Chris Bruss (President, Funny or Die)¶
Published on Mon, 11 Feb 2019 11:00:00 +0000
The Funny Or Die president talks Grand Seiko sports watches, making beer commercials with Will Ferrell, and taking a day trip to Tokyo just for the points.
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio features a conversation with Chris Brass, President of Funny or Die, recorded during one of Hodinkee's LA trips. Chris shares his journey from working in the mailroom at CAA to becoming president of the comedy website and production company founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. He discusses the early viral success of 'The Landlord' video in 2007, when celebrities doing online content was revolutionary, and how Funny or Die evolved from a simple comedy website into a diversified media brand encompassing television production, branded content, and live comedy tours.
The conversation reveals the parallel paths between Funny or Die and Hodinkee, both starting around the same time and growing into their respective niches. Chris discovered Hodinkee in its early days around 2009 while working at CAA, becoming an early follower of the site. His watch collecting journey began with a Victorinox Swiss Army watch from his father and evolved into a passion for tool watches, particularly Seiko divers. He discusses his first major watch purchase, the limited edition Grand Seiko 62MAS reissue, which he bought after staying up all night during South by Southwest to catch the Basel World announcements. The episode also touches on the thriving LA watch community, Chris's guilty pleasure of obsessively tracking airline miles and status, and his appreciation for niche communities built around shared passions.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Unknown | One of my favorite things about Hodinki has always been the community. I've worked for a handful of publications and I've never experienced anything quite like what we have here. Over the last two years or so, we've been spending a lot more time out in Los Angeles, and I've been fortunate enough to be there for a number of our events and meetups. In the process, I've gotten to know the incredible watch scene out there too. At one of our first LA events, I met today's guest, Chris Bruss. Chris is a disarmingly nice guy, somebody who lacks all of the showiness and pretension that's typically associated with Hollywood. His story sounds almost like a cliche, though. A hardworking kid from the Midwest is working in the mailroom at CAA and before you know it, becomes the president of Comedy Media Titan Funnier Die. While he's there, he's worked with the likes of Will Farrell and Adam McKay, making some of the funniest videos you'll find anywhere on the internet. Chris and I sat down with Hodinky founder Ben Klymer during our last trip to LA, and we get into all of that and more. But beyond his career, Chris and I have a number of shared obsessions that we had to talk about too. These include Grand Seiko watches, gaming frequent flyer point systems, and looking for that next under-the-radar thing to get way too into. This week's episode is quintessential Hodinky Radio. It's just a couple of nerds hanging out talking about nerd stuff. I'm your host Stephen Pulverant, and this is Hodinky Radio This week's episode is brought to you by Bohm and Mercier. Stay tuned later in the show for a look at the Clifton Baumatic Cosk, a high tech chronometer that offers phenomenal value Cool. Well uh thanks for being here, Chris. It's good to see you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on the show. And we've got uh our esteemed founder and uh CEO, Mr. Ben Clymer here too. Hello everybody. It's this is the uh OG LA trip, right? We've got you, me, and uh Mr. Holloway here. Who? Some guy. I think he's I think he's sitting on the roof right now. Oh, the video he actually is. This is our video guy we're talking about. Video guy, actually head of head of content as well. U |
| Unknown | h he is currently on the roof of the hotel uh in which we are recording right now. So we're working on the thing. Getting a nice base layer? That's exactly right. Yeah. You guys are really taking advantage of your LA trip, aren't you? I mean |
| Unknown | when you live in New York and you're in LA in December, you kinda you kinda have to. And you see that I was late due to traffic today. So I'm really trying to give you guys the full experience. So we've established we're out in LA, and you and I have first met, I guess probably two years ago now, at a Hodinki event out here,. and And you you know kind of mentioned what you do for a living. And I was like, oh, like I I've been following this for years, but I never heard your name before. So can you tell us who you are and what you what you do? Sure |
| Unknown | . Yeah. So I'm Chris Brussels and I am uh the president of Funnier Die, which is uh a comedy website, a comedy brand, a comedy, I guess, company overall. Um similar to Hodinky, we've been around for a little over a decade, coming up on probably almost 12 years. And I've been with the company for nine and a half. So I've done a lot of different things over those years, but uh started out as a producer and then um kind of segued into our advertising business and then have just taken on a bunch of different roles and responsibilities and now I help run the company. I mean that's startup life, right, Ben? That's it. Right there. So how did how did you get involved in the first place? So my first like real job um out in LA was at CAA, the big talent agency. Sure. I studied film and television in college, and that you know just seemed like a um a good first step was was CAA. Um I started in the independent film finance group, but then uh moved over to uh the business development group. And it was the business development group at CAA that kind of originally packaged funny or die. Will Farrell at the time was a client uh there and they packaged it with the venture capital money from NorCal and sort of the technology and they they put it together. I I didn't have anything to do with that. I was just a assistant at the time, but I was there. I was there when it first started. I I actually remember one of my fellow assistants walked over with a DVD and said, you gotta watch this and it was a DVD of the landlord. You know, the very first Will Farrell Wait, so the first time you saw the landlord was on a D V D? In my Dell uh desktop computer. Shout out to DVD. That is amazing. And Dell computers. Yeah. Yeah. And I and and I was like, I'd I had um um I'd done sketch comedy for fun in college uh with a bunch of my buddies who I was I was living out here in LA with with at the time. And I was like, this is hilarious and this is gonna be amazing. And so I said, when does this launch? And they said it it'll launch in a couple weeks. It's gonna launch with this video. It's gonna be this new site. It's kind of like YouTube, but it's just for comedy. Will Farrell's gonna be the face of it. Adam McKay is one of the co-founders, and it's just gonna be kind of like uh sort of Hollywood-focused um online sketch comedy. And so uh it it launched with the landlord, which was at the time and maybe even still like the fastest growing, most viral video of all time, obviously a huge hit. And very quickly, even though they didn't think they were going to need it, they needed to hire up a staff of people in LA. And so I recommended basically my roommate and a couple other people that I knew, and they were some of the first employees of the company. And so uh while I was at CAA, they were there sort of starting this thing, and I was just always around. I was at the office hanging out with them, um, always hearing about the different shoots, and uh just generally sort of a part of what was going on in about a year and a half in they were like you should come over and actually come here and work with us, be a producer. And and it was a no-brainer. It was like a the chance to do with my friends from college what we were doing in college for fun. Yeah. And actually like do it professionally. That's the dream, isn't it? I mean you know this, right? As somebody who in in in school you were like this is a fun thing and now you get to do it yeah professionally. Yeah it could be a |
| Unknown | lot worse for sure. Absolutely. So you s funnier dice started with the landlord. And you know I think most of our audience is probably familiar. I hope most of our audience is familiar with this video, but for people who aren't, can you just describe this thing? Because it's it's kind of a strange thing. And obviously once you see it, it makes sense. But I would love to hear you describe what the landlord is. Sure |
| Unknown | . So i they shot it at Will's house. So this is two thousand and seven, and which is when the when the site launched. And it is uh Will and McKay, they're hanging out at Will's house. There's a knock at the door, and Will says that it's his landlord Pearl, and he's he's behind on rent and he's super nervous about it. And when he opens the door, it is Pearl, but Pearl happens to be McKay's like three-year-old daughter. And um I I have a three year old actually right now and I can attest to the fact that when they're young at that age, you can tell them to say anything and they'll just say it. And that was basically what they I think had realized was that if they just told Pearl to say something, she'd say something. And so that's where she, through their direction, became a slightly foul-mouthed, very angry, aggressive landlord who was not taking any of uh Will's BS. I thought I was clear in my email that I needed a couple |
| Unknown | weeks. I worked too hard. Can I just get two more weeks? I've all my money. You need to relax. I got my money, bitch. Don't call me bitch, I'm a grown man! Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch |
| Unknown | . God, you're mean. He says I'm a grown man. Yeah, so this was so this was obviously uh huge sensation. And I think the reason why, um, which you might not think of right now is that in two thousand seven celebrities were not doing stuff like this on the internet, right? I mean celebrities were as far away from YouTube as possible. Real and established talent like this were doing film and they were doing television, and there was no interest in doing something on the internet like this. And so for a major international movie star like Will, and then a lot of Will's friends and other people to quickly follow on after that to say, yeah, I'll do something like that. That's what really sort of became a sensation. Now obviously to see a celebrity do something online is not that rare, so it's it's it's a different world. But at the time, I think that's why it was such a |
