In this episode of Tech in the Arts, Dr. Brett Ashley Crawford of the Arts Management and interviews Bill Updegraff, founder and CEO of Grapeseed Media, a programmatic digital advertising firm. Grapeseed Media, established in 2013, has grown into a trusted partner for brands and agencies in digital advertising, earning recognition on Inc.’s 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.
In this episode, Updegraff explains that Grapeseed Media's initial goal was to provide arts organizations with access to programmatic advertising, a concept he once thought was exclusive to larger corporations. The company's role has since evolved from introducing programmatic advertising to guiding clients through its complexities. He highlights three approaches to programmatic advertising: in-house management, managed service partnerships, or working with a single, agnostic programmatic partner like Grapeseed Media, which provides unbiased access to all programmatic channels and consolidated reporting.
Updegraff also differentiates programmatic advertising from search and paid social media, noting that programmatic is more "open market" compared to the "walled gardens" of platforms like Google and Meta. He also discusses the growing integration of programmatic into digital out-of-home advertising, offering hyper-targeting and data collection capabilities. Of course, they also discuss the ethical uses of AI in marketing, particularly in data analysis and creative ideation.
show notes
Programmatic Marketing (Video)
transcript
Bill Updegraff: We actually avoided hiring junior talent just because they were the hardest hires. I think the most intimate channel is audio. I pay attention to those ads much more than other ads. At some point, three years from now is today, and someday your long-term thing becomes your immediate problem.
Dr. Brett Crawford: Welcome to another episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast series of the Arts Management and Technology Lab, also known as AMT Lab.
The goal of our podcast series is to exchange ideas, discuss emerging technologies, and uncover things that arts managers, arts geeks like us and anybody out there really might want to know. My name is Brett Ashley Crawford, and I'm the executive director and publisher of AMT Lab. Today I am excited to be joined by Bill Updegraff.
Bill is the founder and chief executive officer of Grapeseed Media, a programmatic digital advertising firm, established in 2013 under his leadership. Grapeseed has become a trusted partner for brands and agencies navigating the digital advertising landscape. The company's innovative approach and steady growth have led to its own recognition on Inc's
5000 list as one of the nation's fastest growing private companies. Initially, it was founded as a boutique shop in New York City. Grapeseed Media has expanded internationally with team members located in several cities across the United States and the United Kingdom. The company consistently delivers strong results for clients across various sectors, notably driving growth in audience engagement and revenue for arts organizations.
Bill brings over two decades of marketing experience to his role. He's previously served as a senior marketing leadership positions of major cultural arts institutions, including the director of marketing at New York City Opera and Brooklyn State and Warehouse. His experience in audience development and digital strategy informs Grapeseed Media's client focus philosophy.
A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Master of Arts Management program. Bill continues to advocate for innovation in his marketing solutions. These solutions enable organizations to effectively connect and engage with their audiences. And he currently lives in London with his wife and his two young children enjoying London's vibrant art and cultural scene.
But from abroad, Bill remains a diehard New York Giants fan and recently renewed fan of the New York Knicks. He's still undecided on which Premier League team to support. Well. Now, Bill, I know while that's a high priority, I'm really excited to hear about the Giants and some sports. As well as some arts and maybe some marketing as we have our conversation.
So thank you so much for joining our podcast episode today. I'm glad we're gonna get to chat because I'm always promoting Grapeseed and it's amazing how it's grown. I don't know if you remember, we were at like my first that remember those Namp conferences, the National Arts Marketing?
And I did not know where we were, but I remember meeting you like maybe my first or second year.
Bill Updegraff: It wasn't the Austin one, was it?
Dr. Brett Crawford: I don't know. Might have been dc. Okay. Anyway, it was but yeah, I remember thinking, well, that's a great idea and so I'm so glad that it has grown as much as it has over time.
Are you happy with it?
Bill Updegraff: Yeah, very happy. ,
Dr. Brett Crawford: So let's talk a little bit about.
Technology. It's really wonderful that after 10 plus years that we're getting to sit down and actually have a conversation. I also note that in 10 plus years, the marketing landscape and the digital landscape has changed significantly.
Bill Updegraff: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Brett Crawford: So, you know, when you started Grapeseed because you saw a need, how do you see that as changed in the decade plus you've been running it?
