Our New
President
Reflects and
Looks Forward
President, Partner
Q&A With Keith Yazmir
When you came to m+p 20 years ago, what did you think you were signing up for—and how does that compare to what you’ve actually been doing?
Before I joined m+p, I didn’t really understand what we did.
I knew Frank Luntz, our founding CEO, from my time running communications for NYC & Company, where I worked closely with the New York City mayoral administration before, during, and after 9/11. That was a baptism by fire in crisis communications. We were trying to figure out how to get people coming back to New York and supporting the economy. At one point, my boss said, “Frank wants to do some pro bono work with language.” And I remember thinking, “In the middle of the biggest crisis anyone around here has ever seen, language is not my problem. I don’t need words. I need to get people back to New York.”
But what I came to understand — very quickly and then more deeply over time — is that what we do is fundamentally about the strategy part of language strategy. Yes, we help clients articulate things in the most effective way. But really, we help them understand what to say, why it matters, and how to truly connect with their audiences.
It’s not just about words. It’s about helping clients succeed through what they communicate.
m+p is built on the philosophy that “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.” How has your understanding of that idea evolved?
That was our tagline when I started, and it was the precise thing that attracted me here. Every job I’d had before m+p, in one way or another, was about helping an organization convince an audience to do something, believe something, or support something. And in every one of those jobs, I found myself making the case internally that we needed to communicate differently.
That can be a difficult conversation, because people who are deeply committed to a company, cause, or organization are believers — as they should be. But that belief can make it hard to understand how to communicate with people who don’t already feel the same way.
Michael Maslansky has a saying that there are two ways to communicate: one that makes you feel good, and one that actually works.
That’s what “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear” is all about. It’s not about communicating to yourself or to your fellow believers. It’s about communicating to the only people who matter: your customers, your voters, your employees, whoever your audience is.
Everyone hears that phrase and nods. But if you look at the billions — maybe trillions — of dollars spent on marketing, communications, digital, and everything else, the number of people who actually live that concept is vanishingly small.
For us, it’s still the mantra. It’s the red thread that connects everything we do. And it remains the fundamental value we bring.
Did you feel like you had found your professional home when you discovered m+p?
In a lot of ways, yes. You could say I came home.
Two of my favorite communications quotes get at this. George Bernard Shaw said,
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
And another quote I love is: “The biggest problem I see in communications is people out there answering questions nobody’s asking.”
That’s the work. Helping people stop answering questions nobody is asking — and start communicating in a way that actually connects.
You’ve worked with leaders across many sectors. Is there a client “aha moment” that stands out, when the power of Language Strategy really clicked?
One of the poster-child examples for me was a project we did for Microsoft around the launch of Windows 7.
Windows 7 was following Windows Vista, which had been widely criticized for creating more problems than it solved. Microsoft had to get this launch right.
When we came in, their team wanted to talk about all the new features. Touchscreen interactivity. Photo software. All these bright, shiny things they had worked incredibly hard to develop. And that made perfect sense from their perspective. They were proud of the product.
But what we found in the research was that people were much more interested in something simpler and more foundational: Does it work? Will it crash? Will it let me do what I need to do?
So we had to go back to Microsoft with a hard truth: all those bright, shiny things were great, but they weren’t the main message. The message had to be about the fundamentals. First, it just works. Second, it makes it easier to get to the programs and tasks you care about. Third, yes, there are some cool new things.
They did not want to hear that at first. I later heard that a senior leader was furious and paid for another round of global testing — which came back to the same conclusion.
Fast forward to the launch, and the campaign was aligned with exactly what we had recommended. It spoke the truth of the audience. And Windows 7 became the fastest Windows launch in history at the time.
For me, that project showed how hard it can be to put yourself in the audience’s shoes — especially when you’ve spent years building something. But it also showed what happens when you do.
What is one persistent myth clients often have about communication?
There’s a picture I used to have on our website. It was me holding a handwritten sign that simply said: “Who cares?”
We all think what we care about is the most important thing in the world. The reality is that people are bombarded with more information than they can possibly process. So the question becomes:
How do you earn their attention? How do you show up in your customer’s, client’s, voter’s, or employee’s world in precisely the right way?
That’s where organizations often struggle. Leaders are often too close to what they’re doing and how they’re doing it to translate it for the person they desperately want to reach. That’s not a criticism. It’s usually why they’re so successful. They know every detail. They care deeply. But it’s also why it’s important to have a partner who can help translate all of that knowledge into the tiny thing someone else needs to know, in the way they need to know it, to take action.
