Episode 2: Marketing for Impact, Not Approval, Dark Social and Being Your Buyer

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Welcome to our second version of Episode Two of the Original Marketing Podcast. Excited to be here with you today, Brady.

Brady: Yeah, me too.

Garrett: We were talking about mattresses.

Brady: Yeah, we were. You were asking what I was doing this week. Got a box spring last night, built it, and it was a game changer.

Garrett: They are so underrated. Box springs are one of those things where it doesn’t matter… Okay, so question about box springs for you, Brady. If you’re driving down the street, and you know how people put furniture out, but you saw them bring the box spring out, so you knew it hadn’t got wet and moldy yet. Would you snag a box spring? Because it’s like-

Brady: Oh, yeah.

Garrett: I mean, it’s the unknown character, the story of your bed.

Brady: No, that’s a good find. If you’re in a little side hustle, driving around and you have a big enough vehicle for a box spring, you could flip those easily.

Garrett: How much did you pay for your box spring? I’m curious about the pricing of a box spring. So have you seen the marketing yet for a box spring?

Brady: No, but we got it on Amazon for 180 something. King size.

Garrett: For a box spring.

Brady: So, that’s the cheap one.

Garrett: Dude, we are in the wrong business. How did it you arrive? Did you have to install the box spring? There is DBC box springs?

Brady: Yes, so it arrived in a four foot, one by one box, and then I had to install it.

Garrett: How long was the installed time?

Brady: Install time, pretty good. So it was like 20 minutes, maybe less.

Garrett: Do you think if you could charge 100 and guarantee a install time of less than 10 minutes, that you could just kill them?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: If you did a$ 99 box spring, 10 minute maximum install time, and then you just made it with some type of lighter material, but it’s equally strong.

Brady: Yeah, this is all it’s all steel.

Garrett: Would your wife be able to pick it up and take it upstairs?

Brady: No, she couldn’t pick it up.

Garrett: Is what I’m saying. Correct.

Brady: So we got it from, as recommendation from Drew and Melissa.

Garrett: Okay, so word of mouth was already spreading.

Brady: Yeah, yeah. Good word of mouth. Dark social going on, so they have no idea.

Garrett: Dark social? That’s the biggest plague that’s affecting B2B marketing today.

Brady: Yeah, I know. inaudible something about it inaudible.

Garrett: It’s not revenue, it’s not SQLs, it’s not CAC, it’s not spend. Sorry, I’m trying to keep a straight face. The biggest problem with B2B advertising today, is dark social. I can’t say that seriously. Have you ever in your life, even cared about that?

Brady: No. I mean, we had a prospect talking about it.

Garrett: We run ads and marketing and stuff. Dark social is just for individual influencers’ egos, it’s not for businesses. In B2B, at least.

Brady: I told the prospect, I think the biggest fear, is it being used as a cop out to stop the attribution journey.

Garrett: Yeah, okay. This isn’t even a segment, but we’re just going to call this as a new segment, dark social. Imagine if we had to talk about dark social every week. Okay, explain back to me, because I actually heard someone… Okay, I was on a strategy call with this billion dollar brand and this lady goes,” What do you think about dark social?” I didn’t even know how to respond to her, because if I could think of a trillion things that she should be concerned about, given her own job security, results, impacts, dark social, I don’t think would show up at all, ever. If I had a million things to do in my life, dark social would be 20 billion away. So from your perspective, Brady, what is dark social? Am I wrong? Is there any viability that if you’re a B2B marketer, a director of demand gen at a B2B company, you got a 250 million in funding, you’re doing well, should you be concerned with dark social?

Brady: I think you just need to be aware it’s a thing, but it’s such a small thing that-

Garrett: But it’s not a new thing.

Brady: I don’t get why it’s in conversation.

Garrett: It’s always been a thing, though.

Brady: Oh, yeah, it’s like-

Garrett: So if you and I started this thing like what, nine years ago? The U- 79, it’s been a thing.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, even me working here, it was through me attending, let’s say, it was an SEO workshop. That’s how we got connected. So if we’re trying to track or-

Garrett: Can we call it dark attribution then? Because I’m okay with dark attribution.

Brady: Yeah, I think that is a very simple-

Garrett: Dark social to me, doesn’t make any sense.

Brady: Yeah. And it’s like your digital summit. You go on tour, people hear you. We usually actually hear in the sales process that someone saw you, and so we put that in our attribution.

Garrett: Have you gone to any of those recently yet? Post COVID? Because I feel it’s been dead. I’ve just been wasting my time.

Brady: We’ve gone on some, post COVID.

Garrett: Really?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Okay, that’s good. I feel I’m wasting my time. Like the case when I used to do it pre- COVID, I had like 30 people want to shake my hand after we talk, now I get like one to three.

Brady: Yeah, I guess that’s the tough part of it, just people don’t want to socialize.

Garrett: Or I’m not as good. I could inaudible very easily.

Brady: Tough one.

Garrett: Yeah. I think the crowd was bigger too. So I’m only talking in front of like 70 people now, and I used to talking to 300 to 600. So post COVID, events changed. A lot. So you think it’s more dark social is just the things we can’t attribute which… I mean-

Brady: Yeah, that’s the thing.

Garrett: Okay, that’s the thing. But my whole ethos, I guess my viewpoint on the world is, why try to control the uncontrollable?

Brady: Exactly. There’s so many things you can focus on that you can track, and inaudible growth-

Garrett: That you can control.

Brady: And grow budget for, to where… I get it that it’s a thing, I don’t get why it’s talked about.

Garrett: Well, I guess maybe it’s a background thing, too. So my background was economics. So in economics, the whole thing is an imperfect science. And all you’re trying to do, is essentially control one variable while testing others, but you always know that your models are imperfect. But you’re not worried about perfection, so much as a deeper understanding of a subject and what correlates to it. Now, causation is pretty much borderline impossible for almost anyone to do a vast amount of variables and influencers. But correlation is possible. And so to me, I always want to know what’s driving my growth, what’s correlated to my growth, not what’s causing my growth. And I think if you’re trying to figure out what’s truly causing your growth, you become obsessive over this dark attribution, let’s call it. Where you’re trying to find this mythical magical thing that you’ll… It’s like people who hunt for Bigfoot, is what people are doing with dark attribution to me.

Brady: Yeah. Yeah, that’s why I told the prospect is, attribution will never be perfect. But if you’re thinking about dark social every single day and you’re buying into it, that could be your ball and chain when you’re just trying to continue your journey towards perfection. How’s that coffee?

Garrett: Brady is watching me try to silently sit down my cup, because I forgot to use the mute button, which I was given.

Brady: You like it.

Garrett: No, I’m like-

Brady: Oh, there is a mute button that you’re concerned about?

Garrett: Well, you could say so. Offline, before we started the episode, we got mute buttons because we’d be drinking and we didn’t want you all to hear slurping in the mic. And then I told him,” All you got to do is keep your finger on the mute button.” He’s like,” I’ll forget.” And he was like,”Oh, you got this.”

Brady: Yeah, I was like,”It’s going to be hard.” Short term memory is 19 seconds, even when you hit mute, which you just forgot to hit in the first inaudible.

Garrett: Hey, hey, hey, I’m seven minutes in and yeah, it was my first sip and I didn’t hit the mute button.

Brady: But even when you hit it, inaudible-

Garrett: Kettle black over here. Yeah, kettle is black. All right, let’s get to our first segment today, are you ready?

Brady: Let’s do it. I got to clear my throat real quick.

Garrett: Did you hit the mute button? He’s scared to talk about this.

Brady: Okay, I’m good. I’m back. That was easy.

Garrett: Oh, my gosh. Oh, you just got to remember. All right, let’s get to our first segment.

Brady: Yeah, let’s do it.

Garrett: Advertising jealousy.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Let’s have you start this week, Brady.

Brady: Cool. So I have a category. I have one big example, but I have some additional ones. I think the viewers are going to like it because it’s enlightening how advertisement works and the agendas of it.

Garrett: Agendas.

Brady: Yeah, whole agenda conversation.

Garrett: Oh, my gosh. You’re been political, Brady.

Brady: So the category, I would say, is ads for ads. So an ad for an ad network, I’ve always been fascinated.

Garrett: Okay, advertising, advertising?

Brady: Yeah, advertising, advertising. So the big example, which could be a little conspiracy theorist, looked a lot into it. There’s people saying arguments for both sides, some are saying the arguments for Apple, is my example, are for legal purposes, for lawsuits, but it’s their privacy ads.

Garrett: Okay, so let’s be clear. How do the ad platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Google, programmatic, whatever, how do they advertise?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: But I’ll get into it for more clear examples, but Apple has obviously been pushing privacy.

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: I love their logo animation at the end of commercials, where they turn the Apple logo into a lock, a padlock.

Garrett: Yeah. For the sake of privacy, they eviscerated small business advertising. It’s what a lot of people are saying. I mean, that is what they’re saying.

Brady: Yeah. Really, Facebook, TikTok, social channels. Right now, it’s really around apps, right, so it doesn’t overlap with our world too much.

Garrett: They already announced the search engine.

Brady: Yeah, the search engine is coming. No the search engine, that’s going to be big.

Garrett: I just don’t want everybody to go put Apple on some pedestal to be like,” Wow, my privacy guardian. They care so much about me at Apple.”

