Episode 24: Innovating on the Go-To-Market Strategy for Sneaker Brands

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Well, welcome everyone. Episode 24, the original marketing podcast-

Brady: Or show.

Garrett: Show? Podcast show?

Brady: Podcast show.

Garrett: Well, I saw we call it both now too, so I don’t even have to call it.

Brady: Yeah, it depends what the format, on a podcast, it’s a podcast, on YouTube-

Garrett: It’s a show.

Brady: … it’sa show. On Apple TV it’s a show.

Garrett: We’re everywhere.

Brady: Yip.

Garrett: 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: Yeah, lot’s gone down.

Garrett: Yeah?

Brady: Mm- hmm.

Garrett: Like what?

Brady: Took a nephew to Disneyland for the first time, that was fun.

Garrett: You or took a nephew?

Brady: My wife and I took our little nephew, two and a half years old, little Disneyland trip.

Garrett: What’s it like being a part- time parent in that moment? What did you see forward for yourself?

Brady: I was proud of us. I was talking to my mom about, 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 he didn’t take care of them as they were getting heavier over time, it was quite the bicep workout-

Garrett: You got to start working out, bro-

Brady: Because you got to park the stroller.

Garrett: Well, you don’t have dad’s strength-

Brady: No-

Garrett: …you have uncle strength.

Brady: I’m not a dad.

Garrett: Yeah, I have uncle strength is-

Brady: Uncle strength.

Garrett: That’s average.

Brady: And it lasts a good four to five hours at Disneyland. No, it was good, he was funny. We went to California Adventure because he only knows cars, the car show and stuff. He didn’t really know Mickey Mouse or anything. So he took a photo with Tow Mater. And then he saw Mr. Potato Head outside of Toy Story Mania, it’s like huge animatronic Mr. Potato head, he was so scared.

Garrett: Yeah, I bet you.

Brady: And the whole time he’s asked me, ” 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: So he got over it?

Brady: I think he’s fighting his fears-

Garrett: Wow.

Brady: …in class, which is cool.

Garrett: Well, you were playing, I mean, if we’re being honest, you weren’t even playing man- to- man defense, you guys had a double team.

Brady: What do you mean?

Garrett: There’s two of you, there’s only one kid.

Brady: Oh yeah, yeah.

Garrett: I’m over here playing zone, bro.

Brady: But you’re dad.

Garrett: Yeah, but I got it’s three of them, I’m playing zone defense.

Brady: That’s true.

Garrett: 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.” I was like-

Brady: Just one, yeah.

Garrett: Parenting one child, I was autopilot baby, this was so easy.

Brady: Just handoffs whenever you want.

Garrett: 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 ready to go.

Brady: I bet.

Garrett: Yeah, this is different.

Brady: Yeah, this was pretty easy, he had a good time.

Garrett: Heck yeah.

Brady: Had some car issues, so I think I jinxed myself. Yep, been having some car issues.

Garrett: Do we finally get a new car?

Brady: Nope.

Garrett: Soon?

Brady: No.

Garrett: Come on.

Brady: 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 misfiring?

Garrett: How did you figure this all out?

Brady: On YouTube. And everyone who had the problem, it was in the snow, 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: Blue collar Brady.

Brady: …but took it to the mechanic and it would not fire up like that for them.

Garrett: Of course not.

Brady: So they did nothing so I just picked it up.

Garrett: That’s great.

Brady: It’s like I got stuff to do, if it starts up, fine.

Garrett: 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: Well, I was a little concerned because I was explaining it and it’s a very common Prius issue CT 200, 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: You’re a million instances on the forums.

Brady: Yeah, it could have just been an ego thing, 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: He did no recognition for you, there was no-

Brady: 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.”

Garrett: And nothing?

Brady: 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 and I was like, ” It’s getting warmer out, it might not happen.” We got the client offsite coming up, so I might have to tell valet at the hotel like, ” Hey, when you start it up, if it’s doing something, just call me over, I’ll get it going.”

Garrett: Jeez.

Brady: Got stuff to do.

Garrett: Yeah, you do.

Brady: I think I jinx myself a little bit on the show.

Garrett: So what car were we going to get to replace it if we had to get one?

Brady: So I think I was telling you this, I got an ad on Reddit recently for all the new Lexus lines from hybrid to plugin, hybrid to full electric. And they have, I think it’s an NX 500 small SUV that I think the zero to 60 is six seconds, for a plugin hybrid, that’s pretty good, it runs on full electric for 37 miles. So I’d like, 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 for to get a plugin hybrid, I might have to upgrade my power on my house.

Garrett: It’s not too bad though, electricians can help help, it’s not too bad, I did that with my Tesla before.

Brady: Yeah, we’ll see. But 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. Who knows?

Garrett: There’s no ways, you’re getting one before that, dude.

Brady: Nah.

Garrett: You’re cursed, you already are. The problems are happening, once it starts to-

Brady: It’s just an intake manifold. It’s like a $ 300 part, I love it.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: What about you? You’ve just been sick, so I don’t expect too many updates.

Garrett: 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 and A work at Directive, we’ve got this big customer offsite. We got clients like Uber and others flying in. So got to give a keynote. So I’m prepping for that tonight and tomorrow, keynote’s Wednesday morning. So good times. But I think the big thing for me is just helping these leaders, we got some really good leaders here, the company’s doing well, started the year pretty well on our goals. So I know a lot of other people are having layoffs and recession talk, but for us, it is harder, I think we are noticing some job cuts, I think the market’s pulling back a little.

Brady: Yeah, I think the challenger brands are struggling.

Garrett: 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, I think 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, 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 soon. So yeah, it’s always exciting when you get to talk to those types of companies. But yeah, 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, but just kept going, kept working hard and cut some fish, got a little fish.

Brady: Nice.

Garrett: Boat stuff still breaks all the time, which is just-

Brady: At least you’re healthier than your boat, it’s always the goal.

Garrett: It’s always the deal on my boat, which is always the goal for me. But you ready to talk ads?