| Unknown | sensation. Yeah, I mean, do you do you remember what the conversations were like back then about why do something like this A short form and B on not just online, but online on your own platform. I mean, this was the era like Will was making like wedding crashers at this time. And like, you know, uh old school was just a couple years old. Yeah. Anchorman. Like this was this was the heyday of like Will Farrell, Adam McKay, just like huge blockbuster amazing comedies. Ye |
| Unknown | ah, they they shot some stuff in that early that first year like on the set of step brothers. You know what I mean? So like this was I love that movie. I love that movie so much. Um so I think that why this was so appealing to Will and Adam and then to all of the other great talent that um pretty quickly said, Yeah, uh I wanna do something and and has said that over the years is that particularly at the time, everything in Hollywood just took so long and had so many cooks in the kitchen, right? I mean, still to this day, to make a movie, it's three, four, five years, sometimes longer, just in terms of the development and the casting and the producing it and all this kind of stuff. It just takes so long. So and same with TV, and there's so many, you know, we have to shoot a pilot and maybe it gets picked picked up and maybe it doesn't. So it's just a very complex, very um long lead time kind of a process to make anything. And you have to remember, Will and Adam um came out of Saturday Night Live, where um it's it's you know it's it's a television show that while it's been on for decades, still sort of you, know, writes and produces and goes live with that show all over the span of one week. And that's incredibly exciting to just say on a Tuesday or Wednesday, I got an idea, and then on Saturday you're performing it in front of people and you're actually hearing the laughs, right? Sure. And so they're just besides SNL, in traditional Hollywood at the time, there really wasn't something that allowed these guys to exercise that muscle of theirs, right? And so now by creating a website, having your own platform, having your own budget to just go do stuff, albeit not a big budget, you could say, I've got an idea, call up a friend, even a major celebrity Hollywood friend, hey, do you want to do this? You know, have an idea one day, shoot it the next day, edit it the next day, and it's just up on the internet. And maybe you're not hearing the laughs live like at SNL, yeah, but you're seeing the comments and it's sharing and you're seeing the views, and you get that same kind of like, that's great. I didn't have to take four years to then be at a movie premiere somewhere. So I think that that was the real, that was what made it really exciting for for the founders. Um, and probably what still makes it an exciting place for people to come work with us now. Sure. So what were those early days like? Do you have any specific memories of just kind of how how kind of campy and how kind of low budget th those days were? Because I have many from when Hodinki were like me and Steven were like, we couldn't do anything. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I mean look, that that first office that um that we were in um uh and that I that when I joined the company, like a year or so in was, in pretty rough shape. It was this really run-down spot in Hollywood. And um basically every video that we shot was either in this cramped office, in this little courtyard of grass outside the office. If you go back and watch the early ones, you will not believe what we somehow made that courtyard look like. We made it look like like the like uh a wedding, we made it look like um uh uh a shootout for police I mean we made it look like everything and then in the back behind this little house this little bungalow was a shed like a um like a home depot like storage shed, right? And that was our like sound stage. That's where we shot, for example, like between two ferns. So if you go back and you watch the Between Two Ferns with Charlie Sterin, her and Zach are like dripping sweat. And they like she like makes like a joke about it and stuff like that. And it's because um it was like August and it was like 90 degrees outside, and they're in this like tin corrugated shed with no air conditioning and it's just you know it's just like you know it's like blistering hot in there and and and that was those early days was just um you know just basically trying to do stuff with no money, fake stuff as much as you can to kind of make it look like something. Now Between Two Ferns hasn't exactly it it still is just a black backdrop with two chairs, but at least I think there's air conditioning when we shoot at these days. That's a that's a pretty major upgrade to be fair. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Especially when we shot um at the White House with a with President Obama. That was a that was a uh that was certainly like the next level up and and f f really far from shooting in that that that little tin shed in the backyard. Did you get to go to that chute? I did not get to go to that chute. Um it was a it was a tight circle. I can imagine. Yeah, but uh it was a very exciting time for us. The the story from that, I remember when I first started at Funny Or Die, um, like I said, there was like this crappy little um bungalow that we were in. And I walked in, and taped to the wall, right by the door, was a handwritten note from Mike Farah, who was the first producer at Funnier Die. He's now the CEO. He's a close friend and colleague of mine. And it said something like I, Mike Farah, you know, hereby promise that sometime over the next eight years or by blank date or whatever, sure, the funnier die team will get the opportunity to meet President Obama or I'll eat my hat or something like that. That was what it said, and he signed it. And and it was all witnessed and stuff like that. And it was on like a torn-out piece of paper out of like a a notebook. And uh, you know, we were working with big celebrities at the time, so it certainly wasn't like totally unfathomable, but um it's just not what was done. Uh at that time, there's just no world where the president was going to do something goofy with us. It just wasn't going to happen. Trevor Burrus Right. And he was a sitting president at that time. Correct. Yeah, exactly. Because we've seen Clinton and a few other guys get a little goofy after. After, exactly. Exactly. But when you're there in the office and uh you're under a microscope, you just um you don't get goofy till you leave office usually. So um so that was hanging up in that office and it would kind of travel from office to office as we as we grew as a company as we moved. And it's a it's a long story, and it's probably better told by Mike. Uh uh, but uh eventually we get this opportunity. Um, the Affordable Care Act is sort of under threat. Not enough people have signed up, not enough young people have signed up. And through a very variety of channels, we've gotten in touch with uh Valerie Jarrett, who has sort of asked our help to um to reach young people, which is something that we and our brand and our content has has been able to do over the years. Um we pitched this idea. Um has it that Bradley Cooper was involved in helping to sort of push it through, but but um I think the president at the time realized that he needed to do something uh not drastic, but something different. Sure. That that m that young people were not going to be tuning into the White House press room to see him behind the podium. So uh this was the idea. We shot it. It um turned out super well. He is happens to be a pretty darn funny guy and really understood what we were doing. Obviously, it was a huge sensation. A lot of people saw it and more importantly, um when we tracked the traffic that week, like forty percent of the traffic going to healthcare.gov was coming from funnyard.com That's a serious number. Yeah. So or it increased the traffic by forty percent. It was something pretty drastic, and um they were very appreciative of that. And so um Cut to the deadline passes, enough people signed up, the the the thing's actually going to be viable. And they they invited us, and this is where I actually got to go this time,, um um, and a handful of other funny dye folks, as well as a ton of different people who had all been instrumental to helping with the Affordable Care Act uh and its success. We got invited to the White House, we got to meet the president, and um Mike brought that little piece of paper that had been taped up on his office wall all those years, and the president signed it something like, uh, I'm glad you won your bet. You know, thanks for all the help your help, President Obama. And so that's now nicely framed, not just uh scotch taped to the wall in Mike's office. Um, but certainly um quite an evolution from the humble beginnings of that of that |
| Unknown | uh between two fern show. That's really funny. I mean, I think, you know it,'s easy to look at at some of the stuff you guys do and say like, okay, you know, it's it's funny, it's entertaining, you watch the video and then you go do the next thing. But like you're you're reaching an audience and you have the kind of trust of that audience that you can you can actually make uh quote unquote like make a difference in in quotes. How does how does that change how you approach when you're developing content? Is that something you think about a lot or or are you mostly just trying to get that next laugh |
| Unknown | ? Well it's both, right? I mean we're we're not we're not a company that's that's that's um that's core core mission is sort of like social impact work, right? I mean obviously um we are an entertainment brand and an entertainment company, and so that's where our focus is going to be. But I definitely believe that through entertainment and through comedy, and now it's not actually that rare anymore, right? And be between um late-night hosts and uh John Oliver and a lot of other places, uh, comedy and tackling complex serious issues and talking about sort of social good and social impact through comedy is not all that rare. But I do think that we've been uh we've had the privilege over the years of being able to work with some folks to do some cool stuff, whether that's for charity, for social good, for um environmental awareness, or a lot of other things where we can um we can uh use comedy, use talent to hopefully, you know, um better reach people. Obviously some of this stuff is pretty serious and pretty dry and so it's easy for people to tune out. And I think if you can get them laughing, you can get them listening, and and and maybe you can sort of help to make a difference. But it's not what we're setting out to do every day. It's more like getting the opportunities to do those kinds of things. Uh whereas the core mission is just to sort of make the highest quality, funniest stuff we can every day, which now is not just online where we reach a lot of people, but um we have a pretty robust uh television production business. Um, we've done stand-up comedy tours. It's kind of that's why I kind of I call it a comedy brand because it kind of reaches a lot of different mediums |
