Kevin Rapp / Creative Director. Content Creator. Speaker

Creativity and Ai - Is it Good or the End?

Businesses often undervalue creative teams, missing out on the strategic potential of creativity.

Creative storytelling, when combined with strategy, can transform brand engagement and foster emotional connections with audiences.

Join us as Kevin Rapp, co-founder of Ultra Friends, shares his insights on leveraging creativity to drive behavior change and brand success. Learn why creatives need to be part of strategic discussions and how creative content can truly move the needle.

5 Key Takeaways:

• Creative work should be part of your strategic business plan.
• Tailored content is crucial for effective branding across different channels.
• The value of creative leadership lies in empowering artists to express their unique voice.
• Emotional branding creates lasting impressions and drives consumer actions.
• AI in creative work must be understood as a tool, not a replacement for human insight.

Guest Bio:
Kevin Rapp is a creative director, content creator, and co-founder of Ultra Friends, a creative agency focused on high-performing content strategy. With over 15 years in the video production industry, Kevin has worked with disruptive startups and Fortune 500 companies, transforming brand narratives through creative storytelling and strategic content creation. Known for his innovative work at Root Insurance, Kevin is also a passionate advocate for empowering creative minds to be part of the strategy conversation. His leadership style focuses on combining strategy and creativity to drive business outcomes that stand out in the market.

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (02:25.281)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack podcast. My name is Paul Povolni I am excited to have a misfit with me. Kevin Rapp is with me today and Kevin is a co -founder and chief creative officer of the creative agency, Ultra Friends. He's a fierce advocate for the value of creative people and tends to scream at the void about it on LinkedIn. Kevin, great to have you on, man.

Kevin Rapp (02:50.542)
Great to be here, Paul. Thanks for having me. And yes, I absolutely fit that category of misfit. If there's any box and label that you can put on me, I think that's a good one to throw on.

Paul Povolni (02:52.481)
Hey, no worries.

Paul Povolni (02:56.769)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (03:02.497)
That's perfect. Well, I appreciate you coming on and Kevin got my attention on LinkedIn while he was screaming into the void, which I kind of messed up reading initially, but I heard he's he did a presentation on creatives and AI and I definitely want to talk about that. But before we get going, I want to learn a little bit more about Kevin and share a little bit about your origin story. You know, I know you guys are into superheroes. I've seen your website.

And so I love superheroes as well. And so I love to hear origin stories and you can go as far back as you want, as you feel will be relevant to kind of your journey to where you're at. So whenever, whenever you're ready, go for it. Let me hear it.

Kevin Rapp (03:39.406)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (03:45.934)
Sure. I'll dive right in. I mean, I've got the X -Men on my shirt right now. So it's clear that I'm a superhero nerd too. So if I take a way back, honestly, this goes back to when I was very, very little. I was a very sickly child and I had like the types of diseases that like you should have only had playing the video game Oregon Trail.

Paul Povolni (03:50.273)
Nice.

Kevin Rapp (04:11.502)
Right. I had scarlet fever and meningitis when I was a kid, when I was, when I was super little and meningitis is a disease that affects the motor skills. And so the doctors very early on said, you know, in order for Kevin to catch up to his peers, when he's getting into school, he's going to need to start working a little harder. So they, they told my parents instead of having him color, have him draw.

Paul Povolni (04:19.297)
Wow.

Kevin Rapp (04:40.846)
that's gonna have a more fine motor skill type thing that's going to help him build up those fine skills in his hands. And that's just that that was like a start of something that I was really passionate about. From from pretty much then on, anytime you saw me, I had a sketchbook in my hands, I always was drawing. I mean, I was super little at that point, like I had meningitis when I was when I was like two, so I was

Paul Povolni (04:56.097)
Well...

Paul Povolni (05:01.825)
So did you draw before that at all?

Paul Povolni (05:06.657)
okay, okay.

Okay.

Kevin Rapp (05:10.478)
very very little. And so this was just kind of like, I was being trained from a super super early age to be passionate about drawing and creating things. And that really just kind of kept going naturally as part of my interest. I was always attracted to cartoons and colorful characters and

things that sparked my imagination. And so it was it was kind of this combination of a medical thing that I that I had to overcome. And it's also something that I just really loved. And when the when I was like 10 and the the X men cartoon from the 90s came out, I my mother blamed me for ruining our VCR, which is going to take me so badly.

Paul Povolni (05:42.913)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (05:52.289)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (05:59.585)
Hahaha

Kevin Rapp (06:08.91)
because I kept pausing, I was recording the episodes and then I would pause it and I would draw all the characters for hours. And my mother assured me that I destroyed all of our VCRs by doing that. And so.

Paul Povolni (06:15.169)
wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (06:20.833)
Yeah. Now there are some that won't understand the VCR reference and the pausing, but that's okay. Look it up. Google it.

Kevin Rapp (06:25.23)
No, no. It's OK. Look it up. You'll you'll see these giant boxy tapes and you'll be like, what what is happening? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We're in a better time now. And so from there, I just kind of kept pursuing this as something that I love to do. And I initially thought, you know, I'll go the, you know, filmmaking direction. All 3D animation started becoming very popular. And so

Paul Povolni (06:34.657)
Yeah.

Ha ha

Kevin Rapp (06:55.31)
I thought that was gonna be the path that I would take. And so I went to art school and started exploring traditional animation and then computer and 3D animation and found that that wasn't something that I was very good at, particularly with, particularly the film pipeline, you have to be very hyper specialized on one thing. Like it's not just you animate something. It's like, you have to be really good at the physics of hair.

Paul Povolni (07:09.089)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (07:21.646)
in order to find a career path there, because there's giant massive teams that make films. And yeah, and I was much more of a, I want to tell stories and I want to figure out how to do it. And I found motion graphics towards the end of my time at school and found that this was something where it's like, I can tell a story here. This is kind of how my brain works.

Paul Povolni (07:22.401)
Right, right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (07:30.049)
Right, no generalists.

Kevin Rapp (07:49.198)
And it's funny, I showed my portfolio to somebody and this was like the head of a major animation studio. And she looked at me and just said, you should do commercials. It's like your brain is just wired to solve problems and tell stories. And I was like, somebody who could look at my reel and just like cut to the core of me that quickly was, it was incredible insight because she was 100 % right. And I started pursuing doing commercials and

Paul Povolni (08:04.833)
wow.

Paul Povolni (08:11.457)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (08:19.47)
have been doing that work for almost 20 years now. And so yeah, that's the origin story. No radioactive spider, no radioactive spider.

Paul Povolni (08:23.457)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (08:28.001)
That's awesome. So did you said, no, yeah, drats. so did you go work for studios or did you kind of launch out on your own or how did, how did that career path lead you to starting your own, business that you're doing now?

Kevin Rapp (08:44.942)
Yeah, very early on I started working for studios because I liked other people taking risk and then giving me steady paychecks. That was a system that worked really well for me for a while. And so my career is kind of, which is totally, totally reasonable. And so I had kind of a few phases of my career. The first phase was really just learning the craft.

