Latest / Linen Suit & Plastic Tie / What Stories Are Your Brands Telling? ft. a Neuromarketing Professor (Dr. Matt Johnson)

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What Stories Are Your Brands Telling? ft. a Neuromarketing Professor (Dr. Matt Johnson) · Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

0:04
Welcome. Welcome to the linen suit and
0:06
plastic tie podcast. This, the podcast will be die
0:10
set analyze and investigate the amazing.
0:13
The suspenders that epic. The cool Power of Storytelling
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and learn how to harness that power to supercharge our
0:20
everyday lives, I'm gaurav and I'm cover cap.
0:25
You know, on the show we talk about branding quite a bit.
0:28
We talked about Brands we talked about luck Three goods and how
0:31
ideology of luxury goods and apple how, because they've
0:34
carefully, cultivated that brand, it provides value like
0:37
you're willing to pay more even though it's the same shoe with
0:40
the logo. But you know what's interesting
0:42
about plans? And I am thinking about weird
0:45
things that have glands like kale kale I think is one of the
0:49
most well branded things on earth.
0:52
Think about this. If you go to some in California
0:54
and say, hey, do you want a regular salad or do you want to
0:56
kill salad for a dollar more? A lot of people do choose chaos.
1:00
Out. And be like, why?
1:01
It's a superfood and you like, so, what does do well?
1:06
And people are like, antioxidants, like no one knows
1:10
like very few. People actually know the value
1:13
of kale and know what it does. So you but they know it is a
1:16
superfood and they know it does well for you.
1:19
So like avocado people will pay a dollar extra for a kale
1:23
because they feel like that meal is better for them than the
1:26
regular salad. Yeah, I mean kill and I'll
1:29
Otto's they there's carry their own titles.
1:32
There's vegetables. And then there's kale and then
1:35
solve The Prado branding is everywhere.
1:38
It's the way you talk to each other.
1:39
It's the way you dress. It's the way the city you live
1:42
in. Let's talk about California,
1:44
California and Los Angeles in particular has amazing branding.
1:48
It seen as glamorous and beautiful, right?
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But the parts of California that people talk about, as I
1:55
glamorous people not living here, I kind of you know not
1:58
that like Walk of Fame like that is I'm not I don't want to shit
2:03
on Cowboy Los Angeles places right now.
2:06
But I mean like, as residents as residents of La for seven years
2:11
running out, seven years at this point, we talked quite a bit
2:14
about how just astoundingly disappointing Hollywood, like,
2:19
the actual. Yeah, place.
2:21
We are both immigrants, right? We are both immigrants who grew
2:24
up on Hollywood films, you've been from China me being from
2:27
Canada. Like Hollywood is seen as his
2:29
Huge Grandma's face, but when you actually get in Hollywood,
2:33
no one who lives here wants to spend that much time in
2:35
Hollywood, right. One exception to this rule
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though is I would say, will Deo Drive is exactly what I
2:45
pictured. Well they are Drive is like the
2:47
rich expensive shops. And I've gone there spend time
2:52
with their. I'm it's exactly what I
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pictured, very expensive, very nice clothing but you go, four
2:59
blocks five. It's down, it's totally
3:01
different. That's the thing about l.a. it's
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it has so many weird, different environments, and there's some
3:06
really cool parts that I like we've been here six years but
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it's a city that has such amazing branding and it just
3:15
funny it's just funny and that's it.
3:17
That's the idea branding its reality versus expectations and
3:20
it's about finding core parts of the city because a lot of light
3:24
is glamorous. Kale is good for you and point
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out to this giant method. Those that get people excited
3:31
behind the brand. Anyways, Kev branding
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excitement, who we talking to today?
3:39
Well, today, we are diving deep agent, branding again.
3:44
But from a Brand New Perspective, we are talking to
3:49
dr. Matt Johnson, who is a
3:52
neuroscientist who dedicates a lot of his work on branding and
3:57
marketing. He is a Professor.
4:00
He is a contributing writer for psychology today.
4:04
He's been an expert in Residence at well-known Brands like Nike
4:10
and he's come out with a new book called branding.
4:13
That means business building an enduring bonds between Brands
4:17
consumers and markets. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk to
4:20
a Princeton PC and no signs about branding and business.
4:24
This is gonna be cool. And of course, story time,
4:32
Today, we are joined by Professor Matt Johnson, who has
4:38
an amazing story. So to get us started.
4:40
Matt can tell us a little bit about yourself.
4:44
What is the story? Thanks so much.
4:46
Kevin choreographer for having me on, so I love the topic of
4:51
Storytelling excited to get into it.
4:53
I think it's, it's always interesting sort of recalling
4:56
One's Own Story because, you know, that the dots always
5:00
Connect into an interesting. Meaningful.
5:02
Consolation sort of in retrospect.
5:04
But then, you know, as you're going through the process, it
5:07
doesn't necessarily not always deliberate, you know, step hop
5:12
from from one node to the next. But so originally I grew up in
5:16
California so I'm from the north bay and from Sonoma County.
5:19
I did my undergrad down in San Diego, just always
5:23
fundamentally. There's no origin story to.
5:25
It really is just always been a part of me that they're just
5:27
very curious about people or decrease about Cuban Nature's
5:30
and of what leads? Us to do what we do.
5:33
So what makes us tick and so that naturally leads one towards
5:37
the fields of Psychology and Neuroscience.
