Episode 46: James Ruth (CMO, Tampa Bay Buccaneers) | What Fans Really Want

Hi, I'm Radhika Zavari, host for my teaching podcast "Podwalk" where I have candid conversations with industry leaders about brand purpose, leadership and what it really takes to grow in today's marketing landscape. After leading billion-dollar brands at companies like Nestle, I now serve as professor of practice at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where I champion diverse and real world learning. Take a walk literally or in spirit and join me on "Podwalk" as we explore how marketers are building soulful brands and driving meaningful change. These are the stories behind the strategies and the people behind the brands you love. What should young marketers focus on in this digital age? Oh, the fundamentals. I mean, I think this is such a thing, you know, AI, content creation for all this sort of stuff. In a lot of ways, you need to know them, but they are in some ways sort of shiny objects. Don't let them take your eye off the ball of the fundamental component of how to build brand and how to market, and at the end of the day, no matter what's going on with technology, the continuum of marketing stays the same. How do I drive awareness? How do I then drive affinity? And how do I turn that into affinity into conversion and ultimately retention? That's never changing. That is a continuum. So how do you become really well versed in those things and then figure out how to use all these other things that are tools to put you on the pathway to achieving that continuum? So first principles of marketing rules. So come to class and learn those words. James Ruth is the chief marketing officer of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he leads brand strategy, fan engagement, and revenue driving marketing efforts for one of NFL's most dynamic franchises. With a career that spans sports, media, and brand leadership, James has been on the forefront of transforming how teams connect fans through blending data, storytelling, and culture to build lasting loyalty and an ever-evolving sports landscape. And today, we're going to chat about what is it that fans really want? What are they buying? Is it the wins? Or is it something else? Hey James, it's so good to have you on Park Park. Yeah, thank you for having me. So happy to be here. I'm really excited for the conversation. Okay, first of all, I'm going to tell you congratulations. This is such big news that you have recently received SMU's Distinguished Alumni Award. How is that feeling? It's great. I mean, listen, it was a very pleasant surprise. I was joking with my wife that I was pleased that it was the young alumni piece. I made sure to emphasize that with her out of the gate, at least somebody out there still thinks that I qualify as young. So I was happy to take that alone. But it's great. I mean, I always look back on my time at SMU so fondly for them to reach out and provide that. It's just awesome. It's such an honor. Really, really cool stuff. How do you ever imagined while you were at SMU that you would have been at this point receiving an award? No, that was probably the furthest thing from my mind. Everybody that goes to SMU is ambitious in their own way. So you always wanted to achieve big things, but to have this sort of full circle moment is really amazing. So it's quite exciting. Yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting and it shouldn't be that much of a surprise because you've done so well through your career. So if I take you back in time, if you were roaming the SMU halls again as a student, would there be something you would tell yourself that hey James, you really should focus on this. And maybe maybe even tell yourself, James, you shouldn't worry about that. Have you ever thought of that? Yeah, I mean, listen, all the time, I think I'm really passionate about trying to provide perspective because I think so often of my time at SMU. I mean, you get exposed to so many different things, so many smart people in the room. But I think for everybody that's kind of in that age bracket, that sort of 18 to 22, particularly for undergrad, there's like so many of these pressures of what you think you want to do and what people think that you should do and how the sort of world around is crafting you to put you on a certain pathway. And I think there's two major things as I look back, you know, if I get sit down with myself from that time period, right? One thing is the value of just continually having a north star in terms of knowing what you want to do at least for the world as you perceive it in that moment. You know, and I think so often I talk to people that are kind of in that undergrad or sort of early career phase and they don't have that north star. And I think it's because there's a little bit of pressure that they feel like it has to be perfect and it doesn't. You know, the whole point of that is to kind of provide that guiding prism for you to go in a certain direction. So you can create a step forward and ultimately move to a goal with that goal potentially changing. That's absolutely what I've seen in my career, but at each stage kind of resetting that goal and understanding what your north star is is is so important. And then I think the second piece to that if I could kind of tell myself, you know, you're going to run into a lot of people that are going to provide you a lot of great advice and you should try and review that. At the same token, you've got to take it with a grain of salt. The only person that understands your pathway is you. And that's relevant whether you're 18, 22, 35 or 65, you know, your experience is yours alone in learning how to take other people's perspective and feedback and running that through your own prism. So you don't get anchored by what people say, but you can still be informed by it. And I think that's the biggest thing for me because, you know, I love my time at SMU. I came out, I went into investment banking. And five years in, I wanted to take a totally different pathway and, you know, having knowing yourself and having that courage and that ability to set your own north star, things really important. And you might want to set a north star that nobody else has. And that's actually probably a good thing, right? But you're going to feel lonely in that moment of doing it. And I think just having the covenants within yourself to do that is such a fundamental, fundamental, right? Yeah. No, I think that's beautiful. And that's such sound advice that it's really about the perspective and the evolution of the back than the back itself. Exactly. It's recognizing that early on. I love your analogy about the north star and the end of the prism. So, you know, you have