i was told that the kkk was gonna get me

and that's frightening when you're a

child

[Music]

chief marketing officer to vice

president of global brand an almost

three decade career at nike that's right

yeah you know nike was really the only

brand that was putting people of color

in their communication that showed me

you could make a living doing what you

love

why is the air force one shoe an example

of nike not chasing cool it wasn't

created to make a statement in culture

it was created to make a statement on

the court and the fact that moses malone

won on the court in the air force one

that's cool

your authenticity is your cultural

currency the minute your audience can no

longer see your original pursuit they

partner with someone else

april 2021 significant month for you in

your life i got a dm through 23andme and

that opened up meeting my birth families

the last thing you'd want to be is

rejected and it was just

so without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

direva ceo usa edition i hope nobody's

listening but if you are

then please keep this yourself

[Music]

greg

i'm a tremendous believer in

the fact that our early years are

incredibly formative what are the things

that really left a

remaining mark on you in terms of their

influence as an experience or an event

or trauma

yes again i had two passions growing up

sport and art

and really

why i got involved in art and art of all

sorts whether it was drawing painting

sculpting

is growing up as a half black half white

adopted kid into a white family going to

a all-white school system and

experiencing uh lots of adversity

through racism and and other things art

was the thing that i was ex able to

essentially escape from reality

and find myself in

in the art and that's when i started to

discover that i could draw things in

accurate detail you know i could dream

and then put that on paper and it was

very powerful and it was a way for me to

you know not only feel empowered

but also

um engage my imagination and then sport

as well you know sport evens the playing

field if you will and so that was

essentially the other escape where i

felt like i wasn't such an outsider on

that

and so i think when you experience uh

adversity like that when you're

oftentimes the only one in the room um

which i think you can relate to even

even today

um you also look out for other outsiders

you know you're keeping an eye on other

groups or other individuals that haven't

been invited

if you will

and so you're right i took those uh

experiences uh because they never leave

you no matter how much success you have

um you carry some of those chips on your

shoulder but it doesn't have to be used

as a negative

uh and so as i made my way through life

and found myself into in positions

of influence i looked out for those

individuals on that because again when

when i grew up in the the late 70s and

early 80s

you were taught to not see color

right that was that period of time which

means how can you be empathetic if your

parents or those that are there to

support you teachers aren't seeing how

what your experience is like

so

i love today where that is not the case

and you do need to see people for how

they identify themselves to better equip

and empower them to achieve you know

their hopes and dreams

when you're young and you're different

in some way we can all probably relate

to being different in some way when

we're younger

but not everybody can relate to what it

feels like to be racially abused when

you're young

and the confusion the

you know the inadequacy whatever it

might be that that leaves you with

can you recall the first time someone

racially abused you when you were

younger

absolutely

i was actually in kindergarten and it

started happening every day i was told

that the kkk was going to get me

now i didn't know what the ku klux klan

the kkk was but i did know that i was

the only person that they were saying it

to and then you'd come into school the

next day and you'd hear this the kkk is

going to get you

and that's quite

frightening when you're a child right um

and um you're you're in that situation

alone and you you don't necessarily

have the individuals that you could talk

to about it so essentially you kind of

you you bottle that up and

that was the first situation and the

issue

oftentimes with with kids certainly at

you know

during that particular time

is you identify people through their

appearance right

on that

and for me i just hadn't developed the

voice to fight with my voice so

obviously it resulted in a lot of

altercations throughout my early life

and even into my teenage life because it

took me a while to develop

a voice to be able to combat that with

words right

so that was the beginning but it didn't

take long to uh start hearing the n-word

shortly thereafter

in high school

uh in grade school in grade school and

so again though i i share those moments

more as a way of of telling people that

you know make sure you're looking beyond

what's on the surface

this is

gets back to great brand building

don't just look at the assumptions and

observations that we all see

you got to look beyond that to see how

people really are experiencing and

feeling within their life and you you

saw that come to life in some of the

campaigns that i worked on right

stand up speak up campaign with tyrion

re

was all about fighting racism that you

act that's invisible you can't see it

but the players are hearing it

i want this to be uplifting

but i think it's important to your point

to understand where we come from

and our adversity doesn't need to

necessarily be something that holds us

back it can be fuel

for the way we are motivated

to get to those points where we're we're

putting work out in the world or helping

others so that they don't have to go

through that

you reference your art in the book as

being a bit of an escape for you in the

early years

what was your art what was it was it

design was it photography what was your

art my parents didn't have much um but

um i they really invested in my passion

for for art and design

and i shared a bedroom with

my two brothers small bedroom and so

imagine three beds

and then there were three other

elements in this bedroom okay one was my

drafting table and desk where i drew

all the time second was a sand filled

weightlifting set that just sat in the

middle and then finally my parents

which is um pretty innovative they just

basically left a wall white and they put

a wood frame

around the entire wall and they said

this is your mural and you can paint or

draw anything you want on it

right and again cramped space i just

want you to think about like three kids

in here so i would draw sports logos

baseball football hockey logos on this

this is one of my obsession with

branding um and the art of how powerful

and and how

logos and symbols can connect and create

so much story and emotion and then the

other thing i drew all the time was

superheroes because i was obsessed with

comic books and that idea of

heroics and athleticism but within that

i i started to understand how your art

can

communicate and through those logos and

the visual communication that

i saw

within the world of sports

started to pique my interest

in in doing this

and i'll take it a step further

i got really lucky uh when i was

15 i got a job in a warehouse at a small

publishing company

just in the warehouse after school and

throughout the summer just packing books

into boxes but i noticed that there was

an art department

