Client Relationships, Culture & AI: Inside MWW

Justin Levinson (00:10)‍

Hey folks, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm your host Justin Levinson. Today I'm joined by Brett Werner, partner of Mike Worldwide. Brett oversees the agency's global teams and practice groups, leading insight-driven earned first work for brands like FanDuel, Dick Sporting Goods, Under Armour, and Subway. He's been recognized by PR Week as a 40 under 40 honoree and named to the global PowerBook 500 and has helped guide Mike Worldwide to multiple Agency of the Year wins.

Thank you so much for being here today, Brett.

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Bret Werner (00:40)

Justin, thank you for having me.

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Justin Levinson (00:42)

Great. Well, let's get into it. ⁓ I always like to start off the podcast with just a bit of an origin story, kind of learn how you got into this space.

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Bret Werner (00:50)

Yeah. So a whip behind the ears, college grad sent out the a hundred resumes. Someone told me that was what you needed to do is tough times and a company at the time called Alan Taylor communications hired me at a school. Alan Taylor was Muhammad Ali's publicist, was about the 15th employee there. Alan was great mentor.

I decided to hang it up and sell the business to seven of us. We took over the business with never running anything before, but we knew that we had about 50 clients at about $8 million. That was way too many clients. our first move was to fire a bunch of clients and we doubled the revenue in about 18 months from eight to 16 million. The Harvard Business Review wrote a story on us and we really focused in on our ace clients, Microsoft's of the world and the MasterCards and

Diageo's and doubled that business, did that for 10 years and then started my own firm, Catalyst, was co-founder of that, grew that agency that really focused on sports and entertainment and consumer. Won the consumer agency of the year, agency of the year for our size three times, sold the firm to IMG and Endeavor and then lived in that universe for three years, learned a lot.

was really interesting, but I always wanted to go back to my independent roots. And there was a guy in the building named Michael Kempner, and I shot him a LinkedIn note and said, Hey, I don't know you and we're in the same industry. We should get to know each other. we talked for six months and six months later, I was the chief client officer and would evolve from there. And that was 10 years ago at this point. And it's been a great run.

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Justin Levinson (02:34)

Yeah, that's an amazing entrepreneurial journey. You started, built, scaled and sold an agency. That's amazing.

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Bret Werner (02:42)

Yeah, it's, it's always an interesting process. And luckily on the MWW side we've acquired, think people that have been on both sides of the equation really understand, you know, when you sell your agency, it's difficult. It's like giving up a child and you give up autonomy that that's a tough transition. And that's why, you know, a lot of these don't work, but you know, Michael's been on both sides too. He bought and sold MWW and then bought it back from the holding company.

So it's good to have walked on both sides. So when you bring someone into the family, you sort of understand what they're going to go through and, and how you can integrate them.

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Justin Levinson (03:18)

Just for our listeners who might not be familiar with ⁓ MWW, maybe just as if you were at a dinner party and they asked you what your agency does, you can describe that for us.

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Bret Werner (03:29)

Absolutely. So Mike Worldwide is an independent agency, about 220 people. We really intersect on where a sort of reputation and culture come together. And we found that to be a great intersection because the world needs both. You need to be relevant, right? And you need to protect that corporate reputation. That's how the modern world works. And with that philosophy, we really leaned into

⁓ being communicators in a modern media ecosystem. So it's not just traditional media. How do we connect with the target audiences? And then how do we use sort of technology? Our tool stack is called Prisma of AI to better connect. But we're fortunate to have 20 clients for more than 10 years. And that ranges from a Deloitte to a Fandool to a Thursday night football to Subaru. It really runs the gamut of blue chip clients.

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Justin Levinson (04:20)

really cool. And as your role as partner there, what is sort of your role position within that ecosystem?

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Bret Werner (04:27)

Yeah, I've actually switched my title to partner along the way. And my role really goes across the agency of how can I find our client partners? How can we find new ideas for them? New ways to grow. The best way on any agency is organic growth is key. Do great work and great things happen. I also spend a lot of time on the new business front too. Even though we are a midsize brand, you know, we may not be known to everyone, even though we're a top 10 agency.

