Dan Cohen: [00:00:00] In our business, we talk about “Can you sell the big idea? Have you ever sold a big idea?” I don't think I sell big ideas. I personally do better when someone might say, the box is smaller and instead of thinking outside the box, I'm probably better at either expanding the box a little bit, figuring out if it really is a perfect 90 degree angle in the corner of that box, or if it's a little bit of a strangely shaped square that I can make a little more malleable.

Chris Kocek: Welcome to any insights yet, the podcast that explores the intersection of strategy, inspiration, and branding. I'm Chris Kocek. On today's episode, we get a glimpse inside the creative mind of Dan Cohen, executive Creative Director at Saatchi, New York. Dan has been growing brands and winning awards for the past 30 years. [00:01:00] Working closely with clients and creative teams to develop culturally contagious campaigns for brands like Bounty, Charmin, Pampers, Pepto Bismol, and Puffs among many others.

While the glamor and budget of a beer brand may be appealing to some, Dan says he purposely seeks out difficult assignments, and his creative collaborations have helped his clients get outsized attention in the media. From unexpected gorilla marketing activations to original branded music campaigns, Dan Cohen has a way of finding those “Aha!” moments hiding in plain sight.

And yet, despite all of his success, as you heard in that opening clip, Dan doesn't believe he sells big ideas. Instead, he connects the dots between overlooked data points and customers’ unspoken needs, and he weaves ideas together that catch the attention of customers, the media and late night talk show hosts.

Our conversation begins with a surprising data point that [00:02:00] Dan just couldn't ignore. 

Sometimes a data point can be the beginning of an “Aha!” moment or a big idea and you recently saw a data point that led to something really big for Bounty. What was that data point and how did you connect it to a bigger idea?

Dan Cohen: We were working on Bounty and trying to come up with an experiential concept and thinking about all of the different ways that people use Bounty special occasions, and how we could get more people involved and we came across a data point that said that 1.4 billion chicken wings were actually consumed on Super Bowl Sunday.

And right there, a little light went off and we said, if 1.4 billion chicken wings are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday, how many chicken wings could be eaten across all of the playoffs or across the full season? [00:03:00] And it led us to this idea that was based on, you can't have football without wings, and you can't have wings without Bounty because they're messy.

And the handle for the idea is Bounty is your wingman, and that became a platform that we developed in 2022 and have continued on into 2024, evolving the campaign and it's been a great ride so far and very well received. 

Chris Kocek: So you found this data point and did you share it with the rest of your team and they said, “Wow, that's really something.”

Or did you go to the client? How did you push it forward after you saw this? 

Dan Cohen: We shared it internally and everyone thought there was definitely something there, and we started to develop different ways to potentially just activate with Bounty and football based on that, and it could have been anything from eating contests [00:04:00] to who makes the most mess.

And we thought there was something huge that could come of this and as an agency, we presented this idea to the brand and the brand saw something immediately. To their credit, I think they saw well beyond what we saw and we collectively developed a plan with our agency and our ERPR agency and a number of agencies together to bring this to life.

Chris Kocek: What did they see? What did they share with you? Like, “Oh my gosh, we could do this.” Did they start connecting the dots on their end when you told them? 

Dan Cohen: They saw the retail component before we did and to their credit, that's what they're experts in beyond just understanding the brand, but they understand the whole sales aspect and if we came to them with a data point that was 1.4 billion chicken wings were consumed. Right there, that translates into [00:05:00] sales not only for chicken wings, but for Bounty paper towels, and they realized that if they set up a simple, in my mind, very complicated to execute, partnership or coupon program where if you bought those two products together at different retailers, you would get a discount. And that's a pretty strong incentive when you're buying both of those products to begin with. So it could lead to more purchasing than usual and that actually proved out right away in the first year without a whole lot of support behind it. And then subsequently, we built on that in, in the second year. 

Chris Kocek: No pun intended, you tried to make something very sticky between the idea of every time you think of wings, think of Bounty. Is that right? 

Dan Cohen: Yes. You can't have football without wings and you can't have wings without Bounty is the consumer facing language.

Chris Kocek: And the wingman concept, were there [00:06:00] any other concepts that were left on the cutting room floor creatively? 

