This week on The Mobile Alabama Business Podcast, we sit down with Tad Denson of Airwind Creative and My Stock Shotz Photography. Listen in as we discuss his life, career journey, and how he got into the world of photography!
Transcript:
Tad Denson:
My name is Tad Denson. I'm the owner of Airwind Creative and My Stock Shotz, with a Z, Photography, and partner in Dogwood Productions locally.
Marcus:
Yay. Welcome to the podcast, Tad.
Tad Denson:
Oh, it's great to be here, Marcus.
Marcus:
Yeah. Full disclosure, oftentimes conversations happen before or after or whatever, but we were just reminiscing, we've known each other for probably about a decade. And to a certain extent, you've influenced my business over the course of that time, so it is awesome to have you here and get a chance to pull some more stories out of you.
Tad Denson:
It's great to walk into the building for the first time after seeing the cool neon logo out there on Dauphin Street so many times.
Marcus:
Yeah. It's funny how you can't do something like that out on the street, but you put it behind glass and nobody can say anything. Yeah, the sign ordinances down here are fun. The way that we normally get started is we have our guest give us some back story, so tell us where you're from, where did you go to high school, did you go to college? Are you married? Just give us some back story.
Tad Denson:
I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, spent part of my elementary years in Jacksonville, Florida, but back to Jackson where my family was from. High school at Murrah High School there in Jackson. Still stay in touch with a lot of great friends from there. I was school photographer even in junior high and high school, but always had a love for music, so I got a music scholarship, a vocal scholarship, to Millsaps College in Jackson, which is interesting because the college campus almost butted up to my high school campus.
Tad Denson:
I lived on campus the first year, but I went there for my first year and then found out that University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg was doing a brand new program, church music and choral conducting emphasis, so I changed and spent my last three years in Hattiesburg. I got my degree, had a blast in college. Made the trip to Mobile several times over three years, because our college choir always sang at the halftime at the Senior Bowl.
Marcus:
Nice.
Tad Denson:
And didn't have much knowledge or anything else of Mobile, but liked it, and right after college, got a job at a baptist church here in town, Moffett Road Baptist Church, as minister of music and youth, so made the trek. When I came down here, I'd always been in the creative side of things, and even in college and with high school doing newsletter layouts and sketching logos and taking pictures.
Tad Denson:
I started a recording studio in my two bedroom apartment, Yester Oaks on Airport, and started recording songs that I'd written and things like that. Well, that turned out to be probably the biggest influencer that changed me from full time choral directing and orchestra directing to jumping into the advertising business. It's kind of a funny jump when you think about it. But I spent several years at Moffett Road. The studio. We moved to Springhill Avenue, called studio in the slums at the time because we were in a huge, it was still Dogwood, but we were in a huge old, old, old, old building.
Tad Denson:
After Moffett Road, went to Dauphin Way Baptist Church as youth choir and orchestra director, which was awesome to have a youth choir with 60 kids that were all band members and knew how to sing, and then orchestra volunteers, but still some awesome talent in the area. Minister of music there, went on to another church in Texas, and for almost a year I got to be interim minister of music at Dauphin Way Baptist Church when they were still at the math and science building. That tells you how long ago it was.
Tad Denson:
And that was unbelievable. 150-voice adult choir that, again, read music, and it was great. Well, at the same time, the studio was doing well. We'd spend the evenings at the studio writing things. And a friend of mine who worked for a large agency at the time, in fact, they're still large, Lewis Advertising, asked me if I'd be interested in writing a jingle for one of their clients for a pitch. I said, “Sure."
Tad Denson:
And so we did, and I think that one that was Grady Buick. And they loved it and bought it. Well, I decided, wow, I think I'll find another of couple of things, this is pretty cool. We're getting paid to write a 30-second song, whereas you write a three-minute song and record it and nobody ever hears it and won't ever make the top 10.
Tad Denson:
So we wrote another one for another car dealership in town. I think this one was U-J Chevrolet. This was back in the '80s. I wrote it and produced it, and at the time another one of the larger agencies in town was Reynolds Sullivan, which became Sullivan St. Clair, which became Red Square-
Marcus:
Red Square.
Tad Denson:
... now run by-
Marcus:
Richard Sullivan.
Tad Denson:
... Richard Sullivan, who wasn't even born at the time of the story I'm telling you. I wrote it for U-J Chevrolet and just as a demo, and got a meeting with Richard Sullivan. I said, "I've got something I'd like to show you." "Who are you?" I told him who I was, and he didn't have any idea. But I played him the song on a little jam box we took in and he says, "I love it. How much for it?”