built a career across sports, media, brand leadership, and ultimately now you are the chief marketing officer of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That's a big title. And a lot of people might look at that title and say, Hey, that's a destination point. Yeah. And you think about it and you reflect on your journey. What part of the journey do you feel has really mattered to you, but most people don't see? I mean, there's like, there's a huge portion of it. And it's going to kind of tie back to what I just said of having the covenants to believe in the directive that you want to go in that north star. And you know, the picking the north star isn't what is hard. It's the sticking to it. And the sticking to it means, you know, especially if you're at SMU, you're going to have all these options, right? And a lot of times those options are going to be what I call sort of 51% 49%, which is not a clear out and out winner, right? And that north star is going to help you make that decision on what is the 51% thing to lead you further on your pathway. But it's going to be really tough because the thing that's on the other side of that decision is probably going to feel really compelling. But you're going to have to have the way with all to kind of continue on that pathway. I mean, it take a really specific anecdotal example, you know, I remember when I went to Columbia Business School. So I spent five years in banking. I decided I wanted to kind of chart a pathway in sport because I was really impacted by the game of soccer. And I remember this very sort of vivid moment where it kind of ultimately lined up everybody in the class, right? And they asked, hey, what industry are you guys looking to go in, right? And the bankers already their hand and the management consultants already their hand. And then they're like, anybody that wants to go in sport and entertain it. And it's a class like six hundred and like 50 people raise their hand, right? And I think out of that class, only two of us actually went into sports. Because in that process, there were so many trade-offs, you know, if there were so many people that were coming, maybe from a banking, coming from consulting, and the trade-off of salary and hours and all this sort of thing, I think became very daunting. And they ultimately went that other pathway, which is fine. That's their pathway. But I think you're going to have to get very comfortable with going it alone, especially if you want to do something that's unexpected. The well-worn pathways always going to be there. And there's going to be a lot of people to show you to go how to go down that pathway. It's the unworn pathways that are going to feel like greater risks. And that's why it's so much more important for you to kind of have that confidence, have that North Star. What I will say too, you know, the world of what careers are going to look like in the next five, 10, 20 years, those well-worn pathways are going to change more so than they ever had in the last five times. So dramatically as they are right now, yeah. Exactly. So in a lot of ways, the less worn the pathway, there may be a lot more security in that world. I don't know. nobody knows right yeah no I think that's well said you know it's it's about the north star sticking to that north star yeah but yet having that openness to to adapt because like you said in things are changing so much I don't know what tomorrow is going to hold for you so just having that openness but I love what you said about choices and trade-offs because that's that's really key is learning to make those right choices because you will have forks in your decisions in your path and you could either go right you could go left or hopefully not backwards and you know you're constantly making those and sometimes you do go backwards too and that's okay as well so no I love what you said about choices and trade-offs is that something that you don't add as in you do you feel like some of the classes you have taken the professors you were where the mentors you may have formed yeah I think so I mean I think you know my style when I was in undergrad and I think this is a little bit you know I'm from Nebraska I'm like from the farm lands it's a it's a place that's like very prideful and like doing the hard work and I think SMU gave me so many opportunities projects tests studying whatever it might be to do the hard work and put yourself in a position where you can get the reps where you can do the things that maybe seem you know less sexy on at its like sort of beginning but ultimately put you in a position to get reps and get time you know and doing projects the right way so that you can synthesize what you're doing rather than looking for the most expedient pathway but maybe you don't pick as much up in the process and I think that's absolutely something I learned in my time at SMU and it really sort of imbued me with this attitude of how I approached work when I whether it was like you know getting into investment banking or ultimately getting into my career in sports and this idea that the job's not done until it's done yes it's not yeah it's a fundamental thing and you and I've seen it so many times from young professionals that are coming into the sporting world that I saw this in banking as well you know a lot of people think it's like the nine to five you know I clock in and I clock out and it's a mentality thing and I you know I never I try not to ask my team although they might they might back to differ out for anybody to work you know crazy amount of hours but it's the mentality of am I done it five or am I done when the project's done and I think that mentality is something absolutely picked up at SMU and I think just having that simple mindset will put you on a pathway in terms of what you can do and I also say on that you know it's about the perseverance and the resilience right that's what you're talking about like it just but which is very true in sports too I mean if you just transcend into sports it's all about practice practice practice it's the hard work and you you haven't won until you're won it's it's one of those things right you never know what might happen in the last two minutes of the game no and it's like all the work is reps you know it's reps to prepare you in some sort of way and that longer pathway it just gives you that much more exposure and that's a big thing also I always try and tell with young professionals is find any way to get in the room where the decisions are being made and a lot of times being the person that's willing to go the extra mile taking the notes creating the presentation really in your career that can be a fundamental difference maker and I can tell that fundamentally my time at