Building Your Brand: Paid vs. Earned Media Strategies with CEO John Sampogna of Wondersauce

In this episode, Lexie Smith sits down with John Sampogna, the CEO and Co-founder of Wondersauce, an agency specializing in brand storytelling, paid media, e-commerce, and digital experiences. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and advertising, John has created and led work for a wide range of clients such as L’Oreal, Scott’s, Golf.com, and Subway, amongst many others. Featured early in his career in Business Insider’s “30 Most Creative People In Advertising Under 30”, John’s insights have been featured in numerous media outlets, including Glossy, Adweek, CNBC, Medium, Yahoo, and Digiday. Today, he manages a team of over 100 creatives, strategists, producers, and technologists at Wondersauce, and is well-regarded industry-wide for his innovative approach toward digital marketing and brand storytelling.

Lexie and John delve into the intricate dynamics of brand storytelling and media strategies. They explore the importance of crafting a cohesive brand narrative and discuss how brands can navigate the often complex landscape of both media strategies. John emphasizes that successful marketing today requires more than effective campaigns—it demands a thoughtful integration of top-of-funnel brand-building efforts and bottom-of-funnel performance tactics.

John also provides practical advice for businesses, whether they're just starting out or scaling up. He discusses how brands can effectively leverage paid media to generate earned media, stressing the importance of creating engaging content that resonates with audiences. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to refine their brand strategy and harness the full potential of both paid and earned media.

Here’s What You’ll Learn:

• Understand why a brand's content is a crucial reflection of its identity and how it can influence audience perception.
• Learn how to balance large-scale, brand-building campaigns with tactical, performance-focused marketing efforts.
• Discover how to use paid media not just for immediate results but to test and refine content strategies that can generate organic, earned media.
• Explore the potential of newer advertising platforms like connected TV for reaching audiences in innovative ways.
• Get insights into using paid media for AB testing to determine which messaging resonates best with audiences before full-scale deployment.
• Learn how partnering with influencers can be a cost-effective way to amplify brand stories and create engaging content.
• Understand how to create effective content strategies on a smaller budget and why foundational content development is crucial before scaling paid efforts.
• Emphasize the importance of knowing where your audience spends their time and tailoring content and advertising strategies accordingly.
• Find out how to identify and exploit niche market opportunities that can offer high rewards for brands willing to diverge from traditional tactics.
• Gain insights into effectively integrating paid and earned media strategies to maximize impact and drive brand success.

Social Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsampogna/
• Wondersauce: https://www.wondersauce.com/ 
  
  
  
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Transcript

Lexie Smith  

John Sampogna is the CEO and co founder of wondersauce, an agency specializing in brand storytelling, paid media e commerce and digital experiences. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and advertising, John has created and led work for a wide range of clients, such as L'Oreal, Scotts, golf.com, and subway, amongst many others, featured early in his career and business insiders. 30 most creative people in advertising under 30. John's insights have been featured in numerous media outlets, including glossy Adweek, CNBC, medium, Yahoo and Digi day. Today, he manages a team of over 100 creatives, strategists, producers and technologists at wondersauce, and is well regarded industry wide for his innovative approach toward digital marketing and brand storytelling. Okay, John, welcome officially to the show. Isn't it so fun to have someone read your bio at you? Super uncomfortable. But I always love just kicking things off with the basic where in the world are you? Question,

John Sampogna  

I'm in New York, and you're very good at reading bios. I was nervous listening to it. I was like, Who? Who is she talking about? I'm the biggest

Lexie Smith  

hypocrite in the world, because I read people's bio to them all every day, all day, and then when someone reads my bio to me, I like, awkwardly shrink off camera and get nervous. So a little bit of a hypocrite there. So you're in New York. What party New York

John Sampogna  

right now? I'm on the east end of Long Island in a small little town called greenport on the North Fork. For those that are familiar with New York Long Island geography,

Lexie Smith  

which I am not, but I am sure anyone listening who is in New York will know what you're talking about. So, yes, okay, New York, not New York City. New York City adjacent,

John Sampogna  

like two hours east, about 90 miles. A lot of city people are here, especially in the summer months. But yeah, I mean, like, within very easy, striking distance of New York City,

Lexie Smith  

fair enough. Okay. And so when John is not in the office, what are you doing? What do you like to do outside of work? For fun?

