Episode 25: Two Marketers Breaking Down Every 2023 Super Bowl Ad
02:04:02 | July 1st, 2022
Episode Transcript
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, welcome, everyone. Episode 24, The Original Marketing Podcast.
Brady Cramm: Or show.
Garrett Mehrguth: Show. Podcast show.
Brady Cramm: Podcast show.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, I saw we call it both now too. So I don’t even know what to call it.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. It depends on what the format, you know?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: On a podcast, it’s a podcast. On YouTube, it’s a show.
Garrett Mehrguth: On a show, it’s a show.
Brady Cramm: On Apple TV, it’s a show.
Garrett Mehrguth: We’re everywhere.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, thanks for being with us today. We’re going to talk a little how to market a shoe brand. We have some ads to walk through with y’all. But Brady, we didn’t see each other for a week.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, lot’s gone down.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah?
Brady Cramm: Mm- hmm.
Garrett Mehrguth: Like what?
Brady Cramm: Took a nephew to Disneyland for the first time. That was fun.
Garrett Mehrguth: You took a nephew?
Brady Cramm: My wife and I took our little nephew, two and a half years old. Little Disneyland trip.
Garrett Mehrguth: What’s it like being a part- time parent in that moment? What did you see for, for yourself?
Brady Cramm: I was proud of us. I was talking my mom about it, she’s like, ” You did what?” Because it was my wife’s sister’s son. ” So, you guys just did that on your own?” I was like, ” Yeah, it was smooth.” I think the hardest thing is because I don’t have kids yet and he’s two and a half years old, so just holding a two and a half year old for hours in line when you didn’t take care of them as they were getting heavier over time, it was quite the bicep workout.
Garrett Mehrguth: You got to start working out, bros.
Brady Cramm: Because you got to park the stroller.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, you don’t have dad’s strength.
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: You have uncle strength.
Brady Cramm: Not dad.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, uncle strength.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, an uncle strength.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s average.
Brady Cramm: And it lasts a good four to five hours at Disneyland.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yah.
Brady Cramm: No, it was good. He was funny. We went to California Adventure because he only knows Cars, like the Car show and stuff.
Garrett Mehrguth: A racer in the making.
Brady Cramm: He didn’t really know Mickey Mouse or anything.
Garrett Mehrguth: Good.
Brady Cramm: So he took a photo with Tow Mater. And then he saw Mr. Potato Head outside of Toy Story Mania. It’s huge animatronic, Mr. Potato Head. He was so scared.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I bet you.
Brady Cramm: And the whole time he’s asked me, like, ” Where is he? Where’s Mr. Potato?” I’m like, ” No, he’s far.” And then I got a video from him at preschool today and he’s playing with a Mr. Potato Head.
Garrett Mehrguth: So he got over it?
Brady Cramm: I think he’s fighting his fears-
Garrett Mehrguth: Wow.
Brady Cramm: …in class, which is cool.
Garrett Mehrguth: If we’re being honest, you weren’t even playing man- to- man defense. You guys had a double team.
Brady Cramm: What do you mean?
Garrett Mehrguth: There’s two of you, there’s only one kid.
Brady Cramm: Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m over here playing zone, bro.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, but you’re a dad.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, but it’s three of them. I’m playing zone defense.
Brady Cramm: That’s true.
Garrett Mehrguth: You’re getting a little double team. That was so funny. Myra and I, we had just Maddie, my youngest, the other day. The other two were at school. She had pink eye. I was like, ” Sure, add it to the list.” And I was like, ” This is the easiest thing in the world.”
Brady Cramm: Just one, yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I was like, ” Parenting one child?” I was like, ” Autopilot, baby. This was so easy.”
Brady Cramm: It was handoffs whenever you want.
Garrett Mehrguth: I was like, ” I could go to restaurants.” Because I remembered when I had my oldest, and it was just her, if we were going out to get drinks, we’d bring her with us, like, ” Oh, we’re getting dinner with friends? Bring her with us. She’s great.” Now, if we’re going to go somewhere with all three, it’s like, ” Are you ready for war?” I get my paint on, I’m like ready to go.
Brady Cramm: I bet.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, it’s just different.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, this was pretty easy. He had a good time. Had some car issues, so I think I jinxed myself. Yep, been having some car issues.
Garrett Mehrguth: Do we finally get a new car?
Brady Cramm: Nope. But-
Garrett Mehrguth: Soon?
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: Come on.
Brady Cramm: So my engine, I started up in fashion island when it went from electric to gas, it just started rattling. So I shut it down, turn it back on, kept happening. And so I think my intake manifold might be warping in cold weather. So the air intake is like misfiring one of the cylinders.
Garrett Mehrguth: How did you figure this all out?
Brady Cramm: Oh, YouTube.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, how was it?
Brady Cramm: And everyone who had the problem, it was in the snow.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yep, yep.
Brady Cramm: So it’s either like a carbon buildup in the intake manifold, or it’s warping because it’s too cold out. Not a head gasket leak. I checked the oil, there’s no cooling in it. I did my due diligence.
Garrett Mehrguth: Blue- collared Brady.
Brady Cramm: But took it to the mechanic and it would not fire up like that for them.
Garrett Mehrguth: Of course not.
Brady Cramm: They did nothing so I just picked it up.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s great.
Brady Cramm: It’s like” I got stuff to do. If it starts up, fine.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Isn’t that the most emasculating feeling ever when you go in there and try to tell them all the problems it has and they’re like, ” Nothing’s wrong with it”?
Brady Cramm: Well, I was a little concerned because I was explaining it and it’s a very common Prius and CT200, which is what I have. And I was explaining what I found and he just didn’t seem to be tracking any of it. I was like, ” Oh.”
Garrett Mehrguth: You’re like, ” There’s like a million instances on the forums.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And it could have just been an ego thing, like, ” I’m not going to allow this guy who was on YouTube to tell me what it was.” And he just didn’t want to play that game, but it made me a bit concerned. I was hoping for him to say, ” Oh yeah, same with Prius. We get these all the time. Let me get my guys to dive into it.”
Garrett Mehrguth: But he did no recognition for you. There was no-
Brady Cramm: No, he had to wait for it to happen so he could find the error signal. I’m like, ” I know the error code. It’s going to say a cylinder is misfiring.” And they wouldn’t touch it until they got the code. And they never got the code. So it just sat there for four days and I just picked it up. I was like, ” It’s getting warmer out. Might not happen.” We got the client offsite coming up, so I might have to tell valet, the hotel, like, ” Hey, when you start it up, if it’s doing something, just call me over, I’ll get it going.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Jeez, all right.
Brady Cramm: Got stuff to do.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, you do.
Brady Cramm: I think I jinxed myself a little bit on the show.
Garrett Mehrguth: So what car were we going to get to replace it if we had to get one?
Brady Cramm: I think I was telling you this, I got an ad on Reddit recently for all the new Lexus lines from hybrid to plug- in hybrid to full electric. And they have, I think, it’s an NX500. Small SUV that I think the zero to six seconds. For a plug- in hybrid, that’s pretty good. It runs on full electric for 37 miles. I still like Lexus. Maybe a bigger car. My car is pretty small, but I don’t think I want to go full electric. But I love my current fuel efficiency of a hybrid. I’d have to look into my power box though. To get a plug- in hybrid, I might have to upgrade-
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s not too bad though, electricians can help.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s not too bad.
Garrett Mehrguth: I did that with my Tesla before.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. We’ll see. I mean, I don’t know what cars are going to be in the next five years, which is probably when I’m going to buy a new one, in five years.
Garrett Mehrguth: There’s no way.
Brady Cramm: Who knows?
Garrett Mehrguth: You’re getting one before that, dude. You’re cursed. You already are. The problems are happening. Once it starts to-
Brady Cramm: It’s just an intake manifold. It’s like a $ 300 part.
Garrett Mehrguth: I love it.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. What about you? You’ve just been sick, so I don’t expect too many updates.
Garrett Mehrguth: I was so sick. I was just under attack. I’m on my eighth day of antibiotics now, I’m starting to get my energy back. So, really happy about that. We’re doing some M& A work at Directive. We’ve got this big customer offsite. We got clients like Uber and others flying in.
Brady Cramm: Yep.
Garrett Mehrguth: Got to give a keynote. So I’m prepping for that tonight and tomorrow. Keynote’s Wednesday morning. So, you know, good times. But I think the big thing for me is just helping these leaders. We got some really good leaders here at companies doing well. Started the year pretty well on our goals. I know a lot of others people are having layoffs and recession talk, but for us it is harder. I think we are noticing some job cuts. I think there are some, like, the market’s pulling back a little.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think the challenger brands are struggling.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. But as the market leader, which I do consider ourselves the market leader in our segment, we’re doing okay, which I think is good. Whenever there’s bad times there’s still companies that do well. And the companies that do well during bad times are usually just better brands, better organizations. They’ve been around longer, they have more customer like Goodwill. And those ones we’re talking about, I think we just… I mean, you and I just got off with a big brand spending half a million dollars a month two hours ago. And I think we’ll probably start working with them. So yeah, it’s always exciting when you get to talk to those types of companies. But personally, man, I was in bed a lot and just kept working, kept all my meetings. I just kept going. But you know me, I’m not that good at going soft put. Just kept going. Kept working hard and cut some fish. Got a little fish.
Brady Cramm: Nice.
Garrett Mehrguth: Boat stuff still breaks all the time, which is just…
Brady Cramm: Yeah, at least you’re healthier than your boat.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I am-
Brady Cramm: It’s always the goal.
Garrett Mehrguth: … healthier thanmy boat, which is always the goal for me. But you ready to talk ads?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, let’s do it. We got mine pulled up. Are we going to start there?
Garrett Mehrguth: I think we have to.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, let’s do it.
Garrett Mehrguth: All right, break it down for me. Why’d you just pick this one? What did you love about it?
Brady Cramm: So it’s a new movie coming out. It’s the Super Mario Movie, and-
Garrett Mehrguth: Super Mario or Super Smash?
Brady Cramm: It’s Super Mario. I mean, this scene that is going to show, it’s like a Super Smash Brothers scene I guess. But what I like about it is I see this movie as an ad. I think the timing of generations-
Garrett Mehrguth: Isn’t that what trailers are?
Brady Cramm: No. The trailer is an ad for a movie, but the movie itself-
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, okay.
Brady Cramm: I think-
Garrett Mehrguth: I was like, ” Yeah, yeah. Brady, trailers are ads.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah, trailer is an ad for the movie, but I think the movie is the ad for Nintendo. And I just love the timing of generations. I grew up on Mario 64. I could have kids now. I don’t, but I could.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, you are.
Brady Cramm: I’m old enough, right? And so families going to this movie, parents wanting to see it. Nintendo World just opened up in LA, they have one in Japan.
