DC: [00:00:00] Brand Nerds, this one's different. Happy holidays, Brand Nerds. Happy holidays. Larry and I had an idea, actually the whole team had an idea. We thought we gave either close out 2025 with another wonderful guest and we're blessed to have wonderful guests. Or we could flip the script a bit. We've decided on the latter LT, the latter. 
LT: Yes. 
DC: So we're closing out this year, 2025 with our first, first annual brands, beats and Bytes Marketing Awards. So this is the first time Larry, we're having marketing awards and we've got two different categories of awards and we're gonna have two different shows. 
LT: Yes. 
DC: We're gonna have a show where we talk about the brand bangers.
So these are the [00:01:00] ones that we think are the best of the best. And we're also gonna have a show that talks about brand busts as in not so good. Not so good. So, so here's how we're gonna do this Brand Nerds. We're gonna, we're gonna drop this, give you our thoughts on both the bangers and the bust. We're gonna, ask you guys to join us on LinkedIn. You can go to Larry's page, my page or our BPD LinkedIn page and we want to hear from you guys as well. But since this is our show, this is our show, Larry. It's nobody else's show. It's our show. 
LT: That's right. 
DC: We get to make the rules. So one of the rules is if we cut, if we, you and I, Larry or someone else on the team production team came across an idea, a campaign or something interesting in marketing and it was launched three years ago, but we became aware of it, Larry, [00:02:00] you and I this year, if we think it needs to be, uh, an award winner, it's gonna get a, it's gonna get a winning award.
It might also get a bust, uh, award. 
LT: Right. 
DC: So we'll do that. The other is that some will be timely, some of our awards will be timely, so they may be going on literally right now. And importantly, Larry, unlike other award shows. I wanna make sure I've got the King's English correct here, because the king's English is very important.
Larry, we ain't got no nominees, okay? We, we ain't got no nominees. We have winners, only winners, winner winner, chicken dinner. That's, that's all we have's. Shout Charlie Sheen one time. Those are the rules of the, uh, of, of, of our show here. And Larry, ooh, I can't wait to get into this. Can you please break this down a little further for the Brand Nerds?
LT: Yeah. D this is gonna be fun. We, and that's part of what we wanted to do as well. [00:03:00] Brand nerds. We wanna make this fun. And at the same time, you know, call out some things that we, uh, as you know, Brand Nerds are not shy, on calling things out, both great and uh, and and bad. So today is part one Brand Nerds and with that's where we are delivering, as DC alluded to the brand bust award, those that really missed the mark.
Yes, we are calling folks out, not in a got you way, but where we're gonna take you inside the ropes for maybe like, what the hell these brands were thinking, and also what we can learn from these clear misses. Our next show, part two, will call out the brand bangers. Those are the brands who really nailed it, including why it is so strong and maybe where it could have gone wrong but didn't.
So now we're gonna talk to you about, there's three brand bust award in our inaugural show today. So d you wanna walk us through these award names with a little explanation for each? 
DC: Of course, Larry. Alright. Brand Nerds, check [00:04:00] the names. Everything is in the name. Brand Nerds, everything is in the ma name.
Yes, we have three awards. These are the brand bust awards. Number one. What were you thinking patna'? Award, right? Alright. Number two, That Was Never Going to Work Award. And number three, Trend Jacking Faceplant Award. That's number three. I need to do some splaining, Larry. 
LT: Please do. 
DC: I need to do some splaining.
Alright. Right. Let me go back up to number one. What were you thinking? Comma or ellips.do patna award. This is for the campaign. Uh, that was, uh, folks dead on arrival. Okay. This, this thing was dead. It may have been a sexy idea, Larry and brand nerds. Ooh. But it was executed as Charles Barkley says, [00:05:00] terribly.
It was executed terribly. We all now, the our marketing profession, Larry, we love to go to Cannes. Oh, we just get so excited. We get, we want to present what we've done. We want to get a Canned Lion. We want to be on a panel, be on some yacht can, is very important. And these are the kind of ideas. The winner of this one in this category at Canne probably would've gotten a nice little hand clap or maybe some snaps upon launch, but then upon execution and a little bit of data after that, you go, uh, I don't get it.
Yeah, I don't get it. That's number one. 
LT: Yeah. We say what we were thinking, patna? That's what we're saying. 
