The Future Is for the Originals

Ash: I’m actually so excited to be here with you. Especially because you have proven that you yourself have just created some amazing work in the agency world.

Coby: Well, I don’t get to take a lot of credit. I was only there for a few months, but I do get to collaborate every once in a while. Some really fun projects. Either that I bring them or that they brought me personally over time. Like, we did a son. We did some work for Sun Valley on their 50th anniversary kind of brand relaunch, and a really specific business problem that was super fun, super fun stuff.

Coby: But, you know, most of that really award winning stuff, I just have to say it’s all Jared Strain. That guy’s amazing.

Ash: He is a legend.

Coby: For sure a legend. You’re a legend, Jared.

Coby: So what do you what’s the latest in your life? What’s the latest? What’s the most exciting thing you’re working on right now?

Ash: Personally. Yeah. Or,

Coby: Let’s go personally.

Ash: Personal.

Coby: Let’s get personal.

Ash: Get personal. Okay. I did a crazy thing, and I have yet to meet a person who has done what I did. So, I grew up in San Francisco, came here to Utah, and did the school, did the career, and I haven’t been able to find a partner, so, you know, and so a year ago, I chose to go, dude, two exits down.

Ash: I chose to go to this fertility clinic, and I did the wild thing. I had this wild idea that, like, I want to have kids. And so I did. I did the weird thing, like, went into the little weird office, did my thing, and we made. And we made it.

Coby: Wait, what thing are we talking about?

Ash: Embryos. Embryos were made, and then I decided as a single male to put two of those embryos into a surrogate. And they both took another two exits down this way. Yeah, I have a nanny. I actually have three full time nannies, and I have twins. I so as a single male, I have twins.

Coby: Crazy. I it’s really crazy.

Ash: So I’ve yet to meet someone who’s done that, but probably because it’s wild and it’s crazy, but that’s the latest man just now beginning the dad journey. So.

Coby: So tell me what have you what is the biggest learning so far in your dad journey? And do you mind telling me how old your twins are?

Ash: Yeah, my twins are 12. I would say, you know now. Right. Like looking outward to every single person, male, female is like, dude, everyone’s going to do it their own unique way. Yeah, right. There’s like zero judgment into any sort of thing. And we’re all just figuring it out. You know? I joke and say that there are these parents that are like, oh my kid sleeping through the night.

Ash: Like they’re not sleeping through the night. Always. Right. So not to say parents are lying, but you know, the lesson that I’ve been learning right now is, you know, just give yourself grace, right? Parents give themselves grace. Kids give parents grace, parents give kids grace. Just everyone show empathy for each other, right? We’re all just figuring it out.

Coby: I love that.

Ash: I tell my kids, you know, I tell them they can’t hear me. I mean, they can hear me, but they try to understand, like, you’re going to go through therapy one day and we’re going to talk about this. You’re going to bring me up. But just now I freaking love to, you know, I give kids.

Coby: Yeah, I got three, and I’m divorced six years ago. And, I had a faith transition at the same time, and, I do not recommend it. I do not recommend stacking those two things. Yeah. And it you know, it wasn’t an easy divorce. It was a pretty contentious one. We compare well now, and I’m super proud of her.

Coby: She’s, a fantastic individual when it comes to working with the kids and really trying to show up the best way that she can. I have to give her a lot of credit for that. And I feel like we’ve both grown a lot. But one of the things, like the thing I learned out of all of that, because I needed, you know, it’s I think we all do needed to grow up.

Coby: And I think having kids is how most people really are faced with having to really grow up. Sure. And, but what I needed to learn, for me, was I had always approached parenting as it’s my job to bring those kids into life and to prepare them for the future, but to bring them into the future, right?

Coby: No. We follow the next generation into the future.

Ash:

Coby: We learn from them and then think of how like from one perspective, oh, youth today, from another respective youth today. And I choose that perspective.

Ash: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I kids for sure. I think human and humans and all of us come with our own, how do I say it with they come with their own spirit and intentional for this specific generation. I will get into this, but I’m so freaking excited to be in this time, in this world, in this state.

Ash: Right. Like Utah is incredible. We’ve always been incredible. But now the world is finally starting to see it in everything. Right. Like right over here. We can see at the point right there, there’s going to be incredible development a mile away, like a future MLB right from the Larry Miller Group. Like, you know, it’s freaking exciting.

Ash: Like we had a chance to actually work with, Ryan Smith with Qualtrics. We did their rebrand.

Coby: And.

Ash: And their website. And what has happened with Ryan Smith like that is incredible, right? What a tech leader has done transitioning into a sports really just a national a state, you know, presence. But what he’s done for the jazz the mammoth and just sports entertainment in Utah as a whole. Incredible. Yeah. So I love what you have to say is like we’re just stacking.

Ash: We’re just stacking. Yeah. Right.

Coby: So that I did not expect that answer. I think that, I just have to say after and, you know, it’s easy after you have become a two house family is exact. And how we talk about our family now, we’re a two household family, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how I talk about it with my kids.

Coby: I don’t know how my ex does, but, it’s easy to get in the trap of saying I’m a single parent, but really, I’m not. I’m just one household in the two household family. But I have, in this process, learned what it means to do a lot of the things that I had taken for granted from my partner early on.

Coby: And it’s given me a very, I hope, a more expanded view of what it means to be a parent and why it’s very.

Coby: I guess what I’m trying to say is, I appreciate a lot of the unseen work that went unseen, even in my, you know, in my early marriage with the kids were young, you know, because I’ve got to do a lot of that now. Yeah. Even though, my ex is still handling a lot of that unseen work or the lion’s share of some of that unseen work, you’re doing all of the unseen work.

Coby: And so I guess what I’m trying to say is, even though it’s controversial, even though, I’m sure it’s kind of the bias for most people that a two person parenting unit is an ideal unit. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, but I do know that you probably have a pretty rounded out and comprehensive set of parenting skills because you have to cover both bases.

