#264: When the Analyst's Toolbox Includes Assessing the Zeitgeist with Erika Olson

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Welcome to the Analytics Power Hour. Analytics topics covered conversationally

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and sometimes with explicit language. Hi everyone. Welcome to the Analytics

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Power Hour. This is episode number 264 and I'm Tim Wilson from Facts

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and Feelings. On this episode, we're going to talk about hard things. There

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are a lot of hard things out there. There's Tuvan throat singing,

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there's tightrope walking, there's memorizing PI to 70,000 decimal places,

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differential calculus, trying to get me to make a coherent point.

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Right up with all of these, some would say, or at least many

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marketers would say, is measuring brand. Anyone within a country mile of

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marketing or marketing analytics has heard the declaration, we're spending

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a bunch of money for branding. It's a top of the funnel investment.

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It really just can't be measured. Well, on this episode, we're going to

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dig into that specific hard thing, measuring brand.

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My suspicion or my hope, maybe my expectation is that, well,

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first and foremost we'll surface some useful thoughts about how to approach

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measuring brand, what that means and what is and isn't advisable.

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I suspect though that along the way we'll get some perspective that can

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be brought to bear on measuring other things that are hard to measure.

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We'll see. Joining me for this episode is Val Kroll, also from Facts

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and Feelings. Val, how you doing? Have you ever tried Tuvan throat singing?

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What would you have done if I had given you a little sample

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right there? I want a, I want a sample right now.

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And that other voice we just heard from down under is Moe Kiss. Who

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is from, is it, was it Canvia? It's Calavania. What's your company's name

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again, Moe? Canva. What a comedian. Well, yeah, I think just maybe need

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a little bit more branding work for Canva. Canva follows me around a

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lot. I'll let the team know. We should do more brand marketing this

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year. You know what you need to do? You need to do some

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podcast marketing is what you need to do on niche analytics podcasts.

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Well, since all three of us have dealt with this particular challenge of

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measuring brand in various ways during our careers, we thought we could

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use the podcast to pick someone's brain who has really dealt with it.

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And for that we reached out to Erika Olson. Erika is a co

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founder of fwd, which is an insights and empathy driven brand consultancy

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that has done work with a ton of well known brands including,

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ESPN, Comedy Central, Nike, L'Oreal Paris, or is it supposed to be L'Oreal

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Paris? That's why I don't do French. Smirnoff. She was listing a whole

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bunch of other booze brands before the show, which I was tempted to

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just rattle off all of those to really skew people as to exactly

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what they work on, and many, many, many more. And today Erika is

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our guest. So welcome to the show, Erika. Thank you. Excited to be

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here. All right. So we rarely sort of start shows this way,

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but in this case, I think it actually might be useful to have

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you talk a little bit about what, kind of what types of work

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fwd does and maybe along with that, how and where does brand measurement

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fit in and whatever that means. Yeah. So we say we're an insights

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driven brand consultancy and it's pretty vague, I think somewhat by design.

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In more plain English I would say, we essentially help clients with any

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questions that involve consumers or culture. And even that is quite broad.

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Right? So I kind of think about it as we do a bit

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of like diagnosing or reacting like where there's problems. And this is

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going to foreshadow where some of those brand metrics come in. But lack

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of relevancy, lack of recall, slowing sales. Anywhere they see there are

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issues, we often help them figure out why those issues are happening,

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how they might be able to reverse them, what things are contributing to

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them or taking away from the success they're looking for. So we do

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a bit of that and then we do, I would say like optimizing.

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So that could be very tactical, like optimizing PAC, formula, comms, whatever

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it is, tactical stuff and a little bit of target understanding.

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So sort of optimizing empathy within the organization so that they can really

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understand and know who they're speaking to and make sure those people are

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receiving the message that they're trying to communicate as best as possible.

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And then the last one, I sometimes call it predicting. I think that's

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actually like a poor word for it. But we try to make sense

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of things. So often those briefs will start with things like help us

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make sense of X or how should we be thinking about Y?

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So when a category is shifting or the world is changing,

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we help them think differently about it. And oftentimes, how you have to

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think about that category is misaligned with the organizational structure

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that has been in place. So there's that and then a little bit

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of future stuff. So like the world is changing. We know that.

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How is it changing? Almost like scenario planning, some people would call

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it. So I know that was a long list, but that's why it's

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quite vague by design. One thing I do want to get an understanding

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of, I've been having lots of different conversations about people, I suppose

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more in the big tech company space. And you obviously had this really

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interesting remit because you get to work with so many different companies.

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What are you seeing as kind of the level of appetite at the

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moment for experimentation and marketing mixed models. Are people

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still on that train of thought of like, yes, I believe in brand

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marketing from an ideological perspective or are you finding

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clients are really like, we want to experiment and prove the value here

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or is it such a mixed bag depending on the client?

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You know, I feel actually like I've been seeing more and more briefs

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come from teams that are building themselves up to be the brand marketing

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team, whether that's their official designation or not within an organization.

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We work with Apple, obviously huge brand marketers, they believe in that.

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We work with Google largely on YouTube, again huge brand marketing and even

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smaller ones. We've been doing a little bit of work with Instacart for

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example, or booking.com or Credit Karma and all of those kind of started

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as like engineer led technologies really. And they've been moved into products

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which then create a brand. And I think, yeah, I would say I'm

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seeing an appreciation for brand and even marketing generally in those industries.

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Why? I don't know. I think there's just so much technology,

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it's hard to market a technology or a product without it living in

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an ecosystem maybe at this point. But I do, I do see that.

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I think we're moving more toward brand marketing in those spaces,

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at least based on what's coming our way, which is probably a bit

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biased. I mean, a lot of those, the brands that are like totally

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household brand names and it does seem like kind of a relevance or

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a sentiment. They're ones that they're trying to, in many cases,

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trying to be the good guys. Do you run, do you have brands

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that are, they really need to kind of get out there. They're not

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widely known and you're trying to expand their awareness or expand their

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affiliation, affinity for some category because they're like, we're thought

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of as a X, but really we want to be X and Y?

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Yeah. So that's where like of the stuff that we do,

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I would put almost that future facing or how do we think of

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X or Y. A lot of times the impetus for that is,

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we know we're a brand that's really good at X, but the world... I'll

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use an example. We're a brand that's really good at being competitive,

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being the best, standing for winning, but the world is moving more toward

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expression and emotions, and sometimes those things don't always align.

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So we know we're really good at this, but the world is moving

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this way. So you could call it a category expansion, but it's almost

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a brand expansion in some way based on metrics and measurements of some

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kind somewhere. So yeah, I'm not sure if I answered the question,

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but yeah, yes. Just to tease that out a bit, you use the

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word brand expansion versus shifting perception of a brand. It sounds like

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you see a real difference between those two things.

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Yeah. Well, I would say brand expansion is

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an action that a company can take intentionally and with a strategy.

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Whereas brand perception, they can't do that. Right? I mean, that's on consumers.

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That's not something a company can do. They can do things to try

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and change perception, but they can't go from A to B or this

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to that. And those who think they can or that they have even

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the lion's share of control in that, I think have a,

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have another thing coming oftentimes. Well, Moe do you wind up dealing...

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I look at Canva and I may have this completely wrong because I

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haven't been, but Canva started as like, I think presentation, like better

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presentation. It has continued to expand. Every time I turn around,

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it's a collaboration platform. It's a, you know, it's your image generating

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thing. I'm getting these in the wrong order, but it feels like you're

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in a spot where Canva gets put in,

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was in one bucket and then said, no, we're also in this other

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bucket and now we're in this other bucket. So when you're

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teams are like, are they looking at Canva? People have heard of it.

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Canva. They have heard of it and they associate it with whatever this

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particular category or use case is. Are those two separate discussions?

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Yeah, we definitely look at association and I would say that expansion is

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very much top of mind, like over kind of the last period of

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time, you know, we are very focused on the visual suite.

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But it really is about also how people use Canva at work.

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Because I think predominantly, like I was a person who started using Canva

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in my personal life. I made my wedding invite and my birthday invites

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and stuff. But now it's like a core part of my job.

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And that is, like Erika was saying, that's like an expansion of how

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we think about the product. And the same is true of,

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like, our focus on education. That's a real expansion play. But yeah,

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we primarily measure all of that through our

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brand health tracking and through category association. So that's actually

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one of the questions that I had. I'm glad you brought up brand

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health tracking. So it's because we're talking about this, like multiple

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product lines or extensions, multiple different entry points into each of

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these brands. When you think about, like measuring the health of a brand,

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it's like among who and for what. Right? Because those different audiences,

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that's probably pretty core and key to just even giving context to whatever

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even that health score really is. But I'm curious your thoughts on that,

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Erika, and how brands kind of grapple with those different kind of entry

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points. I mean, there's so much to say about brand trackers.

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They're like, great. And they're so misleading and they're deeply analytical

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and they're incredibly vague and all of the things, it's like an and,

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and, and. Well, but I salivate when somebody has a brand tracker and

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keep bash brand trackers for... And I don't know if it goes toward the

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wrong audience, but like, what's the... I get so excited when somebody has

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a brand tracker. What's the downside of it? Why do you salivate? Yeah, I'm

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curious. Okay, let's let Erika answer that and then I want to hear

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why you salivate when people do have them.

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Well, yeah, it's better than nothing. I mean, that's what I like about

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it is like, okay, we have something that's not just the people inside

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the building who live and breathe this brand all day. You are the

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worst gauge of the brand health possible. So, let's start there.

