Leading with Influence: Gabe Gordon

Justin Levinson (00:00.599)‍

Hello everybody. Welcome to the agency side podcast. My name is Justin Levinson and I'm here today with Gabe Gordon, who is the CEO of Reach Agency. They're award winning creative agency specializing in influencer marketing for fortune 500 brands. They've had, they've been added a agency of the year, Shorty's awards, small agency of the year, DigiDay best video ad agency, Streamy awards agency of the year. Obviously a lot of accolades there.

Thanks so much for being with us today, Gabe.

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Gabe (00:31.455)‍

Yeah, thank you for having me, Jessen.

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Justin Levinson (00:33.675)‍

Yeah, I'm excited to get into it. just for, you know, obviously I give a little background of what you guys are doing, but maybe for the folks who might not be familiar with Reach Agency, maybe you can kind of just describe to us what you guys are doing over there.

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Gabe (00:47.884)‍

Yeah, so I started Reach Agency 13 years ago now and I had had a former career at the William Morris Agency representing brands, helping them getting to movies, make TV shows and work with celebrities. And one of my colleagues over there and I saw this massive change when this little thing called YouTube was making headway. And we saw the fantastic opportunity.

At that time, was mostly dogs on skateboards and cats chasing laser beams. But what we saw was an opportunity for brands to have compelling video storytelling and reach audiences without the red tape of network executives or studios integrating into another story and this freedom to have high quality video story. At the same time, we saw this talent class emerging.

and creators, people who were getting millions and millions of views that was democratized. And we saw it as this wonderful opportunity to do what we do and really not do advertising, but help brands tell their story, work with creators directly, and do it in a much more skilled way than we could in Hollywood.

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Justin Levinson (02:10.603)‍

Yeah, that's amazing. How did you, I mean, obviously there's probably some stuff in between from, in terms of how you launched the company, when did that take place and how did you go about that?

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Gabe (02:27.966)‍

Well, I will caveat it by saying I think we probably have the easiest path to launching an agency because our first client which was our client at William Morris and decided to take the leap with us was Purina. So, ironically on a platform filled of dog and cats, we were making dog and cat content on YouTube, which as you can imagine performed incredibly well. But I also think it was really gave us the inspiration to say, hey, there's

there's something here. It was an easier way and we weren't selling toothpaste on YouTube, you know, for our first client, but we saw the opportunity to tell longer form storytelling. saw the business impact and we were able to use that as a great proof of concept to then go talk to other clients.

And our background in entertainment, I think helped us a lot because at that stage it wasn't like, I just need to make a single viral video. was helping brands really rethink on how to become publishers rather than advertisers. And we had to have a rich background, probably one of the best places to learn that at the William Morris Agency.

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Justin Levinson (03:42.391)‍

Yeah, and when you made that leap, how many people were with you on your team when you had Parina and you made the jump?

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Gabe (03:50.924)‍

It was me and my partner and our first edition was a dog because neither of us had pets and our livelihood was now based off on a pet food company. I was in the market and so I got a dog. So was really just us three to start with the first year.

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Justin Levinson (04:10.113)‍

Wow, that's cool. when you started to scale, was the first hire that you needed when you wanted to expand?

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Gabe (04:22.774)‍

You know, at first we just got a coordinator. We were getting kids out of college, right? Because those are people who understood social. They were people who were already following creators. And we knew that was integral to what we needed. People who really understood the platforms and that were native to it. know, within, I'd say the first five years of the company, you know, there were other companies popping up. There were people who were producers specializing in social video.

or people who were already representing talent in exclusively in the social space. And so we were sort of part of this first generation that, you might have started off as, you know, cobbled people together from production, advertising and entertainment. But I think we were always looking for the people who started their careers in those spaces and can learn and grow with us. And by the way, so many of them are still with us today.

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Justin Levinson (05:20.183)‍

Wow, that says something, that's awesome. How do you go from, mean, you have one great client, obviously, how do you start getting the next and the next and the next? Did it sort of have an organic sort of reach with Purina where other brands saw you and were like, these guys can do this? Or was it knocking on doors? how did you sort of build up your client base?

