Latest / Presented by Speaking Human / #210: Goodhart’s Law (A Million Views and Nothing to Show for It)

Transcript

#210: Goodhart’s Law (A Million Views and Nothing to Show for It) · Presented by Speaking Human

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Speaking Human Today on Speaking Human, we examine why chasing
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: marketing metrics can sometimes make those metrics meaningless, and what
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: going viral really means in today's landscape. Speaking Human Speaking Human.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: marketing for humans. I'm Shad Conley, and with me is
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  Speaker 2: my co-host, Patrick Jebber. How are you doing there, Pat?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's meaningless, Shad. Everything is meaningless.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: What a great approach to this episode. Speaking of meaningless,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the past, I don't know, what would we say, decade
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: or so, We've gotten a barrage of viral things just
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: thrown at us. I have a few questions for you
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: to see if you remember some viral associations. I think
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: you're going to get these. I think you will remember these.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: They're pretty recent. And, you know, your occupation. This is
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  Speaker 2: your lifeblood. So let me throw these at you. Let
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  Speaker 2: me see if you can. Put them together.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: All right. First one. Which fast food brand became the
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  Speaker 2: unexpected beneficiary of a TikTok trend in which users filmed
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: themselves drinking a purple milkshake and then staged horror movie
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  Speaker 2: style aftermaths? Fast food brand. TikTok trend. People are drinking
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a purple milkshake.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: McDonald's.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: McDonald's. Grimace shake trend. Right.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Is that what it was called? The grimace shake trend?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's exactly what it was called
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: or somebody's just recalling it that now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But they had a grimace shake for a while that
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: was purple.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is insane.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Leading to these TikTok videos. I think you made one.
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  Speaker 2: Next question. What brand famously turned a viral TikTok video
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of its product surviving a car fire into a marketing opportunity?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I think you've talked about it on the show in
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  Speaker 2: the past.
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  Speaker 1: The brand survived a car fire?
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of its, you know, its product. There was
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a video somebody made on TikTok. Their car was on
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  Speaker 2: fire and this product from this brand survived.
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  Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't know. I'm drawing a blank on
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  Speaker 1: that one.
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  Speaker 2: So quickly some of these things fade.
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  Speaker 1: Can you give me a hint?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Many people carry it around every day with them.
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  Speaker 1: A phone?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Not a phone. Okay. If I give you more of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a hint, it'll probably like tell it to you, but
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I can do that anyway. It provides you with some hydration.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, water bottle?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Kind of. I mean, you would put water in it,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: drink water out of it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Like a Stanley?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: A Stanley. That's what it is. Yeah. The Stanley survived
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  Speaker 2: the car fire.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Maybe I have talked about that.
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  Speaker 2: I think at one point, I don't know why I
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  Speaker 2: have like a vague memory of you mentioning this. You're like,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Stanley survived the car fire. You're like, everyone should buy them.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Buy Stanley today.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: All right. Last one here. Which food brand went viral
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  Speaker 2: after its mascot was cooked and eaten during a college
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  Speaker 2: football bowl game?
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  Speaker 1: Oh, Pop-Tarts for sure.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: That's right. Pop-Tarts.
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  Speaker 1: That's easy. Poppy the Pop-Tarts.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Poppy got cooked and eaten on live TV. Well,
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  Speaker 2: I think it's happened many times now. I think they
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: did this several times over. So pretty good viral memory
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  Speaker 2: you've got there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, they fade. They definitely fade. Like
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  Speaker 1: the Stanley clearly faded from my memory.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I tried, you know, to focus on recent
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  Speaker 2: ones because I was like, if we do something from
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: five years ago, no one's going to know that. Yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And that's mainly because they just keep coming at us
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  Speaker 1: at breakneck paces. You know what I mean? And that's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: why we were talking about Goodert's Law. Is it Goodert
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  Speaker 1: or Goodhart?
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  Speaker 2: That's, you know, that's a great question that we probably
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  Speaker 2: should know the answer to. Let's find out. Good heart.
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  Speaker 1: Good hearts.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's good to know.
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  Speaker 1: That is good to know. Why are we talking about virility?
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  Speaker 1: The viral nature of things?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, how did this whole thing come about? How did
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: we get here?
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  Speaker 1: So I sent you this article. It was a Wired article, right?
