Underdog Full Episode Transcript:

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00:00:04

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Question Everything, a podcast all about learning from the successes and the failures of those who dare to, well, question everything. This podcast is part interview, part therapy, and part Price is Right. We have our own game board stacked with questions that'll make even the most successful CMO sweat. I'm your host, Ashley Walter, CMO and partner at Curiosity. Today is a special episode. I'm sitting down with two guests from Underdog, Devin Bellamy, Senior Director of Integrated Marketing and Mike Posner, Head of Executive Development, two distinct point of views powering Underdog's culture and new campaign starring Paul Walter Hauser.In this episode, you'll here, how to capitalize on a viral moment without fumbling, why great work gets better when you give the talent room to cook, what it takes to build a just do things culture, and Underdog's unfiltered take on Sidney Sweeney's latest spot.

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Devin and Mike introduction 

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00:00:59

So open up your app and place a bet on a good time. This episode is a winner. Devin Bellamy is the Senior Director of Integrated Marketing at Underdog, a Challenger sports gaming app and Curiosity's newest client. As a leader in tech, Devin has held brand product, and global marketing roles at GoFundMe, Expedia, and Amazon.Just months into her time at Underdog, she's already helped launch the company's first ever national brand campaign, Unleash Your Dog, starring Emmy winner Paul Walter Hauser and legendary comedy director Jody Hill. Mic pause. is head of executive development interim chief rascal at underdog with a career spanning psychotherapy sales consulting and performance coaching he brings a unique perspective to brand marketing and the patterns that either unlock success or sabotage it at underdog he applies these insights across psychology leadership and brand marketing to propel one of the most promising unicorns in sports gaming.

00:02:04

Mike, Devin, welcome to the show. Thanks. I'm so excited to be here. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to have you.You have to be the number one most requested guest from Curiosity employees ever. True story. Well, that's very kind. And if I had a podcast, I would probably also want them to be on my podcast. So the feelings are mutual. Oh, I love that. I was told that, well, I already know this because we got to know each other a little bit in the pitch process, but Devin is a total badass. She can talk like women in tech and what it's like being in a male-dominated industry. And she's like a go-getter. And I'm like, all right, we're going to ask. We shot our shot.

00:02:42

So I'm super excited for this conversation. Oh, thank you, it's so kind, and yeah it's been a lot of fun getting to to work with you and the team and everyone has just been so smart and fun to just learn from and kind of build this campaign with which also i have to mention your epic track suit um it is it is so good so so good I'm feeling the vibes of the dog today. So hopefully that'll translate into some of the stories you tell. I can't wait. All right, let's go to the game board. You know how this podcast works. I have 12 spicy questions. You don't know what's behind them. I don't know what's behind them. We'll just kind of see how this goes. What do you think?

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: How brands can move fast without compromising quality 

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00:03:22

Okay, let's go with number eight. Okay, number eight. So you've praised Underdog’s just do things culture. When a sports moment goes viral, how do you move fast without lowering the bar or producing off-brand work? That's a good question. I really think that the secret is that speed is the result of clarity, right? Like if you're trying to determine who you are, what you think, and what you're allowed to say after a moment already happens, like you're too late. Anything that you do is going to feel like super inauthentic. And so that work really begins so far before anything ever goes viral, right? Your team has to understand the brand deeply: what we sound like what we find funny, what we would literally never say, and then what perspective that for us underdog can incredibly bring to a moment

00:04:12

um and and then also like in our category specifically we have real legal and compliance considerations so like we need to understand those boundaries far in advance rather than discovering through a 10 person approval chain when the internet is already moving on because we know how fast those social conversations are happening. So really it's like TLDR, once you have those clear guardrails, then bring the people that are closest to the work in. Make sure they have those clear understanding of the guardrails and then give them that authority to just like do things and make decisions and that's the part of just do things that i really love right it doesn't mean that everyone's just like acting reckless recklessly or that your standards disappear it's meaning that like we trust smart people to use their judgment without turning every single idea that we have into like a 10 person meetings that everyone's opinions are heard and and we're you know really building that process so you can move quickly when the moment arises

00:05:09

That's amazing so I hear clarity is the secret to going viral which i absolutely love or taking on a cultural moment in as close to real time as possible have you guys ever like made mistakes or has it not worked and what happens like from the culture standpoint or the team standpoint happens? Yeah, gosh, I mean, with how many swings we're trying to take right now, I feel like we hit just as often as we miss. And so a lot of what we're learning today is that one, like we didn't have that tight knit understanding of what our brand is and was and how we're moving from our old brands to now our new brands, right? And things that we would have done before, we're just not doing anymore, and that's okay.

