DC: Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds. 100 countries and counting. We appreciate y'all. Back at you with another Brands, Beats & Bytes podcast. And Larry, you know how you meet some people for the very first time and y- it just clicks?
LT: Yes.
DC: Yeah. You, you can't explain it. You don't know why.
You just meet someone and it just clicks. And Brand Nerds, that's what happened between me and this next guest that we have on the podcast. When this brother and I met the very first time, kindred spirits coming together. Now, he happened to be working on a brand that's very near and dear to me, so just that alone I knew, okay, there's gonna be something happening in the air.
I didn't know how much was happening in the air, but, but just something special happened when we met. I realized right away that we both had a healthy appreciation for positioning, and we believe in our world that any brand that is doing exceptionally well, they have something in common, which is called a sharply defined positioning, and we conversely believe that if a brand and business is doing not that well or poorly, they have a murky positioning.
So this is what we believe. And so I knew right away that this brother and I had an appreciation for sharply well-positioned brands. We had that in common But then I have to go back. Um, I had a problem with this brother as well. I had a problem with him because, uh, uh, right now in modern terms, Larry, um, i-
LT: I know where you're going
DC: yeah, yeah, you know where I'm going. In modern terms, th- th- this, this, this brother is from Brooklyn, so that's the, that's the gentrified name. That's the gentrified name, okay? But when he and I met, they didn't call it Brooklyn, they called it Crooklyn. Okay? This- And, and there's a reason why they called it Crooklyn, Larry.
Okay? There's a reason called it Crooklyn. Y'all go- Brand Nerds, y'all go look up before all of the wonderful gentrification happened, why they called it Crooklyn, all right? Yeah. And, and- I won't go, go ahead ...
LT: and our, our esteemed EA Joi Noel, who we love- Yes ... her favorite movie of all time was, she named our dog Crooklyn.
DC: Crooklyn, that's right. Now, now even before- ... the movie came out, so the movie was a, was, was a little late in the game.
LT: Yeah.
DC: But there were people who lived in Brooklyn who understood why the movie was called Crooklyn, because it wasn't a movie for them, it was their daily lives. Right. It was their, it was their daily lives.
All right. So, uh, I understood that to be the case. But that said, I'll put the fact aside that he's a Knicks fan and all of that Uh, the, the, the reality is this is a brother who understands range when it comes to all of marketing and sales. So Brand Nerds, uh, do yourself a favor, take a pause in your day if you're on the treadmill, you're walking, if you out with the dogs or something like that, and listen to what you're about to hear from our next guest because I am quite confident, Larry, they will be able to apply what they hear from this brother immediately following this podcast.
Larry, can... I know as a New Yorker yourself, I know you're a Warriors fan now, but you grew up a, a Knicks fan.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: Can you tell the peoples who we have in the building with us today?
LT: Yes, DC, we are very happy to have Tracy Chamblee in the house today. Welcome, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, it's a pleasure to be here, guys.
Thank you very much. I'm humbled, humbled by the opportunity, looking forward to our discussion.
LT: That's, that's awesome, Tracy. So, uh, we gotta give the Brand Nerds the, the little, the down low of your wonderful background. So as DC alluded to, and you can see, Brand Nerds, we have another great guest today who is also a friend of the show.
Okay. Tracy is having a stellar career in marketing, starting with a great foundation with big brand Fortune 500 companies and expanding outward into successfully building and leading a marketing function with a rising company, and building that marketing function from scratch. So let's get into it.
Tracy, as DC alluded to, is a Brooklyn native. As, uh, we had a, a wonderful guest who was once a producer of our podcast, Jody Anderson Jr., he c- he grew up in Brooklyn too, and he said he lived in Brooklyn, he called it when it was Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Tracy. I think the same applies for you here.
DC: Yeah, yeah, yes.
Yes. That's right. Yeah. That's right.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
LT: Right. Yes,
Tracy Chamblee: yes.
LT: So, uh, ch- as, as we've said, Tracy's a Brooklyn native, and he attends Johnson C. Smith for undergrad, earning a degree in accounting. Now, Brand Nerds, I too started with an undergrad degree in accounting, and having the data underneath you walking into a marketing career, and quite frankly, a full business career, is really wonderful.
So also, as we've said many times, Brand Nerds, Procter & Gamble is such a great place to start a C- CPG career and beyond. Tracy does this, starting at P&G in field sales. Has a very successful 10-year stint there, where he steadily rises through the key account ran- ranks. This is also the time when Tracy discovers he wants to be a marketer.
He decides to go back and obtain his MBA in marketing at Clark Atlanta University, the same wonderful school and program educating our very own DC and Jeff Shirley. After graduation, Tracy joins our friends on North Avenue at Coca-Cola HQ where he starts on the Sprite brand, and that's what DC was alluding to.
He spends five years in brand at Coca-Cola with a major highlight relaunching vanilla Coca-Cola with only a $90,000 budget and obtaining a Guinness World Re- Record activation reaching 23 million consumers. Yes, you heard that right. Generating $9 million in incremental cases. That is ROI. After this stellar work, the pet nutrition side of M&M Mars recruits Tracy to join them as brand manager where he works on great pet brands including Natural Choice, Nutro, and Max Dog Greenies, the b- M- my dog's favorite by the way.
Major highlights include, one, leading two of Nutro's largest product launches generating $50 million in sales and 15 million in EBITDA. Directing ... Number two, directing $10 million integrated campaign while navigating a major dis- distribution disruption and check out these results from that $10 million integrated campaign.
One, increased volume by 10%, double website traffic, gain two share points, and secure a two-year Petco agreement across approximately 1,000 stores. Brand Nerds, when you dre- generate great results like this, others take notice. Tracy then joins Georgia-Pacific as senior brand manager for Brawny paper towels.
Major highlight is in the face of significant competitive pressure and retailer concern regarding the brand's long-term viability, Tracy successfully repositions Brawny establishing a defensible competitive position in this uber competitive category. With this success, the company then moves Tracy over to be senior brand manager for Dixie paper plates, the number one brand in the category.
The main highlight for Tracy on Dixie is that even with a 15% budget reduction, Tracy and his team still generate $4.3 million in incremental EBITDA and 10% dollar share growth while producing the brand's highest ROI in three years. All right, Brand Nerds. Tracy continues to move his career forward where he becomes director of marketing for PlayPower Inc., Successfully leading a 10-person team managing brand strategy, commercial positioning, and marketing execution across five distinct North American brands for a $400 million privately held commercial playground company. A critical highlight is where Tracy and his team successfully thread the needle for balancing individual brand differentiation within portfolio level commercial priorities, strengthening consistency while preserving the market relevance of distinct brands.
All right Tracy then gets a major opportunity to join Nixon Medical Apparel and Linen Service as VP of Marketing. Tracy is recruited as the company's first marketing executive, where he builds a 10-person team from the ground up for the commercial marketing function at this privately held $100 million healthcare services organization.
In his 10 years there, starting from scratch, establishing true category leadership and competitive differentiation, highlights include, one, 76 NPS, N- NPS score, which is really high, which is two X, it's two times the nearest competitor. Number two, 5% dollar share growth. Three, $26 million in new account revenue.
And four, increasing qualified appointments by 45% while reducing cost, cost per lead by 32% and driving, get this Brand Nerds, a 41% increase in sales. In the community, Tracy is a board member for the Department of Land Use and Planning in New Castle County, Delaware, and is a VP for the Dream Keepers Foundation.
Tracy and his wife, Brenda, currently live in Delaware with their children, Chaz and Larkin, along with their French bulldog, Shade. Welcome to Brands, Beats, & Bytes, Tracy Chamblee.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank you again, guys. Awesome, awesome to be here with you. Humbled. DC, what up, dog? It's good to see you.
DC: What up, dog, bro? What up, dog?
Tracy Chamblee: What I have, what I just realized is although we have talked on the phone, I have not seen you in person or visually in 15-plus years. So it
DC: is- Has it, has it been that long?
Tracy Chamblee: It's been that long, DC. It has been that long. It has.
DC: Oh, wow, man.
Tracy Chamblee: But it is so good to see you. Oh. And Larry, nice to make a new friend.
It definitely-
LT: Yes. Totally agree ...
Tracy Chamblee: especially, especially a New Yorker, man. Once you- Exactly.
LT: Fellow New Yorker ...
Tracy Chamblee: once you're raised in New York, you never lose it, my friend.
LT: That's right. It's true.
DC: Oh, wow.
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah.
DC: Teach Jam, I didn't realize it
Tracy Chamblee: had been- Yeah, so, yeah, yes. You know, social media makes you feel like you have seen-
DC: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: people a lot. You know, we've caught up- Yeah ... and all of that and, but, you know, just us talking and me seeing you, seeing- Yeah ... your expression, I love the beard, man.
DC: Oh, thank you.
Tracy Chamblee: It's been a minute, DC. It really has, man. But, you know- It has been a minute.
DC: Wow,
Tracy Chamblee: DC ... it, it's just good to, to be in your presence, my friend, definitely.
DC: Same, brother. Same All right, T Cham we are going into the get comfy section- Mm-hmm ... and I'm gonna start it actually by asking you and Larry to join me in a moment of silence, and- ... I'm gonna do something here, uh, that I've not done before, and I'm a- I'm actually, uh, being, being serious here. I don't typically date our podcast 'cause the producers don't like me to do that, but I'm gonna date this one.
This is August 9th of 2026.
LT: September 9th.
DC: Uh, excuse me, sorry. Uh, excuse me, uh, S- September 9th. Yeah, September 9th of, uh, of 2026. Oh, y- you know, I'm sorry about that, Larry. I'm glad you, uh, I'm glad you caught me on that. September 9th of, uh, of 2026. You're exa- you're exactly right. And so, um, there was a, uh, um, th- there's a, uh, a, a person who died a month ago today who...
It kinda went unnoticed by most of us. It went unnoticed by me certainly, but I wanna go back and do a moment of silence for this, uh, this gentleman. So on August 9th of 2026, we lost an icon in the beverage space, and his name is Brian Dyson. Brian Dyson. So I'm just gonna ask us to take a moment of silence, and then I'm gonna explain who he is.
Just a moment of silence for Brian Dyson. Rest, rest in peace
Okay. Brian Dyson, um, his last job at the Coca-Cola Company was vice chairman and COO
He, uh, was there when Doug Daft was there. Doug Daft was the chairman and CEO. They brought Brian Dyson out of retirement to take those roles. Uh, Brian Dyson is also famously or infamously known as the president of Coca-Cola North America when on April 23rd of 1985, they launched new Coke. They launched new Coke.
This was under his watch, where Sergio Zyman was the chief, uh, marketing officer if, uh, of North America. And, um, that was at the time described as the biggest marketing blunder in the history of marketing. However, after seventy-nine days, they corrected that marketing blunder, brought back, um, the original Coca-Cola, renamed it Coca-Cola Classic, and the company stock performance was restored.
More Coca-Cola Classic, the original Coke, was sold than ever was before, to which the chief operating officer at the time, uh, Don Keough, again, uh, rest in power to Don Keough, is famously known to be quoted when they asked him, like, "Did you all do this on purpose? Was this a, a, a stunt in and of itself?" He said, uh, T Cham you may or may not remember this, "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart."
And I remem- I love that quote, by the way. Yeah. I re-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah, so do
DC: I. I remember him saying that when I arrived. I arrived in 1991. Yeah. And he would, uh, he being Don Keough, would remind us from time to time of that moment, and he would share that, that, that quote with us. Anyway, back to Brian Dyson. Brian Dyson was also the first president of the collection of bottlers called Coca-Cola Enterprises, CCE.
Oh. He was the first president and CEO, and this is when Coca-Cola the company was seeking to have more control over the bottlers, and the bottlers were ostensibly the sales organization- Mm-hmm ... and arm of the Coca-Cola Company. Which then leads me to this question of y- uh, for you, uh, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: You did 10 years, bruh, of sales with Procter & Gamble.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir.
DC: Then you go over to the brand game, and as you know, and you well know this, Tracy-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm ...
DC: people on the sales side often thinks the marketing folks are clueless as to- Yeah ... what it takes to actually sell something. Yeah. And the people on the brand management or marketing side- Mm ... often think the people on the sales side are clueless as to what it takes to build a brand that not only can sell something, but that has long-term equity building, brand elevating elements.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep
DC: You have the rare perspective of living in both worlds.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
DC: What have you learned about both sides, having occupied living in, in both worlds?
Tracy Chamblee: That's a great setup. You're absolutely right. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to go back to business school. Hmm. Like, Procter & Gamble, folks would mostly say is not a traditional sales organization in terms of the way that they compete.
Mm-hmm. So you're competing on price with other companies, right? Mm-hmm. Against Procter & Gamble. But Procter & Gamble's brands were so big that they basically said, "If we're not number one or number two in a category, we're gonna, we're gonna sell off the company." Hmm. And pretty much the Procter & Gamble that I started with is so much and vastly different, remade from being a household goods product.
Remember, they started the soap operas. Remember that. Yep. Now, they started soap operas. Mm-hmm. But now they're a lot of a beauty company. And why did they become that? Because of the margins. Mm-hmm. And that's one of the biggest things I learned as a marketer is your value drives your margins. Mm-hmm. When you have a great brand- Mm-hmm
and your brand stands for something-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: people are gonna pay for it because it's got a point of difference-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: not only in the emotional piece, but DC and, and Larry, you guys will remember the intrinsic piece is- Mm-hmm ... so important, too. So the brands that have built on that value and on that strength is kind of where you start, and that's the common language of how I was able to work in both worlds and translate what that value meant.
Jade Tate: Hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: So when I'm having a conversation with my sales partners, I've got the credibility of the 10 years of sales. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time, a lot of battle, and I know what it's like to go up against a tough buyer and have to defend what we do on the desk in marketing. Hmm. And so having that empathy is one of the key lessons I learned, is empathy for both sides.
DC: Got it.
Tracy Chamblee: The second of the three pieces was being able to really listen from a communication standpoint. So it's not what people are saying, it's what they're not saying that you gotta get underneath- Hmm ... and rip underneath. So what... And what's the problem? What are you concerned about? And then the third thing is to remember to always communicate, "Guys, we're on the same team.
It's competition that we're going after." Mm-hmm. So remember, we are on the same team. Those three things, empathy, communication, and we're on the same team. Mm-hmm. And those things are super important that you need to do. And I'll tell you just a really quick funny story in sales. You bring back some days.
Folks that are, uh, familiar with the Northeast, there's a very tough customer here in this area called ShopRite.
DC: Oh, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: You know ShopRite?
DC: Oh, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Now, ShopRite in this area is the 800-ton gorilla. Like, they run this whole northeastern piece.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: But at Procter & Gamble, they're just another bump on a log pretty much.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: So I was selling Bounty. Now, Bounty is huge, right? Yeah. All you gotta do is walk into your neighborhood grocery store today, and you can just look at the shelf and tell on the planogram who's number one. It's clear. It's Bounty. And they sold, ShopRite sold an item, it was called 12 roll Bounty, so 12 rolls in a pack, and they were 60% of that business for Procter & Gamble, easily.
Mm-hmm. 60%. But they only represented 1% of Procter & Gamble's overall paper business.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: So a brilliant brand manager said, "We're gonna delist this 12 roll item." Now, this is ShopRite's number one item, and they- Oh ... delist it.
DC: Oh.
Tracy Chamblee: So I have to go in and present the company's point of view to my buyer who has all of this power in this area.
And
DC: you talk about- Okay, now just a quick, quick question. Does ShopRite carry other Procter & Gamble products? They
Tracy Chamblee: do. Yes. They do. But this is their, this is the, this is their money-grab-
DC: Okay ...
Tracy Chamblee: right here.
DC: Okay. Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Right?
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Now people, and Larry, you grew up in this area. One of the biggest promotions that ShopRite does every year is called the Can Can promotion.
Can Can, Can Can. Okay. Can Can. Like, it is their make or break thing. Like, this is what makes or breaks their year. Tracy Shamley had to go in and tell them, "We're de-listing your number one bounty item." Not a great conversation. It did not go a great way. Mm. And learned a lot from that. And I said to myself, "I wanna be the guy on the end, on the front end, on the strategy end- Yeah.
Yeah ... making that decision, but I'm gonna do it differently in terms of I'm gonna get the voice of the customer- Yeah ... voice of the consumer, and understand that." Now, we eventually brought the item back after a lot of pressure. But ShopRite had so much strength that they threatened us and said, "Hey, if you de-list this item, okay, we're gonna take some of your other items that-
LT: Yep
Tracy Chamblee: may not be as strong in your other categories-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: ... or you're gonna feel the pain," right? So-
LT: Yeah. That's why DC asked you that question.
Tracy Chamblee: That's right. We're gonna hurt, we're gonna hurt you in the soap area. We're gonna hurt you- That's right ... in this area and that area. And so, you know, Procter didn't bend all the way, but they came to a meeting of the, of the minds and figured out how to do it as an in and out item, and how to figure that out.
Now, what I figured out on the marketing end once I got into the marketing end is, look, we have a number of assets that we deal with in terms of making products. And if you look at the macro area, Tracy, that item that's big in your area is not big with us from a profitability standpoint, and it's not-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: big from a efficiency standpoint when we run the lines and when we do certain things. And so it's an easy decision for us to make at a macro level- Mm. Right?
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And that's the thinking and understanding that I didn't have. Yeah. But after going to business school, working through my different experiences, I totally understand that now and that aspect.
DC: Whoa. Larry, any thoughts?
LT: Um, I love that story, and we can't talk enough when it relates to CPG marketing- Mm-hmm ... about how important the relationship is between marketing and sales. And, and Tracy w- was Tracy was saying about having empathy, communicate, and being on the same team.
DC: Yeah.
LT: And I think a lot of times both camps forget they're on the same team.
DC: Yeah.
