Inside Highdive: Chad Broude’s Journey

Justin Levinson (00:00.77)‍

Hey everybody, my name is Justin Levinson. You are at the Agency Side Podcast. So excited to be here today with Chad Brody, who is the CCO, co-founder of HiDive Advertising. And I'm so excited to have you here today. Great to be with you, Chad.

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Chad Broude (00:18.413)‍

Yeah, thanks for having me.

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Justin Levinson (00:20.054)‍

Yeah, man. Well, I think the thing I'd like to just start with is maybe you can just tell our viewers who might not know about what your agency does what exactly you guys are doing.

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Chad Broude (00:30.981)‍

yeah, sure. we are a full service, advertising agency. we've been around for about eight and a half years. we were almost at like the very beginning of like when all these smaller shops were popping up. since then there's been so many great ones, but, yeah, do a lot of big brands. you know, our roster includes, State Farm, Jeep, Jersey Mike's, KFC, Airheads, Bet MGM.

and more and yeah, we touch every part of their advertising business.

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Justin Levinson (01:03.95)‍

That's awesome. Yeah, I see, I was kind of looking at your profile a little bit and kind of stalking you and seeing how you got into this industry a little bit. I noticed that you started from like a copy background. Is that sort of where your beginning started?

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Chad Broude (01:18.423)‍

Yeah, I, was a copywriter at DDB for about nine years. it was the only agency I was at and, I was there for nine years. then, the ECD at the time, who's not my current partner, Mark Gross, I walked out of hall. I'm like, should we start our own agency? and it was funny because like a lot of people have had those conversations, especially back then. you talk about all the time, but no one really did it.

And when he kind of looked at me, he goes, yeah, let's get together this weekend and put down the plan. I was like, okay, he's serious. and it got real, fast.

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Justin Levinson (01:53.058)‍

Yeah, that's crazy. Did you guys just sort of like quit your jobs and start or were you sort of like, I mean, how does that sort of like, you know, obviously you have the idea, but how does that sort of like actually happen?

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Chad Broude (02:06.665)‍

We talked about it. We were meeting every weekend and starting to kind of figure out like how we want to do things different from the other shops we've been at and you know, what will be our kind of positioning the way of doing things. And it didn't just happen like, you know, a few days after that conversation, probably six to nine months after that. What's funny is, you know, you start talking about it and it gets a little bit of momentum and then it kind of slows down and

I got offered this job in LA and we're in Chicago now and I was back then and you know, was really thinking about taking it. And then I woke up the next morning after having a good conversation with the agency. I called Mark and I'm like, are we going to do this? Because, you know, I'm ready to make a move. He goes, yeah, let's do this. And then it got real fast. I think we probably resigned a week later.

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Justin Levinson (02:59.896)‍

Wow. Yeah, that's cool. I like I like those bold moves. like I like doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, I guess when you I mean, obviously, you guys were brainstorming for a while on how how it didn't happen just overnight. But like, I guess, you know, did you feel like you already sort of had a name in the industry where getting clients was sort of gonna kind of confident that they were going to come or did you sort of feel like

You guys are gonna have to hit the pavement and really like bang on some doors.

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Chad Broude (03:30.955)‍

It's funny. This is like my, some of the best advice I could give people who are thinking about doing it. So we thought we had a little bit of a name of an industry, especially Mark, who is, at DDB for 22 years and won more awards there than, than anyone, way more than I did. So I thought we were to be able to leverage our relationships and our reputation. And we were wrong. that first, 12 months was scary, you know, and what we learned in that moment or that year.

which we should have known because we're in the business of branding is we had to build our own brand again. You know, people knew us, but they didn't know high dive and you got to step in their shoes of their charge that driving their brand and driving sales and all that. And it's a big decision to give an agency a big project and a big budget. And it took a few years to start hitting a few home runs, having a lot of success in the Superbowl, which was big for us.

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Justin Levinson (04:29.976)‍

Saw that.

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Chad Broude (04:30.487)‍

And then we started to develop our own brand and then some of the older relationships started becoming a little bit more real again. But yeah, you have to, I guess my advice would be don't assume that all your relationships will just kind of transfer with you because you're an unknown and you haven't done it alone and you haven't done, you know, your own business yet.

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Justin Levinson (04:53.58)‍

Yeah, no, that totally resonates. About the Super Bowl, maybe you can explain what the success that you had and what it means to the Super Bowl ad meter. You guys were crushing it on that front. What's that all about?

