Turning Brands into Fandoms with Maggie Walsh

Maggie Walsh: One of the most closely intertwined parts of nightlife is the fact that queer people are part of it, make it, do it. In some cases started their movements out of a bar.

Chris Hill: Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with practical insights that you can use to grow your business.

Today, we're talking with Maggie Walsh, the head of strategy at GLOW, a creative agency focused on helping brands transform their customers into fandoms. Maggie is a self-described fan, and her work as head of strategy at GLOW spans projects with brands like Peacock and their Olympic social content to projects with Jägermeister and their recent pride initiatives.

Our chat covered everything from the projects I just mentioned to the science behind what makes fans and communities tick. And we even touched on politics just a little bit. Now, if you're looking for ways to authentically engage with your community, there's a lot of really good nuggets, a lot of really good information in this interview.

And I can't express enough how much I really, really enjoyed having Maggie on. This is a fun conversation. I hope you get as much out of it as I did. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Maggie Walsh, head of strategy at GLOW.

Maggie, welcome to We Build This Brand.

Maggie Walsh: Hi, thanks for having me.

Chris Hill: Yeah, it's great to have you with us today. Really excited today to learn more about you, learn more about where you work at now as the Head of Strategy at GLOW. And we'd just love to dive in by getting to know a little bit about your background and what brought you to GLOW.

So, I'll let you take it away.

Maggie Walsh: Awesome, thank you. Uh, so I joined GLOW about a year and a half ago, and I think for me, it was definitely an evolution of all the things that I've loved over my career now packaged in one awesome place. So just a little bit about GLOW. And then I think it will make sense if you hear a little bit about me, which is.

You know, GLOW is a creative shop, independent, based out of New York, but we have people all over and we work mostly in a lot of social and a lot of entertainment spaces, but our real focus is, is fandom and really helping brands either uncover or unleash their fandoms in new ways. For me, you know, why that was so perfect.

I started my career in music. I've always been kind of a fangirl at heart. I've always been the person that's not necessarily the creative expressionist where I'm going to make the album or I'm going to make the music, but I really love helping people bring that to, you know, the masses or fans in a new way.

So I started in music. Worked in music for a while, you know, in digital and social, and then kind of started to want to learn a little bit more about the craft of marketing and just sort of how to be more effective. And so I shifted agency side from there. I went to 360i. 360i was an amazing agency that really taught me not only how to channel social media expertise, but really gave me a background in account planning, traditional strategy, really awesome stuff.

And I got a chance, you know, I worked there for a really long time. I got a chance to work on Entertainment brands. Brands that wanted to be really big on social. One of the first brands that I worked on there and ended up working close to a decade on was Oreo. Oreo was really, you know, we like literally I think the first thing that I did on that project was working on, uh, the Super Bowl Dunk in the Dark, but then got to work with them and an amazing team throughout my, my career.

And then from there, I went to A&E Network. I worked in television for a bit. I wanted to kind of, kind of go back into entertainment. Uh, I worked on the Critics Choice Awards with them. Uh, and then from there I went to Anomaly where again, I was working more on brands. Really, again, things that were focused on sort of bringing, uh, brands to culture.

And then eventually made my, my way to GLOW. And I said, I give that little background because I always like to tell people is if you look at it, you can tell that maybe I can't decide what I want to be. Do I want to work in entertainment? Do I want to work in social? Do I want to work in agencies? And finally I kind of found a place that was like, Why not everything?

Uh, and it's been, it's been perfect.

Chris Hill: Yeah. And, and to that point,

so tell us a little bit more about what GLOW does. Why all that amalgamation of experience really helps you in your current role.

Maggie Walsh: Sure. So, um, like I said, we're really focused on this idea of fandom, but what that really translates to is clients usually come to us when they want to figure out social, when they want to build a fan community, or they want to become relevant in culture. I would say a good portion of the brands that we work on are in the film entertainment space. So streamers, you know, I just came off working with Peacock, working with them on the Olympics and trying to figure out how to take what you were seeing on the platform and on television and bring it to a social audience.

Uh, so there, and we also work on, like I said, like a lot of plenty of TV shows. I mean, you know, I'm working on, I don't know how many TV shows right now, but helping them figure out how we're going to launch for a new season or for premiere. That's, that I would say is a huge core of what we do, but then we also work on brands and we work on other sort of projects that are also looking for similar things.

So I also work on, for example, Jägermeister. We're a social AOR, uh, for Jägermeister globally. And so they might not be an entertainment brand, but they also, they're I've always been very impressed with them as a brand because they really understand and have sort of oriented their brand to be very social first, very culture first.

