Dead Men Walking Podcast: Darren Doane & Social Media Domination

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00:16

All right, I love it. Look at that, he's already got the guitar out. Oh, man.

00:22

Yeah. Well, I had to stick with that intro again, Jason. Dude, that's a fun one, man.

00:28

You know what's funny about that one? I mean, full disclosure, I wrote that one at the

00:35

House of Blues, Chicago, in front of a sold out crowd. I think the lead singer had to run off stage and take care of some business in the bathroom really quick.

00:48

Yeah, so I was there and I had to come up with something on the fly to fill some time. And that's what

00:53

I came up with. And forevermore, that is one of my favorite slide tunes that will soon be a tune that I can come up with, you know, as a full tune.

01:02

Yeah, so welcome back to another episode of Dead Man Walking. I'm Greg. Of course, you guys all know Jason. And we've been trying out new intros for the last five, six weeks.

01:10

And I did that one again from last week, just because I really like it. I just like that. I love the slide, gritty.

01:16

Yeah, man, I love it. I'm a fan. And I do love the fact that we have a guest on and we were watching the monitor as we intro that and he picked up that slick guitar and started playing it.

01:29

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Mr. Darren Doan. How are you, sir? I'm doing good.

01:37

It was kind of swampy, too. It's kind of a swampy vibe. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, yeah, man.

01:43

We like it swampy, dirty, gritty, a little sweaty. Yeah, man.

01:48

Well, listen, we're going to get to Darren. We're going to talk about his creative agency and what he's doing in that space.

01:55

But first, I think we wanted to get into some newsy news as well. And we love it when our guests jump in and have input on that.

02:01

So we might bring you into that, Darren. And we'll get to your bio here in a minute. But you want to do some newsy news first?

02:07

Let's do it. Let's do it. News, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news, the news.

02:14

News. We got some news. Oh, yeah. We got some news, man.

02:21

I want to I want to say spit out the bones. That's another segment. That's another segment. Sorry. Got to wait for that.

02:27

Don't tease. You guys got to catch up with us now here. We got about five things running every week now. That's right.

02:32

We're dropping so much stuff. But anyway, let's get to this. So spit out the bones. Come on now.

02:38

Here and there. We got we got the round clubhouse. We got the club on Thursday. Shorts, man.

02:44

We'll get there. We'll get there. All right. First newsy news story. So, Greg, Darren, 46 percent want

02:54

Dwayne The Rock Johnson as president. I want to know how many people they actually asked anyway.

03:00

But at least 46 percent of Americans would love it if if he was president.

03:07

So this is what he said. He said, I don't think our founding fathers ever envisioned a six four bald, tattooed, half black, half

03:15

Samoan tequila drinking, pickup truck driving, fanny pack wearing guy joining their club.

03:22

But if it ever happens, it'd be my honor to serve you, the people. He's already turned into a politician.

03:30

Could you imagine if The Rock was the president? He would just walk into the White House at like three.

03:36

I'm like, all right, guys, we're working on lats today. We're working on arms and never forget leg day.

03:43

Yeah, well, we did have Theodore Roosevelt, man. He was he was a cool dude, man. Yeah, that's true. He was on it.

03:49

Darren, what do you think? Are we are we going to vote The Rock in in twenty twenty four for president? No, no, but it would be cool.

04:01

I mean, it would be kind of cool because it's like he could use like everything. I mean, you already alluded to it, but it'd be like he could bring us through everything through kind of a workout metaphor.

04:11

Right. You know what I mean? Like COVID would be like, it's leg day, people. It's leg day for the next five months.

04:19

I mean, like, I could see that. Like as president, just everything is a workout metaphor.

04:25

You know, Congress would do the heavy lifting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the Senate could really get into the prep.

04:30

Yeah, I know for sure. Let's body slam COVID. I think I'm good on I mean, I look at I have nothing against Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

04:38

Right. I know just from some of the things he said, I don't line up with him politically. I think it'd be interesting if he did run, but I don't think he'd have my vote.

04:45

Have you guys seen the movie Idiocracy by any chance? You mean the prophecy? No, Idiocracy.

04:51

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's totally a prophecy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, is that before it's time?

04:57

Are we headed towards a little bit of that? I mean, Kanye West running. I mean,

05:02

Kanye, man, I love your music, but can we just stay away from the politics? Let's just chill a little bit.

05:09

Yeah, well, I mean, the last president was a reality TV star. Everyone made fun of, you know, I thought it was interesting. I think

05:14

Trump has shown that clearly there's a lot more to being president than just being famous.

05:22

Right. And Trump had to navigate. But it's funny how it was like Trump.

05:28

Everybody was like, you know, he's a reality star. He's a reality star.

05:33

Like, like the belittling comment. And as if, which is funny, as if somehow making a reality show still doesn't work.

05:43

I don't know, there's still like 18 people with cameras and sound and editors and production vehicles.

