iMPACTiSSiMO! Podcast Episode 54: Zach Kempf, Bryce Gandy, & Jacob Hoehne: The ISSIMO Team
Want your story to be shared far and wide and influence more people? Don’t make it about you. Ditch the sales pitch. Content that authentically inspires, entertains, and educates wins.
In this episode, I talk with my co-conspirators for good, Zach and Bryce from ISSIMO – our first Team-cast where we riff on the topic of content that is about giving value vs. taking.
We give the recipe for creating content that people actually want to share and rally around. There are 43.7 million refugees in the world, according to UNHCR.
Podcast Transcript
Jacob: [00:00:00] Welcome to the iMPACTiSSiMO! Podcast. I’ve got experts, Bryce and Zach, with me from Team ECMO. My two partners in crime that have been with me over a dozen years, telling stories and inspiring people through Visual Medium.
We typically have another guest that talks about their business or what they’re doing, but it comes up quite often as we consult impact organizations, key insights that we’ve gathered over 20 years of doing this. And so today we’re gonna jump into one of those. You know, one of the challenges with organizations that focus on impact is often they’re not good at tooting their own horn. But sometimes it’s also they feel like, so that their cause is so important that they have to like foreground themselves and really talk and focus more about, you know, what they’re doing. And sometimes that might, you [00:01:00] know, not be as effective as other ways. And you know, there’s sort of this counterintuitive idea that by not talking about yourself, by not focusing on yourself as the brand, you actually get more visibility and more traction by creating more of a banner that people can wave that’s about a higher principle that stands for something bigger than just your company. So let’s dive into that general idea, though.
Bryce: Yeah, sometimes I think like the temptation is often, oh, you know, we have this objective, we have these things that we need to get done or sell or raise this amount of money, and your objectives, you start focusing on what do I need to get done? What do we need to do as an organization? Instead of like really focusing on stepping back and like, what, what are we all about? And who else believes in that same kind of thing? And then if you’re creating content with those bigger principles in mind, like you’re starting [00:02:00] from a point of being able to connect with your audience or a viewer in a different kind of way.
Zach: If you think about an audience, right? People wanna be entertained, they wanna be educated, they wanna be inspired. If you give them something that feels like entertainment and inspiration, and education, and feels like something they can call their own, and say, yes, I believe this. I care about this. This speaks to me. And share it with somebody because it’s something that would resonate with them.
You’re obviously gonna get more people to watch it and share it than something that feels like a commercial, right? Like, nobody wants to send your ad to their friend. Right. Somebody wants to send a powerful, moving video that touches their heart and makes them feel something, and reflects the value they share, and educates them. They want to send that to their friend, right? They wanna use that in a conference or a meeting, or they wanna open a talk with it or whatever, right? So if you create something that centers your values [00:03:00] and where your brand isn’t hardly visible at all, people are gonna share it, right? And you’re gonna ride the coattails of that.
I think that’s the fundamental principle, is like leading with something that just creates utility for your audience. A manifesto for the values and principles, and ideas that animate what you do.
Bryce: You know, every piece of content is gonna be a little different. Like, you know, not, not every piece of content’s gonna have the same objective, but what Zach is talking about, you can have really effective media that connects with people in really powerful ways by just stepping back and, you know, putting the brakes on that temptation to just out the gate. Like what’s, what’s the fastest way to explain to people what, why we’re so great, or what we want to accomplish?
Zach: In some ways, it comes back to like your Simon Sinek start with why sort of principle, right? It’s putting up a banner really clearly about what you care about and what you value and who you are, and the people that [00:04:00] share that value will come to you. But it also helps solidify those ideas in their minds and solidify those values in their minds. Right?
Like, and so it’s not just reflecting what’s already out there in some ways, it’s also like moving it forward and shaping that narrative. That creates community, right? It creates like community around shared values. And then that facilitates, like the other behaviors that you want to generate, like engagement with your cause or your organization.
Bryce: If you are focused simply on that one transaction and optimizing for one transaction, you’re not building the kind of loyalty and trust and relationship that you need for long-term engagement.
