I Built BetMGM & Rocket Mortgage Into Cultural Phenomena (Casey Hurbis, CMO of BetMGM)

If you're gonna spend $20 million in 60 seconds, you better have damn sure you've got the right idea. So we'd start off with 150 ideas, right? Ultimately, we would take the 5, 6 ideas and he'd walk out with a winner.

That paid off by winning back-to-back number 1 ad talked about in the Super Bowl. How did you keep raising the bar?

From launching billion-dollar brands at Chrysler and Rocket Mortgage to creating Super Bowl ads that went number 1 in America and standing up a PGA Tour event in just

BetMGM's Casey Herbes knows exactly how to build a brand people can't stop talking about.

All those talent meetings, what's one that really sticks out?

Pitbull. He was just sharing with me his philosophy on video distribution, and I walked out of there after like 45 minutes or an hour with him, and I'm like,

that

guy, what a business person. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we shot 3 spots with Charlie Sheen, and 2 of them were, uh, interesting to say the least.

One of the things that you did that was really exciting was you created a PGA golf tournament.

I'll never forget, we signed the paperwork, I wrote the date, I wrote scared as shit because I had never stood up a PGA tournament. And what should take 2 and a half years, we stood up in 14 months. I literally would shed a tear at the end of every tournament because I was like, holy shit, we pulled this off.

How do you channel that fear into creative output?

Yeah, uh, welcome everybody to the PGA Championship.

Welcome to episode 5 of the Zeitgeist Podcast. I'm your host, Steven Galanis, and I'm really excited for today's guest, Casey Herbes, CMO of BetMGM. And as you'll notice, those of you that are longtime watchers, we are filming in a different location today. We are here in sunny Detroit. Casey, welcome to the pod.

Steven, thanks so much for having me here today. Wow, this is the first time you've been out of Chicago?

This is the first time we haven't filmed on our podcast. Let's just start with that first. Obviously, like, you are a hardcore Detroit guy, diehard Michigan State Spartan. I'm a real Spartan, you know, but I'd love to hear, like, how has Detroit shaped you as a marketer? There's such a grit to this city and you've gotten to work in some really iconic places ahead of BetMGM, but like, why Detroit?

Yeah, well, I'm a, I'm a third-generation Detroit kid. I mean, I'm a, If you've ever spent time with folks that are born and raised in Detroit, my story is pretty typical. Like, great-grandparents immigrated to this country, you know, in the early 1900s, 1910s. And they, like a lot of people back then, they— the middle class was born in Detroit. And my great-grandparents worked in the factories for 30 years. Yeah. And my parents were born, they lived in the city. Like, it's a very typical Detroit type of story. And, you know, I was the first kid in my extended family to be to be fortunate enough to go to Michigan State. And, uh, you know, when you're born and raised in Detroit, you're kind of, uh, you know, you're born with a set of keys in your hand. And— Yeah. It's like anything else, you know, when you're, you're being from Detroit, you tend to find your way to the automotive industry. And when I graduated from Michigan State, advertising major, um, it was like anything. I was like, I didn't know where to go, what to do. And, you know, I've got my first job and was at an ad agency, BBDO, on the Chrysler business for 17 years. And You know, and then after that, I went— I moved over to FCA, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, after Chrysler came out of bankruptcy and moved over to the brand side on the client side for 7 years. And, you know, that's 24 years in automotive. I got my fill of, you know, Detroit burning fuel.

So 24 years of automotive, as you mentioned, born with a set of keys in your hand. You then pivot to another highly regulated industry. in the mortgage is going over to Rocket and, and, you know, camp and organizing a lot of campaigns and overseeing, you know, award-winning Super Bowl ads and, you know, really helping propel that business in a big way. Talk to me about that switch from like the auto where you'd been at home forever to another highly regulated industry.

Yeah. And I was really fortunate when I moved from the agency side over to FCA, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Um, when I, when I got to Chrysler FCA, Fiat the brand was coming back to the US. It had been in the US from 1908 to 1984, left, and then as part of like the promise to the US government and paying back loans, like, all right, Sergio Marchionne said, I'll bring back fuel-efficient vehicles and Fiat will be the first brand. So I was so lucky that I was able to launch the— help launch the Fiat brand in the United States. And, you know, that was the first time an automotive brand had launched in the US since Mini Cooper 2001 in a vastly different media world, right? Digital and social. And then after 24 years on automotive, you start— I started to ask myself, okay, what's next? And, um, I'm a personal, you know, one of my personal beliefs is everything happens in life for a reason. And I got a fateful phone call one day. It was actually a— it was, it was an ask for a referral of another candidate at Quicken Loans. And as I started to have the conversation, I was like, whoa, this is really interesting. I knew all of Quicken Loans, again, a Detroit-born and raised company. Right. With Dan Gilbert, you know, chairman and founder. And then I kind of raised my hand. I was like, I would love the opportunity. And lo and behold, I got asked in 2017 to join Quicken Loans before they— we did the rebrand over to Rocket Mortgage. And when I got down there, it was a whole new world. I mean, you know, being in automotive for 24 years, And then moving from industry to industry was daunting. It was intimidating, a totally different language. But what I quickly realized, Steven, was the purchase funnel was almost the same. If you think about $99 lease rates or 2% interest, you know, interest rates for a refi, that's a pretty easy business decision. But, you know, when you buy a new vehicle once every, what, 3, 5, 7, 10 years, you buy a new home, you know, whatever it is, once a— The purchase funnel is exactly the same. So I was like, all right, I get it. In terms of brand and driving awareness and then ultimately, you know, middle of funnel all the way down. And one of the first tasks I had and was given when I joined Quicken was we're thinking about— they had just launched Rocket Mortgage as a product. Right. Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans in the 2017 Super Bowl. And it was like, we know that we want to diversify our product portfolio and maybe the evolution of the brand and the company is Rocket. not Quicken Loans. And I was like, well, I've never done a rebrand before, but let's figure it out. I mean, that was— it was wild. 8 years and just an amazing place to work. And probably my most favorite part of working at Quicken Loans and Rocket Mortgage, Steven, was the story of the revitalization of Detroit. As I mentioned, the chairman and founder, Dan Gilbert, in 2010, he moved 1,500 team members from the suburbs to downtown Detroit. And quite honestly, in 2010 and '11, The lights were literally not on.

Right.

And, you know, you went downtown to work and you got out. And he saw— he had a vision. And the vision was like, could you imagine if we move down here and we invest in the community? And he firmly believed that the future generation, those that are entering the marketplace today, they're going to want to be part of something bigger. Maybe not go into a concrete jungle, but be downtown.

Right.

And be part of a company that's, you know, doing amazing things. I was so, just so, so thankful and blessed to be part of that wave and through some wild times like we were talking earlier, like 100%, you know, COVID, you know, you blew off the, you know, the playbook from 1918 Black Plague. And, you know, when people were home and like trying to figure out the market was frozen to 2% interest rates to, you know, the market turning in Q1 of '22 where all of a sudden it was hard to ask people to refi at 7.5%, 8%. 100%. Wild ride, but just absolutely amazing.

Yeah. Talk, talk to me about like, obviously you come in and Interest rates are super, super low. You know, at that beginning period, the mortgage industry, for a variety of reasons, you know, at least like as an outsider looking in, right? Quicken and like Rocket. Those were the ones that I just remember like over and over again. You had other regional players, but you guys really came out like a bat out of hell. Talk about the landscape at that point when you joined, and then what did you guys do to really like break out and and get on everybody's tongue in that era?

Yeah, great question. I mean. Well, before I joined the organization, there was a belief of building, like, spending wisely, but building a brand along the way. Right. I mean, and if you, if you know anything about the mortgage business, I mean, in this country, there are upwards of 40,000 to 50,000 places you can get a mortgage in this country.

Right.

Right? Between banks, non-banks, local players, local brokers, credit unions, so on and so forth. And it's a very commoditized space. Guess what? There are also other commoditized industries. Insurance is a great example. Right. So, knowing that to be the fact, I mean, one of the things that, you know, they were well on their way, but as I joined the organization in 2017, it was almost like taking a play out a little bit out of the insurance playbook of like, let's be honest, like, if you wake up on a Saturday morning, I don't know anyone in America that rolls over and, you know, says to their partner, guess what, honey, today's the day. We're gonna go, you know, today's the day we're gonna go buy a hot water heater. Get a set of tires, a mattress, a minivan, or a mortgage, right? Like, how do you take something that is commoditized? You can't, you can't test drive a mortgage. Right. You can't taste a mortgage. You can't put a mortgage on. But how do you make it interesting? So when somebody enters the market, whether it's a refi or a home purchase once every 3, 5, 7, 10 years, how do you make it like top-of-the-mind awareness? But also like, all right, if I'm going to make the number 1, number 2 most expensive purchase in my life outside of having kids, I want to make sure I'm working with someone that like has my best interests and my, you know, my personal, uh, needs in mind. And but let's have fun doing it. So I'm a firm believer that there's no reason good work can't be educational, entertaining, and also engaging. And so that was like, I had that permission. Right. And thankfully I had that permission of like, how do we take not an exciting category And create excitement and have fun and align ourselves with Super Bowl talent or teams or sporting events or celebrities like other brands have done it. And, you know, thankfully, you know, I was given that permission and had a great team to help bring that all to life. Well,

it's also interesting when you're talking about the trust needed in a business like mortgage or insurance, and now you have a trusted brand in Quicken and you're rebranding like Full stop. Talk about that, like what prompted the rebrand, and as you, you know, really bit it off, like what were the things you were learning as you were working with different agencies or however you decided like to create the right brand identity for where the puck was going to go? Talk to me about that process.

It's super fascinating. Well, Quicken Loans, I mean billions of dollars have been spent behind that brand for 10, 15 years. For sure.

Basketball arenas.

You know, Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. sporting events and, you know, large, large scale at a national advertising level. And in 2017, when Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans was launched as a product, that was a foray into Rocket Mortgage. And then, as I mentioned earlier, the decision of, as we want to diversify and expand our portfolio of fintech products, eventually like Rocket Mortgage, we have Rocket Homes, buying and selling a home, Rocket Loans, personal loans or other other Rocket Ventures along the way. And so, changing the name from Quicken to Rocket, it was natural.

Yeah.

But it didn't come without challenges. One was legacy, right? And, you know, you have emotional legacy internally with, you know, stakeholders. And then obviously, anytime you change a brand— I use Comcast and Xfinity as a great example. You're in Chicago, right? Big Comcast market.

Yep.

I mean, it's been Xfinity for how long? 15 years?

Right.

