He didn't invent Jared, but he did make him talk

If you didn’t make it to the last A2N2 Power Lunch in October, you missed a great presentation from Ryan Berman of Fishtank Brand Advertising out of San Diego CA. Ryan has worked in advertising for years and was on the team that brought the Subway commercials with Jared to the national stage years ago. 

Ryan said that when he got a hold of the Jared campaign for Subway it was doing well, but not as well as it eventually would do. The one difference was that up till then there was a voice over with just video of Jared. It was Ryan’s idea to have him speak, in his own voice in the calm, unassuming, non salesy, personal way that made us rush out for footlong pastrami subs by the dozen.

 Ryan had a lot of good things to say about relating branding to an ad campaign and creating unity between what you think a brand means and what the customers think it means and how that eventually leads to success. i.e. people buying a ton of your product. Ryan likes to deal with people and conversations and strip things down to the core of truth, ideas and personality and build it back up simply and clearly.

It was great to see some of their early work with the comeback of Pony shoes, a once popular and nearly forgotten brand from the 80’s. I think I had a pair of baseball cleats in little league. Ahhhh, the glory days…

 Anyway, thanks for coming to Reno Ryan! Great talk, and great to have the opportunity to hang with you and the A2N2 crew @ Imperial!

 Stay tuned for info on the next Power Lunch in November with Erik Lohmeier who’s bringing us some fresh roasted green chili from Albuquerque!

 -Mike