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From Creative Leader to CEO
November 6, 2024 Brand Leadership Career Growth Digital Transformation Leadership Management Strategy Teamwork
Guest Speaker
Karan Dang, CEO, DANG

Karan Dang is co-founder and CEO of DANG Brand Consultancy Group, a consultancy on a mission to modernize iconic global brands through authentic connections with the next generation of consumers. An internationally acclaimed creative leader, Dang was named Ad Age’s 40 under 40 in 2021 and ranked the #6 Creative Director in the world at the Cannes Lions Global Report in 2017. Prior to starting DANG, Karan was head of creative at the Walt Disney Company and head of brand creative at Walmart.

“What I have in my control is learning”

In this episode of Real Creative Leadership, Karan Dang joins Adam Morgan for a conversation about his new venture as CEO of his own branding consultancy firm, a natural evolution from his time as a creative leader at big-name brands across the industry. Together, Karan and Adam discuss what it takes to foster creativity (hint: it’s humility, curiosity, and a determination to keep up with youth culture) and how talent is really just hard work disguised as innate ability. Listen now to hear more from Karan and his unique experience collaborating with brands like Walmart and Disney.

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Adam Morgan
Creative Leader and RCL Host
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REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 5

Episode: 8

Episode Title: From Creative Leader to CEO — with Karan Dang

Guest Title:
Karan Dang, CEO, DANG

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Karan Dang
What you do is as important as how you do it, right? And we as creatives in our industry are really trained, you know, to focus on a lot of “what,” but understanding how things happen, right? Like, how to keep the morale, right? Like making sure that the team that is working with you and around you feel happy and feel great and feel an ownership of, you know, the work that they’re in.

Adam Morgan
Welcome to Real Creative Leadership, a video podcast produced by The Stoke Group and hosted by me, Adam Morgan. Today, we’re going to be talking about the path from creative to CEO and how to engage that next generation through what my guest calls “Next-Gen Centricity.” I’m thrilled to welcome Karan Dang to the podcast. Karan is a creative leader whose career journey has taken him from agency to CEO. He’s led teams at Disney and at Walmart. And now he’s the CEO and co-founder of Dang, a consultancy agency for modern brands. So first of all, welcome to the show Karan. 

You run your own business. You speak business. You speak, what we say is “speak khaki.” It used to be like, suit, like everyone was wearing a suit, but now it’s like, business people always wear khakis.So you understand that and you learn from, but you lead from a place of creativity. So I’m excited for you to give that balance of what it’s like to be a CEO and speaking business, as well as understanding the audience and creativity and building all the right creative ideas to share with that audience. So that was a lot for me. Let’s start with you. Why don’t you just go ahead and talk to our audience about your journey — where you came from, how creativity has been a part of your life, and then we’ll go from there. 

Karan Dang
Sounds good. I would just maybe start probably, you know, answering your khaki comment, right? Because I feel like as creatives in our industry, you know, too often we are disillusioned by the word “creative” and what creativity means, right? And a lot of times I think we mistake it for creative indulgence, right? Like, 99 percent of the times the way corporate structures are built, you know, our school of creativity really exists to propel, you know, business growth, right? You know, and that can be done, I guess, you know, through like brand building, you know, building an emotional connection, right? Persuading audiences, right? So, like, we are really commercial creatives or communication artists. And I’ve always believed and, you know, in speaking and understanding khaki, right? But like not losing the sight that our creativity is what sets businesses and brand apart. It’s really understanding, recognizing, and appreciating where we sit in the ecosystem. 

Adam Morgan
And it’s true. Like, you look at fine artists, it’s a totally different world. We are commercial artists. We are driving business through creativity. And so there is that unique role that we have. 

