Years ago I got the idea to start a podcast about diversity in advertising – and I titled it AdVersity, which very few people got – most people thought it was a show about overcoming struggle. In the immortal words of Sir Nigel Tufnel, “there’s a fine line between genius and stupidity”.
I mostly interviewed friends and friends of friends, and I found I enjoyed the experience of researching, preparing the interview, the interview itself, and editing it. That one has mostly disappeared off the Internet as I stopped paying for the podcast hosting. Very few people outside of my family listened to it. I think it was a great learning experience.
A few years later a friend who had worked at Univision Radio and had launched his own podcast network called me and asked me if I’d be interested in doing another podcast with Court Stroud, whom I knew from my early days in advertising when he managed Azteca América, and Ana Crandell, who’s very well established in the multicultural media world. Court had been writing for Forbes for a while, was now teaching at a college level in New York and had a ton of connections, as did Ana.
Thus we launched the Revolución Podcast. I came up with the name thinking about the revolution of new technologies and greater diversity in media, and created a logo that resembled political posters of the 60s and 70s and we set up to work. We had a lot of fun doing the first few episodes and figuring out the dynamics between us.
We updated as frequently as we could, but life would sometimes get in the way. Ana’s commitments meant that she could not continue doing the show, but Court brought in Kathryn García Castro and Linda Lane González, both of whom are also very active in the multicultural advertising world and brought in their extensive contacts as well.
Over the next few years we got a lot of great interviews done – actors and celebrities such as Edward James Olmos, Gloria Estefan, Don Francisco, Andrés Cantor, BD Wong, Danny “Machete” Trejo, Kate del Castillo and many others, but also writers like David Glasgow, Guadalís del Carmen, and Winnie M. Li and agency and marketing people from many backgrounds. Honestly it was a lot of fun and I remember those episodes as being very exciting to plan and record – with a couple of exceptions that will go unnamed, everyone was very gracious and happy to support our little podcast.
There were definitely some challenges – I think each of us wanted to approach the interviews in different ways, and even though we planned how to execute it, who’d ask why and coordinate in a chat during the recording, sometimes things did not go according to plan. Still we produced a lot of worthwhile audio and I am very grateful for the opportunity and the friendships we developed.
You can listen to the Revolución Podcast anywhere – it’s on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music and all major podcast platforms. https://open.spotify.com/show/6DYiipnhQYWZRaMFfeIej0
I still want to do a couple other podcasts in the near future. I have an idea for a fun, dumb show in Spanish called “Diego La Hora” (a play on my name and “The Time Has Come”) where I’d talk with friends about whatever is capturing our attention at the time. And another podcast to talk about my new passion project – I’m learning coding and building fighting games in the style of Street Fighter 2 with my own original characters from the comics Pablo and I do. I’m discovering there’s a lot of nuance and thought that goes into building a digital world where two animated characters beat the crap out of each other and some people might want to hear about it and the challenges of producing an indie title. But time is at a premium and I already have a ton of projects that demand my attention, so that will have wait a bit.
It would also be good if I released the first game before launching a podcast, to avoid not delivering on my promises…