Episode 81
Brand Story Podcast

Making Marketing Better

featuring Ross Martin

President and Co-Founder of Known

Ross Martin, President and Co-Founder of Known, talks about creating brand love, minimizing waste, and making marketing better with our president, Steve Gilman.

You did it. After months of planning and creating, your marketing campaign is now live. Digital ads, social media posts, TV commercials, pre-roll videos — your messaging is everywhere. But after six months of pushing the same message, sometimes to people who are already customers, you have to pause and ask yourself: Are you building brand love or animosity?

Whether it’s targeting the wrong people, publishing bad creative, or even oversaturating the market in an effort to reach as many people as possible, there are numerous ways marketing efforts can harm rather than help your brand. In this episode of Brand Story, Ross discusses the different ways companies waste money and miss opportunities through misguided marketing practices, and shares how we can avoid it. The conversation features stories from Ross’s career working with highly successful brands, and insights on how marketers can help reframe their way of thinking to cut down on waste and still build successful campaigns.

About the Guest

Ross Martin

President and Co-Founder of Known

Ross is the President and Co-Founder of Known, one of the top ad agencies in the world. Prior to Known, he spent 13 years at Viacom/Paramount in creative and business leadership roles and was also the Chairman of the Viacom Marketing Council, where he led global marketing priorities for Comedy Central’s South Park, The Daily Show, Nickelodeon, and more. He’s an accomplished executive producer of programs for Netflix, MTV, and other networks, and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Achievement in 2014. Additionally, Ross has a personal love for poetry, which he taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the New School University in Manhattan.

Quickfire Q&A

What do you want your legacy to be when all this is done?

Ross: I have the honor of being the chair of the Advertising Hall of Fame for its 75th anniversary. And I’m going to be proud to serve because the people we induct will be people who have made our industry better. I’m moving from the idea of just making better marketing to making marketing better, and to me, it’s less about creating a legacy and more about how consequential can your life work be and how much good can you do.

How has fear impacted you either positively or negatively in your career?

Ross: I use my fear and my failure as fuel. As soon as something feels shitty to me and we lose something, I immediately turn to planting more seeds and creating whatever I can because I just can’t sit in the loss and the failure and the fear.

Related Links

Ross on LinkedIn

About The Host

Steve Gilman

As the President of Gravity Group, Steve is passionate about helping brands reach their goals through honest, creative marketing and powerful brand stories.

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