VICE Gold Rings + Provocative Media Things

Welcome back to Atlandia episode seventeen. Did you like that at Landia? It was very nice. It's like October. It felt very Halloween, Halloween. You like, yeah, that's good. Um, So we're not going to get into our usual preamble today. It was advertising week last week. Yeah, And I think if you want to know our thoughts and opinions, you can go over to Atlandia podcast on Twitter. A lot of common themes, what's the future of the agency look like,

big data, data, data, data, data, conversations around data. One of the funniest things I saw was UM a twee about artificial intelligence and somebody said, I will give somebody five bucks. I AI actually means UM, which is super indicative of where our industry is. That so we have a lot of thoughts on Advertising Week, we have a lot of thoughts on industry events in general, but we're like panels, like, yeah, we're so bored with some of them. Actually,

can I just say one thing. I was impressed with the I A B. They did very small UM what they were calling leadership dialogues UM, And I got to catch John Martin, who's the CEO of Turner Broadcasting. It was a really honest, great conversation. There may have been maybe fifty people in the room and we were sitting with him. And I think that that model, the format,

the physical format of it was really um refreshing. I give Randall Rothenberg and all the folks over at the IB big props on that because it was just a refreshing format. And I actually felt like I got to know John a little bit, if I can call him that, Mr Martin. So it's good because the concept of panel is just sometimes speaking to an empty room or it's really tough. Advertising week, A lot of it takes place in the middle of time square and just happened to

be like ninety seven degrees last week. UM, which makes for a lot of fun and dodging people to get to your panel and your sweating and your bronze are running, or maybe that was just me, but I think you know, ultimately and a lot of people were talking about the idea of moving to that sort of intimate format and I got the opportunity to speak on a panel UM

with for Notch and UM. They did a gorgeous job for their connach Felt connach k and otc H, a measurement company, and Ono Ganska, their CEO, did a beautiful job putting together both her super Normal awards, complimented with a panel discussion in an intimate theater UM, which was really cool and different. It was nice to get out of UM Times Square. So I think we're gonna come back.

We're gonna come back with some ideas, and we're even thinking about some things for Atlantia, So you know, I r L Anyway, with that said, I've got Ben Deats coming in from Vice UM. He is the s VP of Sales Advice and we have a really I think exciting conversation kind of teat up. So hope you enjoy it all. We'll be right back. What's up at Landia. We're back with vices. Ben deats Hi, Ben deats Hi, how are you? Ben is the s VP of sales at Vice. Welcome Ben, Thank you. So the story of you.

You just told us that you were like employee numbers six. What I always tell people is when I got device, I was one of twelve people in the office, and I'm now one of here in New York. Um, in terms of global seniority, there are fifteen or so people who have been with the company longer than I. But you know that doesn't translate anything other than just like showing up at the office for the most con INU this number of days. So how many years is that?

You know? It's so funny when people talk about new media. By the way, on that note, UM sometimes say Advice and I'm like, dude, Vice has been around since like I don't know, the early nineties, and I remember reading Vice and like early two thousand's saying Okay, this is cool, this is new. I can get into this. And I was a big indie music fan, and I you know, bordered in the punk world and all the stuff, and

I loved the things you guys were talking about. At that point, it was a lot of like music culture, you know, content, and now you guys have evolved into you know, a full blown media company and news organization. Yeah. What I often tell people is that I picked up Vice for the first time as a twenty three year old marketing assistant at a record label on a skateboard literally, and I'm now the father of two with a mortgage

and you know, a whole adult life. Vices continued to be a consistent source of culture and of news for me throughout out. That has changed from being super music related, you know when I worked in the music business, to being much more concerned about now macro issues in the world. And I think it's a testament to the vision of the guys in the first place, that they set up a business that would be able to grow with audience while at the same time bringing new audiences in through

exploring other topics that we've never thought of. So, if if you were to channel Shane Smith today, would the Shane Smith vision for vice Um have deviated from its original intent today as opposed to well, I think there's two things, or would I believe that the guys were

