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#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

Released Monday, 15th May 2017
Good episode? Give it some love!
#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

#6: Creativity + The Feed with Rob Norman, Vivian Rosenthal, Paul Woolmington and Ian Schafer

Monday, 15th May 2017
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

Okay, it's

0:07

the greatest lost tweet of our generation.

0:11

You can think of us as just ducks being

0:13

force fed. Right. If

0:16

you just sit in your comfort zone, we're

0:18

all going to just die. Welcome

0:22

to Tagline. Pour a cocktail

0:24

and join us for inspired conversations

0:26

with the best storytellers, culture makers,

0:28

and creators, presented by our friends

0:30

at Bullet Frontier Whiskey. Please drink

0:32

responsibly. My boss tells me that

0:35

you sleep well if you're either good or you're

0:37

stupid. He said, what about you? I said, I don't sleep

0:39

well. Tagline is produced by I Heart

0:41

Radio and partnership with Advertising Age.

0:47

Hi. I'm welcome to Tagline. I'm

0:50

Rope Norman. I'm the chairman of Group. H'm North America

0:53

and it's great to be back. I have

0:55

wonderful guests today, the renaissance

0:58

man and media entrepreneur Warmington,

1:00

the CEO of Canvas Worldwide

1:02

more about which in a second, and

1:05

Vivian Rosenthal, the founder

1:07

of Snaps, a media

1:09

entrepreneur, one of the original Google

1:11

entrepreneurs. In residents

1:14

and in a little while, we're going to be joined

1:17

by Mr met himself In Shaefer,

1:19

the founder and CEO Deep Focus,

1:22

who we believe to be held up for

1:24

fifteen minutes in spring training before

1:26

opening day. Here at tagline and

1:29

hello both of you. Hello, Hello,

1:32

Robbie. That's so good Robbie.

1:35

You see, that's what comes from being close.

1:37

I am the godfather of Paul's

1:40

son, and here's the godfather of my dog,

1:42

which is unusual but true. Today

1:44

we're going to talk about an interesting topic. We're gonna

1:46

talk about creativity and the feed.

1:49

And when we talk about the feed, we

1:51

talk about the place where people are spending more

1:54

and more of their time in the

1:56

Instagram world and the Facebook

1:58

world, and the Snapchat world, in the Twitter

2:00

world, and an area

2:02

that presents kind of huge opportunities for

2:05

advertisers and brands and huge

2:07

challenges for creative people.

2:10

And I'm hoping that

2:13

this group of people are going to be able to help

2:15

all of us understand feed a bit better

2:17

and understand what makes for outstanding

2:20

content and great user as

2:22

well as advertiser experiences.

2:25

Now, I'd like to start with you, Vivian,

2:28

because you do

2:30

something that very few other people do well.

2:34

You're maybe alluding to the fact that we're building

2:37

chatbots to allow people

2:39

to talk to brands, which is even

2:41

going one step beyond the feed actually,

2:43

so we might be jumping ahead, but you're also probably

2:45

referring to the fact that we're creating branded

2:48

emojis and stickers, which

2:50

we're doing in droves. When

2:52

we think about like how the ad unit has

2:54

evolved, it's clearly an opportunity

2:57

to see it evolved in social but also

2:59

now in the message space. If we think about the

3:01

feed, the feed is going to be something that started

3:03

off pretty narrow, both literally

3:05

and sort of metaphysically,

3:08

and it's going to be something that is

3:10

actually very all encompassing,

3:12

right. I think there's many pros and many cons

3:14

to that. So that's something I want to dig

3:16

into for sure. Okay, Paul,

3:19

So you are responsible

3:22

for, among other things, the Hyundai

3:25

and Ka brands that canvas worldwide.

3:28

The automotive industry if it's been famous

3:30

for one thing, it's been famous for long

3:32

television spots and huge print

3:34

ads and huge billboards.

3:37

How do you think about this much

3:40

sort of narrower canvas

3:43

in the context of the brands

3:46

you work with. Let me try

3:48

and level set a bit of the context.

3:51

We whether it's the auto industry, almost

3:53

every other industry has a lot of muscle memory.

3:56

And I think Vivian said ad unit, and

3:58

I think what we were doing was we always chasing

4:00

trying to change consumer behavior, because

4:03

we're still in that mindset

4:05

as it was ten years ago that two thirds

4:08

of communication was controllable and

4:11

therefore ad units the way that you did it, whereas

4:13

actually, if you look at today, two

4:15

thirds of people's consumption

4:19

is the opposite. It's actually

4:21

much more organic. It's not controlled.

4:24

Help me help me that a second. Yeah, I mean that's

4:26

one of those kind of great statements. It used

4:28

to be two thirds like this, and now it's two thirds

4:30

like that. Come on to the day. But so the data

4:32

thing, I think all I was going to say is that we've got to

4:34

change brand behavior rather than changing

4:36

consumer behavior. The net output was

4:39

let's try and change consumer behavior through

4:41

communications. But now I think we have

4:43

to think about how brands behave in these

4:45

environments. So even when we talk about

4:48

standardizing AD units, what we're trying to

4:50

do is invade feeds

4:52

and invade spaces with as you said,

4:54

repurposed television ads

4:57

as opposed to thinking about the feed and

4:59

a of other communication channels and much more

5:02

inventive. So in the In

5:04

the much beloved and iconic first

5:06

episode of Tagline, which I think is now

5:08

collectible in certain quarters, Wendy

5:11

Clark, who is iconically the

5:14

first guest, said that

5:16

we have to be invited into pupil's

5:19

homes and into people's lives

5:21

and permission to do

5:23

that. Do we need to be invited into

5:26

people's feeds? And I

5:28

mean, I'm thankful to see consumer

5:31

behavior changing it. I think they're

5:33

really judicious and what they want to see.