Adam Morgan
Yeah. You know, and now I guess in this role, right? And in partnership with Shruti, who’s my partner, you know, I feel really great about, you know, bringing that ability and that new kind of creativity, you know, and that mindset, right? To really build that playbook, you know, for our company, you know, putting our POV out there and, and really using our creative expression to shape our company, you know. Historically I was born in India. I moved over, you know, at the age seventeen to pursue electrical engineering, University of Arizona, and —

Adam Morgan
That’s awesome. Same here. I started in engineering as well. And then it’s like, “Nope. I need to invent stuff in different ways.” 

Karan Dang
Yeah, I did three years and it just wasn’t my calling. You know, I moved over to Singapore to join a really cool art school — LaSalle College of the Arts, you know, studied advertising there. And I’ve worked in, like, network agencies, you know, for the first ten years of my career, you know, great BBDOJ, WT, TVWA, you know, but really grew at the forefront of the digital revolution that was happening in our industry. Ended up building some really cool products and services and campaigns, you know, using the power of digital storytelling, uh, you know, to really build work that is going to be talked about, right? 

I mean, if you remember back in, you know, early 2000s, right? Like, that was all the rage, you know, with the work Crispin was doing with the work, you know, modernista back in the day was doing, so I moved over to Deutsche LA, you know, to the states to join Deutsche LA, and really got firsthand experience into, into American advertising culture in a fairly traditional agency.

But I really, you know, I met my partner Daniel Barak there and we ended up doing some really cool and innovative work, you know — it was such a fun playground, you know, using technology, using storytelling, you know. We pioneered the use of AI in advertising back in 2016, 2017, created a really cool experience of Volkswagen where you make car sounds, you know, and that AI brain would turn those car sounds into actual footage of the car, you know, going left and right for Volkswagen.

I would say that period in my career, you know, I ended up doing some really prolific work that got a lot of attention in the world. It really helped me identify and establish my creative POV, uh, you know. At that point that I actually, you know, use until today, you know, and I feel like that was when the genesis of next gen-centricity was born, you know, I guess for me as well. I never articulated it that way. 

Adam Morgan
Maybe articulate, tell us what that is. What is next gen-centricity? So that our audience understands. 

Karan Dang
So, you know, I have a vast body of work. And, you know, when we started looking at the niche, we wanted to go in and we really wanted to specialize our business, you know, in a particular niche, you know, with our venture,  we looked at two things, you know, what are we passionate about and what are our strengths, right? Like, in both of those things, you know, led us to the mission, which you were mentioning earlier, which is modernizing iconic global brands by helping them, you know, build an authentic connection with the next generation of consumers. And, you know, for shorthand, it’s next gen-centricity, you know, it’s, it’s really like the shorthand for it. Right? And it’s really like summarizing those words. And I think for me, the best way to explain it is when I wrote the manifesto for what it is, right? And that actually sits on our website. It actually goes like, you know, next gen-centricity is where the official languages video, you know, TikTok is the search engine of choice. Metaverse is a town square, you know, social feeds are the shopping mall, creators are the storefronts, you know, AI is your concierge where, you know, strategy is value driven and content is purpose led. Right? Like for me, that is really the essence of what next gen-centricity is, because that’s where the next generation of consumers sit, live, breathe, eat.

Adam Morgan
I’m sure there’s certain brands that are focused on youth, but my guess is it’s for all brands, right? There’s a lot that you can still take from it, cause everyone’s a consumer. 

Karan Dang
Yeah. And I mean, if you look at it, right, like. While NextGen is the focus, this is how the digital habits are, right? Like, we have a five-year-old daughter who can’t wait to press the skip button every single time an ad comes on her thing, right? And we, as an industry, are spending billions of dollars, you know, stuffing stuff into that skip button, right? So there’s something broken, right? And it’s not just my five-year-old. The last time you probably saw a YouTube ad, right, did you wait long to see the whole thing? Or were you like, “No, I want to go watch the content that I came here for,” right? Like, so, it’s a mindset, I think, we are articulating it, you know, and like trying to really commercialize it around the next generation of consumers, but it’s just the mindset that exists today. 

