Episode 17: Creating the Go-to-Market Strategy For The Metaverse

Episode Transcript

Garrett Mehrguth: Well, hello everybody and welcome to episode 17 of the Original Marketing. Can We Say Show? I feel like it’s a show, it’s not a podcast.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: What do you think?

Brady Cramm: I think we covered this though. I just got deja vu from that statement. So maybe it was just deja vu or we’ve said that exact line.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Well because all of our marketing, I keep looking at the promotion for it all and it’s all says podcasts. But I feel like it’s a show.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I want it to be a show.

Garrett Mehrguth: I want it to be a show too.

Brady Cramm: We’ve invested in it being a show and not just audio.

Garrett Mehrguth: Timothy, let’s change it to show. All right, we’re going to change, we’re going to update this. Welcome.

Brady Cramm: That was communication to…

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. That was to the team producer.

Brady Cramm: … our marketing team, by the way.If your name is Timothy and you’re watching this, don’t freak out.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. But episode 17 of the Original Marketing Show and I’m excited to chat with you Brady.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, we had a week off after going back- to- back.

Garrett Mehrguth: We did.

Brady Cramm: Lot of time to think about marketing.

Garrett Mehrguth: But you’re still struggling on the advertising jealousy segment.

Brady Cramm: I am. We talked about this.

Garrett Mehrguth: Why? What’s so hard about this segment for you?

Brady Cramm: I think last episode we unpacked it a little bit, where we actually, you covered an ad for a brand that I showed a lot of joy.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: It’s because I have those sunglasses but it wasn’t an ad. And so my birthday’s coming up, shout out to me.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, shout out you.

Brady Cramm: But you don’t have to send me anything because I have my wife, my parents just, ” Hey what do you want? What do you want?” And I legit want nothing.

Garrett Mehrguth: Come on.

Brady Cramm: Except for…

Garrett Mehrguth: Come on.

Brady Cramm: … a2- iron. I want a 2- iron, but there’s no ad that makes me want a 2- iron. It’s because my buddy has one. I’ve hit it a couple times. I hit my driver out of bounds. I’m trying to be smarter with laying up.

Garrett Mehrguth: Did you play with Brian Billy? Who’s using a 2- iron?

Brady Cramm: Drew has a 2- iron.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, is he now a 2- iron guy?

Brady Cramm: Well he wants to sell it so maybe I’ll buy that one.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: But there’s no Ping ad about their new core technology. I’m going to go to Roger Dunn, I’m going to go in the used club bucket and I’m really thinking that there’s going to be really good condition 2- irons because it’s a club where people think they want it. It’s probably me right now.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: They think they want it but then they end up trying to hit it and they just can’t get it right. And so they return it.

Garrett Mehrguth: Someone bought you lessons at UGP, you wouldn’t want those?

Brady Cramm: I don’t think I’d use them.

Garrett Mehrguth: Geez.

Brady Cramm: I think if I were to want it I would already be doing UGP.

Garrett Mehrguth: So you think you got it like that. Essentially you’ve arrived.

Brady Cramm: No, it’s just-

Garrett Mehrguth: No, no, no. I get exactly where Brady’s at.

Brady Cramm: No. It’s just, that’s how I want golf in my life. I want to…

Garrett Mehrguth: But I get where you’re at. What you’re saying is I don’t want anything, because if I wanted it I would’ve already got it.

Brady Cramm: That sounds…

Garrett Mehrguth: No. But that’s exactly-

Brady Cramm: In my means of finances, yes.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, yeah.

Brady Cramm: And I don’t want to say … I’m not a minimalist, because I’m far from that. I’ve followed. But even the car thing.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, I have something for you.

Brady Cramm: I’m going up on eight years on my car. I don’t know. I don’t find myself seeing ads and being like…

Garrett Mehrguth: Does any of it have to do with the L word?

Brady Cramm: What’s the L word?

Garrett Mehrguth: Laziness. Where it’s not worth the… The juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Do you find yourself… Because I think you’re actually, the reason I find this so interesting, Brady is you’re a consumer. You’re just another segment of the consumers that you and I market and advertise to every day. And I always say-

Brady Cramm: Yeah. No, definitely a consumer.

Garrett Mehrguth: …the goal is to get a human, Brady Cramm, from apathy to action. And I would argue to your point, for the consumer who did not maybe grow up with everything but has enough now that they could have everything, they might not want anything. So how do you market to Brady Cramm? What do you think would get you to want something?

Brady Cramm: So I don’t think it’s that I don’t want anything. I actually think it’s more just how I buy.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: I look into the product.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: These Cole Haan shoes, they weren’t an ad for Cole Haans and”Oh my gosh, I want to be that guy walking down the streets in New York, who looks casual, but he also looks professional. I got to be that guy.” It’s me at Nordstrom Rack looking at the shoes, trying them on, being like, ” Okay.”

Garrett Mehrguth: I love this as a digital advertiser, you’re like, ” Nothing beats in person.”

Brady Cramm: Right, yeah. That advertising just doesn’t work. Who would’ve spent time dedicating their career on that stuff?

Garrett Mehrguth: To that stuff? Advertising doesn’t work, you just have to go into the store. You literally sound like the worst point of contact at any of our clients.

Brady Cramm: I think honestly we’ve talked about this a little bit, but I’ve seen that as my strength as a digital marketer is I’m always trying to market to myself.

Garrett Mehrguth: You’re impervious to it.

Brady Cramm: Which is a very cynical person when it comes to advertisement. But I think that’s how I struggle is I personally don’t see myself too impacted by advertisement. But I am a consumer. I buy products, don’t get me wrong. That’s why I say I’m not a minimalist.

Garrett Mehrguth: You’re not. Can I be a little bit of a psychologist here maybe?

Brady Cramm: Oh boy.

Garrett Mehrguth: And see if there’s a gap.

Brady Cramm: This is a therapy session, really?

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s not.

Brady Cramm: Am I being trapped right now? Is this an intervention?

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, you’re going to love it. So it has nothing to do with where you thought I was going with it. I think from what I can tell what you’re saying is you are sold by experiences. When you put the shoe on and you took a couple steps in it and then you had to put your old shoe back on. That moment of putting your old shoe back on was different enough for you that you decided to move forward with the purchase of the one you had just had on your feet. The experience of the shoe, walking in it. When you were playing with Drew Choco, golf, can I ask you a question?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Did you or did you not use his 2- iron at any time to take a practice swing?

Brady Cramm: Not a practice swing, but every now and then I’d take it from his bag because I want it hit a two.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. So also in that instance you experienced the product.

Brady Cramm: No, I just want-

Garrett Mehrguth: Is that accurate?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Let’s use it as a theory, Brady. How can we then as advertisers and marketers, because to your point earlier, I think what does make you great at this thing is your self- awareness.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So there’s other people just like you that you and I both are struggling to market to at our customers because we aren’t able to get them, we used to call it the magic moment. That moment when you experience a product and it’s like, ” Oh, I can’t go back to life like I did before having this, before using this.” Maybe the first time you had an iced vanilla latte from Intelligentsia. I remember my first iced vanilla latte and I got it at Intelligentsia, and now that’s just what I drink. But it’s hard to find an iced vanilla latte as good as Intelligentsia’s. But I experienced it. My point for you is when you think about advertising, how could someone… Let’s use a car. What would you have to experience to get a new car? Would you have to do a test drive?

Brady Cramm: I think so. Yeah. I’m trying to now process this.

Garrett Mehrguth: Sorry. Yeah, I know.

Brady Cramm: Maybe I just have a very specific formula per purchase on I weight probably aesthetics, price, functionality and probably brand recognition and popularity. I know I’m bought into, ” Oh these are Oliver Peoples and I know the brand perception of that. So I feel cooler because I’m wearing them even though no one can see the logo on them.” I know that is a part of my …

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I bought my first leather jacket and I just feel way more tough when I wear it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I just feel way better. And it’s the first one that’s real leather. Before, I don’t know how real it is because it might not still be, but it was, you know those jackets? You know the Hugo Boss leather black jacket? If you go into a Nordstrom’s or a mall, you always see it in the window.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I’ve looked at that jacket for my entire life and when I went to Germany for Oktoberfest, I know it was going to be raining and I didn’t have a good jacket. So on the way to the airport I stopped at the mall and I got myself the leather jacket. But to your point earlier, I had had it in my cart for all long time and I had to be making a thousand x more than what I was currently making in the past to even feel like I could afford a leather jacket or buy it for myself. So I very much have the thing that I got to earn my purchases kind of thing. But I personally, I’ll walk you through my buying journey and maybe you can apply it to something you’ve bought recently.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I recently bought a dinghy. So I have a boat and I like to go to Whites. You’ve been to Whites with me.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. You got a dock outside and you got to ride…

Garrett Mehrguth: You got anchor up on a mooring and then you got to take the Costco really crappy inflatable thing with the oars when you send Tanner out there and he has to go do everything.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that was the one I experienced.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: Was the Costco one with holes in the bottom.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, exactly. You get wet, you can’t wear your jeans, you got to roll up your pants. It’s a whole thing. I was like, ” All right, I’m tired of that.” So I wanted to buy a new dinghy, so I go to West Marine. West Marine is the store that you would buy a dinghy from.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Makes sense?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: But I also know that they don’t carry all the manufacturers. So for me, when I buy something I don’t like to make uneducated purchases. I also though don’t hold myself to such a high standard that I can know the unknown.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: In other words, it’s hard to buy the right dinghy the first time. But then once you bought a dinghy and you’re using it all the time and now you’re noticing everyone else’s dinghies, you’re starting to ask other dinghy owners what they like about theirs, if that dinghy’s good. You start to learn a lot about dinghies and then you almost always regret your dinghy purchase.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So I usually start with a used item. So I went to get a quote and they quoted me$6, 800 for this dinghy. And I saw the brands they quoted. Now before I showed up there, I had done my research on all these other brands. So I’d ask them, ” Oh why don’t you carry this brand? Why don’t you carry that brand? What do you think about this one?” They start saying, ” Well the glue comes off this one. Oh I don’t like that one for this reason.”

