Pete Carter: Full Episode Transcript

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 will make even the most successful CMO totally sweat on your host! Ashley Walters, CMO and partner at Curiosity.

On this episode, I sit down with Pete Carter, founder and CEO of Creative Haystack, famous for his agency matchmaking and his tenure at P&G. Today, we chat the benefits of ditching the pitch for both the agency and the client. The art of crafting the perfect selling line that will give you the tingles and the best P&G work of all time.

So wash your shirt and tide, or your hair in Pantene or your face in Olay, because this episode is an absolute slay.

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‍Pete Carter: Pete’s Introduction

Pete Carter is the founder and CEO of Creative Haystack. Prior to starting Creative Haystack, he spent 41 years at Procter and Gamble as the head of an internal global advertising think tank. He has lived and worked on several continents, helping create business building advertising campaigns, including three Super Bowl spots for some of PNG's most iconic brands.

And the last three years, he personally interviewed more than 300 creative agencies in invented a process for assigning them to P&G brands without a pitch. He retired in 2021 and created Creative Haystack, which is a consulting company that helps brands find unique agencies, their competitive positioning and create new advertising campaigns. Welcome to Question Everything, Pete Carter. Thank you. Woo!

Well, what a career. Yeah. So I'm an old guy. Yeah, well. And it hasn't stopped. I want to say retire in quotation marks. Right? Yeah I suck. Yeah. That's what your wife said, right? Yes. So what have you been up to most recently? most recently, working with, a couple of kind of, transitioning clients from, direct to consumer to mass marketers. And those are a lot of fun.

Yeah. Because they really don't understand mass and they think, oh, everything has to be direct to consumer and that mass stuff. We don't need to create a brand. Yeah, we just need to target the right people. Yeah. And what they've done is created businesses that are targeted to a lot of different people, who have a lot of different ideas about what their brand stands for.

And that's a problem because now they're trying to get into retail and it's not easy.  You've got to have something that you stand for that everyone can understand there.

So, yes I've been doing that and that's been a lot of fun. I love that, that's like the power of being to all that experience, that retail knowledge is just so beneficial to brands like Dude Wipes, which is something that we've worked on together. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. I read something about you. You were one of 18 marketers to earn the Harley Procter marketer title. What can you tell me about that?

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Pete Carter: The Harley Procter Marketer Title

Okay. First thing I can tell you is it's not about motorcycles. Okay. Okay, good.

And the second thing I'll tell you is Harley Procter was the first marketing person, at Procter and Gamble, and he was one of the founders nephews. And I guess the story is that he went out and actually bought the first newspaper ads for them. So, the award is kind of a lifetime achievement award that's given out at the end.

And I was lucky enough to get one. Wow.  I tried bribing all these years before. Finally it came through and yeah, it's quite an honor.  Wow.

I'm really thrilled to have been named one of those Harley Procter. Wow. Congratulations. That's incredible. All right, so, as you know, we've got a very fun game board planned. I've got 12 questions. Super spicy questions. You don't really know which question's behind which number. So it's a little improv. It's inspired by our CQ session, which you have been a part of a lot of CQ sessions and actually told us at one point, this is your superpower, double down on this.

And so this format has been a huge part of our strategic process since then. Good. Which I thought it's working. I can check that off my list. And you were like, you know what? You should be charging people for this. And I'm like, oh, good idea. It is a talent and it is a process that is unique. And, you know, I reviewed a lot of agencies and your CQ process is fun. Interesting gets to a result that clients need and you do it in a very unique way. So I really like that. That's why I said it was a superpower.

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Pete Carter: P&Gs Best Work Of All Time

Love that. Thank you man. I'm going to write that down. Oh. All right well the board is yours one through 12. Okay. well, let's start with lucky number eight. Eight is a very lucky number in China.

Whenever I would argue and negotiate the price of something. Okay. I would always add an eight to the end of it and say very lucky number. Oh, and did it work? It worked all the time.

Fabulous. Okay. All right. Well, well, here's a here's a good one to start with. So in your opinion, what would you say is P&G's best work of all time, whether you are part of it or not? Anything come to mind?

Yeah. There's a bunch. I mean, you know, for one of the retiring CEOs, we did a top 100, executions of all time. You know, as a gift to him. Oh, wow.

So I remember that we we looked at this, and it was really hard just to get to the 100th, but, I think there's a couple of things that come to mind. The first one that comes to mind is, I didn't do this. It was done on campus and it's called Peace on Earth. And it was actually nothing more than a sleeping baby.

