The Kind of Creativity That Doesn’t Fade - WORK Labs

Great creative work doesn’t happen by accident, it’s built on fundamentals. In this episode, Cabell Harris shares decades of perspective on how the creative industry has evolved and what actually separates meaningful work from noise. 

Key Takeaways

•  The difference between real positioning and “parity” messaging 
•  A simple framework for thinking about audience, message, and effectiveness 
•  Why the best creatives are ultimately problem solvers 
•  How branding goes far beyond ads and into every part of a business

Transcript

Russel 0:01

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner, turned Business coach. Sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Cabell Harris with Work Labs with us here today. Thanks so much for being on the show today, Cabell.

Cabell 0:38

Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Russel 0:40

Well, pleasure is all mine. Start us off, kick us off right outta the gate. Tell us what Work Labs does and who you do it for.

Cabell 0:47

Well, work Labs is, I've been around for quite a while, since 1993 with agencies starting in LA and we started off as the largest, smallest agency in the world. And we were positioned working more for ad agencies and being a resource to them. And we've gone through lots of different evolutions. I'm in Richmond, Virginia now. And the latest evolution as we transition is I'm focused more on building brands than I'm just on ads, and there's a lot that goes into that, a lot that we're doing. We're redoing our website right now with a whole different focus. If you go now to it, it's much more about portfolio and it's transitioning more to being as a brand architect and helping organizations and businesses out. So I can go into more detail about each of those, but

Russel 1:41

yeah,

Cabell 1:41

I won't know where to stop.

Russel 1:43

Right. Well, we'll get to all that. Um, sounds like some interesting work, and I imagine yes, quite the evolution given how long you've been in this business. So can't wait to hear all the insights you have to share there. But before we talk about all things business today, I'm just more interested in young Cabell, sounds like you've maybe been around the world a time or two. Where did you start out? What was the life of young Cabell like?

Cabell 2:07

Well, at my age you think I'm more remember.

Russel 2:10

I bet you do.

Cabell 2:12

No young Ka started thinking about advertising when I was in first grade, so I've been pretty focused. We had a guy at, at our church who was a commercial artist. They called him. And I've always liked creativity and looking at things and storytelling and narratives. And so what I, called myself saying, oh, okay, that's what I wanna do. Not really understanding what was involved, but I was focused on, art and storytelling. And I have like a lot of creatives, a lot of learning disabilities, you know, a DD dyslexia. Mm-hmm. So you overcompensate and I was focused early on. I was fortunate to, be in an ad town, especially at the time, this was early eighties, beginning of the eighties with. Richmond, Virginia was one of those pockets outside New York. There was Minneapolis, there was San Francisco, there was San Diego, Richmond, and then Charlotte, North Carolina. So we were one of'em that had some great agencies. The Martin Agency was there. Westbrook, Finnegan, ag Del Mattis, and it was a great, I mean, I was surrounded by mentors. I didn't even realize it. And there was also an advertising school. It was an art and design school, and the early cabell really still didn't know exactly what advertising was until, I think it was my beginning of my senior year. I went to the library and found some old art directors, annuals and some communication arts. Design annuals and advertising annuals and a whole world opened up to me and I had never seen this stuff before. I think that's the thing is, 95% of the stuff you see out there is really crap. I just went, oh, I love this. There would be a poster that might just be all copy, but the headline. Was such a great typeface that really said, showed the voice. There was a concept. I didn't even know what a concept really was, and I've been, I've been saying, man, I've been thinking everything my teachers have said, I've been taken as gospel. And I finally went back and started asking to see some of their work and they showed it to me and it was crap. That was a changing point where I said, okay, if somebody's teaching you something, go see if they can, you know, practice what they preach. So that's when I just immersed myself in the awards annuals. And I think most people at the time that did anything in marketing or advertising, that's how they learned was just, I know career directors would just, when somebody was starting off, they would just put a pile of books in front of them. Wow. And all of a sudden things start clicking. Then you start reading the index of who's doing good work. It wasn't just the agencies, it was, oh, there's a pattern with this individual. And so I started going to school on which agencies and individuals, and you get, it's like studying painting. And you could see there were really patterns. And so it was really exciting and I think. That's when you get self-taught and you're passionate about something, it's that discovery. And then you start first trying to mimic their styles and stuff. Then you put your own voice to it. But I was fortunate when I graduated, I got a job the day I graduated. This guy Reed Icart at Stuart Ford Agency, he told me, Ray, he goes, well, if you're looking for a job, we don't have one. But then I showed the portfolio and he goes, I wanna hire, it was a studio artist, you know? Went there and then I went to Martin Agency and then I got recruited to another agency in Richmond. Then went back to the Martin agency, then got recruited to New York, then to Boston, then back to, New York at Chiat. And then I went to another agency in LA and then I started my firm work in 1993. So to me, it feels like yesterday, I remember it, but I. That's Young Cabell.

