Rafael Oliveria (00:00.184)

, even though you have the marketing people in your ear saying, but you know, there's only this attention span that goes so long. It's not about that, right? When you're trying to achieve great creative.

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You're not necessarily thinking about the algorithm and the conversion rates and all of that. But if you're only looking at that, you're going to end up producing things that everyone else can produce. So you need to find your distinctive point. And there, that's when, hopefully, you achieve this idea of great creative, something that feels right for the brand, but it's something that you can produce with the resources that you have.

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Cole Heilborn (00:47.894)

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industry experts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works. If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry, this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers. Welcome to the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. Today, I'm sitting down with Rafa Oliveira. He's the former creative director at Tracksmith for the last 10 years. And now you're freelance out in the world, working across the outdoor and running industry, providing your creative director services.

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Rafa, welcome to the show.

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Rafael Oliveria (01:19.256)

Thank you very much for having me, Cole. it's a pleasure. I've been a long time fan and listener of your podcasts. So it's really nice to be able to chat finally.

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Cole Heilborn (01:28.066)

Likewise, I think we've got another fun conversation lined up today. We're be talking about the role of the creative director, the value of creative, and then kind of dissecting some of your marquee projects that you worked on at TrackSmith and the lessons learned and kind of everything under the sun. Before we jump into it, give me like a thesis statement about the value of good creative at the time of this recording, 2026.

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And then we'll kind of go from there.

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Rafael Oliveria (01:59.928)

That's definitely a tough one. think it changes according to the project, according to the subject. But I do think that great creative, most of the times in my experience, is almost defined by how subtle it is. It's almost, you don't necessarily notice it. It doesn't take over. It just feels right, whatever you're watching. it's...

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film, it's a photo campaign, if it's the written word, a text, some copy. Oftentimes it elicits something in you and you can't quite put your finger on what it is. Usually that's when good creative, in my opinion, is achieved or is successful. Of course, there are metrics to measure certain outcomes from certain creative.

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outputs and projects. that's, I think our conversation will, we'll, go a little bit into that. That's where that the tension comes in between, let's say creative and marketing, which is very metrics driven. Creative is not, is not, you can't really measure good creative, right? Of course you have a certain outcome, but that outcome is also influenced by numerous other factors, right? I'm making this up, but if you're, if you're

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If you're putting out a product, if you have amazing creative and then the product sucks, how do you measure that? How are you, how much percentage do you discount from one another? So there, there's, there's a cool definition that I really like creative is like adding salt to a meal, right? A little bit, you know, is amazing. It really enhances the flavors. really brings everything together a lot. just ruins the entire, the entire meal. So I think it's, I think it's a good metaphor for.

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for the value of great creatives.

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Cole Heilborn (03:59.046)

and to use that same salt visual, if you're meat that you're cooking is poor quality or you overcooked it and you add some salt to try and make it better, it doesn't actually help either. Interesting.

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Rafael Oliveria (04:15.534)

That's the fun part. can, right? It can masquerade certain aspects that are not great about that product. First, you know, what it is by itself usually does again. like adding salt. I like adding salt to almost everything that I eat. And it can help, right? It can make things look better, feel, you know, a little bit better to the person that's consuming the content. But

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Eventually, if the product sucks, if it's not great, it will be found out and people will move away. We'll find something else. and it's almost like it is, it is separate from the products. And that leads also to, to the basis of my work as well, you know, as a creative director for a brand, when I was a tracksmith and it's also my practice nowadays. I'm not, this might sound like too big of a statement, but I'm not really.

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interested in selling anyone anything, you know, I'm more interested in making sure that the creative is good. It brings something to that equation, right? If I have commercial transaction, it goes beyond that, right? It's done. There's that cliche line from that film Wolf of Ulster, right? Sell me a pen. I'm not really interested in selling you a pen. What I'm interested in is

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fostering the will to write in the person, right? And then eventually they will find the pen that suits them best. If you have a brand, if you have a company, you need to make sure your product holds up and it's delivering and providing value to the customer. But ultimately good creative shouldn't be defined by the product that it's trying to sell in this case. Yeah, I think that that's like a long way to kind of like explain a little bit what I think good creative is.

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and what it can do.

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Cole Heilborn (06:12.79)

You mentioned that depending on obviously the project and you made it kind of sound like depending on the different career stages that you've been at, you have answered that question differently. What is the value of good creative or great creative? How has your perspective shifted around that question over time?

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Rafael Oliveria (06:31.598)

I think it changes, it goes back and forth, right? It depends. You know, for example, when I was a tracksmith, this was a long-term relationship and I have the trust and the confidence to know that it was not going to end in six months or even in a year, right? I was there for a long time. I had built that relationship with the CEO and with the rest of the team. So the value of creative there and the approach to creative is much more long-term thinking, right? I'm not going to make.

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decisions in the moment reacting to whatever is going on immediately around us and think more about long-term, right? How does this hold up in one, two, three, 10 years? Because that's the, that was the intent for, from the brand, at least from when I was there. it's, it's a little bit different when you're working freelance, right? Or when you're adding value on certain projects, when you come in and you try and you try and move the needle in certain aspects.

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It's not that you don't think long-term, but you don't necessarily have to. So you're just trying to deliver the most amount of value for that specific project. And hopefully you want it to hold up in the years to come, but it's a different approach. Therefore, if you're working in-house and with a single brand, I think approach to creative can take one shape. And then if you're working freelance, for example, or in a different project, it can take another shape.

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That's the nature of creative. That's why it's so interesting, right? You can mold it to the outcome and to the other person on the other side of that equation, Who is it speaking to? What's the intent? That's the beauty of creative in my opinion.

