Founder's Story - The Brand Innovators Revolution A Founder's Story with Marc Sternberg: S2: E13

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

In this insightful episode of “Founder’s Story,” we sit down with Marc Sternberg, the dynamic force behind Brand Innovators, a company renowned for its pioneering approach in the marketing world. Steinberg shares his journey, revealing how Brand Innovators has become a pivotal platform for bringing together C-suite executives at major events, fostering a community of innovation and thought leadership in marketing. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss out on exclusive interviews and special content: https://foundersstory.beehiiv.com/subscribe For more info on guests and future episodes visit pix11.com/impact and https://fox5sandiego.com/fox-5-partners/impactful/Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys. Let's start just by talking about brand innovators. I want to go back to the onset. What was kind of the inspiration behind, hey, we should do this. We should turn this into something and now run hundreds of events all over the country. Absolutely, look, well, if you flashback to 2011, when platforms like Facebook were bubbling up and other emerging technologies, brand marketers were trying to get their arms around digital media and advertising technology. And I saw an opportunity to build a B2B platform, a B2B media company that would help demystify new and emerging technologies, platforms, devices, and channels.

Build a bridge, if you will, between Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue. And B2B conferences and events thrive, right? When there's a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. So I thought, well, if we could bring this entire ecosystem together, right? If we could bring brands and agencies together with digital media and advertising technology companies, publishers, and other platforms, we would, we will be onto something, right? So bring it together for people to learn, share, connect, and transact. So, you know, we've got content on the one hand,

we have a marketplace on the other, and it's been working. You mentioned something, fear, uncertainty, doubt. There's a lot of that right now. Oh, my God. Happening between brands, platforms, agencies, you know, everything, doubt. There's a lot of that right now happening between brands, platforms, agencies, you know, everything, growth. So now's probably a pretty good time to get a lot of these guys in a room. A hundred percent. I think, yeah, frankly, there's probably never been more need for brand innovators. Again, one thing as Shelly Palmer likes to say, that certain is change. And in the world of technology

it's really hard to keep up with all of the new emerging technologies let alone leapfrog right the holy grail how do you get in front of the next big thing and that's why we're all here at CES right you go across the street to the trade show floor incredible companies presenting all kinds of technologies that are changing how consumers you and i consume media and entertainment so every brand and every agency wants to understand what is that next device okay screen that we'll be consuming our favorite shows on sports news entertainment right so it's all that keeping up and staying ahead right and now all of a sudden AI which is probably the you know the biggest game-changer of all the biggest

transformation since search right and it's a bit of a land grab there are does hundreds right? Hundreds of venture backed companies, billions of dollars chasing the next Google, Facebook, the next artificial intelligence platform that's really going to change how business gets done, how we live our lives. So this is kind of a generational change, if you will, a one-time, I think they call it disruptive, challenging. It's a game changer, right? So AI, to your point, I think Brand Innovators

has a whole new opportunity to help demystify AI, to identify the companies, especially within marketing technology that are going to help brand marketers be more efficient, obviously regenerative AI, the ability to create endless versions of content, ad copy to test what works and what is it in real time to optimize right so it's an exciting time and once again b2b media platforms thrive during fair when there's uncertainty doubt and doubt they thrive when so think of brand innovators the brand innovators platform as a way to crowdsource, if you will, the best new and emerging technologies. Everybody's here, they're comparing notes, and that's very powerful.

Everybody's kind of overwhelmed, they're a little scared. Hey, what do you hear about this company? What are you guys using and meanwhile ai is going from kind of like wow that's interesting that's exciting to the testing stage and frankly we call consumer adoption right so i would say last year was the year of brands putting their toe in the water when it comes to ai right and 2024 they're going to be all in. And that's frankly why we're launching whole series of conferences and events around AI.

And we'll be partnering with Shelly Palmer, the Palmer Group, on a couple events in New York and the Bay Area on AI for marketing. And couldn't be more excited. Shelly is, I'm not even gonna call him an old friend. He's like family, no pun intended. So kind of excited about working with Shelly, but I think, I mean, last night at our cocktail party,

I picked up five or six business cards of really innovative AI companies that want to get involved. But AI will surely catapult the marketing and media industries to another level, and it is going to really get search run for the money. And that's why companies, you know, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, X, TikTok, it's kind of a scramble for AI and throwing a lot of resources against AI, if you will. Billions of dollars are flowing into AI. It's exciting. And I encourage everybody to kind of dive right into it because the train has left the station, right? Well, Brand Innovators is doing a lot of exciting things as well.

We just talked about a lot of game-breaking technology, a lot of disruption, but you still want to get people in a room. Get them on an airplane, get them to a room. Why are events just so powerful for this space and why are you guys really going all in on getting people in a room? We are here in Las Vegas, Nevada for the Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit. We are kicking off the year on the highest note possible. We've got round tables.