Brady: Well, yeah, that’s the argument. But one of the commercials is super clear. This lady who’s walking around the building, it’s like an old school court. See, she sees that her name is like,” Oh, it’s an auction going on for her information.” So she opens up this room, and it’s an auctioneer, and he is just going after like,” Oh, her location information is like 500.” And then it gets a little comical. It’s like,” Her Nana.” And someone bids 750 on Nana. But it’s just all about how people are giving away your personal information for their usage, and they’re bidding on it. And so to me, as much as Apple is saying this is for user privacy, and now the commercials are more general, that one was pretty damn clear that they were going after other platforms who are buying data from applications. And so since they launched this, I was reading a good amount of studies but their revenue in 2021, five bill projected to get 20 billion over the next two to three years. People are moving from Facebook, from TikTok, over to Apple Search Ads, because of these things going on in its application transparency. I don’t know the acronym off the top my head. But I just thought that was fascinating. As a consumer, you’re seeing these commercials, and it’s really pushing privacy, and this is around when the applications made you opt in or opt out of tracking. So to me-

Garrett: I haven’t seen that lately, by the way. Isn’t that weird on your iPhone? They talked to me a lot about that, but on all the apps and downloading recently, I haven’t got that pop up.

Brady: Yeah, it’s interesting, because I don’t really-

Garrett: Did I get a setting wrong, maybe, you think, or? Because I haven’t experienced… I know what you’re talking about. I’ve seen the commercial, I think it’s brilliant. I’m just curious, I haven’t actually personally experienced that.

Brady: Yeah. I remember it happening on the big apps when it came out.

Garrett: I just downloaded TikTok for example, there is no popup dosing.

Brady: Oh, interesting.

Garrett: Yeah, guys, I’m on TikTok, ashamed not, I’ve got three followers. It didn’t pop up, it didn’t do that. I’m being dead serious. There was no like,” Hey, Garrett, do you want to sell your information to TikTok? Yes or no?” Which they show in all the commercials. Which I think is a brilliant commercial, by the way.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, that makes me curious if it’s still just the Wild West GDPR. When that first hit and people had just ghost buttons and accept cookies, that didn’t do anything, it was just a button. Didn’t actually opt you into cookies or not, they just thought they were getting past GDPR and they needed a button on their homepage and so they made one. It didn’t actually do anything. No function.

Garrett: Well, this privacy thing is weird too, Brady, because I was reading this thing on Twitter, I thought it was brilliant. I wish I had it. I didn’t know you were going this angle.

Brady: My bad, my bad.

Garrett: No, no, no. Because I heard something really cool about this, where I was talking about how Apple is actually coining this ad privacy thing. So what’s going on is, Apple is not saying it’s bad to use data, they’re saying it’s bad for them to give people their data. And this is what’s really important.

Brady: Yes, the apps giving data to Facebook, for them to then use it within look alike audiences inaudible-

Garrett: Correct. So Apple is using all of your data, Brady to advertise to you.

Brady: Yeah, they don’t fall under the category they created for app transparency and tracking.

Garrett: Isn’t this hilarious?

Brady: It’s crazy, but that’s what… The consumer market doesn’t see that.

Garrett: No, no, no, it’s a brilliant manipulation, where Apple comes out the good guy, and all the consumers and businesses are bloody and beaten, all the way rolled down the bottom of the hill.

Brady: Yeah, so anyone who’s not a mobile application advertiser, it’s like,” Cool, they’re doing this for me.” But anyone in that world, they’re like,” Oh, shit. I have to get Apple.”

Garrett: Or someone who needs to leverage the advertising for their own business.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Businesses grow through advertising. That’s not some made up thing. Small businesses grow through advertising, and a lot of small businesses use Facebook. They really do. And the problem now is, it’s not that Facebook or Apple are being privacy wizards, what they’re doing is they’re creating walled gardens. But Apple is the king of walled gardens. Think about it. How long did it take to be able to use Microsoft Word or any of the products in Apple? Think about Apple Music. Think about their cords, their chargers. Their entire premise of how they function as company… Which I don’t blame them. That’s their prerogative. They’re a big company, I can choose not to use Apple. I do have that choice.

Brady: Oh, I tried. I tried to change to Google Pixel-

Garrett: I tried to go to check out Google Pixel too.

Brady: Everything broke.

Garrett: Everything was horrible. Right, and I couldn’t-

Brady: You can’t group message.

Garrett: And I can’t be a green check guy. I just feel like-

Brady: Yeah, it’s tough.

Garrett: The green thing would ruin me.

Brady: It’s tough.

Garrett: But my point being here, is Apple is not concerned about privacy, they’re concerned about gaining a strategic advantage on the marketplace by developing their own advertising products, not protecting us as consumers. That’s not what they’re doing.

Brady: Yeah, that’s what they’ll say they’re doing. And so that’s where it got interesting.

Garrett: It’s brilliant.

Brady: Professors doing studies about how it is for the users, and then reading the comment threads, pretty smart people and they’re saying,” Oh, this study would work really well in a lawsuit.” So it just opens your mind. It’s like, what do you believe out there? Yes, it’s a professor at maybe Harvard, or some prestigious school, but then these people in the comment is just being,” Oh, yeah, that would be really nice to have if you got sued for people thinking this wasn’t for the user and for monetization.” And I was just like,”Oh, my gosh.” I love that take on it.

Garrett: Do you think we’ll ever get sued for an ad?

Brady: Sued for an ad?

Garrett: Well, nine years in, it’s never even bubbled up. It’s never even been in the comment section.

Brady: Yeah, I guess I don’t know enough about our legal terms, which I don’t think I should. I’m not saying, hey, I should really inaudible-

Garrett: We got to timeout actually, we have a big announcement. Brady, do VPs know about legal?

Brady: I mean, I know a good amount about legal terms, I’m just saying when it comes to the ad or the agency and client relationship and responsibility for something as specific as that. Because it’s not like-

Garrett: Because the agency made that ad, though.

Brady: Yeah. So I guess if we get into it and someone on the team write something that they get sued for and it goes through no approval, but it’s the client who gave us that access in the first place-

Garrett: Correct. I think the client still has to be held accountable.

Brady: He’s got ownership of the account. So yeah, that’s where… I think it would still fall-

Garrett: I think the only way it falls on the agency-

Brady: inaudible we’d probably get fired.

Garrett: Oh, definitely fired. But I think the only way it falls on the agency, is if you’re… So imagine if one of our advertisers went rogue, they-

Brady: That’s what I’m saying, even if that happens, I’m not sure.

Garrett: Dude, if one of my advertisers went out there and just did their own ad for Apple and launched it on The Trade Desk, and it got 10 million impressions.

Brady: Yeah, but it’s like the client added that person to the account, the client is admin in the platform. They made that decision-

Garrett: I got to hire Brady as my lawyer. Look at this.

Brady: They can kick them out whenever they want. It’s their responsibility. They said,” I want this person to have access inaudible.”

Garrett: So you’re saying that this is someone… Essentially, they’re the studio?

Brady: It can be the studio, not the person.

Garrett: Yeah. So you’re saying the studio is paramount, and the advertiser is the actor, you hired the actor.

Brady: Yeah, it’s your choice.

Garrett: The actor said something. You knew that the actors said something, and that’s how we got it going.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Oh, yeah inaudible.

Brady: Which I don’t know. The whole Mark Cuban, right, when he said,” Fuck,” and he’s like,” You got fined$20, 000.” And he was like,” Well, if I say it again?” And he’s like,” Fuck it.” And then because-

Garrett: It was terrible.

Brady: The fine went to charity, so it’s a pretty funny clip on YouTube. But that was all on Mark Cuban. So I don’t know those details. And hopefully, it just never happens, right? Let’s not figure that one out the hard way.

Garrett: Yeah, no kidding. We’ve never even flirted with it, that’s why I’m so lost and wanted to talk about it. I bet you if I went through it, I wouldn’t be talking about it.

Brady: Yeah. But real quick, the other examples, I think are just fascinating, personally. So I’ve talked about this on Twitter and LinkedIn. But Yahoo, I don’t know if they do it anymore, but they were running Facebook ads and it just… You’ve probably even heard me talk about this. It keeps me inaudible.

Garrett: Have I heard you talk about this? You’ve talked about this for nine years.

Brady: It’s brilliant. It’s not nine years, it’s only been four.

Garrett: Four?

Brady: Yeah, I don’t know.

Garrett: inaudible.

Brady: Anyway, so Yahoo is running Facebook ads, and they were running a ton. Some of them actually didn’t make sense to me, but the one that really stood out was for cars. And so they would run a Facebook ad that says,” See the best 2022 small SUVs.” And it had a beautiful image of a Volvo, small SUV looking really sharp. Very click baity, right? I’m just on Facebook, I’m not shopping for a car. I’m keeping my hybrid till it dies.

Garrett: You’re an innocent man.

Brady: Yeah. But cool small SUVs, this Volvo is looking good. You click the ad, it goes to the Yahoo search engine, a pre- loaded query that is for used cars or used small SUVs or small SUV leases, all these different SERPs. And Subaru is the number one add, you got Toyota number two. And so if someone clicks that ad, Yahoo is making money. So what Yahoo is doing is, they’re giving Facebook Meta money upfront, because they’re paying for the ad. It points to their-

Garrett: At a lower CPM and CPC-

Brady: Search engine at a lower CPM CPC-

Garrett: With brand awareness. So you’re still getting the added effect of brand awareness on top.