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I start to learn a lot more. So then I go on Craigslist and I find them the nicest used version of, not the exact model they had, but a model they liked. And I drove three hours to Ventura to save six grand.

Brady Cramm: Did you take the boat?

Garrett Mehrguth: No, no. I drove.

Brady Cramm: Could’ve been faster.

Garrett Mehrguth: And I threw it in the back of my truck and I got the 2021 8′ foot dinghy with the two and a half power Yamaha for$1, 800 bucks instead of the$6, 800 dollars what I got. And I was like, ” I feel good.” Was it the perfect dinghy? No, but did the price make sense? Did I get one that wasn’t the worst and is the engine exactly what I needed? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I feel great about this purchase.

Brady Cramm: You had a custom formula with that criteria, for this purpose.

Garrett Mehrguth: I never pumped up the dinghy and I’ve still never ridden in any other dinghy, so I’m not maybe as driven by experience as you are. I’m maybe driven more by knowledge. In other words, I watched all the YouTube videos on all the dinghies.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that’s what I … I’m similar. I’m not going on trying 50 pairs of shoes. For me it’s like the aesthetics is the first check.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: Because that’s what I can see visually online and then I obviously need to try them on.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: And then it’s probably price after that. That’s just a shoe example.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, of course.

Brady Cramm: So yeah, I don’t think I’m at the point where I have to test. Even buying my car, it was a lot of research knowing what hatchback hybrid I wanted.

Garrett Mehrguth: I do love your car by the way. It’s still a classic look.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, the look.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s timeless.

Brady Cramm: The aesthetics, it aged well.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s timeless. Yeah it did.

Brady Cramm: I have a Lexus CT 200h 2012, if anyone wants to know what car we keep talking about.

Garrett Mehrguth: It is a beautiful car though. It’s a great model. Great color.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Very reliable.

Brady Cramm: 35 to 40 miles per gallon. But anyway, I did a ton of research and then I didn’t test drive many cars. I then waited six months until the right used one came up.

Garrett Mehrguth: What’s the line on price? Because you said something that’s really important and I do the same thing with price and I don’t know when I started doing it, but there is a thing when you make X amount of money that you don’t think price first you think quality, aesthetic and other things. Notice you put price last.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Brady who makes less money doesn’t put price last. So when we’re targeting humans and we’re doing advertising and stuff like that, at what point do you think people put price lower on their list? Because it happens with now in the agency game, clients are coming to us and price is not the most important thing for a lot of our prospects when we’re negotiating.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s who’s on my account.

Brady Cramm: Well…

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s what’s the strategy. How long is it going to take? What are the terms? Price I would argue, for the larger, better accounts is pretty low on their list of things. It’s not first, for sure.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think that’s a different category on how I…

Garrett Mehrguth: But you get where my head’s at.

Brady Cramm: The way I am the way I am with purchasing is I then categorize as this an asset or liability? And I think that’s what, in our situation and asking to meet the team and having such a deep sales process, is they’re making sure. They’re looking to buy an asset.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, they are.

Brady Cramm: And they’ve thought they were buying an asset within our category business.

Garrett Mehrguth: You treat shoes as an asset or a liability in your head?

Brady Cramm: A liability.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because they’re not-

Brady Cramm: They’re not appreciating.

Garrett Mehrguth: What about value to your life?

Brady Cramm: I have the shoes for the occasions where I feel like I need the style of shoe and then I just wear them down.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Because the reason I’m asking is I’m curious because I think you and I both struggle, and any marketer who’s watching this I think really struggles with this upper mid- market audience. How do you get the upper mid- market who could buy what they want to get to a meeting? And$ 105 gift cards still work on you and I, at what we make and how successful we are. So some of the gift card incentives we do for our clients does work on us. What I’m curious about though is how do you get someone who doesn’t want to buy something to buy something? And I think yeah, experiencing it.

Brady Cramm: Experiencing it and coming across as an asset, and not a liability. Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It has to come across as an asset.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: The 2-iron is an asset to you because you think it’ll lower your score.

Brady Cramm: Yes.

Garrett Mehrguth: So that’s why you called it an asset. Not because it depreciates or doesn’t depreciate. That’s why I called you out on that. It has nothing to do with the actual value of the item.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’m not looking to flip it. It’s not a part of my investment portfolio, is this 2- iron.

Garrett Mehrguth: Correct. So it’s not an asset in the purest sense, it’s an asset in what it does for your life. It creates a net positive outcome for something you care about.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So for you to want to buy something, it has to give you a net positive to something else that you care about. In other words, you don’t care about getting from A to B so you don’t want a new car. But if you did care about getting the office faster?

Brady Cramm: I go pretty fast in that toll road than my Lexus, don’t you worry. It takes a little bit of time.

Garrett Mehrguth: But you know what I’m saying. But your car doesn’t align with any of your values. That’s why you’re not wanting to spend more.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So I guess values, so theoretically if someone did want to market or advertise to Brady Cramm, they would have to understand your values and then they could sell you on how this would increase the net positive or outcomes you’re getting from your values. Right?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s a good, that right there, that was a 15- minute little session. But that’s huge for marketing.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s huge for our audience. That’s huge for everyone here.

Brady Cramm: I think maybe where I get frustrated is most of my impressions I think are trying to fight for impulse buy from me. And that’s where it’s just not … I love keynotes. I enjoyed watching Mark Zuckerberg talk about Meta and their partnerships with Microsoft and I enjoy the Apple keynotes even though I think the innovation has gone out the door and they’re just harvesting…

Garrett Mehrguth: Speak that, Brady.

Brady Cramm: …these small innovations for the sake of marketing, even though I heard they did well with earnings.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Earnings reports were up.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. That was good to hear.

Garrett Mehrguth: But sure, Brady, keep hating.

Brady Cramm: But no, I like keynotes.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: I think keynotes are cool.

Garrett Mehrguth: You like longer form content because it allows you to be introspective most likely and less transactional.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: But values- wise, you would impulse buy if the value was so obvious to your own values. I bet you would, just like I would.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. It probably happens mostly with food.

Garrett Mehrguth: Correct.

Brady Cramm: Which is a product. I think if I spent the time to really break down my finances in the food category, I think I purposefully ignore that.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, of course.

Brady Cramm: That’s my guilty pleasure would be what I spent on food. So definitely impulse bias when it comes to food.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, but I love it. It comes back to values. It comes back to figuring out what are the values of your persona and thinking about what we do for a living, we don’t talk about that enough. We really don’t. I don’t hear our clients talk about it. I don’t hear professional marketers talk about value. I guess it’s a hard assumption to make, what is my audience’s values?

Brady Cramm: Yeah. And am the mass market though? Is focusing on me going to make you the most revenue? Probably not. Which is probably-

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh but that might not be true because is there anyone who wears more Vuori?

Brady Cramm: No.

Garrett Mehrguth: They have a sale coming up this weekend.

Brady Cramm: I know.

Garrett Mehrguth: My wife saw and told me about it. I was like, “I got to tell Brady on the podcast.”

Brady Cramm: Oh yeah. My wife got the notification on her watch while we were doing trunk and treating with our nephews.

Garrett Mehrguth: And you’re going to go?

Brady Cramm: No I’m not.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, because you don’t need any more Vuori.

Brady Cramm: Well it’s on Thursday. She took the day off.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh got it. Okay.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: My wife is doing same thing. Her and her girlfriend are going to it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, no. She’s got five 10 AM tickets on Thursday morning.

Garrett Mehrguth: Scarlet’s making a note right now.

Brady Cramm: No, I Slacked her but she was too late on it. She didn’t realize she had to get tickets.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, geez.

Brady Cramm: Yeah I Slacked her the link.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. I like that we’re helping the fam out.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So my point here though is there are people who have your values and with where advertising is going today with data getting pulled back, pixel tracking going down, overall targeting getting limited. We’re going back in time.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: We’re regressing to the old days. Values are going to matter because you’re going to have to figure out we want customers who have these values and then we’re going to integrate those values into our advertising and we’re going to get those humans from apathy to action. And I think that’s just something you and I’ve never done before is really break out on what are the values of our audience and how do we get to make sure our messaging and our positioning and our value prop aligns with their values? But this has been a powerful little conversation that gave me a new viewpoint.

Brady Cramm: It’s interesting, even Vuori, I’m sure there ads impact me in a different way.

Garrett Mehrguth: Then you don’t realize. Yeah. Because there’s something about their values.

Brady Cramm: The way they do ads, because they advertise, I see them as a high- end brand. That’s all their advertisement. I don’t know where it’s being manufactured. But at the same time, their large fits me perfectly.

Garrett Mehrguth: The experience.

Brady Cramm: It’s comfortable. It fits my lifestyle of work from home. This is a Vuori jacket, Vuori pants.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: But I’m unique to where we only buy from a warehouse sale that we are so lucky to live next to.

