VML CEO Jon Cook wants more creativity while advertising on streaming platforms

VML CEO Jon Cook on how the agency came up with Wendy’s now iconic social media presence, the innovations he hopes to see in the streaming ad space and commerce on Instagram. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.Ilyse: (00:01)I'm Ilyse Liffreing. AndDamian: (00:02)I'm Damian Fowler.Ilyse: (00:03)And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.Damian: (00:10)This week we sit down with John Cook, the newly minted global CEO of VML.Ilyse: (00:16)VML is the new name for what is now one of the world's biggest creative companies. It's the result of WPPs merger of two of its creative agencies, Wunderman Thompson, and VMLY and R. The new company will employ 30,000 people in 64 markets.Damian: (00:34)WPP says, the merger is about simplifying business and unlocking scale for its clients, which includes blue chip companies like Colgate, Palm Olive, Dell Ford, Microsoft, Nestle, and Coca-Cola.Ilyse: (00:45)John Cook joined the agency back in 1996 when it only had 30 employees, which back then was just called VMLA full circle moment. He starts by telling us about the significance of the merger announced in October.Damian: (01:00)And one note, the first part of this podcast was recorded live at advertising week, New York. So John's audio changes a few minutes into the podcast.Jon: (01:11)I think it represents a reaction to, um, to several things, a reaction for holding companies like WPP to be simpler and easier to access. These are, these are two great companies within WPP, but they're two big companies. And that that can create confusion or complexity in within WPP. I think we've always simplified that well, but this takes that to the next level. This is a radical move in terms of simplicity. So I think it represents the thirst that marketers have for a simpler holding company landscape. A simpler WPP absolutely does that. It represents, I think, I think a statement about where the future of marketing is going. That a lot of people are pursuing you on one level. You've got consultants, you know, big consultancies pursuing creativity and trying, they're trying to acquire it, hire it, build it, and, and all having various levels success with that.Jon: (01:57)This represents a move to have the scale of some of the biggest consultancies, but with a creativity that I think a lot of them are really trying to have. We will have that right from the beginning. It represents, uh, a statement about where a lot of advertising agencies who are trying to stay relevant are going, meaning a lot of advertising are fantastic creative organizations, but they're all grappling with how do I add commerce, CRM, loyalty, technology, data. We have all that. When you put these two things together, what what I hope, and I think what we hope is that we are jumping right to that place where ad agencies and consultants are both trying to go from two different directions. We go there right now from the jump globally with, uh, two companies that already know each other really well, and it's a lot easier to say.Damian: (02:38)And so in, in, in effect, it's driven by the changing economics of advertising.Jon: (02:43)Yes, I think I I don't think it's solely driven by the change, the economics of advertising. I think there are economic advantages to being simpler. 'cause you can, you can be more efficient in, in how you deliver your, your agency. You can be, you know, and you can offer a lot. But I think it's, I think it's more driven by a fusion that marketers are looking for, not to speak for all marketers, but I think they struggle with how do I get brand storytelling and the the stories I wanna tell my by brand? How do I get that closer and closer to my product, the customer experience? And if I've got that right as a marketer, how do I then put that closer to the way people buy my product or transact or make a commitment to me as a brand? We're not perfect, and it won't be perfect right off the bat, but we have a really good chance to be the agency that can unite brand experience, customer experience, and commerce. Those three things aren't in our ingredients because they're fun or because we like those words, they're in our ingredients because that's the trilogy that marketers are looking for to, this is the absolute answer. For some peopleDamian: (03:41)May be a little bitJon: (03:42)Sad about sayingDamian: (03:43)Goodbye to some of those famous, famous names.Jon: (03:45)Like,Damian: (03:46)WhyJon: (03:46)And notDamian: (03:46)What, what do you say to those people?Jon: (03:48)I'm obviously in the camp of believing that evolution and simplicity is necessary to, to, to kind of go forward, but I have a ton of, um, respect and empathy for the fact. There's a lot of, uh, big brands that have built this to this place that we, that we are in now. And I think all you can do as a leader is just do two things. You can respect the heritage. It's not just heritage for heritage sake, heritage of capability. There is greatness in all those companies. It still exists in each of those companies in the, in the new company. As much as we're gonna respect that heritage and, and, and use all those ingredients to build our capability, at some point we have to make it about the future. So it's about informing the future with, with all that heritage. So it's, it's not just heritage for heritage sake, it's heritage to inform a, a future. And that's a responsibility we have to, um, you know, you know, in any company, but certainly an agency, you're trying to create a future for people to do what they want to do, and you have to make decisions about what gives you the best chance to do that and do that powerfully. And this does that.Ilyse: (04:47)Now, we, as both previous journalism majors find this really interesting that you actually started your career as a journalism major at the University of Missouri in 1993. In 2018, you delivered even the commencement address at the School of Graduation Ceremony. So I'd love to know what words of wisdom you shared about like what journalism really meant to you and maybe how it has even like shaped you as a marketer. Uh,Jon: (05:14)I had worked at Disney World for a while, and I remember some of, some of the advice I gave was, you know, you're, you're journalists and it's all about facts and, and, um, you know, this story, but it said, never lose in, in all the story and all the facts. You know, never lose the ability to add some pixie dust to things. Uh, especially those of you who are going into strategic communications. The meaning that, you know, we should be the exciting part of someone's day and, and the, and never lose the idea of what Disney World does, which is they exceed these already crazy high expectations. And what can you do in your career to bring your own pixie dust to every situation? So any interaction with you or your brand has that pixie dust. And I think journalism today, it's, it's even more critical to have a little bit of a brand and to have a, an expectation that a journalist has a, has a point of view and has a brand and, and, uh, like it or not. That's, that's, that's critical.Ilyse: (06:02)Beyond that, do you have like a guiding like set of principles that you adhere to maybe even keeps you up at night?Jon: (06:11)It's pretty easy, which is just show up and follow up. It's served me well. The gravity of how you show up and how you follow up changes through the years. But it, in your early in your career, it might just be, Hey, be at meetings, be present, be in the office and follow up. Be the one who you people count on to when you're in a meeting, something happens as you become the, you know, like ACEO of a company. Your show up is more than just being there. Your show up is presence and, and bringing gravitas and bringing trust to a situation, you know, and I think we all can use the positions we have to, to show up and follow up at different levels, but show up and follow up and just keep that advice going.Damian: (06:45)What's interesting about your role as a, as a creative person is that interactivity, and you mentioned you were with the world's biggest brands, including Coca-Cola, Colgate Palm, olive Ford, Microsoft, the US Navy even, and, and Wendy's, you know, can you tell us a little bit more about what makes for a winning brand campaign? You know, obviously that pixie dust is, is part of it,Jon: (07:07)This will sound cliche, but finding that cultural resonance, the cultural relevance, the cultural interaction point that that makes a campaign go from being an announcement or a set of awareness to something that someone can participate in. And I don't just mean content co-creation, but I mean something that enters, enters people's lives and, and becomes part of them and or makes them feel something and take an action. Wendy's is a, is a long time great client, we've worked for 'em for 10 years and Wendy's was always kind of an old fashioned, maybe your grandfather or grandmother's brand, and we said, let's give Wendy a voice. Let's give her some sass invented this idea of, of how much sass Wendy would have, would be different by medium and by channel, but she would always be a little sassy to the point where then online when and on social media, Wendy would start to, to roast people.Jon: (07:52)Meaning kind of take take aim at somebody and not in a, not in a mean hearted way, but this idea of roasting someone. I say all that to say that it became as elaborate as we invented a, a national roast day holiday where then now every brand or a lot of brands around the world then on that day write Wendy and say, roast me. You know, so it might be Aflac saying, Hey, Wendy's roast me, and then Wendy, our, our Twitter will come back with a picture of a, you know, a cooked duck to add to that, that we are, Wendy's is a person, Wendy's is a, there's a name in the name. So we would be remiss not to have some personality, and then we'd be double remiss not to have personality that had some zing to it. So then you establish, okay, here's a place that can be believable. And I think it was also kind of a position that allowed Wendy's to be ageless. You don't know if Wendy's what age she is really, and we could, we could attach a personality that could kind of flex be a little more, a little more SaaS on Twitter, a little friendlier Wendy on Pinterest and everything in between. And it gave us a lot of flexibility. So yeah, it was, it was coming, there was an opportunity space in the market and we just totally filled it and we stayed with it for a decade.Damian: (08:55)How do you sort of like know when you've got your finger on something, how do you stay there? How do you stay relevant? How do you keep up with what's going on in the culture?Jon: (09:05)Oftentimes there's a, there's an interaction with a brand that's unintended or emerges organically. The more brave or the more aware brands are, are tapping into that. You see some of the work for Ford right now in the US is all about being from America and doubling down on America, but the level of volume that they were seeing online, the level of volume they're seeing and the passion out there, that's, that's something we need to not just respond to in social, but but double down into. And I think it's a good example of listening and, and, and kind of taking the cue from the way people are interacting with a brand.Ilyse: (09:36)Um, and obviously you've been in this career for like three decades now. To what