Latest / Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast / SBP 218: The Barber's Brief - The Shelf Life of Competitive Advantage

Transcript

SBP 218: The Barber's Brief - The Shelf Life of Competitive Advantage · Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Barber Podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: If you're new around here, I gotta hear people in back.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: What?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: What are you saying?
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's right, that's right.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We're going virally.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: We're doing it.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: We're doing it.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome back to the Sleeping Barber Podcast.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: If you're new around here, Mark and I, every couple of weeks like to do this segment called The Barber's Brief, where we like to break down the articles that kind of caught our attention over the last couple weeks.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: The good, the bad, the ugly, definitely like to cover the overhyped.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and before we close, we always like to wrap things up with an out-of-the-week.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Amid all the dashboards that we love spending so much time in.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: The great creative, the great creative or great creative still deserves a spotlight.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Mark, good morning.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: How are you, my friend?
0:48
SPEAKER_01: I am good Vasilis.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: I've got a whole bunch of family over from first for Stampede.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: So I've got like six kids sleeping in the background, which is why we started doing ESOs.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna kick us off here.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I have the first story.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: The title is Did Netflix Break the Habit It Created Itself?
1:11
SPEAKER_00: So I found this on TechCrunch.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And one of the more fascinating articles, I think, in some time that I've kind of come around this because it was almost like a a shift of behavior.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: If and and you and I are both Gen X, we consumed TV a very specific way or cable TV and growing up.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: But Netflix didn't just popularize binge watching, they fundamentally changed how consumers consume television, right?
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Dropping an entire season at once was their competitive advantage.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: It differentiated them from traditional TV and it helped redefine the streaming industry.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, it's like I can just sit down and watch all the episodes today.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to wait, yeah, just get it done, right?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: But today, Netflix is isn't competing with cable anymore.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: It's competing with TikTok, YouTube, Reels, even micro drama apps, which where stories unfold, two-minute episodes, attention itself has become the competitor.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: So what struck me wasn't whether Netflix should release episodes weekly or all at once, it was the broader strategic lesson.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the thing that makes you successful can become the thing that holds you back.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Clay Christensen called this the innovator's dilemma.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Organizations become optimized around yesterday's advantage.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: And even as the market starts shifting around them.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: So as marketers, we should probably ask ourselves a very similar question.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: What assumptions are we still holding on to because they worked five or ten years ago?
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's our channel mix, maybe it's our measurement framework, maybe it's even our creative process.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: A lot of these things are embedded in the how we think and how we work.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we don't realize that we're doing it.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, it could also just maybe be it's binge watching.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: So if we bring it back to like the Netflix side, the lesson isn't that you know Netflix actually got it wrong.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: The lesson is that competitive advantages have a shelf life.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: So the best brands aren't just good at building them, they're willing to reinvent them before the market forces them to.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: So, Mark, this got me thinking.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: When does a competitive advantage stop being an advantage, in your opinion?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Loaded question for this.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, V.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Nice to hear from you too.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: You guys are tough question.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's there's a lot of case studies.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've talked about Tesla, we've talked about Blockbuster, Netflix is a good example now, Kodak.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's all these brands that are like epic case studies of exactly when moments become that are competitive advantages because become a disadvantage.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: In a lot of ways, they they lock in that thinking, which you talked about before.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think you have to anticipate the moves in the market.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: You see signals.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Weird things.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think part of the reason for testing and learning is is that because my kids started watching shows.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: I forget the name of the show they watch all the time.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: But there's one show that they watch all the time, but this like female cleaner who is now a detective, she's wicked smart.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: I forget the name of it.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it comes out once a week, and they love that it comes out once a week.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: And and it was weird.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: And so I think if you start doing stuff like that and you see that kind of reaction from people, then you can start playing around with it.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to go all in all at once until the very end when you're saying like a Kodak where you realize, well, maybe digital is gonna be a thing.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Oops.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a really tricky one because then it you have to rewire your whole business model in some cases.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Like remember, Roger Martin talked to us about the the uh dry powder for Tide and moving over to liquid.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Like they had to completely reformat their entire production facility.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: That that's one example that actually came to mind when I when I was thinking about this, but I think it's time and time again, and I think we we used to say this a lot more uh earlier on, is this is why like consumer insights become really important.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: And we know usually in moments of recession or things become more difficult, a lot of those surveys they it you know, they get cut from the business where you can start anticipating some of these new habits or some of these new changes.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it it's important that's that's the pulse that you need to get, but you also have to be very, very willing to you know look at something and say, hey, let's let's start dipping our toes here because this could come up and uh you know bite us in the butt.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Totally agree.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: All right.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: What did you find?