Jacob: Yeah, it does seem like right now, especially like there’s a big trend towards MarTech and measuring all of the clicks and eyeballs and conversions, and not ignoring that, but sort of saying, Hey, there’s something actually beyond just like the immediate transaction of did somebody download my white paper or buy my thing or [00:05:00] you know, fill out a form. And I think somebody that has that mindset might see this as like, oh, that’s foolishness. You know, so what are some examples or more of a manifesto that’s about planting a seed and like inspiring that community and inspiring those paradigm shifts for people.
Zach: To me, I think kind of immediately of a brand like Patagonia who was really, really foregrounding what they cared about. That was the priority to the point that they were saying, like, we don’t want waste, so we want you to come in and we’ll repair like your old gear, so you don’t have to buy new gear which is, seems really counterintuitive for a company who’s selling gear. But, because their value was clearly like authentic and it was prioritized over everything else, there were people who found and created a lot of loyalty with them because they believed in what they believed in.
And it’s not incidental to their growth and becoming popular, and becoming like a big brand, if that value set didn’t exist, they wouldn’t be where they are. Right. Ben and Jerry’s the same thing. Like you’ve got certain [00:06:00] brands who prioritize a set of values and how they exist in the world over what seems like the logical decisions that you would make for product or whatever. But they’re the reasons those brands are who they are and have grown to the size that they’ve grown.
And then on the counter example, like the thing I keep thinking of recently, look at Target, that has this more progressive customer base. And then all of a sudden they were like, oh, we’re cutting DEI, blah blah, like it was all, it felt performative ’cause they were, they were thinking, oh, this is a better like financial decision we’re gonna make right now. And their customer base has soundly rejected that, and they’ve lost a lot of business.
I also think of like Google when they, you know, decided to quietly remove, don’t be evil from their manifesto, and kept making all these decisions that undermined people’s trust in their objectivity and in their sort of focus on just providing good information, right? Like people have felt like search results have become more and more biased to ad, you know, dollars and whatever else, and your information [00:07:00] is for sale. That lack of standing by values has degraded their brand value consistently over time.
Jacob: I was thinking of, you know, the difference in just experience of shopping at Walmart or Trader Joe’s, and like both are trying to go after a cost-conscious consumer. Right? It’s a lower-cost kind of play. And yet, like in our community, there was like this petition of please bring a Trader Joe’s here versus like people picketing we don’t want a Walmart in our community. Right.
My wife loves shopping there and has become friends with a number of the checkers. This girl had come in, and she had a lot of experience, but she was kind of dismissive to the other employees. The manager, after she had finished her job interview, went and talked to the other employees, and like, okay. Then it’s an immediate no-go. And that was a higher or fire decision. And I think that’s where the rubber meets the road, is like, what are you willing to say no to because of your values?
Let’s dive [00:08:00] into though, like especially it’s a bit timely with just the Pope Francis’ passing, my thoughts go back to the project we did with The Laudato Si Challenge of the Vatican.
Zach: There are some companies who just sell widgets and they should just sell widgets, and that’s fine, and they don’t need to be super value-based. We’re speaking mostly to value-centric, purpose-driven organizations. So obviously, values are the center of what you do, right? And what we’re saying isn’t live your values, ’cause obviously you live your values, those examples where you don’t live, your values cost you incredibly because those values.
Because if you are a value-centric organization, those values animate what you do, and if you aren’t sincere to them, you have a problem. But for the people who are living their values and are sincere to them, the distinction we’re making and the real difference we’re saying is.
There is a difference between living your values and doing your best, and then advertising and trying to like sell people on what you do. And living your values and doing your best, and creating content that is super centric around those values that educates and inspires around those values, and that is, is nearly [00:09:00] silent on the brand side of it. Understanding that strategically and tactically, that piece of content will have way wider wings and glide a lot farther on its own. And get you a lot of earned media and a lot of new audiences because you are foregrounding something that all those people can share in believing in and caring about, and then will wanna show that piece of video because it doesn’t feel like an ad. It feels like something that they wanna show their team because it’s something that they care about.
So that’s the difference we’re saying. There’s this strategic decision to understand that your audience and your reach and the people who are gonna see this thing is gonna be way bigger if you are really just foregrounding the values. Right.
