Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello and thank you for joining us for this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, Bennnie F Johnson, AMA’s CEO. In our episodes, we 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 our thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. This afternoon, our special guest tonight is Lena Peterson, the Chief Strategy Officer for Sugar 23.

Her experience in media and the advertising industry has spanned the last 20 years. She’s a passionate strategic leader who drives brand growth and innovation.

Creativity and innovation, she states, are her twin passion areas. And she spent a great amount of time thinking about and testing AI applications for content creation, as well as thinking about new creative strategies. Her experience has spanned client engagement for top brands, media owners, technology platforms, and industry associations.

Over the years, she’s been honored and recognized as one of Adweek’s Top 50, campaign USA’s 40 over 40, and she runs it working mother of the year. I’m excited to bring to our podcast today, Lena Peterson.

Lena Peterson

Thank you for having me, Bennie. I’m very honored to be here.

Bennie 

My goodness, it’s such a great honor to have you here and we’re gonna get a chance to talk about marketing and entertainment. Yes. And brands and creativity. So you know we were talking before we spend a lot of times on planes the two of us. Yeah. And you get a chance to be between New York, Chicago, and LA.

Lena 

Yes, and Nashville. Nashville’s becoming like the new LA. There’s a lot of expats moving there.

Bennie 

So talk a bit about that, right? We’ve always seen those three cities as entertainment marketing hubs. But talk about the rise of Nashville in the work that you do.

Lena 

And Chicago, actually. Then, you know, it’s interesting. I would say I started my career as a political kid in Chicago. Then I went to Leo Burnett, a storied advertising agency. You’ll hear a lot from the Chicagoans around. And then I ended up, you know, basically from promoting candidates to promoting brands. And then I went to consultancy and then we got bought by a talent agency. So all of a sudden this wild, crazy world of entertainment opened up to me. 

And it’s a fascinating place to be. What I think that technology has created, anywhere can be a city of entertainment. From influencers, creators, the traditional Hollywood model, still very much in LA, and they are very actively trying to get shoots back into the city. But Chicago’s an amazing hub for entertainment. Nashville has become just, foundation of creativity with the country music there that has just exploded in the last couple months. So it’s really all over now.

Bennie 

So I’m so interested about this journey from saying you’re a political kid and working with individuals to go through talent and brand. And sometimes when you say that, we kind of have a look on our face like these are disconnected. In today’s world, it’s a clear throughput. The work of managing political candidates and managing brands. So talk about your approach today to thinking about your brands as individuals, as people, as creators.

It’s all about storylines, right? So whether you’re a candidate, the platform that you’re running on, whether you’re a brand, the features you want to promote, it’s just about your narrative and storyline. And how you tell that is becoming much more difficult, frankly, for both politicians, entertainment companies, brands, because of the fragmentation of media.

Lena 

It’s been a challenge that we’ve all been really focused on. I think entertainment and sports in general are the two mediums that are rising to the top because they’re the ones with, as our last guest said, emotions built into the cake of those two categories. And that emotion can be leveraged on behalf of brands. And that’s kind of what we do at Sugar 23, which is, I mean, we’re traditional, we’re traditional television film producer.

My partner and founder is Oscar winning producer of Spotlight and multiple Emmy winner. we.

He just kind of saw the opportunity that brands usually rent attention. They’re added into the Hollywood process after the fact. But why can’t they start at the beginning? In some ways, it’s back to the future, which when you think of Procter & Gamble and Soap Operas, that was the original entertainment company, right?

Bennie

I was just having that conversation the other day about why do we think it’s called soap operas? And you think about how distant Farayard ended up having this marketing lesson that wasn’t intended to be a marketing lesson to kind of bring back content and product immediately.

