How Creative Agencies Can Thrive Without Playing by the Old Rules with Young Hero’s Roberto Max Salas

In this episode, Charlotte Ellis Maldari sits down with Roberto Max Salas, co-founder of Young Hero, to explore how creative agencies can stay nimble, relevant, and impactful in a rapidly evolving industry. 

Roberto shares Young Hero’s origin story, the shift from influencer marketing to a creator-led, storytelling-driven model, and the adoption of the “showrunner” approach for long-term brand narratives. The conversation covers the importance of collaboration without ego, adapting to in-house brand teams, and the value of networks over traditional marketing. 

Roberto also discusses the agency’s commitment to purpose-driven work, the power of personal storytelling, and practical tips for smaller agencies navigating change. Key topics include: the difference between creators and influencers, the showrunner model, adapting to industry shifts, building business through networks, and the importance of staying playful and curious.

https://younghero.us/ 

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Transcript

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Charlotte Ellis Maldari 0:40

hi, and welcome to today's episode of the Kaffeen Authority Builder podcast. And today I'm super pleased to be joined by Roberto Max Sells from Young Hero, who is, I believe has been in our audience a little while, and we connected a while back talking, about how he's grown his agency, young Hero. So welcome, Roberto. I was really pleased to have you today. Thank you, Charlotte. Super excited. So can you just tell me a bit initially about, young Heroes' origin story and what sparked the idea for it and how did you know the timing was right to start it?

Roberto Max Salas 1:15

it's, it's a story we love to tell. so young heroes, really me and two of my partners, Nick and Zoe, we're three co-founders. We all bring completely different experiences, even though Nick and I were. Copywriter, our director, teams that we basically met in Miami at school way back in 2008. and we kind of grew up together, in the industry. But him with his experience as a writer. Me as my experience as an art director, but also because I went, we went our separate ways for five years, right after 360 I, where I explore a lot more of an entrepreneurial aspect of it. I was freelance, I sponsored my own visa, and also, just learning from a different, a lot of different agencies even going, in-house. Those experiences aligned with Zoe's experience in smaller nimbler agencies where she was working direct with two CFOs and C and CEOs, is what essentially made young hero what it is today, seven, eight years after. And what really sparked everything was all of us in our different, from our different perspectives, questioning, the future of the industry as far as influencer marketing went. Nick and I. Went to at school wanting to leave the, the school sort of process, enter the real world to become, super Bowl writers and TV spots. That's why Oglevy was a great sort of base for our career. but is that where you worked together? Right,

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 2:37

as a I worked creative path together

Roberto Max Salas 2:39

first. Okay. in Oglevy, New York headquarters right at the Chocolate Factory on 46th Street, which was an incredible place back in 2010, 2000 can imagine. Amazing friends. I mean, a lot of the people that we met there, we still work with together, even either as clients or as part of our team. so it was an incredible experience. But yeah, basically we were all questioning what the future of the industry held because we were labeled as a digital team back early since 2 20 11. and then with Zoe having, also having a background in, in everything that has to do with, celebrity sponsorships, deals, influencer management and things like that. We were questioning there's a lot of gray ground still around 2017, 2016, in which. People were just seeing, especially brands, were seeing, influencers as just another media buy with okay, they have thousands of followers, they can open our product and share it with the world. Whereas we were actually questioning, does it, does that actually make sense to, and then we actually thought that there should have been, there should be an agency back in 2016 responsible for orchestrating strategic collaborations between. Celebrities and creators and brands and that's why Young Hero was born.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 3:55

Yeah. I was just gonna ask you started by repping creators and and what led that pivot towards a broader network model? Is that really about your kind of understanding of where the industry was going and what it should look like?

Roberto Max Salas 4:06

we saw a lot of friends running startups with influencer databases or marketplaces, if you will, very early 2016, 17. We come from storytelling backgrounds, so we couldn't just just focus ourselves in Aligning brands and doing a quick one of play with a creator. We needed to embed some storytelling, so, We were obsessed with the production company model back in 2017, in which you signed directors to our roster and then you basically go out there and you find the right projects to put them on. We wanted to do the same approach with creators. and essentially we got to representing up to 30 people. And the first year was literally just meeting everybody, mostly in New York, but we did go a little bit national. we had somebody from, New Zealand who was amazing at After Effects and video, montages and things like that. his name is half of nothing. we, a lot of people, when we started Young Hero thought we were a music label. 'cause half our roster. Was made up of a lot of musicians, music producers, singers, songwriters like Blue the Tiger, Bailey, music, people who we still talk to this day. but what really led to the pivot two, three years into the company was that we started to feel a little bit responsible for not just trying to bring any brand to them or pitch the creators to any brand that would actually care. Or pay attention. Obviously 2017 to 2019. It was still more about big campaigns, digital, creative, and also just influencer gifting. It wasn't. About creating long-term relationships with creators yet. so for us, it was really hard to go and pitch and we were constantly doing it, and what we realized it's exhausting is that it was, it's exhausting, but also it wasn't, I, I feel like, I guess responsible as a world because we were just trying to retrofit strategies to give a reason of why a creator should collaborate with a brand. Whereas what we do now with a network is we see the, the brief. We through our network of people that curate creators. 'cause obviously we don't know everybody in the world and we've worked with people even, up to Korea for South Korea with, the a campaign, with one of our really good partners that just helped us create this really amazing. Pool of talent that I know we're gonna talk about in a little bit. But essentially we, we just wanted to make it the more responsible way and format the agency so that we get a brief, we understand what values the, the company, the brand is all about, and then we find creators who align with those values. And then we have some sort of storytelling arc so that can embed the brand into their communities' content. Through a very organic, and easy way that feels natural. Right.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 6:42

