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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
Tim Spengler: Greetings, humans. Welcome to this special collaborative edition between Brands, Beats and Bytes and Lead Human. I'm Tim Spangler, joined by two former Coke execs, Darryl "DC" Cobbin and Larry Taman, currently co-managing partners of Brand Positioning Doctors, and also the co-hosts of the Brands, Beats and Bytes podcast, along with my co-host from Lead Human, the 50-year observer, futurist, and prolific author, Mr. Jack Myers. And together today we are gonna talk about something that is near and dear to our hearts, and hopefully yours as well. And the title of it is Long Live Brand, If the Spreadsheet Don't Kill It First.
DC: Say it, Tim. Say it.
Tim Spengler: I mean, how ... Do we feel it or what?
LT: Yes.
Tim Spengler: And with two former Coke execs, just so you know, let me do a little resume here.
A little, little resume shout-out. One who took Powerade national, and the other who championed one of the greatest brand pivots of all time, taking s- changing Sprite to Obey Your Thirst. Those two, that would be Larry and DC, in that order. Those two will have a lot to say about this topic. Um, and we're gonna do today's show in three acts.
The first act, led by Jack, the uber observer of our industry, uh, he will lay out critical facts about the state of the state. We're calling that, naturally, Just the Facts, Jack.
LT: Love it.
Tim Spengler: We will move into act two, where Larry will take those facts and lead us in a conversation of the So What. Mm. What are the implications with these facts, with the State of the State?
Over to DC for act three, into the Now What. What the hell do we do about it? We'll close out with some final thoughts and an opportunity one more time to make fun of each other- ... for the four of us, and we'll be done. Uh, oh, and one last thing In an ode to ESPN commentators Dave Pasch and, and, uh, his former partner, God rest his soul, Bill Walton-
LT: The late great.
Tim Spengler: Right, the late great. We are completely unrehearsed. We know the topic that we just laid out, but we have absolutely no idea what each other is going to say. Yeah. So with that, I wish everybody luck. Have fun. Um, and I, I, um, I see DC chomping at the bit over there. DC, what do you got?
DC: Uh, I need to set, I need to set up Jack.
Tim Spengler: Yes, sir.
DC: Okay. And I, and I know that you were likely gonna do it, Tim, but, but I gotta do this. I gotta do this for Jack.
LT: Especially for our Brand Nerds, D.
DC: Es- especially for the Brand Nerds.
Tim Spengler: Take the baton. Take the baton.
DC: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So- Fast.
Jack Myers: Run fast
DC: All right. Run fast. Okay. NBA season started this week, Brand Nerds, so I'm watching, I'm watching this slate of NBA games, uh, this week.
By the way, congratulations, Tim, and all you Knicks fans, 53 years in the making, yet, uh, Knick, for those of you all ... uh, Knicks fans, for those of you all who are listening to this podcast and are not looking at Tim right now, he's pointing back at a Knicks T-shirt and a, and his ticket to the finals game and all of that.
But I digress. I digress. I'm watching one of the games, and I'm seeing, uh, a commercial for Muse. So Muse, as you all know, is an AI app. In fact, it is the number one AI app currently in the Apple App Store, ahead of both Claude, Anthropic's, and ChatGPT.
LT: And Meta backed-
DC: Yep ...
LT: it's, it's a Meta company.
DC: Thank you very much, Larry.
It's, it's Meta backed. It's the number three app overall, so not just AI. It's the number one three, uh, number, number of three app overall. And I'm looking at this ad. It has this guy that's running. He's running, got his glasses on. In the background is a track, and the track that's playing is an iconic track called Hustlin' by none other than Rick Ross, the Boss.
This is a hip hop track for you all that don't know. And as I'm, as I'm witnessing this, I'm thinking to myself, "There's a collision of culture, a hip hop track, and commerce through technology and AI of Muse coming together at the same time." And that reminded me of my brother, Jack Myers. Back in the day when I was at Coke, I used to listen to, I used to listen to hip hop and read The Source magazine, shout Dave Mays, and Rap Sheet Uh, shout, uh, Darryl James.
