BeanCast 496: Old Man Stories

Date: 22-May-2018

Transcription results:

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Band with provided by recursive squirrel, interactive transcription services provided by transcribing dotcom visit them on the web@transcribed me dotcom sluggish being cast for up to twenty-five percent off. That's transcribe me. Dotcom episode 496 old man stories.

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For Monday may 20 first 2018 it's time for this week's at the of the being cast a weekly discussion about the news and issues facing marketers today. Host. Thanks for joining us.

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It seems that the hottest thing happening social media these days is the fascination with stories these quick snapshots of a person's life or generating tens of millions of useless every day. Now, advertisers taking notice, how do we get involved will discuss. Also health failing. Trust is changing. The business pitched the publishers, whether Nielsen has finally outlived its usefulness.

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Plus this week's villefort that's the lineup. Let's meet tonight. Thanks for joining us for this week's been cast. I'm Bob nor. And with me on the panel for this evening, we start with the founder of the difference engine researching strategy consultant, miss pharaoh, Boston. I pharaoh. Hi Bob, I will try not to sneeze on you [laughter]. That's okay. I'm coming down with the

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usual allergy Malays right now myself. So too stuck to get through it all. Now also with us, we have long time television network marketing consultant for clients that include n. A m. C mister Bill Hartnett is here. Hi Bill. Hey, Bob, how are you today? I'm doing well, thanks for joining us. Next up, we have a senior digital art director of wonderment MS German Thomas German. I am so excited to finally get you on the program. I feel happy to be here,

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and thanks for joining a seat at the table. And finally, we welcome back vice president of marketing at event hero and co host of that other pod cast you love marketing over coffee, mister John J wall John. I about my parents. Today's sponsored by Flonase allergy relief myself. Oh my God, that's the best thing ever I use the generic Kirkland brand from a Costco took half the price and twice the benefits, so check that out. Absolutely wonderful.

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Well, I want to jump right into the topics, almost every one of the major social platforms now features some sort of stories function. You know that thing were you put photos and videos together. I'm talking like an old person to a whole bunch of other old people here. This disposable creed of dynamic form of content is finally catching the attention of advertisers because of the sheer number of users. I mean, I'm seeing numbers quoted as high as 50 million. Users on Facebook, actually

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taking advantage of this platform that they put in place, but German can advertisers find a way to gain acceptance within these platforms or add interruptions a foregone conclusion, which is necessarily going to just make the entire experience bad for users. So what's your take on advertisers participating in meaningful ways in the stories area? Wow, as the token millennial on this planet and as panel rubbing [laughter] you basically sent

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me had a rabbit hole yesterday of looking for stories because I'm not a consumer of these stories. I follow the ball [laughter]. Yeah, if you're falling a lot of people and they all have 50 stories [laughter] time at all. However, I think that brands can utilize this very well if they do it correctly. And that's I work under the influence of hers. Myself, I I'm probably more curious about what my friends are wearing,

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what they're working on or what it doing at the moment that they're not sharing with within their feed. But again, I'm not really consuming a lot of their stories. So you're what you're suggesting is that from a standpoint of how to involve yourself the creating ads. For these platforms doesn't make sense, or you saying that adds associated with influencers or just as effective as influencers, actually making recommendations of the product via the stories. And I ask is not

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in total. I don't want to be disingenuous with this question. I mean, I I understand the importance of stories. I know how much they're being adopted by every single social platform. I realized that there are tens of millions of people generating stories on a regular basis. I cannot understand why anybody would want to waste their time using this, and I know that shows my age. But at the same time it's it's it's completely mystifying to me how

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users are going to react advertisers getting involved in the space in kind of meaningful way that's gonna generate some kind of awareness. Well, you well, I am. I guess I'm going to share a lot of my secrets. I do create these starry content for example, yesterday and posted a story and a 3rd of the people who thought they skip that. You have that in a letter in size and tells you if you saw it 150 people sell

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your story. 10 people skip that. I went to the next story, but does also inside that tells you when they went back. So I think a brand utilizes influencers a good, a good practice. So I asked them to get the screen shots of the end sites and see what's working for else. That's fast. That's a fascinating fact that I hadn't really considered a number to bring fair in on the conversation here. I'm not sure what kind of research you've done on this area, what kind

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of interactions you've had on stories. But is this a regular occurrence that people were skipping through stirred stories? And does that negate the usefulness of stories to advertisers because people just aren't paying attention to the stories in the beginning in the first place there. Just kind of like browsing through skipping past and not actually in consuming content. Yeah, I mean, I think to some degree, this feels like a problem a lot of advertising's had for a long time is that there is a lot of

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skipping going on in story is I think where it makes a difference is. When I think to drill EDS point went when there are influences that I chose to follow, bruises interruptions from brands that maybe I like, maybe I didn't their turning up in my story is that those things are feel different to people. They're more likely to actually watch a story, play out from somebody that they opted in to follow that not. I think the other side of it is just one of we're skipping a lot of stuff. I mean, it, the

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level of sophistication, even on the part of ordinary users, and using stories even fairly sophisticated user. Is that still developing so brands coming in and figuring out how to use it as well, is also going to take a little bit of time and a good story where it feels like a story. Here's a bunch of. Images and video and my little markups and drawings, and stickers and things about an event I went to, or a birthday party, or a great evening out those kinds of things. Get my full attention. Whereas the ones that just

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feel like. I'm dumping some stuff into stories because I don't want to post it permanently. [laughter] are a little bit. Less important to do, but I think people are pretty savvy about wet, skip -able and what's not right now stories are hugely escape up all I had done it and really have to scroll through them. I can swipe and keep going. Okay. At another point yesterday, when I went through the rabbit hole of watching stuff areas, I influencers unto first point. I follow her intentionally. And she was at a

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party. She posted what was going on, and she had a photo of her handbag. And she invited people to swipe, it's a swipe up. And when he's lights up, you went to the website where he could purchase that handbag, and I actually almost purchased her hand out yesterday. Thanks Bob. You're welcome. I'm always glad to encourage people to use direct marketing whenever possible. So [laughter] I think what might help be helpful Allama the stories. There's also an invitation to look at this

