Cheryl Broom (9s):
Hi, I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of Graduate Communications, and today I have a very special guest on Chuck
Fetterly is the owner and CEO of T E C Direct Media and a friend of mine, Chuck and his company plan and
buys media for artists, brands and agencies so they can generate awareness, acquire new customers, and
drive sales. As a top media agency in Chicago, they use media and the data derived from it as a way to
deliver great messages to audiences that wanna discover, advocate for and purchase products and
services, including higher education.
Cheryl Broom (51s):
Chuck and I have a great conversation around how to plan for media buys, the advantages of using a media
buying agency, questions you should ask a media buying agency when you're interviewing them to work
together. And he just gives some great tips on things that he has seen change over the last 20 years. It's a
great conversation with a true expert and I'm sure you're gonna enjoy it. Well, Chuck, thank you so much for
joining me. I'm happy to have you on the podcast.
Chuck Fetterly (1m 29s):
Thank you for having me, Cheryl. Great to be here.
Cheryl Broom (1m 33s):
Yes, and I know it's late your time, so I appreciate you making the time after vacation to talk to me, but I'm
super excited to have you wanna talk all things Media Vine. So let's start. Tell me about your company and
your background and what you've been doing.
Chuck Fetterly (1m 48s):
Sure thing. Well, I'm Chuck Federally. I own and operate TC Direct Media. We're a planning and buying
agency out of Chicago. My background, I came from a storied past. I've worked literally on all sides of the
media business. I worked in media sales, I've worked on the media side at radio stations. I've worked at a
number of agencies, both in-house agencies and and other agencies. And then I started te back in 2001. So
I've literally sat on all sides of the media table. I think I bring a a unique perspective, you know, to to media
planning and buying as a company. We virtually are literally plan and buy all forms of paid media.
Chuck Fetterly (2m 32s):
So not just digital, not just TV or radio or outdoor, literally all forms of paid media. And I'm really proud to say
that because I think what's happening today is even, even media planning and buying is becoming, you
know, a specialty or you just do social or you just do search or you just do, you know, other forms of media.
So my great little team of people, we call 'em media strategists planning by all forms. So it's great. It's good
perspective.
Cheryl Broom (3m 0s):
What made you start your agency? What, what was that catalyst?Chuck Fetterly (3m 4s):
You know, I've always loved media. You know, I think, you know, I, I was always into reading magazines,
watching movies and tv. And when I found out I could actually make a career out of this, I was like, oh, that's
pretty cool. But as far as the agency was concerned, I think it was out of working with other agencies, I, I
said one day, you know, I think I can do this and I, I think I can do it better. Little did I know at the time it was
a lot of work, but it's been a good journey. You know, we've been at it 20 years. We celebrated last year, so
we must be doing something right.
Cheryl Broom (3m 45s):
When I worked at a college and had to manage our media by, I got called constantly by every single media
outlet in San Diego. And then if I booked an radio ad on one channel, every single radio channel would start
calling. Yeah, I heard you're ad on 91 x, don't you wanna be on night 2.5? And it made me crazy and I didn't
have time to answer all the calls. So I, I hired a company to come in and take media buying off my plate and
it was literally the best decision I had ever made. Oh yeah. It freed up so much time and I got all, I got better
buys everything. It was great.
Chuck Fetterly (4m 23s):
Yeah. Cause I often tell people that, you know, trying to plan and buy your own media is like you trying to be
your own attorney. Right? It's like too much, way too much time or a lot more time than you thought you
needed. And, you know, expertise.
Cheryl Broom (4m 39s):
Let's, let's talk about planning media. Cause that's something I think a lot of my Yeah. Clients have a hard
time doing is planning. How do you plan a good media spend?
Chuck Fetterly (4m 50s):
That's a great question because I gotta be honest, a lot of our clients come to us and say, we want you to
buy this. Right? And you look, okay, fine, we can do that, but can we back up two or three steps and go back
to the overall, you know, strategy of, of what it is you're trying to do or the goals you're trying to achieve, and
have them define those. And then we'll get into more of a planning mode. And for, for us that really, you
know, entails sitting down with them and finding out what it is they're trying to achieve, and then discuss the
outcomes they're looking for and then start to consider, you know, different media strategies that might
achieve those goals.