That was my culture and my commerce with Jack Myers with The Myers Report. That was my collision of culture and commerce, and it allowed- Nice ... me to be smart enough to know at the time that I could, along with a team of really smart people, put together culture and commerce in a brand called Sprite through a campaign called Obey Your Thirst.
So I am elated to be here before you all today with my brother Jack Myers. And with that, Jack Give us Just the facts.
Jack Myers: Just the facts, Jack.
Tim Spengler: Nice, DC, that was lovely.
Jack Myers: That was lovely So what an intro. That was. Let's go. I've got six facts- Okay ... that are setting up Acts 2 and Acts 3. Now, these are facts that are related to the brand and the marketing.
Fact number one, the CMO title is disappearing. Only 36% of Fortune 500 companies now have a named chief marketing officer, down from 55% in 2024. So are we witnessing the decline of marketing, marketing leadership, or a redistribution of power just under new titles? Number two, CEOs are losing confidence in marketing's ability to drive growth.
Only 19% of CEOs now give their marketing department high marks for driving growth, down from 31% just a year ago, which raises the question of whether CMOs have an effectiveness problem, a measurement problem, or a corporate power problem. Hmm. Number three, AI infrastructure is concentrating more and more power into the marketing and into the organization.
As you mentioned, Muse, Meta and Amazon together will invest about $350 billion this year in capital expenditures almost all around building their AI platform, an investment scale that could give them even greater influence over advertising, media, and culture. Today 61% of the ad budget goes to Google and Meta and Amazon.
Marketing controls, number four, marketing controls some AI spending, but it doesn't control the AI agenda. So roughly half of CMOs or marketing leaders, brand leaders lead AI investment, but just within the marketing infrastructure, and 72% of AI decision-making is at the CEO and CFO and IT level. So marketers don't have a hand in the overall integration of AI across marketing and the rest of the organization.
Number five, procurement and agencies are inhabiting different realities. 54% of marketing procurement executives- And that is a title now, marketing procurement, describe their relationship with agencies and extremely or very healthy, 54%. But only 15% of agency leaders believe the relationships they have with their client procurement teams are healthy.
Procurement believes it's maximizing marketing value, while agencies believe procurement is minimizing cost. 55% of procurement respondents strongly believe they understand the economic value of successful marketing, but only 5% of agencies agree. So is procurement- Whoa ... protecting marketing's value or, or commoditizing it?
And last but not least, the consumer side that we'll take up in part three. Consumers are signaling an AI trust problem with advertising and marketing. More than half of consumers prefer brands that avoid generative AI, that are, are authentic human connections in customer-facing content. 68%, uh, question whether what they're encountering is real, and they want to know the difference, meaning AI may reduce the cost of producing advertising while dramatically increasing the cost of earning trust.
Mm. So together, these six, I think, Larry, create a coherent conversation for you to take off the diminishing value of the CMO, the transfer of power to procurement, the AI opening, and is it positive for marketing, procurement's influence, and the risk of separating advertising from culture. So Larry, take it away.
LT: Jack, that's such great setup, really great. Uh, um, one quick item that I'd love all of us to comment on, that I'm gonna do right away is-
Tim Spengler: Your baseball hat?
LT: What's that?
Tim Spengler: Is it your baseball hat?
LT: Yeah, right.
Tim Spengler: Okay.
LT: The, the, one, the one quick item though seriously is that when it comes to the point, Jack, that you made about, you know, that basically consumers are saying they want transparency when it comes to advertising, at the end of the day, and we- DC and I were on a panel at Georgia Tech, um, about a year ago, and it came up, we were with the Coca-Cola folks who run the AI ads that Coca-Cola's been embracing.
At the end of the day, and Coke found this in their research and, uh, everywhere I've read, you better just have good advertising, good ... You, if you have good shit, whether it's AI or not, that's what people care about. They're too busy to worry about. If you ask them that question, yeah, they're gonna answer that way, but your marketing best be good first.
That's the most important thing. Would you guys agree with that?
Jack Myers: Well, I, I'd argue that most advertising I look at I don't think is particularly good.
