Leading PUMA into the Digital Age with Head of Emerging Marketing Tech, Ivan Dashkov

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[00:01:35] and get 10% off your plan. Yeah, I think the vision or the future is really AR glasses where they can

[00:01:44] kind of project right onto the lens. And I think that's like the technology is going to take off.

[00:01:47] So who knows? That's not going to be two years from now, five years from now,

[00:01:50] or 10 years from now when that's going to be viable. But when you have like a light pair

[00:01:53] of glasses that you can actually have something on the lens that kind of gives you directions

[00:01:56] or as if it acts like I overlay your real world environment, I think that's going to be the aha

[00:02:00] moment for a lot of people. To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move in an ever

[00:02:07] increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we

[00:02:13] dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry. Why it matters now

[00:02:17] and how you can keep up. Welcome to the speed of culture. We're live here at Commerce Week

[00:02:27] in the Adweek podcast studio in New York City and freezing New York City today.

[00:02:31] And we're thrilled to be joined by Ivan Dashkov, the head of emerging marketing tech at Puma Group.

[00:02:36] Ivan's responsible for Puma teaming up with Meta for a VR experience that captures the smallest

[00:02:40] gym in the world. Can't wait to hear more about that. Ivan, great to see you today.

[00:02:44] Yeah, thanks for having me. It's going to be back in New York. I lived here for six years,

[00:02:46] so I love coming back. I always get about 10 pounds when I come back because I just keep

[00:02:50] going to my food spots. And where are you based out of? In Boston,

[00:02:54] North Shore, right in the water. Okay. Very cool. So tell me, I know you launched

[00:02:58] this partnership with Meta. What do you feel about the future of VR in general? I mean,

[00:03:04] it's such a polarizing thing. I was just talking to some of my colleagues before this

[00:03:07] about the new Apple device, their VR device. And some people love it and then some people

[00:03:12] are saying, oh, everyone's taking it back. Where do you see that space going overall?

[00:03:16] Yeah, I think overall, I think the space is growing. Like if you look at Meta's

[00:03:19] headset sales, I feel like they're just keep going up and up and up. And obviously,

[00:03:22] Apple has brought so much attention to the space themselves. And you see all these kind of like

[00:03:26] funny memes of people like walking down the street or driving cars, wearing their Apple Vision Pros.

[00:03:30] So I think that's bringing a lot more attention to the space. I think the space is interesting.

[00:03:34] Like there's a lot, a lot of stuff that's happening that's bringing more people into

[00:03:37] the space. Meta has his new game, Ask Ars Rath 2, that's got incredibly high reviews

[00:03:41] from all the video game reviewers. So that's bringing an audience too. But for me,

[00:03:45] I think the vision or the future is really AR glasses where they can kind of project

[00:03:50] a lens. And I think that technology is going to take off. So who knows, that's not going to be

[00:03:54] two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now when that's going to be viable.

[00:03:57] But when you have like a light pair of glasses that you can actually have something on the lens

[00:04:00] that kind of gives you directions or has different apps that kind of overlay your real

[00:04:04] world environment, I think that's going to be the aha moment for a lot of people.

[00:04:07] Yeah, we had Shahar Scott, who's the head of Meta Reality Labs on right before the

[00:04:11] holidays. And she convinced me about these new Ray-Brand glasses that came out and I bought

[00:04:15] them for the entire exec team. And I can tell you that then going on vacation with my family,

[00:04:20] they provide a great utility. And I could see what you're saying in terms of

[00:04:24] the form factor of Ray-Brand glasses on your already wear means that you don't have to

[00:04:28] change any consumer behavior. And then if you have an overlay where it provides a real

[00:04:32] utility where you can take pictures, see what's going on, see what you're looking at,

[00:04:36] I do think with some type of AI integration, that could be something that could be pretty

[00:04:39] powerful. Definitely. And the space has been evolving too. I remember when Snapchat Spectacles

[00:04:43] came around too, we were using it when I used to work at the NBA getting content there.

[00:04:47] So it's a fun space that's going to continue evolving and maybe one day it's

[00:04:50] going to replace the iPhone. Who knows? Yeah, who knows? Yeah, it'll be interesting.

[00:04:53] So let's talk about Puma. You've been there for five years. Puma is an interesting brand.