| Unknown | . Yeah. I mean something Ben Ben and I talk about not infrequently when we hear about, you know, friends or or people we know through the the media space launching new things is often you have a great idea you can make some great stuff but like that doesn't necessarily make something a business right like you know so how did you guys I mean you you you had Will Farrell, you have Adam McKay, you had some VC money, but like how do you take making a hilarious video online and make that an actual business that you can build and and turn into a comedy brand |
| Unknown | ? Yeah, well it's it's uh yeah it's certainly not easy and and um and over the last 11-12 years the business model has had to evolve, right? So at the time when Funnyer Die was first started, it was just going to be an advertiser-supported business, display ads, pre-roll, and great, that's it, we're set for forever. And that's not obviously the case, certainly right now with how um much the d digital media um sort of business has changed um th with Google, with Facebook, with a lot of different ways that advertiser uh are actually focusinging on reach an audience. Those are still important parts of our business, but we've certainly had to diversify in a lot of different ways. One of the first things that I did pretty early on at Funny Ordy, um, mostly because I had the patience to work with advertisers, which you guys probably know is not always the easiest thing to do. It sucks. Yeah. It sucks hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the yeah, the story is that again, I'll bring up Mike again, who's a who's who's my colleague, but he was the first and only producer at Funny Or Die, really focused on making as much celebrity stuff as possible and making people laugh, et cetera. And finally they got him on the phone with uh uh a a major soft drink uh manufacturer, and they were like, We got this idea for this funny video, and they said, and they said, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna get this celebrity, and da-da-da. And he, having not a lot of patience and not a lot of experience, said, That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my entire life. And uh so they said, well, we can't ever put him on the phone with the with advertisers ever again. Yeah. Chris, you're much more patient and understanding of how this stuff works. And so you'll be the guy that's in charge of this stuff now. And so that that's that was from that moment is when we basically sort of started our what we call branded content, branded entertainment business, which is creating sponsored or custom content in collaboration with an advertiser. And that really changed the way the business would work, right? Because you still have display media, you still have pre-roll, but all of a sudden you have advertisers who are really invested in doing something interesting with you guys, and you're able to unlock much larger budgets and much more interesting opportunities. So that was um yeah, probably like uh oh nine uh twenty ten when we first started doing that. And it's grown in a in a really um in a really cool way just in terms of as a part of our business and also just the opportunities that we've had from going with Adidas down to Rio for the World Cup or um, you know, getting much bigger budgets than we would normally have to produce like really high quality stuff with with big talent. Um I think it's been a really beneficial thing for the business. So that's one uh area where we've been able to diversify. I mentioned stand-up comedy tours for years. We did a a tour with live nation with some pretty big names and that's obviously a different sort of type of business model to to be in. And then um and then television production, which is a it's actually a much more traditional type of business, but has been a really successful uh business for us. From um uh we produced a show called At Midnight, which is on Comedy Central for many years. Um, we've produced uh uh uh show called I Love You America with Sarah Silverman, a show called Brockmeyer, which stars Hank Azary, which is on IFC. A lot of shows that people may not even know that we created or or are behind, but it's great to be able to have that as this other sort of part of our business that's not just the web business |
| Unknown | . Yeah. I I kinda wanna uh you know transition, I guess, to to I mentioned how we met, was at a at a hodinky event. Yeah. And occasionally I get these these moments where you meet people who, you know, their careers and their paths kind of line up with your own in certain ways. And you know, I've been a a funny or die fan since the the early days. You know, I'll date myself, but I was I was a senior in high school when it launched and I remember the landlord came out and it was just like it was the biggest fucking deal ever. Like it was it was what Ben's Ben's giving me looks a couple are you? What? How old are you? I mean, I know how old you are, but I didn't realize you were quite that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's he's precocious. Yeah. I'm a child. It's okay. Um but uh yeah, to then like you know, I know you've you've been following Hodinky for a while, and it's always funny to have those moments where like you follow what we do, but I've been following what you've been doing. And so how did you I mean it's obvious that the way I discovered funny or die was through the landlord. How did you discover what we do |
| Unknown | ? I wish I knew exactly how I'm sh how I f I f I I found my way to the original Hodinki site. What I do super vividly remember is being at my desk at CAA on the eighth floor and procrastinating and just being like, I'm just gonna sit here and just read Hodinki all day. And so that would have been like oh oh nine Absolutely. This was a early yeah. And I don't I mean, was there a I mean not like the landlord, but was there a story that maybe first like spiked that I would have found across through like GQ or through something else. I'm trying to figure out what it was exactly. Back then it may have been uh either Gandhi or Stephen Queen's Samariner. Gandhi did not have a Samariner for the record. Gandhi had something very different. Gandhi Samariner was huge watch. Breaking news. Gandhi Samariner. Steve McQueen co-oned a Samariner. Let's go with that. Yeah. Realize they were so close. So Steve McQueen Samariner was kind of our our first big break, and that was probably 2009 2010. Yeah and it's stuff like 200 grand today it'd be like two million dollars you know right uh that that could have been it if it was back then obviously much later the John Mayer video that was kind of a big big break for us uh but what year was that that was 2014 So that that was like that's when we had Will, who we were joking about earlier. You know, he was a full-time you know producer for us and he really made that happen. Um but yeah, I would I would probably guess something related to Steve and Queen's Mariner back then. Was the old was the first site that it was it kind of had like mar |
| Unknown | oon? It's possible. Oh man. Really? That's that's before my time. I never saw Maroon. If there was any Mar |
| Unknown | oon involved, it was probably the early days on Tumblr, uh which is where we launched. Uh so we run it through Tumblr. It's possible. So we run Tumblr back when Tumblr was was was really popular. Especially for like the menswear world. Yeah. Um and yeah so Tumblr first and then we jumped over to Squarespace. And when we jumped over to Squarespace, I had a friend of mine who was something of a designer, uh, really do like an actual layout instead of just kind of, you know, basically like WYSIWYG design, which is what I did. Um but there may have been some rune involved. It's very possible. Maybe yeah. I just yeah. So so so it was very early on and it was it was bookmarked in my web browser probably ever since. Um the logo had serifs back then too, right? Oh man. That came from a real designer too, by the way. That wasn't a me thing. Wow. I know. Oof. So so yeah, I mean my I I I yeah, I g I guess I can't remember what it was was was the original post, but but um as you guys both know, um once the curtain kind of gets pulled back into just sort of the depths and complexity of this world, then um you know it's I mean everyone even you know everyone knows that that idea of sort of that of a Wikipedia rabbit hole kind of a thing where you're like three hours later you're like, where am I, right? Why is it dark outside? No. But uh but I that it was through the certainly through the original site where I really um I don't know, it just opened my eyes to um to this whole world and um and has been this thing that uh you know, has been this thing that I've I've really enjoyed being able to to follow. And the site, I mean the the whole the whole hodinky site and brand and business over the years, you're right, it's almost mirrored sort of as we've Funny Or Dye has grown and evolved and diversified and uh I was so bummed that I I I didn't get to go out to New York for the for the Hodinky 10 stuff. Oh sure. Uh but uh yeah, it's it's congratulations. It's like really exciting to see what you guys have done with it. Thank you very much. Yeah. No, it it it's funny. I mean you you talked about your your early days at CAA. I mean that that is basically who I was. Yeah. Uh at just a UBS and I was just producing the content. But it it's really what that's kind of our bread and butter. You know, we we we actually aim to be this reprieve for people, you know. So you you ended up just fine, I'll say. Uh but you know, I I have several friends that I knew when I was at UBS or prior to that in consulting that I still kind of fucking hate their jobs, you know? Like they're just there and just like I I clock in, I make good money, I can you know, I can put food