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Cole Heilborn (08:15.502)

So, let's try to understand as best we can the impact of good creative. And I guess I'll liken this to the topic of a brand. Like everyone would say that a strong brand is important. I think most people would say that strong creative is important. Obviously how you get there and the end result is widely varied across the outdoor industry. I think people can see maybe it's hard to measure brands. Measuring brand is kind of like measuring love.

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But no doubt it's important. But what is the value of great creative? How would you, or what is the impact of great creative on the business? I'm curious how you'd articulate and try to define that as best you can.

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Rafael Oliveria (09:01.26)

Yeah, I think, you know, using the tracksmith example, because I think that that's the anchor for our conversation as well. had this, what moved us, the intent of tracksmith, we had this written down was to make people fall in love with running. and ultimately every single decision that we made was gearing towards that, that, that was the goal. what shape that took.

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You know, and you talk about brand versus creative to me at a place like tracksmith, know, brand was always at the top most, the most important thing that we, that we thought about creative was always in service of that, you know, product was always in service of that, but so was community, you know, so was, so were events. was retail. So was, you know, eventually wholesale. so was marketing, course, it's not necessarily, mean, if you're talking about an Amazon, right? Amazon had built.

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a great brand, but it wasn't necessarily through creative, right? was through product and the access and the scale. You know, we weren't tracksmith and I'm not comparing in any way tracksmith to Amazon, but it's very, very far apart. But tracksmith was more interested in the culture of the sport, right? And what, what, what the heritage of the sport was and then building from there. And that's why I say then the product almost came second because

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We wanted to look at the stories of the sport. We wanted to look at how people engage with the sport and really show that really elevate that and champion it or champion for the running class. There are people that are waking up super early, going for a run and then going to work and they're not world beaters. They're not going to win any races, but they're striving to get better at running. and that was at the top, right? That was at the top for tracksmith. That was like the brand ethos.

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And then everything worked in service of that. then great creative just came and we measured its value, even though it was very, very hard to measure in terms of organic reactions. know, our Instagram account, when we started it, we, we rarely invested any money into, into making it big. You know, it's only until recently that we started putting money towards disseminating some content because that's just where the industry went. But we really, really grew our follower base because of great

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Rafael Oliveria (11:25.326)

creative of inspiring people to go out for a run. go back to that, me a pen thing, right? We were more interested in making people want to go out for a run than necessarily making them want to buy a pair of shorts. You know, the intent was never, oh, we have this pair of shorts. Let's make sure that we create content or, or we put out creative that sell the pair of shorts to people. No, it was not about that. It was about, let's make sure that we are.

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elevating the sport, we are elevating the activity and people will find their way to our product because we have this trust and the belief that it is great product. It serves a purpose. and, and we can match those two things. We're confident enough to make those two things align great product supported by amazing creatives. I'm biased, of course I'm saying amazing. I'm throwing it out there, but I do believe that we made.

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you know, some of the best content out there for, for any industry.

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Cole Heilborn (12:25.592)

So what was, you said, what was the mission of Traxmas with to encourage people to fall in love with running? How did you say that? You said that at different

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Rafael Oliveria (12:32.994)

Yeah, yeah, that make people fall in love with brewing.

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Cole Heilborn (12:36.086)

Okay. So that sounds like a behavior problem that you're trying to solve through creative. If that was the mission of the brand, was creative then in service to try and influence that behavior amongst potential customers?

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Rafael Oliveria (12:54.05)

Yes, yes, it was. was the goal, my goal. And I was very fortunate for the time I was there, for the most time I was there. It aligned very, very closely with what the CEO had in mind. It was to put out the best possible version of whatever we wanted to put out in any category, right? The product needed to hold up alongside the best products in the world in the same category or similar category.

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The films that we put out, they would need to hold their own at a film festival. The photo campaigns that we put out, they would need to hold their own in a gallery. The written word, they would need to hold its own in a literary context. Contest, sorry. So it was about like the retail experience, our stores. When you walked in, you needed to understand that there was an architectural consideration. There was an interior design consideration. Everything was thought through and curated.

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from the perspective of the runner, right? From a very insider perspective in order to create this universe, this world that goes beyond the product. It's a world that hopefully people want it to be a part of. They found some benefits in pursuing that aspiration. And again, like I said, eventually they would find their way to the product because it was pretty good and pretty...

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pretty well considered.

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Cole Heilborn (14:24.974)

So is maybe not to simplify, but I'm gonna try to simplify my original question of what is the value of great creative? Is it that it can influence behavior?

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Rafael Oliveria (14:35.502)

100%. It can for sure influence change behavior and, and even create, you know, this is, I'm sure that a lot of brands don't want to even, don't even want to get near this, but create some tension. You know, I think that people need to be, they don't need to be shaken. know, our creative was never allowed.

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But it needs to elicit some questions. It needs to make people think a little bit. I was always a proponent of not feeding everything all the time, not feeding people everything all the time. I wanted to leave some open space. I have a graphic design background and white space is super important in graphic design. So the things that you don't put on the page, it's almost the same thing, right? The things that you don't show, the moments that you let a certain film breathe.

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You let it go a little bit longer, even though you have the marketing people in your ear saying, but you know, there's only this attention span that goes so long. It's not about that, right? When you're trying to achieve great creative, you're not necessarily thinking about, no, the thing that we're all now, you know, in service of the algorithm and the conversion rates and all of that. If you're, if you're looking at that.

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If you're exclusively looking at that, it's not that you don't look, of course, it would be foolish not to do so and not to be informed about it. But if you're only looking at that, you're going to end up producing things that everyone else can produce. So you need to find your distinctive point. there, that's when hopefully you achieve this idea of like great creative, something that feels right for the brand. is, um, easy is not, easy is not the right word, but it's something that you can produce with, with the resources that you have.

