00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;16
RYAN
We’re doing this.

JEN
All right.
Hello and welcome to this. Are you talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?

RYAN
I’m Settled

JEN
Okay.

00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;04
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing, insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de novo CEO and your host.

00;00;41;08 – 00;01;05;11
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.

JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.

RYAN
Today we’re going to talk all things agency with Steve & Robin Boehler of Mercer Island Group. And when we say agency we mean independent agencies.

JEN
We’ve got two special guests on the podcast this week. Friends of de Novo Robin and Steve Boehler of Mercer Island Group.

00;01;05;13 – 00;01;21;21
JEN
Mercer Island Group is on a real island in Washington state. And Ryan, I’m just going to ask you right now, is Washington State to our east or our west?

RYAN
I only know this because I desperately wanted to live in Seattle when I was in high school. It is to the West.

JEN
All right. Very good, you passed your geography test today.

00;01;21;23 – 00;01;47;11
JEN
Ryan, for our listeners, is really horrible at geography. So every day. Oh, yeah. Absolutely horrible. Every day, Robin and Steve help brands find that perfect agency partner. And they also help agencies like de Novo articulate their processes and their brand identity. Because, as you know, sometimes the cobbler’s children have no shoes. So Robin and Steve, thank you so much for joining us.

00;01;47;17 – 00;02;06;24
ROBIN
Happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

JEN
Can you talk a little bit about this dual side of things, how you work with both agencies and the companies that hire agencies and how that works?

STEVE
Yeah, we are lucky we have this fabulous job where we get to work with both clients and agencies on a day to day basis.

00;02;07;01 – 00;02;37;12
STEVEN
So on the client side, we help run a myriad of agency reviews every day, every year, like 20 to 25 agency reviews. We’ve handled hundreds of agency reviews in the last couple of decades, and so we get to sit with the client in the room for the presentation the agency gives, and after the presentation the agency gives, and work with the CMO every day to hear what their pain points are or what they would like in a how they’d like an agency to really help them.

00;02;37;15 – 00;03;02;04
STEVE
The flip side of that is we get to also work with the agencies to help them pitch better, help them develop better strategies, help them position better, and help them come across better in those really critical pitch meetings and processes. And we’re able to help them because we know what’s happening in the room behind, you know, behind closed doors with, with clients.

JEN
That’s really a fascinating job there.

00;03;02;07 – 00;03;26;14
JEN
I, I can’t imagine the differences that you see across agencies. So, I know, I know, you see a lot of different independent agencies, in your work. How how do you help these companies find the right agency?

ROBIN
Well, part of what we do is make sure that we’re up to date on what’s happening in the agency world.

00;03;26;14 – 00;03;54;01
ROBIN
On any given day, an agency closes an agencies open. So keeping in touch with and getting to understand and know what agencies are doing in the independent space is not covered by the agency media world very well. So we pride ourselves in staying in touch with and knowing what’s happening in the agency space. That said, there’s tens of thousands of agencies and we don’t know them all.

00;03;54;03 – 00;04;18;28
ROBIN
But we know many, many of them. And when a client comes to us, what we do is we try to find out, we learn what they really need. We get to know their culture a little bit. We get to know the people. We understand what their, sensibilities are around creative. We learn about, what what a scope of work looks like for them and what they expect an agency to do.

00;04;19;00 – 00;04;40;00
ROBIN
All of those kinds of things, budgets and all of that. And from that, we create a needs assessment that we then use to score agencies we think, based on our knowledge, well, we think could fit. We also do desk research every single time that we do an agency review just to see, are there agencies out there that we don’t know that might be a good fit?

00;04;40;02 – 00;05;08;04
ROBIN
And then we’ll do some, you know, extra research, get in touch with them, get to know them if we think there’s something there that’s a good fit. So in any review that we do, when we bring a list of, say, 10 to 15 recommended agencies after we’ve looked at maybe 50 or 75 and we can show that work, there’s usually there’s almost always an agency or two that we’ve never actually seen write a write a proposal or pitch.

00;05;08;07 – 00;05;29;23
ROBIN
And we love that. Because sometimes you find the right match. It happened, in a review we did a year ago for a spirits brand agency we’d never seen, and they ended up winning. And, and now they won another piece of business that we did because we’re like oh, we found them. They’re great. So that’s kind of how we do it.

00;05;29;25 – 00;05;55;18
RYAN
And before we get too far into it, can you explain, like we were familiar with an agency review you both, that is your job. That’s what you do. Can you explain a little bit about what an agency review is?

ROBIN
Yeah. So, you know, clients are looking for an agency, let’s just say. And, when I say an agency review, what I mean is the process by which a client finds an agency to hire.

00;05;55;20 – 00;06;17;21
ROBIN
And it can be anything as formal as a search consultant being hired, like us to run that review, that process, that, I’m using air quotes where we’re on audio so people can’t see me, but, to run that process, and so it feels more formal and there’s, you know, scoring and, a lot of steps along the way.

00;06;17;21 – 00;06;48;12
ROBIN
Most clients run their own quote unquote reviews, meaning they decide, hey, we need an agency or we need a new agency, and they go out and do some process. And it can vary from we’re just gonna meet with a few agencies to trying themselves to run a more formal process. That’s what we call a review. Any time a client is looking to review the performance of their current agency, by also looking at other agencies, or just to review a bunch of agencies to determine who’s the best fit.

00;06;48;15 – 00;07;13;04
RYAN
Nice. Yes. Perfect. That is a very good explanation. Thank you for providing some added context.

JEN
I know you you tend to work with agencies of all sizes, but you know, we’re a little biased. And I want to talk a little bit about smaller agencies. What do you think advantages are for smaller agencies?

STEVE
I think the biggest advantage is that small agencies, smaller agencies often are top heavy in their talent.

00;07;13;07 – 00;07;41;09
STEVE
So they have experienced folks that can work on the business across the agency. So like the in a small agency, the client basically gets the leadership team on their business in some, some form or fashion. And, and even if they’re not working in the scope, actively in the scope of work or truly day to day on the business, they are paying attention because the folks right beneath them are the folks that are managing the day to day.

00;07;41;12 – 00;08;08;22
STEVE
And I think that that that could be a remarkable difference for a client.

JEN
Do you find that a lot of clients are hiring multiple agencies these days? Is is that is that changing at all?

STEVE
You know, I don’t think there’s really any rule of thumb. I think I think I do think that, more and more, independent and small agencies are being hired by bigger companies for specialized roles within a roster.

00;08;08;29 – 00;08;38;00
STEVE
There’s been a lot more project work that has emerged in the last five years, and and that kind of work can really be well served by a smaller agency. And not some, you know, intergalactic behemoth, where that’s expensive. And you’re undoubtedly working often with folks that aren’t quite as experienced.

RYAN
Jen, earlier you were talking about how there are some differences in different agencies and independent agencies that Robin and Steve probably see.

00;08;38;00 – 00;09;02;19
RYAN
But I’m also curious, what are some trends that you’re seeing in the agency world these days, like, are there any trends that are floating to the top that you’re noticing?

JEN
Yeah. So I, I wrote that question. So I’ll jump in here really quick when we think about trends, in the agency world, I think about how companies are utilizing their agencies now versus how they did maybe ten years ago.

00;09;02;19 – 00;09;27;28
JEN
I know there’s some research out there that shows sort of it starting to be some consolidation of an agency that manages multiple partners. There are trends, and our next question is kind of more about the trends in, in AI. But, it’s it’s a little bit more about how you’re seeing differences in how what clients need from their agency.

