Good Day Advertising

[theme: Good Day Advertising — Rocky Mountain edition]

Zanger: Welcome to Good Day Advertising on IndieHQ Radio. Holy jeez. How’s it going? I’m Doug Zanger.

Kyle O’Brien: Kyle O’Brien here.

Zanger: I’m in Portland. Kyle’s in Jim Thorpe, PA. Oh — there we go. Hold on, I’ve got to turn the microphone on. There. That would be helpful. So there we are. How’s everybody doing today? Friday, September 25th. Here’s what we’re doing for the next hour.

You know, Kyle, I spent minutes on that theme song.

Kyle: I can tell. It really shows. It really does show.

Zanger: So here’s what we’re doing. Every record you hear is Colorado. We’re thinking Denver, Boulder, the mountains and in between. And every agency we talk about is one of ours in Colorado. All 20 of them.

Kyle: Yes. 20.

Zanger: And coming up: a Denver name that’s been on a building since 1977 and isn’t anymore. A Colorado credit union that just turned into a Minnesota one — you’ll have to stay tuned for that. And a Boulder agency that lost at Colorado trivia and accidentally handed me the idea for this entire hour.

Kyle: Love it.

Zanger: But we are going to start with one of Kyle’s favorites. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. It’s IndieHQ Radio — the Colorado Show.

Zanger: That’s “S.O.B.,” Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. The Colorado hour on IndieHQ Radio. Zanger here in Portland, Kyle O’Brien in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Kyle: Yeah, yeah.

Zanger: Okay. So last month we were in Boulder. Standard Practice was one of the member agencies that showed — at La Storia, and their space is incredible. What’s funny is they got taken apart by the Colorado questions. And when they posted about it publicly, which I very much respect — their words, and I quote: “Really feel like as a Colorado agency we should have more Colorado knowledge. We’ll be hitting the books for next time.”

So consider this your study guide.

All right. Here’s the class: 20 member shops in Colorado. Some people have said, well, what’s your biggest? New York, Los Angeles. But Colorado represents.

So we go to Denver. Sukle. Cactus. Karsh Hagan, now KHM — hold that thought for a moment. Motive, north of 100 people, part of Project Worldwide. Carson+Doyle, now with The Variable. Øuterkind, our good friend Christian Gani. Good Conduct. GRIT. Worldwide Partners — the network, shout out John Harris — headquartered in Denver. Lookwell Media. Vladimir Jones — they claim Denver and the Springs as well, right?

Then we go to Boulder. TDA Boulder. Fortnight Collective, one of the OGs. Standard Practice, also OG. Work In Progress. These are people who have been with us for a very long time, and they’re all really damn good agencies.

Coupe Studios, music and sound design. I did some recording there, so thanks to the crew. It was really fun, and it’s a really, really great space.

Kyle: Now, why don’t you give people our ties to Colorado, too?

Zanger: Well, hold on, I’m not done. Wild Manor. La Storia — again, shout out to them. So we’ve got this base here. We’ll get to our history with this in a minute. No one wants to hear that.

So let’s talk about Karsh Hagan real quick. Phil Karsh and Tom Hagan started it in Denver in 1977, and as of this summer, it’s under a new name. They merged with Madden Media, an Arizona shop that started in ’82, and combined it: Karsh Hagan Madden. KHM. About 300 people nationally, 75 of them in Denver. And on the 31st of August, they retired the Karsh Hagan page. They said, see you later.

So Dan Janes is CEO, Kathy Hagan and Pocky Marranzino are co-CEOs — and Kathy Hagan is Tom’s daughter. So whatever else changed, the family’s still in the chair.

One more before we get to the next bit of music. Sukle’s client had a week. We’re talking Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Kyle: Oh, yeah.

Zanger: Yep. Just made the U.S. News Honor Roll. Ten hospitals in the entire country. Number one in Colorado, number one in the Rocky Mountain region, cardiology and heart surgery second in the nation. So very, very good stuff from Sukle. Shout out to Graham. It is a good week for them.

We will get to more Colorado agency goodness, but first we’re going to get to a few songs. Kicking it off with The Lumineers. It’s IndieHQ Radio, the Colorado Show.

Zanger: Yeah, I messed something up.

Kyle: Yeah, I heard that right in the middle.

Zanger: As you know, I have this setup. We use Radio.co — absolutely love using the platform. They have this new thing called Playout. It’s a really good interface. As has been documented many times over, you and I were in radio, and this is a little bit closer to what we were used to.

Kyle: I miss the old-school boards, though.

