Episode 173
The return of brand marketing
Of all the areas AI is poised to overturn, marketing is at the top of the list. In truth, Silicon Valley has long held marketing is low esteem. Google CEO Eric Schmidt once sniffed that brand marketing is "the last bastion of unaccountable corporate spending." The mathification of marketing will go into hyperdrive, as AI is used to create some kind of agentic ecosystem of bots persuading bots. All of this is great scifi to Anonymous Brand Marketer, a Fortune 500 marketer who sees as much BS as promise in AI's application to marketing. ABM sees it both rationalizing and driving efficiencies in performance marketing while leading to a mini-resurgence in the kinds of brand marketing that connects to humans in ways that a Salesforce agent cannot.
Transcript
Welcome to the Rebooting Show.
Brian:I'm Brian Morrissey.
Brian:The summer is here.
Brian:We're nearing the point where if you send an email to a European, you are more likely to get an out of office that says they're off camping for six weeks in the check back.
Brian:true heroes in my view.
Brian:But here at the rebooting, we're entering, the summer and using it as a time to experiment with a few different formats.
Brian:I got a lot of good feedback from my episode, about a month ago with Anonymous Banker.
Brian:So I thought about how we could extend that model and immediately I thought about the marketer side.
Brian:I find much of the information and news that emanates about marketing is so PR driven and cautious to be nearly useless, honestly.
Brian:instead.
Brian:I asked a brand marketer to have a frank conversation under the cloak of anonymity about how marketing is changing and what the impact of AI will be on the marketplace in particular.
Brian:As to how publishers can play a meaningful role in, in marketing strategies, when it seems clear that so much of them will be automated and AI driven by massive tech platforms with near limitless amounts of compute.
Brian:and one theme of this conversation with a BM real life matters again.
Brian:While much of the marketing industry chases AI automation and performance dashboards, a BM argues that, brands are.
Brian:Kind of swinging back to what he calls breakthrough opportunities.
Brian:And that means moving away from just relying on, the algorithmic churn of digital ads and towards things that, you know, create some kind of cultural memory.
Brian:that's, that's live events and creator collaborations and experiences and activations.
Brian:This is why so many publishers are leaning more heavily into events, and I think that's gonna continue.
Brian:These are things that ai, I do not believe are gonna replace.
Brian:maybe we'll all end up in some kind of metaverse thing, but I don't, I don't think so, honestly.
Brian:we get into why media companies, try to out Google.
Brian:Google has always been a losing strategy.
Brian:Why Meta and Google?
Brian:End up, you know, treating publishers like a number on a spreadsheet and why creators, you know, are winning more brand budgets, because they're able to activate audiences and what publishers can learn from that.
Brian:a BM has a very grounded view in, in this bifurcation in modern marketing.
Brian:you know, we both don't believe that performance marketing is going away.
Brian:We just think that the pendulum.
Brian:Always goes too far and it will correct.
Brian:I think a lot of ways publishers, are seeing that and they're tacking more towards, doing the top of the funnel activities that, are still gonna be needed.
Brian:and I think are gonna become more valuable as, as AI makes everything, everyone rushed to the bottom of the funnel and the transaction layer.
Brian:And I think in many ways, publishers.
Brian:Can't really compete well there.
Brian:they don't have the same resources and acumen that these massive tech companies have.
Brian:I do think that a lot of publishers that have tight connections with audiences can get them to take actions, and also just show up in the real world.
Brian:So here's my conversation with a BM.
Brian:this is a special experimental episode.
Brian:what better time than the summer to do one of these?
Brian:mostly it came off the back of Anonymous Banker is a character they are a person actually, but, mostly on the People versus algorithms podcast,
Brian:but had AB on here and, I was talking to a BM here who is our anonymous brand marketer about doing this and a BM agree to do it.
Brian:'cause I just want to find, I wanna get, have like real conversations I find sometimes.
Brian:A BM You like q People on the marketing side like are like a little too buttoned up.
Brian:You got corporate coming down, coming down your throats.
ABM:Yeah, I think that is my issue and happy to be here.
ABM:And, you know, I know stepping into the shadow of anonymous banker is a tall task, so I'm just going
Brian:No, no, it's not.
Brian:It's, it's, it's a bunch of characters.
Brian:I wanna, I wanna, I
Brian:I
Brian:recruited.
Brian:We will see because any, any promising can is, is a tenuous one at best.
Brian:But I recruited, anonymous ad tech guy.
Brian:That one's not, that one's gonna be gendered, it's gonna be anonymous ad tech guy.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Yeah, yeah.
ABM:Well, if anyone was was wondering easy to guess.
ABM:I think for, for ad tech, at least maybe, I
Brian:yeah,
Brian:that is true.
Brian:But let's get into sort of, we're gonna talk about like content and like where marketing is going, but the, you know, I wanna start with just all the AI talk and how it is, it is and will not change.
Brian:Marketing because I feel like a lot of what, first of all, people conflate marketing with advertising and then marketing became all about like performance marketing, which is really direct marketing.
Brian:And there's, all these things have been like jumbled, at least how I sort of understood them.
Brian:but I think the big question when it comes, it comes to.
Brian:Ai, you've got Sam Altman out there saying it's gonna take over like 95% of marketing.
Brian:I love the, the very specific number.
Brian:If you wanna make
Brian:it outlandish prediction.
Brian:Put, make it very specific.
ABM:And not 98% just we'll leave you 5%.
ABM:That's so kind of him, you know?
Brian:How, how, like, first of all, how, how overheated is this stuff?
Brian:But then like, play it out, like forward, like are the machines just gonna like, take over a lot of this because.
