In this episode, Jason Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of Movement Strategy, joins us to explore the agency's transformative role as a socially powered creative partner for major brands. Jason shares the inspiring journey of Movement Strategy, from its humble beginnings to collaborations with high-profile clients like the Denver Nuggets.
He dives into the impact of AI on influencer marketing, discussing how his agency builds long-term relationships with influencers and selects the right partners for successful campaigns. With a focus on adaptability in the ever-changing landscape of social media, Jason emphasizes the importance of mentorship and being open to new opportunities. Join us for an insightful conversation about innovation, culture, and the future of marketing.
[04:18] Working with Major Clients
[09:07] Starting Small and Reaching Out to Mentors
[13:07] The Importance of Mentorship
[16:02] Embracing AI for Better Results
[18:18] Adapting to Industry Trends
[20:09] The Role of AI in Influencer Marketing
[25:21] Building Long-Term Relationships with Influencers
[34:21] The Importance of Culture in an Agency
[37:09] Balancing Work and Personal Life
Co-founder & CEO
Jason Mitchell is the co-founder and CEO of Movement Strategy, a dynamic agency that serves as a socially powered creative partner for large companies. Under his leadership, Movement Strategy has transformed marketing strategies to adapt to the evolving social media landscape and harness cutting-edge technologies like AI. Starting as a small agency, Movement Strategy has grown to work with notable clients, including the Denver Nuggets. Jason emphasizes the value of seizing new opportunities and seeking mentorship to navigate the industry effectively. He is passionate about integrating AI tools into influencer marketing, focusing on building long-term relationships with influencers to drive successful campaigns. In addition to discussing the agency's innovative approach, Jason shares insights into the role of culture within Movement Strategy and reflects on his life outside of work, highlighting the balance between professional growth and personal fulfillment.
Justin Levinson (00:01.016)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. Excited to be here with Jason Mitchell, who is the co -founder and CEO of Movement Strategy, one of the most forward -thinking experts in social powered thinking. How social media technologies, platforms, and communities have real world impact, reshaping everything from marketing to the larger culture. He is an avid proponent of new tech and platforms, earning movement acclaim from Business Insider for their innovative use of AI.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (00:05.483)
Yeah, what's up, Justin? Excited too.
Justin Levinson (00:29.314)
Jason, thanks for coming here and talking to me for a minute.
Yeah, it's really great to have you and yeah, you know, there's a larger resume here that I have of all of your accomplishments and things that you've done but I figured I would avoid saying them in the opening pitch and kind of let you talk about them a bit. But yeah, the first thing I'm just kind of curious about and I think just for like listeners who might not know movement is like what the heck do you do?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (01:03.789)
What do we do? Well, we like to work with a variety of different types of companies. We typically these days work with fairly large companies and we are their social powered creative partner. And what that means is today, you know, we believe that social media has become the number one place that people find out about new products, discover trends, find their people and
that is a big change from how things have been where TV for so long was really sort of at the center. And so we work with companies to reshape the way that they approach all of their marketing with an understanding that the way that people are finding out about things has changed. And so how that actually manifests itself is that we create a lot of content for their social media channels. We help them understand how to work with the right influencers and content creators to make sure that their products, their brand is
at sort of the front and center of culture. We buy media across the right platforms and just generally help them understand how to make their brand incredibly talked about because if people are talking about their brand on social media, that's going to translate into sales and revenue growth and market share growth. And so that's what we do. We have a team of about 150 people spread across the country that do that work from creatives to strategists. We are
increasingly leveraging new and innovative technologies to power our ability to do that at scale. And that's what we do. Some of our clients are Amazon and Spotify and Netflix and Intuit. So typically working with fairly large companies, but it runs the gamut.
Justin Levinson (02:46.574)
That's awesome. And yeah, how did it all get started? I mean, I'm sure obviously didn't start with 150 people. You know, what's sort of like the backstory there?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (02:48.983)
Yeah, how did it all get started?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (02:57.559)
Yeah, no, it started with two people, myself and Eric. We were students at the University of Colorado and we were first friends because we skied a lot together. We both moved to Colorado for college to be sort of ski bums, quasi ski bums slash college students. And then we ended up becoming good friends and roommates and we were both studying advertising in the journalism school and
Justin Levinson (03:14.04)
Ha ha.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (03:24.931)
something that happens, this was 2008, 2009, where we were in these classes and they were talking to us about, and this is how you do TV ad, and this is how you do print. Meanwhile, all of us were on Facebook and we were excited about platforms like Dig and Reddit. And we realized there was a big disconnect between what sort of the old guard was teaching and doing in terms of advertising and what.
