PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Jessica (00:01):Thanks for joining us today. Today is one of the days where we get to peel back the curtain and give you some of the insider conversations that happen at Viscul. And today I have the full team with us, Megan, Jay, Tyler, and Carolina, as well as Randall, and we are going to be digging into a tasty topic. So let’s jump in.

Welcome to the Fork and Lens podcast brought to you by Viscul. Oh, smells delish.

Jessica (00:41): Hey everyone.

Jay (00:41): Hello.

Randall (00:41): Hello.

Carolina (00:43): Hello.

Tyler (00:44): Hey.

Jessica (00:45): We have the full team with us today. And we’re looking forward to these segments because it’s us kind of giving you our opinion of different things that are happening in the creative industry and marketing, but also some little nuggets, some of the things that you can expect out of our team in the episodes and the seasons to come are some creative critiques. We’re going to take a look at campaigns that aren’t from the food and beverage industry and how they actually apply to the food and beverage industry. We’re going to pick them apart, what’s working, what’s not working, what do we think the insights were and how they’re solving the problem? So those are things that we’re looking forward to, but for today, we’re going to talk about killing your darling’s and our team is super excited. So let’s just off the bat talk about how do we define a darling in terms of design and video. Who wants to start in terms of what their definition is on a personal basis?

Jay (01:49): Yeah, I can jump in. Hi, I’m Jay. For me, this is a pretty important thing, both in design and video work in both, and I’ve always sort of looked at it as what are sort of the trademarks of your style, things that you sort of go to a lot that sort of almost represents again, your style and then sort of and your voice, your design voice. And then within video, especially I’ve found within editing is where a lot of my darlings pop up, just the way I edit interviews, certain kinds of shots that I like, the way I color correct. There’s a lot of things that end up being important to me and I think are really relevant in terms of the final product being what it is. So I put a lot of ownership on them, but I’ll let someone else jump in.

Randall (03:03): I agree with that. I think it’s interesting whenever you can, you put your kind of heart and soul into something and you believe that what you have here is perfect for the project, the client, the customer, the consumer, and then the client ultimately has the say. We can fight them here and there, but there’s always that chance that they’ll come back and say that something isn’t working for them, and that can be that thing that we wanted to hold onto the most. So it can be painful to take it away. That’s my take on it. And that was Randall, by the way.

Jessica (03:43): Anyone else?

Tyler (03:44): I guess I’ll give it a try

Jessica (03:47): We’re popping Tyler’s podcast cherry.

Tyler (03:52): Little on the nervous side, but my first recording here, but just working mainly on the design side, I’d say like a darling to me is just something where we’re so used to working in other people’s kind of style guides and whatnot, that when you kind of get to put your little spin on something, it just makes it sort of that much special. And when the client sort of takes to it as well, and they say “Wow, this is really working.” And they kind of want to adjust and kind of work with that as well. Like an example can be just giving them one little icon for just like a certain just anything. And then they really like it. And they can build off that and work on building icons for different departments and whatnot. So that’s where it gets exciting when you can kind of make a difference with it too.

Carolina (04:35): I almost couldn’t have said it better myself, in terms of video because I do video stuff, but essentially the same thing.

Jessica (04:43): So why do you all get so attached to these special things? Like what is the personal connection to those things?

Jay (04:53): Yeah, sort of like the innate part of what we do where it’s our specialty, I guess. We’re supposed to be the experts with color and fonts, photography styles, editing styles. So it’s sort of who we are in terms of the creative parts of who we are, oh actually who we are as people too, probably bleeds into that life as well. But I think it’s a representation almost of who we are and our voice and our expertise I guess, our ego as well.

Jessica (05:33): Our ego.