[00:04:57] I think if you look through our history, definitely had its peaks and valleys. It's

[00:05:02] not a company like Under Armour who had its challenges and arguably never recovered.

[00:05:06] And it's not Nike who was like a rocket ship, right? It's a company that has kind of ebbed and

[00:05:10] flow with culture. Today, how would you describe the Puma brand? What are the brand pillars that

[00:05:15] make it different and where are you hoping to take the brand moving forward?

[00:05:18] Yeah, it's been a fun journey for me being at Puma for five years. I think

[00:05:21] we had a new CEO come in. He helped turn the company around. We had Usain Bolt.

[00:05:25] He helped turn the company around. Rihanna came in, had some big collections that kind

[00:05:28] of made us culturally relevant. It's been really fun being at Puma because it almost feels

[00:05:33] like a startup in some ways. Every year since I've been there, it's been our best year ever.

[00:05:36] Not because of me, but I'll take some credit. But we're like continually growing and you see

[00:05:40] the company going to different spaces. And I think right now we're very focused on making sure that

[00:05:46] we're credible in the performance space. So we completely redid our running shoes about three

[00:05:49] years ago. We have some really high quality running shoes now. If you go to YouTube and

[00:05:54] you look at running reviewers, they absolutely love our shoes and give us a lot of credibility

[00:05:57] there. We're getting more and more market share in football, in European football. We're doing

[00:06:01] a strong job there. Basketball we relaunched about five years ago. And I think we've done a great job

[00:06:05] at basketball, like kind of finding our niche and how we kind of want to communicate ourselves.

[00:06:09] Because I think some of the other brands that are very established and if we just kind of copied

[00:06:13] their marketing, I don't think we would have succeeded. But we kind of came in with a different

[00:06:16] perspective. And I think that's given us some space in basketball that a lot of people didn't

[00:06:20] expect us to kind of grab before. Yeah, it's interesting. Frankly, it was a bit surprised

[00:06:23] to hear you say you're leaning to the performance side. There's this dichotomy

[00:06:26] in the sneaker space where you're either a lifestyle fashion brand or you are a performance

[00:06:32] brand. And some brands like Nike have been able to straddle both with their Air Jordans

[00:06:36] being in the popular lexicon, but also obviously on the court. Yeah, we were too focused on the

[00:06:40] style space for a long time. And that's obviously still like a huge part of our business. So it's

[00:06:45] not like we're transient though, right? It's not that staying power if you're just on that side.

[00:06:49] Exactly. We're not pivoting away from that. But I think we just need to make sure that

[00:06:52] we're also established in the performance space. We have credibility there because I

[00:06:55] think that's actually going to help our more like sports style collections as well.

[00:06:58] So if you're going into performance space, just curious, what are your thoughts on

[00:07:02] all the evolution with college athletics and the name interest likeness deals? I mean,

[00:07:06] do you think ultimately it's a good thing for your category and how are brands

[00:07:10] like Puma looking at that opportunity? Yeah. I mean, before Puma, I was a sport

[00:07:15] media majoring in college. This is something I kind of studied and looked at a lot. And

[00:07:18] I always thought that college athletes should be paid and should be making revenue based

[00:07:22] on how their likeness is used. So personally, I think it's a great move and a welcome shift.

[00:07:26] We've had some NIL deals in the basketball space especially. I think that we've had some

[00:07:30] great successes there. So it's pretty fun that we can kind of work with some younger athletes

[00:07:34] and kind of use their personalities and partner with them. So for us as a brand,

[00:07:38] we've experimented there, but we will continue to experiment there.

[00:07:40] Absolutely. And when you look at just Puma in terms of building the brand,

[00:07:43] so you obviously have your endorsement deals with athletes and you want to

[00:07:47] actually see them on the field or on the court. And then obviously we'll

[00:07:50] talk about some of the brand deals that you're doing like the meta deal that we mentioned.

[00:07:53] And then there's obviously you partnering with retailers and making sure... So

[00:07:57] how's that side evolving in terms of the digital versus in-store mix with the distribution of

[00:08:04] your products? Yeah, for me, one of my biggest focus is building our digital goods business.

[00:08:08] So it's like, how do we get digital Puma goods on our consumers avatars when they're

[00:08:12] playing Roblox or they're playing Full Diet or they're playing any other these other games?

