From Animation to Agency: Josh Golsen’s Creative Journey

Justin Levinson (00:00.978)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson, and I'm here today with Josh Golson, who is the owner of Part 4, which is a really exciting creative agency. We were just actually speaking before the call started, and there's some exciting awards that Josh just recently found about that Part 4 won recently. So yeah, let's get right into it, Josh. Maybe just for our listeners, you can tell us...

about what you guys are doing and then maybe hit us with those exciting awards that just popped up.

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Josh Golsen (00:34.446)‍

Sure, no, thanks for having me. Part four is a full service creative agency based in Los Angeles. We're a boutique agency, so we are small but mighty. But we're focused on entertainment across the board, whether it be theatrical, streaming, or really any form of entertainment. So we create digital and social campaigns for some pretty awesome entertainment properties out there. And, oh, sorry.

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Justin Levinson (00:59.208)‍

Yeah, let's go sir, go ahead.

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Josh Golsen (01:02.048)‍

No, and we just found out this morning we won a couple awards, some Shorty Awards for our work on the X-Men 97 campaign, which won a couple Clios as well in the last cycle. So we're really excited about that.

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Justin Levinson (01:17.032)‍

That's really cool. Congrats on that, Josh. Yeah. So how did you get into this business? I was looking at your profile a little bit. saw you've been at Avatar Labs and a few other places in the past. What's your intro into this space and how did you end up being an agency owner?

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Josh Golsen (01:19.286)‍

Awesome, thank you.

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Josh Golsen (01:35.322)‍

I never envisioned myself being an agency owner. I have always been interested in entertainment and growing up, that was just what I wanted to do. Originally, I wanted to be an animator, like a old school 2d hand drawn Disney animator. And, growing up, I guess at some point in time when it became the, or kind of kind of get serious about what do I want to do with my life? I decided to kind of forego my art, my art ambitions and get a business degree.

So I wound up at Indiana University.

Just kind of studying business. I loved marketing at the time, but I was still interested in Hollywood and decided I'm going to move out to California after I graduated and give it a go. So I initially was working in the more the production and development side of the industry. kind of, you know, choosing the projects that end up becoming TV shows and movies and getting those into production, casting them, getting the scripts perfect, ready, everything ready to shoot.

I did that for a while and I found out just kind of going through the process at the end of the day that wasn't for me, for a lot of different factors. And I found myself at a crossroads in my career where I was like, what do I want to do next? And I kind of thought back to that marketing kind of experience that I had and...

I was like, maybe there's a way to kind of combine these two passions together and see if I like it. As it turned out, I had a really good friend, a neighbor who was working at Avatar Labs at the time. you know, they had an opening for someone to come in and...

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Josh Golsen (03:16.586)‍

oversee a few projects while one of their employees was out on maternity leave. And so I ended up doing that for a summer and I just fell in love with it and I loved it and I never, and I just, I stayed with the company. So a three month temporary gig turned into a eight year stint at the company.

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Justin Levinson (03:36.84)‍

Was it a big culture shock from going from Indiana to LA? Did that feel like a big change to you or was it pretty seamless?

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Josh Golsen (03:44.942)‍

I think it was for the most part fairly seamless. I had spent a little bit of time out here growing up. My father had done business out here, so he was constantly taking trips. I got to come out here with him a little bit here and there. so I've, you know, was a little bit familiar with California.

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Justin Levinson (04:04.744)‍

Cool. How was the decision when you went to start on your own? did that come to be? Imagine that was a nerve-wracking experience when you first start your own business and how did that all happen?

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Josh Golsen (04:22.624)‍

It, I think you're you described it perfectly. It was a process that took me a couple of years to really bring to bring to life and you know I I loved I've had the pleasure of working with some great people in this industry across the board, know, within the companies I've worked for and on the clients and

you know, at the time, around the time that part four started, I kind of was looking at the industry as a whole and I saw a shift happening. I'll call it, you know, social 2.0, but when, you know, in our industry kind of previous to that, the digital media, more like website executions, games, apps, that was really the focal point of interactive marketing and...

