Dillon Snyder (00:00:00):

Complexity gets in the way of the storytelling. I thinkthat's where being laser focused in. Is the idea simple enough to get, is itgoing to be memorable? And is it trying not to do too much? You want to try togive them as many messages as possible. That's generally the wrong approach. Ithink simplicity is the hardest thing. Finding that sweet spot and notoverthinking something and not watering down something. You're going to end up,I think seeing creative get the performance hereafter

Cole Heilborn (00:00:32):

On this podcast. We go behind the scenes with industryexperts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works.If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry,this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers.Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing podcast. My name is Cole Heilbornorn.Today I'm sitting down with Dillion Snyder, the creative director at VailResorts. Dillion, good to see you.

Dillon Snyder (00:00:53):

Good to see you too. Thanks for having me. I'm excited forthis conversation.

Cole Heilborn (00:00:57):

Likewise. So when you and I first connected, I don't knowif it was when the first minute or the first 10 minutes that we were talking,you said, I have this idea, I want to hit the reset button on creative, what itmeans to be creative. And here we are. We're going to dive into this topicabout hitting the button on creative and really trying to unpack what you meanby that. What is the problem that you are seeing, and I don't know, hopefullytry to give a little, provide a roadmap perhaps for the industry to try and getourselves out of this creative rut that perhaps we're in Dillion, give me thethesis statement. Why is this something you think about? Why is this somethingyou want to talk about?

Dillon Snyder (00:01:39):

Yeah, I think the big high level thesis statement is thattalking with friends in the industry, seeing the industry after being in it forabout 20 years, both on agency side and now on the brand side, that there's somany similar conversations happening and whether that's if you're a creative,whether that's a brand marketer, but we seem to just keep going year after yearon the same cycle. So trying to break some of those cycles and maybe break downsome of those barriers that I believe are getting in the way of just getting tocreativity, not just creative, but creativity in brand marketing.

Cole Heilborn (00:02:23):

So you've been doing this 20 years and you've seen thissame cycle for the last 20 years?

Dillon Snyder (00:02:28):

I would say it's been slowly growing, so I've been as,especially new technologies, as new media has come in as we try to scale brandsbecause there's so many new media placements we have to hit, especially in thedigital space, that brands are struggling to keep up, trying to keep theirbrand as relevant as possible at all times. I think also trying to balance,looking at the data, looking at how things are performing, trying to optimize,you got AB testing optimizations, so you're always trying to put all theseinputs together and in the end you get something generally kind of homogenizedas what we call creative or the creative output. There's character count limitsthat are limiting your creative, and we spend so much time focusing on some ofmaybe those harder working tactics we'll say, versus taking a step back andlooking at like, well, what story do we want to tell to our audience?

(00:03:36):

And then when I look at it, I see obviously there's acreative perspective and most creatives want to take that grand storytellingapproach, push the limits, find the edges of where brand storytelling is, andthen obviously brand marketers might have a different opinion that and pull itback. And I think it's trying to find where both can be satisfied to help eachother get to the places they want to get to. So yeah, so over my career as ayounger creative, always maybe more frustrated in the why didn't that idea orthat concept or why wouldn't they take a risk on that being the stakeholders orclients. And then as I've grown realizing, especially being on the brand sidenow, I'm like, oh, I can easily see why an agency idea might've fallen down orwasn't presented. And so many of those great ideas do get lost just based on Ithink the translation from either agency or creative to brand marketer and backand forth.

Cole Heilborn (00:04:43):

Okay, man, there's so much to unpack there. So I guesslet's, I dunno, let's put a disclaimer out there before we dig in. So is thisconversation just going to be two people who love great creative griping aboutgreat creative or the lack of creative when you're talking amongst friends andcolleagues about this problem that you're seeing out there? Is it just creativepeople? I don't want this to be a conversation, just creative people, justcomplaining.

Dillon Snyder (00:05:11):

Yeah,

Cole Heilborn (00:05:12):

No. Who are the people that you talk to who exceed thisproblem and see what the cost of this problem truly is beyond just a directoror a photographer who wants to make something rad?

Dillon Snyder (00:05:25):

Yeah, I think, and that's where I think even speaking tocreatives is kind of growing beyond that, Hey, my idea didn't happen. I don'tthink it's about that at all. I think there's a ton of costs at it. Soobviously the cost of doing the work, the cost of everyone's energy to get acreative from brief to execution and ensuring the vision still holds up. Sowhile being flexible on growing that and growing that in the right reason. Soyeah, I take it more, I'm taking it from a point of view of hopefully bringingworlds together a little bit. So definitely not a creative, I'm frustrated thatmy creative didn't go forward and more so realizing that it's this idea ofbuilding together and getting out some of the practices that I think hold usback as creatives, as pure creatives. And then also then how to translate thatcreative into a commercial product that's actually sellable.

(00:06:28):

Helping tell that story of a brand and having theinfluence I think we want it to have. So definitely taking it from the creativepoint of view of man creatives, we hold stuff so tight, so precious, and it'slike, no, I don't think that's the way of doing it. I think it's really ofstepping back and saying, how can we help maybe bridge some gaps or tear downsome walls and say, yeah, a brand marketer is going to have some expertisethat's going to help move a creative idea forward, and then we're going to respondto that and react to it, versus maybe saying like, oh, I don't believe in thatdirection forward. So that's where I think being on the internal side, seeingthat, hey, I've been really enjoying it because we have pure access to ourstakeholders to say, Hey, what about this idea is half baked?

