Podcasts
May 24, 2021

Is This Thing On? Audio Series Debuts with MilkPEP CEO Yin Woon Rani

We’re proud to debut “Is This Thing On?" a new audio series exploring marketing, life and random thoughts with business leaders from around the globe. 

GALE

A Business Agency

For the last few months we’ve been experimenting with new content formats and working on a new audio series we’ve dubbed, “Is This Thing On?” The series features engaging discussions with dynamic leaders in marketing and business, and we have a great lineup of episodes to come! Today, we’re proud to debut our first episode, available now on Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

Our CEO Brad Simms kicked it off with Yin Woon Rani, CEO at MilkPEP, which recently tapped GALE to lead all of its marketing efforts. If you know anything about these two, it’s that they are quirky, hilarious, and absolutely love talking all-things marketing – and this episode is no different! We’ve included the full transcript of the conversation below for easy reading, and please make sure to have a listen!

Episode 1: Brad Simms & Yin Woon Rani

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Is this thing on?

Intro (00:06):

Welcome to, Is This Thing On? An audio series from GALE exploring marketing, life, and random thoughts with business leaders from around the globe. On this episode, GALE president and CEO, Brad Simms, speaks with Chief Executive Officer of MilkPEP, Yin Woon Rani. Let’s join the conversation.

Brad Simms (00:28):

So Yin, suppose the thing that we share in common, outside of our epic sense of humor, is our passion for integrated marketing. When I first met you at, this was Campbell’s, and bringing soup to the world. But at MilkPEP, obviously, you have this passion and this real, tremendous focus around integrated marketing. And I think it’s something a lot of folks are talking about. Where did it start? What do you think? Where are the challenges? You’re doing it, you’re living it, you’re trying to achieve it. It’s more popular now than ever. What are your thoughts?

Yin Woon Rani (01:14):

I mean, in marketing, doesn’t it feel sometimes like it’s the best of times, and the worst of times? As Charles Dickens once said. We have so many more tools and capabilities at our fingertips, and yet it seems harder and harder than ever to live into that fundamental mission of marketing. Right person, right time, right outcome. And so, I guess I love marketing, as I know you do. And so, I want to hold it all together in a way that makes sense that is effective. That’s not just new and shiny for the sake of new and shiny.

Yin Woon Rani (01:44):

And so that’s what I’m very focused on. And I think one of the big barriers, frankly, is mindset and organizational legacy. And I have envy sometimes for companies who have started and built for today. Because they’re not trying to unwind anything, they’re starting from now and taking advantage of all the great capabilities out there. And sometimes when you operate in a legacy structure, it’s much harder to get there, as you know.

Brad Simms (02:09):

Yeah. I mean, it is interesting, because one of the things that I’ve definitely seen and we’re seeing in this year’s upfront is an epic movement of what I consider new economy brands into what I would consider a traditional medium, which is the upfronts, right? Buying TV, moving into more traditional media, away from where they’ve grown up and they’ve won.

Brad Simms (02:34):

And I have to wonder, as we see that start to happen, can they figure out how to do that in a way that continues their integrated way, or does a little bit of the channel and the legacy industry create integration problems? You know what I mean? So, is it not just about your organization? Is it also about how you have to work in the industry, and therefore that creates some challenges. It would be interesting to see.

Yin Woon Rani (03:02):

Yeah, I mean, it’s so funny that this far into our careers, we’re still having this conversation about how TV is different than everything else. So, it’d be interesting, as you say, to see if these new companies can bring that into their toolkit and stay protective of what made them great. But in TV’s defense, as you know, I think the TV ecosystem is also making a lot of advancements and evolutions around measurement, and agility, and responsiveness, and audience targeting.

Yin Woon Rani (03:28):

I mean, it’s a long way from bright, but at least some of the talk is beginning to show up in the marketplace. So, if I was a new economy company, I’d be trying to take the best of television, but trying to apply some of the performance rules that probably helped build my business from the get-go.

Brad Simms (03:44):

Yeah, yeah. And this is obviously going in a slightly different direction, but we can loop back to integration. But it’s also interesting, if TV is at what I consider their Blockbuster moment, right? I think industries either innovate, or they die at this very specific spot. And as we see audiences crashing, and OTT rising, and new ways to consume video, some successful and some not, you wonder how close TV is to that radical innovation moment, in which, to your point, they’ve nudged along a little bit and making it a little bit easier, but are we getting to this spot where they can’t clear commitments on audiences because there’s just not the audiences that used to be there. And everything forces this huge innovation moment, because to your point, TV serves a very useful region and frequency function. It just does, and sometimes the most efficient way to get to it.

