Hello, everyone. Welcome to Question Everything, a podcast all about learning from the successes and the failures of those who dare to, well, question everything. This podcast is part interview, part therapy, and part Price is Right. We have our own game board stacked with questions that'll make even the most successful CMOs sweat. I'm your host, Ashley Walter, CMO and partner at Curiosity. On today's episode, I sit down with Doug Zanger, founder and editor-in-chief at Indie Agency News, a one-stop shop for all things independent agencies. Today, you' ll learn why the most interesting and best creative work is coming from independent agencies, why life is a mullet, business up front, human in the back, and how you can craft a question so perfect, it stumps and inspires Oprah.

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Doug Zanger: Doug Introduction

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In true Zanger fashion, he holds nothing back, and he lets his hair down. Let's get started. Doug Zanger is the founder and editor-in-chief of Indie Agency News, a global hub celebrating independent agencies and the brilliant people behind them. Before founding his own news network, Zanger was a radio host, a voice actor, adweek journalist, and brand purpose director. Though he never gets tired of hearing how people, companies, brands, and organizations tell their stories, well, we're sure you won't get tired of listening to his. So Doug Zanger, welcome to Question Everything. How are you? Doug Zanger: Good. God help you for saying that? Yeah, let me move this over so that my green screen is, there we go. Ashley Butler: I love that you have a green screen.

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Definitely, I think our first guest with a green screen. This is great. Doug Zanger: Well, I have to. I don't have a choice. Ashley Walter: So what have you been up to? Doug Zanger: Ah, it's getting into the future. There's a ton of talk. So that's important. Fall season. I am a big fan of fall woolens. Fall is my favorite time of the year, very closely followed by winter. I need to get you some of our Dude Wipes Dunkin' Spice special edition fall drop. It smells delicious. It' s got to. All right. So before we get into the game board, I' ve got one question for you. So you have called yourself the uncle of advertising. Uncle Advertising. That' s right. Tell me more, Uncle Advertising.

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All right. So I am of a certain age. You can see the color of my hair. I've been around for a minute. So part of that is the uncle quality. But also part of this is my friend David Greiner, who was my boss and colleague at AdWeek, and we've known each other for a long time. He's known as AdDad. And I am like his older brother who shows up with the good weed, maybe doles out some good advice, maybe some sketches. She advice. And then I go back to my little my little hut here in Portland, Oregon. And yeah, I'm just kind of that. And it just felt funny to me at first. And then I put it up on my LinkedIn profile and everyone said, yeah, that's perfect.

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Doug Zanger: Why a CMO should be paying attention to indie agencies

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Yeah. So uncle advertising it is. All right, uncle advertising. So you know how this podcast works. So we've got 12 super spicy questions. The power is in your hands. Half the fun in this is just figuring out which number you're going to pick. But we' Let's pull the game board up now. All right. Let's go. Let's go with my original soccer number eight. All right. Number eight. So you are a champion for the Indies independent agencies. So what would you tell a CMO? Why should they be paying attention to what Indy agencies are up to right now? I believe that there is a ferocity of intention. And what I mean by that is and I' m not saying you don' t see this at holding companies.

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But what I do see at Independence is the idea of ferocity of intention, which is this relentless focus on doing things that are unique, that that have a story, a pathway that have longevity. I think there is this perception of independent agencies. And listen, we can get into the AOR versus project. I' m a fan of looking in the middle, which is a key creative provider, a key marketing provider, I feel like that' s a middle space. And I don' t want to be Mr. acronym for anything. But that' s what I feel like a lot of Indies do really well, where they may be traditionally known as a roster agency. But at the same time, an Indy may not necessarily be working with the main AOR, they may be off to the side, they may be this very key creative partner or marketing partner.

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And this idea of this relentless focus, I think there As a perception that Indies are one and done, but they' re not. I would say for CMOs and marketers, look at the work that you do with Indy as a starting point, then you decide to choose your own adventures, like we' re doing here, where move around a little bit and see where you can get more out of it. Because I guarantee you that an Indy is going to be willing to explore that space with you with the intention of how is this going to grow your business and it might grow your business differently. It might not be a rocket ship. But not everybody needs a rocket ship. Everybody needs sustainability of growth.