We've got keynotes. We've got fireside chats. We've got dinners, dinners, and more dinners. We've got the people, the best, most innovative, creative brand marketers in the business. And we've got a lot planned for 2023. We're going to see you again at the Super Bowl. We're going to see you at South by NRF,

Shop Talk, Cannes, Advertising Week advertising week you name it we'll be there we started an events a conference and event events business um almost 13 years ago but uh within a matter of months we pivoted to a community we decided we were going to build a community of senior brand marketers at Fortune 500 and other leading brands. And we built or curated, if you will, this community of chief marketing officers, heads of digital media, people who buy media, heads of social media, mobile marketing, content marketing, retail, omnichannel, D2C. We've built, we've curated this community one brand marketer at a time and we've got pretty deep relationships. You know, I believe in the golden rule, right? You have to give to get and we've been giving to the brand marketing community now

for 13 years. So when we pop up at CES, Super Bowl, Cannes Lions, South by Southwest, guess what? The brands show up. You know, we're loyal to them. And they're very loyal to us because they enjoy participating at our events. You know, essentially, think of us as a pop-up clubhouse here at CES, right? We're a clubhouse. We're a safe place for the brands to congregate. CES is kind ofES, right? We're a clubhouse. We're a safe place for the brands to congregate. CES is kind of overwhelming, right? You've got a convention center, you've got people camped out

in Aria, Wynn, they're all over town, right? But if you're a brand marketer, this is your home. This is where you're going to be able to hang out with your peers. We are a peer-to-peer network, right? Over the next three days, we're going to feature over 50 chief marketing officers and other senior brand marketers from some of the most innovative brands in the world, right? So you'll be able to hear firsthand, unfiltered, think about that, right? From some of the biggest companies in the world, okay, about how they are investing, embracing new and emerging technologies, platforms, devices, and channels to engage with their consumers and build loyalty and long-term relationships. You know, so think about that for a moment. Nobody

has all the answers, right? But again, if I can hear from the CMO of Pfizer, right, or the CMO of Hyundai okay about how they're embracing technology so we're all about sharing best practices case studies proof points and examples okay and ultimately success stories about how brands are using technology there's a certain comfort zone I I think, you know, so brands are attracted to always great content, great networking, everybody wants a good cup of coffee, a nice lunch, food and beverage is important in the comfort zone. But all kidding aside, you know, they come here because they, you know, we take good care of them.

You know, we've got three activations. We had a, I like to call it the rehearsal dinner last night. The calm before the storm. And then tonight we've got a big activation on the other side of the courtyard over there in the Moonstone 1 and 2 at the Fountain Blue. Tonight is our Movers and Shakers celebration featuring Will.i.am, which should be pretty exciting. And then tomorrow we have our VVIP dinner, for CMO dinner at the Mother Wolf restaurant here at the Fountain Blue. Big weekend.

It's a big week. Yeah, it's a big, yeah. Big week. It's a big week for brand innovators. I love it. I want to go into the future as we start to wrap up today. We started, you know, at the beginning, we got through what you guys are doing now, how you're helping brands through this.

If you, you know, get in that time machine five, 10 years down the road and look back, what makes Brain Innovators a success? If you're looking back on what you guys are about to do in your roadmap. Yeah, no, what a great question. So first and foremost, we're relaunching our website in Q1. A website in 2024, a website. Yeah, right. Exactly. We have a website and we're really proud of it. I call it more of a blog.

We're probably posting three or four stories a day. But I think the next step for brand innovators is legitimate news gathering organization. And think about it. What do you need to be a news gathering organization. And think about it, what do you need to be a news gathering organization? Well, you need sources. But nobody's got more relationships than brand innovators, right? Our team is probably talking to about, I don't know,

20 or 30 senior brand marketers, chief marketing officers on a daily basis. We know them, we understand them, they trust us. So we see an opportunity to start breaking some news, right, and use our website as content marketing to drive even more brand marketers to our events. We want to use our site, website. Nobody produces more events for brand marketers,

over 250 annually, than brand innovators right so we're generating a lot of content you know we're publishing right you know over the next three days we're gonna capture about 20 hours of content we'll put it all up on YouTube we have over 4,000 fireside chats on YouTube now but what if we start you know promoting that content and featuring some of those videos on our site, analyzing, crowdsourcing, if you will, finding the consensus. What is the consensus? How are brand marketers feeling?

And then in turn, help senior brand marketers all over the world stay on top of all of the new and emerging technologies, platforms, devices, channels, trends, cultural trends that they need to know about in order to create more compelling advertising and compete, right? So that's what we want to do. Again, we're helping brand marketers stay on top at our events. Okay, we'll have 1,500 people participate here at our Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit at CES, but you know we could have 15,000 a day come visit our site, right? So this is the website, the site will make us kind of a 24-7, always-on platform to engage with

brand markets. I'm super excited about that. I'm super excited. We put our toe in the water last year in London. We activated at Wimbledon after the Cannes Lions. This year we're planning a minimum of six to eight events in the UK. We'll be at ITV in London on February 13th.

We'll be at WPP, World Headquarters in London on February 13th. We'll be at WPP World Headquarters in London on April 11th. We'll be at Wimbledon again, July 1 to 15th. So international, okay. Probably pop up, who knows? Just saying, maybe at the Olympics. Why not? Just saying. Yeah. I mean, we like to be where the brands are. Think about that. Right. Super Bowl. So, you know, the Olympics could be, right, the most, one of the most important platforms for brands, global brands, right, to reach a global footprint. So looking into that as we speak.

So those are, you know, two priorities right now. Our brand innovator strategy group group which is providing consulting to over three dozen best-of-breed digital media and technology group companies and to brands i'd like to see where we're investing in the strategy group and uh kind of uh noodling with the idea especially with our new relationship with Shelly Palmer, maybe dabbling in research, right? So there's a lot of directions we can grow and serve the brand marketing community. I love that. Spokes and hubs all over the community, disrupting the marketplace and becoming that innovative leader. I love it. Mark,

thank you so much for hanging out today. Appreciate nothing but the best this weekend. A pleasure. Welcome to Founders Story, the podcast where trailblazing entrepreneurs share their extraordinary journeys. Uncover the passion, grit, and vision that drive the world of business and innovation.