Brady: Because it’s not an intent based channel, it’s just an audience based channel. So they pay Facebook. Someone goes to their search engine and click the Subaru ad. Now Yahoo is pocketing more money. They click the next ad, they’re really profitable.

Garrett: Essentially, advertising arbitrage.

Brady: Yeah. And Subaru is getting screwed. Because Subaru has opted into the Yahoo search engine, because they want to show ads for people who are on Yahoo and looking up SUV leases. They’re only doing that because they’re in the market, right? They’re shopping. Yahoo is driving traffic from click baity Facebook ads to that surf. So the only one losing is Subaru-

Garrett: So let’s pitch this to the audience.

Brady: inaudible.

Garrett: I’m on Facebook, and I’m looking for… I’m not actually maybe looking for a car-

Brady: No, you’re just on Facebook.

Garrett: But their audience targeting is pretty good, so maybe they know I could be in the market. So I’m scrolling Facebook, I see this ad and it’s like,” Shop across all your favorite mid- size SUVs ready to off road into your future.” And I click it.

Brady: inaudible shopping it. It’s not even saying,” This is buying intent.” It’s more like,” Check out the new 2022-”

Garrett: Explore and find out what the world could have for you.

Brady: Yeah, it was very not,” Hey, you’re about to go buy.”

Garrett: And when I click, the destination URL is the Google search URL, or the Yahoo search URL.

Brady: It’s a pre- loaded search. So it’s not like it goes,” Okay, now you’re on your Yahoo for for local cars.”

Garrett: Correct, but the destination URL in the Facebook ad when they set it up, is the search results page.

Brady: Search results for-

Garrett: That.

Brady: Small SUV leases.

Garrett: And then they take out a Google ad on that page.

Brady: Yeah, Yahoo ad and inaudible-

Garrett: Or Yahoo ad.

Brady: Yeah, it’s the Yahoo search.

Garrett: It’s all within their own ecosystem.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I just burped in my mind. So you take out the Yahoo ad right above the fold, and essentially, they know that if you click on that… Okay, so here’s a good question. Well, if it’s Yahoo right there, if you click on it, why is that good for Yahoo if they already own the thing?

Brady: So Yahoo is making money back, because Subaru is saying,” Yahoo, I will give you,” let’s say,”$ 5 if someone clicks this ad.”

Garrett: Oh, I see what you’re saying.

Brady: inaudible let’s say, just to make it simple, it’s probably less than this. When you click that ad, Yahoo is giving Meta$ 1.

Garrett: So it’s like when Software Advice advertises in the top four, and then-

Brady: Don’t get too ahead of yourself. I have a good example, inaudible Capterra.

Garrett: Because Capterra does this all the time.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: So Capterra will do this all time. They’ll find where their CPCs are higher than Google searches CPCs, and then they’ll have you click through on a Google ad to order theirs, and then they’ll charge all six vendors who that one user clicks on. Okay, average click on Google is 10, or average CPC is maybe seven. So I can get six advertisers to advertise on that same query, and then I can charge all six, seven bucks, which is six times seven minus 10. And that’s my arbitrage.

Brady: Exactly. But Yahoo money is-

Garrett: We’re getting cheeky out here.

Brady: Crazy because there’s no intent. So Subaru, Toyota, all these car companies advertising on Yahoo, they’re just getting screwed by this. But for Yahoo, it is just a money printing shit.

Garrett: When will these poor car companies stand up for themselves?

Brady: I don’t know, man. I tried to tag them, didn’t work. They’re not listening.

Garrett: They didn’t care. They didn’t care at all.

Brady: No.

Garrett: I love that, though. So tell me it’s Capterra-

Brady: inaudible.

Garrett: Tell me it’s Capterra because… Take me to B2B.

Brady: Yeah, this one is going to be really good for our market, B2B SaaS. So Capterra, I was doing client research for a gifting company, rewards company, really focused on gift cards. They do APIs but they also do platform. inaudible-

Garrett: Does it rhyme it all with the word kondoso?

Brady: No, we already work with something that would rhyme with kondoso. We’re actually talking to five of them. I don’t know what happened in that space, but it’s popping.

Garrett: Does it rhyme with coastal?

Brady: No, but we use them.

Garrett: Okay, does it rhyme with woody?

Brady: No, but we work with them.

Garrett: Crap, now I look bad. I’m going to keep trying.

Brady: I don’t know if you’ll know them, because they are mostly API- based. So they actually-

Garrett: Mostly API based?

Brady: Sendoso was a client to them. Yeah, yeah.

Garrett: Oh. So they’re like the SDK behind the scenes.

Brady: Send the whole product for a product scene.

Garrett: Okay, wait-

Brady: They rhyme with mango.

Garrett: Are they Tango?

Brady: Yeah, yeah. But anyway, I was doing research. So I was Googling some, what are some primary terms like gift card software. And not a ton of directories, but Capterra was advertising. So this is the same example. They had a Google ad, and it said,” Top 10 Gift Card softwares.”

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: So I click the ad, sorry, Capterra cost you a little bit of money, I don’t think they’re going to have a problem with that. So whenever they advertise in Google, it goes to a top 10 format. It doesn’t go to the normal organic page. And the title of the directory was gift card software. I looked at the URL, it’s customer loyalty software category. They were using dynamic keyword insertion on their customer loyalty page, and switched it to gift card software just for that ad.

Garrett: Cheeky.

Brady: So, once again-

Garrett: That’s what you would do.

Brady: Yeah, of course. All these companies are opted into customer loyalty, which is a pretty broad category-

Garrett: Yes, so they just…

Brady: So the advertiser said,” Hey, I want to be on customer loyalty, because this thing ranks really well for the customer loyalty.”

Garrett: For the company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So our client thinks they advertised their customer loyalty.

Brady: Yeah, Capterra is pushing traffic to that page, to gift card software.

Garrett: Savage.

Brady: And not only are they doing that, they’re saying everyone on that list is gift card software because they dynamically changed the text on the page to say gift card software.

Garrett: Capterra, be on the lookout when this podcast goes super viral, we got like 75 downloads, you could be in trouble for that.

Brady: So granted on that format, they have feature columns with check boxes, and one of the features is gift cards and half of the listings had gift cards checked off. So it’s not to say it was a complete scam or inaudible-

Garrett: Yeah, but they didn’t make only, they did show the 50.

Brady: No, they showed top 10, and four of them had nothing to do with gift cards. So it did not have that box checked off.

Garrett: Imagine getting that click that you have no idea, then go,” What page was it?” And then you get to nod dynamically. Oh, that would-

Brady: Yeah, it was wild.

Garrett: Oh, that’s cheeky.

Brady: But I’m fascinated. It’s just money printing machines.

Garrett: Is that unethical? Because I think that’s unethical.

Brady: So I think the Yahoo and the Capterra one… Yahoo is very unethical.

Garrett: Okay. So do you think Yahoo is very unethical and Capterra is not?

Brady: Borderline.

Garrett: I feel like Capterra is more unethical in that case, because Capterra is… Yahoo, you still had the choice to advertise there. And you got what you thought you were getting, and one of the competitors happens to be the person you pay. But still competitor, right? To me, I get what you’re saying, I’m not saying you’re wrong or anything, I’m just saying that’s arbitrage. What Capterra is doing, is manipulation. Because the advertiser thought that they were getting clicks for something that they’re not. And in fact, they’re getting clicks for something they don’t even service, with no control. That to me is like-

Brady: No, the reason why I say it’s borderline is if none of them did gift cards, but with a little bit more than half, I think we’re inaudible-

Garrett: Yeah, but they’ve got subcategories at Gartner, where they could clean it up.

Brady: Well, yeah, Github actually had, which is owned by Gartner. They had a customer loyalty/ gift card page. And so that’s where I consulted the client saying,” Hey, you actually want to live here first, even though it doesn’t rank as well, because this one actually isn’t gift card, it’s part of my loyalty.”

Garrett: Can you bring API into their title? So one of the things for the listeners wed to do here, is when you’ve got an ancillary category. So let’s say you’re an innovative product and the peer review site world, they don’t have anything for you. You know what I mean? You’re just looking around, they don’t got nothing. You’re like, you’re a gift card API, there’s no gift card API category for anybody, right? But you’re technically a gift card SDK or gift card API.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So what we have people do, is we’ll have them when they do their third party review sites, stick with their brand name, but then add their differentiator next to it. For example, many years ago, it’s one of Brady’s actually first accounts with us. And by the way, Brady, we didn’t say congratulations.

Brady: No, thank you. Upgrade to VP. Upgrade to VP.

Garrett: All right.

Brady: It was like it was hidden in the details of that little back and forth.

Garrett: Yeah, you didn’t say it. You didn’t say it.

Brady: But I’m a inaudible.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ll talk that noise for Brady. Brady is VP now. Been doing really good stuff, making us some money, being smart, hopping on podcasts. So congratulations, Brady Cram.

Brady: Thank you, sir.

