HOOK, Line, and Success: Building a Lifestyle Brand

From ripping out Yellow Pages to designing iconic logos, Brady Waggner's marketing journey embodies the creative hustle that defines success in the industry. As co-founder and executive creative director of HOOK, Brady brings a refreshing perspective to brand development that goes beyond traditional approaches.

Brady's story begins in Minnesota as the son of an advertising executive during the waning days of the Mad Men era. Growing up surrounded by markers, tear sheets, and creative energy in his father's agency housed in the Pillsbury Mansion sparked a lifelong passion. After studying advertising journalism at the University of Kansas – a foundation he credits for teaching him how to uncover brand truths through effective questioning – Brady made his way to Charleston with a simple philosophy: "I want to work where I want to live, not live where I want to work."

HOOK's approach to marketing centers on creating surprise and relevance – "If it's different, they'll notice, and if it's relevant, they'll listen." This philosophy has guided their work with lifestyle brands, particularly in the beverage industry where they've helped importers position European products for American consumers. One of their standout projects includes creating the iconic fish hook logo for HUK performance fishing apparel by cleverly turning the "U" into a hook shape – a simple yet brilliant solution that has become ubiquitous in the fishing community.

In an exciting development, HOOK was recently acquired by Pixel, a Nashville-based agency establishing roots in Charleston. Rather than forcing a complete rebrand, they're taking a thoughtful approach that respects established brand equity while creating collective offerings. Beyond his agency work, Brady has co-authored "Street Tricks," a book blending his father's advertising career with brand development insights, and performs in The Dubplates, a reggae band that reached #1 on the Billboard charts.

Want to hear more about creative marketing approaches that stand out in today's crowded marketplace? Subscribe to the Charleston Marketing Podcast for conversations with innovators who are redefining what it means to connect brands wit

Transcript

Meeting Brady Wagner of Hook

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the Lowcountry home. They live here, work here and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together.

Speaker 2 0:28

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast. This is Mike Compton, your Charleston American Marketing Association current president.

Speaker 3 0:37

How about that? How about that Also?

Speaker 2 0:39

president of Roomba rmboco, Check us out, and I'm here with a past president co-host, co-sponsor, co-producer.

Speaker 3 0:49

All the things, all the things I wear, all the hats. What's up, guys? Stephanie Barrow oh look at him hey, three years later he always mispronounces my name. So I'm here for it. He's got it down. What's we?

Speaker 2 1:00

got what's go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 3 1:02

I'm Steph Stephanie Barrow just so you heard that you know who that is Founder of? Stephanie Barrow Consulting, a marketing agency here in Charleston, and we have another fellow marketer with us today.

Speaker 2 1:12

This guy, this guy is legit.

Speaker 3 1:15

I'm excited.

Speaker 2 1:15

Yeah, yeah, author, now too, We'll talk about that. Yep, yep, we've got the co-founder and executive creative director of Hook. Yes, brady.

Speaker 3 1:24

Wagner what's up, brady? I like the cap you're rocking. He's got a really excellent style. Just PS Like he's got really cool kicks.

Speaker 2 1:34

Tattoos.

Speaker 3 1:35

And tattoos and a hat, and so he's got swag.

Speaker 1 1:39

Hold on, dude, shut up.

Speaker 2 1:44

He's got a lightsaber. Oh, our engineer, matthew, matthew just geeked out this is awesome this is not a Star Wars podcast pretty cool, though I was wondering what that was, and he noticed it right away. He's asking they're asking specific questions on which?

Speaker 5 2:03

this is Obi-Wan, but I will also accept Luke from Return of the Jedi. Wow.

Speaker 2 2:09

Wow His green blade. My mind is blown right now. Matthew, do you want to switch spots?

Speaker 3 2:15

I'll dial it in and out, yeah no, matthew's taking over.

Speaker 2 2:20

He has pulled rank the Star Wars.

Speaker 3 2:22

That is so cool.

Speaker 2 2:23

That's never happened before, where you got called out by the exact dad too that you have Rank has been pulled.

Speaker 3 2:30

Yes, rank has been pulled. My Star Wars knowledge is the extent of going to the Disney parks. So there's that.

Speaker 2 2:37

Yeah, that was fun.

Speaker 3 2:38

I took pictures with the fake lightsaber.

Speaker 2 2:39

I guess we'll take that. You'll take it right, have you been?

Speaker 3 2:45

Matthew doesn't like disney apparently.

Speaker 5 2:47

Yeah, anyways, hey, matthew, nobody, we're excited to have brady in the house today happy to segue into star wars at any time there you go there you go um. Hey, brady, where you from? I'm from edina, minnesota no kidding yeah I like the accent yeah, a whole lot of hockey up there Now.

Speaker 2 3:05

I'm from Detroit. So I understand about the hockey. You know it. Do you play hockey?

Speaker 5 3:10

Born frozen bleed purple Still thawing out.

Speaker 3 3:16

Still thawing out.

Speaker 2 3:17

When did you guys move down?

Speaker 5 3:19

So I was born In 1976 In Hennepin County Hospital in Edina Minnesota.

Speaker 3 3:27

What time?

Speaker 5 3:29

I think it was in the afternoon, okay. All right, I think it was like three-ish yeah.

Speaker 3 3:34

Something like that.

Speaker 5 3:34

What about you, Steph?

Speaker 3 3:36

I was born. Oh, I could tell you when my kid was born.

Speaker 4 3:38

I don't know what time I was born, I don't know.

Speaker 3 3:40

I was born in Norfolk General Hospital in Virginia, that's quite a cool place.

Speaker 2 3:45

She's not putting a date on there.

Speaker 3 3:46

It was December 4th 1979.

Speaker 1 3:51

Oh, that's not old at all. What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 3:54

And yeah, no, I'm good and nope, my daughter was born at June 23rd 2015 at 846 pm.

Speaker 2 4:03

There you go.

Speaker 3 4:04

I got a lovey in her room embroidered with the date Just so I don't forget.

Speaker 2 4:08

That's just smart right there. You're welcome, so 76. I'm 78. Saginaw, michigan.

Speaker 3 4:13

I'm almost 80. I'm December baby, just throwing it out there I'm on the cusp what's our generation called.

Speaker 2 4:19

We're Gen.

Speaker 5 4:20

X.

Speaker 3 4:20

X Okay.

Speaker 2 4:21

Proud, and then they kind of subcategorize. I'm on the threshold Of zillineals is what they were calling us Zillineals? I'll take it. It's like between 78 and 82.

Speaker 3 4:29

I'm going to come back with like a big zillineal tattoo and we're going to be like Do you find a lot of Gen X tendencies there, Brady?

Speaker 5 4:37

Oh, tons of them.

Speaker 2 4:38

Yeah.

Speaker 5 4:39

Yeah, and I identify you're 76?, 78. 78, yeah, so I mean we're close. I'm on the. Yeah, the meat and potatoes of Gen X is like the Patton Oswalt sort of Jack Black. Okay, ice Cube.

Speaker 3 5:03

We had good music Dre. Yes.

Speaker 5 5:05

Those like there's like the goal posts are sort of like that attitude yeah exactly Sort of alternative gangster.

Speaker 3 5:14

You have a little swag about you, uh-huh, thank you. A little Gen X confidence, yeah, a little Gen X confidence, my last name's Compton, so I ruled the dance floor Straight out of Compton.