Garrett Mehrguth: Wait, what’s the Nintendo World?
Brady Cramm: It’s a theme park. It’s a Nintendo theme park.
Garrett Mehrguth: Where is it?
Brady Cramm: So they have one in Japan, I think in Tokyo.
Garrett Mehrguth: Have they watched that episode on… I mean, they should watch that episode.
Brady Cramm: They could watch the episode. It’s pretty legit though, I’ve seen… I want to go to it, but they just opened up that theme park in LA. They have-
Garrett Mehrguth: Where in LA by the way? I’m just curious though.
Brady Cramm: I think it’s tied to Universal.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. So it’s a part of Universal?
Brady Cramm: I want to say it’s a part of Universal. I mean, Nintendo’s a massive video game company, Nintendo Switch. And so I think the parents wanting to see this movie with their kids. I think it’s their kids maybe getting into Nintendo, liking Mario, the characters. What do they do after the movie? Oh, do you want to play this on the Switch? Do you want to go to Nintendo World?
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, I got a problem with Nintendo.
Brady Cramm: What’s your problem with Nintendo?
Garrett Mehrguth: I feel like they’ve been lazy.
Brady Cramm: Hmm.
Garrett Mehrguth: Hear me out. Have you gone back to use one of their consoles?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Not their handheld. Because I think the handheld they do really well with, right?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, but their consoles are handheld now. It’s a hybrid. So I have a dock for my Switch that connects to monitor or I can bring it with me.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know, but I want real games.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, so you sacrifice graphics.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.
Brady Cramm: I’ve played Overwatch or Fall Guys on my Switch, and the graphics are-
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s pretty bad.
Brady Cramm: …terrible compared to my Xbox.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that’s what I meant. What happened to that?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Because I like to play FIFA Ultimate Team. And I do play, not currently, but I’ve played Overwatch and all the fighting games. The graphics, they’re always like, okay, Elden Ring. I got into Elden Ring. First time I’ve ever done a role- playing game. And I loved Elden Ring, but I loved the graphics. The bosses and the cinema photography, the art. There’s real artistry in the designers who are designing these bosses. And then I look at a Nintendo game and it’s like a stick character from 50 years ago. I feel like Nintendo… Because I was an N64 guy, I had the old square controller first and then I got my N64. I never even had an Xbox till college, I was always N64. But I feel like they kind of just like they were it, and now I feel like they let-
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I mean, they sacrifice graphics for mobility. But when I do international flights, I’ll bring my Switch.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.
Brady Cramm: They have a certain style of animation that I think fits their graphics, like, Breath of the Wild, the Zelda game. I mean, it looks incredible, but it’s a certain style of animation.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know what you’re talking about. I’ve seen it.
Brady Cramm: It doesn’t push the graphics.
Garrett Mehrguth: I have a Switch, but I’d never really play it because it’s just like… They haven’t ever got me the types of games I play like the FIFAs and the Warzones.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, FIFA you wouldn’t want to play on Switch, or Warzone, or anything like that.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes, I’m more like that kind of gamer.
Brady Cramm: But Breath of the Wild. Link’s Awakening is very old school format, which runs just fine on the Switch. It’s definitely has its own segment. But on that talking point, it would be interesting if the next level of Switch aligns with the type of animation in the movie coming out because I think it kind of-
Garrett Mehrguth: GoldenEye, Super Smash, Bomberman. I was a big N64 guy, and that’s why I wish we stole the N64 concept because I loved those games.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. But you can get all that on Switch, I’m sure.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m sure you can. All right, let’s see the ad. I know I’m just…
Video: Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, that’s totally the second time.
Video: Hmm. Oh. Oh, my God. Okay. All right. Me now. Ahh, you got the cat box. Oh, my… I’m sorry. Okay. Now you die. Only in theaters, April 7. Rated PG.
Brady Cramm: So those types of graphics would be crazy on Nintendo.
Garrett Mehrguth: Wait, was that like only eight seconds of footage?
Brady Cramm: It was like a short trailer. No, it was like 30 seconds.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, yeah, but I meant of like the… They did a good job though. The actual scene was so quick.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And a part of this is, it kind of annou… Like, Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong. So that’s why this trailer is kind of blowing up now because everyone’s excited about that.
Garrett Mehrguth: What’s the movie about though? So at one point, I like-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, there’s long trailers that probably give you more of the story of the movie. This is just a scene, I think, to maybe introduce Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong. But like I said, I see this movie being an ad in itself for all Nintendo product-
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what I liked-
Brady Cramm: … because ofthe timing of generations.
Garrett Mehrguth: I liked what you were saying there. So that reminds me, because I want to hear you say it. Can you look up Walt Disney business strategy for me? I want you to see this because I think this is what you’re referring to. And I think it’s a really clever way. Images. There it is. So give me that big 1957 drawing. There you go. So my point being is, this is one of the most brilliant macro visions I’ve seen from someone who is theoretically in charge of Mickey Mouse.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: So if you click on that little… Can you make that full screen or right click it? Oh, keep scrolling down. You should be able to right click and just view the… There we go.
Brady Cramm: That’s in no way an ad. Come on.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, Goddamn.
Brady Cramm: Who’s in this industry?
Garrett Mehrguth: All right. So essentially, to me, what you’re saying is if you’re Nintendo, that center box is the movie. This is just… And then you can time up product releases, platform releases. If you think about you’re selling me now that they’re building an amusement park, it literally is the Walt Disney business model-
Brady Cramm: Exactly.
Garrett Mehrguth: …for Nintendo. And I just want you to see this because I totally get what you’re saying. I want the audience to see this because this is conceptually what you’re articulating is they’re using a cultural phenomenon, which is Mario Brothers. And ironically, the part we all like, which has nothing to do with Super Mario Bro, which was Super Smash. Because that was what was weird to me. I thought it was Super Smash when I just saw that ad. I think it was last night on the NFC championship game or AFC I was walking past. I think I saw this ad last night. And I was like, ” Oh, there you got a new Super Smash.” I was walking, so I thought-
Brady Cramm: Oh, you thought it was a video game trailer.
Garrett Mehrguth: Correct. I did.
Brady Cramm: Okay.
Garrett Mehrguth: But now you are telling me it’s a movie. And I’m like, ” I bet you you’re right.” They should probably time up some game releases, the park release. And if you could interweave it all into the movie in a way where it’s like your brand awareness and your marketing, it is a cool go- to market strategy by Nintendo. It’s more where my head was at.
Brady Cramm: I think it’s positioned to where Nintendo doesn’t die with the generation, like our generation.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what I was kind of concerned about. Yeah.
Brady Cramm: Right. Because it’s rated PG. So our generation, we’re going to bring our kids. Kids are going to be introduced to Nintendo through a movie, which is a great format to introduce a brand to kids. The movie is product placement. So it’s not like Audi and Avengers where it’s like, yeah, they drive these electric Audis. It’s micro product placement, the movie is.
Garrett Mehrguth: I wonder if it’s in the script too, there’s like a controller, someone plays with them. I wonder how they… You see that.
Brady Cramm: Oh, like the different dimensions.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Are you in the game or are you part of the game?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think didn’t the Lego movie do that?
Garrett Mehrguth: A little bit. Lego did something very similar. So you’ve seen, Lego’s done it well. Obviously, Disney’s done it well.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Does Nintendo do any… This is their first foray into content really, right?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. So I think-
Garrett Mehrguth: Like streaming or movie.
Brady Cramm: … ifNintendo had this graphic, video games would probably be right in the center. I mean, TV is now in that top corner might be this movie. So they would map out a bit differently. And same with I don’t think Nintendo music is as popular as Disney music.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: But merchandise, I mean, I have a Luigi ornament I try to sneak on the tree every year.
Garrett Mehrguth: I love that.
Brady Cramm: I put it super high in the back so my wife didn’t notice because she had her whole theme going this year.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I had a Brett Favre one before he defrauded the state of Mississippi. But for a while there, I had a similar kind of hide the ornament. But no, I think this is pretty cool. And I just saw this the other day and I was like, ” Wow, I need to do something like this for Directive. What a powerful exercise of thought as a leader.” But it’s cool to see Nintendo kind of opening up those channels and those different ways, because I would love for them to become more relevant again. I can tell you, my whole childhood would be my cousins fighting over the Super Smash and somebody would pissed that you kept using Kirby or something. It was just always like Nintendo was kind of at the heart of middle school and elementary school I feel like for a lot of us. And then it kind of just went away a little bit.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I’m curious what it does. I own some stock, so I guess I’ll be tracking it-
Garrett Mehrguth: There we go.
Brady Cramm: …for that to see what kind of impact. I mean, like I said, the theme park’s kind of happening around the same time as this.
Garrett Mehrguth: This release was pretty new. Check your phone real quick. It’s stock up or down, do you know?
Brady Cramm: Let’s see.
Garrett Mehrguth: Will you go to the Nintendo stock price for us, Scarlet?
Brady Cramm: It’s kind of a weird time.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, there is a little up. Oh no, that’s it. Go to one month, not one day. Sorry. Go to 1M, yeah.
Brady Cramm: Let’s see. One year.
Garrett Mehrguth: I wonder what that was on that 13th or so.
Brady Cramm: I mean, it is a weird time to be looking at the stock market.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know. It did jump though. Go to six months, I want to see if it’s at a historical high. No, it’s just kind of floating in the same.
Brady Cramm: One month looking decent at a 2% gain. Three months is at a 6.5% gain.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. One year.
Brady Cramm: Movie’s not out yet.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I was just curious. Yeah, we got to see. There’s only so much hype you can get from a release. You need to go up from there. Founded in 1889. Isn’t that crazy?
Brady Cramm: Actually, Q4 is good for these companies, but.
Garrett Mehrguth: Playing cards in 1889. So we’re just a part of their long- term journey, man. It’s wild. Let’s see.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Kyoto. Well, you want to look at mine?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, let’s check it out.
Garrett Mehrguth: So ironically, I feel like we always have something.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, similar. Some type of overlap.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, some type of overlap.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: So what I loved about this ad was it is very… I haven’t seen a streaming provi… Like, okay, so there’s like a lot of streaming wars going on, right? You got Hulu, you’ve got Netflix, you got HBO, you got Apple, you got Amazon. I mean, everybody does streaming these days.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m sure I forgot Peacock, Paramount. I mean, you go down the list. What I find really interesting though is they normally, when I think about advertising for streaming, it’s either… For me, HBO is very featured- centric. HBO does really well when they have a big show, they don’t do so well when they don’t. Netflix, as you’ve seen, has been struggling and they haven’t had a big release. What’s the latest big Netflix that was wildly popular show? Stranger Things, probably?
Brady Cramm: Ginny& Georgia just came out season two. We got Outer Banks coming out.