Garrett: All right. All right so essentially when we do this, we end up in a category with a startup, a disrupter, a challenger brand. And we did this for AESOP. So AESOP was a subcontractor software. Now the problem with category creation in these brands a lot of times, is when you’re AESOP… The subcontractors that you’re advertising to, don’t even know that a software solution just for subcontractors exists because they’re used to Procore, which all the contractors use. And so Gartner knows that and Procore is big enough, that they create a category for Procore and all the tiny little competitors, and then they all make money. But then AESOP comes along and they’re like,” Well, we’re going to find this niche within this construction space. And instead of trying to go after the gorilla in Procore, who has contractors, we feel Procore is underserving one of the largest segments, subcontractors. So we’re going to launch a service to help some.” Brilliant idea. I can feel myself getting nasally. The problem comes from the category of the advertiser. When AESOP comes up saying,” Hey, we want to advertise.” How do we go advertise if there’s no subcontractor software category? So what we do is we put them in the contractor category, but add sub contractor after AESOP to their brand needs. So we manipulate their branding a little bit. Do you think that could work for this client, where you take tango and you put them in the gift cards software category, but you call it API in the brand name, like Tango gift card API?

Brady: Yeah, totally.

Garrett: Because I think that would totally crush-

Brady: Because they have another domain called The Reward Genius, which is platform based. The thing with Capterra is-

Garrett: Ooh, I like that. Did you just say market share have both brands to that thing?

Brady: Well, it’s nice because they have a separate domain, because a lot of our clients, this strategy is relevant, but they’re only categorized as one product and inaudible only one shop to call.

Garrett: Exactly, we do this with. Remember when we had exactly SMB product as its own thing, and then we had their enterprise-

Brady: But they actually have to have multiple products for you to have multiple product titles.

Garrett: I see.

Brady: So AESOP was interesting, because even the contractor software directory started getting demand for contractor intent that wasn’t relevant to them, so managing freelancers, and vendors, and things that. And so we actually took them to the construction software category, and that’s where the pre- qualification titling really hit.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: Their click- through rate dropped-

Garrett: Correct, which we want.

Brady: But their qualification were not.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: So these are strategies to fight the Capterras, because they make less money, which is why you got to talk to these platforms very carefully, because you can’t make the product changes, they do it-

Garrett: Whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout. You’re telling me that Google Ads rep has Google’s best interests in mind, not mine?

Brady: I don’t know what we’re talking about today for marketing culture, but if we were going to talk about something, I made a note inaudible-

Garrett: All right, all right, all right. Hold on to that, hold on to that.

Brady: About the platform reps because inaudible

Garrett: Brady and the rep.

Brady: Yeah. I’m still hearing-

Garrett: Well, you’ve been spicy. You know directive has done this whole thing without any platform partnerships? Because my guy, Brady over here, has been in charge of advertising for a minute.

Brady: I know.

Garrett: He hates the reps. Nobody hates the reps more than Brady Cram.

Brady: They hate me too. But I was able to build good relationships over time, inaudible-

Garrett: Yeah, that’s inaudible. Well, after you got a new one every three weeks.

Brady: Yeah, they knew I wasn’t going to budge, and they knew that if they didn’t talk about our clients interest, I wouldn’t really engage on the call. So I built relationship, but I had to be hard ass to do it.

Garrett: Well, yeah, because they have a tendency of showing up and talking about Google instead of listening to the client and helping the client.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Now, my advertising jealousy.

Brady: Let’s hear it.

Garrett: You’re good?

Brady: Yeah, we spend a lot of time on that one.

Garrett: Bruh, this show is for the listeners, it’s not for the segments, it’s for the listeners. I think we’re having fun. We’re talking about some stuff that I think helps everyone.

Brady: Yeah, I hope so. I hope we cover a lot in different basis and perspective, all the way from the consumer side to our niche of B2B SaaS. So hopefully, it was helpful.

Garrett: Yeah, and I’ll just keep listening, I’ll enjoy it. Oh, man, I saw this ad. So here, let me show you my phone. I’m on UCSA.

Brady: Go.

Garrett: We’re getting our TV figured out, I screwed up. The producer told me I had to install the TV, and then I just apparently tuned her out. So, that was good. inaudible. Sorry about that, Scarlet. Let me pull up. I’m trying to find my note now. So essentially, what it is, is it’s shocking. You know how I like shockingly memorable?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I like creativity, not through the lens of pretty things, but through the lens of, this is a different idea, a different viewpoint on the world.

Brady: And it’s sticky.

Garrett: It’s sticky. I like things that are creative enough that sharing it feels like the best thing to do. In other words it’s like, you only see an ad that’s so good or so funny, you have to show it to somebody, or talk about, it or retweet it, or just… It sticks with you?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I thought that’s what this did. So here. inaudible. Here, mute yourself when you watch this. Essentially, who’s it advertising, by the way? The ad was so clever it almost distracted me. What is it advertising in the bottom?

Brady: The brand?

Garrett: Yeah. It’s Rexona.

Brady: Rexona.

Garrett: What does Rexona do, again? Let’s see if you can figure out by… Yeah.

Brady: Yes, I’ll find it.

Garrett: Yeah, I like that. So Brady is watching the ad right now. The reason I love this ad, is I think they do a phenomenal job of just taking a crazy concept that actually is financially feasible, and bring it to life. If you’ve ever have a friend in the stunt community, they are almost all desperate for work, and they aren’t getting a ton of gigs from Hollywood. So it’s a massive community of amazing stunt people, men and women, individuals, and phenomenally talented. So what they did in Rexona commercial, is they got as many of these people as humanly possible, and they built an entire commercial of stunts. So every two seconds, there’s a new stunt. I think it’s a deodorant, right?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I love it. So it’s essentially just stunts, nonstop stunts. Complete insanity for a minute.

Brady: Yeah, the commercial title was stunt city. So it’s like everyone in the city-

Garrett: It’s a whole city.

Brady: Is a stunt person.

Garrett: So what do you think about the commercial?

Brady: It was entertaining. And then, it was deodorant.

Garrett: And then it was deodorant.

Brady: But it made sense. Everyone was very active, riding motorcycles through windows, jumping off buildings, falling from helicopters-

Garrett: It’s a large set. I like large sets of inaudible. Nobody does large sets-

Brady: No, it’s very large set, high production.

Garrett: But cheaper production probably for the talent, because they can get a ton of stunt people who are just desperate for work. If you’re like,” We can do live action,” you have a talent budget, and so it’s really hard. You get David Hasselhoff, or you get David Hasselhoff. And there’s a big difference between his talk and on the ad. And I think this commercial did a really good job of taking under appreciated, under utilized segment of talent in the advertising industry, stunt people, and then got a bunch of them and did something really dynamic with it. I don’t know, I just like it because I always would love to do something large scale like that.

Brady: That’s a cool perspective on the talent cost.

Garrett: Yeah, my brain goes there. Because you got to scope these gigs out. And closing these gigs is really hard with customers, because customers will have… So we’re doing live action directive now, we do some videos and stuff, we got some partners we work with. We do a lot more on the motion graphic side to be honest, but we do, do live action. And part of live action is, who’s the talent? Sometimes we’ve been doing more UGC style and our own employees end up being be the talent for TikTok ad videos and stuff for people. But what a cool way to find an under appreciated segment of talent, stunt people, and giving them a voice, and then doing something dynamic. Wouldn’t it be cool if they did more like that? I don’t know if you need to do 1000 stunts, but I feel like integrating stunts and stuff in that wow factor… It’s a little bit of what Franklin Red Bull’s done. And I think it brings a certain shockingly memorableness to the ads. Even all states ads, technically have stunts.

Brady: Yeah. With that one all being stunts, and I think to your point, the cost and value ratio is insane on that ad. Because the whole thing was stunts and the entertainment was off the charts. It was really cool to watch.

Garrett: And I think you do get to the Rexona part at the end. I think it’s good enough that you watch it through.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: And I can’t say that for a lot of ads these days. That’s why liked it. You know me, I collect all these weird ads and I put them all my binder. By the way, and I don’t know if you all do this. Can I call out the industry for a second?

Brady: Yes, do it.

Garrett: Okay. You all actually got to start giving a damn about marketing. Marketing. Actually care about your craft. I’m so tired of it, all these professional marketers who don’t… Imagine any other sport, imagine being a professional basketball player, but you don’t put up 300 shots every day, or whatever the hell they put up. I don’t love that, I’m not going to lie to you, that gets me… I don’t love that marketers have taken something that I believe is a craft in art form, something that can be truly developed, mastered, and have a massive impact on the world. For social justice causes for anything, I think you need to be able to tell a story that resonates, create a message that someone cares about. I just feel so many marketers today, even those who work at directive, I love you all, but I feel like many of you go about your day as if you are an employee, not a marketer. And you don’t pour yourself into the craft, you don’t have marketers that inspire you, ads that make you feel something, and campaigns that bring you to life. If you want to be great at this thing, if you want to be the best, you have to have a passion for the art and science and experience of marketing. What do you think about that, Brady?

Brady: No, I agree. I mean, it’s fun. I think you and I, this is an example of having it. You’re thinking about the talent acquisition. When I’m on Facebook and I see a Yahoo ad, and I’m like,” What is this?” And I click on it, it goes to a search engine, once you start… And if you’re a marketer already, you know these things, once you start engaging in it outside of work, it’s just so entertaining. It’s just a part of my life. So even when I travel, when I go to Japan and Tokyo, I’m excited to see-

Garrett: But you’re a curious human.