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Right? So at least there's something that pulls someone outside of

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the email domains. But gosh. Okay, so what, I, what do I,

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what question am I answering? The brand bat? Brand tracker bashing or are

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we... What was Val's question? I lost it. We can get back to

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Val's. Val, repeat your question. Sorry. No, no worries. It's all in the

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same family. I'm just curious about the among who. Like, when you're talking

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about the different audiences relative to the score that you get and understanding

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the value of their dollar versus the other audiences you can be measuring

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against, and just some of the complexities and nuances there. Yeah,

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okay, sorry, I'm back on the chart. There's so many things to talk

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about when it comes to brand trackers. I'm like, what do we go

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to first? First of all, I think they're

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very helpful, right? It's somewhere to start. The piece that makes me frustrated

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and where I think they can go awry is how they're built and

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how you think about what to track and critically how you define what

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to track. I think actually people get the audience bit as far as

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I've seen, pretty right. It's like demographic and they get

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the bones. The bones are there. But it's when you start tracking words

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that are vague. So like, trust is one of my favorites.

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Loyalty, like all of these things. Trust is actually one that really gets

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my go every time. Because almost inevitably a client with a brand tracker

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will come and they'll say, well, it shows that trust is the... They

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did some conjoint analysis that trust is going to drive sales.

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Great. So we want trust in brand and that's how we're linking brand

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marketing to results. Clear. Everything's clear. But then you... Then they

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come and they say, okay, so this is a diagnosed problem they come

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with. We need to figure out why this brand doesn't have a lot

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of trust and how to get it there. Well, trust is like a

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solar system. It's like, trust isn't binary. You don't trust something or

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you don't, like, take a... I have a lip product right in front

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of me. It's like, do I trust this lip product is not going

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to burn my lips off? I do. Do I trust it's going to

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be just about fine compared to everything else? Probably. Do I think it's

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going to deliver my most luscious, amazing, never chapped lips in the middle

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of a Chicago winter? Absolutely not. When you put a word, when you

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put a big broad word like trust or loyalty or a lot of

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these common tracking words or attributes onto a brand level thing. I could

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barely answer that for a product level thing. When you put that on

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brand, that's where I feel like it can get so big that while

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I understand where the brief or the client is coming from,

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we kind of get like, okay, well, we have to just re interrogate and

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the whole project becomes, well, these 8,000 people that filled out this

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quant survey, what did they think trust meant? What were they thinking?

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And now you're second guessing. And now we're all ways to Friday, and

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we kind of start at the very beginning. So that is A,

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where the brand tracker can start to get, I guess, sometimes misleading,

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and B, I find the audience is right, but starting to interrogate those

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words and what the audiences understand by those words and the questionnaire

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itself, that's where things can get quite muddy. And you often find when

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you dig in that you're almost starting from square one. The instinct is,

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we're going to use something like trust or loyalty because we want it

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to be timeless. We want to be able to track this over a

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long period of time. Therefore, we don't want to get specific.

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This will be better, but in the process, you kind of make it

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sort of less useful because then you're back to saying, well,

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now I need to figure out what trust means. And it means different

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things to different people and what the hell? Okay. So, Erika, what should

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we be measuring? Great question. So I'm a strong believer that

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tracking should be built from a strategy and not the other way around.

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And what I mean by that, I think Coach is a really good

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example. We work with Tapestry and the folks at, you know,

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they have Coach, Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman, and Coach has been a really

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interesting one because they decided that they wanted to be younger,

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appeal to Gen Z, and they were so clear about that strategy.

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And they started tracking the metrics that built toward that strategy.

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And I think they still track metrics that don't. Maybe how much Gen

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X likes it or whatever. But they're so focused on very distinct and

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articulate metrics around Gen Z. Like, is this brand cool? Is this brand

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relevant? Do I see this brand on social media? Do I equate this

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brand with, like, some of the other brands that were kind of their

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North Star? Who do I think... I think they have a few different

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talent people on their roster. Do you think of these people when you

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think of this brand? So they're far more sharp and articulate,

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and I think that makes them more actionable and diagnosable when it goes

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wrong. There's clearly something to change that's within a far more actionable

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scope than like, okay, well, we have to build trust or loyalty.

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It's like, okay, well that's marketing. I don't know what to tell you.

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We gotta do a lot of things. Whereas when they're more narrow and

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singular, I think it's a lot easier. And out of curiosity though,

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do you feel like there's a compromise there with the ability to measure

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long term then? Because like, your strategies change hopefully every couple

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of years at least at a minimum. How do you balance that longevity

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of measurement with being quite specific on the strategy of now?

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Good question. Yes and no. I guess I just don't put that much

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weight in those big vague things. I'm like, what is that even indicating

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to you? Because when you scratch it a little bit, that could come

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from a million different places that's all pretty reactive to the strategy

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you're implementing at any one time. So I guess, yes, it does come

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at the expense of that in my opinion. But I'm not sure how

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useful that is when it gets to such an altitude that it's undiagnosable

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or unattributable. Or even some of the older data. Like I'm not sure

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how compared to past three years ago, like how you were even talking

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about a second ago, Erika, about the changing ecosystem and like,

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what trends are current or popular really says the context for how your

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brand kind of fits in the mix. Right? So that context shifting and

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changing means that that comparison is probably less valuable. I don't know,

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I'm just thinking about that out loud. But that, doesn't that equate to,

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I mean, even with easy metrics like traffic to a website and you

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start hearing, you get pushback because you're moving to a new tool or

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moving to something else and there's this intuit, this natural reaction

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like, but this is gonna blow up our ability to track the last

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seven years. And I feel like, Erika, you were just being polite because

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it was kind of like a, yeah, who the hell cares? Who cares

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how if your brand has moved on trust by X basis points over

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five years? Nobody's actually looking at your sales from five years ago.

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You wanna know, what have I done this year? Were you being nice?

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I felt like you were pulling punches. Well, I just don't know what

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that tells me as a marketer. Like, okay, so we're more trustworthy now

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by six points than we were then. I'm not sure what to do

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with that. Like, okay, so our strategy was good, but even that's like you're

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looking back a bit, and if your strategy is good, you're gonna know

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by sales, you don't need a trust metric. Right? Like, so,

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yeah, I think it kind of, it's like big but vague,

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and I just find those a little bit difficult to attribute or learn

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from even. Maybe not learn from, but action at least. I've got to

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ask then, what's your perspective on measuring brand awareness and brand

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consideration? I think it's really important. I think it's really important

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because I think you figure out where to put resources and what questions

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to ask based on those things. Like, if you have low awareness but

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high consideration, then it's like, okay, well, we need to get our name

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out there, right? Why am I putting resources into bottom funnel stuff?

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I think it shows you what you should be focusing on given limited

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resources. And I think there's a playbook, a broad playbook for like,

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awareness versus consideration versus conversion. Like, we have a ton of

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great clients who, once you get someone in the brand, they stay in

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the brand because the products are great, but it's really about getting

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them in the brand. So then it's like, okay, and then you get

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into like, you know, performance marketing and things like that. So I think

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it's really helpful to figure out kind of what basket to put your

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eggs in in that way. So you mentioned talking about, like, if the

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brand is strong and it's healthy, that that's going to show up in

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sales. I'm curious about the projects where the CFO's office is interested

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in understanding and tying together the investment in brand or like,

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even Tim was kind of teeing up in the intro to what can

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we expect in terms of business outcomes? And so how do

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you approach that conversation with organizations and what do you put in

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place to help draw those connections where possible? So luckily, I'm not

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usually the one that has to have those conversations. I feel like

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people come to us after they've had that conversation and they have a

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little bit of budget. So in full transparency, I don't have to,

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but obviously I'm quite close to it. And I would say there's a

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few things, like, I do think it's pretty hard to draw a dollar

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value, but there are pretty, like, intuitive actions. When a brand is healthy,

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I think you have inherent trust from the consumer versus immediate skepticism.

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So you're playing offense, you're not playing defense, which is really nice.

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And then you have lower standards for success. Right? If a brand is

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vetted just with that lack of skepticism, you're already being chosen.

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And so like any consumer CX issues or

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any issues like that, I think you get the benefit of the doubt

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and you're not... The switching barriers are lower. So all of those things

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that are true metrics and are pretty adjacent to sales but maybe is

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not like a dollar value or like a return per dollar spent type

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type thing. And then the second thing I'll say is what I see

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a lot which is instead of saying like, oh, this investment is working,

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I think people often come at it from an alarmist point of view.

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The argument that I see working quite often is like, what would I

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say? Like, we're losing to so and so. No one knows us.

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Retailers aren't wanting us, our shelf space is getting taken up.

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So anything that shows an inherent inferiority on a brand level,

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I feel like is the stronger argument to like a CFO, what are

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we going to do about this? Because we're going to keep losing dollars

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until we invest versus here's the return on this is

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the approach I see taken more often. Yeah, I get asked very regularly

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what the dollar value of one point of consideration is worth. That's a

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question I... How do you answer that? Not well. Moe's like,

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I'm nauseous. Not well. But we are actually building something out over

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the next, well the next few months, that are going to be able

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to help us do that. So I will keep you posted on progress

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there. But it does feel like the dream. I'll let you know if

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we pull it off. I mean, there's definitely customer value. Right.

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And now we're getting a little bit away from brand, but

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everyone talks about Gen Z, Gen Z and now it's Gen Alpha,

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Gen Alpha and still boomers carry the majority of wealth. So there are,

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like I've heard a lot of different equations like for each boomer we

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lose we're going to have to acquire three Gen Z. So like,

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all of this resource is going toward Gen Z. But

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there's some customer equations like that that ladders to like, so are we

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shifting our brand to be better positioned for Gen Z when really we're

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trying to retain boomers? Does that equation make sense? So although it's

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not a direct dollar value, I have kind of

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heard that kind of equation. That's interesting. That's super interesting.

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I like that. Well, and Moe, like with the, the one point that

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has me thinking as well about, one, what does it take to

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shift a lot of things it seems like here are trying to actually

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shift. It's one thing to measure it, but to say what's the lag

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from, we're trying to move with this population from point A to point

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B and we're investing a lot, maybe different tactics to do that.

360
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Even when we're measuring it, no matter how we're measuring it,

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there's squishiness in what's being measured. So that seems like a challenge

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that one, there's a time component saying we're going to have to run

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down this path for a while to see if it moves the needle.

