“The people who I found to be most world-altering are those with the most preposterous ambitions.” — Michael Fanuele

Our interview with Michael Fanuele was very entertaining, and brought a fresh perspective to the world of marketing and advertising. Michael’s creativity stems from his diverse background in politics, comedy and advertising, which gives him a unique ability to understand human behavior and emotions.

Here are the three things I learned:

- Before stand-up comedy, and before agency life, Michael’s career started in politics, working on Capitol Hill. While he was able to interact regularly with the Secretary of State, the Vice President… etc., he quickly realized that politics was not a place for him. At the time, he felt the main tool used to persuade others were exploiting their fears and insecurities. This self-awareness of what caused him stressed helped him quickly pivot his career in a more creative direction which led him to where he is today.

- Agencies and Clients look at new ideas in vastly different ways. When you say an idea is ‘new’ or ‘different’ at an agency, it’s often considered a compliment. Michael found that now working on the client-side, these words often come with less excitement, and an increased burden of proof to prove these ideas will be effective. It’s been an emotional adjustment for him.

- Michael is a true creative mind. He cracked the insight, while working for Unilever’s Laundry Business, that “Dirt is good”. It was a statement against their direct competitor — P&G — who at the time, focused on owning the messaging around ‘keeping clean’. This kernel of an idea eventually spread to a campaign that encouraged kids to go out and play with their parents, leveraging professional athletes and coaches to help moms and their kids go out and play. It shows the power of provocative ideas. 

My latest interview is with Patrice Louvet who is the Group President of Global Beauty at P&G. Patrice oversees some of the world most iconic brands such as Olay, Secret, Old Spice, Pantene, Herbal Essences, Gillette and more. I found Patrice incredibly down to earth but his professional track record shows that he is anything but laid back. He has achieved so much in his career and has always been a high performer. I've come across many global leaders but Patrice certainly stands out as one of the top with international experiences after living and working in countries like France, Switzerland, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. He touches on a couple of key points that really resonate with me. The first is on focus. Focus on the few things that really matter as everything else is just noise. The second is that to guarantee success, you have to make others around you successful. There is plenty of wisdom in this interview and I think you'll enjoy it.

This Podcast is brought to you by Exact Media, which works with brands to sample their products using the excess space in eCommerce parcels. Companies like P&G, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have all used Exact Media to reach consumers in their homes. Learn more at www.exactmedia.io.

Here are some of the key highlights:

- To pay for tuition in College, he hustled and ended up writing a book, Exporter aux États-Unis, on the challenges of importing French goods into the United States. The book ended up getting published and he used the proceeds to fund his College tuition.

- His first job was in the French Navy (which was mandatory at the time in France) where he had to manage the driver, the assistant and the cook for one of the Admirals. Funny fact was that he had to recite the menu every day in the form of rhyming poetry.

- His first job at P&G was actually not in beauty or haircare but as a brand assistant on Mr. Clean.

- The role that gave him confidence that he could one day progress to a senior leadership position at P&G was when he was sent over to help turnaround a very sick Japanese and South Korean haircare business. He initially turned down the role as he had no interest in Asia both personally and professionally. Interestingly enough, the last two CEOs at P&G, A.G. Lafley and Bob MacDonald both oversaw the Japanese business at one point in their careers as it has always been considered one of the most challenging international assignments.

- In Japan, the first six months were horrendous. He tried to do way too much early on, from upgrading the packaging, to changing personnel and to modifying the brand portfolio. Early on, he failed to connect with his team and didn't share his vision for the business. The biggest punch to the stomach came when his head of consumer research (a Japanese woman) said to him that she didn't think it was going to work out for him. At the time, it felt like utter failure. All of that combined with moving his family over to a country where he could not speak the language or even buy milk for his young daughter. It was a miserable period of time.

- The two things that he feels sets him apart. The first is that he's committed to making other people successful. The best way to be successful is to make others successful. The second thing is that he listens more than he speaks. He often cites the Chinese Proverb, "you have two years and one mouth, and there's a reason for that."

- It's essential for people to have international assignments if their aspirations are to become a key leader within the organization. The ability to decipher different behaviors through various cultural lenses is critical to being a leader of a global business.

- He actually quit P&G in his early 30s. He received an offer to join McKinsey and also was given the opportunity to be the assistant to Sergio Zyman (CMO of Coca Cola at the time). Patrice made the decision to move to Atlanta to work alongside Sergio but shortly after, P&G counter offered him with an assignment to the UK where he would move into the beauty business. He feels that it's healthy and not a betrayal to explore other career opportunities. It's a reality check on whether you really want to commit to the company that you're currently in.

