Episode 33: The Marketing Strategy for Nordstrom Rack & HBO Max

Episode Transcript

Garrett: Episode 33, Brady?

Brady: Yep. We are live, Original Marketing show/ podcast.

Garrett: A lot of show though.

Brady: A lot of show.

Garrett: There’s a lot of post- production in the visual.

Brady: It is a big show.

Garrett: I do recommend watching it, but if you can’t-

Brady: You can always download Apple Podcast, Spotify. Leave five stars if you like it, that would be very helpful for us. I know we got four reviews on Apple, we could get some more on Spotify.

Garrett: But we’ve got some stuff to talk about, Brady’s just been golfing all the time, all he wants to do is golf, all he does with his life is golf. So I think you’ve got some golf stuff for us today.

Brady: Yeah, it comes in waves, but I’m going on vacation next week and I’m golfing three times with the pops, so I figured I should golf twice this weekend to make sure we get our money’s worth when we play in Hawaii.

Garrett: So when you play, do you feel like the twosome you’re partnered with affects your time at all?

Brady: So usually when I play in Hawaii, it’s just us, it’s not too competitive.

Garrett: Nobody else is there or what?

Brady: It’s not that busy.

Garrett: So you play three hours or something?

Brady: Yeah. Usually tee off at around between 6: 30 and 7: 00, depending on the time of year, and we’re done-

Garrett: Not too many Mai Tais-

Brady: … By 10:30. I wake up, so when I go to Hawaii, I stay on this time, so I’m up at 5: 00 AM every day. That’s just how I do it. Because there’s nothing to do past 9: 00 PM in Hawaii.

Garrett: There really isn’t.

Brady: So I stay on the schedule.

Garrett: Really? You never…

Brady: Yeah, 5: 00.

Garrett: Do you go hiking or something?

Brady: We go hiking during the day.

Garrett: What do you do in the morning then? You just go down to the lobby?

Brady: Eat breakfast, hang out and golf.

Garrett: I love it. Okay. See, I’ve always had the opinion that you could be mentally stronger than timezones. So when you show up, you can just… So I always put my clock to the new timezone the second I get on the plane.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So the second I enter the plane, I just try to become whatever timezone I’m going to.

Brady: Yeah, but I don’t want to be tired for a 6:30, 7: 00 AM round, because if I did that then waking up at 5: 30 to make the round I’d be exhausted. That’s way too early. But I’ll just feel normal, therefore I’ll play better.

Garrett: I like that. It’s the ultimate Hawaii-

Brady: Ideally.

Garrett: So are you going to take money from your dad?

Brady: No, we won’t bet.

Garrett: I was curious about that, if you bet your dad or not.

Brady: Maybe we’ll play for the round, because that’s the battle right now is who is paying for golf. I’m trying to pay for it and he’s like, ” No.” I’m like, “Yeah.”

Garrett: I love that. So when you were choosing golf courses, was there any of the marketing that stood out to you? Is there a reason, what makes you choose a golf course over another?

Brady: So we’re playing the Plantation Course in Kaanapali, I think.

Garrett: Okay.

Brady: There’s a tournament there, so that’s a very prestigious course.

Garrett: Which tournament?

Brady: That’s a bucket… I don’t know.

Garrett: Not that prestigious.

Brady: I’m not that into it. But it’s a bucket list course, and so we want to play that. Then the rest came down to…

Garrett: Did you discover it on a top courses list? The bucket list course.

Brady: No, I just know about it.

Garrett: You just know about it in the golfing world.

Brady: …Nicest public courses in Hawaii is the Plantation Course at Kaanapali or Kapalua, whatever it is. Then the other ones came down to punched greens, because they’re doing aeration on greens, it’s a maintenance thing.

Garrett: So product.

Brady: They punch holes, they put sand in it, that’s how they maintain the greens. It’s not too fun to play on the greens when they’re like that. So the other course at Kaanapali is getting punched, so we didn’t play that course and get that package. We’re playing another course where we’re staying, I think it’s Kapalua. I’m probably mixing these up. One of their courses isn’t getting punched yet, so we booked two there and one on-

Garrett: So you play the same course twice?

Brady: Yes, yep.

Garrett: Nice.

Brady: Put another one right in the middle.

Garrett: So show us your ad then. We’ve talked a lot of golf, you’ve got this app. Well, so it’s called advertising jealousy.

Brady: Exactly, and I think this is great education for the listeners is like what defines advertisement? So this is a natural ad that started with obviously a professional player sponsorship.

Garrett: So you think golf is scripted?

Brady: No, but honestly… So when you look at this, thinking it’s an ad-

Garrett: Yeah, you think this is a Nike ad, I don’t think Nike could have made a better ad.

Brady: Oh, my gosh. It’s incredible. Even when you listen to the commentators, the commentators stage it, this first shot on the ball stages it, but Tiger Woods 2005, they call it the impossible shot, and obviously he’s wearing Nike, this is back when Nike had golf balls and clubs, they don’t do that anymore, they only do clothing and shoes, I guess could be equipment. But it’s a Nike ad.

Garrett: So I did ask you this at lunch, you couldn’t find any public record of them using this?

Brady: No.

Garrett: Because I swear I’ve seen this ad.

Brady: Me too. At first, I was like, ” Okay, here’s the clip, but I know they made an ad about it.”

Garrett: Because you were trying to find an ad of this clip.

Brady: I looked everywhere for the Nike ad that uses this clip, and I don’t know if it’s because PGA owns it or what that is.

Garrett: Who owns it, what the rights are, but somehow this coverage is not able to be used.

Brady: …Taken down when Nike dropped Tiger after the scandals, I don’t know if it ever existed.

Garrett: Tiger’s a naughty boy.

Brady: It disappeared. Yeah, but it was how he was raised, it’s all human growth and development. One of my favorite classes in college.

Garrett: We’ve got a Tiger fanboy with us here today.

Brady: If you watch the documentary, his dad was the seed to I think his…

Garrett: Was he promiscuous?

Brady: Oh, my gosh.

Garrett: The father was?

Brady: They talk about it, him and his buddy who also trained Tiger, they would go into the RV with women and he was raised that way from a very young age.

Garrett: So you’re saying Tiger never had a chance, is what you’re saying.

Brady: I mean, everyone has a chance, everyone’s their own person, especially at the age where he made these mistakes. But the way people are developed by their parents-

Garrett: His nurturing had a lot to do with it, is what you’re saying.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: Now, let’s look how many views this has, just for the sake of advertising, since Brady’s calling this an ad.

Brady: So this says 2. 4- mil from… There’s no PGA even.

Garrett: What about Benny B? So can you look at what type of videos, Ben B? I think to your point, you’re saying that there’s literally… Wow. Okay, so this guy’s got millions of views on it, but he isn’t exactly-

Brady: And I’m surprised it’s still up.

Garrett: It’s allowed to be up.

Brady: I feel like they would have taken it down, it’s been posted for 14 years.

Garrett: But there is no even formal video on it, you’re finding Ben B’s?

Brady: I went to PGA Tour’s YouTube page and sorted by popular, couldn’t find it.

Garrett: All right, let’s watch it, Brady. So let’s see the world’s greatest not- ad.

Clips: This is the ball of Tiger Woods landing, what about this? This is extremely difficult, this is one of the toughest-

Garrett: The zoom at the start too.

Clips: He’s got to put this well… You can see him looking at the slope, he’s almost got to put it up to where you saw inaudible ball come from to get it close.

Brady: One is the Tiger ball on attack.

Clips: …Four to five years ago playing Pitkin. Yeah, he’s a little bit further up I think from where this was. Yes, he is. He’s got the same basic kind of shot, he’s going to have to get it close, he’s going to have to put it up into the slope though somewhat, and of course it’s made a lot tougher by having that second cut right behind the ball.

Brady: …Panoramic shot from the ad.

Clips: I think they put it back for him to hit a low shot, he can not put it up in the air with the second cut that close behind the ball. You can see him putting it back in the stands right here and picking the club up like he’s going to hit right down on it. And he’s picked out a landing spot that is a good 25 feet above the hull. There’s a good chance he doesn’t get this inside the marker’s ball. Tiger.

Garrett: He’s got that Kobe look, you know?

Clips: There it comes. Oh, my goodness. In your life have you seen anything like that?