Adam Morgan
So it’s not just so from what I’m understanding, it’s not just the next gen, but also just consumers are changing, right? Our customer-centric approach is changing. So it’s like, we’ve got to adapt not just for the youth, but for everyone who’s hitting that skip button. 

Karan Dang
The paradigm has shifted — while next gen is the focus that is really helping us define how every other generation acts and behave because they are catching up with that generation. I think it’s, it’s just how the new age works, you know, and that’s what we are here to serve. 

Adam Morgan
Well, that’s awesome. I want to dig in a little bit of your history that you brought up where you’re like leading the creative at big brands like Disney and Walmart, and then deciding to go out and do your own thing. And we’ve talked on this show, a lot about like — 

So just some background, Real Creative Leadership did a survey a year or so ago where we talked to hundreds of creative leaders around the country of like, what’s their career path, where are they going next? And there was a third of them that are — a third of them that are just like, “I just want to stay as like a creative director, creative lead at a company and be done.”

And there was a third that as they got later in their career, they’re like, “Ah, forget it. I don’t want all this bureaucracy.” They go back to just being like a freelance creative director or freelance something. But there was another chunk that was interesting because the natural path would be, you know, you move up and either become a chief technology officer or a chief marketing officer, but there was most of them that they jumped straight to CEO. And it was, we saw a huge pattern of creatives because today’s the experience economy, they would just jump and start a startup or start their own company or start something else. So maybe tell us more about that, like your experience of like. Why you decided to just say like, “Screw it all. I’m just going to go start my own thing. I want to be in, I want to drive this thing. I want to be in charge.” And, and just taking on that mantle of, of just being the CEO new company. 

Karan Dang
Yeah. I mean, in all honesty, I can’t take all this credit. You know, this credit really goes to my partner in life and work, Shruti, you know — 

Adam Morgan
Let’s get her on the show then real quick. I’m teasing. I’m teasing. 

Karan Dang
No, we should. I mean, so like she really, you know, she comes from FinTech world and has been a product designer there. It was really her idea and vision to start something of our own, you know, something that we can build and shape together. You know, we have done a few creative projects together. We built a house together. We build a few rental properties together and you really use our, you know, complimentary skillset as creatives, you know, to build those things together. That’d be. design displays together. And we were really looking for what our next creative endeavor can be that we can do together as partners, you know, and you know, we were like, “Why not make this our career, you know?” And that’s how, that’s how the genesis of this idea came about to be. 

Adam Morgan
So some creatives would be a little afraid with starting a company. Cause they’re like, “Oh, all the finances and all the business stuff and all that.” Talk to me more about lessons learned now that you’re, you know, owning a company, like what are the, what were the hard things that you had to figure out or what are the things that you’re so glad you do, you have that knowledge now because it’s like changed your perspective on the world.

Karan Dang
To be very honest, we were in the same space. It was just like, how are we going to do it? Right? Like what does incorporation mean? What is an LLC versus an S corp, right? Like, do we need an IP lawyer? You know what? Like there are like a hundred thousand different types of lawyers, you know, that you get, you know, there are a hundred different types of finances. I think today, and we are three months in, so we’re fairly still new, but I would say the day to day we operate this thing. It’s as simple as that, right? Like if you’re raising a child, right? You know, or if you’re raising another human or like, you know, like kind of living in this world, it’s how you run a team. It’s how you build a team. It’s how you grow a team, right? If you’re doing your personal finances, you’re, it’s exactly the same way, right? That you do your corporate finances, right? It’s just like at a different scale. And there are different terms that you need to learn. But I think, right? Keeping an eager eye, understanding every single thing that we need to know that exists in our humanity or has existed. It’s all there, out there on the internet. So it’s just like having that childlike spirit of yes, I can do it. That mindset really helped us, you know? 