[00:08:16] Or with Meta, we actually, with the first sportswear brand to be featured in their

[00:08:19] avatar store, the first brand in general to use their new diverse body features as well.

[00:08:24] Because people are spending more and more time in these digital environments and

[00:08:27] culture is happening in these digital environments. If you look at Fortnite,

[00:08:30] all these concerts that are happening, same thing in Roblox, more and more concerts

[00:08:32] are happening there too. So there's a convergence between culture and gaming.

[00:08:37] And now we need to be in that space because we want to be where culture is happening.

[00:08:41] So we've done a couple of great Roblox activations and we have I think over four million

[00:08:45] Roblox digital goods that consumers have claimed and are wearing these games,

[00:08:49] which is great to see that like these young consumers are actually taking Puma products

[00:08:52] and wearing them in their Roblox experiences. And at what point do you have to straddle the line

[00:08:56] between being cutting edge or bleeding edge, meaning like we're in a broader macro and

[00:09:02] economic environment, which is some days good, some days not so good. Obviously I'm sure

[00:09:06] your company like every other is pressured to show ROI and spend. So when you do things

[00:09:11] that are more edgy or non-traditional digital goods or doing something in VR or AR,

[00:09:18] is it harder to sell that through and how do you look at tracking ROI for something like that?

[00:09:22] I think for digital goods, it's an interesting one because there are opportunities that are

[00:09:27] just marketing based where we do something in Roblox and it's more because Roblox has a huge

[00:09:32] young demographic that we really want target. But there's also these other games that are

[00:09:36] looking for brands like Puma to kind of give them credibility. So we actually work with them

[00:09:40] and do licensing deals or do deals where we'll do revenue shares on the product sold.

[00:09:44] So it's actually also building a revenue share for us. So kids will pay to wear

[00:09:49] custom branded Puma shoes in a Roblox environment. Yeah, but I feel like people are so focused on

[00:09:54] kids that sometimes they don't think about these other games that might be like 35 or

[00:09:57] four-year-old like female demographic. That's completely different. Yeah, no, you're right.

[00:10:00] It's actually good. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of different opportunities out there and

[00:10:04] for us, it's like finding all these different opportunities and some of them we're not

[00:10:07] going to make money off. We're just kind of doing it there for the marketing,

[00:10:09] but some of them kind of makes more sense to us to do kind of revenue share deals

[00:10:12] or licensing deals and us to be in those environments. And it gives us like a double

[00:10:16] benefit, right? Because we're still getting marketing from it, but then we're also kind of

[00:10:19] building a new revenue stream. Yeah. So as head of emerging marketing technology,

[00:10:23] obviously you are looking at these new streams and making sure that your brand

[00:10:27] is where the eyeballs are gravitating towards how did the partnership with Meta come about?

[00:10:31] Talk to us about how a partnership like that gets established. How did you land on

[00:10:34] the actual idea and how was it brought to life? We've obviously had a relationship

[00:10:38] with Meta for a long time because of Instagram and our Facebook. As an advertiser.

[00:10:42] Correct. And also like organically. So we've built that relationship and I used to be the

[00:10:46] head of social. So I kind of had some of those ties there. And then this opportunity kind of came

[00:10:50] up to be featured in their avatar store. They were looking for a sportswear brand and again,

[00:10:54] we're kind of building our digital goods business. So our interest kind of aligned

[00:10:57] there and we launched there. And I think we just had a really good partnership with them.

[00:11:00] We enjoyed working with them. We enjoyed our meetings. And that was like the first

[00:11:04] project and that one went really well. Their executives are very happy with it.

[00:11:08] So then they had this second project they wanted to do where they were kind of focused on the German

[00:11:11] market and kind of getting people to actually try on VR. So they were talking to us because

[00:11:15] obviously we're a German based brand as well. So we came up with this idea of doing the world

[00:11:20] smallest gym and the idea is you just put on a VR headset and you could do this,

[00:11:23] some of these different workout apps. Is that idea that you came up with in your team

[00:11:27] at Puma or did you collaborate with Meta on the concept? Collaborate with Meta on it.

[00:11:30] We built these like small little pods that people can kind of step into. They were

[00:11:33] co-branded Puma and Meta. People could try on the VR headset and work out in our Puma flagship store

[00:11:39] and then a couple of big shopping centers in Berlin. And it's been a really nice success.

[00:11:42] I think both Meta is happy with it. Puma is happy with it. We're looking for other places that

[00:11:46] we could potentially bring the workout pods to. And it's open some other doors at Meta for us

[00:11:50] too that we're talking about potentially doing some other activations with that are still

[00:11:54] a little bit CBD. We'll be right back with the speed of culture after a few words from

[00:11:57] our sponsors. So is it...

[00:12:31] I'm Sandra and I'm just the professional your small business was looking for.

[00:12:34] But you didn't hire me because you didn't use LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn has professionals you

[00:12:39] can't find anywhere else, including those who aren't actively looking for a new job but

[00:12:43] might be open to the perfect role like me. In a given month over 70% of LinkedIn users

[00:12:49] don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn,

[00:12:52] you'll miss out on great candidates like Sandra. Start hiring professionals like a

[00:12:56] professional. Post your free job on LinkedIn.com slash people today.

[00:13:28] Awesome. And guess what? Working you up with a sweet deal. Use code ADWEEK for 10%

[00:13:33] off when you sign up. Ready to take your social media game to the next level?

[00:13:36] Head on over to ViralGrowth.io and let's turn those digital dreams into a reality.

[00:13:41] Actual like physical space you enter or you're just wearing a headset and you just make sure

[00:13:47] that you don't like punch somebody accidentally when you're trying to work out.

[00:13:50] That's like an actual physical space that we built out actually like a really gorgeous

[00:13:54] design but you kind of go in there. There's a couple of little demos that you do

[00:13:57] where you're working out and it also kind of creates a little social video for you

[00:14:01] that you can do at home and post on your Instagram channel if you want.

[00:14:03] And I imagine when the activation like that, it's also as much about how do you take this story

[00:14:08] of what you're doing and scale it and connect it to your brand through social and other channels.

[00:14:13] That's equally as important as the amount of people that actually physically touch and feel

[00:14:17] the space which is somewhat limited by just the physicality of it.

[00:14:20] We brought in Dennis Schroeder from our side one of our basketball ambassadors.

[00:14:23] That's also German so that was the great person kind of bringing in great

[00:14:26] bastard Briggan. He did a couple of videos for us that actually did really well on social.

[00:14:29] I think one of them got over 20 million views.

[00:14:30] I actually saw one organically or really.

[00:14:32] Yeah, before he even knew this interview was happening.

[00:14:34] And then Metta obviously has so many great relationships with influencers,

[00:14:37] graders, so they brought in a few of theirs that they've worked with in the past.

[00:14:40] We brought in a few ours that we worked with in the past and we had a really

[00:14:43] great kickoff event that produced a lot of great content from it.

[00:14:46] That's awesome. And before you were at Puma, you spent six years at the NBA

[00:14:50] which would be a dream job for me. I'm a huge basketball fan.

[00:14:53] How do you get a job at the NBA? Because so many basketball fans, they would love to work there.

[00:14:58] How did you land that role? Well, the NBA kind of reminds you of that too.

[00:15:01] They're like, hey, we'll have 5,000 people ready to take your job tomorrow.

[00:15:04] But it was funny. It was the early days of social media and I really wanted to work in sports

[00:15:08] PR. So I actually applied for this role. I got the role and I was like, oh, cool.

[00:15:12] Like I'll do this for a year then maybe I can sneak into the PR department.

[00:15:15] You applied for a role at the NBA. Yeah.

[00:15:16] So you just sent in your resume and they hired you and you didn't know anybody?

[00:15:19] So I was actually a Boston Celtics intern in college. So that's the real, right?

[00:15:23] And then also we had LeBron's former publicist speak up my college as well.

[00:15:27] So I built a little bit of a connection with him. So I got recommended from...

[00:15:30] I think that's an important... The reason I'm asking that is we have a lot of younger

[00:15:33] listeners here at Spina Culture and trying to figure out how to get that dream job.

[00:15:37] And I think a misconception some people have, especially with what I think is a little

[00:15:41] bit of an entitled generation Gen Z which is like, oh, I worked hard. I have a great resume.

