Mastering Media Strategy with Steve Caplan

Welcome to On Production brought to you by Wrapbook today. I'm delighted to have Steve Caplan with me. Steve is a luminary in strategic communications and marketing and the founder of Message. With a career spanning roles such as Senior Advisor at the United Nations Climate Change Conference and executive vice president at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers. Steve has been a pivotal figure in addressing complex policy issues through innovative communication strategies. Today, he's with me to share his insights on leveraging media for social change and his journey through the dynamic landscape of strategic communication. Steve, thanks for joining me on On Production.

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0:56  

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

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0:58  

So first off, share with me what inspired you to found Message. and how your background in Political Science and Government really influenced your approach to strategic communication and policy strategy?

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1:09  

Yeah, thanks for that. You know, I've had a really interesting career and I appreciate some of the items you ticked off there. And I've really spent the entirety of my career, especially my early career sort of straddling the two worlds of entertainment, and politics. And I began my career. I'm from LA born and raised in Los Angeles, I grew up at a time in Los Angeles, where all my neighbors were in and of the production industry. The guy across the street showed up on chips as a cast member. All my friends down the street had great skateboard ramps, because their dads worked on set. It goes on and on. Even my father, Gary Caplan was sort of an innovator in the licensing and entertainment licensing world. So I grew up in and around production. So I want to tell you first before we talk about message and strategic communications, how important production is to me, in the industry, it's something that I love and care very much about and spent a good amount of time working in production as well. So I came from the world of sort of Los Angeles, just over in the valley. And my real passion as a young person. And then through my early career was working in politics. I went out to Iowa when I was 21 years old, to 24 units and 10 weeks to go work on the Iowa caucus. I got a job offer to go out to Iowa and work on a campaign in the presidential campaign for a candidate who didn't last but is in the White House now. And my folks said, No, you can't do your you haven't graduated, you can't go to Iowa and I said well I'm going is that we better graduate first. So I took 24 units in 10 weeks, which was a lot for anyone who knows I was at a UC system. So you know, my interest has always been politics, and also entertainment and storytelling. So all those things have driven me in my career. And through a number of really, you know, unbelievable opportunities. And including my time at the AICP where I spent, I think, six, seven years maybe longer helping to build the industry, I was able to learn and see a lot about creativity, about the power of a message about how important it is to deliver that message creatively. And also during my time at GMMB, where I was a partner at an agency based out of DC and I was a partner at GMMB and was fortunate enough to be kind of ringside for the Obama for America presidential campaign in 2008. I think I was able to see over the years how important the combination of a really powerful message and delivering that message well through communications through creativity is a path to success professionally, and in business. And that was where the idea of Message. came. And so I launched Message. in 2011 have taken on a whole number of great clients, including Comcast, NBC Universal on with whom I've worked for many years, Sutter Health as a client, I worked with a lot of folks and big, big and small, and was able to bring a lot of creative partners to bear on the work that we did not just from a PR and messaging standpoint, but creatively picked up a couple of awards, including the Ad Age, modern healthcare campaign of the year and some other stuff. So it's been a journey, but at the foundation of my entire professional experience, I think has been the importance of the power of a message. And when I picked the name there it was, if you don't mind, I'm gonna give you a story real quick about my name. The brand is okay. Yeah, it's wonderful. So I started Message. I have this notion of building a brand around the power of that term for Strategic Communications, talk more about that. And I went and I did a search, I forget what they call it. We searched on the state's database, and I saw that the name Message. was taken. My dream is over. I'm going to have to call it message-ish or message like, and I look at the name on message And it said Michael Romersa. Now Michael Romersa may predate you and your time in the industry or, but Michael is a member of my board at the AICP. Michael Romersa had Bedford Falls, a production company. It was a great and is I suspect still continues in the business. And I said, Wow,I'm going to call Michael Romersa. And sure enough, I call their company. And Nancy Novick men was the CFO at the time. And Nancy said, Well, yeah, that's a company we set up for a director if you want it, it's

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5:33  

yours. Wow,

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5:35  

what does that tell you?

