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Album 5 Track 2 - What's Poppin? Our Take on Culture, Customer Service, & Comedy
We are excited to bring you snackable content through our 'What's Poppin?" episodes.
Join us as we dive into current topics affecting or involving the brand and marketing space.
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
DC: Brand Nerds, brand Nerds, Brand Nerds. We are still here in January, 2023, so although we are deep into this month of, uh, of January, we will still bid you Brand Nerds a belated happy New Year. And guess what? We got something new for ya'll. Those who have been listening, and even those who are new, we've been blessed to have some of the best business and marketing minds in the world on our podcast.
I still LT, don't know how we got 'em, but we got 'em, right. I feel very blessed about that. Coming up, we're gonna have some ballers, uh, a baller from Zoom, a baller from Hershey. If you all like to chocolate the chocolate from, from Hershey. Coming up here very soon on our, on our podcast, but for 2023, this is our second drop of of the year, and we're gonna do something new.
We know you all like snackable content. Hailey, who's one of the show producers and Jade, who's also one of the show producers, they are quite, uh, quite a bit younger than Larry, Jeff and I. And so they've talked to us about brevity and snackable content and things like that. So we've given y'all something short and we hope that you all enjoy it.
LT, can you put the Brand Nerds down on exactly what we have up our sleeves on this edition of Brands, Beats, and Bytes.
LT: Yes, D would love to. So as DC just said, so, well, while we know you Brand Nerds are super busy, we thought it would be interesting for us with some of our shows to simply do our What's Poppin segment without a guest.
So for those new listeners, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or Simply Air, something happening in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. That'll be the show. But the other super cool thing is our super producer, Jeff Shirley, will be joining DC and I for these episodes.
By the way, Brand Nerds, we have mentioned this before, but worth mentioning again, we each come up with our own What's Popping and don't share it before, since we think this sets up a more genuine conversation. So with that, Jeff, anything you want to add? And if not, we could just go straight to your, what's popping?
JS: All right.
DC: Minute. J J. J. Jeff, who, who, who this? New phone.
JS: You know, you know, I'm excited about this and, um, this is something I've been looking forward to talking about. Okay. My subject is color versus culture as it relates to marketing. Let me explain. I saw a video a few months ago where the cast from Fences, which is an African American story with an African American cast, including Denzel Washington, they were being interviewed by Karen Hunter, and she asked the question, could a white director direct Fences?
And Denzel's reply was, it's not about color, it's about culture, and he gave this example, he said, Steven Spielberg did Schindler's List and Martin's um, Scorsese did Goodfellows. Now he said Steven Spielberg could have done, um, could direct Goodfellows. In Scorsese probably could have done a good job with Schindler's List.
DC: Oh, okay. Jeff, you're hatching the names.
JS: I'm messing.
DC: Scorsese OK.
Brand
LT: Nerds, you gonna learn that Jeff is, Jeff is, J love names and messing them up. But go ahead J.
JS: Can you get the damn names right? Right.
Could have done a good job with Schindler's List, but their cultural differences.
LT: Yep.
JS: And then he gave an example and he pointed to the all African American cast. There were like eight people she was interviewing at this and he said, you know, I know, we all know what it smells like when a hot comb hits your hair on a Sunday morning. You get that "tsk". And everybody laughed. And then he pointed at, everybody says, see, that's a cultural difference. Now, when I heard ...
DC: Hold, hold on Jeff. Hold on. Jeff, can I just explain something? Those who may not know, I'm, I'm assuming everybody knows, right? Denzel Washington is a Black man. The entire cast was Black. So when he pointed, when he made this point and then he pointed his finger at these folks "tss" you see how they reacted? It was Black folks reacting, Black folks were reacting.
Okay, go, go, go ahead Jeff.
JS: Just points out that that's a cultural difference cuz they got that. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So when I heard. It reminded of me of my experience with Belk, um, which is a, um, the largest privately held department store in the country, and it's based in Charlotte and they have stores all over the Southeast.
