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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.
Dasha [0:00:17]: What's up?
Dasha [0:00:17]: It's Dasha.
Dasha [0:00:18]: Today, I've got an amazing guest on the show.
Dasha [0:00:20]: His name is Shlomo, and you might recognize guys them from your Linkedin feed.
Dasha [0:00:25]: I had been following Shlomo for years leading up to this episode.
Dasha [0:00:29]: He is one of the first profiles I send marketers when they join my marketing team because his breakdowns of what makes the B2B ad good are amazing.
Dasha [0:00:39]: He runs a company called un onboard He calls it the unofficial school for B2B ads.
Dasha [0:00:45]: And on the show today, we get into tactics for creating ads that are genuinely good and fun.
Dasha [0:00:52]: And then we get into some nitty gritty topics.
Dasha [0:00:54]: Like, how do you hire actors for ads if you're filming them in house.
Dasha [0:00:58]: How to do all of this on a huge budget or a low budget?
Dasha [0:01:01]: I walked away with a lot of great takeaways, and I hope you do too.
Dasha [0:01:05]: Enjoy the pod?
Dasha [0:01:06]: How's it going?
Shlomo [0:01:08]: Thank you very much.
Shlomo [0:01:09]: It's great to be here, and I'm doing well and you, Dasha.
Dasha [0:01:13]: And I'm doing great.
Dasha [0:01:13]: I'm so excited to have you on.
Dasha [0:01:15]: You are someone that I've followed on Linkedin for a very long time, and...
Dasha [0:01:20]: You know the little thing on Linkedin where you can save people's posts and then, like, you can go back and see, like, a little swipe file of things you've saved?
Shlomo [0:01:28]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:01:28]: Absolutely.
Dasha [0:01:29]: I would bet that, like, thirty thirty percent of them are just you breaking down ads, like, what works about them and...
Dasha [0:01:37]: What doesn't work So when I knew I'd be interviewing you, I was so so excited.
Dasha [0:01:41]: Okay.
Dasha [0:01:41]: Let's get the center kind of a preview.
Dasha [0:01:43]: So you are the founder of un onboard dot com.
Dasha [0:01:46]: Tell us for people who don't know what is onboard and what do you do?
Shlomo [0:01:51]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:01:51]: So sometimes I call onboard the the unofficial B2B to at school or create a...
Shlomo [0:01:58]: Don't know.
Shlomo [0:01:58]: Yet.
Shlomo [0:01:59]: Like, basically in at school, for creative B2B ads, and that's...
Shlomo [0:02:03]: So that's one thing we do like, we have this, like, educational parts with courses and different educational products, newsletter and so on.
Shlomo [0:02:10]: But there is also the the initial part where I operate as a creative studio.
Shlomo [0:02:15]: And I write and produce ads for boring B2B companies.
Dasha [0:02:20]: What is your background Like, how did un onboard come about?
Dasha [0:02:22]: You just got tired of seeing boring ads?
Shlomo [0:02:25]: I actually went to an ad school called Miami at school, but it's in Berlin, there are a lot of branches, but I went to the one in Berlin, and I wanted to become a copywriter, and I went there, and then, like, I started the whole, like, traditional ad agency journey being an intern then working for different brands and ad agencies.
Shlomo [0:02:42]: And they're was super fun, but at some point, I started freelancing and I found, and I got a couple of gigs with tech companies, and I really fell in love with that because it's funny because I call, like, those products boring B2B products, but actually I found them way more interesting in Gold.
Shlomo [0:02:57]: Cool features and the tech, and it seems so interesting, and it also felt a little bit like the Wild West.
Shlomo [0:03:03]: Right?
Shlomo [0:03:04]: Because if in the consumer space, everything has been done already.
Shlomo [0:03:08]: Every kind of ad creative angle, you know, you're think about, like, coke breaking king, like the big brands, hines...
Shlomo [0:03:14]: It's it's crazy how many agencies and creative people are working on those at the same time.
Shlomo [0:03:19]: But then you think about other more, like B2B and and software companies, and some of them don't even have a brand, some of them never produced an actual creative ad.
Shlomo [0:03:29]: And I thought, wow, this is such a big opportunity.
Shlomo [0:03:31]: So I started trying those techniques that I learned in ad school working with some tech startups ups, and I noticed that time after time, we managed to outperform their previous ads, using the creative techniques I learned working for ad agencies.
Shlomo [0:03:45]: And I thought, well, it seems like there's something here.
Shlomo [0:03:48]: And, yeah.
Shlomo [0:03:49]: And since then, that's what I've been dedicating most of my time too.
Shlomo [0:03:53]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:03:53]: I love that.
Dasha [0:03:54]: I always tell my team.
Dasha [0:03:55]: When you're looking for inspiration, you almost don't wanna go to a B2B brand look at what the CPG brands are doing because I feel like that space is...
Dasha [0:04:04]: I mean, B2B is competitive, but CPG is so much more competitive.
Dasha [0:04:08]: Right?
Dasha [0:04:09]: Like, you can have twenty thirty, fifty brands of soda, and really it's all the same so you need to get creative and stand out.
Dasha [0:04:15]: So, yeah, I think it's like, one of the best places to get inspiration, and I can see why it would be jarring coming from the agency world entering B2B and being, like, whoa, what is with all the same does?
Shlomo [0:04:26]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:04:26]: Absolutely.
Shlomo [0:04:27]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:04:27]: And actually, like, in the consumer world, there's also a lot of same.
Shlomo [0:04:30]: That's why I always say, like, when you're stealing ideas never steal from neighbor because even if car companies all their ads look the same as well.
Shlomo [0:04:37]: So it's not just our industry, but every industry has its problem, but definitely, like, B2B and tech because it's so focused on products and and tech and features.
Shlomo [0:04:47]: We're a little bit behind on that, but I think we're catching up pretty quickly.
Shlomo [0:04:50]: Like, right now what's happening with clay ramp, like, all those click up, all those brands, like, it's it's insane.
Shlomo [0:04:57]: And it's and it's great to see that because I feel like people are getting really excited about that.
Shlomo [0:05:01]: And I feel like maybe in ten years, just random people will be wearing t shirts of rem or I don't know.
Shlomo [0:05:07]: Maybe those will be like, real brands that people are proud to walk around wearing their marriage or something.
Dasha [0:05:14]: So funny, I have a friend who's, like, really into Saas.
Dasha [0:05:16]: And for his birthday, we had a competition where everyone had to acquire a piece of merch from different Saas companies and gift them for his birthday.
Dasha [0:05:25]: So he, like, exclusively will wear other brand hoodies.
Dasha [0:05:28]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:05:29]: The people that...
Dasha [0:05:30]: That work with you, like, the clients that you have, talk to me a bit about, like, what type of company will come to you how big are they?
Dasha [0:05:38]: Because I think the person listening wants to know, like, okay.
Dasha [0:05:41]: Everything we're about to talk about today, different techniques.
Dasha [0:05:43]: Do they apply to me.
Dasha [0:05:45]: So give us a little bit of a taste, like, who are you working with?
Shlomo [0:05:49]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:05:49]: So, personally, I like to work with companies that are sort of around the one billion dollar valuation because these are the most interesting cases for me with the most...
Shlomo [0:05:59]: Like, with the biggest opportunity to actually scale new creative ideas.
Shlomo [0:06:04]: And invest in production and like, do a lot of fun stuff, But that doesn't mean that like I said, when I started, I started with actually working at a Vc firm and starting with, like, small startups and that work for them as well.
Shlomo [0:06:17]: So, like, creative techniques It doesn't matter.
Shlomo [0:06:19]: It can be a very simple static category.
Shlomo [0:06:21]: It could be a hundred thousand dollar production.
Shlomo [0:06:24]: It's still, like, underneath, it's still the same creative inside.
Shlomo [0:06:28]: It's still the same pain points.
