Anson Sowby on Influencer Marketing, AI, and Agency Growth

Justin Levinson (00:10)‍

Hey everybody. Welcome to the agency side podcast. I'm your host Justin Levinson, and I'm here today with Anson Sobey, co-founder and CEO of Battery, the award winning creative agency in Los Angeles with a reputation for bold, culturally resonant work. Battery has led standout campaigns for Netflix, Hulu, Disney, 2K games, the NHL and more. They helped launch the Netflix as a joke brand and played a key role in turning Angel City FC into the most valuable women's soccer team in the world.

Anson, so great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here today.

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Anson Sowby (00:41)‍

Ciao me, Justin.

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Justin Levinson (00:43)‍

Yeah. So ⁓ I guess the first thing I'd like to do is if you could just sort of maybe tell the viewers who might not know who battery is and what they do, maybe you could ⁓ give the viewers some context there.

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Anson Sowby (00:54)‍

Yeah. So we originally started off as a, as a video game dedicated agency, as the gaming industry was changing from physical discs, you'd buy a target, Walmart to a completely digital ecosystem. We, we saw a need to change the way video games were marketed, right? Originally they were marketed like movies, right? You're trying to drive as many sales of physical discs at retail as you can. But then as they switched to digital, we saw a need to market them more like consumer packaged goods, like

razors and razor blades than movies. And so we brought this evergreen brand building method to games instead of like the tent pole entertainment release. then, you know, once we got good in games, course, gamers also drive cars and flying airplanes and drink soda than everything else everyone does. So we started to expand to other areas, you know, of gamers, other brands that targeted them. And then we ended up just expanding out of that. But games is definitely kind of has always

you know, been the through line with us, even though, you know, we're not wholly dedicated to games anymore, but that was the original.

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Justin Levinson (02:00)‍

Yeah, are you a gamer yourself? Has that been a passion of yours?

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Anson Sowby (02:03)‍

Yeah, you know, I started my career in the games industry and I thought I was a gamer until I played eSports against other competitive gamers that were coworkers. like, I feel like I'm like a minor league athlete trying to play in the, in the big leagues, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm a big gamer.

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Justin Levinson (02:21)‍

Cool. Yeah. So I guess maybe I'd like to learn a little bit more about you because I was just looking on like your LinkedIn page and I noticed, I don't want to go back too far, but back in 97, 98, maybe we could begin a little bit of your journey. saw that you actually were, it says you're Portuguese teacher. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about that.

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Anson Sowby (02:40)‍

Yeah. Yeah. So I was not to even go further back. I was originally raised in the Mormon church. And then I served a Mormon mission in Brazil where I, where I learned Portuguese. And then when I moved back to Utah to go to undergrad at Brigham Young University, ⁓ was, there were so few jobs I was qualified to do and no one really paid me to do anything as a, as a college kid, but I found a lot of joy in that. yeah, I taught, I taught Portuguese in, in college.

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Justin Levinson (03:08)‍

That's super cool. And then I'm just trying to track some of the, you know, the moves that you make. It looks like you were kind of entering the industry doing mail, the mail room. Is that what you're doing at Universal?

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Anson Sowby (03:21)‍

Yeah, it's where, it's where all good entertainment careers start, right? Yeah. So, so when I, when I moved to LA from Utah, again, the, only job I could get, was literally in the mail room. So was like one of the guys driving the golf carts on the Universal Studios back lot, delivering mail to, you know, the various corporate entities. And I would sneak my friends onto the Universal Studios theme park and like drop them off at the jaws ride. I probably cost Universal Studios tens of thousands of dollars for all the friends that I.

knock onto the theme park, you know, but it was, was, it was, it was definitely the most fun male delivering job I could, I could imagine.

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Justin Levinson (03:58)‍

Yeah, how did you get that gig?

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Anson Sowby (04:01)‍

So I started as a temp. So I applied to be a temp employee at Universal because, know, I knew I wanted to go into entertainment, but I didn't know what I'm like, well, okay. So Universal's got films and home movies and theme parks and music. And, you know, I said, all let me, let me start here and I can probably figure out a way to go. I didn't.

Set about being a ⁓ mailman. was just the only gig I could get, but then literally I would deliver mail to all the different divisions at Universal Studios. And I would deliver mail to the video games. I didn't even know Universal had a games division, basically turning Universal films and properties, you know, into games. And I started making friends with the folks that were in the games division. just, I just, it sounds so stupid and tri, but I was like, this seems really fun. This just seems so cool that it's tech.