Tad Denson:
I said, "God, I never contemplated that. I don't have any idea." He said, "Will you take three grand right now and just give it to me like it is?" I said, "Okay." I got paid 3,000 bucks right then for a U-J Chevrolet, oldest GM dealer in town, was the tag line, and that started me thinking, this is really, really fun. So I started doing a lot of work for ad agencies and audio for TV commercials, things like that, and that looked fun. And next thing you know, we have an ad agency, and that developed into other things.
Marcus:
That's really cool. It's funny because I think that people want there to be a lot of animosity, or there's definitely competition because it's business, but at the same time, I'm friends with Tim Dozier from Hummingbird. I'm friends with Rich from Red Square. There's a number of us that I'll email these guys or text them and like, "Hey, let's go grab some lunch or grab a beer or something like that," and it's just, I don't know. It's an easy thing.
Marcus:
And it's just funny because there are some folks that pop up every once in a while, but after you've done this for as long as I have, because it's over a decade now, once you've done this for as long as I have, you kind of don't worry about those folks.
Marcus:
And really, you just kind of look to what you're doing and focus on what you're doing, because I don't know the last time, maybe three years ago when we popped up against Red Square, Pixallure, they were all bidding on the Bishop State contract, and it's really not that big of a deal. I just say that because you're talking about, as an ad agency, working with other ad agencies, and you've got to, because I mean, these are people that really understand what it is that you're going through and what you're doing. Right?
Tad Denson:
Exactly. And there's enough business for everybody. And at some point you're going to need them or desire to work with them, but yeah, there's enough business out there for everybody. We are basically, even though photography and video is our main thing with Airwind, and recording studios and web development is our main thing with Dogwood, we're still a full service marketing agency.
Tad Denson:
We do every bit of it, top to bottom, and primarily because even if I have to have an assignment for a basic photograph for a client for something, I've got to drill down and find out, what are you trying to do with this? What are you trying to say? What do you want the viewer to feel, do, respond when they see it? So we approach every job as a marketing firm.
Tad Denson:
It's interesting when you talk about all the agencies that are around now. And I've had a lot of great communications, Johnny Lewis over the years, Richard Sullivan over the years, questions and answers. And in fact, I've been an expert witness for a couple of their court cases.
Marcus:
Oh no.
Tad Denson:
On their behalf.
Marcus:
On their behalf, okay, good.
Tad Denson:
Yeah, on their side.
Marcus:
I was going to say.
Tad Denson:
Over the years. But people always say, "What can you tell me to do to succeed?" And I said, "It would be a whole lot easier for me to share with you some things not to do. Let me show some potholes.”
Marcus:
Some lessons learned.
Tad Denson:
"Let me show you some hurdles, and you will probably-“
Marcus:
You're still going to make the mistakes.
Tad Denson:
Yeah. "You're still going to make the mistakes, but you'll remember, but I can show you what not to do a whole lot easier than what to do.”
Marcus:
Rand and I were talking. Rand is the guy that helps us with the audio and stuff. And so we were talking earlier about contracts and stuff, and I said, "Even after having done this for as long as I have, I still make mistakes when it comes to even the basic stuff about contract negotiations and stuff." I mean, in one deal we lost $30,000 last year just because I made a mistake with contracts, and if anything goes wrong, where it would be tried.
Marcus:
Because we were working with a client, and I won't go into any great details, because I don't know, I don't need that kind of trouble. But we were working with a client out of state, I'll say that. We signed their contracts instead of having them sign our contracts, and lo and behold, when COVID hit, they went bankrupt, and now all of the court proceedings, if I wanted to pursue them for the $30,000, would have been in Colorado, and they knew that.
Marcus:
That's why they wanted me to sign theirs. And they didn't know that they were going to go bankrupt, but they knew that if something went wrong, that I would have the onus of doing that in their home state versus my home state. And so you just kind of chalk that up to, that was a really expensive lesson that I learned, and I'm not going to do that again. And so I mean, you try to do what you can, but I guess I just say that if you're out there and you've been doing business for any length of time, you're still going to make mistakes, and you just need to learn from them.
Tad Denson:
Absolutely.
Marcus:
Go back to your very first job. Were there any lessons that you still remember from that that you carry with you to this day?
Tad Denson:
First job in this business?
Marcus:
No, I'm saying very first job, flipping burgers, washing cars, mowing grass.