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  Speaker 1: And I was like, this is just an interesting topic
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  Speaker 1: in general. But in this Wired article, Jason Parham's Wired
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  Speaker 1: interview features Ruby Fellett. Again, probably butchering names here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But Ruby was a cyber ethnographer.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting job.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And also an NYU media theory researcher and studies online culture.
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  Speaker 1: And in his argument, engineered popularity can exaggerate cultural significance. Now, listen,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I know I'm going to be saying things and we're
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit more about this, but
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  Speaker 1: engineered popularity can exaggerate cultural significance. Our feeds are fragmented,
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  Speaker 1: so something that seems ubiquitous to us may have limited
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  Speaker 1: reach elsewhere. In other words, huge view counts don't necessarily
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: establish lasting influence. So this is what this Wired article
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  Speaker 1: is sort of summarizing. Before we celebrate the number that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we're measuring, we should be asking what we think it proves.
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  Speaker 1: And that's everything about Goodhart's law.
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  Speaker 2: It's a pretty interesting article all around. It raises some
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  Speaker 2: good questions. It kind of makes you think about things
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  Speaker 2: in a different way. The question it kind of taps into,
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  Speaker 2: I think, is something that a lot of us are
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  Speaker 2: probably thinking about all the time, is that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: when we see something online or we see something trending online,
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  Speaker 2: it's this thought of like, is this real? Does this
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  Speaker 2: mean something? Is this just a bunch of BS? Are
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  Speaker 2: people really into this? Is this being fed to me
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  Speaker 2: from somewhere else? Or is this a real movement? The
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  Speaker 2: article gives the example. It talks about Clubhouse and NFTs.
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  Speaker 2: These are things that were built up as big trends.
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  Speaker 2: These are happening things. They're coming. They're going to be big.
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  Speaker 2: And then they weren't. Why exactly does that happen with things?
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  Speaker 2: You know, why are things like these bubbles blown up
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  Speaker 2: that kind of just pop? Just makes you just think,
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  Speaker 2: have we essentially built an internet around optimizing for engagement?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: You know, and kind of lost the narrative.
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  Speaker 1: Or manufactured the narrative.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Right? This is the world in which we live in today.
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  Speaker 1: Everybody's chasing to be viral. And they're missing the point
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  Speaker 1: of what is the purpose of the thing that you
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  Speaker 1: are even promoting? What is the meaning behind it? Is
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: it important to be viral or is it more important
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  Speaker 1: to just be true to you as a person, the product,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the brand, whatever that is, you know, because you get
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  Speaker 1: lost in trying to go viral, I guess.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: That's the real, the thing that I took away is
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  Speaker 1: like this, this constant insane desire to want to be
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  Speaker 1: viral essentially. And to be the next big thing, as
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  Speaker 1: opposed to just wanting to be a thing with meaning,
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  Speaker 1: with purpose, with value. You know what I mean? It's like, no, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's not good enough. I need clicks. I need exposure.
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  Speaker 1: I need this. I need that. It's capitalism, I guess,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to some degree, but.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but capitalism, you know, applied widely across the internet,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: which I think, you know, and we're thinking about a
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: lot of this from the marketing side, and, you know,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the questions of, like, are the things we measure online
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  Speaker 2: actually the things we care about? But then I also
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: look at it from... the consumer side, which we all feel, where,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: you know, there once was this internet kind of chaotic
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: and unorganized, felt at least authentic, you know, where you're like,
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  Speaker 2: I want to know if I should buy this thing.
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  Speaker 2: I want to find people talking about it. And you could.
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  Speaker 2: Or you could find a forum where there was a
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  Speaker 2: conversation going on. And now it's harder to find something
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  Speaker 2: that doesn't feel like manufactured and forced and invaluable, or
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  Speaker 2: at least question the value of everything you find out there. Like,
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  Speaker 2: are any of these reviews real?
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  Speaker 1: It seems very distant now, a distant memory, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that things were like that at one point.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Some people will never know that internet existed, right? Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I already know what I sound like when I say this.
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  Speaker 1: But we're old enough to sort of have perspective. And
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  Speaker 1: I say this a lot on the show. So those
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of you who are listening who are of our age
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  Speaker 1: and can understand that, kudos. You've made it this far.