Speaker 5 5:22

I kind of had to back then in middle school Compton, so I ruled the dance floor.

Speaker 2 5:23

I kind of had to back then in middle school.

Speaker 5 5:25

I had a hat with your last name on it that I ordered out of the back of Straight Outta Compton. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 5:30

I also have that hat. Why don't you wear that hat? I think you should rock that one. It's dirty. I gotta get a new one.

Speaker 2 5:34

Yeah, we'll get you a new one. I like hats, I like that hat too.

Speaker 5 5:37

And for the record people, we're not talking about the record that you could get thrown out of a McDonald's for having.

Speaker 2 5:46

That's true, that sounds like a true story.

Speaker 3 5:48

Like that's something that's happened to you.

Speaker 5 5:49

Yeah, you could get thrown out of a car.

Speaker 3 5:51

Oh.

Speaker 5 5:52

You could get thrown into a cop car. Oh, true yeah.

Speaker 3 5:56

I mean you're right, this man's talking like he's speaking from experience. It took a minute I'm talking about the PMRC.

Speaker 5 6:01

I'm talking about Tipper Gore.

Speaker 2 6:03

You know what I'm saying Parental advisory You're right.

Speaker 3 6:06

Parental advisory.

Speaker 2 6:06

You're exactly right, it took a while.

Speaker 3 6:08

Now it's explicit when we're streaming my daughter's like I can't listen to that. I want to listen to explicit. I'm like okay, no, sabrina Carpenter for you.

Speaker 5 6:15

We just connected a lot of dots. Yeah, we did brands colors have always been silver and black. It's because of my affinity for, you know, the early nwa you ever. Really I really like your logo. Thank you, you've had that from day one. Yep, yeah, when tom and I were talking about starting hook, um, we were freelancing out of our briefcases and briefcases.

Speaker 3 6:43

Did you have Palm Pilot?

Speaker 5 6:44

I actually put my laptop in an old school tool box that you can still buy at Lowe's. It's like about this big and it's perfectly sized and has foam in it already. So I used to carry that thing around like.

Speaker 3 6:56

That's amazing. Briefcase, yeah, so like you have money in it. That's amazing.

Speaker 5 7:01

Yeah, it does. It looks like that is a vibe, like you've robbed a bank and you're just walking around with the money now. Right, there you go, like Elwood Blues.

Speaker 2 7:09

Okay, so we interrupted you Back in 78, right, you were born. That's great. It's a great start to the story of Brady. When did you move down here?

Speaker 5 7:29

What was your journey like to find King Street? So my, I went to the university of kansas, yes, escaped from minnesota to lawrence kansas and I was trying to get away from hockey, essentially because I was like hockey was sort of my. My job got to be kind of like a job in my life.

Speaker 5 7:38

I grew up in a hockey factory kind of, and I was like hey, kansas would be way different okay, eight hours southwest break the cycle yeah, so we rolled down there and um, while I was at KU, um becoming a basketball fan you know, learning how to do that.

From Minnesota to Charleston

Speaker 5 7:56

My folks moved to Beaufort, south Carolina, okay, and, um, my mom and dad were just taking a kind of a vacation and they drove, tried to drive through all the states in the south that they had never really spent much time in and they sort of happened onto Beaufort, I think, because they had fallen in love with the movie the Big Chill and they wanted to go see where.

Speaker 5 8:17

That is a great movie, yeah, yeah, and that was kind of the baby boomer hit movie because it had all the tunes in it and everything, and they stopped there and I can't remember if they had car trouble or if they, you know.

Speaker 3 8:32

They're like this is fate. This is where we need to be.

Speaker 5 8:34

But yeah, they stopped on Bay Street in Beaufort and were like what if we just moved here? And so they started looking at houses and they found one of this Vince Graham little neighborhood that he had started called new point, and they moved, they moved there and then my mom ended up um, my dad was pseudo retired and he started doing watercolors at the end of the street and drew buildings into a space where there weren't buildings and the developer from the from the neighborhood was like what are you doing?

Speaker 5 9:04

you know, and he had this easel set up and stuff and he's like I'm painting these buildings and he goes you want to build those buildings and then so they my dad became a developer come on, work like that I think it does silly right wow dreaming big, out there just doing his thing sounds really like bs but no, that is really a cool story yeah, and so my mom ran a little.

Speaker 5 9:26

Uh store there what kind of? Store. New point corner store. Yeah, it was like a general store that sold everything from rubber sharks to fancy wine and like take home dinners and stuff like that. So it was kind of like a little mini grocery store. But really her mo, she's a, she was a second grade teacher, him and all she kids, so she was kind of just wrangling all the neighborhood kids and having fun with them but then selling, you know, lasagna to people.

Speaker 3 9:54

That's cool.

Speaker 5 9:55

And wine and fancy little trinkets and cool stuff. It was a great store.

Speaker 2 10:00

So circa when was this?

Speaker 5 10:03

That was like 96, 7. Sure, so I fell in love with Beaufort and then was visiting there during the summertime and you know, sitting on a sandbar and you know, reading a book, drinking a beer, and then having to go back to Kansas, I was like I'm not going to stay.

Speaker 2 10:21

Why would we go up here? Why am I living up here in the north Right? No offense northerners not gonna stay. Why would we go up here? Why am I living up here in the north right? No offense, northerners, I did my best to recruit yeah, there's this place called charleston, south carolina.

Speaker 5 10:30

You guys gonna go visit it because I had heard about charleston not too far from beaufort, perfect distance, about an hour and a half yep, so you've been here a minute now ripped out two or three pick. We stayed at the meeting street and I, to visit, ripped out the advertising section of the Yellow Pages, put it in my book bag, brought it back to Kansas and about every month I would call everybody in that section and just cold call them and the Yellow Pages, the hustle, I love it.

Speaker 2 10:57

Do you all remember Yellow Pages?

Speaker 3 10:58

Oh yeah, the.

Speaker 1 10:58

Yellow Pages.

Speaker 3 10:59

I still got them, you have the pages, the pages ripped out.

Speaker 5 11:03

That would be pretty sweet If you're a designer, you got to be a pack rat, right.

Speaker 3 11:06

That's cool. You need to frame that and put it in your office For real, it's in a box called frame these.

Speaker 5 11:10

Frame these, I like that.

Speaker 2 11:13

Yeah, that's an amazing story, so late 90s then is when you found it right away.

Speaker 5 11:24

And my kind of whatever you call it mantra started to become like I want to not live where I want to work, I want to work where I want to live, you know. And so I changed my necessity as the mother of invention kind of attitude and from there just try to find a way to crack into something here.

Speaker 3 11:48

Did you get into marketing right off the jump?

Speaker 5 11:50

Yeah, I studied advertising straight up, not design. In school I was in the journalism department at the University of Kansas, which I thought that was really fun and it kept me really disciplined. Learning about journalism is a great track into advertising because, like, instead of interviewing, like, I'm like your client.

Speaker 4 12:15

You know you guys are interviewing me.

Speaker 5 12:17

You're kind of digging for information, and that approach to figuring out the truth about a brand is the same to finding the truth about it.

Speaker 2 12:25

You've got to be journalistic about it, right.

Speaker 3 12:27

That is a key takeaway. I like that being inquisitive.

Speaker 2 12:30

Yep.

