Date: 03-Jul-2018
Input sound file: 0502_The_BeanCast_Marketing_Podcast_My_Sexist_AI
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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 to my sexist day. I.
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For Monday, July second 2018 it's time for this week's addition of the being cast discussion about the news and issues facing marketers today, I'm close. Bob. Thanks for joining us.
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You worry about the eye for many reasons, but is. Sexism on the list, what about whether it's enhancing more than just our tasks in short order, more practical issues to address other than appeasing or robot overboard. So tonight will discuss also why exposure may be a better metric. You ability, whether agencies of anything to offer startups in more more GDP or
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woes. Plus this week's at fell five. That's the lineup. Lets me nights panel. Thanks for joining us for this week's been cast. I'm Bob north and with me on the panel for this evening, we start with the co founder of raven, public relations, mister met Ben Hogan mad. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. No, also joining us. We have the founder of the deep focus agency network, and now
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president and CEO of music technology firm music, mister in Shaffer in I've waited so long to get you back on the program. Hello, Bob is so nice to be glad the of the time to do it now. Fantastic. Now, another person who were pleased to have back is the newly installed president of wonderment Chicago mister in sown another voice that we've waited a long time to get on the show, which is why I have booked two ends today. My mother is catching right now
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[laughter]. Yeah. [laughter]. Finally, we will come back the president of be content marketing agency specializing in the technology fields Smith. The boy I screwed the sub Davis [laughter] mister David spark of spark media solutions. David, what's going on? You didn't screwed up, don't knock yourself. It came out fine. [laughter] screwed up a little bit. Then that become sort of
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an ear worm to people listening in. They remember, oh, now remember this guy and his agency and what Bob and he talked about. So that's a lot of that already. [laughter]. Exclamation can't even talk. -sition is what you're looking for. They're going to remember that as well. Well, let's get into the topics where I actually do have prepared statements and can talk intelligently. Well, whenever we discuss the subject of a eye on the show artificial intelligence, it's
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always devolving into talk of robot overlords and loss of privacy and all the other things that make the modern world kind of a scary place to live in. But two articles in the tech press this week, tackle some different concerns, namely that the fact that is being developed by technically minded men. And so well, it's fairly good at solving problems. It's not very good at facilitating things like a greater humanity. And frankly, it's more than a bit sexist, despite the
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fact that many voices of interfaces tend to be female. They also tend to be bossed around. They tend to be the belittled by the users. So he and Shaffer. Is a I reflecting some of the worst biases of humanity, and if so, what can we do to change that? Any thoughts on this? Yeah. So let let me start by by putting this in a bigger contacts. So. While hospital in his
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in his farewell peace it at code talked about the future of technology in the future of computing in general, just being ambient, right? Kind of. All around us, not necessarily you know, all centralized in a screen that that's not necessarily even that everyone thought convergence. It was going to be all of our stuff on one screen. And then what we're learning is it's just everything that's connected. And so if the future of technology is in fact ambient and it is all
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around us, it stands to reason that I guess having a interaction with technology should be at the very least as easy as having a conversation. I think now is an interesting point in time because there is a lot of conversation about civil discourse. When is it okay to be civil and when is it not? And I think there is also a point in time right now where technology is in a relatively clumsy state. And I think that a I- in its current
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state, being a person. You know, I think that's always the first place that people go. You know, in emotion, new technology, so even apple, you know, when they launched new technologies or new icons, you operating system, they use that kind of agenda. There's word for it. I can't remember right now, but you know, look at the notepad looks like a notepad. It looks like a physical object. It's meant to replace. And I think with a I you know, a lot of the voices systems that you have right now. There are meant to sound like, again, like the thing that it's meant to replace, which
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is interacting with another human being to get something done. I think this is weird awkward. Step that we're taking what technology and there may be several steps beyond it. And we've seen awkward steps with things like Google glass. And now even like statuette spectacles like these things are awkward and they're playing an odd role in society as we let it in. But I think ultimately, like we're going to be a place where is not attached to a personality. It's not attached to a human sounding voice as much as
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I computer was in Star Trek, right? Like it is going to be the kind of thing that you know, it's going to be transactional when it needs to be. Let me ask you to do something or make this dinner. You know, it's going to be, you know, it's not going to respond to you when you need to get something done, like turn on the lights in your home, or maybe even like put your kids to bed. Me like this is this is just this awkward stage that we're in right now. And I think it stands to reason that a lot of the complaints that we have about a I are the same complaints that we have, but
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there's a there's a good argument to be made, though he and that when you're developing a new technology at the root, if it's something like inherently sexist, it's going to develop as a sexist personality. I mean, yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly that its its clunky and awkward at this stage and we couldn't we can't expect all that much from it. But at the same time to have these route fundamental. Flaws in the system is just gonna put Pearl of proliferate boy.
