Episode 6: Shark Tank, How to Stay Relevant, and The Future of B2B Brands

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Well, hello everybody. And welcome to another episode. Episode five.

Brady: Sure.

Garrett: Six, four?

Brady: It could be four, five, six. Well, we’ll see what order we drop them.

Garrett: Time flies when you have fun.

Brady: It’s another episode.

Garrett: Another episode.

Brady: Another episode.

Garrett: With your two favorite hosts in the world.

Brady: Adam Patarino and Brady Cram.

Garrett: So Brady, how was your week?

Brady: It was good. I got back from Aspen last night.

Garrett: So beyond some boujee vacation like,”I just got back from as Aspen.”

Brady: I drove from Aspen to Denver.

Garrett: You didn’t fly for this class this time?

Brady: I didn’t get the Aspen ticket. The drive was crazy, because you pass like Vail, Colorado, just everything you passed going to Aspen. So on a Sunday, everyone vacationing up in the mountains, comes back down to Denver.

Garrett: Is that like Vegas but worse?

Brady: It took seven hours.

Garrett: Wait, so time out. You drove from Denver to Aspen.

Brady: So, we flew into Denver and we drove up to Aspen on Thursday and that was fine. It was like the normal drive, three and a half, four hours. And then coming home, my GPS said two hours and 45 minutes left in the trip for two hours and 45 minutes. It just would not change. The cars were just stacking up.

Garrett: It was like Vegas on steroids.

Brady: Oh, yeah. It was some of the worst vacation travel.

Garrett: So, for anyone listening.

Brady: It’s worth the Aspen ticket, I think.

Garrett: Okay. Whoa.

Brady: It’s worth flying into Aspen, even though it’s super expensive, which is why we didn’t do it.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: But we got a rental car.

Garrett: Or leave on Saturday?

Brady: Or Saturday or…

Garrett: Monday.

Brady: …Stay on the trip, maybe leave on a Wednesday.

Garrett: Oh, whoa. Brady.

Brady: You’re saying it, not me.

Garrett: No, I’m not. We’re going to miss our show. We’re not going to be able to record. Brady’s going to be in Aspen, everybody.

Brady: I’ll bring my computer.

Garrett: Okay. I like that.

Brady: That was fun.

Garrett: You got your virtual podcast recording set up yet?

Brady: Yeah. Well, I have it.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: We haven’t done one virtually, but I got it.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, we’re going to keep the show going everybody. Even if we’re traveling or something happens, Brady and I are fully committed to one episode a week. So, we might sometimes have to be remote. We’re always going to try to do it in person when we can.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: What are you going to do?

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: Well, what did I do this weekend? Well, glad you asked, Brady.

Brady: Yeah. I was, what? I know what you did. We talked about it a little bit.

Garrett: Little yellow tail.

Brady: Tell the people.

Garrett: Little mahi- mahi was… So, I went fishing down in Mexico, caught some fish. Great time.

Brady: You were down in Mexico?

Garrett: Well, you go out of San Diego and then you go into Mexico waters.

Brady: Oh, cool.

Garrett: Yeah. So, that’s where the warmer water is where the fish are at. So, that was pretty fun. Got us a couple fish. Yellow tail fight like crazy. I never caught one before.

Brady: Oh sure.

Garrett: It’s a big fighting fish. It’s a sport fish. It’s pretty fun. So not bad, but also very glad to just be home. You know what I mean?

Brady: Oh yeah.

Garrett: Does it feel nice?

Brady: It was nice to sleep in my own bed and not be driving.

Garrett: So when you went to Aspen, who’d you go with?

Brady: Whole family. So, it was a wedding.

Garrett: Okay. So, whole family’s there?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Did you get an Airbnb?

Brady: Yeah, my cousin and his wife and Lindsay, we all just shared a condo.

Garrett: Let’s talk…

Brady: inaudible.

Garrett: …Let’s talk, marketing and Airbnb’s. So, when you were choosing this, what were you looking for? Because I think there’s actually a lot you can learn about when it comes to why we choose certain Airbnb’s.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: What we’re looking for. What stood out to you about this Airbnb and then what would you change as a marketer, Brady?

Brady: So, my cousin did it.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: But to him, it was obviously in Mountain Town. We stayed in Snowmass or one of the cities over and all of them are very cabin themed, but he selected the one that was modern. So, it had a Samsung frame TV, it had a nice granite, quartz or whatever countertop. It was not cabin themed at all.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Which was kind of nice. It was just kind of…

Garrett: Boujee in Aspen.

Brady: …I don’t know if it’s cheesy now to have the whole cabin vibe. I don’t know if people still like that, but I’m kind of over it. Even in Mexico, all the places are very Spanish tiling like chaos. And we chose one that was just more modern.

Garrett: I inaudible?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Yeah. So, I would agree. I would say Spanish, Adobe style, poorly executed, sucks.

Brady: You just don’t even know if it’s dirty.

Garrett: But I would say cabins the same thing. I think, well executed cabin in the mountains is timeless.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Poorly executed cabin where it’s just a crappy house that happens to be a cabin is the worst. I know exactly what you’re talking about. You get in the thing and you’re like, I do work pretty hard and I’m a little older now. Maybe I don’t have to get the cheapest cabin in Big Bear.

Brady: Yeah. It’s just dusty I feel, there’s just so much crap on the wall.

Garrett: The stuffiness, when you walk in, it’s the smell, right?

Brady: Yeah. I think it’s all the dust because it’s impossible to dust the place because…

Garrett: So, how would you market it though? So, what would you do different? So, you own that Airbnb, what would you focus on?

Brady: I mean, I think the photos did it for them.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Like my cousin, he went through them all and he saw that one and he told me why he liked it and I agreed and we booked it. And it’s like it was more expensive than anything else, so. I think they did a good job as is.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: They made it modern. It fit us, so.

Garrett: No worries. It was booked out. Yeah. They probably had good reviews too, right?

Brady: I didn’t even look. I mean, it was right on the slopes. So, I actually want to go back in the winter.

Garrett: So, what do you do in the summer when you’re there? Just hike and fish?

Brady: You could hike…

Garrett: What did you do?

Brady: …But we didn’t.

Garrett: Just play games?

Brady: I golfed.

Garrett: Oh, okay.

Brady: So, they had a whole golf set up before the wedding. And then it was my cousin’s birthday on the Friday. So, we went to the St. Regis, I guess, they all have a different Bloody Mary.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: And they have a dog that sits in the front, didn’t know that. So, we kind of did that for his birthday.

Garrett: Nice.

Brady: Got some lunch.

Garrett: I love it.

Brady: But the town, it’s crazy there.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It’s just a whole another world.

Garrett: Is it kind of like when you go to Mammoth and everybody’s doing the mountain party scene?

Brady: Oh no, boujee is what it’s just…

Garrett: Really? I’ve never been.

Brady: Yeah. It’s insane. It’s if you go past airports, all these private jets are just…

Garrett: It’s Aspen.

Brady: …Sitting there.

Garrett: Definitely Jackson Hole can be like that, but I’ve never been there either. I haven’t done anything really cool like that.

Brady: Yeah. I went to Aspen when I was a young teenager, so I didn’t really remember it. So, this time we went…

Garrett: You were like…

Brady: …Looking around. I was like,” Where are we?”

Garrett: Yeah. It’s like Newport of the mountains’ kind of thing?

Brady: Yeah. And it wasn’t like we went to lunch at a nice place, but didn’t break the bank.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It was too insane. But you could definitely…

Garrett: You could definitely spend some money.

Brady: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Garrett: I love it.

Brady: It was cool though.

Garrett: I love it. Well, let’s talk advertising jealousy, Brady.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Have you found any kind of ads that made you a little jealous?