Adam Morgan
No, I love that. The mindset. Yeah. Cause after all this podcast in part is meant to mentor younger creatives and help them become better creative leaders and develop some of that. And the way you’re putting it is it’s just so like, “Oh, it’s just easy. You don’t need to stress about that. You don’t need to worry like creative leadership and all these other finances and F’s Corp and all the things that sound scary or weird, like they’re really not that, they’re not that tricky.” It’s just a mindset of looking at it with a creative perspective. 

Karan Dang
Right. I mean, it’s as scary as like the first time you get briefed on a campaign, right? Or, you know, project, right? And you go like, “Hey, you don’t know what’s going to come out of it, right?” It’s — you put it through your framework, right? And everybody, right? Like the really great creatives are who understand their framework and utilize it, you know, when they need it, right? Like the ones work up and coming, they’re constantly finding what their framework is, right? Like, I mean, I always say talent is nothing but hard work. So it’s just like applying your framework to what you’re doing. And, you know, like, we can’t. It’s like just like a creative campaign, like we can tell what’s going to work, what’s not going to work. I mean, we have that inkling and we have that, that, that gut feeling. Right. And, you know, so we inform ourselves with data. We inform ourselves with insights. We inform ourselves with like, you know, like what’s happening out there in culture. Right. It’s a similar process. So we’re just taking a framework and applying it to a business.

Adam Morgan
All right. We’ve been talking with Karan Dang about his approach to creative leadership as the CEO, his own consultancy. And here’s my big takeaway. It’s really not that scary. If you want to make that leap from creative to CEO, you just apply the same creative skills and tools that you’ve already learned to something that aligns with your core values and creative vision. In reality, it’s just a mindset shift. All right, now we’re going to dig into current’s framework for creative leadership, and I want you to pay attention and listen to the five principles he says can help anyone advance in their creative leadership journey. Well, now I want to know what’s your framework then? Like, what’s your approach to creative leadership? What, how do you do it uniquely or differently? Or is it the same building blocks that you use before? I’m — let’s talk a little bit more about that. 

Karan Dang
I think for me, creative leadership — and like I really developed my creative, you know, leadership days. And again, I was a creative leader or leader of creativity before Disney, but like Disney was really where I understood creative leadership and it’s, like, very nuanced, right? But it’s like two separate things. Right. I think I sum it up in these five principles, right. That I’ve learned from my mentors, from people out there, right. From working with just like these, like geniuses, you know, or at Disney, you know. And those five are, you know, create like — one is like creative leadership is not about, you know, what your team does for you, but what you can do for your team, right? Like being of that service mentality, right? Where people can thrive, where people are empowered to bring their own creativity grows. I feel as your leader, it grows your creativity. Too often, I feel in our industry, what happens is we grow up coming up with ideas and we get so precious about every single thing that we do that even when we are high up there, we forget our place. Our high up there is our job is empowerment, right? It’s making sure that everybody else, right? Like that’s how you multiply your superpowers is by making sure everybody, you know, can come up or has the understanding of a framework that you have established, right? Like that’s why having a clear aligned vision and, you know, telling people to go from A to B. Right? That’s where as a leader, you want to go and then let them choose their path. Right? 

Which brings me to my second point, which is autonomy is the single most effective tool when it comes to building a strong team, you know, and positive morale, right? Like, it’s not money. It’s not, you know, any sort of like job satisfaction. It’s not throwing these fancy parties or giving free food. It’s autonomy. You know, every creative out there, you know, like they run for, you know, getting some creative autonomy, right? So as a leader, if you can go like, “Hey, we are at a — we want to go to be now go figure out your path,” how to go there and let them go choose their paths, I think is is. This is the second, second point for me. 