Chuck Fetterly (5m 35s):
And then it's also evaluating the media at that stage in the sense of reach. You know, there's always the
reach number, like, you know, if there's a particular demo or, or audience that you're, you're trying to reach,
you know, how much of that audience am I going to be able to reach with this budget? What can I expect assort of some deliverables from a plan? So all of those things we sort of discuss in the planning stages. And
then once that's approved, then we go onto the, obviously the buying and the execution.
Cheryl Broom (6m 8s):
And you make some really interesting media buys Yeah. For some very interesting people.
Chuck Fetterly (6m 14s):
Yeah. Thank you. Yes. We, we were really fortunate a number of years ago. One of my, was my college
roommate, he worked for a music marketing company and him and his partner were looking for somebody
that did what I do, and that was media services for their music clients. So here we are 15 plus years later,
and that partnership has done extraordinarily well. And we now work with literally every major music label in
the country, a lot of independence, music artists themselves, some managers. And it's, it's probably, dare I
say, one of the favorite parts of my business.
Chuck Fetterly (6m 55s):
Not that I don't like the other clients we work with, I certainly do and, and value them immensely. But it is fun
to work with like, you know, Billy Eilish and Lady Gaga and you know, Adele, you know, was just one of our
recent projects. So I it's, it's a lot of fun. But
Cheryl Broom (7m 15s):
Yeah, you had a campaign. So for those listening to the podcast, Chuck and I belong to a, to a group, a peer
group where agency owners get together and we discuss things and have a lot of fun. And you showed a
case study video that I showed to my team, and they have been talking about it for like a year and it's, I think
it's Rihanna. And I was like, he goes, I can't make a video as exciting as Rihanna. Like, I'm sorry.
Chuck Fetterly (7m 44s):
Like it's, that was that, that was a great campaign. We actually were asked to do some outdoor media. She
was unveiling her lingerie brand at the time, and they were looking for not just outdoor domestically, but
internationally. So they said, could you guys handle our international outdoor? And of course we can and
have done that in the past. So yeah, that was a great, you're probably referring to the outdoor video promo
reel that we put together, our sizzle reel for outdoor media. And outdoor media is great for that because it's
such a visual medium, right? You have these huge big splashy billboards and digital spectaculars and, you
know, all different formats.
Chuck Fetterly (8m 25s):
So it's a lot of fun to work in that medium. Actually. We've, we've had a lot of fun with it.
Cheryl Broom (8m 30s):
Yeah. I think one of your ads might have been a Times Square. Yeah. Was it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just theother day I had an idea for like a sizzle video in our creative director was like, can't we do it more like that
one video you sent? We don't have things in times.
Chuck Fetterly (8m 46s):
Yeah, but you know what, it's interesting. I mean, we've done little kiosks and malls. We've done, you know,
the proverbial, you know, highway billboard, you know, in the right location. And with the right creative, those
actually will show very well, right? So they don't always need to be the super sexy, you know, a hundred foot
long digital spectacular in Times Square to still stand out and look good.
Cheryl Broom (9m 12s):
Yeah. It, it's actually, I wanna talk about billboards. So interesting. I had somebody reach out to me on
LinkedIn because they saw a billboard we did for a client, and they contacted the client, and the client told
'em to contact me. So I'm like talking to this guy that just saw Billboard on the side of the road and
remembered it and wanted to know all about the college. So I loved it, it was great. I'm like, this is great. But
we never really know how those billboards do. Like, when you are doing your placement, what, what do you
look for? Like, what makes that a good buy and how do you measure it?
Chuck Fetterly (9m 47s):
You know, it, it, it is often used for reach, you know, in a particular geography and knowing that there's a
certain number of people, frankly, that just pass that billboard every day. And there's some different
equations and, and formulas that the outdoor vendors use to come up with those numbers. Some are very
suspect, I'll tell you. So we take those numbers with a grain of salt, but, but billboards are used for very
specific geographic, you know, reach in a market. It can have a response mechanism. Back in the day when
I was doing a lot more direct response, and this will show my age, you know, we did a lot more 800 numbers
and things like that.
