BeanCast 503: Can't Fake The Funk

Date: 09-Jul-2018

Input sound file: 0503_The_BeanCast_Marketing_Podcast_Cant_Fake_The_Funk

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Bandwidth 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 500 3 can't think the funk.

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For Monday, July 9 2018 it's time for this week's addition of the bee cast a weekly discussion about the news and issues facing marketers today, Bob nor. Thanks for joining

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the effort. We like to believe that research and data will lead us to compelling messages to reach our target audience for biases. Make us completely out of touch with our markets. A U k. study suggests exactly that. So tonight will discuss also the impact of all those agency hours, whether streamers make better it influencers, an examination of prime day and other similar

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tactics. Plus this week's that fell five. That's the lineup blitz, me tonight panel. 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 president of convincing convert author, speaker, mister j bearer. Hey, Jay. Bob fantastic to be back with you on the cast fantastic of your back. But also

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joining us, we have the creative director of high including maker, moves knuckles Canada moves Stephanie half stuff. Welcome to the program. Hey, bomb. A love, the name of your company. You work for [laughter] and finally, we welcome my contract. Is it o creative, who's a designer illustrator? Also an ultra marathon or which I think is absolutely insane MS German Thomas sherlyn welcome back. Hi, happy to be here again. Well, we've got a lot to cover song going to

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jump right into the topics and first stop a recent study of U k. advertising professionals versus the average consumer has shined a light on the problem. Many of us have been unwilling to face with most advertising executives being city dwelling liberal leaning career in power focused individuals. Sterling are we getting out of touch with the general population that leans more conservative than his focus less on individualism in more on community?

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What's your take on this study? And is it something that we need to worry about? I think it definitely is something we should worry about. It must have I seem to be focused on what we see in our daily lives. I I live in a city, but on the weekend state and since I have an elegant New York, New York state itself as kind of cater towards conservative what you get out of the city, many of us don't realize this. Like actually

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July, I spent I spent in at a barbecue of some people and Muslim, my friends have smartphone, and I met this wonderful guy, local mister w. So mister w take that has found at the flip phone calls that mister floppy add, like miss that, can I look at your own? So Bob. I work on this account where I tried to me. People who are about my age and we all have smart phone.

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But I also want to sell to mister flip and I can't reach em because everything I design as mobile wall. That's that in of itself is the problem. I mean, the fact that you know from a technology standpoint were more focused on having the latest greatest gadgets in our industry. I mean, everybody in the advertising world that I know of is always proud to show off their latest device yet. And more designing for these devices, which is

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very forward thinking and I wouldn't council against it. But at the same time, you're right the scenario that you're describing leads to a big disconnect from a technical standpoint. And that's not even getting into the emotional cultural and other sociological factors that are play yet because I I asked him, what did he do for letting he's retired? He's 68. And he says, he just watches its grass grow, and I'm like, how do I reached a

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sky? And then he tells me, oh, sometimes I get phone calls and it shows the name on this on the T v. was like, oh, I got you have a smart TV. You may not have a smartphone, but I can reach you for t the ads. So I think some of us need to realize that we might have to actually interview the people that remember reaching well, I got. So that's the whole. That's the whole point of this article. And I'm going to move on to you Jay about this because you know, we we rely on data, we rely on

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research. We rely on focus groups in order to get a sense of water consumers, motivating factors are. Is that enough when our biases or leaning so heavily in a direction that predispose us to not want to speak to people in the way that they want to be spoken to? It it's a huge problem with it. We have too much homogeneity in in the business both in terms of where major agencies are located in the types of people who worked in those agencies in in their age range there,

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their their political beliefs. I mean, there's this big drive for gender and racial diversity in the agency community, but you don't see an equal drive in terms of technology aptitude or or even political beliefs that suggest. So I live in Bloomington, Indiana. I travel the time, but I live in the classic. Midwestern college down, I'm the I'm in the only blue city in a very red state, and I got to tell you how many apps we have. I'm in New York this week after are here to get anything delivered via app in New York, but you can get delivered via app in

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Bloomington, Indiana, nothing [laughter] I travel. I come back and I feel like I'm coming from the future right in the things that we talk about on the show are so outside that the reality curve for neither massive, huge swath through the world and look, I'm an old man. I've been doing this for 30 years, and I think to some degree, the shift to digital has hurt us in this regard. Because when I was first starting in this business, we spent

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an awful lot of time with customers. An awful lot of time because we had no other choice. Now we press buttons in. We look at data and we will pour over spreadsheets and we think that equals customer understanding. I don't know that it does. Staffing stuff going to bring you in on this conversation because this is not necessarily something that you face in a lotta ways because you deal very much with a young hip audience, very technical technologically savvy audience.

