Looking Outside

On this episode of Looking Outside we explore the intersection of creativity with marketing and what it takes to take a good brand to a great brand. Joining us is marketing and strategy leader, Juan Isaza, Chief strategy officer at DDB Latina, and Head of Brand and Social Media Strategy at creative agency 14.

While today Juan is an award winning strategist and experienced marketer, he didn’t start in the field. Ever since he was seven years old, Juan wanted to be a journalist. But having done a stint at a Columbian newspaper, after studying journalism and communications, he saw quickly that his love of uncovering great stories and telling them in a compelling way was better served in the world of advertising.

Juan shares how his journalism background helps him in strategy; particularly in being resourceful and telling engaging stories that hook the audience. But equally in telling better stories about people, by discovering them in unexpected places. Juan says this ability to find the emotive connection with culture is the biggest shift in communication taking place, and is a fruitful space for marketing.

But it’s not necessarily easy. Jo and Juan discuss how brands are operating in emotional battle fields right now within which they can get caught on the "wrong" side or in the middle. Juan’s advice to brands is not to talk unless you have the credentials for it, based on actions already taken. This is the reason consumers are getting tired of brands meddling in political or social issues, Juan says, and just because they don’t want brands to get involved in politics doesn’t mean they don’t want brands to do good things for society. “Your best cause is the thing you’re living inside your company,” Juan stresses.

Juan also shares his personal reflections of culture in the advertising world, where stereotyping still happens and freedoms can be inhibited. He says a lot of work is still to be done, and it needs to start with empathy, understanding and in-room representation. It’s part of the reason why Juan won DEI person of the year from the New York Festival for his work managing DDB Mexico, and it can – as the proof shows – lead to greater creativity.

Juan and Jo discuss the formula for successful campaigns, and the need for brands to leverage the power of creativity in their content, by opening themselves to more experimentation. Juan has seen a positive move over time towards long term brand building, without compromising short term measurement metrics, but stresses that the old school thinking of marketers in trying to control every aspect of their brand and planning every element of how their brand will show up, limits their ability to inject spontaneity into their work – a key element of creative marketing.

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To look outside, Juan looks for ideas in everything he observes. Inspiration for him can come from any place, information, source or conversation. He finds them often in papers from philosophers and sociologists who are analyzing societal shifts at a macro level.

Every year, Juan publishes a trend report, which started as a personal exercise, motivated by curiosity and led by a simple desired out come to discovery key topics emerging for brands. For this, Juan takes a few months towards the end of the year to create a mind map,, then synthesizes it at the quiet last week of the year.

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Juan Isaza is the Chief Strategy Officer at DDB Latina and leads the global Strategy and Social Media at 14, the DDB agency for SEAT and CUPRA brands (Volkswagen Group). He has worked in regional and global projects for major international brands such as Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Telefónica, BBVA, Bridgestone, Mars, and Clorox.

He led the team that was the first in Latin America to win a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions for Creative use of Data, as well as the first Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in Glass (Positive Change) for DDB Worldwide. He was elected as one of the 50 honorees of Adweek Magazine 2021 and Person of the Year by New York Festivals due to his commitment to diversity and inclusion in 2023.

Juan also has experience in political marketing, having served as a consultant for Iván Duque's presidential campaign in Colombia in 2018. He earned a master’s degree in Marketing from RMIT University in Australia and has been a member of the DDB Worldwide Global Strategic Council since 2008. He is also known for his annual consumer trend report, which reaches over 100,000 marketing professionals each year.

• Find more on Juan at www.juani...

In this episode of Looking Outside, we speak with someone crazy enough to think one company can make a difference, social entrepreneur Moritz Everding. Moritz founded food start up SOCHILI to act on his vision of creating food with purpose.

Combining his love of spice, his experience in business innovation and his passion for positive social change, Moritz created his business from Germany with far reaching impact into sub-Saharan Africa. On this episode, Moritz speaks to his conviction that a profitable business idea, whether by someone inside a big corporation, or an entrepreneur, can and should be pressure tested against social, ethical and environmental standards.