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Gabe (05:46.626)‍

Yeah, you know, the most fun part about my career is that it hasn't been the same job for more than six months at a time. Because if you think about it, the only social platform that had video at first was YouTube and, you know, there's Facebook and then Instagram popped on the radar, then there was Snapchat and, you know, there's been so many new social channels, but then

added video capabilities, right? And we really focused on video because at that time social, there's tons of social agencies, but they didn't understand video storytelling, which was completely different. And then the ad agencies, they were great at making Polish ads, but you know, they would make a million dollar, you know, three minute or 60 second, probably ad spot and that they would just dump that on YouTube. we, you know, we, we definitely changed who we were to get clients at first. were a YouTube agency and

Yeah, there's probably a good solid year and a half of why do I need a YouTube agency? We just post our corporate videos on there. So then all of sudden, everybody calling us and saying, my God, we need a YouTube agency. But what turned in from a YouTube agency became then a social video agency as we were starting to look at additional platforms. And then I think our next evolution was really, know, creators have always been at the core of what we've what we've done. We've never been

production focus even though there's been production. And as influencers and their role has continued to rise in the marketing mix, what we started to find was 10 years ago, would be like, here's their TV campaign, can you just get some influencers to talk about it? To us really having the leverage and credibility to talk to the brands and say, this won't work with a creator. They should not just be an amplifier of a TV based campaign.

And so we started coming up with our own campaign ideas, right? And at first it was like, great, you can do this just for influencers or hey, then maybe, hey, we'll just do this on social and digital. hey, this is actually a better campaign idea and really becoming the tail wagging the dog of socially driven creative ideas actually being the full campaign ideas for these brands.

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Justin Levinson (08:04.631)‍

pretty cool. Do you find that most of the creators are pretty, they're cool with your ideas? They roll with them when you guys have them or they want to insert their own plans a lot too? how does that relationship work?

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Gabe (08:21.486)‍

I mean, when we're coming up with campaign ideas, it's really about just creating the forum to unleash the creator's creativity. We're not ever coming up with like, here's a video idea, creator, you go make it. I would say that is the worst thing you can ever do with creators. So I think a lot of our work is done on really creating that safe creative space with creators and getting brands comfortable with that. Cause we know that's what's, what will yield the best results.

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Justin Levinson (08:50.027)‍

Yeah. How do you make the match in terms of what you is going to be best, what creator is going to be best for what brand? How does that come into play?

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Gabe (09:03.18)‍

There's so many factors, right? Like it's qualitative and quantitative, right? And it's actually, it's a pretty hot topic. And I think one that we have a different perspective on, which is, there's so many platforms out there. You know, you can say, I'm looking for a female that speaks to this demographic with audience in the U S that, you know, has food content and there's plenty of platforms that will just aggregate.

a list of careers for you and even tell you here's, you know, average views and their engagement rates. That's the easy part. think one of the things that my partner and I, Frank, brought over from William Morris is really the ability to notice talent that really is up on the rise, understand their true core creative capabilities. And that's where we shine for our clients. It's not saying, you should do something with an Alex Earl right now.

who's going to be the next Alex Earl in two years that you can work with now and have a long-term relationship with, is really that old school agency, you know, being able to spot talent and who truly is creative versus who's just pumping up views and being able to partner brands with those people because the long-term relationships work best for everyone. know, creators don't want to be in a position where they have to hawk three different toothpastes, you know, within a month.

And brands, one, are not getting the value out of working with creators if it's not something that becomes associated with their identity, right? And it's, hey, this person always drinks this or this person always drives this car.

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Justin Levinson (10:38.583)‍

Yeah, it seems like influencer marketing has been obviously a big part of marketing for a long time now. Do you still find that brands are still apprehensive at times to what you're doing? Is there still like an old school mentality that doesn't understand your worth?