5:35

And I only want to see a brand in

5:37

my feed if it's providing some value

5:40

to me, right, and that value you could ascribe

5:42

many different features to it, So it could be

5:44

some type of learning or education, it could

5:46

be some type of utility, it could be

5:48

some type of commerce opportunity, or it

5:50

could be entertainment. But to me, if it doesn't

5:53

fall in one of those three categories

5:55

of value, I'm not particularly interested,

5:57

right. And I think this is true particular

6:00

you with a younger audience that are more interested in

6:02

the brands that have some value

6:04

that is a creative to their life. Part

6:07

of it is that the types of brands that

6:09

we're going to see in our feed are going to be more curated

6:11

by sort of their values. But the

6:13

interesting thing is that the most

6:15

majority of marketing will

6:18

crash a feed. But I think

6:20

the beauty of crashing it is it's just

6:22

like that nerd who crashes a party, gets

6:24

very drunk, but still is incredibly funny.

6:27

So that's what you want to be as opposed

6:29

to the sad person who crushes the party not

6:31

invited and spoils it.

6:34

But I think the truth of the matter is, although I agree

6:36

with Wendy and I agree with with Vivian,

6:38

at the end of the day, there's the great unwashed

6:41

there who are crashing every feed

6:43

and crushing every social how do you

6:45

stand out and touched on it that

6:47

it's like, if you crash a party, better damn

6:49

be funny, right, But the problem is

6:52

not every brand's DNA is to be funny.

6:54

So it begs the question, Okay, well, if you're not funny,

6:56

then what are you provide some other kind of value?

6:59

You will well come in a stranger if they're valuable

7:01

to the party, right. So I think a brand has

7:04

to think about and their agency of

7:06

record, who they're working with. How am I going to be valuable?

7:08

Right? So if you

7:11

talk to some of the big operators

7:13

of feeds like Facebook,

7:16

they will tell you that the key to the

7:19

puzzle is relevance and

7:21

that their job, which

7:24

they do with machine learning and

7:26

super computer power, is

7:28

to make trillions and

7:31

many trillions of decisions every day

7:33

that matches ads

7:36

with people's feeds, and that

7:38

the key signal

7:40

that they're looking for is

7:43

relevance to connect the

7:45

user or the consumer of the feed

7:48

with the AD. And

7:50

they would argue interestingly

7:53

that what will

7:55

happen is that the most

7:57

relevant ads will be the ones that are fast

8:00

most frequently. And so, when

8:02

you're thinking about it creatively, how

8:05

do you think about the concept of relevance

8:08

that helps that algorithm

8:11

that's driving that match

8:13

of feed and add to surface

8:16

your clients have. So we

8:18

actually coined a term for this um at

8:21

my company. We call it intelligent messaging.

8:23

But it's delivering the right company is Snap Society,

8:27

not Snap Singular. No, that

8:29

would be even better. But that would

8:31

be better, but no, that would be maybe future

8:34

lifetime. So we call it intelligent messaging,

8:36

which is delivering the right piece of content to

8:38

the right person at the right time, at

8:40

the right place. Right reinvented I am I

8:43

remember, I am Yes? If something

8:45

doesn't have contextual relevance, you're

8:47

really missing the boat. If you had the ven diagram,

8:50

it's like, you know, something that's contextually

8:52

relevant cross with something that adds value

8:55

to me is the sweet spot. You know, that's the

8:57

opportunity. I think both with the feeds

8:59

and even if we look at what we're doing now in chat

9:01

bots as just another feed, right, So these are chatbots

9:04

that sit on top of Facebook Messenger. It's in

9:06

essence, another feed, another space for

9:09

a brand. I think that people will

9:11

respond to things if they're pertinent,

9:14

right. So as an example, we

9:16

did a chat bought for bud Light and they were sponsoring

9:18

the NFL, and so it would ask me, viv,

9:21

where do you live? Who's your favorite team? Just two pieces

9:23

of information. So if I say the New York Giants

9:26

New York, it goes away, becomes invisible.

9:28

But then two hours before game time, it will

9:30

send me a text notification saying like

9:32

are you stocked up on bud Light? And by the way,

9:34

don't forget to tune in and watch the Giants

9:36

in two hours. So I'd say like, no,

9:39

I need bud Light. It kicks me out too many bar drizzly

9:41

and I get beer delivered to my door within

9:44

kickoff time. I mean, that's a very contextually

9:46

based experience that was very successful,

9:48

and there was very very high completion

9:51

rate of like clicking through that funnel because it

9:53

was providing value. Okay,

9:55

so that's a version of

9:58

relevance, pauls, so I

10:00

can kind of get bud and the

10:03

circumstantial nature of a football game. For

10:05

some reason, I don't know why, but it seemed

10:07

to me the advertisers worked out quite a long

10:10

time ago that men like

10:12

football like beer. QE. Ed advertised

10:14

beer in football games, which

10:16

is kind of a prescience notion that still

10:19

holds up quite well. But as

10:21

you know, Mark Pritchett and his noted speeches

10:24

at the io B in the a NA said not

10:26

long ago that advertisers actually

10:29

in the era of digital

10:31

and oversupply and massive

10:33

consumption of media, have fallen into

10:36

the crap trap that too many people

10:38

are producing too much rubbish.

10:40

And so in your world, and particularly

10:43

with your range of clients, where rubbish

10:45

is not a good idea, how do you think

10:47

about that kind of quality and

10:49

relevance when you don't have that the

10:51

immediate contextual opportunity of

10:54

men beer football. Yeah.