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That is, say sustainably produced, of course, you let's, let's leave the environment aside. needs to respect the environment and everything else, but it's also sustainably produced internally in terms of like the team that you have, what can you achieve with the team that you have? They're contributing at their best. They're, they're fulfilled. And then at the, uh, at the, at the end, great creative that moves people that makes them want to go off for a run. And then we heard this a lot, you know, I was really, really proud.

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Rafael Oliveria (16:53.912)

When we had this interaction with people that would come over to the stores or we would find them at events, they would be like, when I, when I opened the packaging and I saw the photo and immediately made me want to go out for a run, or when I saw the film, it immediately made me think about this other run that I did, this experience that I had, and I wanted to go and I wanted to search for it. And I wanted to train a little bit harder for my whatever marathon. So those are the kinds of things that moved the people in the brand.

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And that was the goalpost, know, when we had a steady stream of feedback that sounded like this, we knew we were doing something right. And usually sales and product would match that type of feedback would match that momentum when you saw, when you saw that reaction, because fortunately right now, you know, with, with social media, you can kind of like see that happening, whether in comments on Instagram, you can see that engagement.

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happening in real time, usually that moved the needle also on the product side. Even though that was not, that was not the end goal, we saw some reciprocity between the two movements.

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Cole Heilborn (18:04.044)

Yeah, interesting. okay, as you were just talking there, I just wrote something down. Obviously you can't see it, but I want to read this to you. And I'm just curious how this strikes you. What we see on the internet is the output. see, we see, you know, the film that gets uploaded and we don't often see the work that should happen internally to arrive at that piece of content. I'm trying to think about a framework that you could consider when you're trying to figure out how to show up as a brand in a distinct way. So,

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Let me know how this sits with you. The value proposition of your company, of what you're selling, leads to a behavior statement that you're trying to influence your customers with, which leads to a point of view creatively, and that point of view influences the distinctiveness and the content that you produce, which should circle back to the value proposition. How does that sit with you?

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Rafael Oliveria (18:57.004)

Yeah, I mean, that's a good way of breaking it down and templating it in a way, right? Setting like these, this is the approach. This is the, let's say the steps in order to get to a certain place. A lot of things need to happen, right? And that's why, you you have these internal conversations and this tension about, we go this way? Should we go that way? Should we allocate more budget? Should we make it harder? Should we make it easier to get to a certain place?

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But ultimately, ultimately that sounds like a good framework to, to, to use, right? It's, it's, it's very hard to replicate, you know, from, from previous experience and then from even from experience, experience post tracks myth, you need to find what's most unique externally, right? How to present the brand in the most unique way. But you also need to find a unique way internally of working because you're not going to have the same set pieces everywhere.

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Right. You can't necessarily just bring, you know, a template or, or a blueprint from another brand, from another company, then just use a blanket like approach and then use that at the other company because the players are not going to be the same, right? The rules of the game are not going to be the same. So, so you need to adjust and make sure that you're making the most of that, in order to, achieve those goals and that framework in order to make that framework work.

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Cole Heilborn (20:23.982)

That's interesting. Yeah, as you've moved into the freelance world, what's something that you brought with you from Tracksmith that you thought could be a copy and paste to another company, but you've realized, oh, it's actually different. We got to reconfigure how we're working. Is there an example you can share?

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Rafael Oliveria (20:43.148)

Yeah, I think there is, there is a very, I think that there's a very straightforward example is allowing the time for great creative to come through, to almost show itself. Right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to sit here and say, I know exactly how to achieve great creative. think everyone that says that is in some way lying or not necessarily telling the entire truth. Sometimes.

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You know how to get there because you've done it before, but then the end results just, just doesn't work. So this goes back to the idea of like white space, a living room to breathe. need to create the environment as best as you can up to a certain point for that creative to come through. But then you'd actually need to make things happen and let things happen when you're, when you're shooting them, when you're documenting them, when you're, when you're trying to bring them to life because.

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And let me just, let me just preface, let me just add a little note here. It may not work for every brand because it's not necessarily every brands, universe to create an authentic point of view. Tracksmith was very much rooted in that. We wanted to have an authentic point of view always. so, so we wanted to capture that. So, like I said, going back and to answer your question more and more directly, a straightforward example is it's, it's not.

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every brand, not every company, it's not every agency that is willing to allow the time for that great creative to show up. know, usually people won't results fast, they want to respect the, and it's very good, and a very good positive way, respect the budget and the time of everyone that makes perfect sense. I think that's the right way to do it. But sometimes,

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You can't just show up and have someone stand whatever in front of a blank wall, take some shots and that's it. Right. Yeah. You need to allow the time for, for that to, for, for that great creative to come through. And that's something that I was very proud of tracksmith. It was already that that was already in situ, in situ institutionalize when I joined and I just, I was lucky that my approach also aligned and we were able to build a framework. Like you said, build a framework around that in order to make.

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Rafael Oliveria (23:06.21)

this consistent approach to how we were creating content and allowing that time to happen. I think that that's the most important thing, know, allow the proper time that great creative takes to come through.

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Cole Heilborn (23:19.5)

Well, anytime you're innovating and you're being creative, there's inherently waste and that waste is time and money. Sometimes that's really hard to justify. On the flip side, if you're after efficiency, you often lose innovation, you lose creativity. Finding how much budget do you have to quote unquote waste, pad the budget a little, add a little contingency for those rabbit holes that might

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seem like they waste money, but they actually lead to some really great ideas.

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Rafael Oliveria (23:51.82)

Yeah, I don't disagree. think time, sorry, money time, course, money is the great, you know, a great solve. If you have a lot of money, you can do a lot of things. You can go back, you can stay more days. You can pay people more. They'll feel more, you know, more willing to contribute and to pour their souls into, into the job. I've often found that it's usually with the, the, the less resources that.