Brady: Yeah, let’s do it. We got mine pulled up. Are we going to start there?

Garrett: I think we have to.

Brady: Let’s do it.

Garrett: Break it down for me. Why’d you just pick this one, what’d you love about it?

Brady: So it’s a new movie coming out, it’s the Super Mario movie.

Garrett: Super Mario or Super Smash?

Brady: It’s Super Mario, this scene that is going to show, it’s kind of like a Super Smash Brother scene I guess. But what I like about it is I see this movie as an ad. I think the timing of generations-

Garrett: Isn’t that what trailers are?

Brady: No, the trailer is an ad for a movie, but the movie itself-

Garrett: Okay, okay.

Brady: I think-

Garrett: I was like, yeah, yeah, trailers are ads.

Brady: Yeah, trailers 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. I’m old enough.

Garrett: You are.

Brady: 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: Wait, what’s the Nintendo World?

Brady: It’s a theme park. It’s a Nintendo theme park.

Garrett: Where is it?

Brady: So they have one in Japan, I think in Tokyo.

Garrett: Have they watched that episode on, I mean, they should watch that episode.

Brady: They could watch the episode, it’s pretty legit though. I want to go to it, but they just opened up that theme park in LA-

Garrett: Where in LA by the way? I’m just curious.

Brady: I think it’s tied to Universal.

Garrett: So it’s a part of Universal-

Brady: I want to say it’s a part of Universal. But 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: Well, I got a problem with Nintendo.

Brady: What’s your problem with Nintendo?

Garrett: I feel like they’ve been lazy. Hear me out. Have you gone back to use one of their consoles?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Not their handheld, because I think the handheld they do really well with, right?

Brady: Yeah. But their consoles are handheld now, it’s a hybrid. So I have a dock for my Switch that connects to modder, or I can bring it with me.

Garrett: I know, but I want real games.

Brady: So you sacrifice graphics, I’ve played Overwatch or Fall Guys on my Switch, and the graphics are-

Garrett: It’s pretty bad.

Brady: …terrible compared to my Xbox.

Garrett: Yeah, that’s what I meant. What happened to that?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Because I actually like to play FIFA Ultimate Team. And I do play, not currently, but I’ve played Overwatch and all the fighting games. And 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 cinematography, 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 were it, and now I feel like they let-

Brady: They sacrifice graphics from mobility, but when I do international flights, I’ll bring my Switch. They have a certain style of animation that I think fits their graphics, like Breath of the Wild, the Zelda game. It looks incredible, but it’s a certain style of animation-

Garrett: I know what you’re talking about, I’ve seen it.

Brady: … doesn’t pushthe graphics.

Garrett: I have a Switch, but I’d never really play it because it just, they haven’t ever got me… The types of games I play, the FIFAs and Warzones.

Brady: Yeah, FIFA, you wouldn’t want to play on Switch or Warzone or anything like that-

Garrett: Yeah, I’m more that kind gamer.

Brady: But Breath of the Wild. Links Awakening is very old school format, which runs just fine on the Switch. So it 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-

Garrett: Goldeneye, Super Smash, Bomber Man. I was a big N64 guy and that’s why I wish we stole the N64 concept because I loved those games.

Brady: But you can get all that on Switch I’m sure.

Garrett: I’m sure you can. All right, let’s see the ad. I know I’m just-

Speaker 3: inaudible.

Garrett: That’s totally the second time.

Speaker 4: Okay. Meow.

Speaker 5: Ah, you got the cat box. Oh my… I’m sorry, okay.

Speaker 6: Now you die.

Speaker 7: Only in theaters April 7th, rated PG.

Brady: So those types of graphics would be crazy on Nintendo.

Garrett: Wait, was that only eight seconds of footage?

Brady: It was like a short trailer. No, it was like 30 seconds.

Garrett: Well, yeah, but I meant of the… They did a good job though, the actual scene was so quick.

Brady: A part of this is, it kind of announced Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong, so that’s why this trailer is kind of blowing up now, because everyone’s excited about that.

Garrett: What’s the movie about though? At one point I like-

Brady: There’s a 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 as Donkey Kong. But like I said, I see this movie being an ad in itself for all Nintendo product-

Garrett: That’s what I liked.

Brady: … because ofthe timing of generations.

Garrett: I liked what you were saying there. So that reminds me, I won’t hear what you saying. So 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 click 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: Yeah.

Garrett: So if you click on that little, can you make that full screen or right click it. Keep scrolling down, you should be able to right click and just view the image. There we go.

Brady: What’s that in the way? An ad, come on.

Garrett: Goddamn.

Brady: Who’s in this industry?

Garrett: All right. So essentially to me what you’re saying is if you’re an Nintendo, that center box is the movie. And then you can time up product releases, platform releases. If you think about it, you’re telling me now that they’re building an amusement park. It literally is the Walt Disney business model for an Nintendo-

Brady: Exactly.

Garrett: 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, 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: Oh, you thought it was a video game trailer?

Garrett: Correct, I did. 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 is more where my head was at.

Brady: I think it’s positioned to where Nintendo doesn’t die with the generation, our generation.

Garrett: That’s what I was kind of concerned about, yeah.

Brady: Because it’s rated PG. So our generation, we’re going to bring their 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 place, the movie is-

Garrett: I wonder even the script too, there’s like a controller, someone plays with them. I wonder how they-

Brady: How the different dimensions?

Garrett: Yes, exactly. Are you in the game or you part of the game?

Brady: Yeah. I think didn’t the Lego Movie do that?

Garrett: A little bit. Lego did something very similar. So you’ve seen Lego’s done it well, obviously Disney’s done it well. Does Nintendo do any… This is their first foray into content really, right? Like streaming or movie.

Brady: I think if Nintendo had this graphic, video games would probably be right in the center. And 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. But merchandise, I have a Luigi ornament I try to sneak on the tree every year.

Garrett: I love that.

Brady: I put it super high in the back so my wife didn’t notice, because she had her whole theme going this year.