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That's what I specialize in as an undergraduate, I couldn't
5:43
have thought of a better sort of activity to be engaged in than
5:47
to keep learning and doing research in this area.
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So when I graduated, I went and started a PhD at Princeton
5:54
University out on the out on the East Coast experience in cold
5:58
weather for the first time, even though I know Harden, Coasters
6:02
from New York or Boston or Maine will say, oh, that's the
6:05
Mid-Atlantic, it's not too cold, but is very cold from someone
6:07
coming from Southern California. So there I was really engaged in
6:12
the Neuroscience of language and communication.
6:16
And so really how we interpret these vocal signals from our
6:21
fellow human beings and how we articulate them and how we hold
6:24
this incredible, vast compendium of linguistic, knowledge in our
6:29
heads and sort of articulated and utilize the Find musculature
6:32
in our throats and real-time, to be able to make these
6:35
incredible. Sounds in such a way, where it
6:37
follows a convention, where by someone who speaks that, same
6:41
language, could hope to understand it.
6:42
So language is just an incredible mental faculty, and
6:46
one that I specialized in, in terms of my PhD study.
6:50
And so from there, to be completely honest, and this is
6:54
where it sort of makes sense. In retrospect, I just needed to
6:57
do something else. I went straight from undergrad
7:00
to do. My PhD.
7:01
I was in the Fifth grade. I went to school Princeton New
7:04
Jersey, great. So the university experience.
7:07
The town is not the most economically.
7:10
Diverse place is a very small town and I just wanted to sort
7:14
of experience the world. I felt sort of very out of touch
7:16
with the Common Man and so I went and it was a very reaction
7:19
who quite frankly. I went to do the complete
7:21
opposite of what I've been doing.
7:23
I moved to Shanghai China and work in business Consulting.
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So I went from sort of a truth based discipline of sort of, you
7:30
know, you're interested in how How something works and trying
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to find, you know, the the the Slender is margins of scientific
7:37
addition to the cumulative wisdom to a very pragmatic
7:40
Enterprise, which is, you know, we don't really care about
7:43
truth. We care about, you know, action.
7:45
We want to know just enough to be able to make a decision of
7:48
what we should do. Is we go left or right?
7:50
Should we invest in this or best in that?
7:51
So they're doing business, something work in Shanghai which
7:54
is a very, very different city than than the Princeton.
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So going from, you know, a town of about To a massive Metropolis
8:03
for about twenty seven million. So it's a very reaction move but
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it was really that experience that showed me, this sort of
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Rich interconnection between my previous life's as a
8:13
neuroscientist. And now, my Modern Life, as a
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marketing professional and as a business person, because really
8:19
there, when I saw this really unappreciated intersection
8:23
unappreciated interaction between neuroscience and
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business, particularly within marketing, and it was around the
8:30
same time that the work. Of data condiment.
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I got the opportunity to work a little bit with it at Princeton
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really came to the Forefront Behavioral Science judge came
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out Cass sunstein's work. Dan ariely really popularized
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the field and its really led me to the career path.
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I'm on now where I really specialize in the application of
8:49
Neuroscience to marketing and this is where I do research.
8:52
I speak, I write books. I talk to interesting people,
8:57
like yourself about these ideas and that's really become my mic
8:59
or specialty. So, And it all makes sense in
9:03
retrospect. But, you know, at the time, you
9:06
know, for being honest, it's sort of, we smooth out the
9:09
story, as we go. So many things, you said in your
9:12
intro video, pained my my brain here one, I study, cognitive
9:16
science and business, economics at UCLA because I was trying to
9:20
build a behavioral economics degree that didn't exist.
9:23
But yeah, Danny really Daniel Kahneman.
9:27
Some of these amazing cognitive scientists have written so many
9:31
amazing. In books and studies on, on the
9:34
way our brains work in the way we think and the way we move
9:37
around the world and I've loved you are writing on that as well.
9:39
And that's so much story time. Kind of spinning it back to a
9:42
little bit more of your career working with Brands and we're
9:45
going to story time looking psychology, can you tell us a
9:47
little bit more about this kind of or share a story where you
9:51
utilize psychology or storytelling in brand marketing?
9:55
And the way this thinking about it, a little bit deeper changed
9:59
to campaign or change the messaging?
10:01
Yes, So I mean storytelling is absolutely crucial within
10:05
marketing on someone in level. So one, one particular way that
10:10
I like to think about storytelling, it's in the
10:13
product experience instead of the product brand.
10:16
So you know, you can think about any given product, you think
10:19
about, you know, a schooi to give it a copy, think about
10:22
really anything and you have your basic features that you
10:25
have the basic utility. You can, you know, the cup is
10:28
made of glass. The shoe is made of these
10:30
materials and an apron Vide these, you know, sort of
10:33
benefits to a potential consumer, but there's another
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layer there that can be crafted which is sort of crafting this
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idea of set of the essence of the object, essence of the
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product. And this is really where
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storytelling comes in and really where the the human beings
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storytelling nature comes in because we're sort of
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fundamentally driven to sort of see the hidden Essence, an
10:59
object, so that it's see the hidden soul.
11:01
In object. So they've done.
11:03
These really interesting experiments is the work of Bruce
11:05
hood and Paul Bloom problems. Now at University of Toronto, he
11:10
was at Yale University for a long time where they'll give
11:14
young children, they're stuffed animal.
