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Album 4 Track 7 – Larry Kahn, Media Strategist and Forecaster
Hey Brand Nerds! We are joined by a friend, colleague, and data storytelling specialist in the virtual building, Larry Kahn. Formerly with NBC Sports, now a consultant for Datanautix. Larry is using AI and Big Data to analyze customers' own words after years of crunching numbers. including a fan feedback model unlike any you've heard of before. He is bringing us wisdom from his career journey through time spent in the radio industry, with Golf Channel, giving back to his local community through Harvard Alumni Association’s Early College Awareness program, and more.
Join our insightful conversation that is going to make you think, laugh, and reconsider the ways you can speak quickly and honestly with your target markets.
Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds, back at you with another Brands, Beats and Bytes podcast. And on this glorious day, it's about 82 degrees here in Atlanta today. Y'all sunny, just fantastic. We have a big brain in the building, a really big brain. He also happens to be with a firm that is a partner of ours, where we share a client. And whenever we get someone in the, in our virtual building, LT who has a highly diverse background, coupled with a dexterity in a specific area, I get giddy.
So we have that today. So can you please let the Brand Nerds know, who we have with us on this, a specious occasion.
LT: Very excellent setup for the intro DC. So we have Larry Kahn in the house today. Welcome LK.
Larry Kahn: Thank you, LT and DC.
LT: So DC, as you know, LK and I go way back and we tend to call one another by our initials to keep the Larry chatter down.
DC: Yes, yes, yes.
LT: So it's super cool to have LK on the show. Since we have worked with many research and insights leaders, D and I have not met anyone running a research and insights group and all my experience with smarter or more innovative than LK, so, okay Brand Nerds, let's give you how LK made this happen. So he graduated from Harvard University and truth be told, LK is not our first guest who matriculated from that fun institution in Cambridge on the podcast. They believe EHB holds that distinction, Elizabeth Brady. But anyway, D after LK graduates from Harvard with an economics degree, he goes to work at WCOD FM in Hyannis, Massachusetts. And those call letters of very purposeful since the station is in the heart of Cape Cod.
So WCOD is owned by Taylor Communications and LK at different times is the Marketing Coordinator, Promotions, Director, Operations Manager, Softball Coach, and occasional fill in Sports Reporter and overnight DJ. So Brand Nerds, what's interesting, and D I think this is, I think really interesting for our Brand Nerds to hear, is how a first job can, can be a stepping stone, or it can be a launch pad through your whole career.
In LK's case, he is thriving and doing so well for the folks at Taylor Communications, they eventually asked him to move to Florida and helped start Taylor's new property, a rebrand it's XL106.7 FM in Orlando. And in the corporate role of Taylor's now, his new role as the VP of Research and Marketing. In this role he also provides insights and strategy for Y103, which later goes to COAST102.9 in Jacksonville in EASY104 later, SUNNY104.3 in West Palm Beach. All right, D so now, the big call comes to LK from The Golf Channel. The Golf Channel started in 1995 and was co-founded among others by Arnold Palmer, the most very famous golfer. And soon thereafter LK is hired after The Golf Channel starts, lK is hired to start the research department at The Golf Channel. And for his first two years, he alone is the research department and this department group as the channel grew and became one of several channels owned by Comcast and ultimately one of many channels under the sub-brand of NBC Sports Group within the media entertainment brand of NBC Universal. So as head of research, Larry's linear professional achievements include ideation of unique measurement techniques and case studies of sponsor effectiveness leaned to annual growth in ad sales, exceeding projection. That's the lifeblood D, right? Is that sales? Yes. Yeah, the money, the money. Launch of unique and unprecedented two-play delivery platform that grew tournament viewing levels by up to 50% and made audience profiles for advertisers, both younger and more affluent.
He developed a pre/post proof for early adoption of revolutionary in industry leading playing through commercial formats. What that means is there's ads side by side with live action content in the break. That not only retain more audience, but allowed for increased monetization per telecast and per event. So you see how the research guy is generating dollars here, which is really good.
DC: Yes.
LT: And he integrates research into helping optimize key programming, such as the big break at golf central yielding significant ratings increases, which I, I, in my my wonderful partner back in the day, Bob Ciosek, played a part of and additionally, Larry spearheads, the adoption of cross-platform approach to all insights and deliverables as the golf vertical expands and media landscape evolves, including pioneering prediction of streaming consumption based on linear viewership, as part of incorporating digital metrics into ongoing KPIs and estimates.
He's innovating models of analysis, producing both linear and digital audience forecasts, when monetized led to successful media rights, acquisitions and renewals for the PGA Tour, US Open, Open Championship and Ryder Cup and data mining and support of analog and digital distribution strategies that tripled subscriber base over 20 years. Tripled.
All right. So we're coming to the close here. After 23 years at The Golf Channel and with NBC sports decision of 2020 to move The Golf Channel into their Connecticut operations, LK leaves to play pickleball, as he likes to say, and also to consult with cable networks, golf startups, and this great innovative company that you alluded to DC called Datanautix. Shout out to Sanjay and Neil Patel over Datanautix. Last year, LK introduced us at BPD to Datanautix and very soon thereafter, LK and Datanautix were able to field and produce groundbreaking research for our client, the Harlem Globetrotters with thousands of fans. Yes. Thousands of fans, almost in real time, and most importantly, yielding paradigm-shifting insights. So lastly, LK is rightfully very proud of a program he spends considerable time in volunteer work. He is the National Co-chair of the Harvard Alumni Associations Early College Awareness Program, a community service project, demonstrating college as possible and worth it for at-risk middle and high school students. With all of that, welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Larry Kahn.
Larry Kahn: Wow. Well, thank you. Thank you both. Can I borrow everything you just said? That that was really impressive.
LT: You can print it and use it however you may. You did it.
Larry Kahn: Very good.
DC: It's yours. It's you. It's what, it's what a LT does, so well, with all of our guests, he kicks it off by ,making it clear that yes, this is the person who we are about to have a discussion with. So LT, once again, brother, well done. Well done.
Alright. Okay. We are moving into what we described as the Get Comfy section. And usually there's this one area of good comfy, but for you actually have two. And given your time in the in the research business, you know, words matter, there have been an amalgamation of different words to describe your space.
I have heard, "research," "pre-search," "insights," trends, all of these different things to describe the domain in which you have matriculated. What are your thoughts about all of the different words that describe this space? And is there one particular word that you are drawn to?
Larry Kahn: It's a two word phrase and I call it data storytelling.
DC: Data storytelling. Interesting.
Larry Kahn: And it has to have a purpose. And generally speaking, the purpose should be monetizing content, which I often shortened to monetizing eyeballs and used to be when I first learned it monetizing ears. And that doesn't matter whether it's a non-profit or a profit, it doesn't matter whether it's college radio or commercial radio or big-time cable, television, or multi-linear cross platform.
There has to be a value on what's being offered. And what's being consumed and being able to properly measure and then express that value so that others can use it. I mean we're in the business. We were always in the business of renting eyes or renting ears. For, all the marketers out there to benefit from what we, the content provider, had aggravated. Our team was we're data storytellers. And that could be what just happened or that could be a forecast of what's going to happen.