Brian:I always felt like most companies, they don't wanna do advertising necessarily, or even much marketing, like they wanna buy customers at the end of the day.
Brian:And I can see Meta and Google having a lot of CFOs who say, that's a great idea.
Brian:You just, we just tell, we don't, we're
Brian:just gonna pay you for, you know, the results.
Brian:That's perfect.
Brian:Let the AI do the job.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:I do think the savior in that situation is, the marketing teams, because I don't think that.
ABM:Our ambitions are to be just the number on the spreadsheet, you know, the ever foreboding, spreadsheet that you don't want to be a part of.
Brian:We're all part of the spreadsheet.
Brian:Okay.
ABM:at the end of the day.
ABM:You have to find
Brian:Even the lowly podcaster is on the spreadsheet.
ABM:Oh yeah, definitely.
ABM:there's some podcasters on my spreadsheets for sure.
ABM:but you know, how do they get there?
ABM:And it's not just about an equation.
ABM:I think that's where there's a real disconnect in some of the I AI talk that's out there and the reality that's happening in the.
ABM:Brand marketing side of things.
ABM:you know, when you are for certain brands looking to do buys or looking to, to make an impact and, you know, pick up what a
ABM:lot of your audience is selling, I think what you're looking through, what you're looking for is breakthrough opportunity and.
ABM:I don't think that AI in its current state is really offering that, or a lot of the searches.
ABM:I mean, are you just looking for information, you know, in an AI overview or are you looking for a perspective?
ABM:Are you looking for an experience?
ABM:And those are the things that I think are really hard to see going away.
ABM:So if you talk about a live event or if you talk about.
ABM:A creator that you trust, bringing you something or telling you about something, then you know that's, that's quite different than what a lot of the AI content is doing.
ABM:And I think that's where the opportunity sits, not just for brands that are looking to continue to have a place of meaning and the ecosystem, but also Ford.
ABM:Websites.
ABM:also for, or I shouldn't just say websites for, uh, media companies, right?
ABM:that once lived a lot, probably in something like print, then migrated to the web, and now we're migrating to somewhere new.
ABM:I think much of that is going to include physical manifestations in one way or another.
Brian:pivot to parties.
Brian:I think I had
Brian:a newsletter about the pivot to parties.
ABM:I think the pivot, pivot to parties would be great.
ABM:and, you know, you have to be careful about this stuff and obviously that's hard, that's hard to pull off.
ABM:It's, it's hard to pull off repeatedly, but.
ABM:When you have an event that breaks through, something like that, you can go and capture content there.
ABM:you can have celebrities or people of meaning even within certain niches or certain spaces that matter that are there.
ABM:and you record them and you have them tell your story.
ABM:So when I'm thinking about, and, and right now, you know.
ABM:Is when budget for 26 starts to be discussed.
ABM:those are the kinds of things that you're looking for, not just exposure and, and not just to kind of flood the zone with, with your content to make
ABM:sure that consumers are seeing you, but making sure that they're seeing you in a meaningful way with something that matters to them.
ABM:And I can tell you straight away that outside of search and some of those.
ABM:Kind of blocking and tackling things that you need to do.
ABM:My experience with my own work with other brand marketers that I interact with is that.
ABM:We're looking more for the breakthrough opportunities and, and those are in real life.
ABM:Those are, you know, with, with creators that have a voice that's unique and, and that matters to people.
ABM:Now going forward, is there an opportunity for AI to develop into that?
ABM:I suppose so.
ABM:I tend to think that.
Brian:I am not going to a party with a bunch of
ABM:no,
Brian:I'm
Brian:out on that a BM.
ABM:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ABM:No, not the, not the party so much.
ABM:well, didn't we kind of try that with the metaverse?
ABM:I feel like that
Brian:Yet.
Brian:It did work for a
ABM:The avatars
Brian:like, so.
Brian:Obviously uncool, like as a 52-year-old man, I can say that that is uncool.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:And, and there's certainly, I mean, we were talking before we, we started, but about the, the idea of return physical media, becoming more of a thing, being on your
Brian:Do you think that could happen?
Brian:I mean,
Brian:I still read magazines, but I'm also 52, so I don't know.
ABM:I think in, in limited run, right, I don't think it's going to
ABM:be.
ABM:Under no illusion that it's gonna be a dominant form of media, but there's something special to it.
ABM:And then the way I think about it is you take all that and you can have digital extensions of it.
ABM:You buy the vinyl and then you know, you take a picture of it and you post it, or you encourage people to do that.
Brian:so do you see like marketing, like you think about it like with, with your career, right?
Brian:Like, do you see it like bifurcating between the sort of AI driven, totally automated, always on.
Brian:It's, it's, it's being taken, it's gonna be done by robots.
Brian:A lot of like,
Brian:what we think of today is to me, like performance marketing.
Brian:Like that's, that's the direction that the performance marketing machines are going down.
Brian:That's what they're best at.
Brian:They're firing up three Mile Island, so I assume it's gonna happen like right.
Brian:but then I almost see like.
Brian:The counter to it.
Brian:You talk about the return, was it the return, you said like
Brian:where maybe there's a return, and maybe I'm being a little bit optimistic here, but maybe there's a return to what I consider quote unquote real marketing.
Brian:Right.
Brian:Like, which to me, the, like the performance marketing and stuff I used to write for DM news.
Brian:I'm like, yeah, I, I, I know this stuff.
Brian:It's direct marketing.
Brian:You're just changing around some things like, but it's direct marketing.
Brian:I know the, the people are just better dressed than the guys at the mustaches from Mineola, but like that's all it is.