11:17
And they say, okay, well, we're going to put this in a magic
11:20
machine and we're going to duplicate it and we're going to
11:22
have like, you know, two sets, identical atom, for atom, which
11:27
one you want and, like, almost without exception.
11:31
Option children will go to, there's original object and go
11:35
to the original, teddy bear, and it's not about the physical
11:39
constituents because that hasn't changed is identical, Adam for
11:42
Adam, and they all understand that.
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But the one that they become accustomed to, they grow
11:46
attached to that has the hidden assets.
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And this is why. For example, the original Mona
11:53
Lisa you know, is priceless, you know, original Salvador, Dali
11:57
is, you know upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars but you
12:00
can have a Really identical replica made and it would cost
12:06
$50 or $60. So, the art world and the world
12:10
of sentimentality towards objects of children is sort of a
12:14
window into this world of essence and one fascinating
12:17
thing that marketers can do is they can sort of create that
12:20
Essence with Storyteller. And there's a great experiment
12:25
that I've utilized quite a bit. When I talk the brains about
12:28
this, I've worked with Nike on a few projects, having to do with
12:31
this. And some of the the shoes that
12:33
they were creating and some of the co-creation with consumers
12:35
there and it's this experiment called the ordinary objects
12:40
experiment. And what they did is they bought
12:42
a bunch of just basically ordinary objects off of eBay.
12:46
Sounds like a Pez dispenser, a shoelace cops, really basic
12:50
stuff. And what they did is they hired
12:53
a team of writers and they gave each writer an object.
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And they say, write a story about this physical object write
13:00
a story about this pet. Spencer and to say, oh that's
13:04
you know I'm just making this up top my head.
13:05
They would say, well this has to Spencer, it was owned by, you
13:09
know, this one child and that child lost it for five years.
13:13
But then it's Uncle found that and they were reunited, the
13:16
child was so happy forever and it became too popular kid in
13:18
school. You know, there's some, you
13:19
know, story just like a paragraph that was written about
13:23
the object and then they put all of those objects back onto eBay
13:28
and they sold them and they notice that of it.
13:31
Delta between the original price that they bought it for the
13:34
basic Pez, dispenser versus the price of fetch.
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Now, after having a story and it was like a 200% increase, like,
13:42
you know, you bought this basic Pez dispenser for two dollars
13:44
and then you resold, it was like, people really didn't like
13:47
$400 for it. Because it had this story that
13:50
really Infuse, this ordinary object with this Essence.
13:53
It wasn't just an ordinary peasant.
13:56
Spencer. Now, it has this hidden soul and
13:59
if we really try to dissect that hidden soul, Product, which in
14:03
many cases can really galvanized its value.
14:05
It's the, it's the hidden story and that's well within the
14:09
purview of what marketers are able to do.
14:13
I know you guys just one last example because I know you guys
14:16
have recently a professional wine taster and it wasn't you
14:20
ghora for you. Getting some of you know that
14:22
was Kevin Smith. Yeah okay.
14:24
Okay, so there's all sorts of research as you've guessed as
14:30
Erin Lucas has all sorts of Of research on how the experiences,
14:34
the wind, how its presented. The story that's told about it
14:39
really deeply influences, our raw perception of that wine.
14:43
So there's experiences Baba she've at Stanford University,
14:46
where you have two, identical bottles of wine.
14:50
You tell one it's you know, five hundred dollar, Opus One, you
14:52
tell the other it's Two Buck Chuck and guess what the Opus
14:56
One is going to taste much better, even though they're
14:59
actually identical wind. The You know, physical reactions
15:03
happening level the tongue and yet it really deeply influences
15:07
are sort of raw perception. There's all sorts of research on
15:10
some of the storytelling about the origin of the vines.
15:13
And so the inspiration and what happened that specific season
15:16
when you know the wine is harvested, the grapes are
15:19
harvested. And that can really sort of
15:22
galvanized didn't not just the what we're willing to pay for a
15:25
bottle of wine, but we sort of look neuro scientifically.
15:28
It really influences the raw perception of what the consumer.
15:31
Is experiencing. So yeah, storytelling is just
15:34
incredibly powerful. It really infuses these everyday
15:38
products and as well as use everyday sort of experiences
15:40
with wine and other food with with much much greater sort of
15:45
significance. And meaning, I love the way you
15:48
used the word essence there. And you know, it's fascinating
15:52
because there's so many intersections here, what type of
15:54
marking with her. It's so AA.
15:55
My no science and how all these scenes feed into each other.
15:59
And I'm currently in the middle of Robert Wright's book.
16:01
Why Buddhism is true and he talks about, I know, if you've
16:05
read is, I have. Yeah, yeah.
16:07
And he talks about it in the same way he talks about Essence
16:10
in the same way where the way that we value things and it's
16:17
kind of a Buddhism and meditation perspective of kind
16:20
of stripping away, I sense and stepping away from the essence
16:23
that human humanity and our mind and our mental models.
16:27
Put onto the world, we won't get super deep into that pipe but he
16:31
taught About his example, he uses his, a tape measure, right?
16:35
For those who haven't read the book, he uses a tape measure.
16:38
He says an Auctioneer. We can auction off.
16:40
A tape measure owned by JFK for millions of dollars and then but
16:45
if you go to that person, as soon as they bought it and say,
16:47
oh and you see how excited they are and you say, oh wait
16:51
actually we gave you the wrong tape measure.