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It's going to proliferate over time and become a real problem down the line. Yeah, I think right now, like we're getting day, I get people make for us, whereas in the future will get the eye. The we customize ourselves. I don't know if it is personality based, it'll be the personality of the Jews. And hey, this is I think one of the things bother you're getting at is a conversation that we probably all had with a. A creative director at some point recently in our careers, and that is, you know. Can
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a 22 year old single male, right? Add copy for peanut butter or orange juice. Sure. But is it going to be as authentic and believable? And is the boy's gonna be as right as if someone in the target consumer market? If they rode it, so I think that's where you're getting it, right? I mean, the
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point the point makes sense to me except that we're talking about and I know Joe all generalizations or false set, their core. So forgive me for generalizing, but when you're talking about somebody whose job it is to create marketing messages, they're going to be a lot better at understanding humanity and understanding what's necessary to communicate to the target audience. Then attack minded programmer who works in what is largely considered to be
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sexist environments in in the technology fields. I mean, they beyond that right now were trying to at least every week we can't hammer home topic to death because this isn't the core of a I am one of the arguments that this article mates is that they believe it sexes because. It is predicted by 20 20 that more women's jobs will be replaced by artificial
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intelligence. The male jobs in this is one of the arguments for being more sexes. And so I think there's a call out to stop that. But I would argue that. We have an enormous history of technology. Taking replacing John, but also creating brand new jobs, them women look at the the array of new jobs we have these days because of technology that didn't exist before. And it never it literally never works. Just complain and hope that the job comes back. It just doesn't at all just
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never worked. So whether this is Texas or not, the the the call for to stop this is not be the way to stop it. But per would also Shaffer said at the very beginning. The definition of a Isaac's ordinarily brought in this story, they kind of. Talk about it just being about robots and being these sort of characters that we know like a Syrian Alexa or an actual image of a woman. But she is truly in
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everything. I mean, there's artificial intelligence in your mail where programmed there's artificial intelligence telling you weird to drive throughs each. Oh, no doubt that I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean, it's just like I believe that I know for a fact that a is part of everything in that the the small subset of artificial intelligence that we interact with directly is just that it's a small subset. It's the forward facing
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human human interface that gives us opportunities to interact with artificial intelligence and meaningful ways. It's just that it's also giving us the opportunity to express ourselves in ways that are not productive in in quite frankly, I think some of the need to define that to what defined widow facility for them ways are not productive because I don't know. I mean, one example that was given, which was really resonated with me and it was not in the article your referencing. It was in another one, but it was
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talking about. The fact that children are being trained to talk in rude ways to individuals, just because they're interacting with these really clunky a eyes and they're asking it the do stuff, and it's not doing it correctly, and they're yelling at it. And you know, it's facilitating to a child's mind. You know, it's facilitating this idea that somehow this is okay to talk to people like this because the Lakota as far as I've ever done that when you've been on the
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one you when you have one of those sort of automated response people on the phone and they're not understanding what you're saying, and you get increasingly angry at a great. But I'm an adult. I understand that I'm talking to a robot in the reason of said is because I'm talking to a robot, if a child's talking to an interface, don't you think they knew that as well? I don't. I don't think that they always do. You know that they do this is the son. I had a an incident recently where my eleven year old. With texting me and I I
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really. Took. I took issue with the tone of his tax, picked up the phone and a columnist said, what's going on with the with your text messages? And he was he had no idea what I was talking about. He said I was just voiced, dictating them. And so for him, it was just he was. He was talking into his phone because his boys dictating and it was just coming out, bury kind of matter of fact and dry, and I was reading it with a certain tone that he didn't intend. So I don't know that they do know to be quite honors. That's it.
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That's a skill you develop over time that right, like figuring out how to intimate via Email and text and and all that. And I do agree that it's a scary thought, but I think like so many other things that we've seen as you know, there's a good model for what might happen here within digital itself in I can remember as a reporter when digital standards first started coming around and they included things like, okay, we've been building websites for 10 years now, but you know, we just started to figure out that people who can't read or having a terrible experience on our websites are the blind or the Daf for,
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you know inaccessibility became an issue. And so standards within developed to sort of give developers workarounds for solutions for people who have all sorts of different. No physical attributes that they have to deal with their daily lives. And so you know, isn't it reasonable? I would ask Schaeffer here just because you've you've built so many digital properties that a standard would eventually come to exist. That would help the guide these things. Maybe not. Explicitly jump right to, okay, how can we make kids better? People are better communicators
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rather, but don't don't you think that somebody will come out at some point and say, hey, let's crates and guard rails here. Yeah. I mean, if if if that someone that exists outside the industry, like a regulatory body, for example, but I don't trust the industry to regulate itself. I mean, if you look at the ones, they I- personalities that we talked to in deal with on a regular basis, all their program to do is get us to buy more. So if you know if that's. Okay, it's then
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it's got come from some someplace else other than know y- companies whose cause is commerce and the and that point that you just media is is key to the other argument about how a I- is being developed in a haphazard way that it's not helpful to humanity. It's it's it's basically when you're using a just to sell stuff. When you're using a I just make it easier to sell things to people. What you're doing is you're saying we want a robot
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to replace a human in order to achieve something with higher efficiency. And you know that core principle of a I- instead of looking at ways to enhance human interaction and to enhance the opportunities available for humans to do more. Oh, we we tend to focus on the replacement idea. And you know, for me it's not so much that that's robot overlords coming. It's just that it's not healthful,
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nor is a productive to human society to have replacements as much as uses to have that here. Go ahead, go ahead of David spark. So the here's the big argument against what you just said, and I will tell you in the security field, this is a huge, huge selling point. Artificial intelligence will reduce the staff members, you need to secure your environment in so many security vendors are selling debt service. You
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install our technology, you need less people to maintain security near environment. You don't need as many sort of worker bee level type people to do this, that you can have a higher level. People read the information in inconsiderate. Daddy's at enormous selling point in that industry. Yeah, it's an enormous slowly auderburn. The automation of the of the vehicle assembly line made cars cheaper for all of us, right? Yeah, I mean, automation is not a bad thing.