Randall (05:36): I look at it too, as there’s opportunity sometimes to push our clients in certain ways too. A lot of times we’re doing campaigns that might only have a three month flight and you have the opportunity sometimes to do things that you don’t want to say trendy, but are in the moment and keeping up with what’s happening out there and sometimes when you’re creating these campaigns, you can feel really passionate about helping your clients get to that level and in that place. And then there’s just the times where they just don’t grasp onto that, which is fine, but it can be hard for us to let it go sometimes because we want to see them be progressive and in the moment as well, and be able to tap into that a little bit.

Randall (06:23): So, it can be hard for us even from thinking through their shoes how could this have been better or how can we continue to push them? And obviously knowing when it’s okay to push a little harder and when you kind of have to back out, how many voices are in the room on their perspective. And when we, can fight a little bit. So…

Jay (06:49): Yeah, I don’t mean to say it’s just like this sort of gut feeling for what we like. I think a lot of times we do have it backed by research and there is a reason why as well. Like we’re not just picking the font because it looks beautiful, but we believe that it actually helps with their message and their voice. And that’s pretty much everything too, color photography, when to cut something, when to edit, how to edit.

Jessica (07:18): Yeah.

Carolina (07:19): It’s something that bridges the gap between what resonates with you and what the client is kind of needing and looking for that you feel strongly about. And you’re like, this needs to happen. This needs to be part of it. I know it’s going to work, they’re going to love it. At least you’re hoping, I don’t know. It’s sort of the combination of all those things and that makes it hard to let it go sometimes or just to compromise or to find. It’s almost like you build a bridge and then you have to let someone else redesign it for you after. And it’s just, it feels weird.

Jessica (07:51): So, okay. So you put in your darlings into your work and you go to present to the client. And I know that some of you have more experience with that than others, but what’s kind of your mindset then going to the client and saying “This is the work, and this is why we did what we did” and try not to let them kill those darlings?

Jay (08:16): Yeah. I mean, for me, I mean, almost to a fault, I usually try to present work that I think could go. Could to go print, could go to air, but I mean, obviously that’s not realistic, but you must need that sort of, kind of irrational confidence to sort of sell yourself, sell your work. And I think it does help to be competent obviously. But the reason I say to a fault is because obviously 99% of the time there’s going to be changes and there’s going to be edits, but I think you want to believe in what you’re pitching or showing. So that’s sort of the mindset that I take.

Jay (08:59): But I think the caveat there that does set me up for a lot of a heartbreak from time to time, we’ll get to that later, the heartbreak, how to handle the heartbreak.

Randall (09:10): Yeah. I think that’s an important thing is, it can be hard, especially when you have a client that you’ve had for a long time, like a lot of our clients we’ve had for years and it can be hard to, I want to say push them, but also to get them out of their comfort zone a little bit, or even get ourselves out of the comfort zone. I tend to be a little bit more on the safe side sometimes. And then other, which is a lot of our team members will push a little bit, which is great to get us out of like, we’ve had this client for years and it’s time to help them try to do something different, whether they accept it or not, you would have to believe that there’s still some appreciation behind us trying to do something new for them, so it’s not just the same stuff being put out all the time, but the same time, understanding the client and what their needs are. And having a reason, like Jay was saying, having a reason behind doing what we’re doing to continue to just move them forward.

Carolina (10:07): Jay, you said “Irrational confidence.” It’s like this whole business is irrational because you [inaudible 00:10:12] up and you deliver your heart and soul and then you have to pretty much, you have to rebuild everything sometimes down to absolutely everything. But if you’re lucky, you only have to do like 10%.

Megan (10:26): I want to touch real quick on the mindset of presenting work, because I feel at least I’ve always felt with my personal experiences when you’re, when you’re trying to pitch an idea to a client that might be risky, or it might be unique or might be a little bit different than they’re used to. You’re exposing yourself in a way that makes you very vulnerable. And if they don’t like it, that can be, it can almost feel very personal, like a very personal jab to your style and the way that you work. So I think that that mindset, at least I always go into it being maybe a little bit nervous, but really excited, but also kind of proud, but then not sure if they don’t like it, do they not like me? You know, I take my work very personally. I know a lot of people here do, and maybe I’m jumping ahead here, but I think that that exposed feeling, that vulnerable feeling can be really hard.