Lena 

Exactly. I think it doesn’t, it’s the way that it’s been done in the past and the evolution that we’re seeing is that it was very much in your face. Like, you know, I think everyone referenced a lot the American Idol Coca-Cola partnership when it originally started was a giant Coca-Cola on the table and that was integration. But that’s that it doesn’t need to be it. It doesn’t need to be that because like fan fandom in particular has gotten pretty dramatic, pretty intense. Right. But that if you are bringing entertainment and content that people want to watch to them, that loyalty transfers to you as well. So instead of creating or renting attention and being disruptive with commercial models, which I love, I’m a big advertising agency fan, I love advertising, but this is entertainment as brand funded, brand partnered entertainment is another way to really create that connection and to move people down from awareness to compassion to purchase.

Bennie

So how do you ensure that the work you’re doing is authentic? That’s not just kind of, put a blue hat on top of it and therefore we’re selling blue hats.

Lena

There’s a lot of unlearning that where I spend a lot of my time doing education with brands who have like, well, okay, I’m going to sponsor the show. I need to have my brand front and center. And you’re like, no, you are connecting with the passion. You’re connecting with the feelings you project your values onto this brand. And there’s ways to do it beyond just putting a bottle of something on a table. Right. Right. So we work what we we’re producers. So we bring in brands at the earliest stage. They have a seat at the creative table with writers, directors, as the sausage is being made, if you know. So you have a brand and here are the attributes of the brand. Why don’t we have one of the characters personify many of these attributes? Like you can write it and because you’re a producer, and that’s again, our model is bringing brands as producers, you have an outsized influence and product you also have a financial investment in the success of that show. So you want to let the writers do what they do best. It reminds me sometimes the analogy we use is a little bit like sponsorship. You put your logo on an Indy car. You don’t tell that driver how to drive. You want that driver to win and you’re going to support him. And when he wins, that car and your logo is going to be on that picture and the brand values of that driver transfer to you as well.

And so, you know, the model has always been like trying to dictate and tell brand or writers Hollywood how they should write their copy. This is a little bit different. This is like collaborating with them and you’re invested in the success of the product. So you don’t want to like over index on being too direct.

Bennie

Because you don’t want to have a really obvious commercial on a really horrible show.

Lena

It’s that people are so commercially aware right now. They know when a commercial, they’re very clear on when they’re being sold to and when they’re not. And they’re open to it. Like we all, every time we check a box it says, you could have my identity. Like you are selling your information. And that’s fine. But I think people are a little bit jaded. And that’s why technology has created so many different softwares to skip commercials. So the fundamental business model of television and film is shifted so dramatically. And I think that’s created a great opportunity because Hollywood is finally open to this collaboration. Like it used to be an afterthought. Now they’re seeking brands. They want their advice. They want their not just input, also like, you know, one of our clients is Starbucks, Starbucks studios. We help build out their infrastructure. And if you think about how many Starbucks are in the United States, let alone around the world, all of those are retail locations to promote your TV show. It’s an amazing model and as long as it’s brand aligned, like it is something that they embrace and they’re pursuing and they see the synergy between entertainment, bringing people into the coffee shop and then the brand value.

Bennie

Well, they become then a retail network for you. So on the converse side, where does Starbucks see the opportunity for placement and content?

Lena

So, I mean they’re they have a really robust entertainment and brand portfolio and they have a music channel they do podcasts they like they are very active in the space and the original remit was to really look for shows that aren’t necessarily set in coffee shops that are aligned with the values and community that they’re trying to develop

Bennie

Well, you know what I think is interesting there is almost there’s an implied respect for your audience, right? Having it set in a coffee shop being about coffee is a bit on the nose.

Lena

If it made sense in the, we do scripted and unscripted and documentaries with them. If it makes sense in the scripted series, then yeah, they’re at the table with the writers. They can, and if it makes sense, the writers are really open to it because they’re part of the producing team. Versus the team that you come to, like the old Hollywood model used to be, ooh, we ran out of money, let’s get a brand in, let’s do an integration, and then. Yeah, we’ll take their money, but we don’t want to take their input. It’s different. It’s very different. They’re very open now and they’re very collaborative on both sides. They think there’s respect for each other and the process.