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Gabe (10:58.946)‍

I think brands have comes leaps and bounds in that area, but I still don't think brands are tapping the full potential of them. know, it's this tons of public data out there. Look, people don't like watching ads, but they do love brands, right? And people now are getting their, you know, they're discovering brands through creators in their feed, not through paid ads. It's just better content. It's more authentic. It's real people talking about it.

especially when you have someone who can deliver that message in a great and fun and entertaining way that's worth your time and isn't pushing that thumbs click. But beyond a media and advertising aspect of it, I think that's sort of the fringe of where there's so much more potential. We live in a world where so many of the new brands that are being created by creators are just totally disrupting markets. When you look at what Logan Paul did with Prime,

You know what Jimmy Donaldson did with Feastables, know, what the Kardashians are doing with Skims and everything. What they're doing with those brands is, you know, the sales are far beyond what their audience reaches. It's not just free marketing. It's that they've actually reinvented the marketing playbook, where when you look in most marketers' playbooks, they're

They're using the same tactics that have been used year over year. So I think there's a lot more to learn from creators on how to engage with younger consumers and drive purchase consideration. Learning from how creators are not only doing this with their own brands, but how they've approached audience growth with their own entertainment channels.

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Justin Levinson (12:44.151)‍

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty fascinating. Yeah, I wonder, you guys say no to a lot of work too? Are there a lot of brands that come to you guys that you say, isn't gonna be a fit for us or how does that play in?

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Gabe (13:05.44)‍

No, I mean, we're, we love working with brands of all shapes and sizes. think, you know, the biggest, consideration set on our point is really brands that will allow us to do something creative, do something innovative and, you know, allow us to guide them to success. there's so many influencer agencies out there that will just pump out a couple of influencers and get them to hawk a product. That's not the business we're in.

We're building our brand through innovating in that and driving true results and doing something that we're all proud of because that's what makes the day-to-day work so much better for everyone.

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Justin Levinson (13:47.103)‍

Is there a typical, is there a certain campaign or a certain, you know, campaign that you felt was your favorite that you've worked on over the years that you're most proud of?

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Gabe (13:57.644)‍

Like making me decide what my favorite children are. I'll tell you one that was last Thanksgiving. There was a person we would call Grandma Helen whose daughter videotaped her three weeks before Thanksgiving. She had done a carnation jingle contest back in the 1940s.

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Justin Levinson (14:01.047)‍

Hahaha!

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Gabe (14:26.638)‍

And she recited it to her daughter and her daughter recorded and put up on TikTok. And let's just say, you know, she had some lyrics in there that, you know, weren't usually fitting for a 90 year old grandmother and it was a little racy. And it went completely viral on TikTok. We immediately recognized it. We partnered with the Gregory Brothers who had done the Korn Kid song and we songified it.

And and this is all leading up to one of the biggest sales periods for carnation Which is Thanksgiving which is using pumpkin pies and everything and and many items that you cook at Thanksgiving table and The brand was Super flexible. They were all about it. We completely leaned into it did everything in about two weeks and Drove such a meaningful growth and it really like captured like

You know, the true power of these platforms to just have a random person who wasn't an influencer who now is and have them tell a brand story in a natural way and, you know, lean into something that's usually not typical, right? And use it to actually drive true business results. and it's just fun. It's the Gregory Brothers did a fantastic job. It's one of those songs that will just get stuck in your head. So.

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Justin Levinson (15:47.991)‍

you

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Gabe (15:50.336)‍

it was so, but by our resource, we, we, we embraced the power platforms like Tik TOK and we created an amazing campaign in just a quick, short amount of time. So.

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Justin Levinson (16:02.881)‍

So cool, who had the idea to partner with them?

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Gabe (16:07.362)‍

I mean, look, so much of what we do is social listening and knowing what's going on. Every brand's holy grail is being able to jump in on every trend, but very few get it right. And when you have one that's based on your brand, it's always having your ear to the ground and just being able to take the right action and not just do their version of what everybody else is doing.

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Justin Levinson (16:30.615)‍

Yeah, totally. You guys are fairly small compared to some of those big agencies. Do feel like there's an advantage to being smaller and more nimble in this space?