Bill Updegraff: Yes, thanks, Brett, and I'm really happy to be talking to you about all of this. So it is different in a couple key ways. You know, so it was 20, I'm trying to remember, 13 when we started Grapeseed, and up till that point I was a marketing director at a couple cultural institutions in New York City, and the original concept for Grapeseed was more around giving access to programmatic like education and access.
At the time, you know, again, I'm sitting as a marketing director, and I'd like to think that I was a marketing director that tried to stay on the bleeding edge of marketing, which in those years I was active, I guess 2006, through about 2013 increasingly meant digital advertising. And even for me, someone who wanted to consider themselves someone that was staying on the forefront.
I actually had it in my head that programmatic was out of reach for arts organizations. I thought it was for just bigger organizations, Coca-Colas of the world. And I had a friend working in programmatic who showed me that actually no, one of the powerful things about programmatic is it's very scalable.
So I was like, wow, if I had that misconception. There's gotta be a lot of other people sitting in my chair at different arts or arts and cultural organizations around the country that have a similar misconception. And so I, you know, started Grapeseed at first to kind of show people the door to programmatic.
Where it's changed most significantly is. Now in 2025, everyone knows what programmatic is. They've seen the door, they've probably walked through it, but it's, as we say in one of our promo videos, a wild, wonderful world, and part of it being a wild, wonderful world. It means that it's complex and it's ever expanding.
And so we've changed from. Okay. This is why you should be doing programmatic to being more of a guide or navigator in this wild, wonderful world, the arts and you know, all verticals are, they're doing programmatic. That's, that's happening. People more or less have at least a basic understanding of it.
It's now more change to how do we help people navigate it Because, you know, there's really three ways. To do programmatic as an organization, you do it fully in-house, which just means that you need to hire the right experts who have been trained on all the various ad tech platforms and can run the media programs in-house, or you work through a series of managed service partnerships.
When I say managed service partnerships, I mean usually. Organizations that have built a part of the ad tech landscape and then provide managed service to help you access their proprietary tech, and that usually means that you end up needing at least two or three relationships. If you have a specific need or specific data source, you might need to add on a fourth and then a fifth, and then a sixth.
And so you end up still needing some in-house talent just to manage all those. Manage service, relationships. Manage management. Yeah, exactly. Management. Which is in a funny way, like it's almost like, I think it's like, oh, we somehow found a way to take programmatic technology and treat it like, I remember how I used to place ads in the New York Times.
Like, 'cause in some ways that's what their days become. It becomes about just vendor relationship and let me see that report and here's a brief for our next campaign. And. You know, it just, okay, now I have to collate this information and put it into a master report. And it's what I remember doing when I was placing print ads and magazine ads and more analog forms of mar marketing.
And then you know where we fit in. And there are certainly other players like us, like MIQ is the biggest example of a company that has a similar philosophy or approach to us, and that's a single. Agnostic programmatic partner, and the agnostic part is really important. We don't create any of the tech, and that's actually an advantage for our partners, we think because it keeps us unbiased, but also it means that through one partner you can access all of programmatic, and as it expands, it becomes our job.
To kind of sit through and say, yeah, that still looks a little smoke and mirrors. Let's see how that develops. This is real. This is actually useful. We should integrate this into your next plan, and we help you navigate that. And also that means from reporting standpoint, the reporting is always in one place, one source.
You have one dashboard and there's not a lot of collating. It just becomes a more cohesive campaign. So that's the evolution. It's gone from this is what programmatic is. You should try it to, okay, I know you're trying it out of these, you know, but it's hard to navigate. Let's help you navigate it.
Dr. Brett Crawford: That's awesome.
And I like the agnostic phrasing because I think it helps get a perspective of essentially you are doing the best for the client. You don't have a bias coming into the relationship, which is so nice. Yeah. I'm, so I wanna back up just a little bit. Sure. I say that because as you said, there are arts organizations and other organizations on their journey with marketing and tech, and they may not have a full sense of.
What are the opportunities for programmatic? So I'm wondering if you can unpack the difference between programmatic and search. Mm-hmm. And or their relationship between. Yeah. And maybe you could use an example, like give an actual, you could think of Imaginary Theater company in New York City today, like, right.
What would be that example for them?