Zanger: What about a cart? I want to take the cart off the wall.

Kyle: Well, the cart wall. That’s now the Cartman wall. Colorado.

Zanger: Right, right. So I’m just going to fire these off manually.

Anyway — Good Day Advertising. We’re starting this on Fridays. Our goal is to get ourselves to that glorious daily show, and we will eventually get there, but it’s going to take a little bit of time. So we’re clearly working out some of the kinks.

But that was “Handlebars,” Flobots. Before that, “Need Your Love” by Tennis. Me and my indie-isms, as it were.

Kyle: I love your indie music.

Zanger: Indie music and indie agencies. Before that, “Ophelia,” The Lumineers. We’re going to talk a little bit about some work, but we’re going to bring in Dave Schiff from Standard Practice, who is joining us. What’s up, man?

[the guest line feeds back]

Zanger: Oh — turn down your speaker. Headphones only. Oh, he cut out. See if he comes back. Hey, you’ve got to put headphones on, buddy.

Kyle: Can’t have that.

Zanger: That’s a little rough around the edges. Again, working out the kinks.

Kyle: We’ll figure it out. I mean, we used to deal with that in the radio days.

Zanger: Oh my God. Callers are the worst. So we’ll give this a shot again when Schiff gets some headphones going.

So I want to talk about Cactus a little bit. New work out for Wings Credit Union. There are two spots, and it’s the Denver Broncos partnership. Bo Nix — University of Oregon alum, along with 18 other schools. In the first one he’s catching, thinking about buying a house. The second one’s called “Watch Party.”

And here’s what I didn’t know. The Colorado part: Wings is what Ent became. Colorado Springs, the largest credit union in the state. They merged with Wings out of Minnesota — a merger of equals, they say. So Colorado’s biggest credit union now carries a Minnesota name.

Let’s call that a perfect segue to our Show Off in Minneapolis. Go to IndieHQ.com and you get all the information for that.

So let’s see here. What else do we have cooking? Cactus also: North Carolina Education Lottery, Taxes Paid. Some new work from them.

Kyle: Did we cover this? Did you put this up somewhere?

Zanger: No — it was not sent over.

Kyle: Yes, please. Cactus, send that over.

Zanger: All right. And here’s a nice little win for Fortnight Collective. The packaging they did for Gaia Herbs has been named a winner at the GDUSA American Graphic Design Awards, in package design. So excellent. Congratulations. I rather like that a lot.

We will get to our various things — like, you and I went to college there.

Kyle: Yes, we did. There’s no rush to tell people about our past lives.

Zanger: Absolutely not. So let’s keep the music going. She was born in Denver, and she’s incredible. She’s India.Arie. It’s IndieHQ Radio.

[stinger: “To the mountains!” … “We’re still on I-70.”]

Zanger: Sufficiently cheeseball enough. Yeah, I told you I spent minutes on this stuff. What’s up? Good Day Advertising on IndieHQ Radio. I’m Zanger in Portland. Kyle’s in PA.

Kyle: Yeah.

Zanger: And Big Head Todd and the Monsters, “Bittersweet.” Before that, India.Arie, “Video.”

Kyle: Yeah, the Big Head Todd. Big Head Todd used to be pretty much a Stevie Ray Vaughan cover guy until he did his first album.

Zanger: All right, all right. Fun fact: you are a music journalist, so I should have known better.

Kyle: I also opened for him while I was in college.

Zanger: Oh, here we go! Oh, good God. Here we go.

Kyle: My band, Small Dog Warning, opened for Big Head Todd.

Zanger: Small Dog Warning. I have no room to talk, though. Our high school hair cover band outside of Philly was called Proof of Purchase.

Kyle: Silly name. We were pretty good.

Zanger: We were good. I mean — cover band, high school. What are you going to do?

So anyway, Standard Practice is on hold for us right now. Before we get to him: Øuterkind in Denver — Christian Gani — held their first Outerkindness Cosmic Cowboy benefit last month. Lost Lake, August 14th, raising money for Tall Tales Ranch. That was the first one, and I’m going to guess not the last. Also, they’re hiring an account manager in Denver. So if anybody who’s listening is looking, get in touch with Christian Gani.

Now let’s go back to Standard Practice again, and see if I get a big echo here. All right. So the ones who started this whole hour by losing at trivia — well, they did lose. They went to a Topgolf tournament with their client, the E-470 Public Highway Authority. I’m going to tell you, there’s an opportunity. Even though it’s E-470, if you did an E-40 promotion, I think getting the great rapper from the Bay Area, E-40, would be hilarious.

