SPEAKERS

Jack Reid, Joe Clements, Matt Farrar

Matt Farrar  00:00

Cristiano Ronaldo makes a triumphant return to the Premier League and knocks a woman unconscious during warm ups in the process. We had that good looking still yeah we had but no not not that way. We had week one of the NFL and some good numbers if you’re Roger Goodell or anyone involved with the NFL compared to last season, we’re going to talk about that we’re going to talk about college sports and NIL deals all coming up on the podcast Of Record. Of Record is a podcast focused on the marketing and advertising industry. From the perspective of two industry experts hosts Matt for our and Joe Clements are co founders of strategic digital services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee, Florida, and founded in 2014. On Matt Farrar, I’m Joe Clements and I’m Rebecca Romero. And this is the podcast Of Record. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast Of Record you’ve got Matt Joe and jack in the studio along with producers Alex and Kiersten. Welcome, everybody. Hello. Hello.

Joe Clements  01:21

Also, I just want to say everybody knows who’s listening. There’s now a YouTube version of this back up and running. It’s been pre pandemic for video, we have video backup, what’s the YouTube channel, Alex? podcast Of Record. So when you search it sometimes it doesn’t come up. What’s the direct URL? You know? Is it backslash? He’ll tell me? Okay, probably should have worked out before the show. But I was looking at the video. I was looking at the video from the last one in my Slack channel that we do have that reminder. I should probably tell people Yeah, that’s a good good reminds me to watch the bloopers probably the highlight

Matt Farrar  01:50

Oh the bloopers are, one of the best thing

Joe Clements  01:52

for content we do is questionable. The bloopers are really high end. Yeah,

Jack Reid  01:56

we just chefs kiss get a link on the website too. Yeah.

Joe Clements  01:59

100% All right. We’re talking about the sportsball

Matt Farrar  02:00

We’re gonna Yeah, this is another just good theme episode. We’re gonna talk about sports.

Joe Clements  02:05

Tell me about Cristiano Ronaldo is abusing women.

Matt Farrar  02:08

Oh, oh, that’s sad. That’s not what what’s happening.

Joe Clements  02:13

said. He knocked out a woman I did.

Matt Farrar  02:15

Well, I did say that. So Cristiano Ronaldo writes in my book. Oh, right. But that’s not what actually happened. He didn’t do it intentionally. He did knock a woman out, though.

Joe Clements  02:25

How you’re leave me up in the air on the story.

Matt Farrar  02:28

That’s how I get them. That’s how I get the listeners in Joe, you got to work with me here.

Joe Clements  02:32

I am the listener, because I don’t know the story.

Matt Farrar  02:34

So if you don’t know Cristiano Ronaldo, returns to the Premier League where he started with Manchester United on Saturday was his first game. They played Newcastle United, they went on to win 4-1. He had a good game, he scored two goals. Especially you know, he’s 36 years old now. So he’s doing pretty well.

Joe Clements  02:52

He’s I’m 36. We’re both scoring goals.

Matt Farrar  02:54

Yeah, great. You’re both you’re both crushing it both making millions. Great billions. Probably. Yeah, just basically the same people. So

Jack Reid  03:04

that’s what we say around Here.

Joe Clements  03:05

is happening right now all of my office. Exactly.

Matt Farrar  03:08

I’ve always called you that personally, especially when I see you running in there like screaming shirtless. And then you get those carpet burns on your knees because you tried to slide across from one side to the other mouth. No

Joe Clements  03:19

spelling errors. Yeah,

Jack Reid  03:20

all of this actually happens. It’s really incredible. That’s why

Matt Farrar  03:23

we set up that like security cameras. Yeah, I get it. That’s why we set this so he knocked out a woman during warm ups by just kicking a ball. It was I think one of the women that like worked for the stadium that was standing on the field because she was supposed to be there and just nailed her in the head and knocked her out. But it’s okay. He made it up to her by giving her his shirt.

Jack Reid  03:44

Oh, okay. See, I try and do that with people and they say no, no, no, thank you.

Matt Farrar  03:48

And you get kicked out of a Starbucks.

Jack Reid  03:49

Yeah, I’m always asked to leave the Applebee’s.

Matt Farrar  03:52

It’s so rude. So rude.

Joe Clements  03:55

Sir, this is a chillis

Matt Farrar  03:57

Why is this relevant to our podcasts? It’s not a sports podcast clear to me. Yeah. But here’s why it’s relevant. This event has returned to the Premier League, one of the biggest watched events on Saturday. Even with college football happening, not just in the US

Joe Clements  04:13

Cue the music jack.

Matt Farrar  04:15

Oh, you didn’t have it ready?

Joe Clements  04:17

Every time Matt says college football. You’re supposed to play the music.

Jack Reid  04:19

I didn’t know that. Nobody told me that.

Matt Farrar  04:21

To be fair, I didn’t know that either. But it seems like a really good idea.

Jack Reid  04:23

Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Clements  04:25

Here we go. college football. All right. Okay, we got it college football. Just anytime he says it. Just push spacebar.

Matt Farrar  04:34

Yeah, cool. So I mean, we had college football, obviously on Saturday. But this was a big deal on Saturday, not just in the United States if you’re a soccer fan, which is a very large and growing population but around the world. Huge fan base for soccer, obviously, and huge fan base for Cristiano Ronaldo in particular, maybe in competition for one of the largest fan base for an individual athlete probably on the planet.

Joe Clements  04:58

Again, we’re there. I feel him Yeah,

Matt Farrar  05:00

I I know you do.

Jack Reid  05:02

So to watch this on Saturday, how would I have gone about doing that  Wow.

Matt Farrar  05:05

There’s your problem. So it wasn’t actually that complicated in the United States. All of the Premier League games in the United States are distributed and streamed by NBCSN NBC Sports Network. So this so popular Yeah, this but this game like if you’re if you’re a soccer fan, like this game was just like any other game, right? It was on peacock, which is where most of the streaming games are for for Premier League games. Yeah. And it was on for cable. When they don’t have it on the primary NBCSN network. They often put it on some of the other lineup, like C and NBC. Yeah. Because there’s not a lot of like sun Saturday morning programming. So they’ll if they have good games, they’ll put it on some of the other NBC family channels. Yeah. This is often not communicated well to customers by the network. So what I noticed going into the weekend last week, is that Rebecca Lowe, who is NBCSN primary host of Premier League coverage, who’s awesome does a great job like huge, huge fan of her does an excellent job of coverage. She’s She’s English she’s from the UK has held the title of being their their primary Premier League host for several years now. She’s in the comments of her own Instagram page, explaining to people how basic cable and streaming packages work so that they can figure out how to watch Cristiano Ronaldo on Saturday.  So I mean, like, that’s how bad it’s gotten is like, Comcast, Universal NBC, like hasn’t even for fans that want to watch it, I haven’t had to communicate, actually.

Joe Clements  06:49

And it took me a minute to put together that Comcast universal, that’s all

Matt Farrar  06:53

they’re owned by the same company, peacock and nbcsn. And Comcast are all the same company in this case

Joe Clements  06:59

I keep track of this professionally. But it’s getting to the point where I keep keep track of what streaming where and how and where to watch it and what to do or if I care about it. But like, it’s kind of insane now like the app like, Oh, is it on this app? If it’s on the app? Is it on the cable network? Is it on broadcast? Now one of the things

Matt Farrar  07:18

used to be the NFL was the most complicated setup because you didn’t know if you were in the region that was going to get the game. Now No, it’s not. No, it’s not because now you could just look at a map. Say NFL TV maps. Yeah.

Jack Reid  07:31

But But listen, ESPN, NBC, I’m in the green zone Donald get this one doesn’t matter what you want to watch. Now the everybody else said you know what, NFL hold our beer. Like we’re gonna make this so complicated and weird on what you have not blacked out in your region, what you have access to with your package. Can you stream it? Do you have to stream it?

Matt Farrar  07:53

But at least at this point, everybody knows I got to get a satellite dish or I’m going to a bar to watch out if you’re out of market,

Joe Clements  08:00

or you’re in a secondary market, right?

Jack Reid  08:03

Yeah. I had friends text me over the weekend trying to figure out how to watch this. I’m not a soccer man myself. But

Matt Farrar  08:11

Joe apparently is but because he and Cristiano Ronaldo are literally the same person

Joe Clements  08:16

you see, hang out. What do you want me to tell you?

Jack Reid  08:17

Did you say See? Yeah,

Joe Clements  08:19

we’re on. We’re on right now. First Name based on first letter basis.

Jack Reid  08:21

All right, J

Matt Farrar  08:22

CR7 baby.

Jack Reid  08:24

So yeah, no. And I said, You know what, guys? I really don’t know. But I’ll look into it for you. It basically was the grandma helped me I need my printer setup type conversation with people my age, trying to watch a soccer game. And I said, you know what it looks like it’s only streaming on, peacock. Peacock, you’re gonna have to get on the peacock real quick and figure that out. Yeah, it’s a mess. And frustrating because it seems to be moving away from ease of use, like the learning curve for all these apps has changed. ESPN has definitely changed. It’s content available.

Matt Farrar  08:58

It’s weird to me that it’s getting worse in the sports world because it’s getting better in other places, right? Like discovery took everything and made it easier in discovery. Plus, you don’t have to have the HGTV app and the Travel Channel app and all these other things like you just discovered worthless

Joe Clements  09:14

I think it’s worse in the sports world because it’s being still priced as if it’s a broadcast product where they’re going to sell national TV ads against it. And so the

Matt Farrar  09:23

I think there’s a decent percentage of the market in the sports world that doesn’t even care about the price at this point, right? Especially in a COVID pandemic world. There’s a decent percentage of people out there that like I agree, this is the thing I’ve got to do. Like I don’t give a crap what the price is.

Joe Clements  09:37

licencees CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, ABC and Amazon spent $113 billion to get the NFL broadcast and I know you’re talking about talking about NFL? Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about NFL. Right. So, you know, the the issue for them is they paid that money, essentially under a valuation of like, Hey, this is broadcast TV. We’re going to sell ads for a half million dollars apiece, for You know, three hours or more if it’s Monday night or a Sunday night game, right? You know, except for Amazon, who knows they’re gonna stream it. The problem, the problem is for them to stream it, it is likely that they can make more money, just showing it as restricted as possible, then they can off running a limited number of very high end subscriptions. Now, I actually agree with you. I think you know, what price would you be willing to pay for that a season? Probably as much as a season ticket three, four or $500? Yeah. As season ticket, especially

Matt Farrar  10:33

at this point, right. So I mean, especially with the if you’re not a huge NFL fan that the NFL Sunday ticket package, which is the the only the, exclusive way

Joe Clements  10:43

by the way, the only one that I think matters, and it is the one that is not currently, it expires this year, the contract with at&t, I mean,

Matt Farrar  10:49

because everything else is is basically a single game, right? Yeah, the Sunday night game or the Monday night game or the Thursday night game. It’s the only thing that is a package of games that you can purchase. It’s not an individual standalone game.

Joe Clements  11:01

Yeah. But my opinion on it is I think there’s so much focus on the broadcast side, I think in the future over the next three, four or five years. That NFL Sunday ticket is going to be the most valuable package it’s going to be more valuable than Monday Night Football.

Matt Farrar  11:15

or person and it has to be a package that consider streaming first. Yeah, right. I mean with people with Roku devices and Amazon TV firestick devices and Apple TV devices and tablets. I mean this right now you have to have a DirecTV satellite dish to get it there’s some work if you have a DirecTV subscription if you have a directly it’s very poorly done it that deals worked out seven or eight years ago. It’s just old. Yeah, that’s old I had a like grandfathered work around for a system they came up with for people in like apartment buildings that can’t get a DirecTV satellite dish based on like an old billing address that they never rechecked from many years ago.

Joe Clements  11:29

You’re a criminal and you’re admitting it on this national broadcast.

Matt Farrar  12:00

And But finally, I was I was booted out of the program for this season. So so

Jack Reid  12:06

it’s not criminal. It’s just a pirate.

Matt Farrar  12:08

I’m a rebel man.

Joe Clements  12:09

Let’s talk about, you know, the Sunday ticket package. Because I think that’s the only thing you know, remaining right now. Who do you guys think is best positioned to win it? Who can get the most out of it?

Matt Farrar  12:22

I think Apple and Amazon are probably the two front runners for for going after it. I don’t think DirecTV can even I don’t I don’t know if they’ve been put in a bid for it at this point.

Joe Clements  12:32

By the way at&t spin off. DirecTV or the division, DirecTV that has Sunday ticket discovery. No, they’ve made it its own thing. And so that what they want to do a spin off company, they win the license to the tone. So at&t wants to win the license again, spin out the entity that holds Sunday ticket, do its own thing, correct?

Jack Reid  12:51

I think I think Google and YouTube make a really hard run at it quietly. I think it could be a pretty big temple for you youtube tv that’s been going quite a bit over the last few years. Google was kind of serious about it a few years ago when this was up for discussion, Google. But I think when Amazon came in and started with the Thursday night games, Google got interested. And I think YouTube TV could could do well with

Joe Clements  13:17

so i think you know what, I don’t think the NFL will ever sell it to a tech company. Because it’s too dangerous that the

Matt Farrar  13:23

I think they will make every effort to prevent from selling it to Amazon. Yeah, and they should Yeah, or Apple or you know, YouTube in the in the reason I think Amazon’s way more dangerous than Apple, right? Because like if Jeff Bezos can buy it and instantly monetize it to like your streaming all of the Sunday games and like Oh, did you know that you can purchase this jersey? Like that is instant it’s not instant for apple? Yeah,

Joe Clements  13:46

yeah, I also think with like YouTube, right like it youtube tv to be clear. Yeah, YouTube TV what what happens if YouTube TV is merely instant for so successful, that YouTube TV is the dominant cable so to speak provider in the country? And then when the NFL goes to renew this contract, and that’s all they have to deal with. They can deal with Google or, you know, very small players who can’t afford the package. And then you know, YouTube’s  or Google’s in control. I think the winner will probably end up being ESPN, ABC. Disney’s deep on that ESPN.

Matt Farrar  14:21

Can they spend the money and can they spend the money right now?

Joe Clements  14:23

Can Disney?

Matt Farrar  14:24

Will they let ESPN spend the money? ESPN has been a black hole for them right now.

Jack Reid  14:29

Yeah, ESPN? is in a weird spot. Yeah, like I think

Matt Farrar  14:33

obviously Disney has the money to spend right but like will Disney let ESPN spend that kind of money?

Joe Clements  14:38

Look, I think if you’re gonna build the ESPN streaming app to replace ESPN, which is the marquee property, and Disney’s like recurring revenue stream, it still is even though it’s declining because yeah, Disney gets paid a fixed fee of every cable subscriber for four years, right? It’s like $13 a month per subscriber. Yeah. So it’s huge. The only way Have you come close to fix it? You can’t. You can have all the college lacrosse, rugby. Oh, yeah, National Soccer, all the long tail sports you want on there. But unless you have something that big and that marquee that can put people on, you’re never going to come close to replacing what ESPN?

Matt Farrar  15:16

No, I completely agree with you. No, I mean, I completely agree with you that they they need it. I just I

Jack Reid  15:21

they would be tossing the keys to the kingdom over to ESPN at that point, though, because the NFL already has a lot of competing properties, you know, yeah, NFL primetime and all of that that would have to be absorbed into ESPN. to a certain degree.

Joe Clements  15:35

I have another one for you? Why wouldn’t the NFL just build their own streaming app keep the licensing for themselves?

Jack Reid  15:41

DirecTV that they have a streaming app. Yeah. Well, the NFL app. Why? Because it’s, as the French say, hot garbage.

Joe Clements  15:47

Well, why wouldn’t they just spend the money to build their own streaming app for Sunday ticket?

Jack Reid  15:53

They don’t want they seem to just want to sell…

Joe Clements  15:57

Yeah. By the way, this came up in our interview with Rachael Iverson yesterday on the music industry, is this idea of licensing something out letting somebody versus running it yourself. It’s possible the NFL could make two or three times as much money running it themselves with very little risk.

Jack Reid  16:16

That would be an ideal scenario too but

Matt Farrar  16:18

I mean, the NFL his entire model, though, is kind of like distribute responsibility to, to other broadcast partners. Right. But I mean, across the system, right. Like it distributes decision making across team owners, right? Like I mean, the NFL’s  entire setup as an organization as a it’s a nonprofit, right? Like it distributes decision making authority away from its head. So to put like that much power into the organization seems rather like counterintuitive to what it does. Yeah. What would be my assessment?

Joe Clements  16:53

I mean, MLB did, and it worked really well for MLB. It works so well. For MLB they sold their plot. Yeah, Disney.

Matt Farrar  17:00

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. No, I mean, MLB like the tech stack, there has been really impressive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They just have a really problematic sport.

Jack Reid  17:09

I was gonna say it’s unfortunate that that sport is yes, I’m not so sure. They’re not trying to also kill it at the same time. But that’s a whole different podcast for sure. No, I have a very, very serious belief that MLB is trying to self emulate in order to re rebirth baseball, but we can do this on a different podcast. I need to bring my tinfoil hat in for that one.

Joe Clements  17:29

 What else do we have for doing all sorts of theme episodes? Now? We’re way off marketing.

Matt Farrar  17:35

So I mean, look at week one of the NFL this year was up 21% viewership from week one last year,

Joe Clements  17:41

which is good, cuz it was down like 50. from week one last? Yeah. So It wasn’t quite 50%. What would you What would you attribute that to? That?

Matt Farrar  17:49

It’s up? Yeah, that it’s up. 21%. From last.

Joe Clements  17:51

There’s people in the stands again, it doesn’t feel like it doesn’t feel as dystopian, less utopian, like, you don’t have all the political stuff around it like, yeah, the NFL works, because it’s escapism. Right?

Matt Farrar  18:05

It did not feel like Escapism last year,

Joe Clements  18:07

Yeah you can invest yourself in it. But it really doesn’t matter. It’s escapism. Last year, it was not escapism. Yeah. And people don’t want their everyday life coming to that sports meeting experience with them.

Matt Farrar  18:18

Do we think that will change the marketing strategies both around the games themselves and around the Superbowl this year now that it has a little bit more like what it’s supposed to?

Joe Clements  18:31

It should I mean, the problem is all these ad agencies are working out of like, you know, LA, New York, Chicago, in so like, they’re still going to be steeped in this idea of running like homes, yes. of their homes. This idea of running like you know, social responsibility ads, 24 seven on behalf of brands, because they’re in this weird feedback loop with their market research. Where they ask people is, you know, x social issue important to you. People have a bias say yes, because no one’s gonna say no, like, you know, racism or poverty or child hunger isn’t important to me. And so they keep taking that and running more and more socially focused advertising, which can work in certain contexts. But for most NFL fans hate 18 to 34 year old demographic. They just want to be entertained when they watch the game. Yeah, it gets funny.

Matt Farrar  19:18

It again gets away from that escapism that we were just talking about. Yeah. I mean, that direct tv deal. I mean, just not trying to go back to that. But I mean, that’s where, you know, $1.5 billion per year for them to be able to sell advertising during essentially that like, well, seven hour block days

Joe Clements  19:39

that direct tv deal previously does not include advertising rights. What DirecTV is doing is rebroadcasting the local game, so they’re rebroadcasting the local game.

Matt Farrar  19:49

Oh, Okay, so they’re only making their money on the subscription deals. they get zero advertising  rights for that? 

Joe Clements  19:54

Yeah

Matt Farrar  19:55

Okay

Joe Clements  19:55

So if you watch like an Atlanta Falcons game, you’re gonna see the local Atlanta television ads. Gotcha.

Matt Farrar  20:01

Now they were getting zero rev share from that,

Joe Clements  20:04

I can’t recall if it’s zero rev share, but like that’s that, you know, they’re not inserting their own ads into it.

Matt Farrar  20:11

Interesting. Let’s go down to college for a second. I mean, we can’t have a sports episode I don’t think without talking about in i l deals, or Yeah, we’re in week. Well, we just had week two, basically college football. It was an interesting week in Tallahassee for college football. What happened? Just some stuff, just some stuff, man, just some stuff. We don’t want, you know, just some stuff.

Joe Clements  20:39

That’d be bad even to team. Alright, name image likeness, scale name image

Matt Farrar  20:43

likeness. So what has been interesting to me is kind of the, the stance that some universities are taking on it right. And we’ve talked about nihl on previous episodes, so I don’t feel like we need to go through a recap of what it is. But some universities are going like hard. We don’t want to have any part of it. Like we’re, we’re pissed, like the NCAA is, you know, it’s a distraction for our athletes, yada yada yada. Some universities are I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say embracing it, but they understand the fact that if they can be a part of facilitating deals for their players, that that helps keep players happy that they can be a source of like, you know, a little bit of spending money and their players pockets. Yeah, that that’s a good thing. Or recruiting in the future. Yeah,

Jack Reid  21:29

you’re the Alabama quarterback

Matt Farrar  21:30

a million dollars. Yeah. But like the the University, the University facilitate that deal? Oh, no, yeah. But that’s what I’m talking about is University actually helping facilitate deals right. And like having additional goodwill from that, instead of like, being part of the impediment for the players and getting bad will that comes from so gonna have example. The Georgia Tech football team, the University facilitated a deal for the entire team. Oh, yeah, to have matching TiVo branded pajamas that they wore at the team hotel. And they had to like pose for a photo or whatever, as part of like, the brand deal, but the entire team got in on it. So like, you know, everybody got a piece. Nobody was excluded. And like, everybody got to feel good, because like the university facilitated that deal for them, and comfy sand company and got some

Joe Clements  22:20

here. I think there’s enough going is that be big top tier schools aren’t going to play with this, like when the SEC rolls out? And it’s its own thing? I mean, the biggest is obviously not Yeah, they are going to crack down on players doing their own thing, you will have these team sponsorships, the, the the team or the school will be the intermediary there and take its piece, you know, they’re 20 30% agent cut. And then everybody just kind of gets what passes through and whether or not they allow individual players to have it or just this whole team, but I don’t think

Matt Farrar  22:53

they can stop the superstars from from doing it. Right. If they got I mean, they’re gonna it’s gonna kill their recruiting long term, though, right?

