Lost In Found: Recent Episodes
Catch+Release
A podcast about Found Content creation + curation + storytelling from Catch+Release.
catchandrelease.substack.com
Have the best creatives and strategists in the world simply developed the best mental algorithms? What if you could use artificial intelligence to build and iterate on those algorithms? That’s the basic idea behind Daydrm.ai, a Large Language Model trained on award-winning advertising ideas and strategies sourced from Cannes, The One Show and D&AD.
In this episode of the LOST IN FOUND podcast, we dip our toes into the AI future as Catch+Release ECD Tom Christmann sits down with James Fox of Daydrm.ai to talk about creativity, algorithms and everything in between.
We hope you enjoy this episode of Lost In Found! Please subscribe and share our work wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us out. Also! If you want to stay up-to-date on all things Found Content related, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at try.catchandrelease.com/subscribe for tips and tricks as well as seeing all the latest Found Content work being made by agencies and brands.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Today on the Lost In Found podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Morrison, CMO of Pearpop. Alex has a long history in the ad agency world, having worked his way up to running the creator studio at R/GA. He shared stories from his days in the agency world and gave us insight into what it takes to be successful in that field.
Alex then went on to tell us all about Pearpop, a new creator economy startup that helps brands connect with creators to make content that will resonate with audiences. With Pearpop, brands can find and collaborate with creators who have an audience that is already interested in their product or service. This allows them to create content that will reach their target audience more effectively than ever before.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lost In Found! Please subscribe and share our work wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us out. Also! If you want to stay up-to-date on all things Found Content related, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at try.catchandrelease.com/subscribe for tips and tricks as well as seeing all the latest Found Content work being made by agencies and brands.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
On this week’s eipsode of LOST IN FOUND, we have a special guest who is a true visionary in the space where advertising meets technology. Join us as we explore a universe of ideas with Craig Elimeliah, Global Chief Creative Officer of Lippe Taylor.
Listen as Craig tells his advertising origin story at the dawn of the internet age. He also shares his insights on modern earned marketing in an advertising-averse world. And how he’s creating at the speed of culture at Lippe Taylor by using generative AI to kick off strategy and ideation.
As always, Craig brought his unrivaled passion for culture, technology, science, and data to this conversation. And whether you’re a CMO or an ad creative, we promise you’ll get something out of this one.
Our thanks to Craig Elimeliah for getting Lost In Found with us. And thanks to you for listening. You can reach our host, ECD Tom Christmann, at tom@catchandrelease.com or on Linkedin. Lost In Found is a production of Catch+Release. Our editor is Charlie Cusumano of Armadillo Edit.
You can find Lost In Found wherever you get podcasts, but you can also subscribe to Lost In Found at try.catchandrelease.com/subscribe. And, if you do, you’ll also get the world’s first and only Found Content newsletter, (also called Lost In Found) delivered to your inbox each month. It’s chock full of interesting Found Content news for modern marketers and examples of award-winning Found Content spots from today’s top agencies and brands
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Let’s face it: Focus groups suck. A bunch of random people recruited from who-knows-where with promises of money and cookies, brought together in a controlled environment and asked to discuss specific topics or products. This almost always leads to groupthink, where participants conform to the opinions of others or hold back their true thoughts and feelings. And, as anyone who has ever attended a focus group will tell you, it’s also hella boring to watch.
In contrast, ethnographic research involves observing people in their natural environments and understanding their behavior in context. This allows for a deeper level of understanding. Researchers can gain insights into daily routines, habits, and decision-making processes that would never be discussed in a focus group. These days, some research experts are experimenting with doung ethnographic research online, as that is increasingly where people are spending their time.
In this episode of the LOST IN FOUND podcast, host (and Catch+Release Executive Creative Director) Tom Christmann speaks with Malinda Sanna, Founder of LookLook.app, an end-to-end platform that curates highly qualified participants that are willing to give marketers a peek into their lives. One of Sanna’s clients called it a virtual confessional. You could also call it mobile ethnography.
“We try to be heretical in everything we do,” says Sanna. “We do all of our own recruiting. And we never use the word research. We have conversations. We get to know our subjects as people.”
One of the most sought-after strategic planners in the world of consumer research, advertising development and marketing strategy, Sanna started her research career at The Coca-Cola Company in the New Products department. She then spent years as an independent strategist at big ad agencies in New York, including Fallon and Merkley Newman Harty.
