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Robert Berkeley 0:06
Hello and welcome to Inside JobsInside jobs podcast for people who work in and around In Housein house agencies and hosted by me, Robert Berkeley. Llisteners to Inside Jobsinside jobs know that I speak to creative leaders and find out what got them to where they are and what drives them. Ssubscribers to the podcast are also measurably more intelligent and good looking than the rest of the population. So make sure you hit that subscribe button now for an easy win. Inside JobsInside jobs is brought to you by IHAFI have the In Housein house agency forum and content production agency Express KCSCasey s, who turn agency's creative ideas into reality right across video, digital and print every day and around the clock. Today's guest is Teresa Hurd whose agency inside Intel has been much in the news of late due to the recent announcement to downsize. This is in response to a change in Intel's marketing focus away from consumers and towards business customers. Mmy interview with Teresa was fascinating. She described how you can journey from run of the mill cadaver illustration to being noted as one of the top 50 most creative minds in the world. Along the way we find out whether or not it's a good idea to bring a six pound zucchini to an interview, and how a magazine cover can be the inspiration for one of the most famous campaigns in recent history. TeresaTheresa, I've got to ask you, was it a rocky road to becoming VP Gglobal Ccreative Ddirector at Intel Corporation?.

Teresa Herd 1:35
It actually was relatively smooth. It wasn't purposeful, but it was smooth.

Robert Berkeley 1:39
So take us back. I know you're at Rochester, but take us back before you were at Rochester Institute.

Teresa Herd 1:45
O my goodness, aAll the way back,

Robert Berkeley
Aall the way back only a couple of years.

Teresa Herd 1:50
A couple more than I then I'd like to admit. My mom wanted me to be a doctor. And so you know, that was that was drilled into me. And I thought I did too. Like when someone tells you something enough times you kind of start to believe in and

Robert Berkeley 2:11
Golden Rule of marketing as

Teresa Herd 2:12
Yeah, well it works actually. Well, almost. I mean, it didn't quite work for her. But it worked for me. I was in high school actually, and really loved arts and and did well in science too. And I had a very influential art teacher, I was an advanced art. And, gosh, there may be a junior year. And there was a parent teacher conference. And my art teacher told my parents that she didn't think that I would be a good doctor. And my mother was just like, Don't ruin this for us. Now we were just wearing the press of it. I applied to all my colleges. And you know, she was like we I was like one foot in, you know, my residency in her mind. And my art teacher said no, not that she can't be one. But she's so good at the arts. And I just can't imagine her, you know, being at being a doctor, you know, have you considered art my mother just like the blood drained from her and, you know,

Robert Berkeley 3:13
you know, how old were you? And when this conversation took place?

Teresa Herd 3:16
17. And yeah, so got, you know, applying to colleges and stuff. And I and I and I was like, yeah, you know, I kind of do really like art. And my mom was just like, Yeah, but the doctor and we're gonna be a doctor, right? And so I actually had a really great guidance counsellor, who said, What about medical illustration? Have you ever considered that? And you know, when you grew up in a small town, which I did in Uupstate,

Robert Berkeley 3:40
upstate, where were you from?

Teresa Herd 3:41
Uupstate, New York, a tiny town called Hurley, which is a suburb of the metropolis of Kingston, New York.

Robert Berkeley 3:49
Oh, wowhoa,

Teresa Herd 3:50
yeah. But you know, you, you, you the, the career choices that you were kind of aware of, were were those things that your parents were your friend's parents were so I'd never heard of a medical illustrator. And he said, you know, you should, you should consider this. And so I looked into it and it kind of it really combined art and science. The two things that I loved and I went and found a couple of colleges are only a couple in the US that offered thea programme. One was our RIT it Rochester Institute of Technology.

Robert Berkeley 4:21
So I remember in the late 80s going to see a client in the Tottenham Court Road in London, and they were a medical publisher. And I was putting in a DTP system. And, and what I didn't know is when I found out when I got there was that their books were visual diagnosis guides. And I I was thumbing through one of these and I literally fainted.

Teresa Herd
Yeah, they're quite gross.

Robert Berkeley
It was quite an intense experience. And I then had to ask a colleague to step in and finish the installation. I couldn't quite hack it anymore. So so you're already interested in those kind of growth things and so

Teresa Herd 4:57
I love those things yeah i love..

Robert Berkeley 5:00
approaches to This was your objective then illustrating or it was it was Yeah.

Teresa Herd 5:03
it was it was Yeah. So I went to RIT alrighty what the other programme was run out of RIT Alrighty. But then they had to sort of deal with University of Rochester Medical School, where we dissected our cadavers and went and and witnessed surgeries and Drew, you know, Drew, drew all this stuff that we're seeing minus the, the bloody part. So you could actually make out what was happening there. So,

Robert Berkeley 5:27
I knew you had the stomach for all this and you enjoyed all this. Yeah, I

Teresa Herd 5:31
Yeah, I loved it. I, I, I, I, I would not have fainted and you know, in your situation and.