I think the third one for me, which I feel like I should actually get it tattooed because somebody, you know, mentors Joran told me — you know, and I was struggling in the beginning at Disney, you know, to understand, you know, what are they talk about, you know, when they say leadership. Right? And one of my mentors told me, which is like, “What you do is half as important in the entire scheme of things. So what you do is as important as how you do it.” How being empathy, how being, you know, having a high EQ, you know, how being making sure your teams feel empowered and all of those other things, right? You know, building relationships, you know, creating a culture of positivity and harmony and, you know, happiness, right? I think that for me was a switching point in my creative leadership journey to go like — because as an ad agency creative, it’s all about just “put your head down and do the work,” which is the what, the what, the what, right? Like, I mean, even remember BBDO’s tagline, which is “the work, the work, the work,” right? It’s not that, it’s how that work came about to be, how everybody  around you, you know, feels when the work comes out, right? And how the process has gone  is equally as important as what you do. 

The fourth one is really about embracing diversity, you know, which is, and when I say diversity, it’s not just race or religion or background, it’s diversity in abilities, it’s diversity in mindset, it’s diversity in different skill sets. It’s so important to unlocking new ideas, inspiration, you know, possibilities, you know, uh, I mean, imagine, right? Like how boring it would be if everybody, you know, looks, talks, eats, thinks the same way, right? Then we get into singularity, right? And I think creativity is, you know, breaking away, right? Presenting something new, something unique, new combinations. Yeah. 

And I think lastly, I feel like as a leader, our job is to eliminate, you know, roadblocks away, right? Not be one — often too many hands I feel, uh, shaping the work makes the work safe and weak. Most often the best ideas, you know, it really comes, you know, when, when you, you know, you don’t have a lot of eyeballs on it, you know, and a lot of hands shaping it, right? So it’s making sure that your job as a leader is not just to write. Like, I mean, I remember back in the day in one of the agencies, just like write scripts and scripts and scripts. And it’s like 20, 000 different scripts. And my ECD Taking it over and he’ll write scripts. I’m like, that’s not their job, right? Your job is to make sure you’re creating a playing field for creatives to thrive and play. You know, so those are my essential, like, you know, summary of my five, uh, creative leadership, you know, that I use in my framework. 

Adam Morgan
Love it. Love it. There’s so much to dig into there. And I don’t know if we’d have an episode on each one of those topics. And frankly, we have on some of them, but yeah, I just want to highlight a few things just to make sure our audience understands that. 

Number one. It is hard because most of our career as creatives, it’s about us winning whatever award, doing whatever work. And just, it’s just like you focus on you and your portfolio and your growth and your skills and all that kind of stuff. And there is a switch. I really feel like there is a switch when someone finally gets to the point. Cause I’ll get so many people who want to kind of become a creative director or creative leader. And it’s like, “Well, I’m the best, you know, it’s like I should be at the top of the heap.” And it’s a switch where it’s like, it’s no longer about you. It’s not about you. It’s about the team. It’s about the work. It’s about the brand. It’s about something else. And giving up that ego is such an important part of creative leadership. So I just wanted to highlight that. Cause you said it really, really, really well.

Karan Dang
Yeah. And I mean, to that point. You do need that ego in the beginning, right? Like, to come up and climb up the ranks, you do need to build a brand around you. Right? And that’s why essentially what ends up happening is a lot of creatives just take that framework as the framework for success throughout your career. But what I feel more young creatives need to learn is that at some point that framework changes, you need to adopt new ways in right and bring these new learnings into kind of enhance your framework. So it can still be about your leadership, but your leadership doesn’t mean, you know, it’s about the ideas that you have come up with. It’s about, you know, the environment you have created for creativity to thrive. Right? And like, I think that’s how you really become a leader of leaders, right? Not just a leader of people. Creativity. 

Adam Morgan
There was something else you said about leadership where you said, like, talent is created through repetition or something like that. Like, talent is made. What was that?