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I'm don't don't get me wrong. What I'm saying here. I'm not saying that it's it's bad to automate repetitive tasks and the free up humans for more opportunity, but we're creating technology to just replace humans without giving humanity more opportunity to shine and do better things. And I think that's that's the missing element in most day I development were always trying to solve the problem. How do we get rid of these inefficient humans, as opposed to how can we free
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these inefficient humans to be more productive in their own way and contribute more to the company? It's it's always being sold. Like David said, you know as a way to reduce worker bees and to take them out of the equation, as opposed to saying, what can we do with all these worker B's now in order to become more productive and more efficient but eat the industry security? Just point out the security field is so deficient in staff. Like it over over 3 4 years ago, Cisco came out with
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report that said we need a one million more security professional. So it's not a case of, oh, we your replacing immediately. You know those headcount you need to hire, you will need to hire all of them because now you'll have this new product. Again, this is, you know, a pie in the sky selling point, but that's the theory, but could could we be just too early in the arc of the narrative to really have clarity on on what it's going to do. I think you know, were wise to be cautious, but you know, I take a good example from, you know how he got to the moon in the first place,
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which is. Does the story that I love, but I mean really that the rockets that propelled into space were developed as part of the military industrial complex, you know for war. And so it wasn't until NASA got their hands on them that they were able to put them to a better use. And then all the technology in advance instead of come from space travel and everything it takes us to get there have been know dramatically helpful to the human race. And so from my perspective, I think we might be just too early to say, well, it's going in the wrong direction because initially a lot of things going the right, the wrong direction until somebody
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with maybe a better heart are better minds. For what the potential uses are and can actually make use of the technology can do something truly productive with it. But until we get to that point, you know it, we probably need some guard rails. Or sometimes we just elect a certain individual to be the president of the United States. I mean, it's just like I I don't want to be a Luddite here, but I do believe that we need to. You know, we need to address these questions now. It's not so much that. I believe that technology is bad is that is
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leading us down this path where we're gonna be somehow replaced by computers and everything's gonna go south for us. And suddenly I'm going to be in a ditch next to some guy named John Connor. I mean, I really believe that this is a great opportunity for us, but I also see that there are problems and you need to address them at the rude or else they fester and become big problems. And we've seen the results of that very, very, very, very obviously in our society
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recently. Yeah, I mean, if there's if there's a hint of concern to me, it's something that was that you brought up bobbin as you're presenting this topic, which is that, you know, there's a lot of guys that fit into a certain sort of mold that are creating this technology. And until you get some diversity of background in, you know, people that are developing these things. You're going to see a a lack of products. Coming out that are actually dressing like larger and different issues. And so right now we're set to solving Harry problems that are
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being researched and executed through companies like Cisco that are trying to solve real issues. But in doing so, they kind of leave a lot of others behind. And so you know it until we get more people, you know, developing in the space and working that represent a broader swath of who we are as individuals. Yeah. I mean, for as an example, I recently switched Syria in all my different helpers over two male voices just to see what the experience was. And I can't tell you from yelling less at things. I think it's I'm still just as mad as I ever was when things don't work and frustrated as
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a user. And so you know, how do we behave when we're communicating with these technologies that on a stick just become more civil patient people with our technology me, there's a huge question about how people interact with these technologies that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface on that. You know. Like as the example before with kids could have bigger implications than were really seeing right now. And I think you hit the nail on the head about the fact that we need more diversity in the development process. And I don't think that it's just diversity of having women in the development
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teams. I think that would be a great start, but I think that you will you also need to bring in the human element into the development process in higher philosophers, you know, hire people who are artists, get the individuals in there who have the heart and have the understanding and can guide the development process of this at a much more intelligent way. David, you're gonna say something. Yeah, I should say that. There was interesting study that was done not too long ago the pound when we
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get onto chat box. The first thing we do with chat boxes, we actually flirt with them. So [laughter] yell at other technologies, chat, bots. We want to have a date with them. So it's it's bizarre. It all depends on how how we're approaching it in in whether it's delivering a service that were specifically asking for or were trying to shoot him, explore something together with the artificial intelligence case. We want to go out with it.
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I wonder what a good date with a chap would be like. Just go to Tinder. Okay cupidity nothing date as many dropouts butts as you like [laughter]. Well, moving on, I read an interesting opinion piece this week on moving beyond view ability as a metric in favor of exposure as a metric. Now ends and I'm talking to you in so now I'm not sure I entirely understand the authors argument here, but is it even possible to effectively measured the length and breadth of an
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ad exposure, independent of view, ability? You're the best hope I have an answering the questions of what's your thoughts. That's a scary thought. I read the peace a couple of times and really had to think about it quite a lot. I mean it, the first problem is and it's always surprising to me that it's 20 18 and a kid I can't print everytime without fail. [laughter] there is. There's still no kind of common
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lexicon or definition within our. Stree- on a host of topics including this 1, and we're clearly in industry that struggling to create smart. Data driven attribution across all online touch points. And so the effect has been that people have different kind of factions within the industry of started creating their own standards. So in this case, we're talking about view ability, right? And
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for the sake of the listeners out there, I mean, I always go over this topic and are we've talked about it many times, but view ability is defined generally by the A b. as being 50% viewable for one second on screen. Iraq and the way that is horrible [laughter]. Why isn't anyone just shadow? Because that is awful, awful definition, no, right. So what, what strikes me about it and this is
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this is not you know, I'm sure I'm the eight million person to make his argument. What if 49.9% of the pixels are urban ad or earned, do for five minutes or 10 minutes? Does that somehow make that unit? Not you'll boy anymore, because I would be happy to take something that point one percent less. Viewable, but is viewed for four minutes and 59 seconds long, but even hold on what if you're added copy is at the
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top of the the image. And the 50% is the bottom of the image like. Wouldn't it or you're 70% at the bottom of the new ad copy in the top 30% hazard like wouldn't that aggravates you like this is useless to me? Yeah, of course. So I. Yes, I think it is completely, obviously, Florida. I think ultimately, obviously there are a lot smarter people who are trying to figure this out, but we need a kind of a more
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concrete. Definition of what success is, it's probably a cocktail of measurements that ultimately divine the success of any kind of add unit. And I think we need to know not only is the unit, a quote success in a vacuum, but also as part of a multi channel targeting strategy. And that ultimately drives the consumer to take the desired action at the market or wants. Right. Yeah, and I mean, it's