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And I do think that CMOs need to understand that I think the most interesting, and it' s subjective, but I do believe this firmly that I think the best creative work that delivers results are coming from independent agencies. The other thing too is, the earlier eras of Indies, there was a lot of M&A going on. So 04, 08, and a lot of those people were obviously senior, but in subsequent layoffs, and holding company layoffs, you start seeing mid-level people starting their own thing. But now this next group that' s going to be spun out of holding companies, they' re more senior, or they choose to leave. They' re more senior. So I think there I' m going to be more durable with independent agencies and marketers need to pay attention to that because they can be that key creative and key marketing partner for you.

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I don' t even think I can summarize that any better. I mean, Indy agencies can grow your business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the creative coming out of Indy agencies is spectacular. I think other benefits like, you know, speed to market, just not having all of those layers. I hear that a lot from clients. Like I' m just sick of the layers that I have to go through. And yeah, I mean, it' s the Indy era right now and you' re kind of uncle advertising spokes guy for it, which I appreciate. God help us, but okay. Alright. Let' s go back to the game board. Alright. Let' s go to number one. Number one. Okay, I' m kidding. You love asking questions that have never been asked before.

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Doug Zanger: The key to asking great questions

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So I heard that once in your life, you stumped Oprah. Is this true? Oh, shit. So I was at Fast Company LA and I think this was 2015. Great, great event. It was a two- day thing. They did this, you know, day of programming at 72 and Sunny. It was outside. It was great. I don' t think MDC had bought them yet. So, I guess they might have been in deep, but the next day you could choose to go to certain parts of LA and it was, it was a curated experience where you get on these vans and you go to a certain part of town and, and I have to go back. I' ll have to ask Jeff, Jeff Beer about this because it was great.

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So one of them was going to Hollywood and we'll, we're going to go to, we're going to go to the community. I remember there's another agency we went to, and then you'd go to own Oprah Winfrey network. And we didn't expect anything, but you know, everybody, everybody was in this room. And so Oprah comes out and, and one of the people and it's like, Hey, do you have any questions? And I can't take credit for this question. It was from when I was working for Stillwell partners, the advertising week B2B events, I had a bunch of volunteer bloggers and I think his name was Dan, Dan Costa. I want to say it was, I want to give him credit. Okay. Dan Costa.

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I think, oh shit. If I' m messing it up, I' m sorry, Dan. But he, he, I, I once reached out to the community that I' d built for this, for this blog network. And, and he said, here' s a good question. What' s something that you' ve learned personally or professionally recently that surprised us and Oprah paused and was like, ' And then she answered it, answered it' and talked about Janet Mock, the wonderful Janet Mock, and talked about sexuality on a spectrum and what we learned about that through Janet. And so, yeah. It turned out really great. But yeah, it' s one of my, one of my signature moments. People were like, ' Oh my God, that was such a good one.' That is a good one.

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Well, first you got to meet Oprah and then you got to interview her. She's awesome. Yeah. And the space was great. Now. And I think part of it is I just like poking the bear a little bit. I do. Right. But not in a way, but in a way that's meant to, I do like curiosity. I like not your, just your agency, but I like this idea of going into these places that maybe creates a little bit of frustration. But not so much friction that you can't understand it. What's like the art to asking a good question? Do you have like a formula or how do you, how do you do it? One of the things I learned. So actually one of my career was radio and what I learned pretty early.

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And I think part of it was intuitive, but I think part of it was also learned, what was learned as well. And people like Ebro from Hot 97 and Apple Music who I worked with, he gave me my first shot. Mario, who was afternoon Alexa, who was mid-days. And I would listen to them interview artists, you know, hip-hop artists and R&B artists. And I noticed that there was, you would, you would get into some level of specificity. Right. So instead of being overly broad, it's trying to find some level of specificity and it could be, it could be an experience that somebody had that you discover. It might be, I call it a light-up question.