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the most interesting things come through. Keep in mind that I'm talking about authenticity, right? For a brand to feel lived in, feel organic, to feel textured, to feel that it's creating a world, to feel aspirational, I think you need that authenticity. you, like the word implies, you can't fake that. So the more artifacts you put between the camera or the subject and the observer, the worse it's going to be, right?

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Cole Heilborn (24:49.826)

You bring up a good point. I don't know about a year ago, I did an interview with creative director, Will Trutner. He works in kind of the sport tech industry. And we were talking about his concept, which is minimum viable creative. Like what is the minimum concept that you need to get out the door and to, and you know, and to get to launch day. And he brought up a really interesting point, which is like, you know, lot of outdoor brands, they don't, they don't have the budget to go out and produce a great creative in a traditional sense.

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But his encouragement was put that time, if you have that resource internally, if you have someone internally who can concept, put that time into that person so they can develop concepts and spend the time to develop concepts because you can put a lot of money into production. You can also put a lot of money into concepts, but if your concept isn't good, the production doesn't really matter. that's, yeah, I think that's also an opportunity to like...

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where that innovation versus efficiency conversation comes into play is like your internal team and how much time do they actually have to develop concepts. Anyways, I was thinking about this idea of minimum viable creative. It led me down a rabbit hole, but I wanted to come back to that because I was curious what your thoughts were around that concept.

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Rafael Oliveria (26:05.646)

So on principle, I don't love it. I don't love the idea of minimal, minimal, viable creative. And don't get me wrong. I compromise all the time and I think it's impossible not to compromise. But I do think that starting the conversation with a compromise is already a problem. know, I think, I think it's very pretentious to say I'm gonna, whatever. you, if you're, if you're doing a campaign,

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to say from the bat to say, I'm going to make the best campaign ever, right? I think it's very pretentious and it's very risky. But I also, so I don't like that, but I also don't think it's great to say I'm going to do as little as I can in order to get it to where it can be good. I think that's also a problem. So what I'd rather do is not even thinking about what is that minimal viable thing? You know, what, what, are those boundaries? What?

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What can I get away with at the low end? What, what do I need to, to, get to at the top end? I'd rather, I'd rather think about what the problem is, what we're trying to solve and find a good solution, iterate internally, like the trial and error, what you're saying, right? Iterate internally with the team. And of course this, this, is reliant on a team. No, no brand is made of a single person and then try and best as we possibly can to put our heads in our, you know, in our, in our.

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bodies together or to, get to that results without having that dictated thing at the start. You know, I've often have conversations with people, you know, at tracksmith outside of tracksmith where they were like, what's, what is the minimum lift that we can do in order to just to get something. I hate having those conversations because you're starting already in the wrong foot. Right. you need to strive, I think, right. And I was again, very privileged to be.

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to be attracts with where there was this confidence in trying to go for that. We need to try and make the best work that we can make without thinking that it's going to be the best thing out of the world, but also without thinking that we're just going to get this through in the most easiest possible way that we can get in order to get it out. So those two, I would, it's almost like, and I hate to go to running, but running has been a huge guide in my life whenever, I discovered it.

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Rafael Oliveria (28:26.414)

But there's almost like, there's, there's like this interval workout that you do. Yeah. So eight hundreds on the track, but some people say it's a good prediction for your marathon time and you run 10, 10, 800 meter repeats. And then you rest for the same period that the repeat was, but long story short, when you're doing the average, right. That will give you the average of the time that you run that 800, it will give you your predicted marathon time. It's a very, very wild extrapolation, but oftentimes it's right.

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But you take away the fastest and you take away the slowest time. you, you, you remove those things. It's, it's a little bit like that, right? In this conversation, you take away the like pie in the sky, crazy thing. I have a lot of money. I'm going to use whatever Brad Pitt or in a, in a shoot, or I'm just going to do the basic and most viable thing that I can to make me, you take away those two things. And in the middle, you are going to find your compromise. You're going to find a good, a good.

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a good way, a good path to get to that good creative, in my opinion. That's my belief.

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Cole Heilborn (29:28.332)

Yeah, I like that. How do you feel like to generalize, like how do you feel like outdoor brands are doing when it comes to the creative that they're producing? And I know that's a super, generalized question.

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Rafael Oliveria (29:39.787)

You

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It's very interesting because I think I could answer in two ways. think we're living through the golden age of the creative output, but also we're living through the worst possible time. a lot of people are doing excellent and interesting things. lot of those interesting and excellent things look the same from brand to brand. There's not a huge differentiation. I think we're all, you know, it's.

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I hate to speak for everyone here, but as, as creatives, think we're all feeding from the same fountain, you know, where we're all seeing the same things. We're all exposed to the same things. and that's dictating a lot of our decisions, even though we don't necessarily realize, you know, there's recently, I don't know if you're familiar with a couple of like niche running brands going at each other because they're copying products or using very similar sources of inspiration, you know,

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It's, it's tough, right? Because it's such a, such a small market and there's so many players when you see something that quite resembles, you know, and I have a lot of respect for creatives. know it's, it's a really hard thing to do. And sometimes you're creating something and you don't even know where it's coming from, but then you realize, it was coming from that. And that other person had a similar idea and they approached it in the same way. So I am again, I'm, I feel.

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I feel very privileged and lucky to have started this path, you know, 10 years ago when, when the market and industry did not look like this at all. You did not have great options for dressing properly for function, for, for consideration in running and running apparel. And now it's everywhere. You know, I was just in Paris fashion week and Paris fashion week, the dominant theme of Paris fashion week was running, was running brands, showing up the showrooms, the pop-ups, the events.

