Marketing Happy Hour - The Playbook for Modern Brand Partnerships (and Cultural Relevance) | Mike Tresvant of Complex

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

What does it take to build a brand that doesn’t just cover culture—but defines it? In this episode, we sit down with Mike Tresvant, EVP of Brand Partnerships at Complex, to unpack how the iconic media brand continues to thrive in a shifting digital landscape. From ComplexCon’s 300+ brand activations to the company’s resurgence post-acquisition, Mike shares how a challenger mindset, authentic storytelling, and cultural fluency keep Complex ahead of the curve. We talk about what brands get wrong when trying to tap into culture, the new skills every marketer needs in the next five years, and why “selling relevance” is the real metric of success in today’s attention economy.Key Takeaways:// Culture > Content: The future of marketing lies in creating cultural moments, not just media impressions.// The Challenger Mindset: Complex succeeds by thinking like an underdog—staying agile, experimental, and deeply connected to youth culture.// Earning Relevance: Brands can’t buy their way into culture—they have to show up authentically and add value.// ComplexCon’s Blueprint: Over 300 brand partnerships prove that when commerce, content, and culture intersect, real engagement follows.// Skills for the Future: Marketers who blend cultural intelligence with business acumen will lead the next wave of brand partnerships.// The Power of Community: Success comes from listening to your audience and co-creating experiences that reflect their world.Connect with Mike: LinkedIn____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠ (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9238088/)Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (https://view.flodesk.com/pages/63e9635c8e06d4dae9493eab)⁠⁠⁠

what worked five years ago just fundamentally will not work because when someone's 15 or 10 by the time they get 20 their interests have changed and so media landscape and the media needs to be a representation of that welcome to marketing happy hour a weekly podcast helping marketing professionals build better strategies and hit career goals i'm cassie consultant and your host through these unfiltered combos with your peers grab your favorite drink and get ready for practical insights to support your journey in marketing. Mike, we're so stoked to have you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. Thank you for having me. I appreciate their time. Yes, of course. Allie's joining me, which Allie is in the brand partnership world. I know she's excited about this conversation. I've dabbled in brand partnerships. And it's actually something we haven't talked a ton about on the show, which I'm very excited

to hear your just perspective and experience. Mike on this topic. But before we dive into brand partnerships and all things complex as well, please tell us what has been in your glass lately. Lately, let's see. So I mean, again, it depends on the time of day for what's in my glass. Usually in the during the week, it's in the morning I try to do two things. First, I try to drink water within like the first hour. I know that's pretty boring. I read that. I like to drink some water at least like an eight ounce or 12 ounce glass of water before. And then from there, I usually drink green juice and then coffee. So I'm like super hydrated by the time I get to work through drinking. So it's like a regimen

of water, green juice, which is in my glass, but it's empty now. And then coffee. I am sort of a basic coffee drinker, but I love intelligentsia because it's so high. They just get it right. It takes a little bit longer, but they get it right every time. So I love them. Yes. Yeah. We always have three beverages on our desks as well. Yeah, you've got to have one of everything. Yeah. Literally, I'm like, I'm like double right now. So, no, I was just, I was going to send them. Yes, at least two at all times. We got to have like a caffeine and a non-water and then the water. Yep, yep. So we totally get it. After seven, I'm sort of the same guy. I have like a water and then yeah. It depends on tequila or champagne. It's been my latest things, which I don't know.

I love that. It's weird to be a guy with champagne in the club sometimes, but I'm a guy with champagne in the lounge and out, so that's the thing. I love it. Both of us, Cassie and I are based in Florida, so we're constantly hydrating. Yeah, yeah. It feels right, especially when it's summer, especially in my times in Miami. I always do dinner or drink champagne.

It just keeps the night easier and maybe a little tequila to round it out at the night. Yes. I love it. Amazing. Well, Mike, tell us, you know. I would love to know your journey, just to kick this conversation off. Tell us about early on. Like, how did your early experiences shape your approach to marketing and brand partnerships today?