So, the Laudato Si Challenge it was incubated by the Vatican, basically a startup incubator for startups that could help further the goals of the Laudato Si and encyclical. Now, we were creating a piece of content for them, and we very well could have created a piece of content that talked about their organization. They really focused on their story and just [00:10:00] touted and explained the incubator, or explained the premise of the fund that they were building. But rather than that it was to take a step back and say, okay, what is the encyclical saying about Capitalism and about how we exist in a marketplace and can do good? Right? And we set out to create this manifesto, this manifesto for what a humane version of capitalism can look like. I think that’s sort of like the starting point, the premise that we operated on.
Bryce: You know, if you were talking to people after they watched it, there were things that just really resonated that, like touched the heart, but there were also, because you weren’t sitting there watching an advertisement or something about like a specific organization. It allowed that room and space for someone to take in what was a big idea and have like a paradigm shift kind of moment of like, oh, that’s articulating something that I felt about [00:11:00] you know what capitalism could be at its best. And, so it, by not like putting you know, you front and center, you’re allowing the space for the viewer to connect in a different kind of way where their guards aren’t up. Where, in a way, when you get advertised to, you might, you know, have your guards up in a certain way, like it allowed the viewer to interact in a different way that allowed a different kind of takeaway to come out of that viewing experience.
Zach: Well, and one thing you’re saying, too, is like, yeah, they’re not being sold, which is like, it changes their approach to it entirely. But another principle that we can talk about in some future day is this notion of the head and the heart. Like what you’re saying in a way is this, spoke to them emotionally, but also spoke to them intellectually. Right. And I think that’s an important part of it is if you wanna lead with a value and have a manifesto of value, if it’s just sort of boilerplate, cliche stuff [00:12:00] everybody’s heard before, it’s not gonna resonate.
In some ways. You have to say, look, if I really, truly, like, if this value is so central to who we are, we should know more about it than most people, and we should have something to say about it that is revelatory or educational or recontextualizing for people. Right. Like you have to inspire them and you have to touch them, but you kind of also have to have something new to say to help them see the world in a different way. Otherwise, it’s just gonna feel like you’re sort of like bandwagoning.
Jacob: There’s that element of, you almost have to have some sense of surprise to get someone to rethink that paradigm of like step back and be like, Oh, I’ve never seen it in that way, and I’m feeling drawn to it. You know, and that was from our, also our research study of looking at 139 different impact organizations in 34 countries, as far as like what led to Effective Impacts fundraising and like the correlation with the storytelling. And one of the top things that rose was those [00:13:00] that spoke to both the head and the heart, you know, of like there was a logical argument as well as an emotional connection.
Zach: Setting aside head and heart sort of for another day, ’cause I think that’s a whole other discussion.
So we’ve created this piece of content that is super value-centric, right? I think there’s two kind of things to inspect with that is. One, what was the process that allowed us to create something that was that like authentic and thoughtful, and what, sort of was the result? Like, if we’re saying that this allows you to get all of this earned median sort of exposure outside of your audience. Did that, in fact, happen in this case? And what did that look like?
Maybe let’s first talk about results, but then let’s talk about how, what’s the methodology like if somebody’s hearing this and saying, yes, I wanna do this right, and then they turn around and find some agency that’s just like an order taker, or they don’t necessarily have the right process in place for the people inside their organization to sort of germinate this with what it is they wanna say. Right? So let’s, I think we need to break those down, but let’s talk about the results that we had..
Jacob: Yeah. So at the event at the Vatican, [00:14:00] which was, you know, someone in the audience saw it and said, Hey, can you, can we show this at our conference in the Hague at the Peace Palace for this investor conference? And we’re like, sure. And so a month later, I was on a plane to go, you know, to this Impact Summit Europe, and people there saw it and wanted, Hey, can we, can we play this at our event in Stockholm? And I found myself on a, you know, at an event in Stockholm, just where this was debuted. And then it was Monaco and then New York and San Francisco, and it, you know, it, it’s played at the United Nations and it’s played in front of The World Bank and billionaires and philanthropists and organizations across the world.