Dan Cohen: I have to say I have looked back at our original presentation and that really was the line we came in with, Bounty is your wingman or a variation on it of Bounty is your wingman for wings. It's so simple that we really thought there was something there and it's an easy enough handle that when I explain it to anyone, not just someone who's hosting a podcast about insights, they immediately understand it. And like you just said, something that's sticky or saucy, it's a quick get and so we knew we had something there.

Chris Kocek: So you developed this proof of concept campaign in 2022. It did well, in fact, it did so well that P&G came back to you and said, “How can we expand on this in 2023?”

And then you're still expanding on it in 2024. So what does [00:07:00] that expansion look like? 

Dan Cohen: The brand partnered with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman last year, former NFL Superstars. They also had a partnership with the NFL in general, where we worked with members of different teams and each wingman duo from each team was associated with a specific retailer in the region that they played in, either the city or the state, and within those specific retailers, we continued a program where you got a discount if you purchased wings and Bounty at that retailer. And we created social content with each wingman duo within each region as well as a more national approach with Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman, that was on a platform called Whistle Sports, and we also had some [00:08:00] other national duos too, who were interviewed and created content there, and they were each other's wingmen. It was behind the scenes conversations about their careers, and they were just talking football and eating wings and making a mess and using Bounty, and we're continuing to expand on it this year.

Chris Kocek: What's coming this year? 

Dan Cohen: I can't say everything that's coming, but we have a new wingman national duo, which will come out later in the year, and we actually have even more wingman duos across the country within specific regions because the program has been that's successful. We had a wing tracker last year that basically tracked how many wings and Bounty sales were done in each region, and with the success of that, we've got more retailers involved this year.

We're excited about that and we're trying to map out how do we actually produce the social content this fall, [00:09:00] and we will have more national content too, which who knows where it will show up, but it will probably go beyond just the players' socials. 

Chris Kocek: Did the client have any questions for you? Obviously you said they got it right away, their eyes lit up. Did they have any questions for you that were like, “What about this?” Or “Should we be careful of that?”

Dan Cohen: They have more than questions. They have guidance, they have vision. There was also last year, a whole ERPR component, which was in Las Vegas the week leading up to the Super Bowl. There's something called Radio Row where all the media gathers.

And we built a house of wingman there, where different players came in our national duo, as well as some of the regional guys came in and the media was there and it was the one venue where you could actually get free food if you wanted food and you were a journalist, you actually had to leave [00:10:00] radio row and you had to go out and there's a lot of security to go in and out. So this was a nice way to provide the media with free food as well as engage them with this promotion with former players and we had lots of football activities going on, whether it's a Bounty towel toss competition. When, when you have NFL quarterbacks involved and other former players and current players, it gets competitive and the journalists were competing too, and that was a lot of fun.

And so the brand and our E-agency, MSL, was working with all of the players and journalists and we helped with the build of it all and it was this two story structure, which was really within Radio Row was magnificent. It really stood out and was just a great place for [00:11:00] everybody to hang out and get free food and just really experience the brand. So it was a wonderful activation. 

Chris Kocek: Have you had any other situations like that in your career where you see a data point that catches you by surprise and it becomes a springboard for an idea in a similar way? 

Dan Cohen: Yeah. I'm not sure it was a specific data point, but a long, long time ago we realized on Charmin that in New York City, if you are a tourist during holiday season, there was not a great place to find a clean bathroom, a clean public restroom. So that inspired the Charmin restrooms in Times Square, which we activated for many years, and have done different iterations of that and providing not only a clean bathroom experience for consumers, but an entertaining one with a [00:12:00] better product experience and brand experience was something that just like thrilled and delighted consumers.

It was totally unexpected and surprised, but so appreciated. If you're walking around in the middle of New York in the the winter and it's quite cold, particularly if you're with a family and have young children and a lot of us have been in that situation before. There's a little bit of panic. 

Chris Kocek: So one of the things that I like to talk with people about is that an insight or an “Aha!” moment is this thing that everybody knows about, but nobody's really either articulated it or you can't see it at first.