Shlomo [0:06:29]: And those techniques would work for absolutely any...
Shlomo [0:06:32]: Any tech company or any company at all, but I personally like to focus on bigger companies just because I feel like they have more room to play obviously.
Shlomo [0:06:40]: They know they're not, like...
Dasha [0:06:42]: Pinching pennies.
Dasha [0:06:42]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:06:42]: No.
Dasha [0:06:43]: That makes sense.
Dasha [0:06:43]: Okay.
Dasha [0:06:43]: Well, you mentioned creativity.
Dasha [0:06:45]: Let's...
Dasha [0:06:46]: About where creativity actually comes from, a lot of marketers...
Dasha [0:06:50]: I mean, less so now with Ai, but there is nothing more daunting than a blank page.
Dasha [0:06:56]: So when you are talk starting to think about how to make your ads, how do you get over the blank page problem?
Shlomo [0:07:05]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:07:05]: So I think the first thing that I wanna do and people often say in the creative industry at If you don't have ideas, it just means that you haven't done enough research.
Shlomo [0:07:15]: So I always do two types of research.
Shlomo [0:07:17]: One research is practical, research, and the other type of research is personal research.
Shlomo [0:07:22]: So the practical part is understanding the features, understanding the actual practical problems that my users have and how my product solves them.
Shlomo [0:07:31]: And the personal research is more about understanding all the personal problems that my users have when they're not using the product.
Shlomo [0:07:39]: So then I usually end up with this three column table.
Shlomo [0:07:42]: And on the left side, I have the practical problem.
Shlomo [0:07:45]: Then in the middle, I have the personal problem.
Shlomo [0:07:47]: And then on the right, I have the solution like the specific feature of the product that solves that.
Shlomo [0:07:53]: And once I have this table in front of my eyes once I sort of mapped out all the main relatable pain points, then I start actually working and trying different creative tech frameworks and techniques.
Shlomo [0:08:04]: But usually by that point, by the time I already have that table.
Shlomo [0:08:07]: And by the way, just using Ai to create it, Like, of course, I use Ai also to to help you with that.
Shlomo [0:08:13]: But part of it is also reading going to reddit it, but one tool that I really like to use is Reddit answers.
Shlomo [0:08:21]: It's reddit Ai research tool, it's completely free, and it's great because I can dive into what my target audience is doing and thinking.
Shlomo [0:08:29]: And once I sorta of look through that kind of material, then immediately Start getting different interesting ideas.
Shlomo [0:08:35]: So always research is the first step.
Dasha [0:08:38]: Can we walk it through with a real example, maybe something that you've done in the past?
Dasha [0:08:42]: I'm curious.
Dasha [0:08:43]: What topic you would research and then does the practical have to match up with the personal, like, walk me through that make it real with an example?
Shlomo [0:08:51]: It doesn't even have to be an example from the past, but let's think we're making...
Shlomo [0:08:54]: And we're gonna talk about one of my favorite clients high ba later.
Shlomo [0:08:58]: But let's actually even thing that right now we're making an ad for Hr software.
Shlomo [0:09:03]: So the first thing Would do is I would go to reddit answers.
Shlomo [0:09:06]: So it's reddit.com/answers, and it's completely free, and I would just type what are some relatable, and I'm I'm always looking for something that is actually relatable pain points and frustrations that Hr managers are experiencing in their work.
Shlomo [0:09:22]: And I would hit enter and immediately, like, thirty seconds later, I would get a nice report with all the subreddit with all the relevant threads where I can already start looking and finding different directions.
Shlomo [0:09:35]: I would of course, also speak to my client, and I would ask them to provide me with some gong some call recordings, and different stuff like that that I can also use transcripts, so I can also see what their actual users are saying.
Shlomo [0:09:48]: These are the things that are also interesting.
Shlomo [0:09:50]: And from all of that, I would start listing all my favorite pain points.
Shlomo [0:09:55]: If it's a lot of material.
Shlomo [0:09:57]: I definitely also use Ai to summarize that.
Shlomo [0:09:59]: But sometimes I would just read through that to actually find those little insights, the language that my customers use.
Shlomo [0:10:05]: And that would help me get this personal part of the research.
Shlomo [0:10:10]: So this is for the Hr software.
Shlomo [0:10:12]: Then I would also go, and I would try to understand the different feature.
Shlomo [0:10:16]: Sometimes, I would actually reverse engineer.
Shlomo [0:10:18]: So I would go through all of their features, everything that they want to promote and they're selling, for example, different payroll features or different things that help employees communicate between themselves or anything that an hr manager would need, And then I would think, okay.
Shlomo [0:10:35]: So what is the problem?
Shlomo [0:10:36]: What is the practical problem that this feature is solving?
Shlomo [0:10:39]: And I would sort of think back trying to understand, like, why did they even create that?
Shlomo [0:10:43]: What was the problem originally?
Shlomo [0:10:45]: What are we trying to do here?
Shlomo [0:10:46]: What would the user do if they didn't have that?
Shlomo [0:10:49]: And, yeah, it's a whole, like, rabbit hole after a rabbit hole.
Shlomo [0:10:52]: But it looks exactly like that.
Shlomo [0:10:54]: You know, like, it's...
Shlomo [0:10:55]: Of course, like you can make it linear in a way, but also what makes it fun and creative is just like...
Shlomo [0:11:01]: Of floating between all those different sources and trying to find that those answers and insides because you never know where the the inspiration will be.
Shlomo [0:11:11]: Sometimes it's in a, hidden somewhere in a call recording.
Shlomo [0:11:14]: Sometimes it's on reddit, and sometimes even Claude would give you some idea that I wouldn't think about by myself.
Dasha [0:11:20]: The difference between a practical problem and a personal problem.
Dasha [0:11:24]: What does that sound like?
Shlomo [0:11:26]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:11:26]: So a practical problem would be, for example, if you're thinking about Let's say payroll, which is part of Hr software sometimes.
Shlomo [0:11:34]: So the practical problem would be the numbers don't match.
Shlomo [0:11:38]: Right?
Shlomo [0:11:38]: For example, the numbers.
Shlomo [0:11:39]: I don't know.
Shlomo [0:11:40]: People got their salary late or something in the numbers was wrong.
Shlomo [0:11:44]: Right?
Shlomo [0:11:44]: This is very practical.
Shlomo [0:11:45]: It's something that is, actually happening in a real world and it's a problem.
Shlomo [0:11:49]: And then the personal impact of it is that Hr person is being yelled at or people are blaming them or they're not getting their promotion and so on.
Shlomo [0:11:59]: Right?
Shlomo [0:11:59]: So, like, something that was actually practical and not very relevant.
Shlomo [0:12:02]: It wouldn't be very relevant if they were, I don't know, an Ai agent is very relevant to real person who's just trying to make it through through their job.
Shlomo [0:12:11]: And this is a big part of it.
Shlomo [0:12:12]: Because after old B2B is just people at work, and we spend so many hours over our day at work most people if is the people were selling to.
Shlomo [0:12:20]: And this is very important because sometimes people think that Is boring, but it's actually such a big part of our lives.
Shlomo [0:12:26]: Like, we wake up, we go to work, and then we go back home and we still think about work and all of this is, like, great material for ads and for interesting thing stories that we can tell.
Dasha [0:12:37]: Do you know or have any data?
Dasha [0:12:38]: Does the practical ad outperform the personal or vice versa?
Shlomo [0:12:45]: So they have to go together.
Shlomo [0:12:46]: I mean, I would never didn't separate.
Dasha [0:12:48]: One or the other?
Shlomo [0:12:49]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:12:49]: I I never separate them and, like, do an ad that is just about...
Shlomo [0:12:52]: I don't know, like, the benefit you're getting or just about the pain point without actually explaining how why you practically need that.
Shlomo [0:12:59]: And I would probably never make an ad, maybe on a landing page, I would do that.