Tad Denson:
First job, one dollar an hour as a 14-year-old at Shipley Donuts in Jackson, Mississippi along with my best friend. Yeah, life lessons. My parents raised me to always do the best at what you're doing. No matter what it is, do your best. And I wanted to understand. I didn't want to just take the orders for the donuts. I paid attention.
Tad Denson:
I walked around with my eyes open and saw how he did this, and what he did, and Mr. [Lucius 00:12:21], dear old man, things that he did and why. I asked question. "Why'd you do it that way?" He says, "Well, because," and he'd explain it. I remember one day in the process, I noticed that something just really, it was kind of boogering up from point A to point B, and I made a suggestion as a 14-year-old.
Tad Denson:
"Mr. Lucius, if you put this in between A and B, it really might speed up that process and cut down on the bad orders." And he looked back and said, "Wow, that's amazing." And it taught me that it's okay to ask questions, and in some cases question authority, because I was a 14-year-old and he was a business owner, but do it with the right attitude. Do it with the right perspective.
Tad Denson:
And you can do that now, and one of the ways that that helps me even today, and this is something I've always told my clients, when they tell you what they want... "I just want you to do what I want." I said, "Mr. Client, I promise you, I will do it the way you want it, but I'm obligated to show you what I think you need. I'll do what you want-“
Marcus:
Yeah. Because if I don’t-
Tad Denson:
Well, because I care. Now, if I did it the way they wanted it and it didn't work, I wouldn't get back to them. We keep our clients a long time, I mean, 20 plus years on several of our clients. And I have one instance where a client we pitched... Sam [Noer 00:13:59] was the creative director. I think [Terry Ediker 00:14:00] was our senior art director at the time. Pixallure, you mentioned earlier.
Tad Denson:
And we pitched to a large carpet manufacturing company in Georgia that we'd handled for many years a concept. They had three products. One was a carpet cleaner, one was area rugs, and one was patterned carpet, broadloom carpet. And he wanted to get into more dealers than they were in, so we did this whole campaign and basically came up with the idea that the dealer didn't want to sell carpet cleaner and rugs and pattern. They wanted profit.
Tad Denson:
So we came up with the three areas. The product for carpet cleaning was called Capture, so we did a full page ad for Floor Covering Weekly or whatever, and the concept was capture the cash, telling the dealer that, "Only four square feet of real estate in your store can make this much money," blah, blah, blah, blah. Area rugs. Headline was, "Rugs to riches." That by having these rugs, there's no installation that's cash and carry. You put these rugs in your store, and you're going to make money.
Tad Denson:
And then for patterned broadloom carpet, it was pattern to profits or something like that. Anyway, selling the dealer, because we knew who the market was, it wasn't the consumer, it was the dealer... Well, the client hated it. Flew up to LaGrange. That's when I had my airplane and went up there all the time. I still have my airplane, but went up there all the time that way.
Tad Denson:
Flew up, did the presentation. He hated it, kicked me out of his office. I came back dejected. Was talking to my partners at the time. I think it was Max Reid, who's still around and in the marketing business, and a great friend, and Mike Johnson, who I think's out of town now. But I told them, "He hated it." And they said, "Well, what'd you tell him?" I said, "Jim, this is really what you need to do.”
Tad Denson:
And he said, "Why didn't you just do what he said?" I said, "I told him we will do what he said, but it's not right." And so we did his thing on trying to sell the benefits of carpet cleaner to the dealer, the benefits of rugs as far as a decorative item, and the benefits of patterned... A consumer message to the dealer. Well, it didn't work.
Tad Denson:
Well, that was after the first issue. Three months later, this client called me back and says, "Tad, I got to tell you, you were right. Can we still do your ads?" And we said, "Sure." And of course we had that client for 25 years. But it just taught me that you can question authority as long as you have it in the right attitude. Don't fight with it, present it.
Marcus:
Yeah, and oftentimes I'll say the same things. Like, "Listen, my job here is to advise you, to come up with strategies that I think are going to win for you or create a success. But if you just flat-out tell me, 'That's great, Marcus, but no, I want you to do X, Y, and Z,' well, we'll execute on that." But it's interesting to me that after having done this for a long time, the ability for some business owners to get outside of their head and into the mind of who it is that they're trying to sell to.
Marcus:
Because all advertising is, is it's a soft sell. It's a way of creating warm leads for people that are actually going to sell, whether it's a retail associate or a car salesman or whatever, or the client on their own. They can sometimes just close themselves, like, "Oh my gosh, I've been looking for that for all my life." It's difficult for them sometimes to get outside of their own head and imagine what it is that their customers or clients care about.
