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Erik: What tools and processes do you use to encourage clients to think more creatively?
Jason: It’s funny in that those two worlds - my supper club food world and then my Manifold
experimental/experiential marketing, non-traditional marketing world – they’re not really that
far apart from each other. And directly, in that one of my partners at any pitch somehow
finds a way to bring up that I have a supper club. And so, it’s not that far off base
for me to walk in with a big plate of ribs into a pitch or a client meeting or something
like that – I have yet to actually do that. There has been a lot of talk of that, so I’m
sure at some point that will happen. But I think that drawing on that idea of making
people comfortable in that supper club context with the food I cook and the way it’s presented.
We use those same tactics with the marketing stuff and with those clients, in that I personally
always try and bring something that’s going to make everybody uncomfortable. So, to go
back to the supper clubs, a big plate of hens that you have to hold onto, that are wrapped
in bacon or Serrano ham. You’ve probably never done that before. You may not even want
to hold that plate but you really don’t have a choice. So, to go back to the marketing
side, I will bring something or say something that is a bit out there and then ground it
in the reality or the strategy or whatever we are actually there to discuss. I think
that breaks down a lot barriers. Laughter is always a good thing, not that it’s always
humorous – the thing that I bring – but also we are called in, usually, to sort of
push the envelope, but getting that room in that moment to relax and let down their guard
is a really important thing to do so that people can think maybe a little bit bigger
or a little bit different than they were thinking for the last two months about whatever their
business was.