Bill Updegraff: Right. So. It's a little bit unfortunate that we're almost forced to use this word programmatic, and I do say forced because we tried over the years to use other words like addressable maybe, or just, you know, we took different stabs at things and sometimes you can't fight what just is out there.
And the word is programmatic, but it's a bit of a misnomer because programmatic in some ways just means using software and data to make your media buying decisions. So technically you said search, like search and meta. Those should be included in the definition of programmatic, but colloquially we don't really mean that, which is also a little bit of a misnomer.
'cause this is also not true really necessarily anymore. That's considered PPC, and sometimes it's PPC or pay per click. But often even those channels are not always. PPC, but we call that PPC and we call what we do programmatic. The other thing you could say about what we do is, is often we're, you know, those are walled gardens, you know, like I can actually call them by their, the brands that control them meta and Google, or I guess if you're doing.
Bing. You could say Microsoft, you know, but they're walled gardens and you have to be in their platforms and everything is completely controlled by them. Where programmatic is more open, may, I don't know, maybe the analogy is, it's like the difference between an an Apple phone and an Android phone. You know, where Apple controls.
Everything, every element of it. And Android, I've, I actually have an iPhone, so I don't know this, but what I've heard is that it's more open and people can, I dunno. Do you, do you have an Apple or an Android?
Dr. Brett Crawford: I have an Apple, but I do, I think that is the apple curates what I'm getting. Yeah,
Bill Updegraff: yeah. With
Dr. Brett Crawford: an intentional understanding of the user in a way is different than just open market.
Anybody can do
Bill Updegraff: Exactly right. So programmatic is closer to this open market. So we, at a basic level, there's different types of ad technologies. You bolt onto it, but you know, you start with the buy side A-A-A-D-S-P, or a demand side platform. I. Google. Now, not to confuse people too much because you know, we're just saying Google is a search, but also Google does have a programmatic, uh, product, which, you know, when we started was called Double Click and is involved over the years to, uh, DV 360, which, uh, stands for, uh, display Video 360.
So DV 360, but that's their DSP. That's one of the main DSPs. In the market. The other really large one is the trade desk and then there's a bunch of others. Stack Adapt is up and coming. There's NEX in, there's dozens of other basis, and you start going down different tiers and there's different, you know, there's also specific DSPs for certain channels like, uh, vis.
Is one that specializes in programmatic digital out of home, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point during our conversation. So when an arts organization is looking at PPC or their search, sort of keep 'em in the same bucket of search and paid social, which 95% of the time really just means Google search and meta.
What we tell our clients is. Those work and you should max out. There's sort of a point where you get diminishing returns and that's when you start looking at, okay, how do we add on things that are further up the funnel? I mean, some of this does fit into traditional marketing where you're still talking about a funnel, you're still talking about, you have awareness, then consideration, and then conversion.
And especially when you're conversion focused, you do wanna make sure you're maxing out on Meta and Google search. People are obviously on these platforms and you know, I'm buying a lot of things because of them. I'm sure others are too, and they're worth wise coming compare.
Dr. Brett Crawford: And they're becoming aware of those things that you may wanna consider and then ultimately buy.
Bill Updegraff: Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, what, where programmatic fits in is basically as soon as you find, okay, I'm starting to see that every dollar I put in is getting me less than that previous dollar. Now you might wanna think about programmatic, there's a lot of ad technologies, but at a basic level, you know, just talking about the channels that are available.
Programmatic is there are display that's still the bread and butter of programmatic is those display banner ads that have been around since, I don't know. I think they've been around since a OL, and those are still very key to any strategy. Beyond that, there is different types of video you can have in banner video.
You can have a video that plays on YouTube, and then you start to graduate to OTT or over the top. So that's now where we're getting into the cord cutters. So some people use the terms a little bit differently, but what we separate out is OTT is an umbrella for any kind of thing that bypasses cable. That could be. That you're watching it on your phone or your laptop. Then what we will say is we call it CTV Connected TV when you're actually watching it on a big screen connected television. I think it's a bit of a square rectangle thing where technically CTV is a type of OTT, but we separate that out and say, you know, CTV means you're watching it actually on a big television.