DC: You say, what was you thinking patna? Thank you Larry. Number two, that was never going to work. Award. Alright, this one is somebody, a brand has launched a campaign. Alright? But before they launched it. [00:06:00] Several, if not many people inside the organization, Brand Nerds. They knew this thing was doomed. They knew it wasn't gonna work, and they were wondering why their senior management was even investing the money and time talking to themselves about it. So this could be a misaligned product, wrong audience, some delusional delulu expectations or just political theater.
Just political theater. Okay. But people knew this thing should have never left the barn. It should have never gotten out. So that was never going to work. Award number three. 
LT: D, before you go ahead. I, I just wanted one quick comment that just came to me for number two, um, Brand Nerds, Keith Berman, who has been a, a, a media guy who very successful, but always wears out his welcome.
But when they launched ESPN2 and they had him like dressed as in like what was at the time, cool clothes, he [00:07:00] said, welcome to ESPN2. And it's the first day of the end of my career. That's what this is.
DC: Hey, well listen, uh uh, Keith Oberman brilliant comedic talent is a bit like Lane Kiffin in the football world. 
LT: That's right. Yeah. 
DC: He's gonna do a good job. Loads of talent, but it ain't gonna end well. 
LT: That's right. 
DC: It ain't, it ain't gonna end well. Alright. Same true. You're right Larry, for that was never going to work.
We, we might even rename this as like that. That's not gonna end well. That's not gonna end well, but we'll stick with the name. All right, number three, the Trend Jacking Face Plant Award. Marketers, Brand Nerds, you know how we get all excited about things that are trending in social media, how we just worship at the altar of the influencer.[00:08:00] 
We, we, we just want to find that trend and then quickly hop on it and ride that puppy as far as we can ride it. Unfortunately, doing that is kinda like cringey. 
LT: Yep. 
DC: And doing that, being seduced by all of the starry lights. Brand nerds can have you appear tone deaf to your consumers or customers and it can also make you kinda look thirsty.
Like you're just trying too hard. Yep. That's trend jacking, Face Plant Awards. So those are the three awards, Larry. Love it. Those are three awards we came up with these names ourselves. All right. We are at award number one. What were you thinking partna award. You ready, Larry? 
LT: I'm ready. Let's do [00:09:00] it. 
DC: Uh, number one, y'all.
This is a bust. 
LT: The winner is. The winner is. 
DC: Okay. Well, uh, let's see. I kind of wanna set it up just a little bit. Oh, please do. Sure. Sorry. Lemme, lemme just set it up a little bit. Alright. Brand Nerds. This is one where this could have so easily been avoided. 
LT: Yeah. 
DC: This is, this is one where it didn't take a lot of like intellectual acuity to avoid this one.
This is when Larry where, and Brand Nerds where, you go, what, what were you thinking? Right? What were you thinking? And the winner is.
Fendi. And you know, I love Fendi as a brand. Larry, I love
LT: Great Brand Fendi. 
DC: It's a, it's a wonderful brand, but they made a boo boo. [00:10:00] They made a boo boo. Alright? So Fendi, as you know, big time fashion house brand, uh, they also do purses among other things. Bags, I should call them. And they did a campaign, Brand Nerds, around a Chinese knot.
Alright? But that's not how this thing started. It started now this is a really big deal, their hand in hand campaign and they were celebrating their wait for it Brand Nerds. 100th year anniversary. This is a really big deal. We've been around a hundred years. Not many brands in any category have been around 100 years.
Fendi saying, we're celebrating the fact that we've been around 100 years. So what do they go and do? They go and hire an acclaimed South Korean artisan to do a collab, on a bag. And I don't want to get the name wrong, I'm gonna attempt to [00:11:00] pronounce it Kim Yuen Young. And they get this South Korean designer artisan to do a bag with Fendi.
So they do one, they do a wonderful bag. And Larry, as you know, it has a knot on it. 
LT: Yep. 
DC: Wonderful knot. A design knot. 
LT: Built into the handbag. Brand Nerds, into the handbag. 
DC: Yep. Thank you, Larry, into the handbag, the implication, because you're working with a South Korean artist, and here's a knot, is that this Korean knot is of Korean origins.
This is what this whole thing is about. That's why you have this South Korean artist. Oh, oh, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay. Unfortunately, the actual design, the origin of it was from China, not South Korea. [00:12:00] And the internet went nuts. They went nuts. They created a hashtag. The hashtag is Fendi, responding to Chinese, knot controversy.