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Chad Broude (05:09.081)‍

Uh, yeah, the ad meter is just one of the, um, you know, competitions that they do to kind of rank the best ads. Um, it's one of the more reputable ones and, uh, we've really built a reputation on it. Um, in a lot of great ways. We've won the ad meter, um, four out of the last six years. Um, we actually lost it this year by 0.1, which is heartbreaking. It would have been five out of the last six.

And it's just, you know, in USA Today where people go and vote on their, on their favorite spot. So it's less of like agency experts. It's more just real people voting on it. But what was great about that is it's, you get a lot of press, you get a lot of love from publications outside the industry. And it's like, you almost get two Super Bowls is what I always say, because you run the spot in the game. And the next day, every news station across America talks about America's favorite ad. So.

We started putting a few of those wins together, which was crazy. And then, you know, it started really shaping up our reputation as an agency that could connect with Mass America.

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Justin Levinson (06:17.838)‍

Yeah, that's super cool. I was looking at your portfolio and looking at lot of other really cool projects. I you were working with Jeep and I saw Fritos, a lot of big brands. Is there any campaign that you're most proud of that really stood out to you?

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Chad Broude (06:40.793)‍

Honestly, you love them all. What's special about the 2020 project with them, it was Jeep and Rocket Mortgage that year and no one ever heard of high dive and we had no reputation in the industry and we had two spots that made a big splash that year. It was the Jeep spot called Groundhog Day, which was cool because was the Superbowl's on Groundhog Day. And we got Bill Murray, who was like a unicorn get in the industry. Although I do think he was in the spot this year, but before then he never was.

and then we had a Jason Momoa spot for Rocket Mortgage about being comfortable where he takes the joke was like, he takes all his muscles and his hair is off his hair off at home. And he's kind of this puny bald guy. which also crushed, especially like in the social space and it still does, you see these memes pop up all the time. So like overnight, people are like, who did that? You know, and like, you kind of looked at it you're like, I've never heard of these guys. And then there was two.

And what was special about that is that's when it felt like we really started humming as an agency.

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Justin Levinson (07:43.47)‍

Yeah, that's cool. You get some real momentum. And does that lead to a lot of also new work and stuff kind of comes in once you sort of get those accolades? Does it sort of trickle in?

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Chad Broude (07:52.631)‍

Yeah, absolutely. It kind of goes back to what I said for the first time we had a brand. And you know, when you have success on stages like that and other big media moments or other things that the industry notices for the first time, you have potential brand partners knocking on your door, which is like the best feeling in the world. Because for two things, one, it's just, you know, reassuring that people want to work with you, but you could be selective of your clients and find the ones that align with

your agency ethos and the things you want to do. And for us, it was always important to find clients that we wanted to work with, who shared the desire to do great work, that were good people and not jerks. And we've, for the last seven years since then, have done a good job of that. And it's why we've pretty much maintained every relationship we've ever had.

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Justin Levinson (08:46.508)‍

Yeah, was reading about that relationships are definitely a key thing for you guys trying to be, you know, agency and client healthy, healthy client in agency relationships. I noticed was something that was sort of part of your like core mission.

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Chad Broude (09:01.345)‍

Yeah, it's everything. If you think about just like the core idea of that with any good relationship or your best friend or your spouse is when things are healthy, you could have open conversations and it just works better. And you've applied that to advertising. You know, if you walk into a meeting with a client and you're on eggshells because things aren't going great and you're afraid of saying something, it just stifles creativity.

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Justin Levinson (09:27.63)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (09:28.077)‍

But if it's open and if it's a safe place where you could throw an idea, maybe it's not a great one. And then for the same side, the client can too. And they're not afraid of saying, you know, the one thing I always hate that clients say is, Hey, I'm not the creative, but what if we, because they are creative to a degree and they live and breathe their business 24 seven. So because that, they're going to have a lot of really good ideas. So when you walk into a meeting and there's a mutual respect and that you generally like each other.

People are sharing free flowing ideas back and forth and you're not worried about saying something stupid. And if you do, sometimes it sparks something else. And it's a pretty magical process once you establish that relationship and we stand by it on every relationship we have.

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Justin Levinson (10:16.278)‍

Yeah, I really like that philosophy of where like no idea is a bad idea and really having the respect for your client that it is their business and they're probably gonna have lot of great ideas. They might not even know it, but they probably have a lot to offer in the success of what you're gonna do.