So the pain point of there are no public restrooms in Times Square. Everybody who had ever been to Times Square had felt that, but nobody had ever done anything about it. I mean, there are probably other brands in the, let's call it bathroom category, probably could have come up with something. Was that something that you just brought to [00:13:00] the team and said, “Hey, I was in Times Square recently and noticed this,” or how, how did the evolution of that come to be, this thing that everybody could feel, but nobody had ever articulated before?

Dan Cohen: The credit should go to the brand. They actually had explored this earlier on at something called Potty Palooza. That was again, an evolution of Lollapalooza back in the day and again, same situation, you're at a concert, whether it's a concert or a state fair. In this case, realizing that the restroom experiences were bad and they did a pilot program on a smaller scale, and our agency, along with other people. There were so many people involved in this realized, why don't we try something bigger? And the one thing I will say is when you're working on iconic brands, they're happy to do some test and learns but when they know there's something that they think is a really [00:14:00] good place to hunt and it and could be a big idea, they're willing to go big and that's just such a great opportunity if you're working in advertising, to be able to work on something that has that type of exposure, whether it's a six week activation in the heart of Times Square in New York City or something leading up to the Super Bowl, that doesn't happen every day in this industry, and it's a privilege to have assignments like that. 

Chris Kocek: So this idea of we're not in the business of blank, we're in the business of blank. With Charmin, would it be fair to say, “Hey, we're not in the business of toilet paper, we're in the business of…” How would that sentence be completed?

Dan Cohen: They are product centric and focused on, on making the very best toilet paper, but they're about creating better, more enjoyable bathroom experiences for people. I think that's the differentiator and over the years we've developed a [00:15:00] campaign for the brand called Enjoy the Go. It's a rally and cry and it's a point of view as silly and playful and uncomfortable as it may sound to some, it's based on the notion that the brand believes that going to the bathroom is a good thing and it's something that should be enjoyed and something that we're dedicated to improving and making better for everyone, whether it's with the actual physical product or providing free space or coming up with an app to find clean restroom finders, or just creating content that's playful, delightful, or consumer oriented that we wanna showcase as well. There are hundreds of ideas that have come out in that brand that celebrates the overall positioning. 

Chris Kocek: So it's bigger than toilet paper, it's about enjoying the go, as you mentioned. And again, you've done so many amazing things with this brand. You mentioned the [00:16:00] Times Square activation, I believe, at the Consumer Electronics Show, CES. You had this thing called the Charmin Rollbot. How did that come about? 

Dan Cohen: There was an opportunity to have a presence at CES. Charmin was one of the brands that was chosen, and again, could have been a simple activation, like providing a better restroom experience, but there was a team that worked on it and came up with this idea to create, basically, our tech that we would introduce and unveil there, and the Charmin Rollbot was rolled out to the eyes of anyone who was there and people just adored it. The media loved it. And it was also based on an insight and a truth of, you know, how unfortunate and stranded you feel when you are in the bathroom and you've run outta toilet paper.

So wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a Charmin Rollbot [00:17:00] that you could have in your home and activate and bring you that role and it was a wink. The fact that the media picked up on it and played it over and over was credit to the team that came up with it. And I think it's telling that there's a sense of humor that the brand has and they're willing to go out even to the most high tech places and spaces and even though it's toilet paper and that feels low tech, we felt like we had a right to play there and be there and it was definitely a very successful activation. 

Chris Kocek: So even the most commoditized products and that's the thing I'm always fascinated by commodity brands and I feel like there is nothing more commoditized than the world of toilet paper or paper towels. Right? Most people don't usually give a second thought to these things, they just want something. But you have taken this humble product, toilet paper, and [00:18:00] you have elevated it so that people are thinking about not just the product, but the specific brand. Like you said, it's a wink in the direction of the consumer.

You recognize the truth and then you play with it. There's a bit of mischief or a bit of playfulness to it. On your LinkedIn, you talk about having a rye sense of humor. How has that helped you over the years? 

Dan Cohen: First of all, everybody who's worked on, if it's Charmin specifically, has to have a sense of humor.

Your very first meeting, you're probably a a little uncomfortable and awkward talking about bathroom habits, but it's a very close team and we enjoy laughing about whether it's the use of product or toilet training kids. All the things that happen within our homes, different phases of our lives, there's so many [00:19:00] situations when you meet a potential spouse or roommate that you might have different habits.

