Mark Penn, the chairman and CEO of Stagwell Inc., reflects on his extraordinary career, driven by his passion for politics and marketing, and offers insights on why this is a good year for marketers. 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00 ] Damian: I'm Damian Fowler.

[00:00:01 ] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

[00:00:02 ] Damian: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:00:05 ] Ilyse: This week we're delighted to talk with Mark Penn, the Chairman and CEO of Stagwell.

[00:00:10 ] Damian: Well, first, as a political pollster, who's advised names like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair.

[00:00:20 ] Later, he became Chief Strategist for Microsoft, before founding Stagwell, a digital first marketing and communications group.

[00:00:28 ] Ilyse: Mark's political background no doubt brings a much needed perspective to marketing. He argues that in today's real time, data driven world, brands must have a constant finger on the pulse of the American consumer.

[00:00:42 ] Damian: We start by asking him how these two worlds, politics and marketing, have always been bound together

[00:00:48 ] mark, it's no secret that you've covered the waterfront from being a political strategist to a poster to businessman and author. You know, can you walk us through a little bit about how you went from polling to politics to media? [00:01:00 ] That's a big question, right?

[00:01:01 ] Yes, I'm still trying to answer that question 

[00:01:03 ] Mark: myself. How did I get here? Uh, you know, I kind of re strategize myself like every decade or so. And I said, well, okay, what is it that I really want to do? And, and so I, I kind of started actually out as I was going to be a lawyer. Uh, and then I detoured from law, law to polling.

[00:01:22 ] And then I was going to be a pollster working for the president. And I got to do that. So then I kind of detoured from there. And then at a certain point, and I love technology. So I was then kind of went to Microsoft and became chief strategy officer. And then I, I had this idea to say, why can't I take all my experiences in polling and campaigns and running bursts in Marsteller.

[00:01:45 ] And I ran Microsoft's advertising too. And I said, you know what? I could form a better holding company because it could be more digital first. It could be more freed from the legacy assets. It could be more innovative. And so I did exactly that. [00:02:00 ] 

[00:02:00 ] Damian: Yeah, doing a little research on your background, it seems like your curiosity seems to have served you very well throughout life.

[00:02:06 ] Is that part of the DNA of, of what drives you or what, what keeps, what motivates you to keep going? 

[00:02:12 ] Mark: Well, you have to do what you're interested in. You know, I always think, it's so funny. You know, my partner and I were going to be corporate lawyers. And, and then we decided, you know what? We like this polling thing.

[00:02:22 ] We have impact on campaigns and society. And we thought, oh, we're giving up this cushy life as corporate lawyers. And we, we did a lot better doing polling than we ever would have done as corporate lawyers. So, what I always tell people is, follow your passion. Don't worry so much. If you do something, do it.

[00:02:38 ] Really interesting. Really? Well, you'll, you'll figure out how to, you know, how to manage the, the reward side of things, and that's much better than doing something you don't really like that you somehow think is going to be rewarding. 

[00:02:51 ] Damian: Now, Stagwell, as you mentioned, offices, big marketing network, let's tech driven, you know, as a leader in digital, you know, uh, how have you seen the [00:03:00 ] two areas move together, you know, the idea of digital marketing performance and creative, how do those two things.

[00:03:07 ] Mark: Well, I think they have to work together. I think that to the extent that you're creating a digital experience, that is a creative activity. That, that everyone remember, those of us who were not born digital, think of how we create a TV spot first. Those who were born digital don't think in that way. They think in how they're going to create a digital experience first.

[00:03:35 ] Right? And, and that takes the same kind of creativity, if not more so. Right? Because TV spots eventually had like a, they had like a, they had rules. Right? And they had a boundary and they were 30 seconds. And, you know, and you can be like, it's actually more of an interesting open canvas when it comes to digital creation.

[00:03:54 ] Ilyse: What would you say is one thing every brand or media buyer should be [00:04:00 ] thinking about today? 