I call it Comcast 90% of the time, right? 100%. I still to this day, sometimes when people come to me and like, oh, Quicken or Rock Financial, which was like in the '90s. And so we knew there was gonna be a challenge. Now, thankfully, you know, by virtue of $800, $900 billion of spend, you can churn that change, you know, that share of voice and create it. But I mean, that was, you know, from look and feel, design, tone, voice. And then in 2019, We've made the switch and we made that switch on the Super Bowl and award-winning Super Bowl work. And, you know, I was blessed enough to do 4 Super Bowl campaigns at Rocket Mortgage. And, you know, when you're spending $20 million in 60 seconds, it's the most horrifying, gut-wrenching, you know, as I, as I would tell my wife every Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, going down to the office, I was like, my LinkedIn profile's updated.

Yeah.

And, you know, Daddy's got a 50/50 shot and we'll see what happens tomorrow morning.

Well, and something we were talking about before, right? It's not just about having the budget, but it's actually creating a campaign that's good enough to go viral and be buzzy. And, you know, that, that was, that paid off by winning kind of back-to-back USA Today, like number one ad talked about in the Super Bowl. For those that aren't familiar with those, can you tell the story of the first one? And then as you now had this like bar to climb? Because you now knew, okay, I could spend it and it could work and it could be highly acclaimed. Like, how did you keep raising the bar?

Yeah, um, I was fortunate at FCA, at Fiat. We did 3 Super Bowl campaigns, so I had some experience doing Super Bowl campaigns.

Yeah.

And then when I got to Quicken and Rocket, I, I joined the company in April, and in May of that year, we're at an all-company meeting and our CEO said to the entire company We're going to be in the Super Bowl. And I was like, oh shit. Um, okay, that was the first time I'd heard it. I'm like, I just got here 30 days ago. I better figure this out.

Now looking back on it, in the interview process, was he really curious about your experience?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, and, um, in that the brand, the, you know, the, the leadership wanted to expand the brand and, you know, do different things and think different. And the work that I was fortunate enough to lead at Fiat, I think lent itself to that. But when he said, like, we're gonna be in the Super Bowl, I'm like, oh boy. And we had an in-house agency at Quicken Rocket, upwards of 100 creative team members. But I firmly believe, like, if you're gonna spend $20 million in 60 seconds, you better make damn sure you've got the right idea. And so we would do literally jump balls. So I would invite 10 to 15 agencies, wouldn't pay a penny. Yeah. That's not a very popular thing, but it was almost like spec work. And it was like, So we'd start off with 150 ideas, right? Cut it down to 60, cut it down to like 15, do rips, animatics, proofs of concept, start to talk to celebrities on interest levels, making sure he, she, or they aren't doing 3 other Super Bowl ads, you know, da da da. Ultimately, we would take the 4, 5, 6 ideas to our CEO and our chairman, and he'd walk out with a winner. And then it was like, oh boy, now we got to get this done. And the first one I did was with Keegan-Michael Key in 2019. And then award-winning spot the following year with Jason Momoa, where he's taking off his muscles. And that was his first Super Bowl ad he had ever done. And that was a wild process. And then probably the most arduous one we did was in 2021 with Tracy Morgan. We, we ended up doing 2 spots. Didn't know I was doing 2 spots until mid-December. And so we had to double up the production and it was an 8-day shoot. And on day 3, last shot of the night, This is when still we were bubbling up and, you know, sitting in bubbles, and everyone was driving individual cars. And at the time in LA, you know, people told us like, if you get in a car accident, don't come to the hospital. Right. There's more important things to take care of. And on night 3 of an 8-day shoot, the director came up and said, did you hear what happened? We're like, no. And it's like 2 o'clock in the morning. There was like an assistant hair and makeup person tested positive, who was next to Tracy Morgan. And literally, we had to shut down the set. And this was— Jesus— early January and Super Bowl's first week in February. And we all, we all had to go home for a week. You know, back then, protocols and test, test, test. Yeah, yeah. And we went back on, turned the lights back on to shoot what had to be 5 days in 2 and a half days, and edited, edited, edited. And we literally shipped the 2 spots Saturday morning at 3 AM, the day before the game.

Yeah.

And that was, uh, they won number 1, number 2 USA Today Ad Meter. Um, outside of, I believe, Budweiser, that was the first time a brand had gone number 1, number 2. And I felt pretty good being a, you know, mortgage brand in, uh, Detroit. So it's, uh,

yeah, it's

exciting.

It's an incredible story. So, so much to unpack there. One thing I'm really curious about both at Rocket and obviously with BetMGM, you've done really well finding the right talent to actually work with. So as you mentioned, they were reaching out to a lot of celebrities, gauging their interest levels. What do you look for when finding a brand ambassador? It's a question that we at Cameo for Business get asked all the time. Is there a framework that you've developed over the years to say like, this person's the right fit for us?

I would love to tell you that I have a trademark or a patented process. Um, some of it is trial and error. Yeah. Uh, quite honestly, when we were looking at Super Bowl talent, um, Keegan was a good example. Jason Momoa. I'll never forget, uh, the first time I saw the concept for the Jason Momoa spot. This was the fall of 2019, fall of '19. Obviously COVID hadn't happened yet. Uh, you know, it happened in March, uh, in 2020. When I first saw the concept, I didn't know who Jason Momoa was.

Right.

Dude, I'm a father, 2 young kids. Like, I didn't watch Game of Thrones, and I was dismissive of the idea.

Right.

I'm like, I don't know who that guy is. Um, Aquaman hadn't come out, but I literally looked around the room, and I'm a, I'm a firm believer when it comes to big creative ideas, I should be the last one to speak. I am the last one to speak, and I'm, I'm, and I am not the audience. I think too many CMOs and too many brands end up doing work that I call— it's like a board— it gets a boardroom applause. Right. Or they know that the CMO likes dogs and—

This is their thing.

Dogs and Tiger Woods, so they're gonna get dogs and Tiger Woods spots. And I'm like, who the hell am I to let my personal biases or life experiences in the way of a great idea. And when I looked around the room and I saw my team members like sitting up in their chair, or like their eyes got big because they knew who Jason was, and I'm like, I Googled it. Yeah, something. Oh, is that dude— now I know who it is. I just didn't know by name.

Right, right, right.

But to get to your— but that was like, okay, there's always going to be a transactional part of that relationship, but part of my process is I will always want to meet with the agent and the talent personally. Because if— I mean, there's gonna be a transactional moment, right? I mean, we're borrowing equity from one another. Right, right. Whether it's for one spot or a campaign. Yep. But I also want, like, especially at Roccat and now at BetMGM, like— and we're going through this right now, quite honestly, where if we're gonna invest in talent and we're gonna borrow equity from one another, I wanna make sure that we share values and that we both have, like, similar belief systems. In that, you know, I truly see when we work with talent, and it could be athletes as well, when it comes to ambassadors, like for what we do here at Rock or at BetMGM, that, I mean, there are shared values and that we— I know we can work together. And quite honestly, too, I want to make sure that we can have a relationship, but also from an agent standpoint, because, yes, there is going to be a piece of paper. You know, my OGC always told me, you know, contracts are for the divorce, not the marriage.

Yep.

But I'm a big, you know, like, I like—

You want to enjoy the marriage too.

Yeah, I like, I like the honeymoon. I want to keep the honeymoon going as long as I can. And, um, so a lot of it is that, is like personal investment. And, you know, and I can give you some great examples of like Jason Momoa, like, loved Detroit and he wanted to invest more in Detroit. And, you know, we were helping him look at properties and, you know, business opportunities. And, you know, that just tends to build upon itself over time. And You know, while a transactional relationship may end over time, then, but you know, I could pick up the phone today and if there was a project or something, knowing that, all right, I know what KC stands for and I like how he worked and, or the company or the agency worked, and I want to do business with them again. No different than how you run your business every single day.

Absolutely.

You want to like the people you're working with.

Yeah, and the authenticity is also so important because there could be people that you've worked with in the past. I'm sure this is the case, right? Someone you worked with at previous stops and your first thought is they would nail it here, but then when you actually have that conversation, you realize they're not the right fit or they're not super passionate about this next project or this next category.

A lot of times too with talent, before I meet with them, chances are they've worked with other brands.

Right.

And through networking or what have you, it's like referrals. Have you ever hired somebody, you know, go to hire somebody and call the referral and the referral trashed them?

Yep.

You have? Oh, I never have. But you know what I'm saying? Like,

well, like within, like there are certain clues because, you know, obviously you can get in trouble for that. But I've heard, you know, there's one hire I made in particular that was, and this was somebody starting a 0 to 1 thing for us. And the comment was, he's great, but he needs a big team. Right. And that was just one of those things that I was like, ooh, maybe this person isn't the right

It's a

tell. For that, right? And it wasn't, you know, they in no way trashed him, but I'm sure there's similar things. Or maybe in this business, you know, CMOs might be like a little bit more like you have a lot of relationships, you're so involved in that world that someone's like, hey, this guy's a pain in the ass.

Well, just exactly that. Like if I'm gonna go work with talent and an athlete, you know, celebrity, whatever it might be, like either through our— my network, or I, you know, like, well, you know, Steven knows Jimmy. Yeah. Hey Steven, do you mind, you know, give me Jimmy's number and I'll call Jimmy? I'm like, how's Momoa? And usually what comes out of Jimmy's mouth within 5 seconds tells me everything I want to know, right? You know what I'm saying? Because again, if we're going to invest, I want to make sure that, you know, what we're getting is, you know—

I remember when we were first getting started, we're at 1871, the tech incubator there, and one of the mentors was somebody that had been a very prominent former NFL agent, and he had repped a, you know, multiple-time Pro Bowl player who was the face of a very iconic brand. And one of the— and, you know, when you look from the outside looking in, the commercials that they had done, it felt like this was the most tailor-made, natural thing ever. And he was just talking about like, Steven, how the hell are you going to get people to, for $100 or $50, to, to make a personalized video message? You know, my guy, I brought him to set, you know, on a brand he'd been working for years, and he wouldn't get out of, you know, he wouldn't get out of a car to do a meet and greet when he's getting paid $50,000 for an hour, right? And it's always really interesting when you, you know, dig behind the, you know, you dig under the surface a little bit and, and, you know, find those people that are a little bit more difficult to work with.

Yeah, I mean, listen, no one wants to work with an asshole,

right?

Right. I mean, it's just, that's the reality. Like, life is is too short. We just, um, we just, uh, partnered at BetMGM with Derek Jeter. And, uh, one of the things as I joined the organization, you know, we're really fortunate. We work with like Barry Sanders in football, Kevin Garnett in basketball, Gretzky in hockey, Connor McDavid. We didn't have a baseball ambassador. And I was going through like the mental Rolodex, right? And there was a couple of players where I was like, you know, as a— I'm a huge fan of them.

Right, right, right.

But reputation and/or a personal experience I had was like, If I had that type of experience with said person, right, what are they going to be like with our VIPs or my team or on set with my agency?

For sure.