So as you, some of me Brandner may know, DC and I attended Clark Atlanta University, which is an HBCU for grad school. One of our fraternity brothers, uh, John James, calls me and says, "Hey, I found a really cool CAU jersey at Belk, and I got you one." And it was really nice. So I went to their website and I noticed a few things.
One, they have a section called The Culture Shop where you find items for Asian heritage, Black culture, wow, Latin, Hispanic heritage, et cetera. Number two. I went to the black culture section, searching for Alabama A&M shirt and Brand Nerds this is where DC and I went for undergrad. Not only did I find several shirts and hoodies, I also find founded African-American Santa Claus carrying an Alabama A&M gift bag.
LT: Wow.
JS: So it was clear to me they understood culture because it connected with me on a cultural level. And then third, I, so I said, I gotta research this. How? How did they do this? I found out they partnered with a sister named Ashley Jones, who owns a company called Tones of Melon, and they sell her products in the store. Right.
LT: Wow.
JS: So shout out to Belt for understanding the difference between color and culture Now. We've seen mistakes by major, um, companies that don't understand culture. An example was Ikea selling watermelon and fried chicken for Juneteenth and Walmart.
LT: Jeff, wait, Jeff, stop for a second. Jeff, you think that is not a joke?
That that's not a joke?
JS: It it really happened, right? It really happened. And, and selling Juneteenth ice cream. So, uh, DC & LT, the question is this, why do so many major corporations miss this?
LT: D I I'd love you to go first on this.
DC: You want me to go first? Okay. Jeff, this is a very interesting and provocative subject.
LT: Yep.
DC: Your premise as, uh, posited by brother Denzel Washington is, it's not color, it's culture. What I find interesting about this, Jeff and Larry, is somehow when color and culture are mentioned together, the populist defaults to color.
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: But when the word culture is mentioned by itself, not so much. For example, Peter Drucker, a world renowned strategist and consultant, one of the top three or four possibly ever. He has a quote, Larry and Jeff that goes as such, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: Now what he is talking about is in the context of the workplace. He's talking about the culture of the workplace being the secret sauce, to have employees and clients that are happy in doing what they need to do, both employees servicing clients and clients loving the, uh, the employees and company and brand because of culture.
My belief is that the best brands in marketing have a deep understanding of the value of culture, not only as it relates to what happens internally, but what happens externally. Quick example, then I want to hear from you. LT, when we were building the Sprite brand and we were connecting it to hip hop culture and NBA early on, we had a cultural insight that those who obeyed their thirst, the most, happened to come from, uh, predominantly, uh, communities of color, uh, more specifically African Americans and that was expressed through hip hop and through basketball. That was a culture point, but there were some who believed we were attempting to make a color point and we were not.
So that's my, that's my takeaway on your what's popping. Jeff that's a good one.
LT: That's a great, I love this What's popping? This is, this is so great for this first episode to do, Jeff. So thank you. This is a perfect lead off, uh, topic. So, you know, what strikes me, gentlemen, is that, uh, I, I go back to the Sergio-ism. We use a lot of Sergio Zein again, Brandon's, uh, uh, world renowned marketer who was, uh, our boss at Coke. He was CMO back at Coke uh, back in the day, and one of Sergio's lines was, that's lazy marketing. Yeah. And it's lazy marketing if you decide what happens, Brand Nerds a lot and DC's talked about this with Sprite.
There was a quantitative insight with Sprite, right, D, which led you to then go down the path that you did as it pertained to, uh, really focusing on urban youth and then emanating out from there. But it was, you saw there was a higher, uh, brand development index. Which is there was a higher propensity for people in that community to like Sprite.
So you built off that quantitative aspect of it, right?
DC: Correct, correct.
LT: Marketing people are very good at that usually, and what happens is then they get lazy. They go, oh, we, there's an opportunity here. Let's take advantage of that opportunity. But you've gotta make sure that if you're going to do something that you don't know about, you better get yourself educated and you better bring the right people in to help you navigate this in a way. Again, the IKEA example, Jeff, that you alluded to, it's, you can't believe this would happen in the 2020s, but it did.
