Val Capone (00:02)
not much has changed, strangely enough, from 1987 to 2025, except for the technology. know, back in the day, it wasn't about campaigns or digital channels. Everything was print.
mailers, brochures, events, you know, and you just had to rely on doing everything yourself. There was no undo button. You didn't have endless opportunities to edit materials. Once it went to the printer, it was done. but it was purposeful.
You had to be so intentional because once it was done, it was done.
Ben Ard (00:56)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Val. Val, welcome to the show.
Val Capone (01:01)
Hey, thank you for having me, Ben. Yeah, it's great to be here. My first podcast, little nervous about it. You're either going to ramble, tell too much or tell too little. But ⁓ I've been in marketing for more than I care to admit sometimes, but dating back to 1987, I don't want your listeners to get put off by the fact that she's going to tell stories of back in my day. But there is a tie in right, because it's all about fundamentals. But as I mentioned,
been back in, started in marketing in 87, always been in professional services firms, marketing and the AEC industry, architectural engineering, construction, real estate development. Had a few careers in between, still somehow crossed over into marketing. I was a freelance reporter and columnist for a while back East for a hometown paper and marketing just kept pulling me back in. Felt like I was in a bad version of a Godfather movie.
and more recently have been the Director of Marketing and Communications for a civil engineering planning firm here in Phoenix with offices nationwide. I've enjoyed doing that, but before that I was also a consultant and strategist. So I've seen a little bit of everything. I earned the title back in the day of Head Cook and Bottle Washer. I think it's stuck today, but it has served me well. So I look forward to sharing some of my insights.
Ben Ard (02:18)
I love it. Val, this is exciting. And really the conversation is going to be based off of what you've seen over the course of your career. So having spent over 30 years in marketing, let's go back in time. Let's start everything off. You started in 87, looking at the 80s and 90s. What was good marketing then, especially for all of the users who
Val Capone (02:30)
Yeah.
Ben Ard (02:38)
Sadly enough, there's a lot of people listening to podcast who never experienced those decades, but what looked good in the 80s and 90s for marketing?
Val Capone (02:46)
Nothing. I was saying to you earlier is that we really didn't think about marketing as something actually that you did, like as a job. It's just something you kind of just fell into. You hired as admins, you were hired as marketing assistants and
not much has changed, strangely enough, from 1987 to 2025, except for the technology. know, back in the day, it wasn't about campaigns or digital channels. Everything was print.
mailers, brochures, events, you know, and you just had to rely on doing everything yourself. There was no undo button. You didn't have endless opportunities to edit materials. Once it went to the printer, it was done. You missed a deadline getting to Kinko's. I'm probably going to use a lot of words and names and references that people aren't going to understand. That was a print shop. It closed at five. You became the office criminal if you didn't get it in time, but it was purposeful.
You had to be so intentional because once it was done, it was done.
You didn't have emails going back and forth. Edits were done printing out something on a dot matrix printer back in the day of struggling with paper with little holes on the side. Passed it around to who had to review it in an interoffice envelope, wait for red lines, figure out whose edits came first before anything even went to print. So you were really restricted, but you had a plan and you had to get a lot done in a short amount of time.
with not having the tools as a crutch. So, you know, like I said, there was a lot of print, there was press releases, for instance, you know, now we have social media, and I know people still use PR, and this is not to say people shouldn't use PR agencies, but when you did a press release back in the day, it meant something, meant to say you had something to say, you didn't say it for the sake of, so it wasn't about getting published, it was about getting noticed. And now we're just, it's constant chatter. So there's a lot of, you know, there's a difference.
obviously, and how news is being distributed. But we didn't think about it ever changing. That's just the way that it was. Where today, we're using technology waiting for that next trend to start, the next tool, like a chat GPT that just birthed itself out of, let's say out of nowhere, but just showed up in your doorstep as a supposed threat. But yeah, you just kind of did what you knew you had to do. So it was just a lot of reliance on what always worked.
or they think that worked, because he didn't have metrics. He didn't have metrics. You weren't marketing to multiple generations. It was the early boomers, maybe even World War II generation folks. They were the decision makers. They were the ones that signed the check. You weren't trying to appeal to some 30-year-old, high-level, senior-level marketing persons there, or decision maker at a tech firm.
