YouSaid · the spoken record

Sam Shepherd

lines on the record: 18
first: 2022-09-30
most recent: 2022-09-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“On the reason nothing changes is because the NRA's money. Without their money going to politicians, there's no incentive to block common gun laws, right? So we just feel like the more we can keep the emphasis on the NRA. And that's where when you start to dig, it's unbelievable. Even the fact that the NRA started as a gun. Safe gun ownership somewhere along the way, they became radicalized. You know, but just, yeah, again, the more we can keep the pressure on kind of that singular enemy instead of just, hey, look at how bad guns are. I feel like we as a country, this being a uniquely absurd American problem, I feel like we know that. Like you get it, but I think people are looking for, okay, but what can we do and what is the root cause of this?”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Particularly, what I'm fascinated with lately is on the NRA. I think I love how, again, the truth campaign just, they picked an enemy. Like in their mind, the awareness of big tobacco even existing was kind of where they picked their fight and they just repeated it, right? And so keeping the pressure on in any way possible kind of instigating or revealing just any way to keep that pressure on one common enemy like we kind of see that as being the NRA for gun violence, right? And I feel like all the efforts in the past have been all over the place and maybe effective in their own way. Some was general awareness about just look how bad gun violence is versus like we had a very kind of specific take.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were with Manuel and Patricia in the secret RV watching from the prompter. So we didn't get to interact with them. I mean, the set was wild because we didn't know who knew what we were doing and who didn't. So he kind of just had to err on the side of not saying anything and just pretending like it is a big graduation rehearsal. So that was crazy. And even Brian showed up to set. I didn't know if he was in disguise or if that's what he what he normally wore. He had like a American flag bandana. And so I might have made the mistake of like insulting him, but he was in full, he was ready to rock. I love.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was pretty strategic, actually. We were like when we had kind of the rehearsal unlock with Brian, then it was like, well, where should this fictitious school host its first ever in-person graduation ceremony? And if this fake school, James Madison, kind of stood for Second Amendment rights and that kind of thing, the obvious choice was a little more of like a neutral city like Vegas where either way, you don't really know what to think about it. And guess what? After the ceremony, you can go gamble. So we felt like that was a perfect way to lure these NRA guys in is like, hey, come give a speech. And then we'll, you know, you can still enjoy all of Las Vegas.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Abilities that you were given, yes, it's great that you're using them on banks and all these other brands. He's like, but I just want to let you know right now you were giving those specifically for this idea right now to make it happen. And you owe that to Joaquin. So like when someone stops you dead in your tracks, the middle of a presentation says something like that. I mean, you kind of have no choice but to say, okay, like we have to make this happen. So grateful for so many things, but just getting a chance to work with him has been life change. And I think the best part is that I feel like from Ashley and I and Leo Burnett's perspective, the best thing we can do is open up that connection to all other agencies, right? If you view this fight as kind of a requirement for every agency, what are you doing, then opening up that relationship to everyone? Like it's not just ours. It's anyone who wants to join and he is so willing.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I just know Manuel in terms of the art background in terms of activism, right? So he's like very passionate and intense, even like one of their latest projects was a fundraiser using the artist Shepard Fairy. So he's very much into visual impact. So I think if you look at all their projects, it certainly has that willing to push the boundaries from like a design perspective and just that the gut punch of a visual. But I also think that, again, if you've heard him talk, I mean, he has no fear. He has zero fear and he's one of the more compelling individuals I've ever met. So I think like I'll never forget the meeting when Ashley and I and team presented Lost Class to him and got through, got through the presentation, yes, it was a great idea, but he stopped us, literally just stopped us and said, hey, I want to let you all know right now your abilities, your creative.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Man I can't give enough credit to Leo Vernett. I mean, like, even Andrew Swinnon, who's like the CEO of Publicis Creative North America, like the people at the very top made it possible for us to attack this way we did. So like without them leading the way and just recognizing that in addition to us doing our jobs really effectively for all these great brands and making them famous, like this is also kind of a necessary part to also do our jobs and use our creative ability for good. So I think so thankful for Andrew and the system that protected Ashley and I and protected our team and just said yes to this, right? Like it was so easy so many times along the way to just say, hey, we're not up for this risk, but they were. And again, just so grateful.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For these politicians when they're going up against this fight to have more things to point to and to use when he's in those rooms and having those discussions was great. So it's, you know, it was good to just kind of get that media in the right hands to try and do whatever we could because we're, you know, we need the audience to be more than just ourselves. And when you have the work that is breakthrough and it kind of transcends just the advertising community and the creative community, we're mostly like-minded. So it's great when it could kind of reach those other people.