That's just lazy and, and to let that go is just, it's unfathomable, but it goes back to there's no shortcuts. You can't be lazy.
JS: Yep. And, and LT, just to put a bow around it, I, I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I think it's just a simple formula. If you want to market your product to a culture, make sure someone from that culture is involved in the marketing and, and, and you will end up with a much better product.
LT: Said much better than me, Jeff. Thank you. Yes.
DC: Not only involved, Jeff did LT, but has some decision making authority. That's right.
JS: You, thank you, D. Exactly.
DC: Yeah. Decision making authority, and I, and finally I'll say, Uh, consumer segmentation does not replace cultural intelligence. Ooh, ooh, yeah.
LT: Say that again please.
DC: Yeah, yeah. Consumer segmentation does not replace cultural intelligence.
JS: Yeah. Let, let, let's get Haley to TM that. Trademark that. Alright, .
DC: Alright. Uh, Larry, what you got brother?
LT: So, you know, it's funny, it's funny, we know from our many What's Poppins in our a hundred plus episodes, a lot of times they're similar.
And so while mine is different, there's a, a natural, uh, segue to mine. So Brand Nerds. We have in our brand positioning doctors practice, something we call the brand activation wheel and simply all that means is that those are all the elements that in a, let's say in a B2C business, that the consumer, uh, and the brand interact together.
So it's all the consumer touchpoints. So where I'm going with this, While there's no brand or company that can be perfect, making sure that they optimize all their consumer touchpoints. Too often, many of these, uh, elements, the spokes of the brand activation wheel are not optimal. So let me just give you a couple of a quick examples.
So again, as everyone who listens to the show, knows, I'm a Golden State Warriors fan and when they went from Oracle Arena to Chase Center Warriors own Chase Center. A lot of things would happen at Oracle, like just with things like, you know, the food choices and even things down to the napkins and condiments that they would run out of.
And when you would talk to your ticket rep, they'd go, oh, you know, we don't own the building. When we own the building. You know, we'll own it. It'll be great. It's not great. And this is a Warrior's brand that is awesome. And we're very lucky to have good tickets in, in a, in a, we, we, there's a, there's a certain club that's part of our ticket package.
And invariably they don't have napkins. They don't have the ketchup and the mustard marked. These little things that matter. And you know what? It's frustrating. And by the way, there's one of the food lines as long as hell, because the other choices are bad. So you're missing part of the game. Then when you get what you want, you're trying to put mustard on your what, on, on, on your hotdog, and you've hit the thing and it's ketchup because it's not marked right?
And it's not just one game. This is this, this has happened, this has happened all season long. So where I'm going with the, with the, with this, is that when you as a brand are out there, you've gotta make sure that all your element are firing at the best cylinders. And yes, you're gonna mess up and yes, things aren't gonna be perfect, but take ownership of it.
Say you're sorry and correct the mistake. Your thoughts, gentlemen.
DC: What do you think J?
JS: Yeah. Uh, LT, I, I, I love this one. Um, and, and Brand Nerds, i, I have a lot of pet peeves. My business partners tease me about it. This is one of them. When something is out of alignment with what the brand means, and it goes back to what you said, Sergio said, it's lazy marketing.
It's so easy. These aren't difficult things to do. It's not difficult to name, uh, to put the mustard. You know, um, put the words mustard on mustard. It's not hard to have good food. You know, we, DC has the same issue with, um, you know, at, at, at State Farm when the hot dogs are bad. You, you're like, why the, the, these are easy things to fix. So, LT, I'm, I'm completely on board with you. It, it's, it's painful.
DC: One of our prior guest Brand Nerds is, lady by the name of Carol Cruz. She, uh, among her many, uh, roles, she was CMO over at ESPN for a bit. Carol Cruz had a saying that I'm certain that many of you have heard, and that is "Your brand, is your experience."
LT: Love that.
DC: And if the experience at the war, I love that too. If the experience at the Warriors is the food's bad, they can't get the mustard and ketchup right? There are long lines. Then as great as the Warriors are as a team
LT: Yep.