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Well, just on that note, too, we have we we are gonna have an interview on later this year on innovation and the process around innovation.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: So I think that'll be really interesting to kind of bring back that idea.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: We should make a note about it.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Great point.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Great point.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Really interesting article about like I was looking for something about AI that I thought would be kind of fun.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: And sort of what's old is new again, I would say that Reddit is fighting AI slot with AI, and and the part that I think is so interesting.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Good AI, bad AI.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: So they're using AI to fight j AI generated spam, and it's exists because so many brands are trying to game the AI chatbots.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: And and so ChatGPT and Gemini pull from Reddit, as everybody knows.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, not just those, but all the other LLMs.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: And it reads Reddit feeds because they think it's real and unfiltered and and opinion-based.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Marketers noticed, marketers being marketers, we try and put them in things as quickly as we can.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: And so there's this whole practice GEO, uh, generative engine optimizations that emerge.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: It's we started planting posts on Reddit, and so that we can get cited by the chatbots, and it looks like organic word of mouth, but it really is the same key playbook, and this is the oldest new part again, as the keyword stuffing in the early days of SCS.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: So game the algorithm, cut the traffic, and then just wait till you get caught and they change the rules.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: And so then just read rinse and repeat where they change the rules, find another way to game assistant.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: And then keep doing the same thing.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: So in Q1, Reddit of this year, Reddit flagged 25,000 spammy posts and comments per day.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: That's insane today.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: And and this is early days still, so this is getting only increased.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: So I think the thing that's kind of interesting, there's an agency that was quoted in the story that that plants Reddit their content on Reddit so they can get cited.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: And so they're saying, like, yeah, so some posts get picked up by ChatGPT in like less than 24 hours.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Some do get taken down.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: But the response was that there's always fresh content replaced what gets removed.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not really strategy, it's just a treadmill.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: So you just keep you like you're busy because you're busy.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes, and and hoping to not get caught for you know right away.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: So the GEO part built on fake signals is really kind of just one of those fragile environments.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as the algorithm changes and you know the rules change, then you kind of lose your mojo.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And so we're just kind of back in that cycle again.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of wonder, V, from your perspective, what is the right approach to this?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I don't think there's a right approach because sorry, there's a right way to do things, then there's a wrong way to do things.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: I think what happens though, if and I love that you cited the the the OG keyword stuffing where people would literally stuff these keywords in title tags.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: You would never see them on the website, but behind the scenes, like it was all there.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: It was just a way to game the system.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't see this as any different.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, can I game the system right now in a way that gives me an advantage in the moment where consumers are starting to look for a product?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be, hey, shame on you companies for for doing this, to be honest with you.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: It's like this is this is their way, try to get ahead of this AI race.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: It's up to the tech, though, to make sure that it is then.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: So, like what Reddit here is doing, I like it because there's no way that they could there's no keep up.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Nope, they couldn't keep that if there were just humans behind the screens trying to edit all this stuff and say, oh no, this has to be AI or it's not.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think what will eventually happen is as we progress more and more, there's more tools are going to become available that a lot of these organizations can use.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: It's like the wild, wild west of digital in a way.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening with AI right now.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think it's less about trying to define like what is the right thing to do.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Of course, try to make sure that you're using uh these tools ethically, but at the same time, if you're you're you're trying to drive revenue and you're trying to do all these things for company or organization, like if I don't know, if the loopholes there, like, I don't know, kind of walk through it, maybe?
9:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know like I don't know.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Like uh even with the ethical part.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's the like well, what is the ethics around using AI to post AI stuff in places that AI information is being generated.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I think you just have to be careful if there's a backlash at some point that could incriminate your strategy and and and things like that.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: I think that's where it becomes dangerous.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I think again, at the same time, just try to find those systems and processes that help you stay top of mind and just but the the the the reality is this is gonna change a lot quicker than it did originally.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: So like people are the companies are already picking up on this.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: So what what what did the how long did this last?
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Six months?
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Not like the the old way of doing this.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: So I I think like it's almost um, I don't know, leverage it while you still can, maybe.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, totally.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, what do you got?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's well, look at us sometimes.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't even like have prep calls for this, but I have five questions to ask AI vendors before buying a tool.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: So I caught I caught this at a search engine land.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people know, like I frequent that website, and it resonated to me because it feels like it the author came into my inbox and just like, hey B, I've got something for you.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So you know this.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure your inbox is the exact same.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I'm assuming everyone listening to this podcast has a very similar inbox, but there's another AI vendor promising to revolutionize marketing, better insights, better creative, better optimizations, better everything.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: So, like, this is why you should be considering us.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I I've times I will take calls and and and things like that.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And I have realized something.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't that there are so many AI tools, it's that we're asking the wrong questions.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So this article that I came across on Search Engine, like I said, has five questions every market should ask.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: It's like from understanding the business problem it solves, the data ownership, the customer proof, and even like things like the implementation, which they're all great questions, but I think there's actually a bigger one.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: If this tool disappeared tomorrow, would my business actually be any worse off?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Because too many of these AI tools are solving inconveniences, not genuine business problems.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: They're shaving minutes off workflows that you know didn't really matter in the first place.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They're creating more content instead of better decisions, they're optimizing processes we probably shouldn't have built, anyways.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And it reminded me of Peter Drucker's famous line there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not have been done at all.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: AI doesn't magically create value, it amplifies it.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, before buying that next shiny platform, I'd spend less time asking what the technology can do and more time asking whether the problem is worth solving in the first place.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: So my question to you becomes do you think that we're headed toward another Martech 2.0 revolution or moment where organizations just become collecting all these AI tools faster than they're actually creating competitive advantage?
12:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna share something on my screen here, V, so we can check out the story.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Storytime with Mark Binkley.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, I you probably look at this a lot.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I know I do.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: So this is from the chiefmartech.com.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: And they do this annual report of the number of Martech tools.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: I put AI in that.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: So right now there's a plateau, but it's been growing since 2011 at a 34% keger.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: So in 2011, there's 150 tools.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward to 2026, so 15 years, there's 15,000 Martech tools.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And then and so that's that graph.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: I was I was trying to find the picture is just absurd when you start looking at this kind of stuff.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: I find it so fascinating.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Like the here, this is the picture.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: The Martech little dots are categorized Martech tools.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: It's just insane.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: So I kind of like to come back to your question.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: I think there there's gonna be more tools, and and I don't think that there's gonna be a lot of them that have and that's why I think you have a long tail.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: You have more and more tools that do more and more things, a lot of them overlap.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Some of them are useful, many of them are.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: And then like the tech debt thing is is real.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of these tools, it's not even tech debt within the like there's tech debt within the ecosystem, but then there's tech tech within the tools, right?
13:48
SPEAKER_01: You don't you're paying for stuff that you never use, but then in the marketplace, there's a lot of stuff that gets built that nobody ever uses either.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: So like I just think there's one it's one of those things that it's just gonna get worse because well, maybe not actually.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: There's this thing that I keep talking about I don't know if we've talked about it, but kneeware.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's a thing, but but I've I've been calling it a thing.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: Like I now with clawed code and all these other tools that are like it, yeah, I can make my own software so freeware.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: I just keep the things I want and I don't know the things I don't want.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: So I think that will become more common.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: But I yeah, I I don't I don't know.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's gonna happen.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: With all these tools, there's so many tools out there.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, way too many.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Way too many.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think you're right in the in the context, like as we get more comfortable with these tools and we realize we can start creating some of our own, maybe that is our way of saying, why do I need to invest in this tool out of the box when, hey, can I do something that I need on my side that doesn't require, say, a subscription service to something like this.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: The the reality is the cost of entry, the barrier to entry or the cost will be a lot lower than traditional Martec in a lot of this, like these AI flows.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, you're right.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Like, and that's why for me it just comes back to like what problem is it actually solving?