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Chad Broude (10:33.439)‍

my God, so many time I at high dive, some of our better spots have come from a client idea or even an account person idea on our side. Like a few years ago, we did this great NHL spot who's also a client of ours. And we were in a meeting together, just talk about what we want to do for the year. And one of the clients walked by, popped his head into the office and he said, Hey, we got this idea. got this idea for the playoffs.

Stanley Cup's coming out and all these players are kind of swooning over it and we show a series of them kissing it and the line pops up. You never forget your first kiss and everyone kind of laughed and I'm like, well that's incredible. Fast forward five months later we're working on the playoff work. I'm looking through all the agency work and I'm like, well nothing has beaten that yet and like that's the one we ended up making and getting nominated for a sports Emmy for.

So look, a lot of people say ideas come from anywhere and I don't think they always mean it. They do like even on Jeep, Olivier Francois is like a creative, like a genius and he's got a lot of great ideas and a lot of the work we've done together has been from these collaborative conversations and Randy Ortiz, who's like the brand lead there. It's like when you start texting with this is the healthy relationship, you start texting, you have a thought and in the middle of the night,

you get a text, like, that's great. And you know, you just run with it and it works.

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Justin Levinson (12:05.486)‍

That's cool. What is your specific role within the agency? And I guess maybe you could tell me about that. also, yeah, I'd be curious to see what a whole project looks like from the beginning to the end, if you guys are partnering with other production or post companies and just what the whole package looks like.

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Chad Broude (12:32.204)‍

Well, my role as the co-chief creative officer is me and Mark Gross, my partner. We are responsible for every piece of creative that walks out the door. Do you mean like just in general, how does like a campaign get made?

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Justin Levinson (12:49.378)‍

Yeah, I mean, guess from like, you know, when when a client has approached you and says we have, you know, we want to do a campaign for for this and you've got the job. And, you know, what does it look like from like those initial meetings to, you know, the whole package from there?

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Chad Broude (13:09.123)‍

Sure, know, when they come, a lot of times they're coming to us with a business problem. You know, we need to reach this, we need to sell this candy to 18 to 34 year olds or something like that.

The beginning of the process usually starts with our strategy team and we do well, know, we call discovery or every agency has their own term for it, but you dig a little bit deep and you find some insights of, why aren't 18 to 34 year olds connecting? What would make them connect? What is some things going on in culture that overlaps their interest in what we're trying to do? From there, we'll have a few of these strategy sessions with the client. We'll ultimately align on a brief.

The brief is a distilled version of everything we found and what we're trying to do. And then you'll take anywhere, depending on the timing of things. Sometimes it's three days, sometimes it's three months. And our creative teams will work on solutions for that. And then, you know, we'll share work, usually in multiple rounds. We're big on not going away for like, you know, two months and saying, ta-da, we like to, for all the reasons I've talked about, like bring the client in early and often and, share this stuff.

The client falls in love with an idea and let's just say it's a TV spot for the sake of conversation. We love it and then we'll go find a director who could bring it to life in a great way in a production company. And then, you know, on the post side of things, the editor, if it's a comedy spot, you'll find a great comedy director, a great comedy editor and get it out there.

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Justin Levinson (14:45.486)‍

Yeah, and how do you build that sort of database? Do you have a core of people that you typically go to when you have a TV spot? Are you sort of looking for new people and sort of actually recruiting new people for new different things, or how does that work? Yeah.

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Chad Broude (15:02.733)‍

Both, you you definitely have your short bench people that you've you get along with both creatively on a personal level and work you they really you know you really respect from them. Like for example, a lot of the comedy spots we've done. We've won a few Super Bowls with Jim Jenkins out of O positive and really just like like his style and the way he goes about doing things and on top of it he's just really really good at you know.

making work special. And then other cases you're doing something where you know maybe some of your go-to's it's not a great fit or maybe they're not available and you know on Airheads we we jump around a little bit more and try to tap some talent that isn't like one of the big marquee names and you know if you do a great if it works and it was a good process you might hit them again or you might find someone new next time.

From an editor standpoint, we like to kind of keep it to our go-to editor, at least I personally do. I just think they start to develop an understanding of the way you like to look at edits, and they even start to develop a brand understanding of what's important to the client. I think people are a little bit more, they have a shorter bench of editors probably than anyone else, at least we do.