Derek Jeter, I've had the chance to meet. I've played in his golf outing a couple times, and, you know, I— some common friends. And so, like, I knew what that reputation was. And then, you know, you meet and you have that, again, transactional. But, but I was like, this is, this is the type of, you know, human that you know, we want to do business with and we know that he's, you know, he's going to treat whatever leadership, the team, the agency, most importantly, the end user, i.e., our players at BetMGM well. And that's, you know, that's what you want to do.

When you think about all those like face-to-face talent meetings that you've had, what's one that really sticks out that just blew you away when you were like, like you just had a totally different conception of them and you walked away and you're just like, I have to work with this guy.

Yeah. Uh, I'll give you 2 crazy ones.

Yeah.

Uh, well, one was like, you'd be like, of course that one was nuts. Um, Pitbull.

Yeah.

Do you know Pitbull? Ever spent time with Armando? I have.

I've met Pitbull.

He— so we did a Fiat spot with him. It was a crazy spot. It was, uh, it was like a 6-minute music video. Uh, Pitbull was in it. Part 2 of my story is Charlie Sheen. Um, oh my gosh, we had like Dez Bryant. Uh, geez, Ocho Cinco was in it. We had like the lead singer of All-American Reet. I mean, we had this like ensemble beat. We were partnered with Beats at the time. But, um, I found myself one-on-one. Uh, this is now 2012 or '13. You'll appreciate this story because— and, uh, and so it was just one-on-one. Uh, Pitbull and I were talking and he was just sharing with me like his philosophy on video distribution. And at the time, like, I think you assume now, like, he was like the number one artist on Vevo, right?

Right.

And he was talking about how his collab, how he like, here, here's how I collab and how can I help you? And when we do this and, and here I am, I'm just a brand guy, you know, on the shoot, making sure our money's being, you know, the steward of our funds. And I walked outta there after like 45 minutes or an hour with him and I'm

like, this guy's unbelievable.

That guy, like, what a business, business person, but how like he was spending time sharing with me how he felt about video distribution and how best to go about it. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we shot 3 spots with Charlie Sheen and they were interesting. 2 of them were like straight out of like what you would expect. One of them was awesome. 2 of them were interesting, to say the least. I'll leave it there. Statute of limitations.

I have Charlie— I literally personally went over to his house in the middle of COVID to go onboard. And, you know, he ended up doing amazing for us, but completely different personality. You know, when he's— when the camera's on, you know, this guy is electric. Nailed it. And behind the scenes, it's just, you know, he's so much more timid and, you know, just a very, very different personality than you would expect. So I, like, I, I know exactly, you know, without you telling me the story, I know.

I was on edge, but I mean, Right when the when the lights went on, like

electric.

Boom! Nailed it. I mean, it was really fun to work with them.

Super cool. All right, so continuing on, like you're you've now like rebranded Rocket and you're continuing to make splashes and still in the boom times. Like and we'll talk about the post zero interest rate and and how that changed. But you know, one of the things that you did that was really exciting was you created a PGA golf tournament. Talk about that.

Oh, that's, uh, thank you. That's honestly one of the— people ask me like, what's a— what's something that you're most proud of? And I come to that for a lot of the reason why we're here in Detroit today is because of Detroit. And, um, prior to joining, uh, Quicken and Rocket, uh, they were part of the— they were partners of the PGA Tour. Uh, there was a golf tournament in DC. It was actually through the Tiger Woods Foundation called the Quicken Loans National. And Um, there was interest and discussion about, hey, maybe over time we bring it to Detroit. 4 or 5 years into the partnership, no closer to Detroit. Tiger wasn't around for the most part. He was going through—

Right.

You know, some trials and tribulations. And, uh, so I joined in April, and the golf tournament in DC was in June. And our CEO tells me, hey, when you're out in DC and when you meet with Jay Monahan, tell him we're out. And I'm like, why don't you tell him we're out? Like, I just got here. And, you know, yeah, he was like, well, you know, here we are 4 or 5 years later, we want to bring this thing to Detroit, we're not there, it's all very expensive, so on and so forth. So I went to— I went to— had a great time in DC, had an uncomfortable conversation with the commissioner. And the way we left it was, when and if you're ready to come to Detroit, we're here. Yeah. And we got a phone call later that fall, November, December, and it was, hey, we're thinking about this in 2000— 2017. 2017. We're thinking about like changing the schedule and, you know, tournaments come and go, whatever it might be, and we think there's a pathway to Detroit. Come on in.

And

they came in the dead of winter,

and, and, you know, so that wasn't easy to walk them around a golf course, but we said, great, come on in. And there's only one place we're not doing out in the suburbs. There's only one course, and it's in the city of Detroit, and it's the Detroit Golf Club, built in 1899. And they did their, they did their assessment, and, you know, they came back and said, we think this can be done. And then, um, I'll never forget, we signed the paperwork to like born, if you will, our birth, uh, the Rocket Mortgage Classic. And I wrote on my wall, I wrote the date on the wall, and I wrote scared as shit because I had never stood up a PGA tournament. Yeah. I had no idea what it, what took, what it took to stand it up. We didn't have an operator. And what should take 2 and a half years, uh, we stood up in 14 months. And, um, to this day, uh, they just finished that 7th or 8th year of the Rock and Mortars Classic. This is the first year I wasn't there, and it was emotional not being there for me. But, um, it was beyond a labor of love, and for a couple reasons.

One is it was a vision of our chairman and founder, Dan Gilbert, to bring something to the city of Detroit and shine— continue to shine a spotlight on the city, um, because the turn— there's only 2 PGA tournaments that are in a city. Atlanta East Lake, the tour championship.

Yeah.

And the Rocket Mortgage Classic. And oh, by the way, downtown, I think you were telling me you were staying at an amazing property in downtown Detroit. That hotel, the Shinola Hotel, had just opened.

And, uh, Rocket and Bedrock, the real estate arm, owns all those downtown. And so the thought was like, how do we get all the golfers to be downtown, right? And the first year, we would literally go from turn— all year we'd go to tournaments, and we're almost like The convention bureau, like, yeah, visit Detroit, say nice things about Detroit. And people are asking a lot of questions. My wife wants to know, or my, you know, like perception versus reality. And it was, when was the last time you were in Detroit?

Let's be honest, 156 golfers plus agents plus blah, blah, blah. Unless they have lineage to Detroit, the chances of them being in Detroit in the last 10 or 15 years is slim to none. Yeah. And we're like, trust us. And, and we held our breath. And the first year we were the most awarded PGA tournament on tour from an activation standpoint. We were very, very purposeful in that, making sure we engage the community.

We had minority and minority-owned small businesses have opportunities and, and it just grew from there. And it was a, it was a 30-hour-a-week side hustle for me for the, you know, for about 6 months. And the week of the tournament was 130-hour week. Wow. And I would have my kids work it. I would have my friends volunteer. And I literally would shed a tear at the end of every tournament because I was like, holy shit, we pulled this off. And it was just, to me, it's just the thing I'm most proud of because it's a, it's,

it was a vision that I was blessed enough and, you know, Luke was blessed enough to be given the keys, back to the car key analogy, to stand up. And it's, I take a lot of pride in that.

So I'm detecting a theme.

Yeah.

As these big seminal like tentpole moments for you emerge, like the first thing, you know, you're writing, I'm scared, on the wall, right? Yeah. Or like you find out at all hands that you're doing a Super Bowl commercial and, you know, your stomach's— 30 days into the job. Your stomach's dropping. How do you channel that fear into like creative output?

Yeah. It's funny, people ask me that. I, I tend to operate best in fear mode. I don't know if that's— that might not be the most articulate way to describe it.

That's just what gets your juices going.

Yeah, it's, it's just, you know, like, you want to— what you want to do? I've never done that. And, um, you know, one of the— this is an operating philosophy at Rocket, and, and I live my life like this now, is like, no different than you, like, we'll figure it out. And if you surround yourself with the right people that are like-minded, they share values, they also have a vested interest in bringing something to life. I mean, as we know, maybe the, you know, some of the most, the most, you know, meaningful moments to you and myself are those moments where, you know, if it was, if it was easy, everyone would freaking do it. You know, if it was easy, there'd be 400 Cameos in this world. 100%. Right? And what I would say about Super Bowl, there's 65 advertisers, 30 of which mail it in. It's like, yeah, yeah, you know, the CEO goes to their country club and tells their buddies like, hey, look, we're in the game. And there was— there's 30 brands that go for it. And my feeling was, if we're gonna go for it, let's go for it. Why spend $20 million to be forgotten tomorrow? And, um, you know, there's risk. There's risk with that. But I'm also like, I also operate with the belief system that, you know, if you don't look over the edge once in a while, you're not far enough. And trust me, I got more. I got between my wife, lawyers, you know, like compliance, whomever, PR. There's always going to be someone standing behind me with, you know, an arm's length away from the back of my pants. But I was— I pushed my team and I challenged myself. Like, don't bring me ideas that I want. Make me— bring me ideas or opportunities that make me feel uncomfortable. That's when I know we're onto something.

Boom times, you know, things are hotter than hot. And then in '22, something changes in a big way that affected my business, affected your business. Talk about what happens when interest rates started spiking.

Yeah. February of '22, we were in the Super Bowl. We almost pulled out. We could— we like, we had bought the spot in September. You know, you usually buy, you know, if you're, if you're an advertiser, you can buy it early if you're an incumbent, so on and so forth. You can always sell it, whatever it might be. We bought the spot in September. I started the creative process in June. We ended up, we ended up developing this like amazing idea. and partnering with Barbie. And, you know, and we wanted to do 2 brands, Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Homes. And we partnered up with Mattel and Barbie, who had never been in the Super Bowl. And then we also partnered with Anna Kendrick and, you know, and then He-Man and everything else. We almost pulled the spot because the, the, the headwinds were starting to roll in. I mean, it was, it was— I remember in like October, November, sitting with our CEO and, you know, like literally We're on fire, right? And a CEO, the right CEOs look 6 months, a year, year and a half ahead. And I'll never forget our CEO like scaring the you-know-what out of me. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, you don't understand. You know, Ukraine hadn't happened. You know, like, you remember the invasion in Ukraine happened, right? You know what I'm saying? He was reading the headwinds. Yeah. And I was like, we're fine. You know, we're gonna be fine. And we proceeded with the Super Bowl. I went to bed that night at 4 o'clock in the morning. I always would. I never went to the game, by the way. If we're ever in the Super Bowl, I stayed and we ran a war room, right? Digital, social, PR. I'd go to bed at 4 AM, wake up at 7 AM to hear what happened with USA Today. We get number 1 USA Today Ad Meter, you know, yay, you know, pat myself on the back, you know, shed a tear of joy. And I get a phone call about an hour later that said, get your—

took us into the office. Oh, no. We got to get to work. It's here. And, you know, and, you know, interest rates, you know, they went from 40-year lows to, you know, interest rates we hadn't seen. Right. And when you go from 2% to 7%, 8%. And if you think about, you know, lenders where, you know, the primary source of their revenue was refi, it was tough.