Yin Woon Rani (04:43):

Well, one of the interesting things there is I would argue that the innovation moment on the content and programming side is already on the way with the advent of non ad-supported options. And obviously, the big streaming wars going on with subscription is a better source of revenue than advertising. So, it’s going to be interesting to see if that content and innovation inevitably makes its way back into the advertising ecosystem.

Yin Woon Rani (05:07):

Because the rumors of television’s death are greatly exaggerated from that standpoint. I think there’s more quality content, both produced and consumed than ever before. It’s just a really different monetization model. So, I believe in content, I believe in the power of content, and that’s how you get the eyeballs. And it’s just interesting to see how advertising works in that ecosystem. And even in the digital ecosystem, as you know, the role of advertising is being carefully scrutinized and carefully talked about.

Brad Simms (05:36):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. And you and I were just emailing about this, I think, or texting about this earlier this week, which is: the other thing that happens as you move to this on-demand subscription model is your competitor set changes, right? You look at something like innovative ways in which TikTok is being used. Now making TikTok a competitor for content consumption with subscription services.

Brad Simms (06:00):

Because it all happens on your phone, right? And it’s easy to swipe between them. And so, the thing that’s happening is the competitive set is epically moving, which is also, I think, a really interesting moment to drive innovation. And from an advertiser perspective creates really interesting opportunities.

Yin Woon Rani (06:20):

Well, I know you and I talk about this all the time, how to be audience-centric and not channel-centric when so much of the ecosystem, and the workflow, and just frankly the way our heuristic muscle memory works is all around channels, right? To think about social, different than display, different than video, or different than in store. And I know you and I are on this mad journey to be relentlessly audience-centric. So, I mean, when you built GALE, was that part of the thinking? I know that’s part of the naming of the agency, to keep the audience at the center of it, but is it easier said than done, Brad?

Brad Simms (06:57):

Yeah. I mean, it is because I think the thing is, we’ve now gone full circle in the conversation, right? Which is, now organization structure’s still in those channels. You see organizations that are thinking about things like TikTok, and Snap, and that as a channel in which they’re actually building muscle memory around, which is different than imagine I say traditional-social, which is different.

Brad Simms (07:24):

And so, the pressure is always around breaking through those and resetting around actually the audience, right? And I think that, for me, everyone agrees with it, but mobilizing an organization to think that way is a big lift, because it changes how everything happens from an ideation perspective. And we see it with brands, actually, I think that are winning this way, which is things move way up in the strategy function.

Brad Simms (08:00):

Media moves up, because now you’re talking about publisher content ideas, right? PR moves up. Shopper moves. All of that now becomes part of the strategy function, as opposed to just a brand strategy with some jazz hands and some flashy stuff. And so now what we’ve done is we front-loaded, frankly, a ton of traditionally back-loaded execution channels that are now tremendously strategic. And this idea of getting the strategy right. We’ll get the creative right puts everything the industry has built, and frankly, everything legacy companies have thought about, upside down.

Brad Simms (08:36):

And so, being an agency that tries to bring that forward, we face a lot of resistance against organizations that are structured to work in a waterfall that works in the other way, which honestly is one of the things that I think we’re doing a really interesting job doing, right? I think changing the definition and the players in the strategy conversation resets the whole rhythm in which marketing works.

Yin Woon Rani (09:08):

Yeah. I think it makes me think also about those new economy companies we’re talking about at the top of the conversation is, maybe one of the reasons they are more successful is that they are more audience-centric, founder-led, more focused from the get-go. And they tend probably to have agile cultures, and big A agile. And so, they operate more naturally in the world that people live in.

Yin Woon Rani (09:34):

And it’s one of the sad truths of this industry, which I have observed for a long time is that the industry is behind our own customers, if that makes sense? Consumer adoption, understanding of this so-called omni-channel, 360 world. I mean, we all live our lives that way, which is what’s always so funny. You know exactly how you live your life as a consumer of information and how you make decisions. You know it’s influenced by all the parts of this complex ecosystem. And then you come to work and you’re like, ‘No, it’s all about this. I am a hammer and this is a nail.”

Yin Woon Rani (10:05):

And I always remind people of their own humanity, or their children, or their spouses, or whoever’s around. I’m always like, “Is that how you really decide when you’re not sitting in that chair?” But it’s difficult because there is definitely a need for technical specialty, right? Even though, as you know, I’m obsessed with integration and audience-centricity, part of the challenge is every vertical does have its own technical specialty. So, you would need that combination of holding it together and having enough specialists who are truly expert in the individual components. That’s what makes it also fun, Brad.