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But at the same time you experienced a large degree of disconnect with your brand at the very beginning when you first started working with them, you help them to understand that they weren't talking to their audience. So maybe you can show a little bit of that story and help us to understand what kind of journey you went through to shift the perception of the marketers to be more in line with who the customer was. I just think like in to bring it back to fashioning and

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and I don't want it to feel to fashion oriented, but that's my world. We just had we just we just experienced a massive shifting culture about 2 3 weeks ago Virgil. I'll blow presented his leave the time collection at Paris fashion week. This is a man with no formal education in fashion design. His parents were working class immigrants from Africa. He's now the creative director, I believe the time the 5th highest grossing fashion

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label in the world. I think we just need to realize that the world is changing rapidly. And and I'm really in my industry to I'm like, constantly educating the owners of the company, and some are shareholders about this, and I'm like, it's not it's not the same. So what we are talking about it just you know, the last couple of conversations have about about change, but the future and it really is understanding that. Yeah, that every single day it's a it's a whole new

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ballpark nuke ballgame. Sorry. And the old world gatekeepers are becoming irrelevant. You can't you know the publishers and editors in the buyers and everyone, you know, that was making these decisions about how we're going to shop. At the same time, these old world models these old world consumers, these old world gatekeepers still command a huge amount of the audience out there. I mean, yes, it's kind of

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shifting and going away. But being an lying with your customer being along with your audience is more important than pursuing any kind of gender, whether it's a technology agenda or political agenda, or even a sociological agenda did seems to be more about trying to connect with your customer. That's exactly I've virginal originals is because the Louis Vuitton is having a very difficult time connecting with their and consumer. And the middle

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class wants luxury goods. And Virgil must had to speak to them. He's relevant. And they had to work with somebody like Virgil to reinvent themselves to make themselves relevant to their consumer. Virgil represents everyone. He represents people the struggle that we all we all want this luxury world, want one travel well, one of these aspirational lifestyles and he did it and he's working for a living talk. So I think that like that, we're going to see

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more of that in many industries. Is people finding ways to relate to their consumer and using people like Virgil Abba as you know, as that, that medium to connect with their audience. But German what about the audience unlike I agree with stuff so much the you know you need to be paying attention to what you're audiences in what at once and you need to adjust if you're an old world brand. But what if you're a brand that wants to be hipper but your audience is not willing to

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follow you? I mean, how do you reach out to them? How do you manage to work in this digital age in a way, the command, the attention of people who aren't necessarily digitally savvy and maybe a lot more sheltered than we would like to believe that they are? You still have to research and go outweigh these consumers are I think researchers are paying attention to the research that is researching paying attention to what these

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consumers doing, and they can see threat if you're trying to each other in a fake way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Jay help me out here. What's your what's your take on the situation when we're trying to reach out to an audience that doesn't want to. Here the kind of messaging that were. We're we're wanting to put out there. How do we how do we how do we take that research? How do we take that understanding of who the customer is? And make

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it more. Impactful in may turn it into something that we can actually create, that doesn't offend our values, but at the same time, her reaches out to values that are completely different. The ads I don't even know if it's so much of our values conversation as it is simply an advertising effectiveness conversation. And I think like anything else that the road to recovery starts with recognition. And I see far too many advertising communications professionals who just do not recognize that they are not their own target

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audience. That the people that they work with are not their target audience, their friends, or another target audience right, that they are living in a five percent bubble. And that is not who they're selling too. But it's hard to lose sight of that. When you're in scottsd- in in this sort of upper middle class. Everybody is going to banana Republic every day and drinking $7 coffees world. It's hard to understand it as a whole other. Society out there because you simply you're not exposed to it in many places, and I believe one of the great solutions would be the

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agency you should actually have more fueled offices in smaller towns. I think they do much better work. Well, let me let me play devil's advocate for a second here, and let's take it from the opposite standpoint. Advertising is something that shifts culture advertising is something that. Often is tasked and often encouraged to be a leader. In terms of trying to establish a new way of thinking, I mean, we see that in. Multicultural advertising that goes on, we see that in

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the patrol of gay couples now and advertising all of those things are offensive to somebody, but they're the right things to do so shouldn't we also be tasked to do the right thing whether or not effectiveness is part of the equation, or is it always about effectiveness? No, advertising doesn't fine art. That's the challenge, right? I mean, yes. Your point is well formed, but no agency gets to do the work they want to do because they feel it's

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the right thing to do. They're getting to do the work they want to do because some paying them to do so. So it takes two to Tango. So as long as your client is interested in pushing society forward than sure, I'll sign on for that. But we have to remember where we're hired guns in this business. We're not Michelangelo with a with a with a chisel. This hurts my heart [laughter]. I hate our industry sometime gotta get aid by, no, it's true. You know you do have to get paid and there's no room for ethics. It seems like.

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Staff and everything was ethical. This show would be so much less interesting [laughter]. [laughter]. The man stuff, what's your take on the fact that advertising has this dual purpose? It has this purpose to be effective, but at the same time, it has this purpose of leading social change within our within our our markets within our country's or than our society. I mean, are we are we task to a higher purpose,

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or is it always about effectiveness? Hata now it's I've never done anything that I wasn't passionate about, so it's difficult for me to comment on. I I really like I wouldn't go to work if I didn't want to do it. I just wouldn't do that anymore. I I only want to do things that I love in the night enjoy doing. And I'm lucky that way. I feel my more people should do that to create products you like. Create like stuff you like, you enjoy, and I think your audience will

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connect with it better because they see that it's like cool. And that there's passion behind it, and there's a real genuine need before it. This valley, it's the audience, whether it's a video or whether it's a t shirt. It's like make something that you like yourself in a friend's like. And it doesn't have to be necessarily suited to the target audience. You have to feel it. I don't know. No, very good points. Good points. All. And since we're on the subject of things that kill our

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hearts, let's talk next about hourly billing advertisers complain that their agencies are always exceeding their budgeted hours agencies. Meanwhile, complain that the actual hours reflect a more accurate picture of what it takes to complete projects rather than our procurement and negotiate a procurement negotiated budget. Now this issue over overbuilding is being cited as a primary reason for clients taking their work in house, which I'm a little bit skeptical of. But there you have it.