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Gabe (16:41.678)‍

100%. You have to be small. have to be nimble. You know, there are companies, won't speak to influencer agencies alone, just have so much more bureaucracy. But, you know, we live in a world where if you don't see an idea and it doesn't strike you on a slide, the first time you see it, it's not going to work in the feed. So I think we've embraced that. I also would say like, my partner and I not coming from a traditional ad agency environment, we just did things the way we thought they should be done. So I think we

cut out a lot of the bureaucracy of process that I did in typical agencies and engineered it so that we could be fast and nimble for our clients to be able to capitalize on moments like this.

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Justin Levinson (17:25.791)‍

Yeah. And as far as like, do you think it also enhances like your, like the culture of the team too? Like you guys get together and do things and just feel like there's, you know, better communication because you guys are smaller as well.

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Gabe (17:39.264)‍

I think, you know, one of the key things people value the most working at Reach is, you know, creators themselves are multidiscipline. They are the talent, they're the editor, they're the, you know, filmographer, they're the analytics, they're the editorial. and we, as much as possible, you know, get multidisciplinary people on our teams. As we've gotten bigger, obviously there are people who will work in different departments and have specialties, but,

We absolutely have that collaborative and entrepreneurial spirit where, you know, good ideas come from everywhere. And just because you sit on one team, doesn't mean you can't work and contribute ideas on another team. It takes that to really move that fast and to really get that cross pollination versus sort of the siloed approaches from traditional agencies.

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Justin Levinson (18:32.299)‍

Yeah, definitely. there any particular roles that are tricky for you guys to hire at your company in terms of like strategists or accounts people? Are there any sort tricky positions that you guys come across?

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Gabe (18:51.278)‍

Wearing is tough in general, but I'd say like their creative focus on influencers in the creator marketplace is still relatively new, right? There's tons of people who have been working with creators who are responsible for their own creative, right? Strategy has been pretty, know, there's a lot of people who would experience a paddle approach simply because

has been so dynamic in the environment and it's more applicable from other industries. creative really is hard, right? Because it is not a full creative role where it's, we come up with the idea and they do everything. You're creating the platform for so many different creators to be able to tell a brand story on in their own individual ways. And so I do think it is more complicated that way. there's

That's people who have had just a creative role in crater influence from marketing.

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Justin Levinson (19:51.167)‍

Is there certain qualities that you look for in people?

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Gabe (19:55.33)‍

I mean, we always, yeah, we always look for people, one that are passionate and understand that, you know, we're, we have to live, breathe and understand our clients' business. But people who are progressive, like we don't like the safe ideas, but we like sure bets, right? And so we do like to be controversial. I wouldn't say controversial to the extent of like, you know, what Liquid Death is doing. But,

Again, as sort of the David and Goliath of an agency of ours competing against very large agencies, you do have to be bolder, you do have to be smarter, you do have to be faster.

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Justin Levinson (20:37.111)‍

Yeah, I'm always curious because this podcast, sort of two purposes. One is it gives people that are looking to get into the industry or work their way up in the industry to kind of hear from senior leadership folks like yourself and what they can kind of do to get someone like yourself their attention. But it's also a place for folks to sort of just share ideas and to try to build community in general.

So I'm always curious to offer value to those folks to, know, how can they, somebody who wants to be part of, know, Reach Agency, how do they get there? You how do they get your attention?

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Gabe (21:17.954)‍

Yeah, I mean, there's tons of ways like I've, I've, I mean, I've been hit up on LinkedIn, you know, we have people who start off as interns, you know, we have people who come in and have ideas. You know, we, we do freelance a lot of people and if they, if they do great, we bring them in. I'll say once you are in reach, I think we're big believers in investing in people. Right. And so we had people who have, you know,

literally been here for 10 years, that have been in four different departments, right? So I think we believe in the people and that, you people can find different career paths within Reach as well. And we actually think that's an advantage, going back to what I said earlier about like, yeah, we have someone who's running our talent team now, who was previously on the strategy team and then had been on account. And this person is a multi-threat. They can see all sides of it and we see that as an advantage.

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Justin Levinson (22:14.369)‍

Yeah, it's good to be able to have people be able to do many different things that they're capable of. And I've always been a firm believer in the freelance to full time. think that's a very great thing for agencies and for employees because they can really take a, they can test each other out to see if it's fit for.