Bennie

So I will say in full disclosure, but to still protect the guilty, that conversation I had about soap opera’s history was because we were watching a show that was heavy-handed in the product space. It was I have this problem I’m gonna use this product to help me with this product . Oh thank you for using it and it got our attention because the product’s name was listed like three times Yeah, and it was kind of a Beetlejuice moment. It’s like what’s gonna happen here. They just say the same product name three times and it stands out in the content. And so I wonder, as brands become more comfortable and more sophisticated, what advice would you have for our brand strategists who are on calls here, going, you know, this may be an opportunity for me to have a better space and content, a better place for my brand.

Lena 

You know, it depends on where you’re coming in the process. Like product placement is always going to have a role in integration and that’s that will be more heavy handed. But I kind of think there’s a lot of people in this space right now. It’s a look it’s trendy, if you will, to be brands and entertainment. There’s more articles that I’ve seen in a long time about this space. And I think there’s a lot of people that you can turn to, but you do need a guide. The one thing that I’ve noticed right away when I started spending more time kind of on the Hollywood side of the business is marketers and Hollywood. We sound similar, but we speak very different languages.

Bennie 

Talk a bit more about that.

Lena

Well, it’s just, it’s interesting. So I’m trying to think of a story that really personified this. Nothing is coming to mind, but I remember like just like words like agency. To me as a marketer, that means creative agency or PR agency. Agency means talent agency. And they’re very different people. It’s a very different people.

And a very different model. You know, I was raised in the Leo Burnett School of Long-Term Relationship, investing in the client. It’s more transactional, I would say, in Hollywood, but there’s deep relationships there. There’s way more fragmentation in marketing and how we’re structured. Than like I think by Michael Sugar, my boss and founder likes to say, he’s like, you know what? He’s like, I love this business. I love the friction in it. Not all the time, but the friction is where great things happen. Which is true. And he’s like, you know, in Hollywood, there’s like 10 people I can call to get a film like financed. I have to call 10 people just to get to a CMO in marketing. And he’s like, it’s worth it. It’s worth it because I think it’s the future. But he’s like, it’s just a different model.

Bennie

Right. Going onto your site, you describe yourselves as we are producers of content that moves culture and evolves the industry. So you’ve got two lofty goals there, to shape culture overall and to evolve the industry. How do you deliver against that?

Lena

Well, I mean, think we do. Our entertainment content has the power to shape perceptions like nobody’s business. don’t know if you’ve watched Parenthood on Netflix recently or, I mean. Like I’ve had more conversations about the state of young men’s mental health with people because of that show. Michael was one of the producers of 13 Reasons Why. If you’re familiar with that show, that had more influence in discussing teen mental health. Exactly. And Spotlight, obviously it helped bring

Bennie

Groundbreaking.

Lena

institution to task for its bad behavior at the time. I think entertainment has that ability to really shape culture and how we’re shaping the industry is we’re actually bringing brands in at the earliest stage to really invest and to help us shape that. when I think of, we have a couple clients that are sports teams and they have tons of heritage. They have tons of passion and there’s so many stories to be told there. We have one documentary about Tommy Lasorda that we’re working through. Brands that participated or advertised near there could be part of that storytelling. And there’s actually brands, stories woven throughout that history. So we help bring those to life.

Bennie

So talk a bit about your approach to a content ecosystem. What you think is interesting, because you’re dealing with a lot of complex kind of formulas for brands, right? And you’re dealing with folks who are in this room and are listening, who they’re responsible for their brand across all these touch points. How do you help guide your partners here?