I remember, Cannes Lions in around, it must have been like 2012, 2000, yeah. Maybe more. 2012 and 2013. And just like if I heard the word storytelling one more time, I felt like I was gonna just like, walk out of the auditorium like it was all the time. But at the same time, even I had a. Side hustle, travel blog, so I could bag nights in hotels around the world and return for kind of creating content around that. It was the kind of time where there were I'm using inverted commerce influencers kind of coming out. 'cause I, the loosest possible term, I was an influencer. and there was this big kind. Well, a bit meta, but like the arc of storytelling and those two things, there was a massive disconnect between them. So I can see how you felt that wasn't, especially given that you're from that storytelling background yourself as you described it, and that's how you identify in terms of that creative relationship with your business partner historically at Ogilvy. Like contrasting that with this new world. I can imagine it's a, a, a client of mine described it recently as that uncomfortable position where two industries or two thoughts collide and no one's quite sure what it should look like. And it's, it looks a bit awkward and it's quite a lot of effort to kind of define it and carve it out. And that feels like, like what you've been doing. So what does, is there anything else you wanna add around that point? Like what does creator led really mean for you in practice?

Roberto Max Salas 8:04

Yeah, so I think I gotta go back to the our oglevy years because something that really opened up my, and going back to the concept of storytelling. 'cause obviously we wanted to do 32nd mini stories, right? That's what Nick and I wanted to do from the get go, but as being labeled that, A digital team. We were working, working on a lot of content calendar campaigns for Kit Ka, for example, and things like that. But something that really, I guess a weakened something within us was they put us to work, back in 2011 on the 2013 Fanta campaign, that basically had this huge story arc because they had all these characters that had never spoken before. And with our campaign, we were actually gonna start casting. To give them a voice and actually create a dialogue and also put a lot of strategy behind what does each character represent in the whole Fanta world. all those c all those little, characters were actually animated by PSYOPs. So this was way, way before SIO even got to create all of that. We weren't even at Ogilvy by the time this got produced, but Oglevy brought this company from. California who was focused on creating campaigns and promotions for big movies and TV show titles, and they came into our room and we were a team of maybe 30, 40 creatives, and they had everybody brainstorming, a hot house style. Of what could the story arc be? Where could we take the story? If the platform is play Fanta, how do we bring that to life through gaming, through all these things? and what I thought was fascinating is that instead of killing some bad ideas, these people came up with a really good way to build on what everybody was saying, to create one linear story that was distributed later on within two years of a campaign. So everything had a cycle and a phase. And this actually leads to. The story, the showrunner model that we've been, that I know I chatted with you about that maybe we'll talk about a little bit later, but how can you create more long-term narratives so that people really get hooked? Because if people are getting hooked on movies and trilogies and TV shows for seasons and seasons mm-hmm. There's no reason why people should do that, shouldn't do that with brands, with brand stories. And I think we just came out of this sort of Past five years of doing a lot of one-offs, quick activations here and there because social media just lives for a moment and the next week everybody forgot about your stunt and all that. But I do think we're starting to see shift in that, in which brands are created longer. Story Arcs Duolingo with being one of the great examples of that with the Death of Duo, which we did not have anything to do with, but I'm very jealous of that campaign, in a good way. I, and even with creator stories, I think a lot of creators are creating their own serialized content that people can subscribe to, to follow a story and people get hooked on it. And we're starting to see it on TikTok, on Instagram reels and people wanting to come back to hear the development of a simple story of someone's life that embraces so well with their niche community. And I think that's where I think the shift to this creator approach is, is people who have very strong point of views. Are amazing at storytelling and being able to tell stories in simple ways that people get hooked on what, regardless of what their craft is. Mm-hmm. I was recently following this creator who dissects data for big tournaments, so they did the US open breakdown through little illustrations and very simple narration and explaining the economics of tennis and how that works. Yeah. In a very simple one 62nd long video was. It's an amazing way, and for us, that's the difference between a creator and what we used to label influencers. People who would get open, which is again, it works for some brands, in certain industries. But I do think that. To, to really impact a consumer because obviously we all know now that we live in an era that people don't like to listen to brands. They like to listen to people who are obsessed with brands, and that's how you start to create more of a long-term customer base and customer acquisition. That's why we see a lot of performance marketing. Out there in the world. essentially that's, that's I think the, the biggest differentiator between a creator and an influencer where I see the creators this, moving forward as far as this narrative.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 12:05