How, what has that experience been like and kind of how are you approaching everything in your current work? Well, early career or life? Like, I think that sets a sort of a loaded question. I think, you know, I was born and raised in L.A. and then had always sort of had aspirations to be a music executive, right? So it was like in that era, you know, it was like the 80s and 90s, I was really, really immersed in, like, magazine culture and wanted to, by the time I was in high school, I was sure said that I either wanted to be a music exec, and then also

become a journalist to write and publish my own magazine, which was, you know, funny now because like magazines are sort of a thing of the past in a lot of regards. So that was sort of my initiation of Spark really was led by culture, right? So I was interested in that. And then through college, I was a mass comm major, mass communications major at Clark Atlanta University. And in that, I started to orient around things that I found were interesting, right? So I had an internship at a radio station, and then I started an internship at a magazine. And then sort of my junior year in college, I was lucky or blessed enough to have an internship at LaFace Records,

which then at the time was, you know, the house of TLC, Outcast, Tony Braxton, Pink, all of usher, all of these really, really, really sizable artists, right? So it was like, oh, I got immersed in that culture, and which is like a dream job for me. And then that sparked and opened up my world of media planning. would plan all the media for all of the artists then it was the same titles rolling stones fader you know like all of these sort of music magazines but i was placing them on a monthly basis for ads and then like never realized it was a job right until i got into like the letter part of my college matriculation and then it was like oh this is media planning which opened up this idea of like oh i can go work in an agency planning and working with these respective uh media properties which

At that point, then, I opened up a much broader perspective and had, went to agency life. I left the music industry because I then realized that after doing it for two and a half years, I was not interested working there. I was proudly offered a job as one of my, you know, college proud moments. It was like, oh, I got offered a job with a record label, which was so hard to do then because we literally got $40 a month, like it was insane for working pretty hard. But it taught me a lot, and it opened my sort of aperture to all. aspects of the business not just the creative I worked under an amazing creative

director and some great of some of the better marketing minds I've seen to date at LaFace and then from that was able to sort of take that inside and passion of culture and bring it into an agency which then I started working at a number of branded agencies both on the multicultural side and the general market side and then I did that for 10 years and ascended pretty high in the in the agency side of the world and then then one day my now president calls me to say you should really think about coming to work on the brand partnership side at complex and I was like I don't think that's for me and did it little did

I know that this was sort of a job that was built specifically for me like being someone who's so immersed in all parts of the culture and then also being media savvy and understanding how like the planning and development side went and then having a brand like complex who really represents culture and especially then I was like immersed in the culture from an age perspective that this was a sort of a dream job and I've been here pretty much ever since so it's been it's been a it was a it was a great rise and something that this job embodies a lot of the things I learned early in my career meaning that you know hey how to create artists and then bringing them to brand partisan and having it show up

and understanding how that side of the business works and then understanding how media works and then having a job that sort of incorporates all those things has been sort of a blessing in a lot of ways it's so nice and it's such a nice of thinking about just traditional relationship management and then what tactically brand partnerships look like and how you roll those out and having those industry relationships and being at the forefront of culture, all of that is such a nice way to describe brand partnerships. Thank you for sharing your journey with us. And I don't want to go any further without not mentioning Complexcon, which your team just wrapped in Vegas with over 300 brand partnerships.

Please tell us more about that. I would love to hear how it went and any learnings you had from that. Yeah, so ComplexCon has been our centerpiece now for going. I think this was our ninth year. Next year will be our 10th year. So super exciting. I think this is our second year. I should say, I don't think I know that this is our second year in Las Vegas.