Paul Povolni (08:55.553)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah. Which is totally fine, but yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:08.705)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (09:11.342)
I had kind of the core principles of how to use After Effects, how to animate, but how to apply that to commercial work where you don't turn it in for an assignment and the grade you turn it in. And then the client gives you feedback and you keep having to work on it until they had, they're happy with it. That was a new thing to learn for me. And so I, I built my skillset and learned how to execute. And then I transitioned to another job where I was then learning how to lead the artists. I was put in a director position. So.

Paul Povolni (09:28.545)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (09:39.905)
Right. Right.

Kevin Rapp (09:40.43)
from there, I was, I was learning not how to execute, but how to communicate my vision to other artists and hoping to bring the best out of them, not just trying to dictate what my vision was, but to explain where the boxes were and to bring the best out of them so that they could be additive to the process, because nobody likes to be told exactly how to do something creative. They want to have some expression. So

Paul Povolni (09:46.465)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:58.273)
Right.

Paul Povolni (10:03.329)
Right.

Paul Povolni (10:09.441)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (10:09.518)
learning how to set up the guardrails so that the client was happy with the work, but giving those artists some expression in the work as well.

Paul Povolni (10:19.041)
Yeah, leading creatives is a very different animal than leading just regular humans, right? You know, I mean, you're leading the X -Men, you're leading a unique group of people that have a unique way of looking at things. And so it does take a wisdom and it does take a skillset to lead them effectively and get good stuff out of them without creating a toxic culture or a culture of people just not satisfied and happy with what they're doing.

Kevin Rapp (10:25.582)
very different.

Kevin Rapp (10:49.358)
100%. And I always say, like, if I am leading a project just to get what's in my head, why not just do it myself? The reason that you have these experts is so that they can bring something of themselves to the table. I always say that I'm not looking for the vision in my head. I'm looking for what's in my head, but better. And the only way that I'm able to achieve that is to empower the artists around me.

Paul Povolni (11:00.097)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (11:12.161)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (11:17.742)
to bring something of themselves to the work that is something I didn't think of. And so that's the skillset that I really learned then. And from there, I actually went in -house. I worked at a tech startup that when I joined was a 100 -person series B startup. And within three years, we were an 1800 -person public company. So just massive growth that happened there.

Paul Povolni (11:22.209)
Exactly, yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:41.92)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (11:45.793)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (11:47.086)
And so there I was learning the skillset of not just how do I execute, but how do I prioritize the work that is going to be effective for a business? It was about learning how to apply my creative skillset in a more strategic fashion to make sure that every initiative that I was making was actually going to help move the business forward. And so these, all of these phases of my career were just adding layers on top of what

Paul Povolni (11:58.337)
Right.

Paul Povolni (12:03.329)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (12:10.049)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (12:16.558)
my foundational understanding was so that it kind of, it was all kind of like building the training wheels for me to be able to start my own business. It was learning each facet of the business so that now I feel like jumping out on my own. I have a pretty robust understanding of how to make effective work, how to lead effective work, and then how to guide my clients to make the right decisions that are going to help.

Paul Povolni (12:22.817)
Right, right, right.

Kevin Rapp (12:45.87)
the business and deliver true value to those companies.

Paul Povolni (12:49.921)
So when it comes to the client side of working with creative agencies, you said you help them get to the right place where they need to be for you to produce the best work possible. What are some of the mindsets that they come to agencies with, especially, that you need to work through and get them over?

Kevin Rapp (13:11.95)
Sure. You know, I think that there is a misunderstanding that the marketers are the people that do the strategy and then the creatives are the ones that execute, right? And I feel like that isn't what delivers the best work. When creatives are part of the strategy process, I think that is when you get the best work because...

Paul Povolni (13:37.793)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (13:38.638)
If you just treat creatives like order takers, you're missing out on a lot of opportunity to make sure that you're generating the work that's actually going to emotionally connect with an audience and motivate them to make behavior change. Because that's ultimately what creative and advertising is meant to do. It's, it's, we're not in the business of making pretty, pretty pictures. We're in the business of behavior change.

Paul Povolni (13:51.521)
Right.

Right.

Paul Povolni (14:02.369)
Right.

Right. Right.

Kevin Rapp (14:06.894)
And I think that is where the strategy of creative really is going to help benefit a brand to make those tactical business objectives that they're trying to meet. And so I think a lot of the times what I have to get them over is the idea that the creatives can't push back on the brief, right?

Paul Povolni (14:23.361)
Right.

Paul Povolni (14:34.017)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (14:34.926)
A lot of the times a creative agency will just say, the brief came to us this way, and this is what it is. So this is what we're going to have to execute. And for me, I lead use that as like a starting point to the conversation and say, okay, well, since you're going to be in these channels, and this is the audience that you're going after, I think some of the tactics that you're recommending are actually more brand awareness tactics rather than conversion tactics. And the objective of the campaign is to achieve conversions. So

Paul Povolni (14:44.705)
Right.

Paul Povolni (15:01.537)
Right.

Right.

Kevin Rapp (15:04.782)
Here are some of my recommendations for how we can more drive that conversion behavior that you're going after. So that's really the hurdle that I think a lot of creatives feel is that the brief is kind of this locked thing that we don't have opportunity to influence and change. And being more collaborative and introducing some ideas in terms of like hypotheses.

Paul Povolni (15:11.937)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:24.481)
Right. Right.

Kevin Rapp (15:33.166)
Here are hypotheses that I have on what will perform well and making that more of a conversation has been something that I have learned from my time in house that you can have these conversations and you can influence the business to make the right decisions.

Kevin Rapp (16:00.814)
I think I lost you there for a second, Paul.

Paul Povolni (16:06.241)
You froze up, so I'm not sure what happened. Okay, all right, we're back. So when it comes to creatives being part of the process, it's almost kind of like...

Kevin Rapp (16:07.598)
Okay, yeah, okay, I'm back now.

Kevin Rapp (16:14.35)
up and froze again.

Paul Povolni (16:20.993)
do you have, do you have a lot of, a lot of apps open or something?

Kevin Rapp (16:25.646)
No, let me let me just make sure I'm going to close everything out just to make sure I tested my internet connection on the way in and it said it was excellent. So let me just close out a couple of things and see if that helps.

Paul Povolni (16:35.489)
Okay.

Paul Povolni (16:41.569)
Yeah, because you froze up a couple of times there.

Kevin Rapp (16:46.958)
Sorry about that. Okay, I just closed out a couple of things. So hopefully we should be good now.

Paul Povolni (16:48.321)
No worries.

Paul Povolni (16:54.577)
Okay. And so when it comes to involving creatives with the process, you know, for me, I see it almost like improv, like, you know, they're going to respond with yes. And, you know, as opposed to this is what it is. Right. And so I think, I think it's super valuable to involve them in the process, but also be wise in where you involve them in the process. Cause the worst thing I think you can do sometimes in a client meeting is to brainstorm.

Kevin Rapp (17:07.086)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (17:20.544)
When they're like, wait, I'm hiring you to do the thinking, the creative. Don't, I don't want to see how the sausage is made. You know, and so I think, but I, you know, I think not allowing, especially young creatives and new creatives and fresh creatives that maybe haven't had the, you know, years and years of agency experience involving them with that process just brings a level of richness that maybe those that are more mature in this space.

might have gotten even tainted to seeing, you know, because they've just done it so much. And so I love, I love what you're saying there about that. You know, when you talked about, you know, awareness goals and, you know, understanding the goals of a client, what's some of that process that you take people through a client saying, this is how you need to be thinking about what you're doing. Cause you know, sometimes clients come and say, Hey, we just want something cool and creative, you know.

and so just start throwing stuff at the wall to, you know, gimme stuff. How do you, how do you deal with helping a client in working with a creative kind of taking them down that path?

