In today’s episode of Masters of MAX, Tom is joined by an amazing guest, Michael Kassan, Michael is the founder, chairman, and CEO of MediaLink, the media and marketing industry’s most trusted and connected strategic advisory firm, specializing in identifying areas of opportunity, optimization, and ultimately growth for its clients. His conversation with Tom provides valuable insights into the role of the CMO, the importance of storytelling and customer experience in marketing, and the evolving landscape of mobile apps and brand content creation.
In today’s episode of Masters of MAX, Tom is joined by an amazing guest, Michael Kassan, Michael is the founder, chairman, and CEO of MediaLink, the media and marketing industry’s most trusted and connected strategic advisory firm, specializing in identifying areas of opportunity, optimization, and ultimately growth for its clients.
Michael is an absolute veteran in the industry, having worked with executives at brand companies across various spaces. On the show, he emphasizes the importance of being a good storyteller as a CMO both externally to customers and internally to leadership and finance teams. Michael believes that the role of the CMO has evolved beyond just marketing, and now includes responsibilities in growth, communications, and product.
Michael acknowledges that mobile app consumers are highly valuable to brands and stresses the need for brands to be involved in the creation of content, rather than just supplying commercial messages. He believes that purpose-driven marketing and content creation can have a significant impact on both brand growth and cultural change. Overall, this conversation provides valuable insights into the role of the CMO, the importance of storytelling and customer experience in marketing, and the evolving landscape of mobile apps and brand content creation.
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Guest Bio
Michael E. Kassan is the founder and CEO of MediaLink, a leading strategic advisory firm. Described as the “ultimate power broker,” he is a trusted advisor on speed dial with every major executive in the media, marketing, entertainment and technology C-Suite. Kassan and his global team of more than 200 specialists provide counsel for navigating the age of digital disruption in areas including: marketing transformation, data and technology solutions, growth strategy, private equity advisory, executive search and talent advisory, and entertainment, sports and culture marketing. MediaLink is a part of United Talent Agency (UTA), which, together with Kassan, acquired the firm from Ascential pLc in 2021. Kassan had sold to Ascential pLc in 2017. In 2019, Kassan was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Fame, which is considered the highest honor in advertising.
Prior to founding MediaLink in 2003, Kassan was President/COO and Vice-Chairman of Initiative Media Worldwide, growing billings from $1.5 billion to over $10 billion. Before that, he was President and COO of International Video Entertainment (Artisan Entertainment).
In addition, Kassan has served on the Board of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society, the Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy and the Cultural Affairs Commission – City of Los Angeles and has been Chairman of the State Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry. Kassan currently serves as Chair of the UJA-New York Marketing Communications Committee as well as on the Boards of the American Advertising Federation, the Ad Council, and the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. He served as Chairman of the California State Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry.
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Guest Quote
"Chief Marketing Officers necessitate more technology decisions than ever before, and Chief Technology Officers need to make more marketing decisions than ever before. I was a CEO that did understand that the person with the pocket square (CMO), and the person with the pocket protector (CTO) actually had to have the same pockets." – Michael Kassan
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Time Stamps
*(01:49) What does the CEO not know about the CMO?
*(04:17) The evolution of the CMO
*(07:48) Why it all comes down to storytelling
*(10:07) How a succesful CMO proves value
*(12:57) Who is responsible for customer experience?
*(14:25) Why you need your brand to excel on all platforms
*(16:12) Taking lessons from the quick service industry
*(18:08) The power of surprise and delight
*(20:02) Where does the responsibility lie for a mobile app?
*(22:12) What marketing trends are out there between industries?
*(27:17) The push and pull of advertising your core beliefs
*(29:38) Rapid Fire Questions
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Links
[00:00:00] Michael Kassan: One of the basic tenets of a good chief marketing officer would be the ability to be a good storyteller. Part of what we do in our business is we tell stories, and as we do that, it gets our product or service sold in. That's the same thing internally. You need to make the case to your leadership, to your finance teams, because the days of accepting the fact that Gee, we're not sure how the ROI is being demonstrated on our investment in marketing and advertising.