John Sampogna  

I'm hanging out here. I like to, I like to do a lot of different things. You know, I'm pretty I'm pretty basic in terms of my taste. I like sports. I watch a lot of it. I play golf. I play guitar. I have a two and a half year old girl, so I'm chasing her around quite a bit, and she's a lot of fun. So yeah, all that type of stuff,

Lexie Smith  

which like spoiler everyone on the show listening. I knew some of these things about John because we also have very similar aged daughters, and if you've been a long time listener, quick update. My daughter passed the two mark, so that will blow some of your mind. Have been with me pre kid, through pregnancy, when I had like hiccups on this show. It's, you know, it's been around for a while, but it's a, it's a fun and exhausting, but fun age would be. It's

John Sampogna  

the best age so far. I think. What so many developmental things every day that are just like, I find it hilarious. I'm still waiting for the like, terrible toddler stage to kick in, and everyone keeps telling me it's going to but whether it's like the stuff they come up with and say, or like the physical things they discover they can randomly do on any given day, you're like, Well, you didn't know how to walk, and now you're trying to scale a shelf. Interesting,

Lexie Smith  

is your daughter in a crib? Still,

John Sampogna  

she is, but she's like, starting. You could see the wheels turning that she's starting. The question that she's like, I can climb out of this thing. I think, yeah,

Lexie Smith  

I think it was three and a half weeks ago. We were sitting with the monitor, and then we heard a huge thump, and then we looked at the monitor and there was no longer a toddler in the crib. Oh no. And then we heard bitter Potter, pitter patter, pitter patter. And she now is a ninja, so that's fun. I do have a hat if and when that happens to you, but it's wild. It's just like, one night she just was like, I'm an escape today, back flips out.

John Sampogna  

We started turning her sleep sack inside out. Okay, so

Lexie Smith  

she is now back in a sleep sack so she can't maneuver her legs. That was and we turned it around so she can't zipper her out. So yes,

John Sampogna  

anyways, she was getting out of the sleep sack. Yes, very by the way, two and sneaking out of a crib is very that's very early. That's She must be very skilled.

Lexie Smith  

She is. My mom said she is karma for everything I've put her through. She is the best, but she is sassy, she is independent, and she's a huge little troublemaker. So we'll see how that goes. Can't wait. So. Okay, we have a through line already of innovation with toddlers, but let's go into your career a little bit. So we always have a section on the show called Career Cliff Notes. It's as vague as that, just give the audience a little bit more background about what came before today.

John Sampogna  

Okay, so I'm 39 I'll be 40 in two weeks. So we're looking at, I guess, the last 18 years of my life, very quickly, went to school for music and media in New York City. Wanted to work in music. I quickly realized that wasn't for me. A bunch of my friends were working at different types of agencies when they were like 2021 a lot of them were designers, developers, and they suggested I check it out. I knew nothing about advertising and marketing. I mean, I knew it existed, but I didn't really like study it deeply or necessarily care about it. My first job was at a four or 500 person digital agency. It was called schematic. It's been now folded into WPP. I was the executive assistant to the CEO of the company. It was a blessing in disguise. I did that job for eight months, and I got to experience so much. I sat in his office and got to really listen into his meetings and how he operated the agency. So I basically learned the agency model and advertising by observing a CEO operate. And it kind of kicked me into this thought process of just kind of loving the operations and the model of the business versus like aspiring to be an amazing producer or strategist or creative or anything like that. It was, it was just everything that I really liked. So I was, I was there in that role for eight months. I was promoted. I did some production work, little strategy. I then went over to a smaller digital shop in New York. That's where I met my future business partners, and we very quickly, like, built a chemistry together, you start to find that when you work with people that you really like working with, you just want to work with them on almost every project. And we always had this hypothetical idea, like, we're going to start an agency one day, one day, one day. And you you don't think you can do it when you're young, but the more we thought about it, we were like, this model is pretty simple, and we had this, like, very unrealistic, uh, small sense of confidence, which I love, and I wish I can go back to thinking like that, because I'm way too conservative now in how I think, because I know too much not to seem conceited. But when you're just young and and pure. You just think and do so freely, and it's like such a beautiful way of thinking, especially as an entrepreneur. So at the age of, like 26 I believe, we started wonder sauce, and over the course of the first five years of the business, we went from like two people to 100 people. We were acquired by an awesome network called Project in 2016 and you know, here we are today, about 13 years later, the agency is still very much rooted in the DNA we established back in 2011 we believe that the future of agency models is integrated. We think that it's incredibly important for marketers, consultants, strategists, creators, to think about the whole customer journey. So by design, we built an agency that is basically like three boutique studios smashed into one. We do digital experiences. So we create websites, mobile applications and E commerce experiences. We do advertising so content, campaigns, activations, go to market things that drive social and earned praise. And then we have a paid media acquisition arm where we do social search, programmatic out of home, digital out of home, linear TV, connected TV, et cetera. We work with about 40% of our clients across the whole range of spectrum as like an agency of record model. And then we work on projects doing one or two of those services. But even if we're kind of going in and doing something very specific, we approach things very holistically in terms of thinking about all of the challenges a user will have to go through to have an ideal result. So that's the five minutes on my Cliff Notes and wondersauce

