Larry I’ll give you a cue here. Mmm agency 100 Studio sessions proud Farm. Okay, we’re rolling.
Hello,
my name is Larry dobrow. I’m the Editor in Chief of mmm and I am ready for you to plug into this episode of the agency 100 Studio sessions a new podcast series, which gives members of the mmm agency 100 and opportunity to rip on what sets them apart.
Today, I’ve got a good one ordinarily. We don’t wind up arm wrestling for the opportunity to do certain podcasts. This one was an arm wrestling match and somehow I came out on top. I’m thrilled to welcome from proud Farm Mike Myers and Steve Bernstein.
Guys welcome. Thanks. Larry
great to be here and I hope we don’t have to arm wrestle at the end of this. Well almost certainly you’d win. You know, I just
you know, I got very lucky at this one, you know my opponent, you know, he was like, you know throwing 30 30 Innings last night, you know, the guy was falling apart not this is great. Thank you guys so much for doing this. We’re gonna talk a little bit about the evolving agency model and I think you’re perfect guest for this given that crowd Farmers. It’s kind of anticipated a lot of the changes before they happened even prior to the pandemic. So most of our questions will be along those lines and let me start out with one of the more basic ones in terms of client expectations. How are things different for agency partners now over then they were maybe three years ago five years ago.
Will start with a softball. Thanks, Larry. I appreciate it in all Candor. You know, you said that we are anticipating things that were happening before they happen. I think frankly, I think we got lucky in some ways and I also believe that you know, we were just trying to react to where we saw people going and how they wanted to work and what clients were looking for and you know specifically to your question. I think there are a few things that have been really consistent that clients have wanted more and more of and in the last few years. I think I’ve seen a lot of that, um clients want things faster. They definitely are speed is a big concern for folks. They always are wanting things more inexpensively cheaper and we’re seeing a lot of that. I mean digital leads everything today. So they’re you know, there used to be. Okay. What are we doing, you know from a standard perspective and then what are we doing digital? And now it’s what are we doing from a digital perspective and do we need to do anything at all in the other?
Years. I think those three points are areas that clients have really zeroed in on even more and more. I’m in the last three years, but one other one really sticks out to me. I remember when I was living in New York and I would fly to San Francisco and I can remember doing this a few times we would fly across country and have a two-hour meeting with the client and then there wouldn’t be a dinner because there were more client meetings that were agencies weren’t involved in and then you’d fly home and clients would literally bring in people from all over the country from not only their vendor side, but from their individual teams, and we’re not seeing that anymore Klein expectations have changed about being in person and and I’m not saying that they don’t want to see their agencies and their agency partners, but it used to be you would make those trips you spend three days for two hours and
frankly. It’s been refreshing and nice and Larry. I’ll throw in another one really quick. The I always have the advantage of sitting back and thinking of my thinking my thoughts as Mike’s giving great answers, but
You know, every agency always wants to pick up the aor everybody wants to be the aor and we want to be the aor for sure too and we are in most cases but I see more and more today clients wanting to test drive their agencies and test drive with a project or maybe begin on a project basis and really traditional agencies are not set up to run projects. They’re set up to be aor’s our model because we bring flexible people in and our Network allows us to flex we’re set up to run a project basis and to really show you what you what we can do and it’s just perfect for for what I think people are looking forward today. They want that test drive more than they wanted in the past
in a way is that one of the factors that’s contributed to crowdfarms recent growth the fact that you know, you are hey you want us for a project terrific you want us for a or we can do that too. Like you said so many of the bigger agencies are set up in a way that it’s aor or bust has that been one of the factors that help?