Russel 6:13

So you remembered way more than you gave yourself credit for before, going down that path. And really what's, I don't know if this is just that,'cause I just came back from a trip to Europe and my wife was dragging me to art museums. I'll give a disclaimer here, caval. I'm not a, artist by any means. But it did just make me think of when you hear about these artistic periods over the year when you're kind of describing these hubs of agencies and particularly being in your area of Richmond the same way, right. All of these famous artists back in the day kind of gathered in the same areas, and collaborated and probably doing a lot of the same things that you were describing of sharing and showing work and leaning more on who's doing good work and I wanna go hang out with them more. And I don't know If that's just proximity to my recent trip or it really sounds like a very similar concept to how you're describing.

Cabell 6:59

What was that? I forgot that place. You know, house. They had this round table of writers in New York, uh, way back, but. Richmond was very, it was great there, in there. Mm-hmm. It was a healthy competitiveness within agencies and I remember we would meet at a bar at all, all the creatives and we would be helping each other. From different agencies as sounding boards and it's, you know, you could be an unhealthy community or a healthy community or agency that's healthy where people are sharing or people are covering their drawing boards. So this was really a healthy environment and I had great mentors, but um, I get exactly what you say in there and it's much less of that today. So,

Russel 7:43

Well, we've gotten so globalized, right? It's now these concept is happening in chat rooms and it's all over the place, but what a neat period just where the, the only way to figure this out was to gather in the same areas and collaborate and, and yeah, we just have a more digital version of that today. But speaking of which, mentors, that you're going down the path there. Is there one particular that stands out that says, you know what, this is the person or individual that really sharpened me, or is it really more a collective? How was that for you?

Cabell 8:11

Yeah. Uh, a couple. One I'd never met before, but, uh, bill Bernbach, he was, I, you know, I've read lots of stuff from him. He was the heart and the behind. Um. But when you read his stuff, it was so common sense. He would say, a lot of people talk about is marketing or art or a science, and he would say, well, it's the art of persuasion. You're not like an artist. You have to have an artistic ability, but you don't have a blank canvas. You have a. You have a, you have an assignment to do. And, um, so everything he said became a head nod to me. And so when you're forming your own opinion, it's really made of a lot of things that you believe, though, that people did before you. Another one was Harry Jacobs, who was at the Martin Agency and he was really the one creatively who made the Martin Agency. He brought a standard of work. And a lot of the processes, which I'm sure we'll talk about, I learned from there. I think Mike Hughes said something to me. He was another creative director there who was, Harry's first big hire. He told me once, he said, Campbell, think about any agency that you admire or admire. He said, don't tell me who They're, he says, I guarantee you they had a creative principle that is doing good work or did good work. It was absolutely true. Anybody I thought of, you had to have somebody who set the standard and that's where the industry changed a lot. I noticed soon after I got in the business, there were more people merging and buying businesses that didn't know how anything about how to create their product.