Garrett: Yeah, I had a Brett Favre one before he defrauded the state of Mississippi, but for a while there I had a similar 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’t tell you, my whole childhood would be my cousins fighting over the Super Smash and somebody would be pissed that you kept using Kirby or something. It was just always 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: I’m curious what it does, I own some stocks, so I guess I’ll be tracking it-

Garrett: There we go.

Brady: …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: This release was pretty good, check your phone real quick. Is the stock up or down, do you know?

Brady: Let’s see.

Garrett: GO to the Nintendo stock price for us, Scarlet.

Brady: It’s kind of a weird time.

Garrett: Oh, there is a little uptick. Oh no, go to one month, not one day, sorry. Go to one M.

Brady: Let’s see. One year.

Garrett: I wonder what that was on that 13th.

Brady: It is a weird time to be looking at the stock market.

Garrett: 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: One month looking decent at a 2% gain, three months is at a 6.5% gain.

Garrett: Yeah, one year.

Brady: Movie’s not out yet.

Garrett: I was just curious. We got to see, I guess, there’s only so much hype you can get from a little east, you need to go up from there. Founded in 1889, isn’t that crazy?

Brady: Actually Q4 is good for these companies, but-

Garrett: Playing cards in 1889. So we’re just a part of their long- term journey, man. It’s wild to see.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Kyoto. Well, you want to look at mine?

Brady: Yeah, let’s check it out.

Garrett: So ironically, I feel like we always have something-

Brady: Yeah, similar, some type of overlap.

Garrett: Yeah, some type of overlap. So what I loved about this ad was it is very, I haven’t seen a streaming… Okay, so there’s like a lot of streaming wars going on, you got like Hulu, you’ve got Netflix, you got HBO, you got Apple, you got Amazon, everybody does streaming these days. I’m sure I forgot Peacock, Paramount, 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, like HBO is very featured centric. Like HBO does really well when they have a big show, they don’t do so well when they don’t. Netflix as you 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: Ginny& Georgia just came out, season two. We got Outer Banks coming.

Garrett: OBX.

Brady: Next month OBX season two.

Garrett: I think it’s season three.

Brady: Is it season three?

Garrett: Yeah, I think it’s going to be-

Brady: Nah, it’s season two.

Garrett: No, it’s season three.

Brady: It’s season three?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: There’s two seasons of OBX?

Garrett: Yeah, yeah.

Brady: Dang, that means we watched two seasons in the past five days, because we watched it again.

Garrett: Oh, it’s fun when they do the little treasure hunts, I like the treasure hunt shows.

Brady: Yeah, it’s like-

Garrett: It’s good with the-

Brady: National Treasure meets teen drama. Great show.

Garrett: 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: No.

Garrett: 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? I feel like that’s how all the streaming providers do it like Marvel does a feature film release. Ted Lasso, which one’s Ted Lasso on?

Brady: Apple.

Garrett: Yeah, that one 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, Hulu has live sports, you kind of get what I’m saying?

Brady: 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 and it’s produced by them.

Garrett: 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 like 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. Does that make sense? There’s no macro. 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: It’ll make you feel like you just need one app kind of thing.

Garrett: There’s no ads like Apple, where Apple makes you feel like… Do you remember the AirPods ads where they show the person moving and dancing and it’s less about the features of the AirPods and more about what your life could be with them. 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, geez.

Brady: I think so.

Garrett: That’s on them. 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.

Speaker 8: Wow, Apple, best picture.

Speaker 9: So amazing, right?

Speaker 8: Yeah. I was in two best picture nominees last year.

Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I knew that. You were great.

Speaker 8: Yeah. You think so?

Speaker 9: Yeah.

Speaker 8: 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. What’s going on, Jason?

Jason: What up Timmy? I just wrapped my new Apple series Chief of War.

Speaker 8: Wait, you have a new Apple show?

Jason: At this point, who doesn’t?

Speaker 8: Yeah, who doesn’t at this point, like you just said.

Speaker 13: foreign language.

Speaker 8: It’s just steak with a mustache. It’s Scorsese, DiCaprio, De Niro. Apple, call me.

Garrett: So I love the two things this added 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. Right here. Watch what they do here.

Speaker 8: Severances is weird.

Garrett: That’s a negative comment. I love that. That’s what I mean.

Brady: Yeah, just shows the versatile content.

Garrett: 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, so that one’s weird, it goes weird. But if you go, not so far, go to Jason, the one with Jason at right here at a minute. He goes, ” Wait, you have a new Apple show?”

Jason: At this point, who doesn’t?

Garrett: Right there. ” At this point, who doesn’t?” They’re literally devaluing their content 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, comedians, everyone’s got a Netflix special. 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: Yeah, I took that line more as 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. Like, “Oh, this 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: My wife love Big Little Lies. Is that the one?

Brady: I don’t know.

Garrett: Yeah, she loved that one.

Brady: Reese has a crazy, but 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: Scorsese.

Brady: …actors will be on it.

Garrett: Leonardo.

Brady: Like the new one, you got kind of a recommendation for it, The Shrinking Show, I just started with Jason Segel.

Garrett: Is it good?

Brady: It’s good.

Garrett: And I just think it’s so cool that they use negative connotations to their advantage in their own ad. And then what it blew my mind is look how many views it has and how long it’s been out.

Brady: Oh geez, yeah.

Garrett: Like bro, 13 million views in 10 days, and that’s just YouTube views.

Brady: Man, it’s got to be, yeah, it’s sound like that’s organic views, but still.

Garrett: 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: I wonder what their view rate is because what I liked about it is it was a story.

Garrett: Yeah, it was.

Brady: He was going through his story, I think his insecurity was more entertaining than any other topic-

Garrett: It was.

Brady: 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, this is out now, this is out now, people will probably skip, it’s six seconds.

Garrett: I love it. I use my wife usually as a limit test too. If Myra goes, ” Well,” because she’ll be like watching, “I love that commercial.” I’m like, ” Yep.” Because it’s like 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. Watch, let’s just pull up for kicks and giggles over here. Who would you say their biggest competitor is right now? Netflix, HBO? Probably Netflix.