[00:00:32] Michael Kassan: You can't get away with the answer of like, yeah, well, it's kind of in the ether and I don't know, and trust me, it's working. There's no excuse for that. There's no change for that.
[00:00:44] Voiceover: Welcome to Masters of Max, a mobile app experience podcast. Please welcome your host, Tom Budda, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship.
[00:00:57] Tom Butta: Welcome to another episode of Masters of Max. Today, I have the extreme pleasure of speaking with Michael Kazin, who is founder, chairman, and CEO of MediaLink, which is a part of a really, really interesting talent agency. It's actually a It's a diversified talent agency called United Talent Agency.
[00:01:19] Tom Butta: Michael, welcome to
[00:01:20] Michael Kassan: the show. Tom, thank you. And I'm looking forward to our conversation. Great.
[00:01:23] Tom Butta: I know the show is called Masters of Max, but I think in your case, I, I would say you're a master of many things. Uh, and I really think our, our listeners are going to get a lot from this. So thank you for your time.
[00:01:35] Michael Kassan: Well, again, my pleasure. And I enjoy our conversations when we're just sitting over a, you know, a coffee or something stronger. So I, as I say, I was particularly looking forward to, uh, to this conversation. That's
[00:01:47] Tom Butta: great. As have I. You spend an awful lot of time with executives at brand companies across many different industries.
[00:01:55] Tom Butta: And I guess one of the fundamental questions I have for you is, What does the CEO not know about the CMO?
[00:02:02] Michael Kassan: Tom, it's such a, such a provocative question because it just conjures up so many different visions for me. I hearken back to when you meet couples that are in a relationship and they, you know, business or personal, sometimes you say, They don't understand me, you know, the other person doesn't understand me.
[00:02:19] Michael Kassan: You don't understand me. I'm sure you and your partner, spouse, wife, you know, have had that conversation. I think that kind of exists in the CMO, CEO conversation sometimes. And I go back to the job description. Because the topic sentence of what you asked me was, what does the CEO, so in my case, me, what do I not know about the role of the CMO?
[00:02:42] Michael Kassan: And I throw that question out a lot to other CEOs because it's provocative, as I said, and it also opens up that conversation. Well, what do you expect from this CMO? And what's the job description? And what's the job title? Because sometimes I'm somebody who says titles don't matter, but in this context, I think titles do matter.
[00:03:04] Michael Kassan: And what you've seen over the last many years is it's no longer just Chief Marketing Officer. It's usually Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Marketing and Growth, Chief Marketing and Communications, Chief Marketing and Product. You find that, and I look at that job description, and I oft times say to the CEO, Let me ask you a question.
[00:03:26] Michael Kassan: Do you know the greatest cause of ulcers in business? And, of course, that conjures up a lot of answers, as you can imagine. I say, well, in my case, what I learned was it's granting somebody the responsibility to do a certain task, but not giving them the authority to do it. And
[00:03:45] Tom Butta: I feel like, I feel like you're playing back my life.
[00:03:49] Michael Kassan: Yeah, that's a, that's a real challenge because you give somebody the responsibility. They have to have their hands on the lever. So if you go back to chief marketing and growth, well, gee, marketing might be one thing, but if it's in service of driving growth, then do you have the levers as that person to pull to actually drive growth?
[00:04:11] Michael Kassan: A and B, going back to what does the CEO generally not understand about the role of the CMO? I think part of it is the narrative hasn't changed in reality, but the facts have. So what I mean by that is traditionally, I guess you'd look at a chief marketing officer or somebody who could, you know, work with your agency partners, whatever, to create great.
[00:04:33] Michael Kassan: You know, storyboards and great advertising, and hopefully have the right sensibility as to how that advertising shows up in the right medium, the right way, certainly Tom, from a technology perspective, this is the day jobs for both of us. How do we find the right context and the right time and the right person and the right device to deliver that message?