Marcus:
How do I communicate effectively to them that's going to get them to actually take some sort of action? And one of the other things, too, that I would just kind of add onto that is, the other thing that I think gets overlooked the most at a lot of ad agencies is the importance of words. And I'm an English major, so I'm much more inclined... And it's funny that you talked about your history, which some of that I did not know, but I actually went to James Madison University to study music.
I was a vocal major, and decided that because the piano was going to keep me there for another five or six years, and I had transferred in as a sophomore, so I was just like, I'm done with this. What can I do to just get out? Because I'm not a school kind of guy. So I ended up as an English major, so words matter to me. And so when I study guys like Frank Kern and Ogilvy and some of the other guys that are long-standing in the advertising world, their focus is on the words.
Marcus:
Because the layout can be great, the video editing can be spot on, but if the words don't actually resonate with the person and hit the mark, then it doesn't matter. It's all self-gratification, because oh, look at what we did. We're going to win all kinds of awards. Well, awards don't matter. Selling widgets does. And the words are something that we do in the ad... We don't really apply for awards unless it's with the Chamber because we just love the Chamber and some of the exposure that we get there.
Marcus:
But we don't apply for the Webbys or any of the other ad agency awards because I'm just like, my proof is in the sales that I make for my clients. But I just love that your illustrations that you're talking about are, even the jingles, it's words. They may be set to music, but it's the words.
Tad Denson:
And the fewer, the better in most cases.
Marcus:
Yeah. For sure.
Tad Denson:
Directly to the point. You brought up something there, but one thing I've learned over the years, and one of the most difficult things for most clients to grasp, is that 99% of the time, they are not their customer. So you've got to think like your customer. And when you do that, you can solve some problems.
Marcus:
For sure. Now, do you remember the first client that you had that you really, I don't know, maybe they had a special problem, or maybe it was just your first client, or whatever, where you thought, man, there might really be something to this?
Tad Denson:
Yeah, as a matter of fact, this will be one of the stories in my book one day if I ever get to write that book. I may need to hire somebody like you who's good with words to help me with that.
Marcus:
I don't know about that.
Tad Denson:
Yeah, we handled a local carpet dealer. This is Jeff White and I. Jeff White now has White Advertising and is still a great friend, but he and I started a company called Live Oak Advertising. We were located in what was the storeroom at the recording studio, the studio in the slums [inaudible 00:20:54] the old building in Crichton. Excuse me. But we handled... Excuse me.
Marcus:
Want some water? [inaudible]
Tad Denson:
I had just gone full-time... Actually, I may have still been part-time at the church, and Jeff was part time at a Methodist church. I was at a Baptist church, and his music group did an album with us, so we became friends and decided we were going to do things. Well, there was a lady and a man in our church that had a carpet store in town. It was a family-owned carpet store. It had been around many, many years.
Tad Denson:
And they asked us, "Tad, you do advertising, don't you?" I said, "Well, I think so." We were just... She said, "I got this problem. I got this really cool product that this supplier sent us, and it's carpet squares." And nobody had ever heard of them at the time. "And they say it's good for kitchens and active areas. If you spill something on it, you can pick that one up and wash it off and put it back. Or you destroy one, burn it, you can get one from under the couch and swap them out. But they don't give us any ad materials. Can you do something for this?"
Tad Denson:
We thought, "Yeah, I think so." So Jeff and I wrote a commercial for her and started running at Cooper's Carpet. And we didn't do the media buy or anything. They did their own buy. Next thing you know, in about six weeks, they became the largest seller of this product from the manufacturer in Georgia out of 400 stores nationwide. And Julie, my client at the time, sent it off to the manufacturer and said, "Look, all these other people, Congoleum, Bruce, Shaw, they all give me materials to help me promote it, but I had to go out and pay for my own to sell your product, and look what it did.”
Tad Denson:
And she was sending that out to kind of diss them and say, "Look, help us out here. We shouldn't have to do this ourselves. Send us the ad kit." Well, two days later, we get a phone call from this manufacturer in Georgia and said, "Hey, we've seen the stuff you did for Julie. I don't know if you know, but she's now the biggest seller of this brand new product nationwide, and wondering if you'd be interested in talking to us about doing a test market for 12 of our other stories of this product.”
Marcus:
Wow.
Tad Denson:
Now, Jeff and I, in shorts. We didn't have an office or anything. We were literally in a closet. And I said, "Yeah, that'd be great." And they said, "Well, we've got the jet tomorrow. Could we fly down and meet with you at your office?" I said, "Tomorrow, our office is booked, but I bet we could meet at Cooper's Flooring's conference room."