Russel 10:03

It's funny just as you're saying that, and it's not necessarily surprising, but it just made me think of. Why? I think so many agencies back in the day were a name. And maybe that just speaks to that they were the sole creative, or the, at least the chief creative and the whole thing that the business was built around. And that certainly, as you said, evolved to where we're at today.

Cabell 10:26

You know, a big, uh, example of that is you take Minneapolis. Great Ad town and Martin agency and or the Richmond in Minneapolis were growing at the same time. But you had to and oh boy, I can't think of his name, his partner. You can look at the family tree and you start seeing. Influenced.

Russel 10:50

Mm-hmm.

Cabell 10:51

And it's amazing when you look at this, at any creative community, how Ronnie created, you know, the people that came there, Berlin. Yeah, it, it's fascinating. You have to train people almost.

Russel 11:06

Yeah. It's almost kinda like the sports world, right? I think you can go back and however many years ago and look at a Nick Saban team and the assistant coaching staff and everything below them and look at where all they are at, today. Yeah. Head coaches, national championship winners and all that. And it sounds like the creative space has not been that different from that perspective.

Cabell 11:26

Yeah, you're right. It's like growing a creative community.

Russel 11:30

Well, going back to even when you first got into advertising and this just awakening of knowledge and studying and finding out who's doing the best work, what a journey that must have been, and obviously sounds like you've worked at some good firms. At what point did you decide, I'm gonna go out on my own? What did that look like?

Cabell 11:45

Well, I was, uh, 35. I was unhappy. Where I was working. Um, and I was, I'd always been curious, you know, it's scary going out on Yang, but at 35 I said, well, if I don't do it now, when am I gonna do it?

Russel 12:01

Mm-hmm.

Cabell 12:02

And I started going, well, how would I be different? Um, and what does the industry need? And this was one of those downturns and the economy. And so problem solving, I just said, agencies still need high talent. They just can't afford it. So that's why I said I'll be an agency for agency and they would bring me in or I would come in for a briefing and then I would go assemble the team. It might be just me or it might be several people dependent. But it was always the worst case scenario but they would bring me in on either three, usually three situations when an account was in trouble, when they ran out of time on a project or it was a new business pitch. Times, times all those that's the worst time to work on something. And usually you had an average about two weeks, to come through. And the thing is, if you come through, they're gonna probably extend it. You're a hero. And so that's, you have to work quick. You can't turn stuff down. So I started developing different processes and templates where I could spend more time thinking and less time designing. So you could get, oh, do we have a concept here? They're not wasting time.

Russel 13:21

How did you enjoy it? Is this kind of high stakes, high pressure environment either, either make or break and like you said, coming in at maybe some of the most high pressured intense times that, an agency gonna have. Like what was that exhilarating for you? Was that, uh, maybe there's,

Cabell 13:36

oh, very much. I think a lot of people, most people don't go out and freelance mm-hmm. Unless they've lost their job. Uh, this was definitely a choice. Fortunately I've never been let go, but um, this was what I wanted to do and this was something I have. I think this is my a DD or a DHD, all that. I like working on several projects at once. It almost helps me because I need to step away from one, and if I step to another so often I'll be working on that. But it gives me a thought for this. So there's a certain amount I could juggle. Work on if I needed some other help, I had a great network around the country I could bring in. But I would usually guide, I would really creative direct, and I would have a direction, because I didn't wanna hire freelance either, unless I had to.

Russel 14:24

And then how long, I mean, how long would for this sort of kind of, uh, crisis, uh, superhero model, how long were you doing that for?

Cabell 14:35

The industry started changing right around, I guess 2000 or right before that with the dot coms. And people started coming to me asking if I would do their business, you know?

