A little meta, a little Mama

Welcome back to Atlantia episode of Living one one. We're back from fourth of July and we were with some folks that we really love, some family, and Laura had this hilarious conversation with my grandmother in law. Her name's Mama, definitely one of the most advanced eighty seven year old

women I've ever encountered with social media. Um, my favorite things that she does is post incessantly pictures of my German shepherd, Jack's on the I Love GSD page and if you follow that page, you all notice that she posts so many picks years that Jack often gets featured. And I'm not sure if it's because they want her to stop posting pictures or because they just really think my dog is beautiful, but I've just been so enthralled by how much Facebook has given her later years in life.

Just a different meaning, different than the way you use it, the way I use it, the way we talk about it on the show. It's her connection and connection to the world. And she will tell you that. Um, for somebody that is a social butterfly, she is. She doesn't like to go out that much anymore, and it's her way of keeping you know, in touch with friends, but

also just being aware of everything that's happening. Um. We're going to have a little fun with her at the end of the show, but before then, we have a very good friend and colleague who has been with us not only on the ad Landia journey but really with us in the last four years, who has worked with us on all the major things that we've done and has amazing perspective and is really one of the up and coming talents in the industry. So all under the

age of thirty. Oh god, this makes me sad. But Corbyn Brown will be with us, who is a strategy director over at Giant Spoon, and I think it'll be fun to hear both his perspective as to why he left big agency to go work at something less conventional. He was employee number one, which I think is is a ballsy move to make at that age, but also nothing to lose at the same time. And he'll tell us about that. And then and then we get meta and we talked about podcasting, which he's been begging us.

He's like, can we do podcasting? About podcasting? We said, yes, Corborn will do that, but also bigger than that, like how audio is the through line in the next gen of technology. So we'll be right back to Corbyn Brown. So today we brought in someone very special, a little young on not little, definitely definitely a young and a gun Corbyn Brown, director of strategy at Giant Spoon. Welcome, Corbin, Welcome Corbin. Let's just be honest. Corbin and Laura work together.

We do. And some would say he reports to me. Corbin would say he doesn't. And Corbin, Laura used to work with me and we both reported to me. So Corbin has done some of I think the best thinking in the industry about where audio is going and podcasting, and he was a huge proponent of us going and doing this podcast. So today we're making the show kind of meta. As Corbyn likes to say, let's do a podcast about podcasting, so we have a sound effect there. I don't know what I don't know what it is.

Drumroll please, No, you're not feeling at cam. You're still hanging on that backyard in Brooklyn from the weekend. Can you do a mike yeah, microphone drop a podcast about podcasting. So Corbin, you're at Giant Spoon right now, which is effectively a small boutique agency, right, as Giant Spoon likes to say, an ad agency that doesn't like to make ads, right, A different agency, a different kind of agency. But you started your career at big agencies. Yes I did, and

you made it and you hated it. Why did you hate it? I mean, I so I wanted to Like, I was drawn to advertising because it's this fascinating combination of psychology and anthropology and sociology, all the ologies. But you get to think about how people think and then you use persuasion and communication to get them to do something, which is really fascinating. So I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, which when you look at it that way, it's kind of similar. You're way too nice to be

a lawyer. I was going to be a lawyer. You're not going to say that about me. I was just looking at never that you would have crushed. You would have crushed it. So talk a little bit about the tr transition and you hated it? And did you start looking around? What were you looking for? Because I actually think there are a lot of people who are at large you are at a media agency like looking that they don't even know that they're looking, but they're looking,

uh for something different. So I went to a big media agency with you know, all these big bread ideas and thought it would be so cool. Um. I was so excited to learn about technology and you know how people communicate and consume media. And then I found that my job was really to buy ad space. I was a day trader and that's not what I wanted to do. Are you on the planning side? I was a digital media planner, and I would you know that the brief would basically be it wasn't a brief, it was here's