It is still still to this day, like I you know, I sometimes have a little eye for the abnormal, which you're not allowed to, but I like a good anomaly.

Robert Berkeley 5:49
Okay, that's good to know. That's, that's, that's okay. Well, I won't go down that route. So you were there, you were sketching cadavers. And so so? How I'm really curious now, because that seems like a complete tangent. iIn your career. So you were studying furiously and trying to trying to square a circle of medicine and, and, and and creating? Yeah, how did how did you do? or How did you go from there? Okay, so

Teresa Herd 6:14
Okay, so a huge life lesson and, and one that I carry with me all the time. And and in particular, lead now as I sort of approach a new, new opportunity. I so my roommate in college, she invited me to go to the beach in Long Beach Island. She said, Come my family's going to renting a house, come meet me at the beach. And as I you know, I'd like the beach. So I went and I pull up to this huge house. It's like big, huge Victorian, and I get other car and this woman from the front porch yells you must be t in which is my nickname Mminmmi, who called me from the porch. And I really hit it off and she or she her husband john was there and they had friends who were running a small medical and pharmaceutical advertising agency. And I went during college, I went to New Jersey and met these people and they decided to hire me right out of college. And so I had a job leaving college which was super exciting. So you know, this whole life and sort of trajectory happened because I went to the beach and had a couple conversations with people so I

Robert Berkeley 7:33
pivoted you, you the agency and marketingMark Yeah, well,

Teresa Herd 7:36
exactly. So I always tell people, I always tell kids especially like that you never know where a job is going to come from if you're standing in the coffee line. Be curious talk to the people around if you're sitting on an aeroplane don't necessarily just put your headphones on and and tune out like the person you're sitting next to may actually be your your you know next connection to a ball up to a job or your next boss

Robert Berkeley 7:58
quickly to what happened after there for you know, the next few hops of your career. Yeah,

Teresa Herd 8:03
Yeah, so I actually stayed in in pharmaceuticals for a bit, because I was in Jersey and that's where all the big pharmaceutical companies are. And I had this kind of you know, special skill where I could really kind of understand super technical medical things and break them down into consumable information for patients are

Robert Berkeley 8:24
so you copywriting as well then we doing a bit of everything at this point. No, I

Teresa Herd 8:27
No, I was I was really a, you know, they gave me the cash when I first heard it was I think it was art director which I didn't even I don't think I knew what that was. Exactly. And I remember I had to do a newsletter for for them and I didn't know how to do that and and how I didn't know about type. And I had a friend of mine who is a graphic designer, Beth and I called her I'm like, Alright, what do I do next and she's like, talking me through how to cut Ruby lift and all this stuff. And bBut anyway, so I faked it well enough. And I, you know, took my next job in a in another pharmaceutical advertising agencies, which was one of the biggest actually at the time was called MedED me D Ccommunications. And then they got bought by a consumer shop. And a lot of the pharma folks left and for some reason, the the, the president liked me and I stayed on and that's where I kind of learned my learn the trade, like I learned TV, I learned radio, I learned all the other

Robert Berkeley 9:29
you learn this on the job opportunities that opened up, they're like, I can do that. And I can do this and

Teresa Herd 9:35
yeah, you know, it started started I, I. Again, another lesson I always tell people I wasn't, you know, I was a farmer person. And, you know, I think at the time and still people come from the pharmaceutical side are not looked upon as super creative or can, you know, keep up with, you know,

9:54
you know,

Teresa Herd 9:55
whatever creative needs there. I don't know why, but there's some of the smartest people who I've met Who I've worked with, but I could make these there was no, like, you know, there was like three computers or four computers, it wasn't a big computers weren't more big at the time. So we were still doing presentations, certainly not through a projector. So I could make these really elaborate presentation boards, I would like make them dimensional and make all the stuff pop. And, you know, so I, they would bring me in to help them with their pitch boards. And I was junior and I'm like, Sure, I'll do whatever. And then you know, they will, they'll bring me in. And I would be in the meetings when they were talking about creative and I would just kind of start to speak up. And then I got the letter like, who Shay, What is she talking about what she know, and then, you know, it just I kind of just positioned myself and and put myself in places where things were happening and where, you know, I, I, I waited, and I didn't just open my mouth all the time. But if I had something that I thought was was relevant, or I thought could, you know, be beneficial to to the pitch, I would just speak up. And,

Robert Berkeley 11:00
And Sso you gradually earned the respect people, the senior people around you, I guess, who found that there was utility in having you there as well yet because you'd make a positive contribution. So So did that give you the courage to step up and then take another job somewhere else then, that

Teresa Herd 11:15
actually stayed there for a while, because they, they, they were that the agencies still around, it's called the sawtooth group. And they were getting, you know, pretty, pretty nice sized clients for for the area. And we had New Jersey lottery and we had a couple hotel chains, we had Saranac beer, and a couple other farmer things. So they they, they, there was actually a pretty nice diet of of work that was, you know, smaller accounts for big agencies, but I was able to, you know, we were able to do, you know, TV and some some nice media for these clients at a rate that was probably a little bit less than than going to a big agency.