Brian:And so I just think, I feel like performance marketing, almost eight, brand marketing.
Brian:And I wonder if there we're gonna see a return to, to real marketing, brand marketing,
ABM:I
Brian:make brand marketing great again.
ABM:oh gosh, please.
ABM:Even as anonymous brand marketer, I don't think I wanna, uh, get behind that.
ABM:yeah, so I think bifurcation is a good way to think about it.
ABM:I think that you have your more direct acquisition plays where you're putting the quarter in the machine and you're hoping to get a customer, that's gonna give you 26 cents or more.
ABM:Right.
ABM:That's one part of it.
ABM:And then I think, that's gonna work fine.
ABM:But at some point you need to differentiate yourself and you need to have some kind of meaningful space within a consumer's life.
ABM:And I think that's where brand marketing and some of the stuff that we're talking about, whether that be gatherings or.
ABM:Tying yourself to a cool creator, is going to play a big role and, and be important.
ABM:so those may manifest themselves in in different ways and who knows what people are going to to call them.
ABM:But I, I definitely think that that's probably a way to think about it.
ABM:You know, places that are gonna just continue to, to dump money into Meta or Google, you know, that's always gonna exist.
ABM:but it's just diminishing returns.
ABM:The, the other thing is the platforms who, whoever they are, right?
ABM:They are, not your friend at the end of the day.
ABM:And, and I don't know that creators are, but creators, I think.
ABM:Will at least develop some kind of human loyalty to you or interest in what you're doing, where continued financial compensation goes a long way.
ABM:Right?
Brian:they'll get on the call.
Brian:They'll get on the phone with you too.
Brian:I mean, you can, you can,
Brian:you can be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with meta.
Brian:They're like, no, we're no customer service.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:You know, I, I will tell you, I've, I've had that exact experience with Meta, where we were, looking to take advantage of one of their programs where, you know, you spent so much money with them, they give you a credit.
ABM:that's great.
ABM:So part of that.
ABM:Operation is selecting an agency to work with.
ABM:And I asked them for guidance on who we should work with, and they told me, well, we don't really do that.
ABM:There's the list, just pick one.
ABM:you know, I was a little befuddled by that,
Brian:Yeah.
ABM:honestly.
ABM:but, but yeah, I think that's typical.
ABM:And they're gonna keep raising those rates eventually, that those credits are gonna go away.
ABM:They're not, they're not gonna do that.
ABM:you know, they're can gonna continue to compress the, the margin, you know,
ABM:to use the quarter analogy.
Brian:So for media companies, right?
Brian:And, and, When they're going out, obviously they've gotten compressed, right?
Brian:Like they, they were on this traffic like treadmill, like I don't.
Brian:I don't necessarily see a massive future for that business.
Brian:You gotta keep operating the business.
Brian:You gotta build the next business.
Brian:I go back to like, you look at what Brian Goldberg is doing at Bustle.
Brian:I mean, he, he was sort of the king of like creating content for an SEO driven world.
Brian:And then, you know, monetizing that, not always through programmatic, but like, sometimes it's, it's, it's through programmatic pipes.
Brian:I just.
Brian:I don't see like that being a, a thriving
Brian:business.
Brian:and and more to the point is like, I don't think like brand marketers necessarily necessarily want like ads on web pages.
ABM:Yeah, I don't.
Brian:Okay.
ABM:one, when you're talking about building one business while the other exists, you have to remember that at the tops of these companies are people who are not keeping up with the media ecosystem and the way that it's developing.
ABM:You know, they, they probably don't understand programmatic advertising in the way that people in the industries do.
ABM:and they are probably more willing to just put an offer or a price cut out there to get a customer, and sign off on that than they
ABM:are to sign off on some newfangled marketing idea that at the end of the day is going to generate kind of more, more revenue.
ABM:but so I, I think all that stuff is, is gonna have a long tail.
ABM:You know, one of your favorite things to say is a OL still generates $500 million in
ABM:ebitda.
ABM:Right?
Brian:million.
ABM:Okay.
ABM:Oh, oh gosh.
ABM:We're down to 400.
ABM:Well, either way.
Brian:They're gonna ride up.
Brian:Paulo's gonna ride that all the way down.
Brian:God bless private equity.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Good for them.
ABM:You know, but Right.
ABM:There's, there's not a future in that.
ABM:I think I saw, who's the, the old.
ABM:Hulu had Jason Kylar,
ABM:isn't that his name?
ABM:Yeah,
Brian:he's a smart guy.
Brian:I actually, I, I, I've always been very impressed by Jason.
Brian:K.
ABM:I have as well.
ABM:Hulu is, has always been a, a favorite of mine to, to kind of watch through the years as it's been traded between ownership groups.
ABM:But my, my point is he said, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery and Netflix, I think have the same market cap at the moment, right?
ABM:But one is going up and one is going down.
ABM:And just the, the future of, of where things are going is very clear.
ABM:But, I'm sorry, I, I got away from your original question there about, uh,
Brian:But no, no.
Brian:Yeah, I, I, I think you, you were getting right at it, which is basically, and I think this is a question that for a lot of the media side, is how do they compete in a world.
Brian:You know, I think try like the old thing was, I, I was always saying it's like trying to out Google, Google was always a massive
Brian:mistake.
Brian:I mean, it took open AI taking a totally, you know, I guess what the Valley people would call an orthogonal approach to, to take on that kind of power.
Brian:I think for publishers where they're trying to, in all media companies when they're trying to compete in a market with.
Brian:You know, meta with Google, with Apple, with every grocery store chain that has all the shopper data,
Brian:like winning
Brian:on our data is just as good.