05:49

And everyone's like, he's a reality star. Like, it was always kind of by the Hollywood actually made fun of them for basically being in film production, which, which is weird.

06:01

You're in that space, Darren. So it's kind of funny when you hear people in that industry making fun of that. And then you're also going, yeah.

06:06

And his reality show probably made more money than your last eight films did. You know, it's like, it's a hard job doing a production of any kind, but yeah,

06:16

I totally feel what you're saying. It was produced by Mark Burnett and no one's like Mark Burnett. Who's that guy?

06:22

Oh, he makes reality shows. Just the top 20 reality shows that you know by name.

06:30

Yeah. Just that Mark Burnett. But yeah. So what else we got in the news? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, all right. Second story taken from the

06:36

New York post. Um, sorry guys. Um, Elon Musk's, uh, firm

06:42

Neuralink, uh, we've talked about Neuralink on this show before very interesting stuff. Go out there and check it out.

06:47

Um, has the tech to build a real Jurassic park co -founder says,

06:53

Oh, that never ends. So yeah. So the co -founder. So the co -founder of Elon Musk's firm

07:01

Neuralink says they have the technology to build a real life version of Jurassic park. We could probably build

07:07

Jurassic park if we wanted to max ho ho deck. I'm sorry. Tweeted Saturday.

07:13

Wouldn't be genetically authentic dinosaurs, but shrugging emoji, maybe 15 years of breeding engineering to get super exotic novel species.

07:24

So yeah. So anyway, we're creating things in the labs. We're actually, uh, last week there, we, uh, learned that, um, well,

07:33

I don't know. I learned maybe that we are creating, um, more babies in, uh, test tube test, like little, little

07:41

Petri dishes. More science is happening in that manner. Um, yeah, that's crazy.

07:47

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's it, but I mean, to create more, uh, to create a dinosaur, um, have they not seen

07:53

Jurassic just chill on some of that stuff. There's always going to be a Newman like character.

07:59

Yeah. Someone's going to steal those dang Neuralink dinosaurs and they're going to run a muck in New York city. Come on.

08:04

There's, there's no reason to have dinosaurs. I think I mixed up like four movies there, but you get the, you get the point where you think

08:10

Darren, should we get, should we get some dinosaurs involved in this world too? Let's do it. Post mill, baby.

08:18

I'm not into that one. I'm not seeing like that, but then again, I've like drunk the

08:24

Kool -Aid with Elon Musk. I'm like, yeah, let's go do it. I'm like, I'm just super into it.

08:30

Like there's no worldview filter whatsoever. I'm like, yeah, let's go.

08:41

But it's funny you say that because, um, sometimes as like a, you know, when you're, when you're a filmmaker and you have, you know, and people want to talk to you about projects, sometimes you get invited to things that there's a lot of money and a lot of people, and a lot of tech.

08:58

And sometimes I was at an event where it was like all the best minds in this field of like, um, reading and cloning and all that stuff and stuff.

09:10

And the stuff I heard from, from these people three years ago that they were already doing.

09:17

Probably scary. Which is shocking. I had a doctor and I can't,

09:22

I can't, I mean, just assume I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm making all this up, but I had a guy,

09:29

I had a guy next to me go, I can clone a human tomorrow. Like tomorrow if I want.

09:37

It's easy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've been cloning sheep for 25 years. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

09:45

He said half man, half pig. He's like, I could do it tomorrow. Are you serious?

09:53

Why, why, why do like, I don't know, maybe I'm just too normal of a dude, but I'm just like, why do we need half man, half pig?

10:04

Why do we even need to know that that can work? You know, like, like what about it? Oh, we want to be

10:10

God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why we want to be God. Yeah. We want, you know, we want to control and be

10:16

God. Right. Sorry. I think it's interesting. Like, I just, I'm more interested in like the pastor that's got a baptized to chimera, like the half dude, half pig.

10:26

He thought like, he thought baptizing net, like, like neck cat, like neck cat guy was weird.

10:32

Wait till he's a half breed. You know? Yeah. He's like, and next we have Chupacabra up to a, he's professing his faith today.

10:38

Yeah, no, absolutely. We got, we got anything else in news? No, no, no. That was all I had for news this week, man.

10:45

Awesome, man. So some fun ones. Yeah. Usually we get serious, but we don't like to get too awfully serious when we have

10:51

Darren on the podcast, but yeah, so let's get into it because we met Darren down at fight left feast in Nashville or Frankfurt or what was it?

10:59

Franklin, whatever it was outside of Nashville last October. He came in, took over our

11:04

Yeah. Frankfurt, Germany. And in free bird, Leonard Skinner.

11:10

That's where we met him. And it was, you know, he just took over the booth like he does. He walks into a room, he just kind of takes it over and you just do, you know, you just, you live in Darren's world.

11:19

It was awesome. It was awesome. And then started following on social media and seeing the things he's doing.

