TRANSCRIPT
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Robert Berkeley 0:07
Hello and welcome once again to Inside Jobs. The podcast for creative leaders who run in-house agencies, as ever Inside Jobs is brought to you by the In-House Agency Forum or IHAF, the trade association if you really want to get together with other creative leaders, and EKCS, the content production partner of choice for in-house creatives. Now, this episode was recorded while I was at the IHAF Leadership Summit in Chicago, Illinois at the Willis Tower. You'll all know the Willis Tower. I was on the 66th floor just over halfway up for this conference. And we not only reached new heights personally but also in terms of creative insights as well. The IHAF Leadership Summit is an executive Conference featuring some of the most accomplished internal agencies in the country. At this altitude, it was appropriate that executives from 711 the Chicago Cubs Highmark Health and discover financial services shared their high-level insights and knowledge. So I grabbed a mic and intercepted them as they came off the stage. The first speakers were Highmark Health, SVP of brand and creative Amy Spears and director of content production, George Friedman. Their in-house agency is called Tonic and one in-house agency of the year. Last year at the IHAF conference, I caught up with them to ask a few questions. Amy Spears and George Friedman from Highmark Health. You did the first presentation, you have the key keynote, I guess.
Amy Spears 01:32
Well, we were key but along with other key.
Robert Berkeley 01:36
Exactly. You see, humility is everything right? Always. So, by kicking it off, though, you seem to cover two areas in the presentation you gave. One was about the fact that you are incredibly integrated with the other brands of Highmark Health, right? I mean, you talked about ying and yang, how does it…how does that work?
Amy Spears 01:53
We are integrated as one marketing enterprise marketing team. So, a key part of our marketing organization, which is probably common to many, is the strategic marketing role and discipline within. So Tonic, we work directly with them and partnership, to build upon the business and marketing strategies and how they're going to be developed and land and resonate and our marketplace.
Robert Berkeley 02:20
So you seem to have a much closer relationship with the CMO than you might often see within house agencies.
Amy Spears 02:26
I directly report to our chief marketing officer for Highmark Health, I guess when you asked me that it doesn't feel unique, it might feel unique to other situations. I know there's all kinds of varieties of in-house agencies, but it is very consistent with what I've experienced in my career.
Robert Berkeley 02:44
So what's the key to that it must be having a senior sponsor who's who believes in you, and is there to support and make sure that you're seen and have influence.
Amy Spears 02:52
Oh, yes, there has to be a clear value of the investment and an in-house agency, it's got to be way more than a Cost Savings Initiative, there's got to be a constant value and how the brand shows up in a unique and distinct way that resonates. And as all of the variety, the multitude of touch points in the marketplace that come from so many, it also has to not only resonate but be a cohesive approach of how it shows up where it doesn't feel like there were 50-hands creating this, that it actually came from one. And so we that value we have to bring every single day as we work in unison with our strategic marketing partners, and also the broader business partners. It's it's not just with one type of role within the organisation, we work with many,
Robert Berkeley 03:41
I think that's why you are in house agency of the year, right?
Amy Spears 03:46
Well, thank you. That's where the humility is coming in. Because I mean, there's lots of fantastic organisations out there. But as I always say, we're not all the way too bright every single day, but we aim to be and we hit many good and best days, but we're still learning and growing.
Robert Berkeley 04:05
Well, that takes me on to George, who was speaking with you as well. So as you were talking about that tight integration, you gave an example of how one way in which that tight integration actually happens talking about DNA, and how you infuse into the DNA, certain values and make that happen.
George 04:20
For sure, I spoke about how diversity equity inclusion is very important to what we do at Tonic and Highmark Health as a whole, and how it reflects back on our mission and vision as a company. So, for us, DAI is part of our DNA. And in the production world, we want to make sure that we're thinking about the DAI and thinking about the people we're representing the people we're marketing to the very beginning of the concepting stage versus waiting until you know, a concept is there and we go into production and try to back end it and bolted on at the end. DAI and diversity and inclusion and equity is really something we think about really from the beginning because it represents all people, which is who we market to because we're health insurance and hospital branded healthcare and we market to our people so it's really important for us to make sure that we're spreading that message correctly.