Yeah, absolutely. I had so many thoughts as you were talking there. One of my, one of my favorite people I follow is, man, I dunno if you've ever come across her, but she, illustrates data and to me she's the, these people who. Especially 'cause I'm fascinated by data and efficiency and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm. But, the people who intersect between creativity, like to me, one of my favorite adages is if I'd have had more time, I've written a shorter letter, like I say that so many times my friends are sick of me saying it, and also my clients too. But this kind of idea of being able to communicate something so simply, big difficult concepts or big difficult data. And also reminds me slightly of I think The Economist has an editorial policy of, the, the words used and the, the vocabulary used in articles that are submitted to the editor need to have, be at the level of an 8-year-old so that it's accessible to everybody, with the idea that. If you've written it well, it should be simple enough for an 8-year-old to to read, which I absolutely love. It's like the opposite of alienating and, the opposite of pretentious, which isn't something you'd expect from, big, complicated ideas. So I love that so many more people have. I'm able to express their ideas and I mean, aside from whether they're being, they're just creators exclusively or they're being, used as an instrument of a brand or of an agency, like, I love this idea that that has been democratized. I think that is the good side of the internet. And then like. Cynically and I'm gonna get straight into the show in a model now. 'cause that was one of the things in our kind of green room chat that I was particularly interested in, because I'm a bit of a newbie to the concept, even though I recognize it and I know it's not a new concept, but I just like cynically as you're talking through it, just then I was thinking. You know, this is great from a business development perspective because as an agency you get to pull together a, a multi-year campaign, right? You're not pitching for a quick spot. You're pitching for how this, the storytelling arc unfolds over the period of months slash years. So you're kind of secure in the account for a much longer period of time because. You can't just dump the character halfway through the story unless I imagine things go really badly. but also, also from a consumer engagement perspective, because I think, I know this is something I talk about a lot. I can remember if we discussed in events, but. Human connection and just connection in general is the thing that is most, I feel most lacking in the past few years. Mm-hmm. And this concept that the showrunner model, as you've described it just then, and I said, we'll get into it a bit more, it's it, it, it's an opportunity. When, when we were in those can lions, auditoriums, and everyone was talking about storytelling, no one was really able to articulate It wasn't really happening that much at the time. it was the beginning of it, I feel like, and there wasn't really a, there weren't many great examples of it. And now as you're talking, as we are seeing these, these examples and unfold, I'm okay, this is what they were talking about. This is what they were aiming for, is this, this way of taking the consumer along with the narrative beyond the superficial kind of, this is our. Brand personality. This is our who, what we stand for. Do you identify with that? If you do, then go buy it. You know, it's, it's much, much greater than that. And, and moving into the entertainment space. So, I mean, massive monologue. My computer is telling me I'm now at three minutes and 21 seconds. So I'm gonna stop but ask you a bit more about, can you tell us more about the showrunner model for people who are not familiar as I was and, and, how it came about.

Roberto Max Salas 15:45

It's super exciting and honestly, it's, it's obviously not something that we came up with or anything, it's just something that we're using as a tool. so basically the story goes that way. Back in when we were starting Young Hero, my partner Nick read, Joseph Campbell's Heroes Journey, which is kind of like the first introduction on how to create a really compelling story. then there's somebody else, I believe is their name is Dan Harmon, if I'm not mistaken. Just to be yes, Dar harm. He created this sort of like more of a modern version of the Hero's Journey. It's called a Story Circle. And then somebody else came, who's like a younger filmmaker, Seth Worley, who created this sort of story clock. He calls the Story Clock workbook, which is a simple way for you to follow almost literally like a clock, you know, story to, so that you can create a strong, Story arts, and basically the model goes that whatever happens at the one side of the clock, you need to resolve it or bring it back at the opposite side. So whatever happens at 12, comes back at six, whatever happens at three, comes back at nine. But like the nine and 3:00 PM sort of baseline is the difference between the order, because at the top, you're introducing the world and you're introducing the main character. That can be a brand, like in the case for us, for absolute when we used it. Was the brand, the iconic absolute bottle. This is when we created the, the stretch up, absolute land metaverse in collaboration with our agency partners United Entertainment Group, which I can break down later. and then at the bottom is sort of the chaos. So right after you hit, 3:00 PM. It's the go sort of moment. So then the, the character goes into a search. Then in the search, you know, there's a whole point on at 6:00 PM where he finds that thing he's searching, the character is searching for, at the sort of like middle point right before hitting the ninth. You basically, it's the take, it's when the character not only finds it, but also takes that thing. And then at 9:00 PM at nine is essentially the moment of return. Okay? When everything comes back from chaos to order. This is literally the base of every single story. There's also different formats that if you really wanna get into it, for different genres. So you can create different types of story clicks based on the genre of the movie, whether it's a thriller or a comedy or a romcom and things like that. But. To keep it simple. What we created, and this is something that I was able to, was given the opportunity to chat about during the morning buzz at the art directors at the one club, for creativity week, earlier this year. And it was really cool because basically what we try to do as young heroes always try to align this framework and use it as a tool for us to embed. essentially the brand, the brand's values, the mission. The creators are usually in the moment of the search. When you actually activate your creator roster to create that wildfire effect that that every campaign should create out there in the world, then there's a moment in which you can actually start sharing the KPIs right before you go from chaos to order. In order to hit on what your brand does. So for the, in the case of the Art Directors Club, we, we dissected the, the Duolingo, as I mentioned to you. It's a, for me, it's one of the greatest examples and it's obviously was made by their internal social team. but I just thought it was one of the honestly best examples of the story clock being used to, to the best, that it can because. There's a moment that if you think about the right before right between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM where we always think about This is a perfect moment to leverage creators in our story clock model that I can share also with you, a a one frame, that we have. it, it's also the moment for us to embed trends. 'cause right now everybody's still talking about chasing trends and somebody gets engaged. Everybody, every brand is there doing the engagement ring, but for us trends, it's not we shouldn't be. Chasing them as a brand, they should be part of this longer arc. And the example that, I sort of always bring to life in the, with Duolingo as the example is they used the cyber truck because during that week, the cyber truck was trending and there was a lot of negativity around the cyber truck. So they used that cultural thing happening in the internet where everybody, that everybody was talking about as a story arc of the mood of their longer narrative because they actually revealed. In the moment of where the chaos was at its peak, that the cyber truck was actually what killed Duolingo. Right. So that is a perfect example of how they, and then after that happened, a lot of creators were celebrating sort of or doing the funeral, with c Claymation through and with the little toys that you were able to buy of the character, through TikTok and the different channels. That to me is an example of how historical can work to perfection. We've done it, since 2020, after Nick told us that we were working on LeBron Tequilas, level 1707 to craft their narrative and there was a lot of really beautiful storytelling that needed to be done, but we couldn't really pack it into a 32nd. So working really closely with Diego Sorio, who's one of the co-founders, he basically allowed us to tell this story clock story of how. He discovered that in his family there was 300 years of history of bringing barrels from Spain to Mexico to craft tequila and obviously all the way to when he was developing the bottle design and what it stood for, all the way down to finding the people that was. Behind the brand. LeBron James included us being one of the main shareholders and really crafting this long-term narrative to create this tequila that embraced unity rather than putting one celebrity name be behind the spirit. Which was what was happening at the time, which is risky, right. We were able to put this, And we were able, and it was really cool. This was the first time we used the story clock model, to craft this sort of legacy story with all the different pieces that just fit perfectly thanks to this tool.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 21:33