Ash: Yeah, yeah. No, I, you know, we bro we live in this. We live in the we’re approaching the future, man. There’s yeah there is there. There could be robots like holding taking babies in the future. Right.

Coby: Like within five years.

Ash: Yeah. And you mentioned a few things you mentioned like, a faith transition. You mentioned divorce, you mentioned things that culturally, not only oh, not only in Utah are, you know, things that we don’t talk about as much, but that’s something that the whole country and the world. Right. Doesn’t talk about as much. So let’s just agree that nothing has to look a certain way.

Ash: Right. We talked about that with like, religion, with thought, the different thoughts that we have with our partners. Right. Hopefully, like we can go back to basics like the real reason that we get in anything is because we love it. Yeah, right. We love our person. We love like our religion, our beliefs. So like we love it, you know, and it changes us and it grows and then the second point is that if things change, right, if there’s like a season seasonality to a certain client, right, a certain relationship, that is okay.

Ash: Yeah. Right. Hopefully we can move through any sort of thing parenting relationship career with mobility and I don’t know, positivity. Like, yeah.

Coby: I yeah, I like that. I often ask, I mean, I, you know, and in social circles, one of my favorite questions to ask is, imagine that you knew without any doubt. However, you believe your faith, whatever your belief system dictates, your path of knowing something God told you. An alien told you. You. It’s an incontrovertible fact from your biology, however you want to think about it.

Coby: But you know that you have three great loves left in your life. How would you approach the first one? How would you approach conflict resolution in the first one, knowing that you’ve got two more great romantic love affairs?

Ash: Oh, we’re talking about the opposite.

Coby: Sex, the opposite sex or the same sex. Just whoever you’re interested in, you’re brightener your partner. You got three great partnerships left in your life and you know it. You. There’s no way. It’s like you’re shown it, but you don’t know when. And you don’t know how long. You don’t know who. How would that change how you interact in that way from that point forward, knowing that you’re at least for the first one, you know, you’re not solving till death do you part?

Coby: Yeah. Does it cheapen it? Does it change it? Does it change how you think and where you think it would change it and how you would be different is your opportunity for growth? Sure. So I love how you’re saying that there’s a seasonality to everything, because at the end of the day, there really is whether we want to look at it that way or not.

Coby: There is an ending to all things.

Ash: A great, and dude with your wife, I mean obviously like the blessings or whatever. Is that vernacular. But the positive is these incredible children. I say the same thing with, you know, what you’re going to describe as the spouse or partner. And then also employees right at weapon. Right? I just say, you know, especially in creatives, right?

Ash: You can dude, you’re still talking about these relationships. You have with like Jared Strain. You’re like, dude, we’re collabing with this. And I’m talking to this guy still, right? And I say that with my employees, my our new interns, right. That come from BYU, UVU. I say, hey, you’re here for a season and you’re going to leave.

Ash: And then maybe few years, you’re going to come back and then you leave. But that’s the beauty, at least in our sphere, as creatives, as dude, we’re fly, we’re floating. Right. We’re flowing, you know, and it’s okay. And then one thing that I would say is that just learn to respect the relationship. It doesn’t mean that you have to agree, but just learn to respect the relationship.

Coby: It’s a great insight like.

Ash: And I say that with my employee, it’s like, dude, like we’ll have like a very respectful relationship and if you leave, that’s awesome, right? But you may come back and we may collab on another project that’s happened time and time again. And I know you’ve already told me that that’s happened with, you.

Coby: Know, respect. Never burn a bridge. In fact, the first thing that you can do is you want to strengthen the bridge because you want to make sure that they can cross it. Yeah, and they can cross it coming back to. So always strengthen that bridge no matter what. Yes. Which, you know, it’s great advice. I need to follow up better myself.

Coby: I want to know how Ash Ram defines great creative.

Ash: Oh, my gosh, that’s like that’s pretty freaking powerful question. I mean, that’s everything I say. Say that one more time.

Coby: I want to know how Ash Ram defines great creative.

Ash: Great creative. Wow. Okay, so I would say great creative is obviously one that stands the test of time.

Coby: Right? So it needs to be timeless.

Ash: It needs to endure. Right. Like great. That was great creative. And we can say it from the lens of all things. Right. Like a great creative concept. Right. Like just do it. You know, strategy messaging tagline. Great creative there. Right? A great creative in architecture. Right. Perhaps like a building that will always be timeless.

Ash: Great video ad. Right. Like a video concept that to this day everyone can laugh at it.

Coby: So what makes it timeless that its effect never changes? That is effect is consistent over time. Or can it be timeless because it has a different effect over time?

Ash: You know, I vow I actually vouch for all of those. Okay, all of those are correct. But I would also add that great creative is also built on proper strategy. Okay, right. Like great creative has to make sense. Right. You have to resolve for obviously the problem solution. Right. Great creative is always well thought out.

Ash: A good friend of mine, Matt Miller, created the concept for the mayhem campaign for Allstate. Right. And again, we were just trying to resolve for, insurance. Right. Like, we will always get your back and in great creative sometimes in storytelling. Right. Very creative is also storytelling. Is that there’s a hero and a protagonist.

Ash: Right. And so in this case, we wanted to villainize the problems of insurance. Right? Like, oh, yeah, that raccoon could fall out of your ceiling, right? And make it him.

Coby: It’s to make it a bad guy and to personify the bad guy. And then as a way to focus the frustration, and to give him a little bit of nefarious ness is a brilliant move. Yes. It was just a brilliant.

Ash: Yes.

Coby: Masterclass in storytelling. I love that.

Ash: And I say that for all brands, right. Like, say you are, you know, a competitor to crumble cookie if you are a local, lawyer, you know, a med spa, right. Tell great stories. Yeah. That is everything, right? Right. Now we’re working with this luxury, condos in Park City, right? And the construction isn’t necessarily done.

Ash: We have some great renders, but everything is storytelling. You need to storytelling. Tell people why, and why they’re going to spend, you know, 2 to $4 million on this condo, right? Because it’s just great storytelling.