Robert Berkeley 11:59
So was there any, was there any kind of method in your approach? Or were you just soaking up experience? And no, I

Teresa Herd 12:06
Nno, I know, I know, I've never had a goal. I can never, I never have had a career goal. I know everyone, you know, today with kids, like you have to have a career goal note you want take the appropriate steps. And I I firmly believe that is the wrong approach. I unless you want to be a surgeon, you want to be a surgeon, you got to go to go to medical school, and you got to learn how to be a surgeon, you have to be really purposeful about sir.

Robert Berkeley 12:28
about sir. So what is it that the, the, the drives your decision making when opportunities come up? Because I mean, you make the opportunities, of course, by simply being there at the right time at the right place, but you have to make decisions about it. What what what is your what is what gives you the direction to choose this over that or to move or not move, then

Teresa Herd 12:45
I think I think it's been the opportunities, I think, you know, I’ve I've through my career have been open to anything. At this at the same time as doing that there was a like a think tank ideation company. That sawtooth brought this, bought this think tank and we would go in and, and do product development in these like crazy brainstorming. sessions over like four days, it was like, you'd go in, you'd brainstorm something. And then you, the client would leave with like 20 new product ideas with, you know, written up and designed and everything. And it was fun. Yeah, it was really, it was great. At the time, it was it was probably the most fun I've had really great team. And so, so again, you know, I was just taking on these opportunities. And then at the same time, I was moonlighting at night doing medical, medical animations in the city. So I would work, I would work all day. And then I would take the train into the city and I would work with these editorial and animation houses to do pharmaceutical animations like 3d is when 3d animation was really starting. And I would work until like, three o'clock in the morning. And then I would go crash at a friend's apartment, get up in the morning drive back to to work.

Robert Berkeley 14:01
Why Why were you doing this to yourself? I mean it was just curiosity or?

Teresa Herd 14:07
Yeah, I just could, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so exciting. And

Robert Berkeley 14:10
it wasn't the money. It wasn't that you had the money, or you were trying to raise a family or something like that. It was this was absolutely, because you just were curious and interested and enjoyed it.

Teresa Herd 14:18
Yeah. And I loved like, you know, the people I was meeting, I was meeting, you know, at the time really great animators who were like doing cutting edge stuff. And I had this knowledge of this, you know, of how drugs worked and stuff. And they, they needed that. And so we would just sit and animate all, you know, all kinds of all kinds of, you know, you know how drugs interact in the brain or you know, how to fight. You know,

Robert Berkeley 14:42
what you were kind of hedging your bets as well by having these two related but very distinctly separate career paths at the same time. I didn't think like you were hedging.

Teresa Herd 14:51
I didn't think about that at all, at all. No, I

Robert Berkeley 14:54
actually never thought well, if this takes off, that doesn't take off then I've got this or you know, you weren't looking for opportunities in medical animation that could have taken, you just took it as it came.

Teresa Herd 15:03
Like, I'm like, Hey, we get a job I would do you know, I've worked really hard, you know, whether it was at the agency or whether it was these, and then I would get the next thing? And I'm like, Alright, well, I'll do I'll do that. And then I would do that. And so it really just, I think, you know, I just, like, worked hard, and did the thing. And, you know, from that other opportunities arose.

Robert Berkeley 15:25
So, in terms of team building around, then, did you have Ddid you did you start to develop people around you or below you or respond that you were responsible for? And who had different tasks of responsibilities?

Teresa Herd 15:37
I started to, I think it was terrible at it. Because I didn't know I, you know, you know, when you're in advertising aren't really trained to be a manager, right? So your, your, you use your experience, or those around you or what you see, as you know, and then you apply that or you say, Oh, God, I don't want to do that. But I don't think I was particularly good at it. But I did. Yeah, I did start managing people. Um, and then, you know, my time at sawtooth was, you know, I'd been there for for a while, and I decided that I was going to try freelancing. And

Robert Berkeley 16:19
why was that? Why did you do this to ...

Teresa Herd 16:22
I think that? I think, you know, the opportunity at the agency and sort of where I could go, there were some, you know, senior leaders who were who were in there. And, you know, I just, I didn't see the ability for me to continue to grow necessarily without growing it. Do

Robert Berkeley 16:39
without growing it. Do you think?

Teresa Herd 16:39
I think a little bit, I think, a little bit. And so, you know, for me, it was just, it was a good time to go. And I'd been there for a long time. And I wanted to see through,

Robert Berkeley 16:44
it was just, it was a good time to go. And I'd been there for a long time. And I wanted to see through Yyou went freelance rather than look to work for Saatchi and Saatchi or a large independent agency, you chose to try freelancing, because the obvious at that point, that seems easiest, obviously today.