LT: Agreed.
Jack Myers: So will AI help it be better?
DC: That, r- right. Well said, Jack. Mm-hmm. D, what do you think on that? Uh, go ahead, Tim. Look, you, you, you were about to say something, brother, go ahead.
Tim Spengler: Oh, sure. Well, I co- it doesn't matter. Um, I, when I listen to that and think about it, I think of the word authentic. Whether it, whe- it has to be authentic.
LT: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: Um, and I think that's why influencers are so important now.
LT: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: The reason that they matter so much, because for the most part, let's, even though they're on the take, even, even though they're being paid now, Druski gets paid just like George Clooney-
DC: Oh, yeah.
Tim Spengler: That's right ... to, to talk about an ad, okay? But they're quote, unquote, "authentic." And so I think, right, if you wanna use AI to be more efficient, whatever, fine, but it better be authentic. If it's inauthentic, you're gonna get hammered.
LT: Great, great point. Great point. All right, so let's get to the bigger picture.
DC: So- hold on, Larry, I do, I do wanna comment on this really quick.
LT: Please, go ahead, D. Sorry.
DC: So there, there w- there was a quote back in the day, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it went something like, "Nothing kills a bad product like great advertising." Right. So I think that was the paraphrase, and I'm going to where Jack was.
I think today, if you've got bad marketing-
LT: Mm-hmm ...
DC: nothing can kill a brand-
LT: Right ...
DC: faster than bad marketing on AI.
LT: Right. That's right.
DC: That, that's my thought, but go, go ahead, Larry.
LT: Whether it's AI or not,
DC: is the- When, whether it's AI or not, yes.
LT: Yes. Yeah, agreed. All right. So the larger context here, guys, is this is great stuff that Jack set up for all six of those facts.
What lo- there's lots of headwinds, dare, dare we say this year, for marketers everywhere. Um, and the procurement issue is a special challenge that, dare I say, the four of us navigate every day, and by the way, our direct clients are, are always helping us navigate it too, and they deal with it all the time.
They deal with it in some ways worse than we have. DC and I have stories we won't get into right now. O- on the AI front, given the gravity in all its tentacles, uh, DC and I have been saying on Brand Speeds and Bytes for years now that we pra- and we practice this ourselves, as a marketer, you best get your brain fully wrapped around it, especially as it relates to how consumers in B2C and customers in B2B are using and interfacing with AI.
So this leads me to the conversation point, uh, with a little context first. Um, it is our opinion at Brands, Beats & Bytes, the best and most successful marketers in 1957 and 1997 and 2027 take the lead role in owning the relationship your brand has with consumers for B2C and customers in B2B. So with all of this flying There's a question and that may be morphed into a challenge for all of us.
So right now, in tw- in 2026 going into 2027, can marketing leaders, whether you have the CMO title or not, figure out a way to own the relationship with consumers, B2C customers, uh, B2B, the AI relationship that's happening that Jack all- alluded to big time in his contact, in, in his, in, in his facts? Can the CMO, the marketing leaders own that relationship that their consumers and customers have with AI as it pertains to their brand?
What do you all think about that?
Tim Spengler: D, you wanna go first this time?
DC: Yeah, I will go. Uh, I'm gonna go back in time, 'cause you, you did say 1997, but I'm, I'm ... Let, let me go to Jack's number five fact. P- procurement and agency val- see value, agencies see value very differently. The fact, 54% of procurement executives call their agency relationships healthy.
Of course they would. Of course they would.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Right? Whereas they, uh, versus 15% of agencies, all right? So 55% of procurement leaders believe they understand marketing's economic value. Only 5% of agencies agree.
LT: Think about that. This is- Who are those 5%, by the way, right?
DC: Yeah, this is a chasm. So you mentioned 1997.
I'm gonna go back to 1997, because that is the year that, uh, Steve Jobs of the Apple brand, and let me bring, let me, let me tell, tell you young kiddies something right now. Apple is the second most valuable company in the world today as we, as we sit here, $5.0 trillion, only to be eclipsed by Nvidia at 5.12.