DC: What a great answer.
LT: That is.
DC: Data storytelling. It has a sexiness to it. It also has a LK, in these two words, something that we don't typically think of in the marketing community, when we have folks that work in the research data, pre-search trends area, insights area, we aren't necessarily first thinking that our ability as marketers to tell a story to consumers must first begin with the ability of someone on the inside to tell a story to us. And that's y'all. Yeah, that's good.
Larry Kahn: If we can't sell it to you, it's not going to go anywhere.
DC: Nope. All right, Larry, any more on this before I go to my second Get Comfy? All right. You guys can't see LK here, but he's got on, he's got on his headset here and he's got his mic kind of coming down and he looks a bit like he's in an announcers booth, literally right now.
And I want to go right to that. So you're a Harvard Alum and there's this little football game that happens in the Ivy League between Harvard and Yale, every year. It's of kind of a big deal in your neck of the woods. And I understand as you were a play by play announcer, good friends over at MIT decided they wanted to do some kind of a stunt. And you were there when this thing sort of unfurled, what say you, LK?
Larry Kahn: Well, it was the greatest ad-lib of my life and I've never topped it. That's for sure. So I got into media, because I get into college radio, you know, my, my economics degree was originally supposed to go, you know, like anybody else's economics degree, you know, to an MBA and, you know, often to corporate marketing or something like that.
I didn't know, but I, but I fell into WHRB, Harvard Radio and in, at WHRB, Harvard Radio, I fell into among other things, the sports department, which led me by sophomore year to be broadcasting basketball games, football games. One memorable hockey game that I can't talk about on even on this podcast, but I'm happy to share some other times maybe in that greatest F you know, that section.
But I was announcing the Harvard/Yale football game in fall of 1982, yeah, which I would argue with guests on your previous guests on your podcast is a much more significant rivalry than even Ohio State/Michigan, but we can get there another day.
DC: Oh, okay. Pump your brakes, pump your brakes, now.
Sorry.
Larry Kahn: It is the game, right? And the way you handled broadcasts was very simple as if you were either play by play or you were the analyst and you switched.
LT: By the way I have to interrupt. Remember you're on Stanford Radio and Stanford/Cal is the big game, but keep going.
Larry Kahn: There's a west coast reference here coming. So, but thank you for that reminder. So it's the first half. And my classmate, Frank Mungum is doing play by play, I'm the analyst. And as you know, for many good broadcast when there's play, there's play and when there's play stops, play throws it to the analyst. So Harvard is lining up to kick off after scoring an early touchdown on Yale and Frank notices, a puff of smoke at the 40 yard line. And because Frank is an equally bright guy, he says, what is it, Larry?
DC: Thank you for that. Thank you.
Larry Kahn: And there is audio of this. I can, you can prove it and there's a tape. And I just start out living by doing play by play of what I'm seeing, which is that a vacuum pump bursts through the grass and a big black balloon inflates to about the size of a linebacker with MIT in white written all over it.
And both teams are just standing there watching. And ultimately this thing bursts, and now they're all deciding, you know, what to do with it and whether they can find anybody in maintenance on the weekend.
DC: Yeah.
Larry Kahn: But you know, we just, we ad-libbed for about a minute, minute and a half as this thing is happening and we have no idea what's going on. And in today's environment, people would be, you know, running for cover and expecting suspecting domestic terrorism. This was just, this was just some frat boys from MIT who had actually, and here's your west coast reference, as I said on air at that time copied a page from the CalTech playbook because CalTech was known for booby trapped in the Rose Bowl because it's their home stadium and they're never in it.
DC: Ah,
Larry Kahn: So MIT just stole the show that day and it was incredible and, you know, play stopped and they finally fixed it up, but realize nothing else was going to happen, resume. And there's a lot of other little sideline anecdotes from that. People are screaming in the end zone. What's going on? What's going on?
My mother is in the end zone wearing a Walkman remember Sony Walkman?
DC: Oh yes.
Larry Kahn: Wearing a Walkman listening to her son and his going, if you all just sit down and be quiet, my son will tell us.
And then the best line of the day is not mine. The best line of the day was President Derek Bok at the time. Cause they asked him afterward, you know, if he had anything to say about all this and he said, well, you know, we blew up one of their chemistry labs this morning. So we expected some kind of retaliation.
DC: Oh, that's good. That's good.
LT: Great stuff.
DC: Good. Wow. In broadcasting. It, it is said, in music and I think also extended into broadcasting. So Miles Davis said before, I think it was Miles Davis. If it's not my apologies and Rest in Power Brother Miles. But if it is, let me give you a due here is that he doesn't, he didn't listen to the music of the notes.
He listened for the music in the spaces between the notes. And so silence in broadcasting, and even in conversation can be a very powerful tool, a powerful device. Was there a moment of silence when that thing popped up? It started like inflating on the field?
Larry Kahn: Yes, there was absolutely stunned silence. And then we tried to describe it. And literally the very last line of before I throw it to commercial, was everybody just has to sit for a minute and watch, and then I completely agree with you. And I learned from that, you know, from that point forward, and I've done a little bit of focus group moderation in my time.
And one of the things they teach you about focus group moderating is pause. You know, when the, when the respondent gives an answer, don't just quickly jump down the topic, a topic outline. Stop, let the silence, fill the room, see if someone else comes in with something more and, and sometimes the best moments, the best insights come out of the fact that you're listening and not speaking.
DC: My man with that, we're going to move to the next section, LK, and it's called five questions. I ask. Larry asks. Back and forth until we arrive at a total of five. Given your a meandering path, career path, life path, actually. And I mean that complimentary, I mean that complimentary, LK. You've had innumerable branding experiences in order for you to even arrive at the words data storytelling, suggest that before then you have had to be telling stories about brands for years. In this case, LK, we'd like to know about your first branding experience that captured your soul compelled you to pay attention, caused you to be lost in the moment or in time, like a first love. What was that for you?
Larry Kahn: Wow. I had an answer and now you're sending me down a different path, but I think I'll go with what I first thought of because the path I was starting to go down at the end there, it was Cape Cod because, because as the song says, you're, you know, you're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod and Cape Cod does have a very soft spot in my heart. I lived there for years and started in radio there and I went to summer camp there. So I probably did have an early attraction to the brand Cape Cod, but let me go back to the one I originally thought of when you guys threw this question at me on paper, which is I'm going to land on Harvard again, and that won't dominate the podcast, but it'll dominate this early part of the podcast.
Yeah. I was accepted to Harvard. So when I was accepted to Harvard, I had to decide whether to attend or turn down Harvard. And that sounds bigger than the decision to attend college, right? Yeah, it sounds, it sounds bigger than the decision to attend no offense to Boston College, BC or UMass. And I guess one, a little anecdote that illustrates that is I was in high school and I'm working as a bus boy at the local Bickford's House of Pancakes, it's kind of the, IHOP of Eastern, Massachusetts back then. And back then you got an envelope, an actual physical envelope. And they were fat if you got in and thin, if you didn't, right. That's how the acceptance letters work.