millennials who at the time were sort of the most in demand target market for most advertisers, how we were actually consuming media and communicating with one another. And so we said, you know, there might be an opportunity here for us to start a company and work with at the time local companies and help them understand how they can use these new platforms. And so we started the agency and you know, I think we might've been the first or second social media agency in Colorado. And so because of that,
companies discovered us and one of the fun things that happened to us in the beginning, there was a lucky break was a company, a big technology company discovered us, invited us in and said, hey, we're thinking about social media. Can you talk to us about it? We pitched them on it. They're like, you know what, we're not gonna do social media. That's not for us, which today is sort of a funny thing to say, right? Every company basically embraces social media in one form or another, but they said we're big sponsors of the Denver Nuggets and they should probably be on social media.
You know, very early on, like maybe 21 year old Jason and Eric tried to put on some fancy clothes and went into the, you know, the nuggets arena and met with their marketing team and were like, Hey, you should be on Facebook and you can interface directly with your fans. And I remember this fun conversation with the CMO, where he kind of came in in the middle of the meeting, big CMO move, sat down, you know, after two minutes, it was like, I haven't heard anything. have 30 seconds to tell me why we should be on social media.
And I don't remember exactly what I said, but he stood up and said, that was a great answer. We'll be in touch. And so I think for like a year's worth of marketing, they paid us season tickets and maybe $5 ,000. But that was sort of our big first big marquee client. And once we could say we work with the Denver Nuggets, help them become I think the first NBA team maybe to have a Facebook page. Word really spread from there. And so, you know, that was probably 13 years ago, 14 years ago at this point.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (05:46.345)
And we've really grown up with the industry.
Justin Levinson (05:49.262)
That's crazy. Yeah, because I was looking at that, looking at your company and you, you know, you guys, you've been there for like 16 years or something like that. I saw, I was like, this guy's pretty young. was like, this guy, how did he do this? So it all started as a college kid sort of speaking with some of these big, you know, big wigs and the Denver nuggets and getting that opportunity of like, have 30 seconds, give us your pitch and
Jason Mitchell (movement) (05:53.027)
You know, you guys, we've been there for like 16.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (06:02.681)
So it all started as a college kid sort of speaking with some of these big, you know, big.
and getting that opportunity of like, if 30 seconds, give us your pitch. you know, so you think that 30 seconds was pretty defining.
Justin Levinson (06:16.846)
you know, do you think that 30 seconds was pretty defining in how your career has gone?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (06:23.435)
I think there are a lot of moments like that. I I really believe that in this sort of adage that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. we've put ourselves in a position to capitalize on things. So only because we saw this opportunity, social media is emerging. Let's create a social media agency and create a website and stuff. Did we have that opportunity? Another early one was I was on a plane from
New York back to Denver and I was sitting next to a guy who was flipping through a skiing magazine. It's big ski at the time, but he was the magazine was marked up with all of this marketing stuff. I was like, that's interesting. I struck up a conversation with him and it just so happened that he was moving from New York to Denver to take over as lead publisher for ski magazine, skiing magazine and war Miller, which is a big ski film company.
And so it's like, hey, that's really cool. I have this social media agency. You should hire us. And he took a chance on us. And so there's a lot of those things early on where we put ourselves in a position to capitalize on opportunities. And yeah, I mean, I think that you have these moments and you need to perform. And that's really important. But you also need to step up to the plate and take some swings if you want to see anything happen.
Justin Levinson (07:44.672)
Yeah, totally. Maybe go back for a second to when you're telling me about the college. I know you had said you were studying journalism. What was your interest in that?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (07:52.546)
Yes.
Well, so at the time at the University of Colorado, the advertising program was within the journalism school, which I think is also reflective of the time. that was almost, I don't know, 20 years ago, close to 20 years ago. Today, I think it's more like media arts, kind of in technology combined together. So, but yeah, I went to school with a film major in high school.
