Building authentic connections in the age of human-powered marketing

[00:00:10] Dave Yovanno Welcome back to The Partnership Economy podcast. I’m your host, Dave Yovanno, and this episode is a masterclass in understanding and engaging the next generation of consumers. Today’s guest is Ben Harms, chief growth officer at Archrival, a youth culture agency that’s been behind some of the boldest and most culturally relevant campaigns for brands like Adidas, Abercrombie, and Red Bull. With experience on the brand side himself as a global executive director at Tommy Hilfiger, Ben has a keen understanding of what businesses need to stay innovative and competitive. Today, Ben helps brands tap into Gen Z and Gen Alpha in truly authentic ways, ditching outdated tactics in favor of community-driven strategies. In this episode, he shares what it really takes for brands to connect with youth culture today, why the future belongs to human-powered marketing, and how to build trust, community, and cultural relevance in a world where attention is fragmented and skepticism is high. We also discuss what it means to be a truly effective leader and how to make change within your organization. You’re going to want to take notes on this one. Ben brings a ton of energy, wisdom, and real-world examples that marketers everywhere can learn from. So let’s dive in. Welcome back to The Partnership Economy podcast. I’m thrilled to introduce today’s guest, Ben Harms. He’s chief growth officer at Archrival. Ben, how are you doing today? 

[00:01:44] Ben Harms Good, man. It’s great to be here with you. Good to see you again. Excited to to chat with you. 

[00:01:49] Dave Yovanno Likewise, likewise. Very, very excited to dive in today’s conversation. We’re going to talk a lot about Gen Z and some of the modern trends here in marketing, so can’t wait. I know our audience has been begging for a conversation like this for a long time. So maybe just to kind of start off with a level set, I wanted to learn a little bit more about you, how you got to where you are, and about Archrival, where you work. So maybe to start us off, just tell the audience a little about Archrival and what you do as a company. 

[00:02:18] Ben Harms Yeah. Love it. So at Archrival, we’re a youth culture agency, which essentially means we’re typical creative agency, but we’ve got an expertise in understanding youth culture and younger audiences. And right now we’re just at the forefront of all things, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. So we work with a ton of brands who are really just trying to create relevance with winning a new audience. So some really, really cool brands like an Adidas, a Red Bull, a Netflix, Spotify. You know, and it’s our job to help them really stay at the forefront of culture and understand what shifts are really coming that are going to impact their business. But then there’s like those really, maybe they’re new to market or maybe uncool brands, right? Like ones who maybe were really relevant, like an Abercrombie, but sort of lost their way along the way and just have to figure out how do we reenter into culture in a meaningful way that’s ultimately going to create gravity for our brand, for our products and help turn around our business. That also can just mean startups that’s trying to enter the market and do something totally new and different. But ultimately at the core of all of that is helping brands engage youth culture in a meaningful way. 

[00:03:16] Dave Yovanno Excellent, excellent. So love some of the brands that you threw out, but just to pull that thread a little bit more, are there types of brands that you typically work with? Like, how do you decide which ones are the right fit for who you’re going to work with?

[00:03:29] Ben Harms Yeah, that’s a great question. A big part of that really comes down to one, are they playing at some sort of globally relevant stage? Like, are they trying to make a dent in culture in a way that excites us and that we have an aligned shared set of values, which is we want to do something innovative, we want to be creative, we want to drive impact for our business and ultimately drive scale for whatever marketing effort we want to, we want to do. So like, yes, we have like an internal filter around the types of projects and brands that we take on, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s like if you’re a brand that’s pushing culture forward and you want to win with youth culture today, like that’s who we’re looking for. And within that, though, I would say we built some specialty. You know, yes, we do, you know, insights and strategy and really understanding consumer and helping a brand like Netflix be able to talk about where is the future of streaming going? And we do a lot of work like that. But our sweet spot is really who are those brands that are trying to build holistic campaigns built for the modern relevant moment, right? Like not playing with an old playbook. We’re not really interested, you know, in traditional campaign approaches where every little thing is dialed in. We’re looking for brands who are like, we want to build the sort of new era and future of campaigns as well as communities. So everything from influencer, creator, affiliate, but also like brand ambassadors, sampling programs, anyone who wants to leverage human powered marketing to make a dent. 

[00:04:49] Dave Yovanno All right, so clearly, I would say Archrival is on the bleeding edge of marketing. And by the way, just for the audience to know, I highly encourage people to check out some of the work that you’ve done. Two thought leadership pieces, which is actually how we found you or came across you initially. There’s an incredible piece that we first came across called Gen Z Broke the Marketing Funnel that was published in Vogue Business and then a follow up to that State of Community, which I think you published on Tumblr. So with that, in your opinion, what would you say are the leading brands doing right today? 

[00:05:23] Ben Harms The best brands in the world are the ones who truly are like getting in the passenger seat with consumers today and not trying to still drive and assume passengers are going to go with us, right? Like it’s all about truly empathizing and understanding what are young people doing today? What are their behaviors, their habits, their passions? What detracts them from a brand? We’re still using. It’s crazy to me to think that so many global brands are still using old playbooks of yesterday, right, to try to win consumers today, and I think that starts with not being willing to like challenge ourselves. And so so many brands sort of lose track of the consumer and the customer along the way. So I’d say first and foremost the ones who are like relentlessly talking to consumers and they’re really listening and challenging themselves, that’s like the first pinnacle, and you can see that, right, like you can tell when brand is doing that. And then I’d say secondly, what you’re willing to do with the data you receive and being willing to challenge yourself and take risks and try something new, try new mediums, try new strategies that are taking your brand out into the world in whole new ways. That’s scary, but the best brands are the ones that are willing to make those leaps. 