DC: Yeah.
Larry Kahn: And it's two o'clock on a Saturday. So the place is kind of empty, except for those of us who worked at a restaurant for a living. And here come, my parents busting through the front door of the pancake house. My mother proudly holding up the envelope going Larry, ya got into Harvard, which is not necessarily the brand that I'm trying to answer for surrounded by the rest of the busboys, the frontline cooks the waitresses, manager, and the handful of customers on a two o'clock on the Saturday afternoon. And that's okay. And I got through that and then I wind up with four years on campus where it means everything ,right. It has this reputation in Cambridge and in Boston and in New England where, you know, it stands for something much bigger.
LT: Worldwide. Larry's, let's be honest.
Larry Kahn: Well, yeah, but here's the point. When you get away from campus and when you get away from academia, it has a whole different context to a whole lot of people.
I walk into a small market radio station on Cape Cod, and they're wondering what's a Harvard guy doing here. I moved to Florida and I go to work for Golf Channel with folks who went into media because they didn't go to college. They started out as camera guys. They started out as lighting techs. They started out as on air talent and they have talent. They have absolute talent in what they do, they just didn't necessarily have it with a grade point average. Okay. And to recognize that media is a vocation, as much as a career, is a big part of we being successful in media. So there's situations where the Harvard brand actually doesn't help you.
LT: Yeah.
Larry Kahn: And on the ground floor of the factory, that is a radio station or a cable network. That's one of them. So I had to really think about that and I've gotten used to it. And in fact, it's been more, more that way for me in the last 30/40 years than the other. And then this early college awareness program comes along and I start doing this, you know community service where we literally go into middle school, seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, middle schools. Under-resourced middle schools with a message of why you need to stay in high school, why you need to graduate high school and why you need to go to college and that the cost of college is not nearly as high as the cost of not going. And we don't make it about Harvard. We make it about college, but the way we get their attention is every one of us who are standing up there is a graduate of, some thing to do with Harvard. Could be the college could be the business school could be the medical school, it could be one of these professional degree programs they went back to in midlife, in mid-career and public policy degree from the Kennedy School. But the Harvard brand gets these kids attention and has them sit in and listen long enough for us to get a message out that resonates on their level and it, and it matters.
So it's, to me, it's a fascinating brand. I hear a debt criticized. I hear a debt praised. I hear used pejoratively as you know, a representative of all Ivy League schools. You know, there was, there was a joke back when you know, the Unabomber came out, you know, that he was a Harvard guy. Remember the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and finally an editorial writer in the New York times as well. This road, listen, you know? Yes, we get it. The unit bomber was a Harvard guy. Had he gone to Yale he would have been taught 20 years earlier.
LT: You had to get that in D that was great.
DC: I don't know. LT, anything a follow on with that.
LT: Yeah. I just want to say this. I, I think I think that was pretty profound what LK offered and I'll say this cause I've known him a long time and D you know what I'm going to talk about. We've worked with a lot of folks from Harvard and probably within five minutes of meeting them, you know, they went to Harvard because they try and tell you. And LT is not like that at all, actually. And I think that's part of having grown up in the, in the business that he was in it, you don't find out that till much later. So I think he has a healthy sort of balance. And even in the way he, he talked about it, you know of the, of the pros and cons, there's a lot more pros than cons, but I just wanted to voice that. Before we go to the next question.
DC: Well, that's very true, Larry, because until we did this podcast and I've been working with LK now for months, I didn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue. So you were, you were exactly right. All right. LT hit us with the next one, brother.
LT: Okay, LK, so in thinking about your, your life and career, right who has had, or is having the most influence on your career?
Larry Kahn: All right. The had part, it would take too long. We, we could do four podcasts. There have been any number of people at any, at many levels. People who worked for me, people who I worked for, some were great. Some were not great. And I had influence on me because I learned from what not to do, I will say one of the first mentors I had was a general manager of the radio station, who later became Group Vice President of Taylor Communications who never went to college.
For a time, he was at what was called a reform school that was in my hometown. So, you know, I know the background he came from and his real name was Paul, but we, everyone called him "the frog" because he told us, call me "the frog." And Paul was someone who had a life lesson for everything and they were right.
And if you try to live them, you would succeed. If you tried to copy them, you would fail. You could not be him, you had to learn from him.
DC: Okay.
Larry Kahn: And he remains a dear friend to this day, and certainly I want to give him a shout out and I could go on and on about the things he might've taught me. That radio station, small that it was, was a tremendous classroom for me.
I used to talk about the file cabinet theory of work. I still talked about that to be people who start working in my department or start working in the business. And I say, listen, you're going to be sitting there at your desk. You're going to have a file cabinet to the left of your desk. I don't care whether the you behind the desk or the you sitting on top of the file cabinet, looking down at what you're doing is having a good day, but one of the two is going to be having a good day.
You're either going to be working on something you like, or you're going to be observing something, you don't like. And that's going to file it. You got to file that away for later. So I call it the file cabinet theory of work. And I picked that up at that radio station run by Paul. Now two people, biggest influences, one you've already mentioned, and that Sanjay, Sanjay Patel, Founder of Datanautix his view on business, his view on research, his view on customer experience, his view on life. I really enjoy listening to him. I enjoy discussing with him. I've enjoyed helping build his business. We could go on and on about that. And the other who deserves a shout out is my wife, my wife, Amy Goodlatte. Amy has said to me, since I, since Golf Channel left me and I started what some friends call my gap year. She said, you know, this is your time. Go find something you like to do with people you like to do it with. And she's given me the space and the breathing room to do that. And that's a tremendous influence because I wouldn't, if I had just started job hunting for the next thing, I'd never would have run into all the stuff that I've been running into the past year and a half, two years.
DC: That's good.
LT: D, you have anything to add to that?
DC: I don't I don't LT, but that last thing you said that that's strong. Yeah. Strong.
LT: All right. What did you want to take the next question? That's great stuff, LK
DC: I do brother, I do. LK, You alluded to this a bit earlier and here comes the question.
You had many successes, some maybe plan some maybe not. We don't want to hear about any of those right now. We want to hear about your biggest F-Up, and what you learned from it.
Larry Kahn: Alright. So here's where I will remind you both that I'm not just on a gap year, that in addition to working with Datanautix, you I'm also, you know, looking for the next big thing. So I don't want to publicize the last big F-Up cause you know, that would get in the way, but I will...
DC: I didn't say last, I just said biggest.
Larry Kahn: Well, here's the two anecdotes I would talk about and I would actually draw on the fact that this came up with a previous guest of yours. I was listening to the podcast with Sabrina Clark Duffy, also a researcher. And she said, and I think I quote this right data is here to inform you, not make the decision for you.
DC: That's right. That's right.
Larry Kahn: I can think of two distinct occasions where one was in radio wellness and TV. My view of the data, I can tell you that we informed everybody of the data. And my view was certainly heard, but in neither case it was adopted.