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So, you know, you find something that's going to light somebody up and it's not meant to be nefarious to try to bring somebody over to your side. It's more like, no, I'm actually interested in this. I often, when I get bios, I actually look at the bottom of the bio first because I can figure out what a CEO does. I can figure out what a CMO does, but I'm more interested in what drives them. And so part of it was learned. But then I think that, I think it's a lot of it is listening and observing and a lot of everything in life is, is a word problem. Right. And it's parsing out what is going to be something that, that might be unique or different.

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And so it's a lot of, it's a lot of listening and observing and you're not always going to get it right. But that's the thing that I noticed. So like Martin Sorrell, for example, I know what Martin Sorrell is. I know what he does, but where we met was like, Hey, he had just had his daughter and his family just had a daughter. And I said, how's your daughter? And we talked about that. And that' s quite frankly, that's more interesting to me. Yeah. You know, he's showing me pictures and it was awesome. Like, and it's like, yeah, I get it. Like I do as a journalist, I have a responsibility to that.

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But, you know, I told Mark Pritchard this once too, as I get really fucking name droppy on this. I was going to say. But I was in Cincinnati for an Adweek event over in Covington. And I went to, I went to Mark's office and I said, you know, I don't ever want this to feel transactional. I'd like us to get to know each other. I understand like the journalist, you know, journalist subject, right. And I was like, I don't want to be in a relationship, but I, I' m really just more interested in you getting to know me. And like, I think that' s it. And that' s just, it' s more fun. And it' s just, you just end up getting better stuff. And yeah, you know what?

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Life is a mullet. You' re going to have to do some business up front, but it' s just, you know, we can, we can get to that. But, and the thing about Mark was I' d always really respected them, but then he did a speech at ad color. One of the best conferences out there. Shout out to Tiffany Warren, Tiffany R Warren. It' s he had given a speech about his Hispanic heritage and, and how he's, you know, he' I' m not shying away from anymore. And this is the truth. And I would say, I said this to him in person, I would say this publicly to anyone. I always respected you, but after that speech, I really admired you.

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And, and I think that those are the things that as we build relationships that are professional within this industry, trying to find some of those places where we can make it a lot more human. And that goes across the board with anybody. It doesn't matter if you are a chief brand officer for Procter & Gamble or you're a junior creative in Kansas City. Yeah. That’s so interesting that a simple question when asked, you know, at the right time at the right moment in the right way can change your perspective on a person or a brand even. I think, you know, questions are a big part of our strategy. We do a whole CQ session. Where we dig really deep. Yeah. Into the brand and the business.

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And that's where we can get to some of those like human elements and pull some of that purpose out of a brand. So I love that. You just gave like so many great points there. Light up question. I love that. Like, what's the one question you're going to ask that's going to light up that person? And I m going to need like a motivational poster in my new office when we move that says, ' Life is a mullet.' Like, that's just... the cat hanging from... Perfect. Perfect. All right. Let's go back to the board. Four. Number four. So you were also... Oh, shit. I loved this project. Alright. So you were a speechwriter for UPS CMO Kevin Warren. Yeah.

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Doug Zanger: How to embody a CMO’s voice 

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What is one thing that you learned about CMOs by embodying his voice? I'm so proud. One of the things I'm most proud of. And. And actually, I did work on his... it was a campaign. Brand purpose leader of the year. And, you know, that I'm really proud of Kevin. I just loved working with him and his team. Betsy and the rest of the team there at UPS. I think what I learned And it, you know, some of it goes back to Mark, right? Understanding the story, understanding the motivations. Understanding. How to balance. Again, it does. It does go back to the mullet thing. It was like, how are you balancing this out? I think that. Especially leaders in this industry. Get so over-programmed. They get so over-handled.

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That. You know, you could have an AI create something and, and, you know, some people, you know, that that's how some people would. Wouldn't want to approach it. But I think it was balancing story, passion. Growing a business. Growing a brand. Understanding history. Understanding the importance of, of this person's history and Kevin's case. It was Xerox for a number of years. Where we do part company is he' s a, he' s a Dallas Cowboys fan, which, which makes me sad as a Philadelphia Eagles fan. I did. I clearly did not include that in the speech. So I flew from Portland to DC and stayed in Alexandria before I took the train down to Richmond to go to go to Martin.