Brady: I kind of have a hard time with this one.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: I’m not going to lie.

Garrett: Oh no.

Brady: I have a hard time with it just because I can’t really think of, at least in my personal life, like oh I love the ads, so I bought it, or the ads stood out. So, I kind of get creative with the segment.

Garrett: Wait, time out. You don’t really see good ads in your day to day?

Brady: Not really.

Garrett: What do you mean? They’re all around you. You’re the guy who loves to say marketing advertising’s all around us.

Brady: I like being the person behind the scenes of advertising. That’s why I like the whole TikTok thing. I just loved how it was all thought.

Garrett: The leggings.

Brady: Yeah. The leggings.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: That was all a strategy and it was executed well. So, I’m still going to talk… inaudible.

Garrett: Okay. What is your topic?

Brady: Shark Tank.

Garrett: Wow.

Brady: Shark Tank as ad.

Garrett: Oh my, okay. All right.

Brady: Shark Tank as ad. I don’t think a lot of people think of it that way, which is why…

Garrett: I’m sorry everybody…

Brady: …I want to bring it up on the show.

Garrett: …Brady’s been doing less and less preparation for us.

Brady: I have stats about it.

Garrett: I’m just kidding.

Brady: I know the top in investments. I did my research.

Garrett: Okay. Breakdown Shark Tank for me. What are you saying?

Brady: So, I just don’t think a lot of people see Shark Tank as an ad, right? But…

Garrett: Come on. You don’t think that’s… At this point, I feel like it’s American Idol at this point, half the ones are on there just for laughs or an ad.

Brady: Oh yeah, just like on Spotify. As they’re on the show, you can go to their Spotify and they have a million views already. I definitely… Yeah.

Garrett: That’s kind of what I…

Brady: I know what’re saying there.

Garrett: I think right now, if you’re a new startup product, Shark Tank is part of your launch strategy. I feel like they have a…

Brady: Yeah, no. It’s like a Kickstarter. Kickstarters kind of like…

Garrett: Yeah, it is.

Brady: …A marketing ad.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: There’s a search engine.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: You can shop around there. But no, I don’t think a lot of people, in its family show sense, see it as…

Garrett: It fits.

Brady: …A ad.

Garrett: It is kind of like a family show.

Brady: Oh yeah. It’s a totally family show, which I think is cool when they break down the valuation and they kind of do that business.

Garrett: I still don’t understand royalties.

Brady: The royalties?

Garrett: I can’t understand it.

Brady: Are a wonderful shit?

Garrett: I don’t understand it.

Brady: It’s just like you get every item sold, your royalty could be like$ 2…

Garrett: Till he recoups his capital, right?

Brady: …Or more.

Garrett: Until he recoups his capital?

Brady: Yeah. He can sometimes say recoup. Sometimes he says like,” I’m going to invest a million…”

Garrett: In perpetuity.

Brady: …”And I want$ 2 every unit until I get$ 2 million.” See, that’s just a unit thing.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Yeah. Mr. inaudible, you like the show?

Garrett: I do. I do like the show. I have no problem with Shark Tank. I’m just wondering what your angle is. I feel like it’s been around forever, so.

Brady: Yeah, it has been around forever. Just my angle is looking at it as an ad itself.

Garrett: Okay. I agree. Okay. So, what are the benefits of it as an ad? Why do you like it as an ad?

Brady: So, it’s cool because it’s founder base, right? So, it’s like the founders doing a commercial. They’re doing a pitch for the product. They then get the social proof when the sharks try the product.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: So if it’s food, they’ll take a bite and they’ll give their live feedback. If it’s a physical product, they usually do a demo and they do it on the set. So, it’s kind of like an Infomercial… Yep.

Garrett: …A little bit. What’s interesting though, is when they break down the cost of goods sold.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: So in the commercial, they will say their$ 30 product cost$1 to make. What do you think about that as an ad?

Brady: See, that’s where it kind of like, I wonder what people think.

Garrett: Hey there, would you like to get screwed by this lovely new product? Check it out our latest financials.

Brady: Well, that’s definitely the behind the scenes, look at the business that usually no one would ever say in an advertisement, but I don’t think it hurts.

Garrett: I feel like you have to cry. I feel like if you cry…

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: …Like I watched this one where the guy, he was a farmer guy and he was a little podunk and he was very sweet and approachable. And he was like an every man’s man kind of like…

Brady: Was he the guy with the tepees around the tree trunks?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Dude.

Garrett: See, that guy. Now that was mad, Brady. Now, I think that guy was just such an authentic great dude.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But that one, I almost planted a tree in a cold weather area just so I could buy his tepees.

Brady: I was going to say. It’s one of the only products that the mass market just simply can’t buy.

Garrett: They can’t buy it. But I mean, I almost bought a house in Wyoming just so I could buy his tree sample.

Brady: Become a tree farmer.

Garrett: It was pretty cool. So, are you saying that the exposure’s worth it, even if you have to dilute yourself a little bit? Because to me, let’s be real, how impactful are those investors anyway? There’s no way that there’s that much value added. Mark Cuban’s out there slinging referrals to a$3 inaudible.

Brady: Yeah, they all talk about their teams.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: I think Barbara might be the most invested one from the stuff I’ve seen.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: But yeah, it’s not like, I don’t think them… inaudible.

Garrett: I don’t think they got Mark Cuban cellphone number and they’re calling Mark like,” Hey mark, I got this pricing question.”

Brady: No, they fly out for their publicity and…

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: …Get the content. But I think they all have teams. I think Mark…

Garrett: There’s no way they’re talking to Mark for an hour after the shoot and breaking it down with him and getting his feedback.

Brady: I think they almost have an agency team.

Garrett: Yes. I would argue that. Do you know artists are like that too? I had no idea.

Brady: Like musical artist?

Garrett: No, like painters. So, one of my favorite artists is Daniel Arsham.

Brady: Never heard of him.

Garrett: I would love for us to interview him. That would be a great guest. Riley, Daniel Arsham. Riley’s our producer, by the way. let’s take a moment, little clap it up for our new producer.

Brady: Hey.

Garrett: Riley. And then Scarlet our world class Swiss army knife, little round of applause for Scarlet as well, little behind the scenes love right now. And if you’re not watching, Brady has some of the sleekest pants I’ve ever seen are those Vuori?

Brady: These are Vuori.

Garrett: Dude. You’re looking good today.

Brady: The top too.

Garrett: Y’all got to subscribe, check out the YouTube. Brady’s bringing it.

Brady: If they had socks, I’d be wearing them. If they had shoes, I’d be wearing them. But…

Garrett: I love it.

Brady: …Just pants and shirt.

Garrett: So, the ad essentially is you get to be on national television.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And what about the reruns? Because to me, I like the reruns from…

Brady: Well, that’s where…

Garrett: …From an ad angle. You know what I’m saying?

Brady: So that’s like, how do you score the month before Christmas block of the season? I wonder how deep that goes in terms of the types of products they have during the November to December months.

Garrett: Do you have to pay to be on Shark Tank now you think?

Brady: See, that’s kind of what I’m thinking. I don’t know how deep it goes as an ad.

Garrett: I don’t know any large scale TV channel who allows themselves to be used by entrepreneurs. You know how they say no free ads?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: How do you think that relationship goes? How do you think they filter that out? Because if you go on you, I think there’s negative ad too, Brady. I think if you go on and you…

Brady: Get torn up, yeah.

Garrett: …Try to cheat the process. No, not get torn up, that’s separate. Some people just are bad at business and that’s not who I’m referring to. I’m referring to people who might try to use what you’re saying right now. So, listen to us, they’re like,” I just got to be on sharking. I’m not even going to try to raise the money, whatever they say, I’m going to say no to it or I’m going to ask for an egregious amount just so I get the free publicity.” What do you think about that?

