Why This Agency Matchmaker Rejects Fossil Fuel Clients

Keith Zakheim 0:02

Welcome to the Age of Adoption podcast. I am your host, Keith Zakheim. Today, as we do with every podcast, we're going to ask our guest one question and one question only. What is your age of Climate adoption story? A little bit about the age of adoption. We live in an era where enterprises of every shape and size, regardless of industry, must rapidly transform to become more sustainable, climate sensitive. And just my day job is CEO of the

Keith Zakheim 0:32

marketing public relations firm Antenna Group. Our agency works exclusively with conscious brands. What is a conscious brand? It is a brand that is conscious of its responsibility to be on the right side of history. Like most businesses, our clients are experiencing a transition from an age of innovation, an era in which technologists, entrepreneurs and investors focused on innovating climate and sustainable solutions, to this age of adoption which characterizes the world today.

Keith Zakheim 1:02

So if you accept the Age of Adoption hypothesis, then there's really only one salient question to be asked. What is your Age of Adoption story? Steve Schemech, owner and CMO of Chemech Strategic, is one of the most powerful matchmakers in the PR and marketing business. Steve's extensive network of agencies and keen understanding and insights into their

Keith Zakheim 1:31

differentiators, or why the biggest brands in the world ask him to help select the right agency for their RFPs. To put it bluntly, Steve's voice is an influential one in determining which agencies will win some of the industry's largest RFPs. What makes Steve different, however, from other matchmakers is that he will not recommend agencies that represent fossil fuel companies. Steve has maintained this approach

Keith Zakheim 2:01

despite at times sacrificing revenue. On today's episode of the Age of Adoption podcast, Steve shares his passion for climate and why he has drawn this particular line in the sand. Back with Steve in a gif. Hey, Steve. Welcome to the Age of Adoption podcast.

Steven Shimek 2:22

Thanks. Great to be here, Keith.

Keith Zakheim 2:24

Steve, you and I have known each other now for a number of years and you are, I guess the best way to describe it for those who know Yiddish is you are a shadhun and a shot.

Steven Shimek 2:35

Oh, I thought you were gonna say yenta. Okay.

Keith Zakheim 2:37

Oh, but that's not a bad one also. But a shadchin is a matchmaker in Yiddish, typically for husbands and wives. Now, Steve, you may do that as well. I'm not sure. But what you're bet you have. But what you're better known for than, than matching boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives is being somebody who has a real keen understanding of what agencies, marketing and PR agencies, what they're looking for in a marketing or PR partner When undergoing the RFP process, being a consultant to those brands,

Keith Zakheim 3:07

finding and then using your extensive network of agencies to make the proper match. So anyway, in that role, you and I know that before that, which you'll bring us through when you tell us, when you share your career journey with us, you've worked in agencies in the past, but this is the Age of Adoption podcast. And while that's important for us to understand the background also fascinated as to how you became a public voice and a public advocate for agencies that do take seriously the climate crisis and

Keith Zakheim 3:37

agencies that do take seriously their responsibility to work with companies that are climate and sustainability sensitive and advocates themselves. So, uh, that's a long question, so we'll get to the simple one. And I know we're gonna get into all the good stuff. And that's Steve, can you please share your professional background, your journey that got you where you are today as CEO of Stimax Strategies?

Steven Shimek 4:00

Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks again. So I was the entertainment and agency guy at PR Newswire from late 97 up until like 2 05, 2005 pre 9 11. So I would just wander around the agencies, a ton of them nationally. And I also worked with just about every studio, Universal, Disney, mgm, et cetera. So I. I just would network. That was my business development style. I didn't really like the cold calling and all that. It's just not who I am. So

Steven Shimek 4:30

I just amassed a great group of people over the years. And pretty soon I went global with PR Newswire. And in 2005, everything shifted and I went to work at Reuter Finn. There I met probably the greatest boss I've ever had, Howard Solomon, who's still with Fin Partners in San Francisco and runs Asia Pacific. Heck of a guy. Learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from his team because he hired really smart people who, all of whom I've stayed in touch with and many of whom I work with left there, went to a British firm, and then I went to Fleischmann

Steven Shimek 5:00

Hiller. I enjoyed working at fh, but by that point I was ready to kind of get back to my PR Newswire lifestyle of being on the road and cocktails and breakfast and just kind of helping people. And so I got together a bunch of.