So he's coming back to skiing. So I was in high school skiing all the time, out shooting videos, making ski videos. I was like, this is so fun. I want to do film. And then I went to college and my first class was like film theory, film history, watching Citizen Kane. And I'm like, this is so boring and lame. I want to be out shooting and editing. And so I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I got out of the film school. I actually took a year off and was a ski bum in Crested Butte. And when I came back,
I sort of had this renewed focus and looked at, I want to just like get into actually creating the art and making stuff. so advertising, marketing felt like a really good place to do that.
Justin Levinson (09:07.15)
Cool, so when you guys were just two people, you essentially could do a lot together because you already had the ability in your background and film to be shooting and creating content and all that stuff. So you guys, as a duo, were you needing freelancers at that point or anything else to make projects complete?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (09:13.539)
together because you are.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (09:20.279)
you guys
Jason Mitchell (movement) (09:23.725)
Is that funny or anything else?
Yeah, we were. mean, I had some skills, but I'm really not a creative in that sense of being able to do design and stuff like that. so we were freelancers. mean, one of our earliest projects, and this is very much sort of like an entrepreneurial mindset, is somebody that I knew from the past, like, hey, can you build websites? And I know you're the social media agent, you build websites? Like, absolutely, we can build a website. You what do you need? Okay, cool, that's gonna be $1 ,000. And then...
He's like, all right, great. Thousand dollars. And then I went around campus and put up signs and said, you know, need a web designer. And I found something I was like, hey, I'll pay you $700 to build this website. you know, and then, you know, made $300 on that one. And then, you know, we hired a designer as actually one of our earliest employees who went on to be our head of creative for many years. Christie was, you know, she had interned at Crispin Porter, which is in Boulder, but then was
you know, working at Target to make ends meet. But we thought she had an amazing resume and portfolio and we brought her in and she ended up being just an amazing designer. And, you know, went on to lead our creative team. And so, yeah, as we had the needs for different skill sets, we hired but did it incredibly scrappy to start.
Justin Levinson (10:46.05)
Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah, that's interesting stuff. I come from a recruiting background. I don't know if I had ever had mentioned that before to you, but I do a lot of creative recruitment in a lot of the creative agency space. yeah, I think there's an entrepreneurial spirit that you sort of like that kind of mentioned about like, you're gonna get this, you're gonna turn it and you're gonna.
I feel like not everybody has that in their DNA. A lot of people, they're happy to just go into working for somebody else. And that's a totally cool thing too. I've done that before. But there's sort of a mindset of you can do something and this is how you scale it. Yeah, it's interesting. Do you have any mentors or anybody that sort of helped you on the business side of things?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (11:21.441)
They're happy to kind of just like.
cool thing too, I've done that before. But there's sort of like a mindset of like, you know, can do something and this is how you're gonna scale it and yeah, it's interesting. Do you have any mentors or like?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (11:44.092)
Yeah, I mean we've developed a series of mentors along the way. know early on we didn't have mentors really, but you know I guess we did have family friends that had started businesses that we talked to and then as we got farther along in our journey we reached out to people who were industry leaders. mean something that I found to be really interesting and probably not enough people do it is you
You could just reach out to people on LinkedIn and say like, Hey, I really admire what you've done. Would you be interested to speak? And especially as somebody, you know, I mean, I'm 38 now, but you know, when I was especially younger, my career, it's like a up and coming agency owner reaching out to, somebody saying, you know, I aspire to, you know, build something like you've built. Do you have any time to talk to me? And people, not all people, but a lot of people are, you know, happy to.
mentor and give guidance to up and coming people in the industry. And so I think for us just being open to reaching out and being vulnerable and saying, Hey, we could really use some help. found that we've met a lot of amazing people along the way that have been willing to just out of, you know, wanting to mentor the next kind of up and comers have been really open to saying, yeah, absolutely. If here's, you know, a link to my availability, find some time. then
you know, with a couple of people and one person in particular, we really just hit it off and she's become a long -term mentor for us and advisor and she now owns equity in the company and continues to help us. So yeah, I think that part is really important. People reach out to me too for, you know, helping guidance and I'm always down to connect it and sort of pay it forward.