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5:36  

What a small world isn't it interesting in a career, these moments just kind of appear that almost make it seem as if it was already written down in stone? You know, it

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5:44  

definitely was a surprise. And one of those wonderful experiences where you're like, oh, man, I had this great idea. And it was taken and you never know where it takes you. So I encourage people as they're navigating new turfs new times to keep an open mind. But that was sort of a fun little story, which I'm not sure I've ever shared, because it really wasn't relevant in many instances, other than our conversation, looking about our commercial production, friends, it's

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6:08  

so funny. You know, Steve, I actually want to go back to something you were touching on related to kind of your, your broader experience in your career, you've worked in a lot of different industries, both public and private. I'm curious, based off of your experience, what are some key principles that you believe are crucial for effective advocacy today, whether in the public space or in the private markets, first

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6:31  

and foremost, I teach as well at USC. And that's something you know that I started in 2019, I teach Introduction to advertising, social media marketing, I'm teaching a course in political advertising this year. And teaching is really been one of the most incredible professional opportunities in my life. I teach at the Annenberg School at USC and love doing it. And it gives me a chance to think about like, what shapes effective communication, and at the end of the day, and we can talk about advocacy as a tactic, right, advocacy can be a way of getting a message out. But my point of view is that strategy is what matters most strategy is what should drive everything. And I think that too often, companies and advocates start with a goal and objective and don't really spend a lot of time thinking about that strategically. Alright, we're gonna pass a bill, we're gonna get x done, well, what's the strategy to get there? And why is that our goal? So I really believe that, regardless of the tactic, you have to have a strategy first. In fact, I'm working on a book called strategy first. So I encourage you all to we'll talk, hopefully, at the end of the show, we can talk more about that. But the notion is that you have to, to have effective advocacy, you need to develop and determine a strategy. I can talk about one moment and instance, that may be interesting to your viewers. years ago, we had a very small, tiny program at the state of California called Film California First, many commercial producers of the older generation will remember it because it was an opportunity to access some incentives to the commercial industry. And when we thought about that, Bill, that leadership at AICP and all of our board, were like, well, what can we do that's going to get money in our pockets? That was strict like, it isn't just to get an incentive for incentive, because sometimes these credits can, you have to have a taxable income, they're very complicated. But we were able to create a piece of legislation was very inexpensive for the state, that actually put money directly back in the form of cash rebates to producers. And the members loved it. Our strategy was to not roll with the studios who had different objectives and goals, but to create our own sort of little lane. And we, in terms of advocacy, came up with strategies around talking about small business vendors and suppliers and created a sort of message that supported our strategy. So, you know, it's really about determining what your strategy is. And I think right now, many businesses who are challenged by the emergence of AI technology changes budget, they need to start thinking, Okay, what's our strategy here? So I look at everything through a very strategy first prism. And that's what I teach my students and, you know, we can talk about how advocacy works and how it can be done effectively, but it really depends on what you're trying to achieve.

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9:27  

Absolutely. That's really insightful. I think it leads very nicely into what I was hoping to kind of address for our listenership here. Obviously, Wapbooks are all about film craft, project based work. And many of Wrapbook’s customers are some of the greatest film organizations in the world. And they really care about policy and labor and the future of the commercial production industry. And there's no one really better to speak to you about that then Steven. So I'm curious. So I mean, I know that your tenure at AICP has since ended, but you're still very Are you tight and close with this with this industry, but during your tenure as executive vice president of ASP, I'm curious what were some pivotal changes or challenges in the commercial production industry that you helped address, I

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10:12  

came to AICPA, this is going to be my shoulder down memory lane a little bit, and I'll drop some names and mentioned some people just because it's fun. I mean, I came from politics. Hey, I was running political campaigns. In addition to working in Iowa as a political director for a guy named Ed Rendell, I served in his administration, even though I'm from Sherman Oaks, worked in Philadelphia. It was deputy mayor there, and Panther, who was a music video producer, and the wonderful talented producer brought me out to LA. I was in LA, I got recruited for this job. I showed up for a couple of meetings at RSA and over at Radical Media, and Frank Sherman, Frank stifle when I showed up for my interviews, wearing a blue blazer and a khaki pants and a button down shirt. And I think they looked at me like I was from Mars. I didn't know when I show up in their dogs running around.