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just like a million ways to slice entice the whole view ability question. I mean, David brings up a great point and I'm sure some of the best designers out there have already thought about the fact that we need to keep the ad copy above the line. You know, it's just like above that 50% below. You never know where it's going to be too, like, here's what if the print it. I don't know why anyone accepted this is a definition because what if the print industry just decided, oh, we're going to leap literally print half
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your ad in our magazine. That's all we're going to do. I'm sorry by art standard. 50% of your printed ad is considered viewable. And will make the first half of the bottom I play. No one would. So I don't understand why this was accepted in the industry. Anyone who buys an ad be happy with this, but we you'll bizarrely accepted it. I think to me that to me, the bigger kind of more philosophical. Question to ask, is. Do we really want to spend
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our time trying to as marketers and advertisers on kind of gaming, the format? Or do we want to spend the time trying to get. The message, right, getting the media mix, right? Trying to tap into some kind of emotion or movement or whatever may be. I mean, this just feels I notice is naive, but I come from the creative side of the business. This feels to me like it's a shell game. When really, we should be focusing on things that are
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much more fundamental, which is what are we trying to say and how are we resonating with people who who we want to buy a product or service? So that brings me back to the original question. Exposure does exposure solve that. I mean, it's just like for me, I'm listening to this guy or reading this guy's article. And I have no idea what he's actually proposing in terms of how we would measure exposure. Because the suggestion that we we measure the entire impact of whether or not
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the most important part of the message is above the law and whether or not the person is, is interacting with that advertisement, whether or not they're hearing it, but not seeing it. I mean, how do you measure those things? How do you get to the point where your understanding the total exposure. Of an individual to an advertisement, it seems like it's an impossible pipe dream. Yeah, I mean it's a fool's errand. I mean mostly because there is there's too much. I have a theory
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that there is two way too much money and advertising. There are digital properties that should not exist because of the amount of advertising have on their site, which gives rise to all the things that we get like troll farms and click bait, factories, and things like that. Because it's designed. Someone set a fort like the game, the system. I mean, there is just too many dollars out there for people to like Pol little bits and pieces from. That's why we're having these conversations about building exposure because we
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already is that if there were fewer ads and they were more, if they were all if not mostly premium, we have a lot more recall. Aden mandated awareness like all these problems they were currently face would probably be solved. But instead we've got to have an industry that's so big that has to preserve all the problems that it's the solution for. Yeah, I wanted to add to that. I think to me it's an example of the sort of big media race to the bottom problem that's persisted in industry for so long. And you know,
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how can we get a Chipper cheaper cost? Brac was issued well try to acquire more people in in a run that are copy and better creative. But you know, at this point like dunce isn't there some staff that like something like 80% of people have banner blindness. And so at the end of the day, whatever I am in that category. Right, we don't even see them. And so too kind of navel gazing, sorta entrain redefined while what is exposure, what his view ability to me seems a little bit moot when you've got brands out there. You know,
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just trying to create more interesting relevant content eleven example that I love is a partnership between g and vice you know where they created something called drone week. That was like a four minute spot. But it actually ran during vice programming. And so you know, when you've got brands kind of heading in that direction. View ability questioned seemed to be less relevant because there are so many better ways to reach your audience in an interesting content driven away. That's going to help your business verses. China's sort of race against
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everyone else to go get him. More sites, let me let me play devil's advocate for a minute because we're all getting on the media side or all going against the media companies and saying, well, this is stupid in this doesn't make sense. View ability doesn't work. But at the same time. It look at how advertising has always worked. I you know, you, you pay for an advertisement, whether or not the person is in the room or going to get a beer out of their fridge. You pay for the ad that gets printed in the magazine, whether or not the person's just
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flipping by yet at the same time. I wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got a whole point to be made. The point here is that every single atom Prussian even minimal Adam impressions add up over time into an aggregate effect. So a great case in point, I would have never had any idea, the tedium our trade was running these advertisements if they didn't run them constantly in repetition over and over again while
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I'm watching my Reuters news every morning to the point where when I was in a bar the other night it's dislike, I met the guy who was coming in, who was the guy from the commercial, and it's like. I would have never recognized him or nor been able to point out, oh, you're the guy from the T d. emerge trade, unless I had seen those repetitions of these ads, which were quite frankly quite pretty boring and not really all that effective in of themselves. But over time they had an effect on me. So doesn't
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that make a case for view ability being in that 50% for one second as being some kind of contributing factor into the frequency effect of advertising? I can no one to go against me. No, I agree with you. I think it's all. But I think we're we're talking. We're talking about seven days. I think in the aggregate of course, there is an impact unquestionably again in
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the aggregate. But the debate that we started off having was you value. I literally a monetary value on that kind of single unit. What's the best way to devalue it? I have no idea, but I do agree well because I see industry of chosen to go in that, yes, in the aggregate, those messages. We'll have a cumulative effect on kind of the heart minded of consumers. Okay. I work in the side of the business
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end. Believe deeply in the power of a good story to change people's minds. And so I inherently in sort of despite working with agency all the time dubious towards, you know the impact of a continent. You just have to show frequently in order to get people to to think about it. You know? Bob for you at ask, why are you going to go switch to tedium Eritrea now because you simply Sada's ads or does. Does there, is there any value to the fact that you've seen it and I can't really answer that question, but at the end of the day we're trying to convince people to do something and and you know
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for for my money, it's. It's much more impactful to put a validated voice behind it and to make sure that the right people see it. And so my business you ability is the number one issue, right? If no one sees the story, what good is it? And so you know. What we what we do to hold me anymore, you need more than a unique rarer than view ability though. And they think that's that's the crux of the argument. A view ability is purely a branding branding metric. It's something that says you've got an impression, you main
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some kind of impact. You've made people aware that you exist. Whereas what you're talking about you, when you're you're telling a story, you need much more than view ability, you need understanding, you need cognizant, understanding of what you're trying to communicate or else you're not effective. And effectiveness is ultimately the metric the you live by. I heard it. I think the point that. The person who's running the source, trying maize at view ability is is like an ad tech. Term,
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right. And so it's like literally like like we were talking about before the percentage of pixels that on a page that makes it possible for someone to see it, right? It's not like whereas an exposure is saying, yes, this person was exposed to the savage by the way, doesn't mean they actually solder or pay attention to it either. I think there are different, like strains of a crappy argument that says, you know, these are the things that mean that you're you're getting an R y. on your on your investment on your ad scan.