Justin Levinson (13:28.598)
Yeah, that's awesome. Do you, I guess there's a lot with innovation in AI and I know that that was part of what I mentioned in our, in our intro. What kind of stuff are you, are you guys doing on the AI side of things? Like what's, what's sort of taken over on that front?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (13:48.323)
Yeah, we have been aggressively pushing to adopt AI tools for the past year, I would say. actually about, I was just talking to somebody about this, about the last like 14 months. I will say, you we buy media on social and obviously work within algorithms. And so for as long back as we started, you know, we've been working with
within the confines of machine learning and understanding how to create content that the machines will favor and push up in their ranking and algorithm. And then from a media buying perspective, for a long time, the optimization has happened through, again, machine learning and AI. And so we have familiarity there. But I will say over the last, especially since
ChatGBT launched, there's kind of been this new excitement around generative AI. And we saw as an agency that it was going to create huge change within the industry and that it was important for us to continue to be leaders there. And so one of the first things that we did is we actually brought in a consultant who was full time at our agency for four months and went department by department by department and said, you know, these are the new tools and here's how we can integrate those tools into our workflows. And we've been
aggressive in spending money on cutting edge AI powered software so that our team has the latest and greatest tools. And we are continuing to invest in making sure that everyone at Movement really understands and is excited about how they can continue to improve through leveraging different tools. think one of the things that we think about is
It's not about AI replacing humans, but it's about making sure that we as an employer are training our team to become really great at utilizing these tools so that we could just do a higher volume, higher quality of work as that is necessitated because that's just the way that the industry is shifting. And so we have this sort of mantra around creating cyborgs.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (16:02.515)
And we're already sort of all there, right? We're already kind of all cyborgs because it'd be hard to live your life without your phone because we're so reliant on it, but that's only increasing. And so we just want to make sure that we can empower our team with all of the best software so that we can continue to stay at the front edge of where the industry's headed.
Justin Levinson (16:11.172)
Totally.
Justin Levinson (16:22.966)
And are you buying lots of shares of Nvidia as well?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (16:26.027)
I haven't bought any shares, although I saw there was another big pop. You know, I think that, yeah, it's just an interesting time. I mean, we've seen these sort of waves of different stuff. And I think that there's a lot of excitement around AI. I think we're in a bit of a bubble if we look at it from a finance perspective, but also that over the long term, so much of what we do from an advertising perspective is going to be influenced increasingly heavily by AI and generative AI. And so it's
our job as industry leaders who are looking out for all of the people that work at movement and want to make sure that they have jobs in five years to figure out where is the industry headed and how do we stay ahead of it so that we are being hired as a company leading the space and that can help brands continue to be leaders in their respective categories as opposed to what I think will happen to a lot of agencies, unfortunately, as they start to look more and more like dinosaurs because they're not adapting as quickly as they need to.
We saw it with social media, right? When we started movement, a strategy that we had was say, let's go to agencies and help them with social media. And it was so interesting because it was clear that so many people working in agencies were really kind of thumbing their nose at social, like, social, like, that's lame. I don't want to do that. TV's where it's at, blah, blah, blah. It's like, OK, well, fast forward to today. And if you are not.
really understanding how social media works and you're just focused on TV, you today are a dinosaur in my opinion. And I think that is going to continue to happen with social, but also with generative AI and just more broadly AI. And so we think it's really important to never sort of rest on what's got us here, but always be focused on where is the future of this industry going and how do we get there really quickly.
Justin Levinson (17:59.093)
Mm -hmm.
Justin Levinson (18:18.284)
Yeah, I love that open -mindedness there. And I have the same feelings about, know, in the recruitment space, which I partner with many agencies as well. And realizing that, yeah, if you're still cold calling people, you know, being like, and having your Rolodex of people in your, you know, manually trying to find talent, you know, you're gonna be left behind. And there's a lot of different ways to automate and systemize.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (18:31.149)
Yeah, if you're still cold.
Justin Levinson (18:48.25)
And, and AI is a really huge, big part of our industry as well. You know, we do a lot of stuff with like MetaView, which is like this really exciting AI software where when we interview people, you know, it's a, it's a note taker. And it has a, like a bot within it that can help me help, help our team, like, go back and find information about people. So that way when we're re -approaching them, we're like, Hey, how's your
Jason Mitchell (movement) (18:59.587)
software where we interview people.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (19:08.931)
Yeah
Justin Levinson (19:15.116)
dog Steve do it, you know, like, how did you remember that? Well, I don't. But yeah, I mean, and obviously, with like, you know, cold outreach and all that other stuff, it's really like, it's really like, incredible. And I remember like the first time for us when we sort of use like that, like an outbound campaign for looking for new clients. I remember at that point, the AI kind of
Jason Mitchell (movement) (19:27.946)
like
Jason Mitchell (movement) (19:42.819)
The AI kind of puts together a compliment for the person.
