In this episode of The Paid Media Playbook, Laura and Lisa sit down with Travis Baker, a long-time partner and multi-talented creative force. Travis shares insights from his career as an Associate Creative Director and Senior Motion Designer, discussing the evolution of design in marketing, the importance of nimbleness in creative work, and the surprising similarities between quick projects and large campaigns. From his beginnings in web development to judging prestigious marketing awards, Travis offers valuable advice and entertaining stories from his extensive experience. Join us for a fascinating conversation that highlights the intersection of creativity and strategy in the ever-changing world of marketing.

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Chapters:

00:00 - 05:20 - From Web Development to Motion Graphics

• Travis discusses his career journey, his education in animation, and his experience at Wizards of the Coast working on major brands.

05:21 - 10:40 - Creative Challenges and Client Expectations

• Exploring the similarities between small and large projects, the importance of responsiveness, and the evolving demands of modern marketing, including the shift to multi-platform design.

10:41 - 16:00 - Industry Insights and Advice for Aspiring Creatives

• Travis shares his experiences navigating the complexities of working in creative roles, and his advice for aspiring creatives about focusing on collaboration and not sweating the small stuff.

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Links and Resources:

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• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us oniTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

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Transcription:

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So we are here today with Travis Baker. Travis is a long time partner of us at double Z and he has helped us out on quite a few occasions. He had been, at a larger agency as an art director and kind of helping us out on at night , you know, Hey, I need a really quick landing page up or, you know, this client doesn't know anything and he needs help with his website. Travis is one of those guys that just able to come in and  help in many different ways. And I think it's because probably your skillset of being an art director and just seeing different sides of, of the creative side of advertising, where you understand web development, but then you also understand brand and design.

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Correct. Actually, I've never held the title of art director. I've been at my last position. I was associate creative director and senior motion designer. So I've really been in the motion side of things for a lot of years for various agencies as well as my own business, Travis Baker design.

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Cool.  

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Can you tell us a little bit about your career?  How did you get your start in marketing? 

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I just always enjoyed good design and art. And I had a friend who took over a business back way back when I don't want to date myself, but back in 1998 he took over a web development business and he acquired over a hundred clients that he had the service and make marketing collateral for, websites.

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So way back then he approached me and said, Hey, you know, you're really great at design. And you're good at. Art, would you like to handle and start this business with me? So we  shared an office in the terminal sales building in downtown Seattle, right next to sub pop records. And we we took care of our clientele.

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And in the meantime, I had started going to the art institute in Seattle, I was really into video games and I wanted to perhaps have a career in computer animation. So I took their program and started learning animation. Which as you know, now it kind of segued into the motion graphics arena.

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Yeah, you worked at wizards of the coast, didn't you? 

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I did, I worked as a motion designer at wizards of the coast for about seven years and working on brands such as dungeons and dragons, which is of course, a worldwide brand been around since the seventies as well as magic, the gathering. And you know, I got the opportunity then to work on lot of large brands, star Wars Trading card game.

We actually did a homepage takeover that lived on  starwars. com and it actually, Yoda came out and had a fight on the screen and demolished starwars. com. So that was just a really great experience  working with the illustrators from Dark Horse Comics, which actually had, Done the Star Wars comic books.

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So they provided us with artwork of Yoda and one of the sth and they destroyed Star wars.com. So that was a really fun experience for sure.

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Yeah.

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that's a good story too. That's fun. Super fun. So is my understanding that you, I saw this on LinkedIn, but that you are a judge for the FEs. Tell me about. What the FBs are. And did I say that right?  

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Yeah. It's at the awards and they are actually  probably the highest, you know, at echelon of marketing,  the world, I think. But anyway, they had approached me about judging the national competition, which included a lot of big brands. I'm not sure if I need to say them or if I'm even allowed to, but just some, some everyday brands that you see perhaps in your supermarket or, you know.

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Really big brands. And mostly what that entailed was reading case studies and just really delving into the analytical side of how they approached different problems that that brand may have experienced in order to expand their market reach, or perhaps capture back some of that market share that they had lost in previous years.

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So that was just a really great opportunity to. Really, you know,  gain key and key insights into the, you know, these marketing geniuses. So I would felt really honored to do that.

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What was The most surprising thing about that process. 

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The most surprising thing about that process. To be honest with you, I, the most surprising thing was that they had approached me. I felt really,  I felt really hot. I felt really humbled by that. I'm like, wow, this is a national, you know worldwide organization. And so I just felt really humbled by that.

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So that was really,  but you know, I mean, I'm learning that perhaps I have a lot to offer the industry. So 

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You definitely do. 

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thank you.