Brady: So I think Nike made a smart decision sponsoring Tiger for moments like this, but no one could script that, the way the commentators talked about it like, ” He’s lucky if he gets it within his ball mark.” Or whatever they said. Just everything about it, and then the way the ball froze right on the Nike logo and then dropped, the way they zoomed in on his ball right before. It is a Nike golf ball ad in the wild.

Garrett: It’s at the Masters too.

Brady: Just Nike golf in general.

Garrett: No, it’s a world- class Nike ad. To your point, I don’t think you could draw it up any better.

Brady: So I didn’t know if I would label this as product placement, it’s more just a player sponsorship, which you see a lot in golf.

Garrett: So what’s your takeaway? We should all try to sponsor the next Tiger Woods?

Brady: I don’t know, it just shows the power of those sponsorships. It’s similar to movie product placement, so Transformers is Chevy, Marvel I think is Audi, right? The Marvel movies have all the electric Audi’s now, so it’s very similar to that strategy. James Bond Heineken in more recent videos.

Garrett: You have to hope for the magic, right? Because you don’t know if…

Brady: When you’re sponsoring Tiger, you kind of know. But this was magic for sure.

Garrett: Nike’s done well, I think the notorious myth they have Steph Curry, where they put the wrongs slides up for him. It was somebody else on the cover shot or something like that.

Brady: Oh, like in a pitch for him and then bailed on it? Is that the story?

Garrett: Yeah. He’s been with Under Armour this whole time.

Brady: Really? I didn’t know that.

Garrett: So no, there are brands, but I would say Tiger’s a unique… Fricking cover of Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine every weekend for the last 25 years or whatever it’s been. So Tiger’s in a echelon of LeBron, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods. Now they’re all Nike athletes. So obviously Nike has a platform and they’ve proven that to the biggest stars they’re a good partner, if that makes sense. Like Kobe’s shoes are still some of the most popular basketball shoes.

Brady: Serena Williams Nike.

Garrett: So they have some of the top stars. Now, if you weren’t Nike, since there’s only one Nike… Who’s your favorite Adidas athlete, Brady?

Brady: Couldn’t tell you.

Garrett: So little quick point I was making there. What could we do as advertisers, even in B- to- B? Because I want to pull on your point of product placement, Arctic Wolf, one of our customers, advertises in F1. I don’t know if you’ve seen their ads on Drive to Survive.

Brady: No, I haven’t seen those.

Garrett: That was a pretty big pickup.

Brady: Interesting.

Garrett: Then SentinelOne as well advertises I believe for Mercedes, I believe. So a lot of our customers are advertising on F1 cars, things like that. What’s your take? Our ex- director of marketing used to sponsor two different golfers, one on the PGA Tour and then one on the… What’s the old people’s tour? The Champions, Champions Tour, PGA Champions. But he had two golfers, he sponsored both.

Brady: Anaheim Ducks, he sponsored.

Garrett: The Ducks, the Angels Stadium. They’re a completely global brand with a very unique individual customer persona, but they were still a successful company that grew. What’s your take on Directive sponsoring a golfer or an F1 car or something like that?

Brady: It would be interesting to do that market research, just knowing who our personas are in the more social similarities they have, to see where could we make a pretty good bet that yes, 99%-

Garrett: …Do in their free time kind of thing.

Brady: …Relevant, but the one- percent we care about are all watching this or engaged in this more social sport.

Garrett: What would that be though for Directive? What do you think it would be? Directors of demand, tech companies, SAS companies, give me something we could do like Nike. What would be our Nike moment?

Brady: I would say golf would be one of them, but we had a client summit and only one client wanted golf, which blew my mind.

Garrett: That was wild. They all chose the spa. There were a lot of ladies obviously, but even the dudes were like, ” Spa time.”

Brady: We close a client and our POC there, she’s flying down here because her brother lives in LA and they’re playing Pelican. So she’s a big golfer. Golf I think is just a common business sport that at least people still do.

Garrett: Sport?

Brady: Come on, don’t start that debate. That’s tough, I see a lot of diehard college football, I see a lot in the background of Zoom.

Garrett: What about SF Airport?

Brady: Okay, yeah. So outside of sports, I think Denver Airport, SF Airport, even those billboards on the freeway there, it’s just all SAS and tech companies.

Garrett: The Palo Alto ones, yep. I’m most curious about that, because I think sponsorships is such a B- to- B marketing opportunity that because we’ve gotten so good at direct response from B- to- B, we’ve also gotten equally bad. Workday I think has sponsored Phil forever. I don’t know about now, it looks like he’s drugged out all the time frankly.

Brady: Phil?

Garrett: Yeah.

Brady: He just lost weight.

Garrett: Can you pull Phil Mickelson’s eyes for me real quick?

Brady: This is such an interesting Google search. Phil Mickelson’s eyes.

Garrett: You’re telling me this man’s only problem right now is weight loss?

Brady: He looks focused.

Garrett: He looks exceptionally focused.

Brady: Now I have to defend my guy Phil. Look at his calves.

Garrett: His eyes are struggling lately, his calves are phenomenal.

Brady: He’s known for his calves.

Garrett: So what else can we learn in B- to- B though, right?

Brady: Yeah. Out of home would be cool around conferences, you can be so agile with this type of out of home digital screen advertisement where you can actually buy out of home ad real estate during an event, where you know the majority of your persona’s going to be there, so you don’t have to just place a bet on a ton of people who don’t care.

Garrett: I just want to recreate that moment.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: That little moment where that Nike logo falls into the cup, it’s like the ball doing its job to be done. It’s the ultimate ad for Nike, to your point, without being an ad. I’m always curious if there’s moments like a massive home run in baseball and it goes over… Like sponsoring the Green Monster.

Brady: Like that hits the screen while a Cisco ad is up there.

Garrett: Yeah, like it hits the Cisco. To me, that’s the Directive target, and you put that… It’s like Mike Trout keeps hitting the car at Angel Stadium, it’s a Kia. It’s a great product placement. He keeps hitting the Kia, just whacking home runs into the car.

Brady: Just up in the fountain area?

Garrett: Yeah, up in the green fountain area. He keeps whacking the car. That is a perfect product placement, to your point. I’m wondering how brands… Because you have one like Yakult, it’s a yogurt, right? Yakult or something like that. I only remember that because they hit home runs into it at Angel Stadium. So there are these physical moments create a certain amount of brand recollection that I think is important, and we don’t do that in B- to- B very often.

Brady: Yeah, it’s just a smaller market size, but all the B- to- B products are at a higher cost than general consumer goods.

Garrett: Higher cap, yeah.

Brady: I think it’s just tough for that to make sense, but at the same time there are studies around even TV ads, just the authority that gives your brand, to where maybe not everyone watching it is relevant, but the people who do now see your brand as like, ” Oh, shoot…”

Garrett: In a different light.

Brady: They can afford TV? They’re probably doing pretty well.

Garrett: Yeah, it’s a different level of confidence or trust, and I think the same thing goes… To me, I don’t like them as a team, but sponsoring the San Jose Sharks for us could be brilliant. I think there’s a crossover with tech, hockey, a lot of our own marketing employees love hockey. I’m just trying to think of where those little moments are for us as we get bigger where we can really establish our authority as a brand, to your point, that thrust, that confidence. I think it’s a new psychological trigger, we’ve crushed as gift cards. I think gift cards are highly indicative of confidence. We are confident enough in our product and our targeting to give you$ 100 for your time at scale. I think that’s a good signal to someone that you’re reputable. I think there’s other signals, to your point, out of office and physical advertising and sponsorships that can also evoke a similar emotion out of our customer persona.

Brady: Definitely. I think QuickBooks could do it. If I were to think where to start, a company like QuickBooks, for them their TAM is massive, so maybe they could sponsor the raffle in the stadium and they could actually have in QuickBooks UI, like how many people entered the raffle and some way to tie it to the product.

Garrett: Yeah, I’ve got a good one for you, a fully little one you could do.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: It goes along those lines. You could take someone who is known, like a product that’s known for being thorough, slower, but methodical, and then sponsor Patrick Cantlay.

Brady: Oh, my gosh.

Garrett: Because he’s known as the slowest golfer on tour, and you could… Because when you say QuickBooks, I’m like, ” Oh, wouldn’t it be ironic if QuickBooks sponsored Patrick?” Because then it would be like, ” Slow Books.” But my point is…

Brady: They would show the competitor on Patrick.