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  Speaker 1: And for those who are younger, who are like, man,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you sound like a really old dude. I'm sorry, but
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: this is the truth, right? Like this used to be
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  Speaker 1: the way we experienced the internet. We had some level
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of authenticity to everything. You've brought this up in the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: past on that past episode chat. Like it was exciting
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to get up and go on the internet every day.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You could argue like people find excitement today, but it
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: was like kind of a different excitement. Like I still
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: get excited about what I do. And a lot of
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that takes place online. But the information felt like just
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  Speaker 1: so much more genuine. And it's such a hard thing
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to sort of put your arms around. But it was,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you felt like there was some purity and innocence to it. Yeah,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: even though there wasn't, I'm not stupid. You know, like,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I know that there was a lot of dark happening.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, on the internet since the beginning. But
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: there was this level of just, I'm not here to
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  Speaker 1: sell you on the next big thing necessarily more than
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  Speaker 1: it was like information, you know?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I always, say it was like akin to the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Wild Wild West. It was a little less centralized. Everything
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was kind of everywhere. And you were just going to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: all these places where somebody told you about it, or
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: you were just kind of stumbling across a website. Yeah.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: But it was less, I'm just going to Google and
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: YouTube or chat GPT. And it was less like everywhere
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  Speaker 2: you go that is popular is being owned, controlled, or
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: worked over by corporations. Yeah.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: If I could use the analogy for people, this is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: what I would say. It was like, you felt a
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: little bit like Indiana Jones. Sometimes you were going places
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and you were like him in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: You know, the very first scene where he goes in
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and he's got that bag and he's trying to like
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: put it on the weight. He doesn't measure it correctly.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And he's he takes the one thing and sets the
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: bag down. And then the ball starts rolling towards him
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and he's just running. It was a lot like that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: It was just this intense feeling of exploration and excitement
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and not knowing what was around the corner. And I
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: know that sounds super silly and maybe even a little like.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: romanticizing what the internet was like.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Which we may just be doing compared to what it
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  Speaker 2: is now. Maybe we're even just making up a version
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: of the internet that never existed.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Because we just want to escape to a more pleasant memory.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It just felt different and it did. It
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: felt less like you're constantly swimming through the artificial. Yeah.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Not to say the authentic isn't out there now, but
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: it's different whenever you've got influencers on Instagram and people
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: getting bought up on YouTube and And stuff like that.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: It's just a different ecosystem or economy that's at play here. Yeah.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: So yeah, let's talk a little bit about, you know,
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  Speaker 2: a key part of this article, Goodhart's Law, which I
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: had never heard this term before, but I think it's great.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it's like a super interesting concept
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  Speaker 2: that applies to a lot of things. So what is
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  Speaker 2: Goodhart's Law? How does that work?
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  Speaker 1: It originated in economics by a British economist, Charles Goodhart.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Charlie.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Charlie. He articulated the principle in 1975 in a work
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: on monetary management. To put it out there, it predates
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: social media by decades. And it's basically when a measurement
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: That's the restatement of this Goodhart's Law. The problem behind
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that in sort of the law is that it's the incentive,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the incentive to measure it. For example, rewarding a number
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: can encourage behavior that improves the reported result while weakening
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the underlying performance. So, you know, when you're incentivizing something
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: like a great example would be like, say you want
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: people to find your marketing useful. So you measure clicks, right?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Because this is what we talk about today. You measure clicks.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. You know, clicking can signal interest and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But then when everybody gets
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: rewarded for generating more clicks, suddenly it's, misleading, right? You know,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: like a misleading headline can look like a winning strategy
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in your marketing. You think about clickbait, you know, I
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: get rewarded for that. And the click count goes up,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: but the customer feels tricked. So not a great unit
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of measurement at that point.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good example. The classic example that I
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: saw of Goodhart's law, which I think is super easy
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: for anyone to understand, which I don't think is actually real,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: but it's just makes for a good example. Yeah. Involves
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: a Soviet nail factory. So have you heard this?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the central planners, who are the people who
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: are kind of in charge there, once measured a Soviet
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: nail factory's output by the number of nails produced. So
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: to easily meet and exceed this quota, the factory just
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: manufactured millions of tiny, completely useless nails that couldn't hold
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: anything together. So they're making a product that has no
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: value just to meet the quota, to meet the number.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: picking up on the mistake, the planners changed the metric
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: to the total weight of the nails produced. So then
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the factory adapted by shifting production to make a few
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: gigantic heavy nails that were equally useless for actual construction.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: So you get this idea here where if we're focusing
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: just on the number, how people can work around that