Garrett Mehrguth: I know this.

Brady Cramm: That happens three times a year and so my$ 60 I get for$ 10 dollars.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, but there’s 3000 other people in Orange County that do that too.

Brady Cramm: But I think it’s because of all their advertisement and their branding, which is why I feel so good about getting it for$ 10 dollars.

Garrett Mehrguth: For the deal. Yeah. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Right. I can get $ 10 dollar T- shirts when$ 10 dollars is the full price. Granted, I think it would sacrifice quality and aesthetics and the fit which are a part of the decision.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. You’re not trying to wear Russell.

Brady Cramm: No. I would say the advertisement, it still affects me. It’s why we get so excited about when we get the tickets for the sale and all those things.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because you’re getting a good deal and getting a good deal is probably one of your values.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: You see what I’m saying?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So that’s why that thing gets you from apathy to action.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: This has been powerful to know how much values matter. And I think there’s a really good keynote from Steve Jobs on marketing and values that you might want to check out.

Brady Cramm: Okay.

Garrett Mehrguth: But no, this has been awesome Brady. Really, really cool to hear.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. That was a segment in itself.

Garrett Mehrguth: I know it was.

Brady Cramm: Advertising therapy.

Garrett Mehrguth: It was a little advertising therapy with Brady Cramm.

Brady Cramm: No, this is good. I told you I’m frustrated with it.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh yeah. You’re a little cocky that ads don’t affect you.

Brady Cramm: No. That’s where I want to be open minded with the Vuori ads definitely do. It’s just not in a way that I see the ads. I don’t get an Instagram ad and I don’t click on it and then shop through their winters.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. You’re not transactionally influenced but that doesn’t mean you’re not influenced.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, totally. I just don’t feel like I’m influencing the way the ad was intended to. I don’t think they’re stoked about the price I get on their clothes. I think they have to do it because they overstocked.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Inventory errors.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. We have a client that focuses on that or a prospect and I said, ” I’ll help you get any deal. You just can’t touch Vuori, because that would mess up my entire thing. If you helped them with their inventory planning and their merchandising, I’d be screwed.”

Garrett Mehrguth: I love it. You’re like look, ” I’ll help you fix it for everybody except these guys.”

Brady Cramm: Yeah. This is the one deal- breaker.

Garrett Mehrguth: I love it.

Brady Cramm: We can’t help you.

Garrett Mehrguth: We are now going to talk advertising jealousy, Brady.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Great segment into just me saying how I can’t find ads and I have an ad to talk about it.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, you do. Hey this is part of the gig though, baby.

Brady Cramm: And this one probably does affect me. Let’s be honest. McDonald’s crosses my mind.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s not only McDonald’s, it’s one of the least controversial humans ever.

Brady Cramm: This was aired in the Super Bowl of 2022, which I would say still controversial person. I think that partnership probably doesn’t exist right now.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I would argue probably less of a partnership

Brady Cramm: And it’ll probably be back in five months just the way this world works. So we’ll see.

Garrett Mehrguth: Probably. All right, let’s see it.

Speaker 3: Welcome to McDonald’s. May I take your order?

Speaker 4: Hi. Can I get a…

Speaker 5: Can I get-

Speaker 4: Kid, get in the McDonald’s.

Speaker 6: Ooh. Can I get a…

Speaker 4: Can I get a…

Speaker 7: Can I get a …

Speaker 6: Go Bubba, go.

Speaker 7: Oh.

Speaker 8: Pick me.

Speaker 9: No, pick me.

Speaker 7: Hey can I get a …

Speaker 4: 10 piece Chicken McNuggets.

Speaker 3: And what sauce would you like with that?

Brady Cramm: So there’s a reason why I’m jealous of this ad.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.

Brady Cramm: And it’s because of the fact that I know they show the menu a couple times and they have that old character deciding between a fish filet and something else. But McDonald’s brand recognition and people who have experienced their food is so through the roof that they no longer have to necessarily advertise the McRib is back or anything like that. And they can just get people to think about McDonald’s. And I think the psychology behind the, ” Can I get a,” causes the viewer to think about what would they order. And so it’s almost sparking this anxiety on what are they going to get, which then gets you to think what would I get?

Garrett Mehrguth: But they ruin it when they get the 10 piece Chicken McNuggets. Because then I no longer think what am I going to get? I just think, do I want a 10 piece Chicken McNugget? Why do they choose the 10 piece Chicken? My brain the while time.

Brady Cramm: Maybe that’s where the best margin is at, is on those nuggets.

Garrett Mehrguth: Think so?

Brady Cramm: I doubt that’s why they did it.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s such a small order too. They didn’t make it a combo.

Brady Cramm: No, that was all staging for the last joke, which is the sauce. That’s why they did it was to build a connection to what sauce would you like and then her to go back to, ” Ah.”

Garrett Mehrguth: Found that part really relatable. I really did. I was like, ” Oh that happens to me,” when you get up to the front line you’re like, ” Can I get a,” while you’re looking at your partner and you’re like, ” What do you want?” You’re doing the whole thing. And I could see that, but where does it take me? That it made me think of McDonald’s, but where does it take me is my only question.

Brady Cramm: So as I watched it, I was thinking about the psychology of it, is why did they take this approach? And one, I was jealous that they could take that approach. Right. Because everyone has McDonald’s, they probably have their go- to order in their head and to me they were trying to spark someone thinking about their go- to order.

Garrett Mehrguth: I know but when they did the Tempe Chicken McNugget, they took me out of that.

Brady Cramm: It didn’t throw me off.

Garrett Mehrguth: It didn’t throw you off?

Brady Cramm: No.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Pull up Scarlet, Travis Scott McDonald’s too. Because I want to see the difference because this one drove record sales for them.

Brady Cramm: Was this before his concert stampede. They really are on a roll here.

Garrett Mehrguth: That one right there. Yeah. Yeah. Because watch what they do in this one. They left you with an ask and you had to go in and ask for a Cactus Jack or something like that. But they didn’t do that with Ye. So they paid all that money for Kanye without actually monetizing. Why pay Kanye all that? What was the connection for sales?

Brady Cramm: I think it was just a entertainment moment, like the vehicle he pulled up in, I think just to capture… Maybe attention drops off at that moment. So that was just a way of them getting people fully back into the commercial.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because you’re right. The, ” Can I get a,” is brilliant. That little line is brilliant. I don’t feel after watching it the way you felt but I feel like the ad has brilliance in it. That’s why I’m like … Here, watch. Watch. Show them the Travis got one. I want to see it. I want to show you.

Travis Scott: What’s up world. Yeah, you. I’m Travis Scott. This is my McDonald’s order. Follow me. Here’s my Quarter Pounder with lettuce, pickles, onions, ketchup, mustard and bacon. Yeah. Here’s my fries. Sometimes I do this, then I dip them into barbecue sauce. Oh yeah. And my Sprite. Same order since back in Houston. And you could try too. Got to go. I’m Travis Scott inaudible.

Garrett Mehrguth: Say Cactus Jack sent you, and that became viral. There was all these TikTok challenges.

Brady Cramm: They did it with Bad Bunny too. They had a Bad Bunny ad.

Garrett Mehrguth: Correct. So I’m watching this whole thing and I’m like” They crushed that.”

Brady Cramm: That’s a different campaign.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, but they used Kanye. Another rapper.

Brady Cramm: They’re McDonald’s.

Garrett Mehrguth: I know, let’s watch it one more time. I want to watch this, ” Can I get a,” one more time and I’ll try to show you what I’m saying. Because I agree with you, it is an amazing commercial. I don’t know if it made them a penny of money though. That’s where I’m stuck. Because it’s such a creative concept already. This is advertising jealousy. Because the, ” Can I get a,” is brilliant.

Brady Cramm: Well, yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: And they could’ve done a whole campaign around it.

Brady Cramm: But this was their Super Bowl spot. So I’m curious and I tried to look on Google trends and stuff to track this, if that helped them increase late night orders maybe from the Super Bowl.

Garrett Mehrguth: I bet you it did just because of an ad. But do you remember the, ” What’s up?” It reminds me of the, ” What’s up?”

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It has a similar sense… Less humorous.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think it’s tough for a commercial to stick like they could back in the 90s or early 2000s.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because of all the distractions.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, just we didn’t have TikTok then. We didn’t have Instagram then.

Garrett Mehrguth: But then they don’t have any virality to it. Kanye doesn’t get his fans to order it.

Brady Cramm: No, I definitely think the impact in this moment is does it trigger you to think about what is my order, what would I get? And is that thought strong enough to make you purchase McDonald’s in the next three days?

Garrett Mehrguth: So your hypothesis-

Brady Cramm: When you wouldn’t have if you didn’t see the commercial.

Garrett Mehrguth: So your hypothesis in this ad…

Brady Cramm: The analyzing it. Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: … is, “Can I get a,”is to prompt you to think about what you would order and then go out and go get McDonald’s?

Brady Cramm: Yeah, I think it’s all psychology.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Let’s see the ad.

Brady Cramm: Masked as entertainment.

Garrett Mehrguth: I want to watch you again through that lens.

Speaker 3: Welcome to McDonald’s. May I take your order?

Speaker 4: Hi. Can I get a…

Speaker 5: Can I get a …

Speaker 4: Kid, get in the McDonald’s.

Speaker 6: Ooh. Can I get a…

Speaker 5: Can I get a.

Speaker 7: Can I get a…

Speaker 6: Go Bubba, go.

Garrett Mehrguth: That was Bubba Watson, by the way.

Speaker 8: Pick me.

Speaker 9: No, pick me.

Speaker 7: Hey can I get a …

Speaker 4: 10 piece Chicken McNuggets.

Speaker 3: And what sauce would you like with that?

Garrett Mehrguth: They didn’t do the da-da-da-da-da.

Brady Cramm: No.

Garrett Mehrguth: I’m loving it.

Brady Cramm: I’m excited for, I like the seasonal way they do it.

Garrett Mehrguth: What do they do?

Brady Cramm: It’s just like a Christmas- y town.

Garrett Mehrguth: Now they just bring it back with the Christmas jingle?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I hate how good it is without I think being great because you’re right, it is advertising jealousy. I do think it is a really good ad. I don’t think they do squat with Bubba Watson or Kanye for the ad and I feel like the can I get a could have been epic. I think it is a good enough concept that if they played it out and did a campaign and theme around it.

Brady Cramm: It definitely could have been better.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah it is. It’s good.

Brady Cramm: When I find stuff like this, I try to think what other brand could do this. Because that’s the difference with the Travis Scott, is they made a meal and they’re advertising that meal.

Garrett Mehrguth: Correct.

Brady Cramm: And even the old Carl’s Jr. commercials, it was their new$ 6 burger, whatever it was that came out.

Garrett Mehrguth: I thought it was just hot girls.

Brady Cramm: No it was always like a new burger. At least that’s what I was looking at.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Totally

Garrett Mehrguth: Seeing Cramm.

Brady Cramm: But maybe Apple has a brand, even though Samsung has more market share on, are you going to get the new phone? Are you going to get the new phone? And just hearing that people know like, oh they’re talking about the new Apple like iPhone 14 Pros.

Garrett Mehrguth: How would you have tied it better in? Because I think the, “Can I get a,” is brilliant and I completely agree with you. What would you have done different to get the intent of it all, which is to get you to go to McDonald’s? Is there anything you would’ve done different, Brady, to get people to go to McDonald’s? Because I personally am thinking about McDonald’s but I don’t know if it made me want to go.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It was highly relatable because you said psychologically the, ” Can I get a,” is making you think of what order you would get and then ideally make money by driving you over.

Brady Cramm: And it was masses entertainment.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah it was And it was good. It was a very good ad but I don’t know if it delivered fully on its premise with how creative frankly the, ” Can I get a,” was. That was brilliant. Is there anything you would do to get people to actually… How would you have made people to finish it off? The 10 piece Chicken McNugget to me is what killed it. What would you have replaced that with maybe?

Brady Cramm: Maybe I think sometimes we talk about a call to action at the end.

Garrett Mehrguth: You can’t do that though if you’re McDonald’s. It makes you seem like you’re not McDonald’s. In their defense.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I don’t think you can get that narrator at the end to use his voice to say something too different besides his bada pa pa pa line that he does. Because they’ve had that guy’s voice for a while.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, I know exactly who you’re talking about. But I think it comes across as corny on a Super Bowl ad and desperate to be like, ” Come to McDonald’s right now.” But the, ” Can I get a,” was brilliant. So that’s why I’m just like how do we make sure the ad delivers on the premise that we’re trying to make someone think about their order and then go order it?

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’m trying to think of how would you do that without doing a new tagline at the end.

Garrett Mehrguth: I know how we could have done it. Same concept. Super Bowl, correct?

Brady Cramm: Yes.

Garrett Mehrguth: Do you know anyone who’s going to go do a drive through after the Super Bowl or are they drunk, and Uber or not driving that day?

Brady Cramm: So like a DoorDash partnership?

Garrett Mehrguth: There you go. Yeah. And then you do the, ” Can I get a,” And then they had, imagine if you could do a, ” Can I get a,” meal. And then it was just a pick them. You know how it’s like a build your own but they called it Can I Getta And then you sent them to the Can I Getta section on the DoorDash app inaudible. To me now-

Brady Cramm: Or a promotion? If you search in the search bar or the app, ” Can I get a.”

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: And then no matter how many H’s you do, it comes up with a McDonald’s promotion.

Garrett Mehrguth: Something like that.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that would’ve been good because I think DoorDash has gotten a lot of flack for their ads. I think they’ve failed a few Super Bowl commercials and I like some of their Twitch ads, but even in the gaming community, they’ve been looked at as this is super cheesy. You’re trying to connect with us gamers and you’re doing a terrible job at it has been somewhat of the vibe. So I think it actually would’ve been smarter them to piggyback off of a brand that’s done pretty well with advertisement I’d say to get back into ad game.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because you’re right, it is a brilliant ad and they are trying to definitely get you to do something.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Hey Siri, can I get a … Even that could’ve been-

Garrett Mehrguth: Dude, would’ve been sick. It was, “Hey Siri, can I get a … “

Brady Cramm: An iPhone, McDonald’s, DoorDash Drive trifecta partnership.

Garrett Mehrguth: You could’ve just replayed…

Brady Cramm: We could have split a million dollar 32nd spot.

Garrett Mehrguth: It would’ve been a WhatsApp 2.0. They would’ve won best app.

Brady Cramm: That would’ve been cool.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh Siri.

Brady Cramm: I didn’t know I had that turned on. She didn’t give me any McDonald’s information.

Garrett Mehrguth: They’re listening.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, they are listening. Let’s not talk about that.

Garrett Mehrguth: But I do think the’Can get a’ is brilliant. I don’t know if they put the bow on it, but it is so good.

Brady Cramm: No, I’m with you. Like I said, I saw this ad and it definitely stood out.

Garrett Mehrguth: It does stand out.

Brady Cramm: I like The psychology behind it. It’s by no means one where I’m like, ” It is perfect. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Garrett Mehrguth: So close to it though, creatively we haven’t gotten that many ads this good that also… The part that was so amazing was the’Can I get a’ and they just messed up the call to action.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Yeah. It would’ve been. I like the Siri, I like the DoorDash.

Garrett Mehrguth: The Siri idea you had is brilliant. The Siri one is.

Brady Cramm: And I like seeing brands get together like that.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: We’re seeing it in our world of SaaS with integrations and partnerships. We see those partnerships a lot and I think we see it in consumer as well.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh yeah.

Brady Cramm: Mercedes just launched an e- bike.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s pretty cool.

Brady Cramm: So that was an ad I saw that I was thinking about. I’m like, “I’m not going to get it.”

Garrett Mehrguth: But if you had a Mercedes already, you would probably do it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, if I was probably a big Mercedes owner.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that would’ve pushed you over.

Brady Cramm: It would’ve been cool.

Garrett Mehrguth: I love it. All right, let’s try mine. Let’s see what we got.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, let’s check it out.

Garrett Mehrguth: Mine’s as good as yours to be honest. So I’ll just give you a little…

Brady Cramm: Whoa, throw in.

Garrett Mehrguth: …hint. I liked this ad because where I started from and where I started from is, and close your ears Burger King, I would probably rather eat nails than order from Burger King.

Brady Cramm: Off your fingers. Are we talking construction?

Garrett Mehrguth: No, just chewing on actual metal nails.

Brady Cramm: Okay.

Garrett Mehrguth: When was the last time you went to Burger King?

Brady Cramm: Fries in Las Vegas airport?

Garrett Mehrguth: No. A Burger King. Like a Burger King?

Brady Cramm: No, it was a Burger King in the airport. We got fries.

Garrett Mehrguth: It wasn’t even staffed by employees. Which is a separate conversation, but let’s just say-

Brady Cramm: No, high school. My buddy and I used to go after school because it was close to the high school. That’s probably the last time.

Garrett Mehrguth: I’ve been one time in my life, in college. Smelled exactly like you would think of Burger King would smell. You know that sewer scent that some fast food joints like Jack in the Box have when you walk in?

Brady Cramm: Yeah, yeah. Something’s going on in the parking lot.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, it’s like inside their store.

Brady Cramm: Oh.

Garrett Mehrguth: I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s a constant thing with these types of places. But for whatever reason I wouldn’t. Burger King fascinates me. Burger King is this weird case study of humanity that I don’t understand. They have enough money to constantly run ads and no one is a public fan of them. People aren’t even private fans of them. Hell in the ad, no one’s there. This is what I’m referring to. No one is ever at Burger King.

Brady Cramm: We should do an on the street segment where we stand in front.

Garrett Mehrguth: Like man on the street?

Brady Cramm: Yeah, stand in front. Yeah. Stand in front of a Burger King and just interview people.

Garrett Mehrguth: What brought you to this low in life?

Brady Cramm: Why are you here right now?

Garrett Mehrguth: Who hurt you and just ask some questions. Burger King is just the most fascinating thing in the world to me because they are everywhere. They are constantly running ads and I know zero humans that want them.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, they got the sesame seed buns going for them in terms of quality. That’s the only thing I didn’t think of with Burger King’s brand is the sesame seed.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh you know what? I did go once or twice when I was little because I liked the Crown.

Brady Cramm: Oh yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: When I was a kid. I just remember when I was a little kid, I’d like to wear the crown around. Okay, well I liked this ad because everyone does love Call of Duty.

Brady Cramm: Oh yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: If you’re someone people hate, why not partner up with something that people will love? And I thought integrating a burger, a fast food burger joint into a video game is not exactly an easy task. No. And I think they absolutely crush this. And I would argue that if you were gaming and playing Modern Warfare and got hungry, you would actually think about ordering from Burger King at 11:00 PM So let’s watch the ad.