Lexie Smith  

Nailed it. You pass no but literally thinking of managing 100 people gives me so much anxiety. So kudos to you. I think there's an element of ignorance is bliss in the beginning, and then the longer you go on, you get jaded. Or maybe we reframe that and say you learn more and you become wiser, but you obviously are this gold mine of knowledge. And I'm gonna do my best to hammer through a few different topics, because I want the audience to get to see more. To both sides of your brain. And what I'm going to do, where we're going to start, is, this is like a full on shout out. Everyone go follow John on LinkedIn, because we're barely scratching the surface here. But I pulled up. This is what I do for an interview. Is I was, I was pulled up by LinkedIn post that really caught my attention, and I want to dive into it. So the hook was, your content is your brand. So let's unpack that a bit. What does that mean to you?

John Sampogna  

So obviously, we're talking about brands, businesses, and I think that it's a fairly obvious statement, but I think in marketing, the most obvious things are usually not said enough, and this is one of them, um, literally, the stuff you put out into the world, the seemingly insignificant products post on a Tuesday morning, the big campaign you spend six months thinking about, and everything in between is the window to your brand for 9090 plus percent of your audience. That is how brands are experiencing new businesses. It's how they're shopping and buying and consuming. And more and more brands need to become great at, obviously, what they do, selling things or selling a service or a product or whatever it is your core business is, and also becoming great at being a publisher of content. So it's something that I believe almost all brands need to invest in heavily. And I think that the unfortunate thing is, it's not easy, and you need to do both the big and the small really well. I feel like brands right now are falling into two traps. You have a lot of more traditional businesses still going really heavy on, like, what I call top of funnel, so things like your big, anthemic brand moments, those special, you know, marketing and campaign initiatives that take months to create. It could be a large, 15/32, spot. It could be a digital promotion, something big, and then you have kind of brands hyper, hyper tactical, where it's all mid to lower funnel. It's all performance, marketing, Facebook, Google optimization, conversion, conversion, conversion, and then they completely ignore the brand building side of things. So you've got these, like, two different ways of operating, and there's no right or wrong. You have to kind of do both. So for the brands that are hyper focused on mid to lower level E commerce, conversion, what I'm talking about there is it's a lot of like those direct to consumer businesses. You need to kind of take a step back, invest in new channels, new platforms, to actually do elongated storytelling, actually have a purpose and a brand story that goes beyond that, like, here's something, buy it right now. If you don't buy it right now, we're going to retarget you until you buy it. You need more of a long form story, and then vice versa, if you're going heavy top of funnel and always speaking in long form. It's not good enough to just take the B and C reel from the photo shoot and cut it up a bunch of times and throw it on Facebook. That's not going to work. So we help brands kind of advise on the best way of driving, you know, earned media and engagement, and ultimately leveraging paid media in nuanced ways that go beyond the very obvious media placements of, you know, your metas and your Googles.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, there's so many nuances here. Let's I want to go here, so we're going to get kind of tactical, and we're going to create hypothetical client B, let's call them orange dress, because I'm looking at a picture of Ashlyn in an orange dress. Orange dress. The client, okay, they bought into content. And they're kind of like on board with understanding top of funnel, middle funnel, whatever, blah, blah, blah. If you were to simplify their plan and give them an example of here's a great piece of content that you can focus on for top of funnel. And then here's how we're going to move along your audience. And this is the type of content we're going to create, middle, just very high level. Could you walk me through what that plan could look like?

