Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of AMAs Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we like to explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We hope to introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today’s special guest is Rebekah Pagis. Rebekah is the first ever President of North America for Design, Bridge, and Partners, a WPP global brand design company. She also currently sits on the board as Treasurer and Development Committee Chair for the Williams Syndrome Association.

Rebekah  most recently served as chief growth officer for WPP North America. And prior to joining WPP, she was managing director of Mullen Lowe US, where she spent over a decade working over the course of her career, working with such brand accounts like Google, National Geographic, American Greetings, and E-Trade. Rebecca, my friend, welcome to the podcast. It’s so great to have you here.

Rebekah Pagis

Thank you!

Bennie 

And we started laughing and talking a lot about this moment of design and creativity. So I want to ask you first, what drew you in to this role of president of North America for DesignBridge?

Rebekah 

Sure. I like, well, first, thank you for that lovely intro. I was, I was, I was like, I was wrapped paying attention there. I was like, wow, that lady sounds good. So yeah, design bridge, and partners is my first kind of pivot over to a branding and design firm. So previously I’ve been at creative agencies that started out client side actually.

Bennie

You do, all true- all true.

Rebekah 

at LVMH during brand marketing on Hennessey Cognac back in the day. Exactly, luxury brands. And then moved over to advertising, which I love doing integrated and creative advertising, global and US and kind of bounce between independence and different holding company agencies. But this is really been seven months at Design Bridges and Partners. And it’s my first stint at a branding and design firm. And I’m loving it. It’s different. It’s different.

Bennie

Okay. Luxury brand, yes.

Rebekah 

And I don’t really think I thought through kind of all the pieces that would be different, but it’s just, I’m loving it. It’s perfect for me right now.

Bennie 

What surprised you the most in moving to this iteration of creativity, business, and design?

Rebekah

I think, so I think when you’re on the integrated agency side, integrated in the word, you kind of have this idea that, integrated agencies, we could do everything, right? We could do everything. We could do the social, we could do the media, we could do the design, we could do, and at Mullen Lowe, I even helped build out the design group when I was leading the New York office here. But being just a real specialty agency that does branding and design, I don’t think I realized kind of all that went into the strategic core of it. So really building the brand itself, right? I don’t think I’d kind of put the lens that you’re really talking to the consumer, right? So you’re trying to change perception with advertising campaigns. So it’s really kind of like an awareness perception piece. Whereas at a branding and design agency, you’re really kind of like, what is the meaning of the brand, right? Like what is the brand itself? So it’s less about how the consumer perceives it more about like, what does the brand actually mean and stand for? And so that’s a little bit of a shift that I don’t know the branding and design firms always get credit for. But it’s been really interesting. think that strategic, almost strategic consulting, brand consulting side that leads to amazing design, right? Because if you don’t have that underpinning it, it’s just pretty pictures, frankly, you know?

Bennie 

Right. Right. You know, it’s so interesting. You talked about being drawn to this idea of strategic creativity, which I love because, you know, in some respects for years, people thought of those things as being two desperate parts of the world, right? There was strategy and there was creativity. And the reality is what we know when we’re in the, when we’re doing the work and we’re having the impact on the business, that the best strategy is creative and the best creative is strategic.

And it’s really kind of a centering point in there for our work. And so I love, you you thinking about this in the space, but it’s also interesting. You talked about when you’re at an agency, you feel like you can do everything. But, you know, that becomes a challenge. Yes, you can do everything. But does that mean you can do everything really well? And having this kind of unique focus, how have you seen kind of the brand work evolve as you talked before, like moving beyond

Hey, this checks the box. It’s great imagery. It’s kind of serviceable to the brief, but going that step beyond.

Rebekah

Yeah. I think we’re at an interesting kind of juncture overall in marketing advertising world, right? With the advent of AI and technology and all kind of the fractured media landscape that we live in. And I think design, kind of is a little bit caught in the crosshairs of that as well. think, you know, it used to be we lived in this world, like think about like Coke back in the day, right? Where it was like, had to be the exact pantone. It had to be the exact like kerning of the scene. I don’t know if you’ve seen the work. I know you just talked to John Cook recently, but if you saw the VML work where they kind of opened up the remit and celebrated all these Coke signs across the globe that were like not the like perfectly curated version of it, right?