Speaker 11: Listen up team. We need to get that meal before anyone else. Security systems offline. Go now.

Speaker 12: There’s nothing. Wait, sounds like barbecue.

Speaker 11: Good job. Now bring it home.

Speaker 13: Buy the Modern Warfare Two meal at Burger King and get a free in- game Operator skin and one hour of double XP.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. So that part I thought was brilliant. So let’s go back and just pause on the call to action.

Brady Cramm: You get that operator, look at that guy. You get to play that guy in the game if you get a meal.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s sick. I would buy their crappy little burger for that guy if I’m spending four hours a day on the video game and the only way you can get that skin is by buying that burger. That exclusivity, that call to action. The first player shooter screen they used to get me there. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, but I thought that this was a perfectly executed ad for someone who has a horrible product.

Brady Cramm: Well I think it was such a smart partnership. This goes back to, we talked about in episode eight I think.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: I think I brought up…

Garrett Mehrguth: Two years ago?

Brady Cramm: … how jealous I was ofin- game purchases, skins like this. And I know we talked about who makes the money, who gives the money? Is this a mutual partnership?

Garrett Mehrguth: This is definitely a mutual partnership.

Brady Cramm: But that’s such a cool call to action. Like you said, they’re struggling to find people probably. Like you said, they have a lot of locations. They advertise a lot. They must be doing well. So I don’t know if it’s a certain region where Burger King is better than McDonald’s or Wendy’s or if they somehow just have a bigger market share.

Garrett Mehrguth: But there’s got a lot to it. Right Brady? Okay, so how do you think McDonald’s feels with Kanye West’s latest anti- Semitic comments after paying him a bag of money to be in their commercial?

Brady Cramm: Not good, which they should probably know the risk of working with Kanye.

Garrett Mehrguth: There’s always a lot of risk when working with a celebrity.

Brady Cramm: Kanye specifically. But I would say yes, a celebrity,

Garrett Mehrguth: Alec Baldwin?

Brady Cramm: Adam Levine.

Garrett Mehrguth: I mean we can go down the list of people that you think would be safe.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: End up not being so safe.

Brady Cramm: For sure.

Garrett Mehrguth: Who’s the guy from House of Cards?

Brady Cramm: I don’t know.

Garrett Mehrguth: He’s a bad man. I forgot his name though. But all these people had a very well- respected, famous, the closet might have some skeletons in it. Here…

Brady Cramm: Not this guy.

Garrett Mehrguth: Not this guy. He’s a made up character and people are addicted to Call of Duty and they will do anything for their skins and in this case they’ll buy. How many people do you think just didn’t even eat the burger but just ate the fries and the drink?

Brady Cramm: I’m sure they did this in the first place because of the demographic overlap on call duty users and Burger King…

Garrett Mehrguth: High School, college students.

Brady Cramm: …eaters. Yeah, I’m sure that did happen. It was back in the day with Beanie Babies, I think we would get Happy Meals and not even eat the second one. It was just our moms were addicted to…

Garrett Mehrguth: Well, McDonald’s used to that with the toys.

Brady Cramm: Well it was Beanie Babies from McDonald’s. They had mini ones. And I remember my mom and her friends were addicted to collecting them. And so we would like each get too Happy Meals.

Garrett Mehrguth: Even better, get the moms.

Brady Cramm: But we wouldn’t even…

Garrett Mehrguth: Well, that’s an even better marketing strategy because you’re not getting the kids to want the item. You’re getting the person paying for it to want the item.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: In this case, you’re not getting kids. You’re getting that. What, 16…

Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s an older demographic.

Brady Cramm: They

Brady Cramm: can make independent food decisions. They’re using DoorDash.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh. Can you order it? You probably could. Here, let’s go on our phone real quick. Let’s see.

Brady Cramm: If we call Duty Meal Meal through DoorDash?

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Let’s see if we could order it on a phone.

Brady Cramm: And maybe…

Garrett Mehrguth: Or if you have to do it in person.

Brady Cramm: …it’s on the packaging they use.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Let me see.

Brady Cramm: Like Monopoly game.

Garrett Mehrguth: Feature item. Yeah. They’re not featuring it. Interesting. Is there no search on that, Scarlet? If you go up a little bit for me. Go search stores.

Brady Cramm: Maybe poppers.

Garrett Mehrguth: Dishes, product, search Call of Duty.

Brady Cramm: Those jalapeno poppers look like a tummy ache and a half.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, they don’t have it. See? So that to me might be a little bit of a gap there. Because if you’re going to run the ads, I would make sure you integrated it into your delivery strategy. At this point, what 25% of sales has got to be coming from delivery for them?

Brady Cramm: Especially in this demographic.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, for sure.

Brady Cramm: The gamers, you’re going after gamers, late night meals,

Garrett Mehrguth: Are they open late? Let’s also check that. Will you go to Burger King, Irvine?

Brady Cramm: 11:30.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s a weird time.

Brady Cramm: Nine.

Garrett Mehrguth: Nine? See they’re not even open late enough to fit the Call of Duty. It’s a little weird. I love the ad. I thought it was a great idea of them. Because I like it when people who might not… It’s a little bit of magic. How do I get sales up when my food’s not great? Look over here.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. No, I think the call to action’s really cool. It’s a new game that came out.

Garrett Mehrguth: Last week or on Friday.

Brady Cramm: I don’t play Call of Duty, but I play video games. So maybe if it was one of the games.

Garrett Mehrguth: Apex Legends did this.

Brady Cramm: Maybe, I don’t know.

Garrett Mehrguth: It doesn’t have to be food you like too though, probably.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, I connected our… Amazon owns Twitch.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: And so when you connect your Amazon Prime to your Twitch account, it does give you stuff like this. And I did it, but then I realized I don’t care enough to actually-

Garrett Mehrguth: I got a free pack in Ultimate Team when I first did it back then.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: I didn’t care enough to then go on my Xbox and then make sure that login was connected. That just seemed like typing on my controller wasn’t worth it. So I didn’t do it. But it definitely got me to do the initial connection. So if McDonald’s ran that ad for a game that I was actively playing, I probably would’ve gone out of my way and gotten the meal.

Garrett Mehrguth: How do you not have 24- hour drive through if you’re Burger King?

Brady Cramm: It’s probably dependent on location.

Garrett Mehrguth: You think so?

Brady Cramm: The McDonald’s near me it, the inside closes at 8: 00 PM but then drive- through is open. I don’t know when it closes. I haven’t gone at two.

Garrett Mehrguth: The one in Azusa is open 24 hours, right?

Brady Cramm: Yes. They had a 24- 7 drive through.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. When would I eat Burger King? When Carl’s Jr. In& Out and Five Guys is closed.

Brady Cramm: I’m sure there’s some locations, maybe not Newport Beach.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Maybe just not in this area. It makes sense for them to have staff throughout the night.

Garrett Mehrguth: Sorry, it’s a great ad. But if I’m thinking now, ” Okay, I’m playing Modern Warfare,” and then how do you deliver ad? How do you make sure? I guess you could do people who follow EA sports on social media.

Brady Cramm: Twitch, just any…

Garrett Mehrguth: Anyone on Twitch.

Brady Cramm: …Twitch streamer playing that game. You could have that as a pre- roll.

Garrett Mehrguth: There you go. Yeah. So yeah, we could do that. We could run YouTube ads for anyone who’s interested in Modern Warfare, or EA Sports or Twitch.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, people watch clips on YouTube all the time.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: I think YouTube and Twitch would be the big ones.

Garrett Mehrguth: Instagram would work too.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. There’s a lot of pages about each game.

Garrett Mehrguth: Twitter, same thing. Discord. I’ve never done Discord ads. I don’t use Discord, but I bet you.

Brady Cramm: Do they have ads?

Garrett Mehrguth: I don’t know. I’ve never used it.

Brady Cramm: I’ve used it once. I tried to day- trade over Christmas break, so I joined a channel.

Garrett Mehrguth: How’d you do?

Brady Cramm: Didn’t work. But I did learn that day trading is a full- time job and it probably takes two years of doing simulation trading to actually be good at it. And so it was just nice to give myself that clarity.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: That I should probably focus on what I know.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a little bigger lift than the gurus made it seem.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. But it was fun. I had COVID and we get between Christmas and New Year’s off and the market was open. I had COVID and so I woke up when the market open and I sat on my computer in this Discord channel until an hour after it closed. And just listening to these people talk about what they’re doing, I was like, ” This is insane. And I do not have the time to learn it.”

Garrett Mehrguth: I love it.

Brady Cramm: It was fun though. Anyway, that’s where I’ve used Discord.

Garrett Mehrguth: Well, Burger King, McDonald’s, we’re just eating all our… Did you notice I didn’t talk crap on McDonald’s? I actually think McDonald’s is pretty good.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, no.

Garrett Mehrguth: McDonald’s for what it is I think the GOAT. McDonald’s is better than, to me, Wendy’s and Burger King and those spots.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, their stock is doing good too. I looked it up because I saw the ad. Because I was trying to see the ad-

Garrett Mehrguth: Any drivers. Yeah. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Any data feedback. But it’s doing well. But all the news is they’re increasing prices and their demand is keeping up.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s expensive.

Brady Cramm: If you get two people a meal from McDonald’s, it’s like$ 20 something dollars versus In& Out is still maybe$ 12.