And that's one of the most, you know, that's been around since about 2017. And I think that's still growing really fast. And I think we're at a point now. I remember reading some stats that it's now the majority of television watched is CTV. Yeah.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I, I definitely hear you and I think what's interesting is a lot of what you're talking about are those digital ads that are, I'm gonna call them sort of personal and direct, right?
Mm-hmm. Meaning that they are on my phone, they're on my computer, they're in my living room, or my mm-hmm. Meeting room or wherever I have my tv, so that it's a very personal relationship. Yeah. That is different than first person marketing that's coming in through my email. Right. And so, but it's still hitting that individual that you're targeting in a more intimate way.
Yeah. Um, how do you find that that compares to say, out of home? I'm a big fan of out of home, particularly for the awareness level.
Bill Updegraff: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Brett Crawford: How has digital starting to grow into out of home?
Bill Updegraff: So we just started talking about CTV and that's. Ben for a long time. The one I've been most excited about and I think a close contender is what you just mentioned, is at a home.
I'm also a huge fan of, uh, at a home. You know what? I'm gonna plug a friend who's involved in some real old school and also some more modern at a home. It's window spelled WNDW, and they have a network all over the United States. Where they started, it was literally window posters in bodegas and shops. I know they've expanded to doing full building wraps.
We do some programmatic integrations with them. I've always liked that from like a, you know, 'cause that old marketing adage of, you know, seeing something a certain number of times in different ways and just that frequency, people have regular commutes and you see it, it's just a different feel when it's in the real world.
You, as much as we're talking about digital and of course some, a opponent of digital and digital's really effective, none of this works in a vacuum. And it really helps, I think, to have experience it. Especially we're talking about the arts. These are, this is an experiential product, so you wanna have that visceral feeling of it actually being in your world.
So yes, it's evolved right now so that more and more previously analog out-of-home placements. Became digital and especially in the last couple years, and it's going up and up every month, those digital placements are available programmatically where it's to the point where it's quite rare to actually find a digital placement that you wouldn't be able to serve.
Programmatically. Um, and you know, we work with the arts, but we work with all verticals. Some of the more exciting things we've done is when we're asked by a client to be in South Korea in two days and maybe there's a conference or something and we need to take over a city. And of course we're going to serve mobile ads and we're gonna serve video ads and we're going to Geotarget and all this, but we're also very quickly.
You know, I just, the audio heard that. I just snapped my finger. We can be on huge billboards in somewhere as far flung as South Korea. You know, if you told me, go right now, we can maybe get it up in a couple hours and it would be, it would be, it would be running and it's hyper targeted. You also get a lot of data back.
You can actually build a retargeting pool from the people that have passed. The specific at a home unit that you've placed an ad on and then retarget them with display or video. No one has ever done this and I keep talking to people about it, but you know, maybe someone will come up a great creative idea, maybe someone listening right now, but you know, weather data, that's one of the levers we can pull.
So if you wanna get very, yes, if you wanna get creative and say, Hey, it's raining inside, but there's a, there's a great show inside at the X, Y, Z. I almost said X, Y, Z. 'cause I live in London now. The X, Y, Z playhouse, you know, come inside from the rain, whatever. That wasn't the great creative idea, but I know you guys are creative.
You going to think of a wonderful idea and we could turn that on when it's raining or a different message, when it's sunny, someone's gonna come up with a great idea. We're gonna take advantage of that. You know, we today part, there's just so much data. It's the only one of the channels that's not one-to-one.
It is one to a group of people, but we do have information of the demographics of that group that typically passes that unit. And just like the rest of programmatic, what makes it so exciting is that it would be very targeted.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I think it's fantastic and I am gonna throw out an analog moment though there was a perk when I was living in DC and doing marketing of putting on bus market, like putting an ad on a bus.
Because your ad stayed there, especially if it was brand adding, not necessarily like for a particular production, but it was like until the next bus ad was placed. So you might buy three months or you might buy a month, but it'll just stay there until the next person buys that bus line and that particular thing.
So sometimes I got a bonus ad out of that one. So analog has a perk to it. Finance. I know. I know. It's true.
Bill Updegraff: I remember doing that in New York City with subway posters. And I started realizing that often, not always a guarantee, but often I'd get an extra month or sometimes I remember being like six months later, I'd be like, oh, I still see that ad.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I say it's analog can do very well for Evergreen brand content. Right?
