an attempt to better understand the human that's in front of me. And then what I also attempt to do is to articulate from my perspective, just mine doesn't mean I'm right.
What is it that this person has? That they are offering the world that only they can offer. And if they don't give it to us, we're not gonna get it. At least not in the way that this soul might provide it to us. And I'm gonna attempt to do that with you now. So Ian, um, on Get comfy, we were, uh, talking to you about the fact that you're this unicorn.
You can do account management, you can do strategy, and you can do creative. You've done all of those disciplines. And we were asking like, can you give us some, like, what's, what's going on about it? And you said, what, what's, what connects them and what doesn't? You're like, Hey, it's only one thing. I'm, I, I'm here to solve problems.
And that's what connects all of them. And then you gave the example J&J to which, uh, uh, Larry has already alluded, uh, personal products for females, and you said. Well, the first thing I did, 'cause no one taught me any marketing stuff. This is me speaking as you in, um, I went to the library.
Ian Baer: Have you used your hands enough too?
DC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I did. You said, uh, I went to the library. Library and I thought, Hmm. Only an an inquisitive person would do that. You have to be inquisitive to say, I don't know something, and there's a place I can go to fill this gap of knowledge that I have. And furthermore, you, when you went to the library, you were not looking for information on personal hygiene products for female. You went in search of, you were curious and inquisitive about what's the psychology between a mother and her child who is experiencing this major moment in her life. So I said, Hmm. Now then we go down to five questions, and the first one we asked you was about the, uh, your favorite brand.
And I said, goosebumps. Which one gave you goosebumps? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. There were no goosebumps with you, Ian. Yeah. There were no, you, you, you had to take away Just bumps. Yeah, bumps. There's false advertising here. I wanted seam monkeys. I didn't get 'em. I then go over to a friend's house. I see these guys, see where the fucking pearls, where's the martini?
You know, so you're like, oh, the sea monkeys are not what I thought they were, they're, they're not what I thought they were. And then on the, on the, uh, on the, on the handy wipe. Here you are trying to put it on. Like, let me, I see somebody hanging from it and advertising. Maybe I can hang from it. Once again, you had this trust, but verify.
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: Trust but verify. And your verification went wildly wrong. But here again, Ian, you were inquisitive. Then when we got down to the question of your biggest F up, you said, uh, well, I became a president of an agency at a very young age. I left my mentor too soon. It failed. I had to fire people. I, you didn't say this.
I'm embarrassed. I'm sad because I have told these people, you are gonna be fine with my leadership. And it didn't work out that way. I. It might be the only thing I've heard you say in this time where you did not appear to be inquisitive about the move you just moved.
Ian Baer: Correct.
DC: Now as I'm looking at all, yeah.
Thank you brother. As I'm looking at all of these things together, you kind of brought it all together for me when you talked about and what's popping your DirecTV thing. Okay. Retention and churn. Well, churn, retention, problem and acquisition. And you're asking questions. You're inquisitive. Again, are we giving any incentives to people around here?
And if we are, what are those incentives? And then they say to you, well, what we're doing is we're re reducing call time by 30 seconds. And you're like, okay, that's the problem because you were inquisitive once again, so you got. Inquisitive when you started your career going to the library win, you got inquisitive about false advertising when you were a kid.
Win. Even though you hit your head win on how to get there, you got inquisitive on DirecTV. And every example you have given us has been about Ian being inquisitive. In fact, you said you, you used to watch these shows. I did as well cop shows with you. Uh, when you, when you were young and you, and you ask a question, what do we know?
What, what do, yeah, what, what do we know that's all about being inquisitive. So I believe in summary, all of this for you, Ian, is not an accident whatsoever because your name is Ian and it starts with the letter I, okay. It makes sense to me that Ian would be inquisitive, but that's not all you are. I believe that what you offer us, the 8 billion people on this planet that no one can do but you, is that Ian is a zealot of inquisitively, ingenuity and intuition.
It's those three "I"s together, I believe that make Ian special.
Ian Baer: I I, I wish I, I hope my mom's listening. I, um, you have to send it to her and my dad.
LT: Uh, give your se give your mom and dad shoutouts please.
Ian Baer: What I'm going to, you know, I, I am, it will not surprise you at all to know that I am the child of a fundraiser and a mad scientist, and, and they are both, thankfully, still with us.
So, you know, my dad's a, a crazy inventor and my mom has, you know, the most amazing, uh, social skills and, and ability to connect with people, uh, and I'll, they're, they're two fantastic people still kicking ass in their eighties. Mm. Uh, and, and I learned so much of what I know about life from the two of them.
So, absolutely.
LT: What are their names? Ian? What are their?
Ian Baer: Shirley and Steve.
LT: Shirley and Steve, hope you're hearing this. Uh, you got a, you got a incredible son that you've given the world here, Shirley and Steve, thank you.
Ian Baer: Well, you, you guys have been so kind and, and thank you for, uh, for everything you said.
I'm, um, I'm so happy to announce I'll be doing the show every week from point forward. I just need this like for as the, as the soul refill, you know?
LT: Well, Ian, we, we dare I say we do our, some what's popping episodes, we're gonna get, have to get Ian back on the show. Oh, yes. We're, we're definitely gonna get you back on and, uh, most definitely I'll with you guys anytime.
Before we sign off, Ian, we're about to sign off in a minute. Is there anything that you glean from our conversation that, uh, you want to, uh, mention before we, uh, get off the air here?
Ian Baer: Well, it, it, it does my heart good to know that you guys are out there doing the good work when it comes to the humanity of marketing.
There is such a focus on the numbers game and the numbers do not favor success. I told you, put your money in a slot machine.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Ian Baer: Or start doing things very differently, right. Because the way most people are doing marketing doesn't work. You gentlemen are disciples for good and, and that makes it an absolute pleasure to jam with you this way.
I really have appreciated this conversation.
LT: Thank you. This has been great fun for us too. That's a mic drop. And with that Jade, we're gonna go to the show close. So Brand Nerd, thanks for listening to Brands, Beats and Bytes the executive producers of Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin, 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.