[00:06:36] Dave Yovanno Yeah, after a hundred years of the practice of brands doing all the talking, not listening. I mean, sure, they do their research and all that, but, you know, they’re the ones doing the amplification of their message. Very different strategy, definitely developing a new set of muscles, if you will, to get in that passenger seat versus driving the car, you know, listening, being part of the community versus doing all the talking and talking about how great you are, letting others do that for you. Do you have an example, for example, of a brand who have started to adopt this sort of method successfully to make it a little bit crystal clear for those? 

[00:07:12] Ben Harms Yeah. The big story that comes to mind, that’s also really close to me personally, because I worked on it for a really long time. We started working with Hollister and Abercrombie in about 2016. And it started with a simple premise of like, they were the most hated brand in America. Like literally, there was a poll taken, it’s like, what’s the worst brand out there in all of the millennial all the time. 

[00:07:35] Dave Yovanno I saw that Netflix documentary, White Hot, I think you could call it. 

[00:07:38] Ben Harms Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and so they brought us in to say, like, hey, we know where we sit. We’re not going to pretend we’re not there. And their leadership at the time, their CEO friend, their brand president, Kristin Scott, like their entire leadership at Hollister, they’re like, we know we have to turn this thing around. What do we need to do? And through some mutual friends and all their clients that we had worked with organically, like they’d reached out to us. And we came in and started to share about what’s going on in youth culture. And this was like right at the beginning of influencer creator style marketing. And we started to just share a lot of insight around how you can start to connect back with culture. And the thing I’ll never forget was watching Kristin lead all of their teams across all of business, right? Like Abercrombie, Hollister, Abercrombie Kids, like all of the brands saying like, we have to get close to the consumer. And so what we started to develop alongside them and for them was an entirely new way of thinking about marketing, where we brought literally high school kids for Hollister, college kids for Abercrombie to their headquarters. Hosting like focus groups and conversations, panels where we would just interview young people. I would go give a trend presentation on what’s shaping culture today. And they started to just really lean in. And yes, they’re a brand that at that point, like they’re such a low, right? So they had no choice. They kind of had to do that, or they knew they were done. But they really leaned into it and they believed it. And they believed in the long tail of what that would take. They knew it wasn’t going to turn around in six months or next quarter. They were like, we’re committed to this. And so for about a decade, we ran so many different iterations of programs that truly gave the mic over to their consumers. Everything from, tell us about our product, tell us what you hate about our brand and our marketing. They were not afraid to hear all of the critiques of the way that they had exposed themselves as a brand for so many years. It’s completely turned around their brand. I think it was 2023, they were the number one SMP stock in America for the entire year, like total rocket ever since. And they’re back, they’re relevant, right. Like in their product has evolved tremendously. Everything they’re doing has really anchored around what consumers want today. So that’s like a super specific story, but I think it answers the question of like, hey, how do you do this? Like you can actually make an app. 

[00:09:51] Dave Yovanno One thing I noticed that a lot of the brands that you mentioned are very established brands. They’ve been doing traditional advertising, if you will, for decades. Do you find that sort of pivot hard for someone that has such an established brand? They’ve got so much invested there, they’ve got certain ways of thinking about their brand. You can’t do certain things to our brand. Like our brand is what made us sort of thing, and you’re asking them to essentially pivot. Is that a core strategy of Archrival, where you are focused on those types of brands typically? And second, do you find most brands have a hard time fully embracing that new mindset? 

[00:10:32] Ben Harms One, yes, it is really hard for brands to change, right? Because what you’re actually talking about isn’t necessarily just the marketing side of that, and the tactics and the strategies that we know are relevant. Like, yes that’s part of it, but it’s also a leadership dynamic, right. Like when you talk to brand marketers, executives, they’re working with so many cross-functional teams and people and they’ve built these massive systems and they budgeted a certain way and and they’ve built ecosystems with large teams around old school methodologies. And so it’s really hard. You’re not turning a speedboat, right? Like you’re turning a giant cruise ship. Okay, how do we internally start to challenge this? What are the leadership dynamics? How do you sell this in and educate, you know, our clients’ counterparts or their boss or their exec team? And if that door’s not open and there’s not a lot of willingness there, that can face a lot headwinds, right. Like that can be really challenging. We’ve had a lot of great ideas die not because it wasn’t a great idea or the right strategy, but purely because, oh, the internal selling was way more challenging than we anticipated. So I think it’s a balance of both getting insight and understanding the consumer and what strategies are going to work today at a marketing level, at a brand level, right? But then there’s also the whole internal leadership dynamic. How do you sell an idea in? How do educate those around you in a way that they all go, you know what, that feels risky. We haven’t done it like that. But we were in, we’re in, we believe this. Let’s go, let’s take the hill together. That’s part of the challenge. 

[00:12:01] Dave Yovanno Excellent, excellent. So that’s a great intro to Archrival. Maybe turning the intro conversation just for a question or two about you specifically. What the heck is a chief growth officer at Archrival? What do you do exactly? 

[00:12:15] Ben Harms Yeah, so I oversee all of our new business and all of account services. So if you’re a client, you’re working with us and your main point of contact is going to be an account director, group account director et cetera. And I oversee that whole team, right? They’re just managing all of client relationships. But I also am here to help drive our growth and help evolve Archrival into more of a global scale and become, literally my goal is to make Archrival the world’s best youth culture brand and agency that understands youth culture better than anybody. So I oversee a team that helps do all of that new business development, thought leadership, and we’re really passionate about the thought leadership side, we don’t do a lot of PR or award chasing. For us, we just want to add as much value into the world as possible, knowing that if we do that, the right brands are going to show up. But my background was also pretty wild, like, I’m kind of a serial entrepreneur, dreamer, creator. So I started my own small shop at 17, like my own little creative agency way back in the day, eventually became a photographer, started a couple of different businesses, a mobile web development company when iPhone one launched, and then, you know, a couple nonprofits along the way. But eventually like just the work that we’re doing out of a place like Lincoln Nebraska at Archrival and obviously getting to know, you know, our, our founders, one of my, one my closest friends and getting to know him. And it was just like, this is a place that is doing really exceptional work and challenging the norms. I want to be a part of that. So, been here for about the last decade or so. 