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My question julias whether hourly billing itself may be part of the problem. Do you believe that hourly billing still has a place in our business, or should we be more moving toward performance based or even project base billing structures? Yeah, and we'd been project based her for all 10 of our viewers. It's convinced convert. So this one strikes pretty pretty core to to my day to day existence. We've never hourly, build anybody, or even or even come up with an hourly rate. It's

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always been project freezer, performance fees. I feel like alternately, that's the right way to do it, because if we miss the budget, if it takes us more hours than we thought. That's my fault that that's our fault. That's not the clients fault. If we if we can't estimate it correctly, then that's not really a risk that the client should bear in my estimation. Now, I certainly understand if if negotiated fee or negotiated structure is agreed to by both parties and then all of a sudden

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decline has a million change orders, which requires the agency to do more work than they expected. Well, that's a different story. But I think from the context of the of the articles that we prep for for the show, it seems like agencies say, well, here's what it's going to cost. And then at the end of the year like, well, actually, cost more. So it's like it's like if you're hiring a guy to build a wall for your house and and he says, well, I thought the wall was going to be axed but now the wall is X plus why. Now you sort of have a question here because I thought you knew how much the war was going to cost. So I think that's kind of a

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situation that we find ourselves in. And to me that the real problem is this. There is no circumstance by which hourly building rewards or incentivizes efficiency it because it absolutely rewards in incentivizes the exact opposite. It's just human nature. I believe that if agency's move unilaterally and comprehensively to project these, every agency would get more efficient. Why? Because they simply would have to. Oh yeah, I agree with you in spirit. I mean, I

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think that the hourly billing structure does lead to waste because it's it's human nature. The human nature aboard the vacuum in one of biggest backing out there as firms do that too. And nobody's ever said, you know where I got my best deal ever from my lawyer [laughter]. We need you used on the comparison of like building a wall were like not building walls to were like building. And there's a creative element to a lot of things that we do too. And it's

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a you have to be inspired and like sometimes I can have a very inspiring hour in sometimes that takes me like a whole day. So it just like I dunno. You can't like really billing. It seems so ridiculous. It's like they're still artistry behind it. You still have to like sometimes you just feeling. More creative than other days, but let's go back to the reason that hourly billing exists, which is. I mean, hourly billing exists that the agency's could Bill for a lot

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of time. And then of course, the procurement officers that companies which is a late seventies early eighties cut of phenomenon worthies procurement officers, started to rise up within the organization and they had the sole task. Of improving profitability to raise the shareholder value within a company so that the CEO could get a bonus. I mean, that is exactly what's going on here. And so with that kind of structure in place, the procurement officers

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looked at what can we do to reduce cost in what they could do to reduce costs was ours if they could reduce the hours that it takes for an ad to be created for an advertising agency to do their work. Then they've effectively done their job. So is procurement part of the problem? I mean, its procurement, the real, the whole reason why were clean two hours because that's the metric they're using in which the judge the efficiency that the agencies of delivering in the

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total value that they're creating for the company. Yeah, there, certainly some of that in its in its more typical in in large companies and I think that overall belief and it's probably flawed at the root is that hourly bullying in and not only keeping track of ours calculating hours. And from the overall project in financial compensation somehow adds a layer of transparency to the process that if it was a flat rate, Bill will what, if needed it.

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The agency build us $10, but only took the agency two dogs were at the time. Well, that's not fair. And I think that's sort of the client things is what we're doing hourly than we know that the hours were spent because we've got a paper trail against that. But I think the earlier point that that really robs both sides of any measure of creativity and frankly, doesn't speak very well to how much both parties trust one another. From the standpoint of value creation, though there's gotta be a better metric. Like I'm no people play around with a performance based metric which

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does affect of we take their creative, it's being put together by the agency and place a value Chretien element on top of it. So it's make it's basically tying the success of the company to the ad campaign. Now it's a clumsy system. In most cases, just because it it puts a huge burden on the agency to deliver results on the bottom line. When there are so many moving parts

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involved in that process, but at least it's it's it's knowledge in the fact that advertising needs to start becoming responsible and accountable for creating value within a company as opposed to just getting paid. And that will solve a host of problems that will take away the fact that we're considered vendors instead of actual consultants that were in some health. Not part of their value equation were part of the cost equation. Is it times that we we we started knowledge in