Brad Simms (10:36):

Yeah. No, it is. But I actually think there’s an interesting capability that new economy brands have, which is a premium on passion and curiosity. And when you’re passionate and curious and you wake up in the morning and the things you’re looking at are across tons of channels. Because you’re learning about the new ad unit here, and the new format here, and the new way to rate this, and the new way to rate that.

Brad Simms (11:04):

I think sometimes we over-value a deep executional expertise, which is required, with the ability to think about a marketing and communication strategy, which requires lateral curiosity. And I think that the challenge that I have is not only new brands, but traditional agencies take that out of you. Because they are like, “You are now this,” which then actually crushes that. But when you’re a startup or you’re a new economy company, you have to think that way, because you are looking to win, you are being competitors, you need an edge.

Brad Simms (11:39):

And I think that that brings a different kind of foundation to the conversation. So, when folks join organizations like that, they’re challenged just to view the problem differently. And I actually think that that hill is not as high to climb as some folks think, as long as we give passionate and curious folks the right to go laterally across all marketing channels. And you and I talk about shopper, and PR, and all that all the time. And they are definitely disciplines that require some executional expertise. But frankly, at the top of them, it’s just good customer journey, customer communication, customer-centricity.

Yin Woon Rani (12:24):

Yeah. From a talent development standpoint, I often preach this notion of becoming a T-shaped executive, right? You grew up in a particular vertical, you and I grew up in different ones, but at some point you get rewarded for understanding the longitudinal side. And then maybe you pick a couple of other verticals to get deep in, but some people don’t transition well. And you’re right, the industry doesn’t always do a good job of telling people young in their career, at some point being a specialist will not be enough.

Yin Woon Rani (12:50):

You need to be a specialist that understands the T. The other analogy I often use, because I spend a lot of my career, frankly, counseling between traditional marketers and emerging digital marketers. And I always say to people, think of traditional marketing and traditional executives, operating executives as very competitive corporate athletes, but they grew up in a sport of triathlon.

Yin Woon Rani (13:13):

They know how to run, walk and swim in a super linear fashion. Modern marketing is much more like mixed martial arts, right? It’s hand-to-hand, you go between style-to-style. You’re going to do whatever it takes to win. It’s not super linear. So, I always say to the digital cats who are complaining about the executives. I’m like, “Have respect for their athleticism. They didn’t get to be the president, or the CMO, or whatever by being a slouch, they just grew up in a different sport with a different muscle memory. So part of your job is to understand that you grew up in a different sport.” And I’ll say to the senior executives of all the digital cats. I’m like, “Respect that it’s a different marketplace. And running, walking and swimming in this linear fashion is not the way the game is played anymore.”

Brad Simms (13:53):

Yeah. But I actually think that’s an interesting point and I think it actually expands, right? I mean, one of the things that we see with our clients within the industry is no longer a marketing conversation, no longer communication conversation, but now a business conversation.

Yin Woon Rani (14:11):

Right.

Brad Simms (14:11):

And I think it’s actually what is a result of the pressure that has been put on the industry by the Accentures, and the McKinseys, and the BCGs that have started to get involved. And they start with that business level conversation, right? And then they’re nudging their way into a marketing conversation. So, you look at someone like you that has a long history in marketing, is now CEO, right? That requires a business interest and aptitude in order to move into that.

Brad Simms (14:38):

And I think as marketers not are we only under pressure to understand the customer and continue to learn about the channels and the way we communicate, but we have an increased responsibility to think about the business, and the impact we have on the business, and the cost of what we do, and return on marketing investment versus just return on ad spend.

Brad Simms (14:59):

And I think that there is that expectation from a lot of brands. And I think it even goes back to this idea of the startups. There’s no distance between the CMO’s office and the CFO’s office in a startup, right? It is like money, and it is like action and outcome. And those are very connected. And I think that the next level of integration brings business accountability closer to marketing execution. [crosstalk 00:15:33].

Yin Woon Rani (15:32):

It’s interesting you say that, because totally true, as you say in new economy, but because I spent a lot of my career in CPG in consumer-packaged goods and that traditional brand management structure. Think of PMG, or Lever, or General Mills, the brand managers were like many general managers, and so they always thought about marketing from a business standpoint. I also grew up at Gray as an agency, and Gray, as you know, for a long, long time was incredibly client-centric, probably to a default of the creative.