It's storytelling. It's still a bit of that nerdy-ness that we all love about the industry. And so I was like, are you guys hiring? Like the male guy wants to hire. And they hired me as like a low level, like a researcher, like researching what made different video games sell well. So I put down my male hat and joined the games division as a researcher.

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Justin Levinson (05:17)‍

Yeah, that's really cool. I'm always curious because, you know, people are always looking, you know, they always come to me asking me how they can get their foot in the door. What's the path like, you know? So I'm always very interested in how people started. And I guess that was your entryway into the games. What sort of was the next step? Like what did that lead you into?

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Anson Sowby (05:39)‍

Yeah. So then I actually went to the toy industry where I was working on kind of physical. We had this idea of taking a lot of the original Atari 2600 games and a lot of retro games and packaging them in a joystick, which then this is going to sound so old, but then just plugged into the TV and you could then play obviously that was before all the different ways you could play games now. But we had an idea of how to really take retro games and kind of

bring it to the masses in a, in a $19.99 joystick and like Miss Toppan and Space Invaders and all the, all the old games. So I moved to the, to the toy industry and it was a really interesting opportunity of, you'd have to design the physical product and design the physical packaging. But then of course it was a, it was the software entertainment experience of using emulators and trying to bring back those old games and kind of reintroducing it to kids at that time and the parents who would, who would, uh, uh,

grown up with it and I was lucky that it really took me around the world because it was such a good price point, right? Of $20, I mean, it literally plugs in your TV, you don't need a console. Being in the 20s, he brought me kind of just around the world, you know, marketing and creating that product. And it was really fun to move just from a software thing to a software and hardware experience together.

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Justin Levinson (07:02)‍

Yeah, that's great. I now, I recently ordered one of those, retro, ⁓ video game things where it's inclusive, like 1000 different games. They're a little glitchy at times, but you can just plug them right into your TV and I can play like battle toads or, you know, old Mario brother games that I had when I was like a child. So guess that's like the 2025, ⁓ version of it. Yeah, it is pretty cool. ⁓ Cool. And then.

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Anson Sowby (07:25)‍

So fun.

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Justin Levinson (07:30)‍

Is that starting to get into ⁓ where you started your, know you started your, you had an agency called Dare, is that correct? And you, that was also acquired? Is that, maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.

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Anson Sowby (07:44)‍

Yeah, it was, it was a blogger marketing platform called rocket Excel. And then we sold it to, ⁓ as, as agency holding companies can be complicated. We sold it to an agency holding company who merged us with an existing group called dare. But yeah. So, so, you know, we saw the, when I was in toys, right? lot of toy marketing is marketing to parents, especially if you're working on a, on a younger preschool, you know, younger age, ⁓ toy.

And so we were starting to see that the traditional forms of TV and print were being non-effective and people weren't quite calling them influencers back then, but we saw an opportunity with bloggers and the blogosphere as kind of a new way of spreading word of mouth, especially among parents about toys and educational toys. And so I went to my boss at the time and I said, all right, I think we should start divesting from TV.

and invest in this thing called the blogosphere. And I printed out my proposal, he wadded it up and bounced it off my forehead and said, shut that F up. I don't know if we can curse there. said, shut the F up and do your job. And I was like, okay, that didn't quite go as well. I had like the ROI analysis that everything literally bounced off my forehead. was like, all right, that's not gonna work. So I decided to leave.

and set up a blogger marketing platform. And we were lucky to be early on with like Unilever and P &G and like literally marketing Dove and Tide detergent via bloggers who were acting as, you know, the new PR and influencer. You know, it's so funny back then it was called mommy bloggers. It's not something, not a term that we use now, but it was, it was really a new influence. so because we were lucky enough to be early on with a lot of blue chip.

You know, brands like Unilever and TNG, we sold it to an agent's holding company and then got rebranded as D.A.R.E. and kind of expanded it from there. yeah, it originally came out of my boss bouncing the proposal off my forehead of more TV, more TV.

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Justin Levinson (09:45)‍

Yeah, so you he, you know, what was the reason you think that he really thought that was a joke? What was there like, he just wasn't buying into it? I mean,

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Anson Sowby (09:53)‍

And the

TV was still so powerful. And it was like really the only way that coy advertising was done. And it was even done in God forbid print advertising with them, but you know, 95 % of the spend was TV. And at that point that was probably the way it had been done for 40, 50 years prior to that. And it's like, who's this young 20 something kid telling me about the blog is for it. And look,

I probably didn't have all the research I should have, and I probably didn't have everything back then, but it also gave me an insight to, right, how do you approach someone from a legacy standpoint of way of doing things and introducing a new method? And I was, I was probably too cocky and I was probably saying TV's dumb, TV's, you know, so I probably didn't approach it in the best way that I could have.