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the accountability factor and start owning up to it in the agency world? I'm going to have to an especially as more and more things move digitally and becomes easier to track back to actual value. And we're all gonna ultimately have to go that way. But but my experience and it may be different from others on the panel and others listening has been the reluctant party. When we talk about performance based compensation is typically, but on the clean side, on the agency side, when when agencies as well do it, the clients like, no, we don't want to give you that kind of access to the books. And we don't want to track it that closely and

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and it's become sort of a burden for the client until they decide to not do that. And obviously you're results may vary. And then from the agency's perspective, while it certainly seems. More than fair to tie your compensation at some level to the actual performance of the campaign. As you said, Bob, there's a lot of other things that can go awry. The advertising can be amazing, but the sales department can be terrible, right? You can lead a horse to water. The agency can't necessarily make the consumer drink 100% of the time. So the reality is any of

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these systems, whether it's hourly performance based project based requires. Both sides to trust. One another right in in both sides have to give a little bit no one's going to get the perfect model. It just doesn't exist. So it doesn't matter. What would you pick? Somebody is going to be a little bit unhappy, and that's typically the sign of a good deal. Stuff you're the Representative client here killing a little bit more of your opinion on this, because it seems to me that there's a huge disconnect between what the company

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needs in what they agency needs in order to get the work done. And it all comes down to this. This money occasion and it shouldn't it should be more about what kind of value on my getting created right as it should be about the value creation or completely off base here. No, totally. It should be about the value in again. I I couldn't agree more at that. It is really about trust because sometimes it's just you get a sense that there was a value you you watch it or you

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watch like the asset, or you like, see the campaign or whatever the various working parts of it. And you're like, you have this sense whether it worked or not. And sometimes the metrics aren't necessarily telling of that or the sales aren't telling of that. And exactly, you know, I to an earlier point two there can be many other. Maybe you're driving a bunch of people to a crappy website and you know, and once there that the bounce rate super high once they get to that website, maybe the products, not great. So you you drive all of this

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interest in this engagement and no one actually wants the product. They said the had better than the product. So there's a lot of variables in what is what works and what does in a lot of moving parts in it. So again, it's just trust in about having an open conversation and just asking your consumers too, like surveying them and being like, did you like this ad? Did you like? This video, did you like this live stream and getting feedback from them? Let me for a one

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less question on this topic before we move out and this is about the the negotiation of fees that goes on we by an agency is part of the reliance on is part of the reliance on ours in the part of this process of over stating hours or at least reporting hours ago, go in excess of Lee budgeted ours. Is that actually in the grocery shopping technique by the agencies

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and does a flat fee or or some other kind of structure actually take away an important negotiating tactic when you're sitting down with the client and you're trying to prove to them that this work that we're doing requires more money. I mean, j, you've been on the you've been in that room. You've had the negotiate for these these structures. I mean, what would you think. I think we're the negotiation comes in is in a competitive bid scenario, right? If if

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if the client is looking at multiple agencies or looking to shift the work, or potentially looking to bring it in house and is trying to do a cost benefit analysis of that opportunity than the easiest way to calculate the Ottawa is through hourly because it has been trained to think that way. In order to calculate the Arawak of a project fee, you have to know precisely in advance everything that's going to be included in that project. And that's one of the challenges right as advertising becomes more

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fluid as advocate ties becomes more dynamic as as things happen. Programatic Lee that you could not have maybe envisioned six months ago or a year ago, or whenever the contract was signed, it becomes harder. And some cases to say, this is what we're going to charge you period because you don't really know what's included in the period. So it's hard for both sides to negotiate on that because you're sort of negotiating based on a lot of unknowns. Yeah, Anchorage. Because like some products that we have here, we've had the from hence touch it.

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Like sometimes I started on a project in a freelance or how to come in and take it over, and we realized a freelance less wasn't a perfect set. So these these random factors that at our current a project at like overbuilding gets reinstated. Well, good points, all people, but I'm going to move on to the next topic. The evening. There's a growing divide in determining influence or value. There's freak followers which is a real issue for brands. There's the growing and

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growing presence of live streaming personalities. And it's seeming the lunch during personalities are offering a more effective alternative. Overall, it's alive, actively engaged audience. It's harder to fake numbers and its most successful hosts or pre average. Pretty typically very adept at delivering effective pitches. So staff is live streaming simply the influence or marketing tactic to shore, or is it really becoming a best practice for

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marketers out there trying to get into audience, audience's hearts and minds. There were that with a beautiful with a multi up. I've just with a beautiful tea up a terrible intro-. I'm going to pass this topic after you eat. The football is now yours go for it. [laughter]. Yeah, I love lives dreaming like on Instagram and Facebook, Instagram stories. They're definitely more telling of an audience in engagement, Ben

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influence or generated contact content like a post that can Instagram post or Facebook, poster, YouTube video. I can tell you that I know it works because I'm a millennial and this is the way that I'm dealing more than half of the content and engaging within a day. All so even if you just look at the statistics to in in the numbers, the metrics, my Instagram stories, and live video with my brand. And also my personal insert account on are getting more views than videos in my permanent feed. And social

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media had become so curated that live content is the only thing that feels real and immediate. So I really anticipated Cecil trend will continue in this direction. You know, two years ago. The trend is really about these Gil ultra aspirate color coordinated Instagram accounts that favored like composition and high quality photography over anything that looked like real life. You know, that's that's right around the time when some of these like the