Social is never an afterthought to what they do. It's, it's, you know, at the core of, of how they express their brand. So that, yeah, that's a few examples of some of the stuff that we do. We work on NBA, we've worked with Spotify, any sort of brand or client that is interested in sort of tapping into culture.

Whether that's a subculture or mass culture is something that we really specialize in.

Chris Hill: That's really neat. And when it comes to building fandoms, I mean, I can see how like going from like a music background and working in the music industry really, really lends itself to now because you got to get that word of mouth for smaller bands.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah.

Chris Hill: You got a drive interest in what they're doing.

Maggie Walsh: And what I love about, I love that you said that because I love that the parallels to me between like social media marketing and let's say music marketing is you're talking to an audience with like a very low tolerance for BS, right? And so you have to, you know what I mean?

Like how many. I'm not going to name names because I also don't want to get canceled, but there's celebrities like right now on TikTok or internet being canceled for like lack of authenticity, right? Because people want to understand what they're getting. And so I feel like that, you know, starting in the music industry really kind of, I don't know, created that, that drive in me to, to always do stuff that passes that BS test a little bit.

Chris Hill: I definitely. Grew up in the era of like indie rock and things like that. And so for me, like seeing bands go mainstream and watching them, their rise become something more popular. Like you just lose interest in bands sometimes because they, they try too hard or they go the wrong direction.

Maggie Walsh: I feel like we're having a kind of a similar, like almost a turnaround, right?

Like to your, like the indie rock era was like, don't sell out. Don't look a certain way. Like, don't even be like too clean in terms of how you dress, because you're going to look at your haircuts. And like, now we live in an era where like every single person has grown up kind of marketing themselves for better or for worse right through social media.

I'm starting to see like a similar backlash right where I feel like the similar conversations of like nepo babies or industry plants like. Are those new conversations for now? Or are they the same conversations that we've always had in a new era? I don't know. But

Chris Hill: yeah, I mean, Chappell Rowan is a good example

Maggie Walsh: Yeah

Chris Hill: of like that growth, indie growth people, and now she's getting famous.

So how long before people were like, Oh no, she's mainstream now.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, it's the next thing and then, you know,

Chris Hill: yeah, exactly. Well, that's, that's really neat.

So you're, you're trying to build fan bases. It sounds a lot of this is really, they're building, they're activating, growing, finding- all of that is a big part of the focus.

How do you, how do you go about even identifying what a fan base looks like and profiling that and, and then, then identifying it and growing it, measuring it? I'm asking a lot all in one. So feel free to break that up.

Maggie Walsh: Those are great questions. I mean, obviously it depends, you know, I'll give you the answer of, it depends on who's asking and what they're challenging, right?

But I think, We come to, I'll say a lot of times I'll go to brands. We'll say, "you know, we're really big on fandom. We want to build fan bases," and there are certain brands that might go, "well, that's not for me. I'm, I'm certain boring product X or something that won't ever have fans. I'm not Chappell Roan," or whoever.

I, those are the ones I love to challenge a little bit more, right? Because the way that we like to look at things as sort of, I like to look at it as kind of the intersection of, of brand and culture. So like starting with the question I always said is there is something fan worthy in your brand's DNA.

You have something that people want to be fan. Let's start, like ignore everything else. Let's like look deep. And so we do, and it can come to life in a lot of different ways, but we go deep with the brands and say, Hey, like, do we look into their brand purpose? We look at what people are saying in social, what are, let's look at your archives, just, I mentioned Jägermeister, one of my favorite things that we did when we got that account, we all flew to Germany, we went into their archives, we sat with them, like, and honestly, again, that's why I kind of complimented them, like They are set up to do that.

They think that way, really trying to understand, you know, what is the thing that we want, you know, we don't want to change your brand to fit culture, right? I think that's how you lose the efficacy or, you know, the magic of your brand. I think, especially in like a lot of social media marketing environments, I think there's, I don't say there's pressure, but there's sometimes expectation that like you have to keep.

Reinventing your brand to a degree in order to appeal to the current generation or the current trends and things like that, and to me, it's more about reinterpreting, right? Which is like, your brand is your brand and understand, okay, what are the elements that are right that you can either bring or contribute to, to today's culture?

So that, that's half of it. The what's, what's in your DNA piece. And then there's the other part, which is the culture part, which is like, What is fueling fandom right now in culture and how can you serve that? So fan, you know, we talk a lot about fan service, right? So like fans want something, they need something, or they, you know, and it depends, it kind of depends on what we're talking about.

You take that first part of the equation and say, okay, how can we use this to serve that? So when I talk about it in that term, I guess it sounds like it's just a simple equation, fandom, right? But I think starting from there, because I think. Sometimes it, it feels easy to kind of just start with what do people really like right now and let's attach ourselves to that.