Garrett Mehrguth: OBX.
Brady Cramm: Next month OBX Season 2.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think it’s season three.
Brady Cramm: Is it season three?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I think it’s going to be.
Brady Cramm: Nah, it’s season two.
Garrett Mehrguth: No, it’s season three.
Brady Cramm: It’s season three?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: There’s two seasons of OBX?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: Dang. That means we watched two seasons in the past five days. Because we watched it again.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, it’s fun when they do the little Treasure Hunts. I like the Treasure Hunt shows. It’s good with the-
Brady Cramm: Oh, yeah. It’s like the national treasure kind of meets teen drama.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: Great show.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. So my point though is I feel whenever they… I don’t really ever get Netflix ads if you actually think about it. Netflix doesn’t advertise a ton.
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: HBO does ads for big premieres like Game of Thrones and stuff like that. Amazon does ads and they’re kind of more movie releases I feel like, when it’s kind of like… You know how Marvel does ads for all their shows, their movies?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I feel like that’s how all the streaming providers do it like Marvel does, a feature film release.
Brady Cramm: Mm-hmm.
Garrett Mehrguth: Ted Lasso. Which one’s Ted Lasso one?
Brady Cramm: Apple.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. That one is they’ve done a lot around, but it’s always kind of more the ad is for the show more than it is the platform. And then Hulu has done the platform, but usually a feature. Like, Hulu has live sports. You kind of get what I’m saying?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I think it’s connected to the platform because it’s all their originals. So Apple originals, Netflix original series, to where you can only watch it’s produced by them.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. And they advertise them, but oftentimes they do it just at the individual level, some streamers. I’ve seen Apple do that a lot. And then others, Hulu do it at the platform level. And what I thought was more interesting is it’s always more… There’s no story to it. It’s kind of like, ” Here’s the show. Do you want to watch the show?” But there’s no cultural integration of what the platform’s trying to become to the American public that. Does that make sense? Like there’s no macro.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: We want people to feel this way about Hulu. No, we want people to know Hulu has live sports, or we want people to know that Game of Thrones launches in February. It’s very much promotional to a specific show or a feature. Does that make sense?
Brady Cramm: It’ll make you feel like you just need one app kind of thing.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. There’s no ads like Apple, where Apple makes you feel… Do you remember the AirPods ads where they show the person moving and dancing, and it makes you… It’s less about the features of the AirPods and more about what your life could be with them.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I feel like this ad does a great job of showing what Apple TV or Apple, I don’t know what the heck, Apple TV plus? Jeez.
Brady Cramm: I think so.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that’s on them. It is trying to be to the American public. And I think that is a bigger viewpoint that I think is going to actually serve Apple very well. So let’s watch the ad.
Video: Wow, Apple. Best Picture. So amazing, right? Yeah. I was in two Best Picture nominees last year. Yeah no, I knew that. You were great. Yeah. You think so? Yeah. ( singing). Jennifer Lawrence? Selena Gomez documentary. Why don’t I have a documentary? Best Comedy on TV. I could do TV. Severance is weird. I could do weird. Black Bird. I guess I could do prison. Going on, Jason? What up, Timmy? I just wrapped my new Apple series, Chief of War. Wait, you have a new Apple show? At this point, who doesn’t? Yeah, I mean, who doesn’t at this point? Like you just said. foreign language. It’s just Sudeikis with a mustache. It’s Scorsese. DiCaprio. De Niro. Hey Apple, call me?
Garrett Mehrguth: So I love the two things this ad does, and it takes a lot of confidence. So will you go back to the weird line? Keep going. A little more. It’s like 42.
Brady Cramm: Yep.
Garrett Mehrguth: Right here. Watch what they do here.
Video: Severance is weird.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, pause. That’s a negative comment. I love that.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what I mean.
Brady Cramm: Just shows the versatile content.
Garrett Mehrguth: And they’re human. They make the platform human. That’s what I think is so clever about it. Because they just hyped up all their shows and they showed us all their shows, but they did it through an actor who’s hyper insecure. And they did it without a filter that tried to make… The last one, if you go. So that one’s weird, but here’s it goes weird. But if you go for… Not so far. Go to with the one with Jason right here at a minute. He goes, ” Wait, you have a new Apple show?”
Video: At this point, who doesn’t?
Garrett Mehrguth: Right there. At this point, who doesn’t? They’re literally devaluing their content and saying anyone can have a show on Apple. Yet it makes you not feel that way, which is such a clever concept because people don’t talk bad. It’s like the things been on Netflix, like, comedians, everyone’s got a Netflix special.
Brady Cramm: Mm- hmm.
Garrett Mehrguth: You get what I’m saying? They kind of had this thing of volume makes things less desirable, and yet they played right into it in a way that made them actually feel more relevant instead of less, which I thought was just so creative in the copy.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I mean, I took that line more as like Apple TV has all the stars to watch. Because I think a lot of people follow actors and actresses around, versus the movie itself and being a fan of that theme.
Garrett Mehrguth: I like that.
Brady Cramm: Like, ” Oh, Reese Witherspoon’s in it. I’m going to watch it. Don’t know what it’s about, just heard she’s in a new movie. I love Reese. Let me watch it.”
Garrett Mehrguth: My wife love Big Little Lies. Is that the one?
Brady Cramm: I don’t know.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, she loved that one.
Brady Cramm: Reese has a crazy… We can get into that later. Her business model’s brilliant. But that’s how I took it, was like, ” Oh, if I go on Apple TV, all my favorite-
Garrett Mehrguth: Scorsese. De Niro.
Brady Cramm: …actors will be on it.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Leonardo.
Brady Cramm: Like the new one, you got a recommendation for it, the Shrinking show.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: I just started with Jason Segel.
Garrett Mehrguth: Is it good?
Brady Cramm: It’s good.
Garrett Mehrguth: And I just think it’s so cool that they use negative connotations to their advantage in their own ad. And then what blew my mind is look how many views it has and how long it’s been out.
Brady Cramm: Oh, jeez. Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Like, bro, 13 million views in 10 days and that’s just YouTube views?
Brady Cramm: Man, it’s got to be ads. It’s sound like that’s organic views, but still.
Garrett Mehrguth: Let’s look at the comments. What do they have on the comments? I’m curious what the comments are saying. Oh, comments are turned off. Even smarter.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I wonder what their view rate is because what I liked about it is it was a story.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, it was.
Brady Cramm: Right? He was going through his story. I think his insecurity was more entertaining than any other topic.
Garrett Mehrguth: It was.
Brady Cramm: And so I think they were able to get people to probably have a high view rate even though there was probably a six- second skip on it, yet they showcase a ton of videos through it. If it was just a trailer, like, ” This is out now. This is out now.” People will probably skip it six seconds.
Garrett Mehrguth: I love it. I use my wife usually as a limit test too. If Myra goes, she’ll be like watching, ” I love that commercial.” I’m like, ” Yep.” Because if you’re not watching commercials as a professional advertiser who does it for a living, it’s always really cool to see kind of what the general public thinks about an ad and why it relates. Let’s just pull up for kicks and giggles over here. Let’s do like… Who would you say their biggest competitor is right now? Netflix? HBO? Probably Netflix.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Probably Netflix.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Let’s see if Netflix has anything. Netflix ad or show. Oh, let’s just try Hulu. Let’s look at the first one.
Brady Cramm: Hulu poaching?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, let’s try this one.
Brady Cramm: That’s poaching.
Garrett Mehrguth: Look at still, I’m going to give them credit. Let’s see what they say.
Brady Cramm: They’re using-
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh no, I want to see the ad.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s like a search ad.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, will it not let me… She’s not actually on it. What the heck?
Brady Cramm: No, it’s a search ad within the YouTube search.
Garrett Mehrguth: What do I not know. Okay. But it takes an image so it looks like it’s the same, but it’s-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: All right. Let’s go look and play something. Let’s see what Netflix does. Because this is more what I’m used to seeing.
Video: Documentary. Maybe something different this week? Know any good mysteries? Something with some cool accents. Let’s just scroll. Oh, no. Not the scroll. These people are really about to push my buttons. Here we go. Oh, would you knock it off with those giant thumbs? Oh. Sorry. Yeah, we’re just looking for something to watch. You never thought that maybe pushing my buttons all day was going to be harmful to me? You take orders from me now. I’m going to show you a little thing called Play… Ow, stop. Oh, Sex Ed. People, you just slayed two seasons of this. Okay? Focus up. With Play Something, Netflix will drop you right into a new show or movie. And it’s all based on what you’ve watched. Bridgerton?
Garrett Mehrguth: inaudible.
Video: Your Majesty, your friend here was in the dukes chambers every night last week, okay? Please, if you- You watch Bridgerton without me. The costumes are just so beautiful. I got- You love the costumes? I do. You love the sex. It was also good. I will throw myself under these cushions and you will never find me. Do what it says. Play Something.
Garrett Mehrguth: I hate this ad.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, what is this?
Garrett Mehrguth: So much. So now it doesn’t pause.
Video: This is mysterious-looking.
Garrett Mehrguth: This ad is hurting my heart. So my point here, this ad was so bad. This is what I’m talking about. This is how the streaming provider… This might be the worst ad I’ve ever seen.
Brady Cramm: I mean, it must have hopefully got denied and didn’t actually air anywhere.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s got 168,000 views directly on the Netflix account.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s the worst ad I’ve ever. This is what I’m trying to explain.
Brady Cramm: That’s pretty cringey.
Garrett Mehrguth: Dude, I was trying so hard to not… I hate when I want to crawl out of my skin. When you’re like, ” Oh, the copy.” It’s not their fault, I think the actors are fine. I think it’s the copy and the script.
Brady Cramm: It’s funny, I don’t think it was their idea.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. And it’s all features. Everyone in the world knows Netflix that you personalize. I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks Netflix isn’t personalized at this point.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I mean, that’s just an ad where I can see it looking decent storyboarding and having those meetings around the concept. But then when it got to actually executing it.
Garrett Mehrguth: Does Netflix sell remote? Last time I checked they don’t.
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: They made the whole thing the remote.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, they’re just trying to pick apart how you just sit there and scroll for days, and they’re letting you know that it will autoplay a new show for you.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, but-
Brady Cramm: Once you’re done with one. But they’re-
Garrett Mehrguth: …I would’ve taken the other angle. I would’ve taken how during the pandemic, well, everyone… We were there for you, and it was more just people scrolling. There’s ways to make the Netflix scroll positive.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: If that makes sense.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s part of the experience.
Brady Cramm: They can do a funny, like are you still watching bit.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes.
Brady Cramm: That button. I think there’s more entertainment around that button that everyone talks about in their household. But if they called out in some type of ad.
Garrett Mehrguth: That was rough.