[00:04:53] Michael Kassan: If you look at all of that as the purview of the CMO, that's great. What we saw happen. About 10 years ago, and we saw this first with Unilever, and we saw it with Coca Cola, and then it really came to life with Salesforce when Mark Benioff began to launch the marketing cloud. And he came to me and said, Michael, I built Salesforce by selling into the CIO, you know, Chief Information, Chief Technology Officer, cloud computing.
[00:05:25] Michael Kassan: He says, now that I've built a marketing cloud, I actually have to sell to a different person. I have to sell to the CMO. I'm giving you this from the outside in, and where we saw, and the reason I mentioned Coca Cola and Unilever, both proudly partners of ours, they both started to include their chief technology officer in all the marketing trips and journeys and work, and what we saw there And again, personified by those two companies and then taken to market by Mark Benioff with Salesforce Marketing Cloud was the role of the CMO and the role of the CTO were starting to converge.
[00:06:05] Michael Kassan: Chief Marketing Officers necessitate more technology decisions than ever before and chief technology officers need to make more marketing decisions than ever before. So to put a fine point on it, I would like to think I was a CEO that did understand that the person with the pocket square Who would likely have been the marketer and the person with the pocket protector who would likely have been the chief technology officer actually had to have the same pockets.
[00:06:37] Michael Kassan: And so, you know, I kind of led you away from the, what do I not know about the CMO to what do I need to know? And what is the new look of a CMO?
[00:06:46] Tom Butta: Yeah. Well, I think one of the things you're saying is also, if you go back to one of your earlier points about hands on lever, a lot of those levers today are in fact, technology platforms.
[00:06:58] Tom Butta: Right, as it relates to the CMO, in fact, most people, but particularly the CMO being able to do their job. So when you think about the CMO as responsibility for growth, a lot of that growth today is is accelerated and enabled through the use of technology, you know, Salesforce marketing cloud or data cloud or CRM systems and on and on and on and on.
[00:07:23] Tom Butta: Which naturally bridges the relationship with the CTO and frankly, the chief information security officer because of privacy issues, which are ever changing country by country, region by region. That adds more complexity, as you, as you point out, to what was a very focused role of CMO. It's now really expanded.
[00:07:48] Tom Butta: So, in that regard, then, how can the CMO, with all of these responsibilities, but not necessarily the authority, how can they influence people that, in fact, have authority and in other areas that are going to be integral to their success.
[00:08:08] Michael Kassan: Tom, I think it's about storytelling. You know, if you want to get to the core of what one of the basic tenets of a good cheap marketing officer would be the ability to be a good storyteller or to be discerning enough to know what is a good story, right?
[00:08:21] Michael Kassan: That's part of what we do in our business is we tell stories and. You know, as we do that gets our product or service sold in, but that's the same thing internally. If you need to make the case to your leadership, to your finance teams, because today, as you know, the procurement muscle is being flexed more and more in companies.
[00:08:43] Michael Kassan: So the marketing. Group has put through a lot more scrutiny through procurement and finance because the days of accepting the fact that, gee, we're not sure how the ROI is being demonstrated on our investment in marketing and advertising. You can't get away with the answer of like, yeah, well, it's kind of in the ether and I don't know.
[00:09:02] Michael Kassan: And, you know, trust me, it's working. excuse for that. There's no change for that. And so I think that's requiring the loop of information and data. And that gets us into a whole different side of the world, which is measurement. And that measurement's not only important because you should know what you're getting, it's important for the justification on the other end to be able to get the budget to
[00:09:25] Tom Butta: spend.
[00:09:26] Tom Butta: That's exactly right. So let's, let's just dig into that if we could. Because at the end of the day, I, I think what we're talking about is under the conditions, especially that we're in today, which is there's a lot of uncertainty, right, in the economic climate, there's a lot of scrutiny on spend. And so the question then is, how does CMOs effectively position what they're doing for value and how do they demonstrate that?
[00:09:54] Tom Butta: And maybe it starts with The right narrative, right, of, you know, here's why, like justifying the why, because that can be told in a narrative, you know, form supported by data. But how have you seen successful CMOs and you, you work with them every day? How are they able to position for and demonstrate value?