Chuck Fetterly (10m 30s):
Now the QR code, as we all know, is having an amazing resurgence. We've had some boards that will use
that for actually people to engage with as they walk by. We did a really interesting, one of the cable networks
was doing some programming around LGBTQ and we did all these painted murals in the Los Angeles and
New York area, and those had QR codes with 'em so people could engage and there was a fundraising
aspect to it. So that worked very well with some very few placements, all those street level, right. So people
could do it right from their sidewalk on the phone. But yeah, I, I think, you know, outdoors an interesting
medium that's evolved certainly over the last few years.
Chuck Fetterly (11m 15s):
Were actually doing a lot more of it than we ever have before. And I think primarily because of everyone
walking around with our devices in our hands, we're actually able to either take a picture of it and remember
it and go look it up later, or engage with a QR code or literally go to a URL if that's featured on the board. Sotakes all shapes and forms of, of messaging, but it, it, it still continues to work.
Cheryl Broom (11m 42s):
Yeah. We have clients who, our faculty will be like, so and so college has buses, like, why aren't we on
buses? And that's another popular one. And there's never any way to substantiate like how it actually did,
besides just reach.
Chuck Fetterly (11m 59s):
Yeah.
Cheryl Broom (11m 59s):
And it's expensive.
Chuck Fetterly (12m 0s):
I, you know, it's interesting because I'll, I'll be very frank, I think a lot of our clients love it because they can
see it, right? And their friends see it and then, you know, like you said, they'll maybe they'll see their
competitors doing it and they think that they have to do it. There is, transit is huge. Like, we do a lot of
transit, you know, subway stations, bus wraps, you know, kiosks at bus stops, you name it. And they can be
static, they can be digital, but they tend to get noticed, you know, and I think that's, that's it at the end of the
day. And now with, you know, obviously social channels, people are sharing pictures. Again, I will preface
that the best outdoor campaigns, it's all about the creative.
Chuck Fetterly (12m 42s):
You know, if you have a good, good message and really creative, creative, if you will, it's a great medium.
You know, I'm, I get frustrated when sometimes clients just get lazy and they'll, you know, repurpose a
display ad from digital to try to use it on, you know, on a billboard. And I'm like, oh, come on, you've got
much bigger real estate here to deal with.
Cheryl Broom (13m 3s):
Yeah. I mean there's like Chick-fil-A that has cows climbing the billboards and Yeah.
Chuck Fetterly (13m 8s):
Yeah. Or what they have, they call 'em billboard extensions. Like you can actually, like, I'm thinking of cows
and like, we had one with a guitar that kind of, the guitar was like growing out of the billboard. Like really cool
executions,
Cheryl Broom (13m 21s):
Really cool stuff. Well, I just saw one the other day on the freeway by my house, where instead of doing an
extension, like a guitar or a stethoscope, they actually just made the entire billboard bigger. So they like agiant extension. Yeah. So it was like double the size. And I was like, wow. That was, that was creative. Yep.
It was all of a sudden double the space.
Chuck Fetterly (13m 43s):
Yeah. We, we have a deck that we literally are constantly updating with all the possible executions in all of
the different markets. And clients love it because it's literally just as they flip through it, you know, it's, it gives
them such incredible ideas of what they can do with their messaging, you know? Well, I
Cheryl Broom (14m 4s):
Want a copy of that.
Chuck Fetterly (14m 6s):
Yeah, you
Cheryl Broom (14m 7s):
Got it.
Chuck Fetterly (14m 8s):
You got it. Yeah. It's, it's a great planning tool and frankly, that's, that's why we, why we have it so they can,
they can think creatively and strategically beyond just the static billboard, you know, which is, you know,
everybody thinks of outdoor, they think of the static billboard now. It's so much more than that now.
Cheryl Broom (14m 25s):
Yeah. And then I know having somebody manage your media gives you a little bit more space to be creative
and to focus on that so that you can have the best messaging.
Chuck Fetterly (14m 36s):
Absolutely.
Cheryl Broom (14m 36s):
Yeah. I don't know if people who aren't in marketing realize how much time it takes to actually build out your
plan and then to book all your media and to evaluate it. So, and pay for it to go through purchasing.