on the table for my wife and kids, but I hate it. Uh and so Hodinky to to many of those folks, we we often hear is that kind of relief from from reality in some ways. It's just something to nerd out about and go crazy on. Yeah. Well, I guess, yeah, we're we're doubly blessed in that we have jobs that we like and we get to nerd out on watches too. So absolutely. Were you a watch guy before you found Hodinky? S um sort of, certainly not uh at the to the level I think that you would that that we're talking about, right? Um the I think the the briefest background is that my so I'm from um a relatively small town in Wisconsin, and my family has a small retail business that's been there for over a hundred years. My great-grandfather started it in 1911. My grandfather took over, my my mother, father, and uncle took over, and then just about two years ago, my younger sister took over. So it's fourth generation. Wow. And it's uh evolved as businesses do over the years. Um but it's really been like, you know, um Norman Rockwell kinda um old fashioned soda fountain. Sure. Um uh a confectioner, you know, selling chocolates, fine chocolates and stuff like that, other kind of gifts, the stuff you'd place you'd go probably to get your mom something for her birthday or something like that. Um and uh and it's always had the a men's shop, what we call the men's shop, which is um has always predominantly been tobacco, right? So uh pipes when they were more popular and pipe tobacco, and then cigars um uh as they've become like really the more popular sort of item. Um and watches have been something that have have been sold at the store for years. So when I was younger, um, and I spent you know most of almost all of my time, like after school running around the store and stuff like that, there was uh we sold Swiss Army, Victorian ac Swiss Army watches. And so there was always a really cool display case with all those watches. And my dad uh wore one. And uh when I was in high school, he he bought a new watch and he gave me his old one. And that was kind of the first time that I wore a watch, it was the first time probably I needed to uh know what time it was, right? You had to have responsibilities sure um of some sort at least to get to tennis practice or something like that. And uh um and I was super into it. I was super into it because my dad gave it to me, right? And I was also super into it because I just liked the look, the kind of field watch look to it. And that's what I wore all through college and uh out here in LA. And then I remember um I kinda I had an affinity for the brand obviously because we had uh they'd been in my life. And then uh I remember I saw a spread and I think it was Vanity Fair and and it was about sort of um sort of modern military watches and one of the ones featured was a Victorinox uh military watch with kind of a cool army green dial or something like that, and I thought, that's so cool. And I had just maybe gotten a year-end bonus at CAA, you know, as an assistant. I'm sure it wasn't much money, but I called uh Feldmar, which is a watch dealer here in LA, which is a awesome place uh to hang out. And and and they were like, yeah, we can get you that. And so that was like my first like actual purchase and I was super excited about it. It was like a um military style chronograph, quartz obviously, but I was super into it. And um and I was really into the fact that I could like swap out all sorts of different like um uh straps on it, rubber strap, bunch of different colored NATO straps, and and that was like probably the first time that I felt kind of cool about my watch. And that probably aligns a little bit with when then I first discovered Hodinky. And I thought, oh, wait a minute, this goes way deeper than I thought. And also wait a minute, my wrist is way too small to wear a forty-four millimeter one. So so um so yeah but, that was I think kinda like uh that was kind of my um entry into into this world. Um and yeah, ever since I've been super into it. Do you still have that watch? I do have it, yeah. It doesn't really um it doesn't really get any risk time anymore. I know that uh uh I know that um one of the things that uh through other Hodinky radio and stuff like that uh uh episodes, I do feel like uh I should probably um get rid of it at some point, but it it feels like that's uh kind of a important piece maybe. Yeah. I would say quite the opposite. I'm I think you hold on to this you know, your son, yeah and uh make it a thing. Well if he has the same dainty wrists that I do, I don't know if that's gonna work very well for him. The trend will swing the other |
| Unknown | way at some point. It'll it'll work. There'll be a time where it'll work. Should we do that today? Should we just decide that big watches are cool now? That's it. Forty four millimeter chronographs. |
| Unknown | Then I'll I'll pull that one out of the drawer and get it back into rotation |
| Unknown | . And now we'll look at this week's sponsor. The Clifton bomatic is a collection of watches from Beaumont Mercier that combines classic looks with modern movement technology. Best exemplifying this approach is the Clifton Bomatic Cosk. Starting with a stainless steel case, a clean white dial, and razor sharp hands and hour markers, the Bomatic Cosk is a great everyday timekeeper. As you look closer, you'll find more details though, like the crosshair dial and the subtle date to hold your interest. Inside is a brand new in-house movement with a five-day power reserve and a silicon escapement to round things out. Bowman Mercier is also offering all of this for a very competitive price, making cool modern watchmaking a little more attainable. You can learn more about this watch and the entire Bowmatic collection by visiting Bowmanmercier.com. Alright, let's get back to the show. You're really like a tool watch guy, right? Like that kind of original Yeah, you know, I um y |
| Unknown | es, I am somebody who uh through through anything, uh you know, through whether that be clothing or automobiles or anything like that, I'm I'm I certainly am focused on sort of utility and and tool uh and things that really have a story that is driven by, you know, purpose and stuff like that. I li I I mean, you know, what you'd consider more dress watches and are are are beautiful, but it just doesn't feel like the kind of thing that I would really wear or get much wear out of. So it's never been a focus for me. I I r I love love I dive watches. I love watches that are meant to um get go in the ocean and get banged up and and that kind of thing and then I also travel a lot and I I love watches that are you know inspired by uh travel and aviation and and that kind of stuff. So those tend to be like the types of watches that I'm most into for sure |
| Unknown | . And from that Victor Knox chronograph, what was what was your next move and how has your like personal collecting kind of Yeah |
| Unknown | the next move was um was the Seiko uh SKX uh classic um the zero zero nine so with the with the red and the blue um bezel. And that I wore for years and I wore it everywhere. And I just loved that I just loved that it went all over the world for me. I mean, one of the things through my job that I've had a chance to do is do a lot of travel from uh South America to India to all over Europe to South Africa. So so it I'm not much of a um I'm not really at all an Instagrammer, but I always felt like I in my head I had those photos, right? Of that watch. You're ready to go. Yeah. And you create that account. Yeah, all over, all over the world. And so so I really that was like my my main watch for years and um and I really started to go down the rabbit hole of Seiko. I I am somebody who really loves things that um have a great story and also have um are pretty impressive, but that you'd have to know to know, right? Yep. Um one of my first cars that I bought, well the first car that I actually bought with my own money was a uh a Volkswagen GTI. Sure. And I just love that most people thought it was a golf, and I knew that it had this great turbocharged engine underneath, right? And so that's that's uh to have something that's really high quality that you know is special, that other people who recognize it also know is special, but to the average person they'd never know. I I that's a fun that's a fun sort of um secret to have, right? And so uh so Seiko being obviously a a uh a mass consumer brand but also having some really special pieces uh if you know about them uh was really appealing to me. So I remember it was uh the they started to leak the idea about the first diver issue. So this was probably in like December, January uh in advance of Basil World. And I was like, you know what, I think that that is going to be that should be that that feels like that should be my first big purchase because that is going to be the kind of thing that is a really exciting piece, it's a limited edition, it's a great size, it can be a daily wear, it can it's built to sustain anything, and yet it'll also be this thing that at work, at wherever else, people won't even notice it and it can kind of be this fun thing that I have. And so um and so I remember then they announced it at Basil World, uh, I think I was at South by Southwest at the time. And all the you know, all your posts come out uh in the middle of the night. Yeah. So I'm in Austin. And uh I'm up, I'd you know, there was some meetings or some some big event and some late night thing and then we're in the room my and my wife is like you have to go to bed and I'm like no they're just starting to post in in in Switzerland understand yeah and I was like oh, it it's out, and there's there's pictures, and I was like so excited about it. She was like, You have to have a lotinky making wives miserable since uh 2008. Exactly. Exactly. Um and so and so that was, yeah, that was that was my first, I think, big purchase and uh continues to be kind of my my daily go-to on the nice hodinky. Yeah, yeah. This is uh this is something that people I see do, which is you know, counterintuitive, but a leather strap and a dive watch. All the time. It looks amazing. It really does. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not actually diving, it's totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. And I gotta tell you, I'm not actually diving. Yeah. I get into the water pretty regularly, but no, I'm not uh I don't need the uh 200 meters. I certainly don't. Uh that's it that that yes, this is my w wife understands that my interest in all of this, but also um certainly doesn't get it, right? And in and I'm sure this is probably something you hear a lot, but the uh it was that same trip to s to South by we we were going on a long trip and uh I just heard you had the Ray NATO guys on and I know they're part of the what you guys do now. And I think they had just started releasing podcasts and we were going on this like long trip and like an hour drive and I was like, Can I put on a podcast? My wife was like, sure. And I put on the green ADO and like three minutes in she was like, what the fuck is this? What are these guys talking about? Sorry, James and Jason. What are they what are they talking about? You know, and uh yeah, certainly if it's not um an area of interest for you, you probably are going to like not be super into having that on for an hour. Yeah. Yeah. The Great NATO is deep. I mean there are boys, but they go deep. They exactly as excited as they are, they t they don't really modulate their voices very much. So you you're taking all the information in, but uh for somebody not in the know, they're like, I don't know what's going on with this thing. Honestly, those |