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Justin Levinson (16:27.358)‍

Yeah. How is the team structured? How many people do you have working for you right now?

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Chad Broude (16:34.681)‍

The agency's at like 135 now, yeah, it's weird to say that out loud because like it used to be two people in a closet. But it all depends, you know, the juicier assignments, we want everyone to be able to take a crack at it. So it ranges from two creative teams to six creative teams, depending on, you know, the timeline and the availability and

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Justin Levinson (16:37.164)‍

Wow, good size agency.

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Justin Levinson (16:44.494)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (17:03.309)‍

You know, sometimes just the agreed upon scope with the client, but yeah, it all depends.

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Justin Levinson (17:08.64)‍

And do a lot of people work remotely or do you have like, do you an office type of thing or what sort of the, how does that work in terms of collaborating as a team?

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Chad Broude (17:17.101)‍

We do. have an office right now. We have an office in the Merchant Smart in Chicago. We're both, you know, if you live in Illinois in the city, you know, we'd love for you to come in a few days a week. were firm believers in that in the room energy, you know, I think there's a lot of benefits to just sitting around and looking at someone not through a computer screen all the time. But a lot of our employees don't live in the state. And for one reason or another.

Maybe we were recruiting great talent that wasn't interested in moving to Chicago. Maybe we had great talent that had a life reason to leave another state. So it's a case by case situation for us, but we put talent before anything else. If you're a good cultural fit with the agency and you're a great talent, we'll make it work.

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Justin Levinson (18:02.542)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (18:08.91)‍

That's interesting. You're the first person, first guest I've had on this program that is actually based in Chicago. I've been really interested in speaking to somebody from Chicago actually, because, you know, I do most, most of the work I do is in LA and New York and London. But I know that Chicago is quite the creative agency hub, you know, it seems like it's really like, there's a lot going on there. So it's really interesting to have a conversation, especially because you guys are like independent.

agencies. You guys are, I guess, more the Chicago agencies that are more of those bigger ones, right?

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Chad Broude (18:44.205)‍

legacy agencies. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know why it feels like some of the smaller independents are LA, New York and Chicago's a little bit more the old legacy agencies. It's a great advertising city, you know, for a long time, it was the best advertising city in the world. And I think things are swinging back in that momentum. I don't think it's quite

What it used to be like a lot of it has to do with where the brands are located There's a lot of great brands in the Midwest. I think what you get from Midwest agencies is a little bit of a Midwest sensibility That you don't always find out the coast

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Justin Levinson (19:26.958)‍

Yeah, no, that's interesting. you, yeah, I lost my train of thought at a senior moment there for a minute. I had something compelling to say, but I lost it. Yeah, I think my brain got away. my wife and I have been, I do remember what I was gonna say, but my wife and I were watching some old Saturday Night Live going through the, from way back to now.

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Chad Broude (19:36.183)‍

Yeah, the breeze.

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Justin Levinson (19:53.454)‍

and we were going back and watching the Chicago one. Actually yesterday, it came by with the classic, the Bears or the Bulls. I don't know if you remember that episode. Yeah, it's really funny episode we saw last night.

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Chad Broude (20:01.293)‍

Yeah, of course.

I actually did a campaign with those guys years ago at the old agency. we stayed from the super fans, and it was with, Robert smigel and, who's the guy from cheers.

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Justin Levinson (20:18.922)‍

damn it.

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Chad Broude (20:23.821)‍

Breaking his name, but yeah, we did a whole campaign. was like they were Bears fans and they sat next to Aaron Rodgers on a plane. was, was a funny, Yeah, yeah, I grew up in the burbs and I live in the burbs now.

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Justin Levinson (20:31.928)‍

Are you a Chicago native?

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Justin Levinson (20:37.29)‍

Nice. What do you enjoy doing outside of just this creative agency space? What are some of your personal hobbies and things you enjoy? Yeah.

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Chad Broude (20:46.221)‍

Yeah, with all my free time. I was just kidding. don't have any free time. Big sports guy.

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Justin Levinson (20:50.158)‍

No one in a creative agency ever.

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Chad Broude (20:55.061)‍

Yeah, big sports guy. I'm a seasoned sicker holder at the Bears. I go to Hawks games once they bounce back and yeah, it's it's it's usually work in sports is kind of my two things.

