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

Join Bob Pittman for more stories from the frontiers of marketing starting December 5th. And in the meantime, we'll be keeping the feed warm with a few bonus episodes. 

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From starting a poinsettia business as a kid, to making and selling her own greeting cards, Casa Dragones CEO and co-founder Bertha Gonzalez knew she was an entrepreneur from the start. But when she fell in love with the agave fields on a tour through Tequila, that's when she found her passion. In this episode, hear how Bob and Bertha decided to launch a tequila company together, why Bertha decided to place her brand around chefs and artists rather than traditional celebrities, and how locating the spiritual home of the product has helped guide so many of Casa Dragones' branding decisions. 

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You might know Walter Isaacson as a legendary biographer, or as the former Editor of Time, or as the Chairman and CEO of CNN ... but did you know he was a high school crime reporter for the Times-Picayune? Or that he was recruited to be in the CIA? Or that he actually invented the cable news ticker? This episode, Bob sits down with Walter to discuss why Ben Franklin and Steve Jobs aren't that different, why technology and job creation will always go hand in hand, and how curiosity has been the driving force in his career. 

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In this week’s episode, Bob sits down with David Zaslav to learn how the Discovery CEO and President grew a network of just three channels (Discovery, Animal Planet and TLC) to become an international media powerhouse. Learn why David believes brands shouldn’t cater to everyone, how he’s been strategizing for a future when “people can watch anything on any platform,” and what high school tennis taught him about outworking the competition. Plus, why David prefers Shark Week to Puppy Bowl!

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Few people can charm and foster connections the way MediaLink Founder, Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan does. Learn how Michael changed the media buying business by treating it like a mutual fund; why audio is finding its way into more media mixes these days; and why he thinks more businesses and agencies need to go to therapy before breaking up. Plus, Michael reveals the savviest business advice you might have overlooked on the Hamilton soundtrack!  

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Scott Hagedorn is CEO of Omnicom Media Group, but don’t let his C-suite title fool you. From why he started a snake wrangling business as a kid, to his stint fabricating Flying Barricudas, to  why a Wall Street guerilla artist is his greatest creative inspiration, Scott has a media story like no others. This episode, listen in as Bob and Scott chat about why more auto manufacturers could benefit from a “suppression strategy,” why the best advertising should have a little “wobble” in it, and why throwing a Halloween party in April is a good thing for your corporate culture.

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Bob sits down with UTA co-founder and CEO Jeremy Zimmer to discuss how fixing a chair got him his first real gig in Hollywood; why the best storytelling is rooted in empathy, and why UTA's podcasting division got such a jump on the rest of the industry (spoiler: it all comes down to company culture.) 

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David Solomon never thought he was a shoe-in to become Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. In fact, as a young man, he’d twice applied for jobs at the firm… and was rejected! Hear how Solomon has used his perch to change the culture of the company and make it demonstrably more inclusive, how he gets 38,000 global employees to row in the same direction and why he believes his summers as a camp counselor and his liberal arts education helped him to become a better leader. Plus— learn how his curiosity about the finances of a Vegas nightclub lured him into the electronic dance scene.

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Tom Freston has a rare skill: the ability to pair raw, creative visionaries with the establishment to create bigger and bolder ventures than either could dream up on their own. From his work at MTV and Viacom— creating a “hothouse” for nurturing talent and spreading TV networks  across the globe, to nudging Vice from a street magazine to an Emmy-winning news service and multimedia behemoth, learn why Freston thinks you need to stay humble, how owning the IP changed the game for MTV and Nickelodeon, and why not buying MySpace may be the smartest thing he did for his career.

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As a kid, there were some things Translation's founder and CEO Steve Stoute just knew: that there were 50 houses on his block (he used to count them!), that there was no job he wasn’t willing to do (from shoveling snow to delivering newspapers), and that the Bangles didn’t have to be classified as either black or white music. Hear how following his curiosity led him to the record business, why the Men in Black soundtrack was a revelation to marketers, and how building bridges and railing against the “fake metrics of segmentation” has made him the incredible success he is.

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