00;09;28;00 – 00;10;09;12
JEN
And how has that changed over the years?

STEVE
I think one of the biggest trends that we see in our in our day to day work, with clients about their agencies and their agency roster is how can they uplevel their ability to offer a real integrated program to consumers? And so in the way that comes to life is that we see a lot of work in the media space where, amidst mid-market client or, or even an enterprise scale client might have a performance marketing media agency and a brand media agency, and the client is left to sort of knit it all together to understand the customer journey and understand the path of the customer.

00;10;09;12 – 00;10;34;21
STEVE
And they can’t, because the client themselves are almost always siloed in those those capabilities. Often what they’ve been looking for the last two years is clients, is to bring on a single agency to absorb all of that business with the hope that that single agency can better manage the entire customer journey from a data driven perspective, while they’re trying to figure it out themselves internally.

00;10;34;23 – 00;11;07;14
RYAN
Out of curiosity, I know that there’s there are some times that I consider as kind of a pendulum of, in-house talent or an in-house marketing team and a, an agency team. Where do you see that pendulum currently swinging, and do you see any, any changes that are starting to, to take place?

STEVE
Well, you know, as of even five years ago or so, roughly 80% of mid-market and enterprise scale clients had in-house some kind of in-house agency or in-house creative team.

00;11;07;20 – 00;11;36;27
STEVE
And so that’s not a really a new idea. One of the things, one of the, aspects of that that we see often is that those in-house teams aren’t super well-funded, don’t have all the capabilities or organization, structure and staffing that they need. And because of that, they they aren’t able to do all of the kinds of things that a really good agency can do.

00;11;36;28 – 00;12;19;20
STEVE
They often don’t have strategists in-house. They often, frankly, don’t even have account people in-house. They’re missing some really core technologies. They often don’t have an in-house studio. And so at the end of the day, there’s a, an opportunity especially, I think, for small and mid-sized agencies to be that great partner for the in-house agency to help them in ways, do things that they can’t do themselves, whether it’s strategy or it’s the range of deliverables that are needed, or because you’ve got your own in-house studio, etc., where you can grind out, you know, rapid turn, a range of deliverables.

00;12;19;22 – 00;12;39;14
RYAN
Yeah, that’s one of my favorite, formats, I guess, of working of working with clients. When we, I get the opportunity to set the strategy with their marketing director, and then we divide up the pieces, it’s like, okay, your team can handle this copy piece of it. de Novo is going to do a lot of the video and implementation, but really just kind of tag team it.

00;12;39;18 – 00;13;07;05
RYAN
And really I get to continue to overlook, look at that strategy and then work with their team to figure out where it works best for de Novo’s crew to do it or, or their team. I like that.

STEVE
And that attitude, Ryan, that you just mentioned, I think that’s one of the core elements of a lot of the small midsize agencies where you’re very willing to roll up your sleeves and work as a team with a client, that that often separates you from some of the really big agencies.

00;13;07;08 – 00;13;38;03
RYAN
Larger agencies don’t like that format. They just say, let us handle this. We’ll do it. We’ll give it to you.

ROBIN
They’re not set up for that. And given that at the – unless it’s a very big piece of business, the account manager could be very someone very young who actually doesn’t know or someone inexperienced, I should say, with not as many years under his or her belt and wouldn’t know that that integration is even possible because they don’t have the breadth of experience you able to see across the integration of all the marketing.

00;13;38;06 – 00;13;59;27
ROBIN
And that’s a huge advantage of working with a smaller agency, because you’re much more likely to get a senior person running your account who has experience that can see across your entire, marketing operation and where the opportunities are to lean in, lean back, and flex and, be much more of a partner to the marketing team than a vendor in.

00;14;00;06 – 00;14;24;01
JEN
We sometimes also get well, we’ll start working with a client and they’ll say, you know, this is our website partner over here, and this is, you know, who we use for this, or maybe we’re doing some influencer marketing. And, I found that it is just far better to say, you know, we can work with anybody, than it is to try to be territorial about it or try to, you know, consolidate that business.

00;14;24;01 – 00;14;51;24
JEN
It’s it’s a far better approach to just be collaborative. And I think you’re right. You don’t see that in the bigger agencies. They’re kind of all or nothing.

ROBIN
It is a definitely a concern for when a client is choosing an agency. One of the things that can be, an eliminator for an agency is if their references don’t check out around this, or if there’s any sense that an agency is too grabby so that what they worry about is.

00;14;51;24 – 00;15;18;19
ROBIN
So, for example, we’re just finishing a PR agency review for a client who replaced their creative agency about five, seven years ago and their media agency around then. But it was, for a bunch of reasons, they it was time for a new PR agency. They want to make sure – they love their creative agency, and they love their media agency, and they have an in-house creative team, and they want to make sure that the PR agency is going to be a good member of the family.

00;15;18;22 – 00;15;41;08
ROBIN
And that’s a very important. They say it out loud, you know, we need to know how they’re going to work with other agencies. Now, it seems like it’s an easy question to ask and answer. So how do you work with other agencies? Kind of feels like, why would you even ask that? Obviously they’re going to – whether they do or they don’t, they’re going to say they’re going to say they they work well, well you’d be surprised that not all agencies can answer that question well.

00;15;41;08 – 00;16;08;27
JEN
I would not be surprised. Actually. I think I, I think I’ve experienced it, on the other end of it. So, yeah.

STEVE
We actually were in agency pitches a couple of months ago. And that question came up and the senior agency person, that did not get the business, by the way, said one of the things they love about IACs is, you know, inner agency councils, is getting to know what the other agencies scopes were so they can go and try to steal some of it.

00;16;09;00 – 00;16;39;23
JEN
Oh, wow. Okay. Wrong answer probably.

ROBIN
I know it definitively cost them along with some other things. I think that was the, the, the it’s it’s sealed the deal as they say.

JEN
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you can’t hide your ego I guess. So.

ROBIN
They thought they were clever. Yeah.

JEN
Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. Do you see. Are you, seeing clients ask for scopes that include AI?

00;16;39;23 – 00;17;04;23
JEN
And how is that changing the landscape for you?

ROBIN
Yeah, I love that question. No, no. Yeah. They’re not. Clients are not asking for AI. I think everyone’s focused on AI but not, they’re focused on trying to figure out how they would use it and what it might mean for their job. People are really worried that’s going to cost in their jobs, and which I don’t think it’s going to cost people their jobs overall.

00;17;04;23 – 00;17;25;06
ROBIN
I mean, I think there’ll be some things that change, but I don’t think it’s just going to be a wholesale, you know, rip out, you know, it’s not we’re not building, you know, assembly lines that’s going to take workers off the field. It’s not the same thing. What they, they’re worried about AI, clients, more than they’re asking for.

00;17;25;06 – 00;17;43;14
ROBIN
We really want to see that they’re using it. And here’s the things that clients are worried about. They’re worried that the creative is going to be AI now, and it’s not going to be real creative. That’s coming from human beings. They want real creative. They don’t mind if you use AI to show work upfront in terms of concepts, but they sure then want proof that you can do work that is not AI.

00;17;43;14 – 00;18;07;23
ROBIN
They’re worried that AI in the media space will cause agencies now to set it and forget it, and there will not be any humans involved in thinking about the best way to go to market with media. And they’re worried that AI will take the emotion out of advertising.

00;18;07;26 – 00;18;36;18
ROBIN
And it will. If we, if there aren’t humans involved, because AI doesn’t feel, AI thinks. And we know that we need to get to feeling in order to get work that really moves the customer to make a change in their behavior. And, clients want to know that, an agency can get them to that space. And so they’re more in my experience, I’m here in clients more worried about an agency relying on AI than they are requiring it.