Karan Dang
It’s, “Talent is hard work, right?” Uh, you know, growing up, like, you know, I did engineering and I suddenly switched over and I’ve always come from a science background, just like a good Indian kid, you know? But, when I went to art school, you know, everybody came there from a very art background, right? Like, they were plugged into creativity and I wasn’t, you know, I was really interested in it, but I was never, you know — I like, I didn’t know all these famous fine artists, or I didn’t know how to even write like this long as, you know, like art thesis. I think one thing I realized very early on was. Every single thing like we can be whoever we want to be, right? It’s just you know setting and aligning your vision to like, okay I want to become a really good creative right, and it’s like three years that I was in that school Like I mean, I was probably the first one to get a job, you know coming from that background to that because like I just went really in my deep focus mode to go like It’s hard work. It’s repetition. You know, like I want to learn — you know, in the — back in the day, it used to be archives, right? Like we used to just, like, go print up print after print test, right? Like, and I’m just like, how did they come up with the idea? It’s not just how great that idea is, right? Like deconstructing and breaking it down. I remember I, and I met my old CD in Cannes this year and I used to go knock on his door every single day with an idea. It’s almost like, you know, like going to the doctor’s office or like going checking with your accountability coach. And I’m just like, I would knock down and go like, “Hey, here’s an idea.” And he used to give me feedback every day. And I used to like wait outside his office to make sure he gives me feedback on my ideas that I used to come up with just to quickly sketch up, you know, these print ad ideas and kind of show and get feedback and then improve and then improve. 

And that repetition, you know, that hard work that I’ve put in, like, really helped me land my job, you know, help me, you know, do the work that I’m doing. Right? I mean, again, I started in print ads and then I was like, okay, digital revolution. I need to learn that. And I’m like, okay, how do I do that? And then I’m just like, you know, I started hanging out with folks who were, you know, like, really trailblazing, you know, in that field at that point, you know, I started understanding, talking to them, exchanging ideas, coming up with those ideas. I mean, even until today, right? Like, I mean, I’m an entrepreneur right now and I’m not hanging out in a lot of like ad conferences, you know, as much as, you know, I would, I’m actually going to these, like, you know, like, like AI, you know, summits, you know, in the Silicon beach here. Right. And I’m just hanging out and I’m looking at all these entrepreneurs, right? Like, how are they acting? How are they functioning? You know, how are they coming up with their ideas and how are they implementing those ideas? How are they going out and, you know, putting decks together to get funding for their businesses and really try to understand, learn and apply. Right? And I feel like there’s that belief in me, you know, and that’s my framework to go like, maybe that will work for me one day, right? Because, you know, there’s something new that I have to offer. And there’s something new that I’m trying to do. So, you know, I’m in education mode right now. 

Adam Morgan
It’s so true. And it’s that creative curiosity, I think that I relate to your whole story and that’s such a great example. I’ve told so many. Friends and family and employees of like, you got to find that passion, that drive and that creative curiosity. And it may drive you for the craft in the beginning of your career, but cause a lot of people may say, “Oh, you just become an old fuddy duddy to brand and you’re giving up cause you’re not doing all the same stuff you did earlier in your career.” But you have to realize that creative curiosity changes. Like you’re now curious about — it’s not about going to the ad shows, right? It’s about going to the AI show or what’s the next big thing. And how do you take that creative curiosity and focus it on building a business and understanding other business leaders and understanding AI. And for me being brand side, it’s like, “Man,, all the stuff that I craved early on as a creative of like the big idea, the big campaign. Now it’s like, what’s the big storytelling? How am I going to take this brand and turn it in the, make it stand for something, right? How am I going to take all these pieces of content that we do in it and make them feel like they’re connecting to humans in a new way?”

And so anyhow, love that you’re moving this, like taking that curiosity to the CEO level, taking it to business and, and it makes it more, I guess, accessible for the rest of us to like, just see. Yeah, we can do it. We can just take that same little spirit of creative curiosity and just start going for something else and learning about it.