So how do you, 'cause it sounds like this client was really on board with it, but how do you pitch or packages to clients who aren't ready for big conceptual story rcs?

Roberto Max Salas 21:42

I mean, it's all a matter of testing, I think. and I was just, at the Creator Live, creator Economy live conference a couple of weeks ago, and I feel like people are starting to opening to open up a lot, from a brand perspective and CMOs, because CMOs are. Following creators. They're also the curators in the teams who are actually trying, not just letting their team do the curation of who actually loves our brand. CMOs are starting to embrace that. I've also seen mentions of the showrunner model from a cmmo standpoint, from somebody that I follow who used to work at Vie when we were there. So I feel like. it's definitely easier than when we were starting Young Hero back in 2017, 18. Yeah. And trying to tell people that creators are not influencers. That they actually have values that can align with your brand long term. Because people were like, no, we just want people to open our boxes. And I feel like the story and of how this creator collaborations and brands has just grown so much. So I think now it's easier. I think it's a matter of understanding. That it's not that we don't need to be chasing trends. I think that trends can help propel the story to become, to make them buzzy. Right? And I think the more long term the narrative, the better because we can hook people, we should always be entertaining them through the content and also letting the creators adapt your brand to their own voice for their communities rather than try and forcing them. I think it's another pivotal thing that. If we explain those things right, I think, especially brave clients are gonna be way more open to it. But the thing that helps the most is that there's brands already doing it out there, so,

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 23:16

yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the things we talked about in our advance, which I, I'm gonna touch on now, around. The shift to in-house and how much that has changed since the great resignation and COVID and whatnot. But I think also you mentioned something that's come up quite a few times recently with my own peers where we're all hitting our forties and or mid forties. And we realize that actually our network now is, is everywhere. Like people you started in agency with are now brand side or they're somewhere in the middle or they're in a consulting role and it's, The understanding of how you use the devices within creativity that are available to brands and in, in their marketing. It's it's on both sides of the fence, right? So it's less hard to explain it to somebody. 'cause it might be they've experienced it when they were in-house at agency and now they're in-house at the, the brand side and they're able to deploy it. They, they're a lot more, a lot more on it in terms of how that might fit into their, their goals. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts around that. The in-house shift and how agencies stay relevant. Like most of your recent work, I know from our chat has been supporting in-house created teams. Yeah. What do you think is driving that shift?