And I think the Las Vegas, you know, year two still has some new energy in it, right? I think the things I've learned to, there's a few things we learned at ComplexCon in Vegas is that there's a generational shift. from when we started to where we are now, that's an important note. And I think the brands trying to understand how to sort of orient around the Gen Z has helped them under Complexcon gives them a real litmus test in person

of what people and how people, and these young people especially are moving, right? I think the brand's execution have become sort of a linchpin within ComplexCon, not just because they bring things that are interesting to the fact. client to the consumer base, but it also breathes, like, these are relationships they're building. And I think that's what the brands are truly understanding. It's like, oh, these are where the

emotional moments happen, especially for a generation or more digital than any other generation prior. And so, like, having that physical touch and experiences has, that's not just a commerce based transaction, but more of a relationship built thing really has become why it makes sense. So whether it was Chase who actually had a speakeasy built into their execution behind the Carson, Daniel Arsham's store, where they can go and actually have Nobu, like a sit-down experience with it. It was very cool executions, or whether it was Jordan who passed out, you know, the Jordan 11th in a really sort of whimsical, sort of stunty way that sort of stopped the Complex Con activation on its feet. So like both ends of the spectrum where you have someone who does something quiet and sort of pointed and then someone who does something sort of really disruptive, both are positive ways to have a relationship grow with a consumer that has now sort of forming their relationship with all of these brands, you know, on their own. Like ComplexCon is a, and our brand in general are really for people who are sort of deciding their sort of brand partnership relationships from here on, whether it's a state farm or whomever. It's like they all come in understanding like, okay, these are the people who understand and speak my language and represent and respect my, my dollar.

And I think ComplexCon and our brand partners who are on the floor understand the value in that. And, you know, a lot of them are returning from year over year. And, you know, they have found to be very successful because it's very rare that you can get young people. They don't socialize the same way in a live action perspective, right? And I mean that in a very positive way, like I'm not trying to be the old man that's, you know, know, these young kids, they don't know what they're doing, but like the young kids are very pointed and respectful of their own time, and they only want to do things that they feel are positive and are sort of feeling to whatever moment they are going through. And I think

we are proud to have Complex B sort of a manifestation of a lot of those things that they hold close. Yeah, I think it's a vehicle for consumer trust, right? I think that's what I'm hearing from you is there's this kind of trust that's been built with the partners that are at Complex con and then also how they're showing up and speaking the same language. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's been the complex, as I said, it's been, like I say this often, it's like, we are like, I think three generations in serving youth culture. So there's also some of that.

Like we have always been renaissance about like staying true to our audience. And we don't necessarily lose a lot of our audience because people, especially with the sneaker and music part of our business, that's something that, you know, men at all ages sort of have an appreciation for at this point. But it's also important that the younger generation feel like this isn't someone who's just going to capitalize on them from a branding perspective. We talk to their language from the inside out and understand that trust has been earned, whether you see it our on-air talent versus our really just the sort of the things that we oriented around. But our POV content really is a representation of the audience that we serve.

And I think that has been our sort of secret sauce for now 20 plus years. Yeah, that's incredible. Congratulations on the success. Yes, yes, huge. I'm going to pivot the conversation a little bit, more on the media planning side. So the media landscape is difficult right now. Complex is really continuing to lead the way and carve out a specific path while a lot of these legacy brands are struggling. I'm really curious from your vantage point. What's driving the success with Complex right now? Our success has always been. I've been in Complex early on. I think I was like salesperson number five or six. I've been here for a while. I think that our successes come through, you know, I won't list them all, but I think the top of them has always been our ability to pivot, right? If you're going to call yourself a youth culture-based title property, you have to be understanding that what worked five years ago is just fundamentally will not work because

when someone's 15 or 10, by the time they get 20, they're, they're interesting. have changed and so media landscape and the media needs to be a representation of that. I think credit due to our leadership C-suite over the years have always been the ability to pivot everything from the magazine to the MCN that we had to what is now ComplexCon and family style. I think the ability to understand that people have a convergence in them and complex always understanding and being open to what that might look like from our property, right? So there's that portion of it. I think a large percentage of it is like understanding the audience, right?

