Celebrity Marketing & Endorsement [with Aaron Zack]

On today’s episode, Aaron Zack will be our guest on The Marketing Innovation Podcast Show. Aaron is the founder of Revolving Mind Media, a Texas-based agency specializing in sport marketing. On this episode, Andrei and Aaron will be discussing Celebrity Marketing & Branding, as well as Sport Marketing.

Aaron attended the University of Texas at Austin and followed that up by obtaining his MBA. While at UT, he started working for an NFL agency in Texas and worked his way through the ranks. He has utilized those skills to grow businesses and athletes, brands and presence in the marketplace.

 

He became the youngest NFL agent at the age of 25 years old which is when he launched Revolving Mind Media. Some of Aaron's notable clients include NFL players like Dez Bryant and Jaylon Smith and NBA players like Dennis Smith Jr.

 

Connect with Aaron: 

Kitcaster: https://kitcaster.com/aaron-zack/

Revolving Mind Media: http://www.revolvingmindmedia.com/

 

Connect with Andrei:

Marketiu: https://marketiu.com / https://marketiu.ro

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreitiu/

Marketiu on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketiu

Marketiu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/marketiuagency

Marketiu on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketiuagency/

Email at hello@marketiu.ro

 

Episode Transcript:

Andrei: Hello, everybody. This is Andrei and you are on The Marketing Innovation Podcast Show. On today's episode we have as a special guest, Aaron Zak, who is the Founder of Revolving Mind Media, which is a Texas-based agency specializing athlete and sport marketing and today we will look at both of these, as well as celebrity marketing branding. Hi, Aaron. How's everything going? Thank you for being on the show.

 

Aaron: Yeah, everything's going great. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

 

Andrei: It's a pleasure, really. So you're tuning in from the US, from Texas?

 

Aaron: I am in Dallas, Texas. No horses out in the backyard, things like that. No cowboy hats. No horses.

 

Andrei: I was hoping for that. Okay, cool. I think we'll do without the horses then. So how are you? How is your morning? How was the day? How's everything going in Texas?

 

Aaron: It's been non-stop. So right now a lot of my athlete clients are in training camp. They're focused on the football field. So now I finally don't have my phone ringing every minute of every day from my clients where I could focus on a lot of the work right now. I've been working from home during this crazy time, but everything's been really good. I can't complain, business has grown and people are looking to leverage athletes on social media platforms and things along those lines. So we've had steady deal flow and we're very, very fortunate.

 

Andrei: Very nice. I'm so happy to hear many things. You know, it's this weird time we're living in, so very happy to hear about a business like yours that is doing well and you guys are growing. Congrats for that! And I can't wait to actually get into the subject of what you guys are doing. We're going to be discussing a couple of case studies and ways that you have been working with both athletes and personal brands, as well as companies. I'm really looking forward to these stories, guys, that are tuned in. Make sure to stay all the way to the end, because we have a plan of discussion that is really, really exciting. But I think before going into the actual nitty-gritty of everything. Aaron, tell us a bit more about you. Tell us about how you started and your early beginnings, because I think it's a very inspiring subject. And I think it's something that will help us build from when going to the marketing stuff.

 

Aaron: That sounds great. No, I appreciate that. And I'm born and raised in Dallas. I grew up in the retail business. So men's apparel is the industry that I started in the Dallas area for over 20 years. So, I started when I was 11 years old, going to a store and learning the ins and outs and what it takes to communicate with individuals much older than me, looking people in the eyes and having a true authentic conversation. So I started a lot earlier. Throughout Middle School in high school, I was going to my father's clothing store and helping sell. And this was everything from sports, sport coats down to socks and shoes. Really everything in the business was about 75% Men's, 25% ladies, so I developed a passion for sales. This was right around the time that businesses needed to get online and have a digital presence. So I was observing what a lot of competitors and individuals in the marketplace are doing at the time in the retail industry and really just trying to stay ahead of the curve on that. But I had a passion for sports early, early on. So I knew I wanted to combine both of those worlds or passions of sales and marketing with the athlete-driven mentality that I had. I played sports up until ninth grade. Then, I didn't have the athletic ability to play on the football field, so I knew I needed to get on the football field a different way. When I was applying for colleges, I was looking into sports management majors. I applied to two schools and I chose the University of Texas at Austin to major in sports management with a minor in business. While I was a freshman at UT, I got connected to one of the largest NFL agencies in the southwest and I got an awesome internship opportunity. I was an unpaid intern for two years at that agency, but it gave me that opportunity because there were so many people trying to get in the sports industry because they liked sports.