And that, I'm not, that doesn't work really well. Right. That's not a bad strategy, but it, you have to keep doing it. And again, you start reinventing your brand to kind of fit everything. So that, that's why we like to start there. So I think that was a little bit about your, your first part of your question.

I was like, how do we think about it? I think you started to say, how do we, you know, Measure it and take that ROI. Is that, was that the second part of the question? Obviously again, putting out, it depends on the brand in question, but I would say over, let's say the past decade, and don't quote me, you can't quote me on that because we're being recorded, but, uh, let's say over the past decade, I would say that there has been, thanks to digital and social, right?

We, we, there's been a large conversation that people haven't been investing in brand, right? Because digital and social advertising methods have given you a lot of short term results, right? In terms of who you, you know, you don't have to spend as much. You can see a number that says the word ROI and all those things.

But I think now we're starting to see, because it's been, we've had like a long time of that. We're starting to see like what happens to brands over time. We've had. A variety of financial crises or pandemics or things that might impact that. I think the bigger conversation now is how do you invest in long term brand value while at the same time, obviously seeing short term results.

Usually the way that we are orienting with how, how to measure fandom and how to measure efficacy is looking at. And what are the short term metrics that can indicate it, but tying those back to brand business and real objectives. And I think again, the way that, that we often talk about it, I think, and I've seen this with a lot of brands, which is the brands that are more culturally relevant, the brands that have had more of those things, like it's been measured.

Or, you know, more brand fame, even let's say sustained over time, they are more likely to weather the challenges or the changes that have been facing, right? I think not a hundred percent sure of the study, but they looked at it from like the 2008 financial crisis. And they looked at it with the pandemic.

They looked at what brands were spending and what brands, and like you look at it, the ones that invested in brand and being relevant, not the ones that cut their spending, not the ones that just did short term stuff, they ended up being more profitable, more successful over time. So anyways, it's a long winded way of saying is of course it's complicated, but usually it's a format of, okay, let's look at what short form or short term metrics can indicate and be tied to bigger brand goals, um, relevance and things like that.

I'm happy to get more specific if that feels too broad.

Chris Hill: I think, I think that's a good, good starting point for, for that, for that concept because where you can take it from there is of course,

I think the next question that I have out of that is, well, you've got, you've got these brands that chase trends and then you've got brands that are relevant and you can, people can sniff it out like we've been saying, but how do you determine what is important in terms of relevance versus what What is just a trend?

Maggie Walsh: That's great. Here's, I mean, I would say you actually, you can pretend, you can sort of know, you can say, you know, with hindsight, but I actually think the best way to do is to be a little bit experimental, but experiment with purpose. The brand that spends years perfecting their brand book or whatever version of relevance.

More than they spend time trying to be relevant in culture will probably always be behind the one that maybe chased some trends and had some, in my opinion chased some trends, made some mistakes, probably was like, wait, you switch strategies, but learned and kind of evolved from them. So I am sort of speaking out of two sides of my mouth, but that's what I said.

On one hand, I would say, start with your brand, say all of the things that you want to kind of do and not just trace, chase trends, but don't be afraid to make small bets to turn into bigger bets. So like a lot of times that is the way that I'm either advising clients or we try and structure things where you'll kind of say, okay.

And that's where social comes in, right? Social is essentially like the greatest expression of a brand that you can get instant feedback on every day. And I think like I'll use Oreo is an example, right? I worked and, you know, I was lucky enough to work with them for a really long time, but one of the first things that they did kind of as an experiment, as part of, uh, the Daily Twist, which was a campaign that they were doing around their 100th birthday, was they, they put for Pride Month, they did a rainbow Oreo and that posted viral or went viral.

Not even using the correct terms. Went viral. Did well and went viral. And That particular nugget, at least in my mind, is what gave them, it's okay, what are we going to do a little bit more? How do we start investing in this community? And eventually over time turned into a, a long term partnership and allyship with, with that community that was expressed itself in many ways.

So by the time that they came out a few years ago and said, you know, we're going to do a product for LGBTQ pride month, right, it wasn't coming out of left field. And I. Easy to want to start with that and be like, let's do this big thing now that we know it's the right thing. And a lot of the stuff in one of your social posts doesn't take off, then, okay, you learned and maybe it did. So I, I would say like, that would be the way that I tend to advise, which is yes, mind for your what's fan worthy in your DNA. Be, you know, be smart about it, but then make small bets so that you can learn and invest and turn into those bigger cultural moments, the things that are, that are taking off.

Chris Hill: Yeah, that, that makes sense.

You saying that brings a, actually an Oreo example to mind. And I don't know if you happen to have been there during the time when this happened, but the eclipse. That happened several, not the, not the most recent eclipse, but the like 2014, 15, 16, somewhere in there, there, when the eclipse happened, they were trying to make Oreo the official cookie of the eclipse.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah. Somewhat remember this?