I saw social as a whole new platform for not just marketing, but content creation. know, lot of the entertainment at the time was pretty much putting movie posters, trailers, some cut downs up on social and that was social content. But, you know, it's a way to really directly engage with your audience and directly talk to them and reach them. And not only that, but tell, extend these brands and extend these stories on different canvases. And I saw that.

possibility and that excited me and so part four was really geared towards that and kind of that's where we stand today you know many years later.

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Justin Levinson (05:53.948)‍

Yeah, yeah, definitely. so what was your first hire? So it just started out with you in the beginning? Were you sort of like a one-man army, or did you sort of have a plan of how you were going to scale things out?

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Josh Golsen (06:10.51)‍

No, we so I mean, you know, I don't any good business owner will tell you everything starts with a business plan. So, you know, there's not only just a dream, but a lot of stuff on paper, you're looking at different possibilities, what you think is going to happen, what maybe will happen, what probably won't happen, and all these different things. And you're trying to figure out, what what is actually going to happen. And so you're trying to set up for that. So

When the company started, we had a small core team to kind of get us going. One of the things that we did, which I think was super helpful to us in our early days was a lot of the people coming into part four, you know, all had a lot of experience in various forms of the entertainment industry or marketing. But, you know, we were coming together as our own team for the first time. And for the first couple months of really being in existence while we were taking on a few projects.

We kind of were really more in training. We were kind of, you know, coming together and getting everybody used to working with each other, but doing mock campaigns and trying to figure, you know, making sure that we got all of our cakes straightened out before we went to our clients and said, Hey, we're ready to take on this major project for this, you know, potentially huge property.

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Justin Levinson (07:30.204)‍

Yeah, I've actually never heard of that before, a mock campaign. So that's just you're practicing as if the brief came in and how you're going to do the whole thing. How does that look?

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Josh Golsen (07:42.06)‍

Yeah. So we're, you know, doing drills with our team. We're, you know, making sure that, you know, kind of our designers are understand what our art directors are looking for and that everybody is working well together. Our team and our producers are working together because at the end of the day, I think any successful campaign, regardless of scale, regardless of which, you know, what brand it's for is all about teamwork and, know, those various

capabilities or, you know, trades coming together to create something bigger and better than what anybody dreamed up of their own.

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Justin Levinson (08:18.524)‍

Yeah, maybe you can tell me a little bit about the campaigns that you said that you were talking about that you won recently and how for the Shorties and how those kind of came to be. I'm curious about that.

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Josh Golsen (08:31.0)‍

Sure. So X-Men 97, if you are familiar with the show, it is a direct sequel from X-Men, the animated series from the 90s. Personally, that was one of my favorite cartoons as a young kid growing up, watched it every day after school. And so was an absolute dream project to work on. I think looking at the campaign, you know, it was really about

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Justin Levinson (08:45.192)‍

Yes.

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Josh Golsen (08:58.518)‍

kind of bringing audiences back to that time. know, we live in this world now where on social, like things trend in and out so quickly and we see all these kind of, I want to say nostalgic kind of trends that are like, today it's, we're all about the nineties or it's all about the two thousands or whatever it be. We happen to be living in a, in a very nineties centric, you know, hype period at that time. And so we ran with that for the campaign. mean, everything.

to every level and every detail was about bringing that 90s nostalgia or that idea of, know, pan and scan, pan and scan television, Saturday morning cartoons, breakfast cereal, you know, all these things that we kind of associate with, you know, cartoons and animation and making, you know, bring it.

Audiences or adults feel like, you can still have that, you know, can relive that and have, you know, your Saturday morning cartoons now as an adult with X-Men 97. So, you know, we really looked back at the whole show, like everything about it. We look back at all the old TV spots they were doing, all the old advertisements. So that really inspired like all of the work we did.

