Rob Reilly: “Be a fountain of ideas.”

Published Mar 28, 2024, 7:01 AM

How does one come up with great ideas? Some may think they’re random strokes of genius, but Rob Reilly knows it takes a mix of hard work and creativity–the truest embodiment of math and magic. Now the Chief Creative Officer of WPP, Rob built his stunning reputation on work that is memorable and buzzy, from campaigns for companies like American Express and Burger King to the “Fearless Girl” statue that still stands in Manhattan’s Financial District. These works weren’t strokes of genius. They emerged from decades of Rob tirelessly logging ideas and learning his business inside and out. Listen to hear Rob explain his creative process and reflect on some of the most important moments of his career, from the college party that landed him his first advertising job to the time he took a demotion and pay cut to improve his craft. 

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I think you need be a fountain of ideas. So I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I still write it down, I still pitch it. And I try to create environments where anybody can say anything without any judgment. And I think the best clients and the best relationships are you've set that process up together where you've created the environment for creativity to live.

I am Bob Pipman, and welcome to Math and Magic. Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we have someone who has been at the center of the magic of advertising and has been a creative leader in the advertising business, from reimventing Burger King to the Fearless Girl statue of Wall Street. He's Rob Riley, Global, Chief Creative Officer for WPP, the massive global advertising, marketing and communications company. Rob started out live ast Robert grew up in New Jersey, played soccer, was in a band, was a fighting blue hen in college, and even had an early job as a bartender. He won a slew of awards and has been a part of some of the greatest creative agencies. For a good reason, he makes extraordinary creative, and for that same good reason, he has chaired the can Lyons Awards show Jury four times, which, for those of you outside the industry, is like the Academy Awards of advertising. We got a lot to discuss today, Rob.

Welcome, Oh, pleasure to be here.

What I want to do now is get you in sixty seconds?

You ready? Perfect? Yeah? I'm ready. Do you prefer capture dogs? Neither?

But if I'm forced to choose one cats, city or country, I think city, though we live out in Shelter Island, which is a beautiful place, so getting to be a little bit more of a I don't know if a country, but more of an islander. Books are movies, I think.

I'll say audio books, amor FM.

Well, in college I worked at an AM radio station, so I'm going to say AM for all it was back then.

Don Draper or George Lois.

Don Draper, George Lewis. I met him once and he cursed at me in an elevator favorite TV show.

I'm gonna say Bevis and butneat.

Most exciting advertising campaign that you did not make.

Right the future, Nike, Let's jump into the meat.

Let's talk about developing creative ideas as we've discussed on math.

And magic before.

And I'll take my own personal experience that creative ideas for me are just sudden epiphanies. I think about the issue and then I forget about it, and in the middle of the night or often in the morning, when I'm taking that nice, hot meditative shower, answers just pop in my head out of nowhere. And by the way, David Eagleman, the neuroscientists who's been on this podcast, it has theories and talks about why that is.

But how do you.

Develop new ideas and what's your creative process?

For people like me my kind of creative process, it's so much a process. It isn't just come up with while the idea is the briefing part of advertising is the thing that's most underrated for successful creative work. When you have a brief that's clear and pointed in inspiring, you have first and many steps of making great work.

I always tell.

Clients, listen, this brief is not for you or I. This brief is for that junior team that has to show Rob Riley work at nine am and it's midnight. And if that brief is convoluted long eight point type on a page versus twelve point type. If it's trying to do too many things, it's going to be a nightmare. How do we make that brief the best friend? And the way you do that is you've got a very simple ask. It's going to solve some tension that's out there in culture. And when this idea lands in culture, what's the thing that the press writes about? What's that thing people love share and spread. That's the entire process. It started years ago at an agency called Kryst and Bagusky. We called it's the press release process. And when the idea lands in culture, what's that story the press will write about? And if you can't figure that out and a sentence or two, there's no way you're going to be able to make an entire campaign that's going to pop in culture. And we did it to help young teams compete with senior teams on big projects like launching a Windows ten to the world. It's really hard for young people to take that and figure it out. So I try to simplify things by creating that process, and I still use it today. It's evolved to what's that thing people love share and spread through the Internet through on social But it's a very simple thing. If I can't imagine it what it's going to be when it lands in culture, then it's probably not going to be a great idea.