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And I spent from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM, and one day in the hotel room working on this because I wanted to – what I wanted to do is you need to think of it also in a way where you' re capturing a flow, a real logic. So a beginning, a middle, and an end. And so the PA it pacing on its really important using human language, but also acknowledging, there are people who appreciate more corporate language. So I think it' s what I learned is. I think that, and what it's really important is how can you find balance in it? How can you balance the person with the professional? And Kevin was just an absolute joy to work with, absolute, absolute joy to work with.

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And again, Betsy and the whole team. There, yeah, honestly, that' s it's a top three project I've ever done. Wow. Wow. That' s cool. Have you written any other speeches for anybody else? Or was that like a once-in-a-lifetime thing? Daughter, trying to explain to her math teacher why she's not doing her homework. Well, do you still have the speech; is it written down somewhere? No, oh man, that' s a bummer! I would love to see the original manuscript of that. Well, I mean, the first version was listen motherf**cker, calm, and that didn' t really work. I don' t think you want to say that to a teacher, but they frown upon that usually; yeah, oh man, what a beautiful story!

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Yeah, no, Kevin' s great, and I just he is just, he' s a pro, and that. Is that the thing too, and you you know this too Ashley is that you have professionals that are in the business and then you look at somebody and go, that's a pro, what do you think the difference is? You know like you know it when you see it and you feel it; a willingness to talk about things other than work. Damon Jones at P &G is the same; talk about things other than work. He went to Xavier and so I' m a Philly guy, so like I wanted to bet on Xavier in Villanova in basketball, and it's like you just got to meet again, meet somewhere, meet somewhere, and and you're not always going to get it right, and it's not always going to be the right vibe; it's not.

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Timing isn't a thing; it's like you can't put a timeline on all this. It's like well if I m going to meet with Mark Richard and Damon Jones I need to do x y and z it's like well if they ask you for that yeah but don't but don't put an expectation or a timeline on it it's like just just be just be right you're really good at that let's go have pizza and can let's let's just I'd rather have pizza and can let's just have pizza and can let's just have pizza and can let's just have chili

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Doug Zanger: Indie agency sister program

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in Cincinnati we're going to make that happen all right back to the game board let's go nine number nine all right so I love this so we're lucky enough to be matched with the Icelandic agency Brandenburg through your sister agency's program which I hope you'll talk about yes, what do you think us shops can learn from each other, even you know on the other side of the world so to speak. Oh my god, I love this story so much. So, my degree is in international studies um it' s it is, I have a business minor that I didn t do very well, especially the finance and accounting side of it uh and I have a French minor which was that was, that's what I affectionately called the GPA saver.

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I for some reason had had a proficiency at it, and so when you go to a school like that, the thinking is I'll go to grad school or I'll take my foreign service exam um and maybe go work in government, and it was you know it wasn't work out until I moved to Portland and fell in love with this place, and I it - but in the back of my mind, I' ve always loved um, I' ve always loved matching people up just to just to get to know each other. I think I had a Swedish pen pal in Minnesota when I was a kid, and you know, back when you were writing um, if memory serves, um.

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But, but I always loved that, and I think that trying to find a common humanity in the face of a tremendous amount of difference in the world in things like art, sports, culture, food, music, like all of these things that feed us as human beings; take out politics, take out conflict now. You can't be ignorant of it, obviously can't. Understanding building a baseline of understanding and then you can get to business now it may happen quicker than in other places but the story behind behind the Sister City program was simply to get our members together at India agency news and what I was noticing was, oh okay,, we' re in this market, so why don' t I take the markets and just start mixing them together?

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As Pittsburgh, I think Philly, but, but he was, and Brandenburg. By the way, I used to cover them in Ad Week; I fucking love this agency! So they used to send me stuff, and you know Griner was part of this too, he. Like, hey, this seems up your alley. It's an Icelandic agency called Brandenburg. I was like, ' Oh yeah, it's a hundred percent cut of my jib.' And so they sent me something for the Reykjavik Marathon which was really fun and then they did the rebrand for the Icelandic Football Association, the soccer team men's and women's teams. Beautiful, great story. I used to argue with Grinder like this is the best campaign.