So like some of the series we created for social, which were really fun, were like character intros inspired by the old series, know, where we would like put the text up on the screen, motion graphics, you know, we would have our narrator, you know, call out the name of the character and then we would kind of show clip, but it was really reminiscent of those spots at the time, if you remember what I'm talking about.

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Justin Levinson (10:45.266)‍

Yeah.

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Josh Golsen (10:46.062)‍

One of the pieces that really caught on for that campaign was to kind of announce the titles of all the episodes. We did it as a mock TV guide cover. So, you know, I don't know if a lot of people listening may not even know what a TV guide is anymore, but, but, know, so, and that caught on, it got picked up by a lot of the digital outlets and a lot of the geek kind of news outlets. So that was really exciting for us. And, you know, everybody seemed to be digging the campaign.

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Justin Levinson (11:00.456)‍

Remember.

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Justin Levinson (11:15.186)‍

Yeah, that's sweet. you go back and watch some old episodes too to relive that a little bit?

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Josh Golsen (11:19.584)‍

Of course. One of the things we did was as part of the campaign was to make sure that everybody had a chance to get caught up because it had been a while and you know, not everybody may remember every detail was we created a Instagram account that literally is a grid that showcases the whole like the recaps the entire series. So all the seasons of the original

And then we build on that by adding the new show to it as well. So it lives to this day.

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Justin Levinson (11:53.288)‍

That's so cool. So when you got the award, there, I forget, is there a ceremony for the Shorties or do you just get that virtually?

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Josh Golsen (12:02.35)‍

There is a ceremony. It's in New York. It happened last night. We were not there in person, but we get to celebrate it today with the rest of the world on the internet. So we're very excited about that. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (12:14.952)‍

That's awesome. What are some of the plans you guys have for the future? Like, do you have any sort of like, like big goals for the company?

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Josh Golsen (12:24.396)‍

I think in terms of big goals, I think, you know.

Let me think about that one for a second.

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Justin Levinson (12:32.008)‍

Do guys sort of like the lean? you guys have a boutique kind of approach? Do you ever see it becoming any bigger or moving into any other different sort of parts of the ad space?

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Josh Golsen (12:44.171)‍

You know, think, okay, the best way to answer that is, you know, in the last few years, I feel like the industry has been through a lot just from what the world has been going through. And, you know, it's definitely changed, you know, what has been happening with our company. It's really, what we've really done is focus in on like,

the social aspects of it since then. During the times of the pandemic when a lot of things were taken away from us, we weren't having in-person experiences, a lot of this became more more important in terms of reaching our audience, or it was the only way we could at the time. And I think when you look at just the way culture is shifting and the way society is today, social networks, platforms, the digital space is just essential in every walk of life.

So we've really doubled down on that. We believe that is only going further into the future. And so our goals really aligned with continuing to figure out how we can be, you know, different and stand out and make these entertainment properties exciting, you know, on social. you know, we feel really fortunate that we get to represent some of these really awesome major entertainment brands. And our kind of goal is to, know, for everybody out there that's a fan like us.

We want them to really enjoy that experience, to enjoy the campaign, to get the nuance of it, to really be excited about the product, the show, the movie that we're promoting. So really our goal is to be as authentic as possible and to do things that maybe a lot of other agencies aren't doing in the space.

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Justin Levinson (14:26.802)‍

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, it sounds that the X-Men thing sounds fantastic because it's like it was already like a personal interest of yours, something that you already like, which must have really obviously why it became it worked out so well and was authentic. Are there times where you have to sometimes do campaigns that maybe are not quite as exciting to you, but still have to put that same life and energy into?