Garrett: Like Timex or it could be like a timer. I’m just trying to think of where do these people fit, because once you think about it Directive can’t sponsor… How do you pick a golfer for Directive? Because we can’t get, I would have liked to get Collin Morikawa straight out of UCLA, someone like that. But now he’s a Nike guy and there’s no way you get him.

Brady: We could sponsor the player with the highest apex in their shot, which is the height of the shot, and we could correlate that to growth trendlines within pipeline.

Garrett: What about Joel Dahmen, who’s just the everyman golfer?

Brady: I just feel like that guy, he’s got some issues.

Garrett: What if we only sponsor caddies? No, I just feel like there’s got to be a way to be different with the whole thing too.

Brady: Caddies is interesting, because Lindsay, my wife was joking about their outfits.

Garrett: We’re your caddy.

Brady: But they just wear a white jumpsuit, I don’t know what the thing is there. They can’t be sponsored? Maybe accessories.

Garrett: I don’t know, but what if we started sponsoring all the caddies.

Brady: Like a big gold chain with the Directive logo on it? They could wear that.

Garrett: Your trusted partner in hitting your goals, or something like that. We’re like the caddy, do you see what I’m saying, baby?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: That is not our worst idea right there, sponsor the caddies. Well, should we go to Maya?

Brady: Yeah, let’s do it.

Garrett: All right, so what I wanted to do here was just, I think to Brady’s point a little bit, was just product I think sometimes is the best marketing. I think we forget that in the sense that, especially as professional services companies like ourselves, but what you are selling should be intrinsically desirable or captivating or engaging, or influential to your business or important. Just something, do you get what I’m saying?

Brady: Mm- hmm.

Garrett: I think so many times we are trying to get that. Our clients skip that step 75%, 80%, 95% of the time, where they don’t know why the world needs their product. I think the CEO could tell you, I don’t think the person running the advertising could though.

Brady: Yeah. That’s what’s fascinating on sales calls when we do discovery and we hear prospects explain their product and why the founders created it and the problem they saw, and whether they built that at another company, it worked so well they made their own company. Then you go to the website, none of that’s there.

Garrett: The story’s gone, it’s been eviscerated.

Brady: There’s no story to it.

Garrett: Literally the website looks like you could take any of their competitors’ brand names and logos, replace their logo with the competitor’s logo and place their name command- F, the entire website with their competitor’s name, and everything would still be true.

Brady: Yeah, it would still work.

Garrett: Which is crazy, that is 99. 9% of our customers and our companies are just copycats of each other with no actual differentiation. Which is why I love this ad, because I’ve never seen a cooler like this, and it’s a retro callback. So let’s take a look at the ad real quick.

Brady: Let’s check it out.

Garrett: I love that color. 10 hours of playtime’s pretty good. Is that new? It’s got to be. 36th Street, I love to surf there. Okay. So a couple things I thought were interesting about. Well, first let’s actually do this, score it as a local Newport Beach gal, would you buy this product or no?

Scarlet: Honestly, yeah. It’s pretty dope.

Garrett: It’s a pretty dope product.

Scarlet: I like the colors.

Garrett: Because how many times have you been and needed one of those two things to the beach?

Scarlet: Oh, I forget my speaker all the time.

Garrett: Or you forget to bring drinks.

Scarlet: Yeah.

Garrett: …Interesting about the ad, did you notice that the volume goes up three seconds after they hit play? Watch. Brady, you didn’t catch this?

Brady: Well, no, I did, I just didn’t know if it was our computer audio or what, but the audio was weird throughout that.

Scarlet: I thought it was

Scarlet: my laptop.

Garrett: No, no, no. Watch, hit it again, this is from the Igloo Coolers ad. Watch this. Three seconds after they hit play, it goes loud. One, two, three. One, two, three, then it gets loud.

Brady: Is that just a mistake, do you think? I don’t see a reason for it.

Garrett: I have no idea. So it was originally released in 1989, it does keep your attention though. I think messing with the audio levels keeps you engaged on the ad. I really do.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You don’t think it engages you? What do you think it does?

Brady: It just threw me off a bit. It distracted me, so I guess…

Garrett: It’s the audio version of a cut.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: I don’t know, it works on TV commercials. They’ll change the audio to be different than the previous levels.

Brady: Oh, my gosh.

Garrett: I know.

Brady: I don’t know if it’s Hulu or what that does it, but it makes us mute the TV during commercials. To your point…

Garrett: I think it can become a distraction.

Brady: Yeah, but distraction, attention, I see what you’re saying in terms of…

Garrett: It only has 3. 8- thousand views, so it doesn’t look like they ever advertised it. But if you scroll down a little bit so I can see their writeup on the description. I thought it was really cool, because they say it upgraded everything, but it didn’t actually say if they upgraded the speaker. That was my problem with this ad was that it did tell me 10 hours of battery life, which I thought was dope, and I love everything about the ad, I really do, I just wish it talked about the speaker. Will you click on the link? Let’s see what happens when you go to the Lainy pitch. So they do a good job I thought with the description too in the writeup.

Brady: Yeah, and this looks clean, reviews.

Garrett: They have it right there, five- watt speakers. So they do have… I think it looks sexy, and it has the full cooler water, 10 hours of play time. Keep scrolling, I want to see the… That thing is sick. Advances, control panel. It’s a great fricking product page, it’s got the photos, how it charges. Will you click on that video? I want to see what that one shows.

Clips: (singing)

Garrett: Do you guys find the age they chose of the models interesting at all, or irrelevant?

Brady: It’s probably just the demographic they’re going after is young 20s, whether it’s a pool party or a beach day.

Garrett: $149 is a heck of a lot of money.

Brady: I don’t know, people are spending money these days.

Garrett: How much is a JBL outdoor speaker? Waterproof, there it is. $ 89, see what I’m talking about? Then what’s a normal Igloo speaker? I’m just curious about this real quick, not to be that guy.

Brady: An Igloo Cooler?

Garrett: Yeah, sorry. My bad. Thank you, Brady.

Brady: Just making sure.

Garrett: Now, the non- dope audio one, just go to… $ 24 bucks. See, that’s a weird little value problem, it’s a novelty product, right? Because I could get a JBL speaker, which you’d have to imagine is a just better speaker than the Igloo one.

Brady: Yeah. That was my only thing with the ad, I liked that last video we watched, because at least it showed in the kitchen HD, but the other one was just so vintage looking where I just tie that to the quality of the speaker.

Garrett: Which I liked. See, I liked the ad better than that video, because that video really made me think, ” Do I actually need this?” While the other one made it feel cool, that one felt more like you’re just in your backyard, why not just bring your speaker we all have out? Then they can just go in the house and get drinks. It was a weird use case, and I didn’t see the price for$ 150 bucks. $ 150 bucks for a novelty product. It’s just expensive enough that you wouldn’t buy it for your little sister. It’s just enough that you wouldn’t get it for your cousin for a random birthday necessarily.

Brady: Yeah, it’s a bit…

Garrett: It’s a little out of the gifting price range for what it is.

Brady: It’s a little risky to buy for someone else. Are they actually going to use it?

Garrett: For$150 bucks, you…

Brady: Unless I knew my cousin, they love going to the beach and they’re always listening to music, then I probably would if I thought it was a perfect fit for them.

Garrett: It is a dope beach product. It’s just not a pool product, which is what I thought was so weird about that second video. It’s a beach product.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Or the lake, maybe they could have done another one on the lake, if you go down to the lake with it. It was just that moment where you do go to the beach or the lake and you need both.

Brady: Or the back of a golf cart.

Garrett: Back of a golf cart, now those have speakers in them now these days, but the speakers are always bad.

Brady: I don’t know what courses you’re playing. I’d say 10% of the courses I play have the Bluetooth speakers, but they are terrible speakers.

Garrett: Okay. How was Talega, did you like the speakers?

Brady: They didn’t have speakers at Talega.

Garrett: There’s no way Talega didn’t.

Brady: They had an old school GPS in the cart.

Garrett: No speaker.

Brady: No speaker.

Garrett: Wow. All right, Brady. I don’t know. Look how much bigger of a cooler you get for$ 65. It’s a tough value prop.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: You just go to their website, go to Igloo’s website real quick. I love it. Go hard coolers, and then let’s do just small. All right.

Brady: It could be under Legacy.

