March 28, 2024 • 36 mins
How does one come up with great ideas? Some may think they’re random strokes of genius, but Rob Reilly knows it takes a mix of hard work and creativity–the truest embodiment of math and magic. Now the Chief Creative Officer of WPP, Rob built his stunning reputation on work that is memorable and buzzy, from campaigns for companies like American Express and Burger King to the “Fearless Girl” statue that still stands in Manhattan’s Financial District. These works weren’t strokes of genius. They emerged from decades of Rob tirelessly logging ideas and learning his business inside and out. Listen to hear Rob explain his creative process and reflect on some of the most important moments of his career, from the college party that landed him his first advertising job to the time he took a demotion and pay cut to improve his craft.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I think you need be a fountain of ideas. So
I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I still
write it down, I still pitch it. And I try
to create environments where anybody can say anything without any judgment.
And I think the best clients and the best relationships
are you've set that process up together where you've created
the environment for creativity to live.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I am Bob Pipman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we have someone
who has been at the center of the magic of
advertising and has been a creative leader in the advertising business,
from reimventing Burger King to the Fearless Girl statue of
Wall Street. He's Rob Riley, Global, Chief Creative Officer for WPP,
(00:51):
the massive global advertising, marketing and communications company. Rob started
out live ast Robert grew up in New Jersey, played soccer,
was in a band, was a fighting blue hen in college,
and even had an early job as a bartender. He
won a slew of awards and has been a part
of some of the greatest creative agencies. For a good reason,
(01:13):
he makes extraordinary creative, and for that same good reason,
he has chaired the can Lyons Awards show Jury four times, which,
for those of you outside the industry, is like the
Academy Awards of advertising. We got a lot to discuss today, Rob.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Welcome, Oh, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
What I want to do now is get you in
sixty seconds?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
You ready? Perfect? Yeah? I'm ready. Do you prefer capture dogs? Neither?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
But if I'm forced to choose one cats, city or country,
I think city, though we live out in Shelter Island,
which is a beautiful place, so getting to be a
little bit more of a I don't know if a country,
but more of an islander. Books are movies, I think.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'll say audio books, amor FM.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, in college I worked at an AM radio station,
so I'm going to say AM for all it was
back then.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Don Draper or George Lois.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Don Draper, George Lewis. I met him once and he
cursed at me in an elevator favorite TV show.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I'm gonna say Bevis and butneat.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Most exciting advertising campaign that you did not make.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Right the future, Nike, Let's jump into the meat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Let's talk about developing creative ideas as we've discussed on math.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
And magic before.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
And I'll take my own personal experience that creative ideas
for me are just sudden epiphanies. I think about the
issue and then I forget about it, and in the
middle of the night or often in the morning, when
I'm taking that nice, hot meditative shower, answers just pop
in my head out of nowhere. And by the way,
David Eagleman, the neuroscientists who's been on this podcast, it
(02:49):
has theories and talks about why that is.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
But how do you.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Develop new ideas and what's your creative process?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
For people like me my kind of creative process, it's
so much a process. It isn't just come up with
while the idea is the briefing part of advertising is
the thing that's most underrated for successful creative work. When
you have a brief that's clear and pointed in inspiring,
you have first and many steps of making great work.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I always tell.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Clients, listen, this brief is not for you or I.
This brief is for that junior team that has to
show Rob Riley work at nine am and it's midnight.
And if that brief is convoluted long eight point type
on a page versus twelve point type. If it's trying
to do too many things, it's going to be a nightmare.
How do we make that brief the best friend? And
the way you do that is you've got a very
(03:42):
simple ask. It's going to solve some tension that's out
there in culture. And when this idea lands in culture,
what's the thing that the press writes about? What's that
thing people love share and spread. That's the entire process.
It started years ago at an agency called Kryst and Bagusky.
We called it's the press release process. And when the
(04:03):
idea lands in culture, what's that story the press will
write about? And if you can't figure that out and
a sentence or two, there's no way you're going to
be able to make an entire campaign that's going to
pop in culture. And we did it to help young
teams compete with senior teams on big projects like launching
a Windows ten to the world. It's really hard for
young people to take that and figure it out. So
(04:25):
I try to simplify things by creating that process, and
I still use it today. It's evolved to what's that
thing people love share and spread through the Internet through
on social But it's a very simple thing. If I
can't imagine it what it's going to be when it
lands in culture, then it's probably not going to be
a great idea.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So you've got a really good process, and it sounds
like you're very thorough, very thoughtful about it, and you
wind people up and say, Okay, this is what we've
got to do. It's got to accomplish these things. It's
got to really impact culture. But the idea has got
to come from somewhere. How does that idea hit you
or hit other creatives?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
People? Oh, fear that you won't have an idea.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't like to use fear as a motivator, but
I think for each individual person, like you do wake
up thinking am I going to have any more ideas?
And I think you need to be a fountain of ideas.
So I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I
still write it down, I still pitch it, and I
try to create environments where anybody can say anything without
any judgment. And I think the best clients and the
(05:25):
best relationships are you've set that process up together where
you've created the environment for creativity to live.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
We talked about George Lois, and you told me your
George Lois story. George Lois created Don't Want My MTV.
And I had lunch with George when mad Men first
came out, and he goes, that's not me. We spent
a lot of time at lunch on me that wasn't him,
which meant it was probably more him than not. But
it was interesting with George Is. George was not afraid
(05:55):
to revive old advertising ideas. As a matter of fact,
I Want my MTV was actually I want my Maypo
And when George pitched it to me, he said, look,
this was really successful for Maypo. I think this is
what we need because our goal was we had cable
companies that did not want to put MTV on because
they wanted us to pay them. We didn't have any
(06:16):
money to pay them, and we had this very crazy audience.
We said, well, we can enlist them to go sort
of get consumer pull for this. And so he wasn't
afraid to go back and use it. But I saw
him throughout a lot of his work and others as well,
go back in mine great ideas from the past place
for you and that or do you have another point
(06:37):
of view?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, everything is rived of off everything, right, I don't
think there's too many original ideas. Years ago at Crispin
to promote a Burger King chicken sandwich, we came up
with this idea called the Subservient Chicken. But it was
a guy in a chicken suit responding to commands. There's
been a million things with people in chicken suits, right,
But until you do it and put a twist on
it and make it just that's weird enough, then that's
(07:01):
what it becomes special. So now what George did, I
don't know if you can get away with it now.
I mean he literally took the exact sam campaign he
made decades before and just put it into MTV. I
actually give him a lot of credit for not worrying
about what people might think of, like, oh, you stole
your own idea, because it was the right idea for.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
MTV at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, that campaign, you could say, is probably a
big reason why MTV was successful. I mean I remember
it like it was yesterday. I remember the first d a
MTV came was and it was a Saturday afternoon, I
believe I was in Long Island, New York at my
aunt and uncle's house watching this thing come on, and
I remember like it was yesterday. So in some ways,
(07:44):
like I give George Lowis a lot of credit for
being brave enough or not caring enough. But I think
his style, but like the style of being gruff and
maybe yelling a bit more like those days are gone.
You can't get away with it now, Like you really
have to be more of a charming provouct You need
to charm your own people, your coworkers and your clients
(08:04):
with charm them with wit, intelligence, caring about their business
where that they care, knowing about their business more than
they do, then you could be provocative. The days of
throwing chairs at clients or at teams or those are gone.
It's a much different world and you've got to figure
out how can you be successful in that style of business.