In a world where the holding companies seem to be tripping over themselves left and right, there's plenty of opportunity for the mid-size firms. But that intersection of sort of pop culture, relevancy and reputation is our sort of sweet spot.

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Justin Levinson (05:10)

Yeah,

that's great. Just curious on like ⁓ on business development, obviously you got this roll through LinkedIn. Do you have any sort of secret sauce on how like your strategy and winning in new clients?

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Bret Werner (05:21)

You know, everyone asks for like this magic formula. and to me, it's always about being present and understanding where you can help someone. know that sounds cliche, but it is just about hanging around the room. get to know someone. How can you help them? How can you stay connected to them? How are you posting thought leadership around there? And then where people do fall down after you've done that, where's the ask? Give me a chance. Give me an opportunity.

And for whatever reason in a, in a world of professional communicators and PR, we get awfully shy there and give me the opportunity and hopefully you build an organization that can stand behind that. And that project leads to, you know, great things along the way, but make the ask, hang around the rim. And then there is technology in this day and age where you can. Target who you're chasing, stay connected. It's definitely evolved a lot over the last two years, especially.

where you can manage that. But it is amazing. Like, everyone's like, there's a magic formula to this. But if you're not hearing no, then you're not asking enough.

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Justin Levinson (06:29)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I really liked that I'm all about, ⁓ offering value first before going into the ask. ⁓ and yeah, that's great advice. I was, saw on your LinkedIn page that you had some pretty spectacular reviews. People described you as like an incredible visionary, a rainmaker in the PR world, a dynamic, smart leader. And one thing I saw that was in common with many of the reviews is they all said that you, that you never let them down. I thought that was pretty interesting and in a world where like reputation is obviously.

everything. Just personally, what do you think has been your secret sauce of why these folks are, ⁓ you know, saying such great things about you?

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Bret Werner (07:06)

You're going to make me blush here, but ⁓ I believe in humble and confident, but listen, I think it goes back to a couple of things. And why I went back to MWW. I think Michael started this company 35 plus years ago with that entrepreneurial spirit. And if you've ever started something and you know, like every client is an opportunity that you're going to fight for them, that you're going to go that extra yard. Like that's a DNA that I think is.

missing in a lot of agencies. And we remind ourselves every day when we talk as an executive team of like, where's that DNA of going the extra yard, like taking that phone call late, making sure you're checking in on the weekend, what's going on. I was fortunate. I grew up with three entrepreneurial parents. My father remarried. So I saw it firsthand. And as a kid, I always like laughed about it. They didn't care, but I always saw like, that's how business get done. Like you're answering the phone at home. You're.

Go into the office on Saturday. You're making sure everything's okay. And, I try and remind myself every day never to lose that. And I think that entrepreneurial spirit of Mike worldwide sort of stays out there and it's why we value being an independent firm.

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Justin Levinson (08:16)

Love it. May I ask what your parents did for a living?

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Bret Werner (08:19)

Yeah, my dad was a lawyer. My mom was a, my stepmom was a recruiter and my mom was an interior designer and they all ran their own business. So I saw the highs, I saw the lows at time. I saw them fighting for the client. saw the hard times, but the one thing I always saw was like client, great client service solves a lot of problems and leads to new business. So that's sort of how I grew up.

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Justin Levinson (08:45)

That's cool. I want to get into more about, I have some other topics I'd like to get into, but I also just kind of going through LinkedIn, I noticed that fairly recently you had received a certificate from Harvard for, was it an AI course that you had taken? I know that that's such an important thing that's happening in the agency world right now. And I want to get, I want to get to that, especially, I think you were, also talked about this Reagan PR, you know, daily AI horizons conference you were at. I'm interested in pivoting to that, but.

