Latest / Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast / SBP 234: The Barber's Brief - More Data. More Tech. More Specialists. Better Marketing?

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SBP 234: The Barber's Brief - More Data. More Tech. More Specialists. Better Marketing? · Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Sleeping Barber Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Buddy?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go! The Barber's Brief.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're back.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fast of four camera edition going back today.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're leveling things up, everybody.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're leveling things up.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So many cameras, I don't know where to look.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I got Mark A, Mark B.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: VB V A.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: So much happening.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: VB V A.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a brand.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no kidding.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you're new around here, we don't usually talk about our camera setups.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh today's a little bit different, I suppose.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Looks at Usually.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: But usually what Mark and I like to do is uh break down what's caught our attention over the last couple weeks.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: The good, the bad, and even the overhyped.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: There'll always be some data, probably a few opinions, and at least one unnecessary reference to marketing effect.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then we will wrap up with that of the week because amid all the dashboards, data, and debate, Great Creative still deserves a spotlight.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mark, good morning.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: How are you feeling, buddy?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I am feeling very good, V.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Very good indeed.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's an exciting day.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of it's a Friday right now.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's very good.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to share?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to share why it's in the exciting day?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: We get the keys to our new cabin, which we've been dreaming about for 20 years, and it's finally happening.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's very exciting.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be really exciting for you guys.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's got to be really exciting.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of decisions later.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're still married.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you got the first news story today.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: What do you find?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we should maybe put in, you know, in addition to a frivolous not a frivolous comment, but a comment about effectiveness.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: AI always seems to be the top topic.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I should change the intro.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I got a new subscription to HBR.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the first homepage of the you know, all the articles they showed, there's like probably 60% of the articles are related to AI.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of like it's just everywhere.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can't get around around it.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um AI topic.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Shoppers ask for AI, but don't trust it's a device.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I found this on eMarketer.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna share my screen real quick.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it looks at the person so it looked at a series of um shoppers in in different kind of categories.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But then they asked the most trusted sources for shopping recommendations as of April 2026.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so majority of people, two-thirds, said family and friends is the most trusted source, which makes sense.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then professionals come next, so doctors and vets.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, I would say, thank God.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: 59% review sites or reviews on retailer sites, interesting, the 58%.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's some sites where I go to, like Wayfair, I don't actually trust there's reviews there, but I do on Amazon.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna say, so this would be like Amazon.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Amazon reviews or any kind of product site that's got a review on it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just like, there's certain sites I just don't totally trust the reviews.
• 3:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, review on other sites like Trustpilot or Reddit, and then social media influencers is at the near the bottom, which is 28%, and then AI assistance is 23%.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So AI assistance is the absolute lowest of the respondents that they asked or the sources that they asked for.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um the thing that was really interesting though, it like shoppers.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So shoppers ranked those AI assistance as dead last.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, friends and family sits at the top of the list, as I said, that's about you know it makes sense.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The gap between the top and the bottom, they're calling a 6723 gap.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um which is kind of interesting.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a um it's really ultimately a credibility gap.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a usage gap because everybody uses it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So people are calling like some a lot of times we're forced to use it if you're on Google and you type anything now.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like AI overview is the only thing that shows up.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have to X out of it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if we look at where this kind of plays out, though, Edelman, who is famous for the trust barometer, found craters and AI carry more sway than doctors on some things like diet supplements and longevity.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a company called Tebro who built software for medical practices, found that 89% of providers had to correct a patient on a supplement that they saw online.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, supplements, and really interesting in a lot of ways, because here's the effective effectiveness reference.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a low evidence category.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and there's a lot of snake oil in the supplement category or anywhere where there is a lot of snake oil.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um nobody can prove much either way.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So whoever answers first kind of wins.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whether the source is credible or not.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's nothing really solid to check against, which makes that source really important.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of think of this a lot of ways in this in similarly with marketing.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't have really a you know a generally accepted accounting principles.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this a lot, but yeah, the body of evidence that exists out there in marketing effectiveness isn't widely known by everyone.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't matter so much that people don't say they trust AI or people say they don't trust AI.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: If nobody can disprove it, then it just kind of sticks.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, question for you, V.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Ready?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is like first off the bat.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Ready?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Go.