Yin Woon Rani (16:01):

And so, it’s funny you should make that observation, because it took me a while when I stopped working at those kinds of businesses where marketing is its own discipline slightly set aside from the business, because that was not the way I was trained in CPG. And it’s funny to see this kind of coming back to it.

Yin Woon Rani (16:16):

And one of my big experiences moving from agency into client was how humbling it is. Because when you’re an agency person, you think marketing and marketers are like the center of the universe. And you show up in a manufacturing environment and you’re like, “Oh, wait. No, I’m like a fifth-class citizen here.” I was like, “Supply chain is more important than me. Finance is more important than me. Even the corporate comms people who call investors, are more important than me.”

Yin Woon Rani (16:40):

And so many more people exist to make the product, sell the product and deliver the product. And the percentage of head count that actually goes to the marketing of the product is shockingly small, I would say. So, it was a very humbling and good experience for me because then, you’re right there, you’re like, “This is the business of the business.”

Brad Simms (16:59):

Yeah. And I think it actually then starts to bring a whole bunch of interesting opportunities. When you view marketing as part of the business, a wedge of it, then you start to get into things like pricing discussions, right? You start to get into things like innovation. Because as we know, looking at waterfalls, which I think we spend a lot of time at. When you look at the waterfalls of industries that are growing or shrinking, often a lot of that stacked bar chart of that waterfall is not actually the marketing. It is the things that are just adjacent to it that have so much impact on it, but sometimes are not viewed as part of the core discipline.

Brad Simms (17:35):

And you and I were talking yesterday about innovation over text and figuring out how it’s not just about the TikTok spot, or just not about the TV commercial, but it’s about the business outcome and you open the aperture. And then that goes back to the need to hire and find people that are curious and interested to do that, because when you can play in that conversation, I think you can really drive a more interesting business outcome than just getting a great spot on TV and making sure that it had the GRPs you needed.

Yin Woon Rani (18:10):

Well, and I think frankly, that’s one of the things that agencies need to be cautious of because there was a time where agencies were the business partners, the true business partners of their clients, because the mar/comm ecosystem was so much simpler. And you know all the legendary stories, you can see the movies, you can read the books of marketers, and even CEOs would turn to their agencies for really deep, strategic business-driving advice. There’s a letter on the wall at Campbell’s of how the CEO of Leo Burnett actually invented the idea for SpaghettiOs. There’s a typed letter. It was a creative idea that turned into a product and now is a several hundred-million-dollar business.

Yin Woon Rani (18:53):

And I think because the comms part got so complex and agencies got so deep into that, I think right now this is an inflection point, back to your Blockbuster analogy of can agencies hold, and keep, and fight their way back to be true business partners when they’re competing against the Accentures, and McKinseys and lots of in-house resources. But I think in this environment where competition is so hard, the climate is so uncertain, there is an opportunity for agencies who are willing to be true business partners and practice their discipline of comms.

Brad Simms (19:26):

Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, we talked about the channel evolution, but the thing that’s also interesting for me is the agency evolution, right? Everything was together, and then everything broke apart, and then everything came back together, but it was under something called a holding company. It wasn’t really together. And brands bought everything together, then they didn’t want to buy anything together. And then they wanted to buy it together only so they’d get better pricing, but not so they could get it together. And now they want better pricing and they want it together.

Brad Simms (19:57):

And so, this idea that by breaking up the functions of agencies, we actually lost the consolidated impact to drive the business. Because it actually forced us to be a digital agency, or a social agency, or a media agency, a PR agency. Because those labels actually undercut the consolidated value that you can bring by looking across all of those.

Brad Simms (20:21):

When you don’t think about paid media as a media budget, but rather a budget to get a message out that one year it’s going to be all about direct mail, and the next year is all going to be about a Superbowl commercial, because those are the things that are needed at that moment to achieve the business. And you don’t have to compete in your mind between, “Well, I don’t own a direct mail budget. I own the media budget, which means it has to be media.”

Brad Simms (20:45):

The realignment of agencies in that way, not fake under a holding company, but the authentic alignment, I think allows and puts us in a spot in which we can now impact business in a way that we could or was possible in the past, and then was fragmented and I think problematic.

Yin Woon Rani (21:08):

Yeah. I definitely think there’s an interesting version of “re-bundling” happening now. I think it made some sense for media to split out and digital to split out. I think when things were immature, they mostly got founded because they weren’t getting enough mindspace and resourcing to become the grown-up services that they are today. But I think this is a constant cycle, right?