Bill Updegraff: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Brett Crawford: So we've been talking a lot about digital, but we haven't gone into a specific space that I know we're, we're literally on, we're on a podcast. It's audio. Oh, yes. I'm always a fan of radio. Mm-hmm. Because I feel, again, I'm probably more urban oriented and recognizing people listen to a particular podcast person, they listen to a particular, if you're driving, at least in.
DC there's certain things you always listen to.
Bill Updegraff: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Brett Crawford: Whether it's the one A, whether it's a particular morning show that you just love because you know that person's like got the humor you love.
Bill Updegraff: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Brett Crawford: So how does audio radio podcasting sit into all of this?
Bill Updegraff: I think it's probably the most underutilized channel we have available to us when we're talking about CTV referenced Intimate.
Yes, it is intimate. There's also a lot of co-viewing that happens with CTV, but I think the most intimate channel is audio. It's where, like you said, it's, you usually cultivate a personal relationship with, especially if it's a, you know, if it's a podcast or a morning show host, you start to, maybe it's, you know, sometimes I listen to it in my kitchen, which is a very personal space, but probably more often I'll listen to it with a headphone on.
So it's literally going. Directly into my head. I mean, it couldn't be more intimate. These are people I basically chose to have a relationship with and catch up with on a weekly, or actually there's some content that they have daily podcasts that I'm listening to, and so I pay attention to those ads much more than other ads.
I mean, we, you know. A lot of advertising and people always say, oh, no, ads don't really affect me. And maybe they believe that and, but some of it's happening kind of, you know, without them realizing this. People realize I. It's hard to get away with it. Like, 'cause you are, you're, you're really tuned in. This is, these days you don't as much maybe as we used to listen to audio as a kind of background tool.
Like you, it's a very intentional listening these days. I feel like the things that we use audio for. And I think it, I mean, I know from my personal experience, again, I just referenced earlier that I live in London now, but I'm a huge diehard New York Giants fan, and I will cycle through. This is a little embarrassing, but I think I have about, I.
And I'm actually underestimating this number just to keep it less embarrassing. Let's just say three New York Giants football podcast. Actually, the number's higher than most. All the ads I get are, they're a British voice coming into me, you know, knowing that I'm living in London and I remember the COVID days that they were promoting the COVID vaccine or.
I talk about intimate. I, I'm a man in my early forties and they know that, and they're starting to keeping me certain product recommendations, but it's clear that programmatic's doing its job. It has data on me. It doesn't care that what I'm listening to. And I have to say still to this day when we're talking with clients, I think most people get this.
There's still sometimes people. A little bit of a disconnect versus, wait, why are we on this site? Why are we on this podcast? Why are we on this show? And there is a place for combining both contextual I. Audience targeting. There's definitely a place for that. That's very powerful when you can combine both.
But at the end of the day, the names of the game is, is audience targeting. And it, it doesn't, you know, matter. I mean, to take the same New York Giants, you know, football example, you know. Yes, it's probably true that I don't know what percentage, let's just say 80% of the audience is, is male, but certainly a good percentage are, are women.
And would you not want to, I know, sell a, a, a bra or whatever women specific item, you know, why not? I. Who cares that they're listening to a New York Giants football podcast Ax. Actually, it's perfect 'cause it means that your message is gonna get directly to them and they're gonna kind of know it. Either you're speaking directly to them and not, it's not just on there because of the content they're listening to.
So I love audio.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I'm glad we're in the same game on that one. It is intimate and it is. I think a lot of our ads are intimate, which is where maybe people don't recognize that they're coming at them in quite the same way because it's like, but I was at home like particularly of certain demographics.
Mm-hmm. Or certain assumptions in sort of the marketing, traditional marketing space wasn't, or I know I'm too cynical. I know I'm paying it. I'm not seeing that because I'm not seeing it versus, yeah. Oh, you did. You just thought you ignored it, but it still hit the back of your brain. Right.
Bill Updegraff: Think about arts and culture.
I mean, I think other brands maybe do have the challenge of like. Wait a second. Does the consumer want us in this space at this given time? But I mean. When we're talking about arts and culture, I think that it feels almost like bonus content. It would make me remember a nice cultural experience I had, or, you know, hopefully want me to go to this particular one.