Those all get shared, you can't be too shy about it. You really have to live the brand and accept that you're gonna have these conversations that you normally wouldn't have in public with people because we're taught, actually, not to talk about going to the bathroom in public. We spend our time having very public discussions internally and then externally about the bathroom and we're actually quite comfortable with that and we think it's a great thing. 

Chris Kocek: It is a taboo topic for some or for many. I'm curious, in the research side of things, talking to customers, do you guys talk to customers about their bathroom habits and how do you pull out of them, their feelings or their emotions when it comes to their experience and the bathroom?

Dan Cohen: We do. I think the way you speak to [00:20:00] consumers has changed so much over the years too. I've always enjoyed focus groups, but you don't get the purest conversations 'cause people, again, in a category like this might be reluctant to have a discussion with you about that. During the pandemic, this type of dialogue became more natural.

So one-on-ones became a bigger deal and the brand has always gone into people's homes and talked to them and asked them about their behavior, their family's behavior and that's critical to understanding how anyone thinks before they're purchasing something and to see their homes, to see what their bathrooms might look like to really understand are they the type of people who, when we say enjoy the go, they like to sit in their bathroom for hours and light a candle and read a book, or are they actually the type of people who like to have as quick and clean an [00:21:00] experience as possible and efficient? That's their kind of joy because we're not trying to prescribe a way to really enjoy the bathroom.

We just want it to be enjoyable for you.

Chris Kocek: And you guys took this idea, you know, don't talk about going to the bathroom, and you found a wonderfully creative workaround for Charmin as an activation. 

Dan Cohen: It's called Toilet Tunes, and the idea is Charmin, we know you shouldn't talk about going to the bathroom in public, so we decide to sing about it and we flipped that on its head. We took that taboo statement and instead of adhering to it, we're sharing our point of view and we write and record different original toilet tunes that have lived on everything from terrestrial radio to Spotify to now they have become TikToks with influencers. And we'll continue to develop them.

And that's another [00:22:00] example of getting different creative teams, writing fun songs, partnering with our clients, and then working with creative production people from music houses and basically recording different tracks and getting them out in the world and the lyrics are so silly and fun and playful.

Again, if you're not self-aware enough as you're doing it to know it's a joke, that's the danger. When you think you're writing something that's really great and cool, then you know you have it wrong. But if you realize the, the silliness of it and the smile, that's first and foremost that it has to feel that it lands that way for consumers that they're in on the joke too.

Chris Kocek: Do you have a favorite toilet tune? 

Dan Cohen: Whatever one we're writing next. 

Chris Kocek: Good answer, good answer. [00:23:00] Well, it reminds me, do you know the artist Perry Grip, who sings I Love Bread, It's raining tacos. He has just done an amazing job of tapping into something in the world, and my kids listen to him all the time still, and I find myself singing the songs around the house, especially I love Bread. I can relate to that. 

Dan Cohen: Yeah, the music industry and songwriting in particular there, a lot of people have figured out ways to make money even though we've heard about the demise of the music industry over the years. There are artists who figured out how to write specific songs about different topics that are definitely making money based on what people are downloading. And in your instance, yes, applying for kids can be quite lucrative. 

Chris Kocek: It's like Perry Grip does a mashup where the song sounds like it belongs in a club. There's this line, “Everybody gets some bread, everybody gets some bread.” It's, [00:24:00] and everything's just pumping, it's full of bass and lots of electronic sounds and it's so fun and it almost always turns our house into a little bit of a dance party.

Dan Cohen: It's not that different if you think about it from the Disney soundtracks. There were things dating back to Bob the Builder club remixes in the UK, not the same as the bread, but similar where you have people, even there've been Barney remixes. As annoying as that can be, you can take that and contemporize it and suddenly it's in a club and it's cool.

Chris Kocek: Do you have to reel your teams in with regard to the puns, or do you just let them go to town with as many puns, as many potty puns as they want? 

Dan Cohen: That's a great question. Every time you tell someone not to use the pun, they still surprise you. Someone slips one in and everyone [00:25:00] laughs. But we do try and ding the ones that we just think are so obvious or painful or cringey or corny.