Tyler (11:32): Yeah. It’s really good. It is really vulnerable to put one of your darlings out there, because it really is like 80% of the time they just get shot down. But when they get through, that’s kind of what keeps you going. And that’s what keeps you excited about doing what you’re doing is that you get to explore these different options. Even if it will go through, I mean, you learn something and you can still kind of just like tack that up on the wall and look at it later, save it for another project, another rainy day. So, there’s positives in even the worst outcome.

Randall (12:03): Yeah. I think it’s, it’s been interesting for us as we’ve evolved too. I think there’s… because we do design, photography and video and all those things can have different levels of, I don’t know, risk in them. In design, if the client doesn’t like it, you can change it. You know, you have to take some time, but sometimes when you’re out shooting video or even photography and things, I mean, you only get the moment that you have to shoot it. And, if you try to do something new and it’s super stylistic, or you just want to experience something new, you may not have the opportunity to fix it later. And that’s when I think it could be the scariest is just making sure that you’re on board.

You know, the one thing we do try to do is obviously think about those things ahead of time and provide a little bit mood boards or style scapes or something that helps our clients understand where we’re headed. But, we’ve had in the past where we shot something and it just didn’t work. So it can be a challenge, so different levels of things, but anytime you put your heart and soul into it, it could be painful if it doesn’t work.

Jessica (13:09): Right. And I know that as a team, the way that we approach our client relationships is trying to find out the nuances of their businesses and their pain points and the problems that they’re experiencing and what they need solutions to. So I think having that full understanding and going through a discovery process and the style scape process that we do, and those sorts of things really kind of help us at least lower that percentage chance of having a darling killed. Let’s put it that way at least.

Jay (13:41): Yeah, no, I agree. I think style scapes, at least the way I’ve been approaching them, I’ve been throwing those in right from the start.

Jessica (13:48): Right. Right.

Jay (13:52): Yeah. And I’d be curious to see then moving forward with them, how they, if indeed, that the style scape can help back up some of those later on if all the sudden they start questioning something and be like “Well, we’ve all agreed upon this before that we like this little rounded corner I added to this photo.” You know what I mean?

But I have confidence, that that’s the way to do it. I mean, yeah.

Randall (14:17): Yeah, I agree. I mean, even yesterday we presented some stylescapes to a client and three different stylescapes with the same image in them all edited slightly differently. And they give you different moods or different feelings and it’s a really clear way to help understand where the client’s head is and kind of what they’re looking for. So it’s definitely helpful.

Megan (14:40): Yeah. Yeah. I think going off of Jay’s point, I think the scariest moment in presenting work is when the client’s surprised, especially when it’s already completed. And you’re trying to show the thing that you just created and here they’re taken aback by it because they weren’t prepared. So I think the best thing that we can do is start from the beginning with our darlings and help them to understand it. So when it comes to the final product, they’re not taking aback or kind of surprised.

Carolina (15:14): Yeah.

Randall (15:14): Yes. Now I will say, I just want to interject. There are times because even though we go through a very tight process, there are times when you’re in the editing bay or you’re finishing a design where it’s in the 11th hour and you realize that there’s something that’s missing that you want to throw in there or you want to try. And we can’t always prepare clients for moments of genius, right? So I think there’s always that moment where, okay, maybe we have the safe option, but we’re going to try this crazy thing just to see what happens, because that might be the thing that turns them into the best client, the longterm client or something that they’re just like “Yeah, thank you for thinking of this because that’s what we need out of our creative team.”