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And the needle is kind of fluctuating at one spot and it's,

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we're hoping it's going to fluctuate at some other spot. Running into this

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kind of precision challenge of we're measuring it, next month we're going

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to look at it again. I guess this is back to brand trackers

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with kind of a expectation that it's giving some perfect measurements of

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something that is, it's not giving a perfect measure of something that's

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difficult to measure. How do you kind of set expectations or coach to

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say, are we doing the right thing? Are we getting the signals back

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that what we're doing is actually working? But I think that's why like,

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I don't know, this, some of this knowledge is a little bit out

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of date. But a lot of the companies like where we've,

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you know, taken talent from or whatever, they're basically running hold

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out experiments. That's kind of their tactic to measurement. But then they

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have gone, okay, we've done that experiment. We just now fundamentally believe

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in brand marketing and we're going to keep spending on brand marketing until

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we run our next experiment in 12 months or two years or whatever,

380
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like versus because like, I mean ultimately brand experimentation is really

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hard. Right? And I think the thing that I always come up against

382
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is, well, we want to buy nationally because it's cheaper. So as soon

383
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as you want to run an experiment, you can't do a national buy.

384
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You have to buy at local levels and that becomes more expensive and

385
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more difficult to execute. So like, it seems like what some companies do

386
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is, I'm going to run this experiment. We as a company are going

387
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to believe that brand marketing works based on these experiment results

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and then we will revisit and run another experiment down the line.

389
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I'm curious, Erika, is that something that you've kind of been exposed to

390
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or less so? I would say less so. I think, yeah,

391
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I think we wouldn't get a client coming to us if they didn't

392
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believe in brand marketing because we're not engineers. And I talked a lot

393
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about what we do do, what we don't do, we do not do

394
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any quant in house nor do we do any execution. I don't think... It's

395
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maybe a little bit of a hot take, especially amongst you three,

396
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but I tend to think your gut is a little bit of an

397
00:27:42,650 --> 00:27:47,600
important measurement when it comes to brand as well. Like I said, you're

398
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in the building and you shouldn't be a measurement of how the brand

399
00:27:50,470 --> 00:27:53,830
is doing. But you're also someone who's hyper aware of every time the

400
00:27:53,850 --> 00:27:57,650
brand is mentioned, everywhere you see it or don't see it,

401
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:02,560
every person who kind of you are third degree connected to who's heard

402
00:28:02,580 --> 00:28:06,600
of your brand or not. I do think that's an important metric and

403
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:10,340
it's one that is an amalgamation of all the things.

404
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,090
You have a better sense of where it should be and if it's

405
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not there, that's a problem. You have a good sense of where you

406
00:28:16,830 --> 00:28:19,590
would be surprised to see it pop up. And if you do see

407
00:28:19,620 --> 00:28:23,340
it there, you're like, okay. Or even like, this person in this space

408
00:28:23,410 --> 00:28:26,160
has heard of this. That feels like a really important data point.

409
00:28:26,220 --> 00:28:30,340
So I do think we're really smart as humans in ways that sometimes

410
00:28:30,500 --> 00:28:36,430
quant tools of all kinds cannot measure. But I would say people don't

411
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get to us because we can't really optimize. I guess we can optimize

412
00:28:41,270 --> 00:28:45,040
a little bit. But that point, you're in the weeds of optimizing product

413
00:28:45,130 --> 00:28:48,900
and that you're in like RNI land at that point. So most people

414
00:28:48,940 --> 00:28:52,250
that come to us to varying degrees believe in brand marketing or at

415
00:28:52,250 --> 00:28:55,310
least want to see what it can do and are excited to figure

416
00:28:55,350 --> 00:28:58,120
it out. And you know what I find? Like, it's so...

417
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I feel like quant sometimes is so much more subjective than qual.

418
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And I know that's the opposite of what most people would say,

419
00:29:05,940 --> 00:29:10,110
but I feel like quant, if I said the sky is purple because

420
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,080
this quant survey says 40% of the sky is actually purple,

421
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everybody would say, okay. And then in qual, if I went up to

422
00:29:17,010 --> 00:29:19,610
you and I said, I've taken all these data points in,

423
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,380
and I think about 40% of the sky is purple, people say,

424
00:29:22,420 --> 00:29:24,940
no, it's not. I live in the same world you live in.

425
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We're looking at the same sky. And I feel like people kind of

426
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know when it's not true. And so I do think, I guess that

427
00:29:33,870 --> 00:29:37,700
that is the lesson that has sort of taught me this. Humans are

428
00:29:37,730 --> 00:29:44,670
pretty good barometers of some brand metrics, relevancy, probably one of

429
00:29:44,690 --> 00:29:47,770
them. If it's in the spaces it's supposed to be, if it's moving

430
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,230
in a direction they want it to move. I don't... I think I

431
00:29:51,330 --> 00:29:54,710
ruined the question. No, no. No, not at all. But yeah. But so,

432
00:29:55,150 --> 00:29:58,580
when you go back to a business after a piece of work and

433
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:00,720
you're like, this either went well or it didn't

434
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,700
go well, what do you share back? How do you... What's part of

435
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:09,700
that narrative that you talk to the business about? So I would say

436
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:14,630
when we're doing our jobs well, we find the answer. And the answer

437
00:30:14,670 --> 00:30:18,880
is often an insight about people or the world, and it's explaining why

438
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something is happening that they're seeing or why something's going to happen.

439
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And like I said, it's qual, it should feel pretty intuitive. Sometimes I

440
00:30:26,210 --> 00:30:29,670
think when we do our jobs really well, people don't appreciate it because

441
00:30:29,710 --> 00:30:33,770
they're like, yeah, of course, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, exactly.

442
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,170
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. But then, we try to give that answer

443
00:30:37,220 --> 00:30:39,610
but what we try to do as part of the narrative,

444
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,470
and I think this helps both understanding and adoption and then actionability,

445
00:30:44,550 --> 00:30:48,330
is giving context. So it's not just, here's this thing in the moment

446
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,440
that you should know to be true. It's, here's this thing and we're

447
00:30:51,450 --> 00:30:54,990
going to surface it as an answer or helpful data point to your

448
00:30:55,030 --> 00:30:59,460
question, your issue, the opportunity, whatever. And here's the context.

449
00:30:59,500 --> 00:31:03,470
Here's how we got here. Here's what's happening that's making this thing

450
00:31:03,510 --> 00:31:09,020
be true. Whether it's the world is moving this way, we see that... Luxury,

451
00:31:09,030 --> 00:31:11,920
we'll take that. I think sometimes examples are a little bit easier.

452
00:31:12,010 --> 00:31:14,630
Yes, I love. I want to hear about this. It's like we have

453
00:31:14,650 --> 00:31:17,940
a lot of brands in various categories that play in luxury or a

454
00:31:17,940 --> 00:31:21,610
really High price point. And I think there was a moment where they

455
00:31:21,630 --> 00:31:25,040
were like, what's going on? Luxury marketing is changing, and we're kind

456
00:31:25,070 --> 00:31:27,760
of seeing it, but we're kind of not. And it was this moment,

457
00:31:27,830 --> 00:31:32,150
and we looked around in the world, and it was when that movie.

458
00:31:32,260 --> 00:31:37,070
What was it called? Was it called Parasite? It won the Best Picture. And

459
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,270
it was when Bernie Sanders was really having a run. And it's like,

460
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,050
there is this notion in culture right now that's a little bit like,

461
00:31:44,090 --> 00:31:49,250
eat the rich. And then you are the, you know, signal of rich.

462
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:53,170
And so how do we evolve what this means that isn't just money?

463
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,230
Does it mean taste? Does it mean access? Does it mean,

464
00:31:56,330 --> 00:31:59,470
like, can we evolve this? So what we try to do is say,

465
00:31:59,510 --> 00:32:04,370
well, people don't want to look ostentatiously rich. Okay, clear. But why?

466
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,790
And then we try to explain it. We try to give data points

467
00:32:06,850 --> 00:32:09,990
around that so they can understand what's going on and kind of what

468
00:32:10,010 --> 00:32:13,520
this looks like outside of their bubble. And then we try to say,

469
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:17,690
so this is going on. This is what we're seeing that's explaining whatever

470
00:32:17,730 --> 00:32:20,800
you came to us with. And here's what we think you should do.

471
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,480
Here's some examples of brands out of category or in category that have

472
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:28,080
done that. Or you flip it on its head. Like, look at Gucci.

473
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,290
They've since changed designers, but when Alessandro was Gucci, he was having

474
00:32:32,340 --> 00:32:36,180
fun. That was like the Harry Styles era. It was, he made shirts

475
00:32:36,210 --> 00:32:39,560
that said Gucci with a Y, right? He's just having fun with it.

476
00:32:39,580 --> 00:32:43,470
And all of a sudden, it's not this, like, untouchable, better than thou

477
00:32:43,550 --> 00:32:48,930
brand. It's this fun, playful, very maximalist kind of cultural icon.

478
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,520
And so that's what we try to do, we try to give that spectrum. I've

479
00:32:51,530 --> 00:32:55,090
got to ask. I promise, after this, we can stop talking about luxury

480
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,990
fashion. But is this also where, like, the quiet luxury movement came from?

481
00:32:59,030 --> 00:33:01,740
I was just gonna ask. Yeah, that's exactly. I was just gonna ask

482
00:33:01,750 --> 00:33:08,310
that. Yeah, 100%. It's like, look around us, right? Even we won't go

483
00:33:08,340 --> 00:33:11,990
here, but even what just happened with the UnitedHealthcare CEO and all

484
00:33:12,020 --> 00:33:15,800
of the cultural conversation that's spawning. I think we really are in this

485
00:33:15,810 --> 00:33:20,840
era as wealth bifurcates, I think people are feeling really resentful and

486
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,780
really treated unjust by the system or by a person or by capitalism

487
00:33:25,830 --> 00:33:29,110
or whatever it is. And I think it's really interesting as brands who

488
00:33:29,140 --> 00:33:32,680
obviously operate in a capitalist system, how do they react to that?