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It's a very different industry than political advocacy different

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but as I said, I grew up in LA, and I'm familiar with it, but I had no sort of sense of it. But what struck me immediately was just how creative the industry was. This is, frankly, even before, you know, we have to talk in terms of unfortunately, in the last few decades, recession, point moments and major moments of change, things like the recession of 2008. And then, of course, the 911, we've had some real trauma in our industry and in our lives. But when I came to the ICP, and when I came to the commercials industry, it was a really good time, we're not gonna lie creatively, in terms of financially, I think the businesses were doing quite well. And really the biggest difference from the beginning of my tenure to the end, and it happened fast was the emergence of digital media, it changed everything. And the reason that commercials for many years could be as successful as they were in the commercials industry, and as profitable, frankly, was that advertisers had fewer choices to make when it came to producing and buying media, that there

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12:20  

were higher technical, literally technical barriers of entry, the higher

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12:25  

technical barriers of entry. So on the, on the technical side, the ability and the changes on the technology, Kodak was our biggest vendor, you know, think about that right film. And so film was still huge when I started. And I know it sounds like in the stone age's. But it wasn't that long ago. It was not. And we saw the change to digital. So on the technology platform side, there was a massive chain, which probably would know had a lot of cost impacts production and post impacts. But on the distribution side, you started to see where advertisers were like, Okay, we've got a moment with primetime advertising with Mercy TV, and we're going to make an ad for a new brand, we're going to put a lot of money into that ad. And because 15 million people are going to be watching it, we know they're going to be there, to several years later. And in the early 2000s, where those ads were being seen on digital platforms created in different ways finished in different ways in the media buys were different. So I think that the industry had to adapt, and and change. And it has, I think that change came a little bit slowly. But we did some really cool things. I think the question was sort of what did we do to address those? Well, I was very involved with and with Matt Miller and a lot of other great folks at AICP and creating an entity that we call the AICPA Next, which continues, I believe, to sort of be a vital part of the AICP’s work. But the whole objective there was to sort of talk about, well, what are we going to do when all these things change? And that was a lot of the early work we did. And on the labor side, people like Jay Nunez and Matt Miller, were trying to keep an eye on how those changes would affect our labor contracts, which I think was another interesting issue. And I think the unions are still, frankly, struggling with and I hope they get that resolved. That's a whole another issue, which I'm happy to talk about. But we I think that that was probably from a business standpoint, the biggest change in the seven years that I was there was the the movement from, you know, traditional production, using film and all the technologies that existed to where we are, and got to it around the mid to late 2000s. But more importantly, in some ways for the industry, what it meant for the amount of content that needed to be created and how it would get created and how people would get compensated for it.

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14:53  

Right. That's that's the interesting thing about the digital proliferation is that the technical barriers of entrance of actually making technical film that had high craft and high value and was entertaining to watch, it went down. But then also the proliferation of screens and the amount of time that could be spent engaging with media increased exponentially. So you have this totally interesting sort of dynamic. And suddenly that I've observed, see, there's like, these cheaper forms of content work for a little while. And then consumers seem to get bored of it. And they want more film craft more novelty, more like rich film, narrative craft and novelty, as these distribution methods kind of mature out. And so it's been an interesting thing, you know, it used to be and you can still, like, see many millions of hours of screen time going to random YouTube content. But at the at the actual bleeding edge, though, you look at something like Mr. Beast, and he's spending millions of dollars per production, and is the definite winner on that plot. So it is interesting to see how these things are playing out even now, compared to when you were dealing with it as a sort of a an emergent phenomenon, the industry,

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16:11  

we always have a tendency to say, and to think to ourselves, well, the end is near the good times are over. And that was, you know, certainly a fear from some people, not all the people in the commercials industry, that digital technology would change the way the business ran, and the margins would go down a lot of concerns about the business. But in each turn, there were always people in the industry who said, No, this is an opportunity. And there is more content being made. And what people need to see is, you know, content that could cut through that looks good, that's persuasive. And I think the agencies are doing a pretty good job of that. In some cases, in the creators, though the Creator economy is real. And it's changed that dynamic. I would say that, you know, even as we think about AI and AI, I'm spending quite a bit of time talking and writing about that on a on a blog substack, which I encourage all your readers to follow, called Control Alt Persuade. And we can talk more about that a little bit. If you're interested talking about the importance of AI, a lot of the concern right now is about things like deep fakes and, and in the political and public policy world. And even in entertainment. We saw the Scarlett Johansson concern with chat using her voice. And I think producers and vendors need to think about okay, strategically, how are we going to benefit from this? How do we make sure we're not the last man standing or the last group standing or the last people standing? And I think that's where the challenge is going to be. A lot of people will probably think about, well, how can we use these tools to streamline processes, which is a good thing? But I'm not sure that's the question. It's about relevance. How does our business and our industry stay relevant at a time when the filmmaking craft is going to change? And I actually think there's a lot of relevance for producers. They just need to think strategically. I do