in this place

and i'm not sure where i got the courage

but somehow i did i went in and i i said

hey is it possible for me to spend part

of the time in this art department and

part of it in the warehouse

you have you have to put yourself out

there to ask i learned that at that

point and they said yes

and so suddenly i was shoulder to

shoulder as a 15 year old with

art directors and writers and creative

directors and storytellers and then by

the next year i spent

all my time in the art department and

not only in there doing menial tasks

they were having me do illustrations

they were having me do page layouts

again this is pre-computer

so um that showed me at an early age

that you could make a living

doing what you love what are you

passionate about because up until that

point i wasn't necessarily sure

how you could

essentially

you know make a living doing that so

that that was kind of my earliest stage

in terms of art as commerce if you will

was within the publishing arena but what

it did do is it gave me a shortcut to to

start to focus on that so by the time i

got to college i knew

that

i wanted to be a designer

you knew you wanted to be a designer

that's right yeah and you went on and

studied design

at college graduated

and then

the story as i as i heard it is you

basically get two internships

post-graduation you get a call from nike

nike said that they've got this urgent

position you've got to drop everything

and come now and start at nike and that

starts and i've skipped a process there

but yeah that starts the

an almost three decade career at nike

that's right yeah where you move from

what was your first role at nike called

do you remember just a graphic design

intern

graphic design intern

to

chief marketing officer to vice

president of global brand innovation

over almost 30 years

for me this is remarkable for many

reasons obviously being involved nike is

one of those companies and culture and

in society that is more than a brand

they're more than a shoe company for

many reasons which we'll talk about but

also the really staggering thing is you

stayed at a company for 30 almost 30

years

my question there is

what is it about you that made you so

loyal to that company

because a lot of people can love their

job but they still get that desire to

move on and do something awesome

30 years at one company what is it about

you

that made you stay in terms of your

character or whatever

yeah i think two two things one is the

again this this incredible situation

where

art and sport

uh came together

and this brand certainly mastered the

art of art of marketing right

and and expressing the art that exists

in sport and the art of storytelling so

i didn't have to choose it's like wow

you show up to this place and it's like

your two passions on full display

that's number one

two it's i often times told people that

nike was like

miniature graduate schools because every

two years there was either a world cup

or a summer olympics so imagine the

transformation in terms of innovation in

terms of new athletes in terms of new

platforms and technology in terms of how

you can engage with consumers and so not

to mention what your audience is

experiencing during that time in terms

of how they want to engage with brands

and so i always told people it's almost

like the

it was a new slightly new company every

two years and

to be able to participate in both these

these you know essentially restarts or

revolutions right so that was very

exciting then i'd say the final thing

um is that you know by the time i was a

teenager and started to see seeing

nike's commercials you know nike was

really the only brand that was

putting people of color

in their communication really you had to

look really hard

around the arena of of companies to see

anyone else doing that and so

that started to instill in me the power

that this brand has um to represent uh

everyone but and also you know it's in

their mission statement to bring

inspiration and innovation to every

athlete

so um those are some of the factors that

um

uh kept me

engaged for for that long as well as um

i i have this you know nike's

original um

slogan was there is no finish line

before just do it there is no finish

line

and so if

you're you know maybe a perfectionist or

you're always in pursuit of better

and even to your own detriment sometimes

right never satisfied never finished i

was kind of all of those things

oftentimes i think a lot of creators and

makers are right so that was the other

part of it that you could always keep

reaching um for that next

design or that next story

and um and the company's expectations

were just as high of you as itself

you know

um and what what's great about

nike and certainly the nike i grew up

with is

complacency was the enemy of creativity

so there was no

sitting back right it's kind of that

forward lean just like in in athletics

so that's just a a few of the um

aspects i think that um

just you know created that

longevity and loyalty

brands companies teams they

over time learn what's making them

successful and lean further and further

into that so i'm wondering in your 30

years at nike what did you see nike

realize while you were there and lean

more into in terms of the values of the

organization how it operates from a

marketing perspective a culture

perspective or whatever do you

understand what i'm trying to say like

sure well first and foremost i think and

i you know

i i'm a brand advisor now with

establishments brands and startups

and

you know

what nike had from the beginning is such

a clear

brand house if you will

its belief its mission its vision its

values you know where are you going how

are you gonna get there

what do you believe what's your promise

to your audience and what are the

characteristics and traits that compose

your brand in that pursuit um to deliver

inspiration and innovation to everyone

and so it's imagine the power of that in

terms of everyone is clear as they walk

through the door

to show up to work why they're there and

i say this because a lot of brands can't

say that

a lot of startups haven't even got there

yet because they're just trying to

perfect their product and get it to

market

and so first and foremost this idea that

authenticity and serving the athlete

is

the anchor

at all times

so even though you're trying to be maybe

the most influential and coolest brand

on earth you know and there's an art to

doing that

um you always have to go back and ensure

that um it serves the athlete in the the

deepest way possible and that's why you

know

maybe we'll get to this later but

um i always use that mantra don't chase

cool

because uh most likely you're not gonna

catch it

and that idea that your your

authenticity in terms of what i've

learned over and over again keep going

back to your authenticity is your

cultural currency the minute your

audience can no longer see your original

pursuit

and every company is a bit different

is the day they kind of leave you and go

go engage and partner with someone else

that's in part because you've left

yourself right in the pursuit of cool

you've abandoned your authenticity you

talk about that in chapter six of your

book emotion by design which is out now

you talk about the air force one

in that chapter as an example of

success in that realm so

why is the air force one shoe an example

of nike not chasing cool

well first and foremost uh it's an

innovation that was created in 1982

that

was

created to serve the basketball athlete