Absolutely has been a contributing factor. I mean, we we have been built from the beginning to be able to do small work and also, you know be a full agency of record and and fortunately, you know, as we’ve continued to grow we’ve had more Brands and trusting their their overall stewardship to us through the aor relationship, but candidly I just got off the phone right before I got on this call with someone who wants us to do a project and we can completely do that project for them. And and also do it at a reasonable profit for us one of the other factors that’s helped us grow in this change of expectations around meetings and and the clients being more flexible about engaging is our people are truly all over the country and all over the world. And when we started crowd Farm, we looked not only at what people were wanting to do in terms of who’s in the workforce, but we’re looking at technology that was out there and then frankly we’re also looking at some of the things that we wanted that Steve and I were interested in and we really built a company that people can work from
Anywhere and you know now that Zoom is acceptable on a phone, you know, things like that. We we were kind of at the right place at the right time and really we’re able to tap into some of the changes that have been occurring out there in the market space and in the way clients think and what they want, you know and Mike I might expand on what you said
earlier too that I mean, we’ve heard and Larry I’m sure you’ve heard it too that forever. Well, maybe not forever. But for a long time clients have been saying we want something different we want something different. We want a different model. The old model is not working for us and they were saying that for a long time but we don’t think they were really ready for it when they were saying it to begin with but now they definitely are ready for it. And it’s that deal that Mike was talking about where it used to be unusual if you would say hey on the phone, we’ve got people and Seattle we got people in Saratoga Springs. We got people in San Diego that used to be an unusual thing today. Not only are we doing it. It’s our model but clients are doing that too. So I’m just expanding on what
Said earlier not only are they asking for change but they’re now accepting it and that’s really been great for us.
Steve that leads nicely into our next question about the flexibility that Kraut Farm has always had but there’s also now a lot of flexibility being asked for for employees and I think companies are going in a couple different directions. Some companies are saying, you know, we want you here period other companies are giving plenty of leeway in terms of working from home or working in the office. How do you think this plays out for the advertising industry and for companies like crowd bar?
Well, you’ve probably heard this expression before and I’m going to use it here. But I I think the Genies out of the bottle, you know, I think people have gotten used to working at home working from other places and coming into the office. I don’t think coming into the office is dead. But I think that flexibility that the Genies out of the bottle and I think particularly creative Industries like ours, I think that’s gonna be even a harder Workforce to say. Hey you all have to be in the office now when I say that I’m sure there will be somebody out there some agency who say our model is everybody’s in person and that’s the benefit but I think that’s gonna be really rare and that’s not gonna be us.
Yeah, I I remember working for an agency in Manhattan and there was a guy that commuted every day from just outside of Princeton. So his commute was about an hour and 20 minutes each day each each Direction and I can only imagine what it’s like for him to have. You know, that that was almost three hours back every day to be able to whether it’s work or spend time with his family or whether it’s just you know to to work out and I agree with Steve the Genies not only out of the bottle but the genie is not going back and I think the next generation of people that we want working in advertising are not going to tolerate be in five days a week be in here from eight to six or whatever. It might be. I don’t think people are afraid to work hard but they want the flexibility to be able to work in a manner and in some instances and you know, maybe it’s a few days a week. Maybe it’s every day of the week. They want to work where they want to work and I don’t think that companies that Force this down on the on the new Workforce. That’s
Into into the market today and into people that got a taste for not doing those, you know, three hour a day commutes. I don’t think they’re gonna be around in 10 years. I I really believe people are going to rebel against them and and as Steve said, some people are sure it’s like gonna put their foot down, but I know a few Financial Services firms in Wall Street did that and then they had such a backlash that they had to back pedal.
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I
don’t think it ends the desire for Community though, even though we’re separated in our case. We’re separated around the country and even around the globe you still have to put an emphasis and maybe even more so now on being a community and and being a group and working on the culture of the company. I mean that probably becomes even more important than it was before because that Community part can’t disappear. We can’t be independent people working from anywhere not
connected.
That Community part I think it’s always been so Central to what crowdfarm does to what everybody in medical marketing does how has managing that Community, you know, making sure you balance the needs of each part of it how has that changed over the last couple of years? What are some of the biggest challenges for agencies right now in terms of retention of talent in terms of attracting new Talent, how does that play into a little bit of what you both just said about the newly flexible workplace environment.