Coby: So what are the components of a great story?

Ash: Ooh, ooh. Well, we did talk about the hero and the villain. Right. But what you’re really doing in great storytelling is you’re really, identifying the problem and the solution. I think another element is tone of voice. Right. Because you have all these brands who would be saying the same thing, right? Like I’m staring at right now, noodles and company.

Ash: Right. We have so many in this case like say we have so many like pastas and noodle brands. Like we could say, okay, in a brand exercise, we would say, who is your ideal celebrity? Right? Is it Ryan Reynolds? You know, is it, Matthew McConaughey. Right. And so when we do now add tone of voice, humor, a character that, like, brings this whole thing to life and a customer is now able to see it, years ago, people would say, oh, just make this Apple.

Ash: Yeah. Because that’s all we had. Right. We had that was the only innovator of someone who at the time had just done something so bold and different. Now we have like hundreds of versions of what could be marketer. Yeah right. It could be mid-century modern. It could be like quirky. Stranger things right. Like that vibe.

Ash: So I would say great storytelling is also through the lens of now how you’re going to frame it. Right. Can we see that in film? We see that in packaging. We see that in everything. Right. And a good creative director, a good team also has to decide how is this going to be framed like that from the esthetic.

Ash: Right. And as a creative team that comes back to, okay, this is mood boarding, right? This is like what esthetic are we choosing? Let’s explore like 6 to 10 right. In agencies. Right. We would have these like huge walls. Now we can have digital versions of that on Pinterest right. But yeah.

Coby: You use Pinterest in your image impresses me too. I do it mostly for the stuff I build, like the furniture and stuff I build. I still sketch out all ideas on. I’m a paper and pencil, I still have a sketch or I need the tactile, I need that, I need my fingers to be touching and moving.

Coby: I need to really be thinking with my body.

Ash: Yeah. No, there’s absolutely there’s a guy you may know. Travis Chambers, he owned a company called Chamber Media. Okay. Yeah. He decided to create these, Star Wars, micro resorts in, barrel, Utah. Okay. And he wanted to look like Star Wars. He sent us the original reference stuff, and we were just like, dude, that sucks.

Ash: It’s terrible. Let’s we do this. And for sure, like, very quickly, I took out a paper and I drew out what I thought would be the basis of the first, you know, units. And then he loved it. We sent it to architecture structural engineer, and now it’s what it is.

Coby: So in is your background, art design visual? Sure. Is that where you. I mean, where you an artist, where you find artist, you draw. Is that your principal kind of primary medium of communication is a visual one.

Ash: I grew up, drawing, for sure, but I got my degree in advertising. Sure.

Coby: Spent most of my career.

Ash: Yeah. That blend. But if you were to say. Yeah, do I draw mostly. No, it would, it would be more my medium would be more, graphic design. Okay. I wasn’t an illustrator.

Coby: So you’re not the copywriter. You’re the art director. I’m the director. Okay? I’m a copywriter. That’d be me if I had to. Yeah. Let’s go in and grab some stuff. Do it.

Coby: Okay, ash, where are we going today? For a treat.

Ash: Dude, I think we go to Protein Foundry in daybreak.

Coby: Okay? So spot. All right, so why protein foundry? Other than the guns that I’m seeing.

Ash: Yeah, I mean, I’m in the sweet, but let’s show, like, everyone how we can have, like, a healthy treat. Okay? And still have it be feeling good.

Coby: All right. Feeling good on the inside and on the outside. Yes.

Ash: First you.

Coby: Take. All right. So what are we getting at? The protein foundry?

Ash: I’m into PBJ. It takes me back to, like, whatever. Circa the 90s. And 90s. Yeah.

Coby: Are you a 90s kid?

Ash: I mean, I’m in the 90s kid. Yeah, really, I biohacker yes.

Coby: Oh, man. Yeah. Well, so maybe you can on the way there, teach me all the. Okay, when’s the first time you ever had a protein foundry? PB and J.

Ash: I want to say, gosh, about a decade ago, like I would say early on when they first started.

Coby: Yeah, yeah. So are you typically an early adopter of things like this?

Ash: Absolutely.

Coby: Yeah. You just like to try new things all over the place.

Ash: No, I think Utah especially is like we are becoming the sweet capital of the world, that we are killing it. Yeah. All eyes on us. Right. So Housewives, everyone swig crumble. They all promote our sweets. Okay. And historically, I think there’s a reason to that.

Coby: Yeah. What do you think the reason is?

Ash: You know, just pioneers.

Coby: We’ve always been. Oh, he’s always been into it. Yeah. That’s cool I love it okay PB and J at Protein Foundry. I might have to join you in that. I’m not typically like, that’s interesting. Can I have a little bit of yours if I get something different? Go. All right, so what we’re going to do is be fun.

Coby: Okay.

Coby: Favorite brand? Ash. Favorite brand other than weapon? Favorite brand? All time.

Ash: Nike.

Coby: And why?

Ash: There’s just so much history. I mean, you can go. You can. I was just in India like last year. I was in India, actually. I was in a few places. I was in India, I was in Dubai, I was in Sardinia, Italy, a little island, the blue zone, where they live a long freaking time last year.

Ash: And in all of those countries. But India specific. You’re in this like whatever you would think of India right there in this street. Lots of people in New Delhi there’s like a cow that just crossed the road. Right. And they love Nike, you know what I mean? And not only do they love Nike, they understand Nike. There’s almost like a reverence that I have for Nike. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s emotional because of their journey. Right? Michael Jordan was the first like nil deal. Right. And the ability to recognize that two parties can benefit from, you know, a transaction, a product launch, a Nike because they’ve curated art forms into shoes.

Ash: Right? They’ve turned shoes into, into thousands of dollars, tens and thousands of dollars. Nike. Because it’s everyone’s an athlete. Right. From, from we spoke about this because, you know it’s the messaging of what it makes you feel. So that’s me I don’t know Nike’s like stock. You know I don’t know like how it’s performing and a B and C but for those reasons I have.