Tad Denson:
So we did. Jeff and I actually showered and shaved that night and went to the place. Anyway, we did the test market in 12 stores nationwide. Their sales boomed, and we ended up getting the whole client and seven divisions of that client for over 20 years.
Marcus:
Nice.
Tad Denson:
Yeah, so I'm not sure if that really answered your question, but that was the very first TV commercial that we'd ever written or produced, and it taught me that doing the little things right can, and a lot of times will, have far greater reach.
Marcus:
That's true.
Tad Denson:
Do the little things right. It doesn't matter if it's little, do it right.
Marcus:
Now, going along with that, if you were talking to someone that wanted to get started in running their own business, what's the one bit of wisdom that you would impart to them?
Tad Denson:
Have a backup. These days, this kind of encompasses everything. With technology the way it is these days, 40 years ago when I started, it took a million dollars to be a video company. Today, with $20,000, you can be set up with premo gear. Yeah, you [crosstalk 00:25:18]-
Marcus:
I was holding up my phone. I'd argue, I mean, the new iPhone's shooting 4K. They've got image stabilization. Now, granted, you probably want an external mic or something like that, but you can take the mic and plug it into the phone. You can edit everything on this nowadays.
Tad Denson:
Well, the tools and technology are amazing. I actually have two national TV commercials running now for a client that each have one clip in them that I shot on my iPhone, and that was an iPhone 7 or 8.
Marcus:
And I'm betting nobody... Done correctly, because really, it's all in the eye-
Tad Denson:
Done correctly and fit right. But it is scenic stuff, and at the time I saw something happening and had my phone and not my camera, so I shot it, and next thing you know, it's part of our stock offering.
Marcus:
Because I don't discount... We do have gear. We shoot with Lumix cameras, and we've got all the lighting gear and stuff. We've got the 20, $30,000 worth of gear. But I mean, I'm seeing stuff done now-
Tad Denson:
It's an amazing tool. The phones that are available-
Marcus:
... that's just incredible.
Tad Denson:
... are amazing tools.
Marcus:
Yeah.
Tad Denson:
You still got to know what to do with it. People always say, "I want to be a good photographer.”
Marcus:
What brand?
Tad Denson:
"What's the best new camera to get?" I tell them, "The camera is just a shovel. You still got to know where to dig, how to dig, how to dig straight, and everything else.”
Marcus:
Do you know who Chase Jarvis is?
Tad Denson:
No.
Marcus:
Okay. I only ask that because most people wouldn't, but I figured there was a chance you would. He's a commercial photographer out of Seattle, and he wrote a book. Well, he didn't write a book. He produced a book, and he actually had an app. And this was right around when maybe the iPhone 2, or... I mean, it was early, and the name of the app and the book was The Best Camera, and the whole premise was that the best camera is the one that's with you.
Tad Denson:
That you're holding in your hand. Exactly right.
Marcus:
Right. And I'll never forget that, because I can go out and spend $20,000 on a new RED film camera, or I can go, whatever. But it doesn't do me any good if it's not with me. And so you're talking about shooting a clip and sliding it in. I mean, the best camera that you had with you that day was your iPhone.
Tad Denson:
And it worked with the commercial and communicated the message.
Marcus:
Yep.
Tad Denson:
Technology. I'm fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough, and there are a lot of us older guys that can remember this, making the transition from the old way and film and typesetters and film house and photographers that had to wait until it get processed. But technology is something, and as it started changing, I'm a gadget freak anyway, I started buying into gadgets and stuff, and trying this.
Tad Denson:
I had a couple of dear professional photographer friends who are still around and who have now come to the dark side, but at the time were fighting the change. And I was saying, "Look, technology... Shaving cream's out of the can. We're not stopping this movement. So if you want to be a business, figure out how to embrace it, or decide to be a starving artist still using the old tools.”
Marcus:
Yeah. I remember when digital... We're talking about cameras, because I've been shooting since I was 16 as well. And so I remember film, and I remember my first digital camera was a Canon ELPH that was a two megapixel point and shoot camera. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't imagine. I can take a picture and literally put it on my computer-
Tad Denson:
See it now.
Marcus:
... and see it now? This is amazing. Because you used to have to finish the roll of film, right?
Tad Denson:
Hope that you got it right in the processing.
Marcus:
I hope the-
Tad Denson:
The Polaroids were right.
Marcus:
Well, yeah. I mean, you had to finish... I mean, when I say finish the film, you put a roll of 24-
Tad Denson:
You didn't want to waste frames.