What kind of sparked the interest for you personally to go back to school and get a little more education there? Thanks for tuning in folks! This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first boutique creative recruitment agency. We disrupt the creative ecosystem by running sophisticated multi-channel campaigns with custom video and voice outreach that actually gets responses. We actively market the agencies and brands we represent to help them stand out.

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Bret Werner (09:57)

Yeah, I think you always have to sort of reinvent yourself. Like, you always want to stay relevant and you need to challenge yourself. So, you know, I've been fortunate that, you know, I saw like when the internet happened, when social happened and now we have the third wave. So what does this mean in terms of communications right now? So to me, it's not only

how it operates in our daily life, but how does the AI help from an organizational standpoint too? And how does this emerging channel now influence how we communicate? So we've spent a lot of time with our tool stack Prisma of like, Hey, the LLMs are a channel. What media, what stakeholders are influencing that channel? And we should all know that information and be present.

I think we're two years in on sort of the AI boom when it's gone mass. So we're all using it in our daily lives, but I think we're ready for that next step of like organizationally, how does it take that next shift right now? So a lot more to come on that. No doubt.

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Justin Levinson (11:01)

Love it. Yeah. And pivoting to that conference, maybe you tell us a little bit what that was about. I saw you on LinkedIn that you had, you were speaking for it.

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Bret Werner (11:13)

Yeah, I spoke with McDonald's and a couple other people. It was interesting to see where the agencies, where the industry is at in some of the challenges too. But there, there's still brands out there figuring out how to adopt this, how to speed up content creation, how to test messaging. What's great now, what used to take us so long to test the message, like bounce that off a synthetic audience and get a feel like.

Hey, we need to change that message. need to alter this. This is what would resonate. You can take content and run it through a synthetic audience and say, Hey, this resonates. This doesn't. And you can also do with brand tracking. remember the waiting six weeks to see how brand health has changed. You can get that updated daily now. So we think like AI is changing the world. It's speeding up how we get information and there's still this strategic component. Like, what do we do with that?

but it moves things at a much faster pace and everyone should have that information at their fingertips.

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Justin Levinson (12:13)

That's great. ⁓ had also noticed another thing you attended that looked really interesting to me. was kind of jealous. It was at the Super Bowl media center. I saw a picture with a couple of, or a video I think that you were sharing. I'm interested to learn a little bit more about what that's like because I know that's not the kind of thing that everyone gets invited to. So I'm curious what it's like.

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Bret Werner (12:33)

I'm always little hesitant when I put up that post. Like I am working, I swear, but we're having some fun too. Yeah. We were thinking that we had 20 clients at Superbowl. We think when we talk about sort of that intersection of reputation and relevance, like the Superbowl is sort of the epicenter of culture. Like, yes, it's a sporting event, but it was amazing to see the level of influencers there and celebrities. And each year it ratchets up a whole nother notch, but.

It was great to be there. was my 25th Superbowl to be at and it gets bigger. The NFL is amazing. But what to me, it was great is how we got brands like Gary Queen and there's the night football to activate. We launched some content campaigns and, I think a lot of brands are scared. Like, Hey, we can't break through on the biggest stages. like, you can, you just have to understand where the lanes are. So if that's a Davos, if that's a Superbowl, if that's world cup coming out.

Like brands need to understand how to break through at those big events. And I'd be lying to say they don't have some kick-ass parties along the way that you got to go to. So Justin, you got to come to LA next year.

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Justin Levinson (13:41)

Yeah, that sounds amazing. When you're there attending it, what is your specific role there? What's your goal to accomplish when you're there?

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Bret Werner (13:50)

With 20 clients, it's making sure I have 20 smiles and 20 happy individuals. that has a lot of moving parts. So that is always job number one. goes back to my first comment. Do great things for your clients and everything else will work out. In the sports industry though, that is like a convention. Anyone in the industry is there. So there are a lot of relationships to be had. So for all these great parties, there are tons of deals being made. There are tons of introductions.

It truly is like the sports conference wrapped in a nice fun party with some great music along the way. So it's twofold, great clients and where's the next partnerships opportunities for us that we can form.

