Welcome to Knight Talks, the Uni of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, talk show produced by students for st I'm Jalen Chance, a senior studying journalism.

And our guest today is Bryan Rui who has over 16 years of professional digital sales, marketing and strategy ex having worked for the Walt Disne and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

He now works at Google, leading a commercialization team managin to help their partners grow stra with this suite of products.

Hi, Bryan.

Thank you so much for being here Thank you for having me.

So it says in 2006, you earned your bachelor's degre in advertising from the University of Florida.

Did you always know you would go to Florida?

Tell us about that story.

Yeah, I didn't know that I alway to go to University of Florida, but I was raised in Fort Lauderd So with the Florida Bright Future Scholarship, I knew I was going to go somewhe in Florida.

I graduated high school, I'm dating myself, in 2002.

I was looking for an opportunity to go to a university in Florida not necessarily University of Fl I actually ended up applying to University of Florida early a and got denied.

So I then applied a regular deci and then also got denied.

And so then I appealed the decis and still got denied.

So I got denied three times on University of Flo So did I always want to go to University of Florida?

I did, clearly, but it wasn't working out for me And so I actually went to the Un of Central Florida for my first year of college and then transferred to Santa Fe to do my entire sophomore year o Within one summer term, just to into UF finally as a sophomore.

A part of me always want to go t I just didn't know it at the tim Was advertising like always a passion of yours?

Did it like kind of come up afte of years UCF and then at Santa F Can you explain how you got into advertising?

Yeah, absolutely.

Advertising was never a passion.

I had no idea.

I actually started college wanting to do corporate law and then I switched over to acco because I liked math.

Because I knew, like, as much as I love the business side of things, I also had a creative side that I wasn't tapping into.

And so then I found advertising and I realized that advertising the opportunity to bring the mix of creativity and business toget And so once I found that, then it really became a passion You interned in 2005 as an adver coordinator for General Motors.

Yeah.

Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and your insight that you gained while there, because obviously you've made it from there all the way to Sony a Yeah, Yeah.

The list goes on.

I did that while I was at UF, so I was a student here and it was an internship program Chevrolet came to the university if there was a cohort of student that wanted to help, I think at launch their Chevy Cobalt.

I was a student that would just my hand for everything.

I wanted, any and all experience I could get.

And so I just raised my hand and we were literally given a bu we had to do a live event to get to see the car, understand the c And that was where I was able to really tap into my creative s I helped build the ads that went into the newsp and all of those fun aspects of advertising.

But yeah, I was just that person that was the only way I'm gonna get the experience is by doing it.

And as much as I learned in the all that stuff wasn't applicable until I actual in the real world.

And so I was a big fan of always taking all that experi I was learning in the book and b to the real world as quickly as to really help me understand that book a little bit more.

So I'm a big doer versus just sitting there and le Right out of college, you work f a global tractor organization as a brand administrator.

What type of content and campaig were you responsible for when you worked at Kubota?

Yeah, so to back up a little bit I graduated from UF in 2006.

Part of me always just wanted to leave Flor especially being in advertising you know, I quickly learned that being in a bigger city might have been better for my opportunities.

So I got in my car, drove to Los And so while I was in L.A. getting my masters at USC, I was looking for a job.

Thankfully, the Master's was a n program, so I was able to work f Being out of college, I knew that I couldn't, you know, I wasn't going to work at some of the top companies and either earn my keep.

And Kubota Tractor Company was h They were looking for a brand administrator.

That was entry level marketing.

And so I quickly learned that Kubota is the equivalent of John They're just based in Japan, not and they were building out their market here.

I was tasked to be internal with the client, and I was working with our advertising age and we were helping them build b TV commercials, magazine inserts all of those fun things, making that anything the advertiser age we would actually have to approv So I got to go and do things like go on commerc and really be the client sitting there saying, if we didn't like something the way something looked.

I learned a lot more about farm than I ever really thought I wou but I learned also very quickly that it's not what you advertise how you advertise.

And so it didn't really matter that I was advertising farm equi I was building a foundation for to advertise and communicate wit And that was something that real my career up for success.

You briefly worked at iHeart Rad as an account executive.

Can you explain digital media sa and how it pertains to broadcast and what is required kind of to attain that success?

So I was in this production role at that mall company and I was working with the sales and I quickly realized I had a knack for working with c and I wanted to be a seller myse and I wanted to move to be the f seller, not just the production person on the back end.