Russel 14:46

And, um,

Cabell 14:47

it was hard to turn down. That wasn't what I ever started for. And I started saying yes, but in two years, all those dotcoms were outta business. And I had built up a staff. I, gosh, shoot, what do I do now? And what happens the more you do the model I did. You're not producing as much.'cause a lot of the stuff is for those situations. Usually even when you win a pitch, you're not doing the work that won the pitch. And so, and then you're not entering the award shows with that because the agency is, they don't even wanna give you recognition. So over a period of time, you start losing your marketability. For people knowing that, that you're out there. That's one reason I've done a lot of my own branding work for like work, beer, work, coffee, you know, we created a lot of stuff for ourselves, but still award shows. I thought I had proven what I needed. There and it costs so much money, you know, to continue doing that. And it's great in your early career, I dunno what it does to your career unless somebody else is paying for it. Um, and it used to be the agencies. Would, um, would call for specific creatives, you know, Hey, we need Mark Fitz in here, or we need Cabell in here, or somebody else now. And that was a creative director making that decision. Now it's human resources. Just say, we need some meat in here.

Russel 16:13

Mm-hmm.

Cabell 16:14

And they usually want a young team and they have a price point that is, is you get what you for

Russel 16:22

sure. I mean, it's just interesting to hear, you know, it's a different. Certainly talked to a lot of folks that have been around in a while, but that's just another interesting perspective of hearing the history of the evolution of, of the advertising, marketing space. And it makes sense, right? I think that is a challenge. A lot of agencies, you know, especially in the more modern era where white labeling feels really good at the beginning because it's giving you opportunities, it's getting you at the gate, but. You're not investing, you're not getting to showcase your work. You're not getting to necessarily invest in your own brand as much. Uh, you're always kind of behind the scenes. Okay. And that can be a hard thing to transition or scale, especially when, I don't know if maybe what you're describing there is when opportunities start to dry up due to economic uncertainty or things like that. What then? Yeah, essentially.

Cabell 17:10

Well, Rick Boyko, um, he was co-president of Ogilvy North America. And he started something that was interesting. He realized how much of their agency used freelance, but they were hidden or they weren't the best people. So he went out to these boutique ed agencies around the country and he formed this thing called the Syndicate. And we represented below, I guess the southeast, all the way to Texas. But he had other ones in there. And we did more work just because that was their model to work for agencies. I think, um, other agencies, they did it as, oh, here's a project or two, but they weren't excited that like we were. But I think it was really smart of Rick because then he could bring those agencies in front of their clients. Of them. And so same thing. Sometimes when they needed a, some fresh thinking or the same three situations, he could bring in a syndicate and announce it, get PR for it. So that was really smart. Him, I think. I love

Russel 18:22

the transparency.

Cabell 18:23

Yeah. But the people at the agency, you know, it's a double-edged sword. A lot of the other creatives feel threatened by it. Um. So you try to win them over too, so,

Russel 18:37

yeah. Well, luckily, I was born in The agency world. It was slightly after the onset of the digital era. And it did seem like there was just this long period of where everybody was wanting to claim the entirety of the marketing services for potential clients and clients out there. And then now we're starting to swing the pendulum back towards specializing specialty, which, you know, I'm hoping is gonna get back to this. Certainly a lot more collaboration era where everyone sort of finds their lane of what they're good and best in, and knowing full well that clients probably need more than just them. And yeah, bringing a suite of people together rather than trying to be the be all and end all for clients.

Cabell 19:18

If I could say, I think the full service agency is disappearing. Because reality is you can't be best of class in a lot of different things.

Russel 19:32

Yeah.

Cabell 19:32

And if you try to be a full service and you stack it all up, that's a lot of overhead. And the reality is clients do not have as many retainers that they do. They wanna do more project. You can't really run an agency with a lot of people without knowing what income you have coming in. Agencies are doing more and paying for less. You know, they do their own media. They might do, you know, their own strategy, their focus groups. It used to be everybody, you know, back in nineties or uh, early two thousands. They wanna know how big you are, how many people do you have, and they looked at that as a positive. Now that's seen as a negative. Nobody wants to see 10 people from the agencies with taking notes and looking at a PowerPoint and charging them.

