Transcript
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I got my very first brief.
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I made a deal with the project managers.
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If I dressed up like Justin Timberlake and sang a song to
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him for birthday party, then I could get a writing job.
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Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the
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creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with
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practical insights that you can use in growing your own business.
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Today, I'm talking to Nick Adams, a copywriter at GSD&M,
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and his claim to fame is a hilarious viral song he wrote for
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Pizza Hut, which was sung by the one and only Craig Robinson.
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It rose to fame when a girl on TikTok posted about
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the on hold music she couldn't stop listening to.
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TikTok video from @noraeinhellll: When you put me on hold, I
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heard genuinely one of the best songs I've ever heard ever.
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It was like some guy singing about wings.
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Would it be really weird if I asked you guys to put me on hold?
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Chicken wings.
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Chicken wings.
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They're the best thing
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that's not pizza.
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That's right.
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Pizza Hut has chicken wings.
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Chicken wings.
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Stay on hold or order online now at pizzahut.com.
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And as a producer of some pretty silly parody music
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myself, I was really excited for this conversation.
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So, without further ado, here's my interview with Nick Adams.
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Alright, so today I'm joined by Nick Adams.
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Nick, welcome to the podcast.
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How's it going?
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Going good, man.
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Going good.
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How are you?
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Doing well.
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Thanks for having me.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Happy to have you here, and today we've got a bit of a different show.
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Most of the time we do We Built This Brand, we're talking to, or at least
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recently, it feels like we've been talking to, like, Chief Marketing
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Officers and people that are higher up the food chain, doing a lot
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of the creative production, the actual building of the businesses.
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And This is We Built This Brand.
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It is a collective we, and the reason we created that is because
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I do want to interview people that are working on the ins-and-outs
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of creative branding, marketing, and content for brands.
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And so, you know, this is a chance to do one of those deep dives,
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and today we've got Nick Adams, who's a copywriter with us, and
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we're going to be diving into something that makes him really unique.
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A song that went viral about chicken wings.
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I can't wait to get into it, and yeah.
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And we'll talk more as we go about that.
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So Nick, where I like to start these podcasts off is
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really just talking about where you got your start and
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kind of what led you to the formation of "Chicken Wings."
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So let's start back at the beginning.
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Obviously, you did a parody song.
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So what, do you have a musical background?
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Like where did that start for you?
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Yeah, I mean, I taught myself piano when I was like 20 years old
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in college, and I just always kind of played around on there.
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Yeah, I love to sing, and I used to play in bands and stuff like that.
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So it's always just kind of been a part of what I do.
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Nice.
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So, did you, when you were in college, what was your major?
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Were you a writing major, an English major?
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I studied advertising in college.
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Yeah, back at University of North Texas in 2013.
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It looked like I read an article that was sent to me recently
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about you, and it mentioned that you started in a mail room.
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So tell me, tell me more about that experience.
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Yeah.
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So I, after I got out of college, I went to a lot of places, and I
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would cold call these creative directors and have them look at my book.
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They all wanted me to go to portfolio
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school, and I just did not want to do that.
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So, eventually I met a dude and he got me a job in the mail room at GSD&M.
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And I worked there for three years and kind
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of worked my way up and became a writer.
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That's awesome.
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So you became a writer at GSD&M and that sounded like a very challenging
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process of like, you know, having to stick it out in the mailroom and stuff.
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The visual that comes to mind, I don't know if you've ever
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seen, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but that whole mailroom
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sequence from that, the famous Pepe Silva is what comes to mind.
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So was it anything like that?
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Yeah, I think it's exactly like that.
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Yeah.
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Nice.
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And then you got your opportunity.
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So a lot of persistence, a lot of focus on
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getting to where you wanted to go basically.
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Right.
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I got my very first brief.
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I made a deal with his project managers.
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If I dressed up like Justin Timberlake and sang a song to
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him for birthday party, then I could get a writing job.
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So I did that.
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I didn't sell it, but it was an opportunity to get in
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front of clients, and I think it helped me for sure.
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Yeah.
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I mean, dressing up as, I mean, that, that takes a lot of gumption to not
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only like be in the mailroom, but then say, "Okay, I'm going to dress up.
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I'm going to do something a little silly here and put myself out there."