Kevin Rapp (18:25.614)
Totally. A common request that we get is we'd like an explainer video because for a long time the explainer video was the king. It was the thing that you would put out into the market if you didn't have much brand awareness. And that would be the thing that would explain who you are, what you do and why your business is valuable. And they would put it on YouTube. They would put it in...

on their website, they would throw it into social and it would be the same video that you could throw in every channel. And so that tactic has become kind of the silver bullet that they've that a lot of clients view as the thing that you need. And they haven't really broken out of that mentality of that being the thing that brands need.

Unfortunately, things have changed a lot in digital marketing over the past 10 years. So many different channels have opened up and a lot of these channels have very different needs and specifications in order to make the content more effective. So I really try to say when someone says, we need an explainer video, I say, okay, what do you actually

Paul Povolni (19:21.537)
Right, right. Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (19:47.502)
tactically trying to achieve here? Are you trying to get more conversions? Are you trying to get more brand awareness? Where are you actually trying to move the needle for the business? When you are putting an executive summary for this campaign, what result would make you look great to the executive team? And what is the actual needle that you're trying to move? Because if we just tried to blanket say, we want everything to happen, we want

Paul Povolni (19:49.441)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (20:08.833)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (20:16.59)
to generate awareness, we want people to watch one video and go from never hearing of us to wanting to buy from us. That's just a very hard task. That's a big ask to get an audience to go from zero -zero brand awareness to conversion with one piece of creative. It's very rare that that will happen. So.

Paul Povolni (20:33.345)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (20:43.105)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (20:45.23)
I really try to break down what their objectives are and try to help them understand that based on the channels that they're going in, YouTube has very different specifications than Facebook, right? Like if you're gonna have something in a Facebook feed, you want it to be taller because most people are viewing their content on their mobile phones and they're swiping and scrolling through. So you want it to take up more of their feed so that you have more opportunity to stop the scroll.

Paul Povolni (20:58.625)
Right.

Paul Povolni (21:14.529)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (21:14.99)
And if you're on YouTube, you may want to go with a six second spot because the six second mark is where the skip ad button comes in. And so getting that message out in those first six seconds means it's unskippable and you can get a very clear and complete message to your audience. So there's all these very tactical reasons why you want to be specific with.

Paul Povolni (21:27.809)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Paul Povolni (21:36.897)
Right.

Paul Povolni (21:44.097)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (21:44.558)
and intentional with each piece of creative that is going to overall tell a larger story that will help you achieve your business objectives. So when I'm having these conversations, I'm really trying to dig in and get to understand what they're trying to accomplish so that I can recommend the right package of assets that are going to help them achieve.

Paul Povolni (21:47.841)
I'm Ryan.

Paul Povolni (21:53.473)
I'm Brian.

Paul Povolni (22:05.729)
Right. Well, and I think, I think those first steps that you shared is just understanding is this awareness or is this conversion and, you know, understanding at least, you know, as a client, you know, cause there's going to be people that are going to listen to this and there's creatives, there's freelancers, there's probably agency owners, there's business owners. And so even as a, you know, as a business owner, understanding that, you know, those two types are key to understanding.

The goals of what you're doing is it for conversion? Are you wanting people to take a specific action? call you download this free thing, you know, fill out a form, whatever that is, or is it simply awareness? This is just, so we're out there and I call it sometimes signs of life. Like, you know, is it, is it simply a signs of life post? You know, you're not looking for conversion. You're just kind of showing who you are, what you're about, whatever that might be for awareness.

Kevin Rapp (22:49.902)
Yes, 100%.

Paul Povolni (23:01.665)
What are some, so let's talk about those two pillars. When it talks, when you talk about awareness and you mentioned about the format of the videos for Facebook being very different to YouTube, what are some other awareness things that you're seeing people are using that's really working well to gain that awareness?

Kevin Rapp (23:22.03)
Yeah, I mean, traditionally, when you think about awareness ads, these were the things that were the big tentpole type creatives like your Super Bowl spot, right? This is your out of home billboard campaigns. These are your New York Times one pagers, right? That's like the traditional media of what an awareness ad used to be. And now we are just in a place where they're so

Paul Povolni (23:33.345)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (23:47.265)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (23:51.854)
much more opportunity for how you can generate that awareness. You can do sponsored content inside of a like media placement inside of a movie, right? You can be the Pepsi can that's in the movie, Madam Web, if that's what you wanna do. You have that opportunity. Dakota Johnson will hold you and never actually drink you, but she'll hold it right in front of the camera.

Paul Povolni (24:05.505)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (24:11.329)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right.

Kevin Rapp (24:22.254)
The way that media has changed has opened up a lot more opportunities for how you can generate awareness. And there's a lot of different ways that you can break down the funnel of advertising, but I really like to break it down into three key areas, which is awareness, consideration, and conversion. And really the idea of awareness a lot of the time is very, very simple. You want

Paul Povolni (24:28.833)
Right.

Paul Povolni (24:35.041)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:42.593)
Right. Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (24:50.99)
them to know your name, what you do, and one thing that makes you different. And a lot of the times, sometimes it'll just be your name, right? And so you have to be very clear and tactical and focused on what you're doing so that it is very, very tight and focused because people are only going to remember three things. And if you focus on your name, what you do and how you're different, that

Paul Povolni (24:56.193)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (24:59.681)
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (25:20.385)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (25:20.814)
to me is a really effective way to utilize awareness. And where I see things going awry is when people try to over complicate an awareness and turn it into like consideration, where you dive deeper on that differentiator, where you explain the differentiator. And it's like, no, that's an entirely separate tactic. You need to be really tight and focused with what you're doing in awareness.

Paul Povolni (25:25.761)
Yeah, I love that.

Paul Povolni (25:36.993)
Right.

Paul Povolni (25:47.585)
I love that. And I love that you brought out consideration as well. So, you know, once, once you've got the attention, once you've given the signs of life, once they've seen your name through repetition, through sponsoring things, high school games, blah, blah, to Superbowl games, right? So for the consideration, what are just a couple of key things that would take them from simply being a, you know, getting the attention to getting to the consideration?

Kevin Rapp (26:15.95)
See, that's where your explainer video is a great piece because that's where you can really dive deeper on what your differentiator is. You explain what it is, why it's valuable. You give them more meat on the bones. Your brand awareness play should purely be just getting them in the door and making them aware of you. And then that explainer video is a great tactic to get them to go from

Paul Povolni (26:38.049)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (26:44.558)
aware to interested because that that is where you have the space to really give the audience more understanding of that differentiator. And the best way to utilize an explainer in my mind is to dive into the differentiator. It's you don't want to just explain some basic problem and just dive into like

Paul Povolni (26:55.169)
Ryan, Ryan.