right it wasn't created to make a

statement in culture it was created to

make a statement on the court

and the designer was obsessed with

creating something that gave that

athlete an advantage

and it's really hard to create if you

want any chance for a product to

ultimately become a cultural icon if you

will and by the way brands don't get to

decide that you know your audience does

over time

then you must the the the inception and

creation of that product has to start

with

what's the benefit that you're trying to

deliver what's the problem you're trying

to solve

so that's that's part one and the fact

that someone like moses malone who was a

center for the philadelphia 76ers at the

time you know won on the court

in the air force one so that's cool

that's proving that innovation

right out of the gates and so from there

as it grew in stature

what was great about all the teams that

played a role across all the different

disciplines at nike to bring this to

market every year

is all of the storytelling was rooted in

authenticity this colorway came from

this basketball court

this colorway was from this

new york outdoor court

and this player scored x amount of

points you know the stories are rooted

in an emotion like and you as a

enthusiast for this sneaker got to take

part in a little bit of that and as i

talk about in the book you know at some

point stories no longer

you know belong only to the brand they

get passed down um and so um the air

force one is interesting because this

year again it was the the highest

selling sneaker

out there

and so it's very accessible and yet it's

also you could argue the most um

culturally relevant sneaker as well and

so it's aspirational

and so my point is that's by design

you're you're ensuring that there's a

level of the authentic storytelling

and that those that you're partnering

with the ambassadors if you will that

show up in your communication um on that

have a have a a real

um connection and affinity

for the air force one just like kendrick

lamar grew up with the nike cortez

sneaker

very real relationship with the shoe

that's very much a part of la

and so when we partnered with kendrick

lamar it's coming from a shared passion

and that authenticity comes through

to your your audience right when it

doesn't that's when it it feels like

you're chasing cool

um and so i always say just make sure

your connections are are really really

clear to your audience in terms of who

you partner with what is the the real

purpose of your product

beyond all the the shiny new

um partnerships and other things you can

do

you still have to kind of go back to its

its roots

an example of where a brand has

has not done that well

can you think of a couple top of them

well for some reason i thought of that

uh that pepsi advert i know it was a

tragedy for so many reasons but when

they got one of those kardashians to

kind of hold the pepsi can in that

social justice scene that riot scene you

couldn't as an audience member

understand why that kardashian was stood

there apparently as the

cure to a social justice issue holding a

kind of it all felt and disjointed

inauthentic yeah because you have to be

able to connect what you sell to what

the world needs in a specific moment

when it comes to

social impact or social justice so

whether you're a food and beverage

company an automobile company a sneaker

company

if

you want to

participate in that conversation and you

know break down barriers and empower

people or change the way people feel

about a particular issue

it's for nike you had to speak through

the lens of sport

that's the connection right and i think

when you see a brand maybe miss you know

sometimes you might be

watching tv and you'll see an ad and

it's clear that this whoever this brand

is that they are trying to

create positive change in the world but

you can't figure it out and it's not

until the end that you see the logo

you're like okay i don't get the

connection

and so the point is is like you you have

to start by saying

um

is what's happening in this situation

uh relate to our values and our mission

and then if it does

what new unique insight are we bringing

to the conversation that's not already

being talked about and then finally the

the other thing steven is is um

because i think sometimes the default is

we need to say something as a brand when

there are so many other ways that you

can engage

and and be a part of the conversation

right and um

just just look at what epic games did in

terms of taking the uh revenue from

fortnite

over a period of time

and making donations to ukraine relief

they didn't do an ad

but they found a way that was authentic

to them

to

you know create an opportunity that's

going to help a lot of people um in a

really tough situation right now so

that's the thing when i'm talking to to

brands it's like that's just number one

it's like storytelling isn't always

um the example advertising in terms of

you know social impact statements um and

um part one and part two you you must

um ensure

that

what you want to say

clearly comes through

who you are as a brand and what you

bring into the world that's why i say

connect what you sell with what the

world needs if you can't do that then

most likely you need to think about kind

of moving into a different arena so

those are when when i see something

maybe that's tone deaf or it's not um

you know it's usually because it's just

simply not on brand

and it's confusing to your audience

much of the the things we'll talk about

i'm sure are underpinned by a topic you

talk about in the t and in the book in

chapter two which is teams and culture

um that kind of underpins everything you

referenced how when people walk in the

door at nike it's quite clear that

there's a they have clarity of culture

in terms of why they're there and what

what they're doing there etc

you were at nike for almost 30 years um

had a lot of people work underneath you

um you observe that organization from

various perspectives

how does one build a culture that wins

on its objective

and how do they and how does someone

keep that culture and police it and

protect it from

scale and you know harm and you know

yeah no it's it's a it's a great great

point um because you know creative

collaboration

uh is unique because oftentimes

uh creativity and innovation is a very

personal pursuit right it can get pretty

territorial you know you've spent a lot

of time on this and

you know you're you you want insurance

essentially that you you get credit and

so a lot of what you're doing is trying

to instill both self-confidence and

self-awareness

um so that and you're trying to

eliminate kind of the silos and in

independent kind of

studios you if you will um i was given

this awesome opportunity to run all the

creative functions at nike you know

here's the coolest

most influential brand and so my job was

to take

advertising and digital marketing and

brand design and event marketing

take all these groups that have worked

independently for quite some time

where the

integration took a lot of work with

really long passes and i i used this

example frequently and i'm sure it drove

my my teams crazy but

i used uh fc barcelona as an example of

radical creative collaboration you know

their style of play the tiki taka it's

all those short passes there's there's

no waiting everybody's moving around the

field at the same time and i would show

the team these clips of this you know

pep guardiola's fc barcelona team

passing the ball 40 50 60 times in a