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word influence in the idea of these influence serious in some people started making an actual living off of their social capital and content. And I feel like that is also the time that these are agency started making these, you know. A spreadsheets. Of these like 50 people that are in this peo- P echo chamber in these Hannibal off millions and Amy song types in all these lazy publicists in the world are still coming up with this genius. The idea of tapping these people. But

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I really think that today's sophisticated consumer king spot. In a hash tag partnership. A mile away on whenever tired excel sheet that the gap in Michael cores are using its didst not driving any real market demand. Filtered raw, you know, I'm I'm a little bit skeptical here because this is like, I believe what you're saying to be true to an extent. But at the same time, the most popular online

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content as far as I know mainly because of its traffic numbers is probably net flicks which is archive content. And it's finally produce ton. And I'm I'm wondering, yes, to a certain degree because we're on mobile devices and people are trying to connect via social and they're they're having these experiences via snapshot, and Instagram stories and Facebook stories. There's this perception that this is this is gonna be around forever. The

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community is moving toward live streaming in live streaming has a much more engaged audience because you're you've got someone caught in the moment the they're not time shifting, they're not watching in the background. There are actively pursuing this content, but I have a certain amount of skepticism about whether or not it's going to last July and you're going to jump in. I have to agree with you, Bob, because I am also millennial. And I actually follow staff and I love her feet, but I see her bead

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at golf, and I will never look at a life stream because I don't have the time. I will also watch a net flicks movie rather than see some of the influences I followed instantly. I'm just just overwhelmed that all the content on getting today that I don't care to see a light stream archive video. The archive videos like the archives story is I feel like are like super exciting right now, and that's kind of the best of both worlds. It was like the idea that it's like in promptly when it

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happened, and that you can see it. You can look back on it, you know, for weeks or months, we don't know how long instrument archive stories are last. Even also looking at the content the next morning to like even alive and looking at it and maybe missing at that moment. But then being able to go back or even watch it a couple of more times. So there is it's like interesting time to were is like. It's it's. Up for 24 hours or maybe even longer, maybe for weeks or

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months. But I think that Iran is of real- reality. I think that's what the appetite is in the market. So I don't think that like, aren't you describing, aren't you describing YouTube? I mean, YouTube is been doing this for regions, which is basically many do these two like that's what I mean. It's something so curated that it's not real. And some people want it real issue at this act like I'm falling so many people,

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and it's just seems like there, hey, look at me. Look at me. Look at me and maybe I'll be more effective if they like scheduled this live event. And then I might just that. I probably say Wednesday at five pm, I'll probably up to mentally. But I don't want to I came up as a feature came out just like, no, thanks. Well, I think it's dangerous for us to look at live streaming in the value of live streaming is just being about

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the young celebrities and people who are trying to do impromptu. Things mean live streaming also includes companies like cheddar which is trying to do live streaming news via face book. It's an entirely live stream network that's putting on scheduled content that's highly produced about produced about business news. Jay fruits, some perspective on the live streaming

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thing is live streaming. Effective now in its current form, its current predominant form. Is that effectiveness just ephemeral and it's going to move into much more of something like what cheddar is producing, or do you feel like. This is something that can last for a long time in that the the egos of people will drive the internet for homework for the next 20 years. Probably both, and it will start to see more

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non traditional packaged live stream programs like cheddar. There's no question that the authenticity of live stream has a huge amount of appeal and not just a millennial and genji demographics, but but all demographics. The point was touched on earlier that the somewhat more difficult to to fake engagement in a lifetime environment is absolutely true. So who's got a brand advantage there? I think it will be a will continue to be a larger and larger part

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of the overall communications mix. I don't think it's going to fully take over what we would consider to be kind of classic influence. Our marketing is hilarious to say that for something that some relatively none, but for this reason, there's there's many studies that show this that that sometimes are called citizen influencers. Real real customers who may not have a huge degree of following butter influential in their own way within their own tribe. Those people actually move the needle more

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so than do quote, unquote, celebrities. Now it takes more of them to move the needle because they don't each have a particularly giant audience. But from a pure persuasive standpoint, I actually convinced me to click here or by this thing it's been a lot of research has suggested. It has an influence influencers are actually better than than celebrities. In the reason I don't think live streaming will will take over in the true sense is that most of your citizen influencers are not at least now and perhaps not in the near future. As comfortable doing a live stream

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recommendation as they are taking a picture in posting right to do a live video requires a measure of self confidence in in frankly ability that not all citizens have at least not today. So I think we're not quite there yet to a tipping point, but it wouldn't surprise me if we get there. Eventually, something that concerns me about the the live streaming is a scenario that I read was listening to. The name escapes me of the streamer. But he was on the twitch dreamer, so he's a gamer

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streamer. And he took a vacation, he was one of the most popular streamers on Twitter. He took a vacation for a week, decided the just not do any gaming, and just let his audience chill for a week and that he's going to come back and he lost half of his audience. And for me, that's a story of caution stuff, right? I mean, if you're if I'm an advertiser and I want to commit to this guy, suddenly half his audiences gone after I've already committed to him just because he took a vacation. That sounds like