So you've got a really good process, and it sounds like you're very thorough, very thoughtful about it, and you wind people up and say, Okay, this is what we've got to do. It's got to accomplish these things. It's got to really impact culture. But the idea has got to come from somewhere. How does that idea hit you or hit other creatives?

People? Oh, fear that you won't have an idea.

I don't like to use fear as a motivator, but I think for each individual person, like you do wake up thinking am I going to have any more ideas? And I think you need to be a fountain of ideas. So I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I still write it down, I still pitch it, and I try to create environments where anybody can say anything without any judgment. And I think the best clients and the best relationships are you've set that process up together where you've created the environment for creativity to live.

We talked about George Lois, and you told me your George Lois story. George Lois created Don't Want My MTV. And I had lunch with George when mad Men first came out, and he goes, that's not me. We spent a lot of time at lunch on me that wasn't him, which meant it was probably more him than not. But it was interesting with George Is. George was not afraid to revive old advertising ideas. As a matter of fact, I Want my MTV was actually I want my Maypo And when George pitched it to me, he said, look, this was really successful for Maypo. I think this is what we need because our goal was we had cable companies that did not want to put MTV on because they wanted us to pay them. We didn't have any money to pay them, and we had this very crazy audience. We said, well, we can enlist them to go sort of get consumer pull for this. And so he wasn't afraid to go back and use it. But I saw him throughout a lot of his work and others as well, go back in mine great ideas from the past place for you and that or do you have another point of view?

Well, everything is rived of off everything, right, I don't think there's too many original ideas. Years ago at Crispin to promote a Burger King chicken sandwich, we came up with this idea called the Subservient Chicken. But it was a guy in a chicken suit responding to commands. There's been a million things with people in chicken suits, right, But until you do it and put a twist on it and make it just that's weird enough, then that's what it becomes special. So now what George did, I don't know if you can get away with it now. I mean he literally took the exact sam campaign he made decades before and just put it into MTV. I actually give him a lot of credit for not worrying about what people might think of, like, oh, you stole your own idea, because it was the right idea for.

MTV at the time.

I mean, that campaign, you could say, is probably a big reason why MTV was successful. I mean I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the first d a MTV came was and it was a Saturday afternoon, I believe I was in Long Island, New York at my aunt and uncle's house watching this thing come on, and I remember like it was yesterday. So in some ways, like I give George Lowis a lot of credit for being brave enough or not caring enough. But I think his style, but like the style of being gruff and maybe yelling a bit more like those days are gone. You can't get away with it now, Like you really have to be more of a charming provouct You need to charm your own people, your coworkers and your clients with charm them with wit, intelligence, caring about their business where that they care, knowing about their business more than they do, then you could be provocative. The days of throwing chairs at clients or at teams or those are gone. It's a much different world and you've got to figure out how can you be successful in that style of business. And I'm not necessarily a yell or screamer, but you know I did a lot of coaching from ten to fifteen years ago where you know, I was intense and you know, didn't care about people's feelings as much. So I think it's a new kind of creativity that you know, would be interesting if George could survive in this day and age.

Let's take that note of the past. At the dawn of the century, you were the acting chief creative officer at Hill Holiday and you took up sixty percent pay cut to change jobs and become just a copywriter at Crispin Porter. Clearly it all worked out. Why did you take that risk and what lesson did you learn?

Well?

I had worked for this amazing boss named David Weekle, and he was the chief graative officer and they parted ways, and I was one of the more senior people there, but not very senior at all, and they said, well, maybe you can step in temporarily while we search for a new CEO. Might have been some discussion if you want to throw your hat in the ring to be that person. And I kind of realized that I had all the skills of a great creative director without maybe the work of a great creative director. And I did want to end up being a New York creative at a certain age that kind a giant salary, but didn't have the work where people would follow you. So I ended up going down to Crispin Porter and Buguski at the time probably one hundred and twenty people, sort of getting known for doing some really interesting national work for smaller clients, and I pitched Alex Buguski, now my current wife, my only wife, but she was my girlfriend the time she was working there, so I had a connection. But Alex wasn't going to hire me just because I was the boyfriend. Maybe in fact, didn't necessarily want some guy from New York who had all the wrong sort of closed and was a big creative director from New York City come down to his agency in Miami.