Major League Soccer you know when I was a coordinator coming out of the out of NBA that's the title we all want right coordinator exactly five years of investment banking Columbia Business School SMU and hey here I am a coordinator right I get to do a coordinating but I think continually offering to be the guy that takes a note to create some presentations there's a thing that happens in business where if you can get yourself in that room no matter what you're doing in that room even in the most sort of like basic task there's going to be a moment where you're in that room enough and the commissioner the president whoever they turn around and they sort of task you the questions right what is your perspective so on and so forth and there's such a thing about just proximity and putting yourself in a position it's like sports on the field put yourself in a position to make a play so if the ball comes your way you're able to do it but if you're not on the field yeah right and so I think people sometimes we get like so self enamored and we think we're supposed to be doing all these grandiose things and we will like gosh sometimes they have to do the most remedial things so you can get yourself on the field right and has that happened to you where you've been in a room and you have shared your perspective because of this proximity and everyone turned turned to you and said who's that like who's speaking isn't a coordinator that's given me exactly exactly yeah I mean I listen I've been lucky enough to be in a lot in those types of rooms a lot of times and you know MLS and working at the league office for major league soccer and then also the US national team you know we're a young league we have the we had the youngest average fan base age and professional sports and guess what you know being the coordinator and being 27 or 26 in that room there's a certain point where the commissioner who's been in the industry for 30 years goes we're actually trying to engage people that are you you know your age and your perspective so guess what proximity wins what do you think about this right yeah and then you know I love that story your first at bat is in a total strikeout and you actually can say something intelligent and then maybe you get invited back to the next room and the next room after that and then it goes from there right yeah no that's wonderful and that builds your confidence as well I mean maybe you you might butcher it once but you know it builds your confidence as you say more and have the courage to speak up I love that story so much coordinator to counselor yeah exactly and and listen like the butchering it is important too that's another thing I've really felt like I've learned in my career is like failure is not fatal and put yourself in a position to butcher a couple things because you can understand that it's not that bad and then you can kind of power forward and you don't have to work with that sort of fear of failure which as you move in your career you'll start to learn being comfortable in those rooms is half the battle as well because it allows you to speak naturally and speak in your best form right I think that that's such sage advice that just being comfortable being in that environment having that proximity and having the courage to speak so let's talk a little bit about the Tampa Bay Buckeneers yeah since you have joined you all have been in the top five NFL teams which has been awesome so when you meet fans and fans tell you hey you know what I'm a fan for life what do you think they're referring to are they referring to the wins do you think they're referring to something beyond the wins I mean this is something just philosophically as a marker is is a big point of differentiation for me in terms of how we think about sport and like I'll take it way way back and I think with any great brand you need to think about what is the why right like what why do you exist and so often in sports and I know it happens in other industries too you know you immediately go to well the value proposition that we provide is we provide the opportunity for people to see Baker Mayfield score touchdowns and people like Levante David make big hits and that is a thing that we provide but really you know from my perspective as a marketer that's not the core value proposition the core value proposition is actually this thing where we can provide a moment where you are with 66,000 other fans at Raymond James Stadium and you're all part of one community one tribe and the football is the medium for that community right and that's what all great sporting organizations and really into a large extent great brands are built around as providing an opportunity for a community and and really like sort of delivering on what is in my view like an anthropological need we are community oriented beings we need to feel like we're part of groups and in a lot of ways sports satiates that yeah and so if you can start to think about the value proposition of sports being delivering on that tribalism rather than just featuring 12 guys running around chasing funny shade ball around on the field it totally changes how you think about your value proposition as a brand and what you want to deliver and when I hear fans that say we're part of the crew or I'm a bucket near for a life they're buying into that tribe they're saying I identify with this this is part of my personality and that's the point where you can start to transcend wins and losses in terms of that connection right yeah we all feel that we all know examples of that well yeah because people want to be a part of something that's bigger than them and they want to feel that identity being being associated with that larger culture a tribalism as you called it And do you feel that as you're competing for attention because to read this is hard right there's so much going there are so many different teams it's not just football there's so many sports there is there is entertainment and other forms arts and whatnot like everything's competing for people's time and then it comes to entertainment how do you think about attention is attention now the real trophy is that more important as a metric to focus on then let's say even team performance product performance for other industries I mean it's a suit I mean there's a everybody's going to want to go and say hey what's the singular metric that we're focused on but it's a combination of things absolutely it's attention but it's also depth of that attention what's the meaning of our brand I mean this might be a crazy thing to say but what's more meaningful a bunch of people that are going to casually watch every one of our games on broadcast or maybe a smaller group that really believes that the buccaneers are