So they're basically the same. Yep. Mm-hmm. $5 trillion in market cap value. Mm-hmm. So in 1997, he launches Think Different, this campaign. Go look it up. This is what brought Apple back. He gives a wonderful speech. What was going on before he was reinstalled as the CEO? I know he's the CEO, but he functioned more like the CMO, the keeper-
LT: Yep
DC: of the brand. His whole speech is about the brand, Tim, Jack, and Larry. What was going on before he was installed? They were running an RFP. 23 agencies were in the mix. This is procurement, you guys. They were all over this thing. We're gonna go look at 23 agencies, and whichever one comes back with the right price and the best idea, we're gonna procure them.
He said, "No. I understand the consumer. I understand the soul of this brand. We're going with one, and on this one, we're gonna come out of it with what we need." It was Think Different. We need people who understand the soul of the brand- Yeah ... as well as the soul of con- the consumer and how they come together.
Jack Myers: Right. And that was Chiat Day, which had media and advertising and creative together. Yes. Because that Apple commercial was as much the media choice-
LT: Yes
Jack Myers: ... in the Super Bowl as it was the creative.
DC: Correct, Jack.
Tim Spengler: Right. Correct. And that always triggers for me the, the great, um, I think summation of this. Is marketing an expense or an investment?
LT: Ooh.
Tim Spengler: And the way you approach your key partnerships- Is that an expense or an investment? Mm, p- procurement often has different goals-
LT: Yes ...
Tim Spengler: than marketing, which is a little scary.
LT: Mm-hmm.
Tim Spengler: But if you ... You know, there's a funny quote Michael Farmer, uh, had the other day. He's an industry prognos- pr- prognosticator, and he said that, "For the last 35 years, agencies have, have uh, clients have been looking for 2% more and looking to pay 2% less," each year for 35 years.
DC: Ah, yeah. Yeah. That's good.
Tim Spengler: Hello-
LT: Yeah. Aggregate that, right?
Tim Spengler: Right. Hello, commoditization. Right. And so is it an expense or is it an investment? And rarely do you cost cut your ... Fine. Congratulations, you found 3% of fat in the agency staffing or whatever.
Right. But rarely do you cost cut your way to success.
DC: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: And what were you being measured on by your likely CFO or CEO? What was your KPIs? Were they the same as marketing's? And when they're not, this is when companies can struggle, because you make it an expense, not an investment.
Jack Myers: Tim, that's a great point to follow up on, because another fact is that a majority of CEOs say the first thing they cut when profitabil- when profitability is down is marketing budget.
DC: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: I, I just wanna say one more thing. I want ... I would like p- anyone who has them to, to send them our way. I would like case studies that where cheaper media delivered better results. Yeah. I can't wait to hear about them. I will eat them up. I will eat them up.
Jack Myers: Well, that goes back to Michael Farmer.
Tim Spengler: Cheaper media, better results. Not gonna happen.
Jack Myers: You, you quote Michael Farmer, who also showed that I think only 12 of the Fortune 200, uh, companies, major advertisers, show growth more than 2% over the last decade.
DC: Right.
Jack Myers: And yet they're- and they're cutting, they're moving marketing into advertising. Now, I'm gonna take a little responsibility for this, and I'm gonna go back also to 1997, 1995, '96, '97, when I was the lead consultant with General Motors, when we went from 17 media buying and planning AORs heading, uh, to one integrated media buying, uh, that was centralized at the time under I- under McCann, IPG, called GM Media Works.
And then two, three years later, 1997, '98, media buying and planning came together under me- uh, under, uh, at, at Starcom, at Publicis. And, uh, that was really the beginning of the commoditization. They broke the rate card at Conde Nast, and they made- they separated creative from media buying and planning. And I think that was the beginning of what we're seeing today of an industry that has completely separated media from marketing.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Ah.