Bennie 

Yeah. Right. It was brilliant that that campaign I saw it as a part of the work at Cannes and it was brilliant to kind of democratize and empower all the ways that Coke was showing up in communities.

Rebekah 

It’s so smart and it’s so celebratory, right? Like you’re like, oh wow, they actually love the brand. But I think it took Coke a little bit of a journey to get there, right? Because they used to, you know, if anybody worked on that brand years ago, they used to be kind of militant in their, how you have to follow their brand guidelines.

Bennie

Right, well you think about it, when we were all studying brand, was always brand was this space of command and control, right? And being outside of that to your point, being just a shade off on the Pantone, just a phrase off on the statement was seen as a sin that you couldn’t come back against for many brands.

Rebekah

Totally. But now it’s like, okay, think about AI, right? Anybody can take your brand, your logo, your whatever, and kind of like mess with it. Right? So I think for brand, it’s a question of, it’s no longer the days of like the, the militant hardcore, this is going to be our brand, nor is it like, Hey, let’s just let anybody do whatever they want with the brand. Right? So it’s what is that middle ground? And really, if you think about it, brand being a brand is associated shared meeting.

Bennie 

Yes. Right, right.

Rebekah

Right? Like, do we all have the same meaning and understanding of that brand? Coke can do what they did because everybody understands and has a shared meaning already about that brand. Right? So they’re like, you know what Coke is so we can go then kind of mess it up. I think what we’ve been talking to clients about is really getting those brand core brand elements, right? So that you can survive and putting like deep roots and what is your brand? Not just what is the comms of the brand? What is the awareness play for the brand? But really what is the core of the brand?

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Rebekah 

And what are those roots that they’re putting down so that you can go do things like let consumers play with it a little bit more?

Bennie

Right, right. Well, it goes back to what you said. Brand is so much more than the Pantone color and the collection of pixels in the experience, but it’s that shared meaning that you bring in. And I should say successful brands are that, right? Because you could have everything correct in terms of that brand calculus and have a horrible brand.

Rebekah 

Yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally, totally.

Bennie

And they free it up. What are some of, without naming the guilty, but you can, what are some of the brands that have been inspiring you lately? You talked a little bit about the VML work with Coca-Cola. Who have you seen lately that’s kind of excited you in your work?

Rebekah 

Okay. Well, so we, we did a project here at design bridge that they started before I came. So I’m actually, I can’t take credit for it, but it’s, it’s awesome. Um, it’s a project they did for NASA. Uh, I don’t know if you saw this, we had a, was featured in fast company a little while ago, but the idea of like branding it’s the first mission that I think is going to have a person of color on the moon and it’s called Artemis. And so they actually branded we, we at Design Bridge and partners branded this mission.

Bennie

Okay. Okay? Yes!

Rebekah

So it’s like it has a color pattern, it has a logo, it’s gorgeous, it looks beautiful. And just the idea in my head of like, we’re branding like a rocket ship, like literally branding a rocket ship was kind of like a whoa moment. And so I think the idea that when you have this this like powerful crew like we have that can think about branding in new and different ways, it’s like we’re branding hostess, right? We’re branding ding dongs and Twinkies, and then we’re branding rocket ships. And it’s so fun to be able to kind of like see the variants and see how you approach those differently. So yeah, the NASA stuff I would say is what most recently I’ve been like, wow, that’s rad. And then I’ve got to give a little shout to, so when I was at Mullen Lowe, our design group there was led by an amazing guy named Joel Paz. And he, they just recently did a campaign for the art directors club.If you’ve seen it, but it has, it’s like, the tagline is something about wanting to be seen. And like, this is great work that needs to be seen. And it’s all these eyeballs, kind of like eyeballs in bubbles, eyeballs in, in with noodles. Like it’s this really, really beautiful visual, there’s a little bit of an ick, but a way lot more of cool.

