Episode 9: Gavin Guidry
Community Relevance Over Cultural Relevance with Gavin Guidry
While many brands spend lots of time and money trying to present themselves in a way that is culturally relevant, today’s guest Gavin Guidry learned a powerful lesson while working as a content creator. He suggests that the best way for a brand to get its message across is not through cultural relevance but actually through what he calls community relevance. Despite being a Black man who never went to portfolio school, Gavin now works as one of R/GA Advertising’s creative directors.
In this conversation, Gavin explores what’s necessary to break a paradigm. He sheds light on the fact that the popular quote by Malcolm X, “By any means necessary,” may actually have a lot more to do with preparation than we may think. Tuning in you’ll hear about the value of social media to harness the power of authentic community, the value of community relevance in the current social and political climate, and Gavin’s tools for building community relevance.
To finish off the show, Gavin reads us a profound quote by Tyler Mitchell that has fueled a lot of his thinking over the past several months. For all this and more, don’t miss this episode!
Episode 9: Show Notes
Key Points From This Episode:
• How Jeremy learned the value of being deliberate about his own blind spots through this podcast.
• Gavin’s belief that everything that's good develops organically.
• How being a content creator led Gavin to become a creative director in the advertising space.
• How he realized he was an in-house advertising agency and a breakdown of all that his job as a content creator entailed.
• Gavin’s most profound revelation as a content creator: It's all about community relevance over cultural relevance.
• The story of how Gavin came to this realization.
• The value of social media to hear from and harness the power of authentic community.
• How Gavin distinguishes the difference between community relevance and cultural relevance.
• The value of community relevance in the current social and political climate.
• Gavin’s tools for building community relevance.
• The challenges faced by young Black creators to break into the advertising industry.
• Why Gavin believes you need to learn from a landscape before you disrupt it.
• How Gavin processes the energy that says that cultivating takes too long and it's time to tear down the old structures for the sake of equality.
• How Gavin takes self-awareness precursory work and connects it to the work of community relevance.
• How Gavin protects the discipline of inspiration and makes time to be inspired.
• A quote by Black photographer Tyler Mitchell that has fueled a lot of Gavin’s thinking over the past several months.
Tweetables:
“I think it's all about community relevance over cultural relevance, and helping brands learn who their communities are, and how we can create experiences and content for them that's going to be valuable for them. Yeah, that's really my whole thing.” — Gavin Guidry [0:12:41]
“Instead of trying to chase the cultural relevance, which is going to change day by day, month, by month, year by year, I think that the way that brands can actually have longevity and also provide value is to look at ‘Who is my community or which community am I serving? How can I basically be the best servant to them?'” — Gavin Guidry [0:17:39]
“It's 2021 and there's a lot of brands who still use social media as a form of promotion, which I think is crazy! I think it's okay to use social media as a form of promotion, but social media is about conversation and connectivity.” — Gavin Guidry [0:21:34]
“What I've learned is that there's a lot that we need to learn from things before we disrupt it.” — Gavin Guidry [0:28:29]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
[TRANSCRIPT]
SEASON 02 EPISODE 09
“GG: There are reasons that these industries have been standing for so long, so we need to first learn why they've been standing for so long. Then what can I add to that? Because it's really you learning what you can add to this antiquated system and let me test that out. Let me see if it's a real thing. Let me use this as a testing ground. I can then go ahead and do this in a way that I'm really going to be able to break some glass ceilings.”
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:31] JU: Welcome to The Paint & Pipette Podcast. My name is Jeremy Utley. It's my job to illuminate the tactics of world-class performers across domains. As a day job, I teach at the Stanford d.school helping students learn what it takes to come up with ideas. I've realized, I need to stay in the classroom learning myself, and this podcast is my classroom.
[00:00:54] MH: Hey, hey. I'm Marcus Hollinger. I lead Marketing and Creative at Reach Records, an Atlanta-based independent record label. I'm also co-founder for Portrait Coffee, where we are seeking to reimagine the picture that comes to mind for folks in specialty coffee. I'm so excited to pull up my desk alongside my good friend and fellow learner, Jeremy. I think y'all are going to love what we have for you this season.
[00:01:25] JU: We've got some amazing stories on deck, and we can't wait to dive in and learn alongside you.
[00:01:30] MH: Grab your pipette and your paintbrush, and let's make something beautiful together.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:38] MH: In this episode, we had the opportunity to talk with Gavin Guidry, one of R/GA Advertisings Creative Directors. In this fascinating conversation, we learn that it's actually important to understand where someone is creating from, before you can understand what they're creating.