(00:07:21):

Help me land this idea in your world and what you'reseeing. So that's where I see it going from a creative perspective of whetheryou're in internal shops or whether it's an agency side of really we're movingsome of the, I guess pomp and circumstance of how the big presentation andgetting more into being comfortable building more with raw creative ideas andevolving them down the road. Because I think ultimately creatives will feelmore satisfaction and brand markers will feel more satisfaction of seeing thoseideas come through together. Because if you get too far down an idea, then whenyou have to either backtrack or pivot, it feels like you're walking away fromsomething that you really hold dear and precious.

Cole Heilborn (00:08:09):

So with that out of the way, let's dig in. So you'vecalled a lot of the creative that gets produced out there, the equivalent ofyellow page ads. Can you take us back to how did we start, why did we startproducing Yellow page ads? Can you take us back to the inception or what youthink is maybe the inception point for where we are now as an industry?

Dillon Snyder (00:08:32):

Yeah, no, I will definitely define this. And funny enough,just last Friday I got a yellow page book in the mailbox, which I was like, Ididn't even think they still made these things. So obviously, all right, theconcept of yellow page ads, obviously the yellow pages, the old phone book, theyellow pages being where all the businesses would put their ads, you'd have bigones, ones you generally would want to name your company something like a-listplumbing or whatever. So you're at the front of the yellow pages. So reallythere's not a lot of creativity. It's filling this space and you would flip towhat you needed when you needed it and you would call the plumber or theelectrician or whatever service you were looking for. I think in this day andage, saying things, especially paid social display ads, they've been, as wewere talking about just a minute ago, they've been, the character counts havebeen crushed down.

(00:09:38):

You have 30 characters, which again is almost like an oldnewspaper way of thinking. You have your paying by letter. So we're replicatingmodels that were very, I would say commodities and we're commoditizingcreativity there. So you're really just putting words and pictures together andobviously this is at an effort to try to service your message to as many peopleas possible in the spaces they're frequenting. And I see a need form, I'm notsaying get away from display or some of these lower funnel tactics, but I justsee so many brands putting so much energy into creating them where they shouldalmost be an always on thing. And I think when we put all that energy intocreating these lower funnel tactics, we're missing the opportunity to say, whatis the problem we're really trying to solve here? Because I don't know if adisplay ad or a paid media ad is going to necessarily always solve that ifthere's so many limitations on it.

(00:10:40):

It's more of keeping your brand top of mind, just likeBill Yellow Pages keeping your brand top of mind. So when I flip into it, theyellow pages, I would see the biggest full page ad, and some of those smallerads would get dismissed. So it's like, yeah, you got to be kind of the largestone in the room, and that obviously is stilling that can go, we can go down awhole rabbit hole of how that is budgeted for or needed. But I do think brandscould start to dial in where they put their support, where they put theirenergy, and maybe, at least in my experience, and this goes all the way back tothe agency days, not even just avail, but put their focus on less of thesesmaller funnel tactics and look at building true brand ideas or solvingproblems outside of these kind of always on tactics.

(00:11:39):

So basically I think these more everyday tactics, like wewere talking about become the yellow pages of our time and place where now justalways in our face versus previously you'd have to go to the yellow pages andlook 'em up, but hopefully that was answering what you were getting at. Butthat type of creative, which I see high volumes of basically, I think the longstory short is we put a lot of energy from not only creatives, butstakeholders, time and efforts to studio production, to trafficking. And it'sjust like there's got to be a better way of where we put our energy and focusand hopefully some of those things get turned on and you set it, forget it, andthen you just kind of monitor 'em every so often versus putting so muchimportance on them.

Cole Heilborn (00:12:33):

Yeah, I see. So I've heard a lot of interesting reportsout there about brands who only invest in bottom of the funnel type contentlike you're describing while ignoring top of the funnel brand. And one of thebiggest symptoms that I've heard, and I'm curious what you've noticed or seenout there, is the one time buy customer, a customer gets hit with an ad, theygo buy a thing, but there's no loyalty, there's no repeat purchase, there's nolifetime value associated with that customer. And so you're spending that moneyfor that one time purchase, but you haven't gained a customer who will consideryou in the future. That's something I've been chatting with a few differentbrands about that they've been seeing and experiencing because they're notinvesting in that top of funnel.

Dillon Snyder (00:13:30):

Yeah, no, it's a good point. And loyalty is one of themost expensive things in marketing to get, you have to generally spend moremoney to either retain or convince someone to really commit to your brand,especially I would say brands in the outdoor space or less of the CPG stuff, Ithink, but more of the experiential brands or maybe even clothing brands, gearbrands, and that can have a number of factors. But I completely agree, and Ithink that's where when you look at that lower funnel activation, you are kindof competing against everyone and hopefully your ad gets served and hopefully,and then it maybe grabs someone's attention, but then it's got to maintain. AndI think that's where it's like, well, what is your brand doing after you'vehooked me? Yes, I definitely clicked on many a paid social ad and boughtproducts and then follow up with that product, but it becomes almostutilitarian versus in some products you invest in or they invest in their abovethe funnel or their storytelling, even if it's in just the digital space andyou start to become part of that brand or you feel like you're representingthat brand.

