The Intersection of Personal Branding and Content Ownership | Vinnie Potestivo
10.5.23
David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Vinnie Potestivo, an Emmy award-winning brand advisor who drives personal brands and founder-led businesses to unparalleled success. Vinnie hosts LinkedIn Presents: I Have a Podcast. His show examines the creator economy with guests like Mandy Moore, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Ja Rule, Christina Milian, and other top business strategists. A trailblazer since his days at MTV Networks, Vinnie unearthed raw talent and crafted iconic hits like Punk'd, The Osbournes, TRL, 8th & Ocean, Wild 'n Out, and The challenge. I love The challenge. Today as the force behind VPE.tv, he continues to forge invaluable connections and disseminate original content with an unmatched focus on podcasts. Vinnie, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Vinnie Potestivo: Yeah, thanks for having me. I am beyond excited to talk about some of those names that you mentioned there. I would be nowhere without them and the stories I've learned, the journey I've seen in personal branding, media ownership, and that intersection is really interesting to me. So I'm looking forward to jumping into that today. David McBee: All right, cool. Well, I hope the questions I have prepared lead you down that path, and if they don't, feel free to volunteer anything you want. Okay? Vinnie Potestivo: All right. Game on. David McBee: So you have a really strong background in television, obviously, but what is it that attracts you to the business of personal branding and personal content creation? Vinnie Potestivo: Ooh. Ownership, ownership, ownership on so many levels. By the way, all those names you mentioned do not have ownership connected to the projects that you also mentioned, but I can drop names now of people who've created podcasts, digital content, documentaries, self-funded content that they own, catalogs of content that they've created that they can leverage on different media platforms. And ownership is one of those things MTV did out of the gate. MTV had an internal production house, and we sort of produced Punk'd and Osbournes and Newlyweds, and certainly the first season of all of those shows were produced in-house, Wild 'n Out, The Challenge. Actually the challenge not in-house, The Challenge, Bunim and Murray , with all due respect to the godfather and godmother of Reality tv. But I was at MTV at a point in time where MTV was the access point to youth audience, and every creator that wanted access to that youth audience came through MTV. It was the perfect perch for me to learn how to work with creators, collab with creators, accomplish their goals, accomplish network goals, help Ashton Kutcher go from being the leading man in film and TV to owning a production company, being seen as a visionary of original development in television and sort of creating a path for him. The Osbournes, Jessica Simpson, the power of our story is gigantic, the value even more, and if I can help people own it, what we can do as sole practitioners, as owners of our own content with giant brands is multiplicative. That's where we can really sort of magnify that and that's where I think innovation and collaboration happen much quicker than in the public area of content. And I think that's what brings me back to working with talent and being focused on, when I say talent development, whether it's someone like Peter Thomas Roth, the founder of a founder-led business where he is part of the franchise and the visibility. It's helping these people understand not just what they have, but how to best identify that so that they can collaborate and innovate with another audience and another brand and grow so that... I'm not niching down brands, I'm niching down messages. I'm happy to niche down a message, but I will not niche down a brand or its audience, by the way, but the message is something I can niche down. David McBee: Well, let's talk to brands. A lot of my audience are marketers, and I feel like so many of them are focused on the messaging of their brand or their product that they don't really look at themselves. Their personal branding takes a backseat. Is that a mistake? Vinnie Potestivo: Oh yeah, I'm getting goosebumps. Ooh, you've got some good questions. You know what? It breaks my heart, by the way, and I get passionate about this. We focus so much on the message. We believe so much that that message is probably the thing that needs to be heard, received, understood. And I got to say, the mistake we make is not focusing on our own unique point of view. That unique, fascinating point of view is what amplifies the message. A lot of us are on this planet right now talking about climate change and global warming. There's a reason why one teenager from Sweden has a voice that cut through the entire global conversation and why Greta is someone that has a fascinating point of view, a fascinating brand, a representation of the demographic of people that are soon to be inheriting this planet as we're moving forward. The fascination of that point of view makes that message so much louder, more shareable, by the way. I think sharing is the trick and key to discoverability, increasing visibility. Having more commercials on a network is not going to lead to more discoverability, it's going to lead to fatigue. But having a shareable commercial, having a shareable 15 second ad, having something where your community is texting it and DMing pieces of this conversation because it represents the zeitgeist and the energy in the community, that's shareable, that's exponential, visibility times shareability equals discoverability. And that equation for the last 25 years of my career and working with brands and personal brands is exponential and also sustainable. That's people powered. David McBee: You're proposing that people are more likely to share a message from an individual rather than an ad from a brand? Vinnie Potestivo: Yeah. And also focusing on what makes the brand fascinating. So if a person has a unique point of view, let's say a brand's point of view is the brand's positioning and those coordinates of your brand positioning in my opinion, are values and goals, and the values propel the content, the goals give that content direction, but it's the people that we trust. You mentioned, I'm luckily part of LinkedIn Presents system right now on LinkedIn, and I can tell you that as a person having a personal newsletter that represents my podcast, I get more shares because people trust people more than