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Russell: I like to do what's right for a company.
And it has to do with doing what's right, what's in front of you,
and what you believe in and have faith in as a process.
Not some commercial, I want to do this because the market needs it.
Through technology there's so many innovative things you can do
that really let's a DNA of a brand breathe.
(bouncy music)
Voiceover: They are artists, innovators and media pioneers.
Famous names that are challenging the status quo.
This is Acting Disruptive.
(upbeat music)
Max: We're here with one of the godfathers of entrepreneurship in Hollywood,
Russell Simmons
How are you doing?
Russell: I'm good.
Max: So your latest venture is called Narrative.
Russell: Yes.
Max: What can you tell me about it?
(upbeat music)
Russell: Narrative is a creative digital and technology solutions agency
and do narratives, do stories.
We tell these brand stories in ways that they travel across media
and create emotion and let people understand the purpose of the brand.
Max: I want to know how Narrative is disrupting the marketing space.
Russell: In digital, you can do all kinds of innovative technology,
innovative campaigns that spread.
You could have a home ran campaign
that travels across all the places that you didn't buy
because it is such an innovative, fun, creative campaign
and we have done a lot of that.
That's what Narrative is good at.
We're learning more all the time.
We always see the first technology ideas.
We create some of them
and we really are off to a great start in a new space.
Max: You've built an amazing career creating brands
which you've done your whole life pretty much.
How is it different now working for already established brands?
Russell: Like I told you,
we have a lot of creative executives who come up with great campaigns
that I see them and like I'm blown away by them.
Sometimes there's a campaign for something that I love
and I can get involved daily
and I could be the creative adviser and that's fun, too.
Max: Tell me about the campaign that you guys did for Under Armour
with Pharrell and Ray Lewis.
Russell: The Under Armour campaign was fun.
Pharrell did a mix tape.
Ray Lewis had an inspirational speech on top
and we allowed everybody or anybody to remix it.
It's a winner with our Monday night football and Under Armour end.
Voiceover: Let's go baby.
Let's go baby.
Let's go, who's next?
(loud music)
Max: You've worked in so many different industries
from like entertainment to fashion and now branding
Russell: Well, I had an agency before.
I did Coke, I did Pepsi, I did lots of stuff.
We shot tons of TV commercials for tons of brands
and I was responsible for them.
It's not that different except now again, with through technology,
there's so many innovative things you can do
that really let's a DNA of a brand breathe.
But it's what we do.
We get cool *** and put it with other cool ***
and then it becomes extra cool ***.
Max: You're like a cool mixologist in a way.
Russell: A mixologist, yeah.
That's fly the way you said that.
Max: Yeah.
Russell: That's cool.
Max: We've been talking to lots of disruptors throughout this series.
People that have not been complacent to merely just settle for the status quo.
What do you think makes a disruptor?
Russell: Well, the first thing you need is a still mind
because you need to be able to operate from a place of honest
and you have to look in here.
Any creative person has seconds of stillness, a second.
They only time you could ever be creative is with a still mind.
When the noise is gone, an idea will flash.
It's the inside where all the ideas dwell.
You got to get the *** from out of there.
(bouncy music)
Long-haired guy: We're finding market-based solutions to the environment.
Bald guy: Want it to be free.
I mean as a business model it's not the smartest thing in the world.