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18:01  

think we should dig in on this seat. So at the time of this recording, the AICP just hosted its sort of annual AICP week. And the topic on everyone's minds was generative AI, generative AI generative AI. So as the commercial production landscape evolves, we talked about digital film craft, and its repercussions on the industry that we're still feeling now. Let's extend that past digital cameras, digital workflow software, and expand the scope of the conversation to generative AI and the fact you've been thinking about this, what advice are you giving today's producers to stay relevant and to stay successful given this massive sea change? And I know that people in the industry, our industry in the film business, are quite curious, some are scared, some are excited. But what's fascinating about this moment, is it is applicable to every industry, software development, medicine, law, things that I'm not even thinking about across dinner tables, globally. I think professionals knowledge workers are talking about this and wondering what the ramifications will be. You know, I mean, the

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commercial production industry specifically, I've had some thoughts, formative, I wasn't at MoMA, or I don't know what the gist of whomever was on the panel spoke about and I'm curious, I'd love to see what their thoughts are. You know, it's funny, I think you're right professionals, and all of us are sitting around dinner tables. Considering this, one of the things that drove me to develop a concept called Strategy First, and the book that I'm writing was wasn't even just sort of us, meaning you and me. The producers who are around that table, it's like, I've got two college aged kids who are going out in the workforce, and it was like, wait a minute, so what's their future? How are they going to thrive in this new world? So I think it it absolutely is going to take I mean, there's a lot of approaches to it. There's a government role and responsibility as business people, we need to think about the role we fill. And what it is that we offer a value to our clients and our customers, and then adapt the tools to support that. You know, I mean, it would maybe be bit of more of a back and forth as it relates to the commercial production industry. But if I was sitting over the chair of an executive producer, owners office, I'd be thinking really seriously about the model itself. A model that for years has been driven by and I say this with love, because I was able to work with some of the greatest directors in the world, on projects to create advertising, almost entirely because of my relationship in the commercial production industry. I had Joel Schumacher shoot a meth ad, targeting gay men who were using math when I was at GMMB, I worked with Rich Carter's company to do an ad around health care reform, Gary Rose's company with the Motion Picture Association on piracy, Frank Sherman, many others who were generous with their directors, and that was the talent and the equity. And I understand that equity in five years, or directors going to be the core equity for a production company. Is the role of the director now still that visionary going to be executed through AI? Or are they less relevant, and I say that, again, nobody is higher on my list of people I admire for their creative skill than film directors. And I'm not trying to say they will be irrelevant, but producers produce production companies jobs to execute a production. And I would argue that if I was a producer, I'd be looking to my agency partners and my clients and saying, Look, however you need this done, we'll get it done, because that's what we do we produce. And if it requires understanding of the platforms, the software platforms, we have some of the best technologists who are now going to be on our roster. So I think there's a lot of exploration in that regard. And I'm not suggesting that the director driven model go away, and I'm not even sure it will, I'm sure the DJ would have something to say about that. And I'm not sure how directors are thinking about their futures in an AI world, will they be working behind a different kind of screen, and do they bring their same talents as creators to bear but as a production company model goes, bottom line on up to say, whatever changes come to us, our job is to produce and to execute, by any means necessary. Nobody knows how to do that better than us. And we did it with film, we did it with digital, we'll do it here. And the tools may change, but we're going to deliver you the product you need. But it may also require major changes in the business model with revenue streams markup the way that margins work and budgets and the rest. So that's probably a much longer conversation and one that I'd love to have in a room with some other producers or folks at some time, but that's sort of my answer as it relates to commercial production that you need to roll with those changes. But there may be big business model changes ahead. And whether the industry has the appetite to do that or not, will be quite interesting for me as maybe in an academic sense.

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23:11  

I think what's really interesting about what you're saying, Steve is it is aligned with sort of my own individual forecasting on this, which is there will be business model disruption, but they're in lies tremendous opportunity, some of the conjecture and hypotheses being floated around in the software space related to generative AI is that you may theoretically be able to see $1 billion market cap companies operated by 10 people, and 1000s of people or hundreds of people, because there's this sort of inversion where, you know, there was an old adage that ideas didn't matter execution did, as tooling becomes automated, or as we potentially forge a path to create agents to execute this type of labor. For us. The actual critical linchpin is the ideas value in and of itself. And so maybe the business model is yes, it's commercials, but it's also software and it's also other sort of digital experiences collectively around some visionary directors modality. I mean, I think what's so interesting about film craft, is it is as a as an art form, something that utilizes Sight Sound, props, acting, it's the one art form that sort of utilizes all arts and crafts in one space. Why not actually just extend that metaphor further to now it also encapsulate software now, it actually encapsulates experiences now it encapsulates a full world building experience, maybe both physical and digital, if you have a sort of a super intelligence, enabling you from a tooling perspective, to accomplish whatever your imagination is sort of Coming up with, I think that's like a really extended philosophical bet. I think that there is an alignment with sort of what you're saying in that and how to monetize that, like, is the question. And I think that that will be a relationship between producers and directors, and maybe the titles of what these roles are changed. But building a dream machine has kind of been the goal of producers forever. output of that dream machine changes, given these new tools that we have,