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Justin Levinson (14:29)

Are you a sports fan yourself or do follow the games?

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Bret Werner (14:33)

I am a sports fan and we're lucky that we built the largest sports practice in North America and maybe globally. I've always been intrigued by sports as a kid. I worked at a radio station. handed out balloons at football games. So was always intrigued, not just in sports, but like on the business side of it. So I got exposed to that at a young age. And, ⁓ and like I said, my first boss was Muhammad Ali's publicist. He taught me a few things and.

Sports has always been a key part of the equation in addition to consumer and brand and reputation, but it's an interesting space and it just keeps getting more popular.

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Justin Levinson (15:13)

Yeah, I love it. I'm a fair weather football fan. I I follow it enough to know the names of the best players.

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Bret Werner (15:21)

Super Bowl

you really must have been fair weather after that one.

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Justin Levinson (15:24)

Yeah.

it was, yeah, I love, I'm a big baseball fan. That's another thing I really enjoy. I've been a diehard Atlanta Braves fan for my whole life. Even though don't live there, just grew up in the nineties and the Braves were always a really good team. And for us here in Vermont, you'd have channel 11, which was TBS, which was Turner, Ted Turner had. The Braves. Yeah. I mean, it was brilliant because, you know, here you turn to channel 10, you'd get the Red Sox and the Red Sox in the nineties were dreadful and they'd be losing. And then you turn to channel 11.

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Bret Werner (15:43)

That's how you got it.

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Justin Levinson (15:53)

on the cable TV and the Braves would be it'd be Clavin, Smoltz and Maddox. Everyone's striking people out hitting them runs. And I was just like, wow, I love this. And yeah, I became an avid fan for a long time, but I like to export. It's fun.

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Bret Werner (16:03)

Yeah, it's awesome. He truly was built the first national broadcast team it seemed. that's.

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Justin Levinson (16:08)

And there are like many fans all across the country who I think same as I was watching that channel and the Braves work for Kick Edward's buns.

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Bret Werner (16:17)

Yeah. I'll tell you why. Again, being at Superbowl, it was such a cultural event. If you're a football fan or not to see like an Alex Earl there or Bustin with the boys, like I couldn't, I've never seen more influencers. Last year was pretty good. This year was a whole nother level of just everyone wanting to be at the epicenter of things. So it was definitely an intriguing and also back going back to Superbowl. They were the most international media there ever. If that was because of Bad Bunny or the NFL has done a great job of growing it.

It's amazing to see that whole ecosystem.

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Justin Levinson (16:50)

I really

enjoyed that performance. guess my next question for you is sort of just like, what's your personal favorite part of this gig? What do you, what do you kind of like doing the most?

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Bret Werner (16:58)

Yeah, I love obviously the fast pace of it and you know, how to tap culture. It's still every day I wake up and like, Hey, what's going on in the world and how can the brands intersect to me? That always excites me. Obviously the people, you know, that's cliche, but you got to have great people around you. None of the things I talked about from my work at MWW or any other happens without great people around you. And we built a great team.

throughout the years of people that you like to be in the trenches with. So that's still important, but you know, agency life is always challenging. You always have to reinvent, but that's sort of what makes it fun. Doing one thing day in and day out would probably drive me insane.

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Justin Levinson (17:40)

Totally. What sort of the structure of MWW in terms of like locations, you guys have a lot of different offices. I saw like New Jersey, New York and a bunch of places.

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Bret Werner (17:48)

Yeah. So like I said, about 220 people, New York is headquarters. We have an office in, ⁓ New Jersey. Our London office is doing fantastic and that's growing immensely. ⁓ we have a great leader in our LA office. So we're building that out too. Cool. So that's our physical footprint, but we have people in over 28 states, boots on the ground, you know, wherever there's great talent, we'll go higher. ⁓ and we love people in the office, but we have, we have.

five people in South Carolina, for instance.

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Justin Levinson (18:19)

That's cool. So kind of a mix of remote people and, in office. What do you sort of, you know, what's important to you when you're looking for hiring people, like what, what sort of qualities are the most important to you?