10:56

But one thing I think it's important to remember

10:58

whether or not we fall into the crap

11:00

trap. There was always a crap trap

11:04

of all tv ads, as

11:06

voted by consumers, and probably

11:08

most credive directors would be deemed

11:11

crap. And it's

11:13

a crap trap and you've been caught

11:17

the boom turn raps. Yeah, absolutely,

11:19

Well that's the that's the beauty. The first thing I think

11:21

is that early adopters, whether

11:23

you're crap or not, get

11:26

this violent reaction against

11:28

in a new platform. But also

11:31

you get huge engagement just

11:33

because you're early to it. And then there seems

11:35

to be this cycle of adoption and

11:39

I be a standardization

11:41

and then what that does is it

11:43

exponentially increases crap

11:46

because you standardize everything in order

11:48

to scale it, but to scale the crap.

11:51

So let me So that's interesting. So what

11:53

you're saying is that when a new platform

11:56

emerges, the instant reaction of its users

11:58

is to reject a must be very engaged

12:01

in it. But they're very engaged, and arguably

12:03

it can be quite effective. At which point

12:06

a well meaning industry body normally

12:09

multilaterally from the supply side, the

12:11

buy side, the technology side, then determine

12:14

standards to operate in that platform.

12:16

But actually what standards do is

12:19

allow for the exponential multiplication

12:21

of crap. Is that what you're saying. I am, and I

12:23

think the banner ad would be the prime example

12:25

of that in its form today and

12:27

its whole history that keeps popping up, and

12:29

it keeps popping up. Yeah, yeah, but no,

12:31

coming back to the question, by the way, I'm very excited

12:34

about what's about to happen here on tagline, very

12:36

so carry on, just excited. I

12:39

think the idea of contextually

12:42

relevant agree with.

12:44

I think you can take it

12:46

to to literal a form, and I think

12:48

some people take it to an extreme,

12:51

and that's where I think the human creative

12:55

power of then

12:57

an AI it has

12:59

to be in there because sometimes there's serendipity

13:02

that you do and that's an art form still,

13:04

so it's the balance of the art and the science

13:06

of anything. Otherwise you know, the machine

13:08

would run it. I don't want to bring back one of my

13:10

favorite sport piece

13:13

of content that was for social was

13:15

for Heineken, and funny enough,

13:17

they have been leaning more into sport

13:19

and it just so happens that you keyed me up

13:21

okay, and we're going to be back just in

13:23

one second, because in the on deck

13:25

circle playing first base and betting

13:28

number three for tagline, we have Ian

13:30

Schaeffer, the founder of

13:32

Deep Focus, joining Paul

13:34

Warmington's from Canvas Worldwide and

13:38

Ian Rosenthale from

13:40

Snaps. Hello. Ian, Hello,

13:43

Sorry, we're

13:45

purposely made entrance were

13:49

a little bit. We're

13:52

super happy to have you, very

13:54

happy. We're talking about creativity

13:57

in the feed. Sorry, Paul, so

13:59

kindly kind of sports. So it was just I

14:02

couldn't resist. You teed it up

14:05

Heineken. They obviously

14:07

sponsor a lot of sports, Champions

14:09

League being a particularly big

14:12

event around the world, everywhere

14:14

apart the United States, and

14:16

they just created some wonderful

14:18

content. And there was a particular Italian

14:22

agency created a beautiful piece

14:24

of long form content and I can't think sat

14:27

in the feed. I even got

14:29

it and it was retranslated.

14:32

It was a spoof on a guy who watches a football

14:34

match with his friends. He then gets

14:36

an invite to go to the game, but he

14:38

doesn't tell his friends. He goes to the game, and of course

14:41

they broadcast it in the stadium

14:44

with his buddies saying, what the hell are you doing? You

14:46

know? But it was a wonderful just one of many

14:48

that they're doing, and it's long form that was very relevant

14:50

too, I think passions of fans and

14:52

things like that. It took all my fancy, but I

14:54

think it's another great example of a market here

14:56

being adept to understanding they have to

14:58

change their brand behavior, be a bit braver and

15:01

in some ways be invited into the conversation

15:03

rather than try and push a message. It's scary

15:05

though, when they have to compete against the likes

15:07

of Fox Sports and ESPN

15:10

to produce relevant sports content for the sports

15:12

fan. And no, by the way, they also have to sell

15:15

beer. Yeah. Does anyone remember

15:17

bud TV by the way, Yes, But

15:20

that's because no one wants to go anywhere for it, right.

15:22

The content is the finer, and I think that's the complexity

15:24

of creativity. And the feed is filled with stuff

15:26

we've opted in to see. And

15:29

then yet how does an advertiser survive

15:32

in that river? Which is interesting because

15:34

the notion of the advertiser

15:37

content channel, and there have been

15:39

many and bud TV is one, and

15:42

the Coca Curtla company has been engaged in that kind

15:44

of area, and there have been a few others. Do you think

15:46

we've finally seen the end of

15:48

that particular notion

15:51

that brand as publisher to

15:53

that degree as a sustainable idea.

15:56

No, because I think that

15:59

there are some brands out there that are going to

16:01

believe that they're diminishing returns in their core product

16:04

and that they're such great lifestyle marketers

16:06

that they're going to be able to actually compete in the content

16:08

businesses. Production costs come down by selling

16:11

even maybe like direct subscriptions

16:13

via some kind of like over the top. Yeah,

16:15

and we've seen that done well by

16:17

some brands, right, And it's like

16:20

Burbery to a phenomenal job

16:23

Burbery World. And if you talk

16:25

about music, people go to

16:27

the site to watch acoustic sets

16:29

and we'll stay twenty seven minutes on the

16:32

Barbary world side listening to music,

16:34

watching music videos. But it's a

16:36

totally integral part of their brand,

16:38

their brand, and it's content, and I

16:40

think they do particularly a fantastic

16:43

job. That's a good illustration. Yeah. Similarly,

16:45

I was thinking of go Pro and I fly Virgin.