So understanding that, like what I was saying about the youth culture, like youth culture is something that most brands they latch on to an audience and they don't let it go. And so as people don't have, you know, they're really desperate for free time. And so they're always going to move on, right? Like if you have kids and a house and all these other stuff that doesn't allow you to sit down and sort of like dive deep into music. and it's all these other things, right? And so, like, you always have to remain true to the youth and where they are and how they converge. And I think that changes, and I think it's harder for people to change.

I think it's necessarily the brand. I think I always think consumers would be okay with brands changing. I think it's the staffing that oftentimes will take people where they all from a personal perspective. I think we've always had, and, you know, our founder who really, Mark ECHO, who has always been, as I see it, sort of, a cultural, astute in a way that is very, very rare to see, and I think that his ability to enforce and always impose that we become intellectual curious, right? Intellectual and

curious, I think that is something that allows us to always be thoughtful about, like, hey, let's not look at ourselves in this aspect. I don't need to understand the way they dress. I don't need to understand. I need to understand how that represents the audience that we're serving and I think that continues to bring and then that as a result creates innovation and I think that allows for brands to understand there's some magic here that we that they have that's a gravity or a light that continues to bring the audience back to us generation after generation and it's it's sort of thought as like okay we can come to complex for a specific thing and that it's not just something that you can get with

scale it's not something that you can get with doing any collaboration it's the collaboration that we bring to the table, both from a media perspective or merchandise perspective or activation perspective that really allows that magic to happen is because it's built from the inside out. Yeah. I'm really curious too with that, Mike. You know, especially in marketing, I think there's a sense of overwhelm sometimes of trends are changing, consumer behavior is changing. There's all these different elements that we have to consider. How are you as a team kind of staying on top of these trends but also not letting it overwhelm you in a way you know how often are you assessing these things and kind of taking into consideration in order to be nimble as a brand and to

constantly be evolving i'm just curious what you kind of say to that piece yeah it's it's not easy you know i think you really do have to discern between what is trendy and what's actual consumer habits right it's like we can't be all things to all people i think we we understand and the cultural shift of sneakers and why it's happening, right? And I think that's an important discernment between, oh, this is a new trend versus this is the way sneaker culture has evolved, right? And I think that is always one way to go. I think the other part of it, if you can blow that out a little widen that scope, it sort of applies to all of things. It's like how consumers change is more so what we always look at and understand that.

I think from a brand partnership's perspective, what we really are really are just understanding the business issue. right like if clients are suffering from one thing or another within their marketing strategy it really is come about the creative execution and the creative execution is always about around the audience this sounds like a broken record in a lot of regard but I think understanding and always utilizing and standing on intellectual curiosity to help drive what we are looking to do understanding like we take our editorial insights that from a proprietary standpoint and sort of comb that and then we put that on the shelf and then look at sort of like hey this are the problems that they're having with their brand do they need oftentimes they don't have a scale or a reach problem right so like coming from brands coming from us like a good partnership with google or chime or chase or any of these brands they have the awareness what they want and the ride they're coming to us is the resonance and the connection from an emotional perspective again going back to creating a habit or a brand affinity with our our consumers so like most of our time is spent around the creative execution that really is hitting on the voice and like that doesn't is not it doesn't come very easy often but what it does take understanding is like there are often other platforms who are spray and complex as most of our clients will tell us and tell you is like we spend a lot of thoughtful time coming on with our ideas and I think that is the truth

and point of difference maker for us is that we aren't necessarily a rinse and repeat brand we are very much a build brand net which is, can be taxing on a team, but I can be honest, but it does pay out in sort of client satisfaction and ideation. And the fact that we are, given that innovation, I think, it allows, I think one of the things we won't talk about was like that challengers sort of opportunities. And I think, like, complex has always been sort of like, sort of a scrappy entrepreneurial set business. And so that allows for clients to feel trusted, as you said, Ali, like coming to us and say, like, hey, you know, we trust you guys to be innovative and to be, sort of breakthrough and disruptive without, you know, costing us or badging us in the wrong way. And I think it's accepted because that's sort of the corporate culture internally and externally

and the voice we have within the space. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, great pivot. If you don't mind, like, share a little bit more about what that means to you as a brand. And then how does that mindset look internally and how does that reflect out to those partnerships and brands that you're collaborating with? A Challenger brand would I, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Like I think it's something that, you know, we have the benefit of being disruptive.