A classic strategist, Malinda is always on the lookout for insights, which she defines as “human trutsh that unlocks business opportunities.” An insight isn’t just data or information, but a deeper understanding of people's needs and desires that can inform marketing teams and inspire ingenious solutions.
How does LOOKLOOK ensure that its participants are highly qualified? Malinda explains that they use a combination of psychographic profiling and social listening to identify individuals who fit specific criteria. They also keep participants engaged by offering incentives and creating a sense of community.
Innovations like Looklook.app are changing the future of research by taking advantage of the open internet. Now modern marketers can gain deeper insights into their target market without having to attend a focus group. And for that, we owe Malinda Sanna a huge thank you.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
THEM: There’s no denying this truth: The climate emergency is an existential threat. The temperature of the planet is rising. We need to limit global warming to +1.5°C or future generations will find it very hard to survive.
YOU: I make funny commercials that sell people sustainable composting equipment. They’ve even won Cannes Lions. Surely I’m not part of the problem.
THEM: The average shoot day emits the equivalent of 2.2 tons of CO2 gasses into the atmosphere.
YOU: … service… not great here… I’m on location… let me call you ba-
On the latest episode of the Lost In Found podcast, our ECD Tom Christmann talks with John Osborn, director of Ad Net Zero USA, a global initiative that aims to help the advertising industry measure and reduce the carbon impact of developing, producing, and running advertising to net zero.
Many agencies, brands and production companies are already finding ways to reduce, reuse and recycle. And Ad Net Zero wants to help them continue that trend. But don’t worry. You don’t have to stop shooting original content. Or give up quality. “Creative is [still] king,” says Osborn, who worked at creative powerhouse BBDO for over 20 years, ending his tenure there as CEO. “But we want to arm producers with the right tools to enable them to lower the carbon footprint.”
Ad Net Zero isn’t the only organization focused on helping the ad industry save the planet, as John readily acknowledges. “In the States,” he says, “there's a great organization run by a very dynamic leader named Gabi Kay. It's called Green The Bid. It's a nonprofit and they've done a lot of research and they've got a lot of case studies around how production can begin to lower the carbon footprint.
TOP 5 THINGS YOU CAN DO
Here are five ways to make your shoot greener, according to the Green The Bid resource guide:
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Get rid of single use plastics. Yes there will always be gels and the like, but let’s kick out regular single use. During Covid, aluminum disposable water bottles and paper wrapped compostable bamboo cutlery are a good replacement for disposable plastic on set.
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Eliminate unnecessary travel. Be rigorous in working out ways to limit travel for the shoot. Where travel is absolutely vital, keep a record of miles and accommodation used and offset at the end of production. You can calculate flights here and accommodation here.
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Tackle food waste. Methane has even more environmental impact than CO2 and is totally avoidable. Use clear signage to ensure people know how to sort and dispose of waste, and be sure to book the correct haulage for compost, recycling, and waste.
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Go digital. There are apps for everything now. Digital pre-pro books, digital call sheets. You name it. Make your printer obsolete, and the trees will thank you!
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Offset carbon use. After reducing, reusing and donating, offsets are a final step in acknowledging the carbon use we just can’t avoid. Here is an example of where you could offset your carbon impact.
“In Europe,” says Osborn, “there’s ADGREEN. It's a calculator. Think of ADGREEN almost as a Hemi engine you can put into the ecosystem of tools within an agency. They've got over 530 different case studies under their belt in the last year, and they've done some real hard analysis on all those variables and they have shown, you know, the trade offs that can happen when decisions are made using that calculator.”
Acting as one industry is critical, says Osborn. No one organization can do it alone. One of the goals of Ad Net Zero is to train producers and business affairs people at agencies and brands to use the tools that are out there, including those created by organizations like Green The Bid and ADGREEN. But trade organizations are an important part of the mix, as well. “We wouldn’t be on this call right now,” says Osborn, “if the ANA, the 4As and the IAB wasn’t firmly entrenched as a foundational supporter of AD NET ZERO here in the States.”
Some organizations are more blunt about it. Clean Creatives, for instance, recently hacked Ad Net Zero social media platforms on launch day in protest. Clean Creatives doesn’t think the industry should be making ads for oil companies and other brands that are big carbon polluters. But Osborn still praises their efforts. “Ironically,” he says, “we’re both trying to lower carbon emissions in different ways.”