Roberto Max Salas 24:29

I mean, I think it's what you said, it's a lot of people from the industry, around the time that we started, or even earlier, trying, wanting to try something. Back in the day, the way for you to go and try something new was to go freelance. But obviously that came with a lot of risk, if you will. Mm-hmm. and I think a lot of after the pandemic, a lot of people felt like if it was a, in, very poorly put it, it was a, a refreshing way to sort of reevaluate where, I know it happened for me and a few of my friends that I've been speaking to, but like. That was a lot of time that people had to reflect what they wanted to do with their careers. So a lot of shifts started to happen. I think that that was definitely what catapulted a lot of this. And in terms of young hero, for us it's been great because we've always been nimble, and obvi. And also something that we always say is that we, we are not. Trying to, you know, overpower anybody? Not clients, not partners. 'cause we've helped production companies, we've helped agencies before when we were starting. obviously now we're more focused on direct to brand. and also as we are shifting, as well because we are also up operate as a production company. It's something that we've seen that has helped a lot of our clients specifically that do have in-house teams. have a closer, a tighter sort of grasp on the holistic aspect of the creative process of their marketing, while still having somebody with an out outside perspective to make sure that they're not too much within their own sort of world. and that's, yeah, the objective view. I think Roe, for example, we, we, we did the Charles Barkley campaign with GOP ones and we recently, helped them produce the. the Serena Williams GLP one campaign that, that came out a couple of weeks ago, the first week of us Open. it's been honestly just a, a pleasure to be part of the team, and, and it's been such a collaborative, process and so familial in a way. And, and I think going back to where you're saying, and the reason is because one of our really good friends from way back at Ogilvy, it's sort of like leading their marketing team. And she sort of brought us along to help them, not, not just craft or anything because obviously they, I always compare them to the apple of, of, of healthcare because of the. Beautiful design sensitivity they have and craft they have with their product, which is the app. and for us it's just been like, how can we help them create more nimble experiences between what their audience needs as far as marketing and campaigns and the stories that we're telling? Because I do think that what RO is doing is creating a whole new era of, in, in the telehealth industry by sort of like simply not simplifying, but really coming clean and transparently with all the. Misinformation that's out there around GLP one. So, we're just helping them craft as fast as we can because, we live in this era and things need to be told fast and in a way that conveys the emotion we want to convey. Right? Yeah, absolutely. It's been great. We also work very closely with the A team, and that requires a lot of things. It's making sure that partners are present, we always bring our A team, it's not like when we talk to a client, it's just Nick, Zoe, and I, and maybe one of our head of strategy, and then all of a sudden once that gets processed and we go to the next phase, we disappear. We stay together and we're like, there's no egos. A young hero. I'm still designing, Nick is still writing, we're, we have a team and everything, but we love to have that collaborative spirit. And in the case of Roe. Simon being one of the co-founders of it, have his background comes, it is from Chris Port Bosky, our director. So we're very hands-on, on the Figma with them and with Giselle who's leading the entire marketing team, but she's also an incredible designer. So making sure that we're still making things and keeping, the team tied and working together is what makes those collaborations so successful and priceless. Honestly,

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 28:19

I find it so refreshing to hear you talk about the complete lack of ego and. something that feels at odds with kind of how. I felt starting out in agency world and, yeah, really good to know that that's, I'm, I'm thinking one of my questions was gonna be around what advice would you give to smaller agents who's trying to, adapt to this blended agency in-house model? And it really feels like that might be the biggest thing is, is remove the ego from it, work together as a team. Think about it, I'm answering for you, but like,

Roberto Max Salas 28:49

no, no.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 28:50

Like long haul. But I'm guessing also the showrunner model gives you, the op, affords you the opportunity for long haul. Right? Because you're not just doing a quick thing, it's like

Roberto Max Salas 28:58

over a longer period of time. Yeah. And I, and I would add one more thing to that, and it's something I learned when I was at RGA, you know, Bob Greenberg always saw the agency, as a. Because we believed a lot in numerics. So every nine years they would completely change the model of RGA, starting with just making titles that won Oscars and everything. then they became more of like a digital agency than a product agency, than an accelerator incubator when I was there. and I, and they did that every nine years. And I think with the speed of culture and how we live through the internet and everything that needs, that obviously has accelerated. And even Tiffany Rolf, who I had the pleasure of. Seeing, her talk at the, at the Creative Leaders Retreat, earlier this year, she mentioned that even for RGA, that's something that needs to change. And, and they've been shifting their perspective of like how the agency operates and their focus a lot more faster than nine years. Oh, getting faster. Wow. I feel like as a, as a smaller agency, starting in 2017, we're technically in year seven now. What's honestly the, the big, if there's one thing that has allowed us to be, it's how nimble and how adaptive we are to our clients. Because that has been the key to everything. Like when the Metaverse was here, was when we got to see, when we got to oversee the creative on absolute land, thanks to one of our long-term, collaborators of in United Entertainment Group. you know, being able to adapt to anything that's coming new because you never know if it's gonna stay or not. I guess the metaverse may be staying, we don't know yet. Kind of not right now. Even with Web3, we, we just dive right into anything that comes through culture and find and curate the right people who are running and are are sort of pioneering in every type of new vertical industry that comes up. And that's what's. helped us stay relevant. that has been one of the biggest keys to everything.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 30:50

I think the, I mean, what I'm hearing as you're talking is, it still feels relevant to that lack of ego thing. It's like, how do you, because our big thing is around being an authority in your space, or how do you be an authority when things are constantly shifting? How do you present new ideas or, you know, Attach yourself to them, but lightly in a way, which means you can review it and move on when the culture moves on. And, and you know, historically people were like, this is the. Whatever the expression is, the the hill that I will die on. This is the, you know, this is my thing. But even I didn't realize that about RGA, I didn't realize that they deliberately shifted their business model every nine years. And as you said that I was like, oh my God, that sounds exhausting. But absolutely. It makes complete sense that you would go faster than that. And then just reflecting back on our own business at Kaffeen, I feel. I have to admit, I feel a sense of failure when we, sometimes, when we make a pivot and it's not helpful and it's also not true because normally a pivot has come because of a requirement around what clients need or how the industry is shifting and in many, many different ways. But I always feel like, oh, that means I got it wrong before and I've gotta, I, I've gotta. Stick. Some Thomas Edison quotes around my desk about the importance of failure. adapting, failure's the wrong word, but adapting and, and being nimble, being light and knowing that's a sign of engagement and passion and success rather than the opposite.