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Family is from Oklahoma or different places and they don't think the same way that I do. And so to hear their responses, kind of recognizing the good that we were trying to do, I think that like there's so many rewarding responses that Ashley and I got, but like I know personally like never hearing anything bad about it. It's just like, hey, like we appreciate that you're doing your part to try to change the world. Yeah, I'll say personally for me. Mutual friend with Congressman Eric Swalwell. And so we were put in touch. And he was excited by it. And I think he was excited by it because he had another piece to use on his committees for gun safety”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, the response to this has been overwhelming in so many different ways, right? You have like kind of the awards part that Ashley and I never expected any of that. And that was just never our intention from the beginning. Our intention was just to kind of add our own chapter to this fight. So if you look at it in terms of just consistent application of pressure on this issue, like it almost doesn't matter what you do as long as you're doing something and keep that cadence up. We certainly wanted to add like our own ambitious take on it, like looking at what's come before this. How do we make sure we're doing something that raises that bar? So I think the recognition of that of the risk that we all took, I think is what we feel good about is like, okay, in our opinion, the bar has kind of been set. We're looking for those to raise it again and take a different risk or a new risk. I know personally, like a lot of my.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would never, in their right mind, do that. And that's when Brian Buckley was just like, oh, it's a rehearsal. And we're like. Oh shit, okay. Now, if it's a rehearsal, then the task becomes well, how do you invite them there? You have to create a school that they would want to come talk to. How do you create a school overnight? Well, we got to get our design team designing a whole identity from scratch. So everything kind of fell out of that rehearsal unlock.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so like eight months earlier, that was the one image that the creative teams had on a Google Doc presentation and just seeing graduation chairs which represent the future and potential, but arranged like their cemetery, like, oh man, what just a powerful image. But I think our ambition was not just to create an emotional image about gun violence. We knew we had to take it further. So I think arranging the chairs like a cemetery, spacing them literally six feet by six feet, COVID offered us a unique ability to do that without people questioning it. And at the same time, the rehearsal part of this was really the unlock for us. I think up until the idea of, oh, it's a rehearsal, that's how you get them to speak in front of the chairs. Up until that moment, we kept going, well, how do you convince two guys like that to do this?”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they didn't. And whatever we expected out of this, I think that was one of the more surprising results was kind of a truly bipartisan coverage of this. And it was very neutral. It was just like, and even Fox News, all these different kind of far right publications were reporting on this very matter-of-factly, like this is what happened. So I don't know if that was out of embarrassment of what these guys did or even just the CTA at the end. We wanted to keep that as inarguable as possible. It was really just, you know, supporting universal background checks, which if you even look at the NRA, they don't oppose that, right? But we really focus on the NRA because their money is the cause that none of these common sense gun laws ever get passed, just the kind of the sty mead that they create. So yeah, no one really argued it.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tobacco. So it also helped us to know that there are examples setting that precedence. And then the final layer that was kind of the true north for us was Manuel and Patricia. I mean, we had clients or we had partners the entire time that were willing to take it to the very end, right? You cannot scare those two. So to have your clients, you're usually like very risk averse to having them push you every step of the way. I mean, it was an incredible experience.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, every step of the way. No, there wasn't one day that we didn't think that, but I think The biggest strength that we had was like the best team, like such a core team that I could lean on Ashley and I leaned on her a lot. Like I think a lot of times I was freaking out and thank God I had her. And equally having Brian Buckley and the hungry man team. So like once we just started adding on kind of cast members who believe in this cause enough, it was kind of no turning back. But at the same time, we had family members saying, hey, like this is really scaring us, right? You're kind of, you might be pushing it too far. You're heading into kind of different territory here. And I think it also helped us to look at just past examples. We used the truth campaign the way they fought big tobacco for a while. And that I'm sure at the time, that was probably scary for them, right? If you remember like the famous body bags type example, they were really going at.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And again, I think the best way to describe Manuel and Patricia, they're relentless. And so, yes, like we're continuing that relationship. We feel like we have an obligation to whatever we do next in that partnership to take it to another level. Like we felt like lost class was pushing things a bit. And so we kind of owe it to their son, Joaquin, to push it again. So yes, that's in the works, but I think we just want to make sure that we're constantly being like really smart about how we're tackling this subject because there's so many different ways you could approach kind of the solution. So I think like just being very diligent on making sure we're adding to the fight in the right way and we're not doing anything that we feel like is a step back or distasteful things like that.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Much as possible, and according to them, it just can't be talked about enough. It's that urgent. And so they've done some really provocative things over the years. And so Ashley and I just feel honored, you know, one year ago that we got to add to change the refs chapter. And we felt like we took a shot at it and we're also excited to continue that relationship.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, it's amazing that we launched the lost class one year ago in June. And it's been a wild ride since then, but I think the lost class started even a full eight months before that. We had been developing it. And it started with a conversation with the founder of Change the Ref, which is a guy named Manuel Oliver. And he started Change the Ref with his wife, Patricia Oliver. They started it after they lost their son in the Parkland shooting in 2018. And for anyone that's ever talked to Manuel or heard him and his wife speak, he's an incredible person. And his mantra in Change the Ref is really all about creative confrontation, right? Any way possible using creative activism for good to just constantly propel this subject into the mainstream is.”
2022-09-30 · Intelligence Squared · Advertising Will Save Us: Ending Gun Violence, with Leo Burnett’s Sam Shepherd and Ashley Geisheker · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT