{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Extracting Meaningful Data from the (Fascinating) Journey","description":"Brian Phillips is Co-founder and CEO of The Basement, an integrated (technology + creativity + measurement) B2C and B2B marketing agency with its roots in production. Brian dabbled in art and worked in architecture before he took the artistic principles of rendering positive and negative space to marketing. He explains, \u201cThe positive space, the consumer journey, is one we can see and everything works.\u201d He believes marketers can get a lot of understanding out of identifying and analyzing negative space \u2013 the things that don\u2019t work \u2013 and that these, too, can help define the client journey. He believes \u201cNegative space helps define and form the positive space.\u201d His interests today remain diverse. For the past year, he has avidly read scientific books, pursuing ideas related to how genetics might impact buying and selling. The agency manages all media and destinations (the social channels and websites where consumers engage), extracting and analyzing as much data as possible and using multivariate testing. As an example, the agency may \u201ccross-reference data out of Amazon\u201d with data from its analytics platform on the ecommerce side.\u201d The Basement markets its clients through an often complex, multi-touch, multi-channel approach. Larger companies may have as many as 150 datapoints across their consumer journey from \u201chigh level impressions down to ecommerce platform conversions.\u201d  Brian has found that insights gained by analyzing data about consumers in the lower funnel can provide information on how the consumer got there and what the consumer will do next. The agency measures its success through outcomes, which, Brain explains, ensures accountability. Brian says his agency\u2019s focus has always been on growth, but growth \u201chas to be calculated.\u201d When asked about his agency\u2019s culture, he says simply, \u201cStay fascinated,\u201d and then expands on the thought, adding, \u201cStay curious, stay ambitious, stay competitive, stay genuine, and stay fascinated.\u201d Brian can be reached on his agency\u2019s website at: thebsmnt.com. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Brian Phillips, Co-founder and CEO of The Basement based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to the podcast. BRIAN: Thank you. Thanks for having me. ROB: Excellent to have you here, Brian. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us about The Basement and where the firm excels? BRIAN: The Basement is an integrated agency, and there\u2019s probably some backstory there of how we got to be an integrated agency with roots in a production company. It\u2019s sad but true, but one of our greatest strengths is being able to deliver on what we say we can do. I\u2019ve sat at many tables with brands that are unsatisfied with whoever their partners are, and sometimes it\u2019s as simple as just being able to deliver. I think as a production company, at the beginning that was what we prided ourselves on, and over time we\u2019ve evolved to include that same delivery mentality against the consumer journey and a fully integrated offering of technology and creativity and measurements with the consumer journey in mind. We\u2019ve had a lot of success with brands. We\u2019re not afraid to talk about outcomes. Actually, we prefer talking about outcomes, and we prefer the accountability that comes with that. We\u2019ve been very fortunate to align with some great brands, and they acknowledge and accept our approach. It\u2019s turned out to be very impactful for both their business and mine. ROB: Are those brands typically more consumer-facing, or is there some B2B in there as well? BRIAN: Mostly consumer-facing, but we do have some B2B. Certainly there are major differences there. But we really approach our work systematically and through a proprietary framework that we\u2019ve developed. Technologies roll in, audiences roll into it, but at the end of the day we\u2019re still performing the same services against that framework for B2B and B2C. ROB: Interesting. Tell me a little bit more about that framework. I think you have some brands that are of a pretty big size, and their go-to-market with customers is probably very multi-touch in a way that would often be hard to measure and hard to be accountable for, but that very much seems to be what you\u2019ve leaned into. BRIAN: Yeah, there\u2019s no question. It seems like the majority of our clients are that way with the multi-touch and the omnichannel approach. I think it\u2019s important when we start talking with a brand that we\u2019re all aligned on accountability, and where we\u2019re going to hold ourselves accountable and where the brands are going to be accountable. Throughout that initial phase where we\u2019re working on strategy, we have to come to consensus on how we\u2019re going to measure success. Measuring that success along the consumer journey is something that we work together on and then we measure against. So that becomes, in my opinion, a lot easier to have dialogue and to have fruitful conversations and collaborations if you\u2019re aligning at the beginning. And that approach has been the core of what we do and how we build our integrated offerings. ROB: What sorts of things are you measuring for brands? BRIAN: Oh, man. [laughs] One of our larger brands that we work with that is a consumer brand, we\u2019re measuring 150 datapoints across their consumer journey, and that\u2019s everything from high level impressions down to conversions through their ecommerce platform and everything in between. At that point we\u2019re managing all media, all what we call destinations \u2013 places where consumers engage, whether that be social channels, whether that be their enterprise websites. We\u2019re going to build that infrastructure inside of that journey so that we can extract as much data as possible. Then we want to analyze it. We want to understand if there\u2019s any insights we can gain in the lower funnel that can impact how the consumer\u2019s getting there and what the consumer\u2019s doing next. And we\u2019ve got case studies where we\u2019ve seen and applied insights that were upper funnel, that were on the advertising layer, where we were able to test what type of product mix through display ads \u2013 we would run multivariate testing and we noticed that these certain product mixes with color combinations and words were effective. That then translates all the way down to the way we communicate on our website and what products we show on the website, how we\u2019re driving conversions through the performance funnel online. That cross-analysis is very important to us. We use and leverage a lot of technology, don\u2019t get me wrong; technology is extremely important to our business. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure that our core teams that work with the brand are analyzing that data, and we\u2019re looking for those insights and we\u2019re trying to figure things out on behalf of the brand. Machine learning is helpful. Obviously, it\u2019s a trend and it\u2019s going to be here. It already has changed the business and it\u2019s going to continue to change the business. But at the end of the day, I think you still need to have humans involved in that analysis, and that\u2019s something that we do very diligently with our clients. ROB: It\u2019s fascinating because a lot of marketers think about knowing how to track marketing when they can track the individual user all the way around the internet, when they can get a hard link through to conversion, that sort of thing. Certainly, you will have that in cases on the ecommerce side. But it almost sounds like on the broader consumer\/general market side \u2013 maybe they bought something on Home Depot\u2019s website or Costco\u2019s website or Amazon or someplace where you can\u2019t sink into the data \u2013 it sounds like maybe you\u2019re still pulling on the stages of the customer journey at a macro level to see what\u2019s pushing down the funnel. Is that how you\u2019re thinking about it? You know what the stages are, you know what people are doing; even if you can\u2019t link each person, you can still see the echoes of what you\u2019ve done up-funnel. BRIAN: Exactly. That\u2019s exactly right. Amazon\u2019s a great example where we can get data out of Amazon and we can get data out of our analytics platform on the ecommerce, and we have to cross-reference those. We have to understand why this happened versus something else happened. My background is kind of an interesting background, but it certainly comes from the creative side. I often talk to my team and in general about the importance of the consumer journey and looking at it very similar to figure drawing. The way that I learned figure drawing is you have positive and negative space, and the positive space, the consumer journey, is one we can see and everything works. But with figure drawing, you need to leverage and use the negative space as templates to help you define and form your positive space. I relate that to marketing and the consumer journey in a way that says sometimes things don\u2019t work, but understanding why they don\u2019t work and having the measurements in place to understand and help define \u2013 that helps us define what\u2019s going to work and what didn\u2019t work. So we really want to look at the positive and the negative space. I think there\u2019s an idea or a wish for marketers and agencies to say, \u201cWe just want to find all the positive and that\u2019s it. That\u2019s what we want to base everything on.\u201d We try to look more holistic than that, because we think we can get a lot of definition and a lot of insights out of the things that don\u2019t work. ROB: It\u2019s fascinating to hear such a \u2013 there\u2019s sort of a disciplined line of thinking around the creativity that probably frees you up to be creative in other ways. It\u2019s interesting how it echoes right into marketing. It almost sounds like we\u2019re talking about planetary physics or something while we\u2019re at it. BRIAN: Now you\u2019re really going to get me going. [laughs] ROB: Oh, how so? BRIAN: I study science. I don\u2019t read many business books; I never did. I mean, I\u2019ve read marketing and business books, but I\u2019ve found that the focus on our business and the focus on science, everything from natural order to epigenetics, is something that I\u2019ve been really focused on over the past year and a half and applying that level of thinking. To your point, you mentioned the word discipline, and I think that\u2019s certainly a strength of the agency and it\u2019s something that my business partner and I have always strived for. If I were to analyze my career, I think a systematic, more scientific approach to creative is something that I\u2019ve always done. The parallels of science and creativity are just so fascinating to me. ROB: I think you can\u2019t just drop epigenetics into the conversation without actually helping those of us who think we know what that is, but maybe we don\u2019t. [laughs] Can you give a definition of what that is and maybe how it ties into, if it does tie into, your work and marketing? BRIAN: Any of the scientists in your audience may say, \u201cHe\u2019s completely off,\u201d so I\u2019ll use the caveat that this is how I\u2019ve interpreted it. The genes that we have as humans are what I would consider more binary. They do simple on and off. They can\u2019t define the entire character of a person. They may define the way you look, they may define other parts of your genetic makeup, but epigenetics is a newer science that is the study of the chemicals that are how the genes are expressed. What\u2019s so fascinating to me and what really got me interested in the concept is that these chemicals, these imprints of chemicals can become part of your genetic makeup that you can pass down to your children. There may be a certain way that you move or the way that you stand that wouldn\u2019t necessarily be part of a gene. A gene doesn\u2019t have that in it, but epigenetics have put that imprint on you because of the way that things have happened through your environment. That is