And the music to Silent Night. And they air it every Christmas time. And the whole idea was brilliant because parents had always been about absorbency. Yeah.

But that was kind of a commodity in the category. And so one of my colleagues in the Saatchi and Saatchi agency, came up with this idea of absorbency so your child can sleep through the night. And as you know, you have kids.

Yes. A long time ago. You know, getting up in the middle of the night was terrible because their diaper is wet. Yup. Or whatever. And or sleep through onto their legs and they're rolling around in it. It's like, okay, we need something that helps kids sleep through the night. And this ad does that extremely well.

Wow. Okay. And like I said, it's been around for a very long time. We still air it. You hear it all over the world. All over the world. So it was a great ad great insight.

It's a communication statement or a selling line really that, that anybody across the world can, can kind of understand and, and has like a feeling associated with it. Right. There's like it's very emotional.

I don't know I mean when we had little babies in the house, I was really good at playing possum. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's your turn. It's your turn. It's your turn. Yeah. Oh, I've been there. Yeah. You know. Anything that would help the baby sleep through the night was helping the parents as well.

Yes. Amen to that. Love that. Great. What a great. What a great example. And we'll link to it if we can find it. If it's still online. I'm sure it is. Yeah. So everybody can see it. 

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Pete Carter: Agency Matchmaking is Very Difficult

All right. Okay. How about ten? Number ten, okay. 

So I read that Creative Haystack has a 90% satisfaction rate with your clients, which is insane. Agency matchmaking is very difficult. So getting it right 90% of the time. Crazy. Is there anything we can learn from the 10%? Like when matches don't go well? Like, what is it? What can agencies learn or what can CMOs learn about that process to make sure they're part of that 90%?

Yeah. Well, first you should understand that the 90% satisfaction is not just the client number. Okay. that's a number that I used when we were doing this at the little soap company on the river because. To get people to agree. I mean that's a game over.

And we had a couple of people who we couldn't help because they were looking for an agency that was outside the scope of what I had really utilized as my focus was for creative agencies. Okay. Yeah. So part of that was that, when I quote this from Creative Haystack, the comment that I get is really from a agencies that have not been chosen in the process.

I can still send them the survey and say, hey, you weren't selected, but we like you. Yeah. And for the most part, 90% of saying, yeah, it was great. There was 1 or 2 that were, well, you know, you made the decision too fast. Okay.

You didn't obviously think too much about it because we met with you. And then two days later we got the result and it was like, well, I want to say, well, speed. Good. We made the decision fast because we had condense the time frame to look at all the agencies. What I do with my clients is we do a little road trip.

We go and visit. We break bread with the agency. We let them do a little show and tell. showing some of the case studies that they have from. there are other clients, and from that we make the decision. And that works when you have someone like myself who knows the agencies well and can screen them out. 

Things that probably don't make sense. And you know, I don't always have a favorite going in. and because a lot of times things change in the delivery, you know, someone does something in a meeting, but they go, okay, that just blew it. Or if someone else does something amazing and you just go, okay, the chemistry here is great. And that's the other thing I should probably talk about is that, my process puts an equal emphasis on capability and, chemistry. Those are the two aspects because I want my clients to find long term partners.

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Pete Carter: Making The Connection

And in order to do that the chemistry has to be good. And a lot of pitch processes that people do, I don't even kind of get because mine's a search. Yeah. because I don't let the agencies pitch. I don't want them spending money of their creative talent and the time and effort. I'd rather that they take the case studies that they have and talk to us about that.

And we'll make the connection as to whether that's what we're looking for or not. And then we do a whole, you know, chemistry room where we break bread, we talk, we interact, we find out about their lives. Yeah. The client's life. And it's you can really see if there's a good fit there.

And that's what works. I've been part of your process, and I can say it is very unique. I hope more brands start to take on a process like this because you really get to know the client on a personal level, and they get to know you, too. And so, I mean, the whole idea of like, ditch the pitch and I love that you call it more of a search than a pitch.

I think that's a really good framework for us to be thinking about our next new client or a CMO listening today, you're thinking about who's my new agency going to be? You really want to make sure the chemistry's there, the case studies are there, the works there. But do you need to see how they respond to a strategic brief with all this work? Like do we need all of that today? Yeah.

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Pete Carter: Focus On The “WE” In A Collaboration

You can tell. At least I can tell them, you know, that if someone has the capability I'm looking for. Yeah, I can tell by the way they react to things. The way they talk about the business that they've done for other clients. I usually try to poke at something. Not you, you, you.

