Marketing Upheaval

In Part 2 of our conversation with Pete Heid, we discuss a positive creative atmosphere and collaboration with younger team members.

Transcript:
Rudy Fernandez: In part two of my conversation with Pete Heid, he talks about a really cool internal process called collaborative journalism. We talk about stuff like fried chicken, pool floats and how to collaborate with younger team members and to prove it, he brings in a couple of younger team members to help him answer some questions. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval

Earcon: You're listening to Marketing Upheaval from Creative Outhouse.

Rudy:  So we both acknowledged, you know, production type of first you need to be creative and wait groups or work together. The role of PR agencies, he's ad agencies. When was the point when you sort of dawned on you, oh, Shit's changing.

Pete Heid:  Yeah, it's funny you asked that question. But I was at another agency and we were coming up with ideas and I remember the creative director said, I want ideas that um, don't feel like advertising. So we came up with those ideas and then when the client saw them, they just were ready to accept those ideas from a traditional advertising agency. And even though the ideas were sounding, you know, they definitely worked. They just weren't ready to do that. And I don't even know if we really knew how to sell the work. Cause it's like one thing to come up with the idea. It's another thing to tell. Well how do you sell it? How do you get people to talk about it? That's a whole nother thing. And how do you find the right, you know, it's not just finding the right idea, it's, it's almost like telling the right story at the right time and the right channels and the right channels.

Pete: So all those things when they come together, it's really cool. In fact, we do something here we call collaborative journalism and it acts just like a, almost like a traditional newsroom, but we have it for different brands. So like one of our clients, they want this kind of work will form this um, sort of group where it's account people and strategy people and creatives and we all get in the room and we just talk about different topics that are related to that field. So if it's in the food industry, there is a topic about food or there's a trend, we'll bring it up. Or if there's something in say, pop culture that's relevant, we'll bring that up and then we'll create things to talk about or stories to tell. We find these stories within the brand and we do that once a week and then we pitch them to the client.

Pete: And that's where that proactive thinking comes about. And you'd be surprised how much really good content comes out of these meetings. Billable. Well, I think there's a certain level and the investment that has to happen, but at the other end of it, you do have to get the client to pay for some of that. Sure. So if they're buying into this like collaborative journalism model, they, they, uh, have to offer some level of, uh, of investment themselves.

See the rest of the transcript and show notes here: www.creativeouthouse.com/part-2-pete-heid-on-a-creative-atmosphere-and-collaboration-with-younger-team-members

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In Part 1 of our interview with Pete Heid, Creative Director of Edelman in Atlanta, he talks about making the jump from a long career in advertising to a PR agency, how to spot a great idea and how to build a modern-day creative department.

Hey, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse, and on this episode of Marketing Upheaval, I talked with Pete Heid, the Creative Director of Edelman in Atlanta, and actually we made this two episodes. He had a lot of insights and I love talking about creative. In his first episode, he talked about making the jump from his long career at ad agencies to now working at a PR firm. He also talked about what he looks for when he's trying to build a modern creative department in this crazy changing world. Check it out. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

Welcome to Marketing Upheaval. My guest this episode is Pete Heid, Creative Director at Edelman. He's had a great career in advertising in traditional ad agencies and three years ago decided to go the PR route. Thanks for being on show, Pete.

Rudy: So first I got to ask you what made you decide to go from Ad Agency to PR Agency?

Pete: I actually get that question a lot from my advertising buddies. This is basically my answer. Advertising agencies were starting to act like PR agencies and I found that PR agencies were starting to act like advertising agencies. And when Edelman reached out to me, I felt like they were somewhere in the sweet spot in the middle. And it was from this space that I was seeing a lot of creative energy that was happening. It was producing all kinds of really cool work that really got me excited. Advertising didn't feel like advertising at Edelman. They had done some really good work. They had won a recently a Cannes award. So I saw that and I was like, God, if they're winning Cannes awards, I want to be part of that.

Rudy: Which one did you see?

Pete: So that was for a work that a San Francisco office did for Adobe. Okay, got it. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was pretty, it was pretty smart. And I'd never seen anything like that before. Yeah. But I didn't know I don't to was doing that kind of work. I was like, damn, I've been wanting to do that kind of work since I started, but we never really quite had the right opportunity. So that's kind of what brought me here.

Rudy: So we, we both grew up in advertising. So what is the difference, do you think right away when you came here, was there a difference between a creative department at a PR agency and let's take the creative department in an ad agency?