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if I take the memeware thought one more step.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: If everybody starts, and especially if everybody in an organization starts building their own memeware, how do you get the memeware to work together?
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Now you have separate silos.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Do you have functional silos and then people silos, but then you also have software silos because I'm building my own shit and it doesn't work with your shit, and like holy, this is just gonna get messy.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: That's a great point.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Final story.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: I like this.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: This is a humdinger.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: This is this is a good one.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: I saw this in a friend Connor posted about it.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Jenny Romnik posted about this.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: The MM characters got banned in the UK under the new Unhealthy Foods Foods Rules Act, uh, or the Less Healthy Foods LHF.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Everything needs an acronym B.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: The LHF.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's it was so confusing.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to figure out how I'd never heard of this until this this banning.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: But in the UK, they have a Less Healthy Foods Rules ban that ban ads for depicting a specific identifiable product on page, social, or TV before 9 p.m.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: So a brand logo, like the logo for MMs is fine.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: You can run a tagline, but the moment you make an LF LHF product identifiable, it's offside and then ads get banned.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: So this is the crazy part to me.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: So MMs, the yellow mascot got banned.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's not because it's a candy, it's because it's oval shaped, and the oval is exclusive to the peanut M.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: So it's specifically representing the product, the peanut MM product, which is what got it banned.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: The the wild part is that the green character, which is just a round shape and it looks like the chocolate-filled one, yeah, is okay.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Got a pass.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand this.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: And but it's fine.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: And maybe because it like the shape is really because it one looks like the peanut and the other one does.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't know.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: They both have arms and faces and legs, and like they're talking.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: So that apparently didn't matter.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing is, like, you know, the MM, the yellow MM is now banned from daytime TV and social for Wrigley's.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: But I think it was really interesting for Gemini, Jenny Romanek made a call about this that I think was really great.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: That you need this is part of the reason why you need more than one brand asset.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, characters in this particular case.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: You lose a character from your roster.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit like a star player on your team going down.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: So when your star player goes down, you need somebody to step in.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: Next man up.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: And so they do have seven characters, and the round ones are still in play, but the oval ones apparently are all benched.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: So the big lesson here is is I think building redundancy into your asset system.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a good idea how you you know, it's an obvious example.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit of a black swan event, but it's an obvious example that you not all of your brand assets are going to be able to s live on all formats.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: So that's why you need multiple ones.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know what what do you think, D?
18:08
SPEAKER_00: I I mean, like, first of all, I okay, on the on the one hand, I love this idea of less healthy food rules, the, you know, trying to make sure that we're promoting healthy foods versus non-healthy foods.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Like I I can see that from a consumer perspective.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I applaud that.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I I I genuinely do.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I think we need more of that kind of thinking here in in North America.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: The the one thing that I I don't really understand is like how how are these rules really being set up?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's what will make it interesting.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: I do, however, believe that the MMs will find a creative way to still pay homage to this like oval mascot somehow in some creative way that kind of I don't know, tiptoes that line between like what's acceptable and what's not.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: So I don't think it's the last that we've heard.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I have any intel or anything, but I don't think it's the last that we've heard of the oval-shaped MM mascots in the UK.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: So watch the space.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a great, totally, great like creative problem to try to solve.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Totally because it's gonna intri it's gonna increase intrigue.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And I and I think about it similar to you know, FIFA World Cup, North America, Levi Stadium for you know the Niners that they had to cover up the logo.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: I feel like something like this will happen for for these oval-shaped uh mascots for MM.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they turned it into like an evening snack and then they just run the ads of the UK.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: I went on to their Instagram to see if they did any kind of real-time reaction to it, but yeah, I didn't see it in there.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Nothing yet.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: No.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: For now though, V, you have the this is the ASMR part coming back.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: This yeah.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: We've always been doing ASMR.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: We're game changers before and rule breakers way before Zeman Cool.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: So for this week's out of the week, I wanted to highlight Lyft's new campaign.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: It's called Save the Money.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the surface, it's a pretty simple proposition.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Before you book a ride, compare prices because you might save a few dollars.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna call that groundbreaking.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: But what I love is how they chose to tell that specific story.