Keith Zakheim 5:13

Why have we never had cocktails, by the way?

Steven Shimek 5:16

I don't know. I mean, what the heck?

Keith Zakheim 5:18

I'm a fun guy to have a cocktail with. Kim's fun to have cocktails with.

Steven Shimek 5:21

I don't doubt that. I mean, I've been to your office and by the way, I love the new branding. That branding alone would get me in for a drink. It's, it's beautiful. I like the, I like the mission statement as well.

Keith Zakheim 5:30

Done deal, drinks in the horizon.

Steven Shimek 5:33

But yeah, you can imagine having, you know, for a good 15 years been the guy on the road and just making friends and traveling and seeing wonderful places. I wanted to get back to that, so I asked the agencies, they said, look, if you find a really cool client that you think would be an especially good fit for us, yeah, bring them in and, you know, we'll commission you just as we would commission our own team members. And the beauty of that is I'm not bringing a client to an agency that has the best intentions and might do a fine job. I'm

Steven Shimek 6:03

bringing client to an agency that thrives in that space and would crush it. And so that's what I started at the end of 2011. And I've, I've helped over 1600 companies and my five or six agencies have grown to over 350 consultants and agency partners on contract with Shimok. And I think we've helped in 46 countries around the world now. So, you know, a perfect example would be, yeah, it's, it's a, I really love it.

Keith Zakheim 6:32

A perfect example of your network. I saw something about 5,000 marketing and comms professionals, man, that's, that's, that's a big network.

Steven Shimek 6:39

Well, and that, that comes into play later because I know a lot of people, I know a lot of details about the agencies. I talk to whistleblowers, getting over to the green side of things. I talk to former employees. When, when a, an agency partner, individual who might be an EVP or a director or whatever moves to a new agency. I get this really cool call from a domain, you know, an email that I hadn't worked with before and they're like, steve, I'm over here, can we talk? And if that agency has a great reputation, I'm happy to chat with

Steven Shimek 7:09

them. So at any given time, I'm, I'm helping and my, my associate, Sarah, I brought an associate several months ago to help me. Anything under the purview of a cmo, whether it's ux, ui, influencer, full blown digital, we out, we, at any given time, we're helping 10 to 15 different companies around the world.

Keith Zakheim 7:28

Yeah, fantastic. And you know, for those, our listeners who, who have kind of over the years followed the kinds of guests that we bring on, Steve is, is, you know, not the typical guest, but, but the reason why he is so relevant to the Age of Adoption podcast just to kind of tee up. The age of adoption question for you Steve, is, you know, we're really interested in understanding how companies and industries themselves are adopting either the technologies of best practices around climate and sustainability

Keith Zakheim 7:58

or the values around climate and sustainability. And I think what's super fascinating, Steve, about your background and about your interest in this is with the wide swath of agencies and comms, professionals and brands that you interact with daily, right? You have a front row seat to understanding brands and agencies, how they're adopting the values right around climate and sustainability and that's as important. In fact, usually

Keith Zakheim 8:28

that is a great indication if their values, if they adopt those values, then business transformation is going to follow quickly afterwards, right? So it's almost a starting point in any business's transformation to become more climate and sustainable. So anyway, I think that's a fascinating perspective and before I ask you the question, I'm going to read to you a post that you put on LinkedIn recently that's, that's to me really, really fascinating. Strong advocacy and really throwing down

Keith Zakheim 8:58

the gauntlet and a challenge to agencies and brands to get serious about this. I'm not going to read the agency that you call out. And the reason for that first of all is I'm obviously a self interested party because I run an agency, so that wouldn't be fair. And also, you know, you and I have discussed this. My issue with agencies that represent fossil fuel companies is if they own it and have a position on it, I have no problems with that. What I think bothers all of us is agencies are disingenuous about it and want to have it