It's the reason people show up at our sort of proverbial doorsteps is that, you know, it's like, hey, we're given the license to be scrappy, independent thought, like out of the box. And I think that's great if you look at some of the greater brands sort of like wars. If you think of like Coke and Pepsi, Coke has a, Coke has the, the challenge, I think Pepsi sees themselves as a challenger brand in that regard. And so like that sometimes allows for more creativity. And I think that is where Complex has always, man, that's really where we have found our residents, is that we see ourselves as a challenger brand. And comparatively to some of the bigger sort of things that we mentioned about some of the historic publishing giants is that we have always looked at our sales. as building around things, and that has forced us to come up with creative executions that are very disruptive or come from a challenging place, right?

So we are going to find talent of people who are on the precipice, right? Because not only is it our lifeblood from an editorial perspective to know that, but then from a brand partnership perspective, we'll bring in people who, you know, will include in talent as execution, and then later that year they're on the billboard charts for number one or they become a household name over seven or eight months right and so like those are the things that allows from a challenger brand because like they're expecting something new and innovative but they they're not as comfortable with often but it pays off in in the KPI's on the other side and I think when clients take that us arm in arm or hand in hand and walk down that path

it's it's interesting and I think from that we have become sort of our slice of pie has become what we call the agency services through a publisher model, right, where we look at, we do everything from soup to nuts. Often, when clients just don't show up and say, hey, here's a pre-roll or even, hey, we want to create a custom video. But our services go a lot deeper than that. Our services go into talent strategy organization, often for clients. Like sometimes we'll come up with talent strategies that fit within our scope of the business and outside of what they're going to technically use us for media. They do that for just general creative approach.

It's their RFPs and like who and how they should approach the market for the upcoming year. And some of those things are really leaning on our insights and our sort of capabilities internally, both on the editorial side as well as the brand partnership side and the e-commerce side. But we bring all that together and then you'll have a series and suite of. of assets that include tele procurement, PR, content development. Sometimes often we will create content that lives on our platform.

It's clearly that's a branded content, but oftentimes Sue will create content that is white-labeled and distributed through other platforms that aren't not even in our ecosystem. And I think that is sort of the benefits of a challenger brand. It's like, hey, let's come, when people come up to you, say, like, hey, I want you to do, some really out-of-the-box thinking that's really going to change the perception of who our brands are. My CMO has come to me and said we've been doing the same sort of thing over and over again, but you guys have brought in not only people that I've never heard of, but you put it in a different light that's a part of our voice that we didn't know we had. And then

on the other side of it, we'll see the results that show consumers have to gravitate towards it well. It's great to be in a position where brands do show up in that way, right? And that's sort of great for us. It's always worked. We, you know, we're a big advertorial company back in the day, and then we have become now this strategic partnership where we're creating things, both in merch and in experiences that you may or may not know that we're involved in. And that's been super sort of a sort of a feather in our hat over the last two years since we've reacquired the business. Yeah. And that's kind of part of that evolvement, right, that we already talked about of just this constant evolution of still being the

legacy brand that people know and love, but how are you continuing to provide the best service and partnership possible to brands and to show up as a great connection piece there? So I love that. Yeah. So Mike, tell us to, just talking about like tapping into culture, right? This is another big topic in marketing is how can we do it effectively in a way that connects to our own audience, but also connects to the values of our brand and who we are and how we should be showing up. I think one thing that we as marketers run into sometimes is trying to tap into a piece of culture and there is that disconnect and it doesn't quite make sense. So I'm just curious from your viewpoint in this work in culture and being so ingrained in it. What do you feel some brands do get wrong when trying to tap into culture and what are some ways maybe that we can remedy our approach in that way?