Joe Clements  23:01

No, what if all well, this is you know, college sports at the high end is still a cabal. So if all the SEC schools disagree, hey, with sec, that’s not we’re going to doing you wouldn’t play sec football, part of playing sec football is you have to sign this contract, I

Matt Farrar  23:13

see where you’re going. Like I agree, they could say like the SEC, and like the fact that we can get you to the NFL. And the fact that you can make $10 million in the NFL is worth more than making like 20 now, but like, that’s gonna, that’s gonna affect top tier recruiting. But there’s also going to be some really important mid level recruits that are like, Nah, screw that, like, I’m here to get a college scholarship. And if I can make like, $20,000 doing car dealership deals over the next four years to like, I want to do that because like, I’d like to be able to enjoy my college experience as well. So like, I’m gonna go to a different school. And like that was a really important right guard that somebody could have gotten.

Jack Reid  23:49

And I think what’s happening and what you’ll see in the long term is less the schools being obviously involved. And you’re going to see them steering athletes who want to do this to certain agent groups that are currently facilitating this for some of these high profile players. So like, for instance, at Alabama, the top quarterback there, I can’t remember his name who’s clearing a million dollars. Yeah. He’s got he’s got a really high profile, I think, Agent agency or whatever. Yeah, I mean, he’s young, like a full on like NFL agent. Yeah. So I think what you’re going to have is these agencies that are going to be focused on certain schools so like Alabama will have their own group of guys who are helping facilitate and that way the school and the coaches can still have a certain level of perceived control over it. But the school won’t be directly saying like, you can’t play football here. If you don’t sign this contract. It says like, you can’t, you can’t go out and do your Men’s wearhouse sponsorship.

Matt Farrar  24:48

Here’s, I mean, just kind of like wrapping this. Joe, are you about to say something? Okay, just like kind of wrapping this, you know, into, into a little bow. I don’t know that anyone. Any of these companies that are doing you know, in AI l have have figured this out. And that’s not a knock on any company like this. This marketplace is so new. I haven’t

Joe Clements  25:09

seen anything that’s really stood out to me. Yeah, that’s an inventive way to do it. The pajamas thing does that you just mentioned? Yeah,

Matt Farrar  25:14

like, I don’t, I don’t know what this marketplace like, looks like going forward. And so I mean, like,

Joe Clements  25:19

that’s the I’ve heard isn’t delivering pizzas, the local pizza place just hires the players to deliver pizzas for night. And you can call, you know, you’re gonna get your pizza delivered by a player.

Matt Farrar  25:27

Like, not just like the who’s using it in a cool way, but like how to facilitate the deals, right? So I mean, you’ve got some pretty big names, even in the sports world that are doing this. So you’ve got like Gary Vaynerchuk, and his brother AJ Vaynerchuk, and VaynerMedia and Vayner sports that are doing in IML deals. But you know, I obviously had, I’m not privy to what they’re doing. But I don’t know that anybody’s cracked the perfect code yet of how to connect local businesses, with athletes that aren’t the guy that’s making a million dollars in deals. So like, you can make that, you know, connection for a $500,000 deal. Like how do you make those connections or the people

Joe Clements  26:07

when the school local school hostile or warm to it, when the school start talking about it and promoting it? You’ll see that like, local small, medium business space pickup?

Matt Farrar  26:16

Yeah. Because if you’re in a college town, is how does a company I guess, figure that out? When, like, Is there going to end up being 1000 of these companies, like at the services level that help these guys figure out how to do this? Or is it going to end up being like a, you know, a major, like talent agency level where there’s four or five of these companies that just have everybody and they have field reps? You know, like insurance agencies like out in the field? I think so. Yeah. I mean, like that, that’s kind of what I’m getting at is what does this model I think

Joe Clements  26:49

most players are wrapped by an office that gets built through the university athletics program. Yeah, that’s how most players are wrapped. Yep.

Matt Farrar  26:56

Like once is our local FSU office that just like and here’s your local Well, no, I

Joe Clements  27:01

mean, I think it’s the university that is running it so they’ll be okay. Okay. You think the university themselves star players will get their own people? Yeah, for everybody else. And not just football, basketball, but swimming, volleyball, those players, the university will establish like a, you know, an office for this, okay? I l office, okay? And then like that, nio office will probably won’t be very proactive. outreaching on behalf of the athletes, but like people, well, don’t you think they’ll catch on to that pretty quickly, then? No, because they’ll have inbound coming in once it’s like a known thing. It’ll take a few years for,

Matt Farrar  27:34

there’ll be enough to like, keep some people satisfied.

Joe Clements  27:37

The local bar will know like, I get the whole volleyball here, team here for two grand, you know, the University takes $250 on two grand, the rest gets distributed among the players for an hour of work, I think that’s how it’s gonna end up being, because what will happen is like the star players will have enough leverage to broker their own deals, like every other player isn’t going to really have access unless the school helps with it. Because they can’t just go you know, it’s gonna be hard for them to go pitch themselves like a local burger place. And so part of the recruiting I think, will be like, oh, and we have our NFL office that’ll help you with like, you know, NFL deals both for the team though, you’re going to share and like your individual things, if you have any ideas, just go talk the NFL office and like they can see if they can connect you with somebody.

Matt Farrar  28:20

So then I mean, how how should if, like, if you if you started a startup like nl company that like just wanted to help facilitate these deals tomorrow? What do you think the model would be? Would it be trying to like create those regional offices are just not doable?

Joe Clements  28:38

gear? sell stuff? Yeah. Find out what players are interested in selling and then as they build their like up the model,

Matt Farrar  28:45

the old merge stores and Yep, help them figure out like the licensing parts of that, like what colors you’re allowed to use when you’re crossing the line of Yeah. Cool. I like that.

Jack Reid  28:59

JACK, I was just thinking about that that BYU story where the company there built brands out of American Fork Utah sponsored all of their walk on players and effectively covered their their scholarships that they didn’t have for the year. Oh, I didn’t hear about that. So yeah, is a great use of n nl Yeah. Be really smart on their behalf. Haley and publicity standpoint. Yep. And then I think a really a great use of the platform as it stands now, because I don’t think nl looks the same in a year, much less 10 years. Whether it’s front office stuff or the NCAA or whatever power it be 10 years from now says the school can’t be involved in an NFL which I think is a very realistic outcome of schools trying to guidance to your players is that they get completely cut off

Matt Farrar  29:51

from it. You could definitely see like a bill in some state legislatures that just slices them off from it entirely as a as a result. Yeah. Like, I mean that I’m sure I think you could definitely see pushback.

Joe Clements  30:02

So ni l to pay a player’s scholarship is an interesting

Matt Farrar  30:07

thing. Yeah, that’s the first I’ve heard of that.

Jack Reid  30:09

But that’s it’s it’s not just happened with BYU, but it was the the cool exam. Well, biggest first. I mean, it was it was a deal.

Joe Clements  30:16

Why this is an issue for NCAA athletics is because you’re thinking of, you know, college football, basketball where there’s a lot of full scholarships. Most players in NCAA Division One aren’t playing on full scholarships they’re playing. Yeah, so if you had a big donor and the booster space at one, let’s say not basketball, football,

Matt Farrar  30:36

but maybe they wanted to get the entire team to a full scholarship,

Joe Clements  30:40

well know what I so if I really cared, let’s say, I really cared about like, I don’t know, the FSU women’s soccer for State University website, which already really good, right? But then I learned that like, Oh, you know, there’s 10 scholarships split among 20 players, which means there’s 10 players no scholarship, what I would do is as a booster, I’d be like, hey, in your recruiting, you can tell them every every kid gets a full scholarship. Yeah. And so that way this the coach can go out and recruit full scholarships. And so what that means unless the other competing universities also have an nl booster willing to front full scholarships for each one. Yeah, like they have a leg up like

Matt Farrar  31:20

a new asset. Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a super cool idea.

Joe Clements  31:25

So you’re almost I mean, it’s kind of a weird, pseudo,

Matt Farrar  31:30

we’ll figure out how to use it to your advantage, right? Like it’s here. It’s the law, like stop trying to stop trying to figure out ways to do legal jujitsu to make it less painful. And start figuring out ways to use it to your advantage, I think are probably the lessons from the first two months or, you know, really two weeks of you know, the season. Yeah. That anybody got anything else on the sports extravaganza? sports small. Kiersten Alex. Cool. All right. Well, as always, we appreciate you joining us whether you’re listening,

Joe Clements  32:08

or watching URL for YouTube.

Jack Reid  32:10

There’s no unique URL, search podcast directory you’ll find

Matt Farrar  32:15

got a podcast of record.com and we will make sure if it’s not already that the YouTube page is linked at podcast record.com

Joe Clements  32:23

Oh, good point. It wasn’t on there. When I checked I was trying to sue someone on Saturday, which is how I will make

Matt Farrar  32:27

sure it is linked before this episode goes live is

Joe Clements  32:31

on amazing. Technology upload like living in the future. Yeah,

Matt Farrar  32:36

there you go. podcaster record.com. As always, we appreciate you joining. If you’re watching, leave us thumbs up. Better yet, subscribe. If you’re listening. Leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app of choice that helps more people discover the show and we like it when more people discover the show. Otherwise, we’ll see you next week. Thanks for stopping by. This is podcast record. record is hosted and produced by me Matt Farrar, Joe Clements and Rebecca Romero with producer Alex Reinhard of record is recorded at gray bridge studios in Tallahassee, Florida. This episode was edited by Alex Reinhardt. Our theme music is composed and performed by Rosco Special thanks to our entire team at SBS here in Tallahassee. You can see more information about the show at our website podcast of record.com. As always, we’d appreciate your reviews and ratings in your podcast app of choice. Those ratings and reviews help more people discover the show which helps us keep delivering quality content each week. Thanks for listening

SPEAKERS

Rachael Iverson, Matt Farrar, Joe Clements

Joe Clements  00:00

Hi listeners. Today we have a very special guest on our follow up music episode from somebody who actually knows about the music industry and actually knows a good bit. We did an entire music Episode two weeks ago, but I failed to realize that I have a longtime friend, someone I’ve known since high school, who is very experienced and music promotion. And her name is Rachael Iverson. Have J & R Adventures.

Matt Farrar  00:41

Of Record is a podcast focused on the marketing and advertising industry. From the perspective of two industry experts, hosts Matt Farrar and Joe Clements are co-founders of Strategic Digital Services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee, Florida and founded in 2014. I’m Matt Farrar. I’m Joe Clements and I’m Rebecca Romero. And this is the podcast Of Record.

Joe Clements  01:20

Say hello, Rachael. Now, Rachael, your your act. Your big act is Joe Bonamassa. Who’s like the biggest thing in the in the blue scene? Right?

Rachael Iverson  01:34

Correct. Yes.

Joe Clements  01:35

Okay. So tell me. You know, first thing I want to do before we go into the backstory of how you single handedly made Joe Bonamassa. The biggest thing in the blue scene is you listen to our episode from two weeks ago. Go ahead and tell us what we are wrong about. We are just like throwing things at the wall to see what we come up with.

Matt Farrar  01:56

And it’s not fair to just say the whole episode.

Rachael Iverson  01:59

No, it could be fair. Um, no, I’m just joking. No, it was it was a great episode. It was really interesting to listen to it from almost like an outsider’s marketing perspective not being in the industry, per se. Um, first, we got to talk about the John Mayer stuff. Because, you know, you of course, you’ve got your fans of john mayer, and you’re not fans of john mayer, but you guys were like,

Joe Clements  02:21

no, Matt. Matt is a john mayer fan. Okay, good.

Matt Farrar  02:24

Yeah, I mean, sort of, right. Like, I like I kind of was it for a while. And then I like this album, kind of like John Mayer, like, put some stuff out there that like I might be kind of interested in listening to again. So like, it made me reconsider John Mayer.

Rachael Iverson  02:43

Yeah, for sure. And by the way, I have to lay this out. John Mayer is one of the best guitarists that there are out there. And unfortunately, like in our industry, I mean, he is such a great guitarist, but he focuses on his amazing songwriting and his amazing voice. So you don’t necessarily always hear his guitar playing in his pop records.

Matt Farrar  03:03

And to be fair at that one I actually know. So I’ve listened to John Mayer trio and like some of his like guitar stuff, some of his blue stuff. So like that I like 100% agree on.

Rachael Iverson  03:15

But I mean, it’s just bread and butter, right? No one makes money, especially in the blues. So he’s got to make money with his pop records. I totally don’t fault him for that.

Joe Clements  03:22

So what went wrong? About John Mayer,

Rachael Iverson  03:25

So you were wrong about his albums, you said this was like his first album in 15 years that topped the charts. And I’m like, that doesn’t sound very right. So I actually went into my billboard pro account, and I looked, and the last 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Records going back to 2003, he was either number one or number two on the top 200. Chart. So even though you might not have heard the marketing, and was influxed, with all this information on social media,

Joe Clements  03:58

but did he have any singles on those, like any talk radio singles?

Rachael Iverson  04:03

Well, so that’s different when you’re talking about Billboard charts that

Matt Farrar  04:06

So John we are sorry, we are sorry, john, our sincere apologies.

Rachael Iverson  04:10

Yeah, but I mean, that just goes to show you he probably doesn’t need a ton of crazy ass marketing to be able to sell his records because he was hitting number one or number two, whether you knew he released a record or not, which, these days, I have to say, obviously, the charts are a little wonky. You know, you used to have to sell millions of records hit number one. These days. It’s like 20,000 – 30,000 Records if you’re lucky. So we can even talk about the chart how it’s changed so much where

Joe Clements  04:41

well here’s what the next thing we are wrong about what else we’re wrong about.

Rachael Iverson  04:44

Okay, so let’s see you are also wrong about,

Joe Clements  04:48

You’ve got notes. I

Rachael Iverson  04:52

Check my notes. I took my notes. Actually, there were a few things you were correct about when you’re talking about vinyl, vinyl is Huge Right Now, I mean, it has increased 30%, just in the last year. And in 2020. It was the first time in 34 years that beat out CDs. Oh, wow. So vinyl is exploding right now. And it’s not just the audio files, I think there is, you know, people that are just interested in the whole culture of vinyl, the music, you know, from the 70s. And they love that type of playing music on a turntable.

Matt Farrar  05:29

I would imagine that’s probably a big merch item for you guys at shows too, right? Like that’s a great piece for autographs. And just like a really cool item to take home with you after you’ve had that live show experience.

Rachael Iverson  05:40

Yeah, vinyl is great. Honestly, vinyl is expensive, though. So if you don’t have a lot of money, like for example, our tickets at Joe’s show go anywhere from like $60 to $250 a ticket. So if you spent $250 a ticket, do you want to spend you know another $40? On a vinyl or $35 on a vinyl? Or do you want to spend it on a $15 CD, you know, it’s up to the people, it’s their own preferences. But vinyl is king right now. And one thing you guys will find interesting, the supply and the demand and what’s going on with the COVID structure and everything else. It’s affecting vinyl in such a negative way. If you wanted to manufacture vinyl right now, you would have to wait between six and like eight months to get your vinyls done. So it’s people are buying vinyl even more now,

Matt Farrar  06:28

So what you’re telling us is that we should be opening like a vinyl pressing facility.

Rachael Iverson  06:33

If you did, you would make lots of money. But it’s also a very antiquated system, right? So it’s the machines that they use back in the you know, 70s and 60s. And it’s it’s a very hard process to make vinyl. And that’s why it costs so much money. But anyway, so the vinyl stuff you talked about was awesome. I really liked when you talked about Dolby Atmos, we can talk about that more in this episode, because that’s really important for the future.

Joe Clements  06:59

So let’s start. Let’s go real fast. Tell us how Joe Bonamassa went from selling tickets to 100 people in small clubs, to selling out venues like Red Rocks. And tell us that specifically about the business model that you’ve helped create around him that allowed that to happen and is allowed you to really become a case study in the music industry.

Rachael Iverson  07:25

Absolutely. Okay. First, I have to dig on you a little bit, Joey, because I’ve known you for so long. In your last episode. You said “merc,” and not merch,

Matt Farrar  07:34

You 100% did dude.

Joe Clements  07:36

No no, every time I say that. I know it’s wrong. But we had that argument like literally 20 years ago. And you were right. But in order to be spiteful, I keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Rachael Iverson  07:47

It’s so wrong and it’s it just cringed me I had to dig you on that

Matt Farrar  07:52

If you notice I said it correct.

Joe Clements  07:53

Everybody says currently I say it.

Rachael Iverson  07:54

Yes you did. Yep. And it did sound very spiteful. So anyways, well let you let’s talk about, um, basically Joe Bonamassa. You know, we’re a very homegrown roots type of act. And how he started out is he originally did have a major record deal. 20 years ago, what happens when when an artist gets a record deal, you basically you’re owned by them, you have to do everything that they want, you don’t get paid a lot. And they can drop you at any moment. And that’s what happened with Joe. He was dropped like it was hot. And it put a damper on his whole view of the world. He’s been playing guitar since he was four. And when he was 12, he opened up for BB King. So he was already in the industry since he was 12. And so he was around 20 years old in his early 20s. When he got dropped by his record label him and his manager who’s my boss and CEO, Roy Wiseman, they decided to create our company, J & R Adventures and said we’re gonna try to do everything ourselves. Because no one cares about us. They all care about themselves and if we don’t care for ourselves, then no one else will. So that’s when this thing grew and started. So Joe started out playing and just woodshedding and touring and doing the hard work you need to do to gain fans right? Back then there wasn’t social media yet. There. He was just going out and touring. When social media started popping up, that actually was a huge factor in Joe’s career. When people started recording, his tours, his live playing because he’s an incredible guitar player, one of the best in the world, when they were recording it and they played it on YouTube. People were shocked. Like they had no idea this guy even existed, they couldn’t believe they didn’t know who he was. And that’s when Joe started to grow. I would say that was about 10 years ago, seven years ago, somewhere around there. Um, so from there, what we did as a company we decided because we’re vertically integrated, again, we promote all of Joe’s tours we What that means is We go and rent the venues ourselves, we set up the box offices, we pay for all the production, we pay for all the marketing ourselves, we have to have a lot of capital to cover that stuff. But it works out in the end for us. And then that also means we release all of his own records. And we do all the marketing ourselves and all the branding ourselves, and we sell all of our own merchandise. So all of that together has been able to grow year after year, because we’re in charge of every piece of it. And there’s not other people involved, like management or agents or promoters that can take that 10%, 15%, 20% of what you’re making just for literally being there and saying that they’re experts in what they do, but they’re just treating you like a cookie cutter artists, they just want you in and out and kind of take their money and go. So we didn’t like that we took everything over ourselves. And that’s when this really started to grow, is when we took over everything ourselves and started promoting our own tours.

Matt Farrar  11:00

And I don’t think the average fan of Joe or any other artists for that matter understands the the level of intensity that goes into planning something like that, or how easy it is to just let somebody else take over all of the management of it and give up like you said that 10% or that 15% and just, you know, pay up and let somebody else do it for you. Right. So it’s very tempting to just to just give it away. So to to take on the the mammoth task of doing it all in house. I think a lot of you know, kind of casual fans maybe either make the assumption that, you know, all artists just have this like back office operation that just like comes together and forms for them naturally and easily. Or that like of course it makes sense that like artists, there’s just going to give up, you know, 30 to 40% of all the money they make to a fleet of people and like that, that’s just fine.

Rachael Iverson  11:55

And that’s how it’s always been done too though, you have to realize that we’re rebels in this industry.

Matt Farrar  12:01

Yeah. And that’s the part a lot of people don’t understand.

Rachael Iverson  12:04

Yeah, no, I think I think Joe’s fans, because they again, they’re the crazy super fans, they know his his career, they know everything. They understand why Yeah, they understand, you know, how much work does go into it, and that he has his own company. And they, they, they actually love Joe for that, because it’s like Joe against the man, you know, like, it’s that Underdog Story. People love that. But definitely, you’re right. It’s very hard for your standard independent artists to say I’m gonna do this all myself, where do I start? And it’s very difficult. And it takes time, it takes time, and it takes resources and it takes people learning how to do it and knowing how to do it, and then just doing it, and most people don’t have the capital to be able to do it. And that’s why it’s such a big risk. But it usually has a huge reward on the end. If you stick in it you may not make I could say my boss might you know, Joe and Roy, they have they didn’t make money for a good five years, at least any money. Oh, yeah. All the money that came in went to the company.

Matt Farrar  13:05

Yeah, let’s talk about that. How do you get the capital? Right? Because it’s not like Joe had it when he started, right? I mean, he was a struggling artist, I assume just like most other artists at the very beginning. So I mean, how do you how do you get the capital? How do you you know, resist the temptation to go buy cars or buy properties or whatever artists do when they they get that first big check, and instead put it into building your your infrastructure

Rachael Iverson  13:30

Very true. So it is a lot of self control, it has you have to bet what Joe always likes to say is you have to bet on yourself. So what you’re doing is you’re taking all that time, all that money, or anything that does come in. So if you’re playing a tour, you take that money and you save it and you put it into the company, you don’t pay yourself, you take just enough to pay for very, you know, just living expenses and those type of things. And you take the rest of the money and you put it into the company. So other ways to get money. I know in the early days, we had to get bank loans. Simply put, when we were working on one of Joe’s biggest

Matt Farrar  14:08

but when you treat it like a business that’s probably a lot easier than if you’re just an artist out there that’s like hey, I’d like a loan, right? Like when you’ve actually treated your operation like a business, that’s probably a much easier thing to do.

Rachael Iverson  14:20

And that’s what a lot of musicians don’t realize is that it is the music business. The second word in that term is more important sometimes than the creative music part that the artists focus on. And if they’re going to grow, they have to realize it is a business. Don’t take it personally. There’s certain things you have to do. Sometimes you can’t make money to be able to let the business grow and those that stick it out. Again, the usually the reward outweighs the risk.

Matt Farrar  14:49

Yeah, and you can’t make shitty music and have a good business and be successful at the end of the day. But you can’t make great music and have a shitty business and be successful at the end of the day either. Like we’ve seen plenty of behind the music that have correct story out for everybody.