[00:13:39] Dave Yovanno Also, you had what seemed like a pretty important stepping stone in your career with a tour of duty at Tommy Hilfiger. What was your biggest learning from your time there? 

[00:13:49] Ben Harms One of our clients from Hollister actually became the global chief marketing officer at Tommy. So I took the leap and left Archrival for a short couple of years, moved over to Amsterdam. And I would say it actually, the biggest thing I learned, and I’ll never forget this conversation I had with Clint, our founder here at Archrival, he called me. I was like six months into the job in Amsterdam, and he’s like, how’s it going? And I was, like, you know, the big shift is at Archrival and on the agency side, it’s like 80 to 90 percent of what we do is the creative, the idea, the strategy, like the work itself, right, and is it going to move the needle, 10, 20 percent is like politics, internal relationships, you know, like sort of like the more challenging relational side of things. And I was like going internal at a brand, it’s almost like that flipped, right. Like as a global vice president, I had hundreds of VP counterparts around the world. I mean, we had tens of thousands of employees. So to sell an idea in, you know, Tommy is still, you know, very much involved in the brand. An awesome guy, by the way, like super nice, very open, loves to riff. He’s just very tied into culture. But it’s like, you’ve got a founder that’s involved. We had CEO, a CMO, like obviously the, you know, my boss at the executive level, but then it’s, like, I’ve got all these global counterparts. I’ve a whole entire team across the globe that I’m also managing. And suddenly it was like, oh, the overwhelming side of the job is not just, is the idea good? It’s how do I make sure everyone is bought in, everyone is aligned. And that this idea, like whether that’s a global brand platform or a marketing campaign or a product campaign, actually is understood top to bottom across the entire globe and with so many different stakeholders who have different opinions and then contextualizing that, right, in Germany to South Korea to wherever. So to me, I just found it really like, oh, I can empathize with our clients in such a different way now because so much of the job isn’t just the work itself. And forever I was just fixated on that, versus, okay, the idea’s got to be great, but how can we help you communicate this to any of your internal stakeholders in a way that everyone gets excited and everyone believes in what you’re doing? That’s a completely different job spec than I was anticipating in a lot of ways. 

[00:16:02] Dave Yovanno Yeah, you know, a lot of listeners of the pod here are mapping their own career path, really trying to figure out where they’re headed and where they are going. That seemed like an incredible opportunity. I mean, you were, I think with Archrival at the time when that opportunity presented itself, seems like a big bet on yourself to pick up and move. I’m assuming you were in Lincoln, Nebraska at the time to Amsterdam. Could you maybe share with the audience a little bit about how that opportunity came about and what was your decision-making process to pull the trigger? 

[00:16:31] Ben Harms Yeah, that’s a fascinating. I love this. This is a throwback. Okay, so I had actually just hit up, his name was Michael Shiner. He’s now the chief marketing officer over at Celebrity Cruises. So he was a client of ours at Hollister and we had just done so much work together and we just had grown really close over the years. Honestly, I consider him a close friend, more than a quote unquote client. Like he’s a friend of mine. And so I hit him up and just like was catching up with him. Like huge congrats, he had just moved over to Amsterdam, and So we were just catching up, and he was like, hey, I got project ideas. I want to bring you out. Let’s do what we did at Hollister and at Abercrombie, but let’s do it for Tommy. I was like hell yeah, this is great. I’m ready to go. I love to travel, bring it on. And so we were talking a bunch of different projects, like a global retail of the future study for Tommy, come out and teach him on youth culture, and at the end of the conversation, he was hey, but would you move here? And I was like, are you being serious? Like, it was just literally that, that like off the cuff, like, hey, would you just come? And I like, that’s crazy enough. And my wife and I, we’re just huge adventurous people. You know, we love to move. We love to travel. She grew up in the military. So moving around was no big deal for her, kind of having, having done that. So my thought process then became like, is this an opportunity? We’re doing incredible work at Archrival. Like, I love our Archrival, obviously came back right here. It’s not very often you boomerang. So at the time, though, it was a question of like, one, is this a brand that I would have energy and excitement to help rebuild? You know, when you think about the Tommy brand in America, it’s just not relevant like it once was. But it has all the right ingredients, very similarly to Abercrombie, right? So is this is a brand excites me? Is it is it people that I trust? And in this case, Michael, I trusted him endlessly, like he’s just such an awesome partner to work with for years. And is the job spec something that I felt like really challenged me. I had never managed a team that size, a budget that size a global scale working in a multilingual sort of environment. And so for me, I was like, when I feel that like electricity, that sort of goosebumps feeling of like, oh man, I don’t know if this is going to work. Like I love living in that place. And it would just felt like all of those things sort of collided. My wife and I had that shared value of adventure and wanting to move and experience the world and raise our kids. I mean, we were pregnant with our fourth when this decision came up. So it was like, are we really going to move four kids around the world? And that gave us that kind of goosebumps. The brand gave me that kind of goosebumps and then the job spec was like oh yeah. And so honestly, it was a really easy choice to say this is a cliff you take a leap off of and hope that you fly. And it was truly a well worthy adventure along the way. I’m super thankful for that time. And it did it definitely shaped my career,. 

[00:19:24] Dave Yovanno Working with people that you trust, you mentioned, I have referred to that myself as like staying within network meaning the same thing, basically. And that is so underestimated, right? A lot of people just take a complete flyer, you think this opportunity is something and then you get there. And you know, the culture, you know, everything is just, you know completely different than what you thought and you know things kind of fizzle out after 90 days every year. And that’s just kind of a waste of time for everybody. So any chance you have to kind of qualify that next opportunity by actually having work with, you know, some of the people that you’re about to work with again on a new project that you were excited about,. Incredible, incredible advice there. Love it. 