Chuck Fetterly (14m 48s):
Listen, I am a beneficiary of, of what's typically the biggest, biggest line item in a marketing budget, and
that's the media budget, right. But I am always, always pleading with clients to please, you know, dedicate
as much resources as they have to creative, you know, and to a little bit more planning so we can just, you
know, put out the best possible effort and get the results they're looking for. Period.Cheryl Broom (15m 13s):
It's a, it's a blend. Yeah. Right. Message. The right creative and the right placement.
Chuck Fetterly (15m 19s):
Indeed.
Cheryl Broom (15m 19s):
And now you've been in business your 20 year anniversary. So what are some highlights or things you've
seen change over the last 20 years in, in media buying? Oh,
Chuck Fetterly (15m 31s):
Wow. Wow. Well, like,
Cheryl Broom (15m 34s):
And 30 seconds or less.
Chuck Fetterly (15m 36s):
Yeah. No, let just give you a quick one, right? The obvious one is obviously the shift to digital, but the one
that is we are really seeing accelerate now is the shift in video and how we're all consuming videos. So, you
know, we all would love to sit down, watch our favorite TV programs and things of that nature, but there, it's
changing how we do it, right? We, we are using connected tv, we are using YouTube, we're using Hulu, we're
using all these different devices connected to our TV to access different video content. You know, there,
there was the term, I'm sure you've heard of it, cord cutters, right?
Chuck Fetterly (16m 16s):
The people that cut their cable cords and they no longer wanted cable, they would just get their internet
signal and then stream video content from the various sources. Now there's cord nevers, right? There's that
generation who are graduating school or college or whatever, and they're not even subscribing to a
traditional, you know, cable TV package. They're just going for their internet service and streaming
everything. So connected TV and, and this shift to really what we call OTT is rapidly occurring. And we have
started in CTV doing some campaigns for clients probably two plus years ago. And now that that has rapidly
increased.
Chuck Fetterly (16m 59s):
So TV budgets now are becoming more connected TV budgets or OTT budgets. O t T stands for over the
top. It's just another way to deliver video ads to all those connected devices. We focus on the connected TV
strategy because we still want our clients to enjoy the big TV screen experience for their video creative,
right? Not everything can be rendered and, and look as nice on a mobile device, you know, with your video
creative. So clients still want that big TV experience, but that shift and that trend is happening, happeningrapidly. And happy to say we're, you know, we're, we're staying in the, we're ahead of the curve, I think.
Chuck Fetterly (17m 44s):
And because it is a wild, wild, you talked about before about having all these radio reps call you after you,
you know, did that one campaign. Same thing. You know, we have CTV reps that as soon as they see that
we're active, and there's literally dozens of them because how it's working is different entities are managing
that inventory. It's not like ABC is selling all of their CTV stuff, right? They might be selling some of it and
then other people might be, you know, there might be what we call on the ad exchanges inventory available.
I'm getting too granular and probably confusing people, but, you know, it's a rapidly growing space and I
think it's an exciting one because it's still involves video and great creative experience, but the targeting is, is
is really cool.
Chuck Fetterly (18m 32s):
Like think of all the targeting that you can do in digital Now you can do that with essentially television. It's
really cool.
Cheryl Broom (18m 39s):
Yeah, that is really cool. We, we've done some OTT campaigns with some clients, but very little. I think the
colleges are just starting to warm up to things like that. Yeah. They still want their buses. Yeah,
Chuck Fetterly (18m 53s):
Well, buses and or local tv, right? Yeah. Like the local TV stuff still speaks cuz it is a local medium and that's
what they, that's who they want to communicate to. So what we're doing a lot with some of those more local
clients is a combination of the two. Because particularly you guys, if you wanna reach maybe a slightly
younger audience who's searching for schools and or thinking about their secondary education, right? There
are targeting what we call behavioral targeting segments that we can purchase that allows us to
communicate and reach those people more directly through connected tv. Whereas local television is a
broadcast meeting more broad.
Chuck Fetterly (19m 36s):
Right? The only way to really reach them is through contextual targeting or buying a certain program. So, but
the combination of the two tends to be a lot more effective on a local level. Now.
Cheryl Broom (19m 46s):
That's great. And talking about targeting, I mean it seems like every different media venue or channel has
kind of its own targeting options. Like you can do it some on this, but you can't do it on this one. And
Chuck Fetterly (20m 1s):
Yeah, I will tell you this, I, to simplify this whole targeting, you know, you know landscape, I break it down intotwo main groups. There's first party tar, there's first party data, right? So there's data that our clients own and
have, maybe it's their email list, it's all their website traffic so that they can retarget to those folks, right?