That's a big topic for us of how do we keep it something that we think is genuinely humorous. Even the genres that you play in, they can appeal to different audiences as well. So tho those are all the things that we consider 

Chris Kocek: On your LinkedIn page, you talk about seeking difficult assignments. That's something you're particularly good at or that you do, what does that mean to you, seeking difficult assignments?

Dan Cohen: You know, I was told pretty early in my career to ask to work on the hardest, least sexy assignments, and I didn't get that until, I think later in my career, the value of that. But there are assignments that are glamorous or at least seem glamorous. Whether it's working on a [00:26:00] luxury product or if you're a Gen Z and you have an opportunity to work on a big beer campaign or new tech, that probably seems like that's the perfect assignment.

That was never my sweet spot. I personally do better when someone might say the box is smaller. And instead of thinking outside the box, I'm probably better at either expanding the box a little bit, figuring out if it really is a perfect 90 degree angle in the corner of that box, or if it's a little bit of a strangely shaped square that I can make a little more malleable.

Chris Kocek: And you also talk about building trust, and that's something you're particularly good at. What is the secret, in your opinion, to building trust with a client or with the rest of your team to get to that great work? 

Dan Cohen: If you're trusting what I wrote on [00:27:00] LinkedIn, that that's a little scary to me. But in all seriousness, I do value the relationships and trust that I feel I've tried to cultivate over the course of my career.

To be successful in any business, I think you have to have a strong degree of trust and honesty. And if you're talking about, also, certain categories that could be embarrassing, you find yourself having very honest discussions probably more quickly than you would've with someone who you don't know. And if you're working on a category where it's not as personal, but I've always felt that if I could build the trust and be as honest as possible, that would lead to better relationships as well as better work. It's gonna sound funny, but in our business we talk about “Can you sell the big idea? Have you ever sold a big idea?” I don't think I [00:28:00] sell big ideas. I think I partner with colleagues within my own company as well as my clients and on their brands, and I try and build off the foundation of what other people before me have built or what we collectively learn about consumers together. Sure, there might be times when I think I'm sharing something new from the agency and I'm trying to persuade them, but I would never say I'm selling something to them.

In fact, I think most of my clients, if not all of them, they're the sales experts. We're working in a more conceptual idea space most of the time, and trying to figure out what truths can we take about this product or brand that we all agree on, and how can we serve them [00:29:00] up in a way that actually is credible?

Because you can come up with the most wonderful creative executions, but if it's not consistent with what your brand stands for internally or with consumer's perception of a brand, you're not gonna have a sale. I'm trying to work off of foundations that are true or finding things that we can prove are true and that people will accept once we've shared a certain amount of information or knowledge or provided a story that's relatable enough.

Chris Kocek: What's a truth that you've taken on any brand that you've worked on that you were able to serve up in a way that was fresh and credible? 

Dan Cohen: Ooh, that's a good question, a truth on any brand. I feel like we're circling back to what we talked about with Charmin, [00:30:00] but the truth is a good bathroom experience is quite enjoyable, so serving that up to consumers in a way that's relatable for them, that they actually get some joy out of either watching or after the fact, realizing when they use the product, they will have more joy is an example of that.

Chris Kocek: What's the difference between a great brief or an inspiring brief and an average, or a “Thanks for nothing” creative brief. 

Dan Cohen: There are a lot of briefs that have lots and lots of information, and sometimes it's just too overwhelming and it's not single-minded enough, or it doesn't have a point of view. And I think people believe, well, if I give you all of the information, you will be successful because you will be able to figure out many different paths.

In some cases that can work, but in our [00:31:00] business, we talk a lot about storytelling. I like briefs that tell a story too. I don't feel that it's that easy for me to take a brief that's not creative and not inspiring and then suddenly just flip a switch and say, here's the story. I appreciate when someone actually has started to think of, well, “This story begins this way.”

Now, if you buy into that, how do you continue to develop it? Where does it go? What makes the story memorable and sticky and special? And sometimes there's wonderful language in a brief and you look at it and you immediately can think of, “Okay, I know how to execute.” And other times you see that language. And as a trained copywriter, you go, “Oh shit. They already came up with the line,” and I think you have to get to the point where you're mature enough to go [00:32:00] “That strategy is actually, maybe, that's a great consumer facing execution” and we're a team and there's no reason why, just because I'm the copywriter or the creative, if someone else wrote that line, that's a great springboard.