Kyle: I know that’s a stretch.

Zanger: Three partners went — Matt, Myles and Nate. And when they were there, they ran into Amy Bell, who is E-470’s new senior director of marketing, who used to be their client somewhere else. Turns out we just can’t quit each other. That’s the whole business in one sentence.

I love it. I love it. Schiff, you there? Can you hear us? He’s not there. Oh no, dude. Come on, man.

Kyle: We try.

Zanger: I know. It’s like the big setup. Are you muted, dude? All right, we’ll try to get him back.

Kyle: Yeah, but we tested this last week.

Zanger: No, I know. Dave Schiff. There he is. Hi, Schiff. Dave. Dave. Dave. This is good radio, by the way. It is really good radio.

Kyle: Cruising time, 10:46.

Zanger: As he’s trying to figure it out, I’m keeping him potted up. Just in case. I don’t know what he’s doing, but that’s okay. Schiff’s good people.

So we’ll do a round of promotions, but before we do that, back to Big Head Todd. Kyle went to the University of Colorado. I went to the University of Denver. And Big Head Todd and the Monsters were starting to grow up a little bit. They’d go down to Herman’s Hideaway in Denver, kind of a classic joint.

So my senior year, in our fraternity, our social director said, you know what? We’re going to blow the whole budget on hiring Big Head Todd and the Monsters. We’re going to do one big party, and we know we’re going to get suspended. We got a slap on the hand. But it was amazing. The vibes were really good. Everybody was cool. There was no drama. It was a great, great show.

I’ll also point out that that is a six-plus-minute song.

Kyle: Yes.

Zanger: So it’s a bit long. Nothing wrong with that. When I first started in radio, we were called Triple A — Adult Album Alternative, whatever that meant.

Kyle: Whatever that meant.

Zanger: What you would consider it now is a steady diet of John Mayer and Jason Mraz. Which is fine. I like that. So anyway, there would be these songs. It was the use-the-facilities song, shall we say?

Kyle: Uh-huh.

Zanger: If you had one that was six minutes or over, that’s when you could go take a break. Now, in hip hop and R&B, most of the songs are four minutes, tops. So not quite the same — unless it’s a 12-minute remix.

Kyle: It’s hard to do. You can’t put on any Yes album and just walk away.

Zanger: That’s true. That’s true. Well, and you played with some pretty famous people, since we’re talking about your Colorado experience.

Kyle: With the CU Jazz Band back then, I got to play with Dave Grusin, who owned GRP, the label — he also went through CU. Various folks came through there, because between that and the University of Northern Colorado, that was jazz alley.

Zanger: People forget that UNC has a solid jazz program.

Kyle: Not just solid. World-renowned. Up by the slaughterhouses there — you get off the bus and it doesn’t smell so great — but man, they have a heck of a program. I was lucky enough to play with the Weather Report drummer, Peter Erskine, up there. So that was pretty fantastic.

Zanger: So for those of you 35 and under, go ahead and Google those names.

Kyle: Yes, you’re going to have to. This was a little back in the day.

Zanger: It was back in the day. All right. Coming up, we’re going to talk about some promotions from our Colorado agencies. We’re excited to share that. But before we do, a little más música. It’s a classic. It’s Good Day Advertising on IndieHQ Radio.

[stinger: “How many Subarus in the parking lot?” … “All of them.”]

Zanger: All right. Subaru jokes, right? I know. It’s just jokes.

Kyle: Yeah, but it’s true. I owned one. I owned one in Colorado.

Zanger: Of course you did. Schiff, can you hear me? Oh — there’s Schiff. Hold on. Oh my God. It is a Festivus miracle. All right, let me get the levels right here. I love it. This worked. What’s going on, buddy?

Dave Schiff: Can you hear me?

Zanger: Yes, caller, go ahead. Yes, caller, you’re on the air. Go right ahead.

Schiff: “Go right ahead, caller” — yes, I’m from that time. That’s an appropriate response. I just want to say this. First of all, the drama for the listeners of just a guy trying to join a call — the arc of this, the emotional arc — amazing.

Zanger: I told you to turn off your speakers, goofball.

Schiff: I don’t know how to use—

Zanger: No, no, no. If you were listening to KYGO back in the day, and you were like, oh my gosh, I can get tickets for Atlanta Rhythm Section at Fiddler’s Green — they’re going to tell you to turn down your radio.