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person's feed because I also see and fights on my both my regular post. So yesterday I posted about my travel on training, and I saw thousands of users. So it does lots of impressions, however, very few people like that. And that's that's very difficult. I mean, of course, like it makes me feel bad as only a few people line the top. And we talked about this a number of times on the show. I mean, like sir, so

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meaningless when it comes down to the actual effectiveness of whether the content is reaching people, I mean, just because you don't like it doesn't mean that you're not influenced by the European scene at the giving consumed it, and that you're not in some way affected by the content and interesting about that post, however, could also see how many people went to my profile because of that. So there are actually more engagement of people going to my profile to see what else they had posted. John, what's your

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take on all? The some units is slicker. You employing stories on a regular basis in your capacity is a marketing director of vice president of marketing. Are you actively using the platform or you're getting any results from it? Now, no, we've kinda taken a pass on my whole. Take on this has just been that. It's for celebrities as perfect. It's a chance to do small short content that gives you insight to what they're doing. So I think it's great for advertisers that want to jump in with those influencers. But as far as smaller brands in the

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general public, I mean it's no different than just. You two videos, and in fact I'd prefer YouTube because it just like more the Google juice and easier to pass easier to bed. So yeah, I think you know, the general public's get wrapped on Bennett and I think they're having fun making basically crummy little videos, but I think it's for the the celebs than the folks that are getting a million plus views. Those are the ones who are going to crush this role. You you're implying something that has always been in the back of my head when it comes to stories is that it's it's perfect for any kind

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of major consumer brand. To associate with somebody of. That's creating content that people want to consume. You know, it's it's just like Bill which just like television, you know it's you know, if you have content that people want to watch that people were actually consuming, that people are engaged with advertisers want to be involved with it. And it's usually the consumer advertisers is not the b to b or mid-tier brands like say what John's offering with a venue row. It tends to be the cokes and Pepsi's in McDonald's is the

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world's who want to get involved with those. Bill were you there [laughter]? I was thinking about it. I read somewhere this weekend. I read that a hundred and 50 million people a day use Facebook stories. And again, I think like most of us, as soon as I see that someone has added to their story, you can guarantee that I have added to things that I'm going to ignore, which is because he just won't tell you and I are both old and I mean in the best possible

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way too. Yeah, it's funny this week, my daughter, she always uses snapshot stories, and they're really funny and engaging, and I can see it. You know, if your kids in with your kid or not to be a younger person, you know, I think these are really fun when they're your friends in near your really close great group of friends. But I think for a brand, it's really hard to break into that great close group of friends that you care about everything they do. So unless it's

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really funny, re- has to be great and you have to get people to watch just in the first place at all. So how you get to there is is super tricky. And once they're there it better be good or you will be ignored forever. Absolutely. Bill, I'm going to follow up a little bit about stories in terms of the kind of content that you create, your you're always trying to promote television, you're trying to promote mass appeal programming. Do

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you find that story's offer you the opportunity to extend the content and make it more interesting and potentially bring more viewers into the mix? I will tell you where I work, they just just this week hired one person on staff to create social content, which will include stories that will include, you know, short videos. It'll include story as on all platforms, and there's another one that's coming imminently. So clearly, you know my my current major client or right,

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really the where I go every single day is a m c and we're really investing heavily in social content to help promote programming. So to me, I think the fact that they are willing to put, you know, they're putting two heads directly on that. Right now says something that, yeah, we really, really want people to engage across all platforms in any way we can get them in also go to wear where our normal advertising doesn't mean we are. Most of what we do

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is obviously our on air, which is our biggest piece of real estate plus any any off the air that we pay for it, a fair amount of, you know, we do suffer snapshot stories, we do stuff for Instagram we, you know we do a lot of a lot of our video that we're creating were re sizing for social platforms. But now we're you know, but we're we're repurposing it. But right now we we we have just brought into people to specifically create stuff for the core snapped chat or Instagram court. Facebook.

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So to me. Clearly somebody seized some real value there, and that makes a lotta sense for like I was saying, when you're creating content already when your whole businesses creating entertainment for people, it's a natural extension to go into this space and incre- additional content that engages the automated further. But I go ahead, Bill your season to creating looking dead or a show that. Oh,

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Bill Bill dropped off here. So furrow, what's your thoughts on. What what's your thoughts on using this type of platform for other types of brands? Because I think there's a natural connection, like Bill was saying. About this, this entertainment area where you can create additional content to help to expand the universe of viewership for your particular entertainment programming that you're creating. But what

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about like brands to brands belong in the space to bronze? Is it worth the time effort and money to create branded stories, or should they be looking more toward partnerships with influencers and people who are getting audience in beads b, the advertisers, like they've always moon? Yeah. I mean, I I think there's a move towards using more influencers in social media, marketing and general, just because it feels more authentic and at

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its it's more of what we as users have opted into, we've opted end to follow the influence. Our we haven't opted to follow the brand. And a lot of the time. The other side of it though, that's interesting. And here I will give a plug to a yoga studio in cobble hill near near where I live in Brooklyn called Molly yoga, and they use Instagram stories incredibly well. But in a way, what they get as a benefit is that the two founders of the of the business are also

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influencers in their community. So they use stories to explain the focus of the week in what they're doing in their practice, or explain how to get into a down dog. You know what, whatever they're doing there. They are sort of augmenting the community of practice that they've already built in rea- in real life. In an a story driven away and it works really well for them to create these kinds of tutorial video shows they give you a sense of what it's like to practice with them or what their perspective on their

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practices. That I always used them, and I might be at Madison Square Garden or N b. C and I always use Molly yoga as an example of how to use Instagram really well, because they think that they managed to straddle those two worlds really well. They are both influencers and also a brand trying to drive engagement with their with their business. A lot of brands want to and we have seen this in every new form of media just sort of dump advertising or promotions into the