[00:10:15] Michael Kassan: Again, it goes to, it goes to results. You know, the results generally are going to be, how are my sales? Have you driven the sales? Have we done better in the market? But the elements of how you get there, I think have changed. There's a realization today internally that things that you would think wouldn't actually have direct impact on your revenue generation actually do.
[00:10:40] Michael Kassan: One of them is organization. We do so many wholesale reorganizations of large marketing organizations internally to brands. We've gone into organizations where they have a marketing services unit of 4, 200 people. And they had relationships with literally north of 900. Agencies, and they wondered why they weren't as efficient in their marketing.
[00:11:06] Michael Kassan: Wow.
[00:11:07] Tom Butta: Let's start
[00:11:07] Michael Kassan: with Yeah. Yeah. Let's start with, you know, another case study we had. There was a client who said, it just seems it's taking us too long to get through the system here. And we did an analysis and we determined that a piece of creative or an idea from, as I like to say in the film business, from green light to red carpet.
[00:11:26] Michael Kassan: Okay, when the studio greenlit the film and when you have the premiere, there's a long continuum on that carpet. But in this case, we found that 438 hands, people, individuals touched that piece of creative. And I kind of just put my hands up and said, well, there's your answer. Yeah, maybe there's a way that only 200 people can touch it and I bet you'll cut that continuum in half.
[00:11:51] Michael Kassan: So it's basic stuff like that, the blocking and tackling, driving results. From a marketer's perspective, is your primary job. Yeah. That's it. Full stop.
[00:12:04] Tom Butta: Yeah. So managing expectations around here are the Here are the kinds of results that we can influence that will lead ladder up to the kind of corporate objectives and then, and then actually showing that progress.
[00:12:18] Tom Butta: Yeah, that's
[00:12:19] Michael Kassan: what you're saying. Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, it goes back to storytelling. Yeah.
[00:12:24] Tom Butta: So you threw out a couple of things when it said like the, the modern day CMO is, is a CMO plus a growth officer, CMO. Or a
[00:12:33] Michael Kassan: product officer or a communications officer. Correct. Or just a chief marketing officer, or you find, again, just because titles matter in this context, as I said at the outset, Tom, or chief brand officer.
[00:12:47] Michael Kassan: Correct. Kind of the same. You, you, you sometimes find chief brand separate from chief marketing, but sometimes they just combine them. So, you know, again.
[00:12:57] Tom Butta: So let me ask one question then, because the one example you didn't necessarily point to is something that we're seeing, but we're also seeing a little bit of a void.
[00:13:07] Tom Butta: As well of ownership. And that has to do with the idea of experience, customer experience. We have a mutual friend, a dear friend of yours who has the title of, you know, chief marketing and chief customer experience officer. Which I think is wonderful for, uh, you know, a massively global brand. What do you think about that?
[00:13:31] Tom Butta: Do you think the, the, the CMO should own experience? You know, should it be a separate
[00:13:36] Michael Kassan: function? It's definitive. I don't have to, there's, there's not a hesitation in that one for me. I think it's definitive that the CMO should own. Because I think that, that, that is part of the flywheel. Of what I think a marketer should be looking at, the experience your customer is going to have, either in just how they experience the information and the commercial messaging you're sending them, but also experiential marketing.
[00:13:58] Michael Kassan: And I know you're not asking it from that perspective, but it's become such an important part of the marketing mix and the user interface and all of that. That's part of how you're going to market.
[00:14:09] Tom Butta: Right, let me take that down a little bit of a path here, because I think it's one of those, those challenges.
[00:14:15] Tom Butta: So, I think you agree that we all live our, we all live our lives basically inside of this phone, all day, every day. And yet, the CMO has to work across what I call platforms? So maybe mobile is a platform, a store, store or venues are platforms, right? The website is a platform, the mobile app inside the phone is a platform.
