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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
JS: Brand Nerds! Thanks for joining us for the latest edition of Brands, Beats, and Bytes. It's the beginning of February, which is Black history. Now, unfortunately, DC won't be with us. Uh, he's preparing for a big vacation.
LT: Oh yeah.
JS: Yeah. Big va, big que. So he
LT: A well deserved vacay.
JS: Well deserved vacation. He's, but,
LT: but our guy DC has, you know, he's, he, he might have a few more preparations than most. Right. J?
JS: Shoppin' and all that kind of good stuff.
LT: Right, right.
JS: So it will just be me and Lt, um, for today's version. LT, what do we got?
LT: All right, so J, this is a, this is a great time to remind our, uh, our new listeners. This is just, a What's Poppin episode, so we do not have a guest today and uh, to let people know if you haven't heard the show, What's Poppin is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air, something happening in and around marketing today that we think is great fodder for discussion. So J, let's get into it. We know that two Super Bowl teams are the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
JS: Yeah.
LT: We also know J, that the quarterbacks are star quarterbacks now who lead both teams. Patrick Mahomes, who has been now, even though at his young age, uh, he has certainly already established as himself as a star.
And then there's quarterback Jalen Hurts, of the Eagles, who had such a great years, or as they say in Philly, the Eagles, right? Yeah. Uh, Jalen Hurts has a chance to win the MVP. He, he had just a monstrous year, uh, second year as a starting quarterback. And, but here's the crazy thing, J, again, you said his Black History Month. Believe it or not, Brand Nerds and I, I just think this is appalling we even have to mention this in 2023, uh, but I heard this immediately after the championship game, um, that this will be the first Super Bowl with two Black quarterbacks starting the game. Which is obviously a long way from the late eighties when Doug Williams was the first Black quarterback to be the winning quarterback on a Super Bowl team.
And boy was he, he, he threw I think, five touchdown passes in that game.
JS: Yes.
LT: Um, for that team in Washington. So, uh, so J, I, I think there's a good, good subject for us to tackle. What do you think?
JS: I, I completely agree. Timing is perfect.
LT: Right?
JS: Timing is perfect.
LT: Okay. So, going back to the Doug Williams days. Yeah, we did some, we did a little research about it and Doug Williams. Uh, he did the Disney ad. That's still done today. You know, I'm going to Disney World. Um, and by the way, they tried to low ball him though from, uh, from our crack research. They tried to low ball him. Um, Phil Sims had of the Giants had won the year before, and they offered Doug Williams like a fifth of what, uh, of what Phil Sims got. Um, but his his agent negotiated it higher, so he did that. But as of a few months later, he still had basically no other national deals.
JS: Yes.
LT: Right?
JS: Yes.
LT: That was the late eighties. This is now. Um, J, you have any thoughts about that?
JS: Well, I, I can say as I think back to 88 and then what happened through the nineties, fortunately, I can say there's been some, been some progress made. I can certainly see advertisers, not being hesitant, to use either Hurts or Mahomes, as a spokesperson. And, and we've, and we've seen that over the, over the last few years. I don't know if it's been a decade or so. So, we've actually, we've seen progress, in that sense of advertisers. No, I'm not being hesitant. Because of, the color of, the color of someone's skin. So, you know, it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, what brands latch on to both Mahomes or Hurts. So I I I, I think it's gonna be, it's gonna continue to move in that direction. LT, what do you think?
LT: Yeah, I think you're right. I'm, I actually just looked up the five, endorsees among quarterbacks for in 2022. So obviously, you know, we're just at the beginning of 2023. We're of course the goat Tom Brady, who was making 45 million. But check this out. So number two was Mahomes. And you know, think about he, he's all over the State Farm ads. He's one of their lead sportspeople, right?
So Mahomes was, at number number two at 22 million. And again, that shows how he's been already established as a star. Number three is Dak Prescott, again, Cowboys quarterback. And then number four is Russell Wilson who obviously didn't have a good year, but Russell Wilson's won Super Bowls, very established.
And then number five is Aaron Rodgers, which is interesting. So you have three Black quarterbacks of the five, right?
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
LT: And I don't think you would've guessed, I wouldn't have guessed that Russell Wilson was number four.
JS: Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed Dak Prescott would be in the listings. But that goes back to building a great brand, the Cowboys. Right. Worth 8 billion. As of 2022, the mo you know, they're worth the most of all the franchises and this quote unquote, America's team. You know, Jerry has done a great job of building a brand, therefore his quarterback, has benefited from that, from, from an advertising standpoint.
But they, you know, I mean, hell, they've only won four playoff games since 2000.
LT: Yeah, he. When you are the Cowboys quarterback and established as such, cuz Dak has been established as the, as the quarterback, and quite frankly, He's got a good personality, you know, Dak and he is, he is good looking and has a good personality and that'll take you a long way as somebody who's an an a endorsee. So everyone knows him, but you're right J, it's a big part of that Cowboys brand. What's interesting to me is you would've thought Aaron Rodgers was higher, cuz he's been more established. But I think again, we, we, Jeff, we talk about, in our business connection points, um, brand Nerds, we have seven connection points. And one of the things that I think really pulls Rogers down, one of the connection points we talk about, is attitude.
JS: Attitude.