I don't know if that was an F-Up. It might've been. I can tell you, in both cases, the product launch didn't go well. After that, there was a lot of re-investment in the product, a lot of patience, another relaunch. And so all of that might have been avoided. I can go on about the two examples. If you want to, how much time we have, one was about XL106.7. There was room in the market at the time in Orlando, Central, florida, 1990, there was white space. If you stopped and listened to what wasn't being said with what wasn't on the radio. At that time, there was also room for a classic rock format. That didn't talk over commercials. It was before Spotify and Pandora, but it was that kind of value proposition to a listener.
And it was a bigger white space, but it might have been a less monetizable white space. Can't run as many commercials. Can't do big brassy sponsorships. Can't partner up with song and dance with Disney and Universal. And so the decision was made to go to this XL106.7, this tweak of a top 40 format. Whether it was the right move, launched the wrong way, or whether it was the wrong move. We'll never know. My vote was for the other bigger opportunity, which ultimately a competitor did do. And that radio station WMMO is still on the radio, it's still on the air and still highly profitable, but so is XL106.7. The other one is a Golf Channel example and LT remembers a little bit about this enough to be dangerous. Golf Channel launched a morning show, in the past 10 years, and one of the reasons was to make it a value proposition, seven days a week for cable, as opposed to three or four days a week when they're airing professional golf. Let's have a morning show, seven days a week, a staple, something that the community and the industry watches and the research said it should really be the clubhouse and the driving range of the game of recreational golf, focus on improving and enjoying the viewers game.
DC: Okay.
Larry Kahn: But the alternative, the known, known the model for anything in the NBC Sports ecosystem was The Today Show, which is a great model. And The Today Show of the sport of professional golf with a focus on the PGA Tour, is where morning drive went. And there was lots of research to show why that may or may not have been the best idea, but it was certainly the easiest to execute and they're it went.
And I can't tell you right or wrong. I can tell you that on several occasions, I was the loudest voice in the room for a different direction. You know, my voice was heard, but it wasn't taken and we move on. So, I don't know if those are big F-Ups, but you know, they're, you know, listen to me selling my share of box seats at Fenway when I moved here in 1990, that was an F-Up, right?
DC: Yeah, yeah.
Larry Kahn: Yeah. I learned never to give up from that one. Right. You know, that's, you know college radio, when I once played a a concerto at 45 instead of 33 at the classical music portion of the radio station you know, and I had to get a call from some woman outside of Boston, I believe this is the wrong speed. That was an F-Up, you know, but, but from that one, and I told that story all the time, that one I learned just don't make the same mistake twice. There you go. You recover. You move on. So those weren't consequential, but those were true F-Ups and I do remember them and I do speak from them as, as life lesson.
DC: LT any follow-ups brother?
LT: I just have a quick followup D for The Golf Channel example, Larry, you, you said you let your voice be heard. Is, is there anything you would do differently looking back?
Larry Kahn: Yes and no? The yes would be find a different way to make the point, right. Because maybe I just wasn't making the point well enough, but I'm not so sure that's the case. And the no would be that if you sign up to work in that world and it's you guys guys' role as well, when you were on the inside, as opposed to the outside, you sign up for the fact that there will be group decisions and there will be consensus.
And at the end of the day, everyone around the table salutes and says, yes, we will go do what we agreed on. You can second guess later, you can write memoirs, you can speak on podcasts, but in the moment, and from that point forward, you're there to execute a mission. So I don't know that I would've done it differently. We, I was heard, we did decide we move on.
DC: Yeah. So I'll say this really quickly. I'll say this quickly before I pass it over to you, Larry, for the next question. And that is, I once heard someone say that when a decision is taken, that is different than what you would have done, whether you stated it or not, you have a higher responsibility to execute it, to ensure that the reason why it doesn't do well, if it happens not to do well, it's not because you hold some bias. You commit to making this thing happen and happen with a high level of distinction. And I think that's a mature way to go about a business. But with that, Larry next question, brotha?
LT: Yes. Regarding technology and marketing and market research Larry, you have a great vantage point. Can you tell us where you think marketers or market researchers should lean in or best leverage tech versus areas they should be leery.
Larry Kahn: Sure. And let's go deep on Datanautix, because I really think the approach they're taking is a big part of the way forward. And I mean, every company right now is wrestling with pure market research versus big data and data science. And in some companies, they have two different departments, the ones that are using tried and true research techniques and the ones that are using data mining to learn what all the secondary and tertiary data can tell them.
LT: Right?
Larry Kahn: And there's even shouting matches and disagreements there. The big data is telling us this, the voice of the consumer is telling us that. And I think the reason that the big data solutions and the big data alternatives are emerging is because of the distrust in how good of a job the primary research did.
Did it talk to enough people? Did it talk to the right people? What's the non-response bias in that study? Did they, you know, was it done by telephone was done by random number? Who answers the phone anymore? Was it done online only. Okay. Who even saw the email? Was there an incentive, how much did you pay to get them to sit there and tell you this?
All of those things factor in and as response rates drop and as polls now, a little more spectacularly than ever before wrongly predict outcomes, especially tied to politics and elections. There's this distrust in primary, or there's this inability to spend enough money to do the primary well enough to overcome the bias of how to get people to respond.
So you have big data and big data's great. And what's big data based on, well, is it based on people? Or is it based on the modeling of people? And TV research is still being judged off ratings, which is being judged off panels. So the panels are tied to people in their homes with Nielsen actually getting in there and metering their television sets.
But Nielsen's growing his business by having the models go off the panels. And beyond that, the cross-platform deliveries, everything from, you know what a website is saying to what an over the top and service like HBO Max or Netflix or Peacock is saying. Is being driven by Adobe analytics or Google analytics, which is really what the computers are saying, not what the people were saying.
And so you throw in bots and trolls and cookies and cache. And I don't know that there's a real accurate measure going on right now of the nonlinear consumption. I don't know that. And I don't think anyone else does either, but it's being used as a proxy for true measured consumption, because you have to have something you got to have currency to trade on.
So we're all wrestling with that. And along comes this really pure play that, you know, you all leaned in on. And then the folks with the Globetrotters leaned in on and we appreciate it and we applaud it. Where we make it as easy as possible for you to participate.
LT: As a, as an what's just be clear as a respondent.
Larry Kahn: As a respondent, right?
We literally throw a QR code up on the jumbotron. We have the EMCEE call attention to it. We give you a prize to participate. Turns out the prize didn't matter. We make it short and sweet. We make it all open-ended. We make it doable on your phone from 200 yards away. And we don't make you miss the game and we don't make you have to come through any hoops you're done in three minutes and we didn't make you answer any question you were unqualified to answer, we just asked three questions.
What was cool? What could have been better? And how'd you find out about this? One is satisfaction. One is experience or detraction. And the other is marketing attribution. And you guys saw the readout. We had firsthand validated answers from 12,000 people of what got them to a Globetrotters game that day. Some were the ones that bought the tickets. Some were the ones that came along for the ride. Some were kids under 18. Who can research kids under 18. This did it. We were talking to folks right then and there, not three days later on an email to, you know, may or may not have had had the answer. We figured out that first time respondents got there differently than repeat customers.