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Bret Werner (18:30)

Yeah, I think we always talk about, we have these mandates that we look for. One is the DNA of the person, you know, they fit our culture as an independent entrepreneurial firm. We want people who understand the modern media ecosystem. So how do people digest information? Are they in tune with AI? Is it part of their daily lives? Like there's going to have a lot of evolution. So we want people to lean in there and then going back to what separates us from a big WPP.

you know, entity is like, who loves client service at the end of the day, who's going to go that extra yard, they're going to put their head down and be thinking about the client, they're going to see an opportunity walking through the West Village. So we have to get our client involved in that. That's the type of person we want. It's a passion, right? It's a passion to work in this industry. So you got to find that DNA and refine it. But

modern marketers and people that are going to go the extra yard because in this world, you got to fight a little bit harder for your client partners. And that's something we always want to maintain.

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Justin Levinson (19:35)

Yeah. And you think that's an advantage of sort of being in India opposed to one of the holding companies. think like client services is something that you, is a strength.

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Bret Werner (19:42)
Yeah, listen, I've lived at all size agencies and I think the midsize, we are the midsize independence have a huge advantage to me, no matter where you are. doesn't mean that a smaller agency can't win too, but at midsize you have some scale to go compete with the multinationals. But you know, if I saw some of the quotes out there about.

We're figuring things out from the holding companies. We're still working stuff out. And if I'm a client right now, I'm mortified. Like you're figuring things out. Like I need my team entrenched. I need my team living my business. So if you're a mid-sized firm, if you're smaller, like I think the trickle down effect of business coming our way is plentiful. And I think you're going to see a lot of growth from the mid-size you have for the last couple of years. I think that's only going to enhance.

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Justin Levinson (20:30)

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. Do you guys bring in people sometimes who have been at those bigger holding companies as well into curious if how they've adjusted to it.

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Bret Werner (20:39)

Yeah, we do. And, know, we, like I said, we have a great leader in LA and she's made a great transition. You know, not everyone can make that journey and that's some people are built for the big holding companies. definitely have had people that have been successful coming in and we've had some people honestly who have it. Like we move at a very quick pace and you may have to adjust to that going back to a mid-size or smaller. You may have to be a little bit more of a multitasker or wear some different hats, but.

Yeah. The big, big behemoths sort of what we view as the enemy, like we want nimble battleships. So that's what we look for. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (21:16)

I want to pivot back to some events that you've attended. I'm kind of curious. Are there some other events like during the year that you typically like to attend as well? Like other things that could be insightful for the community?

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Bret Werner (21:27)

I always think cultural events are interesting. The one I'm really looking forward is world cup. think us marketers are really under leveraging what the world cup is going to be like. mean, talk about an epicenter of culture, people coming in. It's kicking off in LA and on the West coast. It's coming to New York. It's going to be all throughout North America. That's just not an event. That's a multi-week sort of cultural epicenter of yes, football being played, but

You're the top people in the world are yearning for it. And if you've ever been to an international football game or soccer game, like it's a totally different experience. The level of nationalism. And I think us marketers, they've not experienced that. they're not capitalizing on it's a big white space in my view, but I'm excited for that. That is a cultural opposite or moment. That's going to take over the summer.

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Justin Levinson (22:22)

⁓ got a couple more things I want to kind of do ⁓ a quick fire questions and then pivot to just kind of learning a little bit about things that you like doing outside of work. But I have a couple of quick fire questions. If you don't mind, we can start with those. cool. All right. So, one thing's, ⁓ one thing that agencies talk about a lot, but rarely actually, you know, but rarely fixed.

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Bret Werner (22:35)

love it.

I think one thing that people don't fix is some type of structure to how we, how they hire and what are the common objectives. So what, what Justin's looking at, what I'm looking at in order, third party may be different. Like there has to be a structure in place. Like these are the objectives of this a hire and they all align together. Otherwise you keep hiring the person that you sort of see yourself in. always talks to me about that. I think that's one thing agencies never fix.