Chris Hill: Yes. And they were trying to position it as that. And then out of nowhere, Moon Pie, who is a great Southern brand, came out and basically burned them on social media. And that was a spark for Moonpie's social media advertising.

Maggie Walsh: I, you know, it's so funny because I absolutely love Moonpie both as a product and as a social media account.

And I, when you said, I kind of forgot that that's how that happened. And I absolutely love it. I, I, you know, I must not have been working on here. I don't remember.

Chris Hill: It's all good.

Maggie Walsh: But,

Chris Hill: uh, I remember it very distinctly.

Maggie Walsh: Well, I love it because it's an underdog, not an underdog story, but like burning, like brands burning each other.

Or even having a negative opinion on social was, I feel like at that time, like-

Chris Hill: It was risky.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah. Every brand, you know, every, every brand tone of voice to a degree, it says, we want to be nice and relatable and approachable. And we never mock or whatever. And I think, having a brand be willing to do that was, again, authentic. I mean, that's how people talk. I can roast you right now without being a terrible person or a dislike. You actually might like me more for it. I won't try, but I could.

Chris Hill: Yeah, please. But no, the, the Moonpie story stuck out to me because where I'm from or where we live now in Knoxville, Tennessee, We have Tombras who runs the account for Moonpie.

So it was big news here locally when that happened in the marketing community, and I just remember it being such a big deal that it happened. And yeah, it just, it felt like a huge shift in their tone after that too.

Maggie Walsh: You know, like I said, I was, I'm aware of their stuff and I didn't know that that was the impetus, which is even more exciting to me.

I have a strategist here who is awesome, who is all, who went to school at Knoxville, went, was working at, at Tombras I'm going to check in with her and she'll probably school me and tell me I know all about it.

Chris Hill: Yeah. But that's, that's a really neat example of like where. Where that that pays off like that, that edginess that they were going for, which I know it was happening before the eclipse and everything, but when Oreo made that grand statement, Moonpie had this great chance to just like steal the thunder with that joke. And it did great. It was one that helped them, I think, really elevate their brand and move on. So that's the one example that comes to mind for me.

Maggie Walsh: I was like, what I love about that example is like, you know, one of the things I would, I always like to say is like, your brand is what your fans say you are, and that's such a perfect example, which is your fans didn't say you were sponsoring the Eclipse.

Uh, and so we could, it was, you know, I can dig at it a little bit and it worked. You know what I mean? I That's really cool.

Chris Hill: Yeah. That's a, that's a very good point.

So there's, there's another side to it, which is, of course, people finding out you're fake, that inauthenticity. You mentioned working with Jägermeister during pride.

And as we've seen in recent years, alcohol brands have not had the best relationship with pride events. So like, how do you, how do you navigate those water, a traditional German brand and something is potentially challenging as, you know, celebrating pride month can be.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, I mean, I think all the credit is to the brand itself, right?

I think they are coming from it from a very authentic place in the sense that They have been investing in the LGBTQ community for a very long time probably at least in my mind before it was cool to do so But in so that in terms of authenticity, right, but I think for them in particular it was kind of twofold I think number one- They're, they're big on investing in nightlife and the future of nightlife.

Right. Which is, you know, not only are they a product that's drunk during them, but like, if we all want to continue doing that, nightlife has to exist. And I think there are a couple, there are different things in the world that can be a threat to nightlife, right. I think, and one of them is that. One of the most closely intertwined parts of nightlife is the fact that queer people are part of it, make it, do it, in some cases, started their movements out of a bar.

And I think starting from a place of that deep understanding has also pushed them to really invest in keeping that alive. Just, you know, even on the, on the back end, they invest in You know, again, all of this is, I think, predating our relationship with them. This is just, lucky enough, I feel like, to be involved, um, on, on some of the work that they're doing now, but they invested in, um, a project called the Lesbian Bar Project, which was essentially about the fact that lesbian bars were closing nationwide and closing globally and helping not only spotlight them, but help sort of what's now kind of turning into a bit of a resurgence and renaissance of the lesbian bar.

And then similarly during COVID and when, when nightlife closed down, realizing that who were really affected were bartenders, people that are owning that spaces, those spaces. So they created Save the Night Fund, which was really around helping invigorate nightlife. So when we were working on it for this most recent Pride Month, that was the foundation that we started from. It was less about how do we promote ourselves and like, just throw a party and like, tap into stuff. And really about partly honoring queer people's contribution to nightlife, especially at a time right now when those things are kind of being called into question, especially in our country.