489
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,810
How do they sell a product in this environment? That's the stuff that

490
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,040
we grapple with. Those things are really important when it comes to marketing

491
00:33:40,090 --> 00:33:43,800
and comms and talent. And I don't know if you guys ever get

492
00:33:43,810 --> 00:33:48,370
into semiotics, but the semiotics of luxury, right? It used to be gold.

493
00:33:48,450 --> 00:33:52,210
It used to be Palace of Versailles. And we've really, the cultural pendulum

494
00:33:52,250 --> 00:33:57,260
has shifted to neutrals and whisper, and no logos. And if you know

495
00:33:57,300 --> 00:34:02,100
you know, and it's access, you know, it's knowledge, it's taste.

496
00:34:02,130 --> 00:34:06,984
It's all of these things that maybe money can't buy. So, yes. Yes. TLDR,

497
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:12,000
yes. And so, okay, a way to stay on this topic but like,

498
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,120
in the spirit of the show. That's sneaky, Moe. I like that.

499
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,050
Yeah, yeah. So, like, let's say you're working with a brand who wants

500
00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:24,050
to make this transition. How would you measure with that brand that they've

501
00:34:24,060 --> 00:34:29,310
done that successfully? That they've gone from that kind of, I don't know,

502
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:35,350
gaudy or splashing their logo everywhere to that, really, the neutrals,

503
00:34:35,380 --> 00:34:39,290
you can't really notice the logo, if you know you know. How do

504
00:34:39,310 --> 00:34:41,390
you know when the brand's done that well?

505
00:34:41,930 --> 00:34:45,250
So a lot of different ways. I don't know if any of them

506
00:34:45,290 --> 00:34:48,160
would be a tool. You guys might know better than me.

507
00:34:48,190 --> 00:34:52,190
But I would say one, where it's appearing and who's wearing it.

508
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:59,020
So the cultural sort of heads of quiet luxury, let's say Sophia Richie,

509
00:34:59,090 --> 00:35:03,020
let's say Hailey Bieber, let's say some of these influencers who are very

510
00:35:03,050 --> 00:35:06,140
wealthy and showing the Upper East Side moms how to dress,

511
00:35:06,410 --> 00:35:08,420
this kind of thing. So I would say, one, is it appearing in

512
00:35:08,420 --> 00:35:12,660
the spaces and amongst the people who are driving the narrative or driving

513
00:35:12,700 --> 00:35:16,280
the conversation or driving what that looks like in culture? So the spaces

514
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:21,030
it's in, the people who are wearing it. Two is, I would say

515
00:35:21,090 --> 00:35:23,420
sales. I mean, sales is, I keep coming back to this,

516
00:35:23,450 --> 00:35:26,460
and it's so silly, but if this is where the world is going,

517
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,520
then if people start buying it more, I think you're doing it right.

518
00:35:30,590 --> 00:35:33,370
And three, is looking at, and Val, this comes out to kind of

519
00:35:33,370 --> 00:35:37,890
what you were saying, but figuring out the people who like this quiet

520
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:42,210
luxury and making sure you're tracking them and what they think about your

521
00:35:42,240 --> 00:35:45,900
brand. So you're sort of isolating off this variable of taste,

522
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,980
finding the people who have this taste, whether it's like by tracking competitive

523
00:35:49,060 --> 00:35:53,980
brands, spend, demographic, where you live, whatever, whatever, and figuring

524
00:35:54,030 --> 00:35:56,960
out what they think. Those would be my top three, I would think,

525
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,200
kind of off the top of my head. And so do you work

526
00:35:59,240 --> 00:36:02,034
with your clients? Sorry, guys, I promise I will shut up after this. No,

527
00:36:02,065 --> 00:36:06,470
this is great. And so, do you work with your clients and basically

528
00:36:06,510 --> 00:36:10,520
be like, right, if we achieve these three things, then that's success. Is

529
00:36:10,540 --> 00:36:12,700
that what you do at the start of your

530
00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:20,190
project plan or engagement? No, because we don't really... I saw it in

531
00:36:20,430 --> 00:36:24,090
the show notes, but it really is like turning an aircraft carrier. These

532
00:36:24,140 --> 00:36:28,280
things are sometimes in pods. Sometimes we say, you can't do that.

533
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:32,710
If you are a brand known for being green and pink,

534
00:36:32,780 --> 00:36:35,430
you're not going to be a brand known for being neutrals,

535
00:36:35,500 --> 00:36:38,230
at least in the next, like five years. You just seem like you

536
00:36:38,260 --> 00:36:42,310
woke up and decided you were someone else today, and there goes all

537
00:36:42,340 --> 00:36:45,680
your authenticity. There goes everything. So I think you have to be very

538
00:36:45,830 --> 00:36:48,850
careful and delicate and intentional with what's possible.

539
00:36:49,470 --> 00:36:54,110
So sometimes that means not chasing a score, right? It's like, well, you

540
00:36:54,130 --> 00:36:56,980
could win on this score, but then you're winning the fight at the

541
00:36:57,010 --> 00:37:02,530
expense of the war. And so we'll say, here's what you should

542
00:37:03,230 --> 00:37:06,870
aim to sound like, here's what you should aim to look like,

543
00:37:06,910 --> 00:37:09,860
here's who you should aim to engage. Here are the spaces you should

544
00:37:09,890 --> 00:37:12,680
aim to be in. So we try to give them a lot of

545
00:37:12,690 --> 00:37:16,990
fodder, whether it's an external agency or internal teams. And those could

546
00:37:17,010 --> 00:37:23,139
be everything from comms to PAC to which retailers you appear in, to PR,

547
00:37:23,150 --> 00:37:26,390
product placement, everything like that. Anywhere a consumer or culture

548
00:37:26,420 --> 00:37:28,630
would see your brand, we try to give them

549
00:37:29,230 --> 00:37:33,060
North Stars of what that looks like. And then on the other side, here's

550
00:37:33,070 --> 00:37:36,760
what to avoid. We love a this, not that. Like, you want to

551
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,070
be quiet, you don't want to be loud. You want to whisper,

552
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,640
you don't want to shout. You want to sneak around, you don't want

553
00:37:42,670 --> 00:37:46,090
to stomp, things like that. Because I think it just helps people understand

554
00:37:46,210 --> 00:37:48,890
sort of what you're going for in a world where there's not one

555
00:37:48,930 --> 00:37:52,050
metric to define it. So that's what we do and then do we

556
00:37:52,070 --> 00:37:54,250
come back in five years and say, did we do it?

557
00:37:54,290 --> 00:38:00,790
Honestly, no. Some. I mean, we have ongoing client engagements, but usually

558
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:06,240
the strategy changes at that time. Well, we talked about trackers as a

559
00:38:06,240 --> 00:38:09,680
measurement. A lot of this seems like, do you... Is there a more

560
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,030
timely kind of a focus group or a small panel at times that

561
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:18,860
if you're trying to affect a shift where it doesn't give

562
00:38:20,450 --> 00:38:24,590
you a tracker level of a measure, but sitting down with 10 people

563
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:30,120
in a well facilitated and trying out some pieces of saying,

564
00:38:31,220 --> 00:38:35,770
have we moved anyone on this or did we get our selection for

565
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,970
our focus group? And everyone's still like, no, you're a pink and green

566
00:38:39,980 --> 00:38:45,952
brand. That is ridiculous. Does that fit into it, into the mix? Absolutely,

567
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,300
absolutely. This is where you can get really precise down to like,

568
00:38:50,430 --> 00:38:56,270
we have a campaign and sometimes we even get, a company will hire

569
00:38:56,300 --> 00:39:00,130
us when they have like three agencies pitching for a rebrand or a

570
00:39:00,150 --> 00:39:03,510
campaign. And they'll say, okay, here's the initial kind of storyboards

571
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,440
or whatever the deliverable is. And they say, can you guys look at

572
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,780
this yourselves and take it to focus groups, take it to consumers,

573
00:39:10,820 --> 00:39:14,950
whatever you think the right methodology is, and tell us which feels in

574
00:39:14,990 --> 00:39:19,190
the direction we're trying to go in. And there they can give a

575
00:39:19,230 --> 00:39:23,700
pretty qualitative idea of what they want to go in. They say,

576
00:39:23,730 --> 00:39:27,990
okay, well, we care that people say we look cool. We care that

577
00:39:28,030 --> 00:39:32,380
people say it looks like a brand for someone who's in high school.

578
00:39:32,460 --> 00:39:36,700
We care... I'm making these up, right? But they can so clearly articulate

579
00:39:36,740 --> 00:39:40,820
what they want people to say. And then so we look for that

580
00:39:40,860 --> 00:39:43,610
and we understand why people are saying those and we try to understand

581
00:39:44,240 --> 00:39:48,420
the very distinct, like, even codes. Right? Like, I remember we did this

582
00:39:48,460 --> 00:39:51,610
one thing, I won't say the brand, but there was... They wanted to...