We got, we saw that it was different based on your age and stage of life by your ethnic group and your income level. And we had enough data to do some big data cuts, and we had enough data to say that we trust these findings and we're going to project them out over the rest of your season. That doesn't happen all the time anymore.
DC: It does not.
LT: Nope. It was pretty mind boggling for me to see. I mean, you know, to see what to be through that experience, to see what you guys said you were going to do, and then even do more than we all thought to get that many respondents and to have that the, the actionable insights that came out of it was, and also D the way they communicated with their deck was incredible. It's great stuff.
Larry Kahn: Now I skipped over one part that I think bears mentioning, which is, and it was all done with the AI big data, reading of words, not numbers, right? So you couldn't, you couldn't do this five or 10 years ago, right? You had to do surveys the way they were done. Punch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, say yes, no, because that was the only way you could cross tab the data with enough speed to give you results.
These guys wrote a software tool that lets AI read words like numbers and it's okay to have 300 people tell you in their own words, what happened that day or 3000 we can get the results right back and because the words all, you know, the machine and have the analyst, you know, figures out the pluses, the minuses, the detractors, the drivers and, and, and the marketing attribution.
LT: Great stuff. D, you have anything to add before we go to the next question
DC: One. Thank you, Larry. LK, when I was a younger pup in business, I found myself really impressed by people who had what I thought were intelligent answers with depth and dimension. As I began to mature, I began to appreciate great questions, more than great answers. You are in the data storytelling business, which you have eloquently articulated earlier. You were also in the questions business. So all of the questions that you've either posited and or have heard in the domain of data. What one question to consumers, no matter the category, do you find to be most illuminating?
Larry Kahn: I'm going to have to answer it with an actual question, which really only matters inside of The Golf Channel and those that make golf content for a living. But when I finish the story, I think you'll see, I answered your question.
DC: Okay.
Larry Kahn: We went out and did a series of focus groups, way back, way back talking to golfers about what mattered to them so that we could then design content around them. And I distilled the focus groups down to some key points, and I was trying to figure out a way to communicate that to a whole lot of different groups in the building. Marketers, producers, programmers, executives, ad sales, leadership, affiliate sales leadership. We were still trying to get distribution back then.
And the number one thing I was struggling with was the fact that most of these folks came to this business from the world of sports or the world of television. That's what they knew how to do. They knew how to, they knew how to be in sports or in the business of sports or they knew how to be in the business television.
So they believed the way forward, the way to connect with the most number of consumers, was to ride the coattails of the big names in sports, Arnold Palmer's Golf Channel, then Jack Nicholas, and then of course along comes Tiger Woods and that everything tied to Tiger Woods was the way forward for this network, this channel called Golf Channel.
We were ignoring their most favorite golfer and the real way forward for the network. And LT has heard this so many times now. He's just, can't keep it as he's smiling ear to ear already.
DC: I see him.
Larry Kahn: But I started this presentation each time I gave it by asking the group a question. I said, all right, folks, this, before I give you the research of talking to all these consumers, I'm going to ask to tell you the question.
The question is, who's your favorite golfer? What do you think their answers were?
DC: More than one?
Larry Kahn: Sure. Yeah. Some of them said Palmer.
DC: Yeah.
Larry Kahn: Some of them, a lot of them said Tiger.
DC: Yeah.
Larry Kahn: I kept saying no, and they'd come up with Jack Nicholas or Phil Mickelson or Gary Player. Some of them went down the great female golfers of the day on a consortion stamp. Finally, they run out of names and I said, no. I said, this networks, viewers, favorite golfer is themselves. And so everything you do as providers, producers, everything you do in terms of negotiating, the value proposition, has to remember that the reason these people come to this network is because of their love of this game of golf and what it does for them.
And once they started doing deals with other, you know, brand reps, CMOs, CEOs, CFOs who loved golf on that level, the deals got easier. And once they started producing how you can hit your, you know, irons like Tiger. Let me think of those great golf digest covers. Right? The consumer responded. What's in it for me?
Right. But I, but I had, in order to get their attention, I had to turn it around to a question. Where I kind of knew they wouldn't come up with the answer and I got their attention and then I gave him the answer.
DC: Brilliant.
Larry Kahn: And that line, that line stayed in the hallways of our building for 20 plus years.
I know LT ran into it when he walked in.
DC: Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. All right. That was mine, Larry.
LT: So you're up D. Next question.
DC: LK,. What are you most proud of?
Larry Kahn: What am I most proud of? Well, right now I'm most proud of trying to do in words, what I used to do in numbers, right? They used to pay me to read numbers and tell people why.
Now I'm using words where the consumer's telling them why. So I'm really most proud of that, but I think having been a numbers guy, I think I'm most proud of 33 years, married to a divorce attorney, 27 years as a dad, almost 10 years of this early college awareness.
LT: Shout out David, shout out David, a little, give him his props.
Larry Kahn: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I've my, my, my son had the choice of becoming an attorney like his mother or going into sports media and sports business, like his father and he chose that way word path. He's at, he's in Winston Salem doing college sports for Lear Field and never even took the LSATs. Mom's not happy, but you know, we're, we're getting past it. So, yeah, so it's 30, 33 years married to divorce attorney, 27, his dad almost 10 promoting early college awareness through Harvard Alumni Worldwide, it's a global program, and 12 world championships by Boston sports teams since 2000. No city has any more this century.
DC: I is the podcast coming to a close LT?
All right. All good. All right, Larry LT next section brotha.
LT: All right. LK, we're doing great here. So this is our next section. We all really enjoy, and it is What's Popping. What's Popping, D? What's Popping, LK? All right, LK. This is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion.
So, D you want to take what the first one or shall I?
DC: Would you please brotha?.
LT: Okay.
DC: Thank you.
LT: All right. So, LK, you have such a unique perch. I want to really use mine to tap into your wonderful knowledge base. So, and that's in the measurement world and, and specifically as it relates to the television what's viewed as television programming and that landscape with streaming has changed so much.
So not long ago, you know, Nielsen was the only game in town and they were the currency for all data communication emanating for what we viewed as the TV world. So now everything is changing so fast. And I read a couple of things, interestingly, just a couple of nuggets, which all get to where I want to get your take on.
You're old friends at NBCU. I read something they're leading the communications battle to introduce alternative audience measurement currencies into the advertising marketplace. And then I read something where Disney advertising says it's starting tests with SAMMA TV, ComScore and Nielsen along with media agencies Omnicom and publicist to have a hundred providers to create a more client specific view of consumption for future campaign planning.
And then the last nugget I'm going to give you then going to my question is, and I think this is really important, just read this Mark Pritchard, the CBO, the Chief Brand Officer at P&G G has called on the industry to abandon traditional TV audience guarantees, and instead focus on better ways to synchronize supply and demand.
