Greg Hahn on why the biggest risk you can take is to be ignorable

**Jon Evans** (0:00)
Hey, everyone, just before we get into the show, I just wanted to give a really big shout out to my founding sponsor, System One. As many of you know, I worked at System One, and before that, I was actually a client of theirs. Now, the thing I love about System One is when I need to make a big decision, they have been there to help me, because what System One does is use the power of emotion to help predict the likely impact of my innovation or advertising. So when I've been stuck in the boardroom, needing to justify why we're gonna pick one creative route over another, or launch this innovation over that one, it has been indispensable. It's also really simple to use, very actionable and incredibly good value too. So if you want to find out more about System One's test your ad or test your innovation, simply go over to systemonegroup.com and find out more. Okay, without further ado, let's go on with the show.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now I've got a returning guest in this episode, none other than Greg Hahn, the founder of Mischief. Now one of the quotes from him that I absolutely love is the biggest risk and most expensive thing you can do as a brand is be ignorable. So in this episode, we're gonna explore all about that and how you can avoid being ignorable.

**Greg Hahn** (1:11)
Here it is.

**Jon Evans** (1:19)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now we have a returning guest in this episode, one of the most popular guests of all time, Greg Hahn from Mischief. Welcome back.

**Greg Hahn** (1:28)
Well, thank you for having me back. Wow, now I have something to live up to myself.
Please lower your bars. No, I'm really happy to be back, and I always enjoy listening to your conversations. So thank you for having me.

**Jon Evans** (1:40)
Oh, it's great. I've been looking forward to this a long time. For anyone who hasn't yet discovered Mischief, I can't remember that that many people out there that haven't done, but tell us a little bit about what you stand for and a bit about your agency.

**Greg Hahn** (1:52)
Yeah, it's kind of all in the name.
We are an agency based in New York, but we have clients all over the place, and we're independent, fiercely independent. And our belief is that the riskiest thing a brand can do is be ignorable. So we do work that makes people pay attention. And also I would like to say, we're a highly strategic brand. Oftentimes we say we're a strategic shop, kind of cleverly disguised as a creative shop. But everything we do, I think, is strongly based equally in creativity and founded on strategy.

**Jon Evans** (2:26)
I totally agree. I love your strategy.
It's so, it must make the creative more obvious, right? When you've done this, you really ask the good questions up front. That's what I love for how you ask very provocative questions to get to the strategy.

**Greg Hahn** (2:40)
Yeah, we're at a great advantage that we have some of the best strategists in the business and pay a lot of attention to who we bring on to that department. Because I always feel like we, you know, our briefs start off and we're already on the 80-yard line.
But I will say this last 20 yards are really hard. So it's not a gimme, but it does give us a lot to work with and sort of momentum going into any project.

**Jon Evans** (3:03)
Now, you'll be very pleased with this because last week, we had our very first ever Uncensored CMO, the Calling in London, almost 400 senior marketers. It was our first ever live event. It was off the scale in terms of energy. The speakers were amazing. It's just such a good vibe. It's very, very cool.
I didn't want the moment to pass without everybody in the audience thinking about what they would have to go and do as a result of the day. So I set them a task. So my task was, what would you do if you weren't afraid? They all had to write it down on a postcard, and we're going to send them the answer that they wrote themselves in a few weeks time.

**Greg Hahn** (3:41)
That's great.

**Jon Evans** (3:42)
To remind them.

**Greg Hahn** (3:42)
I love that. Yeah.

**Jon Evans** (3:43)
But I thought you'd be pleased because that is such a good, I mean, in fact, it's one of the reasons why I went solo on the podcast was I thought to myself before Christmas, well, hang on a minute, if I take fear out of the equation, what do I do? Of course, I'd just do this full time.