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I forget what year it was, he's like ' Fine, I'll put it at number five' but they' re but they' Are such great people, really? The design is so interesting and they have such an interesting point of view. And I just genuinely like them, and so going to go back and forth to Can it was all on my dime. Um, I flew from Portland to Reykjavik to Reykjavik, nice, and then up to Paris, and then back, and so you use miles so I did a little stay over. And I' d always wanted them to be part of this, and on the way back, I had spent time with their uh at their office. I said, ' Yeah, we' re doing this sister city thing.' There were five of them in there, and one of them...

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Uh, we were all sitting there, and I said, ' You know this is what we' re doing? What' s what?' As a city or a market, I would want to do. And the one of the more quieter guys in the room says Cincinnati and I went ' what' and he said football. It took me a second, I went you're a Bengals fan it was yeah huge! I said well, curiosity got the better of me, and so that's how it legitimately started with that who day and yeah, and um, and I just said yeah, done! And it' s been awesome meeting them, yeah. And you got a chance to meet them right? Yes, yeah.

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A couple of weeks ago we have another meeting coming up, we' re gonna do some visits hopefully, we' ll get to get them out here for a game, some chili. re excited yeah and i think the the main goal of this is is simply what those types of outreach programs traditionally in the you know the 50s 60s 70s were like and it was to simplify the idea of bridging cultures and the idea of bridging cultures and the idea of bridging cultures and getting a chance to build a better understanding with each other and you can do that digitally but it' s more important it' s more important to do it digitally in a form

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factor that is also human which means we' d like you to all interact with each other visually we want you to see each other we want you to talk to each other we want you to send each other care packages like you know with pittsburgh it' s like send out frozen pierogies to seattle send send out you know whatever so very very very cool yeah it' s been a fun program and hopefully we' All kind of like journal along our journey and share maybe, we'll even collab on a project or something, I hope, I hope so, and ultimately that's the hope because you know let's say that there is a brand out there that you're working with and it's like you know what you know, maybe maybe the design sensibility of these cats and Reykjavik are just what this needs so yeah that would make me happy all right we'll keep you posted, let's go back to the board 11

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Doug Zanger: What the next generation can teach us about marketing

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so you' ve spent over 15 years being an adjunct professor at various colleges i' m curious, being with the youth, what do I think this next generation can teach us about marketing and advertising? Right, um, I think they can teach us... there are a lot of things I think it's, I think they can teach us a certain point of view. I think they can teach us things so from practical perspective, the effective use of platforms in ways that can be very creative and impactful and attractive to people and consumers and brands. I think that point of view is always going to be the thing what is your point of view? And don't look at it on a cohort level; it' s your point of view.

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What do you think about it... all of students say, well Gen Z says this, I said yep cool, you're gen z what what do you think and then you start getting to the essence of it so i think they can teach us a lot in terms of the craft isn’t the right word for it but producing things in interesting ways using the platforms that are afforded to us what i also think is our responsibility is to be able to teach us a lot of things and to be able to teach us a lot of things and to be able to be able to teach us a lot of things and to

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be able to teach us a lot of things and to be able to not wax poetic and sentimental about what it used to be that there's always there's always a used to be um that should contextualize things you know and sure i wax sentimental that shit all the time um but I' m not to the point where it gets in the way of you know, I' m gonna do it the way I did it for you, yeah I was 15, that' s weird, good thing to say um, but I think that it' s our responsibility to teach some of the foundational pieces and then we grow together so I think

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it's less about what they can teach us but what can they add to it right and it's everybody' s responsibility and yeah we can get into this bull***t about cohorts i mean I' m as Gen X as it gets, right if you if you want to go down that route, yeah um, but at the same time we all have to push this together and we all have something to contribute to this and if we start trying to silo this stuff we re all fucked eight ways to friday that' s the truth do you think there' s any do you talk at all about like work from home work

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from the office and you know we kind of all grew up beginning being in the office more than 40 hours a week and not that we ever need to go back to that but do you think is that our is the next generation missing out at all by not having that same in office that you' re in right now and what's your experience that we had so here' s what's weird about me and you'd look at this and go there' s no way that you are this so i' m actually an introvert i' m what' s called i' m an infp dash a i' m an assertive introvert i' m also what's called a mediator and so it fits what i' m doing right now perfectly um so i don't and and i don't mean to be cavalier about it but i' ve worked from home since 2007 so i' m used to this