Keith Zakheim 9:28

both ways. But leaving that aside, I'm not going to read when I read the quote, the actual agencies, I'll leave that blank. But, but regardless, I think this is a powerful challenge to the industry. We often discuss various companies greenwashing efforts, but what about the agencies themselves? A number of them across blank greenwash their own images presenting themselves as earth friendly and sustainable while hiding their oil and glass and gas clients. If you have ever wondered if the agency which you're speaking or being pitched by

Keith Zakheim 9:58

works in those sectors, Cardi Worthman and Katherine Claire of desmog just put out an intense piece about this and, and you link to the piece. And so anyway, to me that was again kind of throwing down the gauntlet and laying down a challenge and ultimately sharing what you're seeing on a day to day basis. So Steve, we're going to ask the age of adoption question and two parts, really. I'm going to ask you to kind of deal with it in two ways. One is just your personal journey towards getting there. So what in some ways inspired you to make this one of your

Keith Zakheim 10:28

causes and in general, what you're seeing in the industry around age of adoption. So, Steve, the question that put fear in the hearts of all of my guests. What is your age of adoption story?

Steven Shimek 10:41

Oh, I love it. No fear at all. I'm excited about it. It's actually a way for me to give back to my advisor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I took two years to get a master's in environmental science. I studied in the Colorado Front Range, Ponderosa pine and Doug fir trees and the impact of humans upon climate. Then I didn't do anything. I worked on a cruise ship. I played beach volleyball. You ask anyone that I worked with at PR Newswire, like, they're like, did you really work that much? I mean, I did

Steven Shimek 11:11

a good job, but man, I was checking out it too, to play volleyball. And then the drinks.

Keith Zakheim 11:15

I love that.

Steven Shimek 11:17

So then I had a little girl. And I now have a little boy, 6 and 8 and 2021 rolled around, business is going great. 2019 rolled around, business is going great. And I watched this sweet young girl from Scandinavia, Greta Thunberg, stand up and do the bravest thing I've ever seen a little girl do. And she fought all these mean, aggressive, angry, belittling people. And I don't like bullies. I. I just

Steven Shimek 11:47

abhor bullies. I always have. And I saw my daughter and this little girl who's standing up for the planet. Got rid of my Yukon Denali, got a hybrid and started. And I made a vow that I would not work with any agencies that represented or clients that did oil and gas, tobacco or firearms because I wasn't giving back. I wasn't using my advanced degree. I felt I was being selfish. I wasn't really giving back to the world. I was just taking care of my family. I had a great time, I had a great

Steven Shimek 12:16

career. But I really wasn't mentoring or giving back as much as I would like. And I do mentor a lot, but I wasn't giving back to the planet. 2021 rolls around and I see an article by Duncan myself, Clean Creatives, and I reach out to him. And at first he didn't think I was serious, but I said, I know how to get under the skin of agency owners. That's all I do all day long is work with agencies and brands. And so he and I started a partnership, and I now truly feel that I can hold my head up high before

Steven Shimek 12:46

my advisor, Tom Veblen, who's one of the best in environmental science, and really give back more than I probably could have if I had become a professor or a forest ranger, which was going to be my initial calling. So every single day I make a decision to not work with oil, gas, tobacco or firearms, private prisons, anything that is just gives you the ick, right. And I want to be clear about.

Keith Zakheim 13:10

That, by the way, that, that for someone with your business model and the size of the agencies that you don't work with, I mean, that's a legitimate sacrifice on your part. So I don't want anybody thinking, oh, big deal. He's just taking a stance like that is a financial sacrifice, which is honestly the most credible sacrifice one can make. So I just wanted to point that out as well.