John Sampogna  

Yeah. I mean, so in this hypothetical world, this business is just selling orange dresses, and so it's niche, and I like that. So you can tell product stories very easily and lean into the color and the the use case of the dress. So I think that the first thing I look for is, you know, where is my audience going to be, where there might be an opportunity to reach them in a in a way where they'll get people talking, or to have them, like, look up from their phone or take notice. So obviously, you know, things like Tiktok and meta. Are incredibly impactful. You'll want to do some sort of like branded, you know, search thing to really own orange and dress and all that stuff. You'll want to do unbranded in terms of, like, maybe leaning into things like pumpkin spice latte season and pumpkin patches and all that stuff, and try and kind of like merchandise there from a content standpoint, and you'll obviously want to, you know, think about different placements that might actually get people in more unexpected areas. And one particular area for me, I really love right now is is connected TV. So like placing ads on, you know, networks like or streamers, whatever you want to call them, things like Hulu or peacock paramount. There's programmatic vendors where you can basically put a placement and it'll go on a number of networks. But I love that platform right now. You know, a lot of these, these streamers, are they're battling, they're battling for your your subscription dollar. You know, they're trying to get new customers. And it's very, very competitive, and it's more competitive every single day. They're trying to buy content and produce content, and a little bit more down the list is like polishing their ad platform, or, in some cases, even rolling out their ad platform. So while it's not as neat and clean as you know meta or Google, there's opportunity there, because you're able to get the same impact that you've had for the last 70 years on linear TV commercials, they do still work on a more targeted and controlled environment like connected TV. So I would look for, you know, a programming schedule like this fall, for shows that are going to have a strong female audience that may be in the market for an orange shirt. And I would do something as simple as creating a bunch of 15 second ads of just like, quick videos of the product on model, in some cases just you could even be silent or very, like, very interesting the way you can kind of play with sound. I think sound right now is a big opportunity, especially on connected TV, getting people to, like, look up from their phone and look back at the TV during an ad break, because they might think that they're TV pros, and you get to see this just like really beautiful silhouette of someone like spinning in the dress or whatever. So I just think that those are some kind of paid ideas for content. And there's a million ways you can take it, but what we want to do is sit down with the business and figure out where we think their customer is going to be, and figure out what paid and organic content tactics we can kind of go about deploying and creating to to reach people in the right in the right ways, the right times,

Lexie Smith  

a beautiful mind. I feel like we just got to see kind of the behind the scenes of a, I don't know, like a brainstorming session with your team for your new client of orange dress. But something else you said that's really interesting that I want to pull out was and I'm going to butcher it. You said it much more eloquently, but taking paid media and being able to generate earned from it. I want to go into that a little bit more, because it's a really interesting concept for me, especially if, let's say orange dress. Does it have this unlimited budget, or they have to be, you know, especially mindful. How can paid efforts be elongated or the shelf life extended with earned How does that work? In your mind? Well,