00;18;36;21 – 00;19;01;17
JEN
That’s interesting. I think that there is space for agencies, to help their clients figure out when it’s appropriate to use AI. And, yeah, we just had a conversation with a client today who, you know, they’re they’re not a huge company. And they don’t work on the weekends, and they don’t answer their emails on the weekends, and they lose opportunities to schedule appointments because they get things on the weekends.

00;19;01;19 – 00;19;31;28
JEN
How can we set up an AI scheduling system for them that on Monday morning they can come in and do the verifications on, yet they don’t lose business because somebody answered the call on the weekend, right, and scheduled an appointment. That it to me is a great way that an agency can help evaluate the technology and come alongside them, versus, and, you know, we have the same queasiness around the creative side of that.

00;19;32;01 – 00;20;01;14
JEN
And I, I had a LinkedIn rant about this a couple weeks ago because just that I think we we can identify the slop.

ROBIN
One of the things that we’ve talked about it is that AI is a how not a what. It’s it’s a way to do things. It’s a tool, just like all the other really important tools that different agencies use to get to great work in a more efficient way, and maybe to open up the possibilities, even of things that people hadn’t thought about.

00;20;01;16 – 00;20;20;21
ROBIN
It’s another tool, an important tool. And agencies need to start thinking about how they might employ it.

RYAN
And it kind of goes back to the whole piece of, how we like to work with our clients, too. I don’t know if this is necessarily germane to all agencies, but see ourselves as yes, a marketing partner, but also a business partner in general.

00;20;20;21 – 00;20;40;07
RYAN
So, like what you were saying, Jen, it’s like that is a piece of that might fall outside of standard marketing. It is setting up their their phones system and setting up a way that can answer the phones, connect with a form to see their schedule to get it all scheduled. And it’s it’s just like back in the day when we were implementing forms on clients websites.

00;20;40;07 – 00;21;06;10
RYAN
It’s like we don’t have to have a phone number there anymore. We can put a form on your website, the natural evolution of all of this and how kind of IT marketing and just business consulting really can go hand in hand if you have the right fit.

JEN
And I think that’s a good segue here to talk about the strategic insights process, which that, you know, you I, I don’t think you could build something that could emulate the strategic insights process that we learned from you.

00;21;06;10 – 00;21;44;04
JEN
So, and, and that process really, for listeners, we talk about the white space that a brand offers, that your customers want and that your competition can’t provide. So, Robin and Steve, you helped us articulate our think fresh process, which is uncover and understand, ideate and implement, refine and refresh. Tell tell us a little bit about the process that underlies strategic insights, like how do agency processes impact client work?

00;21;44;06 – 00;22;28;23
STEVE
It’s such a good question. I think part of it for us goes back to the the starting point is what we’re trying to accomplish with our work. And so I think you want to start there. Like what? What is that business objective? What is that marketing objective? What does the work have to deliver? And, and often the the quality of the work and its ability to deliver will be a combination of some really fine understanding of the target audience or the competition or the brand that helps, or all three, frankly, or some intersection, that helps us uncover some kind of a basic truth that when you hear it, you just sort of say,

00;22;28;23 – 00;22;56;15
STEVE
oh yeah, of course, but you may not immediately think of that in your own right. And that’s the kind of thing that can be the so the thing that supercharges great creative, because great creative usually has to do two things. One is it has to connect somehow with the audience, ideally emotionally. And the second is it has to somehow earn its right to be seen, heard or paid attention to, which is where some additional amount of creativity comes in.

00;22;56;21 – 00;23;26;07
STEVE
Well, it’s that insight work that helps. It’s sort of like the jet fuel that helps the creatives craft work that hasn’t, has earned its right to be seen and heard and felt, that has an impact on the business.

JEN
Can you, without giving away your secret sauce here, just give us a quick walkthrough of what Strategic Insights is?

00;23;26;10 – 00;23;53;09
STEVE
That’s such a good question. That’s a hard one to answer. It’s, you know, the the funny thing about insights is, you know, it’s sort of like the pornography question. You know them when you see them or hear them. Right. Insights are, are something that is typically really important to the target audience that have had are usually pretty emotional or judgy.

00;23;53;11 – 00;24;22;23
STEVE
We’re putting a stake in the ground really specifically in a way that makes people pay attention, that really helps them see something that they didn’t see before. And and what that helps what it does is it gives the creatives, a set of boundaries to work within that are really powerful.

RYAN
And lots of times we worry about boundaries being, making things more difficult for our creatives.

00;24;22;23 – 00;24;44;02
RYAN
Right? It’s like, oh, there’s all these rules, there’s all these boundaries. But sometimes when you have those boundaries or guardrails, it does allow you to think creatively and and get stronger work.

ROBIN
I think of it less as a boundary and more as a target. Right. So it’s not it’s not intended to restrict the creative. It’s intended to help the creative know,

00;24;44;02 – 00;25;12;08
ROBIN
to prioritize a narrow down the possible ways in to move a piece of business, whether it’s to increase sales or units sold or subscriptions or whatever. The thing is that people are looking for. And so what I think about in terms of insights is that it gets beyond the obvious to something deeper, that then provides a fertile playground for the creatives to play.

00;25;12;08 – 00;25;33;02
ROBIN
And that’s very targeted at what’s the deep motivation beyond that? The thing that you’d obviously know, if you’re a little wanting to know, why would a consumer buy this juice over that juice? How do consumers think about buying juice? Well, we could list all the attributes they care about price, they care about taste, that we can list all those.

00;25;33;09 – 00;25;58;12
ROBIN
And if you go after all of that, you’re very likely not going to get to any deep understanding. But what’s the real thing that drives the consumer when making that choice? Is there something special about juice, or about which grocery store they shop in, or about, which piece of technology they use, which washer they buy? There’s something beyond just the obvious thing, and that’s underneath that.

00;25;58;15 – 00;26;43;26
ROBIN
And if you can connect to that motivation, you’ve gotten closer to the heartbeat of the customer than the next brand. And if you can combine that heartbeat with the heartbeat of the brand, you’re likely to bring something that is different from the competition that can speak to the customer directly.

JEN
And that’s what makes you stand apart. You know, some of the things I think back to the initial workshop I attended, and the workshop that you did with our team, just the power of showing that sea of sameness that that brands tend to find themselves in that rut, that really helps clients, understand that they are doing something that looks like everybody else, which

00;26;43;26 – 00;27;08;16
JEN
they may initially think good, right? Like, I look like my competition. But how are you supposed to stand apart? How is somebody supposed to choose you over, over your competition? It’s also really tempting when you’re going through the process, to skip steps. You know, it starts with understanding the data and moving into interpretation. And eventually that judginess, that evaluation.

00;27;08;23 – 00;27;32;20
JEN
It is so tempting. And Ryan leads a lot of our strategic processes here. And he’s very adamant that you go through each step because, man, creatives just want to jump to that insight. And if you don’t take the steps and work that creative process from start to finish, you could miss something really important.

ROBIN
The thing that we see agencies miss most often is a competitive piece.

00;27;32;23 – 00;27;55;25
ROBIN
They figure out what the consumer really wants, the heart beat and the consumer. They figure out what the brand means, and then they go. And then they do really good category work, because what they’re not doing is figuring out what is the competition doing, so that we can do something that stands out from the competition. The category work only benefits the leader in the category.