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Justin Levinson (10:42)‍

Yeah, but it's interesting that you saw, you know, you were seeing that coming as a young person and you were kind of ahead of the curve on all of that. So what, you know, so you, you left that company and the, and so the, you started your own. How were you, how were you feeling confidence wise in terms of making that move onto your own? Were you feeling like, you know, very ambitious and I can do this or was part of you still like, maybe I should just stick this out and doing what I was doing it kind of in your comfort zone.

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Anson Sowby (11:44)‍

today. And I guess blame it on me being dumb and young and not having any kids. And I was the only mouth to feed. I was just like, this, this, this feels like what I need to do. And I, I felt like I was done working in the big companies and the big corporate companies. And I wanted to start my own company, but the key was my two co-founders who were super, super smart guys and also just close friends. I definitely didn't feel like I was doing it alone. I just felt like, yeah.

Here's this team of Avengers, you know, that we're putting together and building this together. I, I don't see, wasn't scared and nervous. And I put that on that. think I had the right, you know, co-founders with me that I felt like we were, we were together and, and, and launching this as a team.

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Justin Levinson (12:31)‍

you find each other in terms of gap.

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Anson Sowby (12:35)‍

One of them, I had worked together in the games industry at Universal and the other one, he had met him through, through, ⁓ the other one was, was at Warner Brothers in entertainment. between the three of us, we had a lot of games and entertainment experience. so my former coworker introduced me to the other one and we just like, we just got along super,

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Justin Levinson (13:00)‍

That's cool. And then was that, you know, did you guys have, did you guys decide to get an office and sit in, have like a real think tank and launch all of this? Or did you sort of do things remotely at that point? How did that look?

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Anson Sowby (13:12)‍

Yeah, that was definitely like pre remote work. don't even think working remotely was even an option in anyone's head back then. was like, must get an office, must sit in office, must be in an office 15 hours a day, you know, that's obviously changed. Yeah. Yeah. We, we just got like a little tiny office and then it expanded to a bigger office in a different location and then moved over to a different office. yeah, it like, there was no other way of thinking back then. It was like,

We all in office together from 9 a.m. till 8 p.m. every night, you know, and just go at it together.

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Justin Levinson (13:48)‍

Yeah. And so that eventually, how many people did that agency end up scaling out to be?

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Anson Sowby (13:54)‍

So we were a little over 75 people and we had a big part of our dev arm because we basically build apps that bloggers would embed on their pages about the brand. So that division was in Sweden and the rest of us were mostly in the US, a little bit in Canada. But yeah, we grew to a little over 75, 80 people at that time. Wow.

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Justin Levinson (14:18)‍

Yeah, that's, that's tremendous. yeah, is it, did you like learn a lot of lessons in scaling? I'm always curious about how agency scales. For example, in the recruiting industry, it's very tricky to buy and sell a recruiting agency. I think it's less than 5 % of recruiting agencies ever sell because basically on the top is a rainmaker and then you can systemize as much as you possibly can. But eventually if that rainmaker is not part of the process, the recruiting agency is essentially done.

cause it's such a high, it's relationship based industry. How does that work in, in like a creative agency like yours? How do you go about scaling it and also maybe not being the only part of it.

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Anson Sowby (14:57)‍

Yeah, I mean that, least for me, that's definitely been the biggest personal challenge, right? Cause it's like you start building them up from scratch and you're wearing all these hats. Like you're the accountant and you're the HR person and you're the biz dev person and you're the creative person, right? And then hopefully over time you start shedding a few of those hats and you stop wearing those hats and, and, and then you might be doing something or at least with me, you know, that was the hardest thing with me, right? I was like, did I, I

It was hard to know when to shed those hats. But then when you would bring people in, like a real finance person, I'm like, ⁓ okay. Yeah. That person actually knows what they're doing and they're smart. And I didn't, I was just like figuring out quick books on, my own. It's, it's at least with me and look, maybe it's hubris, maybe it's pride. was tough to start shedding those, but then

When I did, and I bring those people in, I'm like, oh, they do it so much better than I, and then, then true scaling happens. Right. It's like, I, I, I thought that in the beginning, the clients were the most important thing. Cause I was like, well, if you don't have paying clients, then we can't pay for rent. can't pay for people. It sounds so obvious, but it took me a while to realize, Stupid. Employees are the most important part. If you're, if you're not creating this atmosphere, if they're not.

empowered if they don't have the grit, well then there are no clients. And it sounds so obvious looking back on it, but the second I made that switch and then the company really started to scale. And then it was fun. Like we start putting work out in the world that I had no idea what that work was. And I'd never seen it before. And I was like, okay, good. Then I am out of the day to day. Cause I would just muck it up if I, if I were, but seeing those campaigns launch and I had no idea what they were. That was kind of scary, but it was, it was cool. It was like a sign that, okay.

