Danny Olson
Creative + Strategy + Media
“A great writer has all four. But you can still be a good writer with only one and two — they’re the most important”
I try every day to at least be a nut and a moron.
Danny Olson
There is an author named Susan Sontag who wrote that to be a good writer (and I would argue, a great anything), you need to be four people: The Nut, The Moron, The Stylist and The Critic.
“A great writer has all four. But you can still be a good writer with only one and two — they’re the most important”
I try every day to at least be a nut and a moron.
About
About Me
I consider myself lucky for the experiences I’ve had in my career, which has been accented by roles that shape my point of view on the world and the work that I put into it. Things just tend to look different after you’ve traveled the country in the cockpit of a 27-foot-long hot dog.
Wait, hold that thought.
Before we go back, let me talk about where I am today. I hold a unique role within a global digital marcomm agency, Weber Shandwick. Half of the time, the hat I wear into client and internal rooms is that of an Integrated Marketing Strategy leader. When my Mom asks what that means, I ask her “where did you get your last five pieces of news, entertainment or recommendations?” And she’ll rattle off TikTok (she’s a cool Mom), her group chats with friends, The Skimm, and probably someone like Reese Witherspoon. I point out how different that list is than even five years ago, and that it’s my job to make sense of this new era of fractured, influence-driven media for my clients. She will then ask me to help her download another book from the library onto her Kindle.
My other hat is that of a creative leader, where I serve as a leader on the work that we do with our portfolio of clients on Nestle. We like to call the work we do “earned-first” creative, because we believe the bar that any work should clear is that it earns something – media coverage, social conversation … whatever attention is most critical to accomplishing the goal at hand. So when DiGiorno tells us they want to own share of voice around the Super Bowl because the Big Game is, well, the Super Bowl of pizza-eating, we make a bet with America: Free Dough for a Doink (AKA, if any kick on Super Bowl Sunday hits (or doinks) the upright, everyone qualifies for a free pizza). More than 350 media outlets covered it, Kansas City delivered the Doink, and more than 50K people signed up for a sweepstakes to get their free pie. Morning Consult data tells us it raised purchase intent by 13%. As for share of voice? NFL sponsor Little Caesar’s was left eating our crust … er, dust.
And this is where this analogy about hats falls apart. Because most people don’t wear two hats at once, but I always do. I might have different roles on paper when I call on different clients, but I’m still the same – I bring a creative mindset to my integrated strategy work, considering the motivations and content people bring to different channels. And I very often express my creative thinking through specific channel activations and creative based on the observed behaviors of the audience at-hand.
Oh, right, the hot dog thing. My first job out of college was driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, an honor bestowed on 12 lucky people every year. I drove the country representing the American Icon, pitching and conducting interviews, executing marketing campaigns, and working with retail sales teams to move product to support key customers. It was an absolute blast, but it was also a hyper-condensed education in a host of valuable areas. Not least of which was meeting the people every day that experienced the product. It was like 365 days of unedited focus groups.
I am at my best when building and motivating teams, helping to make sense of a crazy, mixed-up media world, and coming up with norms-bending ideas that break through the ad-blocking + banner-blinded environment we all inhabit.
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