I usually try to poke at something and challenge something that they've done to understand whether or not they can take criticism. How do they deal with that. Do they immediately get defensive or do they open up.

Okay. I also tell my clients look for agency talk saying things in the first person plural when they talk about their client relationship. Do they talk about we did this. We did that or is it.?Well, the client did this because that shows ownership. And so I give my clients a little checklist of about ten things to look for in the visitation.

Okay. What else is on that list? Well, I call that, you know, what I call that? I call that eye troubles, and I actually, I talk to my team about that. I talk to my kids about that when you're always talking. I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this. I'll tell them you've got eye troubles.

You got to really focus on the we in the collaboration that it took to pull something like this off. So I like that. Well, in typically if I challenge something and they say, well the client demanded that, it's like, okay, but you're agency. So what did why did they demand it? What was the argument you made. You know, yeah. You did have a role in that.

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Pete Carter: Implementing a Fixed and Flow Process

So I try to understand that. All right. Okay. How about number two?

Number two as we work. I do number two. That's our favorite number right. Okay. You've heard the phrase nobody ever gets fired for hiring IBM or insert big large, you know, holding company agency. So why should others CMO consider implementing more of that fixed and flow process? And for anybody listening who doesn't know, you are famously responsible for helping P&G think through different ways to get more small agencies into the P&G mix, which for a long time was very hard.

I've always worked at a small independent agency. I've always tried to get into P&G, and it was so incredibly hard until you implemented this fixed inflow process. So tell us a little bit about that. Some of the benefits and what can other CFOs learn from it? Okay. Well, first off I have to correct you. I did not. Okay okay okay. Don't get me.

Actually. Purchasing or as public procurement. Procurement that the purchasing people really were a big part of this inflow. And they helped us think through how to bring small agencies in for supplemental agencies, whether they're small or not, into our process.

Well, I think that's insight. One is that partnership between marketing and purchasing or procurement is so important too. And, you know, I want to just give you a shout out like our procurement people were partners and they understood what they were buying. They were not like a bunch of chemical buyers. And then you know we're buying advertising.

Okay. They actually took the time to get to know what the advertising business was like, what the people were like, immerse themselves in that so that they could be a full partner. And they were. Yeah. Okay. So I have a lot of respect for them. the first time I went to the small agency conference, we had invited some of the purchasing people to come with us. Smart.

And, this guy got up on the first day, and he was like, this is procurement. And he showed this picture of these dead turtles. Oh here it goes. These are the people that are making all the decisions. And you have to get through these people to do this. And I was like, that is so not procurement. They were so much more active partners. 

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Pete Carter: Getting Other Agencies to Do Certain Things

So the joke I had with our procurement people were was hey you are a ninja turtle. You are not just turtles, you are ninja turtles. So in fact one of them was Dan and I called him Donatello.

So, you know, I think, the fix and flow process was really helpful because it said, hey, there are some things that we know we want our roster agencies to do. And at the Little Soap Company, we had big roster agencies. We had a long-term commitment to them. We had built a lot of relationships all through them.

And to get that up. Yeah, not something we wanted to do easily. Right. Or quickly. And there's a lot of churn, you know, every time new CMO comes into another company, they churn at P&G. That did not happen. Yeah. Stayed with people a long time. However, we found that there was, there were some things that our roster agencies couldn't do or didn't do as well or didn't have the agility to move as quickly.

And so we started getting other agencies to do that. And that helped everybody get better because the rosters looked at it and say ooh we've got some competition here. We got to up our game. And the new guys brought fresh thinking to the work. So and we tried, you know, I tried very hard not to make them compete.

I tried to make them all on the same team. So what we did was we created swim lanes for them. Just like when I was working out of L.A., it was like Saatchi did certain things, pieces of work and Badger did certain pieces of work. Yeah. And we kind of put the work to what the agency superpowers. And that worked. And they felt like they were part of the same team.

Yep. So extreme clarity. So there's not any like competitive conflict between the two which I appreciate exactly. What you don't want is too much conflict there. and so we treated them as a team. But there was a meeting. It was the whole team. Yeah. Was there. And if someone had a good idea, we went with that good idea, regardless of where it came from.

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Pete Carter: A Faster Process

That's cool. And the other thing I really liked about the process is that you didn't ask agencies to pitch all the time. So like once you kind of got over that initial introduction into P&G procurement kind of knew who we are right? They know what our superpower is. And then they just call you and say, I've got this opportunity. Is it a good fit? 

If it is a one-hour meeting with a brand team. It's not a big huge like production. There's no spec work. It's just another case chemistry kind of a conversation which speeds you guys up significantly and it's beneficial to us.