Brady: Yes, inaudible.

Garrett: And curiosity is what makes people great marketers. And when you see the world, Brady, I would argue, I would see green and you see lime green. But because you see lime green, you’re able to tell a story that resonates to everyone else who sees lime green, and I’m able to tell the story to everyone who sees green. But there are billions of people in this world, and they don’t all see green. So as a marketer, you don’t have to sell green, you could sell lime green, you could sell olive green. You can bring your own self, we’re artists. If you all haven’t seen the Kanye West documentary, watch the Kanye West documentary. I think it’s Ye, Yeezus or something, Yeezus?

Brady: I haven’t seen it.

Garrett: Okay, watch it, it’s on Netflix. It’s phenomenal. Because that’s an artist, that’s a true creative. And the reason I say that is, as a marketer, you can be Kanye West. In fact, you should be Kanye West. Way too many of you are trying to be Scooter Braun, and not nearly enough of you are trying to be Kanye West. And that’s a problem. The world needs artists. It doesn’t need more people inaudible according to my dark attribution calculations, if we were to increase our LTV/ CAC ratio. And by the way, the world needs those people too, we don’t have nearly enough of those. It’s the people in the middle that actually are the problem. If you’re technical like that, and you can do LTV/ CAC ratios, and forecasts, and projections, which I love to do, that’s great.

Brady: What’s the measurement of art?

Garrett: Correct.

Brady: Because that’s the beauty of marketing.

Garrett: Well, I don’t know. I think that’s artistic nature of measurement.

Brady: Yeah. You can measure art in our world, and I think that’s the cool thing, is probably why I’m doing it.

Garrett: Yeah. But measuring art is different than doing this mindless analytics of art because you’re being lazy, and don’t actually want to stretch yourself creatively. Because that’s what I think is actually happening. And a lot of these just get stuck as marketers, we’re just aimlessly look at Google Analytics or attribution report, but we’re not creatively asking your… We should ask,” How can I make this better?” We should ask ourselves,” if I could do anything, would this be what I do?” And we start operating that as a marketer, that perspective like,” If I do anything for this campaign, what would I do?” Not like,” What do I think will get approved by the client?” And when we start to change that, like,” What will my boss say yes to?” We start doing marketing for approval instead of impact, it falls apart.

Brady: Yeah. And I think the extra layer is,” What would I do to influence the market?” Because to your point, we are just individuals and there’s billions of people, so it is finding that balance, too. Because I do think you could go in the wrong direction, and people could be very closed minded thinking,” Okay, this is what I would like, this is what I would do.” And I think that’s one of the challenges of marketing. Is for me, even advertising jealousy is a tough segment for me, because I really don’t engage in ads. I’m a cynic when it comes to advertising, but I try to use that to my strength in some ways, on what would sell me. But then to my point, I also need to be aware that’s a weakness.

Garrett: That is a weakness.

Brady: So I’m not the majority of the market, so I can’t be closed minded only thinking,” Okay, Brady, you’re a cynic. What would sell you?” It has helped me in my career, because with conversion rate off inaudible messaging-

Garrett: I know, but that’s the problem with you. That’s the problem with marketers, Brady, is you got too successful in some regards. And I had the same problem. You start too, with your success of your career in marketing, you start to forget who you’re marketing to. And that’s not your fault, it’s not my fault, it’s the truth. I went to Walmart the other day, and there’s nothing against Walmart or anything that. But when you go to Walmart, and let’s say you normally go to Whole Foods, and you haven’t been to a Walmart in a couple of years, and you’re a marketer, and then you walk into a Walmart, you’re like,”Oh- oh, I think I’ve been making a lot of wild assumptions about my audience. Because I thought they looked like me.” And the truth is, our audiences almost rarely ever as marketers look like us, and we need to live and experience our audiences. When you get a new product, a new service, go explore that person’s reality, so you know how to write copy and creative that matches them. I built this thing from nothing, I come from nothing. And so I don’t know how to market Audemars Piguet that well right now, I would say. How do you market a product you can’t even afford, or ever worn before?

Brady: I don’t even know that brand is.

Garrett: Exactly.

Brady: What is it?

Garrett: It’s a super high luxury watch brand.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: So my point being is, just as much as that, some of us forget what it was to be broke. Some of us forget what it was to be shopping at Walmart every day, which I used to do. It wasn’t always easy. What was the one across from Azusa? It was something green.

Brady: No, I can’t tell you.

Garrett: You could. It was over by the movie theater. Yeah, see?

Brady: I can see it.

Garrett: Yeah. Because it’s a grocery store, but they had expired food, I would go there every day. If something was expiring on that day, they would put it 75% off.

Brady: Something Fresh?

Garrett: Yeah, something Fresh.

Brady: inaudible Fresh.

Garrett: They went out of business, that’s what’s all our fault.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But that’s where I would go every day. Well, then eventually you stop buying expired food, and you start going to Whole Foods, you forget what it’s like to market to everybody else. And so I do think it’s exceptionally important as a marketer to stay humble, and truly understand the audiences you’re marketing to, and be with the people, be with your… Think about it, these big execs at Ogilvy are now doing a ad campaign for Frosted Flakes, but they haven’t eaten Frosted Flakes in 15 years, and they haven’t walked the Walmart aisle in 15 years. How the heck you’re going to resonate with that audience if you don’t understand them? You know what I’m saying?

Brady: That’s why I just think the measurement side of our business is so cool.

Garrett: Really, though?

Brady: Because you get to fact check it, because-

Garrett: Yeah, but they-

Brady: It’s just a tough mindset, like inaudible-

Garrett: But no, you’re not fact checking it. You’re not fact checking reality, you’re fact checking your assumptions. I think that’s my problem with analytics. It’s like when people look at analytics, they’re assuming that what they’re looking at is accurate in the first place. So what analytics tells you that Susan didn’t like the tiger anymore?

Brady: To me, it’s just like A and B testing, right? You get different results, you have a very inaudible-

Garrett: Testing different analytics, though. I want to be clear here.

Brady: So, that’s what I’m talking about.

Garrett: inaudible massive inaudible testing.

Brady: I’m talking more about that type of measurement, A and B testing, seeing different results with different variants, different creative, different messaging. To me, that’s the feedback that I love, because I consider myself an artist. I’ve always enjoyed Math.

Garrett: Same.

Brady: And that’s why I discovered marketing because I was leaning in very heavy in photography. And then when I got my hands on a Google ads account, and got my hands on landing pages back in the day, that’s when it just blew my mind.

Garrett: Well, you and I are in converging paths from opposite start points. So when I started, I was like,” I’m not an artist.” I was all on the technical side. My background was economics. So I can do all the financial modeling, I can do all that stuff. And I was always like,” I’m not an artist.” I can’t draw, I don’t like photos. My personality type is not a stereotypical artist personality type, I’m very, very type A. If there was a type A, that’s me. And I felt like in the last five years, I’d become an artist, especially the last two, where I felt this other part of me that actually find a lot more joy. I want to stop being the boss so desperately, and just be the artist, because it’s so much more fun to have an artist’s viewpoint of the world compared to a CEO’s viewpoint of the world. And I feel like you started as an artist, and have been recently developing all these other executive traits over the years. And I focused on all the executive traits, I’m trying to develop more on my artists side of me. You know what I mean?

Brady: Well, marketing is that balance, where you can’t be full artist. You need discipline, there’s deadlines.

Garrett: You heard me talking about stuff like,” Well, they’re an underserved community. I could get a lot of stunt people for like… I get 10 stunt people for one David Hasselhoff.” My brain is going… Yeah.

Brady: So yeah, it’s a cool balance, the world we live in, in marketing.

Garrett: I love it, I love it. I think Rexona has the same problem. I’ve wished they integrated the deodorant. Why weren’t all those stunt people sweating? You know what I mean?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: When I watched that ad, that’s where I get stuck. Is, I don’t think the artistry should ever be more important than the outcome. That’s I guess, my balance. I want to be an artist, but I need to drive outcomes. So what if every one of those people were just soaked with sweat stains? To me, that-

Brady: And they were all doing normal things. So like the person who breaks through the window, I think they were going to a bank or something. If they did a little spritz, spritz right after.

Garrett: Well, 1, 000%. To me deodorant, check this out. Imagine if they did same thing too, where all these people who were doing the stunts were also using the deodorant, but for the first half of the video, they all were going like this and they were trying to get it off, and then it was like an all- natural deodorant at the end. And then halfway through, while they’re doing the stunt, someone would toss them a deodorant, they grab it and they put the new one on. And then you see him go like,”Ahhh.” And at the end, it goes,” Rexona, a better deodorant.” Now I’m like,”All right, I want that commercial.” So, I see him, I guess what inspires me is I see it and I’m like,” Okay, stunts, dope idea.” Connection to driving revenue, that’s where, I don’t know, I get excited about it all.

Brady: Yeah, the application may have been tough because it was a spray, and they were all pretty clothed. So, I’m trying to think how-

Garrett: Well, okay, so let’s say, no shirts.

Brady: Yeah, it could be no shirts. It was just inaudible-

Garrett: How do you visualize sweat if you don’t have shirts on?