| Unknown | guys on their show are exactly like what they're like in real life. Right. Like I've known both of them for a long time. So is Ben's is Gray. And like they that is what those guys are like in real life. They're the best. Yeah |
| Unknown | , and I love that show too, because obviously watches is is a huge part of it. But uh as I said, I'm also super into sort of other pieces of high quality gear, whether that be um you know, outdoor clothing or other things like that, and I love that they focus on that stuff as well |
| Unknown | . Yeah. Yeah. So I I mentioned earlier that we first met at a Houdinki event out here in LA. And we've we've been coming to LA for years and years, but I would say like maybe two years ago, we started coming out a lot. Yes, it's been great. It's it's great. We we love it. Um, you know, not just in December when it allows us to escape the uh cold and and snow, but uh it's been fun. I mean I've I've been coming out now probably somewhere between four and six times a year uh for the last couple years. And it's been great to get to see the watch community here. It's so different from the New York Watch community in a lot of ways. And I have some thoughts on that, but I kind of wonder how would you describe the watch community out here since you're you're in it every day |
| Unknown | ? Well I am and I'm I am and I uh I'm in it and I'm also not in it. I mean the the as you know I've got two young kids and so the opportunity to um to carve out time to be able to go and meet up with people and stuff like that has been limited for me. That's why one of the reasons why it's um it's been great that you guys have been doing so many events out here is because it's just something I can put on the calendar and and and and make sure that I can um uh get the opportunity to actually you know meet up and interface with with folks. I think as you guys know, I mean, this is not just for watch community, but for any community. LA is so spread out, it's all car-based, and so it it does make it harder to say, oh yeah, just on Tuesday night, we're just gonna do this thing, and and uh peep you have to really you really have to want it right to be able to get people together. And so um you know what I what what I've found mostly through uh the Hodinki events and a handful of other ones is that people in LA come from all over? I mean, I remember the one at the uh at the ace on the roof, was that I, you know, I struck up a conversation with a guy who had come from like one of the desert cities, like he was like a two-hour drive and he was like gonna go back that night and and you realize that um maybe maybe it's different in New York, but I don't actually, have a ton of what they'd call IRL, you know, in real life, you know, friends in my actual day-to-day life who are watch enthusiasts. So this opportunity once a month or whatever it is to be able to go. And I don't know anything about these people other than that we both we're we're all into watches and we can just start immediately talking about it. Sure. And it's almost like a release valve, right? It's almost like you you you read stuff every day, you're constantly looking at photos and you're seeing new stuff, and you finally have somebody face to face that you can actually talk about. Now, you guys uh do this all day, every day, so so um it's different for you guys, and maybe in New York, it's just easier to find people and interact with people. But I think in LA, there's like this incredible thirst for it. And you've seen it just with the turnout for things, right? Uh it's crazy. Uh and how far people will come and and and maybe this is any party, but also people don't tend to want to leave. Like you guys are like, All right, well we're done. Yeah. And then people are just in the parking lot being like, Where do you live, Irvine? Okay, well, can do you want to just chat for another 15 before you hit the road? |
| Unknown | So I remember the first event I did out here on my own was I was out here for an event with Hermes and Apple and decided that we would just do a meetup. We decided this like 48 hours before I flew out here, that we would do a meetup at the Line Hotel in Koreatown. And the reason we did it there is because I was staying there and it was easy. And we were like, great, they'll they'll like rope off part of the bar for us. And the idea was we'd get like a couple people together, do like two hours in a hotel bar. I think that's where I met you. I think a lot, yeah. At the line. And uh we had people show up almost an hour before the event was supposed to start. And I remember I had woken up and taken the 7 a.m. out of New York. So it was like 4 a.m. local LA time. And I remember at like 11:30, the the event was supposed to end at 9, by the way. Uh at 11.30, people were like, we're going down the street we're getting Korean barbecue. Like 10 or 15 people and I was like guys I got I've been awake for 23 hours like I re I really gotta go to sleep uh but it was amazing we like shut the whole place down and I was that was when I was like oh whoa like the community out here is is for real. Yeah. And I I think Hoodinky and obviously |
| Unknown | many other sites like ours, you know, has really allowed these these these guys in most cases that that kind of believe themselves to be islands to to find peers and to and to find a a way to to engage. And and you know in New York it is a little bit easier. It's a smaller, you know, geographic area. Um to to have kind of as as you say, like in real life friends that like why like watches. I I have a few, believe it or not. And um but I I think LA is so interesting 'cause it is it's a it's a major city, you know, it's the second largest city in the country. Uh and you know, we come out here and it really feels like the there's just this like thirst, this overwhelming thirst that that we don't even really feel in New York. When in New York we we get huge turnout, but it's almost expected. Yeah. In LA it's really not. You know, so we do this event with UTA in in September. And the response to that even was was crazy. We did a cars and coffee, which is not even our thing. And we had like you know three, four hundred people show up and amazing cars. Well and Angelino's they know cars too. They have good cars. Absolutely. Yeah. There's no salt on the roads here. So that's that's true. You're very lucky. Yeah. Uh no, I t I totally agree. And I think one of the reasons why people stay so late is because they know when their head hits the pillow, they're they become a pumpkin again, right? Now they're back to their regular life and and uh that that community for the night is kind of you know and obviously social media and stuff like that has changed things too so you feel like you can connect uh with people um through this interest through this hobby but it's really, it really is exciting to be able to be face to face with people, talk to people, see watches, actually in the metal, hold the watches and that kind of stuff. And that's why it's great that you guys come out here to do this stuff. And I'm also so excited that you're taking the chance on this podcast to announce your West Coast office. Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You heard it here first. Fantastic. His name is Meat. Okay, great. Fantastic. I'm the Vero Chief. I |
| Unknown | think Gray and I are uh staying out here with you too. But uh you guys are gonna love it. I already do. Um yeah I mean uh we obviously deal with some folks in the entertainment industry kind of adjacent to what to what you're doing. There's a lot of watch collectors. Um have you ever had a moment at at work where you're you know on set with somebody and they're like, hey nice watch or you notice they're wearing something and you're like, hey nice watch and it's it's like a little bit of a a connection there? You know, I I |
| Unknown | I wish, but I I but I really haven't uh it it uh you know I I know I know Will Farrell is a Rolex fan and and and uh and he's got a nice collection. But he also it's it's it's just nothing that sort of has come up and when we're when I'm working with him or really with anybody, you tend to be pretty focused on the business at hand, right? You have like an actual job to do. Exactly. So imagine that. You know, it and that's the other thing. You never know if someone's gonna go you never know if someone just happens to own a Rolex and then not care, you know, or someone has people. Yeah, or a panorai or something like that, and you're like, oh, and then they're like, what? And then you're like, oh never mind, I didn't mean to bring that up. So so you know, it that that's the other thing that's freeing about um I've Just like people are expecting me to talk to them about their watch and want to talk to me back about it. And so that's like a very freeing space to be. You don't have to be bashful about making the first move. Okay. Yeah. I gotta I have to start to yeah get more confidence about that. Yeah. In New York you see guys wearing Patek Philippe's really expensive crazy watches. Like, oh like tell me about that. Like, oh great |
| Unknown | watch. And some people just don't give a shit. Yeah. And other people like, oh my God, like you you notice. Thank you so much. Right. Uh it it is it's a |
| Unknown | scary thing to make that first move for sure. But I guess what's the difference? If you compliment someone's watch and they don't know what they're talking about, then you've just complimented somebody. It's such a bummer though, you know, 'cause it's just like you like at least with me, like I love this st |