16:47

I actually often find myself choosing

16:49

the go Pro channel over other channels,

16:52

which is the Virgin Yeah. Um,

16:54

because it's like phenomenally shot

16:57

action sports content, right,

16:59

but yeah, that's a more immersive experience.

17:02

Time to take a break with our friends from Bullet

17:04

Frontier Whiskey. Please drink responsibly.

17:08

As some of you know, our

17:12

sponsor here at tagline

17:14

is none other than Bullet Whiskey.

17:17

And this is theater of the

17:19

mind we're talking about. Here. We have our

17:21

guest mixologist who joins

17:23

us during tagline. He's actually

17:26

the world champion mixologists from two thousand

17:28

and thirteen. He's been a judge kind

17:30

of since then. So he sort of went the other

17:33

side and he said to say hi, introduced

17:35

himself and maybe mix a drink. Yeah,

17:38

I'm Jeff Bell. So today we're

17:40

partnered up with the Bullet Bourbon to serve

17:42

you guys to use your Palmer. Uh

17:44

it is spring according to the calendar,

17:46

but not the weather outside. So we're a little

17:48

ambitious with the drink inspired by

17:51

the Arnold Palmer lemonated nice

17:53

Tea. We use a sweet tea sirrup made by

17:55

some friends of mine in Charleston, South Carolina,

17:57

with some fresh yuzu juice Bullet

17:59

whiskey, and so it's fair to say this is the first

18:01

year that people have been able to serve Arnold

18:04

Palmer's went. Arnold Palmer wasn't

18:06

still alive, and I think we should take a moment for

18:09

Arnold on that. But I see this is a fitting

18:11

tribute, a tribute good.

18:14

What do we think? It's delicious? It's

18:16

delicious, you see, Jeff, you're the

18:18

guy you always were. Well, I appreciate

18:20

it. Now. I can sleep well tonight. I'm sure

18:22

you will. My boss tells me that

18:24

you sleep well if you're either good or you're

18:26

stupid. And he said, what about

18:29

you? I said, I don't sleep well, which happens

18:31

to be true because I didn't want to commit either

18:33

way. Will you be back later?

18:36

I'll be back whenever you need me. Fantastic. My

18:39

kind of mixologist. You don't

18:41

just make these cocktails kind of randomly. You're

18:44

a kind of subject matter mixologist,

18:46

right, Yeah, I think there's a there's a time and place

18:48

for every cocktail. You know. When I come on to

18:50

do tag on with you guys, I try to come up with something

18:52

new that's that's relevant to what your

18:54

right minds are speaking about. So the subject

18:57

today being the feed, I wanted to bring

18:59

something that was really like aesthetically pleasing,

19:02

and it's really easy for me to say that on radio

19:04

because no one can see that and prove

19:06

me wrong. It's garnished with fresh mints,

19:08

super green, none the leaves or wilt or anything

19:10

like that. And the feed for me is that

19:13

we're kind of subjected to the

19:16

consumers. We get between a hundred and fifty and two hundred

19:18

people a day, which means that h

19:21

people a day could take a picture of a cocktail. That

19:23

cocktail then shows up in their feed and their

19:25

friends feed, and if their influencers like, it goes

19:28

on exponentially. This is kind of like a grassroots

19:30

marketing for a small business, is

19:32

you know, making sure that if you serve a cocktail

19:35

in a dimly lit space on a soiled cocktail

19:37

napkin with lines that were cut yesterday,

19:40

you're gonna be doing a disservice to your bar and you're slowly

19:42

gonna plummet down and that's

19:44

gonna be a reflection of the product you serve. But

19:46

if you you know, you source your ingredients, use

19:48

everything fresh, prepare things all a minute, that

19:50

kind of thing you creates photo

19:53

moments for people. I guess I mainly talking about Instagram,

19:55

but it's a little detail that takes a lot

19:57

of extra work. So you're talking about what we

19:59

would will return on experience. So

20:01

if you give people a great experience, they're going

20:03

to share it and come back. Right. Yeah, we

20:05

are held accountable by social media. Is

20:08

almost an extension of Yelp or Google reviews

20:10

or anything like that, which we like to read. But with social

20:12

media it's whether they have good words or

20:14

bad words to say. If the photos awful, the

20:17

drink looks awful, and then it has

20:19

this kind of sour experience of the bar. So the goal

20:21

is to make everything as attractive as possible for

20:24

photo moments. And you know, moving forward

20:26

with designing new restaurants and bars, you take into account

20:28

the way the light comes in from the windows, the kind

20:30

of lights to use over the bar. You almost need to idiot

20:33

proof the photography set for

20:35

your consumers. The story that you just told is actually

20:37

quite interesting because the same way that you're thinking about

20:39

making sure that your environment looks good in other people's

20:41

photos, those other people are making sure that they're going

20:43

to environment that looks good in their photos.

20:46

So every person, literally

20:48

to a person, it seems like these days are

20:50

thinking about themselves in some ways as a small

20:52

business, and they may not actually be selling

20:54

things, although many of them are. UM,

20:58

they're trying to build their social capital,

21:00

they're net worth. They're projecting a version

21:03

of themselves that they want people to believe

21:05

they are. By the way, it's like everybody's

21:07

client, every brand that's out there, human

21:10

or otherwise, is projecting an image of

21:12

who they want to be perceived as. And we want

21:14

to believe that social media is lifting the veil of

21:16

transparency in front of everything, but I think it's

21:18

actually clouded. I think it's added

21:20

to the lack of transparency that exists

21:22

out there, because you've got a lot of people

21:25

again behaving a certain way to be perceived

21:27

a certain way as opposed to for who they

21:29

really are. And that's really deep. And I apologize for Thank

21:31

you, and a big chest to Jeff

21:34

and to Bullet for looking after Jeff.