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Justin Levinson (21:07.254)‍

Yeah, is it hard to get a ticket for for Bears games? Is it pretty? Is it not not too difficult? Yeah.

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Chad Broude (21:12.299)‍

Not lately, because they suck. I hope it gets hard soon, but it's been a brutal few years, but we'll see.

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Justin Levinson (21:20.814)‍

I've never actually been to an NFL football game. been on my bucket list. I guess it was like years ago, my dad took me to a CFL game because well, I'm actually located in Vermont right now. A lot of people don't realize that. Our offices are really in LA, but I live here. So we're kind of close to Canada, to Montreal. So I've seen some CFL games. Doug Flutie play when he was...

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Chad Broude (21:47.929)‍

Ha

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Justin Levinson (21:48.526)‍

when he was a CFL guy. So yeah, but I'd love to go see an NFL game. guess close, it's harder to go from me. guess where the closest to go would maybe be like Giants maybe. They suck too.

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Chad Broude (21:51.833)‍

That's cool. Yeah, you gotta go.

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Chad Broude (22:01.453)‍

Yeah. So yeah, you got to get to it. It's a black. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (22:05.774)‍

Totally. Yeah, well, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm always interested in, I guess, how you ended up scaling. You just told me a minute ago that you guys had like, it just the two of you. Like, what did it look like? Like, what was like the next, like hire? When did you see that you were ready to like get the next person? And when were you like, Oh, she had an office or how does that? How does that happen?

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Chad Broude (22:31.193)‍

pre organically, you know, it was, we started small and then we started with like, left with an account guy, Matt Gallo and account person, Ellie with the from DDB. And, you know, the beginning was tough and they had some different life ambitions. So they ended up leaving with us. where the tide really started to change was,

Our current CEO, Megan Lally and my partner who, one of our partners who died a few years ago, Louie, they also left about the same time of their big agency. So they were at Leo Burnett. We were at DDB. And as, I always joke like we needed the adults in the room. Cause Mark and I are like the creative guys. And, when we started working with them, it was probably like nine or 10 months into breaking off.

I think we, we started to become a little bit more legitimized. So then you have four people and, I don't know, you know, things just kind of happen. You start winning some business and then they started hiring people that they knew. So we need another account person. now one of our partners at the agency, Kaylee Lambeth also came from Leo. And then, you know, one of our big origin stores is we had a lot of success with Jeep.

so then we had to staff up for Jeep and then we had to hire some creative. So we hired now our ECD who's been there for six years, like, Pat Burke and Casey Stern. And then you start pitching and winning other business. Some of our clients who worked with us on, on cars, you know, new other people at rocket mortgage. So then we got opportunities with them and then, you know, you, you started in some wins, you wins a business pitches and

Then it gets a little scary because you're like, okay, how do we maintain our culture and the things we do well and not grow too fast? Because you've seen the pitfalls of that. But again, we were just kind of selective of who we worked with, who we pitched. And for the first five years, it was kind of great because you could just hire people that you've worked with and that you love from other agencies. And I think that's like tapped out for us. So now, you know, we actually have like

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Chad Broude (24:48.611)‍

traditional recruiters and we're bringing people in. But then what happens is it opens up the flood gates again, because when you bring in people you don't know, now they have a pocket of people that they loved, that they haven't worked with in a few years from other agencies and so on. So it's just a combination of, you know, finding the right accounts, winning the pitch, which is big, and then building teams in the agency that represents the culture that was from the year before.

I always was telling people that every six months, especially in beginning, it's a very different agency. Having a 10 person agency is a different agency than 30 people. And then you blink and you're like, now we've all 60 person agency. That's a different agency from the 30 person agency. And now at 135 or whatever we're at, it's very different than where we were two years ago. The way we do things, but the things that never changes is the core values of what you believe in and the culture of

you know, the, maybe from the people who work here.

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Justin Levinson (25:52.75)‍

Yeah. What are you seeing as the biggest pain points that are in the industry right now? I know I talked a lot of agency leaders that talk about budgets are lower. There's in housing, there's AI, there's all these different things that are out there that are sometimes squeezing creative agencies, not saying all of them. But curious what you're seeing.

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Chad Broude (26:15.319)‍

Yeah, a little bit of that. know, AI is scary, but also really exciting. I think that's going to really benefit agencies. I think it's going to be a little bit scarier for production companies long term. For agencies, I think that's going to be really cool because we're going to be able to build the plane as we fly it. We're going to have an idea, walk down the hall to our studio. Like we have a studio called 1986 here.