Paul Povolni (27:02.145)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (27:11.854)
the way everybody else talks about the problem. You want to talk about how you uniquely solve that problem that's different than anybody else. And so an explainer video is a great opportunity for that. Unique landing pages, content marketing, whether you're doing blogs, if you're in kind of the business to business space. There's a lot of tactics that can get you there. Web banner ads, for example.

Paul Povolni (27:21.185)
Right.

Paul Povolni (27:34.497)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (27:40.462)
There's a lot of different tactics that you can utilize, but the way in which they are most effective is if you're giving your audience more understanding of your unique differentiator.

Paul Povolni (27:44.449)
Right.

Paul Povolni (27:53.441)
Right, right. Well, and I, you know, with the awareness, I think, you know, getting attention is good. And I think part of effective awareness is being everywhere consistent. And so I think for a lot of brands, they, they break their brand by not being consistent with what they're doing. And so they don't.

Kevin Rapp (28:06.766)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (28:14.497)
use the equity of the brand they've built by repeating it over and over. And so awareness, there's a lot that goes into that is, you know, be everywhere consistent and that helps with awareness and makes you feel like you're omnipresent when you're not. It multiplies your bucks. Then the consideration, I love what you said there. You know, the explainer video is you're taking them to that place of why should I care? Like, how do you help me?

And do you understand my problem better than the guy down the road, better than the business down the street? And so I think both of those are critical. If you don't kind of let people kind of go through that flow, I think you're missing opportunities. If you're immediately, like you said, explaining everything and whatever, and they're like, well, I don't even know who you are. I've never seen you before. You're kind of taking a step, step ahead. So let's move to the next. The third thing is the conversion. What are some of the key?

key elements to taking them from, you know, they've got the awareness, they've considered you, you've kind of got their attention through your differentiation, through, you know, you understanding their problem. How does that lead to then conversion? What are some things that people make mistakes on? And then what are some things that they can do to fix it?

Kevin Rapp (29:25.838)
I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see is that they get too focused on themselves rather than focused on their customer and what they need. So a successful conversion ad in my mind ties your unique differentiator to how it brings your customer value. So if you just keep hitting on the differentiator and keep explaining why you're so unique,

compared to your competitors and you're not putting your customer front and center, you're gonna miss out on opportunities because they're just like, I'm just hearing about this brand all day. What's in it for me? You gotta explain what's in it for them. You gotta hook them with it. And then you've gotta reinforce what that gets them. So if you're a savings brand, right? If that's one of a big,

Paul Povolni (30:02.433)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:08.065)
Right, right, right. Yep. Yep.

Paul Povolni (30:18.113)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (30:22.542)
core value of what you do, you hit them with savings early in that message, and then you reinforce it later and explain what can they do with that savings? How is it going to impact their lives? If you're oriented towards early families, you want to explain how it can help them spend more time with their family, right? Like there's ways in which you want to make a meaningful connection with your audience that will help

Paul Povolni (30:32.993)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (30:42.593)
Right.

Paul Povolni (30:48.385)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (30:50.254)
them understand how this product is going to benefit their lives. And that's where you get that change when they go, okay, this brand is interesting and kind of cool, or this has at least made an impression on me. Then you hear about a differentiator in the consideration phase. And it's like, that's kind of interesting and different. And then, this is how it can help me. That's when you have this nice full cycle that

Paul Povolni (30:54.529)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:19.265)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (31:20.494)
multiple touch points later, you'll have an audience that is primed to buy from.

Paul Povolni (31:26.721)
Yeah. And, and so, and all that is super valuable strategy and hopefully people are taking notes and writing this stuff down because it's really going to change your business. And if you're an agency, if you're not kind of considering all this, I think you're missing out on serving your clients the best way possible. So how do, and I've heard you speak on this, how do creatives impact that whole part, that, that whole funnel of, of getting people to, to buy and. Cause I know, I know sometimes creative.

thinking and creative solutions can be devalued. So talk to me, be the champion for creatives right now. What difference do they make? I've heard you talk on this and I loved it. So share a little bit about that.

Kevin Rapp (32:00.11)
100%.

Kevin Rapp (32:09.358)
Creative is hard to advocate for because it's something that's very subjective. It's really difficult to say, you know, the aesthetics, the brand really moved the needle for the business because a lot of the times we're measuring on the channels that we're in, the audience demographics, the metrics are more oriented towards what the marketing team is doing. So it's...

It's very easy to justify the value of marketing, but it's hard to justify the value of great creative. And so when I look at what creative is doing, it is taking an idea of a brand and making it real. It is taking the concept and value.

Paul Povolni (32:39.137)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (33:03.15)
of who this brand is and emotionally connecting with an audience to make them change their perception of a brand that they may have never heard of. And then ultimately making them interested in making a purchase with this brand. And that is something that I think is like almost comparable to magic, right? Because people are, people are stubborn.

Paul Povolni (33:22.369)
Ryan, Ryan.

Paul Povolni (33:28.769)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (33:33.038)
People are skeptical. So a creative message, a short film essentially that emotionally resonates an audience to change their behavior is something that I think is incredibly powerful. And there are studies that have kind of shown that the creative could be up to like 70, 75 % of the

Paul Povolni (33:45.793)
Right.

Paul Povolni (33:49.441)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (34:04.27)
impact of a buying decision. There are some studies that have seen that were like 45, somewhere 55, somewhere up to 70 and 75%. And so again, it's tactically hard to measure, but you see it when you put different creative in the same channel, right? You can put the same, you can put different creative in the same channel in front of the same audiences. And there's some creative that will do terrible.

Paul Povolni (34:05.601)
Wow. Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (34:13.153)
Right.

Paul Povolni (34:23.585)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (34:33.07)
And there's some creative that will rise to the top and get an incredible amount of conversions. And that tells me that creative is an incredibly powerful variable. And in my opinion, the biggest lever that a business can pull to generate revenue.

Paul Povolni (34:33.089)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (34:39.873)
Right.

Paul Povolni (34:51.361)
Right, right. Well, and I think that's also a key part of differentiation. You know, if you can, you know.

If you can look different to your competitors, if you can stand out, if you could, you know, pivot in a way that sets you apart from them, you know, sometimes that comes down to just the creative is just the way you're expressing yourself, you know. And I think there are brands that have proven the power of creative and it's made a difference. And for some it's even heard them. I remember the rebrand of Tropicana.

Kevin Rapp (35:10.254)
100%.

Paul Povolni (35:24.353)
you know, where they thought, Hey, we're going to be super cool and we're going to rebrand and we're going to change how we're doing things. And it just like destroyed them. Like they had to like totally redo their packaging again, because they, they made a bad mistake, when it came to branding. And so design does affect. And then of course you've got, you know, liquid death, you know, the, the, the, the water brand, you know, that, solely the biggest thing is visually designed. They're different, you know,

Kevin Rapp (35:51.758)
Yep.

Paul Povolni (35:53.857)
But sometimes it does get hard to justify creative and investing in creative because it's not as measurable as a click. It's not as measurable as other metrics that we like to measure things by. But it's super valuable and I've seen brands that have leaned into that. And also I think there's also the difference between style and substance. Creative will get the attention, but then you've got to still deliver.

Kevin Rapp (36:06.19)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (36:23.425)
And so it's not the ultimate solution, right?