Yin Woon Rani (21:29):

When something becomes mature enough, as a marketer, you expect your agency partner to be literate enough in it to do it. And then there’ll be the next new and shiny thing that some young person will go off and start a specialist agency against, and then it’ll grow up and come back into it. But what you just said is one of my biggest sources of frustration. I came client-side because I was so obsessed with integration. And all my networks said, “If you want integration, you’ve got to go client-side, because clients get the creatives that they deserve and the integration that they demand.”

Yin Woon Rani (21:58):

But even in my couple of client jobs, not to name any names, you literally will be sitting there, you’d be like, “I’ve got to call five people. I got a big problem, or new budget, or a budget cut, or a new initiative. Who do I call? I got to call five people.” I mean, great account partners and leaders that I’ve worked with, when they’re good partners to you, they give you good agnostic advice, even if it doesn’t benefit their own agency. And I value those partners, I’m grateful to those partners. So, if you’re lucky to find that person, you hold them close, but when you want to go execute, you’re like, “Okay, now I got to go round up the other three people and go do the thing.”

Yin Woon Rani (22:34):

At big companies it’s easier, because there’s an army of internal resources to go and round up the people and go do the thing. In a smaller setup like MilkPEP, it’s easier to have as we affectionately always say, one throat to choke. And more importantly, just to be agnostic. Fit the tool to the task, have no bias for a tool or against a tool. Find a tool that will get you to the outcome, and no allegiances. So, but easier said than done, as you well know.

Brad Simms (23:01):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it gets to the agency side, and one of the things I think is sometimes overlooked in thinking about integration is the values and the culture of the agency.

Yin Woon Rani (23:17):

100%.

Brad Simms (23:17):

I think jamming two objects together and then giving them a new name, which is 47 letters long doesn’t make an integrated agency, right? I think that we’re in a people business, even if we’re in a tools, and a media, and a data, and a software business, we are in a people business. And it starts with respect, but it also starts with an aligned way of viewing the world; values, what is important?

Brad Simms (23:46):

And I think not only for me is it about bringing the disciplines together and shifting that upside down, like I talked about, but it’s really about setting a values-based organization that respects things like inclusion, right? And inclusion’s become a very critical word. It has always been a critical word, but become very critical in the last few years. And I think that it’s about time.

Brad Simms (24:16):

But I think inclusion has so many different layers. If you don’t build an inclusive organization, you can have diversity of skills, you can have diversity of race, and gender. If you don’t have inclusion at the base of it, you don’t get the outcome, I think, that you want from having all of those different valuable points, a view at the table.

Brad Simms (24:40):

And I think sometimes we’re racing for things. I need to hire a little bit of this, or I need to bring in this. But I don’t have an environment that authentically harnesses that mission to drive to an outcome for clients, to drive to an outcome for the agency, and to drive to an outcome, frankly, for the humans that we work for. And I think that’s the other part of an integrated agency is, it requires a values-based agency and not a mashup. And that’s hard to find.

Yin Woon Rani (25:11):

Yeah. You know I love strategy, Brad, but in the end,  culture eats strategy every time. It breaks my heart to say it because I want strategy to win, but I’ve never ever seen it win without the culture that goes with it. And I think you’re a hundred percent right. And, as you know, I spend a lot of time in the industry on the issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Yin Woon Rani (25:31):

And in one of the very recent conversations I just had was really in the end, it’s about belonging. Belonging as the outcome of diversity, equity and inclusion. And so very much to your point, it is about diversity of thought, diversity of thinkers both from a technical specialty standpoint, but also from lived experiences. And it is so common in agencies and companies to do a decent job of acquisition and bringing people in.

Yin Woon Rani (25:56):

And then it’s not a satisfying experience for the diverse employee, but diverse in whatever fashion. And so, I do hope and pray that leaders put more time and attention into creating a culture of belonging. And frankly, on behalf of many professionals of color, we’re all tired. We’re tired of having this conversation over and over. We’re tired of having to do all the work. You invited me to this party, but you don’t want me to dance.

Brad Simms (26:22):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Yin Woon Rani (26:24):

And I think it’s been a rough year on a lot of fronts, and hopefully it’s darkness before the dawn. And I think the big prayer is that this time the change will be structural, and systemic, and sustained and not just a headline, and not just a social post. Because it’s good for business, it’s good for the world, right? That diversity of thought and thinkers is how we are going to win. The answers of yesterday are not the answers of tomorrow. And you need different people thinking about the same problems. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s insanity. Just repetition, repetition, repetition? It’s just not going to work.