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Rafael Oliveria (31:33.63)

And you'd see the apparel, the propositions are amazing. know, I don't think, I don't think there is people talk about, and then a lot of new brands come up and they say, we're solving this issue or we're solving this thing that I don't think that that exists anymore, to be honest with you, or, I'm missing a couple of points. But when I say, when I see brands, we, we, we didn't, we wanted to talk to people that don't really care about racing and then want to smoke a cigarette after running. Yeah. But that's existed tracks.

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has done that we've done look books that do not feature running at all. Just people going about their day and doing everything, but running, right? We've done, you know, athlete camps, sub elite athlete camps, amateur athlete camps. We brought everyone out to the middle of nowhere. We've done desert running and I'm not to say that everyone is copying that. That's not at all. We also use a lot of inspiration from brands like Rafa and how they approach cycling from Nike, from Adidas, like those.

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historical campaigns from the fashion world. course, I think that everything is like a reinterpretation of what has come before. think that that's, you know, most of the great work is. It's tough to see now because there's a lot of like really, really, really small brands that are popping up. And instead of them looking back and looking at the history, doing research, they're just feeding off the brand that's next to them that just showed up as well.

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So that's tough to see, know, amazing stuff is being produced. is amazing content that's showing up and amazing products. But oftentimes I find myself, I've seen this like last week, you know, from another brand and very similar, very, the style is the same blurry photos, tilted horizon. So, so it's a lot of the same and it's, it's, it's tough. know, if you're, I I'm probably too close, right. And too analytical from, these things, most people probably don't just go through them.

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But yeah, that would be my take. I think it's an amazing time for the industry, but I also think it's worth doing a little bit more research into finding a unique point of view, a unique perspective, both on the product side and on the content side as well.

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Cole Heilborn (33:46.946)

So then if you're not a fan of the minimum viable creative concept and if you were consulting with a brand and they were like, they were a new startup, new running startup and they're like, we we want to make this commercial or a brand campaign and we've got this concept and you're looking at it you're like, this is basically like what every other running brand is producing right now. The blurry photo, Tilted Horizon.

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off-camera flash look. Would your suggestion be to not run it, to not even produce it? you say, let's hit pause and let's dig deeper to find a point of view? Or would you say, just send it and we'll evaluate the results and iterate from here?

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Rafael Oliveria (34:37.068)

depends how much they're paying.

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Cole Heilborn (34:39.277)

Okay.

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Rafael Oliveria (34:40.352)

I'm joking. I'm joking. But there is this joke, right? Where, where there's like this, this sign, this like a meme that was old and that became new. And where this sign in front of like a graphic design office, it says something like, if you pay me a hundred dollars, you get to do everything. You get to choose the color, you get to choose the logo. But if you pay me 5,000, I get to do, no, sorry, the other way around, right.

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If you pay me a hundred dollars, get to choose everything. I get to decide you make no decision. If you're paying me a lot of money, you can make all decisions. Right. It's a joke. Of course. I do think, you know, it's a per project. need to evaluate what they're trying to solve and how they're trying to solve it. Where I think the good creative director can come in and really make a difference is really evaluate how can that feel distinctive from everything else? Right. You know, if, if, if.

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If the premise is, if the goal is to, Hey, we just want to look like everything else that's out there and we want to be very, you know, obvious and conscious about that. Fine. That's, that's an approach. Probably I wouldn't be, you know, speaking of, I wouldn't be the best person to lead that project. and I would be very open and honest about it. and try at least to, find a different solution because I do think that there's value in distinction, you know, again,

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If we're talking about a mass market brands where they just want to regurgitate whatever the regurgitate, lowest common denominator of whatever is going on in the industry. That's fine. But I don't think we're talking about that, right? We're talking about hopefully brands that want to feel distinctive and elevated and want to have a point of view. So I would push, would lean on pushing a little bit harder on, Hey, there's this other approach that we can, that we can take. Let's allow the time that it needs in order to get there. And hopefully we get to that.

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different solution and see how it works. I do think there's a lot of value and benefit there.

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Cole Heilborn (36:38.926)

Do feel like brands have a clarity problem when it comes to the problem that their creative is trying to solve?

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Rafael Oliveria (36:46.86)

Yeah, I think so. I think, know, again, being in Paris fashion a week, I got to talk to a lot of people and other brands that I had known from before that I've just, just met. I think that the product proposition is really clear for most brands. You know, think, I think that they're where they are, their positioning, what they're trying to solve the path that they're taking. I think it's very clear for a lot of brands. it's interesting to see. It's great to see.

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But I do think that the creative then is when starts to fall apart. And again, I'm not, like I said, I think we're living through the golden era and a lot of great things are coming through, but I found that there's not enough attention being put to that creative long-term relationship with the viewer, right? With that consumer, client, whatever, whatever we want to call it.

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And I think a little bit more work could be done there that it would be beneficial for these brands because like, like, like I said before, it would allow them the time to develop their own language and they wouldn't be, you know, using the same photographer as the other brand is using using the same talent as the other brand is doing the same thing is using. Right. Sometimes we can't avoid that. You know, this is still a very, very small world for, for as much as we sometimes don't, don't really understand it or see it.

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It's still a very small niche world where you know and meet a lot of the same people, but I do believe there is a distinctive way of doing things and a more unique way of doing things. Even if just for the sake of being more distinctive, I think that there's a lot of value there. And I think a lot of brands would benefit a lot from having someone internally that's stewarding that proposition and that unique point of view.

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Cole Heilborn (38:36.952)

So yeah, what's the risk of not finding that distinction? I mean, it comes back to my first question, what is the value of great creative? What's the risk of not producing great creative?

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Rafael Oliveria (38:47.654)

I don't think that there's any risk. I think that that's where this conversation becomes a little bit more difficult and something that I'm very sensitive to, which is the internal conversations, you know, how to, how do you, how do you ensure that great creative is coming out? But how do you ensure that you're bringing that internal team, bringing the team along in order to make them understand what that is?