Your message was very deliberate. And you didn't know if it worked or you didn't work, you just kept doing it. And not to say that it was right, but you didn't really, you didn't know what the result was going to be until technology started coming in and you had options. But storytelling remains the same, right? You still have to tell a good story and you still have to make it stick.
Ben Ard (05:30)
I that.
I love that. So you talked about chat GPT kind of coming out of nowhere. I don't think a lot of people saw it coming. And obviously that company was preparing and building for years and years. But what are some other like big turning points in marketing that you've seen that kind of changed the game of marketing as we know it today?
Val Capone (05:59)
Well, obviously technology, and it wasn't just chat GPT. You know, as I mentioned, I started working on, again, dating myself, but obviously I already did that. DOS based, we had to put in, do you remember that? The DOS commands, like to double space, to underline, to bold on a black screen with white lettering, like white lettering. And you had very little options. So nothing, you couldn't, I don't even think you could spell check. Spell check was the person who sat beside you, right?
Ben Ard (06:12)
yeah.
Yeah, spell check
Val Capone (06:25)
Like to have a minute, you go into
Ben Ard (06:25)
then coming out down the road.
Val Capone (06:26)
lunch, right? So it was really the technology, but when MS, know, and Microsoft Office Suite came along, it opened up a whole new opportunity. I mean, it took a long time to get something done back in the day, because everything, something didn't look right or print right. You had to go back to your commands to say, did I miss something to make this work right? Then, but with technology, when the Office Suite came out,
Everything happened so much faster. used to have bosses that would tell me, slow down. I'm like, look, I started working on IBM Selectric Typewriter. So this is amazing, right? Things can be in color. We can use, clip art, right? Everything. And then PowerPoint presentations. I mean, things looked a little janky in the beginning, but it was a step forward. And that's when I think we really started paying more, at least me, paying more attention to, okay, technology is going.
Ben Ard (07:01)
Yep.
Val Capone (07:15)
somewhere, this is going to change the way we work. And you watched it. mean, the best thing that happened is when you didn't have to save on a floppy disk anymore or a corrupt, you know, a corrupt file, looking for a file that was corrupt. So technology really was the game changer and it allowed, like I mentioned, nothing was ever done because you can constantly edit it, but it gave you the flexibility and the agility to be able to respond to changes in your business, to news that was happening.
Ben Ard (07:22)
Mm.
Val Capone (07:41)
⁓ so that was, that was a big game changer, but it also, think, raise the expectations because now people that you work for, right? The managers, the leaders, senior leadership, they knew you had the tools. So they kept raising the bar and then we kept raising our own bar. And now, you know, 30 years later, we're in a constant chase of let's do it better. What can we use? Should we be using this technology? How do we show that we're keeping up with trends?
And that was a difference, I think, back then, is things were changing. Even with, when LinkedIn, when I first started using social media for business, I was working at a Boston based architectural firm. LinkedIn was, if you have time, it. Social media was, if you have time, do it. You know, Facebook you use for more showing cultural. LinkedIn you showed, we had, you know, a new project groundbreaking. There was a news article that was released, but they were still wanting that.
Are you sending out the newsletter? Are you going to send an email campaign? So it still was a lag in adoption for that technology, but yeah, it still didn't change the approach.
Ben Ard (08:45)
One is so fascinating to hear that because I feel like a lot of people are having a very similar experience with artificial intelligence. They're looking at it saying, now that we have this new technology or resources, the expectations are just kind of going through the roof of what I need to produce. I'm stressed out because of it, all of that. And it's interesting to hear. This is not a new thing. This is something that happens. It's cyclical in nature.
Val Capone (08:58)
you
Ben Ard (09:10)
And when big innovations come out, people have to discover how to use them, but then they do raise their expectations and eventually they normalize and people understand the technology, but it can be stressful regardless of what new innovation comes out.
Val Capone (09:25)
Exactly. remember when I didn't even find, I heard about ChatGPT in the distance and a coworker said to me, know, ChatGPT, it's going to replace marketing people. And I thought, someone came to our rescue. mean, I don't need to do this anymore. Somebody is going to think for me. And I don't know if you probably have used it in its early days. And I would play around with it to ask it something simple. Like I want to write a thank you email.
or to somebody who I met at an event that it was nice meeting them. think there's some mutual opportunities here that we can look to explore. it, because it was so new and we weren't feeding the machine yet, it was so superfluous. It was just so verbose. It's like, it was the greatest of pleasure to have met you at the such and such. I'm everyone start using this. But it wasn't encouraged. that was ChatGPT. Don't use ChatGPT. People could tell.