so prescient in setting up in the first place. This is Shane and Serrouge, you know, bolstered by guys like Eddie Muretty who's our our chief content officer and the president of Iceland, and Eric Lavoix, who is the publisher for many years and now runs b D for our our agency group. Um, those guys wanted to tell stories to their friends in the voice that they spoke to their friends in, and they wanted to just make sure that the content was available wherever their friends wanted to

consume it. So I don't think there's ever really been a pivot in terms of changing those two axioms. And then beyond that, Shane is I don't know if you've ever spent any time with him, but he is a huge personality and somebody that believes that he can uh take on the world and should because there's a better way to do it than the world, you know, maybe operating with. So I don't think it's been there have

been pivots. I think it's been evolution throughout as we've gotten older, as we've gotten more successful, as we've come to the sense that possibility was more than possibility, it was achievable and it was out our grasp, and then that it was responsibility, which is kind of how we feel now. So you said something about Vice kind of having grown up, kind of gotten into its maturation years. However, many now we're in a decade too. Um. Three three

of the business. If you as the head of sales, what are some of the ill kind of conceived notions about what Vice was as opposed to where it is now? And if you're kind of walking in too to meet with Alexa and I today, what would be sort of

the elevator pitch for what the brand stands for today's culture. Well, look, I think to answer the misconceptions thing first, the primary misconception that we have struggled with over the course of time is that we are in it to be provocative or to be controversial in any way, shape or form. The fact of the matter is that we are not provocateurs. We are, we hope, reporters of the vernacular and and

the culture of young people. UM. But it's hard because sometimes young people speak in terms that are not you know, the most palatable too big companies, and sometimes because that reporting is unvarnished and you know, is very different than

what people are used to receiving. UM. So that's the bit that we struggle with the bit that I think we try to cast ourselves as now is a the most important because of the bread the stories that we cover and the inclusivity of our point of view, and be the most influential in that we are willing to take on forms and formats that nobody else uses or does to driving the media landscape forward for young people especially,

but hopefully increasingly for you know, audiences generally. What does that look like, because I think a lot of people are like, yeah, VR, oh yeah, podcasting, oh yeah, this and that and that, But it's not necessarily those types

of formats that you're talking about. No. I mean, look, I think it's the When we launched the nightly news show on HBO, Josh Tarangol, who came over from Bloomberg to run that and has a great news background and ironically as a it was an inspiration of mine in college, he just said, basically, look, if we want to transform the nightly news show, let's get rid of the sacred

elements of it. Um. And I'm putting words in Josh's mouth here, of course, but it's like, get rid of the host, get rid of the voice of God, have it be uh, an experience that flows the way that content flows through your social feeds or through the modern content feeds, and that's going to be demonstrably different than anything else in the news space, and it's going to be more in tune with the way our audience wants

to consume. And I had a really fascinating meeting the other day with some of the news producers who pointed out one of them came from radio and she's been in charge of producing a lot of segments that are animated because she's like, look, there are things you can do in the audio medium that you can't do with film medium, but I can then animate them and I can bring all of the depth of film and insight, sound, emotion to them without changing the fundamentals of you know,

the moment. Yeah, the story. One of the things that an Alexa and I for years have been sort of frustrated with the way people say TV has to fit into the confines of linear and so you know, Live allows us to challenge some of that. But you guys have presumably taken on what I've enjoyed. I think we've actually talked about it on the show quite a bit. Is about creating stickiness in formats that don't necessarily lend

themselves to innovation. And one of the things that I appreciate, and I think a points i'd like pulled us to the front of your presentation was it was the first time I had heard somebody talk about using commercial pods or breaks in shows to create more sticky content. And I don't even think you refer to them, Commercius. I think you say interstitials and so kind of challenge. And I know that we talked. We talked about this a couple of years ago, and I was like eight hundred