Rachael Iverson  15:03

Exactly. Yeah, it definitely helps. I will say, to have a really good product that people love. And you you, again, you’re betting on yourself, if you know your product is good, and you are not just putting it out there to make money, you’re doing it for the love of the music as well as getting it to the fans. The people are going to see that they always see through your intention. So when Joe plays on stage, and he gives it everything he has, even though it might have been a terrible live night, it doesn’t matter. The fans saw the passion. They saw the live struggle that he had on stage. They love it, they eat it up.

Matt Farrar  15:39

My guess is there’s not a lot of terrible live nights that that are happening these days on his tours.

Rachael Iverson  15:46

I mean, that’s the funny thing you asked Joe and he’ll be like, Oh, we sucked last night. And everyone’s like, What are you talking about? It sounded great. Yeah, so it, you know, it just it’s different. But honestly, the fans right now, I mean, we can even go into the how COVID affected the music industry and destroyed us for two years. But really, people are starving for that live interaction, the live music, the whole live stream era, we can call it that was a means to an end. Like it literally was there because that is all that was available for fans to consume, and enjoy their favorite bands. But it almost doesn’t have a place in the world. Now in a normal stance, it could be a once in a while type thing. But no one wants to do live streams. I know a lot of artists that are like, Okay, I’m done with that. We just need to get out on the road and play for people live because that is what people are just dying for.

Matt Farrar  16:44

Yeah. Is there any Is there anything that was that was useful from a, you know, technical or marketing perspective from COVID. Like going forward? I mean, is there, I would say I don’t want to call it positive, but was like, anything useful from it.

Rachael Iverson  17:00

There definitely was some useful stuff, I will say that it made us as a company, kind of upgrade everything. So we had to upgrade our audio visual department and we had to upgrade our music videos. And we had to upgrade. Everything that we did that we presented to the fans had to get upgraded, like better video, better audio, better everything. And just you know, during that time period, when Joe didn’t quit and tour for almost a year and a half it was, um, we literally started other things like we Joe has his own podcast, and he interviews other musicians, and we do all these other things now, because in that time we needed to fill that time,

Matt Farrar  17:43

you still have to create content. yeah,

Joe Clements  17:44

Well I mean, What’s interesting about that is you went from being a probably a, having a relatively modest content shop to probably a very intense content shop. So post COVID, what you end up with is the ability to produce high end stuff. Correct? And how do you have a big audience right? Like, what did you tell me your your email and Facebook list sizes? Were there?

Rachael Iverson  18:05

Oh, yeah, we’ve got 1.2 million email database of our our direct marketing. And we’ve also got 3.2 million fans on Facebook, that is our bread and butter. Because our fans are older a little on the older side, I would say like 40+, um, so they’re on Facebook, we also have like a half a million fans on Instagram, or 750k on Instagram, and half a million on Twitter. So Joe is doing those things. In, I would say social media is very important, especially during COVID was very important. So we need to focus more on that more interaction of Joe, talking with the plans playing for the fans on social media that helped us grow. But you guys have to realize, now that things are going back to normal and there are tours coming back in. It’s like we added all these new elements. But now we have all the old stuff coming back. So we’re like, we’re strapped for resources. And we’re an independent company. We have about 15 people that work here. But during COVID, there was only like two of us in the office. So it was it was just, you know, we all had to survive, and do as much as we could we actually focus you guys would think this is interesting. We focus more on our merchandise during that time as well. And we pounded out brand new merchandise every week for the fans because again,

Matt Farrar  19:25

they had no other girls sitting at home online shopping. I mean, that makes a huge amount of sense.

Rachael Iverson  19:31

Yeah. And that helped us through that through the really tough time of not having any tours.

Matt Farrar  19:38

So I mean, I’ve noticed even some of the you know, some of the biggest acts in the country touring wise right now. So like Dave Matthews Band who’s back on the road, I think they played I saw one of our friends was at the gorge last weekend. But they you know, still have a very substantial live streaming product for their fans that you know aren’t comfortable coming to a live show. But are still, you know, very much engaged in, in their touring schedule. And, you know, I don’t know what they, they sell individual shows or a subscription to that streaming product at but, you know, it’s a pretty substantial investment that they’ve got going into a multi camera, you know, live streaming experiment experience for their fans, different stops on the tour now.

Rachael Iverson  20:20

Yeah, we did that we did a very high quality, 4k, live stream shoot that was actually live stream with a TV truck and everything to do simultaneous simultaneous switching and everything. And that I will say is not cheap. It is very expensive. And as cool it is it as it is. It’s, it is something like I said, it will always live, it’ll always be here, now that we’ve done live streams that will always exist, and it is there for something but it won’t replace live shows, which is good to hear for musicians. Because as you guys know, people make that’s where musicians make their money is on tours, not by selling records, that that is a bygone era. So people need to tour they need to sell tickets, that is how they make money. So it is a good thing that people still want to see live shows, because that helps the musicians pay for stuff.

Matt Farrar  21:17

I mean, one thing that it did bring out, I mean, whether the pandemic or however you want to categorize it that I think is nice is now that, you know, you guys had to make some investments, from an equipment standpoint, you know, we back in the spring built out an entirely new video facility that’s on the other side of this wall that has live streaming capabilities, a lot of the stuff that you talked about 4k streaming, you know, we put some permanent fixtures into our studio, green screens, all that kind of stuff, specifically for a lot of those same purposes. But I think one of the interesting things about your case is, even when life returns to normal, whatever normal might be, it still gives you the ability to not be dependent on media networks as much right. So when when you guys want to stream a show, now at least you don’t need ABC or NBC or Fox or somebody to you know, to have to partner with you to live stream a show on television or broadcast or whatever. It’s much easier to to get that live stream product directly out to fans, right, you’ve had to figure that out on the scramble in a much more uncomfortable process. So when you want to do it your way you want to do it now it’s it’s going to be a much better product, you’re not as dependent on legacy corporations, the way that you would have been, you know, two or three years ago,

Rachael Iverson  22:42

for sure. And that’s actually the indie way of thinking too. We’ve always thought we cannot rely on radio airplay, because that doesn’t exist for blues or blues, rock music. And we cannot rely on TV stations to play us because again, it Joe is not a mainstream pop or rap artists. So we always relied on what was available to us. And in the early days, it was YouTube, that was our TV. YouTube was our TV and we spent a lot of money on getting Joe’s music videos and live videos out on YouTube. Now the other social media platforms like Facebook just started a premium video type of service, let’s call it for artists that can submit their their actual real official music videos. And those now videos that you submit to Facebook and can get millions of views on those actually count toward billboard charting these days. So a lot has changed in the industry. But I would say relying on what’s available to the artists without having to rely on the big corporations, like you said, you’re not going to get that unless you’re with a major label and who has major label deals these days, most of people are independent artists.

Matt Farrar  23:55

Well, this I mean, the same way that building out a studio allows you to kind of break off the TV station, it allows you as an artist to break away from the label or to break away from you know, you separate agents or managers or whatever that you know costly like infrastructure is that kind of swarms you as an artist once you start to get attention or become successful in the industry. And I’m not saying that that infrastructure is always bad, right? Sometimes it helps people get discovered that never would have been discovered, right? It doesn’t always have to be negative but right yeah, you know, in the case of you guys you’ve found a way to do it a much better way that has created a really long lasting and what seems to be really intimate relationship with your fans as a result,

Joe Clements  24:41

Rachael where things going? We talked a little bit pre show about the new spatial sound stuff with Adobe like like what’s gonna happen with, you know, what’s coming in the near future for, you know, song and album distribution, sound and how does that impact your marketing

Rachael Iverson  25:00

Yeah, so I would say right now the future of music is shifting into what they call spatial audio and think of spatial audio. It’s the one of the brands is Dolby Atmos, and you’ve heard of this for movies. And it’s like movies have Dolby Atmos and you get the spatial sound that’s all around you that you can experience being inside of the sound of the movies. Well, they are creating that for music now. And it’s a, it’s a process that the producer in the studio has to do while they’re making the record. So it’s not, it’s not necessarily easy process, but it’s something not now there’s like a filter they throw on after a rash. No, it literally is like, think of it having speakers like around you and above you, and they’re like all over the place. And so what they do what what’s going on is Apple is putting all of their money into this basket. I mean, they are going full force into the Dolby Atmos, what this is going to do is it’s going to replace their HD format that they currently have now called m fit. And it is literally just going there. That’s what they’re going to offer as their HD platform is Dolby Atmos. So now they’re hoping that more and more people get their subscription, because this will be part of people’s Apple subscriptions, the Dolby Atmos sound and, and, and files will be a part of like your normal subscription, they’re not going to charge anymore for it. That’s not the plan. I think they want to, you know, like, it’s because so many people are buying vinyl, and they’re getting the high fidelity type of music, how can digital services, you know, fight against that or try to get some of that market share back? This is how they’re going toward a higher quality digital sound. So

Joe Clements  26:47

that’s interesting. The the tech companies are having to fight against an analog trend.

Rachael Iverson  26:53

Yes, it’s, it’s so true. But you you ask any audio file, what they’d rather listen to, and they will hands down say I would rather listen to vinyl, because you’re going to get the best sound out of the music versus a compressed mp3 or even a WAV file. It doesn’t matter if it says it’s lossless, it’s always compressed in some way and you’re not getting the full sound. So that’s what Dolby Atmos will be it will be this spatial sound where it makes you feel like even if you have like headphones on your air pods in your going to be able to feel the sound around you. And I think it’s a new experience for people to listen to music.

Matt Farrar  27:35

Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. So I think to part of I think it’s 80% sound quality for vinyl, but I think at least 20% of it is the the experience for people and I think depending on your age, it’s it’s sometimes the style Joe or it’s if you’re younger, maybe it’s kind of a, you know, a lust for nostalgia. And in a case where maybe you didn’t even like experience that time period what we’ve talked about that in some previous episodes where you kind of long for days, even though you didn’t grow up and then but with with vinyl, I think that people just enjoy the experience that goes with it. And that’s what they’ve done with with Dolby Atmos and with with spatial audio is create an experience that goes with the sound, much like there’s an experience that goes with, you know, listening to a piece of vinyl. And I think even if you look at something like the air pods Mac’s right, like they don’t look like a lot of the other more modern headphones on the market, they’re still Apple sleek and modern, but they have a very kind of retro style to them that looks like something you could be listening to a piece of vinyl in, you know, a 70s living room on and maybe they looked like, you know, something in the 70s that was futuristic, but they could still you know, fit in a 70s living room if they needed to.

Rachael Iverson  28:53

Yeah. Now I think that that’s the future of music. Now, again, you know, it’s what I say it was a money grab that they’re just trying to figure out how to reach more people to get them to get subscriptions to their platform. And I think people will really enjoy will there be people that don’t care? Yes, there’s going to definitely be people that don’t care about the high quality, digital music. But at the same time, you’re going to get a group, a group of people that absolutely have to have it. And they have to have this type of audio or else they don’t. It’s almost like I would say maybe it’s like it’s going to be like this. Remember, have you guys like watched an actual DVD in the last five years? No, because it may be

Matt Farrar  29:41

but not a DVD.

Rachael Iverson  29:42

Well, that’s why I’m saying if you go to blu ray and you watch the blu ray, which you know, with the you know, the surround sound and the 4k type of blu ray, and then you go back to a DVD and you watch that and you’re like wow, how did I ever look at that? I’m telling you that’s how the discrepancy The quality is and I think audio will be like this to you, you’re gonna hear this Dolby Atmos this spatial audio and you’re gonna say I can’t go back to listening to music the way I did before because it’s so immersive. And it’s like swallows you whole,

Matt Farrar  30:14

I already noticed that I started listening to songs from three or four years ago that some artists haven’t bothered to like go back and you know, upconvert to, you know, lossless or even Apple digital masters or whatever. And, you know, maybe there’s a little bit of placebo effect, but like I can hear I can hear a difference, right? It’s it’s lower fidelity, like, especially when, you know, you go to something like a BTS song where like they’ve they’ve spent time to convert it into every possible Apple format that exists. And it just, you know, pops in your ear, like there is a noticeable difference. If you go listen to something from three or four years ago, that is just kind of sad.

Joe Clements  30:56

Well, here’s my question on that, does it actually does it increase the cost of production one? And just the increased cost of production? actually result in more stuff being sold?

Matt Farrar  31:08

I don’t know. Yeah, I definitely don’t know the answer to the second one.

Rachael Iverson  31:12

I think in the beginning, it will, will not. I think that it’s going to take people a long time to jump into this. But like I said, Apple is putting all of their marketing dollars and all of their efforts into promoting this new platform, I think that it will get to a place where it becomes more normal, just like with all new technology. But in the beginning, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference in the amount of money especially the artist makes, I think it’s going to take a long time for that. But it’s a step in a direction that will change music going forward. You know what I mean?

Joe Clements  31:49

How much does it increase the cost of production? Like what percentage?

Rachael Iverson  31:54

I don’t know exactly. But I do know, like, just from my own experience with our producer, he had to literally retrofit his studio with like two or four more speakers in the walls and the ceilings in order to mix music properly, to match that spatial kind of sound effect. Yep. So he had to upgrade, which I don’t even know how much it cost him. But I would definitely say in the 10s of 1000s. if not more than that, to even upgrade your system. And then when you’re doing the work on it, it takes longer because you have so many more channels to have to mix between so many more spatial points, do you not? I mean, yes, it’s a labor intensive thing. But it’s also a technology thing. So not everyone is doing this right now, I would say like you said, like BTS, and a lot of the big names are going to be doing this because they’re on top of it. We’re doing it because our producer believes in it. And he has his studio set up for it. So even though Joe bonamassa is not the biggest name, we’re going to have one out mess. Yeah, it

Matt Farrar  32:59

makes a huge amount of sense that your audience would be super into that with you know, him being as talented a guitar player as he is. I mean, it makes sense to me that you you guys probably have a producer that is super into finding that solution.

Rachael Iverson  33:12

Yes, for sure. For sure. Hey, guys, if you want to talk about something else that you kind of went on a tangent, rabbit, hold on. Yeah. Last time on your marketing podcast about music. I was laughing so hard when you guys started going into this is what you need to do when you need to market your let’s say you have a new record coming out in February we’re gonna do yeah. And I was just planning. Because what got me first is yes, when you’re thinking from a marketing straight, like when you’re in a marketing company, there’s very, you know, there’s a lot of rules. And there’s a lot of different ways you can go about things. But usually there’s a template. And one of those things you said was focus groups, you got to do focus groups, you got to ask the fans, and I was just laughing so hard, because I’m like, we wouldn’t you know, we do listen to what the fans say. And we look at their comments and stuff. But it’s, the artist won’t necessarily say okay, we need to go ask our fans what they’re thinking of like the talent never operates. Correct. And but but remember, in our case, the talent is also the he’s he owns the company. So he directs how his creative vision is. And it’s almost like I hate to say this, you know, Joe does have a Midas touch, where between him, his manager and his producer, we’re able to create new content every single year or two, we release more product than like anyone in the industry, but we release so much product and people just eat it up and it’s because we do something different, but it’s still core to the fans when we don’t have to ask the fans what they want because we already know who they are. And

Joe Clements  34:54

it goes to a thing we were discussing on the last podcast which is this like two year album release cycle. It makes zero sense. In internet world, like the probably the smarter thing to do is be putting out like a song, you know, every few weeks or track every few weeks, and then compile that into an album every year, every six months.

Rachael Iverson  35:15

So that is what a lot of artists are doing, especially in the major label side, they, they do release singles before. And I will say, what we’ve done to kind of when streaming came into the world, it changed music forever, obviously. So what we’ve had to do is pivot and say, okay, instead of streaming, taking away the money we’re making on physical CDs, we’re going to kind of join them, not beat them. So we started marketing people and promoting streaming and getting our fans to join over to like Spotify, and start listening to Joe’s music on Spotify. So if you look at Joe, he’s got millions and millions of listens on his songs. And that’s because we’re really trying to groom our audiences to listen to Joe all the time to his back catalogue, but more importantly, to new music. And so when you were laying out your your structure of how you’d market a new record, actually, what we do is we we’ve been because of the way Spotify works and streaming all streaming platforms works, it’s algorithm based, right. So what you have to do is you have to almost play a game with the algorithm. And that’s why you release singles before an album comes out. So you want to release a single and have at least four weeks, three to four weeks to let that single ruminate and get the algorithms to start pushing people to it, then you release another single, and you it, it kind of compounds with the algorithm sending people so it’ll keep on growing and growing and growing. And then another four weeks passes. And it’s a decision

Matt Farrar  36:45

process for what order the singles coming out in.

Rachael Iverson  36:51

So I mean, it is personal preference. But what we do is we we basically you know, want to release the most exciting best songs on the record first to get people’s attention. And maybe what is also indicative of the rest of the album, you don’t want to put out some random robe song that doesn’t sound like anything else. So we’ll choose a song, it’s gonna be exciting, it’s got to be a beat. And for the first single just to grab their attention, like for our Joe’s new album coming out in October, his first single was like a very strict, strict rock track, and it had some blues elements, but it was way more rock. And it’s very exciting. So we released that first. And then the second track we released was more of a blues fun, rock shuffle type of thing. So we released that Windex, and then honestly, we’re just trying to get, it’s all about the game of the algorithms. You know, you got to get the algorithms to pick you up. And there’s no other way to do it. You can’t go pay Spotify, or sleep with someone to get your music played out there more. You’ve got to just do the hard work and

Joe Clements  37:55

rely on that’s how the entertainment industry works.

Matt Farrar  37:57

It’s not the 80s

Rachael Iverson  38:00

it used to I’m like, man, who do I have to pay to get this plate? So work like that.

Joe Clements  38:05

I have to I’m gonna have to bail little early on us. But Matt, Matt’s gonna keep going a few more minutes with you. But I have one last question sugar about which component of of your marketing plan right now over the last, say six months? Have you seen be the most effective in terms of driving traffic and driving interest?

Rachael Iverson  38:30

Hmm, I will say what is most important when you’re trying to promote an album and this sounds kind of cliche, but it is Believe it or not, it is the music videos, you have to have a very compelling exciting music video that then you can use that and put money behind it and get to your fans on social media and on YouTube and everywhere else. And they will see it it’s a visual thing right? But it’s also you’re getting the music. So it I know with us if we do not have a good music video. It’s not going to get viral it is not going to get the streams we want it music videos are so important. And again, it sounds like well that’s how they used to do it. Yes, it’s true. You know, people spend millions of dollars on music videos, you don’t need to do that. But you do need to have some content that is visually an auto audio based that you can get out to the fans that you can promote the album and then that goes into promoting pre sales of the album. And then that will lead to on sales and everything else and charting positions and all it all is a snowball effect from there. So it is important to have the right content to get to your audience

Joe Clements  39:41

and that’s something that Matt pointed out about that move with Santana and Rob Thomas can launch without a video yeah,

Matt Farrar  39:49

they had a lyric video but not an actual video I mean not music video no they just had a you know scrolling lyric video.

Rachael Iverson  39:55

So the lyric videos are the music industry or the record labels way of kind of testing the waters to see how the song without spending a ton of money, you know, and then if it gets some kind of jumper interest, then they’ll go ahead and spend the million dollars or, you know, a couple $100,000 on a music video. But that’s kind of like the trick is, hey, let’s see if there, that’s if anything, that’s your focus groups, like you put your music out there with music videos, or lyric videos, if it if it pops, then you know, to spend more money or promote those certain tracks. And that

Matt Farrar  40:27

makes sense as a concept. This one just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, specifically, because of what it was what they were trying to do. Like, I just don’t understand how they didn’t have the music video that looked pretty similar to smooth from 20 years ago, like, ready to go. And

Rachael Iverson  40:47

you know, it’s funny, it’s sometimes the answer is as simple as, hey, we couldn’t get them to shoot it. Like we didn’t have the time where COVID COVID affected and we couldn’t get to it sounds so boring, but like, everyone thinks

Matt Farrar  41:02

around here all the time, too. So I mean, it makes perfect sense that that’s what the answer can be. It’s like, you know, Carlos Santana, like had to be somewhere else because he was doing something else. So like, he couldn’t go to a music video, it just seems like such a wasted opportunity.

Rachael Iverson  41:16

Yeah, I agree with you. I think if you’re gonna go out, why waste that opportunity and the the fans that you’re going to reach if you don’t have the right content to get that, that that kind of push again, it’s about the algorithm. So if you don’t have the right content, those algorithms won’t pick it up. They won’t pass it to the fans, and it won’t become viral. So yeah, no, I agree. I think you’ve got to work on that. But again, life happens, stuff happens. And sure, as as glamorous as the music industry sounds, it really is kind of boring. And like you said, statistical and but it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great, great industry, and it never is the same. That’s it’s always growing, it’s always changing, rules are changing. pivots have to happen. And that’s what we’ve been doing the last two years because of COVID.

Matt Farrar  42:02

Anything else we were completely wrong about that the listeners need to know about

Rachael Iverson  42:08

what we talked about, we talked about the artist not being liked to be micromanaged with the whole team taking over that definitely is a is a thing I would say.

Matt Farrar  42:19

You wouldn’t just take my recommendation straight out of the box and be like hell yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let’s do that.