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Josh Golsen (14:51.966)‍

I mean, everything. wish I can't honestly say I'm a fan of everything we work on. I'm a fan of a lot of things we work on, like Star Wars, for example. But I'm not a fan of everything. A great example is one of our recent franchises that we work on is One Piece Live Action with our friends at Netflix.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the One Piece brand. It's based off of an anime manga property. It's the biggest in the world. If you don't know about it, you should check it out. It's amazing. But I had no idea what it was prior to going into it. I had seen the symbol. I was familiar with their icon, but outside of that, I had no idea. So to get into that project, I had to familiarize myself with it. In doing so,

I actually became a fan and I loved it and it was worth every second of it. And I probably dived into it way deeper than I even needed to, to do the work. But you know, it works out that way too. But I think when it is something that, you know, I'm not personally a fan of or other people at the company aren't, you know, we're always trying to find those hooks into the campaign. You know, what are we trying to do here? What makes it different? What makes this proper unique? Why do other people like it? You know,

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Justin Levinson (15:53.692)‍

Yeah.

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Josh Golsen (16:13.24)‍

There's so many fascinating aspects that we look into to kind of create these campaigns. So really being a fan is it sometimes make it more fun to work on, but it's not a prerequisite, you know?

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Justin Levinson (16:24.604)‍

What are the turnaround times typically when you get a job to when it's completed? What's sort of the rough estimate on those?

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Josh Golsen (16:33.63)‍

man, it's hard to say because it's all over the place. Sometimes that could be a couple years. Like we're working, we're thinking about some things that maybe are coming out late next year right now. But we're also thinking about things that come out in a couple weeks or in a couple months. So, you know, the campaigns vary depending on the type of work that we're doing.

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Justin Levinson (16:56.508)‍

Yeah, do a lot of them just come in inbound based on, you know, previous relationships or work that you've done for the client in the past? Or do you guys do a lot of like outbound approach, like reaching out for new business or how does that look?

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Josh Golsen (17:11.086)‍

It's a little bit of both. We do have lot of great relationships and a lot of great partners. We do get a lot of referrals that way, but the industry is constantly shifting. People do move from one job to another, and so outreach is a part of it. We're constantly trying to diversify ourselves to kind of work with new companies. We love to challenge ourselves too, and that's one way that we keep challenging ourselves.

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Justin Levinson (17:41.01)‍

Cool. Well, one thing that some of the viewers may know about me is that I'm a music nerd. Typically, I am in my room, my studio with all my guitars behind me. This is one of those rare instances where in my home, we have like three different people working on my house right now. One is doing a bathroom and the other one is like trying to find it, which is exciting for our listeners, a mysterious smell in my studio that they're trying to investigate, which is really exciting and disgusting.

But I'm really excited to get the clarity on it. But to the point, I'm always very interested in music and always interested in how that plays into different creative agencies. And I was curious, do you guys use a lot of music? And if so, how do you choose it? And if you don't, what kind of music do you just like yourself personally?

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Josh Golsen (18:31.212)‍

Well, I am definitely a music fan as well. You can't see it behind me, but there's a room over there that also has a lot of guitars and things like that in it.

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Justin Levinson (18:39.314)‍

which hopefully smells better than mine does.

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Josh Golsen (18:42.582)‍

I don't know what yours smells like, but I'm gonna hope so. Given the circumstance. I think music is a huge part of, it's a huge part of the film making. It's the medium. They go hand in hand in a lot of ways. So it's a huge part of the campaigns we work on. For us, we don't do a lot of original music. It happens occasionally, but when we're working with a brand like,

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Justin Levinson (18:44.935)‍

Man!

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Josh Golsen (19:12.672)‍

Again, Star Wars is a great example. That music itself is so iconic, know, so we're finding ways to use that, you know, across our campaign to bring about the feelings that that music gives you when you're watching the film. We want that those same feelings when you're looking at our materials or engaging with our assets.

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Justin Levinson (19:32.776)‍

Yeah. When you're doing that, where do you typically find it? I mean, if you're looking for like the exact Star Wars music for the Star Wars campaign, where do you go?

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Josh Golsen (19:44.206)‍

Well, it's a little bit complicated, but to kind of say it simply is, there's different legal rules revolve it around everything. So that's the first place we're going is what is okay to use on a marketing campaign for a specific title? It could be some music library. It could be a specific song or a soundtrack. It could be a score. It could be pieces of it.

or you know, it just depends. that's the first place we go. And then beyond that, you know, we're looking at approved music libraries, you know, that our different clients offer, if that makes sense.

