Most people know Ryan Reynolds from his movies, but the actor has his hands in a number of entrepreneurial ventures. He owns a majority stake in Mint Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator, which has grown more than 50,000% in the past three years. He was also invested in Aviation Gin before selling it for a staggering $600 million last year.
But perhaps most applicable to the startup world, Reynolds is also a founder of Maximum Effort, a marketing firm responsible for the ads you’ve seen for the “Deadpool” franchise, Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile (of course) and that hilarious Match.com ad featuring Satan and the year 2020 as a match made in hell.
At TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 this week, we sat down with Reynolds to discuss how startups can use “fast-vertising” (a term Reynolds coined), which involves treating real-time cultural moments as a springboard, to build their own brand buzz.
We also talked about why he invests in big, well-established businesses instead of small tech startups, why Mint isn’t available in Canada yet, and perhaps most importantly, how authenticity and failure are actually the keys to his success.
The secrets of great marketing
Reynolds knows exactly what he brings to the table when he makes a deal with a company. First and foremost, it’s awareness. He’s Ryan Reynolds, after all, and can introduce a lesser-known brand relatively easily, considering he has more than 18 million Twitter followers and nearly 40 million followers on Instagram.
But unlike other celebrities who tweet inauthentic promotions of brands they’re associated with, Reynolds truly wants a seat at the table and has a level of credibility with his fans and followers that is a direct result of his personality.
I can’t be the only one who believes that Reynolds means what he says. It’s not always about the volume he brings to the table, but the quality of what he’s saying.
“At the end of the day, it’s really about authenticity,” Reynolds said .
And authenticity doesn’t come from having millions of followers on Twitter. Rather, it’s the opposite. Reynolds’s big piece of advice to startups trying to market to their existing and potential customers is to treat them like intelligent individuals who are aware that marketing exists.
“You really gain great credibility with the consumer and an audience by not pretending,” said Reynolds. “I think a lot of marketers are pretending consumers aren’t really aware that they’re experiencing marketing. I think it comes down to a bit of a spoiler alert, which is that people know what we’re doing. So let’s drop the artifice and have fun with it instead.”
Realizing how freeing it can be to drop the act and be up front about the fact that a commercial is, in fact, a commercial has been a huge pathfinder into the industry for Reynolds. Like any big “aha!” moment, it was like a slap on the forehead for him. But this realization didn’t just pave a path into the marketing world. It actually opened up new pathways for the marketing itself.
“If you acknowledge the idea that we’re actually marketing to consumers and acknowledge that this is a commercial … once you get to that place, you start to find that people are sharing your commercial and your story,” said Reynolds. “You’re treating them in a way that’s much more dignified than just trying to hoodwink or sell them on something.”
Reynolds didn’t learn authenticity from his marketing career; it’s just a part of who he is. Anyone who’s seen his interviews or social media content knows that he’s not afraid to speak his mind, as irreverent as it may be. And yet, he remains beloved by millions of people.
We asked Reynolds how much filtering actually goes into his public persona, and if he’s ever worried he may step on a land mine. His answer was not only refreshingly human, but provided insight for startup founders looking to build relationships and success:
I have a long history of overthinking things. I think that comes down to experiencing pretty intense anxiety from a young age. That, for all of its pitfalls, is also a real engine for creativity for better or worse. And I emphasize and underline and bold “for better or worse,” but you’re constantly projecting yourself into the future; you’re constantly looking at the question of “what is this?” So, yeah, there are definitely opportunities there where I might step on a land mine or two. But I think if you’re being authentic, and you’re facing these things kind of nakedly and honestly, then, in general, you’re gonna be okay. Because at the end of the day, I’m a human being like you and everybody else watching or listening to this.
I’ve found that everything that I’ve built or made, that I value and hold dear in this world, including my family and businesses, have all been built on the foundations of failures and mistakes. If you start to try to avoid failure at all costs, or avoid a mistake, or a land mine at all costs, well, then, I don’t know that you’re really going to exceed your expectations for yourself for what it is that you want. Sometimes it avails you to so much more. Every time I’ve ever fucked up, I have learned so much more. The soil of that fuck up is so much richer than, you know, a success or a win.
It’s the willingness to be a human being and accept that there may be mistakes that makes for the ingredient needed to “fast-vertise” successfully. It’s not necessarily about a formula or procedure, but about the agility to jump on something and do your best without worrying if it’s absolutely perfect or precise.
Reynolds shared that some clients will come to him and demand a cultural moment sometime in the next quarter. He must then explain that that isn’t really how culture works. Rather, he thinks of his marketing work as a special-ops force.
“When we lead with creative and we have an idea or are inspired by something, we get quite aggressive with our excitement and try to make something infectious around it,” said Reynolds. It’s about thinking about the world and trying to look at it from 30,000 feet, and going further on that thread, applying your own personal experiences to it, he said.
Betting on himself
Many high-net-worth individuals like Reynolds choose to invest in small tech startups, and it’s worked for many, including Ashton Kutcher, Serena Williams and Kevin Durant.
Reynolds takes an entirely different approach: buying big stakes in a small number of already established companies. He explains why:
Because I can bet on myself in a much, much more clear and distinct way. If it’s failure, then I’m the architect of that. If it’s a success, amazing. If I’m the architect of its failure, then I get the benefit of learning from that failure. You know, when you just start writing checks to startups left, right and center, it seems to me that it’s a slightly out-of-control pursuit. Is it the best financial advice for anybody in my position or anyone else’s position? Probably not.
I don’t know. … You know, my dad was a cop. I come from a big family. He supported four kids. And my dad’s feeling was always “Just stay out of debt if you can in life.” My dad worked his fingers to the bone to keep this relatively large family out of debt. Those kinds of things, they stay with you. Against better judgment, perhaps, or better advice. But at the end of the day, it’s been working for me.
Reynolds doesn’t want to invest his wealth if he can’t personally invest his time, his energy and his own skill set. But it goes beyond being clever or posting content to his followers. Reynolds shared the lessons he learned growing up in Canada, which may sound simple but are a big part of his success in the business world and beyond.
The first of those is to be on time. He said that it signals to people that their time is valuable, which gets things off to a good start.
The second is around conflict resolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trepQqOrgbA
Reynolds explained that the lessons he’s learned around conflict resolution have allowed him to negotiate in the business world with great success. But he specified that it’s not the traditional negotiation you think of in business — around dollars and deals.
“You can negotiate human emotion and feeling and power shifts and power struggles, and those kinds of things,” said Reynolds. “And navigate those oftentimes very choppy waters.”
He feels this type of negotiation can be even more difficult in show business, where egos and personalities are about as big as they can get.
But how does he do it?
“Equip yourself with the tools of ‘mirror, empathize and validate,’” he said. “It really, really kicks ass. I cannot stress that enough for anyone who’s watching, jumping into the shark-infested waters of business. Conflict resolution. Mirror, empathize, validate. It’s something that has served me almost daily since I started this grand and weird adventure.”
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