[00:01:56] JU: Gavin blew our minds with his insight around brand relevance being achieved through community relevance, rather than cultural relevance, and talked about the need to cultivate a base set of knowledge before seeking to break a paradigm.
[00:02:12] MH: Gavin also dropped some serious gems on us. In fact, he shed light on the fact that the popular quote by Malcolm X, “By any means necessary,” actually has a lot more to do with preparation than many may think.
[00:02:25] JU: We really enjoyed this conversation. We hope you do too. Let's dive in.
I'm Jeremy Utley, I have been teaching at Stanford in the design program for the last 12 years now, as of this month, actually. I started when I was 10 years old. I teach a bunch of classes around design, around leadership, around entrepreneurship. I run executive programs as well. A couple years or about a year ago, I started doing research for a book that I'm working on with a colleague and partner in crime named Perry Claybon. As I was doing research, I was struck, I've got four daughters. I was struck by, and I don't even know how much Marcus knows this background, by the way, since it might be useful for Marcus too.
As I was doing my research for the book and also just to be better human learning, I was shocked to see how few women there were in the annals of history. As far as creativity and innovation and invention and discovery is concerned. I can only tell the stories that I know. So for me, I started thinking, wow, if I don't want to perpetuate that, I got to take initiative and start to seek out the stories of a female creatives, founders, inventors, etc. so just as a personal learning journey, I asked a good friend of mine who's a female VC and entrepreneur, if she would interview female founders with me.
So she and I started doing that. It quickly became the highlight of my week. I don't know about you, but for me, I would say most of the time when I walk into a room or into a space, because I'm a teacher, perhaps, the expectation is that I'm supposed to be talking. I have been delighted to have carved out a time every week, where my job is to not talk but to listen, just for my own growth and understanding. It's really been invigorating for me. So anyway, we got through several of these conversations, and Mar said, and Mar and I were talking, I just said, “I feel guilty that we're the only people hearing these conversations.” So she and I jointly cooked up this idea of maybe we post the audio file somewhere, maybe it becomes a podcast. We're not exactly sure what it will be.
Then her VC has a summer accelerator that they're running, so her calendar got really busy. She said, “Hey, we got to take a break for the summer.” For me in my own learning, I was like, there are a couple things stood out. One I realized the value of carving out time to listen, rather talk, and two I realized being deliberate about my own blind spots was a really worthwhile perspective for me that I hadn't really thought about being deliberate about. In that case being, have got four daughters. I'd love to see them as creative and enterprising as they possibly could be and probably there's stuff about the way I interact with them that may hold them back. I don't know.
So anyway, so when Mar said, “Hey, I want to push pause for this summer.” I felt like, I can't push pause on my own learning journey. I got to keep learning. Marcus and I just happened to be talking the other day. I said, “Another big blind spot for me is the experience of Black creators, and artists, and inventors and talk about a shortage of stories there.” I mean, in terms of literature, it's probably even worse, actually, than females.
Anyway, so I said, Marcus, maybe we can have some of these conversations too, because while I'm on hiatus with Mar, so to speak, I don't want to be on a hiatus in my own learning journey. That's just where we're at. We've done one of these conversations before, Marcus and I did last week with a entrepreneur who we admire, and you're the second conversation. So feedback or thoughts on that objective, or aspiration, but we're all ears and we're eagerly accepting direction and guidance too, so whatever you got.
[00:06:10] GG: I'm honored. I'm super honored. I liked the very organic nature of the way that this has come about. I think everything that's good is organic, personally. I think just the fact that this has come about organically and your intentions are, you wanting to learn more for your daughters, I think that's beautiful. So yeah, I mean, I'm glad to be just a part of that, but yeah, if I could think of anything, I'll let you guys know, but I'm just excited to just be hopping on and talking to you.
[00:06:39] MH: Yeah. Man, I love the way even at the conversation is starting now. Gavin, you threw out a word there that is so, I think we just got to jump in there.
[00:06:47] GG: Yeah.
[00:06:48] MH: You've said a couple of times organic, organic, organic already and what I know from you and how I've worked with you, I know that that's actually infused in your process. One of the things that I really admire, that I admire about you was, as we were putting together our agency practice together, you shared with me this perspective on helping brands achieve relevance. What you said was that brand relevance is tied to or better, I think you could say it better than I could, because I may butcher it.