And people can still tell, like I love an dash, but you've read some posts that if it has an dash, it must be chat GPT. It's like, no, I've been using it. Although it used to be a double dash because we didn't have an dash symbol back in the day. But I tell people even now, because it's become much more common, use it, but it's a tool. It's not a crutch. You still need to feed your voice, your perspective, your story.
It just because it spits it out quickly doesn't mean that it's accurate or telling it the way that you want to. It's still missed nuances. I mean, it's, still a machine. I mean, someday it'll probably take over for all of us, but I should either be retired or have gone on to greener pastures. But I don't think people need to be afraid of it. And I think, you know, as a Gen Xer, we really like straddle the spectrum of technology where we started to work and where we are now and had to adopt to it.
So, you know, with the younger generation, you have an edge, right? They grew up, you know, I want to say they came out of the womb learning, you know, knowing how to text, you know, not without looking at the screen, but, you know, they're digital natives. You know, they can explore it and not be afraid of it where we were just like, it's going to replace us where, you know, you just use it. Again, it's a tool. It's not going to replace us.
Replace the knowledge, replace the creativity. That's what's our community becomes hollow.
Ben Ard (11:35)
Yeah. I love that.
Yeah, for sure. So one question I have kind of as we're getting towards the end of this episode today, based off of those years of experience, seen the trends, seeing what stays, what's the same, what's different, things like that. What lessons do you feel like marketers in general should take away from the experience that you have? You talked about storytelling and things of that nature, but
What's the core of marketing? mean, you've seen it through different stages and I think sometimes we get lost in the technology. We get lost in some of the tactics. What is, what is real marketing look like and what are some insights you have from those years of experience?
Val Capone (12:10)
Yep.
Get out, no, I'm kidding. Well, first, you have to love what you're doing. I think marketing is one of those professions that if you don't like it, you can't fake it because you always wanna be innovating, thinking about a new way of doing things, not for the sake of activity. More activity doesn't mean better strategy. So it's really, and it sounds common sense, but I'm always surprised at how many people don't really think about it is that be deliberate.
be purposeful, like you saying earlier, be authentic. People can see through it. Audiences are much more sophisticated today and they have a higher expectation. They can see through your messaging. And like back in the day, people just read your content, right? We didn't call it content for facts. Now messages are more emotional. They're connecting to it, even if they don't realize it on an emotional level. So understand who you're speaking to.
One of the big things I would say to the younger marketeers today of the Gen Z, right? The Gen Z and the millennials is remember the Gen Xers and the baby boomers. We're still in the office space. So not all messages are going to relate the same way content isn't going to, we're not looking on Tik TOK to figure out what a company is doing. So if you have an opportunity to tell your story and tell it to multiple generations, give that some thought until we're all, you know, playing golf and.
learning how to play pickleball. But don't blindly chase every trend. I back in when all these social media platforms came out and digital campaigns and email campaigns, I was asked to do everything. And I didn't have any proof to say we shouldn't be until I did it. So sometimes you do have to test the waters, throw it against the wall, see what sticks. Use your data, use your analytics to make your point either to pitch
for a budgetary purposes of getting more backing to go after a certain digital tool or use it to support why you're not gonna do it anymore. So that's, know, remember the whole idea of any content marketing or marketing is getting noticed and being remembered. And you know, you could be forgiven once for making a mistake, but don't make a habit out of it. Just be real.
Ben Ard (14:19)
Yep, 100%. I love that. Well, Val, to keep these episodes short and let people get back with their days, we have run out of time. But thank you for the insight, sharing your experience. For anyone who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Val Capone (14:34)
Come on, LinkedIn, under Val Capone. There may be another one on there that's a roller derby person in Chicago. That's not me, but ⁓ Arizona based. So you can find me. I'd love to hear from you. It's great to talk to other marketeers to see what they're doing. even despite my experience is always something to love.
Ben Ard (14:51)
love it. And for anyone listening, will link to Val's LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So just scroll down, click on her name and connect with her on LinkedIn Val. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really do appreciate your time and insights today.
Val Capone (15:00)
Thank you.
Thank you. was pleasure to be here.