00:05:56

But I think that in terms of misses, a couple of things come to mind really clearly. You lose control of the narrative, and also you fall behind and in a space that is constantly moving as often as ours is. You can't afford to fall behind because then you're already 10 steps behind on the next moment because you spent so much time fixated on the previous one right like the sports calendar is constantly evolving. There are a million different sports happening at any given time. And so we have to make sure that we have a strong sense of conviction in what we're doing and why we're doing it to pair alongside with that speed. And I think that's what we're learning through some of our misses is that we haven't necessarily had that in a really tight way.

00:06:41

And it's not shown up in bad performance for a specific moment, but then it puts us like on the wrong foot for the next 10 moments even, right? Like that's a little dramatic, but you get the point. Let's see what Mike thinks. From a leadership perspective, to me, it's just so, so important that you balance being in the setting. And I talked about building a sandbox. And I think that you can vacillate too far on either side. And it's perpetually finding this balance. So either it's, you know, it's chaos or rigidity. And there'll be some leaders that tend towards rigidity and others that tend towards chaos. And so it's perpetually saying, here's the strategy, which I say is a hypothesis, a diagnosis, guiding policy, and then coherent actions, and making sure that that's super clear.

00:07:44

Because ultimately what that does is you're setting up the right size sandbox for the people at the level of expertise, aptitude and ability. If the sandbox is too big you're going to make a big mess because everybody's going to be running in different directions building different types of things that have no coherence and if it's too small they'll feel micromanaged they'll feel like there's a lack of trust they'll be constrained um and so it's perpetually looking and resizing the sandbox, both for the orgs and the people within it, so that they have enough room to grow, stretch out, play, bring their unique magic to the world, but not too much where there's no coherence and everybody's rowing in different directions. So yeah, I think that... generally speaking, leaders probably don't think about that frequently enough.

00:08:39

Is there the right level of clarity and is there the right level of agency? And always sort of coming back to put that in balance. I assume like your team isn't afraid to fail. Like you guys have an incredible culture. And like, how do you breed that in them and like build them up and make them feel like they can take risks? Because that's when like the payoff is really big, right? When they find that moment, they've got the authority, they've got the clarity, the conviction to go all in. How do you guys create that in the team? I would be lying if I said we have fully created it, right? It is like an ever evolving process. Uh, but, but what we have have realized is working for us is like celebrating those learnings more than anything else, right?

00:09:27

Like if something didn't work, great, that's fine. What did we learn that we're going to apply to the next iteration of the next viral moment, or like what didn't work and why didn't it work? So it's not necessarily saying we failed. It's we didn't fail we learned something that we can then take and that's going to make the next viral moment that we activate around 10x better um and I think that's what's really starting to help shift the culture internally here at Underdog is is like shifting the mindset of it's not failure it's a learning uh and and then when we do hit it's based on all of the other learnings that clarity conviction and celebrate the learnings bravo the three c's okay I like that let's go back to the board do number three okay. So you've held senior marketing roles across male-dominated industries, from tech to travel to the creator economy and sports.

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Why Devin hasn’t felt disadvantaged in senior marketing roles across male-dominated industries

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00:10:23

Has being underestimated ever worked to your advantage? Oh, a spicy question indeed. Yeah, deep thinking here. Gosh, it's funny because I actually don't even think about it as being underestimated, right? Like I acknowledge I have often entered industries where I am not the obvious archetype of the person that is expected to lead or level and be on the team. But I've always kind of looked at that as more of an advantage versus like, a disadvantage, right? Like you talked earlier, I've worked across tech, travel, the creator economy, and now sports. And every time I've entered a new category, I have to learn the business really, really quickly. But I've also arrived without being overly attached to this conventional wisdom of that industry.