John Sampogna  

just backing up, I think, like everyone's goal is to create things that get people talking so driving earned media, so free advertising. You create something that is so engaging that people willingly engage with it, talk about it, share it because it's entertaining, or it's funny or whatever. Unfortunately, that's really hard to do. There's no formula to do it. Things that we've done to try and do it more often is basically center our brainstorming around themes of exploration that we can play within so we're able to, kind of like, throw a lot of different concepts at the wall that could cover a number of different like styles and executions. So I think first, it's about trying to center your creative team to give them a really good opportunity to actually create stuff that is not going to be so conformed to, like a template or something that has too many rules behind it, which is hard to do because, like, there's requirements for the stuff you have to put together. And then, in terms of using paid there's a number of ways that you could kind of use it to boost. So quite literally, you could boost. So you can, in many cases, you know, you're partnering with. With influencers and creator and creators to put content out there. You can boost that to get it in front of the right audience. You could take things like I was talking about, like creating themes where you can kind of ideate in, to come up with ideas that would hopefully drive earned you could take those themes and almost like, write consumer facing ad copy. And you could almost AB test using paid media, which of those themes are going to perform better, so which get more clicks or more engagement or more scores higher from a viewability standpoint. And then you could basically say, okay, cool, we did this quick and dirty test. We threw a little bit of money at it this tagline is basically resonating way more. So we need a bunch of stuff that fits in this vibe right here. So you could use, you could use paid media to, you know, not only just amplify something and pay to get it in front of the right people, but you could use it to test messaging and then quickly take it down and use that to kind of brainstorm, you know, organic, earned ideas.

Lexie Smith  

I actually appreciate that you highlighted that. And some a narrative I often share with very small business owners who are very bootstrapping, is, if they want to run to paid first, they might spend a lot of money testing to figure out what works. But kind of the reframe of that is, if you have budget, it's a quicker way to bypass the link that it might take you to figure it out organically. It kind of like speeds up your market research, which is really interesting. I haven't thought about it that way, so I

John Sampogna  

do think that brands too quickly default to paid if you don't have a good comm strategy and a solid content framework that you are confident you can kind of replicate and produce a lot of content consistently, you're gonna be wasting money. I really encourage brands to get good at creating content or partnering with someone that can create content before investing too much in paid because, of course, you can, you can put average or bad advertising out there using paid, but you're still, it's still like not going to do that well for your business. Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

yeah. And I think actually, you know, it kind of comes down to what resources you have at play here, if you're a bigger business, and you know, you're allotted as great budget and fantastic, yes, we get a test with money, but that's not the reality for everyone. So thank you for sharing both those perspectives. And I do, I really deeply do believe that there is a place for both. You know, coming from my background of PR, there is a large segment of the PR industry that's like, pain is evil. I don't feel that way. I don't feel it's evil at all. I think there's a part and a time for all, and they're all part of this ecosystem. And I will step off my soapbox, but I appreciate kind of your take on the chicken and the egg if someone were to start with advertising. So these are, these aren't going to be the fortune 500 brands that maybe wonder sauce, generally services, but someone earlier in their career, and they're like, You know what? I've been saving my money. I want to dip my toe in advertising, how would you advise or where might you point them to start? Is it like, and I know we can take orange dress, because I'm sure it depends on the client, but like, should they go all in on one channel to start? Should they diversify from the get go? What's your take?

John Sampogna  

Oh, it's so hard to answer that. It really, it really depends on the business

Lexie Smith  

orange dress.

John Sampogna  

I think that right, right? I mean, even so, like, it depends on the it depends on so many factors, like price point and which part of the country this dress is going to be really applicable to. And also, is it mass? Is it niche? Like, there's just so many things, but I think, like, it comes down to budget, first and foremost, pay does at least, um, I think that if the business, if we're assuming that orange dress is like selling their dress online, and it's not a, it's not a brick and mortar shop, um, you know, I've been making, I've been making reference to meta and Google, and those are like the two biggest right now, because they're the easiest to get off the ground, and they are incredibly analytical in terms of being able to track results, and they allow you to spend, like literal dollars and scale it all the way to like millions of dollars. So those are two that are, like, very, very good to get out the gate with. And I was kind of saying before, I think too many brands are overly reliant on those platforms and need to diversify away from them, but they're still incredibly powerful and great marketing tools. I think that. Um, you know, for orange dress, something very specific, I think, like you could, you could do something that's a little bit more niche, and find a series of influencers, or micro influencers that, um, may really resonate the personality and the vibe of this brand and almost tell the brand story through individuals. I think people are more likely to connect with individuals than they are to a brand right now. It's why you're seeing so many celebrity backed businesses succeed in scale so quick. People just resonate with personalities and perspectives. So I think that if you just had something like even $20,000 being able to partner with five to 10 people and talk about what it means to be a, you know, to be an orange, orange dress person. It's interesting and it's weird, but it's something that I think could be a good use of money, because then you're getting all that content, and you can use it on your channels, and you can save a little bit of it to boost on Facebook and all that good stuff too. But like I said, it really, really, really depends. You have to understand like, where your customers are, not not only like geographically, but like, are they hanging out on Instagram and Tiktok? Are they? Like spending a lot of their time, you know, on more niche platforms like Reddit? Are they? What kind of media and entertainment are they consuming? And I think then, if there's something that's really telling and very, very niche that you can exploit, I'd be cool going all in with one tactic, but I want to have confidence in that tactic before, you know, going all in on it. I think going all in on something is is interesting and very cool. Like, I think that not enough brands have the courage right now to diverge from the tried and true, you know, players in the space and do something very niche and specific and put a lot of money on it. And that's one of those things where, if you did it and it was successful, then all the trades start talking about it, and they're they're geniuses, and then a week or two later, everyone copies them. But yeah, so I