Brian:Like to me, just seems a fool's errand.
Brian:And you're gonna have to find a different, a different field that to, and a different game that you're gonna compete on.
ABM:Yes, that's right.
ABM:So I would say, I mean, my advice to the media companies would probably be a. to continue using that book as you have it.
ABM:And, but if you hit us table stakes, you know, hey, you know, we can do this.
ABM:You, you have this experience of interacting with media.
ABM:This is continuing to exist, but here are all the ways that we can action on this new world.
ABM:And I keep coming back to the word.
ABM:Breakthrough.
ABM:Here are the ways that we can break through for you or help you to resonate with a customer.
ABM:another thing you can do is brands, again, are, are staffed with a lot of folks who are not up on everything.
ABM:So you can translate for them, right?
ABM:You can help them understand trends and how their brand can, can meet that.
ABM:Another topic is agencies, creative agencies, right?
ABM:Media companies are going to have to continue to fill some of that space with some creative services, whether that be some design, whether that be producing events, whether that be.
ABM:You know, writing social posts for brands, and, and helping them, promote things that they are already doing.
ABM:I think that's gonna continue to be a place of need.
ABM:And, and by the way, when, when you move into some of that, yeah, that's, that's a different business and, and that's challenging.
ABM:I think that's the reality.
ABM:But you are helping create efficiencies for the brand.
ABM:you're giving them a place where.
ABM:They can say to their CFOs when they go to those meetings, Hey, look, yeah, I know this is, we're spending this amount with this media company, but you have to understand they're doing all these creative services for us, ultimately.
ABM:it's gonna be a positive thing.
ABM:we're saving money in the long run and, and we're creating a relationship.
Brian:My, my co podcast host, I don't know what I call him, Alex Schleifer says, leave it to publishers to choose the second worst business to go into
Brian:the
ABM:Well,
Brian:room.
ABM:certainly,
Brian:like, you know, every.
Brian:In a storm.
Brian:Any, any, any port.
Brian:but no,
Brian:I think, I think with, without a doubt, like publishers have to be in, in that business.
Brian:you know, they, they spun up all the content studios and whatnot a generation ago.
Brian:but the reality is the weight of the business is moving into these kind of custom executions.
Brian:The, the business is, it's a different type of business.
Brian:It's something I was talking to a media executive.
Brian:About earlier today is just the imposs near impossibility of operating the old model while building the new model.
Brian:Like, I mean, if you have
Brian:a page view arbitrage machine and then you're trying to be some kind of DTC high-end, like that's really difficult to, to pull off.
Brian:I mean, you do, you just have totally different skill sets, you have different infrastructure, but the alternative is
ABM:yeah.
ABM:yeah.
ABM:The alternative is, the SEO glue factory, or, or even worse than that, just, ultimate demise.
Brian:Yeah.
ABM:But, but you have to look at what, what are your strengths, even in that old model?
ABM:What are your strengths and how can you apply them?
Brian:you seem really into like IRL as like a differentiator and as something that won't go away.
Brian:Like when we talk about all the AI stuff and AI's gonna be making the ads and you're gonna be advertising to AI bots.
Brian:w what.
ABM:advertising to another.
ABM:Yeah.
Brian:Yeah, basically.
Brian:which is a very exciting future, for some people.
Brian:Talk to me about
Brian:the IRL event stuff, for lack of a better word.
Brian:Why is that interesting?
ABM:So this is where.
ABM:I think another favorite of mine, anec data, which you have to be careful with your own experiences, right?
ABM:But at the same time, they can definitely be instructive.
ABM:And so think about things in your own life that have resonated or meant something to you.
ABM:and a lot of that.
ABM:Probably includes some kind of in real life experience.
ABM:And so I just think that's a great opportunity for brands who can't afford to do it, or are big enough to do it or positioned correctly to, to really make an impact.
ABM:and.
ABM:Experiencing something in real life, not on your screen, not just a content series or something like that.
ABM:You know, it, it, it makes everything else resonate around, and it ties you to that brand a little bit more.
ABM:When you see it, it, it has a different meaning to you.
ABM:And I think if you're able to create some of those successful experiences, then yeah, it's just a great opportunity to break through.
ABM:And I actually think that.
ABM:A lot of media companies, even in this environment, still mean something to people one way or the other.
ABM:so when you can do something, now I'm not talking about IRL being like, you know, the economist, bookstore in the airport.
ABM:Certainly not, touching out something like that.
ABM:But, And, and you know, obviously way on the other end of the spectrum you would have something like the Vanity Fair Oscar party, right?
ABM:Where like, that's such a premium, top tier experience for, for crazy celebrities.
ABM:But what is it that, you know, can you give people access to something?
ABM:Can you build around an experience that they're already having if they're attending a sporting event, you know, can you activate around that and, and give them something useful?
ABM:To be able to enjoy that more.
ABM:and that's just gonna help you carry through.
ABM:I think, as we continue to have, right, AI agents selling to other AI agents.
ABM:And it's like when you go outside and like talk to a real person and interact with humanity, that that carries a lot of weight, I think.
ABM:And if some brands and companies and marketers are gonna go the AI way, I think that's fine.
ABM:And, and that can kind of maybe fill that middle.
ABM:80% or whatever, but that creates opportunity for, for people to break through and yeah, I just think in real life is, is important.
ABM:Now scaling it is really hard.
ABM:So that's, that's a big question.
ABM:Right?
ABM:And you can't just co copy and paste events, right?
ABM:or activations or, or whatever.
ABM:but you can definitely have an outsized impact when you're seeing someone in their actual life.