I'm getting out of the way in this game.

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Justin Levinson (16:54)‍

Don't, yeah, I don't want to the cog in the wheel. That's, that's interesting. I want to skip a few steps and go to into battery. Cause I want to learn more about, about, about that part of your career. Maybe I'd be very interested to know what, you know, what kind of exciting stuff you guys are working on now. And, and if you have any like. Favorite campaigns, things that you've been really excited about.

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Anson Sowby (17:13)‍

I mean, you named one of them that was really important for us as a company and was like a pinch myself moment was Netflix is a joke. When Netflix originally approached us, they said, look, hey, we're looking to go into standup comedy and we want to tell the world we're all about standup. Like the brief was that simple and kudos to Netflix. was like a half page brief. You know, sometimes you get these 15 page briefs. You're like, do you really expect we're going to memorize every page of this?

And it was, was that simple, you know, at that time without going into too many details of the campaign, it was a really important, big high profile thing that really set us out there. And then what's really cool is then to see where Netflix has taken that. And it took us, they took it well beyond what we could have ever imagined. Now it's like their platform to house all things comedy. It's a comedy festival. It's a serious satellite radio.

show and, know, to come up with that line, Netflix joke. Again, we originally launched it as a, as a campaign, but it's kind of fun that we wrote ourselves out of a job. At a certain point, Netflix doesn't need us, right? They just take and run with it. like, is that, I think that's the sign of great work when the agency is not needed anymore. When the brand can then take it and live with it. Doesn't make you any money, but it's, I think it's the sign of the right work that, that you write yourself out of a job. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (18:35)‍

That's really cool. How did when the campaign happened, ⁓ maybe you can describe how that came to be. Did Netflix like reach out or was it like a relationship that you had that was kept warm or were you competing against anybody else would on that campaign as well?

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Anson Sowby (18:44)‍

to you.

So yes, yes and yes. was a big pitch because Netflix at that time were masters of not only would they pitch out different campaigns, but then they pitched the campaigns against each other internally to see what was good. It was like a Game of Thrones gauntlet, know, the way they did it. But yeah, it just came to us from a relationship from a couple of folks at Netflix that we'd worked with before.

Honestly, it took a chance on us. They came to our office before they sent us the brief. And it's one of those times in the agency where you're like telling your friends to come to the office and make it look like you have more, more people. You're like, my God, do we have enough beer on tap? How does the fridge look? Does it look lived in? Does it look like people actually? We were literally stacking the office with friends because we were like, I don't know, seven people. mean, single digit people at that point.

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Justin Levinson (19:47)‍

Yeah, that's really funny. And I imagine some of the other agencies you're competing with might've had more hands on deck.

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Anson Sowby (19:55)‍

Yeah, totally. for sure. Absolutely. mean, know, Kooz and Nethix knew exactly how, how big we were by coming to the office, you know, and there was no, I, it was interesting that they, did it that way and they kind of embraced that, the, the smallness of it.

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Justin Levinson (20:12)‍

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that you think that's kind of an advantage sometimes having a smaller team? just having, I mean, I guess the advantage of it could be, I mean, a lot of things, maybe you get, it's more like, feels more like family. seems a little bit more like there's not like a bunch of people in the chain. Like is that, do you think that's an advantage or was at that time?

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Anson Sowby (20:36)‍

I mean, I think it just depends on the brand. It depends on the product. mean, what I think we have learned is not trying to be something we aren't, right? And not trying to come across as that small group where we're not anymore and not come across as that massive group, which we aren't quite in terms of global having 75 offices and things like that. I think that's a trick to new biz and...

That's a big thing that I've learned over the years is when to say no and man saying no, that is just not in my DNA. That has been the hardest thing for me to learn. And yeah, so to your point, really trying to figure out what do they need and if we don't fit that, it's tough to pull wool over their eyes and be successful. If you are, you're only be successful in the short term. It's not gonna work in the long term.

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Justin Levinson (21:24)‍

Yeah, like that authenticity is definitely ⁓ really important. When you are pitching for these things, like early on, are you, I mean, it's essentially like if you're competing against other agencies, imagine you might not get paid upfront to do that. Is it kind of working without upfront payments a lot of times?