And, I think part of that traction has been because it’s fungible. It’s like, Hey, that’s something I believe, and I can apply that to my people. And people are like, oh, I, I really need to show my board or this, you know, I need to, I need to play this for my team because [00:15:00] we need to be thinking about this. And then, and this was exactly what we’re trying to do, I mean, people were asking, Can I use this to help fundraise for my thing, because people are seeing that, you know, like it, it encapsulates this one idea that we’re all behind. And suddenly, like people are running and waving this banner all over where we couldn’t have paid them or like run ads or targeted them in a way that was just a, you know, a more commercial message, you know, would’ve had the same kind of traction.
Zach: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so the people who saw that Laudato Si Challenge Organization’s logo and learned about them was way bigger than would’ve been otherwise. And we’ve had, in other instances of that, there was a sort of a business networking community that we made a video for that was just a manifesto in this idea of like slowing down to speed up and taking a moment to like regroup and contextualize out of the rat race or whatever. And that piece. Again, with nothing but the logo for the organization at the end, [00:16:00] was asked to be used at like a Harvard Business School event and a church function, and an LGBTQ function. Like the breadth of political ideologies that saw it and said, I believe that and I want to use it, was it was like shockingly and humorously wide. Right? And it got used in a ton of different places.
There’s another piece that we did for. A storage company, right, for Extra Space Storage. The whole principle of you
know, it’s storage, right? That’s not terribly sexy. But it was what do they, what do they value, and what do they really care about? They wanna be there for people in times of transition. So we made a video that did that in practice, it was 10 things I wish I knew before I became a parent, and it was all these real parents talking about advice and thoughts they had about what they wanted, wish they wish they had known in helping them in this time of transition of being a parent. And created this very beautiful little video that like exploded and went viral completely organically. Today’s show was picking it up. Ashton Kutcher tweeted it. Right? And so it was a ton of earned media and a lot of brand credibility for Extra [00:17:00] Space Storage. It wasn’t some big strategy of placing this thing, right? It was just about the content resonating with people and leading with values.
Jacob: Yeah. If someone was trying to apply that as okay, you’ve got my intention. I would love to get that kind of earned media or have that exposure on my brand values, and kind of ride along my brand is riding along the coattails. Yeah. How do you practically go about that kind of storytelling?
Zach: Yeah. I would say, first of all, like internally, that’s gotta be a decision that is made, that is that people are ready to defend, right? Because there’s a bunch of points where it’ll be. It won’t seem as like the most practically like somebody in the organization will be, well, why aren’t we getting, we’re not, we’re not measuring click-through rates with this, or we haven’t, like, we’re not pushing this product or blah, blah, blah. There’s gonna be internal pressure to say, like, I don’t know about this. So I think in some ways it has to be a decision that’s made internally that people are ready to like, run with, and believe in. And that has to be met with that internal conversation of like, not just what [00:18:00] value do we wanna hold up because we think it’s popular and what people want to hear. It’s not about that.
It’s what do we actually deeply believe in here that we would love to see happening more in the world if we saw nothing else from this other than that. Like, what value do you care about and believe enough that you wanna advocate for, and teach about, and inspire about in such a way that that behavior gets increased out there in the world, even if nothing comes back to you.
All truly like value-based behavior if it’s about you, you’ve like, it’s not gonna work. So you have to say to yourself, what do we want to teach and advocate for, and share that if we increase that value out there in the world, and nothing comes back to us, we will be happy that we did it right?
And so there’s a specificity to that. There’s like, what do we want to teach? What, what, what insight do we have living this value that we can offer to the world that’s like truly a nugget of insight, right? I think that’s number one.
And then I think there’s this issue of like, who’s gonna help you create that vision? But I think that’s a really important thing is [00:19:00] to find the right partner who understands the goal and who can truly inspire and educate and move people and create something that is like befitting of what you want to do. This can be at all sorts of budget levels. This can be in all sorts of forms. The question, the real challenge, is being really thoughtful and clever and creative about what how do you truly embody the thing that you want to teach and inspire about in a form that is befitting of it and can like do its service, you know?
Yeah. So having an outside perspective, whether it’s an engaged agency or just, you know, someone that can give you honest feedback, but of like. We think we live these values, or this is the most important thing, and they might be like, Hmm, do you, or is that, is that the most valuable thing for your audience?