[00:20:03] Dave Yovanno Let’s shift gears to Gen Z. We’re talking about the age rage that I think today is between 13 and 28 years old. They’re forecasted to be the generation with the most spending power in under four years. And that’s important because this is also the generation that is the most digitally native, right? And they’ve got strong social peer influence. So you’ve done some of the most compelling work on Gen Z. What are the most surprising truths would you say about how they shop and how they connect with brands? 

[00:20:33] Ben Harms To grow up with these devices, it’s changed everything. I would say that the biggest thing that continues to surprise me is just how much they trust, their trust has changed, right? For so long, trust in culture was very top down. What you have now is a generation that has come in and completely flipped that script. So I talk about trust all the time in the sense that this generation trusts people like themselves and experts that are everyday people, but they have a passion point. And so no longer are those typical pillars of society, the ones holding all the cards. And then the part that comes with that is, they’re not waiting for permission for any of this. So the traditional gatekeepers of culture, like you don’t need to go get permission to make an album or to create the art or start the business. You can just do it. And kids are doing it from like 10, 15 years old now. And they’re so entrepreneurial. They have all the tools at their fingertips. I think education is changing dramatically too. And I think so much of that just comes back to this idea of trust, and the sense that like, I want to listen to people that are like me. I want buy from people that like me, I want get my content, my news, like, even if you look at how news is moving today. The number one source for Gen Z are actually everyday people. You know, for so long mainstream culture was very monolithic, right? Like we all would listen to roughly the same. Again, like kind of news cycle or magazines, like if you’re into music, like Rolling Stone held all the cards and that’s what was cool and relevant. And there were subcultures for sure, but when you look at it today, like now you can be fans of any type of music or gaming or whatever it is, and find like a huge population of people from all over the world that are nowhere close to you, live nothing like you, but that you connect over shared passions. And so the world has become so diverse, so quickly and these communities have become more niche than ever before. So I think to me trust is huge. I think the globalization of everything and sort of niche culture and the way communities are developed is another really big one. And that constantly continues to surprise me in the way that that manifests itself in marketing and in brand building in the world today. 

[00:22:42] Dave Yovanno The common theme that I’m seeing in terms of behavior, like how, not just how Gen Z is shopping, but just how they’re trading information. Like these are platforms where it’s all about the low key inside scoop, right? It’s almost like this generation by default does not trust anyone who is trying to have this interruptive traditional form of relationship with them that were they, you know, that that message wasn’t invited essentially. And to me, that is probably the biggest thing. And these social sharing platforms have really kind of unlocked this community aspect where people are just relying on each other for what’s the real truth behind what we’re being told or what we hear about, or maybe we discover about a product or a thing through mass media, let’s say, but I’m going to turn to the community to verify essentially and get the straight scoop. Would you agree with that? That sort of observation with this generation? 

[00:23:37] Ben Harms One hundred percent. And I think that’s what makes even like Impact.com so powerful, right, because you built your entire business on this idea of human powered marketing and getting the real story out through real people in a community centered sort of way. We totally share that value. I think one of the things that we’ve lost as marketers over the past 20 years, actually, you know, going back to the very beginning probably. So much of marketers are like, I got to get people, again, this goes back to where we started too. I get people to buy into my message, get in my car, like align with my brand. But we have such an opportunity as marketers to add value into people’s lives. Like if I’m going to sell gardening equipment, why not help people understand how to become a better gardener along the way, right? And add value to their lives. And when you actually partner with real human beings, to take that story out, they’re aware of those things. What do they want to learn? What are they passionate about? Why do they love the products that they love? And they want to share those stories. And so to me, I think actually in the sort of mass marketing approach, we’ve lost a little bit of the value and the plot that we can bring to the world, which is truly adding value to consumers’ lives. But I think when we take this sort of mass media approach, we suck the air out of the room and we expect people to listen to us versus like truly adding value to their life in a meaningful way. And young people can see through that BS. And so they continue to tune in, to your point, they continue tune in to people like themselves that can give a real, authentic story. I know it’s like a total marketing buzzword, but it’s a good one, right? They’re where it lands because it’s credible, it’s believable, and it’s something I actually want to hear. 

[00:25:17] Dave Yovanno So if you were to unpack that a little bit more, like how else would you say, or what other, how could you build that out further so that we can kind of get a firm idea of what that means exactly, brands building trust with this Gen Z audience. 

[00:25:29] Ben Harms So let’s say it’s a beauty brand, and they’re going to put out, you know, product reviews or they’re going to share with. We hope that some of those people like, I don’t like this product and here’s why, right? That just builds trust. Like that, that tells you I’m not selling, right, I actually just want to help inform you around the value this product has, what am I do for you and what it won’t do for you. Right? So honesty is huge. I think another one is you can show behind the scenes in a really dynamic way. And so they’re looking for those brands where they have closer value alignment with. And so when you give insider access to that, how your product’s made, who the people are behind the scenes, who your CEO is and what they care about and what value, how they treat employees, like all of that starts to build a ton of trust too. 

[00:26:13] Dave Yovanno But you also mentioned something about letting somebody else deliver the message. And so it’s kind of like, you know, establishing trust with the consumer, but there’s emotion here, it seems that brands have to also trust the partners that they’re working with on who’s delivering that message for them, right? So what tips do you have to brands and how they qualify or establish that relationship, that trust with partners if they’re the ones to be the voice of the brand? 