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Instead of advertising cheaper fares, that I would argue a lot more companies would probably do, Lyft and Zulu Alpha Kilo personified the money you're leaving behind.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: A campaign follows a lonely$1 bill that's been abandoned because riders never bothered to compare prices.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: It's shot almost like a public service announcement in some in some way, which somehow makes it even funnier.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm like I'm laughing, just kind of thinking as it plays back in my head.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And the insight is rooted in behavior.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: According to Lyft, only 16% of riders actually compare rideshare prices before booking.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: So rather than trying to convince people that Lyft is cheaper, they focused on changing a habit.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: To me, that's what Great Creative is really all about.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just communicate a benefit, it dramatizes the problem.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't that Lyft has lower fares, the problem is that consumers don't even think to check.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So by turning forgotten savings into a sympathetic character, they've made an invisible behavior visible.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: And once you see it, it's really hard to unsee.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: So Mark, it actually made me think about something that we've talked about before.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: How often do marketers spend their time trying to explain what or why their product is better when the real opportunity is helping us, helping people recognize a problem they didn't even know that they had.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: And no, you just said something that it kind of struck for me.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: The dramatize the problem literally does exactly that thing.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
21:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: And it really, and it is it's a public service announcement.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: And so then then I started going to that idea with the system ones report.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Trying to remember the framework, but the four frameworks, but showmanship ultimately is is the is the idea.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And that dramatize the product and the showmanship of of that, I think is such an interesting idea.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: It is rooted in a big idea or an insight or human truth, which is also really interesting.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: But it's funny because I mean we s we talk about these ads also, like not just this one, but this is a really good one, I think.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: But ads like this, and we like celebrate it for being thoughtful and creative and all that kind of thing.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: And then like I just think about the some of the ads that a lot of the ads I see, and it's has none of this showmanship.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: It's just a very straightforward.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't it's not to say that those don't have a place, but the the the level of creativity is so much higher than the level of the quality of storytelling.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: I think this is one of those ads you could play for a long time.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely campaign that you could run for a long time.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: I it's a I think it could become very easily a platform for them.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll I'll give you an example.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: So I like focus group of one over here.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't use Lyft, never have, never downloaded it because I didn't want to be bothered with having multiple rideshare kind of applications.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, however, it piqued interest in me.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: It's like, actually, am I wasting money just using say Uber?
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Is it more expensive than say me using Lyft?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Is the experience the same?
23:05
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm intrigued enough to actually download the app and maybe start this share like comparing prices for specific routes.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, why not?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's a great call, it's a great find.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what's coming up next later this week and uh next week?
23:23
SPEAKER_00: What do we got?
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, for the sharp cut, V, we are working on this is truly a challenging or a sharp cut, I would say.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes, how advertising really works.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Tell me, Mark.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, let me get into it, V.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's funny because I mean we talk about and I talked about this with just yesterday with with a client.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's things like gap in accounting, and we have generally accepted accounting principles on how accounting should work, and everybody agrees to it.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: But we don't have that in advertising and marketing.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: No, and it's fascinating when you start thinking about and then the whole like Occam's razor idea, like the simplest answer is probably the best one.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: Like the simple answer, the simplest answer, it like it takes a long time to get to the simplest answer.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: And I I if you care to know how it actually works, totally.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: It's not totally it's it's not like the most common answer.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna try to demystify this or yeah, make this really simple for people to understand in about a 20-25 minute episode.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna be.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like there's just a series coming on with this.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: It could be, it could very well be.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Let us know.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if there's anything else.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And what else we've got to come up beat?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, we got you know, when we were in Cannes, we had a chance to sit down with Ty Heath.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: So expect that interview to be to be released shortly after as well.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: It was another great conversation.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I think you know, we we love any time we get a chance to catch up with Ty and a lot of the stuff that's going on there at the B2B Institute.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, get uh be prepared for that conversation as well.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's gonna be good.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: We got a lot of great stuff coming out to you.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was good chat.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for watching.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for keeping us in here.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we just didn't time.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Twinsies.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Stay sharp, everybody.