Brady Cramm: That was tough. Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: But now do you see why I like the Apple one so much?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Because it actually-
Brady Cramm: That was good contrast.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, that was a good.
Brady Cramm: And we just picked the first one. It’s not like we knew this was really a bad ad.
Garrett Mehrguth: But it was so bad. So that’s kind of been my point is I didn’t feel like anyone else hooked me into caring about their platform. To me, I kind of agnostic. I have to have them all at this point because it’s the worst when you’re like, ” I want to watch this show.” And then you freaking can’t watch it on any of the ones you have and yet got to go get the new one. So I kind of have them all. And I don’t feel like I’m loyal to any one of them. I kind of just watch whatever one has. I don’t prefer one platform over another so much as I’m watching a show on one or I’m not. And I think Apple at least is trying to make me choose them preferentially, which I think is where we’re going to get to. I think we’re going to get to the point where there’s such a proliferation of streaming providers that we’re going to have to start consolidating and we’re going to have to start choosing. And I feel like the one who has the most brand connection is going to be the one we end up choosing. So I kind of like what Apple’s doing, if that makes sense.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. But yeah, I agree. I think Nintendo might be coming out with one. We’ll see if that’s the next move.
Garrett Mehrguth: Put it on the billboard. Put it on the-
Brady Cramm: Because their graphics aren’t too strong. Their shows can also have weak graphics, lower production costs, all for just kid entertainment. Cocomelon, that stuff, it’s just cheap animation but they’re making millions.
Garrett Mehrguth: They could crush it.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I love it. Well, Brady, star of the show. It’s private segment.
Brady Cramm: My private segment.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Take a Brady segment.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: We’re going to call the Brady segment.
Brady Cramm: It’s my segment.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. What you got?
Brady Cramm: So this week we’re talking ad copy. I usually don’t dive into ad copy too much. It’s usually not much of a pain point in accounts, but this is something-
Garrett Mehrguth: I despise the way people treat copy on Google Ads with the keyword insertion and just like, ” Ugh, oof.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And then usually before the responsive search ads, people were telling decent stories, right? They would align with the search, they would then do some type of value prop, and then maybe in H3 they would talk about the call- to- action. And that’s usually a format.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. Now I’ve seen some good ones, but it’s like one out of a hundred.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. But now, there’s responsive search ads, which you feed it 30 headlines.
Garrett Mehrguth: I don’t know.
Brady Cramm: And Google chooses the ad for you. So this is something I’ve been noticing.
Garrett Mehrguth: Or you can scrape your own website and just write them on its own too.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, the dynamic search ads, they can do that, which is its matching the search and writing its own ad. But this is happening a lot lately in responsive search ads, which, the theory is, Google will take all your headlines and it’ll form the best ad. And so what I see companies doing is-
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, when you say the best ad, so essentially what they’re doing is they’re like, ” That keyword converts, that keyword converts, that keyword converts.” Let’s combine them all together, and maybe it’s an ultimate conversion. Nobody hates writers more than tech. Just nobody hates copy more than tech.
Brady Cramm: And it should be prioritizing click- through rate because that’s what makes Google the most money.
Garrett Mehrguth: Have a brand storytelling. What about articulating value propositions?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, which you can do in these ads. So the intention of the advertiser who builds these ads is usually, like, ” Let me write a couple things that could be used as an H1. Let me write a few things that could be an H2, a few things that could be an H3.”
Garrett Mehrguth: And then they judge the quality of their writing based on their click- through rates, which makes me want to puke, but.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And they say now that all this kind of different variations of intent can fall under one.
Garrett Mehrguth: There’s no art in there, Brady. That’s all I’m trying to say. I want art. I’m tired of all the science.
Brady Cramm: You can still do art. It’s just you have to add a couple more settings.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know you didn’t realize you got me a hot topic here.
Brady Cramm: Sorry.
Garrett Mehrguth: No, I know. I just… All right, keep going.
Brady Cramm: I may used to be on my ass about ad copy seven years ago.
Garrett Mehrguth: Dude, I’ve been… Yeah. No, I think… Was it seven when you and I started?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, seven and a half is when I started.
Garrett Mehrguth: Dude, I was like the only… I’m still the only person I think who cares.
Brady Cramm: No, and I align with it too. I think ad copy can really influence your results. What’s happening now in all these responsive search ads, so you can’t build a new expanded tech side anymore. Right? And those were the ads where you just wrote H1, H2, H3, that’s it.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I remember.
Brady Cramm: Now you have to do responsive, which means you just-
Garrett Mehrguth: Wait, that doesn’t exist? Timeout. So I can’t write… Because it used to be title one kind of second line, third line.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. You can’t do that anymore. You can, but you can’t.
Garrett Mehrguth: What do you do?
Brady Cramm: So expanded text ads, they’re done. They’re still running in accounts, but you can’t edit them, you can’t change them, you can’t duplicate them. They just are what they are if you built them in the past. Now you can do responsive search ads, which they want you to give it 30 headlines and then it dynamically changes what the ad is.
Garrett Mehrguth: So you have no control?
Brady Cramm: So that’s a part of the solution from what I’m going to talk about.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.
Brady Cramm: So what you can… And the data sucks. They just tell you the percentage of impressions per combination within all of your headlines.
Garrett Mehrguth: This makes me want to puke.
Brady Cramm: And so often when I do an audit, the intention, they had call- to- action based headlines in there. They had value prop based headlines in there. But what Google is designed to do-
Garrett Mehrguth: Reading this makes me just think that this brand can be anyone. It just says, ” CRM for insurance,” and then it just inverses the same words back to you.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s a terrible selection of headlines-
Garrett Mehrguth: Ooh.
Brady Cramm: …is what is. CRM for insurance industry. Headline two, CRM for insurance agents. Yeah no, duh. CRM for insurance. Insurance CRM solutions. It’s just producing this terrible ad copy.
Garrett Mehrguth: The number one insurance CRM choice for agents around the globe. Where’s that?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Can’t have that? That’s gone?
Brady Cramm: Well, no. They probably have those headlines in there.
Garrett Mehrguth: But I don’t get to choose it?
Brady Cramm: Giving Google the power is doing this. So the solution is… And it sucks because this isn’t Google’s recommendation. This is going against Google’s recommendation. They want you to have an open- ended headline set. You can pin headlines. And so in order to fix this going on is when they have CRM for insurance industry, and CRM for insurance agents, and CRM for insurance, they have to pin all those as H1 so that Google can only choose one of those to put in H1. And then they need to have all their value prop headlines, pin that in H2. And they maybe have all their call- to- action headline variance and pin it H3. And that would clean up this problem.
Garrett Mehrguth: So you can essentially say-
Brady Cramm: You can pin headlines.
Garrett Mehrguth: …conditional logic. This and that.
Brady Cramm: These are all H1 options. These are all H2 options. These are all H3 options. Right now, in this account, are those-
Garrett Mehrguth: But I can’t go one to one. I have to go one to three at random, or four to seven at random within what’s pinned within each. I can’t say I want this H1 and this H2, I could say I want one of these H1s and one of these H2s.
Brady Cramm: So you could only build out three headlines and pin one of them one, the other one two, the other one three. But then what Google’s going to do is give you a terrible ad score.
Garrett Mehrguth: And then they’re going to jack your CPM up.
Brady Cramm: It’s going to say not enough headlines. And so they’re not fully transparent.
Garrett Mehrguth: Does that affect your CPM?
Brady Cramm: What that does with quality score. But ad relevancy is probably not going to be above average.
Garrett Mehrguth: So I’m going to pay for my copy?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. So if you want it like that, you’re going to pay a lot of money.
Garrett Mehrguth: Why is this better for Google?
Brady Cramm: Well-
Garrett Mehrguth: It just seems like they increase their irrelevance, not their…
Brady Cramm: There’s so more people who don’t understand how to measure performance. Google’s writing in that ways in my opinion.
Garrett Mehrguth: But we can all write. I’m not saying we can all write well, but I don’t know that many people… This ironically reminds me of old school Google keyword stuffing. Remember the old school Google Ads where everybody want a high quality score?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: So it’s just make sure everything includes and we’re using DKIs, or it was just include that word a bunch. That’s what this reminds me of. The more times I say the word insurance or CRM, the better.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Which Google doesn’t value that anymore. So getting into ad copy optimization, I’ve been messing with. Google has a natural language processing API, which shows you how Google systems are scoring copy. And so what the API does is allows you to drop your ad copy in and it’s going to reveal the labels. Google has tied to those words, and so you want your labels to be relevant to your industry. And then it has a sentiment score. A positive versus negative sentiment.
Garrett Mehrguth: And we’ve been seeing national English processing models for a while in the SEO space.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Like SEO scale-
Brady Cramm: Relevant to Google ads.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s pretty inaudible.
Brady Cramm: You can also take the number one organic post, drop it into that tool, and then find all the high- scoring positive sentiment words and headlines. And add that into your ad copy, all to try to hack into what Google’s using for quality score.
Garrett Mehrguth: So what’s the takeaway? So this to me is crap.
Brady Cramm: So the takeaway from this is you could easily set up your ads how Google wants you to and think, ” This would never happen. Why would Google ever choose these combinations?” But this is what happens. And so the lesson is, when you’re building a responsive search ad, you have to actually look at your combinations. So this is within the combinations, setting-
Garrett Mehrguth: Can we use me as an example? Can we go on Google and search our stuff, and then-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, we can see.
Garrett Mehrguth: All right.
Brady Cramm: Let’s check it out.
Garrett Mehrguth: Because now I’m like-
Brady Cramm: I’m praying for our marketing team. Hopefully it’s good. It should be good.
Garrett Mehrguth: No, no clue like that. I’m sorry. So go demand gen agency or something like that.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. See?
Garrett Mehrguth: See? No, that’s that. I want to just… That’s that. Demand gen focused on SQLs, ready to see what’s possible.
Brady Cramm: Exactly. That’s storytelling.
Garrett Mehrguth: I like the word agency on there so you knew that we’re an agency, not a software. I think that’s missing. But the consulting in the URL helps. But drives pipeline revenue, ready to crush your goals every time. That looks pretty good.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Let’s try another one. Paid media agency or paid media agency for SaaS.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I don’t know if-
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s for SaaS, yeah.
Brady Cramm: …Scarlet’s laptop would be in our audience targeting.
Garrett Mehrguth: There it is. Ready to see. So just doing DKIs, is that all it is? Well, no, because it’s not. Because it just took out agency.
Brady Cramm: No. That would, well…
Garrett Mehrguth: We partner with you, the in-house marketers so you surpass your SQL goals month over month. Paid media for SaaS that results in revenue and pipeline, not just MQL and leads. That is a great ad. So what happened to… Okay, so a couple things now that I’m been out the-
Brady Cramm: So I think we’re pinning to control it.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.