Brady: So, it’s funny because I was thinking as I was prepping, because I did a ton of prep.

Garrett: I know. Don’t think I…

Brady: But no, I…

Garrett: He pres all night. He works 14 hours a day on this podcast.

Brady: I was driving down a mountain in Aspen, Colorado trying to reach Shark Tank stats.

Garrett: For seven hours and 45 minutes.

Brady: I bought satellite wifi just for it.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: But I was thinking, what products do I own…

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: …That are Shark Tank. And one that I wasn’t sure about were these chirp rollers, these back rollers called chirps. They’re just different size wheels with a foam top.

Garrett: So, foam rollers?

Brady: Yes. I Googled chirp Shark Tank and lo and behold, it was an episode and I watched it, his segment, and Damon was calling him out. He’s like,” Dude, why are you here?”

Garrett: Right.

Brady: “You’re taking the carpet from someone who actually needs it. I usually invest in earlier stage companies.” Because I think his sales were already through the roof. He had the product and final state.

Garrett: Yeah. Everything he needed and he was just there for publicity.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Which is kind of my point to you, what happens if you use it?

Brady: Damon was kind of the only one saying it that way. I think Laurie was looking to invest. Mr. Wonderful was looking to invest and they’re very successful product today. So, I don’t know how much… Maybe if everyone is against them.

Garrett: Yeah. I understand.

Brady: Like the whole panel is like,” Why are you here?”

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: “Thisis BS.” Then I bet it does. It’s a bad ad to your point.

Garrett: And I think the other part of the ad too is I think if you’re going to go on Shark Tank, now I don’t watch it as much as you, it appears, but I have seen my fair share of episodes.

Brady: I haven’t seen it in a while where kind of like you’re watching all these repeat episodes. So, we took a break, but I think we’re ready to dive back in.

Garrett: I’ve probably seen 10 episodes before.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: Probably watched 10 episodes. All right. I want to say I’ve not watched it at all, but you I’ve watched it in years.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But one of the things I thought was really interesting about it was every one of those investors on the panel is incredibly niche, in the sense that Mark does tag.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Damon does apparel.

Brady: Fashion.

Garrett: Fashion.

Brady: Watch QBC.

Garrett: You have Laurie. Exactly. Mr. Wonderful screws you with royalty deals. Love you brother, but just want perspective from me.

Brady: I don’t know Barb does.

Garrett: What does Barb do?

Brady: She’s my least favorite.

Garrett: I think Barb invests…

Brady: I think she’s the most successful.

Garrett: …Mostly in women. I think Barb mostly invests in women on there and I think she’s most integrated to it all. I think she spends a lot of time with her, but I can’t remember. I’ve genuinely, probably only seen 10, but I did see her doing interview with a podcast I like. So, they’ve all been on podcast I listen to.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: So, I’ve learned more about Shark Tank through their lens.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: If that makes sense? Through podcast interviews with the investors. But I think if I were to go on Shark Tank and I think most people do it this way, hopefully if they’re serious, is they already know who they’re trying to get the money from. And they’re looking for more than the money. In other words, I think the point of Shark Tank is yeah, there’s an ad, but my point of how much does Mark really help? Well, I’d argue if mark doesn’t help, if it’s outside of his passion, I’d say all of them the best way to get an investor to help you is when it aligns with their passion now with their money.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Right. Nobody’s out there like,” Oh, let me get an extra three grand as a billionaire.”

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So I think for them, a lot of it’s going to be more about what they care about passion, having a rapport, emotional connection with them all. But let’s say you go on Shark Tank, Brady…

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: …And you do this as a one type thing. How do you think people can get more leverage on it post Shark Tank? Because I get a lot of Instagram ads where people do that, but I haven’t got that recently. I feel like that was a hot thing to do. I don’t even know if you’re allowed to do that. I mean, lately I haven’t seen anyone be as featured in Shark Tank kind of ad recently.

Brady: Yeah. I’ve seen it.

Garrett: Okay. It still comes up.

Brady: I think they still do it.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: I’ve done some because we’ve had some clients where their competitors were on Shark Tank and I remember seeing their episode. And so, I was in Google trends and looking at search volume spikes.

Garrett: Is it serious?

Brady: Oh yeah. It’s when the episode airs and their segment is on, search volume goes through the roof.

Garrett: It’s like the product time bump but on steroids.

Brady: Yeah. So, there’s definitely a strategy from that.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Right.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: What’s your retargeting strategy specifically for that hour when it’s airing? Having your own audience built just for that.

Garrett: Okay. So, instead of leveraging Shark Tank as a clip, leveraging Shark Tank as an experience for their audience.

Brady: Just as a traffic source…

Garrett: Yeah, exactly.

Brady: …Where you would think like, oh, you can’t track it because it’s TV, but it’s such a big spike to where you can just take that audience and probably say,” Well, 90% of that traffic came from watching that episode.”

Garrett: So, essentially what you could do is you could build a list. So, if you’re going to be on Shark Tank, this is a tactic, you could theoretically build an audience list of all your direct traffic and all your organic traffic from that day, correct?

Brady: Yeah. From the day or probably from the day, I don’t know if you can do the day partying down to when…

Garrett: Well, you could do source, right? Because Shark Tank, I’m sure, has are on social, so you could also do anything that was sourced medium, like let’s say social media and then that account or that channel, right?

Brady: Yeah. And then I think to your point, the content from the show I have seen used as an ad.

Garrett: And you could probably get the rerun schedule from the network. So, you could probably see every day they’re going to rerun it.

Brady: Oh yeah. You’re going to know when…

Garrett: Yeah. So, then you could essentially run ads on the rerun days too.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: See, that’d be kind of clever.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I like that.

Brady: And it is big. I remember when I looked it up, I was actually surprised, especially given the product was kind of, it was for daycare software.

Garrett: Yeah. I think you hit me up and you’re like,” Bro, we got to get on Shark Tank or something.”

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Because I think you saw… Oh that was for…

Brady: It was for Bright Wheel.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Was on Shark Tank.

Garrett: Yeah. My kids actually use ProCare now. How crazy is that?

Brady: Oh cool.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Yeah. My sister, she was telling me all the tech in her daycare or preschool they’re at and I forget the name of it, wasn’t like ProCare or Bright Wheel.

Garrett: Okay. It’s fun. When we get to come across our clients, reps, customers, and real life and use their products.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: That’s always the best. Well, here’s mine.

Brady: Yeah. You showed me earlier, but I’d love to hear the explanation for the audio crowd.

Garrett: I’m going to do another bad radio segment. So, buckle up fan. I love explaining ads.

Brady: This one’s easier than that Ford commercial.

Garrett: Well, okay. So, there’s two parts to this kind of advertising jealousy. One of them is just the ad that I love. And the second is why I love it and what we should think about as marketers. So, the ad that I love is a McDonald’s ad. It’s a billboard. I actually love billboards because the amount of canvas you get. Now I think Facebook did drop their text requirements. So, you…

Brady: Like the text on the image?

Garrett: Yeah, exactly. So, it can be more than 15% of whatever it was before.

Brady: That was stupid.

Garrett: So, now you had a lot more creative freedom, but I think one of the issues historically with digital and why creative has become less, maybe impactful in the digital medium is there’s so many restrictions around what you can do in the ad. How big the ad is, right? When you do a little tiny corner display ad, it’s kind of hard to do things that are overly creative. I’m not saying you can’t. Now we shouldn’t use that as an excuse, but it’s different than a billboard. It’s a lot of space to grab attention and do something creative. So, what McDonald’s did is they essentially use the sun to create a shadow then the ad essentially shows different items of food you can order at different times of the day. And then the actual billboard has a sun dial on it. And so, the shadow will go over at what time you can order that food. And I thought that was such a creative like…

Brady: It was all breakfast, right?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It wasn’t leading up to 11: 00 AM.