So Karan, tell me a little bit more about maybe some valuable piece of advice that you’ve been given, you know, whether it’s from a mentor or an old boss or something like that, just what are other things that you’ve learned on your creative career that have helped you? 

Karan Dang
What you do is as important as how you do it, right? And we as creatives in our industry are really trained, you know, to focus on the “what,” but understanding how things happen, right? Like, how to keep the morale, right? Like we are not — I mean, I always call it like we are not in these short sprints, you know, we are in the long marathon, right? So making sure that the team that is working with you and around you feel happy and feel great and feel an ownership of, you know, the work that they’re in, right? You know, making sure that we work with real people with real human needs who have kids who have other priorities in life, you know, who have, you know, family who have friends, right? Like they have their tradition, they have their holidays, right? Like, how are you catering for all of that to create an environment where everybody feels valued and everybody feels seen, you know, having a high EQ. 

I mean, I’ll give you a little point where, like, I mean, I was — I joined the Walt Disney company to help build their digital creative center of excellence. And, you know, at a certain point there was a merger that happened with consumer products and parks experiences. Right? And they asked me to lead all of the creative at that point, you know, because again, you know, Back in the day, it used to be antiquated, digital versus traditional. Now, I mean, everything is digital, right? At that point I inherited a large team, which were primarily, you know, male focused, male dominant team, you know, at the same time we had our daughter and, you know, it took an executive pledge, which was, you know, I’m going to create a team where, which is equally representative, you know, in a year and a half. You know, built a team that was 49 percent female at all levels down from an intern up to a GCD, you know, who reported into me. Getting them in, getting them onboarded, but then also creating an environment where they can thrive where they can be heard. Right. You know, a lot of cultures in places are created by people who, you know, have been in that culture for a very long time, right?

Like, so if you’re infusing new talent in, you know, how do you look at certain parts of the culture and, you know, how do you tweak it? Right? Like, how do you make sure that everybody feels seen and everybody feels heard? Right? So I think for me, that thing of like, you know, how you do is as important as what you do was very, very important. And I feel like, you know, somehow that was the shift where I’m like, okay, I need to be so focused on the how part, you know. Not just create a great campaign, but like how those campaigns are created and like, literally break down the journey, you know, and see what are some of the pain points everyone is feeling and then how do you fix it? You know, I would say like 30 percent of my time, you know, went into, you know, one-on-ones It’s keeping that touch, right? Like 30 percent went into HR and finance meetings. Right? And then whatever 30 percent was left, you know, I would be in that, in that creative space, creating and helping propel creativity. But again, like, before that it was maybe a hundred percent creativity, you know.

Adam Morgan
That’s awesome advice for,you know, those who are either starting their journey or in their journey to becoming a creative leader. Something else I want to talk about as far as, like, relating to different audiences or different journeys is we talked earlier on how you’re focused on the next generation, right? New, new, younger audiences. Maybe tell us a little bit more about what principles guide you as you’re developing work for them. Like, what do you think about how do you react? How do you reach them? How do you connect?

Karan Dang
I think. It goes back to what we spoke about, right? It’s that curiosity. You know, the creative curiosity at a Dang — we have a fancy word for it. We call it the “art of digital anthropology,” right? Because now lives, you know, all over the Internet. Right? So we have, you know, team members, right? Job is to you know, be part of those discord servers, right? Go join those, you know, Substacks, right? Like be on TikTok all the time, right? And gather those insights, right? Like, go on the subreddits, like double click into those to find, right? Like it’s a rocket science, the answers and the opportunities all exist out there, right? It’s just putting in the effort and going into places and spaces where the next generation of consumer thrives and understanding, you know, right?