part of their identity you know there's a thing with sports of I don't want us to be a brand that is a thing for you to do on a Sunday afternoon I want our brand to be part of your identity and that's two totally different things and so if you're not looking at it from that lens you could say okay it is all about attention and just getting people to watch but there's so much other stuff related to the value proposition and how we value fans that we need to consider with that right because if we're just a fun thing to do on Sunday afternoons as soon as we hit a losing skid that's not fun anymore yeah you have to find other some other sort of value proposition and the value proposition for us is his representation you know providing an app for people to see themselves in a brand and feel like they're part of that that sort of tribe right yeah and you've hit on identities several times it sounds like that's where your attention is yes do I create this relevancy in identities so people feel beyond just that casual watching it's more about loyalty based on emotion rather than the transactions of that casual watching so a lot is working for you James I mean if you just look at the results in the last couple years you've been with the team for a few years now you've had two and a half times increase in brand interest top five in NFL content engagement you've launched one of the leagues best selling throwback jerseys and the list goes on I could go on so wow that's a lot that's a lot that's working for you since you've joined where has the focus been has it been on driving culture and identity has a bit on international expansion or something else well I think it's it's really important to paint the picture of what I walked into when I joined the box and when I joined the box it was right on the tail end of Tom Brady leaving okay so the brand was in a lot of ways it was treading water because for the years that Brady was with the club this style was very much push Brady to the forefront Brady is the brand right and that's great in the moment I mean gosh dang the the team got a super bowl and you know sold the bunch jerseys and sold a bunch of tickets but the problem is is that when Brady walked out the door the brand walked out with them right and there wasn't a lot left in his absence and so you know the major part of of what I came in to do was to reorient the brand and hopefully do it a way that was a lot more sustainable and you know I still remember my first couple weeks because I was coming from MLS to NFL which is you know I love MLS I love this I love that but it's a different scale when you're moving from major league soccer to the professional and I was like ready to be blown away I was like I came in I was like give me all your fan stats and your data and you know sent them in and you know help me craft where we're going to go and it was very interesting because you know I got up to the league offices in New York sat down with the business intelligence team who are fantastic and I got reams of data you know I got a big book with everything in it but the funny thing was is that everything in that book all the stats or what I call might and bronze stats they were really oriented to highlighting the scale but nobody could tell me what people's perspective was on the brand and marketing at the end of the day is about you know an assembly line of functions awareness how are you driving awareness of the brand affinity what do people feel about the brand and then ultimately conversion and retention and I could only get the first picture which was awareness well I don't need to be a genius to understand that there's high awareness for an NFL team. Nobody could give any perspective on what the sentiment was around the brand so we came back and ultimately you know I engaged in the sentiment study on what people felt about the Buccaneers and it was really illuminating and what it told us is that in a lot of ways people knew the brand but did not love the brand it was high on on preference and relevance a low on trust low on differentiation low on regard huge opportunity for us to reorient the brand so that was the big sort of first thing as I stepped into this club is is ultimately building a brand that could have that sort of connectivity with fans where they felt seen and really were part of the brand rather than part of the backseat and this is a fundamental thing and all great brands try and make their the evangelist part of their identity and that's something I've really been working on in the last three years to help get to that point where people see themselves in the brand because if they see themselves in the brand they can go on and evangelize it and there's no that it's that personal affinity like you were saying earlier awareness to affinity but it's that personalization how do I see myself in that but that story must have changed too now because you had Tom Brady and that's a story about legacy it's a story about championship and then it may feel you know such a great player but to me that feels more like grit and reinvention yeah and that's the storyline changed and so how did you how did you walk through that well in a lot of ways yeah I mean Baker is fantastic I mean he's like one of the best marketers in sports I mean truly true he's he's so self-aware of every moment and you know it's really great about maximizing that stuff but in a lot of ways Baker was a great reflection of Tampa Bay and the Tampa Bay experience you know it's like a lot of people you know their greatest compliment from Tampa for for Baker is you know he feels like he was born here you know he's got that sort of Tampa Bay mentality that grit that attitude that sort of I'll go up my own way sort of you know bucket near sort of point of view and so he's fit in really well and so in a lot of ways we've been able to integrate Baker into a lot of our storytelling without going away from this idea of how do we represent Tampa Bay in everything that we do right he's actually so competitive to that right and is that true for the other players as well in the sense are they do they see themselves as brands and how do you all help to champion and celebrate them because they're all very different and each one has a story and that somehow sort of you know feeds into the brand story of of the bucket years as well so how do you guys do that it's um you have to be really thoughtful about it because in in a lot of ways you know players can be sort of rented equity you know what happens when we build all of if we build too much of our brand identity in one player and they go and leave to another team that next year it's really detrimental to our brand because you're ripping out a big a big component of what we do