months pregnant. We were talking about what Yeah, it was eight hundred months pregnant, and it was hotter than hell, and it was in Brooklyn. You guys maybe walk up a lot of that was it? Because it was before the elevator was done. We talked about this and it was the major differentiator than any other conversation I had

had at the time. And we were sitting down and I had just been in like China like five months before, talking to some of your counterparts Advice China and talking about how, um, you had no rules that I mean to me, it was that simple, right, It was like we don't have rules in terms of like thirty second

time limits. We don't have We're not locked into something badcast or thirty minute exactly the broadcasting Laura and I were like, yes, this is what we're talking about, and I think it's cool, Like there's a very small group of people today that we can talk to or put into this sort of club that is taking the format of linear or just broadcast television and saying why does it have to exist in thirty or sixty minute programs?

Why can't be a bunch of twelve minute, thirty second to you know whatever, minute pieces strung together to tell great stories. So can you talk about sort of where the inspiration of that has gone post HBO and into

the Iceland world. Yeah, I mean, I think the interesting thing is to go way back actually, and I don't know if either of you saw the episode of Epically Later, which is the our long standing, like since literally two thousand seven skateboard show, But we just brought us to Iceland and we did an episode on Spike Jones, who is of course the co president of the network, and then also one of our creative eminence is from back in the day and a partner and a friend and

somebody who kind of look like Spike Jones. Noone never tell you that. Yeah, I've heard it once, it's twice. I take it as an incredible, incredible commum. Spikes a

very handsome and very life young man. Um. But if you go back to the culture that Spike came out of, the d I y culture, that Shaneon Serrouch came out of, the filmmaking culture, that Eddie came out of, what I think you find is this common um, you know, approach to storytelling, which is very iterative, which is not terribly concerned with format um, but is more concerned with experimentation and fun, and which is kind of always on right.

And so when you come out of those worlds, the idea of this super segmented experience of linear or of any medium feels a little stunted, right. And And even if I think about skateboard magazines when I was a kid, and I grew up reading them and looking at Spikes photos, and we've got to know each other a little bit over the course time, it's like the ads were content, the content was ads. It was all the same experience.

It was all seamless. And I think that what what they wanted to create with Iceland was just that experience of constant voice and um an interest that extended through the advertising and extended through the content went back into the advertising. Because the truth matter is brands Cannon should operate in in every media platform so long as they're adding value and as so long as they're they make sense, they're right. Like I don't read Vogue for the articles

in Vogue. I read Vogue for the ads. And that's not because I work in sales, it's because I want or in media. It's because those ads are giving me the full spectrum of viewpoints, not just what an editor has picked out for me. To know. It's a really really interesting point to Yeah, like the fact that it's not what the editor has curated. It's kind of this bifocal kind of intersection of culture and content. And I guess what else somebody would care it for you. I've

never actually thought of it that way. I think you have to, and I think you have to part of it, right, and part of setting up an ecosystem like that, or a consumer experience like that audience experience, is that you are really giving the audience full credit for being able to know what is valuable to them, what is authentic

to them, and what is not. Whether it is picked by an editor and highly especially curated, or whether it is placed there by a publisher who is either Kenny or not Um, the audience ultimately makes the decision about that, and I think I think, you know, the more you're able to create a native environment for content and advertisement, the more credit you're giving to the audience. I also

think you're giving a ton of credit. And I have been like dying to say this as we're talking, like you're giving it a lot of credit to brands that they actually should be there, and it's weird. I actually think brands have like a little bit of a self deprecating attitude nowadays where they don't actually think they belong at the same level as content. Well, you know, it's like editorial. I just finished recently Um Andrew Essex's book