(00:14:53):

And so they're obviously solving a problem, a biggerproblem in the marketplace, or they understand how to connect with their guestor their consumer. So that's where I think there's a ton of value in that. Andyes, I think getting those quick short-term sales are almost like an impossibletask to kind of keep up with. And that's where I think a lot of brands get intothat cycle of trying to cycle numbers. We had a great year, how are we going totop it? Well, let's keep hitting this. We got to keep those ads on, and thatcost just comes with time and burden and is it really working and are weactually getting the data we need? Where I do think then brands need to havethat balance of that confidence to tell other stories, that risk to tell otherstories, to hopefully then again, remind people why you fell in love with thebrand in the first place or purchase that brand in the first place. So I thinkthat's where in a sacrifice of media dollars, marketing dollars storytellinggets kind of like I think first cut because sometimes that value is a long runplay versus short run play.

Cole Heilborn (00:16:11):

Well, it's almost always a long-term play.

Dillon Snyder (00:16:13):

It

Cole Heilborn (00:16:13):

Seems like. I don't know anyone who's had a short-termgain from a brand storytelling approach. You mentioned problem solving, so whatare good problems that brand storytelling can solve and what are poor problems,if I can phrase it that way?

Dillon Snyder (00:16:31):

Yeah, no, it's a good question. And I think starting to,and you summed it up right there, I think trying to even have the conversationthat because storytelling gets put out there all the time, we hear this wordall the time, and I think when talking to marketers try to frame it up as it'snot just like, oh, I'm creating a fun story and that's great. It's storytellingessentially at its roots is problem solving. Just like you said, any goodstory, if you're reading a book, a great story is going to solve a problem. Andthat's hopefully the enjoyment of it reminding marketers, that's why we lovestorytelling and that it can solve their problems. So as far as good problemsto solve, I think it's understanding, again, it could be from a number ofangles, so understanding your guests or your audience and saying what's goingon in their life and how can our product solve a problem for them or change abehavior for them that will help their life or impact their life in a way thatwe believe that they'll get enjoyment out of it and see reward.

(00:17:49):

But then on the flip side of that, I think for brandsthemselves, it's like, okay, for example, a bad problem to solve is in a briefis around the idea of, hey, we want to drive sales or we want to grow ouraudience. That's not a problem to solve. That storytelling is going to probablyhelp you with. So I think it's a good problem to solve. There would be like,okay, well our sales are down and we want to drive sales, but how can we getour position, our product in a way to maybe disrupt or get in someone's minddifferently? I think a great example just saw it we were talking aboutinternally was, and I don't know if this was their problem to solve, but it wasthe Cheetos Netflix partnership in New York and they were promoting theWednesday show, the show Wednesday coming up and Cheetos took over Times Squareand the hand from the Adams families putting Cheeto fingers everywhere.

(00:18:52):

And when I think about it, I'm like, okay, well this isfun. It's interactive, it's obviously a huge beat production budget, mediabudget. So they had that support. But the problem to solve is to me, for thatbrand Cheetos is when you sit down and binge watch shows, you're eating othersnacks, you're eating popcorn probably or other things. So how can Cheetos thensay, how can we be in the consideration set for people when they're watching TVand at home? We're not just a lunchbox snack. So I would hope that somethinglike that came along with them and says, we want to be top of mind and solvethat problem for our brand to insert ourselves into the evening TV bingewatching format. So to me, that's a good problem to solve. And then hopefullythat then leads to their sales going increasing. So hopefully then they developstorytelling around that, obviously with that execution. So that'd be oneexample of a brand kind of saying, okay, we can get to good sales hopefullybased on an idea that says, consumers change your behavior on how you use thisproduct or think of this product.

Cole Heilborn (00:20:09):

And I think it's amazing too, the more specificity youhave of the problem that you're solving, the more creative you can be and thenthe easier it is to actually measure the results of what you're doing. To yourpoint, if you're like, we just need to drive awareness to the website, how areyou going to do that? But if you can get really granular and say, for instance,we're working on a project right now and the whole goal is to go after this oneaudience, a very specific audience and build an emotional connection andrelationship with this audience. And so our whole campaign is built aroundhelping this audience feel seen, telling stories that reflects this audience inthe storytelling and building that relationship between the two. When you getreally granular, I think then you can come up with some really unique ideas,but if you're just speaking very high level, it's hard to come up. It's likeyou're like, what story do we tell? Where does it go? What's the format? Howlong is it? All those things are hard to pinpoint if you don't know exactlywhat you're solving.

Dillon Snyder (00:21:10):

And that's a great point. I love that point there with theexample you're saying is because you're creating a community, you're not tryingto go after everyone. You're not trying to say, Hey, is this going to have massappeal? You're really to your point, you're zeroed in and focused. And again,it's something that is hard to do is to say, we want this to resonate with fourout 10 people or five out of 10 people and not 10 out of 10 or nine out of 10,and we're okay leaving those people behind because we know that the peoplewe're resonating with will one really appreciate it. Two, they'll probably beambassadors for us and bring the others in. So I love that mentality of havingthe confidence of brands that can do that and just say, we know who we want tospeak to and we know that that is going to be a very pointed message and a verytargeted message. So then you can really hopefully again, again as we'retalking dollars and cents, make your marketing go further because you reallyare zeroed in on that audience and you're reaching them versus hoping you'rereaching them.

Cole Heilborn (00:22:22):

What litmus tests do you have personally to try anddetermine, have we reached the root problem or do we need to dig deeper?There's kind of that methodology of ask why three or four times. And then onthe fourth why you've kind of exposed the root problem. Are there any othertips or tricks that you have that folks could try and implement?