LT: And, and so, um, D, I know you and I in our day, we understood that this was really important, and we, we had the, we had some of our colleagues and Brandon, Tracy I'm sure you saw it- Yeah ... in your day at, at North Avenue, that just didn't give a shit, and really thumbed their nose and looked down upon sales.
Yeah. And that is the proverbial cutting off your nose des- despite your face, right? Like- Yeah ... what are you doing? Because ultimately, if you want your brand to be successful, you have to have sales be all in with you. And if you could get them all in with you, it becomes exponential to your success. You can have the greatest- Yeah
marketing strategies and execution set up, but if sales is, i- is fighting against you, you're, you're gonna be in a world of hurt.
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, forget it. And, and when you look at the complexity of how Coca-Cola was set up, you know, you have Coca-Cola North America, so that's the marketing arm, controls the assets, controls a lot of the marketing spend.
But if you want activation at the retail level, you gotta get the bottlers on board.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Must. But before you, but before you get the bottlers on board, you gotta get the marketing operations arm of Coca-Cola North America- Yeah ... on board to go talk to the bottlers to get the bottlers. Yep. And D- and DC remembers this, I mean, you know, you're talking about perpetual pl- like you're planning the entire like you're...
If you don't hit the home run in that period of time, January comes around, forget it. Yep. It's gonna be tough, right? Yep. And what you're really trying to tee up, especially in the beverage industry, is this time of year. Like, if you don't hit that- Mm ... that summertime-
DC: Yep ...
Tracy Chamblee: with some, with some momentum-
DC: Yep
Tracy Chamblee: you're not gonna make it up in, in Q thr- in, in, you know, the back half of Q3 and- Nope ... into Q4. You just are not. So it's a lot of aligning, it's a lot of collaborating, a lot of persuading, give and take, and it, it just, it just is interesting. It, it, it's interesting from the bottling perspective because, you know, if there's an item that's not doing really well for them- Mm-hmm
they, they don't wanna produce it, they don't wanna sell it. And- Yep ... for us, we wanna drive certain areas- Yeah ... like immediate consumption and, and- Yeah ... some of those areas, right? That's like, man, this is, this is, this is, this is what Sprite is about.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: People are like, "Nah, nah, nah. We, we wanna go-" 12 pack and two liter and all this- Yeah ... kind of stuff. And, and it's, it's a interesting proposition.
DC: I'll add this and then we'll go to the next section. Um, I'm, I'm gonna go, um, biblical for a moment.
Um, Ecclesiastes 1:9. This is Solomon speaking here now. "What has been will be again." What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. That's what this reminds me of. Yep. Um, right now in AI, uh, Tracy and Larry, people are highly concerned, justifiably, that technology is overrunning the human dynamic.
That, that the machines are taking over and are going to supersede human intelligence. There's a, a form of technology or thinking that's called recursive, and recursive means that the machines teach themselves rather than humans teaching the machines. And the, the concern is that recursive intelligence is that the machines no longer need humans to teach them.
Now let me go to Procter & Gamble. Uh, there's nothing new under the sun. Procter & Gamble is, uh, has been arguably the best place in marketing for one to go to learn brand management at a portfolio P&L level.
LT: Yep.
DC: One could also say that at a consumer brand level, Coca-Cola is the best.
LT: Yep.
DC: Back then. But at a portfolio P&L brand management level, Procter & Gamble, the best.
LT: I'd say blocking and tackling is what you're going with.
DC: Yeah, block- blocking and ta- blocking and tackling. What they got wrong in this decision with ShopRite is they forgot about the personal-
LT: Yep ...
DC: portfolio management. Mm-hmm. They for- they forgot that they were going to piss off their customer- Yeah
because they were looking at their P&L and saying, "On this one SKU, if this one customer in this region of the country doesn't make sense for us, so we're gonna de-list this."
Tracy Chamblee: Yep.
DC: No, not, not, not... So they forgot about the human element, just as there's a concern about the human element now missing in AI. It's the same thing.
It's not new. We just don't, we just need to remember that. Okay, we're moving on to five questions.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: T Cham, Larry and I go back and forth on five questions. I get to kick this off Tell us the first branding experience you can recall where, oh man, you- it just blew your mind, flipped your wig. You just were like, "Ah, I am so into th- I love this brand or brand experience.
I cannot get enough of it. When I try to get away from it- ... the Godfather, it pulls me right back in." Oh,
Tracy Chamblee: yeah.
DC: Like a first love. What, what-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
DC: what was this brand or brand experience for you, T. Sham?
Tracy Chamblee: So I'ma do a little show and tell.
DC: Okay. Oh,
Tracy Chamblee: okay. And-
DC: All right ...
Tracy Chamblee: a- and I'ma do a little something different 'cause this, this one just needs, you guys gotta feel this.
I'ma say hip-hop.
DC: Ah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: I'ma say hip-hop all the way.
DC: Yeah. Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: And I wanna just share just a quick two-minute thing about what hip-hop did for me. Mm-hmm. It saved me from having a different conversation with Tracy Chamblee than we're having today, okay?
DC: Mm, mm. '
Tracy Chamblee: Cause I wanted to be a hip-hop artist. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a star, right?
In Brooklyn, you gave my background and all of that.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And, um, we would get out of high school at 2:11 PM every day. Don't ask me why it was 2:11. I still don't know to this day. I went to Samuel J. Tilden High School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Shout out to the Blue Devils at that time, and now they are called the Monarchs.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so it was a crew. We'd walk home every day.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Probably 15-minute walk, get up into my apartment. We'd put the boombox in the middle of the, middle of the floor, and we'd practice our hip-hop routines.
DC: Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: And going back and forth in our flow and the syncopation and all of that. So now we're talking about, like, the Cold Crush Four, the Treacherous Three.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're talking about all of these old hip-hop groups. Yeah. And you had to have precision and that, and that whole thing. Mm-hmm. Now, I also grew up in East Flatbush, the home of UTFO. You'll remember them from "Roxanne Shante." Oh, yes, yes. Educated Rapper grew up right around the corner from me.
I mean, literally right around the corner from me. I knew where all these guys lived. We wanted to be them. Mm-hmm. Those guys wa- were our heroes. Mm-hmm. And so I was at a decision point now, to your question about marketing and making that first decision, these guys came along. These guys right here.
DC: Ah, okay.
We're looking at, we're looking at, uh, for those of you all who, who cannot see the video, this is Run DMC.
Tracy Chamblee: Okay. Run DMC.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: All right.
DC: And by the way, next to them is the God, Rakim.
Tracy Chamblee: So I'm gonna come to him in a second.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: But this gentleman right here-
DC: Yeah ...
Tracy Chamblee: that's Run DMC.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: That's Run of Run DMC.
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Hollis Queens. Russell Simmons. Russell Simmons, Hollis Queens.
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: 1986, sold out Madison Square Garden.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: He takes his Adidas shoe off-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: and holds his Adidas shoe up to the crowd.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Then he says to everybody in the crowd- Show me your Adidas. Everybody- Mm-hmm ... put their Adidas up in the air.
LT: Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: Adidas rep was in the audience and saw the power of that.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Run DMC got the first endorsement in hip-hop for wear, $1.6 million of Adidas, through that show, of that experience and e- experience aspect. Now, I wasn't- Mm-hmm ... there, but the word traveled all the way- Right ... through, and we all wore Adidas.
And these were the shell toe Adidas now. Right. The shell toe Adidas, okay? Old school Adidas, and they came in every color. Red, green stripes, black, et cetera. That was my first, first marketing experience, and seeing the power of- Mm-hmm ... number one, word of mouth. Mm-hmm. Seeing the power of an endorser or somebody that you respected in a culture and their brand.
We wanted to be like these guys. Yeah. The Kangol hats, the gold chain, the culture, what we saw, what hip-hop communicated to us in terms of the aspiration, the things that you wanted to go and do. And so it was a crucial time for me to decide, do I want to pursue that or do I wanna go the track of going to Johnson C.
Smith and becoming the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college eventually? And I decided- Mm ... to do that track.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: That brand has always stuck with me. It has gone through its different iterations. I've fallen in and out of love with it, but what I saw where the power was, was it did not just transform North America, it transformed globally.
I had an opportunity to go to Japan, and I saw that you had folks that were Japanese, could not speak a word of English, but knew- Mm-hmm ... every word of a Wu-Tang album.
LT: Right. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And the B cuts of the Wu-Tang albums, not the ones you play on the radio. I'm talking about- Right ... the ones where you gotta be a true hip-hop fan.
Mm-hmm. How they communicated with us, how they embraced the culture. That brand had a, has had a profound impact on me in that aspect. Kept me out of trouble, kept me focused, kept me out of the streets, was aspirational in terms of what I wanted to go and do. My first heroes of my relationship and seeing what you could be and how you could travel, impact the world.
And so that was my, that was my aspect, and that was my first experience
LT: Love this. Um- D, I know you got thoughts.
DC: I didn't know this, uh, Tracy. This ex- this explains why we clicked.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir.
DC: Absolutely. Uh, it also ex- it also explains why you were, uh, on Sprite. Yep. And why you took such good care of Sprite when you were there.
Um, um, I didn't know-
Tracy Chamblee: That was just a great feeling there, man. It was just
DC: a great feeling there ... man, it w- what, what, what an, what an honor it is, and I say this about the Sprite brand, somehow this brand becomes a magnet at attracting-
Tracy Chamblee: Yes ...
DC: people like you. It, it just brings toward it folks that have this organic love for hip-hop.
Oh, absolutely. And, and, uh, it attracts towards it people whose lives have been transformed by hip-hop.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: And so, uh, I'm not surprised, uh, uh, by this at all. Uh, I'm, I'm als- uh, like the, the, um, the UTFO connection, I did not know. Then there are some others that I, I have been fortunate to work with who are from your neck of the woods who have also been connected to, to Sprite.
Some have not.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: Uh, the Teacher KRS-One.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: MC Light.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: Uh, Bus-a-Bus.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: Um, um, let- Who
Tracy Chamblee: actually went to Ti- he went to Tilden High School, by the way ...
DC: oh, did he really? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that.
Tracy Chamblee: He did. Yep.
DC: Um, um, uh, people probably don't know this, I never worked with them, but they also are from your neck of the woods, uh, Fu- sh- uh, Fusch Nickens.
Yep. Yep. They, these are all... So I didn't know this. I am just honored to, to become aware of this, uh, T-Jam.
Tracy Chamblee: And Fusch Nickens actually grew up in East Flatbush.
DC: Yes.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes. And you remember they made a record with Shaq.
DC: Yes, I do. Remember they made a record with Shaq, right? I do.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes. I remember
DC: that. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And Shaq, Shaq was in East Flatbush.
They lived on East 57th Street, which is probably four blocks away from me, but they're also Brooklyn natives, East Flatbush and Tilden. Wow. So it's that connection. That connection. Wow. And, and Larry, this stuff kept us off the streets, man. I'm serious. We'd been having a different conversation perhaps. Um, and it kept us focused, man, of trying to get that brass ring.
Some of us got it, some of us didn't. Yep. Some of us decided, you know, we wanted to go. And, uh, it was interesting, one of the, uh, one of the questions was my first job ever, and I was a, I was a security guard at the Duane Reade that is, uh, was three blocks away from the old World Trade Center. Ah. And so, and so- I'd go to work, come home, and I had like a group of guys.
There's probably, uh, there's four of us. Um, so that was the two other, uh, it was actually, yeah, two other MCs and a DJ, and we practiced every day. And I mean, when I think about time, the amount of time we put into that, we loved it. We absolutely- Hmm ... loved it. And it was a, it was just a brand and impact. It impacted the way we thought, how we dressed, what we talked about, what we aspired to be.
And, uh, I, I'm glad I've grown and matured from that. But that- Yeah ... foundation was, was so important.
DC: Larry, anything you wanna add before we hit the next question?
LT: I mean, I love this conversation. Um, so th- th- this is wonderful. Thanks for sharing that, Tracy. I'm gonna go to hit- Absolutely ... the next question.
Um, so Tracy, who is, had, or is having the most influence on your career?
Tracy Chamblee: So, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna name three, I'm gonna name three people, okay? Real quick. Uh, one person is Darryl Cobbin. I'm gonna start there, right? Mm.
DC: Thank you.
Tracy Chamblee: And I'm gonna, I'm gonna really talk, try not to tear up a couple things here.
Uh, but there's some things, like, we would talk about, he would say to me, and I've just had those things as I, as I think about over my course of my career when I managed people, led people, coached people, talked about things. It is thinking steps of two, acting steps of one. I never forgot that.
LT: Tracy, I'm sorry to laugh.
You know why? 'Cause DC has said this on the show many times, and for you to s- to then bring that back when he was- Absolutely ... talking to you when, you know, when, when you were working with him, it's so wonderful to hear. So go ahead.
Tracy Chamblee: So he would, he would say to me, T Cham you know, you wanna get here, but you might not be able to get there directly.
You might have to go here to get there," and I got it. And the way he set up, he said, "You play chess?" I'm like, "No, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't play chess. I've always wanted to. I respect the strategy behind the game." He said, "Well, let me give you a chess move," and he talked to me about that. Never forgot it, man.
I have a, uh, I have a, I have a, another show and tell here. I got my little, I got my journal here. This is my journal.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: I just write down different things in there, and in there is, is that saying, right? Wow. And I just, I just have it in there, man, so that's powerful. Especially- Wow ... you know, when you're going through tough times, you're going through great times.
You just- Yeah ... it's just the, the, the good thing to think about. And I like and I've loved how he's moving his career, what he's done, and, and, and all of those types of things and, and great words of advice. So that's been, that's been good. Uh, second person for me is Don King.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: Not the promoter, but Don King, who actually was my old boss on, on Sprite, and he's someone who I have talked to throughout my career on moves and things like that and, and getting his perspective.
Um- Man, just a super, super intelligent guy. Mm-hmm. UPenn undergrad, Stanford MBA, has worked with a ton of companies from a marketing perspective, and, um, just a great, great, great guy and someone who has helped me to think through things from that standpoint as well, too, and, and has just given me a lot of great perspective.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And then the, the third person, and she changed my life because She set me up to interview at Procter & Gamble.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: And her name's Jody Turner, and Ms. Turner was head of the career placement center at Johnson C. Smith University.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: And she just used to always talk to me about companies and about being prepared And Procter & Gamble was coming to Johnson C.
Smith through an alum, and they wanted to put a good face forward. And you had talked a little bit about my undergrad. I was an accounting major.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And, um, I went to work for the Internal Revenue Service.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: And I did a, I did a co-op with the Internal Revenue Service.
LT: Good.
Tracy Chamblee: And I always advise young people, intern, do things-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: so that you can really see if this is what you really- Yes ... wanted to do.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: I became an accounting major because one of my fraternity brothers who I respected, he was an accounting major. Mm-hmm. So that's how I got to accounting, right? It was like- Yeah ... "Oh, what are you doing?" I'm trying to figure out, you know, you gotta declare.
And I respected this guy and, and I was like, "Oh, accounting. I, I'll do accounting, right? Okay, accounting." I get into it. I wind up getting a co-op with the Internal Revenue Service, the only person in my class to get that. I get this in, this co-op, and you know how the way a co-op works, you, you work during the summer and then you spend a semester working.
You get credit for it.
DC: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: But you're not, you know, you're not in the day-to-day school. You're actually working, getting credit for it.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, I absolutely hated it.
LT: Mm. I knew you were gonna
Tracy Chamblee: say that. Oh, man, I was auditing folks that were claiming $20,000 into deductions and making $15,000 in income, and you know, they're just, you're auditing them 'cause they're, they're basically trying to maximize the system, and it's...
You're sitting there and you're like, "Man, this is, this is horrible." And it didn't work out. So I come back to school and I, Ms. Turner was very instrumental in helping me to get that, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to go and do, and she said, um, "Well, we have Procter & Gamble coming, and we really wanna try to put our best students forward to make sure the, the school is well-represented.
You may not want to go work there, but we'll try it." And I'm like, "Procter & Gamble," like, what did... "Procter & Gamble, what do they do?" So, you know, I had to go and do my research. Oh, like, oh, they created the soap opera and Tide and all. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is all these household brands.
DC: Right. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And I got the internship offer.
I'm talking to the gentleman and he's like, he's like, "Man," he's like, "I really like you." He's like, um, "You, why don't you come back tomorrow, take this test?" Went back, took a test. He said, "Hey, we wanna come back and, uh, offer you a summer internship." And that began my career. Wow. Wow. Without her, I'm not here.
DC: Mm-hmm. Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: And it was, it was, uh, it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was phenomenal. And what I realized was, and probably one of my first lessons, was this is not your strength, this is your strength. Mm. So lean into it. So I went from being introverted, even though I was trying to get in hip-hop, I was introverting, introverted, I wasn't a leader in that aspect, to becoming the student body president my senior year-
DC: Hmm
Tracy Chamblee: doing some things at John C. Smith, and that's how I developed. 'Cause you had to public, you had to do public speaking, you had to represent the university, you had to talk to alum, you had to talk to the board of trustees. So you had to mature from that standpoint. Mm-hmm. And it just, it, it cha- you know, changed my life from that standpoint.
And so that's how I got to Proctor and, and, and began my career.
LT: Hmm.
DC: Hmm.
LT: Great story. D, I don't have anything to add. That was just, that's a, that's awesome stuff. You, you wanna hit the next question or, unless you have something to add?
DC: I don't. I'll hit the next question. Tracy, what's your biggest F-up in your career?
And more importantly, what did you learn from it?
Tracy Chamblee: So this is a, this, this is a great question. I've got three I wanna share.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Got three I wanna share
So my first one, what I learned from this was to never violate your manager's trust. Hmm. So I was on Coca-Cola Classic at the time, and I was, I was struggling. Like, I was trying to stand out. I had been on Sprite. And what I, what I think is, is interesting, and I'll, and I'll come to this in my next example, is sometimes you're on a team and you think, "I wanna be on this other team 'cause this other team's the number one team."