Justin Levinson (19:44.056)
puts together a compliment for the person. And, you know, we got a response back from a client once was like, wow, dude, like this was the greatest like email I've ever gotten. Like no recruiters ever put this much effort into a pitch. Would love to talk with you. And I remember like going back and looking at the message and being like, wow, like I complimented on a podcast that this person had posted on and.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (19:58.745)
effort into a pitch.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (20:09.515)
on a podcast that this person posted on and this very detailed thing and now I'm like, man, I can actually go back and read this information because this was probably offering more intelligent conversation than I
Justin Levinson (20:13.122)
had this very detailed thing and now I'm like, man, I got to actually like go back and like, read this like, this information, because this was like, like, probably offering more intelligent conversation than I could have offered to it in like a cold email, you know, and I think that was sort of when I was really like, wow, this stuff is insane. Like there's really something here. And of course, like, yeah, it's not like the object isn't to like, fool people and to like,
Jason Mitchell (movement) (20:33.859)
stuff is insane. There's really something here. And of course, yeah, it's not like, the object isn't to fool people and to be disingenuous and all that other stuff. And we have a much different approach to our outbound strategy now that was sort of in an early.
Justin Levinson (20:43.186)
be disingenuous and all that other stuff. I, you know, we have a much different approach to our outbound strategy now that was sort of like an early effort. But there's just so many tools, there's so much LinkedIn automation, there's so much, you know, at our disposal, I find at times, I'm taking like a meta view AI generated pitch, and then I'm using Grammarly to
Jason Mitchell (movement) (20:54.637)
There's just so many tools. There's so much LinkedIn automation. There's so much at our disposal. I find at times I'm taking a MetaView AI -generated pitch, and then I'm using Grammarly to fix my errors. And then I'm running it through ChatGPT to make it sound more human. And then I'm pitching it. It's a insane process of
Justin Levinson (21:11.35)
fix my my my errors. And then I'm running it through chat GPT to make it sound more human. And then I'm pitching it. It's like a insane process of, you know, of human and, and AI together. I'm going on a rant here. But I guess, as a AI enthusiast, is there anything in your tech stack that you
Jason Mitchell (movement) (21:30.465)
Yeah.
Justin Levinson (21:39.34)
you know, that really helps you, that you would be interested in sharing.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (21:41.971)
that you've been sharing? Well, I mean, you said so many interesting things there. I think to answer your question, probably Chat GPT is the tool that I just use the most. And I just find myself constantly just using it as a research assistant or writing assistant. And I really enjoy that. It just kind of gets me there faster and figured out how to use it in a way that it really
quickly gets me answers that I want. So for me personally, that's probably the one that I use the most. I think as we think about, you know, at an agency level and how do we use these tools and what is the work product? I think there were sort of two examples that you gave and I'd like to sort of compare them because I think that the example of having an AI that does the research and then automates an email, you know, as you mentioned, I think that that can be sort of
disingenuous and it removes the human from the equation. And I don't think that is the right approach. I mean, I understand why that was exciting and cool to see that. And that's sort of the excitement around sort of first playing with chat, BT, BT. But I think that, you know, we don't want that world, right? Where just like everything is auto generated machines or talking to machines. But the other example you gave is using, I forget which platform, but it was a note taking platform. When you're doing MetaView, when you're doing interviews.
Justin Levinson (22:38.542)
Totally.
Justin Levinson (22:50.091)
Yes.
Justin Levinson (23:04.088)
MetaView, yep.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (23:06.659)
And one of the things that we think about is, want the humans at our company to work on higher order problems or issues or challenges. And so having people that are spending their time in an interview, note taking and then going back through those notes and ending those notes and getting them to a way that's easy to share, like that isn't very intellectually stimulating. And so if we can leverage a machine to do that so that the person can be more engaged in the interview, not worrying about the notes.
have more interviews and human connection because they know that in the background the machines are going to be doing that sort of non -fun, non -sexy work. We think that's where the big opportunities are. So we want to elevate the work that people are doing to remove so much of the rote task, so much of what computers could do, and make their jobs more engaging. And then from a client perspective, it's like, hey,
Justin Levinson (23:46.146)
Yeah.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (24:03.053)
you know, we can automate a lot of what you were previously paying for. And then, you know, when you're paying for human capital, you don't, you're not paying for a human to take notes. You're not paying for a human to move things from here to here. You're paying for, you know, really smart insights and decades of creative experience to understand what good looks like and helping to find two ideas and land those things and have those conversations. And so I should think that a lot of people are nervous that
AI, you know, if you're a designer, the AI is just going to do your designs. I think the more exciting approach and way to look at the industry, and I think it will prove out to be true, is that, you know, AI can take a lot of the mundane tasks off our plate and allow us to do the things that are more intellectually stimulating.