Roberto Max Salas 32:17

I mean, I, when I left RGI left because I, I was. F lucky enough to make it into the last class of the Google Incubator program 30 weeks. And the first thing you learn in the first class is fail fast. 'cause failing is great. If you're not failing, you're not learning anything. and I think also to your point, a lot of times those pivots come because of unforeseen reasons for us. We had to become a production company. During the pandemic because we actually, in 20 19, 20 20, in 2019, we did, with our first client Lonely Whale, we did the Museum of Plastic, which got us a lot of press. It was amazing. We won the small Agency Silver Campaign Award for experiential, and all of a sudden Young Hero wasn't a music label anymore, which was people, the artists that we represented, we were the experiential company. And it was quite amazing because I remember we got our first office in Greenpoint in February of 2020, and obviously the pandemic hit. We had to turn it into like a storage unit, but then it became sort of our, our production facilities. Because yeah, all the experiential budgets we already had aligned for a few of our partners had to become long form YouTube series. And once we launched the Ocean Heroes Bootcamp, we were invited to create podcasts. We had never done a podcast, but we helped Lonely Well Makeup podcast and that landed us a Netflix podcast with our editorial team. Incredible. Being able to, and I think it's, it's coming back everything to what you were saying of being, leaving the ego at the door and being collaborative. And that also goes back to creators and finding the right creators that can help you bring to life things that you didn't know how to do. Day before. Right. That is the key. Aligning with the right people to make everything. And as long as we know we have a goal, everything else will show up by itself. When you have the right collaborators.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 34:06

this, that's, I mean, you trusting and finding the right collaborators, it feels to me 'cause this is something I'm not super good at. I'm, I'm very much a micromanager in a con control freight, but this idea of. Hiring smarter people than you. I'm not saying that you're not smart, but this kind of concept of understanding that you need to curate a team that will help you provide the best solution for the, the, the challenge that you're facing. And knowing that, that, to me, this is the fascinating thing about it feels a bit there's some black magic around the creative industry in the sense that you can. I sometimes used to look around the design studio where I used to work. I'd be I'd look at the creative team and there'd be 40 people there at Mac. And it was all it is the only capital in this business are Mac computers and brains. there's, it is amazing to me that that just comes outta nowhere almost, you know? And then, and, and part of that black magic for me is that kind of knowledge of how to. Curate the right minds who will help you deliver a solution that has commercial impact for a brand. That's my, that's my big thing. I love how it goes from this idea in a brain to like money in the bank kind of thing. So yeah, I, I mean, your business model to me feels completely exhausting and also absolutely incredible. And as a very energetic person, I, I'm, I'm really in awe of, of how you do it, but I, I wanna touch a little bit on. young hair itself because, I mean, it's really funny you keep talking about music label because one of my favorite music labels here in the uk, I think they've recently changed their name to just Young, because I think it was kind of controversial, but used to call Young Turk and or Young Turks. Yeah. And they were kind of based out of Dolson and they had, I think they had like their XX on their books at the beginning. And some of the really cool bands, in the mid two thousands that I was really into. So. But you, you mentioned on our previous chat about, we were talking about how you've grown without traditional marketing. You mentioned that Rob Schwartz said nobody knows you guys yet. what are you doing to fix that? How are you addressing it?

Roberto Max Salas 36:08

Yeah, I think, you know, we started the agency of just like three passionate people who had a really strong vision. We just believed in it. We didn't have clients when we started, and a lot of what led us to the first five years. Was a lot of serendipity that was going around, and that's a word I like to use because of Brian Collins. We've been attending a lot of his events lately, and what's been great about the last two years is that we've almost become old heroes. We'd like to joke, because we started to see the agency with a lot more, With a lot, professionalism is not the right word because obviously we're always professionals. I think what's kept us going is always staying true to our values of making sure we're fostering a future for, for the next generations. we are a youth culture agency, but that doesn't mean we're only working with Gen Z or anything. We're working with anybody that's young at heart or of brands that just wanna stay relevant in culture. To us, that's what's. Really what being young, is. Yeah. For me it's playfulness and

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 37:09

curiosity.