And I'm not necessarily a yell or screamer, but you
(08:26):
know I did a lot of coaching from ten to
fifteen years ago where you know, I was intense and
you know, didn't care about people's feelings as much. So
I think it's a new kind of creativity that you know,
would be interesting if George could survive in this day
and age.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Let's take that note of the past. At the dawn
of the century, you were the acting chief creative officer
at Hill Holiday and you took up sixty percent pay
cut to change jobs and become just a copywriter at
Crispin Porter. Clearly it all worked out. Why did you
take that risk and what lesson did you learn?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I had worked for this amazing boss named David Weekle,
and he was the chief graative officer and they parted ways,
and I was one of the more senior people there,
but not very senior at all, and they said, well,
maybe you can step in temporarily while we search for
a new CEO. Might have been some discussion if you
want to throw your hat in the ring to be
that person. And I kind of realized that I had
(09:19):
all the skills of a great creative director without maybe
the work of a great creative director. And I did
want to end up being a New York creative at
a certain age that kind a giant salary, but didn't
have the work where people would follow you. So I
ended up going down to Crispin Porter and Buguski at
the time probably one hundred and twenty people, sort of
(09:41):
getting known for doing some really interesting national work for
smaller clients, and I pitched Alex Buguski, now my current wife,
my only wife, but she was my girlfriend the time
she was working there, so I had a connection. But
Alex wasn't going to hire me just because I was
the boyfriend. Maybe in fact, didn't necessarily want some guy
from New York who had all the wrong sort of
(10:01):
closed and was a big creative director from New York
City come down to his agency in Miami.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
That was really small type culture.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But I knew that's the kind of work I needed
to be part of, because in the end, you don't
necessarily just follow people. You follow people because of the
work they've done. And I had all the skills of
being able to present and good with clients and maybe
good with teams, but I didn't have enough creative work
that I thought was like culture changing that was going
(10:29):
to get me to a long term career. So I
took a few steps back. But it wasn't the easiest ride.
When I got there, I was the guy from New York.
Everybody's in flip flops and shorts. I'm here in the
produc boots in black. I stood out like a sore
thumb and about thirty days into it, Alex calls me
in his office said, listen, man, I love the work
you're doing. I think you're fantastic. Here's the problem. No
(10:51):
one else likes you. So I thought he would say,
it doesn't matter as long as I like you. He said,
that's the opposite. I can't have one guy who ruined
the culture. So you got to figure out how to
get people to like you. And long story short, I
ended up going back and deciding, like, you know what,
I'm just going to shut my mouth and sit in
the corner and crank out work.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And then once you start making work, people respect. That
was the beginning of building a body of work that
I'm really proud of at every level. Copywriter, creative director, CEO,
creative chairman. To down with WPP, head of a holding company.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Well, you know, let's go back in time for a second.
Why didn't they like you? What were you doing?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Why didn't they like me?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I probably had the wrong clothes.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I had an incredibly intelligent, smart, beautiful girlfriend who's now
my wife and doing all the amazing work.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
And I was a boyfriend from New York.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I came from a big New York ad agency and
it wasn't quite fitting in the culture. And I think,
growing up in New Jersey like we're loud. And when
I went and told my wife that Alex said that
people didn't like me, her response was, why don't you
just try shutting up and doing the work, you know,
like you're the problem. So I was taught a lesson
early on to shut my mouth and do the work.
(12:03):
And when you have the work, you get the respect.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well that's a great lesson. And ten years later you
were the chief creative officer of Crispin Porter. So it
all worked out. Yeah, it all worked out. You continued
to succeed. You went on to be Global Creative Chairman
at a McCann, a worldwide group from twenty and fourteen
to twenty twenty one, and then on to WPP in
your current role. Everyone knows the Fearless Girl statue on
(12:27):
Wall Street.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
What's this story?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's a great story because State Street Global Advisors was
an account that McCann had for a few years and
hadn't been known for doing such great work. But when
I went to McCann, the first thing I did to
turn around an agency that maybe hadn't been doing as
well as they had hoped. Was let's put an attainable
goal in place, and we called it three for All,
and it was, how do we create three magical pieces
(12:50):
every year for every client in every office and this
way everybody is responsible for contributing to hopefully the creative
turnaround that McCann eventually achieved a process, and I think
three magical pieces a year is pretty attainable and you
don't rely on just one account making the famous work.
Every account has to deliver. And state ttreat was probably
one of the most challenged. It's because it's a financial
(13:12):
company based in Boston, a great company, but not known
for doing very bold work all the time. But at
the end of the year, we didn't really have three
pieces of work that we could hold up and say
these are our best three pieces of work for State Street.
And someone said, well, they got this amazing fund called
the She Fund, where you can invest in female lead companies.
Because State Street realized they were part of the problem
(13:32):
with the lack of female leadership on Wall Street. They
created a fund where you can invest in female lead companies,
and they put pressure on companies to put more females
on their board. So of course an easy thing for
us to do was to do a print ad about it.
But you know, we brought the print at but then
here's thirty more ideas and one of the ideas was
not necessarily a Ferals girl.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
The idea is to put a.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Female bowl in front of the male bowl. And amazing
team Lizzie and Tally came up with the idea with
the help of Eric Silver, who was the CECO of
North America. And you know, they kept coming in my
office saying, oh, we love this idea, and I'm like, okay, okay.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And of course the clients that we love the idea,
but you know, we're just not comfortable with it. And
the reason they're not comfortable with it because there's no
such thing as a female bull. It's a cow, right,
And that's why, you know, as a CEO, you really
have to let people, if they're so passionate about something,
go try and sell it. But what they didn't necessarily
realize was it wasn't necessarily the bull or the cow
(14:32):
that was going to be the thing people talk. It
was the standoff. It was the standoff to the charging bull,
which had become the sort of the symbol of the
misogyny on Wall Street, if you will, right, So I
said to him, go back and let's see if there's
another way to cut this. And they came back and
threw a lot of brainstorming and came back with little
girl or hands on her hips, staring down the bowl.
(14:53):
We called it Fearless Girl, to match the cadence of
charging bull meet Fearless Girl. And then we bought two
weeks of space in front of the bowl. We built
out cobblestone so to sort of match the cobblestone, and
we said we got two weeks for.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
This to hit.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And I knew that it would hit, and I knew
once the world and the city fell in love with her.
And again, remember Hillary did not win the presidency, so
there was a lot of angst in the world certainly
around this. So that it came at the perfect time.
We launched around International Women's Day, and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
The interesting part of this, Bob is that she was
causing a lot of traffic with the bull. The bull
itself always causes traffic, but then with feral Scirl, it
really was causing a bit of a traffic concern. So
the city came to us and said, oh, we need
to move feral Scroll and like we're going to move
her wherever. We want to move her to a park.
It's like no, no, no, no, We'll move her to Germany
or to Tokyo, to London.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
They all want her.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There's only one place she goes, and that's standing in
front of the New York Stock Exchange. And if you
go there today, she stands in front of it and
faces the entrance.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
You know it doesn't front it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So when those stockbrokers leave every day, they got to
see here and remember to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
More of Math and Magic right after this quick break.
Welcome back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Rob Riley. I want to go back
in time a little bit to get some context on you.
You grew up in Jersey in the seventies and eighties.
Can you paint a picture of those times and how
(16:21):
you grew up? What was your environment?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Just awesome, Bob News Jersey is awesome that you know.
We get hit a bit sometimes. I don't know where
you're from, Bob.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
But U Mississippi, Jersey wrote, Mississippi hitting New Jersey. Mississippi
gets Yeah, you get, you get.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
A couple of a couple of shots.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
You know you've done.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Quite well for a guy from Mississippis So Jerseys gets
a little bit of the same.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
We always seem like we're scrappy and fighting. I'm actually
mostly Italian. My mother's side was all Italian and my
father's Irish and German. But even though my last name
is Riley, I grew up mostly Italian with my grandmother
ten minutes away and the sauce on the Sundays.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
That whole thing is.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Very much a big part of my life, and I
grew up in an environment with that was very positive.
Grew up in the same house for my entire life.