And so that's why I was looking for an opportunity to get out of that mall company, Light Box, and move into a sales And at the time I was interviewi with a couple of companies, including iHeartRadio.

Disney was the other one.

The opportunity for this role came up at iHeartRadio and I too and I was there for about, you know, a few months, which I'm sure we'll talk about.

But I was able to work in this radio space, which was very new for me, but obviously a very old platfor But I was in the digital part of iHeart Radio.

So like you can imagine that all these different huge radio s around the country, Ryan Seacres they're all affiliated with iHea We were selling the digital foot of that, so we weren't selling r We were selling display banners and stuff on the website.

It was how can we compliment digital campaigns with what they were doing on rad And so it was very much a music driven organization.

And so I did understand that I had a knack for sales.

It was great experience because I was able to hit the gr running, working with clients and starting to make an impact pretty quickly within the organi So you only worked there for six (months).

Usually for people in that posit it takes about a couple of years Could you elaborate and explain it was only such a short time?

Yeah, I was on there for a few m six or seven months.

It wasn't very long, it's for a I should say you should always stay in a job for a coupl if you can, but prior to joining iHeartRadio I was also interviewing with the Walt Disney Company, and I learned very quickly, never burn a bridge.

And I got in really close with the recruiter at Disney, and I just reached out to her sa Listen, I've already got this great experience, iHeartRadio.

I've always want to work at the Disney Company.

I know that last role that I was interviewing for with you guys didn't work out.

Is there anything available?

Because I learned at iHeart, as much as I was enjoying the role, I wasn't so passionate about what we were selling, but I also grew and got the fund And so Disney said, Well, actually there's a role that is that actually you could be a perfect fit for.

We just opened it up.

And so I interviewed for that ro I moved into the Walt Disney Com So I didn't leave lighthearted.

I don't like to leave jobs that quickly, but the opportunit and I had to take it and run wit How was it different from the roles that you had in t to now working for Disney?

Yeah, so Disney is a very hard c namely because they just hold so much intellectual property, r Between Mickey to the Muppets, to all these different kind of I And so working for the Disney Company was very hard especially from a sales perspect because Disney was packaging up for us to bring to advertisers t But so often Disney would change their mind or not w certain things that the advertiser wanted to do I'll give you great example.

The Muppets were coming out with and they wanted to have an adver sponsor to that DVD.

And so one of my clients was Pro and Gamble.

Now Procter Gamble has Swiffer, Bounty, Char all those different grocery bran And so Bounty paper Towels was g to sponsor the Muppets DVD relea The Muppets were going to be on for Bounty and Bounty was going to have a coupon in th Part of that deal was to get three custom :30 vide with the Muppets using the brand in some way, shape or form.

And this was like the very early of brand integration.

We were on set and all the puppets were there.

Mind you, P&G probably spent north of $1,0 just for these 3 :30 spots.

The one thing P&G wanted to do i Can we have Miss Piggy clean?

And the studio, their mouths dro They said, Miss Piggy does not c They quoted said she's the Barbr Streisand of puppets.

And with spending that million d you can't even afford Miss Piggy So when you look at these three spots which are still on YouTube all these other characters are i and Miss Piggy is in a frame on because they couldn't afford her And so going from what the clien to what they actually got from a sales perspective, it's really hard because you have to massage that relationship and make sure that they're happy with the end result, even though it's not how we star So I learned also very quickly how to be agile especially in digital sales when it comes to working with st and being able to navigate that pretty quickly.

And clearly that agility took a lot of numerous heights, as you became the account execut for Sony Picture Entertainment.

This must have been, again, using your skills that you've al had in new ways.

How was it working for a differe like Sony, especially transitioning from Di iHeart Radio and Kubota?

It was super interesting because at the time I was at Disney for probably about two years and our head of was actually leaving Disney to go to Sony to start a He cherry-picked some people tha really wanted to bring one being And her and I were really close and she's like, Im not going to unless you go with me.

Again, I didn't leave Disney tha I really love the company, even though it was really hard, but it was a great opportunity.

I was able to level up in my car I was able to take on more respo and I said, Hey, I'm going from Disney to Sony.

It's entertainment to entertainm What can be so different?

It was very different, right?

Sony was launching their digital for the very first time, so they weren't as mature in the marketplace like Disney w Half the things that we were pro that we were going to get and se we weren't actually given.

And so it was really hard to sell things in the marketplac that you actually weren't able t But it was great.