110 million views on a social media platform. Weibo Webo is like in China, a combination between Facebook, Twitter, or X and Reddit, 120 million views. This thing is on fire. What does Fendi do? They don't offer a formal apology. They, they just said, well, let us clarify what we meant to do. Our intentions were honor this artist, put artists together, highlight artists, all that kind of stuff That didn't work, Brand Nerds that, that, that did not, it did not quail the outrage. It elevated the outrage. 
LT: [00:13:00] Right. 
DC: Alright. Larry, what are your thoughts on this? What are you thinking? Partner, award winner, Fendi? 
LT: Well, D, there's the two, there's two thoughts that jump to mind. One is pre and one is post. Mm. So Brand Nerds, the pre part of this is whenever you are doing a collaboration and you're doing one that is involving something of cultural origin.
Mm-hmm. You. Better. Damn. Well make sure that you have every single detail covered. Yeah. Um, that this is being checked double checked and triple checked. Now that's a, that's the, what are you thinking partner to begin with? Like, they just didn't do the, the work, the gritty work that you need to do before something like this, right?
DC: Nope. Nope. 
LT: So that's the major that, that's where [00:14:00] it began. But you know what? Brand nerd, a lot of times things happen with our businesses where we have double checked, double checked and triple checked and done all those things as we should have. But shit happens that we don't expect. 
DC: Yeah. Yeah. 
LT: And when that happens, just like you are, just like we, I, I'd like to conduct myself with people is when you f up and d we have this internally, both.
We do, uh, with our, with our podcast and with Brand Positioning Doctors, when you f up and we all do own it, my bad, say my bad. And then go to the lengths you need to go to admit it and own it and correct it. And so the post of this is worse than the pre because if they owned it and then made the appropriate apologies and maybe even extended itself, they could have made, they could have made, uh, lemonade outta lemons and they made it even [00:15:00] wor they made the lemon, the lemons even more sour by what they did post tho those are my views on this thing. 
DC: Excellent, Larry. Excellent. Brand Nerds and Larry, brands are inanimate objects. We as marketing people, larger capital M, marketing community, imbue these inanimate objects with personality. Yep. Attributes, meaning emotion, such that humans have a commo, uh, an emotional connection with the brand.
So you actually have a brand behaving, looking, speaking like a human, connecting with an actual human. It's a bit like a relationship. I go back to the point you made Larry, about where we are with brand positioning, doctors and, um, Brands, Beats and Bytes, our [00:16:00] culture. If you make an F up, you own it. 
LT: Yep.
DC: Imagine Brand Nerds being in a relationship with someone who never apologizes. 
LT: Right. 
DC: They just don't say, I'm sorry, I messed up. Now, Fendi, in this case, I don't know other mess ups that they've had. They messed up, as you said, because they just didn't say, I'm sorry, and then started to do something about it.
They took some of it that like the campaign down, the post down, but all of the other stuff they left. So that makes you wonder like, are you, are you really sorry, my takeaway on this, Larry, is uh, don't be lazy marketers. 
LT: Yep. 
DC: Don't be lazy marketers. The Fendi brand belongs to its consumers. 
LT: Yep. 
DC: The steward of the brand. However, those are the brand managers and what I believe they did is they bequeathed, these are the brand managers for Fendi product manager, product managers, or whatever they call 'em in [00:17:00] Fendi world. They bequeathed their brand to this designer. Often brands, brand managers, bequeath their brand over to some influencer, some celebrity, some somebody.
You can't do that. And when you're lazy and you bequeath, this is where you run into these problems. 
LT: Yes. And to close it up, D, you know, the roots of Fendi, it, it was started in 1925 mm-hmm. Um, by Adele and Eduardo Fendi. Mm. So again, that's the hundredth year anniversary. And so literally while the, you know, the family, um, it doesn't really have, uh, much to, to do about with the company anymore.
LVMH, I believe the Luxury Goods brand owns the company now. Yeah. Yeah. It still has to go back to the roots of that. And so I'm sure the, the Fendis are rolling [00:18:00] in their grave now because of the way they've handled something like this. 
DC: Yeah. Um, congratulations, Fendi. You have the inaugural Brands Beats and Bytes Award show winner in brand bust.
What were you thinking patna? 
LT: That's right. 
DC: Alright, listen, hit the next one, Larry. 