My father worked for IBM. Years later I realized he
turned down probably ten promotions. IBM used to be known
for I've been moved. The only way he got promoted
was moving, and he turned down ten promotions so the
family could grow up in the same household. You know,
(17:19):
sacrificed a lot. So it's not lost on me the
sacrifices my parents made for their kids to grow up
in the same place with the same friends and same
sports teams and that comfortable environment that I don't think
a lot of kids often get, certainly these days where you.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Have to move a lot. Your parents clearly had a
huge impact on you. What lessons do you still use
today that came directly from your parents?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
My parents and also my grandparents. My mother's father was
an artist.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When he was young, he was a semi pro hockey player,
was in the Rangers farm system, and he was about
to go pro with the Rangers, and he chose to
be an artist instead because he thought it would be
a better way to make money.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Isn't it ironic now?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But as an artist, you know, he was very talented,
but also it wasn't a guarantee that you're going to
make money, So he ended up working in an advertising
gains he's as a retoucher. He made money or support
his family by being a retouch or in advertising. That
story always stuck with me. Just because you want to
be an artist, or you train to be an artist,
doesn't mean you're going to be successful. You know, creativity
is to crashoot. Sometimes you need luck, you need people
(18:21):
helping you, but you need that hard work. So I
always had that in the back of my mind. Is
like Hey, I want to go into advertising. You know,
once I started realizing I wanted to be a copywriter,
It's like, this isn't a guarantee. I got to work
that much harder and I've got to do everything that
would give you a leg up. When I used to
have this presentation I called creativity is the only way
to survive. And I think my own life, in my
(18:43):
own career, is that I'm always figuring out ways like
how do I keep surviving and thriving in this world?
And part of it is like always waking up thinking
like it could be gone tomorrow, I could fall out
of favor. That's the thing artists always struggle with, is
like you put all this time and effort into it,
doesn't mean it's going to turn into a success.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
You went to college at University of Delaware, the Fighting
Blue Hens. Why there and what did you get from
your college experience?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well, listen, Jill and Joe Biden, come on, We've got
some pretty famous.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
People who went to the University of Delaware.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's interesting Delaware another state that gets a lot of shots, right.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
You know, my mother didn't like to fly.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
We didn't go on many vacations outside of the Northeast area.
So when I was choosing schools, it's really like I
didn't want to be so far that my mother couldn't
come visit me. And I was a soccer player, pretty
good one in high school and Delaware as a team
is Division one team, and I liked the coach and
he liked me, and I ended up going there to
(19:43):
play soccer and then ended up quitting, you know, after
two years because I just wasn't playing.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It was frustrating.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You played Division in sports, you're working that hard and
if you're not playing it, you're like, why am I
doing this? I'm not a quitter. But it did allow
me to do other things. Work at a radio s
work at an ad agency in Wilmington. So I think
that choice I made, even though I look back on
and say, I wish I would have finished that out
and maybe I could have turned it around, but it
(20:11):
allowed me to do things that maybe have put me
in this position. So I think I got team mentality
from being part of a high level team for a
very short time. But then I got the experience working
in an ad agency. Wow, you know, I fell in
love with advertising from that. So I feel like it
all kind of always works out.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So how did you get your first job in advertising?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
This is a great story. I lived in the Rugby
House on the main road at the University of Delaware.
A bunch of rugby guys, you know, there were my roommates.
And see, the Rugby guys would throw parties every once
in a while. And one Saturday afternoon, we're having a party.
It's on the main road and it looks crazy, and
all of a sudden, the sky in a Porsche stops.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And said, Hey, what's going on. I'm like, I don't know.
We're having a party. What does it look like? And
I go, why are you here? It's like, ah, you know,
just driving by. It looks like fun.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And I go, what do you do You're in a
Porsche And he goes, I own an advertising agency. I go, oh,
I work at a radio station and I'd love to
learn more about advertising. And I struck up a conversation
with him and gave me his card. I called him,
and then right out of college I ended up working
for him as an account executive. He did not owe
Gladstone and Quinn was the agency. Tom Quinn was the guy.
(21:20):
I owed that guy a lot. He gave me a
shot get into advertising, learning it, but I was an
account guy at the time. I wasn't a copywriter. I
wanted to be one, but I didn't really know how
to do it. Yeah, that was the first job. So
throw parties on your front lawn. You never know how
it changes your life.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
So let's jump a little bit to present day. How
do you understand the consumer? We recently did a study
along with Malcolm Gladwell comparing Real America to marketing folks,
and wow, big divisions really sort of like you know,
electric moment for all of us. The study did stuff like,
what are two things you can't give up? Marketers and
(21:55):
Real America agree on snacking, but mark say I can't
give up online shopping. Consumers say I can't give up podcast.
When you look at basic values being a little more
serious about it, the American public, two things that are
very important that are really missing from the marketers world
is religion and the military. And so it's a number
(22:16):
of things like that. It just says, wow, we're talking
past each other on a lot of stuff. And I
admit I'm one of those people. I live in this bubble.
But we really try and understand the real America that
we're talking to. How do you avoid living in a
Marketer's bubble and staying connected to real consumers.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
So you got to read a lot of newspapers, You
got to lead a lot, read a lot of things online,
listen to a lot of podcasts. You try to listen
to things that not necessarily about your own industry.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I think it's a lot of how.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
You've been brought up and grown up.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I had an amazing parent, but you know, money wasn't
always plenty and saw struggles, and like a lot of
families within America, grew up, you know, knowing that my
parents are working their ass off to put their kids
through college, to do all those things. I don't think
you forget that. So that keeps me grounded. But I
don't know. I think sports is the greatest of the connectors,
(23:11):
you know, because you could be rich, you could be poor,
you could be from the city, you could be from
the country. But like man, you are pulled together by sports.
So I spend a lot of time. My wife probably
thinks I spent too much time with sports, but I
do think it is the great connector because I might
be in an elevator of someone and strike up a conversation,
and sports is always that thing that connects you and
(23:32):
allows you to start to get to know to people
and hear what they're really caring about and thinking about.
I don't think we're that different, and if you go globally,
people are pretty similar to Everybody wants to have a
great life for their family, do well, enjoy life a bit,
and we're not that different.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that about the stories. When
I was a young man, I rode motorcycles a lot
with a group of friends and we did a lot
of trips. We did two cross country trips, one in
nineteen ninety two one in nineteen ninety four across the
two lane highways across America.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Won the Northern route, won the Southern route.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
And when I came back from that trip, what struck
me the most is everybody wants to talk to you,
and if you just shut up and listen to them,
they're going to tell you a lot of stuff you
don't know. And through the years, I've been a pilot
since I was a kid, and when I had smaller planes,
I couldn't make it a long distance without stopping for fuel,
and every time i'd stop for fuel, I would try
(24:27):
and borrow a crew car and go into town just
to see the town, no matter where that town was.
And I sort of missed that at my age now
because I don't do as much of it. But boy
do you learn a lot. Let's jump to corporate culture.
How do you build it and how do you use it?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
All the CEOs of all our companies we have a
monthly get together, mostly virtual because people are in different places.
And I said, don't forget to tell everybody, Hey, yeah,
it's always a tough year. Like advertising it, it's always tough, right,
but you can't forget to thank people and let them
know that they've done it, great job and accomplish so
many things.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's easy to focus on the negatives.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It's much harder focused on the positives, you know, and
how do we celebrate those things more so? I think
that's how you build the culture. You just remind people
like we've come a long way, done a lot.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Of amazing things.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
We're seen as the most creative company and advertising we're
seen as one of the best places to work because
I think people want to come work for creative places.
I think We're constantly having to prove the value of creativity.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
We're out there championing it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
So I think the reminding people like the job they
have is such a great one because one it's different
every day. Two, creativity really is the world's most valuable asset.