I think that
I think the answer is the same for both attracting and retaining Talent people are looking for companies that have a culture, you know are a place that they want to work that are going to provide them with, you know, interesting work experiences and the opportunity to learn and grow of course compensation is is relevant but I think one of the biggest decisions for both coming to a company and saying a company these days is how Progressive are they in terms of willing me to work at home if I want to how are they okay with the fact that you know, it’s Friday at 6pm and I don’t want to work all weekend. I we’re seeing a lot more Desire by people to have some semblance of work-life balance which you know, thank God for them. And I wish it had been that way when I really Force but they don’t want to tolerate what used to be very acceptable in the agency World, which is you know, you work 100 hours plus a week and and you smile and say thank you very much. Let’s I’ll see on Monday. I think people are looking
For everything that they’ve always wanted from a great career in advertising, but they don’t want to sell their souls and their lives
to get it.
To that extent the industry way belatedly obviously has started paying a lot more attention to diversity to making sure that their Workforce is reflect the audiences to whom they’re marketing. Tell me a little bit about how Kraut Farm has handled this and I think you’ve handled it actually quite well.
You know, thank you for asking that question. I mean diversity and focusing on it is is clearly important to to our company and frankly should be if it’s not already important to everyone and you know being representative in our industry is not only the right thing to do but it’s the thing we need to do if we’re gonna do great work that’s gonna help our clients and their brands resonate with their their end Target audiences. And you know, we have a series of values that are our team actually put together on their own. One of them is work. Like your mom is watching you which one of the ones I I personally love we all have one that’s moved meaning always be moving forward and it you know fail forward but along the lines of what we’re talking about right now. One of them is everyone’s welcome and we have a little icon that was developed. It shows a lot of peas in the pod and they’re all just kind of sitting in there and and they’re all together and and really that’s our approach and it has been from day one and and frankly I I
Only believe that it’s been our approach in our Focus because it’s the right thing to do not because it’s what we should be doing and you know, you look at our senior leadership team and and you look at different areas that would be classified as Dei and and diverse and more than half of our senior leadership would would fit that bill and it really is just like I said, not only the right thing to do but it’s the right thing to do for our clients and their brands because you know, frankly you can’t see me Larry but I’m a six foot four white Anglo-Saxon Protestant and I’m not representative of everyone that that our clients want to talk to you and maybe I have a decent point of view.
So we have some need advantages too. I mean the fact that we set up a worldwide Network. I mean we are inherently diverse because people come from different parts the world and and although our every one of our members is better through a process that vetting process and it wasn’t set up for diversity, but it is a blind process.
where yes, we know where you’re coming from, but we have no idea who the person is or what they look like or where they you know, what their background is when they apply to be a part of the network and I think that that that’s really the way it’s things should be
absolutely
Another aspect of the changing workplace that you know, we’ve been discussing so far the role of Technology the role of AI how are both of them changing and so, you know, certainly right now ai is the it’s the ultimate buzzword, right, you know doing all the agency 100 interviews our previous conversations. It’s something which has come up and every every interview but how is that changed the way that agencies and clients are interacting and in a way that supports patients.
So Larry, I’m not trying to age us or date you and Steve but remember about 25 years ago when there was this thing called the internet and everyone will in all the agencies we’re talking about that during these types of interviews. And if you didn’t get you start learning how to build websites should be dead. I mean, I think we’re experiencing a little bit of that right now with AI but the reality is that it’s here and it’s really interesting and can be very very powerful and you know, we we like to believe that crowd Farm is
Technology company that delivers that that utilizes that technology to deliver great strategic and Creative Solutions for our clients. And you know our Global Network that Steve was referencing we power it based on an application or be in an application that we built ourselves and we’ve already started adding AI to our application. So as an example when we receive a creative brief or when we build a creative beef for a client, we’re entering it into our application and it’s starting to pick within our network of over 7,000 people who are the creative and strategic people that we should be aligning to this work. I mean, it’s really really exciting and that’s you know, something that you know, most people don’t have a network application like we do but some of the other things we’ve been using AI for you know, we’ve taken some processes that we had to to do for our clients and in Pharma the vast majority. If not all of them use Viva, there’s there’s a few steps that you have to do when you’re doing Viva sub.