Brady Cramm: I think we’re pinning a set of H2s, a set of H1s.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, because that looks really good.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s a good combination.
Garrett Mehrguth: I like the… The one below is better than our zone. I hate to say.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it was pretty good. Zero BS, a hundred percent results always.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s pretty good. But I don’t like the third line. I think the third line looks like crap. Those are their extensions, rights?
Brady Cramm: Oh, callouts? Those are structured snippets or callouts.
Garrett Mehrguth: And then they have the… Okay. So for me, this is one of the things I never like too about ads. See how it says case studies, ROI process, why us, request proposal?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I don’t like that I lose control of my funnel in the sense that I don’t know what they’re going to click, and then what has higher conversion rates when you do the site.
Brady Cramm: So I’ve seen site links work very well on mobile.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, I’m not saying they don’t work. What I’m saying is, I don’t know which of those work is better than others. And I don’t think I can control which ones you do or don’t click on, right?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can-
Garrett Mehrguth: Compared to the landing page where I’m in complete control.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s more where my head’s at.
Brady Cramm: So to do site links well, you actually have to have really good additional offers and unique routes into your pipeline.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, now that would make sense.
Brady Cramm: Then they crush it.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. So if it was different engagement routes. Yeah, that’s okay.
Brady Cramm: But if you just have like, ” Oh, we have a contact page, so let’s do that as a site link. We have a pricing page.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, I’m so proud of our team right now. I was nervous. After I saw that, I was like, ” Man, I hope we don’t look bad.” Because I hadn’t seen these in a couple months.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. No, it’s good. So this is when you’re doing pinning. Or ideally, you don’t need to do pinning and Google will make these combinations. But more often than not, when I look at combinations, I’m seeing ad copy like that example. It’s just the most repetitive copy.
Garrett Mehrguth: Was that before they hired us or after they hired us?
Brady Cramm: This is all before.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, good. It’s good.
Brady Cramm: But yeah, as an advertiser, you think, ” Okay, just fuel it with headlines. Yes, some of these are similar, but they probably won’t be used together. Google’s going to create the best ad.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Use the inaudible.
Brady Cramm: And that is not the case. So it’s a deeper setting, and I think a lot of people just don’t think this would be happening because it’s such terrible ad copy. But I’m seeing the responsive search ads result in this more often than not. So, definitely check out your combinations. If your combinations suck, start pinning.
Garrett Mehrguth: So, we have an exciting one. I pretty much wear boots now. You pretty much where work- related sneakers that are also hyper comfortable for the last four years.
Brady Cramm: Yep. I mean, I’m mostly on the podcast wearing Adidas or Nikes.
Garrett Mehrguth: Let’s just do a little fit check real quick. So what are we rocking right now? We got some… These are the Tecova boots, little work boots. What are you rocking right there? What do you got?
Brady Cramm: These are Cole Haan, semi business casual.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, those are-
Brady Cramm: Very light. Not great for the rain shoes.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s raining today.
Brady Cramm: It is raining today.
Garrett Mehrguth: 70% chance. So Brady, will you want to take down Adidas?
Brady Cramm: Yep. Or Nike.
Garrett Mehrguth: Or Nike. I mean, you still like the Steve Maddens and the kind of-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I mean, I was thinking sneakers. So this topic came up because I have a hard time as cynical as I’ve tried to portray myself when it comes to material items and that’s stuff.
Garrett Mehrguth: Oh, my. You are cynical. What do you mean portray yourself as?
Brady Cramm: No. So I’m about to counter that, right?
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Brady Cramm: Is at-
Garrett Mehrguth: You’re the most cynical guy I know.
Brady Cramm: I act like, ” Oh yeah, I have a hard time finding ads because ads don’t really get me.” But what I’m about to say is very hypocritical to that.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, okay, okay.
Brady Cramm: I have a hard time, and I’ll just admit it, not buying Adidas and Nikes due to the lack of brand recognition of other shoes. So I see ads for, I really like the ASICS in style.
Garrett Mehrguth: This is the ultimate Brady conundrum right here. I love this.
Brady Cramm: But they don’t got the three stripes.
Garrett Mehrguth: Ads don’t work on me.
Brady Cramm: Or they don’t got the check marks. I don’t feel like it’s valued as much as the brand recognition of Adidas and Nikes. And so the challenge is, is creating a sneaker brand that can get past that. Because I don’t think it’s just personal to me. I think people have a hard time seeing like, ” Damn, I wish Adidas made that style. I wish Nike made that style and I would maybe buy it. But because it’s this brand- new sneaker brand that no one really knows about and no one’s going to recognize them even though they look cool, I’m not ready to purchase these until it’ll get that recognition.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Permission to put my psychology hat on?
Brady Cramm: Let’s do it.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Do you remember being a child?
Brady Cramm: Yes.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, good. We’re going to start there. Do you remember the first time you chose your own shoes? Or when that started happening? Not the very first time, but the experience of buying shoes as a kid.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. The light up ones, Velcro versus ties. Heelys.
Garrett Mehrguth: And do you remember when you first started to know… Like for me, I’ll give you a little insight into me. My dad was as stereotypical as you could possibly get when it came to shoes. And you go to Big 5 to buy your shoes.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: You buy your shoes at Big 5. There ain’t no Nike or Adidas at Big 5 where I was going. With Starter. Do you remember Starter?
Brady Cramm: No. I was thinking New Balance.
Garrett Mehrguth: So can you search a Starter knockoff Air Force 1s? Starter, like those Union Los on the bottoms, they look exactly like Air Force 1s but they’re Starter brand. That’s what like when I was a kid. I always knew though that those weren’t the real ones. And I think that’s where it started. Remember when your mom would take you to the store, but Etnies or Globes might be too expensive so you weren’t able to get… For me, I couldn’t get the Etnies or the Globes so I had to get the knockoff brand of this. Well, maybe you didn’t have to go through this experience as a child. But me, I never got the real brand so I know exactly what you’re feeling of, like, if it isn’t Nike or Adidas, it ain’t worth nothing. Because I was always at Payless or Big 5 for my shoes. And so I never had name brand shoes ever, until literally high school, college. Because it was always just like, ” What’s the difference? They worked the same.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Do you think that plays anything like being a kid, in that you didn’t want to be bullied at school because you were wearing the dorky shoes, or you wanted to feel cool because the cool kids had the Nikes or the Adidas and that’s where it starts? Do you think it goes that deep? Because I’m-
Brady Cramm: I mean, yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think it does.
Brady Cramm: I think it does.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: I mean, back in the day, if you didn’t have a Furby, who were you?
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, because all in all the kids got Razor scooters. Remember the scooters, the Razors?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I didn’t have a razor.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, the scooters.
Garrett Mehrguth: I had Costco one.
Brady Cramm: When cell phones came out, that was a big part of it too. It was like people had the Sidekicks and the Razor.
Garrett Mehrguth: I never had the Razor. I had the Nokia brick.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Whatever the off was, I had it.
Brady Cramm: So it was definitely a big part of it. I don’t know what age that starts.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: And I’m sure it probably starts younger and younger.
Garrett Mehrguth: And I love you mom and dad, no knock. We’re off- brand people. That’s all right.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. All I can remember is Vans. I think I just wore Vans for the longest time.
Garrett Mehrguth: I eventually got Vans.
Brady Cramm: And I do remember-
Garrett Mehrguth: I had the Keds first though. Remember the Keds that Payless?
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: They look like Vans.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Show them. You got to show them this real Keds like Vans. I want them to see this.
Brady Cramm: I just remember my feet were growing so quick that my mom would never let me buy too many pairs or spend too much on shoes.
Garrett Mehrguth: I had those. See?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, those are the knockoffs.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m the king of knockoffs. So I get what you’re saying though. Now, I would never go to a store. Well, I would buy a New Balance. I have a pair of New Balance because I think they look good and they fit a certain aesthetic.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s a pretty big logo. They’re coming back, right?
Garrett Mehrguth: They do different colorways too.
Brady Cramm: They’re on the way with champions, right?
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: Now that’s a-
Garrett Mehrguth: Champion.
Brady Cramm: …high- end champion.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what I would wear, the hoodies.
Brady Cramm: But yeah, I’m kind of at the state where I see these shoes in ads, and they look like they’re going to be way more comfortable than-
Garrett Mehrguth: And better.
Brady Cramm: …the Adidas and even the Nikes that I have. Air Maxes aren’t that comfortable. But the logo recognition, the brand recognition, and the style of the shoe, I get the Air Maxes.
Garrett Mehrguth: But you’re wearing Cole Haan.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I always do this.
Garrett Mehrguth: So did your-
Brady Cramm: We talked about Vuori, that one episode was only wearing one item. Now we’re talking about this and I’m not wearing them.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m trying to understand, because essentially I do get what you’re saying. What was the difference on the Cole Haans? Was it because you were in Nordstrom when you bought them?
Brady Cramm: Yeah, these are from Nordstrom Rack.
Garrett Mehrguth: I could tell. I’m getting the game though. So you were in.
Brady Cramm: And I got these for business purposes.
Garrett Mehrguth: In Nordstrom was the bridge. I think it was the bridge in the distribution strategy. Because I think if you are on your phone… Hear me out on this. If you’re on your phone and you got hit with Cole Haan ad, heck no. There’s ain’t no way Brady Cramm’s buying Cole Haan on an ad.
Brady Cramm: Well, I do like Cole Haan. The brand that was the part of this purchase was I know the Cole Haan brand. All my dress shoes, like actual dress shoes, are Cole Haan.
Garrett Mehrguth: More of a Cole Haan than a Steve Madden guy?
Brady Cramm: I think so.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay.
Brady Cramm: I’d have to look at my shoes,
Garrett Mehrguth: But Cole Haan does a great job, by the way. I think I have a pair that are similar of comfy. Really they’re like a hybrid shoe. It’s like work but comfort at the same time.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Which I think ECCO probably makes those too, but I wouldn’t buy.
Garrett Mehrguth: But where do you purchase it? I also purchase mine from OFF Saks Fifth, Nordstrom Rack, or Nordstrom’s, or Macy’s. So I’m still going from a big- box retailer. Have you ever gone to a Cole Haan store, bought direct from Cole Haan?
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: See? I think that’s the other caveat. You would buy direct from Nike or Adidas.
Brady Cramm: Yes.
Garrett Mehrguth: But you wouldn’t buy direct from Cole Haan. I don’t think you would.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. But Nike and Adidas, I always hit the outlet.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. But Cole Haan is in the same outlets right there.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, that’s true.
Garrett Mehrguth: They have Cole Haans store, I guarantee you, at that same outlet.
Brady Cramm: I mean, I’ve had these for five years.
Garrett Mehrguth: No, I know. I’ve seen them forever.