Steven Shimek 13:30

I appreciate that. And yeah, you know, we have multi million dollar reviews that come down the pike and like, we're working on a $30 million review right now. And some of the agencies they were talking to deal in that space. And we told them our business model and, and they themselves came forward and said, you know what, let's not invite that agency that we just taught them because they do have some sketchy stuff. And I said, there's a lot of good agencies out there. And that, that brings me to something that I hadn't anticipated in these reviews. And

Steven Shimek 14:00

again, I had nothing to do with that one. That was just them chatting. But when we're doing a review, people ask our opinion of the agencies that they've invited or that have been referred to them. So I won't name agencies, but, you know, in one case I said, do you know they're in the Mueller report? And the woman said, no. And I said, oh yeah, just go look it up. And then another one was a big agency and I said, well, you should probably look up what they did in Germany with Monsanto and Bayer. What'd they do? I'm like,

Steven Shimek 14:30

I, it's public knowledge. Others, I sent them to the Secretary of State Foreign Agent Registration act page. So what I try to do is I try to educate our world of marketers and communications officers of what's not in the deck, what's not on the logo slides. They can make their own decision. Every once in a while, we come up against a great agency. And I don't have to win all the reviews, but I do have to have transparency and a positive reputation to my name. And I Say, you know, that's a great, that's a great agency. You should tell Keith High for

Steven Shimek 15:00

me, case in point, that has happened with us, right? And you know, then we have a fun conversation about it. So my goal is to live a good life, be good to my family, be good to the planet and help our peers make the best decision they can. For an agency partner, it's really pretty straightforward. But yeah, I don't mind passing on, you know, the reviews that deal in those industries of which I'm not aligned. It's fine.

Keith Zakheim 15:24

Yeah. All right, so just a follow up question because to move to contemporary times where, you know, it's it, I still think, I still think it's early to make judgments about what the business environment's going to be over the next couple years for climate sustainability because it's complex and it's pretty clear that this administration is going to open up mining and drilling and it's going to roll back standards and regulatory and compliance with, you know, clean air and carbon emissions and that kind of

Keith Zakheim 15:54

stuff. But in terms of it ultimately rolling back the investments that have been made around renewables and other types of, you know, climate and sustainable infrastructure, I'm less certain. But putting that aside, you definitely see already the business community. I know a number of financial service firms for exactly like, you know, left the Net Zero coalition soon after, you know, the Trump administration was elected. So you're seeing some of this and, and you're not seeing a ton of people again, companies

Keith Zakheim 16:24

rolling back investments, but they're what a lot of people are calling green hushing.

Steven Shimek 16:28

Right.

Keith Zakheim 16:29

Recalibrating their comms and marketing strategy around climate and sustainability to protect themselves, understandably in some cases from retribution. I'm curious in your interactions over the last three, four months, and it may be too early to answer the question, but are you seeing some of this reticence among brands who are going to RFP for corporate comms or what have you, who are indicating, you know what, like this is now deprioritized. When we think about Corp comps,

Keith Zakheim 16:59

we're.

Steven Shimek 16:59

Actually helping a fantastic brand right now and it's more of a branding issue for them, but they were leading with sustainable versus actual sales, so that was just a misalignment. So that's funny that you bring that up. So we're helping them focus more on sales but keep the green message because they're sustainable. But yeah, we read a lot of RFPs and a lot of briefs and very rarely is anything about sustainable sustainability as an active part of the remit mentioned, it's in there, which is still nice. Like we, these are our values,

Steven Shimek 17:29

which is nice. And I think it's a message to align themselves with the proper agency. But you do see brands like Costco, who's got John Deere, and they said, we're keeping our DEI stuff, we're keeping our stuff exactly the way it is. And the roar of approval was fantastic. But then you see others like Target, et cetera, that roll things back and their financials start to be pinched and start to hurt. One of the things, there's a. There's a great group

Steven Shimek 17:59

in Britain, Solitaire Townsend and Lucy. I'm draw. I'm forgetting the name of the agency right now. You might know them, but they're working on a, a way to include details and RFPs and give clients, companies, a kind of a primer on what to include in an RFP and how to make it, you know, get the right agencies on board. Because here's the thing, when those of us like me get involved in a review, we're able to go to the CMO