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: just to achieve the number, rather than if you're just like,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: we want you to make nails that people can use. Yeah.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Give me the valuable thing. that I'm looking for, as
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: opposed to, I need this by then. As soon as
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you give someone numbers and measurements, they're suddenly now trying
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: to figure out the workaround. I saw one example on Reddit,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: which was similar, where the commenter described their experience managing
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a fast food restaurant and saying employees cleared orders from
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the screen before preparing the food. And this was because
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the recorded service times improved without reflecting how long preparation
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: actually took. So they were clearing the screens to meet
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: their quota. Again, another one of those where the people
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: took steps to meet the numbers, so to meet the measurement.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And that's Goodhart's Law in a nutshell, is like the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: measurement then becomes ineffective.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: When I hear this and I think about this, I
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: feel like so much of marketing and business goals today
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: just kind of fall under this, where you're just manipulating
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: numbers to kind of try to achieve them. Just a
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: business who's like, we're going to grow our profits 10%
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: year over year. Then they're cutting staff or moving numbers around.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: That client gets billed next year, but we'll add it
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: to this year. Things like that just to try to
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: achieve this essentially meaningless number. You know, it's like we're
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: going to hit this number probably because people's bonuses or
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: livelihood rely on it. But we've become so fixated on
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: these numbers. It's everywhere now.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the thing is, is like being more mindful
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of the thing, whatever it is. Like you said, it's
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the nail. Give me a nail that I can use.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I tell clients all the time, just be true to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: your message, to your core. This is your product. Be
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: true to that and communicate that. Don't try to make
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: a viral social post. And if you could be authentic
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in that way, success will come in one form or another.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: You don't necessarily need the success of millions of followers.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And how's that really going to ultimately help you? Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: It's with a lot of these things, you know, you're
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: looking at, you know, we want attention or awareness or
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: interest or trust.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's the thing, you know, that I kept
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: coming back to going through this process of reading the article,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: learning about the law, trust and building a relationship. Isn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that what we're all doing in business and marketing is
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: you're trying to build a relationship, but how do you
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: build that relationship on falsities? I guess, you know what
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think even, We've both been in these
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: situations where you feel like the efforts, what you're doing,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: you know, marketing wise is working. You're feeling like what
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: you're putting together is good. You're making a connection, but
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: maybe people feel like it's not succeeding because, you know, hey,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: we're not getting enough views. Hey, our website traffic hasn't
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: increased by, you know, 25%. You're calling out these metrics
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: as a reason for failure. When you can feel it,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: you can feel when something is working or it's building
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: and going well, but it's nearsighted when you're kind of
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: just looking at these things and relying on that as
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: your gauge of success.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this so many times on the podcast
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and just this idea of clicks and likes and impressions
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and shares. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Like there's nothing inherently wrong with them. It's when your
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sole goal is to achieve those things. You'd like to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: think in a perfect world, if you communicate your message
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and you have a good product, if you do all
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the right things and you have something good to sell people,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that they will naturally gravitate to you over time. But
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: as a society, we've gotten so focused on narrowing the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: window of what that looks like. Like it's got to
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: be a shorter and shorter timeframe. We need to gain
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: those followers by the end of the quarter. You know
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Or whatever it is. It's always good
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to have goals and expectations like you want to achieve
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: those things. But if you start to feel forced into that,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: that you're manipulating everything to achieve that at some point.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can't blame anyone. You fall into this trap so easily,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: especially when all our systems are built to reward you. Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Facebook's the big one who gets slapped with this, but
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: everybody else has done it, you know, before or since.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: which is like, get more likes, look at these numbers,
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: you know, LinkedIn, look at these impressions. You don't know
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: what this number means or how many people actually saw it,
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: but look at this number. Don't you want this number
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: to go up? Don't you want this number to be higher? Everybody's,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: you know, flashing these numbers in front of you. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: when you see these higher numbers for whatever it is,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever you're looking at, it's intoxicating. Yeah. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: you want more of that and you want it to
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: go up and our systems are almost all built to
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: encourage that behavior. Yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: And probably going back pretty far.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: You were talking about a nail factory, but I mean,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you know, if you go back to the industrial age
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: in the beginning, I'm sure there were units of measurement
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and people were manipulating those.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: They were in a cave and they're like, you need
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to make three wheels today. Or, you know, that seems
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: far fetched, but.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some level of that. I guess you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: could argue that's our human nature.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: You ever see the movie Gung Ho with Michael Keaton?