Justin Levinson (24:52.322)
Definitely. Yeah, I totally agree with you. just for the record, I'm not sending out cold email compliments to anybody right now. But yeah, I completely agree. yeah, if you're able to just speed up the process on those things that are not, know, those high leverage things, and you're able to still remain creative and human and all that stuff, I think that's the key for sure.
Are there any key campaigns that stick out in your career or moments that you're most proud of?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (25:33.005)
There's so many in terms of campaigns that I'm proud of. We've done so much innovative work. One of the first campaigns that we won some really big awards for, we won a grand Clio for and was a bit ahead of its time was this campaign for True TV around March Madness. So True TV was a client, actually this was, we had just won them as a client. This was sort of our first project. And at the time True TV was part of
Turner, which had the rights to air Marsh Madness games. And because there so many games, they leverage all of the Turner linear channel. So True TV, TNT and TBS, and things that you would more historically think of as stuff that would air basketball games. And so when there were games on True TV, every year people would take to Twitter and make fun of True TV and say things like, the one time of year where people watch True TV are like,
That time of year, we have to figure out what channel True TV is and just be really smart, snarky. And True TV was going through this rebranding where they're going from sort of reality, court TV type stuff to becoming a comedy network where they were airing Impractical Jokers and other shows like that. And so we said, this is an opportunity to show that we are funny. And what we did is said, you we know that people are going to troll us on Twitter.
Why don't we hire a big team of comedy writers and sit there in real time and as people come in and you know, say snarky things about us, let's return and like really go hard. And these are just average people and we're to hit them back with comedy writers who are genuinely funny. And this was before that was like a thing that lots of brands did. This was in like the first one was 2015 and
So we did that and immediately it started to gain lots of traction. was trending on Twitter. Everyone saw what we were doing. Within, I don't know, an hour of the campaign launching, we had the editor of Variety calling the CMO at True TV saying, we see what you're doing, what's going on over there. And so this was just a really fun example of sort of being at the leading edge of how you can be active on these platforms. Think about social listening response.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (27:53.699)
being snarky before that was like a thing that brands did. And that was a really fun campaign. And yeah, we have a lot of other fun examples because we've been doing it for 15 years now, but that's one that always sticks out in my mind.
Justin Levinson (27:55.736)
Ha ha.
Justin Levinson (28:06.602)
Yeah, that's pretty funny. And so you're you're connected to, to, you know, all kinds of influencers to right? That's like, that's like a part of your world. How does it all? How does that all connect? Like, how do you find the influencers that you want to connect to your clients? And how does what does that look like?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (28:26.401)
Yeah, I'll give you a great example of another campaign that I loved for Klarna, the payment app. And they were coming into the US and they were competing with Afterpay and some others, Payin4, stuff like that. But it was a brand new category. And one of the things that we saw when we were looking at the category, they started to do some marketing in the category, was people were saying like,
Is this basically like, what's the catch? know, like, really, like for payments, no interest, what's the catch? It feels too good to be true. And so we're like, that's really interesting. There actually is no catch. You really can, you know, break it up and pay in for payments. That's, know, their business model. And let's create an influencer campaign to go out and answer that question. But what we wanted to do is instead of saying, we think this is the perfect influencer. We went out and said, these are.
10 different influencers that we think might be good for this campaign. Let's do really small cases with each of them where we pay them a few thousand dollars each to do something really small for us and see what works. And from there, we saw that there were four that did perform better than everyone else. And we said, OK, now let's go from just a small thing where we pay for a post to actually doing a shoot with all four of them and creating a little bit of a campaign around.
