#73: How Viral Nation is building social at enterprise scale, with Joe Gagliese

[upbeat music] All right, well, this is fantastic.

I, I do have one news of the week item, uh, that I'm-- I'll talk to, and then I, I, I have a question related to.

The one significant piece of news that I thought, uh, came out this week was maybe not a shocker, Coca-Cola announcing that it is, uh, or at least news reporting that Coke is, uh, reviewing its overall relationship arrangement that it has with, uh, WPP, and it sounds like Publicis is in the mix.

And this isn't a shocker, I guess.

It's, again, it's been a slow news week, so this is the biggest news of the week.

And I, you know, we'll see what happens.

Uh, I think that it's a good reminder, of course, that when agencies and marketers announce these bespoke agencies, they're really just more robust ORs and really maybe not much more than that.

Um, all right.

So, uh, the question I have for you, Joe, uh, it does relate to something you were touching on, and, you know, w- how you work with agencies, um, uh, how you work with w- the holding companies, 'cause I assume you're in a semi-competitive environment, and how does this work? Like, uh, uh, I assume there must be situations where a marketer says, "We're all in on this holding company, except for Viral Nation, and except for a few other things, and except for a few other things." How does it, that dynamic work?

Yeah.

Listen, uh, it, it w- it's really interesting.

So before, it didn't work very well when we were small.

You know, they, you know, I remember there were days, uh, I can't say the client, Brian, but there was a time, I, I'll never forget this for the rest of my life.

Our team was in an IAT meeting first, like, and we didn't even know what an IAT meeting was, and this was, like, maybe five or six years ago or seven years ago.

And WPP actually asked for Viral Nation's team to leave the room for the rest of the conversation, and I get a call from my team.

He's like, "We're sitting outside the meeting room.

We just got kicked out kinda, I think, and WPP doesn't want us to hear it." And I'm like-- They're like, "What do we do?" I'm like, "I don't know what to do." So, you know, it was a, you know, there was stages to it.

Um, now, believe it or not, Brian, we have incredible working relationships with these guys.

Like, you know, I think at the end of the day, to summate it, Brian, it's like, of course, Publicis and WPP and Omnicom wanna own the social business.

Like, it, it's just i, it, one plus one equals two, but they don't wanna do that, in my opinion, to the detriment of their client, right? And I think that in areas where Viral Nation has gone so far ahead of the industry, they recognize that, and now in a lot of our major clients, Brian, we have incredible IAT relationships with these guys.

Like, we're working really well with them.

Um, we've built systems for them, and, you know, there's, there's a big client that Viral Nation has, big one, where, you know, we sit across from Publicis and their media arm, and we have, we have actually, like, standing three-day-a-week meetings with them, and we work really closely.

Like, I think for us, Brian, what I learned as the founder and CEO of this business is poking at the bear doesn't help anybody.

Going in there and trying to take Publicis' business when you're the little guy is stupid.

So the approach we take as a company is, like, we're here to make the best thing happen possible for the brand.