Language changes. Culture changes. Audiences change. How do you keep your instincts sharp?
It’s important to stay connected to culture. It’s important to stay connected to the constantly shifting landscape of platforms and channels.
But for me, the most important thing is that we are out there all the time talking to and hearing from people — customers, voters, employees, and the many different audiences our clients are trying to reach.
That’s how you stay current.
Cultural signals are useful. But they don’t tell you the most important thing: who cares, in what ways, and how that actually affects what successful communication looks like.
The only way to understand that is to have a deep understanding of the people you’re communicating with, what they care about right now, and how best to connect with them.
What is the single best piece of advice you would give to a new language strategist joining m+p?
Put yourself in other people’s shoes.
I know that sounds trite, but it’s the work.
One thing I often ask candidates is whether they’ve studied abroad or traveled in a meaningful way. I ask because travel is one of those things that forces you out of yourself. It confronts you with difference — different beliefs, different cultures, different ways of seeing the world.
That’s what we do here. We practice what we call radical empathy. Not because we’re a bunch of mad humanists trying to save the world, but because we insist that our people, and therefore our clients, truly understand what it’s like to live in the shoes of the audience they’re trying to reach.
Until you do that, you’re not going to truly influence how people think or what choices they make.
So my advice is: get out of yourself. Experience difference. Do everything you can to see things through other people’s eyes before you judge.
And if someone can’t immediately pack a bag and move abroad?
Psychedelics.
No, but really — it’s a mindset.
Travel is one way to do it, but the bigger thing is staying open. Withholding judgment for as long as possible. Asking: What’s actually going on here? Why are they saying that? Why is this group doing that? Why are these people angry?
Instead of writing people off or defending your own assumptions, ask why. Don’t assume they’re dumb. Assume they’re people. Then ask what their motivation might be.
Frankly, if more of us did that, we’d be in a much better place in the world.
After 20 years at m+p, what’s one memorable experience that still makes you laugh?
Years ago, we were in Tokyo with a client doing several days of research, and we wanted to find an upscale sushi bar — the kind of place where you sit at the counter and the chef gives you the omakase experience.
We got a recommendation from a journalist we’d met, and the hotel concierge called to make a reservation. They had space, but they immediately said, “We don’t accept foreigners.”
So the journalist called them and said, “No, these are my friends.” And they let us in.
We show up, and it’s a very small place — maybe 16 seats. Everyone else is very proper and conservative-looking. Men in suits. Women in kimonos. And then there’s our team and our client, not knowing exactly what we’ve walked into.
The chef starts serving, the sake starts pouring, and about an hour and a half in, the chef is doing sake shots with our whole team from behind the bar. One of our team members has made friends with the women in kimonos and is calling them “Mommy.” There were shenanigans.
At some point, the chef got so enthusiastic that he called his daughter, who was studying at Berkeley, and put her on the phone with us to translate and share the experience.
It was a memorable night the client still talks about.
So I guess the lesson is: go out there, do fun things, drink a lot of sake, and everything will turn out well.
Your m+p website profile is eclectic: you mention vinyl, irony, scotch, your daughters, Lyndon Johnson, and the Jackalope. Tell us about just one of those.
I’ve had people say to me after seeing my profile, “Tell me about Lyndon Johnson.” I find Johnson fascinating. I’ve read Robert Caro’s biographies of him, and he was one of the last larger-than-life politicians. In a lot of ways, there are some parallels between Johnson and Trump, in the sense of going out there and saying “This is what I want to do, this is my agenda, and I’m going to do everything I can to actually make it happen.”
Johnson was full of contradictions. He did great things, including the Great Society and programs that still remain today. And he had some horrible missteps, including Vietnam.
But he still looms large as a political figure — probably larger than most people realize.
You’re now stepping into the role of president. How do you think about this next chapter?
I’m incredibly excited to be stepping into this role, and at the same time, humbled by the opportunity.
We have an incredible team, an incredible company, and an incredible mission — one I’ve been proud to be part of for over 20 years.
As one of the founding partners along with Michael and Lee Carter, I bring a full appreciation of what we’ve built here. The opportunity now is to combine that legacy with the excitement of where we’re going.
With our proprietary synthetic research methodology CHORUS, we’re exploring what’s possible when decades of Language Strategy expertise meet state-of-the-art synthetic audience modeling. At the same time, Omnicom coming together with IPG opens up the opportunity to work alongside even more of the finest agencies in the world. Between the forward-looking tools we’re building and this larger group of Omnicom partners, I don’t think we’ve ever had a clearer runway to grow.