[00:04:01 ] Mark: Uh, every media buyer, I think, today is just thinking about how they get the, Find the right place for their brand.

[00:04:10 ] I mean, I, I think, I think it's, it's kind of the basic of who's your real target audience and, and how, how are you going to find that audience? And I think they just have to be open minded that it's, that there are so many new ways to reach an audience that they have to spread their wings a little bit.

[00:04:28 ] Right. I mean, I think we went from, it was just TV. to it was just TV and Google and Facebook. So now it's Google Tiktok and retail marketing and so many other things. And I think they just have to be open to experimenting to find where their target audience really is. 

[00:04:43 ] Ilyse: Now it's no secret that the publishing industry is under a lot of pressure today.

[00:04:48 ] And Stagwell recently published a study called the news advertising study with the Findings that showcase that it's safe for brands to advertise next to news, regardless [00:05:00 ] of the topic, and that adds next to those even like controversial topics performed just as effectively as those within more like positive news environments, maybe like sports or entertainment.

[00:05:12 ] Now in your op ed for the current, you wrote that brands think there is less downside in those positive environments, but the opposite is true too. There is less upside. Can you tell us what you mean and why should advertisers care about these findings? 

[00:05:27 ] Mark: Well, I think that I discovered, and I discovered this when I did the budgeting at Microsoft.

[00:05:32 ] A lot of companies have a huge hole in their media buy. And that hole is news. Uh, that they will be advertising in sports and they will be advertising in entertainment. And they will be blocking out news, or they will be subscribing to a service that in effect blocks them out. And what maybe started out as some good idea, you know, that your, the ad for your, for Boeing shouldn't appear next to a plane crash, really [00:06:00 ] somehow devolved into something affecting 25 percent of news articles.

[00:06:04 ] Seriously demonetizing journalism. And it's having unintended consequences far beyond that. And brand safety? Seriously? I mean, I've yet to see some brand lying in the curb because their advertisement appeared in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. It's a ludicrous notion to be blacking out legitimate journalistic publications for, quote, brand safety.

[00:06:30 ] Damian: In general, the business model for news journalism is sort of evolving and changing. You know, what else is new? What do you think can advertisers and publishers do to work together to make sure that journalism is thriving even as newsrooms shutter? 

[00:06:42 ] Mark: Well, I think that there has to be a little bit of re education here with the CMOs and the media buyers.

[00:06:50 ] I think they're afraid that somehow they're going to trigger some backlash against their company. Yeah, certain, certain things have [00:07:00 ] triggered a backlash. But to go back to, I've never known that backlash to come from advertising in one of the major publications. And, and so consequently, I think that they can reduce some of their fear levels.

[00:07:12 ] And then also they have to understand that news consumers, right, in about 25 percent of the country, maybe 23 percent of the country, are what I classify as news junkies, right, who, who go in and, and, And kind of get updated on the news five times a day. That is a great engaged audience. They read stuff.

[00:07:32 ] Okay. That means they're more likely actually to kind of absorb your advertisement than someone who doesn't read stuff. Uh, and, and so I think they really have to rethink how some of their media planning and the audiences they're targeting and, and get out there and experiment with news. Cause I, again, I, I think, I think for the social problem here is that it's demonetizing news and putting journalists out, out of work.

[00:07:57 ] But just be greedy. Just, just go, you know, just [00:08:00 ] think about your brand. I think it will benefit. 

[00:08:02 ] Damian: They shouldn't be on the back foot so much. Speaking of news, of course, this year is a presidential election year in the U. S. and elections all around the world. Um, what do you think are the top channels in today's media landscape for this year's U.

[00:08:13 ] S. presidential election? 

[00:08:15 ] Mark: Well, I, I, I think that's, that's kind of interesting. Look, most campaigns spend most money on TV, right? So, but as I tell commercial advertisers, you know, if you have your customers in Ohio, well, Ohio is a less of a swing