16:52
That's just one. We've hit the from the store
16:55
will ship you. The real one you see the energy
16:57
drain from their face and that's storytelling that That is no
17:03
science. That is meditation.
17:04
That is mindfulness all wrapped into one where you don't have to
17:08
get too hippie-dippy in mindfulness, to believe in that
17:11
things. Take up physical space.
17:13
But these physical products have an Essence in the story that we
17:17
are applying onto it. So, I love this intersection
17:21
between marketing and Neuroscience because exactly
17:23
what you're saying. It's about adding that Essence
17:27
to products to get people to relate with it.
17:31
No, I love Of the, the Robert Wright example.
17:35
Yeah, he's really on to the same type of research where the value
17:40
that we ascribe to a product goes above and beyond the
17:44
physical constituents of that product.
17:46
And really goes to our fundamental beliefs about it,
17:49
which is, of course, sculpted by the stories that we were told.
17:54
And that case about the tape measurer and along the same
17:58
lines as you were, mentioning the Robert, right stuff.
18:00
I think it was in his and this book or His previous already
18:03
talking about sort of the human perception, and some of the
18:06
difference between sort of perceiving a flower and like
18:08
proceeding weeds in a garden and like there's nothing sort of
18:13
like intrinsically about the weeds themselves that make them
18:18
feel ugly to us humans, especially maybe in a certain
18:22
sort of cultural upbringing that, you know, weeds are
18:25
everywhere and they grow really fast.
18:27
And then, you know, when somebody who spends a lot of
18:29
time with Gardens, they look at a weed and they feel Lovely
18:32
towards it but there's nothing like intrinsically.
18:36
Ugly about weeds and beautiful about flowers.
18:40
It's all this sort of psychological schema which is
18:43
layered onto that experience and again sort of culture plays in
18:49
quite a bit as well. We look at you know certain
18:51
cultures appreciation of things that other cultures finds
18:55
completely ugly, and completely unattractive and a different
18:58
conception of beauty. But again, it's we sort of take
19:01
for granted. Into it or we assume naturally
19:04
that if we if we find something sort of ugly or unattractive,
19:09
then it's an inherent and that object itself.
19:13
But in fact there's nothing intrinsically valuable or
19:16
undoubtable out there the physical world, we ourselves the
19:19
beholders, the colder share, you know, we sort of cultivate that
19:24
perceptual feeling. Yeah, it's that it's that
19:27
Community cultural story and we've talked about this quite
19:30
extensively on the show. About value.
19:32
And the way Stories We Tell communities and get communities.
19:36
Excited about creates value like recently, I've been thinking a
19:39
lot about this, the blue versus green text bubbles, like, is
19:44
Apple and Google economy in a pretty big fight right now.
19:47
Well, at least Google's trying to get apple to get into a fight
19:51
about green versus blue and yeah, and I don't know for
19:55
people listening, probably know what I'm talking about.
19:59
If you have an iPhone, when you're testing some about an
20:01
iPhone, they do. My message.
20:02
So their bubbles coming from green or when you're in a group
20:05
and one person doesn't have an iPhone, they have an Android
20:07
bubbles come up in green, and that's in.
20:09
You know what shaming? It's not shaming but like yeah,
20:14
shaming the Android User. Yeah, I know, I think you may
20:20
get a little bit of pushback from the Apple devotees about
20:24
the bra utility of an Android versus an Apple iPhone, but
20:28
absolutely. Absolutely.
20:29
Take your point, especially when you consider that price point.
20:31
I mean, One thing that that Apple's done incredibly well and
20:34
continues to do is they've maintained their status as a
20:37
luxury Hardware companies in a rare luxury hardware company.
20:41
Whereby, they're able to maintain a relatively high price
20:45
point, but B also simultaneously relatively mass-market and so
20:49
not only is it incredible brand that has good Hardware has good
20:53
features, but it's become a status symbol as well where it
20:57
says something about the individual.
20:59
There's some social signaling, their whereby somebody IPhone
21:02
instead of says something about them that you know, isn't
21:06
maintained if you have an Android or a xiaomi or another
21:10
another model. So absolutely has some symbolic
21:12
value for sure. This something Scott Galloway
21:15
talks a lot about like apple has a symbol as a luxury good.
21:19
It's fascinating. So I mean not to spend this
21:22
whole time talk about Apple in your opinion your career why
21:26
should we hire know scientists in marketing but question that's
21:30
a great. Yeah, it's a On collection, but
21:32
a good question. So one set of response there is
21:36
that whether marketers weather printer.
21:38
It is realize it or not, they are utilizing neurosciences.
21:44
And by that, I mean marketing and branding comes necessarily
21:51
with assumptions, about human beings and assumptions about
21:56
models, and any type of appearing advertising.
22:00
You know, there's all sorts of Intuitions, you know, an ad
22:03
agency will have about why this particular copy is going to hook
22:07
or that one's not gonna hug or in pricing.
22:10
You know how much flexibility how much will anticipate how
22:12
much demand exists in the market?
22:14
Gives us the flexibility to price differently, whatever
22:16
you're doing in marketing. There's going to be a sentence
22:18
there that trespassed intimately onto the grounds of
22:23
psychological science and Neuroscience.
22:24
So it's not really a question of.
22:26
Hey, as a marketer, do you want to use Neuroscience?
22:29
It's you want to have your typically ground that
22:32
assumptions be aligned with the cumulative wisdom of science.
22:37
The scientific discipline of Neuroscience or do you want it.