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Justin Levinson (20:25.382)‍

Yeah, yeah, because a lot of the studios they have their they have the their own built in catalog that they want you to choose something from as well. Have you ever done have you ever done any custom stuff for any projects or ever had a anything like that?

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Josh Golsen (20:35.116)‍

Exactly.

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Josh Golsen (20:39.534)‍

We have. We've done custom music for some of our projects. We've done some for some of our games, some of our original video content. Like I said, it's not something that comes up for us as much, but when it's needed for the project, it's something we do.

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Justin Levinson (20:57.874)‍

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I'm always curious how that works. What kind of music do you like personally? Like what you listen to in your office?

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Josh Golsen (21:08.462)‍

Our office is pretty eclectic because we let different people kind of choose what's being played there. So we get lots of different likes. Me personally, I...

I would say I'm pretty eclectic. love a lot of rock and roll, a lot of hip hop, a lot of classic rock. love a lot of like scores and soundtracks. I have a huge collection of both albums and scores and soundtracks. So I love to go into all that stuff. But yeah, I'd say a few of my favorite, I love the Flaming Lips, for example. I'm from Oklahoma City originally. They're kind of like the hometown band.

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Justin Levinson (21:48.488)‍

Nice.

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Josh Golsen (21:49.592)‍

Gorillaz is the best concert I've ever seen in my life or at least one of them. I mean, there's a few that are up there, but just that experience and them, seeing them do their thing live and how they could bring that to life was just really incredible when I think about some of the all time like concerts and stuff that I've been to. But living in Los Angeles, you get a chance to see some pretty incredible things here.

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Justin Levinson (22:12.936)‍

Yeah, so you guys work as a team in office? Do some people work remotely or what's how is that typically set up?

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Josh Golsen (22:19.374)‍

We used to be 100 % in office prior to the pandemic and now we're hybrid. So we do have we have an office but people kind of work in and out. It just depends on the day what's going on. There are certain projects that we work on for security reasons that require in office work or and so we just allow that flexibility where we can and depending on what's best for our clients.

or our projects. one thing that I think has been really great for us as a result is by going to a hybrid situation and with some of our jobs, it's allowed us to look outside of Los Angeles. And so we've been able to recruit talent from all across the country and give people a chance to maybe work in the Hollywood industry that never thought they would by not being located here.

but it's also allowed us to just find talent that is outside of our typical talent pool. And there are some incredible people out there just around this country, of course, and around the world doing amazing work. And we're fortunate to be able to work with some of them.

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Justin Levinson (23:28.24)‍

It is very interesting, the pandemic, how it changed a lot of the way workflows happen with companies. Also from the security side, which is a huge thing because obviously we're dealing with really sensitive materials. now also it became, people had to do all that from their home and then you had to find a way to protect it and to not have those things get leaked and have clients lose millions of dollars. And now, but at the same time, yeah, everyone's out. You can hire somebody from any part of the world now.

So in a way, it's just really fascinating to me. What do you typically look for in people when you hire them? What are some qualities that are important to you?

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Josh Golsen (24:06.338)‍

I think we're looking for passion. Like I think that's one of the words we always use to describe our agency and our employees is we all have not just a passion for the things we work on, but what we do, our craft, the digital social medium. And we're looking for people that share that passion. We're looking for people that have, we think have great ideas that have, you know, promise that have talent that, you know, people that bring something to our mix. We

You know, we are a small company, but we represent some of the biggest entertainment brands in the world. And these are global brands that have fans all around the world of.

different, you know, any, any different makeup you can imagine of a human being is a fan of these properties. And so to represent these properties to all those kinds of people, we have to be as diverse as possible to be able to do that. So we're just always looking for anybody that brings something new to our mix that excites us, people that we love working with and that we just want to spend time around because we all spend a lot of time around each other, you know.