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And your team is, your team is great. And so Coke Classic, everybody wa- everybody wanted to be on Coke. Like, if you- Mm-hmm ... if you, if you were, you know, you come in as an ABM- Yeah ... you wanted to, you wanted to be on Coke.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? And I loved, I loved Sprite. Mm-hmm. And I, what I loved about Sprite was, man, Larry, I could...
I mean, I, I lived and breathed Sprite. Like, I was- Mm-hmm ... I loved it, man. And the other thing was my other love here, as you see my next piece, man. I ran the NBA activation on the brand side for them.
Jade Tate: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, I, I lo- man, I loved that. I mean, when I say loved it, I'm talking about, man, I could do that in my s- I just loved it.
Right. It brought hip hop, sports, and, and a cool beverage. Man, I loved that thing. And I don't know why I wanted to be on Coke, right? But I, I wanted to be on Coke. So I get on Coke, and we had this, this thing called a Coca-Cola vintage bottle, and it was one of the bottles when Pemberton started the Coca, Coca formulation and all of that.
It was, like, one of those old bottles. And we said, "We'll bring this back." And this is when vint- the whole thing was about making vintage cool. It was like taking old stuff and bringing it back and making it cool, 'cause it was different. The kids were into that. And, um, I wanted to try to get a little buzz behind it.
I was running it. And, um, we had done... Y- you do some really cool things at Coke. Like, you'll, you'll, you'll partner with a, a fashion g- person and, you know, you'll develop some clothing around it and it'll be real cool. And you'll do all these kinda different things. And on this particular one, we wanted to get this bottle with celebrity influencers, and we wanted to get it into a magazine.
And my manager at the time was like, "We don't, we don't, we don't wanna do that. We don't, no, we don't wanna do that." It was just no reason. We just didn't wanna do that. And I did it. And it went into the magazine, and it was a hit in the magazine, but I broke that trust, right? Because he- Ah,
DC: yeah ...
Tracy Chamblee: he didn't wanna do it And I learned a ton from that to never do that again.
Mm-hmm. Never surprise your boss, right?
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And so I was trying to, to, uh, I was thinking about my career from that standpoint. I didn't balance that correctly. Mm. So that was, that was, that was not good. That was not good. I'd say the second thing was I was on Brawny. I love Brawny. Again, here we go. Big brand Dixie.
We're gonna bring you over to Dixie Brawny I love 'cause it was a challenger brand. We're founding, we're... Remember now, I know about Bounty, so now-
LT: Right. You were on the inside of one. You know, you're... Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And one of the cool things that was so much fun on Brawny was we did a promotion with a foundation called the Wounded Warrior Foundation out of Florida.
Jade Tate: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And I love the mission. If you, if you don't know a lot about the mission, you know, please look it up. But essentially, the insight around it was when a warrior goes off to battle and they're wounded, you see the physical wounds on the warrior, but the wounds really transcend to the caregivers as well, to the family.
So this foundation is all about trying to help to ease that transition for those warriors back into, into, into life. That promotion helped to save Brawny, because you had people ready, you had retailers saying, "I don't know why you guys even exist," right, from that standpoint. Mm-hmm. And so the positioning change along with that point of difference in a promotion gave Brawny a voice- Mm
in the marketplace, to stay ingrained in the marketplace and to gain traction. Mm. And I love, man, I loved working, working on Brawny, and then Dixie came along and this opportunity. And the reason why I should not have left is because there was more work to do on Brawny, but it was gonna be a fight. It was gonna be a fight for the resources and a lot of those things.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And then going over to Dixie was just a whole different animal, right?
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Because Dixie was really number one in the category, less risk-averse, and really, really tough. Mm-hmm. The thing I learned from that was, and, and where I messed up, was not to trust myself. Mm. Not to trust that I could get into that fight, not to trust that in that aspect, in that piece there.
And then the third piece is a relationship aspect. Noth- And that was my time on Greenies.
DC: Mm-hmm. Coming to
Tracy Chamblee: Greenies, I got Procter & Gamble and I got Coke background. I come in, and there was a young lady on the team who had Greenies expertise. Mm-hmm. She knew Greenies. She knew pet. She knew the industry. She knew it well.
Mm-hmm. I had Procter & Gamble, I had Coca-Cola. I'm coming in. We butt heads.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: And from a relationship standpoint, and from a aspect of, of a fallout, we had a brief fallout on the team because I didn't understand that- At that point, you could have the expertise, you could have all of this background, but respect people where they are and where they're coming from as well too to get the most out of your team and to learn about that.
LT: Was, was she an underling of yours, Tracy? Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: I, I wouldn't say underling. I would say she reported to me.
LT: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So she reported to me, um, but it was an aspect where, um, I did not respect that aspect enough to bring her along.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so with that piece, I learned a big piece about people. I don't even call it management, I call it coaching.
Mm. I think there's a way you coach to get the best out of your team and out of your talent and out of yourself, and the power of relationships. And relationships are so, so very, very important at the end of the day.
DC: Mm-hmm.
LT: Love
DC: it ... those are three great ones.
LT: Great ones.
DC: Those are great ones. I don't have anything more to add, uh, Larry, do you?
LT: No, those are, those are self-explanatory. Those are awesome. Okay, Tracy, we're gonna go to question four. Sure. Regarding tech and marketing, you've seen a lot. Mm-hmm. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech, or you can go to a place where you think they should be leery or simply avoid.
What say you?
Tracy Chamblee: I'd say embrace it. I think the thing on this AI piece is understanding prompt engineering. Like, the machines learn from what you teach it- Mm-hmm ... and what you put into it. So what I must say is along this journey, and I think you always have to be a continuous learner, I learned that from D- from DC, that when you get into this space, ChatGPT was my first introduction, but man, Claude and Perplexity and- Yep
all that. And the ability to understand how to get the most out of it, not to take the first answer, how to push it, right? The machine makes mistakes. It's wrong. And so that's where, as humans, we come in and we make sure that things are correct and at, at a certain point. It can make you more efficient, it can make you more effective in some areas, but don't let it replace your thinking, and that feel and that emotion, and it doesn't have that.
It was a conversation DC, DC and I had a couple months ago about, like, how a lot of times things start with the P&L, and a lot of times it's like, oh, it... You know, how is this making money? Mm-hmm. How is this... And then there's just some things, man, it just, it just comes together and it just ex- it just explodes with the right balance and the right mix of things, and it's very tough to explain.
Like, AI can't explain that. Like- Right ... there's a certain thing, like when you, you write a brief and it starts with the brief, and you put it in the brief and you do certain things, but then there's, man, it's just a certain feel about certain things, or you just look at something and you're like, "Nah, that, that doesn't, that doesn't feel right," or, "That's not said right," or, "It didn't happen that way," or, "The context is not there."
Machine doesn't have that. You have that. You have that heart and that spirit, right? What the machine can do is it can accelerate some things quickly and get to a certain point. I read an article in a recent, uh, Harvard Business Review where they talked about how you go into strategic planning as an organization, and the things you try to come up with through a framework is, oh, we're gonna have, you know, three or four things that we're gonna think about how we're gonna do this, and that type of thing.
What the machine can help you with is get you to more possibilities that you couldn't get to with the folks that may be in that room. So how do you embrace that? How do you apply that? And how do you make sure it's right? And how do you make sure it gives you the things that you're looking to get from that standpoint?
That's where we come in. You can't let it replace you- Mm-hmm ... but it can enhance the things that you do. It can help you- Mm-hmm ... in a lot of, a lot of different ways and from, and from that aspect.
LT: Totally agree.
DC: Mm.
LT: That, that's the way we look at it, too, and lean in and, like you said, fully embrace it, uh, and just get better with prompting. Like you said, the more the- like you said on something earlier, the more reps, the better. Uh, I don't have anything to add. Do you have anything to add, or should we go to the next question?
Tracy Chamblee: The more, the more reps, the better, and I- I'll give a, a tip to the audience, um, that, you know, if, if, if folks are interested, there's a, there's a, um, program out there called, uh, it's a website called Prompt Cowboy.
LT: Hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And it is, it is excellent. Like- The challenging thing is that, and, and, and I heard DC talk about this in an interview.
You were talking about, like, your, your framework on positioning. You guys have a proprietary- Yeah ... framework and a lot of things- Yeah, yeah ... you think about. And then you say, "Hey, you know, you guys, you know, what's your category reference?" Well, your competition has the same category reference, so-
DC: Yeah, yeah
Tracy Chamblee: you know, unless you differentiate in that aspect.
DC: Yeah, yeah,
Tracy Chamblee: yeah. The key, the key thing about this is that prompt engineering, like, you could take somebody from HR and they write a prompt. You write a prompt, but their prompt's gonna be better because they're an expert in HR, or it should be. What this thing will do is it'll just, it'll just engineer it and take it to a whole nother level, and that helps.
So if you ever get an opportunity, play around with the prompting, uh, Prompt Cowboy. Uh, a friend of mine shared it with me. I, I'd just like to share that as well, too, because we're using it so much now that it can, that it can, uh, it can help from that standpoint.
LT: Oh, love the, uh, love the tip, man. I'm gonna definitely check it out.
I haven't heard of it. So, uh, we, we, we lean all the way in, uh, on this stuff. Uh, D, you wanna hit the next question? You have anything else before, uh, we hit the next question?
DC: Just say, is, is this thing called Prompt Cowboy? Is that what it's called?
Tracy Chamblee: That, that's what it's called, Prompt Cowboy.
DC: All right, cool, cool.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep, just, just put it in, as they say, the Google machine.
DC: All right, cool. Prompt Cowboy.
Tracy Chamblee: Put it in there and, uh, and, and, and have fun with it, man. And just send me a text and let me know what you think about it.
DC: I'll do that. I appreciate it. Final question: What are you most proud of, T Cham?
Tracy Chamblee: So this can be, uh, can it be personal and professional?
DC: Of course. It could be anywhere you wanna take it.
Tracy Chamblee: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do personal and professional, 'cause I think we, we wanna show up as our whole person and what we're all about. So I'm gonna start with the, the personal aspect. Uh, I'm s- I'm, I'm super proud of my, my family, so I'll just share a little bit of personal background.
I'm from a single-parent household. My mom raised me. Uh, God bless her, she passed away last year. Very close to my mom. And I didn't really grow up understanding the male dynamic in terms of leading a household, being responsible, a lot of those, those different types of things. And by the statistics that we have, I shouldn't be here.
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: I shouldn't be here, right? I should be a lot of other places except talking to you two fine gentlemen right now, right? I should be in other- Mm-hmm ... places, right? And my mom, my mom was the one that said, "You're gonna go to college." My mom was the one that said- Mm ... you know- Treat your wife and your kids the right way.
Like-
LT: What's your mom's name? I know she passed ...
Tracy Chamblee: Mary What's
LT: her-
Tracy Chamblee: Mary Barber. Mary Ann Barber. My mom was a, my mom was a registered nurse, and part of the reason why I started college a semester late was my mom worked for the union in New York called 1199. 1199 Medical Union. They went out on strike, and when they went out on strike, my mom was the breadwinner.
She went out on strike with them. She couldn't afford to send me to college at that time, and that's where I became a security guard, my first job ever, and all of that aspect, and learned and grew from that standpoint. But it was life-changing. Um, and along the way I met some great men and, and some folks that I looked, looked to for guidance, looked up to, great advice, and started my family.
And I am so proud of my boys and where they are and where they're going. I have a second-year baby Bison, uh, Chaz. Mm. And the quick story on Chaz, why I'm so proud of him, is that two summers ago... Yeah, two summers ago my son had a catastrophic knee injury. Broke both of his knees in basketball.
DC: Oof.
Tracy Chamblee: Wow.
Confined to a wheelchair. Oof. And he was in, he was in, uh, one of those wheelchairs where they take away your range of motion. So he broke both of his kneecaps, and what, what you don't realize is your elbows and your kneecaps, how important they are. So what they do is when you break both of your kneecaps, you can't bend your kneecaps.
Of course, it has to heal. You're in a wheelchair with no range of motion. So your legs are, your legs are parallel like this.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: As you continue to progress and grow, it starts to go like this, and then eventually your feet are down on the ground and you can walk. And I watched this young man, um-
I watched this young man not be able to walk, not be able to do some of the things that we, we take for granted. It's a blessing when you wake up in the morning to, wake up in the morning, just jump and get up and walk about your way, not even think about it. And my son couldn't do that for two months.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: So summertime, he is completely in a wheelchair.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: The toughest thing was, you know, when you go to the hospital, ambulance takes you to the hospital, the toughest thing is how do you get back from the hospital?
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? The am- the ambulance doesn't bring you back, right?
DC: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: So he, we had to find out a creative way how to get him into the backseat of our car-
DC: Mm
Tracy Chamblee: and take him and bring him home. Mm. So it was those types of things that we as a family had to, to deal with and think about By this time two years ago, he pushed himself through physical therapy and he wound up playing his senior year in basketball.
LT: That's amazing.
Tracy Chamblee: So no matter how many tough times and things that we may go through or I may go through and things I think about, what I'm most, most proud of is my family, how we got, we got through that.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And it, uh, things happen for an interesting reason because he, he really buckled down, he applied and he got into Howard University. And, um, I'm glad that he's there. It's a, it is a special place. Uh, DC knows. Uh-
DC: Yep ...
Tracy Chamblee: been a daughter that's graduated from there.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Um, and so I just think about where he was two years ago and where he is today.
Mm. And that from a personal standpoint is where I'm, I'm most proud. Um, professionally it's, um, I would say just being where I am in this pathway of if you look back at when I came through high school I was not a great, I was not a great student, didn't know what I wanted to do, and had no aspiration from a guide standpoint to do anything except hip hop.
And to be where I am today from that standpoint through the mentorship, how I've, I've met different people along the way, how even if I don't talk to you every day I've learned something from people to get to where I am today is what I'm most proud of because by statistics, if you believe data, I shouldn't be here.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so, um, that kind of, that kind of balances it out, if that makes sense.
LT: It does. Tracy, you took us with you, man. That's, uh- Yeah, you
DC: did ...
LT: y- and you have a lot to be proud of. And, and dare I say they, uh, they are, uh, symbiotic and partners in, in the, in, in what you're proud of. You know, they sort of work in concert with one another.
Not sort of, they do. So very cool.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. Yeah. Super. And so, yeah, so I mean, this is, uh... I mean, you know, uh, I didn't, I didn't wanna tear up on you guys, man, but I just think about where I was- It's good ... and where we were, you know, where we were a couple years ago. Um, and I tell you, it's, man, when you have a, a child now and you hurt for your kids, you really do.
Because sometimes you try to protect them to go, uh, as they, you know, you know the things they're gonna go through, you try to protect them, and sometimes you gotta let them fall, but you know that you're gonna be there, so. And they- Yep ... they should know that you're gonna be there.
LT: Great stuff. All right, D, we ready to, uh, hit the next segment here?
DC: Let's do it. Thanks, uh, Tracy, for sharing that, man.
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
LT: Great stuff, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank- Very welcome, guys. Thank you for the time and, and chance to be here, man. It's awesome.
LT: All right. So we're gonna segue to the next, uh, segment here, and, uh, D, Tracy, what's popping?
DC: What's popping, man?
LT: So, uh, Tracy, this is our chance to shout out, shout down or simply air something happening in or around marketing today we think is good fodder for discussion.
DC: Mm-hmm.
LT: And what's popping today is Pepsi, okay?
DC: Okay.
LT: Let me- Mm ... give this a setup. Um, so for most of the modern soft drink ero- era, Pepsi was locked in at, you know, a very strong and stable number two to, uh, Coca-Cola, and was really built on Pepsi generation and a choice of the new generation, and there was real head-to-head brand battle there.
I mean, you know, Pepsi in some ways was overtaking Coke in the '80s. That's how Coke blinked with New Coke. Um, but that's, that's, dare I say, way past, uh, DC Mentsin mentioned Brian Dyson, there's a, there's a lot of stories underneath that, but that's clearly gone. So here we are in 2026, and Dr. Pepper first passed Pepsi for the number two spot in 2023, and Pepsi has been bouncing around the number three and four spot since.
Um, let me hit you guys with a couple of facts. So from 2012 to 2022, Pepsi's had three... They had three taglines in those 10 years. "Live for now," "For the love of it," and "That's what I like." Those are the three taglines they had from 2012 to 2022. Since then, it actually hasn't even settled on a single successor.
It's now running three or four different messaging platforms at once. One's "Thirsty for more," one, "Food deserves Pepsi," another one's "The choice," with nothing tying any of these things together. Uh, also, Pepsi redid its visual identity in 2023, which was its first logo overhaul in 14 years. And dare I say, they've had a lot of logo overhaul.
Overhaul's the right word. We all know Coca-Cola never has an overhaul. It's, they do nuanced updates all the time, but they never have had a overhaul. So the question would love to banter with you fine gentlemen is, uh, does PepsiCo, and more importantly consumers, know what Pepsi, what the Pepsi brand stands for in 2026?
DC: T Cham?
Tracy Chamblee: I would say no. I would say no. And it's kinda how we started out talking about positioning and the importance of positioning and, and what you stand for. They've always, they have always kinda tried to focus on what is the hot thing, what is the- Yes ... what is the, what is the thing that people will always gravitate towards, you know?
LT: Hot and splashy too. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. I s- I, I'm reminded of this when I, I, I was watching the, the Michael Jackson movie. And- Oh, yeah ... they had the, the, the Pepsi and the hair on fire and all of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talked about that, right? I mean, and, and, and that's kinda my early memories of, like, some of the marketing with Pepsi and some of the things that they would do, all the way to, you know, Beyonce.