Dillon Snyder (00:22:45):

Yeah, I mean I think something I've done, and this isprobably a very common one I think for creative practice is I think as you geta brief separating it out and saying, okay, I'm going to, here's one, here'sthe problem. It's articulated, let's say really clearly, but then I'm going toattack it this one way and I'm going to go down and you're going to get yourfirst thoughts, you're going to get your obvious stuff that I think peoplereally resonate with. And then you're going to keep pressure testing that andthat wonder territory and say, what are other articulations of that? What'sanother insight of it? What if I flipped it and looked at it from the inverseof what I'm attacking if someone said, Hey, I look at it from a different pointof view. So that's one territory, and I think you go down and you really try toring out all the ideas and different directions that it could go from that oneterritory and then you do it again and say, okay, set that aside and let's makesure we're going in a completely different direction.

(00:23:56):

And then looking at the problem from a different anglealtogether, and then going down that almost formulaic approach and saying,while we might be letting go of what option one was solving because it can't doeverything, but we think option two will give us that stronger approach. Sohonestly, it's really, I think being disciplined with creativity and saying,have we explored all the territories out there or enough territories to say,after looking at all these five or six different territories, these two maybeoverlap, these two maybe are the weaker ones in the mix, but generallysomething comes out of that some aha moment comes out of that.

Cole Heilborn (00:24:46):

And you mentioned an aha moment. Is that what you'relooking for when you feel like you've unearthed the true problem? Does itclick, do you feel it?

Dillon Snyder (00:24:55):

You can definitely feel it. You can feel when something'snot right. You can feel like, all right, we're forcing something here. And Ithink personally, I'm always like, maybe it is good and we just got to keeppushing on it and maybe it's not good and we should just walk away from it. AndI think that's the hard part of at some point just being okay walking away andthen at some point saying, no, this is the idea and let's build upon it. Versusagain, going back to the territory thing. You could have endless territories,but at some point you do have to kind of focus and narrow that focus becauseotherwise you'll almost burn yourself out in the first phase. There is thosemoments where you're like, this is it. This is gold. And we've had multiple ofthose obviously through, and then some campaigns, you get something that solvesthe problem. Is it going to be maybe like some massive award-winning campaign?No, but that's okay. It still solved the problem and did it in a creative way,even if it maybe didn't reach the upper echelon of creativity and awards andall that. So I think it's being okay with that. Not every problem has to bethis revolutionary idea. You can solve problems generally pretty quickly withsome really strong creative thinking, but it doesn't have to be revolutionary.

Cole Heilborn (00:26:26):

So you can identify the problem and have a great problemto be solved, but if you as a team aren't given enough time to focus on thatproblem, then you're just kind of fishtailing and chasing various things. Howimportant, because assuming a lot of this, at least in your position, a lot ofthis comes down from leadership and they're like, let's focus on this. Howimportant is focus internally on a problem in solving that problem? And howmuch time is enough time? When have you spent enough time trying to solve thatproblem before you move to another one? How do you think through the runwayneeded to solve these things?

Dillon Snyder (00:27:13):

And obviously this is the canned answer that is like,yeah, it's going to vary between on the problem to solve and the level of theimpact we believe it's going to have on the business, but I do think anyproblem can be solved quickly and there is a level of time that you want fordeep thought exploration, let it marinate all that. But ultimately, too muchtime I think can be just as bad for a creative. Either there'll be a level ofprocrastination because something else will come up and get in the way of itand a distraction. So I think again, that's where I don't want to use thesprint agile method. I'm not a big proponent of that when it comes tocreativity. I think there's a time and place for that, and if you need it, youcan turn it on and do it. We're just getting through projects that have donethat, and I think at the end, you get to a nice quality product, you did itefficiently, everyone's like, wow, that was a really hopefully efficientprocess. Everyone banded together. But I think ultimately you want to find thatsweet spot in time. I like to say, let's say it's a normal high level project,like a big campaign coming out in a couple months down the road.

(00:28:38):

I'd say give the team a week, right? Creatives a week.There's no hard and set fast, but give creatives a week, check in during thatprocess, see what's on the paper, see what ideas are rising up, and then helpfocus thinking, saying. So again, kind of a traditional method of ideate, fast,clear stuff and help shape and move stuff. And then I think start bringing instakeholders earlier and often to see if things are on track. Yeah, too muchtime can definitely be a curse to creative and not enough time. I'd rather haveless time I guess, as a creative.

Cole Heilborn (00:29:27):

Okay,

Dillon Snyder (00:29:28):

Fair enough. Because I think there's just less of room tothen overthink it.

Cole Heilborn (00:29:34):

I see. So I'm thinking about creatives in terms of twodifferent categories, and one person could fulfill both of these, but there'sthe creative who produces something that comes up with a vision, has theoutput, and then there's the piece of the creative that is identifying theproblem, the true problem, and then pairing that with a solution. Does ourindustry look at them? Does our industry look at creatives as putters ratherthan people who can find the real problem and then come up with the solution?

Dillon Snyder (00:30:09):

That is a great question. It's a tricky one for sure. Ithink that's definitely at the heart of what we were talking about earlier withlower funnel stuff. Like, Hey, I just need someone to put words and picturestogether and make it look beautiful, make it sound amazing, make it be clever,whatever the brand voice is. But yes, we get too caught up in the, I needexecutioners. And again, I think that's where, especially internally, and ithappens at the agency side as well, but bringing creatives in onto the briefingand the brief creation process, I think even, and we do it here and we'regetting better at it, is bringing our creative team in on the marketingplanning process to help find where those unique spaces are. Like, okay, whatare you planning on doing today to drive someone? Or What are you planning ondoing this year to drive someone to a resort or get them interested in a resortor excited about a resort?