Kevin Rapp (36:23.534)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you need to have a really great balance of creative and strategy. And I am essentially looping strategy into creative when I say it's the biggest lever. Like those two things together are necessary in order to have a really healthy brand dynamic. Because if you're just putting out creative that isn't looking at the data, isn't evaluating what's working, isn't understanding the audience, you're just not going to be able to motivate people to make the behavior change that you want.

Paul Povolni (36:31.073)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:36.097)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:42.945)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:54.273)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (36:56.078)
You need to have a healthy balance of both of those things in order to move the needle.

Paul Povolni (37:02.273)
Right, right. And so, you know, when it comes to creativity and the production of creativity, you know, we're in a very unique time in the world when it comes to AI. You know, AI has really shaken the industry, I think, because it used to be, you know, we would say, well, you know, we're considered white collar. I'm doing air quotes for the audio version of this.

Kevin Rapp (37:13.87)
Absolutely.

Kevin Rapp (37:19.822)
Very much so.

Kevin Rapp (37:26.734)
Yeah. Sure.

Paul Povolni (37:28.513)
We're create, you know, we're, we're considered the white collar and white collar. Creativity will never be replaced by machines. And, you know, unlike blue collar factory work, you know, stuff that can be automated, you know, we are safe. We are creatives, you know, we will never die away. We will never be replaced. You know, we will rule. We'll rise to the, you know, to the, to the mountain of all the people that have left behind because they're unskilled, you know, like we are, and we're amazing. And we're, you know,

Kevin Rapp (37:35.502)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Povolni (37:57.537)
And then AI came out. Yeah. Right. Right. And then AI came out and it shook creatives like big time. And so, so, and you know, and you got my attention through your talk that you did and you talked about creatives and AI. So share with me a little bit of your reaction to AI when it first came out.

Kevin Rapp (37:58.03)
We're beautiful, unique snowflakes that can never be usurped.

Kevin Rapp (38:08.27)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:23.393)
and what you're doing now and what you're talking about now when it comes to creativity and AI and where they battle each other and where they intersect and where they augment each other.

Kevin Rapp (38:36.462)
Yeah. I mean, my first reaction to AI was chat GBT. of course that was the first one that I really saw the potential of what this technology could do. And my initial reaction was, wow, this is really cool. And then I started to say, okay, but like, how can this do that? And so I started to get an understanding of how the models were trained and

Paul Povolni (38:59.041)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (39:04.878)
The models are trained by essentially combing the vast swath of the internet, including intellectually protect like intellectual property that's copyright protected and is essentially plagiarizing a lot of it and remixing it in order to create new content. And so I had a lot of ethical concerns around how the product was built.

Paul Povolni (39:17.569)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (39:34.03)
And so my immediate reaction is like, I don't think this is a product I can use just for my own ethical sensibility. I don't want to use any product where I don't know how much of it is lifting from another source. That just for me doesn't feel right. And because I create client work, I'm very concerned about the legal liability that I have for my clients. I want to make sure that if I'm giving something to a client, it is absolutely bulletproof. There is

Paul Povolni (39:48.993)
Right, okay.

Kevin Rapp (40:03.15)
no legal liability on their side. You know, if I'm on a live action shoot, I'm going to make sure that there's no logos in there for other brands. I'm going to make sure that all of the artwork that's on the set is, has like a creative commons license, like all of that stuff, because that is part of production, making sure that your clients are legally not liable for any content that's in there. And so then, you know, mid journey started to come to prominence and then

Paul Povolni (40:05.697)
Right.

Paul Povolni (40:17.665)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (40:31.905)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (40:32.91)
now even video content like Sora apps are starting to become available. And so we're seeing more of this, in my opinion, unethically built more of these unethically built products come to prominence. And ultimately they say that their goal is to empower creatives to create work faster, but let's be real. Their goal is to replace artists. Their goal is to reduce the workforce. And so.

Paul Povolni (40:35.713)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (40:53.057)
Right.

Paul Povolni (40:56.705)
Yeah.

Right.

Kevin Rapp (41:02.798)
When I look at these products as replacements for creatives, there are things that they can do on a service level. You can look at them and say, this looks like competently created work, unless you look really, really fine at the details and go, ooh, what's going on there? That is something that an artist would never intentionally choose to do, but the tech will get better.

Paul Povolni (41:17.776)
Wait, five fingers, six fingers, wait a second, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (41:29.23)
Right. The tech will get better. And if it's not replacing the cosmetic aspects of the craft now, I think it will get to a place where eventually it will.

Paul Povolni (41:39.617)
Right. Right.

Kevin Rapp (41:41.198)
But there's something that I don't think the AI can do. And that is emotionally connect with an audience and motivate them to make behavior change. It can, these are algorithms. They can parse data. They can replicate. They can create derivative versions of things that already exist. But when it comes to understanding a business's objectives and creating something new,

Paul Povolni (41:51.265)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:02.977)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (42:08.686)
that emotionally connects with an audience. That's something that we have not seen the data that this, that AI driven content can do. We just haven't seen the data that this work is effective, quite frankly. We've seen that it's faster, we've seen that it's cheaper, but I've never seen a test between AI made creative versus human made creative and seeing the results of those tests.

Paul Povolni (42:08.737)
Riot.

Paul Povolni (42:19.937)
Right.

Paul Povolni (42:25.729)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (42:36.494)
Like that's just some data that I have not seen yet. And I, I don't think it would fare well, to be honest. I think you need humans to wield AI in order to build something that is emotionally going to resonate. And that's where I have concerns because the only way that you get to strategists that understand this process, that understand how to make work that emotionally resonates.

Paul Povolni (42:36.673)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:51.713)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (43:06.67)
is to do the work day in and day out for a while and to build those muscles. And if we train them on prompting rather than creating and getting emotional responses and working on this, we're never gonna build the future strategists that know how to use the tool effectively. Like I think a director like myself, sure, I could probably use AI as part of my process to empower me to make

Paul Povolni (43:08.833)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (43:26.849)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (43:35.886)
work that would emotionally resonate. But if I was only trained on using AI and skipped so many steps in my artistic journey to get to the place that I am at today, I don't think that I would have that skill set anymore. So if I have to forecast the future and there's no better way to look like a fool than to forecast the future. But if I had to forecast the future, I would say

Paul Povolni (43:53.057)
Right.

Paul Povolni (43:59.233)
Hahaha

Kevin Rapp (44:04.334)
that I think we're going to see a large amount of AI -driven content flood the market very, very quickly here. And I think there's going to be diminishing returns as more of that content becomes available, because it's all going to look the same, because it's all coming from the same sources. And brands and businesses are going to see diminishing returns from this product. And

Paul Povolni (44:10.273)
Brian. Brian.

Paul Povolni (44:24.705)
Brian.

Kevin Rapp (44:32.782)
they're going to be lessening their resources. They're gonna lay off some of their staff. They're gonna lose a lot of their creative resources. And then eventually they're gonna get to a point where they go, this wasn't the silver bullet that we hoped it was. And then they're gonna have to pivot and go back to creatives. And I just hope that a lot of us don't leave the industry. I hope a lot of us don't say, you know what? This isn't worth it anymore. I've already struggled to get to my position and now I'm being replaced by a robot. So.