Brady: Probably Netflix.

Garrett: Yeah, let’s see if Netflix has anything. Netflix ad or show. Oh, let’s just try Hulu-

Brady: Hulu poaching?

Garrett: We’ll look at the first one.

Brady: That’s poaching.

Garrett: I’m going to give them credit, let’s see what they say.

Brady: They’re using-

Garrett: Oh no, I want to see the ad.

Brady: Yeah, it’s like a search ad.

Garrett: Oh, will it not? She’s not actually on it, what the heck?

Brady: No, it’s a search ad within the YouTube search.

Garrett: Okay. But it takes an image, so it looks like it’s the same, but it’s-

Brady: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Garrett: All right, let’s go look and play something. Let’s see what Netflix does, because this is more what I to say.

Speaker 12: Fuck you, Mary.

Speaker 13: Maybe something different this week?

Speaker 12: Know any good mysteries?

Speaker 13: Something with some cool accents.

Speaker 12: We’ll just scroll through.

Speaker 14: Oh no, not to scroll. These people are really about to push my buttons. Here we go. Oh, would you knock it off with those giant thumbs?

Speaker 12: Oh, sorry.

Speaker 13: Yeah, we’re just looking for something to watch.

Speaker 14: 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.

Speaker 13: Sex Ed.

Speaker 14: 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.

Speaker 12: Bridgerton.

Speaker 13: It says featured already.

Speaker 14: Your majesty, our friend here was in the dukes chambers every night last week. Please, if you left-

Speaker 12: Do you watch Bridgerton without me?

Speaker 13: The costumes are just so beautiful, I got-

Speaker 12: You love the costumes?

Speaker 13: I do.

Speaker 12: You love the sex?

Speaker 13: It was also good.

Speaker 14: I will throw myself under these cushions and you will never find me.

Speaker 13: Do what it says.

Speaker 14: Play something.

Garrett: I hate this ad-

Brady: Yeah, what is this?

Garrett: …so much. So now, just hit pause. 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: It must have hopefully got denied and didn’t actually air anywhere.

Garrett: It’s got 168,000 views directly on the Netflix account. It’s the worst ad I’ve ever… This is what I’m trying to explain.

Brady: That’s pretty cringey.

Garrett: 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: It’s funny, I don’t think it was their idea.

Garrett: And it’s all features. Everyone in the world knows Netflix, that you personalize… I don’t think there’s anyone who’s thinks Netflix isn’t personalized at this point.

Brady: Yeah, that’s just an ad where I can see it looking decent story- boarding and having those memes around the concept. But then when it got to actually executing it.

Garrett: Does Netflix sell remote? Last time I checked they don’t.

Brady: No.

Garrett: They made the whole thing the remote.

Brady: 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. Once you’re done with one-

Garrett: I would’ve taken the other angle, I would’ve taken how during the pandemic? We were there for you, and it was more just people scrolling. There’s ways to make the Netflix scroll positive, if that makes sense. It’s part of the experience.

Brady: They can do a funny, are you still watching bit?

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: 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: That was rough.

Brady: That was tough.

Garrett: Now do you see why I like the Apple one so much?

Brady: Yeah, that was good contrast.

Garrett: Yeah, that was a good-

Brady: And we just picked the first one, it’s not like we knew this was really a bad ad.

Garrett: 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 you have to go get the new one. So I 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: Yeah, I agree. I think Nintendo might be coming out with one, we’ll see if that’s the next move.

Garrett: Put it on the billboard, put it on the-

Brady: 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 is just cheap animation, but they’re making millions.

Garrett: They could crush it. I love it. Well, Brady, star of the show, it’s private segment.

Brady: My private segment?

Garrett: Yeah. Take a Brady segment. We’re going to call it the Brady segment.

Brady: Yes, my segment. So this week we’re talking to 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: I despise the way people treat copy on Google Ads, with the keyword insertion and just like, oh.

Brady: And then usually before the responsive search ads, people were telling decent stories. 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, that’s usually a format-

Garrett: I’ve seen some good ones, but it’s like one out of 100.

Brady: But now there’s responsive search ads, which you feed it 30 headlines-

Garrett: I don’t know.

Brady: …and Google chooses the ad for you. So this is something I’ve been noticing-

Garrett: Or you can scrape your own website and just write them on its own too.

Brady: Yeah, the dynamic search ads that can do that, which is it’s 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: 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, nobody hates copy more than tech.

Brady: And it should be prioritizing click through eight because that’s what makes Google the most money-

Garrett: Have a brand storytelling. What about articulating value propositions?

Brady: Which you can do in these ads. So the intention of the advertiser who builds these ads is usually, let me write a couple things that could be used as an H1, let me write a few things that could be an H3, a few things that could be an H3.

Garrett: And then they judge the quality of their writing based on their click- through rates, which makes me want to puke.

Brady: And they say now that all these different variations of intent can fall under one-

Garrett: There’s no art anymore, Brady, that’s all I’m trying to say, I want art. I’m tired of all the science.

Brady: You can still do art, it’s just you have to add a couple more settings.

Garrett: I know you didn’t realize you got me a hot topic here.

Brady: Sorry.

Garrett: No, I know. All right, keep going.

Brady: It used to be on my ass about ad copy like seven years ago.

Garrett: Dude, was it seven when you and I started?

Brady: Yeah, seven and a half is when I started.

Garrett: Dude, I’m still the only person I think who cares.

Brady: No, and I align with it too, I think I copied can really influence your results. So what’s happening now in all these responsive search ads, so you can’t build a new expanded tech side anymore. And those were the ads where you just wrote H1, H2, H3, that’s it. Now you have to do responsive, which means you-

Garrett: Wait, that doesn’t exist? Timeout, so I can’t write… Because it used to be title line, second line, third line.

Brady: Yeah, you can’t do that anymore. You can, but you can’t.

Garrett: What do you do?