DC: And as a brand for the ticket holders inside , it sucks. Right. And that's gonna, that's gonna take some of the tarnish off of the Golden State Warriors, uh, brand. So, uh, I, I agree with both of you guys. That's, that's unacceptable.
LT: Yeah, and I, I wanted to use a little thing. I've talked about the issues we had with mobile ticketing, and it's still, their app still doesn't work for the Warrior. So here I'm a season ticket holder paying thousands of dollars. I love this team. And to Jeff's point, these are all fixable things. They're now in the second year of mo, halfway through the second year of mobile ticketing, and it's still not right. And so, you know, these are all things that are fixable and I think too often, that people, because they're not the sexy things. People don't pay them enough attention and mm-hmm. you know, like with the call center when you can't, when, when other brands, she, my wife Sherry, had a problem with her HSA card the other day. She was on hold for 57 minutes, finally got somebody and they said, oh, we can't help you. You know, and these are all consumer touchpoints that are, that are all fixable and all tarnish the brand.
It's like when people talk about when you're working out. You're either building muscle or you're losing muscle. And so all these touchpoints, they're either positive or they're negative, and the things that you can control is something that you've gotta make sure that you just optimize in the best way.
In thinking about this guys, um, I actually think there's another opportunity for us on the Brand Positioning Doctor side to do a Brand Activation Wheel audit. To make sure that clients are firing in all cylinders here because this is, this is should be easy stuff to fix.
DC: It's a great idea, LT.
JS: It's a great idea.
DC: All right. My what's popping jenz is the power of human, um, excuse me, the power of humor and the remaking of brands. The power of humor, and the remaking of brands. Article here, June 22nd, 2020, Stanford Business Review. And the title is "Make 'em Laugh, how Humor Can Be the Secret Weapon in Your Communication."
Communication is obviously I is not, obviously communication is a essential element of branding. I'm gonna read you the opening paragraph. "Humor does more than just make people laugh. It allows you to connect with your audience, diffuse tension, elevate status, foster trust, and compel others to your point of view. Humor can also help you and your message stand out, yet most of us hesitate to use humor, especially in our professional lives." Eddie Murphy was just on the stage of the Golden Globes giving the Cecil B Demille award. I think is a lifetime achievement, kind of. It is award in, um, in, in film, and thank you Larry.
And he, he closes it with a dead pan after talking about the things that he's accomplished and that he's thankful for. He says, I got three pieces of advice for you all. Three pieces. And it's sounding like it's more for the younger. Watching and in the audience, they wanna know how to be successful in Hollywood.
He says, number one, pay your taxes. Number two, mind your business. And number three, keep Will Smith's wife out your fucking mouth. Okay. And he brought, he brought the house down. I say this guys, because through him doing that, it may be the first time we have collectively laughed about what happened with Will Smith, and it might serve as a way for him to begin to rebuild his brand.
That's what's popping for me, Gentz.
LT: I love that man. I think as I say that, Dee, I think what happens is in today's world, people are very concerned. And sometimes rightfully so with, they don't wanna piss people off or say the wrong thing. So they avoid humor because of that. Right.
DC: Yeah.
LT: So I think that's part of it. The second part I have is, and this is a pet peeve here, that's a, that's off the, the, the foundation that you're talking about. I think too often, and especially with Super Bowl ads that are coming, that people go right to humor and want to go in their brand communications. It's all about humor and it's got nothing to do with the brand.
And so they make an ad on the Super Bowl that's really funny and five seconds later you ask people that you're watching the Super Bowl with, well what, what brand was that for? And they have no idea. Was that Yeah,
JS: LT, I agree with you Totally. And and we can board up with that. That's exactly right.
DC: Yeah. Cool. That's a wrap, y'all.
JS: That's a, a wrap.
LT: That's a wrap.
JS: That's a wrap.
What a great, what a great first What's Popping? I'm gonna go to the show close Gentz. Thanks for listening to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, recorded virtually on Zoom in a production of KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM Radio and worldwide at kzsu.org.
The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Haley Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The pod father.
LT: That's right, and if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great if you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightning talk about marketing.