The End of Advertising. I think the point that Andrew makes very sharply and and cleverly, maybe not even cleverly, just effectively, is that the entire model has been based on interruption to this point, and because we have now the effectiveness and some of the placements of advertising breaking down with TV viewership decreasing, with you know, all of the fraud and and and spoofing that goes on in

the digital world. Um, it's easy as an advertiser, I would imagine to look at it and go, yeah, people kind of don't want me here. I mean I've been interrupting them, and I've been you know, serving them crap in places that they didn't expect to see it, and so I should occupy this position of liability. I don't think that's true. I think I think they. I think I think brands need to step up and go I need to be a contributor here because if I'm not,

I'm nobody's going to pay attention. That's right, I agree. I also think they need to see that they have value. That's for me, the most important part of the conversation. Laura was on a panel last week at Advertising Week and she said something I thought was really right and smart. Um, you're right, and you're welcome. You're right and welcome was

moderated by my colleague Spencer. It was and she said, you know, brands are going to start um getting into this space because they have they're getting pressed to act, and that's accountability. In a post truth world. And I'm totally paraphrasing, but that's exactly what we're talking about. And it's not just no one's going to pay attention to

you if you don't get in this game. It's you need to go deep and find your own value, find where your employees value you, find where your consumers and customers value you, and then bring it back into some kind of you know, I don't content or entertainment experience or something. I don't think we spent enough time in this show talking about the role of sales in our industry. And something that you said sparked a thought, and I think, you know, I've struggled with what is the role of

a salesperson? And this sort of posts you know, content of the world where all the lines are blurring, and you've got programmers, you've got engineers, you've got product people, which are normally the people that I want to talk to. But I think what you just identified a minute ago, in terms of talking about the role of sales in programming the spaces that an editor in chief or or um, yeah, I guess you call it an inner chief is responsible

for programming versus a publisher, versus a publisher. Um, is it fair to say, Ben Deets, in this new world we're playing in that you're really sort of an editor and commercial because I think it's interesting when it kind of take because the role and responsibility on the salespeople not just to think about making and the post sale um,

but actually programming the space. And I think when we start taking sales people out of just the transactional part and start moving them into the production part, that's where it gets interesting money. I don't think all sales people can do it, but well it's it's okay, So I should hasten to say that. To call myself an editor, much less an editor in chief is a radical overreach

that I would never ascribe to, but it is. I think what you've identified is that is a belief that I've held for a long time, which is that salespeople, development people, brand connections people, whatever your job title is pre sale, thinking about how to try to solve a business is problem through your platform. Is that you have to think, from an editorial point of view about what's the audience going to care the most about and what

are they going to take away from this? And how if I were sitting on the other side of the screen or the magazine or the television. Um, how would I interpret this branch presence here as the most additive and the most interesting? Um? Can I Can I digress for a second, because I just want to I want to tell you a story that I found. Well, it's one of my favorite anecdotes of late It's about vice, of course, because all my favorite ancdotes are bad and skateboarding. Um.

I came home the other night. This is probably a couple of weeks ago now, after you know, being out with some clients, uh, talking about you know, whatever it is that we talked about in the sales and business development world with our clients, and having had a couple of wines, shall we say? And uh, and I put on Viceland and it was the season finale of a show called American boy Band, which is a show about hip hop group called brock Hampton fronted by a guy

named Kevin Abstract. Kevin Abstract and his brock Hampton boys met on the Kanye ted a website or a message board a few years ago. This is a Kanye super fans and the trolls who love to bait them, um, talking to each other about whatever it is that Kanye was working on Circle My twisted dark Fantasy, and Um, Kevin found a community of sort of like minded weirdos in that message board. Um, he is openly gay, is you know, openly going through this journey of self discovery.

Really fascinating character. But he put together this crew of people, largely through sort of sending messages and and and songs back and forth, formed them into a group. They all move into a house in in l A. And uh, then they start releasing music the internet through SoundCloud and Spotify and and YouTube starts picking it up. And suddenly they have enough of a fan base that they can

go on a national tour. So our guys, um said, we want to follow you on the national tour and go out as you meet your fans and you know, find all these teenagers on this journey of self discovery and this kind of stuff. It's it's a real you know, it's an it's an American youth story in that regard.