[00:15:46] I'm going to send it in. I should get the role. And I have kids that are late teens now

[00:15:50] that are thinking about internships and I'm telling them you have to go get it.

[00:15:54] And you have to find that right point of experience. So how did you intern the Boston

[00:15:59] Celtics? How did you get in there to begin with?

[00:16:01] So our college had a good relationship with the head of HR. So I got an email one day for my

[00:16:06] advisor and he was like, hey, they're looking for an intern. Like you're from Boston.

[00:16:09] Like do you want to do this? And I'm like, hell yeah, I want to do this.

[00:16:11] But even before that I worked at Walkins Glider International which is a small race

[00:16:15] track in upstate New York. I was a media center volunteer there that led to my Boston

[00:16:19] Celtics media relations internship and then also that connection with LeBron's former

[00:16:23] publicist. It's funny, I did dinner with him a couple years ago at an All-Star game

[00:16:27] and we were kind of talking about like that moment. And he's like, yeah, there was like

[00:16:31] you and this other guy that like were following up with me but then he fell off and you kept

[00:16:34] following up with me. That's what happens. And then when that role came up and you asked

[00:16:38] me to like recommend you, like I was like, hell yeah, I know this guy. So it was kind of

[00:16:42] important to kind of keep up that connection and kind of you gotta figure out like the right

[00:16:45] amount of times to follow up because you don't want to like be like 100%

[00:16:49] But you also don't want to fall off either. Yeah, I mean, but it's so much the case with

[00:16:53] so many opportunities that it's just a war of attrition. Just like I can tell you running

[00:16:57] a startup so many competitors at launch when Suzy launch are gone and maybe their

[00:17:01] product wasn't as good. Maybe it was, but just the founder just didn't want to deal with

[00:17:05] the headaches that COVID brought on or uncertainty in funding or whatever. And

[00:17:09] eventually just people just start to fall off and you're like, oh wow,

[00:17:11] we're the only one left standing. And it's very much how you succeed.

[00:17:15] Sometimes you just keep trying until you get it right. So you're at the NBA and I know that you

[00:17:20] help there as well identify lots of partnerships with companies like Reddit and Snapchat, etc.

[00:17:26] How are you as professional? Now obviously, fast forward to today as well, able to keep

[00:17:31] your finger on the pulse of emerging trends to know this is where things are going.

[00:17:36] This is a new platform coming out that we need to test out. How do you personally spend your

[00:17:40] time in terms of the information you consume that you think puts you in that position?

[00:17:43] I'll say it was probably a little bit easier when I was younger and I was 23, 24 and I was

[00:17:48] using Snapchat every day. My friends were using Snapchat every day and I was like,

[00:17:51] well, this is what people are using and this is what we should be jumping onto.

[00:17:55] So that's kind of how it happened with some of those platforms. I was

[00:17:58] on NBA Reddit, I still am on NBA Reddit every single day kind of seeing what's

[00:18:01] happening in the league. So I was like, we should be here. This is where our

[00:18:04] core fans are. This is like their clubhouse. So we want to be kind of engaging in

[00:18:08] that clubhouse. The Snapchat one's funny because I had to sell that internally and

[00:18:13] you're talking to these older executives and they're like, isn't this like a sexting platform?

[00:18:16] Right.

[00:18:17] Like why are we like this?

[00:18:18] Even Reddit had a lot of bad vibes early on.

[00:18:20] Of course. Yeah. I mean all these platforms have obviously gone through

[00:18:22] their different scandals.

[00:18:24] Some still are immersion scandals.

[00:18:26] Yeah, for sure. I mean they all really are.

[00:18:28] So it's kind of like an interesting place to kind of navigate but luckily with the league,

[00:18:31] like they're, this is always kind of stuck with me. For example, like when YouTube came

[00:18:35] along, the NBA didn't take down its highlights when people were posting

[00:18:38] highlights and the other leagues did. And then it was like, this is basically like

[00:18:41] free marketing for us. Like people are watching these clips and getting excited

[00:18:44] about NBA basketball. And now like all the leagues kind of allow people to put

[00:18:48] up highlights across all these social platforms.

[00:18:49] Yeah, they're giving them control.

[00:18:50] Yeah.

[00:18:51] These are the NBA stood for nothing but attorneys.

[00:18:53] Exactly.