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Yeah, I felt like a jackass walking in with a
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keyboard on my shoulder, but it paid off, I guess.
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Yeah, sometimes you got to do that.
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You got to be willing to be a little silly to get
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some interest or, you know, get your foot in the door.
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So that's, I think that says a lot about
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you that you were willing to do that too.
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I guess you have a, I mean, doing that, you
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probably have somewhat of a performance background.
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You said you were playing in bands and stuff like that.
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Are you, was that something that kind of factored into that?
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Like, "Oh yeah, I could do that."
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I think so.
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I, after college, I went to Chicago and did a lot of
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improv at like Second City and all those places up there.
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So yeah, I have a performance background.
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Uh, I don't think that performance is my strong suit.
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I love to be like a writer hiding in the
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booth up top, but I can perform sometimes.
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So you start, you start this career, you
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start this job, you're out of the mailroom.
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How did you get to the point where you were
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writing on hold music, I think is what it was.
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I don't think it's a hard leap to get to on hold music from the mail room.
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I think that's the job that nobody wants to do.
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So it's just like, let's give it to this kid.
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And so, yeah, they're just, they're giving me radio spots.
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And my boss at the time would always tell me from the first
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job, he's like, "I want to win a radio Mercury award."
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And so we would always just try to write things to that standard, and I
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don't think we ever did it, but eventually that piece got to be in there.
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And so this, this is where Pizza Hut comes in, right?
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So tell me about that process.
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What got you to the point where you were like, "I'm just
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going to, I'm just going to belt it and do this crazy song."
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Our spokesperson was Craig Robinson at the time, and we had him for
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like three hours and we were going to record eight spots with him.
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And I knew, I was a huge Craig Robinson fan,
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so I knew that he could sing and play piano.
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And I thought, let me just write a song for him, I would love to do this.
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And so I did, and I recorded a demo for him, and we gave
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him the demo, and he played it pretty much exactly like it.
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I sang it better, but he made a better piano part for it.
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Yeah, he loved the song, he did it, and that's it.
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So people got into it.
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They got into the, and then, then it was discovered, right?
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I'm sure it wasn't, um, was it an immediate
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success or was it just like, "Ah, cool.
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He, he did it.
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He recorded it."
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Yeah, he did it, and he recorded it.
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It was since 2021.
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So it was just like a fun thing for me, like being a Craig fan.
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I was like, I love this.
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It was on my website, but we didn't think anything of it, and then 2024,
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I was on paternity leave, and my aunt sends me a news article that she
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got from Denver and saying about Pizza Hut, hold music going viral.
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And she's like, "Did you do this?"
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And I read it, and I was like, hell yeah, I did that.
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That's a really cool moment.
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I'm sure a lot of validation in that it's like, "Oh yeah.
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Okay."
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Now, not that you weren't doing anything important before, but like,
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"Okay, now I've got something that's really stuck with the culture."
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I'm assuming this was your first real big breakthrough.
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Would that be fair to say?
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Yeah, I would say so for sure.
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Yeah, well, we've done fun things in the past, but
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nothing that made a splash like this, for sure.
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So when it comes to creating songs like this,
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so was it just in an hour that you created it?
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Like, walk me through the creative process for these types of projects.
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Like, what's your approach to creating music like this?
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Creating a song about chicken wings?
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I think I was working from home at the time, and I think just
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one night, I sat down on my piano, there was probably some
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drugs involved, but I just started singing about chicken wings.
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Totally legal drugs, of course.
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Right.
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Legal ones in Texas for sure.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So then you just, you got it and then send it off to Craig.
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I've been, I've been a fan of Craig Robinson's as well since I was like,
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golly, I guess since, since The Office is when I really first noticed him.
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I was like, this guy's cool.
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[laughs] Brought in a unique vibe to the show, but that's
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neat that you got to work with him, and I remember that those
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campaigns with Pizza Hut, because he, yeah, it was just different.
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It was unique.
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So were you on the bigger project as well, helping out with that?
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Or was it just really the on hold music that you were a part of.
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No, I did a couple of TV spots.
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My first job out of the mailroom was, uh, I won the stuff crust TV spot.
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So it was like, I got out of the mailroom.
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I made a stuff crust TV commercial.
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That was like a dream come true.