Jessica (15:54): So the whole darling situation is a creative thing. It’s not just with an agency, it also can happen in-house. And I think that’s something really important to note. And I know Jay, you used to work in-house for a larger organization. So a lot of these issues probably came up, maybe not as frequently, but obviously you were constantly trying to push the envelope and evolve the brand and what the creative assets were that were supporting the marketing efforts. So can you enlighten us to some of those mentalities that happen internally?

Jay (16:34): Yeah, well, yeah, I think it’s sort of almost, you almost have to take on this rebellious sort of character, not in a bad way, but become the person. Well, first of all, you have to want to do it and enjoy it. And I did. And so there’s a motivation to make the work better and to help the company. And I think if you approach it from a standpoint of passion and actual enjoyment of what you do, I think it really helps sell things a lot more. And then in turn becomes less rebellious. So you might be the person pushing the envelope, but it becomes a positive thing instead of a negative thing. But I also think now this is my plea to all the EVP’s and the design managers and all these people, they help a lot too.

If you have a really good art director or a really good creative director, really good vice president of marketing, they can help you too. So, I mean, I don’t know if we want to say names, but I mean, there’s been people who have definitely helped push my ideas through, and then we still have relationships with them today. And I think that sort of collaboration we started then we still have today. And I think it helps so much just to help push ideas through. So I think, yeah, I don’t know. I think collaboration is a big part of it. You can bring up really, you can push it as far as you can, but it really helps them when you start getting other people to believe in you as well.

Jessica (18:19): Yeah.

Jay (18:22): So, then that makes an in-house experience really fun. So I know in-house there’s pros and cons, there’s always a debate from a creative standpoint, but I think there’s a ton you can do in-house. And I loved it and I still love working really closely with in-house teams. Yeah.

Jessica (18:39): Okay. So obviously it’s an issue that you can experience in-house or working with an agency or even a freelancer for that matter. So what are some of the personal experiences you all have had where you have been married to your work and then a client or someone above you just gives you feedback that you’re just like “No, I don’t want to go backwards on this, and I don’t want to look at it from a different perspective.”

Jay (19:11): Tyler has a graveyard of logos.

Tyler (19:19): It’s almost as if people know I’m doing it and they just are automatically like “No.” No, but I save them, tack them up on your wall. Like I said, you still learn, you learn from everything. And just even all those reps that you’re doing just make you better. One day one’s going to catch on, I’ll get one of them in. But it also just shows the client just that you’re trying, and that’s all you can do at the end of the day, just do your best.

Randall (19:49): Yeah.

Jay (19:50): Yeah. I do think the [crosstalk 00:19:52], oh sorry.

Carolina (19:52): Sorry.

Jay (19:52): You can go Carolina.

Carolina (19:54): I think working in video it’s a lot more challenging to completely scrap a project entirely like you can with design. So a lot of times those just, instead of becoming a little graveyard of designs, they become problems that you have to solve creatively. You have to think of how do you take this footage and turn it into something else? Or how do I transform this to say the same messaging or to change it to whatever they want to fix it. So you do start over, but you’re also working with a weird base that you now have, now you just have more puzzle pieces to sort through and work through.

Randall (20:36): Yeah. I agree a lot with, with Carolina on there. I mean, there’s a lot, especially in video and photography and stuff. Kind of once it’s shot, if they don’t like it, you’ve got to figure out how to fix it, or you might have to re shoot it if there’s that opportunity. But, I think even small things in editing, I know Jay deals with this a lot, but we always try to interject these little moments of realism into our videos. And they’re generally the things that get cut first, but to us those are darlings because it’s like, man, that was the part that made it feel real. If you’re in an interview with somebody and you hear laughing or even we kind of break that third wall and they’re hearing the interviewer or talk to the interviewee from behind the camera.

And it’s those little moments that sometimes can add so much feeling and realism to it, but they get cut almost all the time. But, that’s an interesting thing that we deal with quite a lot. And again, it’s just trying to us to get to push a little more emotion into the piece.