Teresa Herd 17:02
Yeah, at that point. Now, you know, I started to, and I think I probably would have taken an agency job I wasn't I didn't have a tonne tonne of, you know, connections, the agency jobs. And so I decided to, you know, I knew I could freelance, I knew I could get work. And so I was like, Well, if this turns into something, then, you know, then I'll, then I'll explore that as well. But again, it was it wasn't super deliberate.

Robert Berkeley 17:29
So I got to ask, how did you go from that freelance. So you'd worked at a small agency or relatively small agency, you'd then freelance for a year and then your next job is at Staples as Ccreative Ddirector? How did that happen?

Teresa Herd 17:42
Well, I was at I was an Aassociate Ccreative Ddirector. When I went to Sstaples. I think I don't remember. I Well, I you know, I don't.

Robert Berkeley 17:50
It's a very different world to what you'd left behind. Yeah. So how did it come about in the first place?

Teresa Herd 17:57
Ah, my coverCobra was running out. Okay, my cover is running out. And I was like, Oh, shit. I get it. Oh, my God, what? Am

Robert Berkeley 18:07
I get it. Oh, my God, what? Am I gonna get a proper job?

Teresa Herd 18:09
Yeah. So then I started interviewing at all of the places and

Robert Berkeley 18:15
through a scanning job ads or something.

Teresa Herd 18:17
Yeah, I had a headhunter, and I was sending my portfolio around and doing all that stuff. And, you know, the, the person who was with at the time wanted to move to Boston, and I was like, Alright, I'll move to Boston. And so I sent my book up there. And, you know, I had a lot of, you know, I didn't, you know, I wasn't quite right for the position, or the position wasn't something I love, but

Robert Berkeley 18:40
assumably given what you've just told me had no idea what you wanted to do. Get me a job somewhere, doing something,

Teresa Herd 18:47
doing advertising stuff. And you know, I had a lot of, you know, big, fancy creative directors telling me that I was no good or not good enough. And I was like, Oh, I remember I brought a giant zucchini to an interview. I was a gardener. I still am an avid gardener. And I like kind of let this one plant go by accident and I had like a six pound zucchini. And I brought it up. I brought it to the to the interview. And I was like, Well, you know, if the guy doesn't remember me for my work, he's definitely gonna remember the six pound zucchini like he can make a zucchini bread and, I

Robert Berkeley 19:19
I have to say that yeah, that's, that's quite a statement to make during the interview.

Teresa Herd 19:23
Yeah, he's, I think he's probably if if I doubt he'll hear this. But if he if he did, he'd be like, I remember this zucchi nibikini girl. But he told me I wasn't really good enough. And so I'm like, Yeah, well, I

Robert Berkeley 19:34
didn't keep the zucchini course

Teresa Herd 19:35
Of course I did.

Teresa Herd 19:37
Okay, but it had

Robert Berkeley 19:37
How was Zaccuni?

Teresa Herd 19:38
a big had a big impact on me, and I didn't believe him. And years later, he came and wanted to get work at Staples, and I'm like, I'm not sure you're good. Now, okay. But, um, so So, you know, I wasn't I wasn't having a tremendous amount of luck. And my headhunter said, Hey, staples is hiring. And I was like, Yeah, no, not gonna do it not going In Housein house. And

Robert Berkeley 20:07
you knew what it meant an In Housein house agency because I spoke to people who'd never even come across them until they go themselves..

Teresa Herd 20:13
Well, I just knew it was a client. And they didn't know what that meant. And I was like, No, no way. And she's like, Well, what do you? What are you doing? And I'm like, nothing. She's like, Well, why don't you just go meet these people? And I was like, fine. So I went up and met them. And it was, you know, legitimate shop like they were hiring people from, you know, agencies in, in Boston, for sure. The digital,

Robert Berkeley 20:36
this was a new In Housein house agency. They were create was

Teresa Herd 20:39
it was

Robert Berkeley 20:40
so they were building it, there was someone building it from the ground up. There was Yeah, mastermind was there. Yeah, it was cool. Okay,

Teresa Herd 20:46
we can probably save a bunch of money and, and do this thing In Housein house. And so I got there. And I was like, Huh, so I freelance there for a while, I was like, I don't want to commit to moving and all this stuff, if it's not something that I that I really like, and you know, they were doing good work and, and real work. And so they offered me a job. And, and I decided to take it, which was very good decision on, on my part, which I didn't know at the time, because that's when the market crashed. And that's when almost every agency 1000 right, yeah, almost every agency who I'd spoken to, either was gone completely, or laid off 200 people. And, you know, I saw, I would certainly have been probably caught up in that wave. And I was like, whoa. So just