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a great movie.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And they're the thing at the end where they have
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to build the most cars ever in a day. And
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: they're like racing to get all these cars together in
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the end. And by like the last 20 minutes or whatever,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: they're just slapping them together, like barely putting pieces on.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And like they go to inspect the cars at the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: end and they like touch them and like, you know,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: everything kind of falls off.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If that's not a perfect visualization for what we're
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: talking about. I mean, I don't know what is because
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I love that movie.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. Big fan.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Putting something together, you want to build quality. You
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: want to build something that lasts relationship or otherwise.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk a little bit about going viral. You know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: this was kind of a piece of the article. With
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Goodert's Law in mind, what does it even mean to
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: go viral today? Does it still have any value? Time
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: and time again, we talked about some at the beginning
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: of the show. This thing went viral. Now today, this
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: thing's viral. Now this is viral. Does that still have
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: value for a brand? Your post goes viral or a
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: piece of your campaign goes viral. Is that still valuable? Yeah.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, going viral can absolutely have value.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It can introduce people to something that they never would
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have discovered before or otherwise. But the business question that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: comes afterwards is what did that attention do? Did people
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: remember the brand? Did they understand the product? Did those
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: people come back? Did they buy something? Did they recommend it?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Did anybody really care about that?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just trying to think in my mind.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I was like going back to another quiz question. Do
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you remember the it wasn't that long ago, the Snoop?
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: He was going smokeless viral campaign. Do you remember what
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that was for?
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the the fire pit.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I was like struggling to put my finger on. I
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: was like, what's the name of that thing? It was
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: the solo stove. I had to look it up. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: couldn't do it. But I was like, that's something they
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: spent a good amount of money on to get this.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And they did. It's kind of a viral sensation. And
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I think it led to exposure and sales, but a
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: temporary burst.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: So you definitely get something out of it. You get
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: brand exposure, you build something, but it's not really like
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: building your business. You're getting a bump, but you're not
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: building your business the way you traditionally try to. It's
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: like this burst- You know, a tornado that comes out
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and hits, which can cause some brands or some companies,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: depending on the size of them, trouble. And, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: in some cases, like they could be overwhelmed at that point.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: But then you're, you know, kind of back to where
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: you were. In some cases, you're expecting a sustained amount of,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: you know, sales and exposure after that, that you are
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: not sustaining. Is it as good of a thing or
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: is it like winning the lottery where you're like, this
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: would change my life and make everything better? And then
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: you're like, I'm kind of cursed afterward.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something that situationally, it's just going to depend
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: on what it is that you're doing. But you really
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: should be looking at that. Are you attracting the right
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: customers or the right people to whatever it is that
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: you're doing? That's always going to be the tough question
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: because sometimes you're just caught up in it and it's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: not going to feel like it matters at the time,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: but later on it will. It will matter because in
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the end, Beyond the brand exposure that you got in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that limited time, like, will people remember your brand? A.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And B, what is the lasting impression that they have
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of you? It's not just that they remember the brand,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: but it's also, did you improve over time? Like, did
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you improve the memory recall that they.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Have of you?
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Or are they people like, oh, yeah, they were the
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: ones that had that, you know, that viral campaign?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Is it positive or negative recognition from there on after? Yeah.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it's hard not to get caught up in it, but
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: you could have a viral campaign where you're like, oh man,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: this is exciting. We've reached like 5 million people have
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: watched this or, you know, like this or something like that. Meanwhile,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: you could have, you know, something modest where you send
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: out an email and like 25 really good leads come
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: out of it. And that might be more valuable. You know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: then this 5 million video.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: But we're just not looking at it like that. The
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: other thing I think is I'm like, we've had so
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: many viral things. Is it that meaningful to go viral anymore?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Back in the day, you
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: used to go back and do some more old man stuff.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: You know, the early days of YouTube. That kid who
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: went to the dentist, you know, he's riding in the car.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Classic video. You know, this is like viral and you're like, whoa,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: everybody's seen this. Now it's like another viral thing. There's
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: been five of them today. It's like immediately like into
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: your brain and out of your brain, if it even
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: makes it to your brain.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of those now. And it happens so quickly.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: We see them so often that It becomes almost white
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: noise at this point. This week, it's one thing. Next week,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: it'll be something else. And I know it's still exciting. Like,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I think everybody's still chasing it to some degree.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: But it's just not the same as it was like seven,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: eight years ago.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Viral desensitization where you're like, I can't even feel
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: anything from these viral campaigns anymore. You know, six, seven
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: doesn't do anything for me.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So have you ever clicked on something and immediately regretted
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: rewarding whatever it was?