| Unknown | uff so much. It's like, wow, you've got like a you know, fifty nine seventy or some really amazing watch. Like they just don't care. Yeah. Uh that's a bummer. But yeah. They love you. We saw a guy in the airport last night as we were flying out here on our flight, uh, who was wearing a gold 1675 GMT on a like you know vintage style, like Hodinky style leather strap. And we were trying to figure out like he he's one of two things. He's either like a super fan or like inherited this watch from somebody or somebody bought it for him for his birthday and knows nothing about it. And there's there's probably nothing in between there. Like it's one extreme or the other. Right. And if you approach a stranger in an airport and are like, hey, that's like a thing, like we're a part of this world and they're not a part of it. That is a really awkward interaction. Like you have majorly violated somebody's uh personal space there. |
| Unknown | Yeah, but even if it's only watch, he probably has a good story about it, right and that's what's so great about um that's what's so great about this uh this hobby too is is that is that every piece has a has a story right I mean at least I it's it it it it probably should from there's so many people who buy a piece to commemorate a special event or uh had to track down a vintage piece and the story behind what that would be. And then you know even, just the Victorinox that I got from my dad, that's a story, right? So so so yeah, even if it's that person's only watch and they've never heard of Hodinky and they don't know how special it is that they have, it's probably special to them for some reason. Yeah. And in in in some cases for for me and for Stephen, that that's almost a better thing if they haven't heard of us, because that means that there there's a whole new group of friends that can be turned on to what we're doing. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder I wonder if well I mean maybe just through sort of your audience measurements and stuff like that. But I wonder how much this community is growing, if you c if you know what I mean? Yeah. To be able to tr to track that. I mean, in terms of um followers to an Instagram account or or users that come to your site or amount of people who show up at at live events. Uh I have to imagine that that there's a that we're you're able to see that this is an audience in a community that really is definitely growing. Yeah, I mean obviously there's just you know web mattresses, things like that. But also like when when we put out the the uh announcement for the H10 celebration, uh the tenth anniversary |
| Unknown | , we had 17,000 ticket requests. Uh which is which is insane. I mean that's just insane. for We were the record not expecting right now. I mean like th this is like you know, this is a conference basically about watches in New |
| Unknown | York in like pre-Christmas, pre-holiday. On the weekend. On the weekend, yeah. And we had that type of of response. And you know, you know, Steven and and Will have done a great job on on on the web and we've doubled our traffic in the last two years. Yep. Uh and that's year eight to ten, you know? I mean to have that kind of growth this late in the game uh says a lot. And so you know, in in many cases we're we're we're talking to advertisers, they think that like the market's fully saturated.. It's really not And like, as you said, like you're hanging out with with major Hollywood folk. Uh, and you know, you seldom see a watch, I would imagine. And you know, I'm I'm surrounded myself sometimes with finance guys and and you know the New York scene, and you really don't see that many nice watches that often. I mean, even if you go to like the |
| Unknown | 21 Club or some great New York, you know, kind of |
| Unknown | you know, power uh power lunch place, you really you might see a Rolex, you might see a Patek Phili |
| Unknown | ppe, but like that's about it. |
| Unknown | Certainly on the coast, you know, New York, LA, San Francisco. And then you have the entire rest of the country, which is why so many brands are now, you know, really, really focusing on the US because it's a stable market. You know, and there there's so much growth left, uh, growth potential left. Like China, Russia, all the these markets have kind of been, you know, the the ups and downs are significant. In in the US, like it's it's stable. And I think I'm sure you guys see this, but I think that niche is really like where you want to be right now, right? And and this idea of broad mass market, right? I mean, certainly NBC still gets you know their viewers and stuff like that. But it's it's very hard now to just reach a super broad mass market. And you know again I'm putting my business hat, my advertiser hat on. It used to be, you know, just you know, let's reach as many people as possible and sell them all the same thing. And what the internet has done and a lot of other things is that you can really now identify these niche communities around fashion or music or sports, which has always been niche, but now through the internet and stuff like that, you can really drill in, and those people will spend a ton of time and a ton of money on that thing that they feel like is really central to them. And so uh yeah, I think that that what you guys are doing and and the people that you are speaking to is uh you know you're in a good spot right now and also uh there's like you said like people want niche and so even if they don't know about watches yet if they get turned on to it then they're kinda like hooked for life. Yeah. And that's probably why you're seeing that growth too. Yeah, I mean that that that's exactly it. And Stephen and I have been kind of very conscious of this from the beginning. It's you know, ten years ago, if you wanted to read about a watch, short of going to Watch Time, which is a really trade kind of really technical focused magazine, you'd probably go to GQ, maybe Esquire, the New York Times would do something like that. But then once you find out that we exist, you'll never go there again. And that's the same the same is true for me when I talk about cars. Like I used to read Esquire and GQ to learn about new cars, and then of course Motor Trend and all that. But now even Motor Trend is too broad for me. Like I want to I want to know about vintage cars and then modern cars with manual transmissions, which of which there are like none. Yeah. And so you know you find these specialist sites like petrelicious and and others that that like that that's the hodinky for me. It's petrollicious and and other sites like it. But I think even more than that is what what we've seen is that advertisers are now waking up to this. You know, and like five years ago, I mean, first of all, we were online, we're dealing with conservative market, like nobody paid attention at all. Uh but now things things have changed. And we we saw this report recently by this this uh group of consultants that basically studies um kind of multimedia value for for stories published during Basel World and SIHH. And a story published on Hodinki has more market value than a story published in the New York Times for Basel World. For sure. Which is a crazy thing to think about. This is the New York Times. Insane. But I mean, remember, I bought a Seiko. I mean, I I was following what you guys were doing, and it was through that, through those images and that that you know that I I uh that I was uh that that that spurred me to go to the Seiko boutique in New York when I w next time I was there, put myself on the list and and and buy a watch, which is, you know, uh it's conversion, really is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That that's exactly it. And you know, many people asked us why we launched e commerce, you know, five years ago. And it's exactly this. It's yeah. We know that our guys are converting based on our editorial. Why not just capitalize on it? You know, and it it sounds a little crass, but at the same time that was actually and still is the number one request we would get from our readers is I want to just bu |
| Unknown | y stuff from you. I trust you. I know it's going to be good quality. Let's just do this, you know? Yeah, and that's the thing, like trust, right? Like we all buy this stuff. Like you're a consumer, Ben, I'm a consumer, you're a consumer because like we figured we could do a better job at it too. Like so A, we get to make a little bit of money, which is nice, and B, we can, you know, it ends up being almost a feedback loop because we provide the community with a better service. So people then want to stay involved and buy more. Because uh the the worst thing that can happen, you know, for us is that somebody discovers us, gets interested in watches, goes to try to buy a watch and has a bad experience. Right. Cause then they're never coming back to the site. They're not gonna be involved in the community and they're probably not gonna buy another watch and like they're done. They're out. We've lost lost a person and a potential evangelist. So we we think that we can provide uh an experience that will hopefully make for more more passionate watch guys. Yeah |
| Unknown | . You know, I mentioned earlier uh that Branded content was a a a a business that I started at front of your eye and I'm still super involved in it. And what you try to do is you try to make something with an advertiser that your audience will actually like. Right. And that's not easy. It really isn't. Especially with working with conservative brands, especially working with brands and trying to have them be funny, which is what we do. So I'm always on the lookout for when that's done well. And I'm super impressed with what you guys have done. Uh just recently the IWC photo spread that you guys did. Yeah. Like uh I want to see that. I want I want all of those photos. I want to look at it more than once, and I have uh I totally understand that I'm being advertised uh too uh for these watches, but uh that's that's an additive experience, right, to my my daily consumption of media. Um just like what the ways that you know uh Vanity Fair and others have done in the past, right? So so I uh yeah, I I think that it's I think that for you guys it's it's just a good thing that you guys are in a business where doing branded content, whether that be video content on the road, right through the UK that you guys did, or uh photo spreads and this kind of stuff, is actually additive. And then, like you said, bringing these watches for sale to me and making the experience really easy and really safe for me, that's also additive to me. And you guys are able to make money off that. So that's like a win-win across board. You get it. I get it. This guy gets it. Yeah. This guy gets it. The the the the the native content stuff. I mean that that's something that that Stephen and I were really resistant to for a long time. For a really long time, basically up until last year. Uh and then we said, Hey, like we we have to do this, like we need to keep the the you know, the kind of the the door open with with a lot of these brands is they pull away from IAB advertising. Right. Uh and we've been so selective. We basically done three or four packages, you know, Grand Seiko, uh AP, the IWC thing that you mentioned. And th these are all things as you say that that are are additive. These these are beautifully produced packages that in many cases we simply would not be able to produce otherwise. You know, we couldn't afford just to send a wh |