But the thing that happened in the finale, because I missed the entire show and I'm going back and watching it v O D now, Um, the thing that happens in the finale is they get home from this tour energized and exhausted from all of this you know, experience that they've had, and they make something like five music videos over the course of a weekend. Every one of them has a different style, a different production value, a

different narrative, a different sort of platform centric approach. And I watched the show and in twenty two minutes they blew up ad Agencies. I was just like, okay, well, that's the end of ad agencies right there. There needs to be a sound effect on that cam. It was.

It was just like, right, okay, So you've got twelve kids, twelve kids in a house in Los Angeles working at you know, this prodigious level of output um with no rules, but also with this incredible sense of of of possibility and shared admission, and you're just like, okay, right, you're that's going to come through my Facebook feed the same as a piece of content from Vice that we've you know, labored over and sent somebody to to to to Antarcticle four and at the same time, the TV spot or

the um you know, Native ad or whatever it is that brands produced, and I was just like, Paradigm ship, It's interesting from the first time I had our conversation. Um, and I was skeptical, by the way, super skeptical. Laurel will tell you. I was like for me, I was like, which will we'll say for the outtakes? Yeah, we're going to save that for Instagram. Um. But but you know what I was pleasantly surprised by, not only was your shared love of art and your deep knowledge of data

and other things that I love. UM okay, sorry, yeah, anyway, was um, you had a different rhetoric and a different language that you were speaking a little compared to compared to other other I would say, media companies, other media companies and sales heads of sales and c r o s at other media companies. Is that something that you're conscious of? Advice? I mean, when you're talking to advertisers, right, and I was coming in as an advertiser, and you're

talking to an advertiser. You weren't saying authenticity, you weren't saying pre roll all. You weren't saying and those are You weren't even talking about tone and the relationship between your company and my company the same way most people do. Are you conscious of that a little bit? The sense. Yeah, I have a point, but I want to hear his will. It makes sense to me. I mean, look, there's there's

kind of two way stands to that. Right. One is that at the end of the day, any business relationship is a human relationship, and if we don't like each other, the business that we're going to do is probably not going to be as fruitful as it could be if we liked each other. So what I always try to do is find um, shared points of interest or or

just you know, points of human connection. Right. Um. But I think the thing that Vice does differently as a culture those of us have been around for any period of time, UM, is that we we've realized and internalized that with as many headwinds as we face, because the company is called Vice, because we have chosen a path that um is truthful and unvarnished and um not necessarily to the conscription of traditional media. Um. And can I

add and some antagonistic well we yeah. I mean, look, I think we can be if we have to say that. I think we can be if we believe that the point of view opposing ours is wrong, right, Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with being antagonistic in that case. But um, it's it's not a that is not a mission,

but it is certainly a byproduct from time to time. Um. The thing that we realized was that if we don't charm and uh and convince people that we are more than the sum of the printed page or um, you know, the sum of the of of the stories that people have overheard about us, UM, that we were gonna lose.

And I think there's a I My favorite thing, right is that our most senior executives send notes to each other and to our clients and to our friends, you know, people that we want to work with, which are to the effect of, you don't love me anymore. And that's the note. That's like alex and and I aint given Tuesday, right, But I mean, look, that's are you you guys are friends, right, That's that's how you talked to each other. You talked to you, you talked to your friends that way. It's

about signaling. Uh, I care more about you and and the quality of this relationship than I do about transacting at this particular time. And Shane, you know as a famous famous story with advice where he talked about somebody who was a dear friend of his um early on in the company, and they hired him to come in and sell ads because the guy was so gung ho and the guy couldn't get past the cold call routine of Hey, this is Ben from Vice, would you like

to buy advertising at this time? And that that that phrase is memorialized in our in our culture, because it's like, that's what you cannot do. That for me, the way to articulate what you're doing, the way you talk about the relationship with the advertiser beyond the human relationship, right the actual artifacts of commercial right of commercializing something sure is different to observations that I've noticed that are clear distinctions.