Brady: 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: So you have no control?

Brady: So that’s a part of the solution from what I’m going to talk about. And the data sucks, they just tell you the percentage of impressions per combination within all of your headlines.

Garrett: This makes me want to puke.

Brady: And so often when I do an audit, 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: 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: Yeah, it’s a terrible selection of headlines-

Garrett: Ooh.

Brady: …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: The number one insurance CRM choice for agents around the globe, where’s that?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Can’t have that, that’s gone?

Brady: No, they probably have those headlines in there-

Garrett: But I don’t get to choose it.

Brady: …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: So you can essentially say-

Brady: You can pin headlines.

Garrett: …conditional logic, this, then that-

Brady: These are all H1 options, these are all H2 options, these are all H3 options, right now in this account-

Garrett: 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: 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. It’s going to say there are not enough headlines, and so they’re not fully transparent-

Garrett: Does that affect your CPN?

Brady: …what that does with quality score, but ad relevancy is probably not going to be above average.

Garrett: So I’m going to pay for my copy?

Brady: So if you want it like that, you’re going to pay a lot of money.

Garrett: Why is this better for Google? It just seems like they increase their irrelevance, not their-

Brady: There’s so more people who don’t understand how to measure performance, Google’s riding that wave in my opinion-

Garrett: 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, everybody want a high quality score?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: 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: 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. So you want your labels to be relevant to your industry. And then it has a sentiment score, a positive versus negative sentiment.

Garrett: And we’ve been say national English processing models for a while in the SEO space, like SEO scale-

Brady: Relevant to Google ads, 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: So what’s the takeaway? So this to me is crap.

Brady: 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.

Garrett: Can we use me as an example? Can we go on Google and search our stuff to, and then-

Brady: Yeah, we can see.

Garrett: All right.

Brady: Check it out.

Garrett: Because now I’m like-

Brady: I’m praying for our marketing team, hopefully it’s good. It should be good.

Garrett: No, no inaudible, I’m sorry. So go demand- gen agency. Something like that. See?

Brady: I see.

Garrett: Now that’s ad. That’s an ad. Demand gen focused on SQLs ready to see what’s possible.

Brady: Exactly, that’s storytelling.

Garrett: 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 that drives pipeline revenue ready to crush your goals every time. That looks pretty good. Let’s try another one, Paid Media agency, or Paid Media agency for SaaS.

Brady: Yeah, I don’t know if-

Garrett: Or SaaS, yeah.

Brady: …this laptop would be in our audience targeting.

Garrett: There it is. This is doing DKI, is that all it is? Well, no, because you took out agency?

Brady: No, that would-

Garrett: We partner with you, the in- house marketers, so you surpass your old goals month over month. Pay me a successor results in revenue 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: So I think we’re pinning to control it. I think we’re pinning a set of H2s, a set of H1s.

Garrett: Yeah, because that looks really good.

Brady: Yeah, it’s a good combination.

Garrett: The one below is better than our zone, I hate to say.

Brady: Yeah, it was pretty good, zero BS, 100% results always.

Garrett: That’s pretty good. But I don’t like the third line, I think the third line looks like crap. Those are their extensions-

Brady: Oh, call- outs. Those are structured snippets or call- outs.

Garrett: 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 a proposal?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: 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: So I’ve seen site links work very well on mobile.

Garrett: I’m not saying they don’t work. What I’m saying is I don’t know which of those works better than others, and I don’t think I can control which ones you do or don’t click on.

Brady: I mean, you can-

Garrett: Compared to the landing page where I’m in complete control.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: That’s more where my head’s at.

Brady: So to do site links well, you actually have to have really good additional offers and unique routes into your pipeline.

Garrett: Okay, now that would sense.

Brady: Then they crush it.

Garrett: So if it feels like a different engagement routes, that’s okay.

Brady: 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: I was nervous, after I saw that, I was like, man, I hope we don’t look back, because I hadn’t seen these in a couple months.

Brady: 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: Was that before they hired us or after they hired?

Brady: This is all before.

Garrett: Okay, good, it’s good.

Brady: 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 use the best ad 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: 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: Yep. I’m mostly on the podcast wearing Adidas or Nikes.

Garrett: So let’s just do a little fit check real quick. So what are we rocking right now? These are the Tecova boots, little work boots. What are you rocking right there? What do you got?

Brady: These are Cole Haan, semi- business casual. Very light, not great for the rain shoes.

Garrett: It’s raining today.

Brady: It is raining today.

Garrett: 70% chance. So Brady, will you want to take down Adidas or Nike?

Brady: Or Nike.

Garrett: I mean, then you still have the Steve Maddens and the kind of-

Brady: 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 it’s portray material items, and that’s stuff-

Garrett: You are cynical, what do you mean portray yourself as?

Brady: No, so I’m about to counter that.

Garrett: You’re the most cynical guy I know.

Brady: 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. 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 A- sex and style.

Garrett: This is the ultimate Brady conundrum right here, I love this.

Brady: But they don’t got the three stripes-

Garrett: Ads don’t work on me.

Brady: 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 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, 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: Permission to put my psychology hat on?

Brady: Let’s do it.

Garrett: Do you remember being a child?

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: 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: The light up wines, Velcro versus ties, Heelys.

Garrett: Do you remember when you first started to know… 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, you go to Big Five to buy your shoes. You buy your shoes at Big Five. There ain’t no Nike or Adidas at Big Five where I was going, there was Starter, do you remember Starter?

Brady: No, I was thinking New Balance.

Garrett: So can you search a Starter knockoff Air Force Ones? See those union lots on the bottoms, they look exactly like Air Force Ones, but they’re starter brand. That’s 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 if it isn’t Nike or Adidas, it ain’t worth nothing. Because I was always at Payless or Big Five 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: Yeah.

Garrett: 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 think it does.

Brady: I think it does.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: I mean, back in the day, if you didn’t have a Furby, who were you?

Garrett: You know how all the kids got Razor scooters, remember those scooters, the Razors?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I didn’t have a Razor, I had the Costco one.