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And then it was COVID still, so we were doing remote
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shoots, but I got to just like write all jokes for Craig.
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And I thought that was like the peak of my career, just
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like writing things for him to say, and I love that.
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So the song became successful.
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What happened after that?
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Cause you won some big awards for this.
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Yeah, we got a, uh, a Radio Mercury award.
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Um, the first ever from GSD&M, which is pretty cool.
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And then it got a Cannes shortlist, which they say is very cool.
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Did you get to go to Cannes for that?
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No, of course I did not go to Cannes, but
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everyone else did and they had a great time.
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Cool.
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So you won Cannes.
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Was there another one in there or was that?
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Uh, just the Radio, Radio Mercury was the other one.
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That's, that's really cool.
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So, what has been the end result of this campaign?
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Like what have you seen as like, obviously there's a virality to it.
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Has there been any other, outside of the awards, has there
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been anything else that you've seen as a result of this?
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Like how has it impacted your career?
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I mean, I got to go to New York and go to an award show.
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That was pretty cool.
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The agency says my name a lot more now, and that's a different, I think.
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Yeah, nothing's really changed too much yet.
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I'm still working on the same things, but hopefully it will soon.
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So I guess from a work perspective, like where, what are you
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working, like what kinds of things are you working on now?
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I don't want to pry too deep because I know
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some of that's probably confidential, but.
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like what are the kinds of things you're working on?
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I've been doing a campaign for a grocery store right now, which is pretty fun.
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We've done some new business pitches, and I have another
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song that kind of helped us win a new business pitch.
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So there's more music, a little heartfelt moments in the grocery things.
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Lots of, lots of fun stuff.
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Is it safe to say that like songwriting then is your specialty?
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Is that kind of become your thing since you got started in this or?
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Uh, no, and I don't want songwriting to, I don't want to be the songwriter.
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I want to be, I would say like I'm a "comedy first" writer.
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I just want to do funny stuff, and if I have
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to write a song to be funny, then I'll do that.
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But I really just, I want to get the call when we need something funny.
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Like, "and then Nick comes in."
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You said you worked at Second City or not worked at, but
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I guess you were involved with Second City at some point.
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Yeah.
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I like to say, "I studied there."
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Studied there.
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There we go.
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What is that?
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Like, I think that's like, you can pay for classes and do things like that.
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And some people go on to SNL and I know we actually have
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a client whose wife studied at Second City for a while.
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So, that's been a pretty neat experience to have feedback/input on that stuff.
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So, comedy is more your thing.
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What kind of comedy would you say really inspires you
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when you're thinking about comedic content for campaigns?
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When I work for campaigns, I always picture brands as a character.
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So like, when you write for Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut is a character.
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It's this person that loves pizza.
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When I first got kicked off on the brand, it was a 13-year-old
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stuck in a 30-year-old's body, and so I always just look
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at everything through that lens, and just things that I
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think would be funny coming out of a brand's mouth, I guess.
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And is it when you're in these processes, is it
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a lot of like back and forth with the client?
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Do they come to you and just say, "Here you go.
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Create it and good luck," or what is that process like?
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I mean, there's a lot of back and forth with the client, but
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as far as radio goes, they were pretty hands off with that.
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It was kind of like a Wild West.
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They just one person is checking off on things,
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but they're really not paying too much attention.
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It seems like
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That can be fun when you get to have that creative vacuum
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where you're just like, "I've got to experiment and do
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what I want," and if they think it's crazy, then good luck.
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[laughs] it's what they pay me for.
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[laughs] Exactly.
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We had a project a while back where we did a "Real Man of Genius"
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parody, and that was one of those where it was kind of like, "Just do it.
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I don't care what you do.
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Just bring us something."
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And that one worked out really well, but that's been, that's really neat.
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So like, so what, what are some other
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things you're passionate about in branding?
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You said you don't want to do music as like the thing you're known for, so.
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And comedy is the thing you want to do, so is there something specific
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within copywriting where you're like, "Man, if I could go this direction.
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This is my dream within copywriting."
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No.
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I think just having a brave client is down for whatever, and if you come up
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with a crazy idea that they'll do, then that's, that's what I want to do.
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What is top of mind for you?
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Like where things are headed?