22:41
Have it just be sort of freewheeling intuition.
22:43
And so it's really about sort of checking those basic assumptions
22:47
about what you expect consumers to do, should you make certain
22:51
changes in your business and certain changes in your
22:54
marketing activity and and really trying to tether that
22:58
more and more to the actual discipline of Neuroscience.
23:01
So, One answer is that it's not about checking these basic
23:04
assumptions which are human in nature.
23:05
If they're human in nature, then we should be grounded in the
23:08
cumulative science of human nature, which is neuroscience.
23:11
And psychological science didn't, think I would say is
23:14
that, there's quite a lot all the time.
23:17
I mean, I feel like every year, especially we're talking in, you
23:19
know? And a January, every January is
23:22
the predictions for 2023. This is the way, the world is
23:24
headed east the trends. This huge sort of investment in
23:28
trying to predict and understand the future.
23:31
And of course, This is a really important Pursuit for any
23:34
business. You're trying to predict sort of
23:36
what the world is going to look like 5 10, 15 years from now.
23:39
What's the technological landscape going to look like in
23:41
10 years and how can we, as a business Community?
23:45
How can I as a business organization, put myself in a in
23:49
an advantageous position in this, hypothetical future, that
23:53
doesn't exist yet. And again, that's a very Noble
23:55
Pursuit, very important. But we're taking a
23:57
neuroscientific perspective, we can ask a different and I think
24:00
complementary question, which is, Asking not what's going to
24:03
change, but what isn't going to change?
24:06
What's going to stay the same and especially if we operate in
24:10
a b2c environment and our customers are human beings.
24:15
Then the most fundamental non shifting elements that we're
24:18
going to be dealing with are the fundamental features of human
24:22
nature. Whatever happens in technology,
24:24
whatever happens in geopolitics, the fundamental variables of
24:28
human nature aren't going to shift.
24:30
And of course, that's not A incredibly straightforward
24:33
proposition. So us, humans were strange,
24:36
quirky multifaceted, hypocritical contradictory
24:40
creatures. That's a huge intersection as
24:42
we've already talked about with culture and with Society, so
24:46
it's not as if human nature operates in a vacuum.
24:49
But nonetheless, through taking a set of a human nature oriented
24:53
perspective towards marketing, we can address these
24:56
fundamentals and take a different.
24:58
And again, I think complementary approach to the prevailing sort
25:01
of Forward seeking attitudes that this is typically operated.
25:06
I do want to get into a boy mention about Marketing in
25:10
telling so many assumptions about the human instinct and it
25:14
is very human and nature knowing that knowing that, you know,
25:18
it's such a human Centric, kind of work, what goes into building
25:26
a more human connection for a brand with his customers.
25:30
There's a couple important variables to look at.
25:33
So one off the bat is this observation of course that are
25:36
human beings are social creatures and there's this
25:40
age-old quote in Psychology which is all cognition is social
25:45
cognition. The way we see the world and we
25:47
were in nature even when we're you know by ourselves the way we
25:51
see the world is exquisitely crafted by who we are as social
25:56
creatures. And we have effectively a social
25:58
lens in which we're seeing the world.
26:01
And so Things that really hops out and we're looking at this
26:05
connection between human nature and and to the brand building is
26:10
that we see Brands the way we see human beings, we sort of
26:15
both look at them and in terms of similar dimensions, and this
26:18
also means that the things that we appreciate most in our fellow
26:22
human beings. We also tend to appreciate in
26:24
terms of brand attributes as well.
26:27
So if you think about, you know, different types of Brands every
26:29
type of brand personalities. You know, apple is Is
26:32
minimalistic and Nike is world-beating and ambitious.
26:36
And there's different sort of, you know, specific attributes
26:39
that a brand can differentiate itself with fundamentally two of
26:44
the most important which go across all of these sort of more
26:48
catchy personality characteristics, are the two
26:50
that we find most compelling as human beings and this is warmth
26:54
and competence. This is the work of Susan Fiske.
26:57
Was one of my professors at Princeton University and
27:00
graduate student may be cut. Done a lot of fantastic work on.
27:03
It's called The Stereotype content model and really much of
27:08
what we like about somebody much of our total impression of
27:11
somebody is based on these two variables alone.
27:15
And there's some great work with Alex todorov, was the prince's
27:18
now at University of Chicago where he's looked at, you know,
27:23
human judgments of other people and just within the first,
27:26
literally, 300 milliseconds of meeting somebody, whether we're
27:30
right or wrong. Are already assessing them on
27:33
dimensions of warmth and competence because these are
27:36
very important from a evolutionary standpoint.
27:38
They're already asking our does from a warm standpoint.
27:41
It's done. What are this person's
27:43
intentions? Do they intend to do me harm?
27:45
Do they intend to do me ill before I want to figure out?
27:47
Are they funny? Are they?
27:50
You know? Jovial.
27:51
Are they an introvert and extrovert?
27:53
I want to find out what their intentions are.
27:54
That's crucial. And then, secondly, I want to
27:58
find out competence. Do they have the ability to act?
28:02
On these intentions and what Susan Fiske.
28:06
And this is with her collaborator, Chris Malone who
28:10
is not an academic but operates in the practitioner field, they
28:14
found and done some really interesting research where you
28:16
look at these two dimensions of warmth and competence and all of
28:20
our most beloved brands are ranked very high in terms of
28:24
warmth and competence. So this is like Disney, this is
28:27
her. She's this is Nike.