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what it takes to achieve that because it's not fair. I'm going to go to another expression and I'm sorry about the cliches, but it's not fair to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Right. And it's not fair to ask the person that's responsible for finance to understand what great creative is, right. Or to have an opinion about what great creative. It's not fair to ask the marketing person, right. That's looking at the metrics of engagement to understand

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the intangible value of, I don't know, a film that makes people feel something a little bit more than just saying that the, whatever, that the fabric is sweat-wicking, whatever, you know? So you need to bring those people along internally as well. You know, the great thing about creative and about design, right, design being at the base of creative design thinking is that

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I think that there's been a huge evolution in the past 15, 20 years. You know, I've been working for more than 20 years. We've been creatives and designers have been able to understand the business language. You know, they've been able to sit at the business table in the boardrooms, you know, with the leadership team and, I've been able to talk, speak that language. They've been able to come into the room, you know, understand certain nuances. The, the.

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The other way is not necessarily true. know, a finance person, I'm not, I'm not ascribing here, not generalizing, but a finance person doesn't understand the, the, the power of the importance of typography or, know, you know, the revolving door of the CMO, right? They come in, they bring in, they try and bring in a new logic, a new creative logic, and then you have to relitigate that logic all over again, because they think whatever, that the future is AI ads.

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Rafael Oliveria (41:12.034)

But then you actually get down to the nitty gritty and you understand, but the AI machine, the algorithm, they cannot replicate the kerning that you need for our titles to work, you know, and you have to explain this, right? So it's almost like we've developed this whole set, the creatives that develop this whole set of skills that allow them to be present confidently in these rooms, in these spaces. But the other way around, it's almost like, because I like that color best or my

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wife saw the email and she didn't understand it. Right. It's tricky and I'm generalizing and being very basic, but that's, that's the risk that you need to make sure that the team, internal team, right. The team that you're working with, the company trusts you to take that risk properly. Right. And to go with them on this journey that hopefully is long lasting and just allows, allows you to set these pillars and they're.

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They can be moved, right? These pillars, they shouldn't be like, you know, put the sand in immovable, but if they move, it's very slowly. in order to not bring the structure, the entire structure down. And I think that that's, that's the risk of great creative. know, you have to have, you have to put your head out there and, and say no to the team, right. And say, Hey, let's use restraint here because we're in this for the long run. We're not trying to achieve like this cool, immediate, you know,

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reward we're trying to build a steady flow of, of, of engagement of, of, of interests for the brand that goes beyond product. And it goes beyond a single season.

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Cole Heilborn (42:54.2)

That's good nuance to the question that I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good to consider. Can I paint a hypothetical illustration? Of course. Or a situation? So we've got brand A, they're producing great creative, whatever that is, whatever that is for them. And we have brand B, and they're not producing great creative. What's the risk for brand B if they don't produce great creative?

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Rafael Oliveria (43:21.932)

The risk is that unless they have a huge logistic structure that allows them to churn out product and get product out, you know, in massive quantities and great product, they'll be left out of the conversation. You know, people won't react emotionally. We're, very basic creatures, right? We are, we're still in this state of

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We're in the forest, right? Looking at a fire at the end of the day and hearing the stories from our elders, right? That's basically what we are. It just takes a different shape because the world has progressed so quickly. So those are the things that we retain, right? Those stories, that world, that aspiration, you know, I believe that if your brand just focusing on turning out product, of course you'll see success and that success will be.

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directly correlated to the amount of money that you spend on ads on pushing products. But if you don't have those resources, which oftentimes smaller brands don't, right? Or, or brands that are just starting, you need to rely on moving the needle in some other way and, opening the door for people to come in. That's not necessarily the product or don't get me wrong. Product needs to see, sit at the base and needs to be great. I'll say this again, needs to be great and perform and not disappoint, not fall apart.

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be sustainably made, be properly made, but you need to make sure that people are seeing your message and they're reacting in some way to it, right? That's the aspirational element that I think is important for, you know, it was important for a brand like Tracksmith and I think it's a value for every other brand as well.

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Cole Heilborn (45:08.002)

So being, you said being left out of the conversation. Why does that matter?

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Rafael Oliveria (45:12.146)

why does that matter? I think it's, I think it's implicit, right? If you're not, if people are not talking about you, if not, if you're just like a, a bygone thought, if people don't do a double take to see the film that just rolled up while they were watching a track and field meet, or, when they're scrolling through Instagram and they see the cat video and then they see the person falling and then they see the photo or the film that

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really speaks to the core of what it be. mean, again, in this case tracks with of what, of what, of that relationship to running can be and can look like and makes them stop, right? Not, not the stop to scroll. I don't really care about the stop to scroll about stopping the scroll unless you're adding something of value. It's not just for the sake of being loud and being like, it's, it's, it's beautifully done, but it's, needs to add value beyond that.

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So I think that that's the reason.

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Cole Heilborn (46:13.598)

You mentioned stopping the scroll. I'm curious your thoughts on this attention economy that we live in and how that influences how you approach producing content.

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Rafael Oliveria (46:28.302)

I mean, we need to play by the rules, right? We need to, well, when I say play by the rules, we need to, we need to show up where people are, are seeing content, right? Where that's just, that's just the reality. You can't just keep shouting into the void because no one will listen to you. So what I tried to do attracts Smith. and it's still my approach to this day. What I believe adds more value is.

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Okay, this is going to be consumed in such and such way, but let's not let that dictate the brief, the concept. Let's make the concept be with the problem that we're trying to solve, the message that we're trying to get through. You can get there, you can massage it, you can change it, you can edit it, you can splice it up in order to get it to the platform or to be consumed in a way it needs to be consumed.