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latest channel. So unless you're going to be thought fall, unless you've got at influence her strategy, unless you've got a real content strategy to go with whenever you're putting in stories, you're just dumping messaging and another channel. So you know the answer. Does it apply the brands? I think it depends what, what do you wanna show us? What story 80 when a towel? What information do you want to provide? What experience do you want to augment? It's it's harder to imagine a stories strategy for her washing up liquid. But I I

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wouldn't put it past a great creative team to come up with something compelling. It's just that you know like everything else, you can't just be in the channel. You have to be in the channel with something meaningful to that point. I mean, for me, the the biggest concern about brands getting involved in this is that you have to churn out a lot of content and a lot of engagement. And I think brands are good at coming up with that one idea that gets traction and then they turn out a lot of crap in between those great engagements. And I'm wondering, is there any

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advantage to a brand continually generating lots of crap waiting for the great moment? The come out where they get a piece of content that is incredibly exciting, incredibly engaging in gets talked about. And you know. For me, it's it's almost like get into the space when you have something meaningful to say, but don't be in there constantly because this is not for you. This is for consumers to talk to each other and to share their lives and their stories. It

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feels kinda icky. I mean, German. Am I speaking your language? Sure. Because. Clarke sample yesterday when you made me go through this rabbit hole. Nothing [laughter]. My friends that I follow, she almost all her co are now adults and quite annoying because when I first followed her is because of her running and I love and I was super inspired by her. And it's great that she's been paid by these brands. But now I'm

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just wondering. I you just telling her Sol [laughter] cause this is not my if all of you, I trusted. I'm basically trust that you're you're authentic voice to tell me what I need to be doing because I am inspired by you. Well, food for thought Falko we've got to move on to the next topic. Trust is a big issue in advertising these days just to state the obvious people, but the impact of failing trust his dramatically affecting what works and what doesn't in the ad world. A basic truths,

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like reaching frequency or finding themselves pitted against the reality of where the ad is found in the trustworthiness of the contents surrounding the ads, making it a lot more difficult to get the kind of awareness we used to go. So Bill, how does this potential Baden a bottleneck of where ads can be most effective impact your ability to create awareness? And drive results in our advertising programs. What's your take on this? Well, I don't know that anybody's ever trust advertising that

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much, but I do feel like yet trust consent continues to drop, but it is funny how I do feel there is such a a great link in in a I see it all the time on Facebook worry. We'll have a conversation with somebody on Facebook about, say, running shoes, and then all of a sudden I'm instantly being served ads about that and running shoes. I mean, it's obviously it's the you know, it happens all the time or behavioral targeting if I searched things. But I do

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feel that. It in social when you get the right people sort of connect sort of that right and action between conversation, stuff that you've seen. And then the right ad, then it works. I feel when it comes at you at the wrong time and in the wrong place, I I feel like it's just wasting money in more and more. I feel, you know, it's why you know going right back to what we are talking about with all these social stories is people want to find a way to connect with you in a more

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meaningful, personalized and empathetic way, or advertisers do, and if if they can't and that's when it when you're not connecting in that sort of really smart way that appeals to hate, here's what I need right now, or here's what I'm thinking about right now. Then it's almost than I doubt it, I either ignore, don't trust it or don't care about it, but then all at the same time when it it when it's far too personalized and far too epithet, sometimes it's really creepy

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and then drops there. So it's I feel like there's just this crazy fine balance between. Being too intrusive and and then also finding that level of trust by do you think once you trust a company, unless they do something that really fails you and me, I I will use. Anyway, you're taking a little bit about running right before this. There are certain running shoe companies that can do no wrong for me, and I will always buy their shoes, and I will always be

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loyal. But you know when one of their is one of the New York road runners member, you are constantly barraged with emails from one of their primary sponsors who I won't name men. I will never buy their shoes because of that, because I have received probably probably get. If the e mails a week about their shoes. Something you said early on in this, what you're as you were starting to talk, you talked about the fact that

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advertisers want a good more meaningful reactions engagements with their audience. I would. I would actually challenge that. I want to bring go back to that comment because I think that that's what advertisers say they want, but what they really one is programatic solutions that don't get them into trouble. And I and I know that's not a best practices typing answer, but that's just the reality advertisers one cheaper easier, faster ways to get

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reached in frequency. They want to get those ads out very, very quickly. And programatic gives them the solution, but it puts them in places where they don't want to be a puts them in con- associated with content that they don't want. The kind of experiences that they don't want. And so it's placing an increased premium on the types of content that is legitimately trustworthy to play shreds in those types of environments. And I think

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it's going to create a bottleneck, isn't it? I mean, if there's so few. Players out there that we can actually trust like your New York Times or your Wall Street Journal the world, it's going to drive up those prices, which is going to be great for publishers, but it's going to be lousy, forgetting the reach and frequency that we expect or or is it. I mean, that's that's where I want to get some some thoughts on I mean, w- John, what's what's your take on that particular

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assessment of the state of the industry? Are advertisers really after more meaningful engagements or the after trying to get some way to be failsafe and delivering their programatic solutions? Yeah, yeah, you're totally right and the will of later to, but it's like this Google things like they want to have an automated solution. That's personal relevant right on time. And force of the attack is just not there. I don't have the tech will ever be there too. That's another problem we have. So yeah, it goes right to the trust problem. It's kind of like

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every time you go on social media, that's a chance for glory, right there. You know running shoe company could come back and just kind of fire you discount code kind of medium case rate. It could be a lot worse or somebody could get on and say, oh yeah, you know your long distance trail running. Here's a specific model that you might want to check out, and that's what separates the the champs from the champs. Ultimately, the goal of programatic,

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the long term goal is to have a computer. Think like a person and a half a commander, create personal relationships with everyone that they're trying to sell something to. And along the way they're going to be so many massive failures. But ultimately, it's I mean, really it is to create a one-on-one relationship as close as possible as a machine can get to a person and seemed like a person. Yeah, yet. Well, and that's at the heart of the suit. The problem with this with all this, I stuff, it's all in the