[00:26:43] Ben Harms What first comes to mind for me is, again, alignment with brand values. So looking over all their content, like anybody who’s just taken a sort of spray and pray approach where you’re like, get as many as possible, like it has its value at times, right? But also you’ve got to understand whether or not this person has curated a community and a following who’s actually, one, that my product is relevant to, and that our values as a brand, as a company, are aligned with that audience, right. First, when it comes to partner selection, like, you’ve got to understand who they are, who their audience is. And again, it goes back to this idea of like, can we add value to that audience? So it’s less like, is this an audience I can sell to? And it’s more like, do we have some alignment here? There’s like a value alignment that is first and foremost. And then two, as you start to get into the relationship with those creators, a lot of times what we’re looking for is someone who is really sharp at being able to take a creative brief and interpret it in a way that truly is relevant to their audience, but understands the business objective for our brands. So it’s just got to land in those ways. So I think as you’re vetting creators. It’s got to be a value alignment. It’s got be a creative alignment. And it’s going to be something that that creator actually would want and purchase and want to give to their audiences in a meaningful way. I think when you can do those things, like that’s a really, really good starting point. 

[00:28:03] Dave Yovanno So if those creators are in it for the mid to long term, in terms of like, you know, creating a business around the content that they’re publishing. They got to be careful in terms abusing their audience, like losing that trust essentially with their audience. And so, you know, I would, the only thing I would add to what you said is like finding those creators and other partners who are already using the product and like the product, like, like start with those folks. I actually just had a conversation with my CMO, Kristin yesterday about that back. You know, finding, you know, the creators who are really, you know, growing, you know, at a high rate on our platform that have given us a positive feedback, how can we, you know, you create a partnership with them to like, you know, talk about their experience on our platform. And so with that, like you you know this is obviously biased, me coming from impact.com or a platform that helps manage all this stuff, but knowing that you’re not going after  the celebrity or aspirational creators all the time, you’re, you are working with lower volume, but you do need some automation, right, to find these guys, create a partnership with them, you know, manage the overall program, because it is hard to hit those mass media numbers without some, some form of automation. So, you don’t, you, don’t don’t pass on, you know, those sorts of partners just because they’re low volume. What you want is, is all the points that you made around authenticity, like they genuinely love the product. And that’s going to come come across and how they talk about it, even if it’s got some flaws. But you know, they’re respecting their relationship with their audience, which you know should be, you know, I think held in the highest regard. So you know, all great pro tips, I think in that. 

[00:29:41] Ben Harms Yeah. And I love the idea of actually creating the right systems that are helping almost prevent people or letting people opt into those programs too, because then they’re already saying, like, I actually want to share this kind of information with my audience. They find these things relevant. It’s less about to your point earlier, like, reach as much as it is about really great engagement of, you know, completed, completed views, etc., where we’re actually just seeing people engaging with what we’re putting out there. And that to us has so much value today versus sort of the old method, which is just eyeballs, traffic and reach. And today it’s far more about, are people actually engaging and willing to share this and willing and willing to comment on it, et cetera, like, that goes so much further today. 

[00:30:28] Dave Yovanno Maybe the last question on this topic, you know, I’d love this quote from your recent microsite, something about marketers no longer build brands, the community around the brand does. Can you elaborate on that? 

[00:30:40] Ben Harms Yeah. I mean, it just goes back to so much what we talked about already, right? Like this idea of trust and where culture really is coming from. One of my favorite stats that we’ve ever uncovered is really the idea of like, where does cultural change come from? Like where do trends in culture come from? And for millennials, almost half of us are like, oh yeah, brands actually drive culture. But only, I think, I hope I’m not quoting it wrong. I think it’s like 13 percent of Gen Z agree with that. So you have this massive shift. But what does Gen Z think? Like they’re here saying, actually, culture comes from us. It comes from community. It comes from people. And that community building idea is what is so deeply embedded in Gen Z. And it’s like the total inverse happens, right? Gen Z is saying, community and people, real people, are what’s building the trends that are shaping culture. Millennials are the opposite, it’s brands. And they just, and so in just one decade, right, in just on generational shift. We have such a dynamic change that’s happened in culture. And so instead of, again, as a brand saying, hey, here’s what we want to get out into the world, here’s the idea you should follow. Like, we can’t as brands be the ones to throw the party and expect people to show up. Like, everybody’s already throwing great parties. How can we make those even better and amplify them and like give them the tools and the resources? And quite literally, we’ve actually done that. And one of my favorite campaigns we worked on recently, we helped launch the show, The Chi for Showtime. And the whole idea was like season six, so they’re deep, right, into this. And they’ve built a great fandom. But they also, of course, every season, you’re like, how can we be the best season launch ever? And like, that gets really tough when you get six seasons deep. And what we actually did was we said, let’s go find a whole bunch of party crews around the country where there’s deep audience alignment, right, like there’s some fandom maybe built in already. And let’s come in and let just help amplify their party scene. And so we found all these crews from around the country who are already throwing great parties and we’re like, hey, what if Paramount and Showtime came in and amplified your party? What if we just gave you like 20 grand to make this thing just bangin’? And all we ask is that we get to throw out some swag and promote the show and on your social, you invite people to subscribe for free and check out season six of The Chi. And they’re like hell yes. And so we just got to come into these communities and say, we see you. What you’re doing is awesome. You keep doing that. We would love to just help amplify that. And at the end of the day, people were stoked. I mean, we like amplified roller skating parties and pool parties and, like, just the craziest stuff all over the country. It did end up being the most watched season of all time, and the authenticity of all of that, like again, it’s about community. It’s about relationships. And it’s about brands being able to see that as a way to add value into the world and at the same time, take your message out and everybody can win in that moment in a really dynamic way. 

[00:33:42] Dave Yovanno Yeah, just listening to you talk, I’m thinking about, you and I riffed on this recently, this topic of culture, community, I think you would agree, surrounds culture. I think by generation going back, as far as you can track it, each generation has had their own cultural themes, everything from bell bottoms to, yeah, I was sharing with you, I was a break dancer back in the 80s, 90s. 

[00:34:09] Ben Harms But there was video of this, by the way, Dave. Like we need to see, we need to see the Dave breakdancing. 