LT: All right, so the next one, um, this is number 2, D, and this, this was, that was never gonna work. Award. Mm-hmm. So, okay. D um, that big bust number two, that was never gonna work. Award. There's many candidates on this one, but the one we have selected is a Jaguar campaign called Copy Nothing. 
DC: Jaguar. Okay. Sorry. 
LT: No, that's okay. So let me give you and the Brand Nerds sort of the, the background to this, right? So it, about a year ago, in November of 2024, uh, Jaguar announced the beginning [00:19:00] of a new era. With new brand identity, including new logo, wor word mark, typeface and color palette that they were debuting in November of 2024. And the campaign focus was to embody the Jaguar founder, Sir William Lyon's, ethos of originality and uniqueness, promoting a new philosophy called exuberant modernism. And the launch video notably showed models in vibrant outfits, but no cars. Did you hear me, D? 
DC: I I can, can you repeat it again? I may have missed that, that factoid. 
LT: Showed models in vibrant outfits without cars. 
DC: No cars. This is a Jaguar ad. What is it? What is the Jaguar, what is, what product category is this in? What? What is it in? 
LT: Last I checked, it was a very premium luxury car manufacturer. 
DC: Oh, okay. It is a luxury car manufacturer? 
LT: Yes. 
DC: Okay, got it. Got it. Got it.
And by the way, 
LT: We should say automobile today because of that auto automobile. 
DC: Automobile, automobile. And by the way, [00:20:00] I, I, I know I don't want to get in the way of your, uh, your flow here, Larry, but this is not the same as some other categories who have nailed their brand for so long in decades that they can get away without showing their product.
That ain't Jaguar. 
LT: Nope. 
DC: Okay, go ahead. 
LT: Nope. Alright, so another key factoid D is that. Uh, Jaguar's in the process and, and, uh, by the way, the company, the overarching company is Jaguar Land Rover. Those two brands are together. That's the, in, within the same company. Mm-hmm. So both obviously, uh, uh, super premium, uh, you know, British, uh, car brands.
So the key factor to it is they Jaguars completely overhauling its vehicles to go fully EV in 2026. Mm-hmm. And so in 2025, they didn't have anything really new as it relates to new models to show, obviously they have 2024, 2025 models, but nothing was new in [00:21:00] 2025 versus what they had done before? 
DC: No, no, no.
Nothing. No new ICE cars. So no internal combustion engine cars, correct? 
LT: Yep. Correct. 
DC: They got it. Okay. Yep. 
LT: Okay. And so they're, they're, they're sort of waiting on this fully ev fleet coming in 2026, so. In 2025, they only sold 26, almost 27,000 automobiles globally for the full fiscal year. And by the way, that was an 85% slide from the 2018 peak.
And you could say, okay, LT, but they're sort of doing this on purpose. Right. Um, at the same time, you know, they're getting ready for this, for this, uh, fully ev fleet coming in 2026. Mm-hmm. And this campaign Brand Nerds bombed so severely, so badly it was dead on arrival. Is this is where again, what were you thinking?
This is the Keith Oberman in, in a, in a weird leather [00:22:00] outfit saying, what are we doing here? There had to be folks within the Jaguar world saying, what are we doing here? We don't have any new cars. Why are we doing this massive new. Uh, brand relaunch with nothing to behind it. And so, by the way, Brand Nerds, the fallout, um, not only did of course was there an 85% slide, but the Chief Creative Officer at Jaguar, Land Rover was recently relieved of his duties because of the fallout of this campaign.
This campaign is that big of a bust, and we see it as something that's dead, was dead on arrival. So DC what are your thoughts on this? 
DC: Uh, Larry, this is embarrassing. This is embarrassing. We are an advocate for our marketing brethren and sistern. We at Brands Beats and Bytes and Brand Positioning Doctors, but [00:23:00] sometimes we do things in our profession where we deserve what we get.
Exuberant modernism. What the hell is that? What is this? So this is what I can imagine. This is, this is what I can imagine. I'm not saying this is what happened, but you get some folks in a room, they're thinking about what they're gonna call this and they're blazing it. What should, what should we call this thing?
What should we, this masterpiece that we created. I got it, I got it, Larry. Let's call it "exuberant modernism." That is just ridiculous. Let's go to the numbers again. Give a few more numbers. They launched this thing, I think, Larry, during the Super Bowl, this campaign? 
LT: No, it was before, it was in November of 2024, actually.