Schiff: All right, wait. So here’s the thing. And this is Colorado-related, and it’s ad-related. There’s a time I would have been ashamed of my lack of digital acumen and tech acumen. That time is over. With the rise of AI and everyone freaking out, I feel like right now, sucking at tech is like a f—ing feather in your cap. I don’t even know if I can say bad words.

Zanger: It’s streaming. Don’t worry about it.

Schiff: Anyway. Years and years ago, we were trying to say that Ask.com was great technology — we were fighting Google. That didn’t really work. But we ran a billboard that said “The Unabomber loves Ask.” And yes, that ran. I can find it. I’ll send it to you.

Zanger: Please do.

Schiff: It was a way of saying, okay, obviously this guy hates tech, so he hates the algorithm. We were trying to say that it’s sophisticated. Also, he was incarcerated right here in beautiful Florence, Colorado. And he recently passed away — God or Satan rest his soul, I’m not sure how that works. But anyway. So I’m saying, right now, I’m on trend. The divergence with tech, and then branding and marketing in the dystopian future — it is dystopia.

Zanger: That’s why we’re throwing it back a little bit here. I love it. We do a lot of video, and we had all these false starts and stops, and I just got to the point where I said, you know, this is what I love. This is what Kyle loves. This is part of what we do, and we just need to figure out a better way to do this.

So now, Schiff, I want to talk a little bit about — will there be more stunts? I’m talking about the demolition derby thing that happened. Now, don’t give away anything that’s under embargo, because the rest of your guys are going to get upset. But do you have anything cooking that we need to be aware of?

Schiff: We do. And I can’t.

Zanger: Can’t say what it is. That’s fine.

Schiff: I can’t say what it is, but yes, we do. And you guys mentioned E-470 — which is like the least sexy advertising account, right? Did you guys see any of the stunts we did for those guys?

Zanger: Yes. Loved it. I wrote about that.

Schiff: That stuff is still blowing up. It’s great, because on TikTok, no one reads anything. Everyone’s in on the joke, but it’s still going, and people are like, “You know what? I knew they were stealing my money. I knew it was owned by China.” It’s free media that never ends.

Zanger: You know what? Colorado likes a good conspiracy theory.

Schiff: Oh, absolutely.

Zanger: I’m here in Oregon, and you would think we’re the ones with the tinfoil hats.

Schiff: You’re the epicenter.

Zanger: I guess to some degree. Well — where Kyle is. Oh boy.

Kyle: The Poconos are ripe for it.

Zanger: There’s real stuff there that’s even scarier. Here’s the thing: I think the conspiracy theories that come out of Colorado and out of Oregon might be more on the quirky side. What’s your favorite Colorado conspiracy theory? And you can’t say the airport.

Schiff: Okay, man. I don’t know whether to classify this as a conspiracy. I would say it’s more of a spiritual question. And it’s airport-adjacent, but we worked on it. Are you familiar with Blucifer?

Zanger: Oh, yes.

Schiff: So for people listening who don’t know: it’s a gigantic blue horse sculpture. It’s horrifying. It looks like it’s on fire. Its eyes are illuminated red. It’s one of the weirdest pieces of civic artwork I’ve ever seen.

We made an owner’s manual for E-470 — that was the brand book. As a driver, you’re a stakeholder, a part owner. And in there we had the sights you can see along the whole 47-mile stretch, and one of them is Lucifer. And Lucifer killed the artist who made it.

Zanger: Yes. We do know that.

Schiff: You’re getting on a plane, you’re kind of like, do these things go down? And then you see this huge horse with lit-up eyes, and I don’t know what you’re supposed to take away. I generally just get a huge sense of doom. Halfway through building it, it fell on the guy making it and killed him. And instead of saying, hey, maybe we just don’t mess with this, they went all in. They finished it. And it’s out there, and we featured it in the work.

So I know that’s not a conspiracy. But the deep, philosophical — maybe spiritual — question for listeners is: if you’ve been to Denver, if you’ve seen Lucifer, do you discount it as just another piece of civic artwork at your peril?

Zanger: So from Schiff we get disquiet, acumen, and other ten-cent words. We appreciate that very, very much. Listen, we’ve got to get to the next song. Dave Schiff, Standard Practice — thank you for joining. Y’all are awesome.

Schiff: Thank you, guys. You’re the best. You’re the weirdest. Keep doing this. Nothing says real like a bunch of technical mistakes. I love that. Incredible.

Zanger: I love that. We’re going to keep the music going. It’s Big Gigantic, “The Little Things.” It’s Good Day Advertising, IndieHQ Radio.

[stinger: “Proud native Coloradans” … “Moved here in 2019.” … “From Austin.”]