That was really small type culture.

But I knew that's the kind of work I needed to be part of, because in the end, you don't necessarily just follow people. You follow people because of the work they've done. And I had all the skills of being able to present and good with clients and maybe good with teams, but I didn't have enough creative work that I thought was like culture changing that was going to get me to a long term career. So I took a few steps back. But it wasn't the easiest ride. When I got there, I was the guy from New York. Everybody's in flip flops and shorts. I'm here in the produc boots in black. I stood out like a sore thumb and about thirty days into it, Alex calls me in his office said, listen, man, I love the work you're doing. I think you're fantastic. Here's the problem. No one else likes you. So I thought he would say, it doesn't matter as long as I like you. He said, that's the opposite. I can't have one guy who ruined the culture. So you got to figure out how to get people to like you. And long story short, I ended up going back and deciding, like, you know what, I'm just going to shut my mouth and sit in the corner and crank out work.

And that's what I did.

And then once you start making work, people respect. That was the beginning of building a body of work that I'm really proud of at every level. Copywriter, creative director, CEO, creative chairman. To down with WPP, head of a holding company.

Well, you know, let's go back in time for a second. Why didn't they like you? What were you doing?

Why didn't they like me?

Well?

I probably had the wrong clothes.

I had an incredibly intelligent, smart, beautiful girlfriend who's now my wife and doing all the amazing work.

And I was a boyfriend from New York.

I came from a big New York ad agency and it wasn't quite fitting in the culture. And I think, growing up in New Jersey like we're loud. And when I went and told my wife that Alex said that people didn't like me, her response was, why don't you just try shutting up and doing the work, you know, like you're the problem. So I was taught a lesson early on to shut my mouth and do the work. And when you have the work, you get the respect.

Well that's a great lesson. And ten years later you were the chief creative officer of Crispin Porter. So it all worked out. Yeah, it all worked out. You continued to succeed. You went on to be Global Creative Chairman at a McCann, a worldwide group from twenty and fourteen to twenty twenty one, and then on to WPP in your current role. Everyone knows the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street.

What's this story?

It's a great story because State Street Global Advisors was an account that McCann had for a few years and hadn't been known for doing such great work. But when I went to McCann, the first thing I did to turn around an agency that maybe hadn't been doing as well as they had hoped. Was let's put an attainable goal in place, and we called it three for All, and it was, how do we create three magical pieces every year for every client in every office and this way everybody is responsible for contributing to hopefully the creative turnaround that McCann eventually achieved a process, and I think three magical pieces a year is pretty attainable and you don't rely on just one account making the famous work. Every account has to deliver. And state ttreat was probably one of the most challenged. It's because it's a financial company based in Boston, a great company, but not known for doing very bold work all the time. But at the end of the year, we didn't really have three pieces of work that we could hold up and say these are our best three pieces of work for State Street. And someone said, well, they got this amazing fund called the She Fund, where you can invest in female lead companies. Because State Street realized they were part of the problem with the lack of female leadership on Wall Street. They created a fund where you can invest in female lead companies, and they put pressure on companies to put more females on their board. So of course an easy thing for us to do was to do a print ad about it. But you know, we brought the print at but then here's thirty more ideas and one of the ideas was not necessarily a Ferals girl.

The idea is to put a.

Female bowl in front of the male bowl. And amazing team Lizzie and Tally came up with the idea with the help of Eric Silver, who was the CECO of North America. And you know, they kept coming in my office saying, oh, we love this idea, and I'm like, okay, okay.

Go for it.

And of course the clients that we love the idea, but you know, we're just not comfortable with it. And the reason they're not comfortable with it because there's no such thing as a female bull. It's a cow, right, And that's why, you know, as a CEO, you really have to let people, if they're so passionate about something, go try and sell it. But what they didn't necessarily realize was it wasn't necessarily the bull or the cow that was going to be the thing people talk. It was the standoff. It was the standoff to the charging bull, which had become the sort of the symbol of the misogyny on Wall Street, if you will, right, So I said to him, go back and let's see if there's another way to cut this. And they came back and threw a lot of brainstorming and came back with little girl or hands on her hips, staring down the bowl. We called it Fearless Girl, to match the cadence of charging bull meet Fearless Girl. And then we bought two weeks of space in front of the bowl. We built out cobblestone so to sort of match the cobblestone, and we said we got two weeks for.