21:38

You can see you next time. Thank you, Thank you,

21:41

Bullet. Don't you go changing

21:44

your story.

21:59

I would

22:12

Bullet Frontier whiskey, please drink responsibly.

22:16

So I habitually quote Jefferson and Churchill

22:19

car marks from time to time, um

22:22

and and and of Corsi and Schaeffer, And

22:24

my favorite in Schaefer quote

22:26

was I've never seen a skip button

22:28

on that that I didn't love. And so,

22:31

Paul, when you're thinking about the

22:33

automobile market, and

22:36

how do you prevent people

22:39

in the way you think about it not

22:41

using the skip button or not exing

22:43

out of their feed because I don't want

22:46

this at anymore? What kind of processes do you go

22:48

through with their client and your creative

22:50

partners to get the great question.

22:52

I'll give you an illustration. So

22:55

I view someone like Amazon as

22:57

a feed. It's not a formal feed, but

22:59

it's something that's digitally enabled.

23:01

It sits there, it's an application and

23:03

I go to it. We did a partnership

23:05

so Hyundai we were the first and we have exclusive

23:08

in category and we are offering Prime

23:10

now Drive Now. So essentially

23:13

media became a service. So

23:15

the service was you could

23:18

go to Amazon Prime and we were obviously feeding

23:20

through the data the people that we thought were most likely

23:22

to want to test drive and Atlantra

23:25

and they could actually test drive it when

23:27

they wanted, where they wanted and how they wanted

23:30

it if they scheduled it. So we did

23:32

that. It was an absolute blast

23:34

success. I think you're playing fast and loose with my

23:36

definition of the feed. I'm just saying no,

23:38

but there's no skip button there. But that's the

23:41

point is there's no skip button. That's the future.

23:43

I think of a lot of digital communications.

23:45

You talked about utilities and service. To

23:47

me, the best form of service in

23:49

this consumer driven world is fantastic

23:52

service. I mean, a fantastic service

23:54

is the proofpoint of the brand was we're going to

23:56

do it better so you don't have to go to the

23:58

dealership if you don't want to go to a dealership. Now,

24:00

if we could do more of that in a Facebook

24:02

environment, if we could do more of that in a snapshot

24:04

environment, that's what I would welcome.

24:07

And that's what I'm striving to do. How

24:09

we can improve service and utility

24:11

and other aspects of the business. You

24:14

can think of us as just consumers

24:16

is just ducks being force

24:18

fed, right. That's sort

24:20

of like one way to look at it, and the other way

24:23

to look at it is like the ducks

24:25

that have sort of broken out and are like,

24:27

I'm going to go figure out my own life

24:30

and I'm going to make a life for myself that

24:32

I choose. You know, maybe I'm going to be vegan

24:34

or who knows what I think. There's also

24:36

this idea that people want to

24:39

be able to have choice, they want

24:41

to be able to opt into

24:44

something. And I think the problem with the feed, and

24:46

maybe the reason why none of us are necessarily

24:48

coming up with great examples for the feed and we're pointing

24:50

to other things, is because there's

24:53

this element of the feed you can't choose,

24:55

right like, if you want to be on social media, then you sort

24:57

of have to bow down to the feed, and then that means

24:59

that along with it comes all the advertising.

25:02

What we're seeing with the advent of choice

25:04

is that people are choosing selectively

25:07

to engage with brands they really care about. So

25:09

to me, the opportunity for a brand is potentially

25:12

to extricate themselves out of the feed

25:14

and come back into a person's life in a different

25:17

way, to sort of unexpected way.

25:19

That's kind of a very reassuring sort

25:21

of social thought. However,

25:25

my general experience and advertisers

25:27

is that they spend money when

25:29

they see a return on the money, and

25:32

there is no doubt that Facebook,

25:34

in particular within the feed space

25:37

with Instagram and now with Messenger

25:39

also is like the

25:41

Dyson vacuum of money. It

25:43

must be being effective. And the

25:45

only way that the advertisers

25:47

the seeing effectiveness is this they're getting a

25:50

return of some description on another.

25:52

And so there is a kind of a bit of a paradox

25:54

because if it was that unwelcome

25:57

when people have made the Faustian bargain that

25:59

they want to be on Facebook yet had to deal

26:01

with the advertising, that would just reject the advertising,

26:04

and then advertisers would reject Facebook.

26:06

But that doesn't seem to have happened. Yeah.

26:08

Well, I mean, I think we live

26:11

in a consumer driven culture,

26:13

right, that's all about consuming. The other

26:15

night I was watching a film called Minimalism,

26:18

a documentary. I don't know if anyone's seen it, but it

26:21

makes a really it

26:24

actually should be shorter. I would agree with that, good

26:26

joke. It's interesting. It makes the point that we should

26:28

be much more judicious in terms

26:30

of the brands we led into our lives, in terms of the

26:32

people we lend into our lives, in terms of everything,

26:35

right, And I think that as a culture,

26:37

I actually think that that's a really big

26:39

underground movement that's happening. And and so, while

26:41

you're absolutely right, of course, Facebook and

26:43

Google and others meant money. But

26:45

I think that there is inevitably

26:48

often a backlash. Let's let's

26:50

just say the ads don't work. I know I'm very

26:52

specific about what ads I'll engage with,

26:54

right, And it comes back to what I said before. It's like, the brand

26:56

has to offer some value to my life. It has to

26:58

be creative in some way. If it is,

27:01

then I don't even see it as an ad. I actually see it as

27:03

like content that I want to know

27:05

about. So you think about yourself

27:08

when you think about minimalism, and I imagine

27:10

that we have some shared values to people

27:13

in this room, and there are other people

27:15

who would say, well, you may

27:17

be a little bit on the coastal elite to side

27:20

of the equation. And

27:22

we've had an incredible

27:24

prominence for feed based

27:27

environments in the last six

27:29

months of our collective lives

27:32

and how they've influenced some very very

27:34

big decisions and some very big moves

27:36

and opinion in our

27:39

society and in our country.