Well, the advantages of that, the process that I've been implemented in created paystack is for the client. It is faster, like we can get to an agency within four weeks.

From start to finish, by the time they hired me to do it until we hired the agency. Four weeks, we've done that. It was several. Okay. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer because of vacations or whatever. So six weeks? Yeah, but that's what I promise people. I also promised them that it's going to be cheaper. And what clients don't understand is they aren't paying for all the pitches that their agency is doing other clients. 

They have to hire a business development group to do work. And all of that is in the cost of goods. For all the time. So it is faster and it's cheaper. And I think it's better because we find long-term partners, not just a one-off. Or something. Yeah that's great. Do the chemistry thing really much more than anybody else. That's really important.

Yep. So the fixed and flow process a few of the benefits we talked about. So it's much faster. It's more cost effective. And you guys are getting the opportunity to see a variety of agencies to make sure that that culture and the capability fit works where as before, you know, it was just a handful of agencies that P&G had worked with.

And I don't want to speak for. Yeah. Of course. Right. You're retired. Yes. Those are some of the advantages. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. All right, let's go back to the game board. Okay.

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Pete Carter: Ditching the Pitch

Number one. Number one, okay. So we've danced around this for a little bit, but let's just talk. Ditch the pitch. I love the phrase. When I hear it, it's often associated with you in the press and things like that. So, is there I know all the benefits to ditching the pitch, right? It's faster. It's built more on capabilities in chemistry.

Let less on the spec work. we're spending more time getting to know each other in less time, you know, with the song and dance, the theater of all of a pitch. Is there anything that you think is like a risk associated with it? Is there any downfall with ditching the pitch?

I think I look at it from both sides, from the agency side. I don't believe that there is much risk. That the feedback I get constantly is oh my gosh, this is so much better than what we're doing. Okay. from a client side I think there's more risk because it's unfamiliar territory.

And you have to have a lot of trust. two things they have to deliver. I know what I'm doing here. I'm going to bring them like typically the way I start the process is I bring them 8 to 10 agencies based on some discussion we've had upfront. I bring them 8 to 10 agencies that I think might fit their criteria. I show them work from those agencies. We talk about the capabilities, the size, what makes sense.

If I know something about the personality, I bring that to the table as well. Or key people that I know and how that works. So I bring that, but it's relying on me to do that. And you know, I'm taking that from the 300 or so that I vetted personally. It's about 500 that I've looked at. Crazy, 300 that I've really I've gone to visit or done a virtual visit with them during Covid. That was the way. 

And get them to 12. And then from the 12 we whittle it down further until we get to three. Once we get three it's like okay, game time is. But I don't even tell the agencies that they're in this search until we get to the six. And then there may be some questions that will get us to three. And so I have to go to the agencies and find out. Yep. You know what's the information. But it's 4 or 5 questions. I don't send them an RFP with 25 questions.

And yeah it's like no I call them. I tell them what the questions are. Tell them what I've seen that might help, but what they tell me, and then they get back to me. And then before the visit, I also give them a very detailed two page brief that says, this is what I'd like you to talk about.

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Pete Carter: Win More Business Without Pitching

This is what I know about the client, their personality and I try to help them as much as possible to be successful.

Yep. And it's working. I mean, a 90% success rate even from the people who aren't winning, which is, that's hard to do. So if there's agencies out there who want to win more business without pitching. Do you have any advice to them?

It's really tough because, you know, most of the discussion of pitch the pitch is with agencies. They love it. They're pushing for it.  It's really the client has to take that up in order to make it work. And so what I've been trying to do is find a way to tell clients, okay, that this is available to you and you know, they're only going to go to it if they think there's an advantage.

So typically time and money, right? These are big advantages. So if they can hear about that and can trust the person that they're using as their search consultant. To get them that short list then great. And it works. But it's really about getting clients to change their minds I think the agencies are already there. So just more education on the client side.

You know, the word gets out and it's not just me. There are others that talk about the same thing. So, all right, I have to know something. Just personally. So, you know, agency is like, just you know, we want this. This will be private. So agencies like I've been in other pitches where the clients like no spec work needed, you know, just high-level thoughts. You know, whatever. Just questions you might ask us.

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Pete Carter: Bringing Uniqueness to The Table

But then there's always an agency that, like, goes all out and brings back and storyboards when the rules said don't. How do you handle that? Has anybody tried to do that on you? Okay.

Because part of that brief that I give them, I have in big, bold letters. If you show spec work, you will be eliminated. Okay. It's like you're a cancer in this. You're canceled. And so it's very clear, so no one does it.