So I was primarily focused on selling Crackle, which is a free platform that hosts a lot of Son old content as well as some new as well as PlayStation.

We started to activate different things on PlayStation.

It was very different because obviously there was no P equivalent at Disney.

So the gaming world alone was just a huge learning and new thing to kind of think a Could you elaborate more about like your positioning and how yo to kind of immerse yourself into that with accounting?

The gaming world is massive, especially PlayStation.

And first of all, it was self ed I'm not a gamer, right?

Like I'm not a big gamer.

And so it was important for me to understand what this world wa and then also what the organic o was for advertising.

When you think about PlayStation and all these different consoles you don't necessarily first think about advertising as a con And so my job was to understand what was available to sell to ou and then how can I bring that pa to our clients organically?

Because I had a mix, I had some gaming clients that were endemic to gaming like Activision and a bunch of t So that was an easy sell, right?

They had games they want to prom You know, they were looking to l like potentially new scenes or whatever it was, and so it wa to work with them to say, let's just put banner ads up.

When you launch PlayStation, you can have a banner, consumers click on it, download The hard part was pivoting to sa Why does AT&T need to advertise Why does these other brands like why do they need to think and care about gaming?

And so that was definitely more to help those brands think about not necessarily that you should be in gaming con but who's the audience using those gaming consoles and why should those audiences matter to them?

And so we quickly were able to o a bunch of these big brands.

What they quickly start to reali gaming audience was one of their you know, champions.

A lot of them were gaming for ma many hours.

Right?

And so they're sitting there either on their phones, also tex They're eating not probably the great food.

And so it's an opportunity there to really get in front of those Not only were we putting banner ads up all over the diffe you know, kind of entry points when you turn on the console and But we started to organically embed them into it organically.

And so we had the opportunity to just make them a part of the exp and immerse these brands into th to make it feel organic to the c And so huge learning experience.

It was very different than Disne in that aspect.

How important is relationship building with these account executive roles that you partake Yeah, massively.

People buy people, they don't bu and it's all about building trus and being authentic to who you a And so I learned that it's impor understand who the right stakeho are at these organizations that you're selling to and then really deep relationships with t Because at the end of the day, as much as PlayStation is such a platform, so is Xbox and they're trying to sell the same kind of And so it's important to understand, obviously you're goi and differentiate your product, but if people like working with they're going to buy from you.

And if they have a good experien going to grow.

The P&G example with Bounty that you earlier, that was a hard one But we had already worked with P&G for a year or two prior so we had that relationship.

So when things turned a little b it wasn't going exactly as plann that relationship and that trust was already there Well, it was easier to navigate that conversation ve it being our first go with P&G.

I think relationships are the foundation of sales.

And then what you sell is just i on top of that.

In 2014, you became an account e for another company, this time in Emerging and Growth Accounting at Google.

How were you able to get into that company and do you have any professional for a lot of people who want to work in this kind of First off, if you're looking for at Google, I would Google it.

It's great, its right there.

But since I was in the entertain for so long doing digital sales, I was missing, there was a gap in my resume around technology, And so I was able to do the ente the custom videos, the PlayStati all of that.

But I was missing that tech piec and working for one of those big tech companies.

Again, going back to that earlie with moving into Disney, it's all about networking and keeping those relationships, That relationship got me to Disn networking got me to Sony, and then I use my relationship t to get me to Google.

And I had a couple of close frie within Sony who had relationship with recruiters at Google and they put me in touch and it was as simple as that, as far as getting the interview.

Obviously you had to go through the interview process to get int which was fairly robust and a good six month process, bu navigated, got into Google and was able to work in a role where I was now selling to clien who had never spent with Google and tried to onboard them to our So you think about YouTube, you think about search, display all of those different things that Google has to offer.

That was my role when I first started there.

And you also have held several s roles at Google over the last ni maybe ten.

I'm going to count as a decade.

And now you're a head of the global performance incent which is not a direct sales pers But why did you move into that r Yeah, so I did.

I've been at Google for over nin so you're right.

Close to a deca Thank you for asking me again.

And so I started in that role where I w to clients who never respect bef I did that for about two years.

My next two years at Google I actually moved to the UK.

So I worked our London office for two years as well, working with global brands in the Europe markets.

So you think about Oreo, Cadbury Smirnoff, Baileys, Kellogg's.

I worked with all those brands i to help them navigate Google in So it's really great experience to get the US experience and then move to Europe to get two years of European exp I then moved back to New York and I moved into our global orga where I was tasked to work with Inc globally.