Garrett Mehrguth: The GOAT. I know.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: All right. All right. Welcome to Market This. Mr. Zuck has been in the news.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: The activist investors don’t like his commitment to the future. He saw his launch get eaten by TikTok and Reels and he had to acquire Instagram. He tried to acquire others. Now he’s desperate to not miss the next big thing. And he fully believes the next big thing is VR.

Brady Cramm: And AR.

Garrett Mehrguth: And AR. So here we are. Stock price is plunging. Zuck has exhausted all options.

Brady Cramm: It’s time to buy, baby.

Garrett Mehrguth: Twitter has brought in people from All In Podcast to help him solve his problems. Zuck is bringing in the original marketing show to solve his. So Zuckerberg, this is our open application. Thank you for being here today with us. And we are going to be discussing live, raw, on the show today, how we market VR and AR today instead of 20 years when he runs out of money. So what are we going to do, Brady? How do we fix VR and AR?

Brady Cramm: He added legs.

Garrett Mehrguth: What do you mean legs? Break it down.

Brady Cramm: So it was a part of, I think of their last keynote around AR/ VR, was in the metaverse, what’s it called? Your fake self, what would you call… Avatar.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Your avatar.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, your avatar. They were all floating bodies. And so it was a lady’s specific role at Meta was to create the legs on Avatar, but they talked all about when the legs aren’t accurate to your own or how they naturally move or movements, it throws you off. And so they had to spend a ton of time getting legs right. So that was in addition to the Metaverse is there’s legs in the Metaverse.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I think this is the problem with the Metaverse.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that’s the point I’m trying to prove.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I don’t think the problem is the realism of what’s fake.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I think it’s the functionality of it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because I don’t think the video games are more fun or exciting. If they were, I’d have it right now and all my buddies and I would hop on at night and play.

Brady Cramm: Well, all the processing is in the headset. And so I think they talked about in the recent announcement, partnering with Microsoft, so you can actually run the game on a system that has the power to do graphics and then use the headsets as more of the screen.

Garrett Mehrguth: It needs to stop being a toy though. It does. VR and AR has to stop being a toy.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. My wife, one of the hospitals she worked at, they all had Oculus headsets for pain management. Which I thought was interesting, is they had a whole Oculus training and they use it specifically for pain management, was one use case. Because I’ve seen a lot of ads. I’ve seen the Meta ads, I think with the farmer and it talks about in the future this guy’s going to be managing his crops through AR. It’s like, ” All right, that’s happening today.”

Garrett Mehrguth: And by the way, how much in the future will we have to be that the least technologically innovative humans in the world would now-

Brady Cramm: Farmers have a lot of tech.

Garrett Mehrguth: Brady, are you wearing flannel?

Brady Cramm: No, sorry.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. I’m going to speak for the farmers.

Brady Cramm: I’m only not wearing flannel because I was going to wear one today and then I saw you wearing that this morning.

Garrett Mehrguth: Speaking for the farmers. Thank you for electing me as your universal spokesperson.

Brady Cramm: Gosh.

Garrett Mehrguth: Check out my boots. See, I’m one of you.

Brady Cramm: Oh yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: I would argue that they aren’t going around as first adopters of all new technology.

Brady Cramm: Okay. I’d agree with that.

Garrett Mehrguth: And I would argue that it’s more of a toy. And I think my issue with Meta and its current positioning is they’re still treating it as a consumer’s technology instead of a business one, number one. And number two, it feels like form is driving function. In other words, it seems like they started as a wearable and then they tried to make it impactful instead of focusing on where the impact was and then designing the solution. In other words, function is following form instead of form following function. And so we don’t really have a function for the product, we just have a form of it. But if I were to give you a VR headset, my argument would be you’d wear it that night and then it would collect dust.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: You get friends over, you might use it as an entertaining thing like we used to do with the Wii when we were younger. You wouldn’t do Xbox when friends were over, but you’d play the Wii.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’m trying to think. I felt like they had some momentum when it was the walking the plank game. You saved the CAD at the end of the plank. And there was a lot of user- generated content about that.

Garrett Mehrguth: How many times can you walk the plank?

Brady Cramm: Exactly. They had that moment and then I just feel like they haven’t spotted a constant use case. Because at least for me, some of the coolest VR games I’ve seen is when people are on this crazy 360 treadmill setup and they’re running around playing this…

Garrett Mehrguth: Just seems like a cruder…

Brady Cramm: …shooter game.

Garrett Mehrguth: …version of Wii Sports. Why wouldn’t they partner with Nintendo? At least Nintendo has already been using the, like you can do the boxing, you can do the golf, you can do the bowling. Isn’t that essentially when it comes to a game or a toy, isn’t that really what they’re recreating?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So let’s scroll though and let’s learn about how they’re going to make money. Because they can sell all the VR headsets in the world, but if people don’t wear them after they buy them, it’s not really that sustainable in my opinion. Right?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So let’s scroll down. Let’s see what the thing where… Oh, there it is. It’s down there. Experience the Metaverse. Let’s go there. Can we click and experience the Metaverse? There it is. Cool. This is, we believe in the future of connection in the Metaverse. The Metaverse provides new ways to connect and share. Do you think humans will ever feel connected when it’s through technology? How about Zoom? We’ve been doing that for a long time, running a fully remote company. And I still got to fly people out three times a year.

Brady Cramm: I know. But especially from a sales perspective, meeting a prospect with their camera off, just turning the camera on makes a big difference.

Garrett Mehrguth: Huge difference.

Brady Cramm: So I think going from phone calls to Zoom, there is a difference there. Does it replace in- person? No, but camera on gets you closer. And so I guess the thought is, does VR get you even closer? I think that’s what their most recent keynote, they have a big partnership with Microsoft. And so Meta and Microsoft Teams and doing VR based meetings. I think the advantage is through AR and VR what they’re doing in this visual here.

Garrett Mehrguth: This is sick. If I’ve ever been able to do this or experiences, does this exist?

Brady Cramm: But that’s where I don’t know.

Garrett Mehrguth: He’s betting his house on it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Is Mark’s positioning, does he just pitch too far ahead versus…

Garrett Mehrguth: Well, that’s my point to you.

Brady Cramm: …pitching the possibility now?

Garrett Mehrguth: Just fix the marketing, that you have to be able to believe it. I think the problem is all of this feels fake.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s almost like if Apple did a keynote and said, ” By 2030 we’re going to have cameras that do this.” No. They talk about the iPhone 14 pro.

Garrett Mehrguth: That you can buy right now.

Brady Cramm: And the specs of the camera that you can order starting September.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Whatever it is. I think that might be a lesson on the difference.

Garrett Mehrguth: I think that is the issue. If I could do this right here, I would buy those glasses.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: There are no glasses that look like that. Look at the frames. They’re too skinny.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Where’s the computer in them? I’m not saying this can’t occur, that the technology doesn’t exist. I’m just saying, what am I even buying? Nobody’s wearing the VR headset. Oh, these people are, but the earlier people weren’t even wearing VR headsets. So let’s scroll a little bit more.

Brady Cramm: And that’s what you can get today.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, that wasn’t once in the ad. That thing that doesn’t even look like the headsets they’re wearing in the ad.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’m curious if they show, I don’t remember if the keynote was releasing that new headset.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Go up too a little bit, Scarlet. See that, learn more. Up a little bit more please. Shared experiences in the metaverse. Let’s watch it.

Speaker 14: So I live in St. Louis. Carson lives in California.

Speaker 15: We’re so distant and don’t get to see each other. I miss my dad so much.

Speaker 14: How you doing, Car?

Speaker 15: Dad’s in the room. When it comes to fishing, I annihilate my father.

Speaker 14: Oh my lens. Try not to show me up too bad.

Speaker 15: It’s nice that we’re actually doing something together so far apart from each other.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s still gimmicky though.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think that’s the whole thing is the …

Garrett Mehrguth: The graphics suck.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. To where it doesn’t build that… You can just play video games with your dad. You can go on Xbox Live.

Garrett Mehrguth: Have a headset.

Brady Cramm: And have a headset.

Garrett Mehrguth: Or play Wii Sports.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. They think the fact that there’s an avatar of him there and her there, that’s the magic.

Garrett Mehrguth: Only if it feels like you’re there.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Or else the premise falls flat. And that’s where I think it’s a problem. I don’t think the Metaverse delivers on its promise and so that it cannot grow. I think you have to change the promise of the Metaverse. I’ve never found a brand that I’ve marketed with my own brand itself. My number one thing if you’re an executive meeting with me, I’ll have us read our brand’s promise. I will make us all understand as the CEO, do we do what we promise? Because if we don’t, we’re never going to grow.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: And here, I don’t think the Metaverse actually creates human connection. And if that’s the promise, it can’t grow. So let’s scroll a little more. Let’s figure out what our promise should be if we were the Metaverse. And I think that’s a healthy way. Fishing was a way for us to just sit there and be together. Okay. Let’s see. Finish them, actually. Let’s keep looking at their examples and let’s see if we can find one that we actually believe in. So if anyone’s ever used a Peloton before, the Peloton classes are pre 80 immersive and with a real human. So let’s see if this is better than a Peloton class. See. They do that crap where they look and then it’s like…

Speaker 16: (Singing).

Garrett Mehrguth: This is a headset. I’d be sweating in it. She didn’t do any… They’re not wearing even the… It’s so objectively bad. This is why Mark is struggling.