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Justin Levinson (25:09.414)‍

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I feel the same way when I'm hiring people. That enthusiasm is definitely important thing to have and just really good energy. But yeah, I mean, there's a ton of different things. Good communication is always one that I gravitate towards. It's something that's always been important to me. it's cool. sorry.

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Josh Golsen (25:33.846)‍

It's key, communication is key, especially in a hybrid world or remote working world. mean, it's a different workspace when you're not passing someone in a hall or at their desk, and now you have to go out of your way to kind of have that daily, some of those daily encounters.

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Justin Levinson (25:45.084)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (25:51.164)‍

Yeah, and just like kindness in general, think I like in terms of communication, like as a leader, try to, you know, I try to give like two compliments before I give a like a criticism kind of thing. Like I'm always, I always try to operate in that sort of as a leader to keep the energy and yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's weird that in a hybrid remote world, I still think you can feel

energy through like even emails. Like you can feel like if I am speaking with another leader in the industry and and they're emailing me back, you can kind of hear in the tone, you know, like, I don't know, this guy might not be treating his employees very well if he's if he's treating me like this, you know what I mean? You you kind of so I mean, I'm all about the I'm not a I'm not a copywriter by trade. But I do, you know, I do put some thought into

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Josh Golsen (26:37.836)‍

Mm-hmm.

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Justin Levinson (26:47.686)‍

you know, just how I communicate with everybody because it's creative. We're all doing creative stuff and you have to sort of be vulnerable. You have to be able to have open dialogue. You have to have a collaborative environment. And if people feel like they're being stifled and they can't contribute, then like the whole thing is going to fail.

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Josh Golsen (27:07.82)‍

Well, 100%, I mean, we all believe it's kind of one of our internal mottos is a good idea can come from anywhere. And we believe that, you know, not every idea is right, or not everybody is necessarily on the right train of thought all the time, but even a kernel from something that may not be in the right direction can be turned into like what becomes your greatest.

part of your campaign ever at the end of the day. you know, we, we try not to stifle thought on any level. You know, we, you know, everybody is allowed at our company, anybody who wants to engage in the ideation process is allowed to, whether they're again, a copywriter, a designer, an editor, an animator, a producer, or

a community manager, you know, it doesn't matter. If they want to participate and they are passionate about it and they have ideas to share, we want to hear them.

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Justin Levinson (28:01.34)‍

Yeah, that's really, that's an excellent thing. Cause you know, I talked to lot of people in the industry and there are a lot of people that they don't feel that's one of the main reasons why people leave the companies they're at. I mean, it's, for a couple of things like lack of growth. Obviously that's a big one. But not having a creative input is definitely something I hear from a lot of people when they're, when they just feel like they're, you know, they're just, you know, they're just part of the machine, but they don't get to say anything. So it's cool that you guys are offering that.

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Josh Golsen (28:31.436)‍

I think one of the biggest challenges for us has really been, it's more about like spurring participation or promoting it because like we are a lot of the people at our company, we are fortunate we have a core and a lot of our employees have been together for a very long time. I mean, our company is 11 years old and the majority of our employees have been with us for seven to nine years at this point, which is pretty crazy. But with that,

You know, we, is hard for new people to kind of feel comfortable jumping into that mix or certain people when you've worked or been around people for so long, you know, you almost communicate telepathically. So how do people kind of understand that and then jump in? They don't always feel comfortable. So we've gone through, we've tried a bunch of different methods, but it's really about, you know, we've currently kind of found this nice balance between. I want to say both.

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Justin Levinson (29:12.626)‍

Yeah

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Josh Golsen (29:30.56)‍

like meeting participation and like certain documents that we use, but essentially this process that allows people, you know, to participate, whether they're comfortable kind of in that session or, you know, they can speak to their ideas, but it also gives them other canvases to give their ideas to us if they're not spoken, if it's just something visual they want to share or whatever it be. So we really try to, like I said, encourage participation on every different level.