Speaker 5 12:31

So that was super helpful. And growing up in the business meaning being raised inside of an ad agency.

Speaker 2 12:40

Okay, so your dad was an admin.

Speaker 5 12:42

Mm-hmm, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 12:46

I've listened to the audio a little bit so I kind of know I don't want to, I don't want to give it away.

Speaker 4 12:48

Oh, it's all good he was.

Speaker 2 12:49

He was an ad man back when the ad men days were kind of dwindling down is that is that right yeah you know like the 1960s style ad man. Like you know like drinking all the time, like right those are the guys.

Speaker 3 13:00

Oh, I like it, I can the mad days.

Speaker 5 13:05

That was the generation of people that were running the show when he started.

Speaker 3 13:09

I can just imagine the sharp dressers. So that part I can get behind. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 13:12

Not the womanizing part, not the womanizing, but the sharp dressing.

Speaker 3 13:15

You know. Dress for the role that you want in life. I can get behind all that Heck yeah.

Speaker 5 13:20

Yeah, so I grew up in that space and going into school I was always real strong at drawing pictures and doing creative things. But academically I had my button gear enough because I went to a really difficult high school, you know, not fun, but it was competitive and my dad and mom too, but more so my dad was like you should get your. Because I was like I would like to do some creative stuff in college if I can, because it just really sounded like fun and I knew, based on what it was like going to school so far, that if I had art class half the day my odds of getting straight A's would be way better.

Speaker 2 14:03

You're right.

Speaker 5 14:03

If.

Speaker 4 14:04

I had to do the academic shit instead my dad was like dog talents.

Speaker 5 14:09

Talent like you can grow that any way you want. I would try to focus on, you know, staying in that advertising track and getting in the marketing school. It'll be, it'll be good and it ended up saving my ass, I think well, of course, because you know, being a having to manage myself as a creative person. I know that I'm pretty squirrely okay so so having the discipline on the business side of it and the media side of it especially it's helped a ton heck yeah do you?

Speaker 3 14:39

does your dad sometimes mentor you on the work?

Speaker 2 14:41

sometimes the father too.

Speaker 3 14:43

Father's job is never over, by the way I was just thinking to myself.

Speaker 2 14:49

I'm hoping my kids learn one of them's creative too much hey listen to dad yeah, yeah you know, because he knew to tell you to go into the business side, the marketing side, and how to harness your energy and how to harness your creativity. Like he, he had that false on you.

Speaker 5 15:02

That's, that's awesome there's a lot of shit about advice. That was a good one that I took. My advisors at kansas were always like so you, you want to, you're in it. You're not in a creative track here. You know you're studying, you're already creative and we had one class, copy and layout, which is the only class where you got to use quark, quark express uh-huh, you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 15:23

Yes, design things, some sort of creativity, yes, yeah and you got to make campaigns and you got to work on layouts and write copy and stuff, and so that was my favorite class the whole time I was there and I couldn't wait to start it. And when it was over I was pissed and I was talking to my teacher about that, and my advisor especially, and I was like why hasn't the art school merged with this? And he's like well, you know, yeah, okay, whatever kid. But then he was like you really want to go into creative? And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, that's drawing pictures all the time. I started a t-shirt business, mr, whatever his name was. I started. I made menus for, you know, people up and down the drag on campus walking in with my little so you're always entrepreneurial from the from the get-go yeah, just hustling, and I was like knocking on doors trying to say like hey, can I make a menu for you, a business card, all this stuff?

Speaker 5 16:16

and I showed him and he goes, well, I mean that's neat, you know he's like, but all the money is in media, you know. I mean you can make millions media. And he had this big smile on his face and I was like I'm out of here, dude, this suit's a loser or whatever I was like he was so right.

Speaker 3 16:31

Yeah, so right, he was so right. I know.

Speaker 5 16:34

I was painfully wrong.

Speaker 2 16:36

I know it's so true, I mean congratulations on Thank you. So how many? Well, before we get to the congratulations part, how many years have you been on king street doing uh as hook as?

Speaker 5 16:48

a hooker technically he says 2000, november 2005 is when we started. We were in the um in the cigar factory me, um, as an art director, the guy with the pencil that's drawing pictures, and and um, tom, my, my partner, who we were freelancing together. Um, he and I met um because of my dad. He my dad was consultant for another um agency in town that he was kind of serving as a part-time creative director and a partner at because he was a consultant and retired at this point he was doing it from Beaufort, just fooling, kind of fooling around, but helping them.

Building Hook Creative Agency

Speaker 5 17:34

And then he was interviewing people to help expand their creative department and he was handing me portfolios because I was I had been in Charleston for two years. I worked at an agency called Rawmurdy, which is where I got my first job. And I met my wife, Jennifer, there. I left two years after I started. Jennifer left the following year.

Speaker 3 17:58

So you have another household of all creative types.

Speaker 5 18:02

Jen worked in the media department. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 3 18:04

So no, we're evenly balanced media department. Okay, yeah, so no, we're evenly balanced. There you go, yeah.

Speaker 5 18:08

Thank.

Speaker 3 18:09

God for that Smart route she's the rambling wreck from Georgia tech.

Speaker 5 18:13

Okay so yeah, she keeps, she keeps me in line.

Speaker 2 18:17

So it's, it wasn't been 20 years. Yeah, 20 years.

Speaker 5 18:22

So yeah, it was on, yeah, 20 years. So yeah, we were in the cigar factory back when the cigar factory was super scary and lots of fun to run around in at night. That's my favorite. That's my favorite.

Speaker 2 18:34

I come from Ybor City so I love those cigar factory type Super cool Dirty warehouses.

Speaker 3 18:39

That building downtown is cool.

Speaker 2 18:40

I produced a lot of scary movies out of cigar warehouses before they got renovated New York City is cool, isn't it?

Speaker 5 18:50

Yeah, yeah, that's where our studio is located.

Speaker 3 18:52

I'm from the battles of Yorktown, where there's bloodstained streets from the wars.

Speaker 2 18:56

Maybe on a Saturday night. That's not the same, I would rather be rather from the cigar factory era. So love the cigar factory. Then you moved into the King Street address, which is really cool. I've been to it. It's really really neat, Kind of a two-story, Awesome Brick wood, old school feel to it.

Speaker 3 19:13

Yeah, rustic, rustic A lot like your work. Yeah, you work with some really cool clients. Can you talk a little bit about some of the brands you work with?

Speaker 2 19:20

I want the listeners to go to your com first.

Speaker 3 19:22

What is it?

Speaker 2 19:22

again HookUSAcom, hookusacom. While we're talking. Go to your HookUSAcom and check out his work.

Speaker 3 19:29

It's really awesome. It is really awesome how big is your team right now?

Speaker 5 19:33

Thank you Six.

Speaker 3 19:35

Six Okay.

Speaker 2 19:36

So just perfectly sized. I mean not too big, not too small, and you probably, if you get more projects, you can ramp up, you know. But what a nice little I mean that's the deal right Nice little, good-sized shop. These big shops.

Speaker 3 19:49

But they specialize in a lot of things, which I think is interesting for only six people. Seo packages is like a big thing that I'm trying to push on my clients. How's that working for you?

Speaker 5 20:02

It's just a rounded out piece of delivering messages. Seos become media, and that's the thing that's crazy about it. It's not copywriting, it's not for people.