Brady: Yeah, the scooters. When cellphones came out, that was a big part of it too. It was like people had the Sidekicks and the Razors.

Garrett: I never had the the Razor, I had the Nokia brick. I was always, whatever the off was, I had it.

Brady: So it was definitely a big part of it, I don’t know what age that starts. And I’m sure it probably starts younger and younger.

Garrett: And I love you mom and dad, no knock, we’re off- brand people, that’s all right.

Brady: All I can remember is Vans, I think I just wore Vans for the longest time.

Garrett: I eventually got Vans.

Brady: And I do remember-

Garrett: I had the Keds first though. Remember the Keds that Payless?

Brady: No.

Garrett: They look like Vans, show him, you got to show him this real, Keds like vans, I want him to see this.

Brady: 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: I had those.

Brady: Yeah, those are the knockoffs.

Garrett: 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: Yeah, it’s a pretty big logo, they’re coming back-

Garrett: They’ll do different color ways too.

Brady: They’re on the way with champions, now that’s a high- end champion.

Garrett: That’s what I would wear, the hoodies.

Brady: But 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: And better.

Brady: 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: But you’re wearing Cole Haan.

Brady: Yeah, I always do this. We talked about Vuori, that one episode was only wearing one item, now we’re talking about this and the one day I’m not wearing them.

Garrett: I’m trying to understand because essentially I do get what you’re saying. What was the difference on the Cole Haan? Was it because you were in Nordstrom when you bought them?

Brady: Yeah, these are from Nordstrom Rack-

Garrett: I could tell. I’m getting the game though.

Brady: And I got these for business purposes.

Garrett: 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 ain’t no way Brady Kram’s buying Cole Haan in an ad.

Brady: 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: More of a Cole Haan, than a Steve Madden guy?

Brady: I think so. I’d have to look at my shoes.

Garrett: But Cole Haan does a great job by the way, I think I have a pair that are similar of Comfy, they’re like a hybrid shoe, it’s like work but comfort at the same time.

Brady: Which I think Ecco probably makes those too, but I wouldn’t buy Ecco.

Garrett: But where do you purchase? I also purchase mine from off Sax 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: No.

Garrett: See, I think that’s the other caveat. You would buy direct from Nike or Adidas?

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: But you wouldn’t buy direct from Cole Haan, I don’t think you would.

Brady: Yeah, but Nike and Adidas, I always hit the outlet.

Garrett: Yeah. But Cole Haan’s in the same outlets, right there.

Brady: Yeah, that’s true.

Garrett: They have Cole Haan store, I guarantee you at that same outlet in Offsprings.

Brady: I’ve had these for five years.

Garrett: No, I know, I’ve seen them-

Brady: You don’t wear them too much, they have their moments.

Garrett: We’ve spent so much time together, I know what you wear, I know you got three pairs-

Brady: Yeah, three colors of these.

Garrett: Is that weird that I know that?

Brady: Yeah. Light gray, dark gray and black.

Garrett: I know. And my point being is you found a 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 obstacles that we have to overcome in our audience, their humanity of why they do or do not make purchasing decisions regardless 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. Well, you obviously, and my favorite part of this whole thing is the full circle Brady of ads don’t work on me-

Brady: No, I know, it’s like the most-

Garrett: I love that about you right now, it’s the best.

Brady: I’m not your average consumer, but this is an example of I’m brainwashed just as much as the rest of them.

Garrett: We are.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So I had some ideas for you. I want to hear what you think about this. 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. And 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 breath 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: And now it’s just too much sugar and whatever people-

Garrett: Gatorade’s gone.

Brady: Yeah, it’s just water, and the Gatorade- themed bottle.

Garrett: I use Body Armor.

Brady: They did. So I just got a Gatorade ad-

Garrett: Really?

Brady: It looks like they’re competing with Body Armor now. It was more like a smoothy flavored-

Garrett: Looks like Body Armor’s the GOAT, and Gatorade’s trying to catch up.

Brady: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is, is they’ve now replicated the Body Armor style.

Garrett: Nike avoided that. And I got to give them massive, massive props, 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, remember Powerade? They’re gone, dead.

Brady: I think they’re still in the self- serve machine in McDonald’s.

Garrett: But you get my point though, right? They’re not a part of our society.

Brady: Oh, 100%.

Garrett: 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 Ye and some of that stuff. And they 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. But 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. 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 certain 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 on tragically with cancer. But if you look at the first ones right there, I’ve always wanted to pair of these for when I speak or something. I always thought the Off Whites were sick. Will you click on those? 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 One 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 Ones, their high tops, their low tops, they got their skater stuff with-

Brady: Nyjah Houston.

Garrett: Nyjah Houston. Thanks. They’ve done a really good job. Adidas hasn’t done that route, but they’re still relevant. How do you think Adidas, so we talked a lot about Nike, how do you think Adidas has done so well to stay relevant?

Brady: I don’t know what the shift in Adidas was. I remember throughout maybe’90s, early 2000s, Adidas was definitely under Nike as quality.

Garrett: It was quality, it was like Copas. 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: But in my mind it was a cheaper brand. And then somewhere later it passed up Nike in terms of style.

Garrett: I think it was a fashion route with the Yeezy’s, can you pull up Adidas Yeezy for us?

Brady: Yeah, maybe Yeezy’s had to do with it, but definitely style wise-

Garrett: You know what I mean? Those came out and those were super expensive, it was like $ 500 for them. See that changed the game, to me, that was their first foray into popular culture and being the trendy ones. Yeezy’s were way bigger from a popular culture standpoint than Nike was for a minute there.

Brady: And their Ultraboost I think did well for them in terms of comfort.

Garrett: You love those.

Brady: Ultraboosts are great. But it’s a major monopolized brand recognition that supports it. 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: Yip, same.

Brady: And she’s similar to me. And I think in her world, she follow a lot of influencers online.

Garrett: 100%.

Brady: I know these people now-

Garrett: Shutthekaleup.