[00:34:13] Dave Yovanno It only comes out in weddings these days. But anyway, I get thrown out there by my family. It’s a lot of fun. But you know, it’s like, but there was one thing that existed back then that has kind of gone away, I would say, in the last 10 years. And that is there is this mass media effect that just kind of kept everybody grounded on certain things. So I talk about break dancing, like you had, Michael Jackson was, you know, a very famous pop singer doing Pepsi commercials, doing the moonwalk. So there was a way to kind of like translate some of that stuff to mass media. So regardless of what you had going on in your neighborhood, because there was no internet, there was no social sharing platforms, that has been the big change. Everyone was watching the same TV shows, listening to the same radio stations, reading the same newspapers, and obviously a lot has changed just in the last 10 years, maybe 15 years, like transformational change. And it just blows my mind that brands, you know, can hear the insights that you’re sharing, look at the success stories of what brands are doing and how they’re trying to relate to today’s modern generations and still continue to invest and these outdated mass media advertising strategies. Why do you think brands continue to go all in on these antiquated 100 year old strategies, instead of like reallocating more budget to what you’re doing, right? Trying to relate to a modern consumer. 

[00:35:36] Ben Harms To summarize that, I would say one, we built these systems. And when it works, we’re like, don’t break it, right? So much of it is less about how do we be effective as marketers, and it’s like, how do I protect my job? How do I climb the ladder? How do keep my boss happy? And so we go back to the things that we know just work. Cultural change inside an organization is really, really challenging. So there’s that side of it. But I also think part of it is we are so hungry for performance level data that proves that the thing I did worked. And so we just, we like anchor ourselves into data sets, whether they’re relevant or not, and actually effective in moving our business forward, but we’re so obsessed with short-term performance that we often lose sight over the things that are really going to build our brand for the long haul. So I think that there’s a lot of internal politics, there’s culture that is a headwind, and I think our own data can get in our way if we don’t understand how to look at it through the right lens that has both the long and the shorter view in it, we get really tripped up over ourselves along the way. 

[00:36:39] Dave Yovanno Yeah, it’s what I’m hearing you say is that it’s going to take bold leadership on the marketing side to pivot essentially, right? You’ve got, again, 100 years of a certain way of doing things, mostly based on GRPs, gross rating points, reach frequency, there’s Nielsen survey data, and all that stuff. I think still has value. But, you know, what you’re suggesting is risky, you know, somebody could be putting their career at ready for making a big bet on something that doesn’t work out. At the end of the day, you’re deploying marketing investment to sell something. So at the highest level, you should be tracking ROI based on, hey, I invested this much in marketing, and I got this much and sales, right? And there is a way to isolate the effect of that. But it does take some bold leadership. Do you see that changing with the work that you’re doing inside, especially these organizations that have been around for decades? 

[00:37:34] Ben Harms Yeah, it’s really easy in the startup land, right? Like, I always mentioned this earlier. We just, we’re talking with a snack company that’s a startup right now and they’re like, full send, be crazy, trust the creators. And part of that is like, they’re not fighting against those headwinds in those systems. So it’s easier on that front, to your point, it’s a lot harder, you know, when you get a legacy brand. We’ve worked with Adidas for a really long time and they’ve had bold leaders come in and say like, you know what? We are going to take some huge leaps. We are going to trust this creator spirit inside of athletes and influencers and creators in local markets. And they’ve just put that mandate out to their business and brand. When we started working with them, they were number four in footwear sales in North America behind even Under Armor and Sketchers. You’re like, whoa, like that’s a moment. But they were like bold moves, huge risks, and they’ve had an awesome run for the last decade. And you can see that now. They’ve built it into their campaign, like their global campaign of you’ve got this. That’s one mass media message. And yeah, they can dump millions of dollars, right, into that top line narrative. But that can be recontextualized to a running sports specialty store in a running community, a run club, you know, in like Memphis, Tennessee, completely differently than it can be to like a WNBA activation. Or, you know like, you can just take that idea and then give it to your people and be like, you tell us what this means. You take it and put it out in the world. And so they’re doing both really, really well. Cause I don’t want to totally knock on the idea of mass campaign, cause of course they still have a place. But it’s understanding the top down and the bottom up in our world today. And that bottom up part, to your point, it’s risky. It takes bold leadership. It takes people willing to take a leap and say, we believe the world has changed. It’s not just changing. It has changed fundamentally. And we got to get on that boat and we got to be willing to like take some risks, measure this for the longterm. Do what we can in the short to be really, really smart and agile, but at the same time, let’s take the long view and lead with a lot of courage to build a future that we believe is coming. 

[00:39:32] Speaker If you’re enjoying this podcast and want to learn how partnerships can help your business, visit impact.com, the world’s leading partnership management platform. 

[00:39:42] Dave Yovanno All right, so maybe shift gears here a little bit. I want to dig in and talk about the business side of things, at a brass-tax level. How do you get business done in today’s era? How are you pitching brands? How are running campaigns? Give us a sense of what that thought like for you at the Archrival. 