Speaker 2 20:13

It's for computers.

Speaker 5 20:15

It's a lot like. Finding the right keyword is like buying the rights to a billboard for a month. It gives you the ability to get somebody's attention, but once you have that person's attention, the SEO copy that you've written isn't going to convince them.

Speaker 2 20:29

Exactly.

Speaker 5 20:30

You have to speak to their hearts and minds, which is a different kind of writing, you know.

Speaker 3 20:34

A lot of my clients don't understand the importance of SEO and prioritizing that when you're doing your overall strategy and marketing budget. Because being first page on Google is like priceless it it because being first page on google is like priceless.

Speaker 2 20:51

It's a. It's the cost of doing business. That's what seo and all that media is the cost of doing business?

Speaker 5 20:53

yeah, but you guys specialize in a lot of cool stuff. You got a call hook for the content. Yes, right, uh, if it's different they'll notice, and if it's relevant they'll listen. And you know that we always say if surprise beats frequency. And in order to, you know, get somebody's attention. You know there's all kinds of tactics for making somebody see something, but in order to make it get remembered, surprises is a much out, a way to scare the crap out of somebody or make somebody cry or make somebody laugh, or you know, do do anything jarring that you can.

Speaker 5 21:38

Ie that's why I was going to send my son in here this morning instead of me, because I was figuring it'd be cool if somehow, just because you were kind, you would just roll with it.

Speaker 3 21:46

We probably would have and record him.

Speaker 5 21:50

Then I could have kind of snuck in the back door and then showed up Cool dad factor points too.

Speaker 2 21:55

And then you could have brought your daughter and I could have brought one of my sons and we could have had like the junior edition.

Speaker 3 22:00

And then you just jump cut to just jump cut and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:03

Just jump, cut Like and don't even explain it just halfway through. There's just kids Creative director over here, the jump cuts and the transition but yeah, like that. What's your favorite part. Like it sounds like um it keeps you up, but wakes you up in the morning. It keeps you up at night, but you, it wakes you up in the morning, it keeps you up at night. You're still doing it.

Speaker 5 22:25

Did you say my favorite part, your favorite?

Speaker 3 22:27

part yeah, your favorite. That's a loaded question, but he's got it.

Speaker 5 22:35

Man does this get bleeped out? No, You're good.

Speaker 2 22:37

You're fine, I edited this and you're going to hear it before it gets dropped. I could bleep myself.

Speaker 5 22:41

Yes, all right, close your eyes. I'm going to bleep myself, okay.

Speaker 2 22:46

Oh, I'm just kidding, I'm going to bleep myself, oh my God, I didn't know where you were going with that. I just picked it up, matthew got it really quickly.

Speaker 1 22:54

I'm going to bleep myself.

Speaker 3 22:55

Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

Speaker 2 23:01

I was thinking about.

Speaker 3 23:02

I don't know where this is going. I'm just going to hang back. I was like what's he?

Speaker 2 23:05

going to do.

Speaker 5 23:07

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

Speaker 3 23:08

It was too easy.

Speaker 5 23:10

I set myself up with some low-hanging fruit there. I think my favorite thing is we call it MDS. Okay, make dope shit.

Speaker 2 23:21

Yeah.

Speaker 5 23:22

That's my favorite part about it. When we're done at the end of the day, when I'm like washing dishes, I love it. When I like, I wonder what that looks like on my phone, yeah, and then I get to watch a video, you know a TV spot or layout, or listen to something that we recorded, or reread something that somebody wrote, just to see what it feels like in a different spot. And then you know cause I've got miles of um. You need miles of metaphors in our business because there's so many different media to work with and there's so many different brands and so many different. You know little pieces of shop talk vocabulary that you have to learn with clients and vice versa. They don't understand.

Speaker 5 24:08

A lot of times they don't understand anything, so you have to say well, it's kind of like on a football team, when, whatever, whatever right and, on one hand, make dope. Shit is definitely when you're like man, I'm so proud of that thing that I worked on for x amount of hours. Maybe it was a long time, or maybe you're proud that you did it so fast. How did I?

Speaker 1 24:25

finish that so quickly.

Speaker 5 24:26

But then the other part of it is like it is sort of like being a carpenter. It's just a pile of sawdust and, like the height of the sawdust, starts to make you proud that you cut that much wood.

Speaker 3 24:37

That's a good metaphor.

Speaker 5 24:43

You've worked with some really cool lifestyle brands, mm-hmm. Yeah, we've gotten our trajectory into all that started with Scotch.

Speaker 3 24:50

Okay.

Speaker 5 24:51

Because, well, charleston, the agency that I first worked at, had Orient Express hotels. So learning how to speak luxury language is kind of funny, because it has a vocal tone and it kind of whispers more than it shouts, you know, it's a little bit like your jaw is stuck out like that or it's like how nice, you know, and it's a little bit softer and it has to be plush and kind of luxurious feeling, so you can't really scream, your headlines can't be huge.

Speaker 3 25:27

Right.

Speaker 5 25:28

Long copy is great because people are ready to chill and just swim in.

Speaker 3 25:33

Whatever you're putting out there Right.

Speaker 5 25:34

So we kind of got. I got steeped in that, which was a great experience. So when we started Hook, we networked our way into having a meeting with this company called Total Beverage Solution. That was an importer and this is a roundabout way of getting to lifestyle stuff.

Speaker 5 25:52

But, what's neat about importers is, if they have any money to import something, they buy the thing, and then, if they're lucky, they might have enough left to sell it into a store or into a distributorship and they might need a little marketing materials to do that and they skimp on all of that because they've just spent all their money on buying the stuff to get it into the country.

Speaker 5 26:15

Then, when they get big enough and they have the ability to help push it, they might hire somebody like us to help them push it onto some shelves. And if they get a little bit more, then they might be able to try to pull it off shelves by talking to customers and the good news about the combination of their attitude, about the way they do that, and our insanity about making different relevant messages for customers was like a match made in heaven because we had such a short time frame to take a brand, like you know, weinstefan. Weinstefana, which is like the oldest beer in the world it's like from 10, 50 or something um, take a brand like that, that's that is now going to be imported by these guys.

The Art of Lifestyle Branding

Speaker 5 26:56

Take their brand materials from germany. You have two sets of clients. You have the brand itself and you have the importer, who's the ones who really stand to benefit by making a hit in the United States with this. They need it kind of repackaged for American consumers. So that means we need to figure out what the brand position is. We need to figure out the value prop, figure out what the brand attitude is.

Speaker 5 27:17

We need to write all that stuff, get it approved by both teams, then start to make at least a sell sheet. That, on one side, is consumer-facing. So it's what does an ad look like for Weinstephan? And then the backside is what does that mean for me? Dude, I got a liquor store or I got an ABC package store. I'm going to sell this. How am I going to convince people that they need to buy this for NFL Sunday or for instead of you know, or for the tailgate on saturday instead of whatever other german beer I might have? Yeah, and that's on one side. You gotta, you know, wow the trade. But if you can only afford to do one thing, you gotta wow the customer, because if the trade knows that you're going to talk to the customer, well, they trust you to put your message through but, across the board.