And we did that. And from those four, saw that one, Bretman Rock outperformed everything else. And we're like, okay, this, this influencer, Bretman Rock is really performing well. Now let's take him and create a whole big 360 campaign around him that is social, but also, you know, it's going to be TVC and in other places as well. And so that's what we like to do is sort of cast a wider net of people that we think will work and try things out. And then based on the results that we're seeing,
Justin Levinson (30:15.075)
Hmm.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (30:23.133)
then sort of look at who are going to be our long -term ambassadors. And in that case, Brett Ben Rock, you know, at this point, you know, he's been working with Klarna for probably five years now and really has sort of become a consistent face of the brand. And we think that's really important too. You know, we don't believe in just trying to do like one and done or very transactional engagements with influencers. We think it's much more
beneficial for our clients to form long term relationships, but to do a lot of testing and learning before committing to, you know, a multi year deal.
Justin Levinson (30:59.948)
Yeah, do those do the influencers sort of know that like, hey, we're gonna give you a little bit of work here. And if you really deliver, then this is what it can lead to. Does it is there sort of like an incentive to that? Or is it sort of just like, we just want to see how it goes. And we're gonna you know, how does that
Jason Mitchell (movement) (31:19.701)
Yeah, I I think that there's just level of transparency that's really important. You know, we say like, hey, we're working with this client. We're trying to find the right partners. You know, we want to do a test. So yeah, I would say, I mean, you know, we're not trying to dangle a stick in our carrier in front of them either. I think it's just about, you know, being honest with what we're trying to do. And, you know, I think they all recognize that if they do a great job, if they help the brand sell product.
Justin Levinson (31:24.109)
Yeah.
Justin Levinson (31:30.083)
Yeah.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (31:45.801)
then they're probably going to get more work. And I think you see that, right? There's influencers where it's so clearly just transactional and they don't give a shit about the product and they're just doing a post and moving on. And I don't think that is beneficial for that creator long -term. I think that, you know, it benefits them to only say yes to deals that they're actually excited about and then do a great job with that partnership. And I think that's a better strategy for long -term success.
Justin Levinson (31:56.951)
Yeah.
Justin Levinson (32:13.964)
Yeah, you've been doing this for a long time. So is it hard to, mean, at this point, you're probably, you know, you're recognizable when you're reaching out to people. there's an influencer that doesn't know you, or, you know, how do you go about reaching out to somebody maybe new?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (32:23.436)
If there's an influencer that doesn't know
Jason Mitchell (movement) (32:31.952)
Yeah, I mean we have a team of You know that our influencer marketing team and you know, they don't know the influencers most of the time But you know they reach out with you know, a nice note whether it's on you know DMing them within the platforms or you know via email. I mean oftentimes the bigger Influencers will have reps and so we're reaching out to the management company but
I think it's like any business transaction, we're just saying, hey, you know, this is what we're looking to do. We think you might be a good fit. Here's why. Here are the deal terms we're thinking about. Would you be open to having a conversation?
Justin Levinson (33:04.61)
Yeah. And the is that I you don't have to give me insights into your business that you don't feel comfortable with. But I'm just curious how the whole deal like looks. Is the brand paying typically the influencer separately or how do you go through what does that sort of look like in as far as a deal goes?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (33:09.891)
insights into your business that you don't feel comfortable with. But I'm just curious how the whole deal.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (33:23.425)
Yeah, it depends. You know, we have clients where we are relationship with them is structured as, you know, an ongoing retainer. And as part of the retainer, then our influencer marketing team is continually reaching out on their behalf and building relationships. And then we have companies that we work with where they're engaging us more on a project basis, or they're looking for us to just handle the influencer piece of the business.
In which case they'll say to us, know, hey, we have this influencer campaign. We have, you know, $100 ,000 all in. And we'll come back to them and say, okay, you know, this is how much we think our agency fee should be to handle, you know, all of the pieces. We really do sort of white glove soup to nuts from finding the influencers, managing, overseeing the posting, reporting, all of it, contracting. And so we take a fee for that. And then the remainder, which is the majority of it, goes to the influencer. So.
Yeah, that's typically how it happens, but you know, all clients are different.