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um so i would say that i' m probably more programmed like somebody that's younger that' s that' s now that' s that' s now working from home more um but i will say yes they are yes those interactions um those interactions matter and i think we need to go past the bullshit thing of saying well you know things around the water cooler it' s like what's the water cooler dad um my stanley is like 64 ounces i don' t need a water cooler call again stanley 64 000 um i i think there' I think there is a mess on that, but now the opportunity is how can you do this in a way that doesn't feel overly structured and, I think the best if you are going to have people into the office, I think it's it's a three-two, you know, pick the three days you want to come in and yeah two that you don't.

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Doug Zanger: Best ads coming from indies in 2024

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And we do you know there are companies that do Mondays at home, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at the office, Friday at home, yeah, that feels right to me, that does feel right to me. And just make that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday super dense, yeah, but I do think they're missing, yeah, but not but not so much that it's you know it's it. As a deal breaker, yeah, it's just, yeah, all right back to the game board, my friend, uh, let's go. 10, I' m gonna clear out that row. What' s been your favorite campaign this past year? I think the Alzheimer's UK from Above and Beyond with Olivia Coleman; I think that was last year. I really like that work, um, I mean, the dude white stuff is really, really fun and just thinking about our members too.

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I really did like that, and I' m not not just blowing smoke because I i think it' s i think that male-centered marketing like that it's hard to do and y' all threaded the needle exceptionally well with that uh i would say manscape did the same i would say everman jack did the same so i think that there' s there's some interesting spots in there i think nike is getting back to what it's done best i think the olympics stuff it' s a little more defiant yeah i think that level of defiance needs to come back and i look forward to seeing what wide is going to do with that

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i i think that they' re going to sink their teeth into this and i think we' re gonna i don't want to say we’re going to get back to a heyday but i do think that that it it all that that type of advertising if you think about it had become noise because underarm was doing it adidas was doing it um you know a lot of non -profits were doing it uh the the ad that changed everything was uh if you let me play in 95 for nike that changed everything and um you you see you know you see pockets of it everywhere and uh i do think that that that will be interesting god i wish i was prepared for this to be perfectly honest but i' m not it wouldn' To be honest, if you showed up prepared, I mean I think the night that Nike worked was really good too.

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I know at least in my house we talked a lot about it and and how they they just had such a strong point of view and it was, it took you back a little bit like oh wait, and then once you sat with it for a second you're like no that's right, um we loved it, yeah awesome. We'll link to as much of that as we can find too so folks can see it, no I' ll I' ll remember I' ll remember something I' m trying to like go back to can and think about I mean there was stuff from Click Health that was really great, there members uh rethink always rethink did some

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stuff um yeah I mean not to not to like not to promote the wares too much but yeah go look at the Can coverage um we did because there' s really interesting stuff and you have an award that' s about to come out do you want to talk about that yeah yeah so Indy agency news Top 40, Top 40 there. So, no categories, just great indie work, and we uh have PJ Perera from Pro Dell is the co-chair, along with Leslie Sims from Impossible. And we have a group about 20 judges, and it' ll be a 0 to 100 scale, and it' ll simply be ranked. The first 37, is it 37? 38, yeah, 37. Good math, Doug. Uh, we will we' ll reveal online, so we' re bringing the show to everybody.

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We'll do more stuff like that. We' ll do more in-person things. I think we're going to do a people's version of it too. Um, but I'm excited about it because we try to make this the easiest award in advertising. Everybody's already done a lot of their hard work on this, so we just want you to copy- paste get your stuff in. Re: all professionals, we know what good work is, so we're not gonna we're not gonna categorize it; we're just gonna make it be. I appreciate that, all right, my friend. I think we have time for one more; I'm gonna let you pick it. Oh gosh, alright! Let’s see, let's look at the team you guys have a favorite one?