Paul Povolni (44:37.889)
Right. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:46.977)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (44:53.409)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (45:02.478)
maybe I'll go be a brick layer. You know, I hope that we don't get to that point because that to me is the dystopian future. It isn't, we all get replaced by robots because I don't think the tech is ever going to get to that point, even as it does advance. My fear is that we lose a generation of artists because they feel

Paul Povolni (45:05.825)
Yeah. Right.

Kevin Rapp (45:30.894)
devalued to a point where they decide it's not worth it, or they never build the muscles in the first place because they've only been trained on them.

Paul Povolni (45:34.945)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (45:39.297)
Right. Right. Well, and AI does produce, it does produce, like you said, it gathers all this data from all over the place. And I think it was, Mark deGrasse said it produces the best average. You know, it's not going to be revolutionary. And I think, you know, when it comes to even artists and creating art and creating amazing creative stuff, it comes from

Kevin Rapp (45:55.214)
Sure, yeah.

Paul Povolni (46:08.481)
sometimes from mistakes. Like I've, I've, when I've done design and when I've done creative work, sometimes I'll click on something by mistake and then get a result. And I'm like, wait, that actually kind of looks cool. I can't tell you how many times that's happened where I've, I've missed clicked or I've missed sketched or I've misread or I've made a mistake or I've experimented or I've pushed the medium and I've gotten something original that AI couldn't do.

Kevin Rapp (46:22.222)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (46:35.534)
Mm -hmm. That's right.

Paul Povolni (46:36.833)
And I think, I think that's where the, the creativity and the, the AI and being replaced, you know, AI is like a robot. It's going to mass produce average, you know, error free as perfect as it can be, but the mistakes, the experiments, the pushing things further. If you look at artists throughout history, it was pushing and, and

Kevin Rapp (46:47.15)
Yep. Yes.

Paul Povolni (47:01.921)
doing the stuff unexpected and doing stuff that nobody else has done. And AI is not going to do that. AI is going to take everything that's been created and create a variation of that. It's not going to create anything amazingly new. Maybe it could, you know, you can combine styles and whatever, but as far as like something revolutionary, it's not going to do that. And I think you're right is we don't want to lose those young creatives and, and for them to feel hopeless.

Kevin Rapp (47:24.878)
It's not going to do that.

Paul Povolni (47:31.713)
in this time that we're in, in this transitional time and say, well, I'm just, there's no place for me in this new world. And it's like, don't stop. Like, don't stop being creative and producing creativity because there is opportunities for you there to do the next big thing that those that lean into AI are going to be looking for at some point and saying,

Kevin Rapp (47:41.934)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (47:54.625)
You know what? Everybody's using the same AI to create the same kind of ads, to create the same kind of creative. I want somebody that can help me do something fresh, right?

Kevin Rapp (48:03.822)
100 % and I there's so much hype around this tech because there's a lot of money invested in it, right? And a lot of money invested by the biggest brands in the world. So we're just getting a lot of messaging about how you have to adopt AI or be left behind. And there aren't enough voices that are challenging to say, but is this actually outpacing us?

Paul Povolni (48:12.353)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (48:33.326)
in the areas that actually matter because the actual surface level aspects of the craft are things that do act as force multipliers, but they have to be built on a solid foundation in order to generate results. And right now, if your foundation is the statistical average of things we've already seen before, that's not a solid foundation. It's just not. It's

Paul Povolni (48:35.617)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (48:50.881)
Right.

Paul Povolni (48:59.873)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (49:02.446)
It's something that is immediately swipeable, right? It's something that is like, okay, I've seen this before and this is a lesser version of that. It doesn't have the intentionality. It doesn't have the imperfections. It doesn't have the same pop that these original artworks have. And I just...

Paul Povolni (49:07.745)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (49:15.233)
Yeah.

Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (49:26.849)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (49:29.646)
believe that humans will always outpace AI on the things that actually matter, the things that actually connect with an audience and make the behavior change that businesses need in order to thrive.

Paul Povolni (49:44.609)
Right, right, and with every new technology, there are people that suffer from it. With the printing press, the calligraphers and the scribes suddenly found themselves in a unique place, but there was also still a need, even with the printing press, for the scribes, for the calligraphers, to do something different that a printing press could not do. Photography killed painting, but painting still continues.

Kevin Rapp (50:03.182)
That's right.

Kevin Rapp (50:13.006)
Paintings still continue.

Paul Povolni (50:13.953)
Yeah. And video killed the radio style, but you know, we still have a variation of radio, through a satellite and things like that. But, you know, so I think that it is always this evolution that, you know, creatives are not going to go away and they shouldn't be disheartened by it. I think they can augment their work. I think they can get to, third base a little faster now, but

Kevin Rapp (50:16.942)
Right.

Paul Povolni (50:38.465)
not to give up hope. And I enjoyed what you shared in the video that I saw about creatives and just, you know, you're still needed, you're still valuable, there's still a place for you. The market is going to adjust, you know, and they're going to see that I don't want to be average. I don't want what everybody else is doing. I need somebody to think fresh and stand out from this sea of sameness, right? And I love that.

Kevin Rapp (51:06.894)
I mean, the thing that I really look to is the iPhone, right? Every single one of us has a camera that can produce a feature film. We've all got the capabilities right now in our pockets, but has that dismantled the film industry? No, it hasn't. There is a time and a place for content that is shot on an iPhone, right? Like if you're going to make an influencer ad,

Paul Povolni (51:16.065)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Paul Povolni (51:26.433)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (51:35.982)
That's the right tool for the job. And I think we're going to see, as we start to see the results of this content, we're going to start to see that there is a place for AI in a process, but it's not a pure replication of what the value of a creative is. And I hope we get to that place quickly, because right now it's very much the hype train is very strong. It's adopted or

Paul Povolni (51:38.305)
Right.

Paul Povolni (51:57.057)
Right.

Paul Povolni (52:03.649)
Brian, Brian.

Kevin Rapp (52:04.718)
be left behind. It's very much, you won't be replaced by AI, you'll be replaced by someone using AI, right? Like there's just so much ad hominem stuff that is not really getting into the nuances of where the tool is actually applicable. And I think we'll start to see over time where there are uses for it and where there aren't.

Paul Povolni (52:12.321)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:22.529)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:26.465)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:34.721)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (52:34.766)
And maybe there will be legal regulation that changes how the models are trained, which is something that I also think is going to really impact what the future of this tech is. So, yeah, the moral of the story is, you know, I believe strongly in what creatives bring to the table and the

Paul Povolni (52:41.441)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (52:49.985)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:00.769)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (53:03.918)
way that we can move forward is to understand what AI can do and what it can't. And we have to be fierce advocates for ourselves and what we bring to the table so that the people who sign the checks, the people who look at the cost of chat, GBT or mid -journey or Sora and say, yes, that might look appealing from a balance sheet perspective right now.

Paul Povolni (53:12.577)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:26.881)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:33.313)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (53:33.39)
But let's look at the impact of what we do and the revenue that we bring to the business. Is this going to deliver the same return on investment? I don't believe so. Here's why. And we're going to have to justify our value harder than we ever have before. And that's going to mean creatives are going to have to start talking the business talk in ways that we don't always feel comfortable, in ways that we don't.

Paul Povolni (53:42.113)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:50.497)
Right.

