Starcom

It's just a matter of time horizons, right? And building great, you know, sustainable, trusted relationships over time, that bears fruit.

Uh, but you can't build those if you just go to people anytime you need something in the moment, right? And I, I learned that early on from people like, you know, Rashad at Starcom and sort of observing how he built relationships that clearly he's still curating, you know, two and a half decades later.

Yeah.

So, like, what's, what's a b- a worst practice? You get over the transom emails from vendors being like, "Hey, come to our yacht," again, that kind of thing?

Um, what have you learned in, in that initiative? You know, it sounds like it's over the course of relatively, like, the, the recent past.

Like, what, what works? What, what are you focused on?

So I'll go back to, uh, real quick what we're doing on the consumer side because media buyers and CMOs are, are consumers, too, right? So we think about, you know, we were in the streaming Super Bowl on Peacock this year, uh, getting mass reach amongst everyone, including, you know, folks that work at the Starcoms and, and Sparks, and WPPs of the world, right? Uh, we were at the Olympics, uh, so we're, you know, getting into m- we're gonna be in the Emmys, uh, next week.

Uh, I guess now that's gonna be out tomorrow on your, on your pod, uh, breaking news.

She is the chief strategy officer for BBDO in Chicago.

The second person you're going to hear is Preeti Nadgar, is the chief strategy officer for Starcom here in Chicago.

Then Josh Gross is the chief creative officer for BBDO Chicago.

You'll then hear Mark Gross, co-founder, co-chief creative officer here.

Our next live show is September 10th at GSDNM in Austin, Texas.

But thank you to this crew tonight.

Preeti Nand, Gar, CSO Starcom, Landy Day, Chief Strategy Officer, BBDO, John Gross, Mark Gross, not related, and Brian Seedband from Quality Meats.

Thank you.

25 years ago, I was an A at an ad network called L90.

My biggest client was Starcom IP.

Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone in Chicago at 35 West Wacker to meet me at the Cozy across the street for coffee.

And for each person that came, I'd do a freestyle rap about them.

I think those were a couple of the big ones for me.

I do remember

there was there was I don't know if it was a written or unwritten rule that like you couldn't leave and call on Starcom maybe for a year or so.

I think it was a year.

So we do not have a show for you this week.

There was a last-minute cancellation from our guest, who I will not name, but they are on this... org chart that we've been referencing here for Starcom IP back in the day.

If you want to play detective, you can go to the FrapRap website, comb through the rows and see if you can find the culprit.

What I thought I'd actually do today is share a little bit about some of the observations I've had from doing, now this will be episode 10, which is hard to believe.

We're basically making it up.

as we go.

Started off with Jeff Marshall in episode one, and he was talking about basically how Starcom was sort of a land of misfit toys.

You had to be a certain type of person to be part of IP in those formative years.

Today's topic, A Leading Futurist Takes Stock of 2026.

Now, Rishad served as president of Starcom, chief strategist and growth officer of Publicis.

He's a bestselling author, in-demand speaker, the host of the What's Next podcast, and, um, the co-founder of the Athena Project.

You know, he's staying busy.

Yes, one through seven were taken.

25 years ago, I was an AE at an ad network called L90, and my biggest client was Starcom IP.

Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone in Chicago at 35 West Wacker to meet me at the Cozy across the street for coffee, and for each person that came, I'd do a freestyle rap about them.

Hence the name, Frap Rap.

And these

are both 220 numbers, which, of course, is a landline for Brene.

Those are Starcom

numbers.