And your agents for that and agents for helping brands
be really meaningful in people's lives. And I've said this
many times that listen, it's brands that are filling in
(25:51):
for governments that just can't afford to help people, which
was the original point of government was set up to
help people. Well, we've not forgotten it, but but we've
got so many challenges. Is like, brands have really filled
in the void sometimes and it's really a great honor
to do. And I think we forget that we do
have a big job, and so I try to focus
on the positives and create that kind of culture.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
What's your philosophy? Own business is doing good for the
world we'd live in.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
There's not enough of it, and I hope we don't
get tired of pushing it. More than ever. People need help.
So many people need help. And if a brand is
out there that can help people and it's born out.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Of their DNA.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It's not some barred interesting like why wouldn't we help it?
I think it should be a real serious part of
people's marketing, purpose led marketing, because I think young people
are looking at brands and if you're not doing the
right thing, so they just won't use they use somebody else.
And so I do think it's it's important that we
don't forget that brands can really be positive in people's
lives and fill in when governments maybe can't get the
(26:50):
job done.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You and I were on the radio as teenagers. I'm
doing a podcast and now you're a podcaster. What drew
you to this medium and what is surprise you most
about audio and podcasting.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, it's a great question because I have two people
that work closely with, Alex and Jonathan, and they are
the producers and they run comms also. But Jonathan comes
from the world of TV and he was filling in here.
He lives in Singapore, but he's actually moving here and
running in North America for US. But he kept pushing
me into doing things, into doing more things out there.
(27:24):
And I was on the Today Show talking about the
Super Bowl last year, and he said, you need to
do a podcast.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this. Too
many podcasts. You know, everybody's doing a podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But Mark had also said Mark Reid it said, listen,
we need to put out more content for our teams,
and you know you need to do more. I said, well,
I'll do a town hall. He's like, well, we already
have a town hall. What else can we do? So
a podcast seem like a real natural way for me
to connect with one hundred and fifteen thousand WPP employees.
So the rest of the world if they listened to it, great,
but it's really done for our own employees because one,
(27:56):
we have so many talents people within our walls that
do so many great things, and how do we tell
their stories? But again, a chance for people to hear
from me bi weekly through different guests about what I
believe in and the kind of creativity I'm looking for,
and different people's stories. And if people are out there
who haven't gotten to advertising and they feel like, oh,
(28:17):
that sounds like a cool business and we attract more
diverse talent, then it's really done its job. So I'm
liking it. I didn't love it at first, but Alex
and Johnathan convince me to keep doing it, and I
quite like it.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Welcome to our world AI. We can't talk without mentioning
AI friend or foe.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Oh friend, Oh my god, such a friend.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think what's been removed from our business a bit, bob,
And this is just from a creative person standpoint within advertising,
because of course it's going to make production more efficient,
and it's already making media more efficient, but it's going
to allow creative people to experiment faster and fail a bit.
You know, what's been removed is the time and money
to experiment and fail, and that's such a part of
(28:57):
the creative process. And I think is allowing designers to
look at looks that would have taken a week to
have it done in a couple hours and to take
inspiration from that. But I do think in five years
and s is why WPP has bet so hard on
creativity and bet so much on creativity, is that AI
is going to put a lot of mediocrity out into
(29:19):
the world. A lot of companies a will be able
to put out things at scale. So the brands that
bet on creativity and the talent and the agencies that
it takes to create those breakthrough ideas are going to
be the ones who win because that's what's going to
be needed. So I'm a fan of it. It's just
like the digital camera in the computer. I mean, there
used to be art directors back in the eighties and
(29:39):
nineties when the computer was first introduced, and who said
I'm never going to use a computer.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
I draw everything. Well, those people do.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Not exist, and I think AI is going to be
the same. If you're a creative person in advertising, you
better learn it, understand it, at least be able to
judge it. Because AI won't replace creative people, but creative
people who are masters of AI eventually will replace creative
people who just haven't embraced it. And for all the
(30:07):
things that it brings you.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
It's time for some advice. If someone wants to be
the next you, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I don't know why they would want to be
the next me, But if someone wants to be maybe
this successful in the CEO role, right, because it's different
than a copywriter and even different than a creative diduct
you really have to be good at everything. You don't
necessarily have to be great at anything, but you really
have to understand everything. They're writing the art direction to design,
the media part, the business side of it, the relationship
(30:38):
side of it, how to sell to people in a
way that feels that they're not being sold to, and
how to provide inspiration and influence and leadership. If you're
not down with all of those things, you won't be successful,
you won't be happy. Because this job isn't just sitting
in your office and looking at ideas and saying yes
or no. It's a lot of relationship building. There are
(31:01):
very smart clients on the other side that are under
so much pressure, and our jobs is like relieve that pressure,
like by bringing them bold ideas that will lead to
widely successful business results. You know, that are based in
their DNA as a company and have smart strategies behind it. Like,
that's a lot of work that isn't just throwing you know,
darts at a dartboard or playing ping pong and drinking
(31:23):
beers to come up with crazy ideas. And maybe mad
Men has done that a bit, but Don Draper wasn't
doing that, And you know he was the CCO of
that company. Don Draper was dealing with clients a lot
and dealing with the pressures of that but he embraced
a lot of it and maybe solved it with too
many scotches on the rocks. But I think that's the
part that people don't quite understand about being the CEO.
(31:45):
It's so much about creativity, but it's so much more
and being that hopefully inspirational leader for people when they
needed the most clients included.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
As we wrap up, we always end with a shout
out to the best of math and magic, out to
the greatest person you know know of who is the
expert in the analytics or the math side of the business.
And the other shout out goes to the best magician,
the creative type. Can you give me a year two?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, there's a woman that she just left recently, McCann.
She was my creative strategy partner. Her name is Suzanne Powers,
and there's no one better at strategy than her, no
one better at looking at the data and then turning
it into inspirational insights and briefs. And she's by far
(32:35):
the mathemagician because she uses data analytics and analyzes all
types of research and then delivers such inspiring ways for
us to go creatively. The magic part, it's not necessarily
a choice that most people would do. But there's this
woman named Debica Bulchandani who's now the CEO of Ogilvy.
(32:58):
We work together at McCann and we talked about fearal
S Girl.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
She's the reason it got sold.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I think the people that are either CEOs or
account people don't get a lot of credit for being magicians.
And she's a magician and how she sells work to
clients and how she really understands their needs and turns
it into assignments for us and really can take an
idea and say, well, here, I know I didn't come
(33:24):
up with it, but this might make it better. So
it's not necessarily a choice of the Bill Burnbacks or
the David Ogleby's or the Dan Widens of the world.
But I do think when you find a business person
or a CEO or an account person that understands creativity
so deeply and then can sell these ideas and figure
out how to get them made, that to me is
the real magicians of our business.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Rob so great having you with us. Thanks for the
stories and the insights and nice to hear from someone
at the top of their game.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Thanks Bob, You're a legend and This has been like
one of the biggest honors I've had, and I was
happy to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Rob one. Write down all your ideas. Ideas
are our lifeblood, especially when you're talking about the magic
side of marketing. Create a system for logging all your ideas,
especially your wildest ones. You never know when an old
thought might lead to the next great innovation.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Two. Do the work.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
When Rob had the opportunity to rise to an executive
level early in his career, he went the opposite direction.
He decided to build out his portfolio as a copywriter
so he could prove his talent and build credibility before
becoming a leader. Dedicating time to doing the real work
of your job will help you understand your business and
craft better. Building that foundation will make you a better
(34:49):
and well respected leader in your career.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Three.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Break out of your bubble. Pursue information that's outside your
daily environment and personal interest. There's a huge gap between
the values of marketers and major cities and those of
consumers all over the country. Get out of your comfort
zone and take in new information. Read things you usually
wouldn't learn about a new industry for visiting new place,
(35:15):
think about what bridges the gap, and use those values.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
In your work to speak to a large audience.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney
Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is
no small feat. Mathematics producers are Emily Meronov and Jessica Crimechitch.