11:25

He owns a creative agency, obviously director, film producer, all these different things, music videos, a full length feature films, just a, a bundle of fricking energy and ideas.

11:39

So anytime that we have a chance to sit down and talk to someone like that, we definitely want to bring them on Darren.

11:45

I'm just going to come right out with it and ask what I think everyone's thinking is like with social media is just like normal marketing dead.

11:55

Yeah. Well, yeah, yes and no. I think the way people have been going about it in one sense is still the, the principles are still there.

12:06

People just have a hard time kind of realigning what's happening. All marketing or advertising, it depends what, you know, how you want to define that.

12:14

There's what, you know, if you look that up, there's ways you could do that. You know, advertising is you're trying to, you know, you're, you're letting people know about something.

12:22

Technically marketing is market share. What, you know, but people will conflate those, those two, but you want to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible, whatever you're doing.

12:33

I mean, that's just, that's just basic everything, you know? So whether it's billboards, whether it's newspaper, whether it's time square, whether it's on taxi cab, whether it's wrapping someone's truck or social media, you just want to get in front of people.

12:48

I think what I think what's dead is the amount of money people are spending on traditional forms of outlets and, and not understanding that the best value in regards to reaching people and getting eyeballs is social media, which is just another word for the internet.

13:06

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. 10 years ago, you guys could not have done what you're doing right now.

13:14

Sure. No, you're absolutely right. And it's, it's been made much cheaper, much more effective. And yeah, to navigate those waters as much easier as well.

13:22

So traditional marketing, I think you're right. Those avenues just don't work.

13:28

I'm a real estate broker, man. I'm not doing anything that real estate brokers were doing even five years ago, 10 years ago when

13:34

I got into it, I wasn't in newspapers. I wasn't doing billboards. I wasn't doing direct marketing.

13:40

I tell people the only reason I'm on Facebook, I built my business off of Facebook and Instagram.

13:46

I mean, that's really where I bought, uh, built it just because I realized, wow, if I can just find a couple influencers that, uh, when

13:53

I say influencers, I mean, people who influence, I'm not talking about the Kardashians. I mean, I would literally hashtag something in a certain area.

14:00

And if they had 15, 20 ,000 more followers, I'd direct message them and go look at, man, I want to give you this free, uh, whatever it was, whether it was a broker priced opinion or an appraisal or a value, because you know, a lot of people,

14:13

I want to show you what I can do. And you don't have to pay for it. You don't even have to refer it. But if you ever want to use me, call me.

14:19

And that really helped. And it was something that was absolutely free. It just took time and dedication.

14:25

And I look at social media and the internet and what, and what you're doing. And I feel like it takes a certain person with kind of a certain brain.

14:33

Does that make sense? It almost like you have to look at the world as your oyster and go, okay, how do I figure this out?

14:39

And I've been following you on Instagram and some of the content that you are posting is still light years ahead of what other content creating marketing agencies are doing.

14:48

And I'm not just saying that because you're a guest on our podcast and we want to make you feel good. I'm saying that because it's different.

14:53

Can you talk about that a little bit, how you're looking at that and setting yourself apart from the other marketing agencies that are really just saying, oh, it's all social.

15:03

Yeah, well, and I appreciate that, but yeah, you just said something that helped me just click on something, which

15:08

I'm going to feel now. But yeah, you really do have,

15:14

I'm tripping now because you said something. What happened is all the gatekeepers got kicked out.

15:21

And it turns out that a lot of people, a lot of people love gatekeepers. They love rules.

15:27

I got, I've got my four -year degree that maybe I got additional too. I got my license. There's a game

15:32

I get to play. I do this. I do this. I do an ad. Then I do a follow -up.

15:37

I get some pens made. And that's kind of, in a lot of ways, the world has not been rewarding the hard work.

15:44

I think the last 20 years, it's kind of rewarded because of gatekeepers, a system playing it like there's rules here and you got to kind of work your way up.

15:54

There's a hierarchy here. What social media has done is it's destroyed every gatekeeper and the world is your oyster.

16:05

And if you want to go after it, it's disproportionately benefits that kind of a mindset.

16:11

That's just making me think what you just said. What I'm trying to do is really think in terms of that, which is you need to be doing everything.

16:21

You have to have the guts to do everything every single day, every idea you have.

16:27

I think you should go for it because the idea you talked about playing God, forget about playing God with breeding animals and dinosaurs.

16:36

People play God every day when they think they know how to reach people at a particular time of the day because that's how people react to an eight -second clip on a

16:46

Thursday at 12 .04 p .m. But we're going to wait. Maybe we'll drop it at 7 .00 p .m. because the 7 .00

16:52

p .m. metrics tell us that we get more engagement and views. That's actually more

16:59

God -like thinking than the dinosaurs and the DNA. Human beings are experiencing things every single second of the day.

17:07

And sometimes there's the zeitgeist. Sometimes there's, hey, you posted a picture at Sunday at 1 .42

17:12

p .m. and you're like, hope everyone's having a killer weekend. And at 1 .43, Kobe Bryant's helicopter goes down.