(00:31:13):

And that's when we start to say, well, okay, well we havethis feature or this product, and it's like those are all campaigns and weshould build those campaigns out in a way instead of maybe crushing them allinto one campaign and trying to overdeliver messages to be efficient or fearthat we're not going to say something to the person at the right time or place.So I think we're getting better at creative coming in and saying, Hey, let'sfigure out what your creative campaign schedule is looking like. So yeah, Ithink creatives in briefs don't wait for the brief. I feel I've seen it so manytimes, internal, external, we creatives way to the brief, and then thecreatives don't like the brief or they ignore the brief. So that's why I thinkagain, having, again, these creatives are going to think a certain way.

(00:32:07):

Brand marketers are going to think a certain way, puttingthose together in a room earlier and often you're going to end up getting tostronger creative work to solve those problems. And again, when I say this, I'mnot saying even this is going to be award-winning work or anything like that,but the team is going to be happier with the outcome. You're probably going tobe achieving the results you're after, even if that is just more of a businessresult versus a creative accolade. So ultimately, and honestly, I thinkeverything starts to come hand in hand. So yeah, I think getting creatives intothat briefing process sooner ultimately helps them start to see where the trueproblems are, even if they're not being fully articulated.

Cole Heilborn (00:32:55):

How do you define creative? Because I mean, even in thisconversation, we're using it as an adjective and as a noun, but in the case ofbrand marketer and creative where you're talking about bringing them togetherto build a brief, who is a creative in your opinion?

Dillon Snyder (00:33:11):

So yes, there's the traditional sense of creatives, theart directors, copywriters, associate of creative directors, creativedirectors, and they might be tasked with being a creative, but I think there'splenty of account people, brand people, I'll just say this sounds probably alittle generic, but I think everyone has ity creative or it can be creativeminded. I think creatives, the noun version, they're hired to kind of take allthis input and simplify it so that then when it's spit back out or shared withan audience, it's done in a way that makes them think, catches their attention,makes them change a behavior. So ultimately a creative as a noun I think is aproblem solver, a person that can problem solve and create simplicity from acomplex inputs. And I think to varying degrees, everyone has a little bit aboutthat in them.

(00:34:25):

I'll go off on a little tangent here. One of my biggestpet peeves is in the industries when I have a copywriter background came up asa copywriter, I've heard it all my life that this phrase will come up of I'mnot a copywriter. And then someone will say what they want to say or they'llarticulate it and I'm like, that's okay. Don't have to put the qualification ofI'm not a copywriter. Everyone has probably have some writing training or grewup maybe even a journalism background, English background or just has ideas onwords and how to write words even if they aren't the one, ultimately the finalperson to do it. So that's where I like to try to get rid of the labels of itand say, yes, if you have ideas on copy, let us know. And we can say, thatmight be a great, that was a great idea, I didn't think of that, and that'sokay. Or we can take the idea of it and say, Hey, I took your idea and here aresome other articulations of what you were trying to say or communicate in a waythat I think will land with this audience and here's why. Whether that'sconnected to our cultural insight, whether that's just maybe sharper language,less generic language. So long story short, I think creatives ultimately arebeyond just copywriters and art directors, they are ideally, hopefully ifthey're set up in the right manner, solving problems in a simple way,

Cole Heilborn (00:36:08):

A simple way. That's an interesting tag to the solvingproblem part. But why emphasize in a simple way?

Dillon Snyder (00:36:17):

I think the big thing is complexity gets in the way of thestorytelling. And that means the more you're trying to, obviously I thinkthere's tons of studies, we hear it all the time, you're fed whatever, I'mgoing to make up some number that's not accurate, so don't want to quote this,but you're fed 15,000 ads a day, right? Or something like

Cole Heilborn (00:36:43):

That. I think it's seven to 10.

Dillon Snyder (00:36:44):

Seven to 10, okay, you're close. Yes. So you're in sevento 10 ads a day, and that's a lot of noise, that's a lot of complexity. Thatcould be a lot of visuals, that's a lot of words being thrown at you. We hearit all the time when people say, oh, I saw that funny ad, and then theyattribute it to the wrong brand, and you're like, that's got to be the worst.Like, oh, you broke through with the funniness, but then now someone else isgetting the credit. So I think that's where just being laser focused in, is theidea simple enough to get, is it going to be memorable? And is it trying not todo too much? I think that's one of the things is, again, going back to it isyou only have so much space with someone or time, and so you want to try togive them as many messages as possible, but that's generally the wrong approachthat let them find other, give 'em the breadcrumbs, and they will eventuallyfind the messages that they need if you're giving them the most desirable onefirst.

(00:37:50):

So I think simplicity is the hardest thing to do and towalk away from. And then sometimes even a creative idea just gets tooconceptual, too heady, and you're like, okay, this is in a world where I amgetting inundated with all sorts of things beyond ads, just my daily life.Don't make me decipher your ad unless you're the economist. But even their adsare great too. The Economist has great simple ads that make you think andrelate to their brand. But I think that's the thing is just don't make people workhard for it, but trust their intelligence that your audience that you'retalking to and finding that sweet spot and not overthinking something and notwatering down something. Again, you're going to end up, I think seeing creativeget the performance you're after.