ABM:and so that's.
ABM:Like physically, that's even funny, right?
ABM:All these qualifiers that we have
ABM:to put out physically saying something
Brian:So what, like, what's the one out, obviously outside of like your, your, your work, but like, what's one you would like sort of point to as you know, that's.
Brian:Directionally where I think a lot of this is going.
ABM:It's a good question.
ABM:you know, one, one thing that's resonating with me, and, and I just, I just saw this, so maybe it's a little bit of a recency bias, but it was, it was goldfish, right?
ABM:They do a lot of interesting stuff, but I saw that they set up something like.
ABM:A, a drive through car cleaning service where they'll then give you fresh goldfish.
ABM:So if, let's say you have little kids, right?
ABM:And they're in the back and it's kind of a, a meme, of your backseat is just covered in crumbs and all kinds of nastiness.
ABM:So, you know, hey, it's a big road trip weekend.
ABM:We're recording this.
ABM:After the 4th of July, people are traveling.
ABM:Okay.
ABM:You have this experience where you can go through, they'll clean your backseat of your car, they'll give you some snacks and, and get you on your way.
ABM:Now, you know, what's the return on that?
ABM:for that actual event?
ABM:I don't know.
ABM:But does every person that go through that the next time they're at a gas station and they're trying to pick out, or you know, what, what they're gonna grab?
ABM:Maybe goldfish sticks out more than the rest.
ABM:I, I think some of this stuff has.
ABM:Long-term returns that are really hard to put on the spreadsheet, but that stick in people's minds.
ABM:you know, that, so, so that was one that I saw recently.
ABM:you know, I think.
ABM:Music festivals or concerts in general have, have been really resurgent after COVID.
ABM:Right.
ABM:and there's all kinds of problems that you have when you go to a music festival.
ABM:Like it's sweaty, it's dirty, it's expensive, it's hard to find food, and your phone dies all the time.
ABM:Right.
ABM:So I. If a sponsor of one of these festivals could support people through that experience and, you know, give them a, a blanket to sit on or give them a phone charger or something like that, you know, that's another example
ABM:of something, Hey, you know, it's, it's kind of goofy, but maybe it's better than the, uh the water bottle that you get and throw away inevitably after it sits in your cabinet for
Brian:they they used to call that like branded utility.
ABM:Branded utility.
ABM:That's, that's a
Brian:that was like, that was like a buzzword.
Brian:Like I remember when I was covering advertising, it was like, no, you need to have a branded utility.
Brian:It's like you have to be useful to people.
Brian:So, you know, you create these tools that, you know, that basically solve a problem.
Brian:But also
Brian:communicate a brand message, which, you know, makes, again, this could be the all part of the return.
Brian:Everything, everything goes back in fashion at the end of the day.
Brian:And I do think that there's gonna be a reaction just broadly culturally against ai.
Brian:It's inevitable.
Brian:I think you see it already.
Brian:I think, you know, calling someone AI is like an insult, right?
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:It's like, NNPC or whatever it is,
Brian:it's like MPC and like sussing out, like AI writing.
Brian:Like it ruined the, like, you know, they call the chat BT dash, they call the M dash that like
ABM:Ugh, I, I use it all the time, and I'm very upset about this development.
ABM:I'm
Brian:um, and so yeah, I think that inevitably culturally, I don't doubt that AI is gonna in invest every part of our lives, but I think sometimes.
Brian:You, we probably need to pump the brakes with.
Brian:Sometimes we forget that like
Brian:people
Brian:have agency, they still have agency, like people still have agency.
Brian:and and like, you know, all this stuff, it's like, well, it's inevitable.
Brian:It is like, no, it's not like we are a society and we can like decide for ourselves what we're going to sort of engage with and use and what we're not going to
Brian:use.
Brian:And so, I don't know.
Brian:I think in some ways it will normalize from a lot of the fever dreams that are emanating from Silicon Valley and usually they're trying to sell something.
Brian:Of course.
Brian:I have noticed that I keep getting these like AI.
Brian:Charges like that.
Brian:Google has decided that like, because of Gemini, that
Brian:they're upping like the cost of Google workspace.
Brian:I'm like, I never asked for this stuff.
Brian:I don't even use it.
Brian:What are you talking about?
Brian:If it's so valuable, then sell it to me.
Brian:You're just using it as an excuse to raise prices.
Brian:and I, I
ABM:Yeah,
Brian:money you make by the way.
ABM:well something's gotta pay for Three Mile Island, Brian.
ABM:So, you know, maybe that's you.
ABM:yeah, I, I have a couple thoughts from what you were saying.
ABM:One is, I think there's a really marked difference from, oh, you can't tell if this video is AI or real and making something that, why would it ever be AI or, you know, this is so clearly.
ABM:Would not be, would not ever be ai, you know?
ABM:So there's, those two things get conflated, but there's a real difference in the ability for AI to create something hyper realistic and someone seeking that out.
Brian:Yeah, look, uh, yeah, totally.
Brian:Like when I'm like trying to like, you know, grind out another newsletter, like I'll put on, maybe at some point I'll put on some, like, AI created, like soft jazz optimized for, for, you know.
Brian:Background for writing.
Brian:Right.
Brian:It's not gonna replace going to C Oasis.
Brian:It's just
ABM:No.
ABM:No.
ABM:Right.
ABM:Precisely.
ABM:Precisely.
ABM:And the other thing is with some of that kind of a similar page, think about the, the panic that we've had around deep fakes here and there, and
Brian:Yeah, I know.
Brian:They sort of, they fade away and then they like come out and then we, we see them and they're like, ha ha, this is kind of funny.