Speaker 5 28:00

What we figured out with all that is, every single one of those is a lifestyle, and it's all a different lifestyle and what was cool about it is they imported from. You know, this guy had a tough but also fun job when you think about it, because he would go spend about a month in europe and he would be like he'd be buying scotch from signatory in scotland cool, he'd go to Oktoberfest in Munich and work with Weinstaffan.

Speaker 3 28:24

Tough life.

Speaker 5 28:24

He'd go to Italy and be working with a Chiani producer for Tiziano, this other one that we worked on. He'd go to Ireland working on Irish whiskey that we worked on and Irish beer that we worked on and all that stuff, but for every one of those we'd be attaching it to a different type of lifestyle. So it really got us set up well for number one for consumer packaged goods retail, but also helping out with trade, because you know nothing is a great low-hanging fruit for an ad agency sort like a salesperson, because if you can figure out a way to talk to the salespeople, salespeople usually aren't the ones paying all the bills, but they're definitely the ones who are complaining yeah, yeah, they need the marketing help.

Speaker 5 29:04

Yeah, exactly, and they're like we're getting the crappy doughs because Altoids has this amazing trade display.

Speaker 2 29:10

I'm a big Altoids fan too, just not the cinnamon. Yeah, you know what?

Speaker 5 29:12

I mean.

Speaker 3 29:14

I'm looking at your website and I own some of these things that you've worked on Awesome.

Speaker 4 29:18

Yeah, these things that you've worked on Awesome. Yeah, what do?

Speaker 3 29:20

you own. So we have boats, we're boat people.

Speaker 5 29:23

Sweet.

Speaker 3 29:23

My husband likes to fish there. He is number two mentioning him. I think I have this performance fishing shirt today.

Speaker 2 29:30

Nice, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 29:31

So did you help Huck with from the get-go Looking at the logo conception. So were you there with boots on the ground from moment one. That became a brand, Because this is a huge brand if you live in the Charleston area.

Speaker 2 29:43

What's the brand again?

Speaker 5 29:45

HUK, we are H-O-O-K. This is H-U-K for people who are listening.

Speaker 3 29:51

I'm sure you've seen it. I'm showing you now.

Speaker 5 29:53

Yeah, we were not there from day one. We were lucky enough to find a way to start a conversation with them because we had a friend in common with a guy named al perkinson who became their creative director. Um, I might have got his title wrong with creative director or maybe cmo, but al has a really cool um story. He's essentially one of the instrumental people behind turning cost Del Mar into Costa and Al, if you're listening, forgive me if I got your history wrong, but he made a big difference in Costa becoming kind of a more luxury-oriented and more culturally relevant brand. But he's like a skinny santa claus kind of looking character. He's got cool white long hair, cool white beard.

Speaker 5 30:47

Looks like he should be running a fishing brand okay um, but we met and he said you know, like now that I'm working on this, we really need this brand and they're, they're cool, they're not far from here. Um, they're, the company that owns hook is called marilina and, um, when they were had, when we were working for them, they're headquartered pretty much right across the street from where we're recording. Um, but they have another brand called nomad.

Speaker 5 31:12

That's a hunting brand and familiar with that one too cool and al has just started on them and um, he said you, we really need an icon because we're starting to make some more premium. You know button downs and stuff, that's.

Speaker 3 31:29

You know a little more, you know transitioning, changing the audience, a little bit Lifestyle yeah.

Speaker 5 31:34

And he's like, and we don't have an icon, something that we can show without showing the whole world. So would you work on that and went through our typical logo process? It always starts with sketches. We survey the customers to find out what their likes and dislikes are. In this case, we just talk to the stakeholders when it's logo work, because those are the folks that are the key decision makers. Once we get our survey done, we do a bunch of sketching and we always say we'd prefer to start by sketching on an icon which was cool. That's what he asked for.

Speaker 5 32:05

We always think the best way to deliver the most bang for your buck when you're making a logo for someone is to deliver an icon and a signature, a logo, being, like picture, the Mercedes star and then Mercedes Benz being the signature word that goes next to it, because you can fit that into a really small space by itself, the little star. But, if you, for instance, want to take Coca-Cola to Japan, you have to write Coca-Cola in Japanese which is a lot tougher than it is to just put a star up there.

Speaker 5 32:36

So, short story long, we got hired to make an icon. When I did all the sketchinging, the first thing I showed him was a slide that says first the simple but too obvious not to show stuff with a bunch of hyphens in the middle. Okay, and it's just me and him in the conference room um, and I said I feel embarrassed saying this, but I have to say it did it. Did you ever think about just making the U in the middle of the H-U-K into a hook?

Speaker 3 33:04

Because that way people would know, looks like a fishing hook, yeah.

Speaker 5 33:07

Because that way people would know how to pronounce it, because I called it hook when, I met him the first time and he's like it's actually hook. He goes, but nobody would know that. And I'm like, and then I thought about it and that's why I sketched what I sketched. Yeah, and when I showed it to him, he's like yeah actually nobody's ever thought about that. And he started laughing. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 33:23

And it's huge on all the shirts now.

Speaker 5 33:26

Yeah, so I went through the rest of the logo presentation, presented tons of logo concepts, like we normally do, but I presented icons. So there was all kinds of different, you know, like anchors and other stuff that could be used separately and, of course, tons of hooks. But um, he went back, showed the rest of his squad and came back and said we want to use the word mark with the with the barb in the middle yeah, yeah, no, you guys do a really excellent job that thing took three years to turn over on the marketplace.

Speaker 5 33:53

So because kovat had had hit, they had shrunk their team a little bit, naturally, as anybody would, and they lost all their uh shut. They shut down all the big box stores so like Dick's and Cabela's, and all that stuff was gone for a while. So you know, respectfully, a lot of us had to kind of part part ways and tighten up and and they took all their stuff direct to consumer.

Speaker 5 34:17

For a minute, al left and started Bahia, which is awesome sunglasses brand that we helped him brand and which is doing going very well now. So I called out because I was on spring break. It was three years later and I was. We were at like this um, it's like two years later, maybe two or three years later, whatever it was like. I felt like we were still pretty separated um, and we were kind of doing like a couple families that were close together that we felt okay sharing germs with we all run a house in port st joe right in florida and we were at this like dive oyster bar.

Speaker 5 34:53

There was like no six feet apart down there at all and there's this awesome little kid running by with me with a mullet a mullet, and he had the new logo on his back and I was like no fucking way we've made it and I'm like it actually tipped over.

Speaker 5 35:07

I thought, I thought that they had thrown it out. I didn't know that they were using it because we had totally lost connection because, yeah, one by one, everybody that we were working with had left and we were like, okay, peace, be with you, call us when the store's open again no, it's everywhere now. And so I called Al right away and I was like dude, they're wearing it, he goes. I told you it'd take three years.

Speaker 2 35:26

That's got to feel great to see your stuff in the wild like that.

Creating the HUK Fishing Icon

Speaker 5 35:29

Makes me wish I could charge a royalty for it. I know exactly, but it's not like a song Royalty for every drink.

Speaker 3 35:43

You work with a lot of brands that are alcohol brands.

Speaker 5 35:44

Yeah, I bet your office is a fun time. Yeah, man, it is, it is, it's. It's good when people understand off the rip that we make all that. We made all the packages that are in the conference room, because every once in a while, when people don't get it, they just think that we're out alcoholics right, you're like nope, we're drinking common house, ale works, we're drinking gin.

