Bozoma Saint-John on advertising’s reality TV moment

There’s a common story in the marketing and advertising industry, with many variations. Whenever a member of that industry is at a party or on a plane, inevitably someone will ask what they do for a living. And as soon as they say advertising, that person immediately begins to tell them how good they’d be at working in advertising, how they should make this or that ad campaign better, or why that ad they saw during an NFL game is terrible. This probably doesn’t happen to engineers and doctors.

The discipline of advertising, and the process behind it has always been up for debate and question. Well, starting on September 30th, NBC’s new show On Brand with Jimmy Fallon is shining a bright, reality show light on that very process.

Brands like KitchenAid, Marshalls, Pillsbury, Samsung, SONIC,  Dunkin’, Southwest, Captain Morgan, and Therabody, all signed up to have their briefs or brand challenges taken on by 10 contestants, guided through the process by Fallon and and Bozoma Saint-John. 

Saint-John is a former chief marketing or brand officer at companies including Netflix, Uber, and Beats by Dre—who also just happens to star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. For this month’s episode of the Brand New World podcast, she joined me on stage at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival, which was held in New York City in mid-September. 

On how she became a part of the show: Jimmy had the idea and sold it probably a year before we had a conversation. The challenge that he was facing was that, of course, he’s a genius at what he does, commenting about pop culture and making creative partnerships. But what he would say he doesn’t have is the résumé, the professional corporate chops to back it up. So he needed a partner to add legitimacy to the show. 

Then he saw me on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and his wife said, “What about Boz?” And he was like, “I dunno if a housewife is what I’m looking for.”

But of course, we got on a call together, and we talked about the idea and what it could mean, how much I love the concept . . . I told him that the concept of marrying those two things—advertising and marketing—as an entertainment platform can engage an audience. I was like, “Shoot, you better sign me up. Otherwise, I’m just coming to set anyway.”

On the value for the brands: Some of the criticism that I’ve seen has been like, “Oh, it’s gonna be like one big infomercial.” And I guarantee you it’s not. I compare this to finding a new music star shows entered, whether it was American Idol or The Voice.  All of us became experts. You sat on your couch, you watched somebody sing. All of a sudden you knew terms like “pitchy.”

Nobody had ever said pitchy outside of the studio. This is similar, which is that the audience who’s going to watch this, and I believe are going to be as invested as the contestants.