So that is what I think I admire a lot right now.

Bennie 

So I love the fact that we’re having the conversations and we’re going from fine baked goods to rocket ships. And it’s, it seems right. It seems right. We’re not even flinching. We’re just going in it. You said ding dongs and NASA in the same sentence. And it, it makes, it made sense. That’s a beautiful thing. So what, you know, what gets you excited about the future of brand and design? You know, we talked a bit about the changing landscape, you know, the pressures on brand and design, the kind of AI disruptions.

Rebekah

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Bennie 

But I want to start with a positive sense of the future. What gets you excited about the possibilities?

Rebekah 

I mean, if you can’t tell already, I’m someone who gets excited, period. So I just run on a level 11 mostly, but so much of it excites me. I think there’s so much cool stuff happening on the design front. I think…The design world to me, which you could say about advertising as well, but I think design world to me feels a little bit, I might take some heat for this, but it feels a little bit homogenous. And I think that the more different perspectives you can bring to it, the more interesting work we’re gonna get, you know? So I think that there are so many different cultural influences. You if you think about, you know, Arabic font or graffiti culture or, you know, any of the things that just are inherent in other cultures as we start to bring those forward in the US, you know, into our design world here, I think it’s going to be more interesting and richer.

Bennie 

Right, right.

You know, I think you’ve got a great point in there in talking about the homogeneity of it. If we all, if we all push towards best practices over a while, we all do the same things. Right. And you need that, that tension and that, that new.

Rebekah 

And it’s funny because I know someone, I think it Steve Boehner, who did a post on LinkedIn about like, isn’t it wild that Pringles and Little Caesars both had ads in the Super Bowl that were about like flying eyebrows and mustaches, you know? And did one copy the other and kind of like what happened? And I was like, God, I remember being agency side when we had a campaign, it wasn’t a Super Bowl ad, but there was similar to one that was out there, you know, launched at the same time.

And everyone’s like, how can it happen? Did, you know, the clients call you, did you know, did your creative team leave mid process? And I’m like, no, I’ve, I’ve come to realize, I think it’s just that so much of the creative department was such a homogenous group of individuals. And I think it’s natural that those, you know, when you have such a kind of group of sameness, that they think the same things are funny and they think the same things, the same jokes make sense, you know,

The same things are clever, the same thing. And so then you do not even trying, but you tend to get work that is very similar.

Bennie 

Right. And it makes sense to your point because they’re all cultural moments. And so if I’m pulling into a cultural moment, you know, I’m not missing out. Even if I’m in different parts of the space, the cultural moment is there. I remember watching this documentary on hip hop and it was a conversation about hip hop starting and many artists believing it was only a New York thing, that the same social impacts that created the environment for hip hop couldn’t exist in the West coast or Seattle or Detroit or South Africa or France, right? And when you think about it, it’s absurd that you would imagine that it couldn’t happen, but we get so caught up in the narrative that this is the only space to your point. No one copied each other. We’re just all responding to the same cultural impacts.

Rebekah 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, it’s long way to a sandwich to get back to your question about what I’m excited about in design. But I do think bringing in and continuing to push more of those kinds of like diverse perspectives and art in all its forms into design is what’s going to continue to make it really interesting. And that’s what makes me excited.

Bennie

So when you’re working with clients now, what normally brings them in to a strategically centered design firm, a brand design firm versus a broader agency or an in-house space in there? What particular set of challenges are leaders coming to you with?

Rebekah 

Yeah, it’s interesting. I actually was talking to one of our partner agencies in WPP Berson, who does PR. Because if you think about it, a lot of the same reasons why you would need a branding firm are the same reasons why you might reach out to a PR firm. So if you acquire a new business, if you’re deciding that you need to restructure your business, I would say there more core business problems that clients are coming to us with, like, for example, we have, you know, internally, I think we help them navigate a lot of things internally in their own organization. So for example, we have a lot of the sales force, they’re coming to us, they’re saying we need to create new products because they need new news. And should we create a new product? What’s the requirement for creating a new product? And should that new product have a different color? Should it have the same name? Should it have, so kind of all of these brand framework questions, but ultimately they’re kind of business strategy questions that sometimes are seen through the lens of design. But I’d say that’s where a lot of our clients come to us through. then do do lot of design bridge and partners. We do do a lot of product and packaging design as well. So some of our big clients are Beam Suntory and Diageo. And so we do a lot of really cool industrial design for bottles, as well as the labels for bottling, which is beautiful and fun work to get to do.

Bennie 

Right.

I was saying it, so how jealous can we be that you get to do the fun work? This is the fun packaging, right? So when you think about this, where do you find in this new role, where do you find inspiration? You know, coming from in-house and client side, but then moving through the agency spaces. As you think about this, you know, this new type of leadership, where do you find your inspiration?

Rebekah 

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. It’s a good question. Which is a little bit about are you thinking inspiration as in like sources of creativity or inspiration as in leadership style?

Bennie

I, it’s your choice, either or and, and both, right? So where do you find that, that creativity, but, but, know, your challenge with a, a really complex leadership moment, you know, within a, you know, you’re a, you’re a organization within a larger, you know, kind of space and, how do you lead this team?

Rebekah 

You’re like either or…Yeah, I think it’s interesting because I think Design Bridge and Partners is really well known in the UK. They were started in 1986, so they’re really well established there. Not as well known in the US. So if you ask many clients, they have not heard of Design Bridge and Partners. They have heard of us maybe through, if they happen to be British or if they work with a British colleague. So we’re still, think, really kind of tapping into the US market and opening the door to the US market around what we can do branding and design wise.

So I’d say that’s the kind of like big moment is how do you kind of continue to put one foot in front of the other, I guess, when we have such low awareness and yet we’re doing such awesome work. So that’s partly why we lean on our PR friends to help us get the word out there. But I think for me, like I was saying before, kind of an 11 all the time. And so…

I’m a little bit like a battery, like a little energizer bunny. Like I just get excited to continue to build. Like I’m like, my God, there’s so many things to do, right? But I think when you think about leadership style, do, had a really, was lucky enough to have amazing mentor in Kristen Cavallo, who ran the Martin Agency for a long time. I don’t know if you’ve ever spoken to her, but she’s a firecracker and she’s amazing. And she kind of taught me in life, the idea of just, you can be vulnerable and you can be a really great leader at the same time.

Bennie 

Okay, right. Right. Huh. Yes.

Rebekah 

And I think that was a huge lesson for me. I think, you know, as a woman in leadership, I think that’s another thing that you kind of have to navigate. I like to judge that the women, like a few generations ahead of me were kind of the generation of there can only be one woman in the boardroom, you know? And so it was a little bit of like a knife fight of like, who’s going to be the lady in the boardroom versus there’s that weird competitiveness, but I think that’s kind of gone.

Bennie 

Right.

Rebekah 

But then it is a little bit like, how do you define your role as a woman in the workplace? So I take a lot from women that I’ve seen that I think do it well and women that I think that I’ve seen not do it well, frankly, that I’m like, I don’t wanna be that kind of leader.

Bennie

Right, right. Which is sometimes is one of the most powerful lessons you can have. Like being in a space and be like, I do not want to do it like this. Like all the reasons why I understanding why they get there, but I want to do some differently. So I was going to ask you about mentorship and you jumped right in, you know, so that’s a little different, you know, how have you been able to mentor those, you know, around you and coming behind you, how knowing that you’re now in this role as you’ve been chief growth officer, you’ve been president and truly kind of have put your executive chops on the line here now. What do you offer as mentorship to those coming behind you who are like, Rebecca, I see something in you of where I want to be.

Rebekah 

Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me, but maybe they will one day. I do participate in the marketing academy and they have a program that’s like a program mentorship program. So I am a mentor to several up and coming marketing leaders through that program. And so that’s been amazing. It’s like a more structured mentorship program. So that’s been a fun one because they often come with like very specific questions, you know, like, how did you navigate this? How did you do that? How did, uh, which is a lot of questions around being a female leader, about being a mom. Um, I think that’s what I get a lot seems to be questions about balancing. Cause I am very open about my son and I’m very open about my son being special needs. Um, it’s something I’m super, um, I aspire to create a bit of a roadmap for women who have children with special needs. Because I don’t think you see that many of them in the workplace. When my son was diagnosed, I kind of looked around. And there are working moms, for sure. And so there is like, how do I navigate that? But I think the syndrome that my son has is really rare. And when you start looking at the numbers, I I started digging around a little while ago and it’s like, I think there’s something like 20 % of all kids in the US have some sort of disability, right?

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Rebekah 

And then if you break that number down, if you, 40 % of Americans with children with disabilities leave the workforce to become full-time caregiver, right? So if you have a child with disability, about 40 % of the parents will leave the workforce. Now, 75 % of caregivers are women. So what that means is it’s mostly the moms dropping out, right? If you have a child whose special needs are different or needs extra support, medically complicated, whatever the case might be, so many of those women are dropping out of workforce just because they think that they need to. And in many cases they do need to and everybody has to do what’s right for them. But I kind of aspire to be a little bit of a, you don’t have to, like you can find a way to be a really present, supportive, caring mom to a child with special needs and be a senior executive in the workplace.

Bennie 

You know, I love, you know, the transition in the space, because I’m gonna ask you about that, because you’re such a powerful and beautiful example of being marketing in, right? You are all in, in all these spaces. You are all in as a mom, it shines out in every conversation. You know, you’re all in as an executive, but you’re also all in as a leader of others. So I wanna talk a bit about, you know, you serving on the board for the Williams Syndrome Association.

What I love is that’s equal in your bio with all the other incredible stuff that you’ve done, you know, and that says a lot that it’s elevated to be a part of that story. So it’s this, it’s Rebecca and another work that you’re doing.

Rebekah 

Yeah. Yeah, it’s funny. I did put it on LinkedIn. know, could put your, cause it’s a volunteer role being on the board of trustees for a nonprofit as volunteer. And I almost put it LinkedIn underneath the volunteer section, but I was like, no, I want it to be in a, like when you look at me, when you look at my work, to your point, I want people to see that I am on the board of the Williams Center Association because part of the, the challenge with Williams Center is it’s one in 10,000. So it’s super rare. Right. So we actually have a little presentation that my son and I do, and we go to his school because I’m busy trying to raise awareness everywhere, but it’s one in 10,000. So you have the same chance of getting struck by lightning, finding a four leaf clover, or finding a pearl in an oyster as you do as having a child with William syndrome. I told the kids that in the class once. And so then at the end, they were like, I said, any questions? And some kid was like, how did your son feel to be struck by lightning, find a four leaf clover, and find a pearl? And I was like, no, that’s not what happened.

Bennie 

Okay. Right. Wow.

But that’s the takeaway.

Rebekah

Yeah, that was his take. That was the second grade takeaway, but, but yeah, so it’s really rare. So one of the things we’re trying to do is raise awareness, really talk about it more. You know, there’s no celebrities, children yet who have William syndrome. So we don’t really get great coverage. It’s a rare disease. They consider it a rare disease. And those are so hard to get funding for. It’s all private funding. and so hard to support because obviously like our government has to support you know cancer I think is like it’s one in 65 people or something like that so obviously funding should go towards diseases that are more prevalent in our general population makes sense but what that means is a lot of these rare diseases don’t get the kind of research and study that they should so we don’t know as much about it as it would be great to know about it but yeah I do sit on the board I’m very passionate about it I talk to people about William syndrome all the time in an attempt to try to educate people. go to his school, we talk about it, which has been great, because I kind of thought, we’ll educate the other kids. But the amazing byproduct is that because we have this PowerPoint that we present together, it’s actually given him language to talk about. So he now is kind of like his own advocate in explaining to people, I have Williams syndrome, or I have a disability, or, so it’s been amazing to see.