so we try to be really thoughtful about how we integrate players and narratives into who we are and it can be really really valuable we had a player who spent um about 14 13 14 seasons with the bucket nearest named Levante David right and um it's a really interesting thing that our competition side because Levante was in so many ways the type of player they always wanted to have in the locker room we actually created they created an ethos on the competition side called i am that man and the idea is that every player that we draft from now on and we've been doing this for years we want them to emulate Levante's character covenant resilient team oriented that's awesome so we took that and actually ran with it on the brand side to give fans a perspective of the nature and the style and the brand with which we choose our players to create a better sense that yes the players are how we elevate the brand but they're also stepping into something that exists here at the bucket nearest we created this whole sort of content series and it's it's a brand architecture that we've created around this i am that man identity so that when we put that next chip bucket here we're asking him are they are they that man are they that person that we want to be part of the club so that's a form of identity too i mean you talk about i you know that that's a form of identity that people can personally relate to because they think you are their own selves whether they're players or not 100% 100% and you're also giving fans the ability to understand that there's a method and a style To what we're doing to give the brand greater gravitas and dev you know It's not the guy sitting there at the back On the competition competition side just throwing darts at the board when they're drafting players They're really thinking about this not only the X's and O's The style and the type of person that we wanted side these doors And I think it's been a really valuable story for us to be able to tell with fans To know that there's an on field and a human element to what we do to give persona to this brand who we are as Yeah, and that's what fans want Yeah, just sort of going back to what is it that fans want? Yeah, what is what is it that really resonates with them? Because school boards can change yeah, that change is very fast identity does not yeah And so winning games gets you fans, but winning that identity that you've been talking about keeps them when you lose and And that's that important part and that's how you're turning this interest into personal identity as well So let's talk a little bit about you know as the team has had this very strong domestic presence of course International growth is the next frontier for the NFL I want you to go there a little bit and talk about the strategy of building cultural Relevance internationally because if you think about fans outside of the US they aren't born into football, right? Like they're not born it they don't even understand it in in many cases We are over here. So how are you building that fandom when there is no legacy when there is no geography when there's that lack of tradition that we would normally build it on over here It's a really great question, and I think you know there's To take a step back. There's this fundamental thing that I feel very passionately in marketing which is you were either a maintenance brand or you are a growth brand, right? Maintenance brands are there to maximize how they monetize their fans and or their consumers and it's really about satiating the already converted and the NFL is better than anybody else at that about taking an audience and making sure that they maximize the experience and all of that sort of stuff Growth brands are there to say constantly ask how are we growing our fan base our audience? You know our consumer base all of that sort of stuff and these are two totally different muscles, right and MLS my prior World it was all about growth because that was the trajectory that we were on And when you become a growth brand versus a more maintenance brand you ask different questions friend I just think that's a fundamental distinction and The international stuff has really forced the NFL to think as a growth brand to think as a challenger brand And that's what makes so our work in Germany because we have our our commercial rights are for Germany Austria and Switzerland So interesting because we're building the muscle as a challenger brand in Germany now The NFL is already quite big. It's a second most popular league behind Bundesliga We still have a long ways to go and How you approach fandom and fan development in a growth mindset in a different country which you articulated really well has little Reference for the game. They know it but they don't have reverence for it You know, they don't have cultural interpinnings. Maybe they don't have the same understanding It's really important for us To actually double down on all the stuff that we're doing in here in Tampa Bay from a cultured perspective because If we just go over there and talk about the two super poles we won and you know the over 10 division championships German fans are gonna be like Okay, cool. I don't know what that is right. I might know what it is But I don't have the same reverence for it. I didn't grow up with that, right? So that stuff alone isn't gonna work. I mean super bowls and trophies. It always helps But that's really more helpful for the already converted a culturedated football fan Well, we need to focus on our all the reasons off the field that you might want to become a Buccaneers fan Right, and so it's very much about how do we express our culture and our identity To German Swiss and Austrian fans so that we have what I love to call just brand texture You know things for people to rub up against to see why oh, that's my team or that's not my team, right and When you're a culture-based brand that stuff is so important because if we just talk about big plays and sacks and tackles and It's not it's not gonna it's not Translate and that approach is very much inspired by by time working in soccer for a decade And seeing international soccer teams whether it's Chelsea or Byron or Real Madrid Trying to grow market share in the States because in the soccer world The America is the golden goose. I mean, it's the untapped market that everybody wants to grow through But all these brands when they come to market they They commoditize themselves because they all activate in the same way They play a friendly they run as a clinic and then they do a Jersey swap with a A player from another team That's it, and then they don't do any storytelling on why is Chelsea different than Arsenal? Why is Byron different than Dortmund and That's the stuff that makes