Jay (21:36): Yeah, it’s weird because that exact instance it’s almost become our calling card for the people that love it. It’s, they love it. You know what I mean? And I think it’s something that not a lot of people would be willing to try and do, and that leads to a lot more work. The clients that don’t, luckily it’s easy to just not put it in. So I think it’s almost easier at times to do the safe thing, but I think I just said the obvious it’s harder to do the scarier thing than to do the safe thing. But I think we’re willing to do the scarier thing. I think the payoff for it is it’s definitely worth it.

Tyler (22:16): Yeah.

Jay (22:17): But yeah. And when they do take it away, the only real hiccup is your personal ego, but luckily the ability just to make it right is, again, easy.

Jessica (22:33): Yeah.

Jay (22:34): And then to Tyler’s point with the, with the reps, I think that’s a really big thing. I think sometimes you’ll do something and it’s really amazing and you’ll almost be the fulfillment of doing it and proving that you could do it or that you’ve figured it out is almost enough. Even if the client doesn’t like it, it’s still made you realize “Oh wow, I did a new style. Or that was just a beautiful way I handled the techs there.” And then you can continue to apply that just to your arsenal. So yeah. You definitely grow from it, no matter what.

Jessica (23:15): Yeah.

Tyler (23:18): It does make you feel good when you made something that you were like really in love with, because to make something that you actually really like is really tough for me. Like everything, it’s really, really tough for me to like really, really love it and be totally fine with it. I always kind of find flaws in it or, but I forgot where I was going.

Carolina (23:41): It’s so important, though. It’s so important to have those projects to accomplish that because it ultimately helps whatever the next project is, whoever the next client is at the end of it.

Jay (23:51): Yeah.

Jessica (23:51): Yeah.

Tyler (23:52): Yeah.

Randall (23:53): I love I just to hit on Tyler’s note there about always going back and looking at stuff, I think being in the creative industry, that’s one of the hardest parts of our job is, is theoretically nothing ever needs to be done like completely finished or whatever can be. It can always be this little bit better or whatever. And I’ve equated it to building a cabinet or something. You can build a cabinet and you can make an absolutely beautiful cabinet, but at some point you paint it and the thing is done forever. I mean, you’re never going to go back to it. Whereas in our world you can always tweak something and you could get the same footage from a shoot and three people on our team would edit it completely differently.

Randall (24:30): And it could all be mostly in the same vein, but it’s going to have those little nuances that are different. That’s kind of what I love about working with the team and being here is there’s things that Jay or Carolina or Tyler would do and even Megan when we’re communicating with clients and things like “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought to do it that way, but that was awesome.” I love that we all think a little bit differently. And I think that really pulls together some of those challenges. And the darling that I have you guys may not care about, but you might have a darling of your own within the same project. And that’s where it can be a challenge. Because then we have to talk each other into or out of our darlings, and then we have to pitch it to the client as well. So that’s where it can be a challenge.

Jessica (25:11): So that brings up an interesting topic. How does collaboration kind of play into the darlings and balancing everyone’s out for that matter? Does that help to protect us from having to kill our darlings all the time, especially facing the client? Or is it something that almost becomes a roadblock before the next roadblock?

Jay (25:36): Well, I think it’s the first line of defense sort of, I think it’s the first filter and I find it to be the easier filter because we’re all speaking the same language and we’re all on the same mind space. We’re willing to be more honest and blunt quicker than a client sort of tries to skirt around it and sort of not really know how to say it or, whereas we can just sort of say “I see what you’re doing here, but I don’t think we need it right now. I love this style, but I don’t think it’s working here.” It’s just a lot quicker, but I think it’s really important because I think again, it’s so easy to get stuck in your style, your things you like, and then just immediately go to those all the time. So just having someone quickly beside you that knows that about you, they can quickly spot it and say yay or nay, it’s working here or not.