I think, you know, to be honest, that we can speak frankly amongst friends here. I think that is the problem usually doesn't. come from the idea. It comes from the execution. And I think what that really means, right, is that oftentimes brands have the heart for an idea or submercing themselves in culture. And then they want to turn it into a POS. So, you know, like, hey, I want to do a creative thing. I want to come into sneaker culture. I want to come into music or I want to come into a collab. and then they want to also serve the master of a lower funnel. And I think you can never turn, you know, a carrot into an apple

after you've already planned it for an apple. And I think a lot of brands will try to turn the creative execution at the last minute into something different than its intention. Even we can come up with a great DR or lower funnel sort of activation if that was the intent from the onset. But it's different when you come in and say the byproduct is already finished. now we want to turn it into something different. I think from that comes a lot of, from the lack of trust, often in the lack of control.

I think often brands are not very clear in their own voice. And when they're not very clear on their own voice and their distinction, they get very distracted by everyone in their own organization. And then anything external becomes like, I don't know what I'm doing. And so they sort of get lost in sort of like a whirlwind of like, I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I know what I know and these are the things that matter which is always going to be you know transacting with the consumer which is always not always the thing that people come to us for like there's the halo and the awareness building that we we do very well but we can do

transaction stuff excellently if it's the onset I think it's the the understanding who they are anytime a client shows up to us with a clear distinction of who they are with their voice to find is that or learn to trust right it's like let's sit down and organize trust of where you sit in those things, or they get into the one and done so that they can go show their CMO with like, hey, I've done this thing, it's been really, I've done the thing, I've done my collaboration, I've done the fun thing, cool thing, and then they want to walk away from the partnership and then usually have to find their way back because like you're walking away, not from us, you're walking away from an audience, right? That is very specific. And so like

that is like where I think some of the, you know, every, every company deals with their own sort of level of hurdles and sort of obstacles internally but I think to dedicate dedication and trust are probably the biggest thing that clients sort of run into and then understanding also how to shepherd innovation internally when they say that they'll you know they'll send you a brief and all things say innovation and all things say youth and then the byproduct is like well we don't see our original target in this and you're like well that was that was never our intent right like I thought we were walking through hand in hand on something that was going to serve an audience to help you grow your business and I think sometimes in the you know in the

bureaucracy of internal politics it turns into something so that's always something that we have always tried to better our client services with is like trying to be a consultative to them in maneuvering the internal politics writing white papers for them understanding deep diving into whatever culture or tenant that may feel like a subculture to them but is really above the rim for a lot and trying to understand, you know, that that's not for them to understand it. We are a brand who are 100%. I always say to my sales team, like, we are representation of millions of young people. Like, that's how you have to look at yourself first,

and you have to represent them when you get into these organizations because then they'll understand the gravity of what we do and how we move and say, like, hey, you may think this is a very, like, subculture thing, but for millions of people, this is okay. like you aren't necessarily the target and all those things. So like, be open to understanding that maybe this is sort of a new path that could result in what we're looking for from a KPI respect. Absolutely. And that's such a value proposition for complex is almost acting as an extension of the brand's team, right, in being able to share those insights with them,

including white papers, one pages, whatever that looks like. That is such a value ad from being on the brand side, just speaking from experience. it's huge we have done what I like to call the immersion day we have done the the editor roundtables I think all those things have been really helpful where we bring you know bringing in editors from all aspects that we represent have them speak about it we do like CMOs we sit downs where we come in and or even take immersion days where we go out to the to the market and show them absolutely a day in the life of a complex person and so like those things I think sort of really start to dissolve the walls that people see us as.

It's like, we're not here just making this stuff up. It's really how people orient and where they eat is a reflection also of how and how they hang out, right? In the bars and all of them, like, oh, all these people are really wearing the same sort of silhouette and style. Like, yes. Like, yes, even at the restaurant. Yes.