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Anson Sowby (21:45)‍

Yeah, yeah. mean, you know, a lot of times we don't, a lot of times we do, you know, and it's, it's, it is that trick because when you do get paid to a lot of times they want to own your work. So then you ask yourself, all right, are these ideas worth it for that payment? If they're going to own the work or, you know, are they paying us for that period of time to see what it's like to work together? Is it actually better if we aren't getting paid? And then that is the, that is one of the key.

questions and pitching that there's no, there's no good answer, but ⁓ obviously, obviously we try to go for that theme. Sometimes we decline it if the fee is too small and we don't want to give away the work.

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Justin Levinson (22:28)‍

Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that makes sense. I'm always interested on how those structures work. Cool. Maybe you could tell me a little bit about, ⁓ I'd be curious to know when a campaign comes in and you are working on it, how does it look in terms of how it goes through the agency? like you let's say you have the pitch. it, I'm sorry, if you have the brief, it's coming to you first or maybe there's an account manager or, then how does it sort of like.

spiral out to your team. What does that sort of look like from inception to completion?

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Anson Sowby (23:00)‍

Yeah. So, so if it's a current client, right. It's just coming to, and I know it might seem like semantics, we call them brand managers instead of account managers. I just believe that you shouldn't be, the mindset shouldn't be, I'm managing this account, but it should be like, I'm here with this brand and the product and I'm the steward of that brand. So definitely, yeah, it comes into that, brand person and the brand person will huddle with the strategy person and the, and the creative person on that piece of business and figure out.

And, and disseminated from there. And then on the, on the new biz side, yeah, that's that, that can be a lot more fluid and messy and kind of sticky and like, like, like jelly when it comes into our head of new biz. And then she evaluates it and figures it out and tries to pull in the right people to even decide, is it something that makes sense for us? Does it not? Because, you know, pitching can be a lot of big lift. It's like everyone's night job in addition to their, their, their day job. So it just always.

always pulling in those key counterparts. And then in that first conversation with the client, if it is new biz, to really try to have as many of the key people from the agency on that, because we all want to suss it out together. We all want to suss out, is this the right opportunity to go at?

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Justin Levinson (24:13)‍

Yeah. And brand manager, brand management, that was sort of your superpower, right? Sort of when I was looking at your career, that seemed like was your, was that, am I correct about that?

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Anson Sowby (24:23)‍

Yeah, yeah. I I started as a brand and product manager. I've now since met a lot of people who are true agency brand people. like, no, it's their superpower and not mine. But yeah, it's originally started on the client side versus the agency side. So it's kind of been fun to flip over the agency side and see how that works.

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Justin Levinson (24:43)‍

Yeah. In terms of your day to day now, how does that work? You're still actively engaged in working with battery. Is that true?

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Anson Sowby (24:52)‍

Yeah. A lot of my day to day now is, is I'll, I'll throw out the dreaded acronym that's on everyone's minds AI, you know, it's really figuring out capabilities and how to advance the business and how to advance our pricing strategies. You know, we're now part of the Havas network. So a few years ago, we sold a stake in battery to Havas. We're not fully owned.

But they own a portion of us and a lot of times it's working with them of building out new opportunities and, working with some key clients. But I think I would hope the most value I can bring is the innovation and, where we should be next and trying to, trying to look over, over that hill to figure out what we should be doing next.

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Justin Levinson (25:31)‍

Yeah. Is that involves, do you try out a lot of different tools and doing a lot of research and finding out what is going to be the next thing?

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Anson Sowby (25:40)‍

Yeah. I mean, we, we look at it from a media perspective, from a creative perspective, from an ideation perspective strategy. Yeah. Trying out a lot of those tools and, meeting with all the, it seems like every day there's a new company that's developing some new AI tools. So it's trying, you know, I don't think anyone can stay ahead of it. It's really just trying to figure out what is, what, what makes the most sense for us and for our people and for our clients. And then, you know, a big part of that is, is hiring.

you know, and, and figuring out who are the next people we should be hiring and how we can expand and focusing on them and clients.

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Justin Levinson (26:18)‍

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if there was like, my entire calendar would be filled up if I answered all the cold emails that I get about a new game changing, ⁓ AI thing that's out there. Has there been anything, you if you don't have to name names, if you don't want to, but has there, has there been any tools that have really been revolutionizing revolutionary to your development at the company?