Garrett: Yeah, it was it’s six to 11 and it shows…

Brady: So, it’s just all a breakfast reminder?

Garrett: Yeah. It’s like a reminder to order breakfast at McDonald’s.

Brady: And the ad is only naturally live during the breakfast hour…

Garrett: Yeah. Six to 11.

Brady: …Which is cool.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Even at night, it’s still up there, but it’s not functioning.

Garrett: Yeah. But you don’t realize it’s not functioning. It’s still a cool ad. So, it works all day, but then it has this extra pop…

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: …During the day.

Brady: It makes you want to see it when it’s live.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Naturally.

Garrett: It’s a really creative ad.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I love it. Then y’all can check it out. We’ll post it on the show notes and y’all can see it on our social media. So, we’ll share that so y’all can check it out, but essentially it’s a McDonald’s billboard app. Now, what I love about it and what we talked about with psychology and marketing of creative ads are more memorable. Creative ads get more leverage. So, what I loved about this concept, isn’t the billboard, but all the additional media you can get from promoting a creative ad.

Brady: Yeah. Because you saw it through a time lapse video of it.

Garrett: From a guy who’s got a bunch of followers on Twitter.

Brady: From Twitter, then posted on Instagram.

Garrett: Correct. My point being is advertising that’s uniquely creative creates amplification beyond what you think it is. And I actually want to do this for Directive. Imagine the most provocative, crazy ad we could do in Silicon Valley on a billboard and what if the billboard wasn’t the value of the ad?

Brady: Yeah. It’s just postal kind of…

Garrett: Exactly.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: What if the billboard was a medium for re- sharing on social as well as media like PR publications re- sharing it, like ad week. For example, ad week is going to run a campaign or an ad and do a whole content around this McDonald’s billboard. I guarantee you, if you search ad week, McDonald’s billboard…

Brady: Like sun dial…

Garrett: Sun dial.

Brady: …Breakfast, yeah.

Garrett: You’re going to probably see an article from ad week on this campaign. My point being is does everyone eat McDonald’s? If we’re all being honest, does everyone?

Brady: I mean I do.

Garrett: Everybody loves McDonald’s.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I think at some point we all want a bacon, egg McGriddle. Let’s just be real for a second, I don’t care what your diet is.

Brady: I had it on Thursday.

Garrett: Yeah. I mean…

Brady: By the airport.

Garrett: …Who didn’t on Thursday?

Brady: Yeah, right. Come one.

Garrett: My point being is some products don’t need to get their… We always think about ads as like, well how much revenue is the billboard going to drive? How do we track billboards?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: It all becomes about like, oh, well how’s the Facebook ad working. Well, how much value did that Facebook ad drive? Everything somehow became because it’s trackable, only things that directly attributed and are directly trackable become valuable in today’s marketing. And it’s such a dumb way as marketers for us to think about articulating our brand story and creating value is like the only way my company is valuable with the campaign is if that campaign directly influenced revenue and that is completely shortsighted and not accurate.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, that’s kind of why I love this one is because it was so dang creative yet, yet I think it was a very clear call to action.

Garrett: Yes. It’s a great ad still as a billboard.

Brady: I’m sure the local McDonald’s around that billboard saw an increase…

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: …In breakfast orders.

Garrett: Guaranteed.

Brady: I think it was that sweet balance of super creative yet…

Garrett: Functional.

Brady: …Very clear and functional telling you when the breakfast hours are in a very creative way.

Garrett: And so, the billboard works as a billboard is kind of what you’re saying. So, the billboard works as a billboard, but it’s so creatively executed that it gets its amplification and its success from being more than just the billboard.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And that’s what advertising and marketing should be. Your marketing and advertising should be so good that it works for things. It creates buzz outside of its direct application.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, that was the Coinbase Super Bowl.

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: It actually live during the commercial break was just a moment of that ad.

Garrett: It was so shocking. It was so…

Brady: The impressions afterwards, I’d be curious if the reach on social post, how much further it went from the initial reactions.

Garrett: And then you had the woman who ran the ad agency that created it. And then the CEO, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, saying that his team did it despite the agency and her saying actually in slide 87 and she kept the receipts. I love it. And she was standing up for her whole industry when the CEO tried to take credit for his own team, which I mean, it’s kind of his job. It’s fine. But that still then got us talking about Coinbase.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, it’s kind of the ripple effects of what great creative advertising can do for your business is so much more than just what it is. And I think all of us, I think we get this unsexy gorilla marketing or one of the cool campaigns that I can use is advertising jealous in the future, but instead of someone sponsoring Dreamforce, they bought a blimp and flew it all around Dreamforce instead of sponsoring the event and it was way cheaper. That’s stuff I love, not only because all the attendees are now talking about it and looking at the blimp. So, now it’s the best ad at Dreamforce.

Brady: Posting it everywhere I’m sure.

Garrett: But now it’s getting posted everywhere on social and all the media who cover this kind of stuff is also writing about it. So, now you get the promotion, not just the ad, ad plus organic promotion to me is goaded, that’s the best.

Brady: Yeah. It’s probably all because you know how the conferences have their own app…

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: With their own social feed. I’m sure the blimp was just everywhere.

Garrett: It was everywhere and they didn’t pay a darn cent to Salesforce.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And that’s the dream. And by the way, I got to talk about that one. We got to break that campaign down because it’s such a…

Brady: I didn’t even know about it. I don’t look it up.

Garrett: Well, this is definition of what great marketing should be. It’s not playing by the rules. So, what are the rules? Well, you got to get a booth. You got to do this. You got to do that. Scan everybody’s card, build a crappy list, then send them unwanted email so you can try to prove you monetize the event, or buy a blimp and make everybody jealous that they didn’t think about it.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: That to me is what great marketing’s all about. And yeah, that’s advertising jealousy. All right. Let’s talk marketing and culture, Brady.

Brady: Let’s do it. What do you got for us?

Garrett: Okay. So, you know how white papers stinks?

Brady: Like they actually smell?

Garrett: I guess it depends on the company. You know how…

Brady: Yeah. Gated content blog posts that are put behind a form.

Garrett: You’ve had a work, you’re drawing up a nice, you got some bubbles in there and you normally read a book, but you’re feeling a little…

Brady: You’re going to risk it and you’re going to bring the iPad in the bath.

Garrett: Yeah. You’re feeling a little romantic today. So, you’re going to pull out a white paper. You know what I mean? You know how nobody really reads them. So, it’s this marketing that’s self serving because essentially what people do is they’re like,” I need to get my MQLS up. I launch white paper and gate it.” But then if you ask a very simple question like,” Have you ever read it yourself?” Nine times out of 10, the marketing manager has never actually read the white paper.

Brady: Yeah. And I feel like the more attractive it is in terms of wanting to read it, the further it usually is from the product.

Garrett: Correct. And what my point is there’s about, let’s say, five years, let’s call it… I’m going to give this a little timeline.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: So, this is where the topic comes from. There’s like a five year window of when we’re doing a marketing campaign that we still think it’s working, yet it’s become entirely socially, culturally irrelevant and we don’t pivot from it. In other words, I would argue white papers are now considered bad marketing.

Brady: Yeah. Do you still think there’s room for it to be done very, very well to where it’s like maybe the strategy as a whole is dying out, yet a couple people could still do it well for maybe a longer period of time?