Speaker 16: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Do you want to work out with that thing on your head?

Brady Cramm: No, I’ve tried it once.

Garrett Mehrguth: He’s making me mad.

Brady Cramm: And I did the golf and I was sweating.

Garrett Mehrguth: Of course you were. It looks like it’s a sleep apnea machine and then you’re supposed to work out.

Brady Cramm: I think that’s why they did the thinner headset.

Garrett Mehrguth: But there is no thinner headset to buy.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, they don’t have it right now. I don’t know.

Garrett Mehrguth: Then you can’t market thin. Did you see the guy look at his fake magical wristwatch that doesn’t even have the …

Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s not believable. It’s all pitching the future. But I think that’s where the Apple keynote might be a good comparison.

Garrett Mehrguth: All right, let’s go to the Chesney’s story. Because now they’re giving me someone who… This I like. Okay, this woman’s overweight. Just is what it is. This individual. I don’t want to mess up their genders, but this individual is overweight and they might not want to be in public. I totally see it as a use case. Let’s see if this could help someone. Let’s watch the video. I felt rejected by the inaudible.

Chesney: Don’t be scared to be seen. Took me 38 years to break out of my shell.

Garrett Mehrguth: There you go, Ches. Yeah. I love it. This is awesome.

Chesney: This is something that I never, ever in my entire life thought would happen.

Garrett Mehrguth: This is so cool. Yes, Mark. I feel this is our strategy.

Chesney: I didn’t feel like I belonged within this. But I’m wrong. It’s been harder for me to get the weight off because I’ve got polycystic ovarian syndrome. People will just look at you and think the absolute worst. When you walk down the street and somebody yells out the window, ” You are too fat to be seen in public. You should put a paper bag on your head,” that’s hard to deal with. I wanted to try anything I could. I would dread going into the gym. I didn’t feel good enough about myself. I wanted to get a bike, but they were too expensive and I just thought that I would never find any type of physical activity that I would enjoy. And I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to die early. Then I found Supernatural and that’s all she wrote.

Speaker 18: Okay. So imagine you’re standing in your living room, you put on this small headset and suddenly you’re standing at the foot of adventure in Iceland or on the Great Wall in China. A coach meets you there and then guides you as you smash targets to the beat of your favorite music and an amazing aerobic workout. There are no mirrors, no judgment, just you feeling powerful and losing yourself in the moment as your endorphins totally catch fire.

Chesney: The day I finished my first workout, I was hooked.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Chesney: And I’ve been using Supernatural for 307 days to be exact.

Garrett Mehrguth: Go Chesney. Go.

Chesney: Yes. In a row. It’s raining men. I’m all about singing and performing and dancing. And I feel graceful when I’m in that headset.

Garrett Mehrguth: Good.

Chesney: It would take me an hour to do a 20- minute workout when I started and now I can do two hours without resting. And that is insane. I started to make friends in the community and it was amazing. Nobody judged me. Everybody was cheering me on.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s cool.

Chesney: And that was an amazing feeling that I wasn’t really used to.

Garrett Mehrguth: Back in the day, Facebook was community-driven.

Speaker 18: Because Chesney embodied everything we’re about, vulnerability, inclusivity, celebrating yourself and falling in love with movement, we knew she had to be more than just a community member. We knew we had to get her into the studio so that she could inspire others.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, you can pause. Okay. So she’s awesome.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. And she was doing this on her own.

Garrett Mehrguth: Did it on her own. Wore the real freaking headset.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Using the real actual apps. And now if I was struggling with fitness, my weight, my self image, I would very much do this and buy it.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: First good ad I’ve seen out of the Metaverse, ever.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because function, that’s an outcome. That’s a job to be done of a real human and a real application of the Metaverse’s technology. It created an immersive experience with the privacy of the home, but the inclusivity of a community without the shame of going in public. A perfect use case.

Brady Cramm: I’ve never seen that ad.

Garrett Mehrguth: I haven’t either.

Brady Cramm: I’ve seen their, they have Supernatural ads where, I forget how it goes, but it’s like the fitness lady and people coming up with excuses. So they’ve had Supernatural ads, but I’ve never seen that video.

Garrett Mehrguth: And it was terrific, right?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So let’s go back a little bit so we can hear. I think that was the third one we clicked on to get here, I think now we’re on their blog. So it looks like we ran out of… Let’s look at the AR. What’s the augmented reality? It’s all part of his vision.

Brady Cramm: It’s the middle card.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that one. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Go to gallery please. That’s the same thing Snap is hiring us to fix, right?

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: We’re literally doing this for Snap, which is their developer community for AR.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. This is all AR through phones, so AR filters.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Sorry guys. We’re inaudible. Yes. We do work with the biggest tech brands in the world for this. Okay, so here’s my take on it. If I were to be the CMO of the Metaverse, I would come up with as many practical applications as humanly possible. And I would delete all futurism of the product.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s no longer a future product. The Metaverse has arrived.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Because if the Metaverse isn’t here, why should I get from apathy to action? I’ll get to the Metaverse when it’s ready for me is my take on it this whole time by the way. It’s my genuine take, is the Metaverse isn’t ready for me. It’s too new. It’s too immature. I’d rather play my Xbox. I don’t want it for video games. I don’t know what it could practically help me with. I’m now starting to see it because I got to hear Chesney’s story.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think I’m curious how much they got distracted by the headlines of someone just bought the house next to Snoop Dogg’s in the Metaverse for$ 2 million.

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh. Like the Web- 3 crap of just the whole globalization?

Brady Cramm: Well there’s like this crazy, with the NFT.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what I’m saying. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: The Metaverse was along the same lines with virtual real estate and there was a ton of hype around how much property was going for.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, it’s when Zuck wants us to do their, ” It’s a virtual office. Look, your avatar’s walking around. Oh, there’s Susan. Say hi to Susan.” Yeah. And I don’t know man.

Brady Cramm: Just from the CMO’s perspective I wonder if they got distracted from that type of hype to where they’re like…

Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, we got to go here.

Brady Cramm: “My job is done. Look at my headlines. Look at all the impressions we get from people talking about the metaverse.” But I feel like that is not the case anymore.

Garrett Mehrguth: No. And we just saw B2C one. Can you show me a B2B application really quick? Maybe show me the farming ad that Brady’s referencing, Scarlet. I think that’d be great. Farming with Metaverse.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Or Meta AR.

Garrett Mehrguth: There, can you do meta. com? And then just space and meta. com.

Brady Cramm: Maybe just go to the video tab. I might be able to recognize it.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Nope. Look, let’s start there. Right there. Urban planners. I just want to B2B.

Brady Cramm: Oh yeah, that’s it it.

Garrett Mehrguth: There you go. That’s it. That top one. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: I didn’t recognize the thumbnail.

Garrett Mehrguth: I just want to see the B2B use case. The Metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be… See that, just go up. No more will. No more will.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. So this is the commercial I’ve been seeing.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. So it should be, the Metaverse may be virtual, but the impact is real.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. But watch the ad and you’ll see why they say-

Garrett Mehrguth: But I don’t need a fake ad. I need a real story of someone’s life changing from the Metaverse. All right. Hit it. Let’s see. Let’s see.

Speaker 19: Some people say the metaverse will only be virtual, but one day this pharma will use augmented reality to help ensure the best deal.

Garrett Mehrguth: Again with the glasses.

Brady Cramm: It’s super bad.

Speaker 19: Urban planners will model traffic solutions to help decrease commute times.

Brady Cramm: Motion graphic overlays.

Speaker 19: Exploring a spacecraft and museum one.

Garrett Mehrguth: But none of this crap exists.

Speaker 19: But one day the Metaverse will help students learn about the rings of Saturn. The Metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be real.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, the impact is real. I’m telling you, if you keep putting the value in the future, my buying decision will be in the future.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s the problem. You can’t tell me about what the value will be when your sales are down today.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s like if Elon only talked about flying cars.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s like him his cyber truck.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, no that’s a good example. But let’s say you only talked about flying cars.

Garrett Mehrguth: Or Mars. If Mars was still the entire premise of Elon Musk, and he hadn’t done anything.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. He had these model threes he just wasn’t talking about.

Garrett Mehrguth: They have a real use case for the darn product. And I bet you there’s some people using it. Can we go down a little bit and see if there’s any other, I want us to find one B2B real example that I could advertise.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: One real thing that they… Oh here, watch the film. Let’s watch that. Imagine how urban planners… No. Watch urban planners.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’d be curious if they had a pain therapy one. Because like I said, that’s the one B2B use case…

Garrett Mehrguth: Therapy could be great.

Brady Cramm: …that my wife has. Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, a therapist.

Brady Cramm: Well…

Garrett Mehrguth: No, I would love to do therapy from the confines of my own private room. I don’t have to have the embarrassment of parking my car and maybe walking out. I think there is a thing about attending a therapy. I know they do virtual therapy now on Zoom, but the Metaverse could bring it even more to life potentially.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Let’s see this one though.

Speaker 19: One day urban planners will be able to model traffic in augmented reality to help reduce commute times. The Metaverse may be virtual but the impact will be real.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. See this…

Brady Cramm: You just …

Garrett Mehrguth: Can you keep scrolling up, please?

Brady Cramm: …move things around.

Garrett Mehrguth: I want to find one darn thing you can do in this Metaverse. It’s driving me nuts.

Brady Cramm: Verse of learning.