Is that literally took like a day’s worth of Labor and we were able through a mix of AI and some custom programming to break it down into something that took us that now takes less than 10 minutes and it’s crazy how efficient that is. So, you know, we started a task force literally a couple weeks ago that’s representative across all of our teams and companies of people with different viewpoints. So they’re not just all the youngest people that are already into it so that we can responsibly and effectively utilize AI with our clients and we do believe that the responsible side is is an important thing to throw out frankly. We do not believe that people are going to lose their jobs to AI we believe that they may lose their jobs to people that know how to use Ai and so our responsibility is to teach our people and our teams how to use artificial intelligence we have plans to actually have our entire network of over 7,000 people be exposed to learning tools.
They can use AI because we have played with it and you can do some really really fun things creatively with AI very very quickly. And so we plan to continue to tap into it. We want to do a responsibly and effectively and we want to make sure that our people our teams and our Global network are the ones that know how to use AI because we do care about our employees and we really believe
that the best work will come from a mix of human and artificial intelligence working together. It’s not going to be one versus the other anymore and and we’re excited about it. Frankly.
I mean that’s kind of it, right. You know AI is not just say sorry. Go ahead.
No, you’re set. You just said what I was gonna say. Hey, it’s not going away. And so to our people and I’d even say people listening this podcast. You need to be playing with it. You need to play with it don’t ignore it. It’s coming on amazingly fast and it’s not going anywhere and better be familiar with it than not
AI is not going to replace us it is going to make us work better and hopefully smarter.
And have more time for
you know afternoon golf matches or jogs or whatever. It might be right
more. Well somehow I’ve somehow been feeling the job will wind up swallowing up that time one way or another but yeah in theory, right?
I had some wishful thinking there wishful thinking so
much of what we spoke about so far has been about the way that agencies need to evolve and certainly about how crowdfarm has like we said at the outset anticipated some of those changes for our final question the imperative to keep evolving. Why is it so important for agencies? Why is it specifically so important for agencies in the healthcare and medical sectors?
Well, I mean we’ve we’ve touched on it throughout this whole thing. The world is changing. The one thing that we can say is not changing is the fact that change is occurring so probably to use a cliche change is always going to happen and it’s happening quicker and quicker and quicker, you know, the parts of our business don’t change. It’s still about the Big Ideas. It’s still connecting to the end user and making sure you’re very relevant and have a relationship with end users and our job is deliver that but but the ways that we deliver it and how we come to it. Those things are evolving and and to the agencies to borrow what Mike talked about that didn’t embrace the internet when it began and today do those who don’t Embrace Ai and who knows where the or let’s even say remote working those who aren’t embracing remote working. I mean, we’ve got to be elements of change because it’s changes going on in the world around us.
Yeah, and I I think just to build on what Steve’s saying. I think there’s two reasons why we have to change one is and and I’ve said this for a long time and I’m not the first person nor will I be the last to say it?
People are our product.
You know human beings and their brains are our machines and our machines are changing. Our people people are changing as they’re as they’re coming into the workforce and they have different expectations. They have different wants they have different needs then, you know those of us that entered the workforce 25 30 years ago and if we don’t evolve and adapt to them to some degree, I’m not saying 100% but to some degree then we’re not going to be relevant to them. We’re not gonna be interesting to them and we’re not going to be able to attract and retain Talent as you know, we were talking about earlier Larry but I think there’s another side of this I think, you know the model that work for agencies for decades and it’s still works to some degree, you know, the idea is you fill a building with people and you have really really smart good people and you feel a building with people and then clients come to you and they say Hey, you know, we have a cardiovascular product or we have an antibiotic or we have whatever it might be, you know who in your building has antibiotic or cardiovascular experience or oncology experience?