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training. You know, you'd need to take a couple of years to train that a I so that it really is giving relevant on the spot answers. And unfortunately, you know, the average tenure of a marketing employee being like eight months. You know, it's never going to happen. For I want to get your thoughts on this, I'm listening to this conversation, and I'm just thinking that this the the ultimate endgame game here is that certain publishers are going to be more reliable than other publishers, and that's going to drive the prices up, and

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it's going to make it so that region frequency for mid-tier tier small brands becomes harder and harder to achieve outside of doing programatic buys across the spectrum of crap because you've got all these potential advertising space out there, but it's not necessarily legitimate, nor is it giving you the kind of trustworthiness the consumers are starting to demand. But I think that that actually gets to the interesting thing I think you know big brands continued to have the

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luxury by having large media budgets to do a mix of things. They continue to be able to make human based decisions about where they want their brands to be placed. And then they get to also experimented around the edges with programatic programatic big selling point really was for these. As you say it smaller in mid size brands who thought that this would be a cheaper, more effective, more efficient way of assembling their region frequency desires. And I think what's happened is like everything else. It's

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that first chart in the deck from the last 10 years for every agents in research company, you know, living in a fragmented media universe, the middling options, the. The local weekly is in the classified ads and the circular is I inserted in something else, though those options are now masquerading as news organizations, when they're not they're masquerading as social media influencers when they're bots. They're masquerading as you know, reputable publish ship publishing platforms when they are anything. But. And

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I think one of the problems of programatic has been for big brands and small, the ability to trust the platform itself, the actual attack platform that is serving them into these into these placements. And when you've got brands who don't understand how it is that they wound up on on bright borrowed or anywhere else in the in the universe that they didn't intend to be on. Some of this has to do with frankly, lack of sophistication about how cookies work, which that will also become more complicated. Now that we are living in a G d. P r.

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universe. But nevertheless there's there's a need to get pretty sophisticated. And I think that the real promise of programatic was a level of control and customization that actually isn't in it. And I think yes, theoretically, where we should be training these platforms to think more like people, but the ad type platforms that do the programatic they don't want that either. They need to be able to deliver the region frequency. They said they were going to deliver. And the easiest cheapest way for them to do that is to kind of spray in prey wherever they can get it on it

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is is where they want to want to do it. And you have publishers who want to curtail the amount of programatic advertising even of the amount of real estate. They give to that because the ads are low quality. And then you've got advertisers who don't want to be on the low quality websites in a way. It's almost some kind of perverse mirror image of the race to the bottom. It's like everyone's trying to keep from letting their feet touched the bottom [laughter]. And just like quick quick now keep keep keep moving. So you don't actually

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touch the bottom of the barrel. And this is this has always been kind of. The problem of programatic is that there was going to always be a lot of junk in that system. Now some of that junk is actually like dangerous to democracy. So let me let me take this tack. Then is this ultimately this, this move by consumers to demand? More trustworthy content is this

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ultimately good for the advertising businesses. It ultimately good for the publishing business because money talks here. And if if the desire for of consumers is to have less of the crop in terms of the type of content, and they're going to start penalizing brands that they see that advertise on that type of content. Does that actually generate more valuable content in the end, or when you get your opinion on this girl and a minute's dislike is.

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Is this better for the industry in the end to have something like this happening, even though in the short term, it's going to drive prices up and it's going to create some kind of bottleneck as I keep saying of advertising. Yeah, we would like to think that advertisers are paying to us consumers because where the ones of the money. But I actually think they, they really need to focus on what consumers are saying. If we ignore in your says, there's a reason. It could

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be all kinds of reasons. It could be trustworthiness of the product, but it could be also the the content in which I'm being displayed next to exactly because our our passions are like, are issues that we care about. Like the things that matter to us and the hand. Well, continuing this conversation into the next topic, publishers are exploring online subscriptions more aggressively because of the facts that we just talked about, I mean, advertising is getting to

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be so completely crazy. It's causing all kinds of backlash consumers. Don't necessarily like it the at blocking like crazy. And the result is the publishers need to find some kind of news subscription revenue, and so they're there pursuing online subscriptions as aggressively as they possibly can and in to meet step with many of the anti companies are changing their pitches as well, claiming that they now can bolster subscription revenue as well as ad revenue. But fair

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considering publishers are also looking to downsize the rat operations. Is there really any kind of market here? Is this just add tucked desperation? FOX technorati as my default answer, oh, come on a [laughter]. I think I'm only I'm only half joking. I think the interesting thing is that publishers are currently writing a period in which people are experimenting in their own lives with the

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idea that maybe if I paid a subscription fee, I wouldn't be inundated and all of this. Crappy advertising I wouldn't be constantly interrupted by stuff that isn't relevant to my passions is drawn says that isn't an influence. Our I chose to follow. That isn't content. I am endemically interested in. And so you know, I have been the the advocate for I will pay the ransom to Nazi or a crappy adds. Please Instagram, let me pay you. Please Facebook. Let me pay you. Give me the

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option to do something else. And you know, I hear the argument on having this sort of two tiered system of rich users not having to see advertising and poor users having to see advertising. And I would just sort of say ABC please me in each be out like that that has kind of bend the content universe for a really long time. And I think that the interesting thing with more of more options more over the top options for for broadcast content, more digital subscriptions hell's happening for a

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traditional print publishers. People wanting to go into that for a variety of reasons. One is ready access to content that would otherwise be behind some level of firewall or a desire to support journalism or to support the content that they liked the best paying for access to things. They would otherwise have to have a $200 a month cable bundle in order to get. All of these things are driving people toward subscription based models on the consumer end. And the publishers perspective, it's way more valuable to have subscribers than it is to have

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ads. Subscribers are recurring revenue over a period of time at drives up lifetime value of customer acquisition advertising doesn't do that [laughter]. So let me let me interrupt difference. Let me interrupt you for a second because some of this research that we've been getting on the show recently seems to suggest that over the top solutions that I think there's an analogy there to any kind of subscription service. But over the top solutions or are not as lucrative as a lot of these

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companies were hoping for because. The subscriber has the ability to jump in and out of that subscription at any time, and that creates a lot of churn in the in the marketplace. So. It is a subscription, an online subscription as valuable to a magazine or an online magazine, or an online content publisher as an awful in one was because they are not able to maintain any kind

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of relationship passed a month or two when the person has gotten the content that they're looking for in, is this just jumping out again? Well, I mean, I think there are different trade offs in the concept cuts from acquisition. So the cost to acquire advertising dollars on your side requires having an internal sales sales team. It requires dealing with the you know, the vicissitudes of advertisers when a interested in this month than what aren't they interested in, are they willing to pay? My rake card aren't day.