583
00:39:51,690 --> 00:39:55,330
It felt like an antiquated brand and they wanted to be relevant,

584
00:39:55,400 --> 00:40:00,060
refreshed. And I remember they made one direction and the people in the

585
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,190
room had blow up furniture. It was kind of, you know that blow

586
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,630
up furniture. It's kind of gross and not comfortable, but it looks really

587
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,990
cool on film. And I remember people were like, it looks cool because that

588
00:40:11,020 --> 00:40:14,460
looks like a cool bedroom, that looks like a '90s bedroom. You know, '90s

589
00:40:14,510 --> 00:40:19,110
is in. Everyone wants '90s. And so it was those little tiny creative

590
00:40:19,150 --> 00:40:22,960
executions that at that point, at that granular level, you're able to point

591
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,640
to and you're able to say, okay, this helps it look '90s and

592
00:40:26,650 --> 00:40:29,230
'90s is in. This is doing this. This girl is chewing gum and

593
00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:32,550
that makes it feel really casual and a little bit transgressive in a

594
00:40:32,550 --> 00:40:36,630
way that mirrors what a 17 year old does. So you can find

595
00:40:36,670 --> 00:40:39,850
those little bits if you do something on like a very tactical level,

596
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,350
whether that's like comms or a campaign or copy you can do that

597
00:40:44,370 --> 00:40:47,150
with. And then you start to build those things up and you start

598
00:40:47,170 --> 00:40:52,540
to build toward understanding why maybe a score changes for one direction

599
00:40:52,580 --> 00:40:56,420
versus another. But that's what we need is that ability to point to,

600
00:40:56,530 --> 00:41:01,130
okay, here's the seven things that this articulation had that this one didn't

601
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,250
that is actually driving people to see it as younger and cooler,

602
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,610
and all these scores that you want to see move to move your

603
00:41:07,650 --> 00:41:11,100
brand in the direction you're looking for. I'm curious your thought with

604
00:41:11,150 --> 00:41:14,040
all of that shared, like where my mind goes is like,

605
00:41:14,150 --> 00:41:17,810
what is your assessment or how do you think about when those brand

606
00:41:17,870 --> 00:41:22,770
refreshes go south? I'm thinking about last year's Jaguar rebrand as front

607
00:41:22,790 --> 00:41:25,830
of mind for me and I cannot get enough of content about it.

608
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,940
But because you can just imagine that there were so many people in

609
00:41:28,990 --> 00:41:32,650
so many rooms discussing it that there was perhaps data or qualitative or

610
00:41:32,690 --> 00:41:35,700
quantitative that said this is the direction to go and why.

611
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,110
But how does that kind of come to be or what is your

612
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,130
assessment when things like that happen? I'm just curious. Oh man,

613
00:41:44,290 --> 00:41:48,650
I don't know. But the comments section is so good, right? I could

614
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:52,650
scroll on those comments forever. Always, always the comments. How they

615
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,960
come to be, well, I kind of respect

616
00:41:56,820 --> 00:42:00,300
when that happens because at least someone took a swing. At least someone

617
00:42:00,340 --> 00:42:03,640
was like, I believe... I actually come from a fashion background.

618
00:42:03,770 --> 00:42:07,750
I worked in fashion before I did any marketing stuff. And I always

619
00:42:07,790 --> 00:42:10,570
thought fashion is so different in that it's driven by a creative,

620
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:14,010
it's driven by someone with a vision. It's not driven by consumers.

621
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,170
Right? Someone is selling a vision. They are an artist, literally an artist

622
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:22,280
creating art that people wear. And they're selling a lifestyle, they're

623
00:42:22,290 --> 00:42:26,980
selling an identity. And fashion is so driven by a creative at the

624
00:42:27,010 --> 00:42:31,260
top and then kind of watered down so that people buy it at

625
00:42:31,260 --> 00:42:37,000
like Nordstrom or whatever. But I often think it's interesting that brands,

626
00:42:37,410 --> 00:42:41,070
consumer brands, car brands, those don't really behave like that. Everything's

627
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:45,320
so bottom up. We need so much data and so much reassurance. And

628
00:42:45,350 --> 00:42:50,140
even then it's like, oh, we changed this from, this big to this

629
00:42:50,190 --> 00:42:54,490
big. And it's like, you didn't even do anything. But I've always really

630
00:42:54,530 --> 00:42:58,590
respected fashion brands in that way. And Val, I think that's my answer

631
00:42:58,620 --> 00:43:01,781
is like, at least Jaguar took a swing. Yeah, people are talking about them.

632
00:43:01,811 --> 00:43:06,630
I'm so tired of brands acting. Yeah, you did something interesting,

633
00:43:06,700 --> 00:43:09,380
you tried, you put yourself out there, you did something different.

634
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:14,580
Time will tell how it'll go. And I tend to think history

635
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,900
looks more favorably on these things than we think it's going to.

636
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,120
Their swing was big. It was a big one. Maybe bigger than I

637
00:43:23,140 --> 00:43:25,580
would have taken, but I don't know. How does it go wrong?

638
00:43:25,610 --> 00:43:28,950
I think someone has conviction. I think someone has conviction and they

639
00:43:28,970 --> 00:43:32,230
sell their vision and someone lets them run with it. And like I

640
00:43:32,250 --> 00:43:36,560
said, I think both quant and qual are more subjective than people think.

641
00:43:36,610 --> 00:43:40,690
So I'm sure they found numbers and quotes that supported whatever they wanted

642
00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:43,700
to do somewhere and they were off to the races and here we

643
00:43:43,700 --> 00:43:47,720
are. But that seems like that is part of it, is that it's

644
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:54,130
really, you're making the case for human thought and rationalizing and trusting

645
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,420
the brains of saying, we've picked up these nuggets, we put them all

646
00:43:58,460 --> 00:44:02,880
together and does it make sense? The pitfall is that winding up in

647
00:44:02,890 --> 00:44:07,030
an echo chamber where you think you found some glorious insight and you're

648
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:11,380
like, if you put this in front of like, one Gen Z intern,

649
00:44:11,500 --> 00:44:16,210
they would literally fall off their chair laughing. And so it seems like

650
00:44:16,240 --> 00:44:21,000
that's finding ways to say, how could we measure, how could we triangulate,

651
00:44:21,030 --> 00:44:24,750
how could we validate? We had this idea. I have no idea how

652
00:44:24,780 --> 00:44:28,820
to fix, I mean, what Jaguar could have done. I love that you're

653
00:44:28,850 --> 00:44:33,068
saying the big swings. For whatever reason, it's making me think of JCPenney

654
00:44:33,176 --> 00:44:36,080
back, I don't know, was it five or ten years ago when

655
00:44:36,780 --> 00:44:40,700
they were struggling, but they kind of just changed their logo?

656
00:44:40,750 --> 00:44:44,750
Like, they didn't... It seems very much like they didn't. And I may

657
00:44:44,780 --> 00:44:47,890
not be remembering the facts of that correctly. They tried to make this

658
00:44:47,940 --> 00:44:54,330
kind of surface level branding, visual change and that... I mean,

659
00:44:54,350 --> 00:44:57,280
they were struggling. They needed to take a big swing and they kind

660
00:44:57,310 --> 00:45:02,070
of took a surface level big swing that kind of fell flat.

661
00:45:02,180 --> 00:45:05,570
So I don't know. It feels like it's making the case for take

662
00:45:05,610 --> 00:45:08,990
qual, take quant, take a mix of people,

663
00:45:09,610 --> 00:45:13,550
make sure they've got the psychological safety to be set up to

664
00:45:14,100 --> 00:45:17,180
challenge and push back, but not push back so hard that

665
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:22,970
no big swings get taken because they get smacked down. That's messy.

666
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:29,600
Compromised out. Yeah. I think the thing that's kind of resonating or rolling

667
00:45:29,630 --> 00:45:31,850
around in my head at the moment. Right? Is

668
00:45:33,110 --> 00:45:39,960
sounds like we need to package the learnings in quite an intuitive way.

669
00:45:40,610 --> 00:45:44,790
But the one bit that I'm kind of trying to reconcile is

670
00:45:45,490 --> 00:45:49,320
it then gets really hard to challenge those beliefs down the line once

671
00:45:49,350 --> 00:45:52,880
they become kind of deeply held within the company. And maybe this is

672
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,850
kind of what Tim's saying as well, of once you start to inherently

673
00:45:57,930 --> 00:46:02,700
believe something as an organization, then when you have a learning a year

674
00:46:02,750 --> 00:46:07,730
later that kind of contradicts that, it makes the presenting of that contradicting

675
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,710
idea really challenging because people hold on so deeply. Is that,

676
00:46:11,750 --> 00:46:16,540
like, have you experienced that working with brands? I have, I have,

677
00:46:16,730 --> 00:46:22,150
I have. And it's a hard thing. It's even hard for me.

678
00:46:22,170 --> 00:46:24,940
I think about a lot about this in life. I think we all

679
00:46:24,970 --> 00:46:30,960
do this as humans, too. I've been really challenging myself to say,

680
00:46:31,090 --> 00:46:34,310
what do I hear over and over again that every time I hear

681
00:46:34,330 --> 00:46:39,430
it, I dismiss it? It's so easy to lose sight of how quickly

682
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:43,080
you dismiss the same thing over and over again. And I have an

683
00:46:43,110 --> 00:46:48,570
example of this. We work for a lot of different beauty clients,

684
00:46:48,650 --> 00:46:53,160
and for a long time, beauty has been framed by various brands all

685
00:46:53,190 --> 00:46:58,190
over the beauty category, broadly hair, skin, makeup, whatever, as expression.

686
00:46:58,300 --> 00:47:03,100
Right? It's a woman's expression. It's not a societal obligation. We're

687
00:47:03,110 --> 00:47:05,970
not in the '50s. She doesn't have to do it to make her

688
00:47:06,010 --> 00:47:09,420
husband happy. It's like, we talk about this, beauty as agency.

689
00:47:09,460 --> 00:47:12,450
I do it because I like to do it. You're worth it.

690
00:47:12,490 --> 00:47:17,050
We have all of these product names and slogans and positionings that are

691
00:47:17,070 --> 00:47:21,710
based off of this, beauty is women's expression. And I just,

692
00:47:22,010 --> 00:47:27,440
I started to be like, all the time, everyone wants no makeup makeup.

693
00:47:27,510 --> 00:47:32,810
Everyone wants to look natural. Everyone want... I am hearing over and over

694
00:47:32,870 --> 00:47:36,840
again that people are like, no, I'm not expressing myself through beauty.

695
00:47:36,900 --> 00:47:40,750
I don't want to participate. I'm looking as good as I have to

696
00:47:40,780 --> 00:47:44,050
look to go to work. Or to be in a social setting.