Garrett: Does she follow shutthekaleup?

Brady: So

Brady: I don’t know, I have nicknames for a lot of them.

Garrett: Okay, because I’ve learned about this shutthekaleup lady.

Brady: One of them I think has a really small mouth, so I call her small mouth. It’s probably bad.

Garrett: Brady.

Brady: It’s a joke around the house, I have my own names for all the influencers, 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: Like the woman’s version of athletes.

Brady: 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: The cool kids are wearing them.

Brady: …with Nike and Adidas.

Garrett: Yeah, the cool kids are wearing those shoes.

Brady: And in her niche, they’re recognizable. Everything that these giant companies have, they kind of have in her world-

Garrett: But a 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, 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: 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: Combat boot.

Garrett: Doesn’t matter the brand of the combat boot, correct? It’s the look that’s in. That’s different, 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, that’s why we love this show. 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 there’s 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, or I wear Tecovas, or I wear Nike. Very similar to you, Cole Haan, you have Nike, you have Adidas. You pretty much won’t go outside of that.

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: 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 Balanced guy. So for women and let’s say our brand unisex. 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? Could we last though or would we fade when the look fades? For example, I think right now women went from high wasted 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, 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: And this is opening it up to who are we trying to market, because I think we could create a shoe brand that could do great in other generations right now.

Garrett: And why don’t Vuori and Lulu and any of these people do shoes? That’s so crazy to me, no one does shoes, why is it so hard?

Brady: H& M has shoes, but they’re kind of known as-

Garrett: They’re a look.

Brady: They’re a look, but they’re also going back to kind of the knockoff.

Garrett: Well, correct, like a-

Brady: There’s just a cheap version of Vans. Oh, Lulu’s got shoes.

Garrett: Lulu has shoes. As a someone who wears Lulu, I would someone imagine, Scarlet, do you like Lulu’s shoes at all? No opinion. Any opinion?

Scarlet: I don’t own one thing Lulu.

Brady: Whoa.

Garrett: Whoa.

Brady: Why?

Garrett: Whoa. Are you Vuori for life?

Scarlet: inaudible.

Garrett: Okay, who’s your brand? Do you have any athleisure brand?

Scarlet: I would say Vuori.

Garrett: Vuori, okay.

Scarlet: But I used to be a track athlete, so I would wear Nike.

Garrett: Got it, because that’s what Nike is, like running.

Scarlet: Yeah.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: 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: And for me, I would look at those and be like, this isn’t what they’re great at.

Garrett: Correct, I completely agree.

Brady: And shoes are an important purchase.

Garrett: 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: That makes shoes.

Garrett: …that makes shoes, that’s fact. 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: Yeah, the one you were talking about earlier with the two kind of icons-

Garrett: On Cloud. Sorry, I got that wrong, my bad. Are on running. What’s name of their… 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: Yeah, it’s all comfort engineering.

Garrett: 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 Kobe’s, 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 Christiano would wear Vapors. Messi had his own shoe. Christiano had his own shoe. And then certain positions wore certain types of shoes. So we all knew, oh, center backs were this type of shoe, strikers were 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: My performance criteria is a full day at Disneyland. That’s my level of performance I need.

Garrett: Vans don’t work for that?

Brady: No.

Garrett: I’ve tried to do Vans at a music festival and it makes me want to die.

Brady: Even my NMDs, I think it’s what they are. One of my pair of Adidas I wouldn’t wear all day, I’d wear half day at Disneyland, so I use my Ultraboost for full day.

Garrett: 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: 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: And you’re on the cobblestone and your feet are killing you?

Brady: 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: Happened to me in Australia.

Brady: My feet were just killing me.

Garrett: But then those shoes aren’t the same shoes you choose to wear, if you were to take a girl out for the first date, those wouldn’t be the shoes you’d wear?

Brady: The boots?

Garrett: No.

Brady: The Lunars?

Garrett: The Lunars.

Brady: No, I wouldn’t wear the Lunar, I’d probably wear the boots.

Garrett: So what if we made a brand, I’m getting us to a point here. Is there a brand where we could have true all day walking performance with date night looks?

Brady: See, I mean-

Garrett: That to me is the perfect shoe because I can only because I could go travel internationally and just bring one pair. 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 and non heels.

Brady: That’s kind of what these are for me.

Garrett: Yeah, those are good in between. Especially for the travel thing, they just fold flat, I don’t have to worry about creases.

Garrett: But they’re on the classy side, they’re not on the date-

Brady: I’m a classy date guy, Wayne.

Garrett: I know, but they’re not like, you know what I’m talking about.

Brady: Yeah, trying to resonate with first date is tough-

Garrett: I know it, I know it.

Brady: I’ll probably wear my Adidas on any date, inaudible. Thinking I look cool in my white speakers.

Garrett: You see where I’m going with this, right? There’s a thing there where we choose either style or comfort.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: We just kind of do, I feel-

Brady: Definitely even within the sneakers I own, the most stylish ones are the least comfortable, even though they are technically athletic shoes.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. So do you think we could make a brand around that?

Brady: 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 connected to pop culture.

Garrett: Go to Tiffany and Nike for me while he’s talking. Keep going.

Brady: I think that’s missing is I just don’t feel like people are going to stop me and be like, oh, are those those? Are those the ones who are made by this person? And have that story tied to them?

Garrett: Go back for me.

Brady: When Adidas and Nike have that.

Garrett: 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: Yeah, some type of connection.

Garrett: 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: Because that’s the big Tiffany thing, is a blue box.

Garrett: 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. Go on, where’s TOMS?

Brady: My sister still wears them.

Garrett: She’s the last.

Brady: I know, that’s why I told her, that’s all she wanted for Christmas, I’m like, ” You still wear TOMS?”

Garrett: But think about it, TOMS did come on the game pretty hard there for a second.

Brady: 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: Wait, really?

Brady: That’s more for a TikTok clip, people can take that where they want. I’m pretty sure that was a thing.