[00:40:00] Ben Harms Around 2016 or so, we really decided as a leadership team, like, we got to double down on something. And we were a bit more generalized at the time, though we had still called ourselves a youth marketing agency. There was this sense of like, we got to go all in on this. And so building a specialty and an expertise really is a huge effort of ours. The other thing I think that we’ve done really differently and uniquely, when you look at the marketing industry, there’s 14,000 agencies in America, just alone. Globally, I can only imagine what that number is. And we just said, we’re going to specialize. So there’s maybe a couple hundred or a hundred or so that are specialized in youth culture, Gen Z, et cetera. But along the way, those 14,000, they’re all competing for the same award stuff, the same type of PR stuff. And we decided a long time ago, we’re not going to play the award game. We don’t give a shit if we go to Cannes. No offense to those who do and love it and get awards, great. But what we decided was we just want to add a ton of value into the world. If we believe that that’s what’s true about marketing today and that people come first in telling your story, why don’t we add as much value as possible so that people talk about us because they’ve learned something, because they gained something, because it’s helped their career, their business, their brand, whatever. And so we just doubled down on thought leadership and the idea of like adding value into the world. And so, we publish everything we do, right? Like all of our reports, all of our stats. So for us, that’s like our huge new business driver. And it puts us in a position where we don’t have to pitch a lot. People come to us because they’re like, oh, you have something I, there’s not a lot of people that have what you have. We’re not trying to compete with 14,000 other agencies. And so that that has really put us in a much stronger position in the world. That said, you know, like it had has downsides, like everything does, like you make those choices. And all of a sudden, yeah, you’re not showing up at some of the big stages or, you know, getting some of the PR moments that a lot of other shops get. But we’ve been very intentional. And we’ve been very, very proud of that. I think for us, though, the you know some of the big challenges that we’re thinking about going forward too is just like, what is this intersection of AI and human powered marketing? We believe so much in human powered marketing and even Gen Z sort of anecdotally qualitatively, like they know how to sniff out not only AI content, but just BS content in general. But that’s something we think a lot about. Like that’s one of the big challenges that sort of at Brass Text, like we’re kind of wrestling with today is like, what do we do with this AI boom? And obviously we all use it. I use it every day, you know, endlessly. But there is this sense of like, where is this all headed and how will we continue to stay relevant and sort of build our brand and our business, despite how fast the world is changing today? And so that’s one thing I think a lot about. But at the end of the day, I believe, I deeply believe, if we keep adding value to our customers lives, to the brand partners that we work with, but also to consumers through all the campaigns that we do, people are going to keep coming back, because there’s an authenticity and a value there that you just can’t put a figure to, you can’t measure it, you know, holistically all the time, but we deeply believe in it. And so we’re like all in on that. 

[00:42:58] Dave Yovanno Yeah, and again, that’s how we found you. We found some of the content pieces that you published, which really inspired us. It’s kind of like, hey, here’s a team that sees the world as we see it, different perspective, that we learn some things, looking to refer business to you where it makes sense, do business together. I think that’s kind a modern form of business, like, putting yourself out there to be judged, right? Getting people to respond to your way of thinking. You’re adding value to the world. And I think that serves as a bit of a magnet. You are going to attract a certain type of business interest. And who knows where that goes, essentially. It sounds like a key strategy that you’re deploying there. What are some lessons that you’ve learned in building a strong culture at the companies that you’ve been at?

[00:43:49] Ben Harms I am really passionate about leadership and I think it’s something that a lot of marketers. For us, we care a lot about giving everyone a voice equally. So I think, for me, humility and the idea that great ideas can come from anywhere is really essential. And then I think for us we’re always looking for people who want to show up and solve problems. Like in the same way that I keep talking and beating this idea of like, how do we add value into the world as marketers and as brands, I want to find people and I want to embody someone who’s just adding value to the room. And so not being afraid to sort of speak up and start something if I see a problem, I want to jump in and solve it. Like the future belongs to those who are willing to solve problems. Not bitch about them, not throw in the towel or blame somebody else when something challenging comes up, but be like, this isn’t working, whether that’s internally or for your brand or your marketing, and just saying like, I bet I can solve that, and I’m going to put the extra effort in to do it, and I want to help out. Like I want to add value wherever I can in the room to people’s lives. Those are the types of people that I’m really drawn to. 

[00:44:50] Dave Yovanno It’s, it’s hard for like, you know, people who have been in business for decades, where you feel you’re the boss, you know, you’re just like we’re talking about with brands doing all the talking, right, you like getting getting more in the driver’s seat, as as a leader with your company and inviting people in, hey, you know, I want to socialize or talk about this topic, you know, with employees, here’s what I think, you know, draft that, you know, getting a diverse sets of points of views and thinking around that, asking for feedback on what you’re about to share. I constantly do that, right? I always want to make sure that, I always assume I’m missing something and learn so much if you’ve got. It doesn’t have to be your whole executive team. It’s probably better if it’s not. It’s just kind of like an ad hoc or an informal committee or group of folks that you trust that kind of represent people or different views to kind of keep yourself in check so being, I guess, humble enough to invite that perspective in so that you’re well-informed, if you will. And I say that because you and I actually were on stage together recently at, in fact, that annual IPX event. We had an interesting question come up from the audience at the end. If you remember, something like, you know, okay, I’m on board with the future of marketing, you know, where everything was headed, but how do I convince essentially what she was saying was the old people in my company, you know, you to kind of get out, get on board as well. Like I get it, but people running the company don’t get it. Like, what are your thoughts on how young people can be changemakers within their organization? 

[00:46:25] Ben Harms At the end of the day, we’re running business. And if you can speak the language of those who are running a business and understand what ultimately matters to them, again, it comes back to this idea of empathy and humility, of being like, what matters to then? And that’s the core marketing principle, right, that we’ve talked about. How do we actually care about what consumers think and get in their world, not get them into ours? The same applies to me as a young employee. It’s like, what matters for my boss? What matters to our business? For me, if you want to talk to somebody higher up, you got to empathize with their world, understand what matters, what are the pressures they’re facing, what’s the bottom line of our business, what are we trying to achieve? And when you can understand that and then bring your creativity to it, solve real problems that get to that end, like that can make a huge difference. 

[00:47:11] Dave Yovanno I fall into that group, you know, the older folks, and you know my daughters are 25 and 24. And I feel I have a bit of a competitive advantage. Like, if you’re tuned into their behavior is what they’re doing. They keep me sharp, you know, on the trends and what their friends are doing. So I wouldn’t underestimate them. And I would also, to your point, them being older folks in the company. But there’s something else that you said that I took away from it. Coming to the table with objective data or reasoning or data-backed recommendations, because I do empathize with the challenge, right, because who would have known that giving away free cans of Red Bull would be the big driver of brand and awareness and recall and all that? So I empathize that it’s hard, like 100 years of, you know, doing things, measuring things a certain way, and you’re talking about a pivot, a transformational change in how marketing is done, trying to map that to, you know establish systems is difficult, it just is. So on that point, specifically, do you have any recommendations for the audience that are facing that challenge? 