And if there are c r O s listening right now, there are two notes that I would walk away from the school of bend deat sales would be one um. The people that you hire are entertainers and their creators. And I think there's a fundamental difference. You came here and didn't say that you know, I'm a salesperson or I'm a business guy, or you know, I'm I'm after the hustle. It's like I'm an artist and I love

fucking skateboarding. I think, well that that's totally and this is where your background comes in, by the way, you know, and I've met a ton of other people that have lots of passions that extend far beyond the advertising and marketing world, and I think that that speaks volumes about the way people conduct themselves, which goes to my next point is that people actually live and breathe the Vice brand.

And I don't know how many UM people that I've met that they don't just pass through and they're there to three teen months and they're dropping into my inbox from the next you know, insert media publisher here. You guys walk around with you know, Vice gold rings, and it's sort of this cult like attitude, UM that even if it's I can't do business or for whatever reason, you know, it's not business, not the right time, I still walk away from a conversation with those guys believe

in the ship that they're selling. And I cannot say that I can't even count on one hand the amount of sales organizations that I have met in this industry that I buy into the same way and buying device, so kind of shifting gears into sort of brand and media world. One of the things that you want to talk to us today about is the idea of sponsorships UM by any other name? And I think you guys have kind of stood up and defied logic in terms

of form and function. But what does that mean to you as somebody who's out there selling products every day? What does that look like? Okay, So I wanted I I texted you that I wanted to talk about sponsorship by any other name, UM, shout out to Shakespeare, um.

Because I wanted to. I wanted to throw that as a provocation to the two of you, because I believe in my conversations and in what I hear aback an acdotally from from members of my team, that sponsor and sponsorship are essentially bad words that we should strike from our conversations as it relates to trying to convey how I bring value to you. Um true false? Uh No,

hold on. So I would say in the world of advertising, why that has become a bad and ugly word is because it's been on a lot of shitty banners and a lot of shitty media, right, and it has attached brands two things that they have no business being attached to. And I think that as the as a word right and as a um, as a mean ning, it's actually quite nice. We we're we believe in this, right, so

we're putting our name on it. Now. What we've done to it is put sponsorship, sponsorship, sponsorship everywhere, and all of a sudden, you've got bud Light and I don't know sponsoring I too much. Not saying bad, I'm not saying, but it's a bad bud light whomever. It doesn't matter who you are, like a bubbly drink, right, bubbly drink against something that doesn't feel like the brand, I think, And that's a big issue the industry has, is Alexa

saying bastardize the word sponsor. And when somebody comes and they sell typically say in this space, we want to sell you a sponsorship. I'm like, so if you don't sell it to me, you're definitely going to sell it to my competitor. Right. It's become this sort of um it's becomes synonymous with badging and this idea that you've got a great idea to sell just coming and you know,

underwrite it essentially also and stop your shitty logo on it. Yeah, And I think the the idea of bad ng or logo slapping UM has diluted, you know, the ability for brands to come to the table in an authentic, thoughtful, articulate,

meaningful way. And so Alex and I are hell bent on the filter for successful partnerships UM with media companies, you know, under the title of co produced in partnership with because at least you have to things like that, because at least in our vein that filter signals that this is something we sat down at the table at we have a vested interested in collaborating on, and it's

something we're going together to the marketplace with. That is, you know, showing the shared ethos between our brand and your media company. For example, you know what did I'm

like when you walked in the door. I was talking to you about this the podcast Mogul that's a Gimlet and loud Speaker partnership, and I binged it in the last couple of weeks and like, not a couple of weeks, a couple of days actually, um, because I got so into it and the way that they were doing UM quote sponsorships advertising right, UM is just smart, was just right. So bud Light, they were doing some bud light um. Uh mid roles, I think, and they didn't feel like