people say ah, and that's why this is my team Not just because they put it touched down on the score to be clearly and so that's the stuff that we need to It beats the interest because now you're making it personal exactly exactly I mean, I don't think you like storytelling 100% and it's it's Big small and everything in between sort of things I mean I remember when I was because I didn't grow up even being a fan of soccer and I became a fan of soccer later in my life And I remember the exact moment I became interested in Major League Soccer I saw a Major League Soccer commercial come on TV and They used a track in that spot by a band called Black Flag, which is a hardcore punk band from like the late 80s I grew up listening to them They were my jam and the fact that they used that it was like oh my god Something's different about this league and you know talk about seeing yourself in it It resonated with me and then I was off and I was like gosh, I have to learn more, right? And in brand it's like how do you create as many of those sorts of moments where you have that texture? So that people can say oh, there's something different I want to pay attention is I want to double click on what this brand is All right, that's really how we try to Approach everything we do in Germany and I really align with that cultural piece and in a way the good news is that they don't have an affinity at the moment Exactly, so if you can get them at that early stage, then you may have them for life, right? That's what we battle is people have affinity to the sports team For in the city that they grew up for instance, so where they went to college and you know so on and so forth But here you sort of have a blank slate in a sense and so you can create that affinity as long as you can create it personalize it You can you can perhaps keep it exactly. It's so well said and there's this really fundamentals for it jump all Moment in Germany, but a lot of the international markets where these fans are saying hey, we're I'm an NFL fan Yeah, I'm not affiliated yet. I don't have a team. So what's the entry point? What's the entry point into this affinity? The entry point it takes a number of different ways I mean, I'll take an example of an activation that we did still speaking about Germany Last year when the NFL so the NFL plays one to two games in Germany and then a bunch of other games international And you know, we weren't playing that game, but we wanted to make it still a moment because the NFL was kind of breaking through in Berlin. That's where the game was being played So we said listen we are gonna create how do we create an activation that celebrates our brand mission Which is to be the flag bearer for Tampa Bay in a way that would resonate with Berliners, okay? All right, well, what are the things that are areas that kind of cross over between the two? Yeah, culturally one of the big things that move the world culturally music food and sport Yeah, we actually said how do we actually translate what we're doing maybe to a different space because we're not playing in that game And that's where we said okay, well, what is what is a food crossover narrative look like for between us Tampa Bay and the city of Berlin and if you've been to Berlin You know that Donard Kabab is part of this sort of food zeitgeist in that town. It's like everybody's got their favorite spot It's fundamental to people from that city It's analogous to what we have here in Tampa Bay because a Cuban sandwich is this like fundamental that is our food And so we came up with this crazy idea of we're gonna do What we called Donard Kabucks, which was a smash-up of I love it and a Cuban sandwich. We ultimately made it this whole thing where we took over a Kabab stand That was really famous in Berlin and did this sort of collab and we had a food creator Influencer come over to Tampa. He met with one of the best You know one of the bakers from one of the best Cuban sandwich shops Ultimately took that stuff back to Berlin and created a spot And we leaned into that and the place was packed Packed and the weekend for the NFL came along because people really curious And and it ultimately created this sort of little endpoint For us to get people to think about and then think differently about the Buccaneers and we did a merch drop with it. It was crazy because People so appreciated the fact that we as an NFL team were coming and meeting them in their culture half Yeah, yeah, like meeting them where they are like localizing it with the whole kabab And the Cuban horn. I mean that that is that's amazing And I think this is where the power of marketing gets amplified right is like understanding human behavior and The marriage of the culture this whole ecosystem. We have been talking about its culture its storytelling its data It's it's all of that. Yeah, but really amplifying it by meeting people where they are because for every brand The customer is perhaps in a different phase of the journey Yeah, and in your case, it's a very early phase of the journey and so no that that's beautiful that you guys were able to Localize it personalize it again another way of making that identity relevant on a very personal So I love that Let me ask you this. So if you want to doing sports What would you be doing? Oh, man? That's a really that's a really good one. I didn't have that on your list of questions Yeah, I love it. You know, I think I just tell people like when I was at SMU I had a wild hair that I was just going to Right after school like go and become a chef and go to the CIA and and really go that route because I just I love food's ability to be this sort of ultimate art form, you know It's the only thing that it to creates all five senses, right? Yeah, and I guess I find it to be Such an amazing thing because it's another connective device just like sport, right? I mean, that's one another one of those things that brings people together, which is something who's been passionate about Just through a different medium, right? I love it. It's like it and all the five senses brings brings We feel we think we believe that all of that comes together with that is all the senses, right? Exactly. So I've actually done a course at the CIA. Oh really? Okay, they have these short courses by the way, and you don't have to be there for months I want to do two days. I used to work at Nestle and as a pro of our Product development they took the marketing team as well So they could you know understand more about the depth of the food and let me tell you I bought the cake I don't know how you can put on a cake, but I did And in my defense the reason I bought the cake is because I had the instructions and instructions said do da da Yeah, then put into the oven