With his business model, Moritz balances the desire to make a big difference, in this case to 600 million people living without access to electricity, with the long term sustainability behind a small but growing product idea. He shares how his business was created to give back, visibly and transparently, directly to the farmers who supply the chilies for his hot sauce, most self-evidently in that for every bottle sold, the company is able to give first time access for its farmers to electricity for one day.

Jo and Mo also discuss the distinction between a profitable social enterprise and an NGO and that it’s still the responsibility of the start ups, who are often much more severely critiqued for their social, ethical and sustainability initiatives, to not act like charities, but to live by the standards of social consumerism in giving people more of what they want. In this case, a delicious, great looking, functionally-smart product that also ticks the socially-responsible boxes. It’s no easy feat but Moritz believes it is possible, and is motivated in encouraging more food businesses to go the same way.

Moritz’ belief that profit and purpose can go hand in hand also inspired him to start his Purpose Projects podcast where he gets to research a variety of topics changing the global food landscape, speaking directly to the social entrepreneurs working to make it happen. Social consumerism is the way of the future, Moritz says, and he is a living and breathing example of it.

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To look outside, Moritz started a testing community. He asks community members, who all have varied perspectives that touch on the 17 SDGs, to pressure test (and taste test) the product against his impact model. Moritz says it's easy to get stuck in one lane, only listening to reaffirming positive feedback. To get outside his comfort zones, he seeks honest and varied perspectives from this community.

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• Find out more about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): sdgs.un.org/goals
• Listen to the Seth Goldman episode mentioned on Activism
• Listen to Moritz' own podcast, the Purpose Projects Podcast (in German)

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Moritz Everding is Founder & Managing Director of SOCHILI. Crazy about impact, crazy about hot sauces - Moritz is a social entrepreneur and advocate of purpose in the business world. As founder of the food start-up SOCHILI, he proves that social impact can also be tasty and spicy. With every single 'SOCHILI good hot sauce' the business empowers farmers in the Global South in the truest sense of the word: 1 hot sauce = 1 day of electricity.

• Connect with Moritz on LinkedIn
• Find out more about SOCHILI @ sochili.com
• Order some SOCHILI sauces (EU only)
• DM Moritz to stock or order from the US
• Follow SOCHILI on Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok
• Listen to the Purpose Podcast (in German)

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Looking Outside is a podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is hosted by its creat...

In Episode 10 of Looking Outside we traverse the past and present of storytelling with educator, scholar, and my good friend from Australia, Dr Belinda Calderone, Philanthropic Proposals Manager at Monash University.

Belinda shares her learnings in creating a compelling case for change through human focused storytelling. As well as the pitfalls of storytelling, where a clear start and end is missing (fairly common!) or not walking forward along the story path.

Having researched fairy tales as part of her Literary doctorate, Belinda debunks the idea of the pure story and explains the role of sociohistorical cycles in storytelling.

Belinda and Jo also discuss the importance of being open to hearing diverse stories and the power of community for idea generation.

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To look beyond the familiar, Belinda takes herself outside of her profession with poetry writing as “the rules of poetry are so much looser”. She actively pulls that creative expression into her writing at work to push the boundaries of her proposals.

Belinda’s favorite author is Margaret Atwood, and her favorite story is Cat’s Eye.

You can also check out the first story ever written, The Epic of Gilgamesh, mentioned by Belinda.

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Belinda is Philanthropic Proposals Manager at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. With a background in academia, Dr Belinda Calderone holds a doctorate in Literary Studies from Monash University, has published scholarly works and spoken at conferences about the origins of the fairy tale genre, and has taught literature at several universities. Today, she’s focused on making a positive community impact. As Monash University's Philanthropic Proposals Manager, Belinda works with academics with socially impactful projects and helps them to craft the story of their research to inspire support from passionate philanthropists.