Pete: Oh yeah, most definitely. I think what I was seeing is that creative I'm in a PR agency was more of a support function. What do you mean? Well, uh, when I first got here and what I was told how things used to be was that, uh, the PR function, the PR practice would require, they would have ideas that were, requires some level of creative production and they would reach out to, they're almost like an in house agency at a company and a brand. And uh, of course they, that didn't interest me because that's not what I wanted to do here. Make this. Yeah, yeah. No, it's exactly, they would tell you how to think and you are just basically either hands. Yeah. And I remember when I first got here, uh, someone who told me just get used to not making things. I was like, what do you mean?

Pete: And they're like, you make a lot of decks, PR decks. And I was like, no, I, I'm not here for that. I'm here to make things.

See the full transcript here: https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/08/14/pete-heid-on-building-a-

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In Part 2, Alicia Thompson discusses how to prepare for and bounce back from losing a job and why PR has such bad PR..

Hey, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. In part two of my conversation with Alicia Thompson we talk about the biggest professional upheaval any of us can experience, losing your job. How do you bounce back from that and how do you prepare for it? Alicia also shares her thoughts on why PR has such bad PR. And lastly, we talked about the qualities of people who are in marketing and why we like them. Check this out.

Rudy: I want to talk to you about sensitive subject. I know we've talked about this before in terms of upheaval and you've experienced an enormous upheaval by the worst upheaval that we all have nightmares about in that you lost your job.

I travel around a lot, I've worked in a lot of different companies, and that is the single most unwritten fear everyone has. And of course it always is there. If you have a job, you're always worried about keeping the job. But the difference, and this is my opinion, the difference was always if I work hard, if I do my job, if I, unless we lose business, if I do what I'm supposed to do, I'm going to keep my job but ...

Alicia:               Not true anymore.

Rudy:               Now it's like, "Well guess what we just changed." Instead of, "We've had the strategic plan working for two years." Like, "No, we're going somewhere else." That's what I'm seeing and it sounds like you've experienced that very thing.

Alicia:               Yeah.

Rudy:               So, you want to talk a little bit about that?

Alicia:               Yeah. I mean it's become so commonplace and I can't tell you how many of my friends and colleagues were all in the same boat but yeah my job was eliminated in April and I think it's one of those situations where in the back of your head you always know it's a possibility but when you get called to the office in HR and say, "Your job's been eliminated." You have this moment of like, "Oh wait, wait, you're joking right? I wasn't expecting this." And then, you go to this moment of panic where like, "Okay." So then you start thinking about your, all these things go through your head within a ten second span and then you have one of two reactions and you either go, "Okay, I'm going to embrace this for what it is and let's talk about the financial part." Or, you have a meltdown.

Rudy:               Or you do both.

Alicia:               Or you do both, one first and then the other. And that's why one of the things I always tell young women, especially, when I speak is having your financial house in order. You can't predict the future. And I know kids graduate, kids, sound old, young people graduate from college and now they finally have income and they want to buy this. I'm like, "That old adage your parents tell you pay yourself first. It's really important." Because these days you don't know if you're going to have a job. You can be great at what do to your point and the next day you don't have a gig.

Alicia: Part of the other thing that was important to me is over the course of my career making sure I had built good relationships.
Full Transcript at: https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/08/07/part-2-alicia-thompson-on-job-loss-reinvention-and-bad-pr/

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Part 1 of our interview with Alicia Thompson, President of Signature Leadership and experienced PR and Ad leader discusses how brands like Wendy’s are reinventing themselves, crisis management and great women leaders.

Hey, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. Coming up on this episode of Marketing Upheaval is a great discussion with Alicia Thompson. Alicia has such brilliant insights, and maybe it's because she's worked in PR and advertising. She's been on client and agency sides, and she's worked for big companies, she's worked for small companies. In fact, she had so much fantastic insight, we had to make this two episodes. In this first episode, we talk about how some old brands are reinventing themselves. We talk about the new world for crisis managers, and women leadership in the industry, and what it takes to be a great leader. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

This is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse, and my guest this episode on Marketing Upheaval is Alicia Thompson. She's been in leadership roles at Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen, the Coca-Cola company, Edible Arrangements, and also for Edelman, Porter Novelli. If anyone has a complete view of marketing spectrum, it's Alicia. So thank you for being on the podcast.

Alicia:  Thanks for having me.