Russel 20:25

Yeah.$5,000 meetings get

Cabell 20:26

expensive real fast. Yeah. That's why they said, Hey, I think we could do this. Somebody's just, it's like, you know, having 10 lawyers in a room, you know? Yeah. So a lot of things have changed. I don't think they'll change back. But what you start seeing is those large agencies start buying different. Types of services.

Russel 20:48

Yep, yep. Definitely a lot of activity in the m and a space and some conglomeration there, in the last few years. Well, what you described back at the beginning of where you're at today, I think the words you might use is brand architect or something like that. Like, is this the sweet spot of where you've been evolving to all these years or how did you come to this and well, and why is this the best fit for you today?

Cabell 21:12

Well, I love, I think what I've done and what I do is a bit different, I think most creatives out there think about advertising and they think about paid media and they think I do an ad. I talked to Alex Bogusky one time and he said something which really stuck with me and how he looked at it. He goes, I always wanna be and play as if I'm the client. What would I do if I was a client? Of course you wanna understand and get all the knowledge about the company and what this, CEO's vision is, is thinking about. But then you have to step back and you don't approach it as advertising. So what I started looking at was every agency is at a critical stage. I feel like my role is to help them get to their next critical stage. And if you do that, then there'll be another critical stage. So. I think also I really love everything where I'm more well-rounded in the sense of packaging design. I lead with strategy. I don't start doing creative till I figure out, I look at my process. I'll tell you about that in a minute. That really has changed. Um. But I'll do everything as I'll look at brands as conscience, brand as internal communications. Brand is identity, brand is technology, brand is packaging, brand is innovation. And when I approach it that way, I have like 20 things I may think about. It makes me do a lot more thinking and brand things, to the table. I think also I like doing brand. I handle things. I'll do a brand exploratory, almost like for a client. I'll do a roadmap where I'm working on their brand of where it could go so they could see it, and then you could break it into stages. It's kind of like building a house without having a blueprint.

Russel 23:09

Yeah. Well it's funny, and I've probably mentioned this in past episodes before and, and I think young entrepreneur, Russell and right, we were a web focused company, so didn't really come up in the kind of creative brand art type background, but I didn't understand or appreciate. The meaning of what a brand was and is, so I'm always a sponge when we talk about brand concepts. How that should look in the world. And yeah, I imagine, I imagine we could probably have a seven part podcast series, from your experience in that. But maybe in a more concise view. One of the things that I always notice about anybody that's been in this game a long time is you've. Had to become a master of the fundamentals. When you think about that for you and your experience in your career, what are the fundamentals that have kept you in the game and playing at a high level this long?

Cabell 24:01

I have five things I always adhere to. It's really important is, and usually the client. Right away. You might help them through this, but everybody who is either starting a business, it's just not an advertise, but any communications you have to first think about who is your target, who's the audience. That's number one. Most people have several audience. It might be B2C, business to business. It might be their internal audience. That's one that a lot of business leaders don't even think about. You know they're own staff. So you list all the possible audiences you may be talking to. And then number two is what's your position? That means, what do you wanna tell them? Each one of those audiences. And there should be an umbrella position too, but there might be different positionings for those individual audiences. The third thing, and this is important, it's the third thing, is how do you tell them? And that's the creative. There's too many people that lead with creative, and I don't know how you do that without knowing who you're talking to or what you wanna tell them. Then you're just coming up with gimmicks or, Hey, this makes me laugh. The fourth thing is where do you tell them? and that's the medium, is it a email blast? Is it an ad? Is it a, point of sale? Is it packaging? What is it? And the last one is really important. A lot of people don't give much thought to is, was it effective? The results. Because if you don't think about that in the beginning, sometimes you can't tell at the end because let's say it's awareness. Well, how are you gonna judge if your work and your communications made awareness unless you plan for it upfront testing. You, what's the awareness before we start this? But that's what I would follow. And for anybody starting a business, any CEOs or business owners organization, the number one question they need to think about is why does it matter that they exist? And that's a very hard one for people to answer.