DC: Oh, oh. November of 2024. Okay. My bad. But, but 
LT: they did do, they did do a lot more marketing at the beginning of the year. That's [00:24:00] when they, they started to, to, you know, increase, uh, you know, their, uh. Their media, uh, buy there. 
DC: Cool. Thank you, Larry. My, my bad. There's a saying in our business, it goes back a long time and it doesn't completely apply here, but it does apply.
LT: It does. 
DC: Yeah. Yeah. No, nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising. Now, in this case, I don't know whether the electric cars are in fact good products or not, but they didn't have 'em really to sell otherwise, right? They wouldn't have had these numbers. And when I think about it, I go, the, the most interesting thing that Jaguar has done in 2025 to me are Waymo's, that that's the most interesting thing that they've done.
So I'll sum this all up by saying a little too cool for school. You look at the ads, all the wonderful colors, it looks like [00:25:00] a Fendi ad. 
LT: It does. 
DC: That's how it looks. Speaking about number one, it looks like a fashion house ad. It does. And I'm thinking like, what in the Beanie Baby, Teletubby is what is happening here.
So too cool for school. And then the other thing I have is never forget your brand promise or your brand lover. And they forgot both in this case. 
LT: Yeah, you said it perfectly, D. I'm just gonna add a little, uh, exclamation mark before we go to the next one. What you said there at the end is killer because brand there.
At the end of the day, if you don't know who your consumer is and you've heard us, we talk about brand lover, that's the epicenter of what we call the consumer. You gotta, you gotta really make sure you're emotionally connecting with that brand lover. But let's start with who the, who the target audience is.
They're so far off in, in what they're doing here, and it reeks of, as you said, [00:26:00] that when you were saying too cool for school. This is when brand nerds, no offense to our creative brethren, but when creatives run amuck with, without having the foundation of a brand and brand promise and what the strategy is, this is what you end up getting.
It's rudderless, it's not connected at all to what the, who the Jaguar consumer is and aspires to be and who, who, who actually you want that consumer to be. There's a huge disconnect here. And when the disconnect happens, what happens, D? People get fired as as it happened here. 
DC: And they should. 
LT: That's right.
That's exactly right. 
DC: They should. 
LT: That's exactly right. Alright, we, I think we've, uh, hit that one. Good. Should we go to number three? 
DC: Let's do it. 
LT: All right, so number three, Brand Nerds. We're calling the Trend Jacking Face Plant Award. Alright, so this one, unfortunately there were a lot of candidates here, Brand Nerds, but we found one that goes to the heart of [00:27:00] what this brand is actually about.
And the drum roll is da da da da. The brand that we're talking about is E.L.F. It's uh, which is a values cosmetic brand. It's E period, L period F, period. And the acronym stands for Eyes, lips, and Face. That's what it said, said. I didn't 
DC: know that. By the way, Larry, before we did this, I didn't know that. 
LT: I didn't know it either.
I was familiar with the brand, I didn't know that either. And on their website, and by the way, this brand's done really well. Um, on their website. They also say it stands for empowering legendary females. Hmm. And they have people who I'm, I'm a one of a huge fan of Billie Jean King as one of their brand endorsers.
DC: Ah, yeah. Yeah. 
LT: So there's nobody more, uh, legendary, like an empowering, legendary female than Billie Jean King. Yep. So this is important context here, Brand Nerds. Okay. So that's the background to what this brand E.L.F. is about. All right, so on August 11th [00:28:00] of this year, so this is just a few months ago, elf debuted a law office parody ad designed for TikTok and streaming.
So the campaign focus was a fictional law office Elfino and Schmarnes, which was a play on the real life law firm of Selino and Barnes, which, uh, had, uh, real iconic commercials in the nineties and early two thousands. So for this ad, for this Elfino and Schmarnes, uh, parody that stars comedian Matt Rife. And drag Queen Heidi in closet playing roles of lawyers.
Okay, so here's the issue, Brand Nerds. So a little more backdrop. Matt Rife had his debut Netflix special called Natural Selection in November of 2023. In this performance, Matt Rife opened the special with a joke about domestic violence, telling a story about visiting a restaurant in Baltimore with his friend and noticing a female server had a black eye.
[00:29:00] As the story goes, the duo wondered why the establishment wouldn't keep the server in the kitchen to avoid customer seeing her injury. And then Matt Rife says, yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn't have that black eye. I figure if we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be smooth sailing.