Whoever's hot, that's who they're gonna connect with from that standpoint.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: And I think the challenge that's happened is the audience, the audience has changed, and what the audience is into has changed. And things are moving so fast that what's hot today in a week may not be hot. And so if you're, if you're mirroring your brand to that and your marketing efforts towards that in terms of the things that you're doing, it's gonna be really, really tough, right?
So understanding what you stand for. And, and the last thing I'll say, by the way, is, and I, I know that, uh, that Dr. Pepper had, had surpassed and, and all of these things, and Sprite's jumped there and a lot of those things. And I think what's interesting is that we're talking about a category where the audience's consumptions patterns have changed as well too.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So now you're trying to continue to prop up something that the audience is going a different way- Yeah ... in a lot of ways. And I know when I was deep into the beverage industry we were seeing that, and I'd look around at the table when, in our meetings and we'd all be having, we'd all have water on the desk in meetings versus the carbonated soft drinks.
LT: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So these things will happen internally as well. Yeah. So it's just a reality of what's, you know, what's going on.
DC: This is a fascinating subject
Tracy Chamblee: It is
DC: And it is a positioning question, I think, Larry and Tracy Poor Pepsi. P- poor Pepsi I believe that the moment where they really lost the plot-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm
DC: was, uh, during COVID when they decided- Hm ... they were going to step into the middle of, uh-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
DC: protest and angst in this country- Mm ... with Kendall Jenner- Yeah ... and have her- Yeah ... join the protest- Yeah. Mm ... and show that she was with the people in the streets Going a- uh, joining the people in the, um, disruption of where the country was and-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm
DC: um, support of all that were happening. By the way, people were dying in the streets, and she was a part of this, and, uh, and, and to help her and the brand sort of take a break, why not have a sip of Pepsi? This is when I believe- ... the, the, in, in, in old TV parlance, the, um, they jumped the shark.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Uh, if, if, if they will.
Why? Why did they jump the shark? They jumped the shark because, uh, they got caught up into something that had worked for them for many, many, uh, years that no longer worked.
LT: Yep.
DC: That brand was positioned originally around biological generations. Yeah. We are with this biological generation, now we're with the next biological generation.
Then they got... But they thought Tracy was really smart. They said, "Now we're gonna go to micro-generations. They, they go even faster." Yeah. They never really woke up to the fact that there are cultural generations-
LT: Yeah ...
DC: that bind people.
LT: Yep.
DC: They ne- they, they didn't get, and these things are resilient. They forgot that, and that's why they- Well, they
LT: never knew.
I would say they never knew it
DC: Actually, you know what? They never knew that. Yeah. So they became disposable. That's my take. Larry, yours.
LT: So this is why we did this as a topic. It's- Yeah ... it's, it's really awesome. Uh, I'm gonna build on what you just said, D. I think they nev- they, the Pepsi generation and, you know, all, the, the choice of the new generation-
DC: Yeah
LT: that landed in a time of mass media when there was, dare I say, three channels, and maybe in the '80s four channels, and now- Yeah ... we had MTV, and so now there's 20 channels on television. There was no such thing as the internet. There are no social media, none, none, none of those nuances. So you could be, uh, flashy, have Michael Jackson, and more have it feel like- Yeah
'cause that's what they were doing, feel like you were the choice of, uh, a, of a new generation and the next generation. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep.
LT: And I'm gonna say something here that I can say that you gentlemen can't. I think Sprite ch- changed the paradigm entirely because I think what DC, what you and the team, and, and Tracy being part of that later, um, you became the choice of the next generation.
Ah. Because Obey Your Thirst was tapping into the psychographics of a, of, of a part of young people, right?
DC: Mm.
LT: Not all young people, 'cause you, again- Yeah ... we talked about this, you were sacrificing, but you became the choice. And so now, all of a sudden, Pepsi can't come in and say, "Hey, we're the choice of the next generation," 'cause Sprite is the huge emotionally connecting choice- Mm
of the ch- of, of what's the leading part of that generation, and that's African American youth with the subcultures of hip hop and, and, and basketball. Mm-hmm. You guys own that. So what do they do? Their playbook's gone, and they never positioned... They, they now had to... You just can't do, "Power for young people," 'cause that's what they were.
Yeah. And they got away with it. They couldn't get away with that anymore. So your jump the shark moment of, of Ms. Jenner doing what she did, and we called that out on the show at the time how ridiculous that was, right? Mm-hmm. Um, but that's because they never really positioned Pepsi to have an ownable differentiation versus Coca-Cola, which is optimism.
Which again, hilltop, optimism. There were young people- Mm-hmm ... there, but it was not just for young people, it was- Mm ... optimism. Have a Coke and a smile. Like, you could go to all the taglines of Coca-Cola, they all go always Coca-Cola. There's a, there's a level of connection to life that Coca-Cola has always owned, and they got away from...
They, they let Pepsi p- they played Pepsi's game. It was almost like, you guys, y- I'm gonna take it to sports parlance. The Coca-Cola in the '70s and '80s, by following Pepsi, took their playbook and said, "We're, we taste better." We all know the flaws of that. We've talked about that a lot, Tracy, on this show.
Mm-hmm. The flaws of the taste test. Mm-hmm. And then again, they have the umbrella of the choice of the new generation. So those were working in concert, and Coca-Cola blinked because they let Pepsi dictate the game. Yeah. It was almost like a fast break team like UNLV back in the day let a team slow the ball down on them.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And they played Pepsi's game. And what happened was New Coke actually woke Coca-Cola up because DC and I were there later, 10 years after, when R- Roberto Goizueta did a whole, a, a, a company-wide, uh, meeting s- telling us what we learned from that. Yeah. It was all about emotional connection- Yeah
and that was all about positioning. Mm. About going to the roots of what Coca-Cola was. Mm-hmm. And so Coca-Cola- Mm ... then got back into who they are.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
LT: Brand positioning.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. And
LT: Pepsi has never done it. And dare I say, unless they really position their brand for 2026 and beyond, they're just gonna float.
They're just gonna rest on the laurels of whatever the brand name is, to your point, Tracy, in, in a category that's declining. Yeah. So that's my soliloquy on, on it.
Tracy Chamblee: I think the other, the, the... It's all great points, and I, I think what's so interesting to me, and I... A lot of times as, as marketers, we'll, we'll, we'll sometimes make a mistake and say, "Well, it's not happening in my world or me personally, so it's not true."
But I noticed with our younger generation, they don't watch TV like we watch TV.
LT: Nope.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: I mean-
LT: They're watching their phones. They're watching whatever there is on their phones ...
Tracy Chamblee: we bought our son, uh, TVs that would go onto the internet and all, do all those, smart TVs they call them, right? They don't, they don't, they don't, they don't watch TV on it.
Yeah. They play games on it.
LT: Yes,
Tracy Chamblee: right. They do that type of stuff. So if you're trying to get folks' attention with these big television campaigns and a lot of those different types of things, not gonna work. It's not gonna work. Thing, and things change so fast to keep people's attention, it's a tough time.
And to me, what DC is talking about, is the authenticity too. Like, that's-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: like, in that moment you wouldn't drink a, a Pepsi, and the, and the, the audience and the market's calling BS on that, right? Exactly. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's, it's, it's being authentic to those roots and the values that DC's talking about, and you're talking about as well, Larry, is those things transcend the, the, the course of time if they're built on true insights and getting those things right
LT: Yeah.
And again, it's, th- they don't have a position that being y- the young people's brand worked, you know, on very surfacey level, but since then they've never had a positioning and they're paying the price
Tracy Chamblee: And those, and those young f- and those young folks then become adults, and then they go on, and then they do certain things.
LT: Paying the price.
Tracy Chamblee: You got it.
LT: Sprite has the Obey Your Thirst is a real positioning. And, and-
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, a- a- absolutely. And, um, I tell you, we, we were chuckling about this a, a few months ago about the NBA and Sprite going back to the NBA and- Yep ... doing some of those things, right? And I mean, it's always been about that, that attitude, that authenticity and You know, it's difficult to explain sometimes, right?
Why- And
LT: Dr. Pepper w- also has been incredible. We'll, we'll shout them out because they have a-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
LT: great positioning and they're consistent with Fansville. It's, so that's what happens, Pepsi. Now that's wh- you know, that's what, that's where you're banging your head against.
Tracy Chamblee: And Dr. Pepper has a very, very, it's a very unique brand.
I mean, it's, it's- It is ... it's something that, you know, Coke and Pepsi have tried to go into that space, and they, they just can't. They j- Nope ... they just can't. They own it, right? And so it's like- Nope ... we'll cede it to you.
LT: All right, D, should we ... Anything to add, or should we hit the in- go into the learnings?
DC: Learnings, brother.
LT: All right. T- Tracy, man, this has been so much fun. We, you've been awesome. We appreciate you big time. Uh, I'm gonna hit, uh, I'm gonna hit you with, uh, a bunch of, uh, of learnings. I've got, uh, eight or nine of them I'm gonna hit real quick with these. These are great ones. Number one, uh, your value drives your margins, which generates real value into dollars when you're talking about brands, right?
That's number one. Number two, with the natural friction between marketing and sales, it's too important to not get it right, and Tracy's three things are critical. His, his three things were have empathy, communicate, always communicate, and always know that, and remind people that you're on the same team.
Mm-hmm. Number three, can't say this enough, it's DC's advice that Tracy's taken to heart for years, think in two, act in one. Think in two, act in one. Number four, thank you, Ms. Turner, for, uh, uh, at Johnson C. Smith, um, for hitting Tracy with this and Tracy following through. Uh, always intern for you to see what a job is really like.
You're never gonna know what a job's really like, brand nerds, unless you actually do it. So that's number four. Number five, never violate management trust. Don't surprise your blo- boss. Number six, trust thyself. Number seven, relationships in business are key. As a manager, think more as a coach rather than as a manager, because that's more relationship centric.
Uh, eight, be continuous learner. And then the last one is check out Prompt Cowboy. That sounds really interesting. I know I'm gonna check it out. Those are mine.
DC: Those are excellent, Larry. T Cham we had a guest on our podcast, his name is Oren Katzeff. He had a quote that stopped me, and his quote was, "Think about the best movies, books, shows, stories.
They have one thing in common. These are the best ones. They tell you the stuff you don't know about the stuff you know."
Tracy Chamblee: Mm. Mm.
DC: The stuff you don't know about the stuff you know. That's what this conversation has been with you. I've learned the stuff I don't know about the stuff I know about you.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm.
DC: And it has been wonderful.
This is the part of the podcast where I make a valiant attempt- ... to share with you and the Brand Nerds what I believe we get from Tracy Chamblee that no one else can give to the eight-plus billion people on the planet but you- Mm ... in the way that you give it to us. I'm gonna attempt to do that now. I'll start with the last of the five questions, when I ask you what are you most proud of, and you talked to us about your son Chaz, the baby bison
You and I talked about Chaz being a Bison a couple of months ago when we spoke, and, uh, I didn't know that he broke both of his knees. I didn't know that, brother. Um, I've had a knee sprain- Mm. But I've never broken a knee, brother. I had not broken a bone in my body until two years ago. I broke a thumb. I thought that they were gonna put me under, okay?
That was a thumb, Tracy. Not, not, not a knee. Certainly not two knees. Hearing you explain what he went through... What's, what's your wife's name, by the way?
Tracy Chamblee: Brenda. Brenda.
DC: Brenda, okay. What you and Brenda went through, putting him in the back of the car, trying to figure that out because the ambulance doesn't bring him home, I didn't think about that.
Like, oh, yeah, you might go to the hospital in an ambulance, but they got, they're like, "Yo, uh, you gonna have to figure this out on the way home, and if you don't happen to have an SUV, that's on you. If you got a Prius, that's on you." Uh, like-
Tracy Chamblee: Sure ...
DC: like, for him to have brought himself back from that with, with his, his legs s- like, straight out parallel to the ground, two months of that, not walking, and playing his senior year basketball It takes some edge- Mm-hmm
to be able to deal with that. And then listening to you talk about your mom, Marian Barber, and how she's the sole provider in the household. Union 1199, medical union.
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: They say, "We going on strike, uh, Marian, you down?" "Yep, I'm down. I'm going on strike." "Yeah, you got, you got some backup, Marian? Somebody else making money o- "No, no, no, no, no, no, nobody else making money."
"Somebody can write some checks for you, Marian?" "Nope, nope, nope, nope." "You gonna still be down on this strike?" "Yeah, I'm gonna be do- d- "You don't have any, any other mouths to feed?" "Yep, yep, I got some other mouths to feed." "You still gonna be on strike, Marian?" "Yep, yep, I'm still gonna be on strike." To do that, that takes some edge, now.
Gotta have some edge. And then you saying if it weren't for your mom, statistically, you not supposed to be on this podcast.
Tracy Chamblee: Nope.
DC: Now, we might be able to come and visit you at Rikers.
Tracy Chamblee: Okay.
DC: But we wouldn't be on this podcast talking to you. So we have Chaz that has some edge, Marian that has some edge, you and your wife that have some edge.
Now let me go back to the first question of the five, which was your first branding experience. You talked about hip-hop, and you were talking about Flatbush, East Flatbush, and you mentioned UTFO and how you were, uh, you, you, you and your boys, y'all were into hip-hop. Y'all practicing. Yeah. Y'all put everything together.
Y'all looked up to UTFO. They were in the, in the trap with y'all. Y'all knew. Y'all looked up to them brothers. And you talked about how the fact that if you didn't have hip-hop, you don't know what you would be doing The thing about UTFO and KRS-One is those MCs from Brooklyn and Flatbus- Bush and East Flatbush is they got edge.
Even MC Lyte as a woman.
LT: Oh, yeah.
DC: She had edge Which then leads me to this. They had more than edge. KRS-One, prolific MC-
Tracy Chamblee: Yes ...
DC: had a nickname. What was his nickname, Tracy? The Tea- The Teacher ... the Teacher. Okay. The Teacher. The Teacher. Now UTFO had four members. I'ma give you three of them, and then I want you to give the la- name of the last one.
Yes, sir. There was Dr. Ice-
Tracy Chamblee: Yep ...
DC: Mix Master Ice-
Tracy Chamblee: Yep ...
DC: Kangol Kid, and give me the last one.
Tracy Chamblee: Educated Rapper M.D.
DC: The Educated Rapper M.D. That's right. So you have the Teacher, KRS-One, and then the Educated Rapper M.D., who is the fourth member. Normally people say the Educated Rapper M.D. first when they say UTFO, but I'm using it last here, uh- Yep
to make a p- make, make a point here. So you have edge in these MCs, and you also have the Teacher and the Educated Rapper. Now we had a first in our podcast here, uh, Brand Nerds. Those of y'all who are listening to it, you may not have seen it. But as T-Sham was answering the questions throughout, he came with show and tell.
Okay. The first thing he, he popped up was a book. This is when he answered the first question about hip-hop. He, he brought a book up and he, he opened a page. It's sitting on his desk. He opened a page up and he showed us Run DMC, pointed to Run DMC. But Brand Nerds, that's not the only book in his room.
Behind him Myriad books. There are books all behind- ... this brother right now. It's a library behind this brother. All right? And then when we, uh, Larry asked him, like, who's, uh, influenced him in his career, he talked about Jody, he talked about Don King, not the fight promoter Don King, Stanford, uh, NBA, UPenn, uh, undergrad, Shout Warden.
He also mentioned me, and then he talked about thinking steps of two, acting steps of one, which also Larry has, uh, has mentioned. And then he... Now, on his, on his, uh, on the book where he, he talked about Run DMC, he brought that from his left. When he then mentioned thinking steps of two, acting steps of one, he said, "And I got a journal," he reaches to his right- Mm-hmm
and he pulls up the journal where that note is in. So let me bring this all home here, uh, T-Sham. We have the edge of Marion, the edge of Chaz, the edge of the man himself and his wife. We have the edge of Flatbush, East Flatbush. We have the edge of KRS-One and the edge of UTFO. And we have the education of the teacher and of the educated rapper, and the fact that Mary and Barbara said, "Yeah, you gonna go to school here.
Yeah, you go- you going to get an education." Which leads me to this. What I think you are, T-Sham, is you are the educated rapper of business.
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, I love it.
DC: Yeah. That's you, brother.
Tracy Chamblee: I love it.
DC: That's you. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: You know I'm writing that down, DC. Write it down, brother. I love that. That's yours. That's yours. I love that one.
Yeah. I love that
LT: That's it. That's a, that's a pin on that one, man.
Tracy Chamblee: My man.
LT: Tracy, uh, we're, we're gonna hit the close, uh, here. Uh, um, do you have anything that you want to hit us with ab- about what you maybe have learned from this wonderful conversation we've had before we hit the close?
Tracy Chamblee: Well, first of all, it's been an honor to be with you guys, just to connect with my friend here, my mentor, uh, someone who I have not seen in person in a long, long time.
Heard your voice, man. We gotta, we gotta see each other in person real soon, DC. We do. Definitely. And then a new friend, Larry. Uh, I've been admiring you guys and admiring the pods and stuff, and hit it off with Larry yesterday, uh- Yeah ... as we talked, and, and, um, that was great. And so I, I enjoyed the conversation.
I really, really did. It's just good to talk, man, and, and, and just talk about a lot of dif- different things and reflect, so it was awesome.
LT: Thank you. You were awesome. We so appreciate you.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank
LT: you. Uh, Jade, I'm gonna hit the show close now. Thanks for listening to Brands, Beats & Bites. The executive producers of Brands, Beats & Bites are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The podfather.
LT: And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share. And for those on Apple Podcasts, if you're so inclined, we love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast, and we look forward to next time, where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.
LT: Yes.
DC: Yeah. You, you can't explain it. You don't know why.