Garrett: Yeah. I do think you can make white papers phenomenal. The question is, could you create a business case where the customer acquisition costs, in other words, how much it costs to make the white paper phenomenal, you can monetize at a three to one ratio after considering your gross margin, which makes it a lot harder? So, my point being of all this, Brady, is more like, do white papers work? Yes. Can you efficiently create white papers? No, I don’t believe so.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I don’t know if, because of how much effort it takes to do a truly great white paper and then how undesirable the process of consuming it is, I don’t know if the equation ever works. And I think it’s been that way for more than five years. I would argue it might have been that way for 10 years, but only now are marketers realizing. So, my point of this conversation is what I would say is generational relevancy. In other words, time moves so fast. When did TikTok launch? Three years ago? Two years ago?

Brady: Yeah. I’d say it got hot within the last three years. I don’t know when it launched.

Garrett: Correct. Yet, do you have a TikTok?

Brady: I do.

Garrett: Do you post on it?

Brady: No.

Garrett: So, technically you’re already old. You’re a inaudible.

Brady: Come on.

Garrett: No, but I being real. The thing that…

Brady: Still setting the algo.

Garrett: Ah, come on. Here’s the thing, the thing that allowed us to start Directive at a young age is this thing that will defeat us at Directive at an old age.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: The reason we were able to enter this industry with no background, no experience, no expertise and build a good business was because we were young dynamic and we said white papers were stupid, but what are we doing today that essentially 21 year olds and 22 year olds is say is bad marketing?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And the reason I point that out is I think that’s the biggest threat to marketers. And that’s what I want to talk about is culture moves faster than marketing does right. This segment’s called marketing and culture. So, I think it’d be fun to talk about the fact that culture moves faster than marketing. There’s some people who, like Gary Vee, I wouldn’t say I always like Gary. Okay, let me rephrase. I don’t like Gary Vee’s content. I don’t. I don’t follow him. I don’t consume his content. And now, with all that being said, I think what he does to stay relevant is insane and I respect the crap out of Gary Vee for it. I don’t think I’m his audience either, if we’re being honest. So, I don’t think I’m supposed to like his content, but Gary Vee impresses me so much with how he stays relevant as a marketer with culture. Another person who’s done that exceptionally well, he’s a son of a taboo human, but has done it exceptionally well as Dave Portnoy. The guy launched a TikTok podcast as a complete idiot because he’s that much of an egomaniac, which is fine. But he only did that because he wanted to stay relevant.

Brady: Yeah. It was like the fear of… I feel like that’s what he and Gary have…

Garrett: Oh, he thought he was going to become a dinosaur.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And he couldn’t essentially…

Brady: He called it.

Garrett: Yeah. So, he did that. So, I respect, and he’s a marketer just as much as Gary Vee is. These are some of the most talented marketers frankly of our generation. You don’t have to agree with their values and perspective, right. If you only follow marketers, just as a side note to everybody, if politics is the primary driver of what inspires you as a marketer, you’re probably not going to have the healthiest worldview. You don’t have to agree with someone’s politics or their values to learn from them as a marketer. I want to make sure everybody understands that just because you respect someone as a marketer doesn’t mean you align with their values or that you agree with everything they said, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be inspired by what they do to garnish attention. Because at the end of the day as a marketer, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get humans from apathy to action. We’re trying to get humans to care about our brands, care about our products, care about our services. So, my point here is that I believe the very best marketers in the world know how to stay generationally relevant. And that’s something I’m always trying to do. I got Scarlet helping me with TikTok. I’m not a pro with it. I’m not saying I’m Gary Vee or one of these people, but my point being is we got to stay relevant. I’d love to hear from your perspective, Brady, how do you think we can stay relevant? Is this practical discussion points and then we can get a little bit more kind of heady about it, but how do you think marketers can stay more relevant culturally and on their piece? Especially CMOs, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You’re a 50 year old CMO and the reason you got there is how to manage people, articulate vision, work with the Csuite allocate capital, but you’re also now supposed to be driving great marketing. So, how can CMOs, people who maybe pass the cultural relevance, how can they stay on it?

Brady: Yeah, I think it’s just breaking down, not to oversimplify, but it’s just all communication.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: It’s just mediums of communication, those are our marketing channels. And so, I think it’s just starting at where are people absorbing content? And I like that you brought up TikTok and white papers because just the content in itself, you don’t see millions of views on social media of a 10 scroll type content where it’s just all words on the page with some infographics or illustrations and that’s what a white paper is.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: And so, I think comparing the two, you don’t see that as the modern content.

Garrett: Well, the white paper’s purpose is to articulate the value of what you’re offering.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But you don’t have to do that in a way that’s boring.

Brady: Exactly.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: So, I think it’s being inspired by what’s getting the views, what people are using. I think you and I have talked about it, like why not have a Twitch stream embedded on the homepage of a website?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Why not have your AEs and SDRs just 24/ 7, if not just during local business hours doing live demos on Twitch and have that embedded on your homepage?

Garrett: Imagine if AEs could, I don’t know, you could be on someone’s website, want to get a demo and then you could get the demo in real time.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: We have the technology.

Brady: You could ask question in the chat, just be like,” Hey, can it do this?”” Oh, cool. Thanks for engaging in the chat. Drop me an email. If you want to talk more, let’s set up a call next week.” And that’s using a medium of communication live stream.

Garrett: We should talk now. My point being is all of us are going to be disrupted in our current model of B2B, all of us are.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: The B2B is not consumer centric. If you’re in B2B, it’s very much what is the prospect doing for you? Right. We got to qualify the prospect. Do you think any prospect wants to be qualified? You know how crappy it feels to be qualified?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Think about how on buyer- centric we still are in B2B. That’s what inspires me, Brady, and what gets me going is D2C. I try to follow all the consumer companies because those are the ones on the forefront of marketing. The people who are selling widgets and innovation and new types of products or things. Imagine trying to launch a luggage company right now. I love that, you’re in a commoditized space, how do you be the next away? One of the companies I love is BABOON TO THE MOON. You got to check out their marketing. They’re taking a completely funky different perspective, but drink inaudible, non alcoholic aperitifs delivered to you. But when they do that, they have to create these brands that are sexy and different, instead of B2B where it feels like everything’s designed for approval, not impact. It’s like, what can I get through 14 layers of approval and make sure it looks like every one of my competitors, but I also want to beat them. I don’t understand it, you know what I’m saying?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, how do we use these TikTok and these new mediums and formats, Brady, to bring our brands to life?

Brady: Yeah, I’m trying to think of a social ad I’ve recently seen. I want to say HubSpot did it well to where it was B2B content and it was on social and it was kind of like a micro commercial to where it was two people talking over their cubicles about marketing performance and how at glance they could see how well LinkedIn was doing because of HubSpot, right. And so, they had that type of entertainment, still talking about the product content directly in my Instagram feed and it was done in a way where it seemed like it was kind of a normal real, it just happened to be about HubSpot and it was B2B content. It was people in cubicles talking about LinkedIn performance, which resonate with me. That’s my day to day. That’s my life.

Garrett: Well, and what I think is so hard and I actually fell victim of this and I’m actually, I think trying to grow past it and learn from it is we get the stink of B2B on everything we produce. And what I mean by that is in B2B we feel like, and I’m saying B2B a lot today because Brady and I do mostly B2B right now we do some B2C, but it’s still mostly B2B. We have this stink on us where everything has to be high production and everything has to be on brand and everything has to be at a certain level. But my videos that do the best are just me holding my phone in front of me talking to the screen.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And I think that’s the irony. You kind of get what I’m saying? In B2B I think a lot of people aren’t doing that HubSpot ad because they don’t have a producer. They don’t have a live action video firm.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: They don’t want to hire actors. It’s like, why don’t you just get two employees, pull out a camera and have them talk about something you’re passionate about, that might actually be your highest performing ad. Think about the D2C companies. All their top ads are user generated content. They’re not like random influencers. They’re less known influencers. People who are passionate about their products, who they get to film a raw organic kind of video of their product.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And that raw organic video is outperforming the overproduced over professional, non raw authentic, trustworthy content that I myself have producing for years. So, what do you think about that, Brady? Do you think B2B can become more approachable? Like CEOs in these B2B companies will stop maybe doing green screen interviews and maybe just pull out their phones and talking to it? I mean, Elon Musk is kind of doing that on Twitter.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, that just gets down to the individual. I think it would work for anyone who takes the time to do it. And it depends on the person too. I mean, your following is definitely going to be related to how many people agree with what you are saying when you pull out your phone and you do that, so.