And if you remember in '20 and '21, mortgage companies went public, SPACs, like there was a bunch— everyone was going public. Yeah. And, you know, some didn't make it out of it. And, uh, in, you know, for, you know, for a rocket, it was like, all right, you know, we better get good at purchase quickly because the refi, you know, everybody that, you know, didn't take advantage of refi when they should have for that in '20 and '21. Yeah. Uh, it's gonna— unless there's extenuating circumstances, cash-out refi, second, you know, whatever it might be.

And, um, so I mean, that was, you know, that's where our iron needs to, you know, sharpen itself and Um, the rocket now today, I mean, just going through transformational change and, you know, the whole, the whole journey of homeownership is radically changing, right, in the world of AI and, you know, real estate, uh, real estate process, what have you. And it was a tough couple of years. I mean, we went through multiple— we grew, I mean, uh, as an organization, geez, I think we went from 16,000 to 25,000 from 2019-20 to '21, like $16,000 to $25,000 just because of the volume of work. Right. That, you know, the amount of mortgages that we were doing and paper we're putting across the desk. And, you know, as the market came back down, it was tough. Yeah. I mean, and you find yourself as— yes, I was a marketer, and, you know, looking back on it, um, you know, I found myself probably 30-40% of those days I was not a CMO.

Uh, you know, I was a CMO in title, but, you know, the title is Chief Marketing Officer. But you know, looking back on it, and you know, I I found myself like set sixty seventy percent of the time. I was a chief morale, a chief motivation, a chief like psychologist offer, not only for myself but for my team members. And you know, the other thing that I shared was, and if I'm sure you went through this too, Cam, a cameo, Steven, is you know you think about in 2022, you know coming out of the recession in 2011 and 12. So let's just say. You're a 23, 24-year-old young person coming out of college in 2012 or '13, and you started your career in 2012, '13, '14.

Right. You hadn't seen a cycle.

You had a pretty damn good ride.

Yeah.

You and I— I'm not sure your age, but, you know, like, I went through, you know, the burst and, you know, I went— I started my career in 1993.

Right.

'93 through '97, I'm like, this is easy. And then the bubble burst in '98, and I'm like, well, business is hard. And in the automotive business, 9/11 caused major disruption, right? Uh, and then 2008, '09, and '10, you know.

Yeah, I graduated 2010, right? You know, and right into that recession. I remember leaving Duke, and of my 20, 30 best friends, 2 people had jobs. Yeah, right. And, and it's like, what are we gonna do? We all had to figure it out.

Think about, think about the young people that started their careers in 2013 and '14. Yeah, when 2022 hits, You, you went through it because you were coming out of school. I went through it '98 and '89 and '10. And when I would look around the room and I would look at that, that young person's eyes, I mean, they had that—

Deer in headlights.

Deer in headlights. And it was what I found myself doing was like, this is— we are, we are in a challenging time. This will be a challenging time. But this isn't 2008, '09, and '10. This isn't 1970. Go, go talk to your grandfather.

Right.

And, you know, my dad would always remind me of like, you know, I bought— you know, I was making $40,000 a year and I had a 16% interest rate on my, you know, $30,000 home, and I thought I was fine. Go home and talk to Grandpa that, you know, what they went through in the late '70s. Talk to anybody. Like, I lost 50% of value on my home in 2008, '09, '10. I— dozens of friends lost their homes and jobs and blah blah. This is a challenge,

right? And there's perspective that you have.

Yeah, it's like, that's where I found myself for 2 years, like, telling myself it's okay, because, you know, you have an '08, '09, you're good, you know. You, you— lest you forget what happened, you know, in 2008, '09, and '10, you know, when you're riding a wave. And so one, you had to remind yourself, like, you know what, This is going to be a challenge, but that was really hard in '08, '09, and '10.

Yeah.

And then for the younger people, it's like, we're gonna get through this. This is the first one you're going through, and this won't be your last. Because they don't know how to deal with it, right? They've been whatever. Maybe they've been protected growing up, you know, they've been protected growing up. They weren't in the workforce, and all of a sudden, you know, they have 8, 9-year solid run on whatever, profit sharing and bonuses and All of a sudden they're like, I'm not getting a double-digit what? Or I'm not getting that, or I'm not getting a— like, no, like, you know, we've got to do the right thing for, you know, our clients and our business. So it was tough. I mean, it was, you know, and being a leader of people, it can be challenging, right? And especially when you're a relational leader.

Well, you're a relational leader, but Obviously, you're also like a very offensive leader too, right? Like you want to be on offense, and suddenly in a situation like that, you know, you're playing defense. And one of the things I remember going through that time, because very similarly, like I am, I'm like an F1 driver when it comes to it. Like I want to be full throttle, or I'm going to hit the brake as hard as I possibly can. And that can like be very rocky. And one of the lessons I took from that time leading through really difficult periods was You know, and this was something I didn't do right, you know, in that period. And upon reflection, I've really tried to do differently. When times are really good, I like try to hold the enthusiasm back a little bit. Hmm. And when times are really shitty, that's when you've gotta raise yourself up. And as the leader, acting more as the ballast that's keeping everybody as center as possible. Because when you're the Pied Piper, when things are going great, or you are the agent of doom, know, in, in times that are really tough, like, that ends up like really cascading. And, and, you know, in the good times, like, everybody's overly exuberant, and the bad, everybody, you know, is, is maybe so down that they can't get themselves out. How

about one of my, again, philosophies I have is leaders lead. And, you know, going through challenging times, that's where you see like leaders bring their own weather, to your point, right? And, uh, I think that's great advice, by the way. I'm a, I'm a Think of that, of you know when times are good, like you know of course you want to be exuberant and what have you, but it's also like all right, you know. And I found myself at times like you know like you got to look in the mirror and go like well how are you bringing yourself forth? Because they're looking at you. And there was many times where I'd meet with leaders and I would get frustrated because I would call it like hands in the air leadership when times were tough. team members, like, let's just say I'm 2, 3 layers from a team member and, you know, I see him, her, they, and I could just see in their eyes, right? And then, or they're coming to me with grave concerns, and as I dig at it, it's like, okay, then I'm asking like, well, how is it going with your— Steven's your leader, like, and, you know, I'd get frustrated because at times I would find out that Steven was applying like hands-in-the-air leadership. Well, you know, they, or yeah, what are you gonna do? I can't. I'm like, that is just detrimental to a team and a culture because that, that team member is looking at you, Steven, as their leader. And if you're not showing support, you know, you're not bringing the weather, the grace, the empathy, and all you're doing is that, we're screwed.

100%.

We're screwed. It's, it's not boding well for your team members. It's not boding well for your leader. And it's hurting me and it's hurting this organization. And, you know, that's, You know, and I, I receive the same type of coaching. You know, we all— I think we all as leaders, as CEO and founders, like, I think I take very seriously my role as a teacher and a coach, though I need to be caught— I need to be taught and coached just as much.

Let's, let's dig into that a little bit. So, one concept that I love, and we're both big sports guys, is the concept of a coaching tree, right? People that came through your program got mentored end up becoming great VPs of marketing or CMOs other places. Give me a couple stories of people that came up under your program, whether it was in the first part in autos, whether it was mortgage, that ended up— you saw them early, you did everything you could, but ultimately they were rock stars that were going to need to go and ultimately fly the coop and set up their own shop.

Yeah. I mean, there's many of them. I mean, I, I love working with young talent, uh, at, at FCA, at Chrysler, and at Rocket. I was like the executive sponsor of the intern program. Yeah. We at Rocket, we have— we would have upwards of 50 interns, and I would meet with every single one of them one-on-one. Um, I still talk to a lot of them. Like, you know, I've been now a leader of interns for 20-plus years. Actually, I just had one recently. Um, where the hell was I? I was down in Charlotte. Yeah, I was down in Charlotte for a NASCAR event, and he had moved. He's doing so well and so amazing. And he's a kid that, you know, this is now 15 years ago. I mean, the second I met him, it's like, you know, you know when you know that, you know, like you were talking earlier about a young person. It's interesting how when you can meet a college student and you, you see them and you're like, unless they, you know, take a hard left turn somewhere, they're just—

They got it. Yeah.

They don't know they got it and they could mess up and, or they could, you know, or something could, you know, possibly go wrong. And, um, I'm really proud. I mean, I've been fortunate to lead a lot of folks and, um, I've never been one though. I don't know if it's right, wrong, or indifferent, but I've never been one that travels with a crew. Like when I went from Chrysler over to Quicken, I only brought one person with me and, and I've been at FatMGM now for 6 months. I haven't brought anyone over. Sometimes you see with CMOs, they, you know, they travel in packs.

They got their team.

They come with their team. And but that, but that's also me where I respect where I'm going. I respect where I'm going. And Rocketwood and Quicken was very successful before I got there. And BetMGM has been successful as I got there. So it's not like I had a reclamation project or a dumpster fire to deal with. And so, but there are, there are those that there's a few people that I've Like they travel in my orbit, right? If you will, and or I'm always keeping an eye on them. I mean, I spend an inordinate amount of time every day trying to help people. I'm a firm believer that you know, you know, I'm here to serve. I'm here to serve, and I love trying to help folks, you know, through networking or jobs, whatever it might be, because Lord knows I'm going to need one at some point. So I say like. For the dozens or hundreds of people I've helped place jobs, I tell everyone, like, don't forget me when I come calling, you know, like, because they're— it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And I've always said, when it comes to interns, you better treat your intern better than your grandmother, because I promise you, you're gonna have to— somehow they're gonna influence a job for you at some point.

100%.

The really good interns, you could be asking that intern for a job 20 years from now. You don't remember them. But I promise we all remember our first boss.

Yeah.

I mean, interns reach out to me all the time like, hey, remember? And like, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Yep. But I know damn well that they remember every fiber of who I was, what I did, what I said. And if I burn a bridge with that kid, I hope to God I don't cross paths with them again. Because like, do you know what I'm saying? Because if someone treated you like shit 20-some-odd years ago, you know, and, you know, or you treated somebody like shit 20 years ago, they don't forget. And then you, you're trying to like, like you're looking for an investor or you're looking for a, a J-O-B, you won't remember them. They remember you in like no way.

I, you know, being on the other side of that, I've, I've had people that, you know, either like when I came up, I was an options trader and that was a very hardcore treat your, you know, treat your young guys like shit, right? And then all of a sudden, you know, those guys want to come back in.

How convenient.