Speaker 2 36:02

Totally right, you're like nope, we're drinking common house, ale works, we're drinking gin totally drinking bourbon, totally professional we have to taste testing right exactly, hey, so um did this next journey that you you're on right here um you just got acquired? Is that what you, uh, you launched? Yes, super stoked yeah how was it's got to be a lot fun, exciting, challenging. Yeah, we're right in the middle of it it's, it's great.

Speaker 5 36:31

We couldn't be more thrilled about it. We've been. You know, the best way I could put it is there's this part of, uh, whatever the american dream or whatever, and um, especially if, as a musician, where you're just kind of like, oh, he got discovered.

Speaker 3 36:49

They got discovered, right?

Speaker 5 36:50

Yes, and then it's like the more social has taken over and the more, like you know, a five person band has turned into like a one person.

Speaker 3 37:00

Yeah, like the TikToker. Yeah, it makes you.

Speaker 5 37:02

TikToker. Yeah, it makes you go that Jimi Hendrix's of the world are just not going to be, just, they're not going to be discovered anymore, because Jimi Hendrix would have had to have a LinkedIn, a Facebook, you know like, hire a team to make it all happen. Right, or, or, or, like some of the other people who are fantastic. I mean, then you've got like Prince. He would have done it on his own for sure, because he's a promotion machine.

Speaker 3 37:26

Yeah, that's my boy. He was awesome.

Speaker 5 37:28

That's my man. But you know, like that self-promotion machine that we're becoming used to celebrating Like Madonna is a good example of it, lady Gaga is a good example of it, and then there's this generation is a good example of it. Lady Gaga is a good example of it, and then there's this generation. Almost all of the people you're finding out about are self-promotion machines, even if they're a band.

Speaker 5 37:49

None of them. There might be like one dude who's worthless or girl who's worthless that just she's like the Ringo of the team and they're just going to bring her along or him along no matter what. We all want to be that person okay you know, we all want to be just the drummer who doesn't have to do anything hangs out in the back, gets a paycheck right.

Speaker 5 38:08

And then we also want to dream that we're going to kind of get this, discovering that somebody's going to put their arm around me and be like I got you.

Speaker 5 38:14

I think we can do this and for me it's like that's. We've always been looking for mentors and and you know clients and opportunities where we could be like is there a way we could work together and make everything better for both of us and pull that off at the right time? And it's. It's just a. It's a frustrating spider web to try to kind of navigate over especially when you're 20 years in and and it's your baby

Speaker 2 38:42

right it's pixel, and it's how old are they? What's their story?

Speaker 5 38:46

pixel. I think, if I get it right, it's 17 okay, so right around the same I'm familiar with them because I used to live in nashville.

Speaker 2 38:52

Okay, they're on demumbrian awesome.

Speaker 5 38:54

Now we have an office here with you yeah, so they're. They are relatively um new to charleston but are basically the same age as us in terms of a company. They're about 20 years old. We're 20 years old. We met through a really super trusted friend, ryan Clark. Bless up, ryan. Did you say bless up, bless up? Yeah, oh, I'm stealing that phrase. Yeah, that was a great phrase. Yeah, bless up C. Did you say bless up, bless up yeah, oh, I'm stealing that phrase.

Speaker 3 39:23

Yeah, that was a great phrase.

Speaker 5 39:24

Yeah, bless up, cue the air horns for Ryan. Enough shots, gun shots for Ryan. But Ryan and I got to be buddies because of another opportunity that we kind of hustled on together and we worked on a brand called Wild Tonic that we still work on together. And Ryan told me about Pixel and said that they were new to the market but that they'd be interested to talk about partnering up on some projects. And we introduced them to our client, adam Steen, who runs Steen Enterprises out in Ravenel Adams Run, south Carolina, and they are a Kubota dealership and a Hitachi dealership and just fantastic company. Second, maybe hopefully knock on wood will end up being a third generation company, but they're founded in 80. And we hooked them up with Pixel because Pixel's amazing at CRM. And so Pixel signed up and sat in meetings with us and started working with you know, talking independently and then working with them.

Speaker 5 40:38

And where we really united is our belief and a belief that we've had from the gate in really focusing on making sure that our clients know that it doesn't matter, like, what mediums they use or what tools they use.

Speaker 5 40:55

We're going to make the recommendations for them that we think are going to be the ones that connect best with their people and everybody's different.

Speaker 5 41:02

So it depends on what you're buying, where you live, what you hang out or where you hang out, what you listen to, what you eat, what kind of bicycle you ride or if you ride a tricycle or if you get pushed around in a baby stroller.

Speaker 5 41:19

Just all that stuff really impacts the techniques and the tactics that are going to be used to connect with you and that's been ingrained in me because I was raised by a dude who worked in an agency that didn't put media first, that put message first and that connection to the client and that joined at the hip mentality of making sure that we deliver value and get wins Um, because if our clients don't win, we don't win. That kind of was where we settled in first and then, when I found out more about how good they were at CRM and watch the way that they sunk in um and got right into the trenches with us and our client led to more conversations. And then I found out that they wanted to grow roots in Charleston, I was kind of like why grow roots if you could buy them? And that's kind of what we have always sort of wanted to be shopping for was complementary skill sets that we could join forces with, so we can increase our capabilities and increase somebody else's capabilities.

Speaker 1 42:28

Right.

Speaker 5 42:29

And then the first, you know, couple of months of conversation, we found out that they joined forces and acquired technically acquired Cobble Hill.

Speaker 3 42:40

Okay.

Speaker 5 42:41

And Austin's an old buddy of ours so a couple charleston-based marketing yeah, interesting so we, we are now a three-handed monster and we're really excited.

Speaker 3 42:51

How big is the team now?

Pixel Acquisition and Agency Growth

Speaker 5 42:53

I'm gonna screw this one up that's okay, I'm gonna generalize and say that we're probably five plus five plus 15 yeah, so 25 under 30?

Speaker 3 43:08

yeah, um, but I bet that's wrong it's probably gonna be enough to keep the boutique feel yeah, but now you're yeah, multiple cities and nashville's a great city right and in true, you know, ad agency sprinting fashion.

Speaker 5 43:25

We are, um, we are definitely. We've been dying to announce it to everybody. We made our announcements, sent out our press releases and then the following monday announced it to everybody internally and since then, have already started integrating on projects, which is like that's what all the hustle was about ahead of time. It was about making sure that there were no financial implications that would keep us from integrating. Because my clients are not your clients, your clients are not my clients is a big problem for a lot of the folks that all of us, especially especially all of us dream about is like oh dude, what would be sweet if, like you know, some amazing, huge holding company, bought me or us Because then, wow, we'd have like—.

Speaker 3 44:28

But you have to keep the brand, integrity and the voice that you've built all those years.

Speaker 5 44:32

Yeah, and so what I really respect about their approach to everything Brian and Bonnie from Pixels' approach to it and now Austin's approach too, having done what we just did before we did it is that when you start aligning on that, there's some things that are just accounting-related and just corporate structure-related that are really boring and no fun to talk about. But if you get them figured out, it allows for you to jump right in and start working on stuff together without having a panic attack about making sure that it flows through the right bank account.

Speaker 2 45:08

Yep, that's so interesting. I love that it's happening here in Charleston. A lot of the agencies now are collaborating with each other because everybody has different silos and different experiences.