game in a row without interruption okay

and how does that happen it's because

you could say radical selflessness

right the goal is just

literally the pursuit is still to put

the goal

in uh the net um you need the buy-in and

my job was to make sure that i was there

with the empathy needed to recognize the

contributions of everybody but

but to also ask people to make the

sacrifice

so that we could run faster

be more timely

create more distinctive work and

ultimately as things

are going the consumer expects

everything in their life to be connected

right the last thing they would want to

hear about is that

um there are these really long handoffs

between agencies and brands and

departments and that's why the work is

kind of disjointed you can't have that

you'll you'll lose your consumer so part

of it is it was creating this

connected team this this one team that

that operated

with great chemistry just like the the

greatest um teams in the world on that

and

maybe one other piece to that was this

this idea of individuality and so for

for that and again i'm telling you i'm

sure there's folks out there that

got tired of seeing my my um parallels

with the sport of football

but the brazil national team was a team

that i had you know this this 25-year

relationship with starting as an intern

right and what's great about the brazil

national team is that um they played

with the zhenga style which means to

sway

and zynga is is you know the influences

of that style of play

comes from capoeira you know brazilian

martial arts and samba

um

but um it emphasized uh the individual

eccentricities of the players um we've

all watched brazil over the years we've

been enthralled by them and sometimes

they drive us a bit mad because maybe

there's a bit

of disorganization but at the end of the

day they've won five world cups more

than any other team and that's because

they value the diversity and ex the the

perspective and experience and expertise

of each individual player

and so yes there's structure that team

um yes there's an expectation that

there's a level of precision but they

allow

improv they allow spontaneity to reveal

opportunity throughout those games and

that's why oftentimes anywhere you go in

the world

it's someone's second favorite team

beyond the club that they support

and so that was another point of

inspiration that i use to lead these

these massive teams right you're talking

about just the scale of of nike in terms

of the output

of of creative around the world

you needed to still have a high degree

of operational excellence to run

something

like that but i wanted to make sure that

you were incentivized to take risks

you had the space to be able to

present ideas that may not be on the

plan

and you had a receptive executive team

that was willing to hear from you

and that's why there's so many examples

of the book

um of work that wasn't briefed

of work that was just a conversation

with a couple people who were empowered

to visualize that idea

and then put it out in the world many of

them

um ideas that had great scale and are

still around today so

that's just a little insight in terms of

how i looked at building that chemistry

how did you incentivize risk

or

disincentivize risk adversion

so it's a great call and again i i'm

still figuring it out

um because

think about it you're you're asking

individuals um

right brain and left brain thinkers

to essentially

you're saying i said this often we're

going to develop four different

concepts this

quarter

and they're going to be outside of our

normal workload because again we have to

deliver the business front and center we

can't get distracted from that

but alongside of that we're gonna

visualize and prototype four ideas but

you know what only one of them

probably will have a chance so that's

not for everyone right oftentimes people

only want to work on things that have

almost 100 certainty of finding their

way in the world

you know

and

i had to condition everyone to ensure

that they were were comfortable taking

the big swings and part of that is

seeing

the end results

like again let's look at the last two

years you see this particular concept

that is now in

you know 500 stores around the world

you know it's

one example but the house of hoops

example we had a conversation about

how could we

create a store

specific to basketball

that had the same level of passion and

energy that a kid's room would have

if they loved basketball you go into a

kid's room they would have posters and

so much inspiration and objects and

pictures

that really express their passion and

yet how come you go into a store

oftentimes and

it might just be shoes on on a wall and

you're not feeling the story and the

legacy of that

and so

rendering that up and knowing that in

three days you could have an audience

with the president of the company and

not only that you could get a go no go

that quickly of well let's let's try

this concept in the wild and then lo and

behold in less than two years you have

300 of those stores

around the world so

all you need is a couple of those

examples to say okay well i'd like to

participate in that

and

i buy into this idea that not everything

we're going to do is is going to make it

but why i say that i'm still trying to

figure it out is is

it is hard to convince some people

that

failure is what leads to success

that and if i can use this example it's

not in the book but it's literally my

favorite

commercial ad of all time and it's

michael jordan's 9 000 shots

and

amazing

uh commercial from 1997 and the widening

kennedy agency sat down with him and

learned that michael had missed 9 000

shots

26 times he was asked to take the

game-winning shot

and he missed

and he said yet i failed over and over

again but that's why i succeed

and that's the spirit of

risk-taking

in the innovation space

you need you need to take the shot

because even if you miss it success will

come down the road and so that's what i

try to instill

uh with my team

quick one we bring in eight people a

month to watch these conversations live

here in the studio when we're here in

the uk and when we're in la if you want

to be one of those people all you've got

to do is hit subscribe

chapter three of your book the title is

never play it safe play to win which is

very much in line with what you're

talking about there and i think one of

the more interesting concepts

which which was mentioned in the book

which i could really relate to was

how you say that some of nike's boldest

ideas

came when the team had no time

or resources

and actually that's really what founded

my company to be honest because uh we

ran out of money so all of the

conventional marketing um channels were

out of budget so we were left to figure

something else out and that's when we

started thinking about social media in

2012

and it was free we could put time in and

get a big return and off we went and

that started my company which now you

know ended up making 700 million

whatever it is this year it'll make

um and that was when we ran out of money

our best ideas came so when i read that

i thought oh this is

interesting

so so true so often uh and also i put a

yeah a timeline in a budget um or lack

of budget but a strict timeline can be

amazing right do you always do timelines

i was going to ask you that as well do

you always make sure projects have

timelines not necessarily but um but i

like to put a timeline on how quickly

you visualize a conversation

um that is i can't say this enough and