697
00:47:44,140 --> 00:47:48,380
And I'm like, I don't think it's expression, guys. Guys, we keep hearing

698
00:47:48,430 --> 00:47:52,300
this over and it's like, I even realized I was starting to already

699
00:47:52,390 --> 00:47:55,640
know how I dismiss it in my head. And I was like,

700
00:47:55,660 --> 00:47:59,270
why? I'm hearing this all the time. I have to stop and interrogate.

701
00:47:59,310 --> 00:48:03,470
Like, hang on, this isn't true. We just keep telling ourselves this and

702
00:48:03,540 --> 00:48:06,140
people are telling us over and over and over and over and we're

703
00:48:06,150 --> 00:48:10,150
not listening. So I think one of the things, one of your answers

704
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:14,913
Moe is, I actually think you can see this with the US Election, right? Like,

705
00:48:14,972 --> 00:48:17,850
pollsters, we got it so wrong. And I feel like we're hearing the

706
00:48:17,890 --> 00:48:21,020
same thing over and over and over, and no one kind of believes

707
00:48:21,030 --> 00:48:24,120
it. And everyone dismisses it with this, that, and the other number or

708
00:48:24,150 --> 00:48:28,890
this or that. And it's like, no, we heard it. We heard it

709
00:48:28,930 --> 00:48:32,330
coming and we dismissed it and we mitigated it and we made it

710
00:48:32,370 --> 00:48:38,370
smaller than it is and it wasn't. And so, yeah, I guess, like, when

711
00:48:38,390 --> 00:48:41,810
you keep throwing something at the wall and you just see it increasingly

712
00:48:41,870 --> 00:48:45,080
not stick, you have to be really aware of that and listen to

713
00:48:45,090 --> 00:48:49,820
it. How are you building that into... I mean, that is phenomenal because

714
00:48:49,830 --> 00:48:51,770
the thing I always think about is, like, when you come to work

715
00:48:51,810 --> 00:48:54,000
and you're not normally wearing makeup, and then someone's like, you look

716
00:48:54,020 --> 00:48:57,520
great. And you're like, because I'm wearing makeup. Most days I just look

717
00:48:57,540 --> 00:49:00,950
like a trash fire. It's like, you're right. That's not an expression for

718
00:49:00,980 --> 00:49:05,530
me. That's me doing the bare minimum. But how are you building that

719
00:49:05,580 --> 00:49:10,790
into your workflow or your mindset each day so that you come at

720
00:49:10,820 --> 00:49:15,750
those deeply held beliefs and have a new perspective to challenge them?

721
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,130
How do you hold yourself accountable? That's like my favorite part of my

722
00:49:19,180 --> 00:49:23,580
job is that I, we're... Everyone calls us an agency. I think that's

723
00:49:23,590 --> 00:49:26,830
just because an easier thing to say in this industry. But technically we're

724
00:49:26,860 --> 00:49:30,930
a consultancy. We don't make anything. We don't act as an agent on

725
00:49:30,950 --> 00:49:35,800
behalf of anyone. We don't make anything for them. And so I think, A, I

726
00:49:35,830 --> 00:49:39,570
don't live in the building of any of my clients. I don't live... We

727
00:49:39,590 --> 00:49:43,090
work with a lot of different industries and verticals. So that's the other

728
00:49:43,110 --> 00:49:49,490
thing. You start to hear the same sentiment across industries, right? You

729
00:49:49,530 --> 00:49:53,170
start to kind of see the same patterns of behavior and reasonings for

730
00:49:53,210 --> 00:49:56,150
making a decision this way or the other. And then you realize,

731
00:49:56,180 --> 00:49:58,730
oh, this is a human thing. This isn't a beauty thing or a

732
00:49:58,750 --> 00:50:01,730
media thing or a tech thing. This isn't a product thing.

733
00:50:01,770 --> 00:50:05,170
This is a human thing. And people are choosing all the things based

734
00:50:05,210 --> 00:50:08,320
on this variable or this thing that's changed or this thing that's now

735
00:50:08,350 --> 00:50:11,970
of greater importance to them in the world. But I can... My job

736
00:50:12,010 --> 00:50:16,730
is to just be really curious and come in and actually listen and

737
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:20,930
tell that story to clients. And if they listen, great, hopefully they do.

738
00:50:20,940 --> 00:50:24,510
That's what they pay to do. So hopefully they listen. But sometimes it's

739
00:50:24,580 --> 00:50:28,950
tough news, right? I think pandemic is a really good example. A lot

740
00:50:28,950 --> 00:50:32,260
of things change. We, Tim said we work with a lot of alcohol

741
00:50:32,290 --> 00:50:36,850
clients and alcohol consumption and occasions really changed pre and post

742
00:50:36,860 --> 00:50:41,980
pandemic. And some alcohol brands out there stood for clubbing and partying

743
00:50:42,030 --> 00:50:48,460
and very high energy oontz oontz occasions. And those aren't happening as

744
00:50:48,500 --> 00:50:51,710
much anymore. And that's more of an easy one to see and an

745
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,370
easy truth to face because you kind of see it in sales,

746
00:50:54,410 --> 00:50:57,880
you see clubs closing and we ourselves as humans, you're like,

747
00:50:57,890 --> 00:51:00,240
yeah, wait, I go out less or I go home earlier,

748
00:51:00,310 --> 00:51:03,860
I'm drinking less. You see it all around you. So at some point

749
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,190
you have to be like, wait, this has changed. And I have to,

750
00:51:06,240 --> 00:51:10,660
I can either listen and learn or I can continue to push back,

751
00:51:10,710 --> 00:51:13,570
but pushing back is not going to serve me in the long term.

752
00:51:13,690 --> 00:51:16,370
So on like the expression, I mean, I can't help but hear

753
00:51:17,230 --> 00:51:20,560
you having a hypothesis that's counter to kind of an accepted truth,

754
00:51:20,630 --> 00:51:23,030
which is, I don't think it's about expression.

755
00:51:24,010 --> 00:51:30,960
Presumably you could validate that. How would you go about, and maybe you

756
00:51:30,990 --> 00:51:34,660
have already done this, that, like, I think we've got this generally accepted

757
00:51:34,670 --> 00:51:39,100
truth that may be flawed. Do you first have to

758
00:51:39,720 --> 00:51:44,540
get somebody to pay you to go validate your idea? Or

759
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,290
how would you go about... That seems like that's something that wouldn't

760
00:51:48,300 --> 00:51:50,910
be that hard to say, I just need a big enough sample and

761
00:51:50,940 --> 00:51:56,180
I just need to do a well designed, unbiased set of questions and

762
00:51:56,250 --> 00:52:00,030
find out that, yeah, there are people who see it as expression. How

763
00:52:00,060 --> 00:52:06,130
would you go about validating that hypothesis? So we'd always... I kind

764
00:52:06,150 --> 00:52:09,240
of start, and this is how our company approaches it, with that context

765
00:52:10,060 --> 00:52:16,080
bit. People's opinions at large don't just change. Something is changing

766
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,210
them. So if I can find that thing that's changing them that can

767
00:52:19,250 --> 00:52:23,720
explain why this shift might be happening. You can always find people to

768
00:52:23,750 --> 00:52:26,230
tell you the thing you think is true, right? So I don't want

769
00:52:26,240 --> 00:52:29,610
to rely on that. I try to explain it and see if that

770
00:52:29,650 --> 00:52:34,350
makes sense. So I think one of the... There's a few things.

771
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:39,210
So like with this example in particular, it's like, what has changed?

772
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:42,500
And I think one thing that's changed is now you see all these

773
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,720
stats that women are graduating college at a higher rate than men.

774
00:52:46,790 --> 00:52:52,190
And I think, okay, well, that means women have a lot of power, right? We,

775
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:55,980
women are getting jobs, women are getting higher paid jobs than men.

776
00:52:56,120 --> 00:53:01,270
And at the same time, you see this kind of, we won't get

777
00:53:01,290 --> 00:53:03,950
into it totally, but you see a lot of cultural writing about this

778
00:53:03,990 --> 00:53:07,490
like, crisis of masculinity. At a high level, I'm like, okay,

779
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:12,510
I'm seeing headlines, I'm seeing cultural fodder that would suggest there

780
00:53:12,550 --> 00:53:17,020
is a power shift happening. And of course, beauty is an expression of

781
00:53:17,050 --> 00:53:20,630
femininity. It's always been tied to womanhood. And so it would make sense

782
00:53:20,690 --> 00:53:24,590
that if you see one big thing changing, that another thing

783
00:53:25,350 --> 00:53:28,790
that's adjacent to it is also changing. So I start by trying to

784
00:53:28,820 --> 00:53:32,280
make sense of it and seeing if it tracks and trying to find

785
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,470
holes or like, but then why would that happen? So it's kind of

786
00:53:35,470 --> 00:53:40,600
a cultural puzzle a little bit, kind of with the luxury example, TUMI. So

787
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,520
I start by making sense of like, what's happening out there and are

788
00:53:43,540 --> 00:53:46,840
we seeing other, like, you could consider them data sets, right? Whether

789
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:50,380
it's movies that are doing really well, whether it's figures that are rising

790
00:53:50,410 --> 00:53:56,570
in popularity, everyone is glomming on to something about these various

791
00:53:56,750 --> 00:54:01,370
cultural figures or people or things or media. And why is that?