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: AI has read everything in theory.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so does that finally give us a standard now because it knows everything about micro marketing effectiveness, or just a very confident average answer of bad ideas?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: My knee-jerk to that question would be very confident average of our own bad ideas.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: However, you keep saying this, I keep saying this, this is the worst it's going to be.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I think there's a world where we will start trusting AI more and more, but I think there's also an element of learned behaviors that when we settle on what AI we use for, say, those kind of recommendation engines, et cetera, especially from a shopping perspective, because I don't know how you use Chat GPT versus Claude versus Gemini, because I know you use them all, I use them all.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I use them each of them for different things.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there is a world where you just start innately trusting an AI assistant at some point.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think what we're seeing more is just the fact that it's still early.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there was another stat that showed that consumers are still they're they're comfortable giving AI like its health records, but not comfortable giving it its your credit card yet, as an example.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like the the only reason it's 23% is because we're just we're just not there yet.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's gonna grow though over the next few years.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think it does get better over time.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're probably right.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's still like somebody was I was talking to somebody the other day, and they're like, it's now AI is kind of like learning off of itself and reading its own stuff, and it's kind of we were like, well, it's kind of like intellectual um intellectual inbreeding.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming up with some wheel weirder stuff because it's just reading its own slop and it's slopping off its slop.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Slopping off its slop.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 8:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so what do you got next?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I got so pretty, pretty big change.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I here, here, here's the title.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: PepsiCo hands global media to publicists a mid-transformation at CPG Giant.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of, I don't know if you heard this, but it's pretty a massive agency move, or it when you think about one of those, one of the largest global accounts that there are.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not sure if you caught it in the wind, but PepsiCo has handed its global business to publicists, moving the account away from Omnicom, which has worked with parts of the business for decades.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So now normally I don't find these kind of things that interesting.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one giant holding company wins, another giant holding company loses.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone writes a press release about transformation and how it's going to change everything.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I think this one caught my attention for a different reason because it's it kind of got into what PepsiCo is actually describing, what it is that they're trying to build.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe this could be a new way forward for a lot of organizations.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So Publicis is creating what they're calling a one PepsiCo global media operating model, bringing together media strategy, planning, activation, data, connected identity, and technology across all markets.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it feels like that's much like part of a much bigger shift that is naturally happening in media.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So for years, we built increasingly specialized marketing organizations.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: You had search in one direction, you had social in another, you had programmatic somewhere tucked away in a drawer.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, data has its own team, technology has another, agencies have their own structures, then every market has its own version of all of that as well.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's always it's always unique.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we got really good at optimizing the individual pieces, but did we get better at optimizing the whole ecosystem?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because it feels like that's what PepsiCo isn't exactly, they're not a simple advertiser.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Pepsi, Frido Lay, Gatorade, Quaker, and now a business like Poppy with uh and Sayate.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if I'm saying that right.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sayete?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, walk with me, people.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Poppy.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I know what yeah.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know Poppy.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like a Spanish word.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Probably.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you've got different categories, different markets, different consumers, and very different stages of brand maturity.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the promise of a single operating model is actually quite compelling.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you can potentially make decisions across paid, owned, and earned rather than optimizing each independently.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can then connect the data and identify across markets.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can learn faster.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: The idea is you can learn faster.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And ideally, you stop having 20 different teams independently solving versions of the same problem.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to appreciate that there's probably a huge financial backdrop here that's worth mentioning.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: PepsiCo reported Q2 revenue of$24.2 billion, up 6.4% year over year.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I said it's plans to increase marketing and advertising investment in North America in the second half of the year.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't see this as simply, hey, how do we make marketing cheaper?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: At least based on what PepsiCo is saying, it's closer to how do we build an operating system capable of deploying marketing investment better?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the part that's worth watching more than anything.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my question to you, Mark, here's what I'm, I guess, thinking, wondering, if you will, have we reached a point where fragmentation itself has become one of marketing's biggest effectiveness problems?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think well, and it's I can't remember.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Companies like PepsiCo, it's possible.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember the number or stat, but there was some organization, it might have been PG a few years ago.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a company similar size scope that literally had hundreds of agencies around the world.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're right, like I think just the same as inside an organization, there's strategists, there's data people, there's creatives, there's whatever, you know, all the channel owners.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that goes by division.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be like Pepsi, then Free-Doly, and then or just just Doritos, and you know what I mean?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many um divisions.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's really ambitious to try and do that.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's really cool to try and synthesize it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's something that happens.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've talked about this a lot, as just, you know, if you think about the individual channel owner, it's really hard for them to see the world beyond just the channel that's coming at them.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like the channel data.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're if you're running paid search, you see pretty much exclusively the paid search data.