Robert Berkeley 21:37
step back a bit. You'd come from small agency, and you'd been freelance, and you'd been used to being you know, if you wanted something done, you'd do it yourself, most likely, or you just go straight to someone, and you're moving to staples, which was a corporation that will have had, you know, processes, and they would have had institutional control. We say latencies How on earth did you adapt to that from having spent 10 years in it, you know, kind of in a in a much faster and looser environment? Because a lot of people struggle with that. Yeah,

Teresa Herd 22:06
Yeah, well, they do it and everyone thought I would make it like, you know, six months or like, there's no way you're gonna, because, you know, but I i oddly, like rules. And if I don't like a rule, then I try and change it. But I'm not like a big rRule bBreaker, like, in the work. Yes. But like, sort of, I like good system. Yeah. And so I got in there, and I'm like, Oh, well, so they take care, you know, and coming from freelancing for you know, a couple years or it was, you have to do a lot of stuff yourself and and fix

Robert Berkeley 22:35
fix your own Mac, you have to find your own rulers, and you have to

Teresa Herd 22:38
to, like build people for your time.

Robert Berkeley 22:41
Yeah,

Teresa Herd 22:42
I hated doing. And so you know, they had all this stuff, or they had HR and they had, you know, accounts payable and process and I just didn't have to worry about that stuff. And you, you actually, you know, if you can be okay with that. It allows you to just focus on the work, and not worry about some of that stuff that you you sometimes do worry about when you're working on an agency or shortly, certainly working for yourself. And I liked that I was like, oh, man, so I don't have to worry about any of that. And, you know, there's people to fix your tech and people, you know, if you needed something, you could just get it. But

Robert Berkeley 23:16
But Sso you really you really go along with that? Yeah, well, you accommodated that extremely well. So you were watching this agency be built from the ground up and around you, I guess. And you were relatively done about junior year. What did you see? So you you saw this all coming up around you? Presumably that was a lesson in itself for you? Yeah.

Teresa Herd 23:38
Yeah, for sure. You know, and, and certainly something I carried with me to to next jJobs

Robert Berkeley 23:44
It was a positive experience. It was done. Well, you think and it was done effectively? Would you have done anything differently? Looking back with all the experience in hindsight?

Teresa Herd
Oh, for sure. For sure.

Robert Berkeley
Like, whatell,

Teresa Herd 23:54
I don't know. This seems like

Robert Berkeley 23:57
it's me trying to ask probing questions. Okay. Um,

Teresa Herd 24:01
Um, I have to think about that for a second. I, gosh, I yeah, there's, again, I was still Junior I hadn't managed a lot of people. I learned a lot about management there. And I think, really learned that, Oh, wait, just because you're a boss doesn't mean that people have to get used to you. You have to adapt your style. And I think that's kind of the biggest lesson I learned there that everyone is different and people who you manage need different approaches. And I didn't know that. So you know, you have a team of however many people reporting to you. One approach doesn't fit.

Robert Berkeley 24:36
But come on back to staples. I want to know what happened in the latter years at Staples. Then

Teresa Herd 24:41
we were Oh yeah, we were all so the we were all the all the office guys. We're the same there's depot Maxx and Sstaples and no one knew the difference between them and the woman who was running marketing at the time. So we need you know, we need a campaign. And we had an RFP for, for an agency to come in, and you know, pitches. So all these ideas, and we've narrowed it down to one agency, I think, because we like the people. And it was a very good fit for us. And they were very collaborative. But the, the work they showed, I was just looking at us, like, Oh, my God, like, I don't think this is this is gonna, this is gonna work, they had these two campaigns. And I was like, and then they had this little red button on a board and it had like a tronic type on it. And it said, easy. And it was I went to their offices afterwards. And it's actually one of the plungers, you used to open the doors to get into their office. And it said, easy on it. And I was like, what's that? And they're like, well, it's this easy button idea. We're not really sure if it has legs or not. And I just remember talking to, to my my boss a time I was like, that's, that's the idea. That that is that is what you know, it can go up because we had to produce circulars and emails and they want to do TV commercials and content. And you know, the other ideas I just didn't think would have as much longevity. And

Robert Berkeley 26:09
And so this this was an intuition from your point of view.

Teresa Herd 26:13
Yeah It was.

Robert Berkeley 26:13
This was right. It wouldn’t needed if we put this out to market research. We did.