[00:14:43] Tom Butta: How do you work
[00:14:43] Michael Kassan: across those? Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting. Here I can be specific. In, in work we've done for the Walt Disney Company, for example. I can be, I can be high level without breaching any confidence. The holy grail for, for the Walt Disney Company was to find the way to communicate with Michael Kasson across all the touch points with the Walt Disney Company.
[00:15:04] Michael Kassan: Theme parks, movies, television, streaming, consumer products, cruise lines, hotels. If I'm interacting with the Walt Disney Company across all those places within their family, right? And I don't look at Disney as a house of brands, I look at it as a brand, different than a Procter Gamble or a Unilever, where it's a house of brands.
[00:15:28] Michael Kassan: The holy grail for them is, make sure you're reaching me the right way across all of those, and don't bother me with 10 different messages, because that'll drive me crazy, and that'll, so, so that'll be a bad user experience. But I like the fact that the Walt Disney Company knows me in all these different touch points, and they link it together.
[00:15:47] Michael Kassan: Yes. If I can see a dashboard from the Walt Disney Company as a consumer that touches all the points that I've already been interacting with them on, then hallelujah. So
[00:15:57] Tom Butta: what they're doing and what you're suggesting is that they're creating this unified experience for you, Michael Kazin, across all their properties.
[00:16:05] Tom Butta: All of which roll up to be Walt Disney.
[00:16:07] Michael Kassan: Exactly. You know how I used to talk about this? I used to talk about this in the quick service context. You know that, Tom, there was a period in my life when I had a pretty active role as a passive investor, but a pretty active passive investor, if that's not a total oxymoron, in the fast food business, in the quick service restaurant business.
[00:16:25] Michael Kassan: I owned a whole Group of El Pollo Loco restaurants, the Crazy Chicken. I was there at the very founding of that company when I was still practicing law, and then added on Rally's Hamburgers, which was out of Louisville, Kentucky. It was a 99 cent double drive through in the spirit of like an In N Out burger.
[00:16:44] Michael Kassan: And, you know, at one point in the late In the eighties and nineties, again, it was never my day job, but it was a pretty robust part of my day job. And what I learned in that context, trust me, I learned a lot in that context, both good and bad, and what I learned was the brilliance of Ray Kroc looking at McDonald's as a, as a model when I was.
[00:17:09] Michael Kassan: doing, you know, quick service. And I said, what did McDonald's create? You know, let's look at the things that Ray Kroc did. Ray Kroc created acceptable mediocrity. Other than the French fries, I never hear anybody raving about, Oh my God, the McDonald's food is the best food I've ever eaten. French fries. You always hear, Oh, I love McDonald's French fries.
[00:17:30] Michael Kassan: And again, I'm not, this is not a dig on McDonald's, but what he created and what franchise. Really was based on, was serving up the same experience to Tom in Cleveland or in Poughkeepsie or in Stockholm. You go into a McDonald's anywhere in the world, you can basically get the same thing. I'm saying mediocrity.
[00:17:52] Michael Kassan: I don't mean that as a knock on McDonald's, but it's not going to be a five star Michelin restaurant, but I know what I'm going to get when I go there. Yeah.
[00:18:00] Tom Butta: Consistency, right? Yeah. Managing expectations because you're getting same with Starbucks. I mean, I've been in Starbucks and you know, many, many different countries.
[00:18:10] Tom Butta: Tom,
[00:18:10] Michael Kassan: I want to go back to something I said earlier about, you know, the Holy grail of the right person, the right device, the right context, the right, the right, the right, the right. One of our. Early Medialink team members, Dee Solomon, who's retired, but Dee introduced an idea to me many years ago and I've carried it now, it's more than close to 15 years I've been telling this same story.
[00:18:30] Michael Kassan: It's great that we all want the right, right, right, right, right. However, we can't lose sight of the fact that we're in the business of marketing. And in marketing, sometimes you want surprise and delight, and sometimes you want serendipity. In fact, you always want serendipity. And the story I always tell was, it was a milestone birthday, and my wife asked me if I wanted a watch, because I like watches.