Like I don't mind if they want to talk about their thoughts on how they would approach the business or things they thought about, but not work. You know, not actual creative work. If the creative wants to talk about, you know, I could see going off in this direction or this direction or I really like that selling line that you have. And so I would look at it from this angle. That's fine. But it's conversational. There's no slide that does that.

Okay. All right. I like that there's one agency that did something very interesting even though it wasn't spec work. But they sold themselves based on someone they had in the room. It was this small agency, and I knew most of them because they were small.

And I was bringing a P&G client at the time to them and they said, I'm going around the room and, you know, everyone's talking about halfway through the meeting. I'm this one guy and he's got this giant beard, you know, and we were talking about a shaving brand.

It wasn't Gillette at the time or something else. And, I'm like, so, John, what's your role in this? And he says, oh, I'm a copywriter, but I'm actually from a freelance copywriter, but I'm actually a professional or we're like.

What's that? Yeah. They're showing us pictures of how he grows his beard and then changes the shapes. It shapes it. It does all kinds of stuff with it. How cool.

And we were so impressed that they had gone and found someone who was going to really understand what our target needed. Then it was like, okay, yeah, I want John. I want those guys. Yeah. So that sold. Yeah, I love that. Just that like unique little. Yeah, a little twist. Very cool. That's good advice.

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Pete Carter: Advice For Today’s CMOs

Okay. How about double one's 11? Let's go 11. Okay, Pete Carter.

So you consult a lot of CMOs. I know you work very closely with the dudes, among many others who are, you know, they're entrepreneurs. They might be a little bit new to the marketing world, but they're definitely seeing some early success. And I've heard a lot of the advice you've given them in particular.

But I know you work with a lot of different CMO. So my question to you is, what is the best piece of advice you can give a CMO today? Well, okay. My advice would be make sure your resume is always up to date. The average CMO last 18 months. 

Oh, so you only have a limited amount of time? Yeah. Work. And hopefully you can last longer than that. But the just serious thing. I think I would tell them, make sure you know your brand and where your positioning is. It's kind of like the superpower thing.

For the agencies, it's like, know what the superpower is of your brand. And in fact, in my process, I don't. That's one of the first questions I ask and during that initial, let's talk about what you need for an agency meeting. And if I get different answers from different people in the room, or I get an answer that goes on with multiple ideas in it and they can't really articulate it, it's like, okay, excuse me, we need to time out here because we need positioning work.

You need to have a clear positioning and you need to know what that is. If you don't know what that is I'm not giving you an agency that you're going to set off. Yeah. Know what they were, what they're going to sell. Yeah. Okay. And then they're going to fail. So let's spend some time now to do that.

In fact I did it with the dudes. Yeah. You did. They they I remember talking about fresh. Okay.

They had this guy who was there. Dude guy and your ads, and they was like, and that's fresh. And it was like, guys. Is that what you want to stand for? Or is there something else? And very quickly we got to a new point of view, which was, no, we're clean for there's a superiority statement. There's an idea. Okay, let's go clean is better than toilet paper. Got it.

So, I would tell CMO know what your brand is very cleanly and crisply and then everything else will follow. But if you don't spend that time to really make those decisions upfront and it's really a decision, you don't do those, your marketing is going to be all over the place. You won't last more than 18 months. Gosh great advice. Mic drop.

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Pete Carter: Best and Worst Pitches

All right. Yeah. So that was free to oh gosh. Number five. Okay. So we all have heard of the the P&G pitch elevator, which started at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference. So maybe without naming names or maybe you can. What are some of the best and worst pitches you've seen in the elevator? Still the T.

Okay. yeah. The best pitch, was from a very small agency. Well, first off, your listeners may not know that the elevator pitch was. We built an elevator. People went into the elevator. They had five minutes on a timer to make a pitch to us about their agency. Tell us everything we needed to know that they wanted us to know in five minutes.

And we recorded them all. And then we went back to Cincinnati and looked at the 70 recordings. Okay. Wow. Pressure cooker. Yeah. And the there was a best pitch. And they were a small agency out of Lexington, Kentucky. I think I know who. That's right. Wonderful agency. And the first thing I would tell you is they first had a theme, to their pitch, and they said, okay, these are the top ten reasons you should hire us.

Yes. And they, started you. Yeah. Number one. Number two went through. So there was a framework to there? Yes. They did it in the five minutes. Okay. They talked about their superpower. They made it very personal. Okay. they understood us. So they were in Lexington. We were in Cincinnati. 