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Whereas the reality is it. Nine out of 10 of them suck right n- nobody clicks on add so it is it's it's about like what? What is the effectiveness that's gotta go way beyond we further down the funnel then certainly like you the whole day and exposure. That's just it just make media buyers feel better about what they bought him meeting their clients. And make media companies a little bit richer because they get the opportunity to make sure that they get paid for the impression which is ultimately why this is what it
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is. It's basically a negotiated truce between the media buyers and the media sellers. Well, we got to move on as if agencies didn't have enough challenges. These days start ups are now even questioning whether working without shops is worth their time and money. But unlike bigger businesses that are simply looking for efficiencies and cost start ups are more concerned with things like timing and attention. And how much creative force is going to be brought to bear for their problems and at what
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speed. Which brings me to this question mat. Kenny agencies ever be as nimble as the start of needs them to be what's your take on this one? Yeah, it's a really good question. I think. You know, for a lot of people that are watching it seems impossible, right? Because the incentive structures are totally different. So if I'm a start up either I've got funding and I've got time to build one. I want to build maybe a year or something. Or I'm just, you know, I have no funding and I'm driven by passion. I want to produce something. And I I really have
00:35:59
no parentage you know, keeping me from that goal. So in in the agency side, you've got a standard structure that requires revenue every month in order to pay people off. So they are inherently their incentivize differently. But. You know, I think with with digital what we saw was a big transition from, you know, the sort of a waterfall structure, the traditional agency model where you know the brief is given a strategy strategy develops the inside. The insight gets passed a creative. From creative media production and so on and so forth, and that model doesn't
00:36:29
really work very well for start ups because, hey, we need to test something quickly and get it belts and put it out in the world and see what happens. And so you know, if there was a failure at the production level, it's it seems really hard to bring it back to strategy to get it fixed. And so everyone comes to the table at the same time. They iterate and utilize springs to get things done quickly. And everything just seems like it's totally incongruous from the agency model. But there have been and I think digital has played a large part in as
00:36:59
a number of agencies that obtained transitioned to where at least in their development part of the process. They're using more of an agile structure. Two to three weeks. Skip the shopping cart build rather than building the entire ecommerce website. And so there's agency's out there that do this big spaceship has been using agile for a long time, isn't interesting shop out and center as a California called the in. The engine is read that a couple of years ago closed on a Friday. They had been running as a waterfall agency for six years and reopen on Monday
00:37:29
abd all in on agile. Instead, I use the structure for everything from development work too. You know, building a strategy, said rebranding or creative or whatever. And so there are ways to do this, right? We just don't hear talked about because I think the bigger holding company on agencies, if they're doing Nestor tending not to put it forward, or it's just not built enough momentum. But there are ways to do it. Furthermore, there's companies out there now like venture fuel run by a gentleman named Fred Schonberg. He basically
00:37:59
runs a global list of startups that he works with and vets, and in brings them to agencies and brands that are either not able to develop them something in house. Or don't wanna invest the resources that they bring in an outside partner to do it. So this is happening. It's just not happening in ways. I think that our are quite as obvious as some of the other big changes happening in the industry. And with time, I think we're going to continue to see more of it, but the frustration startups are feeling is pretty straightforward, right? It's like we're used to operating in a certain way. You bring a
00:38:30
sand and putting a bunch of boundaries that are marketing related around us and or maybe political. And we don't quite understand how to navigate this territory. So for the agencies that are really doing his best, they get how to do the quick. You know, the the rapid integration, quick prototyping, all that kind of stuff, but they also get the marketing side. And I would guess that deep focus at certain points in its history made this transition a I don't know if you can speak to it and here I can. But yeah, I can speak to and I can tell you the lesson that I learned.