Paul Povolni (53:56.545)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (54:00.718)
always feel like we have access to the data on. It's going to take us doing a little digging and fighting a little harder than than we ever have before. But I think we can do it. I think we can justify our value on on the micro scale when a client comes to us and says, hey, are you going to be using AI on this project? It's OK to say no. And here's why.

Paul Povolni (54:09.633)
Brian.

Paul Povolni (54:14.625)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:27.553)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (54:29.006)
I don't think we'll ever be able to completely stop and cripple the AI industry. There's too much money invested behind it, but we can still advocate for ourselves personally and still build thriving, fulfilling careers for ourselves.

Paul Povolni (54:36.097)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (54:43.617)
Right. Right. And I think we could also silo where you use AI and where you don't. You know, AI is going to be able to help with research. It's going to help with collecting data. It's going to, you know, so I think even with agencies and being asked that question of are you using AI, you can say we will use AI to do our research for our analytics, for all this, but the creative work we do at

Kevin Rapp (54:50.03)
Totally.

Paul Povolni (55:07.745)
analog. We do it old style because we believe that's where you're going to get the most differentiation and the most uniqueness and the most creative solution to what your problem is. And so who should be nervous about AI that isn't?

Kevin Rapp (55:20.174)
Absolutely.

Kevin Rapp (55:27.793)
I think the chief revenue officers, to be perfectly honest, the people that are just looking at this cosmetically and not thinking about the larger implications of how it is going to impact their business. The people who think this is a one size fits all solution. Those are the people who are going to be, who should be nervous because they will shoot themselves in the foot.

Paul Povolni (55:46.529)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (55:54.894)
If they think this is going to be something that we can use to replace our costly creative department, which is, which is funny because creative is usually only like five to 10 % of a marketing budget. Right? Like it's so funny to me that we're, we're really trying to solve a problem that I don't think exists. Right. Where we're, we're trying to reduce the cost of creative, which is so much smaller.

Paul Povolni (56:07.489)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you

Paul Povolni (56:15.777)
Right, right, right.

Kevin Rapp (56:24.366)
than the media buy. Like, automate part of the media buy, automate part of the data analytics, automate part of the parts of the process that should be automated and leave the creative parts to the humans because that's where you're going to get the most value out of it. So I think the chief financial officers, the chief revenue officers, the people who are making the larger decisions on whether they should lay off staff and adopt this technology because

Paul Povolni (56:28.737)
Right.

Paul Povolni (56:37.697)
Right.

Right.

Kevin Rapp (56:54.35)
they see the hype behind it and they see the surface level cosmetics and say, hey, this looks good enough without actually doing any testing and seeing how it can work for them. Those are the people that I think should be nervous because those are the people that I think are gonna have the most to lose. If you start laying off staff, if you start...

Paul Povolni (57:03.745)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (57:11.265)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (57:19.79)
losing the institutional knowledge of the creatives that have moved your business as far as it has so far, to automate creative, to squeeze that 5 % down to two or to one, I think those are the people that are making really, really bad bets and they should be nervous.

Paul Povolni (57:26.913)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (57:35.152)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (57:41.832)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And good enough is like the chalkboard fingernail screech for every creative is good enough is just somebody that is looking at the dollars, somebody that is looking at, you know, things that are irrelevant to creativity and just good enough. It's good enough. Let's just go. And that's like, no, it's good enough is not good enough, you know.

Kevin Rapp (58:06.926)
Good enough is the difference between millions and billions and trillions, right? Like good enough for a brand is a trillion dollar decision maker.

Paul Povolni (58:11.841)
Exactly. Absolutely.

Paul Povolni (58:20.161)
Right, right. It's, it's the dying words of a dying brand, you know, is good enough. Yeah. Now when it comes to AI and creativity, what excites you most about it?

Kevin Rapp (58:23.982)
Yeah. Yep.

Kevin Rapp (58:34.062)
nothing. I mean...

Paul Povolni (58:36.449)
Hahaha.

Kevin Rapp (58:39.118)
Here's, here's the thing. I, I want to get excited about this technology. I, I like, I look at it and I go, wow, this would be so cool to play around with. I do look at it and say, it is cool. It is like, it's, it's undeniably cool that I can type words and a video comes out that is undeniably cool. But when I think about the implications is.

Paul Povolni (58:52.065)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:03.969)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (59:09.038)
Is it worth the cost? Is it worth the cost of the cool? When five prompts cost 16 ounces of water, right? Is it, is that worth the cost? Is it worth the cost that there are, you know, people who are paid dollars a day to help train these models, to look at videos of beheadings and sexually explicit material, to make sure that the models are trained properly. Like,

Paul Povolni (59:13.249)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:20.961)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:38.689)
BAM!

Kevin Rapp (59:39.118)
Is it worth that cost? Is it worth the cost that now people have access to make revenge and child pornography of people? Like, is it worth the cost that we can make the creative process faster and cheaper? Like, I just look at this and we're looking at there being major strain on the power grid in Texas because

Paul Povolni (59:50.113)
Well.

Paul Povolni (01:00:06.721)
Wow.

Kevin Rapp (01:00:07.95)
the AI technology is becoming so prominent. And when I look at the larger effects on how this is gonna affect us as a society, I can't help but think that it is a societal net loss for us. It's a net negative. And so it's hard for me to get excited about a technology that has so many negative

Paul Povolni (01:00:25.985)
Yeah, wow.

Kevin Rapp (01:00:38.35)
societal and environmental effects that is built on appropriating the intellectual property of artists like myself and is designed to replace us. I just, I have a hard time getting to the, ooh, I can get excited about this because I just look at it and go, I don't want to reward these companies.

Paul Povolni (01:01:07.105)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:01:07.182)
with my dollars or my data, I don't want to reward them by using them. And so I'm trying to cut out as many of these things in my life as I, as I possibly can, like Adobe is, is like using it more and more prominently. And that is after effects is like my program that I've used for so long. And I'm trying to figure out like, what can I use to replace it? Because I just don't want this tech in my life. I don't want to contribute.

Paul Povolni (01:01:19.873)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:28.865)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:01:36.398)
to this thing that I think has brought a lot of evil into this world.

Paul Povolni (01:01:43.873)
Wow. Well, and Adobe, I think it's kind of interesting that they're embracing it the way they have because they're embracing it to affect the very people that are using their tools to create art, you know? And so they're creating, you know, within Illustrator, a way to create illustrations. And it's like, wait a second, you know, you're...

Kevin Rapp (01:01:57.742)
100%. Yep.

Kevin Rapp (01:02:05.294)
Correct. Yeah. Weird.

Paul Povolni (01:02:09.314)
Yeah, something's broken there. You're creating this tool that's replacing me in the very tool that I use to create the original art. And so I think that is a crazy, it's such a crazy time that we're in when it comes to creativity and AI and it's so early in. I mean, if you think about it, it's only been a little over a year. I mean, it's just insane how much it's permeated through everything.

already and how much it's evolved already from mid journey having wonky faces and multiple fingers and like, this is AI sucks. And then suddenly they fix it and you're like, yeah. Yeah. It's got them better in such a short time span. But do you think we're yelling at the tsunami that's coming and it's coming anyway?