He believes there should be much better synchronization and matching ad supply and viewer demand with more and more retailers offering to some media. For example, he believes there should be an overall push to quote, "connect media directly to commerce." So with those sort of three things in context, can you please try and make sense of all of this for DC, me, and for the Brand Nerds out there?
DC: Great. Great.
Larry Kahn: So you're asking me to solve the MarTech problem that has bewildered the industry for 15/20 years. Thanks a lot. You know, why is all that happening? It's because we're on the cusp of an unsolvable problem. It's because the innovations in content delivery have exceeded the industry's ability to properly measure them and, you know, risk requires reward. Right. You know, if I'm going to invest this much in it, what am I getting back?
Right. And they're not sure they know. Right. And they don't. I mean, it's, there's, there's the, the challenge and the inability, I mean, Nielsen has been promising to do a cross-platform measurement. For probably 10 years now. And it's been rebranded and relaunched six times.
LT: So they still haven't been successful, right? Can we say that?
Larry Kahn: But still haven't been successful. Closer than anybody else in my opinion, but still haven't been successful. ComScore now thinks they have a way they're moving forward. There are other independents out there that are trying you know, the ones that are likely to succeed because Nielsen or ComScore buys them out.
And, and it's all stemming from the same thing, which is the millions and billions of dollars and other currencies that are tied to the decision. Right. You know, Netflix has never fully told anybody, right? How many and who are consuming it because the minute they do, they may lose some of the value proposition.
If they're getting more money out of what people, what people think they're getting than what they may actually be getting. You know, you guys, I know you an earlier podcast, you're talking about, you know, the consumption levels of of the Olympics and, you know, the only 11 million for television and over a half a million for streaming.
Okay. That's still, if I do the math, you know, something around 5% of the total consumption is on non-linear is on, old is on, you know, other than old fashioned television. That's 95:5. That's not 80/20, and it's certainly not 50/50. Right? So, you know, it's, it's the fastest growing area, which is why it demands the attention.
It's still the wild west of measurement. And it's certainly not the biggest by any means.
LT: Well, you just summed it up. It's the wild west of measurement. That, that is still a lot of smart people trying to figure out they haven't figured it out yet. Right. Can we say that?
Larry Kahn: Yes, we can.
LT: D, you have anything to add to that? Or do you want to take your what's popping?
DC: I have one thing to add LT. Let's let's go back to LK's undergraduate stomping grounds. There are many of folks who have found themselves at the doorsteps of Cambridge. And when they got out, they went and got, as you have said, LK, an MBA. And then after that, they have found their way into the world of finance, Wall Street specifically, and then maybe other places around the world, but finance based jobs. Before there was a stock exchange, it was the wild, wild west. Hard to know how to value a business, hard to know what data is the most important data. Do you evaluate the top line? You evaluate the bottom line? All of these different things were going on. And then there was a unification, saying we need a standardized way to value all of these different companies.
So we're going to create an exchange. We can all agree upon the methods of the exchange. Now, the way it moves might be based on emotion, supply, and demand to Mark Pritchard's point, but at least we can agree upon some standards. That's what happened in the world of finance. And that's what I believe needs to happen in the world of media.
There needs to be one. Uno. One standardized way of valuing media, globally. So, I mean, I use the New York Stock Exchange, but globally, and then once that happens, we can then allow human emotion to determine value based on supply and demand, but let's get down to one. So that's my response.
Larry Kahn: All true. And while you're at it, decide whether social media is media or is it social?
It's going to, it's going to have to make up its mind. If it's media, it's gonna fall into that marketplace and be regulated. And if it's social, then stop calling it media. And I stopped investing in it. Like it is.
DC: Agreed.
LT: I vote that it's media because it's it, that's the way you consume it in that way.
And I look at it from a consumer standpoint. That's my vote. D, you want to take the next one?
DC: I do. I'm going to go back to a question that we asked LK that we had and we ask all of our guests. It is who's had or having the most influence on your career. And when we get business answers, LK and LT, we're usually hearing stories about awesome bosses. These folks are great leaders. They inspire. They are smart. They're insightful. They're all of these things. And I got some bad news Brand Nerds. They're not too many of those out there. Most of the bosses that we're going to come across are going to be bad. They're going to be bad bosses.
LT: Too true.
DC: They won't, they won't know how to manage. And there's a reason for that. And then I'm going to give an antidote. So the reason for that is a, you know, this, LK, and you certainly know what LT. In the corporate world, we get rewarded by being excellent individual contributors. We do a particular job well. It's like, LK, wow, this guy on this data storytelling, look at him, they weren't calling it way back then, data storytelling, he's so good at research.
So LK gets more responsibility. He gets more people, he gets more budget. He gets all of these things. Next thing you know, the specialist that is LK, is now in a position where he, it's not just about the work that you do LK, but your ability to get work done through others. And this is where folks fail because they don't necessarily have the training to transition from an individual contributor, a rather high level, individual contributor into a manager of people.
So when we were at the Coca-Cola Company, larry and I, and and Jeff, we went through a training and they provided us with they management tool sometimes called situational management. So I'm going to lay this thing out LK and LT and get you all to respond to it. The assertion is that there is an X and a Y axes, as it has to do with the management of people and resources.
One axis, X axis, is a person's readiness. So I'm going to try to paint this two by two in your mind. How ready is the person to do whatever it is you need them to do? Do they have a high level of a readiness, which would be the top, or do they have a low level of readiness, which would be the bottom. Now the Y axis is business impact.
What this person is about to do this job that needs to be done or project, is it going to have a high impact on the business, which is the far right? Or is it going to have a low impact on the business, which is the far left? So these are the two X and Y axis. So now based on this two by two box comes forward a way of managing so that we can have fewer bad bosses out there.
Let me walk through them. So let's say we're dealing with a person that has a high degree of readiness. They're good. LK. They're good LT. They can do it. And the impact on the business is low. Not gonna really matter that much. And you are managing them. You delegate, you don't get in the way, you just delegate, let them do their thing.
And it'll be fine because even if they don't do it well, which they will because they have a high level of readiness. It's not going to have that much impact on the business right now. Let's drop down. So that's the top. That's the top left box. Let's go. Bottom left box. So this is a person has low readiness and it has a low impact on the business.
Now, here, you want to coach. Coach them up. You want to inspire them. Hey, you can do this. Here are the things that we need to talk about here. And then they will kind of do their thing.
LT: And there's not that much risk.
DC: Correct. Right now. Let's go to the bottom, right? So this is where the impact on the businesses high, but the person's readiness is low.
Now you got to direct, this is what you get in there. Okay. Hey, do this, this, that, and that. You heavy influence. Hands on. Fingerprints on. Because you cannot afford them to mess this up. That's when you need to be close. Now let's go to the top right box. And that is high readiness and high business impact.
So this is the top, top right-hand box here you assist, you know, they could do it, but you're not going to completely delegate that thing because the impact of the business is high. Right? So you assist them from time to time. What kind of support do you need? Check in meetings, one-on-ones et cetera. What I have found is that leaders that have this kind of a framework, whether they have been taught it, or they just kind of understand it are far more effective.