But how are they making an impact in sports, right? So I had to really differentiate myself from every other individual in my sports management classes that all wanted to get into the sports world, but really didn't know how to. A lot of what I was doing, was focused on what I was previously taught and learned in the retail industry, is building relationships and thinking a little bit outside of the box on how to create partnerships. What I was doing as an intern, is I was helping out with charity golf tournaments, and really helping athletes start on the branding and endorsement side. During those two years as an unpaid intern, I wanted to also see another part of the sports arena. I got an internship with Fox Sports just to learn the media side of the business. And I learned a lot, but I also realized it just wasn't for me. I didn't want to just be holding a microphone. There weren't truly authentic conversations. I didn't feel like I was bringing true value, even though I was getting news out to the listeners or to the viewers.

It wasn't the true impact that I was looking for. So I left that internship and I went back to the agency and told them this is where I want to be. I love the company. And it was right around the time they had transitioned out of their previous events manager at the time. I was a senior in college down in Austin, Texas, and they said: "Well, we need you to start on Monday". I was like: "Well, I graduate in May and this is December." and I took the opportunity. I didn't want to pass it up. And I became the events manager for the agency and what I was focused on was educating athletes about life after football, a huge passion of mine. We always see these stories of athletes going broke and not preserving their assets. And I felt like this was a mission of mine that I can assess with. What we would do is, we would bring eight athletes or eight businesses to network with 20 athletes over a weekend. During this time, this is really where I found my niche in the market, where I had a passion for the business side, and I had a passion for the athlete side.

And so I was the events manager while I was obtaining my MBA, my whole focus since I was a kid was to become an NFL sports agent and while I was an events manager, I then also took over the marketing and PR division. So that's where I really started learning the athlete branding side. And then I became an NFL agent. I was the youngest NFL agent in the business at 25 years old and I left that agency and started Revolving Mind Media. They wanted me to stay in my previous roles, and I didn't want to be held back. So I left, started my own agency and really haven't looked back. And I've been able to utilize all of those basics of the event side to the marketing and PR division to learn the agency side as well. I really tried to bring all of those components to my agency and my business partner and I have, really scaled the business. 50% of our clients, our businesses and brands and the other 50% are athletes. And we have done a lot of unique cross-marketing things that we'll talk about later on in the show. But that's kind of a little bit about my journey. I had to put in a lot of time not making any money, but it was relationship building, and I was building my base to reach where I am today.

 

Andrei: Mm-hmm. Very, very good moves. So how long have you stayed in the agency before launching your own business?

 

Aaron: I was at the previous agency for five years and I've had Revolving Mind Media now for four years.

 

Andrei: Good. Awesome. So because you have you see both sides of the, of the, of the boat or the story. So what do you feel are some unique things to sports marketing, because we never discussed this before on the show. I think it's a really interesting subject and I'm sure that we can dig some very good insights from it. Why do you think it's different when marketing sports or athletes as opposed to other brands?

 

Aaron: NFL or soccer are some of the biggest sports in the world, right? And people idolize these individuals. You see individuals buying LeBron shoes because they love LeBron, they might not even like how the comfort level is, but they see individuals wearing it and promoting it. So we've seen that we can leverage large athlete platforms to help small businesses, middle-sized businesses, large businesses grow. Just based on the fan base, certain types of deals that I think differentiate revolving my media, then the rest, is we really don't do a whole lot of just cash deals for posts. We look at it like long campaigns: one year, two years, three years of partnerships, but we focus on equity and shares. So when my clients get involved with different businesses, they don't want to just be paid posts, and that's it. They're looking for a long term relationship. And so we focus on obtaining equity of different businesses on behalf of my clients. One client specifically that has taken it to the next level is Jaylon Smith of the cowboys and he is on the wall behind me, but he has equity in 19 different businesses and he's only 25 years old. That's diversifying himself, it's that long term wealth mentality and that's a little breakdown on why I think athletes are utilized for marketing and branding purposes with businesses, but as well as the types of partnerships we're executing.