Jack Myers: So we're talking about brand, we're talking about marketing, but media buying has become a commodity, and the agency holding company has separated out their buying operations because of the profitability, and they've become the masters of procurement and commoditization. Their job function is to re- is to reduce the cost of media not to bring greater effectiveness to advertising or marketing, and that's the core of it, I believe
LT: Y- you're totally right, and I wanna make one more point before we throw it to DC for what we do now, un- unless, uh, you know, uh, we have, uh, other things that we wanna hit.
But I have one big thing, and it goes back to what I, what the question I posed. DC and I learned this at Coca-Cola, and at the end of the day, it's all about connecting with consumers B2C, customers B2B. And n- all the stuff that we're talking about is nice to save a couple of dollars, but as soon as you're cutting fat, and what we're als- I think we're all suggesting is a lot of muscle's being cut with procurement and all these things that are happening.
And so how can we rise above- Yeah ... right now with 2027, and still as marketers, can we still own those re- those brand relationships with the, with the consumer B2C, customer B2B? Can we do that? That's a segue, D. What do you think? To, to you, you know, what do we do now?
DC: Uh, thanks, Larry, for the, uh, for the rock.
Now, I keep, I keep seeing Tim from t- t- time to time, he puts his hand up like Jalen Brunson, like he wants to rock. You want the rock, Tim? No Or you want me to, you would take it?
Tim Spengler: You got it, LeBron.
DC: I got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I, I'm the first one. Oh,
Jack Myers: LeBron. He's, he's the- Yeah ... anti-Knick these days.
DC: I know.
He is the anti-Knick. One game. He, he certainly was in game one on ring night.
Jack Myers: He was.
Tim Spengler: Whatever.
Jack Myers: Well.
DC: I'm, I'ma keep going here.
Tim Spengler: Good.
DC: So where do we go from here, gentlemen? Yeah. I wanna go back to, uh, Jack's point number four on, uh, Just the Facts, Jack, and it, it was about marketing is beginning to reclaim control over AI investment.
I wanna parse this a bit. Here's the deal, marketers With regard to the architecture and foundation of the technology, that's not going to be yours.
Tim Spengler: Right.
DC: The CEO, the CFO, the CTO- Right ... the CIO- Right ... that is going to be their decision, and it should be. Right. Yep. Don't get in the way of that. Like, don't, don't worry about that.
However, when you're a CMO, you need to walk in the door, earn your seat at the table, at talking about why the architecture, why that exists. Let me use an analog. The CEO, the CFO, the CTO, the CIO, they build the house. To Larry's point, the CMO should be telling those other C-suite executive who lives in the house-
LT: Mm-hmm
DC: why they live in the house, and what the house is for. That's understanding the consumer and the soul of the brand, and how they tether together. This is what I think should happen next. Your thoughts, gentlemen.
Jack Myers: I have a question for you there, DC. Uh, if, if the marketing is controlling the application, while IT, the CEO, the CFO are controlling the architecture, the building- Yes
uh, uh, uh, ca- can... a- and the data and the investment, can, uh, is marketing-
DC: I, I, I didn't say the data, now. I didn't say the data.
Jack Myers: Okay.
DC: The, the investment. Investment, yes.
Tim Spengler: You said, you said the infrastructure.
Jack Myers: Okay. Yeah.
Tim Spengler: Yeah, infrastructure. You said the infrastructure.
DC: Yes.
Tim Spengler: I, I... Right. I, I, I think that there's a lot of talk about, you know, short-term goals, long-term brand health.
Public companies have always, let me just say, before I, uh, agree with some of the griping, public companies have always had to report quarterly. That's not new.
DC: Mm.
Tim Spengler: They've always had quarterly pressures.
DC: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: I think what can happen with technology, and some of it driven by AI, is if the CMO has the ability to have control of the analytics-
DC: Mm-hmm
Tim Spengler: here's what's going on, and report that up consistently- And have control of, so that's the sales analytics. And have control of the brand health analytics.
DC: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: If you can be giving both, I think you have the ability to be the thought leader around this whole thing because you can connect, as you guys were saying, customer to consumer and sh- and now, and shopper.
We have more data to know about shopper too, right? So c- customer, consumer- Right ... shopper. So I think if you do, if, if you're rigorous around both, I think you can take a lot of the con- you can take a lot of the rightful, uh, uh, pole position, prime position in going where we need to go to get better sales.