extent has the nature of digital media changed anything for, for instance, I know creativity is definitely still premium, but there's such a different cadence to the ad calendar these days. Um, could you talk a little bit about that?Jon: (09:56)Spending time with a brand, entertaining yourself, educating yourself and shopping have all come together into one paradigm for each of us, no matter how the platforms evolve? That's what's the most exciting thing to me. And it's, it's actually how we're trying to build the agency. Because if you think about your own behavior, let's just take Instagram for example. You're, you know, you're, you're going to Instagram probably to entertain yourself. You end up buying something whether you need it or not. You're, you're gonna buy something you've educated your best self about a brand you didn't know. And you've gone deep on a whole new cultural thing that came into your life. You just went there to, to kind of kill time. And I think 20 years ago, my advertising moments were my ad moments, my shopping was my shopping. And I just love, I mean I I I'm sure you both experience this, it's, it's all coming together.Ilyse: (10:36)Why is following consumer behavior in this way connected to building a relevant agency? I know your tagline is all about like connected brands.Jon: (10:46)If you follow that trend, the idea of those things converging, you would build your agency completely different. And so a couple years ago we invested heavily in something that's not in a lot of ad agencies. This is just one example, but deep, deep global commerce and shopping capabilities. And so I, I hope we're doing it the right way, but that investment in an agency, an ad agency is uncommon. The reason we did it is the answer to your question, which was, if the way we're telling a brand story or inviting people to experience a brand is gonna quickly meet the ability, if we do our job on that, we're gonna have somebody wanting to make a commitment to that brand by buying something, joining something subscribing to something. And it's amazing, it took this long for people to realize that if you do a good enough job in your brand communications, you're going to have somebody who wants to, to take an action. So as agencies, I think we should be building in that, that capability. Other agencies may look at a different way, but if it's a quest for relevance, I don't think you can be a relevant agency without the ability to both tell the story and then complete the task of of, of being able to transact.Ilyse: (11:48)What about when it comes to like, streaming and like connected tv? How are you guys looking at that channel?Jon: (11:54)One way that we're really hoping happens is that those channels get way more advanced than they are right now about the way that advertising could be present. So Netflix, you know, would, would now sell a, an advertising model where you can pay a premium amount of money to have advertisement as the advertising agency or the story creators. Where I think we're lacking and we would like to see the biggest progress there is being way more creative with the formats you're able to to, to do. So I, I'm hoping as streamers get more and more into advertising, they're not just plopping 32nd TV formats on the front of, you know, a show you might watch on Netflix or just interrupting it four times throughout the hour for 62nd TV spots. There will be a huge miss. I do think a lot of 'em are going that direction first because it's just the nature of what's easy and convenient. But there will be a streaming platform that will break that up and allow brands to tell stories in a unique way and, and create entertainment on their platforms that lives next to that will be the, the platform that I will love. And that's what we're keeping our eye out for.Ilyse: (12:52)What about, um, when it comes to like shoppable ad formats on streaming, do you feel like there's a future there? I know it's kind of seems to be gaining some speed.Jon: (13:01)I was watching Billions the other day of shows, you know, I dunno if you watch billions or not, but you can actually go in and then see everything. 'cause you know, you liked that show for the, the glamor of all the, the clothes and the, you know, the, the cool settings and then you can kind of go in and see what everything costs that particular character and you're not able to then go buy it yet, but that next step would be able to go buy it or find out. And a lot of the stuff on there is pretty dreamy in terms of price, but as you could do that for things that pro that cost any amount and actually go see what everybody's wearing, this, this exists, it's just not mainstream yet. But I I love that idea. I think it's to where you're, where you're taking that question. I love the, the future there.Damian: (13:36)I'm wondering if there are any themes in advertising that sort of are changing with the culture and the digital culture too. I mean, we've had an important shift, you know, recently with brands marketing with Purpose. I'm kind of very interested in that relationship, you know, the underlying zeitgeist in a way and how that finds its way into ads. Is there anything that you've noticed that we could, we could put our finger on and say that's very nowJon: (13:59)Advertising agencies or brands? The word storyteller gets thrown out really liberally, you know, like it's, it's such a sexy word and it sounds really cool, but often I look at the work of our industry and including our own agency sometimes, and you're not really telling stories sometimes we're not living up to the sexiness of that word. The better brands are starting to, to truly tell story. I mean literally tell stories by creating content and creating entertainment and