what I find so fascinating about it \u2013 that study of behavior and getting all the way down to that science to say these behaviors can actually be explored through genes. Tying that to marketing \u2013 I think this is way, way future-focused, but when that data becomes more readily available and people start mapping it, which they are now, how does that bring the science of genetics into the targeting of how people are buying and selling products? That is the stuff that I find fascinating and I read about. ROB: Is this something in the neighborhood of a gene drive or something like that? Is that what we\u2019re talking about here? Or am I completely out of the neighborhood? BRIAN: What did you call that? ROB: A gene drive, where they can take certain things and introduce them \u2013 like they can introduce sterilization into the mosquito population not by shooting a mosquito into a crisper or anything like that. It\u2019s called a gene drive. Basically, they can introduce this trait into the population in this external way. BRIAN: I\u2019m not spending a lot of my time and energy on what they\u2019re going to do with that innovation. [laughs] I do think that the future of medicine is going to be more tailored based on the structural variations within people\u2019s genes. So I do think that\u2019s going to change medicine as a potential outcome. But right now, my fascination and interest has just been the data and what happens when that source, that mapping has been done, what you do with it. It\u2019s like Tesla having all the data of people driving their cars. ROB: I see. So, you\u2019re able to measure things you\u2019ve never been able to measure before to get insight you\u2019ve never been able to draw before, just by how deep you\u2019re able to look into the picture. BRIAN: Right. That\u2019s what we keep doing as society. We keep finding new ways to extract data, and that is a parallel to the way we look at our framework and the way that we work with our clients. How can we extract meaningful data from the journey? It\u2019s just going to get smarter and more robust, and the systems are going to be in place and the first party data is going to be there. It\u2019s an interesting time, for sure. ROB: You\u2019ve alluded a couple of times to your own background and your own origin story. What is the origin story of The Basement? What made you decide to start the firm, and what have been some key inflection points along the way? BRIAN: How far do you want me to go back? I think there\u2019s some relevance to the first brush of creativity. For the record, I\u2019m about 6\u20196\u201d and I come from an athletic family, and I was a basketball player. There was a point in my life where I thought I was going to go play basketball. Certainly not professionally, but in college. And I was always an artist. When I was in high school \u2013 this was in the early to mid-\u201990s \u2013 I met a graffiti artist from Chicago. That culture didn\u2019t really exist in Indianapolis in a meaningful way. That culture really didn\u2019t exist in the common culture of society. Hip-hop culture was in its infancy, really, at that time. I became fascinated by that art form. I think one of the key powers or superpowers, if you will \u2013 and for the record, I think superpowers change over time. At that time in my life, one of the things that defined me was defiance, and I think that carried through my career, from graffiti art to wanting to be an animator when I saw the movie Toy Story. That became my goal. My dream was to be a character animator. That\u2019s what my career set off into: how can I make animated films or shorts or whatever? I didn\u2019t really have a definition. I ended up in architecture, and I spent a number of years in architecture. It was at this period when the internet was becoming relevant. It was getting introduced to businesses. This was pre-broadband. Everyone was on dial-up. We were just at that point in society where the internet and how people engaged online was being defined. Then I became really interested in creating these very rich, high-end experiences that eventually became online, for lack of a better term, engagements. That\u2019s how my career started. I was doing that in architecture, and at one point my business partner and I met, and I was frustrated with my career and the ceiling that I saw for myself and the work I wanted to do. I wanted to work at Pixar. I left. I just quit my job. I convinced my business partner to start a business. He was certainly more of a marketing business mind than me at the time. I was very much an artist and a producer. The combination of the two of us has worked out really well. And we left. He left McDonald\u2019s Corporation, where he was a very successful regional marketing director, and I was this young, probably cocky kid who was doing 3D animation and interactive 3D online and virtual worlds, and we took off. We ended up becoming one of the first digital agencies in Indiana, and from there we started The Basement because we saw a void with traditional agencies that didn\u2019t have an understanding of digital. We saw that as an opportunity and a void in the market and serviced agencies for the first 5 or 6 years of our business as a high-end interactive studio, doing animated TV spots, doing Flash games. We made a number of video games, we made a number of TV spots, we did a number of very high-end, rich websites for consumer brands and national product launches, until we saw an opportunity. We were really good at building the destinations and the engagement points with consumers, and we would always ask the agencies and the people we were working with, \u201cHow are we getting people here? What\u2019s the narrative? What\u2019s that consumer narrative and how do we extend it?