That's all like first party data, there's CRM data, et cetera, right? That's gold. And you can take that data and,
and plop it into different platforms and, and types of digital media that allow you to do like lookalike modeling,
essentially allowing you to find more people like the ones who are already your customers, right?
Chuck Fetterly (20m 48s):
So can be very effective, you know, can be very, very effective. Then there's third party data, which in the
digital universe is, let's say we're doing a, a programmatic buy and we're trying to reach, you know,
prospective students in their secondary education search. There are data sets that we can buy, right? That
say these are people who are in market so to speak for, you know, post high school education and will apply
those targeting parameters to our digital buys. So this first party and third party data can be very, very
effective, you know, across digital campaigns.
Cheryl Broom (21m 28s):
Yeah. And that first party data seems to be getting more and more important as, as rules change online, you
know, that is kind of becoming the gold standard for data.
Chuck Fetterly (21m 39s):
100%. You're absolutely right. And we say that probably 10 times a week. Yeah. Is that like, you know, make
sure retarding pixels are firing and, and collecting data. Make sure you're got somebody mining your crm.
You know, I spoke to somebody the other day, small business owner, and he was lamenting about how he
wants to grow and I said, what CRM are you using? He says, we're not yet. I said, oh my goodness. What
email marketing program are you using? Well, we tried that, but it failed. Oh my goodness. How many clients
do you have? I have 1800 clients. Oh my goodness. Oh
Cheryl Broom (22m 10s):
Yeah.
Chuck Fetterly (22m 11s):
Like, like that's gold. You're, you, you have all this wonderful data, you just need to segment it and house it in
a, in a platform. And you know, you can do some really creative things with that.
Cheryl Broom (22m 22s):
Definitely. Now for, for colleges out there who are looking for a media buying partner, what are some things
that you think they should be looking for or questions they should be asking?
Chuck Fetterly (22m 34s):
Yeah, number one, this one always kind of gets me because it's like a lot of people come to us and ask us,do you have category experience with, you know, working with other education clients? I would say to them,
look for agencies who have experience finding the type of people that you are looking for. Maybe it, like for
example, not maybe we should be working together Cheryl, because we do a lot of music and entertainment
that tends to, you know, target kids, you know, 15 plus, right? So we might have a lot of really cool data and
experience that, you know, will deliver the type of demographic you're, you're trying to reach. Right? So I
would say, you know, ask them not just for category experience, but for the type of people that you're trying
to reach, do they have experience with those types of demos?
Chuck Fetterly (23m 23s):
Right? I think ask also what kind of reporting and stewardship and monitoring did they provide as, as a
media agency? Because anybody can buy media, right? It's monitoring it, making sure you get what you pay
for, evaluating it and certainly, you know, analyzing it for some sort of return or measurement. And you have
to do that. And there's some agencies that do it very well and some that do it very poorly. We have a system
that pulls in and or ingests media from, or media data from different platforms or campaign data from
different platforms.
Chuck Fetterly (24m 8s):
We tie it all up into one so that clients can come in, look at their campaign dashboard and they don't have to
look at 15 different, you know, things that we're doing maybe on other platforms. It's a holistic way of
reporting is what I'm trying to say. And it's, and that's very helpful. And then you know, just an overall
expertise. There are some agencies that are really good at search, like I said before, and some are really
good at page social, but what about all the other things that are available, right? Local media, outdoor, like
we discussed television, connected tv, now YouTube, Spotify, you know, the list goes on.
Chuck Fetterly (24m 48s):
Yeah.
Cheryl Broom (24m 48s):
Yeah.
Chuck Fetterly (24m 48s):
Is that helpful?
Cheryl Broom (24m 50s):
Really great. That's super helpful and really, really good advice. I think those are good three questions for
everybody to ask cuz they're out actually looking for any type of vendor really. Yeah. You know, are they
gonna be good stewards? Are they familiar with the audience that we're trying to serve? You know, how is
the reporting? I think those are really important things.Chuck Fetterly (25m 14s):
Yeah. You know, the reporting thing is, is interesting because we've set up a platform where they can tap in
and, and sign in and look at things. I will tell you more often than not, they really, they don't, don't wanna do
Yeah. They, they want us to send them the report. They want us to articulate what's the good, what's the
bad, what did we change? And we do that, obviously we do that and frankly I don't blame 'em. Right.