And then secondarily, we also had this insight that supposedly Pride Month is for LGBTQ people, but if you work at a gay bar in June, you are working all month, right? You're having a fun, but you have just worked probably like the craziest month of all time. What we did was we did a give back essentially, which was essentially July 1st when a lot of brands are like, let's take off the rainbows and go away.

We're like, this is actually where we're really mostly starting. And we essentially gave away and paid off bar tabs for queer nightlife staff and folks around, around the globe so that they can take their staff out and sort of get that time off when they had essentially worked all of June. I'm using those as examples because I think it is marketing, but essentially it's all coming from a place of respect and, again, like consistency. A lot of brands want to start with the party or the celebration versus the work and the investment to kind of get there.

Chris Hill: Yeah. It's kind of, kind of like one of the things I always notice about the pride month in recent, probably the last decade or two when it's really become prominent for corporations to get involved is their logo turns rainbow for, A month and then they're gone.

And what I love out of what you just said is that you started on July 1st. And to me, the, the idea of being intentional with something beyond just June is what really matters. And I think that has a lot of value in showing that you're doing something that's leaving a legacy, not just, hey, we're just going to be here.

That shows you're actually serving during that month and you're not just adopting a color scheme for a month.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, that's a really elegant way of putting it, which is, are you benefiting more from your association with the movement? Or is the movement at all benefiting from your association with it? And, you know, especially in like social movements like that, I think it's always, you want to lean on the other, the other end, the other side of it.

So that's, I love how you put it.

Chris Hill: Yeah. If you're going to do something like that, you got to commit. I mean, Bud Light showed us that one. Yeah,

Maggie Walsh: absolutely.

Chris Hill: In the worst way possible. Um. But yeah, that's, that's really neat.

So what other work happens at GLOW? Like what, what else is part of your portfolio or what other projects have you been really proud to be a part of?

I know you mentioned before we got started with the interview that you've done work with Peacock and the Olympics would love, I mean, that just happened. We'd love to hear about that.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah. We just wrapped a project with Peacock on the Olympics, which was really fun. And honestly, it just like. If you want, if I wasn't a super fan of the Olympics before I started that, I think I came out of it as a super fan of the Olympics.

I don't know. I feel like just even as a consumer and a marketer, I had so much fun working on it. Um, but yeah, so Peacock obviously is the, the streaming platform under NBC. And so the, both of those organizations are responsible for bringing the Olympics to American consumers. So yeah, Peacock partnered with us to essentially do what I would call the culture side of the Olympics, which is how do we take the coverage that you're seeing on platform and on television and bring it to a social audience? And in particular, how do we bring people that maybe aren't huge sports fans into the conversation who could become a fan?

Right. And I think we were talking about how rugby became such a huge part of the conversation, this Olympics. And in particular, the, I would say the star player of that team, Ilona Marr, who is. Basically, you know, one of the first social athletes from the Olympics, right? She came really onto the scene the last Olympics.

For example, we saw like a lot of conversation around, you know, people getting excited about rugby. People would never watch rugby. People would never, didn't know that we had a national rugby team. Getting excited, taking that and turn, bringing it to, to social. So like one of the things that we noticed that a lot of fans do is they do fan cams or what they call like fan edits, where it's like whoever is their favorite person in a space sort of something that's, or in a, when I say space, I mean like a musician and an actor or something like that.

They'll do like a little edit to kind of celebrate them. We started just doing that during the Olympics when certain things would happen. We're like, let's do a fan edit. And Ilona, you know, reposted a ton of those things. It was just a way to speak in fans language as they were watching it.

Chris Hill: Yeah. And when you say fan edit, you mean you're actually pulling like fan created content.

So it's original content.

Maggie Walsh: We would mostly, I would say, pull from, well, you know, the actual broadcast itself.

Chris Hill: Yeah, I gotcha.

Maggie Walsh: We mix that with some of our own stuff in the style of, I think when I say sort of fan edit or fan cam, I mean, as if we are a fan, you know what I mean? And like we're hyping her up more so than, who we're pulling from or things like that.

Chris Hill: Yeah. I know there's content licensing issues. I'm a big F1 fan and I'm watching everything happen in that world right now too with. They're cracking down on creators. That's a whole other side note. That's not part of this conversation. But yeah, like the, yeah, I know that's a challenge in that field.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, Congress is dealing with it on the TikTok side.

I mean, not just a copyright, but like who owns what and where's the data. And, you know, especially when you're working with a TV streamer, you know, who owns what, where can you put it? All part of a, of, a conversation now.

Chris Hill: But that's, that's neat. I mean, getting people excited about rugby. I mean, I'm a fan of rugby.

I played rugby for a little while myself. Very, very little while, but it was, it was still a lot of fun when I did it. It's cool to see stuff like that become more prominent. What was the other sport that got really big this year? I'm trying to remember.