Shlomo [0:13:03]: But in an ad, I would probably never just advertise different features or different problems without any personal context.
Shlomo [0:13:10]: So, usually, it's the combination of the two that that works the best.
Dasha [0:13:15]: What have you found is the biggest myth that marketers believe when it comes to where creative ideas come from?
Shlomo [0:13:22]: They're probably two myths.
Shlomo [0:13:23]: One is that, like, if you wanna create something, you have to come up with...
Shlomo [0:13:27]: Something completely you, like you need to sit like some sort of musician or an artist, and you just need to wait for inspiration for them used to shine on you.
Shlomo [0:13:36]: So that's something that's...
Shlomo [0:13:37]: We don't have to do that.
Shlomo [0:13:39]: And actually, we can do that as creative professionals because we have deadlines, and we have goals and we need to deliver those ideas.
Shlomo [0:13:45]: So that's, I guess one side of the scale.
Shlomo [0:13:47]: And then the other side of the scale is usually like the very number driven marketers who think that everything we only need to...
Shlomo [0:13:55]: Steal what's already working.
Shlomo [0:13:56]: We only need to go with the safest option.
Shlomo [0:13:58]: Like, if this performed for our competitor, We just need to steal the ad and do the same thing.
Shlomo [0:14:03]: So I guess, these are the two sides of the scale, and we're trying to be somewhere in the middle.
Shlomo [0:14:07]: We're trying to sometimes still a little bit, still some interesting ideas, but also make them ours and we're trying to come up with something very unique, but also rely on frameworks that we can use time after time instead of just being stuck.
Shlomo [0:14:20]: And thinking yeah, like, maybe I'm not creative.
Dasha [0:14:23]: I think the saying is, like steel like an artist.
Shlomo [0:14:26]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:14:26]: Exactly.
Shlomo [0:14:26]: Still like an artist.
Shlomo [0:14:27]: And part of stealing like an artist is...
Shlomo [0:14:30]: Yeah, Just like I said in the beginning, not stealing from your neighbors That's the first thing.
Shlomo [0:14:34]: And the second thing is just stealing very specific elements, not stealing the whole piece.
Shlomo [0:14:38]: Rather than going and and saying, okay.
Shlomo [0:14:40]: I'm gonna steal this entire ad.
Shlomo [0:14:42]: The camera angle, the script, everything, they which a lot of companies do.
Shlomo [0:14:46]: But the smartest thing to do is to actually say, okay.
Shlomo [0:14:49]: Like, this hook is very interesting.
Shlomo [0:14:51]: Maybe I can take that and write a completely original script on top of that.
Shlomo [0:14:55]: Where this call to action is pretty cool.
Shlomo [0:14:58]: So maybe I can use that from my ad, but take the hook from another ad and sorta of find something that would work, work together from a future from that.
Shlomo [0:15:06]: So I think that's one of the most important things about stealing, like, an artist stealing small pieces from others and not the whole work.
Dasha [0:15:13]: Totally.
Dasha [0:15:13]: Yes.
Dasha [0:15:14]: One resource I've loved for stealing like an artist?
Dasha [0:15:18]: Have you heard of ad fo dot design.
Shlomo [0:15:21]: Absolutely.
Shlomo [0:15:21]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:15:22]: Andrea andrea the creator is...
Shlomo [0:15:24]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:15:24]: And her partner are good friend of mine.
Shlomo [0:15:26]: They're great.
Shlomo [0:15:27]: And, yeah, and they're fantastic, and it's one of my favorite collections.
Shlomo [0:15:31]: Every time I create an ad.
Shlomo [0:15:32]: I also want my ads to go there as well.
Shlomo [0:15:34]: It's like B2B Hall Fame.
Dasha [0:15:37]: Oh, that's the dream.
Dasha [0:15:37]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:15:38]: You know you've done well when they pick it up?
Shlomo [0:15:41]: Exactly.
Shlomo [0:15:41]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:15:41]: For those who don't know what ad portfolio?
Dasha [0:15:43]: It's, like a collection, a curated collection of good B2B Saas ads?
Dasha [0:15:48]: It's awesome.
Dasha [0:15:48]: Do you have other examples of port collections like that?
Shlomo [0:15:53]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:15:53]: There is another great one.
Shlomo [0:15:54]: It's called a black camel dot agency, so it's actually an an agency.
Shlomo [0:15:59]: And if you go to their website and then resources, they have this B2B video library.
Shlomo [0:16:04]: So the founder of this agency, like, he also created, I think hundreds are maybe even more than a thousand different ads, and these are fantastic as well, these are more focused on video ads, but there's some very good stuff there.
Dasha [0:16:17]: I don't know about that.
Dasha [0:16:17]: I'm excited to check it out.
Dasha [0:16:19]: Okay.
Dasha [0:16:19]: Well, let's get in.
Dasha [0:16:20]: You're gonna share three techniques that marketers can take away immediately and apply to their businesses.
Dasha [0:16:25]: Kick us off, what is the first technique?
Shlomo [0:16:29]: Let's do it.
Shlomo [0:16:29]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:16:30]: So I think that even before that say that.
Shlomo [0:16:32]: The three most important elements of an effective B2B ads or any ad is to make it scroll stopping.
Shlomo [0:16:39]: That's the first thing is to make it relatable, which relates to the personal part that we just talked about and to make it clear.
Shlomo [0:16:47]: To...
Shlomo [0:16:47]: So people actually know what the message is.
Shlomo [0:16:50]: So these are the three most important principles and pillars that I'm basing my...
Shlomo [0:16:55]: All my work on.
Shlomo [0:16:56]: And then all the techniques that I'm going to show you are also based on those things, each technique in its own different way.
Shlomo [0:17:03]: So the first technique I wanted to show you today is world without, and you're gonna see it on screen right now.
Shlomo [0:17:09]: So in this technique, we're basically thinking about the world without our product.
Shlomo [0:17:15]: And we don't just want to think obviously, most software products, if they wouldn't exist, nothing would really change, probably the the sun would shine like every day and and everything would be pretty much the same.
Shlomo [0:17:27]: But because we're marketers, and because we want to make fun ads.
Shlomo [0:17:30]: We actually want to exaggerate that.
Shlomo [0:17:32]: And we want to think, what is the worst thing that can happen in a world without your product.
Shlomo [0:17:37]: So this is a great example of this technique.
Shlomo [0:17:40]: It's not even about software, but you can see that it's one of the most famous ads on the Internet ever.
Shlomo [0:17:46]: And it's very simple.
Shlomo [0:17:47]: Either?
Shlomo [0:17:47]: Just saying we're looking for graphic designer.
Shlomo [0:17:49]: I don't even know who created that originally.
Shlomo [0:17:52]: But it's a great example of this sort of thinking.
Shlomo [0:17:54]: Right?
Shlomo [0:17:55]: They don't have a graphic designer.
Shlomo [0:17:56]: And because of that, they had to make the ad by themselves.
Shlomo [0:18:00]: And because of that, they use paint.
Shlomo [0:18:02]: And because of that, this is how their billboard.
Shlomo [0:18:04]: This is what their billboard looks like.
Shlomo [0:18:07]: And this is a big problem.
Shlomo [0:18:08]: So we can do the same thinking process in B2B.
Shlomo [0:18:11]: So here's is an example that I created for my client, and this is exactly how I thought about it.
Shlomo [0:18:16]: I started with your payroll software is outdated.
Shlomo [0:18:20]: And then I thought this is technical, and this is vague, and this is not very interesting.
Shlomo [0:18:25]: But I thought and because of that, you keep making payroll errors.
Shlomo [0:18:29]: And because of that, you end up working on vacation.
Shlomo [0:18:32]: And because of that, you end up ways deep in the ocean fixing payroll errors.
Shlomo [0:18:36]: So this is already very personal and specific.
Shlomo [0:18:39]: And this is exactly how we use this technique.