It is mixed and mastered by Baheed Fraser. Our executive
(35:55):
producers are Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course
a big thanks to get Ale, Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel
and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears.
Until next time,
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I think you need be a fountain of ideas. So
I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I still
write it down, I still pitch it. And I try
to create environments where anybody can say anything without any judgment.
And I think the best clients and the best relationships
are you've set that process up together where you've created
the environment for creativity to live.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I am Bob Pipman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we have someone
who has been at the center of the magic of
advertising and has been a creative leader in the advertising business,
from reimventing Burger King to the Fearless Girl statue of
Wall Street. He's Rob Riley, Global, Chief Creative Officer for WPP,
(00:51):
the massive global advertising, marketing and communications company. Rob started
out live ast Robert grew up in New Jersey, played soccer,
was in a band, was a fighting blue hen in college,
and even had an early job as a bartender. He
won a slew of awards and has been a part
of some of the greatest creative agencies. For a good reason,
(01:13):
he makes extraordinary creative, and for that same good reason,
he has chaired the can Lyons Awards show Jury four times, which,
for those of you outside the industry, is like the
Academy Awards of advertising. We got a lot to discuss today, Rob.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Welcome, Oh, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
What I want to do now is get you in
sixty seconds?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
You ready? Perfect? Yeah? I'm ready. Do you prefer capture dogs? Neither?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
But if I'm forced to choose one cats, city or country,
I think city, though we live out in Shelter Island,
which is a beautiful place, so getting to be a
little bit more of a I don't know if a country,
but more of an islander. Books are movies, I think.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'll say audio books, amor FM.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, in college I worked at an AM radio station,
so I'm going to say AM for all it was
back then.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Don Draper or George Lois.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Don Draper, George Lewis. I met him once and he
cursed at me in an elevator favorite TV show.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I'm gonna say Bevis and butneat.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Most exciting advertising campaign that you did not make.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Right the future, Nike, Let's jump into the meat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Let's talk about developing creative ideas as we've discussed on math.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
And magic before.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
And I'll take my own personal experience that creative ideas
for me are just sudden epiphanies. I think about the
issue and then I forget about it, and in the
middle of the night or often in the morning, when
I'm taking that nice, hot meditative shower, answers just pop
in my head out of nowhere. And by the way,
David Eagleman, the neuroscientists who's been on this podcast, it
(02:49):
has theories and talks about why that is.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
But how do you.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Develop new ideas and what's your creative process?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
For people like me my kind of creative process, it's
so much a process. It isn't just come up with
while the idea is the briefing part of advertising is
the thing that's most underrated for successful creative work. When
you have a brief that's clear and pointed in inspiring,
you have first and many steps of making great work.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
I always tell.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Clients, listen, this brief is not for you or I.
This brief is for that junior team that has to
show Rob Riley work at nine am and it's midnight.
And if that brief is convoluted long eight point type
on a page versus twelve point type. If it's trying
to do too many things, it's going to be a nightmare.
How do we make that brief the best friend? And
the way you do that is you've got a very
(03:42):
simple ask. It's going to solve some tension that's out
there in culture. And when this idea lands in culture,
what's the thing that the press writes about? What's that
thing people love share and spread. That's the entire process.
It started years ago at an agency called Kryst and Bagusky.
We called it's the press release process. And when the
(04:03):
idea lands in culture, what's that story the press will
write about? And if you can't figure that out and
a sentence or two, there's no way you're going to
be able to make an entire campaign that's going to
pop in culture. And we did it to help young
teams compete with senior teams on big projects like launching
a Windows ten to the world. It's really hard for
young people to take that and figure it out. So
(04:25):
I try to simplify things by creating that process, and
I still use it today. It's evolved to what's that
thing people love share and spread through the Internet through
on social But it's a very simple thing. If I
can't imagine it what it's going to be when it
lands in culture, then it's probably not going to be
a great idea.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
So you've got a really good process, and it sounds
like you're very thorough, very thoughtful about it, and you
wind people up and say, Okay, this is what we've
got to do. It's got to accomplish these things. It's
got to really impact culture. But the idea has got
to come from somewhere. How does that idea hit you
or hit other creatives?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
People? Oh, fear that you won't have an idea.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I don't like to use fear as a motivator, but
I think for each individual person, like you do wake
up thinking am I going to have any more ideas?
And I think you need to be a fountain of ideas.
So I write down everything. Anything that sounds insane, I
still write it down, I still pitch it, and I
try to create environments where anybody can say anything without
any judgment. And I think the best clients and the
(05:25):
best relationships are you've set that process up together where
you've created the environment for creativity to live.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
We talked about George Lois, and you told me your
George Lois story. George Lois created Don't Want My MTV.
And I had lunch with George when mad Men first
came out, and he goes, that's not me. We spent
a lot of time at lunch on me that wasn't him,
which meant it was probably more him than not. But
it was interesting with George Is. George was not afraid
(05:55):
to revive old advertising ideas. As a matter of fact,
I Want my MTV was actually I want my Maypo
And when George pitched it to me, he said, look,
this was really successful for Maypo. I think this is
what we need because our goal was we had cable
companies that did not want to put MTV on because
they wanted us to pay them. We didn't have any
(06:16):
money to pay them, and we had this very crazy audience.
We said, well, we can enlist them to go sort
of get consumer pull for this. And so he wasn't
afraid to go back and use it. But I saw
him throughout a lot of his work and others as well,
go back in mine great ideas from the past place
for you and that or do you have another point
(06:37):
of view?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, everything is rived of off everything, right, I don't
think there's too many original ideas. Years ago at Crispin
to promote a Burger King chicken sandwich, we came up
with this idea called the Subservient Chicken. But it was
a guy in a chicken suit responding to commands. There's
been a million things with people in chicken suits, right,
But until you do it and put a twist on
it and make it just that's weird enough, then that's
(07:01):
what it becomes special. So now what George did, I
don't know if you can get away with it now.
I mean he literally took the exact sam campaign he
made decades before and just put it into MTV. I
actually give him a lot of credit for not worrying
about what people might think of, like, oh, you stole
your own idea, because it was the right idea for.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
MTV at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, that campaign, you could say, is probably a
big reason why MTV was successful. I mean I remember
it like it was yesterday. I remember the first d a
MTV came was and it was a Saturday afternoon, I
believe I was in Long Island, New York at my
aunt and uncle's house watching this thing come on, and
I remember like it was yesterday. So in some ways,
(07:44):
like I give George Lowis a lot of credit for
being brave enough or not caring enough. But I think
his style, but like the style of being gruff and
maybe yelling a bit more like those days are gone.
You can't get away with it now, Like you really
have to be more of a charming provouct You need
to charm your own people, your coworkers and your clients
(08:04):
with charm them with wit, intelligence, caring about their business
where that they care, knowing about their business more than
they do, then you could be provocative. The days of
throwing chairs at clients or at teams or those are gone.
It's a much different world and you've got to figure
out how can you be successful in that style of business.