00:11:08

A lot of people that I work with today are like, well, this is how it's always worked in gaming, or this is what's worked in gaming before. And I'm able to look at something that people have been doing for years and ask like why do we do it that way and sometimes there's a very valid and and very good reason but sometimes the on like the honest answer is just really simply we kind of always done it that way that's just how everyone in our industry does it and so I think when you've spent like a long time inside one category you naturally develop these like assumptions all customers want what kind of creative will work what the comp set is requiring you to do because well this is what everyone else does and those assumptions become kind of like invisible right and so I look at it as like comingin having a different set of experiences allows me to see some of the things that other people may have stopped noticing

00:12:00

and also challenge some things that some people that are really deeply embedded in our industry either can't because they don't feel comfortable or they just like won't because they aren't seeing it. So yeah. One thing I know about you too is like you're not afraid to have a point of view. I love that about you. I love that about all of our employees, but like anytime someone can walk into a room and have a point of view about something, like it's really refreshing. And like, are you ever like ever afraid to speak up? Like, where does that confidence come from? Yes. I still get afraid to speak up. Like even sometimes when I'm sending like a hot tape, this is going to be. going to be taken the wrong way.

00:12:41

Is this going to dilute any trust or erode any trust that I have earned with this person because I have this hot take or i have a pov here that i'm not supposed to so like of course i get imposter syndrome every single day i'd be lying if i said i didn't um but but i do think that I often am reminded that i've been put in these situations becausepeople obviously for some reason believe in what i am saying and they have some level of faith in what i'm doing and i do have expertise in some certain areas where that i speak to um and so a lot of that is is definitely me reminding myself about day in and day out um okay you have a seat at the table and there's a reason why like believe in yourself everyone else does.

00:13:33

And so you kind of have to, like, I at least have to remind myself of that pretty regularly. Okay, that's good to know. You would never know from the outside looking in. But I like that. And I think we could all use a little dose of that, you know, being just like really open and honest on the work or the strategy or whatever the moment calls for. And not being, I don't know. I don't know, nice, you know, like sometimes I think we build like these like really nice cultures and we're afraid we're going to like hurt someone's feelings. But, you know, it's like it's about the work and we're all here to make the work great. And like you said, you're sitting in that seat, and that's your job to look at it maybe from a different perspective and give honest feedback.

00:14:19

yeah and I think this like there's almost this misconception around right like you're nice if you're just like complimenting people constantly I actually think it's kind to give real honest feedback and to tell people how you actually feel because it can make them better it can make your business better or it can like just have of you know can be what sparks a really interesting conversation and perhaps your pov isn't the right one um but I do think that it is kind to share how you're actually feeling and to be authentic because it's better to have those conversations earlier rather than like waiting until something is all the way at the end of the track and then it comes from someone elsenice versus kind is sort of how I think about it.

00:15:05

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Why Underdog invests money in off-sites rather than an office

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I love that. I love that. All right, Mike, your turn. 12. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about Camp Underdog and why it's important to have these off-sites and retreats for your staff? Yeah, so the company started during COVID, so it was a remote-first company. We had a small office in New York, but there was always an understanding and appreciation both for the benefits and the trade-offs. Like you can work from anywhere you can expand the talent pool all those things working remotely not having the depth of relationships, makes things like feedback that much harder. Yeah. Because, you know, you don't have the comfortability. So there was a decision at some point of should we go and invest in a big office, we have, you know, 500 people, or should we really create like a dedicated in person experiences that happen?

00:16:00

We have Camp Underdog that happens once a year, but we also have a people team. That basically makes offsites turnkey. So if any leader across the business wants to do something, get people together, they will have hotels booked, experiences booked, all of these different types of things. So we reallocated the investment in the office into in-person time. And with Camp Underdog, we really wanted to be intentional about it being a balance of work and play. And because we think that, you know outside of the struggles of ideological you know differences and inside of the work environment, um there's something that unites all of us, and we just also happen to have a lot of sports people and sports fans um, at the company, and not surprisingly um and so

00:16:58

We've, you know, we have this whole field day where we play sports and do things that are totally not work-related so that we can just get to know each other as people and what was probably the most fun this past year is we built an internal prediction market for all the events that were happening so we had a hot wings challenge where all the execs were on stage and you got to bet live wager on who was going to tap out and who was going to win. And the odds were changing throughout the time. And we had tennis tournaments and golf tournaments and you could bet on your friends and you could bet against your friends. And so it was also a reminder of like, oh yeah.