And then finally I'll say this. Really good bosses, exceptional bosses, understand how to separate the whats and the whys from the hows. They will discuss with you here is what we need to get done. What do you think needs to get done? They align on that. Why is that important? And they connect it to the metrics of the business.
They do not go right into, let me tell you LK and LT how to do this thing we're talking about. That's not the way that's not the way forward. Unless of course, the person has a low level level of readiness and the business impact is high. So that's, what's popping from me. A bad bosses and how to mitigate the number of those.
What say you gentlemen.
LT: LK, You got any thoughts?
Larry Kahn: Well, my biggest take about that is one of the biggest leadership skills I learned early on from "the frog" was something he didn't even know how to call it, but the business schools later followed, later called it MBWA, management by walking around.
DC: Oh, management by walking around. Okay. Got it. Okay.
Larry Kahn: And I don't know how you do that going forward in today's corporate hybrid, remote. Am I in the office? Am I not in the office? What am I working? When are you working environment? Right? I don't. How do we replicate? How do we replace the ability of that plugged in boss, immediate supervisor, next level VP.
C-suite guy to stop by, check in, make, make you feel good about what you're doing, refocus, where you're supposed to be check on that deadline, you know, do all the things that, that the right bosses as you just articulated are supposed to be doing.
LT: Yeah. That's a great point to bring up.
It really is.
Because that is definitely a dynamic that has changed marketing in the last two years.
D I love the framework. I'm also struck with a whole different prism that I think overlays that, and that goes to understanding, as you're a leader, a business leader, I, we often make the parallels to being a coach. And so I'm going to express it by, you know, having been a youth coach, like, you know, the players, or you should know who are the introverts, who are the extroverts, who are the kids who need a lot of positive reinforcement. Who are the kids that you can be very direct and it's not, it's actually going to help them. And so I think the best bosses really understand who they're managing from a personality standpoint and really need to layer that over, to be the best, because I think that, you know, how you sort of coach when you're, when there's high relevance and there's high business impact. You know, if you're just there checking in and assisting, my version of that can be very different than somebody else's version of that. So that's where it becomes really important when the rubber meets the road in that, from that standpoint.
DC: Good shout. Good shout.
LT: Alright, LK. I think you got a What's Popping for us.
Larry Kahn: I do. I, you know, you guys challenged me in the prep meeting and I said, I really should come up with one. And it turns out that DC almost got it out of me earlier in the podcast when he asked about the questions that matter, the question is, and it relates to marketers and I'll give you my example in a minute.
How do you make people? How do you make consumers care or at least how do you make them pay attention? So the State of the Union air Tuesday night, and we'll use Nielsen as the measurement, because that's still the currency. So according to the Nielsen President Biden's speech was seen by 38.2 million viewers per minute.
Okay. So it reached probably, you know, 50 million, but it per minute it was 38.2. The number we all talk about as viewership was 38.2. What does that mean? And why does that matter in the context of a marketing podcast? Well, for the record, that's literally one third of the audience for the super bowl, that was 112 million.
So football three times more than the state of our union. But it was three and a half times more than watch the Winter Olympics, any given night. That was 11 million. And oh, by the way, the Olympics, any given night was twice as big as anything else on TV that night.
DC: Okay.
Larry Kahn: But what's popping to me for you and for your audience. Isn't the size, it's the rating. So what's the rating? The rating is the percent of what was available. So the Nielsen rating for total viewers that 38 million, the rating is a 12.1. That means 12.1% of people 2 and up in this country who had a television, where tuned in. Well, that means 88% weren't. The rating for people 18 to 34 was a 3.8. That means 96% of them weren't. And the rating for people 55 plus was a 26. That means almost 75% of even that demographic. My demographic. Wasn't watching. What is arguably one of the most political hours of marketing and messaging by The white House to all of us. Now, whose fault is that? Right? I don't know, but that's the question, right?
Maybe some of those folks will read about it. They'll watch the highlights. They'll get the analysis the next day, but they didn't get the message. Right? They weren't even in the purchase funnel of unifying America. They just weren't there. And I used to play devil's advocate like that with the marketing and the media planning teams all the time.
They come to me for ideas on reach and ideas on frequency and ideas on media mix. But they'd always be starting inside that circle of awareness and they'd have messages that were about purchase and about consumption. They assumed a trial, they assumed familiarity. They'd wonder why the results were bigger.
They would very rarely refer back to our insights, LT, on the drivers of consumption. They didn't think about what would make the customer care enough to respond.
LT: Right.
Larry Kahn: Political strategists talk about it as the high cost of versus the low ROI of trying to get the low, low information voters. They only aim at the folks that care, that think that consume. But that's why we have 88% that didn't care or have time to watch The State of the Union. And I think that's something that marketers and market research. Have got to think about going forward. We've got to find out why it costs so much. Can we bring down the cost? I think by the way, Datanautix has a way to bring down that cost. To get more consumers to pay attention when we want them to. And so the question that I always struggle with and have for as long as I've been doing research and media, DC, is why don't these people care.
DC: Yeah. Mm
LT: That's really interesting. Well, it is a, it is the ultimate question, right? And it does go back to, it depends on the situation, right? Like there's a whole lot of people that care about football. Right. And, or the ads that they want to see during the Super Bowl. And when you get to something like politics it's such a third rail in so many ways. Right. Because my first thought was, well, what was Trump's last rating? Was it similar? You know, I don't know.
Larry Kahn: So this was higher than his last, but it wasn't as high, it was close to, but not as high as his previous three. And I, and I think, and I think in his case, there was always that, you know, NASCAR race part of, you know, what's going to happen next, you know, is it going to go off the rails? You know, what's going to come out of his mouth?
LT: Right. Yeah. But that is interesting that it is, it's actually close know that.
Right. And, and again, I think that that has a whole, when you're talking politics specifically, that has a whole other, you know, how do you get people to care about what may shape their life? I think I know, we know we've had conversations with folks in that area specifically. We know people were thinking about that and it is really difficult to get to it. So if you can answer that question LK. That's a, that's a huge one. D, you have any thoughts?
DC: I do. I'm gonna give it to you quick, LK and LT. You'll be able to relate to this. A lot of our Brand Nerds will not. When we were coming up, there was this phrase, two words, called "appointment TV."
LT: Yep.
DC: And that literally what it says is what it meant.
We would make an appointment to watch the TV at a particular time on a particular day, because we just had to see that thing. Yep. Now in the world of streaming, we talked about Netflix earlier. My daughters told me about a trilogy that was dropping on Netflix three Wednesdays ago. And the the drop was genius, JEENYUHS, which was a play on the word genius, which was about Kanye West.
LT: Yup.
DC: LK and LT. I have watched each one of those in the series at the moment they dropped, as soon as they drop, I'm playing that sucker and I'm listening. And the question is, why was I willing to do that? And what's missing about the State of the Union address. That is, it has 88% of folks uninterested.