for 20 minutes or whatever it was and so I did And I'm I'm a big chitty chat So I put the cake away in the oven and I started walking around talking to people And when I came back it was burnt and the chef tells me he's like, oh wait You were supposed to check on it and I said well the instructions did not see it just said put it in the oven Yeah, so remember that James if you do end up at the CIA don't burn the cake I love that. What a cool experience. That's awesome So let me ask you're talking about cool experiences Have you had an audacious ask during your time in marketing? Um Gosh, I you know You you ask that question and it it um It makes me think about my experiences and dealing with People around me that that make audacious asks as well and I think it's like a really important muscle People to build and I'll I'll go to my experience in Austin. I've seen I was super lucky to go down there Um You know, I left major league soccer and ultimately went to go lead marketing across NFC And I came down there a year before the club ever launched and One of the owners of Austin. FC is Matthew McConaughey, right and he was really the owner that was dedicated to the brand and marketing side of things and um You know, I got an opportunity to work with them really closely and one of the biggest things that was my takeaway and working with Matthew for Three or four years is You know, he's the ultimate creative and he can be the ultimate creative because he has no filter and no film And I mean that in the best way possible and it put him in a position to think of so many audacious acts, right? And there's this really it's a really important thing when you get into businesses is to try and create environments where You don't put up those walls you try and create safe places and spaces for people to think creatively Because you might think about an idea about you know, shooting something to the moon But you come up with some other idea in the process that's maybe something that's more applicable a little more doable and you come up with some really great interesting ideas And so I've always thought about that in terms of my experience of how do I always make sure that I'm not operating with the world At the sandbox that's given to me But thinking Beyond that and you know, Matthew had a million different ideas Yeah, you know, it would stop you in your tracks and be like, wow What are we talking about here? But there was always a nugget of an idea that was driving his sort of north star creatively in terms of what we were doing And I put it such on a pathway to do interesting crazy things And we were much better for it and you combine that With a club that had a very clear mission and vision another club that was dedicated to representing its community And it unlocks and gives you permission as a brand to do things so you otherwise wouldn't do You thought about yourself as over a soccer team right Well, if we're a soccer team we live in this sandbox But if we live as an entity to elevate Austin and everything we do Well, that gives us a lot of permission to do a bunch of different things and You know, I'll I'll go to like one of the early campaigns for Austin that was an audacious ask to give back to your like actual question As I sort of meander around here That's fine. I love it Is you know our first campaign in Austin was a campaign called Verde Listo's Verde was really the term that we used to explain the culture of Austin I've seen and that first campaign we took Austinites well known whether they're Matthew McConaughey or not well known But well loved a guy like Yoshi Akaya sushi chef for Austin who has a really Fervent following is like a punk rock Japanese guy that if you met him you'd be best friends with him tomorrow and we just took out billboards and Showed these people and said Verde and Listo's Listo's was the other part of our chant and said Yoshi is Verde Matthew is Verde Um Evan Boyle who's a big neon sign artist in town Evan is Verde and that first campaign for a soccer team showed no soccer whatsoever It was all about underlining who we were gonna be and what brand we were and ultimately elevating all the things that made Austin great because we wanted to represent Austin and everything we do and If you would have just walked into a boardroom and said hey guys. I want to put Uh a photo of a punk rock Japanese sushi chef on a billboard and that's going to be our campaign for this soccer team It would have thrown you out But if you have yeah exactly. It's like it was just like that's insane like what do you know? Yeah, no context Yeah, no context But if you have a point of view and a mission and then you have great collaborators with you like yeah, Matthew okay It works and you can put it all together and then you actually get campaigns That feel different that feel unique and have that cultural texture Yeah, because what happened was is that people that had zero reverence for soccer Had to stop in their tracks and ask themselves what the hell is this team doing? Right? Yeah, and let's go back to If we would have tried to market ourselves as the best soccer team Well, great. We would have been relevant for the 20% of Austinites. They were already a cultureated soccer fans But if we reframe to the mission and said hey, we're going to be that thing that best represents Austin Well crap Now we're relevant to everybody that loves Austin, which is everybody in Austin, right? And it totally the aperture for the brand And one of my favorite things about that club to this day is I know for a fact There are people that have been seasoned ticket members for the first six years of that club Who two years before that club started couldn't pick a soccer ball out of a lineup They were made by soccer people But because we packaged what we were providing we provided that community aspect that sense of belonging that tribalism It brought people in and now they're Not only tossed in a sea, but the great sport of soccer itself Yeah, it just made it more relevant. They became more curious and probably ask more questions and exactly I'm going to love about this answer of yours is and actually all you answers I'm going to go back to the very first answer you gave is I can tell you're a great storyteller because you have this Very vivid imagination and your storytelling Gives you all these visuals in at least they are in my head from prison to sandball It's allowing people to actually experience what you have experienced just by your words. And I think that that's such a wonderful act of a story teller. So I can certainly see how you have taken the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from the challenges that you received coming in as a CMO, really leaving at that time. You know, it's a big task, it's a big, big ask of you. And here you are, you have, you have turned things around. And to your results speak for themselves. So I think that's beautiful and and I'm going to take away that key message is to be a great marketer. You have to be a story teller and to be a good storyteller. You have to learn how to visualize and help others visualize. 