 

Andrei: I see. Okay, that's a pretty good insight. You have the roster of athletes, and then you have the brands? How do you work with both of them? Do aces come to you so you can help them get equity into businesses or established partnerships, or do you go after them?

 

Aaron: Great question! When I was 21, and just starting, I was out trying to network and meet these guys all the time. I was recruiting, I was going, going going. Now everything is referral based. We do not have cold calls. Everything comes to us. So it's a testament to not just myself, but really my entire team. We've built a really, really strong internal team to be able to scale. And that's really the backbone of the business. To answer your question it's really a lot of athletes are finding us and they're all looking for off the field financials, right? They're getting paid to play on the football field, but they know that having that cowboys logo on the helmet, carries a lot of weight. They know they can leverage that. So I actually work with all of my clients on all calls, partnerships, etc, where it's not just me being their agent speaking on behalf of them, but they're not going to be playing football forever.

So I really bring them in to be involved in conversations with those businesses. The second part of your question is how both sides kind of work together. The business and brand side which my business partner overseas, he is full-on digital marketing, creative, he's a rock star on that side. I know that having these athletes in our roster, we can leverage to help these small to mid-sized businesses grow.

From there, it's just making sure that the athlete truly believes in the business and brand. And they're not just going to do it for equity in a business they don't believe in. So that's really how both sides of the businesses work together, because the athletes really help grow the visibility of the businesses and brands and the athletes are looking to associate themselves with minded businesses and brands. That's really how they work in tandem.

 

Andrei: I see. And how do you got to think about this approach? Because, from a marketing agency perspective, when thinking about marketing, brands or personal brands, in this case, and celebrities, you'd tend to just think about communications, but is this an element that you came with from your experience as an agent or how'd you get to this business model in the end?

 

Aaron: It really started just observing everything at my previous agency and seeing how the industry works. And everyone talks about Nike and the Gatorade because they're on television all the time. But nowadays, we know the power of Instagram and social media as a whole. And there's a lot of businesses trying to grow, especially during these times where a lot of people are at home, the usage of your phone is through the roof. I hate getting the alerts of my screen time on my iPhone every week, where it keeps going up. I get that's good, because I'm working a lot, but everyone's in front of their screen all the time, and how can we convert that? How can these businesses grow? It's really just my background of observing the industry over the past.

I started when I was 18 as an intern, so it's been 12 years in the industry, just seeing how it's gone and that was before Instagram was a thing, right? I've seen the evolution of Facebook to Instagram to see the value of Twitter, to even now really utilize LinkedIn, a lot. A lot of my clients have their own personal LinkedIn pages and are connecting with CMOS of businesses to connect with based on their interest level.

When my business partner and I launched Revolving Mind Media, I had four athletes that I started with, but there was no basis for the agency. They're not monthly retainers, so on a financial side, I knew we needed to get businesses on a monthly retainer on a marketing side, to really be able to budget appropriately for the agency. The way it works on endorsement deals is: the agency makes a percentage of the endorsement deals that are negotiated, but those come and go, right? They're not all the time, it's not consistent revenue, so we needed to really create that consistent revenue stream. 

 

Andrei: Mm-hmm. I see. And I'm going into the personal branding of the athletes that you work with. Do you guys manage their social platforms? Or how is the collaboration going, what's usually the vibe? How do you get involved with them? Do they prefer to handle everything themselves? Do they come to you for advice?