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There's just as much variability on that side as there is on the other side, an ad dollars and adds spend go up and down sickly related to the economy and a variety of other factors. From an investor's perspective, the subscriber base growing a subscriber base ABS financially is a looks hugely valuable. And the reason for that is it redounds to the benefit of the ad sales team. Like it's not just that that's a steady source of revenue for the publisher in theory. It's also that by saying we have a guaranteed

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set of base of people even with a certain rate of churn. And that will always be exposed to your advertising, the that's way more valuable to from the investors perspective. I want to be clear on that. Then just having an ad supported model. I think what's interesting about. Over the top and and about digital subscriptions is that there are so many variations on the theme. There's subscription only in the sense of net flex or HBO there is subscription with add support like spot

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if I has. And frankly, like most publishers have traditionally had add advertising in the beginning was a support revenue stream. Not the majority revenue stream. Now obviously things shifted and it's looking in like maybe they're shifting the direction and due to unbutton laying and consumer choice and broadband and the the the moment where are living in. But I think there's something interesting about any- anything that might help publishers

00:36:59

get more subscribers, more consistently engaged users who have higher lifetime values than the people who pop in and read their five articles a month and pop out again until it resets. They are more valuable as customers than the people who are getting what they can for free. And attack on, However, I don't really know how they meaningfully court that business model and so that they're claiming that they might. You know, good kudos to them for giving it a shot, but but I don't know

00:37:29

how they how they really support that business model. If they can come up with something, I'm sure publishers would be hugely grateful. But right now, it sounds to me like that to your question, an act of desperation Bill would also see you. I was going to Bosnia just add to the confusion. Hi tech is such a confusing. Pitches are so confusing anyway. And then you throw that in and I honestly think it goes right back to what Farah said. It really is just an act of desperation. It's like, no help us.

00:38:00

This is what's going to make a stand out from the other 30 people that you talk to. That added talked about the same confusing algorithms the same confusing. Insights, indeed it at that. We can't really. Expressing sinked way, but hey, will sell you more subscriptions. And that's always that's always the weird thing about because it's very hard to understand anyway. And then you throw this on top. Honestly, it just seems like, well. But will make you money. But subscription

00:38:29

subscription marketing when you're going after subscribers is. Is one of the most data rich opportunities for an took company to survive and to thrive in that kind of environment? I mean, it's it's so based on being personalized because it's so based on the individuals. Connection to the content, it's not like advertising, which is a general awareness or trying to troll for for clicks, and

00:38:59

conversions. Trying its best to may be ring market to somebody based on some previous behavior. I would assume that when you're dealing with a contents subscriber, you have some very rich data behind it. You have this incredible opportunity to connect with a subscriber or the potential subscriber in some meaningful ways based on the content that they viewed in the kind of engagements leave had with your mom. Your online publication, I would imagine that ad tuck could have phenomenal effect.

00:39:29

On not only acquiring new customers or new subscribers, but to keep the subscribers interested in an on going basis. I mean, John M I. M I. completely drinking the koolade here. I mean, I know I'm playing devil's advocate, but any thoughts. Yeah, no, it's definitely makes sense. It's just you know that such a huge change the gears for so many businesses, and it's just nobody knows the profitability of of either side in the long term, really. So it's yeah, it's just wild west right now.

00:40:01

Any any thoughts Bill on that? I mean, it's like is there an opportunity that maybe we're not paying attention to that could actually excel it? What I think you stayed honestly, you sold me [laughter] cause I always think of it. I mean, honestly, the way you put it made me feel like, hey, maybe I should give it a second thought. But honestly, I mean, just from what I know, I honestly I I don't know, I don't see

00:40:29

it. I don't I don't really see it as a as something that a company can all of a sudden paid. We do this, but now we do this as well. But that's just me. Both of us just all of us, we all have a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to add to companies. There's so many of them, the so so many of them. Well, I want to go to her final topic of the evening of finally, Nielsen has been mocked and maligned for decades. But in the end, it's been the only true standard that television ads sellers and

00:40:59

buyers could agree upon. So we all used it and we all just made our peace with it. But John is finally changing and has Nielsen finally outlived its value to the industry. It has served any thoughts on then. It's such a tough question in over to that. I would have thought, you know, if you ask me like 10 years ago, I'd be like, oh my God, Nielsen would've vanished within three years, and it wouldn't be here anymore. But they're still just kind of needs to be a standard that everybody agrees on. And I think that's

00:41:29

what's been proven is the accuracy is not as important as just the fact that it's entrenched in its agreed upon by everybody. So. Yeah, I don't know. I d- I don't see any reason why they can't continue unless there's some kind of major subscription, obviously is a huge. See change her that, you know if we see subscription, continue to gain ground than the numbers will be solid in there is no concern. But yeah, I don't know. I think gets me, you know, maybe it's like a M radio area will never go away Bill. I want to get you in on this.