Robert Berkeley 5:00
Well, the thing that really got me the clincher at the end, of course, was that not everyone here is a hard-headed business person. But you actually at the end talked about how it really proved to be effective for the business, like you had hard numbers. How did you do that?
George 05:14
We don't have it perfect. We don't have it, right? We're not saying that we know everything. So
the way to constantly improve and continually get better is we need some data behind it. So we've been working with one of our market research firms to get data to show us based on their skills and indexes of how we're actually if our marketing is actually effective, and luckily, we're learning that actually is just great. So we've been able to use their indices to see that our results are making a difference and try to keep working on it.
Robert Berkeley 5:39
Well, there you go. That's the in-house agents of the year talking about how they're not there yet, but they're always striving for perfection. Amy…
Amy Spears 05:48
I thought you were gonna ask us about our infectious culture, because I know I was getting a little bit teased from some of my colleagues that Lina's other agencies when they were like, you just talked about health care and infectious and culture all in the same sense. But indeed, I did.
Robert Berkeley 6:05
Yeah, actually tell us more I did cut across the room when you said it.
Amy Spears 06:06
Well, I'm still a little bit like fuzzy why someone would think that's not possible, right? Because we're no matter what industry you're in, maybe in the health arena. You're trying to create a positive cult like experience, if you will, where there's a deep sense of pride that people are all rallying behind trying to crack the code, and bring truly the best experience possible no matter what industry you're in. So I'm in healthcare, and we're constantly as complicated as it can be, we're still getting after how to make it a simpler experience with less friction, and how we're trying to help everyone be able to live their best version of their healthiest life full stop. So that's where you got to have an infectious culture to rally people to do that, even within your own in-house agency team.
Robert Berkeley 7:02
Don't you think that people often hear the word culture and think it's too nebulous, too hard? It will just come naturally, with the way that I do things?
Amy Spears 07:11
Oh, no, no, it's got to be super intentional. You've got to have a vision, a personality of what you're trying to create of what it feels like to be part of the team to be part of this joint effort. And that's where, you know, I know sometimes I get teased about, oh, you're a little too humble, I think that you can be super confident and keep your ego in check. And I think the blend of being confident and having humility goes a long way. And that's, I call those two things out because I think those are two key aspects of what we try to build within our culture.
Robert Berkeley 7:45
Well, you achieve it very well. Thank you. Thank you very much, Amy. Thank you very much, George.
Amy Spears 7:49
Thanks.
Robert Berkeley 7:51
From the world of healthcare to the world of finance, I speak to Jorge Orozco Cordero at Discover Financial Services. Jorge's approach was somewhat left-field, but I think indicative of the need to raise the leadership qualities of those within in-house agencies. So I'm standing here now with Jorge Orozco Cordero of Discover Financial Services, you just gave the second talk here at the IHAF Leadership Summit. And you kind of had the audience rather rat with a couple of very interesting points. So the main point that I took away, certainly at the beginning of the talk was your personal journey, as a boy as an immigrant to the United States, and how research into the psychology of grief ties into what you went through. And then you're tying that with change more broadly, within corporations.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 8:35
Obviously, part of this was to really personalise my own process through change. And it's not as if I'm immune to what's happening to my staff. And in fact, because I have that level of responsibility, it's important for me not to disconnect my own emotions that I'm going through. So, it's something I always paid attention to detail. We studied my background, undergraduate and graduate, was in human factor engineering. And it was about the study of industrial organisational psychology. You're a psychologist by training by training. I'm a human factor engineer by training, which is the understanding of how people process information. So cognition is a key element to what my upbringing was, and part of it was always understanding why I think the way I do, why do people think the way they do why did they make choices? So theories of motivation and ham, Maslow's hierarchy of needs are something that, to me, always made sense, both from a human standpoint and a marketing standpoint, there was an easy connection. If you have a stimuli, you have a response. If you change the stimuli, you change the response. That's marketing. So it was so simple for me to like make those connecting dots at my age now versus 20. Because I didn't understand that that's what how I was processing information. So I think the best way you can be a solid leader is to recognise your own role and your own mode during these times of change.