This episode isn’t all climate change. John also gives us his take on innovation in advertising, how peer-to-peer messaging is the ultimate medium, and he gives us his take on the ads in this year’s Big Game. His favorite spot: The Farmer’s Dog. The spot, a film about a dog and a girl growing up together, eschewed celebrity and embraced authentic storytelling. As Christmann remarks in the episode, “It's so funny that all these companies and brands are still doing these celebrity-laden ads when there are real stories being told every day.”
Catch+Release is proud to be an approved Green The Bid vendor. As advertisers, it's crucial that we take responsibility for our impact on the environment. By joining initiatives like Ad Net Zero, Green The Bid, and ADGREEN, we can work towards reducing our carbon footprint while still creating impactful campaigns.
SEARCH BEFORE YOU SHOOT
Here’s a carbon-saving tip from your favorite Found Content curation and licensing company: consider Found Content. Once you have an approved script, simply go search for the shots you want online. This doesn’t mean you have to search stock sites. Look at organic social but also pro-am filmmaker sites like Vimeo and behance. What you’re imagining may have already been shot. And licensing it couldn’t be easier. You don’t even have to know the original source. Just grab the url of whatever you want to license and head to our License By URL engine.
Who knows? You could turn your three day shoot into a one-day shoot. According to our calculations, that’s a savings of 4.4 tons of carbon!
Catch+Release is proud to be an approved Green The Bid vendor. To learn more about Ad Net Zero and its mission to combat climate change in advertising, visit their website at https://adnetzero.com/.
Enjoy the episode.
Subscribe to this podcast and get our monthly newsletter sent to your inbox at try.catchandrelease.com/subscribe.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Happy Valentine's Day!
Found Content is a lot like love: It’s hard to explain. It can take billions of forms. And, if you surrender to it, it can transform everything. This week’s episode of the Lost In Found podcast is for lovers of modern content marketing who want to learn more about this burgeoning medium.
Strategic identity legend Karin Hibma of ::CRONAN:: and visual artist Lisa Knoop of Catch+Release are here to take us through the Storyteller’s Guide To Found Content, a living resource from Catch+Release that’s full of tips on how to find Found Content and how to use it to inspire and build campaigns audiences will love.
Karin and Lisa (and your host, Catch+Release ECD Tom Christmann) discuss:
• “eating their own dog food” and how it led to a new appreciation for Found.
• the 7 ways Found Content changes everything
• how Lisa managed to license so much content directly from creators all over the world
• why curating is like listening
• how improv training can make you a better storyteller
• why there is no “normal” anymore.
Karin Hibma is the co-founder of ::CRONAN::, a design consultancy based in San Francisco working with change-makers looking for innovative answers. Her clients have included Amazon Kindle, Apple, Estée Lauder and the White House. Hibma has been featured in the Harvard Business Review and honored with Fast Company's “100 Most Creative People in Business”.
Lisa Knoop is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives in San Francisco but was born on a school bus in the deep south and raised in nature. Her work delves into themes of transformation, community and the interconnectivity of all things. You can see her work at CityArt Gallery in San Francisco and in collections around the world.
Lost In Found listeners can download the Storyteller’s Guide To Found Content for free at this link. It’s full of tips and tricks from our curators, with beautiful examples of Found Content licensed from artists and creators all over the world.
Enjoy the episode. And please consider sharing it with a friend. See you next time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Content marketing is an ever-evolving space and staying ahead of the curve requires strategic insight from today's thought leaders. In a world of rapid change, who better to anticipate trends than the final guest of the year on Lost In Found, industry kingpin Gary Vaynerchuk?
(For the two or three people who haven’t heard of him, Gary is a 5X NYT bestselling author and a serial entrepreneur who built Resy, Empathy Wines before starting Vayner Media, the global creative and media agency that has disrupted quite a few things in the industry. He’s also a creator! He posts several times a day on most social platforms at Gary Vee. And last year he launched a successful NFT art project featuring characters he drew himself called VeeFriends.)
Throughout his career, Gary has never shied away from saying exactly what he thinks. But what makes him unique is that he always thoughtfully connects the dots between current trends and where they’re likely to go next. Listen in as Gary gives us his thoughts on a range of issues, including:
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Creativity in the time of generative AI
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What is a Post Creative Strategist?
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Why brands are built in social
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Why TikTok organic reach has waned and what to do about it
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The new Instagram Notes feature
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A new kind of ad agency called a “Clip Agency”
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Marketing instead of Testing
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Why you should be making way more content
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Why expensive content is not necessarily better content
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and more!
Since this episode has so much talk of AI in it, I’m going to let jarvis.ai write the rest of these show notes. Jarvis?