Garrett Mehrguth: VR for good, maybe VR for good. Let’s go that one.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that looks like…

Garrett Mehrguth: It could be a real thing.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, he’s got headphones on. He’s got the headset on.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. These are inaudible. I sounds like I’m on a non- profits page. Let’s keep scrolling.

Brady Cramm: Oh, it’s like all…

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, keep going. Okay. Sometimes it’s not only about social justice. First you got to make your product useful. And I’m not against social justice advertising, but if the only real thing your product does is fake in the sense that the social justice can only occur if the marginalized people or communities have a functional use case of the product, then you’re not even delivering on that promise either. So not only is the product going to be better in the future, its impacts don’t exist. But here’s where it will. And they’re like, ” We will make sure in the Metaverse that everything is… ” It’s like heaven. They’re creating heaven in the Metaverse, which is great. I don’t think they shouldn’t try to do that. But heaven’s co- dependent on faith just as much as the Metaverse is right now.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s all about one day. Now it looks like their ads are primarily, I would argue, to get engineers to start building on the platform. Right?

Brady Cramm: Maybe.

Garrett Mehrguth: But engineers aren’t the best people to sell to. So if we shop Meta Quest, what can I buy? Maybe shop Meta Quest.

Brady Cramm: Maybe it’s trying to change the course of the stock as people invest for the future, so let’s advertise the future to change this trend line.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. But she’s not… Okay, so these are all the… Can you do any of these things?

Brady Cramm: So this seems a bit more, they have the headsets on.

Garrett Mehrguth: And the studio, which is cool. I don’t think that’s bad.

Brady Cramm: They have the virtual hands. So it’s actually them doing it versus just the motion graphic overlay.

Garrett Mehrguth: So let’s scroll down though. Are we going to see… Okay this, keep going down. That one. By the way, why aren’t they using the Pro and all the new ads?

Brady Cramm: So Meta Quests Pro…

Garrett Mehrguth: Looks way more…

Brady Cramm: Still not that thin one we were seeing earlier, though.

Garrett Mehrguth: No. It’s not the sexy thin one that we keep seeing. NFL Pro are the first fully licensed NFL game VR make… Okay, this cool, I haven’t seen any of these ads when I watch football. Social entertainment product, go to productivity. I want to see that one. Because that’s where I think you’re going to get the skeptics. So if we go down…

Brady Cramm: As big as Meta is, I’m sure the pages we’re on right now get under a thousand views a month, if that.

Garrett Mehrguth: So Meta Horizon Workplace, can go on that one please? Workrooms, that looks like a pretty strong use case. Let’s see if it’s real. Because if it is, let’s use it more.

Brady Cramm: UTM source, meta. com.

Garrett Mehrguth: Can we go down? Is an immersive way to meet, flexible rooms. Join from anywhere. Okay. Wait, you don’t need a headset.

Brady Cramm: They have speakers in them I think.

Garrett Mehrguth: No, it says you don’t need a headset to join. Can you see a 50 year old VP putting on their VR headset?

Brady Cramm: No.

Garrett Mehrguth: How much does it cost please? Let me click on that.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, that shouldn’t show us. I like that price comparison is a bike was too expensive, because they’re not crazy expensive.

Garrett Mehrguth: You can’t even get a price here. They’re going to make you talk to their sales team or the Metaverse for B2B. See I think they have a positioning problem. I think the tech is actually there. I think the use cases are probably there. I think their other crap is so futuristic that I don’t believe anything they tell me.

Brady Cramm: Yeah, I think this page has the Microsoft partnerships.

Garrett Mehrguth: The idea has their CEO on it.

Brady Cramm: Try Googling Oculus pain management.

Garrett Mehrguth: Pain release on Oculus. Go. Let’s go to that one.

Brady Cramm: Because that’s over there.

Garrett Mehrguth: Pain relief. Okay.

Brady Cramm: Oh, that’s a game, or an app.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. This is a general test with the mechanism not fully understood. The studies have shown that it can help in part the inaudible fully immersive distraction. That’s a stretch.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: It’s not asprin.

Brady Cramm: No, this is just inaudible.

Garrett Mehrguth: The title is misleading pain relief does not give it justice. It should be called wispy windmills or something like that. In other words, just market it as a fun game.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: All right, go back. The comment is the perfect… Let’s go back one more time Scarlet. Just to the Google. Yeah.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Let’s see if we can find what he’s talking about. Harvard Health maybe.

Brady Cramm: But this is an existing thing. I’ve gotten one professional massage in my life and it was a deep shoulder massage and they had a screen there for pain management. It was the Caribbean video playing to distract you from the pain.

Garrett Mehrguth: That’s crazy.

Brady Cramm: It was terrible. I would never do it again.

Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, so in November of 2021, the FDA authorized, go down for me real quick, the marketing of a prescription home- use VR device to help reduce chronic lower back pain. Okay. You’re telling me that your headsets reduce lower back pain, my guy? Zuck, advertise that.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. Do a case study with Hogue Hospital, Newport Beach.

Garrett Mehrguth: Or with Harvard Medical School. I am literally… Mark Zuckerberg. I went to school at Harvard. They are doing a full study out of Harvard on this. And if Harvard concludes that Oculus or the Meta Pro, whatever it’s called, helps lower back pain that will drive sales.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: The problem with his Metaverse is you can’t experience it. If I were to do the marketing for Metaverse, and I hope that God Mark you one day watch this and you hire us, I would make all of the function real. And when you do your keynote, talk to me about the future. But when you market it to me, talk about what I can get out of it now. I’m a selfish human who doesn’t have a ton of money and if I’m going to spend my money, I need real value in my life. And there I haven’t seen one ad they’re running that lets me know that I can get an experience the value now. So if I get the value tomorrow, I’ll buy it tomorrow. If I can get the value now, I’ll buy it now. And I think everything in their marketing has to go back to the now. What do you think, Brady?

Brady Cramm: Yeah, I agree. I think there’s tons of opportunity too. I just think back pain. I think of women going through pregnancy. Oh yeah. And the strategy here is you find a segment going through back pain. You then layer on a demographic where the husband is into gaming. And if you can create that conversation, the household is like, ” Hey honey, I know I’ve been going through this pain. I know we’ve changed the bed firmness. It’s not working. But I saw this Oculus thing. I think it could help.” If you advertise that to someone going through pain in pregnancy, seen as a solution, and you strategically position that where you know the husband is into gaming, that’s going to spark a purchase.

Garrett Mehrguth: A thousand percent. And how does it work with meditation? For me, meditation’s very hard because it’s hard to get to that full spot. Imagine if Calm and Meta do a partnership.

Brady Cramm: Like those float tanks. They’re completely dark. I’ve never done one.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. If I could put that headset on and they had the sounds and they had the forest.

Brady Cramm: A guided meditation.

Garrett Mehrguth: And it was a guided meditation, but I’m in the experience and I can see it all. I don’t have a stupid avatar, but I’m just seeing out of my eyes first person and I’m in this area and I’ve got the sound. I think I could let go. I think I could get to the place I’m trying to get to.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: There’s so many real things you can do with it. Why keep doing the fake?

Brady Cramm: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I wonder where it’s coming from, if it’s all investors, right? Investments are long term, so we have to pitch the future.

Garrett Mehrguth: The tech is there now for the current. I think we just have to be okay with the future being the future.

Brady Cramm: Yeah. No, I think the golf is good too. I’ve done it once for golf.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.

Brady Cramm: But my friend didn’t have, you can buy a third party. People make a golf club that holds the controllers.

Garrett Mehrguth: To finish the experience.

Brady Cramm: And so I was doing it just my hands were free and I was trying to replicate the swing. It wasn’t as good.

Garrett Mehrguth: Correct.

Brady Cramm: But if Meta came out with that.

Garrett Mehrguth: Accessories.

Brady Cramm: Like Wii Sports.

Garrett Mehrguth: The accessories.

Brady Cramm: They have all these accessories, like the steering wheel for Mario Kart.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: That you put the controller in.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: And they just leaned in on, ” You can golf tomorrow.”

Garrett Mehrguth: Now.

Brady Cramm: As long as we have one day shipping, you can do this all tomorrow. We have the club two because we’d noticed it’s a way better user experience.

Garrett Mehrguth: You get Justin Thomas to sponsor it just like he does with the WHOOP Bracelet. Now you get him to do the VR headset and you show him practicing.

Brady Cramm: Go to PGA events.

Garrett Mehrguth: You get three of the PGA Tour swing coaches to do three different VR lessons on there. There’s a way to do this and make a ton of money, Mark.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: You just have to stop being in the future and get to the now and the product will work.

Brady Cramm: And it would normalize it too.

Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.

Brady Cramm: Focusing on the now would then just normalize wearing headsets.

Garrett Mehrguth: It would accelerate adoption.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Mark, I hope you like this. Everyone else tuning in, tag Mark on social media, tag Mark on Facebook and Instagram. Let’s get him to watch this video. If we could get Mark to watch this video.

Brady Cramm: Oh my gosh.

Garrett Mehrguth: That would be the coolest thing ever because I genuinely think his product and his vision isn’t 10 years away. It exists right now. He just keeps telling the wrong story.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: Thanks for tuning into the Original Marketing Show and like subscribe, un- subscribe, resubscribe, leave comments, tag Mark.

Brady Cramm: Switcher Chrome profile view again, go incognito, view again, like again. We’ll see you next week.

Garrett Mehrguth: And re-tweet, re- share and share again.

Brady Cramm: Yeah.

Garrett Mehrguth: So thanks.