00:17:39

this thing that we're doing it actually does make sports more fun like the audience in the hot wings challenge would have been 100 people but it was 500 people glued to figuring out if our chief people officer was gonna uh sweat so much that he passed out or if he was gonna hang on so did he hang on he i i knew his mentality He was a long shot. And I was like, this boy will never crack. And sure enough, he didn't give up. He was visibly having the hardest time. But his mentality was unbeatable. Hilarious. You guys also did like innovation sessions. Like there was a little bit of work, really productive, thoughtful sessions, work related. Yeah.

00:18:24

yeah we did um there's been like many companies there's been a push um to really start getting the team more fluent in leveraging ai and you can talk about that and encourage that um but unless you really set up the forums and the education for how to do that it's you know it's probably dream and it takes longer than than people would like and so we we structured each different org to have a hackathon and they get to propose different ideas and topics and they're put into different teams but they were coupled with very technical ai engineers that couldhelp them in real time work through a problem, a challenge that they were having that AI could probably solve, but they would actually be the ones that would play with it.

00:19:15

And then... you know we made it a little bit of a competition so who had the best um you know who shipped the most who shipped the best um what was the impact and many of those things um are actually being used in in the business uh today so it was a mix of learning but also practical excuse me, benefit to the, to the different orgs across the business. That's great. A little bit of fun, a little bit of business, and it all kind of ladders back up to culture. I think it's those experiences and the way you're investing your money that really helps, I think, breed that culture. All right, let's go back to the board.

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: How Jody Hill and Paul Walter Hauser gave The Dog a soul, and why letting talent improvise was the unlock

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00:19:55

Um, what about question number nine all right let's see: The Dog is part guru part companion, and part social liability. What did Jody Hill and Paul Walter Hauser bring to the work that no brief could have done on its own? Okay, I love talking about the dog. I love talking about Jody Hill and Paul Walter Hauser, such fun humans to work with, by the way, like we were all just on cloud nine getting to work with them because talk about just the nicest, kindest human beings ever that will tell youif something is good or not and why they like it Jody Hill and Paul Walter Hauser that is them um but when i think about it it's like a breed can describe a character right but it's not going to like make that character actually feel alive and and so on paper the team knew exactly we said

00:20:49

part guru part social liability and i think the third one was companion um but we needed someone that was going to unlock the more like instinctive confident version of the sports fan but we didn't want them to feel like a really polished spokesperson or a traditional brand mascot. And so we needed someone that could like, toe that line of being like a little unhinged and unpredictable And so you were even sure like, okay, what are they gonna say next? Like is this NSFW? Are we good here? And so that like contradiction was so difficult to articulate on paper Right, like and the team did a phenomenal job doing so but I think where the rubber hit the road road was like when we pitched it to people like Jody Hill and other directors and to Paul and other uh potential characters and they just like got it like they understood it instinctively and that was was sort of where the unlock was like Jody has built all of these characters in his

00:21:52

ridiculously committed to their own worldview and like you cannot look away they're confident they are a little unhinged they're uncomfortable but like hilarious and so that was how he sort of helped us create that that through line of The Dog of like this is going to be something that that will really hit Um, so I think of it as like, Jody almost protected that like weirdness and like acknowledging like an uncomfortable pause or an unexpected reaction and like pushing things like that on set. Um, and, and then on Paul, like he gave The Dog a soul, right? Like he was absolutely ridiculous on set. Um, to the point where there were so many cuts

00:22:39

where we were all like doubling laughing and they would have to call us over in video village like guys you're being too loud we can hear you laughing from where we're filming please keep it down but it was just like so much fun and every single time every take he came with like a different performance um and and I think it's like his ability to act like he's never in on the joke um or to like try and tell the audience that something is funny like it just felt so authentic and so genuine to not only like us as the audience but also to every other actor and actress he was working alongsideand that made his character like 100x funnier and so much more believable it's like they go from like being yeah brand character to being like really invested in the business you know like invested in the brand and it's that weird balance but like when you get it just right like really cool things like that can happen. For sure.