100%. I mean, if you're going to be a marketing lead, being an evangelist for that brand is one of the most important things and getting other people to be excited about the direction that you're trying to take things. And it's really important and in the world of AI and everything changing, our ability to tell stories remains as important, if not more so, in the world of kind of everything else changing around us, right? Yeah. And the relevant, in the relevant stories. Yeah. 100%. Well, I wish you the best to be a cook or chef, should I say chef? Chef at some point in your equal journey, I do wish you that you have the chance to go to the CIA and experience some of the things that they are known for. But if you're ready, I'm going to ask you some rapid fire questions. Okay. Great. Let's jump in. Great answer. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. You answer the question in a word, in a sentence, whatever you choose. Great. All right. And this is one of the favorite parts of students, by the way. All right. Love it. All right, James. Don't let them take your eye off the ball of the fundamental component of how to build brand and how to market. And at the end of the day, no matter what's going on with technology, the continuum of marketing stays the same. And how do I turn that in affinity into conversion and ultimately retention? That is a continuum. The first principles of marketing rules to come to class and learn those first principles. Thank you James. All right. Is there a habit that has served you well? Yeah, it's kind of sound really basic, but getting in early, I can't underline that enough. I mean, you know, I try, try and get in the office around like 730 and I have it three months old, so that's become, you know, much more challenging. But there's a fundamental thing of like, if I, that is, that gives me 90 minutes of unadulterated work. There's nobody like, you know, knocking on my door, trying to chat in the hallway, whatever. And it's fundamental to me to just log those hours and ultimately drive my impact over time. Because it's one of those things that you take that 90 minutes a day, take it into a week, take it in a month. And it just puts me in a better position to ultimately deliver on what I'm doing. That's a great one. To you, what is the power of marketing? It's the ability to create connection. I mean, I, I, I'm sure I sound like a broken record at this point, but, you know, we're in a world where as much as you can feel always connected to things, the depth of that connection is really challenged, right? I mean, I'm always sort of trying to, you know, peel myself away from my phone and a thing that ultimately gives you connection 24 hours a day. But the depth of that connection is, like I said, it's dissipating. And I think in a lot of ways, the greatest brands provide opportunity to create community in a sense of belonging and a sense of tribalism that we all need. And I think, you know, that's why I love sports, whether it's football, whether it's soccer, whether it's hockey, whether it's whatever. It's providing that thing and I think brand is such a great way for people to understand places and spaces where they can find their community, right? Brands, whether it's sporting brands or whatever, they're putting out who we are and hopefully people, you know, respond to that and want to be part of that community, right? Love it. Yes. What's the purpose of purpose? It's ultimately that thing that drives you, you know, and I think it is such a good litmus test for anybody, especially early people that are early on in their career. You have to have at least some shred of purpose to what you're doing because that's going to be the thing that drives you to do great work, right, and get to that point of the job being done, not because you went A to Z, but the job being done because you're proud of the work that you're doing and it goes back to that sort of fundamental point that I made at the beginning is learning how to know when the job's done. And if you have that sense of purpose, you can hold yourself to a standard and hopefully your standard is high and it can ultimately drive you forward to do great work, right? That's fantastic. James, this has been such a wonderful conversation. It's been inspirational. It's been riveting, and I'm sure that the SMU students will find a lot of relevancy in it and aspire to be in your shoes someday. So thank you so much for your time and I'm really looking forward to having you on campus someday and maybe my audacious ask will be in James what I come to my class. Yeah, 100%. I'm there. I'm there. Love the conversation and love the questions and thanks for having me on. It's great. Great use of time and loved it. So thanks for coming on boardwalk. Three key takeaways from this one. First, marketing in the modern age. The power of a brand rooted in mission. In a world where everything feels like it's constantly shifting from content production to engagement platforms to how we define success, the committed mission becomes the anchor. It's the thing that transcends the noise and outlasts the moment. Second, the power of culture and knowing your way. Great brands understand their mission and then they say the same thing a thousand different ways. But the part worth double clicking on is the why. The why is it always on the surface. It's the value exchange. What do fans, consumers, evangelists actually get from you? When you get that answer right, you build something special that people can choose to be a part of. In sports, that's when you have a brand that can transcend wins and losses. Third, finding your north star. Just like a brand, you need a north star. At a place like SMU, life will present you with a constant stream of options. The north star becomes the prism and the thing that helps you decide whether a path is taking you closer or pulling you further away. And importantly, that north star can and should evolve. But the act of having one of committing to something that guides your decisions, that's what creates momentum. It gives you direction, progress and purpose and it builds you along. And one day, look back and ask yourself, how the hell did I get all the way here? Thanks for listening to PODWARK. Please like and share our podcast with your friends and we would love it if you could give us a five star rating. Until next time.