[00:18:54] That's what I heard. So I guess eventually they had to relinquish some of that control

[00:18:57] if they wanted to be relevant.

[00:18:57] But in the social space, they're very progressive and really like kind of

[00:19:00] let people play with it and kind of help own the brand. I think if you look at

[00:19:03] like the NBA social following, a part of their success was because they really kind of let go,

[00:19:08] control, kind of let this community evolve around the NBA itself. Like NBA Twitter is

[00:19:12] one of the biggest Twitters out there too.

[00:19:13] Yeah, absolutely. I think the younger generation consumes sports by the song

[00:19:18] versus the album meaning they follow the players, not the teams. Obviously we've

[00:19:22] seen an explosion of fantasy sports and gambling for better or worse,

[00:19:25] which is infiltrating our society. So I think it's changed fandom in general

[00:19:29] and people are much more focused on the highlights and the clips than full game,

[00:19:32] especially younger consumers.

[00:19:33] Yeah, if you look at ratings, like NBA ratings are, I think probably be better in my opinion,

[00:19:38] but if you look at how many people are digesting social media clips of the top

[00:19:41] plays or watching condensed games, it's incredible. People love NBA content and

[00:19:46] it's kind of interesting. Almost what's happening around the NBA,

[00:19:49] like off of the court is almost eclipsing what's happening on the actual on-court

[00:19:53] action itself.

[00:19:53] Yeah, I mean you have a lot of players like Drey Mon Green starting podcasts

[00:19:57] and JJ Reddick and people who are on the inside. So I think when I was growing up,

[00:20:01] you didn't really have that type of access to players besides the awkward

[00:20:06] interviews after the game when they're sweating next to the reporter,

[00:20:08] but now you really can get so much access and they're talking all the time about

[00:20:12] what's really happening.

[00:20:14] Yep, and one really interesting thing that I think helped shift this culture to

[00:20:18] the time was so controversial, but when David Stern did that dress code policy,

[00:20:22] had players dress up and actually kind of vaulted these players into fashion icons

[00:20:27] and made really kind of like those tunnel walks more like runways where people

[00:20:31] are like showing off the latest fashion. Now you see every brand is trying to get

[00:20:34] like a basketball player to kind of wear their latest gear in these tunnels because

[00:20:38] that's where a lot of fashion culture happens.

[00:20:40] Yeah, you look at Beats headphones which ended up getting acquired by Apple and

[00:20:44] they'll tell you it was both the Olympics and those fashion walks like you said.

[00:20:47] When they showed up in China, they all came off the airplane wearing Beats.

[00:20:50] Absolutely.

[00:20:50] Like that was one of the biggest parking moments for them.

[00:20:53] Absolutely. So shifting gears a little bit to, you know, here at

[00:20:56] Commerce Week shout out to Adweek for access to this great Adweek podcast studio.

[00:21:00] Ecommerce has changed over time, continues to change.

[00:21:03] Amazon is now selling retail media so they're trying to get their piece of the pie.

[00:21:07] Google's changing with the advent of AI.

[00:21:09] You have platforms like TikTok are leading in the social selling as a brand who I'm sure

[00:21:14] makes e-commerce at the top of its list in terms of something to think about the drive

[00:21:18] growth. Where do you see those trends in the world of commerce?

[00:21:21] Yeah, I think for us like we want to obviously continue building our DTC business and that's

[00:21:25] been something that we focused on these last five years but I think there's still

[00:21:29] like such a big opportunity working with these big wholesale partners and that's

[00:21:32] still such a large part of our business. So for us, it's to continue working with

[00:21:35] being good partners, evolving with them and I always tell these partners like we

[00:21:39] want to be a guinea pig. We want to be the beta test partner.

[00:21:41] Like if you want to try something new, call us.

[00:21:43] Like we'll figure it out. We'll work with you. Think of us in that way.

[00:21:46] Awesome. So wrapping up here Ivan, you've had an awesome career and you're

[00:21:50] obviously very much in the middle of it. You kind of stole the thunder a little bit

[00:21:53] by talking about some of the lessons you've learned in your career in terms of

[00:21:56] not giving up, being aggressive, focusing on what you want and really going for.