So I think, I think that could be just a, with whatever route you go, even if you do it internally, be sure that you get some outside perspectives, before it’s sort of fully baked, you know?
Bryce: Another way that a piece of content like this [00:20:00] can be valuable, and I guess some of the things that we probably have heard from organizations that we’ve made content like this for, is just the value that that has internally at the organization as well. Like as you articulate what you’re really about within the organization, you strengthen how people feel about where they’re at and what they’re all about. Like it’s a really powerful thing to, I guess, just increase the engagement and loyalty of people within your organization as you stake that claim of who you are and articulate it in a powerful way.
Zach: Yeah. Speaking specifically to Laudato Si, we made this decision early on that like, okay, what we’re, what we’re talking about is sort of how people interact in this system and how we treat each other and whatnot. And so we made the decision early on that the visual content of this should reflect, you know, sort of life being lived all over the world. Right? And so [00:21:00] we filmed in Morocco, we filmed in Rome, we had footage from some previous projects of ours that were in Southeast Asia, in the United States, because we wanted to sort of reflect the world, right? But the ways in which we interacted with each other was really important. So I remember there was a day we were filming in Rome, and this is where it comes to like, I guess the, the central point of this is you need to have creatives or whoever’s helping you make this who not just like understand what you want, but like share and care about a value as well.
They have to give a piece of their heart to this thing, and it has to like be authentic, right? And so I remember when one of our shoot days in Rome, we were near the Spanish steps in Rome, and we were filming, you know, it’s this area filled with these very high-end retail shops, you know, and everybody’s going along and there’s lots of tourists and whatnot. And so there’s this weird contrast of like these high-end retail shops and homeless people on the streets. And that’s not unique to that spot in Rome; that’s everywhere. But there was this one [00:22:00] moment that really caught my attention, and instead of moving on like we normally would do, we sat there and filmed this one thing for like 30 minutes, waiting for just the right moment.
There was like a util, like a public utility, trash can on a pole, and the way they have their trash cans, there’s just like a metal ring with a bag hanging from it, there’s not like a can around it. And the bag was broken, and so you’ve got all these tourists on their phones and everything, and people in the area shopping and walking around, and they’ll come up and drop their trash in this bag that is essentially just a fiction, right? They’re just dropping their trash through a ring that’s just falling on the ground in a pile, right? Because there’s no bag, it’s broken. And everybody can see that it’s broken, but they’re still just like enacting this behavior, oh, there’s a trash can I’m gonna throw away, I guess that makes me responsible, as they just watch it fall on a pile in the ground and kind of spread around. And the sort of symbolicness of this behavior of like, not sort of.
In some ways, how capitalism is, we think a selfishness that we’re doing in the immediate moment will somehow [00:23:00] create, you know, non-selfishness in the aggregate later. Right. And it became this sort of symbol of what we were talking about in the film. And so it’s like, it’s being, you know, attuned enough to like the thing that you are trying to say to like, recognize. So that wasn’t something scripted or planned or whatever, it was something that we saw, and we said, This is exactly what we’re talking about. And we took the time to get the right moments of it. Right, to reflect in the piece, you know.
You know, we talked to the organization a lot and the things that they valued and what they wanted to say, and we really listened to them when they talked about tone and kind of the tone they wanted it to have. And we read through the Pope’s and encyclical multiple times. For me, writing it, there were things that like had stuck in my head for a long time that was easy to draw from things that I was like personally passionate about to put into it. One of which was this notion that we say capitalism in this like generalized way and we talk about Adam Smith and everything, and it’s like there’s a difference [00:24:00] between corporate capitalism, Capitalism with a capital C, and markets and how markets function and the invisible hand, right?
And so, in some ways, for me, writing this piece was like the frustration of feeling like people conflate these two things when they are very different things, and what they’re capable of is very different. And then the other aspect of it kind of paired with that, that felt like animating for me was this understanding that like these systems, yes, it has greater potential maybe for, for harm or good or whatever around the margins, but they all essentially reflect the character and the impulses of the people that are filling them up and animating them, right? So in some ways we wanna blame the system, but the system is a reflection of our decisions and our values, right? I think Capitalism with a big capital C makes it hard for us to make good decisions, but markets are just a way for people to organize and make decisions in the aggregate. [00:25:00] And if those decisions are destructive, they’re destructive because that’s a reflection of like of our priorities and values, and shortsightedness. And so in some ways. I don’t know. In some ways, for me, the piece always has this double-edged sword where it feels really like inspiring. But on the undercurrent, if you wanna pay attention, it’s also telling you that if the system sucks, it’s because we do. Right?