00:41:59

I know you have a lot of opinions around Nielsen particularly, but what's driving the dissatisfaction in the television industry around Nielsen? We've we've covered a lot of this on the show before, but. I just want to have a concise round up from you on why people distrust Nielsen so heavily right now. Well, I think honestly, I think that's gone way back. I don't think anybody's ever like Nielson. I don't even know that Nielsen likes Nielsen because they're

00:42:29

always trying you know, every year they come up with a new way that they're going to look out. They're going to look at sort of like total audience. But I think that the reason you know made headlines this week was because of the Turner upfront. And if you think about it, it goes right back to what we're just talking about with the attack. It's a sales pitch in the up-front is the biggest opportunity to do their sales pitch for the year. And if they can offer something extra because they're talking about their their audience insights. And for Turner it's you

00:42:59

know, it's all about social. It's all about what they feel is audience engagement, the live events. They're doing that. It's much more than a t V rating. And I think with Nielsen, the hard part with Nielsen, I think if you are a big, if you're an N b. C if you're a C b. S and you have massive, massive numbers of people watching T v. you can get a roughly accurate. Assessment of who's watching, but I think as you get into smaller and even now with the big networks as audiences get smaller for individual shows as you sort of sliver

00:43:29

up the audience until the smaller and smaller pieces, it's really hard to get quality data. If you are very small cable network with very small audiences, because the sampling is so small that when it comes back to if you're showing audience. So a couple of 100000 people and you try to break that down demographically to sell to advertisers. I think it starts to fail a little bit. So I do feel that you know, every every network is going to offer additional insights. And I think for Turner, the is is really.

00:44:00

It's all about not only, hey, we're going to use Nielsen, but we're gonna we're going to give you this, and you should trust this much, much more than what you're trusting from Nielson. So by from us, honestly, really it I do village every year somebody is going to really not Nielsen to sort of bring more customers and their way. Yeah, pharaoh, one of the things that has always struck me about the problem with Nielsen over the last few years, at least as that, they've tried so hard to modernize the system that really wasn't

00:44:29

broke. All they needed to do was adjust the way in which the it a viewer, you know they need. They could have continued with the diary system they could have discontinued with the Nielsen families. They didn't have to go into digital types of measurement. All they need to do is say it's not just the viewers who were watching it the the original airtime. It's also the viewers who were watching it via streaming platforms and give a total audience view via those

00:44:59

metrics. It seems to me that this effort to modernize ignored the basic fact that this is. But there was a system, it didn't, it didn't work perfectly, but it was acceptable. And everybody would have been fine with it and continued to use it and continued to be relatively happy with it if it had actually counted enough of the audience which had stopped doing because it ignored streaming off base with one method alone. I mean, the thing that I'm laughing about is

00:45:29

is like all they had to do was keep just just as suddenly changed the definition of a member of the audience. When the I r. A b. continues to argue over what an impression is on a on a banner ad. I think it's a more complicated question. You're giving it credit for. Everybody has a different set of incentives in defining what makes someone a viewer. And I think that that has long been part of the problem. And so it's not just Nielsen's inability to figure out

00:45:59

how to deal with streaming. It's advertisers and broadcasters both having skin in a game about whether or not they want count streaming dis streaming undermined the the life to air or the real time broadcast or broadcast plus 24 hour broadcast plus seven. All of those things were trying to somehow account for first of all, time shifting the streaming equation just gets even more complicated. How do we know somebody watched at how do we know that they were actually in front of

00:46:29

their whatever device when when the stream happened, how are we then parsing a viewer on a mobile device versus point though? That's getting ready to my point though for because the system never knew whether someone was actually watching the content, they could have been in the bathroom that could have been getting your they weren't. They never knew what everybody accepted, the [laughter] that's true for broadcast television with. T. v.s that had antennas on them. When you start to add digital and I

00:46:59

was there in 19 99 trying to build you know, advertising and brand sites and whatever for for companies the belief was well, hey, it's all coated in binary. It's all on a computer. So therefore everything is measurable. And so that changes the incentives when it's, hey, we push the signal out into the air, and some people pick it up, and some people are watching it. And some people are getting a beer, and some people are going to the bathroom that we can. We can live with as broad fiction. The signal was sent. And it was received by a television set

00:47:29

that's as far as we need to go in defining this universe. But once you start saying, hey, we can measure every second of the thing I I used to work on white papers for cable head ends that literally took video on demand content and counted up how many times was watched all the way through. When was it pop as how many times was well under fast forward? We were trying to divine from this information. Some kind of meaning and that has been the thing that digital has brought us is the belief that we can measure everything to find the heady significant

00:47:59

cuts. And it's the problem. That's exactly the problem. I mean, I remember talking to a time I've said this many times on the show. I remember talking to a Time Warner executives who said. I said, well, the best thing about television is not measurable, and she got really upset and said, no, we're measurable and explained in great detail. And I said, you don't understand as soon as you prove that you're measurable, you're going to be just as invaluable to an advertiser as any digital brand. In a better I mean, it's a banner ads. We are always claim that we were

00:48:29

more measurable because we were digital. But the the results were, were the you became less valuable because it became obvious how in effect of the ad was in terms of the metric you are applying to it? And I think that's that's what I'm getting too, if we believe the brand advertising works in a way that's mystical and not really all that measurable. Why are we trying to measure it? So so intensely right. And I think this is where Nielson should, by dint of its

00:49:00

longevity and history, be in a position to make some meaningful distinctions. I mean, what one of the things that. You know, I spend a fair amount of time in my practice trying to help my clients. Figure out is. And some things are better left looking at internet, looking at an analytics dashboard. And then we find out that they don't have one of those set up or if they do, they don't have it set up for the kinds of things that are meaningful to their businesses or to their brands to measure those things. Savages measuring impressions or clicks, or whatever. Yeah, I'm then then there's the

00:49:29

question of, okay, what can't I get from analytics? But I need a large enough sample, sat that a survey as the right response. What is something I need to go deep on? And I'm comfortable having small sample sizes to explore something in detail, the all of those things lead to different methods in different approaches. And I think part of what's happened is. We've confused reach with impressions are not the same thing and impression. Though we still argue over the definition of it is, is I saw