17:19

And at that moment, you should probably get rid of the post you just posted.

17:26

So that's the zeitgeist when everybody feels that. But people are going through that every single second of the day.

17:34

Just because you've got a metric and you've got an audience, you don't know if their girlfriend just left and you don't know if their grandparent just died.

17:41

So even though we think we have all these metrics and demos, I believe that by going full throttle every single day, communicating a thousand times a day, that's how you actually engage with the world.

17:53

That's how you're actually going to build brands. I was in a band. We toured and traveled, went all over the world.

17:59

And at first, when we were first trying to... Whoa, whoa, whoa. What was the band? Give me the year.

18:05

Oh, okay, okay. We were called Scratch Track. And we were a band from probably about 2000 until about 2013, 2014, somewhere around there.

18:19

And yeah, man, we toured with everybody from Zac Brown to The Roots to Jurassic Five.

18:25

I mean, we were all over the board. But anyway, as we were trying to figure this out, our biggest hurdle was management because management was thinking in a way that we were not thinking whatsoever.

18:40

They were like, have you guys ever thought about maybe doing an ad in Rolling Stone? We're like, well, sure.

18:47

Yeah. How much does that cost? Oh, $40 ,000. Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm eating peanut butter and crackers right now.

18:55

I don't have any money whatsoever. How am I going to pay for a $40 ,000? And it was always like all these big, huge advertisements that they were trying to get on board with.

19:07

They're like trying to get us on a tour. And we were just so much more grassroots.

19:13

And whenever YouTube came out, I mean, YouTube was something that we were trying to throw videos up of us just even having a conversation.

19:21

It was something as little as a conversation. We would get more views on some of those conversations than we would our actual tunes at times.

19:33

But I don't know. There was just something about that era right around 2003, 2004, 2005 when all of these newer social medias were coming out.

19:45

I mean, Myspace, I don't even know when that actually came out, when I actually joined. But Facebook, we probably got on that about 2006, 2007.

19:53

So we were probably behind the ball on that. And then YouTube, I mean, there were so many different outlets, but we didn't realize how big of an impact it was going to make in the next 15 years.

20:06

So we were just a band. Let me tell you my

20:11

Myspace story because my Myspace story, I had forgotten. And when I changed my entire production company over to an agency in the last couple of years, it's because a lot of I remember what happened with Myspace.

20:24

Working with all these bands and just crushing it. And yeah, around 2003, 2004, somewhere in there, whenever Myspace shows up, we just thought, oh, this is dumb, whatever.

20:39

And I had a manager come in. I was hanging with this manager of a band.

20:46

And I'm kind of busy. We're just catching up. And he says, yeah, we were on tour in North Carolina.

20:52

We had this concert. It got canceled last minute. We're sitting there in North Carolina. He's like, so I went on Myspace.

20:58

I told everyone that the show was canceled. And some kids said, hey, I got this huge barn, like 30 miles north.

21:05

He's like, so we went there and from it was going to be a 200 person show and there being like 1000 kids in the barn.

21:11

It was kind of going in one ear and almost got out the other. I said, wait, wait, wait, what did you just say? Yeah, right. Right.

21:17

Right. I was like, wait, wait, wait. I literally like, I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

21:24

This is not this is wait, wait. And he explained it to me. I went online, I found

21:29

Myspace and put up a profile. The next day, I woke up to about 500 friends.

21:39

And about 30, like DMS, whatever those were back then from bands who were like, dude,

21:45

I grew up on your music videos. Will you do a music video for us? Like, overnight?

21:51

And I was like, what just mean? I'm somebody I'm somebody. I had no idea.

21:56

I had no idea. And that kind of power was the beginning of the gatekeepers being gone.

22:04

But I'm always interested in not just the technology piece of the gatekeeping. The fact that the boots on the ground to get 1000 kids over to a barn.

22:14

Yeah, right. Forget all that. Like, that's the kind of stuff that I'm seeing right now on a global scale.

22:22

Yeah, that that's happening right now. So let me ask you this. If you were you done there?

22:28

Can I jump in for a minute? So we are now 20 years into the social media experience, experiment, whatever you want to call it.

22:36

We have creative agencies like yourself that are very successful at helping people advertise market, promote the brand, all those different things.

22:46

And maybe you can speak to a little bit about what exactly it is that you help people with.

22:51

So if there are listeners listening, and they need your services, they can call you or DM you. But what separates the the agencies now.

23:00

So now we've been in this experiment for 20 years. We had a lot of people catch on. We have the Gary Vaynerchuk and all that of this era saying,

23:09

Yep, we're all in on the social media and things like that. What separates someone like your agency from the guys that go?

23:16

Oh, yeah, we can do a little Facebook advertising, little Instagram promotion. And we will cross our fingers.

23:22

And we hope that we can help you. What is it that separates you? And what is it that you're really focusing on in your agency to take your clients to the next level?

23:32

How do you put out 1000 pieces of content a day? Nice. So it is all about content.

23:39

So yeah, you know, what was cool? Pure volume, volume, volume, volume.

23:47

And then once everybody shows up and understands that it's volume, then that gets exciting, because then creative will be the differential.

23:55

Okay. So let me ask you this, then in the beginning, if it's just if it's volume of content, is is it is this every piece of content have to have some type of value to the watcher or listener?

24:09

Or is it just content, get the content out, get the name recognition out, and then we shift gears and we start to provide value through our content?

24:18

Um, or is it both? Well, I, I think it's both.

24:24

But I think to your first point, that's what's really fun about this whole conversation is we think we know what's going to bring value to the audience, but we don't know what's going to bring value to the audience.

24:34

The audience gets to tell us what's high quality. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like, see, so we as a bunch of artists think we know what's best for everybody.

24:44

That's what flip. That's what's being flipped right now on his head. Now, I think you can be talented.

24:50

I think you need to be creative and still create tons of content. You know, my thing that I've kind of got stuck on,

24:55

I kind of accidentally walked into this kind of picture. But I always ask people, would you rather own the

25:01

Mona Lisa? Or would you rather own DaVinci sketchbook? Yeah, I want that sketchbook, baby.

25:08

I don't want the Mona Lisa. Right. So, so why are we walking around trying to create

25:13

Mona Lisa? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Let your life sketchbook.

25:19

Let your marketing campaign be a sketchbook. Let the preliminary campaign of the campaign be the sketchbook of trying to figure out what the campaign is before you put the campaign out.

25:29

Bring people along that process. Let them see every font choice, the idea like this.

25:35

What I like movies, I'd rather watch the making of any movie than watch a movie if it was documented.

25:41

And that's how I think we that that were wired. And I think you found a ton of content, let the audience decide.

25:48

I mean, I'm sure you guys know this, you think you got to bang an ad, you put something out and like, right, people love it.

25:56

And you're like, so to me, what happened as an agency, what we do is we try to get our clients completely sold on this, which means now everyone you want to talk about inclusion, you actually want to talk about real diversity, you will talk about really being organic and natural and authentic.

26:13

Let everyone start creating with you at a company or an entity, just start throwing everything out there.

26:20

And the fun thing is, is certain things connect. And let's say you thought it was a bad idea, or it was kind of lame, but three people connect with it.

26:29

That's awesome. By doing 1000 pieces of content, I think you have the opportunity to actually connect.

26:36

That's why I don't I just post whenever I got something I go, I don't wait for a perfect time. Because I think human beings are worth more than a metric scale number for when we think we're getting like, if at midnight on a

26:48

Sunday, I've got something, and only 30 people are going to get it. I like those 30 people.

26:53

Why not put something out? Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think consistency is important. Oh, definitely.

26:59

Yeah. Some something that I can't remember where you said this at Darren, but I thought it was so cool.

27:05

You were just like, you know what, if there's a local ice cream shop down the road, and you really enjoy going in there, just go in there and ask them if they want a video made, and just go in there and make a banging video, right?

27:20

And like, put it out for him, you know, and don't ask, just take, take it back, edit it down, and then take it back to him and say, here you go.

27:27

Use it if you want, you know, like that, that stuff like that, I think really speaks. If not, make your own.

27:33

I mean, take the content aside from the Lil Nas X, lap dance, devil, whatever video thing.

27:41

But what Lil Nas did, and by the way, shame on everyone for not doing the research and realizing that Nike was not in on the deal.

27:51

But what Lil Nas did, which

27:57

I love, is he hijacked a brand. He did what was totally legal to do.

28:04

He hijacked a brand, he made it his own. Christian, take a page out of Lil Nas X playbook here.

28:13

Take Dominion over whatever you want. Even by playing by the rules, you can buy a shoe, and you can paint on it, and you can flip that shoe, okay?

28:23

You are allowed to do that. The reason why it was so gnarly for Lil Nas X is because he did it in such a big way that everybody assumes there was a partnership.

28:34

That is some high -level dominion. Yeah. And going back to your earlier point too,

28:41

Darren, I feel like that is why the gatekeepers have kind of left, because you look at the Mad Men era, and it was businesses and business owners and creative ad agencies telling the consumer what they want.

28:52

And now we kind of have to be reactionary and listen to what the actual client, customer, or consumer wants.

28:57

And I think that really upsets some people. When you're in the driver's seat and you get to tell people, no, look, because of this ad, you have to go buy this or do this, or you like that.

29:07

But now with social media, there's so many flavors out there. And like you said, all that content out there, and now we have to be reactionary to it, actually be good listeners, good little entrepreneurs, see what the market is demanding, and then infiltrate that and try to be creative and make money and all those things off of that.

29:25

I feel like that really weeds out some of these creative agencies and content providers that still want to just kind of tell you, oh no, this is what you should be watching.