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Gabe (22:32.44)‍

Couldn't agree more. You got a date before you get married, you know?

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Justin Levinson (22:35.607)‍

Yeah, it's really effective. And I think that that model is becoming more more popular with a lot of agency leaders that I speak with. Some have even found ways to build entire remote freelance teams where they're kind of working strictly on that model. And a lot are doing sort of a mix where there's the full-time people and then there's like a lot of freelancers that can take over for bigger projects or overflow as well. So I was interested in how agencies are set up.

yeah, that

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Gabe (23:06.806)‍

In this day and age, think you have to a bench in freelance, whether it's just dealing with the volume of business coming in during different push periods, because we all know it's not an even keel, or just to become exports or get smarter if you're working in a new industry of which you don't have that experience, because not everybody has experience in every industry.

the easiest way to best serve your client, but still put your agency's perspective and creative touch and standards in place.

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Justin Levinson (23:42.891)‍

Yeah, and yeah, for employees, sometimes they like to work on a lot of different things too. And there's also adjacent industries where people can come and offer value that you might not have realized before. know like a lot in, for example, in theatrical marketing, lot of times, editors or folks that might've had experience with action, they might be able to pivot into gaming and also.

put that same skill set there and create really amazing content, even though they've never cut a gaming trailer before, they can go in there and do something really unique. So it's cool seeing that cross-pollinization sometimes where, yeah, sometimes employers are always looking like, I want the exact person that can do this exact job out of a direct competitor. And that's the only person that I'm looking for. But sometimes if they have a little bit more of an open-minded approach, they can actually find, you know, they can find something that adds even more value having that open mind.

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Gabe (24:41.132)‍

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, if you're always producing one thing and you just need experts that work in a silo, sure. But when you're in the business that we're in and you have to always break through and you always have to drive creativity, that cross pollination is incredibly valuable because there are so many advantages of having a different perspective or a different expertise and applying it to a new discipline or a new tactic that where you can just catch magic in a bottle, you know.

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Justin Levinson (25:09.515)‍

Yeah, and it's funny how, you know, I was thinking the other day, I was talking to somebody about, not to go back to theatrical marketing again, but thinking about how experiential marketing and theatrical marketing could really be something that could come together to really, I guess it kind of, is in a way already, but with the film industry, which has kind of been struggling for years, making it more of an experience, you know what I mean? Getting people back into the theaters, there's definitely some,

ways for those two worlds to combine.

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Gabe (25:42.284)‍

Yeah, I theatrical marketing hasn't measurably changed in, you know, 60 years. And if anybody's watching the studio and not giving anything away here, the new show on Apple TV, there's a great clip that was in the teaser. And I think in the first episode of Seth Rogen on the red carpet, I think of the Globe, they're one of their movie premieres. it's a whole bunch of influencers taking pictures of themselves. And he asks, why are all these people here? And he's like,

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Justin Levinson (25:47.735)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (26:07.041)‍

Mm-hmm.

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Gabe (26:09.922)‍

Why? Because if these people aren't doing this, no one's to come see your movie. It's just indicative of not just for theatrical marketing, but for broader of like, is how people discover things, right? These days, is the amount of time people are spending on their phones and their social feeds is far greater than watching TV and definitely far greater than they're watching advertising with VOD and ad skippable formats.

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Justin Levinson (26:21.004)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (26:36.033)‍

Totally. Yeah, dude, it's a changing world. What do you do to stay sane outside of work? what's the day to day? Are you an avid reader or exercise guy or what's your jam?

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Gabe (26:39.244)‍

Yes.

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Gabe (26:51.682)‍

I'm a more outdoor exercise guy, so bike riding, skateboarding, surfing, hiking, that kind of stuff, traveling where I can, hanging out with my kids, just discovering all those things with them. Anything that's not sitting in front of a computer screen is what I love. I'm a big music fan. There's never enough time in the world, so picking and choosing what I want.

trying to get as much diverse of an experience as possible.

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Justin Levinson (27:23.061)‍

Yeah, you get to, I guess what kind music do you like in general?