Coby: A personal connection with the story that Nike tells and it’s become part of your story.

Ash: Yeah. And Nike is proof that brands are living, breathing things and they evolve and change. No. No idea. Right. That Phil Knight, an original Nike and what had happened there in Oregon, would have turned into what it is now. Yeah. So as a parent. Right. And as now a brand, you know, leader, I believe that you have to give, you know, like a parent, you know, you have to give your brand the ability to, to be what it wants.

Ash: You, you can allow it to have guide rails, but if it’s founded on the right things, it will become this thing we don’t know.

Coby: I love that, yeah.

Ash: How about you? I do want to know yours.

Coby: You know, I reference Nike a lot because, it’s universally understood. Or a universally recognized, I think that’s one of the top ten recognized brands in the world. And because it became a, a cultural phenomenon, precisely. Because I think it does align as a brand, it aligns itself to the human condition.

Coby: Sure. And, you know, I have a very systematic and specific way that I think that it does that I wouldn’t say it was necessarily intentional. By, the, the folks that came up with, you know, how to position it. I believe it was white. And Kennedy I think white. Kennedy is probably the Nike’s correct. Yeah. For since its inception.

Coby: Right. So I love it. I like for the exact same reason it follows almost the exact same cadence. Or not cadence, but, strategy. Apple I love it as a brand, but I love Apple. Probably Apple, because when I got into advertising, I graduated went to to Gray in San Francisco, and was hired by a mentor into this space, who was kind of a luminary at the time in, in the industry.

Coby: And I got to be he put me on the new business strategy team. So the new Biz Pitch team and I got to develop strategy as a kid right out of college for the Cisco Systems, pitch. And we were competing against Lee Clough at Shy It day. And Lee Clough invented like he he’s the one that wrote the words that you know Steve Jobs originally correct.

Coby: Yeah. The think different he wrote that campaign and so we had these hats made kick Lee Clough’s ass and, and we went up against him and we won. And I was like, this is, this is frickin so awesome. So maybe from a personal, just professional standpoint, I’ve got a I have a connection to that brand, even though it’s kind of indirect, but just from a narrative standpoint, what’s one.

Ash: What’s.

Coby: My favorite?

Ash: Okay, okay, okay. And what’s one that you love? Now I’m just curious because, you know, we do play pay a lot of homage.

Coby: To the old guys.

Ash: To the OGs. Right. But like, what about now? Who’s one that you’re like, you know, because some brands get still feel controversial like Tesla, right? Some can still feel controversial because you don’t necessarily love I’ll tell you, they are.

Coby: Doing I’ll tell you the ad that I saw most recently that, that caught me mid ad and introduced the reframe and made me gasp. I went, oh, just like that. And it was anthropic. Okay, they have this. So it’s a I think it’s a 32nd spot starts out with just this montage with this kind of like this heavy music of like, you know, news reels of bombings and, climate change and like a, like and then it like, cuts to a search of like, just like Covid something or something like that, like it’s a montage of kind of doom and gloom.

Coby: There’s a lot of problems, there’s a lot of problems. And then there’s like, either I don’t think it’s a voiceover. I’ve only seen the ad one time, but maybe like subtitle. There’s never been a worse time in history.

Coby: To be a problem. And then I’m going to get emotional and it cuts.

Coby: To like young kids 3D printing something new. And a guy in a lab obviously working on some bio stuff and like as was like oh yes.

Ash: Yes.

Coby: And I literally went.

Ash: Yes.

Coby: Like out loud. And I’m like, you know, preach. That was spiritual for me. And I’m sure I, I’m always thinking of, I mean, to be honest and vulnerable about stuff like this. If somebody’s going to hear this go, that’s silly. Like, that’s, that’s, you know, you’re it’s just marketing, it’s business, whatever. And my, my response is that the, the that private enterprise is the got the greatest is this is the greatest opportunity for positive impact in the world now resistance now resides in private enterprise.

Coby: Absolutely. And, there’s a I mean, there’s a profit model, which just means that it’s sustainable if you’re not greedy. Correct. There’s a profit model now for a sustained systemic positive change. Yeah, I how frickin badass.

Ash: Yeah, yeah. No, I would say that we are in alignment there. Right? I don’t know where this idea came from then. Like marketing is like or advertising is like, oh, we’re going to get people to do what they don’t want to do, right? Yeah. And I’m glad that me and you are in alignment with that.

Ash: We use words like, you know, being a thought leader as a brand, right. Or, or building community. And having deeper meaning. Right. And, and I don’t know if like, I don’t know if perhaps people are getting it right.

Coby: I think they are.

Ash: You know, or excuse me, they are getting it. But I’m not sure if, if, if everyone sees that, that a true brand has to have these all these characteristics and you can do it in every sort of industry, right. Like you can have that’s what you’re describing is that you have this brand that is that is is changing you as is helping you see, something in a different way.

Coby: How you see the world is how you free the world. Oh, and that is your business motion.

Ash: Hey, that’s my new t shirt. I’m gonna.

Coby: It’s I love that I already got a printed baby. Okay.

Ash: Okay. I’m so into that. Yeah, I know, and I think, like, again, we’re driving here in Utah and, and we see these brands that are coming up and, and making like impacts in the world. And I there’s a new one that I just saw recently just because I know them Michelle Money and her and this woman named Jen Clyde, created a brand called For All.

Ash: Okay. And it’s a new women’s, clothing wear for golf apparel. And in an interview, I love what she had to say. She said, and mind you, their clothing is so, so cute, like their colorways, their esthetics. Like, you know, that it’s this is like, this is cut and sew factory. Just like things that are just so different.

Ash: It is not just what we say, just a blank and a silkscreen or a heat transfer. That’s like, not even what this is incredible female clothing. But what she said is more and more people would get into golf, more women would get into golf if there was no like, not there was no scorecard. But just like, let’s just have fun.

Ash: Yeah, let’s just have fun. By the way, how do you love the. I’m done. I love it, I’m into it.