X number of dollars. Right. You get a big chunk of change plopped on your desk, and your job is to figure out how to spend that money and what frustrated me just about that even was well, like who am I talking to? And what's the message and what's the business problem? Like we were so far away from all that, so the whole communication aspect of it wasn't really there. And you know, when we were pitching our plans and building our plans, the clients wanted to see, well,

how much money did you save me? How many impressions did I buy? And I just didn't really feel like the work that I was doing was meaningful. Was most of what you were doing, like banners, banners and video was buying banners as buying pre role. It's funny. I was talking to a group of clients recently and I asked them if they actually got to know their agencies, like their people on their teams and what they were

really good at. And I don't know if we've mentioned this in another episode when we were talking about like influencers like the innovations at the middle layer, but one of the things I said to them was like, have you talked to the kid that is planning your media and this is working on this work and understand what they're doing, and they're like time off because what you will find are these amazing stories and amazing people who

like now nowadays, like everybody's got a side hustle. Right, So like one of the kids that we used to work with had a whole like art club that he was doing and doing this amazing work. You know, Um, the clients when you were working with them, did you really get to know them? And that doesn't mean like

you get to know them it's personal. It's actually about like, I don't know, leveraging the whole person rights and yeah, and and like so many people are always trying to talk to the quote millennial, right, and we have all these millennials around us working on the business who have no voice. I think that clients who asked the questions about who they're working with and what, you know, inspires their people, what they would do and what they think

of this. Yeah, I just don't think. I think that this is going to sound bad, but I think that that's why media agencies are becoming automated, because I think that it doesn't require critical thinking, it doesn't require creativity or curiosity. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I left was and I'll never forget this moment, was like four and a half months in and I was sending around articles because I was trying to understand

the media landscape and what was going on. And I would send around articles to like my director and the rest of my team, like hey, this is really interesting, Like what do you guys think about this? Just trying to learn, and people be like, oh, stop sending articles.

I'm like, I'm so confused right now. But you know, I just think that, like, there are a lot of people who come from a financial background whose brains work in that way of I love this game of sort of trading on an impression, right, they get the thrill and the excitement from the deal. That's not about communicating. I don't even know if that's a deal, right, It's just like the thrill in the excitement of like beating something down, bidding bidding. I mean I think that that's

like I like poker. I like to bid on stuff. But it's a different type of game. It's a different type of motive, it's a different type of way of thinking. You know how you said it doesn't take critical thinking. I actually think programmatic actually does take critical thinking to do it. Well, yeah, agree, Right, we've actually shut down the ability for people to think critically or want to

think critically. Well, I think what you just said is the delineation, right, because there's two sides of the programmatic game. There's the ones that are turning on an automated algorithm and they're going out and they're finding the cheapest available inventory in front of a specific audience at any given time. And then there are few and far between, which I wish the industry would lean more into, are the people who are trying to think about how they leverage automated

bidding creatively. And those are two very distinct things. And automated I mean, really what it is the automated audience right, segmentation right? But how can you tell a narrative in that? How can you find ways to make sure that that

isn't remnant inventory. I was talking to somebody today about the issue with addressable TV and how it's the same bad behavior of getting just remnant inventory across networks and just because it's in front of an audience who is let's just say fee mail thirty five to fifty four, all of a sudden you went from being on you know, prime time positioning within programs like this is us to

like I love Lucy reruns on the Lifetime network. Well, so that's the difference because it's what mindset, psychology, all these things. So critical thinking comes in when you when you start applying context and you start applying moment. So is this moment more valuable? Here's where I think we think programmatic. It's really interesting is when you start buying experiences, you start trading on you know, a physical product, then

it gets completely different. The three of us, the three of us built something about that, right, I mean it's about programmatic. Actually it doesn't execute today, doesn't execute right today doesn't. Technology is right, The technology is the right directionally correct, right, But how we're using it as advertisers and brands is not necessarily serving up experiences that people desire, and it considers behavior in the wrong way. So the

data comes from the wrong places. And it's no fault to the way programmatic works because where else you're gonna get data? You get data by watching what people do on the internet. But when we live in this connected world, so I gave a talk about connected disconnect It was a great talk. Where do we do that l A? We did that in l A. But when you start to aggregate data from your physical body and where you move and where you drive, and the temperature of your

house and the things that you order. You start to get a fuller picture of who someone is and what they do and where they migrate and then imagine what do you That's where critical think it comes in because what do you? How do you do that? And incomes the audio conversation what the three of us? I think in three years podcasting about podcasting, but it's more than podcasting, right,

So like what three years ago? The three of us became obsessed with what was happening in the podcasting space and thinking about how audio, where audio was going to take things, and Cerrial was the impetus. I think for a lot of us are like, hold on, wait a minute, because podcasting, like our host family here at Slate like im panically, they've been doing it for ten years plus plus.

