5 Minutes with… Mike Reese
Mike Reese is president of HUb Strategy & Communication, a San Francisco agency ‘born and raised on challenger brands’ that he has led, alongside founder DJ O’Neil, since joining in 2017.
Before HUb, Mike ran Y&R’s California office, where he was responsible for all agency controls and operations, including the creation of a B2B practice to manage a portfolio of enterprise tech brands. Prior to working on the west coast, Mike ran BrandBuzz, a Y&R-powered agency focused on new and emerging media channels. There, he championed an operational approach that centred around the fusion of media and creative development as a means of generating stronger and more impactful ideas - an ideal that he is still upholding at HUb today.
LBB’s Addison Capper chatted with him about that, the importance of senior experience within agencies, and why agencies should remember their core purpose.
LBB> HUb offers ‘Strategy, design & advertising (without all the bullshit)’. Please tell me more about how you and the agency see and define that bullshit?
Mike> There's no shortage of BS in our industry. Too often, it gets in the way of an agency's sole reason for being: figuring out the most effective way to help a client sell more of what they are trying to sell. The industry nonsense list is long, but these are the most egregious issues we've tried to overcome at HUb:
- The myriad of unnecessary and expensive strategy products agencies try to sell clients. At the end of the day, what most clients need is a focused understanding of how to position their brand to tell a compelling story their audience is going to care about – most of everything else is fluff.
- The separation of media and creative development may be the dumbest thing to have shaped our business. Good things happen when you combine media and creative thinking but rarely does our industry bring these worlds together.
- Creative without purpose. Many agencies are still trying to sell ideas that are way off-strategy. A great creative idea that's not in service of advancing a client's business is actually a really bad creative idea.
- An overreliance on cheaper and more junior talent. Typical agency staffing plans rely on mid and junior-level talent to do most of the work. Even with guidance, they don't often have the skill set, experience, or expertise to truly lead a client, certainly not in an efficient manner – so why is it the backbone of most agency staffing models?
LBB> I enjoy that HUb is very pointed in its offering of humour to its clients. Why is humour such an important strategy for Hub to offer clients? And why is the agency so good at it?
Mike> Our first job (and the biggest hurdle to overcome) is to get noticed. Before we can get anyone to do what we want (think about us differently, visit a website, download, or let alone buy something), we have to first catch their attention. And that's easier said than done.
Our audience might as well be wearing welding goggles, as they try to block out the sheer amount of content and marketing noise they're exposed to each day.
Humour, and the idea of entertaining while you sell, is a proven strategy that we use to overcome these welding goggles, and more importantly, create an emotional connection that opens the door to more engagement. And because we do a lot of work with new and challenger brands, it's a critical device that allows us to poke fun at ‘the old ways of doing things’ without sounding like an asshole. It allows us to be competitively hard-hitting without coming across in a negative manner.
Humour is something we've been doing from the onset. And like everything else, it becomes second nature when you've been doing it for so long.
LBB> If you look at the big award shows, it feels like humour is somewhat of a dwindling power within our industry - at least in terms of winning awards. What are your thoughts on that?
Mike> Good humour is hard to pull off. It's a fine line between humour and tragedy, and many agencies and clients aren't willing to do that bit of tight roping.
We've also just gone through a couple of years of some pretty heavy stuff. Some marketers may feel that humour in such a climate would be insensitive – while we feel the opposite. Not only is it effective at cutting through, but it's also a nice antidote to the realities of the outside world. Because there is such a wide range of humour, we firmly believe there will always be a place for it in our client's communication.
LBB> What is your favourite humorous campaign from your time at HUb?
Mike> This is like asking which child is your favourite, so I’m going to answer in a slightly different manner.
I particularly love when we can insert humour (appropriately) in places that are unexpected and that you think can't work. We've successfully woven different types of humour throughout all of our B2B campaigns (with impressive results versus the historically serious themed campaigns) and even found a way to do it in more serious categories such as children's health and new emerging cancer treatment technology.
LBB> Where did you grow up and what sort of kid were you? How did you feel about advertising?
Mike> I grew up in a pretty progressive, diverse suburb of New York (which is a nice way of saying I'm from Jersey). My family was pretty creative. The power of osmosis likely steered me toward certain potential professions.
I was drawn to advertising because it seemed to mash up creativity, psychology and technology into a profession that, when done right, had the power to sway millions to buy stuff they may never have known they needed.
LBB> How did you wind up in advertising? Was it a planned thing or more a happy accident?
Mike> Well, my dad got his buddy's kid an internship at Saatchi & Saatchi. I think my dad's friend felt guilty and needed to return the favour. So, the next thing I know, I'm off the beach and doing a summer internship at Y&R. Something must have clicked (or maybe it's the opposite) because here I am 30-plus years later doing much of the same stuff.
LBB> 2023 is looking like it will be a challenging year economically - and during difficult times it may be understandable that people’s knee-jerk reaction might be to shy away from something they perceive as risky. What would you say to those people?
Mike> We have a mantra at HUb that states ‘safe is unsafe’. As a marketer, if you plan to play it safe then you are working against the basic principles of marketing. As I mentioned earlier, our first and largest job is to get noticed and earn our audience's attention. Blending in with safe, bland advertising is unsafe marketing behaviour for any organisation. Whether it be during strong or challenging economic environments, we will continue to push our clients to use the power of voice and design to separate your brand from competitive noise. Always appropriate but never safe.
LBB> Outside of work, what are your main passions?
Mike> Music and being in the great outdoors are the two things that nourish my soul and allow me to come back to work armed with the strength, energy and inspiration to tackle the next challenge. That and pie.