00;27;55;28 – 00;28;14;20
ROBIN
Because they are they’re already the market share leader. And if you just promote the category, if you’re the category leader in cheese. And you promote cheese, but you don’t promote the brand, you’ve helped the category cheese leader to, it’s just for people to buy more cheese. And that’s important to remember that if you don’t. And that’s what we see agencies skip,
00;28;14;27 – 00;28;39;09

ROBIN
if they’re going to skip, we see them skip the, competitive space. And they bring work that’s in category advertising.

JEN
Category work only benefits the category leader. That is that’s a huge takeaway. And that’s a really good way to phrase it that I think people can understand. And, you know, you have to look at that.

00;28;39;09 – 00;29;03;28
RYAN
So, yeah. I’m curious. You’ve done a lot of work, you’ve done hundreds of agency reviews, work with countless agencies as well, which came first? Robin and Steve, did you start working with agencies first or did you start working with the clients for reviews first?

STEVE
Great question. And we started with clients. In fact, our first agency review was with Microsoft.

00;29;04;00 – 00;29;31;04
ROBIN
Long time ago.

STEVE
Well, I won’t say how long ago, but it was a long time ago. And, one of the things we saw and Robin, really had this insight years ago. After working almost solely with clients for quite a long period of time, managing a lot of reviews, we kept seeing agencies that should do better, not do as well as they should do.

00;29;31;06 – 00;30;02;16
STEVE
Agency’s not winning, even if they had a really good reason to win, and they weren’t putting their best foot forward. And that felt terrible. We love them. It’s a people business, right? We love agency people and we love agencies. And so we saw opportunities for agencies to do better at this kind of strategy were to position their agencies better, to figure out how to better present themselves in a pitch, how to manage the pitch, and how to sort of, how to develop better work, frankly.

00;30;02;19 – 00;30;26;13
STEVE
And so that it was that energy, that sort of sadness of a good agency losing for the wrong reasons, that that led us to work much more with agencies.

RYAN
And how do agency processes like do you working with so many clients, Do you get clients asking a lot about processes, like, do they want to know the how, the how the sausage is made?

00;30;26;13 – 00;30;50;03
RYAN
Do you get that question a lot from from your clients that you then have to, ask agencies about?

STEVE
Not overtly that way. The way it happens is that an agency will maybe will be managing review. There’ll be 3 or 4 finalist agencies. They’ll all do their presentations. And, 1 or 2 of them will showcase as part of their presentation.

00;30;50;03 – 00;31;28;17
STEVE
The fact that they have this fits what they think of this as special process, which probably isn’t that special, that it’s a process. And literally in the meeting, after the meeting, the clients often will say things like, hey, did you see that? They’ve really got a process. And the impact of the process isn’t that it’s going to be so unique, so much as it communicates overtly to the prospect that you have a way of doing things that they can count on so that if they hire you, they ought to be able to get the same kind of results that you’ve gotten for your other clients.

00;31;28;19 – 00;31;54;26
STEVE
And as opposed to you have great people, and you’re making this stuff up in the shower in the morning and maybe getting lucky. And literally that’s what they worry about. They do. Almost one of the worst things that an agency can claim is that point of difference is their people, which sounds sad because it’s a people business and because they love the people, but the people come and go and the client wants something more than that.

00;31;54;26 – 00;32;16;05
STEVE
They want the people, of course, but they want the people within a structure, a framework or process. They want some kind of machine going on over at the agency that’s going to make sure that those people are successful on their behalf.


JEN
I believe you did give us some tough love on that once upon a time. So.

RYAN
But it was accurate.

00;32;16;05 – 00;32;36;05
JEN
Yeah. It’s funny, I had sent a proposal over, and, it was for a municipality that we work with, and I watched their, council meeting when they were deciding on it, and there was one guy who was pretty cranky about it, and he said I had not. I sent over the entire team in the proposal, and he said, well, look at this nine pages of that just about themselves.

00;32;36;05 – 00;32;54;03
JEN
And I thought, I think Robin told me that once upon a time. So.

ROBIN
It’s very hard, you know, when you get the chance to talk to. And this is true, we see this a lot with most agencies. What you want is more chances to talk to clients so that you can show them what you could do for them.

00;32;54;06 – 00;33;16;17
ROBIN
And these are not easy meetings to get. I mean, it’s really hard to have a conversation or to get a chance to to, you know, pitch a piece of business in whatever way. Pitch, whatever pitch means. And, when you get it, it’s so hard to resist the urge to tell them everything because there’s so you don’t want to leave out the wrong thing.

00;33;16;19 – 00;33;52;17
ROBIN
The thing that would have been the thing that would have made them choose you. It’s very hard to filter back and remember that they don’t want to know about you until they’re convinced that you understand them. And it’s just it’s hard because your your knee jerk has to be so excited that you get to talk to them, that you want to tell them everything is to take that step back and remind yourself that you haven’t earned the right to tell them everything about yourself until they’re interested in knowing more about you, and which is going to be after you’ve shown them value around their problem, not your solution.

00;33;52;20 – 00;34;11;08
JEN
Yeah. Ryan and I both probably need that reminder now and then. We’re both. We’re both talkers. Very excited to talk.

RYAN
And like you were saying, Robin, it’s that meeting should be about them in a way. Right. And and lots of times agencies, they don’t want to do spec work or they’re hesitant to do spec work or a lot of work before that meeting.

00;34;11;12 – 00;34;30;10
RYAN
But I like what you’re saying. And Steve, you alluded to it, too, that meeting after the meeting. That is where those good conversations come up. And that’s when you want to stand out. And they they want to think about themselves, too. They don’t want to be like, oh yeah, I liked Ryan’s necklace. No, they they liked that agency’s idea that they can then talk about because it’s not them.

00;34;30;12 – 00;34;54;23
ROBIN
And remember, you bond with clients around their problems, not your solutions. The bonding happens around their problems.

RYAN
I love that.

JEN
I do, too, I do too, and that process piece of it, you know, we’ve we’ve always had processes and the way we do things, but defining that and including that on our website, in our, proposal responses, I have I have gotten direct feedback.

00;34;54;23 – 00;35;12;22
JEN
I appreciated seeing your process. It’s good to see how you guys think, so that that’s really important. You know, I, I do think that matters to, to people like like you said, Steve, you don’t want to wonder if somebody is just thinking up an idea in the shower. Not that great ideas don’t happen in the shower. They do.

00;35;12;24 – 00;35;36;27
JEN
But that there is a process to it that you’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall by choosing this agency. So, yeah, those were really important things for us to learn and definitely have made a difference in our own business. As we’ve progressed, since we worked together last year.

RYAN
I am curious what other things in that meeting after the meeting,

00;35;36;27 – 00;36;07;13
RYAN
Is there anything else that that comes up a lot other than other than processes? Are there any other things that you’ve you’ve noticed more or things that you’ve noticed your entire career that people need to think about?

STEVE
Sure. There’s a there’s some common themes that that that emerge from good meetings, and there’s some common themes that emerge from less than good meetings and so from the good ones, we’ll often hear our clients talk about how, wow, those folks that that agency team really understood us.

00;36;07;13 – 00;36;29;15
STEVE
They got us. And that usually came as a result of the agency being able to engage that the prospect in a conversation about the business, because most of the agency’s presentation was built around the client’s business. And so the talk was all about the client’s business, which, by the way, is what they want to talk about. They want to talk about themselves.

00;36;29;21 – 00;36;50;21
STEVE
They don’t really want to talk about you guys as an agency. And so that’s one of the themes that we hear. Another theme is around chemistry. We’ll often hear, in the meeting after the meeting, clients are saying either, wow, they really felt like they really liked each other. They know each other. They must work incredibly well as a team.