But it wasn't really until Cereal took hold of main Street gen pop in terms of listening to this entertainment that we were like, holy shit, like this is not about a thirty second host ree, this is about entertainment in a brand new way. Can I say one quick thing? You guys are giving me way too much credit because one of the things I've been making to ask you guys in front of your audience and listen to your podcast.

Obviously you actually fan number one number one, but he finally admitted that versus like forcing him to say it. I am fan number one. But you are two people that are, you know, brilliant media thinkers, and you started a podcast and you became obsessed with podcasting before I did. Why what was it that got you like you? Guys? I've known you for however long, and you have these conversations where you get frantic and excited and you're like

sweating and pacing the margarita. That's the best thing ever. But that happened with podcasting and now we believe it's bigger. But why did that happen? It turned into podcasting, right? I think it was a bigger discussion about where how you could tell stories. This is really where it started. It was like, how can you tell stories that you can bring people along with you and you're not dictating it.

Video was dictating it right, and everybody was in this video space and where were you going to actually put video that was really differentiated? How could you take people on a journey with you in a totally different way. Not virtual reality, not video, not pre role, not television, not this, not that right, because all mediums have distractions. They have distractions, but it was they also dictated. They

serve it up. I feel like when we're talking, I hope and when I send a podcast, Like the other day, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell's new season of Revisionist History. Um, He's telling these brilliant stories, and my mind was just like wandering. It's like reading a book, right, so I like, what what what book do you remember sitting on the beach reading and like imagining, Shoot dog, I just did it? Okay, Shoot, don't you do? Yeah? You were texting me about shoot dog. Okay.

I was going on the journey to Japan into the shoe factories, meeting these people along the way, and it was the first time in a long time in a visual medium that I allowed my mind to escape. Why because nobody was dictating. He felt close to Phil Night.

But what I want to get to is like, yeah, and and the reason that this is so powerful right now and why we leaned into podcasting is where everybody else the industry was chasing reach and frequency we were running down, Like you know, two roads diverged in the yellow Wood, we went the other way, and we were hell bent on this idea that attention impact were the

new reach frequency. So before other people in the industry were talking about I day trade attention, we were like, you can day trade whatever you want all day long. What we were focused on was really about do you really build something that not only captivates people but creates impact.

And I'm not talking about five second you know, six second add on you know, any social media insert social media platform X. It's truly bringing people along a journey that they opt in to listen to in an uninterrupted, intimate manner. The conversations we have on this show in particular are exactly the guy you know this are exactly

the conversations we have off the show. Yeah, why wouldn't you guys do this as a video series for radio, like only like a brother, like the only like a brother would I think the biggest thing was like I didn't want to dictate the experience so much. I wanted I think, you know, and Laura and I agreed with that.

We're like, there's so much to be said, and like you said, you don't have to see us to like be with us that And there was something kind of like, Genie, that doesn't mean that's not something that we're going to do. That doesn't mean that we don't think video is the right place but for Atlantia to begin, And you even said this to us, like people want to listen to these conversations, people want to be a part of these conversations.

I don't know if this is an original thought or not, but I was like, you're transporting me back to this era when we were all like huffing and puffing and freaking out. You guys first, and I jumped on the bendwagon. But that was like the heart of the Golden age of TV. And you have all of this storytelling that's incredibly long form, hours and hours and hours, not just a two hour movie, hours and hours and hours, not just you know, forty five minutes primetime on TV. You

know you're committing to binging something. And that changed how people thought about entertainment stories. And I kind of think that the reason why Syria was so powerful was because people realize that it's not the Golden age of TV, to this golden age of storytelling. Audio is audio is

just as right, if not more right. And here's why it gets me so excited now is because and I didn't make this up, but it's the most portable medium that has ever been created, especially when you can stream it, you know, you don't have to download it like a on your iPod, which is why it's called the podcast. But I think that's why we're also obsessed with it and why we feel like it's not a you know, it's you could call it a channel. I would say

it's a platform. It's as audio is, as horizontal, and it's impact and it's importance as artificial intell narration and storytelling from the beginning of time, if you want to take it all the way back. I wish Malcolm was here to talk to us about it would be this idea of like theater, right, And this is something that the three of us has talked a lot about. Was entertainment again about storytelling and a narration. And what was one of the first mediums that ever existed was radio.