- In order for his children to receive an education in a French-American school, he made the decision to live in New York. This has required an immense amount of travel as Gillette is based in Boston, P&G is based in Cincinnati and he has direct reports all over the world. He travels at least a week a month to different cities around the world, rotating regions. With the heavy travel schedule, he works very hard to protect the weekend so that he can spend time with his family. In order to stay fresh, he does a lot of sports. On weekends, he has a personal trainer that comes in and he's regularly playing tennis, golf and finds time to cycle on Sundays. Lastly, he sleeps! The quality of his sleep is highly correlated with his productivity at work.

- On advice he'd give to his 25-year old self, he has a few. The first would be to cherish the moment more. Carpe Diem is latin for "Seize the Day". Rather than always thinking about the future so much, enjoy the moment. The second advice would be to stay focused. One can get caught up in so many different activities that don't really move the needle forward. Instead, focus on the things that truly matter. The third advice would be to focus on the outside world more. Find out what's happening in other industries and in other worlds that could interest you both personally and professionally. He doesn't think that your company will necessarily give you the space and time. You have to intentionally carve out time in your own calendar to spend in the field or at conferences.

This week's interview was with Michael Aidan. At the time of our conversation, he was transitioning between his role as Chief Digital Officer at Danone, to joining a relatively newer organization as the Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer of DxO. Michael has incredible entrepreneurial tendencies, he's a true intrapreneur. This comes through so clearly in the interview, I'm really excited for you to hear it.

This Podcast is brought to you by Exact Media, which works with brands to sample their products using the excess space in eCommerce parcels. Companies like P&G, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have all used Exact Media to reach consumers in their homes. Learn more at www.exactmedia.io.

These are just a few of the highlights from the interview:

- To get his first international job in marketing, he had to get permission from the French government to go work in New York in lieu of his military service. He got rejected seven times and escalated his case to the French Foreign Minister. If it didn't work out he would have been shipped to Germany to serve in the army.
- While at Cato Gobé and Associates, he helped design the Gillette Series razor that is still in stores today even though it was designed in 1991. What he took away from that experience was if you put different minds around the table, you will create something much richer and more sustainable.
- While he had great mentors, they never officially had that title, or had a conversation where they said "Michael, let me be your mentor". These people were simply people at his company that inspired him. He spent time with them, observed their work and learned a lot from them in that fashion.
- In situations where he had a bad boss, it was important for him to step back and spend time with peers in your network or mentors elsewhere in the organization to help him take a step back and focus on your own path.
- To de-stress Michael goes on hour long runs, especially leading up to stressful or important meetings. He notices a significant difference in his performance when he runs versus when he doesn't.
- He values spending time at conferences, and tries to attend one at least once every month or two. He finds delivering talks at these conferences to be really helpful as it helps him put his work in a broader perspective by thinking through how it could be valuable for others.
- When looking back at his P&G classmates, he found the successful ones fit into one of two buckets. One group were those who you might consider the "perfect P&G employee" in the sense that they followed every rule and lived every value of the organization which helped them rise to the top at the company. The other group were those who approached their time at P&G as a learning opportunity, but had their own way of thinking and found success in adjacent industries. Those who fell in the middle of these groups found less success.
- His approach to problem solving is Do, Think, Do, which he finds valuable as he's doing things twice and getting a lot of information from running more tests.
Trust is incredibly important in building teams. If you don't have trust, you have nothing. In those situations, employees often question if they are even capable at their jobs.
- His advice If you're ever in a situation where you're working for a manager where trust doesn't exist is to take a step back and focus on areas where you've been successful before (whether at work, or in your hobbies) and use that to rebuild your the confidence.
- Michael's biggest failure came when his team created a new type of Evian water bottle, which passed consumer research tests, but failed when they actually got the product in their hands. The issue was that they had pushed go on producing 400 Million bottles, which was about half of their overall supply.
- While he set the Guinness World Record for online views with the Roller Babies Campaign, a few months before he launched a similar initiative with Volvic that completely flopped and got ~30 views. There is a lot of trial an error before you can find success.
- Even though he wouldn't change any thing about his life, his advice to his younger self would be to learn equally from the bad and the good moments in your life. You need to have room for both in your life.
- He decided to leave Danone to join DxO as it gets him closer to the Do, Think, Do mentality that he enjoys so much. He felt he accomplished his major objectives at Danone and wanted a new challenge.