Brady Cramm: You don’t wear them too much.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah.
Brady Cramm: They have their moments.
Garrett Mehrguth: We’ve spent so much time together, I know what you wear. I know you got three pairs of these.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, three color pair.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I know. Is that weird that I know that?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Light gray, dark gray, and black.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know. And my point being is, you found a comfy shoe you like, but you wouldn’t buy them directly from Cole Haan. I think this goes to your point, because the point of this segment is we’re going to come up with a brand to compete with Nike and Adidas. But for us to do that, I think we need to understand the psychological limit, like obstacles that we have to overcome in our audience, their humanity of why they do or do not make purchasing decisions irregardless of if our shoes are dope or not. Because that’s what we’re really saying. It’s like, ” That shoe looks awesome. I cannot get myself to overcome these brand stigmas enough to buy it.” That’s what’s happening.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, you obviously, and my favorite part of this whole thing is the full circle Brady of, like, ” Ads don’t work on me.” I don’t know.
Brady Cramm: No, I know. It’s like the most-
Garrett Mehrguth: I love that about you right now.
Brady Cramm: It’s the best. I’m not your average consumer, but this is an example of I’m brainwashed just as much as the rest of them.
Garrett Mehrguth: We all are.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: So I had some ideas for you. I want to hear what you think about this. Okay. So the point of this segment is we’re going to make a brand to compete with Nike and Adidas. Now, Nike to me, has done a really good job of interweaving itself with society. Lately, I am a massive fan of the fact that they’ve stood up for social justice issues. I know a lot of people want Nike to stay out of it. I think it was brilliant on their part. I think they’ve done a really good job with aligning themselves with the Black community. I think they’ve done a really good job aligning themselves with social justice issues. And I think they’ve done a really good job of staying relevant. And I don’t think it’s actually that easy to do. I think it’s very hard to stay a relevant brand for a long time. A brand to me that’s losing its relevance in the same exact breadth is Gatorade. Think about Gatorade. Remember the Gatorade ads and you had the Gatorade, they slammed it down and everything was Gatorade and Gatorade was a part of everything?
Brady Cramm: Mm-hmm. And now it’s just too much sugar and whatever people-
Garrett Mehrguth: Gatorade’s gone to me.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s just water in the Gatorade themed bottle.
Garrett Mehrguth: I used BODYARMOR.
Brady Cramm: They did. So I just got a Gatorade ad.
Garrett Mehrguth: Really?
Brady Cramm: It looks like they’re competing with BODYARMOR now. It was more like a smoothie flavor-
Garrett Mehrguth: Looks like BODY ARMOR’s the goat, and Gatorade’s trying to catch up.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is, is they’ve now replicated the BODYARMOR style.
Garrett Mehrguth: Nike avoided that. And I got to give them massive, massive props. Because those two, to me… And I know we’re getting a little in my own, this is how I think though, is there’s these parallel universes of Gatorade and Nike together coming up. And then Gatorade just fell off. Now, POWERADE. I mean, remember POWERADE, they’re gone. Dead.
Brady Cramm: I think they’re still in the self- serve machine in McDonald’s.
Garrett Mehrguth: But you get my point though, right? They’re not a part of our society.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent.
Garrett Mehrguth: These are commodities, Nike, Adidas, Gatorade. These are commoditized products. You have to be interwoven to the fabric of American culture and global culture to win. You just have to be. So how do we get interwoven? Nike’s done it historically with athletes, currently with social justice issues and athletes, like the Kaepernick campaign, for example. And they did some awesome stuff during the Black Lives Matter movement, that was really big. I’ve been really impressed with Nike. Adidas, to me, kind of went a little bit more like the fashion route with Yay and some of that stuff. And they kind of I think went a little bit more urban in the sense of aesthetic was less, I felt like, directly interconnected to athletics and more interconnected with, let’s say, hip hop, urban culture. I mean, even Nike’s got Drake, and he’ll rap about stripes over checks. And you’ll start to hear Nike’s really done a great job interweaving themselves into popular culture. You want to wear shoes that make you feel cool. I think in its simplest form, right?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: If we get rid of all the crap, you want to wear shoes that make you feel cool. You feel cool like I feel cool because I’m wearing Jordan’s. And Jordan’s have a stern, let’s say, association with them. Now, one of the things that I think that they’ve done at Nike to get that cool factor so good is some of their collaborations. So if you pull up for me real quick, Off- White. So Virgil Abloh did Off- White with Nike and then he passed tragically with cancer. But if you look at the first ones right there, I’ve always wanted a pair of these for when I speak or something. I always thought the Off- Whites are sick. We click on this. I don’t know this exact one. But he essentially took Nike and then customizes them to make them into an Off- White. And they’re like art essentially. And it’s like his own brand. And now it does stuff with Louis Vuitton and all stuff. But Off- White was always kind of these off- White Air Force 1 Nike sneakers. Sick. Nike’s done the lines. So they’ve got the LeBrons, they’ve got the Jordans, they had the Kobes. Then they have their classics, their Air Force 1s, their high tops, their low tops. They got their skater stuff with-
Brady Cramm: Nyjah Huston.
Garrett Mehrguth: Nyjah Huston. Thanks. They’ve done a really good job. Adidas hasn’t done that route, but they’re still relevant. So we talked a lot about Nike. How do you think Adidas has done so well to stay relevant?
Brady Cramm: I don’t know what the shift in Adidas was. I remember throughout maybe’90s, early 2000s, Adidas was definitely under Nike is quality.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s quality. Remember it was like Copa. The black soccer shoes with the three stripes, best leather. They were known for comfort and quality was kind of Adidas before. Very German.
Brady Cramm: But in my mind it was a cheaper brand. And then somewhere later it passed up Nike in terms of style.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think it was a fashion route with the Yeezys. Can you pull up Adidas Yeezys for us?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Maybe Yeezys had to do with it, but definitely like stylized-
Garrett Mehrguth: You know what I mean? Because those came out and those were super expensive. It was like 500 bucks.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. See? That changed the game. To me, that was their first foray into popular culture and being the trendy ones. Yeezys were way bigger from a popular culture standpoint than Nike was for a minute there.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And their Ultraboost I think did well for them in terms of comfort.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, you love those.
Brady Cramm: Ultraboost are great. But yeah, it’s a major monopolized brand recognition that supports it. So yeah, what is that story behind an up and coming brand? And I think we were talking about this a little bit before we started. There’s these new brands that I’m seeing that my wife is purchasing.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yep, same.
Brady Cramm: And she’s similar to me. And I think in her world, she follows a lot of influencers online.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yep. A hundred percent.
Brady Cramm: I know these people now.
Garrett Mehrguth: Shut The Kale Up.
Brady Cramm: And family the situations-
Garrett Mehrguth: Does she follow Shut The Kale Up?
Brady Cramm: I don’t know. I have nicknames for a lot of them.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. Because I’ve learned about this Shut The Kale Up Lady.
Brady Cramm: One of them I think has a really small mouth, so I call her Small Mouth. It’s probably bad, but.
Garrett Mehrguth: Brady.
Brady Cramm: It’s just a joke around the house.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, okay, okay.
Brady Cramm: I have my own names for all the influencers.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I get it.
Brady Cramm: But I know a lot about them. But anyway, that’s her thing. She finds these influencers that fit well with her lifestyle, her home aesthetics.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s like the woman’s version of athletes.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And so for her, the influencers that she follows are getting probably sent these newer shoes and talking about them. And so when she goes out and buys them, she’s getting that feeling that I get-
Garrett Mehrguth: The cool kids are wearing them.
Brady Cramm: …with Nike and Adidas.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. The cool kids are wearing those shoes.
Brady Cramm: And in her niche, they’re recognizable. Everything that these giant companies have, they kind of have in her world.
Garrett Mehrguth: But timeout. Is that true? I want to challenge that thought real quick before we make a mistake here. And I would like to ask our resident female expert this question. So there’s two types of shoes that I saw get really popular with women. I’d like your take on them, Scarlet. First one, do you remember when women were wearing the bleached jeans with the white and black Adidas? Like the Adidas sneakers? Every girl had Adidas sneakers with a jean jacket. Do you remember that vibe? Was that because you liked Adidas or is it just because that look was in? Did that have anything to do with Adidas or did it have more to do with the Look?
Scarlet: The look.
Garrett Mehrguth: It was the look, right? So like combat boots. You know how combat boots are in right now? Do women care the brand of combat boot or just that it’s a combat boot that’s comfy?
Scarlet: It’s a combat boot.
Garrett Mehrguth: Doesn’t matter the brand of the combat boot, correct? It’s the look that’s in. That’s different.
Brady Cramm: I’m just saying that I’m-
Garrett Mehrguth: I wanted to challenge you on that because I love to pay attention to this stuff. I’m obsessed with humanity and marketing. I’m like the worst. I never get, “That’s why we love this show.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: This is literally why I love this show. I think women might be potentially motivated differently than men around purchasing their shoes. Not all women. Obviously every woman’s different. But my point is more there’s a style that comes in. But I agree with the influencer take too though. I don’t think that’s not true. I just wanted to point out that I think you and I don’t have a bunch of different looks. Men care about… I’ve tried other boots, I just like Tecovas. I buy my Tecovas. I wear Tecovas or I wear Nike. Very similar to you. And that you have Cole Haan, you have Nike, you have Adidas. You pretty much won’t go outside of that.
Brady Cramm: Yep.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m like the same. I’ll try, someone might buy them for me, but I don’t necessarily go buy another pair. I don’t go purchase. Someone might buy me New Balance, but I wouldn’t say I’m a New Balance guy. So for women, and let’s say our brand is unisex.
Brady Cramm: Okay.
Garrett Mehrguth: Do you think we would want… I had this idea of what if we made a look popular instead of something else? Instead of the brand?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Could we last though? Or would we fade when the look fades? Because let’s say, for example, I think right now women went from high- waisted baggy jeans to I’ve seen a lot of the’90s low cut come back. Correct? I’m not crazy on this? So the women are bringing a lot of the grungy’90s, like crop top, low cut, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that lady back in the day would wear that style. I remember. That’s coming back. So if we made our shoe brand around a look, would we fade into irrelevance? That’s what I would get scared about.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And this is opening it up to who are we trying to market, right? Because I think we could create a shoe brand that could do great in other generations right now.
Garrett Mehrguth: And why don’t Vuori and Lulu and any of these people do shoes? That’s so crazy to me. No one does shoes.
Brady Cramm: I mean-
Garrett Mehrguth: Why is it so hard?
Brady Cramm: …H& M has shoes, but they’re kind of known as-
Garrett Mehrguth: They’re a look.
Brady Cramm: Like they’re a look, but they’re also going back to kind of the knockoff.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, correct. They are like a-
Brady Cramm: They’re just a cheap-
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, exactly.