28:29
These are like all of the most of the Loved brand are very high
28:33
on warmth and very high on confidence.
28:35
So it turns out that one of the things that we most appreciate
28:39
and our fellow human beings. We also appreciate in Brands, as
28:42
well. So one of the most crucial
28:43
things that Brands can do as they're building themselves as
28:48
they're thinking about how they can tort themselves in the
28:49
marketplace how they want to be perceived is, of course, be
28:52
differentiated in terms of your brand personality but also cater
28:56
to fundamental Human sociality by also in co-locating
29:00
dimensions of Warmth and competence.
29:03
That makes a lot of sense to humanizing the brand.
29:06
Yeah I mean it's so interesting. Humanizing the brand and
29:09
creating this connection I love this idea of what a confidence
29:12
is idea of like look at your favorite Brands and ask
29:14
yourself. Okay.
29:16
How do they rank on workin confidence and there's so much
29:18
we can learn from that, right? If you ask yourself, how you
29:21
presenting yourself to other people, not just the Brand's
29:24
you're building, but the conversations you're having.
29:27
Can you tell us a little bit more about how you can apply
29:28
this to almost like personal branding personal conversations
29:31
in The workplace or in a day-to-day lives, definitely.
29:36
So yeah, warmth is really the all important Dimension
29:39
competence definitely important. But warmth is really primary and
29:44
warmth, fundamentally comes down to a demonstration of one's good
29:48
intentions. So, in the business world, this
29:52
is really, you know, does the customer feel as if they're set
29:55
of invested in my long term well-being above and beyond the
29:59
sale? And so when it gets to like the
30:01
Brand's, This stuff is all these you know catches all these
30:04
manual things have been Apple to a certain extent with their
30:06
ecosystem. It's a very manually sort of
30:09
forced loyalty Starbucks with its loading program.
30:12
It's very sort of forest. It's some of the best friends
30:16
that have a strongest most loyal following don't have any loyalty
30:20
program at all. They demonstrate their positive
30:24
intentions and this this feeling of warmth and that brings
30:27
consumers coming back again. And again, one of my favorite
30:31
examples from the Corporate world that will take a look at
30:33
personal. Branding comes from one of my
30:35
favorite Brands, just Converse and Converse really harness this
30:39
idea of intentionality what our intentions as a brand.
30:43
And they've sort of Incorporated that into the organization in a
30:48
really, really creative, way by harnessing, what's called brand
30:53
purpose, where the organization and it's sort of the etchings of
30:58
the brand Constitution has a goal that Isn't profitability.
31:03
So of course as a publicly traded or tone by Nike but it's
31:06
you know part of a publicly traded company probability has
31:10
to be 1 its financial goals. But it also has goals which are
31:13
non Financial in nature and that the Brand's purpose and this is
31:18
sort of operationalizing the brand mantra.
31:20
For Converse is if we could unleash the creative Spirit, we
31:25
can change the world and that's sort of the ethos that the
31:29
converse tries to create and that's the intention Ins that
31:32
tries to create, and with this brand Mantra in mind, it
31:35
created. What, in my opinion is the best
31:38
ad campaign. The best marketing campaign of
31:40
all time, which is rubber tracks.
31:42
So, Converse has always been benefited by their appreciation,
31:47
by the musical community. So, you know, if you look at Ice
31:50
Cube, if you look at the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, these
31:53
people are, you know, they're doing fine.
31:56
They've got, you know, money in the bank.
31:57
But if when you can have everything, when you can have
31:59
anything, you still want to wear Chuck Taylors.
32:02
And it just has a special place in the musical community.
32:05
So in the early 2000s, Converse looked at this this is the CMO
32:09
jeffcott rotor, who's now the CMO of Topgolf, he said, how do
32:13
we give back to the musical Community has given us so much.
32:16
How do we give back? How do we execute on our brand
32:19
purpose and exude this intentionality and they started
32:23
rubber tracks? Which is there's so many
32:24
musical. I mean you guys are in Allah,
32:26
which is such a hotbed for incredible musical Talent.
32:29
There's many more musicians Than there are opportunities for
32:33
studio time and so rubber track said, let's give them Studio
32:38
space. So the craft of the first in
32:41
Williamsburg in Brooklyn, then they started one in Boston,
32:45
there's one in l.a. there's there's like 12 all over the
32:47
country and they are a basic, a gift to musically minutes.
32:52
You go online you register, you can book a time and you just get
32:56
a record there and it's free and Converse doesn't own that.
33:01
Make it very explicit. They don't own the rights to the
33:04
music. They don't own what's produced,
33:07
they'll ask you. Hey, this is really good.
33:08
We'd love to use it in an upcoming promo will of course,
33:11
tag your band in it and tag your Twitter or whatever your
33:14
Instagram page, whatever you want.
33:16
We just love to use the content, you know, that's up to the
33:18
artist, but it's generous in nature.
33:22
It's giving back the musical community.
33:24
And with that brand purpose, they were able to execute on
33:27
this incredible rubber traction, a, which is still around to this
33:31
day. Day and in the process really
33:34
acts themselves even deeper into the musical community.
33:38
And I think if not for this instantiation of brand purpose,
33:42
if not for the sort of operationalization of the core,
33:46
intentions of the brand above Beyond profitability.
33:49
I don't think doing a campaign like rubber tracks as possible.
33:52
There's no CFO in the world would say, yes.