You know, or You know, at LinkedIn, I was really blessed, obviously, to have so many great people from Mike Gamson to Jeff Weiner that whether you knew them or not, like, you personally, everybody felt like they did because of how they communicated and the values and the vision framework that they gave and making sure that everybody was bought in. It really is magical. And, you know, one of, another like native Detroit guy, Bing Gordon. Yeah. I don't know if you know Bing at all, but Bing, one of the founders of EA, and I think ended up going to Cranbrook. But Bing has a framework, and he's one of our board members, about golden processes. And he talks about the things that somebody coming into a great company, by the end of their first week, they realize a lot of times we do things differently at this company. And then when they go to the next one, Or they're starting the next one, or they're in leadership, they'll often take these best practices with them and blend them into the culture. As you think about golden processes that, you know, you've experienced or that you've helped establish, like, what are some of those that really stick out?

That's such an amazing question. And at Quicken Rocket Mortgage, as I mentioned, Dan Gilbert, the chairman and founder, right, started the company— geez, just celebrated their 40th anniversary, like, a few weeks ago. He started the company with his brother and a buddy, and very early on, uh, as he, as he started the company back in 1985, he, he said, I need to have found— I need to establish like foundational values, values that drive decision-making, culture, whatever it might be. And the— but they evolved in what they call isms, and there's 17, 18 of them, uh, 16 maybe. And they're very, very simple. They're like, you know, we'll figure it out, which you've heard me say here, yes, before no. Uh, numbers and money— numbers and money follow, they don't lead. You know, they're just— they go like— and so when I was interviewing for the company, he writes a book every year and he writes this Isms book. And, uh, and it tells— each of the isms have a story behind them and a relational story to him.

Is it the same isms every year? Like, are they— No.

Yeah, they're, they're— they've evolved over time. There's been upwards of 20, and actually we rewrote them.

So it cuts down.

Yeah, yeah. And he would write one every year. I think now there's 16 or 17. And he would write a book every year. And then there's Isms Day. So when you join the organization, you have a full day and not— you didn't learn one thing about mortgages. Wow. You didn't learn one thing about like how to, you know, how to do a lead, how we follow up. It's all about culture and how you operate. And when I went and interviewed for that job, I got the book and I went to the parking deck across the street from the office. And I read that, it's a quick read. It's like, it's like Who Moved My Cheese? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can rip through that book in an hour because it's such an easy read. And I was like, holy shit, like this, this book, while the words might be different, like the values and what they believe, the belief system aligned with who I am as a—

Right.

As a human. And so immediately snapped in, right? And, and it has absolutely, it reshaped who I am as a leader and a marketer and as a father and husband. And so now going to BetMGM, like my BetMGM team doesn't know it, but a lot of things that I say are, they're, they're channeled via Dan because it's a belief system that I have. All

right. 2 questions on this, right? What was the best ism?

Yeah.

And what's the ism that you're like, I think that one's bullshit?

Ooh, I don't have, I'm not gonna look at it.

Maybe you don't. This would, this would, this would be your contrarian but right opinion.

You're like, I don't know about it. You know, I don't have any that I didn't like. There's more. There are ones that I absolutely gravitate towards.

Yeah.

You've heard me now say we'll figure it out, and that was like the. I've had, I've had, I've had two that really led me through challenging times. COVID, it was we'll figure it out.

Yeah.

When we all went home and da da da, and like if you remember, like the president was saying stuff, the governor of New York was saying stuff like maybe you don't have to pay your mortgage, like. Guess what? The phone lines lit, and we literally took thousands of people that were doing other jobs and put them on the phones because they're like, "Well, the president says I don't have to pay my mortgage," and like, "Well, that's not the case, sir." And so we'll figure it out was the ism of of COVID And then when business got tough, there's one there. It's we are the they. I'm sure you've seen this before in your your career before. When things are good, man, it's all hugs and hugs and you know strawberries and flowers. And when times get tough, man, that's sometimes where you start to see different attitudes and approaches. And, you know, and I always say as a marketer, when things are going like this, you're never the hero.

Right.

You're usually the zero. And when things were like this, trust me, we were treated fantastic and, you know, marketing, blah, blah. But then when things get tough, And, you know, that's where I use that for the we are the they, because it's like, it's not you or, you know, us versus them or that, that it's us. We are the they. And I'm going through that right now, like at BetMGM a little bit where, you know, as I joined the organization 6 months in and it's still a 6, 7-year-old startup and it's rarely easy in a startup of like marketing versus product versus tech versus finance versus legal. versus HR. It's like, we are the they. Like, we're gonna all win this together. Like, there's gonna be moments of frustration, but never forget, it's we.

One other thing thinking about your background that's pretty striking, and I was very surprised to learn this when I was recruiting for my first CMOs. The average tenure—

Are you hiring for one right now?

You know, we actually have zero full-time marketers at the company. We have people that do social. Oh, that's inspiring. We have people that do CRM, but we don't have like a VP of marketing. Like we have a head of growth that oversees the talent and the marketing side right now, but we don't have a marketer. But I remember back in 2019, we poached Stefan away from TikTok and he was global CMO at TikTok, had been a first 20 employee, helped build Musical.ly, led the rebrand of TikTok. And one thing I remember when we were talking to our recruiters at the time was they said, hey, the average tenure of a CMO tends to be 2 years, right? And the reason it's 2 years is at the point— it's like football coaching, right? You have 2 major archetypes. You have the big brand people, and then you have the highly analytical kind of number, you know, spreadsheet monkeys that are just in the numbers, and it's all about that. And oftentimes, like a football team, You know, if the Lions are all offense and then all of a sudden, you know, they need to go— they have the worst defense in the league.

You're not winning a lot of games if you're giving up 38 or 40.

Exactly. So oftentimes organizations tend to like swing. You've had like this insane track record of being places for a long time. How have you been able to like, you know, kind of buck that trend?

I mean, I'm knocking on wood and I hope that continues. I mean, I've been 2, well, now 3 places in 30 years. And as you say, marketers, I mean, you know, you're right. It's funny, people remind me all the time, like, you know, the average life— that, by the way, it used to be like 3 or 4 years. COVID shrunk it. Like, when COVID hit, all of a sudden it was 2 years.

Totally.

And, you know, I was the CMO at Rocket 7, 8 years, and I was sometimes reminded, like, dude, you're playing with house money at this point. For sure. And, uh, um, and that pendulum swung a lot too. I mean, make no mistake, in 2018, '17, '18, '19, '20, heavy, heavy brand, the fish were jumping in the boat. I mean, the market obviously was very kind to us and, you know, and being, you know, at the top of the funnel, what have you, and processes and taking care of it. And then in '22, guess what? You know, going back to where things can be challenging is when you're spending money and you're entering long-term deals. that sound great and advantageous in '20 and '21. And all of a sudden when the market drops, all of a sudden you're like, why do we have that 5-year or 3, 4, 5-year deal? And all of a sudden you're like, I spent 2 years unwinding or renegotiating long-term deals. But I am more, I am more of a brand, like brand big idea. But like anything else, I mean, I've had to, you know, I've had to learn, adjust and, you know, Certainly come to appreciate. I still firmly believe, Steven, in this business is, you know, it's a perfect blend of art, science, and courage. Science is just driving so much of what we do. I mean, but the day that art and courage are no longer part of the equation—

That's not for you.

I'm good, dude. I'll come be your intern or drive you around. I don't care. Um, you know, that's when I'm out. Yeah, that's where, you know, in the world that we're living in— we were talking earlier in With the advent, you know, and with the explosion of AI, and when it comes to productivity, and you know we could sit here and opine all day long where it's going. But I keep coming back to that, like data, data-led, data-led decision-making, data-led personal, and with personalization and targeting, da da da. That is the Andy to play. That's where it's all going. But when art and courage are no longer wanted, needed, or You know, appreciated.

Next man up.

I'm gonna go play pickleball and like umpire kids' baseball games or something. I don't know, volunteer. I'm out.

So, all right, epic tenure at Rocket, and then you decide to go for the hat trick and get into your third super highly regulated industry, and you get into sports betting and you join BetMGM, which was a joint venture between one of the most prominent casino groups, like physical casino groups, and with Entain, who is PartyPoker, and they really had the technology side of it. So there's new companies coming formed, like based on your tenure, like obviously when you brought Fiat back and stuff that were part of that, Chrysler was still like a behemoth. But this is probably like the smallest team, the earliest stage that you've joined a company in. Talk about, like, kind of coming in from, like, massive rocket mortgage with, like, you know, the biggest budget you could imagine to now all of a sudden you got to be, you know, relatively scrappy. Obviously you guys have budget, but it's, it's probably a different scale.

Budget's actually, you know,

well, now it's probably—

knock on wood. Uh, but, you know, you're right. I mean, that's also part of my— I've been going through this a little bit myself in which, you know, Chrysler, huge, right? You know, whatever, call it 15,000-20,000, you know, team members. You know, we'll call it within the corporate, not the plants and what have you. Rocket, anywhere between 15,000 and 30,000 team members. And BetMGM, around 1,500 team members. You know, online sports betting, iGaming, became regulated in this country in 2018-19. So at the end of the day, it's a 6-year-old industry.

Right. And you were in a 100-year-old industry.

Yeah. And so one of those You know, one of the things as this opportunity kind of was coming about, you know, like, I mean, I'll be vulnerable with you. I was like, I don't know, like, why would they want me? You know, I don't have a lot of folks at the organization. It's a very, you know, it's like Kevin Bacon, man. Everyone I've met, they're born and raised in the gaming. A lot of European, you know, a lot of European influence, obviously, as it's been regulated over there. But as we started having conversation about the role, you know, I was like, well, I've worked on challenger brands, I've worked in regulated industries. And, you know, and then I was fortunate enough to be asked to join the BetMGM team in December. And where I'm finding it different is mortgage and automotive have been regulated for 60 and 90 years. This is a 6, 7-year-old regulated industry. In some ways it's kind of like NIL. I mean, every state's got different and, you know, there's You know, their state— their states have, uh, every state, and we're regulated in 29 states plus Ontario. Every state's got different rules. So how we market, how we go to market in Massachusetts might be different than Pennsylvania. Who we can like use in terms of talent might be different in Canada than is the US. I'm literally learning day by day. And, um, you know, another learn— a big— so that's kind of— it's exciting, it's a little bit daunting because I'm like, I gotta learn 29 states. plus Canada, and it's changing as we think about go-to-market planning, and particularly in the world of personalization and one-to-one communications. And then also going from a huge company to like more of a smaller one, like it's got growth opportunities for me as a leader. I've sometimes had to step back and go, you're not at a company that's got, you know, 20, 30 years of processes or backend support or, you know, um, you know, resources that, you know, at a 6-year-old, 7-year-old company and industry have. And, um, so that's, that's causing me to flex new muscles. Like, I don't know if you see these hands, I don't have a lot of calluses on them. And all of a sudden I'm like doing my own PowerPoint again. I'm like, holy shit, I haven't done PowerPoint since 2019. I went to— I was at a one-on-one with our CEO and I like My creative process is like I think, I think, I think, and then I kind of write down. I kind of sketch it out. Yeah. And I'm like, all right. I sat down one Sunday, and I get up. I open up. I was like Michael Scott. Yeah. You know, like I'm looking on the screen. I hit the button.