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25:31  

I think you're onto something exactly. Right. I mean, look, it shouldn't matter what the assets are to create, but you should use whatever tools you have to create the best work possible and be masters at those tools, and have the process of delivering for producer. It's like, look, we got this, everyone's scared, and the agencies are scared, and the clients are scared. And the thing that that takes it to the human side of the impacts of this stone, one that that I take is, as you all work in service to the industry and the payroll industry and the numbers of people. I think that one of the hurdles here is I think at some point, we had 260,000 People in Los Angeles County who earned a primary living work in the film industry. And this is going to be you know, when you go from 1000s of people making something to hundreds to 10s of people. This is the big question. This is not a business question that but a human question. And it does get to philosophy. And what about those folks? And what about the gaffer in the grip and the electrician, and I'm deeply concerned about those folks as well. Although I think with retraining and some other tools, hopefully that, you know, can be deployed, those folks will be in will find a path that makes sense. But for the production for the producer, for the owner of a production company, I guess that the question of what value you're adding and how you're adding value and solving problems, probably becomes more important in an AI world. Then the commodity which perhaps drove success, which was probably more around a director or directors real in the director's vision. And again, this is probably controversial to say, and it's we're just riffing, I probably need to turn it around a little bit as a strategic matter and say, Okay, uh, Sam, representing directors, as a consultant, how do I change and adapt their value to be more relevant, but I'm just thinking about it through the lens of a production company. And if I was sitting behind that desk, I'd say, We're in on this, we're ready to go. Whatever problems you need solved, we'll solve them. And it could be through a technology partner, it could be through a some folks up in Silicon Valley, or overseas, or it could be through our director who has the skills, but I think there's an opportunity here, it's just gonna take, it's gonna be a big change in people's mindsets. A big

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change. Totally. I mean, it's, you're seeing some instances of this. So Mark Romanek, because now it's Superprime. And I believe he's playing with like, Sora, other generative AI tools. I mean, it will be interesting. And I do think there will be change. However, I think this idea of visionary creative novel thinking can be unleashed in a new powerful way, which is exciting, even though it will be disruptive, or there's no doubt

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it will be. And I think the question, you know, who grabs those tools and who uses them. And if I was to save for my kids, as I spent some time working in the AI space, and and more from the generative side with simple things, support for curricula I bill and the academic world business plan support other sorts of projects I take, it's mind blowing, how is a partner, it can support high level thinking, but it's only as good as the inputs it gets creatively or strategically. And I think that's sort of the big myth. And that's where maybe a mark Romana can ask a question of the technology that creates visual platform, not Wally? Will there's Sora, or Yeah, you know, the props and the cues and how you construct that is a creative process, I presume. And I love to sit in the room with someone as talented as marker mannequin and say, Okay, what are you asking it? How are you getting there, but on the other hand, somebody who isn't a, perhaps visionary, visually, but has a lot going on up here, and I'm thinking about the kids, right, and thinking about my kids may be able to generate the same kind of thinking and prompts and be a director in a very different way. Absolutely. And that will be super interesting in the next few years. So I think it's an exciting time and you know, for a business, to embrace this technology, but not to necessarily talk about it as like, the worst thing you can do. And I've given out a lot of free counsel here and I'm happy to do (I’m joking) is to make it a race to the bottom to say look, we're going to cut costs, we're going to be able to do things cheaper and faster and with less people, because that will never end well. You have to as a business continue to offer a value that goes beyond a commodity. And commoditization is something I think that The industry struggled with in the commercials world, as competition grew at a certain point, but that's probably a different topic.