When you think even before television, that's how people were getting their information. They were huddling around a box and turning on the dial and limited channel options, but electing to be entertained. And I think, you know, Alexa said it like, this is not everything old that new again. It's technology coming in and actually taking a medium and opening up in my in my perspective, the whole new world. It's no longer good enough to say I want to

have a podcast. Strategy. Podcast is one element in the larger audio ecosystem. And we've talked about when the interface goes away and all your left is sight, sound and motion, the interface being your laptop, your cell phone, what happens. So we were I was super lucky this morning to talk to a guy named Doug Clinton, who is the

founder of Loop Ventures UM. It was something that Giant Spoon organized and he came in and spoke to one of our founders, Trevor, and what was really fascinating Number two, by the way, he'll never admit never. So Doug was talking about the four sort of themes that his firm is founded upon, and it's a r VR, AI, artificial intelligence, and robotics. And I was sitting here thinking about audio. Audio audio is that if you look at the bleeding edge of technology, what is the one thing that crosses

all the way through audio. We've talked so much about what is the brand visual language? It's like, honey, you better turn the page. What is the brands audio language? What is just the brand's language? Right? I have to say audio in that instance. And so we've talked a lot about the need for neumonics and calls to action and ways in which you're engaging with brands that are just as unique as a logo that has presumably equity for some brands and the millions and billions of dollars, Well,

what happens when you don't see that logo anymore? What happens when the red and white Coca Cola can is no longer visible? How do I order that? Or how do I experience it? Like? How do I experience open happiness? What does it sound like? How to brand start intersecting into our lives in a way where we don't have to push play? Interesting? That's an interesting way to think about.

And I think when brands start getting into this space outside of just advertising, the world's going to open up really really wide, Right, It's going to be like a whole another adventure into like what digital was when the Internet started. What's mind blowing? Like if you if you're on your commute and you're you know, your automated assistant knows you have nine minutes to get to the office.

Then there's a whole another set of data points that Okay, well, Duncan Donuts and McDonald's and Burger King can all make you a sandwich in five minutes, but one is closer geographically on the way to your office, so maybe their bid is a little bit cheaper, and Duncan Donuts is going to have to pay more to get you to veer off your route and go pick up their breakfast sandwich. But then what if you know your health tracker is saying, well, you didn't work out yesterday and you only did four

thousand steps, so it's crazy. Can I pivot to a different rabbit hole for second? I think what's interesting about it, right, is this idea of how brands are thinking about partnering with one another. So, yes, you have Bezos buying Whole Foods. But what happens when Tesla starts to do those partnerships with Starbucks and then they start connecting those data points and making that built an experience within their data set? Right,

So then does Tesla become a media company? Bump bump bump. Uh. I mean I think that Corvitt Space was like, he was like, yeah, they do. I was listening to tr X, Yeah, I like the podcast How I made this, and they're becoming a content company. So I could not agree with you more. But I feel like that's why you have

every single major tech company. You know, the top five companies in the world are freaking Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, And that's why they're all going into this, you know, voice assistant AI audio, because they're going to be the ones that are going to have a platform that connects all of the connected cars, to all of the restaurants, to all the platforms where all those things bid to

serve you products instead of ads. So, bringing this all the way full circle, what you just brought our listeners through in terms of the way you're thinking about the world in front of you, it doesn't exist in a

traditional media mix. It just doesn't. The reason why I was drawn the Giant Spoon and the mission of Giant Spoon is that when you strip away the boundaries of this over here is media, this over here is creative, this over here is pr you don't get to think like a marketer, and I actually think you know, now that I've started to hire people from my team, I think that I love this idea of the slash and I think the next Slashy is the media planner, copywriter,

and I think every single human being has to have innovation in their title because of everything that we were just talking about. If you don't care deeply about media and about technology, about how all these things are changing, then what are you doing? So I think that you know, the people that I hire, I want them to have these weird hybrid backgrounds because I want to think about marketing and I certainly want them to be able to do one thing really really well and really really deeply.