I remember the creative director making a comment like, hey, and we're close. And if you want to meet us at the, Cracker Barrel in Dry Ridge, I'll meet us there. Okay. And, Okay. Very clever. Yeah. And. Okay. so they did a lot of great things. They were very crisp about their examples and the examples that they showed or talked about were all very concrete. Here's what the context was. Here was the results.

They were very results oriented and results in the sense of business building results. I always tell people it's very easy to get a like rating to call something an impression. It's very difficult to get someone to open their wallet and give you money. Yeah. So I want to know where did people give you money. And they did all of that.

Yeah. And probably the worst one. I don't remember where the guy was from them says one man agency. He got in there and he held up this book. and he was like, I have read this book on marketing. And so I'm very well versed on this and all the marketing trends that are going on. And I was like, the book, is it written? Oh, no. Why is he forcing this? In fact, I wanted to call him and say, don't do that ever again. I was surprised you did it. I wanted to. I really felt bad for the guy because it was all about. 

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Pete Carter: Know Your Superpower First

I've read this book and I follow this book. It's like, well, I could read the book and not hire you. That's right. No competitive advantage whatsoever.

Yeah. Okay. Great advice. So whenever we're pitching P&G or anybody really any new business pitch, you have to know your superpower first and foremost. And then what what is your unique advantage those business results. So when you talk about your case studies and your capabilities, how is it getting people to open their wallet or take the action that you're asking them to take in?

You know, it's really hard in this kind of world where purpose is everywhere. So much. Yeah. Credit. And you know in our you know P&G’s CEO has talked purpose. He has since clarified that it is not philanthropy that he's interested in. Okay. It's growing the business. Yeah. Right. 

And he is interested in doing philanthropy and building social programs and things like that. Yes. But that's a smaller portion of the business. I remember going to see an agency and they thought they had the inside track, because they had looked at everything that he had said.

And they show me all this purpose work. And I was like, yeah, that's great. And you really tugged at the heartstrings. But have you actually got anything that can show me? People pulled out their wallet? Yeah. Oh well, that's not really what we're focused on. Okay. Got it. Yeah.

You know like but sorry I'm not interested. Other people may be interested. That's fine. Yeah. But I don't know. Yeah, I've heard Marc Pritchard say a million times, you've got to be a force for good and a force for growth. Now turn to the right force for growth and a force for good. Yeah.

He's got it in the right order. Yeah. As far as I'm concerned. Yeah. All right, let's go back to that game board.

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Pete Carter: Sealing The Deal

Number six, number six.

Okay, so we've talked a little bit about the time that we got to be part of a Pete Carter pitch, and it was for Dude Wipes, which, if anybody doesn't know, Dude Wipes makes a moist towelette for your bum. and it is a far superior cleaning product than toilet paper. And so you led that, and it was very successful, in our opinion.

So we got the business. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just curious, from your perspective, what is one thing that you think we did to seal the deal?

I think the chemistry here was outstanding. It was really funny. I don't think I have ever told you this, but the Dudes almost didn't come to Cincinnati. They looked at several agencies in Chicago, which is where they're headquartered.

And, you know, of the three agencies we're going to look at, several were in Chicago. So we started there and they were like, hey, you know, we think we might have found something and it's really good. And, maybe we didn't need you after all. And I'm like, guys, just keep an open mind and come to Cincinnati.

It’s a funny feeling there's something there that you're going to like. Okay. And sure enough they came here. You guys absolutely hit it out of the park presentation. You know, I will say that you were one of the few in that search that actually called me between the time we told you there was going to be a visit and when the visit was, you actually called me and said, hey, we're thinking about doing this.

What do you think of that? And so I gave you my best advice. Yeah. Which I would give anybody here was another agency that did that as well. But there was some that didn't. And I find that really strange. Like, I'm working for you two guys. Yeah. I want you to be successful. So if that can work.

But you did that, and I think that helped. Yep. And, like I said, the chemistry was outstanding. You you hit it out of the park on the capability, and then the chemistry was great. You entered the room with the press comment that the dudes just said, okay, this person doesn't take this business too seriously. That's the way they think about their business.

They don't want to be stuffy and stodgy and they have to talk about poop. Yeah. So let's just let it out. It just goes that way. That's great. It worked. And I remember the guys called me because they were going back in the, you know, back to Chicago. And I was going back home, which I live here. And, I called him immediately after I left the, chemistry session and, they had gotten in a cab and I called them. And the first thing they answer the phone and they said, frickin car door.