Shlomo [0:18:41]: So we go from something that is technical and pretty generic to something that is personal specific, and sometimes even an interesting hook.
Shlomo [0:18:50]: So we said that the first principle was to make it scroll stopping, and this is exactly how we come up with those scroll stopping ideas.
Shlomo [0:18:57]: Like, the previous one or like one of my clients best performing ads, and he goes like this.
Dasha [0:19:04]: That's amazing, and it's done well for them.
Shlomo [0:19:07]: It's one of their best performing ads ever our thumbs stop rates, specifically, we've spoke about scroll stopping.
Shlomo [0:19:12]: It also brought leads and so on.
Shlomo [0:19:14]: But what we saw with this one is that the hook worked really well.
Shlomo [0:19:18]: In fact, thirty two more better percent better than their at ads they're most than the average.
Shlomo [0:19:24]: And this was a really good thing and a really good sign that that we actually did this world without process well because we thought about the most absurd situation and yeah, and it performed pretty well for us.
Shlomo [0:19:36]: And by the way, when using this technique, it doesn't even have to be...
Shlomo [0:19:40]: This one specifically was done, I guess, for a hundred dollars with with just Ai, and we're gonna talk about Ai production versus not ai production.
Shlomo [0:19:48]: But this can also be done even more simply and quickly with just Ai images.
Shlomo [0:19:53]: Right?
Shlomo [0:19:53]: Almost every idea like I said in the beginning can be a static ad, and this is another ad, know, that worked pretty well that I created for my client Apps fire.
Shlomo [0:20:01]: So mobile attribution doesn't have to be frustrating.
Shlomo [0:20:04]: Right?
Shlomo [0:20:05]: And it's a very simple idea of what's happening in that market is mine when the attribution is frustrating and how we all fill.
Shlomo [0:20:13]: So here as well.
Shlomo [0:20:14]: Right?
Shlomo [0:20:14]: We have this combination of the practical problem.
Shlomo [0:20:16]: Right?
Shlomo [0:20:17]: Mobile attribution is not accurate and it's frustrating and the actual personal part where how we feel about that.
Shlomo [0:20:24]: And this is very simple.
Shlomo [0:20:25]: Right?
Shlomo [0:20:25]: You don't need any budget to produce something like that.
Shlomo [0:20:27]: Anyone can do that, any start up, and you can start right away.
Dasha [0:20:32]: The coolest thing about the Ai piece too is before you would have to scroll.
Dasha [0:20:36]: I remember scrolling so long.
Dasha [0:20:37]: Do you have an idea and you're like, okay.
Dasha [0:20:39]: Like the thing that's gonna make this ad really saying is I need this viper specific photo of a cat.
Dasha [0:20:44]: Kind of spilling coffee on a keyboard.
Dasha [0:20:46]: I worked at a backups company and we would always have this like idea of a cat messing up your whole, we did backups for Shopify store.
Dasha [0:20:53]: So look, cat walks across your keyboard and deletes your Shopify store.
Dasha [0:20:57]: Well, guess what?
Dasha [0:20:58]: There's, like, no stock footage of a cat on a keyboard is it's so specific.
Dasha [0:21:02]: But today that you're, like, one Gemini prompt away from creating these really hyper visual images, which it sounds like all of this is, like, it's kind of like, this exaggerated vision of the worst possible outcome.
Shlomo [0:21:15]: Exactly.
Shlomo [0:21:15]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:21:16]: And that's all you need now.
Shlomo [0:21:17]: And I mean, if it's done well and if there an idea behind it that there is no reason for it's not to work.
Shlomo [0:21:22]: So better than other boring ads.
Shlomo [0:21:25]: So...
Shlomo [0:21:26]: So that's definitely a great place to start and it's very simple and, yeah, low hanging fruit as they say.
Dasha [0:21:33]: What's the next technique?
Shlomo [0:21:35]: Cool.
Shlomo [0:21:35]: So the next technique is visual analogy.
Shlomo [0:21:37]: So And this one is, yeah.
Shlomo [0:21:40]: If in the first part, we spoke about being scroll stopping.
Shlomo [0:21:43]: Then here, we also visual analog, they help us make our ideas more clear.
Shlomo [0:21:48]: So you can see how Windows here.
Shlomo [0:21:51]: For example, Microsoft, how they use this they take this abstract concept.
Shlomo [0:21:55]: Right?
Shlomo [0:21:55]: This confusing concept.
Shlomo [0:21:56]: Because a lot of things in software are not just confusing.
Shlomo [0:22:00]: It's also sort of hard to show them because you can't actually show our product screenshot because a piece of software has...
Shlomo [0:22:06]: Thousands of different screenshots and screens and dashboards.
Shlomo [0:22:10]: So you take an abstract concept like, our software upgrades and updates.
Shlomo [0:22:15]: And you compare it to something visual and familiar that we all know, like an outdated haircut.
Shlomo [0:22:21]: So this combination together creates really fun ads that both explains the message that you want to bring across and also makes people stop scrolling.
Shlomo [0:22:31]: So here's is one example that I created, again, for my client high up using this technique.
Dasha [0:22:38]: This is Epic.
Shlomo [0:22:41]: Thank you.
Shlomo [0:22:41]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:22:41]: And and this was also one of our best performing ads.
Shlomo [0:22:44]: And we took this concept of email ping pong, and those never ending ping pong and compared it two actual ping pong, used it as a visual analogy and sort of baked tar messaging in.
Shlomo [0:22:56]: And this worked really well for us, Like, one of the two great things here that worked really well was the cost per meal.
Shlomo [0:23:03]: So the views were at least fifty three percent cheaper than other videos.
Shlomo [0:23:08]: So it it meant that it was very easy for the platform to find people who would watch this video, and it was a great thing.
Shlomo [0:23:15]: And the second thing, which was even more interesting was the hold rate.
Shlomo [0:23:18]: So usually, if you look at a graph of a video, usually, in the beginning, you have the most viewers, and then it sort of drops quite immediately after five seconds.
Shlomo [0:23:27]: But here, it was pretty different.
Shlomo [0:23:29]: If people actually stayed and watched it, then usually they watched it almost until the end, and there was one hundred forty four percent lift from average, and that was a pretty cool thing to see.
Shlomo [0:23:40]: And again, this is the power of a visual analogy because you can tell a story while promoting your product, while explaining it, while explaining the problem and so on.
Dasha [0:23:50]: One question that comes to mind for me is when you have an ad that performs as well.
Dasha [0:23:53]: Like, we all know about ad fatigue, someone just gets tired of seeing the same ad Does the lifespan of an ad increase if the ad is, like, genuinely really good?
Dasha [0:24:04]: Can you run that ad longer?
Shlomo [0:24:06]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:24:06]: Absolutely.
Shlomo [0:24:07]: I mean, in general, I think that some ads are running for years.
Shlomo [0:24:11]: I'm noticing it both with my clients and with other companies.
Shlomo [0:24:15]: I mean, some winning ads just literally run for years, and they just keep working, and sometimes you can make new variations, you can re edit them.
Shlomo [0:24:23]: You can do a lot of things.
Shlomo [0:24:25]: But if the thing is working, then Yeah.
Shlomo [0:24:27]: There's no reason for it to to stop working.
Shlomo [0:24:29]: It's, like, of course, at some point, there will be changes, but usually, it's like the company itself that decides to sorta of change their ads and not necessarily even because they add itself stopped working.
Shlomo [0:24:40]: And another thing about that is that you can also create different variations like we did here.
Shlomo [0:24:46]: So once you have a winning video ad, you can also create different static ads to go with that.
Shlomo [0:24:51]: And these can also you can use them, for example, for re retargeting, you or you can just use them to extend that concept to more channels and, yeah, and in places.
Shlomo [0:25:01]: So this is also part of it.
Shlomo [0:25:02]: Like, even if you have, given if one ad was impacted by at fatigue, then then the other variations maybe would work for even longer.