if i have one suggestion to

smaller brands or even startups as

they're starting to expand it's like

when you have a conversation like build

a either build internally or have a

relationship with an agency that can

take your conversations and the ideas

you have and quickly visualize them

in a visceral way so and you've heard it

before a picture says a thousand words

and the problem oftentimes with

businesses

that maybe

are a bit uh bureaucratic

is you and i could have a conversation

about a cool idea and then three months

go by and we see each other again it's

like you know what happened to that yeah

i don't know well no one took ownership

of it one and two

i would walk out of those conversations

over and over again

i'd walk over to the visualization team

and i said let's let's come back to the

team let's surprise them

in three days

with either an image or a short gif or a

film or even

often times

an app prototype that was working

if i didn't do that um then

more often than not you might forget

that the conversations ever happened so

i went on that tangent just to say

um i think it's incredibly effective

these brands

large and small

that have

visualization capability

um and that everyone understands why

that's a competitive advantage

um and so many of the concepts

that were brought to life in this book

um

you know came out of the speed at which

we brought the idea to life it wasn't

well our agency's too busy

so maybe

two months from now we can talk to him

about you know this this this new um nft

id we have no it's like how about start

to riff on some of those ideas

um so that you're first to play in that

in that sector

on that so i guess and maybe if i can

just you know there's one story in this

book which was the the ronaldinho one of

my favorite footballers of all time but

yeah we were launching a a new boot and

um there was no time and quite frankly

there really wasn't a budget or it

wasn't talked about right

but um

born out of this urgency

was this very

resourceful

approach to storytelling which was to

shoot ronaldinho with a video camera

essentially getting these new soccer

boots football boots on the pitch

and then proceeding to do that old game

that we all played growing up of

crossbar where you're sitting kind of

you know just under midfield and you're

trying to kick the ball and hit that top

of the crossbar only in this video

ronaldinho is able to do it you know two

three different times without the ball

hitting the ground and i'll leave it to

the audience to figure out if it was

real or not the point is is that

you know and

not only did we not have time but um

there was a young

platform that had just started to emerge

called youtube

and

yeah the team dropped this particular

video of ronaldinho uh on the platform

and um lo and behold

it becomes the first brand film to reach

a million views right and quite frankly

all because

there was no money no time

and the team had to be unbelievably

resourceful

to to create something that would make

people

want to watch and that gets back to

emotion by design i want to emphasize

this is that

i think the best brands ask the question

how do i want

this work

to make the consumer feel about

themselves

and make them feel empowered to go and

do great things does the work

kind of engage and stir emotions in that

way where people feel that they can go

out and do it or not does it create

indifference or

because like look there's and i'm not

saying

the speed at which we're having

conversations now with

between brands and audiences is in real

time and you're not going to be able to

create everything as a hit you know

there's not enough time money etc

um

but you should have someone in the room

that's representing your brand story

that's representing

um the emotional qualities that can be

released through your work because if

that person isn't in the room and it's

just someone looking at it as content

that needs to be distributed

that that's that's not very human the

stronger the emotional connections the

bigger

status your brand is going to have most

likely in culture and therefore

the more opportunities you would have to

step beyond the business to have a real

impact

in the world on on some of the most

pressing issues of our time

so i do believe there's a process to to

to achieving that to create a strong

emotional connection with someone else

i'm presuming you have to take a strong

emotional stance yourself often so i'm

just thinking about the things that have

revoked the strongest emotional

connections with anything i do the

things that i've evoked the strongest

emotional connections with this podcast

in its audience are strong emotional

stories

but that when you do that

when you avoid indifference

you are um

putting yourself in line for potential

criticism and attacks and you're going

to polarize people some people are going

to love and hate you

how important has that been for nike

and how important is it for

a person starting a podcast or a

business or leading a team or whatever

else for a brand like nike it was

you know

look at the athletes that represented

the brand um early on i mean they were

were all rebels you know within their

own sports and and so

you know this idea of def and you know

having a a maxim within the company that

was defy convention right so your your

your values kind of say it's like yeah

there are going to be things we do with

conviction that may be polarizing

but it is the deep belief we have in

those things

and as long as we always relate them

back to

sport and this this idea of of you know

serving the athlete

then

we're willing to go there um and

if we're not clearly tethered

to

you know what we say and what we do

then

we would deserve

the critique and the criticism

so i think you can for any

small or large company that's kind of

you know that's wrestling with this that

maybe wants to kind of go beyond um just

the transactions and truly move into

that arena where you really are having

real relationships with your audience

that their affinity for you comes from

the fact that

they're getting meaningful benefits

whether those are mental or physical

that are allowing them to progress in

life you know when you reach that status

i believe indifference isn't an option

right now i believe we need to look to

brands that have that level of success

and again it's not about scale because

there's plenty of small brands you know

mom and pop brands that are doing great

things

through their business to affect the

lives of people underserved communities

but again so much of what we're talking

about is authenticity even even

doing this book it's it's like well you

know how much social media should i do

and

on this platform does that seem like i'm

inauthentic and like i as so at the end

of the day um because i'm driving people

crazy with these questions

is that because i you know i'm not the

most public person right but but as long

as i speak to from the the

center uh and the anchor of

the power of creativity

in business and its ability to change

the world and make that connection clear

and then if people are pissed off about

that then then it is what it is

um but more often than not look at some

of the most successful brands and

they're they're it's it's made their own

business successful it's accelerated

their growth and so that's where i get

into this

um you know yeah our primary goal

certainly for a public company is to

drive

growth

both from a brand and business

standpoint