[00:07:26] GG: Well, let me just go back, because I think, I can maybe circle back to this in a complete full circle way, but just to start, so and I'll try to get a full clip, because I know you'll probably need to cut it together. So I'm Gavin. I'm a creative director and the advertising space. So really what I do on a daily basis is I get to lead amazing creatives to create content, mostly on social, mostly social and digital, but yeah, to create content for brands. That's what I do on a daily basis, but my background is actually in content creation. I started as a photographer, videographer, doing a lot of streetwear, shooting a lot of music videos, that sort of thing. Then realize that I was basically an in-house ad agency for a lot of his different stores and these different people who I was working for. I was running Facebook pages and Bandcamp and just all of these different things.
[00:08:27] JU: Gavin, hey. I just got to ask you. You say you realize you're an in-house ad agency.
[00:08:32] GG: Yeah.
[00:08:33] JU: Tell me, walk me through that moment. How did you realize that? How did it come to be? Because that feels like a comment you gets run right by, but I bet there's enormous insights right there.
[00:08:42] GG: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure Marcus can attest to this as well. A lot of people who are going to be listening to this can attest as well. When you're a creative person who can do a lot of different things, especially when you start out, you're going to be a cool and smart, because you flock to these different brands and these different companies because you're a fan of them. So you're going to flock to them, and they're going to realize everything that you can do and they're going to say, “Yo, I want you to do it all. I want you to do everything.” So I would get to the point where I was doing a lot. For example, I used to run the marketing at a boutique here in Atlanta called Wish Atlanta, where a lot of people get their shoes, cut, basically.
[00:09:22] MH: Which is a really, really big deal by the way. Streetwear is a whole another tangent, it's a whole another thing that we could jump into, but which is probably top five in streetwear sneaker culture around the country. Let me just give that bit of insight.
[00:09:40] GG: I was very blessed to get that opportunity while I was in college, actually. Then a little bit after college, I worked there, but I said, a day for me would look like, coming in, writing a blog post about some sneakers, taking those sneakers to the studio to do some product photos, like studio set up, studio lighting, all of that. Then taking those shoes outside, scheduling a shoot with a model, putting those shoes on a person, matching that with an outfit, whatever. Then I would have to, I take those photos, come back in and finish writing my blog post. Then I would have to put Google Analytics on all of the photos and throughout the blog posts. Then I would have to craft an email to Hypebeast, and Complex, and Sneaker News and all of these different places and then we would have to, place our stories. So and that you heard photographer, editor, producer –
[00:10:35] MH: SEO analyst.
[00:10:36] GG: SEO analytics.
[00:10:37] JU: Tell me, you are modeling the shoe too.
[00:10:41] GG: No, absolutely, absolutely not. That's about the only thing I didn't do. Yeah, and then I would have to make it social, put it on social, which was my actual real job. That is really how, I got to a point where my actual degrees in marketing, I worked in all of these different creative fields. So I felt like the perfect blending of them was advertising. I was like, “Look, I'm doing all of these things. I'm pretty sure this is what advertising agencies get paid for. Maybe I should figure out what that looks like.” That's really how I got into advertising.
What I learned as a young, Black content creator, without connections, without going to advertising portfolio school, is that it's almost impossible to break into the industry. That is really one of, that's one of my goals now at this point to make things more accessible for people like me, like how do we get more content creators, which is a new work position in advertising? How do we get young Black creatives, young Latino creators, just creators who are shooting music videos, making their own little fashion brands. how do we get them to tell the stories for these brands, because that's what they really need?
Which brings me to Marcus's question, which is what I've learned by having my streetwear editorial background, and then coming into advertising is that, advertising, especially nowadays, and it's 2021, a lot of people want to chase the culture. They want to be culturally relevant. That looks I'm going to hire an endorser, I'm going to hire an influencer. I'm going to just milk them for all that they're worth.
What I've learned, just by actually having to create content that people want to engage with organically through working with the Hypebeasts, and the Complexes and the Wish Atlanta's and just different places like that is, what really attracts people is not necessarily, like oh, they have my favorite rapper, but oh, as someone who's a part of this niche community this relates to me. I think it's all about community relevance over cultural relevance, and helping brands learn who their communities are, and how can we create experiences and content for them, that's going to be valuable for them. Yeah, that's really my whole thing.
[00:12:58] MH: That was revolutionary the first time I heard you say that, because anyone who's at least working on the communication side of business or a brand, they've heard that relevance, that's this metric, that's out there that is really hard to measure outside of going viral or something like that. At what point was it that you realized that community was the power to really drive brand relevance?