And I'm not necessarily a yell or screamer, but you
(08:26):
know I did a lot of coaching from ten to
fifteen years ago where you know, I was intense and
you know, didn't care about people's feelings as much. So
I think it's a new kind of creativity that you know,
would be interesting if George could survive in this day
and age.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Let's take that note of the past. At the dawn
of the century, you were the acting chief creative officer
at Hill Holiday and you took up sixty percent pay
cut to change jobs and become just a copywriter at
Crispin Porter. Clearly it all worked out. Why did you
take that risk and what lesson did you learn?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
I had worked for this amazing boss named David Weekle,
and he was the chief graative officer and they parted ways,
and I was one of the more senior people there,
but not very senior at all, and they said, well,
maybe you can step in temporarily while we search for
a new CEO. Might have been some discussion if you
want to throw your hat in the ring to be
that person. And I kind of realized that I had
(09:19):
all the skills of a great creative director without maybe
the work of a great creative director. And I did
want to end up being a New York creative at
a certain age that kind a giant salary, but didn't
have the work where people would follow you. So I
ended up going down to Crispin Porter and Buguski at
the time probably one hundred and twenty people, sort of
(09:41):
getting known for doing some really interesting national work for
smaller clients, and I pitched Alex Buguski, now my current wife,
my only wife, but she was my girlfriend the time
she was working there, so I had a connection. But
Alex wasn't going to hire me just because I was
the boyfriend. Maybe in fact, didn't necessarily want some guy
from New York who had all the wrong sort of
(10:01):
closed and was a big creative director from New York
City come down to his agency in Miami.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
That was really small type culture.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But I knew that's the kind of work I needed
to be part of, because in the end, you don't
necessarily just follow people. You follow people because of the
work they've done. And I had all the skills of
being able to present and good with clients and maybe
good with teams, but I didn't have enough creative work
that I thought was like culture changing that was going
(10:29):
to get me to a long term career. So I
took a few steps back. But it wasn't the easiest ride.
When I got there, I was the guy from New York.
Everybody's in flip flops and shorts. I'm here in the
produc boots in black. I stood out like a sore
thumb and about thirty days into it, Alex calls me
in his office said, listen, man, I love the work
you're doing. I think you're fantastic. Here's the problem. No
(10:51):
one else likes you. So I thought he would say,
it doesn't matter as long as I like you. He said,
that's the opposite. I can't have one guy who ruined
the culture. So you got to figure out how to
get people to like you. And long story short, I
ended up going back and deciding, like, you know what,
I'm just going to shut my mouth and sit in
the corner and crank out work.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And then once you start making work, people respect. That
was the beginning of building a body of work that
I'm really proud of at every level. Copywriter, creative director, CEO,
creative chairman. To down with WPP, head of a holding company.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Well, you know, let's go back in time for a second.
Why didn't they like you? What were you doing?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Why didn't they like me?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I probably had the wrong clothes.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I had an incredibly intelligent, smart, beautiful girlfriend who's now
my wife and doing all the amazing work.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
And I was a boyfriend from New York.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I came from a big New York ad agency and
it wasn't quite fitting in the culture. And I think,
growing up in New Jersey like we're loud. And when
I went and told my wife that Alex said that
people didn't like me, her response was, why don't you
just try shutting up and doing the work, you know,
like you're the problem. So I was taught a lesson
early on to shut my mouth and do the work.
(12:03):
And when you have the work, you get the respect.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well that's a great lesson. And ten years later you
were the chief creative officer of Crispin Porter. So it
all worked out. Yeah, it all worked out. You continued
to succeed. You went on to be Global Creative Chairman
at a McCann, a worldwide group from twenty and fourteen
to twenty twenty one, and then on to WPP in
your current role. Everyone knows the Fearless Girl statue on
(12:27):
Wall Street.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
What's this story?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's a great story because State Street Global Advisors was
an account that McCann had for a few years and
hadn't been known for doing such great work. But when
I went to McCann, the first thing I did to
turn around an agency that maybe hadn't been doing as
well as they had hoped. Was let's put an attainable
goal in place, and we called it three for All,
and it was, how do we create three magical pieces
(12:50):
every year for every client in every office and this
way everybody is responsible for contributing to hopefully the creative
turnaround that McCann eventually achieved a process, and I think
three magical pieces a year is pretty attainable and you
don't rely on just one account making the famous work.
Every account has to deliver. And state ttreat was probably
one of the most challenged. It's because it's a financial
(13:12):
company based in Boston, a great company, but not known
for doing very bold work all the time. But at
the end of the year, we didn't really have three
pieces of work that we could hold up and say
these are our best three pieces of work for State Street.
And someone said, well, they got this amazing fund called
the She Fund, where you can invest in female lead companies.
Because State Street realized they were part of the problem
(13:32):
with the lack of female leadership on Wall Street. They
created a fund where you can invest in female lead companies,
and they put pressure on companies to put more females
on their board. So of course an easy thing for
us to do was to do a print ad about it.
But you know, we brought the print at but then
here's thirty more ideas and one of the ideas was
not necessarily a Ferals girl.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
The idea is to put a.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Female bowl in front of the male bowl. And amazing
team Lizzie and Tally came up with the idea with
the help of Eric Silver, who was the CECO of
North America. And you know, they kept coming in my
office saying, oh, we love this idea, and I'm like, okay, okay.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And of course the clients that we love the idea,
but you know, we're just not comfortable with it. And
the reason they're not comfortable with it because there's no
such thing as a female bull. It's a cow, right,
And that's why, you know, as a CEO, you really
have to let people, if they're so passionate about something,
go try and sell it. But what they didn't necessarily
realize was it wasn't necessarily the bull or the cow
(14:32):
that was going to be the thing people talk. It
was the standoff. It was the standoff to the charging bull,
which had become the sort of the symbol of the
misogyny on Wall Street, if you will, right, So I
said to him, go back and let's see if there's
another way to cut this. And they came back and
threw a lot of brainstorming and came back with little
girl or hands on her hips, staring down the bowl.
(14:53):
We called it Fearless Girl, to match the cadence of
charging bull meet Fearless Girl. And then we bought two
weeks of space in front of the bowl. We built
out cobblestone so to sort of match the cobblestone, and
we said we got two weeks for.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
This to hit.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And I knew that it would hit, and I knew
once the world and the city fell in love with her.
And again, remember Hillary did not win the presidency, so
there was a lot of angst in the world certainly
around this. So that it came at the perfect time.
We launched around International Women's Day, and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
The interesting part of this, Bob is that she was
causing a lot of traffic with the bull. The bull
itself always causes traffic, but then with feral Scirl, it
really was causing a bit of a traffic concern. So
the city came to us and said, oh, we need
to move feral Scroll and like we're going to move
her wherever. We want to move her to a park.
It's like no, no, no, no, We'll move her to Germany
or to Tokyo, to London.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
They all want her.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There's only one place she goes, and that's standing in
front of the New York Stock Exchange. And if you
go there today, she stands in front of it and
faces the entrance.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
You know it doesn't front it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So when those stockbrokers leave every day, they got to
see here and remember to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
More of Math and Magic right after this quick break.
Welcome back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from
my conversation with Rob Riley. I want to go back
in time a little bit to get some context on you.
You grew up in Jersey in the seventies and eighties.
Can you paint a picture of those times and how
(16:21):
you grew up? What was your environment?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Just awesome, Bob News Jersey is awesome that you know.
We get hit a bit sometimes. I don't know where
you're from, Bob.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
But U Mississippi, Jersey wrote, Mississippi hitting New Jersey. Mississippi
gets Yeah, you get, you get.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
A couple of a couple of shots.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
You know you've done.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Quite well for a guy from Mississippis So Jerseys gets
a little bit of the same.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
We always seem like we're scrappy and fighting. I'm actually
mostly Italian. My mother's side was all Italian and my
father's Irish and German. But even though my last name
is Riley, I grew up mostly Italian with my grandmother
ten minutes away and the sauce on the Sundays.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
That whole thing is.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Very much a big part of my life, and I
grew up in an environment with that was very positive.
Grew up in the same house for my entire life.