 

Aaron: Yeah, it's really a team mentality. Each client is different. There's a few clients that manage our social pages, there's a few that don't want anybody to touch their social pages. There's a few that have an assistant that we work with to schedule out content. So I would say it's kind of those three verticals: is either us managing the athlete managing or an assistant or internal manager is typically how that works. We on the agency side are typically creating the roadmap and the game plan and the strategy with the business and brand. And then we utilize different social platforms for scheduling out posts. So we're ahead of the game. Every partnership is different, right?

There's some partnerships where the athlete has to post once a month, there are some that it's twice a year. So it's really just being organized, but we lean on the athlete and influencers specifically to advise us on what they prefer.

 

Andrei: I see, okay. And do you have a case, maybe in the past where there was not yet a popular athlete, but eventually they were on the road to becoming a popular celebrity and you had to consult with them and build their personal brand. Do you guys do this as well? And if so, what are some things that you think are worth discussing?

 

And especially in football, individuals are not as recognizable, right? They're wearing a helmet. So the partnerships are a little tricky. In the NFL, the NBA, where there are a lot more recognizable, and there's a lot less players. So when DeVonte and I sat down to talk about personal branding, I was very blunt with him. People in Dallas don't know who DeVonte Holloman is, you're a sixth-round pick and the Gatorade and Nike are not the businesses that are coming to call on you, and you need to help build your own business and internal business. We would go to networking events together, he would pull business cards, he would send personal emails, but that's the type of proactiveness that is needed for not a star Tom Brady type of athlete, right? It's the unknown, but he still knew the power of having a star on his helmet. Playing for the Dallas Cowboys carries a lot of weight. They are the number one valued business in the world at 6 billion dollars on a soccer team is at 5.5. But they're the number one valued business in the entire world. So we knew there's opportunities. And you don't know when he's going to be cut or injured, etc. On the last game played of the season, he ended up starting for the Cowboys, got 13 tackles, had a remarkable game, going into the next year, he was going to be the starting linebacker for the team. Well, in the preseason, he had a freak neck injury and was forced to retire on the spot. 

 

And he is my case study in the sense of - if you handle your business right, not knowing when you're going to be forced to leave the game or retire or not be signed, he ended up with four job offers right after he announced his retirement and handled business the right way. So I always love that story just because it's the unknown, especially on the football field. You don't know how long you're going to play. So going above and beyond, is a very important key. And it's something I talked to all of my young athlete clients about is you need to start now. And you can't wait until you're that star player to be building your business. So that's a case study on an individual that was unknown, but really knew he needed to capitalize on his business. I'll talk through another case study of how I brought both sides of our agency together and how that development works. So one of our business clients is one of the fastest cryotherapy businesses in the country. They have over 80 sold locations around the entire United States, and they plan to go overseas in the next couple years, as well. We started just managing the CEOs LinkedIn page. That was it. We started off just interacting with potential franchisees, we built an awesome relationship and we then took over his national PR. The list goes on and the content and articles that were written about the CEO Kyle Jones of I cryo, but then we also knew this is a recovery and Health and Wellness Business, right? And he knew about our athlete roster. 

 

Well Jaylon Smith with the Cowboys who I mentioned briefly earlier, he's all about rehab. He had a freak injury, his last game in college, and he was supposed to be a top-five pick in the draft, he ended up going second round, still a household name, but he's looking to build his portfolio. He had nerve damage. He had dropped his foot. He wasn't able to raise his foot. He ended up fully recovered, but he Utilized cryotherapy during his recovery. So I felt like it was a match made in heaven where I'm representing two individuals and I was able to help bridge the gap, rather than having so many individuals negotiating. And we really brought him together. So not only did Jalen become a brand ambassador, but he also is now opening up his own clinics and his own businesses in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he's from. So he believed in the business so much that he got equity in the business, but he's also helping scale their business and opening up in the Midwest. It's really cool how starting off is just a small little relationship managing LinkedIn, but showing revolving my media's value on bringing both sides of our businesses together. Those are two different scenarios on that unknown player or lesser-known player. So those are a couple of examples that I wanted to share with you today.