Now how can we build on that? How can we execute? To me, having creative account people, creative strategists, creative clients, that's a gift. And I feel like many of the best executions and brands that I've worked on have actually come from having been on a team where the people around me, they're creative thinkers.

Any industry, forget about advertising and marketing. I believe any industry that you you have success in can depend on creativity and how you look at things and how you present or solve a problem. If you have [00:33:00] that trust in people who you're working with, that they can bring those answers. And on the flip side, if I have a strategic point or I have a question about the business, I find that our team is open enough to consider that too. So I think that relationship is key and will always lead to better work. 

Chris Kocek: You mentioned storytelling being a critical part of the briefing process. In the popular culture right now, are there certain storytellers, either in film and television and music and and writing, who you say, wow, they know how to tell a great story? Who should we be studying from a storytelling perspective? 

Dan Cohen: Well, that's a great question. There are different ways to answer it. We could study the youth of the world and anyone who is Gen Z and Gen Alphas who have been raised on TikTok and any other socials, the [00:34:00] way they tell stories are far different than how I grew up telling the story. They're not linear necessarily, they are quick, they are witty, there is a language that has to often be decoded and a certain community might only understand that language, but yet they make their stories interesting and fun and engaging enough that those who don't speak the language then seek out ways to actually learn the language.

Music is totally changed too, with things like TikTok. People are writing songs that if you don't have the hook in 10 seconds, it's not gonna sell. And people can make money and careers off of ten second and 30 seconds hooks that would never have flown [00:35:00] when you had to have a three minute single. And I guess the good news for people like me who've worked with.

30 second and 15 second and six second increments is, that actually fits quite nicely in my little ADHD mind. 

Chris Kocek: Yeah. I feel like with storytelling classic, narrative arcs, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end. And on TikTok or on various social platforms. It doesn't necessarily work like that. It's cut to the chase, let's get straight into something. One of the things I've written about is weirdvertising. Make it very weird in the beginning so that you're like, “What is this? What is happening?” And if you linger just a little bit longer, it's almost David Lynchian in terms of what's happening. 

Dan Cohen: I would say for me personally, I think the most successful creative brands or actually the people and the brands who put the brand front and center from frame [00:36:00] one, that doesn't mean the story has to be linear, but there's no time to have misdirects anymore because if you don't establish the brand early enough, there's a good chance that people aren't gonna watch the content because they have permission not to watch it. Again, that doesn't mean you should be serving it up in a pedestrian manner. That's where the creativity really has to come in my opinion, of how do you work within that box? What can you do to make people actually love this brand? But I think with today's media landscape and the lack of time and focus that people will put on ads, you really have to make sure the brand is front and center, but serve it up in a way that when you do go out, it does connect and feel contextually relevant, that it resonates with [00:37:00] consumers and works in a way that is engaging and entertaining as well. And that's very challenging to do, but I think you have to have the confidence that you can create that brand that's likable enough to at least give the consumer the amount of time to sit and be with the brand and feel like there was some reward for being with the brand, some knowledge, some entertainment that they're getting from it. 

Chris Kocek: So, speaking of speed and attention, we're at our speed round now. 

Dan Cohen: Oh boy. 

Chris Kocek: Okay. These are fast questions, fast answers, and we will wrap it up. So what was your favorite subject in school? 

Dan Cohen: Had to be, Gym. 

Chris Kocek: Why 

Dan Cohen: I couldn't sit still in school and I think getting me outside and I was a little sweaty sports crazy kid. So, that was probably the class I excelled in most. [00:38:00] You know, as I got older, I probably settled down a bit. In college I was an English major, so I appreciated the storytelling aspect English provided and, and loved, still loved to read, so I grew into an English major, but as a kid, I'll stick with gym.

Chris Kocek: What's one of the most interesting jobs you had before you got into advertising that has helped you do your job better? 

Dan Cohen: Without a doubt, I worked for Cutco Knives in college and I was a door-to-door knife salesman, but I used to call friends and family, but then get recommendations from friends and family to set up an appointment at someone's house with someone I didn't know and I'm gonna ring your doorbell and I'm gonna come over and I'm gonna show you some different knife demonstrations. Would you let someone into your home with a bunch of incredibly sharp knives and [00:39:00] just cut different things in your kitchen? It sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen. I thought it was terrific training, to be honest.