[00:18:51] Michael Kassan: I said, no, honey, I got enough watches. I don't, I don't want to watch. So I was affirmatively not in the market for a watch as a consumer. I wasn't ambivalent. I was, no, I don't want one. That's affirmative. I got to our New York apartment and I was opening the mail and there was a catalog and the catalog just mysteriously opened to the center, you know, fold.
[00:19:13] Michael Kassan: And it was a dazzling picture of a new watch. And I went, Whoa, and now the end of that story, folks, is I own that watch. So affirmatively not in the market, and yet a good piece of copy, a good piece of marketing put me into the market.
[00:19:31] Tom Butta: It made, that made it, it made an emotional connection because your emotional response was, wow, that's frankly what good storytelling, which could be frankly just great photos, but it portrays a story, uh, that you respond to.
[00:19:48] Tom Butta: Right? And that's, that's the, it seems that that's the first place where many of us, you know, make decisions. And I think we then go and figure out how to justify those decisions based off of that. Emotional response, right? Absolutely. So let me, let me ask you this question. As you know, we, Airship's in the business of supporting many brands with their mobile consumer and particularly with their app.
[00:20:12] Tom Butta: And we've been, we've been doing lots of things over the last 14 years, um, and innovating new experiences that brands can take to customers. And what we're seeing is we. Mobile app consumers are actually more valuable than all other consumers to brands. So in the same way that you are definitive, affirmative and definitive in your choice of saying the Absolutely, the chief marketing officer should own customer experience.
[00:20:42] Tom Butta: Who should own the
[00:20:43] Michael Kassan: app? That's interesting. Um, there's both a sales and a marketing side to the app and, you know, and a product and a product. Well, for sure a product, but there's sales, marketing and product converging. That's a, that's a conversation that we have regularly with many of our clients. So the answer is.
[00:21:03] Michael Kassan: It's not one size fits all, Tom, but I think that has to be more, when you have, we didn't talk about this when we talked about titles at the outset, but CDMO, Chief Digital Marketing Officer. Okay, that's another element. Maybe in the context of a CDMO, maybe that's where it lives. If that marketer has what we talked about earlier.
[00:21:25] Michael Kassan: The tech chops to understand the app side of the business, because that is the tech side of the business. That is the product side of the business and not every marketer should have that. So it, you know, there are some that can, it, that's a, that's a, now you'll remember that I was a lawyer at the beginning of my career.
[00:21:42] Michael Kassan: So that was as good a lawyer's answer as I can give depends on the facts and circumstances.
[00:21:48] Tom Butta: Yeah, so you're, you know, because of where you are and where you sit, you know, across all these brands, frankly, agency relationships and now having exposure to this diversified talent agency where I'm certainly, certainly with Hollywood and with music companies and technology companies and sports and sports out there doing really interesting things.
[00:22:12] Tom Butta: Are there any trends? I mean, this is a broad question, but are there any trends you're particularly fascinated by that may be coming from one industry that should be applied to another,
[00:22:22] Michael Kassan: or? That's a great question, Tom. From the talent agency side, I've never been inside of a talent agency, but again, back to my early career, I was a tax lawyer and most of my clients were in the entertainment industry.
[00:22:35] Michael Kassan: So. I've worked a lot in the entertainment industry and early in my career, but I wasn't an agent and I wasn't an entertainment lawyer. I was a tax lawyer, but I was in and around the hoop, if you will. So I certainly know the business talent today. They're not looking at an agency anymore just to see who can get me the best paycheck for that movie or TV show or that new album or my tour or in the sports side, who's going to get me the biggest contract.
[00:23:01] Michael Kassan: And, you know, yes, all of that's important. The real talent today. Producer, director, writers, actors, they're not just interested in the next movie, they're interested in having their own tequila brand, and they're interested in having their own clothing line, and they're interested in having their own production company, and they're interested in having, you know, don't just hire me to do the commercial endorsement, but I'm a creative person, I should be able, you don't, you may not even need an advertising agency, why don't you just come to me?