 

Andrei: Yeah, very cool. Very interesting. And looking now at the brand side of things. So for example, because we all know that the big brands afford to have partnerships with the popular athletes, and then it's all good and everybody is happy. But what if there's a smaller brand, maybe we have a marketing manager from a medium-sized company here on the show, and they have considered doing this sort of endorsement, partnerships and so on, but maybe they weren't sure about the budget that they invest into it, or how to best tackle it if they should maybe approach directly the people that they want to work with or if they have to go for an agency. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Aaron: Great question. And I would say, if you look at my business right now, about 75% of our business are small businesses. As I said, that's what I grew up in, so that is a passion of mine, mainly because they can show profit, right? One of our clients lift transportation. I know I'm doing good work, but people are going to utilize their vehicles regardless if it's me or something else.

 

 So I like working with small businesses because I can show that value. The way we look at working with small businesses is very creative. A lot of small businesses think they need hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with athletes. It couldn't be farther from the truth. We do a lot of equity partnerships. We do a lot of shared partnerships, and a lot of these small businesses love that, because it allows them to work with that athlete without laying out a lot of capital, but also the athletes really like it too, because they now are a business owner of different businesses, right. Well, now they're equity owners and they want what's best for the business. So they're willing to go above and beyond, whether that's social media posts, or stories or video content or testimonials. It's a lot more hands-on.

Andrei: Mm-hmm. Super, thanks a lot, very insightful. So what are some KPIs? Or how do you track the performance of the partnerships that you establish with the athletes? So, if a brand comes to you, and then eventually ends up being a partnership with one of the assets on your roster, how do you track performance of specific campaigns or partnerships that go over the longer term?

Aaron: Yeah, I'm a big numbers guy. And that's why I love the SEO, SEM and social media components of partnerships. It's quantified. I can say- this post on Instagram converted to this many likes, and this many clicks to the page, right? So I'm not a big guy. Now, on a different side, if a consumer or follower goes to a website and is spending time on a website, I look at that as a conversion. We got that consumer to take that next step. So we look at impressions, we look at likes, we look at comments, but my biggest thing that I look at is clicks back to the website, as well as on the business side of our agency. I'm huge on the SEO and SEM side. So search engine marketing, and Google Ads and social media ads. Those are so quantifiable, I can also then see how long the user stayed on each page of the website. So we're able to then analyze if something is missing on the page, why are they falling off? Or we look at the bounce rate. That's another thing- they stayed under a few seconds and then left the page. Why? Do we need a call to action at the top? I'm a huge numbers guy. And we turn over that data to the business owners from the athletes posts. We're looking at the numbers, because if a business paid $1,000, that athlete needs to be generating $3-4,000 of revenue to that business for it to really make sense, right? They don't want to run their tires in quicksand. That's really a couple of those KPIs that we look at, to really make sure that we're providing that value to both sides.

 

Andrei: Mm-hmm. Got you. Um, okay, and now, take all this insight and try to compress it into some actionable points. So as I mentioned, most of our public is into marketing and sales. We have some entrepreneurs here as well. What would be some actionable things that you think these guys can take away and they can try to implement in their businesses looking at using influencer marketing or celebrity endorsement, as part of the marketing mix for their products or for their services. What would be your top three picks?

 

Aaron: I think influencer marketing is prevalent now, but I still don't think we're scratching the surface. I would tell your listeners that just because they play for a professional sports team, whether it's soccer, football or basketball, don't be scared to reach out via direct message or figuring out who their agent is, and really digging into their agency, because there's a lot of agencies that are looking to connect with brands that are looking to leverage a platform. Number one is: really utilize influencer marketing. Number two, I would say is utilizing ads, whether that's on Google or social. Nowadays, especially on Facebook, you have to really pay to be seen, right? Otherwise, you're just hitting your same individuals and you really need to take that next level. And a secondary component to that, that we focus on as an agency if we're doing social media management, is outbound engagement. Meaning we are commenting and liking on like-minded brands, what does that do? Who is revolving My Media commenting and liking on this page, and it gets them over to our page. A lot of businesses are focused on just posting and hitting their same target market and their same demographic, you need to be proactive and get consumers to your page. That would be number two. And number three, is if you have a passion for sports, don't think it's an insurmountable mountain to climb. I was very fortunate to get introduced, but there are internship opportunities all the time in the sports realm. Again, I did it for two years, it was unpaid, but you had to put in the time to break-in. Our agency is always hiring interns all around the country. We're doing a lot. Now, obviously, everyone's working from home. So even if you're not located in Dallas, feel free to reach out to me on that end. But those would be the three pillars that I would say, from influencer marketing, to utilizing ads and outbound engagement to chasing your dream, whether it's in sports or something else. Don't think that any mountain is too tall to climb.