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't really see the Facebook data, you don't really see the the billboards, the outer home, you don't really see the TV at you know what I mean?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like so it's really hard to organize, but I get it because all these channels are becoming more sophisticated, and there's a lot of nuance in how to set it up and run it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of need the both part.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is really interesting, and it's a I applaud what they're trying to do.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do think you you get down this path of like, well, we need all these specialists, but then you forget.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like we talked to like Caparo guys a few years ago about something like this, the future of marketing departments.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it is more and more specialized, more and more specialists, and less and less general um perception on what the whole is doing to impact the business.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right, next story.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: We we covered a bit of this story, but there's an update on it.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the$700 billion delusion.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there's an article in MI3 that I found.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: We covered a bit of this story once before in a sharp cut.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I so there's in this update that I kind of want to get into.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is super interesting.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So Ariel Garcia, who is the former chief privacy officer at an agency called UM, pulled her own file from a data broker and she was in 500 segments.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: She was listed as a man and a woman.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she was listed as below the poverty line and high income at the same time.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So she's just in every pool.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the opening piece of the or the opening segment of this MI3 piece by John Bradshaw and and brand traction.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: That brand traction, sorry.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, his argument was that Martech is a$700 billion industry and the ads are still bad.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, we talked about this a little bit even just the other day.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's because the data underneath it is ultimately bad.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're it's like kind of the halo effect.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're stacking data on data, but not really wondering if the data is good to begin with.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So more data doesn't mean it's better.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there Bradshaw points to a study from Nico Newman that we've talked about also once before, and MIT's Catherine Tucker.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this so they so they tested whether targeting data actually reaches the people that you asked for.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: The second and third party data that you you buy did no better than random chance.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have a coin flip chance at reaching a guy or girl, just like that aerial go or aerial Garcia was in both pools.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's that kind of thing that's happening.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So first party obviously beats random, and contextual beat first party and cost far less.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the Rickard Weiberg um uh pace uh study from and Rickard is from Sweden, one of our friends from Sweden.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they looked at MetaSpend and Yeah, and they moved MetaSpend off conversion optimization onto broad reach, and then they model the result.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so broad reach drove at least 50% more incremental sales.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily clicks, but more incremental sales.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so his explanation is the part is the part that stuck with me.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: The the commerce conversion optimization mostly finds people who are already gonna buy you, and then it's handing out half-price vouchers to people who are already walking through your door.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that thing that Dale and I or we've talked to Dale about in the past.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So targeting doesn't actually reduce waste.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the right person, right message, right time.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was really the promise.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: This massive Martec ad industry.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right person, right message, right time.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately that was the promise.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: The$700 billion got spent building the machine.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it turns out that putting an ad in the right place just does the same job.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't actually have to spend the extra to try and guess the right time and the right person.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, V, if you're a CMO, you just spent three million dollars, let's say, on a Martech stack, what do you actually do with it on Monday?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how much time do you have?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: I have uh I'm I'm lucky because I'm gonna scope.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, two minutes, yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm lucky because I sit on the Martech Council through the Canadian Marketing Association, and some of these topics routinely come up and there's purposeful Martech stack building, and then there's just like Martech slop that everyone gets excited about, and you just go ahead and add it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you're a CMO that got wooed by a cool tech stack without understanding what currently exists in your ecosystem and how you're using it, you're set up to fail.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like you really need to be very mindful and very um and understand the ecosystem enough that taking that$3 million and putting it into Mar tech stack will generally help you drive, say, incrementality versus taking that$3 million and pumping it back into media in your efforts to try to drive growth for the for the organization or mental availability.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's another marketing effect of reference.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I like that one.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, slip that one in there, V.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well done.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I it's yeah, honestly, I think it just comes down to you know, what what are you really trying to solve by adding more Martec?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And outside of like some foundational elements like a CRP or you're like you're you're building your an integrated data lake of things to that effect.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Which again, uh you just based on this point that you're that you're making, it's like, well, are we well?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I know first party data obviously does a lot better than some of the second and third party data that you were talking about.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think there's you just have to be really mindful of what it is that you're purchasing and buying.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And on a Monday morning, it's like you gotta ask your team, like, hey, how are you using these tools that we've now purchased for you?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what you'll come to find, a lot of the tools aren't being used.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and going back to your PepSCo story, I think this is where a lot of that um ambition comes from is trying to streamline even the Martech stack, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've got so much waste a lot of times because everyone's buying different stuff and not one clean data set.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, next story, B.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Final story.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: The UPS store enlists first brand character to support franchises.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it brown?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, blue.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Blue.