But even if it doesn't, it connects to good parts of your life and good moments you've had. And so there's not really that. That same fear of like, wait, are we kind of invading people's spaces? I don't think that's necessarily a fear in general. People should have, but I think especially in arts and culture, it's, it's, it's really no fear at all.
And the, the, the one other thing I wanna say that I. Well, I guess it really touches on the three we just talked about, but I think in particular audio and then I'll talk about a little bit, CTV is sometimes, especially just smaller budget organizations or you know, in particular arts organizations, we'll worry about, okay, these are great ideas, but we have so much to do.
You know, how do we develop the content for them? So starting with audio, and we will do this for. For clients, but clients can certainly do this on their own. There are great services out there. voices.com is a really good one. I'm sure there's others I know@voices.com, you can go on a, you put in a brief.
Within three hours, you'll have 25 or more samples from really qualified voiceover artists. It won't cost more than a couple hundred bucks, including the proper licensing and everything. You choose one, you work with them to make a couple edits, 24 hours max, and probably much earlier. If you wanna be speedy about it, you can have a really polished, professional audio ad that didn't take much time and really didn't cost that much money.
So that one really shouldn't be a concern at all. With CTV, you know, we have an example of. We were on CTV ads for ourselves. We don't really have a big budget for ourselves. We have a budget that's probably comparable to some smaller arts organizations. We just do retargeting on our CTV ads. We get a lot of feedback of like, oh wow, like I was watching a show with my wife or husband last night on Hulu or Max or Amazon, and I saw your ad.
We didn't create a specific CTV ad. Actually the best CTV ads would be 15 or 30 seconds. We don't actually have a 15 or 3 second cut yet. Maybe we'll work on one at some point. But what we had available to us was that we have a 75 second kind of explainer video on ourselves. That was the content we had now, but we just put the 75 second on there.
And you know, we're, we're serving impressions every day and it's, it's reaching our retargeting audience and people that matter to us. Are are getting that, that message. I think it's that adage of don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You know, like you are arts organizations, you probably have some content.
Yes, we will tell you if you're working with us, or you can look up what the ideal specs are for all of these channels. And the ideal is certainly always the ideal. But if you don't have the perfect. Assets, use what you have, it's gonna be better than missing out on that channel altogether.
Dr. Brett Crawford: And I, there's no such thing as perfect.
You make it get close to it, right? But if you're always working for perfect, you're not gonna achieve the opportunities you need. I definitely agree with that. I also really appreciate that you pointed out voices.com where you're paying artists for quality work that they do, because you know, right now we're at this.
We're not even at the bleeding edge. We're at an interesting edge of ai. Mm-hmm. And how organizations are using it to maybe. Use it for their marketing, but I mean, where are you seeing, I will say more ethical uses of ai. You know, you could definitely bluntly have AI create a voice for you. It might not sound that great, but where are you seeing ethical uses of AI sort of changing the game for this type of work?
Bill Updegraff: Yeah, I mean, we in particular don't get too, too involved in the actual creative components, and I know that's where a lot of the discussion of. AI is, so we're more watching that carefully. I think where we are looking at AI and excited about it is in two places. Well, one, I think it's important to say that, you know, in some ways programmatic, while it's not AI in the way we now understand it, it was some type of machine learning.
And so that actually, you know, we've been. In this world, even if it was sort of in some ways a precursor to truly where we are now for a long time. And I think what's gonna happen is there's gonna be some aspects of programmatic that are gonna get more commoditized as AI develops. But then there's also gonna be become new, uh, targeting capabilities and just tools and tactics and just new things that aren't possible now.
And that will continue this trend of making it sort of. Ever more wonderful, but ever more complicated. While there are some parts now that seem like they're a little bit out of reach or a little bit complicated, that'll get a little bit more commoditized and maybe easier to do, it'll also kind of continue to grow.
I think the other thing, you know, because a lot of this is about. Analyzing data. I mean, there's so much of our time and the things that our clients are interested in. What happened? How do we look at the data? What's the data telling us? What should we do for the remainder of this campaign? What should we do for the next campaign?
How do we use these insights? And I. Other parts of our marketing, potentially how we change our product. There's a lot that we can get from this data. We talk about data often in terms of targeting, but then also we get back a lot of data when we put the advertising out into the world. And I think AI is already being really great at helping us sort of talk to our data.