 

Andrei: Super, thank you for the inspiration at the end as well. And now, I just had an idea. Let's for some extra points, value here. Because you mentioned you are one of the happy cases of businesses that have been growing over the past couple of months where not so many did. We're looking at Business wise right now. Where are you going? Which direction are you going? What have you changed in the way that you are doing things before with the agency, so you can continue to grow in these changing times?

 

Aaron: I would say the health and wellness spaces are our go-to, but I'll be transparent with you. The way we built our agency is we don't have any two individuals in the exact same business. If I have four Italian restaurants that I represent, I'm not giving them 100% value each, right? So we dive into a lot of businesses. We have an OB-GYN doctor, we have a winery, we have a cryotherapy business. We have no niche market. All we do is we dive into who each business is trying to hit, and how we can get you there. So I like that, because I'm constantly learning about new businesses every single day. Hitting a female demographic of 30 to 52, hitting the 18 to 30-year-old sports consumer, right? It's all across the board. But I love that because I have new conversations each and every day. During this time, we've converted a lot of businesses that might have been stubborn previously, to go on to a digital presence. You have to, right? I'll even look at my father's business. He was previously focused on just in-store retail, he had to move on to an e-commerce platform for selling and that's a good pivot. Same thing with doctors, telemedicine, she's doing a lot of virtual visits now for telemedicine purposes. We have the winery client, bars aren't open so they've pivoted to a wine delivery system. Every business is pivoting a little bit during this time. The businesses that are folding are businesses that have had issues for years and weren't innovative over the past few years and now this time is just exemplifying. This is how I kind of interpret businesses right now. But everyone's pivoting and trying to figure out what that right opportunity is, and how they can generate sales. And that's my main focus. We want to generate that revenue and we want to show those numbers coming in and that's why we don't lose clients. We really handle our business the right way and every business that we work with has been a referral-based business. It's really a testament to the team. We've scaled the right way and we have the right individuals on our team.

 

Andrei: Love it, love it, monetizing marketing. That's a very important thing nowadays. And just as a wrap-up, how can people find you? Who can you help? What's the best way for them to get in touch, obviously, we'll have the links in description below to your agency, as well as your profiles. But, if people want to reach out to you directly and maybe explore a partnership or, the internship that you mentioned, what was the best way for them to reach out to you?

 

Aaron: I'm at ErinZak21 on social media platforms and feel free to reach out to revolvingmindmedia.com. We have a Contact Us page and I'm happy to answer any and all questions, whether it's internships, whether it's a business that just wants to ask questions on how to leverage athletes, or just want to see our athlete portfolio. I'm happy to share that with them. But this was, this was really, really fun. I really appreciate it.

 

Andrei: Thanks so much everyone, the same here. It was very insightful. And as I mentioned in the beginning, this is the first episode that we did in this direction. So I'm really happy that we managed to organize, thank you again for the time and for the insight, for the energy and advice. Until next time, guys, thank you as well for joining us and for staying all the way to the end. We hope you found it useful and interesting. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Aaron directly or to us and we'll make sure to transfer them on to Aaron. If you think that Aaron can help you further, then you'll have his details in the description of the episode. And as always, if you have suggestions, recommendations for us, or you want us to organize another episode together, us and Aaron, on a specific subject linked to this, let us know and Aaron, I'm sure that we will be able to organize it.

 

Aaron: That sounds great. I really appreciate this. This was a lot of fun. Thank you.

 

Andrei: Thanks a lot, Aaron. Thanks a lot, guys. See you next time.