Bennie 

Right.

That’s incredible. to have your background and skill, but then you offer that service as a volunteer leader on the board, right? Really accelerates that forward because even though numbers you’re talking about, how many moms are president of growth for North America, right? It’s kind of a powerful moment to use those skills that you’ve honed to bring that together. You know, let’s talk a bit about the future. When you think about, you know, this kind of moment in creativity and brands, this type of moment in finding new stories and new voices and advocacy. What gets you most excited about our broader future?

Rebekah 

Ooh, what gets me excited about the future? I think the continual evolution of technology is just gonna keep, it’s gonna keep us all on our toes, And I think it’s gonna allow for new things, right? Like in theory, if AI helps with a lot of the more rote and repetitive tasks that are out there.

Then in theory that should be freeing up our creative brains to think about new interesting pathways, right? So my dream would kind of be that as AI advances, that that actually frees our creative, great creative thinkers to do things that they’ve never thought of before, right? So I think that the advent of AI and just the progression of technology, the speed at which stuff happens, is what gets me excited. I think that there’s just like so much richness there.

Bennie 

It is, it’s, when you think about it, if we use AI, as you said before, to do the rote task, then that not only frees us up, but I think it challenges us and compels us to come and deliver more, right? Because we can, we can sort through more information. We can try and experiment with more spaces in there, and then we’re going to learn to be better for it.

Rebekah 

Yeah. And I mean, the whole thing on AI is that it’s all, it’s pulling from what exists, you know? So it’s kind of like what I was saying before, but like a homogenous world, right? Like AI is going to be like, if you’re like, tell me a funny commercial, it’s going to be like, flying eyebrows, right? It’s going to tell you the same stuff that has already been done. So it’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s, that’s cool. That’s great. And I can help with a lot of things, but I think the real power and richness is going to be, okay, cool. That’s a place where we can optimize and get things quicker, but new thinking, really cool thinking, really progressive thinking is not coming from there, you know?

Bennie 

Right. It’s going to come from our human faculty, right? Our own brains are there. So I’m going to ask a little different question because it struck me before when we were talking that design bridge is principally known outside of the U.S. and your task is growing the business inside. And that’s often when I have conversations, it’s the exact reverse, right? We’re going American out. So talk a bit about about that challenge and fun of taking this kind of storied

Rebekah

Our own brains, yeah. Yeah.

Bennie 

UK centered brand that you know you do global work but kind of working your way into the US market.

Rebekah 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s super interesting. I think it’s a different challenge. I think you have certain benefits that come with it, right? So I think automatically in the US, everyone’s like, ooh, UK. And DesignBridge does Aston Martin and Fortnum & Mason and automatically has a bit of luxury cachet and elegance that will come with it, right? Just because Americans pretend to think that British things are fancy. Who says ding-dong?

Bennie 

Right. Right. But, but, but, but hostess ding dongs are not as fancy. Are you telling me that? Are you telling me that that’s I, I am, I, I am, I am shocked.

Rebekah 

That’s our Fortnum and Mason in America. Fortnum and Mason, ding-dongs, you know. So I think you had that part of it. I think the part that is a little bit challenging to get, I think folks outside the US to fully wrap their heads around is we are an expensive market. So if you look at salaries, we’re the third highest salaried market in the world after Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Bennie 

Wow.

Rebekah 

The U.S. is the third most highest salaried market in the world. We pay people well. Now, we pay people well because we don’t cover as much insurance and all those things, probably. But it’s expensive to operate a business in the U.S. And it’s not as expensive in other places around the world. So I think kind of what that looks like and how you build a global organization and how you build a global team, right? Because we want to be team players in the U.S. We want to support global teams, you want to support the global expansion. if there’s clients in Singapore that want to tap into the US market, absolutely, we want to support that. But I think there’s a little bit of us figuring out how we do that in an efficient way, because we can’t throw the same man hours at it as they do in other offices around the globe.