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Of course it might fall apart here and there, you might leave something behind here and there. Hopefully you don't, but the way it's going to be consumed should never dictate the brief and the concept. An example is, I'm not in any way comparing myself to, but cinema nowadays, film. I have a film and photography background. That's when I graduated college in Odyssey, right? Christopher Nolan, he shoots.

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in IMAX, People like, like, that's well known people maybe are going to see it in the airplane, right? And those shitty screens or, they're out on their iPhone, right? It was not meant to be seen like that, but should he have shot it on an iPhone because it's going to be seen on the iPhone? There's nothing wrong with it. There's people doing pretty cool things, but he it's like, he's showing reverence to the art is showing reverence to the method of creating this content in a way that fulfills in and the team, hopefully.

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And then they'll find a way to format it to the screen, right? When you see it on the airplane, it says, this film has been formatted to fit the screen. I think that's the solution instead of like thinking about it, hey, how can we make a film that looks good on an airplane? It's an interesting consideration for sure, but I do like to solve the proposition, solve the problem that we're trying to solve first, and then we'll figure out how to edit it because we have the tools.

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Rafael Oliveria (48:50.018)

We have the tools to change and to adjust things accordingly.

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Cole Heilborn (48:54.83)

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I want to pivot because I do want to talk about this. Let's talk about Church for the Long Run. This was, I mean, you could tell me better than I can, but what it was a 90 minute, 70 minute.

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Rafael Oliveria (49:08.75)

Yeah, 90ish, close to 90ish, like 80 something, 86 or something like that.

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Cole Heilborn (49:14.466)

Well, okay, so before we get into it, how many people have asked you about this?

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Rafael Oliveria (49:18.516)

a lot. talk about this a lot. So Church in Long Run is kind of like a perfect example, perfect encapsulation of the ethos of tracks, the way we work, what it looks like, where it starts, you know.

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Rafael Oliveria (49:39.682)

This idea, it was probably one of the first ideas that were had at Tracksmith as a collective unit. I wasn't there. This is Emily May, the photographer and director that we've worked with for the most part of the 10 years. mean, more consistently. She's been a huge creative partner, a huge sparring partner in bringing these things to life and the CEO, Matt Taylor. So before I even joined, when they did the first couple of shoots, they talked about, okay, how do we do this? And how do we approach this?

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And there was this like thing, like, you know, we could, we could do this thing where we just film a two hour long run and we just let the camera roll. Right. There was just something thrown around. And then when I joined and being part of these shoots and like, again, like I said, setting up this framework where we could consistently repeat that similar approach, it became more tangible. It started to take shape. Okay. We could actually do this and we could do it this way. We could do it that way. And then, you know,

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It's just materialized, know, Emily wanted to go for it. She felt that she had like the, the, the, the, logistic understanding of how to make it work. Sam Racker, she was willing to go for it, you know, do give us as many takes as she, as she could. And we knew that we wanted to make this a continuous piece because we had often been enthralled ourselves. It was usually, it was usually like this core team, Matt Taylor, the founder at the wheel. I was sitting shotgun and then Emily Mae was shooting in the back.

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of the van and oftentimes we find ourselves with these athletes for like two hours. And almost we wouldn't, we wouldn't talk, you know, we would just, we would just observe. was just, it was just amazing. And for people that love running, you know, and then that scenario in New England or this beautiful roads, side roads, we were like, I could watch this for days. And so, okay, let's do it. Let's try and bring it to life. and then the team was just amazing and, and, and in creating that and creating that.

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that film, that beautiful film that's like a single take. It was all done in a single take. There is a little cut there, but it's just to like adjust the camera. wasn't, she didn't stop running, but that's usually like, that's also very, very informative. Our tracksmith went about shooting. I made it a point, know, even throughout the years, there's more people came into the brand and they had different thoughts. I was always like, we need to run. We need to do a shoot. If we're shooting running, people need to run. They can't just do like.

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Rafael Oliveria (52:03.116)

hundred meters back and forth and hold the position that they need to run. You know, if you're shooting post run pre run for sure, they're not running and they're going about their rituals, their routines. But if we're, we're showing, if we're talking about running a workout, they need to do the workout. If it's a long run story, they need to do the long run. So I was very adamant about that. Emily of course was very adamant about that. Matt Taylor, the CEO.

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The rest of the team, know, in this alternate and alternation rotating doors of people coming in and out of the brand. was hard sometimes to convince them that that was the way, you know, church of the long run, everyone, almost everyone frowned, you know, to, was like, really, we're to do this. We're to do like an idea in a film. Where's it going to go? What are we going to do with it? But it was a statement of, of a statement of intent of our approach. And it also like coincided with the 10 year anniversary was like a year before that. So we were prepping up for that, for that,

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that, events. so yeah. And then I talked and I talk about it a lot, you know, was huge credit to, to Emily and the team that worked on that and pulling it together. it came out beautifully, you the soundtrack by Michael Bueller. People ask me about that a lot. Where can I get it? Cause I just like to bring it on a run with me or I like to go on a treadmill and I'll bring my app, the iPad and put that, put that up, put that on and just, you know, do my run or just put it in the background of my TV when I'm doing work or.

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doing stuff around the house. So that's the kind of value where we started our conversation, right? You can't measure that. You know, there's no way of telling if you're going to see that and you're going to buy a product, but that reaction is the thing that we're trying to elicit. And we were trying to elicit as a brand with that type of content.

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Cole Heilborn (53:45.868)

We talked about this concept in our intro call. And I think the way you said it was that marketing should be in service of creative. Yes. And I want to talk a little bit about this as we start to kind of wrap up here. Tell me more about this thought.