Brady: I mean, Gatorade does it well, I’m sure.

Garrett: I guess you could put headbands on.

Brady: Yeah. And then-

Garrett: I mean, Gatorade does the close- up shot, you can see the beads of sweat. You can do a portable sauna on sweat, have everybody in the sauna.

Brady: Just sitting there.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With their bottom clothes on too, so everything is… You just look soaked. And then you go,”Do it.” And then you do it… You see what I mean like?

Brady: No, it could have been integrated more. My mind, the idea that I go to first says, you know the song is like( singing). You know that song?

Garrett: No, I don’t. I’m so sorry. I tried to.

Brady: Scarlet, you know what I’m talking about, right? Well, it’s unfortunate. I’m sure every listener has it in their head now, you might be the only one.

Garrett: It’s what I was talking about earlier guys, I’m a weirdo.

Brady: But it’s classical, but I’m thinking… So, it’s a song you would play over maybe a slow- mo clip, and I’m thinking-

Garrett: What song title? Just like an actual song or is it just noise?

Brady: Yeah, it’s very common( singing). I mean, I’m not a singer, so it’s on me too, but(singing)-

Garrett: inaudible a little more from your chest. A little more from your chest, you’re too nasally.

Garrett: inaudible.

Garrett: I know, like,(singing).

Garrett: This

Garrett: is a new segment.

Brady: I mean, I can’t get better than that.

Garrett: This is where we do-

Brady: Anyway-

Garrett: This is where Brady tries to tell me tunes.

Brady: In my mind, they were doing stunts during the( singing). And then for the second( singing), it’s spray, spray, because the sound of the spray.

Garrett: Okay, so we’re going to integrate the music.

Brady: (Singing). While they’re doing the stunts.

Garrett: I still don’t know what you’re talking about.

Brady: Oh, man, we’ll hit you with a clip and you’ll be like,” How did I not know?”

Garrett: Well, you know what we should do?

Brady: I could probably Shazam me doing that, and it would pull up.

Garrett: We should ask the producer which will… Not this producer, we have a video person. Ryan, I need you to actually make my inaudible, buddy. He could take the commercial and he put the clip over it.

Brady: Oh, yeah, there is some post production that could be done on this segment. It actually reminds me of a YouTube video I just saw on Reddit last night, inaudible video.

Garrett: Okay, keep going.

Brady: And it was these two grandmas in the house. And one of them was talking to Alexa, doing what I just did saying,” Alexa, play this song.” And she was like,”( singing).” And it just plays, I think, In The Club by 50 Cent.

Garrett: Oh, I do know that one.

Brady: Yeah, you know In The Club.

Garrett: Yeah, that was high school.

Brady: So yeah, this grandma was just like,”( singing).” And Alexa just drops In The Club by 50 Cent and one grandma’s look is just like,” What?” And then it stops. It was super funny.

Garrett: All right, I need to hear about this too.

Brady: That was a good clip.

Garrett: I need this. Well Brady, we’re having fun today.

Brady: Oh, yeah. We can maybe do the first segment the whole episode.

Garrett: We have done it first. Come on, I don’t-

Brady: I mean, I stopped myself on my segment. I had more.

Garrett: I want to be honest, we have done the first segment the whole episode.

Brady: Oh, nice.

Garrett: Which I love.

Brady: Is that inaudible?

Garrett: We’re not done yet. So, I had a question that I think is like… I want to skip that all the way to the end, because I actually had some good stuff for psychology and marketing we had saved for another show, and tactically delicious also, that I was actually excited about. But I don’t know, I feel we’re just riffing and we’re getting into some stuff that I really care about. But I have a topic that I think is really, really good for us to discuss. A little more serious actually, Brady. Doesn’t really mean enough to actually stay serious, but I think it’s a serious topic. I don’t think our discussion has to be serious, but serious topic. And that’s the LIV Tour.

Brady: Oh, boy.

Garrett: Yeah, baby. I’m taking us there.

Brady: You see the PJ’s reaction to it?

Garrett: I did see the PJ’s reaction to it.

Brady: I mean, that’s tough to do. That really shows your cards. Money in the pockets the whole time, kind of thing.

Garrett: So, what I haven’t seen anyone talk about, is advertisers on the LIV Tour.

Brady: That’s true. I want to say I saw a clip and it just seemed like just a film crew on a golf course and nothing else going on. You should probably keep the listeners up to speed though, for LIV Tour.

Garrett: You’re right, you’re right. I should have created … Thank you for that, that was good.

Brady: No, I’m just saying-

Garrett: No, no, that was good.

Brady: You got to think of the demographics outside of you. Didn’t we just talk about this?

Garrett: You’re right, I’m a sports nerd. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. I was seeing the world through my bubble. All right, I’ll break it down for you all. So, PGA Tour has been around since the dinosaurs, it’s the definition of white stuffy old men. And then Tiger came along, and actually made golf relevant. Essentially what happened. I mean, is that a fair assessment? And then-

Brady: Yes inaudible.

Garrett: Okay. And then from that… inaudible I literally had no idea. I couldn’t see you that you’re on mute button.

Brady: I’m telling you, the mute buttons are tough.

Garrett: I know the mute button is tough. We’ll figure it out.

Brady: Yeah, inaudible.

Garrett: So essentially, Tiger came along, made the PGA Tour relevant, one of the greatest athletes of all time. But let’s not say Tiger’s background is perfectly ethical.

Brady: No.

Garrett: Just for a moment. I love Tiger. It’s fun to root for Tiger, it’s fun to watch… We love a great American Story, a Redemption Story. Hopefully, you’ve seen the mug shots and stuff of Tiger. It’s like the redemption story of Tiger. We love that.

Brady: But just a backup, Tiger. When you’re a seven- year- old kid and you’re hanging out with your dad and his best friend on the putting green, and you see your dad and his best friend bringing ladies into their trailer, when they’re both married, it’s pretty tough to not develop that way.

Garrett: Shout out to Tiger.

Brady: Watch the documentary, it’s fascinating.

Garrett: I feel you on this. This isn’t going to be about Tiger, I think it’s more about, I think, the way culture works, is what I’m going with this. So, it’s always going to be the tour Tiger clubs blows up. Augusta, by the way, I think at the time of Tiger still doesn’t allow… Do they allow black members at this time yet, at Augusta? What about women?

Brady: I would sure hope so.

Garrett: I don’t think they allowed women though, at this point.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, we live in such a bubble here in Southern California. So, I think that’s the only time I really experienced, not that level, but even go into country clubs, it’s like, you can’t have your hat on.

Garrett: I mean this is a bit by Carlin back in the day, George Carlin. And he would say essentially,” We could solve homelessness by turning golf courses into homeless shelters.” He’s not wrong. inaudible has got a bid on it too, and I inaudible golf. But my point being is, this is a PGA Tour. You got Tiger, you got, by the way, Phil just doing everything on the tour the whole time, gambling like crazy. You got country clubs that are either racist historically, or don’t allow women into them. So, the PGA Tour, to my point here, is not some ethically above reproach. Perfect organization. LIV Tour comes around with Saudi money. They’re chopping people’s heads off, killing journalists, women don’t have access to basic rights. This is what’s actually going on. And essentially what’s going on is, LIV is giving people$ 250 million to join their tour. So, they’re just poaching the top talent with… And this isn’t the LIV Tour that’s doing it, this is a sacred Saudi foreign… Whatever. Saudi Arabian government. And they’re bringing these players, they’re paying them 250 million, 200 million to come play for them. Which technically, is their prerogative. We live in a global free economy, you could pay people for their services. And they’re willing to pay more than the PGA Tours.

Brady: Yeah, and the purse, the winnings for the tournament is much larger too.

Garrett: Bigger purse, bigger guaranteed money, fewer matches, but no history, no legacy, no real… I mean, it’s on YouTube, it’s team inaudible. It’s very weird, right? But this is their thing, it’s their startup. It’s like if the XFL or any startup sports league poached Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes to go and play for them. It’s what they’re doing. It’s a big deal in the sports world. But no one is talking about… Is that good context for you?

Brady: Yeah, that was good.

Garrett: Okay, cool. I needed that. But what no one’s talking about is the advertisers. And since this is a show on advertising marketing in general, I thought I could tee you up for some controversy, I guess, but not in a bad way. Just like, what’s your take on it? If you had a client who said they wanted to advertise on the LIV Tour, what’s your take on that?

Brady: I mean, still, I’m loving the pun tee you up. I just got to give you credit for that. I don’t know if you meant it. But it was good.

Garrett: What?

Brady: You said tee you up and we’re talking golf. I love it. Is that natural?

Garrett: No, I hate puns. That was not-

Brady: Ah, you did it.

Garrett: Yeah, I feel like puns are the lowest form of comedy. My last marketing director hated me for it, because everything she’d write-

Brady: Be careful with those statements. You got some employees who-

Garrett: Love puns.

Brady: Love puns.

Garrett: Oh, and I hate puns. I tell them to their face. I say-

Brady: Oh, that’s tough.

Garrett: “I think the lowest form of copywriting is puns.”

Brady: Now there’s going to be private Slack channels with you not in it, just for puns.

Garrett: Oh, they already are.

Brady: Probably. I’m not into them either.

Garrett: I find out all the day about some new channel that I’m not in, and I know yeah, it makes sense.