But I want everyone to think and behave like a Slashy. And if you know media, then go and learn how to copyright. A slashy is. So this idea is I think came out of creative agencies that were there was a book written like I don't know, ten years ago, like oh is that? But like creative agencies have the predator, the producer editor, they have you know, people who are

direct predator the predator. So you're starting to find these hybrid roles of people collapsing and doing multiple things and I think that every single agency is gonna start to have that. And so I want people that are just as you know, pithy and able to write incredible copy and come up with taglines. I want to have those people do media. I want to have those people be

the ones that are building content partnerships with publishers. I want those to be the people that are um that are coming up with marketing plans for you know, the launch of like taglines, We're going to kill the tagline. I agree slash, he's for the wind slashes, for the love that with that. With that, we went through a lot of stuff. It wasn't just podcasting about podcasting. We

got metaphor a second and hit audio. But we're definitely going to have you back, Corbin, because you were one of one of our best and brightest friends, but also in the industry. So yes, and we know that nobody can find you on social media. You've shunned it, shunned it, but people can find you at Corbin dot Brown, at Giant Spoon dot com exactly. Well, thanks for coming. So since we can't find you on social media, we talked to someone else who you can find on social media.

That's right, So we had a little fun with a candid audio because I can't say camera. It's candid audio slash America's Funniest home audio, something like that. UM with my grandmother in law, UM who is the most active eighties seven year old I know on Facebook who has recently converted and self taught UM her way onto Instagram. So have fun with this one at Landia. Oh I did it on Instagram. Yeah, you posted on Instagram. Oh

I had. I had Roseanne here. We were fooling around, so Rosanne put it up just you know, I said, put this. This is nice. So then I said, let's practice. So I was. I had a bowl of cherries on the table and I was taking the pitches. When I went on my phone, I had about ten twelve pitches of cherries that I added the lead lead. Don't asked me happened? Now this is another thing. What is your name on Instagram? What is it? Yeah, mama to Taro. Okay, next we'll have to get you on snapchat. Oh snapchat.

Oh that's where you put the ears the no, yeah, all the filters. Oh. I'd never put my face like that, never put this face. But you have more photo profile swaps than anybody I know with the seasons on Facebook, you change your photo with like it's like a it's like a calendar pin up to change my cover. But are all your friends on Facebook? I'm curious, Like do they chat with you? None of them? They know what the hell is all about? My young friends? But the friends like my age, not a one not so how

do they know? Like what's going on? Well? Sometimes send happily it is a picture. Or how about what I do with those uht bit muljis it mo jeez? Yes? Oh what I do with those big moj is the girl who does my vendor placement I don't talk to anymore. I just send her a bit motion and she knows exactly what I want. She looks forward motions. What do you say to her? Like give you an example? Um, like if she didn't? And some my text and then there's a girl on me on me it's supposed to

be me hand on the hit. Did you get my text? Then? Oh? I got so so Danny's I can't How could I get it on my iPad? I'll show you, I'll show you. You make me laugh so hard, I'm crying. I'm trying to think of that. What hope? So I can't. So you're eighty seven, right, you're just her eight seven? Well you gotta advertise that, but you're communicating through bit Moji's. Did you ever think you'd see the day No? Never, who do not see the day of going on Facebook?

When it first come out, I said, not me, not me. I'll never go on there, and now I'll never off. I know you're an it's it's good for me, Laura. I know it keeps you young me. I mean, you know, I don't go out so uh doing this, I know what's going on and uh, and people enjoy my my pictures that I put up. Your great grand dog is famous. I gotta go get more pictures in my album, the old Ones, because then I could put a I could put up a t v T a tv T. What's a tv T? Throw halla? I don't even know what

hashtag is. That's the pound sign when you do pound sign TBT. Yep, that's right. Well it's also a hashtag for the young kids. I gotta go. My producer's quality me. I'll talk to you later. I love you. I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. So that's it. Episode eleven. We got Meta, we got Grandma. It's better be lucky number eleven. So many people think as always our family at Slate and Panoply, Cameron Drews, our producer What Up

Camera Drews, Matt Turk, Andy Bowers. Thanks everybody, and if you would be so kind, head on over to wherever you're listening to podcasts and please leave us a review. It helps other listeners who are interested in marketing advertising. Disc over this show and follow us at at Landia Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You can also email us at Atlantia Podcast at umail dot com. Please let us

know what you think. And also, we're building community, a community of people in this industry who exist, who are out there. We're talking about things in a different way. We're doing things in a different way. We want to hear from you, to talk to us at Landia. We'll be back in two weeks with an all new episode. Full disclosure, Our opinions are our own. Eleven is my number. I am fanatical about it. I word in every sport my whole entire life. I sit in the eleventh row.

So we're gonna say that you need to say in the gym in the locker number elevening, oh, keep going. It's like, keep fucking weird that this is episode eleven. It's got to be. It's gonna be a good sign, right, or a terrible sign. It's a great it's a great sign, and we're in our magic studio.