I don't even know.

And I I open up PowerPoint, and I I'm like I'm putting down my thoughts in PowerPoint. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, it's words and bullet points. Like I have no graphics, no like, and I'm like doing like. slide, slide transitions. And I'm like, Casey, you better, uh, sharpen yourself up a little bit here, you know, because you don't have a, you don't have a team of, you know, like 3 presenter, uh, presentation specialists, right? Specialists that are, you know, a phone call or a text away.

Just to make you look good.

Yeah, dude, you better get scrappy. And so it's fun because it's like, you know, it's the adage of, uh, you know, I'm an older dog, uh, teaching myself some new tricks, but That's what keeps me sharp. And even the world— with the world of AI too, like, yeah, you know, like, you better get it. I mean, I tell college students, you know, as seniors, if you don't know AI right now, you're screwed.

Yeah.

And I, I speak to freshman students, I go, you got 3 years to become experts. 100%. Because if you walk out of this university 3 years from now and you are not like well-versed in some form of AI in the world that you want to go in—

It was interesting. I remember being back at Duke a couple years ago speaking on campus. And the question at the time, I was a history major there, the question was like, how much AI do we let our team come in? And I remember at that time it was like, hey, when they come work for me, it's not like, it's not an option. They need to. Like they need to be using that. It's kind of like when I was in high school and you still couldn't cite like the internet, right? And there was still this transition to like go to the Dewey Decimal System go pull the book and Wikipedia.

You're dating yourself.

No, but I'm just saying like, I watched that trend happen, you know, from my high school to college days where like the internet became the first place that you went. But like earlier in my, you know, college career, like you were going to the library still. And I watched that happen like really, really quickly. And I feel something very similar right now where, you know, the young talent, like they have, like this is their edge, this is their opportunity to go do it. 'Cause it is harder to teach an old dog new tricks. But for the kids coming up, if this becomes part of their flow and their stack, you know, the productivity gains that they can get, you know, I always say like when we go to learn something, right? The only way that we could learn something historically was, you know, we experienced it, we read about it, or somebody told us that. And now with AI, you get everything that's ever been read, everything that's ever been written, everything that's ever been learned. And you can, you know, find that in 17 seconds, right? We had a new app that we just launched last month called Candle. It's a birthday reminder app. And I had zero people on my—

Oh, I need that.

Yeah, it's— you're gonna like this a lot.

I have 3 birthdays, my kids and my wife. That's it.

And, you know, in Cameo, 53% of our business is birthdays, right? And most people don't know it's somebody's birthday until you go on Instagram, you know, at 7 PM that night and it's like, hey, happy birthday, Doug. Like, and they repost their story and by that point it's too late. So what we really wanna do is to give that reminder. But, you know, this summer, you know, I love interns just as much as you. I went on Grok. I told Grok, hey, create a launch plan for Candle that will help it go viral over the next 90 days. And I gave it to the interns to just start executing the plan. And it took me 17 seconds to get a plan that would've been just as good, if not better, than what somebody would've probably spent 2 weeks researching and thinking of. Exactly, iterating. And the best part is like, I'm asking, the AI company that owns the algorithm of the platform we're trying to go viral on, right? It's like, Grok, teach me how to go viral on X for this product, which is interesting. So thinking about your industry right now, Kalshi made big waves during the NBA Finals for creating this like hyper-viral commercial for $4,000. Right. That was all AI.

Right.

As you think about like the big partnerships you've done with like Jamie Foxx or like all that, The cost of content, like one thing that I deeply believe is gonna go to zero is it like very rapidly. We're just seeing, you know, the AI stuff get so much better, but there is still like a huge place in the world for authenticity. That's why Cameo for Business still exists. Talk to me about that trend and like, you know, when you saw that commercial, like what was your initial like thought on it?

My initial thought was great, now my CFO's gonna call me and wanna know why we just spent, you know, X amount of millions on the news campaign that we shot. Uh, that's the first thing that came to mind.

Yeah.

Um, and then listen, you like the, the use of AI, the use of AI, I think there's absolutely— I mean, we're using it every single day. Oh yeah, I'll tell you, give you, give you some good examples. I mean, the early, you know, the early days, i.e., a year ago, right, it was like, all right, how are we using AI? Well, we utilize it to do comps and, yeah, you know, storyboards and You know, write a press release, press release, whatever it might be, so on and so forth. Now, you know, and now like I'm challenging like creative, like I want to see X amount of work utilizing AI. I'll tell you where I really foresee like right now today.

Yeah.

Are we gonna go out there and the next national campaign is gonna be 100% AI? Not necessarily. Um, but where we're utilizing AI is in the world of like personalization one-to-one, i.e. Like, why is— we think about scalability. We just wrapped up meetings with all the— like, if you ever meet with a, you know, the TikToks and the, the Xs and Googles and Metas and, you know, Adobes, whatever it might be, it's how do we utilize AI to scale at a one-to-one— at scale, one-to-one in personalization. So, I mean, I also date myself, as you know. I remember in 2005 going to car dealers and, uh, when I was in the auto business, and we were chatting with them about Behavioral targeting and contextual targeting, and everyone was freaking out like, "Whoa! What? Like that is blasphemous. How dare? How dare you utilize data to

to know more about? You know what I'm saying? That's creepy.

That's creepy, right? And now, I mean, how as consumers, I get pissed if I get served an ad. Like I can tell if my wife or my my kids have been on my Google or account or on my phones, right? But The world of— with, with AI, like, how do we utilize it right now to scale a 1-to-1, uh, 1-to-1 and with the right player at the right time with the right message, right? Um, that's where we're utilizing it the most. Now, will we maybe do— will we do a national spot with AI? Yes. I just don't— it's not going to be today. Um, you know, I think, you know, like, every, every marketer is going to have its own, you know— Coke did it, right? Coke, I think, did it this past year, and that was a big buzzy thing. Right. You know, Kelce, as I saw in the NBA Finals. Of course, we all, we all look at that and go, shit, for $4,000, right? Have at it. Uh, I'm not there yet, but, you know, um, I think also too, you talk about Grok. I mean, Google for the first time in 10 years dropped below 90% market share.

Yeah, and it's plummeting.

Have you seen this great video? It's with, uh, Gary Vee, and it was about a year ago. He was at a conference, however many people were there, 400 people, and he asked everyone, he goes, raise your hand If you, if you went and used whatever ChatGPT, Gemini, da da da da, as your primary

search,

search, like two, three, four hands went up in the air. Yeah. And then it was like recently Gary's at another conference and he asked, and I was like, and I watch my own habits. I'm 53 years old, right?

And you're living on it.

I use, I use Grok. Yeah. Probably now 40 to 50% of my search.

Yeah.

Habits are on Grok versus Google.

100%. I'm the exact same.

Now I'm gonna watch my kids, right? You know, like now it's like, I'm 53, I'm making my own.

Yeah.

What's it gonna be like 10 years from now of, you know, like everyone's just gonna, there's just gonna be all AI. And you even think from a, you know, now you go into, you know, Gemini or X or what have you. I mean, the ideas of, you know, that's why the importance of SEO. That other thing too is like AI search. Optimization. I mean, we're now trying to like, how do we figure out AI SEO? Because now, you know, paid search is just dropping below the fold, right?

Well,

and there's so many ways to use it.

And you compound that, you also compound that with the rise of the algorithm and how that's impacted influencer marketing, right? Just because somebody has, you know, 100 million followers, it doesn't mean that them posting about it is going to be seen by anywhere near that. In fact, you know, we know crazy stories that we've seen at Cameo because so much of our business has been built on talent coming on, promoting, turning their followers into our customers for free. And we've seen how the efficacy of anything that's driving people off platform, hey, come buy this, go to this site, download this app, it's just plummeted as the, you know, as TikTok and Instagram Reels now are really prioritizing content that's highly engaging. As opposed to driving things off. So, you know, that's gonna be a really interesting trend that, you know, we're thinking a lot about. I was— I kept thinking about, like, one thing that really struck me from the conversation so far was talking about how similar these funnels were in the auto business versus mortgage. Obviously, sports betting is completely different. Yeah. And one of the things that it reminded me of, another great Michigan State Spartan entrepreneur, Matt Maloney, founder of Grubhub. Oh yeah. Really good friend. And I think it was 2020, '21, had a really famous line that he said on an earnings call. And he talked about how Grubhub's customers had become promiscuous, right? In, you know, in, you know, they were, they were easy, they were easily jumping between DoorDash and Uber Eats. And Grub had this insane lead. And then really quickly, like everybody else was coming in. In sports betting, it feels like it's probably similar, right? Yeah. You know, any given month, you know, DraftKings or FanDuel or you guys, like, you know, or, or, you know, when Barstool was in it or ESPN or Fanatics, right? Like everybody's in a war for the same people. Like talk about, that's a very different funnel. Talk about that shift and then like what you're doing to retain the people that you have won.

Yeah. You nailed it. I mean, we're in Michigan. So Michigan is a regulated online sports betting and iGaming. There's 4 states in the US that you can, you can do iGaming in: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia. And so iGaming, you know, like poker, slots, whatever it might be. And in, in Michigan right now, I believe there's 60+ licensed operators. It's noisy, right? And a lot of money has flooded in. I mean, Online sports betting became— went live. Well, casinos went sportsbook the day that— I'll never forget, it was COVID, March 12th or 13th. Yeah. That's when sportsbooks were opening. Physical sportsbooks shut down the same day. And then I think it was a year, year and a half later where online sports betting came in. We're talking about DraftKings and FanDuel. I mean, earlier in that, you think about their brand, they had a 10-year head start. You know, through daily fantasy and building up equity with fans. And so going back to 50, 60 operators in the state, you're right, at the top of the funnel, it's all about acquisition. You know, acquisition meaning, you know, like bonus bets, deposit matches, whatever it might be. How do we get Steven, who might be thinking about online sports betting, iGaming, to, you know, download the app and, you know, deposit, ultimately use it? The average online sports bettor in iGaming Uh, player has 3+ apps. How many credit cards do you have?

A lot.

A lot. Give me a number. 4 or 5?

Yeah, 5.

Jeez, how many do you have?

5.

Okay. How many do you use on a regular basis?

1.

1. Okay. Um, do you know the— 2.

I would say I'll take 2.

Same. I have 4 and I use 2.

Yeah.

Do you know the interest rates on all your credit cards?