Cole Heilborn (00:38:53):

But isn't that an opportunity? You're saying don't makethem think sometimes the best stuff is the stuff that makes you think

Dillon Snyder (00:39:00):

So. Yes. I'll backtrack on that. Yes, I want someone tothink, but I don't want them to be confused by it, I guess. I don't want themto be like, what was the point of this? What was I supposed to take away fromthis? They should hopefully, if it's even, and that's I think going back to ourother conversation, even if 6 10, 5 of 10 get it, and maybe someone else islike, I don't get that ad. We'll just go in the classic Super Bowl scenario oflike you're sitting next to a friend, someone's laughing their face off at anad, the other person's like, I don't get it. And that's okay because someperson did get it and some person probably just wasn't tailored for them ortheir lifestyle or what they're consuming in culture. So definitely want themto think. And I think getting that reaction, you'll get your audience to thinkand hopefully change your behavior and do something, but hopefully it's not atthe point where they're like, I am so confused what you want me to do becauseyou've now given me maybe three tasks within this ad to do. And I think that'smore of it. It's just making sure messaging is super pointed and sharp, clear,and that the visuals and the creative together enhance that story.

Cole Heilborn (00:40:21):

Alright, so let's just dream and let's say that you findthis reset button and you smash it. And what would you want to see that wouldchange? What do you see actually changing or hope that would change?

Dillon Snyder (00:40:42):

I think the big thing is one for creatives, just becausecreatives I think are naturally, well, they can be introverted or whatever,there's all types of creatives out there, but I think just greatercollaboration and creatives being an open back collaboration, I almost wantcreatives to invite stakeholders in, clients in and saying, let's do thistogether. Let's build this together. I don't need to go off necessarily rightaway and go into a whole in concept or in a room with my art director orcopywriter. So I would want to almost change the creative process for that. Andthis goes, I mean, not to go super back, but to the bernbach days where art andcopy were separated and copy would go down to the art directors and then he waslike, bring 'em together. And so in a history of creative, when you bringthings together, you generally can work and build creative solutions together,but that is the hardest part because there's friction there, there's tensionthere.

(00:41:49):

There's going to be debates even with art directors andcopywriters, there's always like, well, no, I don't like that because of this,and no, I do like that. So I think as humans, that part is what keeps us fromdoing that is that there's like, oh, this is going to be uncomfortable. Ormaybe in some cases people do want people just to go away and bring them backthe answer, but then when they get it, it's not the answer they wanted. Sothat's where it's realizing that we're going to be spinning our wheels a lotless if we just, again, find different ways to connect and connect thosedisciplines now that I think have gotten more sophisticated versus the birnbachdays of advertising, which are long gone and way past us. So yeah, I thinkthat's the big one. If we could hit a reset button is kind of restructuringwhether you're at an agency and working with a client, which we still use a lotof agencies, even with an internal shop or you're at an internal shop, is justfinding a way to make the process, make people connect meers, just like, Hey, Ikicked it off and then in three weeks I'm going to see some work.

Cole Heilborn (00:43:13):

Well that, are you familiar with this quote from PeterDrucker culture? Eat strategy for breakfast? That idea?

Dillon Snyder (00:43:19):

Say it again. Culture

Cole Heilborn (00:43:21):

Eat strategy for breakfast.

Dillon Snyder (00:43:23):

I have not heard that, but yeah, I love that quote.

Cole Heilborn (00:43:26):

Yeah, it's come up before on our show, and I think it'sattributed originally to this business consultant, Peter Drucker. Yeah. But thewhole idea is you could have the smartest people in the room trying to developthe smartest strategy, but if the culture doesn't exist for those people toactually work well together or to entertain friction or to handle debate anddisagreement, well, none of it matters.

Dillon Snyder (00:43:50):

Exactly. And that takes work. And I think that's where Ithink the work needs to be put in. I know people can get to good ideas. There'stons of good ideas we can get to fun, clever cultural references. I mean, Idon't think that's the hard part. I think the hard part is making everyone getin the same boat and row together and kind of disrupting the flow of what atraditional creative process looks like.

Cole Heilborn (00:44:23):

So let's say that creatives come together, we've got allthese different divergent thinkers all working, and your reset button hasworked and everyone can mesh well and work well together. What impact does thathave on the work and from the public facing how they receive that work thatthen is the output of those teams? What are they seeing? What could they expectto see that's different than what they're seeing currently?

Dillon Snyder (00:44:54):

That's a tough question in the sense that I know so muchis controlled by media and there's some things that maybe can or can't. But Ido think if I think you're going to start to see some of the, I'd see more thetraditional stuff that we're used to, whether that's film storytelling, whetherthat's narrative storytelling, and I think you're going to show up in livesdifferently than in the social spaces and things like that. I think we'll findnew avenues to show up in people's lives. I think there's a craving for that.We haven't really touched on it and probably won't go too deep into AI and thetopic there, but just with being right now in the current state with every timeyou open social media, this is, my wife sent me this last night, hopefully thisisn't too much of a tangent, but she sent me this video last night of rabbitsjumping on a trampoline, and she's like, is this real?

(00:45:55):

I'm like, no, this is not real. It was hidden camerafootage of rabbits jumping on this trampoline. And I'm just like, I'm so donewith just like, these are silly, that's fun. It's kind of entertainment. ButI'm like, oh my God, everything is. So I think we're going to see just acraving of getting back to some of those real placements and interactingprobably more in real life. And you're going to probably see executions of howcan we reach people, maybe not the masses, because we can turn on that other stuffto reach the masses. How can we maybe interact in a smaller scale? So I'm goingto say maybe this is just contrarian. If everyone's scaling, I'm going to sayand find those places to show up in people's lives in a way that then obviouslyhas that impact, that greater impact and has done well. And it feels like it'sreally making a meaningful connection because yeah, I think we know we can turnon media really quickly. We know if you do an activation, it's probably goingto get picked up and shared, and the film is going to be online, and that's howmost people are going to interact with it. But I do think there is a value ofsaying, how can we descale a little bit to show up in people's lives a littlebit more authentically?