Speaker 3 45:18

Yeah, so going forward. Are you Pixel, Are you Hook? Are you coming up with a new brand name?

Speaker 5 45:28

I'm going to do some metaphor. We're going to get in my conference room now and I'm going to talk about a branded house versus a house of brands.

Speaker 3 45:34

Really yeah.

Speaker 5 45:36

So we get that a lot. But I'm going to jump back into the liquor business. It's one of the older businesses in the United States distillery, for an example, cat had cat head distillery. Our buddy richard patrick who used to. He invented sweet tea, vodka, little enough fact okay firefly and then got hired by total beverage solution.

Speaker 5 45:57

We worked with him when he was working at tbs so we worked together on meretti and all these different, um awesome european and global brands that weren't really big in the united states at the time. He started cat head um vodka. Okay, cat vodka was the first distilled spirit legal distilled distilled spirit from Mississippi. Oh, bottle tree beverage company was the company that owned cat had vodka. That's because bottle tree beverage company had more, more brands in their queue that they were ready to fire.

Speaker 5 46:28

Okay, not just cat head right, sure. So their first distillery right was kind of just nameless and faceless. They just had brands. They natural, very naturally, had their big tip over success with cat head. By the time they got a more public-looking, public-tourable public in the sense that it has a music venue sort of area connected to it. By the time they found that real estate decided that they were going to move their distillery operation to this part of Jackson, mississippi, they named the distillery after their A1 product. So now it's Cat Head Distillery, too cool in Mississippi. They named the distillery after their A1 product, yep.

Speaker 5 47:12

So now it's Cat Head Distillery.

Speaker 2 47:14

Too cool.

Speaker 5 47:15

And everything, all their other products that you know Old Soul.

Speaker 3 47:19

Live under them.

Speaker 5 47:22

Old Soul, bourbon and all that stuff lives under them. So their approach is the approach I think everybody should take, which is which brand wins Right, we still own all the brands, but we don't want to disrupt anybody's relationship with those individual brands in the name of forcing a distillery.

Speaker 2 47:40

So true, that is very smart, so true.

Speaker 5 47:42

And so that's kind of that's sort of the approach. I think that we're going to continue to take Right to the table.

Speaker 2 47:49

That's smart. You're going to just kind of organically figure it out together and then put it to plan.

Speaker 5 47:54

I love that. Yeah, if you leave it as a vending machine, think about a vending machine Another metaphor.

Speaker 2 48:00

Don't worry about it, he's got metaphors for days.

Speaker 5 48:02

Well, leave the buttons on the vending machine alone. Yeah, there you go you decide to change the front of the vending machine to say Coca-Cola. That's fine.

Speaker 3 48:12

But you know it depends on. I have so many people that work with like for rebrands, and it's when you have an established brand there's so many things to consider, yeah.

Speaker 5 48:20

And the key part about it, though, is it is super important for us to establish a collective front for an offering. A collective front for an offering, because that's the most exciting part of it is being able to go into new conversations with new products and services and be able to offer all of our stuff at the same time.

Speaker 5 48:41

Um, but yeah, we're just, we're tiptoeing into that part of it and I I love and respect them for um for appreciating the fact that they don't want to mess with. You know our history and the connections that people already have to the name that we've established.

Speaker 3 48:59

So basically follow you on social media to stay in tune on what's going on. Yep.

Speaker 2 49:03

To answer that question.

Speaker 3 49:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:04

Definitely hey. So you've got a lot of tricks under your sleeve. And before we kind of wrap up today, I want to talk about street tricks. Thank, you then maybe we can talk about your other trick. You're gonna.

Speaker 3 49:18

When he says street tricks, I just imagine him like, especially with his swag, like just you know, on a skateboard down the street of king street.

Speaker 2 49:25

Can you just see him like on a longboard, like on venice beach, just cruising that's true, that's true you give off the longboard but you have a little bit of a musical history about you right, right, but we wanted to talk about street tricks too, right so street tricks is this awesome book that you can get that I have got here for you youtubers. You can see it right here um I'll give it there it is.

Speaker 5 49:51

There is street, so what?

Speaker 2 49:54

so your dad has been in the business. You're in the business. What brought on the idea of writing a book?

Speaker 5 49:59

you're an ad agency for crying out loud so so my, my dad, phil um, and my partner tom, and my co-founder and wife, j Jennifer and I there's three Wagners involved and only one, jeffrey, in the founders and St Thomas Jeffrey was is definitely one of the nicest people, maybe the nicest person I've ever met.

Speaker 5 50:21

So he was great to put up with a mother, a father and a husband as his co-founders. Co, -founders, but back in the day, even before we started Hook, I grew up in the ad agency business because my dad worked for Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. So he worked for Harley Davidson, they worked for Sam Adams, they worked for Porsche, they worked for anything with gas and oil, mack trucks, all these cool kind of fast, fun, iconic.

Speaker 2 50:55

Lifestyle driven brands.

Speaker 5 50:56

Yeah, and also some ones that are just hilarious, like American Standard, like they sell toilets too, which is also fun. There you go, lots of fun brands.

Speaker 3 51:05

I think that's sexy. I'm sure he did, though.

Speaker 5 51:08

Yeah, just be silly about it, nothing wrong with the porcelain? Yeah, there's a great print ad for American Standard. That was like that little thing back in the day that you pull up that has the drain come out on a bathtub.

Speaker 2 51:21

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 5 51:21

And we all stared at that as a little kid in the bathtub and it makes a face.

Speaker 2 51:29

It has like two little screws and then this little lever that looked like a nose Exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 5 51:32

And it said that, and there was a headline underneath it that said it's seen you naked, it's heard you sing.

Speaker 3 51:43

That is clever.

Speaker 5 51:44

Yeah, it's like you're in love with this bathtub.

Speaker 2 51:48

You don't even know it, it loves you.

Speaker 5 51:50

But yeah, I grew up in the agency business and, um, by virtue of that, kind of stayed in it and, um, you know, I remember going in and seeing markers and smelling them, smelling markers and seeing all these tear sheets and stuff, and so I always wanted to be a part of that. Um, they worked out of the Pillsbury Mansion in Minneapolis, which is this super cool, romantic, crazy old building, and I remember going in there as a little kid, so I've been connected to it my whole life. And when you know about the time I started taking over a lot more of the account service stuff and Phil started to focus more. My dad started to focus more just on doing research and strategy, which is his silo. Um, we started talking about maybe telling, telling Hook's story and and I was like man, you should write a book like there's all these

Street Tricks and Musical Journey

Speaker 5 52:44

guys that that that you grew up around in the agency business in Minneapolis, like Fred Sin, who co-founded Fallon, who's like Fallon Worldwide is this massive agency, and there's all these guys from his agency that started other spinoff agencies. I'm like you've got a great story, you should tell yours too. And he's like well, it's our story. And I'm like well, of course, we've got our own way of doing things. We've got our own process for figuring out what brands do more of and more often, you know, to become different and relevant to their customers, and we should teach that process as part of the book.

Speaker 5 53:16

yes, but that's clearly some shop talk, right, right the last paragraph that I just spit out is probably enough to make somebody pause this and listen to another album.