00;36;50;21 – 00;37;23;10
STEVE
They finished each other’s sentences. There’s clear camaraderie between them. Or, I didn’t feel that they were connected at all. And, and, and literally we’ve seen in meetings before the when, when agency teams would show up, especially for some of the major holding companies. What we have seen in the past where agency folks from the pitching team were meeting each other just before the meeting.

00;37;23;12 – 00;37;48;09
RYAN
Oh, wow.

STEVE
And it’s hard for that to come across as like a seamless experience, right? There’s not a lot of finishing each other’s sentences if you don’t remember the person’s name that’s sitting next to you. Right. And so, so chemistry often comes up, the, how well you seem to understand them is a, their business often comes up.

00;37;48;11 – 00;38;10;23
STEVE
And of course the quality of the strategy or the quality of the ideas, often gets discussed.

JEN
Yeah. I think that chemistry piece, chemistry with the, the team and chemistry with the client, I think are both things that we try to make sure come across strong, obviously. We all know each other before we go into a pitch here.

00;38;10;26 – 00;38;32;10
JEN
There’s only 17 of us. But I, you know, with, with a larger agency, I can imagine, that that that would be difficult to to come across as cohesive and one team.

RYAN
Yeah. Very rarely do you do a formal handshake with your coworkers that you work with every single day that you see every single day. But I could see that being like, oh, you’re from the Chicago office, like, nice to meet you.

00;38;32;10 – 00;39;05;10
RYAN
And it’s like, oh gosh, not always cohesive.

JEN
You know, I’ve sort of one final question for you and that’s that, for us as an agency and being sort of upper Midwest focused, we’ve noticed that there are fewer opportunities to pitch and more where they’re just looking for a response. Obviously you are working with clients that want to do a review and want to to make a decision after they interview, and there could be some spec work involved.

00;39;05;16 – 00;39;28;08
JEN
But are you seeing changes in those attitudes? I mean, my theory is post Covid it became this way, but do you do you see, do you have to talk companies into having the the full review ever?

ROBIN
No. I mean, sometimes they, they, they’ll look at our process and say, well, can we save money if we cut out some of these steps?

00;39;28;08 – 00;40;06;14
ROBIN
And it’s like, so no, we’re not going to cut out the steps. But, I mean, we’ll customize to make them, you know, fit the culture of the company. But cutting out certain steps all in, you know, we’ve, we’ve we’ve tried that. And our process is a process for a reason. I think what you’re talking about might be, you know, there are some companies that are not going to spend all that much on their, the final, advertising, you know, on their agency that the idea of running a review, doing something formal, we could just we’ll just meet with a few agencies and we’ll get a feel.

00;40;06;14 – 00;40;31;13
ROBIN
I think that that does happen. I think it’s always happened though, I don’t think it’s happening more or less than it did before. We are definitely seeing people presenting in person again.

JEN
I think that’s so important.

RYAN
Yes.

ROBIN
Hugely important, because getting a feel for chemistry over zoom is so difficult to do. So all of our reviews now are happening in person.

00;40;31;15 – 00;40;57;12
ROBIN
But tissue sessions, early Q&A is all of that is happening over zoom, and people feel very comfortable with that. I don’t know if this changed, Jen. I think, I think that there are companies that just don’t understand what it takes to hire a good partner. And yeah, you know, they’re doing a cursory job on it, but I don’t think it’s because they don’t value a system.

00;40;57;12 – 00;41;20;11
ROBIN
They don’t know a better way.

JEN
I think that’s certainly true. Where we’ve seen, the it comes across in the quality of the RFP often. It’s, it’s not well thought out. You know, you have to ask a lot of questions to just understand what they’re asking for. But, really…

ROBIN
A lot of marketers can’t articulate what they want and know when we work with them.

00;41;20;11 – 00;41;36;12
ROBIN
We can pull it out by asking the right questions. But they, many of them can’t. They’ve never hired an agency before, and they have no idea how to articulate what they need. And sometimes they’ll say to us, hey, we don’t want to put a budget on it because we don’t want to negotiate with ourselves before we get started.

00;41;36;14 – 00;42;00;08
ROBIN
Like, no, that’s not going to work so well. Or they’ll say, you know what? What we want is for them to tell us what the scope of work would be to solve our problem. Well, you know that a lot of that kind of shooting in the dark, we don’t think it’s very, constructive. We think it’s a lot of wasted rounds for everybody.

00;42;00;11 – 00;42;16;29
ROBIN
So we work hard with clients to help them identify. So are you thinking you’re going to want television ads? Are you thinking you’re going to want digital banner ads, or you’re thinking you’re going to want social posts? What are you thinking you’re going to want? So let’s at least construct something that could be a starting point, and then we can open it up.

00;42;17;02 – 00;42;43;02
ROBIN
But that, you know, if if there’s not someone like us involved, they honestly don’t know how to do a better job than they’re doing. I don’t think they’re intentionally obfuscating. I think they just don’t know how to articulate what they really need.

JEN
Yeah.

RYAN
And I think that’s very similar. But in the, in the selection process to a client saying, oh, I know it when I’ll, when I see it, when it comes to like a graphic, a logo, something like that, and it’s like, oh yeah, I get where you’re coming from.

00;42;43;02 – 00;43;02;16
RYAN
But that is very, very difficult. And it’s expensive.

ROBIN
Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot around as a creative, that,

RYAN
When it comes to all of the reviews you’ve ever done, what was the funniest thing, the most shocking thing that that happened in, in a pitch or in a review that really stands out to you?

ROBIN
Go ahead, Steve.

00;43;02;16 – 00;43;32;24
STEVE
Oh, boy. There have been a lot of reviews. And so let’s just say we’ve been shocked more often than you would expect. One one that comes to mind. And I know Robin will know what I’m talking about here is the, the agency that, in presenting a, the tissue session, it was during Covid on, and the client really wasn’t very interested in any of the work.

00;43;32;24 – 00;44;00;05
STEVE
It didn’t connect very well. And the client was trying to avoid being disrespectful or or overtly negative. And clients hate giving bad feedback anyway. And so so they were just sort of not giving much feedback at all. And the, very successful agency was presenting, big agency, and the the president was so offended that they weren’t getting feedback that he essentially yelled at them.

00;44;00;11 – 00;44;20;01
STEVE
And that was just, by the way, not a good look.

RYAN
No, no.

STEVE
You shouldn’t yell at your prospects , you know, when you’re trying to win business.

JEN
It’s pretty cringe.

RYAN
Oh my God.

STEVE
You know that that you shouldn’t yell at your your prospects. You know, and you know, there’s been we’ve seen we’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff.

00;44;20;04 – 00;44;44;10
STEVE
You know, one of the things we see a lot more often than you’d probably imagine is, a one senior person from the agency side just dominating the meeting, often at somebody that isn’t even going to work on the business. And that doesn’t just doesn’t come across. Well, it’s not as it’s not as interesting a story as the guy yelling at the the client.

00;44;44;12 – 00;45;09;18
STEVE
But but it happens quite a bit.

JEN
Yeah. Well, like I said earlier, sometimes people can’t just shelve their egos. Right. So yeah. So senior, senior, I can, I can say sometimes that is he is the senior person in the agency. Sometimes I forget and take all the oxygen out of the room too, and realize, oh, maybe Ryan should ask some questions here on the podcast.

00;45;09;20 – 00;45;26;23
RYAN
I’ve had my moments, too, Jen, don’t you worry. Where it’s like, oh, the Ryan show. Not not how we, sometimes we get carried away, we go for it. And I think that also comes with working with Jen for close to 15 years now. It’s like, yeah, I’m not shy. And we work together well and we know and it’s like, I’m going to I’m going to jump in here.