Marcus:
Yeah, you weren't going to waste frames, and so you would finish the roll of film, and then you had to send it off to be processed, because CVS and Walgreens didn't do this one hour stuff that we've got now. And then-
Tad Denson:
I did it in my bathroom.
Marcus:
Yeah, well, I mean, some of us are a little more dedicated than the rest. And then I got the Canon Rebel, and because normally you just pick a brand and you end up going, because the glass, the lenses is the expensive part, and they're interchangeable from body to body. And so it's funny, because I've seen the progression there, but I remember when people were fighting it. It was like, "Oh, these digital cameras, it just doesn't have the feel and all this stuff." And I was like, "I don't think you guys get it. This is not going away.”
Tad Denson:
Exactly.
Marcus:
And so now I'm watching some of that with guys that shoot video not wanting to admit that DSLRs can shoot as good if not better video than they could ever shoot-
Tad Denson:
100% of the interviews that I shoot are always with my DSLRs because I've got the lenses for it, and I can get that super soft, with the open aperture, and they're just awesome. They're incredible.
Marcus:
Yeah. It's amazing how things have changed, but also what it's done is, instead of needing the $100,000 gear, you can go out and buy probably a new DSLR with a decent lens on it for 3,000, $4,000 or so. So I mean-
Tad Denson:
Even less than that.
Marcus:
Yeah. It's just insane to me what's happened to us there.
Tad Denson:
You mentioned how fast things happen. In the old days, we had to go shoot the thing, wait a day for it to come back, look at the negatives or the transparencies, pick the one that was best, send it to the scanner, wait a day or two, then send it to the color separator. I mean, it was just crazy.
Marcus:
It's insane.
Tad Denson:
You have a week or so. I'll never forget when I first realized that, wow, here's the perfect example. We had a client that made a major change in their marketing, and as most clients do, "We want to change this thing now." That was the beauty of the web. You didn't have to wait for the next magazine issue. You could change your ad now and with all the other tools.
Tad Denson:
But they wanted to introduce this brand new concept, and they said, "We need something. We want to get it out there quick, because there are going to be other people selling this in town." So we said, "Okay." So we went to the agency, got the creative team together, in a couple hours had some comps, sent it to them, and they said, "Oh, we love this. We want number B. When can you shoot that?”
Tad Denson:
It was just a drawing. And I said, "We'll shoot it today." So we shot it today in our studio, product shot, put it in the thing, had the CMYK version on Photoshop, sent it to them. They said, "We love it. When can you get it to the billboard company?" I said, "We can get it to the billboard company today." So we sent it to them. I said, "I don't know how long it'll take them to print the paper." They said, "No, we're doing those new digital billboards." I said, "Okay." So we sent it to the billboard company.
Marcus:
Done.
Tad Denson:
On the way home from work that day, on the causeway, that ad that wasn't even concepted until that morning was on the digital billboard.
Marcus:
That's wild.
Tad Denson:
And I said, "That's what technology has done. It has brought things to us faster." Now, it still had to be right and on target, but that's what technology's done.
Marcus:
Now, when you look to the business world, is there one person that motivates you or that you look to and say, "You know what?" And it could even be a photographer, you like their style, or something along those lines, somebody that you aspire to.
Tad Denson:
Yeah, and it isn't a creative person, so to speak. I'd have to say it's a guy named Tom Peters who wrote books in the '80s and '90s, In Search of Excellence, Passion for Excellence, things like that really taught business basics, again, by going back to doing the little things right, how to break a paradigm, all these things. Those are messages that you can apply to baking donuts or running an ad agency.
Marcus:
For sure.
Tad Denson:
But you've got to have a passion for it. If it's your passion, then you just about can't go wrong with it. You might not have the salary of bank account for a time being, especially during these crazy times, but if it's your passion, you'll be happy, and you can apply those wherever. And there are a lot of photographers that I admire. Won't start naming them all, but-
Marcus:
Give us one, just because I'm curious as to, if you were to pull a name out of a hat, who's a photographer that you think that younger photographers should pay attention to?
Tad Denson:
Wow. If you're going back through history, Ansel Adams. You just can't beat the fact that he transformed onto paper what he saw. One of the biggest problems we have is we see something, whether it's in our mind or in the room, and it's very difficult to get the camera to see-
Marcus:
To recreate that.
Tad Denson:
... what you as a human being can see. Well, he taught that there are ways to do that. Now, that's old stuff. I don't know any specific person contemporary, but there's a club that I'm in on Facebook, Landscape Photography. It's an international group. And I look at some of the things that some professionals and some not professionals shoot and show all over this world, and it is absolutely stunning.