Garrett: Or how many people disagree.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I think B2B is scared of controversy, Brady. I think that’s it. I think B2B wants everyone to like them all the time. And news to everybody, if you say anything that matters, there’s going to be a lot of people who don’t like you.

Brady: Yeah. Having haters means you said something that actually had a stance.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: Because anything where everyone agrees, isn’t the most powerful state.

Garrett: It’s not you’re saying anything.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And I think that’s the problem with B2B. B2B is afraid to have enemies. B2B is afraid to stand for anything. And I think the future of B2B brands and I think the future… And it’s already currently direct to consumer brands. They’re like, think about politics. Think about the brands you like. Almost all of them have some type of polarization of their values and what they stand for and that being polarizing is what drives their following.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And if you read the comments on a lot of these accounts, the vast majority of the comments are negative, yet people take the time to leave a negative comment. So, it’s kind working at the same time, but B2B is terrified. You know what I mean? B2B has to be vanilla, they have to just be basic.

Brady: Yeah. I was actually, and this is maybe another topic, but I was going down a rabbit hole of faith based software.

Garrett: Faith based soft…

Brady: Like Christian…

Garrett: Christian.

Brady: …Based software.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Like PE firm and then this one guy just really wanted to blow up, but be Christian based that got me then looking into the religious views and the political backgrounds of owners of SaaS companies on average. And that just got interesting.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Because it’s kind of to your point, it’s really putting a stance out there. And a lot of these owners are liberal and very clear with their political backgrounds and then you see these other parties now seeing software companies and almost like the fear of their political stances, their religious stances. And now everyone has their software in their pocket, how much are they influencing?

Garrett: I hate that the world’s going to a place though where you have to choose your tribe.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And if you’re in one tribe, you can’t be in another, but that is our world.

Brady: And that tribe is against your tribe thing.

Garrett: Yeah. You can’t just have two tribes, you have to have an enemy tribe. It can’t just be that there’s two tribes. It’s one’s on the right, one’s on the left. There’s no tribe in the middle anymore. But if there is no tribe in the middle, why does B2B refuse to be on the left or the right? And it doesn’t have to be in the left and the right of the common, the rights conservative, the left is liberal. It could be anything that you stand for.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But that’s the key to a brand, right? Is I think a brand has to have an enemy. For me, if I were to start an SEO firm right now, keyword research would be the devil. I would make keyword research yet.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And everything I would do would talk about why volume based content marketing is the dumbest part of SEO today, but also the largest driver of how people do content. How many searches a month this keyword have? What’s its difficulty? That’s what people care about unfortunately.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But what they don’t care about is, could I monetize the query and does my audience resonate with it? Somehow that died when SEO entered the arena. So, SEO ruined content. That’s why nobody reads a blog anymore. I mean, when was the last time you subscribed to a blog and were dying for a blog post to drop?

Brady: Probably unbalanced back in 2015.

Garrett: Okay. So, it’s been since 2015 now let me talk about…

Brady: No, I got one.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: Charts is another one, they do visualization on world events.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: So, it’s recent.

Garrett: So, it’s a blog post or is it visualizations?

Brady: It’s an email subscription now.

Garrett: And it’s image based or word based?

Brady: Both.

Garrett: But it’s a chart?

Brady: Yeah. It’s called Charts. So, they describe it in text and then they do a visualization.

Garrett: Okay. So, it’s not just a inaudible.

Brady: On like Netflix retention rate and how Disney’s passing them up. They would write about that a little bit and then they would show the graph.

Garrett: So, my point being is it’s a creative medium using graphs, not just words.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: And you haven’t read a blog or subscribe to one in approximately eight years? Seven?

Brady: I’ve read blogs, but it’s more like…

Garrett: One off.

Brady: …If somethings broken and I have to troubleshoot.

Garrett: Yet every listener right now, their content strategy is based on what?

Brady: Search volume and blogs.

Garrett: Yet no one reads blogs.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, blogs are the next white paper fam and it’s already happened right now. And we’re all guilty of being generationally behind what actually works. Conversely, Brady, how many videos have you watched in the last day and how many social media accounts do you follow and consume information through that?

Brady: I probably follow 5, 000 across all channels and…

Garrett: And you know who those accounts are and you know when they’re posting, correct? And you’re now part of their kind of community?

Brady: Yes. And I watched YouTube before I went to bed last night.

Garrett: Yet B2B doesn’t care about social organic.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: The world has changed and the B2B marketers and normal marketers are in the past trying to apply legacy tactics to future versions of current consumers.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: We’re all current consumers. We all are a victim of the now yet our tactics are a victim of the past. And we wonder why marketing’s not working. Why we’re not getting the budgets we want. Why we don’t feel like we have a seat at the table. Why we’re not getting respected. Well, because you’re generationally dated already. I’m 30 years old and I’m already behind because everything I did when I was 22 years old, doesn’t work anymore. Yet 90% of the tactics I’m doing are still from when I’m 22 years old. Yet we haven’t adjusted our playbooks. We haven’t learned new skills. We’re sheep that are stuck in the old ways and that to me is kind of depressing. You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But it’s factual. Most all of what we’re doing has stopped working, yet we’re just squeezing the last little juice out of that lemon. So, what does the future look like, Brady? How do we future proof ourselves, right? We have TikTok coming up. We’ve got a lot of audio being integrated to marketing. If you think about it, you get really inaudible for a second. You’ve got audio.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You’ve got entertainment.

Brady: I mean, LinkedIn is so massive.

Garrett: LinkedIn’s massive.

Brady: It’s always interesting to see the posts that have the 200,000 likes on it.

Garrett: Have you cried recently on LinkedIn?

Brady: I haven’t done that yet. I’ve been like…

Garrett: Did you see that?

Brady: Yeah. I’ve been seeing that. It’s like people are mocking it, I guess is a thing.

Garrett: Yeah. Brady, you probably thought it was brilliant. inaudible.

Brady: I saw a few of them and I was reading their stance on it and the comments, I couldn’t really figure out the angle. What is it just making fun of people who are laying off employees and posting themselves crying about it?

Garrett: Yeah. So, the CEO essentially fired all these people and essentially the pushback on him was instead of posting a list of all the people that got let go and helping them get new jobs, he made it about himself.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: Essentially the reason he got roasted.

Brady: Like how hard it was for…

Garrett: Him.

Brady: …Him to do it.

Garrett: And now it’s all part of his clinical personal brand, except some guys, maybe and gals and individual people get a little hardcore sometimes on making it about themselves when it really shouldn’t be and that’s kind of what he got it.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: Because the inverse has been anti macho masculinity. And so, it’s swung, unfortunate, all the way around the other pendulum where now the CEO cries publicly and everybody mocks them. So, there’s still that reality, if that makes sense?

Brady: Yeah. So, I guess my point is all the viral LinkedIn content seems so separated from…

Garrett: Reality.

Brady: …Business that they’re trying to grow, but it is just crazy to see the traction on LinkedIn. And I just don’t really fully understand the culture.

Garrett: inaudible.

Brady: Yet in the time I spend on it and I see what blows up, I see what doesn’t.

Garrett: The LinkedIn news feeds a dumpster fire of just completely useful information.

Brady: Oh yeah. That was going to be my point, none of it is useful.