Roberto Max Salas 37:10

It's playfulness is curiosity and making sure you're always testing things out and you're trying things out. And if you can do it with really awesome brands, that's what social media is to us, right? and also crafting productions and things like that because that's how you're gonna stand out and things like. So that's at the core of what we're doing. And then in the last two years, we've just been a little bit more. Mindful into okay, how, what are the clients that we want to go after? what are, and we've always put clients through, through a specific lens of it doesn't make sense for our story. but lately we're just thinking about okay, we probably should be attending a lot more conferences because. It's not only being in touch, we have these curators, sort of meetups in, every Friday, whether that's remotely or in person back in New York or when we're in production. We meet people locally to just add people to our Rolodex network and things like that. Learn what people are up to and even catch up with with all people. And our interns also do this curation that we're starting to put at live in our, in our Instagram, every month of seven curators. That people should be on top of and keep an eye on. but for us in general, it's, the, this. Year. Last year was more about okay, let's be more mindful into branding Young hero. What? What is young hero's role in terms of the landscape of agency? 'cause obviously there's a lot of new agencies coming up, but we've been around for seven years. To your point, in December, I, I rejoined the, the one club with the membership and one of the perks is that you get three coaching sessions by two by either one of their coaches. And ro I chose Rob Schwartz just because I feel he's had a very similar career mine, starting in the creative department and then growing to a more of a business role. Yeah. And now he obviously coaches all the network, the, the global network. that he's a part of. So the first thing he said is you know, right before the call, I looked through your website, looked through your work. You guys have amazing, you work with amazing brands and well, the only problem you have is that nobody knows you guys. So I've just been more mindful into telling my personal story of growing up in the industry, coming from Latin America. obviously between the three of us, I bring the Latinx factor to young heroes. So. There's a lot of initiatives that we do that we've never really talked about. we, every year we brand, an a new Latin brand, pro bono and give them a whole social playbook and everything. We're in our third year of doing that. Amazing. So it's, and you're talking to me from

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 39:43

Ecuador.

Roberto Max Salas 39:44

Yes. And I'm in Ecuador celebrating my daughter's second birthday. but back in New York in a couple of weeks. But yeah, and you know, I'm just starting to share more from the personal angle, the story, so people get to know who we are. And, and obviously this is one third of a story, luckily, LBB online data, big piece on us. Finally, it's the first interview in eight years that Nick, Zoe and I are a part of together. Which is awesome. And we tell even the story of why young heroes call Young Hero, which is basically rooted back in my country of Ecuador. There was a historic figure called Abdon Calderon, who essentially was, I feel every lining country that claimed independence at one point, has this story, but it's this teenage hero who died with 17 bullets carrying the flag with its teeth. his nickname was a young hero of Don Calderon. So I literally, after a month and a half of trying to come up with a name between the three of us, we pivoted seven times. And then I was having a dream and all of a sudden I wake up. I was like, oh my God, it should be young hero. 'cause I was dreaming of Abdon Calon for some reason. And they loved it. that was the story we had never told. And for us sharing the young hero story is just as important as the work that we put out there because this has been our lives. Our entire lives combined. Nick, Zoe, and I. Has led to just building this optimistic little agency. That can hopefully help inspire future generations to wanna get into the creative field, but also share optimistic, optimistic stories that are brand empowered. We have another initiative called Pride 365, which we started in 2019 when we hosted a panel with some of our creators and some key partners. Jager Meister was one of the sponsors. Treble, which was a music platform, was one of our partners in that as well. And one of the coolest sort of insights, mind you, this was 2018 or 2019, baby, yours and a couple of other people just all of a sudden took the conversation to be like, we love when brands sponsor pride. It is just shouldn't, the flex just shouldn't come down July 1st. That's the only issue we have with it. And I was like, oh my God. That is incredible. So we created that series that we, basically, on our website, we post L-G-B-T-Q Artists projects, so that brands have the opportunity to sponsor them year round. And that led us to our 2023, pride campaign with, with Lululemon, where they actually also. Embrace it as a way to kind of like launch the, their initiative 365 and not just during Pride month. So there's a lot of things that we do, and right now, the way that we're talking about Young Hero more purposefully is just making sure people know our story and what we stand for

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 42:24

and what, where does your really, specifically, where does most of your business come from? Is it networks or is it existing clients? Like I, I mean, I know between you, your network's incredible, right? Like you've.

Roberto Max Salas 42:37

Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 42:37

You've been around.

Roberto Max Salas 42:38

It's, it's mostly through Nick, Zoe and my network. Especially 'cause, when it comes to the big RFPs and everything you hear on Adweek and all that, you, you really need to invest. We're independent. We've been independent since day one. We've literally, yeah. Funding the agency between the three of us and. we don't really have the privilege of or, or, I mean there's years that we potentially invest a little bit more, in, in trying to get a little bit PR here and there, but for us it's been just being organic about it and our network. I feel like if there's something we've learned in the seven years is that people love to work with friends. Yeah. 'cause they trust them, they have fun with them. And when you hear bigger, there's a lot of agencies that are, it's oh this brand and that agency are like that because of who's the CMO and who's the founder of that agency. And I think that's literally has been the secret for us too. It's our friends who we met at Ogilvy or all these amazing agencies who are now running brands or are consulting, that has been a, a huge sort of driver. To our long-term partnerships with clients.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 43:38

Yeah.