businesses, and I can get my word out if I'm seen as a source way more so than a story, by the way. Sources are a trusted, viable, pre-approved voice that you trust so I can get my message out quicker because I'm seen as a source. A great example what Peter Thomas Roth is, when you have someone who's seen as an expert in one category, you can take that expertise into other categories. Jeff Bezos and Amazon is a good example too. When you sell shoes and deliver them as well as Amazon did, that's what they were known for. At the core of what they're known for, then they can expand out. And that's people. That's people running business. I think that's why I love connecting with founder led businesses and people who identify as talent brands. Look, I believe we all have talent brands, but what we can do as people and if we own our content, how we can be working with brands, not just from a content and media perspective, but from a community perspective. They call it the creator economy now, look, I come from reality TV and my whole career is a guilty pleasure. All of my shows that y'all might have watched is on your guilty pleasure list. So I understand that there's this energy around the content that's out there and the branding that's out there, but we own the content. We can leverage it and the power of owning content will give us that. And it also free brands from only being able to work with media platforms in the public sector of media as we're edging into this Web3 world, this unchartered. As we go away from online and step into on chain and start talking about a different structure of collaboration, the people who own their content, the brands who own their content, those two groups of people are set up for success because there will always be new platforms. You do not need to be making more content to keep up with the rate of platforms that are being up. Yeah, I'll end right there. There's a reason why friends, these catalogs of content pop around all these new platforms, they bring the audience and owning that catalog is powerful, and that's actually what in August of 2023, the real strike is about, is about that shift in viewership and the power that we have in connecting with community that's going to follow the content. That's cool. I never thought, I thought back then at MTV, I always would've thought, you have to come to the network to see people not even know what channel the show came from, but love watching it on Netflix. That's pleasure and that's freedom of message. That's why I'll never niche down a brand or an audience, but I will the message. David McBee: I want to go back to something you said that people trust people more than they trust brands. You think that can ever backfire, and I'm thinking Elon Musk and Tesla right now off the top of my head. Vinnie Potestivo: Yeah, look, there's going to be exceptions to every... I'm not making a rule. But I'll say this, I don't even know how to process that question because talking about Web3, talking about the awareness of us wanting to have more rights connected to the stuff we're creating, more responsibility as a community, more cohesive collaboration, cooperation as a community. That to me is what the blockchain represents. So I'm really hoping that there is somehow these a guide for the innovative way that we're about to tap into our own personalities and brands. What's dangerous to me is when the brand becomes the business, businesses have brands, but when the brand becomes the business, especially in America with how businesses are created in the legal rights they have and the financial rights they have or don't, I can have additional opinions about that for another episode for sure. David McBee: All right, so before we go in less than a minute, less than 30 seconds, if you can, what advice do you have for these folks who are brand leaders that have been leaning into their brand and not their own personal brand? Vinnie Potestivo: Oh yeah. Quickly, I find nothing more rewarding than being a guest. I Have a Podcast, it's called I Have a Podcast, but I find nothing more rewarding than being a guest on podcasting right now. It helps me create valuable content out of the gate because there's mindfulness of the audience, so I have my point of view, you have your audience connection, and I'm able to think about that value ladder and information exchange, that is part of my talent development process where I'm constantly trying to renew myself. Also, it creates third party content, and I come from the public world of media that's owned by people or a couple of countries or large groups. Podcasters or smaller company, we own these podcasts and maybe simplify my own this podcast, and there's a couple other voices that have approvals, but for the most majority of podcasts, we own it. It's us, the people, the creators that are making this podcast space bigger. And a people economy, I think we're in the creator economy now, community economy being next, and a people economy, it's a great way to connect with people who have access to your audience without needing to come up with a product, but be mindful of the message. So I would really lean into podcast guesting right now. And look for that personal shine, the it factor, as we say in casting and TV, that thing that makes your brand absolutely fascinating. It's that brand point of view, it's your brand positioning, your personal point of view that more likely than not are going to help your message get heard, and I have some resources. If people are looking for that or connect with me, I'm happy to do that, but get you out there creating so that opportunities will find you because they're looking. David McBee: On that note, why don't you share with our listeners how they can get in touch with you? Vinnie Potestivo: Oh, the best. Well, after this podcast, since you know how to listen to podcasts, come listen to mine. I Have a Podcast. I'm on all the podcasts. Also, what it does though is if you're listening to Apple Podcasts, it'll signal to Apple Podcasts that people who listen to Simpli.fi TV also listen to I Have a Podcast and we could get a little bit of visibility on a platform that really helps podcasters get seen. So come on over to I Have a Podcast or check out ihaveapodcast.com. David McBee: That's awesome. Vinnie, I really enjoyed having you today. Thank you so much for being my guest. Vinnie Potestivo: Yeah, you're the best. David McBee: And thank you guys for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee, be awesome, and we'll see you next time.
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