Brad Simms (26:57):

Yeah, it’s an interesting term, belonging. I mean, I’ve never really thought of it that way. I think about it as values and inclusivity. But, I mean, if you were to take an objective look at the industry, and I think you sit in a unique spot playing a variety of roles at the industry level, at the brand level. Someone that has a very informed opinion. How do you think the industry sits, if you were to comment on it, in creating an environment in which folks feel valued and they feel like they belong?

Yin Woon Rani (27:29):

Oh, goodness. Do you mean the marketing industry or the agency industry?

Brad Simms (27:33):

The agency industry.

Yin Woon Rani (27:36):

I mean, there’s been progress in my career, but it is a long way from right, I would say. I mean, I always say that I’m talent-obsessed because I grew up in a talent-based industry. But I do think there’s been so much economic pressure on the industry that sometimes nurturing talent of any kind, diverse or otherwise, has just become harder and harder on agency leaders trying to make targets, and P&Ls, and answer to holding companies.

Yin Woon Rani (28:04):

And unfortunately, I think the diverse population tends to suffer more when a culture is not based on engagement, because it is harder. And it’s just harder to show up when you have a different lived experience. And I could tell you heartbreaking stories from so many people. Like the one that always stuck with me, an African-American colleague was at an agency and they were playing just an icebreaker game of put your phone or your iPod in the middle of the table and play what’s on your shuffle.

Yin Woon Rani (28:35):

And she didn’t want to play, because she was afraid to be judged about the rap or hip-hop music that was on her natural playlist. Just think about that. That’s just one example of the “microaggression.” So, it wasn’t intentional, whoever came up with the exercise. But imagine coming to work every day having to think about everything you do. How you talk, how you dress, what’s on your playlist, how you’re representing a whole race. The burden of that.

Yin Woon Rani (29:00):

So, I mean, I think the agencies numerically are doing better at the entry level. Okay on the mid-level. At the top, I think better on gender than on race. But the progress is just really slow, objectively, if you look at the numbers. And I was just in a conversation yesterday, because I’ve been in this conversation a long, long time. And it feels like we’re progressing by millimeters, not by inches and not by feet. And I just think we need to do better, if not for ourselves, for the next generation.

Brad Simms (29:28):

It’s really interesting. I was talking to someone at GALE yesterday night, and he was talking to someone that we’ve recently brought in as a career coach at GALE. And this person has no agency experience, like zero agency experience. And this person was relaying the conversation to me. And he said, and you’ll probably guess who it is, he says, “The things that I’m most jaded about, this person was most excited about.” And she said to him, “You film television commercials?” Like, “Wait a second. That’s what you do? You do TV commercials?”

Brad Simms (30:09):

And I think the conversation evolved to this idea that, we have become a little bit of an insular and jaded industry. And sometimes the things we do are really remarkable. People have diverse skills, and frankly, passion for what we do as an industry, and they can add value. And I think back to this, you need to know the details of everything to be able to come to the party. You need to be an expert in everything, hurts us in some spots.

Brad Simms (30:38):

And I think stepping back and realizing that we are not landing a lunar module on the edge of the crater on the moon. We are doing marketing, right? And darn it, it’s fast. It is inclusive. It’s on point with culture. It’s sometimes funny. It moves people. And maybe we take ourselves not a little less seriously on this issue, but just a little less seriously on the need for a deep-seated craft in an area where sometimes not knowing the industry brings some interesting value. Just gives us a different perspective. And we had a great conversation about that, and just frankly, hiring more people that really could add value, but are not marketers, which sounds crazy as an agency, but was enlightening from the conversation.

Yin Woon Rani (31:24):

Yeah. Great.

Brad Simms (31:26):

So, well, I appreciate it. I’m not so sure exactly how I’m supposed to end this, Yin? But I always appreciate chatting with you. We never do not run out of time. And so, thank you for spending a little bit of time and making me smarter.

Yin Woon Rani (31:43):

Sure. We should go on the road with our own standup routine I think, Brad. That really is the exit plan.

Brad Simms (31:48):

It is, absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Jokes non-stop.

Outro (31:54):

This has been, Is This Thing On? The GALE audio series. For more information about this or any other episode in the series, visit gale.agency/ideas. And to learn about GALE and how we can help you with your marketing efforts, visit www.galepartners.com. On behalf of the entire team at GALE, thanks for listening.