[00:23:32] Michael Kassan: You know, I'll give you a case study. Kevin Hart happens to be one of our clients. We saw that at CAN, yeah. Right. And Kevin has been the primary spokesperson for Chase for five, six years. And everybody identifies Kevin with that Chase freedom and cash back. And he's a great spokesperson and endorser. For that product and identified with it.
[00:23:55] Michael Kassan: He's also one of the funniest, most creative people you're ever going to meet. So is there a need for an advertising agency? Maybe, maybe not in the middle of that, or should Kevin be able to, or talent like Kevin and granted, there's not that many like him, but you know, there are plenty that can, should they be doing the full.
[00:24:13] Michael Kassan: Monty, should they be doing the creative and being in front of the camera, behind the camera, the full thing? So that's a big difference in talent today and what they're looking for. The brand side on the MediaLink side on the pure, you know, working with the, with the fortune, you know, a hundred brands, I think we are finally at a time where the.
[00:24:34] Michael Kassan: Ability to have brands more involved in the creation of content, not just commercial messages, but the actual IP and actually creating content in partnership with the creative community, with the creator economy, is really finally here. And what I mean
[00:24:52] Tom Butta: by that is Can you give me an example?
[00:24:54] Michael Kassan: Yeah. Well, you know, go back to where it all started.
[00:24:58] Michael Kassan: It's called soap operas, you know? Right. Of course. That's right. We all know where Soap operas started. It came from Proctor and Gamble. Okay. That's a way we can create programming that's gonna be appealing to mom because mom's gonna be the one shopping at the, at the grocery store to buy Proctor and Gamble products.
[00:25:13] Michael Kassan: That was the construct of the world when those soap operas were introduced. That's certainly not the construct of the world today. I'm just taking you back for a moment. Sure, sure. I think. That's one example. The other is, you know, this is not the good example, but it's the Chrysler Theater, it's the Westinghouse Presents, it's marketers actually surrounding the content and owning a piece of the content, not just supplying commercials and getting, you know, getting in front of the consumer that way.
[00:25:41] Michael Kassan: And maybe that goes to the content itself. So if I'm Unilever. And Dove, which I think is one of the great campaigns of this generation, the campaign for real beauty, which impacted not just growing the Dove brand dramatically, but impacted pop culture. I think today there's a different appreciation for the woman in society.
[00:26:04] Michael Kassan: Doesn't have to be a size two and doesn't have to look a certain way or be a certain thing. Campaign for Real Beauty isn't just what you look like on the, or what size dress or, you know, outfit you wear. That campaign, you wouldn't need a lot of product placement to tell a story that could communicate the brand values of Dove.
[00:26:29] Michael Kassan: It's a great example because you could create a wonderful series, or a movie, or a movie of the week, or whatever it is, or a webisode, whatever you call it, to tell a good story about how that brand value is brought to life. So, that's the example. I've given you an easy one. It's not product placement. It's not product integration.
[00:26:51] Michael Kassan: It's more than brand integration. It's content being used to drive commerce. And that's a big change. And I think,
[00:27:01] Tom Butta: frankly, that all starts from what, you know, your, I would call it your positioning strategy, which is like, what do you believe? Like, what does Dove believe? Why is Dove in business? Okay. Forget besides making money and they have a product that they want to sell, but like, What are your core beliefs?
[00:27:17] Tom Butta: And it seems
[00:27:17] Michael Kassan: No, no, and Tom, you're, you're, you're opening up a different conversation, though. And I'm very tuned into this conversation. In fact, the last, in, in January of 2020, just before the pandemic, my CES keynote, which I'm fortunate to do every year, I interviewed Someone we talked about earlier, Mark Benioff and Alan Jope.
[00:27:36] Michael Kassan: And at the time, Alan Jope was the chairman CEO, the CEO of Unilever and Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, obviously. And those are two companies that really personified, purpose driven. Mark Benioff, famously 1 percent of all the revenue goes to the San Francisco Children's Hospital. With he and Lynn's name on it.