Like, I mean, part of a content series that I do, you know, I interviewed, like a Gen Z folk a week, you know. After that, like I interviewed somebody last week where, you know, she was talking about like how brands kind of, you know, like. represent the Gen Z audience has almost like this cringe, right? Like that’s  so true because a lot of times we come from a place of, you know, “Oh, this is a new audience.Let’s make fun of them, right. You know, and let’s use their lingo, right?” Like suddenly change those things. Right? But it’s understanding why certain words exist in their vocabulary, right? Like why certain aesthetic, you know, lives in their, uh, you know, like,  visual vernacular, right? It’s understanding the reason, right? Like the next generation of consumer probably had it hardest, right? Like they saw the, you know, they were probably born or, you know, like very young at the age of, you know, in 2008-2009 crisis, you know. They have seen, you know, a lot of the wars that have happened, you know, that America had, participated in — maybe softening it by saying “participated” but — you know, they have seen, they’ve lived, you know, they were ready to go into the workforce, you know, when COVID hit, right. They are now, you know, but like this, what the, the blackout Monday that happened, you know, this, this Monday, right. Like they are seeing, you know, inflation, they’re seeing recession. So that audience has gone through a lot, you know, they have, you know, a lot of those experiences shape their identity, shape their personalities and in turn shape those cultures, right? And all of that exists out there because they are, you know, The most vocal audience out there, right? Like they are tweeting, talking, you know, posting about that stuff everywhere. So it’s just keeping an eye out on that. And I think it’s being at that forefront, you know of where that culture is being built, you know. 

The three tenants, I would say, you know, of our company is the culture, you know, that they consume, you know; the communities that they live in; and the commerce habits that they have, right? Like, that’s how we shape everything. You know, we put everything through that lens and that’s how we, you know I feel like we have created that model around that. 

Adam Morgan
That’s awesome. Just be curious — go be where they are, do what they do, listen to what they’re doing, like that. That’s a great answer of, like, how you can dig in.

[So I know we’re near the end here. What final advice do you have for anyone who’s new to creative leadership? What, you know, any, anything that you’ve come across in your career that you’re like, this is just what you need to understand when it comes to becoming a creative leader. 

Karan Dang
I think one is understanding not only that the consumer paradigm has shifted, you know, the paradigm for our industry is shifting as well, right? Like, I remember a time standing in front of the ballet at Cannes and a lot of my peers are talking down on influencers like, “Ah, who cares?” Influencer, influencer is a buzzword, right? Or talking down on the cloud tech or talking down on the data and personalization, right? Look at now, like now all those things are running our industry, right? Like, our industry as you and I grew up in has, it’s not dying. Everybody keeps on talking about it like it’s dying. It’s not dying. It has somehow just become the legacy industry, right? There’s this whole new forefront of what our industry has now become — which is right— like, it’s creator-led, right? It’s data-led, right?

It’s personalization led, you know — with AI, it’s going to revolutionize even more. So understanding, right, for a lot of young creators who are coming into this business to keep an eye out and see how and where those innovations are happening, right? And be at the forefront of it, right? The power is in their hand because everybody before them do not have an idea. They’re still putting their old ways of working. 

So I would say one, I would say the second thing is ask, you know, ask for help, you know, ask for resources, you know, ask for advice, you know. Always have a keen, you know, learning mindset, you know, and understand that, you know, leadership of creativity is very different from creative leadership. Right? And making sure that — making sure that you take an active interest in it. 

Adam Morgan
No, I love it. That’s a good place to end. That’s been a theme of this whole talk of like, whether from creative to CEO, it doesn’t matter. You just need to, you know, put some interest into it, have some creative curiosity and just, and just dig in and learn and grow. And I think that’s such a good message. So thank you. Thank you for that. And thank you for being on the podcast and for being a part of your leadership in our community. We appreciate it. 

Karan Dang
Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. 

Adam Morgan
As always, you can find me at adamwmorgan.com. And finally, this show is produced by The Stoke group, a full service digital agency that specializes in content, marketing, video, and interactive experiences. So if you’re looking for a partner for strategy or content or anything else, visit thestokegroup.com. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.