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Justin Levinson (30:00.38)‍

Yeah, I love that. me, when I, because I also do write music as well. And I'm always eager to co-write or collaborate with somebody different because I'm always like, if I'm writing a song or composing a piece, always, you know, I write a change. like, of course I was going to do that. That's what I always do. I always go to that chord every time in this section. I really want to collaborate with somebody that's going to say, hey, no, you got to try going to that chord, you know? And it's like, that is kind of cool, you know?

I like to do that and as my recruiting business, I also work with a, I have a recruitment coach. And so I am part of a network of many different recruiters across the country that are in manufacturing and technology and all these different places that are so different from what I do. It's like, it's kind of hilarious sometimes listening to like how like, how I communicate is so like.

shorthand, you know, and then, you know, I feel like I'm just not a serious person when I when I look at the emails that these people send and it's like, wow, like, what am I? I can't get away with like, like, let me know is like LMK in my world. And these guys are just like, you know, it's another world away. But I appreciate getting that information to even learn from them be like, this is how you do things like, there's a different way there's some different tools that I can use.

As an entrepreneur, always super eager to just learn new things. I'm always on YouTube all the time. I'm trying to look for that next secret, the secret sauce that maybe I can get a hold of.

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Josh Golsen (31:39.048)‍

I think it's like, know, mean, art is art, different medium, whether it's music, whether it's marketing, whether it's, you know, filmmaking, et cetera, you know, as music, you're drawing from all your inspirations to create something new and with your own flair, of course. And that's what we do in marketing as well. We're looking at things that inspire us or things that we think are great and saying, well, no, we can do that better, or we can do it like this. Let's add now our personal touch and.

you mix in this new, this brand, whatever it is that we're working with, and now you have something completely new and fresh. Does that make sense?

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Justin Levinson (32:11.176)‍

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think before I even got into the creative agency industry, I didn't even realize how much art and thought is put into all these things and how creative it actually is and also how it is so hard to tell a story in such a short amount of time. That might be the most difficult thing on the planet is to communicate something in a short, in a tiny bit.

and garner somebody's interest, you know, it's pretty fascinating.

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Josh Golsen (32:43.818)‍

It is, but I guess that's the world we live in today. know, those attention spans just get shorter and shorter. So we are constantly thinking, how can we, you know, get our information to you in the quickest way possible, whether it be through a single engagement or, but it also could be for through a series. Like maybe that story isn't all going to be told to you in let's say seven seconds, but maybe the first little bit of it will unfold there. And then you have to fall. we, if we peak you, then maybe you'll follow along.

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Justin Levinson (33:13.732)‍

Yeah, that's smart. got to get you got to. I wonder if there'll ever be a, you know, a complete attorney a turning point when we start having longer form advertisements that we pay attention to again, or if it's just going to keep shrinking until it's like bite size.

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Josh Golsen (33:32.812)‍

Well, I think it's, you know, that's, that's interesting to think about, but I think it's really just about, you know, size will always vary in terms of advertisements, but it's all about engagement to me. think the way that you advertise to people today is, obviously very different. At one point it was very passive. Look at this billboard, look at this sign, look at this commercial, but

To me, saw this was many, many years ago, but I saw like, and I think I agree with this, but it was this article talking about what they felt was the most engaging and best use of digital marketing period. And you know what their example was? Fantasy football.

Think about that. You have this platform that is built for you to engage with the season the whole time throughout the weeks. It's not just like, I've watched this ad for an NFL game, but no, I'm actively participating and I am coming back for more and more and more. And, you know, I think if you kind of take some of those principles and apply them to other things, it's interesting to think about like how, what a campaign could be, you know, today or tomorrow versus, you know, what it was, you know, a long time ago.

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Justin Levinson (34:45.99)‍

Yeah, no, that's an interesting way to think about it. I had a conversation with my, I had just said something in conversation with my five year old, six year old daughter about being off the grid. I don't remember how I said in conversation, she's like, dad, what's off the grid? And I'm like, and you know, that's like when you like go out into the woods and you sort of like, take, you know, you don't have technology with you and you, you know, you walk away from everything and you just like, you live off the land and you unplug.