That's how we opened his special. This dude is starring in, uh, in a brand called E.L.F., which is saying empowering legendary females brand nerds. So you can imagine the backlash. So that was on August 11th when it debuted. On August 15th, E.L.F. released a statement offering an apology to its customers. You know us.
This is quote, you know us, we're always listening and we've heard you. It said, quote, this campaign aimed to humorously spotlight, beauty and justice. We understand we missed the mark with people we care about in our E.L.F. community. While Elfino and Schmarnes closes today will [00:30:00] continue to make the case against overpriced beauty.
And by the way, there were, they were answering that because there was an organization of a brand boycott already fomenting. So that's what happened. DC what say you? 
DC: Two things, Larry. First. They did own it. Now, I don't know how fast they owned it, but they did own it. 
LT: Four days later. So let's give them credit for that.
DC: Give them credit. Alright, so they, they, they owned it. My second point is this. I'm a girl dad. I have three daughters. I love these young women to death. They're all in their twenties now, so they're grown. And I gotta go back, Larry, to my Detroit roots and Aretha Franklin and one of her iconic songs.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Respect. Yeah. Okay, E.L.F. you [00:31:00] gotta respect the women and respecting the women is doing research to ensure that anyone associated with the brand also respects women. Does not joke about something so important to women and men, but in particular women. This was disrespectful to their, to their consumers.
It was disrespectful to their brand and it was disrespectful to the profession of marketing. This is disrespect. Period. 
LT: Exactly. Let me add to it too, what you just said. The fact that they were really lazy. Brand Nerds, the behind the ropes here is I wouldn't be surprised if their agency or someone within [00:32:00] their marketing sphere said, Hey, this dude Matt Rife is really an up and coming, a great comedian and, and, uh, we have this great idea for this parody and we think he'd be perfect. Mm-hmm. So, okay, great. Let's take a look at Matt and maybe they had some other people that they were considering, but invariably it, it, these are how these ideas, uh, are actually entered into the marketing sphere within a company.
So as a marketer, the next move you do is to say, okay, we're looking, maybe they're just looking at Matt, maybe they're looking at three or four other people. One of the first things you're gonna do is say, okay, tell me more about these people that we're considering. Brand Nerds, Quick story, way back in my day, my, as an assistant brand manager, I was really lucky to work on Shivas Regal Scotch and we had the great, the opportunity to have the great Frank Sinatra to sponsor a music concert series of his, which was an incredible thing.
You know [00:33:00] what, the first thing we did, D, once we, uh, were presented with the sponsorship and we knew it could be ours, um, myself and my two bosses went to see him in Atlantic City. And the reason why we went to see him is because we heard Frank was getting a little on in age and we wanted to see if Frank was quite honestly still cogent and still there and still able to, to, um, to really be Frank Sinatra.
DC: Yeah. 
LT: Yeah. One of the things we learned was the very beginning of the show, he talked about his Jack Daniels and how much he loved Jack Daniels, and so we were like, okay, so we went to see him. He was great, by the way. We were really impressed, but the, one of the things we got written into the contract is if Frank says anything about any other beverage alcohol brand, we're gonna have an opportunity to sever the relationship if we don't go and do that homework.
You never know if he slips and mentions Jack Daniels [00:34:00] versus Shivas Regal. So that's a quick story, but it's doing your homework. And that's what could have really avoided all of this. If they, they didn't even, they, if they just watched that special, nobody watched it. There's the first joke, the first joke of the special.
If you watched it, you go, oh, he can't have this guy. 
DC: What a great story, Larry. What a great story. I'm gonna add a story, but it's on the other side. It still is within the theme of you. You've got to do your homework, you gotta do your homework. But this is for something that actually did happen, uh, because of the homework that was done.
So, uh, one of our clients will remain nameless. Uh, we were doing a, uh, a campaign with them, uh, Brand Nerds. And uh, there were, I think four artists in the campaign. Uh, there was, uh. Pit bull, but this is not the pit bull we know today. This is pit bull on the [00:35:00] ascension early pit. He later become pit, the pit bull that he is today.
Uh, mid the mid mid to Miami. Mista 305. 305. Okay. So this is, this is Pit Bull. Trey Songs. Rihanna. And then there was a, uh, a up and coming mc who had just released a couple of songs that was, uh, in, in his first project that was Drake. Wow. So we were going to the, uh, meet with the senior management in their boardroom.