This to hit.

And I knew that it would hit, and I knew once the world and the city fell in love with her. And again, remember Hillary did not win the presidency, so there was a lot of angst in the world certainly around this. So that it came at the perfect time. We launched around International Women's Day, and the rest is history.

You know.

The interesting part of this, Bob is that she was causing a lot of traffic with the bull. The bull itself always causes traffic, but then with feral Scirl, it really was causing a bit of a traffic concern. So the city came to us and said, oh, we need to move feral Scroll and like we're going to move her wherever. We want to move her to a park. It's like no, no, no, no, We'll move her to Germany or to Tokyo, to London.

They all want her.

There's only one place she goes, and that's standing in front of the New York Stock Exchange. And if you go there today, she stands in front of it and faces the entrance.

You know it doesn't front it.

So when those stockbrokers leave every day, they got to see here and remember to do the right thing.

More of Math and Magic right after this quick break. Welcome back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from my conversation with Rob Riley. I want to go back in time a little bit to get some context on you. You grew up in Jersey in the seventies and eighties. Can you paint a picture of those times and how you grew up? What was your environment?

Just awesome, Bob News Jersey is awesome that you know. We get hit a bit sometimes. I don't know where you're from, Bob.

But U Mississippi, Jersey wrote, Mississippi hitting New Jersey. Mississippi gets Yeah, you get, you get.

A couple of a couple of shots.

You know you've done.

Quite well for a guy from Mississippis So Jerseys gets a little bit of the same.

Uh.

We always seem like we're scrappy and fighting. I'm actually mostly Italian. My mother's side was all Italian and my father's Irish and German. But even though my last name is Riley, I grew up mostly Italian with my grandmother ten minutes away and the sauce on the Sundays.

That whole thing is.

Very much a big part of my life, and I grew up in an environment with that was very positive. Grew up in the same house for my entire life. My father worked for IBM. Years later I realized he turned down probably ten promotions. IBM used to be known for I've been moved. The only way he got promoted was moving, and he turned down ten promotions so the family could grow up in the same household. You know, sacrificed a lot. So it's not lost on me the sacrifices my parents made for their kids to grow up in the same place with the same friends and same sports teams and that comfortable environment that I don't think a lot of kids often get, certainly these days where you.

Have to move a lot. Your parents clearly had a huge impact on you. What lessons do you still use today that came directly from your parents?

My parents and also my grandparents. My mother's father was an artist.

When he was young, he was a semi pro hockey player, was in the Rangers farm system, and he was about to go pro with the Rangers, and he chose to be an artist instead because he thought it would be a better way to make money.

Isn't it ironic now?

But as an artist, you know, he was very talented, but also it wasn't a guarantee that you're going to make money, So he ended up working in an advertising gains he's as a retoucher. He made money or support his family by being a retouch or in advertising. That story always stuck with me. Just because you want to be an artist, or you train to be an artist, doesn't mean you're going to be successful. You know, creativity is to crashoot. Sometimes you need luck, you need people helping you, but you need that hard work. So I always had that in the back of my mind. Is like Hey, I want to go into advertising. You know, once I started realizing I wanted to be a copywriter, It's like, this isn't a guarantee. I got to work that much harder and I've got to do everything that would give you a leg up. When I used to have this presentation I called creativity is the only way to survive. And I think my own life, in my own career, is that I'm always figuring out ways like how do I keep surviving and thriving in this world? And part of it is like always waking up thinking like it could be gone tomorrow, I could fall out of favor. That's the thing artists always struggle with, is like you put all this time and effort into it, doesn't mean it's going to turn into a success.

You went to college at University of Delaware, the Fighting Blue Hens. Why there and what did you get from your college experience?

Well, listen, Jill and Joe Biden, come on, We've got some pretty famous.

People who went to the University of Delaware.

It's interesting Delaware another state that gets a lot of shots, right.

You know, my mother didn't like to fly.

We didn't go on many vacations outside of the Northeast area. So when I was choosing schools, it's really like I didn't want to be so far that my mother couldn't come visit me. And I was a soccer player, pretty good one in high school and Delaware as a team is Division one team, and I liked the coach and he liked me, and I ended up going there to play soccer and then ended up quitting, you know, after two years because I just wasn't playing.