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Rafael Oliveria (54:02.69)

I mean, it's funny because I was going to bring that up just recently when you said something along the lines of how to disseminate, how to find a way to get that content to people aware. That's the role of marketing in my opinion. That's the role of marketing. start again, I think marketing should be in the service of creative for certain brands and brands like Tracksmith, example, and brands that aspire to be

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a little bit more than just, you know, products, products, considerations that go beyond that. And in that scenario, I think it's really, really important to start with the idea, you know, start with, okay, here's the creative, here's what we're trying to solve. Here's our, we're trying to help runners. Here's how it can take shape. Here's how it can take form. Here's how we're going to bring it to life. And then the marketing team can find ways to disseminate that content, to find the best.

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output for that content and, and create the excitement, create the engagements around that content, right? Whether it needs to be a PR effort, whether it needs to be an event, whether it needs to be, you know, funding an exhibition, those kinds of things. I think it's really tricky and really hard when you start with a premise of solving the marketing, solving the marketing first, because ultimately at the end of the day, every marketing

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problem is going to be the same everywhere in every brand, which is how do we make sure that we get this content out to the most people possible? And that drives revenue for the brand. At the very basic, that's it. Right. And if you're starting from that, you're just, you're just going to find the same solutions almost all the time. And if you don't, you're going to look at the other brand, what they've done, and you're going to try to replicate that. And you're not going to get the same results. Why? Because creative is not going to be the same. It's going to, we're going to have it done differently.

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no matter how much you try. So I find it more interesting. And I think that there's more value to start. Okay. Here's the idea. Here's the concept. Here's the brand value. Let's find ways. Let's have the teamwork and find ways. And maybe sometimes that means a push via email. Maybe sometimes that doesn't mean advertising or talking about it on email, just on social media or just in store on, in person, you know, I know that it's tricky. know.

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Rafael Oliveria (56:29.216)

Again, I like my job a lot. That's why I do it. know, I know this very easy for people to see themselves as creators. And I do believe everyone can be a good creative if they just are willing to dedicate the amount of time that an idea requires to be fleshed out and can exercise restraints and not go into the most immediate thing directly in front of them. And oftentimes marketing suffers from that, you know, great marketing is when it also allows the time.

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for that idea to sit and then find the right avenues to get it to the, to the viewer. if you're just going whatever up on LinkedIn and just replicating the, the step-by-step guide to achieving a hundred million or $1 million in sales. It might work. I'm not saying that it doesn't work. Sometimes people get lucky, but oftentimes it doesn't. And then you're like scratching your head. why doesn't, why didn't this work? lot of things need to happen in order for that to work. but yeah.

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this look at a whole entire conversation.

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Cole Heilborn (57:30.806)

All right, so let's wrap up this way. For folks that are listening, I'm sure you've probably provided some clarity and created confusion, just based on some of the ideas we've discussed. I want you to list any questions that come to mind that you want the audience to ask themselves.

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about anything that we've discussed today and we'll end here. What are some ending questions you want people to ask themselves based on what we talked about?

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Rafael Oliveria (58:03.714)

So I'll start with a very simple product question. know, that was always at the start of my ideation, conceptualizing for tracksmith is do I need this product?

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Think about that. Think about when you're interacting with a brand, think about that, that question, you know, do you need this? You know, don't, don't think about, okay, it looks great. feels, it feels great by all means indulge if you want to, but ask yourself that question. Cause oftentimes that's also the question that I was asking myself. You know, do we need this product in line? Do we need this pair of shorts? Do we need this shirt? And then from there, from then on,

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When you answer that question, think you'll find, usually you'll find the ways of talking about it, of presenting it, of creating a world around it that is aspirational and goes beyond that commercial transaction and that basic need. I think that that's one important question. And then the other, think is in a segue to this is how am I adding value to this conversation? By this conversation, I mean between

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the brand and the customer, the runner, the consumer, whatever, however you want to call it. Are we adding value that goes beyond that product? know, where the question starts from the product perspective, you know, do I need this product? And then once you answer that question, hopefully it's a positive question. Yes, I do. What is the value that is being added that goes beyond that simple commercial transaction, right?

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And that can take a lot of shape, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of forms, right? can be, this makes me feel better. It makes me run faster. It makes me chafe less or it makes me not chafe at all. You know, it makes me, it makes me be more sustainable because this thing lasts 10 years. You know, I literally have stuff from tracksmith from 10 years ago in my war broke that, and I run a lot and it's still there, still perfectly put together, you know? So.

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Rafael Oliveria (01:00:14.636)

That's another important question in this conversation as well.

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Cole Heilborn (01:00:20.056)

Yeah, excellent. Rafa, thank you for the time. Thanks for the thoughts. If folks want to follow along with you, where can they find you?

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Rafael Oliveria (01:00:27.988)

I'm not very, I mean, I, I post on social media on Instagram, Oli Vader Rafa. It's my name, starting from the, from the surname. I think that that would be the best place to find me every now and then I post some, some photography that I really like, that I take, that I really, that I really like, some running stuff, some fashion stuff, architecture, my interests. they're very, they're very, very wide.

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I think that would be the best, the best place to find me. in a major marathon around the world, I like to run and I like to, I like to compete to test myself. So that's, that's, that's the real, the real person interaction that you'll, you'll, you'll be able to have with me.

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Cole Heilborn (01:01:13.88)

Well, thank you again for the time. for the thoughts. This was a really fun and I'll use the word enlightening conversation. So thank you.

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Rafael Oliveria (01:01:22.71)

I appreciate that. was great chatting to you, yeah, like you said, hopefully it created some tension because I do think that that's important, not for the sake of tension, but just to make people think a little bit more about these things. I think that they're important in the grand scheme of things.

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Cole Heilborn (01:01:41.902)

Well said. Have a good rest of your day.

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Rafael Oliveria (01:01:44.578)

Thank you, you too Phil. Bye.

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Cole Heilborn (01:01:47.746)

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping it.

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