Rachael Iverson  42:26

Well, sometimes those who have major record deals, they have no choice in the matter. Sure, they have to follow those rules and follow the marketing suits and everything but full of it, I’m assuming a lot of artists can be correct. And it is a very doggy dog world. You know, it’s very cutthroat in the music industry. But there’s also a room for everyone because of the internet. And because even artists that don’t have any label, they can put up their own music on Spotify these days, you don’t need a distributor, so you can get your music out there on YouTube or on you know, Spotify and still sell 1000s or, or even just have millions of streams because of how the internet works, which is a beautiful thing. But it also creates so much content that fans don’t it’s almost too much content, you know, to overload it’s music overload it’s like so much to look at and there’s so many incredible artists you’ve never heard of. But they’re out there and they’re trying to put their music out there. Yeah, I would say that you guys when you’re talking about the CD stores and Joey was just joking about Sam Goody I’m like one of the few by the way retailer physical retailers are few and far between but there are still a few out there that sell CDs or even vinyls. FYI he are still in malls today that you can go but I would say a majority you know even Barnes and Noble still sell CDs and vinyls okay Best Buy does not anymore they took out all their music products. Um, but Amazon is king when it when he sells vinyl Yes, you’re right. Yep. So so the because they’re selling books are selling physical products, it makes sense to sell the physical CD or DVDs to have those in there, the vinyls um, but honestly, like I said, Amazon is king when it comes to selling physical product digitally. So you go online there, you’re going to get amazon prime, they’ll guarantee you to get the brand new album on street date or a day before. Why not order it? Yeah, you know what, what we do is again, we because we’re an independent label, we sell our own merchandise. We have a pre order up for Joe bonamassa now and we sell Joe’s pre order on our store as a CD. And we undercut Amazon just a slight bit by price. Yeah. Because we have to make up for the free shipping right so we do sell on our store. But we also let Amazon sell as many records as they want. And, and we kind of live in harmony, as you can say, and try to just still make the money where we can on physical product. Because for our demographic, again, it’s a little bit of an older demographic, they still want that, like you said that nostalgia of holding the CD booklet in the hand and turning the pages or even holding the vital feeling the grooves, it’s a very, almost like a spiritual experience. You know, those people that love music,

Matt Farrar  45:30

like settling down into their favorite chair, right, like getting their favorite drink and like settling down? Like that’s a that’s a whole experience for people when they listen to music,

Rachael Iverson  45:41

correct? Yes. And and that still exists today. It’s not all about streaming. There are people that do want that experience, correct? Yeah.

Matt Farrar  45:51

best artists out there from a content perspective, like who’s putting the best kind of content that isn’t Joe, obviously,

Rachael Iverson  45:58

that’s a tough one. I mean, when you have unlimited resources, and you can do whatever you want, I mean, think of like a Taylor Swift, or she’s putting out, you know, documentaries on netflix, and she’s got music videos, out galore. And she can rerelease a record that came out 10 years ago, however the hell she wants,

Matt Farrar  46:20

but give me one that everybody’s not gonna know, right? Give me one that like, is putting cool content out there. But like, everybody hasn’t found because it’s the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix, give me one that you know, cuz you’re in the music industry.

Rachael Iverson  46:32

Sure. So in my realm, again, this is like the blues rock the roots realm. Um, I would look at this as a little shameless plug for them, but I do love them. It’s a band called Larkin, Poe, they, they took to heart kind of our advice about, hey, if you there, I would say they’re more of like a think of like a female black keys, they they’ve got that roots rock with a blues influence. And it’s very catchy. And they play guitar, and they sing, and they’re incredible. They’re a sister duo. look them up. But they have specifically worked really hard on doing social media videos, live stream videos, creating brand new content, doing podcasts, I mean, those girls are working their asses off to get new content out to their fans. And that’s how they’re growing their fan base. And I don’t think they have as big of a fan base as Joe, but they’re still in the beginning stages of growing. And that’s how independent independent artists need to do it in order to grow in this in this vertical direction. So they’re, they’re great. They’re, they’re some incredible, talented musicians that are just doing everything they can for their fans. And the great thing with them is they’ve got young people and they’ve got the old people, because they that’s that type of music that transcends

Matt Farrar  47:50

perfect bass, exactly what we’re looking for.

Rachael Iverson  47:53

Yes, I mean, there’s so again, there are so many talented musicians out there, it is so hard to just pick out names. But go on YouTube, go on Spotify, look at your music, release radar, see what type of stuff is being shoved in your face, because sometimes you’ll discover new music and the discovery itself is even more awesome than like, it’s that different experience when you discover new music and you’re like, I’ve never heard this person I can’t believe it. That’s a different experience. And that’s almost addictive.

Matt Farrar  48:26

Couldn’t have it summed up any better way. Any final thoughts on the music industry that we missed or that all the record fans should know? Before we close?

Rachael Iverson  48:37

I would say that it takes a lot of work. There’s a lot of resources involved. There’s a lot of you know, people working on these things. So as a let’s music fan, when you guys listen to music or buy music, just realize that there’s definitely a lot of work put into it and a lot of passionate a lot of love not only from the musician themselves, but also from everyone behind the scenes. So go spend money on music and buy tickets and support the artists because again, artists are not making real money on streaming. They’re making it on their physical product and on their touring things. Yeah, on yeah on experiences and a few loving artists go support them because they need it more than ever these days because again, most people haven’t been touring for over a year and a half.

Matt Farrar  49:21

Yeah, absolutely. Does Jnr have a tour schedule or an album release or anything exciting coming up that you want to plug to our audience where we go?

Rachael Iverson  49:30

Yeah, sure. If you want to learn about Joe bonamassa again, he’s an incredible blues rock guitarist. We’ve got a brand new album coming out October 29 called time clocks and we are currently pre ordering it everywhere every retailer and on our store at Jay bonamassa.com and take a take a peek at it. You know that’s we’re always trying to get new Joe fans and again, Joe is not an old timer. He’s only in his 40s but he he transcends that age gap. as well because he’s such an incredible guitar player.

Matt Farrar  50:03

Awesome. Well, this was an awesome episode. I really appreciate you taking the time to follow up with us and coming prepared with notes.

Rachael Iverson  50:10

Sure. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. I love digging on Joey again, I’ve known him for half my life.

Matt Farrar  50:16

Yeah, we all do know this was great. It was it was super helpful. I think the audience is really going to enjoy the follow up on the topics. music industry is really fascinating to me personally. So this was this was really enjoyable. But as always, listeners, viewers, if you enjoyed today’s episode, jumping in favorite podcast app of choice or in YouTube below and leave us a rating review helps more people discover the show and that makes us happy and we like to be happy. We’ll be back next week with the latest. Thanks for joining us. record is hosted and produced by me, Matt Farrar, Joe Clements and Rebecca Romero with producer Alex Reinhard of record is recorded at gray Ridge studios in Tallahassee, Florida. This episode was edited by Alex Reinhardt. Our theme music is composed and performed by Rocco Special thanks to our entire team at SBS. Here’s how you can see more information about the show at our website podcast of record.com. As always, we’d appreciate your reviews and ratings in your podcast app of choice. Those ratings and reviews help more people discover the show which helps us keep delivering quality content each week. Thanks for listening

Joe Clements 00:00
So Taylor Swift joined Tik Tok since we did the last episode, which begs the question is Taylor Swift late to tick tock? Tik Tock past its prime. On this episode of Of Record.

Matt Farrar 00:19
Of Record is a podcast focused on the marketing and advertising industry from the perspective of two industry experts hosts Matt for our joke limits are cofounders of strategic digital services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee, Florida, and founded in 2014. I’m Matt Farrar, I’m Joe Clements and I’m Rebecca Romero. And this is the podcast Of Record.

Joe Clements 00:59
Hey, listeners, you have me, your host, Joe Clements we have Jack Reid say hello Jack.

Jack Reid 01:05
Hello Jack

Joe Clements 01:06
We have Kiersten One Sock. Hello. That’s not your real last name. It’s Wonstock. It’s it’s a joke.

Jack Reid 01:13
Also not her last name. It’s Wonsock! Oh, really? Yeah, there’s no Yeah,

Joe Clements 01:18
Well, I’m working here for a while. I’m not a details guy. I’m big picture.

Jack Reid 01:22
She’s not a stock of wands.

Joe Clements 01:23
I’m a I’m a big picture person. Okay, yeah. Also a joke people literally only the people working this office would get or care about so we are going to quickly move past that part of the episode and into a couple of Tik Tok stories. So first story out of the verge Tik Tok reportedly overtakes YouTube and US average watch time. So average monthly watch time on Tic\k Tok is now 24 hours per month compared with 22 hours and 40 minutes for YouTube. So this begs the question of what is actually going on? Are people switching where they’re consuming video? Are they simply consuming more video? Are different groups consuming more tik tok? There’s a little bit of research here, but not a lot. So some of this is going to be speculation on what’s going on there. But I was wondering from our resident Tik Tok extraordinare Kiersten. What do you think? Are you listening to or watching more Tik Tok less YouTube or?

Kiersten Wonsock 02:27
I think I watch. Gosh, I’m so 50/50 because like Tik Tok is like something I would do to pass like 10 minutes real fast. And YouTube is something I like, probably would sit on the couch and watch a couple hours of.

Joe Clements 02:41
Sounds like you have a fun and adventurous life.

Kiersten Wonsock 02:43
Oh, yeah. Friday Night turn-ups, you know it, with the three cats too. Um, I guess like, you know, I guess I see tik tok as quick, cheap entertainment. And I actually think YouTube videos have more quality. And maybe as like someone who does produce a lot of video I see. There’s more quality and stuff that maybe that’s why I like to sit down and actually enjoy it on TV screen or something.

Jack Reid 03:06
Hmm YouTube is transcending.

Joe Clements 03:09
Yeah. Well, I think that’s true. And we talked about this before is people are watching more and more YouTube on full size TVs and in YouTube is becoming a very dominant, full size TV BI-platform. In fact, I think it’s going to be the first full scale fully targeted self serve Ott platform. Yeah. Because it has now and it didn’t have this two years ago. But it has now the the amount of eyeballs to make a run at that.

Jack Reid 03:35
I think this is very interesting. First of all, these numbers are just from Android phones. Anything Yeah, Android on it. So that’s interesting, because I’d love to see if it’s greater on the IOS.

Joe Clements 03:44
because Apple is just a black hole now for everything

Jack Reid 03:46
sure is, well, anything that they don’t want. Yeah, you know, anything. They’re competing here, anything they want, they get done. But, yeah no, I think this is very, very interesting, because it’s not a small discrepancy either. And it’s not It’s not every day that something Google has gets overtaken. That’s not their chat platform.

Joe Clements 04:05
Well so you know, what I think is actually happening here. I think what people are doing is they’re trading other forms of social media time into Tik Tok and because Tik Tok video it’s being compared as video to YouTube instead of just as to any other social media platform. So I think it’s a little bit not an apples to apples comparison. What’s going on there in terms of calling Tik Tok video and calling YouTube video? Yeah. Because people are just subbing out social media time and putting that in a Tik Tok. Or at least that is my theory.

Jack Reid 04:37
Yeah. And, and I don’t think the time that YouTube has normally taken still overlaps with the type of time that you would allocate towards something like Tik Tok or Instagram. I think it’s taking away from Snapchat and Instagram. Yeah, I think like we just talked about YouTube is pushing into its own new unchartered territory.

Joe Clements 04:56
I think YouTube’s competing with other Ott apps. Yeah, like cable and broadcast television fairly directly at this point. I don’t think YouTube is competing with Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or tik tok.

Jack Reid 05:09
I don’t have cable anymore. And I have a couple of streaming apps, but I don’t I certainly don’t have all of them. But the one that I have been frequenting the most likely is YouTube. Yeah. Because, yeah, the type of content that’s being put on there is greater and higher quality, you know, month over month, you know, that even the people who started off small I mean, Marques Brownlee is a great example. Started off making you know, just little vlogs and are now making really, really, highly produced series and reviews.

Joe Clements 05:39
Well, you will be happy for the story we talked about later when we talk about some new numbers about creators. Oh, interesting. Yeah, stay tuned. JACK.

Jack Reid 05:45
I’ll hang around then. How lovely.

Joe Clements 05:47
So next story out of CNN Taylor Swift joins tik tok and the swifties go mad. Who’s that? swifties or Taylor Swift?

Jack Reid 05:58
Neither I know who they are…

Joe Clements 05:59
So I look I don’t I that’s a little bit of a joke. But I think there’s one Taylor Swift waiting this long to get on Tik Tok is indicative of either she’s becoming very slow to respond to where her audience is a one or two. Like she’s not. I actually don’t have any other interpretation of it. I don’t know how Taylor Swift is just now getting on Tik Tok. If she wants to have a younger audience, if all she cares about is older millennial women as her audience then like it’s probably fine, but one of the issues we’ve talked about with her as a brand is you know, women under 24-25 at this point, Taylor Swift is as old as like Madonna was and we are growing up to us.

Jack Reid 06:43
Are there a lot of people like Taylor Swift on Tik Tok? Yes, I guess Kanye on Tik Tok?

Kiersten Wonsock 06:51
Oh, well, maybe not to that but like, you know, even like Britney Spears has a had Tik Tok before Taylor Swift and

Jack Reid 06:59
are they popular?

Kiersten Wonsock 07:01
Well, Britney Spears is popular because it’s very deranged content of her spinning in circles. And I love Brittany but like I mean, it’s more people watching like, Oh my god, this is a downward spiral for this poor girl. And I think that’s why people like her and that’s why her contents really good.

Jack Reid 07:18
See to me, and this is my ignorance about Tik Tok. It seems to be the most of the stuff that I’m shown. I don’t know if I’ve ever been sent a video from an influencer or from somebody of notoriety. It seems to be very grassroots. Yeah. And very, you know, reliant on content that, you know, Kiersten makes, or somebody here makes and that’s even probably a bad example, because we do this for a living. But you know, the guy on the skateboard, right? He was not a creator for any you know, in the Ocean Spray guy oceans. Yeah, guy. And so I wonder if now, people like Taylor Swift are trying to get in. After that wave has kind of Yeah, after crested a little

Joe Clements 08:01
But my argument here would be if you cared about reaching Gen Z’s. You would have been on it a year ago, or six months ago. Yeah, you would especially six months. You wouldn’t be this late in the game to it. If you cared about reaching Gen Z’s. You probably would have bought some time last summer.

Jack Reid 08:15
Is she not reaching Gen Z?

Joe Clements 08:17
I don’t think so. No, really no. That. Like, remember? Like, yeah, we think of Taylor Swift is people late 20s you know, through late 30s as like, she’s this 18 year old country turn pop star. She’s very young. to like, Alex. Alex, can you remember a time when Taylor Swift wasn’t a big deal?

Alexander Reinhard 08:39
Um. Not really.

Joe Clements 08:40
Yeah, it’s just been around his whole life is the equivalent of, us, Jack growing up and like Madonna was big, but we actually lived most of our memories are after Madonna was really big in the 80s.

Jack Reid 08:49
I was actually thinking about something similar to this the other day. And I think the difference though, is like Madonna, Madonna didn’t have a sustained pop throne during our growing up period, our adolescence and our teen years. I mean, she she popped back up a couple of times that one James Bond song you know

Joe Clements 09:11
a couple of songs every couple years that would get big and she still had enough notoriety to push things in top 40 radio

Jack Reid 09:17
Taylor Swift has this empire and is putting out records that just go platinum in five seconds. Like I still think that like she has this sustained success that I’m just I guess all in all trying to say I’m a little surprised to hear that she’s

Joe Clements 09:29
not permitted but she’s not she’s not going to base Yeah. You know, evidence of this is a Olivia Rodrigo is kind of taking that Taylor Swift mantle of young Taylor Swift and giving that to Gen Z women.

Jack Reid 09:43
I don’t know who that is…

Kiersten Wonsock 09:45
Good for you you look happy as…

Joe Clements 09:48
Yeah you got it.

Jack Reid 09:49
That was really great.

Joe Clements 09:50
You know, she’s driving her car in the suburbs and there are stop signs. That’s song. No, no. Oh, yeah. Driver’s License. That’s the first one. Yeah, driver’s license.

Kiersten Wonsock 10:00
But I think that driver’s license Taylor Swift like, I mean, even her music that she’s put out in Evermore and Folklore is not at all like gauged towards like a Gen Z audience like Gen Z is listening to like I got my driver’s license. And Taylor Swift’s like, I was going to have a baby with you it’s a little more, deeper. And I don’t think that’s what the audience she’s going for. I think maybe she likes growing up with her fandom and the swifties that she has. And she likes writing for those experiences that they’re both going through maybe

Jack Reid 10:33
Nah

Joe Clements 10:34
I actually made this criticism of that track for her, which is essentially where she’s at generationally. She’s gonna split her audience in half, because there’s half of her audience, and maybe it’s a different number, half her audience. Are these like, highly educated, like urban career women who aren’t married yet, don’t have kids. That’s her, so she can talk to them. And then you know, and that may actually be 60% of the audience are like, married have children are in a different part of their life altogether. But she’s still writing songs for the smaller and smaller niche of her audience.

Kiersten Wonsock 11:12
We were just saying before we came in here, how the millennial generation is way too big and does not encompass like, like, I

Jack Reid 11:19
mean, yeah, it’s too broad. Yeah. And that’s why it’s being like, fragmented and like, Oregon Trail generation. trail. Yeah. Hey, that’s real man. Yeah, yeah. If you if you didn’t lose buddies in elementary school to snakes, and then

Joe Clements 11:32
shot a lot of squirrels, shot a lot of squirrels

Jack Reid 11:35
he had eat those squirrels too, you know, you can shoot them. But oof

Joe Clements 11:39
so another story out of e-marketer. Unless we had anything to say else on Taylor Swift moving on.

Jack Reid 11:47
Oh, no. Just surprising. Yeah, I think across the board a little surprising.

Joe Clements 11:50
So, out of the e-marketer, Facebook’s measurement problems could affect advertisers, media plans and its bottom line. Apple’s new privacy rules are making it difficult to tie Facebook data to actions that consumers take after viewing ads on the platform, which could have long term effects on ad revenues. So we’ve seen this since iOS 14.5, harder and harder to track pixels are becoming more and more, you know, deprecated, essentially, every month that goes by, I don’t actually believe what this article is posing is true. Because what it’s saying is advertisers will move money to other places. The thing is even being able to track half of your conversions on Facebook is better than being able to track zero of your conversions elsewhere. Oh, yeah. And yeah, better than you know, any other company smaller than Facebook is going to have the same trouble with the tracking.

Jack Reid 12:44
Yeah. And there’s no way Facebook’s going to let that happen too right. Like they they’re going to come up with something they they’re already working internally on on how to

Joe Clements 12:54
well, they have their new API, which is going to be a pain for advertisers to implement. But it’s the I think it’s called the ad reporting API. Yeah. And we have actually haven’t done an implementation for a client on that yet. But that’s where they’re going is where the information is collected by the server and then passed back from your website’s server to Facebook directly. But it’s just another piece of Facebook nightmare compliance for advertisers on the platform ever increasing

Jack Reid 13:22
nightmare.

Joe Clements 13:22
Yeah. And so some, you know, listeners in the agency, world advertising world might know this, listeners outside don’t know this. Facebook is such a burden simply regulated, self regulated advertising platform at this point, I would guess we spend about 50% of our time actually placing Facebook ads and 50% of our time helping clients deal with Facebook policy issues that are constantly changing and unclear.

Jack Reid 13:50
rapidly changing, rapidly changing probably have changed since we started this podcast.

Joe Clements 13:55
There’s probably an email in my inbox right now. So any thoughts on that before we move along?

Jack Reid 14:04
I mean, it to me, I’m just thinking bigger picture with it. And kind of what we’ve gone through this past year with 14.5. And with every social media platforms reaction other than Snapchat being negative, and then now we’re still seeing the repercussions of that. And of course, this is confusing, because 14.5 is implementation. Yeah, in the dark of night was a little confusing. And it’s interesting that the war kind of never really took off. And instead, we’re just having more difficult hoops to jump through.

Joe Clements 14:37
Yeah, I think what’s going on is kind of the next era of that opted in technology is coming and it’ll be here early next year. And then all of this tracking will suddenly become opt in. But everybody’s got to opt in because it’s the only way you can see anything for free on the internet anymore. Has

Jack Reid 14:51
has there been any? Has there been any news about Android implementing a similar? Well, there’s

Joe Clements 14:57
Google’s Google system they’re working on And then there’s another system of a bunch of independent DSPs, I think called unified ID. And so what’s coming next year are these two different ways of doing this one to one, Tracking and Data reporting that requires individual consent and opt in. And in Google side, it goes deeper into like, statistical analysis on like cohorts of people. So that’s where we’re going. It’s just not completely ready yet. But I think all that stuff will be scaled out before pixels disappear by the end of next year. Interesting. So coming back to content creators. This also out of a marketer. survey shows content creators value stability and independence, a survey of over 1400 content creators shows that the creator economy is becoming a more stable career path, and may and many support Why can’t I read is become a more stable career path for many to support themselves and their families, even if it takes a long time to get going. The report found that majority of content creators hope to use their businesses for themselves or their families full time of those who responded 36% said their long term goal was to support themselves with their business 42% said they support a few people only 6% said they were doing it as a hobby 56% said search engine optimization is the primary way they grow their audience that is interest. Yeah,

Jack Reid 16:26
that’s really surprised. Because it’s free. Yeah.

Joe Clements 16:29
Cuz SEO you can do and you can drive traffic, it’s really hard to be competitive for free on Facebook, and Twitter now. apart, yeah, other popular methods, speaking events, hashtags, partnering, and other creators. So not not traditional social media content, because the algorithms suppress this so heavily now. What is interesting is online courses and sponsored content are the most popular ways.

Jack Reid 16:59
Workshops there. So there’s a lot of content that’s oriented around education. Now, there is a massive increase in that that I’ve seen. Yep. directly to the last six months. 10 months. I mean, it has been wild.

Joe Clements 17:14
Yeah, I get hit with every time on YouTube. That’s YouTube is like get rich quick, like fly in this private jet.

Jack Reid 17:20
Yeah. And even like some of the content creators and like influencers that I follow, who may be affiliated with certain companies, like I follow several like photography and tech, you know, blogs, even they have launched their own, you know, masterclasses for certain things in the last nine months, which I’ve been pleasantly surprised about, but it seemed to be overnight, everybody was like, hey, let’s let’s flip this switch and start, you know, offering paid lessons. Shoot, I’ve, I’ve done too, so.

Joe Clements 17:51
So what do you think is the average number of months it takes for a creator to be able to support themselves just on content?

Jack Reid 18:00
Kiersten?