[00:13:27] GG: Yeah. Good question. I think that I really started to put two and two together and really put a name around this, because I feel God has been setting me up to do this work throughout my career, but I didn't really notice I was doing it. Until probably a couple of years ago, I was doing a campaign with Sprite, where we had gone from working with big, Vince Staples. I mean, if you guys see right here, I mean, you guys probably won't be able to feature this, but there's a bunch of little figurines up here. This is from some Sprite stuff, but the Vic Mensa, the Lil Yachty, the LeBrons, the Vince Staples all of those folks, and they would, we would shoot with them, we create a campaign with them. Then the next day, they'd be on social media promoting Fago and different soft drinks. It's like, “What are you guys doing? We just did a shoot last week.”
So we had an opportunity to create a social program around the Grammys, and instead of trying to ride the coattails of the similar people, I thought it would be better as Sprite which is a big, of course brand in the Black community. A lot of people on social media would say endorse me Sprite, endorse me Sprite, endorse me Sprite. I figured that instead of, let's use the Grammys, instead as a way to hear what the community wants to listen to, hear who the community wants to see up on that stage, because in the past, I would say five years and the Oscars and the Grammys we've been seeing that these award shows are not reflecting the will of the people. They're not looking like what their community is looking like and what their community wants to see.
Social media is to me, people look at it as a separate platform, but to me all of these different marketing tools, broadcasts out of home social media, they're all just tools in the same toolbox. Social media is where you can be the closest— When you talk about meeting someone where they're at that is social media. We literally use our social to say, to ask a simple question, “Who are the artists that you want to hear from? And we're going to put them on.” We got organically tens of thousands of comments on Instagram and Twitter, and created a platform for up and coming musicians, fashion designers and artists, based off of our community telling us who they like.
So we put them on playlists. We linked them with, we're not a record label, so we're not going to get anyone a deal, but what we can give them as a platform. We can put them in touch with Complex. We can put them on stage at the BT Awards. We can give them all of these different connections. We can put a designer with Jeff Staple and have them create pieces together. Those are the things that we can do. I was really creating that project really based off fueled by the community that really helped me understand just what the power of authentic community really is.
[00:16:25] JU: You mentioned something that I want to come back to, as someone who's not as involved in the advertising world. I don't know but I understand the difference. So I'm curious to just understand, what's the difference between community relevance and cultural relevance? How do you distinguish between those things? I said to Marcus where that was like [inaudible 00:16:43]. I hear that and I’m like, I had no idea what the difference is. So break that –
[00:16:49] MH: That's a great question. That’s great. Yeah.
[00:16:52] GG: Yes. I think cultural relevance and community relevance are linked. However, cultural relevance is fleeting. Cultural relevance is something that is here today, gone tomorrow. If I want to be culturally relevant, I'm going to go to the person who has a number one song on Spotify and I'm going to have them change their lyrics up a bit to insert my product. Community relevance— There's always going to be community, and there's always going to be a service and a value that you can provide to that community. Community is also, community is what makes things relevant.
When we talk about cultural relevance, cultural relevance comes from the community, like you can't have cultural relevance if there's not a community supporting you, sharing you, platforming you. Instead of trying to chase the cultural relevance, which is going to change day by day, month, by month, year by year, I think that the way that brands can actually have longevity, and also provide value is to look at who is my community or which community am I serving? How can I basically be the best servant to them?
That I think, is a little bit of a difference between community relevance. It's the difference between a brand who has a viral campaign or commercial, because they linked up with the right influencer, but they have no actual brand equity, and a brand who can not have any viral moments, but they always have a community that is going to continue to engage with them, because they're relevant to that community, because of how they use their platform, what they use their platform to say, what they use their platform to do, what they use their platform to fuel. That's how you get community relevance. That's really the difference between community relevance and cultural relevance.
[00:18:38] JU: That's great.
[00:18:39] MH: I think, it's interesting, the reason why that the timing of that revelation for me, coming from you, to me, was important. How would you say with the social and political climate that we found ourselves in just a few years ago, and are currently still, at least under? How would you speak to the importance or would you say that that's pressing for folks to get that right now?