| Unknown | ole team to Switzerland for a week and a half to do this, you know. Or four guys to Japan for ten days. Like you know, that's that's a serious shoot. Yeah. Yeah. Well we're gonna in a minute wrap up with our our usual hodinky questionnaire, but before that, we've we've talked about how you know our business turned turned 10 years old this year, you guys turned 10 last year. Uh we've done a lot of kind of uh na navel gazing and and looking back uh at kind of the special moments from from our history, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to maybe pick like three or four things from, you know, your time at funnier die that you think people should go take take a look at that you think represent either kind of important moments in the company's history or just like really amazing content that you're that you're proud of. Sure. Yeah. I I |
| Unknown | you know, we already talked about a couple of things from the landlord to between two ferns, the one we did with the pr with President Obama. And so those are certainly like some landmark things that people probably already know about. You know, if I think about some of the stuff that is really special to me, it's it's it's probably some of the the the opportunities that I've had to do really interesting work with some advertisers where you can sort of make the best possible stuff and and just it it it's not surprising that those are gonna be things that we I got a chance to work with Will Farrell on, right? So so I'd say one of one of the most fun things that I ever got an opportunity to do was it was probably 2012, Pap's brewing had been had been purchased by this this family here in LA and they they moved the operations from Chicago to LA and somehow we got connected to them. And there's this brand, Old Milwaukee, which is kind of near and dear to my my heart being from Wisconsin, that was like really in rough shape. In the 70s was like the number four most consumed beer in the United States, and it was basically going out of business. And they said, You guys can just do anything you want. Uh just we're just gonna let you do anything you want with this brand because if any advertisers are listening and want Asta to do that, please I love I love that brief. Well and like we'd been doing enough work uh that I think they trusted Fun Your Dye and then the fact that Will was going to be involved as well um uh they said just go for it. And and so they they really gave us almost no money, but uh but also no oversight. And this idea which was you know kind of a combination between Will Farrell always enjoying sort of old school beer commercials, and then Andrew Steele, who's our creative director, he was the head writer at Scient Live for many years and one of Will's closest friends. He loves like old, like uh bad, like local TV commercials. We had this idea that we would go on a road trip with Will across the Midwest and we would film local commercials for old Milwaukee beer in certain small towns across the Midwest. And then I went and bought local ad time and ran them but only in those towns. So so I know this is starting to get weird, but the it so we went to Terre Hot, Indiana and Des Moines, Iowa and of course Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and over the course of a couple days just, in a in a minivan, we shot some of just the funniest stuff that I've had a chance to be a part of. And uh and uh and then yeah, and then we would run them like on local TV, on local cable and stuff like that. And the best part about it is that we decided not to put them online, at least not at first. So people thought they were like hallucinating because they would you know you're in Des Moines, Iowa, and you're watching Sports Center and all of a sudden it's like, hey, I'm Will Farrell here in Des Moines, Iowa, and I'm here for Old Milwaukee beer. And he's like in the Mississippi River for some reason. And uh then you go online and you're like, Will Farrell Old and nothing comes up, right? That's it. And so what ended up happening is that people would um take their phones out and they would record them on their TVs, and then they'd post these shitty videos from their phones, and they would start to Did you see this? I found this one 'cause we we shot like sixty of 'em. And it was like kind of this uh, you know, see if you can collect all sixty kind of thing, where we were seeing if people could actually find them and spot them and and go kind of nuts for them. So not just from a creative standpoint and just the fun of being on a road trip with some of my best friends, both at the company and then for Will to be there as well. And then just the fact that it worked, right? The fact that this for no money sort of became a national story uh um we ended up running one uh actually just in um north Platte, Nebraska during the Super Bowl. And it was the only place you could see it was if you were in North Platte, Nebraska, but it blew up and it got like ad week like top 10 ads of the Super Bowl or top 10 ads of the entire year. That's amazing. And so that you know, funnier die is always trying to do things that are different and subversive. That comes from the top, from Will and from Adam. And uh and and so that's that's one that I'm really proud of. And you know, if you Google them, you can still find a bunch of them online and they're funny and they're weird. And they worked, and it also that has allowed us to do funnier and even weirder stuff since then. So that's certainly one that I'm proud of. Yeah. Awesome. We'll have to link those up, Gray. Uh we're gonna have to go do some digging on YouTube |
| Unknown | after this. Uh yeah, I'll point you in the right direction if you can't find some of those. Perfect. Um cool. Well, let's let's do the hodinky questionnaire and then we'll do uh do our cultural recommendations and get get out of here so we can go enjoy some December sunshine. Sure. With the Christ Christmas decorations out in the sun. Yeah, like I said, it' |
| Unknown | s a bit of cognitive dissonance to see it really is all those Christmas decorations and have all that sunshine. Ye |
| Unknown | ah. Cool. So question one. What's a watch that's caught your eye recently |
| Unknown | ? Um so one that uh I got turned on to from a Hodinki article that's caught my eye because it seems like something that uh maybe I shouldn't be into, but I'm really into right now, and I'm really excited to see when they come out is the Grand Seiko Sport Quartz GMT. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's obviously Grand Seiko is something with my affinity for Seiko's that I'm super interested in. And so I I I love everything that that they have out right now, from the high beats to uh all the different beautiful dials that they are now sort of offering now and they're becoming much more popular in the US obviously. But this idea of a of like a quartz watch that's so good that it's you know that it's like impressive that you have a quartz watch kind of fits into my idea of like, um, yeah, I own a quartz watch, but it's like the best possible quartz watch that you could ever own. And so I don't know, that's one that um I wouldn't have thought was going to be something that's interesting to me, but I keep going back and looking at the photos and and I'm really excited to actually see it. Um I hope they have it here at the boutique here in Beverly Hills when they probably do? I I don't know, but they probab |
| Unknown | ly I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what is the best place you've traveled in the last year? |
| Unknown | So I've really only done two cool trips this year, um uh given that my wife gave birth to our second child in in um in June. But um there were there were two great places. Uh one is London which is a great place to go. I have I had a chance to be there for the Royal Royal Wedding. Speaking of Will Farrell doing Tish. Cord and Tish, exactly, on HBO of all places. So had a chance to go to London for that. And London's obviously just an awesome town and to be there with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding was pretty fun. Um but I'd say that what topped that for me was that um well as you recall, I was in Switzerland. I went to Switzerland for a wedding in March. Exactly. Right. It was the weekend before Basil, I think, right? Yeah. And uh um and so um I'd never been to Switzerland, uh, which was very nice, but what really stood out from that trip is that we spent a couple nights in Lake Como. So we flew into Milan and we drove through Lake Como on our way up to the wedding in Switzerland, and I had not had a chance to go there before. It's obviously beautiful. People, you know, people always are singing its praises. But was kind of interesting for me is that it was like the season hadn't really started yet because it was March. And so we were at um I'm gonna blank on the name of the hotel, but one of the the big main ones on the lake. And we were like the only people there. And so we just had the whole place to ourselves and it was it was a little cooler out and rained a couple uh a couple times, but it was so fun just to have that entire staff just waiting on us, you know, uh uh and and and uh having you know the restaurants to ourselves, being able to take the boat out on the lake and just just kind of whatever we needed. So uh I look I look forward to going back, hopefully when it's a little warmer next time. Sweet |
| Unknown | . Um what's the best piece of advice you've ever received and who gave it to you |