Justin Levinson (34:21.143)
Yeah, and what are you what's your role? mean, you're obviously your CEO, but are you still involved in the creative too? And do you mean, you told me you had you like, with doing the skiing videos and all this other stuff? Are you still behind the camera? Do you do in some of that kind of stuff?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (34:27.811)
Creative two.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (34:40.747)
Yes and no, think I mean, more and more, what I've found is that, you know, there are things that I'm good at, but there are people in the industry that are much better than I am. And so, you know, the one of the things that I'm maybe the thing that I'm best at is, you know, finding really amazing, talented people, building a culture, a movement that they're excited to work at, and then letting them do their thing. You know, oftentimes, when I get too involved, the feedback is, hey, like, let us do our thing. And they're always right, because
We just have such talented folks. I do get involved sometimes. I have relationships with certain clients where we just have a long history and so I know what they're looking for. And so, you know, I'll try to get in and coach and mentor our team. think, you know, more will happen that the team will present to sort of our executive, you know, for instance, if it's a big pitch, there'd be a pitch team and they'll present, you know, strategy or ideas to the executive team and we'll ask questions and try to point them in the right direction. And so,
do a lot of that, with sort of helping us get to the right strategies and ideas and mentoring a team through it. I'm not usually the one, I guess never the one anymore, actually coming up with the ideas or doing art direction or anything like that. I do talk to our clients sort of on an ongoing basis around, what do we see as the big opportunity? What do we wanna do next year? So at a very sort of high level strategic partner.
And then I'm just thinking, I spend a lot of my time thinking about where is the industry headed? So, you know, what does the next three years look like in the marketing world? And how do we make sure as a agency, we are continually positioning ourselves in the forefront? And so that's where today we are transitioning a lot of our work from just being thought of as a social media agency to being, you what we call a social powered creative agency where
We really are working with our clients on a broader scope of work, understanding that social has become the most important platform. And so what then is our role as the agency? How do we structure our team? So thinking a lot about that, we've talked about AI and automation. How do we make sure to stay at the forefront there? And then, you know, working on culture, I think that, you know, they say culture eats strategy for breakfast is that famous quote. And I think it's so true. And so a big part of my job is making sure that we have an amazing culture at the agency and people want to.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (37:01.975)
work here and our clients can feel that and everyone I think can feel that and so that's a big part of my job as well.
Justin Levinson (37:09.09)
Yeah, that's really cool. I guess before we close out, know, what do you do outside of this? Well, I mean, we talked about skiing. What's the life of Jason Mitchell outside of the t -shirt on the agency side of things?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (37:16.001)
outside of this. We talked about skiing. What's the life of Jason Mitchell outside of the t -shirt on the agency side of things? Yeah, so I have three young kids. I've got a five -year -old, a three -year -old, and a three -month -old. that takes up a lot of my time.
Justin Levinson (37:32.376)
Dude, dude. my God, I have two kids and I'm I'm like aging rapidly. How are you doing this?
Jason Mitchell (movement) (37:42.723)
I don't know. mean, you you you make it happen, right? So, yeah, we we I mean, my my two older kids are preschool now. And so, you know, most of the day they're they're there, you know, baby and a nanny to help. you know, both my wife and I work fairly intense jobs. And so we have help. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. So that takes up a lot of my time outside of work. I also I'm a big believer in sort of setting
goals like non work related goals. so this year, one of my my goals was to do my first triathlon. And so the time where I'm not working or with my kids, I'm training to do a triathlon. So I have one in October. So I, I didn't, I surf and I know how to swim, but I didn't properly know how to swim in the triathlon is a mile ocean swim. And so a lot of work on actually figuring out how to properly swim. So
Yeah, those are probably my kids and trying to stay healthy and get exercise are probably the biggest things I do outside of work.
Justin Levinson (38:53.378)
Yeah, wow, man, that's that's incredible. That's really Yeah, I am not I'm not an amazing swimmer. So to think of a mile in the ocean. That's I got to my hat to you. But cool, man. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing some of your story. And yeah, you know, we'd love to continue the conversation again in the future. So thanks for being here.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (39:16.043)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you and maybe we can go skiing in Vermont sometime.
Justin Levinson (39:20.024)
Dude, if you're, I mean, you're a Colorado guy, so, I mean, this is gonna be like not quite Colorado. You know what you're getting into. Cool, man, well, open invite and yeah, thanks for being on, appreciate it. All right, man, cheers.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (39:27.497)
I grew up skiing on the East Coast, so you know, my first love, absolutely.
Jason Mitchell (movement) (39:36.493)
Thank you.
Agency Side host and the creative matchmaker extraordinaire at Coming Up Creative. Connecting top talent with leading agencies by day, uncovering industry secrets by night (well, whenever we record).