00:23:37

And there's, there's even stuff that's going on in our category on social right now. And like Paul is texting our team about guys, we should activate around this. We need to have a response, and it's like completely unprompted. And that's the sort of buy-in that we want to see from talent was like someone who, again, just like gets the character isn't just throwing on the tracksuit and being like. Okay I'm in character mode now let me just like film this and move on like they fundamentally get it and they're like extensions and and further ways for us to partner which again like that's how you build a brand that's how you build something that's going to be recognizable and feel really authentic it's not just like a set of a couple of spots that you run for a few months it's you have to think like way more long termyeah great advice all right let's go back to the board let's do number 11.

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Why Novig's Sydney Sweeney spot may have won attention but lost the brand

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00:24:28

Okay, so first you've got to describe this photo and I can't wait to see what you say but the question is Sydney Sweeney just dropped a new spot for a competitor kind of a competitor i want your hot Oh gosh. Okay. Describe the photo. Sports. That's all I will say. No, I think, gosh, we have had an absurd amount of conversation about this ad over the last week. Yeah. Dropped almost a week ago. And it has been just conversation after conversation of what do we want to be known for in this industry, right? Like, this is a nascent category and the opportunity is like, I tell this to everybody, this is ours to win or to lose. And I think that, yes, it got eyeballs, right?

00:25:23

Like certainly got eyeballs, but I think the conversation has shifted now into... what are real women, real athletes doing in sports? And I think that was such a good reminder of how an instant gratification brand play can quickly shift. And you have to think longer term than just like, what is this going to do at the moment that it drops? I’m sure they saw some sort of spike uh with brand searches and brand recall but at the end of the day all of the conversations that i have had with anyone outside of Underdog is like did you see the Sydney Sweeney ad and the first question I ask is yeah who was it again? Then no one remembers, right? So Sydney Sweeney is the conversation.

00:26:15

And so it's a, it's a good reminder of yes, be provocative, start conversation, but make sure that it feels authentic to your brand. It ties back to who you want to be and is, is really thoughtful about like the way that you go about it and the way that you're actually then dripping that across every other channel and like creating that through line to bring your customer along on that brand journey because I think that's where Novig has really fallen short right now like they got eyeballs like what did they do with them is sort of like the the follow-up I would ask that's great we'll leave that right there I think

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00:26:56

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: The secret to understanding your audience

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Let's go back to the board all right let's do number one all right let's see so you've said that sports fans get us and we get sports fans what's the secret to understanding your audience so well how do you guys do it yeah I mean we are sports fans right and i think that it does help that our busiest slack channel far beyond any others and we slack a lot you do slack a lot I can attest we slack the most um in, it is our product feedback channel and that is because every single day like we are playing every single part of our product we are giving feedback we're like dog fooding the heck out of every single thing that we do and I think that that's really what differentiates us right it's not like we're a bunch of product people that come from all these really big tech companies that are just fingers on keys right like we are watching sports we are playing all of our

00:28:02

And I don't know if that's like the same experience that people get on other apps um or by working at other you know other competitors in our space um and and that's really like that's why we choose to differentiate in that space like we are a sports forward platform for real sports fans and we are sports fans like we're we are building that. And so a lot of the ways, like when we first joined Underdog and we're introducing ourselves to the company, the first question that our CEO asks is, what's your sports team, right? Like that is sort of the thing that I do think differentiates us is like, we get it because we are those people. And like that is sort of what connects us all.

00:28:45

I have on underneath here my sports team who dey baby let's go Bengals we started off well it's a great first opening game yeah I am a Bucs fan so like broke my heart I was like come on this is so bad so bad for me personally and also so bad for my my betting so I saw you had a sports draft with some ladies, maybe it was like a girls fantasy league. Yes, that's so cool. Yeah, all of the moms in my neighborhood, we get together and we start third year now doing a fantasy draft. And at first, everyone was not into it. They didn't understand it. And now it is very competitive. And we love it. It's like one of our favorite things to do all year.