00;45;26;23 – 00;45;52;28
RYAN
I’ve got I know what to add in.

JEN
Yeah. He just gets his elbows out. Right. So, Yeah. Well those are I mean, those are such good insights on the process. And, you know, our goal here is to help, you know, our listeners, if they are, whether they work for an agency or whether they’re thinking about hiring an agency is just understand what some of those steps in the process are and, and and how to go about that.

00;45;53;00 – 00;46;16;29
JEN
So we’re really thank you for your for your insights on that today. And you’re sharing your, your years. You didn’t say how many years of experience, but your years of experience, doing this work. And I’m also just really grateful that at some point in time you realize that you can be of service, service to the agencies, too, and helping them because certainly, we benefited from that and really enjoyed working with you on that process.

00;46;16;29 – 00;46;41;04
JEN
So thank you.

ROBIN
You’re welcome. We enjoyed it too.

RYAN
Now it’s time for our section called ooh. We call them segments. Sorry, friends. Look at that. I’ve already I can’t even read my own script.

JEN
Get it together.

RYAN
Oh my gosh. Friday afternoon. Apologies. Now it’s time for our segment called Creative Briefs. This is where we dig into a marketing campaign, company or idea and see what insights we can learn from their their latest marketing moves.

00;46;41;06 – 00;47;13;09
RYAN
Today’s edition is a little bit different. Creative Briefs is tailored specifically to our guests, Robin and Steve. And we’re going to play a game called Guess the Insight. So as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, Robin and Steve are experts in a process called strategic insights. This is a process we learned directly from Robin and Steve, and that we use to help our clients find that white space and that white space where their brand can articulate something of value that meets their audience’s pain points that their competition can’t do or can’t say they can do.

00;47;13;11 – 00;47;39;00
RYAN
It’s the difference between a campaign that looks a lot like your competitors, and one that sets you apart and actually helps you meet your client’s goals.

JEN
All right, so we’ve got three pretty well known recent campaigns. And we did share with them in advance. And you’ll find those links in our show notes. So Robin and Steve, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to reverse engineer these campaigns.

00;47;39;00 – 00;48;00;12
JEN
And and I’ve seen you on your feet talk through some of these before so I know you’re going to be good at this. Reverse engineer each campaign and tell us how it succeeded or didn’t in producing something that had that emotional tie, something that stood out from other campaigns and tell us whether you think it was effective.

00;48;00;15 – 00;48;22;29
JEN
So we’re going to start with the first one. And the first campaign is for Splenda’s version of stevia sweetener. It’s definitely leaning on humor, but but let’s start at the top. So we sent you the link. You watched it. What what was the big idea they centered around in this campaign?

ROBIN
So we’re a little competitive on this Steve and I.

00;48;22;29 – 00;48;42;13
ROBIN
So we talked about it a little bit. But we’ve developed our own version of insights. So we’ll kind of see where we land here. So with stevia with this with the Splenda Stevia campaign, which I thought was fun to watch and I had not seen that work before. Clearly they’re targeting towards a health conscious consumer.

00;48;42;13 – 00;49;07;08
ROBIN
So that makes it clear. I mean, that’s pretty clear to me. It’s also clear to me that they’re looking for a health conscious consumer who’s seeking natural solutions, a natural alternative, to sugar and to the chemically based, which I drink far too much of, sweeteners that we don’t know what they’re going to do to our bodies.

00;49;07;11 – 00;49;36;23
ROBIN
And I think that overall, what they were going after here was to make sure people knew that stevia, which doesn’t sound like – it sounds like a chemical, it doesn’t sound like a plant is actually a plant. I think that was their goal. And I think it came from an insight, that is connected to consumers craving a natural way to enjoy sweeteners, and to show them if I boil to a file and say sweetness you can trust naturally, that’s where I would go with that.

00;49;36;23 – 00;49;53;11
ROBIN
And I think that they succeeded very well on the natural part of it. And in terms of the sweetness, I think they gave that away a little bit, too. It’s a plant. It’s a plant to plant. It’s a plant. It’s green, it’s green, it’s green as a way to show natural. And I think they succeeded pretty well.

00;49;53;11 – 00;50;15;21
ROBIN
And because I think the Splenda Stevia lets people know that we’re talking about a sweetener, so they didn’t need to hit you over the head with that. And I think it did a good job and I thought it was fun to watch.

JEN
Yeah, I had not seen that either. I crowd sourced this with the team and asked for campaigns that they had seen recently that they liked or didn’t like, whatever the case may be.

00;50;15;23 – 00;50;35;10
JEN
And, this one was new to me, and I thought it was clever, too. I especially the, the guy when he drops the baggie on the, on the counter. So.

ROBIN
Yeah.

JEN
Steve, you you’re in agreement?

STEVE
I, I am in agreement, but I had a slightly different way of looking at it, so, I do like the campaign.

00;50;35;11 – 00;51;05;18
STEVE
I thought it was, well, that I thought it was relatively humorous without being laugh out loud funny, and and it drove home some really important points. To me, there were two really core insights that that this campaign was based on, you know, without seeing all the data. And the research is, and so I think the first one was in industry Insight, which is I would characterize this simply stated as artificial sweeteners are artificial.

00;51;05;21 – 00;51;37;24
STEVE
And I think that’s the way people view the industry. All of the artificial sweeteners have had some kind of a health brouhaha, whether it’s, you know, causing brain cancer or you, you name it. Right? There’s all kinds of awful stuff out there, some real, some imagined. I also thought, though, that there was a consumer insight that which for me was pretty close to where Robin was, which is, so natural you could grow it yourself.

00;51;37;26 – 00;52;05;25
STEVE
And that’s this notion of right where, you know, there was green everywhere. And obviously the whole concept was that you could grow it in your backyard. And that was part of the fun of this. But I thought that that whether it was the creative folks having that insight or was it born in strategy, this notion that you could do it in your backyard makes it adds to the emphasis of how natural and real, right?

00;52;05;25 – 00;52;27;26
ROBIN
I mean, I think overall, they really lean into the notion that people don’t know that stevia is a plant. And that’s the problem. They went after the salve and did it really a plant you could grow? I mean, it’s it’s pretty clever. Good work I think.

RYAN
Yeah. And with with Splenda we know Splenda as a company like they were the first sucralose I think.

00;52;27;26 – 00;52;57;29
RYAN
Right. Like the first non non-natural sweetener. And they probably realized that they’ve got to overcome some of what people are thinking. Like they think that Splenda is one product like, no, Splenda is a brand that has multiple products. So I like that they entered the stevia marketplace.

ROBIN
This is where I’ll show my age. Sweet and low was, I think, the first chemical that I can remember saccharin was my grandmother used to put saccharin in her coffee.

00;52;58;06 – 00;53;22;10
ROBIN
That’s even further back. They were little tablets.

STEVE
Yeah, I think saccharin. Yeah. I think saccharin rose before everyone. Yeah, yeah. The pink one. Rat cancer, and had to go away.

Yeah, yeah. It had to go away. Yeah.

JEN
No it’s still out there. They were I, I, I see it in hotels the most, where I see the pink packet and it’s, it’s the sweet and low and still has the cancer warning on it.

00;53;22;10 – 00;53;48;14
JEN
And. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I’m it does not appear that there was marital strife over, over that one. So. All right, well let’s talk about our next one. So, next campaign is for Pella Window. So that’s a shout out to an Iowa company. Their Make Life Brighter campaign features a really adorable and very talented little girl, dancing to, Supa Dupa Fly by Missy Elliott.