Coby: It’s super creamy. The avocado makes it work.

Ash: Yeah. You had said, hey, let’s go find the sweet spot. I was like, hey, can we do healthy? Yeah, healthy. There’s no I think, what you’re mentioning with, product and, and messaging is, like you said, with Apple, I think that’s the message of leaders that have gone before is the principles will never, never change.

Ash: Right. They said think differently now you’re thinking differently with protein. I say to people like a simple exercise that we do that weapon. Let’s say we do packaging design and it started years ago when we did a book design. But I just say, hey, let’s we’re going to go through Harmons, we’ll go through a grocery store, we’ll go through like Barnes and Noble.

Ash: Let’s take Harman’s. We were doing an energy drink specifically for, blue collar workers.

Coby: Okay.

Ash: Right. And I said, okay, we’re going to take photos and we’re going to literally look at every single packaging that’s on these shelves. And I want you to remember, not remember, but let’s make reference of all colors, all this, this, this, let’s do. And then my goal is to be different than everything. Yeah. That’s there. Right. And now you’re just planning in you’re explaining that in this protein that you’re also thinking of a deeper level of thinking differently.

Coby: So that it’s interesting you say that one of my so we talked a little bit about originality. Correct. So I in the brand framework structure that I operate that I use to develop positioning and stuff, it starts with what I call an aspiration, which is the end state. That is the universal end state that your customer or any customer is paying you for, right?

Coby: So you can sell what you sell. But if you can derive what anybody is paying you for, all of those people, the root thing in one word, then you have found that alignment point. The next thing is to identify how you deliver what they’re paying for in one word, or the path that’s the catalyst, right? So with Nike would be people are paying for a concept of achievement that could be personal greatness.

Coby: It could be winning a thing, be losing some weight. But achievement of some sort is really what they’re paying for. Nike message. Is that the way that you can get there is through resolve, correct? Correct. It has nothing to do with their products or services, but by being the conduit of that message, the shoe becomes the conduit of that message.

Coby: And by buying the shoe, you’re taking a step towards ingesting that message and correct and actually making it actionable. Right? Okay. But the mechanism by which the catalyst yields the aspiration, I call that the conviction. And that is your first product and our conviction, my personal conviction. And by adoption, our big leap conviction is this people notice different align to genuine and recommend delight.

Coby: And that is how you create margin durability in the marketplace. Sure is by providing an opportunity for people to know you’re not going to get noticed unless you’re different, they won’t align to you. You won’t coalesce a market around you. You never can create a market unless you are genuine in your service. Of that market. And unless your catalyst yields self-discovery moments, it’s not a viable business model.

Coby: But if you do those three things, you will print money.

Ash: Absolutely. Oh dude, on that, on that topic of print money. I mean, if I, if I were to give advice to, any teenager right now, right. Or entrepreneur and I say teenager because I believe that the age of making six figures is dropping. Yeah, right. We have a charity called Creative Academy where we teach high school kids how to build a career in creativity.

Ash: So but if I had any advice on how to, start a business, it would be go into AI, Google trends, find out those trends that are killing it right now, skyrocketing. And even if you’re here in Utah, right, go to your local harmons and go to any shelf. Any I’ll pick any freaking product. Sardines, whatever.

Ash: Find something and rebrand it. Right?

Coby: Yeah, I call that the Skullcandy approach to correct.

Ash: Yeah. Headphones.

Coby: Yeah. Or any. Jeff Kearl did it again with stocks at that at stands. So tell me about this this, this not for profit.

Ash: We, we as an agency, we feel like we’ve been blessed, you know, in Utah, we’ve been doing our thing and we love to give back. And so, I’ve always been this believer of, like, you know, hey, let’s not teach someone. Give someone a fish. Right? Teaching. Absolutely. And so. Yeah. So. And then, dude, I was that ADHD kid.

Ash: I think I never got, you know, diagnosed, but I was that kid in high school that, you know, I read something and I did get into college, right? You know, my freshman year, you know, I got into BYU, right out of high school, but I worked freaking hard at it. You know, I’d read something and then I’d be like, oh, dude, what did I just read?

Ash: Or how am I going to ask that girl out that I like? Right. It was, it was crazy. So, for those people, right, who don’t excel at math, history, whatever, we have a place. And we as creatives, you and I are here to show people that dude, it can be done and it can be done now, right?

Ash: So I wouldn’t say Creative Academy is like we’re teaching people Photoshop, illustrator, dude, kids. Teens can figure that stuff out right on YouTube where we do teach them. I’m not even wearing khakis, but I we say like we teach them how to talk khaki, which is like how to present a portfolio, how to the early for a meeting, how to we we have a game called prize poker right where.

Ash: On one desk, a kid is acting like the client will say, a website project. And then the kid is representing the designer. Okay. And price poker is you have a max and min that you’re willing to pay for this website. And the kid has a max and min. We say, let’s play the game right away first. And this kid is like, dude, at the end of the game, the kid is like, he got that website that Clinton got that website for like $200 because that was the kid’s like mint.

Coby: We dude, we got it. We seriously, I want to take like, we got it. We got to do more of this because I have, like a whole thing about that exact thing.

Ash: Like, yeah, yeah. No. And so then we tell the kid to ask questions, right. Like find out, discover like what? What is the client’s budget like without asking. Right. You could just straight up ask. Right. But when you play a game of price poker, you realize as you start to ask these questions, this kid is now realizing, oh, dude, this guy just paid x amount for this other thing.

Ash: You know, this is how big his company is, right? And so then this min he’s discovering more of his min and his max, and he’s able to, like, find a place in the middle. So in the second round of this game that these two high school kids have played, this kid now is doing that website for $2,500, right?

Ash: For him. That’s freaking lot. We just added a zero to his original amount.

Coby: So I added zero. So I one of the things I always say like how you free the world, hey, how you see the rest of the world is people don’t buy products or services. People buy the story they tell themselves about a product or service. Sure, if you understand the story and can influence that story, you can add a zero no matter what it is you’re charging right now.