Brian:It
ABM:Yeah, they're jokes, they're, they're Trump, you know, saying something that he obviously didn't say sitting at the Oval Office and doing whatever.
ABM:Right.
ABM:Well, although you could, it could maybe gets tricky with him, but most, most, you know, people see those videos and they know.
ABM:You know, it's a chuckle.
ABM:It's, it's not something real.
ABM:And then the, the last thing is, I, I just have a lot of skepticism around some of the AI chatter because who is telling you about it?
ABM:It's all the people that work in it.
Brian:something
ABM:Yes.
ABM:So, so, I'm, I'm with you.
ABM:I totally see, and in many ways, artificial intelligence or machine learning, or whatever you wanna call it.
ABM:Has already integrated itself into so much of our lives.
ABM:and that's fine, but a lot of this is, is a bridge too far.
ABM:you know, hey, there's gonna be no entry level positions anymore.
ABM:Okay, well what are you gonna call the position for someone who starts
ABM:working?
ABM:Like, you know, that seems like it's entry level, it's just a little bit different.
ABM:So yeah, these, these kinds of things.
ABM:People are still gonna make decisions based on what they wanna do, what they find interesting.
ABM:You know, plenty of people are going to make decisions to interact primarily with digital world and AI and whatever, but most
ABM:people are not going to do that because it's just not cool and it's not interesting, and that's not what we as people seek.
ABM:You know, and, to bring it back to kind of the selling of, of things, right?
ABM:As a brand marketer, you wanna be next to what people enjoy.
ABM:You wanna be next to what people find interesting or captivating, or have an affinity for.
ABM:And, you want to create a connection with that, with your brand and your product and with whatever that might be.
ABM:And then that's really how you make a sale or how you increase your.
ABM:you know, market share, whatever it is.
ABM:So, you know, I had to bring it back
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:No, but do you, do
ABM:conversation about
Brian:that's fair?
Brian:Do, do you, are, are you seeing shifts towards like more
Brian:individuals or human, like, I don't know how to put it, creators, whatever you wanna call it, like, versus sort of institutional, kind of like more like faceless brands, because it does seem.
Brian:At least to me, like there's absolutely leverage around a, a person versus like a faceless brand.
Brian:Like I, I just see it and, there's, there's downsides to that, of course.
Brian:It's not, it's not very scalable,
Brian:but
ABM:Well, and they could get in trouble or you know, whatever.
ABM:There's all kinds of stuff
Brian:yeah, that's why I feel like I'm
Brian:safe.
Brian:I'm out of, I'm out of the age range where I could get in trouble, I think.
ABM:Don't
Brian:it's one risk factor that's taken, taken off the board.
Brian:No, but do you, are, are you seeing, 'cause I mean like group M now, I guess it's W-P-W-P-P media now, you know, they came out with some ad spending report and it was, well, for the first time you,
Brian:the, the amount of money that we're spending on like, quote unquote user-generated content platforms, which include YouTube as one, it exceeds that of like, quote unquote professional
Brian:media platforms.
Brian:know, not, not totally di direct, I mean, it's directional, but I'm wondering, like, do you see that, like with performance, that like, ' cause I don't know, my, my, my
Brian:instinct is that the individual, the creator, et cetera, has in many cases so many more advantages over like an institutional media brand, which has different kinds of advantages.
ABM:I mean, the number one thing that I will ask any institutional brand.
ABM:It is often around who is gonna be there on a creator side.
ABM:What relationships do you have with creators or celebrities or influencers or any kind of endorsers that you can leverage to make this pop.
ABM:Right?
ABM:and that could be someone that I'm not familiar with.
ABM:you know, that could be a really dynamic, craft fair or something like that, right?
ABM:And maybe I don't know about that, but they can show me that there's some value in that.
ABM:You know, oh, this, the person that is the number one clay pot maker on the east coast is gonna be there and people are really gonna go wild for that.
ABM:I'd be like, okay.
ABM:You know, if you, if you can prove it out.
ABM:But I, I think more and more in general, yeah, like institutional media, it means something.
ABM:The name carries weight, but I think it's more about.
ABM:The leverage that you're able to have or the relationships or the language or the translation that you can do for the brand that you're working
Brian:Yeah,
Brian:that's where I call
Brian:them
Brian:like, cultural general contractors in some ways in that like
Brian:what,
ABM:think that's right.
Brian:what they sort of bring to the table is they have credibility, particularly with, with brands and like with people not like yourself probably, but within
Brian:your company who don't like keep like, you know, their finger on the pulse of all this stuff.
Brian:I'm told that there's some people in these organizations that are not,
ABM:thank you.
ABM:I appreciate the
Brian:Yeah, not you.
Brian:All the other ones.
ABM:I mean, it, it is funny 'cause the, the sell-in that you have to do, a lot of times if my first two, okay, do you know this?
ABM:Do you know that if, if, if the CFO does not know the first two cultural reference points that I'm trying to make for whatever publication I'm bringing in front of them, then I'm in in real trouble.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:I'm gonna need my, one of my managers to, to
Brian:but I think that, that, that has like tremendous like value, but what I
Brian:see is that, that these, these.
Brian:Brands have to rely on individual brands to really have the juice to, to scale this, because the, the influencers, the creators, whoever, whatever you wanna call it, depends on, on, on the activation.
Brian:They're the ones that have almost greater reach than the institutional brand.
Brian:And many of these programs are being measured unlike PR like metrics.
Brian:It's not like media in some ways.
Brian:Do you know what I mean?