[00:19:08] GG: 100 percent and you've seen it. Some brands were set up to tackle social issues head on. When it wasn't avoidable anymore, you saw which brands were actually set up and had an infrastructure to say, “I'm going to make a change. I'm going to be an ally in this moment,” and you saw which ones were being performative. The real differentiator between the two is the ones who had no community relevance before, let's say, May or June of 2020, those are the brands who came off performative. They could have given 100 mil, but the people can see through that.
So since then, I've done multiple campaigns, and on those campaigns, I can see how easy it is for me to say, “Hey, let's do a campaign for the people.” I've seen how easy it is to do those campaigns, because of what we've been able to do on that brand. I've also seen how hard it is for those companies, both internally, trying to change minds internally at brands to say, “this is how we should use our platforms,” and also externally, where if we put something out, people are actually going to get with it. I've seen that it's very hard, no matter how good the idea is to turn that boat around. It's because some brands have been using their and building their community relevance for years.
[00:20:32] MH: If someone is listening to this right now, they might be wondering, well, okay, I may not be in an advertising, but there is a group of people that I'm communicating to a group of stakeholders that I'm communicating to, and maybe by now that light of community versus this fleeting more surface level interaction, maybe that light is starting to go off. In your experience, are there some tools that you could describe on how to build community relevance well?
[00:21:04] GG: Yeah. Social media is great. I think just having one-on-one interactions is a great way I believe, to build community relevance. I think, community relevance is just being a person, like being a human. What do the humans, who form a community around my product or my business, or my content, what do they feel? What do they need? Whatever it can get you there, I think this a tool.
I think social media is a great tool. I think people use social media, it's 2021 and there's a lot of brands who still use social media as a form of promotion, which I think is crazy. I think, it's okay to use social media as a form of promotion, but social media is about conversation and connectivity. I think it's totally fine to be generating inbound traffic from social media, but the purpose of your social media should be to connect to people and create connections.
There's also companies that are making connection easier than ever. There's community, you can have a— you can set up a community number where you can text people, you can be on clubhouse, you can be creating your own pockets of community based around just different conversation topics. It's really just about like we're getting to the point where people are not going to be seeing ads anymore. The things that are going to be seen are the things that people choose to engage with. We need to be creating those spaces for people to engage with us and for people to really like us. Yeah. I think, for anyone who's wanting to build that community relevance, it's all about using tools that garner connection. That's really it.
[00:22:44] JU: You mentioned in the beginning of our conversation, that part of your passion now is to be opening up the ability for others like you to break into the industry. Can you tell me, not why you speculate is difficult to break in, but why you think that? Why do you think it's difficult to break them? Not what's the reason for the situation? Why do you assess the situation that way? Why do you say it's hard for, I have in my notes here, I learned as young Black creator, that it's almost impossible to break into the industry?
[00:23:16] GG: Yeah.
[00:23:17] JU: Why do you say that?
[00:23:18] GG: Yeah. Because people don't know what to do with us. People don't know what to do with us. People don't always understand us. The first agency that I had the opportunity to work for, which I'm very grateful for the opportunity, I had no business being – No, again, no portfolio school, went to school for marketing. There was nothing that screamed advertising at that moment. I mean, there were a lot of things that screamed advertising, because I could, just based off of my experience, but there was nothing that screamed traditional advertising at the time.
I'm very grateful that I got the opportunity to at least work at an agency to get my foot in the door. However, at that agency, I at the time was coming off of like, I just shot this big video series for Hypebeast. I felt more confident in my abilities as a photographer, as a videographer than I had ever felt before, as an editor than I had ever felt before. I come to this agency, and I'm like, “Hey, let's do this video series. Let's do this let's do this. Let's do that.” They were like, “That's not really what we do here. Do you want to make these Facebook graphics for us? You want to do this, you want to do that?” At the time, I was pretty bent out of shape about it, but I'm not going to be too hard on them, because they really just didn't know what to do with me.
I think, that things are set up systematically the way they're set up to keep the same people where they're at. So for advertising, there's an archetype and there's a way of thinking and when somebody comes in who doesn't fit the mold, it’s really hard to figure out where to place them, because you not only have to say, “Hey, I think this person can – let's say you're even at the point where you're like, I do want something new dynamic and groundbreaking. You still have to sell that into to your client. It's not as simple as just saying, “Hey, this guy can give us some cool, weird ideas.” You have to make sure that they can be somewhere nine to five. They can communicate, they can present to the client, you have to make sure the client can have a conversation with them and be like, “Yes I understand what they're going to do.” A lot of times, these are very these are very traditional clients and very traditional executives.