Maggie Walsh: Well, there was definitely a sport that got a lot of conversation.

Now, is it popular? Uh, you know, which one I'm talking about?

Chris Hill: Boxing.

Maggie Walsh: Well, box, Oh, boxing. Yeah. I also break dancing, but I break dancing. Yes. Break dancing.

Chris Hill: There we go. Much better topic.

Maggie Walsh: I mean, that was. Again, probably for not always the best reasons. But like more people are talking about boxing and breaking around what was happening more so than I think ever talked about either of those sports leading into the Olympics.

And so good or bad there, I think is something really powerful to see, right. Which is like a sport like the Olympics being able to, not a sport, an event like the Olympics, being able to inspire that conversation, and I think at least for this year, it felt like everyone was sort of watching and participating around one thing, which

Chris Hill: I think, right. And, and I was about to say, you know, as you're saying that I'm, I'm realizing like, like if you look at presidential elections, the way we engage with. Elections and the way we engage with politics now is way different. It feels like one giant conversation, for better or worse, or at least two different conversations happening, for better or worse.

But when it comes to the Olympics, this year felt like the first time I'd seen something of that level happen in a while, at least when it comes to like the conversations that were happening all over the globe and the way people were tuning in. I mean, we've had the Olympics for years and years and years, but it feels like for the first time in a long time, like people were actually dialed into it and interested in a way I hadn't seen in a long time.

Maggie Walsh: It feels like to me, and again, this is hypothesis and also bias from being involved, I guess, but it feels like the it, and I don't know if you remember, but the last Olympics were not in 2020, they're in 2021. They hosted the 2020 Olympics in 2021. So it's a little bit shorter time. It was also, you would, you would think that that would be the time we're all inside.

We're all trying to like, let's all kind of do it, but I think at least our country was feeling very divided. There was a lot happening, right? Whereas I think this time around, we had two things change, right? We had a different cultural environment. Yes. We also had the first time, at least in my opinion, Gen Z athletes with their phones in the Olympic village.

And they also, the rules were a little bit looser this year versus previous years. They've, they've at times been somewhat restricted on how much content or things they could share and things like that. Not only, like, you know, we're talking about this rugby player, but her time's like a thousand, right? They're in there making content and doing stuff and bringing in all these people that are just following them as influencers into this event.

And then the other side of it, I think again, kudos to, I would say like a peacock, which is everything was happening live. So even though the games were happening in Paris, which is a tiny difference from here, you could watch it live as it was happening and you could watch it in primetime. So I think. It created this groundswell where we could watch it all at the same time.

We could talk about it. And then you also have the most social generation in the world filming it from their own iPhones.

Chris Hill: That, that is a good point. I think that's probably why it felt more prominent was because. There was more social content from individuals that were there participating and it brought a new level of awareness to it that I hadn't really seen.

Now I grew up a swimmer. I made state in high school, so I was swimming pretty competitively at that point. 50 free, 100 free, um, and backstroke were my three big, big swimming events. And they would always throw me in the 500, which I hated.

Maggie Walsh: I was the one that had to like, I could never do that. I just did the, like the little counting for my friend.

Chris Hill: Oh, nice. Nice. So did you swim?

Maggie Walsh: I did, but I wasn't a good swimmer. Like, not competitively. So you watched the swimming. Do you also watch, did you watch the diving as well?

Chris Hill: I did not watch the diving as much, but since I swam all the way through high school, like I always try to pay attention to at least some swimming, see some of the events that, that French swimmer this year, man, that was, he was, wow.

Um, the, the guy who did the, the 400 IM that he did, like finishing by that far ahead, is just impressive in any sport, but when it's the top of everybody, like it's just, it just shows you how incredible someone is. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, the, the Olympics were just really fun this year. So I, I definitely agree.

Did you, were you actually over there during that time or were you just working remote?

Maggie Walsh: Uh, I, we worked out of, there's a NBC sports as a studio in, in Stanford, Connecticut. So not Paris, but Stanford, Connecticut, where they were doing like some of the commentary and stuff.

Chris Hill: That's really neat. Complete non sequitur.

My My wife, one of my wife's best friends is a videographer and he was over there with NBC doing some of the filming over, I think, wrestling or something like that.

Maggie Walsh: Like background content or like broadcast? Broadcast.

Chris Hill: He was, he was helping with broadcasts. His, my wife's alma mater, Asbury University, has a relationship with NBC and they always send a group of students over.

So he's been going since he was in college and he's been involved with the Olympics since college.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, that's the kind of person I would love to pick their brain where I'm like, tell me, like, what are the, how does it, like, I have a perception difference of like, what I think host countries bring to each of them, but I'm watching the broadcast.