00:39:00
Which is that is if if you were to ever tell me that. I would have the chance to work with a client at that client didn't make any money. Would you still wanna work for that client? And outside now my answer has no. Right away and mo- most startups don't make money, they spend a lot of it. Right, but they spend a lot of it in different ways. They spend it in different ways than a business that actually makes prophet does. So they put a you know, a hundred percent of that. The cost of what would we
00:39:29
were typically call his advertising and marketing into customer acquisition, right? Because they know what a lifetime customer values. And when I say stars, I mean mostly like direct to consumer startups. Yes, there may be some enterprise start ups that are probably in their 4th or 5th year that that might be making money and realize that they have to build Bradley even start ups. That lose money in acquiring customers because that's how much money they have left in their round to to that. Eventually we're seeing this right now. They realizing, oh crap, I just
00:39:59
saturated by Facebook spend. Now it looks like you have to consider transit. We'll have to consider T v. and guess what? Like the people that know how to do that, our agencies. But I would say like if I was an easy, I would question whether or not, you know, I would want to work for a of them. Would they make a better client than say, you know the the seven rounds of procurement that I have to go through to get to work with this a G company that is tremendously profitable. Now, there's probably like pros and cons of both of those sides, but
00:40:30
for an agency. Someone recently told me that every agency is about three months away from going out of business right now, no matter how big or small they are, I wouldn't want to put my my chips on a on a start up. When I listen to you, describe startups in it from my own experience in working with startups in working in start ups, there's a certain of maturity factor is well that needs to be addressed. And I'm wondering whether or not it's always a good thing to be nimble as opposed to
00:41:00
maybe bringing discipline and order in real brand chops into the process early on kudos startup benefit from just taking a breather or do the demands of the start of community in the demands of the venture capital backers actually drive them to make choices that aren't best for the brand in the long term. There is a lot of issues. I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Please. There are a lot of let's take a step back and just understand
00:41:30
the structure of a start up and the speed they have to operate in the structure of an established company. An established company already has a brand that they need to protect. A need to also. Grow and keep going a stirred up. Often does not have a brand is unknown and should therefore, in some cases they can take risks because they're not beholden into stockholders not. Or they're beholden to investors, yes, but they can take resume their structurally. They're
00:41:59
very, very different. O creator creatures, for that matter. And then the other issue is it. You know, I've worked an ad agency ad agencies. I'm sorry work. Unbelievably slow. I mean, I've worked at agencies at work at a snail's pace and enemies, and how long it takes us to get a single Email marketing campaign when you mind blowing how slowed take some time. But I want to speak to some of your agencies, but the other issue is at startups. Everyone wears multiple
00:42:29
hatch all the time and speed to market each critical and often day will forego many things that other organizations can't forego because they have to be protected about brain because they have to be protective about so many different issues so they can forgo certain things. You know like not having multiple layers of sort of account management within an agencies can deliver an offer to be able to work quickly and test and
00:42:59
experiment out there. So hey, Bob zone for years, I worked on the same if you are all familiar with the space called 18 71 in Chicago, but a it's a space where there are a lot of tech start ups that are working in in the Chicago area. Since I've had a chance to. Both formally and informally mentor. A lot of these, a lot of these folks. What I've found is that you have to always remember when you're
00:43:30
talking to these, especially the founders, a lot of times. You're talking to technical founders. And so you go in and you want to advise them about branding, or marketing, or advertising, which you quickly realise is that they don't have. They are extremely sophisticated in what they do, but but can be very unsophisticated in the world of marketing and advertising and brandy. And so they work at a faster pace. Yes, perhaps than we do at agencies.
00:44:00
But they also sometimes don't necessarily appreciate the the craft of of what we do, which is understandable because it's not the world that they come from. Well, they may not understand that. No. Okay. David, David, I know no, I disagree. I disagree wholeheartedly. I think that every branch should understand at its core who we are and what our mission is, and that doesn't mean that you need to have a defined logo or you need to have a defined name for every product and have a brand hierarchy, but you should know who you
00:44:29
are as a company. And ultimately that's the brand. And I think that there is not enough communication or not enough understanding and valuing of this core identity, establishing a core identity from the start. With these small companies and the best companies or ones that establish some kind of identity early on and they they stick to it and they make it make a difference upon it. It does make some of them get it though. Bob, like, you know, you're one of five scooter startups in San Francisco, something. Scott
00:44:59
set your bark who exactly, that's what I'm saying. The the ones that do get it, do understand the discipline and do understand the need for having an established identity. Usually the ones that rise to the top, and I don't think that we're having enough discussion about the fact that there are a lot of these startups may be moving too fast for their own good. And I think that's ultimately what I'm trying to get to is this like, yes, there are way to slow them down, but with normally not their decision, it's that's their boards of their
00:45:30
investors decision right there. There they are under crushing crusher. A good one. Let me do something other than then helps just elaborate. Why is such a problem? I work with agencies all the time. We speak with him on the phone, a lot of things about positioning and what they want to do with the business, and agencies very often come to the table and they all kind of say six different versions of the same thing. You know, what's different about us is, were you know, were collaborative or creative. Our strategy department is insane, like x, y, and z at you name it. And it's all things that you