\u201d That\u2019s where we started to take on more direct clients. We had clients that were at agencies that went to the brand side and wanted to hire us directly. It really started to snowball, and then we built a media business, and now we have a full national internal media business and analytics business, and obviously creative is still there, still a studio. We still produce a lot of work in-house. There\u2019s a ton of content that gets produced along with consumer journey. Being able to build that content against a very robust media strategy that\u2019s looking at data, looking for data, that\u2019s the kind of integration that we\u2019ve built. In a very, very short, run-on sentence, that\u2019s how we got to where we are. ROB: Brian, you mentioned something that I think is very common, which is that a creative firm starts up to work on a particular practice area that other agencies aren\u2019t focused on, and you\u2019ll either take a referral or you\u2019ll get white-labeled under them on the engagement \u2013 and then there\u2019s this jumping off point that has to come around to grow more. That\u2019s that graduation from taking other people\u2019s subprojects and leftovers and engaging the clients directly. How did you change the mindset and make that jump in the business? Because a lot of people get stuck there. BRIAN: I really give a lot of that credit to my business partner. We also have one of our vice presidents who took the client services part of the business. We all worked really hard together, and my business partner\u2019s background in the agency was account service. He knew that business. He knew it very well. He\u2019s very disciplined, and he understands how to build systems, and again, echoing the points that we made, we think systematically. So we built systems that will hold ourselves accountable, and we made sure that we were honest with each other and collaborated. We\u2019re transparent. I think that transparency was a very important key for us with our clients throughout. If we can do something, we\u2019ll tell you we can do it. If we can\u2019t do it at that time, we\u2019re going to be honest with you and we\u2019ll tell you when we can do it. That formula worked really well for us. I\u2019ve always been an advocate for hiring people that are better than you, and that is what we did. At that time we had to build a culture, and we built a culture around growth not only for our clients, but for ourselves and for the individuals that are within the company. We fostered the culture, and that culture helped organically make us better. That is I think equal weight in the success of that adoption and being able to change and being able to recognize how something needs to improve. That\u2019s, again, been a big part of who we are. We have a tagline, which really is the definition of our culture, and that\u2019s \u201cStay fascinated.\u201d Our culture is defined by stay curious, stay ambitious, stay competitive, stay genuine, and stay fascinated. That idea of staying fascinated is see something bigger than yourself, see something that we can become collectively. When you see something and you strive for something and you strive for growth, things need to change and things get better. That\u2019s how we define our culture, and that\u2019s how we were able to improve. Because I\u2019ll tell you right now, our account service business was not great when we started. It was good. We\u2019ve made it great. ROB: It sounds like by being honest with yourself and with your clients \u2013 both of which takes discipline, which we said before \u2013 you were able to avoid getting yourself in the deep end in some areas and say no to the things that were too big while also growing into bigger and bigger capabilities along the way. BRIAN: Yeah. We expanded our services along the way. Again, very, very proud today. We\u2019ve had tremendous growth over the life of the agency, and we still plan to grow. We are going to continue to grow. Thinking of it from a biological standpoint, organisms grow to the point where they peak and they start to decay. We feel that we\u2019re not even close to decaying. Growth has always been a part of our strategy, but it has to be calculated. We\u2019ve said no to things that we knew we weren\u2019t going to be able to deliver against, and that I think is very important and has defined us by saying no to things versus saying yes to everything. That was a really good business lesson that we\u2019ve learned along the way. And preservation of culture, because you can say yes to things and short term you can grow revenue, you can make more money \u2013 but at the peril of what? That was something we\u2019ve always been very protective of: the culture, the people, the dynamics within the team. Because as we recruit and we want to hire the most talented people, then you have to protect them and you have to make sure that they are in a position to do what they\u2019re great at. The point I made about superpowers evolving \u2013 as I got further in my career and further into the growth of business, that became part of my role and what I strive to be good at. ROB: It\u2019s quite a journey, Brian. Thank you for sharing. I feel like there\u2019s a lot more we could pull on; I want to be respectful of everybody\u2019s time. Brian, when people want to get in touch with you and with The Basement, how should they connect with you? BRIAN: Certainly the website for The Basement, and that is thebsmnt.com. That\u2019s the easiest way to get a hold of us. We love challenges, and we love brands that want to swing above their weight class. We\u2019re actively looking for new partnerships. I really appreciate you taking a moment to have me on and talk about this business that we\u2019ve built out of Indianapolis, which is not typically known for advertising. ROB: If people don\u2019t know, there\u2019s a lot there. ExactTarget didn\u2019t get as long in the sun as people might\u2019ve wanted it to, but that was a big deal out of Indy, right? BRIAN: Oh my goodness, yes. ExactTarget has been a fantastic story, and Salesforce is there. Yeah, things are changing. There\u2019s no doubt. Things have definitely changed and momentum is with our city right now. ROB: Got that Atlanta to Indy connection with Pardot and Salesforce and all that. We appreciated ExactTarget as well. It was good for our ecosystem. BRIAN: Good. ROB: Thanks so much, Brian. Good to have you on. Be well. BRIAN: Likewise. Thank you again. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"