Here's what I think it comes down to. One of our clients is Rock the Bells. One of the gentlemen that services their business, he's a consultant, he's a brilliant dude in the area of media and content. His name is Oren and he's been on the podcast. Been on the podcast, did a fabulous job, LK. He described for LT and I, what he thought was the, the nectar of content that captivates. And he said the following "it's about the stuff you don't know about the stuff you know." "The stuff you don't know about the stuff you know." I thought I had a pretty good idea of this Kanye West dude, but there was so much in there LK and LT in this, in this trilogy that I did not know. It just had me enthralled.
Now let's relate this LK to your what's popping and the State of the Union address for those 88%, who said, nah, rather not. They didn't believe there would be any stuff they didn't know, about the stuff they know, but they, they didn't think so. So they said, I know what the dude's going to say. I know how he's going to say it, and there's no need to get any more information that is, I think the problem. That that in and of itself is, is, is the problem as to why we have so many folks not interested in it.
So that's my, that's my take on this.
LT: I think that's, I love your take D and I think it's a huge point for you to communicate about appointment TV going backwards, and even now, and it is, it is that huge question of how to get people to care. So we're all struggling on that. All right. I think it's time for the show closed.
LK, this has been amazing. You've been fantastic, dude. We love this. So do you want me to posit the learnings first or shall you.
DC: Would you please, my brother? Thank you.
LT: I'm going to bother our producer, Jeff a lot because I have four and Jeff loves odd numbers, but that's too bad.
DC: But he's going to edit in an extra one, a cut one out. But go ahead bro.
LT: I got four and I love, I love all four. I think they're great. So I love what LK said at the get-go about research should really be data storytelling. And as he said, the purpose should be monetizing, should be to monetize content and the value was on what's being offered and what's being consumed.
That's what data storytelling is about. So I think for all researchers and, and anybody who really is a customer of research, I think that that's really important data storytelling. That's number one. Number two. I love what LK, LK said some of the best moments come in when you are listening, not speaking.
DC: Yeah.
LT: Love that one. Yeah. The third one watching others F-Up, it should be our best learnings. So we do not make the same mistakes. Watch somebody else mess up and make sure you don't do what they're doing. And so you don't make the same mistake is a huge one. The fourth and last one I have is Amy's advice to LK should go to all the Brand Nerds. So the advice that she said, and again, Brand Nerds, this should be, this is great for you all as well. Go find something you like to do with people. You like to do it with. That's it
DC: Beautiful.
Larry Kahn: Thank you, LT. You've you're going to help you stay married another, another couple of years, at least on that.
DC: And you're, you're already 33 years in brother.
LT: Shout out to Amy!
Larry Kahn: To a divorce attorney. That's 66 years to the rest of ya.
DC: LK, you've heard the podcast. Thank you for listening, having your big brain take the time to listen. So you're aware of my slightly different take on this part of the show and understanding the person who has graced us with their time. I'm making a couple of connections here. But I want to ask a question first. Before your mother and father came into your place of employment at 2:00 PM on a Saturday, waving and telling you, you got into Harvard.
How old were you when you determined that you maybe would like to have Harvard as an option? How old were you?
Larry Kahn: Oh, I probably pre-teen but you have to understand another part of the background here. My dad actually went to Harvard. My brother went to Harvard. Harvard's kind of a backyard university for our family. You won't find any buildings with our name on it. You'll find a file folder, mark paid, but that's okay. I was aware of the brand from day one.
DC: From day one. Okay, got it. Got it. All right. And then you said you had this decision to go to Harvard was one because you had, you had some other options. Was it already pretty clear to you that had you been accepted into Harvard, that was going to be your decision? Didn't matter. What else was going on with options you had?
Larry Kahn: No.
DC: It was not?
Larry Kahn: My dad was a school teacher and a guidance counselor. My mom worked at a hospital. I did not want to have them spend that amount of money.
DC: Got it.
Larry Kahn: And I thought that by applying to some schools that would offer academic scholarships U Michigan, University of Rochester, a couple others that I might get a free ride somewhere purely on academics because it wasn't going to come on sports and it wasn't going to come in and the other abilities.
DC: Got it.
Larry Kahn: And I ended up getting the most financial aid from Harvard as well. So you get in and you get the most money. You don't say no.
DC: Not bad. All right. Now I'm going to make some connection points. You're a Harvard grad, Larry. Well actually before that you go, you go in and you with the radio station, you end up in sports, right?
Maybe not the sexiest area at the time. Maybe not, as an analyst, right? You then leave the pristine grounds that are Harvard University. And you make a decision to go into local radio, not national radio, local radio, not national TV, local radio. Then you go to The Golf Channel, not the NFL, not the NBA.
Okay. You go to this thing called The Golf Channel. And now here you are at this place called Datanautix, which I would imagine many people. Now, this is the first time they're hearing that name, Datanautix. And you said something interesting about your time here, Datanautix, you sent me something about job hunting, you know, it's better to job hunting, that kind of thing, just to throw away comment and what I'm gathering from you. And, let's not forget also the wonderful work that you are doing with the Harvard Alumni Association Early College Awareness Program. Not necessarily we would say the, the tech associations, the Harvard tech, or finding this is different. Okay. LK, you're a bit of a Maverick. You're a bit of a Maverick.
And so the definition of a Maverick is an unorthodox or independent minded person. You were even willing to forgo going to Harvard so that it would not tax your family financially. You did not know what was going to happen after you got in with the financial aid, it happened after you decided you were going to do that.
Or as you did your, your, your investigation. You probably knew you had some other opportunities at other universities. So what does it feel like to you to have lived a life of an unsuspecting Maverick? And then finally, if I were going to give you a moniker, it would be this, if you had a mantra, so the LK mantra, it would be "Mavericks Unite and Democratize."
That's my, that's my thought about you brother. Your response?
Larry Kahn: Wow. I will adopt that. I like that. I'll, it's going to replace the epitaph that I thought I was going to have, which was my wife and I would be buried together and hers would say, you know, help put people's lives back together. And mine would say help them watch golf 10 minutes more than they used to.
LT: I love that. And I'll say this, that goes to Larry's. He is truly innovative and you, you can't be as innovative as he is without having a little bit of a Maverick streak in you. And he doesn't have a way that's really disarming. So I think you nailed it. LK, you have any learnings for us?
Larry Kahn: This is less painful than I expected. I went in nervous. I thought I was going to be spending an hour plus on, on the couch being psychoanalyzed by Dr. Cobbin and Dr. Taman.
But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I encourage everyone out there who has a chance to get involved with it. Do so. Thank you. Thank you brother. This was a, and I learned, I, I don't know if I learned, but I was reminded of that learning that you pointed out, which is that we do learn as much by listening and I really enjoyed listening.
LT: What a, what a great there. Thank you. That's a setup for our ending here to everyone out there. Thanks for listening to the Brands, Beats and Bytes recorded virtually on zoom and a production of KZSU Stanford, 90.1 FM radio worldwide at kzsu.org. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, myself, Larry Taman, Joseph Anderson, Jade Tate, Hailey Cobbin, and Tom Dioro.
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