Russel 26:14

That is so true. I'm a big believer and I think a big catalyst for the growth in our business was establishing and answering that question of, purpose and position and why, why the heck are we doing this for? And it was so impactful. But then I definitely see where public deserves a lot more attention than it typically gets in the everyday business world. But just a shout out and a call out there. I'd like to piggyback what you're saying for anyone listening that, um, really establishing that living by that, it's gonna do well for you. And then what I love about this is where, this is why I love fundamentals, because. Everything you shared there from, audience to results, it's time tested. It doesn't matter how technology is changing or the new mediums or the new tactics and things like that, it's still the same process to go through. And whatever is the current or whatever exists today or is necessary is gonna be filled in the gaps there. Gaps. But it, it's standing the test of time.

Cabell 27:12

Uh, Russell, I'd love to tell you just a quick story. No,

Russel 27:16

please.

Cabell 27:16

Um, I was at shy a day and we were pitching, I think it was a, um, brokerage house or something like that, and it was gonna be three weeks to the pitch. Well, the strategist needed two weeks to do all their research, and they finally came back and they said, what we stand for, what this brand stands for is we'll make a customized. Portfolio around you. Now, that wasn't not true. The problem is if you ever worked in financial clients, they usually say one of all of three things. It's location, it's local autonomy means the decisions are made here in this branch or company. And the most common one is tailored made services. So we wasted two weeks coming back with something, which is a parody statement, that all their competition does the same thing. It's like gonna a wealth manager, well what wealth management individual doesn't come back and say, we're making a portfolio around you, so we're going, that's not gonna do anything. So you have to come up with something else. So, or, or say, why you do it better?

Russel 28:37

They're simple questions, but it asks the right questions that's going to ultimately pull out what's unique about that company, which to the whole point. If you don't ask those questions or jump to the conclusion too soon, you'll just sounds like you just start to look like everybody else and. That's not good. Not not good advertising, not good branding, not good marketing. However you wanna bucket that no matter what year we're talking about. Yeah.

Cabell 29:00

You know, that's, um, love it. Interesting Russell. And that's what I was getting back to Martin, I was taught really what makes their product different. It wasn't until I went up to shy a day and they did a lot of image advertising, I realized that's because it's. It's like Nike is a parody product. They don't talk about how great their shoes are made. It's like Budweiser in middle of life. They don't talk about who has the best, uh, hops or barley. So you had to think about if you're a parody product, it's more about how do you feel about that brand, you know? And, but you, a lot of times, and what I think I'm good at now is knowing. About product differences or this should be image advertising.

Russel 29:52

cause

Cabell 29:52

sometimes you can try to force so hard to find a difference. It's not that big of a difference.

Russel 29:57

Interesting. It's funny is one of the other questions I was thinking about is the results piece and would totally agree with you that I think, again, we're evolving here with the niching and some of the focus specialization and things like that, that it's more about producing results and being effective than it is just providing a service. But results can be tricky. And I just think of a lot of client work we used to do is, clients will tell you the end result, right? More money, more clients, more customers. But we know that to get more money, more clients, more customers, it's not just pasting your site or whatever medium with click here, buy now, and, blasting the customer in that sense that it's a lot more nuanced. So how have you managed, regardless of the medium, to ensure that we're measuring the right result, but we're also doing the right path? That's. Get, that's not necessarily always A to B.

Cabell 30:52

Yeah, well sometimes you need to do combination punches, it's just not doing a jab each time. I look at a lot Of core brand advertising and you see the agencies that have the brand will spend all their money on image, but then the local dealerships, all they wanna see is results. They do stuff that's not as exciting, but get'em in here. Get'em in here. And a lot of times the agency has the account, does one or the other. You really need to do both. So you have to just really put yourself in the shoes with the more you find out about that audience. For example, again, if you know about car advertising, people don't pay much attention to it until they're thinking about buying a car. You know? And then they wanna study everything they can get their hands on. And that's the fun, putting yourself in those shoes. You know, either go to the dealership and some of it's image and some of it's kind of like we're having a sale. Yeah. But you still have to do it in a inviting way and try to find that disruptive. What makes it different.