mid roles at all. It was real content. It totally made sense. It was people sitting around talking about a specific thing in UM, in hip hop music, UM around a couple of bud lights. Now that sounds really trite, but the way they did it, And a lot of this is the beauty is in the execution. I just talked to someone about this the other day. UM, A lot of the beauty in these ideas is also in the execution. So you have to have the right producers. You have to have the right people you are just

sitting at the table. Yeah, I agree. You also have

to have you have to have the right attitude. I mean, to me, the part of the the problem with our existing condition around sponsorship and part of which we have to solve fast as an industry, and that I think we've done a pretty good job of starting to move in the direction is that you're your creative people, your agency people, your your who whomever it is who are your words smiths and are going to represent your brand when you are a brand, when whoever is gonna you know,

represent your brand in those spaces, they have to be thinking like, how do I interrupt less? How do I add more? How do I how do I avoid uh the simple tagline and think a little harder about what the real intent behind the What do I want to watch? What do I want to listen to? What do I want to be entertained by? How do I actually want to commune with these people? All all that stuff? Can

I just say this? I would love it? Can you guys maybe do this that you probably will never do this, but if a media company or a publisher actually asked for a true like to brief the agency on what is your the sorry, brief the client on what's your contribution? That's a good idea. I love that, right, let's do that. Let' see that. And I also like the It's fine, I'm gonna tout one of my own sort of random ideas.

I look, I think part of part of the reason we've been successful is because we're also open to random stuff like this. I wrote, Uh, one of my guys who's in charge of our podcast efforts to that, and I said, hey, I was reading. I was reading about Spotify allowing advertisers to create their own ads through their platform, which I think is really I have not explored what it's like technically, but I think as an idea that's

really smart. We have on Viceland an eight a six or six number where our viewers call up and leave messages on the six or six number, and we pair it with really beautiful scenic photography shot on drones that um, you know, kind of brings us to bring, brings you out of the content moment and brings you to this kind of uh meditative place. And then you get somebody on the voicemail saying something really weird. I said, I

said to John, who I sent this to you? I said, hey, why don't we set up a means by which brands can call our voicemail and leave their own ads, like literally speak into the into the voicemail and leave your ad, and then we figure out a way to to run that at some kind of should we have a promo code on this show so I can say at Landia

ten and they can get temporature in any case? I like that, Uh, that thought right, And so it's interesting, Laura, you said something to me a couple of weeks ago which I love and which I I I would like to be the condition with which we work with all our agency partners and brands. You said, yeah, we shouldn't ever RFPU at all. We should just call you up and say, here's an idea that we have. How do

you interpret this? And well, I mean, look, you guys are are are way ahead of the rest of the business. Although I think many people are now moving to what, as I say, fewer better partnerships and and that kind of stuff. So you know, hopefully there's inertia behind that thought. Um. The The the other thing that that we don't get very often is um is brand's explicitly saying to us, hey,

this is how we want to be represented. Is this authentic in in your space and then being willing to hear if the actual yeah, exactly killed by d I Y in the industry, what would you kill? What would you buy? Because it's that good? And what are you like funking? I could do myself? Um So kill is the the sense that there is an easy solution that allows everybody to just plug and play, get the optimum results with the minimum friction and uh still the entertain

audiences and drive brand value. Just guys, this is work. We call it work because it's work. You gotta work at it. Um By uh, so many. I'd like to buy something that helps us fight the preconceived notion of what Vice was ten years ago as being what Vice is now. But I don't think is Atlanta. I think yeah, I think you know they're there. I don't think there's necessarily a silver bullet for that. I think that's again it goes back to the first thing. That's hard work.