LT: Y- that's a great insight, Tim, and I'm gonna use the word insight again. The insight, D, we always talk about this, is the most important thing. You can have a bunch of analytics and metrics, but you gotta make sense of it in the analysis, and then what are the insights and what are the implications going forward?
And, uh, and, and that's where you were going, Tim, I, I know, is that if you can own both and really not just report the, w- what the metrics are, but what are the implications and the insights that we're gonna extract from it, and what do we do now? Um, if you can own all of that, and you should own all of that, I think that's what we're saying.
Right. Yeah. You have to own all of that, then you're in a much different situation than, than, uh, hopefully getting your seat at the table. You have to take it.
Tim Spengler: Right. Who else? Who else wants to go?
Jack Myers: Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw y- We're talking about the brand connection with the consumer.
LT: Yep.
Jack Myers: We're talking about the agency.
Let's talk about the media and the fact that 60% and growing percentage of the media budget, the advertising budget, is going to Meta, Google, Amazon, that commerce has been added in as one-
LT: Yeah
Jack Myers: ... of the quali- qualities, that the media industry is moving toward performance measures, i.e. sales, i.e. last touch.
And the reality is that in 1997 when that Apple commercial broke through, there wasn't Meta, there wasn't Google, there wasn't Amazon. And media, the networks, the magazines had an emotional connection-
LT: Yes ...
Jack Myers: with the consumer. That is disappearing and not being valued. Except for sports and big events and live content and some news, advertising is measured only by impressions and not by that emotional connection.
So when we're talking about connecting the brand to the consumer, we're talking about making a connection- Yes ... of some type. And when media, when that connection is not being valued by the system that's been put in place and the data system that's taken over the industry, and the procurement teams that are evaluating only, and there's only the efficiency, and there's 43% fraud or misplaced, 65% fraud or misplaced, uh, allocation in the digital side of the business, then how do you go back, and, and this is a question for each of you, how do we recreate what existed in 1997 when the emotional connection between the brand and the media and the consumer existed that doesn't exist today?
Tim Spengler: Is that partly why we have less bl- brand growth? Is that, is that partly-
Jack Myers: Exactly
Tim Spengler: ... why we have less brand growth because we've, we've tried to number ourselves, uh, out of growth?
LT: D, I saw you had your hand up.
DC: I did. Uh, I'm gonna give you one word, Jack. It's a great question, and then I'm gonna give you a sample size of one, which is dangerous, but then it can be backed up.
My one-word answer of what we had more of then that we have less of now is trust.
LT: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
DC: That's my one-word answer. Um, however, let me give you my- Mm-hmm ... uh, sample size. Uh, I've been using all of the AI platforms, well, not all, most of them, for a while now. I started on ChatGPT, and that was the one I was on for a long time.
Then something happened where, um, Claude made a decision that they were not going to allow their platform to be used in a certain way. Now, I knew they were out there for a while, Jack, but it just felt to me that they were making a moral statement that they did not want their platform, their technology, used for something.
Mm-hmm. And then I started getting curious about them, uh, Jack, Tim, and Larry. What's, what's this Claude thing? Then I looked up Anthropic. What, what's the meaning of the word? And I found out it means in Greek human being. Then I started checking out their CEO, and I thought, "Okay, he, this is a gnarly area, AI, but he's trying.
He's at least trying to buffer." I switched, Jack. I switched to use Claude. Right after that, Claude became the number one app, the number one app in AI. What happened, Jack, is I started to trust Claude more as a brand. They weren't talking to me through traditional advertising. They were telling me what they believe through their actions.
In 1997, what Apple told me through that advertising was what they believe. That still holds true today. It may not be through a 30-second ad, Jack, but brands today can still tell us what they believe, and then I as the consumer or customer get to choose whether I trust them or not.
Jack Myers: They've gotta find a place where they communicate and build that trust, and if that's not with trusted media between the brand and the consumer, then how do they create that trust?