792
00:54:01,390 --> 00:54:05,380
And what do they have in common? And then I'll go like, ideally

793
00:54:05,470 --> 00:54:08,050
we start talking to people. Experts are always a good thing,

794
00:54:08,090 --> 00:54:12,670
like journalists, people who have a bird's eye view and are not in

795
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:17,200
the corporate weeds, but who are very analytical of shifts. We maybe talk

796
00:54:17,230 --> 00:54:20,350
to experts and then we might talk to consumers. Then if we really

797
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:25,790
see some sentiments making their way to us from regular people,

798
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,630
then we would figure out how to size it and see if it's

799
00:54:28,670 --> 00:54:31,540
really a thing or is this confirmation bias. And we've just set up

800
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:35,340
this whole project to confirm something that wasn't true. That's really

801
00:54:35,380 --> 00:54:38,410
interesting. I have to ask because I feel like Tim's going to move

802
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,840
to wrap up. I'm going to go ahead and say we're going to

803
00:54:40,850 --> 00:54:44,740
wrap, so then Val can say, but I have one more question. So

804
00:54:44,770 --> 00:54:49,780
I think it's more rare than common in my experience to find a

805
00:54:49,810 --> 00:54:55,758
company or a brand who uses competitive benchmarking successfully to say,

806
00:54:55,891 --> 00:54:59,020
oh, well, we want to be like that. I mean, I did a

807
00:54:59,020 --> 00:55:02,020
lot of CX and optimization experimentation work in my previous role,

808
00:55:02,050 --> 00:55:05,890
and there was a jewelry company that wanted to do some competitive research.

809
00:55:05,980 --> 00:55:09,580
And even the list of competitors that they gave us, I was like,

810
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,610
I did a spit take. I'm like, are you serious? You really think

811
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,140
that those are your competitors? So I'm just curious about some of

812
00:55:17,130 --> 00:55:22,250
the helpful ways that you've seen organizations use competitors or competitive

813
00:55:22,290 --> 00:55:25,980
intelligence in that way to kind of drive what they choose to do

814
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,100
or choose not to do or where they choose to play or not.

815
00:55:28,140 --> 00:55:30,390
Oh, good value. You asked a question that has a short,

816
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:35,800
little answer, that's... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quick little... I think you're

817
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:40,370
so right, Val, and I have experienced that so many times where even

818
00:55:40,410 --> 00:55:42,830
as part of the screening process to figure out who we're going to

819
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:45,730
talk to, the whole time we're like, yeah, yeah, the competitive set.

820
00:55:45,770 --> 00:55:48,040
The competitive set. And then we write the competitive set. And people are

821
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:50,370
like, wait, no, no, no. And you're like, oh, we are way far

822
00:55:50,410 --> 00:55:53,010
apart right now in what you think you are and what the world

823
00:55:53,050 --> 00:55:57,610
thinks you are. But so validation complete there. But where I do see

824
00:55:57,630 --> 00:56:03,610
it as really helpful and some of it is interrogating. I think I

825
00:56:03,710 --> 00:56:06,880
said in the lead up to this, a lot of times brands will

826
00:56:06,910 --> 00:56:08,680
come to us and say, I want to be Nike or I want

827
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:12,370
to be Apple. And it's like, okay, what are they trying to say

828
00:56:12,410 --> 00:56:16,740
there? And those companies right now, for example, Nike, right? They're

829
00:56:16,750 --> 00:56:20,860
going through a lot. There's a lot written out there, and their earnings

830
00:56:20,900 --> 00:56:24,850
are not great. Those companies aren't necessarily doing well financially.

831
00:56:25,010 --> 00:56:27,520
And so it's like, what are they trying to say? And I think

832
00:56:27,550 --> 00:56:31,500
they always want to be... They have high awareness and they're generally

833
00:56:31,530 --> 00:56:35,880
considered aspirational. So I guess it's like A, trying to figure out what

834
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:40,410
the competitive set they're giving you is trying to do. And it's taking

835
00:56:40,460 --> 00:56:44,480
that step to say, okay, maybe you aren't that, but let's try and

836
00:56:44,500 --> 00:56:49,670
find a metric or some way to understand that delta and figure out

837
00:56:49,700 --> 00:56:52,750
how you might close that delta, whether it's being more aspirational or

838
00:56:52,750 --> 00:56:55,860
have greater awareness or being the leader of a category or having a

839
00:56:55,870 --> 00:56:59,380
hero product or whatever it might be. But I do think the other

840
00:56:59,420 --> 00:57:02,580
way that I wanted to say, which I've always found really brilliant and

841
00:57:02,620 --> 00:57:07,760
really helpful from my end, is when you use competitive tracking or benchmarking

842
00:57:07,810 --> 00:57:12,320
to figure out your strengths and weaknesses and use that to inform

843
00:57:13,500 --> 00:57:17,030
back to where we started, Moe, using that to inform sort of brand

844
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:21,210
expansion, category expansion, business expansion, even putting resources

845
00:57:21,250 --> 00:57:24,740
toward R&I in the areas where whether it's true or not,

846
00:57:24,860 --> 00:57:28,760
sometimes it's just because of the name or the PAC or your retail

847
00:57:28,830 --> 00:57:32,410
strategy, somewhat inadvertently you have a niche strength somewhere that

848
00:57:32,450 --> 00:57:36,080
people believe and if consumers believe it, it's true. Right? There you

849
00:57:36,090 --> 00:57:39,100
go. All you have to do is, if people believe something,

850
00:57:39,150 --> 00:57:43,050
then it's fairly true because it informs their experience. So I've often

851
00:57:43,090 --> 00:57:46,300
found competitive benchmarking really interesting when you use it to sort

852
00:57:46,310 --> 00:57:50,410
of build on a strength that the public already thinks you have,

853
00:57:50,530 --> 00:57:54,040
versus trying to turn it around or fill a gap or something like

854
00:57:54,070 --> 00:57:58,730
that. So what I heard, Moe, is that Canva someday might have the

855
00:57:58,780 --> 00:58:02,920
user experience as positive as Microsoft PowerPoint. I mean, keep going

856
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:06,020
for that. Have you thought about Clippy, Moe? Just bring Clippy in. I

857
00:58:06,030 --> 00:58:10,310
just, really my face, I want to convey to the listeners my face

858
00:58:10,420 --> 00:58:17,220
right now. Strive for that Microsoft user experience.

859
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:24,340
Okay. Well, on that wisecrack, we do need to start to wrap and

860
00:58:25,100 --> 00:58:27,430
I feel like there are a million more questions. 1,

861
00:58:28,220 --> 00:58:30,890
based on the last discussion, I want to know if anybody was tallying

862
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:35,030
how many times I mansplained during this episode and hopefully it's a small

863
00:58:35,070 --> 00:58:38,660
number. I'm sure some lovely listener will let us know. That would be

864
00:58:38,690 --> 00:58:40,700
great. Back to the comments. Please write in,

865
00:58:41,390 --> 00:58:49,200
directed to Tim Wilson. Get into those comments. This is really,

866
00:58:49,660 --> 00:58:53,160
I've got my brain is going in many many different directions and I

867
00:58:53,230 --> 00:58:57,570
want to ask another 20 questions but unfortunately, we are up against the

868
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:02,680
clock. So before we wrap this up, we do like to do a

869
00:59:02,750 --> 00:59:07,970
last call, go around, have everyone share something that related to the

870
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:11,720
topic or not that is interesting or they were intrigued with.

871
00:59:11,810 --> 00:59:15,190
And Erika, you're our guest. Would you like to go first?

872
00:59:15,310 --> 00:59:20,250
Oh, the guest has to start? That's cruel, guys. Moe, I'll get, I'll

873
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:22,980
give one that, actually, I was thinking of when we were talking about

874
00:59:23,010 --> 00:59:28,350
luxury and this pendulum swing from maximalist to quiet luxury. I've actually

875
00:59:28,410 --> 00:59:32,410
been following this artist and redecorating my apartment, and his name's

876
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:37,460
Tony Kelly. I think on Instagram, he's like, tonykellyworld. And I keep

877
00:59:37,490 --> 00:59:40,630
thinking he has such a unique aesthetic for this time. It's like,

878
00:59:40,740 --> 00:59:44,980
it's very evocative. It's sometimes a little sexual. It's very repetitive.

879
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:49,460
It's very colorful, but not in a way that's like, in your face. And

880
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:53,050
he's starting to do more commercial work. And I keep thinking he's like,

881
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:56,940
a great creative mind for luxury right now. And it's like,

882
00:59:56,980 --> 01:00:01,060
really serving. Yeah, it's serving the aesthetic of the moment, like,

883
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:04,170
where I think luxury is going, and none of that is metriced out.

884
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:07,920
I have nothing other than my human brain to say that.

885
01:00:07,990 --> 01:00:10,910
But take a look, because it's really interesting, and I just,

886
01:00:10,990 --> 01:00:13,430
it's a little bit of a throwback, but a little bit new,

887
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:16,530
a little bit colorful, but not too crazy. That's mine. My oohing was

888
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:20,130
that I just opened it on Instagram and was like, hopefully everyone does

889
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:23,150
the same thing because it is really interesting. Like, yeah, I wouldn't

890
01:00:23,190 --> 01:00:26,000
have picked that as the direction, but it's really,

891
01:00:26,620 --> 01:00:30,530
yeah. Evocative. Feels right. Right? See, that's the thing. It's like,

892
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:34,280
oh, yeah, I could see it. It's an insight. I'm so uncomfortable.

893
01:00:34,310 --> 01:00:37,060
This is like I'm still stuck in the early '90s, I think,

894
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:41,450
with my aesthetic. It's back around. It's back around. Yeah. It's coming

895
01:00:41,460 --> 01:00:47,510
back around. This is your time to shine. You're good. Well, Moe, you've

896
01:00:47,550 --> 01:00:49,670
already, if we can get you off Instagram for a minute,

897
01:00:49,790 --> 01:00:51,980
what's your last call? Well, the problem is I've got three,

898
01:00:52,020 --> 01:00:56,320
but they're all very, very quick. Okay, so the first one I've mentioned

899
01:00:56,350 --> 01:00:59,970
before, but if you did have your ears prick up talking about luxury

900
01:01:00,010 --> 01:01:03,580
brands, I definitely recommend going back to the Acquired Podcast episode

901
01:01:03,620 --> 01:01:08,150
on LVMH. It's phenomenal, and it's what piqued my interest in this topic

902
01:01:08,180 --> 01:01:11,770
because I am not a luxury brand girl. The second. Wait,

903
01:01:11,790 --> 01:01:16,010
what kind of... What's your favorite drink? Bubbly? It's champagne. That's

904
01:01:16,030 --> 01:01:20,790
not a luxury brand. That's a lifestyle choice. That's a luxury lifestyle.