Teresa Herd 26:16
We did. We did. We did,

Robert Berkeley 26:18
we did So you did this. So initially, you picked up on it, because intuitively it felt right. Intuitively, intuitively, it felt right. But But in the end, you would test that before you let let you know, can’t put resources behind it.. So So now take us towards the end of your career at Staples, then and how that turns. Yeah,

Teresa Herd 26:36
Yeah, you know, um, I had built a great team, I was then VP, global creative director, which global was questionable. I mean, we had some presence in the UK in Europe, but that was about it. But nonetheless, you know, we were at the time 160, some something like that, and doing literally everything In Housein house except for broadcast. But that is also where I made really good relationships with external agency partners, and knew that the success of the business was incumbent upon those relationships being good, and it not being a, you know, a tug of war over the work, and would only work with agencies who also believe that. And, you know, I think that's something that that we can all learn from today, because I think as internal agencies grow there is this big debate over, you know, should work go in or shouldn't in, it's like, Look, it's probably a little bit of both, figure out what's right for the brand. And that's when the Stephen was in there. And he was head of marketing. And I was getting restless. And I was like, Look, I just I just don't, I don't think I can say and he's like, Look, he's like, just we need to relaunch the brand. You know, this easy thing. We should keep the easy button, but people just kind of aren't buying it. And we're, we're going in this different direction. And I was like, I really want to go. And he's Give me one more year. So I was like, fine. So I gave him one more year, we relaunched the brand. And I, I said, but one more year. And that's it. So it was one more year. And I said, look, I think now's I'm going but for real. And he said, I am talking to Intel, would you if I get this job? Will you come with me? And I was like, sure. If you get the job, I'll come with you. But you know, it was a huge job like, and I love Steve. And he's super smart. He's one of the best marketers that I know. But I wasn't convinced. I don't think he was either that he was actually going to get the job. And so he got the job. And he I remember I was in Florida at the time on holiday. And he called me like, I got the job. And I was like, Oh my god, I told him I'd go with them. So I turned to my wife. And I said, Emily, we're moving to California.

Robert Berkeley 28:49
Right? So you moved over there and kind of everyone around your family around you. And and you're getting stuck into the new job at Intel with obviously a big mandate. Right? And a clear and a clear target, a clear goal.

Teresa Herd 29:03

Yeah.

Robert Berkeley 29:05
What was that goal?

Teresa Herd 29:05
It was to kind of let people know what Intel did and change brand perception. The You know, when I got here, Steve said, You know, I need you to, like what do you need me to do? What are my top three things? He's like, well, I need you to relaunch the brand. I was like, Okay, I need you to and I need you to bring all the work In Housein house. I was like, okay, that's like how long do I have to do this? He's like, we need to do it right away. So I said Can Can we not bring all the work In Housein house? Can I just can you give me two minutes to to get my foot just why was he saying during the work

Robert Berkeley 29:40
just why was he saying during the work In Housein house, I mean, he had an objective which was to which was to rebrand or to do the work on the brand and, and, and raise the profile of the branding, but the way in which you do that, that he already knew he wanted to do it by bringing more work In Housein house.

Teresa Herd 29:53
I know there were two separate things because bringing the work In Housein houses is was sort of a money savings and quality thing and then relaunching the brand. He knew he had to do. And so I said, Give me a Give me a minute to figure this business out. I didn't even understand what people were saying with their acronyms and everything. And I said, I don't I don't even know where the money's being spent. I don't know, you know, let's before we, before we rush to bring it in, let's see, let's see what makes sense. And at the same time, we were, you know, we put the business up for RFP. And we needed a bridge campaign, like we needed a q4 campaign. And the agency that we're working with, at the time, was struggling with a little bit. And so I went to McGarry, who had become the agency of record at Staples, and I knew them quite well. And I was like, and they were also in the pitch. I was like, Look, guys, I need some help on this campaign. Can you can you do some scripts for me? And they did. And we kind of landed in one direction. And they had cast a different. They had cast, a high profile actor to be the lead in it and then ended and I didn't think that they were quite right, given who our demographic was. We're trying to reach younger people, millennials, etc. And I said, I I don't think he's right. we brainstorm. We wrote all these names up on the board. And it could be this one and this one. And it was literally walking out of the agency. And there was a Adweek magazine on a stand. And it's it said, America's most lovable nerd. And it was a picture of Jim Parsons, and I picked it up, and I handed it to Marianne. And I said, Go get him. And she's like, seriously, I said, Yeah, he's the guy. It's like, we're the nerdiest company on the planet. Like, he's the most lovable nerd like, it's perfect. And it was supposed to be a one quarter campaign, and it ended up being so successful for, for Intel, that we still use him to this day. So he, you know, I think for me making that initial decision, and having such a good impact on on the business gave me credibility, beyond just being Oh, that's the one Stephen brought in, which I got a lot of in the beginning. And I remember pitching it to the President. And I was like, you know, this campaign, and we want to work with Jim Parsons. And she was like, Sheldon, I was like, yeah, Sheldon. And she's like, can you get him? And I was like, yeah, you can, you can get him for Intel. Like, of course, you can get them. And she, you know, it was just so it was that moment, I was like, Oh my god, these people don't know what they're sitting on. Like, they they had were so focused on manufacturing, which is great. And they make a great product, but they didn't realise, I think, the potential for the company. And, you know, Steve, and I looked around initially, and just discovered all these things that Intel had been a part of, or were going to, you know, were how they were going to impact the world in the future. And we just looked at each other and like, we just have to tell people this we don't have to

Robert Berkeley 32:37
So it three sounds like sounds like you didn't know a lot about Intel business. But it sounds like but it sounds like that the fact you had no assumptions and the fact that you, you you had no sort of prejudging about Intel meant that you were wide open to finding things that were exciting and interesting that you could leverage for the purpose of marketing and publicity that maybe would have been missed by someone who knew all about Intel her. Yeah, I

Teresa Herd 33:03
Yeah, I think you actually just hit the nail on the head about my whole life and career. I feel like just

Robert Berkeley 33:08
just knowing nothing.