Kiersten Wonsock 18:01
I think I would probably say, I mean, I’d say probably a year if you did it right. And did it? Well, I mean, you could probably get things done, depending on what platforms you’re on. And what what those master classes you are offering. I mean, there’s a girl I watch on tik tok, who does master classes of balloon decorating. And it’s incredibly successful for her. So I guess you just kind of find that right audience balloon What? No balloon decorating like for like, those arches and stuff. I know. And I guess I’ll give her a little shout out. Her name’s Houston, we have a party.

Jack Reid 18:37
Hey, that’s a great name.

Kiersten Wonsock 18:38
I know. And I was just like, a weird thing that I kind of clicked on. And a lot of people are like, Oh, my God, I’m doing this for my party. I’m starting a business and I’m doing event decor and stuff. And I mean, it kind of has almost become its own little niche. It’s very fascinating. So I mean, it depends on what your what you have to offer. And if you’re good at teaching other people too. I think that’s another element to it.

Joe Clements 19:05
Alex, Any guesses? On average?

Alexander Reinhard 19:08
I cheated. I

Joe Clements 19:09
How dare you?

Jack Reid 19:10
Yeah, I saw. Alright. So

Joe Clements 19:12
yeah, so the average is 26 months, over two years. So that’s how long it takes. If you want to build a content business, you need to be doing it nights and weekends. Yeah, I’m 26 months is for yourself. The average creator made 50,000 per year. But if you were in the game before to seven years, 100 and 125 was the average range. So it’s a long term process to build this up. So if you’re going to do it, you need to plan two years of doing it with very little reward, and then another say two to four years of doing it to really start to get a good income out of it. That’s what I say about my stocks, stocks. So the other thing this is the platform’s are all competing for creators right now. And one of the reasons I think it takes so long for creators to get going is because they are, why the platforms are competing for creators. Once on a platform, the creators are competing with the platforms for revenue and for attention. So if you’re building your business on YouTube, if you’re building it on facebook, facebook and youtube don’t have an incentive to give you very much free reach. So you’re competing directly with them. But Facebook and YouTube, for example, do want you on their platform because you’re what draws users. So I think there’s this tension there. And I think what you’re going to see with this creator economy is once you have the first open source, like crypto network, yeah, where it’s based on crypto microtransactions, that can be fractions of a penny, you’re gonna see creators go from, you know, taking two years to make $50,000 to if you have anything decent and people can find you, you can make $300,000 in your first couple years, because you don’t have the platform acting as an intermediary, either taking a piece as pass through or suppressing your reach is tik tok

Jack Reid 21:10
so successful because it is the first major social media platform that has been created and really taken off during the Creator. Boom. Or is the next one going to be because I mean, all of the ones I think the problem is I think that’s helped tik tok. Yeah, but I think Tick Tock isn’t going to be the next, you know, this platform that does this with crypto because like it’s a proprietary platform, it’s going to be something that totally probably doesn’t exist yet. Or to the degree that exist, it’s in its infancy, because everything else that’s existed has either existed for 16 years, or you know, has been a social media platform that was geared towards posting pictures or sharing music, than if the next big one is catered towards and has built in from the ground up this foundation of helping creators make money. Yep, that can be huge. Well, I

Joe Clements 22:03
think what it is, it’s a distributed autonomous organization right to do. And so the way the DA works is the people who put it together, are putting it together, either because they are creators in their own right, or like, they’re just interested in building this world, the transactions that happen well, so first thing, nothing would be free on it, everything’s running on a, even if it’s an infinitesimal fraction of the equivalent Penny, everything’s running on transaction. The da o itself takes a piece that the house gets to maintain itself and, you know, grow the network, pay for the servers, whatever. And then everything else is just passing through directly between the consumer and the Creator, which is going to give creators 2345 times more revenue for the same work. Now, the thing that’s you don’t know there is what are the discovery algorithms going to be like on on a DA Oh, and the way I suspect it will work is every This is what Twitter is trying to do is everybody will be able to kind of port in their own discovery algorithm to filter through to filter through the network. So you won’t just be given the discovery algorithm that’s best for the corporation, you’ll have your option, and you’ll just choose what kind of tunes it in for you best. I do think that’s gonna be one of the things and it’ll be 1015 years from now. But people start to become aware of their preferences and algorithms. Oh, sure. I

Jack Reid 23:29
mean, like, what tic tocs? doing? Um, yeah, we’ve got our resident. Which talker in here?

Joe Clements 23:35
Yeah. But you’re still, you’re still training it, but you don’t exactly know what you’re doing. When you’re training? Yeah, in 10 to 15 years, I think people will know, they will have certain, you know, they will know the technical names of the data mining processes that are going on behind the scenes to surface what they like, kind of like when you download title, and it makes you select 15 different music genres an artist you like and then it formulates your own little Well, I mean, look, because the problem is tastes aren’t stable. Right? So how do you account for this? And so one is, well, if you like this 15 songs, you want to have some time decay on it, right? So like, the songs you select today, decay and preference over a certain amount of time so that other things can be inserted into the algorithm. Yeah. And how much do you prioritize something new that you indicate that you like, versus a whole history of like yours, that pattern? Yeah, right. So there’s all these questions implicit when you’re making algorithm to try and discover what’s actually going on in your mind. You know, some people are gonna prefer very stable algorithms that like what I liked last year, is what I’m gonna like this year, show me more. Some people are gonna want a lot more discovering a lot less stability, they’re gonna want new things being injected all the time that they can select from a little bit of everything. Yeah, a little bit, everything all the time. apathy is a tragedy and boredom is a crime. But with your personalized algorithm, you’ll never be bored, you’ll never be bored.

Jack Reid 24:56
Definitely you will be compliant which is kind

Matt Farrar 25:01
Anyways,

Joe Clements 25:01
yep all right so Alex is either stretching his hand or telling me there’s five minutes left it’s somewhat unclear to me the way he does it he may want a high five oh well he’s doing like the you can see this starfish and yeah, he’s like yeah like Suicide Squad thinking.

Jack Reid 25:15
Oh yeah staro

Joe Clements 25:16
yeah. So great. Alright, anything before we close

Jack Reid 25:22
Hey Joe What’s something people are sleeping on this week?

Joe Clements 25:25
Ah The Sleeper…

Jack Reid 25:29
I don’t have one so sorry to put you on the spot. Yeah, I’m

Joe Clements 25:31
actually have a couple. Nah, yeah, I always have some pick your favorite? Uh I think people are sleeping on the degree of actual apathy that exists about continuing COVID outbreaks and so I am relatively bullish on what q4 is going to look like for restaurant and retail and even travel

Jack Reid 25:55
Are you think it just keeps keeps going? Or you think that

Joe Clements 25:59
i mean i think i think you know we’ll be at mu or fire or whatever Greek letter of the alphabet we’re going to be on by st by December

Jack Reid 26:07
well did you see the who said you know, buckle up this is going to be it will mutate like the flu. It is not the flu but it will like it’s what we’ve been saying continue to be something we deal with the seat Yeah, and so I just why vaccines are important.

Joe Clements 26:23
I think people are coming to terms with this like it’s got to be around you got to mitigate it how you think is best if you’re ill or immunocompromised you probably need to stay at home. Otherwise, you know you’re gonna fly the plane wear your mask, you know, you’re gonna do the things you wanted to do anyway. And you know, people will get sick but semi they’re vaccinated most people seem to be surviving and it’ll just be a part of life and that you know, it’ll be in the news but like q4 is probably just gonna roll on with you know, decent economic intensity. Yeah,

Kiersten Wonsock 26:55
they said and a podcast I was listening to cannot remember it. Trust podcast. Yeah, Motley Fool. But they were saying that you it’s gonna probably be very bullish for retail and restaurant. Let’s go for the holidays. Especially because a lot of people are like, I’m going to Cheesecake Factory.

Joe Clements 27:10
No one’s canceling Disney trips either.

Jack Reid 27:12
Someone should cancel Cheesecake Factory though. Yeah, that’s a hot take, but I’ll stand by it.

Kiersten Wonsock 27:16
You don’t like their Bible have a menu?

Jack Reid 27:18
No, I don’t. kearson Do you have anything people are sleeping on? Casper mattresses? Yeah. Yeah, purple mattress. Purple mattress. Casper just go straight to purple. have anything really I’m trying to think of anything? I’ve got one. Okay. Joe, what’s the last movie you saw in theaters?

Joe Clements 27:44
Umm? Do not remember.

Jack Reid 27:46
Kiersten? Producer Alex

Alexander Reinhard 27:50
Black Widow.

Jack Reid 27:51
You saw Black Widow in theaters. Yeah. Oh, lovely. So

Kiersten Wonsock 27:55
I didn’t want to say it but A Star Is Born in 2018.

Jack Reid 27:58
No, that’s fine. I mean, that shows that proves a point here. Yeah. Marvel’s first non sequel prequal new standalone storyline came out this past weekend, and shattered box office records for Labor Day, which also shattered my perception of what the theaters were going to be up to this fall. You have some pretty big films coming out this fall. You’ve got James Bond, which supposedly came out four years ago but is somehow also coming out in October. Daniel Craig’s last foray into double o seven world, you’ve got a new Spider Man, you’ve got vitamin vitamin. You yet Peter, Spider Man. Mac wires back you’ve got the matrix four. You’ve got basically any movie you thought was really great in 2003 2004 or circling back to? You’ve got the eternals you’ve got some do it. The Batman that comes out next year. Don’t wait a while. kearson Yeah, Batman. Oh, no, sorry. Sorry. You’ve got some pretty big tentpole summer block buster movies coming out this fall. And I thought for sure it was going to be this thing where people were gonna be like, man, if I can’t stream it, I’m not going to go. But by golly, if people didn’t go to the theaters in droves on Labor Day weekend to see a movie, they had no idea that was my thing that people are gonna like it. They’re just going back to their life.

Joe Clements 29:29
Yeah, it’s a it’s a risk that is factored into everyday living. People are doing what they’re going to do to mitigate. Are you saying,

Jack Reid 29:36
Are you saying people are sleeping on COVID?

Joe Clements 29:39
Well, look, I mean, I I think I’m just here to be my case. Right. I think people have come to terms with what the actual risk is for them or their families, and are now living in accordance with that risk. And most people have weighed that, like, the risk doesn’t justify living this isolated, miserable life in your house. You rely on Amazon and instacart to bring you everything you need.

Jack Reid 30:03
But the people who are going out in droves weren’t really necessarily doing that in the first place. I mean,

Joe Clements 30:07
yeah, this type of crowd, the type of numbers you’re seeing and things. It’s not just the people who are Oh, no, for sure, for sure. You’ve

Jack Reid 30:13
got a good mixed bag. I mean, they had they made $70 million last weekend, like that was a good mixed bag of people who are over it and people who have checked a box and said, like, I got my vaccine, and now I want to go back out and play. So I mean, despite the media’s best efforts to keep everybody quarantine and locked in their house, yeah, they’re trying. They’re trying but it’s not working. Yeah, I mean, some people should still be locked in their homes. But that’s that’s a different podcast, I believe.

Joe Clements 30:43
The lock you in your house podcast.

Jack Reid 30:46
Producer Alex, do you sleep on anything? Get you think people are sleeping on anything now right now?

Joe Clements 30:51
That’s cool. That’s cool. job you want in this podcast? Sure. Thank you for listening, everyone. As always leave us a review. In your podcast, application of choice. It’s funny, we don’t call them applications anymore. Just the apps. I know. It’s so much more fun to say applicant applications. So so much. Can you open that application for you real quick in your podcast app of choice, and until then we will be back next week with more news and probably a lot more opinion than even news and next week’s episode. So until then, goodbye peace.

Matt Farrar 31:43
record is hosted and produced by me. Matt Farrar, Joe Clements and Rebecca Romero with producer Alex Reinhardt of record is recorded at gray bridge studios in Tallahassee, Florida. This episode was edited by him for Alex Reinhard. Our theme music is composed and performed by Rocco Special thanks to our entire team at SBS. Here’s how you can see more information about the show at our website podcast of record.com. As always, we’d appreciate your reviews and ratings in your podcast app of choice. Those ratings and reviews help more people discover the show which helps us keep delivering quality content each week. Thanks for listening

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Matt Farrar  00:00

Music is the theme of today’s episode – we’re going to talk about Carlos Santana, Lil Nas X, BTS, Rob Thomas… probably some other folks, and we’re going to tie it all together neatly for you in a bow. You don’t want to miss this one; we’re going to deep dive the music industry for you, how it affects marketing, why it’s important for culture, and why it’s interesting. Coming up next on the podcast Of Record. Of Record is a podcast focused on the marketing and advertising industry. From the perspective of two industry experts, hosts Matt Farrar and Joe Clements are cofounders of Strategic Digital Services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee, Florida, and founded in 2014. I’m Matt Farrar, I’m Joe Clements and I’m Rebecca Romero. And this is the podcast Of Record. Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast Of Record. You’ve got Matt, Jack, and Joe, as well as producers Alex and Kiersten in the studio today. So

Joe Clements  01:21

Kiersten’s on the buttons

Matt Farrar  01:22

Yeah, Kiersten is pushing buttons. Alex has got knobs and buttons. So, killing it.

Joe Clements  01:28

Alright. Yeah, full disclosure here. Only Matt has done the work up on this show, Jack and I are just along for the ride on Matt’s tour of the music industry.

Matt Farrar  01:35

Yeah, we’re also talking about John Mayer, I forgot to do the John Mayer shout-out in the intro. But so, I this is an episode

Joe Clements  01:36

 Do it again, let’s do it.

Matt Farrar  01:41

Yeah. I mean, this is an episode. I’ve wanted to get out of my system for a while. Right. So one thing that’s been super interesting during the pandemic has been to watch how the music industry has changed. And then to watch how the marketing around the music industry has changed. So, Jack, I want to start by talking about an album that I know you’ve really enjoyed. And that is John Mayer’s new album,

Joe Clements  02:02

Sob Rock

Matt Farrar  02:03

Sob Rock. Yeah, so if you are not familiar with Sob Rock, it is an entirely 80s themed album. And so one of the things that John Mayer said when he wrote it, is that he set out to implant a false memory in your head. So he wanted you to listen to the album and feel like these were songs that you had already heard from the 80s. And we’re hearing again, even though Basically, these were new songs that he you know, wrote for the first time specifically for this album. Once I heard that some stuff really clicked for me. But beyond the music beyond whether you like John Mayer’s music or even if you like this album, something that’s really interesting is the just heavy dose of marketing that went into this album. The

Joe Clements  02:48

It’s still going

Matt Farrar  02:49

Yeah

Joe Clements  02:49

Well, I mean, somebody tell me about this because I don’t know.

Matt Farrar  02:51

Yeah, Jack.

Jack Reid  02:53

John Mayer put out a new album. It’s called Sob Rock.

Joe Clements  02:55

How did they market it?

Jack Reid  02:56

Uhh how didn’t they market it? Yeah, you can buy the album on tape. You can buy the album on vinyl, you can buy it on CD. You can go to Spotify and Spotify turns your whole screen into a old Sony Walkman tape deck.

Joe Clements  03:15

Okay

Jack Reid  03:16

He basically

Joe Clements  03:17

So we’re going full nostalgia on it that’s been a theme this summer

Matt Farrar  03:19

Comeplete

Joe Clements  03:20

Nostalgia marketing

Matt Farrar  03:21

but in but in ways that you haven’t seen anybody else

Jack Reid  03:24

He’s directly attacking the Mandela effect in your brain

Matt Farrar  03:28

Yeah

Jack Reid  03:28

He wants you to feel like this album is something that’s been with you the whole time, and you just haven’t listened to it in a long time, but it never existed.

Joe Clements  03:35

There’s a name for that effect. By the way, that’s actually very common in music. It’s very common in music, that you will hear a new song but think you recognize it. And um, that is a lot of times cause from sampling. Uh then I’ve heard another explanation for it that uh, music can stimulate certain emotional responses and so similar music may stimulate the same sort of response for you, which creates this feeling of deja vu. Is that what it is?

Jack Reid  04:06

A little deja vu.

Matt Farrar  04:07

Maybe

Jack Reid  04:07

I’m trying to think of the term.

Joe Clements  04:09

Is it Deja entendu?

Matt Farrar  04:10

Let’s talk about the first track on the album for a second and last train home. I don’t know that there’s any sampling on the album that I’m aware of, because it’s all original music as far as I know. But the last train home song, the first song on the album has some strong Toto Africa vibes. And everybody noticed that from the second it came out. So I mean, there’s some huge inspiration from 80 songs there. I don’t know that there’s any like actual direct sampling, but you can certainly tell the vibe that he was going for with some of these songs and

Jack Reid  04:41

He brought Maren Morris to sing on that track as well.

Matt Farrar  04:44

Yep. And you can see you know, the long flowing hair on the album cover.

Jack Reid  04:49

The music videos are just purely out of

Matt Farrar  04:53

Yeah, I mean, it’s a Rick Astley video or, you know, John Hall and Daryl Oates

Jack Reid  04:59

In a time where music videos are like either two very

Matt Farrar  05:03

-reverse that-

Jack Reid  05:03

extremes is you know, you’ve got BTS doing all the amazing things they’re doing. And then you’ve got basically just people putting out lyric videos. You know, that’s kind of the two extremes right now? John Mayer decided to make an old school music video in a in an exciting new way. And this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. Well, there was a track he released a few years ago…

Joe Clements  05:24

Who’s buying this? Who’s buying the album?

Jack Reid  05:27

Well, so that’s an interesting point. It actually charted it was the one of the first albums he’s had in maybe 15 years that charted on the Billboard I think, top 10 it Deaf week it was released, it was extremely popular, which is unlike the last three albums, he’s put

Joe Clements  05:43

Yeah, the last big one he had was the one he won the Grammy for, like daughters on I think that would have been in 2000

Jack Reid  05:49

continuum continuum. Dmitri was kind of the end of like, big big john mayer. award season john mayer Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, he’s really done some very different stuff. Since then. This isn’t necessarily returned to that. It’s just something that seems to he’s trying to purposely strike chords, I think, yeah.

Joe Clements  06:09

who’s buying this? I are zero is buying it isn’t millennials buying it? Who is buying it? I think both. Yeah. Or is it people who are already john mayer fans? Who are going to buy it? Or he is he bringing new people in? Both?

Matt Farrar  06:23

I mean, definitely people that are already john mayer fans, as far as I can tell, thought this was great. There was nobody that was turned off. You don’t have Aaron Morris

Jack Reid  06:29

on the track to not bring somebody into that song.

Matt Farrar  06:32

Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, but there there was, for the most part, no, great turn off that I could see of, of Mayor fans, there was no you know, mass exodus of your departure. Like

Joe Clements  06:45

it’s been a long time since john mayer was mainstream. I agree to bringing people in our new like,

Matt Farrar  06:53

our Intel, yes. I don’t know if it’s Jen’s ears, but he’s bringing

Joe Clements  06:57

the interns out there and let’s interview. Okay,

Jack Reid  07:01

yeah. And I don’t think he’s bringing them in. I think he’s,

Matt Farrar  07:07

this is the first time I had listened to john mayer, since probably 2007. Right. So it wasn’t even necessarily brings it in. Yeah, it was bringing me back to like,

Joe Clements  07:18

listen to some skeptical that he’s bringing new people in what I think he’s doing is just reactivating, correct? Yeah,

Matt Farrar  07:25

that may be correct. Yeah. But that’s almost like bringing someone new in right, because I basically haven’t been a customer since 2000. Since running

Joe Clements  07:34

through the halls of his high school screaming at the top of his lungs. Well, I’ve

Jack Reid  07:37

always been a customer so I was excited when this album started to come out. But I read something very interesting recently about it and we can move on from this after this. But before he released everything, including the the marketing aspect of it, so the colors and if you look at the album cover, it’s got a little fake little Kmart sticker on the front that says yeah, special price. Yeah, it is really leaning into Yeah, a lot of our memories and nostalgia. He was he gave the tracks out to a certain group of people to listen to, so they could hear the album without being exposed to the marketing aspect of it first. And then when they saw the marketing aspect of it, they were all very, very surprised. which is surprising to me because of how all the entire album sounds very retro, very, very 80s, late 70s. And then when they saw the rest of it, it kind of formed the rest of this picture and this assumption of what the album was going to be because up until that point, they thought it was just kind of this fun May your conceptual

Joe Clements  08:32

let me ask you this. would this have been possible in the prior means of music ditch? Would this have been possible? No. And like you know 2002

Jack Reid  08:43

it would have been absolutely no would have been laughed out of one of the CD stores I’m trying Yeah, yanking on right now. k k bead toys.

Matt Farrar  08:52

It was a boy you’re thinking about Panama City Mall store that was across from KB toys. Oh,

Jack Reid  09:00

all right. Yeah, I

Joe Clements  09:01

can’t remember the name of the big mall.

Matt Farrar  09:03

Or maybe for the video ups or weaken some somebody’s

Joe Clements  09:05

yelling at us on the on their. On their headphones. Like it’s

Matt Farrar  09:09

maybe it’s their air pods.

Joe Clements  09:11

Sam Good day. It’s Sam. Goody. Yeah, yeah.

Jack Reid  09:15

Anyways, anyway, john mayer

Matt Farrar  09:16

book it out. What you were just talking about brings up a great point, like how does the marketing affect how you experience music, especially if the marketing gets to you? Before the music does? So this brings me to something that I experienced. I actually, I ran a little test on myself with little nos x A couple of weeks ago, so he has a new song out. called Oh god, what is it called? industry baby? Oh, yeah. So I have never experienced listening to a lil NAS x song before without seeing all of the marketing hype and in most cases, controversy Surrounding right at least around the video, you know the last time with the Satan issues I’ve rarely seen or heard his music without, you know, seeing the the hype surrounding it. This time though, I just happened to be in the Apple Music Store and saw the song shortly after it came out had not seen anything about it. So got to run an interesting test on myself to see. Hey, you know, here’s one of the first chances I’ve had to see. Is his music actually any good? Or has all of this just been like marketing hype purely to pump up you know, what is just mediocre music. I actually found the song to be pretty good. So I enjoyed the music went and found the video. The video as, as expected, had some had some interest to it. It was shot around the theme of being a gay prison and included a 12 person nude dancing shower scene,

Jack Reid  11:01

which was very well course. Like I said, you know, music videos today just so boring.