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Pete Carter: The Advantage of Taking a Risk and Making a Move

You nailed it. You we would love these guys. And I said, yes. I'm so happy. I do have value work. But I was thrilled for everybody because I knew they would find a great agency. And I knew you guys would be a, you know, a great agency for them.

So I you, you talk about speed a lot and I have to say like so speed through the whole process. But even though like you won and for anybody else that's like working at an agency right now, you have to understand. And I know you feel this, this doesn't happen almost ever. But we hadn't even left the restaurant where we were breaking bread, and we got the phone call that we won.

That's right. And you hadn't even made it back home. You ran back to the restaurant. Like it into my car. I even when they told me that they wanted to award, I was like, I'm going back because I want to be there with the curiosity. People, when they hear. And sure enough, they were on the phone with you guys. Yeah, I walked in the room.

So cool. And then we were onboarding a couple of weeks later. I mean, it was that quick. And the credit goes to the Dude Wipes guys that are very decisive. Yeah.

About everything. Yeah. They move very quickly and they're not afraid to take some risk and to move. And that's what they did. And I, I loved it. So it was a very quick process for them.

Great. All right I think we've got time for two more. You good?

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Pete Carter: The Tide Talking Stain

Number three. Let's go. Number three. So you've been a part of creating three Super Bowl spots. Can you pick a favorite. Is it like picking a favorite child or do you think. Can we name a favorite? My favorite is Tide Talking Stain. Okay.

Tide Talking Stain, it was one of those things where the agency pitched it to us and we bought it immediately. And it just it happened. Then in there, it was done. We knew it was going to be great, that no one in the room had any doubt that it wasn't perfect.

Wow. Okay. So that tell us about it. What was like the strategy behind it? How do they sell it in?

So we were selling Tide Stain Pen and the nice thing about Tide Stain Painis, you know, you get a stain, you can immediately take it out and get this thing off. Okay. And the agency was Saatchi. They had done some really great work. the initial launch of that which showed a, drill sergeant, talking to his, his recruits and one of them has a coffee stain on the shirt, and he starts laying into the guy, and then he walks away and, the guy comes, he comes back, and the stain is gone because someone has handed him, see him while he was doing that.

Okay, so that was the original work that we did. But Talking Stain was built on the inside of when you have a stain, it says something about you and it may get in the way of people focusing on anything else. And which is true. Yeah.

So what we had was a guy who was going to an interview and there's, you know, the interviewer is asking you a job interview, the interviewer is asking him some questions and he's answering, but the stain is sitting there going, blah. 

Okay. And the guy keeps looking at the stain, looking at the recruit. So, and then it was like silence. The stain was the lime. And it worked wonders. And the nice thing about that ad was it not only built the Tide stain business, but because it was Tide Talking Stains we saw an uptick in base tide business.

Wow behind it as well. So it was. Break out the wallet.

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‍Pete Carter: Pantene Strong

That's right. And I would say that the second one that I would talk about is Pantene Strong is Beautiful. We did a thing with which was where I talk about this is it was a Super Bowl ad where we never bought a Super Bowl ad, so we basically bought 7 or 8 spot markets during the Super Bowl.

But somehow USA today thought we were buying a Super Bowl. Oh, wow. The ad meter of their ad. Yeah. And, it was, a heart. I mean, it was a heart warming piece where, these football players were talking to their daughters about being strong women. Okay. And, they were trying to do they were talking about it, and they were trying to do their hair at the same time. And I remember the creative director saying, we're going to find a Super Bowl.

We're going to find football players who have like simian like hands. You really do. Yeah. But it'll be a great interaction between dad and daughter. And that's what it was. and it became, it was rated number three best Super Bowl ad that year even though it was.

Wow. So I have a lot and that was great advertising in New York. Great. That was amazing. Love that. Willing to both of those campaigns. All right. Last question I'm going to put our team on the spot. Can I pick go ahead I can't let you out of here without talking about selling lines. Oh. So, take your time. We'll find it. It's okay. Oh, I would love to do that one, too, actually. 

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Pete Carter: Selling Lines

Okay. Number 12. Number 12. All right, all right, so let's go to number 12. 

So something that I know you can talk about for hours is selling lines. In fact, we have talked a lot about selling lines. Curiosity you I think Jeff Wurman It's funny, any time he's reviewing Creative now internally he spits a lot of Pete Carter game when he's reviewing selling lines.

So I feel like you've trained him. He's a little mini Pete Carter here. So I want I just want you to talk about selling lines for a little bit. what does it take for a selling line to give you the famous Pete Carter tingles?