Garrett: But see, they still have good- looking shoes that aren’t that affordable, but that kind of style, which they made kind of famous-

Brady: My sister loves them still. I tried them, it felt like I might as well be barefoot.

Garrett: But a lot of people like that style. What would be our angle? Theirs was buy one, give one. Who would we collab with? Would you think we go influencer route, athlete route, politicians? If you had to choose one way… You like that?

Brady: I was just thinking of stuff.

Garrett: Yeah, my brain went there too. It’s not actually my worst idea, if both sides of the aisle love us. We don’t have an unlimited budget, nobody does. What would make us relevant? Because we’re saying, we can’t just have a good comfortable shoe with tech. 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 Oura Ring, your shoes could just do it all, since it’s mostly tracking things that are-

Brady: It could be interesting, even managing your impact, like heel to toe while walking or toe impact while running.

Garrett: 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: 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, Adidas. And so I think if I went with a one- off brand, there would have to be similar to TOMS, 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 idea design the shoe idea. I like that tech angle of tech built into the shoe because that’s something, I got the Oura Ring too. 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: I have an idea.

Brady: What is it?

Garrett: 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: What would that look like? Would you design to not match current trends or-

Garrett: No, 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: I was thinking about that, having no recognition-

Garrett: 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? So instead of 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: Yeah, no recognition.

Garrett: What if there’s nothing less cool than trying to be cool?

Brady: Yeah. It’s like the people who de- badge their car, they do some modifications to it, they de- badge it and then people are like, ” What?” They don’t know what it is, they think it’s cool, but it’s not different tied to any brand, and it’s Mazda.

Garrett: I think if we did the opposite, I’ve always tried to say do the opposite. 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: Shoes. I think it would still get-

Garrett: It would be a massive brand.

Brady: 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 that 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: We should focus on shoe education.

Brady: … so a solution wouldbe no logo.

Garrett: But think about it, think about the ads we could run. First ad is just I would fly around to the worst Nike sweat shop I could find.

Brady: 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, ” Well, if you dive into their manufacturing you could probably find the lack of that.”

Garrett: Correct. 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, remember Rainbow Sandals, which we talked about on previous shows. We could show made in America or wherever. And the materials and exactly, 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: Yeah, it’s an interesting… Just let the shoes-

Garrett: Do the talking.

Brady: … be the brand,you don’t need a brand on top of a shoe, you just need a shoe.

Garrett: You just need a shoe. 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. Everything everybody else does, 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 are like, ” Don’t be like your parents.” We could kind of have that thing and then start to go on TikTok and start to do the anti- establishment, anti- passed thing with a different angle.

Brady: Well, I could see if you don’t go out of your way to, if you never sponsor anyone, you never send it to anyone famous, any influencer-

Garrett: No free shoes.

Brady: I bet what would happen is you would start seeing paparazzi photos of Justin and Haley Bieber wearing those shoes, trying to do this anti, I’m not wearing the shoes everyone tries to send to us and pay for, there’s no brand or logo on it.

Garrett: Yes. And now we got the Bieber’s repping our stuff.

Brady: That’s a dream.

Garrett: It is the dream. And we’re doing it ironically by negging them. If we tell influencers that can’t wear our shoes, that’s how you get them to wear your shoes. Everybody else is sending them… They think about it, 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, we will never… I think if you just do the opposite, it’s powerful enough that it could work.

Brady: 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: 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 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: Yeah, like repellent material for the white shoes, you can just hose them off kind of thing.

Garrett: 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 in their factories. But you only use that type of glue, and it doesn’t affect our workers. Every little thing, I don’t think the shoes have to be cheaper.

Brady: Yeah, I agree.

Garrett: 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$ 100, 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: 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 to and their process versus ours.

Garrett: We would have to advertise, you’re right. But wouldn’t it be, 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: I mean, I’m stuck on that tech idea.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: Well, I’m thinking it wouldn’t have to be a shoe company, it could be a sole insert company.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: You could have affiliate cos.

Garrett: That’s right, it’s 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 Oura Ring.

Brady: 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: So essentially how do you take an Audemars Piguet and make it a smartwatch? How do you do it?

Brady: I wonder if smart soles exist?

Garrett: I’m sure they might have a concept like that.

Brady: It feels like it’s one of those ideas where someone’s done it, but if we don’t know about it then-

Garrett: 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 see, they have.

Brady: Yeah, there it is.

Garrett: There it is. So that’s what I saying-

Brady: It’s crazy.

Garrett: But you never heard of that-

Brady: Exactly.

Brady: Ideas

Brady: 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: Heard a golf buddy-

Brady: …ever come across-

Garrett: … tell you like checkthis out or seen an ad.

Brady: But that’s a side, I know the tech thing was a side note. I just-

Garrett: No, I love the tech and I think we could differentiate with the tech, but I don’t think we’ll become it, we talked about how we build a brand. 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. 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: It showed it’s going to be funny for the kids and for you.

Garrett: 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, foods, growing up, you and I would go to Applebee’s, I would imagine your parents were probably mine, it was like Islands, Applebee’s, Chilies, there wasn’t like a-

Brady: Soup plantation. There were soup plantation, not a good spot.

Garrett: There wasn’t a thing as a Foodie, bro, there weren’t Foodies.

Brady: No.

Garrett: That’s a new development based off of the passions and desires of our society to go 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 don’t think there’s been a shoe brand that speaks to us like the new restaurants speak to us. Does that make sense?

Brady: No, it totally does. How do you make Nike seem like-

Garrett: TGI Fridays.

Brady: Yeah. Or even the McDonald’s.

Garrett: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Brady: Yeah, they’re huge, so got their materials are great, still is incredible and expensive these days.

Garrett: Exactly.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: 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: Yeah, no logo.

Garrett: No logo.

Brady: Because that’s what’s in my head, it’s the logo.

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: I’m stuck on the logos, the stripes and the checks.

Garrett: 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: I like the no logo.

Garrett: So just delete it.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Woo, market this baby.

Brady: That’s it, see you next week.