27:42

And I'm curious how

27:44

smart are the people

27:47

that are creating

27:49

the influence politically,

27:52

and how are they using the feeds to such

27:54

extraordinary effect. By most people's

27:56

estimation, but

27:59

having gone to cool in Washington, d C. With

28:02

an eye towards like having a political career,

28:04

I could tell you I chose the less nasty

28:07

of the professions. If you want to look at where

28:09

there's less friction, I mean, at least an advertising fortune

28:12

tends to favor the friction list. Buying process,

28:14

politics, the fortune tens to favor that the friction list

28:17

like believing process and so bad

28:19

news travels very fast. Fake news travels even

28:21

faster. When you tell people what they want

28:23

to hear, they're not only going to

28:25

share it, but they're going to opt into it. And I think

28:27

that's why you see the ratings

28:29

that you know, a partisan news channel would

28:32

have. When someone sees something that justifies the

28:34

belief that they have, regardless of whether

28:36

it's fact or fiction, they're going to share it because

28:38

it validates again a belief that they have

28:40

and doesn't make them feel lonely anymore.

28:43

That dynamic doesn't really advertising, because

28:45

that's a very transactional place. Someone said to me this

28:47

morning, Actually a group of people didn't say to me. They

28:49

said, the confirmation and affirmation

28:52

are much easier to deal with than information.

28:54

We're in a place where information doesn't necessarily have

28:56

to be fact, and most information is noise, and whatever we

28:58

choose to be signals what we pull out of it. Right.

29:01

Yeah, I love that the alliteration also

29:03

delegation because I think in a lot

29:05

of social feeds, people delegate

29:09

the important to the ephemeral,

29:12

and I think there's enough psychology relegate,

29:15

delegate and relegate. They're relegating,

29:18

delegating to alliteration. This

29:21

is important too. I think understand the psychology

29:23

of a lot of people go to feeds to

29:26

lesson stress, to kind

29:29

of fill in gaps. I mean, there's a lot of psychology

29:31

around that, and maybe to not do what

29:33

they should be doing. And I think that's absolutely

29:36

universal across every

29:38

demographic. I wanted to build on your alliteration

29:41

ask you a question. Do you think that advertisers

29:43

are insufficiently manipulative if

29:46

they actually took some of the lessons from

29:49

the way some of the political dialogue

29:51

is driven, which clearly works, you would

29:54

think, And you go back to vance Packard and

29:56

the history of advertising and hidden persuaders

29:58

and so forth, do you think some of that's been lost and maybe

30:00

needs to come back. There are a lot of emotional

30:02

strings that get pulled in service of

30:05

a brand campaign that speak more

30:07

to a movement or emotion than

30:10

actually the product that it's meant to sell. And you

30:12

can make arguments that maybe none of those

30:14

really actually sold the products

30:16

they were meant to sell. They just actually made the brand

30:18

get credit for a particular kind of message,

30:20

and maybe there's like a long strategy.

30:22

Are you saying that purpose driven marketing

30:25

is somehow manipulative. I

30:27

think it often is manipulative, and

30:29

so not somehow just is the advertising is gonna

30:32

have a budget, to your point, unless that budget

30:34

is meant to give some kind of return. We

30:36

all want to believe that companies are out there

30:38

spending money and that consumers

30:41

want to engage with brands and companies

30:43

that are doing things that are good for

30:45

society. But I think most

30:47

of the time, very large corporations

30:50

are doing things I'm so dated in

30:52

advertising that are good for society is because

30:54

that's what the research says the consumers want. I

30:56

think purpose driven marketing, if

30:58

it really is a fundamental part of the behavior,

31:01

that's fine, and I think whether will be phenomenal

31:03

that almost everything they do socially, how

31:06

they link digital to physical I think

31:08

a lot of their activations. In many of that is

31:10

good and when they actually lean you know, they

31:12

don't overtly have to

31:15

lean into their an underlying part

31:17

of their business model because it was baked in right

31:19

at the beginning. But I agree with you. I think everyone

31:21

is now trying to adopt these new behaviors,

31:24

and I think they're struggling between now

31:27

it being a social cause and actually being

31:29

a brand behavior at the fundamental level. Yeah,

31:31

I think it's also just important to step back and think

31:33

about even what the pain point is

31:35

for these brands that's causing them

31:38

to go to the feed. Nike came to us and they

31:40

said, okay, so millennials and

31:42

gen z kids aren't going

31:44

to our dot com as much, right, and they

31:46

obviously don't open up email, and they're

31:48

in messaging what's been called dark social.

31:51

So how to rereach them that has

31:53

to be sort of like what an agency and

31:55

a creative shop really looks at when they

31:57

think about this is not just sort of doing the exact

31:59

same thing and mapping it on. And I think when

32:02

brands and their agency partners take a

32:04

step back and really think about what

32:06

this new medium is that's driven around

32:09

visual communication, when I think of the feed, if

32:12

I have to define the feed, I think it would be like a real

32:14

time visual heartbeat of

32:16

the creative collective consciousness. Right,

32:18

that's that's that's the

32:20

thing of beauty from you. Someone

32:23

just checked that that is characters

32:26

or less. Because if it isn't, it's

32:28

the greatest lost tweet of our generation.