Garrett: There it is, and then just scroll down. Let’s just find that one right there, that normal… You see what I’m saying? That’s the same one, it’s KoolTunes, but that’s just a crazy price point. They get people to buy it, obviously.

Brady: What’s the review count on it?

Garrett: It’s got a ton, 181, 4. 7 stars. What are they saying about it?

Brady: Speaker cooler.

Garrett: Dang, dude. Y’all might want to hide that crap. ” The speakers are horrible quality, the sound is terrible. Returning the product.”

Brady: You can see it all.

Garrett: So it was all our friends who purchased it. Dang.

Brady: Good marketing. All our friends who purchased it?

Garrett: Yeah, but it is a cool product, too bad they say it doesn’t work. What is the next review?

Brady: The sound engineering looked pretty crazy, just how thin the cooler wall was and they have speakers in it.

Garrett: Well, yeah. I imagine that’s just an ironic one. Who here has ever been on a boat before and think you could hear those tiny little speakers?

Brady: You have to have the gigantic ones on the boom or something.

Garrett: You need high- end speakers.

Brady: I think they were smart, they made the size of the speaker pretty large to where it does look aesthetically like it’s going to put out a lot of sound.

Garrett: It’s a really cool product. $ 150 bucks though.

Brady: People are buying it.

Garrett: I know, I know.

Brady: Then hating it, but they’re buying it. That was one review. 4. 7 average.

Garrett: Only one.

Brady: Just happened to be the second one you see.

Garrett: Oh, my gosh. All right, well, that was our ad for the day.

Brady: I like it.

Garrett: I love it, man. Should we talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world of marketing?

Brady: Yep.

Garrett: Re- brands? Re- brands. Re- brands are all the rage right now, Brady. We talked about them last week, everybody’s doing it. I’m not. I’m staying with our logo. When I designed it, I wanted it timeless. That was the feeling I wanted.

Brady: This one stuck for a while, but how many re- brands have we done? Four or five?

Garrett: Probably more than that. Six or seven.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Logos though, probably five. But color schemes and other stuff we’ve changed, layouts, website changes. But this one’s been for a while. There hasn’t really been a need to change it frankly. But sometimes people change things that we don’t even realize, maybe they do need… Like Rack. I’m curious about updating classics, designer finds. I like the positioning, not used crap we couldn’t sell at the main store so we sent it here, which is a much healthier way of positioning it.

Brady: Yeah. It counters that 70% off.

Garrett: To me, Rack was always different than Marshalls, Ross and TJ Maxx, it was the Rack. But then Saks has Off Saks, have you seen that?

Brady: Yeah, I know about it.

Garrett: Off the 5th, which is their version. They have a center here in Costa Mesa that has Off Saks 5th. Am I doing that right?

Brady: Just Off the 5th I think.

Garrett: Off of 5th and Nordstrom Rack next to each other. But let’s check it out, let’s look at it before. So scroll down, they had the old versus new. I like the new one, I’m not going to lie. The old one does feel slightly old at this point. What do you think, B?

Brady: Yeah. Just speaking of timeless, it’s very retro, it’s very’70s, which is in now, I learned through my wife. She’s coming out, she’s wearing cargo pants. I’m like, ” What is going on? Are you enlisting?”

Garrett: She explained the Barbie thing to me. She was like, ” Yeah, because people can be their own Barbie now.”

Brady: It’s so funny, after that episode…

Garrett: I didn’t get it.

Brady: Because you asked me, ” Do you know anyone that’s posted?” I was like, ” No.” I load my Instagram, my buddy and his wife, who are real estate agents, they both posted it.

Garrett: This Barbie just listed…

Brady: I’m like, ” I wish I saw this an hour ago.”

Garrett: I know. I was like, “Babe, I just talked about this Barbie crap, I don’t get it.” She said, “What do you mean you don’t get it?” She’s like, ” People can be real life Barbies and that’s what they’re telling you.” I still don’t get it, but I get what you’re saying now.

Brady: Anyway. The’70s is in now, the bell- bottom jeans, all that’s trending, so a full rebrand with that style…

Garrett: Could make them relevant?

Brady: Is their marketing plan to always adapt to trends?

Garrett: If every 10 years there’s a new trend, I just don’t think you can do it annually.

Brady: I just don’t know if this trend is for the next decade.

Garrett: Who knows? Everything moves so fast.

Brady: Let’s click in.

Garrett: Let’s go back, I want to also see … Let’s click in to the Ad Age article. Okay, we’re talking about the right stuff. Saks Off 5th and Macy’s Backstage.

Brady: I didn’t know about Macy’s.

Garrett: I didn’t know about that one either. Did you know about that, Scarlet? I love Macy’s, it’s always the more-

Brady: Great for Levi’s.

Garrett: So they want to be more distinct, keep going. Okay, cool. They hired a branding agency and no intention of changing it. Good job, branding agency, you up- sold them.

Brady: Upsell.

Garrett: Good job keeping those bookings up, baby. So we talked about TJ Racks, right?

Brady: 8% drop in sales.

Garrett: That’s a big deal for the fourth quarter.

Brady: Pre- rebrand, so this isn’t the reaction to the rebrand.

Garrett: Inventory issues, yep. So okay, so that’s what they’re doing it for. Good job to that agency though, getting the rebrand, because then you’ve got to… Changing the logo and the colors is the greatest upsell in agency history, because then you have to fix everything else.

Brady: The website is still a Frankenstein.

Garrett: Correct, and now you’ve got to go back and fix it all.

Brady: So they’ve changed a little bit of it, but it looks like it’s…

Garrett: Nordstrom Rack.

Brady: It’s a bit of both.

Garrett: They’ve got the new logo.

Brady: Yeah, so markdowns.

Garrett: They’ve got the copy, it’s not Frankenstein, baby. This looks like all that’s on the new brand.

Brady: This is different from what I saw last night.

Garrett: Really?

Brady: They must be doing live updates.

Garrett: Yeah, no. It’s got that blue everywhere, it’s got their colors throughout, they’re doing it.

Brady: Because I had a carousel in this area where it was new brand, and then the next slide on it was the old brand. So they had a Mother’s Day one all rebranded, and then the next carousel slide was the old brand. But it looks like honestly overnight they’ve updated it a bit.

Garrett: I like that. Let’s go to Saks Off 5th real quick and let’s go to Macy’s Backstage. I just want to see how they all compare, because they’re saying they needed to do this to keep up with competitors and stuff like that. Okay, that looks like the most traditional Magento site I’ve ever seen, so let’s go to the next one. They don’t really have anything.

Brady: Good for Macy’s, they don’t have a brand ad for Scarlet to hit there.

Garrett: Oh, they’re just immediately” find a store,” you can’t even shop it. So that’s not a real competitor.

Brady: They don’t have…

Garrett: Let’s go to Saks real quick.

Brady: Their ecomm is only on Macys. com.

Garrett: That’s crazy, which is just absolutely wild, Macy’s. Scroll for a second. Oh, do you think I could pull those white glasses off? What do you think?

Brady: Go up.

Garrett: That’s a bit of a sweatsuit vibe.

Brady: I think Lindsay has those, I’ll bring them next episode. We’ll find out if you can pull those off.

Garrett: I doubt it, I fricking doubt it. Let’s keep scrolling.

Brady: Just buy that tracksuit.

Garrett: For him, for her. Does anyone do transgender shopping? I know that sounds stupid, but given this day and age does anyone do that? Because they still have everything gender- wise on these sites. When you think of fashion sites, they’d be more progressive in the way they categorized inventory.

Brady: I think there was a recent Shark Tank episode about that, the last episode that dropped on Friday.

Garrett: I was just curious. We talked about it on the last show, by the way, I think we were right, $ 6- billion loss in stock price since Bud Light launched that campaign?

Brady: But they’re also making a lot of money on the haters, all the viral videos of people buying a ton of Bud Light just to destroy it. What’s the first step in that video? Oh, it’s buying a lot of Bud Light. There’s so much going on there.

Garrett: What I love about the whole thing is this poor VP of marketing, this lady, if you think about what she was trying to do, she technically did it. That was my whole point the whole time, it wasn’t that the tactics were wrong, she theoretically, if what she was trying to do was what she was trying to do, she pulled it off perfectly. She got the most viral, the right influencer for what she wanted. Everything she wanted of her strategy she pulled off. It might just not have been the right strategy. But technically pulled it off.