Teresa Herd
No, it's no, no, no,

Robert Berkeley
it's certainly been my strategy.

Teresa Herd 33:12
Yeah, no, I think when people again, unless you're gonna be a surgeon, when people when people have a really determined plan, like I want to, you know, meet people I want to be a VP or I want to, I don't like, I don't know what the if you if you're so focused on something that that may or may not happen, you may be cutting yourself off from all these other opportunities. You know, if I'd gone into like, Alright, we're gonna position Intel is this, I may not have been open to the, you know, the just abundance of amazing stories that were out there and needed to be told. And that really changed how people perceived Intel. So I think, I think staying open minded, you know, whether it's around your career, or when you're looking at work to not go in with the predetermine, like this is what we're going to do and and really, truly listen to people who are experts and people who may have a different point of view or opinion and you will learn a tonne and it will hopefully lead you to lead you to a right answer.

Robert Berkeley 34:12
So So here we are at Intel, there have been a lot of changes there. It was a leading light for In Housein house agencies you developed a lot they were very customer facing in terms of the marketing and there's been a switch recently hasn't led to more it's more bm B2B b2b which has had a knock on effect on the agency that you built over the past four years.

34:31
Yeah, I

Teresa Herd 34:31
Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's been amazing we because of the type of storytelling we wanted to do and and what the impact that was having on the brand you know, we went from a stagnant brand metrics across the board and a stagnant stock price to you know, three of our highest performing years ever stock price at all time high. All the Baron metrics are you know, are up and Steve, you know, he used to say, you know, it, there's There's few companies where the the brand is in decline yet the company continues to do well, he always says, you know, where the brand goes, the company will also go in and it was so true. I'm certainly not going to take credit for the success of the business. But I definitely think it was a part of that.

Robert Berkeley 35:15
it. And you built an amazing team as well. I know, and who seemed to, from what I hear, have a huge amount of respect for what you've done. And be very inspired by what you've done. You were, I think I did at age. So you were one of the 50 most creative people in the business. Yeah,

Teresa Herd 35:33
Yeah, I was on a list with I'm not in the industry. Like I think like, in the world, I was on the list with Prince and David Bowie was the year that they unfortunately, both passed and Beyonce and

Robert Berkeley 35:43
you survived them. So So in fact, I was

Teresa Herd  35:47
I was nervous, I was like, is this one, you've got

Robert Berkeley 35:48
you've got them out of the way? So that'll that'll lift you up? You're not knocking them off? Are you? sure way to get to number one by graduating,

Teresa Herd 35:58
graduating Alec Baldwin for his Trump impersonation. I was like, Wow, what a list, I was humbled, to say the least to be included on this list. But also super proud of the agency, one internal agency of the Year in 2017, after we'd only had our doors open for about a year and a half. So just, you know, amazing. And I think part of that was also the laser focus on culture. So you asked me what I do anything different, at previous jobs, I think the culture is something that we often pay attention to when things are going bad. You know, it's like, oh, we lost a huge piece of business or Oh, Morales at all time, let's look at our values. And I decided not to do that I was really, really purposeful about saying, Hey, we're gonna, we're going to build that first Westerners, I had enough people to actually build it. And we're going to add, we're gonna make it actionable. So people know what it looks like. And

Robert Berkeley 36:54
you said, you said recently that you wanted to build a culture of people who supported each other. And I'm really curious how you go about doing that?.

Teresa Herd 37:04
I don't I that's that actually I didn't, that you didn't set out for that to be my goal, I had a really clear mission, which was to build, you know, world class work that performed for the business at a cost lower than external agencies. And that was for the agency, I'm so I'm responsible for all creative for Intel globally. The internal agency is a part of that. So I still work with, you know, external agencies. And it, you know, but the the part that was internal agency inside, we had to, we had to figure out how to make that mission, come to life, and in, in a fairly short amount of time. And so, you know, we took that mission, and we really looked at like, Alright, what are the values that would allow for that to happen, you know, laser focus on, you know, customer service in the service of great work, sustainable, high performance lifestyle, because I have these people going all over the world doing crazy things. And then from the North Pole, to, you know, Ken yet, I mean, literally, all over the world shooting these stories, I needed to make sure that they were well, so we came up with 10 values, but then we also came up with what the what the behavioural norms were within those values. So what

Robert Berkeley 38:13
Wwhat are you recruiting people to, you're looking to see whether you can kind of tick all the boxes on that list? Or are you recruiting people and then encouraging them to, to perform and behave in a certain manner, I am very hard to change people's values, right?