Are you ready to take your content strategy to the next level? Get ahead of the game and learn what digital marketing pioneer Gary Vaynerchuk has to say about the future of content. From his own advent into social media, Gary Vaynerchuk bulldozes through outdated best practices, inspiring marketers around the world with fresh insights on new approaches that will help them grow their businesses and succeed in today's ever-evolving landscape. In this episode, we are going to explore some of Gary’s thoughts on making content more effective so that you can accelerate your brand’s growth and reach a wider audience. Our eyes widen as we get ready to write down every word coming out of this marketing master’s mouth.
Jesus, Jarvis. Calm down.
Enjoy the episode everyone. Thanks for subscribing and listening. It means a lot to us.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Found Content is Everything. Everything is Found Content. But what about garbage? Is trash Found Content?
Our guest this week has some thoughts on this. Justin Gignac is an artist and entrepreneur - and the founder of Working Not Working, a job site featuring creative freelancers. Before getting a job in advertising back in 2001, Justin started selling curated garbage in lucite cubes with the words “Garbage of New York City” printed on them.
It started as a way to win an argument about package design. But along the way, Justin learned about how play and joy are contagious. And how everything - even the most throwaway things - tell a story. And, most of all, how investing in and playing along with your biggest fans can reap big rewards.
“Anytime someone is professing their love for you,” says Justin. “That’s pretty cool. So if you have a brand and you find people that care about it, invest in them. Don’t try to control it. Just listen to that joy and play along. Be willing to take risks.”
NYC Garbage project
https://www.justingignac.com/nyc-garbage
Here’s a short documentary film from Toxi.tv that Justin talks about in our conversation.
Playing and taking risks has always been the way with Justin. He’s the master of taking a simple idea and blowing it out into lots of executions, which he says gives you more opportunities to hit. For example, for an Office Max Christmas promotion, instead of making one big bet, Justin and team made 20 mini-websites as “gifts to the internet”. One of those was “Elf Yourself,” which went viral and created a new medium.
The opposite of playing? Testing. “That’s just a way for people to cover their asses,” he says.
Here’s some more examples of Justin’s prolific playfulness:
Virgin Mobile Text Fest (made with 100% Found Content)
https://www.justingignac.com/virgin-mobile-text-fest
Stride Mega Mystery campaign
“Poppin’ A Wheelie”
“Time You Won That Thing”
“Short Attention Span”
“Internet”
“Delaware”
“Choppin’ Wood”
“Puppies”
Want to find out how Found Content can bring authenticity and relevancy to your project? Talk to a catch and release curator right now. Just go to catchandrelease.com/curation and click the “Book a briefing call” button. You can bring a script or a board or just a business problem. Our curators will bring their deep knowledge of Found Content and explain how it can supercharge customer engagement. There’s no obligation for this free consultation. So why not brief a Catch+Release curator today? And tell them Lost In Found sent you.
Thanks for listening. This has been Lost In Found, a production of Catch+Release. I’m Tom Christmann. You can reach out to me at tom@catchandrelease.com or on social media @mongoindustries. Charlie Cusumano of Armadillo Edit is our editor. This episode was produced by Lisa Knoop. Thanks to Analisa Goodin and the entire Catch+Release team for letting us troll the internet for fun, random content to share with you.
Subscribe to and rate our show wherever you get podcasts or at catchandrelease.substack.com. If you write a review, I will be your best friend forever. Thanks!
-Tom
NEXT WEEK: We get Lost In Found with Gary Vaynerchuk.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
If you’ve ever spent an exhaustive and frustrating number of hours searching the web for authentic content that you can use without resorting to the same old stock that everyone is using, then you know how hard Found Content curation can be. It can take days to find the perfect shot. And even when you do, how do you know if it’s licensable or not?
This is where the Catch+Release curators come in. These artists, filmmakers, pop-culture experts and photographers are trained in proprietary search methods to go beyond keywords and approach the search through the lens of intent. That’s why they consistently find more Found Content — and why our clients keep coming back.
We sat down with the curators, including Head of Curation Liz Mandeville, to get some insight into how they started curating and any tips they might have for the rest of us. Listen in as they share their deep knowledge of Found Content and relay some stories about finding gold for our clients.