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We've had the opportunity to work with you.

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on projects of vastly different scopes, and I think it's probably obvious to most people how those projects are different, but in your opinion, what is surprisingly similar? About, you know, the, the one off quick and dirty website page versus the huge branding campaign or anything in between. 

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I would say the thing that's similar between all these is the client wanted it done yesterday. And I know that sounds funny, but just working with every brand I've ever been with, you know, they, they They want to work quickly, and I think it's important for any agency to be able to pivot and really service their clients, you know, and get that get that treatment to where they don't feel like they're being put on the back burner.

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So, and I think that's what I offer a lot of my clientele that they appreciate is the fact that I respond quickly. I get the work done, and I'm always, you know, open to, work on projects that I may not have worked on in the past, but I will find a solution. So I think that's mostly what my clients have experienced and what has made me successful throughout my career. 

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I think that I have to agree with you because that's why we work with you is that you are, you get it , I mean, I would say   this podcast is really designed for marketing directors and I would say dealing with, , creatives. Types, , you always have to kind of. 

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Go between, ,  a bureaucracy sometimes. And so to be able to call you and because , our number 1 thing is that we're nimble and that we're agnostic and we're not going to try to sell you this 1 big long thing. You know, we're just going to focus on getting these jobs, this job done in this, campaign done and  the nimbleness that you have and the fact that you understand it and don't give us attitude is like, it's just wonderful. 

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Thank you. Thank you for that. I do think that a lot of,  a lot of brands and a lot of businesses have had a real bad experience, particularly in the web development side of things, because, you know, mostly in the past, because, We progressed to a point where obviously web development has grown in leaps and bounds.

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But and it's always changing, you know, every day. That's the only constant is that it changes. And it's it's pretty hard to keep up on all the new technologies involved. But that being said, I think that. You know, just even as close to five years or a decade ago there, you know, everybody knew web design, you know,  so and so, you know, well, my aunt's kid knows web design, you know, and we, and so a lot of these, these smaller, you know maybe they took a class in high school or maybe they're trying to start a web design business or they're like, wow, I can do this, you know, and they just, a lot of times they got in a situation perhaps that they couldn't handle or they.

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You were, they weren't there to service their clients and, and, you know, and so I've taken over a lot, a lot of business like that, where they said, wow, this person, they just ghosted me and I didn't hear from them for weeks. And can you, you know, and so I'm like, sure I can come in there and, you know. Figure out what's going on and help you.

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So,

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I think that's a really interesting contrast between what we do on the paid media side, where I feel like a lot of my job is explaining my job to people whereas it sounds like you have to deal with a lot of preconceived notions And people who think they already know about what you're doing.  

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right. And I, you know, and the funny thing is too, you know, I experienced all sides. I've experienced paid clients that come in and they, they know what it takes and they know that, you know, there's a high dollar associated with certain things, but then there's the other side where like, well, you just sit at a desk.

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Right. And like, what, you know, can't you just,  here's a hundred dollars. Can you, can you, you know, or, or whatever it is, you know, like, 

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It's only, a 15 second fully animated ad. 

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this'll, this'll only take you, you know, an hour, right? Like, no, there, you know, there's more to it than that. So,  so yeah, I've, I've kind of worked with all sides of things.

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As far as marketing goes, you know, I've worked with the worldwide clients, but also the mom and pop businesses, and that's really what my business has been focused on. And of course. No, I do work with agencies, but I also, , like to service the smaller guy as well and help build brands from the ground up,

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There's so many opportunities for growth there when you're working with someone who's maybe stepping their toe into real marketing for the first 

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 They have a good business, but they don't necessarily have the, that, like you said, they're ready to take the next step, right? 

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Right. I think there's only so far you can go with branding. You know, it's two sides of the same coin, the paid marketing and the branding. You know, obviously without paid media, you can only go so far, but also without good branding, the paid media is not going to go anywhere. 

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Mm. Mm 

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I have clients that, you know, they may have been pulling in a hundred thousand dollars monthly or something, but , I come in and just establish a brand for them.

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And, , now they're pulling in a million dollars a month, which is great. But at the same time, like I said, there's only so far, you know, you can reach with word of mouth. So that's why partnering up with your team. I just feel really blessed to have people on my side that really understand that the analytical side of marketing, because, , there's only so much you can focus on at a time.

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So. So me being the front end designer, , I, like you said, I understand, you know, the, the branding side and, you know, web development and motion graph, motion graphics, video production, all, all those facets. But I just don't have time or the bandwidth to handle the other side, which obviously is a full time job.

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And, and your team is great, great, great at that. So,

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There are so many moving pieces for all of these different elements of a campaign. You know, one person or even one team trying to manage all of them would get very out of hand very quickly.  