And I got a little birdie told me, someone's going to come to this meeting 'cause we're get, we wanna get these artists approved. 
LT: Right. 
DC: Uh, before we, we, we, uh, consummate the deals. The deals may have already been consummated as I think about it. So this is a high stakes meeting, right? These, these artists have to get through.
Little Birdie told me, someone's gonna show up at this, at this meeting, and they're going to read Drake's [00:36:00] lyrics as a way to convince the senior management that Drake should not be in the, uh, in the campaign. So I, I'm like, okay, got it. Got it. So they're doing their research. They're doing their research.
Right. So we show up at the meeting and sure enough, this person remain nameless, starts reading through the lyrics. I just wanna, uh, I wanna read some of Drake's lyrics so you all know who we are associating ourselves with. 
LT: Right. 
DC: She starts reading the lyrics and you can imagine what, 
LT: yeah. 
DC: These are folks that didn't know Drake's name.
Drake had not done any national campaigns anywhere. 
LT: This is early Drake. 
DC: This is early. This is the first one that he's, he's going to do. That he could have done. Uh, he, he ended up, uh, doing it. And she is torpedoing this thing that the [00:37:00] faces inside of this, of this, uh, boardroom are looking like, oh yeah, we could ne uh, we could never do.
You could tell, and I'm looking around the room and even the people on our side, uh, who are wanting this to get through, they, they know, oh, we're in trouble. This is over. We need to go find a replacement for Drake. So this, the, the lady gets done and she ends it on her mark mic drop moment. Is this the kind of person that we want our brand associated with?
So I wouldn't even let the room answer. I said, well, before they answer, I, I, I like to say a few words. So, so Larry, I said, um, you know, I, um, I really like entertainers. I, I, I, in fact, I love them because entertainers entertain and they say and do things that are in character. Yep. And [00:38:00] that serve the moment.
So I whip out some lines from Sylvester Stallone. Okay. I start reading lines from Rambo. Okay. 
LT: Okay. Wow. 
DC: I start going through some of the things he said, and then I said, these are great lines said by a wonderful entertainer name Sylvester Stallone. Do I believe do, do any of us believe we're gonna run into Sylvester Stallone outside and he's going to kill us?
Do, do, do we believe in he's gonna send it? No. He's paid to entertain. And these are lines from his art. What she just read were lines from an entertainer crafting his art, and then I stopped. 
LT: That's a great story. So what, so what ended up [00:39:00] happening before we wrap this up? 
DC: We ended up, we, we, we, we went forward with Drake.
LT: Love it. And it, and it worked out great. Right? 
DC: Worked out well, but, but doing homework is the point. 
LT: That's the point. Doing homework's. The point, and not to be seduced by, because we're, we're saying we're, we're, we've been behind these robes, Brand Nerds, the agency or whomever was pushing Matt. Right. They're like, he's an up and coming comedian.
If we can grab him, man. Yep, yep. You know, let's grab a hold of him while he's on the ascent to DC's point, while like Drake was on the ascent. But that's fine. But he better be someone, he or she better be someone that you know is going to be right for your consumers and what you're doing. That's the key here.
This is great. D, should we, should we, uh, should we hit the close here? 
DC: Bring it home, brother. Bring it home. 
LT: All right. So Brand Nerds. Um, the key takeaways here, when we think about these, uh, these, uh, infamous [00:40:00] brand busts, I think what they really have in common is there's a lack of understanding, truly what the essence of the brand is and how that manifests itself most acutely in the marketing that you're doing.
And if you don't have the, the throughput of knowing the strategy and then making sure that the strategy, um, that is actually manifesting itself in the execution in at least as good a way or, or, and, and in the best marketing in an emotionally connecting way, that's even better than the strategy, you've got trouble.
DC: Agreed, brother. I got three. They're all in the, uh, area of don't, don't be lazy. So do your homework. Don't be too cool for school. 
LT: Yes, 
DC: and don't disrespect your consumers. 
LT: [00:41:00] That's it. That's it. That's mic drop. That's mic drop. So thanks for listening to Brands, Beats and Bytes. Brand Nerds, the executive producers of Brands, Beats and Bytes are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Hailey Cobbin Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro. 
DC: The PO father. 
LT: And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share and for those on Apple Podcasts if you're so inclined, we love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.