but more and more i believe that within

that you have to integrate this

you know being a great corporate citizen

um and using your platform to to to

you know

provide your innovation and your

inspiration to those that quite frankly

don't have the access and opportunity to

get it how do i find which story to tell

because if i'm if i'm running this

podcast and i'm thinking okay i need to

do the logo the branding i need to

position it in a way that's going to be

this is typically the way the brain

thinks it's trying it's

the outcome is success and it's trying

to figure out which story to tell to get

me to success so

how do i make this podcast successful

how do you go about knowing

where and how to find that story in your

business brand team whatever it is

um

and which one is the right one to tell

to get the outcome i'm looking for which

is success

the success to me is that it's not

overly packaged

the success to me is that

the transparency and of authenticity of

the conversations and that um there's a

rawness to it and that's

that is branding sometimes it's the the

lack of

design if you will

is the very thing that makes something

successful

versus there's there's uh

you know there's go-to

um

it's always the same questions and so

that that's the one thing i i really

appreciate about what you're doing is

this again back to this this being human

um as as a

um

being human and creating emotion

um and part of that is just due through

people can you know see themselves in

you or us um

and that the

yeah i mean that that's that's what i

say it's less about um sometimes uh

the traditional aspects of of branding

which is uh i want to make sure the

frame of every podcast has the color

gold and it must you know so and again

i'm saying this as as someone who's

oftentimes been pretty rigid in terms of

to grow some of these businesses

to own a brand color if you will

uh

and you pick your pick your favorite

brand there's a level of repetition

needed um to build that kind of equity

in a typeface in a color

in a in a logo

you need to build that brand frame

right oftentimes startups almost skip

that it's like no go back it's like

really build your brand uh identifiers

your brand elements right because that's

your picture frame and the stronger the

picture frame

the more the picture in it is going to

shine

the weaker that frame

then your the picture within it is kind

of it's it's just it's not on a on solid

ground

if that makes sense so that's why in the

book i talk about the picture in the

frame

and ensuring that the frame never

outshines the picture that's what i'm

getting at it's like

you're when you're thinking about brand

brand elements and how best to express

those through the different platforms

it's the right question but making sure

that they don't take away

from

the actual storytelling

within it which is the picture which

happens a lot for me so some things that

we do intentionally to try and

communicate the

i guess the heart of what we're doing on

this podcast for example in the branding

so one of the things is we always make

sure it feels like home

yeah so it's in whether in l.a or in

london it's actually shot in my actual

kitchen on a very similar looking table

people are actually surprised it looks

exactly the same but we always shoot it

at home because i think the

conversations we're having

are

homely ones they're the ones people have

at home they're not ones that you know

we could we could go to this in a

massive studio but it wouldn't be in

line with our values the other thing is

it's dark in here so that speaks to the

subject matter sometimes it speaks to

secrets the other thing is obviously the

title of the podcast is the diary of a

ceo and you you ask yourself what one

might keep in a diary it tends to be

things that are a little bit deeper yeah

and there's all these small things you

know we even i mean we spend many days

this week me and jack debating removing

the microphones because it kills

what the humanness of authentic

communication so we're thinking about

ways where we can have the microphones

hanging where you we can remove the

barrier and all these small things i

guess is that the frame is

when you think about brand elements

you're talking more about like colors

and things no i think that's the frame

as well you know when i walk into a

space i'm a bit obsessive compulsive

about

like design and details you know and i

walk in i look at the carpet and what

type of chairs and

um like the display case and what are

the objects you know and whether i go

into a restaurant or the hotel i stayed

in last night you know and i'm

i'm i'm soaking all that up but that

isn't the

that isn't the actual experience that

isn't the actual um story look you're

revealing the story um of this podcast

through all these elements

but but it's that's still the the story

frame and

is where i'm going and then um the

delivery of you know through your voice

and these conversations is what sits

within it but my but yes those

identifiers those brand elements um play

a huge role

because every one of them

i guess what i'm saying what i like

about when i walked in is it's like

everything was considered

it was nothing arbitrary

because what a miss

for for some

some brands large and small

when

they don't have a culture that um

cares deeply about those details

and i think the best ones do

and

certainly

when you think of some of the the the

most successful fashion brands like

you you know there's just an ethic

inside that any any detail large or

small

um will be intentional so and you know

that's does design you know emotion by

design the word design is really about

intention

be intentional

and look to reveal something about

yourself

through this round table you know with

the marble top it's like it all

communicates um

trust me i drive my my wife and my kids

absolutely mad

right because they've had to live with

this guy who's just constantly

moving stuff around and

you know is the clock is the bookcase

like you know curated perfectly are the

books in the right um so

if i have a problem it's in some some

ways that it's um uh i i've i'm

you know searching for perfection too

often

and what can happen is you start to

strip the soul and personality

out of something and it's been great

that i've had people throughout my

career to balance that that's back to

this idea of creative tension like if

there's a two startup founders you know

it's i love it when it's someone's it's

someone represents the art and someone

represents the science you know

someone's more analytical

in their decision-making process

and

others maybe a little bit more

non-linear maybe a little bit more right

brain

thinking um

and i love that tension because when you

don't have that it's like one side

starts to

kind of creep up and that's why i got

into you know i'm also the branding

instructor at the university of oregon's

graduate school of business and these

are

you know i'm in front of mainly folks

that want to become future gms

entrepreneurs product developers you

name it right

and but i'm there to say it's like

you know yes we're going to go through

how you create a brand plan and a brand

strategy we're going to do this but

you're also going to work on brand

identity

and

don't worry about if you you can't if

you don't think you're creative because

that's

i i just that kills me when i hear that

the application of creativity yes it's

oftentimes reserved for people that have

created a fluency

through experience and education whether