So Mars Inc is encompassing of M Skittles.

Also, they own Pedigree, IAMS.

Also own Ben's Original Rice, so I big suite of grocery store.

And so this team was tasked with supporting the top 20 to 30 glob And so my job, which is to work on Mars solely.

And so I worked with them for fo And so I was able to get small b experience, global experience.

And so I did all the sales organ at Google, like all different ki you can sell.

And so I wanted to take all that experience and move into a role where I was able to help all cli And so now my role is a global r and we build programs to help all clients of all sizes So now I'm able to take all that experience and I help build prog that can help all clients grow within Google.

And so it's been an amazing oppo because I'm bringing all of this experience that I've been able to get into to make sure that whatever we're building for our clients, I'm always thinking about the client first, and I'm not thinking about Googl I'm thinking about the client fi And that perspective is actually really good for this because anything we bring to mar we want to land.

And so yeah, so now more on the and operation side.

I will say one of the biggest ch for me was I was 100% external, which means I was working with c all the time.

I was never in the office, I was always having relationship Now I'm on trips that internal.

I don't talk to any client anymo And so we work with our sellers to help them bring stuff to mark And so that was the biggest chan role, but still very much sales What were some of your favorite as far as working in that positi for Google?

I would say one of my biggest favorite parts was, on the clien just seeing some of this hard wo come to fruition, right?

One of these programs that I worked on for three years a brand you might know Sheba, which is cat food.

Mars owns it.

They're a big sustainability company, right?

And they believe in the environm doing what's right for the envir And so Sheba was actually lookin coral reefs off the coast of Ind because if you have more sustain coral reefs, you get better fish fish, better quality cat food.

A little bit of a stretch, but it made sense.

They said, come to London, let's sit in a room and talk abo how we're doing this because we see how Google can partner with And so we said, okay, this isn't something that we typ We typically don't think about coral, like.

We just put ads up, right?

But we got in a room with them and we sat down for two and a ha We talked about augmented realit opportunities, virtual reality, like if consumers can go down and actually see the reef being from their couch of their home.

So we started talking to a lot o How could tech bring it to life?

But then we also talked about the opportunity by Google And so the interesting thing about this coral reef restoratio that they were doing is they pla in a very strategic way that fro if you looked at the coral reef, it spells the word hope.

So they call it Sheba Hope Reef.

And so obviously hope means they to you know, it's a good message And so something that I was able is work with our Google Maps tea get the satellite to actually ci the globe and take a picture of If you go on Google Maps right n and type in Sheba Hope Reef, it'll show up on the and you can see the word hope th And so we were able to not only like work with them on some of t we obviously did the advertising to bring awareness to this.

We did all of those fundamentals We're also able to put literally Hope Reef on the map.

And that was a really cool thing that was a three year process, r Google Maps isn't going to easil just circle satellites.

Took a lot of internal sales too to get people on board.

So fast forward to last summer, when I actually was invited to C So the Cannes Advertising Film Festival in Cannes, France.

And this campaign was submitted multiple different areas and we won two awards.

So we went to Cannes awards.

And Cannes is like the top tier of advertising awards.

And so I think when I won those with Mars, that's when I knew I need to pivot out because I've done it, right?

I got to Cannes Awards with my c That's probably one of the best examples at Goog that really still feels really g That's beautiful.

Along with the most successful and fun parts, what are some of the tough parts in all honesty, as a Google Global Account Execu Yeah, navigating the complexitie organization is always going to right?

Like Disney, like Sony, Google has many parts, many cooks in the kitchen, many And so navigating that and building internal relationsh to help you grow your client is I will say there was a lot of tu I would say in 2017, I would say around there, you guys can all Google it.

There was a time when YouTube wa the safest platform.

There was really questionable co on there.

We weren't necessarily policing because we're an open platform.

You know, we're not someone that puts out content.

We let people just use this plat to upload content that they want So we're not a publisher, we're a platform.

In 2017 we started to realize th a lot of bad actors out there that were using the platform to upload just really bad things whether it was endangering child whether it had terrorist like tones, racist type tones, it was a big brand safety issue.

A lot of advertisers actually paused and they said, until you fix this platform, we' going to put our ads on the plat And so it took about a three yea to get our clients to really re- in our platform again.

And we made so many changes sinc But yeah, there's plenty of low especially working for these big because change doesn't happen very quickly.