Megan (26:37): I think that that’s where constructive criticism comes into play too. I think it’s important that if something is working, someone should say why it’s working or if something is not working, it’s important to say why it’s not so that you can kind of actually direct your darlings to where they need to be, or at least add that personal style or that personal flavor in a way that’s applicable to whatever the project is.

Jay (27:08): Yeah. I agree that’s sort of, that’s a better way of saying it. We can’t rely on the client to give us that technically appropriate response that we, they’re going to say it more in a way that sounds, we’re going to leave and say “That was the worst comment I’ve ever heard in my life,” or “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” But it’s because they’re not trained in this. They’re not supposed to be the experts. They’re just going to sort of say it the way a person outside the industry would say it. So I think the more constructive you can get earlier on the safer you’ll be in presenting it. And I think we, we know how to be constructive. [crosstalk 00:27:50] And some clients are really savvy. I’m not saying all clients, but we shouldn’t expect every client just to know our language.

Jessica (28:01): No, I think at the end of the day, the goal is always the same is to have creative that is above the bar and super high quality, but that also serves the purpose of addressing the pain points and the business problem that we’re trying to solve for the client in a creative manner. At the end of the day, they’re looking for a return on their investment and investing in the creative, but also, hitting their metrics that they’re required to meet in house. So everyone’s under the same gamut of pressures. I think it just manifests itself differently. And we’re all kind of attached to different pieces of that pie, if you will, as we try to come to a solution.

Tyler (28:44): I’d say it’s easier to let go of your darlings when you kind of remind yourself of the end goal and that’s to serve the clients needs to make them happy and just keep that good relationship going. So I think when you think of that, you can look and just say “I did a really good job on that. They don’t like it and that’s okay, but we’re going to give them exactly what they want at a very high quality.” And I think that’s where you can still feel good at the end of the day. They’re happy, you’re happy. And you’re done working for the moment.

Randall (29:11): And on that note and kind of going back to what Jess said too, I think there’s always those things like darlings can come up, not just in the feasible darling, that we’re trying to push something that we know they actually can do. Sometimes there’s those things that come up, especially if it’s a commercial or something, they give us this pitch, we have our budget, we know exactly what the brief says to do. And we could come up with this perfect thing that we know the client would love, but from an ROI perspective, it’s just not going to work for them. This initiative doesn’t, they’re not going to spend that much on this initiative or something. Sometimes it can be hard to let those things go because you’re like, it’s the perfect thing. And we know that they would love it and they probably do love it. Sometimes we’ll actually bring them up kind of in passing, but then there’s that you just got to let it go and move on to something that we can actually feasibly do within the time constraints, the budget constraint, whatever the constraint is. And I think to me, that’s one of the hardest ones because you know everybody loves it and you want to do it. And yet we can’t.

Tyler (30:07): Yeah.

Megan (30:08): And oftentimes the client has their own darlings, too. And we have to remember that ultimately we’re doing the work for the client and we have to prioritize those as painful as that can sometimes be. But I think a lot of us and a lot of creatives in general also do work outside of their nine to five job. And I think that that’s where I have manifested a lot of the darlings that I’ve come up with in my own personal work, because no one can tell me no.

Jay (30:37): Yeah. That’s a great point.

Tyler (30:39): Yeah.

Jessica (30:41): Yeah. It’s those little pet projects that allow you to kind of do what you want to do and not have someone else’s opinion filtering it.

Jay (30:49): Yeah.

Jessica (30:51): Well, great. Thanks guys. And we will talk to all of you later and we hope you have a great day. Take care.

Jay (30:58): See you.

Randall (30:58): See you.

Jessica (30:59): Thank you so much for joining us today for our little peek behind the curtain of Viscul and some of the internal conversations that we have. We’re so excited that you decided to join us. If you enjoyed today, please feel free to hit subscribe below. We would love to have you join us on this journey to bring you more content of behind the scenes, as well as some of the things that are happening in the industry and guests. Until next time, take care.