00:37:29

an incredibly fickle audience. Yeah, but that's this is the same point to about citizen or micro influence areas. It's like you need to I'm sure the people that followed him, we're not like they're not liquid loyal, he's not driving any sort of market demand, but then actually an impression it's people who really, really ride for you and you're not going to lose them as a follower. She took a break for a week. That's the same with all of these people with like one million followers. Their

00:37:59

followers aren't, they're not meaningful followers. Most of them, it's just about reached, but numbers and lazy publicist tapping these people thinking that, well, they have a million followers. We're going to pay them. People out there that have 2000 followers that are driving a lot more market demand and have a lot more impact. Then some of these, these big, big massive numbers, anything. This is always what this would always bugs me about influence or

00:38:29

marketing is, is it seems like there's no real ability to test. The the quality of whose representing u- until you actually do it. I mean, you can watch it other, you can watch other brands, take a risk with their influencers and see whether or not they were successful, but then they've got the influence or so you've got to take a chance and you've got to go out there and you've got to spend money to see whether or not the quality is there in the influence or you know the only way to do that is to look

00:38:59

at the numbers goes the raw numbers of audience and say, well, this is a good bet. Let's make a let's make a bet here. You know. It's the same thing, it's we've been talking about it all night is about knowing your audience. You I just I just started an influence their program. We didn't New York this past year, and it was very successful. And again, it was all micro influencers kids that really represented our community and not all of them had a lot of social capital, a really working with them. And we've

00:39:29

seen a drive market demand in and drive south truce in some of our best retailers. And our retailers are coming into us, meaning that the kids are asking for this. Products and I really truly believe a lot of eggs. We didn't do much marketing last year. It was all because influence our program and I'm rolling it out globally. And what I'm doing is we're calling them the clubs. So we're finding a plug in every city, and I'm not looking at big numbers, but I'm finding someone who actually knows cool kids who are driving markets, man who are stylish were

00:39:59

interesting. Who are involved in nightlife and actually finding a real person it exists and then they tell me. You know 30 40 of their friends or 30 40 people that matter in that market. And I basically to put all of their friends on. So it's not about like, how am I supposed to how am I supposed to be relevant in Paris? I can't I can find it really relevant kid in Paris. And I can talk to them and I can listen. And I can have a conversation with them about who. Whose influencing

00:40:29

market demand? Whose. Whose to awesome. And they're going to put me on to a bunch of people that have like a thousand followers, 2000 followers. People were fairly insignificant, they're not going to show up on these. Social aggregation apps, they're not going to show up on these PR excel sheets. But there are people who are actually out there, you know DJ making art have amazing sense of style, you know who are popular and while lights and trusted within their communities. So it's way harder,

00:40:59

way, way harder. They not like you can't fake the funk like you really have to go out there and find your cat fixed the funk. I think we've got to show title while moving on to the final topic of the evening. Finally prime day for Amazon singles day for Ali baba. These retailer traded shopping holidays or jogger nuts for cells. But given the fact that the items offered on discount tend to amount to little more than a giant garage sale j is

00:41:29

or her risk of damaging brand perception. Long term. By continuing these programs or what you what's your take on the whole use of these fake shopping holidays? I don't think you have a whole big risk. Of brand decay, when already you sell everything. Right. I mean, what is Amazon's brand right now? What is Ali

00:41:59

Baba's and brand? It is. So all encompassing, the value proposition, the brand attributes are are already so fuzzy that I'm not sure that really matters. Now if moves knuckles had everything free day, that would be a different story. But but that's not we're talking about here. So I don't think in this particular case, it is an issue in a different retail environment. It would be an issue. Yeah, off priced goods are a real problem in fashion this year right now because seasons aren't the same.

00:42:29

So retailers like essence, if you guys know it, they're like a luxury fashion retailer based at a Montreal, but they're very globally relevant Arab, going creeping up in up in up on sale season. They're starting their cell before anyone else is starting their sale, and then the entire industry has to start their sale shortly after. Or they can't compete on an really at the end of the day. I think that we again need look our end consumer, and we need to stop pandering to

00:42:59

their original gatekeepers in the buyers in the industry in these narrow windows of like spring summer fall, winter holiday. These delivery periods and again, crate unique products that are genuine valued or a consumer. And we built and build a community around those products with real people. And I don't think that did he go on sale? I don't think that goes on sale when the market demands there. When it it sells out and it can sell full price all the time. You know, it's just like for me,

00:43:30

when I wrote this topic, I had absolutely no reason to believe that this is going to hurt Amazon's brand. But I posed it anyway for the sake of just the argument in the discussion because it's just like I find this whole Amazon prime day to be so completely ineffective at anything more than just selling prime memberships, which. Is really profitable for Amazon. I'm not necessarily

00:43:59

sure it's profitable for the consumer because the consumer gets exposed gets to have an Amazon prime membership, but they may not even need in order to buy junk on the day that they don't really want it. And I'm thinking from a long arm perspective. I was about the same because I'm a prime member, and I just buy things when I need them. I l look at things unkindly. But it's mostly things I'll never touch. So I'm just wasting money. Yeah, and

