In the latest episode of Scratch, Nick Tran, President and CMO of First Round, breaks down what culture actually looks like when people put their phones down, why brands are over-indexing on micro-cultures, and what it takes to create work that cuts through the sea of sameness.
From building Cîroc Athletic Club into a media and events platform to rethinking the traditional conference format at Cannes, Tran shares how brands can respond to changing social behaviors by creating spaces people genuinely want to be part of.
We get into:
- Why culture is really about the “campfire conversations” happening off-screen
- Why the next big opportunity might be moving from micro-culture back to macro-cultural moments
- How Cîroc Athletic Club turned changing drinking habits into a 20M+ monthly-view media ecosystem
- Why the best experiential marketing gives people space to play, connect, and surprise each other
- What the “30 moons” approach to AI means for creativity, taste, and human judgment
- Why brands should stop worrying about who did an idea first and focus on who does it best
- Why intimate, practitioner-led conversations are replacing the traditional marketing conference
The key takeaways:
- Culture happens around the campfire — Culture isn't just music, sport, fashion, or whatever is trending on your feed. It's the conversations people have when the screens go away. That's where brands should be looking for cultural insight.
- Micro-culture isn't the only answer — The industry has spent years fragmenting audiences into increasingly niche communities. When everyone is doing the same thing, going bigger can be the more distinctive move.
- AI needs a human with taste — The first AI output is rarely the best one. Tran's “30 moons” principle is about pushing through iteration after iteration until you find something genuinely distinctive. AI can generate. Humans still need to know what's great.
- Socializing is changing — Younger consumers aren't necessarily going out just to drink. Active leisure like pickleball, tennis, and golf is becoming the reason to gather, with alcohol playing a secondary role. Brands need to build around the behavior, not force the old one.
- Build platforms, not campaigns — Cîroc Athletic Club turned a cultural shift into an ongoing media and events ecosystem, taking organic social views from 100,000 to more than 20 million a month.
- Kill the grind — At Cannes, First Round deliberately removed the panels, packed schedules, and endless meetings. Leisure created the conditions for the conversations and connections everyone was actually there for.
- Execution beats originality — Consumers don't care who technically did something first. They care about who did it best. Fear of being derivative shouldn't stop brands from executing a good idea brilliantly.
- The conference needs a rethink — Senior marketers don't necessarily need another panel. They need access to people who have actually done the work, in environments where genuine conversation can happen.
📚 Chapters:
- (00:00) – Intro & Nick Tran's career background 🎙️
- (02:23) – Icebreaker: favourite challenger brands & Nike’s comeback 🏆
- (06:01) – What is First Round? 🥃
- (08:24) – The evolution of culture: from micro-communities to campfire conversations 🔥
- (13:44) – Bundling & unbundling culture and media platforms 🎧
- (18:45) – AI, creative constraints, and the 30-moon analogy 🌙
- (25:38) – Human taste vs. the democratization of content 👀
- (30:00) – Staying fluency-driven as an executive in the age of AI ⚡
- (35:36) – Active leisure & the Cîroc Athletic Club strategy 🎾
- (38:02) – The “obscene” anti-grind Cannes Lions activation 🦁
- (41:15) – Scaling organic social views from 100K to 20 million 📈
- (42:53) – Rapid-fire lightning round & outro 🎤
🖊️ Mentioned in the show:
Watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube ▶️: https://youtu.be/najVJ8Fd9lg
Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy. Scratch is hosted by Eric Fulwiler, and he’s joined by Nick Tran of First Round in this episode.
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