Brady: Yeah. All the spotlight’s on her, she has a full team.

Garrett: I love that too. The head of Bud Light, she’s a VP marketer, so CMO. She’s just the one who did the interview? I don’t know.

Brady: I don’t know what the whole situation is.

Garrett: There’s usually an SVP and a CMO and a CEO and an executive team, which she probably would not be on at that title in that size organization, and there’s still Anheuser- Busch the holding company, AB. All of which is like, ” Yeah, we’re going to be taking a deeper look.” Come on, you all knew.

Brady: I think it was such a small campaign, it was just an influencer campaign, just like they do Post Malone and all these things, but I think because of the news coverage it’s come across as this is a massive pivot.

Garrett: Do you ever go to the Bud Light website? I’m just curious what the Bud Light website has. Do you know what I mean? Because I don’t think we ever clicked on the website, not that anybody goes to the website. We have all the stats, Anheuser- Busch, look at this. Oh, I had no idea, which is the ultimate just PR cop- out. Yes, you had no idea your Bud Light… Let’s see it. That’s a cool product shot right there. It looks so refreshing just like that. Easy to drink, easy to enjoy. That swag now.

Brady: I wonder how much they make on swag.

Garrett: They probably do well on swag. I’ve never heard of Next, have you?

Brady: Is that their low- cal?

Garrett: It must be.

Brady: I think I saw 50 calories.

Garrett: Zero- carb beer. Okay. Yeah, this all looks like traditional Bud Light to me. It would be so funny if it was just a micro- influencer.

Brady: I think so, but it just blew out of proportion. They didn’t change the site.

Garrett: What do they talk about on their seltzer? Because we didn’t talk about that, because to me seltzer should be a more strategic focus.

Brady: Which is why maybe it was something a VP of Bud Light could approve like, ” Yeah, it’s an influencer campaign. We do I don’t know how many, it must be hundreds every year,” kind of thing. It’s just this one went viral.

Garrett: Went viral. Her interview too is just the perfect pairing. I think it’s her interview too that really got her in trouble.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: It was on a noted podcast, by the way. That was such a micro- clip.

Brady: In the moment though maybe it’s like, ” This is just an interview, get through it.”

Garrett: I think it was.

Brady: Now people are digging up her, what was it, Stanford or Harvard photos from college? She went to a party, therefore she supports frat culture. Gosh, welcome to the media.

Garrett: The best part though is Tim, one of our guys went on a podcast, he could have said some dumb crap like this too, and then all of a sudden I’m like, ” Oh, we had no idea.” You don’t know how, you’re right, this lady could have just done, Dylan could have been one of 500 influencers she has under management. It goes viral and she does… Micro. By the way, did you ever see the logo on that podcast? I don’t think it has any downloads, it’s a tiny little podcast. It was the at- your- home podcast.

Brady: It looked like a news interview, something like that.

Garrett: It was just on StreamYard, it’s a StreamYard interview on a tiny podcast where she said though essentially like, ” inaudible off color.” It just gave the media the ultimate narrative, ourselves included, and it’s just perfect, it’s a perfect talking point.

Brady: Even the party photos, it didn’t have this crazy frat vibe to it, it was a society and it was some weird theme and obviously she’s in college, she’s going to go to social events.

Garrett: Which is what made her comment so funny. It was just like, ” There’s nothing harmful about Bud Light intrinsically, other than drinking too much of it.” Which applies to every other beer, which makes the whole thing just ironic. But she did entirely alienate her entire audience with one crappy podcast interview, which goes to show you apparently what’s more important than your marketing sometimes is what you say about your marketing on an interview, because it just went viral. But let’s go check out… Honestly, it’s fine.

Brady: Like I said, I think it might get dated soon.

Garrett: I didn’t like the black on it, I didn’t love the black. What do you think, Scarlet?

Scarlet: I don’t like the black. I don’t like how the Nordstrom is in black font, it just doesn’t … It looks lazy.

Garrett: Yeah. The black on the white, I don’t even know. Our brand’s black and white, but we did that three years ago now. I wouldn’t say if I was redoing a brand right now I’d go colors on black. That is what they’re doing, they’re doing colors on black.

Brady: Yeah. I think they’re going for an Urban Outfitters type approach, where it’s not like a spinoff, they’re trying to almost come across as their own.

Garrett: I know, but most people do airy type brands with white and stuff that’s more approachable.

Brady: Wow, Scarlet, I saw that. Skip the ad.

Garrett: Black and blue, Brady? Whoa, are they tracking us with the hand- drawn right there? If you go up, are they stealing from Directive? It looks like our brand. Hand- drawn? I don’t know.

Brady: It’s a little different, theirs is pretty sloppy.

Garrett: So this looks like a better version than the Nordstrom rebrand.

Brady: Yeah, but I think Nordstrom Rack still needs to cover a pretty large age range, while Urban Outfitters is okay with Gen- Z?

Garrett: The current gen, whatever the current gen is.

Peter: Gen- Z is correct.

Brady: Thank you, Peter.

Garrett: Thanks, Peter.

Brady: I almost said X, but X is past Millennial, right?

Garrett: What’s Urban Renewal? That’s an interesting word. I’m just curious what that means.

Brady: Just renewable materials?

Garrett: Oh, interesting.

Brady: Water bottles into sports bras.

Garrett: Interesting. Their clothes look so cheap to me. Am I wrong about that? Is Urban Outfitters cheap clothing or not?

Scarlet: From a manufacturer perspective, yeah. It doesn’t take them that much money to make these items.

Garrett: Are they good high quality, or are they like Shein? Are they fast fashion? Or are they actual …

Scarlet: They’re not fast fashion, but they’re in between. I don’t have anything.

Garrett: … FashionNova or a Shein?

Scarlet: Yeah.

Garrett: But they’re not…

Scarlet: Some of their products, some of their products you could literally probably find the same one on Shein.

Garrett: Okay. So it just depends.

Brady: I used to wear their T- shirts, it was a BCG brand or something.

Scarlet: Yeah, but they’re expensive for the price.

Garrett: For what they are.

Scarlet: For what they are.

Garrett: They’re still considered-

Scarlet: Because I don’t buy from there, because I just-

Garrett: It’s too much for what it is.

Scarlet: Yeah.

Brady: I could just walk in and feel very old.

Garrett: It does feel like college, right? It does feel like college or something like that, college and high school.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Nordstrom Rack feels older, so back to Nordstrom Rack. We’re looking everywhere they’re playing, this is their world they’re playing in. I like them better than Saks Off 5th and I like them better than Macy’s. So in their defense, they are beating their top competitors. I’m curious on the products, so how they organize it in this rebrand. So it’s gifts for mom under$ 25, who’s Zella?

Scarlet: It’s a workout brand.

Garrett: It’s like Vuori?

Scarlet: Yeah.

Garrett: And Lulu?

Brady: Probably not as nice as Vuori, but it could be comparable to Lulu.

Garrett: Of course not. Then Hoka seems like crazy walking shoes. Madewell, is that their own brand?

Brady: No.

Scarlet: It’s a surf brand.

Brady: Madewell is a surf brand?

Garrett: It’s not a surf brand.

Scarlet: Yeah, it is. It’s like a surf inspired brand.

Brady: Take a moment, let’s see if we…

Scarlet: It’s very surfer-girl oriented.

Garrett: If they give me one ocean or surf photo, I’ll have your back on this. I just need one.

Brady: Not much lifestyle going on outside of obviously the clothes.

Garrett: Go back to the homepage, let’s go to homepage.

Brady: They have beach- y pastel colors.

Garrett: No, no. But she said surf brand, so I want to have her back on this. Let’s find it.

Scarlet: Like surfer, artsy.

Garrett: That’s kind of surf. No, that’s actually Red Rock.

Brady: Surf is now getting into interior design, like that Surf Shack book. Remember that lady in Boston that gave us that book the Surf Shack in the elevator? Do you know what I’m talking about?

Garrett: Yeah, yeah.

Brady: That book is everywhere now.

Garrett: I didn’t see one beach photo, I’m sorry, Scarlet.

Scarlet: Well, I think I’m the buyer over here.