And maybe it’s time to fix that. And that’s that whole notion of think a new thought. It’s time for us to like stop assuming that our selfishness will create good and assume that if we treat each other with respect and kindness, and we treat our planet with respect and kindness, then good things will result. Right.
Jacob: Yeah, I think about like the, and that’s not every organization has the stomach for that kind of work.
I mean, it takes leadership, and to have thought leadership, you actually have to have leading thoughts. Like you have to have innovative or like insights that aren’t, you know, just like you said, pablum or [00:26:00] cliche, but that are actually like, and, and leading people forward in a direction that might be, you know, a pivot from where they’re currently going, but that, that’s what leaders do and and thought leaders do and it’s not just if you have a following and it’s not about being an influencer. It’s about who is leading the thought of an organization or a movement. And I think those that can put a stake in the sand and say, this is what we believe, and here people rally to this. Like are the ones who will lead markets and that are seen as, you know, the change makers and not just laggards or not just following the crowd, but that are. But it takes courage and that takes, you know, like to put yourself out there and to say, Hey, we’re, we can do it differently and, and come rally to us and we don’t care if you’re a competitor or a, you know, a, a peer whatever. Like if everyone behaved like this, the world would be a better place.
Zach: If you truly are [00:27:00] value-centric, that’s the starting point. Then you have to say, what do I really want to say and what do I really want to share with the world that actually has value and utility, and can give them something they don’t already have and teach them something they don’t already know. And if that happens, I’ll be happy if nothing else comes of it. Right. And then you need to find a partner that like believes it with you. And then you need to pay attention and be like listening, and go through the process and adjust. And have everybody not be like egotistical about it, like on our end or on their end, we had to like adjust, and we had to listen, and we had to let this thing grow and like gestate, right? And then you create something that is authentic. That actually is about a value, is about sharing a value. And when you create something real, people will respond to it. And if it’s not real, it won’t work.
Jacob: And I think that has to be the calculus, then what’s my click-through rate? And there’s a type and place for that, but this type of content has to be that kind of [00:28:00] generous offering, you know, and have leadership baked into it.
I mean, one of the things that for us, that kind of sandbox kind of working with people to help uncover it is one part and parcel of what we do. And we, you know, like I think for those that are mission driven, that are change makers, it’s an open invitation if you need another set of eyes outside of your organization to help you get clarity. And what is that? Kind of leading message that you can inspire people to. Like we love to do that all day long, and especially if you’re a podcast listener, we’re happy to sit down with you with no cost and no obligation to just help you get unstuck and maybe lead you in that direction, you know? So I think hopefully that scene is, comes off in a, that you believe us and that it’s not a sales pitch, but a, we really wanna see more people behaving and shifting in this direction, and, and like, [00:29:00] inspiring the markets where they need to go.
Zach: I will say we’ve had a lot of those conversations, and there are plenty of times where we say to them, like, we don’t wanna make something for you ’cause you don’t think it’s right right now, and you don’t need it. Right. If there are those conversations where it turns out the timing is right and the situation is right for us to make something for them, then great. But those, that’s not the like, it’s not a requirement for us to be helpful in that regard, and it’s not necessarily why we’re doing it, right? We’ve tried to adopt this philosophy of, you know, leading with our values and helping and being helpful and trusting that the universe will sort of take care of us on the other side of it.
So Jacob’s very sincere in that, that like if this is resonating with you and you feel like you need some help and some guidance in formulating how to move forward with that value-centric approach, then come talk to us. If that turns into creating content for you, great, but like we don’t necessarily think it all, we should.
Jacob: I think that’s how Davids can [00:30:00] defeat Goliaths. is actually having, like the right story told in the right way, in a powerful way, you know, can really help set you apart, especially where change makers are chronically, you know, the underdog or trying to do so much with so little. I think one of the ways you can get more leverage is by having a more impactful story.
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