Coby: But the important part is not that you can add a zero and get more money. The important part is because if you influence the story, you influence how much that is adopted and the outcome via the degree to which that story will change the client for the good, and that zero is representative of the extra value that you’re providing.

Ash: Correct? Correct.

Coby: That’s the goal is not to take another zero, just two for the same amount. Yeah. It’s to provide more transformation. Right.

Ash: Yeah. And I tell exactly. And to your point, I tell these kids, you know, forget titles right. Like with AI coming, you know, you should be focusing more on this realization that as a creative you’re just much more right. This message is for, you know, ad agencies, marketing agencies. And that is, yes, we’re designers, or videographers or photographers, but we’re creators.

Ash: We’re idea guys. We’re the people who are in the room that a client has this problem and, and the left brain won’t even allow them to really think about this new way of solving their, their brand problem or their, their role as on an ad or, you know, the ROI on this new, like, whatever manufacturing facility they bought.

Ash: But the creatives are the ones who are like, dude, we’re an adult today. We’re going to come in and we’ll figure it out.

Coby: So how do you get how do you get a client that is, as you, you say, stuck in their left brain? I would say that is looking at a problem by a certain set of criteria. As opposed to maybe an expanded or a different and equally viable set of criteria, how do you get them to migrate or to include or to look at it from?

Coby: Yeah, an expanded viewpoint. What’s your do you have a playbook for that? And when do you start trying to do that.

Ash: To to get a client to think.

Coby: To, to see the problem outside of maybe just as you said, from a, from a row as perspective, that’s a very specific application of the question I’m asking. But, you know, if a client is looking at, a problem one way and they can frame that problem through their KPIs or whatever else. And but there is some other things to consider that they’re resistant to looking at it that way.

Coby: How do you encourage them to what’s your do you have a process to have a do you have a playbook for that?

Ash: Yeah, no. Good question. I mean, and I will say this, I do believe that the world has it has changed, like a while ago. Right. Like before we had our brand videos right where we, we could give, you know, a certain brand could do what they did with, with Giant Day. Like, Apple could do that.

Ash: And do this, like, glorious, you know, a video commercial and spend millions of dollars. And it just felt good. Right? Right. And now obviously those are for the big brands. And now we’ve seen that transition into what is more brand phone mercial right. Brand infomercials coming together where we’re like giving a lot of information really quick. We’re making it fun.

Ash: There’s a spokesperson and everything is obviously moving toward sales to now. How do we like, secretly, UGC user generated content, right. Like how do we secretly turn this video into a testimonial? Right where you have this now actor that’s like, let me tell you about the skincare routine that is like, changed my life, right? So so, you know, branding has evolved into, you know, we have to adjust to the, to the lower, attention span that consumers have right now.

Ash: Right. So we have to make that sale in like three seconds or at least hook them in three. And then we have like, you know, 15, 30 more seconds.

Coby: So you so your way of doing that of is to not say, hey client this way you’re looking at it is incomplete or isn’t necessarily viable. Your way of doing is say, yes, but we have to bake what really need like the the brand lift and the influencing lift has to be baked into a format that the client’s willing and ready to pay for.

Ash: Sure. Sure. Yes.

Coby: So brand in a performance marketing for.

Ash: Yeah, yeah. I guess I’ll give a case study of our client boom boom. And you may not you may not know boom. But I’d usually tell dudes like you, you may have seen it on your credit card statements, but boom is a female clothing line. Here in Utah, they’ve done extremely well. And weapon was their agency for I mean, gosh, that going on like ten, 12 years and boom, you know, originally they they had an identity crisis.

Ash: I would say, in Utah, they were kind of stuck on this, like just modest. Right. Like we our clothing is modest. Yeah. Right. That’s the vernacular.

Coby: That was the lane they were in.

Ash: Incorrect. And then as we did, you know, focus groups, we brought people in, their clients and we started to address also, their aspiration, what kind of fashion clothing brands they wanted to be. It was just the answer was many things, but I’ll list a few. It was we only shoot in LA, right? We only shoot with LA photographers.

Ash: We don’t shoot here in Utah with Utah photographers. We go to LA nothing. No models? No. Like, locations. Everything just looks different. It’s bold. It’s different. Right? We changed this messaging from modest to. This is just really beautiful. Artistic. Like so cool clothing, but it’s just classic. Yeah, right. You just get it in the way we style it.

Ash: It’s just not necessarily like revealing at the time. Right. So yes, Fernanda and Vivian, the two Brazilian sisters, were interested in like the numbers in the KPIs. But we had to do so many other things in the background in order to get there. Yeah, right. To set everything up, for them. And a lot of times when you talk about like going the extra mile in packaging, right in experience, you keep saying that, right?

Ash: Which, which a brand is your, your emotional experience that you have with the product or service. Right? It’s what you think about it. And so we had to go with again, going into print, we had to go and do a few more interesting things in bags and shopping in store design. Right. We had to like redesign stores, you know, and, and just make elevate everything.

Coby: Yeah.

Ash: You know, and so I think the risk that sometimes finance guys don’t see and you see that in build outs, you see that in restaurants. You see that in, in and in a lot of ways a lot of times, as you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a cost thing. Sometimes it is, but it doesn’t mean like Chipotle is a great example of a store design that uses very, very minimal.

Ash: You. Right. Design or excuse me? It’s just it’s simply well done. Right? Just not a lot of tenant improvement to budget for that. Right. So but but I do think that brands need to be really be, thoughtful of their competitors. Like what? What is the alternate options that these people have and how do you just create like a more, much more meaningful, connected experience?

Coby: I agree with that. Right, absolutely. So so I think the the the exercise, initially when, you know, because you’ve conducted brand exercises ad nauseum, it’s probably one of your foundational things that you do with the new client. I’ve been doing them for 30 years.