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Anson Sowby (26:40)‍

Yeah. mean, we've used, you know, especially in pitches, right? We've used a lot of AI tools to produce, you know, finished work. It doesn't go out publicly because it's a pitch, but you know, using runway and using Sora and using 11 labs from a VO standpoint, even from a, from a, from a music standpoint and that, that in pitches, it's been game changing, you know, literally even just two years ago, you'd be mocking up images and you'd be

Sometimes mock-up storyboards, you're not mocking up a 30 second video ad, you're not mocking up a commercial unless you go and shoot them, that's very expensive. And now we have the ability to literally just produce AI commercials in pitches, right? To really truly get that idea across the way want. And that's been producing podcast ads, producing audio, film, being able to produce that stuff in pitches has been totally game-changing.

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Justin Levinson (27:36)‍

Yeah, it must save a lot of time and really give the client an idea of what it is going to look like when it comes to life.

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Anson Sowby (27:42)‍

Yeah. Yeah. And it's so, it's so much more fun for the staff than just like reading a script in a pitch, you know, to like, no, just click play and boom. it goes, just like, it's just, it's enabled all those, those press play moments, which you're always trying to get those in pitches, you know, but to truly do that has been cool.

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Justin Levinson (28:02)‍

Yeah. Yeah, that's really fascinating. Obviously. Yeah. I was going to ask you, what are some of the big changes from when you began the industry and now, and of course you just sort of described it. That's definitely interesting. And in terms of hiring, you just mentioned curious, if you could tell me like what, maybe a little bit more about that, like what you sort of look for in people. I'd be curious about that.

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Anson Sowby (28:22)‍

Yeah. So, you know, even before that, started figuring out how are we going to find those right people. And sometimes we'll use resources that have us, which is great. But then also based on, you know, where, so we have three offices, LA, Toronto, and Chicago. A lot of times we'll need to tap into recruiters or recruitment networks in those cities, right? You will understand the agencies in Chicago and the agency landscape and, the brands that are done out of, out out of Chicago. So it really starts with, you know, that right brief.

for our recruiter and exactly what we're, we're looking for. And, you know, it, it, it so depends on the right person, we're painfully slow in hiring because we know, know you get the wrong full-time person in and man, that is not a great situation. Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways that different managers, you know, go at it, but it really starts with writing that right brief for the recruiter.

And then giving us that right pool of candidates.

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Justin Levinson (29:23)‍

Yeah, what are some of the hard harder roles to fill typically that you find?

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Anson Sowby (29:27)‍

is a tough one, right? Because I'm not saying it's easy on the creative side, but a lot of times in the creative side, you'll have a portfolio. You'll see the work they've done and you'll be able to dig in, okay, what was your role on this work? And you know, on the brand side, what are the brands you manage? Literally, what are the KPIs and the business results of that brand? Strategy is a tough one. Even just that word, a lot of people are like, what does that mean? Is it consumer strategy? Is it business strategy?

Where does it come in? So many agencies and brands use it in so many different ways. That's a really, really tough one to try and crack. mean, it's easier when you're hiring on a specific retainer, on a specific brand, you know what that client wants. But if you want to hire a strategist, it's going to touch kind of five different brands and consumer types and audiences. is, that is a, it least has been really, really tough.

for us. We've, we've, we've hired some amazing people. have some amazing people in house, but it's a, it's a tough one.

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Justin Levinson (30:31)‍

Yeah, interesting. you're interviewing people, what sort of qualities are important to you when you're hiring?

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Anson Sowby (30:39)‍

I mean, I'll throw out a lot of cliches, but like humility is really, really important. You know, honesty and transparency when you dig in of like, know, like what, when I was telling you about those retro video games in one year, you know, we, ⁓ we did almost a billion dollars in sales. Can I claim that I, that I did a billion dollars in sales? Of course not. was a team across the globe. I was like one cog in that piece. So really figuring out what was their role and what did they do? And also.

Like we, we, you know, it's the Google thing. Like we'd love people who have side hustles, who are doing different things. And obviously now, you know, in this day and age, think that's much more natural for a 20 something than it was when I was 27, which I think is great. A lot of people do have those different high side hustle. There's so many ways that have made that easier. So we like dig into those and, and love those and, and, know, the ability to get along and be a jerk.

you know, with our, with our teams and kind of a passion for, for, for what they're doing. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (31:46)‍

That makes a lot of sense. Outside of work, what do you dig doing? Do you have any hobbies and anything fun that you'd like to share with us?