Dasha [0:25:11]: This is brilliant.
Dasha [0:25:12]: Because if you're someone who watched the video ad and then you get targeted, you're kinda like, yeah.
Dasha [0:25:17]: Like, I remember that funny Ping pong ad, and it works even if you hadn't seen that ad, like, the static ad just stands on its own.
Dasha [0:25:25]: You don't need one or the other.
Dasha [0:25:26]: It's not like a multi series thing.
Dasha [0:25:28]: But, yeah.
Dasha [0:25:29]: This is so so smart.
Shlomo [0:25:31]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:25:31]: Exactly.
Shlomo [0:25:31]: That's the game, like, meeting them at different points and saying the same thing in a lot of different ways.
Shlomo [0:25:37]: It's a little bit like content.
Shlomo [0:25:38]: Where people are repurposing their content and one Youtube video can become a newsletter, one newsletter can become become five Linkedin post.
Shlomo [0:25:45]: So it's pretty much the same with advertising.
Shlomo [0:25:47]: One video can become a few static ads and so on.
Shlomo [0:25:50]: And by the way, again, like, these are well produced stats and, you know, we we had actors and we had everything, both, the designers and so on, but it doesn't have to be expensive at all.
Shlomo [0:26:03]: Because here is a low cost version, and the low cost version is actually means.
Shlomo [0:26:07]: So this is...
Shlomo [0:26:08]: I created hundreds of ads for my client apps supplier.
Shlomo [0:26:12]: But after all that time working together, this was actually the best performing ad that I created for them.
Shlomo [0:26:18]: It's so simple, but it works really well.
Shlomo [0:26:20]: It's just a simple meme.
Shlomo [0:26:21]: And if you think about it memes our analog too.
Shlomo [0:26:24]: Right?
Shlomo [0:26:24]: It's just that instead of coming up with our own analog like Ping pong or something else or that guy with a haircut.
Shlomo [0:26:31]: We're just using different templates that are repeating.
Shlomo [0:26:34]: So this roller coaster thing.
Shlomo [0:26:36]: It's just a simple meme, simple analogy that works really well.
Shlomo [0:26:39]: And anyone can do that in literally five minutes.
Shlomo [0:26:42]: You just need to know the pain points of your customers and you're good to go.
Dasha [0:26:47]: Did you generate this image or was this an existing meme?
Shlomo [0:26:50]: So here I worked with Apps flyers designer.
Shlomo [0:26:52]: And in the beginning, I gave them sort of a combination of a few existing memes like There was something with a roller coaster.
Shlomo [0:27:00]: I don't even remember if it was a kid.
Shlomo [0:27:02]: I think, like, but it was like, two people or riding roller coaster, one of them is, like super chill.
Shlomo [0:27:06]: The other one is screaming, and I think, like, from there the idea started.
Shlomo [0:27:11]: And then together, I don't remember if they used the ai ai or, like, a combination of stock footage because it was almost two years ago.
Shlomo [0:27:17]: So Ai, even images weren't that good at the time.
Shlomo [0:27:20]: We still used a lot of photoshop.
Shlomo [0:27:22]: Now it would be much easier and probably it would be even easier to make it even more realistic.
Shlomo [0:27:26]: But back of the diamond worked really well, and and now you can literally create it with one prompt.
Dasha [0:27:32]: Have you found that Ai is helpful at creating analog.
Dasha [0:27:35]: My personal experience is that all of the analog are a little bit bland, and I'm wondering if you have found a way to make them less bland or if you come up with them just from your own brain?
Shlomo [0:27:47]: No.
Shlomo [0:27:47]: For sure you can do it better.
Shlomo [0:27:48]: I mean, yeah.
Shlomo [0:27:49]: I I agree that's part of it that, like, it's still hard for Ai.
Shlomo [0:27:52]: To match those because analogy is eventually a big part of them, if you think about great writers.
Shlomo [0:27:59]: Usually they come from your personal experience.
Shlomo [0:28:02]: And that's when they work best.
Shlomo [0:28:05]: And Ai still doesn't have that wide world experience, and especially, like, it doesn't have this, like, personal experience that you may have.
Shlomo [0:28:12]: So this is why when it comes to analog, it's also very good to just look into your inner world, and that's what I always tell my students that You don't even need your, like Wifi Right now.
Shlomo [0:28:21]: You can literally close your laptop, close your eyes and think of different experiences that remind you of data that you could compare to that and you'll find a hundred ideas even faster and better than Ai.
Shlomo [0:28:32]: But at the same time, yeah, Of course.
Shlomo [0:28:34]: I mean, what I did is I trained a cloud skill on all my favorite analogy ads, so I fed it all my favorite analog with some of my favorite analogy ads and stuff from different places.
Shlomo [0:28:45]: And then now it's gotten a little bit better.
Shlomo [0:28:48]: So now when I need an analogy, I also use that Sometimes when I'm stuck.
Shlomo [0:28:51]: And yeah, in the ideas are not bad.
Shlomo [0:28:53]: It's still, like, some of them are still like, repeating, you'll see because I do a lot of workshops, so I see.
Shlomo [0:28:58]: That how the ideas are always repeating like running a marathon in flip flops, and and the end of a few ideas that always repeat.
Shlomo [0:29:06]: But once you develop that skill both that human skill and at cloud skill, Sometimes you get pretty cool stuff, and sometimes I get pretty cool stuff that I didn't expect or, like, I didn't come up with myself.
Dasha [0:29:18]: We always joke got I'm the VP marketing at this company and we always joke that when Claude goes down.
Dasha [0:29:22]: The day is just, like, over because there's nothing else you can do.
Dasha [0:29:25]: So what I'll be doing now instead is closing my laptop and thinking, what are some analog that from my personal experience would be relevant for the the world of our end user.
Dasha [0:29:37]: This is great.
Shlomo [0:29:38]: Absolutely.
Shlomo [0:29:38]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:29:39]: Absolutely.
Shlomo [0:29:39]: Were just open Chat that's another option
Dasha [0:29:41]: Right Yes.
Dasha [0:29:42]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:29:43]: Alright.
Dasha [0:29:45]: Should we do tactic three?
Shlomo [0:29:47]: Oh, yes.
Shlomo [0:29:47]: Let's do it.
Shlomo [0:29:48]: So far, we had scroll stopping.
Shlomo [0:29:51]: We had clear.
Shlomo [0:29:52]: And now the third one is relatable.
Shlomo [0:29:54]: And for relatable, we're going to use person, And this is one of my favorite techniques because it's much easier to relate to people than products tech companies or software or anything like that.
Shlomo [0:30:07]: And when we can compare our product or its enemy or the thing it's fighting against to a real human being, then we can get some very interesting stories.
Shlomo [0:30:18]: So the most classic example that everyone knows is this Mac versus Pc ad.
Shlomo [0:30:23]: It's this ad from...
Shlomo [0:30:25]: I think two thousand four or six that Apple created where it was very simple, like, one guy.
Shlomo [0:30:30]: Was like, yeah.
Shlomo [0:30:32]: Hi.
Shlomo [0:30:32]: I'm Meh, and the other guy was, like, boring and wearing this like suit and he was like, hi, On Pc.
Shlomo [0:30:37]: And he was, yeah.
Shlomo [0:30:38]: Just a simple idea to show that neck is much cooler and much more advanced and smooth and so on.
Shlomo [0:30:44]: So I did the same thing and I used this technique for Hi bob, and I basically compare Hi bob as I showed it as the cool and popular character and compared it to legacy Hr software.
Shlomo [0:30:56]: And you can notice that I didn't even...
Shlomo [0:30:58]: Said the name of that Hr software.
Shlomo [0:31:01]: First of all, because that's not the kind of marketing I wanna do.
Shlomo [0:31:04]: And second, because probably our users and our potential users, they're using a lot of different variations of legacy Hr software just using spreadsheets.