My father worked for IBM. Years later I realized he
turned down probably ten promotions. IBM used to be known
for I've been moved. The only way he got promoted
was moving, and he turned down ten promotions so the
family could grow up in the same household. You know,
(17:19):
sacrificed a lot. So it's not lost on me the
sacrifices my parents made for their kids to grow up
in the same place with the same friends and same
sports teams and that comfortable environment that I don't think
a lot of kids often get, certainly these days where you.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Have to move a lot. Your parents clearly had a
huge impact on you. What lessons do you still use
today that came directly from your parents?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
My parents and also my grandparents. My mother's father was
an artist.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When he was young, he was a semi pro hockey player,
was in the Rangers farm system, and he was about
to go pro with the Rangers, and he chose to
be an artist instead because he thought it would be
a better way to make money.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Isn't it ironic now?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But as an artist, you know, he was very talented,
but also it wasn't a guarantee that you're going to
make money, So he ended up working in an advertising
gains he's as a retoucher. He made money or support
his family by being a retouch or in advertising. That
story always stuck with me. Just because you want to
be an artist, or you train to be an artist,
doesn't mean you're going to be successful. You know, creativity
is to crashoot. Sometimes you need luck, you need people
(18:21):
helping you, but you need that hard work. So I
always had that in the back of my mind. Is
like Hey, I want to go into advertising. You know,
once I started realizing I wanted to be a copywriter,
It's like, this isn't a guarantee. I got to work
that much harder and I've got to do everything that
would give you a leg up. When I used to
have this presentation I called creativity is the only way
to survive. And I think my own life, in my
(18:43):
own career, is that I'm always figuring out ways like
how do I keep surviving and thriving in this world?
And part of it is like always waking up thinking
like it could be gone tomorrow, I could fall out
of favor. That's the thing artists always struggle with, is
like you put all this time and effort into it,
doesn't mean it's going to turn into a success.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
You went to college at University of Delaware, the Fighting
Blue Hens. Why there and what did you get from
your college experience?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Well, listen, Jill and Joe Biden, come on, We've got
some pretty famous.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
People who went to the University of Delaware.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's interesting Delaware another state that gets a lot of shots, right.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
You know, my mother didn't like to fly.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
We didn't go on many vacations outside of the Northeast area.
So when I was choosing schools, it's really like I
didn't want to be so far that my mother couldn't
come visit me. And I was a soccer player, pretty
good one in high school and Delaware as a team
is Division one team, and I liked the coach and
he liked me, and I ended up going there to
(19:43):
play soccer and then ended up quitting, you know, after
two years because I just wasn't playing.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It was frustrating.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You played Division in sports, you're working that hard and
if you're not playing it, you're like, why am I
doing this? I'm not a quitter. But it did allow
me to do other things. Work at a radio s
work at an ad agency in Wilmington. So I think
that choice I made, even though I look back on
and say, I wish I would have finished that out
and maybe I could have turned it around, but it
(20:11):
allowed me to do things that maybe have put me
in this position. So I think I got team mentality
from being part of a high level team for a
very short time. But then I got the experience working
in an ad agency. Wow, you know, I fell in
love with advertising from that. So I feel like it
all kind of always works out.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So how did you get your first job in advertising?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
This is a great story. I lived in the Rugby
House on the main road at the University of Delaware.
A bunch of rugby guys, you know, there were my roommates.
And see, the Rugby guys would throw parties every once
in a while. And one Saturday afternoon, we're having a party.
It's on the main road and it looks crazy, and
all of a sudden, the sky in a Porsche stops.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
And said, Hey, what's going on. I'm like, I don't know.
We're having a party. What does it look like? And
I go, why are you here? It's like, ah, you know,
just driving by. It looks like fun.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And I go, what do you do You're in a
Porsche And he goes, I own an advertising agency. I go, oh,
I work at a radio station and I'd love to
learn more about advertising. And I struck up a conversation
with him and gave me his card. I called him,
and then right out of college I ended up working
for him as an account executive. He did not owe
Gladstone and Quinn was the agency. Tom Quinn was the guy.
(21:20):
I owed that guy a lot. He gave me a
shot get into advertising, learning it, but I was an
account guy at the time. I wasn't a copywriter. I
wanted to be one, but I didn't really know how
to do it. Yeah, that was the first job. So
throw parties on your front lawn. You never know how
it changes your life.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
So let's jump a little bit to present day. How
do you understand the consumer? We recently did a study
along with Malcolm Gladwell comparing Real America to marketing folks,
and wow, big divisions really sort of like you know,
electric moment for all of us. The study did stuff like,
what are two things you can't give up? Marketers and
(21:55):
Real America agree on snacking, but mark say I can't
give up online shopping. Consumers say I can't give up podcast.
When you look at basic values being a little more
serious about it, the American public, two things that are
very important that are really missing from the marketers world
is religion and the military. And so it's a number
(22:16):
of things like that. It just says, wow, we're talking
past each other on a lot of stuff. And I
admit I'm one of those people. I live in this bubble.
But we really try and understand the real America that
we're talking to. How do you avoid living in a
Marketer's bubble and staying connected to real consumers.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
So you got to read a lot of newspapers, You
got to lead a lot, read a lot of things online,
listen to a lot of podcasts. You try to listen
to things that not necessarily about your own industry.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I think it's a lot of how.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
You've been brought up and grown up.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I had an amazing parent, but you know, money wasn't
always plenty and saw struggles, and like a lot of
families within America, grew up, you know, knowing that my
parents are working their ass off to put their kids
through college, to do all those things. I don't think
you forget that. So that keeps me grounded. But I
don't know. I think sports is the greatest of the connectors,
(23:11):
you know, because you could be rich, you could be poor,
you could be from the city, you could be from
the country. But like man, you are pulled together by sports.
So I spend a lot of time. My wife probably
thinks I spent too much time with sports, but I
do think it is the great connector because I might
be in an elevator of someone and strike up a conversation,
and sports is always that thing that connects you and
(23:32):
allows you to start to get to know to people
and hear what they're really caring about and thinking about.
I don't think we're that different, and if you go globally,
people are pretty similar to Everybody wants to have a
great life for their family, do well, enjoy life a bit,
and we're not that different.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, it's interesting you say that about the stories. When
I was a young man, I rode motorcycles a lot
with a group of friends and we did a lot
of trips. We did two cross country trips, one in
nineteen ninety two one in nineteen ninety four across the
two lane highways across America.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Won the Northern route, won the Southern route.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
And when I came back from that trip, what struck
me the most is everybody wants to talk to you,
and if you just shut up and listen to them,
they're going to tell you a lot of stuff you
don't know. And through the years, I've been a pilot
since I was a kid, and when I had smaller planes,
I couldn't make it a long distance without stopping for fuel,
and every time i'd stop for fuel, I would try
(24:27):
and borrow a crew car and go into town just
to see the town, no matter where that town was.
And I sort of missed that at my age now
because I don't do as much of it. But boy
do you learn a lot. Let's jump to corporate culture.
How do you build it and how do you use it?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
All the CEOs of all our companies we have a
monthly get together, mostly virtual because people are in different places.
And I said, don't forget to tell everybody, Hey, yeah,
it's always a tough year. Like advertising it, it's always tough, right,
but you can't forget to thank people and let them
know that they've done it, great job and accomplish so
many things.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
It's easy to focus on the negatives.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
It's much harder focused on the positives, you know, and
how do we celebrate those things more so? I think
that's how you build the culture. You just remind people
like we've come a long way, done a lot.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Of amazing things.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
We're seen as the most creative company and advertising we're
seen as one of the best places to work because
I think people want to come work for creative places.
I think We're constantly having to prove the value of creativity.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
We're out there championing it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
So I think the reminding people like the job they
have is such a great one because one it's different
every day. Two, creativity really is the world's most valuable asset.
And your agents for that and agents for helping brands
be really meaningful in people's lives. And I've said this
many times that listen, it's brands that are filling in
(25:51):
for governments that just can't afford to help people, which
was the original point of government was set up to
help people. Well, we've not forgotten it, but but we've
got so many challenges. Is like, brands have really filled
in the void sometimes and it's really a great honor
to do. And I think we forget that we do
have a big job, and so I try to focus
on the positives and create that kind of culture.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
What's your philosophy? Own business is doing good for the
world we'd live in.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
There's not enough of it, and I hope we don't
get tired of pushing it. More than ever. People need help.