Teresa Herd 38:26
I didn't have I didn't have room for people to be complacent, or, or, or complain, or, you know, so I was like, Look, if, you know, if we're going to be successful, this thing, we all have to go above and beyond and do things that are going to impact how we work and how we make that mission, you know, come true. And so, it, you know, none of the things were like, you know, they were weird, they were you know, they were they were all came from a good place. So it wasn't, you know, it was it just gave us guardrails, on how we treated each other, what success looked like, you know, you know, quality of work, and a focus on quality of work and creative innovation, like constantly learning and learning, you know, not just learning the advertising industry and what the trends were, but also, you know, making sure we understood the technology, because that was a huge advantage for us, like, we're so close to the business, we don't know better than anybody else, then, you know, shame on us. So it was those types of things, but really boiling it down to actual behaviours that people could say, Oh, I can do that. Or I know what that means. I think a lot of times companies have values and you're like, So what exactly does does that you know, what does high quality customer service actually mean? And so we would break it down so people could understand, you know, all of the values.

Robert Berkeley 39:42
So, if you weren't working at Intel, what kind of business would you want to work out if Intel wasn't an option? And, you know, you were looking around and you work for whoever you wanted or whatever kind of business you want. Where would you like to go next? Teresa,

Teresa Herd 39:57
that's a that's a great question.

Robert Berkeley 39:58
I

Teresa Herd 40:00
I um lLike so other than owning a cheese shop so like if I were to stay in the industry or if I were to like,

Robert Berkeley 40:05
I will be customer number one if you own a cheese shop, although although European cheeses in America are fairly expensive, I know

Teresa Herd 40:11
I know, I got my cheese Master's licence at BU because I'd really thought I was going to open a cheese shop before I took this job. I didn't include that in my transition yet between staples and Intel there was a cheese shop inside there.

Robert Berkeley 40:23
Oh, you didn’t mention that.

Teresa Herd 40:26
But so I you know, people ask me all the time, like, Who do you want to work with next? I've been super fortunate. I've literally, you know, if we wanted to work with someone, we got to the point where we could either they were calling us or we could we could kind of call them and be like, hey, Tom Brady, you want to do a thing with us? And he was like, sure. Oh, yes, he

Robert Berkeley 40:41
Oh, yes, he did something.

Teresa Herd  40:42
Braun? How are you? So

Robert Berkeley 40:44
So Teresa, my name came up

Teresa Herd 40:49
on that list.

Teresa Herd 40:50
You know, so that was great. But that you know, and it’s it was nice. Yeah, right. I was I was like, 47. But, um, you know, it's so for me, it's not about that at all, like, I Well, it's been great. And, you know, working with celebrities you work at at such a level where you're like, you know, there's there's so high performance and they're, you know, usually really, you know, even though they don't come from the industry focused on making sure they appear and come across as as legitimate and credible and wonderful. And so it's been wonderful being able to do that with with people of that calibre. However, for me, it has it, the thing that I love the most is the storytelling and being able to create content that is real, that is authentic, like the Great Wall thing that people are interested in and is impacting the world. So

Robert Berkeley 41:42
So you want to be a filmmaker?,

Teresa Herd 41:43
I don't think, you know, I don't, I don't think I want to be a filmmaker, I think I want to be someone who helps, um, curate and, and develop these stories for companies to impact their brand. You know, so that's, that's the thing that I continue to love. And I, you know, I've worked on these stories around the world, in India and in Japan, in China, in Tasmania in, you know, you name it, we've been there. And I just think there's so many more wonderful stories to tell whether it's around technology, or you know, but I think we need more goodness in the world. I think we need more positivity. Certainly today I feel people are definitely not not super optimistic about the future. And I still think there's a lot of great things and people out there when you get out there and actually talk to people so

Robert Berkeley 42:42
so when you're not when you're not being creative director and focused on the work and when you want downtime. What do you what do you do?

Teresa Herd 42:51
love movies, we, in least in the Bay Area. Tuesdays are movie days, and you get discount movie tickets. And Emily really likes a deal. And so every Tuesday night, and we have a date to go see a movie, regardless of whether it's it's rated or not.

Robert Berkeley 43:07
You get a discount. Just as the icing on the cake, isn't it?

Teresa Herd 43:11
It’s a $6 movie ticket

Robert Berkeley 43:12
just waiting to get over 60 you'll be able to get another discount for simply being over 60 as well.

Teresa Herd
Oh my gosh, like be free, I won't have to pay for a movie and

Robert Berkeley
they need to go there. Well, Teresa, there's loads more I could have asked you and there's lots of stuff we've skipped over. But I want to thank you very much for joining us on the Inside Jobs inside jokes podcast. It's been a blast. And I've learned a huge amount.

Teresa Herd 43:33
Thank you so much for your time. It's been wonderful.

r 43:34
been wonderful.