Shlomo [0:31:13]: So I didn't even need to be specific with that.
Shlomo [0:31:16]: I could just use this broad category.
Shlomo [0:31:18]: And I created this ad that actually from even, like, more than the previous two, this was our best performer, probably the best performing ad that I ever created for them.
Dasha [0:31:30]: I love it.
Shlomo [0:31:32]: Thanks, Russia.
Shlomo [0:31:33]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:31:33]: And here the process is super simple.
Shlomo [0:31:35]: Right?
Shlomo [0:31:35]: So the first thing you want to do is bacon an enemy, you want to decide if in Apple's case, it was Pc in our case.
Shlomo [0:31:42]: He was legacy Hr software.
Shlomo [0:31:44]: Then in the second step, you want to build a character.
Shlomo [0:31:46]: So you want to decide, like, okay.
Shlomo [0:31:48]: My product maybe would be the cool and popular one and the smart one.
Shlomo [0:31:53]: And the other character would be boring or unreliable or whatever you want to make them And then the third step is actually putting them in a situation in different scenarios.
Shlomo [0:32:03]: So that's where it gets interesting because if we just...
Shlomo [0:32:05]: I mean, in the original Apple ad, they just stood there.
Shlomo [0:32:08]: They just stood there.
Shlomo [0:32:09]: But there was twenty years ago, So the whole concept of person notification was pretty new.
Shlomo [0:32:14]: But now we need to make it even more interesting and put them in different situations.
Shlomo [0:32:18]: So in this case, I wanted to...
Shlomo [0:32:20]: What as a kid is to watch a lot of those, like turkish.
Shlomo [0:32:23]: Soap opera with my grandma.
Shlomo [0:32:25]: And I still always remember those, like, cheesy dialogues and all those, like, funny conversations that they used to have when when breakups and so on.
Shlomo [0:32:34]: So, like, I wanted to use this one, but it could be basically any situation.
Shlomo [0:32:37]: It could be a podcast, What what would your product do on a podcast?
Shlomo [0:32:41]: You could be a date.
Shlomo [0:32:42]: You could be basically anything as long as it's an interesting story, and there is an actual conflict in it.
Shlomo [0:32:48]: And, yeah, and this one was also great.
Shlomo [0:32:51]: Big lift in conversions, eighty percent cheaper leads, fifty percent cheaper views.
Shlomo [0:32:57]: So, yeah, Again, one of our best performing ads ever.
Dasha [0:33:01]: This is awesome.
Dasha [0:33:02]: Do I need to get paid actors if I wanna do this well?
Dasha [0:33:05]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:33:05]: I think it's the best option.
Shlomo [0:33:06]: I mean, actors comparing to marketing budget, actors are not that expensive.
Shlomo [0:33:12]: And, yeah.
Shlomo [0:33:12]: And a lot of actors are looking for work.
Shlomo [0:33:14]: So there are a lot of Facebook groups with actors and a lot of platforms where you can hire them.
Shlomo [0:33:18]: So I think almost every company, I know, like, that it's doing well both on on social and with paid ads they're working with actors.
Shlomo [0:33:26]: Even if they're using some Ai for static ads, even if they're using a Uc with real users or like, a lot of They have a lot of different assets in their mix.
Shlomo [0:33:37]: But for their more high end ads where they actually want to tell interesting stories.
Shlomo [0:33:41]: They're using actors, and I think it's fun and it's basically the most creative and and real way to bring truly fun ideas to life.
Dasha [0:33:49]: Cool.
Dasha [0:33:49]: What is an example of what one of these Facebook groups would be called?
Dasha [0:33:52]: I imagine it's like, a local Austin or, like, New York.
Dasha [0:33:56]: How do you find one of these groups?
Shlomo [0:33:58]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:33:58]: Exactly.
Shlomo [0:33:59]: So like, yeah actors if it's...
Shlomo [0:34:01]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:34:01]: So if you're in Europe, then it would be English speaking actors in Berlin or in the Paris and so on, If you're in the Us, Uk, and Canada and so on, then it would be just actors looking for gigs, extras, and so on.
Shlomo [0:34:16]: So, like, you look into all those groups, and it could be in a lot of places.
Shlomo [0:34:19]: Like, once you start digging into their world.
Shlomo [0:34:22]: You speak to one actor.
Shlomo [0:34:23]: You ask them where they hang out.
Shlomo [0:34:24]: And all of a sudden, you have a list of, like, a hundred actors who can work with And it gets pretty fun because actors are awesome.
Shlomo [0:34:31]: They're true artist.
Shlomo [0:34:32]: And when you bring them on board, they make your Ideas even better.
Shlomo [0:34:35]: I mean, these actors were great.
Shlomo [0:34:36]: And when I wrote the script, like, I couldn't even think that they would...
Shlomo [0:34:40]: I mean, they added their own r into it, and and that was great.
Dasha [0:34:45]: That's awesome.
Dasha [0:34:45]: We did this person notification tactic at the company where I'm working now.
Shlomo [0:34:51]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:34:51]: And we didn't hire actors.
Dasha [0:34:53]: So Hot tape.
Dasha [0:34:53]: We didn't act hire actors.
Shlomo [0:34:55]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:34:56]: Instead, I lead marketing and the Bd team sits on the marketing team.
Shlomo [0:34:59]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:35:00]: And so I said, okay, on, I don't know.
Dasha [0:35:02]: Tuesday.
Dasha [0:35:02]: You're taking the day off.
Dasha [0:35:04]: You're coming into the office and we're doing a shoe.
Dasha [0:35:06]: We paid a videographer to come in and set up.
Dasha [0:35:09]: We gave them scripts.
Shlomo [0:35:11]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:35:11]: Which were written by our team with the use of Ai.
Dasha [0:35:14]: We did the person notification we turned our product into a person as if the product had come to life.
Dasha [0:35:21]: We put him into a t shirt with our little logo on it in a hat so that he was, like, more or less identifiable.
Dasha [0:35:28]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:35:28]: And we did it all in house minus the videographer.
Shlomo [0:35:32]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:35:32]: And I'm always blown away by the talent that can exist on your come...
Dasha [0:35:36]: At your company without hiring the actors, Granted, we are not.
Dasha [0:35:39]: We probably don't have I know we don't have high bob's marketing budget, and it worked out well to the point work, some of our customers were asking if they can use the ads to, like, announce that product to their teams.
Shlomo [0:35:52]: Love it.
Dasha [0:35:52]: So we ended up.
Dasha [0:35:53]: Using them for ads and our customers we're, like, give those to us.
Dasha [0:35:56]: We wanna use them.
Dasha [0:35:57]: So I can definitely say that it works.
Shlomo [0:36:00]: I totally agree.
Shlomo [0:36:00]: I mean, I I hadn't even...
Shlomo [0:36:02]: Like, because I'm always doing that as an external studio, then I never even, like, yes.
Shlomo [0:36:07]: Suggest option.
Shlomo [0:36:08]: So I didn't think about that, but you're actually...
Shlomo [0:36:10]: It's so true.
Shlomo [0:36:11]: I mean, when people from your own team can do that.
Shlomo [0:36:14]: That's even better because it's cheaper and you don't have to deal with royalties and payments and and all of that.
Shlomo [0:36:19]: It's it makes things way easier.
Shlomo [0:36:21]: And I think that we have a lot of great examples, like Duo, probably one of the first ones we're we're we're, like, the employees.
Shlomo [0:36:28]: Are doing everything, and it's all in house or clearly, where they're making their own content and videos.
Shlomo [0:36:34]: So you can definitely work.
Shlomo [0:36:35]: I mean, most marketers, I know are shy, and they don't even...
Shlomo [0:36:39]: They don't really wanna be in front of the camera.
Shlomo [0:36:41]: But if you have those kind of people on your team who wanna do that, that's perfect.
Shlomo [0:36:45]: I think another company is...
Shlomo [0:36:47]: Seem, I think.