Marcus:
Yeah. It's amazing the quality of work that comes just from normal folks now, that, "Hey, I just do this as a hobby," or something.
Tad Denson:
And there's a lot of great talent out there. I've often said, "Everybody wants to be a photographer." Gosh, yes, it has crunched our business from a price standpoint when, "I got a brother-in-law that will shoot that for $100 and a case of beer. “
Marcus:
Case of beer, yeah.
Tad Denson:
I said, "Well, I'm sorry, [crosstalk 00:35:16].”
Marcus:
I'm not your guy. Yeah.
Tad Denson:
And you're always going to have hurdles like that, but yes, there's some amazing talent out there. And I often said, "If you give 1,000 monkeys 1,000 typewriters, one of them's going to type a word. It's just going to happen." And that's the beauty of the digital stuff, is you can shoot 1,000 pictures to get the right one. But again, realizing that the camera's a shovel, you still got to know what to do with it.
Marcus:
Yeah. We could go down that rabbit hole, and I'm resisting the urge to because it's something that I'm extremely passionate about too, that taking good pictures is definitely an art form that I enjoy. It's my way of, because I'm not doing a whole lot of web design anymore, I'm not doing a whole lot of web development, I am very involved in strategy and words and stuff like that, but if I need a creative release, I'm going to pick up a camera and I'm going to go for a walk.
Marcus:
We used to do these things called photo walks, and I think, was it [Joan McNally 00:36:20] or somebody started photo walks, and it was basically a group of people would get together and just walk around where they would take pictures of stuff.
Tad Denson:
Several of the photo clubs, I think they still do it. I don't know. We mentioned Terry Ediker several times, but he does that morning walk and is always posting something cool on his morning walk in Midtown, and it's great. Yeah, but talking about photographers, there are a lot of people that can take a great shot, there are a lot of people that can take a great shot that looks fantastic on Facebook or half size on your computer or on your phone.
Marcus:
Yeah, but blow that up to the size of a billboard.
Tad Denson:
When you have to shoot a picture that's going to be 40 feet wide like our Mardi Gras shot in the first floor of the Trustmark Tower, or 80 feet wide on the side of the Van Antwerp building, that's where it really takes a little bit of change.
Marcus:
Thank God you've got that great camera that took that shot for you. [crosstalk 00:37:19]
Tad Denson:
Well, and that actually wasn't a great camera.
Marcus:
I'm just playing.
Tad Denson:
It was what I had at the time.
Marcus:
Yeah, I know better.
Tad Denson:
But yeah, it's great possible processing. But you mentioned something, and people have asked me this many times. "Give me one rule for taking a great picture." I say, "Show what you see." And everybody talks about the rule of thirds, color balance, and contrast. I say, "The best advice I could give anybody is put the camera in a place, in a position where it's not you standing up at eye level. Hold the camera down shooting up at the flower. Hold the camera up." That's what drones have done in our business [crosstalk 00:38:03]-
Marcus:
It's all about perspective.
Tad Denson:
Exactly. And people say, "I want to go up to 500 feet," which is past FAA regulations. But I want to put that drone up 17 feet to fly through Bellingrath Gardens. That's all it takes, is 17 feet to completely change your perspective of the same thing.
Marcus:
But you can still see some of the details and some of what it is that you're wanting-
Tad Denson:
Exactly.
Marcus:
... people to see, but at 500 feet, everything looks like a dot.
Tad Denson:
Yeah. But when you put the camera in a place that you aren't used to seeing the RSA Tower or the city skyline or the battleship, it's all the difference in the world.
Marcus:
Flying at 500 feet is a good way to lose a drone. How do you like to unwind?
Tad Denson:
In the olden days, prior to March of 2020-
Marcus:
Yeah. I know.
Tad Denson:
... spent an awful lot of time traveling with my best friend and lover.
Marcus:
There you go.
Tad Denson:
Concerts, trees, mountains, nowhere. That was pretty cool. These days, unplugging is a good way to do it, and very rarely does that happen where you decide the technology is in the other room, whether it be computer, phone, TV, and you just do nothing.
Tad Denson:
But unwinding's always been a tough problem for me. I used to tell folks, "Getting a massage or having a root canal are the only two places where I can totally relax and fall asleep." "A root canal, falling..." Yeah. Because you're away from it all. Can't anybody bother me. I wish I had more free time. And 62, so in the next few years, something will-
Marcus:
You're not going to stop. I know better. You'll always have a camera or doing something. Unfortunately, you and I have chosen career paths that you can do this until, you know.