It was frustrating.

You played Division in sports, you're working that hard and if you're not playing it, you're like, why am I doing this? I'm not a quitter. But it did allow me to do other things. Work at a radio s work at an ad agency in Wilmington. So I think that choice I made, even though I look back on and say, I wish I would have finished that out and maybe I could have turned it around, but it allowed me to do things that maybe have put me in this position. So I think I got team mentality from being part of a high level team for a very short time. But then I got the experience working in an ad agency. Wow, you know, I fell in love with advertising from that. So I feel like it all kind of always works out.

So how did you get your first job in advertising?

This is a great story. I lived in the Rugby House on the main road at the University of Delaware. A bunch of rugby guys, you know, there were my roommates. And see, the Rugby guys would throw parties every once in a while. And one Saturday afternoon, we're having a party. It's on the main road and it looks crazy, and all of a sudden, the sky in a Porsche stops.

And said, Hey, what's going on. I'm like, I don't know. We're having a party. What does it look like? And I go, why are you here? It's like, ah, you know, just driving by. It looks like fun.

And I go, what do you do You're in a Porsche And he goes, I own an advertising agency. I go, oh, I work at a radio station and I'd love to learn more about advertising. And I struck up a conversation with him and gave me his card. I called him, and then right out of college I ended up working for him as an account executive. He did not owe Gladstone and Quinn was the agency. Tom Quinn was the guy. I owed that guy a lot. He gave me a shot get into advertising, learning it, but I was an account guy at the time. I wasn't a copywriter. I wanted to be one, but I didn't really know how to do it. Yeah, that was the first job. So throw parties on your front lawn. You never know how it changes your life.

So let's jump a little bit to present day. How do you understand the consumer? We recently did a study along with Malcolm Gladwell comparing Real America to marketing folks, and wow, big divisions really sort of like you know, electric moment for all of us. The study did stuff like, what are two things you can't give up? Marketers and Real America agree on snacking, but mark say I can't give up online shopping. Consumers say I can't give up podcast. When you look at basic values being a little more serious about it, the American public, two things that are very important that are really missing from the marketers world is religion and the military. And so it's a number of things like that. It just says, wow, we're talking past each other on a lot of stuff. And I admit I'm one of those people. I live in this bubble. But we really try and understand the real America that we're talking to. How do you avoid living in a Marketer's bubble and staying connected to real consumers.

So you got to read a lot of newspapers, You got to lead a lot, read a lot of things online, listen to a lot of podcasts. You try to listen to things that not necessarily about your own industry.

But I don't know.

I think it's a lot of how.

You've been brought up and grown up.

I had an amazing parent, but you know, money wasn't always plenty and saw struggles, and like a lot of families within America, grew up, you know, knowing that my parents are working their ass off to put their kids through college, to do all those things. I don't think you forget that. So that keeps me grounded. But I don't know. I think sports is the greatest of the connectors, you know, because you could be rich, you could be poor, you could be from the city, you could be from the country. But like man, you are pulled together by sports. So I spend a lot of time. My wife probably thinks I spent too much time with sports, but I do think it is the great connector because I might be in an elevator of someone and strike up a conversation, and sports is always that thing that connects you and allows you to start to get to know to people and hear what they're really caring about and thinking about. I don't think we're that different, and if you go globally, people are pretty similar to Everybody wants to have a great life for their family, do well, enjoy life a bit, and we're not that different.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that about the stories. When I was a young man, I rode motorcycles a lot with a group of friends and we did a lot of trips. We did two cross country trips, one in nineteen ninety two one in nineteen ninety four across the two lane highways across America.

Won the Northern route, won the Southern route.

And when I came back from that trip, what struck me the most is everybody wants to talk to you, and if you just shut up and listen to them, they're going to tell you a lot of stuff you don't know. And through the years, I've been a pilot since I was a kid, and when I had smaller planes, I couldn't make it a long distance without stopping for fuel, and every time i'd stop for fuel, I would try and borrow a crew car and go into town just to see the town, no matter where that town was. And I sort of missed that at my age now because I don't do as much of it. But boy do you learn a lot. Let's jump to corporate culture. How do you build it and how do you use it?