Matt Farrar  11:05

Yeah. I mean, it’s very well choreographed. It was it was impressive. The songs about Yeah, yeah.

Joe Clements  11:12

Was there any chance that after that Billy Ray Cyrus song that the next big release he had wasn’t going to get attention?

Matt Farrar  11:18

I think so. I mean, that could have very easily been a one hit wonder. Yeah, there are so many areas

Jack Reid  11:22

these days. They get attention after they like the one hit and then or just kind of man, but I feel like he’s been a job of keeping

Matt Farrar  11:28

the country song could have been a really easy one hit wonder. Yeah.

Jack Reid  11:35

We’re just not ready for that yet. Yeah, but you kids are gonna love it.

Matt Farrar  11:38

So I mean, but, you know, I do think that there’s an argument to be made that we’re probably getting some some crappy music. That is just getting good marketing.

Jack Reid  11:48

We are getting a ton of crappy music.

Matt Farrar  11:49

Yeah. And in this case, like, you know, I decided that the music was decent. There’s probably some other people that decided no, I

Joe Clements  11:54

mean, I did I disagree. Really, I think what’s happening in the music space right now. It’s, it’s fragmenting so much. Like you’re not even you are for the most part. Unless you’re listening to top 40. Radio. You’re not hearing about anything that’s big anymore. Yeah. What Besides, you know,

Matt Farrar  12:12

who’s listening to top 40? radio? Do you think at this point,

Joe Clements  12:14

I think top 40 radio is probably people 45. And over at this point. Yeah. You know, and so there’s me there’s nobody younger, but it just means like, they’re they’re listening to it. Like, they’re not listening to it in enough volume where it can push like taste like it used to? Yeah. Which is why you have so many divergent styles of music popping up.

Matt Farrar  12:35

Does that mean that the advertising power there is the same? Does that mean it’s getting more powerful with that? document. Don’t watch that note. So

Joe Clements  12:44

on e of the issues that was created there was MTV had become so powerful by the end of the 90s. They were just pushing. They’re pushing music into every genre. Yeah. And so what they were doing, they keep like, you know, the, you know, the 20 year old, dude happy and the 12 year old girl happy is they were putting like limp biskit right next to in sync. And they’re able to do that they were able to force those things together because of the cultural influence they had at the time. And that was also influencing top 40 radio, and then there’s only a handful labels, so as much more consolidated. And so the issue of what’s happening right now is they tried to squish all these things together and put them into the same venue and it radically failed. Are you telling me that Atlanta is more sad opening for Metallica was not a good idea?

Matt Farrar  13:38

Isn’t it ironic?

Joe Clements  13:39

Don’t you think? A little too. So, and I don’t think you see that anymore. No One No One can really push. Not only the internet can surface these things and make them big specifically now probably Tick tock, maybe YouTube. Yeah. So nobody’s really like I’m sure Tick Tock can use the algorithm a little bit. I’m sure YouTube can use the algorithm a little bit. But basically, you either getting lucky because you’re hitting like this viral loop, especially now that touring is kind of not what it was two years ago, you’re hitting this viral loop viral loop on the internet, or you’re an act that already has enough fans and followers that you can use your audience to push things. Well,

Matt Farrar  14:20

let’s talk about them the two opposite ends of that spectrum, right. So you have somebody like BTS on one end of that spectrum. So butter, smooth, like it was like it. So NPR somebody sent a story around from NPR. The Hyundai Research Institute estimates that BTS brings roughly $5 billion to the South Korean economy each year. It’s a pretty bi

Joe Clements  14:46

Economic Development Study. So take that for what it’s worth.

Matt Farrar  14:51

It’s a band this podcast

Joe Clements  14:53

it’s an economic development study on a bay

Matt Farrar  14:55

seven dudes in a band.

Joe Clements  14:57

I paid the right guy $50,000 I can make an argument this podcast creates $100 million in value for the American economy. But nobody’s doing that. But I keep the $50,000.

Matt Farrar  15:09

Nonetheless, you have BTS on one end of that spectrum who, like we’ve talked about in previous episodes, executes the release of a new song and their video, and the instrumental tracks of that video, and the remixes, and all of those things that are needed for the marketing hype flawlessly, right, they’re all dropped on the same day, all of the hype leading up to that all of the marketing stories for the social media channels, all of those things, of course, because the band is owned by a publicly traded company, all of those things are executed perfectly. But then we go to another story I want to talk about, which is it’s not the opposite end of that spectrum because it wasn’t executed horribly. But Santana and Rob Thomas Yeah, this past week, released what was sort of a follow up to their 1996 hit,

Joe Clements  16:03

smooth and it it was like 9998

Matt Farrar  16:06

it was 99. Yeah, that’s what I said. 99

Joe Clements  16:08

I think said 90.

Matt Farrar  16:09

Oh, no, no, no, no. 9099 hit smooth. same year as the Woodstock No, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jack Reid  16:13

Was he there?

Joe Clements  16:14

That’s a connection. That’s a synchronicity.

Matt Farrar  16:17

I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if they play they’re not be I didn’t research it later. Um, so it is called move. And if you’ve you’ve heard it yet, there are some there are some definite vibes that are similar. It also includes the band American authors. Are they? I don’t know. Okay, everybody shrugging well,

Joe Clements  16:34

like, yeah, that that song then we talked about this, that song is basically written to have like that chorus be on like an intro and outro for 100%.

Matt Farrar  16:44

Yeah, no, it’s made to get some royalties for the fall sports seasons. And I agree, but here’s the thing, if they could have gotten it out, if if BMG music could have gotten it out, two months earlier, it could have been playing on every radio station for that exact demographic, which, by the way, fits into that category of age perfectly now, right?

Jack Reid  17:03

Yep. Yeah, our initial reaction was this should have been the song Yeah,

Matt Farrar  17:07

it should have been the song of the summer it should have been completed. Was there a song this summer that were uncouple Yeah, there were definitely a couple butter was definitely there competing for it.

Joe Clements  17:17

BDSM songs are real big now.

Matt Farrar  17:20

The the pitches say Justin Bieber’s peaches song was definitely competing for a song of the summer what else in but I got other suggestions Alex Kiersten for song of the summer last train home baby last train home definitely had a summer buys but it was a little a little slow for some of the summer This is serious then Alex what was it gives me more about edge cat

Joe Clements  17:45

did I’m just you know i’m i’m increasingly skeptical that any anybody has enough cultural heft to make anything the song of the summary more bad habits by Ed Sheeran? also

Jack Reid  17:57

probably a contender in there it swooped in to try and be that but not sure it execute

Joe Clements  18:01

I don’t think anything can be at anymore The media is too fragmented. The society is too fragmented at Where’s what what possible media platform is giving anybody enough half dude YouTube is still insane it Yeah, it’s insane. I agree that like insane

Matt Farrar  18:18

I agree. You’re not going to get universal agreement that it’s the song of the summer by by everyone around the world, but like there, you can try and there’s a lot of value in like competing. Like there are songs in the sauna years

Joe Clements  18:31

ago, where if you had a top 10 Top 40 radio hit at any given summer 70% of the population would recognize that you know what, like a huge growing demographic on Tick Tock

Matt Farrar  18:44

is right now though like it’s it’s moms right? Like it’s moms that are in a 35 to 54 year old age demographic. And you can’t tell me they would wouldn’t all love to be shaking their ass to the verge. Calm down Matt who the new version of smooth, smoother on Tick Tock smoother should have been called smoother, Smooth Move, move. Oh, yeah, you move. You move across a smooth surface.

Joe Clements  19:11

frictionless. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look I can see where they could have marketed that better.

Matt Farrar  19:17

I don’t even music video for it.

Joe Clements  19:19

Yeah. Which is I don’t know how that’s my point. They don’t have a music video for

Matt Farrar  19:24

how did you not go out and shoot? Basically a I still

Joe Clements  19:28

think the sky similar,

Matt Farrar  19:30

like remake of the smooth video

Joe Clements  19:33

that I saw earlier this year was something like 37% of music streaming is still YouTube. Yes, I was just pulled up on my computer right now.

Jack Reid  19:43

But I think in a broader perspective, I think what people are looking for and this goes back to a lot of conversations we had, whether it be about Christmas last year or going to the movies or anything. People are looking for something to hang on to they’re looking for an anthem of COVID is Over, we’re back out in the world get that and I think if if Move, move, move, move smooth.

Matt Farrar  20:08

You’re gonna move along

Jack Reid  20:09

come out and it was like hey, it’s time to move it’s time to get back out go to the beach go hit the you know

Joe Clements  20:14

go to work in May or June

Jack Reid  20:16

yeah and it been like an anthem of getting back out of the house. Yeah, but it just didn’t and I don’t think any song is tried to do that yet yeah but I think that there is a market for a like an anthem of like just like every year there’s a song we talked about this this could be like the football song You know, that’s on before every game

Matt Farrar  20:32

and it’s gonna be like it’s a it’s a it’s supposed to be the lead up to a big thing like

Joe Clements  20:37

that album is wouldn’t surprise me if the media company that owns the that owns the company that produced that album that song. So one of the there’s like CBS Viacom

Matt Farrar  20:48

not well so it’s it’s BMG, who has BMG it’s a German like media conglomerate. So the Santana just signed on to do a full album that comes out in October. It’s big deal because he he signed on with a new record company with a new label. But I mean, they’re they’re a huge label. It’s not like they’re they’re small. I think their own partially by Sony.

Jack Reid  21:12

I’ve heard of them. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Farrar  21:14

They’re there. Us officers are in Nashville, I believe. Anyways, it there’s a lot of collaborations on the album. I think there’s one or two country artists that are on the album that comes out in October. But, you know, that’s obviously Santana style, because he doesn’t sing. He just plays guitar. So there’s always a lot of collaborations. But, you know, to have, you know, kind of kicked it off with one of his most famous collaborations of the last, you know, 25 years.

Jack Reid  21:40

Yeah, it’s the it’s the greatest sitting on your front porch having a beer song of our generation. Yeah.

Joe Clements  21:47

Yeah, I was too young to have a beer. And that song came out jack. You can have one now has one, I can literally just go have one right now. You’re right. You can? It’s 3pm.

Jack Reid  21:57

In America.

Joe Clements  21:58

Yeah. Man, land of the free. Home of the porch. Yeah, I’m just gonna go back to my point that like, they could have definitely having not having a video is a huge mistake there. But like, it’s just never going to be like it was in terms of pushing something into like popular knowledge.

Matt Farrar  22:17

Well, we talked about this on an episode a few weeks ago. And it’s just interesting. And I think you see some record labels adjusting to this. And you see some artists adjusting to this. And you see, there’s not obviously john mayer has adjusted to this really well. And I don’t know what his like. And by the way, we have a friend of mine who works who’s worked with john mayer that we should probably get on for a future episode to talk about this. But one of things john mayer was doing after he stopped intentionally making top 40 music is he was just doing like john mayer trio stuff. blues guitar, Grateful Dead.

Joe Clements  22:51

Yeah, great. It was just like tours with the touring small music clubs. So what I think he got to look at there is like very niche, hardcore music fans. What were they into? What were they interested in? And has been able to bootstrap that up into like this?

Jack Reid  23:06

Yes. He also and just from a from a technical perspective of like, he remember he tore his or blew out his vocal cords. At one point he couldn’t sing for several years. I didn’t know that. Yep. And so that was a reason for a shift in his album, like his whole approach to recording an album too. He picked up and moved I think, Montana or Colorado, and he’s been out there soon. So his whole approach to recording and selling an album has been different since continuum really,

Matt Farrar  23:31

okay. Yeah, we I didn’t know that. You know, also, I think you’ve seen the approach just adapt musically to something that’s really important to him. You saw the Dolby Atmos features in Apple Music, come out at launch. And then he didn’t like them. He did not like the way they sounded. So he had them pulled from the store. And then he got involved in the remastering of a new Dolby Atmos version. And then had it rereleased to the Apple Music Store under his supervision, right. So like when you have that level of artists detail caring about the sound. That’s part of the marketing. Yeah. Because the Dolby Atmos experience, all of those little things that Apple now adds into this. I don’t think most people care about or notice. Yeah, but the high end like consumer does care about right. Yeah, that is a that is a segment of the listening experience, maybe 5% of Apple’s consumer base, and that segment crosses over probably women. Definitely, because they’ll lose cars. Yeah.

Jack Reid  24:33

And that segment crosses over with mayor’s audience pretty heavily. What we’re seeing though, is a return to LPs right? Like apples taken several stabs at this they at one point they had like albums curated specifically as an LP where you could download the album and it like opened up and you could see the artwork on the inside and all that stuff. And that just didn’t work because it was just trying to replicate what had been done in the past. Yeah, what you’re seeing now is complete marketing package. Have an album. It’s not necessarily artwork, but it’s a series of videos. It’s behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, it’s motion, motion album art covers, which is huge now. And it’s, it’s little things like that, that connect you back to the album and make you want to listen to it all the way through.

Joe Clements  25:14

Let’s finish with this exercise because I think we’re running up on time. If you are launching for unknown act, not a huge act, not a mega x, but not an unknown act, you’re launching for unknown act in six months. So you’re launching, let’s call it February of next year. What are you doing? What What is your strategy to position that? That album or that set of songs to be his

Matt Farrar  25:38

focus, grouping their hardcore fans? And then taking the things that those fans like the most the experiences that those fans care about? What do they like most about the live shows? What do they like most about the previous albums? What do they care most about the music experiences? Is that the guitar solos? Is it the vocal solos, right? What pieces of the music do they care about? That’s what we’re turning into the experiences of the marketing that they’re going to I’d go even deeper,

Joe Clements  26:06

I’d also want to get into like, what are they interested in now? What are anxieties? What are hellions? Yeah,

Matt Farrar  26:12

yeah, no, what, what makes their psychology work? Absolutely. I’m

Jack Reid  26:15

thinking, I have a specific example in mind. And it’s a band that I think is a hill to climb to come back and release a new album. And that’s Mumford and Sons. Their last two albums have been really fantastic and great, but they’ve been conceptual rock albums, rather than their traditional style of music. They’ve lost their banjo player. So their next album, they’ve lost their banjo player under some controversy. Yeah, their next album is going to take a lot of focus groups, their next album is going to take a hard look at what type of music they want to release for their fans. And whether or not it’s going to be sustainable for them moving forward. And then they’ve also got to do all of that. And then they’ve got to do what like john mayer, and the killers and Ed Sheeran are doing and selling a complete package to their, their core fan base, and then still bringing in other people.

Matt Farrar  27:03

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just like when we talk about a marketing project for a client around here, right? There’s there’s different core audiences, there’s different segments. And just like when we’re building an ad campaign, we have to target those segments differently with different with different metrics and different parameters. You have to do that in the album marketing too, right? So for your your most hardcore listeners, like you have to treat that marketing a different way. And that’s, you know, the Dolby Atmos experience. And that’s the little, you know, that’s the little easter eggs in the animated album covers. And that’s things like that, but then that’s a completely different experience. From what bringing a new listener, I

Joe Clements  27:42

could tell you, what I what I would do with it. Yeah,

Matt Farrar  27:44

let’s hear.

Joe Clements  27:46

So, you know, once I had a little bit that focus group information, the next thing I’d start to do, is I’d start to position the act in the media has somebody has an angle on something, yeah, pick this something they have an angle on when we know it’s, you know, is it relationships? Is it exactly like, you know, is it fish, they got to know the audience, and then now they have an angle on it, they’re going to talk about whatever their next single is gonna come out. And then we’re gonna do the non explicitly music related podcast and do some of that media, get the social media piece warmed up. And then I know, I’m going to need two or three swings, to try and see if I can get a single to connect, I’m not going to try and drop the single with the album. So between now and like February, what I’m going to try to do is I’m going to try and just drop a couple of one off singles to see if I can triangulate where I need to be musically, it’ll keep the hardcore fans excited. And it might, you know, give me some escape. And I’ll always be able to tease that the album’s coming. Yeah, each time one runs out, if it’s the right sort of fan base, you know, may try and NF T’s, you know, sort of deal on album art, or, you know, issue an NF t against like meeting the Act. The other thing I do, especially if it’s an act that’s been around for a while, and the fan base is, you know, late 20s or older, is, I would sell, I would go to very small venues, and I would sell expensive tickets, you know, one to $2,000 per ticket, where there’s only 100 people in the venue, and you’re meeting the act like you’re there with them, you’re sitting close for the performance you’re taking, you know, they’re answering questions. And so I would sell those experiences and evening with experience. Correct. Basically

Jack Reid  29:31

dating your fan base? Yep,

Joe Clements  29:33

yes. Correct. Yeah. And,

Matt Farrar  29:36

and like, after that experience, you offer them like, oh, by the way, we videotaped tonight’s performance, and you can order like, you know, digital copy of that for $100. Here’s the code to do that. If you want to check out

Joe Clements  29:51

Yep, correct. You know, maybe try the VR thing we’ve talked about where you go buy a VR ticket to one of those for you know, 100 or $200. And then as I’m pushing into the main album release like I’m not counting on that main album release to be everything I’m counting on it to be probably a midpoint in a campaign where I’ve been building interest building Andrew has had some singles had some touring album release happens kick the media campaign up to a slightly higher gear I think the I think the concept stuff john mayer did is is smart I you know, I think the art I think bands from what I can tell still kind of overlook, they don’t overlook the album art but they overlook the merch in some cases. Oh, so yeah, I got a really high end with some of the merch available.

Matt Farrar  30:38

Yeah, no, I

Jack Reid  30:39

like it. We started talking here the them that john mayer, several other bands have been kind of upping that game and releasing their albums on CDs. If you remember those and compact discs and vinyl bands that typically don’t offer vinyl have started offering it to kind of feel that, you know, they have they know their fans have there’s a niche audience in their fan base. One vinyl, right?

Matt Farrar  31:05

Yeah, and I think something that probably more artists should consider doing is looking at their merge as more of a you know, not just a poster for their tour or for their band name or for their you know, musician name, but also as more of, you know, cultural or artistic. That’s

Joe Clements  31:23

one of the thing I do is I’d I’d find a collab. Yeah, maybe two collabs where there’s a younger audience and I’m getting, you know, I’m getting them to an older audience. That’s

Matt Farrar  31:32

a great point. Yeah. Especially if it’s a collaboration where you can partner with an artist who also does a limited edition NF t that goes along with Yeah, you know, I mean, there’s all sorts of cool like,

Joe Clements  31:46

this is like, novel in the music industry. Right. This is all been done before. I think what’s not in the music industry

Matt Farrar  31:53

is getting a consistent playbook together is

Joe Clements  31:56

not thinking about things in terms of launch the album and then tour on it for two years. Yeah, it’s thinking in terms of like, get the act relevant. Again, culturally introduced songs length dial in an album, you’re almost a B testing songs as you’re releasing them. Yeah. Then you release the album. And then maybe you are for some time,

Matt Farrar  32:16

getting artists comfortable with not feeling like that is pandering or disrupting their creative process, right? Like you’re not it. Because if you if you explain that in the wrong way, artists are going to feel like you’re trying to focus group and their creative process or their songs and that’s not really what you’re trying to tell them to

Joe Clements  32:35

like sturgill Simpson or Tyler Childers. Yeah,

Matt Farrar  32:38

I don’t know how it shows you. But I just seem to do right. It’s

Joe Clements  32:41

not to it’s not top 40 platform country.

Jack Reid  32:44

Yeah, it’s a whole country.

Joe Clements  32:45

It’s all country. It’s

Matt Farrar  32:47

arguably real country.

Joe Clements  32:50

Something that can’t work on radio, right? But is huge. On the internet. Sure. It has huge fan bases.

Matt Farrar  32:58

Post Malone did a hell of a job singing Sturgill Simpson.

Joe Clements  33:01

Yeah. And so I think that is where you want to move x into, because I think that also for a career, top 40 radio, whether it’s country, whatever the format is very hard to stay in. There’s always something newer, going outside of top 40 radio, and just looking at a relatively large niche fan base is a great place to build a career. And it gives you opportunities every few years and in what you saw during the pandemic, because if artists are just sitting at home and not touring, they can just pump out content, correct? Well, you know, how many hours Taylor Swift really, you

Jack Reid  33:33

just hit on something that I was gonna say, and this will be just my last point on this. But the are you familiar with the band bleachers, or the artist bleachers? He said, yeah, that guy, he really he just released new album. It’s fantastic. But they’re half of the album sounds like that I want to get better. The other half sounds like maybe Bruce Springsteen, more singer songwriter. He was in the process of making that album during COVID. And he said that he had to switch his production and songwriting and everything, based around the fact that he needed to make music that he may never get to perform live again. And he started looking at his album completely differently. And I feel like that’s what we Yes, john mayer that’s what we’ve seen from a couple other artists that they’re releasing music. They don’t know if they’re gonna ever be able to perform one of these songs. You don’t have an audience and so they’re making the and package

Joe Clements  34:23

you don’t have to also because the cost of recording has come down. Yes, they don’t. They don’t just have to record every two years. Yes, they can. assuming they’re not on the road all the time. They can be recording and releasing all time. That’s why I think sturgill Simpson just had an album come out last week, which is this whole like ballad Yeah. And I think he’s on his like, third album in two years solid of dude and Juanita

Jack Reid  34:45

Yeah, yeah.

Joe Clements  34:46

So I mean, you have also this effect where like, maybe for the artists not having to tour as much actually allows them to have more swings at the Bat to hit big songs. I can make more and more.

Matt Farrar  34:58

Yeah, I completely agree. Yep.

Jack Reid  35:00

And and refined the music to, like you saw with john mayer. He had the opportunity to refine his music. How

Joe Clements  35:06

many artists doesn’t want released last year?

Jack Reid  35:09

At least three?