And so when YouTube went through that in 2017, it took a good yea to really take away that content put in the right policies, get t internal teams built to help pol some of this stuff and just make Right?

We're still an open platform.

All opinions, all content allowe That's never going to go away.

But now there's rules in place to make sure that like the right kind of content is bei And when I say right, it's not m We're not promoting terrorism, we're not promoting child endang So again, all opinions matter.

But when it comes to those kind of sensitive topics, that's where there's a lot of po put in place now.

And it's beautiful how you make those adjustments.

It really shows how much you car and how much inclined and the knowledge that you gaine And with that knowledge, fast forward to now.

You currently teach at Rutgers Business School and UFs College of Journalism and Commun What inspired you to want to come back and kind of Yeah, I didn't know I wanted to teach, to think about it a little bit m So I've been teaching at UCF for probably about six plus year and I teach online.

So I still live in New York, but I teach online and I'm available with my studen still via video conferencing, which I think everyone's comfort with now post pandemic.

UF actually came to me and they said, We're building th program, this online master's pr Would you be interested in teaching something around Goo And so now I teach performance advertising.

And so I started building that program and teaching, and I really loved it because I A) It was letting me give back t I was able to inspire and use my journey to help stude that were starting their journey And C) selfishly, it keeps me on my toes, right?

The digital industry is changing all the time, and so by teaching, it gives me the opportunity to s in the know of what's happening across the entire industry.

I could easily sit in my Google and just think about Google all But now that I'm teaching these advertising programs that aren't just exclusive to Go products, it's forced me to unde what Meta is doing TikTok, Twitt all these different platforms.

And so selfishly, it's keeping me just educated.

And so now I teach three different courses at UF, and then I also teach an adverti promotions course at Rutgers.

And so I love it.

I love working with the students I think it's great to bring my e back.

And I do think the students valu that I also still work in the in And so I'm bringing that real world perspective.

And you did tap onto it with these emerg like social media applications, like TikTok, Instagram and Twitt What are some of the new interes trends in the digital market spa and what should we all be watchi within the next couple days, years, months?

Yeah, no, it's a great question.

I talk about the brand safety th in 2017, if you Google it.

It wasn't just YouTube that went through it, Facebook, all these different platforms.

Privacy was a big one.

We want to make sure consumers are protected across all the platforms that th on, their email, their credit ca all of that.

So we went from brand safety to and now we're in this new world where it's all about AI and machine learning, right?

And we've heard about the ChatGP Google now released Bard.

There's a lot of these different AI type platforms.

And so AI is like just the term that's being used non stop.

And so I think it's being on the for how this whole artificial intelligence thing is going to evolve, right?

As much good as AI can do, there's also a lot of bad, which is why a lot of these bigg companies are moving a little bit slower to make sure that it's done righ But that also excites me, right?

This whole thing is really inter There's a lot of things that AI can really help us do, so we can focus on more strategi thinking versus having to do some of thos of hygiene type things that we may not have time for.

And it's also not growing us, ri We just have to do it.

Its a ti And so AI can really help us pro and do more.

So yeah, I think all things artificial intelligence.

Now with the emerging of AI and a lot of people are still wa to maintain these positions and obviously it's going to beco a competitive environment when p want to use AI instead of actual using people in these situations What skills should we consider for potential who want to work in this busines What skills we consider to learn to stay com And do you have any advice for f people who want to work in this Because I'm pretty sure you insp a lot of people.

No, definitely.

I think when it comes to all things digital, including AI, obviously getting a solid educat is important, right?

And super foundational to starting a career.

But there's so many resources ou to be complementing how you're learning in school.

And I always encourage students and even professionals who are in the market to continue to stay curious, alw And so while you're in school, there's no reason why you shouldn't log on to Google S and get a certification in searc Get a certification, I think we just really want an A Meta has trainings, Twitter has TikTok.

All these platforms have free tr and free certifications.

Push yourself outside of your ed to start complementing it with how the industry is also giving opportunities to get certificati And so even today I still active certifications across all these different platforms because it's to stay curious and constantly l As we talked about, digital is c and it's going to continue to ch and how it looks today is going to look wildly di two years ago.

We talked about Disney, where I three little video spots.

Integrations are super organic n Everyone's doing them, but ten years ago it wasn't.

So the landscape is changing ver And so the more you stay curious and you continue to educate your even after college, I think that where you're going to be success and really grow in your career.

Thank you for your insight, Brya thank you, our viewers, for join Until next time, goodnight.