All the CEOs of all our companies we have a monthly get together, mostly virtual because people are in different places. And I said, don't forget to tell everybody, Hey, yeah, it's always a tough year. Like advertising it, it's always tough, right, but you can't forget to thank people and let them know that they've done it, great job and accomplish so many things.

It's easy to focus on the negatives.

It's much harder focused on the positives, you know, and how do we celebrate those things more so? I think that's how you build the culture. You just remind people like we've come a long way, done a lot.

Of amazing things.

We're seen as the most creative company and advertising we're seen as one of the best places to work because I think people want to come work for creative places. I think We're constantly having to prove the value of creativity.

We're out there championing it.

So I think the reminding people like the job they have is such a great one because one it's different every day. Two, creativity really is the world's most valuable asset. And your agents for that and agents for helping brands be really meaningful in people's lives. And I've said this many times that listen, it's brands that are filling in for governments that just can't afford to help people, which was the original point of government was set up to help people. Well, we've not forgotten it, but but we've got so many challenges. Is like, brands have really filled in the void sometimes and it's really a great honor to do. And I think we forget that we do have a big job, and so I try to focus on the positives and create that kind of culture.

What's your philosophy? Own business is doing good for the world we'd live in.

There's not enough of it, and I hope we don't get tired of pushing it. More than ever. People need help. So many people need help. And if a brand is out there that can help people and it's born out.

Of their DNA.

It's not some barred interesting like why wouldn't we help it? I think it should be a real serious part of people's marketing, purpose led marketing, because I think young people are looking at brands and if you're not doing the right thing, so they just won't use they use somebody else. And so I do think it's it's important that we don't forget that brands can really be positive in people's lives and fill in when governments maybe can't get the job done.

You and I were on the radio as teenagers. I'm doing a podcast and now you're a podcaster. What drew you to this medium and what is surprise you most about audio and podcasting.

Well, it's a great question because I have two people that work closely with, Alex and Jonathan, and they are the producers and they run comms also. But Jonathan comes from the world of TV and he was filling in here. He lives in Singapore, but he's actually moving here and running in North America for US. But he kept pushing me into doing things, into doing more things out there. And I was on the Today Show talking about the Super Bowl last year, and he said, you need to do a podcast.

I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this. Too many podcasts. You know, everybody's doing a podcast.

But Mark had also said Mark Reid it said, listen, we need to put out more content for our teams, and you know you need to do more. I said, well, I'll do a town hall. He's like, well, we already have a town hall. What else can we do? So a podcast seem like a real natural way for me to connect with one hundred and fifteen thousand WPP employees. So the rest of the world if they listened to it, great, but it's really done for our own employees because one, we have so many talents people within our walls that do so many great things, and how do we tell their stories? But again, a chance for people to hear from me bi weekly through different guests about what I believe in and the kind of creativity I'm looking for, and different people's stories. And if people are out there who haven't gotten to advertising and they feel like, oh, that sounds like a cool business and we attract more diverse talent, then it's really done its job. So I'm liking it. I didn't love it at first, but Alex and Johnathan convince me to keep doing it, and I quite like it.

Now.

Welcome to our world AI. We can't talk without mentioning AI friend or foe.

Oh friend, Oh my god, such a friend.

I think what's been removed from our business a bit, bob, And this is just from a creative person standpoint within advertising, because of course it's going to make production more efficient, and it's already making media more efficient, but it's going to allow creative people to experiment faster and fail a bit. You know, what's been removed is the time and money to experiment and fail, and that's such a part of the creative process. And I think is allowing designers to look at looks that would have taken a week to have it done in a couple hours and to take inspiration from that. But I do think in five years and s is why WPP has bet so hard on creativity and bet so much on creativity, is that AI is going to put a lot of mediocrity out into the world. A lot of companies a will be able to put out things at scale. So the brands that bet on creativity and the talent and the agencies that it takes to create those breakthrough ideas are going to be the ones who win because that's what's going to be needed. So I'm a fan of it. It's just like the digital camera in the computer. I mean, there used to be art directors back in the eighties and nineties when the computer was first introduced, and who said I'm never going to use a computer.

I draw everything. Well, those people do.