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Gabe (27:27.662)‍

I swear like everything if I'm being honest, I love great shows. So it doesn't matter what genre if they're a great performer, I'll go see them, you you know, you know, from local to, you know, big shows, but, you know,

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Justin Levinson (27:44.215)‍

and play yourself a little bit.

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Gabe (27:46.71)‍

I was in bands in high school, in college, actually started my music career, my career like entering at record labels. I decided not to take that path because that's right when, you know, iTunes sort of killed the music industry. But when I started at William Morris, I actually started in the music department, but I had studied marketing and I realized I liked that lot more.

being able to work across any type of genre and even through work. A lot of what we do and what works really well for brands is actually music oriented. So we've done like full jingles for Giorno, we did the Carnation song, we do a lot of stuff.

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Justin Levinson (28:27.669)‍

Yeah, and who's creating those songs? Are you guys doing any of writing and the music side of things?

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Gabe (28:35.648)‍

Now we rely on the creators. There's fantastic, you know, creators are amazing at what they can do. And just trusting them and allowing them to do it and, you know, giving them the right and appropriate amount of guidance is all you need.

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Justin Levinson (28:50.379)‍

Yeah, that's super cool. music, I got into this space pretty much because I'm a music guy and I've always been interested in how the music works with film and TV and all that other stuff. That's always been a big thing for me. yeah, I did the same as you. played a lot in bands and pursued music for a couple of years until I maybe aged out of the rock and roll dream. I don't know, I got a few 20 grays in my sideburns now.

But yeah, I'm a huge music fan. And the same thing for me. I try to get off the computer as much as I can, but yeah, I actually injured my wrist from just sitting here too much tight. So you gotta get outside.

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Gabe (29:34.03)‍

Yeah. I was a drummer, so it wasn't as easy for me to continue playing. I used to have a drum set in my house, but then I had another kid. So goodbye drum set. But it's 100 % worth it.

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Justin Levinson (29:48.405)‍

Yeah.

Yeah, totally. I've got two little girls and I've noticed that I've got less hobbies and I'm getting less fit. But I'm really happy.

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Gabe (30:02.51)‍

I have two girls too. It's all the same. I will say one of the best benefits of my career is speaking at the career day for my kids who are, you know, 10 to 12. You're just a rock star in those rooms when you say you work with creators and on YouTube. So that was one of those moments where you're like, wow, I did make a good career choice and I get to be a rock star for my kids, you know.

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Justin Levinson (30:23.222)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (30:28.919)‍

is super cool because yeah, you that is probably the coolest, coolest job that you could have for every little kid. That is really awesome. Yeah, man. Cool. Well, I was gonna say I really appreciate you coming on the pod and talking to us and giving us some insights and telling us about what you guys are doing. And you know, I'm excited to share with the community. And I just wanted to, yeah, thank you for for doing this today.

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Gabe (30:34.062)‍

I

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Gabe (30:39.128)‍

Great. Now, go ahead.

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Gabe (30:57.582)‍

And if you ever get a band together and need a drummer, let me know. I'm in.

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Justin Levinson (31:02.017)‍

Dude, I'll let you know if I make, think I'm gonna have a Renaissance in my 50s. That's sort of what I'm thinking. I think that's when I'm gonna try to escape. Maybe you can teach me how to surf because that is something that I've always been interested in doing. kudos to you on that front.

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Gabe (31:06.958)‍

I'm all for it. I'm all for it.

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Gabe (31:16.302)‍

It's a deal. It's a deal.

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Justin Levinson (31:17.771)‍

And maybe you can help me become, know, I'm not terribly charismatic or good looking, but maybe there's some secret sauce and you can make me a TikTok star somehow. There's a way you can do that.

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Gabe (31:29.908)‍

You're in line behind my daughters, but I will help you.

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Justin Levinson (31:34.013)‍

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for doing this, man. I appreciate your time and hopefully we can have you back on again and continue the conversation.

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Gabe (31:40.686)‍

Absolutely. Anytime. Thank you, Justin. All right. Bye.

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Justin Levinson (31:42.519)‍

All right, man, take care. Bye.