Tad Denson:
Yeah.
Marcus:
And I'm also of the mindset that when you stop doing what it is that you're passionate about and you don't do... Yeah, exactly, you take a turn for the worst. And so I-
Tad Denson:
Never stop learning.
Marcus:
... fully expect that I'll be doing something creative in the same space until I'm six feet under the ground.
Tad Denson:
Yeah. Never stop learning. When living things stop learning, they stop growing. And when living things stop growing, they die.
Marcus:
Yep. Well, tell people where they can find you.
Tad Denson:
Our main website is Airwind.com. On that website, you can see a link to My Stock Shotz, that's Shotz with a Z, dot com. My Stock Shotz, which is residual income. That's where you wake up and say, "Wow, I-“
Marcus:
A couple of photos.
Tad Denson:
"... licensed 12 pictures to... Who is this?" And that can always keep going. And then our real flagship that's keeping up with technology now is Dogwood Productions, John Strope, Jason, Ray Norman, all the team over there. And partly because that was my baby in college, the name Dogwood. But that's DogwoodProductions.com. Those three places. And we're here to help clients, help agencies, have fun.
Marcus:
Yeah. It's interesting, because I think people have this idea of what agency life is like. It's not Don Draper sipping whiskey at lunch and waxing poetic about-
Tad Denson:
It started out that way-
Marcus:
Yeah, it started out that-
Tad Denson:
... when I started out that way.
Marcus:
Yeah. But it's not that way anymore.
Tad Denson:
No.
Marcus:
I mean, oftentimes you'll find it's pretty hectic, and there's a lot of moving parts. The thing I think that people, and I don't know, maybe this will resonate with you, there's something very nice about having something concrete that you produce as a creative person, right?
Marcus:
A while back, I used to do a lot of woodworking, I'd refinish furniture. I've even refinished basements. I've done the general contracting here on this building. Those are all concrete things that I can pour my heart and soul into, and after I'm done, I can look at the before and after-
Tad Denson:
You can see it. You can touch it.
Marcus:
... I can see it, I can touch it, and it's going to be here for a while. It's not going anywhere. But what's happened with ad agencies is that things change so quickly. You were illustrating a point just a minute ago where something changed in the morning, and by the afternoon, it was executed on. Well, guess what? That idea probably didn't stick around that long even after you spent the day getting it squared away.
Marcus:
If it sticks around for a month or two, or if it's a website, if it sticks around for a year or two, we're lucky. But the content on those websites needs to change, and the images on those websites need to change, so nothing's ever set, and so it becomes this thing of, you get into this pattern of never being really satisfied with what it is that you've produced because you know immediately that you've got to start looking for the next thing that's going to make it stand out [crosstalk 00:43:16]-
Tad Denson:
It's got to evolve. You're exactly right. And it in itself is almost like a living organism.
Marcus:
For sure. It's got to grow. Well, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. Actually, yeah, no, we've done that already. I was getting ready to say, "Wait a second, you didn't tell people where they can find you," but you did. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. To wrap up, any final thoughts or comments you'd like to share?
Tad Denson:
One thing that helped me all these years, and I was taught this early on, I can't even remember who taught it, and I've revised it, but a basic philosophy for life which also has translated into my philosophy for business. Three simple points. Do the best you can with what you have every change you get. You don't always have to have the latest, greatest. Do the best you can with what you have every chance you get.
Tad Denson:
Number two is scratch where it itches. Be flexible. There is nothing that is going to fit the schedule. You can't get upset because something changed. Be flexible. If you're getting in touch with them at midnight and they want you to be on a podcast the next day-
Marcus:
As is the case here.
Tad Denson:
Yeah, exactly. So do the best you can with what you have every change you get, scratch where it itches, and never never never never never give up. Now, that was the toughest one for me to learn, because I had to learn through trial and error that stopping, changing direction, quitting isn't always giving up. Throwing your hands up and saying, "The hell with this," that's giving up. But never never never give up.
Marcus:
Yeah, when you fall, that's not failure. Failure is not getting up.
Tad Denson:
Not getting up.
Marcus:
Right. And so oftentimes, I think people forget that.
Tad Denson:
We hear those things all our lives, but gosh, they're so real. They're so true.
Marcus:
For sure. Well, Tad, I appreciate your willingness to sit with me and share your journey as a business owner and entrepreneur. It's been great talking with you.
Tad Denson:
It's been a pleasure, Marcus. Thank you.