Robert Berkeley 10:06
So when you say change, you're talking about change within an organisation, but also change within people's personal career paths, for example, in the environment in which they have to work and the things they have to do. You talked about creative people moving into managerial roles and how they might be struggling with that change as well. Yeah,
Jorge Orozco Cordero 10:23
Right. I used to have a jaded view of it, where I used to believe that we did promote people past abilities. And I said, That's foolishness because everybody has a possibility and capability. It's just untapped. And what I have evolved to learn is that my role is to help people untap those abilities to help sees things in themselves that they don't see. And if I could start to crack that open, and start to figure out what are the best elements here that could help provide them the leadership qualities, they're going to be need to be successful, then I've done a service to them. So it's this idea of like servant leadership, right? I'm there to support them. But more than support, I'm there and committed to evolve who they are. So they self-actualize. This belief has Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. That success, that's what a man can be, there must be but I do believe what a person can be a must be. And as a leader, it's my responsibility for helping them get there and to see that possibility.
Robert Berkeley 11:28
Fascinating approach to your job like a coach as much as anything else.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 11:32
You know, Ted Lasso was an interesting when I watched Ted Lasso, and I'm not as bumbling as Ted Lasso. There's more deliberateness to it. And it was deliberate his that his approach, but it made sense to me. Because if you put human first like anything, we talk about human centrism, human-centric ideas, design, thinking methodology, all of these are putting human heart first, and then also having multiple perspectives, understanding the individuals and the problem. Thereby they make the solution much more impactful. And maybe it's more complex. But we hope that change that comes out of the solution is more sustainable because of that, because it totally looks at somebody's problems more holistically,
Robert Berkeley 12:12
Lot of people are worried right now about AI, and they are unsure and uncertain about the impact of it, there are optimists or pessimists around, but both sides are generally anxious about it. Given your background and the approach you're taking, what do you say to those people?
Jorge Orozco Cordero 12:27
So I'm so excited about AI. And the reason why…
Robert Berkeley 12:31
you're excited about everything right? But not everybody's as excited as you.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 12:34
Not excited about everything, it may seem like there's plenty we can hold another podcast about what things I'm not excited about.
Robert Berkeley 12:41
That will be a riveting episode…
Jorge Orozco Cordero 12:42
Ex-wives can actually be part of that conversation as well. It'll be a panel discussion, we'd have a lot of fun, Robert. Now, I think what it does is it actually forces us in a different path that understands or helps us force ourselves to understand our role in the creative process. Whether we like it or not, the creative process has changed in our lifetime. I walked in one time in Miami to a little small, human American newspaper, and they were literally doing paste-ups like cut and paste paper and taking photographs of it. And it was not like 1960 This was
Robert Berkeley 13:19
Excuse me, I was doing that in 1980s.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 13:19
But I mean, but this was still in 2000s. So the reality is the evolution of just technology, technology itself, is allowed us to we've had every fear of technology to begin with the internet, it was going to ruin it. The Adobe and any of the like gobbling up all of the software with the software itself was going to like destroy it, right? Digital Photography was going to undo the ability of talented photographers, now we adapt, like anything else, change forces adaptation. And if you're open to it, you can adapt in a very positive way. Or you can isolate yourself. And I think what artificial intelligence does, it makes us recognise the value of the the learning system, the neuro, the neuro network, and the importance of feeding that. So it creates more creative directors, and less art directors. And who really wants to do a million cups of something, right? If you can creative direct. So, it teaches us or it'll force us to learn a new language, build a new muscle, develop a new skill. So, that's what I find exciting because all of a sudden, you have a workforce that become more relevant because of AI, not distinguished.
Robert Berkeley 14:40
So, embrace it, see what it can do for you. Because as a creative person, you're in control of it. It's not in control of you.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 14:39
I think, there's a misnomer that this is something that's going to take over the world. How many times have we heard that in so many different ways? And it's just doesn't actually happen? The robots just aren't coming for us. I don't think the robots want my life and that's okay. So, but we have the ability to contribute. We have the ability to actually have a say in where this goes. I think that's the interesting part about it. We're created for a reason because we solve problems differently than business people do. And the value for us being and sitting in the C suites and being involved with those business decision meetings, make sure that the solution has a varied perspective. And they see things in a way they hadn't seen it before. I walk into a room and I see my child on the floor when he was little. And he was laying out patterns with paper plates, he sees the world as a creative in a much different way than I did. I saw paper plates, he saw patterns. That's the beautiful part of who we are and what we can contribute to business and society into the environment we're in.