Shlomo [0:36:49]: They're doing those like, corporate training videos.
Shlomo [0:36:53]: And I'm pretty sure I love their ads.
Shlomo [0:36:55]: They're awesome.
Shlomo [0:36:55]: I never spoke to them, but they do a lot of really creative stuff.
Shlomo [0:36:58]: I highly recommend it.
Shlomo [0:37:00]: And I think they actually worked there just a couple of people, and I think they're in the the marketing department, and they're doing a great job.
Shlomo [0:37:07]: So for smaller companies.
Shlomo [0:37:08]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:37:08]: I think her your method is way better.
Dasha [0:37:11]: It's so much cheaper too.
Dasha [0:37:12]: I know it allows you to test it.
Dasha [0:37:13]: I mean, like, if it works with free actors.
Dasha [0:37:15]: You can always kinda scale up.
Shlomo [0:37:17]: Absolutely.
Dasha [0:37:18]: Alright.
Dasha [0:37:18]: I think you got another example for us here.
Shlomo [0:37:20]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:37:20]: Just just one more thing that I wanted to show for each one of those are also always want to show the low cost version.
Shlomo [0:37:25]: So...
Shlomo [0:37:26]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:37:26]: So just like you suggest it could be people from your office or even simpler could be just pure copy.
Shlomo [0:37:31]: Sometimes, you can use person and just ride the thing.
Shlomo [0:37:35]: So this is a headline from Ram that I really like, receipts now organize themselves.
Shlomo [0:37:40]: And this is super simple.
Shlomo [0:37:41]: Right?
Shlomo [0:37:41]: So you also give those receipts sort of a human trade.
Shlomo [0:37:45]: Right?
Shlomo [0:37:45]: Like, they do it themselves, and you can see those a lot of examples like these, like, from Oreo, for example, milk favorite cookie.
Shlomo [0:37:52]: And so on.
Shlomo [0:37:53]: So, like, even in your tag lines and even in your copy, which you don't need any budget to write copy, it's just words, then you can also use that technique to make things a little bit more interesting and exciting.
Dasha [0:38:04]: I love it.
Dasha [0:38:05]: What if you're working at a company that is maybe marketing to a more sophisticated senior audience, and you have this fun idea, but you're worried that your CEO is gonna look at it and think, look, we're not the fun company, like, this isn't gonna work for us.
Dasha [0:38:21]: I'm sure you this has come up with your clients.
Dasha [0:38:23]: The marketers are, like, hell, yeah.
Dasha [0:38:25]: But there's some fear around going to present it to leadership.
Dasha [0:38:29]: What do you recommend how do you coach people when that's a situation.
Shlomo [0:38:33]: That happens all the time.
Shlomo [0:38:34]: And I guess this is one of the biggest problems because there's so many great ideas that just die in the meeting room because...
Shlomo [0:38:41]: Yeah, for a lot of different reasons.
Shlomo [0:38:42]: So I think that first of all, even before, like, there are a lot of methods to make to sorta of incorporate stakeholders to buy into our weird ideas.
Shlomo [0:38:51]: But even before that, I think that one of the most important things is to actually think about the side, think about the perspective of the CEO or the executive that is against that.
Shlomo [0:39:02]: Right?
Shlomo [0:39:02]: Because it's always easy.
Shlomo [0:39:03]: To be the one teaching the ideas.
Shlomo [0:39:05]: But once you're on the client side and I've experienced that many times, then you all of a sudden, you see that.
Shlomo [0:39:11]: Okay.
Shlomo [0:39:12]: It's not that easy to commit to all your budget to a crazy idea like that because so much is at stake, like, you can lose every your job.
Shlomo [0:39:19]: You can lose your that important budget, and it's scary.
Shlomo [0:39:22]: So the first thing we need to do as creative is to sort of be aware of that.
Shlomo [0:39:26]: And I'll just be like, yeah, The client is so worrying.
Shlomo [0:39:29]: They never approve our ideas.
Shlomo [0:39:30]: No.
Shlomo [0:39:31]: Wait a second.
Shlomo [0:39:31]: Like, they have a lot of responsibility so we need to think about that, and we need to understand their perspective first.
Shlomo [0:39:37]: And only then we can start and think how we can actually convince them.
Shlomo [0:39:42]: And out to this part, so there are a few things.
Shlomo [0:39:44]: The first thing is to start small.
Shlomo [0:39:46]: If you come all of a sudden and you come with a big brand campaign, yell.
Shlomo [0:39:50]: It's buy a hundred bill billboards in new York and do this same thing, then, of course, they probably say no.
Shlomo [0:39:56]: But if you say, okay.
Shlomo [0:39:57]: Look.
Shlomo [0:39:58]: I created this one meme.
Shlomo [0:39:59]: Let's add it into our Linkedin ad mix.
Shlomo [0:40:01]: Just for one week and see what happens.
Shlomo [0:40:04]: If that works, and usually, it would work in one way or another, whether it's clicks or even leads even better, although those things can take time sometimes.
Shlomo [0:40:12]: But even if you see a little spike, and you see that something is working, then usually, they would ask for more or at least, at this point, you already have a case.
Shlomo [0:40:20]: You can already say, okay.
Shlomo [0:40:21]: Like, I have a way to justify and there is positive ROI on that.
Shlomo [0:40:25]: And all of a sudden gets way easier because you have that proof.
Shlomo [0:40:28]: So that's the first thing to start small.
Shlomo [0:40:30]: The second thing is to actually own the process end to end.
Shlomo [0:40:34]: Right?
Shlomo [0:40:34]: Because it's very easy to just go and suggest ideas, like let's let's do this.
Shlomo [0:40:39]: That's the that, but the hardest part is to actually...
Shlomo [0:40:41]: Follow through and make that thing happen to, like you said.
Shlomo [0:40:45]: Like, to take those to team members and book a whole day for them to and bring a video referral.
Shlomo [0:40:53]: And actually, say, like, okay.
Shlomo [0:40:54]: You know what?
Shlomo [0:40:55]: Like, you have an enough your plate and you won't have to worry about that thing.
Shlomo [0:40:58]: I'm gonna take care of it end to end.
Shlomo [0:41:00]: I'm gonna produce it, and I'm gonna give you the final results.
Shlomo [0:41:03]: And often this is the biggest problem.
Shlomo [0:41:04]: Right?
Shlomo [0:41:05]: Because when people hear a cool idea, It's not even like they don't like it.
Shlomo [0:41:09]: They do like it, but they think about all the implications.
Shlomo [0:41:12]: Like, we'll need to do so many things, and it's all the money, all the logistics time and so on.
Shlomo [0:41:17]: So if you say, yeah.
Shlomo [0:41:18]: I already know how much it it's gonna cost.
Shlomo [0:41:20]: I already spoke to the videographer.
Shlomo [0:41:21]: Like I have everything figured out Here's the project.
Shlomo [0:41:24]: You just need to say, yeah.
Shlomo [0:41:26]: Just green light it, then it's way easier for executives to say, yeah.
Shlomo [0:41:29]: Sure.
Shlomo [0:41:30]: Just do it.
Shlomo [0:41:30]: I see that you've you've done your homework.
Shlomo [0:41:32]: It's not just like some crazy idea that you wanna do all of a sudden.
Dasha [0:41:36]: We call it a low friction ask, like making it as easy as possible to say yes to.
Shlomo [0:41:41]: Love it.
Shlomo [0:41:41]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:41:42]: Love it.
Shlomo [0:41:42]: Okay.
Shlomo [0:41:42]: I'm gonna steal that.
Dasha [0:41:44]: A low friction ass.
Dasha [0:41:45]: I think it comes from sales, but it's the same thing in just any executive columns.
Dasha [0:41:49]: Like execs are really busy.
Dasha [0:41:50]: And so you wanna eliminate the decision fatigue as much as possible.