Matt Farrar  35:10

I mean, three, what artists doesn’t want the opportunity to put out more music? Yeah, right. I mean,

Joe Clements  35:18

yeah. Well, look, man, this is an interesting question, right? Um, it’s probably too philosophical for this podcast. But like, there’s nothing

Matt Farrar  35:25

philosophical for this podcast is

Joe Clements  35:27

the performance and maybe it differs by the by the act, but is the performance aspect what the app wants to do? Or is the creative aspect what the act wants do? And right, yeah, we’re gonna find is the performers are kind of screwed. Yeah, the, the creators are probably going to do really well, in an environment where touring is, you know, iffy and venues are more limited and things like that. Because part of like, if you’re a good performer, you can lean on the performance and get away with a lot of suboptimal stuff in the music.

Matt Farrar  35:57

Well, it depends on if you’re a performer that just wants to perform or if you’re one that has to have a there’s x with both, yeah, that like has to have the, like instant gratification of an audience clapping for you, right, because you’ve also seen some really cool performances from

Joe Clements  36:13

people putting out videos.

Matt Farrar  36:14

Yeah, from groups that were, you know, doing live broadcasts that were incredible performances that had no audiences in front of them that, you know, they clearly needed to have that energy and do that live performance, but you know, yeah, yeah. didn’t have to do it in front of a live crowd.

Joe Clements  36:30

What we’re looking at on time, Alex? Kiersten looks like she’s about to fall asleep.

Matt Farrar  36:34

Oh, we’re like three hours or so now? Yeah.

Jack Reid  36:36

Yeah, I think that’s gonna do it. All right. All right.

Matt Farrar  36:38

Take us out. Yeah. As always, we appreciate you joining us today on the podcast record. If you enjoyed today’s episode on your favorite podcast, app choice give us a rating a review helps more people discover the show and when more people discover the show, that makes us happy. We like to be happy. If you’re watching on YouTube. Give us I don’t know what a subscription that’s what we want. Yeah, we want to like we want a subscription on YouTube. Thanks for stopping by. See you next week. Of Record is hosted and produced by me, Matt Farrar, Joe Clements, and Rebecca Romero, with producer Alex Reinhard. Of Record is recorded at Grey Bridge Studios in Tallahassee, Florida. This episode was edited by producer Alex Reinhard. Our theme music is composed and performed by Rob Gokee. Special thanks to our entire team at SDS here in Tallhassee. You can see more information about the show at our website, podcastofrecord.com. As always, we’d appreciate your reviews and ratings in your podcast app of choice. Those ratings and reviews help more people discover the show which helps us keep delivering quality content each week. Thanks for listening.

Matt Farrar  00:00

Korean sensation BTS breaks the internet again. So if you’re ARMY, you’re in the right place. And if you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, you’re also in the right place, because we will explain it to you on today’s episode. We’re also going to talk about Apple’s WWDC, which is happening right now. So we’ll give you the latest in what’s going on with Apple and the tech world. We’re going to talk about a newsletter that is now going to be funded by NFTs. It looks like we’re going to talk about Pokemon specifically at Charizard card I see on there. We’re going to talk about nostalgia and retro coolers. Yeah, retro coolers, retro art, and just the the wave of peak… [and intern Gen Z Nick is in] yeah, overtaking the internet. So this… is the podcast Of Record.

OPENING CREDITS

Of Record is a podcast focused on the marketing and advertising industry from the perspective of two industry experts. Hosts Matt Farrar and Joe Clements are co-founders of Strategic Digital Services, a digital marketing firm based in Tallahassee, Florida, and founded in 2014. by Matt Farrar, I’m Joe Clements and I’m Rebecca Romero. And this… is the podcast Of Record.

Matt Farrar  01:33

Hello, listeners. Welcome to the podcast Of Record. I’m Matt, we’ve got Joe and Rebecca, Producer Alex and Producer Nick in the studio with us today. Welcome.

Joe Clements  01:41

What if you can’t hear them say hi back. I don’t know why we welcome them.

Matt Farrar  01:45

Why,

Joe Clements  01:46

what? Why can’t we hear them?

Matt Farrar  01:47

It’s not a question. I mean, welcome is not a question, why does it matter if they say hi back?

Joe Clements  01:52

So what am I not going to care about tomorrow at WWDC, you want to give a preview there.

Matt Farrar  01:59

So I actually don’t know what’s been rolled out today yet. So yesterday, what they did preview was some of the new operating systems, Monterey is going to be the new continuing the coastal California is going to be the new operating system for computers, they’re extending, I think the biggest feature out of that is they’re extending the concept where you use your iPad, and I think your phone as an alternative to displays for your Mac. So now beyond just being able to use your iPad as as a display, for your mac book or your iMac, you are going to be able to actually drag and drop files with your mouse from device to device. So it’s going to seamlessly work a little bit more, it’s not just going to be basically another monitor, you’re going to be able to move things seamlessly, with a single mouse from one device to the other. So the environments going to love work a little bit more, you know, in tune with iOS and Mac OS together, which of course is what they’ve been trying to do for a long time. Do

Joe Clements  03:01

you think there’s gonna be any of this AR stuff?

Matt Farrar  03:03

They’ve been working on the AR stuff for a long time. I mean, we see it get incrementally better with each generation. I do not expect to see any like, wow, features on the AR side come out? Yes. I think when they finally get to a wow AR feature, it is going to get its own event.

Joe Clements  03:20

I don’t think there’ll be first in the market. I don’t think they’re waiting for they’re waiting for someone else to launch something that’s marketable to consumers. And then once that’s a little buggy and janky, they’ll come in with a cleaner product based on what they learned from it. I think that’s fair. Another Apple story is the App Store fees. And of course Alex and I have been doing this and the essay reading that we’re doing from Matthew balls essay on Apple on the future internet. We will be finishing up Part Six of that this week. So look for that to post in the next few days. But I think Facebook has finally found its little dagger to slip under the armor of Apple on this. Of course apple and Facebook have been at odds over privacy, specifically data reporting back from apps to advertisers. So what’s happened is Facebook has announced has all the hubbub between Apple over the Epic Games dispute for billing inside the app store. Facebook has said it’s going to keep online events, fan subscriptions, badges and upcoming Independent News products free to creators until 2023. And they’re saying that when they do it will be less than the 30% apple and others take and that is a quote from Zuckerberg directly. The other tech companies are I think reading the tea leaves on what Apple is about to get hammered with whether it is directly through this lawsuit, or over the next few years through regulation or through Congress is Microsoft recently cut to 12% the commission it takes on PC games, so Through the Windows app store. Roblox says it would cut fees if Apple reduced their fees. And they’re expected to be part of potentially some additional announcements from Google in the near future on Google Play Store fees.

Matt Farrar  05:17

Speaking of Google, one thing that did come out of WWDC is that Apple announced that FaceTime apps are coming to other stores. So you’re gonna be able to get a FaceTime app for the Android store. So

Joe Clements  05:29

that will make communicating with my parents so much easier. Yeah, cuz I have to use Google duo.

Matt Farrar  05:35

Yep. And there’s a lot of people that it will make life a little bit easier for especially people with young children. So I don’t know that there is a timeline yet for those other apps. But

Joe Clements  05:45

you know what, Matt, this is interesting, because this ties back to the discussion we were having about should Apple buy Snapchat? Yeah, because Snapchat was not criticizing Apple over actually, or expressly would

Matt Farrar  05:55

have been an interesting way for them to wrap in communications. And they might still

Joe Clements  05:59

be, in fact, moving this to the phone, maybe or moving this to other app stores may be the early way that they are pushing into making that Snapchat do happen. My guess that I don’t think they’re going to announce it this way. Yeah.

Matt Farrar  06:11

I mean, my guess would be they would have waited to announce it until that deal was done, right? They wouldn’t have called it FaceTime, they would have called it something else. But who knows? Well, have they actually rolled out the app yet? So I mean, what they announced yesterday was that, like, it’s coming in iOS 15. And it’s called FaceTime, right? Like, it’s, it’s called FaceTime, there’s going to be a FaceTime branded app that comes out for Android and other platforms.

Joe Clements  06:33

So I think that’s definitely something to look for. is an apple acquisition on improving the messenger FaceTime?

Matt Farrar  06:39

They did. I don’t Yeah, they did announce some, some additional features for messages, but nothing that, you know, got me particularly impressed.

Rebecca Romero  06:47

So it would come out on iOS 15. But it would be made available, like would they launch it at the same time? I think,

Matt Farrar  06:54

yeah, that would be my guess, is when iOS 15 rolls out, which is typically late fall, right would make it available for download. In theory, I don’t think they specifically said this is usually when they roll out, like the major concepts. And then in the fall, when we get the keynote for the new phone is usually when we get the details about how iOS 15 will roll out. And that’s when we would hear like, you know, the Android app is going on? That’s quite interesting. So I would expect a late fall rollout of the entire pasture Mike working neck, is it I think it’s got a good close? Do you think that the Android app will be free? Or do you think it’s gonna be I would expand on it? Yeah. Because that would essentially make people pay to use an apple service. And yeah, that would just be a bad.

Joe Clements  07:40

Here’s what I think this strategy is twofold. One is improving the experience of existing Apple users being able to communicate with non Apple users easier in their Apple products, which is annoying right now. One, two, making more Apple products where there may be in app features in app buying features available across platforms. So Apple can monetize on those. This was the iTunes model. Yeah, for a long time, iTunes did a lot more revenue off of Apple products than it did on Apple products, because they made iTunes available on PCs in the the early period of that products

Matt Farrar  08:18

were well, and they were just making money from people buying songs, you know, on all types of computers that were then getting transferred to their iPod, right? So they may not have an iPhone or any other Apple devices, but they had that iPod, and they needed to buy songs and get it on that device. Yeah, I think it’ll be interesting, too, because the Android platform doesn’t really have a standardized video chat app, right? You can use Google Hangouts. There’s a bunch of different apps you can use. And that’s one of the things people brag about.

Joe Clements  08:45

Apple buying Snapchat, Apple buying Snapchat makes a lot of sense.

Matt Farrar  08:49

Yeah, no, we talked about it previously. And I still I still hold true to that. Yeah, but there’s no standard app there. So if if FaceTime comes in and starts creating a really good experience for people, that’s not a bad thing for Apple to come in and be automatically the best player in androids like video chat space all of a sudden. So next story, Safeway, Google is still the best maps experience.

Joe Clements  09:17

Next story, independent journalist and author Kyle czajka. I think ch a YK, I think is Chico’s. How sed has funded two months of his daily entertainment and culture newsletter dirt using only NF T. He made 33,000 in one week selling 131 nF T’s he made over 20,000 in the first 24 hours. According to axios. This matters because it’s a proof of concept that NF T’s alone could fund a small media company.

Matt Farrar  09:45

What kind of NF T’s does he sell.

Joe Clements  09:47

So he was selling NF T’s as they would give you early access to the newsletter special access to members exclusive content access AOC is comparing this to the modern version of selling tote bags or coffee mugs to subscribers.

Matt Farrar  10:06

I think it’s illustrated hood. Yeah,

Joe Clements  10:09

I think where this is going is you would issue the NF t on behalf of your media property. And it would guarantee the owners of that NF T, a piece of revenues or profits once the once the crypto currency exchanges are built out on these systems. So as a creator, you could issue an NF T and when people buy it, they’re entitled to X percent of revenues that come in over that month or over the duration same, I think the same is gonna work for the podcast model as well. And for the social media model.

Rebecca Romero  10:41

So doing the math on that, that averages out to about $250 per NFT, I guess that he was distributing and made about 80 of those 131 sales in the first 2124 hours. This view, when I first read that I thought he was like purchasing like other NF T’s and reselling them. But this is just like his personal he wakes up from

Matt Farrar  11:06

his issues making imaginary things and selling them. He issued them off a platform 50 a piece that doesn’t seem as like when I read 33,000 a week, I was like what I mean, essentially that point, you’re just investing to be part of this community and your subscription,

Joe Clements  11:21

subscription fee model. Yeah, he worked with a platform called mirror in order to do the NFT issuance. But again, I think the future isn’t just selling the NFT as a piece of art, or for access almost as a ticket or subscription. It’s actually the NFT is what rides along with that well gives you gives you intellectual property rights over something or gives you a piece of the feed now what you have to have in place for that are consumption networks where your consumption isn’t subsidized by ad dollars, or by a, you know, an investor’s money subsidizing a centralized platform or something else. Yes, it has to happen in order to make it where your use of the platform is just as you’re on it, you’re taking off, you know, infinitesimal amounts of cryptocurrency that are going towards directly towards the constant content that you consume. That is what I think the future of internet 3.0 looks like. But that is the future. And today we’re going to spend the deep dive talking about about the past the past. A Nick, what do you know about the past? I know as much as my mom tells me, I mean, I pretty much see the past and retro culture as like being a very common thing nowadays, especially

Nick Sanchez  12:33

with Ted Talk. The 70s like bohemian, you know, hippie vibe is very, and no one really cares about the 80s at the moment, which is kind of weird. And then Nick, I

Matt Farrar  12:44

care about the 80s. Well, I mean, Nick, we have 80s Fridays.

Joe Clements  12:48

I mean, I think the 80s have become passe because the 80s were big for so long over the last 10 years and they’ve kind of passed Yeah, now we’re in the 90s

Matt Farrar  12:54

early 2000 kind of just came out of the 80s like Renaissance. Yeah, like we’ve been we’ve been in the 80s throwback culture right I mean, cuz like out of strangers thing or Stranger Things was it was an 83 Yeah, yeah. moved on

Rebecca Romero  13:09

a majority of like banned t shirts you see like vintage band tees or t shirt or all 80s so there’s it’s still

Matt Farrar  13:17

got their Do

Nick Sanchez  13:18

ya get a lot of girls nowadays are dressing up and they’re basing their outfits off of Bratz dolls, which is like a very early nine. Wait, why?

Joe Clements  13:25

was like late 90s. They’re basing their outfits Bratz doll rats. No. Yeah, like Tick Tock like miniskirts and I like to base my outfit off of Charles. They don’t wear clothes. They just have a little saying exactly what I said. He just confirmed he has a little gem as an emerald in my belly. But Brad’s that’s a funny, also terrifying. So how this came up is I was sent a YouTube video titled middle class millennial nostalgia are by youtuber YouTuber named jj macola. And the video is a it’s a smart video. It’s got some good cultural critiques in there, but he covers a few things he covers first this middle class, nostalgia art, which you may have seen on Instagram. There are some artists who do you know retro bedroom posters they do like anti war retro products. What are you so I’ll tell you my my younger brother has an interesting take on this now the YouTuber macola compares this to like Warhol. It’s like pop art. Yeah, my younger brother I think actually has a better comparison. And my younger brother says this isn’t what’s wrong here. I don’t know we should get him in. Yeah, he has takes. This is this is Thomas kincade for like 34 year old men Whoo. It’s it’s portraying and I highly stylized way a type of experience. or may not exist in

Matt Farrar  15:01

American culture.

Joe Clements  15:02

I ended. commercialized Yeah, like, um, you know, so I just had like, um, you know, but there’s no you know, because I did not tell you. So, I just noticed I had a weird speech pattern there pointed out so no one’s judging you. It’s more than it should be the listeners May this is a semi professional operation, you won’t know a Philistine. Yeah. So the the Thomas kincade is it’s it’s overtly commercial. And most of the things being portrayed in these and producer Alex, can you put some links to this stuff? And, or at least that YouTube video are like it’s showing commercial products. It’s like old video games, posters of old movies, VHS tapes of old TV shows, things like that. So I wanted to get a thoughts around the table on why, like, why is this happening so hard now? And then once we talk about that, I want to talk about what a homerun job I think igloo is doing right now capitalizing on this. But let’s go around. Why, why now?

Rebecca Romero  16:06

Because people need something to be excited about. And people were excited about the 90s 90s were

Joe Clements  16:11

an exciting time. They’re also an optimistic time. Yeah. And people want optimism. And you know, the thing that’s known about the 90s, very bright colors, very bright colors, maximalist designs. They are, they are in almost contrast to the minimalism in the more muted colors that have been popular for the last 15 or 20 years in the United States.

Rebecca Romero  16:36

I also Okay, so you guys always say that I’m like, toxically, positive. positivity. Yes, my toxic positivity. But I’ve noticed. So if you look at 90s advertisements, like they, they invoke, like enthusiasm, and you like a goga, right, it’s like this intense like skateboarding commercial at the end a lens and a half pipe. Yeah. And they like grab a goga and they rip it open, and they’re eating and they’re really excited. And by the end of it, you’re like, man, go gurt sounds good. I almost feel like that. Or that bagel bites song. I feel like the more you’re like marketers and advertisers realize that like, removing enthusiasm from their creative works is like not proving to be as effective. And I think it’s like a an effort to try to, you know, mix it up and like do something new again.

Joe Clements  17:25

And there’s an interesting contrast here to like the the gravity of the marketing, which if you haven’t watched the new Bo Burnham special on Netflix, you should definitely watch. It’s a work of artistic genius, in a lot of ways, but he has a song making fun of cause based marketing. And so you know, there’s this idea that it’s like, well, what do you stand for? bagel bites? Yeah. But like for brands in response to that to be like, No, we don’t, you know, this is bright colors positivity. This isn’t like, you know, engagement and dire political issues as a means of selling.

Rebecca Romero  18:03

Yeah, licorice, but it made me realize like how much more effective like the 90s enthusiastic advertising was compared to other areas when I watched one division. So I don’t know how many of our listeners watched it. But every episode was like, filmed in a different, like decade. And they would have these little commercial inserts that were customed to the show. But I was actually forget that that was happening. And so as I’d be watching this commercial, I’d be like, Oh, this is like an interesting one. And I remember watching the 90s when I was like, Oh my god, this is so fun. Like, what are they advertising at the end? I was like, Oh, that was just the one division commercial. Like I forgot it. I don’t know. That’s what made me realize the standard part like Matt, did you end up watching Wanda Vision?

Matt Farrar  18:47

No, I have no other reason.

Joe Clements  18:48

The reason that is Rebecca is I think you have to have a time period. That is that is optimistic. And I think the 90s were optimistic. And then 911. And then 20 years of pessimism. But in the 90s, you could do it because the Cold War was over. The economy was improving, like everything in the United States was a forward looking country. Yeah. You know, it was gonna be the American Century.

Matt Farrar  19:20

And so you could do that. And part of me wonders. Now, if the 90s retro stuff isn’t a form of like ironic escapism. Like we’re embracing this optimistic. This optimism, I think it’s more than escapism. And here’s my take on why you’re seeing this wave of 90s nostalgia so I mean, what where we are right now is the the people that enjoy the people that are most comforted by the 90s nostalgia are going to be people that are mostly in Joe and I’s age range, right? You’re probably fall somewhere but remember it. Yeah, you probably fall somewhere between like 32 and 40. Well,

Joe Clements  19:59

let’s go Let’s go with this. How old was everybody in the room in September of 2001? Rebecca? Eight.

Matt Farrar  20:08

September 2001? I would have been fifteen.

Joe Clements  20:10

I was 16. I was seven months old, seven months old. Alex was three. So, um, you know, there’s there’s a piece of this, Matt, where like, we remember it. Yeah. So it makes sense that we think it’s cool.

Matt Farrar  20:25

Correct. And here’s why I think you’re seeing it.

Joe Clements  20:25

But why? Why do Alex and Nick think it’s cool?

Matt Farrar  20:26

There you go. So I think you’re seeing it everywhere right now. Because you’re seeing a power shift in like these mid to late 30s millennials are starting to take over as like managers and directors of companies that are able to influence the way things are being marketed. And this is a huge like comfort area to them, right, like seeing these things, whether it’s bringing back like Full House, or whether it’s seeing like posters in a bedroom, it’s comforting to them. Like as a society, we’ve started focusing on self comfort and self care. So like, the people that are now in control of what goes where, like, literally what gets shown on a screen, what gets placed in ads, what gets shown on television shows and movies, like who’s controlling that now, they want to see the things that bring them joy and comfort on the screen. But for people that never even experienced that originally, it’s the same reason why that a lot of people in our age range find joy and comfort in Beatles music that they didn’t grow up with, right like that is a bridge to your past because like your parents found that music comforting, or your grandparents, in some cases found that music comforting.

Joe Clements  21:40

It also has had some lasting artistic value.

Matt Farrar  21:43

It does. But like that culture connects you to your siblings, to your co workers to your friends. So like finding that culture interesting and that nostalgia interesting, even if it’s not what you grew up with specifically, is a culture bridge among people you spend a lot of time with, whether they’re connected to you by family, or whether they’re connected to you by work, or friends or relationships. And it’s a really powerful bridge that doesn’t get created by almost any other interaction in society.

Joe Clements  22:10

So you’re saying it’s become like an artifact of social cohesion as social cohesion around a nationality or around religion

Matt Farrar  22:20

We’ve decided for for hundreds of year [the only cohesion is now pop culture] we’ve decided for hundreds of years that memories from childhood bring us great comfort, right, that memories from when we were younger, bring us great comfort. And so now that we’re placing those into pop culture in places that we can see them that bring us comfort on a global scale, it’s natural for other people to want to join in on that, because they feel like they can get comfort from it too. Even if it’s not an experience, they directly shared in.

Joe Clements  22:47

So the ultimate expression of this, I think, would be [the same reason people got comfort from Stranger Things even if they didn’t grew up in the 80s] sure, but it was cool. I think the simpler expression this would be Christmas music and Christmas decoration like Christmas music is all basically pre 1960 like, you know, what you grew up with? So

Matt Farrar  23:03

you feel comfortable with it. Yeah.

Joe Clements  23:05

And expresses this idea of this time, you know,

Matt Farrar  23:09

yeah, like Bing Crosby was not a modern artist for any of us. But like, you still want to hear him croon out White Christmas every year. I mean, like, Nick, Alex,

Joe Clements  23:19

is this something that is relevant in any way for Gen Z, other than, like, the the look is cool.