00:45:59
could say about any company in the space. And these are people who are doing some of the best work in the world. You know, in some cases and sometimes they just can't see the forest for the trees in their own business. Or if they do see to force for the trees there, you know, using what works in the room and not what works, you know, with the general public or with people that are going to be learning about them, right? And so if agencies can't do it, if they can't figure out their brand and they'd may times I do. But it takes a while and it's iterative in its ongoing. It's not just 1 and done. And if I'm if I'm start up, I'm an moving
00:46:29
quickly when it get the marketing the burning out of the way now and move on to the next thing. And maybe there's not enough thought going in that process because people aren't guiding them that way because you know people that mentor startups are 10 tend to be former startup owners. And we're were like, okay, there's a time in a place for this. And so you know, if we're not hand holding with startups, they're not going to get at just like anything else. That's what they're going to try and do. Where we were running out of time, so I'm going to move on to the next topic real quick. Just when you thought your G d. P r. woes were behind. You comes word that more than a
00:46:59
few experts out there are practically are saying that practically every major advertiser is most likely out of compliance in one way or another. David, considering how vague the requirements of G d. P r. R. Is there anything short of court rulings for setting up legal precedents to solve this problem? What's your take on the current state of G d. P r. as of weak number for what? For. The two. Everyone in the security
00:47:29
industry is watching. Gdp are in also an advertising's well in there watching to see who's suing, who because actually consumers can put out lawsuits as well if they just don't want. But I should also mentioned just about all kind of regulations in general. And I know within the security community, it's almost impossible to be 100% complaint at all times. So this is like a always ongoing issue
00:47:59
with regulations. Egypt, Egypt is G d. P r. though is a different animal in that. It is vague in the beginning in one of the major complaints about it is it's kind of all or nothing thing you either. Give us explicit permission to track you, and then he's tracking your personal identifiable information. If not, you have to be completely anonymous with the system. You'll also realizes that Europe in general has always had higher
00:48:29
privacy rules than we do in the U s.. So there's there's that issue that. It just that's all they put out there in. Everyone should have a approaching that in a different way. What's going to happen is when the first lawsuit start coming down in the happened like per week? Do ask. That's when the whole city industry is going to start shifting and they're going to wait, and I should mention it. Do I talked about this on my pocket pockets about
00:48:59
security? And there's an Austrian privacy advocate, max shrimps who really got a been working the system for a while. And he filed lawsuits with both Facebook and Google for a total of 8.8 billion on day 1. And it was all about this sort of single check box access services. I mean, those companies are really, really large and it's either you say, yes, we track everything or no in you essentially barely get to use our recovered that on the show and weeks ago, us major complaint. The big deal is
00:49:29
privacy policies are always confusing, but I will make a call up to one company that we talked about in my pockets company be called Jerome spelled j you are. Oh, they published privacy policy did was really, really simple to read an any non lawyer. Could read it, understand it. And it would make sense. You know, I can I can understand the value of having simple statements and simple processes for users to make sure that they're
00:49:59
understanding what they're getting themselves into when they work with sites. But. I kind of feel like the whole situation has become so completely untenable. It starts off, everybody's worried about it, then everybody figures. Now we're just going to perjure Email list and they figure out they don't need to do that. They just need to go ahead and in, say, a do an update to their terms of service to their privacy. So worried about it though, because of the potential fine, but the fine to up to €20 million or four percent of global revenues,
00:50:29
right? And my story is my point is the European Union. Shouldn't they have at least have set up the opportunity for question the answer up situation. You know, it's just like where you can actively talked to people on how to be compliant with those. It's possible that exists. I don't actually even know of that, but. It seems like if you're if you're if you're going to enforce a law that takes away that much profitability from a company, it seems to
00:50:59
me the you need to put in place an opportunity for them for any company to question you and say, is this compliant and for you to say, yes, this is our no, this isn't before I get sued into the ground, it seems like it doesn't make any sense to have a law that makes an that's not understandable to the companies that governs and leaving them open to all kinds of legal challenges down the line without some kind of our biter upfront. The say this is
00:51:29
in compliance is not in compliance. Well again, we'll see that it's but they're big statement of explicit consent ease kind of the critical statements show there, companies that are having opt in versus opt out ways of addressing explicit consent. So it's not a hug Richard, everyone's having their own interpretation. It will come down the line where someone says, we don't like that interpretation I get or they'll be updates to
00:52:00
tragedy, pure. I'm sure it will happen. But I think the very first law suits when they start coming down and people are actually paying out, that's when the market will shift. And unfortunately someone's going to be a scapegoat in this process. Well, with that, it's time for the Advil five but before we get to that segment of the show, I do want to take this opportunity to thank my guests again and allow them the each to a shameless plug starting with Matt Ben Hogan. You can find him@raven public
00:52:28
relations.com. That's the home of raven, public relations, the company, he co founded, tell us what's going on in your world, Matt, what would you like to promote? Oh, well, I don't have a whole lot to promote. I just would say that if you're not doing P r.'s agency, you're not doing agency work. So come give us a call and wo- help you figured out. Fantastic. Now, mixed up in Schaeffer you can find him it music connect that with a C n. A k. believe me I will put the link on the site so that you can get to him. But tell us he in what would you like to promote?