Garrett: You are, you are. So Madewell is a brand that Nordstrom Rack carries.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: I don’t see a lot of the most … So that is more curious to me. When we think about the ad, the Igloo one, what was cool about it was more that it was a retro callback and it was a good product. I don’t know if the ad was great, it was a pretty basic ad. I like the filter and the way it was done. But if we go back to Nordstrom Rack, are they carrying the products that current consumers want anymore? Because you can rebrand all you want, I wouldn’t say anyone wasn’t shopping at Nordstrom Rack because of the logo. If we just pause for a second, it’s always been cheap, still is cheap. The problem I’ve had in recent memory with Nordstrom Rack, because I go in and I don’t like the actual clothes they have. Because I thought Nordstrom Rack was the clothes Nordstrom couldn’t sell, but I can’t find the brands that Nordstrom I’m sure doesn’t sell all of at Nordstrom Rack.

Scarlet: It’s a hit or miss. I feel like Nordstrom Rack to me, it’s a hit or miss.

Garrett: Do some brands disallow Nordstrom from selling them at Nordstrom Rack because they don’t want to be considered to be sold at a discount? Does that cheapen them?

Scarlet: No, because I found some designer stuff at Nordstrom Rack that is heavily discounted.

Garrett: They have Cole Haan, Adidas, Vince, Madewell, Kurt Geiger. I’ve heard of Cole Haan and Adidas, Vince I’ve heard of, but I don’t know. But remember when I used to go there it was all the jeans all the high schoolers, remember when Seven7-

Brady: True Religion.

Garrett: True Religion, Diamond, all that stuff was at Nordstrom Rack. Is that still what they have? Are they still the popular jeans at Nordstrom Rack or no?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Because that’s what I’m trying to explain, when we were shopping there younger, I haven’t been there in a long time, but when I used to shop there a lot they had the brands that I wanted.

Brady: Yeah, it’s all inventory management though, right? So if they have extra inventory, that’s a sign that they didn’t sell out of it when they first stocked the normal stores. So that makes it where it’s hard to find the trendy- trendy things there, but I’ve mentioned my Cole Haan business casual shoes, all those were from Nordstrom Rack.

Garrett: Yeah, I’ve seen those.

Brady: Those are pretty trendy and stylish.

Garrett: Yeah. I would say some of the most stylish and trendy shoes I’ve ever seen anyone ever wear, ever.

Brady: I’ve found some Ultraboosts there that I like.

Garrett: Another one of the most popular stylish-

Brady: It’s a great, great shoe, very comfortable.

Garrett: But I don’t know, I just felt like if you’re going to do a rebrand of your Nordstrom Rack, wouldn’t you focus on the thing we care about as consumers? If you go back to the top, for them doing a rebrand, I don’t feel like they said anything.

Brady: Well, it’s just very’70s, it’s very trendy, but that’s not all they carry. It reminds me of like, shouldn’t this have been a campaign or a rebrand? The Oliver Peoples ad you showed, that was a campaign about their’70s line coming out, but they didn’t rebrand Oliver Peoples.

Garrett: No, and I just struggle to see Kate Spade, Steve Madden, those are big, Levi’s, I guess they have the brands, but it just doesn’t… I feel like you’d be better off repositioning why you shop at Nordstrom Rack and maybe some innovation to what they’re doing with surplus inventory, or what’s even good enough to make it to the Rack. What if we all think it’s just leftovers, but it’s not and there’s actually a different strategy Nordstrom’s pursuing that we as consumers don’t even realize.

Brady: Yeah. They did that on the posters though, those little taglines on the posters.

Garrett: Did they?

Brady: If you go back to the Twitter, I think.

Garrett: It’s Mike Olio.

Brady: So designer finds, updated classics.

Garrett: I know, but that’s what we already thought it was. That’s what I’m saying. What if you gave me a new positioning statement, not just a new logo? Because I’m sure they have to have one if revenue’s down eight- percent, it wasn’t like all the executives got together and they’re like, “You know what we’re going to do to fix this? New logo.” Nobody’s that un…

Brady: Which maybe that was like people are now thinking these trends are so strong that they need to brand for the trend, because people are leaving Nordstrom Rack thinking, ” Oh, I can’t find the trend that I want there, I’m going to go to Urban Outfitters or the other stores where I know I can find it.”

Garrett: But they don’t say what trends they carry, is all I’m trying to … I think we all think it’s leftover clothes, and what if it’s not? Maybe it is, but I’m just saying is there a way within the actually truth of Nordstrom Rack, of how they get their clothes, what they choose to have there, how it gets decided? That to me could be the backbone of a world- class campaign, to change our perception of Nordstrom Rack. You pair that with the logo, now I’m like, ” Okay, that’s a rebrand.” If that makes sense, because to me brand is more than colors and logos, brand is the public’s perception of what your product and service offering is.

Brady: It’s images as well. The trend is ’70s, so you see that in the font and then the image, you can see the bell- bottom jeans on that girl, and even that striped blouse top is ’70s.

Garrett: The ruffles. They’ve been having, the shoulder pads are coming back, I’ve been seeing that. They’ve got ruffles, the ends of their sleeves have the… Those are ruffles, right?

Brady: I call them my wife’s pilgrim dresses.

Garrett: The Little House on the Prairie?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Girls, I don’t think you like us saying that, but I think that’s what we think of.

Brady: She’s hiding her biceps, doesn’t want the world to know.

Garrett: You know what I’m talking about?

Brady: Oh, I know.

Garrett: The big poof- y shoulders.

Brady: Yes.

Garrett: I think they’re funny, but we’re not supposed to say that. Okay, well, let’s go to the next rebrand. The day of re- brands, Brady. So everybody, the commentary on this, it went pretty viral, HBO Max is now Max.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: The commentary was like, ” How to destroy a storied brand in only one press release, delete the word HBO.” Now, I think people are undervaluing in understanding how much television we actually watch on Discovery. Because what if HBO is smaller than Discovery and Twitter just doesn’t understand that? Because everybody’s high society, pretentious, better than the Food Network people. But Discovery I’m pretty sure owns Triple D, Triple G.

Brady: Diners, Drives and…

Garrett: Guy’s Grocery Games. Diners, Drive- Ins and Dives. Whatever, yes. But I think they own a lot-

Brady: So that’s the pairing is Discovery? I don’t know what the hierarchy is, I don’t know what’s going on.

Garrett: I’ll do a little backdrop. So you click on the little, your article there. Yeah. So Warner Bros Discovery revamped streaming serviced combining HBO Max and Discovery + to just Max.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: Now, people were freaking out about this, and they’re like, ” How could HBO delete it? Everybody knows HBO, HBO’s a massive brand. Why would you remove your branding from the streaming service?” But I was thinking, because there’s also been two HBOs, there’s been HBO Max and then there’s been HBO… What was the other one, do you guys remember?

Brady: HBO Go.

Garrett: Thank you. So there’s HBO Go, I remember having that one, it was before HBO Max, right, Peter?

Peter: Yeah.

Garrett: Yeah. Then they still had both concurrently for a while, right? They still might even.

Peter: It was a little bit of an overlap.

Garrett: I would log into the wrong one and then be like, “I know I have an account.” So my question is, HBO Max, what do you all think? Do you think it’s not deleting the word HBO, is that the end of the world?

Brady: I think it held a lot of equity. In terms of what people remember about HBO Max, this is what Game of Thrones, was that on HBO?

Garrett: Yes.

Brady: So when people ask like, ” Oh, what is Game of Thrones on?” People say, ” HBO.” You don’t say, ” HBO Max.” They’re like, ” Oh, you watch it on HBO.”

Garrett: Because having Showtime Anytime and Showtime something else, do you know what I’m talking about, Peter? Showtime had the same problem too I think, there’s Showtime Anytime and then Showtime something else. A lot of them had this when they do the initial tech migration from being the old way of doing it to the new streaming way of doing it, and I think I’m imagining Discovery… Scroll, let’s see the comments. I want to see more, keep going. ” Bad brand decision, in my opinion.” So everybody’s saying that. Can we go to the website now? Can we go to Max? Let’s just see how they executed it. Let’s scroll on that article too, I want to see what people’s writeup on it is. Let’s see if they show, let’s click that video. If we go up, not that one. That’s 58 minutes, it’s the one above. I want to see the one from Max, how they introduced it. There it is.

Clips: …Look at this as a new beginning, a new destiny. There are times to be someone.

Garrett: All right, let’s go to Max. com real quick.

Brady: I wonder how much that cost.