They're, they've hired us to, to do the job. You know, we don't, some of 'em are very cool and hands on and
like it, but most often they want the report. They want the analysis. Yeah. And the really great clients and you
know, your agency should make time for you to go through this, you know, every couple of weeks at least,
you know, depending upon I guess the type of campaign.
Chuck Fetterly (25m 57s):
But every couple of weeks, two or three weeks, you know, regroup, go through it and everybody will feel
more comfortable because they'll know what's happening. You know, what kind of changes you've been
making. Yeah.
Cheryl Broom (26m 9s):
And yeah, we, you know, we'll have meet with clients and you never really know. You could have a thorough
report but then there's a question that comes out that you didn't include in the report. Cuz there's so many
ways to look at the data. Sure. And so I don't blame people for not wanna go on the dashboard cause there's
a million different combinations to look at.
Chuck Fetterly (26m 30s):
Yeah, well there's, you know, there's medium metrics that we tabulate and count and monitor and and
measure. But then there's the KPIs of you know, the actual business, right? Yeah. What are those, what are
those marketing objectives that they wanna achieve? You know, whether it's, you know, lead generation or
sales or occupancy rate or you know, whatever, you know, what are some of your KPIs in education? Right.
You know, applications filled out or what have you. So everybody has the different ones and I think that that's
maybe another thing they should be asking their media agencies is how easily can we connect some of our
data with yours so that we can attribute the media placement to the result.
Chuck Fetterly (27m 13s):
Yeah. Right. So if in your case it was applications, you know, can we really connect the dots as I like to say
and show that that Spotify ad drove in 15 applications. Yeah. Right. That's what you want your agency to be
able to do.
Cheryl Broom (27m 27s):
It is, that is the million dollar question, at least in higher ed marketing because once they hit that application
system you can't track 'em anymore. Yeah. So I, I've told some college presidents like if I could figure out
how to, how to do that, I'd be a millionaire right now because everybody wants that information. We actuallydid a marketing campaign for a very, very, very small private college who then implemented the campaign.
So they bought their own media, a very small budget, but it was so exciting cuz they went from two
applications and we built them a form and they collected 58 leads and they have 11 new students, which is
50% of their total enrollment.
Cheryl Broom (28m 14s):
Yeah. So it was really cool. It was like, wow, this, this actually worked cuz we're dealing with such small
numbers we could see, we could see with the impact it made. So that was really exciting.
Chuck Fetterly (28m 23s):
It's super exciting. But you created, right, there was that response of mechanism and and ability then for you
to measure right. Where it was coming in from. So a lot of times that's just a landing page or promo code or
something, but you know, it's at least there to give you a little bit of more, a little more insight. Yeah. And it's
exciting when you see something really, you know, blow up that you thought, wow, I never thought that that
could generate, you know, as many leads or or whatnot as it could.
Cheryl Broom (28m 50s):
Yeah. And you know, just like the musicians you play with, you can do a great marketing plan, but if the
music's bad, you know, people probably aren't gonna want buy it. Yeah. Right. And it's the same in
education. We could do a great campaign, but if nobody's answering the phones or nobody's helping
students or there's not financial aid or the classes they want aren't offered, then they're not gonna show up.
Yeah. And then they just, they tend to blame marketing for that. You're like, no, that was you. Yeah.
Chuck Fetterly (29m 17s):
You know, it made me think of something interesting that, you know, particularly in some of the categories
that we deal in and, and I would probably, you could probably think about this for education as well. There
are, there are those people that you know, you know are looking and then, and then there are people that
are, are prospective, you know, students and or in our case music listeners that we think might like
something. You know, and that's where, where I think, you know, the media planning gets creative because,
you know, you're, you certainly wanna reach those people that, you know, we call preach into the choir,
right. We, we know they're into it, we know they're gonna like it, you know, leverage your socials, do your
retargeting, all that good stuff. But then there's still a, you know, a fair amount of prospecting that needs to
go on and there's some other media channels that'll be good for that.