00:44:29

it's just like it seems so out of touch with the consumer now having said that, I mean, they had a lot of value into the prime membership and it's just a a loss leader or whatever to get the exposure to all the different cool things that you get with prime. But it does seem a bit out of touch with the consumer. Overall, having said that, my my thought is there is a certain holiday called mother's day. That's pretty much created by hallmark. You know, it's just like

00:44:59

that's the prime day of its time. You know, it's just like this completely useless holiday mother's day and Father's Day, which is purely about selling good greeting cards. And I'm I'm wondering, this is this is not a new tactic, is it? This is something that has been going on all the time. You hijack a holiday, you go for it and use it to the advantages, your brand. It seems like it's perfectly legitimate strategy. Yeah, I mean if Coca Cola created Santa Claus as long

00:45:29

rumored then all bets are off. I think really. Nothing is sacred Bob Murphy. That's the theme of the show I think is that nothing is sacred. No, it's gas driven by late one day. Sales are afraid leave. Either thing like that. I like the same same. I buy something when I need it or when I won't want it. It's already your fingertips. So making trying to incentivize me by making it give me get faster early one day faster. It really does not

00:46:00

utter. I just won't buy one. I really want it when I need it. Well, with that, it's time for the ad fell five 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 to each do a shameless plug starting with J bear. You can find him@convincing convert dotcom that's the home of his company is consultancy s- also the home of his pod cast in his books and everything else he does. So tell us, what would you like to promote?

00:46:30

Not even a promotion. Just an acknowledgment Bob. Thanks so much for having me on the show again is always blast. But last Sunday. So a week ago today was the 10th anniversary of convincing converting only four percent of businesses make it to 10 years, who are pretty proud of that. So thank you to everybody out there for your support all these years. That's that's great. Congratulations. Thanks Val. Now mixed up. We have Stephanie half. You can find her@moose, knuckles, canada.com. It's spelled exactly like you think it would [laughter] stuff. What would you like to

00:46:59

promote? I guess Instagram are you can follow me on Instagram. You at staff's as T p. H underscore Haas H o. S s. I don't know. I smoke more people see my art. So just follow along and check on my staff. And these are very fabulous, very heavy coats serve you wonder if you live in a cold weather climate. You definitely want these if you live in Florida, I'm not so sure unless you going into a ski vacation, but it's fantastic product. And last but not least German

00:47:29

Thomas you can find her a German thomas.com of the Lincoln the shirts, tell us what's going on in your world drilling, what would you like to promote? I'm just trying to break classy lines [laughter] recently I I illustrated something for the with artist. Look at this struggle up that black female athlete. I am currently pursuing a half iron man and realized that only 25% of patients are African Americans. So I'm just looking to connect with other people who are trying to break

00:48:00

glass ceilings as well. Oh, that's that's fantastic. That's great. I love to do whatever akin to help. So definitely helped your went out and shut her out. A German Thomas dotcom as for me for more information about me or the show visit, the being cast dotcom there you can find a complete show archive. You can find out how to consult with me, and you can even find out how to advertise in the program. So check it all out at the being cast a common don't forget. Of course, we have transcription services now through transcribed me

00:48:29

dotcom slush being cast. That's the site you can go to to get a quick discount on your next transcription Prague project. And of course if you need transcription of this show or any show previous. We've got it now. So check it out. And now it's time for the ad fell five or run down of the lowest moments in advertising marketing and public relations from last week. And first up the W p. P Sir Martin fight is the gift that just keeps giving, oh

00:48:59

my God, Jay, it's real. It's really emphasizing the importance of a contractor. In this case, the lack of a good contract. Chris Sir Martin is going around trying to buy the agency. He was trying to buy under W p. P and now he's trying to do it under his own new company. And it doesn't seem like W p. P has a very strong case against him to stop him doing this. Yeah, which is amazing to me because it's clearly torches interference, and I think that

00:49:29

that reasonable jurist would conclude that that is not a fair situation. So I suspect you would lose if they ever actually took it to court the you're right. You would think that in a position of that magnitude, that they would have all of this buttoned up and that he would have had to disappear. Sort of mafia style for a while, but I'll tell you one thing. One of these days, this whole W p. B thing is going to be an amazing Broadway show [laughter] think you're probably take it now. Oh my God. Well, I figure

00:49:59

points out that we paid them too much money in this industry of rural over the many years, because if he can walk away from $20 million and not really care about it, because that's the older trying to bring against them, they're trying to say, we're going to take away your $20 million package. That's not a very big camera to go against. The guy was making $75 million just a year ago. Well anyway, apparently it's not sorry. Next one of French supermarket chain, super, you must have forgotten what decade were living in. Deciding that

00:50:29

bikini and laundry wearing women juror Lin would be a perfect way to attract their customer base. You know nothing wrong with people wearing bikinis, but they shouldn't be pumping. My guess [laughter] I'm confirm remind them are insulin 18 and this is not the sixties. Please [laughter]. Tigers these bad like it's like it's just like bad taste everything. Everything is so tasteless late. But I don't even know where to start about.