Garrett: Yeah, no kidding. It’s all here, iconic series, award- winning movies, fresh originals and family favorites starting May 23rd. See? That’s my boy right there, Triple D, Guy Fieri.

Brady: Not Harry Potter?

Garrett: No. Brady, you know I’ve never seen it. Now, what’s interesting pulling this up is because they’re calling them Max Originals, so you’ve got, of the shows on here, there biggest ones are… Wait. Max Original means it’s just probably coming from Max and then HBO Original… See what I mean? I’m just trying to see how are they, what are they… So they’re not deleting, I think people blew this out of proportion because it’s still an HBO Original when it’s an HBO Original. I don’t know if that means HBO made it versus Discovery made it. You’ve got Joanna now? That’s what I’m saying, DIscovery’s big. Discovery’s very big. They have the housewife market cornered I feel like.

Brady: Is TLC under them, or is that completely different?

Garrett: Super Pets, Young Sheldon, classics. We’ve still got Dune, Elvis. You see what I’m saying? So you still have, I love Curb, so the shows I love are still HBO, but then…

Brady: They already have Max Originals?

Garrett: That’s what I’m trying to explain, I don’t know what the difference is between a Max Original or an HBO Original. Does anyone know, Peter?

Brady: It’s a newer original.

Garrett: Is that just that it’s been made-

Peter: Made specifically for this streaming service, as opposed to something that would have gone on the original HBO channel kind of thing.

Garrett: Do you think on a move- forward basis the studio will have things that are made by HBO still labeled as HBO? Or will everything be Max? Is HBO gone then permanently?

Peter: The channel is still HBO kind of thing, but then when they produce something that’s just for the streaming service and isn’t going to air on the normal TV channel, that’s when it’s called a Max Original. Because it’s not airing on the normal channel that you get on DirecTV.

Garrett: What percent of people watch HBO on the channel now? Can we search that? Because I’m curious about that.

Brady: One- percent.

Garrett: Yeah, but that was probably just during…

Brady: Which it says, ” For the first time.” So that sounds like it’s a big deal.

Garrett: Yeah, that’s probably when GOT finale or something like that. Interesting. So I don’t get it, so does that mean HBO’s disappearing? Can we find that out from that article if we scroll a little more? Everything to the left.

Brady: Yeah, I think they have the option to roll HBO up into Discovery, roll Discovery into HBO, or completely rebrand.

Garrett: Plan for a new app, migration of accounts will work, what kind of new content will be appearing, paid tier for$ 19 in 4K. 4K is a game changer. I didn’t know you’re not streaming in 4K these days. Is that standard? What are you streaming on in Netflix? This is why I like this kind of stuff, because if you tell me 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos, I know what that means, if that makes sense. That is an upgradable thing in my opinion, if you watch any of your shows on there.

Brady: Yeah, especially because you already most likely have a TV that’s in 4K.

Garrett: And a soundbar that does Dolby Atmos.

Brady: I don’t know what that is.

Garrett: It’s just Dolby surround sound’s newest version, let’s call it that. So does Netflix have 4K? Let’s look at that, I’m curious about that. Because I think that’s where we’re going to get in the streaming wars, everybody’s going to have everything, and then if you had to choose… Oh, so they do have… Will you click that dropdown? Is 4K available on Netflix? You need a plan that supports it. Click on that one, ” How to watch Netflix in 4K.” The top one, the one above it. The very first, there. Can you click on the plan link? I want to see what plan that is. Premium, yeah.

Brady: Full HD standard, ultra HD, premium.

Garrett: That’s premium, and spacial audio. So everybody’s starting to have higher quality streams for a paid price, which is nice. Interesting. What’s their premium package here if you scroll down?

Garrett: $20, okay.

Garrett: So they’re anchoring their price the same as Netflix.

Brady: This is Netflix.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. I know, that’s what I’m saying, HBO-

Brady: Max is $20?

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah. So they’re anchoring it to them. Interesting. I don’t like the idea of deleting the word HBO though.

Brady: Yeah, I like how they kept the style in the A with the dot in the middle. That was smart, I love it when they completely rebrand but they blend it a little bit. So they did that with the A.

Garrett: But I don’t feel like Discovery was a brand, I feel like the shows on Discovery had their own brands. But I didn’t feel like Discovery was a brand. Have you ever heard anybody talk about their Discovery + account?

Brady: No.

Garrett: I’ve heard people talk about their HBO account.

Brady: Yeah, maybe back in the day when I was… Just Discovery in my mind is…

Garrett: Nat Geo?

Brady: Kind of, animals, even though there was Animal Planet.

Garrett: Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Brady: Then it also reminds me of, and I don’t remember if this was the Travel Channel, but remember they went through the top 10 water parks in the US? I remember watching that stuff.

Garrett: Not a clue, no.

Brady: Channel 21 was Discovery, I think. I’m trying to think what Discovery was.

Garrett: I was never a big Discovery guy, but I like a lot of the shows that are now on there, because of who they acquired. But I would say I know the shows, I know Chip and Joanna Gains, what’s the name of that show?

Scarlet: Fixer Upper.

Garrett: I know Fixer Upper very well, obviously, but I know them as a brand because I’ve been to their spot in Waco with my wife. The shows on Discovery I feel like have more brand equity than the streaming provider that hosts them.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: So why not just call it HBO. com and you can stream from it? I guess when you do the merger and acquisition of the two brands, why delete HBO? Can you see that? They still have HBO Original plastered everywhere.

Brady: Maybe they’re looking to do more acquisitions, so they figure let’s just do a brand new name and just keep acquiring and absorbing other streaming channels into it.

Garrett: It’s a little weird, right?

Brady: I don’t know, I think it’s maybe momentarily. I think right now the market’s confused, everyone’s talking about it, which is a good thing.

Garrett: Yeah, we’ll figure it out, we’re not stupid.

Brady: A year from now it’s just everyone knows it’s on Max.

Garrett: It’s been HBO Max for a while, I just wonder why you get rid of the word HBO.

Brady: Yeah, it’s such a strong name.

Garrett: It is such a strong name, and it’s stronger than Discovery in my opinion, even if Discovery has more revenue. Because that’s what I’m interested about, Discovery might actually make more money, which could be how this happened, but I don’t know.

Brady: I just would never think to, ” Let’s go to Discovery and see what’s on it.”

Garrett: Correct. I know I use it though, because I watch Wicked Tuna on there.

Brady: Nice.

Garrett: Yeah, yeah. So I use it.

Brady: Deadliest Catch, would that be Discovery, that show?

Garrett: Yeah, they had that on the ad. Yeah, Deadliest Catch. So they have some stuff like that that’s been playing on TV for 20 years, but it’s a very interesting conundrum. I personally would have kept just HBO. What’s HBO. com? Because it’s been HBO Go, HBO Max, it’s not like we don’t realize it’s HBO. See? Look, you have HBO. I like Perry Mason, y’all got to watch that, it’s pretty good actually. But you get what I’m saying? They still drop them one episode a week, which is crazy considering everybody else drops their whole series at once. HBO still trickles them.

Brady: Same with Apple. I think is Netflix the only one that drops it all?

Garrett: Wait, does Apple not do it all at once?

Brady: No, they roll it out, like each week is Ted Lasso.

Peter: Yeah, they roll it out.

Garrett: Ted Lasso doesn’t drop all at once?

Brady: Nope.

Peter: No, none of their shows-

Garrett: Who would wait for a new Lasso episode?

Peter: I like Mythic Quest that’s on there.

Brady: I do too.

Peter: I remember when it first came out, I was bugging Ian like, ” What, I have to wait another week to watch this?”

Garrett: Is Netflix the only one that drops it all?

Brady: Hulu I think drops them all. No?

Garrett: I don’t really watch Hulu original shows.

Brady: Probably not.

Peter: I think Hulu also drops them all at once, if it’s a Hulu Original. But I think it’s only Hulu and Netflix.

Garrett: Very interesting. I’d love to do, I wonder if we can find a psychological study done on the difference in that business strategy, because both are simply paying for a subscription, regardless of usage.

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: There’s no ads running on those, Hulu has ads, but not on Netflix or on Max at this time, or Apple TV or any of them.

Brady: Yeah. Netflix Basic I think has ads now.

Garrett: I want to see a Netflix ad in a while, we should watch one of those maybe next week and see what it’s like, because I don’t think we have any clients advertising on there. Do we have access to their inventory?