Roberto Max Salas 43:38

And then, a smaller percentage has been us winning pitches that we were invited because we got a little bit PR here and there that, or we made a campaign that a brand sort of wanted a similar vibe to it. but yeah, it's primarily through a network and I think that's honestly the best way to go about it. 'cause you don't need to be investing too much heavily or, or, or resources. Into things that you may have a, a smaller percentage to winning. So

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 44:03

absolutely. I always think the net you, you've gotta maximize the network first before you start going further a, a field than that. That's the way to, yeah, it's the way to do it the most easily and the most cost-effectively. And once you've kind of ticked that box off, and we often get clients who come to us who feel like they've exhausted their networks. And normally we take 'em through a process where they realize actually they haven't, but. And they've got stuff to do, and we give them a list of stuff to do. But then there is still the, the other work that you can start doing in the background. That means you're raising your awareness with new people, not just the people that you've worked with in the past, which I think is super important. But are you just on that, you mentioned, how people have seen some of the work that you've done and been kind of want something a bit like that. And I noticed when we spoke, you talk about a lot of big names that you've worked with, but not all of these. Campaigns are on your website, do you, does that hurt or help? And is there a rationale behind it, apart from you're just really nimble and you're moving fast?

Roberto Max Salas 45:01

I think we're just nimble. We're moving fast, and sometimes we don't have time to update. Which is the best reason for it? Or, or are things that Yeah. going back to having, wearing multiple hats and not having egos, I am the one that actually changes a lot of, and updates the website myself. did a friend right now where we're, and, and right now where we're doing, and putting a lot more emphasis is bringing our bulletin, which is our block back. because I'm making longer form of the content that I see that it's working or it's getting a lot of, engagement in my LinkedIn or the Young Hero LinkedIn, which we do have one of our younger creatives helping me with. she's incredible, especially at curating, talent and things like that. we're starting to do longer blog posts because I do see, every time I go back to the analytics of our website. Our work page is probably at the top, but then the next one is a random little event that we threw, for working, not working back in 2000, I don't know, 19 and things like that. It's what keeps the, the whole motor going there. So we're putting a lot more emphasis into our editorial platform just to share different, trends that we're seeing in the industry from brand from a marketing side, but also from our creator, cultural side of things. one of the posts that really resonated that we were sort of chatting a lot about in the beginning of the year. It's because we started to, to see how a lot of, for example, Timothy Chalamet, when he finished his, his movie tour, the production surprised him at Madison Square Garden with this giant projection, just thanking him and, and having people experience huge experiential activations, but in a solo sort of mode rather than with shared experiences with more people. Yeah. And we made a post around that. Another example was the Fred again. Listening session. That was just for little Yachty. There was not like hundreds of people there. And it was this incredible video and he just got, he just all of a sudden it was very raw and it was like with the entire sound system of a music venue. And he just started dancing like crazy, letting go of everything that they put into that song. And, and that got us a couple of really awesome emails just because we shared a perspective of where we could see that. Potential future of experiential, and we haven't seen a lot of those type of experiences yet. But, we definitely think it's some, so just sharing tips like that, that from the lens of young Hero in our community and my partners, a lot of the stuff I shared, it's things that Nick brought, brought, brings up or even Zoe brings up. so yeah, we offices on that.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 47:29

And so you said you, so your blog section's called The Bulletin and so it sounds like that's a big part of that is SEO reasons and just making the right, making sure the right stuff comes at kind of top in the Google search. Do you, we kind of touched on LinkedIn before. Do you use LinkedIn much in the business? I know you said your personal LinkedIn and also the, the company's LinkedIn. And when you do post on LinkedIn, are you linking through to external links or are you kind of keeping it on the platform?

Roberto Max Salas 47:55

No, I think right now their strategy is because, you know, my LinkedIn page has been around since I started in the industry or when, yeah, whenever LinkedIn opened up. So what I'm trying to do is just, bring people to the, to the young hero LinkedIn. That's right now the strategy, so we barely link outside links. If we do, it's to our bulletin board because we're sharing like, just like a quick one-liner of a bigger article that we are posting with our perspective on the industry. or if there's like a campaign that we just launched, like for example, the Serena, film that we did with Roe, and we're sharing it to the YouTube. Yeah. That, that would be the only reasons. yeah. And, and are you, yeah.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 48:35

Are you using LinkedIn newsletters at all?

Roberto Max Salas 48:38

We are not using LinkedIn newsletter. I feel like there's a whole LinkedIn world that we're not using. We also don't pay for LinkedIn yet.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 48:45

Yeah, yeah. No, fair enough. But I think LinkedIn newsletters are like one of the fastest ways to get cut through, and in front of people. And it doesn't stop you from posting something on LinkedIn as well, so Definitely. Right. It's just literally recycling the content through a different format. So yeah, I would, I would definitely go check that out. Okay. Amazing. Well, look, I wanna be respectful of your time and I know you're out in Ecuador celebrating your your daughter's second birthday, so I'm gonna leave you to it, Roberto, but I thank you so much for talking to us. Who should get in? Thank you,

Roberto Max Salas 49:13

Charlotte.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 49:14

Who should get in contact with you and how.

Roberto Max Salas 49:18

Well my email is Roberto at Young Hero Us or Info at, at Young Hero Us. and yeah, anybody that wants to chat creative or wants a quick, nimble campaign, you know, our team is super excited to just jump on projects and figure things out. Collaborative. Nick always say, you know, every brief is wet clay. We like to work together with our partners, to make some special things, and hopefully that is the case. For the next 10 years.

Charlotte Ellis Maldari 49:46

Fabulous. Well, all the best for it and thank you for speaking with us.

Roberto Max Salas 49:50

Thank you.