905
01:01:23,450 --> 01:01:29,790
Pure expression. Okay. The second is that Canva Create is coming up,

906
01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:35,340
it's at SOFI Stadium in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 10.

907
01:01:35,540 --> 01:01:38,080
And it's going to have a bit of, a bit more of a

908
01:01:38,110 --> 01:01:43,300
data focus this year. If you are interested, I'm hoping to be there

909
01:01:43,350 --> 01:01:47,760
myself. I'm not 100% sure yet, but you can get tickets at Canva

910
01:01:47,830 --> 01:01:51,350
and it should be really fun, really fun brand event. And then the

911
01:01:51,420 --> 01:01:55,840
last one, which is my real last call, is I did listen to

912
01:01:55,870 --> 01:01:59,330
a really fun podcast the other day. It was actually Trevor Noah's podcast

913
01:02:00,180 --> 01:02:04,630
and it's called Adam Grant Gives Trevor an intellectual Wedgie.

914
01:02:05,210 --> 01:02:09,320
But the thing that was really fun about it is they were basically

915
01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:12,420
talking about, like, what happens when your values are tested or

916
01:02:13,050 --> 01:02:17,170
how you deal with prejudice. And one of the things they discuss is

917
01:02:17,210 --> 01:02:20,470
like the new Heineken. Well, it's not new anymore, but an old Heineken

918
01:02:20,500 --> 01:02:23,830
commercial where people were talking about their political beliefs. And

919
01:02:23,900 --> 01:02:26,980
I don't know, I just like, Trevor Noah is obviously very,

920
01:02:26,990 --> 01:02:29,370
very funny. And we all know I'm obsessed with Adam Grant.

921
01:02:29,450 --> 01:02:32,540
So it was like a really fun play of two of my favorite

922
01:02:32,550 --> 01:02:37,090
people hanging out. And I'm done. I'm done. I'll put down the mic

923
01:02:37,230 --> 01:02:40,190
and hand it over to Val. You did me proud. Triple. Yeah, it's

924
01:02:40,220 --> 01:02:45,850
awesome. Val, what about you? So I recently listened to a podcast.

925
01:02:45,930 --> 01:02:49,140
It was Manuel da Costa of Effective Experiments was the guest.

926
01:02:49,180 --> 01:02:52,470
It's called the Product Process Gap. How to stop this leak in your

927
01:02:52,510 --> 01:02:56,010
organization's budget. And I think we've kind of seen over the past couple

928
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:59,970
years that more product organizations are really getting into experimentation,

929
01:03:00,020 --> 01:03:04,200
especially digital product teams. And so now that we have less of that

930
01:03:04,250 --> 01:03:08,450
center of analytics or center of excellence kind of running experimentation,

931
01:03:08,500 --> 01:03:11,950
it's this more decentralized model. And so these product teams are kind

932
01:03:11,970 --> 01:03:15,160
of running into some of the same hurdles that those centralized team saw

933
01:03:15,210 --> 01:03:19,590
like five years ago. And I think the way that he reframed the

934
01:03:19,620 --> 01:03:22,600
tripping points that they're experiencing, it's really interesting. And

935
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:26,150
I think he gave some really tactical advice for those product teams and

936
01:03:26,180 --> 01:03:28,410
how they can kind of stop the bleed, as he kind of talks

937
01:03:28,420 --> 01:03:32,280
about. And also there was, I had heard this forever ago and had

938
01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:37,200
forgotten about it. But who's familiar with the term harking? H A R

939
01:03:37,220 --> 01:03:40,550
K I N G. Like harking back? Like a bird? I just know

940
01:03:40,580 --> 01:03:45,580
it in the... Harking. Hypothesizing after results are known. I forgot about

941
01:03:45,620 --> 01:03:49,660
that. But it's so good. It's really good. And so it's like this

942
01:03:49,780 --> 01:03:53,150
fallacy of that after you see the results, then you kind of back

943
01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:56,860
yourself into the why and how dangerous that can be. And so anyways,

944
01:03:56,940 --> 01:04:00,650
it's a nice, concise like 30 minute episode that's like chock full of

945
01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:05,310
good stuff. So highly recommend that lesson. Wow. All right, Tim,

946
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:10,200
how about you? So I am going to actually recommend a YouTube video.

947
01:04:10,820 --> 01:04:14,470
And this was, I was at a Columbus Data Analyst Wednesday event and

948
01:04:14,510 --> 01:04:18,330
was talking to a lady named Lauren Van Sloun who she and her

949
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:22,630
partner met as gamers. And we were... I'm not a gamer.

950
01:04:22,710 --> 01:04:26,260
So she wound up sending me, there's a video called what games are

951
01:04:26,290 --> 01:04:29,850
like for someone who doesn't play games. And it's like a 20 minute

952
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:33,940
video. And this guy who's like a lifelong gamer had his wife and

953
01:04:33,970 --> 01:04:37,720
he picked three different categories of games and two games per.

954
01:04:37,850 --> 01:04:40,870
And he kind of made this super cut and was pointing out all

955
01:04:40,910 --> 01:04:46,310
the reasons that people who don't game at all are just completely lost.

956
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:50,710
And it's kind of funny. It made me feel better about how lost

957
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:54,690
I am if I ever do pick up a controller. And it was

958
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:58,630
just kind of an interesting analysis of he, I mean, talking about how

959
01:04:58,680 --> 01:05:02,520
even some of the documentation, in game documentation

960
01:05:03,340 --> 01:05:06,770
actually winds up not being that helpful. There's a presumption that you

961
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:10,620
have a level of expertise that you likely got because you started gaming

962
01:05:10,650 --> 01:05:13,180
at a point where someone was like walking you along

963
01:05:13,710 --> 01:05:16,960
to do it. So it was just a... I rarely make it through

964
01:05:16,980 --> 01:05:21,340
an entire YouTube video of any length. And the fact that I watched

965
01:05:21,370 --> 01:05:25,630
a 20 minute video over like three sittings was pretty... I'm excited for

966
01:05:25,630 --> 01:05:30,930
that. My husband is a gamer and I never, never touched any systems.

967
01:05:30,970 --> 01:05:32,880
I don't even know the right words to say. I don't even know

968
01:05:32,900 --> 01:05:34,310
the right word to say just there. But

969
01:05:34,940 --> 01:05:37,700
I'll walk past him playing a game, at a certain point he'll be

970
01:05:37,710 --> 01:05:40,800
like chasing a horse. And so then that becomes like the horse chase

971
01:05:40,830 --> 01:05:43,050
game. I'm like, oh, you playing horse chase? He's like, that's not,

972
01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:46,890
it's not horse chase. He's like, I chased a horse for five seconds

973
01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:49,560
one time and you happen to see it. So, I can't wait to

974
01:05:49,570 --> 01:05:53,110
watch that. I think it's called a console, right? Like, I think that's

975
01:05:53,150 --> 01:05:58,170
the... Yeah, yeah. Well, he even, he had her play some that were

976
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:01,100
kind of keyboard PC games. He had her play some that were with

977
01:06:01,140 --> 01:06:05,930
controllers and talked about how there are conventions for different buttons.

978
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:07,960
They're like, yeah, they're not going to tell you to sprint.

979
01:06:08,050 --> 01:06:11,360
You can sprint. So like play... I don't know. It was...

980
01:06:11,370 --> 01:06:17,190
Enjoyable. Yeah. It was enjoyable, so completely I felt somehow better about

981
01:06:17,230 --> 01:06:23,720
my lack of eye hand coordination from watching it. Anyway, of course no

982
01:06:23,770 --> 01:06:27,540
show would be complete without a huge thank you to Mr.

983
01:06:27,610 --> 01:06:32,880
Josh Crowhurst, our producer who does all of the editing and fun stuff

984
01:06:32,910 --> 01:06:38,200
behind the scenes that make this come across coherently. And as always,

985
01:06:38,290 --> 01:06:41,980
we'd love to hear from you, dear listeners. You can find us on

986
01:06:42,100 --> 01:06:45,480
the Measure Slack group or you can find us on our LinkedIn page,

987
01:06:45,530 --> 01:06:51,050
or you can just good old fashioned email at contact@analyticshour.io or

988
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:55,480
comments on our YouTube channel. Feel free to reach out. You could even

989
01:06:55,570 --> 01:07:00,620
leave us a rating or review on whatever podcast platform you listen to

990
01:07:00,620 --> 01:07:05,940
us on. That is our once per six months request for ratings and

991
01:07:05,970 --> 01:07:11,780
reviews on podcast platforms. But I know I can speak for both of

992
01:07:11,810 --> 01:07:15,550
my cohosts, Moe and Val when I say, no matter how hard it

993
01:07:15,570 --> 01:07:19,690
is to measure what you're measuring, keep analyzing.

994
01:07:21,310 --> 01:07:25,020
Thanks for listening. Let's keep keep the conversation going with your comments,

995
01:07:25,110 --> 01:07:32,090
suggestions and questions on Twitter at @AnalyticsHour, on the web at AnalyticsHour.io,

996
01:07:32,100 --> 01:07:37,030
our LinkedIn group and the MeasureChat Slack group. Music for the podcast

997
01:07:37,070 --> 01:07:41,950
by Josh Crowhurst. So smart guys wanted to fit in. So they made

998
01:07:41,980 --> 01:07:45,100
up a term called analytics. Analytics don't work.

999
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:48,690
Do the analytics say go for it no matter who's going for it

1000
01:07:48,750 --> 01:07:51,560
it? So if you and I were on the field, the analytics say

1001
01:07:51,590 --> 01:07:56,540
go for it. It's the stupidest, laziest, lamest thing I've ever heard for

1002
01:07:56,590 --> 01:08:06,410
reasoning in competition. Rock, Flag and Whisper luxury.