Brady Cramm: …version of Vans. Oh, Lulu’s got shoes.
Garrett Mehrguth: Lulu has shoes. Okay. As a someone who wears Lulu, I would somewhat imagine. Scarlet, do you like Lulu’s shoes at all? No opinion. Any opinion?
Scarlet: I don’t own one thing Lulu.
Brady Cramm: Whoa.
Garrett Mehrguth: Whoa.
Brady Cramm: Why?
Garrett Mehrguth: Whoa. Are you Vuori for life?
Scarlet: inaudible.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay, who’s your brand? Do you have any athleisure brand?
Scarlet: I would say Vuori.
Garrett Mehrguth: Vuori. Okay.
Scarlet: But I used to be a track athlete, so I would wear Nike.
Garrett Mehrguth: Got it. Because that’s what Nike is like, running.
Scarlet: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. So Lulu has tried to do shoes. I can tell you why they’re not working. Those look ugly. Like orange and pink, green and gray, blue and red. What are we doing over here?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. And for me, I would look at those and be like, ” This isn’t what they’re great at.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Correct. I completely agree.
Brady Cramm: Their shoes are an important purchase.
Garrett Mehrguth: And when we do think about Adidas and Nike, we don’t think about them as beanies or apparel or hoodies. We think of them as a shoe company that makes apparel more than apparel companies-
Brady Cramm: That makes shoes.
Garrett Mehrguth: …that makes shoes. That’s fact. Okay. So Scarlet showed us an up and coming brand. Let’s look at them as an example. She called them like Air Clouds or something.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, the one you were talking about earlier with the two kind of icons.
Garrett Mehrguth: On Cloud.
Brady Cramm: On Cloud.
Garrett Mehrguth: Sorry, I got that wrong. My bad. Are on running. Okay. What’s the name of their… Okay, so this looks like a shoe brand. So let’s look at them for a second because they’re obviously a shoe. They’re leading with their shoe, they’re tech.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, it’s all comfort engineering.
Garrett Mehrguth: Now, for me, I always kind of believe Nike, they’d work with athletes directly to design the shoes. And it felt like they took the performance of their shoes seriously. And I would agree. If you wear a pair of Kobes, Kobe was wearing those shoes. I think that’s the part. These are the best athletes in the world wearing the… In soccer, Vapors. Vapors were really big. And Cristiano would wear Vapors. Messi had his own shoe. Cristiano had his own shoe, these guys. And then certain positions wore certain types of shoes. So we all knew, ” Oh, center backs wear this type of shoe, strikers wear this kind shoe, midfielders.” It was kind of like a thing. But it was all performance related. How does that translate to our brand? Do we want to do performance?
Brady Cramm: I mean, my performance criteria is a full day at Disneyland. That’s my level of performance I need.
Garrett Mehrguth: Vans don’t work for that.
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’ve tried to do Vans at a music festival and it makes me want to die.
Brady Cramm: Even like my NMDs, I think it’s what they are. One of my pair of Adidas I wouldn’t wear all day.
Garrett Mehrguth: Correct.
Brady Cramm: I’d wear half day at Disneyland. So I use my Ultraboost for full day.
Garrett Mehrguth: Have you ever had a full day… So close your eyes, you’re in Paris, and you’re about to walk for 12 hours. Have you ever found a shoe that you thought looked good, that also fit that criteria?
Brady Cramm: I’m sorry, I got bad memories. I’ve been lost in Paris once. I think it was a while. I was walking far.
Garrett Mehrguth: And you’re on the cobblestone and your feet are killing you.
Brady Cramm: So I went to New York once and thought I’d be cool wearing these trendy boots. And I had to go to the huge Nike store and get Lunars.
Garrett Mehrguth: Happened to me in Australia.
Brady Cramm: My feet were just killing me.
Garrett Mehrguth: Okay. But then those shoes aren’t the same shoes you choose to… If you were to take a girl out for the first date, those wouldn’t be the shoes you’d wear.
Brady Cramm: The boots?
Garrett Mehrguth: No.
Brady Cramm: Or the Lunars?
Garrett Mehrguth: The Lunars.
Brady Cramm: No, I wouldn’t wear the Lunars. I’d probably wear the boots.
Garrett Mehrguth: Boots. So what if we made a brand. I’m getting us to a point here.
Brady Cramm: Okay.
Garrett Mehrguth: Is there a brand where we could have true all- day walking performance with date night looks?
Brady Cramm: See, that’s… I mean-
Garrett Mehrguth: That to me is the perfect shoe because I could go travel internationally and just bring one pair.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: As a dude, I know this is a male perspective here, but I always feel like I have to have two shoes. One for walking around and my feet don’t hurt. And one for when we go out at night. And those are two separate shoes. I feel like women do the same thing with heels.
Brady Cramm: And non-heels. Looks kind of what these are for me.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, those are good in between.
Brady Cramm: Especially for the travel thing, they just fold flat. I don’t have to worry about creases.
Garrett Mehrguth: But they’re on the classy side, they’re not on the date. They’re not on the-
Brady Cramm: I’m a classy date guy.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know, but they’re not like… You know what I’m talking about.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I mean, trying to resonate with first date is tough-
Garrett Mehrguth: I know, I know.
Brady Cramm: …right now. I’ll probably wear my Adidas on any date inaudible thinking I look cool in my white speakers.
Garrett Mehrguth: See, where I’m going with this, right? There’s a thing there where we choose either style or comfort.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: We just kind of do, I feel.
Brady Cramm: Definitely. Even within the sneakers I own, the most stylish ones are the least comfortable. Even though they are technically like athletic shoes.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, yeah. So do you think we could make a brand around that?
Brady Cramm: I think so. I think for me it’s a deeper story. I do get hit with ads for shoes like this where it’s fully leaned into the tech of it all. And I think what’s missing for me is a lack of that brand and that story. So maybe if they collaborated with someone well- known, designer, artist, just some type of influence on the shoe that’s more of connected to pop culture.
Garrett Mehrguth: Go to Tiffany& Co. Nike for me while he’s talking. Keep going.
Brady Cramm: I think that’s what’s missing, is I just don’t feel like people are going to stop me and be like, ” Oh, are those those?” Right? ” Are those the ones who are made by this person?” And have that story tied to them.
Garrett Mehrguth: And go back from-
Brady Cramm: When Adidas and Nike have that.
Garrett Mehrguth: Well, and we could recreate it. So look at the tiffany. com. Go to the first result. Tiffany and Nike. So this is your point. We would have to create cultural relevance.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Some type of connection.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s what this is now. I love the way they do it. See this? A legendary pair and you don’t know what the heck it is. It’s just the box.
Brady Cramm: Mm-hmm. Because that’s the big Tiffany thing is a blue box.
Garrett Mehrguth: With Nike, that to me would be a way for us to do it. Now, what’s interesting though about what you said there was when was the last… So I’m thinking about a shoe brand that did do a great job with the story, had a positive impact on the community. TOMS. Gone. Where’s TOMS?
Brady Cramm: My sister still wears them.
Garrett Mehrguth: She’s the last.
Brady Cramm: I know, that’s why I told her. That’s all she wanted for Christmas. Like, ” You still wear TOMS?”
Garrett Mehrguth: But think about it. TOMS did come on the game pretty hard there for a second.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Kind of a scam. I heard you had to take your tag and actually enter it on the site for them to give a pair away.
Garrett Mehrguth: Wait, really? That’s-
Brady Cramm: That’s more for a TikTok clip. People can take that where they want. I’m pretty sure that was a thing.
Garrett Mehrguth: But see, they still have good- looking shoes that aren’t that affordable. But that kind of style, which they made kind of famous and I see-
Brady Cramm: My sister loves them still.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yep. Which is-
Brady Cramm: I tried the inaudible. I felt like I might as well be barefoot.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. But a lot of people like that style.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: What would be our angle? Theirs was buy one, give one.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Right? Who would we collab with? Would you think we go influencer route, athlete route politicians? Who do we… If you had to choose one way. inaudible.
Brady Cramm: I was just thinking of stuff.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, I do. My brain went there too. I was like, who… It’s not actually my worst idea if we were just both sides of the aisle, love us. We don’t have an unlimited budget. Nobody does.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: What would make us relevant? Because like were saying, we can’t just have a good comfortable shoe with tech. Like, I love this Oura Ring. To me, if you had really good app, that could be nice to not have to have a Fitbit or a Oura Ring. Your shoes could just do it all since it’s mostly tracking things that are-
Brady Cramm: That could be interesting. Even managing your impact like heel to toe while walking, or toe impact while running.
Garrett Mehrguth: It would be less talk about tech and actually deliver on it. So I think that could be conceptually really cool, but it still wouldn’t make us cool. It’d make us different. What would make us cool? How would we essentially penetrate the US market? What would be our connection to current culture?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I’m trying to think. A part of it would be a story that I’d want to go out of my way to tell. So aesthetically, the shoes there and then there’s a story tied to it that I’d want to tell. Because I think shoes for me at least is a social thing. And so right now, I take the safe route. Because everyone knows like, ” Oh, those are new Air Maxes. I’m going to ask Brady, ‘Are those new Air Maxes or those are the new NMDs?'” I take the safe route because I know that recognition’s there and the social aspect is built in to buy Nike or Adidas. And so I think if I went with a one- off brand, there would have to be similar to TOMS, right? When they were first getting going everyone learned the story later. But there was this story tied to it where you would go out of your way to tell that story. So I don’t know if it’s sourcing some artist to-
Garrett Mehrguth: I have an idea.
Brady Cramm: …design the shoe. I like that tech angle of tech built into the shoe because that’s something I got the Oura Ring to. And I’ve been showing people, my in- laws, like, ” Here’s my sleeping data.” And they have their iPhone or Apple Watch data and we’re kind of comparing the interface and stuff.
Garrett Mehrguth: I have an idea.
Brady Cramm: What is it?
Garrett Mehrguth: What if we took everything that we felt, or at least I know I felt, and I turned it into the brand story? So what if we made our brand story the underdog? The shoe the have- nots wear instead of the haves. And we made to have- nots proud and created a community with the have- nots, instead of making it the haves. So what I mean by that is what if instead of you were the brand who was trying to be cool, what if you were unapologetically uncool in the first place?
Brady Cramm: What would that look like? Would you design to not match current trends?
Garrett Mehrguth: No. I think your story would… I think you could still have the tech and all the cool features. But those are the features, it’s not the story. I think the story of the brand is we could make the brand nameless.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I was thinking about that having no recognition.
Garrett Mehrguth: Similar to the Lululemon approach to their clothing when they kind of came out. It was purely just the comfort and performance of it. What if we completely de- branded the shoe? We went the other route. So instead of trying to overcome Nike and Adidas by being the cool kids, what if we said there’s nothing less cool-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, no recognition.