Not exist, and I think AI is going to be the same. If you're a creative person in advertising, you better learn it, understand it, at least be able to judge it. Because AI won't replace creative people, but creative people who are masters of AI eventually will replace creative people who just haven't embraced it. And for all the things that it brings you.

It's time for some advice. If someone wants to be the next you, what advice would you give them?

Well, I don't know why they would want to be the next me, But if someone wants to be maybe this successful in the CEO role, right, because it's different than a copywriter and even different than a creative diduct you really have to be good at everything. You don't necessarily have to be great at anything, but you really have to understand everything. They're writing the art direction to design, the media part, the business side of it, the relationship side of it, how to sell to people in a way that feels that they're not being sold to, and how to provide inspiration and influence and leadership. If you're not down with all of those things, you won't be successful, you won't be happy. Because this job isn't just sitting in your office and looking at ideas and saying yes or no. It's a lot of relationship building. There are very smart clients on the other side that are under so much pressure, and our jobs is like relieve that pressure, like by bringing them bold ideas that will lead to widely successful business results. You know, that are based in their DNA as a company and have smart strategies behind it. Like, that's a lot of work that isn't just throwing you know, darts at a dartboard or playing ping pong and drinking beers to come up with crazy ideas. And maybe mad Men has done that a bit, but Don Draper wasn't doing that, And you know he was the CCO of that company. Don Draper was dealing with clients a lot and dealing with the pressures of that but he embraced a lot of it and maybe solved it with too many scotches on the rocks. But I think that's the part that people don't quite understand about being the CEO. It's so much about creativity, but it's so much more and being that hopefully inspirational leader for people when they needed the most clients included.

As we wrap up, we always end with a shout out to the best of math and magic, out to the greatest person you know know of who is the expert in the analytics or the math side of the business. And the other shout out goes to the best magician, the creative type. Can you give me a year two?

Well, there's a woman that she just left recently, McCann. She was my creative strategy partner. Her name is Suzanne Powers, and there's no one better at strategy than her, no one better at looking at the data and then turning it into inspirational insights and briefs. And she's by far the mathemagician because she uses data analytics and analyzes all types of research and then delivers such inspiring ways for us to go creatively. The magic part, it's not necessarily a choice that most people would do. But there's this woman named Debica Bulchandani who's now the CEO of Ogilvy. We work together at McCann and we talked about fearal S Girl.

She's the reason it got sold.

And I think the people that are either CEOs or account people don't get a lot of credit for being magicians. And she's a magician and how she sells work to clients and how she really understands their needs and turns it into assignments for us and really can take an idea and say, well, here, I know I didn't come up with it, but this might make it better. So it's not necessarily a choice of the Bill Burnbacks or the David Ogleby's or the Dan Widens of the world. But I do think when you find a business person or a CEO or an account person that understands creativity so deeply and then can sell these ideas and figure out how to get them made, that to me is the real magicians of our business.

Rob so great having you with us. Thanks for the stories and the insights and nice to hear from someone at the top of their game.

Thanks Bob, You're a legend and This has been like one of the biggest honors I've had, and I was happy to do it.

Here are a few things I picked up from my conversation with Rob one. Write down all your ideas. Ideas are our lifeblood, especially when you're talking about the magic side of marketing. Create a system for logging all your ideas, especially your wildest ones. You never know when an old thought might lead to the next great innovation.

Two. Do the work.

When Rob had the opportunity to rise to an executive level early in his career, he went the opposite direction. He decided to build out his portfolio as a copywriter so he could prove his talent and build credibility before becoming a leader. Dedicating time to doing the real work of your job will help you understand your business and craft better. Building that foundation will make you a better and well respected leader in your career.

Three.

Break out of your bubble. Pursue information that's outside your daily environment and personal interest. There's a huge gap between the values of marketers and major cities and those of consumers all over the country. Get out of your comfort zone and take in new information. Read things you usually wouldn't learn about a new industry for visiting new place, think about what bridges the gap, and use those values.

In your work to speak to a large audience.

I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.

That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Mathematics producers are Emily Meronov and Jessica Crimechitch. It is mixed and mastered by Baheed Fraser. Our executive producers are Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course a big thanks to get Ale, Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,

Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing with Bob Pittman

How do the smartest marketers and business entrepreneurs cut through the noise? And how do they mana 
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