And I think there's gonna be ever more sophisticated. Layers that are put on top of our data to basically help us navigate it and help us get more ideas from it and interpret the data.
Dr. Brett Crawford: Yeah, I appreciate that and I also appreciate you pointing out, I mean, as I say, when I'm in the classroom. AI's been around for decades.
You know, artificial intelligence is part of our algorithms on our phones and all the apps that we use. It's not that it, it exists in multiple layers and multiple, like, you know, there's seven different functions of ai. Large language models are capturing all the headlines. Mm-hmm. But the core of machine learning has a different business impact that I think is still underutilized.
Which is a lot of what you're talking about. Yeah. And AI gives you the generative AI on large language models will help you get access to the data in a way that doesn't maybe make it so necessary to understand how to write the right query to get the thing. Yeah.
Bill Updegraff: What I've heard from creative agencies we work with that is that where they're using it is not necessarily for the finished product, but where it is really helping is the ideating.
Dr. Brett Crawford: Yeah.
Bill Updegraff: That you can get through a lot of those quote unquote bad ideas, which you need. You need the bad ideas to get to the good ideas, and you can kind of cycle through them quickly. Instead of literally doing back of the napkin, you can get something that's 80% of the way there. From the second you have the idea, now work it through whatever your normal process is and maybe change it, maybe completely reject it, whatever your particular process is, but you can kind of do all that ideating much, much faster.
At least right now, at the end of the day, they're pretty much doing what they always did to create the actual final product. But it does help, and I think, I don't necessarily see this so much in. How professionals think about it. But I do think maybe the lay person, if I can call everyone outside of the industry, that is sometimes kind of confuses it in terms of thinking AI is doing the work and maybe some people using that way, but that's sort of the wrong way to do it.
It's, you know, you have to start with, you start with the humans in your group. You start with the humans. Then you might have AI help, you know, kind of build that out or kind of give you feedback. But even then you never, you don't stop it always. So it goes back to the human and then the human has to touch it first and last.
You know, I totally,
Dr. Brett Crawford: totally agree. I attended the nonprofit technology conference in Baltimore last week, and you know, over and over again I kept saying, ai, all technology, it's a tool. The humans are using the tool. Mm-hmm. Right? It's a tool that has. A lot of potential and a lot of power, but the human has to drive the tool.
It's not driving itself. And depending on what tool you're using, it is maybe as good as a nice team of interns to help like do certain things. Right. But I do think it's you. It is still a very handy tool. Yeah. And will continue to ideate as it continues to find its the companies continue to figure out how they can use it as well.
So I. Have one last question. Okay. Also, sort of what's coming in from my, that conference that I went to, the nonprofit technology conference, because most nonprofits aren't, they don't have a product that they're selling to an audience in the same way the arts do, right?
Bill Updegraff: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Brett Crawford: So a lot of the agencies that I interacted with were very much on the contributed income side.
My argument to most arts organizations is the top of the funnel for you to get to contributed income is your marketing product. Mm-hmm. So you have to invest in marketing before you invest in contributed income because somebody has to be transformed by what you they've experienced with you.
Bill Updegraff: Yeah.
Dr. Brett Crawford: And so my backing this into the work that you do as an agency, how do you recommend arts marketers who are trying to convince their executive directors or their managing directors, right, that they need to really think about engaging Grapeseeds?
Or going beyond doing it all in house?
Bill Updegraff: That's, that's a good question. I mean, I think part of this has nothing to do with what we're talking about in advertising. And you know, some of it has to do with just every, well, every person, but certainly every detective director is their own personality and person.
And some of this is just how do you talk with people. Uh, the first thing is, you know. You need to probably just get to understand your leader and understand how he or she thinks and what makes them tick and what their goals are. And you know, is there a big picture that you're not aware of? And everyone's gonna be a little bit different.
And so some of this is just get people. Management. Honestly, the best advice is really just to get to know your leader on a more human level and understand what they're thinking about at night and what's keeping them up at night and how they think about things. They do have the say at the end of the day, so you're gonna have to work with them and you have to understand their thinking and it's gonna be different for every leader.
So it's gonna be unique to your situation. Yeah, but I remember having conversation. Almost 20 years ago with my executive director. In some ways I think about this again, also in our lives, right? In our lives we have long-term goals and we have short-term goals, and hopefully at some point we get to work on our long-term goals.
But what happens a lot of times in our weeks is life comes up and we have the demands of the day and the demands of the day, and the immediacy of them is such that we need to meet them. This happens also in marketing and it happens all the time where, you know, yes, you wanna be focused on your brand and the future, but you have to sell this show or this, you know, whatever product or, or you know, get contributed income.
You need to do it now. It's always now, and it's real. It's real. So you can't ignore that. But, you know, I think, I remember this conversation I had almost 20 years ago was like, I was look. I see that we need to focus on the show. I get that we're gonna do everything we can, but there are real things we can do so that not even a year from now, maybe not even two years from now, but three years from now, we could potentially be in a place where we are audiences coming in no matter what the show is.
But that's real work that we have to do now and it won't be like flipping a switch. And we are having a conversation not that long ago, and they're still dealing with the same issues of they need to still sell this show and they haven't quite built up. They've made some progress, but they haven't quite gotten to a place where it's basically a show proof institution and most places are not like that.
I do think it's possible though, you know? So I don't know how to have the conversation, but if you can get there with them, like I think. It is valuable to put aside a percentage of what you are doing to long-term strategy and just make a real, it probably has to be a board level commitment to saying, Hey, we're gonna do this no matter what.
This is actually a board mandate that maybe X percent has to be put into branding and long term. Planning because you know, if you go back three years ago, we're talking right now on April 23rd, 2025. So three years ago it was April 23rd, 2022. This is it now it's today, it's three years. In the future, at some point, three years from now is today.
And someday your long-term thing becomes your immediate problem. And I know it doesn't necessarily feel good 'cause you still have to have the immediate one, but. At some point, it's gonna be feel really good if you in invest in that long-term plan. Now the key part is it needs to come with a plan. You know, it can't just be No, no, that's it.
Let's do, let's put aside budget and, and let's have long-term planning. And certainly advertising is not the only part of the plan. It might even actually be a fairly small part of the, plan. 'cause it really does need to have a, a, a kind of a full-fledged. Fully thought out, fully bought into plan, and then advertising can play a very key role in that.
But it doesn't really answer your question because the thing is, is these are hard conversations. I think they're important, but they're hard. If you're lucky enough to have a receptive executive director and he or she is lucky enough to have a receptive board to make that kind of commitment, I think it will pay off.
But. It won't be easy.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I appreciate your holistic approach to your answer because I believe that the arts are critical to society and critical to our lives, and the immediacy of the crisis of now, often as institutions. We forget that we actually have a greater good that we're not even telling the public that we do for them.
Mm-hmm. And I think that story has to be told, our brand story essentially has to be told much more often. Mm-hmm. And we forget about it because it's not part of our strategic plan, and then we don't have it as part of our strategy. Therefore, it just becomes the crisis or the immediacy of the net.
Bill Updegraff: Yeah. And it does feel like a crisis. Yeah. You know, what's your value prop? I mean, we have to go through that ex, I know Grapeseed had to go through that exercise, and I talked about it a little bit. Today is okay. We came through our value prop is as navigators, as guides, and we, you know, I've already explained how we are a value prop.
Most companies, most for-profit companies, I. At some point I have to go through some kind of, you know, value proposition, you know, workshop and, and come to a clear understanding or value proposition. Cultural organizations usually have like a vision statement or something like that, and that is very important and that's good to declare what your vision is, but what is your value proposition to the kind of greater world, a greater community.
And I think that has to become much clearer, and that will. Be the thing that if you do develop a long-term kind of branding plan that will really drive things.
Dr. Brett Crawford: I think it's true, and I do think every arts organization needs to do it in theater management class. They have to pitch ideas, not necessarily for new theaters, but for businesses that are serving the ecosystem in some way, in solving a need, and proving their value. And it's interesting to see how that helps them see, oh wait, I have to think about what my value is to that random human that. Just got that ad. Yeah. I really appreciate your time and I know that your time is valuable and I hope that we can touch base and next time we're on the same side of the pond.
Bill Updegraff: Yes. This is great, Brett, this, this is wonderful.
Dr. Brett Crawford: Next time I'm in London we'll have to do it and at a pub.
Bill Updegraff: Okay. Drinks on me.
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