And instead of like waiting to see what this thing would be, you just go make it and you could share iterations with the clients. And I think that's awesome because no idea will die due to budgetary constraints. I think that's really exciting. I think, I think creatives will in a weird way become directors and directors will become creatives. And I think that's going to be amazing. Like you're to have a great idea and you're just going to be able to make it.

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Justin Levinson (26:45.827)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (27:09.559)‍

The big pain points for me, it's what they've always been. know, pitches are stressful and when you don't win them, it's a bummer. And when you win them, it's thrilling. And then it's just trying to manage all that without burning out everyone who works here because a pitch is a full-time job on top of a full-time job. So.

I think that's probably the big thing is, you know, every time you win another piece of business, you're providing more job security for the people who work here. It's just a little bit more security. know, if an account goes away and ultimately it happens, you could help find a new home for people. So the biggest pain point to me is what it was 15, 20 years ago. It's managing that growth.

while not burning people out.

Justin Levinson (28:10.05)‍

Yeah, when looking to win those pitches, maybe just for people that might not understand, do you get paid in the beginning to start generating that idea competing with lots of different agencies and then sort of the agency sort of decides which one they want and that's where you sort of get the big gig?

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Chad Broude (28:31.257)‍

It's it depends some pay I would say the majority of pitches are not paid But not majority half half aren't paid and half are you know and a lot of times, you know

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Justin Levinson (28:40.504)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (28:44.811)‍

It's worked for us where there's been a pitch situation and the client's in a hurry and we're like, why don't we just do a project together? You guys are in a hurry. Pitches are take a lot of time. And some of those relationships have turned into like four or five year AOR relationships because it just, you know, the project went well. There was a good chemistry between us and the client, but they're not all, you know, and you know, it's great when they're paid for.

In a weird way when they're paid for you have a bigger accountability as an agency to deliver really good work in the pitch because they're paying you. So I think there's an upside that a lot of clients who do pay for pitches they're getting the best out of their agency because they paid for it. It's easy when you know bandwidth gets thin and be like, we'll give it our best shot because

You know, we don't really owe them anything.

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Justin Levinson (29:44.206)‍

Yeah. Yeah. Do you try to use that as much as possible to try to deal with especially like repeat business? Do you use that service leverage to to say like, hey, if we're to continue to work, like how about the pitch or Yeah.

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Chad Broude (30:02.039)‍

Yeah, usually we don't like pitch every single assignment. You know, with it's usually in the, the, you know, the first one. And if it's a big one, like if it's Superbowl, you might have to pitch it every year. You know, think a lot of brands are doing that now where. Unlike those special occasion, big media moments, they, they don't, they appreciate a different point of view from a few different shops. But for the most part, we're not pitching every single assignment across the year.

In a lot of cases, we don't pitch any of them. In a lot of our relationships, you know, we're responsible for a scope of work that is set aside for high dive to deliver on.

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Justin Levinson (30:43.16)‍

Yeah, it makes me think of like, I do a lot of creative recruitment work. And I, I always do. You know, I give clients a scorecard based on the role that they give me typically, which is kind of funny. And if they give me a role that I think is like an F, which is just like, you're working with other recruiting agencies, communication is bad. You know, the fee is low, the price of the

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Chad Broude (31:06.521)‍

you

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Justin Levinson (31:11.054)‍

the you're to pay the person is not competitive with market, like, you know, the agency stinks, I have to like sell it. So they get a scorecard. And sometimes the client comes to me, I'll like, I'm not going to do this, man. It's like, this is kind of an F. But then the client that says, Hey, you know, we're to give you an exclusive retained search for these three roles. And we're gonna give you a, you know, a third of it down. And you're going to fill these roles. This is for you. And those people we tend to deliver for top of the chart, you know,

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Chad Broude (31:22.137)‍

Yep.

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Chad Broude (31:38.399)‍

Yeah, you, you feel, you feel an obligation. Additionally, one of my biggest issues with jump balls all the time is it takes away the, the brand partnership to a degree where when one agency is working behind it, it's less, the agency is less focused on winning the pitch and more focused on doing what's right for the brand, you know, and that might mean you're going to have a few bad meetings because you have conviction of what we're offered, what we're suggesting.

is right for the brand. If it's multiple jump balls, I think agencies feel a little less, I don't know, cavalier in of like say, no, you gotta do this. Trust us here because then they don't get the business and then, know, there's the business implications of like not winning the pitch. So I think over time, the best relationships are not that jump ball approach. if you just look at the history of advertising, usually it's not the case.