Russel 32:11

Not to say, you know, right. In a very complicated world, it can be tough to maybe ultimately determine to siphon through the noise. Like do I love the boxing analogy? Do I need a 3, 2, 1 combo or is this a oh 3, 4 1 2? Yeah. Or left, left jab or, or upper jab. Right. Um, and you know, I think just more embracing, probably that's part of the process is you have to. Do the experimentation and the work to figure out what is gonna be the best combo. And you might not, and probably not, and maybe should not get it out right out of the gate, but be wanting, set the client up for that. This is an experimentation, but be willing to go through that process.

Cabell 32:51

You know, a great example, getting back to bar heads, how many times like a common strategy for is enjoyment to drive, right? And you'll see. Shot where it has a zigzag road and a car is just going down it and they're going zoom, zoom, zoom, or you know, but you've seen it so many times a certain way. I remember Volkswagen did, uh, what is it? What is that car? It was a convertible car. Yeah. I don't

Russel 33:22

know. I'm

Cabell 33:23

a car

Russel 33:23

guy

Cabell 33:24

in there. But they showed four people in the car late at night. They were going down, I mean slowly nose fast thing, and they were looking up at the stars and everything. It was beautiful. And they had this great song. It was Pink Moon, A Blue Moon. I forgot the song. It's instrumental, but it's beautiful. And it showed them pull in and I don't, it was amazing how it was just like a three second, four second shot, and you could tell it was a cake party. Some guy ran out of the house kind of like waving his arms and they just all kind of looked at each other and gave a, and they backed up and kept driving. And to me they made you feel enjoy to drive. And it was, that was a strategy, but they did it in such an execution that they, it's always a solution in there. So,

Russel 34:23

It makes me think of good marketing, good anything good experience. Just make me feel it. Don't tell me, make me feel it. Right? Yeah. I think of just so many, you know, if I think of like movies and TV shows today where the bad ones just tell you everything that's going on in everyone's head all the time and it's like, ah, you're not doing anything for me. But, you know, the, some of the best actors are right when they can evoke all that emotion just by staring at the camera in a certain way.

Cabell 34:47

You're right. I mean, the best brands make you feel something.

Russel 34:49

Yeah.

Cabell 34:50

You know, Nike makes you feel like an athlete, even though 80% of people buy them, buy'em for fashion.

Russel 34:55

Mm-hmm.

Cabell 34:56

Apple makes you feel like you're a creative person. Could change the world, you know? It's a great tool for you, you know? Um, dove makes you feel like you're beautiful. That's a good meter to always think you're gonna be stronger if you get some emotion in there too.

Russel 35:12

That's funny. You know, you know, I, I tend to be a pragmatic, logical fellow at least I think, like, to think I am, but at the end of the day, I buy on emotion, uh, just as much as anyone else. And really generally all buying is emotion. Just like you're saying what it makes you feel. But when you see that at a magnificent level, like you're talking about Nike, I mean, they, I just think of. Back in the day when I was a kid, you had maybe at any given time there was one or two cool pair of shoes that you might have or own. And that was it. That was the market.

Cabell 35:40

Yeah.

Russel 35:40

And then today, right. Nike's with the customization, there's this whole shoe game and I don't even pretend to know, uh, anything that's going on about it, but I mean, it's wild what that brand and that feeling is, is now evoked in sort of a transformation of an industry. Yeah. Huh? Well, this has been absolutely fascinating, Kabul. Love the conversation so much experience and again, just always love a conversation where it just highlights the power of fundamentals that stand the test of time. So I guess maybe one future forward question for you is, what's the next phase of your career look like? What's the big plan with all this?