[00:48:27] Ben Harms I would say, again, understand the key metrics that actually move the needle for your business, right? Like what have been the known drivers of sales? Or, you know, again it could be engagement, reach, traffic, whatever it might be, right, that’s really critical for your businesses in that moment that your exact team’s looking at. So understand, first and foremost, what they care about. And then figure out how to present new ideas through the lens of those. Now that’s not always a direct correlation to walk in and say, oh, by the way, if we do this, it’s going to drive our sales by X, you know, this year, most of us are BSing when we do that. But to be able to storytell how other brands have done similar things or done new tactics that you’re hoping to pitch in and try and be able to say like, this is how they correlated that data. Here’s the effect they had. Go for it. Right? Like this is something that we’ve seen signals. So that’s one route. 

[00:49:21] Dave Yovanno Another great point. I just want to underscore that one. That’s a great thing. I talked to a lot of CMOs. And that is something that I hear come up most often. Most CMO, especially, I would say, as well, are concerned about comparing themselves with other companies that look like them, benchmarking, essentially, hey, what do we pull me aside? What are we not doing that you see other great companies that looks like I’m doing? Like, like, this whole fear of missing out sort of thing. So don’t underestimate that pro tip that you just gave me. All right, so as we start to wrap up, then clearly you’re someone with a strong pulse, I think, on the future trends. So what marketing, social media, or partnership trends are top of mind for you right now? 

[00:50:01] Ben Harms Yeah, I think, and again, we’ve kind of talked about this a little bit, but I’ll underscore the idea that the energy that’s being created on social right now is getting more niche and more communal than I’ve ever seen it. We heard and you’d mentioned at the top of our conversation, but we had done a study with Tumblr on the state of community and social. And what we heard loud and clear was like, social media has lost the plot. It’s become all media and not social. And so more and more young people are going to these smaller places like Reddit, Discord, WhatsApp groups, sub stack email list, right? It gets getting more niche and it’s getting more closed. You’re going to see more and more brands entering those spaces because I do think that that’s where cultural energy is at. And over the next five to 10 years, I think those, those platforms and those communities are going to continue to expand and grow those audiences where they’re not dependent on the mass channel platforms, the TikToks, the the Instagrams, et cetera. But they’re saying, I’ve built this community and it kind of lives across more closed ecosystems. We’re seeing this play out a ton. So the more, again, you can find the right partners in culture to take your message out to an active and aligned audience, the more impact you’re going to have. I’m all in on this idea of human-powered marketing for the future. You know, I already mentioned, you know, where does AI kind of fit into this? Because obviously AI is changing the entire marketing industry right now. Like it’s an upheaval in a lot of ways. But I’m placing a huge bet on the fact that community-oriented, human-powered marketing, like that is where people are going to continue to go, that’s where Gen Z is going to continue to resonate, that where authenticity really truly lives, and we, at the end of the day, are still human beings who want connection, right? We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, a community of like-minded people, and I don’t think that’s going away. In fact, we see Gen Z over-indexing on IRL experiences and events that balance with their digital life. So to me, I’m all in on this idea of community.

[00:51:57] Dave Yovanno  All right, Ben, finally, for people listening to this episode, what would you say is one main takeaway that you want them to walk away with? 

[00:52:06] Ben Harms I would say that the main takeaway for me is understanding the power of human powered marketing to move your brand is the number one engine that you should be putting into your brand to take it forward into the future. Again, like culture is not created by brands. It’s not created entities or top down anymore. It’s created by people. Even with all the world changes that are going on. Be it economically, politically, whatever, people are the driving force. And I don’t think that that’s going away, even with AI and all that’s happening there. I don’t think that’s going to wait anytime soon. And the brands that are going to win are the ones that are going to give the keys over to a new generation of consumers and say, we want to partner with you to tell our story. We don’t want to be the ones to tell it. We want you to take our message out into the world in a way that resonates, that’s authentic to you, that adds value to people’s lives. And if you can do that as a brand today, that is going to be transformative for the next five to 10 years for your company, your business and your brand. 

[00:53:10] Dave Yovanno Ben, thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed this conversation more than I can tell you. I really appreciate you joining me for such an insightful and energetic conversation on The Partnership Economy podcast. And to our listeners, thank for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. 

[00:53:25] Ben Harms Thanks, Dave. It’s been awesome, man. 

[00:53:26] Dave Yovanno What a powerhouse conversation with Ben. He gave us a real, no BS look into what it takes to stay relevant in today’s fast moving, youth driven world and how brands can evolve to meet the moment. Here are just a few of my takeaways from the episode. First, culture doesn’t trickle down from brands anymore. It’s built from the bottoms up. The smartest marketers aren’t just broadcasting messages. They’re empowering real people and communities to carry their message forward. Ben gave some great tips on how to connect mass media strategies to micro communities, like in the case of Adidas’ You Got This campaign. Second, Gen Z has completely rewritten the trust playbook. They don’t want polished, scripted brand ads. They want honesty, behind the scenes access, and creators they already trust, telling the story in their own voices. And third, bold leadership is essential. Whether it’s turning a legacy brand like Abercrombie around, or betting big on niche communities instead of mass media, Ben reminded us that true innovation requires risk and a willingness to challenge the way things have always been done. Finally, if there’s one thread that ran through everything that Ben shared, it’s this. Great marketing is about adding value, not just to a campaign, but to culture, communities, and the consumer you’re trying to reach. This mindset shift is what will define the brands that thrive in the years ahead. A huge thank you to Ben for joining me in this conversation, and to all of you for tuning in to The Partnership Economy Podcast. We’ll see you next time.