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Probably feel like that's most of my internet usage. Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I try to think of something specific and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I can, but it's definitely happened
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: to me. Can you think of like a time where
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: you were like, oh yeah, why did I do this?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I find myself, I'm such a
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: cynic in life, you know? If I feel like this
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: is a cash grab, meaning like my attention, it's just
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: trying to get my attention, I do the opposite. I
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: won't click on it for that reason. Or I go
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: into like an incognito browser so that they don't even get.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to give you the satisfaction.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And maybe that's me. But I generally try to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: avoid it. At some point I was like, ah, no,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I won't give you that satisfaction ever again.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So, and that's sad because I am a marketer, but
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that's another reason, you know, you've seen too much.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So from the viral aspect, what is that going
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: to look like in the future? Do you have any
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: thoughts on that?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's got to be diminishing returns, obviously for
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: anybody trying to go viral, which I think trying to
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: go viral is just a mistake in itself. But I
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: think for the people who looking for those things or like,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: you know, us as consumers who are like, hey, look
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: at this thing that went viral. I think our response
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: is a lot of people's response, which is a shrug now.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: What used to be these big blips that would go up,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I think have gotten, you know, they become like smaller mounds.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And I think it's going to kind of just flatten
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: out more in the future as we're getting more and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: more content fed to us.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that should be your takeaway. I love
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that you said Trying to go viral is a mistake
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in and of itself. Well... I mean, it's true. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: believe in that. I believe what you're saying.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: The forced viral, the manipulated viral, which can work and
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: has worked, is just a bad idea.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: And, you know, you've heard me say this before. Like,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: we've talked about things. I'm like, oh, that would go viral.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It would be so cool. And then we talk about
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it for, like, a split second, and I'm like, yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you're right. That would suck really bad.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: But yet.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: just thinking through the logistics of that. You know what
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: It's hard. And I think everybody has this idea that
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: it's hard to shake it where you're like, I want
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: this to go viral. I want, because who would want that?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: You want everybody to see it. You want everybody to
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: like it. You want everybody to click it. You know,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you want that result with everything you post, everything you
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: put out there. You just want as many eyeballs on
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it as possible. Yeah. Not necessarily thinking about the why,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: but it's kind of like, you know, just the glory.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: You feel like there's some adulation, some glory, you know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: on the big stage. So I think that's kind of
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: a natural desire.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. We all want to be wanted and needed.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: We used to just want to be, you know, dream
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: of being big stars. Now we all just dream of
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: being viral.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I like that. It's like lyrics to a song. We
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: all want to be big stars.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a Kid Rock song. That's not my takeaway.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Kid Rock song, not my takeaway. That wasn't Kid Rock.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Was that Nickelback?
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I just want to be big rock stars in a
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: big house. Something like that. All right. So the takeaway
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: from all this, you know, obviously a lot of flowing
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: conversation today, you know, if you take away anything, I
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: think it's this just idea of good hearts law. So
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: be careful about confusing the thing you're measuring with the
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: thing you actually care about. So for marketers, that means
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: asking a simple question whenever we look at a metric,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: what is this number actually telling us? That's it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Did any of it help you achieve your purpose?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: You really have to look at the importance. You have
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: to reflect, ask tough questions.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I think even like just this idea of good hearts law,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: having that in the back of my head as I
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: do some of these everyday things and like seeing a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: number now, I think that's going to pop up in
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: the back of my mind. What does that really mean?
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Is it kind of like when Morpheus first approached Neo
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and explained what the matrix was and then it was hard.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Cause then he knew that it was just a curtain.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: It was a facade.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Basically that is it. You can't see the matrix yet,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: but you know, it's there.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not seeing the green numbers coming down just yet,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: but I, I know it's, I know it's there now. Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Makes you think hard about what you're doing.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: And, uh, And why you're doing it.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And why you're doing it. Exactly. I love that. All right, everyone.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: We hope you got something out of today's show. But
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that's it for this episode of Speaking Human. You can
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: find current and past episodes of this very podcast going
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: all the way back to the beginning on speakinghuman.com.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Speaking Human. Catch you then, humans. Speaking Human