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I think, Steve, I want to double click on that really quick as kind of our last question for you, in terms of the fact that you have your own children, that you're providing some guidance and advice to you have other people's children that you're providing guidance and advice to as a professor at USC, you know, as someone who has been mentored yourself, and someone who is mentoring, you know, what are the key pieces of advice that you find yourself giving to these up and coming professionals, and specifically around your areas of expertise in communications, strategic thinking at that tie in to production that you have as well?

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30:45  

Yeah, I think one of the tools that, you know, my, my career was really interesting. I started in politics, I'd work in a campaign in a given year, and I'd come back to Hollywood in an off year and work worked at the DGA, and do a lot of different projects. Then I went to AICP and I saw incredible creative work, some of the best stuff on the screen I'd ever seen in my life, was created by commercial producers visually stunning and amazing and go to a MoMA show and see this remarkable work. Then I went to an agency and I was a partner at that agency started my first job at agency was a partner which thought the way it usually works. When I started my own company Message., I had to kind of go back to the drawing board in a lot of ways, and I brought in team members, including creative director and a media buyer and the rest. And it was really the first time I started thinking about a creative brief in a real way. Like I didn't have to think about creative briefs, I just figured this stuff gets made. And it's beautiful, because I was always up here. And what I always tell my students and I showcase and I'll say this with love to my friends at Ken and MoMA, I'll show a sizzle reel of all this great visual stuff that's created and shot by filmmakers who spend millions of dollars. And I'll see you guys like that. And I was so cause it's a what was the idea? What were they trying to say? I don't know. Well, creative brief. And the discipline of a brief requires you to go back and look and say, Okay, what's our goal? What's our objective? What's our strategy to get there? The brief distills all the sort of stuff out there into a document that lets you be disciplined to get to that single most important message, again, which is why I call my company Message. So I would say to anybody, the best advice is to not get distracted by the sizzle, which is fun, I love it. But to really think about why it's being done, and I can tell you about a million ads that were executed to look great. And those brands are out of business. And so to me, it's about the idea about distilling your big thinking into a simple articulated a message, you can articulate a strategy that you understand goals and objectives that are reasonable. And that's hard for anybody to learn, let alone kids, young people. But what do I try and teach and talk about with clients, as well as with my students is, look, it looks great, that stuff may look awesome, and even make you feel something emotionally, but is it in service of what the brand is trying to achieve? Or the business is trying to achieve? And when I talked about my journey being backwards, I had to work for 15 years before I kind of really through the partnership of working with creative directors and strategists. And this is me confessing on a confessional. I didn't know about that stuff. I just thought the stuff that made by great filmmakers and production companies, it was on the screen. So I would say that they're really thinking and again, the strategy first approach, thinking about what is the goal and objective. And a creative brief is an unbelievable tool. I've often thought that like it would be really fun to deploy a creative, brief approach, across industries go into your wedding

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vows to your intention of raising your family to your intention of doing anything to

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your intention of doing anything, what is our single most important message? Who is our audience? What are we trying to achieve? And that discipline I think is super important. And that's what I try to, you know, I spend, I think in my introduction advertising class, I mean, 14 week session, I spent four or five sessions on the breach and less than half and I love Frank Sherman comes in and talks about production. So I'm going to give a shout out to Frank Sherman radical media year for doing that, as of some other great creative partners in the past, but I think this strategic insights what's most important,

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34:50  

amazing. Well, Steve, thank you for joining me on On Production you are a wealth of information. And I just want to ask, you know For folks that are interested in kind of falling your substack following up on your book, getting access to the resources that you produce, tell us where people can find you, My

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35:08  

brand company, its Message. and you can go to our website at messagela.com, which is the site for the firm. Generally, a lot of the work I'm doing I've recently published in salon and Adweek is likely publishing an article I just wrote about the public apologies in advertising and applying them to the political world. But my substack called Control Alt Persuade studies and talks about political advertising media and technology. So it's very much a niche of politics. But in this cycle of political advertising, in an election year, I thought it was incredibly important to talk about it from an insider's view, there's going to be $18 billion spent on political advertising this cycle, frankly, it's what's going to lift the the boat of the ad world in this year. So we're going to see some positive economic energy coming out of mostly political advertising. So CTRL ALT persuade is my substack. My readers and subscribers will be getting a teaser version of strategy first. So it is a hard pitch. But that's what we do here. So I urge you and encourage you to come follow me there. And I'll be sharing more of the book there and and hopefully, I can come back with you in a few months until you about its publishing and how it's going to be available.

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36:22  

You absolutely can. Thanks so much, Steve. Cool. Thanks for having me.