Okay. All right, so first off, I call them selling lines because I want him to sell something. That's right. Right. I do not think it's not an end line. It's not a tagline. It's not a universal selling proposition line. And it's words, okay? It's concrete, it's words. So I use the term selling, right, because it needs to sell you something.

So if it says, you know, for for people who like, to enjoy life, that's not a selling line that's telling me who the target is. That's not telling me, hey, this is what this brand stands for. and this is why you need to buy it. So it needs to be about the benefit, of the product.

And it can be either the functional benefit or an emotional benefit, or maybe it's both. So something like that that's part of waking up is Folgers in your cup is a great selling line. It talks about the emotional benefit of coffee. Right. If it's got to be clean, it's got to be tied. There's a pure functional line.

It's not only clean, it's really clean. Right? It's a great way of saying, if you've really got a tough problem, we're the product for you. So I look for things that are talking about the benefit that are selling me something, you know, like you're not fully clean unless you're zestfully clean. The temperature never falls below zero, which I think is a great line.

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Pete Carter: Crafting a Creative Selling Line

Recently, best thing I've seen on TV recently is, kick pain in the ass. That's a great line and great lines need craft. They need someone who works with words to really craft those lines. and you know what? They're from a lot of people who do that to they, we've kind of lost that craft. in the digital age, I rarely see it, but when I see it, like kick pain in the ass, I was like.

Who is the agency that did that? It was. It was someone I knew. Yeah. I called them up and said, that is a great line. It's Terry and Sandy, right? Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, there are things they are out there, but you have to find it. And that's what gives me the tingles. It's like when you have a line like that, you live on that line for years. you know, like, I was talking to someone the other day about long term campaigns. And at P&G there were many long term campaigns.

They didn't change the campaign in 20, 30 years. I mean, even Folgers. Now, you look at Folgers, we sold the company and they're still using the best part of waking up. Yeah, because they can't find a better life.

Okay. there used to be a guy named Jim Jordan who had a an agency, in New York, and his thing was selling lines, and he used to call it power copy, and he was the master of something, and he was the guy who created, it's not ring around the collar. It's around the collar. Okay, which was a detergent brand. Yeah, yeah.

But, he created Tum Tum Tum Tum. Okay. The zestfully clean line. He created those. That was his shtick. Yeah, that was his superpower. And he did it really well. And when you have one of those lines, you can live on it for years. choosy moms choose Jif. Okay. That's the line that P&G lived on until he sold the company. And it was like 30 or 40 years, you know, easy breezy  beautiful cover girl you can live on that line.

You know hopefully that's clean pants down. It's one of those lines for Dude Wipes. Yeah. So it's great.

You know when you have it. Yes. It gives me the tingles because it. I know that that line has long term potential. We can reinterpret it many different ways. We had a line on Pantene Strong is Beautiful and we reinterpreted as strong hair, strong woman. You know, on Olay, we, we talked about the face, anything line, we could live on that for years because it was face. The sun face, getting older, face stress as you have as a woman in society. I mean, it was a great platform.

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Pete Carter: A Great Line Can Ladder a Lot of Content

Yeah. That's great. I think I feel like there's so much pressure right now that it's like quantity and speed and social and just like lots and lots of assets. And I think that especially some of these entrepreneurs who are kind of just getting their star and just hitting that like growth kind of pivot point, you have to have this too.

It's not one or the other, but you have to have an incredible selling line that means something that evokes some emotion in addition to your content. It's all got a ladder back up to that big brand platform.

When you have a great line, you can ladder a lot of content. Yeah, by coming at it from different angles. Yeah. So you know, as I said, with the old lady example face, anything we can talk about face the sun, face the weathered, face the women's challenges. face your internal, angst about things.

And then the content that can come out of that is endless. Yeah. Fascinating.

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Pete Carter: Closing Remarks

It's great. All right, so the way we like to wrap these up is with a little dot fun question. So fast. Whatever comes to mind first and it's this or that. So I'm going to give you two options. And you got to pick the first one that you think okay. No explanation. They need no explanation. Are you ready?

Okay. Can I look at your screen? You can look right at the screen. Yeah. Let's go. This or that.

The Bengals or The Reds? Bengals

Like a boss or Like a girl? Like a boss? Yes. Okay. 

The Effies or The Lions? The Effies. I thought that's what you say. 

Pasta or pizza? Pizza. Okay. With pepperoni. With pepperoni? All right. 

Trey or Jeff? Oh, come on, Ashley. Going off the board I love it. I. All right. Good. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome. Hey, it was great to be here. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. We'll talk soon. All right.

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