LT: Yeah. That's a great question, and I think what DC's saying, though, is that, you know, sometimes that when you don't communicate, when- if you don't say something, that says a lot, right? Um, and so especially with all this, everything that's around with AI, I think we all have gotten a little bit more, um, aggressive in thinking what's best for us as it relates to which, which AIs.
And- and, uh, you know, I too have tried them and- and it's funny, I- I- I've found Claude's work. I use Claude for work, you know, and I use Chat and Gemini more for personal, but then I morph Gemini into some work because I wanna ... I don't wanna just rely on Claude, right? So it's, it's very interesting the way this, this all works out.
I know Tim is s- I know Tim's got something to say on this.
Tim Spengler: No, I was just say- well, these are enablers. Like, great. Do it. Yeah. These are enablers to better work if used, I guess, if used the right way. Good. Great.
Jack Myers: I- I- I'll add, you talk about Claude, which is the one of the ma- of the majors that is not selling advertising-
LT: Right
Jack Myers: and competing for search right now.
DC: Yeah.
Jack Myers: Uh, yesterday, uh, OpenAI announced that it had generated $100 million in advertising this year, was projecting, selling in 89 countries. And, uh, Gemini, Grok, uh, Copilot, all, uh, all sell- being in the ad sales business. I've, I've believe that they're going to disintermediate the holding companies by taking on the full marketing funnel at OpenAI, and I think Anthropic.
And Accenture Song is another one. They're investing a billion dollars in AI to lay onto their, what they do now, which is consulting, media, creative, Droga5. Uh, the full marketing funnel i- is the holding company and the problems we've been talking about with the way they're siloed going to be disintermediated.
LT: Oof. Yeah.
Tim Spengler: We shall see.
LT: That's crazy, Jack, when you say $100 million. Think about that, and y- you gotta believe they're just barely scratching the surface on that.
Jack Myers: Well, they're- they've projected 100 billion for the AI category by 2030. So, yeah.
LT: That's ... Th- there you go. Um- Didn't know that number. Of course, you do.
Tim Spengler: Anybody, anything else before we get to cl- close? Any of, anybody else have any deep thoughts?
DC: I j- I just, uh, one comment. I don't know if it's a deep thought or not. Hm. Marketing people, don't give up the fight.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Yeah, don't, don't give up the fight. Uh, understanding the soul of the brand, understanding culture and commerce and how they go together.
I love where, uh, Tim, where you were going. The, uh, the analytics in addition to the brand up together, brand health metrics together. Uh, sales, uh, analytics, and brand health metrics together. This gives you power. The further you are as marketers away from the consumer, the more perilous, to Larry's point, uh, you, you are.
Tim Spengler: I, I'm glad you liked it, and I wish I thought of it myself, but our friend and guru, Mr. Jim Trebilcock, the former CMO of Dr. Pepper Snapple, made me smarter for this conversation. Oh. And that was, that was his, one of my favorite takes from what he said, isn't, but, yeah. I sh- I'm glad you referenced it. I
DC: should've, I should've known that came from Jim T. And not you, Tim. I should've known that.
Tim Spengler: Always sweet. Always sweet.
LT: Jim is brilliant.
Tim Spengler: So thank you, Jim. Um, all right, gentlemen, so we, I don't know if that was the beginning or the end of act three or the beginning of act four with the don't give up the fight, but we are now at the close, and we all have an opportunity for any, any last thoughts before we, as they say on PTI, get on out of here.
Um, Jack, anything you want to finish off with?
Jack Myers: I'll, I'll close with Pogo: We have met the enemy and it is us. The media, advertising, and marketing community's greatest enemy or danger or threat is not AI, it is itself, its own institutions, its own trade associations, and its own failure to recognize the importance and value of the emotional connection that the media has with the consumer, and therefore, that the brand has.
And the trust, the trusted relationship that brands need to have with consumers needs to first and foremost be through the media, and that has collapsed
LT: Jack, that's brilliant. Completely agree. Uh, Tim, I'm, uh, okay if I go now?
Tim Spengler: Absolutely.
LT: So I'm gonna morph into, uh, my close to take some of what DC said and Jack said and, and hopefully take it up another level.