It's hard to say, “Yo, I can tell this dude who makes these crazy music videos, and runs his own brand, and all of these things.” It's hard to communicate that, and they can make a campaign for you, because a lot of people just don't know what to do with that talent. I want to figure out, as someone who's been able to whether it's successful or not, the jury's still out, but I've been able to navigate these waters. I want to say, I understand this talent. I also understand what these agencies and brands need, even if they don't know they need it, I know they need it. I'm going to try to be able to bridge that gap. That's what I do when I'm not actually making stuff for brands.
[00:26:07] JU: Well, I think what you've done right now is you've described the tension of disruptive innovation in every industry. I'm just reading this book, you can't see, because I posted notes on it, but called In the Plex, which is about Google by Steven Levy. I’m only a couple hundred pages in, but the paradigm they had, they couldn't sell an existing search company on their paradigm, because nobody believed it.
Airbnb couldn't sell an existing hospitality company on their paradigm, because and to me, in a way, what you've done is you've described like it's a paradigmatic shift that you're talking about. I wonder whether it's in a way, to use a phrase, a fool's errand to try to convince an incumbent to be different, because what history shows a lot of times is the incumbent organization is the last conventional wisdom keeps them from seeing what's new. But to me the whole framing of trying to help people to break into the industry. I wonder whether it's breakup the industry – to implies that the existing structure deserves to be preserved. I think break up implies this is a structure which no longer serves us. I don't mean it in an artistic a sense. I mean, in a disruptive innovation sense, right?
[00:27:28] GG: Yeah.
[00:27:28] MH: That becomes a little more consequential when you're talking about human beings, to try to sell in the idea that there should be this search engine. That's one thing, right? Because that search engine doesn't have feelings, it doesn't have a history, it doesn't have a background. I'm curious, Gavin, and at least for you in the advertising industry, what that experience is like to— you’re advocating for people who are like you, but you also are in a position of power and you see yourself reflected at, what is that like to try to push that curve a little bit?
[00:28:10] GG: There's a lot of tension. Jeremy, just to go back a bit to what you were talking about, I 100 percent agree that disruption is necessary and maybe it's a little bit— basically like why try if this is a bit antiquated, then why even try? What I've learned is that there's a lot that we need to learn from things before we disrupt it. I've worked at places that have tried to disrupt almost for disruption sake or disrupt without first cultivating. Marcus and I have read a book called Culture Making. I highly recommend –
[00:28:49] MH: Highly recommend.
[00:28:50] Andy Crouch, Culture Making and in that book, a lot of it is about making culture, but a first step is cultivating you have to be a cultivator of a culture, you have to understand it, you have to attend to after it. So, yes, I want to change advertising. I want to change content and maybe the broader media landscape, and who are the power players there. But first, I need to understand what that landscape actually is. I think, it's important for anyone who I'm wanting to get into the industry to understand what that is, as well, because there are reasons that these industries have been standing for so long.
We need to first learn why they've been standing for so long. Then what can I add to that? Because it's really you learning what you can add to this antiquated system and let me test that out. Let me see if it's a real thing. Let me use this as a testing ground. I can then go ahead and do this in a way that I'm really going to be able to break some glass ceilings. I think not enough people cultivate before they create and I want to get as many people in the door to give opportunities to learn what they're trying to break, before they're trying to break it.
There is a lot of tension there sometimes. I work with a lot of content creator talent, who's like, “Yo, I could go work over here for my friend's business for my own business.” A conversation I have with a lot of young content creators is, “I see my friends, they're making their own companies are doing these crazy things and I'm sitting here at a desk nine to five,” or, “I'm still out shooting,” but then I have to come back to this desk and if that's not where they need to be for the moment, and it's like, “Hey, maybe you do need to go here, maybe you do need to go there.”
What's also very important is that, it's just important to learn and get the structure first and the structure is invaluable, because now when I still freelance a lot, I still try to do a lot of community relevant work in my free time. What I've learned about how to run campaigns, how to create campaigns, what needs to be done, it's invaluable. I think it's important for at least young people like us to at least have the option to say, “I want to go learn here, I want to go cut my teeth here,” because a lot of times we don't even have the option. I was very like, to be a creative director at R/GA does not happen for someone like me, traditionally, not just being Black, but the fact that I have not touched a portfolio school, I've not touched any ad fellows program, I've not touched any of that.
I'm blessed to be in this position, but it's a lot of hard work and it took a lot of being placed in the right place at the right time. People believing in me that a lot of other people just had someone believing and then that's all they need. I really want to be that.