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Anson Sowby (31:53)‍

⁓ I've got two little kids. I guess little ish at this point. I've got an 11 year old daughter and, ⁓ soon to me, my son's going to be 16 in two weeks, which is terrifying to think that I'm a dad of a, a, of a high school kid. You know, it's, it's fun for me because I've got a couple of interests as a kid that now my kids are really, really into like basketball with my son.

you know, art with my daughter. So to be able to experience, cause now they're old enough that I can experience that now that I'm trying to push it on them. I'm not trying to be that, that dad of reliving a Gloria as we were as kids, but like to experience that. Cause when I was growing up, I went to art school for high school, but then in college I went to business. So it was just like these completely different worlds going from art school to business school. And I grew up with that foundation, the arts, and to share that with my daughter and kind of dig into it with her. then.

Just in sports, in battery, and then so much work in like the NHL and women's soccer, you know, to dig into that with my son from coaching to strategy. And so it's fun to now experience that through their.

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Justin Levinson (33:03)‍

Yeah, they must think you're a total rock star because you have a really cool job and you know, and they're they're interested

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Anson Sowby (33:09)‍

I

don't think so. Unless your dad's like Dwayne the Rock Johnson, maybe you think he's pretty cool. My son interned at Battery last summer and he likes to say it was the worst experience of his life. So, you know, we got some, got some growing to do there.

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Justin Levinson (33:24)‍

That's funny. I have two little kids too. have, well, mine are much more, much smaller. I have a, three-year-old daughter and a six-year-old, six and a half year old daughter. She'll make me say that. ⁓ So I'm a little bit, I'm not quite there yet in terms of getting to share some of those things. ⁓ I coached softball this year and it went, did not go well. My daughter did not enjoy it, even though I'm a huge baseball fan. ⁓ But that was okay. ⁓

But with the music stuff that we do, and of course, a lot of the work I do is in recruitment and game trailers and theatrical marketing and trailers. It's a big thing I do. We also create music and are pitching music for trailers. So my older daughter will tell all of her friends that I make all the movie trailer music that like, I'm like, stop telling all of your, I do not make all of that movie trailer music. are pitching some of that music, but it's kind of fun. You know, I'll play some of the music in the house and they'll be like, daddy turned it off.

scary because they're all like afraid of the like the trailer music that's getting made here. So I don't know. They know I'm a total nerd, but hopefully we'll hopefully we'll find some of those same commonalities and share interests like you're able to.

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Anson Sowby (34:34)‍

That's awesome. My, my, my daughter just gets mad at me that she hasn't been in any of our commercials. I'm like, can't be that guy as the CEO of the agency, putting his daughter in his commercials. Like, come on, you know, so that she was literally just getting mad at me last night that she hasn't been in any battery commercials. So there you go.

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Justin Levinson (34:51)‍

That's funny. Are you a big, are you a book guy? you like, you avid on that or podcast or anything that you could recommend to the listeners?

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Anson Sowby (35:01)‍

Man, I just finished reading this book called Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Crazy title. It just came out a year ago. It's so hard to describe, but it's basically about two young friends in their twenties who make a video game company while students at Harvard. It's fiction. And the story takes them to then setting up the company in Venice.

One of the co-founders is shot and killed, and then they grow to like these huge heights. It's the story of like romance and adventure and video games. It's, it's one of the best books I've read in so long. I'm usually like that boring biography guy and I should go into fiction more, but that book is so bad ass. It's amazing. I forget who wrote it, whoever, whoever she is, she's amazing.

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Justin Levinson (35:48)‍

Yeah, that's really, um, that's awesome. And, um, you know, you said you were interested in, or you like sports, obviously. you, do you play any sports still or?

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Anson Sowby (35:56)‍

Did you play? Man, I don't. would get like, I would get destroyed. was, was soccer and, and football. So maybe that's good that my son is still in a basketball, that I wasn't a basketball player. So I'm not going to be that kind of sports, you know, dad, but I still have such a love and interest for it. I, can see the Hendrix behind me. I grew up as a guitar player and played in bands all throughout high school and college. And you just play kind of guitar on the side, ⁓ the side now, but my kid, my kids aren't into music yet. So we'll see.

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Justin Levinson (36:26)‍

cool. kind of music, I mean, obviously you just said Hendrix, but what sort of like, maybe give me some other music that you like or that inspires you.

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Anson Sowby (36:34)‍

Yeah. I wish I could play Hendrix today. In high school, I was like in grunge cover bands. So I was in a Pearl Jam cover band and then an Urbana cover band, a lot easier to play than Hendrix. now man, just, just a, I'm just into a wide variety of music. think definitely Hendrix is something that I always come back to no matter what genre of music I'm into at a certain point in my life, whether it's EDM or country hip-hop.