33:55
You know, we can, we can, here's, here's a bunch of money
33:57
for this campaign that shows. No promise of ever providing
34:01
return it. So, Nebula sits about brand
34:03
building and this, you know, this messy brand space.
34:06
There's no way it would work without this that have been
34:08
stationed to level the organization.
34:09
So yeah, one of my favorite campaigns and I think really
34:13
illustrates this incredible power of intentionality in the
34:17
marketplace. That's really interesting.
34:20
I think I love that idea about these Brands building these
34:24
values and kind of what we were talking about.
34:27
A little bit of personal branding, is these brands that
34:30
you wear. Is a part of those values.
34:33
Like same thing with the Apple we were talking about about it
34:36
being a social status symbol. You are infusing this Essence
34:39
into these physical products. So as a person, I choose
34:42
products that I want a little bit about that.
34:46
Like the life that advertising, I want that to be a part of me,
34:48
not just so, I feel that. But so someone looks at me and
34:51
say, oh, here's a knife. Oh no, he's wearing those shoes
34:54
that indicate this. I think an example, this
34:56
negatively is Kanye West and Yeezys in Adidas and everything
35:00
that's happening there. Where I own Easy is that I do
35:04
not win anymore, because this Essence has changed.
35:07
Its story has changed. Another example, is blonde,
35:10
Tiago everything that's going on there.
35:12
We've anyone has heard about blonde, see Agha child
35:17
endangerment campaign. They accidentally did or
35:20
whatever. Someone got fired, look it up,
35:24
but it's this idea where there's these people who go out and they
35:27
buy these bags because of the story, but now they can't wear
35:30
them because Was the essence has changed.
35:33
So, I think it's really interesting.
35:34
This idea of Storytelling and fuses these products with an
35:38
Essence. If an idea with a belief and you
35:41
choose products for yourself to give off that Essence to tell
35:44
the story to other people because with storytelling beings
35:47
with social beings. Absolutely.
35:50
You approach your Yeezys, you know very differently, you know
35:55
in January 20 23, then you probably did you know when you
35:58
bought them you know, a few years ago and Being physically
36:03
about the easiest, his change, which changed is two things,
36:07
your ideas about Kanye West, and the Zeitgeist ideas about Kanye,
36:15
West, society's ideas about about Kanye West and that that
36:20
absolutely infuses the product, which is a symbol for all of
36:25
this. It's a 2-way communication
36:26
between your beliefs and society's beliefs, that sort of
36:30
etched into the sea. Soul of the product essentially
36:34
and I'm glad you brought up. Balenciaga.
36:36
It's well because storytelling is is, of course, crucial in
36:40
many different industries by different product categories,
36:43
but I think it's no more crucial than in the luxury industry.
36:48
I mean, you can buy a, you know, a tote bag.
36:51
Your, you know, tote bag for 50 cents or handed out for free at
36:55
some event, it's going to hold your stuff just as well as a
37:00
Balenciaga bag. But Balenciaga people are
37:03
regularly going to pay, you know, two thousand three
37:06
thousand dollars for it. If you have a Birkin bag, we're
37:08
talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.
37:10
If people are willing to pay for a Birkin bag that carries their
37:14
stuff, you know just as well as anything else.
37:16
We know it can't be done for utility.
37:18
We see, you know, orders of magnitudes, higher pricing power
37:23
for luxury brand for the same basic utility.
37:27
And again, it comes down fundamentally to sort of BB
37:29
Essence. And in many ways, Is especially
37:32
in luxury fashion, the objects fionn, not only matter, to sort
37:38
of our, our social groups, you sort of know something about
37:41
somebody. You think, you know, something
37:42
about somebody, if you see the movement Birkin bag or
37:44
Balenciaga bag signals, so sort of socially that I'm
37:49
sophisticated I have money or excetera, but very importantly,
37:53
it also signals something to ourselves as well.
37:57
This all sorts of interesting research and you guys are
37:59
probably familiar with this swell having Dug into the
38:02
Behavioral Science. Literature that really we have
38:06
sort of a story that we tell ourselves and that's very
38:09
important to sort of, are you to namik happiness?
38:19
To close out every one of our episodes, we have this segment
38:23
called suspenders. So this is where I ask you a
38:28
random fun question, does not related to anything whatsoever
38:31
in. You can give me any answer.
38:33
You feel like question of the day is what is something that
38:38
you know how to do like a skill or a hidden talent or whatnot
38:43
that is kind of useless. Oh man, I've got a got a few of
38:49
those. I know how to make balloon
38:54
animals relatively well. So one of my College jobs, I
39:01
was, I was a birthday clown and, you know, you have to get a, you
39:06
do the, the tricks with the pigeon and a cage, we act like a
39:11
rabbit in a hat and the stuff for the animals.
39:14
I was freaking out. But I always felt really bad for
39:16
them. So I tried to just stay away
39:18
from that, and I try to sort of specialize more in things that
39:21
if I mess up on a balloon animal, when it pops that's
39:24
fine. At least the rabbit in the
39:25
pigeon and our other animals are safe.
39:28
So that that sort of forced me into generating somewhat of an
39:31
expertise in balloon animal. So having done it for just a
39:35
summer, it's very hard work. That's impressive.
39:38
Oh, I feel like my answer to this would all be things I'm not
39:43
good at like I've the one thing that I can think of is like join
39:47
depend emic. I started trying pancake it just
39:50
because I was bored. And in the house, there's this
39:53
whole sort of interesting literature on like hobbies and
39:56
like intrinsic motivation, where, you know, how do you know
39:59
if something's like truly a t lick and it's a true hobby.