No, I have no idea.

Zero idea.

Yeah.

Um, I'm going to bet— now, these 2, none of them are like the cam. These are your personal credit cards.

Personal credit cards. And one is an airline that I just used.

You're stealing my thunder.

Got it.

Well, I was going to say, I promise you, your 2 credit cards you use are probably an airline and a hotel or Nordstrom's.

Amex Centurion and my United Airlines card.

Delta. We're a Delta hub. And Marriott. Okay, so now follow me here,

right?

Why do I have 5 credit cards? Because I can. Yeah, because I can. Because I like it. I mean, I don't know. Like, so now let's bring that back over to here. Now, albeit I would— I don't want to— I don't want to be too obtuse in which, like, online sports betting credit cards are the same business. But just follow me here in that, you know, like, now the market's becoming a little more mature. There's 60 operators in the state. Yeah, there's top. But what you were saying earlier about Grubhub, like, people come in, they might be like, hey, I'll sign up, I'll get my bonus bets, or I'll get my, you know, cash, you know, match, deposit match, and then I'm out, you know, or whatever it might be. Right. So how do you create that stickiness? No different than why do you use a, you know, a United or, you know, Delta card or Marriott, right? At the end of the day, it's about creating my loyalty is because I want to earn my points, my rewards, whatever it might be.

Right.

So that is a big— that is obviously, I think, one of our distinct advantages in the marketplace with BetMGM. Unlike a couple of those other brands that I mentioned, we have 20 properties across the U.S.

And that loyalty—

Yeah, with MGM Resorts, right? We have 20. properties across the US, 9 on the Strip. 40% of BetMGM players visit Vegas on an annualized basis.

They stay in those hotels.

We'd love for them to stay in those hotels. Obviously, there's data. And so, you know, like, how can we have a, you know, like, omnichannel relationship with— and that's what we're working towards is, right, you know, an omnichannel relationship between resorts and BetMGM. So getting back to your Grubhub and what have you, it's about creating that stickiness. And I think we really believe a lot of that stickiness is one is trust, no different than Grubhub. Like if I place that order and it says it's going to be 40 minutes, I want to make sure it's here in 40 minutes and the driver didn't step on it on the way out the door, what have you. Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. Same thing in the betting space, but also like, how am I going to have loyalty? So I know if I'm spending my hard-earned money on sports betting or iGaming, but I'm earning rewards, whether it could be whatever. It could be a t-shirt, it could be a night, you know, a night at Aria, tickets to a fight, you know, a UFC match, whatever it might be, you know, the ability to go to a Lions game in a suite and meet Barry Sanders. I mean, so a lot of it is creative. I really believe like our brand and, you know, we're at the epicenter of, you know, sports entertainment and business. And think about the equity we have with MGM.

Right.

Movies, you know, started off as movies and then evolved obviously into You know, what they're best known for is entertainment and hospitality. And so we're leaning big, big time into that. And we think that's a really big differentiator in what I would call like a noisy commodity— not commoditized, but a, you know, sea of— it can be more of a sea of sameness in the online sports betting, iGaming business.

Yeah. Go down the rabbit hole on loyalty, right? Obviously, the auto companies Most of them don't have a loyalty program. We were over at Ford today, 122-year-old company, and they're starting to think about loyalty for the first time because people just— they were born, you know, their dad drove a Ford. Yeah. You know, they drove a Ford. It just was kind of natural. But the thing that's really interesting about the business that you're in, and as you mentioned too, maybe you buy a car every few years, you buy a house every 7 to 10, something like that. But on the betting apps, you are dealing with whale customers that are spending at a rate that's so much different and more frequent than the biggest whale customers that you could have ever had in the auto business or here. So, what have you learned about these whales?

Yeah, exactly right. I mean, whale, premium mass, VIPs, whatever terminology you want to give them. I mean, So the big difference— you asked the question originally and I didn't do a good job of answering it, nor did I actually address it— is purchase funnel. You know, the average player, particularly a premium player, I mean, they're coming in and using the sports, you know, online sports betting app or the iGaming multiple times a day or a week.

Right.

Right. And, you know, like, I have 5 apps on. I don't use BetMGM. I can't. But I have 5 apps on me. Like, the Tigers play, you know, in 30 minutes. and I'm gonna place a bet on the game, I'm not checking 7 apps, right, to go, all right, the money line's here on this and there and that or what have you. But guess what? I use one app and I solely use— it was a brand you talked about earlier— I solely use that app because I earn like cash that I can buy gear, right? Because I love my Lions, my Tigers, and my Spartans gear. Yep, yep, yep. That's the sole reason why I buy it. Because when I want that Spartan hat and my wife wants to hit me over the head, I'm like, well, it's free. She doesn't know that I spent a ton of money, you know, on the Tigers or the Lions. But, um, but that's— I think that's so to that standpoint. But then how do you create that loyalty for that, you know, VIP player?

Right.

Because guess what? If we want— we want Steven on our platform, so does A, B, C, D, and E. Like, what's gonna, you know, what's gonna create that loyalty? How's Steven feeling like he's getting taken care of? And what's, what's important to Steven might be something totally different than what's, you know, for your bride or your buddy, you know, that's also a VIP player. So it's, it's also creating like personalized experiences.

Yeah.

As well. And that's, you know, that's a big part of our business as well. Like I've, I've gone on trips already with our VIP players and there's curated events or we just did this down at the All-Star Game. We had 15, Derek Jeter. We had dinner with Derek Jeter and, you know, Derek told Derek stories. Right. You know, and it was magic

for—

Yeah, he's magical. And like, you know, that experience for some of them, like, that was a dream come true, right? To sit there and have a personalized dinner or a conversation, a handshake and a photo and a, you know, a captain jersey autographed, right? And they walk away and you, you want to hope that, you know, hopefully Steven enjoyed himself so much that, you know, he's going to want to continue to work with BetMGM.

And when you're thinking about that calculus of like who to pick and like how much you're able to spend on them, like what— how do you ensure that, you know, obviously you need to make sure they have a great experience, but how do you actually engender loyalty?

A lot of it is, I mean, one is like knowing the voice of the customer and what he, she, or they may want. I mean, that's a lot of the— particularly when it comes to like our higher value players or premium mass, like They may be hosted, right? And it's, you know, being able to develop that one-on-one relationship. It's not through a faceless organization.

Right.

We have VIP hosts all over the country that work with, you know, our VIPs at various levels depending on where they might be. And so a lot of it is just understanding and, you know, trying to serve as best as we can the needs of the players. And it's personalized service, no different than a lot of things that, you know, that, you know, we want or expect in life.

Our first corporate value at Cameo is roll out the red carpet, and that's so much of what it takes to do that. And one of the interesting ways that we were able to scale was every talent on Cameo knew somebody at our company. They didn't know someone at TikTok or Instagram or Snapchat. So that enabled us to get them to do things that sending a push notification wasn't necessarily gonna be able to get them to do. And that's something we've invested really deeply in. As you think about the future of sports betting and AI and content, what's keeping you up at night?

Getting ahead. I mean, it's the insatiable, you know, I won't say demands or expectations of consumers in that. I'll give you a good example. 2024, there were 400 ways— on BetMGM, there were 400 ways you could bet the Super Bowl. 400 ways. That's a lot. This year, there were 1,500. In Canada, right, if you wanted to place a prop bet on whether Travis Kelce scores a touchdown and proposes to Taylor Swift at the end of the game, you could do that. I mean, that's what you mean. That's where it's going. It's what You know, when you and I were growing up, you know, placing a bet on Sportsbet was like you either knew somebody or, you know, it was up on a board.

Right.

And now it's like

everywhere.

It's, you know, the, you know, single-game parlay. I mean, just how do you create more markets, more opportunities? Certain sports are like so surprising. Like, I didn't realize like how popular tennis is.

Yeah.

Like,

well, there's also been a lot of corruption there too.

I mean, just— but tennis is on 24/7.

For sure.

I mean, it's— you want to bet on tennis at 2 o'clock in the morning?

You can do it.

Have at it. You know, I've talked to VIPs that— I met with a gentleman recently, and, you know, we were just talking sports, you know, BSing back and forth, and he solely bets European basketball. And I'm like, like Serbia and like France? He's like, I don't care. Spain, Serbia, Yugoslavia, wherever. You know what I mean? Countries like— I'm like, oh my God, like, it's just— but how do you create these, these markets and these opportunities? Um, a great example was no one foresaw how popular the Four Nations Hockey Tournament was gonna be. Like, that was like, all right, that's kind of a cool mid-season thing.

Yeah, it was like the biggest. Blow up. Huge.

And like, we were like real time, like, oh my gosh, like the world's taking notice. And there was a great US versus Canada and the fights and all that good stuff. But I think that's just what— that's what I find, like, what keeps me up at night is like How do I— how are you know there is no just set it and forget it. It is just no different than your business. It's like every day is going to bring new opportunities and new challenges. And as a marketer, it's like, all right, how are we doing something that's maybe been different, never been done before? And what I always love as a CMO is I always say is I want the other brands to walk in on Monday morning and go, why the F didn't we do that? That's when I know we did something good. That's always like I like I want to try and ruin it for everyone else. That's my. That's my, uh, go-to movie.

What are those brands right now that you're looking at and you're like, fuck, I wish that we'd done that? Um,

I mean,

whether it's in this space or outside of it.

I mean, there's a brand that comes to mind that every time I see something from them, I'm like, I ask myself, like, how'd they get away with it? They obviously don't have any lawyers, uh, and they're— I've yet to see any major public backlash on them is Liquid Death. You know, like, I see stuff, I'm like, how? And whether it's product— I mean, I don't even know if the product's— half the time if it's even real, you know? Like, it's like I gotta go fact-check it.

Martha Stewart. Yeah, like, I don't know. Cut the hand off.

Yeah, like, what? How? And where do they come up— like, like, I could only imagine what's happening behind the scenes. And by the way, if they produce that,

yeah,

what fell on the cutting room floor Or what literally got stopped at, you know, by the lawyers or like PR or like, oh, you know, like I'm going back. I mean, that is a brand that, you know, in, um, you know, I follow them on LinkedIn, what have you, and I'm always insanely jealous. I'm like, that is a brand where they are literally like over the edge and someone's holding the back of their pants at all times.

Yeah.

I also, I don't know if I'd have the stomach for that because Something could blow up. Like, what I'll be really interested to see is— I don't know if it's a matter of if, it's a matter of when— if something really blows up, how do you handle it? Like, from social norms or culture, like a big cultural misstep. I mean, that's— we see that with brands all the time. I mean, there's a brand that, you know, 2 weeks ago no one ever heard of, and all of a sudden it was like the most searched brand in America, right? And some way, somehow, they got Gwyneth Paltrow to do a video. Like, I also want to know that. I, I haven't— I've been so busy. I want to know the behind-the-scenes story of, like, the absolute chaos that must have been happening in that room the next day.