Connect with Belinda on LinkedIn.

Find out more about Monash’s Universities philanthropic program designed to change the world through life-saving discoveries, accessible education, breakthrough research and vibrant communities.

See how Philanthropic campaigns work.

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Looking Outside is new podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is hosted by its creator, Joanna Lepore, CPG innovator and futurist at Mars Wrigley.

Find out more about Jo & Looking Outside at www.looking-outside.com.

Connect with Jo and join the Looking Outside community on LinkedIn.

Check out Jo’s foresight podcast Future Imagined (produced for Mars Wrigley).

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Looking Outside is created by Joanna Lepore. All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2022.

OBOY and Echobody music features in Episode 10.

Today we’re taking a no BS look at the world of customer insights, leadership and business visioning with the President of software company Zappi, the ever-passionate and transparent leader, Ryan Barry.

Having led Zappi for over four years, Ryan shares his no holds barred take on company leadership and people leadership, and it’s all anchored on authenticity. Years ago, Ryan says, he was called out by his wife on having a ‘work voice’ and realized he shouldn’t be wearing 50 different masks depending on who he’s speaking with. He says this new transparent approach to dealing with people and stakeholders alike makes his life easier, and ensures his leadership style is more human.

Ryan is also committed to communication, or even over-communication, dropping casual and informal voice messages and videos as news evolves in his company regularly, to ensure no one has to second guess what is happening, and that business updates are intentional and impactful.

To negate a possible consequence of this – dominance and over-assertion - Ryan says he leans into curiosity, asking questions openly on things he is not knowledgeable about and deferring to the experts. “Your job sometimes is just to listen,” he says.

Jo and Ryan also discuss the future of the workplace, particularly as more remote, flexible and virtual working styles are implemented, and spontaneous moments to ‘break bread with people’ in a physical office become fewer. Nearly 70% of Ryan’s staff are on the other side of the planet to him. He’s cognizant of the necessity to build and nurture relationships and believes that cannot be replaced by physically being in the same place together. Trust, collaboration and understanding are best built in real life, Ryan says, as are new ideas generated from sporadic and unplanned moments ‘bumping into’ people. Whatever new technological automation and outsourcing the future holds for the workplace, this ability to connect, human to human, won’t be replaced.

Holding a personal brand of his own, supported by his podcast Inside Insights and newsletter Ryan’s Rants, Ryan regularly shares reflections on the industry he operates in and where customer strategies go wrong. More and more companies are driven by two polarized objectives: short term earnings vs long term goals, awards and accolades vs ads that actually drive sales, political stances vs internal policies. Ryan highlights the importance of being frank with yourself on why business decisions are made, of taking input from your staff (whether you like what they say or not), of building principles that create consistency for future scenarios, and of ensuring your business actions match what you say. “People’s bullshit meter is way up”, and Ryan says that’s a good thing.

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To look outside, Ryan goes outside to get lost in nature and mountains, usually with his dog. Getting out from the physical reality he's surrounded by allows him to tap into another level of ideas in his subconscious.

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Ryan Barry oversees Zappi's global business operation leading the companies growth and impact internally and externally and serves as a member of the firm's executive leadership team. Prior to Zappi, Ryan worked for GMI, an online survey solution provider which was eventually acquired by Kantar and also started a dog care company which was sold in 2015 and a non profit aimed at raising money for less fortunate children.

In addition to his work at Zappi, Ryan serves on Michigan State’s advisory board for their MR program. Ryan lives outside of Boston with his wife, two sons, daughter and his two hound dogs and loves the great outdoors and Boston sports.

• Follow Ryan on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to Ryan's newsletter, Ryan's Rant
• Read Ryan's articles published on Fast Company
• Learn more about Zappi at www.zappi.io
• Listen to or watch the Inside Insights podcast, hosted by Ryan
• Listen to or