Cabell 36:18

Um, well, the big plan for me is. I'm very entrepreneurial. I started a separate LLC called Big Thinkers Brainstorming Idea Company, where I have so many different concepts that blown out. Some are little novelty things, some are small business, some are, could be humongous. So part of what I'm doing is. Being a champion of brands and building brands and not startups in the sense of people who look at, oh, we don't have enough money to do a logo. You know? Um, but it's really finding people that. Or serious about if they are starting a brand, they're more al already like a CEO level and they wanna do something or expand their brand. So my website, I might have something called the Brand Foundry. Now my help brands, I also have brands already built to go, they already thought out. Now I have some examples on there. I don't know anybody who's working more ad agencies or more brands than I have, and I have everything from healthcare to insurance, to spirits to everything that I've thought through. So I have some brands ready to go or if you have something in mind, I can help you incubate that and think of it all the way through I've also embraced AI quite a bit and how I use it, I think of it as not artificial intelligence by itself. I did a formula saying it's AI plus human intelligence. Collaborative intelligence. And I think AI is only as good as the people using it. Ain't that the truth? You really have to work it and it's a great tool. And I know, and that's either visually or with copy or strategies or anything. I know a lot of people, it is scary. But it's not going anywhere. But if you don't embrace it, you're gonna be left behind. But it's a great tool and creatives. Have a long history of taking technology and figuring it out and taking it farther, and I thought AI was gonna make me less creative. It's making me more creative. Mm-hmm. Because anything I can think, I can make it happen. I love having a discussion about ai, how I see where it's going and it's changing constantly, so,

Russel 38:50

Definitely. No, usually those two letters get brought up just about every podcast session these days and, certainly talk of the town, but I, I'm 100% camp with you of, it's a tool, a powerful tool, like any tool in the world, it's about leverage and, those that do will improve and succeed and those that don't will go a different direction, we'll say.

Cabell 39:12

You have to more knowledge about categories and things, you know when you go, that doesn't sound quite right. You can't take it as gospel. You have to.

Russel 39:21

Absolutely. Well, last big question then for you Cabell, are entrepreneurs born or are they made?

Cabell 39:30

I think it's both. Um, I'm surprised there weren't more entrepreneurs out there in our creative field. But I think they're starting to realize they have the toolkits now where they can be, I think people who get outta school so often will just sit on their portfolio, not keep growing it. I mentioned before, people don't ask how many people you have, I would encourage everybody, make yourself your own brand. Give it a name, follow the same thing you would for a client. You can create a website, you can create a product you have on demand, even if nothing happens with it, you learning in, you're growing and it may take off. Are you building something? So I think it would be tougher. Years ago and take a lot more resources. If you wanna start one or be an entrepreneur, you can, I mean, the best creatives are problem solvers. Go find a need, go solve a problem. Go, go create something. You know,

Russel 40:33

I, I take that very unique take on. Be an entrepreneur, create your own brand, whether you decide to sell your service to a single company for a W2 paycheck, or whether you sell it to multiple people or however you ultimately, create that. But that, that's really great advice. Regardless of, yeah, whether you have your own LLC or not at the end of the day. Um, how Well, awesome. Great advice. Great there. Work, doing work, labs and everything else. Where can they go?

Cabell 41:12

Uh, website, as I said, I haven't done much with it for several years. It's really a portfolio, mainly site, but it's work labs.com. If contact me they can do info at Work Labs or go to, you know, email me cabell c ae LL work labs com and that would be, uh, the best way.

Russel 41:37

Well. Gosh, Calwell, thank you so much today. Just given walking down history lane about the evolution of the creative space and how you've navigated that journey, and certainly most importantly, about keeping it to the fundamentals and focus on results, focus on audience and maybe most important overall creative solve problems, and that's what our goal and job is in this space. I really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.