Speaker 5 53:29

But anyway, the point I'm making is I wanted to find a way to take the funny parts and the fun parts of what we do and, and you know, weave his story into it, because he's got great stories, yep, um, he joined if you watched mad men and chances are the the marketing nerds like us three that I love mad men. Right. So we all followed Don Draper from faking his way into the agency, as like he used a fake name. Right, some dead guy that he?

Speaker 1 54:01

died next to him. That's right.

Speaker 5 54:03

To fake his way in. And then in the last episode 1969, spoiler alert he meditates and writes the I'd like to buy the world a coke, um, while he's trying to kick his whiskey habit, or whatever, when he's in la, and that's 1969. That was don draper's last show, last day of being mad men, right phil's, my dad, um, his first day of being in the agency business was in 1969. No kidding. So that's why we said what did?

Speaker 5 54:34

we say as the Mad Men period was winding down, phil's was just beginning, so we used that as a way to tell his career story but at the same time, tell the story of us founding and creating Hook and all the experiences we've shared and processes we've developed with us.

Speaker 3 54:48

Now, if people want to buy the book, where do they get it?

Speaker 5 54:51

You can get it at hookusacom. It's also on Amazon and all of the audio versions of it are on all the audio platforms.

Speaker 2 55:02

I started listening last night to the audio version.

Speaker 3 55:05

I'm going to be listening to it on the way home.

Speaker 2 55:07

It's really good Thanks man. It feels hilarious.

Speaker 5 55:10

I can't wait to meet him yeah, dude, six different, uh, six different readers. One of my, the guy that I went to uh ad school with at university of kansas, burke washerman, reads a couple chapters do you read on that?

Speaker 3 55:23

yeah, yeah, okay, all right. Yeah, I'll have to check it out it's super interesting.

Speaker 2 55:26

I definitely highly recommend it to you listeners. Please, we'll have links in the show notes as well.

Speaker 3 55:30

Yeah, perfect, hell. Yeah, we've got to wrap this up, man, we do.

Speaker 2 55:33

We've been talking a lot.

Speaker 3 55:35

I like it. Two seconds about your musical journey. Yeah, you're in a band. Two seconds yeah.

Speaker 5 55:44

What don't you do, man? I know, yeah, my band band called the Italics. The Italics turned into Dub Island Sound System.

Speaker 3 55:52

It's a great band name, the Italics For an art designer.

Speaker 5 55:55

Oh yeah, I love it. That's cool. Who likes topography?

Speaker 3 55:58

That's amazing.

Speaker 2 55:59

We all like topography.

Speaker 5 56:00

Yeah, which is it has a double entendre, because Ital in Jamaican patois is a term that means natural.

Speaker 3 56:13

Okay, so what kind of music is this? Yeah, dance hall reggae.

Speaker 2 56:15

So are you serious, dance hall reggae. You do dance hall reggae, I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 56:18

I told you he's got swag do you play or do you sing? What do you do in this band?

Speaker 5 56:24

I play guitar and I sing and um yeah. So we started the italics turned into dub island sound System. Dub Island Sound System made it into South by Southwest. We were the only band in 2006 to come from South Carolina to be in South by Southwest and then, over the course of the next couple of years, we transformed Dub Island Sound System into a band called the Dub Plates and then, within a year, we had opened for Steel Pulse and then made a bunch of live records and then in 2017, 18, we put out our first full-length called Box Full of Steel, and Box Full of Steel got to be on the Billboard reggae charts for 16 weeks and we were number one twice.

Speaker 3 57:04

That's amazing. My brother's a big reggae fan, so I'm going to hit him up when we're done.

Speaker 2 57:09

Can we listen to it on Spotify? What's it called again? What's the name?

Speaker 5 57:13

The band is called the Dubplates, that's D-U-B-P-L-A-T-E-S, and a dubplate is the first acetate, duplicate or live straight to vinyl recording that a studio makes.

Speaker 3 57:27

Do you still play locally sometimes? That's a really cool story. Yeah, makes that was referred to do you still play locally. Sometimes that's a really cool story yeah we're opening up for michael franti. Oh, I used to be spirit michael franti when I used to um in nashville. Yeah, cool, he's a cool guy. He played downtown what's that place with? On the with the pool venue.

Speaker 5 57:42

It was so good I mean, you're talking about the, the wanderer the wanderer not to be called the wanderer the wanderer a couple years ago. He was so good, he's so fun yeah, we played with the whalers there he is, uh, but michael franti will be fun. I, I, I had his. He's a good dude when he used to be called spearhead yeah, that's what I worked with him. Michael franti in this, yeah so that's september 14th at firefly okay, fun, I might go actually yeah, man, yeah, I'll tell you.

Speaker 4 58:10

Me'll tell you. You don't know what to say. From 19-0 long, you know, reggae music got a ting.

Speaker 2 58:16

Oh my God, A Jamaican person did not just show up in the studio.

Speaker 4 58:19

No, that's amazing, that was great. You don't know From 19-0 long me there.

Speaker 5 58:23

Unlike most Jafakans, I actually do speak. Jamaican Patois and been recording in Jamaica since 2004. And um you're so cool. My approach to it is a lot like a young Japanese uh boy might learn how to speak English by listening to Elvis Presley. Yeah, did it the same way. Just don't use any words that you don't understand. Um, but I don't know if you remember when that Volkswagen commercial came out where the guy, an obviously American dude with red hair starts speaking jamaican pato to people and uh yeah I.

Speaker 5 58:57

I got calls from all over the country and I got calls from jamaica about that.

Speaker 4 59:02

Because they're like my mom, them should have you in the idea that should have been you over there. So I'm me, I'll tell you yeah that's awesome.

Speaker 3 59:10

Now I know we have to wrap up, but can you? You brought the guitar about, your guitar.

Speaker 2 59:13

What are we gonna do? We're gonna do a little something I want to do something. Let's like um, do a little goodbye type of thing, like we're sounding off matthew, we good you. Okay, this is. Uh, the name of the podcast is. The name of our podcast is chareston Marketing Podcast. Okay, this is awesome, I'm super excited here, me too.

Speaker 5 59:39

So before he dials in his guitar here I'm going to go ahead and say thanks, he's like dude.

Speaker 2 59:45

I'm going to have to edit this. Not at all, not at all. I'm going to let you edit it up. We're going to say thanks to our sponsors at Charleston Media Solutions. Thanks, stephanie, for co-hosting with the day.

Speaker 3 59:54

Jerry feels good.

Speaker 2 59:55

You're definitely invited on the show anytime. Brady, we're going to have drinks with Phil in your office here in King Street soon.

Speaker 3 1:00:01

I'm just going to roll up in there.

Speaker 2 1:00:03

I know right Cat had vodka.

Speaker 3 1:00:05

I'm a big fan Van Mosa at Big Bad Breakfast. Lights out good, lights out good.

Speaker 2 1:00:10

Thanks for listening, folks.

Speaker 4 1:00:36

This is Brady Wagner playing on the guitar. Bye-bye, I'm not participating in this.

Speaker 3 1:00:52

I'm just going to dance.

Speaker 2 1:00:55

We be comicasting.

Speaker 5 1:01:00

Brady Wagoner, you're feeling it.

Speaker 3 1:01:03

I'm feeling it Outside. I love it Outside. One time, one time Enough respect. I love it.

Speaker 4 1:01:20

Yeah, man, big, open the self, open the body.

Speaker 3 1:01:23

I love it that was awesome. Thank you so much.