Ash: Correct. And you’d mentioned that Pinterest board, right. Like, like traditionally in ad agencies, we would be, trying it out. We’d be spending a lot, a lot of time in just inspiration mode, right? Where now and when we teach our designer teams to just, like, do this rapidly. Pinterest boards, you know, I like, how do you just inspire?

Ash: Yeah, right. I think that’s the first part that a lot of our clients want. Everyone just wants to be inspired for something more. Yeah. You know, and I think the.

Coby: The meaning is it finding the underlying root meaning of something.

Ash: Hopefully there’s meaning.

Coby: Is, is where that inspiration comes from. And that common thread. Yes.

Ash: Yes. If at weapon we, we say that we blend art and science. Right. So for us it’s, it is it is psychology. Right. It’s like why, why are people doing what they do in your particular market. Like what what do they deeply want. And then you ask them another question, right. This is an exercise like I learned this in college.

Ash: I teach a walked up to student, why are you buying that shampoo? Why do you buy that shampoo? Right. Because it, she said this. Okay, but why that? Oh, because of this. Just keep digging. Keep digging.

Coby: Keep the seven legging.

Ash: Right? Seven wise. Yeah. So, you know, I, you know, the future. All this stuff. It’s it’s it’s just making things. Perhaps more simpler. But the principles have been age old, principles that will never change. We’re human.

Coby: So. You’re not you’re not really concerned with or frightened by them.

Ash: I think I think I in many respects will in marketing separate the average marketers, you know, and, and average creators. But it is definitely the future is for the originals, right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s for those people because now there’s this like higher bar. Absolutely. It’s now our time. And I will say, dude, I see all these like I videos and they, they’ll add the noise to the photos and they’ll make something look retro.

Ash: I’m like, dude, that’s what we did. You know, that’s that’s the that’s the dark room, you know? So it’s so it’s just like it’s just like, you know, I really it’s just it’s learning and it’s copying what, what we have done. Right. We see that in, in our, in our teenagers fashion. Right. We see something that’s being done and you’re like, dude, we did that already.

Ash: So the point of that is be confident in what we’ve created, be confident in in the processes that we went through. Right. So I believe that our that our clients and the people that we represent deserve more. So give them more, right. It’s now our opportunity as design agencies to be bolder, to be unforgettable. Right.

Coby: So I love that. Yeah, I’m into it. I, I have a definition of originality. Oh, I think originality is authenticity. Times, creativity. And I don’t think creativity there’s, there’s this wonderful reference to it before there’s this wonderful, TEDx talk, but it was delivered a couple decades before TEDx talk was a thing by John Cleese. You know who, John?

Coby: You remember who John Cleese is? Not so he’s the tall brunet in Monty Python.

Ash: Oh my gosh.

Coby: So if you’re Monty Python fan, he’s the guy who played the Black Knight in the famous. It’s merely a flesh wound. Yes, that’s John Cleese. Okay. And, he was quite an academic, actually. And really studied humor and creativity and play and and kind of the confluence of all those things. And he delivered you can find on YouTube really easy.

Coby: He delivered this fantastic address about what creativity is and how to get to that place. And his underlying premise is that creativity, much like the Nike campaign about greatness, is not a talent. It’s not a special skill. It’s not something that you’re born with that you have or some people don’t have. It’s everybody in inherently, innately is is creative.

Coby: Everyone is. And that all it takes is to get into a place where you can be creative. It is a state of being. That’s all it is. And you can put yourself in that state of being. And then you do. Throughout the rest of the address, he talks about what it means to be in that state of being and how to do it.

Coby: And I think that just like everybody is unique, everybody can can choose to by nature, just the human condition. Show up as they are authentically. Sure. Sometimes it’s a difficult process to get to be able to do that, but I think it’s it’s a function of being in a safe environment, being allowed to fail, being, you know, being at play, which is, I think when you’re at play here, simply what defines being a play is you’re not afraid to make a mistake.

Coby: Yeah, right. You get into that situation and you just start just, just start, you know?

Coby: If you just you just go for a fofo f around and find out, right? You just get in this like, let’s just see. Let’s just see what happens. Let’s just see. I think I think that space is where originality is born. Authentically showing up, listening to here, as Rick Rubin would say to great, to make great music, you have to turn your back on the audience.

Coby: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then just going and just finding things out and failing and whatever that originality that is. I love how you said it. The future is it can is, is for the originals. And I think I iteratively can help us get there. It can push us there. It can tell us where we’re in an echo chamber.

Coby: It can it can challenge us or or it can, it can try to or we can try to make it do all of that for us. And that’s where it’s no longer original.

Ash: Correct? Correct. I would agree.

Coby: So what’s one thing that you’re seeing that nobody else is seeing right now and that you want everybody else to see?

Ash: Oh.

Ash: What am I seeing that no one else is seeing? I mean, you guys hinted at it, I believe, because I remember speaking to your founder, Brian, when I, when I. Yeah. Came to your office this morning and that is I’m seeing blue collar and I don’t, I don’t know if I’m, you know, every a lot of people are seeing it.

Ash: But I is never going to replace the human experience like this is this is the perfect time for us to be human more than ever. Human and connections. So, weapon. We’ve we’ve always been, you know, full branding agency, which means packaging, logo, websites, video, mobile, all that stuff. But another aspect of, branding that people forget is also environmental design.

Ash: So, yeah. So we’ve we’ve done that. But we’ve also been heavily into, like hotels and, and multifamily and luxury resorts where we’re branding this, the largest surf park right now that’s going to be in, the world. And it’s in Saint George and it’s called the Leah or Zion Shores. And so we’re branding that. But I think one of the things that I’m that I’m seeing that a lot of people are mistaking mistaken is like, dude right here in front of us is like silicon slopes, right?

Ash: And all the tech companies. But I believe, the investments should be made more in tech companies that are, that are deeply connected to much more than, than SaaS software as a service. Right. That that it is. Those brands like Remy is one that’s new, that’s connected to roofing. But, blue collar just, you know, actual, materials, you know, things that we that can really separate the distinction between human connection, human needs, things that, that, you know, a screen, a clod code can’t.