29:34

These are the memes you should be looking at. This is what works. This is what works. And it's not like that anymore, man.

29:42

Well, there's a higher level to there too, which is really, really deep, which is when brands think they know what their identity is.

29:50

When a brand says, let me tell you who we are and what we mean to people, as if you could actually do that.

29:57

I mean, if Nike wanted to get serious or Kellogg Cornflakes wanted to get serious, not serious, they wanted to get real.

30:06

Go find a thousand people that love your brand and then ask them what that brand means to them.

30:13

And you're going to get probably a thousand different answers. Yeah, for sure. Right? And so someone might, the reason why they love

30:21

Nike is because of X and this person loves Nike, but someone got together and said, no, no, we know.

30:27

We know who our audience is. You do not know who your audience is in that way.

30:33

And so I think what the optimistic flip on that should be, that actually gives you leverage to go deeper, wider, because now you can do everything.

30:44

And by the way, really, really, really deep, big global brands know this. You travel around the world and you're like, okay, wait,

30:51

I know that company, but that's not the logo in America. Oh, because they know the culture and they know, like, that's how the world works.

31:02

But we think, oh no, no, no, we got to get brand. We can't change our logo. We can't change our spot. We can't do any of this because dumb humans might get confused.

31:11

Right. Is that a different boss? Oh, I don't know what to do.

31:17

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of been, I don't know that.

31:24

Well, the ones at the top were always the ones that would know better than all of us, right? The ones in the suits were always like, eh,

31:32

I don't know, man. Well, it's like, well, who are you? No, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's shift gears here a little bit as we start to wind down here,

31:40

Darren. So, um, is there, I'm going to tell you something and you tell me if you agree with us or not.

31:46

It always really irks me when people put Christian in front of something artistic, Christian rock music,

31:53

Christian art, Christian, whatever. Um, you know, there's a great quote by general Simpson that says, does

31:59

Satan own the seventh cord? Does he own the Picasso? Does he own the painting and the canvas?

32:05

Because if he does, we will go down to hell and plunder it and give it back and take it back for the Lord because he has created all things for us.

32:12

So I kind of have this view of look at the Lord created, uh, art for me, for us.

32:19

Okay. I'm a musician, uh, not much of an artist on canvas. I can play little keys, play little drums.

32:24

My, my girls have the, the, the, uh, art down. I don't like it when we kind of put ourselves in a box like that and say,

32:32

Oh, it has to be Christian, this or Christian, that Christian art, Christian creative, whatever I'm called to just enjoy the art that the

32:40

Lord has created for me. So do you find a challenge in, in, uh, kind of balancing your biblical worldview with what you do in the creative realm?

32:50

Or do you have more of that view of look at man? Uh, yeah, I have a biblical worldview, but I'm just doing what

32:57

I should be doing in this, in this profession or in this space. Um, well,

33:04

I mean, the way you described it was so passionate and cool. I, I, I liked the way you presented it.

33:13

Um, so I liked that category for sure. And I think, and I think

33:20

I know what you're pushing back against too. So like, I get it. And I love that. Um, I'm, I'm fine with just being labeled

33:28

Christian, anything, but that's just me. I'm like, I, you know, like I think, and again, we all come from different places.

33:35

And so I didn't have a lot of the, you know, it's hard to imagine, but I mean, man, 20 years ago,

33:42

I used to do when, when, when you were called a Christian rock band or a Christian band or 25 years ago, I mean, that was gnarly.

33:48

People don't realize how gnarly that was to go on tour with a secular band.

33:54

You were the Christian and you had coming up to you saying, don't you dare talk about Jesus when you get on that stage.

34:01

I saw Dave Dacre go through that. I saw Supertones go through that. I saw like that, that was a real thing that we don't even think about that anymore.

34:10

And so there is this dialogue of, you know, um, I'm not a Christian rock band. I'm a Christian in a rock band, my contrarian nature, watching all that coming to Christ later in my life, in my mid twenties,

34:21

I was like, why y 'all running from that? I'm like, I love it. I was like,

34:27

I love it. I think I've got the goods. I think I can back it up and putting Christian in front of it to me just seemed even more punk rock, but that's because more of my trajectory.

34:37

So when you say what you say, I go, yes, for me, it's way more contrarian in my circles to say, go ahead and put

34:45

Christian in front of everything on Okay. Yeah, no, I like it. Yeah. No, my background a little bit.

34:51

We, I did, uh, attend a church where people, where people burned jars of clay CDs, because they had a contract with Coca -Cola.

34:59

I do remember that. I just burned jars of clay CDs. No, no, just cause it was jars of clay.

35:06

How dare you, sir? We toured, we toured with those guys. Those guys are actually good guys.

35:12

And we all know that supertones always strike back, always strike back. No, yeah, it was what we ran into.

35:18

I mean, we were Christians in a, in a quote unquote secular band or whatever.