You just meet someone and it just clicks. And Brand Nerds, that's what happened between me and this next guest that we have on the podcast. When this brother and I met the very first time, kindred spirits coming together. Now, he happened to be working on a brand that's very near and dear to me, so just that alone I knew, okay, there's gonna be something happening in the air.
I didn't know how much was happening in the air, but, but just something special happened when we met. I realized right away that we both had a healthy appreciation for positioning, and we believe in our world that any brand that is doing exceptionally well, they have something in common, which is called a sharply defined positioning, and we conversely believe that if a brand and business is doing not that well or poorly, they have a murky positioning.
So this is what we believe. And so I knew right away that this brother and I had an appreciation for sharply well-positioned brands. We had that in common But then I have to go back. Um, I had a problem with this brother as well. I had a problem with him because, uh, uh, right now in modern terms, Larry, um, i-
LT: I know where you're going
DC: yeah, yeah, you know where I'm going. In modern terms, th- th- this, this, this brother is from Brooklyn, so that's the, that's the gentrified name. That's the gentrified name, okay? But when he and I met, they didn't call it Brooklyn, they called it Crooklyn. Okay? This- And, and there's a reason why they called it Crooklyn, Larry.
Okay? There's a reason called it Crooklyn. Y'all go- Brand Nerds, y'all go look up before all of the wonderful gentrification happened, why they called it Crooklyn, all right? Yeah. And, and- I won't go, go ahead ...
LT: and our, our esteemed EA Joi Noel, who we love- Yes ... her favorite movie of all time was, she named our dog Crooklyn.
DC: Crooklyn, that's right. Now, now even before- ... the movie came out, so the movie was a, was, was a little late in the game.
LT: Yeah.
DC: But there were people who lived in Brooklyn who understood why the movie was called Crooklyn, because it wasn't a movie for them, it was their daily lives. Right. It was their, it was their daily lives.
All right. So, uh, I understood that to be the case. But that said, I'll put the fact aside that he's a Knicks fan and all of that Uh, the, the, the reality is this is a brother who understands range when it comes to all of marketing and sales. So Brand Nerds, uh, do yourself a favor, take a pause in your day if you're on the treadmill, you're walking, if you out with the dogs or something like that, and listen to what you're about to hear from our next guest because I am quite confident, Larry, they will be able to apply what they hear from this brother immediately following this podcast.
Larry, can... I know as a New Yorker yourself, I know you're a Warriors fan now, but you grew up a, a Knicks fan.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: Can you tell the peoples who we have in the building with us today?
LT: Yes, DC, we are very happy to have Tracy Chamblee in the house today. Welcome, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, it's a pleasure to be here, guys.
Thank you very much. I'm humbled, humbled by the opportunity, looking forward to our discussion.
LT: That's, that's awesome, Tracy. So, uh, we gotta give the Brand Nerds the, the little, the down low of your wonderful background. So as DC alluded to, and you can see, Brand Nerds, we have another great guest today who is also a friend of the show.
Okay. Tracy is having a stellar career in marketing, starting with a great foundation with big brand Fortune 500 companies and expanding outward into successfully building and leading a marketing function with a rising company, and building that marketing function from scratch. So let's get into it.
Tracy, as DC alluded to, is a Brooklyn native. As, uh, we had a, a wonderful guest who was once a producer of our podcast, Jody Anderson Jr., he c- he grew up in Brooklyn too, and he said he lived in Brooklyn, he called it when it was Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Tracy. I think the same applies for you here.
DC: Yeah, yeah, yes.
Yes. That's right. Yeah. That's right.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
LT: Right. Yes,
Tracy Chamblee: yes.
LT: So, uh, ch- as, as we've said, Tracy's a Brooklyn native, and he attends Johnson C. Smith for undergrad, earning a degree in accounting. Now, Brand Nerds, I too started with an undergrad degree in accounting, and having the data underneath you walking into a marketing career, and quite frankly, a full business career, is really wonderful.
So also, as we've said many times, Brand Nerds, Procter & Gamble is such a great place to start a C- CPG career and beyond. Tracy does this, starting at P&G in field sales. Has a very successful 10-year stint there, where he steadily rises through the key account ran- ranks. This is also the time when Tracy discovers he wants to be a marketer.
He decides to go back and obtain his MBA in marketing at Clark Atlanta University, the same wonderful school and program educating our very own DC and Jeff Shirley. After graduation, Tracy joins our friends on North Avenue at Coca-Cola HQ where he starts on the Sprite brand, and that's what DC was alluding to.
He spends five years in brand at Coca-Cola with a major highlight relaunching vanilla Coca-Cola with only a $90,000 budget and obtaining a Guinness World Re- Record activation reaching 23 million consumers. Yes, you heard that right. Generating $9 million in incremental cases. That is ROI. After this stellar work, the pet nutrition side of M&M Mars recruits Tracy to join them as brand manager where he works on great pet brands including Natural Choice, Nutro, and Max Dog Greenies, the b- M- my dog's favorite by the way.
Major highlights include, one, leading two of Nutro's largest product launches generating $50 million in sales and 15 million in EBITDA. Directing ... Number two, directing $10 million integrated campaign while navigating a major dis- distribution disruption and check out these results from that $10 million integrated campaign.
One, increased volume by 10%, double website traffic, gain two share points, and secure a two-year Petco agreement across approximately 1,000 stores. Brand Nerds, when you dre- generate great results like this, others take notice. Tracy then joins Georgia-Pacific as senior brand manager for Brawny paper towels.
Major highlight is in the face of significant competitive pressure and retailer concern regarding the brand's long-term viability, Tracy successfully repositions Brawny establishing a defensible competitive position in this uber competitive category. With this success, the company then moves Tracy over to be senior brand manager for Dixie paper plates, the number one brand in the category.
The main highlight for Tracy on Dixie is that even with a 15% budget reduction, Tracy and his team still generate $4.3 million in incremental EBITDA and 10% dollar share growth while producing the brand's highest ROI in three years. All right, Brand Nerds. Tracy continues to move his career forward where he becomes director of marketing for PlayPower Inc., Successfully leading a 10-person team managing brand strategy, commercial positioning, and marketing execution across five distinct North American brands for a $400 million privately held commercial playground company. A critical highlight is where Tracy and his team successfully thread the needle for balancing individual brand differentiation within portfolio level commercial priorities, strengthening consistency while preserving the market relevance of distinct brands.
All right Tracy then gets a major opportunity to join Nixon Medical Apparel and Linen Service as VP of Marketing. Tracy is recruited as the company's first marketing executive, where he builds a 10-person team from the ground up for the commercial marketing function at this privately held $100 million healthcare services organization.
In his 10 years there, starting from scratch, establishing true category leadership and competitive differentiation, highlights include, one, 76 NPS, N- NPS score, which is really high, which is two X, it's two times the nearest competitor. Number two, 5% dollar share growth. Three, $26 million in new account revenue.
And four, increasing qualified appointments by 45% while reducing cost, cost per lead by 32% and driving, get this Brand Nerds, a 41% increase in sales. In the community, Tracy is a board member for the Department of Land Use and Planning in New Castle County, Delaware, and is a VP for the Dream Keepers Foundation.
Tracy and his wife, Brenda, currently live in Delaware with their children, Chaz and Larkin, along with their French bulldog, Shade. Welcome to Brands, Beats, & Bytes, Tracy Chamblee.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank you again, guys. Awesome, awesome to be here with you. Humbled. DC, what up, dog? It's good to see you.
DC: What up, dog, bro? What up, dog?
Tracy Chamblee: What I have, what I just realized is although we have talked on the phone, I have not seen you in person or visually in 15-plus years. So it
DC: is- Has it, has it been that long?
Tracy Chamblee: It's been that long, DC. It has been that long. It has.
DC: Oh, wow, man.
Tracy Chamblee: But it is so good to see you. Oh. And Larry, nice to make a new friend.
It definitely-
LT: Yes. Totally agree ...
Tracy Chamblee: especially, especially a New Yorker, man. Once you- Exactly.
LT: Fellow New Yorker ...
Tracy Chamblee: once you're raised in New York, you never lose it, my friend.
LT: That's right. It's true.
DC: Oh, wow.
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah.
DC: Teach Jam, I didn't realize it
Tracy Chamblee: had been- Yeah, so, yeah, yes. You know, social media makes you feel like you have seen-
DC: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: people a lot. You know, we've caught up- Yeah ... and all of that and, but, you know, just us talking and me seeing you, seeing- Yeah ... your expression, I love the beard, man.
DC: Oh, thank you.
Tracy Chamblee: It's been a minute, DC. It really has, man. But, you know- It has been a minute.
DC: Wow,
Tracy Chamblee: DC ... it, it's just good to, to be in your presence, my friend, definitely.
DC: Same, brother. Same All right, T Cham we are going into the get comfy section- Mm-hmm ... and I'm gonna start it actually by asking you and Larry to join me in a moment of silence, and- ... I'm gonna do something here, uh, that I've not done before, and I'm a- I'm actually, uh, being, being serious here. I don't typically date our podcast 'cause the producers don't like me to do that, but I'm gonna date this one.
This is August 9th of 2026.
LT: September 9th.
DC: Uh, excuse me, sorry. Uh, excuse me, uh, S- September 9th. Yeah, September 9th of, uh, of 2026. Oh, y- you know, I'm sorry about that, Larry. I'm glad you, uh, I'm glad you caught me on that. September 9th of, uh, of 2026. You're exa- you're exactly right. And so, um, there was a, uh, um, th- there's a, uh, a, a person who died a month ago today who...
It kinda went unnoticed by most of us. It went unnoticed by me certainly, but I wanna go back and do a moment of silence for this, uh, this gentleman. So on August 9th of 2026, we lost an icon in the beverage space, and his name is Brian Dyson. Brian Dyson. So I'm just gonna ask us to take a moment of silence, and then I'm gonna explain who he is.
Just a moment of silence for Brian Dyson. Rest, rest in peace
Okay. Brian Dyson, um, his last job at the Coca-Cola Company was vice chairman and COO
He, uh, was there when Doug Daft was there. Doug Daft was the chairman and CEO. They brought Brian Dyson out of retirement to take those roles. Uh, Brian Dyson is also famously or infamously known as the president of Coca-Cola North America when on April 23rd of 1985, they launched new Coke. They launched new Coke.
This was under his watch, where Sergio Zyman was the chief, uh, marketing officer if, uh, of North America. And, um, that was at the time described as the biggest marketing blunder in the history of marketing. However, after seventy-nine days, they corrected that marketing blunder, brought back, um, the original Coca-Cola, renamed it Coca-Cola Classic, and the company stock performance was restored.
More Coca-Cola Classic, the original Coke, was sold than ever was before, to which the chief operating officer at the time, uh, Don Keough, again, uh, rest in power to Don Keough, is famously known to be quoted when they asked him, like, "Did you all do this on purpose? Was this a, a, a stunt in and of itself?" He said, uh, T Cham you may or may not remember this, "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart."
And I remem- I love that quote, by the way. Yeah. I re-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah, so do
DC: I. I remember him saying that when I arrived. I arrived in 1991. Yeah. And he would, uh, he being Don Keough, would remind us from time to time of that moment, and he would share that, that, that quote with us. Anyway, back to Brian Dyson. Brian Dyson was also the first president of the collection of bottlers called Coca-Cola Enterprises, CCE.
Oh. He was the first president and CEO, and this is when Coca-Cola the company was seeking to have more control over the bottlers, and the bottlers were ostensibly the sales organization- Mm-hmm ... and arm of the Coca-Cola Company. Which then leads me to this question of y- uh, for you, uh, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: You did 10 years, bruh, of sales with Procter & Gamble.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir.
DC: Then you go over to the brand game, and as you know, and you well know this, Tracy-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm ...
DC: people on the sales side often thinks the marketing folks are clueless as to- Yeah ... what it takes to actually sell something. Yeah. And the people on the brand management or marketing side- Mm ... often think the people on the sales side are clueless as to what it takes to build a brand that not only can sell something, but that has long-term equity building, brand elevating elements.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep
DC: You have the rare perspective of living in both worlds.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
DC: What have you learned about both sides, having occupied living in, in both worlds?
Tracy Chamblee: That's a great setup. You're absolutely right. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to go back to business school. Hmm. Like, Procter & Gamble, folks would mostly say is not a traditional sales organization in terms of the way that they compete.
Mm-hmm. So you're competing on price with other companies, right? Mm-hmm. Against Procter & Gamble. But Procter & Gamble's brands were so big that they basically said, "If we're not number one or number two in a category, we're gonna, we're gonna sell off the company." Hmm. And pretty much the Procter & Gamble that I started with is so much and vastly different, remade from being a household goods product.
Remember, they started the soap operas. Remember that. Yep. Now, they started soap operas. Mm-hmm. But now they're a lot of a beauty company. And why did they become that? Because of the margins. Mm-hmm. And that's one of the biggest things I learned as a marketer is your value drives your margins. Mm-hmm. When you have a great brand- Mm-hmm
and your brand stands for something-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: people are gonna pay for it because it's got a point of difference-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: not only in the emotional piece, but DC and, and Larry, you guys will remember the intrinsic piece is- Mm-hmm ... so important, too. So the brands that have built on that value and on that strength is kind of where you start, and that's the common language of how I was able to work in both worlds and translate what that value meant.
Jade Tate: Hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: So when I'm having a conversation with my sales partners, I've got the credibility of the 10 years of sales. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time, a lot of battle, and I know what it's like to go up against a tough buyer and have to defend what we do on the desk in marketing. Hmm. And so having that empathy is one of the key lessons I learned, is empathy for both sides.
DC: Got it.
Tracy Chamblee: The second of the three pieces was being able to really listen from a communication standpoint. So it's not what people are saying, it's what they're not saying that you gotta get underneath- Hmm ... and rip underneath. So what... And what's the problem? What are you concerned about? And then the third thing is to remember to always communicate, "Guys, we're on the same team.
It's competition that we're going after." Mm-hmm. So remember, we are on the same team. Those three things, empathy, communication, and we're on the same team. Mm-hmm. And those things are super important that you need to do. And I'll tell you just a really quick funny story in sales. You bring back some days.
Folks that are, uh, familiar with the Northeast, there's a very tough customer here in this area called ShopRite.
DC: Oh, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: You know ShopRite?
DC: Oh, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Now, ShopRite in this area is the 800-ton gorilla. Like, they run this whole northeastern piece.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: But at Procter & Gamble, they're just another bump on a log pretty much.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: So I was selling Bounty. Now, Bounty is huge, right? Yeah. All you gotta do is walk into your neighborhood grocery store today, and you can just look at the shelf and tell on the planogram who's number one. It's clear. It's Bounty. And they sold, ShopRite sold an item, it was called 12 roll Bounty, so 12 rolls in a pack, and they were 60% of that business for Procter & Gamble, easily.
Mm-hmm. 60%. But they only represented 1% of Procter & Gamble's overall paper business.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: So a brilliant brand manager said, "We're gonna delist this 12 roll item." Now, this is ShopRite's number one item, and they- Oh ... delist it.
DC: Oh.
Tracy Chamblee: So I have to go in and present the company's point of view to my buyer who has all of this power in this area.
And
DC: you talk about- Okay, now just a quick, quick question. Does ShopRite carry other Procter & Gamble products? They
Tracy Chamblee: do. Yes. They do. But this is their, this is the, this is their money-grab-
DC: Okay ...
Tracy Chamblee: right here.
DC: Okay. Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Right?
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Now people, and Larry, you grew up in this area. One of the biggest promotions that ShopRite does every year is called the Can Can promotion.
Can Can, Can Can. Okay. Can Can. Like, it is their make or break thing. Like, this is what makes or breaks their year. Tracy Shamley had to go in and tell them, "We're de-listing your number one bounty item." Not a great conversation. It did not go a great way. Mm. And learned a lot from that. And I said to myself, "I wanna be the guy on the end, on the front end, on the strategy end- Yeah.
Yeah ... making that decision, but I'm gonna do it differently in terms of I'm gonna get the voice of the customer- Yeah ... voice of the consumer, and understand that." Now, we eventually brought the item back after a lot of pressure. But ShopRite had so much strength that they threatened us and said, "Hey, if you de-list this item, okay, we're gonna take some of your other items that-
LT: Yep
Tracy Chamblee: may not be as strong in your other categories-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: ... or you're gonna feel the pain," right? So-
LT: Yeah. That's why DC asked you that question.
Tracy Chamblee: That's right. We're gonna hurt, we're gonna hurt you in the soap area. We're gonna hurt you- That's right ... in this area and that area. And so, you know, Procter didn't bend all the way, but they came to a meeting of the, of the minds and figured out how to do it as an in and out item, and how to figure that out.
Now, what I figured out on the marketing end once I got into the marketing end is, look, we have a number of assets that we deal with in terms of making products. And if you look at the macro area, Tracy, that item that's big in your area is not big with us from a profitability standpoint, and it's not-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: big from a efficiency standpoint when we run the lines and when we do certain things. And so it's an easy decision for us to make at a macro level- Mm. Right?
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And that's the thinking and understanding that I didn't have. Yeah. But after going to business school, working through my different experiences, I totally understand that now and that aspect.
DC: Whoa. Larry, any thoughts?
LT: Um, I love that story, and we can't talk enough when it relates to CPG marketing- Mm-hmm ... about how important the relationship is between marketing and sales. And, and Tracy w- was Tracy was saying about having empathy, communicate, and being on the same team.
DC: Yeah.
LT: And I think a lot of times both camps forget they're on the same team.
DC: Yeah.
LT: And, and so, um, D, I know you and I in our day, we understood that this was really important, and we, we had the, we had some of our colleagues and Brandon, Tracy I'm sure you saw it- Yeah ... in your day at, at North Avenue, that just didn't give a shit, and really thumbed their nose and looked down upon sales.