So many people need help. And if a brand is
out there that can help people and it's born out.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Of their DNA.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
It's not some barred interesting like why wouldn't we help it?
I think it should be a real serious part of
people's marketing, purpose led marketing, because I think young people
are looking at brands and if you're not doing the
right thing, so they just won't use they use somebody else.
And so I do think it's it's important that we
don't forget that brands can really be positive in people's
lives and fill in when governments maybe can't get the
(26:50):
job done.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You and I were on the radio as teenagers. I'm
doing a podcast and now you're a podcaster. What drew
you to this medium and what is surprise you most
about audio and podcasting.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, it's a great question because I have two people
that work closely with, Alex and Jonathan, and they are
the producers and they run comms also. But Jonathan comes
from the world of TV and he was filling in here.
He lives in Singapore, but he's actually moving here and
running in North America for US. But he kept pushing
me into doing things, into doing more things out there.
(27:24):
And I was on the Today Show talking about the
Super Bowl last year, and he said, you need to
do a podcast.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this. Too
many podcasts. You know, everybody's doing a podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
But Mark had also said Mark Reid it said, listen,
we need to put out more content for our teams,
and you know you need to do more. I said, well,
I'll do a town hall. He's like, well, we already
have a town hall. What else can we do? So
a podcast seem like a real natural way for me
to connect with one hundred and fifteen thousand WPP employees.
So the rest of the world if they listened to it, great,
but it's really done for our own employees because one,
(27:56):
we have so many talents people within our walls that
do so many great things, and how do we tell
their stories? But again, a chance for people to hear
from me bi weekly through different guests about what I
believe in and the kind of creativity I'm looking for,
and different people's stories. And if people are out there
who haven't gotten to advertising and they feel like, oh,
(28:17):
that sounds like a cool business and we attract more
diverse talent, then it's really done its job. So I'm
liking it. I didn't love it at first, but Alex
and Johnathan convince me to keep doing it, and I
quite like it.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Now.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Welcome to our world AI. We can't talk without mentioning
AI friend or foe.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Oh friend, Oh my god, such a friend.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think what's been removed from our business a bit, bob,
And this is just from a creative person standpoint within advertising,
because of course it's going to make production more efficient,
and it's already making media more efficient, but it's going
to allow creative people to experiment faster and fail a bit.
You know, what's been removed is the time and money
to experiment and fail, and that's such a part of
(28:57):
the creative process. And I think is allowing designers to
look at looks that would have taken a week to
have it done in a couple hours and to take
inspiration from that. But I do think in five years
and s is why WPP has bet so hard on
creativity and bet so much on creativity, is that AI
is going to put a lot of mediocrity out into
(29:19):
the world. A lot of companies a will be able
to put out things at scale. So the brands that
bet on creativity and the talent and the agencies that
it takes to create those breakthrough ideas are going to
be the ones who win because that's what's going to
be needed. So I'm a fan of it. It's just
like the digital camera in the computer. I mean, there
used to be art directors back in the eighties and
(29:39):
nineties when the computer was first introduced, and who said
I'm never going to use a computer.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
I draw everything. Well, those people do.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Not exist, and I think AI is going to be
the same. If you're a creative person in advertising, you
better learn it, understand it, at least be able to
judge it. Because AI won't replace creative people, but creative
people who are masters of AI eventually will replace creative
people who just haven't embraced it. And for all the
(30:07):
things that it brings you.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
It's time for some advice. If someone wants to be
the next you, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I don't know why they would want to be
the next me, But if someone wants to be maybe
this successful in the CEO role, right, because it's different
than a copywriter and even different than a creative diduct
you really have to be good at everything. You don't
necessarily have to be great at anything, but you really
have to understand everything. They're writing the art direction to design,
the media part, the business side of it, the relationship
(30:38):
side of it, how to sell to people in a
way that feels that they're not being sold to, and
how to provide inspiration and influence and leadership. If you're
not down with all of those things, you won't be successful,
you won't be happy. Because this job isn't just sitting
in your office and looking at ideas and saying yes
or no. It's a lot of relationship building. There are
(31:01):
very smart clients on the other side that are under
so much pressure, and our jobs is like relieve that pressure,
like by bringing them bold ideas that will lead to
widely successful business results. You know, that are based in
their DNA as a company and have smart strategies behind it. Like,
that's a lot of work that isn't just throwing you know,
darts at a dartboard or playing ping pong and drinking
(31:23):
beers to come up with crazy ideas. And maybe mad
Men has done that a bit, but Don Draper wasn't
doing that, And you know he was the CCO of
that company. Don Draper was dealing with clients a lot
and dealing with the pressures of that but he embraced
a lot of it and maybe solved it with too
many scotches on the rocks. But I think that's the
part that people don't quite understand about being the CEO.
(31:45):
It's so much about creativity, but it's so much more
and being that hopefully inspirational leader for people when they
needed the most clients included.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
As we wrap up, we always end with a shout
out to the best of math and magic, out to
the greatest person you know know of who is the
expert in the analytics or the math side of the business.
And the other shout out goes to the best magician,
the creative type. Can you give me a year two?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Well, there's a woman that she just left recently, McCann.
She was my creative strategy partner. Her name is Suzanne Powers,
and there's no one better at strategy than her, no
one better at looking at the data and then turning
it into inspirational insights and briefs. And she's by far
(32:35):
the mathemagician because she uses data analytics and analyzes all
types of research and then delivers such inspiring ways for
us to go creatively. The magic part, it's not necessarily
a choice that most people would do. But there's this
woman named Debica Bulchandani who's now the CEO of Ogilvy.
(32:58):
We work together at McCann and we talked about fearal
S Girl.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
She's the reason it got sold.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I think the people that are either CEOs or
account people don't get a lot of credit for being magicians.
And she's a magician and how she sells work to
clients and how she really understands their needs and turns
it into assignments for us and really can take an
idea and say, well, here, I know I didn't come
(33:24):
up with it, but this might make it better. So
it's not necessarily a choice of the Bill Burnbacks or
the David Ogleby's or the Dan Widens of the world.
But I do think when you find a business person
or a CEO or an account person that understands creativity
so deeply and then can sell these ideas and figure
out how to get them made, that to me is
the real magicians of our business.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Rob so great having you with us. Thanks for the
stories and the insights and nice to hear from someone
at the top of their game.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Thanks Bob, You're a legend and This has been like
one of the biggest honors I've had, and I was
happy to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Rob one. Write down all your ideas. Ideas
are our lifeblood, especially when you're talking about the magic
side of marketing. Create a system for logging all your ideas,
especially your wildest ones. You never know when an old
thought might lead to the next great innovation.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
Two. Do the work.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
When Rob had the opportunity to rise to an executive
level early in his career, he went the opposite direction.
He decided to build out his portfolio as a copywriter
so he could prove his talent and build credibility before
becoming a leader. Dedicating time to doing the real work
of your job will help you understand your business and
craft better. Building that foundation will make you a better
(34:49):
and well respected leader in your career.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Three.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Break out of your bubble. Pursue information that's outside your
daily environment and personal interest. There's a huge gap between
the values of marketers and major cities and those of
consumers all over the country. Get out of your comfort
zone and take in new information. Read things you usually
wouldn't learn about a new industry for visiting new place,
(35:15):
think about what bridges the gap, and use those values.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
In your work to speak to a large audience.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney
Rosenblum for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is
no small feat. Mathematics producers are Emily Meronov and Jessica Crimechitch.
It is mixed and mastered by Baheed Fraser. Our executive
(35:55):
producers are Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course
a big thanks to get Ale, Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel
and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears.
Until next time,
Host
Bob Pittman
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.