00;53;48;14 – 00;54;09;26
JEN
Thanks for throwing that in there, Ryan. I would have missed it. Through the house. As storms roll through or hot weather and you’re seeing sort of this, like underlying current of climate change, and she’s unfazed and she’s protected from the weather by these gorgeous floor to ceiling windows. What was the big idea?

00;54;09;26 – 00;54;49;04
STEVE
For me, so let me start with the insight. So, I reconstructed my insight and the way I wrote this clip, clearly it’s built around the notion that windows can be really a special part of the human experience. The way I wrote the rewrote the insight was: the right windows silently make life better. And what that does is it it matches or combines sort of this notion of it keeps what’s outside where it’s supposed to be outside, and allows you to have this better life inside.

00;54;49;07 – 00;55;14;15
STEVE
The, brand appeal for me, was really critical here because it’s a low, clearly low interest category. This is not something people go around thinking about. But having said that, if you do think about it, and I can tell you because we’re having new windows put in, a large part of our home this summer, if you do this, you you better be ready to write up pretty darn big check.

00;55;14;15 – 00;55;40;05
ROBIN
Yep.

STEVE
Right. Because these are really expensive. And the the bigger the brand, the more expensive they are. And so this is a huge check that you have to write. And, and yet, it’s relatively low interest category. Right. It’s not like you get up every morning thinking, boy, I wish we had new windows or boy, my life is going to be dramatically better with new windows.

00;55;40;13 – 00;56;03;10
STEVE
And so if you going to get somebody to write a check for those windows, you better really be impressed by the brand, which to me brings full circle to some extent to the amazing entertainment value of the actual production. This is like a one woman Broadway show. I know there’s like with that one girl. One girl Broadway show.

00;56;03;10 – 00;56;25;03
STEVE
That production value for her. So brilliant. This is so powerful.

JEN
I did wonder if the dad popped in just so people wouldn’t wonder. Like, is this child home alone?

STEVE
So I could very well be I, I think I think for me, it’s the kind of thing that wanted the long form and that’s this, the one that you had in a link.

00;56;25;05 – 00;56;48;10
STEVE
They have a shorter form of this that’s actually a 30 second commercial. That is fine, you know, works just fine, but it really misses the magic and true entertainment magic of the long form. I thought this was really well done.

JEN
So they pulled it off. They they got the message across. It resonated.

STEVE
Well, they certainly did in the long form

00;56;48;10 – 00;57;14;26
STEVE
I think the short form is isn’t nearly as good. I would love to see how it tests.

JEN
Yeah.

STEVE
This like one of the high quality test systems like in episodes or a system one and see how, is it moving people? Are they getting it? Are they ready to go buy super expensive windows.

JEN
Yeah. And, having just redone my own windows, I can attest that is a big fat check you have to write.

00;57;14;26 – 00;57;39;15
JEN
So it they better be good, right? Okay, so my last one,

RYAN
Oh, no, I want, I want Robin’s, I want Robin’s.

JEN
Oh, yeah. We didn’t get Robin’s. Sorry.

ROBIN
Yeah. So, I mean, we’re in the same place. I’ve actually seen the the TV ad, on television many, many times. So the shorter, you know, the cut down from this, and I remember it.

00;57;39;18 – 00;58;18;06
ROBIN
So that tells you something right there. I remember that work. And I remember thinking what a great dancer she is. We have a granddaughter, two granddaughters, actually, who are who dance. And I remember thinking, oh, Sadie should be in that.

JEN
That’s a grandma’s job.

ROBIN
So, so that aside, my I mean, obviously we’re guessing as to where they wanted to go, but I’m sure that what they were thinking about here was trying to figure out, you know, with extreme weather, which we are, which is now intensifying around the country, you know, people see their homes as a refuge.

00;58;18;09 – 00;58;46;06
ROBIN
And so, you know, this very expensive home renovation should help you feel comfortable at home. And what what I, I wrote an insight, which I don’t know if this was their insight, but the work ladders to it. If I ladder back my insight is: More than a window. A window to your heart. Because she is so unbelievably lovable as a I.

00;58;46;09 – 00;59;22;15
ROBIN
She’s. The music is perfect. They even did the the trees swaying with the music. All of that, was it, it was very emotional for a very functional product.

JEN
Yeah.

ROBIN
And, I thought they did a great job. Now, I don’t know if they came, if they had as juicy an insight as the one I shared. But their work was good enough to ladder to that insight, I think, which is, very juicy and emotional and makes me feel a little bit bad we didn’t buy Pella windows for our renovation.

00;59;22;15 – 00;59;42;03
ROBIN
But, in any case, cost is a factor that they don’t talk about, and they get you past that all the way in.

RYAN
Yeah, yeah. And those windows, I will say I don’t know if this goes back to just like you don’t put black, shingles on your roof because they’re not energy efficient.

00;59;42;08 – 01;00;00;06
RYAN
And the same thing my dad would say, you don’t put floor to ceiling windows because windows are not efficient. They bring in heat, they bring in cold. And I think they’re, they’re showing like, hey, our floor to ceiling windows, they are they are efficient. So like they’re kind of competing that misnomer or combating that misnomer to that

01;00;00;06 – 01;00;18;02
RYAN
I think a lot of people still hold on to with the single pane window.

JEN
Oh, yeah. Ryan, your dad would scoff at that ad.

RYAN
Oh my gosh. He’s like floor to ceiling, like how how how? It’s winter. She’s wearing a t shirt. This must be an ad. Can’t be real.

ROBIN
Yeah. And the aesthetics matter a huge amount. Yeah.

01;00;18;04 – 01;00;38;11
RYAN
Well, Robin, I can’t wait for you to recreate that video with your granddaughter dancing in your home with the new windows.

ROBIN
There you go.

JEN
Yeah. Please share that when you make that happen. So.

ROBIN
You got it. I’m with you. She was adorable and lovable and that I had not seen it. And so I was transfixed by it.

01;00;38;13 – 01;01;07;12
ROBIN
I enjoyed the long form more. And I watched it 2 or 3 times, so it was good. So. Okay, last and in my opinion, definitely least I have strong opinions about this one is Tubi’s Super Bowl commercial, which I feel should come with a graphic content warning. Because it’s gross. It’s so it’s, it’s projecting a world where people are born with hats as, as appendages on the top of their head.

01;01;07;15 – 01;01;50;00
JEN
And yes, you have to see it to understand it. So, I think their message was about being true to yourself, but. But what do you guys think? Insights and big ideas there.

ROBIN
Yeah. So let me start with the fact that, I remember seeing it in the Super Bowl. And, so I remember seeing it. I don’t know if I remember if was Tubi, but I remember seeing it, and we should also just say Super Bowl is a little bit different than other advertising. Super Bowl has to go beyond just the insight to be a form of entertainment, because Super Bowl ads are rated as to terms of how entertaining they are,

01;01;50;05 – 01;02;11;09
ROBIN
how much people liked them, versus did they drive any sales, and did they really reflect strong consumer and brand insights? So I don’t I don’t know that they were working off the same, rules as the first two that we, that we evaluated. So I’ll give them that and say it’s memorable. But in all the wrong ways.

01;02;11;15 – 01;02;33;19
ROBIN
I think it’s, it’s a you, it’s a you be you. Right. Be yourself. I thought it was hard to look at too. I didn’t like it at all. I don’t think they ever mentioned what they really stand for, which is they’re free. It’s a free streaming service. And for cord cutters, it’s, that’s what they exist for.