Brady: Yeah. So yeah, to your question, I mean, that’s an easy one. I think most orgs are going to say no.

Garrett: I know the org asked us to.

Brady: Oh, they want us to. inaudible.

Garrett: Correct. Yeah, we’re the advertisers, we’re the ad agency, bro. So we got a client, been with us for a lot of years, love and respect them. They want us to advertise on a LIV Tour.

Brady: That’s a question for you. You own the company. I think we got enough money, I’m going to guess we say… I don’t know if we say no.

Garrett: I don’t know if we say.

Brady: Or if we share our stance.

Garrett: Here’s the reason I don’t say no. Maybe I do, and I don’t have an actual opinion, I just want to talk about it.

Brady: Yeah, that’s a big decision, and we’re having a casual conversation. But I would love to hear it on-

Garrett: Yeah. No, no, I think it’s okay to talk about things. I think the problem with the world is we don’t talk about things. I think it’s hard to essentially play ethical purity with advertising.

Brady: Yeah. No, that’s a great point. It’s hard to play ethical purity in this world. I mean, you can watch documentaries about Apple sourcing materials for their products, and the supply chain, and how the aluminum-

Garrett: And I’m not even doing it for the money perspective. It’s not like,” What’s your number?” In other words it’s like,”How much would you have to have for you to do that?” That’s the argument they’re doing it for LIV Tour. How much would the LIV Tour have to pay you for you to go play for them? And they’re like,” Well, 200 million is my number.” Or whatever. This isn’t about your number. To me, this is just about as advertisers who are distributing a brand’s message, this is a placement. For example, if a client wanted you to place an ad on Breitbart for them-

Brady: That’s a great example. We get that all the time.

Garrett: You know what I mean? It’s just a placement. So, I’m asking you… I’m buying inventory as a media player, and they want to add their… They believe that their demographic cares about golf. They already advertised on the PGA Tour, they want to expand their advertising to the LIV Tour. I mean, as the ad agency, I’m not saying you forgot to exclude LIV Tour, or the client emails you frustrated because you put their ad on the LIV Tour. I’m saying, the client is asking you to put their ad on the LIV Tour. What’s your take on that? From your perspective as an advertiser, and I’ll give you mine too. I’m just so curious about this.

Brady: I mean, I would want to unpack everything, and so I do think-

Garrett: But it’s audience. All I’m saying is, it’s a good ad. So, in other words-

Brady: Yeah, it’s a good ad, it’s the right market. Because even the Breit-

Garrett: Exactly. It’s already working on the PGA Tour.

Brady: Yeah, the Breitbat example, I would let the client know like,” Hey, you know there’s people who crawl that Twitter, they crawl those feeds, they crawl that site-”

Garrett: They’re like,” We understand.”

Brady: And they will tweet out that you’re advertising on them.

Garrett: And they go,” We understand, we’re already advertising on Fox News, and it’s doing really well for us. That’s where our audience segment is.”

Brady: They’re like,” Oh, we think it’s 100% of our demographic. And even when people know we’re doing it, we don’t think they’re going to get mad.” Then what the heck do you do in that situation?

Garrett: Well, and ironically, and I know people will hate this, but with everything that happened in the BLM stuff, with the funding and the… A lot of drama did happen there. And I would say those are on the society’s perception of the right or the left, right? I don’t think I would not advertise on either of them for a customer, if it was good for the customer’s goals. Someone who really wanted to penetrate the conservative market, for whatever reason wanted me to advertise on Breitbart, and the ad wasn’t a bad ad. Because I’m not in control of Breitbart.

Brady: Yeah. Because I think the gap is, the company you’re advertising for, their values.

Garrett: Correct. I serve them as the advertiser.

Brady: Yeah. And if they have pure values that we align with as a business-

Garrett: But the ad is aligned with my values.

Brady: Yeah, the ad and the company-

Garrett: The organization. Correct. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Brady: Are fully aligned with your values, yet Breitbart is in the-

Garrett: The placement, is it… Correct?

Brady: The LIV Tour-

Garrett: Yeah, correct. I’ll be crystal clear to everybody listening. I only work with organizations that share my values. Period. But what if the organization that shares your values wants to advertise a message which also shares your values, on a placement that doesn’t? And the placement makes sense, it’s a good placement.

Brady: Yeah, placement makes sense, the audience is there. I’m going to say I would go for it-

Garrett: I would too.

Brady: Because I think once you get into that game, it’s just-

Garrett: Where does it end? You can never… That’s the problem, it never ends.

Brady: Exactly. It’s like, oh, you know every display placement you’ve ever done, you know every YouTube video inaudible.

Garrett: Yeah. Oh, I’m not allowed to advertise on Barstool, I’m not allowed to advertise on CNN, I’m not allowed to advertise on Fox.

Brady: Yeah, YouTube’s demonetization is shit. You can’t just trust YouTube to never show your ad on a channel or a video that doesn’t align with your values or is unethical.

Garrett: Oh, and of course, YouTube’s ever done anything wrong.

Brady: Yeah, right.

Garrett: Because they’ve taken care of every creator that’s ever built on their platform, and they’re known for just honoring creators, and truly honoring the people who make their platform even have, frankly, any money, is because people put their content on their platform. And YouTube, what they do better than anyone in the world, is truly honor those people.

Brady: Yeah, they give them plaques too.

Garrett: Ethically.

Brady: Plaques.

Garrett: That’s what I’m trying to say. What are we talking about? Are we going to really go around to judge everyone’s morals?

Brady: So, that was my point. We don’t all have, but a lot of us have iPhones. And if you got into researching the supply chain of iPhones, you would find out that the person they bought aluminum from, bought it from someone else, who bought it from someone else-

Garrett: Or drink coffee…

Brady: At a very unethical operation.

Garrett: Oh, yeah.

Brady: So, it’s like, sure, the ethics that are broken, that we don’t align with in these two examples we’re saying here, they’re on the surface. But in a lot of companies, the ethics are broken, middle layer, at the core.

Garrett: Yeah. Hear me out on this. Isn’t it just hilariously hypocritical? Do you like to drive your car?

Brady: Yeah, I love my car.

Garrett: Where do you get your gas?

Brady: Costco.

Garrett: Where does Costco get the gas?

Brady: No fucking clue.

Garrett: Saudi Arabia. You’re driving around with Saudi gas in your car while judging another human for their actions. That’s what’s crazy about this whole thing. Is it so-

Brady: No, even McDonald’s left Russia. They opened up a new brand, I believe.

Garrett: They didn’t leave Russia.

Brady: You got a fact check me on this.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. But no, no, no, the show has no facts.

Brady: I read an article… Yeah right. That McDonald’s launched under a new brand.

Garrett: Yeah, I saw the same thing.

Brady: So, are you going to stop eating Big Macs? Hell, no.

Garrett: Big Macs are delicious.

Brady: They’re delicious.

Garrett: And the fries, do you see the Malcolm Gladwell where they talked about how they used to use different animal fat for the fries, and that’s why it got worse over the years?

Brady: No.

Garrett: Old fries from McDonald’s tastes different than new ones because he used to use animal fat.

Brady: I did not know that. It’s like the Coke and cocaine.

Garrett: With less cocaine.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: But you get what I’m saying? In my personal opinion, if the ad I’m actually advertising is aligned with my values, and the company is aligned with my values, I would need something to be more heinous than any of these examples. I don’t know. It’s horrible, I know. I mean, I watch Manchester City, that’s my favorite team, who’s owned by… When you start to actually understand who owns all these sports teams, and if you like sports and where all the money comes from, it’s not… If you want to start doing that, I think that’s totally in your prerogative. It’s just, if you start only watching or consuming information from people who are ethically above reproach, you’re never going to be able to learn anything.

Brady: Yeah, I just don’t know where the line is.

Garrett: I know, because this Saudi thing is really. Dude, do I want to advertise or give my money to somebody who killed journalists? No. But I’m not advertising directive on the LIV Tour. I’m advertising my client who shares my values with a message that I aligned with, to an audience that’s perfect for them. Am I going to say,” I won’t do it for you?” I don’t know.

Brady: I just don’t know where the line. I’m going to take it to the extreme.

Garrett: China.

Brady: No. No.

Garrett: Everybody wants to talk about social justices inaudible. China comes up, and they got to sell some sneakers.

Brady: Yeah. All this crazy shit that happens in the world, a lot of it is online. There are, let’s say, videos of beheadings going on.

Garrett: Yes, it’s horrific. We all get our gas from there to drive down the street.

Brady: Yeah, videos of beheadings going on, and there is technically a demographic who has-

Garrett: Biden is flying out there, by the way, next week. Just want to make sure inaudible.

Brady: Oh, he is?

Garrett: Oh yeah, of course. He’s a straight through relationships and increased oil production. That is the irony of the whole thing. He started to increase oil production out of Saudi Arabia, while all these athletes are getting crucified for taking money from them, while we as individuals put it in our car, so we could save 13 cents.

Brady: Yeah. But what about an ad on that video? It’s the right demographic, whatever demographic is watching the ads, is good for your business.

Garrett: Oh, no, no, no, I can’t do that. I can’t do that.

Brady: That’s what I’m saying. It’s just like, where the heck is the line?

Garrett: I can’t do direct.