Even how they, you know, down to their banking. Like, all of them are tapping a specific thing. And like all of these things ladder back to your brand. And so you just have to understand it a little bit more. So that's been our sort of as a challenger brand. That has always been our number one thing. Not one of our things in our arsenal is to come sort of have a front conversation and opening up all of our resources that sell beyond our sales team has been something

that has helped brands sort of understand how they fit within our space. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would say for those working in partnerships or sales, like myself what skills do you think are most critical for them to develop in the next three to five years knowing the landscape I think more than anything you have to have had you have to be intellectually curious obviously because I've said that but I think also this job to do well is this sort of a sociologist in a lot

of ways right you have to be aware of how things are moving in the world and on a much broader scope and then the varying interests like if you're not to work at complex specifically, right? Like, if you're not interested in pop culture and how it moves, and I mean popular culture in the sense of what it really means, of, you know, why sneaker culture changes, like, why currently the Y2K sort of dress is the way it is in their own iteration of it. The trends are usually rooted in something, right? And if you don't have an intellectual curiosity as to why, you're really going to date yourself because now you're just confusing yourself with, like, being interested in things, but really it's probably from the inside out.

You always continue to be intellectually curious about why people are moving, then you have a better understanding of the brand you represent. So, you know, if I was to work at people in Español, I would immerse myself in that world to have an understanding of how the cultural things are moving and everything I eat and do and like really sort of absorb should be a part of that. I think people get away from that. I think also in brand partnerships, the art of networking is sort of changing into something that I don't know necessarily I would. think it's the best way to go. I think people need to understand that the peer-to-peer and peer down is also a way to network and it's a more powerful tool than most people understand. I think people always want to network up, but I think people should also think to network all across the board. And I think to be effective in brand partnerships, you do, you start with understanding

business first because we are businessmen first, right, because of the orientation and who we face on a daily basis. That comes without saying, I think then the next thing to make the point of difference is to understand the audience you represent on a sociological level and understanding like why they move, even if it's just from observation and immersing yourself in uncomfortable places to understand like, oh, they do this, not that, right? And I think that really will inform, help you inform and speak intelligently when you get into the room because people, these brands are looking for you to have that sort of insight, right? And I think those two things are powerful. And then last thing I think it was like using the data and the tools to be beneficial

to be sharper and smarter and like sort of being prepared. I think those are the things that I think in the next three to five years with the weight of like how much information is coming into the brands. I think to really separate yourselves is to understand it from the from a really intimate level versus just saying I've read some place that this is how they want. For sure. And one thing I will say too is is a lot of people we hear from don't have very robust data. systems or data insights, business analytics teams in-house. And so I do think a lot of what you said is kind of internally driven. There are a lot of things that you can do as an employee and then just also as a consumer of culture in general to do that research on your own. And so encouraging

folks to do that as a kind of a separate piece. 100% like you don't need to go to Google and tell them about research. They have it. You know, Coke or Pepsi because they have research. They have research. It's probably going to trump your organizations but what they what they're looking for to you is like the insights that your brand and so you have to come to them with that sort of insight and you can't you can't fake that you can't version of of why people are wearing a specific silhouette a running shoe has become the new thing and when it did it become a new thing and then why baggy pants are like all of these things you have to understand and if you don't go to a complex con to see that firsthand you will be five

years laid into it, right? And then you're fooling yourself to say that you, I would be fooling myself to say, like, oh, but I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, sort of orient around things that my, the audience I represent sort of go through. And I spend an exorbitant amount of TikTok, time on TikTok and time on, and I'm like, I don't, what am I doing here? But, like, I think it really does pretty off in conversations when, like, when someone asked them, I'm like, oh, this person is trending on TikTok. Oh, you haven't heard the story about the, It is because of like I continue to stay abreast on things. And I think that, you know, that's just my intellectual curiosity of like, oh, what's going on?