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Justin Levinson (23:16)

most overrated trend in PR right now.

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Bret Werner (23:19)

overrated trend that that AI is going to cost everyone their jobs. Way overrated. Yes, if you don't learn how to use the technology, you're going to become obsolete, but don't let that happen. Just because you get information quicker, that means we need more strategy, right? We have more information quicker. How do we dissect it? What do we do with it? Way overrated term. Embrace the technology. It's going to fuel the industry. Don't be scared of it.

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Justin Levinson (23:45)

Love that. One skill every agency leader must have in the next five years.

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Bret Werner (23:50)

AI is the obvious. think paid media is the other. We don't live in a world of pure earned. And understanding tools. Where are people consuming information? How do we test messages? That's we understand synthetic and what's fueling LLMs. Use these tools to your advantage. That's why I went to a Harvard Business School. Go teach yourself that.

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Justin Levinson (24:12)

great advice. Speaking of advice, best piece of advice you ignored and are glad you did.

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Bret Werner (24:19)

Best piece of advice I ignored earlier in my career, I was not making a lot of money and I was offered more money. And someone told me, Hey, you don't chase money in the beginning of your career. You chase experience. have a 21 year old daughter. I've told her the same thing. That was the best advice I've got.

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Justin Levinson (24:40)

that. And yeah, I guess the last kind of question is maybe not such a quick fire one, but outside of, you know, your day to day and your work life, what, you know, what do you like to do just personally?

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Bret Werner (24:52)

Yeah, I have two kids. Um, and I enjoy spending time with them. I brought my son out to Superbowl and I surprised them by taking them to a Noah Khan concert with 2000 people. That was pretty cool. Cool. Not going to get to see him in a venue like that very often. Later in life, I'm trying to get my kids exposed to some of the benefits of this industry. I love being outside.

You're in Vermont. I'm here in New York. can't wait for this cold weather. I'm an outdoor person. So love the beach, love and being outside and exercising. Those are some of my passions.

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Justin Levinson (25:28)

So cool. No cons actually a Vermont guy. So that's kind of cool. Yeah.

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Bret Werner (25:32)

His tickets just went on sale to the masses. He's playing at Fenway. That's going to be a pretty awesome, awesome show.

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Justin Levinson (25:39)

Yeah, he's quite the success story.

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Bret Werner (25:41)

Yeah, he put on one hell of a concert. I'll say that how he plays in a bigger venue. I'm not sure, but in a small venue, he is, he is talented.

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Justin Levinson (25:48)

That's great. And so cool you're able to spend that time with, with family. I have really little kids, so we haven't really gone to concerts yet. There's actually Weird Al is coming to Vermont. Weird Al? I think so. have two, was one of my little girls. think I'm going to take her to, she's into like the, I was kind of showing her that the music videos from years ago, she finds them funny. So I think it could be a good show for her.

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Bret Werner (25:58)

Is that going to be his first concert? ⁓

Let ask

the rest of their life, what was your first concert? I'll tell you a funny story. I was very young and my babysitter took me to the Who. So yeah, I don't know if that was parent approved, but it was pretty cool. So ⁓ that's always the answer to my question there.

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Justin Levinson (26:28)

So

cool. My first concert was Peter Gabriel and crowded house. saw them pretty good when I was pretty young. My parents took me to, I was in New York. can't remember what the name of that venue was, but it was a big one. And I remember it vividly because my parents thought they had purchased like really good, like seats like in first five rows, but it was like first five rows, second balcony. And like Peter Gabriel was like, he was like so tiny, but I loved that song, Sledgehammer around that time period. So I was pretty excited.

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Bret Werner (26:59)

It's awesome.

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Justin Levinson (27:00)

But cool, Brett. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and chatting with us and offering value to the community. It's really been a pleasure to chat and I look forward to continuing to follow your journey.

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Bret Werner (27:10)

All right, Justin, thank you for your time. I appreciate you having me on.

Thank you.