00:50:59

This was pretty horrific now. However, Bob just to play devil's advocate here. We are talking about where a single location of a supermarket chain and that location isn't a medieval village in France. So a case could be made that despite its obvious poor taste that they did something. [laughter] did something

00:51:29

okay. And the headline is obviously plump at the pump and they totally dropped the blame of French translation error [laughter]. Oh my God. Next up apparently, it's not just Google that's reading your Email account to provide better data services according to a recent law suit and be actual terms of service that you all agreed to when you bought a g mail account or God a juvenile account. They were granting access the 3rd party developers as well stuff [laughter]. You know, first of

00:51:59

all, I guess you should have known better because they gave you the terms of service ahead of time. But who reads the ULA [laughter]. I never do. I'm so terrified of what I signed out for because I didn't read the fine print. I. Yeah, that's not shocking. I'm going to have to go back and see what I wanted to start yet. Don't even try it. I feel like I feel at this point, Google is essentially Facebook. They just don't have the untrustworthy figurehead founder. That's the

00:52:29

only otherwise, it's the same thing already sold my soul. They've got their own untrustworthy founder, Wal-Mart can't seem to reconcile their 3rd party solar thing against their audience. This time the heartland real took retailer and we know the heartland we talked about a J heartland retailer was caught listing impeach Forty-five baby clothes. Something that didn't go over very well with its very heavily Trump leaning audience. This

00:53:01

you know, it's like I I feel like they keep swinging both ways. They have the tree journalists short just a few months ago, and that caused a big stir. And now they've got this on the other side of the political spectrum. J what's going on here? I mean, certainly big company, lots of products, tricky situation, but I've got to tell you where we're in this age where everybody is so quick to be offended, right? And nobody is allowed to be offended. Some amazing

00:53:29

that stand up. Comics still have jobs. I just I wonder and again, my background's in politics originally, so I think about these things from time to time. I just wonder where this ends right? If if if the role of the consumer now is to be outraged about everything, do we have to start to hire somebody inside big corporations whose job is essentially chief cultural awareness officer, right? Somebody who is really going through with a fine toothed comb all the different circumstances to say, let's

00:53:59

make sure that nobody is conceivably offended about any of these things. And if that's where we go, then we've talked a lot about art and we've talked a lot about passion on this show. Is there room for art and passion in in a set of circumstances where everybody can be easily offended? Just those things can can survive together. I'm kind of some kind of with you. I think it's going a little bit overboard to be offended by everything at the same time. This one seems like if it doesn't happen to Amazon very

00:54:29

often. So why is it happening? The WalMart? Yeah, I I still think people should know at let's audiences like this will never go gone out. I don't think anyone's gonna care like as soon as we finished talking about it all the time. All just like it gives us something to like laugh about or whatever. I guess some people are kind of the irritated, but I dunno it's just it's happens way too frequently. Now it happens, but my brand to wait about an instrument of communist

00:54:59

science, light weights. It's done in a day what you've just described as the whole point of this segment of the show. Just laugh at ourselves and move on and Wal-Mart was literally literally accused in a tweet storm Wal-Mart obey wal mart stores of button Bill Arkansas as being part of a far left conspiracy [laughter] not true. I can tell you that right now that is not a far left. Conspiracy came.

00:55:29

Everything you see on the internet. By the way, you know how many of those cells, I have no idea. I have no idea what this uproars Hillary Clinton's grant grandchildren. And last but not least Budweiser just one some top prizes at Cannes for a clever search campaign that invited drinkers the Google search terms and see images of famous people drinking a pod. Besides the fact stuff that the

00:55:59

entire campaign was designed to get around to having the license, the images, a Dutch brewer seems to have hijacked the campaign. Now. I feel like this is a total great comeuppance for them trying to get around using p- paying photographer. It's so clever. I I did a campaign like a year ago where we'd like made fat 10 fake ads kinder- profiles invited people to our party. I dunno use

00:56:29

where you can use in front of you dislike figure out a clever way to do it. We ended up getting kicked off of tender for it. [laughter] hairs tender. I don't know. I think it's genius. Giving the inspiration. I'm good. I'm buying Google ads for the search term, the bean cast, which is going to come up with an ad for my pod gas ladies and gentlemen said, go ahead. It'll ever, you'll never beat Shaun. You'll never be Sean beam Sean bean when his cast [laughter]

00:56:59

gas is definitely the. That's my number one. That's my number one Google alert shown being cast a [laughter]. We'll have something to this list or just want to discuss it. Comment on line use the hash tag, add fell five pound Advil fell. The number five. Well, that does it for this week's show if you'd like to subscribe to this pod cows visit our website at the being cast a common click on the subscribe link. If you're Nigerians listener, we've also provided a direct link to the idea of

00:57:29

music store or just search for the being cast in the pod couch directory of I tunes and whichever pod ghost directory you use when you subscribe, please leave observe you gotta comment of a question. We'd love to hear from you. Just send your emails to being cast. A G m. L dotcom opening theme was performed by Joseph Cambell closing theme by sea jacks. Thanks for listening. I'm Bob nor p- we'll be back again next week. Hope you'll join us then.

00:58:33

Exactly.

00:59:24

Cool beans.