Lena

Well, so we are producers of content. So what we like to say is so we’re not entertainment consultants. We are. We want to produce amazing television shows in partnership with our brand clients. So what we like to say is like for us specifically, we try to be narrow casting a little bit in terms of, you know, how what we do and how we approach it. There’s so many good partners that we work with, whether you want to get into with influencers, whether you wanted creators, whether to do an ad campaign or branded content. We don’t do branded content. We do content that’s within four brands, but it’s a little bit different. So I don’t know if I’m answering your question directly, but I think that it’s very important to find the right specialist for what you want. And what we do, we know who we are very specifically and uniquely. And we think we do it in a way that is hard to emulate. It brings kind of all the boys to the yard

Bennie 

There you go. But I think that that’s important for you to know where you are and your focus is to help your partners with their best focus, right? Because you’re not just slapping the logo on something and putting in a camera.

Lena

But it’s interesting, there’s so many elements to it. So when we get to show production and when we’re on air, we work closely with our marketing teams to really promote the elements. So we’ll work across all the different channels like digital, social, TV, commercials, because as producers of show, you actually get the assets and you can use it as part of your in your ad campaigns and your social strides.

So it’s sort of like, imagine 13 Reasons Why it’s sponsored by, not a great analogy, but Prozac. We would be working collaboratively with that brand to figure out how to promote it and support.

Bennie

So when you think about your work, what gets you most excited?

Lena 

My God, storytelling. I mean, I think we all got into this business to be storytellers, right? And now, and I, again, I am the biggest advocate for advertising and commercials, but it’s also, we need to expand beyond it as well. So instead of interrupting, let’s make the content that they really want to hear and engage with, and they’ll thank us for it. Like the model’s changing, the opportunity is really immense. Both sides of the, this party are willing to come to the table to create something new. Like, just like, I mean, I’m in the process of we just, it sort of just got announced, like this is something that I’m a Beatles fan. One of the things we got access to John Lennon’s last radio interview and it was the day he was shot and it hasn’t been released. So we’re working with the family. have the access. We partnered with one of our talent management clients, Steven Soderbergh, who’s also a Beatles fan, and we are bringing it to life. And it’s, if you think about it, it, and it could only happen now because it’s an audio interview and we’re bringing it to film. So we’re using AI, not, we’re not, creating an AI, John Lennon, don’t worry. But we are using generative AI and working very collaboratively with a brand that hasn’t been announced yet that is going to help us bring the story to life in a way. It’s a really interesting point in his life as well. He had left the user for five years to raise his son. So it’s a treat of son’s love and fatherhood and his hope for the future. And society and then it you know then ultimately it was cut short but that legacy should be shared and so like storytelling this industry and through brands are making this possible for us to tell the story it’s pretty it’s pretty cool time to be in.

Bennie

And you can tell how sincere that is. We’re getting chills here listening to you talk about kind of this found moment. It’s a story that you get to…

Lena

There’s so many of these stories, it’s whether you know we get to work with some of the best and I love it because I have worked in my career with some of the best copywriters in the world and now I get to write with the best Hollywood reporters and bring them together and it’s magic. It really is.

Bennie 

So everyone should have their own Hollywood pitch. So we’re going to close out. I’m going to ask you, what is your Hollywood pitch? Yes. Yeah.

Lena 

The log line. It is very true, by the way. Everyone pitches stories and it’s like, it’s like Emily in Paris meets America in the horror story. Yeah, I’m like, okay. So, god, what’s the log line? Yeah.

Curiosity coupled with tenacity will win the day every day. So I think curiosity is the superpower of anyone in this marketing industry. It is our superpower and everyone I know that is in this industry are the most curious souls. And that is the constant evolution, the constant like searching for what’s next is what makes us powerful and protects us for all of the changes in the world. mean, generative AI, like, embrace it. We all have to. It’s fascinating and it’s a great opportunity to be in the space.

Bennie

What a great line to end on. Curiosity, it focuses us, fuels us, and protects us. And curiosity is our superpower. Thank you for sharing your superpower with us today. And thank you all for being on this episode and joining us for this episode of AMA’s Marketing And.

Lena 

Thank you so much.