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: So check this out.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wait, wait, wait.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the UPS store, which has now introduced the first ever brand character, her name is Blue.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's a woman in a blue UPS polo.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Look, see, it's not brown, it's blue.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's blue.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Who basically appears through a portal whenever a small business owner needs help.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Shipping, printing, shredding, mailboxes, you name it, blue appears.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, on the surface, this feels like just another example of something we're seeing everywhere right now that brand characters are back.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Which, by the way, I think we we collectively would applaud.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, we started a trend.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know we did.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: We we need our own mascot, by the way.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know we can.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's what the third or fourth camera should be.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Our mascot.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just our mascot.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so insurance has been doing this forever.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Think about Stanley recently introduced uh wisecracking toolbox called Stan.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Liberty Mutual has Liberty Biberty, and now the UPS store has blue.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's something a lot more interesting that's also happening in this space.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: The UPS store has a pretty enviable problem.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows what UPS does.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that people probably know it's too narrowly, if you will.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: You think UPS, you think shipping.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the UPS store wants small business owners to think of them more for like those other services, printing, shredding, uh, mailboxes, and a whole range of those other business services that they start having.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So blue isn't there just to make the advertising funnier.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: She could become a memory structure for that broader proposition.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of running one campaign explaining printing, another campaign explaining mailboxes, and another explaining shredding, you have one recognizable character who can repeatedly show up across all those different situations.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of like that, to be honest with you.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Distinctive brand asset.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's another for you.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: There it is.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where brand characters can become incredibly powerful.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're not just a creative device at their best, they're a distinctive asset that accumulate memory over time.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is like marketing effectiveness poetry here.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: The geico gecko doesn't need to explain Geico every time it appears.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: The Pillsbury Doughboy doesn't need an introduction.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Michelin man has survived for more than a century.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: More than the Michelin man's been around for more than a lot of brands have.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like over a hundred years, I think, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the other interesting dimension here is because the UPS store is largely just a franchise business.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got thousands of independently operated locations, potentially communicating different in different markets.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: So Blue potentially does two jobs.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Externally, she creates consistency in the customer's memory.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Internally, however, she gives that franchise network a consistent way to tell the same brand story.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, that only works if they resist that temptation to invent her in 18 months because distinctive assets don't become distinctive because somebody launched them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: They become distinctive through consistent consistency and over time.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm wondering, Mark.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Are marketers rediscovering brand characters?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because we finally remember that one of advertising's most important jobs isn't constant constantly saying something new, but making the brand easier to remember.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Question mark.
• 23:36
  unknown: Okay.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where I I kind of wonder if we're in our own echo chambers sometimes.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's I it seems to me like there's um more and more brand characters getting used, but I don't know if it's just because we're looking for it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, maybe.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then like all the algorithms.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching this thing from Gary V last night.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you are the algorithm.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, oh I started watching fishing stuff recently because I've been fishing a lot more.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: My whole feed just changed to fishing.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, oh yeah, right.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started looking at some cooking recipes, and then there's more and more cooking recipes.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, right.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if it's happening more frequently.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the algorithms are showing it to me more frequently because I'm looking for it a lot.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's a fair point.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's great to see it.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the example of blue.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have a question about blue.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why the fuck would you name it blue if you have green?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, if you have yellow or gold and brown.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just don't I don't get that one.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: But either way, um I love the example of how they think about using across different services because that is the thing that they can introduce new products but keep the brand the same.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's such a good, such a good way.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's just such a great use case on how to use a brand character across multiple category entry points, which would be like mailboxes and shredding and all these things.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Blue's got it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Blue can do everything, man.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's oh, I have a quick uh surprise for you, V.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned um effectiveness poetry.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have a haiku for you.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Light buyers, not fans.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Reach the ones who forgot you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sharp was right again.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna tear that up into a short and promote that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I got hundreds of those.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've been writing a lot of poetry lately.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And poetry now, too.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Fishing and poetry?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, guitar.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I got a surprise for you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what time it is?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh!
• 25:53
  unknown: Out of the week.
• 25:54
  unknown: Out of the week.