00:29:29

Which just goes back to what you're saying. Like, it's almost like this isn't a job. You know, you're so ingrained into sports. You know this audience so well because you're a part of it, but you're a part of it at work and in your community and in your home. And you bring those insights back to the team which is great yeah exactly you have to be customer first right it's like when we're thinking about how we're marketing something how we're building a product how we're rolling it out it's like how would i interpret this if I was just an average sports fan like watching a game like how would this cut through to me would this make any sense or is this going to be completely confusing from the UX standpoint um and and I think that that's always sort of how we're thinking about it is like customer first and sports fan first sports fan first all right let's go back to the board let's do number six

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Why Underdog would do Unethical Hoops all over again, cease-and-desist and all

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00:30:19

So Unethical Hoops earned attention and a cease and desist letter knowing what you know now would you run it again? Absolutely yes um this is one that was so much fun I love this so muchuh unethical hoops was basically this board game it's like operation style board game um and it was making fun of an NBA player I don't know if I'm awesome so I'm gonna I'm gonna withhold uh making fun of an NBA player and so he is the most fouled NBA player so we kind of wanted to like poke the a little bit hence the cease and desist um and we actually rolled that out with one of his like biggest competitors who did like some social assets for us did an unboxing video and it was like a whole thing right so we had one like we're poking the bear in terms of you're really fouled

00:31:23

Um and they were doing really well so we we did get a little bit of luck from that angle um but also just the way that we distributed that we did some clipping campaigns we had that other NBA player that I mentioned um who was like a big competitor of his actually do the unboxing and and all that and and I think that there was so much conversation around that because it was so hyper relevant like that is the perfect example of where we sort of like nailed the narrative really got lucky on on the longevity of that narrative um and then we were able to like literally build out a website board games give away a handful of board games like itwas it was a really fun activation and one that teams were talking about for a long time and now we're trying to like chase that high again of like okay what's our next unethical hoops

00:32:15

We just launched a Lane Kiffin dartboard today for the Ole Miss game coming up this weekend. So we're back at it again with our rascal poking the bear fun. I love that. And can you buy the dartboard, or do you just have to be one of the lucky few that get it? You have to be one of the lucky few that get it. So it's a very similar giveaway style to secure your dartboard. So smart. It's so smart. I love it so much. I don't know if you remember, but like from start to finish, how long did it take you from like somebody comes up to you and is like, all right, I've got this idea. It's an operation-style game board.

00:32:51

This is what we want to do to actually get it in the hands of the NBA player. Yeah, it was probably about a month, month and a half. Um and that's why I say like we got lucky with the narrative lasting as long as it did because like creating a board game procuring that like getting all of that built out that's what took the longest right so we had this nugget of an idea and then narratives continued to build over time and that's where i'm like struck gold because that's not usually how that goes right but it really worked in our favor and so that one had a little bit of a longer lead time just because of like the physical component but I do think if we would have seen the the diminishing return on that narrative like starting to to go

00:33:39

We would have just sort of taken like a social first approach and like a digital first approach and then fast followed with the physical board so we had a backup but again smart got pretty lucky on that one smart very smart I like that all right let's go back to the board all right number 10

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: How The Dog is showing up in the Underdog app

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The dog will live beyond commercials and show up in app two what's the most fun idea that's on the table right now for how that might play out in the product itself oh yeah uh so many ideas on this but my favorite one right now is um on an entry slip right like after you place your bet if you win or

00:34:20

You can you can like have the dog show up there uh with some like rascal sort of copy right of like you sure you want to bet though um or are you sure this is what you want to place your conviction in and and I think that's where the tone of the campaign would be really really fun to bring to in a way that is playful and and like reinforces that character and sort of like the the role he plays um in in that movement between like making your prediction and and then actually like seeing it come to life or like on the flip side of that like could even be something where it'sopen bet could you double down on it right so just trying to think of how can we latch on to those real moments um that were the inspiration for the campaign and kind of insert the dog into some of That's great.