ABM:I do.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:and I'll be honest, I mean, some of the real old school stuff, the metrics are extremely, unclear to me.
ABM:you know, you ran a segment on, let's just call it the local news.
ABM:I'm trying to be inexact here.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Okay.
ABM:Let's say you, you ran a segment on, on television.
ABM:You know, how are you possibly comparing that to, and then we had an influencer show up at Coachella and you know, they generated this, this many impressions, but those numbers aren't the same.
ABM:So now what, what you're stuck doing is looking at your year over year and your month over month traffic and acquisition and trying to isolate variables.
ABM:And yeah, it can get tricky.
ABM:I mean, you know, if you're good at, torturing data, I think you're gonna continue to win.
Brian:the the data will
Brian:always
ABM:say,
Brian:if.
ABM:from, from experience.
ABM:That's a great use of ai.
ABM:Hey, I need you to make this data say this.
Brian:I need you to waterboard some data.
Brian:Um, bring me
ABM:is, uh, Chet.
Brian:Uh,
ABM:is a, a great friend when it comes to asking it to, to make data say
Brian:So last thing I want to get at is this idea of brands owning media, right?
Brian:Like I think one of the things that came outta Can was that was an interesting idea that like.
Brian:You know, down the road that like Amazon could end up buying Dash Meredith one the largest publishers in the world.
Brian:It's like, hmm, maybe it's
Brian:possible.
Brian:And, uh, but there's, you know, there's, there's small cases like here and there, where it happens.
Brian:It's never become like a very common thing.
Brian:I think it's like starting to happen with like, not just buying, but like organically building.
Brian:Like, and, and these are.
Brian:Different types of, and I see it coming out of, like in the tech industry in particular, you know, they are, they understand the te the, the value of attention.
Brian:Now they're operating in this weird, like oftentimes this mimetic attention space that's like X and all these other things, but they, they see the value of that.
Brian:And so they're building.
Brian:They're building media operations at the heart of, you know, these companies.
Brian:And I just see, look, we never had, we never had free snacks in the office until, until these Silicon Valley people decided that we were supposed to have snacks.
Brian:So I I, I look at what they're doing 'cause it usually
Brian:comes,
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Yeah, yeah.
ABM:And we do thank them for the
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Thanks for the snacks.
Brian:Not so much for wiping away like
ABM:I.
Brian:my and my colleagues, livelihoods, pickle.
ABM:Yeah, they also took the, the private cars and whatnot away.
ABM:So you get snacks, but you get no, no black car to the office.
ABM:you can take an Uber X though, and you could share it if you want.
ABM:yeah.
ABM:So.
ABM:I think brands buying media is an interesting way forward.
ABM:I think that its application is probably limited in scope.
ABM:It's not for everyone, but it can be very useful.
ABM:One of the ways it can be useful is within a big company.
ABM:Especially, a brand has a lot of fiefdoms.
ABM:So you have your, you know, your product owners, you have your usually an internal agency or brand team that manages all the other agencies you're working with.
ABM:And you usually have a bunch of other, groups that specialize in one thing or another, right?
ABM:Whether that be they, they put on events or they buy your media or whatever.
ABM:It's, and every single one of those groups wants.
ABM:To own content when it's being put out or they want some say in it or they want something to do.
ABM:and so if the brand is producing that work, then you have to go through all of those checkpoints.
ABM:But hey, let's say you bought a media company.
ABM:Let's say Amazon bought Meredith.
ABM:You know, they could keep all those people technically separate and be able to direct them to create content more efficiently.
ABM:you know, the other thing is content companies produce a lot of work and.
ABM:Brands often struggle with keeping up with things or turnaround times and getting the necessary approvals.
ABM:So all those muscles are, are built in for media companies.
ABM:So that's, that's definitely, a really advantageous way to utilize a strategy like that.
ABM:the other thing is, you know, if you're going to be advertising with a company at some point, if you're pouring a lot of money into it or you, you're developing a relationship over time.
ABM:You may think, okay, I could spend one lump sum here, take this over, and then just kind of run it as, as my own thing.
ABM:And they're, they're gonna generate some revenue on their own.
ABM:Of course, there's gonna be a cost to operating it, but you essentially move that cost from your marketing spend and, and buying.
ABM:ads or media within that website over to an operational spend, where you have a chance to make money, you have editorial control, and you hopefully have a, a more efficient content delivery system going on there.
ABM:So, there's definitely advantages to it if you can do it right.
ABM:It's, it's tricky.
ABM:I know in some instances where brands have bought media companies and integrated them as employees and all of that, they've even done things like capped them on different emails.
ABM:you know, so instead of@brand.com, they're.
ABM:At media company.com.
ABM:Right.
ABM:And, you know, that's one of the ways of kind of a plausible deniability, hey, they're, they're over there doing their own thing.
ABM:It's not us.
ABM:Meanwhile, you're, you know, editorializing their, their calendar for the next, uh, two months or whatever.
ABM:It's so,
Brian:And I think there's, so my thing is like, I think there's gonna be like in-between states, right?
Brian:Like
Brian:where you kind of
Brian:have I, and I don't mean to
Brian:slander the T, the
Brian:T-B-N-P-P-N people, right?
Brian:But
Brian:like they are.
Brian:They're basically a creation of like, founders Fund that just happened to have all their, like advertisers from Founders Fund, and then it's like the whole ecosystem and they're ba like, and I'm like, that's
Brian:kind of a good model.
Brian:like.
Brian:I'm not like, you know, casting aspersions on it.
Brian:I mean, it's a little bit, you know, cozy, but like, I think that we're gonna see more models like that where the.