Speaking of our clients, here’s a sampling of some of the work talk about in this episode. You can find more of our work at www.catchandrelease.com/work Happy listening! And see below about ways to talk to a curator about your project for free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX_-kKcN0yQ
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=392514062799913
https://youtu.be/fSt_2XxyB34
Want to find out how Found Content can bring authenticity and relevancy to your project? Talk to a catch and release curator right now. Just go to catchandrelease.com/curation and click the “Book a briefing call” button. You can bring a script or a board or just a business problem. Our curators will bring their deep knowledge of Found Content and explain how it can supercharge customer engagement. There’s no obligation for this free consultation. So why not brief a Catch+Release curator today? And tell them lost in found sent you.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Our guest this week on Lost In Found is David Born of Born Licensing. He specializes in licensing a very particular type of Found Content: Fictional characters. Recently, he helped Havas London make the ASDA supermarket Christmas spot featuring Buddy The Elf.
David gives some practical tips about how to put a fictional character in your ad campaign. And why they’re better than celebrities (for one, fictional characters never drink and drive). We also talk about the GEICO angry birds ad, The Uber Famous Rides campaign from last Halloween and a whole lot more, including a heart-warming story about how David got his childhood friend, who also happened to be a talking bunny, a paying gig.
Did you know that consumers trusted Found Content more than stock or original production? It’s true. And the Found Content solution of choice for the world’s most creative agencies and brands is Catch+Release. From user-generated films to five-star customer reviews, if you can find it on the internet, you can license it with Catch+Release. And now you can get a free possibility briefing with our award-winning curation team. Click here to talk to someone as soon as today. And tell them Lost In Found sent you.
Thanks to David for coming on. You can contact him at david.born@bornlicensing.com
Here’s some more links from this episode to get lost in.
Asda x Elf
Case Study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/buddy-the-elf-asda-christmas
Video:
Geico x Angry Birds
Case study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/geico-and-angry-birds
Video:
Uber x SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Scooby-Doo
Case Study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/spongebob-ninja-turtles-scooby-doo-in-uber-campaign
Video:
Google x Care Bears
Case Study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/care-bears-in-google-advert
Video:
Direct Line x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Case Study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/donatello-and-direct-line
Video:
Moneysupermarket x Masters of the Universe
Case Study: https://bornlicensing.com/portfolio/masters-of-the-universe-and-dirty-dancing-and-moneysupermarket
Video:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
This episode is for the storytellers: the creatives, strategists and marketers looking to co-create and play with their most passionate users.
Nina Kaufman is a narrative strategist and creative director who has made award-winning brand, UX and digital work for entertainment and tech clients. She has worked at Nike, Google, Netflix and R/GA. In this episode of the Lost In Found podcast, Nina talks with Catch+Release Executive Creative Director Tom Christmann about going down rabbit holes on the internet in a search for connection with the superfans who love your brand or product most.
Empathetic marketers want to know more about the people who love their brand or product. “It’s all about finding the people who are passionate enough to voice what they're doing and how they're doing it with your brand,” says Nina.
This is more than social listening. It’s social immersion. It means going into the forums and Reddit threads. Picking apart the memes. And understanding the backstories that lead to your audience’s perceptions. It takes time, but it can be worth it. It leads to work that resonates with audiences because it was informed by the audiences themselves.
Nina discusses how empathy means making work that doesn’t just sell, but makes your users’ lives better. And it means starting with brand values that connect with those needs. Leaning into audiences can lead to new product offerings too (See Nike Yoga.) And it can birth hilarious audience engagement ideas like Insertmeanywhere for the Netflix show Arrested Development.
Luxury brands are doing it too. Did you know Gucci was on Roblox?
Want to empathize with your audience? Talk to a curator at Catch+Release. We can find your biggest fans, show you how they live and connect you with them so that you can use their content to make your content more authentic.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Our guest on the Lost In Found podcast this week is Patrick Holly, Executive Creative Director at Upwork. Upwork calls itself the world’s work marketplace. At its core, Upwork is a community of freelancers for hire. Developers, creatives, designers - even finance and accounting people. Together, these independent professionals earned over $3.3 billion on Upwork in 2021.
Patrick’s team just launched a new campaign featuring a zombie CEO who comes back from the grave to tell us that the old way of working is gone. It’s a funny and shocking way to get the attention of hiring managers and getting them to consider hiring freelance help from Upwork.
This episode is all about audience co-creation. During the pandemic, Patrick’s team took a throwaway social media post for international coffee day and turned it into something way more useful. They created their own coffee brand and hired some illustrators and type designers directly from the Upwork platform to design the logo and illustrate the bags. The bags also contained a QR code that allowed the recipients (hiring managers) to hire the designers immediately. The gift delighted clients and helped create real value for Upwork’s members. They even made a film about it.
