Embracing AI and Growth Strategies at iHeartMedia with Rahul Sabnis

The Urban Income Show

Rahul Sabina, EVP, and Chief Creative Officer at iHeartMedia, discusses the growing importance of audio in marketing and how iHeartMedia is expanding into the Metaverse. He also emphasizes the potential benefits of AI in creative jobs and shares his personal experience with work-related stress and the importance of prioritizing one's health and happiness.

Rahul Sabnis, an accomplished creative leader, has made a significant impact throughout his career. With notable roles such as EVP, Chief Creative Officer at iHeartMedia, Rahul's expertise and innovative approach have played a pivotal role in shaping the company's creative direction and success. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Urban Income Show:

• The integration of media and creativity is crucial for success in advertising campaigns.
• iHeartMedia in the Metaverse is a new way to connect with audiences and create meaningful experiences with immersive events.
• Rahul pursuing a career in advertising and leadership despite being told he wasn’t creative.
• A need for positive and unbiased search experiences to fight back against hate speech and false information.
• AI can skip past the boring and scary parts of creative jobs.
• Freelance work can offer financial success but requires partnering with others.
• Prioritizing experiences over material possessions can lead to greater happiness.

Resources:

• iHeartMedia
• Urban Income
• Growth Skills

Connecting with Rahul Sabnis:

• LinkedIn

Connecting with Lavall Chichester:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Quotables:

• 18:28 - “Now the cool thing about radio though is radio is actually a philosophy, not an object. It's a style of communication. In fact, podcasting owes its roots to radio and the it kind of talk radio and the informality of this, when you think of podcasting, we think of what we're doing right now. Exactly. It's kind of loose conversation unscripted that keeps us connected together to each other in a very almost human, like most, the most human way, which is just conversation, right?”
• 22:20 - “Our app that we have was built on the radio business, which is a megaphone that talks to real America every day. And so the biggest miss still that marketers don't understand is that 9 out of 10 Americans listen to the radio every day. Yeah. Just wait a minute for a second. Like 9 out of 10, 90% of America listens to the radio in some form. It touches people that much.”
• 43:04 - “Like AI won't replace you. The person who knows how to use AI will. Right. So, correct. Get up there, and, like, there's so many free resources online to learn how to prompt into engineer how to do all these things. Just get after it and learn how to use AI.”
• 45:50 - “But if you're building an asset, like an app, like a website, like an email list, those types of things, you can monetize that. Just be specific with the intention. Be specific with who's it for, what problem you're solving.”
• 50:05 - “Especially in your twenties, live because you won't get those years back while you can. And you want to use those years to really kind of experience to define who you are. And you don't know who you are yet. So you might as well let the experiences kind of shape the person you will become one day.”