There was a time where the biggest agencies had all of that but they don’t anymore and so the idea that you’re going to fill a building with people have all the right people there in real time and be able to meet the needs of your clients and the ultimate Physicians and patients Downstream from them. I think is silly in today’s day and age. I mean, there’s so many different disease States. There’s so much focus on rare disease versus Blockbuster drugs, you know, they’re used to be agencies that this is the cardiovascular agency and this is the antibiotic agency. So our industry is very fragmented and at the same time, there’s no way that one agency can be one be everything to all people and you know, we’ve come up with an approach that enables us to tap into that Global abundance of creativity and strategy that exists out there in healthcare and bring it to Bear in real time for our clients and there are definitely going to be other ways that agencies can do that, but we have to be able to adapt and do things differently.
I also think that there’s a fundamental flaw in the idea that filling this building with people and make believing you have all the right people and then focusing on keeping them billable down to quarter hour increments and managing utilization as a means to an end. I think that’s from the past and I don’t think that that’s the best way for agencies to work. I think the idea that it takes to come up with that brilliant idea for a brand the amount of time that idea takes 15 minutes. Let’s say shouldn’t be how much an agency’s compensated when that’s the big idea. And so I just think there’s some things fundamentally broken with the agency model and and frankly don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of really good agencies out there. They’re right now while we’re on this on this podcast or doing some really smart work, but I think over time that model is is gonna really
prove to be Antiquated and Mike I can’t help but smile when you say it because we grew up in that traditional agency model and we
Pitching it separately at different companies pitching the fact we have all the answers. All right here you need to hire us and and here’s the team we’ll put on it. It’ll cost you this much per person this much time, but it does sound now when you hear it back, it sounds so silly to think that all those we thought that we could pitch all the answers were in one place.
Well, we could when it was awesome, that’s true.
Not everyone else.
Well, you guys
right answers,
you know, I love these conversations that we have. I always feel smarter when I come out of them and let let’s let’s revisit some of these some of these things that we’ve talked about six months from now a year from now and see see where we are. Yeah, these future minded conversations are always the best ones we have so many thanks for doing it with us here.
Thank you. I know that things will change by then. So it’ll be worthwhile to revisit it.
Yeah, Larry, we really appreciate me the opportunity to chat with you today. And and you know, thanks for listening to us. And you know, hopefully some of what we’re sharing can be beneficial to others. I don’t think we have all the answers. I don’t think we have all the right answers, but I do believe that we’ve tapped into something really interesting and unique here at crowd Farm that’s enabling us not only to attract and retain great people though. We’re we’ve been able to do some amazing work for clients and been fortunate that they’ve given us the opportunity to work with them and their brands so, you know, thank you for letting us speak about
A little bit today.
Absolutely. Meanwhile one final question. This is kind of the sneak stealth question that we throw at everybody at the end. This is the agency 100 studio session podcast. So for both of you, what is the last song that you listen to?
Oh, we’ve gotten some amazing answers and I think one thing that’s kind of cool is that this bit this business has pretty good taste of music. So no pressure.
Um, I need something you proof by Morgan Wallen.
All right,
that’s good. I was listening if you listen to the remastered it’s more than remastered you too is come out with their remastered song.
Yeah, the story the stories of surrender, right? They kind of reinvented them kind of chewed him up.
Yeah, and I mean you you’ve got to be pretty strong in the belief of your lyrics to do that. But I think they did it. I I thought it was awesome. So that was the last thing I listen to as I travel out here was songs of surrender
great choices. I love this question.
No Larry you that’s the question. What was the last song? You heard?
I believe I was listening to Jason Isbell on the way back from my thunderstorm kid. Pick up new song called Death Wish which is wonderful.
Okay,
I’ll look for that.
Yeah, check it out. It’s
good.
real
Mike Steve, this has been an absolute pleasure many. Thanks for joining us here today.
Thank you.
Thanks Larry. All right
for the agency 100 Studio sessions. I’m Larry dobrow. Thanks for listening and be well.