Lexie Smith  

mean, I think you're kind of underlined that there isn't a one size fits all. And what's also interesting for me to hear, because you and I have different verticals that we're in, but these are the same line of questioning that we sit down when we're thinking of an earned plan or a comms plan, like, Where are the people at? Where are we going to hit them? What kind of media do they consume? It's again, you guys, why advertising, marketing, PR, why we all need to be more integrated? Because the the through line is the same. We're looking at and analyzing human behavior and trying to figure out how to get in front of them. Um, also, while you're speaking, how much would you love me if this this podcast episode is titled orange dress with Johnson.

John Sampogna  

Yes, I like

Lexie Smith  

looking at this visual. I'll have to send you. I'm going to send you a picture

John Sampogna  

we need to look into this is there, is there an orange dress company that we can send this to? Right? That made me just have some, some free, unsolicited, potentially terrible advice. Who knows? Yeah,

Lexie Smith  

no kidding, and kind of on that more wider note, you know, again, we barely scratched the surface, you guys, so I highly encourage you to go follow John on LinkedIn. That's the primary platform where I'm seeing your thought leadership. But before you do that, we have to get to this show signature question that I don't I've been doing this for four or five years. I refuse to drop it, even if it's the weirdest, most awkward pivot. Here we are. It's that time we talked pitch in kind of, what can we find you sip in? It could be an alcohol. It could be non alcoholic. It could be alcoholic, whatever, whatever you your vibe is. What can we find you sipping,

John Sampogna  

uh, like in general, or right now, but

Lexie Smith  

I mean in general and right now,

John Sampogna  

I mean, well, I have some water here, which is not interesting. I what am I drinking? I'm drinking a lot of non alcoholic beer, not really that fun. I actually quit drinking, like a year ago, trying to, like, lower blood pressure, and things that 39 year olds have to start thinking about now, which is not fun. And I've been like, dabbling in the NA space, which is also like, so easier to do now than I would imagine 10 years ago. And for me, I found this company that does like, like, 10 calories, zero carb beer. So if I'm if it's truly, truly empty calories, in this case, where you're not even getting a buzz, you might as well be drinking glorified seltzer. So a lot of

Lexie Smith  

that, what's it called? Give it a shout out.

John Sampogna  

It's a Canadian company called. Partake. Partake.

Lexie Smith  

Really good. Well, my pregnant friends out there, my na indulgers, and my father in law, who now can't drink, and Mrs. Beer I'm going to look at partake. And the last thing I just want to ask or share with audiences, if people want to learn more about wonder sauce, about you, about all the things. Where would be the best place to send them?

John Sampogna  

Wondersauce.com has all of our work and a little bit more information about our services and how to contact us. As you've mentioned, I'm on LinkedIn, and you can also just email me anytime you want, just J O, H n@wondersauce.com

Lexie Smith  

john@wondersauce.com john@wondersauce.com john@wondersauce.com we'll put it in the show notes, and with that said, thank you so much for your time today, John, this has been great, and everyone until next time on the pitch in and sip in podcast.

John Sampogna  

Thanks so much.