Yeah. And that is the proverbial cutting off your nose des- despite your face, right? Like- Yeah ... what are you doing? Because ultimately, if you want your brand to be successful, you have to have sales be all in with you. And if you could get them all in with you, it becomes exponential to your success. You can have the greatest- Yeah
marketing strategies and execution set up, but if sales is, i- is fighting against you, you're, you're gonna be in a world of hurt.
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, forget it. And, and when you look at the complexity of how Coca-Cola was set up, you know, you have Coca-Cola North America, so that's the marketing arm, controls the assets, controls a lot of the marketing spend.
But if you want activation at the retail level, you gotta get the bottlers on board.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Must. But before you, but before you get the bottlers on board, you gotta get the marketing operations arm of Coca-Cola North America- Yeah ... on board to go talk to the bottlers to get the bottlers. Yep. And D- and DC remembers this, I mean, you know, you're talking about perpetual pl- like you're planning the entire like you're...
If you don't hit the home run in that period of time, January comes around, forget it. Yep. It's gonna be tough, right? Yep. And what you're really trying to tee up, especially in the beverage industry, is this time of year. Like, if you don't hit that- Mm ... that summertime-
DC: Yep ...
Tracy Chamblee: with some, with some momentum-
DC: Yep
Tracy Chamblee: you're not gonna make it up in, in Q thr- in, in, you know, the back half of Q3 and- Nope ... into Q4. You just are not. So it's a lot of aligning, it's a lot of collaborating, a lot of persuading, give and take, and it, it just, it just is interesting. It, it, it's interesting from the bottling perspective because, you know, if there's an item that's not doing really well for them- Mm-hmm
they, they don't wanna produce it, they don't wanna sell it. And- Yep ... for us, we wanna drive certain areas- Yeah ... like immediate consumption and, and- Yeah ... some of those areas, right? That's like, man, this is, this is, this is, this is what Sprite is about.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: People are like, "Nah, nah, nah. We, we wanna go-" 12 pack and two liter and all this- Yeah ... kind of stuff. And, and it's, it's a interesting proposition.
DC: I'll add this and then we'll go to the next section. Um, I'm, I'm gonna go, um, biblical for a moment.
Um, Ecclesiastes 1:9. This is Solomon speaking here now. "What has been will be again." What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. That's what this reminds me of. Yep. Um, right now in AI, uh, Tracy and Larry, people are highly concerned, justifiably, that technology is overrunning the human dynamic.
That, that the machines are taking over and are going to supersede human intelligence. There's a, a form of technology or thinking that's called recursive, and recursive means that the machines teach themselves rather than humans teaching the machines. And the, the concern is that recursive intelligence is that the machines no longer need humans to teach them.
Now let me go to Procter & Gamble. Uh, there's nothing new under the sun. Procter & Gamble is, uh, has been arguably the best place in marketing for one to go to learn brand management at a portfolio P&L level.
LT: Yep.
DC: One could also say that at a consumer brand level, Coca-Cola is the best.
LT: Yep.
DC: Back then. But at a portfolio P&L brand management level, Procter & Gamble, the best.
LT: I'd say blocking and tackling is what you're going with.
DC: Yeah, block- blocking and ta- blocking and tackling. What they got wrong in this decision with ShopRite is they forgot about the personal-
LT: Yep ...
DC: portfolio management. Mm-hmm. They for- they forgot that they were going to piss off their customer- Yeah
because they were looking at their P&L and saying, "On this one SKU, if this one customer in this region of the country doesn't make sense for us, so we're gonna de-list this."
Tracy Chamblee: Yep.
DC: No, not, not, not... So they forgot about the human element, just as there's a concern about the human element now missing in AI. It's the same thing.
It's not new. We just don't, we just need to remember that. Okay, we're moving on to five questions.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: T Cham, Larry and I go back and forth on five questions. I get to kick this off Tell us the first branding experience you can recall where, oh man, you- it just blew your mind, flipped your wig. You just were like, "Ah, I am so into th- I love this brand or brand experience.
I cannot get enough of it. When I try to get away from it- ... the Godfather, it pulls me right back in." Oh,
Tracy Chamblee: yeah.
DC: Like a first love. What, what-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
DC: what was this brand or brand experience for you, T. Sham?
Tracy Chamblee: So I'ma do a little show and tell.
DC: Okay. Oh,
Tracy Chamblee: okay. And-
DC: All right ...
Tracy Chamblee: a- and I'ma do a little something different 'cause this, this one just needs, you guys gotta feel this.
I'ma say hip-hop.
DC: Ah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: I'ma say hip-hop all the way.
DC: Yeah. Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: And I wanna just share just a quick two-minute thing about what hip-hop did for me. Mm-hmm. It saved me from having a different conversation with Tracy Chamblee than we're having today, okay?
DC: Mm, mm. '
Tracy Chamblee: Cause I wanted to be a hip-hop artist. I wanted to be, I wanted to be a star, right?
In Brooklyn, you gave my background and all of that.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And, um, we would get out of high school at 2:11 PM every day. Don't ask me why it was 2:11. I still don't know to this day. I went to Samuel J. Tilden High School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Shout out to the Blue Devils at that time, and now they are called the Monarchs.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so it was a crew. We'd walk home every day.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Probably 15-minute walk, get up into my apartment. We'd put the boombox in the middle of the, middle of the floor, and we'd practice our hip-hop routines.
DC: Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: And going back and forth in our flow and the syncopation and all of that. So now we're talking about, like, the Cold Crush Four, the Treacherous Three.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're talking about all of these old hip-hop groups. Yeah. And you had to have precision and that, and that whole thing. Mm-hmm. Now, I also grew up in East Flatbush, the home of UTFO. You'll remember them from "Roxanne Shante." Oh, yes, yes. Educated Rapper grew up right around the corner from me.
I mean, literally right around the corner from me. I knew where all these guys lived. We wanted to be them. Mm-hmm. Those guys wa- were our heroes. Mm-hmm. And so I was at a decision point now, to your question about marketing and making that first decision, these guys came along. These guys right here.
DC: Ah, okay.
We're looking at, we're looking at, uh, for those of you all who, who cannot see the video, this is Run DMC.
Tracy Chamblee: Okay. Run DMC.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: All right.
DC: And by the way, next to them is the God, Rakim.
Tracy Chamblee: So I'm gonna come to him in a second.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: But this gentleman right here-
DC: Yeah ...
Tracy Chamblee: that's Run DMC.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: That's Run of Run DMC.
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Hollis Queens. Russell Simmons. Russell Simmons, Hollis Queens.
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: 1986, sold out Madison Square Garden.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: He takes his Adidas shoe off-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: and holds his Adidas shoe up to the crowd.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Then he says to everybody in the crowd- Show me your Adidas. Everybody- Mm-hmm ... put their Adidas up in the air.
LT: Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: Adidas rep was in the audience and saw the power of that.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Run DMC got the first endorsement in hip-hop for wear, $1.6 million of Adidas, through that show, of that experience and e- experience aspect. Now, I wasn't- Mm-hmm ... there, but the word traveled all the way- Right ... through, and we all wore Adidas.
And these were the shell toe Adidas now. Right. The shell toe Adidas, okay? Old school Adidas, and they came in every color. Red, green stripes, black, et cetera. That was my first, first marketing experience, and seeing the power of- Mm-hmm ... number one, word of mouth. Mm-hmm. Seeing the power of an endorser or somebody that you respected in a culture and their brand.
We wanted to be like these guys. Yeah. The Kangol hats, the gold chain, the culture, what we saw, what hip-hop communicated to us in terms of the aspiration, the things that you wanted to go and do. And so it was a crucial time for me to decide, do I want to pursue that or do I wanna go the track of going to Johnson C.
Smith and becoming the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college eventually? And I decided- Mm ... to do that track.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: That brand has always stuck with me. It has gone through its different iterations. I've fallen in and out of love with it, but what I saw where the power was, was it did not just transform North America, it transformed globally.
I had an opportunity to go to Japan, and I saw that you had folks that were Japanese, could not speak a word of English, but knew- Mm-hmm ... every word of a Wu-Tang album.
LT: Right. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And the B cuts of the Wu-Tang albums, not the ones you play on the radio. I'm talking about- Right ... the ones where you gotta be a true hip-hop fan.
Mm-hmm. How they communicated with us, how they embraced the culture. That brand had a, has had a profound impact on me in that aspect. Kept me out of trouble, kept me focused, kept me out of the streets, was aspirational in terms of what I wanted to go and do. My first heroes of my relationship and seeing what you could be and how you could travel, impact the world.
And so that was my, that was my aspect, and that was my first experience
LT: Love this. Um- D, I know you got thoughts.
DC: I didn't know this, uh, Tracy. This ex- this explains why we clicked.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes, sir.
DC: Absolutely. Uh, it also ex- it also explains why you were, uh, on Sprite. Yep. And why you took such good care of Sprite when you were there.
Um, um, I didn't know-
Tracy Chamblee: That was just a great feeling there, man. It was just
DC: a great feeling there ... man, it w- what, what, what an, what an honor it is, and I say this about the Sprite brand, somehow this brand becomes a magnet at attracting-
Tracy Chamblee: Yes ...
DC: people like you. It, it just brings toward it folks that have this organic love for hip-hop.
Oh, absolutely. And, and, uh, it attracts towards it people whose lives have been transformed by hip-hop.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: And so, uh, I'm not surprised, uh, uh, by this at all. Uh, I'm, I'm als- uh, like the, the, um, the UTFO connection, I did not know. Then there are some others that I, I have been fortunate to work with who are from your neck of the woods who have also been connected to, to Sprite.
Some have not.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: Uh, the Teacher KRS-One.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: MC Light.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
DC: Uh, Bus-a-Bus.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes.
DC: Um, um, let- Who
Tracy Chamblee: actually went to Ti- he went to Tilden High School, by the way ...
DC: oh, did he really? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that.
Tracy Chamblee: He did. Yep.
DC: Um, um, uh, people probably don't know this, I never worked with them, but they also are from your neck of the woods, uh, Fu- sh- uh, Fusch Nickens.
Yep. Yep. They, these are all... So I didn't know this. I am just honored to, to become aware of this, uh, T-Jam.
Tracy Chamblee: And Fusch Nickens actually grew up in East Flatbush.
DC: Yes.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes. And you remember they made a record with Shaq.
DC: Yes, I do. Remember they made a record with Shaq, right? I do.
Tracy Chamblee: Yes. I remember
DC: that. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And Shaq, Shaq was in East Flatbush.
They lived on East 57th Street, which is probably four blocks away from me, but they're also Brooklyn natives, East Flatbush and Tilden. Wow. So it's that connection. That connection. Wow. And, and Larry, this stuff kept us off the streets, man. I'm serious. We'd been having a different conversation perhaps. Um, and it kept us focused, man, of trying to get that brass ring.
Some of us got it, some of us didn't. Yep. Some of us decided, you know, we wanted to go. And, uh, it was interesting, one of the, uh, one of the questions was my first job ever, and I was a, I was a security guard at the Duane Reade that is, uh, was three blocks away from the old World Trade Center. Ah. And so, and so- I'd go to work, come home, and I had like a group of guys.
There's probably, uh, there's four of us. Um, so that was the two other, uh, it was actually, yeah, two other MCs and a DJ, and we practiced every day. And I mean, when I think about time, the amount of time we put into that, we loved it. We absolutely- Hmm ... loved it. And it was a, it was just a brand and impact. It impacted the way we thought, how we dressed, what we talked about, what we aspired to be.
And, uh, I, I'm glad I've grown and matured from that. But that- Yeah ... foundation was, was so important.
DC: Larry, anything you wanna add before we hit the next question?
LT: I mean, I love this conversation. Um, so th- th- this is wonderful. Thanks for sharing that, Tracy. I'm gonna go to hit- Absolutely ... the next question.
Um, so Tracy, who is, had, or is having the most influence on your career?
Tracy Chamblee: So, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna name three, I'm gonna name three people, okay? Real quick. Uh, one person is Darryl Cobbin. I'm gonna start there, right? Mm.
DC: Thank you.
Tracy Chamblee: And I'm gonna, I'm gonna really talk, try not to tear up a couple things here.
Uh, but there's some things, like, we would talk about, he would say to me, and I've just had those things as I, as I think about over my course of my career when I managed people, led people, coached people, talked about things. It is thinking steps of two, acting steps of one. I never forgot that.
LT: Tracy, I'm sorry to laugh.
You know why? 'Cause DC has said this on the show many times, and for you to s- to then bring that back when he was- Absolutely ... talking to you when, you know, when, when you were working with him, it's so wonderful to hear. So go ahead.
Tracy Chamblee: So he would, he would say to me, T Cham you know, you wanna get here, but you might not be able to get there directly.
You might have to go here to get there," and I got it. And the way he set up, he said, "You play chess?" I'm like, "No, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't play chess. I've always wanted to. I respect the strategy behind the game." He said, "Well, let me give you a chess move," and he talked to me about that. Never forgot it, man.
I have a, uh, I have a, I have a, another show and tell here. I got my little, I got my journal here. This is my journal.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: I just write down different things in there, and in there is, is that saying, right? Wow. And I just, I just have it in there, man, so that's powerful. Especially- Wow ... you know, when you're going through tough times, you're going through great times.
You just- Yeah ... it's just the, the, the good thing to think about. And I like and I've loved how he's moving his career, what he's done, and, and, and all of those types of things and, and great words of advice. So that's been, that's been good. Uh, second person for me is Don King.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: Not the promoter, but Don King, who actually was my old boss on, on Sprite, and he's someone who I have talked to throughout my career on moves and things like that and, and getting his perspective.
Um- Man, just a super, super intelligent guy. Mm-hmm. UPenn undergrad, Stanford MBA, has worked with a ton of companies from a marketing perspective, and, um, just a great, great, great guy and someone who has helped me to think through things from that standpoint as well, too, and, and has just given me a lot of great perspective.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And then the, the third person, and she changed my life because She set me up to interview at Procter & Gamble.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: And her name's Jody Turner, and Ms. Turner was head of the career placement center at Johnson C. Smith University.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: And she just used to always talk to me about companies and about being prepared And Procter & Gamble was coming to Johnson C.
Smith through an alum, and they wanted to put a good face forward. And you had talked a little bit about my undergrad. I was an accounting major.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And, um, I went to work for the Internal Revenue Service.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: And I did a, I did a co-op with the Internal Revenue Service.
LT: Good.
Tracy Chamblee: And I always advise young people, intern, do things-
LT: Yeah
Tracy Chamblee: so that you can really see if this is what you really- Yes ... wanted to do.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: I became an accounting major because one of my fraternity brothers who I respected, he was an accounting major. Mm-hmm. So that's how I got to accounting, right? It was like- Yeah ... "Oh, what are you doing?" I'm trying to figure out, you know, you gotta declare.
And I respected this guy and, and I was like, "Oh, accounting. I, I'll do accounting, right? Okay, accounting." I get into it. I wind up getting a co-op with the Internal Revenue Service, the only person in my class to get that. I get this in, this co-op, and you know how the way a co-op works, you, you work during the summer and then you spend a semester working.
You get credit for it.
DC: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: But you're not, you know, you're not in the day-to-day school. You're actually working, getting credit for it.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, I absolutely hated it.
LT: Mm. I knew you were gonna
Tracy Chamblee: say that. Oh, man, I was auditing folks that were claiming $20,000 into deductions and making $15,000 in income, and you know, they're just, you're auditing them 'cause they're, they're basically trying to maximize the system, and it's...
You're sitting there and you're like, "Man, this is, this is horrible." And it didn't work out. So I come back to school and I, Ms. Turner was very instrumental in helping me to get that, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to go and do, and she said, um, "Well, we have Procter & Gamble coming, and we really wanna try to put our best students forward to make sure the, the school is well-represented.
You may not want to go work there, but we'll try it." And I'm like, "Procter & Gamble," like, what did... "Procter & Gamble, what do they do?" So, you know, I had to go and do my research. Oh, like, oh, they created the soap opera and Tide and all. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is all these household brands.
DC: Right. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And I got the internship offer.
I'm talking to the gentleman and he's like, he's like, "Man," he's like, "I really like you." He's like, um, "You, why don't you come back tomorrow, take this test?" Went back, took a test. He said, "Hey, we wanna come back and, uh, offer you a summer internship." And that began my career. Wow. Wow. Without her, I'm not here.
DC: Mm-hmm. Wow.
Tracy Chamblee: And it was, it was, uh, it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was phenomenal. And what I realized was, and probably one of my first lessons, was this is not your strength, this is your strength. Mm. So lean into it. So I went from being introverted, even though I was trying to get in hip-hop, I was introverting, introverted, I wasn't a leader in that aspect, to becoming the student body president my senior year-
DC: Hmm
Tracy Chamblee: doing some things at John C. Smith, and that's how I developed. 'Cause you had to public, you had to do public speaking, you had to represent the university, you had to talk to alum, you had to talk to the board of trustees. So you had to mature from that standpoint. Mm-hmm. And it just, it, it cha- you know, changed my life from that standpoint.
And so that's how I got to Proctor and, and, and began my career.
LT: Hmm.
DC: Hmm.
LT: Great story. D, I don't have anything to add. That was just, that's a, that's awesome stuff. You, you wanna hit the next question or, unless you have something to add?
DC: I don't. I'll hit the next question. Tracy, what's your biggest F-up in your career?
And more importantly, what did you learn from it?
Tracy Chamblee: So this is a, this, this is a great question. I've got three I wanna share.
DC: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Got three I wanna share
So my first one, what I learned from this was to never violate your manager's trust. Hmm. So I was on Coca-Cola Classic at the time, and I was, I was struggling. Like, I was trying to stand out. I had been on Sprite. And what I, what I think is, is interesting, and I'll, and I'll come to this in my next example, is sometimes you're on a team and you think, "I wanna be on this other team 'cause this other team's the number one team."