40:03
There's a things that, you know, one you're not necessarily very
40:06
good at and to like, you don't tell anybody about there may be
40:10
slightly embarrassed about and, you know, you're not getting
40:13
that sort of social feedback forward and The best examples
40:16
comes from Rod Stewart the the British rock star who he's like
40:21
an incredible act like making model trains and has he's like
40:26
incredibly like elaborate replicas of like huge vast
40:31
cities that stretch like you know, 40 feet and he like and
40:35
pains like all the little trees and stuff, but only recently
40:38
after doing it from like 20 years, like somebody found out
40:41
about it and they wanted to interview him about it.
40:42
So now it's out there but you just kept this whole thing
40:45
Secret. Because he was like, so
40:46
embarrassed about it, that's amazing.
40:55
Welcome back to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
40:59
where we dissect and analyze some of the interesting.
41:02
Awesome and cool learnings, we got from this week's expert
41:06
Storyteller. And this week to talk about
41:08
storytelling, we had a really cool brand expert and
41:13
neuroscientist. So I'm really excited to dive
41:15
deep into some of the key learnings that he gave us Kev,
41:18
how cool was Matt Johnson? Super amazing.
41:21
To learn about branding marketing from a Hands and
41:26
cognitive psychological perspective so much good sub.
41:30
So let's get into it. Yeah, and you know, I studied
41:33
business economics and cognitive science at school.
41:36
So it's really cool to kind of talk about that intersection of
41:39
Neuroscience cognitive science and business with someone who
41:41
does it for a living. And one of the really cool
41:44
things he talked to us about was the importance of warmth and
41:47
confidence. One fan confidence is ranked
41:51
very high in how you're perceived and how professional
41:53
you perceived and how well Well, kind of a conversation is going
41:57
to go. Because if you give off one and
41:59
confidence, you can communicate better and they're more likely
42:03
to believe you when you sell them something or work with
42:06
them. So that is something really key
42:08
in tactical because I think I give off one pretty well, but I
42:12
can definitely, I think improve my confidence a little bit more
42:15
and understand that having confidence is important to how I
42:18
come off. So I think that was such a key
42:20
tip about how one of the key things we should be trying to
42:22
give off and improve on. Selves is one Kindness how we
42:27
talked to another listening and confidence how we present
42:30
believing in ourselves. Taking time to believe in our
42:33
greatness is such a key way of improving, how we communicate in
42:37
the stories we tell on that point about warns and
42:42
confidence. You know, those are important
42:45
building blocks of a brand story in the sense that, you know, it
42:50
makes up the intentionality of the brand, which is super
42:52
important because, you know, inherently we We all want to
42:56
support. What's good?
42:58
Right. So if a brand managers to
43:01
establish itself and tell a story of, you know, a good
43:05
serving, a good purpose, it has a noble Mission that's not
43:09
necessarily Associated was just profiting.
43:12
People will gravitate towards that because by purchasing your
43:16
products, they're associating themselves with this Noble
43:20
mission that they identify with and also as a It is important to
43:26
tell the story of originality. That's how, you know, some of
43:31
the best Brands were able to build a self in sustain like
43:35
Coca-Cola. If you think about soda, that's
43:38
the brand that people default to because they're able to
43:42
establish that they are the original thing.
43:45
So, yeah, intentionality and originality.
43:48
And then I think intentionally originality that you touched
43:50
upon with luxury, good with anything, you wear, whether it's
43:55
your clothing, Has your shoes about the idea that those give
43:58
off stories based on the brand, right?
44:01
If I wear Nike shoes, it's not just oh the colors are cool.
44:05
Oh, it's cool on me. Also the story of Nike is
44:08
important because that's the shared brand through the
44:11
advertisements. They they give off food, just to
44:15
it. We working with Colin Kaepernick
44:16
who working with these Elite athletes.
44:19
Nike gives off an Essence and we talked about physical objects,
44:24
giving off essence. That's the route through shared
44:27
storytelling that's developed through my canning food,
44:29
branding if the company goes in a bad Direction.
44:32
The Direction you don't resonate with you kind of want to get rid
44:36
of those shoes. Because now destroyed the
44:37
essence that you're connecting with yourself that you're
44:40
choosing to promote is not a story.
44:42
You agree with, right? So it's so important to develop
44:45
your brand intentionally and so important that you remember that
44:48
every single piece is going to connect to the brand, tells your
44:51
story and make people proud to wear your gear or listen to your
44:54
show. When the most important parts of
44:56
branding, this has been another great episode of the linen suit
45:00
and plastic tie podcast if you like our content, subscribe, and
45:05
follow us wherever you listen. Leave us a comment or view to
45:08
let us know what you're thinking.
45:10
Follow us on Instagram or Tick Tock, add LSP, tpod LinkedIn.
45:16
When it's in plastic tie and take some time to ask yourself
45:20
when you put on clothes, put on your shoes.
45:22
Why am I making that a part of my story and ask?
45:25
Yourself and be more intentional about what you wear and the
45:28
story gives off and how it makes you feel.
45:30
Thank you, for dedicating this time to become a better
45:33
Storyteller, and think about storytime more critically.
45:35
We love you. We appreciate you, you're doing
45:38
great. We'll see you next time.