Garrett Mehrguth: What if there’s nothing less cool than trying to be cool?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s like the people who debadge their car. They do some modifications to it, they debadge it, and then people are like… They don’t know what it is. They think it’s cool, but it’s not tied to any brand.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s different.
Brady Cramm: And it’s Mazda.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. I think if we did the opposite, like I’ve always tried to say, ” Do the opposite.”
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: And so instead of trying to be Nike or Adidas, we were everything Nike and Adidas isn’t, which is paying a bunch of money for a logo. What if there was nothing associated with the cost of branding? We didn’t do sponsorships, we don’t do influencers. We don’t do anything other than develop the best shoe in the world, and only real ones who actually care about it wear our shoes.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I mean I think it would still get-
Garrett Mehrguth: We’ll be a massive brand.
Brady Cramm: Well, I still think influencers would be a part of it, but I love the… Because I’ve had that thought. Before because I did catch myself… It came down to like the On Cloud, it came down to, ” I don’t know that logo. Therefore, in my mind people won’t know that logo.” And that was the distraction.
Garrett Mehrguth: We should focus on shoe education.
Brady Cramm: So the exclusion would be no logo.
Garrett Mehrguth: But think about it. Think about the ads we could run. I mean, first ad is just I would fly around to the worst Nike sweatshop I could find.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I mean, that was an interesting thought when you were talking about how Gatorade tank, but Nike was doing all this social justice. And I was like, ” Oh, well, if you dive into their manufacturing, you could probably find the lack of that.”
Garrett Mehrguth: So I would find the worst manufacturing conditions at Nike, and I would show, ” Here’s how Nike makes their shoes. Here’s how we make our shoes.” And I would make it all about education. ” Here’s the materials that go into your Nike shoes and how much each of them cost. Here’s the materials that go into our shoes and how much each of them costs.” We could run… Kind of remember Rainbow Sandals, which we talked about on previous shows?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: We could show Made in America or wherever, and the materials. And exactly, like, ” Here’s the materials that go into our shoes. Here’s the material that goes into yours.” And then we’d always have the logo, and then the cost of the logo would be like 300% markup. And then it would show our logo, 0% markup. And you could start to show it’s actually about a real quality product. And eventually the influencers and everybody else will I think naturally hop on. But we wouldn’t start with trying to be cool, we would try to start with education and do the opposite. And I bet you we could gain traction.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. It’s an interesting, like, just let the shoes-
Garrett Mehrguth: Do the talking.
Brady Cramm: … do the brand.You don’t need a brand on top of a shoe, you just need a shoe.
Garrett Mehrguth: You just need a shoe.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: And there’s plenty of people that just want a good shoe. And if we could make a stylish shoe that you could wear all day, and let’s say, cost 40% less. And then because it was so de- branded and we just did the opposite. If a shoe brand normally does this, we don’t do it. Everybody else says, we do the opposite of. You could build a whole counterculture and that’s how I think you start a revolution. And you get people to fall in love with you as an incumbent and get them to leave Nike and Adidas because they could see Nike and Adidas as a thing of the past. You know how the ads don’t be like your parents?
Brady Cramm: Mm- hmm.
Garrett Mehrguth: We could kind of have that thing and then start to go on TikTok and start to do the anti- establishment, anti- pass thing with a different angle.
Brady Cramm: Well, I could see if you don’t go out of your way, if you never sponsor anyone, you never send it to anyone famous, any influencer.
Garrett Mehrguth: No free shoes.
Brady Cramm: I bet what would happen is you would start seeing paparazzi photos of Justin and Hailey Bieber wearing those shoes, trying to do this anti, like, “I’m not wearing the shoes everyone tries to send to us and pay for. There’s no brand or logo on it.”
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes. And now we got the Biebers rep in our stuff.
Brady Cramm: That’s a dream.
Garrett Mehrguth: It is the dream. And we’re doing it ironically by nagging them. If we tell influencers they can’t wear our shoes, that’s how you get them to wear your shoes. Everybody else is sending them. Think about if you’re a new shoe brand and you’re Justin or Hailey Bieber and you open up your door, you got a thousand shoe boxes, no free ads. You’re not going to wear those. We just don’t do it. I think if you just do the opposite.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: It’s powerful enough that it could work.
Brady Cramm: So what price point do you think? Because doing the opposite, I think there’s a lot of angles of low- cost shoes, high- price point shoes, the opposite of one aligns with the other.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think we would focus on how many miles. I think we could do a little bit of Rainbow Sandals in the sense of show how long our soles last. I think we do the opposite. We don’t make shoes that are wear and tear. And yeah, ironically you’ll have to buy less shoes from us and we’ll make less money. But doesn’t the world just deserve better shoes?
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: You see? You just-
Brady Cramm: Like repellent material for the white shoes. You can just hose them off kind of thing.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes. Actually take all the money everybody puts into marketing and we just put into R and D. They use fake leather, we only use real leather. They use composite rubber, we only use real, whatever. I don’t know all the materials. But every little part of it, they use this type of glue and it affects their workers and their factories. But you only use that type of glue. It doesn’t affect our workers. Every little thing. I don’t think the shoes have to be cheaper.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, I agree.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s my point. I think if you make them cheaper… I think they should be cheaper, but I don’t think they should be cheaper. If normally shoes are a hundred bucks, ours can be 95, 87, 89. They shouldn’t be 50 or else nobody will believe they’re good. So they still have to be expensive enough that you think they’re good. And maybe they’re more expensive, but it should only be because of the quality of the product. No branding, no promotion, no sponsors, no influencers, no athletes, no ads. It’s just the best shoes in the game.
Brady Cramm: But then how do you tell that story? I guess some type of promotion, right? Because if you’re telling a story on the materials and comparing Nike and their process versus ours.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah, we would have to advertise. You’re right.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think we could do it more like Apple Keynote Tesla style, where we do it more through the media. We find the top 100 writers and publishers in the media on shoes, and the top influencers on shoes. But we don’t give any away to anyone. If you want to write up on them, you got to buy them. But we let them know, ” These are the best shoes ever made. We don’t give anything away for free, there’s no samples. Here’s why.” And we just do the exact opposite. And when we talk about our story and I think it would work.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I mean, I’m stuck on that tech idea.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know.
Brady Cramm: Well, I’m thinking it wouldn’t have to be a shoe company. It could be a sole insert company.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know.
Brady Cramm: You could have affiliate cos-
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s where I get stuck on the watch. I’d love to have thing I could put on the back of watches that does the same thing as the ring.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, exactly. You need to create the new Apple Watch. You just need to have something to stick on the bottom of a Garmin that is maybe a bit behind on the app integration.
Garrett Mehrguth: So essentially how do you take an Audemars Piguet and make it a smartwatch? How do you do it?
Brady Cramm: I wonder if smart soles exist.
Garrett Mehrguth: I’m sure they might have a concept like that.
Brady Cramm: It feels like it’s one of those ideas where someone’s done it. But if we don’t know about it, then-
Garrett Mehrguth: But tech isn’t a story. And I think we have to do the underdog quality material story and then add in the tech you have to see they have-
Brady Cramm: Yeah, there it is.
Garrett Mehrguth: There it is. So that’s what I saying.
Brady Cramm: It’s crazy.
Garrett Mehrguth: But you never heard of that inaudible.
Brady Cramm: Exactly. That’s where I… Ideas always get me excited. I’m bummed out when you look it up and you see it, but then you realize I’m a golfer too and this looks like it’s just for golf. I’ve never-
Garrett Mehrguth: Heard of golf buddy, buddy.
Brady Cramm: …ever come across.
Garrett Mehrguth: Tell you like check this out or seen an ad.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. That’s a side note. The tech thing was a side note. I just-
Garrett Mehrguth: No, I love the tech and I think we could differentiate with the tech, but I don’t think we’ll become a… We talked about how we build a brand.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: I think one of the mistakes that anybody watching this show or anything listens to is that features make you a brand. We saw in the Apple ad when we started the show. The ad wasn’t about the features. It was about the way they delivered the story of their platform. Compared to the Netflix, which made it all about the features, and we hated the ad.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Do you see what I’m saying? If you think about the trailer you did on Super Mario Bros, it was really hard to tell anything other than the fact that it invoked nostalgia and a feeling. And it had a voice-
Brady Cramm: They showed it’s going to be funny for the kids and for you.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah. But it wasn’t about the plot or anything else. It was nostalgia. It was an emotion they evoked. I think we could evoke the emotion of the person who couldn’t afford the Nike or Adidas growing up, and maybe never got sucked into that brand thing, but still wants a great shoe. I think there’s an underdog story that we could get all those people to be like, ” Yeah, you know what? I am more than just a Nike or Adidas person. I actually care about the quality of my materials.” And I think there’s a new buyer these days. The same buyer that makes all the amazing, frankly, like foods. Growing up, you and I would go to Applebee’s. I would imagine your parents were probably like mine. It was like Islands, Applebee’s, Chili’s. There wasn’t like a-
Brady Cramm: Souplantation?
Garrett Mehrguth: Souplant-
Brady Cramm: There were Souplantation. Not a good spot.
Garrett Mehrguth: There was this thing as a foodie, bro. There weren’t foodies.
Brady Cramm: No.
Garrett Mehrguth: That’s a new development based off of the passions and desires of our society to go back to locally sourced and quality ingredients. Quality is starting to matter culturally to Americans the way it didn’t used to. Now think about if we could bring that to shoes, that same kind of concept of the new restaurants that we all love. That same buyer you and I are. I don’t think there’s been a shoe brand that speaks to us like the new restaurants speak to us.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Does that make sense?
Brady Cramm: No, it totally does. How do you make Nike seem like-
Garrett Mehrguth: TGI Fridays?
Brady Cramm: Yeah. Or even the McDonald’s.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yes, exactly. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Brady Cramm: Yeah, they’re huge so their materials are great. Still is incredible and expensive these days.
Garrett Mehrguth: Exactly.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: So, I don’t know. It’d be fun. But that’s my thought, that’s our shoe brand. I think it would be epic. I think it could totally work.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. No logo.
Garrett Mehrguth: No logo.
Brady Cramm: Because that’s what’s in my head, it’s the logo.
Garrett Mehrguth: Yeah.
Brady Cramm: I’m stuck on the logos, the stripes and the checks.
Garrett Mehrguth: I know. I couldn’t beat that this whole time. I was like, ” How do I get them off the logo?” And I couldn’t get you off the logo.
Brady Cramm: Yeah. I like the no logo.
Garrett Mehrguth: So just delete it.
Brady Cramm: Yeah.
Garrett Mehrguth: Woo. Market this, baby.
Brady Cramm: That’s it. See you next week.