| Unknown | ? I've I've received a lot of good advice over the years and have had a number of bosses over the years that I've learned a ton from. My first uh two bosses at CAA taught me a lot about um this world and how to communicate in this world and how to navigate this world of Hollywood and entertainment. Um at funny I have learned so much from so many people about creativity, but also about business. But if I'm being honest, the the thing that's going to stand out the most is that I was fortunate enough that my dad would drop me off at school every single day, right? We had our own small business, and that was one of the things that he that he was able to do, which not a lot of people are able to do. And he would tell me every single day as I was getting out of the car to go into school, he said, do your best. And so that's something that just sticks with me and um has stuck with me through school. But also it's just something that permeates what I do every day. These jobs that we have are very fun, and we get to do a lot of cool stuff, but they're also really hard. None of us are just sitting in middle management somewhere just kind of blending in and just kind of coasting, right? Everything we do is up to us. If you don't close that deal, if you don't get on that airplane, if you don't try harder to make something happen, it's just not gonna happen. Um and so um so that's what that's the piece of advice that I live by is do your best. It's also um it's also comforting when something doesn't go your way that as long as you did your best, what else are you gonna do? Totally. The world, we live in a world, things happen, things fall through, things blow up. That is just how things go. As long as you can look yourself in the mirror and say, Well, I did my best. I did everything I could to make that happen or to try, then you can feel pretty good about yourself. So that's the one for me. Awesome. Uh and then do you have do you have any guilty pleasures? I do. I know you asked this on the podcast. I'm surprised most people don't say watch collecting. Uh that's true actually. That would be the ultimate like gotcha answer. Yeah. Outside of the uh this community, anybody else would say you probably shouldn't be spending your money that way. But uh for me, and this is a whole other dark world that we don't even have to get into for me, but it's um it's airline status? Yeah. Oh man. |
| Unknown | Oh boy. So Gray Gray is ready to walk out of |
| Unknown | this room and stop talking to us. Yeah. Maybe we shouldn't name our airlines. I don't know if we have the same airline that we pursue status on |
| Unknown | . So so this is really bad. You told me what flight you normally take to New York. Yeah. So I don't think we're on the same airline. Right. Because that flight doesn't exist on my airline. Yeah. So yes. Yeah |
| Unknown | . Yeah. Look, it's it's it's bad. And and I find myself doing things um uh like oh I'll connect through whatever because maybe I'll get some more miles. Or I'll I'll uh I'm just jealous. If I you know I could I mean I s I know like the fair codes, and it's like, well, if actually if I just spend an extra hundred and fifty bucks, I'll get double miles on that. And you just do weird things that you shouldn't do. Totally. And my by the way, my wife turned me on to this, and now and now she's like you've g |
| Unknown | one too far. Yeah. Our flight out here to LA was massively delayed last night uh because of a crack in the airplane. Yeah they deboarded us twice. Uh-huh. We finally got off the ground. And uh as we were getting off the ground, I got an email from from the airline that was, uh, hey, you know, we're so sorry for the the m mistake. We'd like to give you a little something to to say we're sorry. And the options are a $100 travel certificate or uh 5,000 miles. I've spent the last, I guess at this point, like 16 hours, trying to do the math as to which of those is more advantageous. Exactly. And I will continue to do that math. I will be the last person to claim my reward. I will have spent way more than $100 worth of time focused on it. Right. |
| Unknown | Uh but I'll feel so good about it. So speaking of rewards, one of the things that my status on my airline does is it gives you these things that allow you to upgrade to first class on an international flight. So you pay for a coach ticket and you can upgrade. Yep. They they're only good for how a year or whatever and then they expire. I um uh my wife gives birth to our first child, our son, in November, and I see that our upgrade certificates expire at the end of January. I love where the story's going. So naturally, I say, well, I guess I'll just let them or I do an insane amount of research and I know that I can't be away for long, but I also I'm not gonna like just fly to the Caribbean. I have to like go someplace where that's like worth it. Of course. So I secretly talk to my wife's cousin, who's also a maniac and is kind of down for whatever, and convince him, because I know if he' goings, maybe she won't be so mad at me. And then I I um reveal to her that what I would like to do, and it's already all booked, is to fly to Tokyo for a day and back. And uh and to use those before the they expire. And she was not happy, but she also um somehow I convinced her to let me do it. That's so we hopped on a flight, we flew across the Pacific Ocean. We had sushi and whiskey and saw as much stuff as we could possibly do. And then we headed right back to the airport and we flew back. That's amazing. Yeah. That is so good. For a c |
| Unknown | ouple hundred bucks. Great, we gotta get on this. Yeah. That's your podcast. Yeah, exactly. Well then let's let's do that again. I got more certificates. Okay. Airlines go coming soon to uh the Hodinki podcast Network is a uh podcast all about airline points. Yeah, it's Gray and Chris, and we're just gonna like identify crazy places to go. Perfect. Uh sweet. So to wrap things up, uh we always end with a cultural recommendation. Um, what is something you recommend everybody check out after uh they're done listening |
| Unknown | ? So I'll do I'll do two. Okay, if that's okay. One is it's a little bit self-serving, but I'm not sure when this is coming out. But uh uh Cord and Tish will be back at the Rose Parade this year, January 1st. Uh if this comes out after that, it will be available VOD, and that's something that I've been working on for the last couple months that I'm super excited about. And it's going to be funny and crazy and bizarre. And if you like Will Farrell and if you like funnier die, you're going to love it. So that's a little a plug for that. And then the other thing is that I assume folks listening like podcasts, they probably like weird minutiae of the world. I hope so. And so there's a podcast that I've I I recommend often because um I don't think it's that popular and so hopefully peop more people tune in and it's called Futility Closet with an F Futility Closet. Oh, I don't know this. And it's so this is gonna sound like worlds colliding, but I think I first got turned on to it from like an old gray NATO episode. Okay. Where there was like some watch story that maybe got told through this. Awesome. Um so maybe shout out to those guys. But it comes out once a week. It's like 30 minutes long. It's these two, I think like it's this married couple who are like researchers, somewhere maybe in North Carolina at one of the universities. And every week they just do a deep dive on some kind of weird story of history that's kind of been maybe lost to time that people don't really know a lot about. Some stuff maybe you've heard of, some stuff that maybe has been turned into movies, but they really kind of dive deep into it. And it's just the best um uh it's the best drive in the work to be able to be turned on to some kind of new and interesting fact. A lot of World War II stuff, a lot of World War I stuff, a lot of stuff even older than that. So and I think actually a number that have to do with watches and timekeeping and that kind of stuff so I definitely would recommend that. A |
| Unknown | wesome. Uh I'm gonna recommend a movie that I saw this past weekend that I've told basically everyone I've come in contact with about since I saw it, uh, which is The Favorite. Oh yes. Uh have you seen it? I haven't, but it was just a dinner last night and people were raving about it. It is so fucking weird. Yeah. It's amazing. It's it's the first movie I've seen in a very long time where I saw it and was like, A, who the hell gave money to make this thing? Like, whoever whoever funded this is a genius. Yeah. Uh, whoever saw that this could be something amazing. Um, but it's just like it's shot in weird ways, it's acted amazingly. Um the whole like art and stage direction is is simultaneously beautiful and really grotesque. It takes place in the 18th century in the in the British court. And it's everything is very over the top, uh, but also kind of filthy. Like everything has this like coating of like mud and dirt on it. Um it's great. It's a it's completely. It's funny in a weird, like dark comedy kind of way. It's hilarious. It it's I mean, there are scenes where you're you're cringing and you can't believe like the conversations that are happening are happening. And then there's other scenes where the the I saw it in a full theater where the theater was just like everybody's cackling. I mean it was it was amazing. Um, I highly recommend you go see it in theaters too. I don't think it will have the same impact if you're watching it at home by yourself. Um I don't want to say too much about the plot. It's honestly not that important. Um you'll like you'll enjoy it anyway. Uh in fact the plot may actually like turn you off to the movie. But uh yeah, I it's uh it's probably the best movie I've seen in a long, long time. I |
| Unknown | really a lot of buzz for uh best picture nomination. All three actresses are getting buzzed for nominations. Three actresses are unbelievable. Yeah. Uh Emily |
| Unknown | Weiss in particular is is just insane. Um yeah. Or Rachel Weiss. It's Rachel Weiss. Rachel Weiss. Um yeah, Rachel Weiss. Cool. Well, uh I think that does it for us. Thanks so much for joining us and uh hopefully we'll be doing a lot more events out here. Absolutely. Thank you so much, guys, and I hope to see you out in sunny LA soon. This week's episode was recorded at the 60 Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles and was produced and edited by Grayson Corjonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show, it really does make a difference. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week. |