it's an architect

a coder etc

but

the creation that the site the inception

of an idea we can all participate in

that like the brainstorming of an idea

we can all participate because what

happens oftentimes is people say well i

can't draw i'm not creative

and it's like well that's

that's only part of the equation

you know i've i've done i don't know

hundred a couple hundred

i've led a couple hundred brainstorm

sessions over the years

big and small and i've never said at the

beginning of the brainstorm session

um i want all the non-creative people to

leave the room right now

because we're going to start to concept

and be creative no it's again it's

writing left brain thinkers working to

deliver

working together to conceive great

things

i'm really compelled by and i talk to my

team a lot about this about this and

you've mentioned it twice now this the

importance of details from your your 30

years of nike

how did you make sure teams cared about

the detail is it just continually

reminding them is there something else

we can do to make sure that our teams

and the people we work with and

ourselves even are really valuing the

smallest of details

yeah i do i do believe in

publishing

whether it's you want to call it an

ethos a manifesto

a set of principles

where you clearly articulate

what your

design standards are or your creative

standards

i've always believed that and they they

can change over time but i'm a big

believer in publishing

um thought publishing

ideals that that you have and i'll go

even further um because what i learned

over the years is is i was doing a

little bit too much self authorship when

i really started to manage teams i'd go

away

and i'd come back and it's like here's

the the six principles of of you know

obsessing the details that we're going

to focus on this year but i didn't

involve them in authoring those so it's

like

publish what you believe

invite

folks into the process that have

maybe slightly different opinions than

you do

and then complete this build the

consensus and then make sure everyone

has it so that clearly as you drive down

the road and you're looking at

restaurant architecture

you know business

building architecture it's pretty clear

that people just decided like it was

good enough and

no one will ever you know who cares if

it's going to win the point isn't to win

awards the point is take something as

far as you can

um

to

contribute something great to

you know to society whether it is a

building

or um

a book or this bottle design um you know

the amount of thought that went into

that i think that's the typeface

helvetica i believe and the choices made

to go upper and lower case like that's

all intentional

you know to have it black on white

um

human fuel yeah well and that's the

thing i mean you have to start with

naming right and one of the hardest

pursuits is naming a product or naming a

company because it's such a crowded

space but man if you get the name right

it will save you

millions in marketing

so if i was to ask you now and i used to

say right i have a team of 100 000

people and i want them to be great

marketeers but we're only allowed to

give them

three guiding principles

which they will take with them these can

just be philosophies ideas whatever but

we can only give them three guiding

principles to hope to make them

successful what would those top three

guiding principles be

i'll start with the three

characteristics

um that i would say it's like we're

gonna we're gonna have the dominant

traits of empathy curiosity

and let's call it courage or risk taking

like those

those three traits is what we're going

to be known for

and for empathy

you know to me within the marketing

process is is you know the principle

that i talk about in the book is you

know see what others see

find what others don't

the best marketing teams and the best

communication teams

are able to peel back the layers get

under the surface of a human being

a city or a community

and find the deeper

insight or truth

that resides there and then they reveal

it through storytelling it's back to the

michael jordan example how many how many

more

ads could you do about him dunking a

basketball so empathy is like go deeper

whether you're designing a product it's

like

you know you're you're

you're revealing the the the true

problem that needs to be solved you're

not just observing some behavior and

making

um you know uh a

you know hypothesis off that you're

actually spending the time to go deeper

and deeper into that and that's that

idea of see what others see find what

others don't curiosity is that idea of

getting outside yourself

because

it's one thing to have

the insight

right and the problem that you're going

to solve and you're clear on that

but now you need to reveal it to the

world

and oftentimes you need

uh points of inspiration coming into the

process and that's why

you look at

nike air

probably the greatest innovation in the

history of of sneakers right uh

air air

air bags and air cushioning and sneakers

well that came from an engineer at nasa

who was

experimenting with creating an

innovation for astronaut helmets for

space exploration

and he brought that to nike and that led

to nike air that's my point about find

inspiration outside of your sector and

that's the idea of bringing the outside

in so that's the curiosity thing outside

uh get outside yourself and then

you know

finally is that idea of of you know we

don't play it safe we play to win

um we want to def we we're not

comfortable with the status quo

um and

we want people comfortable

kind of

pursuing what's next

not just getting complacent and

delivering

products services

stories in the way everyone else is so

we also want to be a team that that is

obsessive about

um every aspect of

branding

you know and so

think of how powerful that can become is

if you have

a team

and that they're deeply empathetic to

who they serve like they get great at

learning and asking questions

they're unbelievable uh

unbelievably curious and always looking

beyond what's in front of them to see

what else they can because so much of

innovation is about transference you

take something from here you bring it

into your sector

and you you you change the game and then

and then but and then the risk-taking

thing is not feeling like you have a

team that has to ask for permission to

use their imagination i think that's

really important

because

if you're in a if you develop a culture

where

people have to ask

um to think people have to get approval

um

then you're not i i don't believe you

would be known as a leading innovator in

in your space on that so those are just

a few but i i just think it's also i'll

tell you this when i was cmo i did an

informal

poll with

my

the marketing leaders and i'm biased of

course but

i felt and i believe this is the best

marketing team in the world i said what

are the top two characteristics you look

for in any marketer that you're

interviewing for a particular job

within the nike marketing team and the

top two

um traits that

came to the top from everybody was

curiosity

and collaborative

i mean to a person and it was kind of

tied i want someone who's

always searching for inspiration is

curious about

about their teammates about the consumer

about technology entertainment

art

and then i want someone who who can play

with others right and um that you can

feel that sense that this person is um

has conviction um you know believes in

themselves but can play within a in a