Cole Heilborn (00:47:07):

I would say most people hope that's true, but also, Idunno, what's the word I'm looking for? The narcissist. That's not the word. Ialso don't know if that will be true. And we've talked about this. I did anepisode with Bronwyn Foster, the CMO at Aire Surf Company out of the uk, and wewere kind of talking about AI and authenticity and will it push people towardsreal or do people even care? And she's like, I don't know that the averageconsumer will actually care whether it's AI produced or not from a brandperspective. We can't necessarily show up and say that we care about naturalreal places and then go create a photo shoot using an AI engine that doesn't

Dillon Snyder (00:48:03):

Align.

Cole Heilborn (00:48:04):

But I think it's similar to the question of, well, howmany consumers actually care about sustainability? How many of them actuallycare about environmental practices or business practices with the environmentin mind? Many people say they do, but do their purchase habits actually alignwith how they project or their virtue signaling? I would assume not. I'd loveto see some reports on that, but I would assume it's going to be similar to theAI content. I don't know that people are really going to care, and it hurts meto say that.

Dillon Snyder (00:48:36):

No, that's a good point. And yeah, I do think as far asai, I think that's right now as it's been stared, the new internet, everyone'splaying with it. We're making it hallucinate, it's fun, it's breaking, it'sjust fun to try to break it and tease it, and then it'll eventually probablyflow more naturally and then we will, yeah, I don't think they're going to careon that sense. But I do think I'd be interested to see, and again, not allproducts, not all industries, but if there is this kind of craving, and this iswhere it gets tricky, I guess we talk about personalization a lot, and I thinkthat's still kind of

(00:49:26):

A tough topic because personalizations becomes almost, italso wants to scale and be automated, but I'm like, that's almost the oppositeof personalization. I feel like it is just almost a generic personalization,which is some kind of oxymoron, I guess. So that's where I do think that theremight be a resurgence hopefully of the more one-to-one contact. And I think wesaw this in the mid two thousands a little bit with the resurgence of themakers movement, and I think that's come and gone for sure. But I thinkthere'll always be kind of a cycle to it of like, okay, I want to unplug alittle bit. So I'm hoping as certain brands do that, as they look forpersonalization, they say, Hey, I want to invest in certain ways that I knowthis is probably not going to reach every person or the masses, but hopefullyit reaches the right audience in a way, or even is more, I don't know, not justfeel like mass manufactured.

Cole Heilborn (00:50:40):

Yeah. Well, I think the one thing that I've curious tohear your thoughts on, and something that I've been kind trying to justcommunicate is people don't care. Your audience doesn't care. Your customerdoesn't care. And I think that's even going to be more compounded with all ofthe AI slop as people are calling it. People are going to become, theirtolerance level is going to become that much more, their skin will becomethicker. And so it becomes that much more difficult as a brand to actuallyproduce something that gives people a reason to care, that builds thatconnection, that builds that relationship. And while it might be more of achallenge, it's also an opportunity, right?

Dillon Snyder (00:51:25):

A hundred percent.

Cole Heilborn (00:51:26):

But to this point of our conversation, I do wonder howmany brands will actually invest in that opportunity and do the hard work.

Dillon Snyder (00:51:37):

No, I'm with you there. And I mean a hundred percent, yes,no, maybe a few, but probably not. No. Consumers are waking up being like,lemme go check in on my favorite brand, or I can't wait until they drop thatad.

Cole Heilborn (00:51:52):

Which there are brands that do that well, and people dolook for that stuff.

Dillon Snyder (00:51:56):

Oh, yeah, exactly. And they seek it out. And then we havethat conversation too, two all the way down to even certain brands that I wastalking to our copywriter, and she's like, yeah, she likes the brand. It's likea woman's clothing brand. But she's like, I just love their emails. So I waslike, I just want to read all their emails written so well, and they're alwaysvery culturally relevant. And so that's the kind of thing I think more of isbrands not overthinking an email and saying, Hey, it's an email. I'm going tosend out bazillions of these. Let's go have a little bit more fun with it. Andif I miss a message, I'll send out, I'll send it out in the next one.

(00:52:41):

So I think it's just brands being a little bit, I guess,more interesting with even some, maybe that's what I'm trying to get at being alittle bit more interesting with some of those, even their own channels or eventheir paid media channels that have becoming stale and becoming wallpaper orthe yellow pages of marketing to hopefully, again, catch someone's attentionand have that conversation with them in a way that's like, oh man, I didn'tthink I'd display ad would actually catch my attention or make me laugh, butthat one did. So I think that's where it's seeing where we can have that impactbecause yes, I agree. Most people are very good at tuning out marketing and theones that do it right, you're generally getting, you might be relevant for aday a week, and then you've moved on, and then you're like, well, what's next?And that's I think, being okay with not having to fill that space either ofwhat's next, plan out your story, plan out your narratives. So you actually dohave what you believe is engage in content in the pipeline versus trying toreact to everything or be timely every day of the week.

Cole Heilborn (00:54:11):

So for brands that are listening and they want to breakout of the yellow Pages and do something, anything different, if you had tosummarize everything we've talked about and all the things that they couldconsider and try and implement, how would you try and send them off on theirday?