Like, I want to know is like, what's it really like? What's it really like? How does it feel?

Chris Hill: One of the, one of these days I'll get over there or we'll, we'll find one. I mean, it's coming to LA next. It shouldn't be as difficult.

Maggie Walsh: I said, of course, LA traffic is already, already a mess, we'll say.

Chris Hill: Right, yeah, you go from a six hour time difference one way to a three hour, then the other way the next, so.

In terms of the industry right now, just as we're wrapping up, like, what, what is top of mind for you? What are you thinking of as you look at brands, as you look at what's coming next? I mean, there's things like the TikTok ban on the horizon and some of these things, like, what are you, what are you thinking of right now for, the future of fandoms?

Maggie Walsh: Oh geez. I mean, probably a hundred things. I feel like a thing that is a big conversation or a theme of conversations that I hear a lot of. But when you talk about things like TikTok ban, I also think about like AI or things that are supposedly threat story industry, and they're gonna change our industry.

They're changing our industry. Now, if TikTok gets banned, who knows? Lots of things will change, but I don't want to say I don't worry about those because again, like I, I feel like people are adaptable. Brands are adaptable. The brands that are able to adapt to change are the ones that will have longevity and I believe our ability to help them with that.

And then another thing that's actually really big on my mind this week is ethical fandom, which I know sounds like a buzzword that I just invented, but we were talking about Chappell Roan, you know, I saw fans, like, you know, these people that are blowing up really quickly. And there's a lot of conversation right now, both around positive things of like, Chappell Roan came out on TikTok this week saying famous, essentially like, fan culture is really bad.

And like, there are stalkers and you can't own her and all of this stuff. And like, it was really, really emotional and empathetic. At the same time at the Olympics, other things I'm seeing people sort of, for lack of a better term, cancel, let's say, a Blake Lively right now for how she's essentially appearing in interviews and potentially with somebody else.

Now, again, I'm not taking a position on either of these right this second, but it brings up this question because we're an agency that is very much around how do we build fandom? I'm also kind of interested as like, what does more ethical or what standard or what responsibility do we have as, as an agency involved in creating this and creating a fan culture that is mutually beneficial to fans, but also the people involved, because like, even like, again, I'll use Chappell because we're using her as an example, but like, she started out as a fan, you know what I mean?

Her, like. She started out with a TikTok. She was doing all of these things that we're talking about. So like, I, I don't think it's like fan versus artist or this or that. I think we're all kind of part of this fan culture. And now we're kind of, again, it's one of those things that hasn't been happening in the social media age now for so long that we, a lot of, you know, we're seeing kind of the repercussions over time because we've had enough time pass.

And so. Again, that's not a, I don't have an answer to that question, but it is something that's been weighing on me a lot, which is like, how do we, it's the same thing that you were talking about with brands getting involved in like pride or LGBTQ, right? I think when we were in the frontier of that and it was new, it was different than what you're doing it right now.

You know what I mean? And I think similarly, It's the question that I'm starting to have in what we do as well. And again, I believe in it. I'm a fangirl. I think everyone should be obsessed with something, but it's a question that I wonder about.

Chris Hill: I think that's a, you know, that's a great thing to consider because my day job is HumblePod.

We're a podcast production company. We deal with creators and originators of content and we don't deal with too many people that are like really high profile, but we do have a few that we've dealt with. And in what I've noticed, like in interacting with them, or like I went with one client recently, I'm going to try and stay vague so people can't figure it out.

They'll probably figure it out if they know me and the client, but it's nothing private. I just don't want to talk about too much, but like going to events where they're known, going to places where that person, even in the small smear of influence compared to someone like Chappell Rowan, like you get people that you get people that just act like they know you.

It's that, you know, the parasocial relationship is the term I've heard. It sounds so terrible to say, but like, it's just like, they think they know you because they listen to you on a podcast and, or they, they hear your voice and they get to know you. They get familiar with that voice. They get familiar with that conversation.

And eventually they get to a point where I think they just feel like, Oh, I can talk to that person. I can walk up to them. They're my friend. I, I identify with them in so many ways. They would, if they just knew me better, we'd be cool. And it's just that, that logic that, that sometimes puts these people in a position of like, I can't handle that.

Like, you know, I need space from this because these people just assume that they have this access to me because they listen to my podcast, they contribute to this, they contribute to that. And it's, it's difficult. It's a difficult water to navigate.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah. And I, I don't know the answer to it because I think there's good and bad, right?

There's the benefit like people love to create. They love to have people, like, most people love to have fans, right? The idea of fandom is generally positive and not every individual fan is bad or the extreme version of it. There has been a culture shift, you know, as fandom has expanded and become less of a, you know, being a super fan was like for really niche things or sports teams.