LT: And Aaron Roger's attitude. Let's face it. It's not a dirty secret anymore, right? It's, he is just, does not have a good attitude, doesn't treat his teammates and others with respect. We know brand nerds that that's something that you both Brand Nerds as well as the, uh, sports fans out there, it really matters to, and that's why I think Rogers is fifth when, uh, you would think he'd be higher.
JS: I completely agree, LT. I completely agree. And, you know, you can say all you want to about say, Dak Prescott's play,
LT: which is performance in our parlance, right?
JS: Yeah. That's one. That's one of 'em. But his attitude has always been great. He, he, he's great in front of the camera. And you know, when, when you think about that, you, you, you gotta love him for that. I mean, he's been through some trying times, but he always maintains a great attitude.
LT: No, no question. And I. When you, when you think about, uh, a again, Doug Williams, where it was in the late eighties, and he, he really couldn't sniff the same opportunities that Phil Sims and John Elway and his other white contemporaries at the time were getting now, it's, it's, it's much less of an issue. Jalen Hurts will, when we come back a year from now, he will be in the top five in 2023, no matter the outcome of this game.
JS: That's right.
LT: Right?
JS: Yes. And, and when, you know, when you really look at his story, you know, uh, because he won the national championship at Alabama. Comes back the next year, gets replaced, right? Leaves for Oklahoma, then gets drafted by the Eagles. The question this year, was he gonna be a good enough quarterback for them to do well and now he's an M V P quarterback. Yes. He's got one hell of a story we already know he does.
LT: J, let's take people quickly through our, our, again, I mentioned the seven connection points. Yes, please. There's seven of them, please. We use an acronym called ILEAPPS and it's I L E A P P S. Um, and I'm gonna take you quickly through what each of the connection points are.
And by the way, it's just to the, the acronym is just to remember it. It's not in order, but I'm gonna take you through it. So I stands for iQ, especially with quarterbacks iQ, game iQ, how you score on that, that's very valuable to certain group of fans. Looks is the L That's self-explanatory. E is effort. We know from the, uh, research that we've done out of the seven connection points, the effort part is always number one.
So effort is how much you practice, how hard you work, and how that's personified, both in terms of the practice that you do and also what you see in games, like Hustle is part of effort, right? A is attitude. Attitude, I mentioned it earlier. That goes into respect for teammates and coaches and and fans, and even opposing players, right?
That's a big part of attitude and the attitude you convey. If you sign autographs with a smile, that's part of the attitude, right? P, there's two Ps. One is performance. There's two legs of performance, how you perform individually and then in team sports, obviously in football is the greatest team sport, really how your team does, how well your team does.
And then the other P is personal bond. So for me, if somebody went, I'm from New York, people from from my hometown. I went to University of North Carolina. I follow North Carolina people. I have a personal bond to that. It could be something as simple if you like knitting, and you know, somebody knits, oh, you have a personal bond to that.
And then the last connection point S is for style and that's also self-explanatory. Both on field and off field, how much style you have on the field, and then also off. So those are the seven connection points. So J, as I say, those, what do you think we, we know Mahomes already, he, he's kicking it on almost all those levels. What's your thoughts about Jalen Hurts?
JS: Very much like Mahomes. He across that spectrum, he nails most of them right. I mean, he, he's, he's a good looking guy, right? He's personal, his leadership, you hear them talk about his leadership
LT: Yep.
JS: In the locker room, right?
LT: Yep.
JS: People love being around him and love playing on his team. And that will translate well to many different brands. So I think,
LT: and that's part of attitude, by the way, leadership.
JS: Yes. Attitude. Yes.
LT: You know what else I'm struck with with Jalen. Because he won in college.
JS: Yes, right.
LT: He won Alabama. He won the Natty at Alabama. But yet people still doubted him. Right.
JS: And he, I think he's just, you know, wait and see, watch me, watch me. That, I think he said, right? And, and, and, and he proved himself time and time again. He, and I think back to his college days and not his NFL day, you know, he only, he only made one mistake lt. You know, I'm a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. Okay. He pledged Omega, I forgive him for that, but other than that, he having a stellar time. It's a stellar time.
LT: That's funny, J.
JS: Yes.
LT: That's funny.
JS: But I think, I think brands are gonna, are, are, are just gonna flock to him and, and he's gonna have the brands of his choice that he wants to be associated with. I think, I think that's gonna happen whether they Right.
LT: I agree. I totally agree. And I. I think there's a pivot though. If he wins, man, oh my God. Like all the things where he's hitting all these seven connection points in a huge way. And then when you win the Super Bowl, oh, I'm going to Disneyland, I'm going to Disney World. Right? And then, you know, there's, you're flying fly eagles flying right after that. But even if he loses, cuz he's young and because he has this grit story of effort, like Doug Peterson, the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars now. The rumors were that when the Eagles drafted, uh, Jalen Hurts, he didn't like him. And the owner, Jeffrey Leery said, no, he's our guy. And that's why he got fired. He fired. They fired a Super Bowl, winning head coach because of that. So Jalen Hurts was even doubted by his first NFL coach, right? And he just continues to persevere. It's a great American story, again, with the bedrock of it being.
JS: Exactly lT and that, that's, that serves a mic drop.
LT: That's it. We're out.