Brady: I’m not sure. I saw the team talking about the Hulu beta’s finally open, more of a programmatic play on Hulu, a platform.

Garrett: Yeah, I saw that. I wonder if you can do it on Netflix.

Brady: I wonder what the revenue decision is really all at once, because we watched-

Garrett: I know, that’s why I’m so curious about it.

Brady: We watched Beef in two days on Netflix.

Garrett: What’s Beef?

Brady: It’s just a new Netflix Original.

Garrett: Like a docuseries on why cows are killing the world or something?

Brady: No, it’s just a spinoff, road rage is the premises, two people get into road rage.

Garrett: Oh, we got beef.

Brady: Yeah, they have beef. The whole show, it all starts with road rage.

Garrett: Nice.

Brady: It never gets too serious, it’s mostly a comedy.

Garrett: It’s funny?

Brady: Yeah.

Garrett: Highly recommended, Brady?

Brady: Yeah. We liked I think Ali Wong is the main character comedian.

Garrett: I do like Ali.

Brady: She’s pretty funny.

Garrett: Yeah, she’s funny.

Brady: So we mostly watched it for her, but it was good. I’ll watch anything I’ve realized, I never choose to sit down and watch TV, but if my wife is watching something, I don’t care what else I have to do, I will get hooked.

Garrett: So they give you that one scene and then it’s just game over for you.

Brady: If I watch it for five minutes, I’m watching the whole thing. She’ll fall asleep, I’ll watch two more episodes.

Garrett: You’re just grinding it out.

Brady: It’s so funny, I never choose to watch TV, but I will get addicted.

Garrett: I love that. Okay, we have HBO. com and now I’m mad, because it says, “Get HBO Max.”

Brady: Then you click on that and it says, ” Sign up for Max.”

Garrett: If it does that, I swear. They have ads? This is so confusing.

Brady: Got to make that money.

Garrett: I guess it doesn’t launch until May whatever, so until that point you can buy the other stuff.

Brady: I wonder what they make more money on.

Garrett: How do you get a Discovery account? So I see the HBO side of it, so this is what you get on HBO. Let me see the Discovery real quick, Discovery +.

Brady: I don’t even recognize that logo.

Garrett: See what I’m talking about? They’ve got the ultimate trash TV here.

Brady: Such a strange logo.

Garrett: I’ve seen that logo, because I log in on my laps to watch stuff on here every once in a while.

Brady: Okay.

Garrett: See, that’s what I’m saying, guys, they own everything.

Brady: It’s like when you look at the Consumer Goods cart catalog.

Garrett: P& G or somebody.

Brady: Justin Johnson.

Garrett: That’s what I’m trying to say though, I don’t think you guys realize how big Discovery + was, that’s what I’m trying to say. I think Discovery + is bigger than HBO, that’s why it’s next.

Brady: Lifetime.

Garrett: History Channel.

Brady: Classic.

Garrett: Food Network, HGTV, CNN. But they also have shows you’ll never watch or heard of. It’s only$ 6. 99 a month?

Brady: So are they the… Do they have that much demand if they’re the lower price?

Garrett: Can you search streaming market share real quick?

Brady: Maybe just even go to the image tab once you search it.

Garrett: That’s okay, I want to see it. There we go. Okay, so… Scarlet, look at that. We’re upping our game over here. Look at that. Shift plus. I showed her that a couple weeks ago, it was a pretty proud moment for me. I was like, ” Okay, watch this trick.”

Brady: I always forget it’s on, and then I’ll keep browsing the web and I’m like, ” These websites are terrible.”

Garrett: You think everything’s huge.

Brady: The responsiveness sucks. It’s just me on 120%.

Garrett: Yes, I love that, Brady. I’ve done that too. I’m like, ” Man, this website stinks.”

Brady: They’re the smallest.

Garrett: I’m like, ” Why is the font so bad?” Yeah, they look like they’re the smallest, to your point. They weren’t growing, they were going the opposite direction. So they hover around four to five.

Brady: Dropped to three.

Garrett: HBO has been growing.

Brady: Freevee, I’ve never heard…

Garrett: So that would give them 11 together, which would put them… How the hell Peacock doing so good? Netflix is down? Wait, what’s this stat? This is very confusing to me.

Brady: Percent share, they have the title over it. Just go back to the graph, it had it right on top.

Garrett: But it was new, I think was the point. Share of new video streaming services, so this is people buying it for the first time. I don’t think that’s fair. So can we just do total streaming?

Brady: Total. Just another graph might…

Garrett: I’m just curious what that means. Okay, so right here. Beginning with February 2023 data, linear streams, platforms with a linear… Can you zoom in for me, Scarlet, just a little bit? Nice. With a linear streaming component are now reflected in the streaming category without their respective whatever. Okay, so this is just who has the most of the streaming. So we go up. Yeah, okay. So that makes more sense to me. YouTube’s doing pretty well, that’s crazy. So HBO, I don’t see Disney + in there or Discovery.

Brady: YouTube’s competing with cable.

Garrett: Yeah, so HBO, when you combine it maybe you’ll get to two- percent or something like that. So that would still put them… I don’t know, you know what I mean? They’re in a rough spot. Peacock obviously did really well on new people growing, but then there’s slowdown. Netflix is massive. Look at that market share, they’re twice as big as Hulu or Prime.

Brady: Yeah, Tubi had that Super Bowl ad, right? Where everyone grabbed their remote. Was that Tubi?

Garrett: I can’t remember.

Brady: It made you think someone sat on the remote or something and changed the channel, but it was just the ad.

Garrett: Oh, that’s just because Tubi reached one- percent total TV viewing minutes and making it the most free ad- supported VOD service, ahead of rival Pluto. I haven’t heard of either of those. Those seem like things that are on in dentist’s… You know what I’m talking about where they have Pluto TV that they put on? You’re like, ” All right, cheapo.” I think I saw Pluto when I was in Mexico, I think that’s what they had in Mexico, Brady, when we were down there.

Brady: It’s like maybe a bar/ restaurant type streaming service.

Garrett: To me, it’s wild that Discovery’s not in there. It’s hard for me to say HBO, I don’t know how you delete HBO from your brand. Is HBO dead now? Is it just a streaming… I don’t know.

Brady: Like I said, the market’s going to catch up and everyone’s going to be talking about Max. But it was definitely a big enough change to go viral in the media and talk about. But I don’t think it’s going to wreck their business and people can’t find their shows, but I would have kept HBO, HBO+, HBO Everything, HBO All.

Garrett: It’s been all those things, by the way.

Brady: Really? So maybe they’re just out like, ” Hey, no more HBO long tails, we’ve got to just change it to Max.”

Garrett: Instead of focusing on better content, we’re going to keep…

Brady: That’s a funny streaming name, Max.

Garrett: That’s what everybody’s saying, ” Named after my brother or something.”

Brady: I know people named Max, I know dogs named Max.

Garrett: You know streaming services named Max.

Brady: I do now.

Garrett: I only know one Netflix, so whatever. To each their own. I think it would have been wiser to keep HBO, but we’ll see what they do with it, how long it lasts. I think between both of them, the key takeaway I would say if you’re watching this as a marketer is the logo change, the font change, the color change, the rebrand is less important than the re- articulation of your value product. I don’t think Max or Nordstrom Rack frankly did that very well in this process, which is re- articulating their new value, not just their new logo. Does that make sense?

Brady: Yeah. For Max, the product didn’t really change for Nordstrom Rack, the product didn’t really change, but still an opportunity to what else do we tie with this new look and feel?

Garrett: Yeah, tell us a new story.

Brady: What is the new story?

Garrett: What’s the new story of Max? I can’t really tell, if we’re honest. It just looks like they can mine Discovery and HBO. Is there anything else to it though? I just want to know the narrative behind the rebrand. I think having a story arc that connects us as fans of your product or service is huge.

Brady: Wicked Tuna now on Max.

Garrett: Something like that. It really relates to my heart.

Brady: Personalization.

Garrett: That’s episode 33, thanks for everybody for tuning in. If you can, if you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts that would mean a lot to us.

Brady: I think they show more on Apple, so let’s prioritize Apple.

Garrett: Apple, Apple, Apple. But yeah, that’d be great. So thanks, everybody, and have a great rest of the week.

Brady: See you next week.