Everything Upwork does is in service of its audience. They found a stat about how moms weren’t returning to the workforce at the same rate as everyone else, so they made a film that espoused all the skills moms inherently have. It started as a scripted production. But Patrick decided to use Found Content instead. Catch+Release helped curate and license all the user-generated shots. You can see this beautiful spot here.
Also, if you want to stay cool, check out the DEMO Fesitval (Patrick explains it in the episode).
Want to co-create with your audience? If you see a post from a customer that you think you might want to use in your campaign, just grab the url and drop it into the licensing tool at Catchandrelease.com. You’ll get a downloadable file of the image, movie or audio clip. And our licensing experts will handle all the outreach and negotiation, including all the lawyer-y stuff like indemnifications. Join the Found Content revolution and see how real your advertising can get. License the internet at catchandrelease.com
Thanks to Patrick Holly for spending some time with us. Lost In Found is a production of Catch+Release. Editor: Charlie Cusumano.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
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In the second episode of Lost In Found, we talk with Kevin Mulroy, Executive Creative Director at Mischief, one of the world’s top creative people working at one of the world’s hottest ad agencies. Tom Christmann and Kevin discuss how asking better questions is the first step to finding the insights that drive results. And how truth is the thing a good strategic marketer should always be looking for.
Mischief was founded as a way to avoid the fear that pervades the big agency model: Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of losing a client. Fear of looking stupid. “We wanted to build a place where you remove that aspect of it,” says Kevin. “Keep asking questions. You get to better work faster that way.”
The Mischief process is simple: 1. Figure out what you’re going to say. 2. Figure out the most provocative way to say it. But, as Kevin is quick to add, “you can’t do 2 before you really figure out 1.” Oh, and what you want to say has to be true. “We come up with 8-10 ways in and we all sit in a room and beat it up until we know it’s the truth.” And then every execution gets the same one-two punch.
How do they find insights? “The short answer is we have great strategists,” says Kevin. The strategists at Mischief are culture curators. They’re always looking for ways to connect cultural touchstones with the client problem. In fact, everyone at Mischief does that. Kevin describes Mischief as “a strategic company dressed up like a creative one.”
The result of listening in on all the things your audience cares about? Mischief client and EoS CMO Soyoung Kang says it's advertising that feels “like a friend talking to a friend.”
Want to find insights like Mischief does? Here’s a few tips:
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Use Google autofill and ask it questions about your brand, problem, category. This will show you what masses of people are thinking about right now. And what you find may surprise you.•
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Ask more questions. Ask dumb questions. Lose the fear of being wrong.
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Participate in social media. You don’t have to be a teenager to use TikTok. You just have to be yourself. And living in the culture of your audience is the best way to understand them. Check out how Oliver McAteer does it for Mischief. Masterful.
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ABC. Always Be Curating. Keep a file where you put all the things you find that you think your audience would love to hear about from you. Set aside time each week to search until it becomes a habit.
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Need more curators? Hiire Catch+Release. Whether you’re looking for truth or simply a shot you can license, our curators are standing by to help.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catchandrelease.substack.com
Welcome to the first episode of LOST IN FOUND, a podcast exploring the power of Found Content. Each week, we'll be talking to the people who are using Found Content to make more authentic communications. From agency creatives to Tiktok creators to CMOs.
In this episode, our Executive Creative Director Tom Christmann sits down with our Founder Analisa Goodin to talk about why they're making this podcast and the 7 ways Found Content is changing everything.
Subscribe and get LOST IN FOUND every week.
Got a question? Want to be a guest on the show? Or maybe you just want to nerd out about Found Content? Write to our host (and ECD) at tom@catchandrelease.com.
ABOUT OUR GUEST: Analisa is the founder and CEO of Catch+Release, a venture-backed startup that supports brands in building authentic, award-winning ad campaigns, while ensuring the creators are being compensated for their work.Analisa took a unique path to get to where she is today and admirably stayed true to herself and her passions. While many business leaders have their MBA, Analisa is passionate about the arts and holds her Masters of the Arts. She spent several years in the creative ad world focused on image research. During her time in the agency world (at firms like Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) and as the leader of her own agency, she was able to understand the key pain points - that she would eventually go on to solve - firsthand.Analisa has raised more than $26M from top venture capitalists at leading firms like Accel for her revolutionary technology that for the first time gives brands a way to leverage found content, meaning content that already exists on the internet today, uploaded by creators, including directors, photographers, producers, entrepreneurs, and everyday people.
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