[00:27:55] Michael Kassan: And, you know, he's all about those things. And it's very important. Unilever, no more committed company to cleaning up our world and, and carbon footprint and everything else, uh, than Unilever. So I put them on the stage to talk about purpose. In marketing, but then the flip side of that for Unilever, there was pushback in London in the financial markets that Unilever was overcorrecting on purpose.
[00:28:22] Michael Kassan: And there was a pundit in the Financial Times who wrote a comment that said, a message to Unilever, mayonnaise. Is good for dipping your chips. That's the purpose of mayonnaise. The message was, Hey guys, don't get too caught up on purpose because you're going to bury the plot. You're selling mayonnaise.
[00:28:44] Michael Kassan: Don't over correct on purpose. Remember the purpose is to dip your chips. So there is a, there is a push and a pull
[00:28:52] Tom Butta: there. For sure. Yeah, it just seems like in your Dove example that they manifested a core belief about women and inner beauty, right?
[00:29:01] Michael Kassan: Well, they actually changed culture. Their view actually
[00:29:04] Tom Butta: did change culture.
[00:29:05] Tom Butta: Exactly. And it was done through their story, right? And then the product kind of came along with it.
[00:29:13] Michael Kassan: I mean, it's a really good story because there are times when a commercial message, you know, you go back to, again, I don't live in the past, I live in the present and the future, but the past is a good foundation for the present and the future.
[00:29:26] Michael Kassan: You know, Coca Cola, let's get, you know, we're going to teach the world to sing. That wasn't a commercial for Coca Cola. That was a whole different, that was a movement.
[00:29:35] Tom Butta: Yep, absolutely. I remember that. So thank you, Michael. We're going to go into the last bit here, and it's really short. Uh, I thank you for your generous amount of time here.
[00:29:46] Tom Butta: Apple or Android? Apple. Okay. Apple. All right. I'm interested in your response to this. New York or LA? Both. Yeah. I knew you were going to say that.
[00:29:55] Michael Kassan: People ask me frequently, Michael, you travel a lot. What's your favorite city? So, well, my favorite cities used to be New York, London, and Hong Kong. And of course that begets the next question, which is, well, what, what about LA?
[00:30:07] Michael Kassan: I said, well, you didn't ask me my favorite place to live. You asked me my favorite city. LA is the best place to live in the world, but, but there are things about other cities that I, that I miss in LA. Yep. Bagel
[00:30:19] Tom Butta: or pizza.
[00:30:19] Michael Kassan: Oh, definitely a scooped out bagel with a lot, with a lot of schmear on it.
[00:30:25] Tom Butta: It's your New Yorker.
[00:30:26] Tom Butta: You're, you're defying your, your, your roots. Okay. Um, given that you're in the entertainment space and very close to it, are you binge watching any particular
[00:30:35] Michael Kassan: show? Uh, I am. I'm juggling right now. I've just finished Billions, which I loved. I was a good Billions devotee over the seven seasons or so. Just finished it.
[00:30:46] Michael Kassan: Um, I'm applying to my, uh, more feminine side, uh, watching the morning show. Uh, and, uh, I really enjoy it. I think it's a really well done conversation. Uh, you know, uh, uh, study on, on kind of current situations. It's very, it's very topical. What else do I have in the queue? There's been some interesting documentaries.
[00:31:10] Michael Kassan: Oh, there was one other new net, not new, but new season of a show that I loved on Netflix called Lupin, which is a wonderful, uh, French. Uh, detective show. And he's a wonderful character and I thought the show was done and it's not. It came back. So that's, that's on my current spin. Very
[00:31:27] Tom Butta: cool. Well, thank you.
[00:31:29] Tom Butta: Thank you very much for your time today. It's really great. Great to see you. It's great to have another good chat, as it were, and we really appreciate your insights. Thank you. Well,
[00:31:40] Michael Kassan: Tom, this was a really enjoyable hour for me and I hope the listeners, uh, you know, learn a thing or two or at least get a laugh.
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