[00:22:01] Are there any other pieces of advice you can give to some of our younger listeners in terms of

[00:22:05] making the right decisions earlier in your career to set yourself up to be in a position where

[00:22:08] you're on a lay, where you're on stage at Commerce Week and here talking with me about

[00:22:12] very cool stuff that you're doing with companies like Meta?

[00:22:15] So I think there's like this backlash against grind culture which makes sense.

[00:22:18] Yeah.

[00:22:18] I think like people working 70-80 hours a week that's crazy but

[00:22:22] you know in those early days at the NBA when I was 22, 23 and I had no responsibilities.

[00:22:26] Right. That's what you want to do it right?

[00:22:28] Like that's what I did it like my first NBA job I was literally making $20 an hour living in

[00:22:32] New York City. Like it was-

[00:22:34] Probably having the best time ever.

[00:22:35] Yeah it was so much fun.

[00:22:36] Yeah living in a shoe box.

[00:22:37] No pun intended.

[00:22:39] There was no heat in my apartment. Like that's how crazy it was back then.

[00:22:42] But I grinded it out. I got to do all these like awesome crazy partnerships with

[00:22:46] Snapchat. We know we worked and did these, I mean what's like every All Star game,

[00:22:50] you know met every single basketball player like got a lot of like cool things that I got to do but

[00:22:53] I also made so many great connections and built such a great network that I went like an opportunity

[00:22:57] to become the head of social at Puma. That was my first job at Puma. Like came up,

[00:23:00] I got it and then I brought in all this like wealth of knowledge of how to build a great

[00:23:04] social team for my experience at the NBA. And then I- It was funny because like Puma social

[00:23:08] was so early back then and I just kind of came in with like some simple learnings that I have

[00:23:14] from the NBA. Right.

[00:23:15] Bringing that in there completely transformed Puma social and made me look like a rock star

[00:23:18] or a Puma. Right.

[00:23:19] So kind of grinding it out there early kind of helped me succeed at Puma and now I think

[00:23:24] it's a little bit of the opposite where it's like I always used to think like I would give

[00:23:27] like 110% how like good that is but like now I feel like it's better to kind of do a little

[00:23:31] bit less and focus on a few big projects instead of trying to do way too many things.

[00:23:35] Because if you're giving like 110% across 10 projects versus 90% across

[00:23:39] three projects, like you're probably going to do better with the three projects than

[00:23:42] you would with the 10 projects.

[00:23:43] Also as you grow in your career, I'm sure leading a team, recruiting and retaining

[00:23:48] talent is also a huge part of your success.

[00:23:49] That's the big thing too. Like a lot of people are afraid to bring in talent because

[00:23:52] it might make them seem redundant but I was very lucky with my hires at Puma.

[00:23:56] They came in and they were all rock stars and they've all gone on to do amazing things

[00:24:00] at Puma or in other places too.

[00:24:02] So that made my life so much easier when I was like, oh I could just trust this

[00:24:05] person to do their job but I don't need to overlook with their shoulder.

[00:24:08] That frees up me to do other things too.

[00:24:09] Absolutely. So to wrap it up Ivan, is there a mantra or something that you live by and

[00:24:12] any kind of good sports analogies you're going to throw at me?

[00:24:15] Puma pays my bills like I say forever faster.

[00:24:18] In a band, you always got to move forward. You always got to push down below.

[00:24:20] Well we are on the Speed of Culture podcast so it fits really well with us.

[00:24:23] That's perfect.

[00:24:23] Thanks so much for joining and taking time of your busy schedule here in New York

[00:24:26] to speak with us today, Ivan.

[00:24:27] Thank you. This is awesome.

[00:24:28] Absolutely. On behalf of Susie and AdWee team, thanks again to Ivan Dashkov,

[00:24:32] head of Emerging Marketing Tech at Puma Group for joining us today.

[00:24:35] Be sure to subscribe, rate and review to Speed of Culture podcast on your

[00:24:37] favorite podcast platform.

[00:24:38] Until next time, see you soon everyone. Take care.

[00:24:46] The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Susie as part of the AdWee podcast network

[00:24:50] and Agath Creator Network.

[00:24:52] You can listen, subscribe to all AdWee's podcast by visiting adweek.com

[00:24:56] slash podcast.

[00:24:57] To find out more about Susie, head to Susie.com

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