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right, right.

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Yeah, 

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I, I don't envy that account manager because  they would have to do a lot of heavy lifting and, and have a lot of knowledge in every single,  you know, yeah, that would be hard. Yeah. 

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just recently, in fact, one of my larger clients, we had discussed doing some radio ads for them, and I think that's, you know, just great that  you understand the different facets involved in, in all the paid media and obviously radio ads isn't for everybody, but just the ability to, , Service, , all facets.

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It's just really, really great from my perspective.

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Yeah, I think that that's just from a ton of experience and doing it for so long that, you know, both traditional and digital that it's, and just making sure that you're constantly on top of, you know, the new thing. But like I said, we're not focused on the, on the, on the You know, the creative side, you know, we're focused on it from a, is this going to work in this platform or this, you know, is this billboard, how much stuff are you going to try to stuff on that, on that big billboard up there?

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, that kind of thing is about all I have is I know it doesn't work, 

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Right. 

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but as far as like, Do you see a change from back in the day when you did design things for campaigns versus now where it's like everything is so fragmented, you've got to have a, like a super dynamic SEO website and you have to have bajillion different kinds of banner ads to retarget people and then you have to have different size videos, one or two.

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Big long one for the website, then little ones for ads. And then, oh, well, we want to do a billboard and then we want to do digital out of home, which requires all these screens sizes. And so you have to resize a video. It's like, that wasn't like that back then. And that, that seems like, that just seems like a big change in the market that I don't know how you guys are, you can handle it, but. 

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Right. Particularly, I mean, you think about all the different screens that people are consuming media on nowadays 

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Mm hmm. 

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when designing a website, you're essentially designing, you know, three or four different websites because you have to, you know, Take into account all the different screen sizes and so it's definitely a different paradigm than it used to be but also another thing that that Kind of correlates with that is just doing vertical ads.

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Obviously. That's just such a Different, , design perspective than traditional video, 

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Mm hmm. 

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You know, like we consume video and horizontal. And there's a reason for that. You know, the way you see vision, you have two eyes, you're seeing, you know, different. You've seen this perspective and kind of a horizontal format.

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So just. You know, switch and flip that on its head and you know, consume video vertically nowadays. That's just, it's just a different thought process I think involved. And, and in fact, when going out on a shoot, you just have to be so aware of like these different, like, wow, am I shooting vertically? Am I shooting horizontally?

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Or do I need to shoot for both? And that's typically the answer that the client has as well. We're shooting for both. And I'm like, wow, that's twice as much work. So now I have to get the shot and nail it in both horizontal and vertical. And vertical or be able to crop down, which isn't necessarily always the best 

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No, no 

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where the importance of having good camera equipment comes in. Cause when you're shooting in the AK, you really can shoot, you know, a little bit wider or actually a lot wider and be able to zoom in those different formats. 

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that makes sense. See, these are things. Yeah. Now I know, now I know, 

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right. Although I don't, I don't typically shoot an AK. I typically shoot in 4k, but, but, but you're still able to go in twice as far without any, Loss of resolution. So you can really crop in 

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That makes sense. 

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just because typically the deliverable despite having the 4K, the  deliverables typically just HD. 

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Mm hmm. 

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Oh, we had that issue recently with a client. Their video ads were too high def for television. We had to reduce the resolution or the 

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Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. 

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It's not something I've run into before. 

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I'll bet those file sizes were huge. 

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Oh 

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Yeah. 

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 Then that really is an issue nowadays is like, people are like, wow, you know, this new camera's coming out, it's 10 K and I'm like, wow, well, you have to have the humongous memory cards, which costs 200 each, and you have to have the huge hard drive and then you have to, you can't just, you know, upload it.

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 It's just not very logistically, , optimized for like consumption. It it's great on, it's great on paper, but in realistic real world settings,  it's not smart choice, 

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Not super practical. 

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Well, Travis, before we let you go, I do have one last question. If you could go back in time and give yourself, at the beginning of your career, one piece of advice, what would it be? 

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Oh, that's a great question. I  think the one piece of advice I would give myself is don't sweat the small stuff because sometimes I think people are too hard on themselves and I  really been too hard on myself over the years. Like, this is all a learning journey and we're all in this together.

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So we. Try to do the best you can and try to collaborate with great people. And I think the rewards will come if you work hard and keep your, keep your chin up. 

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Absolutely. While you're back in time, could you tell my past self that too?  

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Yes, of course. I will, I will use my new  super fast MacBook pro to do that.

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Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us. 

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Thank you, Travis. 

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I appreciate you. And I look forward  to working further with your team.

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