Cheryl Broom (30m 4s):
Yeah. Well, as we wrap up our conversation, I would love to hear if you've had a favorite campaign that
you've worked on in the last 20 years.
Chuck Fetterly (30m 13s):Oh man, I will. There, there's several, but I will say we got into the Nashville music scene, I don't know,
many, many years ago. And we started working with some of the labels down there. It was very exciting and
some, some really, really great people down there to work with. And we were working with Sony and we got
to work on the Garth Brooks sort of comeback release that he did a number of years back was an
extraordinarily large budget, which is always good. But just to get to work with that team and you know, work
with an icon in the industry and be able to do so much media across different elements was really, really
exciting.
Chuck Fetterly (30m 59s):
And it did fairly well. And you know, he went on to have an amazing tour and the rest is history.
Cheryl Broom (31m 5s):
Oh, how cool. I know before we hit record, you had told me another musician bought a spot during what,
Monday night Football?
Chuck Fetterly (31m 13s):
Yeah, yeah. Ozzie Osborne just put out a record. God bless 'em, still rocking after all these years. And that,
you know, that's an interesting point. So they like these bigger, you know, live events, right? Like sports and,
and award shows and things and the cert, certain events can be really, really do really, really well for them.
The NFL on Thursday Night Football, the very first game of the season also featured Ozzie in the halftime
show. So he performed. So there was a whole, you know, I'm sure big marketing plan behind it. We were a,
a smaller part, you know, in terms of running some commercials, but, you know, there's a, we're always part
of a much grander plan on, on some of these bigger releases.
Cheryl Broom (31m 58s):
But it must be very exciting to, to see your work on such a big stage.
Chuck Fetterly (32m 2s):
It's incredibly exciting. You know, I mean when we're sitting there at home and you turn it on, you're like, my
god, you know, our guys did that, we placed that and it is challenging. A lot of these are are done. I'm sure
your listeners can appreciate, you know, media is moving fast these days and it's, and it's done very last
minute, you know, some of these decisions and I'm, I I always say it's been driven by our digital culture, you
know, everything's done so quickly and fast and last minute that they wanna try to do that with some of the
older TV media. Yeah. It's not so easy.
Cheryl Broom (32m 34s):
Yeah. They actually have inventory that they, it's gone. Right. If you don't book it, someone else will snag it.
It,Chuck Fetterly (32m 40s):
Yeah. For sure.
Cheryl Broom (32m 41s):
For sure. Well, it's been fascinating talking to you and congratulations on such a great career and you put
out a lot of great content for people interested in following you or learning more. Where can they go?
Chuck Fetterly (32m 54s):
Yeah, please visit our website. It's t direct.com. We've got a little newsletter you can sign up for and there's
some great content that we put on there. We have a podcast of our own called Media in the moment. We've
got a few episodes up that I encourage people to, to listen to about some really interesting media trends that
are happening. But that would be the best place to start.
Cheryl Broom (33m 16s):
Awesome. Are you the host?
Chuck Fetterly (33m 19s):
I, I've been, I have done it. I've actually got my staff, you know, involved and they love it and have a great
time with it. So we've been kind of trading, you know, fun places with it and, and and I love that because I
love to hear them articulate, you know, what's happening in our industry and they'll interview people. So it's,
it's exciting and it's fun as you know, it's a lot of work. These are not easy just to slap together, you know,
and we gotta do more of 'em.
Cheryl Broom (33m 48s):
Yeah. Well now I have a new, I'm excited cuz I'm gonna download it. I have a new podcast for when I walk
my dog.
Chuck Fetterly (33m 54s):
Awesome,
Cheryl Broom (33m 55s):
Awesome. Well thank you so much Chuck.
Chuck Fetterly (33m 57s):
Thank you Cheryl.
Cheryl Broom (34m 4s):
That wraps up this month's episode of Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. I hope you enjoy the
discussion and learn something new. And if you like the podcast, I would love it if you would leave us areview and make sure to take a screenshot and email me or hit me up on LinkedIn and I'll send you one of
our fantastic grad com shot glasses and a little something, something to go with it. On behalf of all of us at
grad com, thank you for listening and thank you for working hard to make higher education a reality for
students across the nation. Until next time,