00:53:01
I'd like to promote that. Everyone looking for a great golf from, but [laughter]. Well, done. Also, with us in sewn, you can find him@wonderment dotcom is their unique wonderment URL for Chicago's office or is it just going through the main site? Go through the main said, I've been there a total of three weeks nothing to promote, but just I would ask you to take my crawl if not you while you in particular. But
00:53:31
if I if I call you sometime in the next few months, and I'd also like to advocate for more parents in AIn their children in the wonderful. And last, but not least David spark, you can find him@spark media solutions dotcom that's the home of his content marketing agency, which is fantastic. Tell us what's going on in your world, David, what would you like to promote will first, I want to just compliment the whole panel. I am not blown smoke anybody's butts here, but
00:54:00
I have been on many, many being cast, and I am so sort of impressed. With the quality of discussion in Raleigh, intelligence, and wisdom of the rest of the panelists. And I am so appreciative to be among this group. So a thank you, Bob and the others on this panel unthinking nobody was drinking. I think that's the from Libya have had something to do with it with a hundred push notifications about LeBron signing with the Lakers
00:54:29
[laughter]. But I do have something to promote in that is my new pod cast which. I'm literally can be recording in the next episode minutes after I finish this one. And it's for anybody who works in. Security and tried to actually sells security products too. It's called the sea, so was he says, is its tuned for cheap information security officer. She told security vendor relationship pod cast. My co host is actually the sea, so for lift. Mike Johnson
00:55:00
and he's awesome. You don't follow him on LinkedIn. You should be. Could he's really become a voice? Within the poll's security community of how to. Engage in really, there's a there's a lopsided relationship between security vendors or 3000 plus about em. Security buyers which are often diseases and they're kind of all hammering them in their overwhelmed. So this is. A pockets about improving that relationship and. It's really kind of so appreciated the audience are really enjoying it. So if you're in that
00:55:29
audience. Or you work, you have clients in that space? Please listen to the broadcast. Sounds really, really until interesting. So thank you. Thank you. Tell us about that. As for me, for more information about me or the show visit, the being cast, a calm. There you can find a complete show archive, you can find out how to consult with me, and of course you can find out how to advertise on this program. So check it all out@the being cast dotcom and don't forget. Transcribed me.com/being cast as your source for any transcription needs. They are
00:55:59
official transcription partner. So if you need a transcription of this episode or any episode over the last few weeks. Just go to the site of the being Costa calm and look it up. And now it's time for the ad fell five or run down of the lowest moments in advertising marketing and public relations from the last week. In first up TicketMaster u k is in a bit of a hot water after it was revealed that the ticketing giant had a data breach that it failed to report Ian to its customers. For
00:56:29
two months, you know, you'd figure mister sown, you know, it's like you'd figure that these companies would figure out eventually that when you have a data breach, it's imperative to let people know immediately, especially when you're in the European Union. I know that the U k. is they brag sitting, but there are still in the European Union. I mean, didn't didn't tell it all solve this forest back in the early eighties with the with the cyanide catastrophe. I mean, you just fess up to it right
00:56:59
away and you fix it. This has been tried and true. I mean that you can speak to this from a standpoint. This is like one on one. It's yes answer super basic. And also I'm really worried because I don't want people to know how many Taylor swift tickets I bought. It remains just a u k thing. I mean, this is just another case of getting screwed by TicketMaster. Just another way [laughter]. Well W p. p.'s still wallowing in the aftermath of, sir, Martin's exit, including launching an
00:57:29
internal investigation to find information Lakers as well as trying to figure out who is behind an unidentified watts up account that is contacting current and former European -ployees with close associations to Sorrell. Matt. I'm looking at this and I'm going this is like getting to be very games of thrown is is thrown us if it wasn't already kind of games with thrown us. You know, it's it's getting more and more interesting. By the day. I got to say I actually ran into, Sir,
00:57:59
Martin Eden Kansas here, and it was my first time there. And I just got to say the guys got a great tan. So I'm thinking he's not worried about a thing [laughter]. I don't think Martin Sir, Martin is the problem. I think W p. is having the issues right now. So. Anyway, a Norwegian study suggests something that most of us already guessed implicitly Facebook and Google manipulate in use scare tactics to convince users to get this. It gets really difficult to tell which one of you to go forward. So mister
00:58:29
Shaffer I'm just going to say, mister Shaffer go into you with this one. You know there, there's an entire school of thought that I discovered today. There's a piece on Ted crunch say about dark you x. Which is basically like getting people to click on things that they would never click on otherwise were opting to things that they would never often otherwise. You know, by using psychological tricks and warfare, basically. So none of this
00:58:59
surprises. I mean, the this is maybe settling if you you are the product, right? You are the product of these companies. So you always do if you're a company that sells product, you find ways to make more money off your product. So this this is not surprising. No, it's not surprising at all. It's kind of like a study that's like, gee, at least you're quantified the fact that they've been using scare tactics to get me to give up my privacy. Now I'm feeling so much better about myself [laughter]. G mail is so good.
00:59:29
So at the end of the day, is it really matter [laughter]? That's the boy. Next stuff. Facebook is let us know they have disabled 1.3 billion fake accounts, David, for those counting at home. That's half of their user base. You know, it's like they've always said that 50% of advertising was wasted. This kind of exemplifies that in living color. We've got 50% of the audience potentially being fake at any given time. Well, I don't know
00:59:59
if this comes the surprise to you, you know, social meter enough, but I got fake friends in real life. So [laughter] media, it's no different. It's not a shock to me. And my favorite one of the week. Great. My professor dotcom thought it was a good marketing ploy to boost engagement by adding a chili pepper rating to the teacher profiles. So students could rank and individuals hotness. I'm thinking my God in in sown, I'm listening to this and I'm
01:00:29
going, you know, we're in the meat to movement and with the times of movement and everything else going on. Why would you think it would be a good idea to ranked student a rank teachers by their hotness? I mean, w- world that someone think this was okay. I'm not even gonna come close to touching this one bone [laughter]. Isn't this? Have Facebook started why not model another successful company exist in a
01:00:59
world where we looked upon up for the great advertise [laughter] we'll have something to add to this list or just one. Discuss it. Comment online. Use the hash tag add fell five that's pound Advil. And the number five. And that does it for this week's show if you'd like to subscribe to this broadcast visit our website out the being cast, a common click on the subscribe link. If you're an I tunes listener, we've also provided the direct link to the eye tunes music store, or just search for the being cast and the pod cast directory of
01:01:29
tunes. And whichever pod cast director you use when you subscribe, please leave us a review. Got a comment of a question. We'd love to hear from you. Just 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- will be back again next week. Hope you'll join us then.
01:02:29
Exactly.
01:03:18
Cool beans.