Steven Shimek 18:29

or the head of marcom and say, look, these are the agencies. They're clean as a whistle. They're never in the news. You should be in the news. They should be the guy behind the guy. And when we go into those reviews, they have the option of choosing, quote, unquote, the good guys or those that might have a kind of a bespeckled reputation and the CEO doesn't necessarily know what's going on. It's their choice to make the review. They will nearly always go with the good guys. So we like to think we're changing from, you know, behind. We're the guy behind the guy doing all this. But

Steven Shimek 18:59

to your point, intrinsically, the people that work in marketing, in communications, for all of these brands are really good people and they do try to put sustainability as a priority. It's, it's the investors, you know, the shareholders that the company's trying to answer to. So I don't think it's going to go away. Even if it is hushed. I truly believe that companies are going to still try to do the right thing. At least the marketing teams are and the people on the ground. And, you know, if you look at protests, you take, you know, let's

Steven Shimek 19:29

just take the Bud Light protest, right? That was a big flare up and it went away. But then you take protests against agency, against companies that are just thrown out their D and I or throw out their sustainability. That's a continuous low roar and it hurts that company. So I think we just have to find a balance. You know, this administration is getting slapped left and right by the judges, which is great. And I think we're just going to find a balance where things will still be quieter. They might not be completely hushed, but I think

Steven Shimek 19:58

brands will slowly start to do the right thing and just not be very obvious about it. Yeah.

Keith Zakheim 20:05

And our council just kind of, in terms of what we're seeing to brands is, you know, when you look at climate and sustainability and investments and transformation around those, those things, you know, there's different value propositions. Right. There's what we would call kind of the virtuous value proposition, the value driven propos value. The value driven proposition for, for companies to transform when it comes to climate sustainability because of things like climate change and, you know, restoring and

Keith Zakheim 20:34

maintaining a healthy planet for future generations. That's really val. I mean, that's value based. And then you have business driven value proposition for climate and sustainability, which, you know, includes resiliency of supply chains and energy abundance and the fact that there's good ROI in these investments, et cetera, et cetera. And to me, that's not disingenuous to stress certain value propositions at certain points and not ignore the others, but certainly maybe deprioritize them in terms of your comms and

Keith Zakheim 21:04

that, that's, you know, the serious organizations that we work with. That's kind of what we're counseling and I think it resonates. So anyway, we'll see where all this lands. As you said, there's, there's, it's. Nowhere's a crystal ball right now and there's obviously this struggle between different branches of government. We'll see where it all ends up. But, yeah, but either way, Steve, really appreciate your time and just overall willingness to be a guest on the Age of Adoption podcast and look forward

Keith Zakheim 21:34

to seeing you again soon. Hopefully for a drink this time. We want to break into that club. Kim and I will do it.

Steven Shimek 21:42

Sounds good.

Keith Zakheim 21:43

Yeah. And again, thanks for all your efforts and look forward to seeing you soon.

Steven Shimek 21:46

That's great. Thanks, Keith. I appreciate it. Thank you, Kim.

Keith Zakheim 21:50

The Age of adoption podcast features CEOs, investors, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and policymakers sharing their climate and sustainability business transformation stories. Episodes can be found on your favorite podcast apps, including itunes and Spotify. The Age of Adoption podcast is brought to you by Antenna Group. Antenna is the home of conscious brands. We partner with companies that don't wait for change to happen. These brands shape the future, are awake

Keith Zakheim 22:20

and already moving unsure if you are a conscious brand, or even if you are one, whether you are positioned as one. Please visit our website at www.antennagroup.com and take the Conscious Compass Assessment, a groundbreaking tool that enables enterprises to assess their brand against the eight traits of brand consciousness. At Antenna, we partner with with companies big and small, from growth Stage to Fortune 100, to tell their

Keith Zakheim 22:49

climate and sustainability stories. So once again, if you're interested in joining the conscious brand movement and learning more about Antenna Group, please check out our website at www.antennagroup.com. ping us on LinkedIn and make sure to visit the Conscious Compass. It.

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