Kyle: There are a lot of people from Austin in Colorado, aren’t there? At CU, I don’t think I knew anybody who was from Colorado. A lot of Texans. Lots of New Jerseys.

Zanger: Oh my God, it was the same thing. It was a chance to ski.

Kyle: Yeah, exactly. You were one of the New Jerseys.

Zanger: Well, I was one of the Californians. But that happened to be a nice little side benefit.

Kyle: It’s not a bad perk.

Zanger: And here’s what’s funny. One of my very closest friends from school — we’ll call him Shark, that’s his nickname — grew up in Boulder, went to Boulder High School. And by the way, it’s Good Day Advertising, IndieHQ Radio. We’ve got to do the service elements.

Kyle: Yes, yes, yes.

Zanger: Every time I go back to Colorado, I see him and my friend Billy J — two of my closest friends. And I started talking about skiing out here in Oregon. I was like, oh my God, it was great, there was this bowl in Heather Canyon. And he looks at me and goes, “I had no idea you skied.” I was like, yeah, man. He said, “You and I never went skiing together.”

Kyle: How did you never go skiing with him?

Zanger: I went skiing. I just didn’t go skiing with him, for some reason. He’s a powder hound. I just face-plant every time. My knees can’t handle bumps anymore. My knees can’t handle going up and down the stairs lately.

So, what’s going on? Hello, wakey-shmakey. I’m Zanger. He’s Kyle O’Brien in Carbon County — the Carbon County Studios in Pennsylvania.

Kyle: That’s right.

Zanger: We’re going to wrap this up. So let’s talk about some promotions. Again, we’re going back to Cactus. They promoted eight people last month: Nicole VanDerSnick, Katie Wolff, Skyler Taube, Mackenzie Bush, Breanna Robb, Kelsey McCaffrey, Anna Jacobs, Rachel Bourgeois. Congratulations to all eight.

And listen — Eric Singer at Coupe Studios. I had mentioned that I cut some tracks for our pre-rolls, for our partners and our sponsors, up there. Great studio, great space. By the way, please support our partners. Just go to indiehq.com, go to Partners, see who we’ve got. They will help you grow. But I reached out to him yesterday. I said, hey, dude, radio show. He said, ah, can’t do it. Scheduling conflict.

Kyle: We’ll do another one of these. There’s plenty of music we didn’t get to.

Zanger: Yeah, we’ll do a Colorado part two. But we’ve got to get around the world a little bit.

Kyle: Oh, absolutely.

Zanger: What else do you want to talk about before we wrap this bad boy up? No, no, no — let’s take this seriously. Talk about Indie Work.

Kyle: Indie Work. Please, please. We would love to hear the stories behind your work, see it, and share it with everybody. So please make sure you pitch to us. We’re getting to the point where we want to get as much work as possible, because it’s good, and not enough people get to see it. The trades are good to an extent, but they’re not going to feature you all the time. And I’m not slagging them — they have their purpose, and we have ours, and that is to feature your work.

There you go. Professional broadcasting segue. Here on Cozy 101.

Zanger: It is Cozy 101. One thing I will add to this: if you go to indiework.is, that’s where we’re syndicating all of the work stuff that comes off the news site. At the same time, when you start at indiework.is, you can submit your work. The next page gives you a chance to talk about the strategy, the creative, how it connects to the strategy, how the work got made, lessons learned, how you sold good work to a client — all the stuff we’d probably talk about in an interview. Get it in there. And you can tick a box that says, hey, I’d like to do a video interview about this, and we’ll do that.

The other piece: once you put your work in, you can bank it for the next award, coming up at the beginning of 2027 — the Classic, which is our creative award. People + Agencies is currently open for entries.

Kyle: Yes, please. Enter.

Zanger: indiehq.com is where you need to start with everything.

So I kind of stumped Kyle on this one. There were three young fellas who came out of Denver East High School. They were in a Denver band called Friends & Love…

Kyle: Yes.

Zanger: …that opened for the band they ended up being part of. And you didn’t know this, did you?

Kyle: I sort of did. Listen, it’s one of my favorite bands, so let’s just jump to that.

Zanger: It is. So here’s the thing. It’s Larry Dunn, Andrew Woolfolk, and the great Philip Bailey. They opened for Earth, Wind & Fire, and they got themselves into Earth, Wind & Fire. It is September 25th. Ergo, you know what we’re going to play next.

That’s Good Day Advertising. I’m Zanger. He’s O’Brien. We’ll see you next Friday, everybody.

Kyle: Thank you, everyone.