Bennie 

Right, and I think sometimes as leaders, people on the outside don’t see those other challenges and trade-offs that we have. They see the creative work, they see the strategic impact, but there’s really also this conversation of talent and resourcing.

Rebekah

Yeah, absolutely. But I find, you know what, I find that clients actually, when we have a conversation about how we’re structuring our business and what I’m doing with our business here, they’re super responsive. Like I think it builds trust. While you would expect me to just talk about creativity and design and brand thinking and all these things, when we actually talk about like the business of what we’re doing, I find that it builds trust because they’re not like, you’re living in the clouds of just design, creativity world.

But actually you’re trying to build out a way to make that a viable financial thing for me to buy to, right?

Bennie

Right. Right. And I think that you respect that in the space because I’m working as a business partner. I want a business partner to understand my brand, my work, my bottom line is under similar pressures.

Rebekah 

Hmm? Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Bennie 

Right. So if you could look into the future, how do you think the next five years change the brand consultancy world?

I won’t hold you to this prediction, my friend.

Rebekah

The next five years changes the industry or like the design bridge and the role.

Bennie 

I would say the industry.

Rebekah 

Ooh, branding and design.

I think that I don’t know that in the US, branding design firms have as much cache as they do in the UK. And I think there’s a lot of us kind of working to really raise that awareness of what true branding and design does. I think there’s some design that is just make it pretty, you know? And I think there’s a big difference between that and very thoughtful strategic creativity, right? Strategic led design. And so my hope, I guess I don’t know if it prediction, but my hope would be that over the next five years, we create more distinction in the world of clients’ mind of really what branding and design firms can do for the brand and how we partner with clients to do that.

Bennie 

And so to that extent, what can we as a community of marketers, as a community of creative driven executives, as a community of business and purpose leaders, what can we do to to help accelerate that? That, know, the understanding in this space in there, because I think that, you know, we get it, but you’re always under the pressure of the other members of the C-suite and the other spaces in their understanding. What can we do to accelerate that understanding or broaden that growth of brand, creative leadership and strategy matter?

Rebekah

Call me. No, think one of the things that we do is we try to really sit on the same side of the table as the client. Because again, we’re not talking to consumers as much as we are talking to the brand and the brand owners themselves. And so we end up doing, it’s kind of funny, but we end up doing for clients a lot of decision trees that are kind of like, hey, so if this, then this. So if this is our new brand positioning, then is this type of partnership right? Is this type of…

Bennie

Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Rebekah

In theory, when we work really hand in glove with clients and they are able to see us as a partner, we’re able to help them navigate a lot of that, right? A lot of that like C-suite boardroom. Because if we’re like, here’s the players, we can help you construct thoughtful narratives to explain the brand, right? If you tell me, here’s who’s on my C-suite with me. And here’s what I’m trying to achieve. Here’s what this person can do. Here’s what this person needs to…we can help build that brand narrative in a way that says, it answering this question that sales wants to know? Is it answering this and kind of build a framework for the stakeholders? Because that’s one of the key things. Like branding, you’re never getting that through if you don’t have stakeholder buy-in. Your audience is your C-suite, right?

Bennie

Right. And I love your frame, your framework there, because it’s really the 360 view of it, because we’re not talking to ourselves, right? And that’s, that’s the, can have all of the branding words and if we’re only speaking to ourselves, we, you know, aren’t delivering the impact of the message that we need and having those other players, we need all of the keys to be turned.

Rebekah

Totally.

Bennie

So if you’re thinking about launching a career, because we have a lot of listeners to our podcast who are students or recent graduates, what advice would you have for them in starting a career? It’s an incredibly dynamic time in our space and in our profession. But what advice would you have that you would hold true for a newly minted grad?

Rebekah

Amazing. Be ready?