You know, what Jack is saying, it's sort of like, uh, a basketball team at the end of the game is throwing the ball away, and it's unforced turnovers, right? And so what DC's saying is, we gotta take the ball, marketers. We gotta take the ball now- Right ... and make a play. And making that play goes back to the fundamentals of what we talked about is own that relationship with your consumer and customer.
And we talked about the different tentacles that it take. Tim made a brilliant observation about the metrics, and then the insights it goes. But if you go back to the fundamentals of owning the relationship that your brand has with the consumer or customer, that's the ticket for the future.
Tim Spengler: D, you wanna go?
DC: I do.
Tim Spengler: Okay.
DC: I've got two questions that I'd like to leave the audience with. Each of the questions has four words, and if you can't answer these two questions. Problemo. All right.
LT: If D, there's no threes. This is four. This is deep. I know.
Tim Spengler: This is, this is stretch. This is H. This is, this is gross.
LT: Everyone, it's going to four words, not three.
DC: I, I'm off the reservation, gentlemen. I don't know what I'm gonna do about this. All right. The first question you need to ask yourself, as a brand, what do we believe? That's the f- you need to answer that question. You need to have an answer to that question. And the second question is, why does that matter?
That's to the consumer or to your customer. Know the answers to those two questions before you start searching for your analytics or your brand health data. At the top, know that. Let that be your North Star. Tim?
Tim Spengler: So you know in Ted Lasso how the sign belief is above the locker room?
DC: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Tim Spengler: Both for the men's and the women's.
I've got a version, maybe you guys can make it better, but I wanna end on I've got a version of that for marketers.
DC: Oh, let's hear it.
Tim Spengler: If the sign was something like, meet a wa- meet a want or a need and change a belief.
LT: Hm.
Tim Spengler: Ah. We could put that sign above maybe even the CFOs or CMOs, everybody's- Yeah ... w- with the same blue and yellow, same just that sign above the office as we walk in to go do great marketing and build great brands and do great business.
Maybe that's what we sh- maybe that's what the hell this is about.
DC: Say it again, Tim, please.
Tim Spengler: Meet a want or a need and change a b- or change a belief.
DC: Got it.
Tim Spengler: Isn't that what the hell we're trying to do?
DC: Yeah.
Tim Spengler: Somebody smart told me that, too. I wish I made that one up, but it doesn't matter. I'm championing it.
DC: That's good.
LT: You are.
DC: That's good, Tim. Very good. Thank you. That's awesome. I think that's a mic drop.
Tim Spengler: Should we close with that?
Jack Myers: I just wanna add that Tim was at the game where the Knicks came back by tw- from 29 points down, the greatest comeback ever, and marketing has it in it to do another great comeback of the power-
LT: There you go
Jack Myers: of the CMO
DC: Ah, that's a, that's a great segue, Jack. Unfortunately, our super producer, Jade, I'm telling you right now, Jade, clip that out of this episode, okay? You edit this out. I don't wanna hear another story about the goddamn Knicks, okay?
Tim Spengler: Y- you know what I learned, which was surprising? I tried to change my son's name to Jalen but he's over 21, and I did not have the ability to actually do that.
I thought I could just do that, and he was able to reject me. Okay, thank you all for playing, you threes. And, uh, thank you everyone for listening. I hope you had a little fun and got a little bit out of our conversation today, and the perspective of these gentlemen about where we are and where we could certainly go.
Um, and if you enjoyed the episode, I hope, we all hope you did, please go ahead and share it. We'd love more people to hear about it and think about these issues, challenges, and opportunities that are in front of anyone in the media marketing ecosystem. Um, you can find Brands, Beats and & on any of the platforms where podcasts are hosted, as well as the same for Lead Human.
And, uh, let's keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
DC: Let, let's, let's shout, let's shout out Acast for Lead Human. Let's, let's shout out Acast.
Tim Spengler: Acast, part of the, part of, part of the Acast Creator Network, so thank you, thank you to Acast. And, um, and find us anywhere as well. Thanks everybody for listening.