I don't what I just thought of that, it's just kind of funny because she was like, I don't want to do that. She's into the YouTube and all the content creators and all that stuff. Are you in the game of the influencer space at all? Is that tying into what doing?

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Josh Golsen (35:20.686)‍

you

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Josh Golsen (35:33.376)‍

yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's essential in the world and the work that we do and especially in the social space. But I think it's like, it's just another example of how, you know, everything is different today. Like the whole, I want to say like the whole society's like the definition of celebrity is different today than it was 10 years ago or 15, 50 years ago, whatever it be. You know, it's not just actors, you know,

rock stars or other musicians, cetera, but, but creators influencers are a part of that mix now, like everybody has a platform, whether it be on the social on YouTube or whatever, you know, however it is, they choose to get their content out there. And so there are massive communities, there are micro communities and it's kind of this nice balance of everything. And we want to

You know, it's important today because, you know, your kids again, are looking up to certain influencers the way that like I looked at Harrison Ford as a kid or something like that. So to effectively do our job and to reach, you know, not your kids per se, but just people in general, you know, we have to speak to them on their level and through the means that they like to be communicated with.

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Justin Levinson (36:36.562)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (36:50.696)‍

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Sometimes I struggle with, I guess maybe just being like an aging millennial, sometimes I struggle with that a little bit. like, sometimes I look at it and be like, oh, this is rubbish. Back in my day, it was David Letterman. He was the guy, you know what mean? Like whatever this stuff I used to watch when I was a kid. But it is serious and it's what the kids are into. And everybody, guess, everybody is, it's not just the kids.

And there's a big opportunity there. brands have a huge opportunity there as well. And they don't wanna miss it.

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Josh Golsen (37:29.07)‍

Well, YouTube is, I believe it's the largest video distribution platform in the world, straight up, regardless of length of content. So it is a huge platform for us. We do a lot of work on YouTube with some of the brands that we work with.

in addition to major social platforms and digital platforms, et cetera. it's not everything we do is that seven second piece of content, but we are creating, I want to say more short form content there or looking at ways to reintroduce brands or introduce brands to new people, but using old content. using a library of like,

just use my example of Star Wars here. There's a huge library of content between live action and animation stuff, but we can use that as a basis and kind of use that to make new content that allows new people to get into the brand and learn about it and then start just, you know, exploring on their own.

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Justin Levinson (38:33.16)‍

Yeah, I love that. It keeps that alive, know? And reusing that content. Yeah, it was really cool that you guys were doing the X-Men, that same sort of idea.

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Josh Golsen (38:43.563)‍

Awesome.

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Justin Levinson (38:44.648)‍

Yeah, we'll have a couple more minutes here, but curious outside of this particular space, do you have any other personal interests of things you like to do?

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Josh Golsen (38:46.926)‍

Sure.

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Josh Golsen (38:55.726)‍

Yeah, I mean, well, I am a, I guess I'm a professional geek is the way to say it. So, you know, I am a fan of what I do. I love going to the movie theater, watching, you know, content, the things I love. I like going out into the real world and seeing people love that. I like going to conventions and seeing people interact with this stuff. I like, you know, I do a lot of events and concerts and

On the side, it's something that I've kind of kept, or, you know, a little side dream I've hung onto since I've moved out here, but I enjoy writing. And so I do write occasionally, you know, in my free time and just to work on my own personal passion projects.

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Justin Levinson (39:37.416)‍

That's awesome, Josh. Cool, man. Well, I really appreciate you hopping on today and offering some value to the community and telling your story. And I hope we can continue to stay in touch and maybe have you back on in the future.

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Josh Golsen (39:52.13)‍

Definitely, it was super fun, man. Thanks for having me.

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Justin Levinson (39:54.608)‍

All right, Josh, have a great rest of your week. Thanks so much. All right, bye.

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Josh Golsen (39:56.642)‍

You too.