35:24

Um, uh, just all we were thinking, we're just writing music, you know, like from a

35:29

Christian perspective. I mean, it was like, you know, we wanted to be less exclusive and more inclusive,

35:37

I guess at the time was the, was the terminology that we were using, unfortunately. Um, uh, but you know, it was like, man, we just wanted to make music, you know?

35:47

And it wasn't like we, we weren't trying to go towards the Christian music industry where we were saying

35:53

Jesus every other lyric or whatever. But, you know, looking back now, I'm like, man, I really wish that we would have, because we wouldn't have ran into so many troubles, but, uh, but, uh, but yeah.

36:06

Oh, all right. A lot to that. So, all right. We're going to get into our last segment here with Darren.

36:11

So we created a little segment might be a smashing hit, might be a big flop. That's why we can always edit in post.

36:19

Uh, it's a, it's a little thing that, uh, we like to call don't or don't.

36:28

Don't or don't it, which means this Jason and I are going to rapid fire you some pitches.

36:35

Now you're a creative agency. I'm sure you get businesses in there. I know you've been in the film industry, but in the music industry, you get pitches from whether it's a managers,

36:44

PR people, artists themselves, and they might be pitching you something. We're going to rapid fire you some pitches.

36:50

If you think it's so good, and you're going to say, look at it's okay.

36:58

I might jive with that. That's a do all right. If it's horrible and you go, what are you thinking?

37:03

That's I'm not on board. That's a don't if it's fire. And you say, look, we got to get on this tomorrow.

37:08

That's a donut. If it's, if it's a donut, I wrote it. If it's a don't it's great.

37:15

Okay. And for all you listeners out there to make sure you go follow the hashtag donut, D O N E I T created that hashtag and then made it so darn popular.

37:26

And then you're like, oh, well the guy owns a creative agency. Of course he knows what the heck he's doing. All right. Are we ready?

37:31

We're going to, we're going to go through this. It'd be a couple, you know, maybe two, three sentences of an idea and you give me a do don't or don't it.

37:40

Here we go. All right. What does it mean to be a Christian and a public servant? Follow a local

37:45

Christian politician dedicated to their duty as an elected official through their daily life as a public servant.

37:51

Although the election cycle would give you the most compelling content, door knocking, rejections, coffee, hours, arguments, fundraiser, accomplishments, and disappointments.

37:59

And if they're elected, you could follow their roll calls, legislative votes and interaction with their community, with their worldview and how they balance that in a current, current politicized world.

38:10

Is that a do don't or don't it? That's a donut. That's a donut all day long. I love it.

38:16

What do you got for him? We got to have a ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh yeah. We need that. Yeah. All right. So make a speed metal music video where all the band members are dressed as eighties styled reformation characters, punk rock,

38:29

Calvin hair, metal Luther, and unitard wearing knocks. He's picturing it.

38:37

Yeah. Watch out. I'm going with that. All right, here we go.

38:52

All right, here we go. We want Darren to create a social media campaign to bring back the flip phone.

38:58

No smartphones, all predictive texts unplugged. So you can plug into the real world trash at iPhone so you can get in the

39:06

IRL. That's real life. Is that a do don't or don't it? That's a don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

39:14

All right. He said that was authority. Get on those smartphones. Yeah. Yeah. Right. What do you got Jake? All right. Rude and reformed.

39:20

Why are those in the reform community? Why are those in the reform community perceived by their evangelical brethren as rude, rowdy, and just downright mean?

39:32

What gives? Oh, would you do a docu -series on that? Is that a do don't or don't it? I get the premise question.

39:44

I just don't know what we're doing with it. Movie. You can say don't. Let's do a movie.

39:50

You're allowed to say don't. I think it's a don't. If it's a movie, it's a don't. But the punchline is you thought they were rude.

40:00

Until an actual enemy showed up against the church, and then everybody was like, look at all the

40:07

Calvinists. We need the Calvinists. There's a real fight. Oh, people want to throw punches.

40:15

Get the reformed people over here. Where are the guys that know the

40:20

Bible? Oh, geez. Here we go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right. Here we go. We got a couple more left. Darren, we want you to follow a worship songwriter from start to finish.

40:29

Examine the artistic process of the songwriter, how they create the worship song from an idea to performance, the initial spark of the idea, how they form the chord structure, why they wrote it, the musical influence for the song, the process of fine tuning it, and the biblical foundation for it.

40:43

Heck, even what they ate and the daily pressures of life they faced during its creation. One song, one anthem, how it came to be.

40:50

Is that a do don't or don't it? That's still a don't it. I love the process.

40:55

I'm a sucker for the process. I'm not judging the content per se just yet. Everything should be documented, so that's the full don't it.

41:03

All right. Jason, throw one at them. All right. Here we go. Help three entrepreneurs on their journey of using only social media to promote their product or service, document their trials and errors, the pitfalls of listening to popular advice, and the risks they take and the rewards they gain from kicking against the pricks of conventional wisdom on how to promote a business.