00:35:13

And I'm seeing some experiential happening too. I don't know if we're allowed to talk. I think we're allowed to talk about that, but it's coming to life like on the ground in the community at some really cool events. Yeah. We, for a long, long, long time have wanted to do sort of like this hot dog stand, right? Like at the end of the day, yeah, we are real sportssports fans and we want to show up for them and I think a big part of that is the tailgate and making sure that we make that game day experience top notch and so we've always wanted to have hot dog stand we've finally brought that to life with the hot dog food truck um and we have very very customized hot dogs based on the area that we're in which is really fun um we have drinks we have a whole like money what is it called like a

00:36:02

Like a thing you can get in and try to win a bunch of money and then that just like instant yeah exactly the graph money grab um and then that goes into bonus funds in your account like in real time so again trying to bring the thrill of the game day experience to our customers um and then also we have these fleets of like pedal hubs and pedicabs that are taking people for free to and from the games uh right so from your tailgate to the game and and we've got lots of learnings from the first week of doing this and we're already looking at ways to like plus this up like how can we bring fans back into the app and how

00:36:42

Give them some more surprise and delight moments um, but I will say there's a lot more coming in the way of experiential we're just getting started and we think that this is like a a really fun way for us to get in touch with the customers awesome all right let's go back to the board number 10. I love this. 

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Why brand leaders should have faith in their ideas from brief to activation

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Learn more about Underdog on their website

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So clients can sometimes make ideas worse. Let's be honest. You guys did not. So what advice would you give to other brand leaders out there to have the courage to protect the great idea and like see it all the way through to execution? Because there were many moments where you guys could have pulled back on set and you didn't. So talk a little bit about that.

00:37:25

Yeah, I think it goes back to having that clarity before you even get to the moment on set right and like, I will be honest there were so many times where we were like should we do this should we not should we do this and we had to remind ourselves and like I really had to remind our team yes we need to trust the subject matter experts here like we hired the team for a reason because we have a strong sense of conviction in what you all have done and how you've cut through. And we needed to like trust in them. And I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments where we're like,"I'll be sure this is right." But then when we got on set, we were aligned.

00:38:03

We all felt really really like operation like we were in lockstep um and we knew what we wanted the experience for sports fans to be when they saw this we wanted them to feel like they could relate to something we wanted them to feel like they could laugh at something um and and we just wanted it to to be a little bit different than what everyone else is doing in market which is like really just to get x or you know play x get y yeah um and then some other just like really kind of watered down message that goes alongside it like we wanted to have a pov we wanted to have fun and i think that we did that and so going into it

00:38:42

With the same set of expectations across the board that's what really helped and then I think once we saw the masterpiece that came together we were like how do we continue to push this like push it harder make it funnier make it more outrageous so that when people see it they're like oh my gosh, I cannot wait to see what underdog does next and how the dog comes to life next. And I know it was just reported today, it's public and at Ad Age, that a lot of the lines was improv'd on set. Like, what was that process like, and what did you see in Paul and how he, like, embraced the dog character? Yeah, well, I'll say two things. One, I think...

00:39:25

I had I tried to have the appropriate humility because i'm really no expert in this in this realm and so um we were really glad to get somebody that and we had done we had looked at a lot of people and um their background their sense of humor and their buy-in to the concept into the campaignum and he seemed to really sort of not only get it but um enjoy it and want to have fun and embellish um and yeah it was it was magic I mean there's so many things that we we probably can't use um but I think uh the utility of us being able to articulate the intention behind it and then mapping that onto somebody that's such an expert at his craft yeah um gave you know the right sandbox but also the right um freedom for him to sort of uh you know sprinkle the pixie dust that that took it to another level yeah it's funny at first we were all very nervous

00:40:30

What's it going to be like if he improvs? Because we are in, and I mentioned this earlier, like a very regulated space, right? Where like, you can't say certain things on networks. And if you say this with this word, then you can't do it. But if you say this with that word, then it's okay. And so I think at first we were very much like, let's stick to script. And then I think it was the end of day one. We were like, let's just do a take where. Paul just kind of does this and it was it was like gold just absolute gold and it was one of those moments we're all doubling over in laughter and I think that for us was the unlock and of course the team had been like feeding him different lines throughout the day and and we were just over in video village and had no idea um but I think letting him have that moment of like