00:49:59

sides like it appeared in front of my as it made an impression I saw it, whereas reach never concerned itself with an impression. It got out there to this number of households. It yet this number of people subscribe to it, and we think it gets passed around this many times on average, that's reach reaches its out there in the world with we tested people on the content later, they might pass, they might fail, but we reached them. And these things should have different levels of value, and they should be measured

00:50:29

differently, and they should be assigned to different goals depending on the campaign or the piece of creative or or the or the ads and more generally. But that's not we're not good as an industry and having those kinds of nuance conversations out in public. I think in conference rooms at hotels were were arguing about what impression has been pretty good at that. At least having the argument. But I think Nielsen has both survived longer than many of us. I think myself included thought they would just because they've

00:50:59

got a longer historical data sat, they've got more experienced doing this kind of thing. And in many respects. For a large, large companies and large advertisers, and the. The the broadcasters who are still broadcaster not just streamers or people with such small digital cable audiences that we're kind of inventing a system of pretending we know at their audience sizes, that like there are still plenty of people willing to pay the top dollar, Nielsen can command for something. They're

00:51:29

really quite good at. And it is still a hugely valuable to a great number of brands. It's us more I- in the u k is constantly reminding people that millions of people watch terrestrial television [laughter]. And that those audiences, lake LeicesteR hole is still getting way more viewers than Trevor Noah. Right? So those are not not truly comparable things and Nielsen's really good at that. There are also, frankly, even if they are kind of making up sample for a tiny

00:51:59

digital cable broadcasters dare their models are pretty robust, are based on good, good historical data. You can at least think gets. Directional you can make some decent decisions based off of it. So I think they've gotten beaten up for things that they shouldn't be held responsible for. I think they've tried to take responsibility for things they should have just sat now not are not our circus, not our monkeys. I think that they you know, I on the other hand, continued to provide a pretty valuable service for those that are willing to pay for it.

00:52:29

And so I don't I don't know where that that's us out and it's [laughter]. It's it's it's really very, very concise and gives us a lot to think about, but we've got to wrap up. We've got to get down to the Advil five but before we get to that segment of the show, I do want to take this quick opportunity to thank my guests again and allow them the each to a shameless plugged starting with the voice. You just heard fire, Boston. You can find her@the difference engine.co-. Tell us what's going on in your world pharaoh, what would you like to

00:52:59

promote? Well, breaking news I just took as some Claritin, so things are going to get better and annexed Arabs loners. Flown is, is the club [laughter]. I got a few interesting project with summer one that actually two that I would like to talk about here. One is we are embarking on a piece of it's a project that I'm doing with another researcher name, shall we say there. We are doing a deep dive into these. What we're calling culture of politicos these are three

00:53:29

tribes pollsters political operatives and political journalists to understand the sort of send model of how people are comprehending, digesting, experiencing the political system, and then we're going to turn it the other direction and see what happens on the receive side. And we're going to pilot that at no at little. Small township in Pennsylvania called cuts bell, and so we're kicking that off next week. And and then the second thing is I am collecting interviews and stories with people of color who work in advertising to find out how they crafted their

00:53:59

careers. And we are going to put that together in a kind of. Song exploiter style which I mean you will not hear my voice at all. Be entirely the voices of people telling her stories we've done for the interview so far. There are great. Where it tentatively calling at at twice as good. And so if there are people out there that would like to be interviewed or have recommendations hit me up, I would love to talk to us folks. Sounds great. Sounds awesome. Next up we have Bill Hartnett. Not really sure where we can find you build some who's going to

00:54:29

let you turn. You lose and tell us what you'd like to promote. What would you like to talk about? We know first of all, I want to thank you for a changing my mind about add tech, and I want to thank fair my mind about Nielsen and. But you know, honestly. I've just been working on a lot of great shows lately, so I'm going to promote A m. C and I would say if you haven't seen the terror yet. Which is based on the dance Simmons book of the same name about.

00:54:59

Some English explorer, sort of historical fiction stuck in the ice looking for the northwest passage. It's really fantastic, a very slow burn. And also, oh, diet land which is coming up based on the book of the same name. And I think it's very timely as it has a lot of issues to deal with a sort of me. It really ties into sort of the me two times up movement and also a lot of stuff to do with women and body image. And

00:55:30

I think they're both really ban tactic things, and you can usually find me running in a New York road runners, race, if you really want to find me [laughter]. I don't know if that's the best place for me to find you because I wouldn't be able to keep up with you and would not catch up. Next up we have drilling Thomas. You can find her working@wonderment which is wonderment dotcom but. You can also find her at other places you tell us about your website, you tell us about your running in all the other

00:55:59

cool stuff. What would you like to promote German? The other places, so happy that brought this up because in the past couple of years. I've been trying to be more of a connector, a mentor. I am a person of color and talk. Yes [laughter]. And actually the only person of color on my team make it up. And then more events where I need other people of color and find a talent. And connecting everyone to each other. I

00:56:30

also volunteer force them and scripted program. So recently ended a talk with Microsoft and in a panel with the only person of color. Well, only women of color on there. And I was able to inspire young people. So actually I tried to have other people in our field inspire people like core growing up. Jan 30, I am really fascinated by them, so I tried to make sure they're still motivated and stay within Stanfield and now they include art since

00:56:59

now, steam and I l straight every day I posted on artists. And you can follow me and my triathlons Thomas and Instagram. Yeah, and if you have not seen Germans artwork, if you've not seen her her work as a designer, she is really one of the best. So definitely check her out. Very big fan, very big fight of yours and last, but not least. We have John wall. You can find him@event hero.I, oh, that's the home

00:57:29

were he lets the home of the company where he is the vice president of marketing. You can also find him at marketing over coffee, which is as long running pod cuffs, which is continuing to get lots and lots of people listening on a weekly basis. So fantastic for you, John tell us what's going on in your world, what would you like to promote? Yeah, well it Farah had mentioned meaningful analytics dashboards, and so that just brought to my my marketing over coffee co host, Christopher pen, his company, brain trust insights. They specialize in lighting up dark data. And a big