[00:31:44] MH: I want to touch on something here. I'll definitely love the shout-out to Andy Crouch, such a great book. You talked about understanding the industry by cultivating it, knowing what you want to break before you break it. It reminds me, specifically in the Black community of this notion of the double consciousness that we often have to operate with. Whereas if you're not Black, you can immediately, oftentimes, I don't want to cast too much of a wide net, you can come in and already start the business, enterprising generative thinking right off the bat, but to be Black in a lot of these spaces, as a creator, there's this deep work of self-awareness that has to happen, first and foremost.
It seems though, Gavin, particularly in the contemporary understanding of that dynamic of double consciousness, that's being blown up, like folks are, especially in the Black community now with activism being much more out there and people saying, “Nah, down with the old structures need to burn them down now.” How are you processing that right now that energy that says no, cultivating takes too long, we tried that it's time to tear it down?
[00:32:59] GG: Yeah. They're not wrong. I think, there's just a point of just self-awareness, sometimes knowing when the double consciousness point is, such an interesting piece, it’s like the by any means necessary, or nonviolent work with the power structures, right? Like in that book –
[00:33:20] MH: Yeah. Malcolm and Martin.
[00:33:22] GG: You got Malcolm and Martin. It's like, I think some situations call for Malcolm. I think some situations call for Martin. But what I will say is that Malcolm wasn't impatient or overly spontaneous, just because “By any means necessary," doesn't mean drop everything you're doing, let’s get it, there's still planning that needs to go on.
When we're talking about activism, I think, for the Black community, and a lot of minority communities, true equality means ownership in this country specifically and we need to start owning things. That doesn't mean that I'm going to quit my job and start a business, but that means that my goal now has changed.
The reason I'm at this nine to five, the reason I'm working for this other person's company has now changed. It's gone from survival to setting something up. I think, what the social movements of the past year and a half or so have taught us is that there is a sense of urgency, that there is not going to be a change unless we create it, but that's still a lot that we need to learn, but it should change what we're doing this for.
[00:34:34] MH: Which for someone who's following this conversation and say, “Hey, I'm used to coming in for tools of the Titans, almost, right? But this conversation has taken a bit of a different. It's almost the Black innovator for a Black creator. If I weren't directly familiar with this dynamic, I'd say wow, that's a lot to process before you even get to the work. Gavin, how do you take this precursory type of work that you have to do have self-awareness of knowing why you're in it and then connect it to this work of community relevance that you, how do the two connect for you in the innovative creative work that you do?
[00:35:20] GG: Great question. I think, and it's funny before this conversation, I was trying to prepare and I was just like, what are some of the ways I brace for, if I'm about to start a project or something like, how do I approach creativity? How do I approach innovation? It's really just about— and the first thing I was going to say was just to stay inspired. I think a lot of the, to use your words, Marcus, like the precursor work, a lot of this thinking, is really just a means of just staying inspired, because I think, as creatives, we're just merely, as human beings, sorry, we're just a vessel for creativity, you know what I mean? It's just like, how are we going to interpret it and put it out there? So when we're talking about social issues or the ‘why’ behind this, it's not so my work is better, it's just so that I am personally better and then that just comes out in the work.
I think, yes, it might feel okay, people might be tuning into this for more or less a formula. I think that's okay. Not to throw shade in these creative industries and these industries that were a part of, it's really tough to just give a one plus one equals two, or there's A, there's a B, there's a C. The only thing that we can control is really what we're consuming, and the kind of people that we are and that's going to come out in the work.
So yeah, I'm not going to say it's not all about the work, a lot of it is about the work and not to get too hippy or anything like that, but I think we should all be trying to figure out, who we are and what we can offer, either this industry or my agency, or my company or whatever, what can I offer them? Then that's just going to come through in the work. For me it's all about the precursor, it's all about the thinking before we actually get to the work and then the work is the easy part.
[00:37:17] JU: I think, you're feeding right into what grabs will be the last questions, just to respect your time. I'm really curious to know the precursor, the feeding into the work, given the constant demands on our time, email never stops, Twitter never stops, all this stuff, right?
[00:37:35] GG: Slack, Slack never stops.
[00:37:36] JU: Slack never stops. How do you create the space? How do you protect the discipline of inspiration? How do you protect space to seek inputs to consume? What practically do you do to make sure that you attend to the inputs?