Garrett: Then how can people do useful content that’s still engaging, Brady? What does that look like instead?

Brady: I think you need people who want it. I don’t know if that’s the gap.

Garrett: Maybe we just don’t like that kind of content.

Brady: Well, that’s what the majority of people, would they actually spend time, whether it’s through visualizations or really well thought out bullet points, if someone actually did meaningful LinkedIn content, how many people actually take action on it?

Garrett: Not many, I don’t even have the figures.

Brady: Even though they say they want it, right?

Garrett: I mostly create meaningful LinkedIn content that doesn’t get a ton of traction.

Brady: You’ll talk to a marketer…

Garrett: Teach me Brady.

Brady: …And they’d be like,” Oh yeah. If I saw that I’d be on my laptop right next to me, I’d be doing it.” They’ll say they want it, but how many people just actually…

Garrett: People just want vibes, Brady.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: People just want to be entertained. They don’t want to call to action, they want to call to share. In other words, they want something to make fun of. They want something to laugh at.

Brady: Read the comments.

Garrett: They want something to read the comments. They want to watch the world burn. People want to be entertained yet. Most of us are scared to death to entertain. So, is there a way to educationally entertain? To me it’s video, you got to go to video.

Brady: Yeah. Video, proving it, right? I think proving performance, we’re talking marketing. And you want to talk about something that you want someone to try, showing how well it worked being realistic with it, talking about the pitfalls of it. So, making it not seem perfect.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Because I think people often just think,” Oh, that’s too good to be true.” And they’ll come up with all their personal excuses, why wouldn’t work for them. So, I think being realistic with that too. But it still happens like every now and then I do see things even talking with their teams.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Like they were going to pitch Max performance. I’m like,” Well, how’s it work?” And the guy I was talking to opened up an account and they had the pipeline imported in, the Max performance campaign had SQLs. I’m like,” Oh shit.” I was reading about it in B2B and it not just being there yet and then someone on our team is showing me his performance behind it. I was like,” That’s cool.” Now I know I’m going to look into it to then bring it into the sales process.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: So, it happens, it doesn’t blow up. But maybe that’s what you’re talking about with search volume, the high search volume is too good to be true.

Garrett: Yeah. But do things need to blow up to work, Brady? I think is the kind of the inaudible.

Brady: Yeah, that was kind of the point I caught myself in is I always tell clients, especially in B2B…

Garrett: Yeah. Because you know human nature, if it doesn’t blow up, it didn’t work, right?

Brady: Yeah. You want low search volume.

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: The reality is you don’t have a huge market.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: There’s not that many people searching for… inaudible.

Garrett: You need the right people in your market because those are the ones you monetize. Yet if you do something that only gets 20 views, you’re like,”Oh my God, it only got 20 views.” Even though if you got the right 20 views, it’s better than… inaudible.

Brady: It’s 10 of the right people.

Garrett: 2000 of the wrong.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, I think that helps, right? So as a note, I think one of the ways to get more creative with your content is to worry less about the volume it gets and more about the impact it has.

Brady: That’s where we’re just programmed to get the likes and we don’t feel like we’re successful if it doesn’t get the views and the likes.

Garrett: You got to get that double mean drip, right?

Brady: So, it’s just crazy how that almost programming social media has done for us can be leading strategies in the wrong direction because you’re just fighting for the wrong thing.

Garrett: Yeah, no. And I look at TikTok, and I think the thing about TikTok that really was the biggest shift to me is entertainment as a source of information is definitely I think the new media. If you think about it, what does well on social today is first and foremost entertaining and secondarily educational.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And I think we have to figure out how do we entertain people first and educate them second. Think about a white paper, a white paper is the least entertaining form of content.

Brady: Yeah. You’re crossing your finger someone’s going to go out of their way for you… inaudible.

Garrett: And just, you know what want to do? Just really elevate my knowledge train.

Brady: Let’s see how good this writer is.

Garrett: So my point being is, if you think about what’s not working and what works the worst right now, it’s the least entertaining and the things that work the best… Like Tim’s TikTok videos for Directive. Tim does our content, if you haven’t seen it, check out Tim Davidson, he’s on TikTok, he’s on LinkedIn. He provides a load of entertainment.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: He’s hilarious, but he also is educational and informational. And I think a lot of B2B brands are afraid to be entertaining because they think it comes across childish and maybe lowers their value. I think it makes you stand out.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But you got to be able to be different. If you’re trying to do what everybody else is doing, I think you’re going to struggle to be entertaining.

Brady: Yeah. And he’s taken an extreme stance, I think, on entertainment to where it’s very entertaining to our target market. All of his jokes are around B2B and software.

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: And The G3 quadrant and all of his little jokes and it’s to the point where it can be nothing close to our products, but it’s so entertaining where people go,” Where does this guy work?”

Garrett: Yeah, I have to see this.

Brady: “Who is this guy? Oh, he works at Directive. What is that?” And now they see the brand.

Garrett: And now they’re like,” Oh, they sell marketing. I’m jealous.” Right.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: My whole premise of marketing to marketers is the best way to market to a marketer is make them jealous of your marketing, right? If you ever sell to marketers and that’s your audience, my audience is marketers, I want to make them jealous. The more jealous I can make a marketer, the more they are inspired to trust me with their marketing.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, what’s that thing for you, right? What does your audience need to truly feel like you’re the best for them? And I’d argue entertaining them, probably been pretty big part of it these days.

Brady: Yeah. And I think it’s a lot closer to the lifestyle brands. It’s like, I need this in my life. Like how a lot of their advertisement is just creating those thoughts on…

Garrett: I don’t think lifestyle works anymore either though. I feel like that’s becoming legacy and dated. I feel like the only people…

Brady: Yeah, there’s too much assumption.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: I think lifestyle, they don’t do it right. Maybe they do need to be more niche because I think in lifestyle marketing, they still look for volume.

Garrett: It’s always luxury. It’s always a guy on a boat or something. The problem with that, to me, is it feels played out. I feel like that lifestyle marketing is in B2C, is just white papers and B2B. I feel like it’s played out. Think about what works out at UGC, it’s not lifestyle.

Brady: Yeah. Because that’s an individual person.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: I feel like lifestyle, they just go after these massive segments like,” Okay. Our lifestyle brand is urban.”

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: “So, we’re going to try to resonate with everyone who might fall into an urban category.” And it just ends up being, I don’t know, some stock footage, assuming what people like and what they’re into and I think it doesn’t hit.

Garrett: I know, instead the best ones we’re doing is like,” Okay, I’m going to get the biggest influencer in the urban space, make them a partner so that they get upside on their promotion. And then we’re going to promote the crap out of this together.” Think Nike business model, think Beats by Dre, think any of the trillion tequila slash vodka slash gin brands from famous actors or actresses lately. Like that, to me, the future is more along UGC and influencers, yet this legacy feel of lifestyle with random models wearing your product is, to me, a thing in the past, yet everyone’s still doing it. Just like everyone’s still creating eBooks and white papers. Somehow we need to figure out how to stay alert. So, is there anything the listeners can do as a way of, how can you tell if your marketing’s from the past and you’re not with the future? What’s a way to, if you’re listening right now, Brady, what’s a way in your mind for a listener to assess their own campaigns or their own marketing asks themselves if they’re in the future, if they’re in the past?

Brady: Yeah. I think you can always start with yourself and then even your peers and try to get in touch with other generations. Like my cousin, I mean, she’s getting older now. She’s 22, but I always loved asking her like…

Garrett: You sound so ridiculous right now.

Brady: …What music are you listening to? She didn’t know who, she knew Beyonce, she didn’t know Destiny’s Child and that’s when it blew my mind. I’m like,” Okay, we’re different.”

Garrett: I love Destiny’s Child.