Kevin Rapp (01:02:50.766)
Paul Povolni (01:03:05.985)
Where do you see five years from now, creatives being, when it comes to AI and what's happening?

Kevin Rapp (01:03:15.694)
Yeah, that's such a hard thing to predict because like five years ago, I didn't think we'd be here, right? You know, like this is moving so quickly and there are so many companies that are so invested in being the first and being the fastest that it's hard to see where it's gonna go next. I...

Paul Povolni (01:03:22.753)
Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:03:39.79)
I see there being a lot of consolidation of power around it and we're already seeing it. We're already seeing Apple partnering with OpenAI. We see OpenAI like working with a lot of journalism companies and trying to get partnerships with them so that they can move past legal implications and basically build partnerships with all the places that they're scraping data from. It's...

Paul Povolni (01:03:58.817)
Right, right.

Kevin Rapp (01:04:07.662)
If I have to predict it, it's going to be like, it's late stage capitalism in a microcosm. It's going to be consolidation of power around tech oligopolies. How's that sound? Everyone excited about that? I think that's where we're going to be seeing these tech companies trying to move faster than regulation to make these tools.

Paul Povolni (01:04:15.265)
Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:04:37.262)
these disruptive tools as widespread as possible, because that's the trajectory of pretty much every disruptive company. They will come in, they will try and offer something at a really low price point to undercut competition. That was Uber, that was Airbnb, that was Netflix. All these companies are going to try and make a product that looks so attractive that you have to adopt it. And then eventually they're going to raise their prices.

Paul Povolni (01:04:45.665)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:04:55.489)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (01:05:02.817)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:05:07.79)
I think that's ultimately what's gonna happen is they're going to try and make you reliant on this technology and then they are going to try and price gouge. And I think they're going to price gouge at a point where we are going to see diminishing returns on the effectiveness of what its output is. And I think that we are going to have creatives that are laid off have

Paul Povolni (01:05:08.481)
Right.

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:05:16.961)
Right.

Paul Povolni (01:05:29.441)
Wow.

Kevin Rapp (01:05:37.39)
left the industry, have done something else, and we have trained a younger generation on knowing how to prompt rather than knowing how to create. And so in five years, my fear is that we're probably going to lose a lot of people in the creative industry and have these tech companies have a larger grip on the output.

Paul Povolni (01:05:48.225)
Wow.

Kevin Rapp (01:06:07.214)
And then I think brands are gonna try and figure out how to get creative back into their space. And I hope that this turnover happens fast enough that we don't lose a generation of artists. That is my prediction. It's super bleak. How's that sound?

Paul Povolni (01:06:22.465)
Right. Well, and I think, I think the thing is, you know, we're like, you know, we talked about the technology and the rise of technology, how it always affects, you know, certain segments. And even with the, the advent of a, of a earth that, everybody has access to creatives and tools and whatever with the fibers and the upworks.

You know, that affected a lot of designers and agencies as well, because it was almost like a machine was discovered in these foreign countries where amazing creative was being done for very low dollar. It's almost like the equivalent of AI, you know, because you had to then say, well, here's how we're different, because that's just mass produced average. You know, you still need creativity. You still need

Kevin Rapp (01:06:49.966)
Yeah, sure.

Kevin Rapp (01:06:55.086)
Absolutely.

Paul Povolni (01:07:18.465)
strategy, you still need things to be on a next level in a very saturated marketplace of brands and things like that. And so I think we've always, as creatives, had to deal with something coming up against us and we've always risen to it. And then some die along the way and choose other industries, but others rise to the top and say, you know, I still will bring a better, more creative, more innovative solution.

Kevin Rapp (01:07:30.99)
always.

Paul Povolni (01:07:46.561)
And so I do, I do see that, you know, there is going to be a merger. There's going to be a tension. There's going to be a, a, a fight. There's going to be a rebellion. There's going to be an adoption. And you're right. Five years from now, one year from now, six months from now, we have no idea what that's going to look like. But I think the brands that are going to succeed in a creative AI era are the ones that.

still value a great idea and not just a great execution, but a great idea, you know, and great ideas are going to rise to the top. Differentiation is going to rise to the top and that's going to come through creatives wrestling through the solution, not just by typing a prompt, it's wrestling with how do we make this stand out? How do we make this unique? How do we make this very different from what everybody else is doing? And so I think

Kevin Rapp (01:08:19.79)
Yes. Yes.

Paul Povolni (01:08:42.081)
You know, I think there is, I think there is hope. I think there's also going to be a time of tension. I think there's going to be a time of figuring out what this tsunami is going to do, you know, and, and how, are we going to surf it? You know, are we going to, you know, run from it? What are we going to do with it? And so what's, what's a head smack that you want to share that I haven't asked you about?

Kevin Rapp (01:09:07.214)
I think the head smack moment for me throughout my career has been recognizing that my value isn't derived from my craft. As creatives, we've been taught like our entire careers that our value is in just the craft, right? We have to refine the craft. It's what we're measured on. It's what we're taught on in schools.

It's not what really brings the most value and it's not where you get rewarded the most. I improved in my craft vastly in the early stages of my career, but my financial growth came really, really slow. I mean, I got averages of one and 2 % raises for the first 10 years of my career. My first job, I was paid below the poverty line. Like my kids qualified for free school lunches.

Paul Povolni (01:09:53.345)
Yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:10:07.342)
for a job that I was working full -time, college educated in a niche skillset.

creatives have been exploited for their craft throughout time, right? Like, and you've just pointed out a number of really, really good examples of that. And the thing that has really unlocked growth for me is when I recognize the true value of what I do. When I recognized that the creative contributions that I brought to the table,

actually impacted the business's bottom line. That is when I unlocked the most gross for myself. I went from one to 2 % raises to 20 % raises a year. It was me really assessing and analyzing the creative decisions that I made and following the thread of how those decisions led to the business increasing its revenue.

Paul Povolni (01:10:52.705)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Rapp (01:11:09.742)
the business increasing its brand awareness, the business being able to go public, the business like becoming the largest IPO launch in Ohio's history, raising $720 million in the first day, and realizing that I had tangible contributions to that growth. And then being able to articulate and advocate for myself,

Paul Povolni (01:11:25.185)
Wow.

Kevin Rapp (01:11:38.862)
and advocating for the value of what I brought to the table. That was the head -to -back moment for me. And that's what I am constantly trying to advocate to creatives is find the true value that you bring to businesses with your contribution. Because the moment that you recognize like that it's not just subjective pretty pictures that you're making. You are making behavior change. You are

Paul Povolni (01:12:08.417)
Right.

Kevin Rapp (01:12:08.878)
making the results of the business happen, that's when you're going to unlock some real potential for growth for yourself. That is the head smack for me, is understanding my value and learning how to advocate for it.

Paul Povolni (01:12:27.937)
That's awesome. Man, Kevin, this has been an amazing conversation. I appreciate you coming on, man. I've really enjoyed this. Well, thank you for coming on and well done in all that you're doing and advocating for creatives and, you know, waving the flag of, hey, don't jump all in head first. That's amazing. And I appreciate you being on and have an amazing day, man.

Kevin Rapp (01:12:31.278)
Yeah, buddy. I appreciate the great questions.

Kevin Rapp (01:12:54.862)
Thanks, buddy. Right back at you.