Robert Berkeley 15:39
Well, that's fabulously upbeat note in which to finish Thank you. Your talk was fantastic.
Jorge Orozco Cordero 15:43
Hey Robert, this is wonderful, thank you so much.
Robert Berkeley 15:45
I really enjoyed my chat with Marissa Eddings from 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven, a huge company, and they have a small but mighty in-house team. But they really leveraged their agency partners and production partners to scale are so Eddings from 7-Eleven. Thank you for that. That was a really fascinating talk, where you kind of went through the history, I think and took us on the journey from inheriting a digital content team. But you've took it to today, which is I think, was it fair to say you have a pretty much full-service in-house agency now?
Marissa Eddings 16:14
Yeah, I would say full service as it relates to creative services. So, we are just now starting to build out our production capabilities within that. And I would say from that standpoint, we're pretty full service, we will always, like I said earlier, rely on agency partners, we'll need to rely on other external production partners to help us scale what we do in-house. But we're at a point where when it comes to creative, there's not a lot that we can do.
Robert Berkeley 16:43
Well, so the journey started when you came along doing digital content production.
Marissa Eddings 16:48
That’s right? It's a global organisation, we have 84,000 plus locations worldwide, and our team just services the US. Not alone has over 13,000 locations.
Robert Berkeley 17:04
Okay, but the point was that you started can't remember how many years ago now with a very small team. So tell us tell us what you inherited. And how long.
Marissa Eddings 17:09
About six years ago,
Robert Berkeley 17:10
Last six years ago with a small team. So there was this very intentional move, though, towards creating what you have today? Can you tell us how that intentionality came about? And how you achieved what you achieved? Tell us about the journey.
Marissa Eddings 17:21
Sure, yeah. So I actually didn't inherit it, I shut up. And I was the first person. So I was alone. And I was brought on board, though, to think about how we develop digital content, really in the service of building our SEO capabilities and starting to focus more on our brand. And last on just price and promotion.
Robert Berkeley 17:46
Was this kind of a tactical thing they needed to do or was there like this idea, this would become something?
Marissa Eddings 17:49
I think it was at the time, both I think the organisation recognised that it had really leaned heavy and price value and promotion versus building the brand. But there also was the tactical need to build content for the for the purpose of SEO at the time. Our team, though, very quickly identified that there are a lot of other creative, you know, pieces of work being done that we knew we can take, and we could actually start to build the foundation for making sure that everybody was operating from the same standpoint, when it came to our brand.
Robert Berkeley 18:27
Were you pushing upwards though to the marketing folks and saying we can do this? Or were they pulling you up saying we'd like you to do this?
Marissa Eddings 18:32
it was a little push and pull. And the reality is that, our marketing organisation at the time was very closely aligned with our merchandising organisation. And so they just hadn't spent as much time focused on those foundational brand pieces. And so we were, you know, pushing that up, but they were certainly asking for the support. And like I said, as soon as they found out there were creative resources being onboarded, there was no lack of communication from them and requests from them. And so it was a really great partnership, even from the beginning.
Robert Berkeley 19:07
Well, you talked about the full kind of supporting pillars, supporting reasons why you're there, which is access, speed, transparency and efficiency, which is the most important of those.
Marissa Eddings 19:18
Wow, I don't I mean, I feel like they all just work together. There's so much like a Venn diagram, there's so much overlap with those. I mean, at the end of the day, I think a lot of it's what access leads to and I think that is the quality creative that we are able to build at scale and do it in any efficient way. But the excellence has to be there.
Robert Berkeley 19:40
And you've clearly had the talent for that. Have you have you gone about attracting the talent for for your agency?
Marissa Eddings 19:46
Yes, so we had a lot of contacts in the DFW area as a starting point. A lot of us had worked in different organisations and marketing that already had in-house creative agencies or in-house creative resources. So we did good starting point from that aspect, we always look at culture first, are they a good cultural fit because somebody can be super, super talented, but we need everyone to be talented together. And we need to build a culture where, you know, they're they're supporting each other and driving greater work versus having a lot of individual talent. So, a lot of great creative talent out there. For us. The most important thing is, are they a good cultural fit with the rest of our team?