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Like do you see AI being more a part of your creative process, or is there
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something else in tech or something else in just in terms of trends that
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you're seeing, like TikTok versus Instagram or any, anything like that.
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That's what's top of mind in those regards.
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Well, I'm not too worried about AI right now because I think on
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that new business pitch that I was talking about where we wrote
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the song, we had some people run the song through AI first, and
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it spit out a version, and it was horrible, and I had to come in.
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It took me longer, but I wrote a better song than that computer did.
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So, I'm really not worried about AI taking my job yet
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because I don't think they have nuances of things that we do.
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So I'm not worried about that.
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I think TikTok is a really cool thing because I mean, that's
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where the chicken wing song got popular was on TikTok.
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So the fact that this girl recorded it and put it on there and people liked
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it there, it gave new life to this whole message that was really cool.
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So do you create, do you have any creative
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stuff you do outside of say your day job?
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Is there anything that you're- you mentioned being in bands and stuff like that.
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Are you doing improv?
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Are you doing music?
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Like anything like that that you're pursuing?
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I play a lot of music at home.
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I always say that I like to make my work fun
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enough that I don't have to work outside of work.
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So do something I like and fulfills me and
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then go home and I don't have to do that.
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I have a six month old daughter right now, so I feel like
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that's my hobby outside of work is trying to raise that girl.
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Congratulations as a father of two, [laughs] as the father of two, I feel you.
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You're in the calm before the storm.
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I will just say that.
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She's very wiggly right now, and she's
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starting to move out of our laps and stuff.
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So it's getting hard already.
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Yeah.
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It's a lot of fun.
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It's a lot of fun being a parent.
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And that's really a great place to be to, to be able to do what you enjoy.
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Stick with that and then being able to come home and focus on family.
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I mean, that's really key.
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So.
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Yeah.
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One day I would love to be a TV writer, but until then,
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if I can just make fun stuff here and I'll do that.
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Yeah.
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I've definitely seen that trajectory before people go
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from being copywriters to gotten an idea for a TV show
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and you pitch it, and next thing you know, it takes off.
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So, um, well, last question we always ask on the show is,
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you know, what brand do you admire the most right now?
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So, We'd just love to know from you, Nick, like,
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is there a brand that you're like, "Man, this is...
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when I think about branding and marketing,
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this is the one I really look to right now."
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I think Tubi's really cool.
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I still think about their Super Bowl thing a couple years ago.
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Like, that made me laugh out loud.
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And it scared the shit out of me too, because I
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was in bed, and by myself, and the channel changed.
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I thought somebody was in the house.
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I've always loved Little Caesars branding.
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I think that they're so funny, and they don't have to talk about Pizza.
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They don't have to make jokes about pizza or RTBs.
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It's just like really funny stuff and always memorable.
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Yeah.
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Just things like that.
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I love Skittles too.
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Skittles never gets old.
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Yeah.
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Skittles always does the weirdest, most esoteric commercials.
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I feel like.
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Dave's Hot Chicken.
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Have you seen Dave's Hot Chicken stuff?
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I don't think I have.
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No.
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That's one of my favorite things right now.
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I'm going to have to check it out.
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Is that like a chain restaurant or?
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Yeah.
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Chain restaurant, but their whole thing is don't die
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before you try it, and it's just very dark and I love it.
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Yeah.
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00:16:05,380 --> 00:16:08,530
We've, we've had a lot of responses from folks that say Liquid
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Death is their favorite, so it sounds like it's along those lines.
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Yeah.
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I think it's from the same people that do a lot of Liquid Death stuff as well.
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Um, Party Land?
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I always enjoy the more absurd, weird
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commercials, so I'll have to check that out.
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00:16:25,180 --> 00:16:28,960
Dave's Hot Chicken, it's not local to me, so I'm curious.
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00:16:29,150 --> 00:16:30,510
I'm curious about it now, so.
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Awesome.
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00:16:31,750 --> 00:16:33,410
Alright, well Nick, thank you.
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Thank you for your time.
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If people want to get connected with you,
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where can they, where can they reach out?
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Where can they find you?
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Find me at bignickcreative.com.
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Okay.
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Awesome.
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We'll let people know to go to bignickcreative.com and go from there.
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So, awesome.
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Well, Nick, thank you for being on the show today.
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Yeah.
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Thank you so much, Chris.