That's just us continuing to make our points over and over again. UM do it yourself. I wish we could do ironically video syndication at scale ourselves, right like we can do it working through the big platforms. But it's tricky to not control your own destiny and to um have to be at their you know, subject to their

business strategies and not to our own. So I would love to d I y that UM, which is going to make my platform people crazy because they were going to say, Ben, We've been working on that for years, and I'm gonna say, yes, I know. But at the same time, it's my fantasy, and I think it's as an industry, it's going to be an issue for every media company in every form content creators if they don't own it. And so I think eventually so awesome, Thank you,

thanks so much, thank you for coming. Where can people find you? I was just gonna say, aren't you gonna ask like there's a sales guy? No, because I'm saying, like, reach out to me, especially if you like that voicemail idea, because I'm really trying to you know, ten ten percent or ten cents, you'll say, if you like, she would get gold. I'm easy to remember. I don't carry business cards anymore, so I had to get a simple email address.

It's just ben Advice dot com. Perfect. Thanks Bendet's my pleasure. Thank you guys very much. So that was a good conversation. I love be He's smart, super smart, super articulate, thoughtful. Consider it. Yeah, admittedly I've gone from being a skeptic to sort of a super fan advice. Yeah, yeah, you have. It's funny. Yeah, you took me a while to come around.

And I think it was that very personality and I think you were getting to it with throughout the show and just like what it means to buy into the whole thing. Yeah, And I think once you kind of get under the hood and understand the perspective that it is that they're after, which I think we've seen a great deal shine through UM in recent light of just things going on in culture. UM. I've really enjoyed their perspective.

I think it's needed. Yeah, and they have a different vernacular and I think that that's really interesting and Ben is an amazing representation of that. So, you know, intelligent and uh, I think thoughtful about how he approaches clients and quote unquote selling or as he says, salesman with a capital S, which I think was really kind of funny. Anyway, So Ben Deat's big, thanks, appreciate it. Hope you um didn't miss your daughter soccer game, and uh, big thanks

to Cameron Drew's our producer. You're looking a little bit shy of eighteen years old camp, so we're really proud of you that you're kind of almost at eighteen episodes. I think he's eighteen years yeah. Probably Also our friends of family of Panably, Matt Tour, Andy Bowers, Jacob Weisberg. Thanks everyone, But one more thing before we go. One more thing. It's a request out to the Atlantia community.

We've had amazing reviews, we're having great conversations, but we would love you guys to review if you're enjoying the Adlandia experience. We would love you guys a review Atlantia on Apple Podcast, so please go over to Apple Podcasts, go to the Atlantia page, click on the review tab, write us a review, and don't forget to follow us on Atlantia podcast on Twitter. We are having so much fun going back, debating, retweeting all of the fun things

that you are finding in the industry. Don't stop. We'll be back in two weeks. Within all new episode, get It get a Atlandia full disclosure, our opinions are our own and as the outro question, what does it take to get a Vice Gold Ring? So, uh, the Vice Gold Ring is given to people at some point in their tenure at the company there and I say this in all sincerity. There is not a lot of rhyme

or reason to it. Um. We've started to put in some processes where you know, people who are outstanding performers get nominated by their manners and stuff. But for years you got one because you were there at the right time. And uh, I happen to be there and you know November of two thousand five, which was the right time to get So it's the real gold or gold plated. Oh no, this is gold. This is gold. And that's part of the reason that that not everybody has one.

For your best brand partners have the opportunity to get one because I really want. So. You're not a brand partner, you're an agency partner. Many brands interesting you should if I hit a certain number, if we can get some thresholds, um, I will say this, we reserve the rings for family and so um. There may have been one or two partners over the course of time who come to be regarded as family and may have been bestowed something. You just gave Laura goldps but like the editive and you

just gave her a goal. I'm happy. I'm you know, I like working for But by the same choken, I think we've been able to use the sort of mystique of the gold ring to create value for some of other partners. We did a huge program with Geico recently, and the team that worked on that. As a shout out to the Geico team made Geico gold rings and that team works for real goal. Uh yeah, I think so. It might have been who makes off Comma. Thanks a lot, Ben.

You are welcome back anytime. You're always the show very much