Robert Berkeley 20:29
I totally agree. I think that if you can have absolute rockstars. But if they don't fit with the team, there's no point having them. In fact, they can be quite disruptive as well, can't they they can pull in the wrong direction. Well, thank you very much for your presentation and for catching up with us. Did you enjoy the rest of the conference?
Marissa Eddings 20:42
It was great. It was excellent. The content was amazing. I learned a lot from it. I'm gonna take a lot of things back to the team and I'll definitely look forward to the next one.
Robert Berkeley 20:51
Excellent. See you in November there Marisa.
Marissa Eddings 20:55
Yeah, See you then!
ROBERT 20:54
From the sodas and potato chips of 7-Eleven to the baseball field, I speak to Jennifer Martindale Senior Vice President of Marketing at the iconic Chicago Cubs. I asked Jennifer about the principles behind building a strong brand beyond the field, Jennifer Martindale of the Chicago Cubs. So you must be such an awesome sports fan. That was a great talk, by the way, but you must be the job of a lifetime.
Jennifer Martindale 21:16
I've really grown to love professional sports. I will say growing up I wasn't particularly involved in sports. And the first half of my career was not involved in sports. But man, I've really come to love it over the last five years.
Robert Berkeley 21:26
Wow, I think that does happen. Maybe that can happen to me, Jennifer at some point, although I have to say the one place I have been to see professional baseball is Wrigley Field, which is an amazing place to work.
Jennifer Martindale 21:36
It is it's wonderful. I mean, it's the second oldest ballpark in the United States where the only ballpark that's a designated federal landmark. So when you step into Wrigley Field, you are truly stepping into a piece of history.
Robert Berkeley 21:49
Instantly recognised and the logo is instantly recognisable. So half your job's done for you, isn't it?
Jennifer Martindale 21:53
You people like to say that to me all the time. And I always like to say we do have the benefit of a global fan base. We're one of the top five professional fan bases in sports, any school of any sport, hundreds of millions of fans around the globe. However, as I talked about today, not every fan can make it to Wrigley Field, right? And so what I'm trying to figure out is how do we find new fans and get them excited about paying a visit to us and becoming customers?
Robert Berkeley 22:17
So you seem to have distilled that down to six areas, which I find quite interesting. And do you remember what they are off the top of your head?
Jennifer Martindale 22:25
Yes, I do. And these are really just six principles that I think have enabled us to make a really strong brand for ourselves that the Cubs and those are heroes and villains, legends and lore. Moments of magic, language and lingo, rituals and rites and hallowed grounds.
Robert Berkeley 22:44
Very impressive to see if they can dig out some of these things. Because what does it mean when you can talk about your heroes and villains or your legend and law, for example?
Jennifer Martindale 22:52
Well, as you said, we have the benefit of a 150 year old brand with a lot of deep heritage behind it. But I found that it doesn't matter if you're a five year old brand or 150 year old brand. If you can find moments of tension and excitement in your brand. It's your responsibility to surface those for your fans, right. And so I talked about about brands needing fans. And sports teams aren't the only people that need fans, it doesn't matter if you're making toothpaste, or you're selling houses like your brand needs to have fans and what creates fans are these deep emotional connections to the brand. And so when he talks about heroes and villains and legends and lore, it's like what are the storytelling levers you might be able to push to create that connection?
Robert Berkeley 23:32
Right? And that's the word isn't it? It's about telling stories that connect with people rather than telling facts that people just have to know. So you think that even if you're even a startup, there is something you can say that will draw people in?
Jennifer Martindale 23:45
Absolutely. And so of the six principles I listed, your brand might not be able to apply all six of them. But I bet you can apply at least one of them.
Robert Berkeley 23:53
You need a catchy name for these six things. Have you got one?
Jennifer Martindale 23:56
I don't, but I'm gonna start thinking about it now.
Robert Berkeley 23:57
And then trade market quick. So your team, you got a team of about 36. But they're doing an awful lot of work. Right?
Jennifer Martindale 23:56
There are, we do an average of 3000 projects a year. And those range from large-scale omni channel campaigns to like a small graphic that we might need to put out on our social channel that has like a shelf life of 24 hours. And so we really do everything soup to nuts.