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And your team is, your team is great. And so Coke Classic, everybody wa- everybody wanted to be on Coke. Like, if you- Mm-hmm ... if you, if you were, you know, you come in as an ABM- Yeah ... you wanted to, you wanted to be on Coke.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? And I loved, I loved Sprite. Mm-hmm. And I, what I loved about Sprite was, man, Larry, I could...
I mean, I, I lived and breathed Sprite. Like, I was- Mm-hmm ... I loved it, man. And the other thing was my other love here, as you see my next piece, man. I ran the NBA activation on the brand side for them.
Jade Tate: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Man, I, I lo- man, I loved that. I mean, when I say loved it, I'm talking about, man, I could do that in my s- I just loved it.
Right. It brought hip hop, sports, and, and a cool beverage. Man, I loved that thing. And I don't know why I wanted to be on Coke, right? But I, I wanted to be on Coke. So I get on Coke, and we had this, this thing called a Coca-Cola vintage bottle, and it was one of the bottles when Pemberton started the Coca, Coca formulation and all of that.
It was, like, one of those old bottles. And we said, "We'll bring this back." And this is when vint- the whole thing was about making vintage cool. It was like taking old stuff and bringing it back and making it cool, 'cause it was different. The kids were into that. And, um, I wanted to try to get a little buzz behind it.
I was running it. And, um, we had done... Y- you do some really cool things at Coke. Like, you'll, you'll, you'll partner with a, a fashion g- person and, you know, you'll develop some clothing around it and it'll be real cool. And you'll do all these kinda different things. And on this particular one, we wanted to get this bottle with celebrity influencers, and we wanted to get it into a magazine.
And my manager at the time was like, "We don't, we don't, we don't wanna do that. We don't, no, we don't wanna do that." It was just no reason. We just didn't wanna do that. And I did it. And it went into the magazine, and it was a hit in the magazine, but I broke that trust, right? Because he- Ah,
DC: yeah ...
Tracy Chamblee: he didn't wanna do it And I learned a ton from that to never do that again.
Mm-hmm. Never surprise your boss, right?
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And so I was trying to, to, uh, I was thinking about my career from that standpoint. I didn't balance that correctly. Mm. So that was, that was, that was not good. That was not good. I'd say the second thing was I was on Brawny. I love Brawny. Again, here we go. Big brand Dixie.
We're gonna bring you over to Dixie Brawny I love 'cause it was a challenger brand. We're founding, we're... Remember now, I know about Bounty, so now-
LT: Right. You were on the inside of one. You know, you're... Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: And one of the cool things that was so much fun on Brawny was we did a promotion with a foundation called the Wounded Warrior Foundation out of Florida.
Jade Tate: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And I love the mission. If you, if you don't know a lot about the mission, you know, please look it up. But essentially, the insight around it was when a warrior goes off to battle and they're wounded, you see the physical wounds on the warrior, but the wounds really transcend to the caregivers as well, to the family.
So this foundation is all about trying to help to ease that transition for those warriors back into, into, into life. That promotion helped to save Brawny, because you had people ready, you had retailers saying, "I don't know why you guys even exist," right, from that standpoint. Mm-hmm. And so the positioning change along with that point of difference in a promotion gave Brawny a voice- Mm
in the marketplace, to stay ingrained in the marketplace and to gain traction. Mm. And I love, man, I loved working, working on Brawny, and then Dixie came along and this opportunity. And the reason why I should not have left is because there was more work to do on Brawny, but it was gonna be a fight. It was gonna be a fight for the resources and a lot of those things.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And then going over to Dixie was just a whole different animal, right?
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Because Dixie was really number one in the category, less risk-averse, and really, really tough. Mm-hmm. The thing I learned from that was, and, and where I messed up, was not to trust myself. Mm. Not to trust that I could get into that fight, not to trust that in that aspect, in that piece there.
And then the third piece is a relationship aspect. Noth- And that was my time on Greenies.
DC: Mm-hmm. Coming to
Tracy Chamblee: Greenies, I got Procter & Gamble and I got Coke background. I come in, and there was a young lady on the team who had Greenies expertise. Mm-hmm. She knew Greenies. She knew pet. She knew the industry. She knew it well.
Mm-hmm. I had Procter & Gamble, I had Coca-Cola. I'm coming in. We butt heads.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: And from a relationship standpoint, and from a aspect of, of a fallout, we had a brief fallout on the team because I didn't understand that- At that point, you could have the expertise, you could have all of this background, but respect people where they are and where they're coming from as well too to get the most out of your team and to learn about that.
LT: Was, was she an underling of yours, Tracy? Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: I, I wouldn't say underling. I would say she reported to me.
LT: Okay.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So she reported to me, um, but it was an aspect where, um, I did not respect that aspect enough to bring her along.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so with that piece, I learned a big piece about people. I don't even call it management, I call it coaching.
Mm. I think there's a way you coach to get the best out of your team and out of your talent and out of yourself, and the power of relationships. And relationships are so, so very, very important at the end of the day.
DC: Mm-hmm.
LT: Love
DC: it ... those are three great ones.
LT: Great ones.
DC: Those are great ones. I don't have anything more to add, uh, Larry, do you?
LT: No, those are, those are self-explanatory. Those are awesome. Okay, Tracy, we're gonna go to question four. Sure. Regarding tech and marketing, you've seen a lot. Mm-hmm. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech, or you can go to a place where you think they should be leery or simply avoid.
What say you?
Tracy Chamblee: I'd say embrace it. I think the thing on this AI piece is understanding prompt engineering. Like, the machines learn from what you teach it- Mm-hmm ... and what you put into it. So what I must say is along this journey, and I think you always have to be a continuous learner, I learned that from D- from DC, that when you get into this space, ChatGPT was my first introduction, but man, Claude and Perplexity and- Yep
all that. And the ability to understand how to get the most out of it, not to take the first answer, how to push it, right? The machine makes mistakes. It's wrong. And so that's where, as humans, we come in and we make sure that things are correct and at, at a certain point. It can make you more efficient, it can make you more effective in some areas, but don't let it replace your thinking, and that feel and that emotion, and it doesn't have that.
It was a conversation DC, DC and I had a couple months ago about, like, how a lot of times things start with the P&L, and a lot of times it's like, oh, it... You know, how is this making money? Mm-hmm. How is this... And then there's just some things, man, it just, it just comes together and it just ex- it just explodes with the right balance and the right mix of things, and it's very tough to explain.
Like, AI can't explain that. Like- Right ... there's a certain thing, like when you, you write a brief and it starts with the brief, and you put it in the brief and you do certain things, but then there's, man, it's just a certain feel about certain things, or you just look at something and you're like, "Nah, that, that doesn't, that doesn't feel right," or, "That's not said right," or, "It didn't happen that way," or, "The context is not there."
Machine doesn't have that. You have that. You have that heart and that spirit, right? What the machine can do is it can accelerate some things quickly and get to a certain point. I read an article in a recent, uh, Harvard Business Review where they talked about how you go into strategic planning as an organization, and the things you try to come up with through a framework is, oh, we're gonna have, you know, three or four things that we're gonna think about how we're gonna do this, and that type of thing.
What the machine can help you with is get you to more possibilities that you couldn't get to with the folks that may be in that room. So how do you embrace that? How do you apply that? And how do you make sure it's right? And how do you make sure it gives you the things that you're looking to get from that standpoint?
That's where we come in. You can't let it replace you- Mm-hmm ... but it can enhance the things that you do. It can help you- Mm-hmm ... in a lot of, a lot of different ways and from, and from that aspect.
LT: Totally agree.
DC: Mm.
LT: That, that's the way we look at it, too, and lean in and, like you said, fully embrace it, uh, and just get better with prompting. Like you said, the more the- like you said on something earlier, the more reps, the better. Uh, I don't have anything to add. Do you have anything to add, or should we go to the next question?
Tracy Chamblee: The more, the more reps, the better, and I- I'll give a, a tip to the audience, um, that, you know, if, if, if folks are interested, there's a, there's a, um, program out there called, uh, it's a website called Prompt Cowboy.
LT: Hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And it is, it is excellent. Like- The challenging thing is that, and, and, and I heard DC talk about this in an interview.
You were talking about, like, your, your framework on positioning. You guys have a proprietary- Yeah ... framework and a lot of things- Yeah, yeah ... you think about. And then you say, "Hey, you know, you guys, you know, what's your category reference?" Well, your competition has the same category reference, so-
DC: Yeah, yeah
Tracy Chamblee: you know, unless you differentiate in that aspect.
DC: Yeah, yeah,
Tracy Chamblee: yeah. The key, the key thing about this is that prompt engineering, like, you could take somebody from HR and they write a prompt. You write a prompt, but their prompt's gonna be better because they're an expert in HR, or it should be. What this thing will do is it'll just, it'll just engineer it and take it to a whole nother level, and that helps.
So if you ever get an opportunity, play around with the prompting, uh, Prompt Cowboy. Uh, a friend of mine shared it with me. I, I'd just like to share that as well, too, because we're using it so much now that it can, that it can, uh, it can help from that standpoint.
LT: Oh, love the, uh, love the tip, man. I'm gonna definitely check it out.
I haven't heard of it. So, uh, we, we, we lean all the way in, uh, on this stuff. Uh, D, you wanna hit the next question? You have anything else before, uh, we hit the next question?
DC: Just say, is, is this thing called Prompt Cowboy? Is that what it's called?
Tracy Chamblee: That, that's what it's called, Prompt Cowboy.
DC: All right, cool, cool.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep, just, just put it in, as they say, the Google machine.
DC: All right, cool. Prompt Cowboy.
Tracy Chamblee: Put it in there and, uh, and, and, and have fun with it, man. And just send me a text and let me know what you think about it.
DC: I'll do that. I appreciate it. Final question: What are you most proud of, T Cham?
Tracy Chamblee: So this can be, uh, can it be personal and professional?
DC: Of course. It could be anywhere you wanna take it.
Tracy Chamblee: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do personal and professional, 'cause I think we, we wanna show up as our whole person and what we're all about. So I'm gonna start with the, the personal aspect. Uh, I'm s- I'm, I'm super proud of my, my family, so I'll just share a little bit of personal background.
I'm from a single-parent household. My mom raised me. Uh, God bless her, she passed away last year. Very close to my mom. And I didn't really grow up understanding the male dynamic in terms of leading a household, being responsible, a lot of those, those different types of things. And by the statistics that we have, I shouldn't be here.
DC: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: I shouldn't be here, right? I should be a lot of other places except talking to you two fine gentlemen right now, right? I should be in other- Mm-hmm ... places, right? And my mom, my mom was the one that said, "You're gonna go to college." My mom was the one that said- Mm ... you know- Treat your wife and your kids the right way.
Like-
LT: What's your mom's name? I know she passed ...
Tracy Chamblee: Mary What's
LT: her-
Tracy Chamblee: Mary Barber. Mary Ann Barber. My mom was a, my mom was a registered nurse, and part of the reason why I started college a semester late was my mom worked for the union in New York called 1199. 1199 Medical Union. They went out on strike, and when they went out on strike, my mom was the breadwinner.
She went out on strike with them. She couldn't afford to send me to college at that time, and that's where I became a security guard, my first job ever, and all of that aspect, and learned and grew from that standpoint. But it was life-changing. Um, and along the way I met some great men and, and some folks that I looked, looked to for guidance, looked up to, great advice, and started my family.
And I am so proud of my boys and where they are and where they're going. I have a second-year baby Bison, uh, Chaz. Mm. And the quick story on Chaz, why I'm so proud of him, is that two summers ago... Yeah, two summers ago my son had a catastrophic knee injury. Broke both of his knees in basketball.
DC: Oof.
Tracy Chamblee: Wow.
Confined to a wheelchair. Oof. And he was in, he was in, uh, one of those wheelchairs where they take away your range of motion. So he broke both of his kneecaps, and what, what you don't realize is your elbows and your kneecaps, how important they are. So what they do is when you break both of your kneecaps, you can't bend your kneecaps.
Of course, it has to heal. You're in a wheelchair with no range of motion. So your legs are, your legs are parallel like this.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: As you continue to progress and grow, it starts to go like this, and then eventually your feet are down on the ground and you can walk. And I watched this young man, um-
I watched this young man not be able to walk, not be able to do some of the things that we, we take for granted. It's a blessing when you wake up in the morning to, wake up in the morning, just jump and get up and walk about your way, not even think about it. And my son couldn't do that for two months.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: So summertime, he is completely in a wheelchair.
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: The toughest thing was, you know, when you go to the hospital, ambulance takes you to the hospital, the toughest thing is how do you get back from the hospital?
DC: Mm.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? The am- the ambulance doesn't bring you back, right?
DC: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: So he, we had to find out a creative way how to get him into the backseat of our car-
DC: Mm
Tracy Chamblee: and take him and bring him home. Mm. So it was those types of things that we as a family had to, to deal with and think about By this time two years ago, he pushed himself through physical therapy and he wound up playing his senior year in basketball.
LT: That's amazing.
Tracy Chamblee: So no matter how many tough times and things that we may go through or I may go through and things I think about, what I'm most, most proud of is my family, how we got, we got through that.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And it, uh, things happen for an interesting reason because he, he really buckled down, he applied and he got into Howard University. And, um, I'm glad that he's there. It's a, it is a special place. Uh, DC knows. Uh-
DC: Yep ...
Tracy Chamblee: been a daughter that's graduated from there.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Um, and so I just think about where he was two years ago and where he is today.
Mm. And that from a personal standpoint is where I'm, I'm most proud. Um, professionally it's, um, I would say just being where I am in this pathway of if you look back at when I came through high school I was not a great, I was not a great student, didn't know what I wanted to do, and had no aspiration from a guide standpoint to do anything except hip hop.
And to be where I am today from that standpoint through the mentorship, how I've, I've met different people along the way, how even if I don't talk to you every day I've learned something from people to get to where I am today is what I'm most proud of because by statistics, if you believe data, I shouldn't be here.
DC: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: And so, um, that kind of, that kind of balances it out, if that makes sense.
LT: It does. Tracy, you took us with you, man. That's, uh- Yeah, you
DC: did ...
LT: y- and you have a lot to be proud of. And, and dare I say they, uh, they are, uh, symbiotic and partners in, in the, in, in what you're proud of. You know, they sort of work in concert with one another.
Not sort of, they do. So very cool.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. Yeah. Super. And so, yeah, so I mean, this is, uh... I mean, you know, uh, I didn't, I didn't wanna tear up on you guys, man, but I just think about where I was- It's good ... and where we were, you know, where we were a couple years ago. Um, and I tell you, it's, man, when you have a, a child now and you hurt for your kids, you really do.
Because sometimes you try to protect them to go, uh, as they, you know, you know the things they're gonna go through, you try to protect them, and sometimes you gotta let them fall, but you know that you're gonna be there, so. And they- Yep ... they should know that you're gonna be there.
LT: Great stuff. All right, D, we ready to, uh, hit the next segment here?
DC: Let's do it. Thanks, uh, Tracy, for sharing that, man.
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
LT: Great stuff, Tracy.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank- Very welcome, guys. Thank you for the time and, and chance to be here, man. It's awesome.
LT: All right. So we're gonna segue to the next, uh, segment here, and, uh, D, Tracy, what's popping?
DC: What's popping, man?
LT: So, uh, Tracy, this is our chance to shout out, shout down or simply air something happening in or around marketing today we think is good fodder for discussion.
DC: Mm-hmm.
LT: And what's popping today is Pepsi, okay?
DC: Okay.
LT: Let me- Mm ... give this a setup. Um, so for most of the modern soft drink ero- era, Pepsi was locked in at, you know, a very strong and stable number two to, uh, Coca-Cola, and was really built on Pepsi generation and a choice of the new generation, and there was real head-to-head brand battle there.
I mean, you know, Pepsi in some ways was overtaking Coke in the '80s. That's how Coke blinked with New Coke. Um, but that's, that's, dare I say, way past, uh, DC Mentsin mentioned Brian Dyson, there's a, there's a lot of stories underneath that, but that's clearly gone. So here we are in 2026, and Dr. Pepper first passed Pepsi for the number two spot in 2023, and Pepsi has been bouncing around the number three and four spot since.
Um, let me hit you guys with a couple of facts. So from 2012 to 2022, Pepsi's had three... They had three taglines in those 10 years. "Live for now," "For the love of it," and "That's what I like." Those are the three taglines they had from 2012 to 2022. Since then, it actually hasn't even settled on a single successor.
It's now running three or four different messaging platforms at once. One's "Thirsty for more," one, "Food deserves Pepsi," another one's "The choice," with nothing tying any of these things together. Uh, also, Pepsi redid its visual identity in 2023, which was its first logo overhaul in 14 years. And dare I say, they've had a lot of logo overhaul.
Overhaul's the right word. We all know Coca-Cola never has an overhaul. It's, they do nuanced updates all the time, but they never have had a overhaul. So the question would love to banter with you fine gentlemen is, uh, does PepsiCo, and more importantly consumers, know what Pepsi, what the Pepsi brand stands for in 2026?
DC: T Cham?
Tracy Chamblee: I would say no. I would say no. And it's kinda how we started out talking about positioning and the importance of positioning and, and what you stand for. They've always, they have always kinda tried to focus on what is the hot thing, what is the- Yes ... what is the, what is the thing that people will always gravitate towards, you know?
LT: Hot and splashy too. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. I s- I, I'm reminded of this when I, I, I was watching the, the Michael Jackson movie. And- Oh, yeah ... they had the, the, the Pepsi and the hair on fire and all of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talked about that, right? I mean, and, and, and that's kinda my early memories of, like, some of the marketing with Pepsi and some of the things that they would do, all the way to, you know, Beyonce.
Whoever's hot, that's who they're gonna connect with from that standpoint.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: And I think the challenge that's happened is the audience, the audience has changed, and what the audience is into has changed. And things are moving so fast that what's hot today in a week may not be hot. And so if you're, if you're mirroring your brand to that and your marketing efforts towards that in terms of the things that you're doing, it's gonna be really, really tough, right?