Dillon Snyder (00:54:31):

Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately, and you hear it a lot,and I know it's been on a audio, your podcast, but just in this day and age,and it dovetails into the AI conversation is if people aren't going to care isthen without being reckless, embrace the risk, take a leap. Odds are somepeople will notice and enjoy it. Odds are maybe a lot people won't notice andit didn't have the damage you were fearful of. So I think that's where it'sobviously take that risk, build it together with creative, understand the riskyou're taking, but be more risky. I mean, AI is, I guess proven that to you cantype in anything and then you get the most wild idea, most risky idea ever thatI'm like, so this is non-branded content. That stuff is bonkers. So as a brand,you're probably, unless you're just really not paying attention, you'reprobably not going to offend anyone.

(00:55:42):

You're probably not going to misstep. And ultimatelyyou're probably going to get inserted to that conversation in a way that'srelevant to your guests or your audience life. So to me, it's just worktogether to get to those ideas, don't settle for the status quo, and then takesome swings because you can keep the status quo and the yellow pages stillshows up in your bell box apparently. So it's always going to be there indigital space, it's always going to be there. So take bigger risks elsewhere.And I think that's ultimately what it comes down to. And it seems like that's acommon theme from a lot of creatives right now is just the desire to takethose, we use the word risk, but they're more just like, I think calculatedbrand moves.

Cole Heilborn (00:56:36):

Well, the risk isn't taking the risk, as we've talkedabout on the show before. And it's an easy thing to say, obviously when there'sa founder is looking at their bottom line and looking at the next quarter andthey're trying to figure out how do we move forwards and stay alive? That's areal conversation. That's a lot harder to weigh through than just two peoplesitting and having a conversation.

Dillon Snyder (00:57:06):

It is, there's a lot that goes into it, but I think that'swhere it's like if you're solving the right problems and you're telling theright stories that might feel risky or they might feel different, then you'llbe all right. I think you'll be all right. And then I think ultimately there'sother things beyond the creative, and that's, I think the bigger point iscreative can only do so much say so much if it doesn't show up in the rightspot. If the media plan's not right, if maybe the budget was off, if thetiming's off, maybe there's a current event that disrupts this campaign thatjust was about to just launch and then your attention's taken elsewhere. Sothat's where it's like creative can only go so far, and that's where it'sspeaking into the creative is. That's why it's got to be sharp and pointed.

(00:58:05):

Otherwise, I think if you don't even have that, if you'renot even starting with that, you're already starting at kind of a deficit. Butyes, there are definitely other factors at play and how far someone's willingto risk, depending on the climate of their business or where their brand isgoing. But sometimes I do think that is either probably a result of playing itsafe for too long and just kind of going with the flow and doing the sameprocess year over year. And then, or also if the market's changing and maybemaybe a product is going the way of the blockbuster. So anyway,

Cole Heilborn (00:58:46):

There's kind of that quote, maybe to wrap it up here,there's that quote, the best time to plant a tree was yesterday, and the secondbest time is today. Yeah, if you've been running your business and you haven'tbeen investing in brands, it's not that it's too late, but you should have beendoing it five years ago.

Dillon Snyder (00:59:05):

Exactly.

Cole Heilborn (00:59:06):

Which is a tough pill to swallow,

Dillon Snyder (00:59:09):

A tough pill to swallow. It's not a mountain that can't beovercome. And it doesn't mean that you have to then go even to the pendulumdoesn't have to swing all the way to the other side. So I think it's really,again, in those situations, trust your team, trust the creatives, trust theteam as a whole. And together, I think, again, you'll end up building to theanswer you need. And I think on that, I think the last note there is justmaking sure as that process does get iterated, that it doesn't just become anecho chamber either. So that's always the problem. And I think that's where thedifferent disciplines will keep each other in checks and balances of saying,no, this isn't going far enough, or this is off, or whatever the case might be.But I think that's just going to be the nature of a creative noun minded personversus a brand marketer person. And the experiences coming together to get tothat, ultimately, the creativity, storytelling, problem solving we're after inthe market.

Cole Heilborn (01:00:17):

Dillion, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for sharingsome of your perspective and insights that you've learned. I dunno why, butI've never attributed the state of our industry to the Yellow Pages, but I'mgoing to adopt that now. And

Dillon Snyder (01:00:32):

Yeah, hopefully, yes. As I was preparing for this, I waslike, I did it upfront of having to kind of explain what the Yellow pages were,because as I have grown in my career, I realize some things are still relevantor even known. So yes.

Cole Heilborn (01:00:51):

And there's not much, the Yellow Pages are good for thesedays other than starting a campfire. So if you don't want to be campfire fuel,maybe reach out to Dillion if you're interested and he's willing. Where canpeople find you if they have further questions? They want to talk shop?

Dillon Snyder (01:01:10):

Yeah, LinkedIn. I'm a pretty easy person to track down.Yeah, Dillion Snyder, LinkedIn, the one that's working for Vail that lives inColorado. But yeah, always happy to chat, happy to connect, try to connect withas many people as possible that reach out. Obviously can't always get toeveryone, but yeah, always look forward to different perspectives and makingthose connections, so definitely don't hesitate.

Cole Heilborn (01:01:41):

Incredible. Well, Dillion, thanks so much again for thetime. Thank you for the conversation.

Dillon Snyder (01:01:46):

Thank you, Cole.

Cole Heilborn (01:01:47):

Alright, take care.

Dillon Snyder (01:01:47):

Bye.

Cole Heilborn (01:01:48):

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyedit, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple.And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the differencebetween creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hardquestions that you ask while you're shaping it.

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