Yeah, I think be bold and be hungry. Like message people on LinkedIn, you know? I think don’t be shy to just kind of introduce yourself to people. I think there’s nothing kind of wrong with following up with the HR person, emailing an HR, you know, finding out the HR person’s name and actually emailing them cold, you know? I think those kind of bold moves are…show kind of like a hunger and a drive. I also think that I just want to learn. I think it’s less about, to me it’s less about, I get more excited about thinking about in senior roles, those of us in senior roles, opening the doors for the next group coming in, right? Like, because to me, that’s how we build a less homogenous, less same, same world is that the likes of you and I actually open the doors to people who look, act different than us, right? Like disability, right? Like that’s a huge one for me. Something like 28 % of our US population is, has disability. And yet you look around in workplace and I’m like, there’s not like a quarter of the people, a quarter of the people here are not disabled, you know? Like you’re like, if you see one person in your workplace. So I think opening your mind to kind of like, and opening those doors to people who are, who have not historically been seated at the table. It’s just amazing because that’s how we’re going to get more. We’re going to create a field. Like what is more creative than that? You know?

Bennie

Right. Right. And that opens us up as we talk in this podcast, it opens up to the challenges, the triumphs and these pivots that come in. we, when we think about, know, we’ve been championing our iron at the AMA, there’s a different way to think about marketing leadership with that in mind. There’s a different way to think about marketing as a practice in that mind. If you’re not designing your web and your brand to accommodate and, you know, propel this part of our world.

Rebekah 

Yeah. Totally

Bennie

What are you missing out on as a brand? think your point is really well taken and being bold is a way that we encourage young marketers to come in and say, hey, there’s a space in here for me.

Rebekah 

Yeah, I think young people should be bold and brave. And then I think the senior leaders need to commit to like opening doors, know, like doing what you can to help those who especially don’t, you know, like don’t fit in, don’t look like everybody else. Because those are the ones that people maybe aren’t opening doors for.

Bennie 

Right. And remember the time Rebekah, when you and I didn’t look like everybody else or fit in and that’s our conversation, right? You know, in having, in having this is what creative business leadership looks like, appears like, and shows up like, right? You can turn around and we’re all a part of a club that we didn’t ask to be at.

Rebekah 

Totally. Totally. But that’s what’s exciting. I feel like that’s what’s exciting about the industry. And hopefully more and more diverse thinking comes in and we get cooler and cooler work, you know?

Bennie 

I think that’s a wonderful space in there. I’m going to ask you this one last question. You know, because we started off talking about this. So if you could in your words or experience or mood or vibe creating, how would you describe strategic creativity?

Rebekah 

Yeah. That’s a good one. think, and I like the vibe question. I would like to describe it in my vibe. think strategic creativity to me is just really kind of simply, it’s creative and design thinking that comes from a super strong brand core. I think that’s it. I think it’s the brand core, getting that brand core right. And really defining the meaning behind that brand, anything can kind of like comes out from that, right? So to me, that’s strategic creativity is when you’re really thinking about the brand, the brand meaning, and then the creative kind of flows, you know, because the roots are so firmly planted, then you’re like, then we could do this and we could do this and we could do this, right? I’m sure you’ve heard people say, you know, an idea is strong when it kind of like all these other ideas flower off of it. That to me is really strategically sound creative.

Bennie

I think that’s a wonderful way to end our conversation, my friend, focus on the brand core, being bold, opening up opportunities and seeking opportunities, you know, leading in your own way as a mom, as an executive, as a volunteer. You know, these are all things that my guest here, Rebekah has demonstrated in such a powerful way. 

So we started off talking about you being in in awe of me reading your bio. And I hope our guests know this is why you’re here. Rebekah is amazing, and the work and leadership that you’re doing is amazing. And I’m happy that you joined me for this episode of Marketing / And. Where we don’t have to make a trade-off between being strategic or creative, it’s required that we are always both. So thank you all for joining us.

Rebekah

Hahaha. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Bennie

And thank you all for joining us for this episode of AMA Marketing / And I’m your host, Bennie F. Johnson. We’d like for you to explore and please check out the work that’s being done with the Williams Syndrome Association as well. Check out brand leadership and strategy. And if you’re looking for resources, the American Marketing Association always has your back. Thank you.