32:32

Um like heart. It can

32:34

be calm, it could be fast, absolutely,

32:36

it could be it could be many things, but that's

32:38

the that's my point. Rhythm, it

32:40

could be a rhythmic. But like when I check my

32:43

feed, I do. I see it as this

32:45

combination of brands

32:47

I care about and people I care about

32:49

and what's happening in that given moment

32:52

in the world. So that's super interesting. So

32:54

you actually see your feed

32:56

in a way it's a kind of meta and extended

32:59

you. Yes, completely, that's very

33:01

interesting. I like that. I'm intrigued

33:03

by I feel like it's so like Sacri

33:06

sanc. That's why I got so upset

33:08

before with the like duck analogy

33:10

is just because I feel like brands can't just shove

33:12

anything into that feed, Like if it's an extension

33:15

of me, then I don't want

33:17

it. And again to be fair. I think we're

33:19

all maybe older than the

33:21

audience, who's necessarily the person

33:24

spending more time in their feed but not our

33:26

aging listeners. Well correct,

33:29

you know I'm also forty one, so that doesn't

33:31

you know, so taxon

33:34

service. No, But I really do

33:36

think the way I look at my feed is the way my friends

33:38

look at their feed, which is it's a virtual version

33:41

of me. And so as such, I

33:43

wanted to feel decluttered

33:45

of anything that I don't actually believe in. What's

33:47

exciting about where the feed is going. If we think about

33:50

the chat bot space, so like the ecosystem

33:52

of chatbots built on top of Facebook Messenger

33:54

is unlike traditional advertising, chatbots

33:57

are all opt in. So in

33:59

the feed, you can't opt out of advertising,

34:02

right if you want to be on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat,

34:04

you have to assume I'm going to look at some amount of brand

34:06

new content. Now, what I try to

34:08

do is curate that, so I'm really seeing content

34:11

that inspires me or provokes me or does something

34:13

exciting. I think with chatbots

34:15

it goes even one step further, which is

34:18

you have to opt in. A chat bot can't just

34:20

come along and say like hi, Rob, like I'm

34:22

going to start talking to you. That's not how some

34:25

of my best friends of chat bots. So

34:30

no. But in that case, obviously, if you're going to opt

34:32

into this thing, it's better damn

34:34

be good. It's got to make some utility. So

34:36

yesterday, for Marriott Hotels, we launched a booking

34:38

bot so you can give it intention, which

34:40

is an LP is it to understand your

34:43

intentions. So my intention is to go to

34:45

Denver h and stay there for three

34:47

days. Show me a hotel that I'd

34:49

like. That's providing a real utility. Yesterday,

34:51

for Nike, we launched a bot that lets you

34:54

take a photo of any particular So

34:56

you see your an art exhibit, you see an

34:58

amazing installation, you take a photo, you're

35:00

really inspired by it. It will auto generate

35:03

a pair of airmax that are the colors

35:05

that you saw on the installation, and you can buy it there. I

35:07

did it today, took less than two minutes. I

35:09

ended up spending a hundred and thirty dollars. There's

35:11

ways to do this. There's ways to advertise

35:14

that provides value and is interesting

35:17

and compelling, and that it's easier to appeal

35:20

too, maybe more natural to appeal

35:22

to kind of the bottom of Meslow's hierarchy

35:24

of needs, which is like a utility situation

35:27

like that, then trying to appeal

35:29

to somebody to your point in a more feed

35:31

based environment where they're consuming

35:34

as much as they're creating, or vice

35:36

versa, right where they feel the need

35:38

to have that representation of themselves

35:40

and every engagement that they have might or might

35:42

not be rebroadcast to somebody else.

35:45

By definition, though advertising is in eruptive, the best

35:47

advertising, the most effective

35:50

advertising, I should say, has always been interruptive, right. Rather

35:52

it's been a page in a magazine, or if it's a

35:54

television commercial or

35:56

a trailer before a movie. You've got

35:59

a captive audience that to see something else, and

36:01

that's your opportunity to I don't

36:03

think there's anything wrong with that. So with

36:05

sort of conversational technology,

36:08

right, which is where it's all moving. I

36:10

wake up in the morning, maybe I

36:13

ask Alexa for a recommendation

36:16

for something. There's an opportunity obviously

36:18

for a meaningful brand connection. So

36:20

it's like give me a breakfast recipe,

36:22

and it's like, oh, here's this thing and these

36:25

eggs brought to you by so and so brand and then

36:27

I'm in an uber and I

36:29

get another recommendation through a

36:31

chatbot, and then I get to work, and then there's

36:34

something that's related to the other two interactions

36:36

I just had. And I think that idea of

36:38

moving from conversation

36:41

to actually typing back

36:43

to conversation is where it's all going.

36:45

And so thinking about how does that weave in

36:47

a valuable way, I think it's Black Mirror season

36:50

one, episode two, totally. It totally

36:52

is I know. So

36:54

we know that Vivian wants to wake up

36:56

in the morning to find in her feed or

37:00

her ai environment a recommendation

37:02

for a breakfast recipe. So, Paul,

37:05

when you wake up in the morning and our age that

37:07

in and of itself is good news. Thank

37:10

god? Was it Lords Shawsbury who said, I wake up

37:12

in the morning, I opened a coffee of the time as

37:14

I read the obituary columns, and if I'm not

37:16

in there, I go back to bed. And

37:19

so when you get up in the morning,

37:21

actually which feed you look at first? That's

37:25

Twitter, guy, Facebook, guy, Instagram, Instagram.