Dasha [0:41:54]: And like, if you can say, like, look, all you have to do is say, yes, here's everything I'm gonna do, here's the cost.
Dasha [0:41:59]: I've already done this, then you der risk saying yes to you.
Dasha [0:42:03]: Okay.
Dasha [0:42:04]: Let's talk about Ai.
Dasha [0:42:05]: Everyone wants to know about Ai.
Dasha [0:42:07]: Your personal philosophy around using Ai in the process.
Dasha [0:42:10]: We've touched on this a little bit.
Dasha [0:42:12]: Sounds like you're using it.
Dasha [0:42:13]: What should Ai do what shouldn't an Ai do, How much are you outsourcing Ai in your agency?
Dasha [0:42:20]: Talk to me about that?
Shlomo [0:42:21]: I'm a big believer that advertising should follow culture and not the other of way around because I think that a lot of marketers say that advertising should create and lead culture.
Shlomo [0:42:31]: But usually, that's not the situation.
Shlomo [0:42:33]: Usually, there are musicians, filmmakers, artists, like, they're, I don't know, fashion, icons, influencers.
Shlomo [0:42:41]: Those people are actually setting the tone on what's cool.
Shlomo [0:42:45]: And on what's interesting and on what's we should be paying attention to.
Shlomo [0:42:49]: Like, like it or not, that's the situation.
Shlomo [0:42:51]: Usually, especially not a tech company would decide that, I mean, I mean, sometimes some products but not their marketing department would decide what is the next cool thing.
Shlomo [0:43:01]: And that's why I I really believe that advertising should fit culture and adjust itself to that.
Shlomo [0:43:06]: So, I mean, unless people are going to to the cinema to watch an ai movie, then I think that ads shouldn't be completely Ai.
Shlomo [0:43:15]: I mean, there are a lot of cool things that you can do with Ai, and I also use that for transitions, effects, shots that I wouldn't be able to to take otherwise because they would costs tens of or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Shlomo [0:43:28]: But overall, I'm not a believer in those ads that are obviously Ai because they look cheap.
Shlomo [0:43:34]: They look like you didn't actually care enough to ask one of your team members to stay in front of the camera and do that or to hire an actor from a Facebook group or to actually do this little effort of showing that, yeah.
Shlomo [0:43:45]: There is there are humans behind this company.
Shlomo [0:43:47]: And you will see that even the most Ai driven companies like starting from and and t and open Ai and hicks failed.
Shlomo [0:43:55]: And all of those, like, they all use humans for their marketing.
Shlomo [0:43:59]: And they all sometimes shoot their ads literally like, un film cameras So I think that if they do that, then I think that everyone else should follow that as well.
Shlomo [0:44:09]: And that's what I'm trying to do as well.
Shlomo [0:44:11]: Like you've seen in those two last ads, I always tried to make this production it looks as realistic as possible And I think that maybe in a year, my answer would be different.
Shlomo [0:44:21]: If Ai would get so good that it would literally be impossible to tell the difference, then maybe there would be different and a lot of the productions would become fully Ai because there wouldn't be any reason to shoot on a real camera, but maybe even then there will be other ways to show that you're actually human and you're actually authentic.
Shlomo [0:44:41]: So I don't know what's gonna happen.
Shlomo [0:44:43]: But for now, I'm speaking to real actors real production.
Shlomo [0:44:46]: This is what's been working well for me.
Dasha [0:44:49]: I like that.
Dasha [0:44:49]: I think there's a lot of opportunity for marketers to stand up and stand out in a world of Ai slot.
Dasha [0:44:55]: There is one Ai ad that I did like.
Dasha [0:44:58]: I will say, I don't know if you saw.
Dasha [0:45:00]: F had an Ai.
Dasha [0:45:01]: I think it was, like, end to end Ai generated video.
Dasha [0:45:05]: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Shlomo [0:45:07]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:45:07]: The one with the slap.
Shlomo [0:45:08]: Right?
Dasha [0:45:09]: Yes.
Dasha [0:45:09]: Exactly.
Dasha [0:45:10]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:45:10]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:45:11]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:45:11]: Yeah.
Shlomo [0:45:11]: Yeah.
Dasha [0:45:12]: It was good.
Dasha [0:45:12]: But I think the reason it's good is because they clearly went.
Dasha [0:45:15]: Like, it's not a one shot video that was generated with Ai.
Dasha [0:45:18]: I feel like that's something that took many people, multiple hours that had a real human in the loop scripting it.
Dasha [0:45:24]: They almost did everything with their brain involved minus the maybe video generation piece.
Shlomo [0:45:30]: Definitely.
Shlomo [0:45:30]: Definitely.
Shlomo [0:45:31]: And honestly thing that it would work even better if it were real actors.
Shlomo [0:45:34]: I think it would be even cooler for sure.
Shlomo [0:45:36]: But as long as you have...
Shlomo [0:45:38]: You definitely had all the elements there.
Shlomo [0:45:40]: Right?
Shlomo [0:45:41]: It was clear.
Shlomo [0:45:41]: You understood the offer, it was scroll stopping because the collars were all interesting there was this, like, cool story happening, and it was relatable because every marketer here has been in that situation where you're trying to justify your marketing spend and you can't and f solves that.
Shlomo [0:45:57]: So definitely, it had all the elements.
Shlomo [0:45:59]: I think that if it were real production, you First, be way more expensive, but maybe more effective and cool, but I think it was great, and I I remember I read that they had great results.
Shlomo [0:46:09]: So can't argue with that.
Dasha [0:46:11]: Speaking of expensive, talk to me about budget.
Dasha [0:46:13]: If you have...
Dasha [0:46:14]: Kind of a marketing team of one or two people, no budget.
Dasha [0:46:18]: What is the highest leverage move you can do to have fun ads with kinda no budget?
Shlomo [0:46:25]: I think stick to static ads.
Shlomo [0:46:26]: This is the simplest thing you can do.
Shlomo [0:46:28]: Because even Ai video, just like you said, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort if you wanna do it well.
Shlomo [0:46:34]: Just like you said, like, you still need to script it, you still need to edit it well.
Shlomo [0:46:38]: So it's not like a solution that you can just, like, say, yeah, like, Ai I will just do our video ads.
Shlomo [0:46:43]: So I think that static ads and memes are an amazing option, like, I've seen so many companies that scaled their whole company and their whole ad program just with memes and static ads and some U ads from real users and founder their led ads.
Shlomo [0:46:59]: So all of those things are very cheap.
Shlomo [0:47:01]: It's just plain text and some Ai generated or stock images or so simple images that you can treat yourself.
Shlomo [0:47:08]: But I think these are always the best options.
Shlomo [0:47:10]: I think it's always better to do something well and to make something that there is thought behind it, and it's interesting, and it's fun and it's relatable, then trying to make videos and trying to make assets that you can't actually afford and make them look cheap.
Shlomo [0:47:24]: I think that a good static ads or even an authentic screenshot of a testimonial is much better than a poorly made Ai in it.
Dasha [0:47:34]: That's awesome.
Dasha [0:47:34]: Sweet.
Dasha [0:47:34]: S, that brings us to the end of the pod.
Dasha [0:47:37]: Thank you for walking us through the three things that every ad should have and the three techniques to get fun ads for people that wanna find you, what is the best place to find you on the Internet.
Shlomo [0:47:49]: I'm on Linkedin, Shlomo Genchin, and you'll probably also see my weird name in the description.
Shlomo [0:47:54]: In of this podcast.
Shlomo [0:47:55]: And also on board dot com.
Shlomo [0:47:57]: That's my website, newsletter, and you can find all my, a bunch of free material there as well.
Dasha [0:48:03]: Alright.
Dasha [0:48:03]: That's the pod.
Dasha [0:48:03]: Thanks for tuning in.
Shlomo [0:48:05]: Thank you very much.
Dave [0:48:10]: Hey.
Dave [0:48:10]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
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