01;02;33;22 – 01;02;54;06
ROBIN
It’s kind of schlocky programming, I don’t watch anything on TV. In fact, the only things I ever watch, I never finished it. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’m not their target audience either. So that’s all well and good, but free. They don’t mention free at all. But I know that this was as an entertainment, so they weren’t talking about their their their differentiators.

01;02;54;06 – 01;03;18;02
ROBIN
There is something about feel the joy that is part of Tubi. And I do think that in its own way, it was joyful in the sense that they really leaned into humor. So I’ll give them credit for that. But, yeah, I don’t I don’t know, Steve will talk about how it performed. He looked it up to see how it performed and how people, responded to it.

01;03;18;09 – 01;03;37;15
ROBIN
It didn’t didn’t work for me. I it’s not memorable for Tubi I don’t know what to be is as a result of watching it. And I found it hard to look at.

JEN
Yeah. Me too.

RYAN
Yeah. And not helping the category of streaming. It’s not help it like, you know, it’s not helping that category because they didn’t really talk about streaming a whole lot.

01;03;37;16 – 01;04;01;13
ROBIN
Right. They didn’t talk about, I mean, there was a nuanced mention of programming. Yeah. But not in a way that makes you understand that there are streaming service.

STEVE
I, I could talk myself into this being, possibly having pretty good strategy work in the background and a pretty awful execution. And, and I think from a strategic standpoint.

01;04;01;13 – 01;04;38;09
STEVE
So I don’t know much about Tubi so I did a little Tubi research, and it sounds like tuba has this ginormous catalog that includes a lot of really odd stuff. And so, and a lot of the odd stuff has has created sort of these little mini cult-like viewing populations. And so I can imagine, that the two videos I can imagine an insight that went something like that to me, you or, lives uncomfortably outside the norm.

01;04;38;11 – 01;04;57;26
STEVE
So they’re they’re outside the norm, but they’re a little uncomfortable with it because they like all this odd stuff that nobody else likes. Right. And so I could imagine something like that. And that actually fits, so you can see an undercurrent of that in the work. Right?

RYAN
Yeah. Because not every not every person in that commercial has a skin hat there.

01;04;58;01 – 01;05;22;28
RYAN
There’s only select people. There are others that that don’t.

STEVE
So yeah, the Tubi folks are the weirdos. Yeah.

STEVE
That’s actually right. They’re they’re really they’re, they’re, they’re this special little group that doesn’t seem to fit in is trying desperately to fit in, but they can’t. And and it says basically back to what Robin said, you be you, it’s okay.

01;05;23;00 – 01;05;47;25
STEVE
And we gotcha because we got this odd stuff that sort of fits what you want. Now, having said that, I’ve been like when I saw it in the Super Bowl, I hated it. I watched it dutifully 3 or 4 times this morning because I didn’t want to disappoint Jen and you in watching it. I actually grew to not hate it quite as much.

01;05;47;27 – 01;06;09;26
STEVE
But yeah, and I say not quite as much, but I do. I do know by looking up like the USA today ad meter, which I do not think is a terribly sound methodology to really judge advertising. It’s basically based on whether, you know, all known humans like something or don’t like it. The humans really didn’t like it.

01;06;09;28 – 01;06;42;28
STEVE
I think it was like the lowest. It was like scored in like 57th out of 57 or something like that in the USA today ad meter. It was scores so low, I don’t think I’ve ever seen something that low. This is a streaming service that wants to appeal to almost everybody and basically just created a story about that was intended to say, whoever you are, we gotcha, and nobody wants to be that.

01;06;43;00 – 01;07;08;13
ROBIN
And I didn’t walk away thinking that Tubi has niche content that I really should know more about at all. And in fact, I wanted to look away. So, All right.

JEN
So, so Tubi if you if you’re listening, you need to call Mercer Island Group. And.

ROBIN
Yeah, I’m sure I’m sure that they’ve had a conversation with their agency about how it performed, although knowing who their agency is.

01;07;08;15 – 01;07;28;19
ROBIN
My guess is that they really don’t care. It was all about entertainment anyway, and, onward they go.

RYAN
Yeah. And, Robin, that’s a really good point. You mentioned that Super Bowl ads, those are they they’re playing from a different playbook. They have a different goal. Yeah. And I thought that was very interesting to think about like so when clients come and say we want an ad that can be on the Super Bowl.

01;07;28;19 – 01;07;49;05
RYAN
It’s like, well we want to make your ad entertaining, but we want our ads to actually be impactful for your business and not just get people remembering.

ROBIN
And I don’t think I don’t think you buy a Super Bowl ad to move your business. This is a complete and total awareness and connection spend. It’s to grow the awareness of your brand with you.

01;07;49;06 – 01;08;12;23
ROBIN
Whoever your target audience is in a big way, you’ve got the biggest exposure you’ll ever have and you’re going to spend a ton of money. So I think it’s it’s not about, you know, the that’s the free streaming. I don’t blame them for not talking about that here. This was really to get people talking about Tubi. I just think that, you know, there’s that saying, I’ll, I’ll PR all coverage is good coverage.

01;08;12;23 – 01;08;35;20
ROBIN
I don’t believe that. I don’t think obviously people have a lot of negative things to say about it. And I think it may to Tubi is already seen as kind of a lower level, lower premium lower. You know, the content is kind of not great. I don’t think this helped.

JEN
Yeah. It might have reinforced, that, that perception.

01;08;35;20 – 01;08;58;25
ROBIN
But they’ve got a tier one agency doing the work.

STEVE
Well. So it’s really an interesting. Yeah. And this really fits in a way from the you know the Mischief as an agency takes big swings. Right. You know when I get on the the founder’s best quotes is telling clients often he says I often have to tell my clients you don’t have the budget to be boring.

01;08;58;27 – 01;09;18;09
STEVE
And I think that speaks volumes about how important it is for the work to stand up. And I think this work did stand out. I just don’t think it stood out in the way they would have hoped.

ROBIN
But meanwhile, the work that we all like was done by a creative agency called Single Thread, which is not a well known big top tier agency.

01;09;18;12 – 01;09;45;11
ROBIN
There are much smaller creative shop that does beautiful work very clearly. So, you know, there you go.

JEN
Who had the over under on Steve making a baseball reference?

ROBIN
Not a single one

JEN
No, he did, he said takes big swings. So I was like, there it is, Steve usually gets baseball.

ROBIN
As Mariners fall under .500, and he thinks about it a little bit less.

01;09;45;14 – 01;10;10;04
JEN
Yeah. Sorry for your loss.

STEVE
I talked about it a little bit less because it’s constant reminder that my heart is torn out every year.

JEN
Oh. Well, you guys have been delightful to talk to. Thank you so much, for sharing your insights with us. We have appreciated so much working with you and the work, the work that came out of that process.

01;10;10;04 – 01;10;31;24
JEN
So, thank you for sharing your time with us today.

RYAN
Yes. Thank you for joining us.

ROBIN
Our pleasure. Thanks for asking.

STEVE
Thank you so much.

JEN
That’s a wrap on episode 14. I want to thank our guests one last time, Steven and Robin Boehler of Mercer Island Group, for making us and our listeners so much smarter today.

RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here.

01;10;31;29 – 01;10;55;24
RYAN
If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on wherever you listen to your podcast, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info@thinkdenovo.com with the subject line Dear de Novo so we don’t miss it.

JEN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking, at blog.thinkdenovo.com

01;10;56;01 – 01;11;12;12
JEN
Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and be making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come.

RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring. Bye friends!

JEN
Are we swearing on this, or no?