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Justin Levinson (32:27.234)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (32:37.059)‍

But I get why it makes sense on some, some bigger media moments.

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Justin Levinson (32:40.888)‍

Yep. Yeah. And same in my business too. There are some clients that, you know, we will, you know, I will be open to trying something in a different fashion if I really believe in the client and letting them get to to know me and kind of all that stuff. So, that's definitely a, I guess, lack of a better term, many ways to skin a cat, I guess. but you were talking about AI and I was getting kind of interested in that also because you had mentioned,

when you were talking about like the series of steps you go with through client and how like the first step is sort of like the strategy session where you're sort of like, the client is telling you like, Hey, I want to sell this product to this demographic or they have a problem in selling it to this demographic. Like how, how can we do that? I'm curious how AI works with you guys. I mean, obviously I know it creates ideas. I mean, I use it all the time in my, in my work, but do you even use it maybe like in the

conversation part where it's like you're getting a transcript of that conversation and sort of using the AI as well as like a body.

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Chad Broude (33:47.065)‍

Sure. Yeah, even to summarize like a conference, like a media report, but yeah, we use it.

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Justin Levinson (33:51.264)‍

Yeah, or, to just sort of be like, Hey, this was the conversation. And then I'm also going to ask the, I like, you have some, you know, suggestions on how we can pitch so-and-so to this demographic and, do you try to do it more organically before you get to that?

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Chad Broude (34:04.761)‍

No, all the above. Like the strategy department will use it on early, like deep digs on the industry and what's going on. And in some cases, and I think they're working on this right now is like.

training models to represent like the target demo for brand. So if you had an idea, you could throw it to that train model and you know, see how that market would potentially respond based on how the AI responds. So yeah, we're using it more and more every day. It's, know, it's, it's the internet, like it's, it's the best tool you can possibly use.

I think if you don't embrace it wholeheartedly, you're going to be screwed.

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Justin Levinson (34:49.55)‍

100 % agree with you. Is it just, I guess, what are some tools that you guys are using? I mean, obviously there's ChatGPT. Is there other sort of different things that you're using within your team and your workflow that have been helpful to you?

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Chad Broude (35:07.361)‍

Yeah, chat GP chat GPT Claude, mid journey. We're starting to mess around with like Pica and, sorry, what is that other one? Which, some of the video, Gemini, all of them Grok, like our studio I've charged them in the last few months is like, we need to be like the experts. you know, in the next few months of like,

knocking out short content video. Some of it looks amazing. Think about just like a social presence for a brand. Sometimes a video is six seconds or sometimes a brand just has a pretty decent following on Instagram or TikTok. You could use that stuff to service that from a production standpoint 50 % of the content. So we're really using everything across the board.

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Justin Levinson (36:01.452)‍

you the champion for that? Are you the one that's trying the new tools and doing most of that within the company? Or do you have a designated ARI?

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Chad Broude (36:09.653)‍

I think, I think everyone's pretty excited about it. think from a leadership standpoint, I, I'm leading that charge with our head of production, Jen on that, but there's a lot of creatives here and a lot of people who are as good as anyone in the world who just have a passion for it and who are trying some cutting edge stuff and trying to apply that.

to brands, it doesn't take a lot of arm twisting here. People love it and they're using it organically.

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Justin Levinson (36:40.492)‍

Yeah, I'm definitely a person who is equally excited about that world. guess for me the problem is I'm offered so many different tools and things to look at that I feel like I would be spending every minute of my day trying something new and trying to figure out if it can do something for me. And I wouldn't do anything, I would just be trying tools all day.

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Chad Broude (37:03.489)‍

I agree. That's why I want the studio to just be the hub of gurus there. And so you don't necessarily have to know how to use all nine, text to video tools, but our department does. And you can walk down and be like, Hey, what would it look like to see an elephant eat a bag of lays? I don't know what the ideas I'm just saying. And like you could walk away and in 20 minutes, like, Hey, that's pretty funny. Let's go with that. And it's.

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Justin Levinson (37:23.886)‍

I'm

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Chad Broude (37:31.979)‍

Okay, is this good enough to make the entire piece of content this way or at least good enough to sell the idea?