Ash: I think our, our focus needs to be on, on those, those brands, those problems, those, those, in real life things in right, in real life things. Yeah.

Coby: Okay. Where do you see AI being in five years?

Coby: Do you think that do you think there is a time horizon where there’s actual demonstrated sentience at scale?

Ash: Oh, absolutely. You know, AI is one thing, but AI with the robotics is.

Coby: Well, self absolute self-awareness.

Ash: Correct?

Coby: Real self-awareness. Yeah. What do you think the time horizon is?

Ash: Yeah.

Coby: I mean to total non-scientists figuring out like it’s so it’s like and it’s not worth the piss what we’re going to say. But I’m always interested in folks who have to deal and work with AI, which I know you do on a daily basis. When do you think it’s going to become totally self-aware?

Ash: Dude, it’s it’s now like soon. Very soon. Right there. There are already we’ll just say I’m, I’m very aware of of those that are, that are those, sentient, right. Those systems, those robotics that are already in play. Right. Which makes it, like I said, which makes our, our place in, in this new world very, very, very, interesting, you know, like, I, like I said, I now AI with robotics, right.

Ash: Take literally anything that you choose to do. And now being able to think of like, okay, I usually thought of like drones. Right. You know, oh we could do drone photography of this building. Oh, we can do this fly by and make a little wedding video. Okay. Now add like AI and now throw it into, like, forest fires.

Ash: Right? And like, throw it into, like, deep surveillance. Years ago, I actually had a, conversation with vibin. Right. We did. We designed vivint.com, and I had a conversation with them. This was this was this was like a decade ago. I remember where we were. We were in, a dude ranch in, in Wyoming. And I told them, I said, I don’t know, they’re like, oh, they said, what would you different?

Ash: What would you do differently? What would be Vivint 3.0. And Vivint really isn’t into innovation. Right. And I said, I don’t know, maybe like a drone that comes out of a box on the roof when it’s triggered and watches because you can do that like watches your property. I mean, I just don’t think like kidnapings or things like that.

Ash: Like only having a camera on your front door is like the answer. And I told them that. Right. So do just just be creative, right. Like we say that, you know, in in our in our charity Creative academy.org, we say that just just be creative. Just think about anything you want to do and write it down. Anything you want to do, write it down in your phone, in your notes and then like mull on it just like sit on it and then another idea will come.

Ash: But as you said, ideation creativity is a skill that we can we can enhance.

Coby: What? I think I know the answer to this from listening to you, and I’d love to tell you what I think the answer is after I ask you this. Yes, because it’s like what I’ve noticed about you. But,

Coby: Do you have a a, you know, when. So you get in a situation where Vivint comes to you and says, hey, ash, what would you do different? Be creative. Dance like a monkey, you know, do it right now. Ready? Go. And you have to meet the client expectation. Because the moment you don’t meet a client expectation in a situation like that, you know, it makes it harder to to get the call the next time.

Coby: So you want to deliver for for them, even though it’s a really tough ass to just be creative on the spot. But are you going to try it? You’re going to be creative on the spot. Do you have a quick shortcut or like, do you have a standard playbook on okay, this is the first thing I’m going to do if I need to be creative.

Coby: In conversation in in your in your creative ideation process when you’re like, okay, putting on the hat the no one’s ever done this before hat like do you have a like a standard first thing that you kind of go to to start that process off or to start your thinking off or anything like that?

Ash: Sure, sure. No. That’s a, that’s actually I mean, that’s that’s in essence what Oliver, you know, in this, in this video, on this podcast that I think that’s the essence of what we as businesses, as, people who are entrepreneurs launching product. I think that’s what the whole world wants to know, right? Is like, what? What are the big ideas?

Ash: And you and I both have been at agencies where it was the big idea. Right. And to get to that point where you, find find like a solution or, whatnot, it’s, it’s very interesting because. Right, because sometimes it could be, like I said, it could be a video series or a movement that reframes and changes the way that the business is seen entirely.

Ash: Right. And other times it’s it’s product. It’s like it’s innovation. It’s, you know, the consumers, the people are just wanting a little more. Right. And how do you be there? I think when you think about, to be honest, the best way that we’ve done it is straight up grabbing our team grab, grabbing five people that don’t even give a crap about any sort of financials or anything and just brainstorm in a room.

Coby: So I, I what I, I yeah, I just brainstorm. I, I have noticed that you that you challenge constraint I think in how you’ve spoken about it both off camera and through this and even what you just said, people in the room who don’t care about financials. So that would be a constraint. Sure. When you remove certain key constraints within vision three.

Coby: Oh, you could do anything. What would it be? Okay. Remove constraint. What does it look like. Because that’s often the only time that we can recognize unconscious constraint or bias. Yeah. It’s our biases keep us in the thought patterns that we are in. And when you remove constraint consciously you’re removing unconscious bias. And you’re getting to ask what if?

Coby: And I think you you’ve made a career out of that and you’re very adept at that. It’s really cool. And thank you, thank you.

Ash: Likewise. Yeah.

Coby: All right. You ready? Go in. Let’s do it right.

Coby: So we got caught in traffic. Yeah. So we don’t get to do a first bite, and yours is. Yours is gone halfway through. We were down in that, And this is fantastic. So what the PB, the PB edge, I think is what it’s called. Right? And mine is the lush. It’s got avocado in it, which makes it super creamy.

Coby: But you don’t taste the avocado. It’s really, really good. Pineapple. What’s yours is yours like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Ash: Yeah. I’m so into it. I crushed it.

Coby: Yeah. You need to check it out, please. Protein foundry, the daybreak and in daybreak. Avoid being bitter when there’s, like, a two hour accident. I hope everybody’s okay. But it was pretty intense, right?

Ash: Yeah. Bangeter may be cursed.

Coby: It. I think it might be. All right. Thanks for coming by. Thanks. All right. This is fun.

Nicole: Thanks for coming along. For the ride. If you enjoy Sweet Takes, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Join us next time there’s more sweetness ahead.