37:28

It was kind of a great morning

37:30

Instagram moment. No, it would be someone

37:32

like you who's probably got up three hours

37:34

before me. He's crossing Williamsburg

37:37

Bridge heading to JFK and it's the

37:39

so you want that kind of inspirational this is my

37:41

town and uplifting kind of moments. And if you're

37:43

here, first feed of the day is my

37:46

notification screen on my phone curated

37:50

to the point where my most optimized.

37:52

So give me a sense of what's in the compleatly

37:54

breaking news and notifications? Right, Trump,

37:58

right, important emails, senior

38:00

client, something that I'm tagged

38:02

in, saved from my wife to make sure that I

38:05

heard it. Like it something you're

38:07

tagged in by your work, So Cheryl

38:10

tags you, right, So Cheryl taggs

38:12

you. You have a notification to tell

38:14

you to like something your wife into

38:17

someone else's social media. I'm optimized.

38:19

My life horrible. It

38:22

makes my life much much easier. No, I

38:25

mean, it's the food of love in your face. It

38:27

is. I that's incredible. That's

38:29

one of the all time great podcast admissions.

38:33

I mean, I don't know how many podcasts admissions there

38:35

have been. That's an absolute beauty. That's

38:37

great. Should I tell you mine? I saw my Twitter

38:40

in a rather Lord shast Be kind of way,

38:43

because if I haven't got any notifications

38:46

in Twitter, as in a mention

38:48

or a retweet, I seriously

38:50

question the possibility of my

38:52

own existence at that moment. I'm a perfect

38:55

narcissist, and it's the only

38:57

way I know I've existed. And I think we

38:59

get crucial moment on tageline

39:02

when the question is what's what's

39:04

my tagline? Yeah? That's good?

39:07

Is your tagline? Actually a tagline? Is your tagline?

39:09

And emoji? Fair enough? Yes? I

39:11

do like emoji is quite a bit, but no,

39:13

I actually have a tagline. It sounds morbid,

39:16

but it's not. Tagline is hashtag

39:18

Conversations from the Grave, which

39:21

is the title of a book I started

39:23

writing, which is about how we

39:25

converse with people who are no longer

39:27

physically here otherwise died,

39:30

but they live on through AI and machine

39:32

learning and deep learning. Right, and so I

39:35

think that six ft deep learning, Yes

39:37

exactly. It was the idea I had of what

39:39

would it be like if we could listen to the conversation

39:41

between Elon Musk and Albert Einstein

39:44

or J. J. Abrahams and Walt Disney, or

39:46

Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. I want

39:48

to listen to those conversations, right, so that I thought,

39:50

well, Okay, that's going to happen in the near future

39:53

in our lifetime. Stuff beautiful.

39:55

I'm loving, absolutely pitched

39:58

the story. Have you pitched the tag have and see?

40:00

I've just been writing it. I've got a slight fear

40:02

of peaking early on the

40:04

subject of taglines, and Paul,

40:07

what's your tagline? It would be hashtag

40:09

make yourself uncomfortable. I

40:11

got to that tagline after Actually

40:14

I've never been I will go to

40:16

my grave not being happy.

40:18

I mean, I'm a happy person, but actually

40:20

thinking there's something around the corner that

40:23

I should be doing. So obviously it

40:26

means that I've actually done lots of things.

40:28

Even in my career. I probably never been in a job more

40:30

than about eight years. And it's also

40:32

I think very relevant to what we've been Make

40:34

yourself uncomfortable means every single day, whether

40:37

it's having a cold shower occasionally in the

40:39

morning, that it immediately makes me do

40:41

that every moe every morning because it makes me uncomfortable

40:43

totally that I love that. And then actually

40:46

make yourself uncomfortable brilliant,

40:48

literally sitting down with

40:50

people who I have no

40:53

idea what they're talking about, but I have to be

40:55

uncomfortable with people around

40:57

me. These brilliant misfits who work at Canvas,

41:00

and they make me uncomfortable every day because

41:02

you know what, that's part of just learning.

41:05

If you just sit there in your comfort zone,

41:07

we're all going to just die. Okay, before you to go

41:09

get a room. And

41:13

what's your tagline? I'm gonna steal an album

41:15

title? Is that all right? Of

41:18

the most recent album from a tribe called Quest.

41:20

It's rooted in the notion that

41:23

I enjoy watching the status

41:25

quo die like a disgusting,

41:28

ugly death, and industrial complex is

41:30

kind of not realize what's happening

41:32

to them. So I'm gonna go with we got it from here.

41:34

Thank you for your service. So my

41:36

tagline is one over today's

41:39

datas and the words best before

41:42

I'd like to thank and Schaeffer, Paul

41:45

Willington, Visen Rosenthal.

41:47

This has been tagline. Thank you for

41:49

being here. Thanks

41:52

and thank you Bullet

41:54

Bourbon, our trustee and loyal

41:56

and motivating sponsor Palmer.

42:08

You've been listening to tagline presented

42:10

by our friends at Bullet Frontier Whiskey

42:13

at the Bullet Distilling Company, Louisville,

42:15

Kentucky. Please drink responsibly. We

42:17

want to hear what you thought. Join the

42:19

discussion on Twitter now by using the hashtag

42:22

tagline. Check out our next episode

42:25

as Droga five founder David droga

42:27

In, Cindy Gallup, founder of If

42:29

We Ran the World, and Make Love Not Porn.

42:32

Join I Heart Media CMO Gail

42:34

Troberman for a brash conversation

42:36

about the value of creativity. Catch

42:39

all of our episodes at i heart radio dot

42:41

com, slash tagline in the I heart

42:43

Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

42:50

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