team um and those were the two that that

rose to the top and and um you know and

i i think that's true today

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april 2021

significant month for you in your life

does it ring a bell yeah absolutely yes

i was sitting at home uh actually

reading the new york times an actual

newspaper remember those

um and uh yeah i got a a dm uh through

23andme i had i had done the 23andme

thing

23andme for anybody that doesn't yeah so

you you submit your dna um and it's

along with ancestry.com

um it gives you kind of your family tree

you can figure out others that have

joined 23andme if you're related to them

uh and um

you know a variety of other

things in terms of what you might be

susceptible for from a medical

standpoint or other

and so

you know as some as an adoptee and

growing up not knowing who my parents

were or who my families were

having lots of questions my whole life

but basically i'd gotten to the point

where it is what it is and i'm just

moving on with my life right

um so i'm sitting around and i get this

this dm and and through 23andme and and

i usually just ignore those because

sometimes it's like hey you have a uh

predisposition to like uh breadcrust i

mean you get these emails right and it's

like oh and great another 23andme notice

but i look in it and this note says um

wow i had no idea i had an uncle

on this uh

or in life

and so i looked at it and then um i

looked at the name and i went to

you know as you do i went to facebook

right and i looked this person up

and i was like whoa so the person went

to my high school

the person was also a graphic designer

which was my what i got a degree in they

had a degree

and as we did my wife and i did a little

bit more sleuthing it turned out that

this wasn't my niece this was my

sister

and this meant that

her mom was

you know not my sister her mom was my

mom

and so

wow that that was a lot right and that

opened up uh an unbelievable door

over the last year of meeting my birth

families

and for the first time being able to

answer questions like why do i look the

way i do

why do i have this

why is my voice the way it is and why do

i have certain characteristics or

passions and as i dove deeper into it um

you know two things started to unfold

one is the the amount of art and design

um practice going back generations on

both sides right not to mention my

sister

you know as a graphic designer my birth

mom was a long time flight attendant but

would spend all of her down time at art

museums from around the world

my birth grandmother was a painter right

and there was art and design on my

father's side

but

kind of going back to where we started

this conversation right about race and

search for identity

and not necessarily growing up

with the black experience at least the

positive one

and to come all the way to today and

have spent the last year

diving very deep into my

african-american heritage

going all the way back pre-civil

american civil war

and um

and just i i i can't tell you what a

life bonus this has been um i can't put

a dollar amount

on it to be able to

start to

put the pieces together

for the first time

because up until now you're you're

manufacturing a lot of that as someone

who's

who's adopted right um

and um so yeah it's just uh it's it's

just been an amazing run they don't all

you know reuniting with birth families

doesn't you know the percentages aren't

always high that is going to be a

positive one and in this case

um everyone has been just i mean

unbelievably

generous with their time thoughtful

and

i have

i could put together a museum of all the

objects and

pictures and um

memorabilia from

the generations of these families um you

know now and it's just been uh it's just

been amazing and i wanted to make sure i

i captured some of that in the book

to

to honor

them as well and i want to say something

too it's like

to learn that your grandfather was the

only black man

in his graduating class in college in

1955.

can you imagine what that was like

in america in 1955

to be the

only

black person let alone there was no

women in that class

so um yeah i i just look at that and uh

i i start to feel where some of my

um

drive uh to to you know

create things that stand out um do

things a bit differently

and um

and now i have a backstop if you will

um a history that maybe i didn't uh get

to draw from

uh in the past

you must have

first met

your and got to hug your biological

mother what was that day like

yeah i mean it it's again you're you're

talking about a time when you know my

birth parents were 17 when they had me

and

you know you've got two kids one's black

one one's white

in minnesota

in 1970

that's just not acceptable

you can imagine right

in high school

so

and

my birth mom right had to go live in a

home as you did as a teenager if you got

pregnant and to have me and then had to

give me up okay

so and then keeps that a secret

her whole life until

that day when her daughter said

i have to ask you something you know

i i know i have a brother

so

two months later

after lots of discussions kind of

getting comfortable getting to know i we

fly out there

and yeah i mean it's um as you're

i'm trying to play it cool because

that's me just always trying to be be um

you know

cool about things

and um but really it's it's just like

how's this gonna go i mean because the

last thing you want to be is rejected

but now that you've crossed that point

there's

you this is a new experience that you

know you've never had

so what's great that my birth mom did is

i i as we parked and we met like

at a park acro on a lake with with them

is she just cause

i didn't know if i could make the first

move but she came running up and just

gave me a big hug we didn't even say

anything and that was the beginning of

that the first time i saw her in person

and it was just uh

yeah i mean um

you know uh

it's just i'll be honest i'm a happier

person

so

you know

and

it's not that i was i i've gotten so

much

so much i have such a wonderful family

and kids

and such an amazing career and having

the opportunity to share it with

everybody um but to experience this at

this stage of my life is just i mean

it's just amazing

thank you

it's been a real honor and uh you know

you you've inspired me tremendously for

so many reasons and you've been a real

sort of affirming

uh and reaffirming force reading your

book emotion by design um

has taught me a lot of the things that i

did right and i didn't even know i did

write and then a lot of the things that

i definitely could have done better in

certain areas of my life and even you

know i can say i'm

almost 30 years old as a marketeer

but you've illuminated certain things

that i i don't think people talk about

enough especially considering the way

that the world is heading and it's and

how you know creativity is being

sometimes talked about in a secondary

sense to things like ai and data and and

we're losing the human in things but not

just in marketing in the world as well

there's an optimization of our lives

driven by data which is which is

sacrificing the love and the art and the

beauty of what it is to be a human and

that's also the broader point that i got

from the book is and from you today is

is the importance of not losing that and

yeah we do have a closing tradition on

this podcast

which is the previous guest leaves a

question for the next guest

is there something right now

that you know you're doing wrong

but you haven't fixed yet