Brady: Yeah. She had no idea who Destiny’s Child is. She didn’t know’Say my name’, the song.

Garrett: I’m not going to sing it, but I almost did.

Brady: Yeah. I was driving her. I’m like,” What are you talking?” So anyway, I do seeing like are you on TikTok? Are you on Instagram? Do you still do Snapchat? What are your friends doing?

Garrett: Where is she? What is she on?

Brady: I think she’s on all of them, but we talked about the trends that happen to. I’m like,” You actually do these?” And she’s like,” Yeah. I had a PowerPoint party with all my friends in colleague.”

Garrett: What’s that?

Brady: So, PowerPoint party is a thing where you have girlfriends over or guys could do it too.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: And they each make a PowerPoint. So, one PowerPoint would be…

Garrett: Sounds like a horrible party.

Brady: …Would be how many drinks it would take for me to break up with my ex’s. And so, a girl would come to a party with that PowerPoint.

Garrett: Oh, that’s kind of funny.

Brady: And have you seen the charcuterie board parties where it’s like…

Garrett: I’ve been to parties inaudible.

Brady: No, it’s different themes.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: So, someone will bring a Chick- fil- A board and just a board filled with Chick- fil- A. The other one would bring a chalkboard drink board.

Garrett: Oh, okay.

Brady: I was like,” Do you actually do this stuff?” And she’s like,” Yeah. My friends and I, we see it on social media and… inaudible.”

Garrett: And they’re like I got to be a sheep. Just kidding.

Brady: I know. They’re like,” Yeah, this seems fun.” To where I see it, I’m like,” Oh, that’s cool that people out there do that and the video’s kind of entertain me and like that PowerPoint party is hilarious.”

Garrett: I have to be an independent thinker, I can’t do things because everyone else is doing it. So, I feel like I’m the opposite of this.

Brady: Yeah. So no, that’s where I…

Garrett: That’s why I need help.

Brady: …That’s why I talk to her. I’m like,’Do you actually do that? Or is this just something where you just see it online…”

Garrett: You’re just assuming it’s a social trend.

Brady: …And you’re 22 and you don’t do it either?” And she’s like,” Yeah, we do that.”

Garrett: Okay. So, culture’s changed. People are way more communal, people are more collective. My point being is the first way you’re trying to stay relevant, is you’re asking yourself, what do I do?

Brady: What are you doing?

Garrett: Correct. Second way is talking to younger people and asking them,” What are you enjoying? What are you liking? How are you consuming information?” In other words, when we get older, all our friends are older and we essentially create our own little bubble where we still think X marketing is working because us and all of our friends our age still do X marketing when it really should be Y marketing. It should be more of this other type of marketing and we’re not staying relevant. What other tips do you have?

Brady: Yeah. I think if you know people who even have a younger generations as their target market, I think it would be fascinating to talk to them because that’s their world, right? We’re talking…

Garrett: That’s what I do.

Brady: Yeah. We’re talking B2B. So, we’re talking the generations of workforces and how decision makers are being replaced with younger generations, but there’s also companies where that’s just their target market.

Garrett: Well, it makes me a weirdo, but I try to follow all the new influencers.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I talk to my wife about it too. I’m just like,” Baby, I got to follow these people and I’m going to tell you all about it.” And I try to follow like, oh, what is Addison Ray doing to build a following?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Because that’s exponentially more relevant to me as a marketer than trying to figure out what LeBron’s doing with his social. The people of my generation, we all know what we’re doing and we all really didn’t grow up with a lot of these approaches and a lot of the social, I didn’t get an Instagram until junior year of college. Now kids are getting stuff probably middle school at this point.

Brady: Well, some of them, their parents manage it, but they have one because their friends have it, yet the parents manage it.

Garrett: I’ve heard about that too.

Brady: When they turn 13, they pass the keys to the Instagram.

Garrett: Yeah. Our parents thought they were innovative by getting us an email. They got us to savings.

Brady: I didn’t have the that.

Garrett: Right. We used to get savings accounts as kids. Now people get social media accounts at their 16th birthday or whatever.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: It’s a whole new world and my point being is the only way we stay relevant as marketers and don’t become, you know the clueless CMO that we all hate? We’re all about to become the clueless CMO that we all hate. The like,” Oh, what’s that thing? Oh, explain it to me there, sunny.” Like that person, they stink, but we’re already becoming that person. I think we all have to fight that to stay relevant, to make sure our campaigns resonate with future generations to understand what the future generations care about. But I think as marketers, and I hear it all the time and it me off, will do things like,” Oh yeah, I’m not on TikTok or I’m not on this. Yeah, I don’t really care about that.”

Brady: It’s like a flex.

Garrett: It’s a flex.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Yeah. We think we’re better than the next generation, yet don’t realize that that generation is going to make us all unemployed.

Brady: Yeah. I don’t need digital, the product’s that good.

Garrett: Yeah. The products are… Or whatever. You know what I’m saying? We’re going to become unemployed and replaced by future generations like every other generation before us, yet we somehow flex on our own stupidity as if it’s some type of badge of honor to be better than the future?

Brady: Because it could be working in that moment. There’s moments where…

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: …You don’t need TikTok yet, you don’t need Instagram yet.

Garrett: No.

Brady: You’re fine and they celebrate that.

Garrett: And then one day you wake up and you need it.

Brady: The competitor did it and you’re gone.

Garrett: And you can’t have it because almost everything has a first move or advantage.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So, the party already started, you show up the alcohol’s gone.

Brady: Now you’re a copycat.

Garrett: There’s no food and there’s just a crappy… You know like when you go to a party and they just forgot to get appetizer and they bought one of those circle vegetable trays out of Ralphs?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Where it’s got broccoli and carrots? What’s left by the time we wake up.

Brady: The lays crumbles.

Garrett: Yeah. There’s just crumbles at the bottom of a chip bag and then there’s like carrots and blue cheese. That’s all that’s left.

Brady: Onion dips a little watery.

Garrett: Yeah. It’s watery. It’s at the bottom.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Five layer dip has half a layer left, but that’s reality. We show up cause we’re so cool and we’re so experienced and we’re so smart and the party’s already over and we’re left eating carrots. And I think that’s just hopefully a takeaway for everyone is how do you stay relevant? Hopefully this will give you some ideas, right? You can ask yourself, what do I actually like to consume now? And does my marketing reflect that? What are the younger generations doing? Is it relevant? And then what are the most famous people that are in their twenties doing to build their notoriety? And if you put that all together, I think you’re going to walk away with a deeper understanding of how to stay relevant generationally in your marketing.

Brady: Yeah. Go watch Twitch.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Buy an NFT and get yourself an Oculus. That’s the call to action.

Garrett: Jeez. Oh my gosh. I know. I can’t hate on it, but I want to hate on that so bad right now.

Brady: It’s crazy.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: It’s something to think about. I like the fear. I think that’s the port knowing the Gary Vee… inaudible.

Garrett: Yeah. They don’t want to be replaced.

Brady: And so, they look into it and they… inaudible.

Garrett: Yeah. They don’t want to lose their relevancy.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: They don’t want to become the irrelevant person who’s just talking to people their age.

Brady: Yeah. I think Gary Vee said he woke up one morning, didn’t know anything about NFTs and he went to bed like that and now he knew a lot about it.

Garrett: Yep.

Brady: I think it that’s the mindset to have is…

Garrett: Got to stay curious.

Brady: …We got the internet.

Garrett: Yep.

Brady: We got Google, look it up.

Garrett: I love that.

Brady: Figure it out.

Garrett: I love it. Well, that’s original marketing. Subscribe, leave us five star reviews. Any other call to action, Brady?

Brady: We’ll see you next week.

Garrett: See you next week. Thanks everybody.