Brian:The media outlet is like notionally, independent, but maybe has a couple of these like fractional relationships that are deeply embedded.
Brian:And again, it's not every category.
Brian:It's not gonna be the New York Times or something like this.
Brian:It's gonna be news.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:And they're not journalists.
ABM:Right.
ABM:And, and even if they were, there's no law that they have to be objective about these things.
ABM:And, and I think with,
ABM:I.
Brian:Trust me.
ABM:I think with TBPN, you know, they finally got a hit here.
ABM:'cause there's been these fits and starts of the v various VC firms starting quote unquote media companies and not really doing so great.
ABM:Right.
ABM:Or trying to control the narrative in that way.
ABM:But for TBPN is, is pretty captivating.
ABM:It's, it's a language, a visual language that we understand.
ABM:And then they also, yeah, they have that network of interesting founders and interesting takes.
ABM:And then they also are being really smart with some of their like, cultural commentary.
ABM:you know, we've, we've talked about we're, this is a podcast, so we have to talk about Feed me, I think,
Brian:Oh yeah, that's Emily
ABM:Mm-hmm.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:And she's on TBPN.
ABM:not sure if the odd lots TBPN crossover has happened yet, but that one I can guarantee you is
Brian:Yeah, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen Joey's in.
Brian:Ental, I always
ABM:Yeah.
Brian:to ental Al on on
ABM:Well, I wasn't gonna try to pronounce it.
ABM:I, I haven't heard it, so I,
ABM:no, I'm just kidding.
ABM:yeah.
ABM:All that stuff is kind of working together, right?
ABM:And so, when you can create one of those influential and, and kind of like increasingly influential ecosystems that feeds off itself, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna see some success there.
ABM:You're gonna control the narrative.
Brian:But it, it's, it's, it's less, you know what I mean?
Brian:Like, it's not, it's like, it's kind of, I don't wanna
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:it's
ABM:it's,
ABM:it's, squishy.
ABM:it's it's in the
Brian:right?
Brian:It, it's not the same as like Andreessen's, like future.
Brian:When they were like, we're gonna create the publication, it's gonna be like wired.
Brian:It's like, no, that's not the way you do it.
Brian:The way you
Brian:do
ABM:nobody wants that.
Brian:organization.
Brian:Again,
Brian:I.
Brian:don't mean this as a dispersion, although it, the more I talk, the more it sounds like one.
ABM:It's, it's not, it's not insulting or Right.
ABM:It's, it's, it's not a look down on them because it's a successful thing, but let's just call it what it is.
ABM:Right.
ABM:I, I think it's, it's more that, which is fine.
ABM:And, and I think, you know, the consumer, I think they're fine with that.
ABM:I think they understand that these days, you know, anyone.
ABM:At least millennial and down.
ABM:I don't know.
ABM:What do you, you're, you're the Gen X representative,
Brian:I, I am, I am as a Gen X representative.
Brian:I don't think it matters.
Brian:I think it's like, you know, I always go back to it being like an information, space and it has all kinds of different entities and I think one
Brian:of the really difficult things for institutional media is to, is to wrap their, their, their brains around the fact that they're just one small.
Brian:And, and shrinking part of this larger information, space that you're gonna have companies that own, media.
Brian:You're gonna have these quasi independent, but they're kind of not.
Brian:But, and that's fine.
Brian:You're gonna have.
Brian:F like all kinds of different, you're gonna have individuals, you're gonna have creators and influencers, and you're gonna have just people shit
Brian:posting to X that have influence.
Brian:I mean, cat turd is, is has some influence in some circles.
Brian:Like that's the welcome to the reality.
Brian:I don't know.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:I wonder if he's interested in
ABM:making
Brian:don't know if it's a he.
Brian:We don't know if, we don't know if
ABM:Oh, the
ABM:then did,
Brian:a they.
Brian:Oh, are they officially gendered?
ABM:they
ABM:they, showed up at some event.
ABM:Um,
Brian:Well, you know, in in my
Brian:in my little space, yeah, it's true.
Brian:In my little space, there's, there's someone ad tech, God, who developed, like, and this is a good example.
Brian:I've, I've spoken, I think it just through email with a TG.
Brian:but like it's an anonymous meme account, right?
Brian:That like exists seemingly mostly on like LinkedIn, right?
Brian:But is like.
Brian:Influential, like, and like he, they, put, put on like, you know, these activations and parties and like.
Brian:He, they do business with, you know, people who I do bus.
Brian:Like, they're like, they're in the
Brian:exact same space.
Brian:And I'm like, yes, I compete absolutely in some way, should we to do totally different things, but with an anonymous like meme account, like, you
Brian:know, and they now HA has like a podcast and do does, you know, a newsletter and all these other things, but like, that's the root of it.
Brian:A very different sort of background.
Brian:But that's
Brian:that's
ABM:yeah.
ABM:Well, I think it's funny, you know, Whenever I see in, in a Sarah Fisher newsletter, she'll say something like, you know, Sarah is a contributor to CNN.
ABM:And I'm like, well, I should hope so.
ABM:I mean, what are they doing over there if you're not, you know, it's just things like, and, and who cares?
ABM:Like of course you're gonna also report on that business.
Brian:for sure.
Brian:awesome.
Brian:Well, let's leave it there.
Brian:A BM This was a, this was a fun little summer experiment.
Brian:I hope to, I hope to make it like a regular thing if you're up.
ABM:Yeah.
ABM:Thanks for having me.
ABM:Great, great to be here.
ABM:Appreciate it.
ABM:And yeah, I'll come back anytime and, yeah, happy to be here.
Brian:Awesome.
Brian:Cool.