00:41:16

He started to really get the character, and he was just improv-ing and having so much fun. Like that's when the character like really came off the page and really came to life. And I think for us, that was the unlock of, okay, great. We love this creative idea because of how it was potentially going to come to life. And this is that slowly happening. And it's actually happening because we're giving someone the foundation to like,bring their brilliance to it and bring their subject matter expertise to it and like level it up um and so i think that was sort of then set the tone for the rest of the week and every day if we were like feeling like something was a little still we're like okay let's just like let the team riff on it like guys just go have fun like if there were you know handcuffs are off

00:42:01

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No regulatory framework like what would you say here and those were the moments that we were able to like splice together to create some of the funniest bits of content like where our lists that we were writing on set of our favorite lines it was it was likesix pages right every day we'd be like oh my gosh add that one add that right and it got out of hand to the point where we're like we need 500 cut downs to show the world all of this brilliance because it's just so damn funny amazing speaking of 500 cutdowns I know it's a pretty big body of work like how many assets are you guys typically like putting out into the world oh my gosh um a lot a lot yeah yeah I mean so

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00:42:52

And then seven sixes and that's just for TV, right like that that's not inclusive of any of the social assets or the out of home across 18 different markets markets, or paid social partnerships. We have so many different channels. When you think about the full funnel, there have got to be just thousands and thousands of assets that we're going to be pushing out because we don't want to have just like a say and spray approach. In our industry, it feels so important to be relevant to your markets because to your point, you unzipped your jacket and you've got a Bengal shirt on. That's your team. You don't want to be seeing stuff about the Bucs, but I want to be seeing stuff about the Bucs.

00:43:40

You know, so we have to make sure that it's really relevant to every single local market and that the content that we're serving you up is going to like really help you see yourself entering into our experience and like really feeling the thrill of playing an underdog. And so. Yes, we're going to have an absurd amount of assets across the full funnel. But I think it's very purposefully done. And it's not just like, let's just test 10,000 assets to test 10,000 assets. It is let's make sure that we're being very thoughtful about the number of assets thatand testing our way into when we don't have like a specific narrative that we

00:44:17

Want to drive in a market like what is the most efficient and effective broad awareness messaging that we're going to use in those gap spaces so it is um it's a bit of like art and science, but the answer is an absurd amount of assets is what we're going to be having in market got it got it absurd is the quantity. I love it. 

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Underdog Full Episode Transcript: Closing remarks

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Learn more about Underdog on their website

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All right. Well, we love to end the show getting to know you a little bit better. And so we have a little game. It's called this or that. Are you ready to play? Let's go. Game. Okay, let's go. Whatever comes top of mind first. All right. Tech or sports? Sports. All right. NFL or NBA? NBA.

00:45:00

Okay all right well i'm excited to see what happens with the NBA, NFL, or NCAA? NFL. Girl athletes or CEOS? CEOS. An all-week shoot or an all-night shoot? All week, I need my sleep. Me too. All right PTO or Camp Underdog? Camp Underdog.  All right, women in tech, do you embrace the term or do you hate the term? Oh, I think I kind of hate it. We're just people in tech, I don't know.- I'm with you, I'm with you. All right, leading teams or one-on-one coaching? Coaching, coaching. Okay, trust your gut or trust the dashboard? This is a tough one right now trust my gut. Okay, I like it let's go with that. Cooler than me or I Took a Pill in Ibiza? Wow, um Cooler Than Me. Cooler Than Me, there's a whole story here Yeah, he wrote that song about me, I think, or that's what I tell myself.

00:46:13

That'll be our outro music. All right. This has been so much fun. Thank you both for coming on the show. What is the best way to get a hold of you guys? Mike, you go first. Probably email. Email. Okay. You don't have to give that out if you don't want to. Or they can hit you up on LinkedIn, maybe. Yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn. That's a good one. All right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely just reach out to me on LinkedIn. Happy to always have a conversation; slide into my DMs. This was so fun. I'm so excited to see what's next for Underdog. I know there's a lot of really cool experiential things planned. I know we've got a lot of sports occasions coming up, and I'm excited to see how the campaign resonates. Same here. We are so excited. We love Curiosity. You guys have been amazing, especially in this crazy industry of ours. Yeah, we're so grateful. You guys have an admirable culture as well. So what a pleasure. Nice to spend some time with you, Ashley, and I'm sure we'll be with the rest of the team more over the coming weeks. Thanks for having me. It was so fun.

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