Nick Sanchez  23:30

I think like what you’re talking about, it connects us to our past. And I think like growing up listening to, you know, my mom’s and my aunts and all my family’s music from the 90s from the 80s. I feel connected to them. At the same time. There’s also this sense of like, I discovered something new, because a lot of people my age won’t necessarily know a lot of Destiny’s Child songs, you know, or artists, 90 songs. And when you’ve memorized their entire back catalogue, yeah, every single album, every single song, but I feel like I found something new. And I feel like I have some sense of ownership, because you get to rediscover

Matt Farrar  24:04

things right. And now instead of waiting for Destiny’s Child to drop a new album, 12 months from now, you get to go back and listen to a decade’s worth of catalogue that they developed, right? It’s the same way when you get to discover a show that has 15 seasons of content on Netflix, instead of waiting a year for season two to premiere of a new show. I mean, you get to just bask in all of that. And the 90s were a hugely optimistic time for I mean, especially in the US, like we came out of the we came out of the Gulf War, like we came out of the, the 80s. And like we, you know, Bill Clinton was president, like, we just, we just went for everything pretty aggressively. Like it was a bright and vibrant time. Like it was a bold, colorful time. And, you know, the same way that kids in the 90s and early 2000s, like wanted to wear the bell bottoms that their parents were wearing in the 70s like you’re seeing 20 years later. That’s Same resurgence. And so now you’re seeing like loose fitting jeans coming back, you’re seeing bell bottoms coming back, whether it’s fashion trends, music or anything else, you just see that cycle repeat itself.

Nick Sanchez  25:09

And I think I’m back from the pandemic, like we were all trapped in our houses for however long during lockdown, we were kind of stuck in this negative state of mind, like, when will this end stepping out of our homes and being like, oh, now it’s time to be positive. We don’t have to wear masks, you don’t have to, you know, be stressed out about this virus. I think the 90s mentality of happiness and like the aesthetic of you know, maximalist ik are and bright colors and stuff really fits in with our new heads over there new mindset that, you know, it’s a new period in time for us where we don’t have to worry about Yeah,

Matt Farrar  25:39

it went back to heavy escapism, for sure.

Rebecca Romero  25:42

And we’ll also if you follow people who are who are big into like, studying the stars, and you know, horoscopes, they were saying that the year 2021 was supposed to be, what was the term for it? We are entering like a new era, and it was gonna be Renaissance, like, so it’s almost like, I don’t know, if it’s like chicken or the egg, like, Are people feeling that way? Like growing into it? Because of, you know, expecting that? Or is that actually like, what’s happened,

Joe Clements  26:11

you’ve just been locked in your house for a year. So anything seems to be a better app than that.

Matt Farrar  26:16

Alright, one thing that’s interesting to me when we look at like the 80s, and 90s, that’s that so so different, particularly in like video games and movies, because their visual is how they create different experiences than they do today. Because we have the technology now to create such accurate visual representations of whatever world we’re trying to create, whether it’s Call of Duty, or whether it’s a photorealistic movie, right, we can create such accurate representations of whatever we’re trying to create, which is awesome, right? It makes photorealistic immersion, that’s a big part of some of this millennial art is like replicating like a 90s bedroom. But at the same time, I think in some cases, it kind of misses the point. Like it makes it real from a from an immersion perspective. But I think from an idealistic perspective, part of the attraction of this is the art and the cultural and the visual experiences from the 90s weren’t technologically savvy, right, like they were true escapism because they were eight bit or because they’re so fantasy, right? Like, they don’t want the intense detail. There was no realistic way to

Joe Clements  27:25

do two things. And then I like we need to move on to the igloo piece of this, that using this for execution of a marketing campaign. But like, one of the things that macola points out in this video is that the media of the time period was based on fantasy. And was it didn’t it didn’t own you, you weren’t immersed in it, it was something you would put the tape in the VCR. Yeah, play the tape. The other thing I think about the 80s and 90s is it’s the first time period where the material culture is rich enough to have enough things to draw from almost indefinitely. Because prior to the maybe the late set, remember the first blockbuster movie wasn’t until the mid 70s, late 70s. With jaws? Yeah. So you don’t have that rich variety of content where you have posters and video game and there’s multiple premiere hours happening. And multiple premiere. Yeah. So you only are getting that some point in the 80s through the night. Yeah,

Matt Farrar  28:21

that’s a good point.

Joe Clements  28:21

Um, so let’s talk about Igloo. So if you had asked me four years ago, what is a brand in the dumpster? igloo would have been one you would have said right in its category and coolers getting destroyed by YETI. Yeah, all of the like modern brand got totally high ended, right cooler. So they’re selling $20 coolers. And then YETI is like, no, we’re gonna sell a $900 cooler and people would much rather have the $900 cooler and pay for it. And so they’re sinking you kind of look at as this kind of like old washed up Walmart brand.

Matt Farrar  28:58

The thing you drink Gatorade out of at a soccer game.

Joe Clements  29:00

Yeah. So then, about three years ago, right? About three years ago, they did hire a new marketing director cmo who I think is probably responsible for this. They start worked out well.

Matt Farrar  29:14

What seems to have worked out very well.

Joe Clements  29:16

Yeah. They start to do influencer marketing on Instagram. And so how do we see that? middle class fancy? Put your crispy boys in your igloo cooler. And it’s almost making fun uncultured. A Crispy Boy is a Bud Lite. It is almost on its face a retro product. Yeah, putting it in that old Igloo cooler is a retro thing. It is cool because of its coolness.

Matt Farrar  29:42

And because they just didn’t change the design much from Yeah, yes, it was still it was still looks like it was

Rebecca Romero  29:49

exactly the same. And it was something that none of us had really thought much of until Middle Class B and C started promoting and we’re like, oh man, that’s fun. My dad used to like bring his lunch to work and Every single day and one of those I got Rebecca one for literally was my birthday present that your coach

Matt Farrar  30:04

brings brings. slices bro

Rebecca Romero  30:07

I got a six pack or Crispy Boys in an Igloo cooler literally yeah now three years later.

Joe Clements  30:13

It’s a it’s a popular thing. So that happens and then invalid this year in 2020 has best iconic now.

Matt Farrar  30:21

This is 2021.

Joe Clements  30:22

Are you sure? Yeah. 2021 igloo has been on an absolute branding tear. And what I think they’ve realized they’ve done this magic unlock on their product, is they figured out that they can use their product as a brand platform. Like they’re using their product as white bread into which you can build whatever sandwich you like with whatever toppings you like on to it. And so the the coolest thing I think they’ve done is the retro line that’s come out for the summer in which half the products are sold out. But it’s the old school, teal and purple and violet and blue electric blue colors. It is the quintessential 90s. And they’ve relaunched the fanny pack. The the igloo insulated fanny pack is back out. But they’ve added on to this. I mean, they have to at least be doing licensing licensing deals with 10 or 15 notable pieces of IP. So what do you see in there, Rebecca?

Rebecca Romero  31:20

For the IP or the IP? Oh, the IP we have our we have a Star Wars line. Yes, epically. So our 2d to the child, Darth Vader, and then in the Disney line, we have Mickey and Minnie we have some Donald Duck

Matt Farrar  31:34

cases one big deal with Disney.

Rebecca Romero  31:36

Yeah, but they’re no separately pieced out on the site when you look at the collab but they have other

Joe Clements  31:41

stuff. They call them cool labs. Yeah, they have Grateful Dead Scooby Doo Wonder Woman Hello Kitty NASCAR. A number of artists have signed on so they have like photographs on like, printed on the top of photographers series is what they’re calling. Yeah, photographer series.

Matt Farrar  31:58

So do they do custom ones yet? No, no, that’s what’s coming next. Yeah, the custom one that I load your own design one is what’s coming next. The Beatles that

Rebecca Romero  32:07

if you’re if you’re someone that can do that now just get into it before they Yeah, sir offering buy up your coolers and then offer a cup.

Matt Farrar  32:14

Yeah, I mean, but even that, like it’s it’s just not going to be the same as when now who offers the like, official.

Joe Clements  32:23

But I mean, they have some interesting ones that they have like a parks project sticker cooler, which is they printed all these Park stickers on it. And like Rebecca said, a bunch of so they’re doing some very interesting things. And the unimog kind

Matt Farrar  32:34

of collabs are big in the outdoor world, right. There’s a bunch of brands that do like specific versions for specific parks where the only thing different is it has like a sticker on it. But $5 like it’s $5 more on that $5 goes to the part and

Joe Clements  32:47

I think the powerful thing about this campaign for them is they get these other brands working to sell their products for them

Matt Farrar  32:54

and maybe even selling those products in other stores. Those coolers may all be getting sold in like Disney parks. They may be being sold in the Disney Store. Like we have no idea where those products are getting sold besides just the igloo online store. Yeah.

Joe Clements  33:07

And so they have been just I they must have been crazy busy over the last year doing IP deals for this stuff because there’s a ton of stuff on on the website now. Now to revive a brand brand Yeah. In the retro cooler. It looks like in the headline for the video or the header for the for the page for the retro they shot a video where they remade all of these like scenes from the 90s. And you see like people on a beach with those like Velcro mittens Kanga tennis ball, like some people at an arcade and 90s fashion another brand that I love that does this really well. And so this is not 90s retro, this is actually 70s but marine layer is another brand that catches the retro vibe and their marketing super well.

Matt Farrar  33:49

They use a 70s inspired look and feel they’re a San Francisco based brand, but all of their marketing stuff. They’re fairly new company. But I think they put out like a bounty on like 70s photos from around the San Francisco area because they have this huge library of these great like Polaroids from 70s era, like beach, San Francisco area, like people doing stuff out on the water. And so they use that in their marketing materials. And it just makes this really authentic like 70s air. And all of their brand is like these kind of like, like Nick would say comfort colors like Yeah, kind of like faded stripes. So it it’s very authentic for their brands. So another Go ahead, Nick,

Nick Sanchez  34:32

I think another brand that went through this type of growth as well, that was kind of down in the dumps was champion apparel was a Walmart brand just like a glue. People would buy cheap champions sweatshirts and sweatpants. And then the past, you know, three, four years, the hypebeast you know, the people that were supreme and where all those streetwear brands have taken up champion as one of their brands, and now they don’t target sell champion now. I’m not sure they did for a little while they did for a little while but so did Walmart. But I think now that they’re popular again, they’re being sold at stores like yeah, I don’t know champs perhaps? Or Dick’s I don’t know like, like bigger like remain Yeah, sporting goods stores not just like discounts. Yeah, you know,

Joe Clements  35:17

I mean, are there are there like marketers just walking through Walmart looking for like distressed brands and then going to pitch I mean,

Matt Farrar  35:26

I mean, there’s been a lot of opportunities in the last couple years if you can find the right niche for your product, right, like I think phila has seen a little bit of a resurgence in the last couple years. Case Swiss in the sneaker space and specifically has seen a good like surge in their products. Reebok has tried to I don’t know how successful it’s been for them.

Joe Clements  35:46

Here’s another thing I think igloo has done well, by the way for itself. Is that cooler market went really high end and really like hardcore, like boater hunter fisherman. Outdoors person. Yeah, igloo just went below that is just yard Barbie. Yeah. Yeah, this

Matt Farrar  36:07

is like,

Joe Clements  36:08

Look, they have a line for that outdoor stuff. But where they seem to be focused, it’s like, let’s just go, you know, middle class backyard.

Matt Farrar  36:16

Yeah, this is this is mom and kids go into the beach on a summer day. This is Dad, you know, flipping some burgers in the backyard, go

Nick Sanchez  36:24

walking over to the neighbor’s house. And it’s so much less intimidating because I see a Yeti cooler. And I’m like, that’s an expensive cooler. And you feel kind of weird being around it. Because who would spend $900 on a cooler? You know, but then you see an igloo? What’s the status symbol cooler? Which is kind of weird. Exactly. Yeah, who needs that? But it’s a flex, it is a flex, but to what like for what, you know, what are you gonna gain?

Matt Farrar  36:43

Alright, let’s wrap it up with so let’s finish real quick with some of the best like nostalgia marketing, at least tied up into a package that I’ve seen recently. And it was in the music industry, which is not really a place we see it very often. So let’s talk about BTS. Which, if you’re still not familiar with BTS, you haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the news.

Joe Clements  37:05

So they’re like the, I mean, they’re the biggest musical act in the world right now, by a long way, I

Matt Farrar  37:10

think Yeah. And they’ve kind of penetrated pretty much every part of pop culture, right? Because they’re on Jimmy Fallon and that McDonald’s meal they have a McDonald’s meal, right, like so. I mean, they’re they’re all over American pop culture. They’re certainly all over international pop culture. They are part of what is known as K-pop which is Korean pop. So there’s boy bands and girl bands and very much like what you think of as like 90s and early 2000s like boy bands, there’s there’s very heavy dance involved there. Seven of them. In this group, this is a boy band. So they released their new single. This is their second all-English single. Most of their songs are heavily in Korean, or you know, only have a few English words in them. Or sometimes they use other languages. But this is their second all-English songs; second, all-English song, and it broke YouTube records 24 hour doubt or 24-hour views record. Yep. When it came out. So Dynamite when it came out last year set a lot of records, as well. But they they blew this out of the water when it launched. Why it’s interesting to me is not necessarily that they broke YouTube records. That’s great. But BTS is interesting, because the band is not just a group of guys, first of all, the band is actually owned, it’s a publicly traded company, a company that is a publicly traded company, all of the band members have shares in the company and that is one of the ways they are compensated and they’re all multimillionaires as a result of that. So it’s not like they’re, you know, just slaves that are being like, forced to dance and you know, were being paid minimum wage [like the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were] yeah heh. So I mean, like that, they’re, you know, they’re very nicely taken care of like they’re in this company, but, and this company has other acts and other things that they do. But this kind of creates this marketing machine out of Korea that then expands into countries all over the world. So the engineered the song, to kinda just be very pleasant to your ears. And so you hear in the first couple lines of the song, pop culture references from the early 90s. And so you hear things like pop like Trouble, right? And so if you were a kid in the 90s, you definitely played the board game Trouble and you will instantly think of like the little board game pop where the dice in the center of the board game pop, you hear things like smooth like a criminal, which is actually 80s but so you hear these little pop culture references woven and now if you look at the music video, they’re in a high school gymnasium they have on track suits that are gonna make you think the 90s.

Joe Clements  39:41

They’re doing like breakdancing like 90s music videos. The video is cut like a 90s boyband video,

Matt Farrar  39:47

Yep, there’s a couple of scenes, there’s outfit changes, color it is gonna make you think of an NSYNC video or a Backstreet Boys video from the 90s which

Joe Clements  39:56

I didn’t notice it when you first played it. Once you pointed out I was that’s exactly I knew it was a boy band because it’s a boy band. And that’s all of kind of the, just the subliminal references to the 90s and early 2000s.

Matt Farrar  40:10

And if you break the music down, you actually hear a lot of elements that sound like that. So one of the things they do that I think is super interesting from a marketing perspective that I don’t hear get talked about very often is after they release their tracks, about a week later, is they release, usually a separate record that has some remixes. And then this is an important part, they release the instrumental track of that song. TikTok? And this is the reason, well, so I mean, they don’t have to do it for TikTok, usually TikTok, you have the words in there because people are lip synching. The reason I think they released the instrumental track is for YouTube. I think they do it for YouTube, because people are actually going to seeing on YouTube, they’re going to play the instrumental track, and people are going to try to impress their friends by showing how well they can sing. And that’s how you end up with karaoke. You have like karaoke videos on YouTube. And so what happens with BTS is their fans call themselves the ARMY.

Joe Clements  41:06

They let they basically let memetic marketing do it for them [YOU GOT IT!]. So everybody’s participating and making the meme of the song which spreads the meme further. So people look into what is the source of the meme, you gotta find the video.

Matt Farrar  41:19

BTS uses their fans – in a in a good way, not like uses them – but like interacts with their fans, maybe better than any music group I’ve ever seen on the planet. The fans are called ARMY. They embrace that. And so actually, if you noticed in the music video, they mentioned ARMY at one point in the song which they don’t always do, and then the guys actually spelled out very subtly with their hand movements army at one point as a subtle nod to their face.

Joe Clements  41:45

So they’re putting it easter eggs, which is the ultimate like Comic Con nerd thing.

Matt Farrar  41:49

You can feed this fire with their fans who are just all over it. So they’re doing this stuff. A huge amount of their attention. This is why blew up on YouTube right? Because all of this is taking place on YouTube tik tok is great Instagram is great. All these other places are great. The eyeballs are going to YouTube. Are you why they broke the record?

Rebecca Romero  42:07

Are you in the ARMY?

Matt Farrar  42:09

I would not…

Joe Clements  42:10

Matt’s ARMY! Look at him…

Rebecca Romero  42:11

The only songs I’ve ever listened to are their two English songs, right?  I think you’re on your way to being in the ARMY.

Matt Farrar  42:17

I don’t think ARMY would consider me ARMY if I’ve never listened to anything but the English songs.

Rebecca Romero  42:21

You’re right! You’re right.

Joe Clements  42:22

You don’t know that, he may have a video

Rebecca Romero  42:24

he’d be a poser for right now.

Matt Farrar  42:26

I would feel like a poser in that scenario.

Joe Clements  42:29

I mean, so like my final question on this is coming out of a pandemic, maybe?

Matt Farrar  42:35

Here’s the other thing, they haven’t traveled, they haven’t left at all, Korea. They have not left Korea.

Joe Clements  42:39

So what I was just gonna tell you is this is the perfect like, this is why they’re the biggest act in the world. They knew this before. It’s like they didn’t need to tour in order to promote their music.

Matt Farrar  42:47

So they very clearly made a deal at the beginning of the pandemic that’s like, “Hey, we’re locking these guys down. We are not letting them leave the country until we feel it’s safe. But here’s what we’ll do. We will create the biggest-ass show that you’ve ever seen. For every single thing you want to put them on: Billboard Music Awards, Stephen Colbert, we don’t care. We will put a ridiculously produced show on. So every time you see them on a live show, it’s got pyrotechnics, it’s got green screen, it’s got crazy-ass production.

Joe Clements  43:15

Also, Matt, like people are spending 14 hours a day in media and online probably benefits an act like this, which is designed to be [100%]

Matt Farrar  43:23

100% I mean, they are making the right moves. Without a doubt.

Joe Clements  43:25

My last question on this like just psychologically is in theory, what you’d want to have is the society emerging from a disaster looking towards the future. The societies emerging from the disaster looking 25 years into the past. Like play this out another year and a half or so. Like if you’re skating to where the puck is going to be not where the puck is and by the way,

Matt Farrar  43:50

you’re able to go out on tour again. They’re going to obliterate every other band on the planet.

Joe Clements  43:55

I 100% agree but from a marketing perspective, what what do you need to be gearing up for an 18 months I think doing retro stuff this summer is going to be where it’s at. What what is it next summer? That that replaces over retro we’re looking back now like last summer was all about brand activism this summer is going to be all about like brand retro

Matt Farrar  44:16

For me the takeaway here is that even the the retro stuff right i think the retro stuff they went with in this particular video and the last video right Dynamite that came out in August well there I mean there that was a disco retro trend that was a disco inspired song like that had a very retro feel in the music video. But what I think is actually happening here is the the companies behind them and the marketing people behind them are playing off of the fans. I think that is actually the secret sauce that is different.

Joe Clements  44:45

So they’re just, they’re just going to watch the fans see what the fans are into at the time and then they will build

Matt Farrar  44:52

they’re doing a better job of seeing what the fans want and giving it to them than the teams behind other acts. That is the difference.

Joe Clements  44:59

So then the marketing takeaway there would be the marketing takeaway is watch

Matt Farrar  45:03

what your direct what’s going to be there and

Joe Clements  45:05

watch what they’re doing. And then go copy it. Yeah, yeah,

Matt Farrar  45:08

the the takeaway is you need to figure out what that is. In December,

Joe Clements  45:12

you just sit on the Reddit forums, figure out what they’re into.

Matt Farrar  45:15

You need to sit on the YouTube comments. Yeah, because they’re gonna tell you exactly what they want.

Joe Clements  45:19

How do you think that was being communicated? Like the retro stuff in this? I mean, there had a bit of deeper market research to pick that other than YouTube comments. Yeah,

Matt Farrar  45:29

I think it’s knowing the demographics of your audience and then seeing what else they’re doing and what they like, right? I mean, because part of it is you need to know what style these people have. Yeah, you know, the style leanings of the people that are making these comments and aggressively I can’t remember they have pink hair, and they like yeah, jeans and if they’re wearing Canadian tuxedos, like that gives you the look of your next music video.

Joe Clements  45:51

Yeah. Canadian tuxedos? Yeah. All right. Anything else? Rebecca, Nick

Rebecca Romero  45:56

denim on denim denim on denim. No, I’m just glad that we’re bringing back 90s

Joe Clements  46:02

for the summer at least. Yeah. Cue that LFO to take us out.

Matt Farrar  46:08

Smooth like butter. Awesome. Smooth like butter.

Joe Clements  46:14

Alright.

Rebecca Romero  46:15

Also, this may be my last podcast episode. Who knows?

Joe Clements  46:17

Yeah. Rebecca is extremely pregnant.

Matt Farrar  46:19

For a little while. I assumed that you were going to like, just Zoom in from your house with the baby.

Rebecca Romero  46:25

Oh, with the baby? Unless I can get a mute button for when the baby starts screaming…

Matt Farrar  46:29

you have a mute button right there. You can take it home with you.

Rebecca Romero  46:31

Okay, good idea.

Matt Farrar  46:32

Perfect. Alright, listeners we appreciate you tuning in today. As always, if you enjoyed the episode jump in your favorite podcast app of choice. Give us a rating or review helps more people discover the show and when more people discover the show that makes us happy. And producer Alex – it makes him happy, too. He’s got a shades on, because this future’s so bright. He’s ready to hit the stop button on his computer so he can get back to work and do productive stuff. Alright, listeners we’ll be back next week! Thanks for tuning in. Of Record is hosted and produced by me, Matt Farrar, Joe Clements, and Rebecca Romero, with producer Alex Reinhard. Of Record is recorded at Grey Bridge Studios in Tallahassee, Florida. This episode was edited by Alex Reinhard. Our theme music is composed and performed by Rob Gokee. Special thanks to our entire team at SDS here in Tallahassee. You can see more information about the show at our website: podcastofrecord.com. As always, we’d appreciate your reviews and ratings in your podcast app of choice. Those ratings and reviews help more people discover the show which helps us keep delivering quality content each week. Thanks for listening!