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Justin Levinson (37:39.714)‍

Yeah, that's really fascinating. We use it a lot for interviewing people and summarizing conversations, making pitches. But there's a lot of AI agents going on in the recruitment world where you are.

paying for an AI agent that's like a member of your team that has a personality that is like outbound reaching out to other people to sell you, which is just so bizarre. But I just went to a conference and was looking at all the different things that like Salesforce is doing all these different companies and how this is integrating into different sales in the sales world. It's just, it's pretty crazy. I think that one thing that it's really changing is

And probably in a lot of industries is like, there's no, if you're just a generalist at what you do, it's going to be, I think it's going to be a ecosystem. Like you're really in no matter what you do, you're going to have to be really an expert to survive because if a AI agent can do a multi-channel outbound campaign, selling you better than the average person, like you're not going to be, you're not going to have a job. Yeah.

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Chad Broude (38:58.349)‍

Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. You know, I think being an expert and a hyperdiscipline, it's going to be the relationship side of it. And I haven't had a ton of experience with like those, those chat bots like that. I've heard good things, but yeah, we'll see.

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Justin Levinson (39:19.414)‍

Yeah, I guess just to close out here, because it was on our last couple of minutes, I'm always interested in what you, what leaders look for in talent in their team. And I guess maybe I'd be curious to when you're hiring yourself personally, what you're looking for in the individuals and what sort of things stand out to you.

You know, obviously, when you put a job out there, there's like a thousands of applicants and you know, it's time to sift through them. What are the things that stand out to you and the people that you ultimately hire?

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Chad Broude (39:57.817)‍

Yeah, beyond just, you know, a good book, like a body of work that they've done. You start there unless they're a junior and then maybe they got a student book. for me, there's like three big things probably. Number one, I like a work ethic. I like people who are passionate about advertising and who want to put in the work. I could...

Anyone who wants to work hard will have a place here. Another big thing for me that I've been stressing a lot is being a student of culture. I think.

That's the most powerful advertising out there right now is the work that either leverages culture or creates culture. And to do that, you have to have an understanding of that. And that doesn't mean in your own little box of the type of music you like and the type of movies you like and the type of art you like. It means knowing the type of music they like and they like and they like the type of movies they like. Like I always am like, watch the MTV Movie Awards, even if you've aged out of it. It's Cliff Notes.

You know, watch every award show, go to every site and know what all of your consumers from all your different clients, what they're consuming and what's important to them across pop culture. That's, that's a big one. I always ask this question during an interview. And as I was asked, like, what show is you watching? What movies? And it's crazy. Cause some creatives would be like, I don't watch TV. And I'm like, well, you're not hired.

You're in the business of making mass media. You don't watch TV. I don't understand that. And they do it. They talk about it like it's a badge of honor. So culture is a big thing. And finally, get shit done. The ability to get shit done and do it well.

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Justin Levinson (41:47.981)‍

Yeah.

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Chad Broude (41:57.005)‍

have an idea and come back in a few hours or a few days and be like, hey, look, and like make it something. Doesn't mean it to be the whole thing, but just figure out ways to showcase the idea. And then finally, just care about everything. I think more than anything, this industry is suffering from craft a little bit. I don't know if it's bounced back since COVID. You know, there was a time where like you would go to callbacks and sit with the director and workshop the script, which I make as a mandatory in every shoot now.

Because we got in a habit of not doing that and then you would Sit with the editor in person not do a computer for three or four days and make sure you went through every single take to make sure it was the best Performance you could possibly have for that scene and then you sit with the sound engineer and you try things So many times a spot that isn't funny could be saved by just what you do in sound design so You have to care you have to want to be there. You have to put in the time

combination of all those four things is what I really

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Justin Levinson (42:59.156)‍

Awesome, Chad. Well, it's so great having you here. I think I got some great sound bites here on that last golden nugget. And yeah, I want to thank you for being on here today. I got to be honest, I was embarrassed. I did not pronounce your company correctly when we had tried this early. So yeah, make sure you guys all check out High Dive Advertising.

And yeah, Chad, it's been really wonderful having a conversation today. I value your time and I hope we can continue having conversations in the future.

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Chad Broude (43:31.627)‍

Of course, thanks for reaching out. Thanks.

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Justin Levinson (43:33.366)‍

All right Chad, be well man.