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Doug Zanger: What goes into a great voiceover

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You want to go to get the weirdest one? What's the weirest one? We want to go hey, all right! I don' t know what it is, but we're going to number five. Okay, oh shit, yeah! Alright! Your biggest joy in life is recording voiceover so drop some names of some projects you worked on and we re just super curious like what goes into the perfect read like put us in the booth with you what's it like i did a thing for heineken a couple years ago that was really fun you probably heard it a lot on spotify um and it was actually written by a friend of mine who was my assistant when i was in radio as a creative director

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and um now all these many years later he hires me as voice talent so there was some heineken stuff i did some nike work years ago um what i would say to people hiring talent and this goes back to what makes a great read it's not so much well let me go back to the talent first so the talent is you've got talent don't think of it as a gig because i look at it this way you've chosen me to represent your brand, I've chosen me to represent your company. I take a, I take a, and maybe my point of view is a little bit different. Um, I take that responsibility seriously, and so when we did the Heineken work, I would check in with the agency and be like, ' Hey, I'm just curious: Is it working?

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Yeah, sales are up; cool.' Um, and so I was a little bit different in that, and maybe it' s because of my background, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. Maybe it' s just I'm not purely you know, purely voice, but I think if you Re a voice talent, make sure that you understand your responsibility to the not just to the client but to the brand and ask permission to make it better. So when you're in a booth, you know there are some times where talent I've done this before, I was like, well, I'm gonna say this, and then I realized, oh actually, I know how hard it is to go from brief to strategy to script and then here I'm gonna come in and be the asshole that says you should change it.' It's like the first thing as voice talent is I' m going to say this, you know.

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This is what I would say to the client: ' Just to get this out of the way, copywriter, creative director, I've done all this shit before. Um, I'm happy to give you input if you'd like, I on' t want to get in the way of this if you want the input cool, if you don't that's totally fine too. I just want to make sure that you' re getting the very best read that s representing what we're doing here and so once you do that you get that layer out right, and I would say to people hiring talent um take, take the time to listen to nuance because we' re all born with a range and we're tone and arrange, that's what we're born with, right?

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So my tone sounds like Stoner, my range is mid-range, mid-to-low range so it's Like, you know those are those are characteristics but work within the nuances of that to try to get the most out of your talent. I would say trust your talent as best you can, but you're gonna have to eyeball that, listen to full demos, don't just go 10 seconds in. All of us know is voice talent, but you're gonna listen to the first 10 seconds and be like, ' No, it's not gonna work.' Take the time to go through the full minute. Understand that the best work comes from nuance and this is where AI will never, ever work - it's making sure you're getting this on the downbeat, and doing this, and getting really, really weird and nerdy about it.

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So, if you're new to it as a writer or a producer or as a creative, get with some old heads that have done it before and have to get coached on it and it's not just about ads it's about any sort of audio it absolutely is any sort of audio just just get churched up a little bit on that man okay preach good advice all right well as we wrap doug we do something kind of fun we'll flip over to those questions it's totally rapid fire first one that you pick you know whatever comes to mind first you don't need to think about it and this is our way to get to know you a little bit more all right this or that here we go pizza in new york or pasta in can pasta in can student or teacher agency side or news side past

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news side all right all right all right soccer or lacrosse soccer because i've been playing it since I was five years old, show host or host of a show, host or host of a show, host or host of a show, or guest host because I am so much more interested other people have to say. Oh, I think that’s a good theme for the day! Actually, help others light them up. I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us on ' Question Everything.' What's the best way for listeners to reach out to you? Yeah, IndieAgency . news is the platform for that, but I'm always best found on LinkedIn and yeah, Zanger is I.

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M, for whatever reason I managed to grab all the Zangers for some of the For social platforms including uh including LinkedIn, so yeah, it's usually the best way to get a hold of me. I love that, alright! We' ll put links uh in our show notes for you as well. Thanks for coming this was amazing, you have just such a fascinating life and career, you shared so much advice; we're just so appreciative of all you do for the agency world but indies in particular uh it' s very inspiring, so thanks for giving us a platform too to share our work and and thank you, thank you for the support, it' So, you know people look at that as a membership fee. I look at it as an investment in building something that endures and is very special, and that helps build this industry farther. Yeah, all right, well we' ll talk soon. All right, actually see ya. Thanks, you see ya.

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