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Justin Levinson (36:48)‍

Yeah.

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Anson Sowby (37:03)‍

always come back to Hendrix. It's kind of that like through line, even though he died way before I was ever born, you know, it's that through line to the music that's blues and jazz and obviously, I don't need to describe why Hendrix is amazing. it's that one thing he's the one artist I can always come back to.

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Justin Levinson (37:21)‍

Yeah, I love Hendrix. One of my favorite albums is the live Woodstock version. I really, one of the things I really like in that record is the live version of Fire. They play it so fast. It's almost twice the speed of the original song. And it's just like, it's just so heavy. You know what I mean? It's just like, you know, I just, you know, crank it up. I love it. So I can relate on the Hendrix stuff. I love, I mean, I'm a big fan of.

I love sixties music. That's kind of my favorite. Like I love the beach boys, rest in peace, Brian Wilson, Beatles, like the Kinks, Stones. love all that kind of stuff. But I also love like even crooner jazz. I love like Frank Sinatra. could, I can play one of those early, you know, sad crooner albums and get really into it. But grunge really felt to me like the last, now maybe it's just cause I'm dating myself, but it felt like the last new thing, you know, it was really like, it was such a cultural.

thing and I, I, my dad owned a record store and Kurt Cobain was the coolest guy on the planet to me when I was, you know, in elementary school and the teenage kids were coming into the, to my dad's music store and playing the Nevermind stuff. And I was like, wow, this is just, this is incredible. Still incredible.

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Anson Sowby (38:33)‍

You're like Jack Black and high fidelity. That reminds me of that. That movie. That's pretty cool. Our, our LA office is in Hollywood and we're close to Amoeba records, which is the big record shop in LA. And it's such a, it's so fun going over there. It's fun to like see this resurgence in vinyl and people like appreciating this analog experience. do not want to go back to vinyl. think Spotify and Apple music are incredible, but

It's an analog ritual experience and vinyl is cool to see people in...

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Justin Levinson (39:05)‍

I mean, I think one of the most proud moments I have is when I go into my house and I sometimes I'll see my daughter in her room. She'll have her headphones on. She'll have her headphones plugged into her record player and she's just sitting there like listening to Taylor Swift and she's like bobbing her head. I'm like, okay, this this experience still exists, you know, I can get hip to Taylor Swift sometimes, you know, she's she's got write some catchy songs can't help but get into those little

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Anson Sowby (39:29)‍

I went to the last night of the Ares tour in Vancouver and it, it like blew my, you know, you hear about it and you hear about the paratel, I mean, that was unlike any show I've ever been to. The entire arena was standing for three hours straight, singing every lyric. I'd never seen something like that. It was wild.

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Justin Levinson (39:47)‍

That's amazing. The only thing I can maybe get close to, I've seen Paul McCartney live. My wife and I went for our, for, I guess it was a honeymoon. And we, that was another one of those things. Like I, I was like, my eyes were just welling up and I was just like, why is this happening? I'm like, am I crying? This is, was just like so moving to, to see that. And I think he was 80 when we saw him. So, or 78, I'm sorry, he was 78.

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Anson Sowby (40:15)‍

not to put us further down the rabbit hole, but Paul McCartney proposed to my mom in 1965. It was a joke, but it was an actual proposal. So she was a reporter for ABC and she was a teenage young reporter for ABC and she was there interviewing the Beatles. It was 65. So they had the, you know, the mop top haircuts and she was there. I seen the footage. She was there in front of the, the, the press conference. They're all sitting behind the table and she leans in and after interviewing Paul, says, Paul, is there anything else you'd like to say to your fans out there? And he stands up and leans in and says,

nothing unless you'll marry me dear and my mom drops out of camera she faints out of camera so the running joke and obviously it was a joke from Paul but the running joke was that I you know I could have could have been Paul's son if my mom had only only played it right you know well

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Justin Levinson (41:02)‍

And so that is hands down the best story we've ever had on this podcast. So I'm so grateful that you shared that. But cool, man. Yeah. I think that's a great place to end it because I don't think it can, it can peak anymore for me. That was, that was so cool. But yeah, man, thanks for, for hopping on and being on here and telling us about your story and, and, know, your interests and, and I really do appreciate your time and being here today.

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Anson Sowby (41:25)‍

Likewise, thanks, Justin. Appreciate the time.

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Justin Levinson (41:27)‍

Alright man, take care.

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Anson Sowby (41:29)‍

Take care. Bye bye.