creating that right balance between, um, being entertained and, and getting across brand principles. And when you do that, you create something entertaining enough to hold a consumer's attention, then you've kind of earned the right to be as purposeful as you're, as you're describing the trend, you almost have to earn your right as a brand to talk about your purpose by creating a, a forum of something gripping and entertaining or, or compelling to then put that purpose through. Because I think purpose without that comes off a little preachy, uh, a little self-serving or a lot self-serving.Damian: (14:55)I I saw a new Kantar study recently that highlighted the importance of humor in advertising and said that after several years of super serious heartfelt purpose-driven ads, humor is making sort of welcome return. How and wise humor such an important brand building tool.Jon: (15:09)I mean, candidly, I, I, first of all, I miss humor. I think that notion is correct. I don't think it's coming back fast enough though. I think the, the industry advertising industry has so many award shows and so many award platforms, and I, I love that it's a chance to get your work out there, creates great work, creates great community, creates great awareness of the great work that agencies are doing. But some of it has gotten a little bit to the point where the best way to grip a, a jury or to grip somebody judging work is to do something that makes you cry or that makes you feel, uh, like you're saving the world. And so the work tends to go that way. It's really powerful, but that just, it just doesn't lend itself to any humor. It's the, the everybody taking themselves so seriously trying to create work that, that saves the world. I'm all for saving the world, but can we have some fun while we're talking about that? And I think, I think award shows in general, I'm not, not talking about anyone in particular need to do a better job of rewarding humor.Ilyse: (16:05)In 2022, you had a near death experience and as you told Adweek, you called it a story of either angels or coincidences. Can you tell us what happened and how it changed you?Jon: (16:20)Really healthy heart, really healthy, um, generally speaking and was running one night and, and basically died for eight or nine minutes without a pulse, uh, because of, um, a real freak show arrhythmia that I'd had for two weeks without knowing it. Just real, nothing hereditary or genetic about me. Just an odd thing, a very rare thing that happens to me. I was running at seven 30 at night on the street where there's not many people, but that particular moment, um, among other people, a uh, cardio doctor drove by. Like, like I told Adweek in that story you're talking about, if you had to write up who would drive by when you were dead with a heart thing, who would you want to drive by? Literally the exact description of who I'd want was this, um, cardio doctor who was, by the way, was coming home two hours early that particular night to see his brother who was in town and happened to be driving by still in his scrubs.Jon: (17:09)It's, it's just awesome that he, that he did that. The coincidence or the angel thing, somewhere in between all that was this guy stopping and not only, not only stopping somebody who stopped and used the skills that they possess, because what I've learned since it's one thing to know CPR, but there's a whole other level of then the bravery that it takes to notice somebody down to go use that CPR you've probably actually never used in your entire life. Put your hands on somebody's chest, crush their sternum, put your mouth on their mouth. It all sounds really good in the textbook. It all sounds good in the class, but somebody actually has to go do that. And then because somebody did that, you know, I'm still here.Ilyse: (17:44)How would you say though, that it has like, changed your life since that incident?Jon: (17:49)If you think about any friendship family member you have, if you just stop right now and thought, what was my last interaction with all them, you know, would it, would it be the right place with every relationship that was important to you? It's probably not, it's probably a fight with this person, probably a, a Matt experience with this person. Probably maybe a, I love you to, to this person, but it would be a mixed bag. Not to be too dramatic, but it really makes you think, man, what if I did die right there that, you know, and my daughter, my third daughter hadn't seen her in two months, or one of my daughters I saw the week before and had the best weekend we've ever had, you know, and everything in between makes me really think every now and I do take a quick inventory about where I am with every relationship and, you know, may maybe it forces you to say something that you wouldn't normally say in a good way or appreciate somebody a little bit more. I have determined it's way more fun to be alive than dead. That's my other takeaway, .Ilyse: (18:37)And that's it for the current podcast. Stay tuned because next time we'll be speaking with Beverly Jackson, the VP of Brand and product marketing at Zillow,Speaker 4: (18:48)Going where our customers are and having a conversation with them in a way that's meaningful to them breaks through and it sort of disrupts the expectations of who we are and what they want from us. The currentDamian: (19:02)Podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by loving caliber. And the current podcast team includes Chris Brookley and Kat Vessey.Ilyse: (19:09)And remember,Jon: (19:10)Never lose in, in all the story and all the facts, you know, never lose the ability to add some pixie dust.Ilyse: (19:16)I'm Ilyse. AndDamian: (19:17)I'm Damian andIlyse: (19:18)We'll see you next time.