[00:37:52] GG: I mean, honestly. I wish I tended to all of these things a lot better, honestly. I'm no master of this by any means. Marcus and I have a friend who wakes up at four in the morning, every day. He starts his day at four in the morning, still dark outside. He reads, he has his quiet time, he studies. I'm like, “Yeah, that's what I want to do.” But I think it's really just about carving out times of intentionality, where you can be inspired. I think inspiration can come from a lot of places, I'm not saying, because it's hard to not be hard on yourself and say, “Okay, I'm going to wake up, I'm going to have three hours before work. I'm going to have three hours after work.” Because if I was really giving the keys, I would say, wake up a few hours before work, and then have a few hours carved out after work. That's just not always realistic for people, people have kids, people have dogs, they have to walk, people have a lot of things going on.
I think it's finding those times where you can be intentional, whether that's I bought a record player, finally, at the end of last year, and have been collecting records. I try to do it at least once a day at different times throughout the day. Maybe it's at lunch, maybe it's after work, maybe it's in the morning, but I try to put a record on, I tried to sit in front of my record player and I listened to my record. It’s crazy how just inspiration will come through and those moments, or yeah, just finding any time throughout the day to be inspired.
I call Marcus up, we have a conversation. I have inspiration that is going to last me a week. I pick up a photo book, I read, I've been very much into futurist thinking lately, which is normally a very marketing, C-suite level, ideal consulting concepts. I picked up a photo book read a quote by Tyler Mitchell that by far is the best, who's a photographer, by far the best example of futurism that I've ever read, a futurist thinking, and he's not a “Futurist” that's inspired me, that's been inspiring me for six months.
[00:39:59] JU: You got to tell us the quote.
[00:40:01] GG: Here, hold on. Let me just grab it really quick. I think, Marcus has heard this quote before.
[00:40:06] JU: I love that you've actually got it up on the shelf.
[00:40:09] GG: Oh, yeah. Got a lot of books on the shelf.
[00:40:11] MH: By the way, I hope it's true that a conversation with me is worth a week of inspiration. That's a lie.
[00:40:17] GG: Anyone listening to this conversation, a phone call with Marcus is worth at least a week's worth of inspiration. At least.
[00:40:25] JU: I can attest to that as well.
[00:40:27] GG: Oh, yeah. Yeah, text conversation might be a few days. Okay, so Tyler Mitchell's quote, and this is leading up to one of his first photo exhibitions at the ICP in New York, is let me just make sure I'm starting it at the right place. He said, and gearing up for this photography collection, he said that, “I seldom saw the same.” He's speaking about images of young, attractive white models on Tumblr, essentially.
He said, “I seldom saw the same for Black people in images, or at least in the photography, I knew. Work comes from a place of wanting to push back against this lack.” This is the quote here starting, “I feel an urgency to create a body of images where Black people are visualized as free, expressive, effortless and sensitive. I aim to visualize what a Black Utopia looks like or could look like. People say utopia is never achievable, but I love photography's possibility of allowing me to dream and make that dream become very real.”
When we think about, yeah, so beautiful, quote, photographer, Tyler Mitchell, first Black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue, very young photographer, but what that makes it very plain, is that we have the ability to create worlds for ourselves. It's about visualizing what that world is, and choosing to create it. So that has been a quote that has fueled a lot of my thinking for the past six or seven months to be honest.
[00:42:03] MH: I think that's a great place to land the plane for the conversation, because what I can see in that, Gavin, I see the inspiration from Tyler in that you are visualizing a future where more young Black folks can have opportunities and make a difference in the advertising world. Definitely all the best to you in that. Thanks for giving us time here to speak with this and drop in. I think, I'm probably going to sit with that Tyler quote for a while. Thank you, man.
[00:42:33] GG: Awesome. Yes. Thanks for having me on, y'all. It's a very fun conversation.
[00:42:37] JU: It's a pleasure to meet you be inspired by you. Hopefully we can get you to weigh in on how we think about, at some point sharing these conversations with the world. We don't have a great plan at this point, but we know that if we continue to seek inspiration, continue to seek input and to learn from people. The path will open up before us, so to speak, so.
[00:42:56] GG: Yeah.
[00:42:57] MH: Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Gavin. We’ll be talking to you soon.
[00:43:00] GG: Of course. Thank you. All right, peace.
[END]
The quality of our thinking is deeply influenced by the diversity of the inputs we collect. Implementing practices like Brian Grazer’s “Curiosity Conversations” ensures innovators are well-equipped with a variety of high-quality raw material for problem-solving.