00:58:00

part of that is getting your Google analytics configured properly. And then they also do have a marketing G p. S predictive forecast where they take, you know, hundreds of millions of records and grind that in and they're able to kind of show you went in the year. You should be really driving her. I'd budget, you know, so that you can push the peaks and ride through the troughs. And so yeah, I went to give them a plug. You can check em out brains soot. Brain trust insights.com. But let's awesome yet to yeah, of Christopher's always doing amazing stuff as for me for more

00:58:29

information about me or the show visit, the being Costa calm there, you can find a complete show archive. You can find out how to consult with me. You even find out how to advertise on the program. So check it all out@the being cast dotcom and don't forget we finally have transcription services available for the show. Through transcribed me.com go to transcribe me.com/being cast, and they'll give you a nice discount on your first transcription order just because you're a listener. So check it out a transcribed me.com, and now it's time for the fell five or run down

00:59:00

of the lowest moments in advertising marketing and public relations from the last week and first up location data vendor location. Smart was already under fire for sowing, our locations to businesses, governments, and law enforcement. But apparently for they were so excited about demoing their service. They neglected the lock down. The demo itself resulting in a gaping back door that just about anyone could exploit apparently the richer shoes, researchers who found it said that you didn't even need to be a hacker to get in

00:59:29

here. This was so easy to exploit. I've in the same way. [laughter] got so excited. Like, you know, I get a new rent the runway unlimited shipment and I'm so excited about the clothes. I just forgot to put any on. I go running right out into the street [laughter]. Mixed up Google showcase that amazing duplex demo at I or a couple of weeks back. But when axioms crushes them the more closely Jonah became quickly evident that the whole presentation was

00:59:59

probably staged and there never was an actual -pointment being made. You know, I understand doing demos of making sure everything works exactly the way you hope it's going to work, but when you're doing a tech demo in front of other Tech- programmers, it seems like a given that you ought to get your your your demo actually working people are going to start asking some really tough questions and find out the euro be us. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

01:00:29

Just unbelievable, isn't it? Like this goes back to training area, but I'd been nice. Touch for me was having like salon background sound. You know, behind the voice [laughter]. That's the deluxe package right there. Did a good job with that figure. Now, the U s. air force decided to get in on the whole Janni laurel mem- but German, they really miss the spirit of the whole thing by using it to tweet, instead about how many Taliban fighters they adjust killed through an air strike saying that

01:01:00

they wish they had heard Janni or laurel, but instead they just heard are machine guns tearing them down. This obviously was taken down really, really quick, but it just shows that once again realtime marketing is just a crapshoot of putting out stuff that's going to get you in trouble. 90% of the time for the hope of getting out one time where you actually doing something that's meaningful [laughter]. I always wonder who manages their feed. But by the way, Bob, did you hear Janni are laurel. Oh, I definitely heard laurel

01:01:29

[laughter]. My boyfriend hurt Yanni and like our house divided right now. So I'm in a house divided as well. So [laughter] mixed up MAURICE Levy of poop closest tried to show shade, throw shade W p. P by seeing W p. P would benefit from hiring Tim Armstrong to replace or Martin, but that the position would not benefit mister Armstrong in return. But in the end Bill,

01:01:59

all he just stood was remind us that the entire agency holding company model is failing because he saying that since guy from the tech industry really shouldn't take an advertising position because it's not really going to help his girl. Well, it's funny, I don't know if it was so much a reminder of that. Its failing [laughter] MAURICE Levy was trying to show like a at least at least we don't have a scandal over here [laughter]. You know, honestly, you know the

01:02:30

more you read about having I I think 10 would be great for that job. And I think that. What do you know what? What replaces the whole you know basically this massive piece of the advertising industry, you know, it may be failing, but again, like so many things that we've talked about today, what replaces that bugs censure [laughter]? That's the point I I am a firm belief that yes, to mourn. Straw Armstrong would

01:02:59

be great for the beefy, but the love is absolutely right. It's like settling em up to a sinking ship. He'll be great for a for a time, but it's it's not likely that he's going to be able to write that ship in any kind of meaningful way over the long haul. Well last, but not least he know that much maligned snapshot redesign. Remember that guys were the only ones that hate it, every designer who solid prior to launch worn them, how flawed the

01:03:29

concept was German. But the company released it anyway. So living you know how difficult it is. It is first to top account. Sometimes like our designs are what it means as though it's a struggle is a constant struggle. One lessons Dulles about no, no one. Listen service through the [laughter]. Good. As you say, don't you think that was? I mean, honestly, I feel like that whole I mean, that was driven from the top, and I

01:03:59

think that snapped chat suffered some. Negative, you know, a lot of negative publicity, a lot of stuff last year happened, and I think they felt like right from the top let let's just completely replace are the whole lap and how it looks, and that will make everything better. And I think that's where it was driven is like, let's let's get the attention off of other stuff and get attention back on the app and a lotta times when you have a deadline and you you go out with what you've got not with what

01:04:29

really is going to work. It's also one of these things where people got so used to the design because I don't use it as much because I found it pretty bizarre like they user experience is not very good. Yes. I'm a millennial that doesn't use it, but people got used to how it functioned changing the entire at some people don't like change. Agreed agreed. Well, have something to add to this list or just want to discuss it.

01:04:59

Comment on line use the hash tag add fell five that's pound Advil. And the number five. Well, that does it for this week's show if you'd like to subscribe to this pod cast visit our website up the being Costa calm and click on the subscribe link. If you're li- tunes listener, we've also provided a direct link to the teens music store, or just search for the being cast in the pod coast directory of tunes and whichever broadcasts directory you use when you subscribe. Please leave us a review. Got a comment. Have a question we

01:05:29

love to hear from you. Just send your emails to being cast a G mail. Dotcom opening theme was performed performer. Joe soluble closing theme by C jacks. Thanks for listening. I'm Bob nor p- we'll be back again next week. Hope you'll join us soon.

01:06:09

Or even hoped to join us. Then of always said that 500 times that I got a wrong. [laughter].

01:07:11

Cool beans.