So understanding what you stand for. And, and the last thing I'll say, by the way, is, and I, I know that, uh, that Dr. Pepper had, had surpassed and, and all of these things, and Sprite's jumped there and a lot of those things. And I think what's interesting is that we're talking about a category where the audience's consumptions patterns have changed as well too.
LT: Yep.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So now you're trying to continue to prop up something that the audience is going a different way- Yeah ... in a lot of ways. And I know when I was deep into the beverage industry we were seeing that, and I'd look around at the table when, in our meetings and we'd all be having, we'd all have water on the desk in meetings versus the carbonated soft drinks.
LT: Right.
Tracy Chamblee: Right? So these things will happen internally as well. Yeah. So it's just a reality of what's, you know, what's going on.
DC: This is a fascinating subject
Tracy Chamblee: It is
DC: And it is a positioning question, I think, Larry and Tracy Poor Pepsi. P- poor Pepsi I believe that the moment where they really lost the plot-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm
DC: was, uh, during COVID when they decided- Hm ... they were going to step into the middle of, uh-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
DC: protest and angst in this country- Mm ... with Kendall Jenner- Yeah ... and have her- Yeah ... join the protest- Yeah. Mm ... and show that she was with the people in the streets Going a- uh, joining the people in the, um, disruption of where the country was and-
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm
DC: um, support of all that were happening. By the way, people were dying in the streets, and she was a part of this, and, uh, and, and to help her and the brand sort of take a break, why not have a sip of Pepsi? This is when I believe- ... the, the, in, in, in old TV parlance, the, um, they jumped the shark.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Uh, if, if, if they will.
Why? Why did they jump the shark? They jumped the shark because, uh, they got caught up into something that had worked for them for many, many, uh, years that no longer worked.
LT: Yep.
DC: That brand was positioned originally around biological generations. Yeah. We are with this biological generation, now we're with the next biological generation.
Then they got... But they thought Tracy was really smart. They said, "Now we're gonna go to micro-generations. They, they go even faster." Yeah. They never really woke up to the fact that there are cultural generations-
LT: Yeah ...
DC: that bind people.
LT: Yep.
DC: They ne- they, they didn't get, and these things are resilient. They forgot that, and that's why they- Well, they
LT: never knew.
I would say they never knew it
DC: Actually, you know what? They never knew that. Yeah. So they became disposable. That's my take. Larry, yours.
LT: So this is why we did this as a topic. It's- Yeah ... it's, it's really awesome. Uh, I'm gonna build on what you just said, D. I think they nev- they, the Pepsi generation and, you know, all, the, the choice of the new generation-
DC: Yeah
LT: that landed in a time of mass media when there was, dare I say, three channels, and maybe in the '80s four channels, and now- Yeah ... we had MTV, and so now there's 20 channels on television. There was no such thing as the internet. There are no social media, none, none, none of those nuances. So you could be, uh, flashy, have Michael Jackson, and more have it feel like- Yeah
'cause that's what they were doing, feel like you were the choice of, uh, a, of a new generation and the next generation. Mm-hmm.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep.
LT: And I'm gonna say something here that I can say that you gentlemen can't. I think Sprite ch- changed the paradigm entirely because I think what DC, what you and the team, and, and Tracy being part of that later, um, you became the choice of the next generation.
Ah. Because Obey Your Thirst was tapping into the psychographics of a, of, of a part of young people, right?
DC: Mm.
LT: Not all young people, 'cause you, again- Yeah ... we talked about this, you were sacrificing, but you became the choice. And so now, all of a sudden, Pepsi can't come in and say, "Hey, we're the choice of the next generation," 'cause Sprite is the huge emotionally connecting choice- Mm
of the ch- of, of what's the leading part of that generation, and that's African American youth with the subcultures of hip hop and, and, and basketball. Mm-hmm. You guys own that. So what do they do? Their playbook's gone, and they never positioned... They, they now had to... You just can't do, "Power for young people," 'cause that's what they were.
Yeah. And they got away with it. They couldn't get away with that anymore. So your jump the shark moment of, of Ms. Jenner doing what she did, and we called that out on the show at the time how ridiculous that was, right? Mm-hmm. Um, but that's because they never really positioned Pepsi to have an ownable differentiation versus Coca-Cola, which is optimism.
Which again, hilltop, optimism. There were young people- Mm-hmm ... there, but it was not just for young people, it was- Mm ... optimism. Have a Coke and a smile. Like, you could go to all the taglines of Coca-Cola, they all go always Coca-Cola. There's a, there's a level of connection to life that Coca-Cola has always owned, and they got away from...
They, they let Pepsi p- they played Pepsi's game. It was almost like, you guys, y- I'm gonna take it to sports parlance. The Coca-Cola in the '70s and '80s, by following Pepsi, took their playbook and said, "We're, we taste better." We all know the flaws of that. We've talked about that a lot, Tracy, on this show.
Mm-hmm. The flaws of the taste test. Mm-hmm. And then again, they have the umbrella of the choice of the new generation. So those were working in concert, and Coca-Cola blinked because they let Pepsi dictate the game. Yeah. It was almost like a fast break team like UNLV back in the day let a team slow the ball down on them.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And they played Pepsi's game. And what happened was New Coke actually woke Coca-Cola up because DC and I were there later, 10 years after, when R- Roberto Goizueta did a whole, a, a, a company-wide, uh, meeting s- telling us what we learned from that. Yeah. It was all about emotional connection- Yeah
and that was all about positioning. Mm. About going to the roots of what Coca-Cola was. Mm-hmm. And so Coca-Cola- Mm ... then got back into who they are.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm-hmm.
LT: Brand positioning.
Tracy Chamblee: Yep. And
LT: Pepsi has never done it. And dare I say, unless they really position their brand for 2026 and beyond, they're just gonna float.
They're just gonna rest on the laurels of whatever the brand name is, to your point, Tracy, in, in a category that's declining. Yeah. So that's my soliloquy on, on it.
Tracy Chamblee: I think the other, the, the... It's all great points, and I, I think what's so interesting to me, and I... A lot of times as, as marketers, we'll, we'll, we'll sometimes make a mistake and say, "Well, it's not happening in my world or me personally, so it's not true."
But I noticed with our younger generation, they don't watch TV like we watch TV.
LT: Nope.
DC: Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: I mean-
LT: They're watching their phones. They're watching whatever there is on their phones ...
Tracy Chamblee: we bought our son, uh, TVs that would go onto the internet and all, do all those, smart TVs they call them, right? They don't, they don't, they don't, they don't watch TV on it.
Yeah. They play games on it.
LT: Yes,
Tracy Chamblee: right. They do that type of stuff. So if you're trying to get folks' attention with these big television campaigns and a lot of those different types of things, not gonna work. It's not gonna work. Thing, and things change so fast to keep people's attention, it's a tough time.
And to me, what DC is talking about, is the authenticity too. Like, that's-
DC: Mm-hmm ...
Tracy Chamblee: like, in that moment you wouldn't drink a, a Pepsi, and the, and the, the audience and the market's calling BS on that, right? Exactly. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's, it's, it's being authentic to those roots and the values that DC's talking about, and you're talking about as well, Larry, is those things transcend the, the, the course of time if they're built on true insights and getting those things right
LT: Yeah.
And again, it's, th- they don't have a position that being y- the young people's brand worked, you know, on very surfacey level, but since then they've never had a positioning and they're paying the price
Tracy Chamblee: And those, and those young f- and those young folks then become adults, and then they go on, and then they do certain things.
LT: Paying the price.
Tracy Chamblee: You got it.
LT: Sprite has the Obey Your Thirst is a real positioning. And, and-
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, a- a- absolutely. And, um, I tell you, we, we were chuckling about this a, a few months ago about the NBA and Sprite going back to the NBA and- Yep ... doing some of those things, right? And I mean, it's always been about that, that attitude, that authenticity and You know, it's difficult to explain sometimes, right?
Why- And
LT: Dr. Pepper w- also has been incredible. We'll, we'll shout them out because they have a-
Tracy Chamblee: Yeah ...
LT: great positioning and they're consistent with Fansville. It's, so that's what happens, Pepsi. Now that's wh- you know, that's what, that's where you're banging your head against.
Tracy Chamblee: And Dr. Pepper has a very, very, it's a very unique brand.
I mean, it's, it's- It is ... it's something that, you know, Coke and Pepsi have tried to go into that space, and they, they just can't. They j- Nope ... they just can't. They own it, right? And so it's like- Nope ... we'll cede it to you.
LT: All right, D, should we ... Anything to add, or should we hit the in- go into the learnings?
DC: Learnings, brother.
LT: All right. T- Tracy, man, this has been so much fun. We, you've been awesome. We appreciate you big time. Uh, I'm gonna hit, uh, I'm gonna hit you with, uh, a bunch of, uh, of learnings. I've got, uh, eight or nine of them I'm gonna hit real quick with these. These are great ones. Number one, uh, your value drives your margins, which generates real value into dollars when you're talking about brands, right?
That's number one. Number two, with the natural friction between marketing and sales, it's too important to not get it right, and Tracy's three things are critical. His, his three things were have empathy, communicate, always communicate, and always know that, and remind people that you're on the same team.
Mm-hmm. Number three, can't say this enough, it's DC's advice that Tracy's taken to heart for years, think in two, act in one. Think in two, act in one. Number four, thank you, Ms. Turner, for, uh, uh, at Johnson C. Smith, um, for hitting Tracy with this and Tracy following through. Uh, always intern for you to see what a job is really like.
You're never gonna know what a job's really like, brand nerds, unless you actually do it. So that's number four. Number five, never violate management trust. Don't surprise your blo- boss. Number six, trust thyself. Number seven, relationships in business are key. As a manager, think more as a coach rather than as a manager, because that's more relationship centric.
Uh, eight, be continuous learner. And then the last one is check out Prompt Cowboy. That sounds really interesting. I know I'm gonna check it out. Those are mine.
DC: Those are excellent, Larry. T Cham we had a guest on our podcast, his name is Oren Katzeff. He had a quote that stopped me, and his quote was, "Think about the best movies, books, shows, stories.
They have one thing in common. These are the best ones. They tell you the stuff you don't know about the stuff you know."
Tracy Chamblee: Mm. Mm.
DC: The stuff you don't know about the stuff you know. That's what this conversation has been with you. I've learned the stuff I don't know about the stuff I know about you.
Tracy Chamblee: Mm.
DC: And it has been wonderful.
This is the part of the podcast where I make a valiant attempt- ... to share with you and the Brand Nerds what I believe we get from Tracy Chamblee that no one else can give to the eight-plus billion people on the planet but you- Mm ... in the way that you give it to us. I'm gonna attempt to do that now. I'll start with the last of the five questions, when I ask you what are you most proud of, and you talked to us about your son Chaz, the baby bison
You and I talked about Chaz being a Bison a couple of months ago when we spoke, and, uh, I didn't know that he broke both of his knees. I didn't know that, brother. Um, I've had a knee sprain- Mm. But I've never broken a knee, brother. I had not broken a bone in my body until two years ago. I broke a thumb. I thought that they were gonna put me under, okay?
That was a thumb, Tracy. Not, not, not a knee. Certainly not two knees. Hearing you explain what he went through... What's, what's your wife's name, by the way?
Tracy Chamblee: Brenda. Brenda.
DC: Brenda, okay. What you and Brenda went through, putting him in the back of the car, trying to figure that out because the ambulance doesn't bring him home, I didn't think about that.
Like, oh, yeah, you might go to the hospital in an ambulance, but they got, they're like, "Yo, uh, you gonna have to figure this out on the way home, and if you don't happen to have an SUV, that's on you. If you got a Prius, that's on you." Uh, like-
Tracy Chamblee: Sure ...
DC: like, for him to have brought himself back from that with, with his, his legs s- like, straight out parallel to the ground, two months of that, not walking, and playing his senior year basketball It takes some edge- Mm-hmm
to be able to deal with that. And then listening to you talk about your mom, Marian Barber, and how she's the sole provider in the household. Union 1199, medical union.
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: They say, "We going on strike, uh, Marian, you down?" "Yep, I'm down. I'm going on strike." "Yeah, you got, you got some backup, Marian? Somebody else making money o- "No, no, no, no, no, no, nobody else making money."
"Somebody can write some checks for you, Marian?" "Nope, nope, nope, nope." "You gonna still be down on this strike?" "Yeah, I'm gonna be do- d- "You don't have any, any other mouths to feed?" "Yep, yep, I got some other mouths to feed." "You still gonna be on strike, Marian?" "Yep, yep, I'm still gonna be on strike." To do that, that takes some edge, now.
Gotta have some edge. And then you saying if it weren't for your mom, statistically, you not supposed to be on this podcast.
Tracy Chamblee: Nope.
DC: Now, we might be able to come and visit you at Rikers.
Tracy Chamblee: Okay.
DC: But we wouldn't be on this podcast talking to you. So we have Chaz that has some edge, Marian that has some edge, you and your wife that have some edge.
Now let me go back to the first question of the five, which was your first branding experience. You talked about hip-hop, and you were talking about Flatbush, East Flatbush, and you mentioned UTFO and how you were, uh, you, you, you and your boys, y'all were into hip-hop. Y'all practicing. Yeah. Y'all put everything together.
Y'all looked up to UTFO. They were in the, in the trap with y'all. Y'all knew. Y'all looked up to them brothers. And you talked about how the fact that if you didn't have hip-hop, you don't know what you would be doing The thing about UTFO and KRS-One is those MCs from Brooklyn and Flatbus- Bush and East Flatbush is they got edge.
Even MC Lyte as a woman.
LT: Oh, yeah.
DC: She had edge Which then leads me to this. They had more than edge. KRS-One, prolific MC-
Tracy Chamblee: Yes ...
DC: had a nickname. What was his nickname, Tracy? The Tea- The Teacher ... the Teacher. Okay. The Teacher. The Teacher. Now UTFO had four members. I'ma give you three of them, and then I want you to give the la- name of the last one.
Yes, sir. There was Dr. Ice-
Tracy Chamblee: Yep ...
DC: Mix Master Ice-
Tracy Chamblee: Yep ...
DC: Kangol Kid, and give me the last one.
Tracy Chamblee: Educated Rapper M.D.
DC: The Educated Rapper M.D. That's right. So you have the Teacher, KRS-One, and then the Educated Rapper M.D., who is the fourth member. Normally people say the Educated Rapper M.D. first when they say UTFO, but I'm using it last here, uh- Yep
to make a p- make, make a point here. So you have edge in these MCs, and you also have the Teacher and the Educated Rapper. Now we had a first in our podcast here, uh, Brand Nerds. Those of y'all who are listening to it, you may not have seen it. But as T-Sham was answering the questions throughout, he came with show and tell.
Okay. The first thing he, he popped up was a book. This is when he answered the first question about hip-hop. He, he brought a book up and he, he opened a page. It's sitting on his desk. He opened a page up and he showed us Run DMC, pointed to Run DMC. But Brand Nerds, that's not the only book in his room.
Behind him Myriad books. There are books all behind- ... this brother right now. It's a library behind this brother. All right? And then when we, uh, Larry asked him, like, who's, uh, influenced him in his career, he talked about Jody, he talked about Don King, not the fight promoter Don King, Stanford, uh, NBA, UPenn, uh, undergrad, Shout Warden.
He also mentioned me, and then he talked about thinking steps of two, acting steps of one, which also Larry has, uh, has mentioned. And then he... Now, on his, on his, uh, on the book where he, he talked about Run DMC, he brought that from his left. When he then mentioned thinking steps of two, acting steps of one, he said, "And I got a journal," he reaches to his right- Mm-hmm
and he pulls up the journal where that note is in. So let me bring this all home here, uh, T-Sham. We have the edge of Marion, the edge of Chaz, the edge of the man himself and his wife. We have the edge of Flatbush, East Flatbush. We have the edge of KRS-One and the edge of UTFO. And we have the education of the teacher and of the educated rapper, and the fact that Mary and Barbara said, "Yeah, you gonna go to school here.
Yeah, you go- you going to get an education." Which leads me to this. What I think you are, T-Sham, is you are the educated rapper of business.
Tracy Chamblee: Oh, I love it.
DC: Yeah. That's you, brother.
Tracy Chamblee: I love it.
DC: That's you. Yeah.
Tracy Chamblee: You know I'm writing that down, DC. Write it down, brother. I love that. That's yours. That's yours. I love that one.
Yeah. I love that
LT: That's it. That's a, that's a pin on that one, man.
Tracy Chamblee: My man.
LT: Tracy, uh, we're, we're gonna hit the close, uh, here. Uh, um, do you have anything that you want to hit us with ab- about what you maybe have learned from this wonderful conversation we've had before we hit the close?
Tracy Chamblee: Well, first of all, it's been an honor to be with you guys, just to connect with my friend here, my mentor, uh, someone who I have not seen in person in a long, long time.
Heard your voice, man. We gotta, we gotta see each other in person real soon, DC. We do. Definitely. And then a new friend, Larry. Uh, I've been admiring you guys and admiring the pods and stuff, and hit it off with Larry yesterday, uh- Yeah ... as we talked, and, and, um, that was great. And so I, I enjoyed the conversation.
I really, really did. It's just good to talk, man, and, and, and just talk about a lot of dif- different things and reflect, so it was awesome.
LT: Thank you. You were awesome. We so appreciate you.
Tracy Chamblee: Thank
LT: you. Uh, Jade, I'm gonna hit the show close now. Thanks for listening to Brands, Beats & Bites. The executive producers of Brands, Beats & Bites are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The podfather.
LT: And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share. And for those on Apple Podcasts, if you're so inclined, we love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast, and we look forward to next time, where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.