Where did this come from? Why are we doing that? And like, and then it helps me understand to solve for clients' brand issues. Yeah. We did a recording yesterday and we were talking about that very thing is just being a consumer first. And not only in your day-to-day work, but like are you actually following these people that you would communicate to as a brand? and are you consuming this type of content that you would create? And I think that's so important,

especially as leaders out there hiring team members, you know, is someone genuinely passionate about the space that you're hiring them for? And I think that helps you show up as a professional, just kind of with that intellectual curiosity. So. Especially in a creative field that we are in, right? Like marketing is often, you know, it's business,

but it's business in science, I mean, creativity in science. and so like the creative creativity needs to be like if you want to if you want to say hey we should shoot a west anderson type of like you need to know what that is yeah some sort of IQ on what yeah the sort of the broader scope of what art looks like from from a from a marketing perspective and it shows up and everything from museums to to architecture to all these things and they really do come full throttle in things in complex count like if you look at daniel arsham structure like you're also going to take a tour in Chicago or all these other places that have beautiful architecture and it really help understand how all of these things come together. And I do try to, I used to do a lot better job

of like getting my team out. We used to do like cultural immersions with our team to get them out and like these beautiful trips. So we're going to try to get back to that now that the business is we've gotten the first couple of years under our belt as a new company. But I think those things that really make the difference maker of having a brand partnerships person being well versed in and what they want to do yeah oh couldn't agree more such a great reminder for us um i'm curious to kind of like piggybacking off of that question as we close out here what excites you most about the years ahead for complex and just youth culture you know where do you see uh that space headed and and what excites you about it to be honest is that it's going to be the the thing

that most excites me is the challenge ahead i think if i'm honest i think like the the people are unknown what's AI mean I think we all don't know I think I'll you know we all pretend to know exactly what it means I think I'm excited to see what it where it sort of nets out and what that next iteration of what complex will respond to or will be part of what the new evolution will be in that regard I think I'm excited about that like the challenge ahead but I'm also excited about what how the culture ships I think right now we see that the younger generation that we serve really is excited to

do things that are timed in like food festivals complex con like these are things that they're like oh I can hang out with my friends at these things pop-ups at our complex LA and New York stores I think I would love to see how we continue to pop up around other things I would love to see how we bring convergence culture in other spaces like sneaker outside of complex con right or or streetwear or thrifting or what I call like the thrifting era I think that's really big sort of evolving now. It used to be sort of isolated to women, but I think now more so ever than men are really into thrifting. And so like I'm excited to see some of the new

tenants that we are oriented around. I think some of them we are cooking up and hedging our bets on. So I'm excited about that. I'm really excited to see what the younger generation will do in terms of social media. They are way more conscious about who they are and their brands and so they're going to be very specific. And so I do a imagine that it's going to be more nuanced and a lot more micro as we see it now. So it's going to challenge us as media execs to figure out a ways to talk to them or be a part of their conversations without being intrusive and big and overpowering. So I think those are the things that excite me because that sort of, well, my head is that

will challenge us as a brand like complex to figure out how to be a part of that conversation without being too intrusive and being additive. I think that's sort of the more thing. Yeah, those are the things that I'm mostly excited about. It's going to be a tough role, but it always is, and I think that's what we're in business to do. Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. You know, in marketing, you have to kind of be up for a challenge.

You know, things are always evolving and growing, and you have to be adaptable and be willing to be nimble there. So we're definitely excited to see what you all continue to develop and what direction you continue to go in and how you evolve. So we'll be staying tuned to that. But speaking of that, would love to know where we can best stay in touch with all things complex as well as you personally, Mike. Where are you on LinkedIn or tell us all the channels? Complex, obviously, complex handle is on Instagram, TikTok.

My handle is Tresman at Instagram. So it's T-R-E-A-N-T. I don't post a lot, but I am on their LinkedIn. I think it's just my name, Mike Trismat. I'm on LinkedIn quite often. But those are my two main channels. So yeah. Amazing. Well, we'll have all of the links below. So please go follow complex, follow Mike. Mike, thank you so much for being here today. This was an amazing conversation. We'll have to

have you back down the road and just check in with where you're at, where culture is out, and how you guys have continued to grow and develop. So thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at marketing happyh-hr.com. Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.