Chris Kocek: What about it made it terrific training? 

Dan Cohen: I said “I don't sell anything,” but that was a situation where I had to hopefully sell something, but more than anything, I was trying to not get in the way of the product demonstration, and I do think that a good product demonstration, it's like the earliest form of advertising.

I still believe that a good product demonstration served up in a creative manner is very powerful. So that allowed me to learn how to let a product or a brand be the star and then compliment it in a way that made people comfortable, maybe allowed them to drop their guard a little bit or to see how [00:40:00] a feature worked.

Chris Kocek: Is there a brand whose work you admire or that you think to yourself, I wish I'd come up with that. 

Dan Cohen: I love the Heinz work, the campaign, It Has to be Heinz is executed in so many different ways that I'm extremely jealous of, but I love, they're so smart and simple and it's one of those everyday products, whether it's like, you know, draw my ketchup or and people around the world are drawing bottles of Heinz and then they're putting them out in the world or The Perfect Pour where they put the Heinz label on the bottle crooked, or the playing off of Taylor Swift, Seemingly Ranch Sauce. They're just so smart and activate so effortlessly and just feel relevant. And again, there's no chest beating going on either. They're not shouting “We're [00:41:00] number one.” I find their work just very playful and smart and relatable. 

Chris Kocek: Is there a television show or a movie or a book that you've read recently that you just think that was amazing? 

Dan Cohen: I just read a book called James by Percival Everett. It's the retelling of the adventures of Huck Finn through the eyes and the narrative of James. It flips the whole story. Jim is telling the story and Jim is this brilliant, articulate individual and it's 180 degrees from how jim was depicted in the original Huck Finn coming back to insights, it's so insightful that the story is being told and what Jim is thinking about and how brilliant and [00:42:00] educated Jim is and how much wiser he is than everyone else. I just thought was amazing and powerful. I couldn't put it down. I just, I thought it was a fantastic book. It'll be made into a film, I think I wanna say like Spielberg or someone has already optioned it, something like that.

Chris Kocek: Oh wow. I'm gonna have to pick that up. That sounds right up my alley. I love the shifting of perspectives in a story. I love Errol Morris films that do that kind of jump around. Last question, what is a piece of advice that you got early on in your life or in your career that you still remember to this day or that you think of often?

Dan Cohen: Someone once told me earlier in my career as I was becoming a creative, don't get too senior and I thought that was the strangest advice and I was like, don't get too senior. You, [00:43:00] everybody, you wanna be a CEO. You want to be the CCO, you know? And as I've gotten older, I understand that the pressure to be the top person and be the leader who knows everything or who is expected to know everything, I think, is intimidating. I think you see people who are at the very top, those jobs, you're not often in that role very long in certain industries. That's not necessarily why I haven't ascended to that position, but I've always considered myself a worker bee who grinds it out.

Even if I'm leading teams, I'm hopefully contributing and doing work and thinking. And I think anyone who works in this business should always be thinking and working and writing, and designing and directing, because if you don't [00:44:00] use those muscles, you'll lose them and I've always enjoyed being a worker and a member of the team, to be honest, so I think that is valuable.

Chris Kocek: That's fantastic. Dan, thank you so much for sharing that advice with us, for sharing your process, your “Aha!” moments, and all the wonderful ways that you connect the dots. 

Dan Cohen: Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Chris Kocek: Thanks again to our guest, Dan Cohen, executive Creative Director at Saatchi New York, and adjunct professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. If you want to connect with Dan, you can find him on LinkedIn. If you're looking for even more ideas and inspiration, be sure to check out the Light Bulb newsletter at chriskocek.com/newsletter.

Every Thursday I share three “Aha!” moments that are guaranteed to inspire your next project, creative briefing or campaign. Or check out my latest book Any Insights Yet. Connect the [00:45:00] dots, create new categories, transform your business. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us five stars on your favorite podcast platform and share it with friends, family, clients, colleagues, even your enemies. 

Special thanks to Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios for producing this episode. And thank you to Megan Palmer for additional editing and production support. Until next time, keep looking for patterns, finding contradictions, and asking what if more often.