And now it's sort of like part of our culture because of social media. And yeah, I don't think we've quite figured out how we want to be as a culture. Like we're still figuring it out. We're like, that's weird. We're doing that. Okay. Let's go the other way.

Chris Hill: I think, I think that's a good way to put it too, as a culture, that is, because it is, it is very much an American thing, I think, to feel entitled to be able to talk to celebrities.

You know, I've been, been a big fan of the show Top Gear for a long time. And so, guys like Jeremy Clarkson and James May and Richard Hammond, like when they're in the UK, my understanding from fans abroad and stuff is you, the, the, the rule of thumb in the UK is you just let them be. You don't bother them.

You don't come up and interrupt. It's a politeness thing.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah. How do you, how does that, is that British culture or is it? You know, it's like, be polite.

Chris Hill: I think, I think it's British culture. Cause there are definitely other cultures where they're not that way. I've definitely, definitely, there was a girl, this is way back in college, dated a girl and she had red hair and somebody thought she, some, some group of tourists thought she was Scarlett Johansson.

I think there was an Asian group and they were just like, Oh, this person, you're this person. And they, they flocked to her and took her picture and acted like she was a celebrity just harassed her until they they had gotten their fair share and moved on. So it's definitely culture-to-culture. It varies, I think.

But, but yeah, it definitely is something that like, I don't know, it'd be, it'd be an interesting thing to, to evaluate as you evaluate how you deal with celebrities in different locales and different places.

Maggie Walsh: That's an interesting question. What is, what does celebrity mean globally? Probably mean, and, and what kind of celebrity is also valued, is both cultural in place, but also cultural, I think, in time.

Evidenced by who's getting canceled and who's rising up right now. But

Chris Hill: yeah, it definitely is something that I would, you know, Love to see more research on and you need to keep a pen in myself. So I'm right there with you. That's, that's cool.

Well, as, as we wrap up, I always like to ask at the end of the interview, you've mentioned being a fangirl multiple times.

What brand are you most a fan of right now?

Maggie Walsh: I mean this apolitically, but something that I've just been obsessed with because of my inner fangirl is Kamala HQ. It's just, I've just been like, holy cow. I love it. It's like, which we, you know, which I could have done that. Uh, I love being healthily jealous, but, um, yeah, they've been, been an incredible sort of study on being authentic and relevant, uh, as a social media strategy.

Chris Hill: Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I've been keeping up with politics and things and it's, it's been a really wild ride this past few months with everything going on, but to see, to see that social change around her, yeah, she's relatable. It'll be interesting to see how people relate to her.

Maggie Walsh: Yeah, I'm curious, you know, it's hard for me, I can't evaluate the efficacy of it yet. But in terms of like a brand and brand social, it's been something I've been really impressed with. And I think it's funny if you had asked me in 2016, I might have, again, not endorsing anything, but you know, I was impressed with the social media culture around Trump doesn't mean I agreed with it, but in terms of like Reddit and meme culture and what they were able to do, I thought was also something to learn from, even if the lesson is, is different.

Chris Hill: Very different lesson, but, but something that I've, I've definitely been fascinated with as well over the years.

Follow politics quite a bit, but yeah, that, that whole like deep dive, that went from just being a Trump fandom to almost being a cult around, around. And

Maggie Walsh: it's probably the other side of the coin of what we just talked about. Where does deep fandom turn into something more sinister, essentially? And is it, whose responsibility is it to keep it from turning that way?

Something that we teach on ourselves or I'll go move to Britain, maybe.

Chris Hill: Yeah, it's that's, you're, you're touching on something that, I mean, should be a podcast in and of itself, but is also, is also one of the things again, like just when I think about podcast content, we create, it's that same thing of like, what are we influencing by putting this voice out here and by allowing them to say what they're saying?

Maggie Walsh: I admire folks in your position who have to make that kind of decision. Um, because, you know, we only see the results of it. We just see what we see. We don't see it. The nine or 10 decisions on, on what that was. So, yeah,

Chris Hill: exactly.

Well, where can people get in touch with you? Where can they find out more about GLOW?

Maggie Walsh: Well, you can definitely go to our website. Uh, we are GLOW. com and then people can easily find me on LinkedIn, Maggie Walsh, and then social media handle is the same on every platform. It's at monster mags. M A G G S.

Chris Hill: Love it. Awesome. Well, Maggie, thank you for coming on the show today.

Maggie Walsh: Thank you. This has been fantastic.

I really appreciate this and I've enjoyed talking to you.

Chris Hill: Absolutely. I've enjoyed it as well. Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand. Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe on your player of choice. And you can also keep up with the podcast at WeBuiltThisBrand. com. If you liked this episode, please give the podcast a five star review and be sure to tell all your friends so we can continue to build this brand.