41:27

We do don't or don't it? That's a tricky sentence on those words there, but that's a don't it.

41:32

Yeah. That's a don't it. That's a full don't it. Right. That's a full don't it. I love it. All right.

41:37

This is going to be a softball for you. How about we follow Darren on his journey of social media domination and his quest to post 100 social media posts a day that impact his community, culture, and followers.

41:49

Are we do, don't, or don't it? You know, depending on who's doing it, it could be all of the above, right?

41:57

So that's a don't it. That's a don't it. And, you know, hopefully we'll find people in South Dakota, right?

42:05

Yeah, baby. Absolutely. You know it. Oh, that's a nice out on that. All right. Thank you so much for playing do, don't, or don't with us, man.

42:14

It was awesome. And guys, listen, for those of you listening right now, make sure you are following Darren on Instagram, on social media, all the things he's doing.

42:24

Darren, can you just give a little shout out to where you're at, where they can follow, how they can get in contact with you if someone needs your services?

42:31

Yeah. So don't creative agency, or just look up Darren Doan on Instagram. One of my favorite platforms don't is

42:38

D -O -A -N -E. So Darren Doan or don't creative. LinkedIn. If you're not on LinkedIn, you got to get on LinkedIn.

42:44

I'll explain it to you later. But LinkedIn, I believe is the hottest platform on the planet right now. You need to be on LinkedIn.

42:51

You can find me there, have maybe more of a business conversation. Go to iTunes or Spotify, the

42:56

Don't Cast. We just hit our 100th episode, last two years doing the

43:03

Don't Cast. If you want to track my journey, I started with my podcast when we took our film production company of 28 years into a creative agency.

43:12

The podcast was Step 1, January 2019. All 200 episodes up to this day is me documenting the journey, what

43:20

I've learned, what I'm doing, what we're doing with our client. You don't have to hire me. If you actually just go listen to my podcast, everything we do with our clients and brands is right there in that podcast.

43:32

So the Don't Cast, find me LinkedIn, Instagram, all that good stuff. Yeah, that's what we do.

43:37

We just listen to the Don't Cast and then just copy what he says. I know, right? That's all you need, man. Free advice, man.

43:42

Thanks for all the success there, Darren. It's been awesome, man. You guys, I can't believe what you guys are doing.

43:49

I have like 1 ,000 people following me on the Don't Cast. I've been doing it for two years. How many people do you have listening to your podcast?

43:58

I don't know, about 3 ,000 a week right now, and then we got a little social media interaction from here and there.

44:05

It's just because we sucker guys like you and to come on and give us great content.

44:10

Gotcha, brother. I'm trying so hard. I'm trying so hard to watch a hillbilly show. That's so great.

44:18

Hey, let me plug this real quick for Darren. Do it. Do it. Canon Press app.

44:24

Please get the Canon Press app. Yeah, we both have it. And now Darren's newest project is, well,

44:30

I don't know if it's the newest, but it's on Canon Press, and it's called the Free Speech Apocalypse.

44:36

Please go check that out. It is awesome. It came out this week, right? This week.

44:42

Talk about it for 30 seconds. Yeah, really cool. That's kind of what I'm doing with my Christian base.

44:48

The Canon app is now a home for all that stuff, so I'm bringing a new podcast there. I'm doing a podcast called

44:55

Don't Listen to Me on Theology. I'm going to be interviewing a good thing called Don't Rampant where I interview Doug Wilson.

45:00

I'm bringing all my films over there, so the Canon app is where I'm going. Let's go. Yeah, man.

45:06

Yeah, baby. I love it, man. That's awesome. I can't wait for you to interview Doug. That is awesome.

45:11

It's going to be off the chains. Oh, dude, that's awesome. For sure. Well, Darren, I know we're going to see you at the end of the month at Fight, Laugh, Feast, and for all those listening, make sure you tune in because I'm sure he's going to hop on an episode or two while we're down there live podcasting at the end of this month.

45:24

Make sure you check out all his links, and Darren, we'll make sure we link you up in all of our social media posts, and obviously when the podcast airs.

45:32

Guys, we appreciate you reaching out to us, giving us comments, finding us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook at Dead Men Walking Podcast.

45:39

It means a lot when you leave us on Apple and Spotify and Pandora that we're at, and then even interacting with us and giving us suggestions and creative criticism and all those things on social media, and even the three or four ...

45:54

We're at the next level now. We got three or four trolls now. Oh, nice. So we're at the troll level, baby. I want to see them, baby.

45:59

We're at the troll level, baby. I don't know. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I like trolls. You know, I reached out to him and said, hey, let's have some coffee.

46:06

They didn't respond back. I guess that's ... Trolls don't like coffee, but it's all good.

46:12

Guys, we appreciate it. Darren, we thank you for taking your time and coming on the show, and guys, as always,

46:19

God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.