Yeah.

But then someone goes, I think I have an idea. Like, thank you, Jimmy, but we have some more pressing stuff to deal with right now. Like, we got to figure out what's going on here. And someone's like, does someone know Gwyneth Paltrow? I mean, that is maybe one of the most like ballsy, gutsy, smartest, you know, we'll see what happens long tail, but like, my God, I mean, here they took a complete utter disaster and in 72 hours created this like feel-good moment for the brand. So.

Over the last 5 years, you've seen some really crazy vibe shifts happening in marketing, right? Where You know, there this period, especially 2020, 2021, you know, as woke was becoming like the you know soup du jour for the creative class, like it got really you know as a brand, as a marketer, it got really you know worrisome about what you were putting out. Are you going to get canceled? And you know, I feel like right even right now you're seeing it with American Eagle and the Sydney Sweeney campaign. On one hand, it's like. look, we're like a reversion to the norm of America, you know, beautiful woman on this platform. And now you— then there's backlash of like, is this a Nazi, you know, propaganda type of thing?

Right.

What was it like leading through that period? And how did you find your personal, you know, your personal like balance point to understand like, you know, we can do this, but like we're gonna get canceled if we do it, or You know, we totally shouldn't do this even though it's a great idea.

Yeah, I mean, listen, there are moments and things like that where one is when you become so close to something. There's an analogy of like when you're inside the bottle, sometimes it's hard to read the label. And as a marketer, when you're so close to something, it's so easy to like get caught. And, um, I— hasn't happened to me, um, you know, at a grand scale. I've had a couple things that, you know, just blind spots. And that's where the point of the whole thing is, blind spots. But I distinctly remember, like, in 2020, we— or it was like, you know, it was a, you know, in 2020, particularly, like, uh, oh, 2021, sorry. Super Bowl.

Yeah.

It was like, at first when we briefed the Super Bowl, it was like, all right, is it serious? You know, the big— the biggest debate was entertainment versus like rally or— Right, right, right. Like, is this the right time?

Yep.

Is the tenor and the emotion of this country is the right thing to provide a smile or a form of entertainment? There was a big school of thought internally at the company where it was like, Like, should we— should we be in the game? People like, should we be in, you know, are they gonna play the Super Bowl? What are advertisers gonna do? What's the message? You know, brands were not sure what to do. And we made the decision, and that was what the Tracy Morgan, uh, campaign was like. You know, my— again, this is the world according to Casey, take it for what it's worth. I was like, America still wants to be entertained. I still believe, and there are, there are marketers and brands that like use the Super Bowl to be super serious and, you know, wrap themselves in a flag or a cause or a message. And there's been amazing campaigns, and we could, we could number rally them all off. I've just been a firm believer that when it comes to Super Bowl, like, you lean in and you want to entertain America. But when we ran that ad, and I'll never forget, like, we put it through testing, we like literally— I went scene by scene, and this, this spot, this campaign had like 12 vignettes. There were individual scenes, him jumping out of a plane, uh, being chased by sharks. Like, it was just these crazy— like, and it was all about you want to be confident, so you can't be pretty sure, you got to be confident. And I remember thinking like, oh my God, I'm gonna get a letter from the Shark Lovers of America that blah blah blah. Like, I was just preparing myself for it because I'm like, everyone is just so on edge right now.

Yeah.

But There's another— there was an ism that we used at Rocket that was like, ignore the noise. Sometimes you got to ignore the noise, but you got to make sure you don't have blind spots. And so, you know, make a mistake. I mean, here we are in 2025, and I'm working on a new brand campaign right now, and I still wear— I still carry the same lens of, you know, doing the right thing on behalf of the company, the culture, the team, and the community whenever we do work. I don't think that's— it's maybe not as, um, it's not as like tense as it was a few years ago. But still, I guarantee the American Eagle, you know, the American Eagle boardroom, they all high-fived, you know, on Thursday, and then they all woke up Friday and said, what happened?

Right.

And then what's the narrative and how can we— like, no, you know, our opinions don't matter, but you know what I'm saying? Like I guarantee you that CMO didn't go to bed on Thursday night thinking, I hope this goes okay, right? Like, let's be honest, when's the last time— I saw a not bad article the other day, like, American Eagle was a hot brand when I was a kid,

right? Totally.

Sometimes bad, sometimes press is good press, like, as a brand. Um, but, um, you know, that's something that we'll never, we'll never get away from. I mean, as leaders as a company and particularly as a marketer, you gotta just be conscientious of who your end user is in your community and making sure you're doing the right thing.

You've also made a career, like as I was researching your background, of social listening being such a massive part of what's made you tick and what's made the organizations that you go on. How do you balance kind of the feedback that you're getting from your customers on social or in real life? Versus, you know, kind of taking them, you know, creatively, uh, down a path that like you believe is the right one.

Yeah, um, one of the isms at Rocket was every client every time, no exceptions, no excuses. And, uh, that was a big part of the philosophy there was, you know, if somebody's having a bad experience, what, what can we do to help them? And when it comes to marketing, I also use this, um, our vice chairman of Rocket would use it all the time, just And one of the most exciting— I love what I do, make no mistake. But one of the more maddening things in the world is, you know, right now I've got 2,000 marketing experts in my ear at all times. And at Rocket, I had 20,000 marketing experts, of which I listen. I listen. Make no mistake, I have made many changes when I realized I had a blind spot. Like, I'm so glad you said that because I've looked at that thing 1,000 times. and I didn't see it.

Yeah.

Or I didn't hear that the way you heard that, and thank you.

Yeah.

Because I have a blind spot. But I'm also a subscriber of the fact that, like, everyone has an opinion, but not everyone gets a vote. I mean, we've seen brands and companies, and sometimes you walk, you talk to people who are in different organizations, and you wonder how they get anything done because they're absolutely paralyzed by trying to cater to every opinion, whether it's leadership. Yeah, leadership, a board member, a team member, PR, HR. I mean, you know, like, I would, uh, I would go present work in front of our executive leadership team at Rocket. I do the same thing at BetMGM, and I got 20, like, and some people say stuff to you in the room And then, then you get the text or you get the Teams message, and then you're like, okay, well, how am I gonna like— thank you, and let's talk about this, and let me help you, like, help me understand the context of why you're giving me that feedback. And, you know, many a times I've adjusted or changed, but sometimes you guys got— it goes back to, you know, trust your gut, you know, the art, the science, and the courage. Sometimes, man, if I, if I just took every piece of like, um, I don't know, and is— are someone going to you know, feel this way, or I don't know if that hairstyle is the right way. I'm like, I'll never get anything done. Sometimes you just gotta go.

All right, last question.

Yeah.

Uh, death row meal.

Death row meal.

And you can— and, and you can mix and match. So I want like, you got one day left, you can have any dish, any group of dishes from any, you know, restaurants you like in the world. All right, and then you get to share it with three people. Who you sharing it with?

Judas. Okay, you said you're Greek. Yeah, I'm not doing this because you're Greek, but I love a good freaking gyro, you know, right? A good gyro. There's a great next time you're in town, we'll go down to Prime and Proper in downtown Detroit. Amazing steak restaurant. I was supposed to go there tonight, but I got signed up.

Got sucked into this interview.

Yeah, no, that's all right. I got I got different plans. And then who is it with? I'd say my grandfather. I was very close with him and growing up with him. Ronald Reagan? I don't know. I was 8, 9 years old, and I'll never forget when he helped— I didn't know what hostages were. And right when he took office, I just always looked up to him. And then I come to find out he was an actor.

Right.

Think about it. He was ahead of his time.

Right.

Back then, uh, Ronald Reagan. Okay, you want to hear a crazy one? Uh, I don't know why. John Daly.

Legend.

By the way, did you see him? Did you see Happy Gilmore 2 yet?

I saw Happy Gilmore 2.

Did he steal— he like, he was, he was good. He was like John Daly.

He was an absolute all-star in it.

Yeah.

And, uh, a bright spot in Happy Gilmore 1 is my all-time favorite movie. I can recite every line in that movie. Like, you can mute it, I can say every line. And I think that John Daly and the pro golfers, like, I think they stole the show.

Will Zerotaurus, like, leaned into it.

Incredibly.

I know Ricky Fowler, right? And I text Ricky, I'm like, they did— when he dropped the, uh, that's what she said line, you know, to, to, uh, to thwart, uh, Collin Marcotte, who couldn't really, like, land the line.

Yeah.

I text Ricky, I'm like, dude, that was the funniest line. Scottie Scheffler, I mean,

just

Scotty Scheffler, pretty busy dude.

And what he did is—

Hey, do you mind making fun of getting arrested?

His jail scene was—

He's like, what are you serving tonight?

Was so good. And it was so interesting because I thought, outside of it being my favorite movie and I'm like, I'm gonna power through it, I thought that the first half they just tried to go way too— it's like they tried to go so nostalgic every time. It's like a million flashbacks. But when they got into it, it ended up being really good. And another Detroit connection, I had no idea. You know that was Eminem? Well, no, no, I, I had no idea it was Reggie Bush.

Oh, I didn't know either until I read it.

I saw it on like Instagram. I'm like, no fucking way.

Yeah, yeah. Did you know that was Eminem though? Oh, you could kind of tell. Yeah, a little bit. Came up.

Yeah.

Uh, there was— back to you— there were 73 cameos in that movie.

One thing

I want to know, the financials behind it. Do you think they all did it for free?

Um, I don't know if they legally— I don't know if they legally can because there tends to be day rate. There's like minimum day rates. But I know everybody wanted to be in it. And, um, yeah, it was— it was—

We had a chance to do product placement in that, and I regret not doing it at Rocket. It was happening so fast and the market was so down. I'm like, I don't— like,

yeah,

going back to the— like, we had— they called us and like, hey, you know, golf, we're in golf, right? Rocket Mortgage. And I'm like, How am I gonna like

justify this

right now? We're going through some tough times here, Nelson. I'm gonna need this amount of money, and then we're gonna have to promote it. Like, yeah, not the right time.

Yeah,

either way,

Casey, thank you so much. This was amazing, and I really enjoyed learning from you today.

Come back to Detroit soon.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. That was, uh, that was an amazing, uh, story of 3 super different funnels, but you know, at the end It's all about creating a magical experience for your customers and building that loyalty. And, you know, you, you've done really well in 3 different planes.

By the way, my favorite, uh, when I turned 50 a couple years ago, my sister got me the most meaningful Christmas present ever, or birthday present ever. It was a Cameo from Sergeant Slaughter.

I heard it's still my favorite. And I heard it, and I heard it's still on his phone.

He called me a puke. I'll show you the video afterwards.

Awesome. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in.