• 25:55
  unknown: Out of the week.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's with you, actually.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you you got this.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is a really cool one, actually.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is great.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So Canva, um, they've got um a new campaign out called Wild Design.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's really cool.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's from an organization called Dude Milano.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the hero is this character, uh uh a second version um or second iteration of this character.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think his name is Peachy, like Peachy.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Peachy?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had a noodle called Peachy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming that's what that is.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Peachy one.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's stop motion.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's handcrafted puppets, handbuilt sets, directed by Dan Richards.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in chapter one, Peachy uh finds a struggling Italian Trattoria and rebrands the place.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: In chapter two, he makes social content um to get a straight cat adopted.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple of things that I was thinking about when I was looking at this.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to use the a couple different frameworks, the system one framework and then the Ehrenberg Bass Distinctive Assets Framework.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So thinking about the system one showmanship and salesmanship conversation, I most ads pick one or the other.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, like either they go down the showmanship state path or they go straight to sales.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this one does a really interesting job at doing both.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the showmanship is obvious because you've got this pigeon and it's stop motion, and there's a story that's built in there.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the craftsmanship of it is all really interesting.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and even the way they're like the underlying tone of craftsmanship matters by saying that like they actually did this uh stop motion stuff.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's still like, even though you can use AI, there is still craftsmanship that's part of this uh craft.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the salesmanship part is sitting right inside the story, so the product does the work, like the the Pichi builds the Tutoria's identity, he edits the video uh that gets the cat home.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so then nobody has to really say the benefit out loud in this because they just watch it happen through the showmanship storyline, which is kind of interesting.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the Amberg Bass side, they've got the distinctive brand assets, and so Peachy is obviously a fluent device or or or uh a character, um a distinctive brand asset in the making.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the rule that they've talked about a lot is that you use it or lose it, it's in their two by two grid.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's interesting because this is not the first iteration of Peachee.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they built the asset um and they launched it, and now they're running it again.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's really great to see that.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so whether Pichi is still working in 2023 and whether the format of Pichi is stop motion is gonna work, who's to say?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I think the character could live on through that.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of the business context, um, I think it's really interesting as well.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Canvas at a 4 billion valuation, yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or sorry, valued at 42 billion, but it's 4 billion uh ARR.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it looks like there's an IPO coming, which is really interesting.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: They've got growth, like double digit percentages of their traffic now arrives through LLM referrals, which is really interesting.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're crediting that for a lot of their growth.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Apple just bundled a creative suite for$13 a month.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're like they're their own CEO says they're becoming an AI platform with design tools and ta attached.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So an AI company that's looking at you know the commoditization or the the averaging of the internet went out and and did a thing that AI can't do.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they moved a puppet by hand one frame at a time, which I think is so interesting.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: So crazy, yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So V, if you're Canvas CFO, a year out from an IPO, is a stop motion pigeon a defensible line item?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Based on our conversation with Ian Whitaker yesterday, I think it does become one.
• 30:06
  unknown: Right?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: If that's true.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: If analysts continue to drive um sorry, continue to report that brand is one of the ways that they assess one of the the the biggest ways that they assess uh company value.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I couldn't I couldn't stop laughing with the cat's name, Bartelo Miau.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just especially we're I was in a couple conversations yesterday.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: AI is I mean, there's so many good things about AI, but so many bad things about AI and so many meh things about AI.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think yeah, putting money into something that is definitely crafted is is one of the ways you can if everybody still isn't in this path of you know we have to differentiate, yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's one of the ways to do it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, like I'm I know w you and I are both real big fans of Canva.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're not we're not like in any way like creative directors or anything like that.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it gives you access to something that we've never had before where you can scale creative quite easily.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's integration of AI is it's getting really good.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just one of those things like now, like two guys in a podcast can look semi-professional out there in the world, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I'm I'm here for it, and I think it's life like a huge pillar for them, and if they're noticing growth from it, like keep going, man.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's great.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if your CFO says no, then they need to be fired.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just let them know.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just let them know.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't agree with this.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's if your CFOs um doesn't agree, you could just pass them along our next interview.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's coming up next week, man?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Ian Whitaker, uh, we had him on.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's an he's a real analyst, um, like business analyst, financial analyst, like that kind of analyst.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean like a like a Facebook insights person.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the proper advertising.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was such an interesting conversation around ROI, around how do we are our perceptions of value and how we can how we communicate the value of advertising to an executive group or a boardroom table?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Such an interesting conversation.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like really meaty.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Quite dense.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then before that, though, we've got a sharp cut coming up, V.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: What what do we got covering?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do we got?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: On leadership and AI.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Continue to go down that path and understanding like, hey, what is that correlationship between the two?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Or what is the responsibility of leadership and how to bring a lot of this to life?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a I don't know.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I get for me, it's one of the most fascinating um cross-sections, if you will, or intersections that we're currently uh arriving at.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I'm just looking forward to continuing to dive down in that topic.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it should be a good lesson for everybody.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's this week's Barbara's Brief.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for keeping us in your ears, everyone.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stay sharp, everybody.