Rudy: So what do you think are the biggest changes going on here in the last five or 10 years from your point of view?

Alicia: There are a couple I think. First of all, I think it's the blurring of discipline lines. Like when I started in this so many years ago, PR was PR, and advertising was advertising, and digital was a blip in somebody's dream world. Then there was the creative side. What we found in the last few years is the lines between all of those disciplines has even blurred more than they had started to maybe 15 years ago. It's just marketing communications now, and there are no specific lanes to swim in. Everybody that works in this area has to be somewhat knowledgeable about all things, and it's interesting.

Rudy: We work with ad agencies who are PR agencies, but I've seen where there are ad agencies doing PR activations, there are PR firms doing videos.

Alicia: They have to to stay competitive.

Rudy: So where does that go? At what point does it become just one marketing agency?

Alicia: It has already started to do that. When I was at Edelman we had a very robust and were investing a lot of money in our creative shop, and hiring talent, and going after creative led business, and then buttoning on PR and other communications functions. We had a digital team, we have full robust digital team, we have social team. That was all completely separate from PR which is where Edelman has its roots.

Alicia: I think agencies and in house teams actually, the lines are becoming more blurred. I think other things that are changing or have changed in the space is innovation because we have to constantly innovate in listening tools and how we measure. Clients want to make sure that their investments have an ROI, and I think technology, the technology and the resources and the tools that this industry can use to prove its value has just grown exponentially.

Full transcript: https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/08/07/part-1-alicia-thompson-on-food-brands-crisis-and-women-leaders/

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On our first episode of Marketing Upheaval, CEO of Porter Novelli, Brad MacAfee joins us to talk about the role of a global purpose consultancy, new technologies in marketing and how millennials are changing corporate culture.

Marketing Upheaval is created and produced by Creative Outhouse in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hey, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse, and my guest this episode of Marketing Upheaval is Brad MacAfee, who was the CEO of Porter Novelli. Brad and I talked about the role of a CEO, and Porter Novelli's positioning as a purpose consultancy. We also spent some time talking about how to staff in this era when clients' needs are constantly evolving. How do you prepare for that? Well, listen in. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

With me is Brad MacAfee, the CEO of Porter Novelli. Now, Brad and I have known each other for a long time, and I've seen lead a practice, lead an office, be the head of PN North America, and now as a CEO of a global communications firm. If anyone has all the answers, it's him.

Brad:                I'm not sure about that, but it's great to be here with you, Rudy.

Rudy:               Thanks, Brad. I know you've had a lot of roles within PN, and you've been head of practice, you've been an MD, you've been a head of North America, and now the CEO. What is the primary role of a CEO? What does a CEO of a global communications company do? What's your biggest responsibility, you think?

Brad:                Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I don't think it's too complicated, really. I think it's about setting vision and inspiring, motivating those around you to embrace the vision, what you're trying to do as an organization, set that tone where we're going. I also believe that CEO has to be about building out the culture, and making sure that everyone lives the culture. I mean, lives it. If you have a set of values, how do you show up as an organization? In my role, I feel like I need to be the one who is an illustration of what it looks like to live those values each and every day.

Brad:                If Porter Novelli is a global purpose consultancy, as, how do I show up and demonstrate that as well, but truly, when you have such a great team, I think it's about setting vision and creating the culture, and then trying to inspire and motivate everyone to be as enthusiastic about that where we're going as I am.

Rudy:               Tell me about that, the global purpose consultancy. Porter Novelli I know has a history of, before it was called purpose, it was called social marketing, I guess. It was about helping clients that sought to improve the lives of the people they served. Tell me a little bit about Porter Novelli's evolution to that, calling yourself a purpose consultancy.

Brad:  Well, first off, thank you for that, because I will say that when you look at at the evolution, yeah, it was about social marketing or behavior change, and a lot of it was really focused in on that behavior change around a lot of public health or health issues, and how do you change somebody's eating behaviors?

Full transcript: https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/07/26/brad-macafee-on-purpose-and-evolving-client-needs/

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Join Rudy Fernandez, founder of Creative Outhouse, and hear marketing leaders talk about what’s changing, what’s working and why we shouldn’t panic. Each episode is an enlightening 30 minute conversation with experts from different industries and their personal stories.

Looking for a guest with marketing expertise? Our host, Rudy, is available as a podcast guest. Press Kit: https://creativeouthouse.com/contact-us

Show notes, images and episode transcripts at: www.creativeouthouse.com/podcast

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