Robert Berkeley 24:18
And you said you feels like working for a multibillion dollar family firm.
Jennifer Martindale 24:20
It is like working for a multibillion-dollar family firm and I love that I work for a family. I love that I work for a family that trusts us to do our jobs and make sure we're well-resourced. But at the end of the day, you know, that's who we answer to you. We don't answer to investors or board of directors.
Robert Berkeley 24:33
You've got the dream job. Thank you so much for your time. Jennifer,
Jennifer Martindale 24:36
Thank you.
Robert Berkeley 24:37
Also, thanks to our speakers for their vertigo-inducing journey through creativity and leadership IHAF makes this possible. So to wrap up a fall fascinating day. I caught up with Emily Foster, IHAF director at the after-show party to discuss what is unique about the leadership conference. So I'm here with Emily Foster, director of IHAF that's a wrap right. You've had a successful day today.
Emily Foster 24:57
Yeah, we had a great day here in Chicago. I'm at the Willis Tower.
Robert Berkeley 25:01
I can actually feel that of all the events in this in-house space. This particular one seems to have a more a greater level of strategic approach than any of the others that are around. You seem to give the brands and the creative leaders more time to express their strategy, their challenges, their ambitions, and a lot more time to really flesh out what they're doing and what their thinking is. Is that deliberate?
Emily Foster 25:29
For sure, I think the leadership summit is different than our annual conference, the leadership summit is obviously geared towards in-house leaders and executives, we want to be talking about things that other teams have done to elevate the work that they're producing, to add more value to the businesses that they're supporting, and to therefore become a better in house agency. So when we are curating the content and working with our speakers, we want to dig into how did they get there? What was the purpose? What was the plan, everyone wants to understand how they're operating what their organizational structure is. And that's really what we focus on, particularly for this event, so that the other leaders in the room can go back to their offices and with their teams and hopefully apply not all of the learnings but some of the learnings to their own in-house agency.
Robert Berkeley 26:14
I think the whole high for example, gave a you know, a really in-depth dive into really the psychology of teams and how to navigate change. You won't generally hear that a lot of other events. You might hear that at the conference later this year. Yeah,
Emily Foster 26:24
Yeah, I think you know, this year's event, I'm excited for our annual conference every year. But this year, we're doing a creativity Conference, which we haven't done since 2020. It's definitely time, we won't only be talking about creative, but the theme for this year is radical creativity, we're going to put on stage and house agencies that are offering breakthrough solutions for their businesses and brands that they're working for, whether that is the creative output, or that's the way they're operating. That's unique, how they're managing projects, the tools they're using, how they're working with AI, what they're using successfully in that space. So we really want to encourage folks who come to this event, they don't have to just be in a creative role. But anyone who's interested in understanding what other businesses are doing, and thinking differently, and thinking radically,
Robert Berkeley 27:14
there's an awful lot of notetaking going on here, I noticed there's going to be an awful lot of notes being taken in November, right?
Emily Foster 27:21
It's actually funny you say that, Robert, we always put note pages in our programme packets this year, we only put one I never see people use them that much. They usually have their own notebook. Today, people were writing all over that packet, which is such a great sign that what our speakers were willing to share was so impactful and really meaningful to these folks as they consider how they can apply those strategies in-house.
Robert Berkeley 27:41
Right. And so the theme in November is radical creativity. There are awards are the entrances open yet?
Emily Foster 27:47
Yes, it is award season. And I have we are currently in the throes of our in-house creativity awards call for entries that's through July 15. And in house agency of the year, which is our team performance award. We'll be accepting entries for the end of August. So we're excited as we receive all of these we love looking at the work, we love hearing the stories of our members and the in-house community. And we'll be celebrating all these folks in November on the 12th and 13th and Boston.
Robert Berkeley 28:11
So there you go validate your team's work, enter into the IHAF awards. They are the premier awards in this space.
Emily Foster 28:16
Yes, I like to call them. I think we just published an article on LinkedIn. We are the OG in-house award. So I'm excited to see all of your work coming through and all your stories in the next couple of months.
Robert Berkeley 28:26
Now, if this episode left you on top of the world, share it with your friends and colleagues. Subscribe to ijpodcast.com and let us know your thoughts find me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to hear from listeners.