Brady: I know that’s an extreme-

Garrett: No, it’s not.

Brady: Anyone would say,” No, we’re not inaudible.”

Garrett: You would categorized it. I don’t think it’s extreme. I think we could categorize that yes, it is extreme. I think we categorized into the non- extreme.

Brady: It’s gory, violent.

Garrett: Direct. Direct. Direct placement. Because, what you advertise on LIV Tour? If we just were directly advertising on the call for that? We’re not directly advertising on something that’s pushing or hurting humanity, it’s a golf tour, okay?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: It’s golf.

Brady: Yeah, it’s a segment.

Garrett: It’s golf. It’s funded by Saudi Arabia, but it’s golf. So, you’re advertising on golf, you’re not advertising on beheadings. Advertising on the LIV Tour is what I would call indirect placement. Advertising on a beheading, would be a direct placement. Direct, no. Never. Never, never, ever. Indirect, I think that gets… I don’t think if you go down the indirect line as an ad agency, you could stay in business, and not be hypocritical. That’s my problem. I can’t do things hypocritically. I’m like that. I’m as authentic as it gets. So, if I didn’t advertise on the LIV Tour, I would then have to, because of who I am, as a human, I would have to do my research on every one of my placements, and come up with an ethical grading scale. According to who? Me, by the way? bro, it’s not my ad or my company. SO that’s why I decided to wash my hands as the one hosting the conversation. I think it’s a conversation we should have. But I don’t know if we could indirectly not place ads for companies we believe in, values we share, ads we believe in, with values we share, to an audience that fits perfectly, because they’re funded by someone who we think is despicable and evil. Because, unfortunately, if that’s the criteria, where the hell we’re going to place our ads?

Brady: Exactly. You don’t know.

Garrett: You don’t know.

Brady: You don’t know. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.

Garrett: Ask Bill Gates if he knew. He went off to the island.

Brady: Exactly, yeah.

Garrett: I mean, this is real. We’re all interacting with evil and don’t always know it. Humans aren’t perfect. So if that’s the thing, you have to be morally above reproach, given the current morals of this exact moment, depending on the media outlet controlling the narrative. I don’t understand the people that get crucified for going on Fox News to promote their business. They’re not saying they advocate Fox News, they’re saying that they’re here to promote the business. Just like I was saying, why you can’t go on Fox News and CNN if it’s about promoting your business? Everything became so polarizing. So it’s like,” Oh, you’re associated with them.” And it’s like,” No, they’ve got a big audience, and I’ll go talk to anyone who can grow my company.”

Brady: Yeah, they’re not going to run Life Alert on the Disney Channel.

Garrett: No.

Brady: Makes no sense. Yeah, it’s just weird. We don’t know this world is broken, ethics are broken across the board, if we truly align with how we got to be ethical 100%, our ad budget would be zero.

Garrett: Well, it’s a weird thing. Because I’m a progressive in many regards. And I love how we’re starting to honor the marginalized, and protecting those who need protection and supporting those who need support. And it makes me really proud to be American in many regards. But as an advertiser, I’m really, I guess, a neutral party in some regards, because I’m distributing another company’s message. Now, when it comes to my own ads, I would never advertise on a LIV Tour. It’s a really important distinction. I won’t do certain things that don’t align with my values. But if it’s someone else’s thing, I’m supporting them, and that’s my entire… It’s what my family eats. I don’t think I could be the business of that. I don’t think directive could not manage ads for people in placements that we didn’t perfectly align with. I mean, it’ll split our whole company up. Imagine if you had half your company, would be like,” We will never replace any clients on Fox News.” Then the other half the company is like,” We’ll never replace clients on CNN.” How do you even have a-

Brady: Oh, yeah, on a unit level.

Garrett: Yeah, how do you even have a culture? I mean, you’ve ripped the fabric of our ad agency apart. These are real issue that people don’t think about, but this is to me… The important parts of our society is that, we’ve all gotten to a point where we can’t respect other people’s opinions. We can’t change our own opinion. We can’t develop and be fluid as humans. Instead, we get locked into these things that we start grandstanding. We wear masks outside with no one around just so no one thinks we’re Republican. You know what I mean? That’s where we’ve gotten as a culture, as a humanity. And I think we got to go back to being logical humans who decide things for themselves, not groupthink. People who are being controlled by higher powers that really don’t have your own best interests at heart. So, I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject, no one wants to talk about it. But if you know me at all, I’ll talk about everything.

Brady: Oh, it’s such a vast subject, too. Your pointed to on an employee level, on a unit level. I mean, you might have someone who doesn’t believe in dog breeders-

Garrett: Oh, dude, I will take the US government contract in a heartbeat. And people go,” Oh, my God.” You see he’s got on a Google, Facebook, Apple all the time. They close a contract with the Pentagon, anything National Defense related, and they’re like,” How could you?” Yet they wonder how we have all these freedoms. What I would do, all I’m saying is, it gets really, really, really hard to try to ethically create some type of magical line what you’re serving others.

Brady: Yeah. And the timeline. Even going back to Tiger, he did go through a dark time, he lost sponsors during it. Sponsors are back on the hat.

Garrett: Dude, all-

Brady: inaudible that happened, 15 years ago-

Garrett: FIFA is one of the most corrupt organizations in the world. All the owners, all these famous football teams are literally mafia money, drug money. Go look at South America, Central America, soccer, who owns the teams? Go look in Eastern Europe, in parts of the globe of who owns the teams. Look at the EPL and who owns the teams. This is not some new thing. It’s just everybody somehow latched on to it, and then simultaneously, we’re all driving cars with their gasoline. That’s crazy.

Brady: Foxconn, China, nets around the building because of all the suicide attempts. That is where, I think over 80% of electronics are manufactured. Foxconn. And there’s nets around the building because of the volume of suicide attempts inaudible.

Garrett: And all we care about, is if our iPhones can be 10% cheaper. So, I don’t know where we’re all getting off as humans to be so morally above everyone.

Brady: Exactly. That’s the thing.

Garrett: That’s why I don’t like hating and judging, it’s like, I’m trying to make a buck just like everybody else, I have my own values and ethics, but if I’m serving a company that I share values with, with an ad I believe in, to a demographic that’s correct, am I not going to do that placement because their ownership, I disagree with? The product is golf.

Brady: There has to be inaudible.

Garrett: I’m not advertising on beheadings, I’m advertising on golf, that’s the indirect. The direct is a clear no fly zone, I think.

Brady: Yeah. I mean, we could get crazy with this conversation.

Garrett: I know. There’s no end to it.

Brady: We’re looking at Saudi right now, we could look at the U. S. We hear stories from our time.

Garrett: Oh, like slavery?

Brady: No.

Garrett: Oh, I’m sorry.

Brady: No, not even that. I’m thinking war related time in the Middle East and-

Garrett: You mean segregations from 40 years ago?

Brady: No, I’m talking shit that went down during the war.

Garrett: Oh, you mean literally, bombed all the people for… inaudible mass destruction, but there didn’t end up ever being any-

Brady: Something along those lines. Probably some rape going on by U. S. military. I’m not trying to-

Garrett: But all I got to do is do the song that goes,(singing). And I am proud to be an American. But you can’t go around acting like your crap don’t stink.

Brady: No, I don’t think the layer is on an organizational level. I don’t think the layer is on a political level. There’s dark people in this world, and they are attached to everything. So, you can’t have your ethical stamp done by individuals. And so, I think that’s where the organizational value and all that comes in. I think that’s an important variable, it’s on a person level. And yes, there are layers of groups of people of 100%. But once you tie it to countries and that high of a level, that’s all just made up of dark, broken people, and good people, and people in the middle.

Garrett: Oh yeah, the U. S. government is not perfect.

Brady: No. Nothing is perfect.

Garrett: Nothing is perfect. And I think if you’re directly working with something that’s evil, that’s a problem. If you’re indirectly doing something with evil in a global economy, I don’t know how you’d to avoid it, unfortunately, at this point. And it’s sad to say. It’s genuinely sad. Because I agree, in a perfect world, I would never want to do something with the LIV Tour. Perfect World. But if I say I won’t do anything with the LIV Tour, I’d have been pretty hypocritical. Very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. So hey, that’s some food for thought for everybody. Some stuff people I don’t think everyone will talk about.

Brady: That’s a deep conversation. It’s just got me thinking, is it one big web and you might think you’re on a clean spot of that web at the end of the day? inaudible-

Garrett: You’re driving your car with Saudi gas to your protest of Saudi gas. That’s the truth of the irony. Is, you’re driving your car full of Saudi gas to protest Saudi Arabia.

Brady: Yeah, I’ve really learned what ignorance is bliss means over the years, ever since I had access to the internet.

Garrett: Yeah, it’s completely changed everything. So hey, everybody, that’s Episode Two of Original Marketing. It’s not all jokes, sometimes we want to talk about real things, and hopefully, you enjoy this episode. So, thanks, you all, and subscribe. Give me five stars. Tell a friend.

Brady: Unless there’s 10 available, then please.

Garrett: Yeah, that’ll do, 10. Yeah, lots of 10s. And then subscribe, unsubscribe, resubscribe, unsubscribe, resubscribe. We got to manipulate inaudible, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brady: inaudible yeah, I like it.

Garrett: So thank you, everybody, and have a great week.

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